It can be argued that the state of US infrastructure - declining for literally decades -
is a sign of that.
The United States hasn't seen a major infrastructure package since the Eisenhower
administration. As a result, much of US infrastructure, from highways to waste treatment
facilities and energy grids, has approached the end of its useful life and is in desperate
need of upgrading.
Maintenance already accounts for over 60% of national infrastructure spending, and
total public spending on infrastructure maintenance and operations rose by $23.2 billion
between 2007 and 2017.
"... "Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe, including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to win." ..."
"... And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats (Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here in the United States and around the world." ..."
"... The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy." ..."
"... Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context, history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian" nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis. ..."
"... By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies allegedly don't fight wars against one another. ..."
"... George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad policy. ..."
"... Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a mistake. ..."
"... "Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now." ..."
You can hear echoes of progressive realism in the statements of leading progressive
lawmakers such as Senator Bernie Sanders and Congressman Ro Khanna. They have put ending
America's support for the Saudi war on Yemen near the top of the progressive foreign policy
agenda. On the stump, Sanders now singles out the military-industrial complex and the runaway
defense budget for criticism. He promises, among other things, that "we will not continue to
spend $700 billion a year on the military." These are welcome developments. Yet since November
of 2016, something else has emerged alongside the antiwar component of progressive foreign
policy that is not so welcome. Let's call it neoprogressive internationalism, or
neoprogressivism for short.
Trump's administration brought with it the Russia scandal. To attack the president and his
administration, critics revived Cold War attitudes. This is now part of the neoprogressive
foreign policy critique. It places an "authoritarian axis" at its center. Now countries ruled
by authoritarians, nationalists, and kleptocrats can and must be checked by an American-led
crusade to make the world safe for progressive values. The problem with this neoprogressive
narrative of a world divided between an authoritarian axis and the liberal West is what it will
lead to: ever spiraling defense budgets, more foreign adventures, more Cold Wars -- and hot
ones too.
Unfortunately, Senators Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have adopted elements of the
neoprogressive program. At a much remarked upon address at Westminster College in Fulton,
Missouri, the site of Churchill's 1946 address, Sanders put forth a vision of a Manichean
world. Instead of a world divided by the "Iron Curtain" of Soviet Communism, Sanders sees a
world divided between right-wing authoritarians and the forces of progress embodied by American
and Western European progressive values.
"Today I say to Mr. Putin: We will not allow you to undermine American democracy or
democracies around the world," Sanders said. "In fact, our goal is to not only strengthen
American democracy, but to work in solidarity with supporters of democracy around the globe,
including in Russia. In the struggle of democracy versus authoritarianism, we intend to
win."
A year later, Sanders warned that the battle between the West and an "authoritarian axis"
which is "committed to tearing down a post-Second World War global order that they see as
limiting their access to power and wealth." Sanders calls this "a global struggle of enormous
consequence. Nothing less than the future of the -- economically, socially and environmentally
-- is at stake."
Sanders's focus on this authoritarian axis is one that is shared with his intraparty rivals
at the Center for American Progress (a think-tank long funded by some of the least progressive
regimes on the planet), which he has pointedly criticized for smearing progressive Democrats
like himself. CAP issued a report last September about "the threat presented by opportunist
authoritarian regimes" which "urgently requires a rapid response."
The preoccupation with the authoritarian menace is one Sanders and CAP share with prominent
progressive activists who warn about the creeping influence of what some have cynically hyped
as an "authoritarian Internationale."
Cold War Calling
Senator Warren spelled out her foreign policy vision in a speech at American University in
November 2018. Admirably, she criticized Saudi Arabia's savage war on Yemen, the defense
industry, and neoliberal free trade agreements that have beggared the American working and
middle classes.
"Foreign policy," Warren has said, "should not be run exclusively by the Pentagon." In the
second round of the Democratic primary debates, Warren also called for a nuclear "no first use"
policy.
And yet, Warren too seems in thrall to the idea that the world order is shaping up to be
one in which the white hats (Western democracies) must face off against the black hats
(Eurasian authoritarians). Warren says that the "combination of authoritarianism and corrupt
capitalism" of Putin's Russia and Xi's China "is a fundamental threat to democracy, both here
in the United States and around the world."
Warren also sees a rising tide of corrupt authoritarians "from Hungary to Turkey, from the
Philippines to Brazil," where "wealthy elites work together to grow the state's power while the
state works to grow the wealth of those who remain loyal to the leader."
The concern with the emerging authoritarian tide has become a central concern of progressive
writers and thinkers. "Today, around the world," write progressive foreign policy activists
Kate Kinzer and Stephen Miles, "growing authoritarianism and hate are fueled by oligarchies
preying on economic, gender, and racial inequality."
Daniel Nexon, a progressive scholar of international relations, believes that "progressives
must recognize that we are in a moment of fundamental crisis, featuring coordination among
right-wing movements throughout the West and with the Russian government as a sponsor and
supporter."
Likewise, The Nation 's Jeet Heer lays the blame for the rise of global
authoritarianism at the feet of Vladimir Putin, who "seems to be pushing for an international
alt-right, an informal alliance of right-wing parties held together by a shared
xenophobia."
Blithely waving away concerns over sparking a new and more dangerous Cold War between the
world's two nuclear superpowers, Heer advises that "the dovish left shouldn't let Cold War
nightmares prevent them [from] speaking out about it." He concludes: "Leftists have to be ready
to battle [Putinism] in all its forms, at home and abroad."
The Cold War echoes here are as unmistakable as they are worrying. As Princeton and NYU
professor emeritus Stephen F. Cohen has written, during the first Cold War, a "totalitarian
school" of Soviet studies grew up around the idea "that a totalitarian 'quest for absolute
power' at home always led to the 'dynamism' in Soviet behavior abroad was a fundamental axiom
of cold-war Soviet studies and of American foreign policy."
Likewise, we are seeing the emergence of an "authoritarian school" which posits that the
internal political dynamics of regimes such as Putin's cause them, ineffably, to follow
revanchist, expansionist foreign policies.
Cold warriors in both parties frequently mistook communism as a monolithic global
movement. Neoprogressives are making this mistake today when they gloss over national context,
history, and culture in favor of an all-encompassing theory that puts the "authoritarian"
nature of the governments they are criticizing at the center of their diagnosis.
By citing the threat to Western democracies posed by a global authoritarian axis, the
neoprogressives are repeating the same mistake made by liberal interventionists and
neoconservatives. They buy into the democratic peace theory, which holds without much evidence
that a world order populated by democracies is likely to be a peaceful one because democracies
allegedly don't fight wars against one another.
Yet as Richard Sakwa, a British scholar of Russia and Eastern Europe, writes, "it is often
assumed that Russia is critical of the West because of its authoritarian character, but it
cannot be taken for granted that a change of regime would automatically make the country align
with the West."
George McGovern once observed that U.S. foreign policy "has been based on an obsession
with an international Communist conspiracy that existed more in our minds than in reality." So
too the current obsession with the global authoritarians. Communism wasn't a global monolith
and neither is this. By portraying it as such, neoprogressives are midwifing bad
policy.
True, some of the economic trends voters in Europe and South America are reacting to are
global, but a diagnosis that links together the rise of Putin and Xi, the elections of Trump in
the U.S., Bolsonaro in Brazil, Orban in Hungary, and Kaczyński in Poland with the
right-wing insurgency movements of the Le Pens in France and Farage in the UK makes little
sense.
Some of these elected figures, like Trump and Farage, are symptoms of the failure of the
neoliberal economic order. Others, like Orban and Kaczyński, are responses to
anti-European Union sentiment and the migrant crises that resulted from the Western
interventions in Libya and Syria. Many have more to do with conditions and histories specific
to their own countries. Targeting them by painting them with the same broad brush is a
mistake.
Echoes of Neoconservatism
The progressive foreign policy organization Win Without War includes among its 10 foreign
policy goals "ending economic, racial and gender inequality around the world." The U.S.,
according to WWW, "must safeguard universal human rights to dignity, equality, migration and
refuge."
Is it a noble sentiment? Sure. But it's every bit as unrealistic as the crusade envisioned
by George W. Bush in his second inaugural address, in which he declared, "The survival of
liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best
hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world."
We know full well where appeals to "universal values" have taken us in the past. Such
appeals are not reliable guides for progressives if they seek to reverse the tide of unchecked
American intervention abroad. But maybe we should consider whether it's a policy of realism and
restraint that they actually seek. Some progressive thinkers are at least honest enough
to admit as much that it is not. Nexon admits that "abandoning the infrastructure of American
international influence because of its many minuses and abuses will hamstring progressives for
decades to come." In other words, America's hegemonic ambitions aren't in and of themselves
objectionable or self-defeating, as long as we achieve our kind of hegemony. Progressive
values crusades bear more than a passing resemblance to the neoconservative crusades to remake
the world in the American self-image.
"Of all the geopolitical transformations confronting the liberal democratic world these
days," writes neoconservative-turned-Hillary Clinton surrogate Robert Kagan, "the one for which
we are least prepared is the ideological and strategic resurgence of authoritarianism." Max
Boot also finds cause for concern. Boot, a modern-day reincarnation (minus the pedigree and war
record) of the hawkish Cold War-era columnist Joe Alsop, believes that "the rise of populist
authoritarianism is perhaps the greatest threat we face as a world right now."
Neoprogressivism, like neoconservatism, risks catering to the U.S. establishment's worst
impulses by playing on a belief in American exceptionalism to embark upon yet another global
crusade. This raises some questions, including whether a neoprogressive approach to the crises
in Ukraine, Syria, or Libya would be substantively different from the liberal interventionist
approach of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton. Does a neoprogressive foreign policy
organized around the concept of an "authoritarian axis" adequately address the concerns of
voters in the American heartland who disproportionately suffer from the consequences of our
wars and neoliberal economic policies? It was these voters, after all, who won the election for
Trump.
Donald Trump's failure to keep his campaign promise to bring the forever wars to a close
while fashioning a new foreign policy oriented around core U.S. national security interests
provides Democrats with an opportunity. By repeatedly intervening in Syria, keeping troops in
Afghanistan, kowtowing to the Israelis and Saudis, ratcheting up tensions with Venezuela, Iran,
Russia, and China, Trump has ceded the anti-interventionist ground he occupied when he ran for
office. He can no longer claim the mantle of restraint, a position that found support among
six-in-ten Americans in 2016.
Yet with the exception of Tulsi Gabbard, for the most part the Democratic field is offering
voters a foreign policy that amounts to "Trump minus belligerence." A truly progressive foreign
policy must put questions of war and peace front and center. Addressing America's post 9/11
failures, military overextension, grotesquely bloated defense budget, and the ingrained
militarism of our political-media establishment are the proper concerns of a progressive U.S.
foreign policy.
But it is one that would place the welfare of our own citizens above all. As such, what is
urgently required is the long-delayed realization of a peace dividend. The post-Cold War peace
dividend that was envisioned in the early 1990s never materialized. Clinton's secretary of
defense Les Aspin strangled the peace dividend in its crib by keeping the U.S. military on a
footing that would allow it to fight and win two regional wars simultaneously. Unipolar
fantasies of "full spectrum dominance" would come later in the decade.
One might have reasonably expected an effort by the Obama administration to realize a
post-bin Laden peace dividend, but the forever wars dragged on and on. In a New Yorker profile
from earlier this year, Sanders asked the right question: "Do we really need to spend more than
the next ten nations combined on the military, when our infrastructure is collapsing and kids
can't afford to go to college?"
The answer is obvious. And yet, how likely is it that progressives will be able realize
their vision of a more just, more equal American society if we have to mobilize to face a
global authoritarian axis led by Russia and China?
FDR's Good Neighbor Policy
The unipolar world of the first post-Cold War decade is well behind us now. As the world
becomes more and more multipolar, powers like China, Russia, Iran, India, and the U.S. will
find increasing occasion to clash. A peaceful multipolar world requires stability. And
stability requires balance.
In the absence of stability, none of the goods progressives see as desirable can take root.
This world order would put a premium on stability and security rather than any specific set of
values. An ethical, progressive foreign policy is one which understands that great powers have
security interests of their own. "Spheres of influence" are not 19th century anachronisms, but
essential to regional security: in Europe, the Western Hemisphere and elsewhere.
It is a policy that would reject crusades to spread American values the world over. "The
greatest thing America can do for the rest of the world," George Kennan once observed, "is to
make a success of what it is doing here on this continent and to bring itself to a point where
its own internal life is one of harmony, stability and self-assurance."
Progressive realism doesn't call for global crusades that seek to conquer the hearts and
minds of others. It is not bound up in the hoary self-mythology of American Exceptionalism. It
is boring. It puts a premium on the value of human life. It foreswears doing harm so that good
may come. It is not a clarion call in the manner of John F. Kennedy who pledged to "to pay any
price, bear any burden." It does not lend itself to the cheap moralizing of celebrity
presidential speechwriters. In ordinary language, a summation of such a policy would go
something like: "we will bear a reasonable price as long as identifiable U.S. security
interests are at stake."
A policy that seeks to wind down the global war on terror, slash the defense budget, and
shrink our global footprint won't inspire. It will, however, save lives. Such a policy has its
roots in Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inaugural address. "In the field of World policy,"
said Roosevelt, "I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor
who resolutely respects himself and, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the
neighbor who respects his obligations and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a
World of neighbors."
What came to be known as the "Good Neighbor" policy was further explicated by FDR's
Secretary of State Cordell Hull at the Montevideo Conference in 1933, when he stated that "No
country has the right to intervene in the internal or external affairs of another." Historian
David C. Hendrickson sees this as an example of FDR's principles of "liberal pluralism," which
included "respect for the integrity and importance of other states" and "non-intervention in
the domestic affairs of neighboring states."
These ought to serve as the foundations on which to build a truly progressive foreign
policy. They represent a return to the best traditions of the Democratic Party and would likely
resonate with those very same blocs of voters that made up the New Deal coalition that the
neoliberal iteration of the Democratic Party has largely shunned but will sorely need in order
to unseat Trump. And yet, proponents of a neoprogressive foreign policy seem intent on running
away from a popular policy of realism and restraint on which Trump has failed to deliver.
James W. Carden is contributing writer for foreign affairs at The Nation and a
member of the Board of the Simone Weil Center for Political Philosophy.
The desire by people to see themselves as a national community – even if many of the
bonds binding them together are fictional – is one of the most powerful forces in the
world
Patrick Cockburn | @indyworld |
Nationalism in different shapes and forms is powerfully transforming the politics of the
British Isles, a development that gathered pace over the last five years and culminated in the
general election this month.
National identities and the relationship between England, Scotland and Ireland are changing
more radically than at any time over the last century. It is worth looking at the British
archipelago as a whole on this issue because of the closely-meshed political relationship of
its constituent nations. Some of these developments are highly visible such as the rise of the
Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) to permanent political dominance in Scotland in the three
general elections since the independence referendum in 2014.
Other changes are important but little commented on, such as the enhanced national
independence and political influence of the Republic of Ireland over the British Isles as a
continuing member of the EU as the UK leaves. Dublin's greater leverage when backed by the
other 26 EU states was repeatedly demonstrated, often to the surprise and dismay of London, in
the course of the negotiations in Brussels over the terms of the British withdrawal.
Northern Ireland saw more nationalist than unionist MPs elected in the general election for
the first time since 1921. This is important because it is a further sign of the political
impact of demographic change whereby Catholics/nationalists become the new majority and the
Protestants/unionists the minority. The contemptuous ease with which Boris Johnson abandoned
his ultra-unionist pledges to the DUP and accepted a customs border in the Irish Sea separating
Northern Ireland from the rest of Britain shows how little loyalty the Conservatives feel
towards the northern unionists and their distinct and abrasive brand of British
nationalism.
These developments affecting four of the main national communities inhabiting the British
Isles – Irish, nationalists and unionists in Northern Ireland, Scots – are easy to
track. Welsh nationalism is a lesser force. Much more difficult to trace and explain is the
rise of English nationalism because it is much more inchoate than these other types of
nationalism, has no programme, and is directly represented by no political party – though
the Conservative Party has moved in that direction.
The driving force behind Brexit was always a certain type of English nationalism which did
not lose its power to persuade despite being incoherent and little understood by its critics
and supporters alike. In some respects, it deployed the rhetoric of any national community
seeking self-determination. The famous Brexiteer slogan "take back control" is not that
different in its implications from Sinn Fein – "Ourselves Alone" – though neither
movement would relish the analogy.
The great power of the pro-Brexit movement, never really taken on board by its opponents,
was to blame the very real sense of disempowerment and social grievances felt by a large part
of the English population on Brussels and the EU. This may have been scapegoating on a
grandiose scale, but nationalist movements the world over have targeted some foreign body
abroad or national minority at home as the source of their ills. I asked one former Leave
councillor – one of the few people I met who changed their mind on the issue after the
referendum in 2016 – why people living in her deprived ward held the EU responsible for
their poverty. Her reply cut through many more sophisticated explanations: "I suppose that it
is always easier to blame Johnny Foreigner."
Applying life lessons to the pursuit of national happiness The Tories won't get far once
progressives join forces 22,000 EU nationals have left NHS since Brexit vote, figures show This
crude summary of the motives of many Leave voters has truth in it, but it is a mistake to
caricature English nationalism as simply a toxic blend of xenophobia, racism, imperial
nostalgia and overheated war memories. In the three years since the referendum the very act of
voting for Brexit became part of many people's national identity, a desire to break free,
kicking back against an overmighty bureaucracy and repelling attempts by the beneficiaries of
globalisation to reverse a democratic vote.
The political left in most countries is bad at dealing with nationalism and the pursuit of
self-determination. It sees these as a diversion from identifying and attacking the real
perpetrators of social and economic injustice. It views nationalists as mistakenly or malignly
aiming at the wrong target – usually foreigners – and letting the domestic ones off
the hook.
The desire by people to see themselves as a national community – even if many of the
bonds binding them together are fictional – is one of the most powerful forces in the
world. It can only be ignored at great political cost, as the Labour Party has just found out
to its cost for the fifth time (two referendums and three elections). What Labour should have
done was early on take over the slogan "take back control" and seek to show that they were
better able to deliver this than the Conservatives or the Brexit Party. There is no compelling
reason why achieving such national demands should be a monopoly of the right. But in 2016, 2017
and 2019 Labour made the same mistake of trying to wriggle around Brexit as the prime issue
facing the English nation without taking a firm position, an evasion that discredited it with
both Remainers and Leavers.
Curiously, the political establishment made much the same mistake as Labour in
underestimating and misunderstanding the nature of English nationalism. Up to the financial
crisis of 2008 globalisation had been sold as a beneficial and inevitable historic process.
Nationalism was old hat and national loyalties were supposedly on the wane. To the British
political class, the EU obviously enhanced the political and economic strength of its national
members. As beneficiaries of the status quo, they were blind to the fact that much of the
country had failed to gain from these good things and felt marginalised and forgotten.
The advocates of supra-national organisations since the mediaeval papacy have been making
such arguments and have usually been perplexed why they fail to stick. They fail to understand
the strength of nationalism or religion in providing a sense of communal solidarity, even if it
is based on dreams and illusions, that provides a vehicle for deeply felt needs and grievances.
Arguments based on simple profit and loss usually lose out against such rivals.
Minervo , 1 day ago
Bigger by far are two forces which really do have control over our country -- the
international NATO warmongers but even more so, the international banksters of the finance
industry.
Why no 'leftist' campaign to Take Back Control of our money? Gordon Brown baled out the
banks when they should have gone bankrupt and been nationalised.
Blair is forever tainted with his ill-fated Attack on Iraq. Surely New Liberals or
Democrats or Socialists would want to lock down on that fiasco?
The Nationalism of taking back control could be a leftist project too.
According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the collective net worth of the 500
wealthiest people on the planet soared by $1.2 trillion in 12 months, totaling $5.9
trillion.
Billionaires in the US alone added $500bn to their wealth, with Facebook founder Mark
Zuckerberg increasing his wealth by $27.3bn while Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates adding
$22.7bn.
As Trump once said, his government is the best time ever to fullfill the American
Dream...
--//--
@ Posted by: migueljose | Dec 29 2019 14:44 utc | 85
Most people here in this blog seem to be from First World countries, so it's important to
make this observation about the Latin American middle classes.
Latin American middle classes have a different societal and historical origin from the
First World middle classes. Instead of being highly specialized, highly skilled workers, the
middle classes from Latin America (or any other Third World country, for that matter) come
not from high education, but from the oligarchic State apparatus.
That's because the nation-State formation in Latin America was very different from the
nation-State formation of the USA, Canada or Western Europe. They became independent through
their oligarchies, mainly through negotiations from the top. As a result, what happened in
Latin America was simply a legal transformation of the colonial machine into an independent
nation-State machine.
As a result, the middle classes in Latin America are not doctors, engineers,
scientists, CEOs etc. etc., but judges, politicians, high officers of the government,
descendents of the old local oligarchies etc. etc. They are intrinsically connected and
dependent on the State to survive as middle classes.
This results in an extremely reactionary and parasitic middle class. They act as
legitimate shock troops of the bourgeoisie.
Alligator Ed
on Wed, 12/25/2019 - 11:02pm After bravely contesting a nomination she knows she cannot
win, Tulsi Gabbard has and continues to exhibit a tenacious adherence to achievement of
purpose. What is that purpose? I believe it is evident if you only let your eyes see and your
ears hear. Listen to what she says. Looks at what she does.
What this does is obvious. However, please forgive me if I proceed to explain the meaning.
People see what apparently is her home milieu. I've been to Filipino homes for dinner as many
of my nurse friends were Filipino. Tulsi is so human. Despite Hindu belief, she is respectful
to the presence and perhaps the essence of Jesus, and does not sound pandering or
hypocritical.
Getting to know Tulsi at the beginning of her hoped-for (by me) political ascendancy. Get in
on almost the ground floor of what will become an extremely powerful force in future American
life.
Why? What's the hurry?
The more support and the earlier Tulsi receives it propel the campaign. That's what momentum
means: a self-generating growing strength.
One doesn't have to be a Tulsi supporter to hopefully receive some ideas which may not have
occurred to you. This essay does not concern any specific Gabbard policy. What I write here is
what I perceive of her character and thus her selected path. Mind-reading, perhaps. Arm-chair
speculation, possibly.
Tulsi has completed phase 2A in her career. The little that I know of her early life,
especially politically (such as how she voted in HI state legislature) limits a deep
understanding which such knowledge would provide. As the tree is bent, etc.
Phase 1A: youth, formative years, military
Phase 1B: state legislature
Phase 1C: Congress
Phase 2B and possibly subsequent: interim between Congress and Presidential campaigning with
realistic chance of victory.
We are in Phase 2B. Tulsi, as I wrote in another essay, is letting the tainted shroud of
Democrat corruption fall off her shoulders without any effort of her own. The Democrat party is
eating itself alive. It is all things to all people at once. That is a philosophy incapable of
satisfaction.
Omni Democraticorundum in tres partes est (pardon the reference to the opening of Caesar's
Gallic Wars, with liberal substitution by me).
The Dems trifurcate and the division will be neither pleasant nor reconcilable. Tribalism
will be reborn after Trump crushes whomever in 2020.
Tribe one: urban/techno/überkinden.
Tribe two: leftward bound to a place where no politician has ever ventured. Not socialism.
Not Communism. We could call it Fantasy Land, although I fear Disney owns that name.
Tribe three: progressive realists. By using such positive wording, you will correctly
suspect my bias as to which Tribe I belong to.
Once again, policy will not be discussed. Only strategy and reality. Can't have good
strategy without a good grasp of reality. This is why Establidems are bereft of thematic
variability. For the past 3.3 years, they have been singing from a hymn book containing but one
song. You know the title. Orange Man Bad. Yeah, that's it. If they don't like that
title, we establidems have another song for ya. It's called Orange Man Bad. Like that
one, huh? Wazzat, ya didn't like the song the first time. Hey, we thought the song would grown
on you.
Them Dems, noses up, can't see the sidewalk. Oops. Stepped in something there, huh? Oh, yeah
like the Impeachment.
But I digress: The latter part of Phase 2B is not clear. Tulsi will continue to accept small
donor contributions, even after not obtaining the nomination next year. Public appearances will
be important but should be low key with little press attention. Press attention is something
however that won't be available when most desirable. What else Tulsi will do may be to form a
nucleus of like-minded activists, thinkers, and other supporters to promote an agenda for a
more liberal, tolerant society.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be subjected to
the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches. That includes an
examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked well for anyone,"
Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only two
things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about a
month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye towards
Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point memos,
have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape survivors. Of
course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it ain't
Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have pretty much
completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable? Not for me.
Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last go round absent a
Bernie miracle.
If Sanders' candidacy continues to be taken seriously, he will eventually be
subjected to the scrutiny that Warren and Biden have faced for prolonged stretches.
That includes an examination of his electability. "That conversation has never worked
well for anyone," Pfeiffer said.
What a bunch of hypocritical horseshit. Bernie not getting scrutiny? In 2016, when not
being derided for this, that or the other, Bernie was always scrutinized. There are only
two things voters have learned since the DNC 2016 convention:
1. Bernie had a heart attack
2. Bernie supported H. Rodent Clinton in the general election.
@Wally
She might back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . and to the much noted "Bernie blackout" up until now this time around.
It's gotten to the point given the polls and the first primary in being held in about
a month where TPTB in conjunction with the MSM can no longer afford to turn a blind eye
towards Bernie. It's gonna get really nasty.
The most recent tropes on the twitters, probably in response to Brock talking point
memos, have been pushing Bernie as an anti-Semite and him purportedly triggering rape
survivors. Of course it's horsehit but it's the propagandistic method of the Big Lie.
I'm genuinely curious. How will you react if Tulsi endorses the Dem nominee and it
ain't Bernie? Bernie's endorsement of she-who-shall-not-be-named in 2016 seems to have
pretty much completely soured him to you. Endorsing Biden better? Or at least acceptable?
Not for me. Bernie doing so in 2016 I could understand and forgive. But this is my last
go round absent a Bernie miracle.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she never
and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy record
regarding domestic affairs.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
. . . to campaign in support of their candidacies.
Maybe Biden will accept her support. I've still never been able to figure why she
never and probably still won't take any shots at his warmongering and otherwise cruddy
record regarding domestic affairs.
@Alligator
Ed@Alligator
Ed be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would feel
comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone but
Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a Neutral
Party.
#2.1.1.1.1 She might
back Yang--who won't get nominated. But I hope she doesn't do anything more than a
neutral statement, somewhat to the effect that "We must defeat Donald Trump", then not
campaign otherwise.
@wokkamile
Her dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
#2.1.1.1.1.1
#2.1.1.1.1.1 be unfamiliar with the neutral position. Though I wonder if she would
feel comfortable dipping into that well again given how much grief she got the last
time.
Of course, if she again puts it in Neutral, and doesn't support the D nominee (anyone
but Bloomberg), she will be finished as a Dem pol. She might as well go off and start a
Neutral Party.
Don't forget that 15% state threshold for eligibility to be awarded delegates.
#2.1.1.1.1.1.2 Her
dismissal papers will be submitted to her after she is barred entry into the DNC
convention, regardless of how many delegates she may have won.
I will be surprised if Tulsi gets so much as one delegate.
More than a few knowledgeable people think he has a very good shot of winning California.
I am less optimistic about NYS but I think he will do well enough to get a good number of
delegates especially if he does well in the earlier primaries (NYS comes April 28).
I don't feel solidly about making any kind of predictions at this point but given the
nature of the Democratic Party, I don't see it as falling into oblivion anytime soon or in
our lifetimes.
As far as Bernie goes, I am not optimistic but I still have some hope. I still fervantly
believe that his candidacy is the best chance we will have in our lifetimes of bringing about
any substantial change -- and if he and his critical mass of supporters can't pull it off
this time around, we're all phluckled big time, even alligators, in terms of combating
climate change and putting a kabosh on endless wars. I wish you good future luck with Tulsi
though. I just don't see it. But I've been wrong on more than one occasion in my life.
(Translation of the article's title: Bellum omnium contra omnes and the Car Wash
Operation: the Brazilian crisis and cpt. Jair Bolsonaro's victory )
This articles indicates that what happened in Brazil was the disintegration of its State,
typical of Third World nations in the neocolonialist period. Another important factor the
article highlights is that this counter-revolution was spearheaded by the Brazilian middle
class, and not the capitalist class. This resulted in a chaotic counter-revolution where
short-term individual interests of the middle upper class members (mainly from the judiciary
power) predominate. The exact same modus operandi occured in Bolivia.
If this pattern repeats elsewhere in the Third World, then we would be witnessing a new
tactic chosen by the USA on its color revolutions in its backyard: use well-positioned middle
class members to act as a semi-military harmost, in order to fight on two fronts at the same
time - to destroy the bourgeoisie that's on the way of American interests while guaranteeing
the supression of working class uprisings.
That the USA is having to resort to the middle classes of the Third World countries to
quell revolts and guarantee anti-working class structural reforms is very revealing: it is a
clear sign of desperation by Washington, a sign that it is not being able to keep the
comprador elites of Latin American happy anymore.
The latest monthly indicators of economic activity in Japan, the Eurozone and Britain do
not make pleasant reading.
Japan's December manufacturing sector PMI, as it is called, fell to 48.8 from 48.9 in
November. Anything below 50 indicates a contraction. The services sector, however, picked
up slightly to 50.6 from 50.3. So the overall 'composite' PMI was unchanged at 49.8. That
means Japan is in recession (just).
The Eurozone manufacturing PMI slipped to 45.9, the lowest since October 2012 and
employment also fell at the fastest pace for more than seven years. New orders declined for
a fifteenth successive month, while input prices continued to fall sharply. The sector was
driven down mainly by Germany, where the manufacturing PMI hit 43.4, falling for the 12th
straight month.
However, as in Japan, there was a slight pick-up in the services sector, where Eurozone
PMI reached 52.4 from 51.9 in November. So the overall 'composite' PMI stood unchanged at
50.6. In effect, the Eurozone economy is standing still.
In the UK, the manufacturing sector took another dive to 47.4 (a sharp contraction).
Output fell the most since July 2012. The services sector was also down to 49.0, making the
overall composite PMI in negative territory at 48.5 - the deepest contraction since July
2016. The UK is in recession - but maybe the Conservative government election victory and
the ending of uncertainty over Brexit (the UK will now definitely leave the EU in 2020) may
encourage a recovery.
In sum, as we end 2019, Japan, the Eurozone and the UK are in recession or
stagnation.
Long story short: the EU is only not in outright recession because the "services sector"
(gig economy) is compensating for the collapse of its manufacturing sector - for now.
And no, the UK won't become "Singapore upon the Thames".
I don't think Warren is a stalking horse for neoliberalism or whatever, but her inability
to fight back against bad press (combined with her occasional baffling decisions to give
herself bad press) is a big mark against her candidacy. There will be bad press for either of
them.
Trump can be impeached as a war criminal just for his false flag Douma attack (along with
members of his administration). But Neoliberal Dems and frst of all Pelosi are war criminals too,
with Pelosi aiding and abetting war criminal Bush.
So this is a variation of the theme of Lavrentiy Beria most famous quote: "Show me a
man and I will find you a crime"
I think tose neolib Dems who supported impeachment disqualified themselves from the running.
That includes Warren, who proved to be a very weak, easily swayed politician. It is quote
probably that they increased (may be considerably) chances of Trump reelection, but pushing
independents who were ready to abandon him, back into Trump camp. Now Trump is able to present
himself as a victim of neoliberal Dems/neocons witch hunt.
The only real check left is impeachment. It is rarely invoked and (until very recently) has
atrophied as a credible threat. But that doesn't make it any less
indispensable.
The problem was exacerbated by the Clinton impeachment fiasco, which history has proved
foolhardy. (I supported it at the time, but I was a government lawyer then, not a public
commentator.) Republicans were sufficiently spooked by the experience that they seemed to
regard impeachment as obsolete. Faithless Execution countered that this was the wrong
lesson to take from the affair. Clinton's impeachment was a mistake because (a) his conduct,
though disgraceful and indicative of unfitness, did not implicate the core responsibilities of
the presidency; and more significantly, (b) the public, though appalled by the behavior,
strongly opposed Clinton's removal. The right lesson was that impeachment must be reserved for
grave misconduct that involves the president's essential Article II duties; and that because
impeachment is so deeply divisive, it should never be launched in the absence of a public
consensus that transcends partisan lines.
This is why, unlike many opponents of President Trump's impeachment, I have never questioned
the legitimacy of the Democratic-controlled House's investigations of misconduct allegations
against the president. I believe the House must act as a body (investigations should not be
partisan attacks under the guise of House inquiries), and it must respect the lawful and
essential privileges of the executive branch; but within those parameters, Congress has the
authority and responsibility to expose executive misconduct.
Moreover, while egregious misconduct will usually be easy to spot and grasp, that will not
always be the case. When members of Congress claim to see it, they should have a fair
opportunity to expose and explain it. To my mind, President Obama was the kind of chief
executive that the Framers feared, but this was not obvious because he was not committing
felonies. Instead, he was consciously undermining our constitutional order. He usurped the
right to dictate law rather than execute it. His extravagant theory of executive discretion to
"waive" the enforcement of laws he opposed flouted his basic constitutional duty to execute the
laws faithfully. He and his underlings willfully and serially deceived Congress and the public
on such major matters as Obamacare and the Benghazi massacre. They misled Congress on, and
obstructed its investigation of, the outrageous Fast and Furious "gun-walking" operation, in
connection with which a border patrol agent was murdered. With his Iran deal, the president
flouted the Constitution's treaty process and colluded with a hostile foreign power to withhold
information from Congress, in an arrangement that empowered (and paid cash ransom to) the
world's leading sponsor of anti-American terrorism.
My critics fairly noted that I opposed Obama politically, and therefore contended that I was
masquerading as a constitutional objection what was really a series of policy disputes. I don't
think that is right, though, for two reasons.
First, my impeachment argument was not that Obama was pursuing policies I deeply opposed. I
was very clear that elections have consequences, and the president had every right to press his
agenda. My objection was that he was imposing his agenda lawlessly, breaking the limitations
within which the Framers cabined executive power, precisely to prevent presidents from becoming
tyrants. If allowed to stand, Obama precedents would permanently alter our governing framework.
Impeachment is there to protect our governing framework.
Second, I argued that, my objections notwithstanding, Obama should not be impeached in the
absence of a public consensus for his removal. Yes, Republicans should try to build that case,
try to edify the public about why the president's actions threatened the Constitution and its
separation of powers. But they should not seek to file articles of impeachment simply because
they could -- i.e., because control of the House theoretically gave them the numbers to do it.
The House is not obliged to file impeachment articles just because there may be impeachable
conduct. Because impeachment is so divisive, the Framers feared that it could be triggered on
partisan rather than serious grounds. The two-thirds supermajority requirement for Senate
conviction guards against that: The House should not impeach unless there is a reasonable
possibility that the Senate would remove -- which, in Obama's case, there was not.
I also tried to focus on incentives. If impeachment were a credible threat, and Congress
began investigating and publicly exposing abuses, a sensible president would desist in the
misconduct, making it unnecessary to proceed with impeachment. On the other hand, a failed
impeachment effort would likely embolden a rogue president to continue abusing power. If your
real concern is executive lawlessness, then impeaching heedlessly and against public opinion
would be counterproductive.
I've taken the same tack with President Trump.
The objections to Trump are very different from those to Obama. He is breaking not laws but
norms of presidential behavior and decorum. For the most part, I object to this. There are lots
of things about our government that need disruption, but even disruptive presidents should be
mindful that they hold the office of Washington and Lincoln and aspire to their dignity, even
if their greatness is out of reach.
That said, impeachment is about serious abuse of the presidency's core powers, not behavior
that is intemperate or gauche. Critics must be mindful that the People, not the pundits, are
sovereign, and they elected Donald Trump well aware of his flaws. That he turns out to be as
president exactly what he appeared to be as a candidate is not a rationale for impeaching
him.
The president's misconduct on Ukraine is small potatoes. Democrats were right to expose it,
and we would be dealing with a more serious situation if the defense aid appropriated by
Congress had actually been denied, rather than inconsequentially delayed. If Democrats had
wanted to make a point about discouraging foreign interference in American politics
(notwithstanding their long record of encouraging it), that would have been fine. They could
have called for the president's censure, which would have put Republicans on the defensive.
Ukraine could have been incorporated as part of their 2020 campaign that Trump should be
defeated, despite a surging economy and relative peace.
Conducting an impeachment inquiry is one thing, but for the House to take the drastic step
of impeaching the president is abusive on this record. Yes, it was foolish of Trump to mention
the Bidens to President Zelensky and to seek Ukraine's help in investigating the Bidens. There
may well be corruption worth probing, but the president ought to leave that to researchers in
his campaign. If there is something that a government should be looking into, leave that to the
Justice Department, which can (and routinely does) seek foreign assistance when necessary. The
president, however, should have stayed out of it. Still, it is absurd to posit, as Democrats
do, that, by not staying out of it, the president threatened election integrity and U.S.
national security. Such outlandish arguments may make Ukraine more of a black eye for Democrats
than for the president.
But whoever ultimately bears the brunt of the impeachment push, I have to ask myself a hard
question: Is this the world I was asking for when I wrote a book contending that, for our
system to work as designed, impeachment has to be a credible threat? I don't think so . . . but
I do worry about it.
Back to the Clinton impeachment. I tried to make the point that that impeachment effort --
against public opinion, and based on misconduct that, while dreadful, was not central to the
presidency -- has contributed significantly to the poisonous politics we have today. Democrats
have been looking for payback ever since, and now they have it -- in a way that is very likely
to make impeachment more routine in the future.
I don't see how our constitutional system can work without a viable impeachment remedy. But
I may have been wrong to believe that we could be trusted to invoke the remedy responsibly. I
used to poke fun at pols who would rather hide under their desks than utter the dreaded I-word.
Turns out they knew something I didn't.
Despite the latest Sino-American phase one deal to ease tensions over trade, one former top
US official is now calling for a decoupling between both economies, reported the
South China Morning Post (SCMP).
Former US ambassador to India Ashley Tellis explains in a new book titled Strategic Asia
2020: US-China Competition for Global Influence -- that the world's two largest economies have
entered a new period of sustained competition.
Tellis said Washington had developed a view that "China is today and will be for the
foreseeable future the principal challenger to the US."
"The US quest for a partnership with China was fated to fail once China's growth in economic
capabilities was gradually matched by its rising military power," he said.
Tellis said Washington must resume its ability to support the liberal international order
established by the US more than a half-century ago, and "provide the global public goods that
bestow legitimacy upon its primacy and strengthen its power-projection capabilities to protect
its allies and friends."
He said this approach would require more strategic cooperation with allies such as
Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
"The US should use coordinated action with allies to confront China's trade malpractices
should pursue targeted decoupling of the US and Chinese economies, mainly in order to protect
its defense capabilities rather than seeking a comprehensive rupture."
The latest phase one deal between both countries is a temporary trade truce -- likely to be
broken as a strategic rivalry encompasses trade, technology, investment, currency, and
geopolitical concerns will continue to strain relations in the early 2020s.
A much greater decoupling could be dead ahead and likely to intensify over time, as it's
already occurring in the technology sector.
Tellis said President Trump labeling China as a strategic
competitor was one of "the most important changes in US-China relations."
The decoupling has already started as Washington races to safeguard the country's
cutting-edge technologies, including 5G, automation, artificial intelligence, autonomous
vehicle, hypersonics, and robotics, from getting into the hands of Chinese firms.
A perfect example of this is blacklisting Huawei and other Chinese technology firms from
buying US semiconductor components.
Liu Weidong, a US affairs specialist from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told SCMP
that increased protectionism among Washington lawmakers suggests the decoupling trend between
both countries is far from over.
The broader shift at play is that decoupling will result in de-globalization ,
economic and financial fragmentation, and disruption of complex supply chains.
"Change we can believe in" the second series ? That's a real warning sign ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and Buttigieg. ..."
"... as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship .. ..."
So, the fact that Obama is willing to put in a good word for Warren on behalf of the
wealthy elite should give you a clue as to which side Warren is really on. While many
non-political "normies" look upon the Obama years with rose-tinted glasses, I wonder if the
disillusionment that many people had in retrospect with Obama has sunk in to mainstream
political consciousness yet. If that is the case, an Obama endorsement might actually
backfire among progressives, seeing as how it has become evident that Obama was basically a
silver-tongued neoliberal in the same mold as Clinton and Pelosi.
I know that Warren is a political careerist at heart, but I was willing to give her the
benefit of the doubt when she first launched her 2020 presidential campaign. However, it has
become increasingly clear that she has hitched her wagon to the wrong horse as the neoliberal
corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking ship. I honestly do not
think that she would even be fit to be Sander's vice presidential pick at this point
considering how wide the political gulf between Warren and Sanders actually is. A better
choice would be Nina Turner as Sander's running mate, with Tulsi Gabbard as his Secretary of
State if he gets that far.
My guess is that this is why he's working behind the scenes, minimizing the chances of a
backfire on the left. Of course, how behind-the-scenes is it if it's reported by Politico?
Still.
I'm actually undecided on Warren. There was that story last week about her supposedly
pushing Hillary in 2016 to name decent people to her cabinet if elected. But then you have to
ask why that particular story surfaced at the particular time when Warren was sinking in the
polls.
If true, though, and if what the new Politico story says about her clashes with Obama are
true, maybe Warren isn't quite as objectionable as we tend to think. Then again, she came
right out last week (I believe) and said Medicare for All would be a matter of choice under
her plan, emphasizing that "choice" factor.
So I'm confused. But maybe that's what she, her campaign and various surrogates want at
this stage.
It starts with an ambitious goal: consistent with the objectives of the Green New Deal,
the Pentagon should achieve net zero carbon emissions for all its non-combat bases and
infrastructure by 2030.
having the pentagon 'lead the fight' against climate change is akin to appointing prince
andrew as head of the global task force against pedophilia and child trafficking.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
A few weeks ago I read in this spot that while Clinton people hate Sanders and like
Warren, Obama was pushing Buttigieg because Warren was such a pain in his ass. Seems he's
finally given his signal. Hopefully it's the kiss of death for both Warren and
Buttigieg.
Buttigieg takes no votes from Sanders. While Warren does on the margins. I think Obama's
calculation is simple as that. She also has special appeal to the virtue signaling liberals
that are Obama's base.
as the neoliberal corporate Democrats which she is aligning herself with are a sinking
ship ..
Bingo. Trump's letter goes right to the heart of it. These clowns are completely exposed
and Obama hawking Warren to donors while the blob talks up a gay McKinsey/CIA Indiana Mayor
shows just how far they have fallen.
Editor's Note: Last month, Foreign Policy ran an article, "Open Borders Are a
Trillion-Dollar Idea," which advocated for Open Borders. So for all those who say, "Oh, no
one supports Open Borders," here it is in writing! Every point made by author Bryan Caplan,
an economics professor, is refutable, and, while the piece is long, we believe it's important
"for the record" to counter all of his points.
As I first read Bryan Caplan's "Open Borders Are a Trillion-Dollar Idea" in Foreign
Policy, besides disbelief, my thoughts were that this person must not get out much or must
not read much. A quote from writer Upton Sinclair came to mind as well: "It is difficult to
get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." https://progressivesforimmigrationreform.org/open-borders-trillion-dollar-mistake/
Re Bill Mitchell–his theme is that the Labour disaster is all due to the failure of
the party to follow their working class base–if that is their base–and support
Brexit. I believe that was Clive's theme as well. This is definitely not my topic but any
Remainers care to rebut?
It is interesting how the situation in Britain seems to mirror the political situation
here and the dilemma of the Dems–aka our Blairites. People like Hillary denounce the
deplorables and Obama calls them bitter clingers but these verbal targets were once the
backbone of a party that stood in opposition to the party of the bankers and finance.
The problen for the DemoRats is that their new, hoped for diversity base isn't large
enough to replace the former great unwashed base. Perhaps that's Labour's problem too. We
have a party of the people whose leaders are (in secret when not in public) batting for the
other team.
All polls indicated that around 40% of Labour supporters were Brexiters, 60% Remainers (of
course the intensity of support might be different). Those were mostly the older working
class 'old Labour' types along with some ideological left wingers. Doing what Mitchell
suggested would certainly have shored up Labours working class bases. It would also have lost
Labour its base in the major metropolitan areas and most voters under 40. In short, it would
have been politically suicidal.
In the months after the referndum, people like Owen Jones tried to convince the Remainer
Labourites that they had to accept the result of the referendum and fight for the "softest"
Brexit possible (I remember because he was bringing that up in his post-mortems after the
election). And of course, most Remainers were having none of it. They came up with "The
People's Vote" and eventually Jones and the rest of the Labour bigwigs got on board.
But objectively, Brexit will be, and can only be, a disaster for Britain and most
pro-Brexit voters are badly misinformed, so what were Labour leaders supposed to do?
It looks undemocratic to stop people from shooting themselves (and you too!) in the foot, but
are you supposed to just let them pull the trigger?
The constituency where I canvassed, the divide was very clearly generational – the
old were Tory, the young were Labour or Libdem. It was very stark. I have not seen any
national data on this – has anyone else?
Yep, chechout the 3rd chart on this post. Very generational split moving from Labour to
Tories with age. 18-24 yos voted 19% Tory, 67% Labour, and it virtually reversed when looking
at 65yo+ which voted 62% Tory, 18% Labour, with an almost linear movement inbetween. I think
someone linked to this a few days ago
> Doing what Mitchell suggested would certainly have shored up Labours working class
bases. It would also have lost Labour its base in the major metropolitan areas and most
voters under 40. In short, it would have been politically suicidal.
I would say that what Labour ended up doing was suicidal, quite evidently. Labour (and
Corybn's) problem was existential, the fractured base (not merely by age, but geographically
and by class) bequeathed to them by Blair. I would say that Mitchell's proposal is not like
suicide, but like an animal caught in a trap chewing off a leg to escape -- the leg, in this
case, being PLP. Of course, if Labour wants to be the party of London professionals, that's
fine, but rebranding from "Labour" might be in order.
Richard North has been running some interesting material recently, including today,
raising the question to what extent the traditional working class still exists in England in
the sense it was once understood. I have no real insights into what is clearly a very large
topic but I found todays piece especially interesting.
I am doubtful Labour wants to be the party only of London professionals – there are
far too few of them to win elections. At present it is clearly the party of the young. Any
strategy for its future needs to take this into account. Although I am old myself I know a
fair number of the young in the UK through my children and their friends. They are having a
very hard time of it as their jobs are very insecure and their prospects of owning their own
homes/better quality housing are far poorer than those enjoyed by the boomers. They also face
a high risk of being made redundant at 40.
Rather than a class-based analysis of UK politics I wonder if a generational analysis
– boomers v the rest – would not be more fruitful at present. Though of course
you can see this as a rich/old versus young/poor struggle.
Labour lost biggest among the pensioners, who by definition, are not labouring. The reason
they lost all those Northern towns was that they had so many pensioners.
Doing deliveries on a bicycle, teaching children, and keeping the elderly alive,
meanwhile, are all labour, even if they don't take place in a factory or a mine. Certainly
not "professional" in the traditional sense.
Labour's error was failing to build a legacy media operation (print, TV, radio) to reach
the pensioners, and not turning out the younger vote.
It would be impossible for Trump to re-energize his base in any other way. Pelosi acts as
covert agent for Trump re-election? Peloci calculation that she can repar "Mueller effect" of
2018 with this impeachment proved to be gross miscalculation.
Warren who stupidly and enthusiastically jumped into this bandwagon will be hurt. She is such
a weak politician that now it looks like she does not belong to the club. Still in comparison
with Trump she might well be an improvement as she has Trump-like economic program, which Trump
betrayed and neutered. And her foreign policy can't be worse then Trump foreign policy. It is
just impossible.
I am convinced that the Dems are not actually interested or focused on defeating Trump, or
they would adopt an effective strategy. The question I keep wrestling with is, what is the point
to the strategy that is so ineffective?
Notable quotes:
"... The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water, by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump. ..."
"... fake impeachment procedure ..."
"... For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be what makes for a successful impeachment. ..."
"... Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they deserve whatever they believe'. ..."
"... little else can explain the reasoning behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.". ..."
"... "We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy, angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes president. ..."
"... He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy – the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins." ..."
"... We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of the stigma of impeachment. ..."
And so it came to pass, that in the deep state's frenzy of
electoral desperation, the 'impeachment' card was played. The hammer has fallen. Nearly the
entirety of the legacy media news cycle has been dedicated to the details, and not really
pertinent details, but the sorts of details which presume the validity of the charges against
Trump in the first place. Yes, they all beg the question. What's forgotten here is that the use
of this process along clearly partisan lines, and more – towards clearly partisan aims
– is a very serious symptom of the larger undoing of any semblance of stability in the US
government.
The fact that the impeachment is dead in the water,
by Pelosi's own admission , is evident in Trump's being adamant that indeed it must be sent
to the Senate – where he knows he'll be exonerated. But even if it doesn't go to the
Senate, what we're left with still appears as a loss for Democrats. Both places are his briar
patch. This makes all of this a win-win for team Trump.
Only in a country that produces so much fake news at the official level, could there be a
fake impeachment procedure made purely for media consumption, with no real or tangible
possible victory in sight.
For in a constitutional republic like the United States, what makes an impeachment
possible is when the representatives and the voters are in communion over the matter. This
would normally be reflected in a mid-term election, like say for example the mid-term
Senatorial race in 2018 where Democrats failed to take control. Control of the Senate would
reflect a change of sentiment in the republic, which in turn and not coincidentally, would be
what makes for a successful impeachment.
Don't forget, this impeachment is fake
Nancy Pelosi is evidently extraordinarily cynical. Her politics appears to be 'they
deserve whatever they believe'. And her aim appears to be the one who makes them believe
things so that they deserve what she gives them. For little else can explain the reasoning
behind her claim that she will 'send the impeachment to the Senate' as soon as she 'has
assurances and knows how the Senate will conduct the impeachment', except that it came from the
same person who told the public regarding Obamacare that we have to 'We have to pass the bill
so that you can find out what is in it.".
In both cases, reality is turned on its head – for rather we will know how the Senate
intends to conduct its procedure as soon as it has the details, which substantively includes
the impeachment documents themselves, in front of them, and likewise, legislators ought to know
what's in a major piece of legislation before they vote either way on it. Pelosi's assault on
reason, however, isn't without an ever growing tide of resentment from within the progressive
base of the party itself.
We have quickly entered into a new era which increasingly resembles the broken political
processes which have struck many a country, but none in living memory a country like the US.
Now elected officials push judges to prosecute their political opponents, constitutional crises
are manufactured to pursue personal or political vendettas, death threats and rumors of coups
coming from media and celebrities being fed talking points by big and important players from
powerful institutions.
This 'impeachment' show really takes the cake, does it not? We will recall shortly after
Trump was elected, narrator for hire Morgan Freeman made a shocking public service
announcement. It was for all intents and purposes, a PSA notifying the public that a military
coup to remove Trump would be legitimate and in order. Speaking about this PSA, and recounting
what was said, would in any event read as an exaggeration, or some allegorical paraphrasing
made to prove a point. Jogging our memories then, Freeman spoke to tens of millions of viewers
on television and YouTube
saying :
"We have been attacked. We are at war. Imagine this movie script: A former KGB spy,
angry at the collapse of his motherland, plots a course for revenge – taking advantage of
the chaos, he works his way up through the ranks of a post-soviet Russia and becomes
president.
He establishes an authoritarian regime, then he sets his sights on his sworn enemy
– the United States. And like the KGB spy that he is, he secretly uses cyber warfare to
attack democracies around the world. Using social media to spread propaganda and false
information, he convinces people in democratic societies to distrust their media, their
political processes, even their neighbors. And he wins."
This really set the tone for the coming years, which have culminated in this manufactured
'impeachment' crisis, really befitting a banana republic.
It would be the height of dishonesty to approach this abuse of the impeachment procedure as
if until this moment, the US's own political culture and processes were in good shape. Now
isn't the time for the laundry list of eroded constitutional provisions, which go in a thousand
and one unique directions. The US political system is surely broken, but as is the case with
such large institutions several hundreds of years old, its meltdown appears to happen in slow
motion to us mere mortals. And so what we are seeing today is the next phase of this
break-down, and really ought to be understood as monumental in this sense. Once again revealed
is the poor judgment of the Democratic Party and their agents, tools, warlords, and
strategists, the same gang who sunk Hillary Clinton's campaign on the rocks of hubris.
Nancy Pelosi also has poor judgment, and these short-sighted and self-interested moves on
her part stand a strong chance of backfiring. Her role in this charade is duly noted. This
isn't said because of any disagreement over her aims, but rather that in purely objective terms
it just so happens that her aims and her actions are out of synch – that is unless she
wants to see Trump re-elected. Her aims are her aims, our intention is to connect these to
their probable results, without moral judgments.
The real problem for the Democrats, the DNC, and any hopes for the White House in 2020, is
that this all has the odor of a massive backfire, and something that Trump has been counting on
happening. When one's opponent knows what is probable, and when they have a track record for
preparing very well for such, it is only a question of what Trump's strategy is and
how this falls into it, not whether there is one.
Imagine being a fly on the wall of the meeting with Pelosi where it was decided to go
forward with impeachment in the House of Representatives, despite not having either sufficient
traction in the Senate or any way to control the process that the Senate uses.
It probably went like this: ' We'll say we impeached him, because we did, and we'll say
he was impeached. We'll declare victory, and go home. This will make him unelectable because of
the stigma of impeachment. '
Informed citizens are aware that whatever their views towards Trump, nothing he has done
reaches beyond the established precedent set by past presidents. Confused citizens on the other
hand, are believing the manufactured talking points thrown their way, and the idea that a US
president loosely reference a quid pro quo in trying to sort a corruption scandal in dealings
with the president of a foreign country, is some crazy, new, never-before-done and
highly-illegal thing. It is none of those things though.
Unfortunately, not needless to say, the entirety of the direct, physical evidence against
Trump solely consists of the now infamous transcript of the phone call which he had with
Ukrainian president Zelensky. The rest is hearsay, a conspiracy narrative, and entirely
circumstantial. As this author has noted in numerous pieces, Biden's entire candidacy rests
precisely upon his need to be a candidate so that any normal investigation into the wrongdoings
of himself or his son in Ukraine, suddenly become the targeted persecution of a political
opponent of Trump.
Other than this, it is evident that Biden stands little chance – the same polling
institutions which give him a double-digit lead were those which foretold a Clinton electoral
victory. Neither their methods nor those paying and publishing them, have substantively
changed. Biden's candidacy, like the impeachment, is essentially fake. The real contenders for
the party's base are Sanders and Gabbard.
The Democratic Party Activist Base Despises Pelosi as much as Clinton
The Democratic Party has two bases, one controlled by the DNC and the Clintons, and one
which consists of its energized rank-and-file activists who are clearer in their populism,
anti-establishment and ant-corporate agenda. Candidates like Gabbard and Sanders are closest to
them politically, though far from perfect fits. Their renegade status is confirmed by the
difficulties they have with visibility – they are the new silent majority of the party.
The DNC base, on the other hand, relies on Rachel Maddow, Wolf Blitzer, and the likes for their
default talking points, where they have free and pervasive access to legacy media. In the
context of increased censorship online, this is not insignificant.
Among the important reasons this 'impeachment' strategy will lose is that it will not
energize the second and larger base. Even though this more progressive and populist base is
also more motivated, they have faced – as has the so-called alt-light – an
extraordinarily high degree of censorship on social media. Despite all the censorship, the
Democrats' silent majority are rather well-informed people, highly motivated, and tend to be
vocal in their communities and places of work. Their ideas move organically and virally among
the populace.
This silent majority has a very good memory, and they know very well who Nancy Pelosi is,
and who she isn't.
The silent majority remembers that after years of the public backlash against Bush's war
crimes, crimes against humanity, destruction of remaining civil liberties with the Patriot Act,
torture, warrantless search – and the list goes on and on – Democrats managed to
retake the lower house in 2006. If there was a legitimate reason for an impeachment, it would
have been championed by Pelosi against Bush for going to war using false, falsified,
manufactured evidence about WMD in Iraq. At the time, Pelosi squashed the hopes of her own
electorate, reasoning that such moves would be divisive, that they would distract from the
Democrats' momentum to take the White House in '08, that Bush had recently (?) won his last
election, and so on. Of course these were real crimes, and the reasons not to prosecute may
have as much to do with Pelosi's own role in the war industry. Pelosi couldn't really push
against Bush over torture, etc. because she had been on an elite congressional committee
– the House Intelligence Committee – during the Bush years in office which starting in
2003 was dedicated to making sure that torture could and would become normalized and
entirely legal.
It seems Pelosi can't even go anywhere with this impeachment on Trump today, and therefore
doesn't even really plan to submit it to the Senate for the next stage .
The political stunt was pulled, a fireworks show consisting of one lonely rocket that sort of
fizzled off out of sight.
Trump emerges unscathed, and more to the point, we are closer to the election and his base
is even more energized. Pelosi spent the better part of three years inoculating the public
against any significance being attached to any impeachment procedure. Pelosi cried wolf so many
times, and Trump has made good on the opportunities handed to him to get his talking points in
order and to condition his base to receive and process the scandals in such and such way. This
wouldn't have been possible without Pelosi's help. Thanks in part to Pelosi and the DNC, Trump
appears primed for re-election.
Trump energizes his base, and the DNC suppresses and disappoints theirs. That's where the
election will be won or lost.
I think less then a century is more plausible forecast. The end of "plato oil" means the
crumbling of the USA centered neoliberal empire and nothing can prevent this.
Very interesting and candid testimony by an American that lived through the transition
period between the End of History era (1991-2008) and the Multipolar (?) Rise era
(2008-):
Contrary to my perception, he considers the Invasion of Iraq as the end of the End of History
era, and not the 2008 meltdown, as is my perception. Also interesting - which coincides with
my own perception - is that he saw the whole process as a disease that spread quickly among
the American people, i.e. it was a very quick process of descent. His metaphor of a virus,
pandemia or disease never crossed my mind: from my point of view - a person from the "rest of
the world" the metaphor that arose was that of a big house or big structure collapsing from
its base, but not completely: it still resembles the old structure, but it clearly isn't the
same as the old structure.
And, in fact, in the 1990s, me and the people I talked to in Latin America saw the USA as
definitely invincible. We could easily see it lasting forever, like if it really was the End
of History: the only debate left was if it was better to invest in a career in our native
countries or try to immigrate to the USA.
I remember talking to an American at the time (it was already the 21st Century, don't
remember the exact year), and, although he agreed that every empire ends, he said the USA
could take at least more 830 years to fall. Maybe his prophecy turns out to be true, maybe
the USA really pulls out another miracle like the one it pulled off in 1941-1945 - but it
certainly doesn't look like that right now, and there is solid evidence it won't ever recover
the status it enjoyed in 1992-2003.
No,vk @ 38, "America" didn't all turn bone mean on that horrible day. There were plenty of
people demonstrating against that illegal war; plenty writing letters, townships passing
resolutions against it. There was an ongoing protest movement worldwide as well. We all,
including young people, had a brief moment of sheer joy - I remember it vividly - when Obama
was elected. Because he was going to be the presider over change we could believe in, as was
his Democratic party - and they were elected overwhelmingly as the anti-Bush remedy.
He had the chance then and there, with the people behind him, to bring us all back to
peaceful times. He chose not to. And yes, that was a choice - only look at where he is now.
He chose money; he chose to be one of the rich guys. He was so shallow as to betray his own
chance to be one of the greats, and all so he could have millions and live like a king.
That's when the real rot, which had been festering under Clinton, though the Supreme Court
started the ball rolling in the election of 2000 -- oh yes -- that's when the real rot set
in.
You are interested in history. Get that straight. Those who were first time voters in 2008
weren't infected with any rabies. All they wanted was to stop that illegal rush to war, and
they campaigned their hearts out and they voted their hearts out and they cheered their
hearts out when he won.
Where is AOC in all this? She was the prime mover on impeachment, specifically impeachment
over a phone call rather than concentration camps and genocide.
And now with impeachment she gave Pelosi cover to sell the country out again.
I was wondering why many libreral centrists were expreasing admiration for her, a
socialist. Maybe they recognized something?
"Prime mover"? What planet are you from? They were Schiff, Nadler, and Pelosi. Did you
miss that Russiagate was in motion while AOC was still tending bar? AOC isn't even on any of
the key committees (Judiciary and Intel).
I shouldn't have said THE prime mover, but ONE OF the prime movers in the House in
actually pushing it over the line against Pelosi's opposition. It seems like the House Dem
consensus ever since Russiagate was just to tease their base with it and milk the suspense
for all it was worth, until AOC, among others, rallied the base.
There were other reps who pushed for impeachment, but AOC has one of the biggest platforms
and crucially, expanded popular support for impeachment outside the MSNBC crowd. So yes, a
key figure in the political/PR effort to move from conspiracy theories to actual
impeachment.
"AOC is one of the highest-profile members of Congress and she blasted Pelosi for
resisting impeachment since May."
Liz Warren is the one who made it a part of her campaign before anyone else. Rashida
Tlaib was the one who made t-shirt with her "impeach the mf'er" quote on it. A lot of them
were "blasting" Pelosi for dithering. AOC also "blasted" her for giving ICE more money and a
lot of their things .
Your central focus on AOC for the impeachment fiasco while ignoring her active role in
spotlighting so many other issues of importance which no one else speaks about is
interesting. Did you catch any of her speaking at the Sanders rally in LA today? Any other
"high profile" Dems pushing such important issues and campaigns?
Thanks for this comment. I don't trust *any of them* except Sanders, but AOC has been
making more good noises than bad, and to claim that it was she who's been driving Pelosi to
impeachment is quite a stretch. Poor, helpless/hapless Rep. Pelosi sure.
Pelosi has repeatedly stared down the progressives in the House. The overwhelming majority
of the freshmen reps are what used to be called Blue Dogs, as in corporate Dems. AOC making
noise on this issue would not move Pelosi any more than it has on other issues.
IMHO Pelosi didn't try to tamp down Russiagate, and that created expectations that
Something Big would happen. Plus she lives in the California/blue cities bubble.
What Dem donors think matters to her way more than what AOC tweets about. If anything,
Pelosi (secondarily, I sincerely doubt this would be a big issue in her calculus) would view
impeachment as a way to reduce the attention recently given to progressive issues like single
payer and student debt forgiveness.
"... The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then intentionally did not advertise the fact that it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving, that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010, one poll showed that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes. ..."
"... A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners turned down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to preserve the finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while more households are renting than in 50 years . ..."
"... The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest young invincibles to enter the market to bring down costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd health care costs would simply be a single-payer program. ..."
"... The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government "programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries. ..."
Welcome to The Decade From Hell , our look
back at an arbitrary 10-year period that began with a great outpouring of hope and ended in a cavalcade of despair.
As 2009 ended, the editors of this magazine at the time
took their measure of the first year of Barack Obama's
presidency and declared it, with some reservations, a modest success. "All of this might not exactly place him in the pantheon next
to Franklin Roosevelt," they said of his major domestic achievements (the stimulus package, primarily, as the Affordable Care Act
had not yet been signed). "But it's not a bad start, given all the constraints of the political system (and global order) in which
he works."
That was the broad consensus of American liberals at the time, ranging from nearly the most progressive to nearly the most neoliberal.
Over the ensuing years, that consensus would crack and eventually shatter under the weight of one disappointment after another. The
story of American politics over the past decade is that of a political party on the cusp of enduring power and world-historical social
reform, and how these once imaginable outcomes were methodically squandered.
The bulk of that unsigned New Republic editorial in 2009 was dedicated to Obama's foreign policy, specifically the question
of whether he was waging enough war. The conclusion: He was. The editors praised "the escalation of the war in Afghanistan" as "the
most consequential action of the first year of his presidency," even though it
offended the base of his party and possibly injured his future political prospects. On strategic grounds, we believe he made
the right choice. But the thoroughness and logic of the process by which he arrived at this decision double our confidence in
that choice. The is exactly the type of pragmatism and non-ideological policymaking that sentient humans have craved after the
Bush years.
(Sure, escalate the endless wars -- but for God's sake, please do it non-ideologically .)
In December of this year, The Washington Post
obtained thousands of pages of documents from a government oversight project called "Lessons Learned," which included interviews
with more than 600 people involved in the war in Afghanistan at some point over its 18-year history. An interview with a National
Security Council official described, according to the Post , "constant pressure from the Obama White House and Pentagon to
produce figures to show the troop surge of 2009 to 2011 was working, despite hard evidence to the contrary." Nearly every piece of
data used over the last decade to try to convince Americans that the war was going well, or even going according to any sort of coherent
logic or reason, was phony or meaningless.
"I don't want to be going to Walter Reed for another eight years," Obama
reportedly said in 2009 , as he struggled
with the decision to escalate the war. The president and his closest advisers were determined to avoid the mistakes of Vietnam. Since
then, overwhelmed by billions
in U.S. "aid," the country has sunk into kleptocracy. Last year, according to the United Nations, was the single deadliest year
of the war for Afghan civilians. Today, around 13,000 American service members remain in Afghanistan. The Trump administration is
attempting to negotiate a peace with the Taliban that would leave it in charge of the country, just as it was prior to America's
invasion. The war in Afghanistan may finally end, but not before the close of this decade that began with that oh-so-carefully considered
decision to escalate it.
"We Are All Socialists Now," Newsweek declared on its cover in early 2009, when
it was still part of the prestige press (it is currently run by
a different sort of cult ).
Editor Jon Meacham, evincing the usual historical and political amnesia of airport bookstore historians, justified the claim by writing
that "for the foreseeable future Americans will be more engaged with questions about how to manage a mixed economy than about whether
we should have one." A mixed economy run according to Keynesian principles was, you may recall from reading slightly more rigorous
historians, the primary alternative to socialism on offer in the West throughout the twentieth century. The stimulus had been
large (if not large
enough ), but with $288 billion of it dedicated to tax credits and incentives for individuals and businesses, it scarcely resembled
socialism. Indeed, rather than giving Americans a greater hand in managing the economy, much of it was designed to be almost invisible.
This was intentional. In the May 6, 2009, issue of The New Republic , Franklin Foer and Noam Scheiber
described Obama's "Nudge-ocracy," a belief, inspired
by behavioral economics, that the best way for the government to create good outcomes for the people was not through "heavy-handed
market interventions" but via technocratic attempts to change the behavior of individuals and the incentives of market actors.
The problem with an unseen stimulus is that no one thinks it's helping them. Obama provided tax relief for nearly every working
American, but instead of sending citizens a check, as George W. Bush had done, his economists decided to structure it as a payroll
tax cut, subtly increasing the size of everyone's paycheck. The administration then
intentionally did not advertise the fact that
it had given nearly every working American a tax cut , in the hopes that people would be nudged into spending, rather than saving,
that extra cash. Predictably, in 2010,
one poll showed
that only 12 percent of Americans believed they'd received a tax cut; 24 percent thought Obama had raised their taxes.
The flaw in this strategy was apparent to another author at this magazine. In late 2009, John B. Judis
foresaw a presidency in serious political trouble, because
Obama's fortunes were tied not just to the state of the economy, or even economic trends, but to people's perceptions of the
state of the economy. Noting how Roosevelt "dramatized the New Deal's contribution to the economy" by creating "colorful new agencies,"
thereby "ensuring that Roosevelt was given credit for the rise in employment," Judis called on Obama to "introduce programs that
provide jobs and capture the public's imagination." He also suggested the president
turn a deaf ear to those who are calling for fiscal responsibility. He should keep pouring money into jobs and into the pockets
of people who will spend until the unemployment rate begins going down and wages begin going up.... And, whatever he does to try
to mend the economy, Obama should never stop loudly trumpeting his efforts -- so that he is able to reap the credit when improvements
occur.
Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all.
What Judis didn't consider, though, was that Obama didn't want to do any of those things. The president, along with economists
who worked for him such as Austan Goolsbee and Tim Geithner,
all pointedly rejected comparisons to
Roosevelt , based in part on a seemingly inaccurate understanding of the history of his first term but also seemingly based on
aesthetics: Roosevelt liked to wrestle his enemies in public, and Team Obama preferred to be above it all. It's hard to remember
now how wise everyone made it sound that the president and his team intentionally avoided doing things they worried would be too
popular, but there would not be another New Deal. Indeed, instead of ostentatious acts of helping people, the administration almost
preferred being seen standing athwart attempts to provide relief. A program that was supposed to help underwater homeowners
turned
down 70 percent of those applying for permanent loan modifications , even as over six million families lost their homes. The
point of the program was never actually to help people stay in their homes, of course; it was to
preserve the
finance industry by spacing out foreclosures. In the end, it achieved its aim: The banks today are as profitable as ever, while
more households are renting than in 50 years .
By far the most effective part of the Affordable Care Act, in terms of helping Americans get care, was simply expanding Medicaid.
But what many Democrats and liberals were most excited about was the bill's many experimental and technocratic attempts to "bend
the cost curve" -- reduce costs without price controls -- and "improve quality," mainly by encouraging insurers, with incentives,
to strive for outcomes that market forces alone weren't incentivizing them to aim for. The signature example of this may be the "Cadillac
tax," which was designed to nudge companies to force employees onto cheaper insurance plans with greater cost sharing -- a tax built
on the belief that one of the primary drivers of health care cost inflation was people taking advantage of their too-generous employers
and greedily consuming more health care than they needed. The tax never went into effect.
The individual mandate, similarly designed to force the healthiest
young invincibles to enter the market to bring down
costs, is equally dead. And a decade into the ACA, it has become more apparent than ever that the best way to reduce America's absurd
health care costs would simply be a single-payer program.
That is not to say that the ACA did not end up having the significant long-term political ramifications its drafters promised
it would. The primary non-Medicaid structure of the ACA, with its means-tested subsidies to purchase private insurance, had the predictable
effect of convincing some of its beneficiaries
that Obama and the Democratic Party had nothing to do with the government assistance they weren't sure they were getting. Then, as
costs rose and rose over the decade, that structure also
had the predictable effect of making people
who receive partially subsidized private care resentful of those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid.
Much of the decade we have just endured has shown how the Democratic addiction to dispensing benefits through the tax code in
complicated, indirect ways -- combined with the usual insufficiency of these benefits -- was nearly perfectly designed to foment
mass resentment of others, imagined or not, who might secretly be getting the Good Benefits.
The political scientist Suzanne Mettler coined the term "the submerged state" in 2010 to refer to the jungle of hidden government
"programs" designed not to call attention to themselves, often perpetuated not because they are still helping the neediest, but because
they are lucrative to the finance, insurance, and/or real estate industries.
One of her illustrations
of the effect of the submerged state is a graph showing how many people who used particular government programs admitted so only
after first telling researchers they'd received no assistance. That nearly 40 percent of people on Medicare claimed this is likely
attributable to ideology (and the fact that Medicare, like Social Security, was designed to make retirees feel like they had "paid
into it").
But when 60 percent of people who used tax-advantaged higher education savings accounts claim they received no government benefits,
as they did in Mettler's study, it's probably because tax-advantaged savings accounts are wholly inadequate to the problem of higher
education costs. Now combine this with a persistent belief (memorably
described by Ashley C. Ford a few years ago) that minorities -- black kids in particular -- get to go to college for free by
default, and stir in the rise of tuition costs and other expenses due to cutbacks in state investment in education. The result of
this cocktail of ignorant biases and inadequate solutions might look something like the year 2019.
"... My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden. ..."
"... Amfortas the hippie , December 21, 2019 at 5:40 pm ..."
"... that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday, again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides. ..."
"... "let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from whats really important " ..."
"... Hepativore , December 21, 2019 at 6:49 pm ..."
"... Happy winter Solstice, everyone! ..."
"... Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure to stop Sanders at all costs. ..."
Please bone up on US procedure. It's not good to have you confuse readers.
The Senate can't do anything until the House passes a motion referring the impeachment to
the Senate. The House ALSO needs to designate managers as part of that process.
Michael
Tracey argued that it's only Senate rules that require that the House formally transmit
the impeachment verdict. The Constitution says that the Senate has to try an impeached
president, and the Constitution trumps the Senate's rules. Logically, then, the Senate could
just modify its rules to try the president.
But the whole delay is weird and impeachment has only been done twice before, so not a lot
of precedent.
My paranoid fear is that Pelosi or McConnell might try to time the proceedings so as
to take Bernie and Warren off the campaign trail at a crucial moment, helping Biden.
that, and sucking the air out of the room for the primaries. When's super tuesday,
again? surely they can engineer it so that their "high drama" coincides.
"let's talk about universal material benefits" " ok, Vlad trying to distract us from
whats really important "
Anyway, the funny thing is, that Biden himself has said that he only wants to be a
one-term president. It makes me wonder if he knows that he has neither the energy or presence
of mind to hold the office, and that he is merely doing so because of establishment pressure
to stop Sanders at all costs. Plus, if the Democrats get the brokered convention they
are after, he can bow out, satisfied that he helped the DNC protect the donor class from the
Sanders threat.
Mark Galli, its current editor (who is leaving the publication in two weeks)
takes on Trump directly -- a courageous move on his part, as his magazine has largely been
apolitical. "The facts in this instance are unambiguous: the president of the United States
attempted to use his political power to coerce a foreign leader to harass and discredit one of
the president's political opponents," Galli writes. He draws the obvious conclusion for
Christians: "That is not only a violation of the Constitution; more importantly, it is
profoundly immoral." Galli goes further, digging into the behavior of the man in the Oval
Office, noting that Trump "has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration." He gets
specific: "He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals." As if
that wasn't enough, Galli adds, "He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his
relationship with women, about which he remains proud. His Twitter feed alone -- with its
habitual string of mischaracterizations, lies, and slanders -- is a near perfect example of a
human being who is morally lost and confused." Galli's warning to Christians is clear. "To the
many evangelicals who continue to support Mr. Trump in spite of his blackened moral record, we
might say this: remember who you are and whom you serve," Galli writes. "Consider how your
justification of Mr. Trump influences your witness to your Lord and Savior. Consider what an
unbelieving world will say if you continue to brush off Mr. Trump's immoral words and behavior
in the cause of political expediency. If we don't reverse course now, will anyone take anything
we say about justice and righteousness with any seriousness for decades to come?" Galli also
acknowledged Friday in an interview on CNN's "New Day" that his stand is unlikely to shake
loose Trump's strong hold on this voter segment, a crucial portion of his political base.
Galli's move is even more admirable when you consider that he published his editorial even
knowing that, as he said in his interview, he's not optimistic that his editorial will alter
Trump's support among white evangelicals. It's not a stretch to say that white evangelicals put
Trump into office in 2016. About
80% of them voted for him. They did so because of the abortion issue, mostly. They wanted
pro-life judges throughout the justice system. But this was a devil's bargain, at best.
<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us"
src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg">Faith
could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45,
have been slowly but steadily
moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key
topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always
been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color)
has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys
that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from
Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the
imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth
that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate,"
Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told
Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young
Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral
behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton,
there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for
myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always
forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
Humility lies at the heart of
Christian behavior. As does honesty. In these, Trump has set a terrible example, and he's now
been taken down for this by an important Christian voice. If only another 10 percent of
evangelicals take this seriously, and I suspect they will, Donald J. Trump's presidency is
destined for the ash heap of history.
Delaying the Senate trial erodes the Democrats' argument that impeachment was so urgent that
they could not wait for the courts to act on Trump's aggressive claims of privilege.
Seven Democratic presidential candidates who gathered on a debate stage in Los Angeles on
Thursday represent another argument for moving beyond impeachment.
... ... ...
Washington is fixated on the daily turns of the impeachment saga, but polls indicate that
most Americans are not. Business executive Andrew Yang pointed out that, even when the current
president is gone, the struggles of many people will remain, particularly in parts of the
country that helped elect Trump in 2016.
"We blasted away 4 million manufacturing jobs that were primarily based in Ohio, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Missouri. I just left Iowa -- we blasted 40,000 manufacturing jobs
there," Yang said. "The more we act like Donald Trump is the cause of all our problems, the
more Americans lose trust that we can actually see what's going on in our communities and solve
those problems."
That is what voters are waiting to hear, and the sooner the better for Democrats.
The Blairites foisted the U-turn on Brexit onto the party when most of the seats it held
in the old parliament, and most of the seats it needed to win, voted leave. Now the Blairites
are hypocritically blaming Corbyn for the result of their own policy. The election loss was
exactly what they wanted: Corbyn out of the way and Britain 'safe' for neo-liberalism.
BigB ,
31 mn people voted to extend the consensual mandate of the neoliberal capitalist state to
globally expand, extract and expropriate planetary wealth for themselves. Unconsciously:
without any consideration of the consequences. Now, nearly 11 mn of them want to pretend they
were duped into this because two films did not get released? Can there be a more deluded
abdication of self-responsibility? Without any inherent maturity at all: it's hard to see
where UK politic goes from here? What is the deepest spot a mile below the nadir? The
'People's Government' of Boris Johnson we co-constituted the reality of last week?
The election was for a successor capitalist imperialist state: the capitalist imperialist
state was duly elected. No one – no one – can then abdicate responsibility to say
it was the "wrong capitalist state". If people do not like this process – and it is the
most debilitating, dehumanising, and destructive of all processes – then it is their
social responsibility to at least explore the possibility of finding another process. In the
co-creation of superior/inferior status and co-determination of the master/slave dialectic
– we volunteer to choose position of the inferior and the enslaved. Then spend the
consensual contract term complaining about the subordinant class politics we voted for.
Projecting blame scattergun everywhere but where the blame is due: with the voters and
endorsers of globalised neoliberal capitalism.
Is no one else getting bored of this? Not just the embarassment of excuses we can find for
our own self-inferiorisation and voluntary infantalisation: but the fact that no one will
make a positive assessment of how to break this vortex cycle of self-defeatism and
performative powerlessness so we never have to go through the same charade again? Which, no
doubt we will in five years time. Unless we take it on the chin: and fess up to what we have
created as a social reality the Trump/Johnson axis of world power.
If this below and beyond the low point cannot act as a bifurcation point – whereby
we totally reject the state electoral inferiorisation process – I do not know what can.
It is unlikely there will be much left to reclaim in five years: much less so in ten. If we
cannot claim humanity and ecology back from neoliberal globalisation in the next few years
well, it ain't going to be pretty.
A good starting point would be to admit the corruption of the entire state electoral
process of inferiorisation: and take co-responsibility for our part in the election of
Johnson. Then the avowal never to do it again and take the legislative and judicial power we
abdicated back. Which is the socially responsible alternative to the drawnout emetic debrief
that seems to be favoured.
GEOFF ,
Great point BigB I think you're wasting your time they don't care what happens here so long
as they're out of the EU that is all that matters to them. I'm so happy I don't have any
grandchildren, although I fear for those that have, so sad all done in the name of getting
our country back, I wonder how they will feel if farage gets some kind of peerage, you know
the one that has been fighting the elites, and celebrating his birthday at the Ritz owned by
those two socially aware brothers barclay , ha ha ha ha .
smelly ,
We have the very few, the few, and the serfs. The politics of the world is driven by the
Economics of the very few. The very few have created for themselves a feudal system, its
informal, its hidden, but its highly functional and it accounts in large measure for the
global atrocities.
The chiefs (a very few) distribute to the feudal lords(the few) in a variety of ways.
1. direct government contracts
2. privatize the assets and government services that remain after regime change or infra
structure destruction of economic value from regime sex corrupted, blackmailed, regime
changed or defeated nation states and or from sweetheart deals in corporate takeovers.
3. appointment to and assignment to intelligence, or high level diplomatic positions in
defeated entities.
4. promotion to USA congress or the USA presidency or to a high level corporate job.
5. control of access of the goy to education, entry level jobs leading to the knowledge to be
promoted, to bank loans, to houses in neighborhoods, to medical care, and to a massive
variety of other things. They are all in on it together.
6. many others
The tools of the trade are coercion by any means available to include sex, blackmail, spy
technology, war machinery, military, intelligence, private armies, dark money and money
laundering operations to name but a few.
Dependency : it is
This is no longer a problem bounded by one nation, it has become a problem important to the
liberties and freedoms and the station of status of person in the society, membership in
clubs, obtaining credentials to be eligible for licenses (law, medicine, home building,
contracting, service provider, and everything else). License is a huge gate used to keep the
Goya
What Bexit has shown is that there is not a bit of difference between those governed by
any of the nation governments of any kind(they are controlled by the same few), we are just
the Goy or as Hilary Clinton puts it: the deplorables. No longer should we look at ourselves
as citizens of Britain, or Citizens of the United States, or citizens of France, or citizens
of Saudi Arabia, or citizens of Israel, or citizens of Libya, or whatever, we must recognize
that it is the many vs the few . from here on out. We must not identify and expose all of the
ways nation state leaders use or allows others to use information to control our behaviors
and to dictate our rights.
We must help each other no matter or sex, language, religion or nationality because they
have made us all one, but trying to control our lives from birth to death and by trying to
use us, at our expense, for their purposes.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
Professor Emeritus Vilfredo Pareto outlined the empirical skew of wealth transfer for 'the
few' as a function of culture whereby all have the same or similar wealth distribution.
Post-Lehman evidenced the wholesale destruction that empirical skew manifested on the Western
Banking System & concomitant ruling oiligopoly.
Empirically, the Western Fractional Reserve Banking System has crashed outright to
reveal
even greater skew after all the M&A post-Lehman debacle. In terms of wealth distribution
we are now in what Professor Emeritus Minsky characterized as Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism.
Amazon & Bezos are transnational, leveraged like a Hedge Fund, and a monopoly that was
legislated against during the 30s in the USA.
Today, in contemporary totalitarian society we are fed a daily diet of pseudoscience &
half-baked so-called 'truths' that serve to mask the lies & falsehood.
What is evidently true today is that the empirical skew of wealth has become a matter of
superstructural fault where the tectonic plates of sovereign nations are bound to give us all
degrees of continental shift in contradistinction to the empirical skew of wealth transfer
which is by no means immoveable.
Like gravity, what goes up must come down. Wealth hoarding sub-groups of elite will have
nowhere to hide when the avalanche cascades on top of them without notice before hand.
Six Sigma extinction level events exist for all empirical distributions given the right
conditions.
MOU
BigB ,
The other problem with 'the Few' analysis I have been trying to highlight is that we are in
it the Few that is. In terms of per capita mass aggregate consumption/pollution rates –
93% of us in the UK are in 'the Few'. Which holds for a rough Pareto Principle (80/20): we
are among the top 20% of consumers responsible for 70% of the lifestyle consumption emissions
[Anderson; LabourGND; Oxfam]. Which amounts to 28,000 tonnes per capita of aggregate material
flows: against a global average of 7,000 tonnes [Hickel]. In global consumption/pollution
terms: we are among the "wealth hoarding sub-groups of [the] elite" of the mass material
consumption bourgeoisie.
There are unfair distributions: and inequitable distributions between the haute
bourgeoisie and we in the bourgeoisie. But the greatest inequitable maldistribution is North
to South: where the poorest 50% of the global population are limited – by being
resource cursed and having to subsidise us – to 10% of lifestyle consumption emissions.
If you can call it a lifestyle; a consumer lifestyle; or a profligate pollution problem which
is doubtful? And it current rates of wealth redistribution: it will be 200-900 years before
they are out of poverty.
As for 'wealth hoarding sub-groups': we in the UK voted to extend the amount of mass
material material aggregate demand. Which is complex: because UK rates have been falling but
only because of the service economy. Rates of industrialisation and resource extractivism are
effectively exported. Global demand rises: and so must global supply. Our consumption
fetishism is driving global capitalism. Not solely: the whole of the developed world is.
It is this material economy that acts as a baseline – of sorts – for the
overfinancialised derivative, arbitrage, and highly leveraged stocks, bonds, and equities and
any other exotic financial instruments that can be gambled on. A market that is roughly 75
times the size of the material 'real' productive economy. The market that is likely being
subsidised by the repo- and other 'not QE' hypertrophic liquidity supplements. The market
that is going to collapse when the anabolic steroid effect fails to maintain exponential
growth. Professor Minsky will have his moment!
Whereupon the UK will quickly realise that it is a pissling little island in a sea of
globalisation. With an 80% tertiarised service economy. Servicing an extinct financial market
economy. With failing services and no food coming in from abroad. Or medicines. Or water
purification products. And possibly no energy. But we will have 60,000 military and
paramilitary police to uphold the private property rights of the haute bourgeoisie.
Maybe then we will see and feel what it is like for the rest of the world? Who we have
only ever viewed as subsidisers of our wealth? Just as we subsidise the wealth of those we
choose to be subordinate to. It's a shitty, shitty, system which the UK has done not too
badly out of. Well, enough for us to never look from the outside in through the eyes of a
Frantz Fannon: and try to change the system for a globally more equitable system free from
our white privileged ethnosupremacist racism.
We got the government we deserved – and voted for. And we await the fate of collapse
we deserve – and voted for. As John Michael Greer said: the UK is rushing to collapse
early to avoid the disappointment in the rush. We live in a complete fantasy bubble of a
post-Empire state of mind. As if other – dehumanised foreign – people and the
holistic integrity of the biosphere did not exist. Well, thanks to our lifestyle choices,
they may not for much longer. But the only thing that has perturbed our reserved compassion
and indifferent inhumanity is our election of a Johnson government. Well, that is an
indignity! But not even a fraction of an indignity that we are quite happy to violently
impose on the rest of the world. But let us pretend and console ourselves it would have been
a utopia if they had not held back those films.
Dungroanin ,
"We don't have to join too many dots to see why a discussion about Wikileaks, war crimes in
Iraq, and OPCW crimes in Syria was something the Tories didn't need,"
They also didn't need the Intelligence report of 'Russian' influence in their party and
government; the direct threat made by Pompeo to stop Labour, the deal which they have been
negotiating with the US which confirms the NHS is part of it amongst many other things
– as was confirmed by their Ambassador Woody (Of Johnson&Johnson fame who stand to
benefit hughy) ;the dangerous levels of capacity in the NHS; etc etc etc.
Anyway the Graun is claiming to run a ask us a question about the election now on their
blog – I've asked mine but am not holding my breath for an answer.
tonyopmoc ,
David Macilwain usually writes far better than this. In fact 90% of this, is the same sort of
nonsense, he has apparently been brainwashed with, by reading the Guardian et al.
He displays his own ignorance and arrogance, by yet again telling over 50% of The British
voting public that we didn't know what we were voting for re Brexit.
"not least because only 30% of that public actually voted for Brexit, and did so in
complete ignorance of what it might mean and because of their own long-standing
prejudices."
He analysed Skripal very well. This is total crap.
Tony
JudyJ ,
As soon as UK based Russian oligarchs are mentioned the presumption of many –
encouraged by Western media – is that they must be 'friends' of Putin or have 'close
connections' to him. In fact, in respect of most of them, it is exactly the opposite. They
are based in London precisely because the UK establishment doesn't clamp down on tax dodging
and corrupt business dealings as Putin has done since the beginning of his Presidential
tenures. Corrupt business owners donations to parties in power? Hmm, I wonder why it is that
they are given every encouragement and incentive to settle in London undisturbed?
This article is wrong to imply/assume that Brexiters/Lexiters didn't know what they were
voting for. Wrong to suggest/assume we did/do not have a strategy to try to help leave the
EU. Wrong to assume we are racist and/or stupid. Of course there are a few exceptions but on
the whole people know the score and we love the individual, distinct European countries; we
just despise the imperial, uber-technocratic, ultimately anti-democratic superstate that is
the EU.
See UK Column & similar websites, and the archive of Tony Benn/Barbara Castle/Peter
Shore/Bob Crow (on the reasons for disliking the EEC/EU/Maastrict & Lisbon Treaties etc)
for why so many people voted to leave the EU. I reckon when the options on who to vote for
were purposely limited by the LP (in the last few months after JC was forced to go along with
the PLP) and TBP (after Farage made a deal with Trump/Boris) many Brexiters (and a few
Lexiters?) were forced to vote for the Tories to give a message to the establishment? I am
guessing they thought the election would result in a hung parliament with the tories having
to ally with the DUP again.
Imo – I have a strong suspicion that the real result was a very close result (hung
parliament) and that the establishment using the secret services helped in some way to
engineer this landslide result (probably through postal ballot rigging). On the day of the
election many people observed and commented on the huge queues in the poll stations and
seeing so many young people voting like never before (including many photos on social media).
The result does not seem plausible and the status quo has/had so much to lose.
Incidentally, and this is obviously anecdotal but in my household (and as far as I know)
all my friends voted Labour or stayed at home (we are mostly Lexiters, don't-knows, and a
couple Brexiters) and only know quite well of two openlyTory voters (at my partners'
workplace). On the other hand, I do know my local area (which has been impoverished since the
Thatcher years) is a heavy leave-voting area and I reckon most people here lend their vote to
Tories for strategic reasons (I know a neighbour who wants the Tories to 'own' Brexit knowing
full well they will renege on all their promises and not just the Brexit promise – they
think Boris is a fake and wants to BRINO or, ultimately, even to remain).
I can only state what I observe and hear around me, and what I saw on social media during
the election, but I do know people are so much more informed than the establishment/media
would like to admit.
Francis Lee ,
I was shocked, yes shocked, to see the type sentiments espoused below.
"No-one could seriously believe that Brexit is something the ruling elite has pursued
because it respects the so-called democratic will of the British public – not least
because only 30% of that public actually voted for Brexit, and did so in complete ignorance
of what it might mean and because of their own long-standing prejudices.
That could have come from the mouth Jo Swinson, the Economist, the Guardian or any other
ultra-remainer rag.
It gets better, or worse depending on your point of view.
"Had the Government not had an interest in restructuring its relationship with the US and
NATO, and seen political and economic gains – well illustrated by the jump in the value
of Sterling following the result – then the idea of Brexit would just have quietly died
away."
Yep, it's those damn proles who voted for Brexit again and "did so in complete ignorance
of what that might mean and because of their own long-standing predudices." But of course!
Time to rethink the idea of universal suffrage perhaps. Actually those sort of sentiments
(see above) are precisely why Labour lost the election so heavily.
The point seems to be missed that euroland is an occupied zone and has been zone since
1945 – it is a neoliberal juggernaut and junior partner in the geopolitical global
order. In addition it is the civilian wing of NATO, another American construction. It is
based upon a core-periphery economic structure and upon a currency which locks its members
into a neoliberal straight-jacket, and since they cannot devalue the core runs up trade
surpluses whilst to periphery runs up permanent trade deficits. The euro currency is designed
to do precisely this. Moreover the Stability and growth pact robs states of their ability to
have an independent foreign and economic policy. The eastern and southern peripheries are
little more than colonies. Printing their own currencies – God forbid – is
strictly verboten, so that they cannot and will not recover. Taking Italy 137% of debt-to-gdp
ratio and Greece with a staggering 181% of debt-to-gdp you will get a pretty good picture of
what is happening in Euroland.
It really don't know why I have to explain all of this, particularly in light of the fact
that Corbyn himself has always been a eurosceptic, along with other notables such as Benn
(Sr.) Bryan Gould, Peter Shore and Barbara Castle, that was a unlike the present time when
Labour was Labour.
I think the Labour party has now gone to far to reverse course; it has become an
anachronism, and a neo-Blairite – ultra-remainer – is party now taking shape.
GEOFF ,
I've no idea why you keep going on about the EU , you got your way, we're leaving forget it,
lets see how good it's going to be in this shithole without some protection from the EU , why
do none of you address that, the slob has already started with his refusal to include workers
rights, the fat slob says we can have better employment protection once we leave ha ha ha ha
ha ha whats been stopping him from doing it for the last 40 years ? nothing. everyone is
entitled to their view obviously and I respect it, but you just shut us out as if your
opinion is all that matters, I would suggest 80% of those that voted leave know absolutely
nothing about the EU, I arrive at that by talking incessantly to people, who think they're
clued up and when you start pointing faults with their argument, you get the usual ' hey mate
I've only come in for a pint'
Francis Lee ,
"Share On Twitter" target="_blank"
href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=But+we+haven%26%238217%3Bt+left+it.+And+there+is+g...+&url=https%3A%2F%2Foff-guardian.org%2F2019%2F12%2F20%2Fofficial-secrets-lies-and-the-five-eyes%2F%23comment-107077">
But we haven't left it. And there is good reason to suppose that we never will. A BRINO is
being cooked up by a coalition of the usual suspects whose object is to end the existence of
the UK as an independent nation state and turn it into a province of a European super-state.
We will be voting – if at all – in the equivalent of local government or council
elections with decisions, with economic and geopolitical issues being decided by non-elected
technicians and bureaucrats.
Democracy is only meaningful at the national level. Democracy and Empire (the EU) or
should I say the EUSA, do not mix. Even Thucydides knew this.
GEOFF ,
But that happens here without the EU there are two pricks zac goldsmith and morgan, both been
rejected by the electorate , both been given a place in the H.O.L £305 a day , totally
unelcted but there to make our laws and you still won't see i twill you
Cassandra2 ,
Very much agree, I don't trust Boris to effect a clean break.
I generally trust my instincts like most normal plebs, but since the Lisbon Treaty Europe
has consolidate Federalisation, far removed from the original concept and principles of a
Common Market and my instincts prompted a closer look.
Delving deeper, an easy process given internet access, one discovers a cesspit of
deception. European Union is in reality the successor to the (totalitarian) Third Reich.
Refer to Christopher Story's YouTube 3 part lecture on the subject. EU was planned in 1942 by
a German social elite hierarchy in the likely event of Hitlers defeat. Key members of this
hierarchy were transferred (operation paperclip) to USA at the end of the war and were
integrated into a form of 5th column governing elite (power behind Deep State) who have since
1946 systematically hollowed the out the USA by undermining it's production base (excluding
military hardware production) and displacing economic investment through reckless
speculation/manipulation and perpetual global warfare.
Other than filling the Elites multi-trillion banking chest USA's resources and manpower
(Military & Intelligence) have been utilised to construct a global platform for imposing
a 'New World Order'. Europe's homogenization simply forms an essential part of this
ambition.
Given a cursory (pleb) assessment of Europe's widespread corruption, undemocratic
structure and it's true strategic purpose I cannot help but feel that those who voted
'remain' have had their critical faculties effectively lobotomized by Elite owned State MASS
INDOCTRINATION i.e. BBC et al.
MASTER OF UNIVE ,
Goldman Sachs engineered the entire EU finance by first fudging the books on Greece. The
whole edifice was built upon a shifting substrate of sand.
Castles made of sand float into the sea, eventually. Jimi Hendrix Axis Bold as Love
MOU
Francis Lee ,
"NOBODY voted for a HARD brexit onto WTO rules and the country should have been asked very
specifically if that is what the mythical 17 Million wanted."
'Nobody voted for a hard -Brexit.' Really!
How come you are privy to this "information?" It would be amusing to see you trying to
substantiate this statement.
And as for the 'mythical 17 million' (17.2 million actually) 'well, yes that must have
been a mirage; it didn't happen.
Strange times in which we live when conjecture is treated as if it were fact. Yep, that is
one of the hallmarks of the totalitarian mindset. In his marvellous essay, 'Notes on
Nationalism' Orwell captures this frame of mind perfectly. He writes:
"By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be
classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people'
(Leave voters by any chance?) "can be labelled 'good' or 'bad' But secondly (and this is much
more important) I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a particular nation, political
party, religious group or even football team, placing it beyond good and evil and recognising
no other duty than that of advancing its interests" (Remainers perhaps?)
Moreover, "although endlessly brooding on power, victory, defeat or revenge, the
nationalist is somewhat uninterested in what happens in the real world. What he wants is to
feel that his own unit is getting the better of some other unit, and he can more easily do
this off an adversary than by examining the facts to see whether or not they support his
views Arguments with his adversaries are always inconclusive since each of the contestants
believe themselves always right and always winning the victory (in the sight of God
anyway).
Some of the true believers are not far from clinical schizophrenia, living quite happily
amid dreams of power and conquest which have no connexion with the physical world."
Sadly true.
Dungroanin ,
WE will NOT let YOU forget the VoteLEAVE bs. Paul & co.
Here is Vote Leave NOT saying we are going onto WTO rules:
'The day after nothing changes legally. There is no legal obligation on the British
Government to take Britain out of the EU immediately. There will be three stages of creating
a new UK-EU deal – informal negotiations, formal negotiations, and implementation
including both a new Treaty and domestic legal changes. There is no need to rush. We must
take our time and get it right.
WHAT'S THE OVERALL FRAMEWORK WE NEED?
Overall, the negotiations will create a new European institutional architecture that
enables all countries, whether in or out of the EU or euro, to trade freely and cooperate in
a friendly way. In particular, we will negotiate a UK-EU Treaty that enables us 1) to
continue cooperating in many areas just as now (e.g. maritime surveillance), 2) to deepen
cooperation in some areas (e.g. scientific collaborations and counter-terrorism), and 3) to
continue free trade with minimal bureaucracy. The details will have to await a serious
negotiation but there are many agreements between the EU and other countries that already
solve these problems so we will be able to take a lot 'off the shelf'.'
Etc. http://www.voteleavetakecontrol.org/briefing_newdeal.html
AND HERE IS FACT CHECK
'As far as we've seen, Leave campaigners hardly mentioned the customs union in explicit
terms at all, so there was generally little clarity about what leaving might mean in that
regard.'
&
'There are also examples of leave campaigners claiming the UK could adopt a position similar
to Norway -- which is still part of the single market while not being an EU member.
Arron Banks, a founder of the Leave.EU campaign tweeted in November 2015 "Increasingly the
Norway option looks the best for the UK".'
This article has clarified the main targets for the globalists but where do you think
Brexit stands in their agenda, do they want out of the EU or not? I am confused which side is
in favour of freedom and liberty and which one wants global centralised command and
control.
BEIJING, Dec. 21 (Xinhua) -- The
phase-one economic and trade deal between China and the United States benefits both sides and
the whole world, Chinese President Xi Jinping said Friday.
In a phone conversation with his U.S. counterpart, Donald Trump, Xi noted that the two
countries have reached the phase-one agreement on the basis of the principle of equality and
mutual respect.
Against the backdrop of an extremely complicated international environment, the agreement
benefits China, the United States, as well as peace and prosperity of the whole world, Xi
said.
For his part, Trump said that the phase-one economic and trade agreement reached between
China and the United States is good for the two countries and the whole world.
Noting that both countries' markets and the world have responded very positively to the
agreement, Trump said that the United States is willing to maintain close communication with
China and strive for the signing and implementation of the agreement at an early date.
Xi stressed that the economic and trade cooperation between China and the United States has
made significant contributions to the stability and development of China-U.S. relations and the
advancement of the world economy.
Modern economy and modern technologies have integrated the world as a whole, thus making the
interests of China and the United States more intertwined with each other, Xi said, adding that
the two sides will experience some differences in cooperation.
As long as both sides keep holding the mainstream of China-U.S. economic and trade
cooperation featuring mutual benefits and win-win outcomes, and always respect each other's
national dignity, sovereignty and core interests, they will overcome difficulties on the way of
progress, and push forward their economic and trade relations under the new historical
conditions, so as to benefit the two countries and peoples, Xi said.
China expresses serious concerns over the U.S. side's recent negative words and actions on
issues related to China's Taiwan, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, Xi said.
He noted that the U.S. behaviors have interfered in China's internal affairs and harmed
China's interests, which is detrimental to the mutual trust and bilateral cooperation.
China hopes that the United States will seriously implement the important consensuses
reached by the two leaders over various meetings and phone conversations, pay high attention
and attach great importance to China's concerns, and prevent bilateral relations and important
agendas from being disturbed, Xi said.
Trump said he is looking forward to maintaining regular communication with Xi by various
means, adding he is confident that both countries can properly handle differences, and
U.S.-China relations can maintain smooth development.
Xi said he is willing to maintain contacts with Trump by various means, exchange views over
bilateral relations and international affairs, and jointly promote China-U.S. relations on the
basis of coordination, cooperation and stability.
The two heads of state also exchanged views on the situation of the Korean Peninsula. Xi
stressed that it is imperative to stick to the general direction of a political settlement,
saying all parties should meet each other halfway, and maintain dialogue and momentum for the
mitigation of the situation, which is in the common interests of all.
"... Since 2001, America has increasingly turned global economic and financial networks into weapons that can be used against adversaries. As we showed in earlier research, financial networks such as the "dollar clearing system" and the SWIFT messaging service, which provide foundations for the global financial system, have been used by the United States to gather intelligence and to isolate entire economies, such as Iran, from the global financial system. ..."
"... As we discuss in a new article in Foreign Affairs , other countries are beginning to think about how they can best respond: by threatening retaliation, by creating their own networks, or by insulating themselves from U.S. pressure. ..."
"America weaponized the global financial system. Now other states are fighting back." [
WaPo ].
" Since 2001, America has increasingly turned global economic and financial networks
into weapons that can be used against adversaries. As we showed in earlier research, financial
networks such as the "dollar clearing system" and the SWIFT messaging service, which provide
foundations for the global financial system, have been used by the United States to gather
intelligence and to isolate entire economies, such as Iran, from the global financial
system.
Control of these networks allows the United States to issue "secondary sanctions" against
countries, businesses or individuals that it wants to target, obliging non-U.S. actors to
adhere to the sanctions or risk substantial penalties.
Now, these tools are leading to backlash and reaction. As we discuss in a new
article in Foreign Affairs , other countries are beginning to think about how they can best
respond: by threatening retaliation, by creating their own networks, or by insulating
themselves from U.S. pressure.
So from now on the party which hold the House can start impeachment process on false premises
the day the President from other party was elected. As simple as that.
That open a huge can to worms for future Presidents,
Notable quotes:
"... Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and that isn't good for the future ..."
I don't know anything about politics but i know that impeaching a president with radical
fans might not be the smartest move for a country that's all ready divided , just my
opinion.
The claim its a danger to our constitution when they have no pronlem with infringing our
2nd Amendment, 1st Amendment and pledge to do away with the elctorial college...
Hypocrisy
Let me explain something. This will set a precedent for house of reps to come. When we
have a liberal president and a republican house we will do the same and impeach him for
nothing because this just shows that if you own the house you can impeach him for nothing and
that isn't good for the future
Trump is doing a great job,and doing every thing he promises. The only high crime was
defying Dems authority.He has become a clear and present danger to their chances of ever
winning another election.
According to "Electoral Reform Society", all votes are not equal in UK:
Across Britain, it took...
🗳️864,743 votes to elect 1 Green MP
🗳️642,303 votes to elect 0 Brexit Party MPs
🗳️334,122 votes to elect a Lib Dem
🗳️50,817 votes for a Labour MP
🗳️38,316 votes for a Plaid Cymru MP
🗳️38,300 votes for a Con. MP
🗳️25,882 votes for a SNP MP
But then again, who said Britain with its monarchy, is a democracy?
The problem is that in a disunited kingdom, Conservatives with Tories only represent the
English and the Northern Ireland Oranje (through Unionists). Corbyn's problem was that he
didn't rid of his Rightwing faction, including "Friends of Israel" in Leadership
positions.
He grew Labor more than the Neo-Liberal Blair did.
You make the same mistake that Democrats did after 2016. It is not about the total number
of votes. Britain has a parliamentary system. It is about winning each parliamentary seat.
Just as in the US, it is about winning the electoral votes in each state. Boris won a
landslide according to the electoral rules that was the same for each party contesting the
election.
The question that Labor needs to ask is why did they lose seats that Labor has held for 50
or more years? Not whining about the rules of the election.
Labour won a single seat in London, in a wealthy neighborhood, and lost dozens in some of
the poorest parts of the U.K. that have endured years of economic decline. Left-wing
parties across the west have lost touch with actual marginalized communities.
Reflection is not a quality that mainstream politicians have. Got to blame someone else.
Surprised they haven't blamed Putin or Ukraine yet :-)
That tweet thread was very instructive. Amazing that areas that were solid Labor for so
long deserted them this election. Something they should really think hard about.
The first person who brought the Russians in to this discussion is Blue Peacock, except the
CONSERVATIVES who convicted the Skripal Affair. Indeed, reflection IS rear
You are making a mistake. Corbyn grew the Labor party MORE than Blair, Kinnock,...
The flair you described in British electoral system is by design to ensure the rule of the
crown, neo-feudal minions, nobility & "novo-nobility" with an appearance of consent. The
"redistricting" in Britain is similar to US & different in the sense that is permanent
(contradiction in terms) due to the the immigration- & social mobility differences.
Also, Scotland, one of Labor's main bastions, is sick & tired of the waiting to reform
the Albion and understandably just wants to separate their ways. I observe, but do not judge,
the fact of the matter being that the vote of the majority of Britain's doesn't count towards
determining the rule of the land. Similar to a LOT of countries but dissimilar in the sense
that their ruling class uses the "voting spectacle" as a public patch to lecture the others
about democracy (electoral college) & human rights (Assange torture).
You are right in the sense that Corbyn was not firm enough to get ride of the Trojan
Blairites. He needed to be less compromising and at least "market" (whether to deliver or
not, is another matter) a more radical solution as Boarish Johnson did: E.g. a terrorist act
happens on London bridge, by a Jihadist - on parole (??) during election time - under
Israel-Firster Priti Patel & Corbyn gets the blame!? Conservatives were in power and run
the prisons and the judiciary. Corbyn missed the necessary viciousness and was weak,
considering he did not make a HUGE scandal out of this with Johnson being weak on terrorism
(which is true, as we all know that MI-5/6 exports Jihadists to Syria and runs NGO's to the
benefit of Jihadis).
On a "two tier" or "multi tier" EU, that is a possibility sometimes mentioned. I recollect it
was mentioned by the German Ambassador at a talk he gave a while ago, and there is sometimes
press reference to the idea. It would get over the Target 2 problem and also make the problem
of fiscal transfer less urgent.
The question is, how would one get to two tier? Last time I looked the Target 2 balances
were around a trillion and represented one half of Germany's foreign assets. The Southern
countries couldn't pay that back and the German public would not accept, I think, half their
foreign assets being written off.
This is the problem with the EU. It's not a single unified country. Nor is it merely a
loose trading association. It's half way between the two and it is forced to keep moving
towards further unification simply because remaining as it is is untenable.
But moving either way is difficult too. There are the populist movements that either
threaten the integrity of the EU or at least hold it back from further unification. There are
the structural problems of the EZ that could only be resolved by further unification. And
that resolution would require the taxpayers in the richer countries to pay far more to the
poorer countries. Certainly in Germany that would prove politically difficult.
Brussels has committed itself to fast track further unification. It looks to me like
someone on ice having to run faster and faster to keep his balance. That view might be
coloured by the fact that I like neither the political side of the EU nor its effect on the
peripheral countries, but it's important to recognise that in addition to the financial
bubble problems all Western countries or entities face, the EU/EZ has deep structural
problems that will not be easy to resolve.
Well, Corbyn grew Labour between in 2015-2017, before outing himself as a closet-Remainer.
After that, he lost it all between 2017-2019.
On the second point, you are quite correct: far from ridding Labour of its "Friends of
Israel" wing, he actually allowed them to force him to rid Labour of his own pro-Palestinian
allies!
Any way you slice it, Corbyn was just weak and pathetic.
If true this china capitulation. Or some shrewd tactical maneuver, as the next year it is
China who hold trump cards -- it can derail Trump re-election with ease.
I have my doubts about Trump being the Grand Dealmaker he calls himself. Looking at seven
bankruptcies as a proof of that ... mythical skill I don't find much. I recall Trump suing the
Deutsche Bank after the bank wanted a credit back. His lawyers in court referred to the bank
crisis, called the Deutsche Bank as a bank responsible for that and said that thus they don't
deserve repayment. that was Chutzpah in the First Degree, For very obvious reasons Trump lost
that case and did pay back.
When Trunmp recently went on searching lawyers to work and sue for him he didn't find any. A
big corp lawyer anonymously briefly explained why: "Doesn't pay. Doesn't listen.'
A US-China trade deal was announced to chaotic fanfare late Friday Asian time – and we
are sceptical. First, we still don't have details other than that December tariffs were
postponed by both sides, the 15% US tariffs imposed on 1 September are to be reduced to 7.5% as
a sign of goodwill, and the 25% tariffs on USD250bn stay in place . Second, we aren't going to
get a signing ceremony between the US and Chinese leaders, which does not send an encouraging
signal. And third, what we see is close to the terms we previously criticized for being
unrealistic in reports such as 'A Great Deal of Nonsense" and "LOL-A-PLAZA".
The US Trade Representative (USTR) says the final text of the phase one
agreement is still being finalised, and he will sign it early next year for a likely incept
date of end-January 2020. The areas covered include: Intellectual Property (IP); Technology
Transfer; Agriculture; Financial Services; Currency; Expanding Trade; and Dispute Resolution.
Each of these promises much and yet potentially delivers little.
China has pledged to address issues of geographical indications, trademarks, and enforcement
against pirated and counterfeit goods. That's just after a Chinese court ruled that Japanese
retailer Muji doesn't own its own name in China and a local rival started years afterwards
does. Enforcement matters, not promises: more on that in a moment.
China has agreed to end forcing or pressuring foreign companies to transfer their tech as a
condition for obtaining market access or administrative approvals. Again, enforcement is all
that matters here. China also " commits to refrain from directing or supporting outbound
investments aimed at acquiring foreign technology pursuant to industrial plans that create
distortion. " That is China's reason for outbound investment! For example, Sweden's Defence
Research Agency just released a detailed survey of Chinese corporate acquisitions in their
country showing at least half are correlated with the "Made in China 20205" plan.
China will " support a dramatic expansion of US food, agriculture and seafood product
exports " , with the USTR stating the target is to jump to USD40bn in 2020, a USD16bn increase
over the pre-trade war level of USD24bn, and to aim for USD50bn. Part of that reflects China's
decimated pork herd, so is hardly a concession. Yet it is hard to conceive of how the total
figure can be achieved without China using the US to displace agri imports from other nations,
e.g., Argentinean and Brazilian soy, and perhaps Aussie and Kiwi farm goods. That also
increases China's economic exposure to the US at a time of rising geopolitical tensions between
the two (see news of the US' secret expulsion of two Chinese diplomats), and US' farmers
exposure to China in kind. For its part, the Chinese press are not mentioning these US hard
targets, and are talking about WTO trading terms, which bodes poorly.
The financial services chapter pledges China to an opening up already underway as it
searches for new sources of USD inflows, so again is not a concession. Interestingly, it also
says US ratings agencies will get access – which will be fun given the evident credit
stresses emerging in China just as US banks will be trying to sell China as an investment
destination. .
On currency the US is requiring "high-standard commitments" to refrain from competitive
devaluations and targeting of exchange rates. Everyone knows the CNY is not freely-traded
– but also that China is doing its best to prop it up, not to try to push it lower. The
key message is CNY is not going to be allowed to do what it ought to be doing, i.e., weakening,
as China is pledging new fiscal stimulus in 2020 that will decrease its external surplus. That
runs counter to market forces, and smacks of a kind of Plaza Accord. Of course, as long as this
US-China agreement holds that might be sustainable due to the promised higher capital
inflows...
Eexcept the expanding trade chapter implies the opposite. The USTR says China is pledging to
boost its 2020 imports of US goods and services by USD100bn over the level in 2017, and by
USD100bn again in 2021, for a total increase of USD200bn . Given 2017 was pre-trade war and US
exports to China dropped off a cliff in 2019, this means around a 110% y/y increase in
purchases in 2020 – and agri is only a portion of that. The problems should be obvious.
How can a slowing Chinese economy (imports are down y/y from most sources), see this kind of
increase without substituting US for world exports or local goods? How can a China with a USD
liquidity shortage serious enough to be driving said lowered import bill, and
'1USD-in/1USD-out' de facto capital controls, cope with the net reduction on the trade side? As
of November, the 12-month rolling Chinese global trade surplus with the US it was USD330bn and
globally was USD440bn. We are talking about reducing that US figure by 2/3 and the global total
by 1/2!
Which brings us to the last chapter: Dispute Resolution. Getting China to comply is far
harder than getting it to sign. The USTR notes the agreement " establishes strong procedures
for addressing disputes related to the agreement and allows each party to take proportionate
responsive actions that it deems appropriate ." In other words, each side can unilaterally do
what they want when they want! So much for the unilateral US control of the process.
So how to see this in summary? The reduction in tariffs from 15% to 7.5% is a positive,
albeit far less than the Wall Street Journal had promised. (NB, the USTR took the
extraordinary step of publicly chastising the WSJ journalists who wrote that story –
regular readers may recall I have also called them out more than once in the past.) Indeed, if
China really has agreed to all that is stated here then further incremental tariff rollbacks
can be seen – though the USTR has said the 25% tariffs will stay as collateral for a
phase two deal that nobody really expects to happen. Yet the terms of this phase one still seem
to be A Great Deal of Nonsense. How can China stop buying foreign tech? How can it buy as much
US stuff as pledged? How can it do so and not undermine the WTO? How can it do so and not
weaken CNY? And how can it do so with a strong CNY without increasing its USD debts, its
strategic reliance on the USD, and to US goods? In short, if China does as the USTR claims, the
US is a huge winner here (and there are lots of losers); if China does not comply with what
look an impossible import targets, then the US can frame China as the bad guy and the tariffs
can go back up again. Arguably, the question is not if that will happen, but when.
The geographic maps of recent Western elections, look remarkably similar across the world.
Brexit, Kurz, Trump, Bolsonaro, Duterte, Khan, Salvini & Di Maio as well as the rise of
the AfD in Germany all evidence a strikingly similar pattern.
Urban centers are trying to hold on to the status quo for dear life.
The rest of the country that could be defined as the (usually) silent majority, has had
enough.
This vote was no surprise.
We have reached one of those historical junctures that are brought about by the same old
political tactics.
A centralized monetary system that is coopted for political power.
Fiscal deficits have a very well defined, if not understood, life cycle. The end of the
cycle has been the same across the ages.
Many more "surprising" political outcomes to come in the following months.
They will gingerly exchange the regulated EU economy for the freewheeling American economy - and hasn't that economy worked
so well for American workers.
If so, that's a good thing, for the regulated EU economy has treated Britons and Europeans even worse. The EU regulations, treaties
and policies are overall highly destructive to workers, massive welfare for the rich. What remains of European Social Democracy and
welfare states obscure the fact that US workers are actually treated better by their nation's fundamental economic policies and structures.
Europe as a whole is MORE unequal, more of a class society than the USA, not less.
Brexit is a good thing, a leftist, progressive policy. It's jumping completely off the hot stove, not into the fire. The British,
who preferred Labour's other policies, felt that the merits of Brexit outweighed all the other negatives of the Tories. They might
be right.
It is very difficult to collect my thoughts into something coherent after four hours sleep
in the last 48 hours, but these are heads of key issues to be developed later.
I have no doubt that the Johnson government will very quickly become the most unpopular in
UK political history. The ultra-hard Brexit he is pushing will not be the panacea which the
deluded anticipate. It will have a negative economic impact felt most keenly in the remaining
industry of the Midlands and North East of England. Deregulation will worsen conditions for
those fortunate enough to have employment, as will further benefits squeezes. Immigration will
not in practice reduce; what will reduce are the rights and conditions for the immigrants.
Decaying, left-behind towns will moulder further. The fishing industry will very quickly be
sold down the river in trade negotiations with the EU – access to fishing (and most of
the UK fishing grounds are Scottish) is one of the few decent offers Boris has to make to the
EU in seeking market access. His Brexit deal will take years and be overwhelmingly fashioned to
benefit the City of London.
There is zero chance the Conservatives will employ a sizeable number of extra nurses: they
just will not be prepared to put in the money. They will employ more policemen. In a couple of
years time they will need them for widespread riots. They will not build any significant
portion of the hospitals or other infrastructure they promised. They most certainly will do
nothing effective about climate change. These were simply dishonest promises. The NHS will
continue to crumble with more and more of its service provision contracted out, and more and
more of its money going into private shareholders' pockets (including many Tory MPs).
The disillusionment will be on the same scale as Johnson's bombastic promises. The
Establishment are not stupid and realise there will be an anti-Tory reaction. Their major
effort will therefore be to change Labour back into a party supporting neo-liberal economic
policy and neo-conservative foreign (or rather war) policy. They will want to be quite certain
that, having seen off the Labour Party's popular European style social democratic programme
with Brexit anti-immigrant fervour, the electorate have no effective non-right wing choice at
the next election, just like in the Blair years.
To that end, every Blairite horror has been resurrected already by the BBC to tell us that
the Labour Party must now move right – McNicol, McTernan, Campbell, Hazarayika and many
more, not to mention the platforms given to Caroline Flint, Ruth Smeeth and John Mann. The most
important immediate fight for radicals in England is to maintain Labour as a mainstream
European social democratic party and resist its reversion to a Clinton style right wing ultra
capitalist party. Whether that is possible depends how many of the Momentum generation lose
heart and quit.
Northern Ireland is perhaps the most important story of this election, with a seismic shift
in a net gain of two seats in Belfast from the Unionists, plus the replacement of a unionist
independent by the Alliance Party. Irish reunification is now very much on the agenda. The
largesse to the DUP will be cut off now Boris does not need them.
For me personally, Scotland is the most important development of all. A stunning result for
the SNP. The SNP result gave them a bigger voter share in Scotland than the Tories got in the
UK. So if Johnson got a "stonking mandate for Brexit", as he just claimed in his private school
idiom, the SNP got a "stonking mandate" for Independence.
I hope the SNP learnt the lesson that by being much more upfront about Independence than in
the disastrous "don't mention Independence" election of 2017, the SNP got spectacularly better
results.
I refrained from criticising the SNP leadership during the campaign, even to the extent of
not supporting my friend Stu Campbell when he was criticised for doing so (and I did advise him
to wait until after election day). But I can say now that the election events, which are
perfect for promoting Independence, are not necessarily welcome to the gradualists in the SNP.
A "stonking mandate" for Independence and a brutal Johnson government treating Scotland with
total disrespect leaves no room for hedge or haver. The SNP needs to strike now, within weeks
not months, to organise a new Independence referendum with or without Westminster
agreement.
If we truly believe Westminster has no right to block Scottish democracy, we need urgently
to act to that effect and not just pretend to believe it. Now the election is over, I will
state my genuine belief there is a political class in the SNP, Including a minority but
significant portion of elected politicians, office holders and staff, who are very happy with
their fat living from the devolution settlement and who view any striking out for Independence
as a potential threat to their personal income.
You will hear from these people we should wait for EU trade negotiations, for a decision on
a section 30, for lengthy and complicated court cases, or any other excuse to maintain the
status quo, rather than move their well=paid arses for Independence. But the emergency of the
empowered Johnson government, and the new mandate from the Scottish electorate, require
immediate and resolute action. We need to organise an Independence referendum with or without
Westminster permission, and if successful go straight for UDI. If the referendum is blocked,
straight UDI it is, based on the four successive election victory mandates.
With this large Tory majority, there is nothing the SNP MPs can in practice achieve against
Westminster. We should now withdraw our MPs from the Westminster Parliament and take all
actions to paralyse the union. This is how the Irish achieved Independence. We will never get
Independence by asking Boris Johnson nicely. Anyone who claims to believe otherwise is a fool
or a charlatan.
-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
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article, but welcome the alternative voice, insider information and debate.
Money quote: "Johnson will have to work superhard on this if he is to re-create not the
Thatcher coalition but the Disraeli nation. That's what he means when he talks about "One Nation
Conservatism." That was Disraeli's reformist conservatism of the 19th century, a somewhat
protectionist, supremely patriotic alliance between the conservative elites and the ordinary man
and woman. It will take a huge amount of charm and policy persistence to cement that coalition if
it is to last more than one election. But if Boris pulls that off, he will have found a new
formula designed to kill off far-right populism, while forcing the left to regroup."
Notable quotes:
"... But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy ..."
Brexit is an eruption of English nationalism, and the Tories are now, under that shambling
parody of a drunk racist English aristo, Johnson, an English nationalist party.
IMHO this is highly questionable statement. Brexit is a form of protest against neoliberal
globalization. The fact that is colored with nationalism is the secondary effect/factor:
rejection of neoliberalism is almost always colored in either nationalist rhetoric, or Marxist
rhetoric.
Here are some quotes from paleoconservative analysis of the elections taken from two recent
articles:
While I do not share their enthusiasm about "Red Tories" rule in the UK, and the bright
future for "Trumpism without Trump" movement in the USA, they IMHO provide some interesting
insights into paleoconservatives view on the British elections results and elements of social
protest that led to them:
[AS] It is clearer and clearer to me that the wholesale adoption of critical race, gender,
and queer theory on the left makes normal people wonder what on earth they're talking about
and which dictionary they are using. The white working classes are privileged? A woman can
have a penis? In the end, the dogma is so crazy, and the language so bizarre, these natural
left voters decided to listen to someone who
does actually speak their language , even if in an absurdly plummy accent.
[AS] But just as important, he moved the party sharply left on austerity, spending on
public services, tax cuts for the working poor, and a higher minimum wage. He outflanked the
far right on Brexit and shamelessly echoed the left on economic policy . ... This is
Trumpism without Trump. A conservative future without an ineffective and polarizing nutjob at
the heart of it. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new immigration
system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on the working
poor, not the decadent rich. Unlike Trump, he will stop E.U. mass migration, and pass a new
immigration system, based on the Australian model. Unlike Trump, he will focus tax cuts on
the working poor, not the decadent rich. It's very much the same movement of left-behind
people expressing their views on the same issues, who, tragically, put their trust in Trump.
What we've seen is how tenacious a voting bloc that now is, which is why Trumpism is here to
stay. If we could only get rid of the human cancer at the heart of it.
[AS] Trump has bollixed it up, of course. He ran on Johnson's platform but gave almost all
his tax cuts to the extremely wealthy, while Johnson will cut taxes on the poor. Trump talks
a big game on immigration but has been unable to get any real change in the system out of
Congress. Johnson now has a big majority to pass a new immigration bill, with Parliament in
his control, which makes the task much easier. Trump is flamingly incompetent and unable to
understand his constitutional role. Boris will assemble a competent team, with Michael Gove
as his CEO, and Dom Cummings as strategist.
[AS] If Johnson succeeds, he'll have unveiled a new formula for the Western right: Make no
apologies for your own country and culture; toughen immigration laws; increase public
spending on the poor and on those who are "just about managing"; increase taxes on the very
rich and redistribute to the poor; focus on manufacturing and new housing; ignore the woke;
and fight climate change as the Tories are (or risk losing a generation of support).
[RD] I have no idea why the Republicans are so damned silent on wokeness, including the
transgender madness. No doubt about it, the American people have accepted gay marriage and
gay rights, broadly. But the Left will not accept this victory in the culture war. They
cannot help bouncing the rubble, and driving people farther than they are willing to go, or
that they should have to go. It's the elites -- and not just academic elites. Every week I
get at least two e-mails from readers sending me examples of transgender wokeness taking over
their professions -- especially big business. People hate this pronoun crap, but nobody dares
to speak out against it, because they are afraid of being doxxed, cancelled, or at least
marginalized in the workplace.
[RD] My friend said (I paraphrase):
"Can you blame people for not answering pollsters' questions? Everybody is told all the
time that the things they believe, and the things they worry about, are backwards and
bigoted. They have learned to keep it to themselves. It's the same thing here. I hate
Donald Trump, but I'm probably going to end up voting for him, because at least he doesn't
hate my sons. I want a good future for every child -- black, Latino, white, all of them --
but the Left thinks my sons are what's wrong with the world
[RD] Boris (and Sully) style Toryism is better than nothing, isn't it? As a general rule,
in this emerging post-Christian social and political order, we conservative Christians had
better not let the unachievable perfect be the enemy of the common-sense good enough.
"... I think the current period can be called the “collapse of neoliberalism” period. In any case the neoliberal elite who was in power (Blairists, Clintonists) lost the trust of people. This is true both for the US and labour in the UK. In this sense the anti-Semitic smear against Corbin is equivalent to neo-McCarthyism hysteria in the USA. Both reflect the same level of desperation and clinging to power of “soft neoliberals.” ..."
It’s time to stop pretending we’re still in the postwar period (the question is, are we in a pre-war one).
True. As “Full Spectrum Dominance” inevitably lead to “threat inflation” it is logically drives the USA into the major war.
I think the current period can be called the “collapse of neoliberalism” period. In any case the neoliberal elite who was
in power (Blairists, Clintonists) lost the trust of people. This is true both for the US and labour in the UK. In this sense the
anti-Semitic smear against Corbin is equivalent to neo-McCarthyism hysteria in the USA. Both reflect the same level of desperation
and clinging to power of “soft neoliberals.”
Unfortunately Corbin proved to be too weak to withstand the pressure and suppress Blairists. But Blairists in labour might
still be up to a great disappointment. The history train left the station and they are still standing on the neoliberal platform,
so to speak.
That’s why Brexit, as a form of protest against neoliberal globalization, has legs. It is a misguided, but still a protest
movement.
From now on, only the rich will have the luxury of any sense of historical continuity.
The rich are not uniform. Financial oligarchy wants to stay, while manufacturers probably would prefer Brexit.
Why did so many people – from government contractors and high-ranking military officers, to state department and National
Security Council officials – feel the need to lie about how the war in Afghanistan was going?
This is because it’s easy cash cow for the old boys club by sending working class kids to be killed in a far off land.
The pentagon with the full cooperation of MSM will sell it as we are defending our ways of life by fighting a country 10,000
kms away.
This show the poor literacy, poor analytical thinking of US population constantly brain washed by MSM, holy men, clergy,
other neo con organisations like National rifle club etc.
and
manoftheworld -> Redswordfish 10 Dec 2019 15:47
Perhaps the only thing Trump has got right .. and ever will get right.. is his dislike for war. He is right about Afghanistan.
The terrible US press and political reaction to his peace talks with the Taliban showed that the deep state still doesn’t
get it…
Mattis, Graham et al are insane liars… and so is Hilary Clinton and Petraeus… none of them has ever had the guts to tell
the truth…
the average American is way more indoctrinated than the average pupil at a madrasa. …we should boot these lying American
generals out of NATO.. they’re a threat to world peace…
In any case Brexit is a litmus test of what is the next stage for neoliberalism and neoliberal globalization.
Corbyn's defeat was entirely due to the treachery of the engrained leadership of the Labour
Party.
While the membership is generally radical and socialist, 80% of the MPs, local
councillors, Union Officers and party officials were put there by the Blairites and are
almost impossible to remove from the offices in which they have enormous potential
influence.
Corbyn was in an almost impossible position but his mistake was, characteristically, to
assume a higher degree of good will and loyalty to the 'cause' than most MPs, careerists,
contemptuous of ordinary people and desperate for the approval-in a society which is famous
for its social snobbery- of the ruling Establishment.
It is significant that, whereas Johnson expelled dozens of MPs from the Tory party, Labour
expelled only one-Chris Williamson on the basis of an obviously idiotic charge of
antisemitism on his part.
Sometimes left wing winners have to be ready to fight to the death to secure the mandates
they are given and in doing so to damage the opposition. In this case the Blairites.
Sometimes betraying the working class and the poor takes the form of refusing to be
ruthless.
The irony is that Corbyn is by far the longest standing critic of the EU in British public
life, as the Blairites very quickly charged when the referendum on the EU (" a highly
democratic organisation" in Laguerre's astonishing judgement) was won by the 'wrong side'.
And in 2017 he campaigned on the promise to 'get Brexit done". It was only out of a refusal
to confront the Remainers, including most of his Shadow Cabinet, that the hybrid policy to
implement the Blairite Peoples Vote was adopted.
I imagine that the Remainers in the Labour Party and the Blairites of every sort will be
saddened by the public's renewed mandate for Brexit, but their dominant emotion will be
euphoria that the left was defeated, neo-liberalism still reins unchallenged and imperialism
maintained in British Foreign Policy.
If the Labour Party now sticks to its principles it will purge itself of its Fifth Columns
and use the breathing space before the next election to re-organise itself as a socialist
party.
To do this it needs firstly, to establish a newspaper, secondly to build a Youth wing,
thirdly to institute a national system of political education so that every member
understands what socialism is and takes a part in its construction. And fourthly that Labour
becomes the organising focus for both Unions organising the unorganised and social movements
defending tenants, the poor, disabled and vulnerable.
But this is all very unlikely, the party structure is biassed against democracy, it is
almost impossible to impose the will of the membership on the people who run the party. And
ought to be run out of it.
JC was crucified, by authority of the Empire, at the urging of the Israeli authorities in
Jerusalem and with the invaluable assistance of corrupt traitors among his own people
The most important thing about the "phase one" trade agreement announced Friday by U.S. and
Chinese officials is what won't happen: The two countries won't impose additional tariffs on
Sunday that would have further escalated the trade war.
There will also be a bit of de-escalation. In September, Trump imposed 15 percent
tariffs on $110 billion worth of Chinese consumer goods, such as clothing; those tariffs will
be cut in half, to 7.5 percent. But the largest piece of Trump's China tariffs -- a 25 percent
tariff on $250 billion in goods mostly sold to businesses rather than consumers -- will stay
unchanged, for now.
Awaited confirmation by China about the Trade Deal before writing about it. This article is what I
waited to be published: "Phase one trade deal a step forward, a new beginning," yes, an
optimistic tone, although tempered in the text:
"Rome was not built in a day. Trade protectionism has expanded in some places of the
world, affecting some people's thinking. It is not easy for China and the US to agree on the
text of the deal. But how to define this deal and whether it can keep its positive effects
on the global market and even accumulate more positive energy will depend on further efforts
from China and the US , as the global market has been disturbed by the trade war.
" We must see that the first phase of the trade agreement is a win-win outcome which
will deliver tangible benefits to the world . The response from investors around the
world is most real because they would not use their own money just to make a grand gesture.
However, some people in both China and the US may hype that their own country suffers loss
from this deal. This is a natural counter-stream of public opinion, but does not represent
the mainstream attitude on either side." [My Emphasis]
Gee, "benefits for the whole world," not just China and Outlaw US Empire? What forced the
Empire to compromise:
"The US-China trade war happens at a time when the US' strategic thinking on China has
changed. This requires Washington to find a strategic impetus to end the trade war. So what
would be such a strategic impetus?
"We believe as long as the US side is realistic, it is possible that such a strategic
impetus can be formed and gradually expanded. The trade war is not an effective way to
resolve the strategic competition between China and the US. It can neither scare China nor
effectively weaken China, but will cause a gradual rise in the cost of the US economy" .
[My Emphasis]
IMO, China's assessment's correct. The financialized economy of the Evil Outlaw US Empire
has drained it of the resilience it once enjoyed and that China's economy has obtained. Plus,
as I wrote several months ago, China's employing geoeconomic levers which the Empire can no
longer deploy and is thus stuck with using the only remaining tool it has--its waning
geopolitical levers.
Awaited confirmation by China about the Trade Deal before writing about it. This article is what I
waited to be published: "Phase one trade deal a step forward, a new beginning," yes, an
optimistic tone, although tempered in the text:
"Rome was not built in a day. Trade protectionism has expanded in some places of the
world, affecting some people's thinking. It is not easy for China and the US to agree on the
text of the deal. But how to define this deal and whether it can keep its positive effects
on the global market and even accumulate more positive energy will depend on further efforts
from China and the US , as the global market has been disturbed by the trade war.
" We must see that the first phase of the trade agreement is a win-win outcome which
will deliver tangible benefits to the world . The response from investors around the
world is most real because they would not use their own money just to make a grand gesture.
However, some people in both China and the US may hype that their own country suffers loss
from this deal. This is a natural counter-stream of public opinion, but does not represent
the mainstream attitude on either side." [My Emphasis]
Gee, "benefits for the whole world," not just China and Outlaw US Empire? What forced the
Empire to compromise:
"The US-China trade war happens at a time when the US' strategic thinking on China has
changed. This requires Washington to find a strategic impetus to end the trade war. So what
would be such a strategic impetus?
"We believe as long as the US side is realistic, it is possible that such a strategic
impetus can be formed and gradually expanded. The trade war is not an effective way to
resolve the strategic competition between China and the US. It can neither scare China nor
effectively weaken China, but will cause a gradual rise in the cost of the US economy" .
[My Emphasis]
IMO, China's assessment's correct. The financialized economy of the Evil Outlaw US Empire
has drained it of the resilience it once enjoyed and that China's economy has obtained. Plus,
as I wrote several months ago, China's employing geoeconomic levers which the Empire can no
longer deploy and is thus stuck with using the only remaining tool it has--its waning
geopolitical levers.
This year's winner is Branko Milanovic's
Capitalism, Alone: The Future of the System That Rules the World . (This is the second
Globie for Milanovic, who won it in 2016 for Global Inequality .) The book is based on
the premise that capitalism has become the universal form of economic organization. This type
of system is characterized by "production organized for profit using legally free wage labor
and mostly privately owned capital, with decentralized coordination." However, there exist two
different types of capitalism: the liberal meritocratic form that developed in the West, and
state-led political capitalism, which exists primarily in Asia but also parts of Europe and
Africa.
The two models are competitors, in part because of their adoption in different parts of the
world and also because they arose in different circumstances. The liberal meritocratic system
arose from the class capitalism of the late 19th century, which in turn evolved out of
feudalism. Communism, Milanovic writes, took the place of bourgeoise development. Communist
parties in countries such as China and Vietnam overthrew the domestic landlord class as well as
foreign domination. These countries now seek to re-establish their place in the global
distribution of economic power.
Milanovic highlights one characteristic that the two forms of capitalism share: inequality.
Inequality in today's liberal meritocratic capitalism differs from that of classical capitalism
in several features. Capital-rich individuals are also labor-rich, which reinforces the
inequality. Assortative mating leads to more marriages within income classes. The upper classes
use their money to control the political process to maintain their position of privilege.
Because of limited data on income distribution in many of the countries with political
capitalism, Milanovic focuses on inequality in China. He attributes its rise to the gap between
growth in the urban areas versus the rural, as well the difference in growth between the
maritime provinces and those in the western portion of the country. There is also a rising
share of income from capital , as well as a high concentration of capital income. In addition,
corruption has become systemic, as it was before the communist revolution.
The mobility of labor and capital allows capitalism to operate on a global basis.
Migrants from developing economies benefit when they move to advanced economies. But residents
in those countries often fear migration because of its potentially disruptive effect on
cultural norms, despite the positive spillover effects on the domestic economy. Milanovic
proposes granting migrants limited rights, such as a finite term of stay, in order to
facilitate their acceptance. He points out, however, the potential downside of the creation of
an underclass.
Multinational firms have organized global supply chains that give the parent units in their
home countries the ability to coordinate production in different subsidiary units and their
suppliers in their host nations. Consequently, the governments of home countries seek to limit
the transfer of technology to the periphery nations to avoid losing innovation rents. The host
countries, on the other hand, hope to use technology to jump ahead in the development
process.
The Trump administration clearly shares these concerns about the impact of globalization.
President Trump has urged multinational firms to relocate production facilities within the U.S.
Government officials are planning to limit the
export of certain technologies while carefully scrutinizing foreign acquisitions of
domestic firms in tech-related areas. New
restrictions on legal immigration have been enacted that would give priority to a
merit-based system. Moreover, the
concerns over migration are not unique to the U.S.
Milanovic ends with some provocative thoughts about the future of capitalism. One path would
be to a "people's capitalism," in which everyone has an approximately equal share of both
capital and labor income. This would require tax advantages for the middle class combined with
increased taxes on the rich, improvements in the quality of public education, and public
funding of political campaigns. But it is also feasible that there will be a move of liberal
capitalism toward a form of political capitalism based on the rise of the new elite, who wish
to retain their position within society.
Milanovic's book offers a wide-ranging review of many of the features of contemporary
capitalism. He is particularly insightful about the role of corruption in both liberal and
political capitalism. Whether or not it is feasible to reform capitalism in order to serve a
wider range of interests is one of the most important issues of our time.
==quote==
The Trump administration clearly shares these concerns about the impact of globalization.
President Trump has urged multinational firms to relocate production facilities within
the U.S. Government officials are planning to limit the export of certain technologies
while carefully scrutinizing foreign acquisitions of domestic firms in tech-related
areas. New restrictions on legal immigration have been enacted that would give priority
to a merit-based system. Moreover, the concerns over migration are not unique to the
U.S.
== end ==
In plain language that means the collapse of neoliberal globalization.
When Liberal governments fail to provide answers for economic despair the road is paved for
strong-armed, bloviating fascists. And the more desperate things become fascism will only get
stronger if history is any indication.
ban nock on Fri,
12/13/2019 - 6:18am and the analogies with Sanders and the US only go so far.
Politics in the US, Britain, and Europe in general are being upended, I'd caution against
pigeon holing things into the old left/right, Dem/Repub, Tory/Labor, scenario.
Britain's Labor similar to America's Democratic Party has lost lots of it's legitimacy with
working people. Globalisation has decimated cities like Liverpool and Manchester. Labor didn't
support Brexit, the biggest issue in politics in Britain. Being a part of the EU allowed
workers from Eastern Europe to enter England and directly compete for low skilled jobs.
Labor in England also included upper middle class woke culture, which is very pro EU and
anti Brexit. It's impossible to imagine a pro Brexit leader in Labor just as much as it is
impossible to imagine working class people in England supporting the loss of their jobs via
Remain. People voted for their economic self interests, can you blame them? As in the US there
are more working class voters than there are upper middle class intellectuals.
Boris Johnson promised increased funding for the National Health Service, not tearing it
down as many seem to suggest. Whether he does so is yet to be seen, but I wouldn't read his win
as a rejection of the social safety net. Socialism is for many some kind of intellectual game,
the working class is much less interested in ideas, and much more interested in health care,
higher wages, and better conditions overall.
Ever since I watched Bernie Sanders' rise in the primaries in 16 I've felt he would be a
much stronger general election candidate than he is in the primaries. As contrary as Trump
might seem to hard core political junkies, Trump did steal many of Sander's memes and use them
in the general election. Most wage earners actually do feel powerless in the face of the
corporate overclass, they feel things getting worse not better.
To have even a snowball's chance in the pre primaries, the endless positioning and twitter
wars that have occurred for months prior to even our first primary, Sanders is now committed to
many of the same positions as the woke side of the Democratic Party. There might well be a big
enough drop off of Hispanics, African Americans, and Working Class Dems of all hues to lose
this thing again, even if Sanders wins the primary. The Democratic Party has lost working
people even as it has gained Country Club Republicans from the suburbs.
Last night as the results were obvious I watched the old DK, the NYT, and other web sites.
Stunned Silence. It's as if they didn't realize 2016 happened and were surprised all over
again.
Warren's awkward attempts to portray herself as a woman of color, even if a etsy weeny
tiny bit, always seemed strange to me, ignoring the resume nonsense. It makes sense with the
realization that Women of Color, have become a new politically privileged class, in spite of
some of them being not very oppressed.
Indian (subcontinent) women come from a tradition of a caste based society of wealth and
privilege. The most succesful ones intuitively home in on and game American race-based
identity politics in spite of their advantages, such as being one of the wealthiest religious
groups in the nation,
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/
No Bernie style economic class based socialism for them, no way. It's maintain privilege,
Silicon Valley corporate caste based salaries, Republican reductionism, Hillary hopium and
yet, they proudly proclaim their affiliation with real women of color, on whose backs they
surf, like last generation's black cleaning women, the grandparents of which might have
actually been slaves.
3 examples: Nimrata Nikki Randhawa, Neera Tanden and Kamala Harris.
Women-of-color in general are not a privileged class. The not-very-poor women of color are
perhaps a newly privileged class.
The Goldman Sachs women-of-color have become a new privileged class, in line with the
tenets of Goldman Sachs Feminism. " The arc of history is long, and it bends towards rainbow
gender-fluid oligarchy."
As Dean Baker pointed out in his book Rigged, the neoliberal capitalism of America is
rigged to benefit the top 1%. After all, they were the architects. Most Americans appreciate
that. Nevertheless, the vast majority willingly wade into its rigged quicksand. All economies
are rigged in the sense that there is a structure to it all. Moreover, the architects of that
system will ensure there is something in it for themselves – rigged. Our school system
does not instruct Americans on how their own economic system works (is rigged), so most of us
become its victims rather than its beneficiaries.
Books by Liz Warren and her daughter offer remedial guidance on how to make the current US
economic system work for the average household. So, in a sense, Liz comes across as an
adherent to the system she is trying to help others master .
This seems to be a losing proposition for candidate Warren because most Americans want a
new system with new rigging; not a repaired system that has been screwing them for
generations.
A big part of why Labor and Corbyn lost so badly is the complete abdication of "the Left" on
Brexit. The left were supposed to be anti-globalists, in which case their task was to join
battle offering an egalitarian, left-populist version of Brexit which would have benefited
the people.
Instead, faced with a real decision and a real opportunity they punted and ran home to
globalist mama. This removed one of the main reasons to bother supporting them.
Thing is, this destroys the left in Britain. The right in Labour had been in control since
the early 1980s, and Corbyn's leadership victory was an accident which will not be given a
second chance. Now what will replace Corbyn will not be Blairism, it will be something well
to the right of Blairism, something much more like the DNC in the United States.
In other words, this is not a defeat of a party, it is a catastrophe for anyone seeking to
struggle against the triumph of neoliberal barbarism. Oh, and it makes the probability of the
end of the world through environmental catastrophe or nuclear war much higher. So apart from
the ideological catastrophe it's also a human calamity.
Corbyn destroyed hismelf. He performed quite well, unexpectedly so, in 2017 because he said
that he would honour the result of the 2016 referendum. Yesterday the electors punished him
for reneging on that and telling 17.4 million voters that they were wrong.
It was the less well off who voted to Leave, and it was the less well off who yesterday
deserted Labour in droves. They have had enough of being told that they are in the wrong by a
middle class elite who would be repelled if they ever actually met someone from the working
class.
I am no expert on UK politics, but it does look like Brexit was the issue that Boris won
on. Everybody is sick of it and wants if over with.
I am no expert on UK politics either, but from my point of view in Norway the main issue
to be resolved is dismantling the EU, and it looks like the Brexit vote and this election
confirms that many in the UK see it the same way. Whether it will happen is another
question.
I voted NO in the 1994 Norwegian referendum on the question of becoming member of
"European Community". One of the arguments in the debate at that time was that the "European
Community" was aiming to become a union and a superstate. Those who argued that way were
called lots of things, including conspiracy theorists. Today we are not members of the EU,
but all the "regulations" are forced upon us anyway. The EU is a non-democratic nightmare
that must be demolished.
I don't expect much good from the Tories, I don't exclude another betrayal of the Brexit
cause, but we shall see. Corbyn lost on his betrayal of Brexit, that is for sure. I
sympathize with Corbyn, but betraying the Brexit referendum is a no-no.
What the UK needs is real progressives that see the EU as the globalist project it is. It
also means that the "climate crisis" must be recognised as a political tool created by the
same forces. Corbyn failed on both accounts and therefore he lost.
Now that the official results are out, I'll comment on the British elections.
If Corbyn had won and taken us out of the EU we would have gone all Venezuela. If he'd won
and kept us in the EU we'd have gone all Greece. The result is the best of the bad options
available.
This comment on The Guardian encapsulates the average Conservative voter for these 2019
elections.
The UK is really at a crossroads: it is too tiny and poor in natural resources to
implement socialism, but it is declining as a capitalist power.
I don't think the average British really thinks Venezuela is socialist or that Corbyn's
policies would make them very poor, but I think they are afraid of the sanctions and
embargoes they would suffer from the USA if they dared to try to go back to
social-democracy.
This defeat may also be historic: this could go to History as the end of social-democracy.
Social-democracy was already dead as an effective political force after the oil crisis of
1974-5, but at least it was able to polarize with neoliberalism in the ideological field and
had some prestige that far outlived itself (to the point it was the main propaganda weapon
that ultimately convinced Gorbachev to destroy the USSR, and to the point it was able to
convince historians like Hobsbawn that it had actually "won the war" after 2008). Now it
isn't considered even credible by half of the population of one of the few countries it was
able to govern and fully influence in the post-war period.
In Rosa Luxemburg's last article (a few days before she was executed), she finally
admitted defeat to the Bolsheviks. "We must separate the essential from the non-essential",
she wrote. And the essential, she completed, was the fact that the Bolsheviks were right and
the German Social-Democrats were wrong. It happened again, almost 100 years later.
(Brexit anger is about wage inequality - like US Trump support. 35 years, GDP doubled,
median earnings up 10% in UK, 0% in US. If the media wrote about basic economics everyone
would know this. Instead the bottom 75% have plain unfocussed anger with Trump/Brexit being
lightening rods to direct it).
It might be wise to be careful here about assumptions used. First off, cognisance of
population changes will not automatically translate into employed working sector changes,
many factors intervene preventing a direct relationship. Secondly, having a accurate GDP
measure from beginning to end of the period observed is crucial (to avoid apples vs. oranges
comparisons) so that changes in productive sources (and their employed numbers) are accounted
for (law offices rarely employ as many as heavy industrial firms). The history of price/wage
inflation or loss of exchange value of currency will affect reported GDP statistics as well.
Thirdly is measuring the general education and skill level of those employed, as those
decrease so do earnings/salaries/wages. Fourthly, look at the change in social protections
provided to the population in question, these protections have a cost that must be met, their
absence has an even greater cost to income obtained but rarely appearing on the economic
balance sheets. Regulatory capture by monopoly, sovereign & trust-fund management removes
business restrictions and passes those costs to those employed. Try putting this on a
bumper-sticker for your car.
In the U.S. the population had increased in double digits from the census of 1950 (150.9
millions) to 2010 (308.7 millions). Working income had not significantly increased from
1970's, Purchasing Power Parity of 1970 dollar and 2019 dollar is unobtainable information.
GDP statistics are of the nature of apples vs. oranges, measuring unrelated economic
production; it can be done but isn't (for reasons political) [an income of US$400,000 in 1915
would translate into a 1980's income of about US$ 8.5 millions; the economies were still
roughly speaking nearly the same still and comparable, as wealth distributions were becoming
again].
A few days ago, veterans' group VoteVets endorsed Pete Buttigieg. It has previously supported
Tulsi Gabbard. Details:
New York Times, "Liberal Veterans' Group Endorses Pete Buttigieg in 2020 Race":
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-votevets-endorsement.html
"... Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. ..."
"... Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption. Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were designed to bilk ordinary citizens. ..."
"... The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. ..."
"... A recent popular history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy. ..."
"... Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public. This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them. ..."
"... Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them. ..."
"... Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption that open borders will disempower special interests. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's politics seem like a tangle of contradictions. She wants free markets,
but also wants to tax billionaires' capital. Her enemies on the right claim that
she is a socialist , but Warren
describes herself as "capitalist to my bones."
Warren's politics are so confusing because we have forgotten that a pro-capitalist left is
even possible. For a long time, political debate in the United States has been a fight between
conservatives and libertarians on the right, who favored the market, and socialists and
liberals on the left, who favored the government.
It has been clear since 2016 that the traditional coalition of the right was breaking up.
Conservatives such as U.S. President Donald Trump are no fans of open trade and free markets,
and even favor social protections so long as they benefit their white supporters. Now, the left
is changing too.
Warren is reviving a pro-market left that has been neglected for decades, by drawing on a
surprising resource: public choice economics. This economic theory is reviled by many on the
left, who have claimed that it is a Koch-funded intellectual conspiracy designed to destroy
democracy. Yet there is a left version of public choice economics too, associated with thinkers
such as the late Mancur Olson. Like Olson, Warren is not a socialist but a left-wing
capitalist, who wants to use public choice ideas to cleanse both markets and the state of their
corruption.
Public choice economics has big influence and a bad name. It is a school of
economic thought that has at different times been associated with scholars at the University of
Rochester, Virginia Tech, and George Mason University. Public choice came into being in fervent
opposition to the mainstream of economics, which was dominated by scholars such as Paul
Samuelson.
Samuelson, in his famous and influential textbooks, saw a clear role for government in
regulating markets. Public choice scholars vehemently disagreed . For
political and theoretical reasons, they instead saw government as a fountain of corruption.
Public choice economists argued that government regulations were the product of special
interest groups that had "captured" the power of the state, to cripple rivals and squeeze money
from citizens and consumers. Regulations were not made in the public interest, but instead were
designed to bilk ordinary citizens.
Perhaps the most influential version of public choice was known as law and economics. For
decades, conservative foundations supported seminars that taught judges and legal academics the
principles of public choice economics. Attendees were taught that harsh sentences would deter
future crime, that government regulation should be treated with profound skepticism, and that
antitrust enforcement had worse consequences than the monopolies it was supposed to correct. As
statistical research by Elliott Ash, Daniel L. Chen, and Suresh Naidu has shown
, these seminars played a crucial role in shifting American courts to the right.
Warren was one of the young legal academics who attended
these seminars , and was largely convinced by the arguments. Her early work on bankruptcy
law started from public choice principles, and displayed a deep skepticism of intervention.
The conventional story is that as Warren moved from the right to the left, she abandoned the
public choice way of thinking about the world, in favor of a more traditional left-wing
radicalism. A more accurate take might be that she didn't abandon public choice, but instead
remained committed to its free-market ideals, while reversing some of its valences. Her work as
an academic was aimed at combating special interests, showing how the financial industry had
shaped bankruptcy reforms so that they boosted lenders' profits at borrowers' expense.
Notably, she applied public choice theory to explain some aspects of public choice, showing how
financial interests had funded scholarly centers which
provided a patina of genteel respectability to industry's preferred positions.
Now, Warren wants to to wash away the filth that has built up over decades to clog the
workings of American capitalism. Financial rules that have been designed by lobbyists need to
be torn up. Vast inequalities of wealth, which provide the rich with disproportionate political
and economic power, need to be reversed. Intellectual property rules, which make it so that
farmers no longer really own the seeds
they sow or the machinery they use to plant them, need to be abolished. For Warren, the problem
with modern American capitalism is that it is not nearly capitalist enough. It has been
captured by special interests, which are strangling competition.
It is hard to see how deeply Warren's program is rooted in
public choice ideas, because public choice has come to be the target of left-wing conspiracy theories. A recent popular
history book, which qualified as a finalist for the National Book Award, depicts public choice as a kind of
stealth intellectual weapons program , developed by economist James Buchanan to provide
Chilean President Augusto Pinochet with the justification for his dictatorial constitution, and
the Koch brothers with the tools to dismantle American democracy.
For sure, the mainstream of public choice is strongly libertarian, and the development of
the approach was funded by conservative individuals and foundations. What left-wing paranoia
overlooks is that there has always been a significant left-wing current of public choice, and
even a potent left-wing radicalism buried deep within public choice waiting to be uncovered.
The free-market ideal is a situation in which no actor has economic power over any other. As
many of Warren's proposals demonstrate, trying to achieve this ideal can animate a radical
program for reform.
Warren's ideas have a close family resemblance to those of Olson, a celebrated public choice
theorist. (Perhaps she has read him; perhaps she has just reached similar conclusions from
similar starting points.) Olson, like other public choice scholars, worried about the power of
interest groups. He famously developed a theory of collective action that shows how narrowly
focused interest groups can dominate politics, because they can organize more cheaply and reap
great benefits by setting rules and creating monopolies at the expense of the ordinary public.
This means that government programs often actively harm the poor rather than helping them.
However, Olson also castigated libertarian economists for their "monodiabolism" and "almost
utopian lack of concern about other problems" so long as the government was chained down. He
argued that the government was not the only source of economic power: Business special
interests would corrupt markets even if the government did not help them.
The result, according to Olson, was that societies, economies, and political systems became
increasingly encrusted with special-interest politics as the decades passed. Countries
benefited economically from great upheavals such as wars and social revolutions, which tore
interest groups from their privileged perches and sent them tumbling into the abyss.
Olson wanted to open up both politics and the economy to greater competition, equalizing
power relations as much as possible between the many and the few. He argued that under some
circumstances, powerful trade unions could benefit the economy. When unions and business groups
were sufficiently big that they represented a substantial percentage of workers or business as
a whole, they would be less likely to seek special benefits at the expense of the many, and
more likely to prioritize the good of the whole. Olson also believed strongly in the benefits
of open trade, not just because it led to standard economic efficiencies, but because it made
it harder for interest groups to capture government and markets. Northern European economies
such as Denmark, which combine powerful trade unions with a strong commitment to free markets,
represent Olsonian politics in action.
Warren shares far more intellectual DNA with Mancur Olson and his colleagues than with
traditional socialism. However, there are important differences. Olson wrote his key work in
the 1980s, before the globalization boom. His arguments for free trade depend on the assumption
that open borders will disempower special interests.
As economists such as Dani Rodrik and political scientists such as Susan Sell have shown,
this hasn't quite worked out as Olson expected. Free trade agreements have become a magnet for
special interest groups, who want to cement their preferences in international agreements that
are incredibly hard to reverse. The U.S. "fast track" approach to trade negotiations makes it
harder for Congress to demand change, but allows industry lobbyists to shape the
administration's negotiating stance. Investor-state dispute resolution mechanisms provide
business with a friendly forum where they can target government rules that hurt their economic
interests. All of this helps explain why Warren is skeptical of arguments for the general
benefits of free-trade agreements: they aren't nearly so general as economists claim.
Close attention to Warren's public choice influences reveals both her radicalism and its
limits. Like Olson, she is committed to the notion that making capitalism work for citizens
will require changes that border on the revolutionary. The sweeping proposals she makes for
changes to America's gross economic inequality, its economic relations with the rest of the
world, its approach to antitrust legislation, and its tolerance of sleazy relationships among
politicians, regulators, and industry are all aimed at creating a major upheaval. Where she
proposes major state action, as in her "Medicare for All" plans, it is to supplant market
institutions that aren't working, and are so embedded in interest group power dynamics that
they are incapable of reform.
Yet this is a distinctly capitalist variety of radicalism. Socialists will inevitably be
disappointed in the limits to her arguments. Warren's ideal is markets that work as they
should, in contrast to the socialist belief that some forms of power are inherent within
markets themselves. Not only Marxists, but economists such as Thomas Piketty, have suggested
that the market system is rigged in ways that will inevitably favor capital over the long run.
The fixes that Warren proposes will at most dampen down these tendencies rather than remove
them.
If Warren wins, she will not only disappoint socialists. Her proposals may end up being too
radical for Congress, but not nearly radical enough to tackle challenges such as climate
change, which will require a rapid and dramatic transformation of the global economy if
catastrophe is to be averted. Libertarians and mainstream public choice scholars will attack
her from a different vantage point, arguing that she is both too skeptical about existing
market structures and too trusting of the machineries of the state that she hopes to use to
remedy them. State efforts to reform markets can easily turn into protectionism.
What Warren offers, then, is neither a socialist or deep green alternative to capitalism,
nor a public choice justification for why regulators ought to leave it alone. The bet she is
making is that capitalism can solve the major problems that the United States faces, so long as
the government tackles inequality and defangs the special interests that have parasitized the
political and economic systems. Like all such bets, it is a risky one, but one that might
transform the U.S. model of capitalism if it succeeds.
Henry Farrell is a professor of
political science and international affairs at George Washington University.
..all i mostly see is the needed collapse and waiting for that to happen..
someone around here said recently that it should be smooth sailing for the USA for at
least another 150 to 200 years, so indeed to make a prediction it's enough you have vocal
cords.
interestingly though, Dmitry Orlov, who has invested much of his overall thesis in the
process of collapse (of the US empire) recently
predicted its happening in his lifetime At this point, I am tempted to go out on a limb
and predict that if all goes well (for me) I will still be alive when this collapse actually
transpires
The congress decline is now visible. Other institutions will follow.
Much depends on how long "plato oil" will hold and Seneca cliff arrives.
Notable quotes:
"... First the institutions will decline. Second, the State will decline. Third, the economy will decline and only after this "phase 3" that we'll be able to se the real desintegration of the USA. ..."
"... More probable would be the gradual secession of some States after the economy has degraded enough. I wouldn't consider the loss of one peripheral State as the formal end of the USA, but if it goes to the stage of it losing more or less the Southern States or the Midwest States, then I think some historians would use these as a useful event to mark the formal end of the USA. ..."
"... the USA will remain a very influent regional superpower for the foreseeable future. It would have to take the entire capitalist structure to fall for the USA to really enter its disintegration phase. I've talked with some Marxists, and the most optimistic of them believe the USA still has some 150-200 years of tranquil existence. Of course, we're not psychics, so they are all wild guesses. ..."
@ Posted by: Passer by | Dec 9 2019 16:39 utc | 102
Well, the only USA that matters to the rest of the world is the
USA-as-the-world's-sole-superpower. If that version of the USA disappears, then we would be
talking about a completely different geopolitical architecture ("multipolar").
The USA itself doesn't need to collapse or disintegrate for that to happen.
My opinion is that the USA is losing its "sole superpower" status, albeit at a very slow
pace. It couldn't be another way, since the USA is a nuclear superpower, so its competitors
must deactivate its hegemony slowly and gently.
I also believe the USA will disappear some day, but in a different way than the USSR.
Since the USA is a capitalist economy, it will desintegrate rather than collapse, and this
disintegration will happen more a la Roman Empire (Crisis of the Third Century and beyond)
rather than a la USSR. Capitalism has an anarchic way of producing and distributing its
wealth, resulting in a decentralized web of institutions. First the institutions will
decline. Second, the State will decline. Third, the economy will decline and only after this
"phase 3" that we'll be able to se the real desintegration of the USA.
I don't believe the USA will fall by conquest, mostly because it has MAD, second because
its geographic location favors a defensive war of its territory. More probable would be
the gradual secession of some States after the economy has degraded enough. I wouldn't
consider the loss of one peripheral State as the formal end of the USA, but if it goes to the
stage of it losing more or less the Southern States or the Midwest States, then I think some
historians would use these as a useful event to mark the formal end of the USA.
But before that, I believe the USA will remain a very influent regional superpower for
the foreseeable future. It would have to take the entire capitalist structure to fall for the
USA to really enter its disintegration phase. I've talked with some Marxists, and the most
optimistic of them believe the USA still has some 150-200 years of tranquil existence. Of
course, we're not psychics, so they are all wild guesses.
Appearing on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Maté
said Ukraine's efforts to tamper in the election are "no secret."
"Ukrainian officials -- they leaked information that exposed some apparent corruption by Paul Manafort and it was consequential.
It led to Paul Manafort's resignation
from the Trump campaign," he said. "And, the stated intent of Ukrainian officials was to weaken the Trump campaign because they
wanted to help elect Hillary Clinton ."
Yet, when Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told "Meet The Press" host
Chuck Todd Sunday that reports from various
media outlets indicated that former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko favored Clinton over now-President Trump, Todd accused him
of parroting Russian President
Vladimir Putin's talking points.
"Are you at all concerned that you've been duped?" Todd asked.
On the same network, anchor
Nicolle Wallace and her guest The Bulwark Editor-at-Large Charlie Sykes echoed Todd, agreeing that Kennedy "comes off as an addled
Russian asset on television" after "peddling Vladimir Putin's talking points."
"I don't understand the proactive work on behalf of Putin's Kremlin," said Wallace.
Maté told Carlson that what these pundits are trying to do is "conflate that with a different theory by Ukrainian meddling. Which
is not proven -- it's true."
"And, that is the one that Trump tried to put forward in this
phone call with Zelenksy where he appears to be saying that it wasn't Russia that was behind the
hacking of the DNC and that it might have been Ukraine," he continued.
"It's true there's no evidence for that theory, and it's fair enough to point out that. But. what's also ironic here is that the
people who are indignant about that claim by Trump are accepting the claim that Russia hacked the DNC," Maté stated, adding that
journalists should be demanding to see the underlying evidence used by U.S. intelligence to draw that conclusion.
Carlson said the mainstream media now accuses anyone who questions their narrative of being a "traitor to the country" and supporting
Russia. Julia Musto is a reporter for Foxnews.com
So CIA agent Carter Page joins Trump campaign and then do several "improper" moves like
travel to Moscow and contracts with Russian officials things in order to create a pretext for FBI
investigation. Which of course was promptly started. This is called false flag operation.
From comments: "He wasn’t a victim, he was an asset. When actors portray a victim, they
are ACTING!!!"
Notable quotes:
"... "The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X. ..."
"... Seth Rich downloaded the emails on a potable drive. Was he Russian? ..."
"... DNC/ FBI/ CIA/ CNN/ NBC have merged into the 5 headed serpent. ..."
"... Roger Stone got some minor facts wrong and is facing jail time, Brennan and Comey outright lied to Congress, when are they going to jail? ..."
"... "June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them (the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA) renewal. ..."
"... "Lets hope Carter Page spends the rest of his life sueing everyone..." lol Thats the meanest thing ive ever heard you say! O:) ..."
There are so many crooked actors and actresses hired by the MSM it is just pathetic. They
are not reporters, they are there only to put on a show for the masses.
"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the
innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the
minds of the masses". - the esteemed Malcolm X.
"June 2017, CIA told FBI lawyer Kevin Clinesmith that Carter Page was working for them
(the CIA)." Clinesmith then changed that notification so he could submit the last (FISA)
renewal.
1:52
- This is what a paid shill looks like. If the money is good, they'll read whatever is on the
prompter. Years from now when they're demonized by the corrupt media they'll scratch their
head and ask... What happened to integrity in our country???
If you asked me 20 years ago wether I would be watching Fox News to get the most rational
point of view in politics, I would have said you were crazy. Another great job Tucker! In my
opinion, you’re one of the best news men of our current time; questioning needless
wars, and calling out politicians, gvmnt officials and your counterparts at other news desks
with rational arguments. Well done sir!
Personally seen these types of things/cases in lower levels, police chiefs and officials,
judges, prosecutors, mayor, FBI, and so on. Not surprisingly it happens elsewhere. ...But
very disappointed of it all.
If I were an American citizen, I'd be very concerned about the utter incompetence of the
FBI that the IG report exposed. The dems don't seem to be bothered by this at all. Go
figure.
The Establishment has played this game many times before .. remember PM Harold Wilson was
put up as a Russian Agent .. sure they won that game but NOT this time .. they fear President
Trump because the have nothing over him .
The Democ-rats and the media (I repeat myself) are shamelessly LYING through their teeth
to the American People. There was NO Russian collision—it's a HOAX made by LOSERS who
can't accept their loss in 2016 so they were up to smear the winner, President Trump, by all
means, possible including Illegal surveillance, fraud and manipulation—ABUSE of
government power for political prosecution.
Steele dossier......fake evidence bought and payed for by the democrats and presented to
the FISA court by James Comey...........FELONY FELONY FELONY!......this one can’t be
talked away!
Tucker, thank you for being a constant drumbeat for the criminal activity undertaken by
the FBI and CIA to ultimately unseat a duly elected President. No rest until they are held
accountable.
How could the FBI be innocent? We saw the emails. We saw them cover up for Bill Gates,
Clinton, Epstein, Brunel, and all the others. We saw how they protected these abusers of
children. We saw how they worked to overthrow a sitting president. We saw how they protected
the Awan’s and Huma.
THE FIX WAS IN - People are saying that Nellie Orr the Russian Expert is best friends with
the IG's Horowitz wife - So nice - Bruce your husband is a lap dog and works for the FBI .
People should be outraged as the cover up continues . Just like OJ - they have 10 times the
evidence that would convict anyone else - have them charged , arrested , tried and jailed .
Different rules for corrupt politicians and their friends in law enforcement .
Michael Cohen In prison, Papadopulos went to prison, Flynn is going to prison, Roger Stone
is going to prison, Manafort is in prison and Devin Nunes and Rudy Giuliani are under
investigation.....Lock them up, lock them up!!!!
CIA tells FBI who in turn uses their corrupt media to spread the lies as truth. The less
intelligent among us believe them as gospel and thus we get "Russian Collusion, or Quid Pro
Quo, or Iraq has weapons of mass destruction " and on and on.....
Ukraine and Barisma may be corrupt, but after reading the summary of this report, this
country better not be calling any country corrupt. The USA is following Rome. Soon it will
die.
FBI is totally corrupted by it's unchecked power, these deep states have the guts to
repeatedly use FALSE Information again & again to spy on the opposition political party
presidential candidate campaign. The Fake News medias continue to cover for them, it is
sickening!
The FBI based on the IG report are either criminally liable for deceiving FISA courts, or
the most inept, bumbling criminal investigation agency ever. Looks like both to me. Any FBI
agent or employee who knew the FBI was breaking the law, and remained silent needs to be
fired immediately and prosecuted along with the principals, for aiding and abetting criminal
activity. This sounds like RICO violations.
if Carter Page didn't run the 2016 "Trump Election Campaign Committee of Moscow" from the
ROSNEFT bureau offices inside the Kremlin, where did Carter Page run the "Trump Election
Campaign Committee of Moscow" ?
Horowitz needs to stop being a wuss and tell the whole truth. His report is a big lie. The
whole thing was a political attack. It started with John McCain and he handed it off to Obama
and Crooked Hillary. There was no reason at all to investigate Trump. Is the IG part of the
deep state? Democrats are acting like this report is good news for them.
Steele was not the author of the fake dossier, DNC FusionGPS Glen Simpson was, and Steele
used as cover. Coming in the Durham findings. 17 FBI "mistakes" in a row all against Trump?
No bias? B S.
How Trump has "conned" the American tax payer: This is just a few of his fraud actions!He
set up a foundation to benefit the military, then him and his family pocketed our money.He
started a Fake University, then stole the money from the American people.He cheated on his
wives, then paid them to keep quiet so it wouldn't damage his chances in the election.He
stiffed 100's of worker's he hired and then made up an excuse y they didn't get paid
If Donald Trump was a Russian spy it would’ve been the deepest cover of any secret
agent ever....he came here after his lgb training as a young man and became a celebrity for
30 years before finally putting his dastardly plan to go from pageant owner to president into
action! If that were anywhere close to true the Russians did so much work I think they earned
the 4-8 years in the White House! I know that at this point I’d rather have Vladimir
Putin as President than any of the top democrats!
Folks..All this soap opera is just a smoke screen to hide what is really important and is
happening right now at this very minute. The Federal Reserve Banking cartel is pumping 100s
of billions of dollars into insolvent banks again like they did in 2008. This time it is more
and we taxpayers will again foot the bill. The banks are getting this money called REPO
loans. Watch your cash everyone as the Federal Reserve has only 1 product and that is
printing money( debt) that they will use to steal your assets and future.
There are many opinions about the Horowitz report. As with a prior report Horowitz lays
out damning evidence and then draws exactly the wrong conclusion. Why does he have to draw
ANY CONCLUSIONS? His job is to present the facts and the evidence and to let "We the People'
draw conclusions. Reminds me of Comey declaring that Hillary's actions were irresponsible but
not criminal. Why? She didn't act with intent. She was just incompetent! Tucker is absolutely
right! What does it matter what their motive was? Like Clinton, they behaved in a criminal
fashion.
The take away quotes
"
...... the FT reports that Beijing has ordered all government offices and public institutions
to remove foreign computer equipment and software within three years.
..........
The take home message here is that US PC and software giants are about to lose billions in
sale to Chinese customers, a move that will infuriate Trump who will, correctly, see such
attempts to isolate the Chinese PC market from US vendors.
"
This is going to be difficult for China but they have a domestic OS, the Kylin OS, that is
Unix/Linux based, so much Open Source software is available to replace the Microsoft/Apple
software they currently use until they develop their own.
This speaks to Trump saying he can wait for a trade deal until after the (s)election but
it seems obvious that his negotiating position is going to get weaker by the day.
-------------------------------
Another aspect of the tech war that is financial also is that I am reading the China is on
the cusp of releasing a digital fiat RMD currency. This will have serious disintermediation
effects on the BIS, City of London Corp and others doing currency exchange if any can do such
on their phones. I am reading about digital currencies needing a blockchain underpinning but
if the US dollar can exist without one currently then what are the show stoppers except the
private finance dead weight in the middle?
"... Significantly Wallerstein, arguing from history that the intervals between these brief periods of hegemony are periods in which several states compete for the 'succession'-France and the UK in the period after the Dutch moment had passed; Germany and the United States after 1850- suggested that the European Community would be competing with the East Asian bloc for hegemony. ..."
"... Also of interest is the fact that Russia, which didn't feature among the contestants for future hegemony in 1980, has now re-emerged in its ancient role as the 'eastern' version of expanding America, a mirror image with even more natural resources, a larger landmass and a natural affinity with China and the formerly Soviet states of central Asia. ..."
"... It might be argued that it is because the hubristic United States cannot bring itself to treat the potentially enormously powerful states of Europe as anything more than contemptible slaves that it is never going to re-establish its global position. On the other hand a case can be made that the current thrust of the United States is to re-establish its ownership of the rest of the hemisphere. It treats Canada as a sort of Puerto Rico with snow and oil. Only recently was Mexico was threatened on the improbable-in historical terms- that it allows the CIA to run its drug trade and supervise its Death Squads. ..."
"... US interference and arrogance is as evident as it has ever been. What is less evident is whether, for all its military and financial power, US policy against Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and their increasingly rebellious neighbours has any chance of succeeding. ..."
There is a sense in which everything on this blog comes back to international relations and
neo-con attempts to build "A New American Century." Which is to say hegemony and
globalisation.
Immanuel Wallerstein, who recently died and will be greatly missed, had some interesting
things to say about hegemonic powers.
He identified the Dutch Republic, for a brief period after emerging victorious from the
Thirty Years war in 1648, the United Kingdom, after Waterloo and up until the Crimean War and
the United States, from 1945 to 1973 as true hegemons with networks of alliances and
designated enemies.
He also makes the point that, long after states have ceased to be hegemonic, they remain
dominant in the areas of finance and culture.
So far as the United States is concerned it is hanging on in both those areas in which,
long after the paper in its Thuggerish foreign policy has been exposed, it retains enormous
influence though its media/entertainment businesses and Wall Street's command in finance. (It
is interesting here that The City, long after the UK has become a US puppet, still has
enormous power in the world of finance.)
Wallerstein prophesied (and this was in 1980) that the next contender for the position of
hegemon was likely to be an East Asian alliance of Japan, Korea and China.
Not a bad guess but one, like the end of US hegemony, made premature by the implosion of the
Soviet Union which provided the US with a new dawn and another chance-quickly blown- to
re-establish its hegemony. Which it did if not in fact then in its own mind in the shape of
the hubristic unipolar moment and Brother Fukuyama's End of History celebration.
Significantly Wallerstein, arguing from history that the intervals between these brief
periods of hegemony are periods in which several states compete for the 'succession'-France
and the UK in the period after the Dutch moment had passed; Germany and the United States
after 1850- suggested that the European Community would be competing with the East Asian bloc
for hegemony.
It is that prophecy which looks lame currently with the European countries probably more
under the domination of the United States than at any time in the past. Wallerstein was
writing at a period when it looked as if the the EEC strengthened by the accession of, inter
alia, the UK would be capable of throwing off the domination of the US and taking an
independent course of its own.
This is a dream, rather like that of the 'Social Europe' in which full employment, welfare
states, free education and regional development defy the spread of neo-liberal values and
strategies, which still leads a ghost like existence in the minds of Europhiles who don't get
out much and have never heard of Greece and the PIIGs.
Also of interest is the fact that Russia, which didn't feature among the contestants for
future hegemony in 1980, has now re-emerged in its ancient role as the 'eastern' version of
expanding America, a mirror image with even more natural resources, a larger landmass and a
natural affinity with China and the formerly Soviet states of central Asia.
It might be argued that it is because the hubristic United States cannot bring itself to
treat the potentially enormously powerful states of Europe as anything more than contemptible
slaves that it is never going to re-establish its global position. On the other hand a case
can be made that the current thrust of the United States is to re-establish its ownership of
the rest of the hemisphere. It treats Canada as a sort of Puerto Rico with snow and oil. Only
recently was Mexico was threatened on the improbable-in historical terms- that it allows the
CIA to run its drug trade and supervise its Death Squads.
As to the rest of central America and the southern continent: US interference and
arrogance is as evident as it has ever been. What is less evident is whether, for all its
military and financial power, US policy against Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela and their
increasingly rebellious neighbours has any chance of succeeding.
It wrote in 2001 that the War on Terror was destined to end with Latin American militias,
wearing red armbands, patrolling the streets of Cleveland. Perhaps it will.
"... "I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United States." ..."
"... Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8 billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza." ..."
"... J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum of understanding. ..."
"... Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank. ..."
"... The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes ..."
The Jews try to run US policy ..but lately the Dem base (and part of the party) has become
more pro Palestine.
Democratic (Jewish) lawmakers reckon with 2020 rhetoric on Israel aid
December 6, 2019
Presidential candidates who want to place conditions on Israeli military aid have prompted
pro-Israel House Democrats to go on the offensive.
REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
It's becoming harder and harder for pro-Israel Democrats on
Capitol Hill to ignore the increasingly critical voices of the US ally within their party and
the presidential race.
House Democratic leaders -- who happen to be some of the staunchest Israel supporters on
Capitol Hill -- this week added language supportive of the annual $3.8 billion military aid
package to Israel to a symbolic resolution that endorses a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The stalled resolution passed 226-188, largely along party lines, today. But pro-Israel
Democrats only came on board after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel,
D-N.Y., added their new language to the bill. The new provision is a response to the fact
that several presidential candidates have come out of the woodwork in recent months with
calls to place conditions on the largest recipient of US military aid.
"I'm opposed to conditioning the aid, and I would fight it no matter what," Engel
told Al-Monitor. "The Democratic Party has traditionally been a pro-Israel party, and I see
no reason for that to change now. If there are people who are Democrats who don't feel that
way, then I don't think they should be elected president of the United
States."
When Engel's committee first advanced the resolution in July, Democratic leaders opted not
to put it on the floor, even as they passed another nonbinding resolution condemning the
pro-Palestinian boycott, divestment and sanctions movement 398-17, which was backed by the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
That changed last month after the Trump administration repealed a decades-old legal
opinion maintaining that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international
law.
"There are those on the far-left side of the Democratic Party -- and some of the
presidential candidates -- who are pushing for new conditions on aid, especially in their
interactions with Gaza, which is run by Hamas -- a terrorist organization," Gottheimer told
Al-Monitor.
An October poll from the liberal Center for American Progress found that 56% of
American voters, including 71% of Democrats, oppose "unconditional financial and military
assistance to Israel if the Israeli government continues to violate American policy on
settlement expansion or West Bank annexation."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., is the most vocal proponent of conditioning Israeli
military aid in the presidential race -- going even further left than J Street and
all his primary opponents. At J Street's conference in October he said that some of the $3.8
billion in annual assistance "should go right now to humanitarian aid in Gaza."
J Street has set any formal Israeli annexation of the West Bank as its red line for
placing conditions on Israeli military aid. But it also supports the $38 billion memorandum
of understanding.
Presidential hopefuls Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South
Bend, Indiana, have jumped on board with J Street's position. However, the current
front-runner, former Vice President Joe Biden, has flatly ruled out conditioning the aid.
Notably, J Street did not oppose the effort to amend the Lowenthal resolution with the
military aid language. That said, progressive Democrats do not necessarily view that
provision as incompatible with calls to attach strings to that assistance. Congressional
Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., called the Engel language
"meaningless."
"It's just restating what current practice or current law is," Pocan told Al-Monitor. "We
don't really see it as affecting the bill one way or the other. At any time if we feel like
we're better off putting conditions on money and holding back money, Congress could always do
that with any country through the normal process."
Shortly after the vote, Sanders campaign co-chair Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., as well as
Reps. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., and Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., asked colleagues to sign a letter to
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo asking him to clarify whether Israel has used US military
equipment while demolishing Palestinian homes in the West Bank.
The letter, seen by Al-Monitor, notes that the Arms Export Control Act "narrowly
conditions the use of transferred US-origin defense articles" and requires the president to
inform Congress if the equipment is used for unauthorized purposes
but if you take away still viable American aerospace, automotive and pharmaceutical
industries among very few others, you will find a wasteland of financial speculations and
selling the snake oil
Lovely takes, Andrei. The people that need to read you see your name and immediately
retort, "Agent for Putin", Washington Post-style. Gets them off the hook from thinking
because after all, college deliberately taught them NOT to think. Most of the kids, they're
hopeless. They're hopeless idiots, they know nothing of the Constitution, they think all is
normal.
And they were fleeced by the academics that dumbed them down. Meanwhile, we have in
effect, been selling each other hamburgers (services) for the past 50 years. Also, they've
been selling the oil and gas right out from under our feet overseas and putting THAT in their
pockets even as we pay a world price for gasoline and finished product. Every other country
that produces crude gets a discount. Not us.
To steal a quote from a movie I watched once, they struck oil under our garden and all we
get is dead tomatoes. Our society is hollowed out, depraved, the women becoming more and more
hideous, all the institutions that held us together, deliberately broken. decay
everywhere.
As for the military? A reflection of our society. When I went into the Navy in 1975, it
was Stars and Stripes and we served in large part for Mom, Apple Pie and Chevrolet.
Today it is clear that the Stars and Stripes should be dollar signs over a defense
contractor logo. The rest? From where I sit today, for most kids, Mom is a divorced slut,
Apple Pie is a turd in a wax paper wrapper and Chevrolet is a bent shit can from China.
This isn't a society I'd defend as a nation worth defending. The feminists sit on their
fat, comfortable asses, made such on the labors of us White guys and they declare their
hatred. Only a moron or a kid that needs a shot at a job or trade or gets a kick out of
airplanes or such joins.
Our women in general aren't worth defending on the streets or the world. Not in the Blue
cities, they are hideous. Take care of your own woman and kids and community and hell with
the rest. There's no draft, the society mostly hates Vets, so it isn't for country most
serve.
It's to grab something, from a trade, to a pilot's license. A military based on that has
no staying power. And our corruptions and waste and outright theft in military procurement
for shitty weapons makes us ripe for the taking. And our talent is wasted building shitty
weapons and the second level builds shitty airliners.
Can't fly into space? We cannot fly, literally, to anywhere in the newest build out, the
Maxx. And we're depending on the Theranos of Aerospace, Spacex/Musk to get us to space?
Right! Except for the nukes, we're ripe, man.
Andrei, speaking of Musk, how the Hell does he smoke big fat doobies and keep his security
clearance when everyone else in Washington gets fired for getting near the stuff? Queer
privilege? I'm convinced the whole thing with Musk is a shell game. You?
Thanks for your work. Very good stuff, but we can't get those who need it to even look.
Our people are incapable of marching in the streets or even seeing why they should. Kudos to
those who did it to us. They did a fine job.
@Frederick V. Reed It has a dangerous set of nukes. The tripwires are and have always
been easy-sinkers like our surface ships. The psychos that run our policy have subs and silos
with missiles with lots of nukes...
"... Writing in the 1830s, as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, Honoré de Balzac anticipated the broader social concern: "The secret of great fortunes without apparent cause is a crime that has been forgotten, because it was properly carried out." Or, in the more popular paraphrase: behind every great fortune lies a great crime. ..."
"... In recent decades, this corporate lobbying has had two main effects. First, by erecting entry barriers to existing sectors, it protects incumbents and lowers their effective tax rates. This is a deadweight loss – a pure drag on economic growth that limits opportunities for everyone who is not already an oligarch. ..."
"... As U.S. public finances are eroded by oligarchy, so is the ability to fund essential infrastructure, improvements in education, and the kind of breakthrough science that brought America to this point. ..."
Our billionaire problem is getting worse. Any market-oriented economy creates
opportunities for new fortunes to be built, including through innovation. More innovation is
likely to take place where fewer rules encumber entrepreneurial creativity. Some of this
creativity may lead to processes and products that are actually detrimental to public
welfare.
Unfortunately, by the time the need for legislation or regulation becomes apparent, the
innovators have their billions – and they can use that money to protect their
interests.
This billionaire problem is not new. Every epoch, dating at least from Roman times,
produces versions of it whenever some shift in market structure or geopolitics creates an
opportunity for fortunes to be built quickly.
Writing in the 1830s, as the Industrial Revolution gathered pace, Honoré de
Balzac anticipated the broader social concern: "The secret of great fortunes without apparent
cause is a crime that has been forgotten, because it was properly carried out." Or, in the
more popular paraphrase: behind every great fortune lies a great crime.
Prominent historical examples include the British East India Company, the Europeans who
built vast fortunes based on African slave labor in the West Indies, and coal mine
owners.
All became rich fast, and then used their political clout to get what they wanted,
including impunity for horrendous abuses. At their peak in the nineteenth century, railway
interests held sway over many or perhaps even most members of the British parliament.
The United States has long exhibited a particularly potent strain of the billionaire
problem. This is partly because America's founders, in their pre-industrial innocence, could
not imagine that money would capture politics to the extent that it has (or that was fully
apparent just a few decades later). Moreover, U.S. leaders were long willing to let private
enterprise take on new projects that elsewhere fell into the hands of the state.
The German post office, for example, built one of the most extensive and efficient
telegraph systems in the world. Samuel Morse urged Congress to do the same (or better). But
U.S. telegraph communication was instead developed privately – as was the telephone
system that followed, all of iron and steel, the entire railroad network, and just about
every other component of the early industrial economy.
When the U.S. government did become involved in economic activity, it was mostly to open
up new frontiers – creating more opportunity for individuals and private business.
In the aftermath of World War II, Vannevar Bush – a Republican who was also a top
adviser to President Franklin D. Roosevelt – cleverly argued that science represented
the next frontier, and hence constructed a winning political argument for the government to
act as a catalyst.
As Jonathan Gruber and I have argued recently in our book Jump-Starting America, the
post-war federal government's strategic investments in basic science spurred remarkable
private-sector innovation – including productivity gains and widely shared increases in
wages. Vast new fortunes were created.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. /VCG
Photo
The political consequences of America's post-war private-sector boom were felt within a
generation, and they were not always positive. From the 1960s, the U.S. experienced growing
anti-tax sentiment, strong pressure for deregulation (including for the financial sector),
and a lot more corporate money pouring into politics through every possible avenue.
In recent decades, this corporate lobbying has had two main effects. First, by
erecting entry barriers to existing sectors, it protects incumbents and lowers their
effective tax rates. This is a deadweight loss – a pure drag on economic growth that
limits opportunities for everyone who is not already an oligarch.
As U.S. public finances are eroded by oligarchy, so is the ability to fund essential
infrastructure, improvements in education, and the kind of breakthrough science that brought
America to this point.
Some of America's billionaires earn kudos for their philanthropy. At the same time, most
of them adopt a dog-in-the-manger attitude throughout their business operations –
digging deeper moats to protect profits or simply destroying smaller business at every
opportunity.
There is a second effect, which is more nuanced. In some entirely new sectors,
particularly in the digital domain, entry was possible at least during an early phase.
The entrepreneurs who built the first Internet companies were not able to put up effective
entry barriers – hence the runaway success (and greater billions) of more recent
companies such as Facebook, Amazon, and Uber.
But now the controlling shareholders of these new behemoths operate pretty much in the
same way as Andrew Carnegie, John D. Rockefeller, and the original J.P. Morgan once did. They
use their money to buy influence and resist any kind of reasonable restraint on their
anti-competitive and anti-worker behavior – even if it undermines democratic
institutions.
We will always have billionaires. Ex post regulation and higher rates of taxation are
appealing today but, looking forward, will they prove sufficient in a political system that
allows individuals to spend as much as they like to get whatever they want (and repeal
whatever they hate)? It's time for a new approach, as Gruber and I propose.
Big profits follow from big new ideas. That's why federal science funding should be
designed to include upside participation in the enterprises that will be created. The public
deserves much more direct participation in those profits. And the billionaires should have to
make do with fewer billions.
"The United States has long exhibited a particularly potent strain of the billionaire
problem. This is partly because America's founders, in their pre-industrial innocence, could
not imagine that money would capture politics to the extent that it has (or that was fully
apparent just a few decades later). "
A romanticization of the founders? I seem to recall their motivation was to counter revolt
against the galloping egalitarianism of the States, and incidentally, the guys in the room
were basically the billionaires of the day.
His subsequent complaints seem right on though, and pointing out the telegraph situation,
which rightly should have been a Post Office operation, is especially appreciated.
A romanticization of the founders? I seem to recall their motivation was to counter revolt
against the galloping egalitarianism of the States, and incidentally, the guys in the room
were basically the billionaires of the day.
[Simon Johnson's] subsequent complaints seem right on though, and pointing out the
telegraph situation, which rightly should have been a Post Office operation, is especially
appreciated.
POTUS races can be effectively
Operated with
Little people funded campaigns
Bernie proved that
And Liz
Yes spreading too thin
fielding 435 house races at once
or 34 Senate races etc
Big bucks will prevail over all
But winn8ng evening enough
It requires sustainable
Solid majorities
And protracted continuity
like the new deal maintained
Why ?
The bigger problem is the pre existing
State system
Progressives might get elected
to change The show
But
Deep Sam will resist mightily
Capitalism is a system
.of organized social production
That produces and reproduces
Along with itself
Typical human consequences
Among those typical human consequences
Could Tax Increases Speed Up the Economy?
Democrats Say Yes https://nyti.ms/2RlDbJx
NYT - Jim Tankersley - December 5
WASHINGTON -- Elizabeth Warren is leading a liberal rebellion against a long-held economic
view that large tax increases slow economic growth, trying to upend Democratic policymaking
in the way supply-side conservatives changed Republican orthodoxy four decades ago.
(Warren Would Take Billionaires Down
a Few Billion Pegs https://nyti.ms/2CtMPRN
NYT - November 10)
Generations of economists, across much of the ideological spectrum, have long held that
higher taxes reduce investment, slowing economic growth. That drag, the consensus held, would
offset the benefits to growth from increased government spending in areas like education.
Ms. Warren and other leading Democrats say the opposite. The senator from Massachusetts,
who is a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, contends that her
plans to tax the rich and spend the revenue to lift the poor and the middle class would
accelerate economic growth, not impede it. Other Democratic candidates are making similar
claims about their tax-and-spend proposals. Some liberal economists go further and say that
simply taxing the rich would help growth no matter what the government did with the
money.
Democrats in the past, including the party's 2016 nominee, Hillary Clinton, have argued
that a more modest combination of tax increases and spending programs would expand the
economy. But no Democratic nominee before Ms. Warren had ever proposed so many new taxes and
spending programs, and leaned so heavily into the argument that they would be, in economist
parlance, pro-growth.
That argument tries to reframe a classic debate about the economic "pie" in the United
States by suggesting there is no trade-off between increasing the size of the pie and
dividing the slices more equitably among all Americans.
Ms. Warren has proposed nearly $3 trillion a year in new taxes on businesses and
high-earners, largely focused on billionaires but sometimes hitting Americans who earn
$250,000 and above per year. The taxes would fund wide-reaching new government spending on
health care, education, and family benefits like universal child care and paid parental
leave.
Last month, Ms. Warren wrote on Twitter that education, child care and student loan relief
programs funded by her tax on wealthy Americans would "grow the economy." In a separate post,
she said student debt relief would "supercharge" growth.
The last batch of economists to disrupt a political party's consensus position were
conservative -- the so-called supply-siders who built influence in the late 1970s and gained
power in the Reagan administration. Previous Republican presidents had focused on keeping the
budget deficit low, which constrained their ability to cut taxes if they did not also cut
government spending. Supply-siders contended that well-targeted tax cuts could generate big
economic growth even without spending cuts. ...
Ms. Warren is making the case that the economy could benefit if money is redistributed from
the rich and corporations to uses that she and other liberals say would be more productive.
Their argument combines hard data showing that high levels of inequality and wealth
concentration weigh down economic growth with a belief that well-targeted government spending
can encourage more Americans to work, invest and build skills that would make them more
productive.
They also cite evidence that transferring money to poor and middle-class individuals would
increase consumer spending because they spend a larger share of their incomes than wealthy
Americans, who tend to save and invest.
"The economy has changed, our understanding of it has changed, and we understand the
constricting effects of inequality" on growth, said Heather Boushey, the president of the
Washington Center for Equitable Growth, a think tank focused on inequality.
Inequality has widened significantly in America over the last several decades. The
Congressional Budget Office estimates that the incomes of the top 1 percent of Americans more
than tripled from 1979 to 2016, before taxes and government transfer payments are taken into
account. For the middle class, incomes grew 33 percent. More than a decade after the
recession, wage growth for the middle class continues to run well behind previous times of
economic expansion, like the late 1990s.
Research by the economist Emmanuel Saez and colleagues shows that the last time such a
small sliver of Americans controlled such a large share of the nation's income and wealth was
in the late 1920s, just before a stock market crash set off the Great Depression. World Bank
researchers have warned that high levels of inequality are stifling growth in South Africa,
which has the globe's worst measured inequality.
"We have an economy that isn't delivering like it used to," said Ms. Boushey, who advised
Hillary Clinton's 2016 Democratic presidential campaign. "That's leading people to say let's
re-examine the evidence."
The contention that tax and spending increases can lift economic growth is not the only
challenge to traditional orthodoxy brewing in liberal economic circles. Some Democrats have
also embraced modern monetary theory, which reframes classic thinking that discourages large
budget deficits as a drag on growth. Its supporters, including Representative Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez of New York and the economist Stephanie Kelton, an adviser to Senator Bernie
Sanders of Vermont, argue that the United States government should be spending much more on
programs to fight inequality, like a federal job guarantee, without imposing new taxes.
Some of the inequality-focused economists say they are hoping to build new economic models
to predict the effects of their policies, though they acknowledge few of those models exist
yet. Instead, they rely on evidence about the likely effects of individual programs, added
together.
Many economists who study tax policy contend that Ms. Warren's plans -- and other large
tax-and-spend proposals from Democratic candidates this year -- would hurt the economy, just
as classic economic models suggest.
"Some elements of the large increase in government spending on health and education
proposed by Senator Warren would promote economic growth" through channels like improved
education, said Alan Auerbach, an economics professor at the University of California,
Berkeley, who has written some of the most influential research in the profession on the
relationship between tax rates and growth.
But, he said, "I am very skeptical that these growth effects would offset the negative
effects on growth of the higher taxes, particularly given that the spending increases are not
specifically targeted toward enhancing growth."
Ms. Warren disagrees. In the latest Democratic debate, she said the spending programs
funded by her wealth tax would be "transformative" for workers. Those plans would raise
wages, make college tuition-free and relieve graduates of student debt, she said, adding, "We
can invest in an entire generation's future."
An emerging group of liberal economists say taxes on high-earners could spur growth even
if the government did nothing with the revenue because the concentration of income and wealth
is dampening consumer spending.
"We are experiencing a revolution right now in macroeconomics, particularly in the policy
space," said Mark Paul, an economist who is a fellow at the liberal Roosevelt Institute in
Washington. "We can think of a wealth tax as welfare-enhancing, in and of itself, simply by
constraining the power of the very wealthy" to influence public policy and distort markets to
their advantage.
Taken together, Ms. Warren's proposals would transform the role of federal taxation. If
every tax increase she has proposed in the campaign passed and raised as much revenue as her
advisers predict -- a contingency hotly debated among even liberal economists -- total
federal tax revenue would grow more than 50 percent.
The United States would leap from one of the lowest-taxed rich nations to one of the
highest. It would collect more taxes as a share of the economy than Norway, and only slightly
less than Italy.
Mr. Sanders's plan envisions a similarly large increase in tax levels. Former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s proposals are much smaller in scale: He would raise taxes on
the wealthy and corporations by $3.4 trillion over a decade, in order to fund increased
spending on health care, higher education, infrastructure and carbon emissions reduction.
If Ms. Warren's tax program is enacted, said Gabriel Zucman, an economist at Berkeley who
is an architect of her wealth tax proposal, "in my view, the most likely effect is a small
positive effect on growth, depending on how the revenues are used."
Another economist who has worked with the Warren campaign to analyze its proposals, Mark
Zandi of Moody's, said he would expect her plans to be "largely a wash on long-term economic
growth."
Researchers at the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College projected this summer that Ms.
Warren's wealth tax and spending policies would generate a 1.7 percent increase in the size
of the economy. A preliminary study of a wealth tax like Ms. Warren's proposal, by the Penn
Wharton Budget Model, found that it would reduce the size of the economy by a similar 1.7
percent. The model uses the sort of classic methodology that liberals are now rebelling
against and did not evaluate Ms. Warren's spending proposals.
Historical experience offers few parallels for assessing the economic effects of a
taxation-and-spending program on the scale of Ms. Warren's ambitions. A 2002 study of wealth
taxes in rich countries found that those taxes, most of which have since been abandoned,
reduced economic growth slightly on an annual basis.
Conservative economists roundly disagree that large tax increases can spur faster growth,
even those who say government spending on paid leave and child care may get more Americans
into the labor force. They say a wealth tax on the scale of Ms. Warren's proposal would
greatly reduce savings and investment by the rich.
"What a wealth tax does is, it directly taxes savings," said Aparna Mathur, an economist
at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who favors a narrow paid leave program and
whose research finds benefits from reducing tax rates on business and investment. "If you're
taxing savings, you're implicitly taxing investment. So how can that possibly be
pro-growth?"
The supply-side economists' plans were similarly denounced -- George Bush called them
"voodoo economic policies" while running for president in 1980 -- but in time dominated
Republican proposals.
Some members of the new liberal revolt against tax orthodoxy welcome the comparison to the
supply-side uprising.
"While I think that the supply-siders were wrong, and were always wrong, they were
reacting to very real economic problems in the 1970s," said Michael Linden, the executive
director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a liberal policy and advocacy group. "There was
something really wrong with the economy at the time. I think there is now."
e at The American Conservative say we're for a 'Main Street' conservatism . There's
perhaps no better example of what that means than this 10 minute segment from
Tucker Carlson's primetime show last night. Carlson, chairman of TAC's advisory board, dared to
go after GOP mega-donor Paul Singer for his thoroughly awful "vulture capitalism" practices --
and the Republican politicians who take his money and remain silent. It was a truly remarkable
segment, especially to appear on Fox News.
For the uninitiated, Paul Singer is a New York hedge fund manager who has made billions by
purchasing sovereign debt from financially distressed countries. He'd offer struggling foreign
governments a lifeline for their debt, then hound them with costly litigation to make a
handsome profit on repayment with interest, not unlike a vulture feeding off a carcass --
hence, vulture capitalism. Singer's vulture capitalism isn't limited to foreign countries,
though; his hedge fund, Elliot Management, also racks up quite the profit by "investing" in
struggling U.S. companies, often off-shoring good paying American jobs in the process.
Much of Carlson's exposé centered around Singer's involvement with the outdoors
retailer Cabela's. For many Americans, Cabela's is a yearly staple for hunting and fishing
gear. For residents of Sidney, Nebraska, population 6,282 and Cabela's corporate headquarters,
it was the economic engine of the flourishing town. For Singer, it was yet another way to add
to his bloated net worth. Elliot Management took an ownership stake in Cabela's in 2015, and
quickly pushed the board to sell the company. Despite its relative health, Cabela's caved to
Elliot Management's wishes, and sold to competitor Bass Pro Shops a year later. Just one week
after the merger, amidst surging Cabela's stock prices, Singer's hedge fund cashed out -- to
the tune of $90 million up front.
Of course, things didn't work out so well for the town of Sidney. With Bass Pro Shops taking
ownership of Cabela's, many good paying jobs in Sidney disappeared -- and many residents were
forced to move. Those who didn't leave town quick enough were stuck, as housing prices
collapsed. Sidney, once one of the rare thriving small towns surviving the "brain drain," found
itself decimated by a New York billionaire who probably never stepped foot in a Cabela's.
Yet the story is not just about another small town fallen prey to a changing economy,
because Singer is not just another hedge fund manager. He was the second biggest donor to the
GOP in 2016, and has pumped millions of dollars into Republican campaigns. Accordingly, he
demands outsized influence over Republican congressmen -- as Carlson noted, Nebraska Sen. Ben
Sasse has been silent on the situation in Sidney. But a closer look at Singer's political
investments is revealing as to his brand of "conservatism". He has bankrolled numerous neoconservative
foreign policy shops , advocated for more
permissive immigration policies , and has been a longtime
supporter of pro-LGBT organizations and causes . It's no surprise that he vehemently
opposed President Trump's ascendance in 2015.
If you're not yet DVR-ing the 8pm Fox News timeslot, you should be. Last night's segment was
the latest evidence that Tucker Carlson is perhaps the only voice on cable news unafraid to
call out those on his own side -- even those who are very powerful like Paul Singer. For too
long, conservatives have been beholden to moneyed interests that feel no obligation to the
country around them. 'Main Street' conservatism, by contrast, sides with the people in places
like Sidney, Nebraska over the culturally progressive, interventionist, market absolutists in
the centers of power -- regardless of which major party receives their dollars.
about the
author Emile A. Doak, senior development associate, coordinates The American
Conservative 's fundraising efforts. He is a graduate of Georgetown University, where he
studied political philosophy and theology. Prior to joining TAC , Emile worked in
education, teaching and managing college preparation courses for high school students. He and
his wife reside in their hometown of Herndon, Virginia.
Said it before and I'll say it again, Warren's personal ambition is often what
manifests her poor political instincts. Why did she claim Native American Heritage? Why did
she endorse HRC in 2016? Why did she ambiguously support, then unambiguously back away from,
M4A?
This trend leads me to suspect that she will not easily back out of the race, and
cannot be trusted finally to endorse Sanders in 2020 any more than she could be in 2016. I
suspect, in any case, that many of her voters would not default to Sanders but to Buttigieg
in any case. They seem to be mostly white professionals between 30-60yrs old who make
$120,000/year.
Wow, Sanders has really been pulling ahead of Warren if the polls over the past few days
are to be believed. I am hoping that this trend continues. Warren's overly-complicated
healthcare proposal which she decided to backpedal on at the last moment seems like it has
really cost her.
I kind of wonder at this point why Warren decided to run for president in the first place.
She seems like the type of person who would rather follow than lead, and would be ill-suited
to be president as she would be forced to take a position on something. Warren would have
been better served to be clear about what her actual positions are instead of trying to have
it both ways. Her constant mind-changing and backpedaling in response to whomever has the
political upper-hand at the moment has angered both the DNC establishment as well as the
progressive left.
Or, as Abraham Lincoln put it in a letter to "Mr FJ Hooker" as he was contemplating a push
across the Rappahannock in the wake of Lee's move westward in June 1863,
"like a bull stuck across a fence that cannot gore to the front or kick to the rear"
I think it was you, Lambert, who drew my attention to "Rich and Tracey's Civil War
podcast", and I am grateful.
I think Warren is running for treasury secretary in a Biden administration. The theory
being that that will be her reward for stopping Sanders. Everybody has an angle. Except
Bernie. Can someone show me his angle?
Tucker Carlson has been making comments like this for a long time. And he's not a
libertarian. He believes in regulated capitalism.
What we might be seeing is a the beginning of the two parties flipping from left to right
on economic issues. The social issues just obscure it, as they were designed to do.
I wonder if the powers at be at Fox News allow Tucker to go on these rants because they
know two things:
1.) 99% of bought and paid for Republican politicians will never do anything about this
except perhaps some lip service here and there.
2.) The fact that it's on Fox News will cause the Vichy left to not believe it's real or
perhaps a Russian phy op against American capitalism. Thus outside of the Sanders camp there
will be no push/support for any change.
Tucker has CHANGED his views on lots of things. Like I have. To be able to admit you were
wrong is a big deal. He supported the Iraq War. I didn't. In retrospect, he realized he did
this because of group think cool kids thing. Then he realized that he had been conned, He
doesn't like being conned. I thought Obama's speech was the opposite of John Edwards "2
Americas". Obama was delivering a "con" I.e. "We are all One America". So now Tucker and I,
from different sides, are more skeptical. I started questioning my groupthink Democratic
viewpoint in 2004. Slowly I realized that I too had been conned. So some of those on the
"right" and Some of those on the "left" have sought other ports to dock in as we figure this
all out. Naked Capitalism is one of those docks. So soon we should introduce Tucker to
Yves.
As I have frequently pointed out to my once-upon-a-time "liberal" friends, Tucker Carlson
is often these days a worthwhile antidote to the collective yelpings & bleatings of the
brain-snatched amen corner on MSNBC & CNN. In this instance (and others) his observations
are rational and clearly articulated. He makes sense! And he is on the correct (not far
right) side of the topic. The continuing Iraq/Syria catastrophe, PutinGate and the hedge fund
hooligan Paul Singer are just three recent examples. His arguments (and his snark) are well
played. Alas, following these sensible segments, he is still a Fox guy and is obliged to
revert to Fox boilerplate for most of the rest of the night. But in our present crackbrained
media environment, be thankful for small mercies such as Tucker's moments.
Thanks for the post. I probably would have missed this without you.
There are a couple things that are interesting to me. First, why does Tucker Carlson call
out Ben Sasse for accepting a maxed out campaign contribution from Paul Singer? The Governor
of Nebraska then and now is Pete Ricketts. His father (Joe – TD Ameritrade, Chicago
Cubs) is a "very good friend" of Paul Singer. Everyone believes Pete Ricketts wants to run
for US Senate and the nearest opportunity is Ben Sasse's seat. More than meets the eye?
Two, a longtime director of Cabela's is Mike McCarthy of McCarthy Capital. [Former
Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel worked for McCarthy.] ES&S (electronic voting machines)
is owned by McCarthy Group, LLC.
Tucker Carlson Tears into Vulture Capitalist Paul Singer for Strip Mining American Towns
Posted on
December 5, 2019
by
Yves Smith
In a bit of synchronicity, Lambert gave a mini-speech tonight that dovetails with an important Tucker
Carlson segment about how hedge funds are destroying flyover. As UserFriendly lamented, "It is beyond sad
that Tucker Carlson is doing better journalism than just about anywhere else." That goes double given that
Carlson has only short segments and TV isn't well suited to complicated arguments.
Lambert fondly recalled the America he grew up in in Indiana, before his parents moved to Maine, where
most people were comfortable or at least not in perilous shape, where blue collar labor, like working in a
factory or repairing cars, was viewed with respect, and where cities and towns were economic and social
communities, with their own businesses and local notables, and national chain operations were few. Yes,
there was an underbelly to this era of broadly shared economic prosperity, such as gays needing to be
closeted and women having to get married if they wanted a decent lifestyle.
I'm not doing his remarks justice, but among other things, the greater sense of stability contributed to
more people being able to be legitimately optimistic. If you found a decent job, you weren't exposed to
MBA-induced downsizings or merger-induced closures. Even in the transitional 1970s, Lambert got his first
job in a mill! He liked his work and was able to support himself, rent an apartment, and enjoy some modest
luxuries. Contrast that with the economic status of a Walmart clerk or an Amazon warehouse worker. And even
now, the small towns that remain cling to activities that bring people together, as Lambert highlighted in
Water Cooler earlier this week:
Please watch this clip in full. Carlson begins with an unvarnished description of the wreckage that
America's heartlands have become as financial predators have sucked local businesses dry, leaving shrunken
communities, poverty and drug addiction in their wake.
Readers may wonder why Carlson singles out hedge funds rather than private equity, but he has
courageously singled out one of the biggest political forces in DC, the notorious vulture capitalist Paul
Singer, best known for his pitched battles with Peru and Argentina after he bought their debt at
knocked-down prices. Carlson describes some US examples from his
rapacious
playbook, zeroing on Delphi, where Singer got crisis bailout money and then shuttered most US
operation, and Cabela's, where a Singer-pressured takeover wrecked one of the few remaining prosperous
American small towns, Sidney, Nebraska. Not only are former employees still afraid of Singer, but even
Carlson was warned against taking on the famously vindictive Singer.
Kev said; "It will also slit your throat tomorrow."
This, aggressive mergers and acquisitions, has been going on for a very long time and everybody
always says that but I have yet to see any wealthy person suffer more than a small loss of a point or
2.
The fact is thats where we are at with capitalism. Money MUST become more money. There are no
outside considerations not even human life.
We all talk about robots going rogue and killing off humanity. Well money is already doing that.
Sound of the Suburbs, your comment suggests that this is the way things are and that there is nothing
to do about it, but that is wrong. It's not inherent to markets or to nature. In fact, "it's not even
hard" because we have agreed to it as part of the social contract, and created policies that enable it.
We can reverse the calculation by changing the tax rules, accounting rules, and legal liability rules and
this calculation reverses. TLDR; vote Bernie.
Which "we" are you talking about? You assume an entity with agency, when there is no such thing.
How do YOU suggest "WE" rewrite the non-existent "social contract?" Or change the tax rules, the
accounting rules, the Delaware corporations law, the Federal Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure,
the current contents of the Code of Federal Regulations, the United States Code and all the other
trappings of legitimacy that give "us" the looting we suffer and remove any access to 'agency" to
re-fix things? I hope Bernie wins/is allowed to win, but he would need the skills of a Machiavelli and
Richelieu and Bismarck to "drain the swamp" of all the horrible creatures and muck that swirls there.
Not to say it's not worth trying "our" mope-level damndest to make it happen.
That said – it doesn't seem to me that Cabelas was 'forced' to sell. Singer owned less than 12% of the
stock. Is he to blame for either managerial greed, or lack of cojones? I'm not praising Singer, just saying
ISTM that he had couldn't have succeeded there without the greed or cowardice of management. I could be
wrong.
Carlson said this behavior is banned in the UK, how does that work?
Tthis is standard operating procedure for takeovers and greenmail in the US. First, 11% is going to be
way way above average trading volumes. Second, unless management owns a lot of shares or has large blocks
in the hands of loyal friends, many investors will follow the money and align with a greenmailer.
When a hostile player is forced to announce that he has a stake >5% by the SEC's 13-D filing
requirement, managements start sweating bullets. "Activist" hedge funds regularly make tons of trouble
with 10% to 15% stakes. CalPERS was a very effective activist investor in its glory years (not even
hostile but pushing hard for governance changes) with much smaller stakes.
The New York Post, which is very strong on covering hedge funds, confirms Carlson's take. From a 2016
article:
Hedgie Paul Singer hit another bull's-eye with his Cabela's investment.
Singer's Elliott Management bought an 11 percent stake in the hunting supply chain last October and
pressed the Springfield, Mo., chain to pursue strategic alternatives -- including a sale.
On Monday, his suggestion was heeded as the 55-year-old company said it agreed to a $5.5 billion,
$65.50-per-share takeover offer from rival Bass Pro Shops.
For Singer, who purchased much of his Cabela's stake at between $36 and $40 a share, Monday's news
means that the fund gained roughly 72 percent on its investment.
The same story depicts Singer as able to exert pressure with even smaller interests:
The hedge fund had an 8.8 percent stake in the company and was expected to net $58 million in
profits, The Post reported.
Elliott, which in June announced a 4.7 stake in PulteGroup, named three board members to the
Atlanta-based homebuilding company.
Last Thursday, it readied a new target, taking an 8.1 percent stake in Mentor Graphics, a
Wilsonville, Ore.-based developer of electronic design automation software.
Since then, shares of the company have risen 6 percent, to $26.24.
Mentor represents a "classic" Elliott investment, a source close to the matter told The Post,
adding that it is a "perfect time" for the company to sell itself.
You have a gift for explaining these things to people with a lot of education but not in finance. I
was confused by this, too, until I read your comment.
"CalPERS was a very effective activist investor in its glory years (not even hostile but pushing
hard for governance changes) with much smaller stakes."
Does that mean they pulled the same parasitical stripping of companies to raise money to help pay
pensions?
But, since it represents public employees and their paymasters, the taxpayers, couldn't CALPERS be
forced to only effect deals that create the most employment, ideally in California, rather than
destroy it? i.e. a ban on job destroying deals.
That would be a long term investment in California, rather than a short term means to raise cash,
no?
Tucker Carlson has taken remarkably courageous positions on a number of issues, including Syria,
Ukraine, Russia, etc.
Matt Stoller tweets praise of Carlson's report on Singer:
"There is a real debate on the right.
@TuckerCarlson just guts billionaire Paul Singer over the destruction of a Nebraska town through
financial predation. And Carlson is merciless towards Senator @BenSasse for taking $$$ and remaining
silent."
I have noticed a considerable uptick in comments across a whole range of sites about things "going to
get biblical".
When the next downturn happens there seems to be every indication that it's going to be on an
unprecedented scale.
Traditionally that's always seem to be time to have a good war, you can get the country to focus on an
external common enemy, you can ramp up industrial production providing full employment and you can use
national security to clamp down on dissent. Nuclear weapons seems to have put paid to that idea unless
our leaders convince themselves that they can survive and flourish in their bunkers (while simultaneously
relieving themselves of a large surplus of global population)
The populations willing embrace of the security state through all our electronic devices will be a large
hurdle for revolutionary elements as well as the crushing of dissent via institutions like the FBI and
the mainstream media.
The French and the Russians succeeded in the past. I doubt if I will either live long enough to see it
(being old) or even less likely to live through it.
Biblical in the OT sense. In the NT going biblical was a sacrifice.
I'm not fond of the phrase as it is a euphemism for violence or war. Under that definition, the US,
through declared and undeclared wars, has been going biblical for most of my life.
In the Jimmy Dore show this is almost a running joke now: He shows a clip with Tucker Carlson, where
Tucker is doing what you would expect the "liberal" media to do, like going against the deep state,
criticizing regime change wars (a few times with Tusi as his guest), or something like this great piece
against Singer and the hedge funds. Jimmy Dore then, each time, shakes his head in disbelief and asks, "Why
the hell is Tucker Carlson the only one who is allowed to say things like this? Its a mystery! I dont get
it!"
-- indeed: Why, and why on Fox News?
Because it sells. Can't let RT steal all the money with anti-war voices, Watching the Hawks, Jesse
Ventura, On Contact with Chris Hedges, these shows have viewership, and the Fox news owners know it.
Perhaps they'll have to make Tucker Carlson FOX, the TCFOX news channel. An anti-establishment,
pro-capitalism libertarianesque program experience, where they can decry all the pro-war democrats, and
RINO's, while making a case that capitalism isn't working cause of "big government".
Of course "private property" requiires state enforcement, which, when you remind libertarians that
they are "statists", they don't like that too much
It sells, but also doesn't pose a real threat to the powers that be. He creates very accurate,
specific, personally moving, well-produced, diagnoses of problems (he even names names!)
Then he and his ilk imply that the only solution is to magically create a government free white
Christian ethnostate where the good non-corrupt capitalists (like, as he states in this video, the
rockefellers and carnegies apparently were) will bring us back to the good ol days.
I strongly recommend sitting down for a good long policy discussion with a Tucker Carlson fan. In
my experience they will, without exception, go to great lengths to convince you that a vote for Bernie
will, undoubtedly, make all the problems Tucker describes worse, cuz gubmint bad and racist dog
whistles.
I suspect absent Carlson and his ilk, Bernie would actually have an easier time making inroads into
the republican base.
I heard no Carlson mention of "magically create a government free white Christian ethnostate
where the good non-corrupt capitalists (like, as he states in this video, the rockefellers and
carnegies apparently were) will bring us back to the good ol days."
Carlson seemed to suggest that prior US capitalists "felt some obligation" while, to me,
implying that current US capitalist versions do not feel this obligation.
Bernie could show he will listen to good ideas from all sides, even when the ideas surface on
Fox.
Carlson did mention some "countries have banned this kind of behavior, including the United
Kingdom" which suggests legislative changes are possible.
If Bernie were to pitch a legislative fix, he might pick up some Tucker Carlson fans.
Maybe Bernie might get mentioned favorably by Carlson.
Carnegie built hundreds of public libraries, Rockefeller donated thousands of acres of land,
Sears founder
Julius Rosenwald funded the beginnings of the NAACP.
Well, we can agree to disagree on whether or not Carlson's regularly invoked vision of
deserving Americans is racist or ethnocentric, and I'll admit his view of the role of
government can seem a bit schizophrenic at times – as far as I can tell he has strongly
libertarian sensibilities but in recent years figured out that "free" markets do, in fact,
require government regulations.
But I do strongly recommend reading a few social/economic histories of the US from the
industrial revolution through the beginning of the great depression.
I promise those fellows you mention were not quite so swell as Tucker makes out, and that
the relationship between philanthropy and capital hasn't changed as much as you seem to
think.
I'll just say this, if I were playing for the other team so to speak, and I were a GOP strategist
trying to secure a future for the party, the easy move would be to adopt a degree of populist rhetoric
and at least make some gestures towards easing the pain of towns which have been rendered post-industrial
wastelands by people like Singer and acknowledge what's been done. It would be almost comically easy to
paint the Democrats as the political party of globalized capitalism (because they are), even more so
because most of the places that are key liberal constituencies are also centers of the financial industry
(Manhattan and San Fransisco, for example). It wouldn't take much to graft the loathing of "urban elites"
in these communities onto PE and hedge funds. This, combined with toning down the nationalist rhetoric,
cutting back on the racism and homophobia (hell, even just keeping your mouth shut about it) would pretty
much build an unstoppable electoral majority.
Back in the days when I was more optimistic about the Democrats, I always tried to warn people that if
the Democrats (and other center left parties) waited too long and let the GOP be the first ones to the
lifeboats when neoliberalism started to sink, they'd get stuck holding the bag even if the GOP had more
to do with those policies historically. But pursuing this strategy would imply that the GOP is somehow
less beholden to its donors than the Democrats, which it isn't, but maybe Tucker Carlson is the canary in
the coal mine. Even people on the right realize the jig is up, and that they better start trying to cut
some kind of deal with the rising populist currents in US politics if they want to stay in power.
Tucker Carlson on Fox is making sense, while MSNBC and CNN peddle nonsense. What better reason to cancel
your cable and say adios to the fakery and programming.
In other unrelated news, Paul Singer has announced that he is providing funding to the Manhattan
Institute for Policy Research to try and understand why so many "flyover" Americans give their votes to
Trump. "It's a mystery. I have no idea why they would not vote for a good Republican candidate instead –
like my boy Mitt Romney" he stated. "Why would they do that? Maybe I should run for President like my buddy
Mike. Then they could all vote for me. Or else!"
Reading his Wikipedia page, I notice that he only donates money to things that effect him personally. He
went to Harvard so he gives to Harvard. He lives in New York so he gives money to the Food bank and the
Police – which both serve to keep the place calm. He is Jewish so he gives a ton to money to pro-Israel
causes. He votes Republican so he helps fund Republicans that will defend wealthy people like him. One son
comes out as gay so he gives to same-sex marriage & LGBTQ causes. He provides money to organizations that
fight taxes being imposed on wealthy people like himself. It is a very narrow circle of concerns that he
has. And the vast bulk of Americans are outside this circle I note.
But of all people to call him on his part in destroying the real economy of the United States. That which
actually makes stuff and does stuff instead of financial bs. Of all the people to do so it is
Tucker-goddamnn-Carlson. And on Fox News to boot. The same person that "liberal" protesters were
demonstrating outside his home with his family inside because they did not like his beliefs. It is kinda
funny when you think about it. A right wing commentator is attacking the Left. But from their left.
It is kinda funny when you think about it. A right wing commentator is attacking the Left. But from
their left.
What better proof that there is no Left left in the Left any more? Today's Left is to the right of
what used to be the Centre, Liberals are what used to be Conservative and Conservatives have moved into
"here there be dragons" territory. .
This is nonsense, the DSA for example is to the right of what used to be the Center? They aren't
left enough for some, including some of their members I suspect but .. But the left period has little
actual power is the thing. And it's all about taking power.
Like I've mentioned previously – politically .. our society has gone through a phase-shift. Mr.
Carlson is but just one example. So are those of us who held our noses, after seeing how transparently
conniving the DNC et al were, and voted for the Julius de Orange !
"the crushing of dissent via institutions like the FBI and the mainstream media"
This will be unnecessary. Recent research indicates that when people feel like they are being
watched, they self-censor.
The growing number of activist special interest groups with a myriad of hot topics and disparate
worldviews and interests just about guarantees that anything you say other than parroting the current
majority opinion will offend someone.
Couple that with murky legal powers, the unpredictability of the Twitter/Instagram mob, doxing, and
the expansion, both in extent and number of players, of ubiquitous surveillance, and significant
dissent becomes more and more a thing of the past.
I wonder if this has anything to do with the growing unreliability of political polls?
There is a populist Left. Its figurehead is Bernie but there are growing local/state organizations
like the DSA that may become relevant nationally in the not-too-distant future. AOC is a
current/future leader for this faction.
There is a populist Right. Its figurehead is Trump. From what I can tell, they're primarily online
but are also gaining strength in traditional conservative institutions like churches, community orgs,
etc.. Tucker appeals to this group. Josh Hawley is a Senator from MO with presidential ambitions who I
expect will lead this faction after Trump is gone. He is the slick-but-folksy and deadly serious
neo-Fascist type many on this board worry/warn about taking power if a real Left does not arise to
counter it/him.
Then there is the establishment elites (or ruling class, or deep state, whatever), which are
primarily Neoliberal (domestic policy) and Neoconservative (foreign policy). There have long been
these types in both parties, differing only by degree, but Trump has forced most of the "liberal"
Republicans into the D party. This group controls the money and most of the key institutions,
particularly the major media, tech, energy, and financial corporations, but their grip is slipping and
the mask is falling off. Some will side with the populist Left, but most will welcome the new Fascism,
i.e. the DNC apparatchiks who would rather lose to Trump than win with Bernie.
Mitt Romney, Bain Capital, another species of parasite, sucking some of the last marrow out of the
bones of America. Beware of billionaires who demonstrate that they are aliens to our society.
I read Tucker Carlsons book "ship of fools". It is all in there: criticism of the war fare state, Wall
Street, TBTF bail outs a.s.o. He spares neither Republicans nor Democrats. Kinda crazy but he voices more or
less exactly what Sanders is saying as well. Except he doesn´t get "Medicare for all" and he is social
conservative. Still you might think that there is enough common ground to work together. Instead we get
crazy idendity politics. I more and more believe that it is indeed so that the people on top have realised
that "identity politics" is the best thing that ever happened to them: divice et impera. Divide and rule as
already the Romans knew
And the biggest threat from Tucker Carlson is that the lower orders will believe that
Carlson-cum-Trump are as much their friend as Sanders. One of the longest-standing Idpol divisions in
US history has been unions vs. scabs. Over the past half-century, the Democratic Party has realigned
its public image in favor of the scabs. The union leadership stayed with the Dems, but the
rank-and-file long ago moved over to the Repubs. Old wine, new bottle.
Unions were weakened and made easier to destroy using IdPol. First by encouraging banning,
sometimes expelling, blacks from the various unions and secondly getting rid of first the
communists, then the socialists, and finally those deemed too liberal (not conservative enough).
Although the efforts by business interests, often helped by government at all levels, to
segregate unions was mainly in the 19th century and the "Better Dead Than Red" campaign was in the
20th especially after 1947, the use of racism and anti-leftism was done in both centuries.
You can see similar successful splintering of the Civil Rights Movements. First separating the
Suffragettes from from the anti-racism efforts. Then later the efforts to unite the Women's Rights
Movement with the successful efforts against racism was the 1960s were thwarted.
Let us just say that reform movement of the past two centuries has been splintered. The earlier
women's rights and the abolitionists, blacks and whites throughout the unions, suffragettes and the
anti lynching efforts, communists from everyone else, anti poverty from equal rights ( MLK did get
lead poisoning when he tried) and so.
So when I see the latest efforts to use IdPol to split poor people from everyone else or blacks
from whites, and see people falling for the same tactics I just lose my mind. Obviously.
You might think but you'd be wrong. St Clair in Counterpunch calls hims Tuckkker Carlson–apparently
because Carlson agrees with Trump on things like immigration. I read Carlson's book too and would say
only about half of it was material I would agree with. But the notion that anyone who doesn't stand up to
IDPol standards is a villain is crushing the left. They obsess over Trump while the wealthy of both
parties wreck the country.
I'd go along sooner with Tucker Carlson than Mr. St Clair, whose CP smeared both Caitlin Johnstone
and CJ Hopkins. St Clair and CP are controlled "oppo", IMO.
The commenter you were replying to had it right: divide et impera is the order of the day;
sometimes from unexpected sources, like the one mentioned above.
Great post! TC has strode out of the Fox News subset of the Overton window a number of times in recent
years.
PS: Yves, some introductory text to the part about Lambert's speech apparently didn't make it into the
post. It would fit between the 1st and 2nd paragraphs.
In my opinion, Tucker Carlson represents a very real and very active right-libertarian view that has been
consistently present within the Republican Party for decades. Anti-war, anti-imperialist, anti-big
business/pro-small business, and of course, anti-big union. Robert Taft comes to mind. I don't share their
"ideologies" but as a self-described socialist, I am deeply attracted to their criticisms. And criticisms
ARE important and necessary, even if the solutions are left wanting. I dearly hope that his popularity is a
sign of the realignment of politics, where issues of class and war become commonplace and issues of "to
impeach or not to impeach" fall by the wayside. I recognize that my hopes may not turn to realities.
But for an employee it makes no difference if they work for a big or small business (only big business
on average is LESS exploitative if anything – if for no other reason but they can afford to be – some of
the worst exploitation out there is employees working for small business owners).
Exactly,
right
libertarian. Within the libertarian spectrum there are real and then
royal libertarians, Tucker is of the latter.
http://geolib.com/essays/sullivan.dan/royallib.html
What are his immigration views? Are people motivated to come here because this global vulture octopus
thing has ruined their home market?
I have long thought that paul singer is representative of the worst people in the world (argentina wtf)
and I'm glad carlson put his face up there so many times for his victims to see, in case he ever ventures
out of mordor undisguised. For all the money he has, a truly worthless pos, as the closing comment made so
clear. Good for Carlson, though, almost seems like actual journalism. Kudos.
If we assume that good mergers achieve cost savings which ultimately benefit the consumer (they very
often do, assuming a good merger), is it better that a relatively large number of people save money on
goods, or that a relatively smaller number of people keep duplicate, unnecessary jobs?
Can you name such a good merger? Mergers by definition must reduce competition, and by classical
Liberal theory competition is what reduces prices for consumers.
In Neoliberal theory monopoly is the just reward for beating the competition. Sorry consumers! Bad
luck workers!
By what criteria do you deem a job unnecessary? Neoliberal criteria.
Here are some ways a merger can be bad for the US consumer.
If a merger results in employee pensions being transferred to the Pension Benefit Guarantee
Corporation (US government funded) then employee pension costs are being transferred to the US
taxpayer/consumer.
Or consider that a merger might create a monopoly that can raise consumer prices.
How does one determine that a proposed merger will be a good one that will "ultimately benefit the
consumer."?
Good morning Yves.
Tucker Carlson invoke Paul Singer noted ultra vulture as vehicle to transport Yves, others to Fox News
Commentary!
Seems the Good Night and Good Luck segue from Edward R Murro via Keith Olbermann to Tucker Carlson is
complete.
Thank you for this. It is a story that has been repeated countless times across the country, including
the midwestern town where I was born and raised.
As for Carlson being the only source of occasional light in the MSM -- the clarification continues. It has
truly become Bizarro World.
I wonder if the powers at be at Fox News allow Tucker to go on these rants because they know two things:
1.) 99% of bought and paid for Republican politicians will never do anything about this except perhaps some
lip service here and there.
2.) The fact that it's on Fox News will cause the Vichy left to not believe it's real or perhaps a Russian
phy op against American capitalism. Thus outside of the Sanders camp there will be no push/support for any
change.
Glad to see someone in the MSM point out the obvious .Carlson called out Singer, but in doing so he also
called out the Republican Party, specifically Sen. Ben Sasse from Nebraska. It will be interesting to see if
Sasse is reelected.
Nebraskans – R and D both – should toss Sasse to the curb. He's angered regular bat-poo crazy
Republicans by his "never Trump" blather, then angered Nebraska Democrats (both of us) by voting
Trump/GOP well over 90 percent of the time.
Add to this his folksy BS appearances in the media and his execrable books, and he's a classic empty
suit. Closer to a straight Republican Mayor Pete than any thing else – over-credentialed, over-ambitious
and under performing.
Our Nebraska Democratic Party problem is two-fold: incredibly thin bench for decent candidates and
preponderance of Clinton/Obama/HRC leftovers running the state party. Will be knocking on doors for
Bernie come 2020 but state races are iffy at best.
In a wacky pre apocalyptic world, truth and justice is pined for by many. Conservation is a critical
requirement. I now look at what is true and what is not, I know, very subjective. Those folks that tell us
to do things that harm us are transparent. We follow them at our peril.
I consider Sanders the most conservative option we have for the nation. He intends to 'conserve' our nation
and the people first. Something we have not had for decades, or ever, perhaps. Giving the people with the
most to lose a voice in how things move forward is a critical point of distinction from the rest of the
field.
so vote conservative. Protect that which makes us whole. Stop the looting and take back what has been stolen
to benefit all instead of a small clique of criminals.
But I'm an optimist.
Tucker has good sense. Perhaps Paul Singer is probably retiring from vultury. He's old and it's a nasty
fight. Singer is at the end of a 30 year stint of dispossessing other people. Being vicious really isn't
enough to keep the federal government at bay. Nor are his bribes. There has been an unspoken policy of
dispossessing poor and middle class people. Why? Is the United States actually looking at a specific future?
That wouldn't align with the free market – tsk tsk. Or would it? Live free, die free. Somebody needs to
define the word "free". Did TPTB decide to deindustrialize this country that long ago? That's when they
attacked the unions. And the consensus might have been, "Go for it; get it while you can." So Paul Singer
did just that, along with other creepy people like Mitt Romney. Because once the country has been hosed out
by these guys we won't be pushing the old capitalist economy at all. We will be pushing a globally
connected, sustainable economy. Paul Singer is just a dung beetle. And our government didn't want to discuss
it because they would have had to create a safety net. If we despise Singer, we must also despise Congress.
If we despise Singer, we must also despise Congress.
-Susan the Other
Agreed. I think you can argue Congress (and the Executive Branch) have done more to help the Chinese
middle class than the American middle class over the last 30 years. Co-locating our industrial base with
the CCP on communist soil should be looked upon as the most radical policy in our history but is not.
Imagine if at the height of the Cold War we had told Kruschev hey..how about you make all the stuff we
need and we'll pay you $20 or $30T in trade surplus over a number of years in hard currency which you can
then parlay into geopolitical power in Africa, South America, the ME and else where. What would the
America of the fifties think of this policy?
>Because once the country has been hosed out by these guys we won't be pushing the old capitalist
economy at all. We will be pushing a globally connected, sustainable economy.
Tucker Carlson has been making comments like this for a long time. And he's not a libertarian. He
believes in regulated capitalism.
What we might be seeing is a the beginning of the two parties flipping from left to right on economic
issues. The social issues just obscure it, as they were designed to do.
the only question then is to what extent social issues DERAIL the economic issues then. If social
issues mean paid family leave must be opposed for example because women oughta be barefoot and pregnant,
then that's derailing of real concrete material benefits period. Of course progressive socially is where
demographics trend.
But of course using the example of paid family leave, we're starting from a country with almost no
safety net to begin with, and there are bigger problems with the labor market as well (people having gig
jobs with NO benefits, they aren't going to be helped by policy changes to job provided benefits period).
Medicare for All is the issue that most incisively cuts through this ruling-class kayfabe. Both the
top-dog Dems and the top-dog Repubs get their jollies having their boots licked by workers in abject fear
for the health and life of their families. It is a neon testosterone line that neither Carlson nor Trump
will cross.
I find a good explanation for many behaviors is the human practice of favoring people in their circle of
acquaintances, friends and families, and showing some degree of contempt to others.
Some phrases
He (She) is not one of us! (Typically in an upper class UK accent)
The Others (Typically in a string ulster accent)
Not on our team (US)
He's a Catholic
He's a peasant
The attitude of "them and us" coupled with Greed, appears to drive many bad Human behaviors.
Indeed! My libertarian friend* is all about helping friends and family, I have seen him do it many
times. I totally agree with him, but I have concluded that his definition of "friends and family" is just
somewhat more restrictive than mine.
* True convo: "What about if listeria in the bologna at the nursing home kills your granny?" "Ah, a
whacking great lawsuit!"
Paul Singer is leading the hedge fund group that is trying to take over PG&E from the existing
stockholders/hedge funds through the bankruptcy process. He even offered more money to PG&E fire victims
($2.5B), that PG&E almost met (they want to pay part of the funds in stock).
Does anyone have an idea how he plans to make money by taking over PG&E? While the stock is very low, its
chance of going back to where it was is very low. Besides, PG&E is under pressure to actually maintain and
fire proof the distribution/transmission system and that won't be cheap.
Here's Jon Stewart roasting Tucker Carlson back in 2006 when he was just a clown with a bow-tie. A rare
and well deserved confrontation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE
Since then Tucker has ditched his bow-tie and developed a conscience.
We used to call this "being Dutch uncle."
Tucker has CHANGED his views on lots of things. Like I have. To be able to admit you were wrong is a big
deal. He supported the Iraq War. I didn't. In retrospect, he realized he did this because of group think
cool kids thing. Then he realized that he had been conned, He doesn't like being conned. I thought Obama's
speech was the opposite of John Edwards "2 Americas". Obama was delivering a "con" I.e. "We are all One
America". So now Tucker and I, from different sides, are more skeptical. I started questioning my groupthink
Democratic viewpoint in 2004. Slowly I realized that I too had been conned. So some of those on the "right"
and Some of those on the "left" have sought other ports to dock in as we figure this all out. Naked
Capitalism is one of those docks. So soon we should introduce Tucker to Yves.
As I have frequently pointed out to my once-upon-a-time "liberal" friends, Tucker Carlson is often these
days a worthwhile antidote to the collective yelpings & bleatings of the brain-snatched amen corner on MSNBC
& CNN. In this instance (and others) his observations are rational and clearly articulated. He makes sense!
And he is on the correct (not far right) side of the topic. The continuing Iraq/Syria catastrophe, PutinGate
and the hedge fund hooligan Paul Singer are just three recent examples. His arguments (and his snark) are
well played. Alas, following these sensible segments, he is still a Fox guy and is obliged to revert to Fox
boilerplate for most of the rest of the night. But in our present crackbrained media environment, be
thankful for small mercies such as Tucker's moments.
Thanks for the post. I probably would have missed this without you.
There are a couple things that are interesting to me. First, why does Tucker Carlson call out Ben Sasse
for accepting a maxed out campaign contribution from Paul Singer? The Governor of Nebraska then and now is
Pete Ricketts. His father (Joe – TD Ameritrade, Chicago Cubs) is a "very good friend" of Paul Singer.
Everyone believes Pete Ricketts wants to run for US Senate and the nearest opportunity is Ben Sasse's seat.
More than meets the eye?
Two, a longtime director of Cabela's is Mike McCarthy of McCarthy Capital. [Former Secretary of Defense
Chuck Hagel worked for McCarthy.] ES&S (electronic voting machines) is owned by McCarthy Group, LLC.
"... When you factor in reelection worries, Trump needs to find a mutually agreeable solution to at least pause the trade war. Such a move will surely revive economic growth hurt by sanctions and ensure the smoothest possible path toward a second term. People vote with their wallets, and Trump gets that. ..."
"... Nothing could be worse for Xi than the markets concluding that China is in a recession with one of its prime economic centers now in open revolt. Just as quickly as China was dubbed the next rising superpower, her economic and political obituary could be written. ..."
"... Here is where a so-called Phase One trade deal could help patch up the relationship and give both sides the short-term domestic boost their leaderships are looking for. ..."
"... But there are reasons to worry. A recent report in Axios claims that China is quite angry over Trump's decision to sign the Hong Kong bill, and as a result talks between the two nations have "stalled." Still, both sides have ample reasons to get a trade deal done. However, if Trump does indeed get reelected and China feels stable domestically once again, the pull of history -- specifically, which nation will dominate geopolitics in the 21st century -- may be too strong to resist. ..."
Consider America's position. President Trump surely has incentives to push for what I would
call a strategic pause in his quest to contain a rising China through tough trade moves. At the
moment, staring down a possible vote on articles of impeachment and a Senate trial, rising
trade tensions, which could reignite fears of a recession, are the last thing the president
needs. When you factor in reelection worries, Trump needs to find a mutually agreeable
solution to at least pause the trade war. Such a move will surely revive economic growth hurt
by sanctions and ensure the smoothest possible path toward a second term. People vote with
their wallets, and Trump gets that.
Chinese president Xi Jinping, meanwhile, has similar concerns. China's 6 percent economic
growth, something Washington can only dream of, is likely a number that exists only on paper,
for Beijing is known to cook their books. With growth more than likely just barely in positive
territory, thanks in large part to U.S. trade tariffs, and the challenges in Hong Kong not
looking as if they will subside anytime soon, Xi needs to deliver what he can claim is a
victory that also revives economic growth, at least for the time being. This will help
stabilize China domestically, plus give Xi time to allow Hong Kong's protests to burn out while
not having to worry about economic troubles at the same time.
Nothing could be worse for Xi than the markets concluding that China is in a recession
with one of its prime economic centers now in open revolt. Just as quickly as China was dubbed
the next rising superpower, her economic and political obituary could be written.
Here is where a so-called Phase One trade deal could help patch up the relationship and
give both sides the short-term domestic boost their leaderships are looking for. A
potential deal could involve China rolling back tariffs on all U.S. goods, agreeing to a large
purchase of American agricultural goods, and providing basic protections on all U.S.
intellectual property involving high-technology goods (think 5G, computers, and robotics). In
turn, America would roll back all tariffs -- something China wants very badly --
including, and most importantly, agreeing not to launch the scheduled new round of massive
tariffs on December 15, which are viewed as potentially the most damaging to date. While such
an interim deal is far from perfect -- China hawks will surely go ballistic, calling the deal
nothing more than appeasement or select your other favorite neocon smear -- Xi and Trump are
pragmatic enough to see that a deal is in both sides' interests.
But there are reasons to worry. A recent report in Axios claims that China is
quite angry over Trump's decision to sign the Hong Kong bill, and as a result talks between the
two nations have "stalled." Still, both sides have ample reasons to get a trade deal done.
However, if Trump does indeed get reelected and China feels stable domestically once again, the
pull of history -- specifically, which nation will dominate geopolitics in the 21st century --
may be too strong to resist.
Harry J. Kazianis is a senior director at the Center for the National Interest and the
executive editor of The National Interest magazine.
By offering Hong Kong official tools of support, President Trump has broadened the trade
dispute...
Throughout negotiations, the Chinese have been reluctant to get a deal over the line,
walking away from agreed upon terms several times. By supporting Hong Kong, President Trump is
showing the Chinese Communist Party that he will not sit idly by while they jerk trade
negotiations around.
Clinton curse sill is hanging over Democratic Party candidates like Damocles sword. 25 year
of betrayal of their core constituency and their alliance with Wall Street has consequences,
which they now feel. Obama now is openly despised by Democratic voters as the person who betrayed
his electorate and then enriched himself in classing "revolving door" corruption scheme. The
phrase "change is can believe in" became a curse. Bill Clinton is mired in Epstein scandal. You
can't get worse cheerleaders for the party and it does not have anybody else.
Notable quotes:
"... Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden, and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren ..."
"... Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats, as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election. ..."
While there are still 15 candidates running for the Democratic nomination (after the
withdrawal of Kamala Harris earlier today), only four are polling in double digits, with most
either at 1% or 0%. But Obama said whoever gets the nod should get the vote.
"There will be differences" between the candidates, Obama said, "but I want us to make sure
that we keep in mind that, relative to the ultimate goal, which is to defeat a president and a
party that has taken a sharp turn away from a lot of the core traditions and values and
institutional commitments that built this country," those differences are "relatively
minor."
"The field will narrow and there's going to be one person, and if that is not your perfect
candidate and there are certain aspects of what they say that you don't agree with and you
don't find them completely inspiring the way you'd like, I don't care," he said. "Because the
choice is so stark and the stakes are so high that you cannot afford to be ambivalent in this
race."
Obama was directly addressing Silicon Valley's wealthiest Democratic donors, telling
them to "chill" in their debate over the party's candidates, and seeking to ease the tensions
among tech billionaires who have broken into separate camps backing Pete Buttigieg, Joe Biden,
and -- most surprisingly -- Elizabeth Warren , according to recode.
Obama may have his job cut out for him: with many Democratic voters confused or merely bored
silly by the current roster of candidates, two newcomers, Former Massachusetts Gov. Deval
Patrick and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, entered the race adding further to
the confusion. Last month, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, for instance, drew fewer than
100 people to a South Carolina "Environmental Justice" forum. And she's a frontrunner!
Meanwhile, Gallup released a poll last week that had some troubling news for Democrats,
as only 66% of the party faithful said they're enthusiastic about the upcoming election.
And while for Republicans the number is 65%, "this differed from the typical pattern Gallup has
seen over the years, whereby those who identify with the political party of the incumbent
president have been less enthusiastic about voting than members of the opposing party," Gallup
wrote.
Ironically, Obama isn't alone in saying Democrats need to hold their nose when they vote for
the eventual nominee. Joe Biden's wife, Jill, said in August that her husband might not be the
best candidate, but told voters "maybe you have to swallow a little bit" and vote for him
anyway.
"Your candidate might be better on, I don't know, health care, than Joe is," Jill Biden said
on MSNBC, "but you've got to look at who's going to win this election, and maybe you have to
swallow a little bit and say, 'OK, I personally like so-and-so better,' but your bottom line
has to be that we have to beat Trump."
During a campaign stop in New Hampshire, she repeated the point. "I know that not all of you
are committed to my husband, and I respect that. But I want you to think about your candidate,
his or her electability, and who's going to win this race. So I think if your goal -- I know my
goal -- is to beat Donald Trump, we have to have someone who can beat him," she said.
American tech companies are
getting the go-ahead to resume business with Chinese smartphone giant Huawei Technologies
Co., but it may be too late: It is now building smartphones without U.S. chips.
Huawei's latest phone,
which it unveiled in September -- the Mate 30 with a curved display and wide-angle
cameras that competes with Apple
Inc.'s iPhone 11 -- contained no U.S. parts, according to an analysis by UBS and Fomalhaut Techno Solutions, a Japanese
technology lab that took the device apart to inspect its insides.
In May, the Trump administration banned U.S. shipments to Huawei as trade tensions with
Beijing escalated. That move stopped companies like Qualcomm Inc. and Intel Corp. from exporting chips to the company, though
some shipments of parts resumed over the summer after companies determined they weren't
affected by the ban.
Meanwhile, Huawei has made significant strides in shedding its dependence on parts from
U.S. companies. (At issue are chips from U.S.-based companies, not those necessarily made in
America; many U.S. chip companies make their semiconductors abroad.)
Huawei long relied on suppliers like Qorvo Inc., the North Carolina maker of chips that are used
to connect smartphones with cell towers, and Skyworks Solutions Inc., a Woburn, Mass.-based company that
makes similar chips. It also used parts from Broadcom Inc., the San Jose-based maker of Bluetooth and
Wi-Fi chips, and Cirrus Logic Inc.,
an Austin, Texas-based company that makes chips for producing sound.
Yet Another Trump Trade Win
Trump cut off supplies so China looked elsewhere.
Trump changed his mind.
This is what constitutes a win.
"When Huawei came out with this high-end phone -- and this is its flagship -- with no U.S.
content, that made a pretty big statement," said Christopher Rolland, a semiconductor analyst
at Susquehanna International Group.
Huawei executives told Rolland that the company was moving away from American parts, but it
was still surprising how quickly it happened.
This was likely going to happen anyway, but Trump escalated the speed at which it
happened.
The trade war is the first act in the much larger game of hegemony.
Both sides are disentangling.
Apple finished their Indian plant.
Huawei went ex-US (but almost certainly not US IP)
Europe is already muttering about human rights in Hong Kong and Xiangjang.
We're nearly ready for act 2. That's when Europe joins in on squeezing trade, and the rest
of the democratic world and a few others is bullied and bribed to follow.
Do you know why Russia still sells rocket engines to US after being hit US sanctions?
Don't tell me they need US dollar.
Do you know that China is facing US embargo under the pretext of national security from
1949 until now and things allowed to export to China mostly agriculture produce, gas and oil?
This is the reason they develop their own technologies which the media told me stolen from
the US even that the US doesn't have like 5G, quantum satellite, hypersonic weapons just to
name a few.
russia needs to stop selling those engines to merica and cut them out of space... what a
dumb move... russia always trying to be friends with evil merica
Plainly, China will never buy the same amount of soybeans or chips than before as Russia
will never accumulate US dollars in its Reserve. They have discovered than US is not a
reliable partner.
Those that think that China is only about ripping off US technology are going to be
surprised. Sure that was once China's main method as it was for the early USA to rip off
British textile secrets. Trump trying to take down China's biggest technology company has
been a real wake up call for them. Now, they will own all of the content and will dominate in
Asian markets, the middle east, etc. They already did it in solar panels and much else. They
have a plan. They build infrastructure, we let it ours decay. They invest in education, we
leave out students in debt up to their eyeballs and then give them Starbucks jobs. They have
high speed trains everywhere, we have Amtrak. They are looking outward, we are looking
inward. America first, rah rah. This will end badly - for the USA.
no average american benefits from international trade unless the product is unattainable
state side. if we can grow it, we should. if we can make it, we should. excess can be sold
outside the nation but since everything has been weaponized, we are the ones caught in the
middle who suffer.
tariffs are good and we should use them to protect our industries. the problem is that our
industry was destroyed before implementing tarrifs.. that part doesn't make sense and all of
our major corporations have sold out anyways, further screwing john q public because lets be
real, companies are out for profit and shareholder return, not protecting employees and
consumers. so they could care less where its being made / sold as long as they see their
bottom line increase, no worries.
problem is big business doesn't want to pay it. it has always been that way. when the
money system was put in place, business owners didn't like the idea of increased competition
(less slaves and more company owners) and therefore they were given the ability to claim you
for tax purposes, hence why anytime you take a job they want your SS#. investment in the past
happened because of things that were to come in the future. the future in america from her
current vantage is trans/post humanism with the idea of automation, human/machine integration
and that leaves little room or interest in building $100m slave factories for working class
people to grind away in
chips have been made consistently in Malaysia, Taiwan and Korea for the better part of
almost 25 years, not real sure how any of what you said is relative to current events. just
syncrhonicity and morons like you saying dumb ****.
Wow, the article is really insulting to the Chinese. Like building a smart phone for them
was like landing on the moon or something. They steal everything from everyone anyways, so
who cares what they build.......
This is why they are trying to ban Chinese hardware... not because they fear they are
spying on us but because their govt mandated backdoors aren't installed on Chinese hardware.
The US govt wants to ban their use because they can't spy on them... That is the real
reason.
US is losing the technology race against China. In the first phase China copied the tech,
now it is on par, and in five to ten years the murican chip manufacturers are out of
business.
The point is this: the muricans are lazy bastards, most of the brain power is imported.
They lived too long off the dollar reserve currency status, soon enough nobody will
interested in that toilet paper anymore.
Two years ago, Donald *** Trumptard on behalf of his handler, the US War State/Dark
State/Deep State , launched a world wide war against the Chinky company, Huawei, in order, to
kill it.
But that failed spectacularly. Not only is Huawei not dead, but its revenue actually grown
24% in 2019.
Now, its smart phones, and 5G cell tower equipments are totally free of US components.
WHY IS THE US DARK STATE SO TERRIFIED OF HUAWEI'S 5G WIRELESS TECHNOLOGY?
The US Dark State/War State/Deep State, that is the NSA/CIA/Pentagon/MIC/MSM . . . etc has
forced every western tech companies to install backdoors and malwares on their equipments,
except Huawei. They have tried to force Huawei to install those NSA backdoors and malwares,
in 2014, but the company categorically refused.
"The real issue is that nothing has changed since a 2014 report from The Register that
Huawei categorically refuses to install NSA backdoors into their hardware to allow unfettered
intelligence access to the data that crosses their networks.
All our emails, text messages, phone calls, internet searches, web browsing, library
records, . . . etc, are recorded and stored by NSA/CIA's vast servers farms.
Now, Huawei is not only the leading 5G wireless provider, but it is the only one, so far.
The other companies like Nokia and Ericsson are far behind.
5G is going to completely replace 4G and 3G. It is about 200 times faster than 4GLTE, in
download speed.
What this means is that if the world adopts the Huawei equipments and standards, it will
threaten to UNDO the US Dark State's vast global surveillance network.
This is what terrifies the US Dark State. Their vast Global Surveillance Network is the
basis of its power, and tools to enslave mankind.
There is a very good reason, why the American Founding Fathers , enacted every measures,
to protect our rights and privacy, so that we will not be controlled and enslaved by the
tyranny of totalitarian government, which is already upon us, in the form of US Dark
State/War State .
The US Dark State/Deep State/War State does not represent America. It is Un-American. It
is not the American Republic founded by our Founding Fathers, and enshrined in the US
Constitution.
Maybe so, Asoka. I think the Rothschild Clan plays both sides. They are in China. Some
purport the family carrying that lineage is named Li.
The U.S. is slowly but surely being isolated for The Great Fall...when we lose world
currency status. The Banking Cartel will evidently make huge money and gain enormous power
once the U.S. collapses. China already has the massive surveillance state, lack of privacy,
institutionalized social scoring, and workers' living cubes located on factory premises...so
the Rothshilds are in love. Sigh. So much control!! So much degradation!!! They're in
love!!!
"I think the Rothschild Clan plays both sides. They are in China. Some purport the family
carrying that lineage is named Li."
They are trying hard to infiltrate China. But the Chinese banks and financial service
firms are State Owned . They are hard penetrate. That is why they are using Donald *** Trump
to launch the Mother of All Great Trade War , to force the Chinese to open up their financial
sector for infiltration and plundering.
Plus, Chinese and westerner looks distinctively different. And so, they are trying the
inter-marriage trick with the rich and powerful Chinese families.
"... More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai. ..."
The theory behind this is one of strength reinforcing strength – the strengths of
ubiquitous data gathering and analysis reinforcing the strengths of authoritarian repression to
create an unstoppable juggernaut of nearly perfectly efficient oppression. Yet there is another
story to be told – of weakness reinforcing weakness. Authoritarian states were always
particularly prone to the deficiencies identified in James Scott's Seeing Like a State
– the desire to make citizens and their doings legible to the state, by
standardizing and categorizing them, and reorganizing collective life in simplified ways, for
example by remaking cities so that they were not organic structures that emerged from the
doings of their citizens, but instead grand chessboards
with ordered squares and boulevards, reducing all complexities to a
square of planed wood . The grand state bureaucracies that were built to carry out these
operations were responsible for multitudes of horrors, but also for the crumbling of the
Stalinist state into a Brezhnevian desuetude, where everyone pretended to be carrying on as
normal because everyone else was carrying on too. The deficiencies of state action, and its
need to reduce the world into something simpler that it could comprehend and act upon created a
kind of feedback loop, in which imperfections of vision and action repeatedly reinforced each
other.
So what might a similar analysis say about the marriage of authoritarianism and machine
learning? Something like the following, I think. There are two notable problems with machine
learning. One – that while it can do many extraordinary things, it is not nearly as
universally effective as the mythology suggests. The other is that it can serve as a magnifier
for already existing biases in the data. The patterns that it identifies may be the product of
the problematic data that goes in, which is (to the extent that it is accurate) often the
product of biased social processes. When this data is then used to make decisions that may
plausibly reinforce those processes (by singling e.g. particular groups that are regarded as
problematic out for particular police attention, leading them to be more liable to be arrested
and so on), the bias may feed upon itself.
This is a substantial problem in democratic societies, but it is a problem where there are
at least some counteracting tendencies. The great advantage of democracy is its openness to
contrary opinions and divergent perspectives . This opens up democracy to a specific set of
destabilizing attacks but it also means that there are countervailing tendencies to
self-reinforcing biases. When there are groups that are victimized by such biases, they may
mobilize against it (although they will find it harder to mobilize against algorithms than
overt discrimination). When there are obvious inefficiencies or social, political or economic
problems that result from biases, then there will be ways for people to point out these
inefficiencies or problems.
These correction tendencies will be weaker in authoritarian societies; in extreme versions
of authoritarianism, they may barely even exist. Groups that are discriminated against will
have no obvious recourse. Major mistakes may go uncorrected: they may be nearly invisible to a
state whose data is polluted both by the means employed to observe and classify it, and the
policies implemented on the basis of this data. A plausible feedback loop would see bias
leading to error leading to further bias, and no ready ways to correct it. This of course, will
be likely to be reinforced by the ordinary politics of authoritarianism, and the typical
reluctance to correct leaders, even when their policies are leading to disaster. The flawed
ideology of the leader (We must all study Comrade Xi thought to discover the truth!) and of the
algorithm (machine learning is magic!) may reinforce each other in highly unfortunate ways.
In short, there is a very plausible set of mechanisms under which machine learning and
related techniques may turn out to be a disaster for authoritarianism, reinforcing its
weaknesses rather than its strengths, by increasing its tendency to bad decision making, and
reducing further the possibility of negative feedback that could help correct against errors.
This disaster would unfold in two ways. The first will involve enormous human costs:
self-reinforcing bias will likely increase discrimination against out-groups, of the sort that
we are seeing against the Uighur today. The second will involve more ordinary self-ramifying
errors, that may lead to widespread planning disasters, which will differ from those described
in Scott's account of High Modernism in that they are not as immediately visible, but that may
also be more pernicious, and more damaging to the political health and viability of the regime
for just that reason.
So in short, this conjecture would suggest that the conjunction of AI and authoritarianism
(has someone coined the term 'aithoritarianism' yet? I'd really prefer not to take the blame),
will have more or less the opposite effects of what people expect. It will not be Singapore
writ large, and perhaps more brutal. Instead, it will be both more radically monstrous and more
radically unstable.
Like all monotheoretic accounts, you should treat this post with some skepticism –
political reality is always more complex and muddier than any abstraction. There are surely
other effects (another, particularly interesting one for big countries such as China, is to
relax the assumption that the state is a monolith, and to think about the intersection between
machine learning and warring bureaucratic factions within the center, and between the center
and periphery).Yet I think that it is plausible that it at least maps one significant set of
causal relationships, that may push (in combination with, or against, other structural forces)
towards very different outcomes than the conventional wisdom imagines. Comments, elaborations,
qualifications and disagreements welcome.
Ben 11.25.19 at 6:32 pm (no link)
This seems to equivocate between two meanings of bias. Bias might mean a flaw that leads to
empirically incorrect judgements and so to bad decisions, and it's true that that type of
bias could destabilize an authoritarian state. But what we usually worry about with machine
learning is that the system will find very real, but deeply unjust, patterns in the data, and
reinforce those pattern. If there's a particular ethnic group that really does produce a
disproportionate number of dissidents, and an algorithm leads to even-more-excessive
repression of that group -- I'm not sure why an authoritarian state would see a stability
threat in that tendency.
More generally, I think AI gets far too much of the billing in authoritarian
apocalypse forecasts. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras, microphones, and location trackers are the
real issue. If the state can track everyone's movements and conversations, then it can build
a better Stasi even with crude, simple ai.
I'd just like to point out (re: the tweet in the original post) that the "Uighur
face-matching AI" idea is bullshit invented by scaremongers, with no basis in fact and
traceable to a shoddy reddit thread. The Chinese government is not using facial recognition
to identify Uighur, and the facial recognition fears about the Chinese government are vastly
overstated.
Australia's border control facial recognition software is far more advanced than
China's, as is the UK's, and facial recognition is actually pretty common in democracies. See
e.g. the iPhone.
The main areas in which China uses facial recognition are in verifying ID for some high
cost functions (like buying high speed rail tickets), and it's quite easy to avoid these
functions by joining a queue and paying a human. The real intrusiveness of the Chinese
security state is in its constant bag searches and very human-centric abuses of power in
everyday life in connection with "security". Whether you get stopped and searched depends a
lot on very arbitrary and error prone judgments by bored security staff at railway stations,
in public squares, and on buses, not some evil intrusive state technology.
Conversely, the UK is a world leader in installing and using CCTV cameras, and has been
for a long time. Furthermore, these CCTV cameras are a huge boon to law-abiding citizens,
since they act as both excellent forms of crime prevention (I have had this experience
myself) and for finding serious criminals. The people responsible for the death of those 39
Vietnamese labourers in the ice truck were caught because of CCTV; so was the guy who
murdered that woman on the street in Melbourne a few years ago.
Finally to address another point that's already been raised (sadly): China no longer
harvests organs, and the 2019 report that says it does is a sham. The social credit system is
also largely a myth, and nobody from China even seems to know wtf it is.
If you're going to talk about how state's work, and the relative merits of autocratic vs.
democratic states and their interaction with technology, it's a really good idea to get the
basic facts right first.
Nathanael 11.26.19 at 6:10 am (no link)
I'll add that John Quiggin's point that Xi has already lost control of the provinces is
correct -- but it DOES threaten his position as dictator. Once the provincial governors know
they can act with impunity, it is absolutely standard for the next step to be getting rid of
that annoying guy who is pretending to be dictator. It may take a few years but Xi now has
dozens of powerful insiders who know that he's a weakling. They'll bide their time but when
he crosses too many of them they'll take him out. And if China doesn't shut down coal, he's
going to look like a weakling internationally too, in a couple of years. This will create a
new group of ambitious insiders with a different reason to take him out.
Xi broke the "technocratic consensus" which was present after Deng, of central committee
members who strove for competence and fact-based decision-making. That was a surprisingly
effective type of junta government which led to lots of thinkpieces about whether
authoritarian China would beat the democratic west. But it succumbed to the succession
problem, like all authoritarian systems; Xi made himself Premier-for-life and the country is
now exhibiting all the usual failures of authoritarian countries.
Hidari 11.26.19 at 9:08 am (no link)
@11 Yes it's strange that allegations of Chinese use of facial recognition software is
gaining so much traction at a time when the Trump regime is deliberately ratcheting up
tensions with China to pursue nakedly imperial goals, when the objective facts of Israeli use
of similar software, which the Israelis boast about (
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/all/why-did-microsoft-fund-israeli-firm-surveils-west-bank-palestinians-n1072116
) doesn't cause so much interest, at a time when the Trump regime has simple decreed that the
Israeli invasion/colonisation of Palestine is 'legal under international law'.
One of life's little mysteries I guess.
If we must talk about China could we at least bring it back to areas where we are
responsible and where, therefore, we can do something about it?
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has crossed an MSM Rubicon and questioned
the Douma "gas attack" fraud on air, bringing up the OPCW whistleblower. Then he "rooted for
Russia" over Ukraine...Carlson boldly went where no mainstream TV host had gone before,
unpacking the explosive story of April 2018's Douma "chemical weapons attack." While the
"attack" was attributed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by an altered report from the
Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, two whistleblowers within the group
accused it of omitting evidence to craft a misleading narrative - a fact that has never crossed
the lips of US media until Monday night... "America almost attacked a country and killed untold
thousands of people over an attack that may never have happened in the first place - that
powerful people may very well have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying
footage of his show from the days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it
had happened as reported.
"... "The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years, which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change, arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program." ..."
"... What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few). ..."
"... Unfortunately, US Policy really refers to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans. ..."
This is still a race for a party nomination, and it is well known how political battles at this stage typically focus narrowly
on what are perceived to be the parochial concerns of the party's base and take on a different character in the general election.
But positions taken now can impose constraints later on. Moreover, Democratic primary voters ought to be learning about what difference
the various contenders would make in executing the powers of the presidency, not just in who has the most attractive ideas about
policies that cannot be imposed by fiat.
Foreign policy is where more attention and debate are most required, and not just because foreign policy nearly always gets inadequate
attention in political campaigns. It also is where a president has the most power to make a difference even without getting Congress
to go along with the president's program. This fact is reflected in how many presidents late in their presidencies, especially in
second terms, have turned more of their attention to foreign relations as an area where they can make a difference after experiencing
frustration in trying to get their domestic programs through Congress.
Many issues in foreign policy could profitably be discussed more than they are now, but priority should be given to those subjects
on which Trump has caused the most damage. Candidates should explain how they intend to repair that damage, not just what their policies
would be if they somehow could be written on a clean slate. The slate on which the next administration's foreign policy will be written
starts out very dirty. Coming after Trump will be a major, task-defining fact about the next administration's foreign policy challenges.
The heavy damage to U.S. relations with the European allies represents another especially dirty part of the slate that the next
administration will have to tend to. Brexit will be an added complication in addressing this problem and in a sense is another part
of Trump's legacy given the way he has cheered on the Brexiteers,
contrary to U.S. interests.
Issues examined by the current impeachment proceeding represent more damage-repair needs. Ukraine is a large and important country
and constructing a U.S. policy that adequately reflects Ukraine's delicate situation between East and West would be a challenge in
any event. Now it has been made more difficult by Trump and Rudy Giuliani's
setting back of Ukraine's efforts to stamp out corruption and subordinating an aid relationship to dirt-digging for domestic
political reasons. What are the Democratic candidates' specific ideas for repairing this damage, and for fitting the repairs into
a sensible policy toward not just Ukraine but also Russia?
To emphasize these foreign policy challenges is not to diminish the amount of Trump-inflicted damage that extends to domestic
matters as well, and the need for the next administration to repair that damage as well. Perhaps the greatest over-arching damage,
spanning both the domestic and foreign sides, is that the nation seems to have become inured to wrongdoing because of the sheer volume
of it, with attention to each offense quickly fading as it is succeeded by a new offense or attention-hogging presidential outburst.
What will the next president do to restore a sense of national outrage over wrongdoing whenever it occurs, be it blatant self-dealing,
corruption of U.S. foreign relations, or something else?
Such problems may not have as much resonance in Iowa caucuses as the cost of health care, but they have a lot more to do with
who will make the best president.
Paul R. Pillar is Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University and Nonresident
Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. He is a contributing editor to The National Interest, where he writes
a blog.
"The next president will, for example, have to deal with the enormous loss of U.S. credibility during the past three years,
which has stemmedin large part from Trump's reneging on or withdrawing from agreements such as the Paris accord on climate change,
arms control accords withRussia, and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which restricted Iran's nuclear program."
What a load of hooey this article is. U.S. credibility with whom? Failed Merkel? Failed Macron?...
Failure of the past three years but no mention of the failures of Obama? Sending an aging hippie James Taylor to console islamic terrorist victims in Paris apparently counts as a major foreign policy
success and that mean Trump refuses to perpetuate. And then there's the cross the red line in Syria and we'll do nothing.
Or maybe ship weapons secretly to Islamic terrorists calling them freedom fighters and surprise surprise, the weapons from
Obama are used to murder American diplomats in Benghazi. Then cover that up by blaming it on a video from a guy in Los Angeles
and sending out a team to blatantly lie about the event.
Now there's real foreign policy you can depend on - from the Democrats.
What is the PURPOSE of US Foreign Policy? To protect the US homeland and US interests abroad (freedom of navigation, freedom
of commerce and trade, and the protection of US citizens travelling abroad to name a few).
Unfortunately, US Policy really refers
to US interventionism across the globe. Covert activities are presumably necessary to protect US interests so as to thwart the
covert activities of our enemies. In practice, what the US really does is protect the interests of friendly countries and US-based
multi-national corporations...and the whole thing is smoke and mirrors (hidden from the American people). Thus, we really have
NO IDEA what US Foreign Policy is, or what we are doing behind the scenes. That's on both Democrats and Republicans.
Warren's New Proposal for Prescription Drugs Is Flying Under the Radar
By Dean Baker
Earlier this month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren put out a set of steps that she would put
forward as president as part of a transition to Medicare for All. The items that got the most
attention were including everyone over age 50 and under age 18 in Medicare, and providing
people of all ages with the option to buy into the program. This buy-in would include large
subsidies, and people with incomes of less than 200 percent of the poverty level would be
able to enter the Medicare program at no cost.
These measures would be enormous steps toward Medicare for All, bringing tens of millions
of people into the program, including most of those (people over age 50) with serious medical
issues. It would certainly be more than halfway to a universal Medicare program.
While these measures captured most of the attention given to Warren's transition plan,
another part of the plan is probably at least as important. Warren proposed to use the
government's authority to compel the licensing of drug patents so that multiple companies can
produce a patented drug.
The government can do this both because it has general authority to compel licensing of
patents (with reasonable compensation) and because it has explicit authority under the 1980
Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of any drug developed in part with government-funded
research. The overwhelming majority of drugs required some amount of government-supported
research in their development.
These measures are noteworthy because they can be done on the president's own authority.
While the pharmaceutical industry will surely contest a president's use of the government's
authority to weaken their patent rights, those actions would not require congressional
approval.
The other reason that these steps would be so important is that there is a huge amount of
money involved. The United States is projected to spend over $6.6 trillion on prescription
drugs over the next decade, more than 2.5 percent of GDP.
The government has explicit authority under the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act to require licensing of
any drug developed in part with government-funded research.
This is an enormous amount of money. We spend more than twice as much per person on drugs
as people in other wealthy countries.
This is not an accident. The grant of a patent monopoly allows drug companies to charge as
much as they want for drugs that are necessary for people's health or even their life.
While other countries also grant patent monopolies, they limit the ability of drug
companies to exploit these monopolies with negotiations or price controls. This is why prices
in these countries are so much lower than in the United States.
But even these negotiated prices are far above what drug prices would be in a free market.
The price of drugs in a free market, without patent monopolies or related protections, will
typically be less than 10 percent of the U.S. price and in some cases, less than 1
percent.
This is because drugs are almost invariably cheap to manufacture and distribute. They are
expensive because government-granted patent monopolies make them expensive.
The rationale for patent monopolies is to give companies an incentive to research and
develop drugs. This process is expensive, and if newly developed drugs were sold in a free
market, companies would not be able to recover these expenses.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research.
To make up for the loss of research funding supported by patent monopolies, Warren
proposes an increase in public funding for research. This would be an important move toward
an increased reliance on publicly funded biomedical research.
There are enormous advantages to publicly funded research over patent monopoly-supported
research. First, the government is funding the research. It can require that all results be
fully public as soon as possible so that all researchers can quickly benefit from them.
By contrast, under the patent system, drug companies have an incentive to keep results
secret. They have no desire to share results that could benefit competitors.
Public funding would also radically reduce the incentive to develop copycat drugs. Under
the current system, drug companies will often devote substantial sums to developing drugs
that are intended to duplicate the function of drugs already on the market. While there is
generally an advantage to having more options to treat a specific condition, most often,
research dollars would be better spent trying to develop drugs for conditions where no
effective treatment currently exists.
Ending patent monopoly pricing would also take away the incentive for drug companies to
conceal evidence that their drugs may not be as safe or effective as claimed. Patent
monopolies give drug companies an incentive to push their drugs as widely as possible.
The opioid crisis provides a dramatic example of the dangers of this system. Opioid
manufacturers would not have had the same incentive to push their drugs, concealing evidence
of their addictive properties, if they were not making huge profits on them.
In short, Senator Warren's plans on drugs are a really huge deal. How far and how quickly
she will be able to get to Medicare for All will depend on what she can get through Congress.
But her proposal for prescription drugs is something she would be able to do if elected
president, and it would make an enormous difference in both the cost and the quality of our
health care.
"... However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her." According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren. ..."
In November, Barack Obama, who had avoided commenting on the Democratic presidential
primary, came out forcefully in opposition to the extreme positions taken by some leading
progressive contenders, positions that could cause the Democrats to be beaten by Trump in the
2020 election. Obama was a very popular president among Democrats, and what he has to say
carries considerable weight with them. While this may not be his intent, Obama's position could
open the field for Hillary Clinton to enter the fray and quite possibly become the Democrats'
nominee, given the lackluster performance of leading "moderate" Joe Biden, whose weaknesses
have been brought out by the mainstream media, despite their animosity toward Trump.
Now many in the Democratic Party leadership, as well as wealthy Democratic donors, have been
concerned for some time about the radical nature of some of the economic policies advocated by
the leading progressive Democratic contenders. They fear that instead of the 2020 election
revolving around Trump with his low approval ratings, and very likely his impeachment, which
would seem to be a slam-dunk victory for Democrats, it would focus on those radical economic
proposals. Many voters are skeptical about how free college for all, free health care for all,
high-paying jobs in "green energy" -- after greatly reducing the use of fossil fuels, free
childcare for all, just to name some of the "free" things that have been promised, would really
work. Instead of raising taxes on the middle class, most of these free things would purportedly
be paid for by the super-wealthy, which would exclude mere millionaires such as Bernie Sanders
(estimated wealth $2 million) and Elizabeth Warren (estimated wealth $12 million) who are the
leading progressive contenders.
Obama began stressing his concern about the danger of radicalism in an October speech at the
Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago. And he did this not by dealing with presidential candidates
but with youth who think they can immediately change society. "This
idea of purity and you're never compromised, and you're always politically woke and all
that stuff, you should get over that quickly," Obama lectured. "The world is messy. There are
ambiguities. People who do really good stuff have flaws."
It was at a gathering of Democratic donors in Washington, D.C., in November that Obama
cautioned Democratic candidates not to go too far to the left since that would antagonize many
voters who would otherwise support the Democratic candidate. "Even as we push the envelope and
we are bold in our vision we also have to be rooted in
reality ," Obama asserted. "The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear
down the system and remake it." Although Obama did not specify particular Democratic
candidates, his warning was widely interpreted as being directed at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie
Sanders.
Currently, the leading candidate for the Democratic nomination, according to national polls,
is Joe Biden, who is considered a moderate. But Biden has a number of problems. He continues to
make gaffes while speaking, and during his long career in the Senate took positions that are
antithetical to the Democratic Party of today. Moreover, he lacks the charisma to attract large
crowds to his events. Thus, it is questionable that he has the capability to attract large
numbers of Democratic voters to the polls in November 2020.
According to Politico Magazine , Obama was recently discussing election tactics with
an unnamed current candidate and "pointed out that during his own 2008 campaign, he had an
intimate bond with the electorate" and he is quoted as adding, "And you know who really
doesn't have it ? Joe Biden."
Biden's appeal already seems to be waning. For example, in November, a Marquette Law School
poll, which is considered the gold-standard survey in swing state Wisconsin, which the
Democrats need to win the 2020 election, shows
Trump leading Biden 47 percent to 44 percent. In October, Trump had trailed Biden by 6
points (44 percent to 50 percent), and in August, Trump trailed Biden by 9 points (42 percent
to 51 percent). In short, Biden is losing support. Trump won Wisconsin in 2016 by a slender
margin of 0.77 percent, with 47.22 percent of the total votes over the 46.45 percent for
Hillary Clinton.
Another problem Biden faces is the corrupt activities of his son Hunter and brother James,
who have taken advantage of their connection with him. The mainstream media has so far largely
kept this mostly under wraps, but this tactic won't be successful as the election approaches.
In fact, the progressive Democrats such as Bernie Sanders are likely to bring this up in a
desperate effort to be nominated. And already these issues are being mentioned by the
alternative media. For instance, there is an article in the non-partisan, anti-government
Intercept
titled, "Joe Biden's Family Has Been Cashing in on His Career for Decades. Democrats Need to
Acknowledge That," and comparable articles in the conservative Washington Examiner such
as, "Hunter Biden-linked company r
eceived $130M in special federal loans while Joe Biden was vice president," and "Hunter
Biden has
99 problems , and Burisma is only one."
David Axelrod, Democratic strategist and longtime aide to Barack Obama, said concerns about
Biden's electability clearly influenced multi-billionaire (estimated $53 billion) and
former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's entrance into the contest for the Democratic
nominee for president. "There's no question that Bloomberg's calculus was that Biden was
occupying a space, and the fact that he's getting in is a clear indication that he's not
convinced Biden has the wherewithal to carry that torch," Axelrod said. "So yeah, I don't think
this is a positive development for Joe Biden."
Similarly, Democratic strategist Brad Bannon contended that "centrist Democrats and wealthy
donors have
lost confidence in Biden's ability to stop Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders from winning
the nomination." Bannon added that with Bloomberg entering the Democratic presidential race,
"Biden's fundraising will get even shakier than it already is. There's only room for one
moderate in this race and Bloomberg threatens Biden's status as the centrist
standard-bearer."
Bloomberg's "stop and frisk"
policy as mayor , which largely targeted blacks and Hispanics, should make it virtually
impossible that he could be the Democratic nominee, despite his recent apology. Unless he has
become senile in his late 70s, Bloomberg should well understand this since he did not make his
billions by being stupid. It could be that he intends to serve as a stalking horse to draw
Hillary Clinton into the contest by showing the weakness of Biden. Then like Superwoman,
Hillary can enter the fray, appearing not to act for her own sake but to save the country from
a likely second term for President Trump.
Similarly, Mark Penn, who was chief strategist for Clinton's unsuccessful 2008 presidential
campaign, said Bloomberg's entrance
could cause Clinton to consider to run and decide there's "still a political logic there for
her."
As Biden's support slips away, Clinton's should rise. Clinton has been recently promoting a
book she co-wrote with her daughter, Chelsea, in Britain. In an interview with BBC Radio 5
Live , Clinton said "many, many, many people" are
pressuring her to jump into the 2020 presidential race and that she thinks about this "all
the time." Clinton told the host that she is under "enormous pressure" but said it is not in
her plans, though she cryptically added that she would "never say never."
Dick Morris, who was once a close confidant of the Clintons during Bill Clinton's time as
Arkansas governor and U.S. president recently said in a radio interview that Hillary Clinton
likely wants to run for the presidency in 2020. "My feeling is that
she wants to ," Morris said. "She feels entitled to do it. She feels compelled to do it.
She feels that God put her on the Earth to do it. But she's hesitant because she realizes the
timing is bad."
However, Morris contends that Clinton believes that she has to "wait until Biden drops out
because he's obviously next in line for it, and if he goes away, there's an opening for her."
According to Morris' scenario, Clinton would become the moderate candidate opposed to the
leading progressive, Elizabeth Warren.
Morris has not been in touch with the Clintons for many years, and has become strongly
critical of them, so his claim might be questionable. Nonetheless, his portrayal of Hillary's
current thinking seems quite reasonable.
A Fox News poll included Clinton along with the active Democratic candidates in a
hypothetical election with Trump, and Hillary came out ahead of him by two percentage
points. While some actual candidates did somewhat better than Hillary, she did quite well for
someone who is not currently running for office.
Furthermore, a Harris Harvard poll in late October asked the question, "Suppose Hillary
Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, and John Kerry decides [sic] to enter the race, who would you
support as a candidate for President?" Joe Biden received the support of 19 percent of Democrat
respondents while Clinton was a
close second with 18 percent. Elizabeth Warren came in third at 13 percent, John Kerry was
at 8 percent, and Bloomberg was at 6. Again, Clinton does quite well for someone who is not
actually running for president.
One might think that if references to family members' corruption damaged Biden, then Clinton
would be subject to worse damage in that area, since she and her husband Bill were connected
with far more corrupt activities -- Whitewater, Travelgate, the Lewinsky affair, the Paula
Jones affair, t the death of Vince Foster, the Clinton Foundation, her private server, and so
on. But these issues are already known and are presumably already taken into account by the
voters, whereas the Biden family's corrupt activities are so far largely unknown.
It should be pointed out that Clinton has a number of positives as a presidential candidate.
Although losing in the Electoral College in 2016, Clinton had garnered 3 million more votes
more than Trump. The election was decided by a total of 80,000 votes in three states. It is
highly unlikely that such a fluke could be duplicated.
Clinton's staff had been overconfident assuming victory, which was based on their polling of
various states, and as a result began to focus on competing in states well beyond those Clinton
needed for victory.
Moreover, one key event outside the control of Clinton's staff was FBI Director James
Comey's investigation of Clinton's use of a personal email server during her tenure as
secretary of state. Most crucial were his July 2016 public statement terminating the
investigation, with a lengthy comment about what Clinton did wrong, and his October 28
reopening the inquiry into newly discovered emails and then closing it two days before the
election, stating that the emails had not provided any new information. The October 28 letter,
however, probably played a key role in the outcome of the election. As statistician Nate Silver
maintains: "Hillary Clinton would probably be president
if FBI Director James Comey had not sent a letter to Congress on Oct. 28. The letter, which
said the FBI had 'learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the
investigation into the private email server that Clinton used as secretary of state, upended
the news cycle and soon halved Clinton's lead in the polls, imperiling her position in the
Electoral College.'"
[Silver's organization FiveThirtyEight had projected a much higher chance (29
percent) of Donald Trump winning the presidency than most other pollsters]
Clinton has also helped to convince many Democrats and members of the mainstream media that
the 2016 election was stolen from her by Russian agents If this were really true – which
is very doubtful – then Hillary should be the Democrats' candidate for 2020 since Russian
intervention should not be as successful as it allegedly was in 2016.
In endorsing Hillary Clinton for president in 2016, Obama stated. "I don't think that
there's ever been someone
so qualified to hold this office." He has yet to make such an endorsement for Biden and
privately, as mentioned earlier, said he is a poor choice for a nominee. He might ultimately
endorse Biden, but he certainly would not renege on what he said four years ago about Clinton
if she became the Democrats' standard-bearer.
Should Clinton opt to run, she would have no trouble raising money since she set a record in
2016 of $1.4 billion
and wealthy donors want a moderate to be the Democratic nominee. It would seem likely that she
would enter the contest if Biden has serious trouble. She would miss some state primaries since
it would be too late to register in them but given the crowded field of candidates, there is a
likelihood that there will be a brokered convention, that is, the convention will go past the
first ballot. Since the superdelegates would be allowed to vote in all rounds after the first,
they could determine the winner, which would probably mean the selection of a candidate who
would be seen to have the greatest chance of winning, and that would likely be Hillary Clinton,
if she has entered the fray.
I discussed the merits of Pete Buttigieg in a previous article in
Unz Review, and what I write here might seem to conflict with that. However, while Buttigieg is
doing quite well
in the polls, he still does not get much support
from blacks and Latinos, which is essential to become the Democrats nominee for president.
Buttigieg could, however, be nominated for vice president or, more likely, given an important
cabinet position since the vice-presidential slot would probably be reserved for a black or
Latino if a white person were picked as the presidential nominee, which currently seems
likely.
But because of Buttigieg's relatively hardline foreign policy
, which largely meshes with that of Clinton's, and his wide knowledge and language ability,
Buttigieg would fit well in the all-important position of secretary of state in a Clinton
administration. Moreover, Buttigieg, whose tenure as mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will end in
January 2020, would almost certainly be willing to take such a position, which could serve as a
jumping-off point for the presidency in the future.
"... The polarizing Fox host dismantled the official Western media narrative in a seven-minute segment that included an interview with the Guardian correspondent who personally witnessed the second whistleblower present evidence to the agency. ..."
"... "America almost attacked a country and killed untold thousands of people over an attack that may never have happened in the first place – that powerful people may very well have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying footage of his show from the days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it had happened as reported. ..."
Fox News host Tucker Carlson has crossed an MSM Rubicon and questioned the Douma "gas
attack" fraud on air, bringing up the OPCW whistleblower. Then he "rooted for Russia" over
Ukraine. Was it a "betrayal," or epic truth-trolling?
Carlson boldly went where no mainstream TV host had gone before, unpacking the
explosive story of April 2018's Douma "chemical weapons attack." While the "attack" was
attributed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by an altered report from the Organization for
the Prevention of Chemical Weapons, two whistleblowers within the group accused it of
omitting evidence to craft a misleading narrative – a fact that has never crossed the
lips of US media until Monday night.
Must Watch @TuckerCarlson Segment Tonight: New Evidence Shows Syria's Assad May Have
Been Falsely Blamed for 2018 Chemical Attack"We've been lied to, we've been manipulated, we
knew it at the time." pic.twitter.com/vKw6YnphcT
-- The Columbia Bugle (@ColumbiaBugle) November 26, 2019
The polarizing Fox host dismantled the official Western media narrative in a
seven-minute segment that included an interview with the Guardian correspondent who
personally witnessed the second whistleblower present evidence to the agency.
"America almost attacked a country and killed untold thousands of people over an attack
that may never have happened in the first place – that powerful people may very well
have been lying about," Carlson told his audience, replaying footage of his show from the
days following the attack to show he'd always been suspicious it had happened as
reported.
Carlson is politically astute and media smart. He would not make such statements unless he
was sure they would not be excessively damaging, advance his message and boost his
popularity. A real risk is Fox News pulling the plug though.
Fortuitous indeed that I was not eating or drinking anything when he mentioned Samantha Power
and 'stupid decisions'; otherwise, there would have been a pressure-diffused spray of it
everywhere. He did indeed let it all hang out – I continue to marvel at his
transformation. Who would ever have imagined? I would once have liked to hear of him being
roasted alive over a slow fire, back when he was snarking and smirking his way through
defenses of the Bush administrations ham-fisted policy strangulation. Well, by God, whatever
it takes, and hero biscuits to the medium. Rock on, Tucker.
"... Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races. ..."
"... 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'" ..."
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) has not been shy about
his disdain for the mainstream media. But the
Democratic presidential hopeful
has rarely, if ever, articulated it as bluntly as he did in an interview that aired on
MSNBC 's "
The Rachel Maddow Show " on Friday night. Sanders
called out the network for its corporate character in a novel exchange with host
Rachel Maddow .
"The American people are sick and tired of establishment politics and economics, and by the way, a little bit tired of corporate
media as well," Sanders told Maddow in an interview taped in Burlington, Vermont.
Maddow pressed Sanders for specifics on how he would change the media if he were president. "What's the solution to corporate
media?" she asked.
"We have got to think of ways the Democratic party, for a start, starts funding the equivalent of Fox television," Sanders
answered. Of course, MSNBC is a corporate media outlet that is widely seen as a Democratic version of Fox News because of the perceived
sympathies of many of its political talk shows.
Sanders went on to argue that "pressure has got to be put on media" to cover policy issues like income inequality and poverty
more heavily, instead of devoting attention to sensational campaign moments and the state of political horse races.
He then claimed that bringing that pressure to bear would be difficult, since corporate ownership makes it harder for news outlets
to cover issues in a way that conflicts with the interests of top executives. "MSNBC is owned by who?" Sanders asked. "Comcast, our
overlords," Maddow responded with a chuckle.
"All right, Comcast is not one of the most popular corporations in America, right?" Sanders said. "And I think the American people
are going to have to say to NBC and ABC and CBS and CNN, 'You know what, forget the political gossip. Politics is not a soap
opera. Talk about the real damn issues facing this country.'"
So in due course the trade war was replaced by the full scale cold war.
Notable quotes:
"... Needless to say, no differences will be "settled amicably" and now China will have no choice but to retaliate, aggressively straining relations with the US, and further complicating Trump's effort to wind down his nearly two-year old trade war with Beijing. ..."
"... The legislation, S. 1838, which was passed virtually unanimously in both chambers, requires annual reviews of Hong Kong's special trade status under American law and will allow Washington to suspend said status in case the city does not retain a sufficient degree of autonomy under the "one country, two systems" framework. The bill also sanctions any officials deemed responsible for human rights abuses or undermining the city's autonomy. ..."
"... The House cleared the bill 417-1 on Nov. 20 after the Senate passed it without opposition, veto-proof majorities that left Trump with little choice but to acquiesce, or else suffer bruising fallout from his own party. the GOP. ..."
"... In accordance with the law, the Commerce Department will have 180 days to produce a report examining whether the Chinese government has tried use Hong Kong's special trading status to import advanced "dual use" technologies in violation of US export control laws. Dual use technologies are those that can have commercial and military applications. ..."
"... The new law directs the US secretary of state to "clearly inform the government of the People's Republic of China that the use of media outlets to spread disinformation or to intimidate and threaten its perceived enemies in Hong Kong or in other countries is unacceptable." ..."
"... The state department should take any such activity "into consideration when granting visas for travel and work in the United States to journalists from the People's Republic of China who are affiliated with any such media organizations", the law says. ..."
"... Yes I think getting the western financial institutions out of HK is the plan. I'm sure they appreciate the US doing this for them, but of course they could never admit that. ..."
Less than an hour after Trump once again paraded with yet another all-time high in the
S&P...
... and on day 510 of the trade war, it appears the president was confident enough that a
collapse in trade talks won't drag stocks too far lower, and moments after futures reopened at
6pm, the White House said that Trump had signed the Hong Kong bill backing pro-democracy
protesters, defying China and making sure that every trader's Thanksgiving holiday was just
ruined.
In a late Wednesday statement from the White House, Trump said that:
I signed these bills out of respect for President Xi, China, and the people of Hong Kong.
They are being enacted in the hope that Leaders and Representatives of China and Hong Kong
will be able to amicably settle their differences leading to long term peace and prosperity
for all.
Needless to say, no differences will be "settled amicably" and now China will have no
choice but to retaliate, aggressively straining relations with the US, and further complicating
Trump's effort to wind down his nearly two-year old trade war with Beijing.
Trump's signing of the bill comes during a period of unprecedented unrest in Hong Kong,
where anti-government protests sparked by a now-shelved extradition bill proposal have
ballooned into broader calls for democratic reform and police accountability.
"The Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act reaffirms and amends the United States-Hong
Kong Policy Act of 1992, specifies United States policy towards Hong Kong and directs
assessment of the political developments in Hong Kong," the White House said in a statement.
"Certain provisions of the act would interfere with the exercise of the president's
constitutional authority to state the foreign policy of the United States."
The legislation, S. 1838, which was passed virtually unanimously in both chambers,
requires annual reviews of Hong Kong's special trade status under American law and will allow
Washington to suspend said status in case the city does not retain a sufficient degree of
autonomy under the "one country, two systems" framework. The bill also sanctions any officials
deemed responsible for human rights abuses or undermining the city's autonomy.
The House cleared the bill 417-1 on Nov. 20 after the Senate passed it without
opposition, veto-proof majorities that left Trump with little choice but to acquiesce, or else
suffer bruising fallout from his own party. the GOP.
Trump also signed into law the PROTECT Hong Kong act, which will prohibit the sale of
US-made munitions such as tear gas and rubber bullets to the city's authorities.
While many members of Congress in both parties have voiced strong support for protesters
demanding more autonomy for the city, Trump had stayed largely silent, even as the
demonstrations have been met by rising police violence.
Until now.
The bill's author, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, said that with the legislation's
enactment, the US now had "new and meaningful tools to deter further influence and interference
from Beijing into Hong Kong's internal affairs."
In accordance with the law, the Commerce Department will have 180 days to produce a
report examining whether the Chinese government has tried use Hong Kong's special trading
status to import advanced "dual use" technologies in violation of US export control laws. Dual
use technologies are those that can have commercial and military applications.
One other less discussed but notable provision of the Hong Kong Human Rights Act targets
media outlets affiliated with China's government. The new law directs the US secretary of
state to "clearly inform the government of the People's Republic of China that the use of media
outlets to spread disinformation or to intimidate and threaten its perceived enemies in Hong
Kong or in other countries is unacceptable."
The state department should take any such activity "into consideration when granting
visas for travel and work in the United States to journalists from the People's Republic of
China who are affiliated with any such media organizations", the law says.
* * *
In the days leading up to Trump's signature, China's foreign ministry had urged Trump to
prevent the legislation from becoming law, warning the Americans not to underestimate China's
determination to defend its "sovereignty, security and development interests."
"If the U.S. insists on going down this wrong path, China will take strong countermeasures,
" said China's foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang at a briefing Thursday in Beijing. On
Monday, China's Vice Foreign Minister Zheng Zeguang summoned the U.S. ambassador, Terry
Branstad to express "strong opposition" to what the country's government considers American
interference in the protests, including the legislation, according to statement. The new U.S.
law comes just as Washington and Beijing showed signs of working toward "phase-one" of deal to
ease the trade war. Trump would like the agreement finished in order to ease economic
uncertainty for his re-election campaign in 2020, and has floated the possibility of signing
the deal in a farm state as an acknowledgment of the constituency that's borne the brunt of
retaliatory Chinese tariffs.
Last week China's Vice Premier and chief trade negotiator Liu He said before a speech at the
Bloomberg New Economy Forum in Beijing, that he was "cautiously optimistic" about reaching the
phase one accord. He will now have no choice but to amend his statement.
In anticipation of a stern Chinese rebuke, US equity futures tumbled, wiping out most of the
previous day's gains... Still, the generally modest pullback - the S&P was around 2,940
when Trump announced the Phase 1 deal on Oct 11 - suggests that despite Trump's signature,
markets expect a Chinese deal to still come through. That may be an aggressive and overly
"hopeful" assumption, especially now that China now longer has a carte blanche to do whatever
it wants in Hong Kong, especially in the aftermath of this weekend's
landslide victory for the pro-Democracy camp which won in 17 of the city's 18
districts.
"Following last weekend's historic elections in Hong Kong that included record turnout, this
new law could not be more timely in showing strong US support for Hongkongers' long-cherished
freedoms," said Rubio
This is another attempt by the US to stop BRICS. They care NOTHING about HK, only its
usefulness in the US war on Chinas growing importance in world trade.
but no no no... trading with communists brings jobs to sell cheap crap. oh what was I
thinking.... cheap crap, jobs, and the richest of the rich get richer... my bad.
it ain’t like the commies are going to use the money to build up their military..
Of course the obvious solution is to just let people choose whatever or whomever they want
to associate with and be respected and left alone for their choice.
But no. We all have to live and abide by the wishes of other people bcuz of "unity" and
****.
Eh guys, you still do not understand that all this (not only China and Hong Kong) is a
very big "elite" performance for ordinary people to keep you (the rest of the boobies) in
subjection. It's like in boxing - contractual fights. Do you think world "elites" benefit
from peace and order? You are mistaken - these guys have the world as death (the death of
their Power and their Control). An example from the history of Europe - in the 18-19 and
early 20th century, Europe only did what it fought. But the funny thing is that the monarchs
(the real owners of Europe) were relatives among themselves. The First World War was
popularly called “The War of Three Cousins” (English monarch, German Kaiser and
Russian emperor). But the Europeans paid for the dismantling of relatives. Now the "monarchs"
are bankers and your position has not changed, you changed only the owners after 1918.
Problem with Hong Kong is, it is dependent on China to survive. That is not only true for
the most basic neccessities, but also as a port for international trade. However, in the last
25 years, Shenzhen and Guangzhou have built up their own trade hubs, which has pulled trade
away from being concentrated in Hong Kong, and consequently more dependent on China. Our
ideas of Hong Kong remaining an independent island nation isn't going to work for three
reasons:
1. Without being a doorway to China, there is no other reason for its existence.
2. Hong Kong is indeed Chinese sovereign territory, that was taken away from it to be made
into a trade colony by the British in 1841, under the Treaty of Nanking. The British gave up
Hong Kong in 1997, under the 1984 signed Sino-British Joint Declaration, in which Britain
agreed to return not only the New Territories but also Kowloon and Hong Kong itself. China
promised to implement a "One Country, Two Systems" regime, under which for fifty years Hong
Kong citizens could continue to practice capitalism and political freedoms forbidden on the
mainland. So, when the year 2047 comes around, Hong Kong will be fully absorbed and
integrated in a One Country, One system Chinese regime. In otherwords, Hong Kong's fate was
already sealed in 1984, and there is nothing America can legally do about it.
3. Hong Kong still needs the basic neccessities from China to survive. Don't count on
either the British or the Americans to provide it.
Yes I think getting the western financial institutions out of HK is the plan. I'm sure
they appreciate the US doing this for them, but of course they could never admit
that.
Xi Jinping tells that bullshit little story about China's 5,000 year History, but the truth
is really much more pragmatic: China doesn't aim to be an empire for the simple reason it
learned from America's mistakes.
The CCP already knows that being the sole superpower is unsustainable and, in the medium
term, goes even against its main objective, which is to establish a "moderately prosperous
society" in China until 2030 (they consider the 2000s Belgium as the standard for "moderately
prosperous").
Socialist China has shown, so far, an incredible capacity of learning from other nations'
mistakes:
1) It correctly read the historical conjuncture of the late 1960s, by concluding that the
historical cycle of socialist revolutions was over, and moved on to try to break the Cold War
embargo in order to initiate a cycle of wealth production. They achieved that in 1972. This was
when Mao Zedong was still alive and commanding China with absolute authority, so it's a myth
China "freed itself" only when and because Mao died (1976);
2) It learned from the failed experiment of the Brazilian liberal dictatorship, by doing
exactly the opposite of the Zona Franca de Manaus . The result was the creation of the
Special Economic Zones, which allowed capitalist investment from abroad to come to China but in
quarentene, and with technological transfer.
3) It learned from the trap the USSR fell, and used a peaceful geopolitical strategy. It
avoided an arms race and was able to expand its allied nations portfolio and slowly tightened
its grip over the American economy.
4) It learned from the the failure of Soviet socialism in producing very good quality
consumer goods. It solved this problem by "opening up" for capitalist exploitation the sectors
which produced and distributed consumer goods, without affecting the strategic sectors
(defense, finance, natural resources, etc.).
5) It learned from the failure of the American empire of maintaining its status as the
world's "lonely superpower" by not adopting a war culture in China and by being more tolerant
with its neighbors. But that didn't mean they didn't consolidated position: military spending
continues to go up and the Armed Forces continues to be modernized and under firm CCP control.
The South China Sea is a "corridor of life" for the Chinese, so the CCP quickly, but in a
peaceful manner, took control of it, very aware that it would probably cost the Vietnamese
friendship. But that was the exception that proves the rule, an exceptional situation where the
benefits were greater than the costs.
This isn't the only
article I've read over the past several days suggesting China won't agree to a trade deal
anytime soon. The following are amongst the reasons why:
"China's trade has gradually steadied as the nation moves to explore third markets. 'A
substantial decline in trade and a drastic fall in economic growth which some international
observers were worried about didn't occur, pointing to the potential and resilience of the
Chinese economy,' he went on to say.
"The US, for its part, has seen its current account deficit as a percentage of GDP shoot
up from 2.9 percent to 3.2 percent. This suggests the trade war is failing to address the
issue of the US' current account deficit, stressed Zhu, who is currently the Chairman of the
National Institute of Financial Research at Tsinghua University. He added that, more
worryingly, tariffs mean additional costs are put on US companies and consumers."
Evil Outlaw US Empire planners in their hubristic zeal to decouple from China's economy
erred massively in thinking China would be the one harmed and come begging for a trade deal.
Instead, China's geoeconomic strategy is clearly working and is more potent than what the
Empire can bring to the table--Oops! China can now play Trump.
psychohistorian 63
I see Trump's envoy Kissinger is standing next to Xi. Seems like Trump is trying to cook
something up with Kissinger regularly on the scene when it comes to Russia and China.
Interesting that Kissinger is there . Steve Pieczenik takes the very strong view
that Pompeo is a dead man walking. Worth every second of his five minute discourse . What I like
about Steve and his various takes on people of note is that he assassinates them immediately
and intensely with a quick turn of phrase.
Kissinger was also Nixon's envoy. He engineered the split between China and the Soviet
Union amongst other things. China and Russia's current leadership though may be above
Kissinger's pay grade.
Chris Hedges is our very own modern day Thomas Paine. Too bad most the sheep don't even
know he exists let alone be fired by his deeply powerful words and ideas. He is so dangerous
he is universally banned by any and all major media. He is so smart, so well read and so
incredibly morally powerful, they make sure only those few who like myself, go looking can
actually find him.
I only recently discovered Hedges myself. Needless to say, his speeches have blown my
mind. It only requires one to take a look at the world around us to see he speaks the truth.
If only more would wake up to this truth.
renderer-text-content expanded"> There is this Frank Zappa quote, I keep thinking of
when listening to Chris Hedges "The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's
profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to
maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will
move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the
theater." The illusion is hastily crumbling ... thanks CH for wording the decay so
clearly
Four cops were recently indicted for beating an under cover cop posing as a protester
during the recent St Louis race riots. Chris is absolutely correct when he says antifa is
half cops. The oligarchs want Marshall Law. And cops are playing their part in seeing that it
comes to pass.
"... Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"? She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic? Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich. ..."
"... I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine. ..."
"... I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption. ..."
"... She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose. People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique. ..."
"... This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency consensus" was formed without them. ..."
"... The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.) ..."
"... That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run. Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs. ..."
"... if Warren becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate will be perfect–ever. ..."
"... Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%. Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected? ..."
Reiterates Her Neoconservative Policies Against Venezuela
Elizabeth Warren repeated her support for regime change in Venezuela in an interview in September with the
Council on Foreign Relations , a central gear in the machinery
of the military-industrial complex. "Maduro is a dictator and a crook who has wrecked his country's economy, dismantled its democratic
institutions, and profited while his people suffer," Warren declared. She referred to Maduro's elected government as a "regime" and
called for "supporting regional efforts to negotiate a political transition." Echoing the rhetoric of neoconservatives in Washington,
Warren called for "contain[ing]" the supposedly "damaging and destabilizing actions" of China, Russia, and Cuba. The only point where
Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
Soft-Pedals Far-Right Coup in Bolivia
While Warren endorsed Trump's hybrid war on Venezuela, she more recently whitewashed the U.S.-backed coup in Bolivia.
Warren refused to comment on the putsch for more than a week, even as the far-right military junta massacred dozens of protesters
and systematically purged and detained elected left-wing politicians from MAS.
Finally, eight days after the coup, Warren broke her silence. In a short tweet, the putative progressive presidential candidate
tepidly requested "free and fair elections" and calling on the "interim leadership" to prepare an "early, legitimate election."
What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president"
Jeanine Añez. Añez has referred
to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's progressive constitution,
which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic mandate in a 2009 referendum.
Añez's ally in this coup regime's interim leadership is
Luis Fernando
Camacho , a multi-millionaire who emerged out of neo-fascist groups and courted support from the United States and the far-right
governments of Brazil and Colombia. By granting legitimacy to Bolilvia's ultra-conservative, unelected leadership, Warren rubber-stamped
the far-right coup and the military junta's attempt to stamp out Bolivia's progressive democracy. In other words, as The Grayzone
editor Max Blumenthal put it, Liz's
Big Structural Bailey compliantly rolled over for
Big IMF Structural Adjustment Program
.
Ben Norton is a journalist and writer. He is a reporter for The Grayzone , and the producer of the "
Moderate Rebels " podcast, which he co-hosts with Max Blumenthal. His
website is BenNorton.com , and he tweets at @
BenjaminNorton .
A vote for evil is never a good choice, and choosing a candidate you perceive as a lesser evil still condones evil. Allowing
the Oligarchy to limit your choice gives them the power to continue advancing evil policies. They control both major parties.
You may succeed in getting non-gender specific restrooms in your Starbucks, but the murdering war machine will continue unabated.
Now, we are seeing the true colors of candidates, who have professed to be progressive. Sanders went on a "tirade" against
Maduro during the last "debate" I saw. Tulsi Gabbard has stayed against US Imperialism, but, I'm sure the Democratic policy controllers
will never nominate her. I foresee I'll be voting for the Socialist next year.
Raymond M. , November 22, 2019 at 18:09
""""On Nov. 10, the U.S. government backed a far-right military coup against Bolivia's democratically elected President Evo
Morales bla blla bla".
And the 3 right wing candidates spent more time slinging mud at at each other than at Morales. Had the CIAs top front man Ortez stepped aside, the vote would not have split and allowed Morales to claim a first round victory and avoid
a run-off that he would have lost. And the right wing Christian fundamentalist for sure was a CIA plant who manged to split the
vote further.
Under the Trump administration, the CIA can even run a coup right.
If only those anti-Western rulers seen the light and joined RBWO (rule* based world order, * rules decided in DC, preferably
by bipartisan consensus), then the economy would run smoothly and the population would be happy. Every week gives another example:
By The Associated Press, Nov. 21, 2019, BOGOTA, Colombia
Colombians angry with President Iván Duque and hoping to channel Latin America's wave of discontent took the streets by the tens
of thousands on Thursday in one of the biggest protests in the nation's recent history. [ ] Police estimated 207,000 people took
part. [ ] government deployed 170,000 officers, closed border crossings and deported 24 Venezuelans accused of entering the country
to instigate unrest.
So if only Iván did not start unnecessary conflict with Maduro, these 24 scoundrels would stay home and the trouble would be
avoided. Oh wait, I got confused
CitizenOne , November 21, 2019 at 22:10
You must imagine that when candidtes suddenly become mind control puppets what is going on. The scariest thing in American
Politics is how supposedly independent and liberal progressives somehow swallow the red pill and are transported into the world
of make believe. Once inside the bubble of fiction far removed from human suffering which is after all what politicians are supposed
to be about fixing they can say crazy things. Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump are the only souls to retain their independent (yet
opposite) minds and both of them got the boot for being different.
Hide Behind , November 21, 2019 at 20:44
The puppet masters are experts, on the one hand there is A Republican, and on the other is a Democrat, but even they mess up
now and then get the different strings tangled.
Some come back on stage on the different hand so to save time they give a puppet two faces.
Watching same puppets gets old so every so often 2-4-6 they restring an old one that was used as props in past, change their makeup
a bit to give them new faces.
We do not actually elect the puppet, we instead legitimize the Puppeteers who own' s the only stage in town.
Those who choreograph the movements and change the backgrouds, media outlets and permanent bureaucrats know the plays before they
are introduced, and they know best how to get adults to leave reality behind and bring back their childhood fantacies.
Days of sugar plums, candy canes, socks filled with goodies and not coal, tooth fairys, and kind generous Fairy God Mothers.
Toy Nutcracker soldiers that turn into Angelic heros, Yellow brick roads, Bunnies with pocket watches, and and magic shoes of
red, or of glass in hand of handsome Princes and beautiful Princesses, all available if we vote.
So who votes, only those who control the voting puppets know that reality does not exist, they twitch we react, and at end of
voting counts one of hand's puppets will slump and cry, while others will leap and dance in joy, only for all to end up in one
pile until the puppeteers need them for next act.
Frederike , November 21, 2019 at 17:30
"What Warren did not mention is that this "interim leadership" she helped legitimize is headed by an extreme right-wing Christian
fundamentalist, the unelected "interim president" Jeanine Añez.
Añez has referred to Bolivia's majority-Indigenous population as "satanic" and immediately moved to try to overturn the country's
progressive constitution, which had established an inclusive, secular, plurinational state after receiving an overwhelming democratic
mandate in a 2009 referendum."
Doesn't Warren claim to have indigenous ancestors herself and was proud of it? She caused Trump to call her "Pocahontas"?
She agrees to support the unelected interim president Jeannine Añez, who refers to indigenous inhabitants as satanic?
Warren is a very horrible person, inhumane, amoral, and rather stupid overall, who wants to get rich.
Everything she agreed to in the interview listed above is pathetic. I had no idea that she is such a worthless individual.
arggo , November 22, 2019 at 19:57
"neocon" explains this. She seems to have the support of very foundational structures that enabled Hillary Clinton Democrats to attack
and destroy Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Warren has not lost my vote for the simple reason she never had it in the first place. None of this, sickening as it is, comes
as any surprise. Warren is an unapologetic capitalist. She's like Robert Reich in that regard. They both believe capitalism–if
reformed, tweaked a bit here and there–can work. To give her credit, she's always been very honest about that. And of course our
doctrine of regime change is all in the service of capitalism. Unless I'm simply confused and mistaken.
Sherwood Forrest , November 22, 2019 at 09:38
Yes, Capitalist First! That makes it so difficult for any aware person to believe she sincerely supports a wealth tax, Universal
Healthcare, Green New Deal, College loan forgiveness, family leave or anything else the 1% oppose. Because promising like Santa
is part of Capitalist politics, and then saying," Nah, we can't afford it."
I personally think that capitalism with "human face" and robust public sector is the way to go. But imperialist imposition
and aggression is not the part of "human face" that I imagine.
So Warren's imperialist positions are evil and unnecessary to preserve capitalism, how that projects at her as a person it
is hard to tell. A Polish poet has those words spoken by a character in his drama "On that, I know only what I heard, but I am
afraid to investigate because it poisons my mind about " (Znam to tylko z opowiada?, ale strzeg? si? tych bada?, bo mi truj? my?l
o ) As typical of hearsay, her concept of events in Venezuela, Bolivia etc. is quite garbled, she has no time (but perhaps some
fear) to investigate herself (easy in the era of internet). A serious politician has to think a lot about electability (and less
about the folks under the steam roller of the Empire), so she has to "pick her fights".
It is rather clear that American do not care if people south of the border are governed democratically or competently, which
led Hillary Clinton to make this emphatic statement in a debate with Trump "You will not see me singing praises of dictators or
strongmen who do not love America". One can deconstruct it "if you do not love America you are a strongman or worse, but if you
love America, we will be nice to you". I would love to have the original and deconstructed statement polled, but Warren is not
the only one afraid of such investigations. So "electability" connection to green light to Bolivian fascist and red light to Bolivarians
of Venezuela is a bit indirect. Part of it is funding, part, bad press.
brett , November 21, 2019 at 15:15
I'm sorry but you all need to come to terms with the farce that is the American political system. Anyone who was supporting
Warren or even considering voting for her for ANY reason is apparently either in denial or is being duped. Warren is a Madison
Avenue creation packaged for US liberal consumption.
She is a fraud and a liar. One trained in psychology can see, in her every
movement and utterance, the operation that is going on behind the facade. Everything Warren says is a lie to someone. She only
states truth in order to later dis-inform. Classic deception. She (her billionaires) has latched on to the populism of the DSA
etc. in order to sabotage any progressive momentum and drive a stake in it.
Rob Roy , November 22, 2019 at 00:40
She hangs out with Hillary Clinton and Madeline Albright, two evil women if ever there were. Now they make the three witches
brewing one coup/regime change after another. She's not smart enough to see that HRC and MA are leading her around by her nose.
People should call out this phoney everywhere she goes. BTW, Rachel Maddow completes an odious clique.
This is a bit of exaggeration. The three ladies are more like good students, they did not write the textbook but they good
grades for answering as written, or like cheerleaders, they jump and shout but they do not play in the field. Mind you, "interagency
consensus" was formed without them.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 14:53
The DNC's strategy for this election is to ensure that Bernie doesn't go into the Convention with enough delegates to win the
first ballot. (Once voting goes past the first ballot, super-delegates get to weigh in and help anoint a candidate who's friendly
to the Party's plutocratic-oligarch principals.)
That's the reason the DNC is allowing and encouraging so many candidates to run.
Warren's specific assignment is to cannibalize Bernie's base and steal delegates that would otherwise be his, by pretending to
espouse most of his platform with only minor tweaks. She's been successful with "better educated," higher-income liberal Democrats
who consider themselves well informed because they get their news from "respectable" sources -- sources that, unbeknownst to their
target audiences, invariably represent the viewpoint of the aforementioned plutocratic oligarchs.
Absolutely nothing in Warren's background supports her new calculatedly progressive primary persona. She was a Reagan
Republican. When the Republican Party moved right to become the party of batshit crazy and the Democratic Party shifted right
to become the party of Reagan Republicans, she became a Democrat. She's not a good actress, and it takes willing suspension of
disbelief to buy into her performance as a savvier, wonkier alternative to Bernie. And when she's pressed for details (Medicare
for All) and responses to crises (Venezuela and Bolivia), the cracks in her progressive façade become patently obvious. She's
a sleeper agent for Democratic-leaning plutocrats, like Obama was in 2008, and she would never get my vote.
PS: Impressed by Warren's progressive wealth-tax plan? Don't be. Our country's billionaires know she won't fight for it, and
that if she did, Congress would never pass it. (They know who owns Congress.) Besides, do you really think Pocahontas would
beat Trump? Do you think Sleepy Joe would? The billionaires wouldn't bet on it. And they're fine with that. Sure, they'd like
someone who's more thoroughly corporatist on trade and more committed to hot régime-change wars than Trump is, but they can live
just fine with low-tax, low-regulation Trump. It's the prospect of a Bernie presidency that keeps them up at night
and their proxies in the Democratic Party and allied media are doing everything they can to neutralize that threat.
mbob , November 21, 2019 at 18:13
@Peter
Thanks for this beautiful post. I agree with it 100%. I've been trying to figure out why Democrats are so consistently unable
to see through rhetoric and fall for what candidates pretend to be. Part of it is wishful thinking. A lot of it is, as you wrote,
misplaced trust in "respectable" sources. I have no idea how to fix that: how does one engender the proper skepticism of the MSM?
I haven't been able to open the eyes of any of my friends. (Fortunately my wife and daughter opened their own eyes.)
Warren is, if you look clearly, driven by her enormous ambition. She's the same as every other candidate in that regard, save
Bernie.
Bernie is driven by the same outrage that we feel. We need him.
In the last Israeli massacre on Gaza she was all for the IDF killing Palistinians. Americans like to look at the CCP and cry
about China being a one party state. Well is the US not a one party state?= Are the views of the Democrats and Republicans not
the same when it comes to slaughtering people in the third world? There is not a razor`s edge between them. Biden, Warren, Sanders,
Trump, Cruz and Pense they are all war criminals, or if elected will soon become war criminals.
From someone who at the beginning showed promise and humanity, she has turned into Albright and Clinton. How f**king sad is
that?
Dan Kuhn , November 21, 2019 at 14:33
Better to see her for what she really is now then after the election if she were to win. She is disgusting in her inhumanity.
Rob , November 21, 2019 at 13:43
This Is, indeed, disturbing and disappointing. Warren seems so genuinely right on domestic economic and social issues, so how
could she be so wrong on foreign policy issues? The same principles apply in both–justice, fairness, equity, etc. That said, she
is no worse than any of the other Democratic candidates in that regard, with the exceptions of Sanders and Gabbard, so if Warren
becomes the nominee, I will support her over Trump. It's a lesser of two evils choice, but we must recognize that no candidate
will be perfect–ever.
Far better to stick to your principles and write in " None of the above." believe me with this article we can easily see that
Trump is no worse nor better than Warren is. They are both pretty poor excuses as human beings.
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 16:04
@Rob:
If you'll allow me to fix that for you, "What Warren tactically claims to support, in the primaries, seems so genuinely
right on domestic economic and social issues ." I'm convinced Warren is an Obama 2.0 in the making. I don't think anyone
can match Obama's near-180° turnabout from his 2008 primary platform and that if Warren is elected, she will try to make Wall
Street a little more honest and stable, maybe advocate for a $12 minimum wage, and maybe try to shave a few thousand dollars off
student-loan debts. I suppose that technically qualifies as less evil than Trump. But I fully expect her to jettison 90% of her
primary platform, including a progressive tax on wealth and Medicare for All. And when you factor in her recently confirmed approval
of US military and financial imperialism -- economic subversion and régime-change operations that cost tens of thousands of innocent
foreign lives, and other peoples their sovereignty -- at what point does "less evil" become too evil to vote for?
John Drake , November 21, 2019 at 13:13
" presidential candidate tepidly requested "free and fair elections". Such a statement ignores the fact that Evo Morales term
was not up; therefore elections are not called for. This means she supports the coup. Restoration of his position which was illegally
and violently stolen from him are in order not elections until his term is up.
Her position on Venezuela is nauseating; as the article states classic neo-conservative. Maybe Robert Kagan will welcome her into
their club as he did with Hillary.
Warren used to be a Republican, she has not been cured of that disease; and is showing her true colors. Maybe it's best as she
is differentiating herself from Bernie. I was concerned before she started down this latest path that she would do an Obama; progressive
rhetoric followed by neo-liberal-or worse- behavior once in office. Maybe she is more honest than Obama.
Guy , November 21, 2019 at 12:40
Warren can't be very informed about what democracy actually means .Democracy is not the same as capitalism .
Not a US citizen but am very disappointed with her stated platform .
Short of divine intervention Tulsi will never make it but Sanders for president and Tulsi as VP would do just fine to re-direct
the US foreign policy and maybe ,just maybe make the US more respectable among the rest of the nations of the world.
It would make a lot of sense from actuarial point of view. The chances that at least one person on the ticket would live healthily
for 8 years would be very good, without Tulsi
Punkyboy , November 21, 2019 at 12:02
I was pretty sure Warren was a Hillary clone; now I'm absolutely sure of it. Another election between worse and worser. I may
just stay home this time, if the world holds together that long.
Socratic Truth , November 21, 2019 at 11:42
Warren is just another puppet of the NWO.
Ma Laoshi , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
I remember years and years ago, I guess about when Lizzie first entered Congress, that she went on the standard pandering tour
to the Motherland and an astute mind commented: Zionism is typically the gateway drug for Democratic would-be reformers. Once
they've swallowed that fundamental poison, the DNC feels secure it's just a matter of time before they Get With the Program 100%.
Given that "Harvard" and "phony" are largely synonymous, what else could've been expected?
Peter in Seattle , November 21, 2019 at 15:32
@Ma Laoshi:
Speaking of Harvard, having contemplated the abysmal track record compiled by our "best and brightest" -- in Congress,
in the White House, and on the federal bench -- I am now almost as suspicious of the Ivy League as I am of the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security (WHINSEC, formerly known as the School of the Americas). The mission of both is to train capable,
reliable, well-compensated servants to the US plutocracy. (And the only reason I say "almost" is because a non-negligible number
of black sheep have come out of the Ivy League and I'm not aware of any that have come out of WHINSEC.)
Sam F , November 23, 2019 at 18:59
Harvard admissions are apparently largely bought, and doubtless those of Yale and others.
MIT was strictly militarist warmongers in the 1970s, and one compete with 80% cheaters.
Dfnslblty , November 21, 2019 at 11:12
" The only point where Warren diverged with Trump was on her insistence that "there is no U.S. military option in Venezuela."
"
Hell, one doesn't need a military option after immoral, illegal and crippling sanctions.
This essay is the most disturbing piece all year-2019.
Vote anti-military – vote nonviolence.
Don't give these murderers anything but exposure to humane sensibilities.
I didn't think Trump supported a military solution in Venezuela. That was John Bolton's baby and Trump fired him as one would
hope he would soon fire Pompeo as has been hinted at. Trump campaigned on ending wars of choice but has given in to the MIC at
almost every turn. Maybe he will resign in leiu of being impeached. We might then see a Rand Paul vs. Bernie Sanders. I could
live with either one
Skip Scott , November 21, 2019 at 09:12
Once again the Democratic Party is pushing to have our choice for 2020 be between corporate sponsored war monger from column
A or B.
I wish Tulsi would "see the light" and run as an Independent in 2020. There is absolutely no way that she gets the nod from
the utterly corrupt DNC. She is abandoning her largest base (Independents) by sticking with the Democratic Party. Considering
the number of disgruntled non-voters, she could easily win the general election; but she will never win the Democratic primary.
The field is purposely flooded to ensure the "superdelegates" get the final say on a second ballot.
AnneR , November 21, 2019 at 08:50
Warren is as inhumane, amoral and imperialist as anyone in the WH and the US Congress, and she is certainly kindred in spirit,
thought and would be in deed, as Madeline Albright, the cheerful slaughterer of some 500,000 Iraqi children because the "price
was worth it." Of course, these utterly racist, amoral people do not have to pay "that price" nor do any of their families. (And
let us not forget that Albright and Killary are good friends – Warren is totally kindred with the pair, totally.)
And clearly Warren – like all of the Demrat contenders – is full on for any kind of warfare that will bring a "recalcitrant"
country into line with US demands (on its resources, lands etc.). She is grotesque.
She and those of her ilk – all in Congress, pretty much, and their financial backers – refuse to accept that Maduro and Morales
*both* were legally, legitimately and cleanly re-elected to their positions as presidents of their respective countries. But to
do that would be to go against her (commonly held) fundamental belief that the US has the right to decide who is and is not the
legitimate national leader of any given country. And what policies they institute.
Anyone who supports economic sanctions is supporting siege warfare, is happily supporting the starvation and deprivation of
potentially millions of people. And shrugging off the blame for the effects of the sanctions onto the government of the sanctioned
country is heinous, is immoral and unethical. WE are the ones who are killing, not the government under extreme pressure. If you
can't, won't accept the responsibility – as Warren and the rest of the US government clearly will not – for those deaths you are
causing, then stay out of the bloody kitchen: stop committing these crimes against humanity.
Cara , November 21, 2019 at 15:25
Please provide documentation that Sanders is, as you claim, a "full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian."
Sanders has been quite consistent in his criticism of Israel and the treatment of Palestinians: timesofisrael.com/bernie-sanders-posts-video-citing-apartheid-like-conditions-for-palestinians;
and; jacobinmag.com/2019/07/bernie-sanders-israel-palestine-bds
"Sanders is less so, but not wholly because he is a full-on zionist supporter of "Israel" and clearly anti-Palestinian"
Sanders is definitely not "full-on zionist supporter", not only he does not deny that "Palestinians exist" (to died-in-the-wool
Zionists, Palestinians are a malicious fiction created to smear Israel etc., google "Fakestinians"), but he claims that they have
rights, and using Hamas as a pretext for Gaza blockade is inhumane (a recent headline). One can pull his other positions and statements
to argue in the other direction, but in my opinion, he is at the extreme humane end of "zionist spectrum" (I mean, so humane that
almost not a Zionist).
And again, if we do win despite all the structural injustices in the system the Rs inherited and seek to expand, well, those
injustices don't really absolutely need to be corrected, because we will still have gotten the right result from the system
as is.
This is a pretty apt description of the mindset of Corporate Democrats. Thank you !
May I recommend you to listen to Chris Hedge 2011 talk
On Death of the Liberal Class At least to the first
part of it.
Corporate Dems definitely lack courage, and as such are probably doomed in 2020.
Of course, the impeachment process will weight on Trump, but the Senate hold all trump cards, and might reverse those effects
very quickly and destroy, or at lease greatly diminish, any chances for Corporate Demorats even complete on equal footing in 2020
elections. IMHO Pelosi gambit is a really dangerous gambit, a desperate move, a kind of "Heil Mary" pass.
Despair is a very powerful factor in the resurgence of far right forces. And that's what happening right now and that's why
I suspect that far right populism probably will be the decisive factor in 2020 elections.
IMHO Chris explains what the most probable result on 2020 elections with be with amazing clarity.
Bill Clinton destroyed the USA economy and middle class like no president has ever done.
Bush II and Obama exacerbated the destruction by the hundred folds.
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
Those of us who seek the truth can't stop looking under every stone. The truth will set
you free but you must share it with those who are ready to hear it and hide it from those who
can hurt you for exposing it. MT
"A Society that looses the capacity for the sacred cannibalizes itself until it dies
because it exploits the natural world as well as human beings to the point of collapse."
I believe Hedges statement that "the true correctives to society were social movements
that never achieved formal political power" is perhaps one of the most important things for
each of us to understand.
I watched this with interest and curiosity and growing skepticism although he makes some
killer points and cites some extremely disturbing facts; above all he accepts and
uncritically so the American narrative of history. The Progressive movement, for example,
(written into American history as being far more important that it ever really was,) unlike
Socialism or Communism was primarily just a literary and a trendy intellectually movement
that attempted, (unconvincingly,) to persuade poor, exploited and abused Americans that non
of those other political movements, (reactive and grass-roots,) were needed here and that
capitalism could and might of itself, cure itself; it conceded little, promised much and
unlike either Communism or Socialism delivered fuck all. Personally I remain unconvinced also
by, "climate science," (which he takes as given,) and which seems to to me to depend far too
much on faith and self important repeatedly insisting that it's true backed by lurid and
hysterical propaganda and not nearly enough on rational scientific argument, personally I
can't make head nor tail of the science behind it ? (it may well be true, or not; I can't
tell.) But above all and stripped of it his pretensions his argument is just typical theist,
(of any flavor you like,) end of times claptrap all the other systems have failed, (China for
example somewhat gives the lie to death of Communism by the way and so on,) the end is neigh
and all that is left to do is for people to turn to character out of first century fairly
story. I wish him luck with that.
The message from democrats is "hey we're not bigots". Most people (repubs+dems) aren't. If
they keep calling on that for energy the Dems will forever continue to lose. If they don't
come back to the working class they might as well just call themselves conservatives.
I have always loved Chris Hedges, but ever since becoming fully awake it pains me to see
how he will take gigantic detours of imagination to never mention Israel, AIPAC or Zionism,
and their complete takeover of the US. What a shame.
The continued growth of unproductive debt against the low or nonexistent growth of GDP is
the recipe for collapse, for the whole world economic system.
I agree with Chris about the tragedy of the Liberal Church. Making good through identity
politics however, is every bit as heretical and tragic as Evangelical Republican corrupted
church think, in my humble, Christian opinion.
The death of the present western hemisphere governments and "democratic" institutions must
die right now for humanity to be saved from the zombies that rule it. 'Cannibalization" of
oikonomia was my idea, as well as of William Engdahl. l am glad hearing Hedges to adopt the
expression of truth. ( November 2019. from Phthia , Hellas ).
ass="comment-renderer-text-content expanded"> Gosh , especially that last conclusion
,was terrific so I want to paste the whole of that Auden poem here:- September 1, 1939 W. H.
Auden - 1907-1973
... ... ...
I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.
"... Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but many of us will never know... ..."
"... They certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for "the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism. ..."
In my July 25th article " Zelenskii's dilemma " I pointed
out the fundamental asymmetry of the Ukrainian power configuration following Zelenskii's crushing victory over Poroshenko: while
a vast majority of the Ukrainian people clearly voted to stop the war and restore some kind of peace to the Ukraine, the real levers
of power in the post-Maidan Banderastan are all held by all sorts of very powerful, if also small, minority groups including:
The various "oligarchs" (Kolomoiskii, Akhmetov, etc.) and/or mobsters Arsen Avakov's internal security forces including some "legalized"
Nazi death squads The various non-official Nazi deathsquads (Parubii) The various western intelligence agencies who run various groups
inside the Ukraine The various western financial/political sponsors who run various groups inside the Ukraine The so-called "Sorosites"
(соросята) i.e. Soros and Soros-like sponsored political figures The many folks who want to milk the Ukraine down to the last drop
of Ukrainian blood and then run
These various groups all acted in unison, at least originally, during and after the Euromaidan. This has now dramatically changed
and these groups are now all fighting each other. This is what always happens when things begin to turn south and the remaining loot
shrinks with every passing day,
Whether Zelenskii ever had a chance to use the strong mandate he received from the people to take the real power back from these
groups or not is now a moot point: It did not happen and the first weeks of Zelenskii's presidency clearly showed that Zelenskii
was, indeed, in " free fall ": instead of becoming
a "Ukrainian Putin" Zelenskii became a "Ukrainian Trump" – a weak and, frankly, clueless leader, completely outside his normal element,
whose only "policy" towards all the various extremist minorities was to try to appease them, then appease them some more, and then
even more than that. As a result, a lot of Ukrainians are already speaking about "Ze" being little more than a "Poroshenko 2.0".
More importantly, pretty much everybody is frustrated and even angry at Zelenskii whose popularity is steadily declining.
... ... ...
Another major problem for Zelenskii are two competing narratives: the Ukronazi one and, shall we say, the "Russian" one. I have
outlined the Ukronazi one just above and now I will mention the competing Russian one which goes something like this:
The Euromaidan was a completely illegal violent coup against the democratically elected President of the Ukraine, whose legitimacy
nobody contested, least of all the countries which served as mediators between Poroshenko and the rioters and who betrayed their
word in less than 24 hours (a kind of a record for western politicians and promises of support!).
... ... ...
Some of the threats made by these Ukronazis are dead serious and the only person who, as of now, kinda can keep the Ukrainian
version of the Rwandan " Interahamwe " under control would probably be Arsen Avakov, but since he himself is a hardcore
Nazi nutcase, his attitude is ambiguous and unpredictable. He probably has more firepower than anybody else, but he was a pure "
Porokhobot " (Poroshenko-robot) who, in many ways, controlled Poroshenko more than Poroshenko controlled him. The best move
for Zelenskii would be to arrest the whole lot of them overnight (Poroshenko himself, but also Avakov, Parubii, Iarosh, Farion, Liashko,
Tiagnibok, etc.) and place a man he totally trusts as Minister of the Interior. Next, Zelenskii should either travel to Donetsk or,
at least, meet with the leaders of the LDNR and work with them to implement the Minsk Agreements. That would alienate the Ukronazis
for sure, but it would give Zelenskii a lot of popular support.
Needless to say, that is not going to happen. While Zelenskii's puppet master Kolomoiskii would love to stick this entire gang
in jail and replace them with his own men, it is an open secret that powerful interest groups in the US have told Zelenskii "don't
you dare touch them". Which is fine, except that this also means "don't you dare change their political course either".
...are going through the famous Kübler-Ross stages of griefs: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance: currently,
most of them are zig-zagging between bargaining and depression; acceptance is still far beyond their – very near – horizon. Except
that Zelenskii has nothing left to bargain with.
Thank you for a rational article about Ukraine. The sad thing is that it might take years to reach the "acceptance" phase.
It would take someone like Hitler to clean out the stables. Arrest is not a viable option as they will bribe their way out.
These people need to be put down like rabid dogs. That is the only way to put an end to their mischief and it would be a deterrent
to their replacements.
Personally, I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel. Another
country that is still in the "denial" phase. Its military and political leaders know full-well that their strategic aims have
all failed. The boot is now firmly on the other foot.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
To give you an idea of how ridiculous it has all become, the UK no longer accepts medical degrees awarded by universities in Crimea.
Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references? Might have been a non-biased article, but
many of us will never know...
I suspect that the Ukraine is being deliberately depopulated to make way for waves of "refugees" from Israel.
You got that right – what it's all about is building a New Khazaria. But they're neither giving up on their Greater Israel
project between the two rivers, and hence more wars, conflict and chaos to drive out the native Arabs from the Middle East.
I suspect that Crimea was their preferred destination and hence the massive non-stop propaganda against Russia on that score.
@AWMThey certainly aren't National Socialists, and arguably not nationalists. Nationalists are open to what is best for
"the nation" regardless of where it lies on the political spectrum. Since they don't consider the people in Donbas to be part
of "the nation", that means, if anything, they are useful idiots of Zionism.
@bob sykes Kolomoiskii is the real hidden owner/controller of the company that bribed the Bidens. He has a finger in lots
of pies. His pretense to leaning towards Russia is his way to try to get the Americans to stop attempts to get at the many millions
that he stole from his own Ukrainians bank – fake loans to his companies.
Of course, the Russians understand all of that. This theater is aimed at the Americans – not at the Russians.
For the Ukrainian state to break up, there need to be some forces interested in a break-up. You won't find such forces inside
the Ukraine.
What is Ukrainian South-East? In pure political terms, "South-East" is a bunch of oligarchs, who are all integrated into Ukrainian
system, and have no reason to seek independence from Kiev, especially if it means getting slapped with Western sanctions.
Even the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
It's worth pointing out that the so-called "Novorossia movement" started out as Akhmetov's project to win concessions from
new Kiev regime. It was then quickly hijacked by Strelkov, a man who actually wanted to break up the Ukraine, and it is because
of Strelkov, that Donetsk and Lugansk are now de-facto independent. Without similar figures to lead secessionist movements elsewhere
in the Ukraine, this break-up that Saker keeps talking about will never happen.
His ratings must be sky-high, because otherwise I cannot imagine why Fox would allow him to continue to use their network as
a medium to broadcast common sense.
Of course the Dems are making it so easy.
Schiff, Kent, Taylor, Yanovitch -- what a pathetic, nauseating crew.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
The opposing positions of Warren and her primary opponent Bernie Sanders on Bolivia
highlight an increasingly clear policy gap between the two Democratic frontrunners.
11-20-19
Massachusetts Senator and Democratic Presidential nomination frontrunner Elizabeth Warren
endorsed the recent U.S. backed military coup d'état in Bolivia Monday. Warren's
statement carefully avoided using the word "coup," and instead referred to the new government
of Jeanine Añez as an "interim leadership," effectively validating the new
administration.
She stated that the Bolivian people "deserve free and fair elections, as soon as
possible," implying that the October 20 vote, won convincingly by President Evo Morales, was
not clean, thus taking essentially the same position as the Trump administration, who made no
secret of their relief that Morales was ousted.
@Alfred I had the same thoughts. Zelenskii should show a similar coffin with the text
"This one is still empty" and then start rounding up the terrorists. He finally has a good
excuse.
Thank you Saker and Unz for the very interesting article .
I wonder what has been the role of Germany in the Ukrainian disaster . ...I have the
feeling , just the suspicion , that they contributed to the ucranian disaster out of their
genetic Drang nach Osten Nordic greed , is that right ?
Anyway since the Ukrainian disaster the cohesion of the EU is going going down . Germany
which was gifted with the german reunification , is less and less trusted spetially in south
Europe , and even less in the EU far west , in England which is going out of the EU .
Most of the people in the EU would like to keep collaborating with the US , of course ,
but also with Russia and with the rest of the world . Most of the people in the UE are scared
of the dark forces operating in Ukraine trying to provoke a war with Russia .
The stupid name-calling like the term "ukronazi" makes this article look like a rant like
North Korean communiques or the ravings of some Arab despot's propagandist. It is not better
than calling "The Saker" a "Moskal", "Sovok" or "Putler's stooge" etc. He should keep this
lingo to directly "debating" "Ukronazis" on twitter or youtube commentst etc. not for an
article that is supposed to be a serious analysis.
I understand that it is hard for a Russian nationalist to accept that the majority of
Ukrainians don't want to belong to their dream Russkiy Mir, they were seduced by the West,
which is more attractive with all its failings, because mostly of simple materialistic
reasons. Ukrainians happily go to EU countries that now allow them in as guest workers. The
fact, like it or not that majority of them chose the West over Russkiy Mir despite being very
close to Russians in culture, language, history etc. He is still in the first stage of grief
it seems.
All in all, Ukrainians are probably way above average in most human characteristics. The
area of Ukraine is by planetary standards one of the best available: arable land, great
rivers, Black see, pleasant and liveable.
But it is 2019 and life in Ukraine is barely better than it was 25-50 years ago,
population has actually dropped from its peak in early 1990's. Millions of Ukrainians live
abroad (I know some of them) and have – to be polite – at best an ambivalent
attitude towards their homeland. Almost all of them prefer to be somewhere else, even to
become someone else.
Now why is that? A normal society would have enough introspection to discuss this, to look
for answers. Throwing a temper-tantrum on a big square in Kiev every few years is not looking
for a solution. That is escapism, Orange-this, Maidan-that, 'Russians bad', 'we are going
West', 'golden toilets', and always 'Stalin did it'.
I don't agree with the facile name-calling that sees Nazis everywhere and exaggerates
throw-away symbolism. But Ukraine has not been functioning and it can't go like this much
longer. Not because it will collapse, it won't, but because during an era of general
prosperity Ukraine can't be a unstable exception (oh, I get it, they are better than Moldova,
good for them.)
Rebellions against geography are doomed. Projecting one's personal frustrations on
external enemies (Kremlin!) has never worked. Ukraine needs rationality – accepting
that they will not be in EU, that attempting to join Nato would destroy Ukraine, and that
they can't beat Russia in a war. And following advise of half-mad and half-ignorant
well-wishers from Washington or Brussels is a road to ruin. Nulands, Bidens and Tusks will
never live in Ukraine, they really deeply don't care about it. They have no skin in that
game, it is just entertainment for them.
Or alternatively you can pray that Russia collapses – good luck waiting for
that.
There is not much 'drang' left in Germany, so I think this is mostly fingers on the map
post dinner empty talk.
in 1945 the jewery asked Stalin to give Crimea to the jews , Stalin refused
Crimea is a jewel, but has one big problem: not enough water. But that's also true about
Izrael, maybe there is a deep genetic memory of coming out of a desert environment.
During WWII, Germany actually established settlements in Crimea. Think about it: there is
a massive war, you have like 1-2 years, short on transport and resources, and you start
sending settlers to Crimea – that's how much drang-nach-osten types wanted it.
And the Turks, etc This must be driving them absolutely nuts.
The mexicans are able to make fun of themselves , that`s a good thing . They have a joke
which aplies also to Ukraina ( and other countries )
The mexicans say : when God created Mexico He gave Mexico everything ; land , mountains ,
plains , tropical forests , deserts , two oceans , agriculture , gold , silver , oil . then
God saw how beautiful and perfect Mexico was and He though that He should also give something
bad to the country to prevent the sin of pride , and then he populated Mexico with pure
pendejos ,( idiots ) .
@AWM "Is it not possible to have an article on Ukraine without all the N@ZI references?
If you want a decent analysis of current events in the Ukraine, which is what The Saker
provides, I guess you'll just have to put up with his terminology.
The world won't miss a thing if Curmudgeon or AWM goes off in a huff, to sit on his toilet
and read the "one joke per dump" volume lodged on the tank and stops reading The Saker's very
thorough analysis as a protest action!
@Anon My experience is that Ukrainians individually are far from being pendejos .
But they are unable to act as a group or as a nation. (Well, they 'act', but it mostly
somehow fails.)
Maybe it is the relative shallow and heterogenous history of Ukraine. Or – and this
is what I have observed – a fundamental inner disloyalty to the Ukraine as a homeland.
When one observes the assorted Porkys, Timoshenkas, Yanuks, the oligarchs, but also the
crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about to leave Ukraine or are thinking
about leaving. Societies can't be built with one foot always at the airport, or in an old car
in a 5-km column waiting on the border of Poland. Or Russia.
Another good article – thanks – Yep, the US/EU NWO is not going to let their
"West Ukraine Isis" battalions and intel gang lose their funding , arms trafficking ops, or
terrorist reputation. This is a no win situation in Ukraine and the West knows it –
Even if NovoRossiya gets some independence, the Ukraine Isis will/can reek havoc and murder
for a long time along the border. The modern Cheka { Ukraine Isis } has been modified for the
security of the new Farmland owners – Monsanto, Cargill, DuPont and the rest of the
Globalist Corporations and their ports close to Odessa.
One point of contention since it wasn't made clear in this article – Novorussia
consists of Luhansk and Donetsk, but not Kharkov. While Kharkov has more Russians than most
other provinces of Ukraine do, it does not have a plurality like Donetsk and Luhansk.
All of Ukraine's doomsayers have been crying about Ukraine's demise for the lat 25
years, yet the fact is that it' s getting stronger and stronger every year,
USA diaspora keeps on delivering.
Shoutout to quarter/half Poles USA citizens LARPing as Ukrainian patriots in the
comments.
@Felix KeverichEven the Kremlin doesn't show much interest in breaking up the
Ukraine, so why the hell would it break up?
Follow the money my friend!
Some provinces send much more money to Kiev then they get back in "services". So long as
more loans from the EU, The USA and the IMF were forthcoming, that situation was not too bad.
Now, the spigot is being closed. Hence the sad face of Mr Z when he met Trump in
Washington.
This means that the provinces that are losing most from this internal transfer are going
to be strongly motivated to stop sending money to Kiev. Kiev will lose control and that will
fragment the country.
The Donbass was a big contributor to Kiev and got little in return – that was a
major reason for their dissatisfaction. Everyone there could see that Kiev sent the money
west and kept much for itself.
If the French provinces were to stop sending money to Paris, the Yellow movement would be
totally unnecessary.
@awry About 2.5 million Ukrainians have "emigrated" (you could also say "fled") to the RF
since 2014.
Per Bloomberg most of the outflow not to Russia has been to countries of Eastern Europe, esp.
Poland.
@AP "Ukraine was historically a marsh of Poland for centuries before it was a historical
marsh of Russia"
That was mostly Galicia and Volhynia. It is a tiny part of today's the Ukraine. In these
areas, the Poles were landowners, the Jews their rent/tax collectors and the peasants were
Ukrainian-speaking Slavs. Now, they are planning to sell the best farmland to "foreigners"
(i.e. Jews) and the Slavs will become serfs once again.
@Mr. Hack The problem with your argument is that the 'war' in the east was entirely
predicable. So was Crimea leaving and joining Russia. The people in charge in Kiev –
presumably with 3-digit IQ – would think about it, plan for it, etc They obviously
didn't. Instead they provided a needed catalyst to make it worse by voting in February 2014
to ban Russian language in official use, and the idiotic attacks on Russian speakers like in
Odessa, that were neither prevented nor punished. The other side – in this case Russia
and Russian speakers living in Donbas and Crimea – rationally took care of their own
interests. Post-Maidan Kiev handed them all they could on a silver platter while busying
themselves with silly slogans and videos of golden saunas.
Russia is actually one of the least susceptible countries to an economic collapse in the
world – it is largely self-sufficient, has enormous resources that others will always
buy, and has a very minimal percentage of its economy that deals with foreign trade. What
they are susceptible to is the loss of value for their currency – and that has already
largely happened since 2014. When it comes to energy, the countries that are low-cost
producers are least impacted – who you should worry about are the numerous higher-cost
producers like US shale, coal miners, or LNG gas that have huge upfront fixed costs and
built-in high transportation costs. Russia and Saudis will be fine.
Back to the drawing board, what exactly is the plan in Kiev? If they know that having a
war costs them investments, how do they end that war? It is highly unlikely that it would end
with a victorious Kiev army conquering Donetsk (or Crimea). So what's the plan?
It's amazing how spectacularly inept all these interventions over the last decades have been.
Iraq, Lybia, Syria, Yemen, the coup in Turkey but also Ukraine.
And I know that in the ME, the Isrseli policy, as iterated by Michael Orin is to let all
sides bleed each other to death, and that part has been relatively successful until
recently.
But in Ukraine, they were going to consolidate their control over the country from Kiev
and force-march the Russians out of Sevastopol. And that part didn't work at all, except as
leverage to impose sanctions on Russia; but the long term goal of using Ukraine to overthrow
Putin is now stuck in the Donbas.
My point being that it is the great fortune of the world that these criminal nitwits and
fools in the State (War) Department and their helpers in the "intelligence" community are so
arrogant and incompetent.
@Anon Merkel (who herself was studying in Donetsk for few months) definitely has a hand
in ze EuroUkrainian mess.
Afterall she met with Right Sector representatives one dayt before the final, bloody part
of the coup started. And that meeting of "reporting on delivering at our commitments and
asking Merkel about her delivery of her commitments" both with the next day start of "offence
at the government" was announced by Right Sector yet another day before, 16 February
2014.
However i have reservations about Merkel representing German peoples, especially some
alleged "genetical" trend of them to invade eastwards.
It was public, that Merkel's everything including public phone is spied upon by USA
"intelligence community", and Merkel considered it normal and proper.
So it is clearly stated what she considers her allegiance and whom she considers her
employees. Not citizens of Germany.
"Each of these countries is as inorganic and disunited as Ukraine, or worse, made up as they
are of various racial and ethnic groups who don't identify with each other."
I am dubious about this suggestion. But more importantly, Ukraine or the Ukraine has had a
violent revolution about every ten years. You simply cannot develop a stable government,
economy or safe social system if you you overturn the the government via violence every ten
tears.
That is the key differences and essential to any successful government, and more so for a
democracy that holds as innate belief, a tolerance for difference even competing ideas held
by its population. It is as if the only the only we are exporting is revolution as solution
to differences.
@Mr. Hack > Russia has never been able to lead with a carrot, but only with a stick.
Russia offered dozen billions of loans and years ahead orders for Ukrainian industries.
Those that Yatzenyuk begged to be re-started when he destroyed democratic government of
Ukraine.
EuroMaidan tried to stole the carrot from Ukraine, and while it succeeded in stealing what
Ukraine already picked, about 10%, the rest was kept safe of usurpers' reach, and so they
started looting Ukrainian economy instead. Hrivna fallen 3-fold – more than ruble.
> Positive outside influence into Ukraine's internal development in the form of
investments and economic development
EuroMaidan usurpers stopped real and ongoing investments from China and Russia by looting
what investments arrived into Ukraine already. But at least they got $5 billions of
investments from Nulland.
I like how "economic development" is listed as "outside influence". I thought that any
state or nation would claim being capable of their own economic development, but for
EuroMaidania it is quoted as some miracle that can only be given from outside.
> foreign investments being delayed until the war in the east is resolved
And that was why EuroMaidan usurpers invaded Donbass and started the war. To preclude
investments from the West after they stopped investments form China and Russia.
> create a chaotic situations
EuroMaidan proponent blaming chaotic situations. Precious. "Bees against honey"
movement.
> Since the West changed the dynamics of the energy game around the world
Did it? how exactly? By making Ukrainian pipelines liability no one wants to touch with a
pole?
> It's learned to better feed itself, and that's about it
But that is exactly what Ukraine knew how to do, and what EuroMaidania can not do.
While Russia is gaining this experience – EuroMaidania was and is destroying it, for
the sake of being "not like Russia". Way to go!
> One more jolt like in 2014
You mean the one when rouble fallen two-fold and hrivna three-fold?
Guess if the West could do it again – they would. But they can't.
> where are Russia's automobiles, televisions, medical equipment, computers,
pharmaceuticals etc; within the world markeplace?
Russia is not packaging consumer goods. Russia is sending technologies, which others pack
as consumer goods.
Ukraine could become one of those salesmen, packing Russian technologies into pretty wraps
and selling around.
EuroMaidan usurpers feared that and prevented that.
EuroMaidan even destroyed Antonov company, which was one of just 4 companies in the world
capable of building large airframes. Ensuring AirBus+Boeing+Tupolev/Ilyushin would have one
competitor less. And as Antonov was el-cheapo vendor with strategy based on dumping –
it was especially dangerous for Russian company, of the three. Thank you, guys, for removing
this riddance out of Russian pathway. You did great service!
@Hapalong Cassidy Beckow> the crowds on Maidan, I get a sense that they are all about
to leave Ukraine or are thinking about leaving.
You do not need to "have a feeling"
The promise of "visa-less living and working in EU" was exactly what EuroMaidan crowd
paraded as their aim and treasure, somehow magically warranted by the "Deep Association" that
Yatzenyuk and Poroshenko later dragged feet for months, trying to delay signing of this
economy suicide pact.
They were very public and honest about it. They claimed Yanukovich was somehow putting
ball and chain on them all by giving the second thought to orders from Brussels. Aid in
leaving Ukraine was the price they sold Ukrainian economy for. Ther were never shy in 2014 to
speak about it.
Hapalong Cassidy> While Kharkov has more Russians than most other provinces of Ukraine
do, it does not have a plurality like Donetsk and Luhansk.
There is a point. Kharkov in North-East and Odessa in South-West were trading cities,
routing the official and smuggled goods streams and hosting the largest foreign goods
markets. This clearly had impact upon mindsets of citizens and even more of cities
elites.
People in Kharkov went to the streets right after the coup commited and without support
they were at least equally numerous to all-Ukraine sponsored gathering of EuroMaidan #2.
But their leaders did not seek for independence, Kharkov city mayor Kernes openly shook hands
with Andrey "White Fuhrer" Byletsky and expressed his care about his (not Kharkov citizens)
safety in the night of Rymarskaya street murders, 2014 March 14th AFAIR.
People in Kharkov went against nazi from westernmost Ukraine regions (and even policemen)
and stormed those out of their district government building. Who else did then?
They had a huge impulse, but they also focused the most efforts from usurpers to deflect
and dissipate it. And little free resources the usurpers had back then.
Month later, in April, Kharkov was exhausted and pacified. But other regions of Ukraine were
overlooked those two months.
However, it was that first month which gave people in Donetsk and Lugansk both time and
examples to understand what is really going on (it was almost unbelievable that something
like that can actually happen in XXI century in Europe, wasn't it?) and learn their Ukrainian
elites are prostituting them, and then find some other leaders which would have enough skin
in the game to not sell them out.
You may rightly say Kharkov citizens did not resist for long. But have to admit the
resistance of Donbass and Lugansk was in significant part based upon time Kharkov bought them
in March and April 2014, and upon self-exposing that Kharkov's fleeting but furious
resistance forced EuroMaidan usurpers into.
"All, repeat, ALL the steps taken to sever crucial economic and cultural links between Russia
and the Ukraine were decided upon by Ukrainian leaders, never by Russia who only replied
symmetrically when needed.
Even with international sanctions directed at her, Russia successfully survived both the
severance of ties with the Ukraine and the AngloZionist attempts at hurting the Russian
economy. In contrast, severing economic ties with Russia was a death-sentence for the
Ukrainian economy which has now become completely deindustrialized."
No wonder saker deletes posts to his website containing info like these:
The top trade partner of *the* Ukraine is Russia. So his thesis is a little 'shoddy math'
ish. The links have not been severed as he pretends.
" the severance of ties with Russia " The Ukraine is more tied to Russia than any other
country, by recent trade volumes (as well as in traditional culture). Saker doesn't like
these facts to muddy up his thesis.
This means that the provinces that are losing most from this internal transfer are going
to be strongly motivated to stop sending money to Kiev.
You don't get it. Ukraine's South-Eastern provinces are inanimate objects . They
have no consciousness, no self-interest or free will. They don't decide anything.
Donbass never decided to break away from the Ukraine. That choice was made for it by
Strelkov, when he and his men occupied Slovyansk and began an armed confrontation.
@Anon The Ukraine used to export something like $20 billion worth of goods to Russia
annually. It's now closer to $5 billion, and Ukrainians are a lot poorer as a result.
@Felix Keverich The point is saker maintains it is completely de-industrialized. It is
'dead'. Total trade of >40 B all partners, isn't dead by a long shot. See what he says?
'Death sentence'. Far from it. A decrease isn't death. No doubt there has been a plunge. But
saker is over stating it. Russia is still a center of gravity for the Ukraine.
I am so sick and tired of hearing the term nazi this and nazi that when referring to the
situation in the Ukraine. The term nazi died in 1945 and should be left dead and buried. It
was a stupid word created by the British during the war because of their inability to
pronounce the German name for the NSDAP. The British and American media have a fetish for the
word and will call any "right-wing" movement "nazi" if given any opportunity. This shows
their total lack of creativity to come up with anything new and their deep obsession with
anything to do with Hitler which borders on religious worship. I say get rid of the usage of
the word on this site unless one is referring to the actual NSDAP party that existed until
1945.
@AWM You are an absurd cretin. Of course referring to current Ukraine as being controlled
by Nazi's is 100% accurate.
Ukronazis and Hitler Nazi's have many alignments with eachother:
1. Bizarre, fundamentally paganist usage of ahistoric/religious images from a millenia ago
as national symbols that should have had no connection to national identity of either state
in the 1930's or now ( swastika and Tryzub) even the UPA flag has more sense about it to any
"Ukrainian " state
2. Mass arrests and persecution of political opponents I'm fairly sure that Ukronazi's
have arrested ( and maybe even killed) far more people in their first 5 years, that the
Nazi's ever did in their 6 year, pre-war time in charge
3. Mass killing and torture of the people of the Donbass- now take on board this is with
Russia fighting the war of fighting the war that they are not even there and Russia/DNR/LNR
basically conducting huge talks with west/Banderastan and making huge concessions every time
they have been in a a hugely advantageous position or made a big breakthrough in the war.
Even Nazi's wouldn't have used such a lousy pretext for instigating war against the people of
Donbass – although at least the Nazi's could govern their state ukrops can't govern f
** k all without it descending into farce
4. Above average representation of freaks and/or highly camp idiots Goebbels, Goering and
Ribbentrop versus Avakov, "Yats" the yid, Poroshenko, Turchynov and many more – a
lamentable contest
5. Neither would have got off the ground without Anglo-American funding
Just because the Nazi's in the 30's and 40's were more competent does not take away the
similarities
Structural bottlenecks and slow reform progress lead to anemic growth in Ukraine
The rate of economic growth in Ukraine remains too low to reduce poverty and reach income
levels of neighboring European countries. Following the 16 percent cumulative contraction of
the economy in 2014-15, economic growth has recovered to 2.4 percent in 2016-17 and 3.3
percent in 2018. Faster economic growth for a sustained period of time is needed to reduce
poverty which remains above pre-crisis levels. More needs to be done if Ukraine's aspiration
is to become a high-income country and to close the income gap with advanced economies. Today
Ukraine is far from that goal. In terms of GDP-per-capita, Ukraine remains one of the poorest
countries in the region -- at levels of Moldova, Armenia and Georgia. Ukraine's GDP per
capita in purchasing power parity terms is about three times lower than in Poland, despite
having similar income levels in 1990.
At the growth rate of recent years, it will take Ukraine more than 50 years to reach income
levels of today's Poland. If Ukraine's productivity growth and investment rate remains at the
low levels observed in recent years, overt the medium-term the growth rate will converge to
almost zero per annum -- productivity growth is offset by declining contribution of labor as
Ukraine undergoes the demographic transition. Boosting total factor productivity growth to 3
percent per year and investment to 30 percent of GDP would result in sustained growth of
about 4 percent per year over the medium- to long-term. Given declining total population this
translates to GDP per capita growth of about 4.5 percent per year. These trends will not
improve on their own, they can happen only through the implementation of appropriate policies
that boost productivity and increase the returns on factors of production.
1. It does not split trade to industries. Hi-tech big added value and lo-tech slim added
value – falls into the same "total"
2. It only shows one snapshot, not YoY dynamics.
3. The column "Export Product" shows exactly the same value – literally, 100% –
for ALL the countries, all the rows. I wonder what we should deduce from it
2012 – $19,8B
2013 – $17,6B – the start of the coup
2014 – $15B – the coup won power but did not entrenched yet and did not had time
yet to enforce its ideals
2015 – $9.8B – the work started
2016 – $4.8B – 80% of 2012 exports are cut off, EuroMaidan means business
2017 – $3.6B – 82% of 2013 exports are cut off, coming to plateau ?
2018 – $3,9B – a slight rebound, plateau reached
@bob sykes I'd dismiss this, as Putin is apparently doing. Kolomoisky is looking who else
would provide money that he can steal. He, Porky, and others of their ilk stole Western loans
so blatantly, that even US-controlled IMF is balking at giving Ukraine more money. So,
Kolomoisky hopes that Russia will, so that he has more to steal. I hope that his hopes are in
vain.
The entire Ukraine farce can be explained as a simple project
Khazaria 2.0.
I met a Jew (American) in Ukraine over 20 years ago.
He told me the plan Jews were returning to historically Jewish cities in Ukraine by the
hundreds buying up for kopecki on the Gryvnia anything they could.
Media outlets, banks, factories, beachfront land, farmland, apartments, etc.
The idea? Make Ukraine the next EU Country, and benefit from the huge potential of
Ukraine.
I agreed with him at the time, that Ukraine had huge potential, I was there as an engineer
working for German companies but his lust for what could be 'looted' disgusted me.
This is a standard CIA scenario, used in Sarajevo and Deraa before Kiev. So, Ukrainians
bought an old stale show, swallowed it hook, line, and sinker.
But the Georgian snipers brought in 2014 to Kiev by Saakashvili started dying in
suspicious circumstances, so those who are still alive rushed to Belarus and started deposing
their testimony. They implicated a lot of Ukies, including former speaker Parubii, former MP
Pashinsky, etc. It was well known (to those who did not keep their eyes wide shut for
political reasons) that the sniper fire in 2014 on Maidan was from the building controlled by
the coup leaders, who later tried to blame Yanuk for it. That's why post-coup Ukrainian
authorities got rid of the trees on Maidan: bullet holes in those trees indicated where the
fire was coming from. But this recent testimony implicated particular people, who (surprise,
surprise!) happened to be among the coup leaders.
@Truth3 The truth is that you are absolutely right. 'Ukrainians' boasted that they are
the 'Khazars' since Mazeppa and Orlyk of the 'Constitution of Bendery' fame, while parading a
distaste for 'the adherents of deceitful Judaism' and noisy adherence to Orthodoxy.
Look at this entry of the http://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com and see if
anything changed:
"After Mazepa's death, on 16 April 1710, Orlyk was elected hetman, with the backing of
Charles XII of Sweden, in Bendery. The chief author of the Constitution of Bendery, he
pursued policies aimed at liberating Ukraine from Russian rule. He gained the support of the
Zaporozhian Host, concluded a treaty with Charles XII* in May 1710, and sought to make the
Ukrainian question a matter of international concern by continuing Mazepa's attempts at
establishing an anti-Russian coalition ** . Orlyk signed a treaty with the Crimean khan
Devlet-Girei in February 1711, negotiated with the Ottoman Porte, which formally recognized
his authority over Right-Bank Ukraine and the Zaporizhia in 1712, conducted talks with the
Don Cossack participants in Kondratii Bulavin's revolt who had fled to the Kuban, and even
contacted the Kazan Tatars and the Bashkirs. In 1711–14 he led Cossack campaigns
against the Russians in Right-Bank Ukraine. Despite initial victories they ultimately failed,
because of Turkish vacillation and because the pillaging, raping, and taking of many civilian
captives by Orlyk's Crimean Tatar allies resulted in the loss of public and military support
on the Right Bank".
Nowhere does the 'first "European" constitution' speak about 'ukrainians', but of 'Exercitu
Zaporoviensi genteque Rossiaca" (Zaporozhian Host and the Ruthenian people) living in
"Parva Rossia"/Little Russia.
* putting Ukraine under the protection of the King of Sweden.
** an plot of 'European' and Islamic powers with an intense 'Masonic-Kabbalistic' coloring
(and Jewish financial support) against Russian 'Tsardom' and 'Patriarchal' Church. 'Ukraine'
was an anti-Russian project from the get go. Brzezinski's quip: "Ukraine, a new and important
space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an
independent country helps to transform Russia. Without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be a
Eurasian empire" reflects only the revival of the old plan in new circumstances.
@Seraphim " Brzezinski's quip: "Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian
chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot "
Old Zbieg was as lunatic as Pole can be and as cunning as Jew can be (was he?).
The Poles were so desiring to became Slavic superpower, and on the height of their might
in 15th century – they could become. They occupied Russian lands – oh, that
mythical Kievan Rus oppressed by Moscow for centuries. And they even occupied Moscow for few
months – more than unified Europe managed to do under both Napoleon and Hitler
combined! Polska was really stronk then.
.well, they ate themselves from inside and sold their statehood to all the foreign bidders
while boasting about Polish pride. Like ukropeans do today. They lost their strength, they
lost their eastern colony, and for a while they even lost Poland itself.
They could never move over it.
Zbieg – coming from Galicia, the last shrink of Poland-occupied lands – had
this specifically Polish resentment burning in him. And he managed to make USA fight Polish
fights. Managed to use American incompetence in history and geography to sell them that idea
that the Ukraine – the borderlands between Poland and Russia have "geopolitical"
importance. For USA, no less. Wow!
Okay, USA invested at very least $5B into buying Ukrainian warchiefs, and we don't know
how much more was added by EU and Germany. They now have this "geopolitical asset" as Zbieg
urged them to do. What are they gonna do with it now? How do they gonna make Ukrainians pay
back the money they spent? Old Zbieg preached about the world "paid by Russia to fight
against Russia". This is that very "Russia, occupy the Ukraine finally, we are tired of
fruitless waiting!" whining they repeat again and again. But if this won't work, just like it
did not work yet, how do they think to make Ukrainians pay for it? Or whom else? I wonder
@Arioch "> My point is the ukraine isn't dead. It isn't dying.
In which quality? As a swath of land inhabited by few peasants here and there – it
surely will remain.
As an economically vibrant country, one of UN founders, with economy larger than German and
closing on France – what it used to be – it is dead.
As a laws-bound polity it is dead since 2014, though was dying even before.
As STEM engineering and education stronghold it was in USSR – it is dead.
As one in just four in the whole world producers of really large airplanes – it is
dead.
As one of the few ICBM producers – it is dead, know-how sold to Saudi.
As one of the few turbojet engines producers – it is dead, know-how sold to China.
As one of the reliable and well known tanks and APCs producer – it is dead, even
USA-occupied Iraq does not buy this trash.
As the country, living from the geographic rent, just providing roads and hotels for cargo
traffic, it is almost dead. Bridges are collapsing, roads – neither for cars nor
railways – are not maintained."
Bravado, anyone can see.
Dead countries don't produce electricity. Real economists look at things like this. Not
just at industrial reorganization. That is the only point you have. Industrial
reorganization. Not death of industry.
@Anon BTW, most *live* countries of the world do not produce ICBMs, nor jet engines, nor
APCs etc, nor super heavy aircraft. The military industrial complex remnants from the SU are
not industries that most of the planet's countries have. Specialties. Those can not be
measures of whether a country is living or dead. Use some real measures.
@Anon Actually a good point. Mass cargo logistics and energy generation. Indeed.
The thing here is, that as of now the Ukraine is enjoying its privileged position from
times Ukrainians ruled USSR (IOW, after Stalin died in 1953 and of few coup leaders Khruschev
became top dog in 1956). The Ukraine is reeking with then top-tech nuclear power plants, that
very few of other USSR republics had (one in Ignalina in Baltics, one in Armenia, and dozen
in Russia, that is all. Ukraine was #2 with huge gap).
There is a switch, though. What do you do with electricity you produced?
And, what kind of electricity you produce?
The second question is tangential to "green energy" fad.
The generation is split to "base" generation, which covers required minimum and should be
steadily generating around the clock, and "maneuvering" generation which can be turned on and
off in a matter of few minutes, to accommodate with daytime traits, like "people awoke in
between 7-8am, took shower, cooked breakfast and departed to school/work".
In general, base generation is predictable, thus does not need big reserves, can use economy
of scales and cut costs. Maneuvering one has to increase costs, dealing with unpredictable
mode changes and extra wearing it puts on the equipment and employees.
The first question, as you can not pour electricity into a tank and keep it for months
there, can be roughly split to
1) use at home, for things like washing, cleaning, entertaining (TV, computers), air
conditioning in summer and heating in winter.
2) use in industries, this is perhaps what "real economists" look for. Those should had less
daily spikes, they might even have near constant consumption around the clock.
3) export to the countries, who need it, but does not want to build their own power
plants
The export is significant thing. There is so called Byrshtyn Island, a constellation of
power plants in Western Ukraine, that was cut off from Ukrainian grid and plugged to Polish
grid, to act as maneuvering damper for Polish citizens' daylight cycles.
You chart shows that between 2014 and 2015 there was strong (about 2000 GWH) decrease in
production, which remained more or less stable after that. It also shows huge seasonal
variation.
It probably means Ukrainian industries and households enjoy a lot of winter-time heating, but
very little of summer-time AC. Just like it was built during USSR times.
Ukrainian electricity export seems rising. Were there new power plants put to service? I
did not heard. Then it means that domestic consumption shrunk.
There was also a streak of Nuclear Power Plants accidents in the news of 2017-2019.
This can stem from two factors:
1) increased reliance on NPP as other power plants go belly-up, especially forcing those
giant NPPs into maneuvering modes, which they were not designed for. You can find news
sources that Ukrainian NPPs were being tested to 105% of normative capacity and to
maneuvering modes, the modes that just do not make sense when together.
2) decreased maintenance
Anyway, those NPPs are of old Soviet design of 1980-s, they are closing to end of life.
We'll see if new ones will be built. Or if they will just be used regardless of aging until
some hard failure, "run to the ground". And what will come after.
Of course, as long as they operate – no mater how harmful to locals – EU will
buy cheap energy.
And since EuroMaidan government is living on debts, it will have no choice than to sell. Even
if domestic power consumption will get zero, the EU will buy the power.
But I do not think EU would invest into building new power plants there when Soviet ones
finally crack.
@Anon Indeed, only Airbus and Boeing can produce super-heavy aircrafts.
China and Russia are contenders. Ukraine used to be, but stepped out.
Does it mean, USA and France are hell-bent over their military industrial complex?
Maybe.
Does it make them run worse?
Bombardier and EmBraer factories are bought by Airbus and Boeing, not vice versa.
Avro of Canada once used to be a pillar, now is memory.
And all the other countries have to kiss up to political powers that allow them purchasing
Boeing and Airbus jets and maintenance as a privilege for their lapdogging.
Iran wanted to buy Airbus badly, how did it work out?
So, yeah, specialties. Those specialties that can not be replaced – for master
races.
And those that can easily – for lapdogs.
New Zealand can produce good beef. But so can Brazil and Argentina. And Ukraine too.
But Brazil can not produce irreplaceable large cargo aircrafts. And even mid-size they can
not produce independently.
All nations are completely artificial along with the gods, ideologies, fiat money & all
the rest if the human fictions. If humans went extinct overnight would the US, Russia et al
still exist? No, nor would their thousands of gods.
That little trick with the maps can be done with many countries. The US is a fine example.
1st map = 13 colonies – keep adding new maps for every new state they added after
France paid for & won US independence & include the theft/conquest of Mexican
territory & Hawaii.
The Ukraine is a huge basket case made much worse by the US, but your (Orlov too) Rabid
Russian nationalism blinds you. IOW, like the empires propagandists, you too are spinning a
narrative, albeit more truthful than empires, but a narrative (emotional) nonetheless.
@Dr Scanlon Maybe we just compare real Ukraine with what it was promised to become?
Michael Saakashvili, 2014-08-26, "Exactly one year from today Ukraine would send
humanitarian aid to Russia. Mark my words.". I am still trying to find that aid around me, no
luck
There also was a much more extended timetable, year by year, how Ukraine would rocket to
the future and how Russia would fall down to middle ages. Wanted to re-read it but could not
find.
@Anon Or yea, sure. Even Ukrainian statistics (which in terms of reliability might be
somewhat better than Nostradamus, at least sometimes) report 53 births for 100 deaths, with
the population shrinking due to this differential alone by more than 200,000 per year. If you
count in emigration, the picture becomes very bleak. Millions work in Russia, Poland, and
elsewhere. Mind you, temporary emigration for work easily becomes permanent. For example, I
have a cousin who used to live in Lvov. He worked in Russia for 20+ years, and since 2014
never visited Ukraine. I guess he is still counted, as he remains a Ukrainian citizen.
@Mr. Hack OK, let's go to the original of the constitution 'ratified' by "His Majesty the
King of Sweden" (cum consensu S-ae R-ae Maiestatis Sueciae, Protectoris Nostri/with the
consent of His Majesty the King of Sweden, our protector):
"It is no secret that Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky of glorious memory, with the
Zaporozhian Host, took up arms and began a just war against the Polish Commonwealth for no
other reason (apart from rights and liberties) except their Orthodox faith, which had been
forced as a result of various encumbrances placed on it by the Polish authorities into union
with the Roman church. Similarly, after the alien new Roman religion had been eradicated
from our fatherland, he with the said Zaporozhian Host and Ruthenian [Rossiaca] people,
sought and submitted himself to the protection of the Muscovite tsardom for no other
reason than "that it shared the same Orthodox religion". Therefore, if God our Lord, strong
and mighty in battle, should assist the victorious armies of His Royal Majesty the King of
Sweden to liberate our fatherland from the Muscovite yoke of slavery, the present newly
elected Hetman will be bound by duty and put under obligation to take special care that no
alien religion is introduced into our Ruthenian [Rossiacam] fatherland. Should one, however,
appear anywhere, either secretly or openly, he will be bound to extirpate it through his
authority, not allow it to be preached or disseminated, and not permit any dissenters,
MOST OF ALL THE ADHERENTS OF DECEITFUL JUDAISM, to live in Ukraine, and will be bound to make
every possible effort that only the Orthodox faith of the Eastern confession, under
obedience to the Holy Apostolic See of Constantinople, be established firmly for ever
and be allowed to expand and to flourish, like a rose among thorns, among the neighbouring
countries following alien religions, for the greater glory of God, the building of churches,
and the instruction of Ruthenian [Rossiacis] sons in the liberal arts. And for the greater
authority of the Kievan metropolitan see, which is foremost in Little Russia [Parva Rossia],
and for a more efficient administration of spiritual matters, His Grace the Hetman should,
after the liberation of our fatherland from the Muscovite yoke, obtain from the Apostolic See
of Constantinople the original power of an exarch in order thereby to renew relationship with
and filial obedience to the aforementioned Apostolic See of Constantinople, from which
it , was privileged to have been enlightened in the holy Catholic faith by the preaching of
the Gospel".
"neque ignotum est, gloriosae memoriae Ducem Theodatum Chmielniccium cum Exercitu
Zaporoviensi non ob aliam causam praeter iura libertatis commotum fuisse iustaque contra
Rempublicam Polonam arma arripuisse, solum pro Fide sua Orthodoxa, quae variorum
gravaminum compulsu a potestate Polonorum coacta fuerat ad unionem cum Ecclesia Romana;
post extirpatam quoque e patria Neoromanam exoticam Religionem, non alio motivo cum eodem
Exercitu Zaporoviensi genteque Rossiaca protectione Imperii Moscovitici dedisse et libere se
subdidisse, solum ob Religionis Orthodoxae unionem. Igitur modernus neoelectus lllustrissimus
Dux, quando Dominus Deus fortis et potens in praeliis iuvabit felicia sacrae S-ae R-ae
Maiestatis Sueciae arma ad vindicandam patriam nostram de servitutis iugo Moscovitico
tenebitur et debito iure obstringetur singularem volvere curam fortiterque obstare, ut nulla
exotica Religio in patriam nostram Rossiacam introducatur, quae si alicubi clamve , palamve
apparuerit, tune activitatem suam extirpandae ipsi debebit, praedicari ampliarique non
permittet, asseclis eiusdem, PRAESERTIM VERO PRAESTIGIOSO IUDAISMO cohabitationem in Ucraina
non concedet et omni virium conatu sollicitam impendet curam, ut sola et una Orthodoxa Fides
Orientalis Confessionis sub obedienta S-tae Apostoiicae sedis Constantinopolitanae in
perpetuum sit firmanda, atque cum amplianda gloria Divina, erigendis ecclesiis exercendisque
in artibus liberalibus filiis Rossiacis dilatetur, ac tanquam rosa inter spinas, inter vicina
exoticae Religionis Dominia virescat et florescat. Propter vero majorem authoritatem
primariae in Parva Rossia sedis Metropolitanae Kiiovensis faciliorique in Spiritualibus
regimine, impositam sibi idem Illustrissimus Dux vindicata patria nostra de iugo Moscovitico
geret provinciam circa procurandam et impertiendam a sede Apostolica Constantinopolitana
Exarchicam primitivam potestatem, ut hoc actu renovetur relatio et filialis patriae nostrae
obedientia ad praefatam Apostolicam sedem Constantinopolitanam, cuius praedicatione Evangelii
in Fide Sancta Catholica illuminari firmarique dignata est".
ТHЕ PYLYP ORLYK CONSTITUTION,
1710@http://www.lucorg.com/block.php/block_id/26
@Anon > Also, check construction spending – click on 10 year
.now how can i account there for the fact, that UAH in 2013 costed three times more than
UAH in 2015 ?
> Farming is an industry.
Grain industry – is low added value one, it is highly competitive market because
grain from any country on Earth is just grain.
USSR used to buy grain, as it sponsored bread production and peasants all around were
buying bead to feed their hens, goats, pigs, etc. Official meat production was large too.
It is definitely better to export at least something than nothing. But it also is better
to export high added value goods.
Before WW1 a minister of Russian Empire said "Let our peasants starve but we will export
all the grains we contracted" – few years later Russian Empire ceased to exist.
In 1931 and 1932 Stalin tenfold decreased then banned grains export breaking the
contracts. 15 years later USSR won WW2.
Franlky, it is just weird that Ukraine and Russia together produce most world's traded
grain, like there is no other fertile soil on Earth. Also Russia and Ukraine are both to the
north from USA, so USA should be able to produce more grains in its warmer climate. Why isn't
USA world #1 grains exporter?
and EU just whimsically bans Ukrainian meat beyond some arbitrary quota.
EU will easily find where to buy meet.
Can Ukraine reciprocate by banning Airbus or Boeing purchases? I wonder
EU can pressure Ukrainian government, and Ukraine can do little in defense.
No! But there will be a new "civil war" in the US around the mid of the next decade. Split
occuring not south to north, but west to east; chaos further increased by immigrants from the
middle & south Americas with their own agenda.
Forces (land & air), militia & DHS people of the eastern party may seek secure
backing near frontier to Canada (area of Great Lakes therefore save). Some of the 'big
capitalists' who feel more international than patriot will flee to outer South America
(Argentinia, Chile).
Eventually a dead president (for that and for the civil war please look into cycles of
US-history). Peace will come with the first female president. Keep watch on Tulsi Gabbard
(but may be also another lady - as I am in Europe I am not familiar with all probable coming
female candidates).
Why no permanent split of the States? There are internal benefits (common traffic, markets
etc.) but more it is the outside pressure: to be able to compete with China it is a necessity
for the States to remain united. Also the coming chaos in Europe and Russia demands
unification of the US.
Now a very strange remark: some elites in the US have already accepted, even promote the
tendency toward "civil war" to enable a 'reset' of the political, economical and social
structure of the country. Furthermore, a seemingly weak US with a split in the military may
lead Russia in temptation to make some mistake (towards Ukraine and Europe). And now a very,
very strange remark: while some forces in the homeland are caught in civil disorder some
other forces in the overseas may be involved in a foreign war. Extremely pointed out: the
coming civil war in a very specific manner is a fake (to deceive and trap Russia - of course
not Putin but his followers).
Today I had a look into George Friedman's book about the next hundred years. For the first
view there is a lot of nonsense (disintegration of China etc.). But I agree that the power of
the US will be restored during the century. And if not the same power as it was in the 1990s,
then in every case the internal stability of the USA is completely guaranteed.
With greetings from Germany and with thanks to Bernhard for his valuable work, Gerhard
I see a civil war in the USA as highly unlikely. The upper class has too much common
interest and purpose. The lower classes are divided and powerless and in the near future only
seem to be becoming more so. When the third-worldization reaches a critical point, a staged
and managed revolution may be in the cards. Before a real revolution has any chance, the
elites will have flooded the USA with immigrants from the south, ensuring further division of
the lower classes and postponing any real challenge.
Overall, the societal foundation of the USA looks to have been crumbling for maybe five
decades already and for the next few decades an acceleration of that process is more likely
than a reversal. Don't be on the lookout for leaders or movements to change any of that. Only
when the american people clean up their act, ie. their addiction to numbing drugs, empty
consumerism and false jingoisms, will anything there ever change for good. Until that
happens, the place will be withering more and more.
Not until the American elites start to fail to safeguard their own priviliges at the cost
of the rest of the population will change happen.
I don't see the Russian aggression that you propose to be realistic or likely to happen.
Russia does not need to reach abroad for energy, resources or food. Their main challenge is
to manage the riches of the huge country with the people they have. Already the resurgence
after the post-1990 crash (and the preceding stagnation) is an accomplishment worthy of
admiration.
The Russian interest clearly is consolidation and defence, which is exactly what their
policies have been showing on the international stage. Suggestions of aggression are pure
projection by Atlanticists theselves. Instead of Washington trying to provoke Russian
mistakes, the real game is about Moscow trying to contain NATO's erratic trashing and
carefully preventing any catastrophic escalation.
To wit, what country did recently "update" its nuclear doctrine, suggesting the
possibility of 'limited' use of nuclear weapons? Was it Russia, or ehhm... perhaps the
USA?
The only uncertain factor between Russia and the USA is Europe. I expect a lot more
American craziness towards Europe, as its effective leverage crumbles. Europe has not yet
devolved as badly as the USA and the American implosion is a major risk factor for the
Europeans.
The issue with the Americans is a hyper-partisan mindset has been instilled, akin to duelling
sports teams, so one cheers for their team facts or context be damned. This used to be a Fox
News-Republican phenomenon, but now has infected Dem supporters as well.
Break up of US would mean break up of Canada too. Look to the moves made by province of
Alberta in response to fed election - a sort of firewall is being proposed where Alberta will
take on fed gov responsibilities pension, health care, etc. Alberta is a Koch Bros oil
republic, and any N American melt-down will result in formation of private fiefdoms - i.e.
Alberta-Montana-Wyoming-South Dakota become Kochland.
You'd probably do well to study the history of China after the downfall of the Manchu Qing
dynasty up to the 1930s at least (when Japan began invading the country and bringing its own
forms of chaos, violence and enslavement) to get an idea of where the US might be heading if
and when the Federal government falls. From the 1910s onwards, China was governed by warlords
looking out for No 1, with their own armies.
Not so very different from the situation prevailing in Afghanistan and Libya. Talk about
the chickens coming home to roost.
The other alternative is if the 50 states decide to be self-governing statelets or form
their own federations among themselves or with neighbouring provinces and states in Canada
and Mexico, or even abroad. Alaska may petition Moscow to be accepted back into the Russian
Federation and Hawaii may seek another large patron to attach itself for security reasons.
Washington and Oregon
states may finally form a federation with British Columbia and call it Cascadia.
Gerhard @10;
I agree the US will split up. As a poli sci initiate, i was forced to consider the role of
institutions acting in support of the polis. I wasn't impressed at the time. my disdain for
the rot of leadership in most if not all institutions in the west, it was mostly for the
greed....but i realize the cumulative effect is the fraying of those 'supports' of the nation
itself. Consider:
The 16 intelligence agencies each have their own agendas, the regulatory agencies are
revolving doors for industry placements, the FBI was crooked since the days of Hoover, the
governments agencies are rife with oligarchy quislings .....and in the end the greed of those
in power will be not be held back by any moral force. The police are militarized, murdering
and robbing their own citizens.
Meanwhile, the MSM are owned by the oligarch, so there is no national forum where the
corruption can be addressed on a national level. This leaves the blog sites such as MOA to
lead the fight against the PTB. The problem is in the nature of the internet, which has no
'locus' as in a national voice. The internet has no center. As example, i am not a US
citizen. When the polis finally hit the point where the Rentier economy has driven them to
extreme reaction, they will not be thinking of reclaiming the vast American experiment,
rather they will seek to at least control their little part of the world. I believe you will
see blocs of similar states rising up to control whet they think is in their own best
interests: The mid-west, the west coast and mountain states, the deep south, the eastern
states will find common issues to crytalize around.
That's my read.
As a Canadian, my thoughts are how Canada will negotiate with these remainder blocs of former
US states.
So long as the United States continues to serve its function as the core of the capitalist
empire it will not be allowed to "break up" . Literally $trillions have been invested
in brainwashing conditioning and indoctrinating the American public into
barking (or salivating) on command like Pavlov's dogs. This programming is, like religion,
transgenerational (don't religious people ever wonder how it was that their parents were
indoctrinated into the "one true religion" and not one of all of the fake ones that
everyone else believes in?). The capitalist programming (TV programming) compounds from
generation to generation, becoming more deeply ingrained over the decades in the culture
regardless of the birth and passing away of individuals in that culture. For capitalism to
throw that massive investment away and start over somewhere else is a ludicrous proposition.
That is not going to happen until capitalism itself is dismantled.
Where else in the world can capitalism find a base of support like the American
poopulation? Where else would the capitalists be cheered on for unleashing the fascists
gangsters or imperial stormtroopers on defenseless countries attempting brave experiments to
uplift their people?
As long as capitalism continues to need a home base to operate their death squads from,
and a population to recruit enthusiastic cannon fodder from, then America will be maintained
@ Lurk | 32
@ Jen | 40
@ Breadonwaters |43
Thanks for Your assessments and arguments!
1. In my comment (|10) I have put the term "civil war" in quotation marks to indicate that
it will not be a war with military units against other units, with states against states (as
in the first civil war). In the beginning it will be a very disturbing civil unrest and
complete chaos. Multiple splits and fragmentations will occure throughout all institutions
and all regional corporations, also within the army itself (as far as based on US soil). Only
towards the end of this period (about 2 - 3 years) the shape will evolve as I have described
(east - west; dominant pressure from Latin America; other foreign influences higly probable
...).
2.A. For the neutral geopolitical observer main problem today are the US. For the
observing US elites it is Russia. It was a severe mistake to start the war against 'islamic
terror' before the US grip on Russia was complete. Now Putin has torn his homeland out of the
transatlantic-angloamerican fist. Would Russia still be under dominance of the US (as started
and intended in the 1990s) then the US could face China. Now the US have the problem of
Russia and China combined - besides Islam ...
2.B. I suggest to look on the alliance of Putin and Xi as a new Molotov-Rippentrop-Pact.
It will hold some more years longer but eternally. What if Russia makes a mistake and looks
towards Europe? True, Russia is a very rich and powerful country, but it depends on Europe:
more than half of its trade exchange is with European countries. What if Europe falls into
civil disorder, too? What if US forces leave Europe? Two years ago such questions were
nonsense, but today they are discussed.
3.A. (@ Jen) I am very familiar with Chinese history. I am working on historical cycles,
patterns in time. There was a Spenglerian cultural cycle from ~ 1780 BCE which span to 220
CE. After that, with China in the state of a "civilzation", we only see cycles of maximum 300
years of stability. Such a new cycle has started in the 1920s with the foundation of the
Chinese Communist Party. This party is the new dynasty and will rule till 2220, formally -
becoming weaker and weaker after 2120. But no power on earth can change this cycle, it's too
late. During the 21st century the cylce will experience his height line.
3.B. If Russia makes a mistake and engages in Ukraine and Europe - lead into such a
temptation by civil disorder and fragmentation in the US - , then the new
Molotw-Ribbentrop-Pact between Russia and China will exspire. Because China meanwhile has
strong interests in Europe, too, and will not accept Russian dominance over Europe. Therefore
the Chinese will be open to talks - about Russia - with the restored USA. The Chinese may
even help one of the then US parties to restore internal peace in North America. These future
talks between China and the USA over Russia and Europe will not be talks of politicians but
talks of "capitalists", Chinese and American ones. Both have hundred years of experience with
such bilateral talks ...
My outline is strange and provocative - I know! Keep on watching the changing walk of
history - and remember me! Also my outline is restricted to the sphere of geopolitics. The
main problem of the world is of course the gap between the powerful rich and the helpless
poor. The rich will always fight each other (to get more), but they are also prepared to go
into talks with each other when the proper moment has come. Only the poor have no idea and no
organization to manage their sad destiny.
Numbers show joke is on the US, not Huawei US ban lit a fire under Huawei, seen
taking lead in smartphones and awash in cash as bonds trade at a premium
By Umesh Desai
Unlisted Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies was made an international
pariah by US regulators earlier this year after a ban on buying key parts and on access to
crucial markets.
You think that sounded the death knell for the company? Think again.
This week, Huawei announced a US$286 million
bonuses bonanza to its employees . Its bonds continue to trade above par, and its cash
balances are massive. Hardly the signs of a company struggling under sanctions.
The company has repeatedly denied US allegations that it is a front for the Chinese
government – the justification Washington cited for banning US companies from using
Huawei-manufactured gear.
Huawei is the world's biggest telecom equipment maker and it's the second biggest smartphone
maker.
According to data from International Data Corporation, smartphone shipments in the
July-September quarter rose 18.6% to 66.6 million, just behind global leader Samsung's 78.2
million.
"Huawei has been gaining market share in China and overseas despite US trade war frictions
and may become the leading smartphone maker in the next two quarters," said Nitin Soni,
director of corporate ratings at Fitch Ratings.
He said telcos across emerging markets, which are facing capital expenditure pressures
and limited 5G business viability in the short term, may be willing to buy Huawei's 5G
equipment given it is cheaper and has better technology than European counterparts.
It's not just Soni. Industry leaders also acknowledge Huawei's quality standards
.
Indian telco Bharti Enterprises' chairman Sunil Mittal said recently, for example, "I can
safely say their products in 3G and 4G that we have experienced are significantly superior to
Ericsson and Nokia. I use all three of them. "
Indeed, the bond-market performance of the unrated, unlisted company confirms Huawei's
strength. Its dollar-denominated bonds traded in global markets are changing hands at above
par, indicating bond investors are confident about the company's cash position and liquidity
situation.
Its bonds due 2025, which pay a coupon of 4.125%, are trading at a price of $104 while the
holder would only get $100 at maturity. The premium would be compensated by the annual coupon,
which would reduce the yield. The bonds are currently yielding 3.4% compared with the 4.25%
yield at the time of the issuance. In price terms the bonds have rallied from $99 in 2015 to
$104. Prices move inversely to yields.
The financial highlights also betray no signs of weakness. The company has a cash hoard of
$39 billion and generates $10 billion from operations each year.
So, in fact, the US ban on Huawei may be helping the company.
"A ban on US companies such as Google to supply software to Huawei may lead to faster
innovation by Huawei to develop its own operating system and chips," said Soni.
"... Neoliberalism became an incubator for a growing authoritarian populism fed largely by economic inequality. ..."
"... This apocalyptic populism was rooted in a profound discontent for the empty promises of a neoliberal ideology that made capitalism and democracy synonymous, and markets the model for all social relations. In addition, the Democratic proponents of neoliberalism, such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, participated in the dismantling of the social contract, widening economic inequality, and burgeoning landscapes of joblessness, misery, anger and despair. ..."
"... Liberal democracies across the globe appeared out of touch with not only the misery and suffering caused by neoliberal policies, they also produced an insular and arrogant group of politicians who regarded themselves as an enlightened political formation that worked " on behalf of an ignorant public ." ..."
"... As a regime of affective management, neoliberalism created a culture in which everyone was trapped in his or her own feelings, emotions and orbits of privatization. One consequence was that legitimate political claims could only be pursued by individuals and families rather than social groups. ..."
Talk of a looming recession is heating up as the global economy slows and President Trump's tiff with China unsettles financial
markets. As world trade contracts, stock markets drop, the manufacturing sector in the United States is
in decline for the first time in a decade , and farmers and steel workers continue losing their income and jobs.
Rumors of a coming recession accentuate fears about the further deterioration of conditions faced by workers and the poor, who
are already suffering from precarious employment, poverty, lack of meaningful work and dwindling pensions. A global economic slump
would make living standards for the poor even worse. As
Ashley Smith points out
, levels of impoverishment in the United States are already shocking, with "four out of every ten families [struggling] to meet the
costs of food, housing, health care, and utilities every month."
Just as the 2008 global economic crisis revealed the failures of liberal democracy and the scourge of neoliberalism, a new economic
recession in 2019 could also reveal how institutions meant to serve the public interest and offer support for a progressive politics
now serve authoritarian ideologies and a ruling elite that views democracy as the enemy of market-based freedoms and white nationalism.
What has not been learned from the 2008 crisis is that an economic crisis neither unites those most affected in favor of a progressive
politics nor does it offer any political guarantees regarding the direction of social change. Instead, the emotions that fueled massive
public anger toward elites and globalization gave rise to the celebration of populist demagogues and a right-wing tsunami of misdirected
anger, hate and violence toward undocumented immigrants, refugees, Muslims and people of color.
The 2008 financial crisis wreaked havoc in multiple ways. Yet there was another crisis that received little attention: a crisis
of agency. This crisis centered around matters of identity, self-determination and collective resistance, which were undermined in
profound ways, giving rise to and legitimating the emergence of authoritarian populist movements in many parts of the world, such
as United States, Hungary, Poland and Brazil.
At the heart of this shift was the declining belief in the legitimacy of both liberal democracy and its pledges about trickle-down
wealth, economic security and broadening equal opportunities preached by the apostles of neoliberalism. In many ways, public faith
in the welfare state, quality employment opportunities, institutional possibilities and a secure future for each generation collapsed.
In part, this was a consequence of the post-war economic boom giving way to massive degrees of inequality, the off-shoring of wealth
and power, the enactment of cruel austerity measures, an expanding regime of precarity, and a cut-throat economic and social environment
in which individual interests and needs prevailed over any consideration of the common good. As liberalism aligned itself with corporate
and political power, both the Democratic and Republican Parties embraced financial reforms that increased the wealth of the bankers
and corporate elite while doing nothing to prevent people from losing their homes, being strapped with chronic debt, seeing their
pensions disappear, and facing a future of uncertainty and no long-term prospects or guarantees.
Neoliberalism became an incubator for a growing authoritarian populism fed largely by economic inequality.
In an age of economic anxiety, existential insecurity and a growing culture of fear, liberalism's overheated emphasis on individual
liberties "made human beings subordinate to the market, replacing social bonds with market relations and sanctifying greed," as
noted by Pankaj Mishra. In this instance, neoliberalism became an incubator for a growing authoritarian populism fed largely
by economic inequality. The latter was the outcome of a growing cultural and political polarization that made "it possible for haters
to come out from the margins, form larger groups and make political trouble." This toxic polarization and surge of right-wing populism
produced by casino capitalism was accentuated with the growth of fascist groups that
shared a skepticism
of international organizations, supported a militant right-wing nationalism, and championed a surge of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim
and anti-democratic values.
This apocalyptic populism was rooted in a profound discontent for the empty promises of a neoliberal ideology that made capitalism
and democracy synonymous, and markets the model for all social relations. In addition, the Democratic proponents of neoliberalism,
such as Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, participated in the dismantling of the social contract, widening economic inequality, and
burgeoning landscapes of joblessness, misery, anger and despair.
At the same time, they enacted policies that dismantled civic culture and undermined a wide range of democratic institutions that
extended from the media to public goods such as public and higher education. Under such circumstances, democratic narratives, values
and modes of solidarity, which traded in shared responsibilities and shared hopes, were replaced by a market-based focus on a regressive
notion of hyper-individualism, ego-centered values and a view of individual responsibility that eviscerated any broader notion of
social, systemic, and corporate problems and accountability.
Ways of imagining society through a collective ethos became fractured, and a comprehensive understanding of politics as inclusive
and participatory morphed into an anti-politics marked by an investment in the language of individual rights, individual choice and
the power of rights-bearing individuals.
Under the reign of neoliberalism, language became thinner and more individualistic, detached from history and more self-oriented,
all the while undermining viable democratic social spheres as spaces where politics bring people together as collective agents and
critically engaged citizens. Neoliberal language is written in the discourse of economics and market values, not ethics. Under such
circumstances, shallowness becomes an asset rather than a liability. Increasingly, the watered-down language of liberal democracy,
with its over-emphasis on individual rights and its neoliberal coddling of the financial elite, gave way to a regressive notion of
the social marked by rising authoritarian tendencies, unchecked nativism, unapologetic expressions of bigotry, misdirected anger
and the language of resentment-filled revolt. Liberal democracies across the globe appeared out of touch with not only the misery
and suffering caused by neoliberal policies, they also produced an insular and arrogant group of politicians who regarded themselves
as an enlightened political formation that worked "
on behalf of an ignorant public ."
The ultimate consequence was to produce later what Wolfgang Merkel describes as "a rebellion of the disenfranchised." A series
of political uprisings made it clear that neoliberalism was suffering from a crisis of legitimacy further accentuated by the Brexit
vote in the United Kingdom, the election of Donald Trump, support for the National Rally (
formerly known as the
National Front ) in France, and the emergence of powerful right-wing populist movements across the globe.
What has been vastly underestimated in the rise of right-wing populism is the capture of the media by authoritarian populists.
As a regime of affective management, neoliberalism created a culture in which everyone was trapped in his or her own feelings,
emotions and orbits of privatization. One consequence was that legitimate political claims could only be pursued by individuals and
families rather than social groups. In this instance, power was removed from the social sphere and placed almost entirely in
the hands of corporate and political demagogues who used it to enrich themselves for their own personal gain.
Power was now used to produce muscular authority in order "to secure order, boundaries, and to divert the growing anger of a declining
middle and working-class," Wendy Brown observes . Both
classes increasingly came to blame their economic and political conditions that produced their misery and ravaged ways of life on
"'others': immigrants, minority races, 'external' predators and attackers ranging from terrorists to refugees." Liberal-individualistic
views lost their legitimacy as they refused to indict the underlying structures of capitalism and its winner-take-all ethos.
Functioning largely as a ruthless form of social Darwinism, economic activity was removed from a concern with social costs, and
replaced by a culture of cruelty and resentment that disdained any notion of compassion or ethical concern for those deemed as "other"
because of their class, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and religion. This is a culture marked by gigantic hypocrisies, "the
gloomy tabulation of unspeakable violent events," widespread viciousness, "great concentrations of wealth," "surveillance overkill,"
and the "unceasing despoliation of biospheres for profit."
George Monbiot sums up well some of the more toxic elements of neoliberalism, which remained largely hidden since it was in the
mainstream press less as an ideology than as an economic policy. He
writes :
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose
democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains
that "the market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning. Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical
to liberty. Tax and regulation should be minimized, public services should be privatized. The organization of labor and collective
bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and
losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone.
Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets
what they deserve.
In the neoliberal worldview, those who are unemployed, poor consumers or outside of the reach of a market in search of insatiable
profits are considered disposable. Increasingly more people were viewed as anti-human, unknowable, faceless and symbols of fear and
pathology. This included undocumented immigrants in the United States and refugees in Europe, as well as those who were considered
of no value to a market society, and thus eligible to be deprived of the most basic rights and subject to the terror of state violence.
Marking selected groups as disposable in both symbolic and material forms, the neoliberal politics of disposability became a machinery
of political and social death -- producing spaces where undesirable members are abused,
put in cages
, separated from their children and subject to a massive violation of their human rights. Under a neoliberal politics of disposability,
people live in spaces of ever-present danger and risk where nothing is certain; human beings considered excess are denied a social
function and relegated to what Étienne Balibar calls the "death zones
of humanity." These are the 21st century workstations designed for the creation and process of elimination; a death-haunted mode
of production rooted in the "absolute triumph of irrationality."
Economic and cultural nationalism has become a rallying cry to create the conditions for merging a regressive neoliberalism and populism
into a war machine.
Within this new political formation, older forms of exploitation are now matched, if not exceeded, by a politics of racial and
social cleansing, as entire populations are removed from ethical assessments, producing zones of social abandonment. In this new
world, there is a merging of finance capital and a war culture that speaks to a moral and political collapse in which the welfare
state is replaced by forms of economic nationalism and a
burgeoning carceral state .
Furthermore, elements of this crisis can be seen in the ongoing militarization of everyday life as more and more institutions
take on the model of the prison. Additionally, there is also the increased arming of the police, the criminalization of a wide range
of behaviors related to social problems, the rise of the surveillance state, and the ongoing war on youth, undocumented immigrants,
Muslims and others deemed enemies of the state.
Under the aegis of a neoliberal war culture, we have witnessed increasing immiseration for the working and middle classes, massive
tax cuts for the rich, the outsourcing of public services, a full-fledged attack on unions, the defunding of public goods, and the
privatization of public services extending from health and education to roads and prisons. This ongoing transfer of public resources
and services to the rich, hedge fund managers, and corporate elite was matched by the corporate takeover of the commanding institutions
of culture, including the digital, print and broadcast media. What has been vastly underestimated in the rise of right-wing populism
is the capture of the media by authoritarian populists and its flip side, which amounts to a full-fledged political attack on independent
digital, online and oppositional journalists.
While it is generally acknowledged that neoliberalism was responsible for the worldwide economic crisis of 2008, what is less
acknowledged is that structural crisis produced by a capitalism on steroids was not matched by subjective crisis and consequently
gave rise to new reactionary political populist movements. As economic collapse became visceral, people's lives were upended and
sometimes destroyed. Moreover, as the social contract was shredded along with the need for socially constructed roles, norms and
public goods, the "social" no longer occupied a thick and important pedagogical space of solidarity, dialogue, political expression,
dissent and politics.
As public spheres disappeared, communal bonds were weakened and social provisions withered. Under neoliberalism, the social sphere
regresses into a privatized society of consumers in which individuals are atomized, alienated, and increasingly removed from the
variety of social connections and communal bonds that give meaning to the degree to which societies are good and just.
Establishment politics lost its legitimacy, as voters rejected the conditions produced by financialized capitalism.
People became isolated, segregated and unable "
to negotiate democratic dilemmas in a democratic
way " as power became more abstract and removed from public participation and accountability. As the neoliberal net of privilege
was cast wider without apology for the rich and exclusion of others, it became more obvious to growing elements of the public that
appeals to liberal democracy had failed to keep its promise of a better life for all. It could no longer demand, without qualification,
that working people should work harder for less, and that democratic participation is exclusively about elections. What could not
be hidden from many disenfranchised groups was that ruling elites produced what
Adam Tooze describes
as "a disastrous slide from the hypocrisies and compromises of the previous status quo into something even [more dangerous]."
As the global crisis has intensified since 2008, elements of a political and moral collapse at the heart of an authoritarian society
are more obvious and find their most transparent expression of ruthlessness, greed and unchecked power in the rule of Donald Trump.
As Chris Hedges points out :
The ruling corporate elites no longer seek to build. They seek to destroy. They are agents of death. They crave the unimpeded
power to cannibalize the country and pollute and degrade the ecosystem to feed an insatiable lust for wealth, power and hedonism.
Wars and military "virtues" are celebrated. Intelligence, empathy and the common good are banished. Culture is degraded to patriotic
kitsch . Those branded as unproductive or redundant are discarded and left to struggle in poverty or locked away in cages.
The slide into authoritarianism was made all the easier by the absence of a broad-based left mass movement in the United States,
which failed to provide both a comprehensive vision of change and an alignment of single-issue groups and smaller movements into
one mass movement. Nancy Fraser
rightly observes that following Occupy, "potential links between labour and new social movements were left to languish. Split
off from one another, those indispensable poles of a viable left were miles apart, waiting to be counterposed as antithetical."
Since the 1970s, there has been a profound backlash by economic, financial, political and religious fundamentalists and their
allied media establishments against labor, an oppositional press, people of color and others who have attempted to extend the workings
of democracy and equality.
As the narrative of class and class struggle disappeared along with the absence of a vibrant socialist movement, the call for
democracy no longer provided a unifying narrative to bring different oppressed groups together. Instead, economic and cultural nationalism
has become a rallying cry to create the conditions for merging a regressive neoliberalism and populism into a war machine. Under
such circumstances, politics is imagined as a form of war, repelling immigrants and refugees who are described by President Trump
as "invaders," "vermin" and "rapists." The emergence of neoliberalism as a war machine is evident in the current status of the Republican
Party and the Trump administration, which wage assaults on anything that does not mimic the values of the market. Such assaults take
the form of fixing whole categories of people as disposable, as enemies, and force them into conditions of extreme precarity -- and
in increasingly more instances, conditions of danger. Neoliberal capitalism radiates violence, evident in its endless instances of
mass shooting, such as those that took place most recently in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. This should not be surprising for
a society that measures power by the speed that it removes itself from any sense of ethical and social responsibility. As Beatrix
Campbell puts it ,
The richest society on the planet is armed. And it invests in one of the largest prison systems in the world. Violence circulates
between state and citizen. Drilled to kill, doomed to die: mastery and martyrdom is the heartbreaking dialectic of the manufacture
of militarized, violent masculinity . The making and maintaining of militarised masculinities is vital to these new modes of armed
conflict that are proliferating across the flexible frontiers of globalized capitalism, between and within states.
What has become clear is that
the neoliberal agenda has been a spectacular failure . Moreover, it has mobilized on a global level the violent political, social,
racial and economic energies of a resurgent fascist politics. Across the globe, right-wing modes of governance are appearing in which
the line collapses between "outside foreign enemies" such as refugees and undocumented immigrants, on the one hand, and on the other,
inside "dangerous" or "treasonous" classes such as critical journalists, educators and dissidents.
As neoliberal economies increasingly resort to violence and repression, fear replaces any sense of shared responsibilities, as
violence is not only elevated to an organizing principle of society, but also expands a network of extreme cruelty. Imagining politics
as a war machine, more and more groups are treated as excess and inscribed in an order of power as disposable, enemies, and [forced]
into conditions of extreme precarity. This is a particularly vicious form of state violence that undermines and constrains agency,
and subjects individuals to zones of abandonment, as evident in the growth of immigrant jails and an expanding carceral complex in
the United States and other countries, such as Hungary.
As neoliberalism's promise of social mobility and expanding economic progress collapsed, it gave way to an authoritarian right-wing
populism looking for narratives on which to pin the hatred of governing elites who, as Paul Mason
notes , "capped health and welfare
spending, [imposed] punitive benefit withdraws [that] forced many families to rely on food banks [and] withdraw sickness and disability
benefits from one million former workers below retirement age."
Across the globe, a series of uprisings have appeared that signal new political formations that rejected the notion that there
was no alternative to neoliberal hegemony. This was evident not only with the election of Donald Trump and the Brexit vote in the
United Kingdom, but also with the election of Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and support for popular movements such as the National Rally
in France. Establishment politics lost its legitimacy, as voters rejected the conditions produced by financialized capitalism.
In the United States, both major political parties were more than willing to turn the economy over to the bankers and hedge fund
managers while producing policies that shaped radical forms of industrial and social restructuring, all of which caused massive pain,
suffering and rage among large segments of the working class and other disenfranchised groups. Right-wing populist leaders across
the globe recognized that national economies were in the hands of foreign investors, a mobile financial elite and transnational capital.
In a masterful act of political diversion, populist leaders attacked all vestiges of liberal capitalism while refusing to name neoliberal
inequities in wealth and power as a basic threat to their societies. Instead of calling for an acceleration of the democratic ideals
of popular sovereignty and equality, right-wing populist leaders, such as Trump, Bolsonaro and Hungary's Viktor Orbán defined democracy
as the enemy of those who wish for unaccountable power. They also diverted genuine popular anger into the abyss of cultural chauvinism,
anti-immigrant hatred, a contempt of Muslims and a targeted attack on the environment, health care, education, public institutions,
social provisions and other basic life resources. As Arjun Appadurai
observes , such authoritarian leaders
hate democracy, capture the political emotions of those treated as disposable, and do everything they can to hide the deep contradictions
of neoliberal capitalism.
In this scenario, we have the resurgence of a fascist politics that capitalizes on the immiseration, fears and anxieties produced
by neoliberalism without naming the underlying conditions that create and legitimate its policies and social costs. While such populists
comment on certain elements of neoliberalism such as globalization, they largely embrace those ideological and economic elements
that concentrate power and wealth in the hands of a political, corporate and financial elite, thus reinforcing in the end an extreme
form of capitalism. Moreover, right-wing populists may condemn globalization, but they do so by blaming those considered outside
the inclusive boundaries of a white homeland even though
the same forces victimize them . At the same
time, such leaders mobilize passions that deny critical understanding while simultaneously creating desires and affects that produce
toxic and hypermasculine forms of identification.
Authoritarian leaders hate democracy and do everything they can to hide the deep contradictions of neoliberal capitalism.
In this instance, an oppressive form of education becomes central to politics and is
used as a tool of power in the struggle over
power, agency and politics. What is at stake here is not simply a struggle between authoritarian ideas and democratic ideals, but
also a fierce battle on the part of demagogues to destroy the institutions and conditions that make critical thought and oppositional
accounts of power possible. This is evident, for example, in Trump's constant attack on the critical media, often
referring to them as "'the enemy of the people' pushing 'Radical Left Democrat views,'" even as journalists are subject to expulsion,
mass jailing and assassination across the world by some of Trump's allies.
Waging war on democracy and the institutions that produce it, neoliberalism has tapped into a combination of fear and cathartic
cruelty that has once again unleashed the mobilizing passions of fascism, especially the historically distinct registers of extreme
nationalism, nativism, white supremacy, racial and ethnic cleansing, voter suppression, and an attack on a civic culture of critique
and resistance. The result is a new political formation that I have called neoliberal fascism, in which the principles and practices
of a fascist past and neoliberal present have merged, connecting the worst dimensions and excesses of gangster capitalism with the
fascist ideals of white nationalism and racial supremacy associated with the horrors of a fascist past.
Neoliberal fascism hollows out democracy from within, breaks down the separation of power while increasing the power of the presidency,
and saturates cultural and social life with its ideology of self-interest, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, and regressive notions
of freedom and individual responsibility.
What needs to be acknowledged is that neoliberalism as an extreme form of capitalism has produced the conditions for a fascist
politics that is updated to serve the interest of a concentrated class of financial elite and a rising tide of political demagogues
across the globe.
The mass anger fueling neoliberal fascism is a diversion of genuine resistance into what amounts to a pathology, which empties
politics of any substance. This is evident also in its support of a right-wing populism and its focus on the immigrants and refugees
as "dangerous outsiders," which serves to eliminate class politics and camouflage its own authoritarian ruling class interests and
relentless attacks on social welfare.
A new economic slump would further fuel forces of repression and strengthen the forces of white supremacy.
In the face of a looming global recession, it is crucial to understand the connection between the rise of right-wing populism
and neoliberalism, which emerged in the late 1970s as a commanding ideology fueling a punitive form of globalization. This historical
moment is marked by unique ideological, economic and political formations produced by ever-increasing brutal forms of capitalism,
however diverse.
Governing economic and political thinking everywhere, neoliberalism's unprecedented concentration of economic and political power
has produced a toxic state modeled after the models of finance and unchecked market forces. It has also produced a profound shift
in human consciousness, agency and modes of identification. The consequences have become familiar and include cruel austerity measures,
adulation of self-regulating markets, the liberating of capital from any constraints, deregulation, privatization of public goods,
the commodification of everyday life and the gutting of environmental, health and safety laws. It has also paved the way for a merging
of extreme market principles and the sordid and mushrooming elements of white supremacy, racial cleansing and ultranationalism that
have become specific to updated forms of fascist politics.
Such policies have produced massive inequities in wealth, power and income, while further accelerating mass misery, human suffering,
the rise of state-sanctioned violence and ever-expanding sites of terminal exclusion in the forms of walls, detention centers and
an expanding carceral state. An impending recession accentuates the antagonisms, instabilities and crisis produced by the long history
and reach of neoliberal ideologies and policies.
A new economic slump would further fuel forces of repression and strengthen the forces of white supremacy, Islamophobia, nativism
and misogyny. In the face of such reactionary forces, it is crucial to unite various progressive forces of opposition into a powerful
anti-capitalist movement that speaks not only to the range of oppressions exacerbated by neoliberalism, but also to the need for
new narratives that speak to overturning a system steeped in the machineries of war, militarization, repression and death.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair
for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar
in Critical Pedagogy. His most recent books include: Neoliberalism's War on Higher Education (Haymarket 2014), The Violence of Organized
Forgetting (City Lights 2014), Dangerous Thinking in the Age of the New Authoritarianism (Routledge, 2015), America's Addiction to
Terrorism (Monthly Review Press, 2016), America at War with Itself (City Lights, 2017), The Public in Peril (Routledge, 2018) and
American Nightmare: Facing the Challenge of Fascism (City Lights, 2018) and The Terror of the Unforeseen (LARB Books, 2019). Giroux is also a member of Truthout 's Board of Directors.
"In 2019, the bottom 99% of families will pay 7.2% of their wealth in taxes, while the top
0.1% of households will pay just 3.2%."
~~Elizabeth Warren~
do you see how EW has finally opened our eyes?
sure! poor people think about wealth as being income. they think about Wealth as being
their salary. from the perspective of a wealthy senator wealth is a function of assets. EW
had the guts to share this perspective with us, to open our eyes to reality.
we should not be taxing the payroll we should not be taxing the capital gains and other
income. we should be taxing non productive assets, assets which cannot be hidden which cannot
be taken off shore.
the Swiss have such a tax. all of their real estate is taxed at a rate of 0.3% per annum.
it would be easy for us to stop all local taxes All County taxes all state taxes and all
federal tax then initiate a 1% tax on all real property unimproved and on all improved real
property. we should continue this tax until our federal debt is completely discharged. such a
taxation shift would revv up our productive activity and increase our per capita GDP. as
usual there would be winners and there would be losers. the losers would be those who want
more inequality and the winners would be
"... Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral." ..."
"... Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with " Obama rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012. ..."
No, the really intense backlash against Warren and progressive Democrats in general is
coming from
Wall Street . And while that opposition partly reflects self-interest, Wall Street's Warren
hatred has a level of virulence, sometimes crossing into hysteria, that goes beyond normal
political calculation.
What's behind that virulence?
First, let's talk about the rational reasons Wall Street is worried about Warren. She is, of
course, calling for major tax increases on the very wealthy, those with wealth exceeding $50
million, and the financial industry is strongly represented in that elite club. And since
raising taxes on the wealthy is highly popular , it's an
idea a progressive president might actually be able to turn into real policy.
Warren is also a big believer in stricter financial regulation; the Consumer Financial
Protection Bureau, which was highly effective until the Trump administration set about gutting
it, was her brainchild.
So if you are a Wall Street billionaire, rational self-interest might well induce you to
oppose Warren. Neoliberal_rationality/ does not, however, explain why a money manager like Leon Cooperman
-- who just two years ago
settled a suit over insider trading for $5 million, although without admitting wrongdoing
-- would circulate an embarrassing, self-pitying open letter
denouncing Warren for her failure to appreciate all the wonderful things billionaires like
him do for society.
Nor does it explain why Cliff Asness, another money manager, would fly into a rage at Warren
adviser Gabriel Zucman for using the term "revenue maximizing" -- a standard piece of
economic jargon -- describing it as "disgustingly immoral."
The real tell here, I think, is that much of the Wall Street vitriol now being directed at
Warren was previously directed at, of all people, President Barack Obama.
Objectively, Obama treated Wall Street with kid gloves. In the aftermath of a devastating
financial crisis, his administration bailed out collapsing institutions on favorable terms. He
and Democrats in Congress did impose some new regulations, but they were very mild compared
with the regulations put in place after the banking crisis of the 1930s. He did, however, refer on a few occasions to "fat cat" bankers and suggested that
financial-industry excesses were responsible for the 2008 crisis because, well, they were. And
the result, quite early in his administration, was that Wall Street became consumed with "
Obama
rage ," and the financial industry went all in for Mitt Romney in 2012.
I wonder, by the way, if this history helps explain an odd aspect of fund-raising in the
current primary campaign. It's not surprising that Warren is getting very little money from the
financial sector. It is, however, surprising that the top recipient isn't Joe Biden but
Pete
Buttigieg , who's running a fairly distant
fourth in the polls. Is Biden suffering from the lingering effects of that old-time Obama
rage?
In any case, the point is that Wall Street billionaires, even more than billionaires in
general, seem to be snowflakes, emotionally unable to handle criticism.
I'm not sure why that should be the case, but it may be that in their hearts they suspect
that the critics have a point.
What, after all, does modern finance actually do for the economy? Unlike the robber barons
of yore, today's Wall Street tycoons don't build anything tangible. They don't even direct
money to the people who actually are building the industries of the future. The vast expansion
of credit in America after around 1980 basically involved a surge in
consumer debt rather than new money for business investment.
Moreover, there is growing evidence that when the financial sector gets too big it actually
acts as a drag on the economy -- and America is well past that point .
Now, human nature being what it is, people who secretly wonder whether they really deserve
their wealth get especially angry when others express these doubts publicly. So it's not
surprising that people who couldn't handle Obama's mild, polite criticism are completely losing
it over Warren.
What this means is that you should beware of Wall Street claims that progressive policies
would have dire effects. Such claims don't reflect deep economic wisdom; to a large extent
they're coming from people with vast wealth but fragile egos, whose rants should be discounted
appropriately. The Times is committed to publishing
a diversity of letters to the editor. We'd like to hear what you think about this or any of
our articles. Here are some tips
. And here's our email: [email protected]
.
"... The credibility of neoliberalism's faith in unfettered markets as the surest road to shared prosperity is on life-support these days. And well it should be. The simultaneous waning of confidence in neoliberalism and in democracy is no coincidence or mere correlation. Neoliberalism has undermined democracy for 40 years. ..."
"... The effects of capital-market liberalization were particularly odious: If a leading presidential candidate in an emerging market lost favor with Wall Street, the banks would pull their money out of the country. Voters then faced a stark choice: Give in to Wall Street or face a severe financial crisis. It was as if Wall Street had more political power than the country's citizens. 1 ..."
"... Even in rich countries, ordinary citizens were told, "You can't pursue the policies you want" – whether adequate social protection, decent wages, progressive taxation, or a well-regulated financial system – "because the country will lose competitiveness, jobs will disappear, and you will suffer." 1 ..."
"... How can wage restraint – to attain or maintain competitiveness – and reduced government programs possibly add up to higher standards of living? Ordinary citizens felt like they had been sold a bill of goods. They were right to feel conned. ..."
"... If the 2008 financial crisis failed to make us realize that unfettered markets don't work, the climate crisis certainly should: neoliberalism will literally bring an end to our civilization. But it is also clear that demagogues who would have us turn our back on science and tolerance will only make matters worse. ..."
"... The sad truth is, human nature is selfish, and the elites will always do whatever it takes to protect their own interests. With this being the basis of all political systems, it only comes down to how the elites can best serve their own interests. In democracies, it relies on creating an illusion of people's power. ..."
For 40 years, elites
in rich and poor countries alike promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the benefits would
trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. Now that the evidence is in, is it any wonder that trust
in elites and confidence in democracy have plummeted?
NEW YORK – At the end of the Cold War, political scientist
Francis Fukuyama wrote a celebrated essay
called " The End of History?
" Communism's collapse, he argued, would clear the last obstacle separating the entire world from its destiny of liberal democracy
and market economies. Many people agreed.
Today, as we face a retreat from the rules-based, liberal global order, with autocratic rulers and demagogues leading countries
that contain well over half the world's population, Fukuyama's idea seems quaint and naive. But it reinforced the neoliberal economic
doctrine that has prevailed for the last 40 years.
The credibility of neoliberalism's faith in unfettered markets as the surest road to shared prosperity is on life-support these
days. And well it should be. The simultaneous waning of confidence in neoliberalism and in democracy is no coincidence or mere correlation.
Neoliberalism has undermined democracy for 40 years.
The form of globalization prescribed by neoliberalism left individuals and entire societies unable to control an important part
of their own destiny, as Dani Rodrik of Harvard
University has explained
so clearly , and as I argue in my recent books Globalization and Its Discontents
Revisited and People, Power, and Profits
. The effects of capital-market liberalization were particularly odious: If a leading presidential candidate in an emerging
market lost favor with Wall Street, the banks would pull their money out of the country. Voters then faced a stark choice: Give in
to Wall Street or face a severe financial crisis. It was as if Wall Street had more political power than the country's citizens.
1
Even in rich countries, ordinary citizens were told, "You can't pursue the policies you want" – whether adequate social protection,
decent wages, progressive taxation, or a well-regulated financial system – "because the country will lose competitiveness, jobs will
disappear, and you will suffer." 1
In rich and poor countries alike, elites promised that neoliberal policies would lead to faster economic growth, and that the
benefits would trickle down so that everyone, including the poorest, would be better off. To get there, though, workers would have
to accept lower wages, and all citizens would have to accept cutbacks in important government programs.
The elites claimed that their promises were based on scientific economic models and "evidence-based research." Well, after 40
years, the numbers are in: growth has slowed, and the fruits of that growth went overwhelmingly to a very few at the top. As wages
stagnated and the stock market soared, income and wealth flowed up, rather than trickling down.
How can wage restraint – to attain or maintain competitiveness – and reduced government programs possibly add up to higher standards
of living? Ordinary citizens felt like they had been sold a bill of goods. They were right to feel conned.
We are now experiencing the political consequences of this grand deception: distrust of the elites, of the economic "science"
on which neoliberalism was based, and of the money-corrupted political system that made it all possible.
The reality is that, despite its name, the era of neoliberalism was far from liberal. It imposed an intellectual orthodoxy whose
guardians were utterly intolerant of dissent. Economists with heterodox views were treated as heretics to be shunned, or at best
shunted off to a few isolated institutions. Neoliberalism bore little resemblance to the "open society" that Karl Popper had advocated.
As George Soros has
emphasized , Popper
recognized that our society is a complex, ever-evolving system in which the more we learn, the more our knowledge changes the behavior
of the system. 2
Nowhere was this intolerance greater than in macroeconomics, where the prevailing models ruled out the possibility of a crisis
like the one we experienced in 2008. When the impossible happened, it was treated as if it were a 500-year flood – a freak occurrence
that no model could have predicted. Even today, advocates of these theories refuse to accept that their belief in self-regulating
markets and their dismissal of externalities as either nonexistent or unimportant led to the deregulation that was pivotal in fueling
the crisis. The theory continues to survive, with Ptolemaic attempts to make it fit the facts, which attests to the reality that
bad ideas, once established, often have a slow death. 3
If the 2008 financial crisis failed to make us realize that unfettered markets don't work, the climate crisis certainly should:
neoliberalism will literally bring an end to our civilization. But it is also clear that demagogues who would have us turn our back
on science and tolerance will only make matters worse.
The only way forward, the only way to save our planet and our civilization, is a rebirth of history. We must revitalize the Enlightenment
and recommit to honoring its values of freedom, respect for knowledge, and democracy.
Follow Joseph E. Stiglitz, University Professor at Columbia University, is the co-winner of the 2001 Nobel Memorial Prize, former
chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, and former Chief Economist of the World Bank. His most recent book is People, Power, and Profits: Progressive Capitalism for an Age
of Discontent .
In his 'After
Neoliberalism' essay of May 30, 2019, Joseph Stiglitz (like many PS contributors) excoriated the 4-decade neoliberal episode in
the US and many other Western Democracies. He advocated development of a progressive capitalism focusing on true sources of national
wealth built on public investment in education, health, research and other basic functions of government. This time (PS, November
4, 2019, 'The End of Neoliberalism') )in a similar vein, he describes how neoliberalism has "undermined democracy for the last
40 years," and advocates a 'rebirth of history as the only way forward. I, like many others, wholly agree with his characterization
of the economics profession's descent into neoliberal ideology and generally admire his body of work. However, the calls to 'progressive
capitalism' and even more to a 'rebirth of history' are quite puzzling. A much more detailed development of the challenges to
be overcome and the steps to be taken is sorely needed.
Regrettably, Stiglitz and his eminent colleagues Amartya Sen, and Jean-Paul Fitoussi failed to propose what could have been a
body blow to neoliberal theory and practice -- an in-depth revision of the concept and accounting measures embedded in the System
of National Accounts (SNA) measure of GDP. But the Stiglitz-led report, issued in 2009 -- only shortly after the GFC -- avoided
direct criticism of neoliberal failures and shied away from proposing fundamental reform to GDP accounting and consequent biased
decision processes. The report did identify major problems with current GDP accounting, but tamely recommended only to supplement
current GDP measures with a dashboard of supplementary indicators. An opportunity badly missed. Stiglitz' December 2018 essay
"Beyond GDP," (on which I commented), however, extolled the virtues, and indeed the necessity, of accurate measures of social
impact of government and economic activity, but a critical follow-through has been lacking. Though a range of alternative measures
of social wellbeing are being used by a several countries none have had much impact on the centrality of GDP growth and stability
as the measure of social policy success or failure. Current GDP measures allow neoliberal values, based on promotion of commercial
capitalism and reduction of public-interest spending by government, to continue to dominate US Republican policies -- taken to
near-incredible extremes by the Trump administration -- as well as condone austerity policies in much of the western world.
As I advocated in my 2018 comment on Stiglitz PS essay and in more detail in my 2017 book, responsibility for outputs and outcomes
from use of all forms of capital (commercial, environmental, human, and social and relationship) should be borne by all public
and private enterprises, results of all uses of these capitals should be incorporated in annual reports, and ultimately should
be incorporated in the SNA to guide economic, social and security policies nationally and internationally. Promotion of these
concepts has been taken up by a not-for-profit organization the International Integrated Reporting Council (IIRC). Stiglitz and
like-minded economists would do well to examine these issues further via readily accessible internet sites.
In support
of Stiglitz' Theory, I would note that the power of the combined of the US Middle Class and Upper Middle class still supersedes
the power of the combined wealth of the US 1% and the lower 50%. This is enough wealth and power to defeat Centrism (the rule
of the 1% by appeasing the lower 50% through subsidies (think the current Egyptian government ruled by Assisi in support of Egyptian
Elites.)
With proper organization and political fusion of the middle class and upper middle class in America, they together have the
power to overthrow Centrism controlled by Plutocrats, and re-institute a Democratic State in America.
In this regard, the power of Financialism has reached its limits, but only if the US middle class and upper middle class fusion
can create a political power that opposes Centrism.
The enemy of this theory is that the US upper middle class is so proud of its ability to supersede the middle class that it
cannot fuse with the standard middle class politically, and believes its financial power comes from the condolences of the 1%
upper class in America that supports it because it supports them.
Clearly, the "Responsibility of the Middle Class" to maintain American Idealism will be destroyed if the Upper Middle Class
denigrates its ideal, and the US middle class joins the lower US worker class in demanding revolution against the 1% Elites.
The Responsibility of the Middle Class in America to preserve the American Nation as an affluent class, through its political
power is now sadly waning. The US Middle Class has lost all three sociological important powers: 1) Status; 2) Power; 3) Economic
equality.
The failure of the US Middle Class to re-obtain its previous power as a political/social/economic entity in America would be
the destruction/obviation of the previous American ideal (a house with a white picket fence, a dog or can, children, financial
security and raising children who will do better than their parents).
Nobody in
the World can say that the Civil Rights movement led by Martin Luther King did not succeed in creating a better life for Blacks
and other minorities in the United States.
We now need a Middle Class movement to accomplish the same feat: the politically equivalent equality of the US Middle
Class to the US Upper Class
D. V. Gendre Nov 11, 2019 Only a blind
and ignorant like Mr. Stiglitz (elitist) can claim that we live in a neoliberal world.
In reality there were never so many regulations upon us as today. Not only businesses but also the private person is crushed by
ever more regulations! Year over year those regulations are getting more complex then ever.
In ancient times people lived together only guided by 10 Commandments on two stone tablets. Today the first page of any legal
code contains more then ten commandments, laws etc.
Mr. Stiglitz should be advisor to Kim Jong-un. He certainly beliefs the fairytale of neoliberalims.
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The biggest harm to the capital market was done by two things:
1. The monopoly on money supply, i. e. central banks
2. The abandoning of the gold standard without any adequate replacement
Both measures have nothing to do with neoliberalism or deregulation but with socialistic achievments!
Already in the communist manifesto from 1848 the monopoly on the money supply was a central goal.
Both measures have been introduced without resistance because not only banks were benefitig but more so politicians!
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Animesh Ghoshal Nov 11, 2019 I read
with interest Prof. Stiglitz's assertion that in "economists with heterodox views were treated as heretics to be shunned, or at
best shunted off to a few isolated institutions". These institutions presumably include Columbia University, the World Bank, and
the Council of Economic Advisors.
John Hansen Nov 11, 2019 Excellent,
timely, and thought-provoking. Thank you.
As you note, "The credibility of neoliberalism's faith in unfettered markets as the surest road to shared prosperity is on
life-support these days," and, "The effects of capital-market liberalization [have been] particularly odious."
I totally agree. In fact, I spent thirty years at the World Bank fighting for "shared prosperity" in countries around the world
and was always concerned that excessive capital market liberalization could be a serious barrier to balanced, sustainable growth.
(By the way, I am still most grateful to you for speaking out against the Washington Consensus and other neoliberal ideas that
don't work while you were our Chief Economist.)
Since retiring, I have focused on fighting inequality in America. A major source of our inequality is the overvalued dollar
that destroys farms, factories, jobs, and entire communities by destroying the international competitiveness of America's producers
and workers.
The overvalued dollar is caused by excessive inflows of foreign capital seeking to purchase dollars and dollar-based assets
-- a reflection to the excessive global demand for dollars that is part of today's globalization. This overvaluation makes our
exports artificially expensive and our imports artificially cheap. Thus, for example, we borrow money from China to pay them to
make things for us that we could be making for ourselves at internationally competitive prices -- were it not for the dollar's
overvaluation.
The overvalued dollar shifts both domestic and foreign demand from made-in-America to foreign-made goods, leaving American
producers without the demand needed to grow, invest, employ more workers, and boost wages. Hence our increased inequality and
polarization.
You rightly conclude that the "belief in self-regulating markets and [the] dismissal of externalities as either nonexistent
or unimportant led to the deregulation that was pivotal in fueling the [2008] crisis" and that "unfettered markets don't work."
I am pleased to note that a new macroeconomic policy, which is designed to put appropriate fetters on excessive capital flows
into our financial markets, is central to the "Competitive Dollar for Jobs and Prosperity Act" (S. 2357) that Senators Baldwin
and Hawley recently presented to the US Senate on a bipartisan basis.
This legislation will implement a Market Access Charge (MAC). The MAC will restore the long-broken link between exchange rates
and balanced trade by imposing a moderate charge on foreign capital inflows whenever America is suffering job-killing, wage-killing
trade deficits -- a clear indication that the dollar is overvalued.
By dampening foreign demand for dollars and dollar-based assets, the MAC will allow the USD to return to a rate that balances
trade. With a fully competitive dollar, Americans will be able to earn as much producing exports as they spend on imports. And
because the size of the MAC charge will be linked to the size of the trade deficit, the MAC will always work to keep the dollar
at a trade-balancing level.
In addition to the higher output, employment, and wages that the MAC will make possible for America's producers and workers,
the MAC will help moderate the out-of-control financialization that will continue to cause serious damage like the Crash of 2008
unless appropriate regulations are put in place.
On the international front, eliminating US trade deficits will reduce the trade surpluses of mercantilist countries like China
and Germany. In fact, the MAC will help pave the way to the long-held goal of the G-8 and other international bodies -- growth
for all nations that is stable, balanced, sustainable, and equitably shared.
Thanks again for your thought-provoking article. Let us hope that, with the support of concrete proposals such as the Market
Access Charge, your article will become the clarion call to action that our country so urgently needs to take.
The sad truth is,
human nature is selfish, and the elites will always do whatever it takes to protect their own interests. With this being the basis
of all political systems, it only comes down to how the elites can best serve their own interests. In democracies, it relies on
creating an illusion of people's power.
The electorate is of average intelligence and education, by definition, whereas the elites
are superior. It goes without saying that the electorate would be played like a fiddle by the elites whilst believing that they
are acting out of their own free will. In an autocracy, the populace is either subdued by the threats of violence, or brainwashed
into believing that those in power act for the good of the whole society. On rare occasions, this might even be true, such as
Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore, and the various noble emperors throughout Chinese history. In democracies, this is more difficult,
as those seduced by power are often more ruthless and more ready to deceive the public than those with noble intentions, and consequently
always have the upper hand.
There is a far deeper
and more profound issues that underlies the ills wrought by Neoliberalism, but which is not limited to Neoliberalism.
That great issue facing the world today is that a significant portion of the population, if not the vast majority of the population
and including the Elite, appear to be unable to distinguish between reality, and the abstractions/tools/models that we create
for ourselves in order to be able to manipulate and or predict future events.
We have enough experimental experience to know that that given a certain specific and limited set of input conditions that
Neoliberalism has a pretty good track record of predicting what will happen next. We also have the experimental data that shows
that outside of the abovementioned narrow range of input conditions, the ability of Neoliberalism to predict what happens next
in the real world simply sucks balls.
The same is true of socialism. Given an exceedingly narrow and specific set of input conditions, yeah it works OK as a predictor
of future real world events. Anything outside of that input range however is a total train wreck.
The same is true of economics more generally.
And physics, medicine, geology, whatever....
So the real question is why do people feel the need to confuse their abstractions/tools/models, with reality? Why do people
confuse the abstractions/tools/models that we make for ourselves to help us predict what the world will do next, with what the
universe actually is? Why do people write libraries fully of convoluted arguments 'proving' why this or that abstraction/tool/model
must work in reality, when the experimental truth that it simply does not work has been made plain to see by thousands upon thousands
of real world experimental results?
Perhaps the answer to the above question is that most bodies of abstract knowledge, such as economics and political theory
and many of the 'sciences', have more in common to religion than they do to actual science.
Well that's the hypothesis... It would be great to see the experimental results.
Alfred Korzybski
attempted to confront this confusion several decades ago, with little success. But you might enjoy his book, Science and Sanity.
Reply
There is
nothing wrong with neoliberalism!!! Fix the drug problem, fix the education system by getting back to the basics of english grammer,
math and sciences. Create a culture among the young of learning to study and try, try again when they fail a test. Give them generous
amounts one on one tutoring. Teach them social media have destroyed their attention span and that is why they cannot learn from
a book and do their homework. Explain to them that embracing drugs, tattoos and social media is a cancer. Until this happens,
my money is on China winning the race (no drug problem, motivated hard working people).
"Neoliberalism"
is neither. It is not attached to liberty, but to slavery. And it is nothing new. Plutocracy is the cancer of civilizations, and
kills them readily. But this time, the entire biosphere is going down.
A better name for "Neoliberalism" would be "plutophilia", the love of the darkest passions, the love of plutocracy, which is
etymologically and in reality, the rule of evil (as this is exactly what pluto-kratia means: the rule of wealth being a particular
case of Pluto's propensities).
"Neoliberalism", was initially called "trickle down". One of its axioms was as professor Stiglitz says: "the credibility of
neoliberalism's faith in unfettered markets as the surest road to shared prosperity". However, by "markets" one really meant "merchants".
Indeed, what is a market? Who dominates a market? Well, those with enough capital to do so. In other words, the wealthy, or
those that banks have decided to lend to typically, again, those with collateral, namely the wealthy. So the banking system, if
it looks for a profit, makes the wealthy wealthier. Hence the so-called "unfettered markets" were, in truth, the unfettered wealthiest,
while the fetters were put on everybody else.
But, unfettered, wealth grows exponentially (as the wealthiest have nearly all the money and lend it, leveraged, to the wealthiest,
namely themselves).
This is exactly what happened: the wealthy got wealthier. And what is wealth? It is power onto others. So the powers of a few
grew, onto most people, helped along by a government by "representatives" which learned to act in its own best interest, serving
power, that is, wealth.
"Neoliberalism" fostered, in turn, other myths, first of which was that, unfettered globalization, worldwide, was good for
the Republic. Actually, globalization was a disaster: it undermined social rights and taxation.
The last spectacular example of the disaster engineered by unfettered globalization was the Roman Republic. The Roman REPUBLIC,
which lasted 5 centuries, had an absolute wealth limit. And it lasted 5 centuries because it had an absolute wealth limit. The
Florence Republic fell to plutocrats, the Medicis, within three centuries, precisely because it had no wealth limit.
There was an absolute wealth limit, because the wealth tax, during the Roman Republic, was 100% above a threshold (the threshold
was pretty low, at most 30 million 2019 dollars, and maybe as low as ten million).
However, after 200 BCE, and the Second Punic war, having had to fight in Greece, Spain, Africa, the Roman republic became global.
Yet, taxation was still local, so wealthy Romans were able to escape the wealth limit, and Roman billionaires appeared. They immediately
started to plot against the Republic. The best way to do that was to corrupt it, by buying politicians. It took many generations,
but the Republic declined and collapsed, in spite of the life endangering efforts of many heroes, including the Gracchi brothers,
Marius, and his nephew Caesar (Caesar passed a wealth distribution law in 59 BCE).
Plutocracy expects We The People to believe that a few know best, and deserve all the wealth, all the powers. As a result calamitous
policies are engaged into, because only a few brains, without debate, devoured by greed, don't think too well. Moreover, plutocratic
policies look accidentally bad, but they are actually so by design: the worse things get, the more the worst gets going.
A particular example of these satanic policies is the climate catastrophe, which is part of a mass extinction, the likes of
which have not been seen in 70 million years. There were technologies, at the ready already in 1990, to prevent the CO2 catastrophe:
in 2019, France pollutes 5 tons of CO2 per capita (the world average), California 9.2 tons, the USA 16 tons, Canada and Australia
more than 16 So France knows how to do it, and the others chose not to (the UK, Spain and Italy are around 6 tons; whereas hysterically
pro-coal Germany is at 10 tons...) The mood in France is more ecological, more egalitarian, more social... All this is related:
respect the environment, just as, and because, you respect your neighbor. Disrespect the environment, as countries like the US,
Australia and Canada do, disrespect the neighbor.
The global plutocracy is indeed intensely related to its fossil fuel component: fossil fuel money is recycled through Wall
Street. US President FD Roosevelt set-up that system, meeting with Ibn Saud on the Great Bitter lake in Egypt, shortly before
his death. Similarly, when Obama became president, he presented fracking as "the bridge fuel to the future", and Wall Street,
applauding, made massive fracking investments on the lands and water Obama put at its disposal. Thus, once again, the US is the
world's greatest fossil fuel producer: alleluia, say the "America First" crowd, and one expects them to make dark secret masses
to their hero Obama, who made fracking into the lifeblood of the US.
Plutocracy rules through minds. Careful disinformation, and lack of significant information needs to be fed to the masses.
Here is an example:
The New York Times just woke up to the fact that climate scientists systematically underestimated the gravity of the climate
crisis we are in. The paper couldn't explain why this happened, but showed with great clarity how much it happened. I sent a comment
basically explaining that the "Neoliberal" regime paid the salaries of those scientists, so they couldn't be too alarmist, if
they wanted to be employed.
The New York Times apparently found my explanation alarming, and refused to publish it. Just as, over the years, much of the
MainStream Media has found any discourse against the "Neoliberal" order deranged and alarming (and censored thousands of my comments).
Here my comment explaining why scientists were not too alarmed by the climate catastrophe:
The problem has been that scientists are paid by governments which are manipulated by plutocrats, most of them part of the
establishment And the establishment is fossil fuel plutocracy dependent (say, Wall Street, as an example).
So scientists do not want to bite the hand that feed them. And this is still true. The real truth is that the giant masses
of ice of Antarctica will melt with a warming of just a few more degrees. I have explained the exact mechanism in essays on my
site, in great detail, for more than a decade. The reason is that half of Antarctica is under water And the densest water is at
4 degrees Centigrade (roughly 40 Fahrenheit)
Thus a hyper catastrophic melting is entirely possible Millennia before what the old, baseless, "scientific" analyses pretended.
Also a serious diminution of the oxygen content of the atmosphere, ridiculed by well-fed scientists, is actually entirely possible
under very plausible (yet complex) scenarios. And so on.
The plutocracy which rules over us is mostly fossil-fuel based. Any plutocracy knows that it needs to control the minds. Nowadays
this means controlling the scientists. The gross attack, "climate denier" style, are there only to confuse us.
The real danger is the subtle disinformation that the situation is not dire, that we have time, it's a question for the grandchildren.
I have lived in smoke for weeks on end in the tech metropolis of the San Francisco Bay Area: the burning climate catastrophe is
upon us now. One can see it very clearly when one looks outside, and all one sees is smoke.
To free ourselves from "Neoliberalism", which is economic neofascism by another name, will require a great intellectual effort.
I don't see our schools, including universities, committed to it. Yet. Thank, prof. Stiglitz, for the effort!
Your etymology is almost as bad as your economics. In Plato's dialogue Cratylus Socrates argues that the etymology of Hades
is "his knowledge (eidenai) of all noble things" rather than, as widely believed, "unseen."
Later on Greeks began to refer to Hades as Plouton. The root of Plouton is "wealthy" meaning that from below (the soil)
come riches (e.g., fertile crops, metals and so on). Not only that but Plouton became the Roman god Pluto who distributed riches
from below. Call that "trickle up" rather than "trickle down."
So stop maligning plutocrats. It is a vulgar habit.
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Patrice Ayme Nov 11, 2019 Dear
Ian:
Thanks for the comment. It doesn't address any of the very deep reasons I presented to object to have a few individuals
exert huge amounts of power on others, and thus, automatically corrupt democracy, pervert the economic system, and bring
us back to the collapse of the Republic the Romans went through (before the monstrous plutocracy known as the Roman empire
itself collapsed soon afterwards).
Socrates was practicing traditional euphemism science about Hades. The question of the etymology of Hades (Hell, but
also the enemy, in Hebrew, Satan), Pluto, Ploutos, etc. is fascinating. I have long pondered the question, I am a specialist.
I am actually going to write an essay on the subject, just in your honor. The confusion between the god of riches (Ploutos)
and the god of the underground (Pluto) was deliberately made, and as many ways to NOT say the word "Hades" (there were nearly
50 euphemisms for Hades). The New Testament mentions "Hades" in its Greek original many times (now translated as "Hell").
Also Hades is represented as a dark figure, with long wings...
The existence of plutocracy is intrinsically evil, because no species, and certainly no species of primate, is made to
be ruled by a few having the powers of millions. When Obama was president at some point he put the Gates (of hell) in command
of US education. In Obama Reagan perverted mind, the hyper wealthy had, assuredly, achieved supreme wisdom. Never mind that
Gates (of hell) never finished college. Same Gates (of hell) are now telling us they won't work, it they had only ten billion
dollars plus a 50 billion dollar foundation under their command. Such individuals are therefore only motivated by greed,
they have no appreciation for the glory of the human spirit. For them, only greed is the motivation, not care, love, thinking,
etc. And they impose their ways on the entire planet, and their emotional, not to say nervous, system, reduced to greed.
That's evil. Even Jesus noticed. But now, as the biosphere implodes under their greedy blows, we should all be able to notice.
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As the mathematics of economics seldom seems to use complex math (real and imaginary numbers) that is required to properly
describe a system with feedback/feedforward characteristics (ie supply/demand markets where demand drives supply, etc.), the observation
that the models didn't "see" instabilities is a bit of a DUH. Just adding a time delay, like putting a pillow over a thermostat,
will make a feedback control system unstable. Adding bureaucratic delay (zoning, EIR's, etc.) to housing development makes housing
prices unstable creating boom/bust cycles. It is all just simple math but you need a dynamic equation to describe a dynamic problem.
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ron smith Nov 12, 2019 You mistake
complex variables for the mathematics of complexity. Complex variables is standard fare but there has been no Newton to create
a "calculus" of Complexity. The events you describe are real and, it seems, cause probability distribution function instability
which makes a mess of the math tools we now have. Those fond of science fiction often say that we are awaiting Hari Seldon,
who was the creator of an (imaginary -- it is sci fi) approach to statistics that had accurate application to certain social
situations. [Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" trilogy.]
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Jay Kay Nov 11, 2019 More generally,
the most important character of the equation or black-box or digital model or whatever, is that it exhibits a useful degree
of predictive ability as to how the real world will operate given a specific set of input conditions when tested experimentally.
That's what a successful hypothesis is, it's a useful predictor of future events.
Sure, once you have a usefully predictive model of how the real experimental world works, you can open up your model to
investigation to see whether the architecture of the model can give you clues as to what may be in play in the real world,
and what future experiments to design based on that.
However too often what passes for 'science' or economics or politics science modelling:
- has essentially no useful predictive ability when tested experimentally. It just fails constantly. Global Warming models
anyone?
- has no measurable input conditions that can be used to experimentally test the model. It is essentially a philosophy.
Much economic theory falls into this category.
- has a degree of useful predictive ability over a narrow set of input conditions, but then fails miserable in every other
circumstance and yet people insist on constantly applying said model outside of its useful range as a predictor of future events.
Communism works just fine on the nuclear family scale, and implodes at every other scale.
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Most of the so-called Heterodox views are really just warmed-over versions of economic concepts from long-dead economists containing
internal assumptions that "wise economists and politicians" are smart enough to understand and direct the system. Meanwhile, the
complexity of the connection between the economic system and technology is further increasing the rate of change as technology
changes. As none of these heterodox economists seem to have a real understanding of the technology revolution with the creation
of "free" goods and goods with high R&D costs combined with insignificant production costs and how that interacts with economic
statistics and how this all relates to economic growth and its measurement, I am less confident that they can give better results
than markets.
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Raghaba Sahu Nov 10, 2019 The real questions:
1. Are Capitalism and Democracy compatible?
2. What type of economic model will be compatible with Democracy?
3.Should the influence of money on political choices be curbed?
Ian Maitland Nov 10, 2019 "If a leading
presidential candidate in an emerging market lost favor with Wall Street, the banks would pull their money out of the country.
Voters then faced a stark choice: Give in to Wall Street or face a severe financial crisis. It was as if Wall Street had more
political power than the country's citizens" (Stiglitz).
Folks, try a simple thought experiment. For Wall Street substitute "IMF."
Now, do you see any difference? Try this one: "It was as if the IMF had more political power than the country's citizens."
Does Stiglitz propose to put the IMF out of business? No. So why is it OK by Stiglitz if countries get themselves in hock to
the IMF but not if they get themselves in hock to Wall Street? In either case, their people's sovereignty is diluted.
In fact, it gets even worse. Stiglitz has been a consistent advocate of throwing more money at deadbeats. He is a dinosaur
who really believes that foreign aid from rich countries will help poor countries grow rather than encourage them to get deeper
into debt. He has called for debt relief for Puerto Rico to make the island's debt sustainable! Hasn't he heard of moral hazard?
If he gets his way, why should Puerto Rico stop issuing debt to fund its expenses -- something it has done since 1973.
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Patrice Ayme Nov 11, 2019 IMF, under
Lagarde, has forbidden governments to cut down on basic social services when they get help. The IMF functions like a charity.
Wall Street functions like sharks. Greed comes naturally to the lowest critters, and that is very good to make a global ecology,
yet, we, humans, aspire for more. This is the problem with plutocracy: reduction to the lowest, biggest sharks. Reduction not
just of the economy to this lowest realm, but even reductions of highest human aspirations to this. Sharks are hungry, yet,
not too smart, and, in a Pluto economy, they control the flow, and even the genesis, of ideas (or lack thereof).
Another problem is the reduction of incentives: Gates (of hell) just said (semi-joking) he won't work if he had just ten
billion dollars plus a 50 million dollars foundation he controls. Question: what about the rest of us? Should we stop working,
because we have no prospect to make ten billions?
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Patrice Ayme Nov 11, 2019 IMF, under
Lagarde, has forbidden governments to cut down on basic social services when they get help. The IMF functions like a charity.
Wall Street functions like sharks. Greed comes naturally to the lowest critters, we, humans, aspire for more. This the problem
with plutocracy: reduction to the lowest, biggest sharks. Reduction not just of the economy to this lowest realm, but even
reductions of highest human aspirations to this.
Another problem is the reduction of incentives: Gates (of hell) just said he won't work if he had just ten billion dollars
plus a 50 million dollars foundation. Question: what about the rest of us? Should we stop working, because we don't have ten
billions?
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Adrian Wu Nov 11, 2019 IMF, Wall Street,
what is the difference ? Still the same old bunch of elites. Reply
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"Even in rich countries, ordinary citizens were told..." describes what I felt coming back from years abroad: What happened?
Who gave these people authority to tell me what (and especially what not) to think and say? Reply
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David Schraa Nov 10, 2019 That's right,
but watch out for what you ask for. "History" can mean nationalist exaggerations about things such as Kosovo, or unionism in Northern
Ireland, or nostalgia for Russian greatness. We need real, responsible history that would, for example, illuminate the incredible
contributions of the EU to prosperity, solidarity and peace. But in so doing, we need to have history that can not only inform
but touch people emotionally, whereas much academic or "woke" history does the opposite today, in the rare event that it breaks
out of narrow academic or activist discussions. The NYT was right to broaden knowledge about the history of slavery, but utterly
wrong if the conclusion is to take the view that "1619" is the essence of the US story and leave the profoundly important intellectual
history of "1776" and its legacy to the right.
That's absolutely right, but the populist paradox is that "the people" rebel against complexity and the evolution of society
by voting right, not left. The left has to find a voice that reorients the discussion, but hasn't managed to do so in a way that
touches many voters.
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Except that, at least in the US and the UK, and to a certain extent in the rest of Europe as well, people seem to be voting
against "adequate social protection, decent wages, progressive taxation, or a well-regulated financial system" ... those are not
the issues voters are pounding drums about (left-wing activists, yes, but not lots of votes). So how do we overcome the suspicion,
resentment of "elites" and low information that motivates those positions?
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Jonathan Willinger Nov 10, 2019
Part of any reexamination of neo-liberal orthodoxy must be a consideration of Keynes' view that currency exchange rates need to
be controlled to curtail excess trade surplus and deficits. Firstly, if we had listened to Keynes there would be no way that the
American manufacturing base would have been so hollowed out. Secondly, as Keynes foresaw, without an international body controlling
cross currency valuation nations would incur continual surplus and deficits thereby leading to a return to the protectionism of
the '30's. I have never understood why Keynesians like Krugman and Somers have forgotten or dropped this extremely important part
of Keynes' thinking. I would like to know what Prof. Stieglitz' view on this point is....
nigel southway Nov 10, 2019 Stiggy
and the base of economists that went along with global free trade are the main problem. They brainwashed our leadership to allow
the finanialization of our economies now thank god we have some leadership such as trump to call a halt and start the question
of what's next
It's certainly a more nationalistic future and away from multilateralism and we also need to question the myth of man made climate
change which is fast looking like a huge hoax
Joe Ryan Nov 10, 2019 Prof. Stiglitz's essay
recommends discrimination on the basis of national origin as a way of reforming capitalism. Which is a bad idea.
The way the essay ends up in this bad situation is, at least in part, due to poor choice of words.
The essay re-phrases the idea of discrimination on the basis of national origin (which is bad), calling it opposition to globalism
(which is popular).
The essay also falls for the rhetorical trap of identifying capitalism with free markets, a confusion that is inherent in the
term, "neoliberalism." For capitalism, however, "free markets" (and "laissez faire") isn't about "perfectly competitive markets,"
which capitalists hate. It's about delegitimizing any interference in capitalists' control of firms.
We need less inventive vocabulary in order to have clearer thinking about how to both regulate and use the market mechanism.
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John Tegner Nov 10, 2019 Moving quickly
to matters at hand, we know what to do, can we act with urgency?
1. reform the US tax code, dramatically simplifying it and increasing rates of taxation based on income levels to a max rate of
50% for top earners (both income and capital gains)
2. implement strict term limits for politicians
3. make education and health care our nation's top priority after defense leveraging technology to reach the masses (we already
have the tools, we need to apply them with intent)
4. return to a policy of sustainability, deliberately incentivizing and investing to secure the future
Who's ready to take these steps?
Douglas Leyendecker Nov 10, 2019
Maybe Stiglitz wasn't aware that..."Over the last 25 years, more than a billion people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty,
and the global poverty rate is now lower than it has ever been in recorded history. This is one of the greatest human achievements
of our time," World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim said.
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nigel southway Nov 10, 2019 This
was at OUR expense.... mass wealth transfer not any wealth creation.... we did not sign up to build a middle class in china
you need to get educated as to how much damage has been done. Reply
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Ian Maitland Nov 10, 2019 Shout it
from the rooftops!
As 2015 economics Nobelist Angus Deaton says: "Life is better now than at almost any time in history. More people are richer
and fewer people live in dire poverty. Lives are longer and parents no longer routinely watch a quarter of their children die."
And little or none of the credit for that belongs to Stiglitz and his fellow mandarins at the World Bank and IMF.
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nigel southway Nov 10, 2019 wealth
transfer.. from us to "them" Reply
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mtcmom222a Loppy Nov 10, 2019 Free
Market? That's a JOKE...ONLY a Superliberal can be so deluded.. Governments consume 40 to 60 % of the People's Time/Money/Resources.....and
over regulate another big chunk... what Planet are you living on?? Reply
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Louis Woodhill Nov 10, 2019 Capitalism
depends upon stable money, which we have not had since 2001. The 2008 financial/economic crisis was the result of the most violent
monetary deflation in U.S. history, and this was 100% the result of Federal Reserve incompetence. Right now, world economic growth
is being suppressed by dollar deflation. Right now, the CRB Index is at 180. If the Fed were to increase total world dollar liquidity
enough to bring it up to 250 (its 10-year average) and keep it there, the problems Stiglitz decries would disappear.
Dirk Faegre Nov 10, 2019 I'm always surprised
when reading (most) economists take on the 2008 financial crisis. From this non-economists view it was shockingly simple and not
some complex, deep gray matter, academic, blah, blah, blah ...
For it to happen it took: Greed on Wall Street, idiocy in the housing market (to include mortgage brokers, retail banks, investment
houses, and the like) and a total collapse of the stated processes by rating agencies, along with a lapse of reason by The Fed
(Greenspan especially, who believed, in the face of the obvious, that banks would never, ever work against their own self interests
-- it took him years to apologize for his willful blindness), and the public who fell for the ponzie scheme of: "housing prices
will soar forever".
It was the perfect storm where almost all involved simply got stupid. Blazingly stupid. A reasonably wise 5th grader could
see and describe why it was going to blow up.
It seems to me Stiglitz got ahead of his skis with overly complex thinking here.
The argument that we can't raise wages so low level earners can make a livable wage is crazy. You want that people should work
hard to become homeless? That's as dumb as the housing crisis! If restaurants and convenience stores were to pay a living wage
the world economy would not collapse in a pile of rubble. They'd just have to raise prices. Full stop. What's so horrible about
that -- we've been doing it for centuries.
Sometimes the obvious is staring us right in the face!
Inflation you say? Tax the hell out of the filthy rich. No one should ever be allowed to become a billionaire - that's simply
a bridge too far and only brings negative value to society. No individual can supply anywhere near enough value to justify having
been paid a thousand millions (or, God forbid, multiples of that!!). Not even close. Check with the 5th grader again. She'll tell
you.
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Waleed Addas Nov 10, 2019 " We are all
Keynesians Now "! If the end (of neoliberalism) is near, then what should or will replace it? The article by of James K. Galbraith
"the new great transformation " may provide a hint (along with my modest comment, as usual :) Reply
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Jose M. R. Nov
10, 2019 Although I do not disagree completely I do see this debate as too western centric. Asia is faring very well, even Latam
despite political chaos. Maybe all that is happening to the West is historical decay: the End of the Roman Empire... Reply
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John Alexander Nov 10, 2019 'Even
in rich countries, ordinary citizens were told, "You can't pursue the policies you want" – whether adequate social protection,
decent wages, progressive taxation, or a well-regulated financial system – "because the country will lose competitiveness, jobs
will disappear, and you will suffer."'
Thomas Piketty has pointed out, and for all I know Prof. Stiglitz has also pointed out, a significant fact regarding the years
1930-1980: the top rate of income tax in the US was on average astronomical by today's standards, but the American economy was
humming very nicely. The idea that progressive taxation would result in all manner of catastrophe is just another of those baseless
dogmas that are perpetuated by rightwing thinkers, or, more accurately, by rightwing propagandists.
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Vincent Catalano Nov 10, 2019 Articulating
the problem is all well and good but not describing (or at least hinting at) the successor to Friedmanism/neoliberalism leaves
the reader no closer to the truth. The only way forward is an economic theory to replace Friedmanism/neoliberalism, not some broad
stroke statements like a rebirth of history. Economists need a justification to act based on a theory for it takes a theory to
beat a theory.
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Andrés Galia Nov 10, 2019 No you are
wrong. It does not take a theory to defeat another theory. It takes empirical evidence that the theory is wrong, and the empirical
evidence is in front of our eyes, unless you are not willing to see it. Reply
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G B Nov 10, 2019 Please go and read all the
related books written by J. Stiglitz and I'm sure you can find good answers for your questions... Reply
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jagjeet sinha Nov 9, 2019 NEOLIBARALISM
PLUS PLUS - CONFIDENCE IN DEMOCRACY
The end of Economics of/for/by The Elite is perhaps more appropriate title.
The Professor as usual hits the nail on its head.
The departures from Neoliberalism rightly reflecting in Democracy.
The Realignment of Economics demanded by The Marginalized Majority.
Both in The West and in The Emerging markets - where Democracy reigns.
The self correction that Neoliberalism ought to possess - was missing.
The Marginalized Majority had enough - Inequalities were bequeathed.
The Marginalized Majority was bypassed - and Democracy gave answers.
Brexit and Trump were inevitable - as were Modi and Macron.
Germany and China, Brussels and Beijing - emerged.
The Rebirth of History that Stiglitz foresees is Return to Enlightenment.
The Elites in America had met their match in Brussels and Beijing.
The Elites in America had found partners in London and Delhi.
Because Brussels and Beijing both never detached from The Church within.
Whereas London and Delhi were semi-detached from their Hinterlands.
Europe's reticence in accepting London over Brussels - rooted in The Church.
India's reticence in accepting its First Family in Delhi - rooted in The Heartlands.
Both Brussels and Beijing - rooted in The Heartlands within.
The Washington Consensus had alienated The Heartlands within.
The Anglosphere however was always underwritten by its Wealth Machine.
Democracy warranted Realignment of Economics within - for sustainability.
The return to Enlightenment that Stiglitz sees - is as inevitable as Brexit n Trump.
The sooner it happens - the better for The Anglosphere.
Having become the World's Economic Epicentre - demands nothing less.
Both Brussels and Beijing - are now being confronted by this Return.
The shape of The Return to Enlightenment - is a correction long overdue.
And Neoliberalism plus plus - is in fact reiterating confidence in Democracy.
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M Guiffre Nov
8, 2019 Professor: It seems that much of the U.S. population may not distinguish between the meaning of terms liberalism and elites.
I suspect this common misunderstanding is used to divide the population. Would you mind distinguishing between social liberalism
and economic liberalism? Would you mind distinguishing between intellectual elites and wealth elites? With respects.
vivek iyer Nov 7, 2019 Voters in emerging
markets- like India or Indonesia- have never heard of 'neo-liberalism' or even 'liberalism' come to that. Stiglitz must be utterly
mad if he really believes that the Bihari peasant votes on the basis of Wall Street's preferences!
Stiglitz writes- ' If a leading presidential candidate in an emerging market lost favor with Wall Street, the banks would pull
their money out of the country. Voters then faced a stark choice: Give in to Wall Street or face a severe financial crisis. It
was as if Wall Street had more political power than the country's citizens.'
I'm Indian. Unlike 99.99 percent of the Indian electorate, I know what Wall Street is. I also know that its preferences are irrelevant
for India. Dr. Manmohan Singh, whatever his other faults, knew this too. If American voters don't care what Wall St. thinks, why
does Stiglitz imagine it can have any power in 'emerging markets' where very few people know anything about it? What is the 'transmission
mechanism' he has in mind? Does he really believe
1) f.d.i is linked to market sentiment?
2) Voters take account of it?
There is no evidence for either view. The truth is f.d.i depends on structural and institutional factors. Short term jitters can
affect hot flows but only if there is structural balance sheet weakness.
Furthermore, in the one case where Stiglitz opposed 'neo-liberalism' with something more than an op-ed - i.e. Indonesia- he
was wrong. The IMF was right to squeeze Suharto and his kleptocrats out. Stiglitz very foolishly argued that the IMF ought to
prop up dictators in the pretense that this helped the poor.
Ordinary citizens everywhere, even in rich countries, know that 'adequate social protection' for every workshy loser and hordes
of bogus asylum seekers means high taxes and national insurance. Working for a living becomes a mug's game. Reagan got voters
to accept high unemployment because he was promising to cut taxes and squeeze the 'Welfare Queens'. Clinton did a U turn on gaining
office and went for 'Workfare'. He was also the 'deporter in chief'.
In rich and poor countries alike, elites did not promise 'neoliberal policies'. What they did was gas on about how we must
spend trillions fighting for democracy and human rights and the environment. Voters didn't want this because it meant higher taxes
and reduced public services. Germany, it is true, did adopt wage-restraint when other European countries were borrowing and spending
like drunken sailors- but that paid off big time! No doubt, the genius of Merkel turned this affluence into a curse. Her own native
East Germany is rife with discontent. But this has nothing to do with 'neo-liberalism' and everything to do with elitist virtue
signalling.
Elites don't talk about 'evidence-based research'. Their paid lackeys do it for them. Instead, elites pretend to be caring and
compassionate and committed to a new world order.
Stiglitz asks how wage restrain can lead to higher standards of living. The Harz reforms in Germany shows how- though of course
Merkel wasted much of the gain. Why ask for a 'rebirth of history' if you can't learn from the one we already have? What 'Enligtenment'
can be rekindled by recycling the same nonsense year after year? Rothbard's Law states that great economists specialize in what
they are worst at. They double down on their greatest follies. When will people stop pretending that ordinary people can be stirred
up against the bogeyman of 'neo-liberalism' rather than immigration or multi-culti or political correctness gone mad?
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G B Nov 10, 2019 With all due respect, Sir,
i think your post is, shall i say, long-winded with twists and turns, difficult to follow and hard to wrap one's head around...
I suggest you read all the related books written by J. Stiglitz and I'm sure you can better understand J. Stiglitz.
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vivek iyer Nov 10, 2019 To understand
an economist's theory it is not sufficient to read his books and articles. You have to be aware of criticisms and refutations
of his theses. You also need to do some empirical work of your own so as to determine how and why that economist has ended
up illustrating Rothbard's Law. In the case of Stiglitz, it is because he genuinely believes that there is a bias within
his profession. However, his profession is not influential. He himself is considered a virtue signaller and polemicist,
not a serious thinker.
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JOSE GERARDO TRASLOSHEROS
HERNANDEZ Nov 6, 2019 Agree that elites should contribute significantly more to social justice everywhere and be less selfish.
This will help save democracy and open markets. China and many in the developing world did benefit greatly in the process pulling
hundreds of millions out of poverty.
Ariel Tejera Nov 6, 2019 I think there
is a bit more to add: Your honor, the notion that the global trade an finance monster can be tamed by mere nation states, is ...
surreal. And the tragedy is that, so far, the people´ s reaction consists on entrenching themselves, behind increasingly tribal
insularity (literally, Brexit).
If I were ultra-rich, I couldn't ask for more. Real.
Mirek Fatyga Nov 6, 2019 So, as neoliberalism
gets stripped of it's clothes, can we have a return of actual economic science to economic profession?
What is the effect of global resource constraints on attainable world growth, and how does the slow but steady rise of "developing"
countries affect the distribution of the standards of living in "developed" countries?
Please, a return to reality, instead of money games, whether neoliberalism or modern monetary theory (aka burst of inflation)?
Can we return to relity before wars begin? Prof Stiglitz?
john zac Nov 5, 2019 Yes, yes and yes, professor,
you got it right. But you didn't address the issue, or the degree of psychological damage this neoliberal world created. Which
stood as collateral damage in our war against truth. Where "what suits me/us was always favored to what suits you/them" The truth
has now sadly devolved to whatever suits the most powerful narcissist in the room and the rest, preferably outside the room,and
miles away, should not complain, watch Apple TV or Disney, or put headphones on and listen to Eminem, Allison Krause or even Jesus
loving Kanye
Also kindly. We not only take orders from Wall Street and those that have the money, but we also take orders from those that have
the guns.
I seriously doubt the nerds in Silicon Valley can continue to clumsily lead without any muscle and that muscle unfortunately comes
at a price--You must also allow them to create the stories they need in order to help create the world your math calls for. Which
comically dumbs down the narrative (Iran WMD, contras, etc) Anyway, this dangerous alliance of tech/money/guns serves as an imposing,
probably unbeatable force of a managing agent. As this engine manages to build superior narratives as an exhaust,making sure nothing
stands in its way. Professor Fukuyama, I'm sure is tossing and turning but I always thought of him as a man with ethics, so I
feel for him. I don't think he intended it this way.
Stephen Banicki Nov 5, 2019 Well said
and the near depression of 2008 proves that a market not properly regulated can result in a disaster. 2008 was a good example
where sub-prime lending went unregulated, corruption prevailed with the result being a near depression.
Raising the minimum wage, food stamps and other social programs are short term band aids to the real solutions of bringing
back free markets and significantly improving our ability to provide a good education to all Americans.
These social programs should be used to buy time so we can get things right. Getting things right is going to take a while;
at least a generation. There are no quick fixes. The President needs to be like Teddy. Teddy Roosevelt who busted up Standard
Oil and took on the railroads. Free markets help the consumer and worker. More competition keeps prices low and increases the
demand for labor which will raise wages. For that to happen Citizens United needs to be reversed.
The Supreme Court recently said that limiting what one can spend on elections goes against free speech. I say uncontrolled
spending by the rich on elections drowns out my right to voice my opinion. We were a nation based on the principle of one man,
one vote. Today we are a nation living by the motto one dollar, one vote. If you don't have lots of dollars too bad. Your vote
does not count for much. So I am in favor of raising the minimum wage as long as we will also address the longer term problems
of improving education and truly seeking free markets. Just like the vote, free markets have been bought. ... http://lstrn.us/1hkN2ll
Yoshimichi Moriyama Nov 5, 2019
We must not be deceived by economics theories; they are more often than not propaganda selfishly committed to protecting class
or group interests.
Excuse me for my senile nostalgia for the days at college. In my first year I had to attend two English classes and the reading
assignment for one of them was Henry S. Commager/The American Mind. "The most realistic of American economists, he (Veblen) never
failed to ask of the institutions which he examined: how do they work? This question he aske explicitly; it is relevant to add
that he asked only implicitly: how should they work?"
A friend of my wife's brought a lot of books a month ago, said his father had bought them and asked if I was interested in
any of them; she told me to dispose of the rest. The following is from Samuel Koenig/Sociology:An Introduction to the Science
of Society, published in 1964.
"The structure of economic institutions and the ideas upon which they are based are the primary concern of economics. Economic
institutions, however, do not have a separate, independent existence. They are part and parcel of the culture of a society, being
influenced by the other constituents of a culture and, in turn, influencing them. In other words, economic activities are inseparable
from social life and cannot be understood apart from it. Many economic activities are themselve social in character..."
Alongside respect for knowledge, knowledge of respect might be useful at some point, as it is often difficult to build a second
floor before the first floor is build. Reply
Are we starting to witness some state cinture in Spain?
After yesterday warning, is the socialist government of Sánchez turning, at least a
bit, if only in form, socialist?
( after the advance of the "devotes of Trump´s night worship" in yesterday elections
and probably progession of Spanish policy investigation on Barcelona riots, two events that
reinforced each other? )
Spain criticizes the role of the Bolivian Army and Police in the resignation of President
Evo Morales, after protests against his re-election.
Spain joins the avalanche of international comdenations before the proceeding of the
Bolivian Army and Police at the juncture that the Latin American country is going through,
since, according to a statement issued on Monday by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in this regard, that proceeding reminds past times in Latin American history, even more
when President Evo Morales opted for a new call for elections.
"Spain condemns that the process opened yesterday towards a new electoral call has been
distorted by the intervention of the Armed Forces and the Police, suggesting to Evo Morales
to submit his resignation", the note said.
Likewise, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls "all actors to avoid resorting
to violence" and "to guarantee the security of all Bolivians (...) including former
President Morales himself, his relatives and members of his administration".
For his part, the general secretary of the Spanish Unidas Podemos party, Pablo
Iglesias, has written on his Twitter account that "Coup d'etat in Bolivia. Shameful that
there are media that say the army makes the president resign. In the last 14 years Bolivia
has improved all its social and economic indicators. All our support to the Bolivian people
and Evo Morales".
The style of scaring the people is a total imitation from post-Maidan Ukraine, where
communists and other opposed factions in Rada were beaten, covered in paint and thrown in
waste containers...until they left the country...
Then Myrotvorets was launched and the first killings on those who dared to quition
Euromaydan events... Recall Alex Buzina... Any compromised intellectual will suffer the same
fate in Bolivia...
Guess who is behind this coup at the letter of the book...
Don't get me wrong Sasha, I don't think Evo's team objective, 2 weeks after they've win them,
was to repeat elections so soon. This is likely their best approach right now, for the sake
of Bolivians and their supporters. Not mentioning possible reaction a la Caracas.
#InfoMV Evo Morales denounced that his security personnel were offered 50 thousand dollars
for him to be delivered to violent opposition groups. He held Fernando Camacho and Carlos
Mesa responsible for what would happen to him or García Linera.
@Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 10 2019 23:43 utc | 53
You seem to be unaware of the developments of events to this time, Evo called for
elections BEFORE he was oblied to resign by police and military rebels, and made leave the
country...
Elections now with every Evo´s supporter under menace of death would only throw a fake
result favourable to the opposition who did not manage to win elections democratically...
This is the same scenario than in the Ukraine, where representatives of the working people
were never more able to concur to elections and had to leave the country, remaining to be
elected only those puppets of oligarchs or the US...
Pasquinades posted by coupist opposition before Efvo´s resignation what ccan illustrate
why the government has resigned so fast...
Pure fascism....
What I told you? Here you have the Bolivian Myrotvorets .....
Traitor Tracking The population is asked to register all the social network publications of
the "Cyber llunkus". Take screenshots and copy the links of the publications and profiles
of the "Cyber Llunkus".
The M.A.S. ( Evo´s party ) is a criminal organization.
Once Evo Morales falls, a rake will be made to identify the traitorous of the people "Cyber
Llunkus" and imprison them through the location of their mobile devices.
Fake profiles will not save them.
#Civil Resistance Bolivia
Now that the US tells us the tale of democratic elections in Bolivia now...
A people's Counter-revolution that sweeps the Reactionaries down the drain once and for
all.
Chavez was keen to the CIA's modus and thus reformed the military in numerous respects,
particularly by making it impervious to corruption--AND--instituting the uniquely structured
Bolivarian Constitution. Evo's problems stem from the lack of extensive public support as
proven by the election results that kept him from instituting the sort of reforms Chavez
accomplished; and the same goes for all other Latin American nations. In a nutshell, the
Bolivian people squabbled too much amongst themselves and never constructed the type of
Revolutionary constitution and social system required to be resilient to outside
manipulation. Yes, Venezuela was very much a Bottom->Up remaking of society to the point
where the Comprador upper 10% didn't matter, which is why Chavez then Maduro left them to
their own devices. But elsewhere, the popular masses never generated the required solidarity
to prevent losing their hard won freedoms. Sure, it's possible to regain power through the
ballot box, but it can be just as easily lost as is happening now in Bolivia if preventative
measures aren't taken beforehand.
Nations must have constitutions that don't allow for rich minorities to gain control or to
allow them to begin in control as in the USA's case. But to institute such an instrument, the
popular masses must act as one and cast their factionalisms aside until this primary aspect
of consolidating power in their hands becomes the law of their land. Plus, they must again
drop their in-fighting when confronted by any reactionary threat and remember what the main
task is at all times--Maintenance of Freedom.
We all see what seems to be the demise of empire but facts on the ground tell a different
story today in Bolivia. I am sorry for the pain and suffering for many caused by my country
under the control of the global private finance cult. I continue to try and spread the word
about the perfidy of Western empire and will keep trying but am limited in my abilities.
I hope to live to see the demise of private finance led empire all over the world.
Humanity deserves a better future.
We all see what seems to be the demise of empire but facts on the ground tell a different
story today in Bolivia. I am sorry for the pain and suffering for many caused by my country
under the control of the global private finance cult. I continue to try and spread the word
about the perfidy of Western empire and will keep trying but am limited in my abilities.
I hope to live to see the demise of private finance led empire all over the world.
Humanity deserves a better future.
What saved Venezuela was the huge investing in education started with Chavez, in that they
counted with the help and advice of people from the Spanish left ...
Bolivian people, of the poor class, are mostly poorly educated people...and so easy to buy
and fool...as this images show...
Look that this people ransacking Evo´s home, they are not white patricios ...but
those who they have payed to do the dirty work...indigenous people poorly
dressed...collaborating in ovrthrowing the legitimate democratically elected from their
own...
Yeah..this time is no different from others, they always go straight to the throat of the
weak and poor...Totally depsicable...
To their own, earning points in the view of the world...
@ Sasha who wrote
"
What saved Venezuela was the huge investing in education started with Chavez, in that they
counted with the help and advice of people from the Spanish left ...
Bolivian people, of the poor class, are mostly poorly educated people...and so easy to buy
and fool...as this images show...
"
I agree, thank you for your commenting and want to add my perspective to that.
If you read many who come and comment at MoA that supposedly are "educated" you will
notice that they continue to think and write in terms of the conflict being between socialism
and capitalism in spite of myself, karlof1 and others that continually point out that China
is 80% capitalistic as are other "socialistic" countries but what matters is what part of the
social economy is socialism versus capitalism. That is why I continue to beat my drum about
the evil of global private finance that is the core problem with the social contract of the
West. Look at how many in the West are brainwashed to not understand the difference between
public/private finance and its effects on the whole culture and aggressive nature of the
society under that meme.
That, IMO, is the core education that all those in the West and all striving to throw off
the chains/economic jackboot of the West must learn and take to heart.
Very disappointing to hear about Evo...but this is just one round in a very long fight...
In Argentina we have a new government for the people...in Mexico also...Lula is out of
jail now in Brazil so eventually that will turn also...
The empire is rotting but is very dangerous right now because they are lashing out
everywhere...we see in Lebanon and Iraq they are not succeeding...
This is desperation we see folks...they are losing control quickly and are trying
to forestall the inevitable collapse of their global fascist dictatorship...
I think the end will come much sooner than they expect...the house of cards is teetering
badly...
Maidán script all the way....They do not have enough with hi resigning, they need
to wipe out such honest leader form the face of Earth, at least while the "new fake
elections" to maskerade the take over by the opposition are developed...as happened with
Lula....
Here, US Lawyer sees all the signature of the US around the place...as happens to
me...
A significant factor is that the anti-Morales opposition is based mainly in Santa Cruz
department in eastern Bolivia. This is the largest department (in territory and population)
in Bolivia and has significant natural gas reserves. The indigenous people living in that
department have virtually nothing in common with the highland indigenous people (Aymara and
Quechua speakers) who formed Morales' base.
Morales did not have a military background as Chavez did and we can presume he was never
able to cultivate a network of militias among the urban and rural working class that could
support and defend his government. Significantly it was the armed forces who asked Morales to
resign.
@Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 11 2019 1:34 utc | 72
Sorry...but the conflict is between socialism and capitalism...between the rich and the
working masses, especially those who work and still they remain poor....as has always
been....who says otherwise is only trying to fool the masses...
Of course, you people in this forum who live over the average peer, I do not try that you
understand...
You live in your world, looking your belly button, and the furthest you are willing to go is
complain here about the Outlaw US Empire...
Why do you not damn go tomorrow in the streets to protest this new coup by your fascist
administration?
Do not tell me, that would risk your privileged pensions...and all those expensive things
you do to your bodies...
Excuse me, but today, reading the same stupid things of always make me feel like throwing
up...
Fully support the findings of the @OAS_official report recommending new elections in
#Bolivia to ensure a truly democratic process representative of the people's will. The
credibility of the electoral system must be restored.
Will he still support new elections in the morning?
Meanwhile the protesters are calling MAS a criminal
organization so no doubt it'll be excluded from the new elections as happened to the
Party Of The Regions in Ukraine. The wonders of American "democracy".
Why was Evo Morales overthrown? He was nationalizing the highly profitable lithium
industry and planning to deal directly on the international market rather than exporting the
commodity at bargain prices to Western corporations"
"Bolivia has %43 of World's Lithium mines. Batteries from smartphones to Electric cars are
all made with Lithium. Evo Morales was investing in facilities to produce Lithium as a high
end export material rather than just exporting the mine itself."
Somewhere on his blog "Sic Semper Tyrannis", maybe earlier this year, Pat relates the tale
of how when working for the US Gov. in Bolivia he gave medical help to someone and was
rewarded with information which led to the capture of Che Guevara. This may be what Sasha is
referring to.
"The Hydrocarbons law (Law 3058, May 2005) and a subsequent Supreme Decree (May 2006)
require that companies sell all production to YPFB and that domestic market demand be met
before exporting hydrocarbons. Furthermore, these laws transfer the entire transport and
sales chain over to state control. After the law was enacted, hydrocarbon companies were
required to sign new contracts with YPFB, agreeing to pay 50 percent of gross production in
taxes and royalties."
"Prepared by our U.S. Embassies abroad. With its network of 108 offices across the United
States and in more than 75 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of
Commerce utilizes its global presence and international marketing expertise to help U.S.
companies sell their products and services worldwide. Locate the U.S. Commercial Service
trade specialist in the U.S. nearest you by visiting http://export.gov/usoffices."
I usually try to read all the comments before making my first of the day, but I have yet to
do so, although I looked to see if anyone had linked to Escobar's
report on Lula and Brazil , which is an extremely important article for events within
Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and the rest of the world that's resisting the
Outlaw US Empire and its Neoliberal/Neofascist attack dogs.
The information Pepe provides is very important as it jibes with what Assad averred in
his RT
interview , for which I'm still looking for a transcript. Here's Pepe's warning about the
likely future course of events, which has CIA scrawled over every act:
"With the military betting on a strategy of chaos, augmented by Lula's immense social base
all over Brazil fuming about his return to prison and the financial bubble finally burst,
rendering the middle classes even poorer, the stage would be set for the ultimate toxic
cocktail: social 'commotion' allied with 'terrorism' associated with 'organized crime.'
"That's all the military needs to launch an extensive operation to restore "order" and
finally force Congress to approve the Brazilian version of the Patriot Act (five separate
bills are already making their way in Congress).
" This is no conspiracy theory. This is a measure of how incendiary Brazil is at the
moment, and Western mainstream media will make no effort whatsoever to explain the nasty,
convoluted plot for a global audience ." [My Emphasis]
Bolivia coup was orchestrated with direct assist of OAS analysis/report which identified
alleged voting fraud. OAS report focuses on a vote-counting system called TREP, which was
adopted by Bolivia and others in the region on direct advice of OAS. The TREP system is meant
to provide/ publicize initial results, but it is not "official". The official results come
from a slower and more thorough vote count process. The OAS claim of irregularities in the
TREP count is largely irrelevant, as it was never intended to be "official" or legally
reflect official results. There were no irregularities in the official count, won by Morales,
and the so-called "delay" was in fact the natural process of the slower moving count to
produce the official result.
While Trump denounced Morales, the US State Department stepped in to sanitize Washington's
position, with a senior official telling Reuters that the US has "no preference" among
opposition candidates. The spokesperson did say, however, that anyone who tried to
"distort" last month's vote should not be allowed to participate .
That's MAS banned from the election by the cunts in the fucking State Department. Imagine
if the Russian MFA announced that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties could field
presidential candidates in 2020. Trump is an idiot but the State Department, DoJ, and
Treasury are the real bastards. Forget the CIA, that's just a bunch of senile tossers who
have wet dreams about Cold War 2.0.
b mentioned lithium with reference to Bolivia in his 139 above
Nov 11, 2019 -- Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational
Firm's Lithium Deal
"Bolivia's lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate
cabals."
The Morales move on Nov. 4 to cancel the December 2018 agreement with Germany's ACI Systems
Alemania (ACISA) came after weeks of protests from residents of the Potosí area. The
region has 50% to 70% of the world's lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.
Among other clients, ACISA provides batteries to Tesla; Tesla's stock rose Monday after the
weekend.
As Bloomberg News noted in 2018, that has set the country up to be incredibly important in
the next decade:
Demand for lithium is expected to more than double by 2025. The soft, light mineral is
mined mainly in Australia, Chile, and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty -- 9 million tons that
have never been mined commercially, the second-largest amount in the world -- but until now
there's been no practical way to mine and sell it. . .
here
But Teslas catch fire....from ZPower--
Actually, lithium may be in trouble for vehicle batteries.
Just as lithium-ion (Li-ion) replaced nickel metal hydride (NiMH) before it and nickel
cadmium (NiCd) before that, silver zinc (AgZn) batteries are on track to replace Li-ion too,
according to a McGraw-Hill forecast as far back as 2010. Since then silver zinc has been
perfected and are on the market for rechargeable hearing-aid "button" batteries by ZPower LL
(Camarillo, Calif.) They are nonflammable and could provide up to 40 percent more run time
than lithium-ion batteries. . . here
Credit where its due: both Corbyn and Sanders have issued statements against the coup in
Bolivia.
On the other hand the recently re-elected, appalling government of Canada has backed it to
the hilt. Was probably involved in financing it. See yves engler https://dissidentvoice.org/2019/11/canada-backs-coup-against-bolivias-president/
The State Department which rarely misses a chance to discredit the democracy that it so
hates, is accusing Morales of 'distorting' the election result. Nobody is suggesting that he
didn't win the election, at most it is being claimed that his margin of victory, more than
10%, was exaggerated.
A similar, equally spurious claim was used to justify the coup against Aristide. There it was
not disputed that Lavelan candidates had won their senatorial elections but that their
victories were merely pluralities not majorities.
For this offence Canada, the US and (let it be recalled) Brazil occupied the country,
kidnapped Aristide and banned his party from running in future elections.
On November 7, 2019, the National Court of Justice of Ecuador ratified the preventive
detention of former president Rafael Correa , along with a number of his former officials.
Immediately after the court rendered its decision for pretrial detention, Correa rejected
accusations of bribery, illicit association and contributions to his political campaign between
2012 and 2016, while he was the leader of Alianza Patria Altiva i Soberana (PAIS). Correa
founded Alianza PAIS in 2006, as a democratic socialist political party with an objective to
achieve economic and political sovereignty, and foment a social and economic revolution in the
nation, which came to be known as The Citizens' Revolution (La Revolución
Ciudadana).
During his presidency, which lasted from January 15, 2007 to May 24, 2017, Correa
introduced a brand of 21 st century socialism to Ecuador, with a focus on improving
the living standards of the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population. His
presidency was part of 'the revolutionary wave' in Latin America, referred to as 'Pink tide',
where a number of left-wing and socialist governments swept into power throughout the continent
during the 2000s, including Cristina Néstor Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner in
Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Manuel Zelaya in
Honduras, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, and Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela. All of these governments were opposed to neo-liberal economic policies and American
imperialism.
While he was president, Correa raised taxes on the rich and cut down on tax evasion, and
increased public investment on infrastructure and public services, including publicly-funded
pensions, housing, free health care and education. His government ended up building many
schools in different parts of the nation, particularly the countryside, and provided students
with nearly all of the materials needed to further their studies. President Correa also more
than doubled the minimum wage, which contributed to significantly reducing socioeconomic
inequality. In 2018, a World Bank report explained that:
Ecuador has made notable improvements in reducing poverty over the last decade. Income
poverty decreased from 36.7 percent in 2007 to 21.5 percent in 2017. In addition, the share
of the population living in extreme poverty fell by more than half, from 16.5 percent in 2007
to 7.9 percent in 2017, representing an average annual drop of 0.9 percentage points. In
absolute numbers, these changes represent a total of 1.6 million individuals exiting poverty,
and about one million exiting extreme poverty over the last decade.[i]
Furthermore, the unemployment rate fell from an 'all time high of 11.86 percent in the first
quarter of 2004' to 'a record low of 4.54 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014'[ii]. The World
Bank also reported that Ecuador posted annual economic growth of '4.5 percent during 2001-2014,
well above the average for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region of 3.3 percent.
During this period, real GDP doubled and real GDP per capita increased by 50 percent.'[iii]
On October 1, 2016, Correa announced the nomination of Lenín Boltaire Moreno
Garcés , who served as his vice president from 2007 to 2013, as his party's candidate
for the 2017 presidential election at the conference of Alianza PAIS. Moreno was elected
president, and it was expected that he would continue and build on Correa's left-wing economic
policies. However, within a few months of winning the election, president Moreno began to
dismantle many of the social, economic and political reforms enacted by Correa during his
decade as president. Contrary to Correa's government, many of the domestic policies pursued by
president Moreno included reducing public spending, weakening worker rights, and providing
significant tax cuts to the rich and large corporations. In other words, president Moreno has
gradually shifted Ecuador's left-wing policies to the political centre-right.
Moreno's presidency also shifted Ecuador's foreign policy stance, giving it a more
neo-liberal and pro-American orientation. When Correa's socialist government was in power,
Ecuador enjoyed close diplomatic and economic relations with Venezuela, and was more
independent of American hegemony. For example, president Correa closed a US military base in
Manta, Ecuador when Washington's lease expired in 2009. Prior to that, in 2007, Correa
stated:
We'll renew the [Manta air] base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami --
an Ecuadorean base if there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely,
they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.[iv]
Subsequently, on September 18, 2009, he also said:
As long as I am president, I will not allow foreign bases in our homeland, I will not
allow interference in our affairs, I will not negotiate our sovereignty and I will not accept
guardians of our democracy.
Contrary to Correa, the US-Ecuador military relationship has expanded under the Moreno
government 'through training, assistance, and the reestablishment of an Office of Security
Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Quito.'[v]Ecuador and the US have also signed deals for the
purchase of weapons and other military equipment, and agreed to cooperate more closely in the
areas of security, intelligence, and counter-narcotics.
In 2011, president Correa expelled US ambassador Heather Hodges from Quito. Subsequently, in
2014, his government expelled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
from the country, where it had been operating since 1961 as part of John F. Kennedy's Alliance
for Progress (AFP)[vi]. USAID regularly exercises 'soft power' in Latin American nations in
order to help the US establish itself as an 'international police power'[vii]. In May 2019,
Moreno's government announced that USAID would return to Ecuador.
President Correa also became renowned for providing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with
political asylum in Ecuador's London embassy in 2012 to prevent his arrest and possible
extradition to the US. However, shortly after his election, there were indications that Moreno
might be willing to hand him over to authorities in the UK. In addition to calling Assange an
'inherited problem,' a 'spoiled brat' and a 'miserable hacker', Moreno accused him of
repeatedly violating his asylum conditions and of trying to use the embassy as a 'centre for
spying'[viii]. Then, on April 11, Assange's political asylum was revoked, which allowed him to
be forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy by British police.In response, Correa called
Moreno 'the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history' for committing 'a crime
humanity will never forget'[ix].
President Correa's government supported the integration of South America countries into a
single economic and political bloc. However, since Moreno came to power, Ecuador has distanced
itself from the Venezuelan government, and withdrew from the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas[x](ALBA) in August 2018, as well as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in
September 2019. UNASUR was established by 12 South American countries in 2008to address
important issues in the region without the presence of the United States. Currently, only five
members remain: Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. The other seven members,
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay, agreed to create the Forum for
the Progress of South America (PROSUR) in March 2019. The goal of this alternative organization
is to achieve the right-wing agenda in Latin America, as its members support neo-liberal
austerity measures and closer ties with Washington. It could be said that PROSUR aligns well
with the goals and objectives of the Monroe Doctrine.
Another major shift in president Moreno's political stance pertains to lawsuits brought
against Texaco/Chevron by the Correa government to obtain compensation for environmental
damages caused when the operations of Texaco (acquired by Chevron in 2001) dumped 16 billion
gallons of toxic wastewater in the Amazon region of Ecuador between 1964 and 1992, affecting
more than 30,000 Indigenous people and Campesinos in the area. 'Chevron left 880 pits full of
crude oil which are still there, the rivers are still full of hydrocarbon sediment and polluted
by the crude oil spills in Amazonia, which is one of the most biodiversity rich regions in the
world'[xi], and 'the damage has been left unrepaired for more than 40 years'[xii]. To raise
public awareness about this environmental disaster, president Correa's government established
an international campaign called the 'Dirty Hand of Chevron'. In 2011, the Ecuadorian
Constitutional Court ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion in compensation for social and
environmental damages it caused.
In September 2018, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an agency of the United Nations
based in the Hague, Netherlands, ruled that the Ecuadorian court decision against Chevron was
illegal, because it was an outcome of fraud, bribery, and corruption. The PCA 'also ruled that
Ecuador will have to pay economic compensation'[xiii]to Chevron. 'The amount has not been
established yet, but Chevron requested that Ecuador assume the US$9.5 billion' awarded to
affected communities by the Ecuadorean court.[xiv]Following the PCA decision, the government of
president Moreno announced that:
the state will sue former President Rafael Correa and his government officials if Ecuador
lost the international arbitration process.[xv]
In this matter, president Moreno also accused Correa of 'failing to defend the country's
interests correctly and spending money on "The Dirty Hand of Chevron" campaign, which according
to the government sought to "manipulate national and international public opinion."'[xvi] In
reality, president Moreno supports the PCA decision, thereby prioritizing the interest of
Texaco/Chevron over those of his own citizens . In fact, his government has been attempting
to nullify the Constitutional Court ruling against Chevron. In response, former president
Correa has accused the Moreno government of 'doing homework ordered by (the United States Vice
President Mike) Pence'. Even some of Moreno's own cabinet ministers condemned the PCA ruling
and expressed their support for Ecuador's Constitutional Court for defending of the country's
nationals interest and the rights of the people of the Amazon.
Correa exhibited a hostile attitude towards the Bretton Woods Institutions during his
presidency. He sought to renegotiate Ecuador's external debt of US$10.2 billion, which he
called 'illegitimate' because 'it was accrued during autocratic and corrupt regimes of the
past. Correa threatened to default on Ecuador's foreign debt, and ordered the expulsion of the
World Bank's country manager'[xvii], which was carried out on April 26, 2007. His government
also opposed the signing of any agreements that would permit the IMF to monitor Ecuador's
economic plan. As a result of such actions on the part of Correa's government, 'Ecuador was
able to renegotiate its debt with its creditors and redirect public funds towards social
investments.'[xviii]
To the contrary, Moreno has enthusiastically embraced the IMF during his short time as
president. On March 1, 2019, Ecuador's central bank manager, Verónica Artola
Jarrín, and economy and finance minister, Richard Martínez Alvarado,submitted a
letter of intent to the IMF requesting a three-year $4.2 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF)
agreement. An EFF allows the IMF to assist countries that are facing 'serious medium-term
balance of payments problems.' More precisely, EFF is designed to:
to provide assistance to countries: (i) experiencing serious payments imbalances because
of structural impediments; or (ii) characterized by slow growth and an inherently weak
balance of payments position. The EFF provides assistance in support of comprehensive
programs that include policies of the scope and character required to correct structural
imbalances over an extended period.[xix]
The IMF agreement signed in March allowed Ecuador to borrow $4.2 billion. However, as is
always the case, the IMF agreement was not without conditionalities, as it required the
Ecuadorian government to implement a series of neo-liberal economic reforms. According to IMF
statements, these reforms aim to transform Ecuador's fiscal deficit into a surplus, reduce the
country's debt-to-GDP ratio, and increase foreign investment. On March 11, 2019, Christine
Lagarde, former Managing Director of the IMF, claimed that:
The Ecuadorian authorities are implementing a comprehensive reform program aimed at
modernizing the economy and paving the way for strong, sustained, and equitable
growth.[xx]
On March 11, 2019, Christine Lagarde also explained that:
Achieving a robust fiscal position is at the core of the authorities' program, which will
be supported by a three-year extended arrangement from the IMF. The aim is to reduce
debt-to-GDP ratio through a combination of a wage bill realignment, a careful and gradual
optimization of fuel subsidies, a reprioritization of capital and goods and services
spending, and a tax reform. The savings generated by these measures will allow for an
increase in social assistance spending over the course of the program. The authorities will
continue their efforts to strengthen the medium-term fiscal policy framework, and more
rigorous fiscal controls and better public financial management will help to enhance the
effectiveness of fiscal policy.[xxi]
Protecting the poor and most vulnerable segments in society is a key objective of the
authorities' program. In this context, the authorities plan to extend the coverage of, and
increase the nominal level of benefits under the existing social protection programs. Work is
also underway to improve the targeting of social programs.[xxii]
Ecuador's participation in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
represents another point of contention between Correa and the Moreno government. Ecuador was a
member of OPEC from 1973 and 1992. After a period of absence, it rejoined the organization in
2007 after Correa became president of the country. However, on October 1 st ,
president Moreno announced that Ecuador would once again end its membership in OPEC effective
January 1, 2020. Given Moreno's penchant for implementing neo-liberal economic policies, this
decision was likely based on the notion that freeing the country from the burden of having to
abide by quotas would bring fiscal sustainability to Ecuador. This is evidenced by the fact
that Ecuador contacted OPEC to request permission to produce above its quota in February 2019,
though it was never confirmed whether a response was received[xxiii]. While increasing
production in its Amazonian oil fields would likely bring more foreign investment to Ecuador
and open up new markets, it would also lead to serious conflicts between the Moreno government
and the indigenous people living in the area, who are strongly opposed to oil extraction.
In addition to announcing Ecuador's departure from OPEC, president Moreno also selected
October 1 st as the date to introduce Decree 883, a series of economic measures that
included ending longstanding subsidies for fuel, the removal of some import tariffs, and cuts
to the benefits and wages of public employees. In particular, the elimination of fuel
subsidies, which had been in place for 40 years, was instituted in order to meet IMF
requirements to keep the $4.2 billion programme on track, and to satisfy international
investors. The EFF agreement between the IMF and the Ecuadorean government also called for
thousands of public employees to be laid off, the privatization of public assets, the
separation of the central bank from the government, cutting public expenditures, and raising
taxes over the next three years. IMF representatives claim that these types of reforms bring
more foreign direct investment into the economy.
In fact, a close examination of the neo-liberal economic reforms recommended by the IMF in
many countries reveals that they are almost identical, meaning that they do not take the
diverse needs and realities of each country into account; rather, they are driven by the
interests of the countries and other stakeholders that provide the funds. Generally, the IMF's
recommendations[xxiv]consist of cutting deficits, liberalizing trade, privatizing state-owned
enterprises, reforming the banking and financial systems, increasing taxes, raising interest
rates, and reforming key sectors. However, countless studies have revealed that these types of
reforms, have raised the unemployment rate, created poverty, and have often preceded
recessions. On October 2, 2019, the IMF issued a press release on Ecuador stating that:
The reforms announced yesterday by President Lenin Moreno aim to improve the resilience
and sustainability of Ecuador's economy and foster strong, and inclusive growth. The
announcement included important measures to protect the poor and most vulnerable, as well as
to generate jobs in a more competitive economy.
The authorities are also working on important reforms aimed at supporting Ecuador's
dollarization, including the reform of the central bank and the organic code of budget and
planning.
IMF staff will continue to work closely with the authorities to improve the prospects for
all Ecuadorians. The second review is expected to be submitted to the Executive Board in the
coming weeks.[xxv]
President Moreno's decision to end the subsidies on fuel led to the prices of diesel and
petroleum increasing by 100% and 30%, respectively, overnight, which directly contributed to
significantly raising the costs of public transportation. In response, protests erupted against
Moreno's austerity measures on October 3 rd , featuring students, unions and
indigenous organizations. They declared an indefinite general strike until the government
reversed its neo-liberal adjustment package. Moreno's initial response was to reject the
ultimatum and state that he would 'not negotiate with criminals.'
The following day, on October 4, 2019, president Moreno declared a state of emergency under
the pretext of ensuring the security of citizens and to 'avoid chaos.' Nonetheless, the
protests continued and intensified to the point that the government was forced to relocate to
city of Guayaquil because Quito had been overrun by anti-government protestors. However, this
attempt to escape the protestors proved ineffective as taxi, bus and truck drivers blocked
roads and bridges in Guayaquil, as well as in Quito, which disrupted transportation
nationwide.
In the following days, thousands of demonstrators continued to demand the reversal of
austerity measures, as well as the resignation of the president. However, Moreno remained
defiant, refusing both demands under all circumstances. Subsequently, Ecuador's main oil
pipeline ceased operations after it was seized by indigenous protesters. Petro-Ecuador was
concerned that production losses could reach 165,000 barrels a day. Indigenous protesters also
occupied two water treatment plants in the city of Ambato. Meanwhile, violent clashes between
protesters and police resulted in seven deaths , about 2,000 injuries, and over 1,000
arrests. Eventually, Moreno's government was forced to back down and make concession with the
well -organised protesters.
On October 13, president Moreno agreed to withdraw Decree 883 and replace the IMF-backed
plan with a new proposal, involving negotiations with the Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and other social groups. The following day, president Moreno
signed Decree 894, which reinstated the cancelled fuel subsidies. However, on October 23,
CONAIE released a statement informing the public that 'it paused talks with President Lenin
Moreno because of the government's "persecution" of the group's leaders [Jaime Vargas] since a
halt to violent anti-austerity protests.'[xxvi]
It is unlikely that president Moreno would be willing to give up on his austerity policies
or start the process of cancelling the IMF loan, given his apparent commitment to helping the
US realize the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Many of the reforms and policies that his
government has introduced will help keep Ecuador firmly entrenched in America's backyard for
years to come.
This is not a new development, as history has revealed that, for more than a century
, 'in Latin America there are more than enough of the kind of rulers who are ready to use
Yankee troops against their own people when they find themselves in crisis' (Fidel Castro,
Havana 1962). However, the eruption of protests in response to Moreno's neo-liberal reforms
suggests that he faces an uphill battle, as his fellow Ecuadorians do not appear to share his
enthusiasm for selling his country to external creditors and foreign influences. Although
Moreno has managed to successfully drive Rafael Correa out of Ecuador, the former president's
opposition to capitalism and imperialism remain strong among the population.
*
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Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the
University of Ottawa.
Yes, the US and the EU betrayed the Iran deal the moment the ink was on the page and Trump's
actions merely formalized an open betrayal. However, with respect to Russia and China's
intentions regarding Iran, I surmise that they have realised that a bifurcation of the world
economy into a US sphere and a non-US sphere is now unavoidable and they are playing the long
game. By allowing the US/EU to continue threaten and harass Iran, violating their own
agreement, they are in effect allowing the Europeans to slit their own throats with respect
to their trustworthiness and independence, after all why sign an agreement with the EU if
they fold like a wet tissue the moment the Americans change their minds. Whereas the Russians
and Chinese give iron-clad guarantees and are dependable allies.
Further, the Russians and Chinese are under no formal obligations to defend Iran's
interest (and both states have prior, though minor, issues with Iran), so I imagine they see
the American's actions as useful for indirectly pressuring the Iranians into more favorable
trade and security relations. That having been said, I imagine the Chinese and Russians have
jointly agreed to some non-negotiable redlines regarding US actions towards Iran that they
will allow. Namely, I think if the US were to attack Iran they would start funneling arms to
them immediately and turn a blind eye towards Iranian counter moves in the rest of the Middle
East. Though I'm curious as to b's opinion on this matter, what does he think the Russians
and Chinese would do if the US attacked Iran or were crazy enough to invade?
I imagine the Chinese and Russians have jointly agreed to some non-negotiable redlines
regarding US actions towards Iran that they will allow.
I agree with that...
I imagine they [Russia and China] see the American's actions as useful for indirectly
pressuring the Iranians into more favorable trade and security relations.
I don't see this at all...I don't think trade has anything to do with it...security only
indirectly...
I think Russia and China would like to see Iran move toward a more mature diplomacy, that
is more in alignment with the impeccably legalistic position of the two powers that are
shaping the emerging new order...
The overarching aim for the duo is to restore a functioning international legal
order, as embodied in the creation of the UN and its charter...as well as the supreme
authority of the Security Council...
This order was the outcome of WW2 in which both China and Russia suffered greatly...and
both are adamant about restoring a genuine legal order where outlaw states cannot thumb their
nose with impunity...
The key here is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization...which is clearly the most
important supranational 'club' in the world...and only getting stronger...
Iran has been in the SCO 'waiting room' for a long time now...even Turkey will likely get
in sooner...
A couple of reasons for that, and it has to do with Iran's politics...
First, Iran is a theocracy at bottom...the state embodies many desirable aspects of
socialism in its functioning, but it also views itself as the 'defender' of world
Islam...anywhere, anytime...
This is not up to par to the diplomacy practiced by the likes of Putin and Xi...
For instance, the Iranians were quick to jump into the manufactured 'Rohingya crisis' in
Burma...which is clearly an agitation project designed to put a stick in the spokes of the
BRI...
China was surely irritated...
For Russia, another irritant coming from Iran is its maximalist approach to Israel...we
note that a large population of Israel is Russian-speaking...
Israel does have the right to exist in its pre-1967 borders, as established by UNSC 242
and other subsequent resolutions...[it must also withdraw unconditionally from those occupied
territories as per those resolutions, but, with the US backing, is ignoring international
law]...
So Iran is not quite up to par diplomatically as far as the two big powers shaping the new
world order are concerned...
However...I do not think that either Russia or China would try to exploit the pressure
on Iran by steering it towards the path they would like...I don't think they would make such
a linkage, as this itself is bad diplomacy...
The bottom line is that there is probably zero desire on either Russia or China's part to
exploit Iran's situation...this is not how these two powers operate...
On November 7, 2019, the National Court of Justice of Ecuador ratified the preventive
detention of former president Rafael Correa , along with a number of his former officials.
Immediately after the court rendered its decision for pretrial detention, Correa rejected
accusations of bribery, illicit association and contributions to his political campaign between
2012 and 2016, while he was the leader of Alianza Patria Altiva i Soberana (PAIS). Correa
founded Alianza PAIS in 2006, as a democratic socialist political party with an objective to
achieve economic and political sovereignty, and foment a social and economic revolution in the
nation, which came to be known as The Citizens' Revolution (La Revolución
Ciudadana).
During his presidency, which lasted from January 15, 2007 to May 24, 2017, Correa
introduced a brand of 21 st century socialism to Ecuador, with a focus on improving
the living standards of the poorest and most vulnerable segments of the population. His
presidency was part of 'the revolutionary wave' in Latin America, referred to as 'Pink tide',
where a number of left-wing and socialist governments swept into power throughout the continent
during the 2000s, including Cristina Néstor Kirchner and Fernández de Kirchner in
Argentina, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil, Manuel Zelaya in
Honduras, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, Fernando Lugo in Paraguay, and Hugo Chávez in
Venezuela. All of these governments were opposed to neo-liberal economic policies and American
imperialism.
While he was president, Correa raised taxes on the rich and cut down on tax evasion, and
increased public investment on infrastructure and public services, including publicly-funded
pensions, housing, free health care and education. His government ended up building many
schools in different parts of the nation, particularly the countryside, and provided students
with nearly all of the materials needed to further their studies. President Correa also more
than doubled the minimum wage, which contributed to significantly reducing socioeconomic
inequality. In 2018, a World Bank report explained that:
Ecuador has made notable improvements in reducing poverty over the last decade. Income
poverty decreased from 36.7 percent in 2007 to 21.5 percent in 2017. In addition, the share
of the population living in extreme poverty fell by more than half, from 16.5 percent in 2007
to 7.9 percent in 2017, representing an average annual drop of 0.9 percentage points. In
absolute numbers, these changes represent a total of 1.6 million individuals exiting poverty,
and about one million exiting extreme poverty over the last decade.[i]
Furthermore, the unemployment rate fell from an 'all time high of 11.86 percent in the first
quarter of 2004' to 'a record low of 4.54 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014'[ii]. The World
Bank also reported that Ecuador posted annual economic growth of '4.5 percent during 2001-2014,
well above the average for the Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) region of 3.3 percent.
During this period, real GDP doubled and real GDP per capita increased by 50 percent.'[iii]
On October 1, 2016, Correa announced the nomination of Lenín Boltaire Moreno
Garcés , who served as his vice president from 2007 to 2013, as his party's candidate
for the 2017 presidential election at the conference of Alianza PAIS. Moreno was elected
president, and it was expected that he would continue and build on Correa's left-wing economic
policies. However, within a few months of winning the election, president Moreno began to
dismantle many of the social, economic and political reforms enacted by Correa during his
decade as president. Contrary to Correa's government, many of the domestic policies pursued by
president Moreno included reducing public spending, weakening worker rights, and providing
significant tax cuts to the rich and large corporations. In other words, president Moreno has
gradually shifted Ecuador's left-wing policies to the political centre-right.
Moreno's presidency also shifted Ecuador's foreign policy stance, giving it a more
neo-liberal and pro-American orientation. When Correa's socialist government was in power,
Ecuador enjoyed close diplomatic and economic relations with Venezuela, and was more
independent of American hegemony. For example, president Correa closed a US military base in
Manta, Ecuador when Washington's lease expired in 2009. Prior to that, in 2007, Correa
stated:
We'll renew the [Manta air] base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami --
an Ecuadorean base if there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's soil, surely,
they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.[iv]
Subsequently, on September 18, 2009, he also said:
As long as I am president, I will not allow foreign bases in our homeland, I will not
allow interference in our affairs, I will not negotiate our sovereignty and I will not accept
guardians of our democracy.
Contrary to Correa, the US-Ecuador military relationship has expanded under the Moreno
government 'through training, assistance, and the reestablishment of an Office of Security
Cooperation at the U.S. Embassy in Quito.'[v]Ecuador and the US have also signed deals for the
purchase of weapons and other military equipment, and agreed to cooperate more closely in the
areas of security, intelligence, and counter-narcotics.
In 2011, president Correa expelled US ambassador Heather Hodges from Quito. Subsequently, in
2014, his government expelled the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
from the country, where it had been operating since 1961 as part of John F. Kennedy's Alliance
for Progress (AFP)[vi]. USAID regularly exercises 'soft power' in Latin American nations in
order to help the US establish itself as an 'international police power'[vii]. In May 2019,
Moreno's government announced that USAID would return to Ecuador.
President Correa also became renowned for providing Wikileaks founder Julian Assange with
political asylum in Ecuador's London embassy in 2012 to prevent his arrest and possible
extradition to the US. However, shortly after his election, there were indications that Moreno
might be willing to hand him over to authorities in the UK. In addition to calling Assange an
'inherited problem,' a 'spoiled brat' and a 'miserable hacker', Moreno accused him of
repeatedly violating his asylum conditions and of trying to use the embassy as a 'centre for
spying'[viii]. Then, on April 11, Assange's political asylum was revoked, which allowed him to
be forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy by British police.In response, Correa called
Moreno 'the greatest traitor in Ecuadorian and Latin American history' for committing 'a crime
humanity will never forget'[ix].
President Correa's government supported the integration of South America countries into a
single economic and political bloc. However, since Moreno came to power, Ecuador has distanced
itself from the Venezuelan government, and withdrew from the Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas[x](ALBA) in August 2018, as well as the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in
September 2019. UNASUR was established by 12 South American countries in 2008to address
important issues in the region without the presence of the United States. Currently, only five
members remain: Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname, Uruguay and Venezuela. The other seven members,
Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Paraguay, agreed to create the Forum for
the Progress of South America (PROSUR) in March 2019. The goal of this alternative organization
is to achieve the right-wing agenda in Latin America, as its members support neo-liberal
austerity measures and closer ties with Washington. It could be said that PROSUR aligns well
with the goals and objectives of the Monroe Doctrine.
Another major shift in president Moreno's political stance pertains to lawsuits brought
against Texaco/Chevron by the Correa government to obtain compensation for environmental
damages caused when the operations of Texaco (acquired by Chevron in 2001) dumped 16 billion
gallons of toxic wastewater in the Amazon region of Ecuador between 1964 and 1992, affecting
more than 30,000 Indigenous people and Campesinos in the area. 'Chevron left 880 pits full of
crude oil which are still there, the rivers are still full of hydrocarbon sediment and polluted
by the crude oil spills in Amazonia, which is one of the most biodiversity rich regions in the
world'[xi], and 'the damage has been left unrepaired for more than 40 years'[xii]. To raise
public awareness about this environmental disaster, president Correa's government established
an international campaign called the 'Dirty Hand of Chevron'. In 2011, the Ecuadorian
Constitutional Court ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion in compensation for social and
environmental damages it caused.
In September 2018, the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA), an agency of the United Nations
based in the Hague, Netherlands, ruled that the Ecuadorian court decision against Chevron was
illegal, because it was an outcome of fraud, bribery, and corruption. The PCA 'also ruled that
Ecuador will have to pay economic compensation'[xiii]to Chevron. 'The amount has not been
established yet, but Chevron requested that Ecuador assume the US$9.5 billion' awarded to
affected communities by the Ecuadorean court.[xiv]Following the PCA decision, the government of
president Moreno announced that:
the state will sue former President Rafael Correa and his government officials if Ecuador
lost the international arbitration process.[xv]
In this matter, president Moreno also accused Correa of 'failing to defend the country's
interests correctly and spending money on "The Dirty Hand of Chevron" campaign, which according
to the government sought to "manipulate national and international public opinion."'[xvi] In
reality, president Moreno supports the PCA decision, thereby prioritizing the interest of
Texaco/Chevron over those of his own citizens . In fact, his government has been attempting
to nullify the Constitutional Court ruling against Chevron. In response, former president
Correa has accused the Moreno government of 'doing homework ordered by (the United States Vice
President Mike) Pence'. Even some of Moreno's own cabinet ministers condemned the PCA ruling
and expressed their support for Ecuador's Constitutional Court for defending of the country's
nationals interest and the rights of the people of the Amazon.
Correa exhibited a hostile attitude towards the Bretton Woods Institutions during his
presidency. He sought to renegotiate Ecuador's external debt of US$10.2 billion, which he
called 'illegitimate' because 'it was accrued during autocratic and corrupt regimes of the
past. Correa threatened to default on Ecuador's foreign debt, and ordered the expulsion of the
World Bank's country manager'[xvii], which was carried out on April 26, 2007. His government
also opposed the signing of any agreements that would permit the IMF to monitor Ecuador's
economic plan. As a result of such actions on the part of Correa's government, 'Ecuador was
able to renegotiate its debt with its creditors and redirect public funds towards social
investments.'[xviii]
To the contrary, Moreno has enthusiastically embraced the IMF during his short time as
president. On March 1, 2019, Ecuador's central bank manager, Verónica Artola
Jarrín, and economy and finance minister, Richard Martínez Alvarado,submitted a
letter of intent to the IMF requesting a three-year $4.2 billion Extended Fund Facility (EFF)
agreement. An EFF allows the IMF to assist countries that are facing 'serious medium-term
balance of payments problems.' More precisely, EFF is designed to:
to provide assistance to countries: (i) experiencing serious payments imbalances because
of structural impediments; or (ii) characterized by slow growth and an inherently weak
balance of payments position. The EFF provides assistance in support of comprehensive
programs that include policies of the scope and character required to correct structural
imbalances over an extended period.[xix]
The IMF agreement signed in March allowed Ecuador to borrow $4.2 billion. However, as is
always the case, the IMF agreement was not without conditionalities, as it required the
Ecuadorian government to implement a series of neo-liberal economic reforms. According to IMF
statements, these reforms aim to transform Ecuador's fiscal deficit into a surplus, reduce the
country's debt-to-GDP ratio, and increase foreign investment. On March 11, 2019, Christine
Lagarde, former Managing Director of the IMF, claimed that:
The Ecuadorian authorities are implementing a comprehensive reform program aimed at
modernizing the economy and paving the way for strong, sustained, and equitable
growth.[xx]
On March 11, 2019, Christine Lagarde also explained that:
Achieving a robust fiscal position is at the core of the authorities' program, which will
be supported by a three-year extended arrangement from the IMF. The aim is to reduce
debt-to-GDP ratio through a combination of a wage bill realignment, a careful and gradual
optimization of fuel subsidies, a reprioritization of capital and goods and services
spending, and a tax reform. The savings generated by these measures will allow for an
increase in social assistance spending over the course of the program. The authorities will
continue their efforts to strengthen the medium-term fiscal policy framework, and more
rigorous fiscal controls and better public financial management will help to enhance the
effectiveness of fiscal policy.[xxi]
Protecting the poor and most vulnerable segments in society is a key objective of the
authorities' program. In this context, the authorities plan to extend the coverage of, and
increase the nominal level of benefits under the existing social protection programs. Work is
also underway to improve the targeting of social programs.[xxii]
Ecuador's participation in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
represents another point of contention between Correa and the Moreno government. Ecuador was a
member of OPEC from 1973 and 1992. After a period of absence, it rejoined the organization in
2007 after Correa became president of the country. However, on October 1 st ,
president Moreno announced that Ecuador would once again end its membership in OPEC effective
January 1, 2020. Given Moreno's penchant for implementing neo-liberal economic policies, this
decision was likely based on the notion that freeing the country from the burden of having to
abide by quotas would bring fiscal sustainability to Ecuador. This is evidenced by the fact
that Ecuador contacted OPEC to request permission to produce above its quota in February 2019,
though it was never confirmed whether a response was received[xxiii]. While increasing
production in its Amazonian oil fields would likely bring more foreign investment to Ecuador
and open up new markets, it would also lead to serious conflicts between the Moreno government
and the indigenous people living in the area, who are strongly opposed to oil extraction.
In addition to announcing Ecuador's departure from OPEC, president Moreno also selected
October 1 st as the date to introduce Decree 883, a series of economic measures that
included ending longstanding subsidies for fuel, the removal of some import tariffs, and cuts
to the benefits and wages of public employees. In particular, the elimination of fuel
subsidies, which had been in place for 40 years, was instituted in order to meet IMF
requirements to keep the $4.2 billion programme on track, and to satisfy international
investors. The EFF agreement between the IMF and the Ecuadorean government also called for
thousands of public employees to be laid off, the privatization of public assets, the
separation of the central bank from the government, cutting public expenditures, and raising
taxes over the next three years. IMF representatives claim that these types of reforms bring
more foreign direct investment into the economy.
In fact, a close examination of the neo-liberal economic reforms recommended by the IMF in
many countries reveals that they are almost identical, meaning that they do not take the
diverse needs and realities of each country into account; rather, they are driven by the
interests of the countries and other stakeholders that provide the funds. Generally, the IMF's
recommendations[xxiv]consist of cutting deficits, liberalizing trade, privatizing state-owned
enterprises, reforming the banking and financial systems, increasing taxes, raising interest
rates, and reforming key sectors. However, countless studies have revealed that these types of
reforms, have raised the unemployment rate, created poverty, and have often preceded
recessions. On October 2, 2019, the IMF issued a press release on Ecuador stating that:
The reforms announced yesterday by President Lenin Moreno aim to improve the resilience
and sustainability of Ecuador's economy and foster strong, and inclusive growth. The
announcement included important measures to protect the poor and most vulnerable, as well as
to generate jobs in a more competitive economy.
The authorities are also working on important reforms aimed at supporting Ecuador's
dollarization, including the reform of the central bank and the organic code of budget and
planning.
IMF staff will continue to work closely with the authorities to improve the prospects for
all Ecuadorians. The second review is expected to be submitted to the Executive Board in the
coming weeks.[xxv]
President Moreno's decision to end the subsidies on fuel led to the prices of diesel and
petroleum increasing by 100% and 30%, respectively, overnight, which directly contributed to
significantly raising the costs of public transportation. In response, protests erupted against
Moreno's austerity measures on October 3 rd , featuring students, unions and
indigenous organizations. They declared an indefinite general strike until the government
reversed its neo-liberal adjustment package. Moreno's initial response was to reject the
ultimatum and state that he would 'not negotiate with criminals.'
The following day, on October 4, 2019, president Moreno declared a state of emergency under
the pretext of ensuring the security of citizens and to 'avoid chaos.' Nonetheless, the
protests continued and intensified to the point that the government was forced to relocate to
city of Guayaquil because Quito had been overrun by anti-government protestors. However, this
attempt to escape the protestors proved ineffective as taxi, bus and truck drivers blocked
roads and bridges in Guayaquil, as well as in Quito, which disrupted transportation
nationwide.
In the following days, thousands of demonstrators continued to demand the reversal of
austerity measures, as well as the resignation of the president. However, Moreno remained
defiant, refusing both demands under all circumstances. Subsequently, Ecuador's main oil
pipeline ceased operations after it was seized by indigenous protesters. Petro-Ecuador was
concerned that production losses could reach 165,000 barrels a day. Indigenous protesters also
occupied two water treatment plants in the city of Ambato. Meanwhile, violent clashes between
protesters and police resulted in seven deaths , about 2,000 injuries, and over 1,000
arrests. Eventually, Moreno's government was forced to back down and make concession with the
well -organised protesters.
On October 13, president Moreno agreed to withdraw Decree 883 and replace the IMF-backed
plan with a new proposal, involving negotiations with the Confederation of Indigenous
Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) and other social groups. The following day, president Moreno
signed Decree 894, which reinstated the cancelled fuel subsidies. However, on October 23,
CONAIE released a statement informing the public that 'it paused talks with President Lenin
Moreno because of the government's "persecution" of the group's leaders [Jaime Vargas] since a
halt to violent anti-austerity protests.'[xxvi]
It is unlikely that president Moreno would be willing to give up on his austerity policies
or start the process of cancelling the IMF loan, given his apparent commitment to helping the
US realize the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Many of the reforms and policies that his
government has introduced will help keep Ecuador firmly entrenched in America's backyard for
years to come.
This is not a new development, as history has revealed that, for more than a century
, 'in Latin America there are more than enough of the kind of rulers who are ready to use
Yankee troops against their own people when they find themselves in crisis' (Fidel Castro,
Havana 1962). However, the eruption of protests in response to Moreno's neo-liberal reforms
suggests that he faces an uphill battle, as his fellow Ecuadorians do not appear to share his
enthusiasm for selling his country to external creditors and foreign influences. Although
Moreno has managed to successfully drive Rafael Correa out of Ecuador, the former president's
opposition to capitalism and imperialism remain strong among the population.
*
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Global Research contributor Dr. Birsen Filip holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the
University of Ottawa.
"... The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are 'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing along. ..."
Recent class history of US is quite simple: the elite class first tried to shift the burden
of supporting the lower classes on the middle class with taxation. But as the lower class
became demographically distinct, partially via mass immigration, the elites decided to ally
with the ' underpriviledged ' via identity posturing and squeeze no longer needed
middle class out of existence.
What's left are government employees, a few corporate sinecures, NGO parasitic sector, and
old people. The rest will be melded into a few mutually antagonistic tribal groups providing
ever cheaper service labor. With an occasional lottery winner to showcase mobility. Actually
very similar to what happened in Latin America in the past few centuries.
The truth is that for the Clintonite-Bushite elite almost all Americans are
'deplorable'. What is fun for them is to play geopolitics – the elite version of
corporate travel perks – just look at how shocked they are that Trump is not playing
along.
Unlike the USA (under Neocon stewardship) China has not squandered twenty trillion dollars
of its national solvency bombing countries which never attacked it post 9-11.
China's leaders (unlike our own) never LIED its people into launching obscenely expensive,
illegal wars of aggression across the middle east. (WMD's, Mushroom clouds, Yellow Cake,
etc.)
China has used its wealth and resources to build up its infrastructure, build out its
capital markets, and turbo charge its high tech sectors. As a consequence, it has lifted
nearly half a billion people out of poverty. There has been an explosion in the growth of the
"middle class" in China. Hundreds of millions of Chinese are now living comfortable "upwardly
mobile" lives.
The USA, on the other hand, having been defrauded by its "ruling elites" into launching
and fighting endless illegal wars, is now 23 trillion dollars in catastrophic debt.
NOT ONE PENNY of this heinous "overspending" has been dedicated to building up OUR
infrastructure, or BUILDING OUT our middle class.
It has all gone into BLOWING UP countries which never (even) attacked us on 9-11.
As a consequence , the USA is fast becoming a failed nation, a nation where all its wealth
is being siphoned into the hands of its one percent "war pilfer-teers".
It is so sad to have grown up in such an amazing country , with such immense resources and
possibilities, and having to bear witness to it going down the tubes.
To watch all our sovereign wealth being vaporized by our "lie us into endless illegal war"
ruling elites is truly heartbreaking.
The white middle class is the only group that might effectively resist Globohomo's designs on
total power.
Blacks? Too dumb. Will be disposed of once Globohomo is finished the job.
Hispanics? Used to corrupt one party systems. Give them cerveza and Netflix and they're
good.
East Asians? Perfectly fine with living like bug people.
South Asians? Cowardly; will go with the flow.
The middle class is almost completely unique to white people.
Racial aliens cannot wrap their minds around being middle class. They think I'm crazy for
appreciating my 2009 Honda Accord. They literally cannot understand why somebody would want
to live a frugal and mundane life. They are desperate to be like Drake but most end up broke.
It will be very easy for GloboHomo to control a bucket of poor brown slop.
There IS a black middle class, but a big chunk of that works for governments of all
shapes and sizes.
Strictly speaking, there is no more "middle class" in the sense of the classical
economists: a person with just enough capital to live off the income if he works the capital
himself or herself. By this definition professionals (lawyers, dentists, physicians, small
store owners, even spinsters [1] and hand loom operators in a sense) were middle class. Upper
class had enough property to turn it over to managers, lower class had little or no property
and worked for others (servants and farm workers, for example). Paupers didn't earn enough
income per year to feed themselves and didn't live all that long, usually.
What we have is "middle income" people, almost all of whom work as an employee of some
organization -- people who would be considered "lower class" by the classical economists
because they don't have freedom of action and make no independent decisions about how the
capital of their organizations is spent. Today they are considered "intelligentsia", educated
government workers, or, by analogy, educated corporate workers. IMHO, intelligentsia is a
suicide job, and is responsible for the depressed fertility rate, but that's just me.
Back in the AD 1800s and pre-AD 1930 there were many black middle class people. usually
concentrating on selling to black clientele. Now there are effectively none outside of
criminal activities, usually petty criminal. And so it goes.
Of course, back then there were many white middle class people also, usually concentrating
on selling to white clientele. Now there are effectively none, except in some rural areas.
And so it goes.
Counterinsurgency
1] Cottagers who made their living spinning wool skeins into wool threads.
@unit472 A
lot of the middle class are Democrats but not particularly liberal. Many of them vote
Democrat only when they personally benefit. For example, my parents were suburban public
school teachers. They voted for Democrats at the state level because the Democrats supported
better pay and benefits for teachers but voted for Republicans like Goldwater and Reagan at
the national level because Republicans would keep their federal taxes lower. They had no
political philosophy. It was all about what left them financially better off. My parents also
got on well with their suburban neighbors. Suburbanites generally like their local school
system and its teachers and the suburban school systems are usually careful not to engage in
teaching anything controversial. A lot of the government employed white middle class would be
like my parents. Except in situations where specific Republicans talk about major cuts to
their pay and pensions they are perfectly willing to consider voting Republican. They are
generally social moderates, like the status quo, are fairly traditionalist and don't want any
radical changes. Since the Democrats seem be trending in a radical direction, this would put
off a lot of them. Trump would be more appealing as the status quo candidate. When running
the last time, he carefully avoided talking about any major cuts in government spending and
he's governed that way too. At the same time, his talk of cutting immigration, his lack of
enthusiasm for nonwhite affirmative action, and his more traditional views on social issues
is appealing to the white middle class.
The term middle class is used in the U.S. to mean middle income. It has nothing to do with
class. Why not just say what you mean? Most of the middle class that we say is disappearing
is really that rarest of phenomenons. A prosperous working class. The prosperous American
working class is no longer prosperous due to the Neoliberal agenda. Free trade, open borders
and the financialization of everything.
Americans know nothing of class dynamics. Not even the so called socialists. They don't
even see the economy. All they see is people with infinite need and government with infinite
wealth. In their world all of Central America can come to the U.S. and the government (if it
only wants to) can give them all homes, health care and education.
Lets stop saying class when we mean income. Not using the word class would be better than
abusing it.
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists. If
the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with the
Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
Are we to the point where we've collectively resigned ourselves to the death of the
middle class?
In the neoliberal worldview, the middle class is illegitimate, existing only as a
consequence of artificial trade and immigration barriers. Anytime Americans are spied out
making a good living, there is a "shortage" that must be addressed with more visas. Or else
there is an "inefficiency" where other countries could provide said service or produce said
product for less because they have a "comparative advantage."
Anyway. Yes. Middle Class denotes white people. The coalition of the fringes is neither
working, middle nor ruling class. They are black or brown. They are perverts or feminists.
If the workers among them identified as working class they would find common ground with
the Deplorables. We can't have that now can we.
I don't know about that anymore. Increasingly, "middle class" means Asian, with Whiteness
being associated with the lower middle class (or perhaps "working class"). Sometimes the
media uses the term " noncollege Whites," which I think is actually very apt. They are the
ones who identify with Whiteness the most.
Are we starting to witness some state cinture in Spain?
After yesterday warning, is the socialist government of Sánchez turning, at least a
bit, if only in form, socialist?
( after the advance of the "devotes of Trump´s night worship" in yesterday elections
and probably progession of Spanish policy investigation on Barcelona riots, two events that
reinforced each other? )
Spain criticizes the role of the Bolivian Army and Police in the resignation of President
Evo Morales, after protests against his re-election.
Spain joins the avalanche of international comdenations before the proceeding of the
Bolivian Army and Police at the juncture that the Latin American country is going through,
since, according to a statement issued on Monday by the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
in this regard, that proceeding reminds past times in Latin American history, even more
when President Evo Morales opted for a new call for elections.
"Spain condemns that the process opened yesterday towards a new electoral call has been
distorted by the intervention of the Armed Forces and the Police, suggesting to Evo Morales
to submit his resignation", the note said.
Likewise, the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs calls "all actors to avoid resorting
to violence" and "to guarantee the security of all Bolivians (...) including former
President Morales himself, his relatives and members of his administration".
For his part, the general secretary of the Spanish Unidas Podemos party, Pablo
Iglesias, has written on his Twitter account that "Coup d'etat in Bolivia. Shameful that
there are media that say the army makes the president resign. In the last 14 years Bolivia
has improved all its social and economic indicators. All our support to the Bolivian people
and Evo Morales".
The style of scaring the people is a total imitation from post-Maidan Ukraine, where
communists and other opposed factions in Rada were beaten, covered in paint and thrown in
waste containers...until they left the country...
Then Myrotvorets was launched and the first killings on those who dared to quition
Euromaydan events... Recall Alex Buzina... Any compromised intellectual will suffer the same
fate in Bolivia...
Guess who is behind this coup at the letter of the book...
Don't get me wrong Sasha, I don't think Evo's team objective, 2 weeks after they've win them,
was to repeat elections so soon. This is likely their best approach right now, for the sake
of Bolivians and their supporters. Not mentioning possible reaction a la Caracas.
#InfoMV Evo Morales denounced that his security personnel were offered 50 thousand dollars
for him to be delivered to violent opposition groups. He held Fernando Camacho and Carlos
Mesa responsible for what would happen to him or García Linera.
@Posted by: Vasco da Gama | Nov 10 2019 23:43 utc | 53
You seem to be unaware of the developments of events to this time, Evo called for
elections BEFORE he was oblied to resign by police and military rebels, and made leave the
country...
Elections now with every Evo´s supporter under menace of death would only throw a fake
result favourable to the opposition who did not manage to win elections democratically...
This is the same scenario than in the Ukraine, where representatives of the working people
were never more able to concur to elections and had to leave the country, remaining to be
elected only those puppets of oligarchs or the US...
Pasquinades posted by coupist opposition before Efvo´s resignation what ccan illustrate
why the government has resigned so fast...
Pure fascism....
What I told you? Here you have the Bolivian Myrotvorets .....
Traitor Tracking The population is asked to register all the social network publications of
the "Cyber llunkus". Take screenshots and copy the links of the publications and profiles
of the "Cyber Llunkus".
The M.A.S. ( Evo´s party ) is a criminal organization.
Once Evo Morales falls, a rake will be made to identify the traitorous of the people "Cyber
Llunkus" and imprison them through the location of their mobile devices.
Fake profiles will not save them.
#Civil Resistance Bolivia
Now that the US tells us the tale of democratic elections in Bolivia now...
A people's Counter-revolution that sweeps the Reactionaries down the drain once and for
all.
Chavez was keen to the CIA's modus and thus reformed the military in numerous respects,
particularly by making it impervious to corruption--AND--instituting the uniquely structured
Bolivarian Constitution. Evo's problems stem from the lack of extensive public support as
proven by the election results that kept him from instituting the sort of reforms Chavez
accomplished; and the same goes for all other Latin American nations. In a nutshell, the
Bolivian people squabbled too much amongst themselves and never constructed the type of
Revolutionary constitution and social system required to be resilient to outside
manipulation. Yes, Venezuela was very much a Bottom->Up remaking of society to the point
where the Comprador upper 10% didn't matter, which is why Chavez then Maduro left them to
their own devices. But elsewhere, the popular masses never generated the required solidarity
to prevent losing their hard won freedoms. Sure, it's possible to regain power through the
ballot box, but it can be just as easily lost as is happening now in Bolivia if preventative
measures aren't taken beforehand.
Nations must have constitutions that don't allow for rich minorities to gain control or to
allow them to begin in control as in the USA's case. But to institute such an instrument, the
popular masses must act as one and cast their factionalisms aside until this primary aspect
of consolidating power in their hands becomes the law of their land. Plus, they must again
drop their in-fighting when confronted by any reactionary threat and remember what the main
task is at all times--Maintenance of Freedom.
We all see what seems to be the demise of empire but facts on the ground tell a different
story today in Bolivia. I am sorry for the pain and suffering for many caused by my country
under the control of the global private finance cult. I continue to try and spread the word
about the perfidy of Western empire and will keep trying but am limited in my abilities.
I hope to live to see the demise of private finance led empire all over the world.
Humanity deserves a better future.
We all see what seems to be the demise of empire but facts on the ground tell a different
story today in Bolivia. I am sorry for the pain and suffering for many caused by my country
under the control of the global private finance cult. I continue to try and spread the word
about the perfidy of Western empire and will keep trying but am limited in my abilities.
I hope to live to see the demise of private finance led empire all over the world.
Humanity deserves a better future.
What saved Venezuela was the huge investing in education started with Chavez, in that they
counted with the help and advice of people from the Spanish left ...
Bolivian people, of the poor class, are mostly poorly educated people...and so easy to buy
and fool...as this images show...
Look that this people ransacking Evo´s home, they are not white patricios ...but
those who they have payed to do the dirty work...indigenous people poorly
dressed...collaborating in ovrthrowing the legitimate democratically elected from their
own...
Yeah..this time is no different from others, they always go straight to the throat of the
weak and poor...Totally depsicable...
To their own, earning points in the view of the world...
@ Sasha who wrote
"
What saved Venezuela was the huge investing in education started with Chavez, in that they
counted with the help and advice of people from the Spanish left ...
Bolivian people, of the poor class, are mostly poorly educated people...and so easy to buy
and fool...as this images show...
"
I agree, thank you for your commenting and want to add my perspective to that.
If you read many who come and comment at MoA that supposedly are "educated" you will
notice that they continue to think and write in terms of the conflict being between socialism
and capitalism in spite of myself, karlof1 and others that continually point out that China
is 80% capitalistic as are other "socialistic" countries but what matters is what part of the
social economy is socialism versus capitalism. That is why I continue to beat my drum about
the evil of global private finance that is the core problem with the social contract of the
West. Look at how many in the West are brainwashed to not understand the difference between
public/private finance and its effects on the whole culture and aggressive nature of the
society under that meme.
That, IMO, is the core education that all those in the West and all striving to throw off
the chains/economic jackboot of the West must learn and take to heart.
Very disappointing to hear about Evo...but this is just one round in a very long fight...
In Argentina we have a new government for the people...in Mexico also...Lula is out of
jail now in Brazil so eventually that will turn also...
The empire is rotting but is very dangerous right now because they are lashing out
everywhere...we see in Lebanon and Iraq they are not succeeding...
This is desperation we see folks...they are losing control quickly and are trying
to forestall the inevitable collapse of their global fascist dictatorship...
I think the end will come much sooner than they expect...the house of cards is teetering
badly...
Maidán script all the way....They do not have enough with hi resigning, they need
to wipe out such honest leader form the face of Earth, at least while the "new fake
elections" to maskerade the take over by the opposition are developed...as happened with
Lula....
Here, US Lawyer sees all the signature of the US around the place...as happens to
me...
A significant factor is that the anti-Morales opposition is based mainly in Santa Cruz
department in eastern Bolivia. This is the largest department (in territory and population)
in Bolivia and has significant natural gas reserves. The indigenous people living in that
department have virtually nothing in common with the highland indigenous people (Aymara and
Quechua speakers) who formed Morales' base.
Morales did not have a military background as Chavez did and we can presume he was never
able to cultivate a network of militias among the urban and rural working class that could
support and defend his government. Significantly it was the armed forces who asked Morales to
resign.
@Posted by: psychohistorian | Nov 11 2019 1:34 utc | 72
Sorry...but the conflict is between socialism and capitalism...between the rich and the
working masses, especially those who work and still they remain poor....as has always
been....who says otherwise is only trying to fool the masses...
Of course, you people in this forum who live over the average peer, I do not try that you
understand...
You live in your world, looking your belly button, and the furthest you are willing to go is
complain here about the Outlaw US Empire...
Why do you not damn go tomorrow in the streets to protest this new coup by your fascist
administration?
Do not tell me, that would risk your privileged pensions...and all those expensive things
you do to your bodies...
Excuse me, but today, reading the same stupid things of always make me feel like throwing
up...
Fully support the findings of the @OAS_official report recommending new elections in
#Bolivia to ensure a truly democratic process representative of the people's will. The
credibility of the electoral system must be restored.
Will he still support new elections in the morning?
Meanwhile the protesters are calling MAS a criminal
organization so no doubt it'll be excluded from the new elections as happened to the
Party Of The Regions in Ukraine. The wonders of American "democracy".
Why was Evo Morales overthrown? He was nationalizing the highly profitable lithium
industry and planning to deal directly on the international market rather than exporting the
commodity at bargain prices to Western corporations"
"Bolivia has %43 of World's Lithium mines. Batteries from smartphones to Electric cars are
all made with Lithium. Evo Morales was investing in facilities to produce Lithium as a high
end export material rather than just exporting the mine itself."
Somewhere on his blog "Sic Semper Tyrannis", maybe earlier this year, Pat relates the tale
of how when working for the US Gov. in Bolivia he gave medical help to someone and was
rewarded with information which led to the capture of Che Guevara. This may be what Sasha is
referring to.
"The Hydrocarbons law (Law 3058, May 2005) and a subsequent Supreme Decree (May 2006)
require that companies sell all production to YPFB and that domestic market demand be met
before exporting hydrocarbons. Furthermore, these laws transfer the entire transport and
sales chain over to state control. After the law was enacted, hydrocarbon companies were
required to sign new contracts with YPFB, agreeing to pay 50 percent of gross production in
taxes and royalties."
"Prepared by our U.S. Embassies abroad. With its network of 108 offices across the United
States and in more than 75 countries, the U.S. Commercial Service of the U.S. Department of
Commerce utilizes its global presence and international marketing expertise to help U.S.
companies sell their products and services worldwide. Locate the U.S. Commercial Service
trade specialist in the U.S. nearest you by visiting http://export.gov/usoffices."
I usually try to read all the comments before making my first of the day, but I have yet to
do so, although I looked to see if anyone had linked to Escobar's
report on Lula and Brazil , which is an extremely important article for events within
Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, and the rest of the world that's resisting the
Outlaw US Empire and its Neoliberal/Neofascist attack dogs.
The information Pepe provides is very important as it jibes with what Assad averred in
his RT
interview , for which I'm still looking for a transcript. Here's Pepe's warning about the
likely future course of events, which has CIA scrawled over every act:
"With the military betting on a strategy of chaos, augmented by Lula's immense social base
all over Brazil fuming about his return to prison and the financial bubble finally burst,
rendering the middle classes even poorer, the stage would be set for the ultimate toxic
cocktail: social 'commotion' allied with 'terrorism' associated with 'organized crime.'
"That's all the military needs to launch an extensive operation to restore "order" and
finally force Congress to approve the Brazilian version of the Patriot Act (five separate
bills are already making their way in Congress).
" This is no conspiracy theory. This is a measure of how incendiary Brazil is at the
moment, and Western mainstream media will make no effort whatsoever to explain the nasty,
convoluted plot for a global audience ." [My Emphasis]
Bolivia coup was orchestrated with direct assist of OAS analysis/report which identified
alleged voting fraud. OAS report focuses on a vote-counting system called TREP, which was
adopted by Bolivia and others in the region on direct advice of OAS. The TREP system is meant
to provide/ publicize initial results, but it is not "official". The official results come
from a slower and more thorough vote count process. The OAS claim of irregularities in the
TREP count is largely irrelevant, as it was never intended to be "official" or legally
reflect official results. There were no irregularities in the official count, won by Morales,
and the so-called "delay" was in fact the natural process of the slower moving count to
produce the official result.
While Trump denounced Morales, the US State Department stepped in to sanitize Washington's
position, with a senior official telling Reuters that the US has "no preference" among
opposition candidates. The spokesperson did say, however, that anyone who tried to
"distort" last month's vote should not be allowed to participate .
That's MAS banned from the election by the cunts in the fucking State Department. Imagine
if the Russian MFA announced that neither the Democratic nor Republican parties could field
presidential candidates in 2020. Trump is an idiot but the State Department, DoJ, and
Treasury are the real bastards. Forget the CIA, that's just a bunch of senile tossers who
have wet dreams about Cold War 2.0.
b mentioned lithium with reference to Bolivia in his 139 above
Nov 11, 2019 -- Bolivian Coup Comes Less Than a Week After Morales Stopped Multinational
Firm's Lithium Deal
"Bolivia's lithium belongs to the Bolivian people. Not to multinational corporate
cabals."
The Morales move on Nov. 4 to cancel the December 2018 agreement with Germany's ACI Systems
Alemania (ACISA) came after weeks of protests from residents of the Potosí area. The
region has 50% to 70% of the world's lithium reserves in the Salar de Uyuni salt flats.
Among other clients, ACISA provides batteries to Tesla; Tesla's stock rose Monday after the
weekend.
As Bloomberg News noted in 2018, that has set the country up to be incredibly important in
the next decade:
Demand for lithium is expected to more than double by 2025. The soft, light mineral is
mined mainly in Australia, Chile, and Argentina. Bolivia has plenty -- 9 million tons that
have never been mined commercially, the second-largest amount in the world -- but until now
there's been no practical way to mine and sell it. . .
here
But Teslas catch fire....from ZPower--
Actually, lithium may be in trouble for vehicle batteries.
Just as lithium-ion (Li-ion) replaced nickel metal hydride (NiMH) before it and nickel
cadmium (NiCd) before that, silver zinc (AgZn) batteries are on track to replace Li-ion too,
according to a McGraw-Hill forecast as far back as 2010. Since then silver zinc has been
perfected and are on the market for rechargeable hearing-aid "button" batteries by ZPower LL
(Camarillo, Calif.) They are nonflammable and could provide up to 40 percent more run time
than lithium-ion batteries. . . here
Thank you, @BlackWomxnFor ! Black trans and
cis women, gender-nonconforming, and nonbinary people are the backbone of our democracy and I
don't take this endorsement lightly. I'm committed to fighting alongside you for the big,
structural change our country needs. https://t.co/KqWsVoRYMb
People need to remember that we literally didn't even have democracy until the trans
movement started and finally brought us to The Right Side of History.
America's misguided war on Chinese technology By Jeffrey D Sachs November 8,
2019
The worst foreign-policy decision by the United States of the last generation – and
perhaps longer – was the "war of choice" that it launched in Iraq in 2003 for the stated
purpose of eliminating weapons of mass destruction that did not, in fact, exist. Understanding
the illogic behind that disastrous decision has never been more relevant, because it is being
used to justify a similarly misguided US policy today.
The decision to invade Iraq followed the illogic of then-US vice-president Richard Cheney,
who declared that even if the risk of WMD falling into terrorist hands was tiny – say, 1%
– we should act as if that scenario would certainly occur.
Such reasoning is guaranteed to lead to wrong decisions more often than not. Yet the US and
some of its allies are now using the Cheney Doctrine to attack
Chinese technology. The US government argues that because we can't know with certainty that
Chinese technologies are safe, we should act as if they are certainly dangerous and bar
them.
Proper decision-making applies probability estimates to alternative actions. A generation
ago, US policymakers should have considered not only the (alleged) 1% risk of WMD falling into
terrorist hands, but also the 99% risk of a war based on flawed premises. By focusing only on
the 1% risk, Cheney (and many others) distracted the public's attention from the much greater
likelihood that the Iraq war lacked justification and that it would gravely destabilize the
Middle East and global politics.
The problem with the Cheney Doctrine is not only that it dictates taking actions predicated
on small risks without considering the potentially very high costs. Politicians are tempted to
whip up fears for ulterior purposes.
That is what US leaders are doing again: creating a panic over Chinese technology companies
by raising, and exaggerating, tiny risks. The most pertinent case (but not the only one) is the
US government attack on the wireless broadband company Huawei. The US is closing its markets to
the company and trying hard to shut down its business around the world. As with Iraq, the US
could end up creating a geopolitical disaster for no reason.
I have followed Huawei's technological advances and work in developing countries, as I
believe that fifth-generation (5G) and other digital technologies offer a huge boost to ending
poverty and other Sustainable Development Goals. I have similarly interacted with other telecom
companies and encouraged the industry to step up actions for the United Nations' SDGs. When I
wrote a short foreword (without compensation) for a
Huawei report on the topic, and was criticized by foes of China, I asked top industry and
government officials for evidence of wayward activities by Huawei. I heard repeatedly that
Huawei behaves no differently than trusted industry leaders.
The US government nonetheless argues that Huawei's 5G equipment could undermine global
security. A "back door" in Huawei's software or hardware, US officials claim, could enable the
Chinese government to engage in surveillance around the world. After all, US officials note,
China's laws require Chinese companies to cooperate with the government for purposes of
national security.
Given the technology's importance for their sustainable development, low-income economies
around the world would be foolhardy to reject an early 5G rollout. Yet despite providing no
evidence of back doors, the US is telling the world to stay away from Huawei
Now, the facts are these. Huawei's 5G equipment is low-cost and high-quality, currently
ahead of many competitors, and already rolling out. Its high performance results from years of
substantial spending on research and development, scale economies, and learning by doing in the
Chinese digital marketplace. Given the technology's importance for their sustainable
development, low-income economies around the world would be foolhardy to reject an early 5G
rollout.
Yet despite providing no evidence of back doors, the US is telling the world to stay away
from Huawei. The US claims are generic. As a US Federal Communications Commissioner
put it , "The country that owns 5G will own innovations and set the standards for the rest
of the world, and that country is currently not likely to be the United States." Other
countries, most notably the United Kingdom, have
found no back doors in Huawei's hardware and software. Even if back doors were discovered
later, they could almost surely be closed at that point.
The debate over Huawei rages in Germany, where the US government threatens to curtail
intelligence cooperation unless the authorities exclude Huawei's 5G technology. Perhaps as a
result of the US pressure, Germany's spy chief recently made a claim
tantamount to the Cheney Doctrine: "Infrastructure is not a suitable area for a group that
cannot be trusted fully." He offered no evidence of specific misdeeds. Chancellor Angela
Merkel, by contrast, is fighting
behind the scenes to leave the market open for Huawei.
Ironically, though predictably, the US complaints partly reflect America's
own surveillance activities at home and abroad. Chinese equipment might make secret
surveillance by the US government more difficult. But unwarranted surveillance by any
government should be ended. Independent UN monitoring to curtail such activities should become
part of the global telecommunications system. In short, we should choose diplomacy and
institutional safeguards, not a technology war.
The threat of US demands to blockade Huawei concerns more than the early rollout of the 5G
network. The risks to the rules-based trading system are profound. Now that the US is no longer
the world's undisputed technology leader, President Donald Trump and his advisers don't want to
compete according to a rules-based system. Their goal is to contain China's technological rise.
Their simultaneous attempt to neutralize the World Trade Organization by
disabling its dispute settlement system shows the same disdain for global rules.
If the Trump administration "succeeds" in dividing the world into separate technology camps,
the risks of future conflicts will multiply. The US championed open trade after World War II
not only to boost global efficiency and expand markets for American technology, but also to
reverse the collapse of international trade in the 1930s. That collapse stemmed in part from
protectionist tariffs imposed by the US under the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Act , which
amplified the Great Depression, in turn contributing to the rise of Adolf Hitler and,
ultimately, the outbreak of World War II.
In international affairs, no less than in other domains, stoking fears and acting on them,
rather than on the evidence, is the path to ruin. Let's stick to rationality, evidence and
rules as the safest course of action. And let us create independent monitors to curtail the
threat of any country using global networks for surveillance of or cyberwarfare on others. That
way, the world can get on with the urgent task of harnessing breakthrough digital technologies
for the global good.
Deval Patrick served on the board at subprime mortgage giant Ameriquest. Melody Barnes
is on the board at bigwig defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton. Textbook cases of the
revolving door corruption Warren frequently attacks. https://t.co/KU3Ct3j9eC
If she really cared about the policies she is running on she would have endorsed Bernie.
Period. It was during the primary that Hillary said, "single payer will never ever happen
here."
Bernie was running on it and yet Warren did not endorse him for it. If she actually wants to
help us she would drop out and tell people to vote for Bernie. Sure everyone has the right to
run for president, but we know or believe that she is only running to keep Bernie from becoming
president.
She is lying to us about not taking money from rich people and corporations because she
took their money for her senate campaign and transferred it to her presidential campaign. If
she isn't up front about this then how can we trust her on anything else?
Elites eliting about elites while elitseplaining to working Americans about how they are
going to vote for some elites and beat the Republicans elite. https://t.co/l0W8QPUT0E
"Who is to the left of Bloomberg on guns and climate change?" Hmm let me think...of course
it's not Biden. Nor Harris...Kilobits.... Buttigieg or even Warren. Doh!
Warren did that(what Alex Thompson tweeted about) at her town hall here. Called herself a
teacher, really pushed her teacher history, and asked "Are there any teachers in the crowd",
etc etc. It was so fake and pandering. I wanted to barf. Do people really fall for this
stuff? The folksy garbage was poured on mighty thick. I was sitting there thinking "Come on,
lady-you've been a professor at the highest profile law school in the country for how long
now?"
Yep.
It's funny-I spent 10 years at Harvard, and I lived near The Yard and the law school. I knew
a lot of faculty at H, and was privy to a lot of the politics that went on. My bs detector
was honed there. At the town hall, I could see right through her. It was all so familiar.
Don't underestimate the cunning and doublespeak. What is that quote-"When someone shows you
who they are, believe them"?
Why didn't she proclaim her great groundbreaking achievement of being Harvard's "first
woman of color" professorial appointment? Isn't she proud of that any more?
Dog, that woman seems to be in a race to seem the least authentic. Can't her staff tell
her to act natural?
After I post this comment, I'm gonna get me a beer.
Why assume that what we see isn't her natural self, such as it is? Or, rather, that
there's anything more genuinely human underneath the pandering, opportunistic surface? As
Petal cited above, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."
Bolsonaro's government tried to auction Brazil's remaining unexplored (but already mapped,
so it's certain there's oil there) presalt lots. The expectation was to raise some R$ 109
billion, but it only rose R$ 69 billion. To make things even worse, half of those came from
the Brazilian State-owned oil company itself, Petrobras.
There's strong evidence this fiasco came from the international oil cartel; they think
they can get the presalt oil for a (much) better price:
The pressure seems to be working. The government has already stated it will do another
auction, this time with "changed rules", in order to "estimulate competition between the
interested companies".
Another similar episode had already happened during usurper Brazilian president Michel
Temer, when, in 2017, he tried to privatize the country's State-owned electricity company
(Eletrobras). The auction was "desert" (i.e. no bids).
Why is this happening?
The problem with today's neoliberals is that the capitalist world is completely different
from the one of the end of the 1980s and 1990s. In that era, there was excess liquidity from
the First World countries -- specially USA and Japan pension funds -- which was purchasing
fabulous profit rates in order to stay competitive in the recently-privatized world (pension
funds in the USA had to profit at least 7% from each investment in their portfolio to reach
ends meet in 2006, according to Dumenil & Levy).
After 2008, there was a crisis followed by a depression characterized by a credit crunch.
Reverse stagflation happened (and still happens), where unemployment fell but inflation
continued to fall. To put it simply, there's no more foreign money for Latin American
neoliberal dictators to grab through the simple liquidation of public assets anymore -- at
least not nearly enough to reach fiscal equilibrium (see Argentina for the more spectacular
example).
So, yes, there was a cartel arranging for the presalt reserves failure, but this cartel
only had to do what it did because -- you're already tired to read it from me -- the
profit rates in the capitalist world are secularly falling . Were the profit rates high,
the cartel would've already bought the presalt whatever the conditions. They are only
bargaining with the already very submissive Brazilian government because they need to:
presalt reserves, albeit abundant in good oil, require a unique and pretty advanced
technology which was developed by Petrobras. If they invest, profit rate will fall even
further, so they must get the oil, but free of investment (after the 2016 coup, they got
their hands on the platforms -- but only those who were already installed by Petrobras).
That's also the reason the USA-backed New Silk Road will fail: Western capital won't
invest in SE Asia because that would mean money spent to infrastructure (i.e. invesment), and
that would erode their profit rates even more. And, sincerely, why would they? They had 70
years to invest there, and 100 years before that (during the colonial times), to do it. Why
will they do now, when they are much weaker?
Brazil's Supreme Court rules Lula must be released from prison ASAP. But, will this
decision meet the criteria he set to accept being released? I checked Pepe Escobar's Facebook
but he's not written anything there for 7 hours. I asked him the same question.
Right now, Lula is speaking to the people and his supporters in the street outside
Curitiba prison, and already in freedom.
To clarify on the Court's ruling: the decision says that the accused, with processes which
have not exhausted all appealings, therefore have not yet been ultimately condemned, may not
be kept in prison. A previous judgement allowed for this to happen if there had been a
reversal of judgement along the court instances of the process ( LavaJato - corruption
process ). It should be added that this is not exclusive to Lula, eight other accused,
including one Lula's minister may be freed pending appropriate legal petition from defense,
and any other current prisoner under similar circumstances in Brazil's justice system.
The Supreme Court only re-established the Constitutional order, following on the petitions
to constitutional review by legal council association and the communist party.
Keep in mind that Lula is still under several accusations and may not while these
processes are not finished to present himself for political offices.
Thanks for your reply! I was about to answer my own question that Lula agreed to be let
out. As I understand the situation, Lula still has to battle in court to keep his freedom;
and he might also be targeted for elimination given the murderous nature of those associated
with Bolsonaro. As Lula said upon release, they tried to imprison an idea by imprisoning a
man; ideas cannot be imprisoned. For me, it's an excellent birthday gift!
Lcchearn @32--
Yes, I've contemplated starting my own blog, but most platforms are owned or affiliated in
some manner with Google, so I stopped looking. I know non-affiliated hosts exist and will
likely resume looking upon the turn of the year. I agree about writing longer essays as there
are a few topics I'm into that demand expansion. I've been and continue to be impressed with
Caitlin Johnstone's success as well as with other younger idealistic, truth-seeking
journalists like those inhabiting The
Grayzone . In fact, given its content, Grayzone's one site I'll ask who hosts them.
Thanks very much for your interest and the support that goes with it!
karlof1, I'll drink to that too. Keep the good spirits and health. Cheers!
Bolsonaro, and their supporters are dwindling, the initial success of anti-social media
platforms was only that: initial, sufficient to swindle brasilean people in the election
alone. This had all the hallmarks of a Cambridge Analytica type campaign, which if not
sustained serves only to expose the maracutaia (fraud) before everyone. I think the signs are
getting positive, even the media, quite condescending during the campaign now take hard jabs
at Bolsonaro and his quadrilha (gang).
"... As to Brazil the right is in power there because the Workers Party was, first, driven from office by a capitalist plot and its candidate for the Presidency, Lula, imprisoned on totally phony charges and prevented from running. Had Lula run he would have won, easily. Then there is Chile where the post Pinochet settlement is maintained by military force, backed by imperialists. Peru would vote for socialists too if it were given the chance as would Guatemala. Mexico just did. ..."
"... That, after all is what they did in Ukraine, where the first move of the coup government was to ban opposition socialist parties. A free election in Ukraine would deliver a left wing government. ..."
"... Anyway let us see: the election of a socialist government will be the first step in the building of a totally new society organised not for individual profit but for humanity as a whole. It won't come easily but the tendency towards it is as natural to society as the desire to live is to the individual. Underneath everything else-the propaganda, the ideology, the terrorism, fear and ignorance-we are all, everywhere, inspired by the same longing for justice, equality and fair treatment and that is almost always the underlying theme in every election. ..."
"... Right now there is a very important election taking place in the UK where, against massive opposition from capitalists and leading a party riven with corrupted, treacherous Fifth Columnists, Jeremy Corbyn is putting forward a political platform which could re-invigorate the left internationally. ..."
"Right wingers and fascists are winning more and more each time there's a vote..." Just Me@3
Maybe it is just you: in Argentine and Uruguay the fascists and other right wingers just
lost elections. As they did in Bolivia. If there was an election in Ecuador the left would
easily win, in fact it won last time and would still be in power were it not that Moreno, who
his Dad named Lenin, turned coat as soon as his left wing campaign had yielded him the
victory. In Colombia fair elections are very rare-basically left wing candidates are killed,
if not before, then after the election- but the left appears to have won most of the recent
provincial elections.
In Honduras the last election was a landslide victory for the left, until the voting was
stopped and the election stolen. In Haiti Aristide would win except that he is prevented from
running and kidnapped if he wins. The current US/OAS backed President would not last half an
hour without the muscle, from Canada et al, that keeps him in power while the people call for
the return of the $2billion that he and his predecessor-chosen by the Clinton Crime family-
stole.
As to Brazil the right is in power there because the Workers Party was, first, driven from
office by a capitalist plot and its candidate for the Presidency, Lula, imprisoned on totally
phony charges and prevented from running. Had Lula run he would have won, easily. Then there
is Chile where the post Pinochet settlement is maintained by military force, backed by
imperialists. Peru would vote for socialists too if it were given the chance as would
Guatemala. Mexico just did.
And that is just one continent -- the one most amenable to imperialist power, and closest
to being under the thumb of its death squads and torturers.
Around the world there are massive protests against neo-liberal policies and imperialism.
In many of them the CIA and MI6 are fishing in troubled waters, as they always do and
attempting to divert popular anger against corrupt capitalists into sectarian disputes. That,
after all is what they did in Ukraine, where the first move of the coup government was to ban
opposition socialist parties. A free election in Ukraine would deliver a left wing
government.
Look closer at Germany and you will see that the AfD are simply taking advantage of
circumstances that the left has refused to face honestly. The same is true in Hungary and
Poland where it has been the traditionalist, semi fascist clerical right wing parties which
have dared to challenge the neo-liberalism which the 'left' has promoted and protected. The
right wins in Europe by default, when the left refuses to follow its principles (Hello M
Hollande Blairite President that was of France!) and often that is because the left parties
have been colonised, systematically, by imperialist forces.
Anyway let us see: the election of a socialist government will be the first step in the
building of a totally new society organised not for individual profit but for humanity as a
whole. It won't come easily but the tendency towards it is as natural to society as the
desire to live is to the individual. Underneath everything else-the propaganda, the ideology,
the terrorism, fear and ignorance-we are all, everywhere, inspired by the same longing for
justice, equality and fair treatment and that is almost always the underlying theme in every
election.
Right now there is a very important election taking place in the UK where, against massive
opposition from capitalists and leading a party riven with corrupted, treacherous Fifth
Columnists, Jeremy Corbyn is putting forward a political platform which could re-invigorate
the left internationally.
@DanFromCT Well then, thank god for Tucker Carlson for going against the grain. He is
against all the Middle East wars, and wants to bring the troops home and put them on our
Southern Border. His is the only show that I watch anymore, and he pushes back from Fox's
Israel-first orthodoxy as much as he can and still keep his job, which he wouldn't have if
not for his high ratings. Tucker destroyed ultra hawk neocon John Bolton shortly before Trump
stupidly appointed him as his NSA.
BTW, Hannity is a war pig, who happens to be right on one issue – supporting Trump
against the democrat coup. And Buck is also right, Epstein did not kill himself.
@Patricus You are a victim of finance capitalism propaganda. Communism is Marxism, not
socialism. Socialists do not outright reject private ownership, the goal was co-ops to
displace finance capital. Co-ops are corporations where every member has only one share. The
majority decides, not one shareholder with 50.1% of the shares. The state is not the worker.
Real socialists are opposed to private central banks. I haven't heard any of the allegedly
"far left" Democratic Presidential candidates suggest nationalizing the Fed. Ron Paul was
more of a socialist than they are on that one.
Also part of the brainwashing is the absolute failure of the vast majority of Americans,
who fail to understand that immigration is the reserve army of capital, used to attack the
people of the nation. It lowers wages and working conditions; produces more pollution;
increases living costs; lowers standards of living; and most importantly, increases
profits
Any real nationalism, out of necessity, will have socialist aspects, because doing what is
right for the nation, in the truest sense of the word, means that the best solution can come
from anywhere on the political spectrum. Governments "own" armies. Is that communism, or
should it be a government asset that should be privatized just as the US government
privatized the control of its currency.
As long as people dwell in the land of "left" and "right" the owners will continue to
divide. One solution would be to ban political parties and require all candidates running for
office to be funded equally, out of the public purse. That would make candidates have to face
their electorate more directly, and make them more responsive to the electorate, rather than
the party. In Congress, the political parties would not get to choose committee chairs,
individuals would have to earn the respect of their peers for that.
@follyofwar Tucker Carlson is the only news show I can watch, too. The rest is pretty
obviously intended to neutralize the rise of native leadership with the relentless
insinuation that all we can do is whine like Lou Dobbs and his guests, vote Republican, and
show what we're made of by blowing hot air out our asses like Hannity with his mawkish
imbecilities about America still being great because he gets great deals at Costco. Sean wuvs
America and the gal who follows him turns to American-hating Alan Dershowitz to update us
about the espionage of his long-term client Jeffrey Epstein. Check.
Just yesterday the kosher msm was mendaciously portraying our Army's combat vets as baby
killers, while today no one says a word when Fox' toadeaters tout that "muh brothers, muh
mission" fake and phony honor among "warriors" -- now all heroes of course, just for putting
on the uniform for Eretz Israel and the Yinon Plan. More importantly, Fox News' elaborate
efforts concealing Israel's culpability for 9/11 constitutes, as a matter of law, powerful
circumstantial evidence of their guilt in the greatest act of treason against this country in
its history.
Fox News' basecamp commando and armchair warrior types were outed by Homer's Achilles in
the ninth century BC, in the Iliad. As Pope's translation has it,
O monster! Mixed of insolence and fear,
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer!
When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare,
Or nobly face the horrid front of war?
'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try;
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die.
How dare Fox News demand we honor the soldiers who foolishly believed Fox News that they
were fighting for their country. They still go in droves to their possible deaths, mistaking
the costumed bureaucrats in the Pentagon who serve Israel first in all things for warrior
patriots like themselves. I do not believe a military whose leadership's chief trait is
servility toward a foreign nation and betrayal of its own can survive no matter how much
money is counterfeited by the Treasury out of thin air to pay its bills.
If
we speak of neoliberal economic policies, instead than of neoliberal theories, I believe that
there are two aspects that are underappreciated:
1) The age of neoliberalism happened more or less when the USA turned from net exporter to
net importer (what Varoufakis called the "global plan" phase and the "global minotaur" phase).
I think that probably there is some world cycle stuff going on.
2) It seems to me that new deal economies had strong structural elements pushing wages up
(high welfare spending, strong unions, etc.), while in the neoliberal age those element
disappeared and were replaced to an almost complete dependence of cyclical measures (deficit
spending, interest rates) aimed at creating a permanent boom. When these policies fail we are
in deep s-t. But I doubt it is possible to keep a capitalist system permanently in boom
mode.
However the pumping up of deficit spending and lowering of the interest rates are also a
consequence of neoliberalism and of the overreliance on cyclical instruments, IMHO.
The tendency to scapegoat rather than make the case for one's own merit is very deeply
ingrained in our top-down liberal democratic systems; the Democratic establishment is
unfortunately just getting back to core principles by shifting almost exclusively to this mode
of discourse over the past decade. From Guy Debord's 1988
Commentaries on the Society
of the Spectacle :
This perfect democracy creates for itself its own inconceivable enemy, terrorism. In
effect, it wants to be judged by its enemies moreso than by its results. The history of
terrorism is written by the State; it is therefore instructive. The spectator populations
certainly cannot know everything about terrorism, but they can always know enough to be
persuaded that compared to terrorism, anything else must seem to be more or less acceptable,
and in any case more rational and democratic.
Three senior economists at the IMF, an organisation not known for its incaution,
published a paper questioning the benefits of neoliberalism. In so doing, they helped put
to rest the idea that the word is nothing more than a political slur, or a term without any
analytic power. The paper gently called out a "neoliberal agenda" for pushing deregulation
on economies around the world, for forcing open national markets to trade and capital, and
for demanding that governments shrink themselves via austerity or privatisation. The
authors cited statistical evidence for the spread of neoliberal policies since 1980, and
their correlation with anaemic growth, boom-and-bust cycles and inequality.
Also when we discussing the proper definition of neoliberalism we need to remember very
questionable pedigree of its founders. For example, Hayek was as close to the intellectual
prostitute of financial oligarchy as one can get:
After washing out at LSE, Hayek never held a permanent appointment that was not paid for
by corporate sponsors. Even his conservative colleagues at the University of Chicago
– the global epicentre of libertarian dissent in the 1950s – regarded Hayek as
a reactionary mouthpiece, a "stock rightwing man" with a "stock rightwing sponsor", as one
put it. As late as 1972, a friend could visit Hayek, now in Salzburg, only to find an
elderly man prostrate with self-pity, believing his life's work was in vain. No one cared
what he had written!
Which means that one of key components in the definition of neoliberalism should be that
this ideology was the project launched and supported by financial oligarchy, who felt
squeezed by the New Del regulations. And its main task was to justify the return to political
power of the financial oligarchy.
The more Hayek's idea expands, the more reactionary it gets, the more it hides behind
its pretence of scientific neutrality – and the more it allows economics to link up
with the major intellectual trend of the west since the 17th century. The rise of modern
science generated a problem: if the world is universally obedient to natural laws, what
does it mean to be human? Is a human being simply an object in the world, like any other?
There appears to be no way to assimilate the subjective, interior human experience into
nature as science conceives it – as something objective whose rules we discover by
observation.
Society reconceived as a giant market leads to a public life lost to bickering over mere
opinions; until the public turns, finally, in frustration to a strongman as a last resort
for solving its otherwise intractable problems.
Surely there is a connection between their growing irrelevance and the election of
Trump, a creature of pure whim, a man without the principles or conviction to make for a
coherent self.
Economists study a social reality that is unlike the physical universe. It is completely
manmade, highly malleable and operates according to different rules across time and space.
Economics advances not by settling on the right model or theory to answer such questions,
but by improving our understanding of the diversity of causal relationships.
Neoliberalism and its customary remedies – always more markets, always less
government – are in fact a perversion of mainstream economics. Good economists know
that the correct answer to any question in economics is: it depends.
"... When Chile's socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected in 1970, after a 6-year-long covert CIA operation to prevent his election, President Nixon ordered U.S. sanctions to " make the economy scream ." ..."
"... U.S. sabotage of the new government intensified, and on September 11th, 1973, Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. The new leader, General Augusto Pinochet, executed or disappeared at least 3,200 people, held 80,000 political prisoners in his jails and ruled Chile as a brutal dictator until 1990, with the full support of the U.S. and other Western governments. ..."
"... The Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic growth rates in Chile as evidence of the success of their neoliberal program, but by 1988, 48% of Chileans were living below the poverty line. Chile was and still is the wealthiest country in Latin America, but it is also the country with the largest gulf between rich and poor. ..."
"... The governments elected after Pinochet stepped down in 1990 have followed the neoliberal model of alternating pro-corporate "center-right" and "center-left" governments, as in the U.S. and other developed countries. Neither respond to the needs of the poor or working class, who pay higher taxes than their tax-evading bosses, on top of ever-rising living costs, stagnant wages and limited access to voucherized education and a stratified public-private healthcare system. Indigenous communities are at the very bottom of this corrupt social and economic order. Voter turnout has predictably declined from 95% in 1989 to 47% in the most recent presidential election in 2017. ..."
Uprisings against the corrupt, generation-long dominance of
neoliberal "center-right" and "center-left" governments that benefit the wealthy and
multinational corporations at the expense of working people are sweeping country after country
all over the world.
In this Autumn of Discontent, people from Chile, Haiti and Honduras to Iraq, Egypt and
Lebanon are rising up against neoliberalism, which has in many cases been imposed on them by
U.S. invasions, coups and other brutal uses of force. The repression against activists has been
savage, with more than
250 protesters killed in Iraq in October alone, but the protests have continued and grown.
Some movements, such as in Algeria and Sudan, have already forced the downfall of
long-entrenched, corrupt governments.
A country that is emblematic of the uprisings against neoliberalism is Chile. On October 25,
2019, a million Chileans -- out of a population of about 18 million -- took to the streets
across the country, unbowed by government repression that has killed at least 20 of them and
injured hundreds more. Two days later, Chile's billionaire president Sebastian Piñera
fired his entire cabinet and declared, "We are in a new reality. Chile is different from what
it was a week ago."
The people of Chile appear to have validated Erica
Chenoweth's research on non-violent protest movements, in which she found that once over
3.5% of a population rise up to non-violently demand political and economic change, no
government can resist their demands. It remains to be seen whether Piñera's response
will be enough to save his own job, or whether he will be the next casualty of the 3.5%
rule.
It is entirely fitting that Chile should be in the vanguard of the protests sweeping the
world in this Autumn of Discontent, since Chile served as the laboratory for the neoliberal
transformation of economics and politics that has swept the world since the 1970s.
When Chile's socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected in 1970, after a 6-year-long
covert CIA operation
to prevent his election, President Nixon ordered U.S. sanctions to " make the economy scream
."
In his first year in office, Allende's progressive economic policies led to a 22% increase
in real wages, as work began on 120,000 new housing units and he started to nationalize copper
mines and other major industries. But growth slowed in 1972 and 1973 under the pressure of
brutal U.S. sanctions, as in Venezuela
and Iran today.
U.S. sabotage of the new government intensified, and on September 11th, 1973, Allende was
overthrown in a CIA-backed coup. The new leader, General Augusto Pinochet, executed or
disappeared at least 3,200 people, held 80,000 political prisoners in his jails and ruled Chile
as a brutal dictator until 1990, with the full support of the U.S. and other Western
governments.
Under Pinochet, Chile's economy was submitted to radical "free market" restructuring by the
"
Chicago Boys ," a team of Chilean economics students trained at the University of Chicago
under the supervision of Milton Friedman for the express purpose of conducting this brutal
experiment on their country. U.S. sanctions were lifted and Pinochet sold off Chile's public
assets to U.S. corporations and wealthy investors. Their program of tax cuts for the wealthy
and corporations, together with privatization and cuts in pensions, healthcare, education and
other public services, has since been duplicated across the world.
The Chicago Boys pointed to rising economic growth rates in Chile as evidence of the success
of their neoliberal program, but by 1988, 48% of Chileans were living below the poverty line.
Chile was and still is the wealthiest country in Latin America, but it is also the country with
the largest gulf between rich and poor.
The governments elected after Pinochet stepped down in 1990 have followed the neoliberal
model of alternating pro-corporate "center-right" and "center-left" governments, as in the U.S.
and other developed countries. Neither respond to the needs of the poor or working class, who
pay higher taxes than their tax-evading bosses, on top of ever-rising living costs, stagnant
wages and limited access to voucherized education and a stratified public-private healthcare
system. Indigenous communities are at the very bottom of this corrupt social and economic
order. Voter turnout has predictably declined from 95% in 1989 to 47% in the most recent
presidential election in 2017.
If Chenoweth is right and the million Chileans in the street have breached the tipping point
for successful non-violent popular democracy, Chile may be leading the way to a global
political and economic revolution.
@DanFromCT Well then, thank god for Tucker Carlson for going against the grain. He is
against all the Middle East wars, and wants to bring the troops home and put them on our
Southern Border. His is the only show that I watch anymore, and he pushes back from Fox's
Israel-first orthodoxy as much as he can and still keep his job, which he wouldn't have if
not for his high ratings. Tucker destroyed ultra hawk neocon John Bolton shortly before Trump
stupidly appointed him as his NSA.
BTW, Hannity is a war pig, who happens to be right on one issue – supporting Trump
against the democrat coup. And Buck is also right, Epstein did not kill himself.
"... There is a collection of Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on policy details. ..."
"... They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes. ..."
"... He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside Syria. ..."
"... Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence ..."
" In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I
am talking about. They all look like the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians.
Also, the Epstein case was pretty symbolic."
I had decided to stay on the sidelines for the most part after making a few earlier
comments, but I liked this summary, except I would give Warren more credit. She is flawed like
most politicians, but she has made some of the right enemies within the Democratic Party.
On Trump and " the Deep State", there is no unified Deep State. There is a collection of
Democratic and Republican politicians and think tanks funded by various corporations and
governments and bureaucrats in the government agencies mostly all devoted to the Empire, but
also willing to stab each other in the back to obtain power. They don't necessarily agree on
policy details.
They don't oppose Trump because Trump is antiwar. Trump isn't antiwar. Or rather, he is
antiwar for three minutes here and there and then he advocates for war crimes.
He is a fairly major war criminal based on his policies in Yemen. But they don't oppose
him for that either or they would have been upset by Obama. They oppose Trump because he is
incompetent, unpredictable and easily manipulated. And worst of all, he doesn't play the game
right, where we pretend we intervene out of noble humanitarian motives. This idiot actually say
he wants to keep Syrian oil fields and Syria's oil fields aren't significant to anyone outside
Syria.
But yes, scapegoating is a big thing with liberals now. It's pathetic. Our policies are
influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but would be embarrassed to go
to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about Russian influence .
For the most part, if we have a horrible political culture nearly all the blame for that is
homegrown.
Donald 11.07.19 at 4:40 am (no link)
Sigh. Various typos above. Here is one --
Our policies are influenced in rather negative ways by various foreign countries, but
would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from liberals talking about
Russian influence.
--
I meant to say I would be embarrassed to go to the extremes one regularly sees from
liberals talking about Russian influence.
Steven Rattner's Rant Against Warren
By Dean Baker
The New York Times gives Steven Rattner * the opportunity to push stale economic bromides in
columns on a regular basis. His column ** today goes after Senator Elizabeth Warren.
He begins by telling us that Warren's plan for financing a Medicare for All program is "yet
more evidence that a Warren presidency a terrifying prospect." He goes on to warn us:
"She would turn America's uniquely successful public-private relationship into a dirigiste,
*** European-style system. If you want to live in France (economically), Elizabeth Warren
should be your candidate."
It's not worth going into every complaint in Rattner's piece, and to be clear, there are
very reasonable grounds for questioning many of Warren's proposals. However, he deserves some
serious ridicule for raising the bogeyman of France and later Germany.
In spite of its "dirigiste" system France actually has a higher employment rate for prime
age workers (ages 25 to 54) than the United States. (Germany has a much higher employment
rate.) France has a lower overall employment rate because young people generally don't work and
people in their sixties are less likely to work.
In both cases, this is the result of deliberate policy choices. In the case of young people,
the French are less likely to work because college is free and students get small living
stipends. For older workers, France has a system that is more generous to early retirees. One
can disagree with both of these policies, but they are not obvious failures. Large segments of
the French population benefit from them.
France and Germany both have lower per capita GDP than the United States, but the biggest
reason for the gap is that workers in both countries put in many fewer hours annually than in
the United States. According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an
average worker in France puts in 1520 hours a year, in Germany just 1360. That compares to 1780
hours a year in the United States. In both countries five or six weeks a year of vacation are
standard, as are paid family leave and paid sick days. Again, one can argue that it is better
to have more money, but it is not obviously a bad choice to have more leisure time as do
workers in these countries.
Anyhow, the point is that Rattner's bogeymen here are not the horror stories that he wants
us to imagine for ordinary workers, even if they may not be as appealing to rich people like
himself. Perhaps the biggest tell in this piece is when Rattner warns us that under Warren's
proposals "private equity, which plays a useful role in driving business efficiency, would be
effectively eliminated."
Okay, the prospect of eliminating private equity, now we're all really scared!
Dirigisme is an economic doctrine in which the state plays a strong directive role, as
opposed to a merely regulatory role, over a capitalist market economy.
Maybe this is the wake-up call that Democrats need.
My old colleagues at The Upshot published a poll yesterday (*) that rightly terrified a
lot of Democrats (as well as Republicans and independents who believe President Trump is
damaging the country). The poll showed Trump with a good chance to win re-election, given his
standing in swing states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Florida.
This was the sentence, by Nate Cohn, that stood out to me: "Nearly two-thirds of the Trump
voters who said they voted for Democratic congressional candidates in 2018 say that they'll
back the president" in hypothetical match-ups against Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth
Warren.
Democrats won in 2018 by running a smartly populist campaign, focused on reducing health
care costs and helping ordinary families. The candidates avoided supporting progressive
policy dreams that are obviously unpopular, like mandatory Medicare and border
decriminalization.
The 2020 presidential candidates are making a grave mistake by ignoring the lessons of
2018. I'm not saying they should run to the mythical center and support widespread
deregulation or corporate tax cuts (which are also unpopular). They can still support all
kinds of ambitious progressive ideas -- a wealth tax, universal Medicare buy-in and more --
without running afoul of popular opinion. They can even decide that there are a couple of
issues on which they are going to fly in the face of public opinion.
But if they're going to do that, they also need to signal in other ways that they care
about winning the votes of people who don't consider themselves very liberal. Democrats, in
short, need to start treating the 2020 campaign with the urgency it deserves, because a
second Trump term would be terrible for the country.
What would more urgency look like? Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders would find some way
to acknowledge and appeal to swing voters. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would offer more of a
vision than either has to date. Pete Buttigieg, arguably the best positioned to take
advantage of this moment, would reassure Democrats who are understandably nervous about his
lack of experience. And perhaps Cory Booker or Amy Klobuchar can finally appeal to more of
Biden's uninspired supporters. ...
* One Year From Election, Trump Trails Biden but
Leads Warren in Battlegrounds https://nyti.ms/2NDDeNb
NYT - Nate Cohn - November 4 - Updated
Globalism sounds like such a nice thing for many, it even has a nice ring to it! At least to
the naïve, whom actually believe that if the world could just get together and work out
its problems under one big umbrella, all would be great. I think most people would agree that
true free trade, coupled with safeguards to protect American jobs would be fine. The corrupted
globalism that this world has become nearly immersed in is a mechanism that, in reality, is
intent on creating a one world corporate owned planet operated under a top-down, locked-down,
political and economic management system backed up by coercion. Whew! That is a mouthful I
agree! It will be run by a partnership of the top .001% of wealthiest elites and administered
by the United Nations. International rules and laws for every single decision will nearly all
come under the auspices the United Nations. This plan has been laid out in various United
Nations publications and official policy.
President Trump has vowed to, and succeeded in some ways, to buck these one world
globalists, not to say he hasn't treated them to overly generous tax breaks since he has been
in charge! Not withstanding the prior, these one world globalists include even some of the most
prominent lawmakers in Washington D.C. far too often. The entrenched snake sales people over at
the White House lawmaking division are far too often part of the plan to decimate America
whether they believe it or not. We can only hope that a large part of them are do not realize
what the end-game is of this globalist cabal. Perhaps this is of course why we so often shake
our heads in disbelief when they utter ideas and beliefs that sound so foreign to ears,
anti-American and even scary!
So far, Pres. Trump seems to have accomplished about as much as any one president ever could
accomplish when walking into a room of entrenched den of thieves! Washington is not going to be
a part of solving the problems of globalism, for they and the globalists are in bed together.
Part of the problem remains that the establishment agenda is overrun by statists who walk in
lock-step with their leaders and party platforms even if corrupted. It is just too profitable
for them to ignore. Yet, the truth is that statism has no sense of proportion. These sometimes
well-meaning politicians, once they are put into power, knowingly or unknowingly become slaves
to their corporate owners. This is corporatocracy, and it is unsustainable. The one world
corporate pirates, comprising a collection of the largest 100 or so family dynasties, do in
fact control approximately 90 percent of the wealth of the world, hidden inside a dark web of
very complex multi-structured organizations and corporate nameplates. Such makes it very
difficult, but not impossible to truly figure out who the real owners are behind the maze. This
is perhaps the reason why I contend that President Trump, an outsider with a new direction for
America, may be our last chance. Most of these types hate Trump because he is hitting them
where it hurts on most fronts and is slowing down the globalist agenda!
Corporate socialism IS globalism. It is a growing and controlled oligarchy. As such, it
affords both the supranational capitalists, world's governments and non-elected quasi
governmental agencies to profit together as a baseball team would. Yes, working together with
one unified grand vision for the profit and powers of both. Globalism is the name. We already
see how nearly everything around us is becoming part of the so-called global order. These,
creating quid-pro-quo systems of control over the entire world economies, whom create wars for
profit, create inflation to inadvertently benefit themselves and enact so-called "free-trade
partnerships" that portend to help creates jobs here at home, only succeed occasionally of
creating low wage service jobs in large part in the parts of the world that the globalists
venture with their self-serving con-game. Limiting competition, being on the inside, having
power over others, this is what the global government and one world monopolistic corporations
are all about. The free trade agreements offer all of its members to petition, (and usually
get) allowances to get around many of the safeguards and traditional legal rules that used to
be sacrosanct in world trade. Especially as to food processing. The move toward monopolization
is perhaps the biggest motivator these have for supporting globalist (un)free trade
agreements.
What the true elite globalists (who reside in both political parties in Washington and world
power centers in particular) want is unbridled control over nearly everything in order to unite
us into a global world of subservient slaves unto them. So, what's the answer?
It is easy to witness that the far leftists often do not divulge they are socialists at all.
In recent years, this is changing, now that millions of young voters have been convinced by
their colleges and mass media outlets that socialism IS the answer. In the past, no candidate
would utter the word socialism for fear of many lost votes. Today, a surprisingly large
percentage of politicians in government are onboard. We can easily spot them if we compare
their voting records. Then compare them to the promises made when running for election! So,
before you get too comfortable with politicians who come off as infectiously kind and
compassionate while often using the words 'fairness', "world community", "social equality",
"open borders", "free trade", "globalism", "social justice" and other such pleasantly
attractive bleeding heart politicians using such catch-phrases, be careful. Although Democrats
will more often than not fall into this category of unsung globalists, many on both sides of
the isle fit the bill as well. Some more than others knowingly use these kind sounding
platforms in order to garner votes from the gullible young in particular. History shows over
and over again how gullible citizens can be duped into voting for someone they thought was a
caring politician, then come to discover they voted for a hidden socialist or communist in
fact. Although we can all agree on the responsibilities of our government as spelled out in the
Constitution, our founding fathers warned the new country that we must beware of politicians
who promise more than that great document promises.
Government / corporate partnerships, whether formal or consensual, create insanely
profitable fortunes for their owners while too often screwing over not only Americans but the
worlds taxpaying citizens and their industrialized countries as well. Who do you think the
prime contractors are who build and supply trillions of dollars of military weapons to the
huge, high testosterone American military machine? These war factories are largely owned by
billion-dollar super elites whose huge goliath corporations very often operate under a
duplicity of names that largely hides the true identities of the owners behind them. These true
owners often use layers of sub-corporations operating under various, differing names and
locations providing legal and illegal tax havens around the world. Apple pays zero US taxes for
example using such a scheme. This is just one case amongst thousands. Often the tax havens are
claimed are justified by the existence of a foreign post office box. Seldom are these caught or
fined by our U.S. authorities. When they do occasionally get caught, the fines are typically
just a miniscule part of the total savings they have accumulated over the past years.
With a little research we can find many of the same board members appearing again and again
on the rosters of the quietly interconnected mega corporations. This creates the long-time
problem of immoral collusions that often allow shifting of profits to other tax havens,
allowing American profits to go untaxed and shifting the responsibility fully onto the American
worker. Does it not make sense that a corporation that makes ridiculous record profits such as
Apple and others do, that they should pay their share? This globalist mindset of the elites
creates record profits at the expense of American workers and their spending powers.
Within our public "screwling system" as I call it, students are increasingly taught that
"globalism" is a new religion of sorts, a "cure-all" for world discourse perhaps! Those with
enough power to create massive changes in culture are behind the politically correct culture,
the green movement and most other leftist power grabs. These are often the very same
supra-national corporations and political kingpins who wish to undermine the America we
remember, its legal system while creating a monopolistic economic and totalitarian one world
state. It is wise to remember the confirmed beliefs and admissions o f the godfathers of the
one world order. Of course I am speaking of the Rockefellers, J.P. Morgan and dozens more of
the wealthiest families of the world whom have for centuries verifiably acted upon and talked
of such plans. Their heirs, as well as the new titans such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos (Amazon
fame), Elon Musk (Tesla) and other such billionaire or trillionaire types are nearly all on
board vocally with a one world order system of governance. I will cover this much more further
on.
For over 100 years, much of American education has been stealthily entrenched in
anti-Western "cultural Marxism" propaganda and other damaging indoctrinations (as I document
later). Public schools have long promoted the globalism lie, teaching such as the yellow brick
road towards acceptance of a one world order that delivers utopia. It is hard indeed to find a
young person today in America who still believes strongly in traditional values and ideas of
self-responsibility, detest government interference in their lives, loves the Constitution,
what it stands for and protects. They have been indoctrinated by our schools to the point that
common sense no longer matters, for honest discourse in discussions are heavily discouraged in
many a classroom. I prove further along that most of the liberal ideology being increasingly
touted by the left is borne out of a long dreamt of socialist utopia carried out by a
partnership between the corporate globalists, the U.N. and those elites who desire power over
the world. And I can guarantee to you that these are getting impatient. These, their
cohorts/devotees are those whom desire to make the choices as to everything you buy, eat,
drive, live, your job destiny, how much or how little you make, etc. etc. Most of this agenda
is not so hidden, contained already within the prime vehicle to bring about the one world order
with the United Nations Agenda 21 policies taking place around the world.
Considering that at least 50% of the world's wealth is verifiably controlled by the top 1%
consisting of only 67 of the world's wealthiest individuals (and shrinking), this is pretty
good evidence that we are essentially being controlled by a very small corporate global elite
club designed and run for the few. These stats are verified later. The pace of their
destruction is staggering.
Today, the top 200 corporations are bigger than the combined economies of 182 countries and
have twice the economic influence than 80 per cent of all humanity as I prove!
Globalism has come very far in rendering world with greatly reduced amounts of anything
amounting to a capitalistic system that comes with practical safeguards against abuses that
place too much harm to the hard working stiffs. Increasingly, we witness wage inequalities
worse than in the Great Depression. Truly, the top 10 percent earners have left everyone else
in the dust increasingly over the last 50 years. The top 1 percenters incomes during this time
has gone to the moon at the expense of the masses.
Globalism is the vehicle to achieve the elite globalist goals of a one world order,
separate, nationalistic and independent nations with their own borders must be eliminated,
which shouldn't be too much of a problem to accomplish in much of the world, especially in the
current socialist run countries in and around the European continent and America who largely
embrace socialism. What is ironic is that socialist Briton's have turn their backs on Brexit,
meant to centralize nearly all power to the elite globalists. Little did they realize that you
can't have both, at least in the long run.
The League of Nations was the precursor of the United Nations. From their beginnings, the
primary long-term reason for both of them had always been to be the primary central agency of
the world, an assemblage of the top global power brokers created to steer and carry out the new
world order which has been dreamt of for millennium. Its creation has not been, as it touts,
"to create a harmonious and peaceful world". No, the U.N.'s overarching goal has been to create
a one world government using the ploy of globalism. There are ample records dating back before
its very creation, direct from the U.N.'s own publications and top officers and founders to
support this statement which I document quite fully in order to prove that point. This UN has
with much ambition endorsed and sanctioned one world inspired leaders, corporations, groups,
agencies, NGO's and billionaires from countries all around the globe in a long term unified
vision of this new world order in order to further the one world agenda. The help that the UN
has supplied in the creation of most planned wars, coups and disruptions across the world is
well known by those who have done their homework on that subject. It is this cabal and others
that are the enemies of true freedoms, borders, sovereignty across the globe yet are completely
onboard with creating a one world government. Americanism or any other type of governance
besides their one world order. These are the a major part of the world's Deep State apparatus
who are in fact often hidden forces behind the worlds corporate powered global power
structure.
The global multinational corporatist leaders have pushed their un-free trade treaties, long
creating a horrid record of killing millions of good paying jobs across America and nearly
everywhere they venture. These stealing of good jobs have swelled the bank accounts and powers
of these globalist multinational corporations while boosting their wealth into the top 1%
largely at the expense of the masses who now work for far less. lowered wages.
The globalists new world order plan requires a complete breakdown of the required systems
that have historically allowed nation to prosper on its own merits. Sold by both parties is the
false belief that big government can fix everything. This long-running sales job actually
promotes self-interest above all, using deceptive techniques as I cover. Such a sales job
requires a break away from traditions that bind us with our neighbors and family. It requires a
growth in narcissism, self above God so much so that we can now even witiness the horrid
reality of pedophilia becoming more mainstream! Since President Trump's reign, thousands of
pedophilia people and groups have been arrested as never before! Thousand of killer gang
members have been arrested as never before, especially those inside of the MS-13 ruthless
group. This is just one of many actions by this President that leads to my belief that our new
President is holding up his end of the agreement. Like him or not, he at least is holding up
his promises.
History is replete with all the immense damages that the globalist movement has brought upon
the world. These have sold the lie that globalism is the answer to the inequalities between the
haves and the have nots. While the opposite is the real truth! The truth is now evident when
one looks at the condition of the world they have pushed upon all of us over the last many
years.
The elite new world order operatives have infiltrated all the major nations governmental
agencies, top positions of power. Led by the lure of power, connectedness, money, these are
often not aware that they are actually perpetuating a plan that is deadly for much of the world
if the globalist elites they serve should get their way. Unfortunately for these self serving
minions only are concerned with self promotion often. Yet the fact remains that political
expediency and promotions come with compliance. The heads of nearly every major country are
working together with this huge one world apparatus machine that is enclosed within the UN,
World Bank, IMF, European Union, Trilateral Commission, Council on Foreign Relations, the Royal
Family, the corporation called America, and hundreds of other governmental and non-governmental
centers of power. Many of these hide behind nice sounding, humanitarian nameplates. Nearly all
the crises we see play out are ones they actually create, (of which American hegemony around
the world is a large player). For these, the ends always justify the means.
Continual non-stop conflicts around the world, of which America is often at the forefront of
are exponentially increasing. I will explain why and how America's endless war policies has
been implemented over the last many years, but I cannot divulge my take on who and what is
behind much of the openly visible powers working behind much of the news we hear.
Explained will be real, actual reasons why America has spent over 15 years in Iraq,
Afghanistan and Libya with nothing to show besides disasters and deaths, while earning a bad
reputation around the world as a bully. Be assured that the elites and banking system have made
trillions of dollars from these three examples. And lives mean little. Psychopaths don't care
about anything beyond their own desires and powers, and many of these are psychopaths indeed.
They use false justifications as a passport to sell many of their warring's and destructions.
This is globalism.
I predict that the CIA, (a globalist arm of the U.S. Government and deep state), armed with
an unlimited budget and trillions of dollars derived from their years of secret under the radar
dirty operations, are likely to be an agency to be reviewed, revamped or remodeled within the
not so distant future. The truths behind this clandestine, above the law and corrupted agency
may finally be surfacing as well. Ever since the Trump Russian collusion witch hunt also with
an unlimited budget as well both of these conducted, likely during Pres. Trump's time as
president, we should expect to witness a firestorm of controversy and change more momentous
than anything in American history, hopefully.
President Donald Trump has his work cut out, but his years in office have shown he is no
typical deep state establishment fixture of either political party! What we are now witnessing
is perhaps the most important and fateful elections in America's entire history. The results
will either allow the Republican Party to prove itself to be the party of the people, or become
impotent, simply becoming water boys for the Democrat Party, thereafter having little real
power for decades perhaps. The results of the coming elections leading into 2020, (general and
mid-terms), will in fact be the determining factor for whether America and the world reject
conservativism or falls into the clutches of a highly touted, yet untruthful liberalism that
doesn't even resemble the old party of the people that dems used to own in the far past. So, we
must ask ourselves, how did this all come to such a historic moment as we are living in?
It seems to me an important tenet of the neoliberal ideology is the arbiter (or
auctioneer) role it gives the state and other political institutions with respect to markets.
Markets are the locus of justice and efficiency, but political institutions have the
essential task of organizing them and the competitions that takes place within them,
supposedly at least.
In practice, this translated in a central role of political power not only in privatizing
and breaking state monopolies, but also in the creation, sometimes ex nihilo, of markets
supervised by state or quasi-state agencies (shielded of electoral choices by regulatory or
ideally constitutional provisions) whose role was to organize concurrence in domains
classical liberal economic theory would consider natural monopolies or natural public
properties (education, health service, energy distribution, infrastructure of transportation,
telecommunication, postal and banking service etc.)
What an excellent and deep observation ! Thank you ! This is the essence of the compromises
with financial oligarchy made by failing social democratic parties. Neoliberalism is kind of
Trotskyism for the rich in which the political power is used to shape the society "from above".
As Hayek remarked on his visit to Pinochet's Chile – "my personal preference leans toward
a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism".
George Monblot observed that "Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket [of
the financial oligarchy], but it rapidly became one." ( The Guardian, Apr 15, 2016):
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It
redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and
selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that "the
market" delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty. Tax and regulation
should be minimised, public services should be privatised. The organisation of labour and
collective bargaining by trade unions are portrayed as market distortions that impede the
formation of a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. Inequality is recast as virtuous: a
reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts
to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market
ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
The free (as in absence of regulation for FIRE) market produces a tiny cadre of winners and
an enormous army of losers (10% vs 90%) – and the losers, looking for revenge, have
turned to Trump. Now entrenched centers of "resistance" (and first of all CIA, the Justice
Department, The Department of State and a part of Pentagon) are trying to reverse the
situation. Failing to understand that they created Trump and each time will reproduce it in
more and more dangerous variant.
Trumpism is the inevitable result of the gap between the utopian ideal of the free (for the
FIRE sector only ) market and the dystopian reality for the majority of the population
("without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape" Pope Francis, "Evangelii
Gaudium")
The situation in which the financial sector generates just 4% of employment, but accounts
for more than 25% of corporate profits is unsustainable. It should be reversed and it will be
reversed.
"... Markets are the locus of justice and efficiency, but political institutions have the essential task of organizing them and the competitions that takes place within them, supposedly at least. In practice, this translated in a central role of political power not only in privatizing and breaking state monopolies, but also in the creation, sometimes ex nihilo , of markets supervised by state or quasi-state agencies (shielded of electoral choices by regulatory or ideally constitutional provisions) whose role was to organize concurrence in domains classical liberal economic theory would consider natural monopolies or natural public properties (education, health service, energy distribution, infrastructure of transportation, telecommunication, postal and banking service etc.). In that sense, the economical management of the EU post-1992 by the European Commission is probably the actual political system closest to the pure ideology. ..."
"... On the whole I think that modern days anti-neoliberals like Trump are closer to paleo-liberals (European sense), that is even less redistributionist, so even when they call themselves as anti-neoliberal they are even more neoliberal than the older bunch. ..."
'Rather than concentrating on national programs of monetarism, privatization, and
union-busting, Quinn Slobodian focuses on the transnational dimension: the EU and the WTO. The
protagonists of his story are people you have never heard of, second-generation students of the
original Austro-German founders, trained as lawyers, not economists -- men like Ernst-Joachim
Mestmäker and Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann, who shaped the agenda in Brussels and helped to
steer global trade policy .
Slobodian has underlined the profound conservatism of the first generation of neoliberals
and their fundamental hostility to democracy. What he has exposed, furthermore, is their deep
commitment to empire as a restraint on the nation state. Notably, in the case of Wilhelm
Röpke, this was reinforced by deep-seated anti-black racism. Throughout the 1960s
Röpke was active on behalf of South Africa and Rhodesia in defense of what he saw as the
last bastions of white civilization in the developing world. As late as the 1980s, members of
the Mont Pèlerin Society argued that the white minority in South Africa could best be
defended by weighting the voting system by the proportion of taxes paid .
If racial hierarchy was one of the foundations of neoliberalism's imagined global order, the
other key constraint on the nation-state was the free flow of the factors of production. This
is what made the restoration of capital mobility in the 1980s such a triumph. Following in the
footsteps of the legal scholar and historian Samuel Moyn, one might remark that it was not by
accident that the advent of radical capital mobility coincided with the advent of universal
human rights. Both curtailed the sovereignty of nation states. Slobodian traces that
intellectual and political association back to the 1940s, when Geneva school economists
formulated the argument that an essential pillar of liberal freedom was the right of the
wealthy to move their money across borders unimpeded by national government regulation. What
they demanded, Slobodian quips, was the human right to capital flight .
By the 1990s it can hardly be denied that neoliberalism was the dominant mode of policy in
the EU, OECD, GATT, and WTO
critiques can be radically illuminating by exposing the foundations of key concepts of
modernity. But where do they lead? For Hayek this was not a question. The entire point was to
silence policy debate. By focusing on broad questions of the economic constitution, rather than
the details of economic processes, neoliberals sought to outlaw prying questions about how
things actually worked. It was when you started asking for statistics and assembling
spreadsheets that you took the first dangerous step toward politicizing "the economy."
An anti-Hayekian history of neoliberalism would be one that refuses neoliberalism's
deliberately elevated level of discourse and addresses itself instead to what neoliberalism's
airy talk of orders and constitutions seeks to obscure: namely, the engines both large and
small through which social and economic reality is constantly made and remade, its tools of
power and knowledge ranging from cost-of-living indicators to carbon budgets, diesel emission
tests and school evaluations. '
I don't have time to talk about this here, and it's probably too dull, but there is a huge
difference between the, so to speak, first generation of neoliberals, who were Europeans
(frequently of aristocratic lineage ..Friedrich August von Hayek and Ludwig Heinrich Edler von
Mises ) and brought up in a very notable Central European intellectual environment (Freud,
Nietzsche, Hegel, Marx .Hayek et al hated Marx, but they had read and understood him) , who had
a highly MittelEuropean concern for abstract theorising and qualitative data, and the 'school'
of neoliberalism that emerged in the 1950s in the United States (Friedman, of course, but also
the Chicago Boys). This latter group were rooted in Anglo-Saxon empiricism, logical positivism
(not in its so to speak original form, but as interpreted by e.g. Ayer), and had a deep love of
quantitative data, spreadsheets, equations, mathematical laws, and so on. They had little
concern or interest in the history of economics, and while they ritually spat on portraits of
Marx (and Hegel) every morning just to get themselves motivated in the morning, they didn't
read Marx, or indeed any non-English language writers. They paid lip service to the Austrian
school but again, they didn't really understand or care about what they were saying. They were
concerned with making economics a natural science (which the Austrians were absolutely not),
and were also concerned with making marketisation the so to speak 'default mode' of human
cognition.
As Tooze hints, it is our current quotidian situation (in which the quantitative analysis of
any given social phenomena in terms of 'competition' ..'school league tables' 'university
league tables', consumerist assessment of products in terms of quantitative output (that one
sees in, e.g. Which magazine), the increasing attempt to view Nature as a bankable
(quantitative) resource which can be capitalised) really derives from this 1950s and 1960s
approach to reality, as does the worship of the computer and the assumption that all social
problems are essentially non-ideological, quantitative, and solvable by technocratic means,
with (of course) the collaboration of the private sector (CF 'New Labour') .
And this is the world we all live in. In that sense, of course, we are all neoliberals
now.
@John Quiggin The core of the neoliberal program is (i) (ii) (iii)
Hmmm. For a rather short (and perceptive) blog post, that would probably do, but I find
the description a bit too simplistic in the way it describes the role of the state. It seems
to me an important tenet of the neoliberal ideology is the arbiter (or auctioneer) role it
gives the state and other political institutions with respect to markets. Markets are the
locus of justice and efficiency, but political institutions have the essential task of
organizing them and the competitions that takes place within them, supposedly at least. In
practice, this translated in a central role of political power not only in privatizing and
breaking state monopolies, but also in the creation, sometimes ex nihilo , of markets
supervised by state or quasi-state agencies (shielded of electoral choices by regulatory or
ideally constitutional provisions) whose role was to organize concurrence in domains
classical liberal economic theory would consider natural monopolies or natural public
properties (education, health service, energy distribution, infrastructure of transportation,
telecommunication, postal and banking service etc.). In that sense, the economical management
of the EU post-1992 by the European Commission is probably the actual political system
closest to the pure ideology.
Another aspect that is but alluded to is the actual electoral basis of neoliberal
political power, a topic discussed at length in the Brahmin left thesis of Piketty's most
recent book, though other people came there way earlier and though Atari democrats is
from 1983.
As for the failure of neoliberalism, the crucial point in my mind is that both the
ideological and actual social reality of neoliberalism (probably more or less the same thing)
– that is to say the idea that competition in which the most efficient, educated,
innovative come on top and in which the ensuing economic growth lifts all boats –
dramatically lack a fundamental property: it cannot reproduce the conditions of its own
social existence. The central problem is concrete and simple: those who came on top of the
previous round of the competition essential to neoliberal philosophy have the means and
opportunity to rig the next round. Add to that the fact that the original basic insights of
classical liberal proved to be more empirically correct than their neoliberal update, in that
natural public monopolies are indeed more efficiently managed by public monopolies, and you
get a vicious circle in which the tax cuts, social welfare cuts and privatizations are paid
by diminishing common goods, so that maintaining constant welfare (even for the educated and
wealthy) requires more income (you may want to enroll your children in a private school, or
to supplement your declining national health or pension plan with a private one etc.). Those
who can do it consequently exert as much pressure as they can on the economical and political
system so that their income increases, but this requires new tax cuts, social welfare cuts
and privatizations.
Another much more elementary point is that neoliberalism, as a political philosophy, is
characterized by its very relaxed attitude, to say the least, towards inequality. People born
after 1995, whose entire life experience has been of increased and extreme inequalities, can
hardly subscribe to such a view.
MisterMr 11.05.19 at 10:04 am (no link)
Political terms like "neoliberalism" make sense in opposition to other terms representing
other political movements, because one political movement generally rises against another.
But in the case of neoliberalism there are two different opposing movements in two
different times, so the term can have 2 different meanings.
The first meaning is in opposition to postwar new deal systems: "neoliberals" were people
who tought that the state was excessively large and had to be pruned.In this sense, Tatcher and Reagan were the most neoliberal, and other third wayists on the
left like Clinton and Blair were soft neoliberals.
It should be noted that soft neoliberalism was actually very popular and not at all something
imposed from the above, because for a variety of reasons many people including on the left
tought that the old new deal system was going bad.
But more recently "neoliberalism" is opposed by a sort of neo nationalism, most obviously
from right wing populists.
Said right wing populists are pissed off by the "cosmopolitan" aspect of neoliberalism, not
by the fact that the state is reined in.
So the meaning of "neoliberalism" in this acception is redefined.
If we take the first meaning (reduced redistribution), we should come to the idea that
Trump is more neoliberla than Obama (Trump cut taxes on the rich, Obama increased them).
If we take the second meaning Obama was clearly more cosmopolitan than Trump so Obama would
be more neoliberal.
Other meanings are somehow attached to the term without a real justification, for example
it is common to say that "austerity" is a neoliberal thing but, if you look at the USA,
deficits post 1980 are generally higher than deficits before 1980 ("austerity" is a relative
concept).
Also the "cosmopolitan" thing is dubious, most countries before WW2 were very
protectionistic (Italy during fascism had autarky as an official policy), so compared to this
"new deal" economy was already quite cosmopolitan and corresponded to a phase of strong
cultural globalization, however later globalization increased even more so relative to the
neoliberal (post 1980) period the new deal period looks more protectionist, but in the
great scheme of things it wasn't really.
On the whole I think that modern days anti-neoliberals like Trump are closer to
paleo-liberals (European sense), that is even less redistributionist, so even when they call
themselves as anti-neoliberal they are even more neoliberal than the older bunch.
But this is because I think that various ideas of the current anti-neoliberals are BS,
like the idea that immigration is bad for wages. People who really believe that immigration
is bad for wages would likely disagree with me.
insist on contradicting likbez on other issues. But Trump's attempt to plant oppo on Biden
abroad is the same thing that is alleged of the so-called dirty dossier. If the one is
treasonous, so is the other. Or, as I say, they're just dirty tricks, which is standard for a
corrupt system both sides uphold.
This simply is not the case and can't be compared. Biden is up to ears in Ukraine mess. And
not only corruption, although this is clearly the case and provable (for a Clinton-style
neoliberal this is a kind of badge of honor ;-), but in the much more serious stuff, including
his instigation of the civil war in Donbas region in order to weaken Russia. The latter is a
war crime.
Further, as Lee Arnold observes, none of this analysis makes any sense unless one can
explain why the Deep State would panic at Trump, even if that nonsense were a real thing.
True.
Trump is just waging economic warfare, which may have fewer US soldiers killing people but
is still warfare. As in Venezuela or Iran, I think, in many respects it is an even crueler
form of warfare in that it directly targets the people. Any defense of Trump as being less
violent takes words for deeds, and ignores anything but US casualties. The key notion, that
Trump is somehow draining the swamp, is preposterous, starting with the folly of accepting
such a meaningless phrase as sincere. There is no reasonable definition of swamp that doesn't
imply Trump is a swamp creature.
I completely agree. I think that Trumpism can be defined as "national neoliberalism" --
fully neoliberal policies domestically, but with an important change in foreign policy --
instead of classic neoliberal globalization based on organizations like WTO, they want a
different, more imperial type of globalization based mostly on bilateral treaties in which the
USA can impose his will by the sheer economic might. Kind of British empire type of
globalization.
Any theory that sees the CIA as the anti-Trump forgets the Clinton took the heat for
covering up how a falling out over arms deals with jihadis led to the clash in the first
place. So far, from helping Clinton the CIA hung her out to dry.
The military is also a part of the Deep State if there were one, but it was anti-Clinton,
just like it has been for decades. As for demonizing John Brennan for the wrong reasons,
Brennan has had a bipartisan career. But especially if you insist Brennan et al. are
Democratic Party hacks, then that must mean Trump is just another Republican. And that
contradicts every word about the Deep State and the swamp.
In no way, the CIA can be viewed as a monolithic organization. Factions within the CIA
can fight with each other. The same is true for the FBI. Why Comey made this statement is
completely unclear, but most probably there were some really incriminating information on
Weiner laptop (which contained about 694,000 emails and a very strange "Insurance" folder )
that made it impossible not to reopen investigation due to the pressure from the other
factions (for example, NY FBI office), which in case of Comey non-compliance could leak
information to the press and finish Clinton; probably this was a "forced move" (Zugzwang)
to prevent greater damage (see https://sputniknews.com/us/201808281067518732-comey-lied-clinton-emails-laptop/
)
My impression is that the military is also split. Compare Flynn with McMaster. The
latter was a rabid neocon from the beginning to the very end. It looks like DIA hates
Clinton neoliberals, including Obama, more than Trump, and that's why some forces within
the CIA and FBI decided to neutralize Flynn using dirty methods ( Lisa Page edited Flynn's
FBI 302 Report and then lied about that).
And powerful faction within DIA (and Pentagon in general), NSA and FBI definitely resent
Brennan (and CIA in general:
*https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2019/11/burn-cia-and-fbi-to-the-ground-start-over.html
), viewing him as inept careerist who was promoted despite his abysmal failures in KSA
(where he served under Colonel Lang). He owns his promotion to Obama.
Former CIA Director John Brennan has admitted to lying under oath to Congress on two
occasions. He may well face further legal exposure.
Brennan in 2016 also reached out to foreign intelligence services, primarily British
and Australian, to surveille and entrap Trump aides, as a way of circumventing rules
preventing CIA monitoring of American citizens. And he may well have also
reverse-targeted Americans, under the guise of monitoring foreign nationals, in order to
build a case of so-called Trump collusion.
Finally, Brennan testified to Congress in May 2017 that he had not been earlier aware
of the dossier or its contents before the election, although in August 2016 it is almost
certain that he had briefed Senator Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on it in a spirited effort to
have Reid pressure the FBI to keep or expand its counterintelligence investigation of
Trump during the critical final weeks of the election.
I think Brennan is a kind of a soldier of the neoliberal empire, who was loyal to Obama
and serves as a conduit of Obama policies and Obama decision to unleash the Russiagate
false flag operation (which was colored not only by Obama's CIA past and his imperial
presidency experience, but also by the desire to preserve his "legacy" and strong personal
animosity to Trump.)
In no way Brennan should be viewed as an independent player. It looks like Obama is at
the center of the Russiagate false flag operation and is a much more dangerous defender of
the global neoliberal empire then Brennan.
What I would like to stress in this post is that the events connected with Nulandgate,
Russiagate, Ukrainegate, and impeachment, are so complex that we probably can judge them
objectively only a decade or more later. But like JFK assassination Russiagate (and
Ukrainegate and impeachment are simply Russiagate 2.0) signifies finishing of one
historical period (classic neoliberalism period in the USA), and opening of the other,
which might be "national neoliberalism" period, or something completely different.
Washington D.C. politicians and the elites have created a state seized by a tiny cabal of
oligarchs and tyrants of the U.S. corporation. Most of these types have no concept of what our
lives are like. These types don't use regular commercial airlines, definitely not in passenger
class! Many take a helicopter to work. Many have never been to a grocery market, instead always
being catered to. Pres. Bush Sr. admitted this about himself.
Obviously, the members of Congress lack the capacity to fix our mess. For some members, it
is purposeful. To make it worse, they only know how to piecemeal problems without having any
concept or willingness of how to replace a failed system to a new one or truly fix the present
one. Arguably, many of these same sold out souls believe that the the Fabian gradualism way to
a new world order is an inevitability, so why try to fix the unchangeable? With this thought
process, perhaps they escape any guilt to their predatory and self-serving largess. These
petty, timid and uncreative bureaucrats are trained to carry out systems management, seeing
only piecemeal solutions that simply move the chairs around on the titanic! They are too busy
favors to satisfy the corporate and banking structures that finance their re-elections.
Their entire focus is on numbers, profits and personal advancements. I contend that a large
majority lack a moral & intellectual core. They are able to deny gravely ill people to
medical coverage to increase company profits as they are to peddle costly weapon systems to
blood soaked dictatorships who pledge to kill us. The human consequences never figure into
their balance sheets. The democratic system, they believe, is a secondary product of the free
market, which they slavishly serve, and it applies to both parties.
Each political party claims to have the cures, but Americans have finally learned to not
believe them anymore. We see that it's largely just theatre and they are the actors. It's like
having buyer's remorse after the elections are done, with the realization that things won't
change except to move even farther over to the one world globalist agenda for another 4 years,
no matter who is in power.
Whatever mix of President, House or Senate you like, nothing seems to move towards good
commonsense changes that everyday people can appreciate. For proof that both political sides
belong to the corporatists, consider that even though the House Republicans fought against
Obamacare with theatrical fortitude, even when they won the House and in fact finally have
powers defund Obamacare, they didn't. This act is repeated time and time again, with
Republicans acting and talking like they just couldn't overcome the opposition! But wait!
Republicans have owned the House for years, so they have had full control of the nation's purse
strings as well! Yet, they never seem to use their powers to get anything accomplished as far
as really turning government around, creating a true economy, cut waste or nearly anything else
that Joe Six-Pack could appreciate. How about real reforms that would align our country with
the U.S. Constitution? How about using restraint before going into warring's by whatever
methods are needed to justify or reject a war? And how fairer campaign reforms, instilling true
and honest Wall Street reforms, balancing of the budgets. Isn't that odd? Once we realize that
there are powers above them all, especially those of the establishment, it isn't so odd at
all.
Within this corporate inverted fascism we witness around us here in America today, any
substantial changes for the good of the country is difficult to achieve, to say the least. As
with so many problems America faces, many times we witness many controversial laws being
codified into law by liberal judges without a public vote or congressional vote. Sadly, in such
cases we see that it is not necessary for socialist and communist activists and leaders to
re-write the Constitution. It is easier for these cockroaches to exploit legitimate power by
means of judicial and legislative interpretations. The courts, populated by justices who are
often put behind the bench by politicians on both saide of the isle who act as representatives
of the corporate elites, this too often allows many corporate laws to be decided by the bench
while evading the taking of votes to decide their fates. This is part and parcel to the long
running Fabian plan to destroy the democratic system from within while the electorate is
asleep.
A recent example of the above statements follows: The Citizens United Supreme Court decision
in particular was a godsend to corporations in particular. Without much fanfare or public
knowledge, this decision insures that huge corporate campaign contributions are protected
speech under the First Amendment. Now, corporations are treated by the state as persons. Yes,
even though corporate misdeeds are allowed to escape personal prosecutions, somehow the court
decided this was a good and logical decision! These nice corporations have over 35,000
lobbyists in Washington who shape and write legislations in exchange for campaign
contributions. Now it is possible for campaign donors to make unlimited campaign contributions
to Super Pac's, for their corporate status allows them to do such.
Tens of millions of Americans are catching on to the extent of this takeover of our court
system and our country during the last couple of decades and are rising up, even though they
often don't really understand the crux of the problems and those behind the smoke screens of
political deception. Answers and fixes will not come unless people learn who the real enemies
of freedom are. They must engage in peaceful but loud revolt en-masse, if that is what it
takes, or else we shall face the music. In these situations, revolution is called for by our
Founding Fathers. We are at fault for falling asleep and allowing the real powers around the
world to fall more and more into the hands of the elites. We are now witnessing how effective
their slowly acquired manipulations and their acquisitions of power over state have led us to
this abyss. If allowed to continue, it is hard to believe but we will be faced with even more
laws, edicts, governmental oversight and new trade agreements that will water down and surely
eliminate most freedoms that we can still claim to have. Such will also elevate the costs to
small and medium American businesses to the point that they can no longer operate. Citizens
will face even larger losses of liberties, freedoms and economic inequalities than what we see
today.
Corrupted partnerships between Congress and corporatisms have increased so immensely in the
last 25 years that in one way or another, nearly all bills passing thru Congress today are
summarily stuffed with pork filled, anti-Constitutional, even foreign favoritisms aimed against
America's best interests in large part. And they are usually typed up by the corporate lawyers!
These silent partnerships between Washington and corporations are not slowing, quite the
opposite.
It has been no mistake that since the 2008 stock market and economic crash, Americas
economic system had still not boosted wages by much for the 90%. By 2018 only the top 10%,
again, had been the only ones to see large increases in real income. Is this just a mistake?
Not if history is any example! Both parties in Washington have been onboard with the corporate
ass kissings.
Just as in 2008, the un-federal reserve, the bankers and Wall Street are again playing even
larger risks with other people's money obtained through near zero interest rate policies. For
without the near zero un-federal reserve rates, this anemic economy would have crashed years
ago while the national debt exploded. Many top economists fell as I do that only because of the
near free interest rates has the American economy not crashed and burned. It has been on life
support, never truly recovering for the largess of American debt.
. The official economic indicators we hear on the television and news sources are largely
fabrications. Official economic numbers such as the unemployment rate, new jobs creation,
inflation, money supply, GDP, GNP, are all massaged by whoever is in power. The formulas and
the metrics that have been used for so many began changing around the time of President Bill
Clinton (that can be verified).
Have you ever wondered why the CPI, GDP and employment numbers run counter to your personal
and business experiences? The problem lies in the biased and often-manipulated government
reporting. The quality of government reporting has deteriorated sharply in the last couple of
decades, largely for political gain in a particular year and who is in office. Reporting
problems have included methodological changes to economic reporting that have pushed headline
economic and inflation results out of the realm of real-world or common experience. Many
statistics have been massaged with new metrics that often do not take into consideration many
of the factors of the old methods, often leaving out inconvenient facts, and thus making it
possible for the governmental accountings to look so rosy. The unemployment rate now includes
anyone who works even one hour per week! I a person works three jobs in order to survive, this
counts as 3 jobs! After just a couple of weeks of unemployment, a person is dropped off the
unemployment rolls. On and on it goes!
I am one of the many who feel confident that the coming crash will have the job of not only
wiping clean the current world debts, but also the leftovers of the corporate, state and
federal debts of the 2008 world economic crash that were never fully flushed out of the
system!
The big banks have been back at their old games of leveraging for about 10 years since the
last crash. They have been quietly expanding and ravaging the financial markets, increasing
their risk takings far beyond that of 2008. They never learned any lesson it would seem. Or
perhaps we should consider that they actually are very smart indeed. With government guarantees
and other incentives, could it possibly be that those stellar bankers whom own those thirty
story swanky buildings in Manhattan might be complicit in purposely gaming the system AGAIN?
Before the next financial Armageddon takes place? Could this consortium of big banks, most of
whom are largely fronts for just a few mega wealthy families of the world, be partnering with
the un-federal reserve insiders as well? Could the run up of reckless behavior by the banks
really consist of an intentional act by the banking elites to rob the very same system that
propped them back up last time they took a big fall? The answer is obvious. It isn't real money
after all. They ran off with trillions of dollars of taxpayer's bailout money first time
around, and from all indications they will recover all of their paper losses during the next
crash of 2017-2018.
This time the new world order elites have engineered a coming economic crash that will many
financial analysts believe will be a boon for those on the inside. This will be on a scale as
the world has never seen. It will make the 1929 Great Recession look like a picnic! The bigger
they are, the harder they fall as the saying goes. We have seen every recession since the
1960's takes longer to take place. Always we see higher highs and the lower lows in each
successive crash. These charts are easily available online from the FED website. Without fixing
the systemic problems of a unfederal reserve and an out of control government, each one builds
upon the last one. If that's an indication, we are going to face financial Armageddon!
Before I go into the next section, I must preface it by explaining to the readers that I am
not anti-capitalism at all! Capitalism and democracy must work together, and government must
restrain capitalism from becoming a mechanism to be enjoyed only by a few. What we are
witnessing today is just the opposite of that widely desired ideal. I believe we can all agree
that too much of one or the other is dangerous. Karl Marx had even predicted the path that the
corporate elites have taken. He prophetically claimed as well that it would all end up as a
monopolized capitalism cabal if not stopped.
America and major nations have been duped into, or knowingly accepting, the globalists
callings for so-called free trade agreements, allowing these mega national corporations to
consolidate their trade rules under one big unregulated umbrella that only they benefit from.
The free trade argument has never really been about fair trade, it was about "managed trade"
devoted towards a monopolized market system. The following two quotes below come from two
Rockefeller globalist pigs and surely hit a cord with what has been talked of above. These past
tyrants and many like them run on the same old abusive tactics of their past lineages whom
share their last names They are the proven grand masters and architects of the global elite's
one world cabal. Forgive me if I have already included these two. These are just too good to
not be repeated often!
PLEASE don't make the common mistake of thinking that these old geezers are pass`e and those
days are gone, not relevant anymore for they have been extremely good at hiding their secrets
for all these years, at least for those too busy to pay attention and really follow their
trailing's for many years as some have. The plan has worked so well, we are on its doorsteps!
After what you now know, do not the bankers really run the world? The quote below may help with
that decision
"The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely
preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries." -David Rockefeller,
Memoirs
"Competition is a sin!" John D. Rockefeller
MARX KNEW!
Karl Marx warned that unfettered capitalism is a revolutionary force that consumes greater
and greater numbers of human lives and whatever else it needs until it consumes itself.
Uncomfortable and unpopular as it might be for die hard in-the-wool capitalist lovers to admit
it, the huge mega capitalists of the world today do not care about individual nations or
sovereignty. They care not if they exploit the very poor, leave their more expensive workers
unnecessarily behind to suffer. Unrestrained capitalists are notorious for destroying forests,
habitats, lives, causing massive and avoidable oil spills, and basically whatever got in way in
their quest for profits. History is replete with examples. This is the uncomfortable bad side
of capitalism if not regulated properly.
Perhaps it was Jim Cramer on CNBC's Mad Money who admitted that what happened in the 2008
crash was in part a late stage symptom of capitalism written about by Karl Marx. His exact
words were "The only guy who really called this right was Karl Marx." It has become more and
more obvious since the 2008 crash that most of the "experts" don't have a clue in understanding
the underlying actions of the markets and the forces that manipulate it or how bad they damage
it, but Kramer obviously knows.
So, should we do away with capitalism? Of course not ! It by far offers the best economic
system of any other to benefit the good of mankind! It is a miraculous system that, if
practiced with common sense restraints and fair rules of trade, does benefit both the
corporations, the smaller businesses, workers and the general welfare of most all. Only
capitalism can offer so many benefits to so many, but it needs to be tamed with laws that
restrain those excesses. Today's globalism represents a style of capitalism that in large part
helps but for a few to any magnitude. Unfortunately, for the last 100 years the global
capitalist elites have ever increasingly abused everything in their path, laws or not. The
largest and most egregious violator of plundering the nation's wealth has of course been our
friendly un-Federal Reserve, an entity not commonly thought of as a "corporation", but it is in
fact a branch of the British /Rothschild's privately owned central banking system around the
world, a.k.a. the Bank of International Settlements. This entity is the godfather of the entire
central banking system. It controls the flow of money around the world in most respects, as is
explained elsewhere.
As their final push for total control is almost complete, the globalists already have
numerous, far reaching "free trade treaties" like the TPP, GATT, NAFTA, SPP, CATFA, PNTR, TAFTA
and a myriad of past trade treaties already in place all around the world. Such complicated
agreements are drawn up by the banker hired trade attorney's whom draft up legalese that few
besides them can decipher, purposely. Often being thousands of pages long, members of Congress
are rarely given enough time or energy to read these behemoth agreements.
The end game is to meld these varying trade agreement into just 4 major regional master
agreements that will cover the entire planet. The most ominous example of late is the TTIP (a
companion agreement to the TPP), standing for the "Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership" which is being implemented. It is a trade deal that melds together the American
TPP and the European Union. The TPP is the big daddy that drives even more American jobs
offshore. It dwarfs what NAFTA was in scope. Officials claim it is drafted to "provide
multilateral economic growth." Growth for who I ask?
During President John F. Kennedy's speech about "All boats rising" , he was not talking
about pure, unfettered capitalism to achieve that goal, but a more restrained, less
concentrated type of democratic capitalism perhaps, combined with proper laws that kept it from
abusing human rights while protecting good jobs. He knew too that if we could get rid of the
private Federal Reserve system, America could retake the powers over its money creation,
thereafter ridding ourselves paying interest on our debts while slowly become debt free!
President Trump has taken a tough, nationalistic fair play stance on the extremely unfair
tariff disparities that current exist between countries that import their products into the
U.S. and the high tariffs that America pays to those same countries when shipping to them. For
instance, for years America has only
charged a 2.5% tariff to import cars to China. He persuaded China to lower their 25% tariff
down to 15% effective July 2018. Canadian President Trudeau has been told to expect his tariffs
to be raised to 25% on many items. Mexico will be handing over many concessions as well within
the new NAFTA agreement under a new name. Of course, that will likely entail negotiations, but
the result is the same. Good news for America! Other deals are in the making to create a fair
playing field finally! Since when have we had a president that was not part of the good old
globalist boy's club?
Trump promises a lot of things and I am sure he is doing his best. Whatever political
persuasion you are, remember he is still our President and give him the respect he deserves as
leader of the greatest country on earth. Not perfect for sure, but he and the country don't
stand a chance of maintaining the freedoms we have enjoyed for two centuries if sanity does not
return to sound policies on borders, government spending, setting priorities that are more
nationalistic in nature and much more. We must stop the far leftist, sometimes communist
extremist groups right here in the United States who have been playing Americans as fools with
their stealthy tactics that mislead their followers using created crises and panics (the 2018
fake news event on illegal children kept in cages (hiding the fact that the photo was from back
in 2014 during Obama's term) all the while blaming Trump! Once Americans understand who backs
these slickly nefarious and anti-American stand-ins, the easier it will be to ban the evil
George Soros and his Open Society Foundation out of America! Proofs abounds to this man's evil
deeds, in 2018 Soros was banned from operating in his own native country Bulgaria! They know
how evil he is. Americans should wake up and learn about this $50 billion dollar anti-American
butches, self-promoter who is busy facilitating the one-world order with his billions at every
turn!
.2
POLITICALLY-CORRECT
MALEDUCATES
The years 2017-2020 will be a time that the leftists and the deep state government push
harder than ever before in history to squelch free speech, push the pc agenda, and spy on us.
Even with Pres. Trump cleaning house, we see instances of free speech being squashed more and
more so not only in America, but within countries all around the globe. This is the silencing
of the opposition to the new world order with politically correct speech derived from the
cultural Marxism revolution that came out of the Frankfurt School and flowed into our
universities as I elaborate elsewhere.
In August of 2018 it was the popular Infowars and Alex Jones broadcasts that were suddenly
banned in one fell swoop by Facebook, YouTube and just about every other social media behemoth.
A huge surprise for those who orchestrated this coupe` was that Jones gained 5 million viewers
overnight! An obvious blowback from all the negative lies about him. Whether you like him or
not is not the issue here. This is a slippery slope towards total censorship of any and all who
reject the official lines that the big state expects out of its citizens. This is only the
beginning. So lets get this right folks! Should these powerful and quasi private controllers of
information be able to gang up literally overnight in a coordinated effort and be able ban
anyone who they, (under orders of higher ups and deep state operatives) deem to be unfit to
talk to a willing public? Lest we not forget that we all share an on and off button! This is a
slippery slope to controlling news ala communist control tactics. This incident is the tip of
the iceberg folks! This is the first major effort, and possible win, for the one world order
tyrants operated by the Deep State and Shadow Government. The next calculated guess is that
Jones and others will be falsely and purposely implicated in serious and dangerous deeds, even
upon newscasters of the msn who have shown hate towards Jones. This is called a false flag
event meant to get rid of people like Jones by defaming the person. Jones is just an example of
what is to come. The Deep State and CIA have a long record of successfully carrying out these
covert types of operations.
Furthermore, Google, with its unmatched and fully proprietary informational control systems,
as well as becoming a single source military contractor for our military and all computer
system functions of such, is now a permanent and unabated partner with the U.S. Military, State
Department and much more as can be imagined. Without Google secret technologies, our military
would be impotent to defend America. This is just how important Google. Similarly, it is not
just a coincidence why most all large data and computer technology firms in Silicon Valley are
enjoying the highest growth and profitability numbers of all the fields out there today.
The above social media heads of companies are overwhelmingly quite frank about their one
world socialism philosophy. That is, as long as they don't have to be simple follower and can
continue to be a major profiteer in the coming corporate socialism world to come. What better
way to achieve an otherwise illogical idea as one worldism? Dumbing down with one source
informational news sources should work! China is using it now. With constant day in, day out
big state programming of news and opinions, (while offering incentives for good followers of
the state lines), China is far ahead of America. As one might admit, the many different
silencing techniques used for many years upon the public is having a profound affect upon how
the world sees their world!
Reporters Without Borders is a group that monitors freedom of press around the world. Around
2015 it took notice of Obamas administration in its quick stifling of the press. What did they
find? Since Obama's administration, freedom of press had dropped from 32 nd to 46 th among the
180 countries measured. This is from the same Obama that had promised his would be the "most
transparent" administration in American history. Presidential candidate Donald Trump learned
the hard way that saying the wrong thing could come at a high cost. Example: South American
Univision's airings of his upcoming Miss America pageant was threatened by that leftist media
outlet. His sin was saying that he wanted to build a wall along the length of the Mexican
border. Eventually he worked it all out, but it just shows how the big networks try to control
anyone who bucks their agenda of open borders and one world agenda. What happened to free
press? The globalist owned media's really do have immense sway as to what can be said, or
they'll make sure you pay a price! Many accuse these liberal universities as a leading force
toward the "standardization of culture." This term is their plan to squelch real free speech
and regional cultures in exchange for their one size fits all global world and singular rules
on conduct for all. It is in its essence Cultural Marxism.
"... By Marshall Auerback, a market analyst and commentator. produced by Economy for All , a project of the Independent Media Institute ..."
"... Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy ..."
"... When the government subsidize R&D here, what reason would there be for the resultant products that come from that R&D, be made here? In Canada the SRED (Scientific Research and Experimental Development) tax credits are used by companies to develop products that are then manufactured in China. No Canadian production worker will ever see an hour of labor from those subsidies. That result is baked into the R&D cake. ..."
"... As you point out, "many of the large International Corporations moved their software development and R&D offshore too". What stops them from co-mingling the subsidies and scamming the system for their benefit, since everything done to favor big business resolves to a scam on the peasants. ..."
Posted on
November 5, 2019 by Yves SmithBy Marshall Auerback, a
market analyst and commentator. produced by Economy for All , a project of the
Independent Media Institute
National industrial policy was once something you might read about in today's equivalent of
a friend's Facebook post, as hard as that might sound to believe. It was in newspapers; it was
on the radio. Taxi drivers had opinions about it. That all changed in the last 35 years, when
the rise and fall of the stock market and a shallow conversation about unemployment rates took
over. Industrial policy became an inside-baseball conversation, and to the extent that it was
discussed, it was through the prism of whether it imperiled the golden gospel and great
economic distraction of our time, "the free market."
The decades of free-market propaganda we've been exposed to are basically an exercise in
distracting the public from the meaningful choices that are now made behind closed doors. The
two big political parties that outwardly represent symbolic issues like gun rights and school
prayer spend the bulk of their time and political energy on complex industrial and regulatory
questions.
But much like Nero fiddling while Rome burned, they'd better start considering the question
of a national industrial policy before there's no industry left to manage. Manufacturing is now
at its smallest share of the U.S. economy in 72 years,
reports Bloomberg . Multinational supply chains undermine the negotiating power of workers,
thereby exacerbating inequality.
Are there ways to bring back manufacturing, or should we just capitulate to a mindset that
argues that these jobs are gone for good, that software retention is good enough, even as we
shift what's left of our manufacturing sector overseas to sweatshop economies? That seems
short-sighted. After all, it's pretty easy to steal IP; it's not so easy to steal an auto
manufacturing facility. The real question is: In the absence of some sort of national
industrial strategy, how do Western societies retain a viable middle class?
Decades of American middle-class exposure to favor China and other Asian countries'
industrial capacity have foisted it right back from elite circles into our politics and the
ballot box, in spectacular fashion, through the unlikely Donald Trump, who, in his typically
blunderbuss fashion, has called attention to some serious deficiencies in our current
globalized system, and the competitive threat posed by China to which we have remained
oblivious for all too long.
Not that Trump's 19th-century protectionism represents the right policy response, but his
concerns about Beijing make sense when you compare how much China invests in its own industrial
base relative to the U.S.: Robert D. Atkinson and Caleb Foote of the Information Technology and
Innovation Foundation
write that a recent Harvard Business School "
study estimated that the Chinese governments (national, provincial, and local) paid for a
whopping 22.2 percent of business R&D in 2015, with 95 percent of Chinese firms in 6
industries receiving government cash -- petrochemicals, electronics, metals and materials,
machinery and equipment, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology, and information technology."
In addition to the direct government grants on R&D, Atkinson and Foote
estimate that "the Chinese R&D tax credit is between 3
and 4.6 times more generous than the U.S. credit. To match China's R&D tax credit
generosity, the U.S. rate for the Alternative Simplified Credit would have to be increased from
14 percent to between 35 and 40 percent." Atkinson and Foote also
note that "
97 percent of American federal government funding went to just three sectors:
transportation equipment, which includes such as fighter jets, missiles, and the like ($14
billion); professional, scientific, and technical services ($5 billion); and computer and
electronic products ($4 billion)."
Taken in aggregate,
Atkinson and Foote calculate that "nearly 25 percent of all R&D expenditures in China
come in the form of government subsidies to firms." That's the sort of thing that must enter
the calculations of antitrust advocates when they call for breaking up big tech, without
considering the ramifications to research and development, especially relative to their Chinese
counterparts. (Statistically, as Anne
Marie Knott and Carl Vieregger find in a 2016 paper "Reconciling the Firm Size and Innovation
Puzzle," there are ample studies illustrating that R&D spending and R&D
productivity increase with scale.)
Why does this matter? Robert Kuttner,
writing at the Huffington Post at the inception of Barack Obama's presidency, made a
compelling argument that many of America's great industrial enterprises did not simply spring
up spontaneously via the magic of the "free market":
American commercial leadership in aerospace is no naturally occurring phenomenon. It
reflects trillions of dollars of subsidy from the Pentagon and from NASA. Likewise, U.S.
dominance in pharmaceuticals is the result of government subsidy of basic research, favorable
patent treatment, and the fact that the American consumer of prescription drugs is made to
overpay, giving the industry exorbitant profits to plow back into research. Throwing $700
billion at America's wounded banks is also an industrial policy.
So if we can have implicit industrial policies for these industries, why not explicit
policies to rebuild our auto industry, our steel industry, our machine tool industry, and the
industries of the next century, such as green energy and high-speed rail? And why not devise
some clear standards for which industries deserve help, and why, and what they owe America in
return?"
In fact, Kuttner describes a problem that well preceded Barack Obama. America's belief in
national industrial planning has been undermined to the extent that the U.S. began to adhere to
a doctrine of shareholder capitalism in the 1980s and beyond, a philosophy that minimized the
role of the state, and gave primacy to short-term profitability, as well as production growth
through efficiency (i.e., downsizing) and mergers. Corporate prioritization of maximizing
shareholders' value and the ways American corporations have minimized long-term R&D
expenditures and capital investment, all of which have resulted in the "unproductive disgorging
of corporate cash profits -- through massive dividend payouts and unprecedented spending on
stock repurchases -- over productive investment in innovation," write
Professors Servaas Storm and C.W.M. Naastepad .
Although European companies have not gone quite as far down that route, their "stakeholder
capitalism" culture has been somewhat subverted to the same short-term goals as their American
counterparts, as evidenced via Volkswagen's emissions
scandal and the erosion of workers' rights via the
Hartz labor "reforms" (which actually undermined the unions' stakeholder status in the
companies, thereby freeing up management to adopt many of the less attractive American
shareholder capitalism practices). The European Union too is now belatedly
recognizing the competitive threat posed by China . There's no doubt that the European
political classes are also becoming mindful that there are votes to be won here as well, as
Trump correctly calculated in 2016.
In the U.S., industrial policy is increasingly finding advocates on both the left (Elizabeth
Warren's policy director,
Ganesh Sitaraman ) and the right (
Professor Michael Lind ), via the convenient marriage of national security considerations
and with international investment and trade. If trade policy is ultimately subordinated to
national security concerns, it is conceivable that industrial policy could be
"bi-partisanized," thereby giving primacy to homegrown strategic industries necessary to
sustain viable national defense and security.
But this approach is not without risks: it is unclear whether the "national
security-fication" of the industrial policy renaissance will actually enhance or hinder
creativity and risk-taking, or merely cause these firms to decline altogether as viable
civilian competitors vis a vis Beijing. The
current travails of Boeing provide a salutary illustration of the risks of going too far
down the Pentagon rat hole.
And there are a number of recent studies illustrating that the case for "dual-use" (i.e.,
civilian and military) manufacturing does not substantially enhance civilian industrialization
and, indeed,
may retard overall economic growth. On the other hand, as the venture capitalist William
Janeway highlights in his seminal work, Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy , there are advantages at times to
being
"[d]ecoupled from any direct concern with economic return [It allowed] the Defense Department
[to] fund numerous alternative research agendas, underwriting the 'wasteful' search for
solutions that inevitably accompanies any effort to push back the frontiers of knowledge." So
there's a balance to be struck here. But, as Janeway notes
, "the strategic state interventions that have shaped the market economy over generations have
depended on grander themes -- national development, national security, social justice,
liberation from disease -- that transcend the calculus of welfare economics and the logic of
market failure."
Furthermore, to the extent that national security considerations retard offshoring and
global labor arbitrage, it can enhance the prospects for a viable form of "
national developmentalism ," given that both mean tighter labor markets and higher wages,
which in turn will likely push firms toward upgrading R&D spending in order to upgrade on
the high end of the technology curve ( as Seymour
Melman argued years ago ), as well as enhancing productivity gains.
As author Ted Fertik observes :
Higher productivity makes possible more generous welfare states, and helps national
industries compete to supply the world with high-tech products. If technological leadership
and a prosperous, patriotic citizenry are the surest guarantees of military preponderance,
such an economic policy represents the best military strategy in an era of great power
competition.
Both the left and the right are beginning to recognize that it makes no sense to make war on
wage-earners while claiming to protect the same wage earners from Chinese competition. But
governments need to do more than act as a neutral umpire, whose role never extends beyond
fixing market failures. As Janeway has
illustrated , governments have historically promoted the basic research that fueled
innovation and nurtured the talent and skills that "became the foundation of the Innovation
Economy"; "the central research laboratories of the great corporations were first supplemented
and then supplanted by direct state funding of research." But in spite of providing the
foundational research for a number of leading commercial products (e.g., Apple's iPhone), the
government has proved reticent in considering alternative forms of ownership structure (e.g., a
" government
golden share ," which gives veto rights on key strategic issues, such as relocation,
offshoring, special voting rights, etc.), or retaining intellectual property rights and
corresponding royalty streams to reflect the magnitude of their own R&D efforts, as
Professor Mariana Mazzucato
has proposed in the past . At the very least, we need to consider these alternative
ownership structures that focus entrepreneurial development on value creation, as opposed to
capitulating to the depredations of rentier capitalism on the spurious grounds that this is a
neutral byproduct of the market's efficient allocation of resources.
Within the U.S., national industrial policy also suits green advocates, such as Senator
Bernie Sanders, whose Green
New Deal plan , while failing to address domestic/local content, or manufacturing in the
broadest possible sense, at least begins to move the needle with regard to the federal
government building and owning a national renewable grid.
Likewise in Europe, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier recently published a "
National Industrial Strategy 2030 ," which,
according to Dalia Marin of Bruegel think tank in Brussels , "aims to protect German firms
against state-subsidized Chinese competitors. The strategy identifies key industrial sectors
that will receive special government support, calls for establishing production of electric-car
batteries in Europe, and advocates mergers to achieve economies of scale." It is striking that
EU policymakers,
such as Lars Feld of the German Council of Economic Experts , still apparently think it is
a protectionist step too far to consider coordinating with the car companies (where there is
already a high degree of trans-European policy coordination and international consolidation),
and other sectors, to help them all at the same time --
as Beijing is now doing . Of course, it would help to embed this in a manufacturing-based
Green New Deal, but it represents a healthy corrective to offshoring advocates who continue to
advocate that their car industry should migrate to China,
on the short-term grounds of cost consideration alone .
Essentially, the goal should be to protect the industries that policymakers think will be
strategically important from outsiders, and to further integrate with allies and partners to
achieve efficiencies and production scale. (Parenthetically, it seems particularly perverse
right at this juncture for the UK to break away from all this continental European integration,
and to try to go it alone via Brexit.) The aim should not be to protect private rent-seeking
and increasing private monopolization under the guise of industrial policy, which, as Dalia
Marin
notes , is why EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager
blocked the proposed merger between France's Alstom and Germany's Siemens. The two
companies "rarely compete with CRRC in third countries, because the Chinese company mainly
focuses on its home market." Hence, the grounds for creating "
heavyweight champions " was really a cover for developing an oligopoly instead.
Much of the focus of negotiation in the seemingly endless trade negotiations between the
U.S. and China has been on American efforts to dismantle the wave of subsidies and industrial
support that Beijing furnishes to its domestic industries. This seems both unrealistic as well
as being the exact opposite of what the U.S. should be doing if it hopes to level, or at least
carve up, the playing field.
Likewise, the problem in both the EU and the U.S. is not the size of these companies
generated by national developmentalism, but a size-neutral form of national regulation that
precludes these companies from stifling competition. The goal of a truly successful and
workable industrial policy should be to create an environment that supports and sustains value
creation and that socializes the benefits of the R&D for society as a whole, rather than
simply licensing it or selling it on to private companies so that it just becomes a vehicle
that sustains rent extraction for private profits alone.
We are slowly but surely starting to move away from market fundamentalism, but we still have
yet to make the full conceptual leap toward a sustainable industrial policy that creates an
economy for all. At least this is now becoming a fit discussion as far as policy making goes,
as many of the neoliberal shibboleths of the past 40 years are gradually being reconsidered and
abandoned. That is a start.
Repressed consumption in a few countries with sustained huge current account surpluses
naturally drives manufacturing outside the US (and other deficit countries). Interestingly,
Pettis says that those imbalances manifest today, not as a conflict between surplus/deficit
countries, but between economic sectors: bankers and owners in surplus/deficit countries vs.
the rest. According to Pettis this can be addressed internally in the US by tackling income
inequality: Tax transfers, reduced health care & educational costs, raising minimum wages
and giving negotiating power to unions. BUT BEFORE DOING THAT, THE US SHOULD IMPOSE CONTROLS
ON FOREIGN CAPITAL INFLOWS (by taxing those) INSTEAD ON TARIFFS ON FOREIGN PRODUCTS. From the
article:
It would have the additional benefit of forcing the cost of adjustment onto banks and
financial speculators, unlike tariffs, which force the cost onto businesses and
consumers.
If the US ever does this, other deficit countries, say the UK, France or Spain for
instance, should do exactly the same, and even more abruptly if these don't want to be awash
with foreign capital inflows and see inequality spiking even further.
It is financialization which is causing this. Please read Michael Hudson. As he has
pointed out it is financialization that is key. There is a reason his book was titled
"Killing the Host". Boeing's decline is also because of financialization. https://evonomics.com/hedge-fund-activists-prey-companies/
How Hedge Fund Activists Prey on Companies
Private equity and hedge are responsible for US manufacturing decline since the 1980s,
along with desire not to innovate-example why Deming's advice ignored by US automakers and
absorbed by the Japanese-who then clobbered the US automakers.
Hudson also knows that rising expenses for homeowners reduced their consumption capacity.
A main cause is rise in housing costs, education, and health.
Melman's main message is that focus on national security destroyed civilian sector. Today
most of US Govt R&D spending still in defense sector, while R&D disappearing in
private sector because of financialization.
Industrial strategy is useless for US unless housing costs come down, unless robots are
used. Hudson has already pointed out US cannot compete with Germany because of housing cost
differences. As Carl Benedikt Frey who focusses on tech has pointed out Midwest revolt was
because most automation was there.
"Frey argues that automation, or what he calls the third industrial revolution, is not only
putting jobs at risk, but is the principal source of growing inequality within the American
economy."
https://nationalinterest.org/feature/technology-trap-more-automation-driving-inequality-89211
" there are more robots in Michigan alone than in the entire American west. Where
manufacturing jobs have disappeared is also where US dissatisfaction is the greatest" https://voxeu.org/article/automation-and-its-enemies
Automation and its enemies
Carl Benedikt Frey, Ebrahim Rahbari 04 November 2019
I don't know that it's so much"free markets," as the financialization of the economy,
where money has mutated free a medium of exchange and necessary tool, to the end goal of
creating as much notational wealth, as the purpose of markets.
Money largely functions as a contract, where the asset is ultimately backed by a debt. So in
order to create the asset, similar amounts of debt have to be generated.
For one thing, it creates a centripedial effect, as positive feedback draws the asset to the
center of the community, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. Since finance
functions the value circulation mechanism of society, this is like the heart telling the
hands and feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get. The
Ancients used debt nubiles to reset this process, but we lack the long term perspective.
The other consequence is the government has been manipulated into being debtor of last
resort. Where would those trillions go otherwise and could Wall Street function without the
government soaking up so much excess money. The real elephant in the room is the degree
public debt backs private wealth.
Further note; Since this borrowed money cannot be used to compete with the private sector
for what is a finite amount of profitable investments, it is used to blow up whatever other
countries incur the wrath of our despots.
As Deep Throat explained, if you want to know what's going on, follow the money.
Whenever I see the term "free markets" bandied about I know it's a framing that fits an
ideology but in no way fits the actual facts.
Just like we now have two criminal justice systems, we now have two market systems: crony
capitalism, and actual capitalism.
Crony capitalism is for Exxon Mobil; Verizon; Amazon; Raytheon; JP Morgan. Actual
capitalism is reserved for the plebes, who get "creative destruction". Mom slipped and fell;
the hospital bill arrived and there wasn't enough cash; so they took the house.
It's the obverse of the "socialism" argument. We have socialism across the length and
breadth of the economy: more Federal dollars are spent subsidizing fossil fuels than are
spent educating children. But heaven forbid Bernie should utter the "S" word, because he's
talking about the kind of socialism for you and me.
The problem is avoiding that us versus them polarity and show why what is going on is BS.
That the markets NEED government debt to function and then waste that collective value. Not
that government is some old nanny, trying to quell the 'animal spirits" of the market.
Maintaining infrastructure just isn't as glamorous as guns and bombs. Probably doesn't
threaten to kill you, if you don't give it the money, either.
It should be obvious to most that simply pouring more vodka into the punch bowl does not
create a healthy economy, just a bunch of vultures picking at the carcass.
Finance does function as the circulation mechanism of the body of the community, just as
government, as its executive and regulatory function, is the central nervous system. We had
private government before, called monarchy. Now finance is having its 'let them eat cake'
moment.
As a medium, money is a public utility, like that other medium of roads. You can have the
most expensive car out there, but you still don't own the road.
It's not that society should be either private, or public, but an intelligent mix of
both.
Just winging it a bit here but perhaps it might be an idea to map out money flows to help
decide how to strengthen America's industrial health. As an example, it might be time to end
some subsidies. I understand that there are deliberate tax breaks for corporations that move
their manufacturing overseas. Cut them now for a start. Yeah, I know. Closing the barn door
too late.
To free up cash for R&D, turn back the clock to 1982 and make stock buybacks once more
illegal. Give tax credits to companies that pay for a younger generation of machinist's
education. Have the Federal government match dollar-for-dollar money spent on R&D. If the
government really wants to free up resources, bring out a law that says that it is illegal
for the government to give any subsidies for any corporation with a net worth of $1 billion
or more.
But we all know that none of this will ever happen as there are far too many rice bowls
involved for this to be done – until it is too late. Oh well.
"I understand that there are deliberate tax breaks for corporations that move their
manufacturing overseas. Cut them now for a start. Yeah, I know. Closing the barn door too
late."
Better late than never!
Personally, I think that is the only way to get a handle on this situation – Change
the tax laws.
1. Designate industries as targets to retain/recreate significant manufacturing capability
in the US – semiconductors, flat screens, solar panels, and pharmaceuticals come to
mind. Give them preferential protection with quotas, tariffs etc. instead of just shotgun
tariffs. These industries should be forward looking instead of recreating mid 20th
century.
2. Integrate this into NAFTA and maybe add Central American countries to it. If we need to
use cheap labor, then do it in countries that otherwise provide illegal immigrants to us to
build up their economies. Far better than sending the jobs to China, a major global
competitor.
3. Fund big science such as NASA etc. A lot of discoveries come out that can then be
commercialized with manufacturing inside the US and NAFTA.
It's very refreshing to read articles of this kind. Thank you.
I'm recently retired and my career consisted of a healthy portion of managerial and
executive responsibilities as well as a long denouement of flat out proletarian,
worker-drone, pseudo-Taylorized work. (Think Amazon but not at Amazon.) I've experienced, in
some detail, what I consider to be both sides of the post WWII dynamic as it relates to
technology and who controls the shop floor. Now that I have some time on my hands I've
decided to see if I can better understand what appears to be a central contradiction of
modern industrial practice and especially what I believe to be misguided efforts by
non-industrial corporations to employ industrial-work-process techniques in day-to-day
practice.
It does seem to me that we can do a lot better. A well developed industrial policy should
include both a strategy for improving our productive capacity while simultaneously more
fairly distributing the fruits of productivity more broadly throughout the population.
This article and the comments are very helpful in pointing the way.
For those who have used up their free access to Foreign Policy there's a non-paywalled
version of the Pettis article on the Carnegie endowment website.
There is so much to like in this post I am going to concentrate on the few points with
which I had problems:
1. Any time I hear an economist bemoaning policies which "may retard overall economic
growth." I am tempted to just tune out. 'nega-growth', a variant of Amory Lovins'
'Nega-Watts' maybe. But surely not more military Keynesianism, speeded up planned
obsolescence and just plain junk!
2. Then there is "the convenient marriage of national security considerations and with
international investment and trade." If national security considerations involve insuring
circuit boards for more exceptional (SIC) fighting machines like the F35 or for that matter
more hydrogen bombs that might actually work, count me out. OTOH if they include, for
example, insuring the country has the capability to produce its own medicines and generally
any of the goods and services required for national survival, sign me up.
(national security) Then there is 'climate change', brought to us by Exxon Mobile and the
century-long pursuit of
The Prize in the Middle Eastern deserts.
An anecdote regarding this free market for everything all the time mentality –
My small city's council recently debated whether to pay several tens of thousands of
dollars for a "branding" campaign with a PR/marketing company who in the past has dealt with
Conde Nast, so read high end clientele. My better half, who is a councilor, argued that
spending all that $$$ to attract more tourists wasn't the best use of the city's funds and
that we weren't a "brand" to begin with, but a city. We've already had big problems will
illegal Airbnb's removing significant amounts of housing from the market and housing costs
have skyrocketed in recent years while wages, of course, have not. The city had until
relatively recently been a blue collar suburb but that has changed rapidly. My wife tried to
make the case that the result of this "branding" was likely to push housing costs even higher
and push more long time residents right of of town. The council is pretty liberal, whatever
that means these days, and I don't believe there is a pro-business Republican among them. She
was still on the losing end of a 6-1 vote in favor of the "branding".
Very good article, however I don't think trying to bring manufacturing back by framing it
in terms of 'national security' is a good idea. Although the idea itself is correct,
explicitly promoting it this way would just hand more power over to the national security
industry and that has not served us well at all in the last two decades.
This was a great summary of rational thinking. Thank you MA. I've been almost depressed
this last year or so by the relentless undermining of national sovereignty. Trying to replace
it with everything from global supply chains to the ECB to Brexit-free-trade (even without
Europe) to private property rights to you name it. Sovereignty is a very basic thing –
we agree to it like we agree to our currency. And by that agreement we certainly imply an
"Industrial Policy to create an economy for all." How this wisdom got systematically
gaslighted is a whole nuther story. I'm glad China didn't get hooked.
Apparently, Americans don't need flag-making jobs as they will not Make America Great.
Trump campaign making banners in China – moving fast to beat tariffs deadline. Although
there is the possibility that these are for domestic consumption in China to help rally
Chinese hackers to the cause of supporting the Trump campaign, including voting for Trump.
That would prove there is No Collusion with Russia.
This post started off suggesting it's time to toss the "the free market" and I would add
that it's time to toss "free trade/globalization" too, but it shifted to discussions of
R&D spending, cautions to anti-trust advocates, and considerations of industrial policy
and national security.
If R&D spending and productivity increase with scale, and many sectors of the US
economy are dominated by a handful of large International Corporations does that mean that US
R&D spending and productivity are close to full-scale -- as are the Corporations? How
does scaled-up R&D spending reconcile with "massive dividend payouts and unprecedented
spending on stock repurchases" and the Corporate prioritization of "short-term
profitability"? Should I read the claims about how R&D spending and productivity increase
with 'scale' to mean the scale of the R&D spending -- not the scale of the firm? If so
what sort of calculations should be made by "antitrust advocates when they call for breaking
up big tech" if I separate the scale of a firm from the scale of the R&D spending? Does
it matter where the R&D is done? Haven't many of the large International Corporations
moved their software development and R&D offshore too? ["Software retention"? -- What
"software retention"?]
"Likewise, the problem in both the EU and the U.S. is not the size of these companies
generated by national developmentalism, but a size-neutral form of national regulation that
precludes these companies from stifling competition." What sort of industrial policy will
compel International Cartels to play nice with domestic small and medium-sized businesses?
Will that industrial policy be tied with some kind of changes to the 'free market' for
politicians, prosecutors, courts, and regulators?
If we sell it here, but we don't make it here any more then what kind of industrial policy
will rebuild the factories, the base of industrial capital, skills, and technical know-how?
It will take more than trade disputes or currency rate of exchange tricks, or R&D
spending, or targeted spending on a few DoD programs to rebuild US Industry. Shouldn't an
industrial policy address the little problem of the long distance splaying of industries
across seas and nations, the narrowing and consolidation of supply chains for the parts used
the products still 'made in the usa'? If the US started protecting its 'infant industry' I
think that might impact the way a lot of countries will run their economies. This would
affect a basis for our international hegemony. And if we don't protect our industry, which
will have to be re-built and raised from the razed factory buildings scattered around this
country, how would it ever reach the size and complexity needed to prosper again?
When the government subsidize R&D here, what reason would there be for the
resultant products that come from that R&D, be made here? In Canada the SRED (Scientific
Research and Experimental Development) tax credits are used by companies to develop products
that are then manufactured in China. No Canadian production worker will ever see an hour of
labor from those subsidies. That result is baked into the R&D cake.
As you point out, "many of the large International Corporations moved their software
development and R&D offshore too". What stops them from co-mingling the subsidies and
scamming the system for their benefit, since everything done to favor big business resolves
to a scam on the peasants.
Tim Worstall @10
Those things you mention are all prime example of neoliberal policies and privatisations
implemented in the nineties, parts of the worldwide neoliberal trend.
If we "tend to think of all of those as not being very neoliberal" it is because the
governments and parties that implemented these policies sometimes called themselves social
democratic or even socialist, but that is really the explanation why such far-reaching
changes could be made with so little resistance: the political majorities of every color,
left and right, embraced the neoliberal project wholeheartedly.
Contrary to its reputation, my country, Sweden, is in many aspects more privatised than
Chile. All of the old 20th century state monopolies are gone, and whatever few state-run
functions still left are currently being dismantled by the social democratic government.
"... An obvious point is that there is no such thing as a 'pure' neoliberal government, any more than there is a 'pure' social democratic government. All governments are mixtures of interest groups and of course, individuals, who may have different opinions and probably do. Also Govt.s 'change tack' over time. ..."
"... Nonetheless we can say that certain governments tend towards one or other end of the ideological spectrum. The Labour Government of 1945 and FDR's New Deal, are clearly on the 'left' hand side of the spectrum, and the Thatcher and Reagan government are on the Right (both of these are both clearly neoliberal, incidentally, in intent if not always in deed). Where one places other post-war governments is clearly to a certain extent in the eye of the beholder, but general trends are obvious. ..."
"... Certain people on this very thread are very desirous for these obviously apparent trends not to be so apparent or so obvious, and for equally obvious conclusions not to be therefore drawn about where, say, the Clinton Presidency or the Tony Blair Government stand on this 'left to right' spectrum, and one has to ask why that is. ..."
I
think this is a very important topic, and I would encourage others to contribute as much as
possible and create an educational interesting discussion.
John Quiggin on November 2, 2019
One obvious problem with my claim that neoliberalism has failed is that I haven't provided
either 'neoliberalism' or 'failure'. Taking the second point first, there are several ways in
which a political ideology may be a failure.
First, it may never attract sufficient support to have a serious influence on political
outcomes. In this sense, ideologies like libertarianism and guild socialism may be regarded
as failures.
Second, an ideology may be adopted and implemented, then discredited and discarded, or
superseded by some new idea. This is the eventual fate of most political ideologies.
Communism is the most recent example of a failure of this kind.
Third, an ideology may fail to deliver the promised outcomes. This is much more a matter
of judgment, since promises are never delivered in full and failures are rarely complete.
It is important to remember that failure is never final.
The last one is an important and valid observation. Humans are immensely flexible. I think
the broadest measure of the failure of a particular social system (and connected ideology)
might be the stagnation or even decline of the standard of living of the bottom 80% of the
population.
The key promise of neoliberalism is that redistribution of wealth up will lift that standard
of living of everybody ("a rising tide lifts all boats" meme.) It did not happen.
Equally obviously, neoliberalism has almost completely failed to deliver on most of its
promises, but, like Communism, that won't stop the True Believers.
Thank you! The analogy with Communism is very deep indeed, and exists on many levels. Dmitry
Orlov touched it in his writings. Any system based on ideology is somewhat similar to theocracy
and as such, carries the seeds of its own destruction within. As soon as the majority of the
population rejects the ideology troubles start, although the social system can continue to
exist for, say, half a century or more. So, in a way, 2007 created the 2016 Hillary fiasco: the
population had sent the establishment neoliberal candidate to the dustbin of history.
Moreover, the neoliberal New Class looks very similar to Soviet Nomenklatura: to belong to
this class it is not enough to have only money. It is more important to have a high-level
position in the industry, education, media, sport, or government. As soon as you lose this
position, you no longer belong to the New Class, even if you have millions in your bank
account. To accomplish the soft-landing, you can create your own charity (Gates, Clintons), or
to get some sinecure like to become a board member in an S&P500 corporation (Comey,
Mueller) although the latter is still "downgrades your social statuts, etc.
IMHO, after 2007 the situation with Neoliberalism is broadly similar to the situation with
the collapsing ideology in which Bolshevism found itself in 1945. The latter lasted almost 50
years after that, so we can probably assume that it takes from half a century to century for
such a neo-theocratic social system to disintegrate.
Surprisingly after 2007 managed to counterattack in several countries (Brazil, Argentina).
This phenomenon is discussed by by Colin Crouch in his short but influential book "The Strange
Non-Death of Neoliberalism" (2011)
So it had shown the same of higher resilience as Bolshevism, and in the absence of viable
alternatives it might even take longer to disintegrate. I suspect that much depends on the
"peak/plato oil" phenomenon. Prices over $100 per barrel might speed up the collapse.
In a sense, the current NeoMcCartyism (Russophobia, Sinophobia) epidemic in the USA can
partially be viewed as a yet another sign of the crisis of neoliberalism: a desperate attempt
to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade using scapegoating -- creation of an
external enemy to project the problems of the neoliberal society.
I would add another, pretty subjective measure of failure: the degradation of the elite.
When you look at Hillary, Trump, Biden, Warren, Harris, etc, you instantly understand what I am
talking about. They all look are the second-rate, if not the third rate politicians. Also, the
Epstein case was pretty symbolic.
The main luck of neoliberalism is that after 1980th, the society experienced two
technological revolutions at once: one in computing and the other in telecommunications
(Internet and broadband communications). Dissolution and subsequent merciless plunder of xUSSR
economic space a large part of which now is colonized by EU and the USA (Central European
countries previously belonging to the Warsaw block, Baltic countries, Ukraine, Georgia, etc.)
also helped to stem the slide of the standard of living in Western countries at least for a
decade or two.
Another factor was the injection of Soviet block engineers (including programmers) in the
USA and several other Western countries (Germany, UK, Scandinavian countries, Australia,
Israel, and Canada). I suspect that the Israel techno boom can be explained by this lucky
chance, although many later left Israel. Now the "Triumphal march of neoliberalism" is history,
the USSR is history, and the situation looks pretty bleak: high inequality has well known
destabilizing effects of the society.
Protests are coming. Whether those protests can be suppressed by the power of the national
security state installed after 9/11 in the USA, remain to be seen.
Hidari 11.04.19 at 11:22 am (no link)
Three more pieces on the philosophy which apparently does not exist, or, if it does exist,
can't be defined.
(Ideas associated with neoliberalism include) ' economic liberalization policies such as
privatization, austerity, deregulation, free trade and reductions in government spending in
order to increase the role of the private sector in the economy and society.'
(A neoliberal agenda) pushes 'deregulation on economies around the world, (opens) national
markets to trade and capital, and (demands) that governments shrink themselves via austerity
or privatisation. '
The major ideological opponents of neoliberalism therefore (social democracy, democratic
socialism) oppose all these things.
So instead of privatisation, nationalisation.
Instead of austerity, Keynesian 'pump priming' of the economy.
Instead of deregulation, regulation (of business).
Instead of a reduction of govt. spending, an increase in govt. spending.
Instead of Capital, unions.
And so on.
Hidari 11.04.19 at 12:45 pm (no link)
An obvious point is that there is no such thing as a 'pure' neoliberal government, any more
than there is a 'pure' social democratic government. All governments are mixtures of interest
groups and of course, individuals, who may have different opinions and probably do. Also
Govt.s 'change tack' over time.
Nonetheless we can say that certain governments tend towards one or other end of the
ideological spectrum. The Labour Government of 1945 and FDR's New Deal, are clearly on the
'left' hand side of the spectrum, and the Thatcher and Reagan government are on the Right
(both of these are both clearly neoliberal, incidentally, in intent if not always in deed).
Where one places other post-war governments is clearly to a certain extent in the eye
of the beholder, but general trends are obvious.
Certain people on this very thread are very desirous for these obviously apparent trends
not to be so apparent or so obvious, and for equally obvious conclusions not to be therefore
drawn about where, say, the Clinton Presidency or the Tony Blair Government stand on this
'left to right' spectrum, and one has to ask why that is.
Three years ago, American pundits could seriously predict a never-ending economic boom.
The combination of continued prosperity and 'the end of welfare as we know it' seemed to be
on the verge of eliminating crime and unemployment.
Should that be a thirty instead of three?
Otherwise, thanks for the best definition of neoliberalism I've seen. Keep up the great
writing, it's stimulating great conversations among friends.
Hidari 11.02.19 at 6:43 pm (no link)
I think this is excellent. Despite what was claimed on the previous thread, I think
neoliberalism has a fairly definite meaning, which is best summarised (as per the OP) in
comparison with its intellectual 'enemy': social democracy (or democratic socialism).
A key way of looking at this is: 'on whom does the burden of proof lie?' (or, to put it
another way, where do you put your Bayesian prior?)
For example. For the social democrat, and most Western European socialists/social
democrats, private enterprise in terms of large corporations/companies which had some form of
social benefit (or should have) were to be considered 'guilty until proven innocent'. In
other words, the burden of proof, so to speak, lay with the Right: they had to prove why
private was better. If they couldn't, the business/enterprise should remain in the public
sphere.
The neoliberal revolution (Thatcherism, Reaganism) reversed that burden of proof.
Suddenly, for them (and, soon, for us all), the burden of proof lay on the public sphere, not
the private. Suddenly it was public enterprises, not private, that were 'guilty until proven
innocent'. And unless overwhelming bodies of evidence were produced that public was better
for individual industries, then it was simply assumed that private was better, with the
obvious political corollary:
If an industry could be privatised it must be privatised.
When it could not be privatised, for whatever reason, it must be forced into some form of
collaboration with private industry (e.g. the notorious PPP), or 'internal markets'
introduced (cf the BBC, the NHS).
Increasing inequality was not sought out, per se, but insofar as it followed from the
marketisation of society, it was not to be fought against in any meaningful way.
The Golden Rules of neoliberalism were rarely stated openly, but informally one remembers
phrases like 'you can't buck the markets' and 'there is no alternative' (i.e. to the markets,
and marketisation).
As I say, it's bewildering that people pretend that neoliberalism doesn't have a fairly
clearly defined meaning, or even that 'there's no such thing as neoliberalism' (a quote that
went the rounds on social media a few months ago).
Equally obviously neoliberalism has almost completely failed to deliver on most of its
promises, but, like Communism, that won't stop the True Believers.
Elizabeth Warren Releases $20.5 Trillion Plan to Pay
for 'Medicare for All' https://nyti.ms/2N9lI4F
NYT - Thomas Kaplan, Abby Goodnough
and Margot Sanger-Katz - November 1
WASHINGTON -- Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday proposed $20.5 trillion in new spending
through huge tax increases on businesses and wealthy Americans to pay for "Medicare for all,"
laying out details for a landmark government expansion that will pose political risks for her
presidential candidacy while also allowing her to say she is not raising taxes on the middle
class to pay for her health care plan.
Ms. Warren, who has risen steadily in the polls with strong support from liberals excited
about her ambitious policy plans, has been under pressure from top rivals like former Vice
President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to release details about paying for her biggest plan, "Medicare
for all." Her new proposal marks a turning point for her campaign, in which she will have to
sell voters on a tax-and-spending plan that rivals the ambitions of the New Deal and the
Great Society while also defending it against both Democratic and Republican criticism.
Under Ms. Warren's plan, employer-sponsored health insurance -- which more than half of
Americans now receive -- would be eliminated and replaced by free government health coverage
for all Americans, a fundamental shift from a market-driven system that has defined health
care in the United States for decades but produced vast inequities in quality, service and
cost.
Ms. Warren would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a
decade, including by requiring employers to pay trillions of dollars to the government,
replacing much of what they currently spend to provide health coverage to workers. She would
create a tax on financial transactions like stock trades, change how investment gains are
taxed for the top 1 percent of households and ramp up her signature wealth tax proposal to be
steeper on billionaires. She also wants to cut $800 billion in military spending.
Ms. Warren's estimate for the cost of Medicare for all relies on an aggressive set of
assumptions about how to lower national health care costs while providing comprehensive
coverage to all Americans. Like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, she would essentially
eliminate medical costs for individuals, including premiums, deductibles and other
out-of-pocket expenses.
Critically, her new plan would not raise taxes on middle-class Americans, a question she
has been asked over and over but has not answered directly until now. When confronted on the
campaign trail and debate stage, she emphasized instead that her plan would result in higher
overall costs for wealthy people and big corporations but lower costs for middle-class
families. ...
"A key step in winning the public debate over Medicare for all will be explaining what
this plan costs -- and how to pay for it," Ms. Warren wrote in her plan. To do that, she
added, "We don't need to raise taxes on the middle class by one penny."
The issue of health care helped Democrats win control of the House in last year's midterm
elections, after unsuccessful attempts by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to
repeal the Affordable Care Act. It has been a central issue again this year as Ms. Warren and
other Democrats have competed for their party's presidential nomination, highlighting a
divide on policy between the party's moderates and its liberal wing that favors
transformative change. ...
Ms. Warren's proposal shows just how large a reorganization of spending Medicare for all
represents. By eliminating private health insurance and bringing every American into a
federal system, trillions of dollars of spending by households, employers and state
governments would be transferred into the federal budget over the course of a decade.
Her financing plan is based on cost estimates that are on the low side, relative to those
from other serious economists who have assessed the program. Her estimate of $20.5 trillion
over 10 years is based on a recent cost model by the Urban Institute, but with several
different assumptions that lower the cost from Urban's estimate of $34 trillion over the same
period.
Ms. Warren attempts to minimize fiscal disruption by asking the big payers in the current
system to keep paying for health care through new taxes. She would create a new "employer
Medicare contribution" that would effectively redirect what employers are already paying to
health insurers, totaling $8.8 trillion over a decade. Small businesses would be exempt if
they are not currently paying for their employees' health care.
Ms. Warren has also proposed that states pay the federal government much of what they
currently spend to cover state workers and low-income residents under the Medicaid
program.
But she also describes new revenue streams to replace the other big chunk of health
spending: the money spent by households on premiums, deductibles and direct payments for
services like dental care that are not always covered by insurance.
Ms. Warren would raise $3 trillion in total from two proposals to tax the richest
Americans. She has previously said that her wealth tax proposal, another signature of her
campaign, would impose a 3 percent annual tax on net worth over $1 billion; she would now
raise that to 6 percent. She would also change how investment gains are taxed for the top 1
percent of households.
In addition to imposing a tax on financial transactions, she would also make changes to
corporate taxation. She is counting on stronger tax enforcement to bring in $2.3 trillion in
taxes that would otherwise go uncollected. And she is banking on passing an overhaul of
immigration laws -- which itself would be a huge political feat -- and gaining revenue from
taxes paid by newly legal residents.
Ms. Warren's plan would put substantial downward pressure on payments to hospitals,
doctors and pharmaceutical companies. She expects that an aggressive negotiation system could
lower spending on generic medications by 30 percent compared with what Medicare pays now, for
example, and spending on prescription drugs could fall by 70 percent. Payments to hospitals
would be 10 percent higher on average than what Medicare pays now, a rate that would make
some hospitals whole but would lead to big reductions for others. She would reduce doctors'
pay to the prices Medicare pays now, with additional reductions for specialists, and small
increases to doctors who provide primary care. ...
This seems almost uniformly great. I only have two quibbles.
One is that a 6% wealth tax is actually too high, confiscatory even. The reason is that if
expected ROI is about 6%, the tax takes all the expected return. In perpetuity that is
equivalent to taking the entire net worth. Property tax is a pretty good guide here, 1-1.5%
works, perhaps a bit more.
Two is that the slant shows up immediately with this reporter. One example: "Ms. Warren
would use a mix of sources to pay for the $20.5 trillion in new spending over a decade..."
Note the use of "new spending". This may make sense if the subject is limited to government
spending, but we all know the game is to distract from the good lowered-aggregate spending
and emphasize the component spent by the evil government. We may see much more of this
misdirection including by primary opponents.
She is basically proposing to municipalize the entire payment flows for healthcare, much
as proposals now exist for California to municipalize PG&E, both excellent ideas.
Senator Elizabeth Warren on Friday released her proposal to pay for Medicare for All, a
plan to move every American to government-run health insurance that would reshape the US
health care system.
Warren's plan, outlined in a 9,275-word Medium post, included complex ideas for paying for
health care costs after private insurance is ended . It's a lot to digest, so here are five
takeaways.
Much of it is based on the Medicare for All Act
The plan released by Warren on Friday is primarily aimed at answering the question of how to
pay for single-payer health care. When it comes to the nuts and bolts of how her health care
plan would work, Warren points to the existing Medicare for All Act, that "damn bill" Senator
Bernie Sanders colorfully reminded debate viewers that he wrote.
Under the Medicare for All Act, introduced by Sanders in April and cosponsored by Warren,
all US residents would be automatically enrolled in a national health care plan administered
by the federal government. In addition to traditional medical coverage, the Medicare for All
Act includes vision and dental, plus long-term care services.
It relies on a lot of assumptions
At the outset, Warren acknowledges that it's difficult to predict what health care costs
will be in the future, and she notes that current projections about how much Medicare for All
would cost vary widely. Because the Medicare for All Act leaves open questions about how the
single-payer system would work, including major ones like the amount that health care
providers would be compensated, Warren fills in the gaps to arrive at a total cost estimate.
Outside analysts, including two local experts, cited by Warren estimate her plan would result
in overall US health care costs that are slightly lower than what the nation currently
spends.
Arriving at a specific cost allows Warren to figure out how she will pay for it, and there
are some assumptions here, too.
To fund the plan without increasing taxes on the middle class, Warren relies on enacting
seemingly unrelated legislation, including immigration reform. The pathway to citizenship for
millions of people in her immigration proposal would add to the tax base. Warren also wants
to cut defense spending.
There aren't new middle class taxes, but there are hikes for businesses and the
wealthy
Warren announced her Medicare for All plan with a major promise not to increase taxes on
the middle class, but that doesn't mean some taxes won't go up. After accounting for existing
federal spending and health care spending by employers that would be redirected to the
government, there's still a big hole. Warren fills it by levying new taxes and closing
loopholes in ways that target financial firms and large corporations. She also increases her
previously proposed wealth tax.
Some businesses would be hit harder than others. As Vox points out, if Warren asks
businesses to send their existing employee health insurance payments to the government,
businesses that currently provide inadequate insurance, or no insurance at all, fare much
better than those that provide good insurance coverage. That sets up a kind of penalty for
businesses that offer health coverage: They're helping pick up the tab for Medicare for All,
but they no longer have an advantage in attracting top talent with generous benefits.
Under Warren's plan, that situation is temporary as businesses would eventually pay into
the system at the same rate. And Warren says employers ultimately will be better off because
they won't get hit with unpredictable changes in health care costs.
It would be difficult to implement
Moving every single American to a new health care plan is a massive endeavor, so much so
that Warren says she'll release an entirely separate plan that deals with how to handle the
transition.
The transition has become a sticking point in the Democratic primary, with moderates like
former vice president Joe Biden using the lengthy time period (Sanders' plan says it would
take four years) as a reason to oppose it altogether.
And then there's the problem of passing such legislation: During the debate around the
Affordable Care Act in 2010, a proposed public option to allow people to buy into a
government-run health care plan nearly sunk the entire bill, and was stripped out of the
landmark legislation. The episode underscored the difficulty of implementing a government-run
health care program, even one popular with voters.
Warren has a plan for that, though. She wants to get rid of the filibuster, meaning the
Senate would need a simple majority to pass legislation, rather than the 60 votes currently
required to stop debate.
Warren has been reluctant to go on the offensive, but that may be changing
As she rose in the polls, Warren resisted leveling direct attacks against her primary
opponents. Warren's style has been to rail against the concept of big money fueling a
campaign, rather than directly criticizing individual candidates who have taken cash from
high-dollar fund-raisers.
But there are hints that this could be changing. Warren's lengthy Medicare for All plan
includes rebuttals to the criticism she's gotten from the moderate wing of the primary field,
calling on candidates who oppose her plan to explain how they would cover everyone.
"Make no mistake -- any candidate who opposes my long-term goal of Medicare for All and
refuses to answer these questions directly should concede that they have no real strategy for
helping the American people address the crushing costs of health care in this country. We
need plans, not slogans," she wrote.
The corporate health sub system
Intimately involves
the entire corporate system
We are on course toward
20 % of our economic output
Flowing thru our domestic
health services and products sectors
Where is the cost control mechanism
Simply in part
Progressively resourcing
And rechanneling the inflow of funds
Addresses a result not a cause
We have to address costs
We need a cap and trade market system
With a cap sector to GDP ratio that
Slowly squeezes down
the relative costs of the health sector
Public option is the transition
That empowers
people themselves
To spontaneous determine
the timing and pattern of
Their own transitioning
Anything else is political folly
Liz has set a bold end state vision
Bravely out laying where we must go eventually
And drawing in
the major shift in the share of
The total social cost burden
to the wealthy classes
But that's an end a destination
not a path
Urge choice not mandates
as the better path
The present corporate cost
burden share
is a mess
That should self dissolve over time
Now we need an optional public system
And
A means to capture the
Present corporate pay ins
Piecemeal over time as employees opt out of corporate plans into publicnplans one by one
Liz Warren would double her proposed billionaire
wealth tax to help fund 'Medicare for All' https://cnb.cx/332evbX
... Warren's wealth tax proposal would also impose a 2% tax on net worth between $50
million and $1 billion. She has previously said that it would be used to fund her ambitious
climate agenda, a slate of investments in child care and reductions in student loan debt.
But Warren is refusing to tax the middle class. She released an analysis produced by
several respected economists on Friday that suggests she will not have to.
Former IMF Chief Economist Simon Johnson, former Labor Department Chief Economist Betsey
Stevenson, and Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, wrote that Warren could pay
for her program "without imposing any new taxes on middle-class families."
The economists cite a number of possible revenue and spending options that they found
could generate $20.5 trillion in additional funding. Much of that funding is expected to come
from reallocating employer spending on health care and taxing the increased take-home pay
that employees are expected to receive under her system.
But taxes on the wealthy form a substantial portion. Doubling the billionaire wealth tax
will raise $1 trillion over 10 years, the economists found. They note in their analysis that
the calculation assumes a 15% rate of tax avoidance. ...
The world's worst negotiating strategy is to give the other side everything they want in
exchange for worthless empty promises, yet this is exactly what Trump and his trade team are doing.
All
the Chinese trade team has to do to get rid of tariffs and other U.S. bargaining chips is mutter
some empty phrase about "agreeing in principle" and the U.S. surrenders all its bargaining chips.
If the other side are such naive chumps that they give you everything you want without
actually committing to anything remotely consequential, why bother with a formal agreement?
Just
play the other side for the chumps they are: if they threaten to reinstate tariffs, just issue
another worthless press release about "progress has been made."
The other guaranteed losing strategy in negotiation is advertise your own fatal
weakness, which in Trump's case is his obsession with pushing the U.S. stock market to new highs.
There
is no greater gift he could hand the Chinese trade team than this monumental weakness, for all they
have to do is talk tough and the U.S. stock market promptly tanks, sending the Trump Team into a
panic of appeasement and empty claims of "progress."
The Chinese team has gotten their way for a year by playing Trump's team as chumps and
patsies, so why stop now?
The Chinese know they can get way without giving anything away
by continuing to play the American patsies and using the president's obsession with keeping U.S.
stocks lofting higher to their advantage: declare the talks stalled, U.S. stocks crater, the
American team panics and rushes to remove anything that might have enforcement teeth, reducing any
"trade deal" to nothing but empty promises.
Given their success at playing America's team, why do a deal at all? Just play the
chumps for another year,
and maybe Trump will be gone and a new set of even more naive
patsies enter the White House.
If we put ourselves in the shoes of the Chinese negotiators, we realize there's no need
to sign a deal at all:
the Trump team has gone out of its way to make it needless for
China to agree to anything remotely enforceable. All the Chinese have to do is issue some stern
talk that crushes U.S. stocks and the Trump Team scurries back, desperate to appease so another
rumor of a "trade deal" can be issued to send U.S. stocks higher.
It would be pathetic if it wasn't so foolish and consequential.
gjohnsit on Sat,
11/02/2019 - 11:42pm We all know that the millions of protesters out in the streets of
Latin America couldn't possibly have legitimate grievances against neoliberalism.
Obviously it's all about Putin , but he also has
evil
allies .
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez denied Friday that the country is behind recent social
unrest in Latin America and rejected US allegations that it is supporting Venezuela President
Nicolas Maduro.
"Maliciously people are accusing Cuba of being behind what is happening in Venezuela and
the recent popular protests against the pitiless neoliberalism that's advancing in this
region," said Rodriguez at an event in Havana, called the Anti-imperialist Meeting.
Of course Cuba would deny it. That's the proof of their guilt.
But it's
Venezuela that is most to blame.
Two of his most vocal regional critics -- Ecuadoran President Lenín Moreno and Chile's
Piñera -- have seen serious threats develop against their own administrations in the
form of large-scale street protests this month against price hikes for gas, transit,
electricity and other services.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri, who had called for Maduro to step down, lost his
reelection bid last week to a left-wing Peronista ticket that included former president
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, a longtime ally of Venezuela's socialists. Bolivian
President Evo Morales, a steadfast Maduro backer, has claimed victory in his country's
elections.
Maduro's adversaries claim this is no coincidence.
Leftists are winning, neoliberals are losing. Obviously it must be a konspiracy.
Ecuadoran authorities have detained several leftist politicians who attended the Caracas
summit. But they have yet to back up many of their allegations with proof.
...In fact, some allegations have proved to be anything but concrete. Interior Minister
María Paula Romo, for instance, heralded the Oct. 10 arrest of 17 foreigners,
including several Venezuelan nationals, at Quito's airport during the height of the riots in
Ecuador. But all but two were later released by a judge for lack of evidence.
"Some of them were just Venezuelan Uber drivers picking people up at the airport," said
Sebastián Hurtado, president of the Ecuadoran political consultancy Profitas.
...
"What is happening in Chile is happening everywhere," he said. "The system has collapsed
because people aren't eating, or just pasta and rice. They have no housing, no health
care."
Let's be serious for a moment.
Which is more likely?
Millions of people are protesting because they are hungry, sick, and homeless OR it's an
international konspiracy to make capitalists look bad?
Americans' views on
impeachment are neatly split along partisan lines. The latest polling averages,
tracked by the website
FiveThirtyEight
, show that 84 percent of Democrats now support impeachment, close to the highest level since
at least August 2018, when the site started collecting polls on the issue. By contrast, only 11 percent of Republicans
support impeachment, a number that has stayed fairly consistent over the past year and a half. This gulf in Democrats' and
Republicans' views is more than just partisanship, however. It's the latest evidence that political tribalism has taken
over nearly every part of American life.
According to a growing body of political-science research, Americans largely no longer feel a shared sense of national
identity. Democrats and Republicans see their political opponents as enemies with totally incomprehensible beliefs and
lifestyles. On impeachment, members of the two parties see things radically differently, not just because they have
dissimilar political opinions, but because they have entirely divergent views on how to approach life. The vicious
impeachment fight ahead may further exacerbate polarization in America, leaving Republicans, Democrats, and everyone in
between feeling even more suspicious of one another.
The WTO is being dismantled by Trumpian nonfeasance in pursuit of the deliberate rejection of the very idea of international
institutions (of imperialism, as I see it, but others don’t,) standing above the national state, immunizing the market against
the mistakes of democracy, providing the essential support to make a world market.
The OP says in the title this is arrogance, presumably as violating economic science. But all these seeming side issues are
about political economy in the end. Trump wants to pretend the US has been exploited by the old system, and pose as a nationalist.
I think he just wants to rationalize US empire, cutting costs, increasing ROI, etc.
I think Trump is getting support, primarily from the rich; also from middle strata, the kind of people who put FOX TV on in
the waiting rooms of their businesses; aksi from lower strata led by Christianity to favor any oppressive government that will
provide them support for their efforts to police society; also lower strata ethnic groups who have slowly been turning inwards
to each other as they see a future dog-eat-dog country where the breeds of dogs have to stick together, or perish.
In short, what the OP sees as arrogant dismissal of science I see as desperation masked with bravado.
Because it is primarily based on a critique of social democracy, neoliberalism places much
more weight on economic freedom than on personal freedom or civil liberties, reversing the
emphasis of classical liberalism. Indeed, it is fair to say that on matters of personal
freedom, neoliberalism is basically agnostic, encompassing a range of views from repressive
traditionalism to libertarianism.
In terms of economic policy, neoliberalism is constrained by the need to compete with the
achievements of social democracy. Hence, it is inconsistent with the kind of dogmatic
libertarianism that would leave the poor to starvation or private charity, and would leave
education to parents. Neoliberalism seeks to cut back the role of the state as much as possible
while maintaining public guarantees of access to basic health, education and income
security.
The core of the neoliberal program is
(i) to remove the state altogether from 'non-core' functions such as the provision of
infrastructure services
(ii) to minimise the state role in core functions (health, education, income security) through
contracting out, voucher schemes and so on
(iii) to reject redistribution of income except insofar as it is implied by the provision of a
basic 'safety net'.
With this definition, a reasonably pure form of neoliberalism (except for some subsidies to
favored businesses) is embodied in the program of the US Republican Party, and particularly the
Contract with America proposed by Gingrich in 1994. The ACT Party in New Zealand also takes a
fairly clear neoliberal stance, as do the more ideologically consistent elements of the British
Conservative Party and the Australian Liberal Party.
My claim that neoliberalism has failed therefore uses several different meanings of the term
'failure'. In Europe, apart from Britain, neoliberalism has mostly failed in sense (i). The EU
is inherently social democratic in its structure and attempts by poltical groups in some
Eastern European countries (notably the Czech Republic and Estonia) to pursue a free market
line have failed in the light of the superior attractions of the EU. It is true that the
European social democracies have given some ground, notably with respect to privatisation, but
no genuinely neoliberal party has arisen or seems likely to. The political right has moved back
to the older and more fertile ground of law and order and xenophobia.
In Britain, neoliberalism has failed in sense (ii). The Conservative party is hovering on
the edge of extinction and, as I have arged previously, the 'New Labour' government has shifted
steadily away from neoliberalism and towards a mildly modernised form of social democracy. The
same is true in New Zealand, where the advocates of neoliberalism, once dominant, are now
completely marginalised.
Although the Australian government started out with a clearly neoliberal framework it has
gradually dropped it in favor of the kind of law and order/xenophobia/militarist position that
characterises the traditional right. The repeated resort to ad hoc levies as fixes for
industry-specific problems is indicative of a government that has lost its economic bearings.
Moreover, the Liberals look like being in semi-permanent opposition in most of the states and
the Howard government is unlikely to survive the end of the housing bubble (although given the
quality of Federal Labor, anything could happen).
Finally, in the US, neoliberalism remains the dominant ideology but is increasingly failing
in sense (iii). Three years ago, American pundits could seriously predict a never-ending
economic boom. The combination of continued prosperity and 'the end of welfare as we know it'
seemed to be on the verge of eliminating crime and unemployment. Now the most charitable
assessment of US economic performance is 'better than average' and even this cannot be
sustained of the current recession/stagnation drags on much longer. The basic problem is that,
given high levels of inequality, very strong economic performance is required to match the
levels of economic security and social services delivered under social democracy even with
mediocre growth outcomes.
(i) to remove the state altogether from 'non-core' functions such as the provision of
infrastructure services
I respectfully disagree. My feeling is that neoliberals are statists "par excellence" and
use the state to enforce the neoliberal ideology on population "from above", using coercion,
if necessary Although they prefer soft methods (Wolin's "inverted totalitarism" captures this
difference)
Neoliberal revolutions are almost always revolutions from above (often using support of
domestic or foreign intelligence agencies), a coup d'état either via internal fifth
column (Simon Johnson's "The Quiet Coup" model -- like happened in the USA and GB ) or via
external interference (color revolution model like in Russia, Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova,
Argentina, Brazil, etc)
In essence, neoliberalism can be viewed as "Trotskyism for the rich" with the same
hegemonic drive toward global dominance (the "World Revolution" in Trotskyism terms) and
substitution of Marxists slogan "proletarians of all countries unite" with more realistic and
devious "Financial oligarchy of all countries unite." Unfortunately for classic
neoliberalism, the latter proved to be unsustainable, as contradictions between various
groups of financial oligarchy are too great, and the quest for capturing the foreign markets
pits them against each other.
After "Triumphal march of neoliberal over the globe" (which ended in 2000 with the
rejection of neoliberal model in Russia) neoliberalism repositioned itself as a "secular
religion" (only complete idiot after 2007 can believe in its key postulates and, in
particular, neoclassic economics with all its mathiness). The capture of the university
education and MSM, like for Bolsheviks before them, were two high priority tasks and they
were essentially complete at the end of Clinton administration.
Like Bolsheviks before them, after coming to power, neoliberal junta quickly moves to
capture key positions in government institutions, in case of the USA -- Treasury, FED
(Greenspan), the Department of State (neocons), and economic departments at universities
(Friedman, Greg Mankiw, Summers, Bernanke, DeJong, Krugman, etc) , in a typical ruthless
Trotskyites/Bolsheviks fashion.
While initially it strived just to completely eliminate New Deal regulations to get the
economy boost and restore the power of financial oligarchy, later neoliberalism morphed into
supported by the state "secular religion" (much like Marxism in the USSR) in which those who
do not want to became "high priest of the cult ("soldies of of the Party" in USSR terms), or,
at lease, pretend to believe in this ideology are ostracized, send to the periphery (the
State Department), and (in universities) deprived of any funding. Much like was the case (in
a more brutal form) under Bolshevism.
Now classic neoliberalism tried to defend itself against the ascendance of "national
neoliberalism" using dirty methods like Ukrainegate, using the full power of captured by them
state institutions, including, but not limited to, intelligence agencies.
Please note that, historically, neoliberalism ascendance started with the coup in Chile,
in which repressions were of the scale typical for a fascist regime, including mass killings
of opponents. That's where Friedman Chicago boys cut their teeth.
Also neocon scum (Cheney, Wolfowitz, and company) got in high level government positions
only under Reagan and quickly switched the USA foreign policy in completely imperial
direction, although the process started under Carter (Carter Doctrine, creation of political
Islam to fight Soviets, etc.). The State Department remains a neocon viper nest since this
period. And they recently managed to sting Trump (Taylor and Volker testimonies are nice
examples here)
Again too, across the Arab world, there is a legitimacy-deficit staining existing
élites. But it applies not just to the Middle East. As protesters peer around the world,
through their smart phones, how can they fail to observe the low-intensity 'civil war' –
the polarised protests – in the US, the UK and parts of Europe, waged precisely against
certain élites. What price then, western 'values' – if westerners themselves are
at war over them?
Of course, this dis-esteem for global élites is connected to that other powerful
dynamic affecting the Middle East: the latter may not be in a 'good place' politically, but it
is in an even worse place economically. In Lebanon, one-third of Lebanese are living below the
poverty line , while the top one percent hold one-quarter of the nation's wealth,
according to the United Nations. This is not the exception for the region – It is the
norm.
And intimations of global slow-down and recession are touching the region. We all know the
figures: half of the population in under 25. What is their future? Where is there some 'light'
to this tunnel?
The western world is in the very late stage to a trade and credit cycle (as the economists
describe it). A down-turning is coming. But there are indications too, that we may be
approaching the end of a meta-cycle, too.
The post-WW2 period saw the US leverage the war-consequences to give it its dollar hegemony,
as the world's unique trading currency. But also, circumstances were to give US banks the
exceptional ability to issue fiat credit across the globe at no cost (the US simply could
'print' its fiat credit). But ultimately that came at a price: the limitation – to being
the global rentier – became evident through the consequence of the incremental
impoverishment of the American Middle Classes – as well-paid jobs evaporated, even as
America's financialised banking balance sheet ballooned.
Today, we seem to be entering a new cycle period, with different trade characteristics. We
are in a post-general manufacturing era. Those jobs are gone to Asia, and are not 'coming
home'. The 'new' trade war is no longer about building a bigger bankers' balance sheet; but
about commanding the top-end of tech innovation and manufacturing – which is to say,
gaining command of its 'high peaks' that, in turn, offer the ability to dominate, and impose
the industry standards for the next decades. This – tech standards – is, as it
were, the new 'currency', the new 'dollar' of the coming era. It is, of course, all about
states maintaining political power.
So, what has this to do with the Middle East? Well, quite a lot. The new, global tech
competition implies a big problem (as one Washington commentator noted to me). It is this: what
to with the 20% of Americans that would become 'un-needed' in this new top-end tech era –
especially when lower paid jobs are being progressively robotised.
Here is the point: This tech 'war' will be between the US, China and (to a lesser extent)
Russia. Europe will be a bit-player, hard pressed to compete. If the US thinks it will end with
20% of population surplus to requirement, for Europe it likely will be higher; and for the
Middle East? It does not bear thinking about.
The Middle East is still a fossil fuel fed economy (at time when fossil fuel is fast falling
out of fashion, capital expenditure is paused, and growth forecasts for demand, are being cut).
Even Lebanon's economy – which has no oil – is (paradoxically) still an oil
economy. The Lebanese either work in the Gulf, servicing the ancillary services to a
fossil-fuel based economy and remit their savings to Lebanese banks, or work in the Lebanese
financial sector, managing savings derived largely from this sector.
The point is, how will the region find a future for a young population that is out-running
the continent's water and (useful) land resources, if fossil fuel cannot be the employment
driver?
Despite
scant polling evidence, Joe Biden's continued
lead , and serious
concerns over her viability with the broader electorate, Elizabeth Warren's Democratic
presidential campaign has taken on an air of inevitability.
Just this fall, the emcee of the financial television circuit, Mad Money 's Jim
Cramer, has gone from wailing "She's got to be stopped" to insisting, "I don't think she's
nearly as anti-business" as commonly portrayed. Either way, Cramer continues, "I think there is
such a thing called Congress." The implication is even if the prairie populist by way of
Massachusetts goes the distance, Wall Street's network on Capitol Hill would make mincemeat of
her agenda.
In my interviews with members of Congress, especially Republicans, Warren's nomination is
generally treated as a fait accompli. Perhaps it's projection, Warren is who many partisan
Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and anti-capitalist. The contest of
Warren vs. Donald Trump would provide, if nothing else, clarity.
The dynamic extends past Northeast Washington. Where people put their money where their
mouth is -- political gambling sites -- Warren's chances of winning the Democratic nomination
are assessed at nearing 40 percent. On PredicitIt.com, one can buy a Warren share an absurd
thirty-eight cents on the dollar.
Advertisement
The idea of Democrats nominating an aged, gaffe-prone white male popular with industry and
in the Rust Belt seems absurd on the face: "That's our nominee, right?" David Axelrod,
mastermind of Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign, earlier this month crowned Warren the
"front-runner."
There's just one problem with this line of thinking: it's not at all clear Warren is going
to be the Democratic nominee for president. Her principal rival, Biden, the former vice
president, still leads in some national polls. Biden is frequently compared to Jeb Bush, the
establishment favorite, paper tiger on the Republican side in the last round.
There are two problems with this analogy. Biden isn't nearly as "establishment" as the
former Florida governor. Bush was the cash-flush son and brother of two presidents, while Biden
is bleeding
dough and has failed to procure the endorsement of the president he served. Conversely,
unlike Bush, whose lead nationally evaporated by Labor Day, Biden has stubbornly stayed more or
less at the top of the heap through all of 2019.
It's Halloween and Democratic voters haven't been spooked enough by the former vice
president's at-times catastrophic performance to dump him. Unlike Bush, Biden has an ace in the
hole: the anchoring constituency of his party, African-American voters. If Bush had commanded
the acclaim of evangelical Christians he might have held on despite his other weaknesses as a
candidate. Biden is also relatively
popular , while the Bush clan is rightly still blamed for the destruction of American
prestige at home and abroad.
Biden frequently, even pathetically presents himself as an "Obama-Biden Democrat."
ButBiden's candidacy remains most similar to a non-Bush 2016 candidate: Donald Trump, the
front-runner the "smart set" claimed was doomed from the start. Like Trump, Biden is
famous . And as Biden has hit campaign troubles, the former veep's raison d'etre can
take on an air of the self-evident: I'm leading the race because I'm leading the race.
Like Trump, who would proudly spend literally hours of his campaign rallies reading off
primary poll results, Biden also seems content to run a campaign based on his own lead. After
weeks of purported political battering, Biden told 60 Minutes Sunday: "I know I'm the
frontrunner."
With almost Trump-like flare, Biden noted: "Find me a national poll with a notable a couple
exceptions." What was true of the last Democratic debate, earlier this month in Ohio, may be
true of the 2020 election as a whole. As Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National
Interest , said
: "It was a good night for the old codgers on stage."
Indeed, insistences from career progressives and conservatives that Warren is the true
Democratic standard-bearer can take on a mawkish tone. Surely, in a time of ubiquitous
partisanship, the victors will be most ideological. The Democrats are moving ever left, the
Republicans, ever right. Surely, it is time for a true believer.
But the logic is too clever by half. Templates are incomplete assessments of the world, but
play along: if Trump is Biden's proper analogue, then Warren's candidacy is perhaps most akin
to Ted Cruz's in 2016. Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat
unpopular with her colleagues, which doubles as a badge of honor with many, more
ideological activists.
But party activists perhaps understand the organization they serve less than they think they
do. Isn't it just as possible, indeed maybe even likely, that Warren, like Cruz, is waiting for
a day that will never come? Trump's "implosions" were never reflected at the ballot box. Maybe
so, it will also be with Biden.
Templates aren't perfect, however. While Cruz did well with evangelicals, Warren has failed
to make inroads among African Americans. And unlike Cruz, the establishment has warmed to
Warren's rise -- her campaign doubles as a Harvard satellite campus.
But perhaps Warren's greatest weakness as a candidate, as it was for Cruz, is that she is
not the real voice of her party's discontented. A well placed source told me that in 2012 he
advised Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections
today is the most pessimistic of the two messengers.
Of the 2016 conservatives, Cruz was perhaps most polite to Trump, but in failing to ape the
future president's program, he never emerged as anything more than a poor imitation of the real
estate mogul. Immigration and ennui over America's international role were the orders of the
day, and for a core contingent, no substitutes for Trumpian nationalism would do.
Warren experiences this vulnerability, an intensity gap, not with Biden, but with Bernie
Sanders. Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to her, takes pains to emphasize
that she is still a capitalist. Perhaps accordingly, socialist Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez, the
most powerful millennial politician, has thrown in with Sanders, the candidate she volunteered
for four years ago. For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth
and the vise-grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism,
may come too little, too late.
A well placed source told me that in 2012 he advised Mitt Romney, the Republican
nominee, that the person who wins America's big elections today is the most pessimistic of
the two messengers.
Ummmm... Romney LOST.
For the under-forty set, which has been mired in a now-decade of low growth and the
vice grip of rising housing, education and healthcare costs, Warrenism, like Cruzism, may
come too little, too late.
The article was nearly completely about Biden vs Warren then changed course near the end
by bring Sanders into it. So Warrenism may be "too little, too late" so Dems will go for
less with Biden? Sorry, it really seems incoherent to me.
Yeah, the analogy that makes more sense is Trump:Cruz as Bernie:Warren, except instead of
being a total fraud with no political experience, Bernie has 40 years of experience, with
lots of accomplishments, and is seen as far-and-away the most trustworthy and with the
highest favorability.
As competing right-wing and left-wing versions of the "cool nerd"? I guess so, though the
essence of the "cool nerd" is that most people don't think the "cool nerds" are cool.
Is Biden really less "Establishment" than Jeb Bush?. A lot depends on how you define
Establishment -- and the word is very slippery and hard to define. I'd say they were both
Establishment to something like the same degree. Bush has a waspy pedigree and two
presidents in his family, but 38 years in the Senate made Biden part of the Washington
Establishment to a high degree. Neither of them had much substance. Biden was sort of like
the ottoman in a Washington salon - something you might not notice until you tripped over
it - but still he was a Washington fixture. Jeb Bush had the connections, but so far as
Washington was concerned there was something provincial about him.
It doesn't really matter who wins the Democrat's party nomination or who wins the
Presidential election. The 'Deep State' runs the government and will continue to run the
government no matter which pony is the face on stage. Pick your puppet at the polls. That
is if you want to waste your time voting at all.
True of any candidate except Trump who is the only one not controlled by the Deep State.
Not that he hasn't had limited success so far in going up against them, given their control
of the FBI and CIA and ability to manufacture scandals at will such as the "Russia
Collusion" hoax.
I'll agree that Trump is somewhat outside the 'Deep State's' control. I'll state that I am
not a fan of most of his policies or the man himself and it is my firm opinion that even
though he is not an 'offspring' of the Deep State, his actions and interests are
self-focused just like those that are bred from within. None of them give a rat's behind
about Joe Public; it's the super-elites serving the interests of the super-elites.
The socalled Deep State swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. That oath comes before
their loyalty to Trump.
Trump is president, not dictator. He doesn't just get to do whatever he wants despite
the fact he thinks he can, he thinks he is above the Constitution.
"I have to the right to do whatever I want as president." - Trump
You no doubt nodded in agreement when he said that, but if a Democratic president ever
said that, you'd erupt in outrage completely forgetting how you felt when Trump said
it.
The previous Democratic president ruled largely through executive orders, if you haven't
noticed. Not a dictator, right. While those upholders of the Constitution which are so dear
to you, violated it left and right in everything foreign policy. Try better.
Actually, as Alex stated, rule by Executive Order has become more prevalent with each
successive President regardless of political party. Without going into a long explanation,
I'll just say that the Constitution has been eroded by all Branches of the government -
unfortunately, it's getting to the point where it will be completely ineffectual soon.
Warren (as well as Bernie Sanders) would have been a great candidate for the Democratic
Party to try to win back working-class whites in 2016, but nowadays it seems they are the
Republican base and big Trump supporters and aren't returning back to the fold.
Democrats would do better to find a more center-right figure to win over
neoconservatives, liberatarians, and suburban America, all alienated by Donald Trump and by
what the Republican Party has become, which could potentially get them states like Arizona,
Texas, North Carolina, and the like.
That describes most of the Democratic also-rans, and pretty much Biden, too. And Hilary
Clinton, of course, and look how inspiring she was to the Democratic electorate.
You're pretty much describing Andrew Yang. His base is currently small, but very
passionate, consisting of progressives, disaffected Trump voters, working class whites,
libertarians, etc., basically anyone on the political spectrum.
Warren is who many partisan Republicans think the Democrats are: female, lawyerly and
anti-capitalist.
A few paragraphs down, you said "Warren, perhaps sensing the establishment's warmth to
her, takes pains to emphasize that she is still a capitalist." Did you just assume your
readers would prefer the smear up front and the facts buried near the bottom?
" Franklin Foer : All the investment bankers who have voodoo dolls of you
might be a bit surprised that you recently described yourself as "capitalist to the bone."
What did you mean?
Elizabeth Warren : I believe in markets and the benefits they can produce when
they work. Markets with rules can produce enormous value. So much of the work I have done
-- the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, my hearing-aid bill -- are about making
markets work for people, not making markets work for a handful of companies that scrape all
the value off to themselves. I believe in competition."
Like Cruz, Warren is somewhat unpopular with her colleagues
Wake me up when something actually analogous to Ted Cruz happens, like if Warren calls
the eventual nominee a "narcissist" and "serial liar" for whom "morality doesn't exist" and
then goes on to phone bank for him in the general.
Well, looks like I already have to wake you up. Remember that story with her saying that it
ain't right when a veep's son serves on the board of a foreign company and then immediately
backtracking after having understood what she just said?
Sounds like Warren is thinking of "Capitalism, with fixes from outside capitalism"
I'll admit, even the criticisms make me more interested in her. Though I fear that it's
more of a 'too good to be true' concept. My time in customer service helped me to
understand that sometimes you have to give Hard Messages to people as you really can't have
Everything You Want. Sometimes I feel like I'm seeing Warren as "OMG this is everything I
wanted." Which is one of the red flags I had over Trump.
It's hard though. I know that giving hard messages is basically a death sentence in
campaigns so people don't do that. But Bernie did and he's not dying. BLAH.
In any case, don't go too hard on TAC articles about democratic candidates. It's sort of
like when a US new organization puts an editorial on a foreign culture. It's not a bad
viewpoint to have, but it IS going ot be..well.. different.
It becomes more and more obvious with each day that nominating Biden is incomparably
greater priority to the Democratic Party as an institution than winning the election. Yes,
Warren is no orator (which is an extremely ill omen for a candidate when running against
someone like Trump), but neither Biden is. Warren, with all her faults, at least speaks
like a non-orator with both hemispheres functional. While Biden is simply babbling.
And that's not to mention the fact that Democrats (yet) have a candidate who would
reliably beat any opponent aside from Rand Paul - Tulsi Gabbard. But these... epitomes of
alternative genius keep on trying to drive her away from their party at all costs instead
of holding on to her for dear life.
Trump won because of the number of other Republican candidates who wanted to fight it out
to the bitter end, rather than throw in their lot with a better candidate like Cruz or even
Jeb! Had it come down to two Republican candidates, Trump and one holding more traditional
views, it is likely Trump would have lost the Republican nomination.
The Democrats look the same for 2020. Biden represents the Clinton, Republican-lite wing
of the party. He has the name recognition and the big money backing. Sanders is a true
leftist. And Warren is somewhere in-between. The question is whether or not Sanders and
Warren will fight it out to the bitter end, leaving Biden with just enough of a plurality
to win the nomination. I don't give any of the rest a chance.
I tend to think that Trump would beat Biden. For the same reasons he beat Clinton: he's
a neo-liberal, neo-conservative who could give a rat's a$$ about the pain of the working
and middle-classes. I think Warren could beat Trump. She's really not a leftist
economically, and a lot of independents would see her as a rational, thoughtful person, as
opposed to Trump's Trumpism.
My lawn chair and popcorn favorite would be a Trump/Sanders title fight. Maybe terrible
for the country, but definitely fun to watch.
I think she is probably to the right of either Nixon or Eisenhower. She's certainly not
proposing a 91% marginal income tax rate (Eisenhower) or a fully socialized health care
system (Nixon). The world has shifted so far to the right in modern times that I can
understand that some see her as far left.
The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american.
There is a huge wave of under current simmering anger because I don't cleave to notions
of some incorrectly underpinnings of "conservatism", that are sacrosanct. I don't put much
stock in identity political machinations online. It is simply a nonfactor or less of a
factor than what is on the page as to some's ideas.
But the hijacking of someone's history that is not your own in any fashion and profiting
from the same -- for people whose history are hog to negative narratives, this simply will
not sit well.
----------------
Senator Cruz's attempts to rig the Colorado primaries violates the principles of fair
play. Making arguments about being pro-country and at the same time manipulating the
immigration arguments to favor undermining US citizens -- don't invite much enthusiasm for
his leadership.
"The reason that Nominee Warren is unlikely to get black support is that she played a card
that was not hers to [play and doubled down on the matter and continues to play that card
inspite of the cold hard light of day that she wasn't, and is not native american."
Why in the world would African Americans care one wilt about Warren claiming she was
Native American?
Af-Ams are big on identity..but the only time I've seen it brought as an issue is when
someone who's not Af-Am claims they are Af-Am.
Republicans have a big issue with her using the term. But it's similar to Democrats
hating Trump's attacks on Latinos: the ones that rage weren't considering her in the first
place.
Warren will win or lose the Black vote by whether she notes their issues and offers
options that will change their current situation, something Hillary failed to do in those
key states. Though first she'll need them win them over from Biden. Possible, though not
easily.
Not really sure why the author thinks warren is somehow outside the democratic norms, she
has worked consistently for the working voters that make up her district by trying to bring
some balance against the large corporations that pretty much control the economy. Even
conservatives, the champions of big business and the haters of unions and all social
programs seem to actually have second thoughts about crushing the life out of the common
man, or at least they write occasional comments that make nice to them while giving the
corporations massive tax cuts and cutting the social programs.
If I was a bit more cynical I would think that they are pretty nervous about an
articulate candidate with a solid slate of actual policy papers and positions that try to
lay out a way to make the economy work for the regular folks. Why they might actually be
trying to claim that she will take the side of the corporations that run conservative
politics..
I think Warren's big problem is how she talks and how she looks.
Ever since TV came into the political process, image has become incredibly important.
Look at Ted Cruz. He just looked...weird.
Warren is frenetic when she talks on the debate stage. Mute your TV during the next
debate and watch. She also talks like a school marm.
Lasty, history does not smile on wonks. People want easy-to-understand programs and
straight talk. Warren constantly dodges how she will pay for her programs. This will not
play well in 2020.
I still think it will be Sanders, with the 1980 and 2016 GOP primaries as the templates,
and the crisis in the Reagan/Thatcher/neo-liberal consensus being the bedrock of his, and
Trump's, appeal.
Trump was such a wild card in 2016 that it's hard to make connections or analogies to any
other presidential election. You don't have to see Joe Biden as some clone of Jeb Bush to
see that they both have real deficiencies as candidates. Cruz also was a lousy candidate
who wouldn't have won the nomination or the general election, but he was blindsided by
Trump, someone new from outside politics.
There's nobody in sight who could blindside Warren like that, and I get the feeling that
the Democratic Party base (the White half of it anyway) is more comfortable with Warren
than the Republican Party base was with Cruz. Even Evangelicals couldn't quite bring
themselves to love Ted. However unpopular Warren is with the electorate as a whole, party
loyalists and activists have no problem with her.
I don't see Buttigieg winning the nomination. Alice Roosevelt Longworth once said that
Tom Dewey looked like the little plastic man at the top of the wedding cake. Now that we
have gay marriage, voters are offered the a candidate who looks like the little plastic man
on top of a gay wedding cake. I suspect they won't go for him.
Had Cruz been the nominee he would have had the same advantage that Trump did: Hillary
Clinton herself. She was a deeply unlikable candidate and 2016 is best described as
"Hillary lost" as opposed to "Trump won." Pretty much any Republican, excepting maybe Bush
with his family baggage, would have bear Hillary, and with a more respectable showing.
Letting their foreign policy being hijacked (or, rather, joyridden) by neolib lunatics, the
twins of neocon wackos. That can hardly be called "competence" and "prudence".
"... Pompeo said the United States had long cherished its friendship with the Chinese people, adding the Communist government was not the same thing as the people of China. ..."
"... We are in a civilization war about the global social contract and whether sovereign public finance gets a chance to be compared against the Western centuries old private finance controlled world. ..."
"... The USA has been successful at bribing foreign leaders, taking them under their wing, and getting them to accept their place in the world order. They think they can do this with anybody. ..."
"... The US never really counts on foreign leaders taking their peoples interests at heart and standing up to the hegemon. As far as Pompeo goes this is classic projection. It is a sign they are losing and are worried about it. ..."
Below is a Reuters posting about Mike Pompeo presenting the public/private finance "dog
whistle" at a Hudson Institute think tank gala dinner....the pot calling the kettle
black.
"
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Wednesday stepped up recent
U.S. rhetoric targeting China's ruling Communist Party, saying Beijing was focused on
international domination and needed to be confronted.
Pompeo made the remarks even as the Trump administration said it still expected to sign
the first phase of deal to end a damaging trade war with China next month, despite Chile's
withdrawal on Wednesday as the host of an APEC summit where U.S. officials had hoped this
would happen.
Pompeo said the United States had long cherished its friendship with the Chinese people,
adding the Communist government was not the same thing as the people of China.
"They are reaching for and using methods that have created challenges for the United
States and for the world and we collectively, all of us, need to confront these challenges
... head on," Pompeo said in an address to a gala dinner in New York of the conservative
Hudson Institute think tank.
"It is no longer realistic to ignore the fundamental differences between our two systems,
and the impact that the differences in those systems have on American national security."
"
I posted the above about 6 hours ago on the Weekly Open thread and now get up to read that
the financial markets are down and Trump is tweeting that it is the Fed's fault for not
lowering rates even further even though there are a couple of ZH postings that refer to
China's response to Pompeo's remarks as offensive and maybe a trade deal won't get
signed...
We are in a civilization war about the global social contract and whether sovereign public
finance gets a chance to be compared against the Western centuries old private finance
controlled world.
Haha. The fight is an old one. Who is to be master and who is to be slave. China was supposed to happily be the world's
cheap manufacturer and not get too big for its britches. The USA has been successful at bribing foreign leaders, taking
them under their wing, and getting them to accept their place in the world order. They think they can do this with anybody.
They think every leader is a budding Lenin Moreno or that they can arrange a coup and force into office another Lenin
Moreno. Russia, China, and India will not allow it.
All have at one time or another (Russia quite recently) been under the heel of Western empire. All have old and proud
civilizations.
The US never really counts on foreign leaders taking their peoples interests at heart and standing up to the hegemon.
As far as Pompeo goes this is classic projection. It is a sign they are losing and are worried about it.
@goldhoarder #16
Indeed. Latin and South American countries are all dominated by 200 or so families each, some
overlapping nations. These criollo families don't give a crap about the rest of the society
in any way, so long as they can keep their money and power. It is easy for even ham-handed
Americans to keep bribing one or another of these families to keep the rest mollified and the
rest of the population pacified.
Russia, China and a few other nations have different goals. Not at all necessarily
altruistic, but absolutely more cognizant of national goals and needs rather than personal
enrichment.
What's really interesting now is how the Europeans are going to turn out. Will they continue
to allow themselves to be suppressed by their Atlanticist ruling classes, even when both
absolute and relative measures of prosperity are no longer positive?
The winners write history. Surviving losers also rewrite history ('Gone with the Wind").
Or, past lives are never written about at all. The problem is that western government has
swirled down the drain into incompetent delusion. Corporations rule. Plutocrats are in combat
over the spoils. Protests won't work until police and mercenaries realized that they aren't
being paid enough to die or to subjugate their own families.
Right now, the problem is two million Californians forced out of their homes or waiting
with no electricity for evacuation orders. The American government is simply incapable
rebuilding Puerto Rico or Northern California . Or handling global plagues such as
African Swine Fever that has already killed a quarter of the global pig population. Simply
put, climate change, overpopulation, and rising inequality assure that revolutions cannot be
orderly.
The 10% Technocrats like Elizabeth Warren will try to keep things running until they can't
anymore.
In Chile, a country of around 17 million people, more than 1 million people r out in the
streets of capital Santiago protesting neoliberalism and the US-friendly govt's repression of
protest. The Western media are curiously silent about the scale of the uprising. #
ChileDesperto
... ... ...
Once again, protests in 22 countries is rather a lot (and these, as it were,
the wildfires, not small flare-ups here and there). But note that none of the sources
(including me, "L.S.") have a consistent list; it's extraordinary that Bloomberg, which is an
actual new gathering organization, omits Haiti, and that Human Rights Watch (HRW) omits France
(since the
state violence deployed against the gilet jaunes has been significant, far me so
than Hong Kong).
So how are we to make sense of these protests? The Dean, we might call her, of studies in
non-violent protest (and hence of the violence that accompanies or suppresses it) is Erica
Chenoweth, so we will begin with her (I would classify her as an academic rather than an
advocate, like Gene Sharp.) From there, we will broaden out to look at how the data that any
academic -- and, one would think, news-gathering organizations -- would use. Finally, we'll
look at what the previous two academic approaches do not really consider: The social basis of
protests as a predictor of success.
She speculates that the cause of the this decline is due to Authoritarian Adaptation:
the ability of authoritarian governments to adopt more politically savvy repressive tools
may be part of
the reason for the decline in success rates in the past six years. 21 .
Authoritarian leaders have begun to
develop and systematize sophisticated techniques to undermine and thwart nonviolent
activists.
Chenoweth provides this table, categorizing these techniques:
table l Methods of authoritarian adaptation against nonviolent resistance 2
*
Strategies to Reinforce Elite Loyalty
• Pay off the inner entourage
•Co-optoppositionists
• Use public brutality against accused defectors to deter further defections
Strategies to Suppress or Undermine the Movement
• Use direct violence against dissidents or their associates
• Counter-mobilize one's own supporters
• Plant plain-clothes police and agents provocateurs
• Solicit the help of paramilitary groups and pro-state armed militias
• Infiltrate the movement and engage in surveillance
• Pass pseudo-legitimate laws and practices that criminalize erstwhile legal
behaviors
• Add administrative and financial burdens to civil society groups
Strategies to Reinforce Support among the Public and Other Observers
• Blame foreigners and outsiders
• Mischaracterize domestic oppositionists as terrorists, traitors, coup plotters,
or
communists
• Conceal information through censorship and spin
• Remove foreign journalists from the country
21. There may be several other reasons for this decline in effectiveness. First, because
non-violent resistance has become such a popular and widespread practice, it is possible that
those wielding it do not yet have the requisite skill sets to ensure victory. For example,
Kurt Weyland has shown that radicals in various European capitals mobilized against their
dynastic sovereigns with a sense of false optimism , having witnessed a successful
revolution in France in February of 1848 (Kurt Weyland, 'The Diffusion of Revolution: "1848"
in Europe and Latin America,' International Organization 63/3:391–423 (2009)). They
essentially drew what Weyland calls "rash conclusions" about their own prospects for success
and attempted to import the French revolutionary model into their own contexts, failing
miserably. Second, a higher proportion of nonviolent uprisings since 2010 possess
"violent flanks" -- segments or groups within the campaign that destroy property,
engage in street fighting, or use lethal violence alongside a predominantly nonviolent
movement -- than in previous decades. Violent flanks tend to undermine participation rates in
nonviolent movements while discouraging security force defections (see Erica Chenoweth and
Kurt Schock, 'Do Contemporaneous Armed Challenges Affect the Out-comes of Mass Nonviolent
Campaigns?' Mobilization: An International Quarterly 20/4: 427–451 (2015)). Whereas the
most successful decades of nonviolent resistance featured highly disciplined campaigns of
nonviolent action, today almost 50% of primarily nonviolent campaigns possess some degree of
violent activity from within .
Chenoweth's strictures on "violent flanks" may apply to Hong Kong (though it is also true
that the Hong Kong protesters have achieved their first goal, the withdrawal of the of the
extradition bill). However, we should also remember the protester's spray-painted slogan: "
It was you who taught me that peaceful marches are useless ." We have yet to see. Perhaps
practice has outrun the academics. Perhaps not. We will look at this issue more tomorrow;
obviously, it applies to Chile.
Data Gathering (Fisher, et al.)
Chenoweth's dataset of "major episodes of contention, 1/1/1900–5/1/2016" includes 237
non-violent and 235 violent cases. But if we seek to record and classify protests in near real
time, there will be orders of magnitude more cases than that. Two projects to do just that are
described by Dana R. Fisher, Kenneth T. Andrews, Neal Caren, Erica Chenoweth, Michael T.
Heaney, Tommy Leung, L. Nathan Perkins, and Jeremy Pressman in " The science of contemporary street
protest: New efforts in the United States " (Science Advances, October 23, 2019). This is a
fascinating article, which I encourage all big data fans to read in full. From the
abstract:
This article reviews the two most central methods for studying street protest on a large
scale: building comprehensive event databases and conducting field surveys of participants at
demonstrations.
Of event databases, they write:
Tracking protest events in real time is fundamentally a discovery and coding problem. It
resembles the data collection components of past efforts to study protest by aggregating data
from third-party sources (51, 54). Unique to today's environment is the sheer number of
sources and the time-limited nature of the discovery-and-review period: Given the transience
of information on the internet compared to print media, thousands of sources produce reports
of variable reliability on a daily basis. Researchers must archive and extract information
such as where, when, and why a protest took place, as well as how many people attended,
before that content is moved behind a paywall, deleted, or otherwise made unavailable.
(Encouragingly, the event database is a citizen science effort.) However:
these event-counting methods also have several reliability, coding, and discovery
limitations and challenges, including (i) resolving discrepancies in reported data, such as
crowd size, for the same event reported by multiple sources; (ii) evaluating the reliability
and bias of each source; (iii) requiring manual review of what can be hundreds of potential
protest reports every day; (iv) accurately and consistently coding events in near real time;
and (v) having an incomplete list of sources and an incomplete list of reports from known
sources.
Of field surveys, Fisher et al. write:
The complex environment of a protest leads researchers to focus their attention on several
considerations that are not common in many other types of surveys. First, it is impossible to
establish a sampling frame based on the population, as the investigator does not have a list
of all people participating in an event; who participates in a protest is not known until the
day of the event; and no census of participants exists. Working without this information, the
investigator must find a way to elicit a random sample in the field during the event. Second,
crowd conditions may affect the ability of the investigator to draw a sample. The ease or
difficulty of sampling depends on whether the crowd is stationary or moving, whether it is
sparse or dense, and the level of confrontation by participants. Stationary, sparse crowds
that are peaceful and not engaged in confrontational tactics (such as civil disobedience, or
more violent tactics, like throwing items at the police) tend to be more conducive to
research. In general, the presence of police, counter-protesters, or violence by
demonstrators are all likely to make it more difficult to collect a sample. Third and last,
weather is an important factor. Weather conditions, such as rain, snow, or high temperatures,
may interfere with the data collection process and the crowd's willingness to participate in
a survey.
The Women's March after Trump was elected was one subject of surveys:
In her book American Resistance , Fisher examined seven of the largest protests
in Washington, DC, associated with opposition to President Trump: the 2017 Women's March, the
March for Science, the People's Climate March, the March for Racial Justice, the 2018 Women's
March, the March for Our Lives, and Families Belong Together (81). Her results show that the
Resistance was disproportionately female (at least 54%), highly educated (with more than 70%
holding a bachelor's degree), majority white (more than 62%), and had an average adult age of
38 to 49 years. Further, she found that the Resistance is almost entirely left-leaning in its
political ideology (more than 85%). Resistance participants were motivated to march by a wide
range of issues, with women's rights, environmental protection, racial justice, immigration,
and police brutality being among the more common motivations (83). She also found that
participants did not limit their activism to marching in the streets, as more than half of
the respondents had previously contacted an elected official and more than 40% had attended a
town hall meeting
I think Thomas Frank would recognize "the Resistance," although Fisher seems to have an odd
concept of what "the left" might mean. For example, there's no mention of strengthening unions,
the minimum wage, or the power of billionaries, so I wonder what her coding practices were.
The authors conclude -- as a good academic should do! -- with a call for further
research:
Moving forward, best practices will require forming teams of scholars that are
geographically dispersed in a way that corresponds with the distribution of the events under
investigation. While previous studies have concentrated on conducting surveys in different
regions and in major cities, the datasets would be more representative if data were collected
in multiple locations simultaneously in a way that represents smaller cities, suburbs, and
rural areas.
Consider an event projected to take place in 300 cities simultaneously in the United
States or Europe. Suppose that the target areas were stratified into 12 regions or countries.
If a survey was conducted in three types of locations -- one city, one suburb, and one rural
site or one capital, one college town, and one urban area with neither a capital nor a
university -- in each region, that would require the survey to go into the field in 36
locations (or roughly 12% of events). Such a task would likely require a minimum of 12 to 36
scholars working together, each coordinating research teams to collect survey data at events
in their region. Even more resources and institutionalization would be required to conduct
crowd surveys at a genuine random sample of events.
Beyond collaboration among multiple scholars, scaling up the administration of surveys
would also require standardization of the instrument, sampling, and practices in entering and
coding the survey data.
Ironically, the scale of the effort to survey and record such an event -- say, each scholar
would have a team of 10, for a total of 360, would be within an order of magnitude or so of
that required to organize it! (There were 24,000 Bolsheviks in 1917). What this
article does show, however, is how blind the public and the press are flying (though doubtless
the various organs of state security have better information.)
We further develop the argument that opposition movements dominated by industrial workers
or the urban middle classes have both the requisite motivation and capacity to bring
about
democratization . We clarify how and why the social composition of opposition movements
affects democratization. We expect that both the urban middle classes and, especially,
industrial workers have the requisite motivation and capacity to engender democratization, at
least in fairly urban and industrialized societies.
Other social groups -- even after mobilizing in opposition to the regime -- often lack the
capacity to sustain large-scale collective action or the motivation to pursue democracy. We
collect data on the social composition of opposition movements to test these expectations,
measuring degree of participation of six major social groups in about 200 antiregime
campaigns globally from 1900 to 2006. Movements dominated by industrial workers or middle
classes are more likely to yield democratization, particularly in fairly urbanized societies.
Movements dominated by other groups, such as peasants or military personnel, are not
conducive to democratization, even compared to situations without any opposition
mobilization. When separating the groups, results are more robust for industrial worker
campaigns
The capacities of protestors are found in their leverage and in their abilities to
coordinate and maintain large-scale collective action. Leverage comes from the power
resources that a group can draw on to inflict various costs on the autocratic regime and thus
use to extract concessions, including political liberalization. Leverage can come from the
ability to impose economic costs on the regime, through measures such as moving capital
assets abroad or carrying out strikes in vital sectors. Other sources of leverage include
access to weapons, manpower with relevant training, and militant ideologies that motivate
recruits. Urban middle classes score high on leverage in many societies. Many urban
professionals occupy inflection points in the economy, such as finance. Industrial workers
can also hold a strategic stranglehold over the economy, being able to organize nationwide or
localized strikes targeting key sources of revenue for the regime. In addition, workers often
have fairly high military potential, due to military experience (e.g., under mass
conscription) and, historically, often being related to revolutionary, sometimes
violence-condoning, ideologies (Hobsbawm 1974).
Riots and uprisings are often fleeting, and opposition movements are therefore more
frequent than regime changes. Hence, in addition to leverage, protestors must be able to
organize and maintain large-scale collective action over time, also after an initial
uprising, in order to challenge the regime. In this regard, groups with permanent,
streamlined organizations can effectively transmit information, monitor participants, and
disperse side payments. Organizations also help with recruiting new individuals, networking
with foreign actors, and experimenting with and learning effective tactics. The urban middle
classes have some potent assets in this regard, as they include members with high human
capital, which might enhance organizational skills. Various civil society, student, and
professional organizations can help mobilize at least parts of the middle classes. Industrial
workers typically score very high on organizational capacity (see Collier 1999; Rueschemeyer
et al. 1992). They are often organized in long-standing and comprehensive unions and labor
parties and have extensive networks, including international labor organizations and the
Socialist International. In sum, we expect opposition movements dominated by the middle
classes or industrial workers to be related to subsequent democratization. Yet, we anticipate
a clearer relationship for industrial worker campaigns, due to their multiple sources of
leverage and especially strong organizational capacity allowing for effective and sustained
challenges to the regime.
Lots to ponder here, including the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of a quintessentially
"urban middle class" protest, the Women's March, potential differences between Hong Kong and
(say) Chile, and much much more -- including the operational capacities of our own working
class, and the effects of deindustrialization and gutting unions. I wonder of the condition of
teeth, as a class marker, is included in any survey coding?
Conclusion
I hope this survey of the literature has been stimulating. I will have more to say about
invididual protests tomorrow.
NOTES
[1] I'm super-uncomfortable with the "responsibility to protect" framing (which is why so
much of the focus of the article is on state violence, presumably as a justification for the
U.S. to intervene). That suggests to me that Chenoweth runs with the wrong crowd, at least part
of the time.
Back in 2004 I had a few friends working in a film shot during the RNC convention
protests. It made headlines because actress Rosario Dawson was arrested (police thought she
was an anarchist protestor). The film shoot had footage of an undercover police officer
posing as a protestor starting scuffles and trying to rile up other protestors.
It was written up in The NY Times but people still act as if this is crazed conspiracy
talk.
Of interest is the underlying assumption in the Conclusion of your post; that pre-existing
exposure to sub-national group organizing is positive towards successful outcomes. In most
situations, a Union is organized against strong countervailing pressures from the Owner
class. A winnowing out process that concentrates and toughens successful organizers has
already occurred. As it were, protests that draw on extant Union personnel have an automatic
advantage. An entire step in the organization formation process has been rendered irrelevant.
Access to "off the shelf" organizers will jump start a movement.
As a corollary to the above, I note the absence of an even semi-professional class of
agitators in the United States. Not so do I note an absence of outright professional Organs
of the State: Oppressors.
A century ago, the world had several international organizations seriously dedicated to the
subversion and overthrow of "Free Market" Capitalism. Today?
A century ago, the world had several international organizations seriously dedicated to
the subversion and overthrow of "Free Market" Capitalism.
True, and that complicates the studies Lambert cites in at least two ways.
1. In what Lambert reports, and I think he's got the drift of their arguments, the
distinction between violent and nonviolent movements ignores the way in which nonviolent
movements have deployed the threat of violence precisely by offering themselves as a
nonviolent alternative. Within the Civil Rights movement in this country "if you don't
listent to us, you'll get them" was part of King's message to white elites, with "them"
referring to everyone from Malcolm X to the revolutionary elements of international Marxism.
Others with a better understanding of India's independence movement could find a
parallel.
2. Running in the opposite direction, international movements, particularly on the left,
have often been a brake on local initiative. The Trotskyist critique of Stalinist practice,
wherein the Stalinist international imposed, often murderously, controls on national
communist parties to avoid (overly) antagonizing the bourgeois international, is at least
historically accurate, however much one might dispute its strategic validity. This isn't so
immediately relevant to the violent/nonviolent question, but it does help foreground the
international context that the summarized articles appear to lose track of.
Especially due to (1) the data behind the graph needs a good review for 'interactive
effects' of this sort.
3 weeks ago I witnessed a large protest on the streets of Seoul, I'd think at least 50,000
people. But it was mostly elderly folk and very right wing, essentially protesting at what
they see as Government policies that are too pro Chinese and pro North Korean. The protests
were clearly well financed and organized – the banners were mass produced and
'non-official' ones were almost all pushed to the fringes. Locals were contemptuous, saying
they'd all been paid to turn up and bussed in from the provinces. There were smaller protests
on other days. All were peaceful.
I also saw the aftermath of a very big protest in Hong Kong A few days before. There was a
lot less damage than you'd think from the international reporting, a few shops burnt out. But
I was left with little doubt that there was a lot of 'silent' support among regular HKers and
even ethnic Chinese (mainlanders) for the protests.
The winners write history. Surviving losers also rewrite history ('Gone with the Wind").
Or, past lives are never written about at all. The problem is that western government has
swirled down the drain into incompetent delusion. Corporations rule. Plutocrats are in combat
over the spoils. Protests won't work until police and mercenaries realized that they aren't
being paid enough to die or to subjugate their own families.
Right now, the problem is two million Californians forced out of their homes or waiting
with no electricity for evacuation orders. The American government is simply incapable
rebuilding Puerto Rico or Northern California. Or handling global plagues such as African
Swine Fever that has already killed a quarter of the global pig population. Simply put,
climate change, overpopulation, and rising inequality assure that revolutions cannot be
orderly.
The 10% Technocrats like Elizabeth Warren will try to keep things running until they can't
anymore.
I don't see how the protests in Spain by Catalan nationalists are a case of political
freedom.
If you believe that the right of self determination means that countries like Spain are
divisible, then why not also allow Catalonia to also be divisible? And let people in every
city, town, street, and house be able to decide which country they want to split off or
join?
I would have complete sympathy if Catalans were protesting against any legitimate
oppression regarding their language or culture, or any other related discrimination. Why
don't more Catalans simple work with others in Spain and the EU to make it more equal, fair,
and just, than give in to racist nationalism?
The modern world simply cannot afford to allow nationists to split up the world into
smaller pieces, which often leads to wars, ethnic cleansing, and additional oppression of any
remaining "non-pure" people.
This is a good question for which the stupidity of brainless nationalism has no answer
(nationalism musn't be brainless but too often it is). In reality this is more an struggle
for political power rather than fight for rights. And of course, although less noisy, there
are many catalans that don't give a damn on independence. Only, or as many as, 42%
of catalans ask for a referendum on independence but a larger majority prefers
negotiations on autonomy.
One would think that brexit is a good example of what could go wrong on badly thougth
procedures of independence but blind nationalism, always believes in its exceptionality. You
can compare the Torras and Puigdemont of the moment as illuminated as Jonhson or Blair in
their own moments: feeling incapable of wrong doing and above procedure rules. A recipe for
disaster if they ever prevail.
As an example we have Mr. Utility Friendly Torras, current president of the Generalitat,
going his way on energy policy and giving still validity in Catalonia to an anachronic decree
approved in Spain by his co-religionary Rajoy (but hated because, you know, spanish) in 2009
–and now derogued– that was a stop signal for the development of renewables. This
occurs even when the Parliament od Catalonia has already repealed the decree. Shows the kind
of respect this great leader has for procedures when anything does not align with his
ideas.
If Gazans wanted political freedom, they'd be rioting against Hamas, which has refused to
hold general elections for eight years and kills its political opponents and civilians who
object to their policies. What they really want is dead Jews.
The Gazans are in a tough spot. The surrounding states view the Gazan situation as a spur
in the flank of Israel. The constant threat of the descendants of those Arabs 'ethnically
cleansed' out of the whole of Palestine in 1947 being sent into Israel to reclaim their
ancestral lands is a constant in the Arab state's permanent conflict with the State of
Israel.
The alternative offered to the Gazans is to become permanent second class citizens in a
Greater Israel. Actually, make that third class citizens. At present, Israel has First Class,
comprised of the Orthodox religious Jews, Second Class, comprising the Secular Jews, and
Third Class, all others.
As for self rule, with a dollop of actual democracy, well, easier said than done.
" Violent flanks tend to undermine participation rates in nonviolent movements while
discouraging security force defections"
Ecuador and Chile pose a challenge to that theory. The events there are significant in
themselves, because traditionally, capturing the capital constitutes victory, whether a
revolution or an invasion. In Ecuador, that was clearcut: the demonstrators – not very
non-violent – controlled the capital and drove the government out of it, then continued
a rampage against government buildings. The president, from Guayaquil, ordered the military
to remove them – which didn't happen, probably for ethnic reasons. As before, this was
essentially an Indian uprising. Moreno caved, which means he can't meet his agreement with
the IMF. This was the IMF riot to end all. And we were just talking about retiring in
Ecuador.
In Chile, more than a million people in the street have essentially captured the capital,
as the videos make clear. Nothing is going to move, short of extreme violence. Again, the
president capitulated and undertook to meet the demonstrators' demands. That one wasn't
really non-violent, either, though the culminating demonstration was.
In both cases, victory is somewhat qualified because the right-wing president remains; the
real result remains to be seen – but notice has been served. If that process continued
much further, he could be lynched in the street. (I do wonder why Chile re-elected a
right-winger, only a year ago. They now have to reverse an election.)
And looking at the map: the US isn't there. A hyper-violent police force alienated from
the public might be a factor.
> Ecuador and Chile pose a challenge to that theory
I think Chenoweth's perspective could be a bit US-centric, or academic-centric. I have to
admit that one reason I agreed with her is that the black bloc's role in Occupy was so
pernicious (with "diversity of tactics" being on a par with "innovation" and "sharing" for
seamy tendentiousness). I think in the United States we are not ready, as it were,
for "violent flanks."
So when I started following Hong Kong, I viewed matters at first through the Occupy Frame
(and the black-clad protesters didn't help me avoid that). However, it's clear that a
substantial portion of the population really does see then as "front-liners," as in America
we would not. Further, property violence seems carefully calibrated, as in the United States
it is not. So I was wrong.
Thanks, Lambert; I get that Here; in the U.S. it is *divide and conquer* , or conquering
by division as long as we fight with each other over *hot button* topics; we can't get
together to deal with the big; underlying issues.
There's another kind of protest entierely; the entiely fabricated protest as means of
pro-establishment propaganda. Here in Portland, OR, we've been treated to some breathlessly
sensationalized street battles between ostensibly far right and far left 'protesters'.
Eyewitness accounts speak of supposed ultra-conservative activists popping out of the back of
police vans to instigate dustups. And anyone who's not wholly ignorant of the infiltration of
left activists in the 60s knows just how easy this is. A Punch and Judy show managed from FBI
headquarters which is then reported by hyperventilating media. Fox News shows us raggedy
Bolsheviks with bandito massks beating up clean cut journo Andy Ngo (who then goes on the
pro-Israel circuit after recovering from massive brain trauma!) Then switching to Amy
Goodman, you get bald thuggish looking white guys with tattoos variously of Christian and
Viking themes (how exactly these really mesh in anyone's mind, I don't quite get-but that's
supposing it's real) forming a phalanx and waving confederate flags.
The entire thing seems fabricated to push fretting liberal homeowners and Responsible People
to support the 'radical center' of neoliberal Clintonism.
Since you live in Rose City, feel free to go on down and meet the "raggedy Bolsheviks" for
your own self. Or talk to the nazis, most are friendly enough to 'non-combatants'.
No doubt there are false flaggers and cops in both groups, but I assure you the conflict
itself is not staged.
Thanks for starting to wade into this topic. I appreciate the academic sideboards as a way
to discover the common elements. Which will help us with the revolution against neoliberalism
here in the US.
let me add my thanks for this round up. I look forward to continuing coverage on this
topic and especially beg those living outside the US, most especially those speaking the
local languages to give us the benefit of your observations.
Marcie Smith has done amazing research into the "guru of nonviolent revolution," Gene
Sharp, who turns out to be a CIA tool responsible for the "nonviolent" color revolutions
which were just an easier assertion of soft power than those annoying invasions and
coups.
So amazing that you can't be bothered to supply readers with the link?
Here is it is . I think Smith
oversimplifies ; I also think misuse of Smith's work leads to a quasi-religious tendency
("faith is the evidence of things not seen") to imagine CIA agents behind every protest sign,
and to imagine Sharp as a Saruman-like figure controlling the action from a distance, all of
which is both untrue and demoralizing/disempowering. You also seem to think that Sharp's
techniques substitute for invasions and coups; but in Serbia they clearly did not,
since we had both Otpor and bombing; and in Tahrir Square, to the extent that Sharp inspired
that protest -- the hashtag #GeneSharpTaughtMe was widely used at the time, in mockery -- an
invasion wasn't even an option. It's also not clear that the outcome of Tahrir Square was an
outcome we even desired; clearly the protesters had no idea what to do with power if they
won, which one would think their case officers would have handled as a matter of course.
The reflexiv sequence protest -> color revolution -> Gene
Sharp -> CIA seems deeply attractive to some soi disant leftists;
it's so mechanical and pointless and self-defeating it makes head hurt and my back teeth
itch. (Even at the best, it's like arguing that because the Germans sent Lenin over the
Russian border in a sealed train in 1917, that the Bolsheviks were all a plot by Kaiser
Wilhelm II.)
I'm also curious why you even bring up Gene Sharp. The post doesn't mention him. Is it
your thesis that the CIA is behind all the global protests?
This is a good point.
Not all opposition is controlled, but that does not mean the forces of the ancien regime
don't try. The upheavals in Egypt caught the neoliberal paladins by surprise and caused much
dismay. That the Army brought the mild islamist party leader down in a counter-doup is not a
symptom that the entirety of the Tahrir Square enterprise was a CIA orchestrated hoax of some
kind. Just that the US was happy to let Morsi hang once the Generals got their act together.
There certainly are many pro neoliberal coups that dress themselves up in liberatory
clothing. (Maidan and Georgia are the claerest examples.)
Gene Sharp, from everything I've seen on him and his career, showed him to be a true
believer in neoliberalism and the empire that propped it up. I suggest people look into his
views on the "free market," and its relation to democracy, to see what he was really
about.
What was the name of the institute he headed over at Harvard for so many years? Why, it
was the "Center for International Affairs"! Now why did they decide to rename that, after
waves of student protests against it? The acronym just a little too "on the nose?" He seemed
like a willfully ignorant dupe working alongside a long list of cold war psychopaths. Whether
or not he "believed" this or that, about his own work, is irrelevant.
Not to mention the underemployed -- the ongoing commitment of western regimes to inflation
prevention at the expense of labor wastage and the consequent immiseration of the citizenry
is scandalous.
Kenneth Pomeranz's "The Great Divergence: China, Europe, and the Making of the Modern
World Economy," basically proves your point very effectively. Pretty much beats down any
crypto-racist theories on the superiority of "western civilization," etc. China didn't have
coal, simple as that.
I would say that one has to categorize "protests" in order to uncover how they relate to
social relations of power. Violent vs non-violent framing is useful if you want to argue that
violence is not just immoral but actually impractical. If you want to try to prove the
eternal moral basis of the liberal order, it's great. If you really want to uncover how
conflict and power work, you need more vectors.
Complicate Chenoweth's liberal framing by adding more categories. What's the goal of the
movement? Is it revolutionary of reformist? Is the movement organized or diffuse? If the
violence is diffused is it lumpen rioting and random terror? If the violence is organized is
it terror cells, military columns, foreign invasion or something else? If the movement is
organized non-violent, does it exist at the same time as an organized violent movement with
similar goals? If the movement is organized non-violent, are the people in it armed but not
using the arms? If the movement is diffused non-violent is it actively opposed to violence?
Every combination matters in context, and the reform vs revolutionary labels absolutely
matter. There is a big difference between demanding the end of a fuel tax and demanding the
end of capitalism. There is a big difference between the treatment of armed people and
unarmed people by security forces, depending on the context.
In general IMO, reforms under liberalism can be captured through non-violent protest, and
diffused violence can harm their chances because they give security forces an excuse for a
crackdown. The organized threat of violence can help organized non-violent reform protests
because it scares the ruling class (BPP in the USA is a great example), but organized
violence itself can harm non-violent reform protests unless it's successfully revolutionary.
Revolution (not just a change in government!) can never be achieved through non-violent
protest, because the ruling class will use violence to save themselves.
Area Man@14 writes nothing, actually. I might attempt to refute his views if were so
innocent as to make them known. But I can't help feeling that if this were a real comment even
an Area Man might care to know more details I strenuously disagree upon. There are times when
the accusations of incoherence are prompted by comments that altogether too easily understood
yet not easily refuted. I think this is such an occasion.
faustusnotes@16 at least makes an effort. First, translation is treason to the author. My
attempt at translation didn't make it clear likbez does *not* see any color revolution afoot in
the US, but merely attempts to use some of the techniques here as used abroad. And in fact one
of the points he makes is about why they aren't making any headway. But faustusnotes is
perilously close to denying that there is such a thing as a color revolution, or at least,
insisting against the evidence color revolutions really do lead to the expression of the
people's will. I hope not, as that is a shameful position to take.
The removal of Lula via false charges, to allow faustusnotes' friend Bolsonaro to ascend to
the Brazilian presidency, is exactly the kind of color revolution mechanism likbez is thinking
of, I believe. The insistence that Trump really is a traitor because "Russiagate" and
"Ukrainegate" is preposterous for exactly the same reasons accusations of treason against
Clinton for Benghazi and emails were preposterous. The only reason for a double standard is
rotten, reactionary politics. So far from thinking a color revolution is going to ensue, likbez
is inclined to think this scheme may even backfire, and help Trump. That's why Pelosi (and
reactionaries-at-heart, like LGM) were so opposed to even talking impeachment for so long,
until they found a sufficiently reactionary cause. Impeachment on a leftist charge is
unendurable for this lot! The insinuation that removing a president isn't revolutionary at all
is, well, the best phrase I can think of, is, hiding in a dictionary.
All faustusnotes' remarks to this point smack of the sleazy, but at least they are
semi-defensible as clueless pedantry and petty malice. The breath-taking arrogance in
pronouncing "Japan, Korea, China, Australia, NZ and Germany" don't have "rigid" class systems
is very convenient, but not actually facts, much less a refutation. [Talking about Germany's
class system without thinking of Gastarbeiter is preposterous, for a single example.]
The proffered history of class society is also deranged, as England had classes before 1066,
for a single example. it is also moving the goalposts. The issue of course is that since about
the middle seventies, real wages for most families have stagnated, even if you don't think the
need for so many wives to work outside the home is any issue at all. It appears that
faustusnotes has complete rejected the notion of a Great Compression, too. I must say, that's
bold! Lastly on this point, too, non-rigid class societies are very much so because of economic
growth offering opportunities. It was likbez who was making an issue of secular stagnation
changing class politics. Unlike faustusnotes, I don't think this is manifest absurdity, as
it has something to do with reality. I'm not sure faustusnotes even accepts there are issues
with stagnation, much less that it has social and political consequences.
By the end faustusnotes has completely lost it. I almost missed it, but the phrase
"Putin-fluffing" is apparently a reference to porn, where off-camera parties help get stars
ready for their scenes, or maybe keeps them from being distracted by the film crew? What brings
on this scurrility is the mention of Biden's corruption. The obvious reason for people talking
about Hunter Biden and Burisma now is simply that most of us hadn't heard of Burisma. The mass
press is very selective in its coverage.
I cannot speak for likbez on this, but I firmly believe a cardinal principle of politics is,
the true corruption of a system is what's legal. I also believe that Hunter Biden's influence
peddling is legal, but for peons such as myself, still corrupt. Biden was already disgraced by
being Obama's vice president, proving he would never really change anything, not even if given
a mandate for change. I can't admire such solicitude for Biden.
I'm not quite sure what nastywoman@17 is saying. It sounds something like the EU is a
spiritual ideal walking the earth, and it will inspire the masses to reject revolution in favor
of social democracy, which to be honest sounds much crazier than likbez, even in the hostile
misreadings. But the truth is, I could very well be wrong, as I find nastywoman to be
incoherent in a way I've never found likbez.
Chinese Patriotism: Huawei Smartphone Sales Jump 66% In China As Apple iPhone Sales Slump
by
Tyler Durden
Wed, 10/30/2019 - 13:50
0
SHARES
We're starting to get first-hand knowledge of what we're coining as the
"
blowback
period
"
in the trade war. This is a point in time when Chinese consumers, downright
furious of President Trump's protectionist policies that targeted Chinese companies over the
summer, have collectively stood up to an aggressor (the US), and have
secretly fired back,
targeting US firms by abandoning their products for domestic ones, all in the name of patriotism.
Honestly, over time, the trade war, if solved next month or next year, or who knows at this point
when it'll be solved, will have devastating consequences for corporate America as their market
share in China will erode as patriotism forces consumers to gravitate towards domestic brands.
A new report from
Canalys
, an
independent research firm focused on technology, has linked patriotism in China for the jump in
Huawei smartphone sales in the third quarter.
Huawei's 3Q19 smartphone sales soared by 66% YoY in China
, compared with a 31%
increase in 2Q19.
Between 2Q-3Q, President Trump escalated the trade war to near full-blown, and also attacked
individual companies with economic sanctions and banned certain ones from doing business in the US.
Chinese consumers responded by
ditching American products, like Apple iPhones
, as
this is some of the first evidence we've seen of the blowback period, likely to worsen in 4Q19
through 1Q20.
As shown in the chart below, the July-September period of 2019 was a devastating quarter for
Huawei's top rivals, including Vivo, Oppo, Xiaomi (other Chinese brands), along with depressing
sales from Apple.
Smartphone shipments overall were 97.8 million, down 3% from 100.6 million for the same period
last year.
Apple's YoY slump gained momentum from -14% in 2Q to -28% for 3Q
.
Chinese patriotism
allowed Huawei's market share in the country to expand from
24.9% to 42.4% over the past year.
Canalys analyst Mo Jia said, "The U.S.-China trade war is also creating new opportunities,"
adding that, "
Huawei's retail partners are rolling out advertisements to link Huawei with
being the patriotic choice, to appeal to a growing demographic of Chinese consumers willing to take
political factors into account when making a purchase decision.
"
The blowback period has begun, and corporate America should be terrified that their market share
in China is about to evaporate.
All of these events are symptoms of the real problem which those pulling the strings behind
the scenes do not want to admit to, most of the people hate both them and their grand
plans...
I have a take on Neoliberalism- it's pretty poorly informed, but then a lot of people have
pretty poorly informed takes on this subject.
There are actually three phenomena that masquerade under the name Neoliberalism:
A) A situation of class power in which elites are claiming an unusual portion of the
spoils.
B) A special strategy by which that unusual portion of the spoils is extracted (economic
policy done on a purely efficiency basis- unweighted CBA.)
C) An ideology that justifies B.
I think C) has fallen, although it retains a pallid existence in economics departments for
want of a clear alternative.
B) has not entirely fallen, but has come under severe pressure, as elites have become more
willing to adopt extractive strategies which clearly aren't even pretending to be efficiency
based.
A) on the other hand is doing fine. It's perhaps a tad more nervous than it was in the
past, but only a tad.
Whether phrases like "national neoliberalism" makes sense will depend on what you identify
as the key portion of the beast. Is it the ideas, the policies, or an overall balance of
class forces that you identify with "Neoliberalism"?
I think calling a specific balance of class forces that does not favor the working class
"Neoliberalism" is too much of a stretch on the original meaning of the term- which clearly
concerned a specific specific ideology and strategy. On that basis, I would say that
Neoliberalism is dead or dying, and has been replaced with something far more openly venal.
The unusually complete dominance of the ruling class has not (yet) diminished, but its
accouterments have changed entirely.
Indeed venality seems to be the dominant feature of the ruling class in this period- a
kind of dissolute uselessness that, somehow, is associated with no visible diminishment of
power. On that basis I propose that the GFC marked the beginning of the Venal Age.
There are actually three phenomena that masquerade under the name Neoliberalism:
A) A situation of class power in which elites are claiming an unusual portion of the
spoils.
B) A special strategy by which that unusual portion of the spoils is extracted (economic
policy done on a purely efficiency basis- unweighted CBA.)
C) An ideology that justifies B.
I think C) has fallen, although it retains a pallid existence in economics departments
for want of a clear alternative.
B) has not entirely fallen, but has come under severe pressure, as elites have become
more willing to adopt extractive strategies which clearly aren't even pretending to be
efficiency based.
A) on the other hand is doing fine. It's perhaps a tad more nervous than it was in the
past, but only a tad.
That's an interesting observation. I never thought about the possibility to decompose
neoliberalism in such a way. Thank you !
As a side note, I think you slightly underestimate the level of anxiety among the USA
financial oligarchy. Jamie Dimon desire for "kinder gentler capitalism", his sudden
willingness to pay higher taxes (with the precondition that the government spends it wisely
;-) and his statement that student lending in the U.S. has been "a disgrace" and it's
"hurting America" clearly reflect a slightly different condition then "a tad more
nervous".
He is willing to betray three classic neoliberal postulates at once. That's probably can
be characterized more close to panic, then "a tad more nervous".
On the other hand "the absence of clear alternative" is what prolong the life of
neoliberalism in its current "zombie" state. And the term "zombie" state in turn presuppose
increased venality and bloodthirstiness of the neoliberal elite, along with the increasing
level of moral and social degradation (Trump, Biden, Schiff, Epstein, Clinton, etc )
So the increasing venality of neoliberal elite can probably be viewed as yet another
manifestation of the crisis of neoliberalism.
Actually amorality and criminality of neoliberal elite and the increasing level of its
rejection by the "deplorables" should probably be viewed as one of the defining features of
the current stage of neoliberalism.
The growing view on neoliberal MSM as "fake news" might be yet another symptom along the
lines of classic Marxism "revolutionary situation" definition: when the elite can't rule "as
usual" and "deplorable" do not want to live "as usual".
From Wikipedia
Lenin describes the "revolutionary situation" as follows:
"To the Marxist it is indisputable that a revolution is impossible without a
revolutionary situation; furthermore, it is not every revolutionary situation that leads to
revolution. What, generally speaking, are the symptoms of a revolutionary situation? We
shall certainly not be mistaken if we indicate the following three major symptoms:
(1) when it is impossible for the ruling classes to maintain their rule without any change; when there is a crisis, in
one form or another, among the "upper classes", a crisis in the policy of the ruling class, leading to a fissure through
which the discontent and indignation of the oppressed classes burst forth. For a revolution to take place, it is usually
insufficient for "the lower classes not to want" to live in the old way; it is also necessary that "the upper classes should
be unable" to rule in the old way;
(2) when the suffering and want of the oppressed classes have grown more acute than
usual;
(3) when, as a consequence of the above causes, there is a considerable increase in the
activity of the masses, who uncomplainingly allow themselves to be robbed in "peace time",
but, in turbulent times, are drawn both by all the circumstances of the crisis and by the
"upper classes" themselves into independent historical action.
very year, when it comes time for a publicly traded company to make its annual report to shareholders, its CEO writes
a letter thanking those shareholders for owning their stock, reflecting on the company's wins and losses, and
offering some forward-looking projections for how that company will perform in the future. While most of these
letters typically consist of misleading graphs that help break up pages of fluffy bullshit about how the CEO is
focused on the long-term growth of the company and doesn't care whether the stock price goes up (while also
justifying the stock buybacks that artificially prop it up), some corporate bigwigs like Jeff Bezos and Warren
Buffett use their annual letters as an opportunity to reflect on the nature of the world, the nature of business, and
the nature of the world of business. Such letters are tomes of Fake Deep wisdom, revered by dudes who like to dress
"zany" on Casual Friday. Jamie Dimon, CEO of the megabank JPMorgan Chase, is one such epistolary-minded titan of
industry.
Jamie Dimon is a famous CEO for two reasons. One, he is very good at fulfilling his "fiduciary duty" to
JPMorgan Chase's shareholders by creating value for them -- most notably during the financial crisis of 2007-2008,
when he was able to keep the company afloat at a time when basically every other bank was going under. Two, he
oversaw JPMorgan Chase at a time when it was handing out a shitload of the bad loans that helped cause the financial
crisis of 2007-2008, and in 2012, personally approved the actions of Bruno Iksil, the so-called "London Whale" who
placed such heavy derivatives trades that he singlehandedly lost JPMorgan Chase $6 billion. Together, these scandals
resulted in JPMorgan Chase paying a total of roughly $14 billion in fines over the course of 2013 (about
$13 billion for helping cause
the recession
, plus a cool
$920 million
for the London Whale).
People in the finance world tend to focus on thing one (the good thing), while those of us in the real world tend
to focus on the bad thing, a.k.a. the shoddy mortgages and irresponsible trades and billions of dollars in fines and
all that. Intuitively, this makes sense: If a bank such as JPMorgan Chase is creating value for its shareholders,
that value has to come from somewhere, frequently its customers. In other words, your opinion of Jamie Dimon probably
depends on whether or not you're on the receiving end of his innovation that the bank industry should engage in the
upward redistribution of wealth.
For Dimon, however, this is not enough. He is a well-known public figure, and it must be sort of a drag, I assume,
to be hated by millions of strangers. Plus, if it could be said that you were both a cause and a beneficiary of the
financial crisis, you might be interested in rehabilitating your image just a tad.
In recent years, Jamie Dimon has tried his hardest to take advantage of the incredibly low expectations America
holds for its richest citizens, who can say things like "capitalism might have some problems, honestly" and be hailed
as brave visionaries. Last January, the bank announced it was raising the minimum wages of its lowest-paid employees
to $15-$18 per hour, essentially voluntarily meeting the demands of the significant coalition of activists advocating
for a national minimum wage of $15 per hour. On March 14, it was announced that JPMorgan Chase would
no longer finance private prisons
, while
a few days later, Dimon did, indeed,
admit
that America was
"fundamentally anti-poor."
A 2013 photo of Dimon and Mary Callahan Erdoes of JPMorgan Chase with Gary Cohn
and Dina Powell, then of Goldman Sachs, both of whom went on to work in the Trump administration.
Via
Wiki Commons
It's his annual shareholder letters, though, where Dimon really relishing in talking his shit. While high-level
finance people tend to promote a specific vision of the world in which peace, or at least global stability, and the
spread of free-market capitalism go hand in hand -- after all, if your country is involved in a serious war, you
probably aren't thinking too hard about getting a loan to start a business or buy a house -- Dimon's shareholder
letters have taken on an activist edge in the Trump era. This started in April of 2017 with his letter shareholders
covering the 2016 fiscal year, in which he advocated for an increase in education spending offset by decreased
military budgets, lamented the effects that increased healthcare costs and mass incarceration have had on the
economy, and generally came across, as
The New
Yorker
joked
, "like a more restrained Bernie Sanders."
These themes, of economic inequality and the stagnation of American middle-class progress, were also present in
his
most recent shareholder
letter
, which was issued early last week. In tone and substance, it is not substantially different from the 2017
letter, once again touching on the numerous ailments to the United States that most rational people agree really
ought to be fixed. "America has always had its flaws," Dimon writes. "Some of its more recent issues center on income
inequality, stagnant wages, lack of equal opportunity, immigration and lack of access to healthcare." Which, yeah,
sure, fine. I'm a firm believer that you deserve credit for being able to point out there's a bird in the sky even if
you only know it's there because it just crapped on your head.
But then Dimon gets to the really good stuff:
Is capitalism to blame? Is socialism better?
There is no question that capitalism has been the most successful economic system the world has ever seen. It has
helped lift billions of people out of poverty, and it has helped enhance the wealth, health and education of
people around the world. Capitalism enables competition, innovation and choice.
I point this passage out specifically because it's more or less a mashup of rhetoric used by The Heritage
Foundation (read the first paragraph of
this
), as well as Sean Hannity (read
this
transcript
and keep scrolling until you get to the part where he screams about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), and
also because whenever a rich finance guy starts talking about socialism you know you're in for a wild ride. He
continues, with some even better stuff:
When governments control companies, economic assets (companies, lenders and so on) over time are used to further
political interests – leading to inefficient companies and markets, enormous favoritism and corruption. As
Margaret Thatcher said, "The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money."
Socialism inevitably produces stagnation, corruption and often worse -- such as authoritarian government officials
who often have an increasing ability to interfere with both the economy and individual lives -- which they
frequently do to maintain power. This would be as much a disaster for our country as it has been in the other
places it's been tried.
This assertion, coming from Dimon, is hilarious, given that when Jamie Dimon controls a company, he will further
its interests politically by
personally calling legislators trying to convince them to vote for bills that will make him money
, as well as do
things that interfere with the economy -- such as helping cause a financial crisis -- and individual lives -- such as
screwing people over by giving them loans despite knowing they weren't in a position to pay them back. Throw in his
random invocation of Margaret Thatcher, and I offer the above passage as proof that Jamie Dimon is at least as funny
as mid-tier comedian Colin Jost.
The fact that Dimon is so incensed by the specter of creeping socialism is telling. It's easy to imagine a world
in which a politician like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren becomes president, nationalizes the healthcare system
to at least some degree, and then causes people to wonder what other stuff should be taken out of the hands of
profit-seeking CEOs with a hard-on about dividend increases. For years, Sanders has
advocated for revitalizing the lagging postal system by authorizing every post office to perform basic banking
services
. Meanwhile,
the idea of communities
putting their money in state-owned public banks
, rather than privately held banking institutions, is growing in
popularity, especially as
operators in the
legal weed industry need a place to put all their cash
. Hell, even Andrew Yang's goofy-ass "everybody gets a
thousand bucks a month, ESPECIALLY gamers" platform might convince people that they don't need banks such as JPMorgan
Chase to live their lives. I realize that personal banking, which I am referring to above, only makes up a fraction
of what large banks such as the one Dimon runs actually does, but megabanks only work if they have other people's
money to do crazy shit with, and in a more socialist country, those other people might put their money elsewhere and
put the Jamie Dimons of the world out of a job in the process.
Politically, Dimon could best be described as a "centrist" in the Howard Schultz sense of the word: socially
liberal, but with a self-serving fiscal sensibility that he convinces himself is not somehow at odds with whatever
"progressive" views he might have. In that same shareholder letter, Dimon praises Trump's big business-favoring tax
cuts before arguing that they don't go far enough: He claims that countries, in order to reap
any
taxes from
large companies, need to bend over backwards before those companies find another country that will. He doubled down
on this assertion yesterday while
appearing in front
of the House Financial Services Committee
, offering his weaselly "Eh, whaddya gonna do?" argument in response to
a barbed line of questioning from Rep. Nydia Velazquez.
"It's not enough just for companies to meet the letter and the spirit of the law. They can also aggressively work
to improve society," writes Dimon as he inches towards the conclusion of his 50-page letter that, frankly, I wish I
had not read the entirety of. In his view, governments should act more like companies, competing with one another in
order to earn the pittance of tax revenues doled out by global megacorporations. It only follows, then, that he
thinks companies should conduct themselves more like governments, engaging in ostensibly selfless efforts to improve
society for the better. This is a tack I suspect we'll see more of in the future, a fundamentally conservative appeal
made by those in positions of power that uses the language of social justice to cling desperately to a status quo
that ultimately favors them, rather than dramatically shifting power away from those who have proven that they in no
way deserve it.
Hearing a CEO like Jamie Dimon argue that the solution to capitalism is for he and his colleagues to aspire to a
greater degree of social responsibility is not unlike hearing an unrepentant alcoholic argue that the solution for
drunk driving is for he and his drinking buddies to take driving lessons -- after all, if you take their licenses
away, how the hell are him and his friends going to get around town? Jamie Dimon's billions of dollars in fines does
not grant him an ounce of moral clarity; he is vaguely woke strictly out of a sense of self-preservation.
The metaphor I used in the above paragraph was not 100 percent apt. After all, driving under the influence of
alcohol is a clear, and clearly punishable, crime, but there is no equally enforceable law for serving as an
accessory to a recession. So let me try again: If a soldier returns home from combat to tell you that war is hell,
then you should believe them; if a banker returns from paying $14 billion in fines to tell you that America is
broken; then you should believe him as well -- and then throw him in jail for breaking it.
Since the moment the votes were totaled in the June 2016 Brexit referendum there has
been nothing but handwringing about what it implied
. The Brexit vote showed, quite
clearly, that
growing political unions were unsustainable.
It was the first in a series of electoral losses where the people finally said enough to
an expanding EU.
Four months later the US voted Donald Trump
, of all people, into the
White House, again throwing into the air another 'two fingers up' to the Western political
establishment that wanted to break down borders and blur the lines between nation states.
Trump's first moves were to nullify the Paris Accord on Climate Change and both the TTIP and
TPP. These are all globalist, transnational treaties designed to usurp national governments and put
control of the world economy into the hands of corporations with little recourse to the courts for
those harmed.
In 2017 Catalonia held an independence referendum against the wishes of Spain's
government
which used force to stop it from happening. Today the leaders of that
independence movement are convicted felons in exile facing more than a decade in prison while the
streets of Barcelona are filled with outrage.
In Italy, dire conditions there thanks to the euro
, Angela Merkel's
immigration policy stemming from a failed bid to atomize Syria and the growing EU political
integration,
ended the 2018 election with two Euroskeptics from opposite ends of the
political spectrum
forging a populist government. This was eventually betrayed by one
party, Five Star Movement, through the undemocratic process of refusing new elections because the
polls had shifted further away from the pro-EU position.
The polls have not shifted back even though Matteo Salvini and Lega have been deposed from
power.
Germany's 2017 election ended with another unpopular, and now distinctly minority,
coalition forming to stop Euroskeptic Alternative for Germany (AfD) coming to power.
The Greens are ascendant as the Social Democrats collapse. Merkel presides over a zombie Bundestag.
And today, three years after Brexit and Trump's victory, powerful forces are working expressly
against the people to overthrow both of these results through cynical and reprehensible acts of
political vandalism, hamstringing leadership without a care of the long-term societal damage it is
causing.
In fact, I'd argue that the societal damage is the goal of these moves to thwart the
people's desires in the hope that they take it out on each other rather than the ones setting the
table in the first place.
The endless maneuvering in the British Parliament to block any form of meaningful Brexit has
placed Prime Minister Boris Johnson in the position of having to sacrifice part of his country to
have any chance of success.
And what success he's achieved still leaves Brexit's fate in limbo. So, in effect, he's won the
ultimate Pyrrhic victory which will leave him in a political no-man's land after finally getting a
general election held where the Tories have to ally with Nigel Farage's Brexit Party to have a
prayer of forming a government capable of governing.
All of these events are symptoms of the real problem
which those pulling the
strings behind the scenes do not want to admit to,
most of the people hate both them and
their grand plans.
We live in a rapidly decentralizing age where technology gives us access to information in real
time that used to take us months, if not years, to properly disseminate and then it was only to
those who were already fellow travelers.
And that has empowered in ways no one currently wielding power is comfortable with.
The reality of reaching out en masse to others along the political and socio-economic spectrum
to discuss the merits of changing the course of society was simply not possible even ten years ago.
And today those forces of decentralization are the real problem facing these elites who have
enjoyed the illusion of running the world for the past few generations.
But these events like Brexit, Trump, Catalonia and others are castigated as the real
problems not the symptoms of the much deeper problems caused by unsustainable political and
economic systems based on fraud, cheap money, theft and propaganda.
George Galloway, writing for RT, identified a real divide within the United Kingdom that Brexit
has exposed, the fallacy that Ireland is two separate countries.
The six counties of the north east of Ireland were unnaturally torn from the Irish motherland a
century ago, but its status was always historically speaking, doomed.
Despite its Gerrymandered borders, tortuously carved to ensure a built-in Protestant
(pro-British unionist) majority, and its near-apartheid treatment of its Catholic minority
including disenfranchisement of many, the writing was already on the wall. As my own family
demonstrates, Catholics simply have bigger families than Protestants. That and the emigration of a
steady stream of educated Protestants unwilling to stick around in the thoroughly abnormal statelet
they call Northern Ireland. Neither Irish nor British, dominated by a brand of sectarian politics,
at least half-a-century an embarrassment, a steady stream of northern Protestants simply voted with
their feet and a ticket to England.
George goes on to say that despite the noises from the Scottish National Party (SNP) the
likelihood of Scotland trading its current support structure coming from Westminster to the
austerity demanded by Brussels is laughable.
I won't argue with George on that, he knows his people far better than I do. But I will say that
the divisions between these countries – England, Scotland and Wales – are deep enough that a
breaking point isn't far-fetched.
What is very clear to me, however, is that even older unnatural agglomerations of
'countries' into constructs like the U.K. are showing the strains of holding fast against a world
where technology is rapidly empowering individuals to trade across arbitrary political borders.
This is in stark opposition to the arguments for the European Union; that to compete the small
countries of Europe need a big common political structure to compete against the U.S, India, Russia
and China.
But the reality is that those big countries are all at different points along the same path the
U.K. is on with respect to Ireland. From where I sit, the US is becoming multiple regional fiefdoms
just like the U.K.
We are quickly becoming peoples separated by a common language, to invoke George Bernard
Shaw, which is sowing enmity and division between the states to levels that haven't existed since
the run up to what is commonly misreferred to as the US Civil War.
Properly framed, that war was one fought by President Lincoln to preserve the Union not stave
off an attack on Washington by forces that wanted to wrest control of the government. That is a
civil war.
The wars being fought today by the leadership in Brussels are similar to the one Lincoln fought.
These are political wars fought against the current will of the people to prevent secession from
the EU – Brexit, Italeave, Catalonia.
When people are denied their rights through the political process, however, the inevitable next
step is through violence. And that is what comes next unless those in power accede to reality.
For his part, Donald Trump is beginning to see this with respect to US occupation of
foreign countries like Syria and Afghanistan. In the coming weeks Iraq may try and make that
decision for him.
Events there and in Lebanon, thanks to crippling acts of war known colloquially as 'sanctions,'
bear watching carefully as any resolution which abrogates existing debt and political alliances
will have immense downstream consequences for the region.
But between now and then we can bet on more of the same behavior from disconnected and
corrupt politicians who are so caught up in their own solipsistic fugue they won't see the end of
their political lives until the guillotines are wheeled into the capitol square.
lol. criminal NWO elite..like the mis direction of folks like
this author...has to do with criminal "conspiracy" as fewer and
fewer become so wealthy they are a new species of man. Our western
Legal system is now the weapon of the elite who are above Law.
look around the western nations, and see the result of the
corruption of our legal systems...monopoly much?
What these power-crazed
psychopaths who seized control of national governments choose to
ignore is that as far back as mankind emerged on Earth, humans
have a natural inclination to coalesce into groups of like-minded
others where they share similar cultures and lifestyles etc. That
gave birth to Nation States with borders to keep the unwanted out.
Nation States cannot now be abolished because each one has many
differences to all the others and some have been far more
successful. It's better that we share different cultures rather
than impose standardisation like automatons.
These political maniacs want to create a one-world globalised
government to impose a standard model of culture onto everybody,
with themselves controlling all the levers of power and the rest
of us relegated to mere hoi polloi.
This madness has been tried a 100 times before and has never
worked. Look at the Bolsheviks who seized control of Russia and
turned it into the USSR. It collapsed after ~70 years. As Luongo
says look at Spain/Catalonia and elsewhere. People do not want
their culture mixed and diluted into a giant one-world melting pot
and lost or destroyed.
Exactly how can low IQ poorly educated blacks in Africa
integrate into a modern Western society?
Exactly how can Moslems integrate into our societies?
The globalists are travelling down a dangerous path and it
will not end well.
Hardly themost
trustworthy of sources; either of them.
One of these is not like
the others..
,
12 minutes ago
link
Actually, I think I might be inclined more to trust a man like
George who is prepared to function as a human shield for what
he believes in over the usual unprincipled scum that we see
doing his job.
And I sure as **** now believe in the
rebranded "Pravda" as a news source, than our lamestream media,
although I actually believe more in even the new somewhat
corrupted ZH, to be a good source of accurate, tested &
verified truth..
And whilst I might be extremely rude to most of you, and
I've even been known to return bit of hatred to it's owners,
this comments section is a crucible, where an awful lot of
********, (even my own occasionally, although there isn't much
of that TBF) gets burned away from the unalloyed truth. Long
may it continue!
"The Government should create, issue, and circulate all
the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending
power of the Government and the buying power of consumers.
By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be
saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be
master and become the servant of humanity."
Abraham
Lincoln
When anyone tries to do that they die - Lincoln
and Kennedy.
Why is it important to take money creation away from
bankers?
"When a government is dependent upon bankers for
money, they and not the leaders of the government control
the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand
that takes Money has no motherland; financiers are without
patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain."
– Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, 1815
The prophecy on the neoliberal ideology emanating from
the US.
"The death of Lincoln was a disaster for Christendom.
There was no man in the United States great enough to wear
his boots and the bankers went anew to grab the riches. I
fear that foreign bankers with their craftiness and tortuous
tricks will entirely control the exuberant riches of America
and use it to systematically corrupt civilization."
Otto
von Bismark (1815-1898), German Chancellor, after the
Lincoln assassination
If Democrats nominate Elizabeth Warren, there will a chorus of well-funded voices
declaring that her progressivism would destroy the economy. So it's not irrelevant to look at
how that sort of thinking is holding up abroad 1/
Pocketbook Woes Drive an Unlikely Comeback in Argentine Presidential Race
President Mauricio Macri rose to office with a promise that free markets would wrest
Argentina from its boom-and-bust cycle. But with the country in recession, voters may now
turn to an archrival.
5:55 AM - 27 Oct 2019
Macri was the business community's candidate; he was going to bring sound management in
after years of populism, and things were going to be great. But he screwed up the
macroeconomics, borrowing heavily in dollars (!), and presided over recession 2/
Chile has long, as Branko Milanovic says here, been the poster child for neoliberalism. I
remember very well when Bush & co tried to sell Chile's privatized pensions as a
replacement for Social Security. But rampant inequality is now causing mass unrest 3/
Obviously governments of both left and right can mess up. But the persistent belief that
big business and the wealthy know How Things Work and can run the economy best is completely
at odds with experience 4/
RC (Ron) Weakley said in reply to Fred C. Dobbs... ,
a
Without the necessary due diligence in planning both the transition and the aftermath going
into the meme, then Medicare for All is a promise for some, a threat to many more, and a boat
anchor for the Democratic Party. It could be a great plan if adequately executed, but given
the haphazard approach to leaning on buzz words and memes instead of a explanatory framework,
then this plan will be an executioner's block next November, if not just Tuesday week. The
Democratic Party has screwed itself again unless just pure outrage and at Trump and
Republican politicians can rescue the Dembots from their own idiot angels.
"... The brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile, became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became rich. ..."
"... José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around the world) is about 80% of that of the United States. ..."
"... the combined wealth of Chilean billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park" their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's GDP, exceeds even that of Russians. [Graph] ..."
"... Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising its GDP per capita. ..."
"... if there Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people. ..."
Chile: The poster boy of neoliberalism who fell from grace
It is not common for an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development county to
shoot and kill 16 people in two days of socially motivated riots. (Perhaps only Turkey, in
its unending wars against the Kurdish guerrilla, comes close to that level of violence.) This
is however what Chilean government, the poster child of neoliberalism and transition to
democracy, did last week in the beginning of protests that do not show the signs of subsiding
despite cosmetic reforms proposed by President Sebastian Piñera.
The fall from grace of Chile is symptomatic of worldwide trends that reveal the damages
causes by neoliberal policies over the past thirty years, from privatizations in Eastern
Europe and Russia to the global financial crisis to the Euro-related austerity. Chile was
held, not the least thanks to favorable press that it enjoyed, as a exemplar of success.
Harsh policies introduced after the overthrow of Salvador Allende in 1973, and the murderous
spree that ensued afterwards, have been softened by the transition to democracy but their
essential features were preserved. Chile indeed had a remarkably good record of growth, and
while in the 1960-70s it was in the middle of the Latin American league by GDP per capita, it
is now the richest Latin American country. It was of course helped too by high prices for its
main export commodity, copper, but the success in growth is incontestable. Chile was
"rewarded" by the membership in the OECD, a club of the rich nations, the first South
American country to accede to it.
Where the country failed is in its social policies which somewhat bizarrely were
considered by many to have been successful too. In the 1980s-90s, the World Bank hailed
Chilean "flexible" labor policies which consisted of breaking up the unions and imposing a
model of branch-level negotiations between employers and workers rather than allowing an
overall umbrella union organization to negotiate for all workers. It was even more bizarrely
used by the World Bank as a model of transparency and good governance, something that the
transition countries in Eastern Europe should have presumably copied from Chile. The
brother of the current Chilean president, scions of one of the richest families in Chile,
became famous for introducing, as Minister of Labor and Social Security under Pinochet, a
funded system of pensions where employees make compulsory contributions from their wages into
one of several pension funds, and after retirement receive pensions based on investment
performance of such funds. Old-age pensions thus became a part of roulette capitalism. But In
the process, the pension funds, charging often exorbitant fees, and their managers became
rich.
José Piñera had tried to "sell" this model to Yeltsin's Russia and to
George Bush's United States, but, despite the strong (and quite understandable) support of
the financial communities in both countries, he failed. Nowadays, most Chilean pensioners
receive $200-$300 per month in a country whose price level (according to International
Comparison Project, a worldwide UN- and World Bank-led project to compare price levels around
the world) is about 80% of that of the United States.
While Chile leads Latin America in GDP per capita, it also leads it terms of inequality.
In 2015, its level of income inequality was higher than in any other Latin American country
except for Colombia and Honduras. It exceeded even Brazil's proverbially high inequality. The
bottom 5% of the Chilean population have an income level that is about the same as that of
the bottom 5% in Mongolia. The top 2% enjoy the income level equivalent to that of the top 2%
in Germany. Dortmund and poor suburbs of Ulan Bataar were thus brought together.
Chilean income distribution is extremely unequal. But even more so is its wealth
distribution. There, Chile is an outlier even compared to the rest of Latin America.
According to the Forbes' 2014 data on world billionaires, the combined wealth of Chilean
billionaires' (there were twelve of them) was equal to 25% of Chilean GDP. The next Latin
American countries with highest wealth concentrations are Mexico and Peru where the wealth
share of billionaires is about half (13 percent of GDP) of Chile's. But even better: Chile is
the country where billionaires' share, in terms of GDP, is the highest in the world (if we
exclude countries like Lebanon and Cyprus) where many foreign billionaires simply "park"
their wealth for tax reasons. The wealth of Chile's billionaires, compared to their country's
GDP, exceeds even that of Russians.
[Graph]
Such extraordinary inequality of wealth and income, combined with full marketization of
many social services (water, electricity etc.), and pensions that depend on the vagaries of
the stock market has long been "hidden" from foreign observers by Chile's success in raising
its GDP per capita.
But the recent protests show that the latter is not enough. Growth is
indispensable for economic success and reduction in poverty. But it is not enough: if there
Is no social justice and minimum of social cohesion, the effects of growth will dissolve in
grief, demonstrations, and yes, in the shooting of people.
In her heart, Warren is more of Eisenhower (or Nixon, if you wish ) republican type then a
real fight against excesses of neoliberalism. that actually makes her chances to win 2020
elections much stronger and changes that she will bring radical chances much weaker.
First, as a general rule, politicians who propose meaningful change should get specific
enough about their idea so that voters can have a good look before they go to the polls. So
Warren is setting a good example on this front and likely raising the bar for other Democratic
party aspirants.
Second, I want to make sure I'm not falling prey to the cognitive bias called the halo
effect, which is a tendency to see people as all good or all bad. So I want to make sure my
reaction to the neoliberal frogs that sometimes hop out of Warren's mouth doesn't taint my
reading of her generally. For instance, her private equity plan is very strong, particularly
her sweeping ideas about how to make private equity firm principals liable when they bankrupt
companies. But as America's top bankruptcy scholar, the core of that plan falls in an area
where she has unparalleled expertise.
But generally, Warren's change programs have a frequent shortcoming: they do a great job of
assessing the challenge but then propose remedies that fall well short of remedying them.
As Matt Yglesias pointed out in January :
If Two-Income Trap were released today, I'd say it suffers from a striking mismatch
between the scale of the problem it identifies and the relatively modest solutions it
proposes. Tougher regulation of consumer lending would be welcome but obviously would not
fundamentally address the underlying stagnation of income.
On top of that, Warren's "I have a plan" mantra sounds an awful lot like a dog whistle to
Clinton voters. And even though I've only given a good look at two of her plans so far ex her
private equity plan, there's a lot not to like in both of them. We
covered her wealth plan earlier, and didn't treat Sanders' at the same time because hers
was sucking up all the media attention even though Sanders had proposed a wealth tax years
before she did. That was a mistake. Sanders' wealth tax plan is better than Warren's.
Even though Sanders plan has the same fundamental problem, that of not recognizing how the
IRS in recent decades has never won a large estate tax case where you have the same valuation
issues with a wealth tax, Sanders proposes a more aggressive beef up of the IRS than Warren
does, so he may have a sense of the severity of the enforcement problem and also provides for
some legal fallbacks regarding valuation. He also realistically does not depict his tax as a
global wealth tax, since there's no way to get the needed information or cooperation on foreign
holdings that aren't in bank or brokerage firms.
But even more important, both Warren and Sanders wealth tax schemes rely on the work of
economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman in devising their taxes and estimating how much
they'd yield. The structure of Sanders' tax hews to their recommendations as to how to maximize
revenues and cut into inequality. Warren's does not. So contrary to popular perceptions,
Sanders' wealth tax plan
should get higher wonk points than Warren's .
So on to the next Warren plan.
Warren's Excess Lobbying Tax
Warren presented her Excessive Lobbying Tax
. The problem it is meant to solve is not just lobbying as currently defined, which is the
petitioning of member of Congress to influence legislation. Warren is out to tackle not just
that but also what she depicts as undue corporate influence in the regulatory process:
But corporate lobbyists don't just swarm Congress. They also target our federal
departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and the Consumer Financial Protection
Bureau .
Regulatory agencies are only empowered to implement public interest rules under authority
granted by legislation already passed by Congress. So how is it that lobbyists are able to
kill, weaken, or delay so many important efforts to implement the law?
Often they accomplish this goal by launching an all out assault on the process of writing
new rules -- informally meeting with federal agencies to push for favorable treatment,
burying those agencies in detailed industry comments during the notice-and-comment rulemaking
process, and pressuring members of Congress to join their efforts to lobby against the
rule.
If the rule moves forward anyway, they'll argue to an obscure federal agency tasked with
weighing the costs and benefits of agency rules that the rules are too costly, and if the
regulation somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in
court.
Before we get to Warren's remedies, there are some odd things about the problem statement.
One is that she fails to acknowledge that regulatory rulemaking devises more specific policies
in order to implement legislation. That reflects the fact that legislation often isn't detailed
enough to provide a definitive guide to agencies. And the public is entitled to weigh in on
rulemaking. So what she is objecting to is that corporate interests are able to overwhelm the
comment process. Second is that there is a significant abuse that she fails to mention, that
some proposed rule changes, such as regarding net neutrality, where ordinary citizens weighed
in heavily, saw comments on the other side that were submitted by bots, overwhelming the
agency. The bot abuse is specific and important, and it's odd to see Warren leave it by the
wayside.
Warren's plan has three main prongs. First, she would make pretty much anyone who as part of
their employment seeks to influence Federal legislation or regulation register as a lobbyist.
They would be require to make public who they'd been lobbying and what information they
provided (an interesting question here as to what gets reported from in person
discussions).
Second, she would require that "every corporation and trade organization" with over $500,000
per year in lobbying expenditures is subject to an "excess lobbying tax". Spending of $500,000
to $1 million would be taxed at a 35% rate, over $1 million, at a 60% rate, and over $5
million, 75%.
Warren states that her tax would have raised $10 billion in the last ten years and she
intends to use that for the third major leg of her programs, which is various anti-lobbyist
initiatives. She plans to spend the revenues on
A "Lobbying Defense Trust Fund" to bolster "Congressional independence from lobbyists" by
providing more money to Congressional support bodies like the CBO
Extra funding to agencies that are on the receiving of lobbying. When an entity in the
$500,000 or higher lobbying spending bracket, the agency gets a special allocation "to help
it fight back".
An Office of the Public Advocate to help ordinary citizens get better representation in
the lobbying process
She also asserts that her plan will also "shut the revolving door between government and K
Street" but she offers no mechanism to provide for that. So that is a handwave.
The Conceptual Flaws in Warren's Approach
It's hard to know how much of this Warren believes and how much of this was dreamed up by
her staffers (the document is signed "Team Warren).
Taxation is the wrong approach . Even though Warren discusses how much money her tax would
raise, her strident disapproval of lobbying and the punitive tax levels make clear that the
purpose of the tax is to discourage lobbying. But if lobbying is as bad as Warren believes it
is, she should instead be prohibiting abuses, like comments by bots. In the 1970s, economist
Martin Weitzman came up with an approach to determine when taxation was the right way to
discourage problematic behavior, as opposed to barring it.
A summary from the Bank of England's celebrated economist Andrew Haldane :
In making these choices, economists have often drawn on Martin Weitzman's classic public
goods framework from the early 1970s. Under this framework, the optimal amount of pollution
control is found by equating the marginal social benefits of pollution-control and the
marginal private costs of this control. With no uncertainty about either costs or benefits, a
policymaker would be indifferent between taxation and restrictions when striking this
cost/benefit balance.
In the real world, there is considerable uncertainty about both costs and benefits.
Weitzman's framework tells us how to choose between pollution-control instruments in this
setting. If the marginal social benefits foregone of the wrong choice are large, relative to
the private costs incurred, then quantitative restrictions are optimal. Why? Because fixing
quantities to achieve pollution control, while letting prices vary, does not have large
private costs. When the marginal social benefit curve is steeper than the marginal private
cost curve, restrictions dominate.
The results flip when the marginal cost/benefit trade-offs are reversed. If the private
costs of the wrong choice are high, relative to the social benefits foregone, fixing these
costs through taxation is likely to deliver the better welfare outcome. When the marginal
social benefit curve is flatter than the marginal private cost curve, taxation dominates. So
the choice of taxation versus prohibition in controlling pollution is ultimately an empirical
issue.
Moreover, the tax would hit all lobbyists. Who do you think has the better odds of raising
more money to offset the tax and carrying on as before: Public Citizen or the Chamber of
Commerce?
By contrast, one idea of ours that could have helpful chilling effects would be to go much
much further than merely requiring all lobbyists, broadly defined, to register and also require
them to provide reports on what government officials they contacted/met with and what
information they provided them.
We'd also make these lobbyists subject to FOIA and provide stringent standards that apply
only to lobbyists, such as:
Set strict and tight time limits for responses (California requires that an initial
determination be made in 10 days, for instance)
Require judges to award legal fees and costs to parties who successfully sue over FOIAs
where the records were withheld. Provide for awards in cases where the defendant coughs up
records as the result of a suit being filed. Set punitive damages for abuses (such as
excessive delay, bad faith responses). Strictly limit invocation of attorney/client privilege
to demonstrable litigation risks
Letting journalists and members of the public root around in the discussion between various
think tanks and their business allies would regularly unearth material that would be
embarrassing to the parties involved. It would go a long way toward denting the perceived
legitimacy of lobbying, which over time would strengthen the immune systems of the
recipients.
Warren assumes that most people in Congress and at regulators are anti-corporate but are
overwhelmed by lobbyists. First, the piece presents a Manichean world view of evil greedy
corporate interests versus noble underrepresented little people. And while this is very often
true, it's not as absolute as Warren suggests. The companies are often have conflicting
interests, which can allow for public-minded groups to ally with the corporate types who are on
their side on particular matters.
A second part of the Manichean take is the notion that the agencies aren't on board with the
corporate perspective. Unfortunately, reality is vastly more complicated. For instance, banking
regulators are concerned overall with the safety and soundness of the institutions they
oversee. They aren't in the business of consumer advocacy or consumer protection save as
required by legislation. The concern with safety and soundness perversely means that they want
the institutions they oversee to be profitable so as to help assure capital adequacy and to
attract "talent" to make sure the place is run adequately. (We've stated repeatedly we disagree
with this notion; banks are so heavily subsidized that they should not be seen as private
businesses and should be regulated as utilities). For instance, in the late 1980s, McKinsey was
heavily touting the idea of a coming bank profit squeeze. McKinsey partner Lowell Bryan in his
1992 book Bankrupt spoke with pride at how his message was being received, and in particular,
that regulators were embracing deregulation as a way to bolster bank incomes.
Another complicating factor is that in certain key posts, industry expertise and therefore
an insider status is seen as key to performing the job. For instance, it's accepted that the
Treasury Secretary should come from Wall Street so he can talk to Mr. Market. Of all people, GW
Bush defied that practice, appointing corporate CEOs as Treasury Secretary. The position wound
up being a revolving door in his Administration as his appointees flamed out. Finding a modern
Joe Kennedy, someone who knows sharp industry practices and decides to go against incumbents,
is a tall order.
Similarly, agencies have career staffers and political appointees at a senior level. That
included critical roles like the head of enforcement at the SEC. If Republicans or
pro-corporate Democrats control the Administration and the Senate, business-friendly appointees
will go into these critical posts. The optics may be better with the Democrats, but the outcome
isn't that much different. As Lambert likes to say, "Republicans tell you they will knife you
in the face. Democrats tell you they are so much nicer, they only want one kidney. What they
don't tell you is next year they are coming for your other kidney."
So Warren is also implicitly selling the idea of Team Dem as anti-corporate vigilantes, a
fact not in evidence.
And speaking of kidneys a letter from a departing SEC career employee and Goldman
whistleblower, James Kidney, shows how even staffers who want to do the right thing have their
perspective warped over time.
As we said about his missive, which you can read in full :
Two things struck me about Jim Kidney's article below. One is that he still wants to think
well of his former SEC colleagues
Number two, and related, are the class assumptions at work. The SEC does not want to see
securities professionals at anything other than bucket shops as bad people. At SEC
conferences, agency officials are virtually apologetic and regularly say, "We know you are
honest people who want to do the right thing." Please tell me where else in law enforcement
is that the underlying belief.
So it also seems unlikely that there is a cadre of vigorous regulators just waiting to be
unshackled by the likes of Warren and her anti-lobbyist funding. The way institutions change is
by changing the leadership and enough of the worker bees to send the message that the old way
of doing things isn't on any more. That does not happen quickly. And absent a system breakdown
like the Great Depression, staff incumbents know that talks of new sheriffs in town may not
last beyond the next election cycle.
And the experience of Warren's hand picks at her own pet agency shows that they were all too
willing to let corporations set the agenda. Recall that Warren recommended that Richard
Cordray, head of the CFPB when it became clear she would not get the job, and Raj Date, the
first deputy director of the CFPB, was also an ally of hers. From our 2012 post,
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Launches "Make Life Easier for Lobbyists" Tool :
There is more than a little bit of NewSpeak in this idea. "Streamlining regulations" is
generally right wing code for "eliminating/relaxing regulations." Admittedly, Elizabeth
Warren during her brief time as de facto head of the nascent CFPB, proposed and launched a
project to simplify mortgage disclosure forms to combine
two required forms into one and make them easier to understand .
However, this opening of the door by Cordray does not look as likely to produce such happy
outcomes. Maybe this is a means for the CFPB to force lobbyists to provide their input in a
format that makes it easier for CFPB to process. But I can't imagine that Cordray or Raj Date
would say to the American Bankers Association: "We are trying to create a level playing
field, so we won't meet with you. Put it in writing and we'll give it due consideration."
So if this portal is a supplemental channel, who exactly is it intended to serve? The
dropdown menu on the "Tell Us About Yourself" page tells us who it expects to comment: people
from organizations, specifically:
Financial services provider
Trade association
Government agency
Community organization
Other
In other words, it does not contemplate that consumers have the expertise or motivation to
provide input. Citizens are probably assumed to be represented via the CFPB itself or perhaps
also by consumer groups, but even then, they may have specific axes to grind (think the
AARP).
More generally, this is another example of attacking the problem at the wrong level. The
reason there is so much corruption in Washington is that the pay gap between what people can
make at senior levels at regulators versus what they can make in the private sector is so
enormous. And pay matters more than ever given the cost of housing, private schools, and
college. Singapore's approach was designed explicitly to prevent corruption in government: pay
top-level bureaucrats at the same level as top private sector professional (think law firm
partners) and have tough and independent internal audit. We are a long long way from embracing
any system like that, but it's important to recognize what the real issues are.
Lobbyist "tax" walks and quacks like an attack on free speech and the right to petition the
government . Even worse, she makes it easy to attack her program in court with this section and
similar observations in her piece:
In the first four months, the DOL received hundreds of comments on the proposed
[fiducairy] rule, including comments from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Morgan Stanley, Bank
of America, BlackRock, and other powerful financial interests. After a public hearing with
testimony from groups like Fidelity and J.P Morgan, the agency received over 100 more
comments -- including dozens from members of Congress, many of which were heavily slanted
toward industry talking points. Because the law requires agencies to respond to each concern
laid out in the public comments, when corporate interests flood agencies with comments, the
process often becomes so time-consuming and resource-intensive that it can kill or delay
final rules altogether -- and that's exactly what happened.
Warren is depicting the act of making public comments as an abuse. And her clear intent is
to reduce corporate input. This particular bit is very problematic: " .many of which were
heavily slanted toward industry talking points." Was she objecting to the fact that a lot of
the submissions were highly parallel, and therefore redundant, designed to choke the pipeline
or simply that they presented familiar pro-business tropes and were low value added? Not being
well crafted is not a basis for rejecting a public comment.
Warren sets herself for a legal challenge to her idea with this bit: "..if the regulation
somehow survives this onslaught, they'll hire fancy lawyers to challenge it in court," and she
later criticizes opponents of the fiduciary rule:
Today, the Department of Labor is led by Eugene Scalia, the very corporate lawyer and
ex-lobbyist who brought the lawsuit to kill off the proposal.
Was Warren missing in action in civics class when they presented the fact that Presidents
make appointments subject to the advice and consent of the Senate? And what would she do about
future Eugene Scalias? She is intimating that he shouldn't have been allowed to serve, but
that's the call of the Senate, not hers.
But more important, Warren makes it clear that she is so opposed to undue corporate
influence that she objects to judicial review. Help me. Philosophically, the US system allows
even the devil to have the benefit of law. But apparently not former law professor Elizabeth
Warren.
Again, the problem of ordinary people and pro-consumer organizations being outmatched in
court isn't going to be solved by treating use of the legal process as illegitimate. The idea
in her scheme that struck me as the most promising was the idea of an Office of the Public
Advocate. If I were in charge, I'd throw tons of money at it, including for litigation.
The Practical Flaws in Warren's Approach
Since this post is already long, we'll address these issues briefly. The IRS is a weak
agency that loses cases against corporate American all the time. A colleague recently confirmed
that take with an insider story on enforcement matters. The short version is that the IRS was
unable even to pursue issues only of moderate complexity. The problem isn't just expertise but
apparently also poor internal communication and coordination.
Tax avoidance is completely legal. If you don't think some of the targets of Warren's tax
would find ways to restructure their operations so as to greatly reduce their tax burdens, I
have a bridge I'd like to sell you. And they'd probably do it not so much to reduce taxes ("We
need more donations due to meanie Warren" would be a powerful fundraising cry and a lot of the
heavyweight groups and big corporations that lobby directly wouldn't miss a stride) as to avoid
funding her anti-lobbying initiatives.
And who would be least able to reorganize their lives to reduce the tax hit? The smaller
public advocates, natch.
* * *
It could be that I've simply hit upon two of Warren's weakest plans. But I have a sneaking
suspicion not. A contact who is an expert on political spending gave a big thumbs down to her
campaign reform proposal. The spectacle of Warren, whose Congressional staffers would regularly
turn out pointed, well-argued, very well supported requests for information from officials that
showed her to be operating way way above legislative norms, publishing plans that score high on
formatting and saber rattling and low on policy plumbing is a bad sign.
The most charitable interpretation is that Warren has weak people on this part of her
campaign and either doesn't know or doesn't care. But Warren historically has also show herself
to be an accomplished administrator. Is she more over her head than the press has figured
out?
Just an excellent critique. My view of Warren's plans was rather shallow and limited. I
could not find any flaws in your assessment. One might think that a senator would have a
better grasp of how DC works – or at least human nature.
On October 3rd, countless tens of thousands of Ecuadorian citizens began a general strike
and occupation of public spaces, throughout the country but targeting the capital of Quito.
President Lenin Moreno has made himself one of the most hated men in the history of the country
in the course of his rule, and was forced to flee as a consequence, and re-establish the
capital in Guayaquil. In addition, facing a larger and wider revolution all together, Moreno
was forced to rescind Decree 883 – the new law which appears to have been the straw that
broke the camel's back in Ecuador.
But this is far from over, and Moreno's continued existence as head of government threatens
to see the expansion of this newly awakened movement. Internationally too – for it is
Moreno who also betrayed Julian Assange, after Raphael Correa offered him protection.
Media are accurately reporting the obvious, but in limited context: Moreno enacted Decree
883, which brought an end to the popular fuel subsidies. As the story goes, this was part of an
austerity agreement made with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in return for a loan.
Decree 883 threatens the country's most vulnerable and historically marginalized cross-sections
of Ecuadorian society, indigenous communities in particular. These indigenous communities,
along with labor and citizen's group, were at the forefront of these protests and the general
strike, leading and organizing them. Moreno accuses his popular predecessor Correa for planning
and executing the protests, with assistance from Cuba and Venezuela. The 'random Soros guy'
from Brazil, Juan Guaido, has echoed Moreno's accusation.
The Looming Econocide which Decree 883 Threatened
Beyond this, however, is the real story of Decree 883 and the recent history of Ecuador, and
the real betrayal represented by Mr. Moreno – a visceral hatred he has earned for
himself, which extends far beyond Decree 883.
Mr. Moreno baffled the public when he announced that the subsidies policy introduced in the
70's, which if accounting in a very narrow and segregated way, appear to 'cost' the government
some $1.3bn annually, were no longer affordable. But what macroeconomists and the public both
understood, and what was particularly outrageous, was this: these subsidies, based on Ecuador's
socialized gas industry, in fact made possible all sorts of economic activity; risk taking and
opportunity making, and consumption in other sectors of the economy – not possible
without such a subsidy.
And so the ripple effect of Decree 883 would result in pessimism and a bearish national
economy, all around. The cognitive and theoretical deficiency of believing that one can shore
up nominal debts that exist under certain conditions of subsidy, by eliminating an economy
enhancer like an energy subsidy, without this in turn deleteriously effecting overall GDP
indices, to in turn qualify for a loan which would in all obvious reality create further
balance of payment and debt problems, is itself either negligent, criminal, or both.
The real consequence would be that it would place the Ecuadorian economy further in debt,
which means in further reliance on the IMF, which means further loans will be needed, which
means further austerity, and ultimately privatization of the public weal. Upon such a cycle,
creating permanent servitude and insolvency, the final aim on the part of the IMF cannot be
simply a vicious debt cycle, (as this is ultimately unpayable) but the total private and
foreign ownership of Ecuador, with some sort of mass impoverishment, even genocide of its
indigenous people, as an obvious – if not wanted – consequence. At this point it
becomes perhaps secondary to note that none of these 'IMF loans' will be used to develop the
country's physical economy – the only real signifier of wealth building for a whole
society, if viewed scientifically and rationally as an organic unit with mutually interrelated
symbiotic components.
There are few words to describe such aims as Decree 883 without delving into deep, profound,
philosophical and theological questions about the nature of the forces of good and evil in the
world. Questions was force us to ask what universal principles give meaning to our lives as
human beings, and what really and fundamentally motivates those with such a blatant
misanthropic agenda.
But at any rate, it is more than obvious how this move by Moreno, in the name of Decree 883,
had led to the near toppling of the Ecuadorian government – leading to Moreno declaring a
state of emergency.
Moreno – from Lenin to Judas
A success so far for the people has been the apparent repeal of Decree 883, but why Moreno
is so very much hated deserves our attention, as this is only the beginning. During his tenure,
Moreno has gained himself the nickname among the opposition 'Judas': a name necessary as it
distinguishes that he is 'no Lenin'.
What Moreno has done has resulted in the largest popular uprising the country has seen in
many years. After years of working to reverse the progress and stability brought by the noble
and just government of Raphael Correa, Moreno brought about a condition of instability and
ignobility. Within months of assuming office, he disavowed Correa who had brought him where he
had arrived, and began to work under the orders of Washington to undo Correa's social and
legislative reforms that had been aimed at deepening the strength of Ecuador's civil society,
labor, and justice. Under Correa, poverty would see a 30% decline.
And despite this obvious reality, this obvious truth, Moreno doubles-down on his contempt
for reason and rationality, by accusing the protestors of being agents of Correa, even of
Maduro (!). This affront to the wisdom of the people of Ecuador is comparable to blaming the
blood for the wound, or for blaming the wound for the accident which causes these.
For the latest affront to dignity and fairness, in the form of yet another IMF sell-out from
Moreno, came in the form of the elimination of gas subsidies for people most in need. And one
cannot offer any real logic or reason for ending these subsidies, for the gas itself is largely
owned by and for the people, through EP Petroecuador, the state oil firm.
But this deep-seated scorn is not simply related to contempt for his policies, but much more
profoundly for his betrayal. Because we might expect such austerity from a centrist or
right-wing candidate, given the history of politics in Latin America – there is something
honest in this; they deliver what they campaign on. But given that Correa had essentially
groomed Moreno, and Moreno in turn endorsed the policies of Correa – we encounter the
crux of the matter, and how Moreno turned from Lenin to Judas.
To wit, it was Raphael Correa's broad plan to rescue Ecuador from the predatory claws of the
IMF, by fomenting a public campaign, a brilliant simulacrum strategy of sorts, borrowed from
Venezuela, that an entire program of socialist revolution was underway, such that it had the
effect of lowering the value of Ecuador's bonds, owned by foreign interests. This made it so
that Ecuador was able to succeed in buying back some 91% of these bonds, and made possible
Ecuador's thumbing the IMF and not taking on new debt. This was done by intelligently
weaponizing Ecuador's apparent weakness in not having its own real national currency, as this
was dollarized by corrupt national leaders in 2000, using the excuse of the damage caused by
Hurricane 'El Niño', to eliminate Ecuador's monetary sovereignty. It had been widely
believed that without a national, sovereign currency, that Ecuador could have no sovereign
monetary policy – Correa proved this wrong by turning expectations and dynamics on their
respective heads. While this dictum is true in the long-term, Correa used the dollarized nature
of Ecuador's currency values in a gambit to buy-back Ecuador's bonds.
When Correa was elected president of Ecuador, it had come as the result of years of
struggle by the popular forces of resistance, against all odds, and overcoming a particularly
unstable and disastrous period were Ecuador had seen come and go some ten presidents in the
period of just eleven years.
Correa would go on to serve for a decade, and continued to build popular support, and
this had signaled the realization of an even broader dream of social and economic justice in
Ecuador, but also a visionary long-term plan to integrate the Latin American economy into a
single civilization-wide economic bloc.
The history of modern Ecuador is one of tragedy, hope, and never lacking in contradictions.
During the time of Correa he was faced with the strongest opposition from the most intransigent
and short-term thinking, narrowest in scope and vision, of the country's billionaire class.
And it only so happened to be that this same class, who had been responsible for the years
of instability and rampant poverty, were also those closest to Washington DC and New York City
– placing the country at the hands of the Washington Consensus – the IMF, City
Bank, JP Morgan Chase, and the rest of the "usual suspects".
Rejecting this, in February 2007 that Correa's economy minister Ricardo Patiño
stated: "I have no intention [ ] of accepting what some governments in the past have accepted:
that [the IMF] tell us what to do on economic policy." "That seems unacceptable to us,"
Patiño concluded.
The U.S and the IMF hated this, and hated Correa for this. Correa confused many –at
first seeming to be a center-leaning social-democrat reformist. His biography and optics were
misleading: young and well groomed, with waxed hair and Spanish features, he appeared very much
like the kind of candidate historically installed by Ecuador's wealthy comprador class. His
credentials in governance had come about through being Ecuador's finance minister under the
prior neo-liberal government of Alfredo Palacio. And yet Correa was a man of the people and
once in office quickly became allies with the Castros of Cuba and also Chavez, and then Maduro
of Venezuela.
Correa understood he would be termed-out eventually, under Ecuador's constitutional
provisions, and had worked early on to groom a successor.
Again, the biography and optics were misleading: this successor was Lenin Moreno, the son
of a communist teacher; Moreno inspired empathy with his soulful eyes, reminiscent of Iran's
Ahmadinejad, and being wheelchair-bound, he inspired sympathy.
The people had expected that a man who inspired such sympathy and empathy, would himself be
capable of tremendous sympathy and empathy for the people in turn.
And yet the people were wrong. Instead, what lurked in the heart of Lenin Moreno was so
dark, so depraved, so shallow and so selfish, that it exploded the left's understanding of
character.
It would turn out that Nietzsche's dictum that weakness lays at the root of evil, and
strength at the root of good, was true. If the apparent meekness of Moreno would allow him to
inherit the world of Ecuador, then it was his cruelty and hatred, his Ressentiment born
of weakness, for those healthy and happy people, even if poor, that would threaten to destroy
it.
The government of Moreno has been a betrayal so monumental and significant to the living
history of Ecuador, that it has indeed earned him the name 'Judas Moreno', an allusion both to
Judas Iscariot who betrayed Jesus Christ to the wishes of the Sanhedrin, and also to Leon
'Judas' Trotsky, who is believed by mainline communists internationally to have conspired to
betray the Russian Revolution through his alleged conspiracy with the forces of Fascism in
Europe.
And this leads us to the real heart of our investigation, for the apparent revolution that
Judas Moreno has betrayed was the popular democratic, electoral 'revolution' of Correa. And
this is why Moreno is so hated, and lacks any mandate. And this is also why his power decreases
by the day, as his legitimacy in question after his first months in office, and his actions
against the people – the repression, arrests, and persecutions which have heightened in
the last ten days of protests against his regime, are only but the culmination of several years
of the same.
Now there are dead, martyrs in this struggle, murdered by Moreno's security forces.
Decree 883 may have been repealed, but coming about on the precipice of a broader
revolution, the coming weeks and months only promises more conflicts, surprises – and we
should expect yet another betrayal from Judas Moreno, and another explosion in response.
"... Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic growth without end/crisis. ..."
"... I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent, rigid class system ..."
"... If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive. Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners. ..."
"... The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things (despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly likely to be manipulated like Trump. ..."
"... I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral values against socialism, no matter what voters say. ..."
The headline will become operative in December, if as expected, the Trump Administration
maintains its refusal to nominate new judges
to the WTO appellate panel . That will render the WTO unable to take on new cases, and
bring about an effective return to the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) which
preceded the WTO .
An interesting sidelight is that Brexit No-Dealers have been keen on the merits of trading
"on WTO terms", but those terms will probably be unenforceable by the time No Deal happens (if
it does).
likbez 10.27.19 at 11:22 pm
That's another manifestation of the ascendance of "national neoliberalism," which now is
displacing "classic neoliberalism."
Attempts to remove Trump via color revolution mechanisms (Russiagate, Ukrainegate) are
essentially connected with the desire of adherents of classic neoliberalism to return to the
old paradigm and kick the can down the road until the cliff. I think it is impossible because
the neoliberal elite lost popular support (aka support of deplorables) and now is hanging in
the air. "Greed is good" mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to
be very destructive.
That's why probably previous attempts to remove Trump were unsuccessful. And if corrupt
classic neoliberal Biden wins Neoliberal Dem Party nomination, the USA probably will get the
second term of Trump. Warren might have a chance as "Better Trump then Trump" although she
proved so far to be pretty inept politician, and like "original" Trump probably can be easily
coerced by the establishment, if she wins.
All this weeping and gnashing of teeth by "neoliberal Intelligentsia" does not change the
fact that neoliberalism entered the period of structural crisis demonstrated by "secular
stagnation," and, as such, its survival is far from certain. We probably can argue only about
how long it will take for the "national neoliberalism" to dismantle it and what shape or form
the new social order will take.
That does not mean that replacing the classic neoliberalism the new social order will be
better, or more just. Neoliberalism was actually two steps back in comparison with the New
Deal Capitalism that it replaced. It clearly was a social regress.
John, I am legitimate curious what you find "exactly right" in the comment above. Other than
the obvious bit in the last line about new deal vs neoliberalism, I would say it is
completely wrong, band presenting an amazingly distorted view of both the last few years and
recent history.
Neo-liberalism is not a unified thing. Right wing parties are not following the original
(the value of choice) paradigm of Milton Friedman that won the argument during the 1970s
inflation panic, but have implemented a deceitful bait and switch strategy, followed by
continually shifting the goalposts – claiming – it would of worked but we weren't
pure enough.
But parts of what Milton Friedman said (for instance the danger of bad micro-economic
design of welfare systems creating poverty traps, and the inherent problems of high tariff
rates) had a kernel of truth. (Unfortunately, Friedman's macro-economics was almost all wrong
and has done great damage.)
"In that context it felt free to override national governments on any issue that
might affect international trade, most notably environmental policies."
Not entirely sure about that. The one case where I was informed enough to really know
detail was the China and rare earths WTO case. China claimed that restrictions on exports of
separated but otherwise unprocessed rare earths were being made on environmental grounds.
Rare earth mining is a messy business, especially the way they do it.
Well, OK. And if such exports were being limited on environmental grounds then that would
be WTO compliant. Which is why the claim presumably.
It was gently or not pointed out that exports of things made from those same rare earths
were not limited in any sense. Therefore that environmental justification might not be quite
the real one. Possibly, it was an attempt to suck RE using industry into China by making rare
earths outside in short supply, but the availability for local processing being unrestricted?
Certainly, one customer of mine at the time seriously considered packing up the US factory
and moving it.
China lost the WTO case. Not because environmental reasons aren't a justification for
restrictions on trade but because no one believed that was the reason, rather than the
justification.
I don't know about other cases – shrimp, tuna – but there is at least the
possibility that it's the argument, not the environment, which wasn't sufficient
justification?
Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every political and
institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of the free market.
In the EU, East Asia, and North America, some of what has taken place is the
rationalization of bureaucratic practices and the weakening of archaic localisms. Some of
these developments have been positive.
In this respect, neoliberalism in the blanket sense used by Likbez and many others is like
what the the ancien regime was, a mix of regressive and progressive tendencies. In the
aftermath of the on-going upheaval, it is likely that it will be reassessed and some of its
features will be valued if they manage to persist.
I'm thinking of international trade agreements, transnational scientific organizations,
and confederations like the European Union.
steven t johnson 10.29.19 at 12:29 am
If I may venture to translate @1?
Right-wing populism like Orban, Salvini, the Brexiteers are sweeping the globe and this is
more of the same.
Trying to head off redivision of the world into nationalist trade blocks by removing
Trump via dubiously democratic upheavals (like color revolutions) with more or less fictional
quasi-scandals as pro-Russian treason or anti-Ukrainian treason (which is "Huh?" on the face
of it,) is futile. It stems from a desire to keep on "free" trading despite the secular
stagnation that has set in, hoping that the sociopolitical nowhere (major at least) doesn't
collapse until God or Nature or something restores the supposedly natural order of economic
growth without end/crisis.
I think efforts to keep the neoliberal international WTO/IMF/World Bank "free" trading
system is futile because the lower orders are being ordered to be satisfied with a permanent,
rigid class system .
If the pie is to shrink forever, all the vile masses (the deplorables) are going to
hang together in their various ways, clinging to shared identity in race or religion or
nationality, which will leave the international capitalists hanging, period. "Greed is good"
mantra, and the redistribution of the wealth up at the end proved to be very destructive.
Saying "Greed is good," then expecting selflessness from the lowers is not high-minded but
self-serving. Redistribution of wealth upward has been terribly destructive to social
cohesion, both domestically and in the sense of generosity towards foreigners.
The pervasive feeling that "we" are going down and drastic action has to be taken is
probably why there hasn't been much traction for impeachment til now. If Biden, shown to be
shady in regards to Hunter, is nominated to lead the Democratic Party into four/eight years
of Obama-esque promise to continue shrinking the status quo for the lowers, Trump will
probably win. Warren might have a better chance to convince voters she means to change things
(despite the example of Obama,) but she's not very appealing. And she is almost certainly
likely to be manipulated like Trump.
Again, despite the fury the old internationalism is collapsing under stagnation and
weeping about it is irrelevant. Without any real ideas, we can only react to events as
nationalist predatory capitals fight for their new world.
I'm not saying the new right wing populism is better. The New Deal/Great Society did more
for America than its political successors since Nixon et al. The years since 1968 I think
have been a regression and I see no reason–alas–that it can't get even worse.
I *think* that's more or less what likbez, said, though obviously it's not the way
likbez wanted to express it. I disagree strenuously on some details, like Warren's problem
being a schoolmarm, rather than being a believer in capitalism who shares Trump's moral
values against socialism, no matter what voters say.
It is a particular mutation of the original concept similar to mutation of socialism into
national socialism, when domestic policies are mostly preserved (including rampant
deregulation) and supplemented by repressive measures (total surveillance) , but in foreign
policy "might make right" and unilateralism with the stress on strictly bilateral regulations
of trade (no WTO) somewhat modifies "Washington consensus". In other words, the foreign
financial oligarchy has a demoted status under the "national neoliberalism" regime, while the
national financial oligarchy and manufactures are elevated.
And the slogan of "financial oligarchy of all countries, unite" which is sine qua
non of classic neoliberalism is effectively dead and is replaced by protection racket of
the most political powerful players (look at Biden and Ukrainian oligarchs behavior here
;-)
> I think every sentence in that comment is either completely wrong or at least
debatable. And is likbez actually John Hewson, because that comment reads like one of John
Hewson's commentaries
> Most obviously, to define Warren and Trump as both being neoliberals drains the
term of any meaning
You are way too fast even for a political football forward ;-).
Warren capitalizes on the same discontent and the feeling of the crisis of neoliberalism
that allowed Trump to win. Yes, she is a much better candidate than Trump, and her policy
proposals are better (unless she is coerced by the Deep State like Trump in the first three
months of her Presidency).
Still, unlike Sanders in domestic policy and Tulsi in foreign policy, she is a neoliberal
reformist at heart and a neoliberal warmonger in foreign policy. Most of her policy proposals
are quite shallow, and are just a band-aid.
> Neoliberalism gets used as a generalized term of abuse these days. Not every
political and institutional development of the last 40 years comes down to the worship of
the free market.
This is a typical stance of neoliberal MSM, a popular line of attack on critics of
neoliberalism.
Yes, of course, not everything political and institutional development of the last 40
years comes down to the worship of the "free market." But how can it be otherwise? Notions of
human agency, a complex interaction of politics and economics in human affairs, technological
progress since 1970th, etc., all play a role. But a historian needs to be able to somehow
integrate the mass of evidence into a coherent and truthful story.
And IMHO this story for the last several decades is the ascendance and now decline of
"classic neoliberalism" with its stress on the neoliberal globalization and opening of the
foreign markets for transnational corporations (often via direct or indirect (financial)
pressure, or subversive actions including color revolutions and military intervention) and
replacement of it by "national neoliberalism" -- domestic neoliberalism without (or with a
different type of) neoliberal globalization.
Defining features of national neoliberalism along with the rejection of neoliberal
globalization and, in particular, multiparty treaties like WTO is massive, overwhelming
propaganda including politicized witch hunts (via neoliberal MSM), total surveillance of
citizens by the national security state institutions (three-letter agencies which now
acquired a political role), as well as elements of classic nationalism built-in.
The dominant ideology of the last 30 years was definitely connected with "worshiping of
free markets," a secular religion that displaced alternative views and, for several decades
(say 1976 -2007), dominated the discourse. So worshiping (or pretense of worshiping) of "free
market" (as if such market exists, and is not a theological construct -- a deity of some
sort) is really defining feature here.
A Portuguese populist party called Chega! -- Enough! -- has secured a seat in Parliament,
after winning more than 65,000 votes in legislative elections held on October 6.
It is the
first time that an anti-establishment party has entered Parliament since Portugal became a
democracy in 1974.
Chega leader André Ventura, a 36-year-old law professor and television sports personality,
campaigned on a theme of law and order and opposition to both political correctness and the
imposition of cultural Marxism.
He rode a wave of discontent with traditional center-right
parties, which in recent years have drifted to the left on domestic and foreign policy issues.
The Socialist Party
won
the election with
36.3% of the vote, far short of an outright majority. The center-right Social Democrats
won
27.8%,
the party's worst result since 1983. Chega, which was founded in March 2019,
won
2%
of the vote in Lisbon and 1.3% of the vote nationwide.
Political observers agreed that Chega's result was impressive for a party that is only
seven months old, and that Ventura's entry into Parliament would give Chega greater prominence and
media visibility, in addition to financial support.
Ventura, who has
said
that
the traditional parties "no longer respond to the people's problems" and that he
represents
"disillusioned
Portuguese," has called for lowering taxes, strengthening borders and increasing penalties for
serious crimes. He has called for a reducing by half the number of Members of Parliament,
introducing term limits and implementing measures aimed at increasing transparency and reducing
corruption.
Ventura has also called for a public referendum on reforming the Constitution in order to
replace the existing parliamentary system with a presidential system that better guarantees the
separation of powers.
The existing political system, he said, was created by Marxists and
fascists after the 1974 revolution in order to share the spoils after four decades of dictatorship.
Indeed, the Portuguese Constitution
calls
for
opening up "a path towards a socialist society."
In the area of foreign policy, Ventura has called for opposing European federalism,
safeguarding national sovereignty from encroaching globalism and taking Portugal out of the UN's
Global Compact for Migration. He has called for reinforcing Portugal's role in NATO, and for
fighting against the "hegemonic temptations" of China, Iran and the European Union. He has also
called for an "unequivocal commitment" to support the State of Israel and for transferring the
Portuguese embassy to Jerusalem.
Portugal's establishment media and left-wing parties have sought to discredit Chega by
branding the party as "far right," "extremist," and "populist right wing."
A review of
Chega's "
70
Measures to Rebuild Portugal
" shows it to be a conservative party promoting classical liberal
economic policies and traditional social values. These policies include:
Promote the teaching of Portuguese history and culture.
Overturn the Parity Law (
Lei da Paridade
) [Promulgated in March 2019, the law
states
that
candidate lists for Parliament must have a minimum representation of 40% of each sex] and other
positive discrimination quota policies in favor of merit-based policies.
Increase tax benefits for large families and introduce measures to increase the birth rate.
Portugal has a
birth
rate
of 1.3 children per woman, the second-lowest in Europe, after Cyprus, with one child
per woman.
Ensure that parents have control over the moral education of their children by requiring
schools to obtain express authorization from parents or guardians for any activity involving
ethical, social, civic, moral or sexual values for students up to secondary education.
Reform national adoption laws so that women with unexpected or unwanted pregnancies have
information, assistance and alternatives to abortion.
Change the Penal Code to require chemical castration for anyone convicted of sexual crimes
against children under 16 years of age.
Introduce mandatory prison sentences with no possibility of a suspended sentence for crimes
involving rape.
Introduce life imprisonment for the most serious crimes, namely crimes of homicide or
terrorism. Portugal abolished life imprisonment in 1884 and many criminals are released from
prison after serving short or partial sentences.
Publish nationality and origin data in crime statistics.
Reduce public spending, in particular by reducing the number of Members of Parliament to
100, down from 230, and by eliminating the perks of high office.
Reduce the role of the state in the economy. Abolish inheritance taxes. Eliminate or reduce
tariffs on electricity, gas and water.
Eliminate access to free health care for illegal immigrants.
Immediately inform the United Nations of Portugal's departure from the Global Compact for
Migration. The issue of immigration should be dealt with in accordance with the reality and the
sovereignty of each country.
Promote a new European treaty, in line with the Visegrad Group of countries, on borders,
national sovereignty and respect for the values of European culture.
Deport all illegal immigrants to their countries of origin. Deport all immigrants who, even
if they have a legal status, commit crimes that lead to the sentence of imprisonment.
Any illegal immigrants within the country will be excluded from the possibility of
regularizing their situation and receiving any state support.
For those seeking Portuguese nationality, increase the requirements in spoken and written
Portuguese, as well as cultural integration.
Loss of nationality for citizens of foreign origin who commit acts of terrorism or attacks
on Portugal's sovereignty, security and independence.
Combat political and religious practices which violate the Portuguese legal system
(especially anti-Semitism, gender ideologies, the application of Sharia law, female genital
mutilation, forced marriages of minors, among others).
Reassess Portugal's role in the United Nations, "which has become a producer and spreader of
cultural Marxism and mass globalism that we are unwilling to consume, much less pay for."
"CHEGA is a Conservative party that advocates a view of the world and of life based on the
values of freedom and representative democracy, the rule of law, a limited state and the
separation of powers.
"CHEGA fits into a current of thought that, based on an uncompromising defense of the dignity
of the individual (who, as a human being, has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness), encourages the harmony of interests and rules of voluntary cooperation. All this in
a society historically built over centuries, with its own cultural identity defined by a certain
set of values, customs and traditions.
"This line of thought is also affiliated with respect for democracy, freedom, private
property and the rule of law, against arbitrariness, the use and abuse of power...that is,
against all forms of totalitarianism and 'soft tyrannies' that Alexis de Tocqueville so well
characterized. This line of thought therefore argues for a liberal, democratic and pluralistic
conservatism, committed to defending spontaneous order and promoting organic, orderly and
peaceful progress in the primacy of unconditional political, economic and civic freedoms.
"For the avoidance of doubt, our political theory and practice is based on the reflections of
authors such as Adam Smith and their 'Spontaneous Order'; Montesquieu and his 'Separation of
Powers'; John Locke and his 'Natural Rights'; Edmund Burke and Roger Scruton and their
reflections on the interconnection between 'Freedom, Free Markets, Tradition and Authority'; or
Ludwig von Mises with his Treaty on 'Human Action' or Friedrich von Hayek and his 'Law,
Legislation and Freedom.'
A section titled "Globalization and European Federalism"
reads
:
"We defend a Euro-integration against a Euro-dilution, as we defend a globalized but not
globalist world, against a massified and yes globalist world. Because globalization is a global
interaction of different people, families, nations and civilizations; globalism is the attempt
to destroy all differences by obtaining, as a result, an amorphous mass of peers who do not
interact but absorb the dictates, censorship, and slavery imposed by a Big Brother, a
sophisticated name for a mere foreman of global slaves who are powerless because they are
castrated....
"European integration is not, and cannot be, a dilution of all European nations, and all
their citizens, in a watery and indistinct solution of standardized and all equal Europeans.
"It is in the name of respect for the difference of men and peoples, and the identity of
Europe, that we reject this Euro-dilution. True integration could lead Europe to reverse the
path of its decay. But a dilution of all in all can only accelerate and make irreversible that
same path.
"The concept of a globalized world presupposes, in our view, a world of different men,
interacting, not a world of massed men, all poor in hopeless equality, unable to make an
original and innovative contribution. A globalized world is life. A globalist world is death.
"If globalization is understood as a global method of the leveling and progressive
de-differentiation of men, nations and cultures, the modern Right is against globalization. But
if it represents a greater and more creative interaction between men and different cultures,
each with its own unique and unrepeatable contribution, the modern Right is in favor of this
globalization. Thus, it is important to distinguish two different concepts by using two
different terms to describe them. We will call globalization the global interaction between the
different, and globalism the global interaction between massified men because they are
artificially equal to each other.
"Men, cultures and nations cannot be enclosed in themselves, and this is a fact that cannot
be doubted; but men, cultures and nations must open themselves to the world in their
unrepeatability and their difference, not accepting that they fade into a global and
undifferentiated melting pot.
"Respect for difference is an essential condition for the exercise of freedom. And Freedom is
the basic condition of humanity. There can be no political action that does not respect freedom,
because it would be a political action against the essence of man who is, for the modern Right,
the alpha and omega of all political action.
"This is why we place respect for difference as the cornerstone of the political building we
intend to build. Because without respect for difference there is no freedom, and without freedom
man loses his basic humanity, that is, his prime reason for existing."
A petition is now circulating to ask the Constitutional Court to ban Chega.
Ventura
responded
:
"It strikes me as very curious that in a democracy that has just elected a party with
legitimate votes of the people, counted in a ballot box, there are groups calling for its
unconstitutionality. This is to say that almost 70,000 Portuguese people are silly or have
turned their backs to the Constitution."
Livre, an eco-socialist feminist party, said that Chega has no place in Parliament,
known as the Assembly of the Republic (AR). Ventura
replied
:
"Fortunately, it is not Livre that decides who goes to Parliament or not, it is the
Portuguese people. The Portuguese people understood that they should give us this confidence and
this mandate, and we will fulfill it. Labels worry us very little. We consider ourselves
essentially an anti-system party and what Livre should ponder is why Chega won more votes than
Livre, when Livre is six or seven years old and Chega is four months old. Livre should give some
thought to why this happened. In fact, I think all parties should ask themselves how a
four-month party elects a deputy to the AR."
Much of the criticism of Ventura dates back to 2017, while he was campaigning for mayor of
Loures, a municipality south of Lisbon. At the time he made the politically incorrect
observation
that
local gypsies, also known as Roma, "live almost exclusively from state subsidies" and that some
Roma think that they are "above the rule of law."
"I think there is a problem of 'subsidiarity,' [a
principle
that
problems, including social problems, should be resolved at the local level] there is a problem
of non-integration into the rule of law, some disrespect for the rule of law. We are going to
propose are two things: First, that there is a national census to know where, who and how many
Gypsies we have in Portugal, because right now nobody knows. If there is a problem with the
community, we need to know where they are, who they are, what problems they have. And in
Portugal you cannot even talk about it. The second aspect is effective control over the rule of
law for the Roma community. For example, do child marriages still exist with girls aged 12 and
13? Are women still prevented from going to school? To do this one must act and not look the
other way. We will do this in relation to the Roma community as we will do the same about female
genital mutilation in relation to African communities that exist in Portugal, and as we will do
to a number of others."
When a journalist noted that
only
50% of the Roma in Portugal live on welfare, Ventura
responded
:
"The studies we had available showed that only 15% of the Roma population lives on income
from their work. I know people say I'm obsessed with this, but I think if we don't solve this
problem of Roma integration we will have very serious consequences. We had a judge who said this
year that it was okay for Gypsy children to leave school because it was their tradition. There
is a 14-year-old girl, for example, who is not entitled to her normal rights according to the
rule of law because it is understood that there must be special protection here.
This special protection we give to the Gypsy community is precisely why we cannot solve the
problem. We always say they are poor things, they can't find work, that nobody wants to
integrate them and then we think we have to protect them. I think we have to take this problem
seriously, because it exists. The Roma community has a problem of integration. Most of this
community does not want to integrate, but they have to integrate into the rule of law, otherwise
it makes no sense to call this the rule of law.
"I understand there are different traditions, but we can't have marriages at 13 years of age.
We can't have children out of school at 13 years of age. We must demand responsibility from
those communities to which we give most as a state. We who pay taxes feel that we have a
responsibility to others. But is there no duty from others to us? In Loures I found situations
of brutal debt in social housing. This debt corresponds to 12 million euros. This means that
there are people who have never paid a euro for their assigned home. If we do not demand they
pay, just because they are Gypsies, Afro descendants or poor minorities, we are contributing to
the worst: breeding ghettos. We have to demand responsibility from them. These people have to
collaborate. Today my feeling is that the Roma do not collaborate or want to collaborate and
prefer to be outside the rule of law. I think Roma leaders need to be called to accountability
and to promote integration."
Portugal's establishment media have been apoplectic about the rise of Chega. In an article
titled, "Far Right Comes to Parliament," the newspaper
Público
opined
:
"The far right comes to Parliament by the hand of André Ventura, who has moved into the
limelight after accusing the Gypsy community of living on subsidies.
"In Chega he was able to gather party militants who came essentially from traditional right
parties, who had turned to a party that claims to be 'conservative in customs, liberal in
economics, national in identity and personalist.'
In an essay titled,
"We really have a problem,"
commentator Paulo Baldaia
warned
:
"There is reason to be concerned about the arrival of Chega, a one-man extremist party that
does not hesitate to exploit the fears of the weak to electoral success.
"If, at a time of low unemployment and economic growth, André Ventura was elected, one can
imagine the growth potential of this party, which is openly intolerant of racial and ethnic
minorities, if the unemployment rate is once again close to 18% (38% among young people), as it
was in 2012/2013."
In an opinion article titled, "The Snake's Egg," Paula Ferreira, the Deputy Executive Editor of
Jornal
de Notícias
,
wrote
:
"Portugal is no longer an oasis in Europe. Here too, against the expectations of the most
optimistic, the far right has appeared. Just like there, the discourse against immigrants and
the non-acceptance of difference conquers the way. In line with the Visegrad group, made up of
Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, Chega is committed to combating immigration.
For the new party with a parliamentary seat, the UN 'is a spreader of Marxist ideas,' for which
Ventura is unwilling to pay. This strategy cannot be ignored."
Ventura has
called
on
Portuguese citizens and media commentators to remain calm: "Chega is a democratic party. There is
no reason for unusual alarm or attacks. Chega is not here to undermine democracy." In a tweet,
Ventura
added
:
"They have to get used to Chega and our way of doing politics. We do not want ministries,
secretariats of state or senior posts. We want to be the voice of discontent for an entire
people. That is why we are going to Parliament!"
On the previous thread, the danger of civil society's demise became a brief topic.
Sanders attempted to link the injustice system to the crisis within civil society, and IMO,
he was 100% correct in trying to do so. Believe me, you don't want to get caught up in its web.
But if you do, you'll soon learn just how despicable the system is and see how it links to the
epidemic of political corruption. The domestic social malaise within the Outlaw US Empire is
holistic in its nature, but Sanders is the only politico that's bringing that fact out into the
light-of-day.
"As I have stated strongly before, and just to reiterate, if Turkey does anything that
I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy
and obliterate the Economy of Turkey
(I've done before!)
"
Donald J. Trump
"China uses a host of monopolizing strategies to extend its geopolitical and commercial
power, everything from below cost pricing to grab market share, patent trolling,
espionage, mergers, and financial manipulation. In fact, the CCP is best understood as
a giant monopoly that also controls a nation of 1.4 billion people and a large military
apparatus...
China's biggest asset in gaining power was how most people in the West just didn't
realize that the CCP aimed to use it. Now China's cover is blown. The raw exercise of
power to censor a random Houston Rockets basketball executive has made millions of
people take notice. Everyone knows, the Chinese government isn't content to control its
own nation, it must have all bow down to its power and authority.
Matt overstates the headline I think. The empowerment of China may have gone into higher
gear with Bill Clinton perhaps, but has been fully supported by every President, both
parties, and especially the moneyed interests in the US, who place their short term greed
first and foremost.
Follow the money. China is certainly not alone among organizations, and even nations, in
playing on the personal greed, divided loyalties, and lust for power of our political and
financial class.
This in itself is nothing new. But the extent of it, and the fashionable acceptance of it
amongst our society's elites, the industrialization of political corruption and big money
in politics, has been breathtaking.
Warren (D)(1): "Warren cutting into Biden's lead in new SC 2020 Democratic poll" [
Post and Courier ]. "Biden's lead in South Carolina, which had hovered around 20 percentage
points since the summer, has shrunk Biden received 30 percent to Warren's 19 percent. Vermont
Sen. Bernie Sanders at 13 percent and California Sen. Kamala Harris at 11 percent are the only
two other candidates with double-digit results in South Carolina . The biggest gains in the
latest poll came from fifth- and sixth-place contenders, South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg
and billionaire hedge fund manager Tom Steyer." • Everybody loves a winner, but the gains
in the third tier show SC is still fluid (though perhaps not a firewall for Biden).
Yet another case where Warren's problem statement isn't commensurate with the proposed
solution .
Impeachment
"Republicans criticize House impeachment process -- while fully participating in probe" [
WaPo ]. "Then the questions begin to fly, largely from the expert staff hired by lawmakers
on the House Intelligence Committee and other panels participating in the probe. Each side gets
an equal amount of questions, as dictated by long-standing House rules guiding these
interviews. 'It starts one hour, one hour,' said Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), explaining how the
questioning moves beyond one-hour blocks for each side. 'Then it goes 45, 45, 45, 45, with
breaks, occasionally, and breaks for lunch.' Meadows, one of Trump's staunchest allies, said
each side has been allowed an unlimited amount of questions they can ask of witnesses.' Those
participating in the closed-door depositions generally say that these interviews are very
professional and that both sides have operated under
rules that were approved in January ." • As I've said, I don't like the policy on
transcripts, and my litmus test for legitimacy is that there's no secret evidence at all. I
don't much like that Republicans can't subpeona witnesses, either.
"MSNBC names four renowned female journalists as moderators for November debate" [
NBC ]. "Moderating the Nov. 20 event, which is being co-hosted by MSNBC and The Washington
Post, will be Rachel Maddow, host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC; Andrea Mitchell, host
of "Andrea Mitchell Reports" on MSNBC and NBC News' chief foreign affairs correspondent;
Kristen Welker, NBC News' White House correspondent; and Ashley Parker, a White House reporter
for The Washington Post." • The count of journalists is off by at least one.
New York - Tel
Aviv - Moscow
Triangle
This section contains the materials
that document the background of Trump - Russia. From the banking houses of
New York, to the Bolshevik Revolution. From the New School to the Neo-Cons.
From the arming of Irgun to the creation of the Zionist state of Israel.
From the fall of the Berlin Wall to the mafia state that rose out of the
USSR. The development of international criminal networks, think tanks,
governments, oligarchy and multinational corporate control of our politics,
interests, technology, freedoms and even our minds.
The Life of an American Jew Living in
Racist Marxist Israel
Jack
Bernstein
The Soviets would institute a pro-Arab policy
solely as a camouflage for its true intention, which was to furnish aid
to the Arabs, but never enough to enable the Arabs to destroy Israel.
The Soviets would open the gates of Soviet
satellite countries to Jewish immigration to Israel. Should this be
insufficient, Soviet Russia then would open its own gates to
immigration.
<strong>The Soviets would absolutely guarantee the
security of Israel.
Both the Soviet Union and Israel would share
intelligence reports.
The latest scientific developments that the US
provides Israel are channeled on to the Soviet Union. The main center
through which this scientific information passes is Israel's Weizman
Institute in the town of Rehoovot about 40 kilometers south of Tel Aviv.
The Controversy Of Zion (Book)
Douglas Reed
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All Israeli Prime Ministers linked to
USSR/Russian Empire
Jon Swinn
This infographic details the links each Israeli Prime Minister has to
the USSR/Russian Empire.
TRUMP IS PUPPET OF KISSINGER, CFR AND
ROTHSCHILDS, THE TRUE ARCHITECTS OF RUSSIAN COLLUSION
David
Livingstone
A vital read detailing the history that has led to
the present day situation we face.
NIXON CENTER -- KREMLIN -- TRUMP
Zarina Zabrisky
The Center for the National Interest, former Nixon
Center, a hosting institution for Trump's first foreign policy speech
and the adviser who helped writing the speech have multiple long-term
ties to the Kremlin.
Red Mafiya - How the Russian Mob Has Invaded America
Robert
Friedman
New York -- Moscow -- Tel Aviv Triangle
Fitzpatrick
Israel and the Soviets are ideological allies –
both follow the ideas of Karl Marx, so both are communist/socialist.
Yet, the Soviets supplied military equipment to the Arabs -- Israel's
enemies; and at the same time, the Soviet Union's enemy, the United
States, was arming Israel.
To understand the treachery which Zionist/
Bolshevik Jews are capable and to understand the treachery which took
place before and during the 1973 War, I must explain the New York/
Moscow/Tel Aviv Triangle.
PUTIN DOSSIER
Fitzpatrick
Exposing Russian president Vladimir Putin and his
crypto-Soviet state for the Judeo-masonic, Chabad mafiya collaborators
that they are
THE AMERICAN AWAKENING - NEW YORK - TEL AVIV - MOSCOW AXIS
Michael
Herzog and Brendon O'Connell
Part 1 - 18 June 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3GpnUF_nwA
Part 2 - 22 June 2018
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kso1KWHXmNo&t=1688s
Rare Interview with Gordon Thomas author
of Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy
Gordon
Thomas
Gordon Thomas is interviewed on TruNews about his
book Robert Maxwell Israel's Superspy.
AT PUTIN'S SIDE, AN ARMY OF JEWISH
BILLIONAIRES
Gil Stern
Watching the group of mega-wealthy interact, one
cannot help but wonder how so many affluent businessmen in the former
Soviet Union are Jewish.
On Multiple Fronts, Russian Jews Reshape
Israel
Phillip
Reeves
"I was [politically] on the left, and I thought it
was possible to reach an agreement with the Arabs. But after 20 years, I
no longer think an accord is possible," he says.
Most of Israel's Russian-speaking community,
including Esterman, is on the right these days. Since they now make up
about 15 percent of Israel's 8 million people, they wield considerable
political clout and have played a significant role in the general
rightward shift of the Israeli electorate.
Russian-speaking immigrants form the base of the
influential right-wing nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu. The party has
teamed up with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud to form a bloc
that is leading the polls ahead of this month's elections.
Galili argues that immigrants from the former
Soviet Union have made a considerable impact on the politics of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict -- not least because of their resistance to
the idea of giving up territory.
Russian Immigrants
in Israeli Politics:
The Past, the Recent Elections
and the Near Future
Arkadi
Mazin
Since the beginning of the large-scale immigration
to Israel from the
former
Soviet Union in the 1990s, Israel's community of Russian speakers has
played an dominant role in Israeli politics. Some maintain that it has
tipped the balance and decided the final outcome in all the elections
since then, perhaps with the exception of the most recent ones.
Nevertheless, as will be shown, the
Russian-speaking community's
vote
played a major role in these elections, too.
From this, it may be concluded that the electoral
behavior of the
Russian-speaking
community in Israel differs from that of the majority of the Israeli
population. And indeed, as has been observed in various areas of life,
such as consumer behavior, media and entertainment, as well as from the
political-electoral perspective, the Russian-speaking community in
Israel is commonly viewed as a separate sector, alongside two other
important minority sectors – the ultra-Orthodox and Arab
– and the "general Israeli population."
An Emerging Alliance: Russia and Israel
Robert Zapesochny
The core of this growing alliance is the more than
one million Israeli citizens who were born in the former Soviet Union.
Between 1970 and 1988, only 291,000 Jews, and their non-Jewish
relatives, were allowed to leave the Soviet Union (165,000 went to
Israel, and 126,000 went to the United States).
In 1989, Mikhail Gorbachev ended restrictions on
Jewish emigration, in part for better relations with the United States.
From 1989 to 2006, 1.6 million Soviet Jews, and their family members,
left the former Soviet Union (979,000 went to Israel, 325,000 to the
U.S. and 219,000 to Germany).
Earlier this year, President Putin said, "Russia
and Israel have developed a special relationship primarily because 1.5
million Israeli citizens come from the former Soviet Union, they speak
the Russian language, are the bearers of Russian culture, Russian
mentality. They maintain relations with their relatives and friends in
Russia, and this make the interstate relations very special."
Israel also needs Russia, as well. Israel's
Start-Up Nation has been fueled by one million Russian-speaking
Israelis. For this economic miracle to continue, the Israelis will need
more engineers from the former Soviet Union. The Russian-speaking
Israelis will have plenty of talent to choose from in the former Soviet
Union. According the World Economic Forum, in 2015, Russia graduated
454,000 engineers and Ukraine graduated 130,000 engineers.
THE DEBILITATING BRAIN DRAIN
Shilomo Maital
Israel has gained immensely from the brain gain of
one million immigrants from the former Soviet Union during the years
1990-1999. According to a study by Sarit Cohen of Bar-Ilan University
and Chang-Tai Hsieh from Princeton University, 60 percent of the
Russian-speaking immigrants who arrived in Israel between 1989 and 1990
were college educated, twice the proportion of college-educated
Israelis. From 1990 to 1993, their study notes, "57,000 [Russian
immigrants] had worked as engineers and 12,000 as medical doctors; in
contrast, there were only 30,000 engineers and 15,000 medical doctors in
Israel in 1989."
That brain gain was a one-time stroke of luck.
Many of the brain-gain Russian-speaking engineers and doctors are now
retiring, and many of the educated Israelis who could replace them are
going abroad.
Israel's former Soviet immigrants
transform adopted country
Harriet Sherwood
The million-plus citizens of the former Soviet
Union who migrated to Israel in the past 20 years have not only made new
lives of their own but they have transformed their adopted country. They
have influenced the culture, hi-tech industry, language, education and,
perhaps most significantly, Israeli politics.
Jews in the former Soviet Union were largely
banned from making aliya – migrating to Israel – before the collapse of
the empire. But from 1990 onwards they came in their thousands, and they
now constitute around 15% of Israel's 7.7 million population.
Strictly speaking not all of them are Jewish. In
traditional Judaism only someone whose mother is Jewish or who has
undergone a formal conversion to Judaism is a Jew. But from 1990 anyone
from the former Soviet Union who had a Jewish father or grandparent, or
who was married to someone meeting those criteria, was granted Israeli
citizenship under the country's law of return.
The Million Russians That Changed Israel
to Its Core
Masha Zur Glozman
The authors begin their story toward the end of
the 1980s, after Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir realized that Mikhail
Gorbachev was prepared to release those Jews who longed to leave the
Soviet Union, because he wished to obtain American loan guarantees for
the far-reaching reforms he had planned.
Bronfman and Galili describe the clandestine and
open channels through which the State of Israel acted to advance this
immigration, and the various interests involved, such as the desire to
bolster the "demographic data" (a euphemism for increasing Israel's
Jewish population ).
Yitzhak Shamir, the Prime Minister Who
Spied on Me
Aluf Benn
According to Meridor, Shamir's most important
contribution was convincing the U.S. administration under President
George Bush Sr. to desist from issuing refugee visas to Soviet Jews.
Up to 1989, Jews leaving the USSR could choose to
immigrate either to the United States or to Israel, with many choosing
the U.S. Shamir was opposed to this "defection," as it was termed at the
time. He believed Jews ought to settle in Israel, whether they were from
a Russian gulag or Brooklyn. He persuaded the American government and
U.S. Jewish organizations that the Soviet Jews weren't refugees, that
they had a homeland in Israel. Then the floodgates of the collapsing
Soviet Empire opened wide, and a million Jews along with their relatives
immigrated to Israel. Had Shamir not insisted, today, many of them would
have been living on the shores of the Hudson River.
Shamir Wants U.S. Pressure on Emigrants
The so-called "dropout" rate among Jews who leave
the Soviet Union has reached as high as 80% in recent years. "Dropouts"
are Jews who claim political refugee status from the United States when
they reach Vienna rather than fly to Israel.
How Russia's rich elite spend their
billions in London
Roman
Borisovich
Wealthy [Jewish] oligarchs have become a fixture
of the British landscape during the past 20 years. But what do they
offer to the country's culture?
Rich Russians: The Wealthiest Oligarchs
Who Call London Home
Alisher Usmanov and Roman Abramovich are joined in
the capital by a host of lesser-known wealthy compatriots
Vladimir Putin told me a personal story
in the Kremlin
This video includes excerpts from the speeches of
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar, Attorney Alan Dershowitz, and footage
of the legendary Chabad Lubavitch "Roll Call" at the 2006 International
Conference of Shluchim.
Putin's Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar
friend of Nathaniel Rothschild.
"My call to fame is actually being Mr.
Rothschild's friend and it is a pleasure to honour Mr. Rothschild and
David Slager for what they have done here in Oxford for the Oxford
University Chabad Society." -
Chief Rabbi Lazar
The KGB's Middle East Files: 'Illegals'
in Israel
Ronen Bergman
In
1992, Vasili Mitrokhin, a KGB archivist, defected to the West with a
trove of top secret documents from the Soviet intelligence agency, which
helped expose many Russian agents and assets in Israel and elsewhere.
This series of articles explores these documents and brings to light the
secrets they revealed.
Russian Firm to Train Israelis in Hot
Tech Fields
Ruti Levy
Fifty Israeli students – most of them computer
science graduates or veterans of army technology units – will begin a
program in October to learn the ins and outs of some of the hottest
fields in Israeli high-tech, such as data science and machine learning.
he classes will meet at Tel Aviv University, but
no Israeli academic institution is involved. The syllabus was written
and the lecturers hired and paid for by the Russian company Yandex.
The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That
Connects Trump and Putin
Ben Schreckinger
Chabad of Port Washington, a Jewish community
center on Long Island's Manhasset Bay, sits in a squat brick edifice
across from a Shell gas station and a strip mall. The center is an
unexceptional building on an unexceptional street, save for one thing:
Some of the shortest routes between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin run
straight through it.
Know Your Oligarch: A Guide to the Jewish
Billionaires in the Trump-Russia Probe
Ron Kampeas
Of 10 billionaires with Kremlin ties who funneled
political contributions to Donald Trump and a number of top Republican
leaders, at least five are Jewish
Russia's Chief Rabbi Reportedly Paid
Secret Visit to Iran on Trip Organized by Putin
Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar secretly visited
Iran almost six months ago as part of a diplomatic trip organized by
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Israeli media reported over the
weekend.
The Islamic Republic opposed the rabbi's arrival,
but Putin himself insisted on Lazar's participation in the diplomatic
mission, the website Ynetnews reported. The trip was reportedly headed
by the chairman of Russia's State Duma and included talks in the Iranian
parliament.
Lazar, who heads the Chabad movement in Russia, is
considered close to Putin and is often accused of supporting the
president unconditionally in exchange for his regime's seal of approval
for Chabad.
Israel has argued for months that Iran needs to
withdraw its forces from the war-torn country. In recent weeks, senior
U.S. officials have stated that while both Russia and the U.S. agree
with Israel that Iran needs to exit Syria, it is currently unrealistic
for Russia to force Iran out of the country.
DONALD TRUMP, CHABAD-LUBAVITCH AND THE OLIGARCHS
Despite his alignment with the racist right, Trump
has professed ultra-right views on Israel. His connections with Israel
also extend to his broad ties with the Russian mafia, many of whom hold
dual citizenship in Israel. The Russian mafia is closely associated with
Chabad-Lubavitch, a Hasidic movement that derived originally from
Sabbateanism.
Putin: 'I support the struggle of Israel'
Chaim Lev, Ari Yashar
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday met
with a delegation of rabbis, led by Sephardic Chief Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef,
former Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, Chief Rabbi of Russia Berel Lazar,
and rabbis of the Rabbinical Center of Europe (RCE).
"I follow closely what's going on in Israel," said
Putin during the long meeting, which was held in Moscow.
"I support the struggle of Israel as it attempts
to protect its citizens. I also heard about the shocking murder of the
three youths. It is an act that cannot be allowed, and I ask you to
transmit my condolences to the families," added the Russian president,
in referring to the abduction and murder of three teens in June by Hamas
terrorists.
PUTIN AND NETANYAHU TO STRIKE DEAL ON
LEVIATHAN GAS FIELD
Erica
Mills
Israeli foreign affairs analyst, Ehud Yaari, says
Russian President Vladimir Putin & Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu want to
strike a deal on the Leviathan field
Ronald S. Lauder: Russia's fight against
anti-Semitism isn't just good for Jews – it's good for Russia as well
"At a time when global terrorism singles out Jews
around the world, at a time when we see the impact of intolerance and
hate on every continent, here in Russia, the Jewish community is
thriving. Jewish kindergartens and Jewish schools are filled to
capacity, synagogues are crowded on Shabbat. But Jews in Western Europe
are seriously thinking of leaving," Lauder said.
"President [Vladimir] Putin has made Russia a
country where Jews are welcome. And that's not just a good thing for
Jews. It is good for Russia as well," Lauder said. "It is because of
this unprecedented change that the World Jewish Congress looks to
continue to work with Russia. We want to be able to count on Russia as a
solid friend."
PUTIN TO NETANYAHU: ISRAEL, RUSSIA
'UNCONDITIONAL ALLIES' IN WAR AGAINST TERROR
Israel and Russia agreed to strengthen their regional military
cooperation, when Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian
President Vladimir Putin met face-to-face in the Kremlin on Tuesday.
The
two leaders agreed to tightened their cooperation in the fight against
terrorism and stressed the importance of ending regional violence such
as in Syria. They also reiterated the importance of Israel ending its
short-term conflict with Turkey and its long-standing one with the
Palestinians.
"We
discussed the continued coordination between our two militaries in the
region, which already works quite well," Netanyahu told reporters at a
joint press conference in the Kremlin with Putin after their meeting.
It
is their fourth meeting in the last year, and their third in Moscow.
The Countless Israeli Connections to
Mueller's Probe of Trump and Russia
Chemi Shalev
The Israeli media usually takes scant interest in
Robert Mueller's investigations. It prefers to dwell on Donald Trump's
supposedly pro-Israeli policies. Last week's report in the New York
Times about the participation of Joel Zamel, the Australian-born
"Israeli specialist in social media manipulation," in an August 3, 2016
meeting at Trump Tower in New York was an exception to the rule. The
FBI, the Times reported, had even come to Israel to search the offices
of Zamel's company. Here was a direct Israeli link to the scandal that
has bewitched much of America since Trump was first elected.
Mueller reveals ANOTHER effort to arrange
a Trump-Putin meeting – this one involving the chief Rabbi of Russia known
as 'Putin's Rabbi' who visited Trump Tower in 2016
Geoff
Earle
Special Counsel Robert Mueller's report sketches
out yet another effort to arrange a meeting between Donald Trump and
Russia's Vladimir Putin – this time from a man touting a connection to
the Chief Rabbi of Russia.
The Trump-Putin meeting never occurred, but Rabbi
Berel Lazar, known as 'Putin's Rabbi,' did attend a Trump Tower meeting
in 2016 with the man who pitched it.
Here are 5 shady ways Trump, Israel and
Russia are colluding on the world stage
Tana Ganeva
In
the latest bizarre twist in the Paul Manafort saga, the Guardian reports
that Manafort may have conspired with an Israeli official to manipulate
members of the Obama administration into supporting Viktor Yanukovych
over Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine, and link the latter to anti-Semitism.
Yanukovych was Russia's chosen candidate.
1.
As Bashar al-Assad moves to consolidate power in Syria, the US, Russia
and Israel seem united in their efforts to throw Hezbollah, a proxy of
Iran, out of the conflict. In mid-August, Secretary of State John Bolton
told ABC that the three countries are united in this goal.
3.
During the President's much derided one-on-one talks with Russian
President Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump assured the world that the
security of Israel is a priority for both Russia and the United States.
4.
House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the
Russian Mafia, the writer Craig Unger writes about how up to 59 Russian
oligarchs have been cultivating Donald Trump and his associates for
years, through such means as New York's unregulated real estate
industry.
As
the Times of Israel has pointed out, many of these wealthy Russian
business-people also have ties to Israel.
5.
So far, the President has made good on his promise to prioritize the
interests of the current Israeli government.
It's not a surprise when Trump flouts international norms. But his
decision to move the US embassy to Jerusalem sparked furor around the
world and led to deadly protests by Palestinians.
The
administration dismissed the demonstrations, in which multiple civilians
were killed, as 'unfortunate propaganda'.
Paul Manafort: Trump's ex-campaign chair
agrees to cooperate with Mueller
Jon Swaine
Manafort may have conspired with an Israeli
official to manipulate members of the Obama administration into
supporting Viktor Yanukovych over Yulia Tymoshenko in Ukraine, and link
the latter to anti-Semitism. Yanukovych was Russia's chosen candidate.
Manafort allegedly orchestrated a plan to smear a Yanukovych domestic
rival, Yulia Tymoshenko, by disseminating "with no fingerprints"
allegations that Tymoshenko had paid for the murder of a Ukrainian
official. "My goal is to plant some stink on Tymo," Manafort wrote in a
message.
He also allegedly schemed to have "Obama Jews" exert pressure on Barack
Obama's administration to support Yanukovych and disavow Tymoshenko, and
conspired with an Israeli government official to spread allegations
linking Tymoshenko to antisemitism. Manafort allegedly wrote in one
message to an unidentified associate: "I have someone pushing it on the
NY Post. Bada bing bada boom.
MATIMOP, Skolkovo deepen Israel-Russia
start-up cooperation
Israeli Industry Center for R&D (MATIMOP) and
Russia's Skolkovo Foundation will shortly announce a call for papers for
joint R&D project by Israeli and Russian start-ups to obtain support
from Office of the Chief Scientist in Israel and the Skolkovo
Foundation. Skolkovo Foundation VP Stanislav Naumov said, "The
difference between Russia and Israel's entrepreneurial system required
thinking together to find a formula for cooperation. The formula we
reached enables us to move forward to the stage of extensive
collaboration by ventures of the two countries. The special call for
papers that we are publishing is another important stage in developing
cooperation between Russia and Israel, which began a year ago with the
fostering of innovation and the commercialization of advanced
technologies."
Israel-Skolkovo Center co-managing director
Alexander Zinigrad said, "This is the first time that special binational
collaboration for start-ups has been declared in Israel. This is an
important measure, which gives a great boost to the cooperation that
began in the summer of 2011 between the start-up industry in Israel and
the Skolkovo Foundation. Since the establishment of the Israel-Skolkovo
Center, we have received scores of inquiries from Israeli start-up
companies every month. Within less than a year, we have assisted six
Israeli start-up companies at Skolkovo."
Putin Reveals Who Will Be the Lord of the
World
"Artificial intelligence is not only the future of
Russia, but the future of all mankind. It holds both tremendous
opportunities and is fraught with scarcely predictable dangers. Whoever
takes the lead in this sphere will become Lord of the World," President
Putin told Russian schoolchildren during an open lesson on their first
day of the new school year.
Hillary's Secret Kremlin Connection Is
Quickly Unraveling
John
Schindler
Exactly how Clinton profited off deals with
Skolkovo is something the American public has a right to know before
November 8.
Then there's the matter of what Skolkovo actually
is. In truth, it's nothing like Silicon Valley except in outward
appearance. It's a fully state-driven enterprise -- funded largely by the
Kremlin and acting on its orders. It does the bidding of the Russian
government, and President Putin has taken intense interest in his
high-tech complex, understanding its value to the country's defense and
security sector.
Yandex Partners With Tel Aviv University
to Launch AI Study Program, Scholarships
Amarella
Wenkert
The Russian technology company will launch the
Yandex Machine Learning Initiative, offering courses in artificial
intelligence and financial support to students and faculty
Modeled on Yeshiva University, first
Jewish university to open in Russia
Modeled after Yeshiva University in the United
States, The Jewish University of Moscow is a private institution with a
student body of 200 whose budget comes mostly from donors and the
Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, dean Alexander Lebedev told
JTA earlier this week.
The university -- whose faculties include
economics, law, humanities and Jewish studies – comprises two existing
Jewish community colleges: Institute XXI century for men and Institute
Machon CHaMeSH for women. Their reconstitution as campuses of a single,
state-recognized university is a first in Russian history, according to
Lebedev.
Russian VC shows the love to Israeli
startups
Abigail Klein Leichman
Titanium Investments unveils its $50 million
venture capital fund geared mainly to Israeli companies such as
Feedvisor, Any.do and MUV Interactive.
US backs Israel's proposal for railway
link to Gulf
The US has expressed support for an
Israeli plan to revive a historic railroad network linking the Jewish
state to Gulf countries.
Jason Greenblatt, US President Donald Trump's
peace envoy, hailed the proposal on Monday as an Israeli minister visits
Oman to present the "Tracks for Regional Peace" project.
How Russia Created a Jewish Museum and
Tolerance Center Even Vladimir Putin Can Tolerate
Olga Gershenson
The museum project was initiated by the Federation
of Jewish Communities of Russia -- the umbrella organization for
Chabad-Lubavitch in Russia -- supported by the Kremlin and financed by a
handful of Russian Jewish oligarchs at a cost of $50 million. The
journey to museum from garage began in 2001, when Moscow City Hall
donated the dilapidated building to the Hasidic Jewish Community Center.
The idea was that the building would house a cultural center, including
an exhibition on Jewish culture and an art gallery. While this site is
neither central nor easily accessible to tourists, it is part of an
entire campus of Jewish religious and cultural organizations that
sprouted in the post-Soviet era in the traditionally Jewish neighborhood
(to the extent that Moscow has Jewish neighborhoods) of Maryina Roshcha.
The museum building shares its territory with a Jewish day school, a
yeshiva, a medical center and several Jewish charity organizations.
Several years of faltering attempts to renovate
the garage building ended in 2007, when Roman Abramovich, a federation
board member, restored it. In 2008 it opened its doors to the public as
the Garage Center for Contemporary Culture, managed by Dasha Zhukova,
Abramovich's girlfriend at the time.
Top Israeli officials were part of KGB
spy ring -- report
Toi Staff
KGB files reportedly revealed the existence of an
extensive Soviet spy ring in Israel, encompassing Knesset members,
senior IDF officers, engineers, members of the Israeli intelligence
community, and others who worked on classified projects.
Top-secret KGB documents reported on by the
Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth Wednesday detailed the extent of
the network of agents run by the Soviet secret service.
The documents were copied over a period of 20
years by Vasili Mitrokhin, a senior KGB archivist who defected to the UK
in 1992. His edited notes on various KGB operations were released in
2014 and are stored in Churchill College in Cambridge; his handwritten
notes remain classified by MI5.
Soviet documents 'show Abbas was KGB
agent'; Fatah decries 'smear campaign'
Tamar
Pileggi
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was
a Soviet spy in Damascus in the 1980s, Israel's Channel 1 television
reported Wednesday, citing information it said was included in an
archive smuggled out of the USSR.
According to Channel 1's foreign news editor Oren
Nahari, the famed Mitrokhin archive, kept by KGB defector Vasily
Mitrokhin, revealed that Abbas was a Soviet mole in Damascus in 1983.
The documents -- obtained by Israeli researchers
Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez -- purportedly show that Abbas,
code-named Krotov (mole), was involved with the Soviets while Mikhail
Bogdanov, today Vladimir Putin's envoy to the Middle East. was stationed
in Damascus.
KGB Infiltrated Highest Echelons of
Israel's Army, Business, and Political Leadership
Richard
Silverstein
The Israeli military censor compelled Bergman to
suppress the names of the most damaging of the KGB spies working in
Israel in a three-part series published in recent weeks by Ynet. In part
four of his series, Bergman secured the cooperation of an Israeli triple
agent who worked for the CIA, KGB and Shabak. The ex-spy agreed to be
interviewed and for his identity to be exposed. But the IDF censor, Col.
Ariella Ben Avraham, so eviscerated the proposed article that it could
not be published. As a result, it will be some time before we learn this
individual's identity. Given that the former spy agreed to be identified
and the incident presumably occurred decades ago, one wonders what the
censor is protecting except her own power and prerogative to render
secret what should be known in any other democratic society.
Lieberman Appointed Israeli KGB Agent to
Senior Government Role, Then He Disappeared
Richard
Silverstein
Bergman, who is compelled by the military censor
to suppress the names of almost all of the spies, tells (Nana recounts
the story at 3:05 of this news report) of a Soviet Jew born in
south-central Russia in the mid-1950s. He studied engineering and was
considered quite proficient in his field of study. The spy, whose
code-name was Bejan, was recruited to an elite Soviet espionage school,
where he was trained in the field of spycraft. He made aliyah to Israel
and was inducted into the IDF shortly thereafter. He joined the officer
training school and from there rose quickly in the ranks until he was
appointed the chief of one of the army's most critical infrastructure
ventures. He was privy to a multitude of highly secret material
including the location of bases, infrastructure facilities, data on the
order of battle, and preparations for future wars.
After retiring from the IDF, he turned to various
jobs in private industry. Later, he was appointed by Avigdor Lieberman,
who himself has often been rumored to be a Russian intelligence asset,
to a senior post. Then suddenly, Bejan disappeared in 2005. He has not
been heard from since.
He is not the first person in Lieberman's circle
to suffer a strange, mysterious fate. News1 detailed the circumstances
in which several key witnesses in the last Lieberman investigation who
either committed suicide, disappeared, or "forgot" key elements of their
previous testimony. Among them are Michael Falkov, a Lieberman
communications advisor who disappeared in 2014. Yosef Shuldiner was
found shot to death in an Israeli cemetery in 2006. Artium Borovik, a
senior Russian journalist close to the Kremlin, whom Lieberman used to
lobby on behalf of his business ventures, died in a mysterious plane
crash in 2008. Daniella Mourtzi was the corporate accountant for five
Cyprus-based Lieberman companies which were fronts. She was to testify
as part of the government investigation into Lieberman's shady business
dealings about his ownership of the companies. But before her time came
to testify, she suddenly developed amnesia and couldn't recall a thing.
Another witness in Moldova (where Lieberman was born) was interrogated
and shortly afterward had a fatal stroke.
Soviet spies infiltrate Mossad, sources
say
Richard
Sale
Soviet infiltration of Israel's spy agency,
Mossad, is the most serious blow to Israeli intelligence since the 1970s
and U.S. intelligence also was breached as a result, U.S. sources
reveal.
Mossad has been penetrated by 'highly placed'
Soviet moles and a full-scale internal counterintelligence investigation
is under way, the intelligence sources said.
A Justice Department source said U.S.
counterintelligence agents became aware of the Israeli-Soviet espionage
pipeline when data stolen by Jonathan Jay Pollard, a U.S. Navy analyst
convicted of spying for Israel, was 'traced to the Eastern bloc.'
Intelligence sources said data reaching the
Soviets via this route included sensitive U.S. weapons technology and
strategic information about the defense forces of Turkey, Pakistan and
moderate Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia.
U.S. intelligence analysts said the Pollard data
was traded to the Soviets in return for promises to increase emigration
of Soviet Jews to Israel.
One analyst said Israel's 'right-wing' Jews are
involved with spying for the Soviets and called it 'ironic,' noting that
left-wing elements were responsible for similar scandals in the past.
No Love Lost
Yossi
Melman
"There is a paradoxical situation," says the chief rabbi of Moscow. "The
Jews in Russia have power, money and influence, as never before; yet at
the same time the situation of the Jewish community is at an all-time
low." A guide to the wars of the Jewish oligarchs in Russia.
Why Data Science is Booming in Israel
Jacob Maslow
Yandex, the "Google of Russia," is going to expand
into Israel. The tech firm, the largest in Russia, will be launching a
few services in Israel. The firm will be launching Yandex Music in just
a few weeks, and then there are additional plans for Israel.
Times of Israel broke the news that Yandex is
still thinking about opening a taxi venture in Israel and also plans to
offer an eight-month course in data science. Yandex plans to introduce
their Y-Data initiative in Israel, a course that will be very similar to
what is already running in Russia.
Exploring Al Qaeda's Murky Connection To
Russian Intelligence
John
Schindler
[Note: This is an unusually controversial piece, even for my blog, for
reasons that will quickly become obvious. Linkages between Al-Qa'ida and
Russian intelligence have been discussed in hushed tones among spies in
many countries, for years, and this matter has been a "hobby file" of
mine for some time. Here is a think-piece on it, in the hope of spurring
additional discussion and research into this important yet murky matter.
This is particularly necessary given rising tensions between Moscow and
the West at present.
'The USSR Is Our Second Homeland,' Said
One Kibbutznik When Stalin Died
Tom Segev
In
fact, it is of interest to recall - incredible as it may seem - that
Stalin's Soviet Union was once at the center of Israeli identity. In the
first Knesset, the left-wing Mapam (United Workers Party ) was the
second-largest faction, with 19 seats. During the debate over the makeup
of the government that was held in the Knesset on March 10, 1949, one of
Mapam's two leaders, Ya'akov Hazan of Kibbutz Mishmar Ha'emek, said:
"For us, the Soviet Union is the fortress of world socialism, it is our
second homeland, the socialist one." That comment could go down as one
of the 10 most-quoted sentences in the history of Israeli politics.
Jabotinsky's Likud Was Anything but a
Liberal Bastion
Ofri Ilany
While Ze'ev Jabotinsky has in recent years been
lionized as the picture of a faultless liberal standout, there is no
justification for describing Likud as a movement that was once liberal
and has deteriorated into fascism.
David Ben-Gurion visited the Soviet Union in 1923,
and drew inspiration from the Leninist form of organization and use of
power. He described Lenin admiringly as "an iron-willed man who would
not spare human life or the blood of the innocent on behalf of the
revolution." In the wake of that visit, Ben-Gurion built his political
party into a power-centric revolutionary organization that was not
squeamish about using whatever means possible to realize its objectives.
RUSSIANS AND JEWS: THE ODD COUPLE
Jonathan
Adelman
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has in the last
three years gone nine times to a Russia that has promoted dozens of
Russian Jews to become oligarchs in the new Russia.
FROM RUSSIA WITH JEWS
Amiram Barkat and Yossi Melman
Zvi Magen did what few Israelis would dare to do:
He rejected a tempting, well-paying job offer from Arcadi Gaydamak, the
Israeli-Russian oligarch, whom the State Prosecutor's office is
considering putting on trial for money laundering, and who is wanted in
France on suspicion of illegal arms trading with Angola. Gaydamak wanted
Magen to head the Congress of Jewish Religious Communities and
Organizations in Russia (KEROOR). This is an off-the-shelf organization
that came to life about 18 months ago under the aegis of Gaydamak, who
contributes money to it and acts as its president.
Magen received the generous offer a few months
ago, while he was still head of Nativ, but preferred to join the
Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya as head of a new Euro-Asia institute
that will conduct "studies from the Balkans to Mongolia."
Magen, a lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense
Forces reserves and a former ambassador to Ukraine and Russia, has
headed Nativ for almost seven years. He concluded his term of office at
the beginning of last month, but his successor has only just been named.
Last week, Naomi Ben Ami, Israel's ambassador to Ukraine, was chosen to
head Nativ. This is the first time in the history of the Israeli
intelligence community that a woman has been named to head one of its
agencies - although Nativ in fact is no longer involved in intelligence.
HOLY RUSSIA SACRED ISRAEL
Dominic
Rubin
Jewish‐Christian Encounters in Russian Religious
Thought
Russia's use of false flag terrorism
facilitating the rise of Putin
'September, 1998: Kremlin Insider Predicts
'Massive Unrest' to Journalist'
March 19, 1999: Bombing in Russian Market Near
Chechnya Kills Fifty.
June 6, 1999: Kremlin False Flag Terror Plot
Rumors Surface in Swedish Newspaper
July 22, 1999: Russian Journalist Alleges
Destabilization Plot by Kremlin Insiders
September 9, 1999: Apartment Blast in Moscow Kills
94; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 13, 1999: Second Moscow Apartment
Bombing Kills 118; Chechen Rebels Blamed
September 22-24, 1999: FSB Agents Plant Large Bomb
in Ryazan: 'Security Exercise' or Terror Plot?
Henry Kissinger's criminal sale of
nuclear weapons technology to Soviet Russia in 1972
Antony Sutton
Kalmanowich affair shows
KGB-Israeli mafia link
Thierry Lalevee and Joseph Brewda
On Dec. 23, 1987, Israeli businessman Shabtai
Kalmanowich was arrested by Israeli authorities on charges of being "a
spy
for the Soviet Union." Since his emigration from Lithuania in 1971,
Kalmanowich had become a leading figure in the Israeli political and
business establishment, directing a far-flung diamond, gold, gambling,
prostitution, and armstrafficking empire, based in Africa, West Germany,
and New York City. When Israeli authorities announced Kalmanowich's
arrest on Jan. 10, however, they failed to mention the fact that
millionaire Kalmanowich was also an officer in the Israeli foreign
intelligence service, the Mossad. Kalmanowich was something of the late
CIA director Bill Casey's ideal intelligence officer: He made a fortune
as he carried out espionage.
Kalmanowich is certainly not the first Soviet
Jewish
emigre caught as a spy;
there have been four or five over recent years. Analyzing this
phenomenon, a former head of Israeli military intelligence reported on
Israeli television that there are two kinds of spies among the emigres:
those who are blackmailed because their families have remained behind,
and those who are ideologically committed to Soviet communism.
Kalmanowich belonged to the second category.
The Chicago School of Economics
Jon Swinn
This infographic displays the connections and
people known collectively as the 'Chicago School'. The strong links to
the elites are identified.
The neoconservative as well as Thatcherism and the
false opposition libertarian movement find their roots in the 'Chicago
School'.
This is essential background information into
understanding the next infographic 'Rise of the Neo-Cons / Wohlstetter
Network'.
The Rise of the Neo-Cons / Wohlstetter
Network
Jon Swinn
This infographic displays the links between some of the important
players behind the creation of the neoconservative movement, 9/11 and
resulting War on Terror.
[Perle, Feith, Gaffney] Suspected Soviet
Cell Wrote Reagan's Long-Term Strategy
Jeffrey
Steinberg
Jackson - Vanik amendment
Jackson organized the political movement to link
trade and emigration in America's relations with the Soviet Union in
concert with Jewish activists, but he soon took matters into his own
hands. Jackson drafted what would become the Jackson–Vanik amendment in
the summer of 1972 and introduced it to the Ninety-second Congress on
October 4, 1972. Jackson's efforts, rooted in his own domestic political
calculations and ideological distrust of and antipathy toward the Soviet
Union, complicated the Nixon White House's pursuit of Detente, which it
had worked on since 1969. However, three-quarters of the Senate
co-sponsored the amendment, neutralizing opposition from President
Nixon.
Jackson's staffer Richard Perle said in an
interview that the idea belonged to Jackson, who believed that the right
to emigrate was the most powerful among the human rights in certain
respects: "if people could vote with their feet, governments would have
to acknowledge that and governments would have to make for their
citizens a life that would keep them there." While there was some
opposition, the American Jewish establishment on the whole and Soviet
Jewry activists (particularly the Washington Committee for Soviet Jewry
and the National Conference on Soviet Jewry) supported the amendment...
Soviet Union
At first the Jackson–Vanik amendment did little to
help free Soviet Jewry. The number of exit visas declined after the
passing of the amendment. However, in the late 1980s Mikhail Gorbachev
agreed to comply with the protocols of the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe. Lazin (2005) states that scholars differ on how
effective the amendment was in helping Soviet Jews. Some argue that it
helped bring the plight of Soviet Jews to the world's attention, while
others believe it hindered emigration and decreased America's diplomatic
bargaining power.
Since 1975 more than 500,000 refugees, large
numbers of whom were Jews, evangelical Christians, and Catholics from
the former Soviet Union, have been resettled in the United States. An
estimated one million Soviet Jews have immigrated to Israel in that
time.
Jackson-Vanik also led to great changes within the
Soviet Union. Other ethnic groups subsequently demanded the right to
emigrate, and the ruling Communist Party had to face the fact that there
was widespread dissatisfaction with its governance
Russia
In 2003, Vladimir Putin pursued an economic agenda
for Russia to begin normalized trade relations with the West which
included Russia joining the European Union and the repeal of the
Jackson-Vannik amendment. Putin tried to use his relationships with both
the Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who was the head of the
European Union's Council in 2003, to gain Russia's membership in the
European Union, and also Hank Greenberg, who was the chairman and CEO of
the American International Group (AIG), to repeal the Jackson-Vannik
provisions in the United States.[20] Putin wished for Greenberg to
support through Greenberg's AIG greater development of the nascent
Russian home-mortgage market.
On November 16, 2012 the U.S. House of
Representatives passed a bill that would repeal the Jackson–Vanik
amendment for Russia and Moldova. After approval by the Senate, the law
repealing the effects of the Jackson–Vanik amendment on Russia and
Moldova was signed together with Magnitsky bill by President Barack
Obama on December 14, 2012.
Excerpt from Robert Friedman's Red Mafiya -
America's gates were opened to Jewish mobsters by
the Jackson-Vanik Amendment, which withheld most-favored-nation status
from Marxist countries that restricted Jewish emigration. According to
Mr. Friedman, the Soviets were happy to oblige during the 1970s by
"emptying their jails of thousands of hard-core criminals, dumping vast
numbers of undesirables" on an unsuspecting United States. More than
40,000 Soviet Jews settled in Brighton Beach which soon became the seat
of the "Organisatsiya," the new Jewish mob. Initially assisted by the
Genovese crime family and the politically astute and well-connected
Jewish rabbi Ronald Greenwald, the Jewish mobsters, some of whom have
Ph.D.s in mathematics, physics and engineering, as well as MBAs, quickly
expanded their operations to include bank fraud, money laundering,
Medicare and insurance fraud, counterfeiting, drug dealing, natural gas
bootlegging - scams which netted billions of dollars. The mob has even
infiltrated the National Hockey League through its intimidation of
Russian and Ukrainian players.
The Soviet mole network running U.S.
counterintelligence
At the very beginning of 1988, a purported
"official CIA
evaluation" of
the Jonathan Jay Pollard spy case surfaced among senior French
intelligence officers. The essential conclusion of the dossier,
according to French officials who directly reviewed it, was that the
Pollard case showed only that "one or two" KGB agents had infiltrated
Israeli intelligence. No higher-level problems were shown to exist
within the Mossad. The purported document went on to say, that while
senior Israeli officials, including Ariel Sharon and Rafael "Dirty Rafi"
Eytan, would be cut off from continued
collaboration with their American counterparts,
there was no
evidence
suggesting that the pair were either Soviet "moles" or involved in any
witting perfidy with Moscow.
Whether or not the document was a bona fide CIA
damage
assessment, the
evaluation, as reported, is a fraud. Not only was Jonathan Jay Pollard
merely one small fish in an extensive Soviet "false flag" espionage ring
run through the highest
levels of Israeli intelligence; the same ring,
operating principally through Israeli and social democratic channels,
has
successfully penetrated the
inner sanctums of the Reagan administration's counterintelligence
apparatus.
The "CIA document" bears mentioning, because it
perhaps provides a clue to the identities of some of the "bigger
fish"-American
and Israeli-who are still in place, attempting to "damage control" the
continuing search for "other Pollards. "
The Israeli spy network that
Jonathan Pollard left behind
Joseph Brewda
Sanhedrin Asks Putin and Trump to Build
Third Temple in Jerusalem
Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz
The Nascent Sanhedrin is calling on Russian
President Vladmir Putin and US president-elect Donald Trump to join
forces and fulfill their Biblically-mandated roles by rebuilding the
Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.
Rabbi Hillel Weiss, spokesman for the Sanhedrin,
contacted Breaking Israel News to announce that the election of Trump,
who has promised to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel,
coupled with Putin's expressed desire for the Temple to be rebuilt,
prompted the Jewish court to send a letter offering the two the
opportunity to act as modern-day Cyrus figures: non-Jewish kings who
recognize the importance of Israel and the Temple.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: 200 years together - English audiobook
Part 1
Part 2
Grant
Stern
Grant Stern's 10 part series on the Grand Old
Putin Party.
Part 1 - Prologue
Part 2-
Putin's Propagandist Eerily Predicted Trump's Relationship With General
Flynn and Dana Rohrabacher Last Year
Part 3-
Putin's Favorite Congressman Secretly Met With Paul Manafort After The
FBI Warned Russian Agents Were Recruiting Him
Part 4-
The GOP's Favorite Russian Professor Spent Decades Building Conservative
Ties To Moscow
Part 5-
American University In Moscow: Linked To Russian State, But Fake Like
TrumpU
Part 6-
Here's Lozansky Introducing Republicans To The Father Of Russian Foreign
Intelligence -- And Putin's Mentor
Part 7-
Soviet Human Rights Activists Believed Lozansky Worked With Russian
Intelligence
Part 8-
From Orange Revolution To "Stars And Stripes Revolution"
Part 9-
Opinion: Edward Lozansky's Russia Lobby Compromised The Republican Party
Part 10-
Opinion: Without Ed Lozansky, Trump-Russia Could Not Have Happened
Communism Among Jewish Children in Russia
Nov 5, 1924
The Communist Child Movement, according to figures
published here, includes 7,000 organized Jewish children in the Ukraine
and 2,000 in White Russia. The work among the Jewish "pioneers", as they
are called, is conducted exclusively in the Yiddish language. There are
five detachments of Jewish "pioneers" in Witebsk, three in Homel, a
Jewish "pioneer" base in Minsk, and scores of detachments in Odessa and
Kiev. "Pioneer" clubs are attached to the schools, children's homes and
workshops. A proposal is now made for the publication of a special
Yiddish magazine for the Communist Child Movement.
Freiheit Calls on Jews to Desert Zionism, Back Soviets
Nov 9, 1930
Calling upon the Jewish workers to desert the
Zionist cause and to fight for Soviet Russia and Communism, an editorial
in Friday's Freiheit, New York Yiddish Communist organ, enumerates what
it alleges to be Jewish failures in Palestine with regard to land
settlement, and contrasts this with what it regards as the great success
of Jewish land settlement in Russia within recent years.
"During the past five years the Soviet Union has
settled three hundred thousand Jews on the land," says the editorial.
"During the coming five years it will build a large new settlement in
Bira-Bidjan. Wherever Jews live in compact masses the whole governmental
apparatus is conducted in Yiddish. If great Jewish masses will come to
Bira-Bidjan a Soviet Republic will be organized there.
"All this is being done by the Soviet Republic
without noise, without trumpeting; it is part of the general work of
building up the country. The Jews in the Soviet Union have equal rights
together with all citizens. Jewish books and periodicals are being
issued at the expense of the government. Anti-Semitism is being uprooted
with an iron hand.
"In Palestine it is just the opposite. There
during the past fifty years hundreds of millions of dollars have poured
in, nevertheless only about twenty thousand Jews are settled upon the
land. There everything is kept up by philanthropy, and there is no room
for a large Jewish population. There the ruler is the British
imperialistic power which has encouraged pogroms and which now declares
openly that it will give the Jews no governmental power in Palestine.
There Jews are being settled upon alien soil from which the peasants are
being driven off by force, although they have been living there scores
and hundreds of years. There a poisonous hatred on the part of the local
population towards the aliens who come with the bayonet and the dollar
exists, and the masses have already revolted against the alien
oppressors."
"Down with Zionism! Long live the Soviet Union!"
JEWS CREATED COMMUNISM
Dewey
(Buddy) Tucker
THE JEWS AND THE COMMUNIZATION OF RUSSIA
Elizabeth Dilling
Very few people are aware of the extent to which
Jews were responsible for the Communization of Russia, first through
organizing of the unsuccessful revolution of 1905, and then the later
and successful Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Both were heavily financed
by outside Jewish financial and banking houses, and ultimately resulted
in Jews assuming control of what had become the Russian Soviet
Government. Concurrently, Jewish machinations in the United States,
Germany and elsewhere helped set the stage for the take-over.
The Three Holodomor Genocides
"You must understand. The leading Bolsheviks who
took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated
Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered
millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. The October
Revolution was not what you call in America the "Russian Revolution." It
was an invasion and conquest over the Russian people. More of my
countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any
people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It
cannot be understated. Bolshevism was the greatest human slaughter of
all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this reality is
proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the perpetrators."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008), Nobel-Prize-winning novelist,
historian and victim of Jewish Bolshevism (Marxism).
Woodrow Wilson And The Zionist Network
Infographic highlighting the Zionist influence
surrounding Woodrow Wilson, his rise to power and historical events
during his presidency and the role of the Zionist powers in the creation
of WW1, WW2, creation of the Federal Reserve system, Bolshevik
Revolution, Great Depression etc.
Geneva Versus Peace
Comte de Saint-Aulaire
Comte de Saint-Aulaire, French Ambassador to Great
Britain in the 1920s, discussed his meetings with Kuhn, Loeb, & Co.
financiers. They had discussions regarding why they [the Kuhn, Loeb, &;
Co. bankers] financed the Bolshevik Revolution. One of them said (p.
80):
"You say that Marxism is the very antithesis of
capitalism, which is equally sacred to us. It is precisely for this
reason that they are direct opposites to one another, that they put into
our hands the two poles of this planet and allow us to be its axis.
These two contraries, like Bolshevism and ourselves, find their identity
in the International. These opposites, which are at the antipodes to one
another in society and in their doctrines meet again in the identity of
their purpose and end, the remaking of the world from above by the
control of riches, and from below by revolution.
Our mission consists in promulgating the new law
and in creating a God, that is to say in purifying the idea of God and
realizing it, when the time shall come.
We shall purify the idea by identifying it with
the nation of Israel, which has become its own Messiah. The advent of it
will be facilitated by the final triumph of Israel, which has become
it's own Messiah."
This same financier also said (pp. 83-84):
"our essential dynamism makes use of the forces of
destruction and forces of creation, but uses the first to nourish the
second. Our organization for revolution is evidenced by destructive
Bolshevism and for construction by the League of Nations which is also
our work. Bolshevism is the accelerator and the League is the brake on
the mechanism of which we supply both the motive force and the guiding
power.
What is the end? It is already determined by our
mission. It is formed of elements scattered throughout the whole world,
but cast in the flame of our faith in ourselves. We are a League of
Nations which contains the elements of all others."
Israeli support for anti-Ukrainian
separatists of "Novorussia"
Sean Jobst
Eurasianists and Nazbols link Ukraine with Israel,
ignoring Putin's close alliance with Israel and the central involvement
of hardcore Zionists like Avigdor Eskin in Dugin's networks. They
rewrite this narrative to deceive Western dissidents opposed to Zionism
and Jewish power, into signing off on their own anti-Ukrainian
subversion. Their efforts to enlist support for separatists who openly
proclaim themselves a Communist "People's Republic", include bizarre
claims that have been refuted by no less a figure as Donetsk leader
Denis Pushilin, who openly touts himself as "Chairman of the Soviet"
while his fighters brandish Soviet flags and include many foreign
Communists.
Borscht Belt: Will Israel Spurn America
for Russia?
Lincoln Mitchell
FOR MOST OF LAST YEAR, THE WEST STRUGGLED TO find
an appropriate response to Russia's incursions into Crimea and eastern
and southern Ukraine. Many European and North American governments
strongly condemned Russia and its president, Vladimir Putin, but Israel
has been noticeably silent.
In the past, Israel has been similarly mum on
Russian aggression -- or worse. In 2008, when the Russia-Georgia war began,
Israel cut its previously substantial military support for Georgia and
withdrew its military advisors.
Why has Israel declined to slap Russia? Because
the Jewish state may someday need Russia as a powerful ally if relations
with the U.S. wither -- something that's not an immediate risk but not
necessarily unthinkable .
The Partition Plan, November 29, 1947:
Soviet Support for Establishing Israel in Perspective
Alex Grobman
Given the Soviet Union's avowed hostility to
Zionism, the Soviet vote "came as a great surprise, as a bombshell,"
recounted Moshe Sharett, then head of the Jewish Agency's political
department.
When May Day Was a Major Event in Israel
Armin Rosen
It wasn't just that Stalin's Red Army had
liberated Auschwitz, or that "the Soviets had shipped Czech weapons to
the IDF in 1948" and supported Jewish statehood at a crucial moment,
including in the United Nations partition vote in 1947. The ties went
deeper than any political alliance: For many, Zionism was an avowedly
secular pro-labor movement with the same utopian aims as Communism
itself. As Halevi writes, the logo of the newspaper for the Hashomer
Hatzair Marxist Zionist movement translated to "For Zionism -- For
Socialism -- For the Fraternity of Nations."
May Day was a major event for some Israeli
communities, outranking most of the Jewish holidays in importance.
Stalin's Jews
Sever Plocker
We mustn't forget that some of greatest murderers
of modern times were Jewish
Back in the USSR?
David
Horovitz
Chabad's chief rabbi
The Jewish leader closest to Putin is Chabad's
Berel Lazar, one of Russia's two chief rabbis, a Milan-born, New
York-ordained emissary, who first came here in the late 1980s on several
trips to teach Judaism to refuseniks and was then appointed by the
Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, to help revive and
strengthen the Jewish community as the Soviet Union entered its death
throes in 1990.
A father of 12 aged 49, with a graying beard and
the trademark Chabad warmth -- he immediately invites me for Shabbat
dinner when we meet -- Lazar works from a book-lined sixth-floor office
in the Moscow Jewish Community Center building that houses his
now-thriving Maryina Roshcha District synagogue.
When he arrived, Lazar recalls, there was "an
underground" of people leading a return to Judaism. By 1989 Mikhail
Gorbachev had granted "unofficial permission to open a school and a
yeshiva." And when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, most everyone
whose Judaism was important to them was leaving. "The place was emptying
out. The Israeli embassy was sure there'd be no Jews left," says Lazar.
"They laughed at us as we tried to fix up synagogues. It was a conveyor
belt: come to shul, learn Hebrew, go to Israel. No one thought there'd
be a future here."
Putin Welcomes Kissinger: 'Old Friends'
to Talk Shop
Ellen
Berry
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin will meet Friday
with former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to discuss world
affairs, including elections in Russia and the United States, said Mr.
Putin's press secretary, Dmitri S. Peskov.
Mr. Peskov said Mr. Kissinger requested the
meeting in late November or early December. The two men are "old
friends" who have met 8 or 10 times over the years, once dining at Mr.
Kissinger's home in New York, he said. Mr. Peskov said Mr. Putin was
interested in Mr. Kissinger's counsel about domestic politics, among
other subjects.
"He values everyone's point of view, and
especially such a wise man as Henry Kissinger," Mr. Peskov said.
Alexander Dugin - The one Russian linking
Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Henry Meyer, Onur Ant
Dugin, who's been described as everything from an
occult fascist to a mystical imperialist, lost his prestigious job
running the sociology department at Moscow State University in 2014
after activists accused him of encouraging genocide. Thousands of people
signed a petition calling for his removal after a rant in support of
separatists in Ukraine in which he said, "kill, kill, kill."
What is Duginism and why it matters
Youtube video by Freedom Alternative.
Duginist publication calls Russians and
Jews "chosen peoples"
Sean Jobst
The volume was part of an effort to strengthen
ties between the Eurasianist movement and Chabad and far-right-wing
Zionist movements, approvingly quoting one of Bromberg's contemporaries
(Lev Karsavin, who greeted the Soviet regime) about the "primordial tie
between the Jewish people and Russia". Dugin has praised the predominant
Jewish role in Bolshevism as representing a continued "positive" Jewry,
that can now contribute to "the general struggle against Western
culture" and to the founding of the "Great Eurasian Empire". He extolled
"messianic national-bolshevism" as "the spiritual union of Jewish and
Russian eurasianists".
Rise of the NazBols
MAGA OPUS Bitchute video.
Holocaust Deniers in Russia Now Face Five
Years in Prison
ussian President Vladimir Putin signed a law on
Monday making the denial of Nazi crimes and distortion of the Soviet
Union's role in the World War Two a criminal offence punishable by up to
five years in jail.
The law, described by critics as an attempt to
curb freedom of expression to appease conservative Russians, the ex-KGB
spy's main support base, also criminalises the public desecration of war
memorials.
The Kremlin has used World War Two as a pillar to
unite a society that Putin has said lost its moral bearings following
the 1991 Soviet collapse.
It has become increasingly risky for Russians to
dispute an official line that glorifies the wartime achievements of the
Soviet leadership and plays down its errors.
The new law would ban "wittingly spreading false
information about the activity of the USSR during the years of World War
Two".
LIFE AFTER PUTIN: THE JARED KUSHNER OF
RUSSIA
Fiona Zublin
The putative son-in-law is the son of Nikolay
Shamalov, one of Putin's longtime friends and hockey buddies. "Putin
made Shamalov Jr. a billionaire and effected a transfer of wealth to the
next generation," Dawisha says. Nikolay is also a shareholder in Rossiya
Bank -- described by the BBC as the "personal bank" of Russian oligarchs
-- and was sanctioned by the U.S. and EU after tensions mounted over the
annexation of Crimea in 2014, along with several other Russian banks and
businessmen.
Former Israeli double agent shot dead
near Putin's office
Andrew Osborn in Moscow and Adrian Blomfield in Jerusalem
Shabtai Kalmanovich, a former Israeli double agent who penetrated Golda
Meir's government on behalf of the KGB, has been shot dead in Moscow.
Kalmanovich, who later became a prominent businessman and allegedly had
links with the Russian mafia, died after an unidentified gunman fired at
least 20 shots into his chauffeur-driven Mercedes Benz. Mr Kalmanovich's
driver was seriously wounded in the incident.
"Kalmanovich had practically no chance of surviving," a police official
was quoted as saying by Russia's Interfax news agency. "He died on the
spot from numerous gun wounds." A figure with a colourful if chequered
past, Kalmanovich and his Jewish family immigrated to Israel from
Lithuania in 1971.
After becoming an Israeli citizen, he joined the Israeli Labour Party,
was appointed to a position in the government press office and became a
mole for the KGB.
Robert Maxwell, Israel's Superspy: The
Life and Murder of a Media Mogul
Robert Younes
Was Robert Maxwell a Soviet spy? FBI
files reveal US fears the media mogul was working for Russia
Rob Cooper
Stalin & Secret Diaries: "Soviet
Involvement in the Creation of the State of Israel"
The Maisky Diaries ed by Gabriel
Gorodetsky, review: 'a spectacular find'
Nicholas Shakespeare
n February 1953, two weeks before Stalin's death,
Ivan Maisky, Soviet ambassador to London from 1932 to 1943, was arrested
and accused of being a British spy. Interrogated 36 times in his
Lubyanka cell, the stocky exdiplomat was detained for two years without
books, pen or paper.
Rehabilitated in 1960 and desperate to write his
memoirs, he was granted one year of limited access to his personal
archive, which included the 1,500-page diary Maisky had kept while in
London, when he enjoyed automatic access to the chief personalities of
the day.
Published in the Sixties and written under the
twin clouds of purges and censorship, his memoirs were apologetic,
misleading and selective - and not terribly interesting. Then, in 1993,
the historian Gabriel Gorodetsky discovered Maisky's original diary in
the Russian Foreign Ministry. "Spiced with anecdotes and gossip", this
differed radically from the official version. Its candid depictions of
the British political and social scene reminded Gorodetsky of Samuel
Pepys.
Harry Hopkins, Soviet agent
But there are still many people alive who can
remember when the chief confidant of President Franklin Roosevelt was a
man named Harry Hopkins. And they will be understandably astonished to
learn that in a message dated May 29, 1943, Iskhak Akhmerov, the chief
Soviet "illegal" agent in the United States at the time, referred to an
Agent 19 who had reported on discussions between Roosevelt and Winston
Churchill in Washington at which the agent had been present. Only Harry
Hopkins meets the requirements for this agent's identity. Small wonder
that Akhmerov, in a lecture in Moscow in the early 1960s, identified
Hopkins by name as "the most important of all Soviet wartime agents in
the United States."
It took 50 years to bludgeon Alger Hiss' defenders
into admitting that this suave bureaucrat, who rose to be chief of the
State Department's Office of Special Political Affairs, had actually
been a Soviet agent all along. And it will probably take another 50 to
force Franklin Roosevelt's admirers to concede that their hero's closest
confidant and adviser was yet another Soviet agent.
But the documents and the testimony are now on the
public record, and they make it plain that those of us who sounded the
warning about Soviet espionage and policy subversion 50 years ago didn't
know the half of it.
The Resumption Of Russian-"Israeli" Free
Trade Talks Proves Ties Are Fantastic
Andrew Korybko
No, Russian-"Israeli" ties aren't in a state of
"crisis" after the latter bombed Syria earlier this month, but are
actually enjoying an unprecedented flourishment that won't be offset by
whatever happens in the Arab Republic, and Moscow might even tie Tel
Aviv into the same multilateral free trade area that has recently
expanded to include Iran.
"Israel's" bombing of Syria earlier this month
predictably prompted many in the Alt-Media to declare that this time
Russia will surely 'teach its ally a lesson' by openly turning into the
'anti-Zionist crusader state' that their dogma has indoctrinated them
into imagining that it's been this entire time. They were, as is
becoming the norm, totally wrong, and three specific events prove that
ties between the two sides aren't in a state of "crisis" but are rather
flourishing, with the latest milestone in their relationship being the
resumption of free trade talks.
Israel and Russia are NOT on the verge of
war. They are allies!
Andrew Korybko
The alternative media community, especially its
social media iteration, is experiencing collective psychosis in
hallucinating that "Israel" and Russia are on the verge of war with one
another.
The prevailing narrative is that Israeli "Defense
Minister" Lieberman's threat to destroy Syria's air defense systems is
tantamount to a declaration of war against Russia, with the assumption
being that Moscow is on a crusade against Zionism and has thus become
Tel Aviv's worst enemy.
There's no diplomatic way to say this, but the
presumptions on which such a crazy conclusion has been reached are
absolutely and utterly wrong.
Far from being Israel's hated nemesis like many in
the alternative media community wishfully pretend that it is, Moscow is
one of Tel Aviv's closest allies, and this is entirely due to President
Putin's deliberate policies. Not only does he enjoy a very strong
personal friendship with Netanyahu, but President Putin also sees a lot
of opportunity to advance his country's interests in Israel through the
large Russian diaspora there.
Does anyone still seriously think that
Russia and Israel aren't allies
Andrew Korybko
Russian Oil Giant Rosneft Expands in
Middle East
Russia's state-owned oil company Rosneft has begun
to expand its operations in the Middle East with deals in Libya and
Iraq, Bloomberg News reported Tuesday.
Rosneft, which is run by Putin ally Igor Sechin,
struck a deal to purchase an undisclosed amount of crude oil from the
Libyan National Oil Corp on Monday. The deal will also allow the Russian
company to invest in exploration and production in the volatile North
African country.
The chairman of National Oil Corp welcomed the
deal, saying it would help to stabilize the warring country's economy.
"We need the assistance and investment of major
international oil companies to reach our production goals and stabilize
our economy," NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said in a statement.
Rosneft announced on the same day it had struck a
deal with authorities of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq
to purchase oil until 2019. The deal with Kurdish authorities will also
allow the Russian company to invest in exploration and production.
REPORT: MAJORITY OF ISRAELI OIL IMPORTED
FROM KURDISTAN
Sharon
Udasin
On Sunday night, The Financial Times reported that
Israel had imported as much as 77 percent of its oil supply from
Kurdistan in recent months, bringing in some 19 million barrels between
the beginning of May and August 11. During that period, more than a
third of all northern Iraqi exports, shipped through Turkey's Ceyhan
port, went to Israel, with transactions amounting to almost $1b., the
report said, citing "shipping data, trading sources and satellite tanker
tracking."
Nonetheless, Dr. Amit Mor, CEO of the Eco Energy
Financial and Strategic Consulting firm, confirmed to The Jerusalem Post
that "for some time, Kurdish oil [has been arriving] to the Ashkelon
petroleum port." In all likelihood, he explained, the oil was being
stored at the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company facilities for commercial
reasons, by international trading firms and investors. Israel's
refineries may then be purchasing the oil from the international
companies, he added.
Importing Kurdish oil could be beneficial to
Israel from both geostrategic and economic perspectives, according to
Mor.
"Although I don't think the Kurds are having major
difficulties in exporting their oil these days, it is very sensible for
the Israeli refineries to purchase Kurdish oil via Turkey's Ceyhan
petroleum port, as it takes only one day of sailing for oil tankers to
reach the Ashkelon petroleum port. Such is also the case for
[Azerbaijani] oil," he said.
The Truth about Oil and the Iraq War, 15
Years Later
Gary Vogler
The oil agenda I discovered and experienced was to
supply Iraq oil to Israel. The players were the neoconservatives in the
Bush Administration, their favorite Iraqi – Dr Ahmed Chalabi and the
Israeli government. One of the motives was because Israel was paying a
huge premium for its oil imports and this premium had just started in
the late1990s. The agenda called for the reopening of the old Kirkuk to
Haifa pipeline and its significant expansion. When this pipeline plan
became unattainable in the 2nd half of 2003 then Chalabi took other
actions to get inexpensive Iraqi oil to Israel.
A much more credible explanation for intentionally
destroying the Syrian export pipeline than what Secretary Rumsfeld told
the NY Times was found in the British press. The Guardian, a London
newspaper, quoted a retired CIA agent just after the Syria pipeline
attack. "It has long been a dream of a powerful section of the people
now driving the Bush administration and the war in Iraq to safeguard
Israel's energy supply.
Russia is suspected of deploying troops
to Libya, but what's Moscow's play in this muddy conflict?
"Vladimir Putin wants to make the war-torn North
African country 'his new Syria.'" Citing sources in British
intelligence, the tabloid claimed that Russia has already embedded
"dozens" of GRU agents and Spetsnaz troops in eastern Libya, and
established two military bases in the coastal towns of Tobruk and
Benghazi, supposedly using the Wagner private military group as "cover."
Russian Kalibr anti-ship missiles and S-300 air-defense systems are also
reportedly on the ground in Libya. The tabloid's sources claimed that
the Kremlin has sided with the warlord General Khalifa Haftar in an
effort to "seize control of the country's coastline." This would
allegedly give Russia the power to unleash a "fresh tidal wave of
migrants" across the Mediterranean "like a tap."
note -
Khalifa
Belqasim Haftar studied in Egypt and the Soviet Union, also at the M.V.
Frunze Military Academy. He is a fluent Russian speaker. In 1969, Haftar
took part in the coup that brought Muammar Gaddafi to power and
overthrew the monarchy.
9/11 inside job "impossible to conceal," says Vladimir Putin
"Claims that the terror attacks of September 11,
2001 were orchestrated by US intelligence agencies are "complete
nonsense," Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told attendees of a youth
forum"
How the War on Terrorism Did Russia a
Favor
Simon Shuster
"Putin, who had been the first to call Bush with
his sympathy after learning of the 9/11 attacks, graciously offered to
help with the invasion of Afghanistan"
Putin: Russia warned U.S. of Iraq terror
"Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country
warned the United States several times that Saddam Hussein's regime was
planning terror attacks on the United States and its overseas interests"
REPORT: IRAN ACCUSES RUSSIA OF GIVING ISRAEL CODES FOR SYRIAN AIR DEFENSES
Yasser Okbi, Maariv Hashavua
According to the source, Damascus and Tehran "were
shocked" every time the Russian-made air defense system did not work to
defend Syria's airspace, or even give notification that the air space
had been penetrated in order to evacuate outposts prior to the
airstrike. The systems are supposed to identify the takeoff of Israeli
Air Force jets from their bases because of the small distance between
the countries and is even supposed to attempt to target the planes and
any missiles that are fired from them.
According to the source, three weeks ago, during
Iranian military maneuvers, Iranian engineers hacked into the codes of
the S-300, but when the Bavar-373 was not working in conjunction with
the Russian air defense system the experiment was suspended.
The source said further that the Iranian Defense
Ministry sent several engineers to Syria to change the codes of the air
defense system that was under the control of the Syrian army, without
Moscow's knowledge. "They succeeded in changing some of the codes last
month and therefore when the Israel fighter jets took off from their
bases - the air defense system succeeded in identifying them and firing
interceptor missiles at them and at the missiles they had launched."
Russia canceled S-300 deal with Assad,
report says
Ron
Friedman
Despite official statements to the contrary,
Russia will not transfer a shipment of advanced anti-aircraft missiles
to Syria, an unnamed senior Russian official has told London's Sunday
Times.
According to Sunday's report, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu managed to convince Russian President Vladimir Putin
of the risk such a deal posed to regional stability and Israeli
civilians, during a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi earlier
this month, leading to the cancelation of the planned sale of six S-300
batteries to Bashar Assad's regime.
In their meeting, Netanyahu reportedly warned
Putin that Moscow's sale of the sophisticated missile defense system to
Assad could push the Middle East into war, and argued that the S-300 had
no relevance to Assad's civil-war battles against rebel groups.
Netanyahu visits Moscow in secret to
obstruct Iran missile sale
Rory
McCarthy
Russia and Israel were both facing domestic
embarrassment today after it emerged that the Israeli prime minister,
Binyamin Netanyahu, had taken a secret trip to Moscow to persuade the
Russians not to sell anti-aircraft missiles to Iran.
Officials in Moscow and Jerusalem were left
backtracking after they initially denied media reports that Netanyahu
flew by private jet to Russia to discourage the Kremlin from giving the
Iranians Russia's advanced S-300 system
Israel, Russia to cooperate on foreign
troop exit from Syria - Netanyahu
Putin's Double Game in Syria:
Russian-Israeli Cooperation
Sean Jobst
Assorted Assad groupies and Putin cultists use as
"evidence" of Putin's alleged chess-playing hidden "maneuvering" against
Israel, his support for the Syrian government side in Syria's war. They
simply ignore all evidence to the contrary, not least of which they're
at a complete loss to explain why the Russian air force never engages
with Israeli planes attacking their alleged "allies" in Syria, including
this very week. Why is Putin always silent even in token criticism?
Much can be said about the Kremlin's role in
setting the stage for what later became ISIS, by exporting thousands of
extremists from its occupied territories in the Caucasus in 2013 and
2014, knowing full well they'd go to Syria. The flow of Russian-speaking
fighters has continued to ISIS and other armed Wahhabist groups in
Syria, yet we're supposed to believe this large number couldn't leave
the Russian borders without complicity from the security services?
Senior Russian Rabbi Says Putin's Ouster
Would Endanger Jews
Boroda's Federation is among several Russian
Jewish organizations that credit Putin for facilitating efforts to
re-consolidate Russia's Jewish community of 350,000 after decades of
communist repression.
Under Putin, dozens of synagogues have been
renovated with government support and a massive Jewish museum was opened
in Moscow with state funding.
"In Russia, there is virtually unlimited freedom
of religion and the Jewish community must ensure this situation
continues," Boroda said. "The support for religious institutions is
wider than in the United States and defense of Jews against
manifestations of anti-Semitism is greater than in other European
countries. We do not have the privilege of losing what we have achieved
and the support of the government for the community."
Russia-Israel Relationship
Transformed by Syria Conflict
Lidia Averbukh and Margarete Klein
The American Jews Who Are Proud to Be
Pro-Putin
Lev Stesin
An alarming number of Jews who fled authoritarian
Soviet Russia for America are now admirers of Mr. Putin, a peculiar show
of intellectual sclerosis and utter ethical failure
President Donald Trump is one more factor in these
shifting attitudes. Many Russian-speaking Jews have flocked en masse to
support him. His direct tone and 'toughness' fell on fertile ground.
Many abhor the Democratic Party in general and the radical tendencies of
its extreme left wing in particular. They tend to think of liberalism as
a modern-day reincarnation of Communism, and of Islam as a modern-day
Nazism and the biggest threat facing the world. Grey is not a color they
know: you're either with or against them.
The Democratic Order's Berezovsky Trap
Phil
Butler
It was Litvinenko the UK government and the
mainstream media said was "probably" ordered killed by Vladimir Putin.
But the other side of the story tells of two who were intricately
involved in the steeping criminal activity Boris Yeltsin essentially
resigned over, and the literal theft of the heritage of the Russian
people from the instant of perestroika onward. In a poisonous bit of
irony, a slew of Russian mafia outcasts and New World Order captains
have now fallen into the same game of blackmail and murderous betrayal,
or something my Dutch colleague Holger Eekhof refers to as "The
Berezovsky Trap".
The Berezovsky Trap Revisited: The Israel
Connection
Phil
Butler
The Russian mafia we've seen on TV is also known
as the "Red Octopus", but this organization is really the Jewish mafia
in disguise. The story you are reading comes full circle when you
research how the Jewish mafia has links to Mossad, the Rothschild
family, the Federal Reserve Bank, and to powerful Jewish organizations
such as AIPAC and the ADL. Like I mentioned, the Chuck
Schumer-Komorov-Ivankov association is one clue to how deep and
intricate this organization's "screws" go into the American system.
Laura Radanko, in her book "The Superpower of Crime", gives up the goods
on Russian Jews as instruments for Israeli aims:
"During the detente days of the early 1970s, when
Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev had agreed to allow the limited emigration
of Soviet Jews, thousands of hard-core criminals, many of them released
from Soviet Gulags by the KGB, took advantage of their nominal Jewish
status to swarm into the United States ."
https://journal-neo.org/2017/05/08/the-berezovsky-trap-revisited-the-israel-connection/
RUSSIAN OLIGARCH WANTED TO TURN MY JOKE
INTO REALITY
Jon
Schwartz
"Berezovsky also had another brilliant idea, which
to his regret Putin did not grasp: creating a fake two-party system,
with Putin at the head of a socialist-democrat sort of party and
Berezovsky leading a neoconservative one, or the other way around."
Here are Berezovsky's exact words, in an interview
with Gessen from 2008:
When Putin became president, I was for a long time
in a state of profound naiveté. Well, I went to him I told him:
"Listen, Volodya, what happened: we destroyed the entire political
space. Devoured, not destroyed, but devoured it. We absolutely dominated
Look, I'll suggest that we can not have effective political system, if
there's a tough competition. So I suggest we create an artificial
two-party system. So, let's say, the left and right. A Socially Oriented
party and neo-conservatives liberal party. Choose any. And I'll make
another party. At the same time, my own heart is closer to
neoconservatives, and I think so, you [Putin] are socially oriented. " I
earnestly believed then that he understood it. But I think that even
then he looked at me like I was crazy.
The Hidden Author of Putinism:
How Vladislav Surkov invented the new
Russia
Peter
Pomerantsev
There is no mention of holy wars in Surkov's
vision, none of the cabaret used to provoke and tease the West. But
there is a darkling vision of globalization, in which instead of
everyone rising together, interconnection means multiple contests
between movements and corporations and city-states -- where the old
alliances, the EUs and NATOs and "the West," have all worn out, and
where the Kremlin can play the new, fluctuating lines of loyalty and
interest, the flows of oil and money, splitting Europe from America,
pitting one Western company against another and against both their
governments so no one knows whose interests are what and where they're
headed.
Documentary - HyperNormalisation
Adam
Curtis
We live in a time of great uncertainty and
confusion. Events keep happening that seem inexplicable and out of
control. Donald Trump, Brexit, the War in Syria, the endless migrant
crisis, random bomb attacks. And those who are supposed to be in power
are paralysed - they have no idea what to do.
This film is the epic story of how we got to this
strange place. It explains not only why these chaotic events are
happening - but also why we, and our politicians, cannot understand
them.
It shows that what has happened is that all of us
in the West - not just the politicians and the journalists and the
experts, but we ourselves - have retreated into a simplified, and often
completely fake version of the world. But because it is all around us we
accept it as normal.
But there is another world outside. Forces that
politicians tried to forget and bury forty years ago - that then
festered and mutated - but which are now turning on us with a vengeful
fury. Piercing though the wall of our fake world.
Alternative links
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fh2cDKyFdyU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUiqaFIONPQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thLgkQBFTPw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fny99f8amM
PUTINISM: INTRODUCTION
Zarina Zabrisky
translation of excerpts from a blog Putinism As Is
by a Radio Svoboda analyst and blogger Artem Kruglov. In the light of
Helsinki Summit 2018 and Trump/Putin relationship, it is important to
know these facts of Putin's background.
"The group around Putin today is the same as the
one that brought him to power from St. Petersburg in the 1990s," wrote
celebrated author Karen Dawisha in her book Putin's Kleptocracy. In
today's political climate it is critical for the EU and US analysts,
journalists and general audience to understand the true origin and
background of the Russian mafia state. "In the 90s, gangsters and the
KGB fused into one structure," said Olga Litvinenko... This structure is
what we now call a mafia state. "Putin was never in business and he does
not have 'business associates,'" noted Nikita Kulachenkov, a forensic
accountant and political activist fighting against corruption in the
Russian government, has also served as a principal investigator at the
Anti-Corruption Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Moscow and
founded by Alexei Navalny. "Russian oligarchs do not own their fortunes.
They can't hide their money. They need the status quo and will fight for
it, using the mafia methods" -- even if it requires taking these mafia
methods to the West.
Read the profiles of Putin's allies. The
incomplete list of their achievements includes cocaine and heroin trade,
illegal arms trafficking, running prostitution rings, using child labor
for diamond mining, smuggling, extortion, assassinations, dismemberment,
blackmail, racketeering, theft, money-laundering and much more.
Is Israel becoming a mafia state?
Simona Weinglass
Some 25% of the revenue of Israel's lauded
high-tech sector comes from shady or fraudulent industries;
three-quarters of MKs are said to be in thrall to special interest
groups.
Israel has become one of the world's leading
exporters of investment scams, stealing an estimated $5 billion to $10
billion per year from victims worldwide.
Despite the fact that Israeli police recently
announced that these investment scams are largely run by organized
crime, which has grown to "monstrous proportions" as a consequence of
little to no law enforcement for years, the Israeli government,
parliament and authorities have to date proved unwilling or unable to
shut them down, in part because these fraudulent industries have a
powerful lobby in the Knesset.
How Russia's mafia is taking over
Israel's underworld
Billions invested in Israel
Former police chief Asaf Hefetz says £2.5bn ($4bn)
of organised crime money from the former Soviet Union has been invested
in Israeli real estate, businesses and banks in the past seven years.
Jewish-American organized crime
The History of the Jews and the Mob
Youtube video featuring Jewish 'tough guy' Myron
Sugerman, the "Last Jewish Gangster," running his mouth for an hour
complaining about antisemitism while bragging about their criminal
history. The deluded Sugerman spills the beans on how the Jewish mob
played in arming Jewish terrorists in the Middle-East.
Israeli Mafia
Out of prison, notorious Russian mobster
yearns to return home
Jake
Pearson
New York's most notorious living Russian (Jewish)
mobster just wants to go back to the motherland.
Once flush from heroin trafficking, tax fraud
schemes and other criminal enterprises, Boris Nayfeld is now 70, fresh
out of prison for the third time, divorced and broke. And he is left
with few job prospects in his adopted country, at least those in line
with his experiences.
"I can't do nothing," Nayfeld griped in a thick
Russian accent between shots of vodka at a restaurant a few blocks north
of Brooklyn's Brighton Beach neighborhood, which has been a haven for
immigrants from the former Soviet Union since the 1970s. "Give me a
chance to start a new life."
Human Trafficking: Russian Mafia and the
Israeli Connection
The illegal trafficking of human beings is a
growing international crime. Criminal groups have developed a brisk
trade selling tens of thousands of women into prostitution. The result
is virtual enslavement, as Attorney General John Ashcroft emphasized in
announcing new regulations for dealing with traffickers and their
victims. Russian mafia, and its connections in Israel, provide an
example of how the trade works.
The newspaper ad is hard to resist: a high paying
job as a waitress or secretary or model, and it helps to be young and
pretty.
For desperate women in the shrunken economies of
Russia, Ukraine, and other states of the former Soviet Union, the offer
from abroad is too good to be true, and of course it is not. But they do
not know that as they make their first contact with the elaborate
traffic in prostitution.
Sharp Increase in Sex Trafficking in
Years Since Israel Lifted Visa Restrictions
Or Kashti
Justice Ministry official says criminals are
bringing in women from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Russia and Georgia on
three-month tourist visas.
Esther
Hertzog and Erella Shadmi
Destination Israel for Sex 'Slaves'
Eric
Silver
"On the third night I was desperate," she says. "I
tried to break out. I shouted for help. But it was no use. Two men, who
spoke Russian with a Georgian accent, carted me off to a massage
parlour. When I refused to work there, they beat me up. They raped me,
punched my body, slapped my face. I agreed."
Israel becoming 'safe haven for
paedophiles' with laws that allow any Jews to legally return, activists
claim
Peter
Walker
14 Israelis suspected of running child
sex trafficking ring in Colombia
Toi Staff
Fourteen Israelis are suspected by Colombian authorities of running a
child sex trafficking ring which marketed tour packages from Israel to
the Latin American country aimed at businessmen and recently discharged
soldiers, according to reports on Monday..
Israeli who headed Colombia child
prostitution ring arrested in Portugal
An ex-Israeli soldier wanted in Colombia for
heading a child prostitution ring and sex trafficking offences has been
arrested in Portugal.
Forty-five-year-old Assi Ben-Mosh – also known as
Assi Moosh – was arrested near the Portuguese capital Lisbon on
Wednesday during an operation by Spain's Guardia Civil police force. The
Guardia Civil said in a statement that Ben-Mosh is thought to have been
hiding on the Spanish island of Ibiza, and then in Barcelona, before
eventually being arrested in Portugal this week. It added that Ben-Mosh
had been using a fake Israeli ID, the Times of Israel reported
yesterday.
Ben-Mosh is wanted by Colombian authorities for
running a child prostitution ring in the small fishing village of
Taganga, located on the South American country's Caribbean coast. He,
along with a group of ex-Israeli soldiers, reportedly turned the luxury
Benjamin Hostel into a "sex and drug den" in which more than 250
underage girls were subjected to sexual exploitation.
The shocking story of Israel's
disappeared babies
Jonathan
Cook
His biological parents - recent immigrants to
Israel from Tunisia - were told their child had died during delivery.
They were sent home without a death certificate and denied the chance to
see their baby's body or a grave.
A Field Guide to Israeli Organized Crime
Assaf Gur
Exploring an underworld of gambling, drug
trafficking, arms dealing, extortion, assassination, and corruption
'Israel's First Oligarch' Grigori Lerner
¦ How a Serial Criminal Got Help From an Israeli Government Minister
Gidi Weitz
and Maya Zinshtein
Immigrant Absorption Minister Sofa Landver pursued
business ties with serial criminal Gregory Lerner. Her former chief of
staff had links to Alexei Zakharenko, a Russian tycoon who disappeared
two years ago. New facts from police files, published here for the first
time.
He also admitted to receiving $37 million
fraudulently from Mostroy, a Russian bank, establishing a series of
straw companies that he controlled, and committing numberless forgeries.
He admitted to having defrauded Semion Mogilevich, who holds Russian and
Israeli citizenship and is high on the FBI's most-wanted list.
Reputed Israeli Ecstasy Dealer Charged in
U.S.
NEW YORK - An Israeli, once reputedly the world's
most active ecstasy dealer, was extradited from Spain and charged in a
U.S. court Wednesday with recruiting women nightclub strippers as
couriers and laundering millions of dollars in cash.
Known as "The Fat Man," Oded Tuito was designated
as a drug kingpin by the U.S. government a year ago. He pleaded not
guilty in a U.S. District Court in Brooklyn to charges of supervising
the trafficking of millions of ecstasy pills to New York from Paris,
Brussels and Frankfurt.
Prosecutors accused Tuito, a 41-year-old Israeli
citizen who lived in New York, California and France before his arrest
in May 2001 in Barcelona of operating the international trafficking
scheme since 1997.
Israeli Organ-trafficking Ring Busted
Ukrainian police have smashed an Israeli-run
organ-trafficking network illegally recruiting organ donors to send
their body parts to Israel.
Ukrainian authorities said on Friday that twelve
people, most of them Israelis, were arrested for taking part in a scheme
to recruit organ donors from Ukraine and other former Soviet countries
via internet and transplant the organs into Israelis who had ordered
them in advance.
The network, which sought mostly kidneys, offered
as much as USD 10,000 per body part and according to Ukraine's interior
ministry most of the organ donors were impoverished young women.
The head of the ministry's department on human
trafficking, Yuriy Kucher, said the transplant surgeries, which cost up
to USD 200,000 an operation, were performed in Kiev, Azerbaijan and
Ecuador.
Israeli Organ Trafficking and Theft: From
Moldova to Palestine
Alison
Weir
The fact is, however, that Israeli organ
harvesting – sometimes with Israeli governmental funding and the
participation of high Israeli officials, prominent Israeli physicians,
and Israeli ministries – has been documented for many years. Among the
victims have been Palestinians.
Nancy Scheper-Hughes is Chancellor's Professor of
Medical Anthropology at the University of California Berkeley, the
founder of Organ Watch, and the author of scholarly books and articles
on organ trafficking. She is the pundit mainstream media call upon when
they need expert commentary on the topic.5
While Scheper-Hughes emphasizes that traffickers
and procurers come from numerous nations and ethnicities, including
Americans and Arabs, she is unflinchingly honest in speaking about the
Israeli connection:
"Israel is at the top," she states. "It has
tentacles reaching out worldwide."
Organ Trafficking: Anatomy of a network.
Israeli nexus #1
Robert Maxwell
Organ Trafficking: Anatomy of a network. Israeli
nexus #1
Israeli organ trafficker walks free in
Cyprus
An
Israeli man convicted of international human organ trafficking walked
free on Tuesday, after Russian authorities failed to challenge a Larnaca
judge who dismissed an extradition request.
Gangsters of the Mediterranean
Seb
Rotella
In hundreds of telephone calls intercepted during
the year before Petrov's arrest in 2008, Spanish investigators listened
as the mob boss chatted with powerful businessmen, notorious criminals
and high-level officials in the government of Vladimir Putin. During one
trip to Russia, Petrov called his son to say he had just met with a man
who turned out to be the Russian defense minister -- and to report that
they had sorted out a land deal, the sale of some airplanes, and a
scheme to invest in Russian energy companies.
Britain's contribution to fighting Russian organised crime is 'less than
negative', says renowned prosecutor
Tom
Embury-Dennis
Britain's contribution to fighting Russian
organised crime is "less than negative", one of Europe's leading
prosecutors has said.
Jose Grinda, hailed as the man who "brought down
the Russian mafia in Spain", condemned the UK's lack of cooperation in a
fight which has gone increasingly global.
"We have a wonderful relationship with the United
States," the Spanish prosecutor told The American Interest magazine.
"However we have a very serious problem in fighting organised crime with
the UK.
The truth behind McMafia: London is 'the
jurisdiction of choice' for Russian crime gangs
Robert Verkaik
"Unfortunately, London has become the global
centre for laundering the money and reputations of Russian organised
criminals. McMafia brings that realisation into the living rooms of
people all over the country. Hopefully, this will actually lead to some
political change and tougher rules in the future."
Russians kill Dublin drugs lord in Spain
Henry
McDonald
Russian mafia hitmen shot dead Dublin gangland
member Paddy Doyle on the Costa del Sol, senior gardai claimed this
weekend
Doyle, the survivor of a vicious criminal turf war
in south Dublin which has claimed at least 10 lives, was gunned down in
Estepona last Monday. Veteran detectives with the Garda Siochana's
'Operation Anvil', the drive against Dublin's crime gangs, said the
27-year-old had beaten up a close relative of a Russian mafia leader
based on the southern Spanish coastline.
'From what our Spanish colleagues have told us,
this was a professional Russian hit. There were 13 shots and we don't
think they wasted a bullet. It has a military-trained assassin written
all over it, possibly ex-special forces,' a senior detective told The
Observer. 'The intelligence coming back from the Costa del Sol is that
Paddy Doyle crossed the Russian mafia, which is something you do there
at your peril.'
Cold blood: Shocking CCTV footage of
Kinahan enforcer's murder
Owen
Conlon and Stephen Breen
THIS is the moment the Kinahans' main enforcer met his end at the hands
of Russian gangsters -- with the blessing of his old boss Christy.
WATCH: RUSSIAN MAFIA LEADER ARRESTED ON
SPAIN'S COSTA DEL SOL WHILE 'PLOTTING GANG RIVAL'S MURDER'
Luke
Madeira
One of the leaders is said to be third-in-command
of the mafia and was arrested as the group held a meeting in which they
were said to be planning the assassination of a rival gang leader.
According to El Correo, the planned assassination
of a rival gang leader was to warn other clans of their strength in
Europe.
The suspects were also thought to have been trying
to restructure the organisation after Policia Nacional arrested 129
members of the clan in June, including seven highly ranked members.
The investigation was then reopened in July after
a former leader of a criminal gang in Lithuania was spotted in Marbella.
Roman Abramovich invests $10m in StoreDot
June 15, 2014 | According to reports by the "Wall
Street Journal" Russian billionaire and Chelsea Football Club owner
Roman Abramovich invested $10 million in StoreDot. StoreDot is an
Israeli startup producing electronics using bio-organic materials and
recently made a splash in the headlines when it revealed a method for
charging a Samsung smartphone in 30 seconds. The investment was carried
out through Abramovich's asset management company Millhouse LLC, making
this is the second investment of the firm in Israel.
Israeli crowd-funding company i-Angels
raises $2.25M from Millhouse Capital.
March 25, 2015 | Israeli crowd-funding company
iAngels has raised $2.25 million in a seed round led by investment firm
Millhouse Capital, which is owned by Russian billionaire Roman
Abramovich. iAngels enables private investments in early-stage startups.
It was founded in 2013 by Mor Assia and Shelly Hod Moyal.
Roman Abramovich invests in AltaIR
October 26, 2015 | Millhouse Capital, the
investment fund owned by Roman Abramovich is investing an undisclosed
amount in AltaIR, the venture capital firm led by Russian-Austrian
investor Igor Ryabenkiy. AltaIR has already invested in almost 80
companies from Israel, the US, Europe and Australia. Among its early
stage investments in Israel are Gbooking, Crowdx, Klear, and Correlor.
Oligarch Roman Abramovich Leads $21m
Investment in Startup AnyClip
Inbal Orpaz
Russian-British billionaire Roman Abramovich is
deepening his presence in Israeli high-tech, leading a $21 million
investment round in the start-up AnyClip Media.
Russian Internet Giant Yandex Acquiring
Israeli Geolocation Startup KitLocate
Inbal
Orpaz
Yandex, a Russian Internet company that operates
the country's most popular search engine, said on Tuesday that it was
acquiring Israel's KitLocate and plans to turn the startup into the
basis a research and development center for an undisclosed price.
Israeli social analytics startup Klear
secures $1.5 million from Altair and TMT
Israeli startup Klear, formerly known as Twtrland,
has raised $1.5 million in new funding from Altair and TMT Investments,
two international venture funds with Russian backers.
The company defines its product as "a social
intelligence platform that helps you do smarter marketing." It has
rebranded to Klear, since the platform now looks at data from Facebook
and Instagram in addition to Twitter, and plans to integrate other
social networks, including Pinterest, Google Plus, and LinkedIn,
TechCrunch notes.
BILLIONAIRE ROMAN ABRAMOVICH REVEALED AS
$30M. TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY DONOR
Greer Fay Cashman
Yandex: Tool of Russian Disinformation
and Cyber Operations in Ukraine
Sergey Sukhankin
The recent decision by Ukrainian President Petro
Poroshenko to ban popular Russian social networks VKontakte (VK) and
Odnoklassniki, on May 15 (see EDM, June 7), provoked serious debate both
inside Ukraine and abroad. Now that the initial anxiety over that ban
has somewhat subsided, it is worth analyzing other, less commented-on
but no less important, elements of the decree.
Aside from social networks, Poroshenko's May 15
decree bans Russian Internet search engine giant Yandex, some
information technology (IT) programs, as well as anti-virus software
(including Kaspersky and Doctor Web) that have allegedly been
undermining Ukrainian information and cyber security. According to
Colonel Oleksandr Tkachuk, from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU),
approximately 300 of the largest Ukrainian companies and corporations
use Russian IT programs "directly controlled by the Russian Federal
Security Service [FSB]" (Espreso.tv, April 27). Moreover, the Ukrainian
side has suffered huge financial losses as a direct result of using
Russian products. In his interview, the head of the information security
division of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine,
Valentin Petrov, noted that Ukraine annually spends approximately one
billion hryvnas (roughly $39 million) on Russian IT and software
products (Ukrinform.ua, May 17).
Russia's Billionaire Usmanov Among
Investors Of Uber Taxi Service
USM Holdings owned by Russia's business magnate
Alisher Usmanov and his partners is one of investors of the popular Uber
taxi service, a source close to the company told TASS on Sunday.
The official representatives of USM and Uber in
Russia have declined to comment on the reports.
Uber is an international transportation network
company that develops mobile app for requesting trips with personal
drivers. The company provides services in 360 cities in 64 countries of
the world.
In Russia, the company began operations in 2013.
In October 2015, Uber said it planned to launch services in all Russian
million-strong cities this year. The value of the car-booking company is
estimated at $62.5 billion, CNBC reported earlier this month citing
sources.
USM Holdings Ltd. is an international company that
has assets in metals and mining industry, telecommunications, the
Internet and mass media. USM's main shareholders are Alisher Usmanov,
Vladimir Skoch and Farhad Moshiri. Usmanov has earlier invested in
Apple, Facebook, Alibaba, JD.com and other high-technology companies.
VK taken over by the Kremlin claims
founder Pavel Durov.
Durov started VKontakte, later known as VK, in
2006, which was initially influenced by Facebook.[16] During the time
when he and his brother Nikolai built upon the VKontakte website, the
company grew to a value of $3 billion.[5]
In 2011, he was involved in a standoff with police
in St. Petersburg when the government demanded the removal of opposition
politicians' pages after the 2011 election to the Duma; Durov posted a
picture of a dog with his tongue out wearing a hoodie and the police
left after an hour when he did not answer the door.[15][16]
In 2012, Durov publicly posted a picture of
himself extending his middle finger and calling it his official response
to Mail.ru's efforts to buy VK.[15] In December 2013, Durov was
pressured[vague] into selling his 12% of VK stock to Ivan Tavrin, the
owner of the major Russian internet company Mail.ru,[5] who subsequently
sold it to Mail.ru, giving it 52% majority ownership of VK. In 2014,
Mail.ru bought all remaining shares and became the sole owner of
VK.[17][18]
Durov then claimed the company had been
effectively taken over by Vladimir Putin's allies,[23][24] suggesting
his ouster was the result of both his refusal to hand over personal
details of users to federal law enforcement and his refusal to hand over
the personal details of people who were members of a VKontakte group
dedicated to the Euromaidan protest movement.[23][24] Durov then left
Russia and stated that he had "no plans to go back"[24] and that "the
country is incompatible with Internet business at the moment".[3]
Mossad Launches New Social Media Account
on VKontakte to Recruit Russians
Mossad is known for being a very secretive spy
agency responsible for intelligence collection, covert operations and
counterterrorism. Its director reports directly to the Prime Minister.
A new group called "Mossad" has appeared on
Vkontakte. According to information on the group's page anyone who wants
to "say something" should click on the link provided below.
Usmanov's Mail.ru Israeli technology connections.
Israeli mobile video platform secures $2 million from Mail.ru Group
Magisto, an Israeli cloud-based mobile video platform, announced on
Friday a $2 million investment from Mail.Ru Group, the LSE-listed
Russian Internet giant. The investment is designed to fuel further
growth and customer acquisition.
In addition, Magisto has integrated its offering into Odnoklassniki.ru,
a subsidiary of Mail.Ru Group and the second largest social network in
Russia with 33 million daily unique visitors.
Image recognition startup Cortica nabs $1.5M from Russian tech leader
Mail.Ru
Now the startup will have backing from Mail.Ru, which has a major
presence in the Russian-speaking markets. Mail.Ru Group claims that its
sites reach 86 percent of Russian-speaking Internet users every month.
It operates top Russian email service Mail.Ru, two of the largest IM
services (Mail.Ru Agent and ICQ), and two of the three largest Russian
social networking sites (My World and Odnoklassniki.ru). Additionally,
it owns a minority equity stake in top Russian social network Vkontakte.
"We are really excited to work with Mail.Ru Group," Cortica CEO and
co-founder Igal Raichelgauz said in a statement. "Mail.ru shares our
vision for leveraging Image2Text technology for visual search and
contextual advertising and taking users' web surfing experience to a
whole new level."
Cortica was founded in 2007 and has employess in New York City,
Sunnyvale, Calif. and Israel.
https://www.cortica.com/
-
The first AI capable of human-level image understanding.
ARCHIMEDICX Announces Partnership with Mail.Ru Group, Providing
Millions with Access to the Best Medical Care in the World
a big data search engine for specialized medical facilities around the
world, is announcing a partnership with Mail.Ru Group, the largest
internet company in Russia. Mail.Ru Group will integrate ARCHIMEDICX
onto its platform on Health Mail.Ru (the most popular health portal in
Russia), allowing any user who searches for medical problems to use the
ARCHIMEDICX search engine. Together, they will provide millions of users
with vast information about the top treatment facilities in the world.
Billionaire Alisher Usmanov's partnership
with Alibaba reveals his strategy for survival in the era of sanctions
Russian oligarchs are making difficult decisions
in the face of possible new sanctions. Some are trying to do everything
to distance themselves from those in the Kremlin. While others are doing
the exact opposite and getting as close to the authorities as they can.
The best example of the latter is Alisher Usmanov, who -- on his 65th
birthday no less -- announced a deal fully in line with the government's
aim to build economic ties with China. On September 11,
telecommunications giant Megafon (partially owned by Usmanov), internet
group Mail.ru Group (Usmanov owns 15% via Megafon), and the Russian
Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced the creation of a joint venture
with Alibaba Group.
Usmanov publicly supports the "digital
transformation" announced by Putin, a key part of the president's
election campaign. Together with state conglomerate Rostec and
Gazprombank, Usmanov in May announced the creation of a new digital
company, MF Technology. Usmanov has also talked about a joint investment
fund. All of this, of course, makes Usmanov very vulnerable to
sanctions. But the billionaire has likely earned what he was probably
fighting for in the first place: the Kremlin's loyalty. On his last
birthday, Usmanov received a personal telegram from Putin.
Kazakh Rakishev is a lead investor of Russian VC who held major stake in
Mobl
i
Rakishev is the lead investor of Fastlane
Ventures, a Russian tech development company, he held a major stake in
the Israeli visual media platform Mobli, and invested in the Russian
bank card and loyalty program company IQcard. Rakishev is Chairman of
Net Element International, a global technology group based in the US
that specializes in value-added transaction services and mobile
payments.
The whole truth about Kenes Rakishev
Rakishev and Imangal Tasmagambetov
It is believed that in part Kenes Rakishev is a
nominal figure. In reality, all the assets and billions that he
allegedly owns belong to the higher elite of Kazakhstan, which uses
Kenes as a screen. It's about the test of Rakishev Imangale
Tasmagambetov,
Timur Kulibayev (the head of Kazakhstan's
Nursultan Nazarbayev), the head of the KNB Karime Massimov. Rakishev
himself categorically denies such statements, assuring himself that he
has achieved everything himself, thanks to his talents. And here is that
he says under oath about his test Tasmagambetov. .
Moshe Hogeg, Singulariteam partners (Rakishev) sued for $50m
"Embezzlement of tens of millions of shekels"
"Forbes Magazine" named Rakishev as one of the 50
most influential people in Kazakhstan, with wealth in excess of $2
billion. According to the statement of claim, Chen, a director in IDC
Holdings, was a consultant in enterprises led by Singulariteam,
including stox.com.
The manager of Singulariteam in 2014 was Adi
Sheleg, a former shares trader who turned state's witness in the IDB
share offering case, in which Nochi Dankner was later convicted of share
manipulation. Singulariteam's chairperson in 2014 was former Prime
Minister Ehud Olmert, who was convicted of accepting a bribe in the
Hazera Genetic case in 2015. Olmert served 18 months in prison in
2016-2017 for this conviction. Singulariteam's current chairperson is
Hogeg.
Lev Leviev claims to have personally
appointed 8 of 18 members of the Knesset.
In this article we give an entertaining
conversation Berezovsky and Roman Abramovich, the current billionaire,
and then "key holder" from the Treasury of WOMEN. Abramovich says that
yesterday, when they were at Chernomyrdin, Polezhaev showed him
(Berezovsky) a letter addressed to Yeltsin. Polezhaev spoke by A.
Korabelshikov, he said that to meet the President now impossible, but
he'll talk to Livshits, who must give this letter. Abramovich asked
whether Berezovsky to deliver the letter to Livshits, he replies in the
affirmative. Abramovich reports that yesterday he met Levayev. Levayev
said that he is great friends with Netanyahu and if it is necessary that
Netanyahu spoke in support of Yeltsin, he (Levayev) can organize.
Levayev also said that of the 18 members of the Israeli government, he
personally appoints 8, including the Minister of energy. So they will
have plans there
Russia oligarch and Pres. of Israeli
Jewish Congress, Vladimir Slutsker is a serious criminal
If analysts immediately suspected in this contract
murder the political underpinnings, the investigation initially
stubbornly clung to only the version of the connection of the crime with
the commercial activities of the retired general. The son of the
murdered, Boris Trofimov, then also suggested that his father's
involvement in the conflict between the owners of the company, Vladimir
Slutsker and Ambartsum Safaryan, who at that time was very tense,
divided.
Criminal list of Mikhail Fridman (Alfa Bank, Genesis Prize, CFR)
"Mikhail Fridman - Friend of Bibi,
Putin and linked to Trump, allegedly. Dual citizen of Israel and
Russia." - Jon Swinn
Part 1 -
https://rucriminal.info/en/material/664?hl=israel
Is Jewish Oligarch the Cyber Link Between
Donald Trump and Russia?
Larry Cohler-Esses
Is a Russian Jewish oligarch with Israeli
citizenship and close ties to both Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu
running a secret cyber-communications channel between Donald Trump's
presidential campaign and Russian authorities?
That question, about billionaire Mikhail Fridman,
is at the heart of a new and detailed investigative report by Franklin
Foer, the former editor of The New Republic, published Tuesday on the
news website Slate.
According to a story published in The New York
Times just hours after Foer's report went live, FBI investigators looked
into -- and ultimately came to doubt -- evidence that a mysterious server
registered to the Trump Organization was receiving regular covert email
communiqués from two servers registered to Fridman's Alfa Bank, the
largest commercial bank in Russia.
Tea Pain - Alfa Bank server connection to Trump Tower
Trump Tower's "Stealth Russian Data Machine"
Jared Kushner is currently taking a victory lap, crowin' about his
"Stealth Data Machine" that put Donald Trump over the top in the 2016
race. Let's pry off the lid and peer into the inner-workings of this
"Data Machine."
Major Alfa Bank-Trump Tower Breakthrough!
The funny thing about mysteries is
sometime the answer is starin' you right in the face so intently you
can't see it. A year ago, Tea Pain saw a signal in the noise that got
him lookin' into the mystery of the Trump Tower/Alfa Bank server
scandal.
Trump Tower's "Stealth Russian Data
Machine"
Mikhail Fridman's bank is linked to
financing the installation of nuclear reactors in Iran.
Tara
Palmeri
Fridman's Alfa Bank provided financing
throughout the 2000s to Atomstroyexport, the state-owned Russian nuclear
vendor that installed the reactors at Bushehr, according to reports.
DIAMOND KINGS, LUXURY CONDOS, CORRUPT
COPS AND CHINESE SPIES
Zarina Zabrisky
In 2008, a self-pronounced Putin's friend,
USSR-born Israeli Lev Leviev sold $710 million in Manhattan real estate
to a subsidiary of the infamous 88 Queensway Group.
In 2011, Blackstone bought 51% of one of three
properties, the old New York Times Building. In 2015, Jared Kushner's
company bought the remaining 49%.
The Mueller Report, Alfa Bank, and the
Deep State
Peter Dale
Scott
As the Guardian reported in 2002, Alfa's 1990s
clout in Washington was demonstrated when its oil company, Tyumen,
was loaned $489m in credits by the US
Export-Import Bank after lobbying by Halliburton . The [Clinton] White
House and State Department tried to veto the Russian deal. But after
intense lobbying by Halliburton the objections were overruled on Capitol
Hill [which then was Republican controlled] . The State Department's
concerns were based on the fact that Tyumen was controlled by a holding
conglomerate, the Alfa Group, that had been investigated in Russia for
mafia connections.
Fridman is behind Alfa group
Russia-Israel investments
Netanyahu's 'list of millionaires'
List of potential donors prepared by
then-opposition leader in 2007 provides peek into his fundraising
industry in US. Officials include extreme rightists, people who got in
trouble with law.
Included in the list of prominently Jewish
millionaires and billionaires appears the name 'Donald Trump'.
Genesis Prize: Flattering Oligarchs and
Laundering Their Ill-Gotten Gains
Richard
Silerstein
Among the oligarchs are Mikhail Fridman (net
worth, $18-billion and 46th on Forbes list of the richest people in the
world and second richest Russian) and some of his cronies, Petr Aven
(chairman of Alfa Bank, Russia's largest commercial bank) and Stan
Polovets (who made his billions in Russian energy). Here's a Foreign
Policy article from way back in 2000, detailing how these crooks
stripped assets and stole billions.
" Asset-stripping has also victimized major
international oil companies. In a highly publicized case, [Mikhail]
Fridman's Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) allegedly stole Sidanko's most
valuable assets by manipulatinig the bankruptcy process. According to
defrauded Sidanko shareholders (who include BP Amoco), the theft was
carried out through the corrupt appointment of a TNK-friendly receiver,
the unlawful reduction of the claims of major creditors such as the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (in which the United
States holds shares), and a rigged bankruptcy "auction" in which only
TNK-affiliated companies could bid."
Psy Group sister company controlled by
Russian billionaire
Scott
Stedman
A month-long investigation into the corporate
structure of the private intelligence company that met with Donald Trump
Jr., Erik Prince, and George Nader in the middle of the 2016 election
campaign has revealed that a sister company of Psy Group is controlled
by a Russian billionaire.
Investigation links Psy Group to
Macedonian Troll Farms
Justin
Hendrix
New Knowledge also looks closely at "Kris
Crawford," another Facebook account PSY-Group used in the pitch material
obtained by the Wall Street Journal.
While he appears to be an American man, Crawford's
URL suggests his Facebook page used to belong to a "Martina Jakimovska."
"Looking through the 'Kris Crawford's' account history it's still
possible to see when Martina updated her profile photo and used Facebook
to check in at a location in Macedonia," New Knowledge notes.
The fake news machine: Inside a town
gearing up for 2020
Veles used to make porcelain for the whole of
Yugoslavia. Now it makes fake news.
This sleepy riverside town in Macedonia is home to
dozens of website operators who churn out bogus stories designed to
attract the attention of Americans. Each click adds cash to their bank
accounts.
The scale is industrial: Over 100 websites were
tracked here during the final weeks of the 2016 U.S. election campaign,
producing fake news that mostly favored Republican candidate for
President Donald Trump.
Meet the shady Putin crony funding
Russia's troll farm and mercenary army
Zack Beauchamp
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the man widely
referred to as "Putin's chef," doesn't actually prepare food. Instead,
he cooks up international plots -- like Russia's campaign to use social
media to undermine Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign and promote Donald
Trump's.
Prigozhin was among the 13 Russian nationals
indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in February and is by far the
most well-known. His ties to Putin go back to at least 2001: He's worked
on everything from election interference to setting up pro-Putin
newspapers to sending Russian mercenaries to Syria to fight on behalf of
Bashar al-Assad's regime.
A recent Washington Post report says that he
personally approved a Russian mercenary attack on US forces stationed in
eastern Syria in early February; US intelligence, per the Post,
intercepted a conversation where he promoted the idea.
"Putin's chef" would be better described as
Putin's fixer: someone who does the Russian leader's dirty work, while
giving Putin plausible deniability if things go wrong
Deeper Than Blackwater
Jon Swinn
Utkin became the CEO of Concord Management and
Consulting LLC, which belongs to the Concord company group and is
co-owned by Yevgeny Prigozhin.[8]
Prigozhin, or "Putin's chef" as he is also known,
is among the 13 Russian nationals indicted by special counsel Robert
Mueller for his connections to troll farms involved in an operation to
assist U.S. President Donald Trump win the 2016 Presidential election.
According to the indictment , Mueller accuses troll farm company
Internet Research Agency employees of "posing as U.S. persons and
creating false U.S. personas, operating social media pages and groups
designed to attract U.S. audiences."[9]
Prigozhin's Concord Management is directly
involved with the administration of troll farm Internet Research Agency,
according to documents published by hackers from Anonymous
International.[10]
Understanding Krysha
The Putin-Prigozhin relation is great example of
the "Krysha" concept. Krysha means roof and is a slang word for
protection. In exchange for contracts with the Kremlin, oligarchs such
as Prigozhin work on behalf of the Mafiya State.[11]
Internet Research Agency
Kremlin-linked Billionaire, Netanyahu
Friend Donated to Trump's Private Legal Fund
Len Blavatnik, who made his fortune in the former
Soviet Union in the oil business, appears on a legal defense fund list
uncovered by the Wall St. Journal
A Soviet-born billionaire who is considered close to Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu donated to a private legal defense fund for U.S.
President Donald Trump, the Wall Street Journal revealed.
Israel questions PM's billionaire friend
over corruption charges
Israeli police are to fly to London today to
question billionaire businessman Len Blavatnik in relation to corruption
charges facing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to
Haaretz.
The Soviet-born media investor will primarily be
questioned as to whether Netanyahu was involved in the sale of a
television channel in 2015 to Arnon Mozes, publisher of Israeli daily
Yedioth Ahronoth, as part of "Case 2000". It is alleged that Netanyahu
tried to negotiate a deal with Mozes, offering legislation that would
impede the activities of Mozes' rival paper, Israel Hayom, in return for
more favourable media coverage of the prime minister and his policies.
Blavatnik's ties to the Bronfmans.
Blavatnik's the Bronfman Buyer! Oil
Tycoon Spills $50 M.-Plus for Townhouse
Every kvetching New Yorker wants more
space. But only a Russian-born, Harvard-trained oil tycoon would want
more legroom than a 14-room Fifth Avenue co-op (bought just this year
for $27.5 million) and an East 63rd Street palace (bought two years ago
for $31.25 million).
Those properties didn't content Len
Blavatnik. According to two sources, he's the buyer for Seagram heir
Edgar Bronfman Jr.'s 31-foot-wide townhouse at 15 East 64th.
Time Inc. Shares Rise After Reported Buyout Bid from Bronfman,
Blavatnik
Edgar Bronfman Jr. and billionaire
investors reportedly offered $18 a share for Time.
Shares of Time Inc. were soaring as
much as 20 percent ahead of the closing bell on Monday after the New
York Post reported that the parent of magazines like People, Sports
Illustrated and Time had turned down an acquisition offer from Edgar
Bronfman Jr., Leonard Blavatnik and Ynon Kreiz.
Billionaire Len Blavatnik Buys Warner Music Group (From Bronfman) For
$3.3 Billion
Mikhail Fridman
The oligarchs behind Alfa-Access-Renova (AAR)
include Fridman.At 47, he has an estimated wealth of $15.1bn, making him
Russia's seventh richest man.
Fridman and Peter Aven founded the Alfa Group
Consortium – a holding company which controls Alfa Bank, Alfa Capital,
Tyumen Oil, several construction material firms and a supermarket chain.
Len Blavatnik
The multibillionaire recently agreed to pay $3.3bn
for Warner Music via his industrial holding company Access Industries.
Blavatnik is a major petrochemicals investor, but has occasionally
bought media assets. Access has a controlling stake in Top Up TV, the
pay-TV business.
Born in the Soviet Union in 1957, he emigrated
with his family to the US in 1978. He lives in New York and London,
where he has a home in Kensington Palace Gardens.
Viktor Vekselberg
Ukraine-born oil and metals baron Vekselberg is
overseeing a turnaround at aluminium giant UC Rusal, which he formed
with fellow billionaire, Oleg Deripaska. Made first million selling
scrap copper from old cables. In the 1990s together with fellow
billionaire Leonard Blavatnik bought aluminum smelters to form a company
called Sual. Consummate dealmaker also has interests in chemicals,
utilities and telecoms.
Owns Fabergé egg collection.
German Khan
A native of Kiev, graduated from the Moscow
Institute of Steel and Alloys in 1988. The next year, with former
classmate Fridman, co-founded Alfa-Eco, a commodities trader and
predecessor of Alfa Group. Heads Alfa Group's oil business as executive
director and board member of oil company TNK-BP. He enjoys hunting and
has a large collection of sporting guns and rifles.
MOSCOW'S SECRET WEAPON: THE ISRAELI
MOSSAD AND THE ZIONIST CULTS
Putin met with the Exxon Mobil CEO,
Jewish organisation leaders in Washington
Russia and Israel's Technion Agree to
Launch Satellite in Joint Venture
Russia and the Technion-Israel Institute of
Technology in Haifa have agreed to a joint venture that will launch a
satellite into space in 1995.
After a five-member delegation arrived here to
finalize details of the venture, the agreement was signed Monday between
the Technion and the Russian STC Complex. The Russian firm was
established in 1991 to convert Soviet military technology into Russian
civilian enterprises.
The Gurwinl-TechSat communications satellite was
designed and built over a period of three years at a cost of $3.5
million. The satellite is scheduled to be launched into space in March,
along with two other satellites from a site about 560 miles from Moscow.
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That looks like vast and generally incorrect exaggeration. While China mode substantial
progress in catching up with the West, the technology is still dominated by the West.
But as technological revolution is slowing down and in some areas coming to the end (die size
in semiconductors in one example; it is impossible to shrink it further; smartphones reached
saturation level, and hardware wise their capabilities are far above what a regular user needs or
wants) it is easier for other countries to catch up.
In any case, the main reason for trade war with China is to try to slow down its
ascendance.
The problem for China is that China converted to neoliberalism, and as such (like Russia) is
subject to all the ills the neoliberal society tend to bring into the country. Including a very
high level of inequality.
And while backlash against neoliberalism is growing and in the USA
neoliberalism entered a prolong crisis with secular stagnation as the "new normal" , the question
is what is that alternative ? And while backlash against neoliberalism is growing and in the USA
neoliberalism entered a prolong crisis with secular stagnation as the "new normal" , the question
is what is that alternative ?
Notable quotes:
"... Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other means). ..."
"... Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it. But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world. ..."
"... China has more problems than the United States. Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, persecuting Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Indonesia and Malaysia because of Islam, Inner Mongolia separatists, Kashmir and India, USA trade pressure, Japan and South Korea are competitors. ..."
It is very popular these days to talk and write about the "trade war" between the United
States and China. But is there really one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a
clash of political and ideological systems : one being extremely successful and optimistic, the
other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?
In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one
should just look at the map of the globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the
United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents of natural resources,
holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as 'forced
labor', often bordering on slavery.
Under such conditions, it was very easy to be 'number one', to reign without competition,
and to toss around huge amounts of cash, for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and
overseas 'subjects' on topics such as the 'glory' of capitalism, colonialism (open and hidden),
and Western-style 'democracy'.
It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and
that included the 'economic system) used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were
created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods. One only needs
recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and
famines. Or other genocides in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first
against France, later against the United States.
*
Times changed. But Western tactics haven't.
There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some
Communist, others socialist or even populist, are ready to defend their citizens, and to use
the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.
No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using
its well-established propaganda machinery. First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to
directly liquidate them.
As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is
punishable by death.
Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity,
only. It was constructed on fear, oppression and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly
been a monopoly.
*
Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to
survive, defending they own cultures, and advancing their philosophies.
To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.
With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a
forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily productive society. Its scientific research is
now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia, China
excels in many essential fields.
That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.
For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any
major country, which would set up its own set of rules and goals.
China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient,
ideologically, politically, economically and intellectually. Where it is not fully
self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly, located
outside the Western sphere.
*
Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.
It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its
socialist motherland (applying "socialism with the Chinese characteristics" model). It is
trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of its history
(BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the "New Silk Road").
Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is
producing, at a higher pace and often at higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the
United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.
This is where the 'problem' arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to
a country that creates things for the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian,
African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce, where and for how much
to sell the produce. Or else!
Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its
corporations) desired. It was forcing countries all over the world, to buy its products. If
they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway)
overthrown.
The most 'terrible' thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China,
and for its citizens.
That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!
*
In the process, China 'competes'. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly
well. The same can be said about Russia.
These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could
sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy of the entire West, within a week.
But they don't even think about it.
However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance
scientific research, and use the gains to improve the lives of ordinary people (they will be no
extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and
Washington.
Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply
better, than those which are reigning in the West and its colonies. And because they are
working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.
And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are
horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake up and see the reality. Which is actually
already happening: slowly but surely.
*
To portray China as an evil country, is essential for the hegemony of the West. There is
nothing so terrifying to London and Washington as the combination of these words: "Socialism/
Communism, Asian, success". The West invents new and newer 'opposition movements', it then
supports them and finances them, just in order to then point fingers and bark: "China is
fighting back, and it is violating human rights", when it defends itself and its citizens. This
tactic is clear, right now, in both the northwest of the country, and in Honk Kong.
Not everything that China builds is excellent. Europe is still producing better cars, shoes
and fragrances, and the United States, better airplanes. But the progress that China has
registered during the last two decades, is remarkable. Were it to be football, it is China 2:
West 1.
Most likely, unless there is real war, that in ten years, China will catch up in many
fields; catch up, and surpass the West. Side by side with Russia.
It could have been excellent news for the entire world. China is sharing its achievements,
even with the poorest of the poor countries in Africa, or with Laos in Asia.
The only problem is, that the West feels that it has to rule. It is unrepentant, observing
the world from a clearly fundamentalist view. It cannot help it: it is absolutely, religiously
convinced that it has to give orders to every man and woman, in every corner of the globe.
It is a tick, fanatical. Lately, anyone who travels to Europe or the United States will
testify: what is taking place there is not good, even for the ordinary citizens. Western
governments and corporations are now robbing even their own citizens. The standard of living is
nose-diving.
China, with just a fraction of the wealth, is building a much more egalitarian society,
although you would never guess so, if you exclusively relied on Western statistics.
*
So, "trade war" slogans are an attempt to convince the local and global public that "China
is unfair", that it is "taking advantage" of the West. President Trump is "defending" the
United States against the Chinese 'Commies'. But the more he "defends them", the poorer they
get. Strange, isn't it?
While the Chinese people, Russian people, even Laotian people, are, 'miraculously', getting
richer and richer. They are getting more and more optimistic.
For decades, the West used to preach 'free trade', and competition. That is, when it was in
charge, or let's say, 'the only kid on the block'.
In the name of competition and free trade, dozens of governments got overthrown, and
millions of people killed.
And now?
What is China suppose to do? Frankly, what?
Should it curb its production, or perhaps close scientific labs? Should it consult the US
President or perhaps British Prime Minister, before it makes any essential economic decision?
Should it control the exchange rate of RMB, in accordance with the wishes of the economic tsars
in Washington? That would be thoroughly ridiculous, considering that (socialist/Communist)
China will soon become the biggest economy in the world, or maybe it already is.
There is all that abstract talk, but nothing concrete suggested. Or is it like that on
purpose?
Could it be that the West does not want to improve relations with Beijing?
On September 7, 2019, AP reported:
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the
U.S. standoff with Russia during the Cold War
"The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it,"
he said.
Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with
Russia. He noted that he worked in the Reagan administration: "I remember President Reagan
waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union."
Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of
the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won,
because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other
means).
Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it. But
China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to
defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one
day soon, do the same for the rest of the world.
US is hemorrhaging around $1.7 trillion dollars(according to the bond king) a year with
the “greatest economy ever” and near zero interest rate. Clearly, this is not
sustainable and can’t last much longer. When the jig is up, whoever has the most
guns(not gold) will prevail. .
China has more problems than the United States. Taiwan, Tibet, Hong Kong, persecuting
Uyghurs in Xinjiang, Indonesia and Malaysia because of Islam, Inner Mongolia separatists,
Kashmir and India, USA trade pressure, Japan and South Korea are competitors.
China has some bright spots with Pakistan, North Korea and a very open hand negotiated
with the African Union to colonize that continent etc. Russia is neutral but if it is to fall
it will probably be towards Europe not the East.
Vietnam is falling away leaving Myanmar and Cambodia. Thailand might already be a Western
proxy.
You've broken down nothing. China can sell somewhere else, since it makes all the stuff.
The US makes very little and will pay far more Chinese equivalent goods. Further, China's GDP
is now 80% domestically generated; of the remaining 20% export income, the US accounts for
only 30% of it, ie 6%. China can stand a loss of 6% easily. While the Americans, led the
Ape-in-Chief have been thumping their chests, the nimble Chinese have taken markets
everywhere, diversified their manufacturing bases and transportation systems. The US is
shouting at the Moon. Enjoy the tan...
'The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United
States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won,'
Really !!! have a read of Gulag Archipelago before you come out with anything this
stupid.
The author apparently has never been to China to know what their perspective is. Instead,
he is superimposing what western ideologs think it is. To Americans, it is political and
ideological struggle. To the Chinese, it's basic economics and the welfare of its people. The
Chinese know better than anyone else, what it was like being down in the gutter for almost
200 years, about the time the British showed up with their opium trade in the 1830's. The
Chinese have made great strides in the last 45 years to get their people out of poverty,
modernize, and build an industrialized economy that rivals any other economy in the world.
The truth is, it's a feat that Americans are tacitly envious of, and will do whatever it
takes to cut the Chinese down.
The problem is, America is not the shining example of success and exceptionalism it thinks
it is. It has fallen behind the power curve and isn't competitive any longer. Free trade is
far and away better in China than what you will find in America. Don't believe it? Go there
and see for yourself. Then ask yourself, why did the greater chunk of American manufacturing
left and went to China in the first place, (besides chasing cheap labor), If it wasn't for
free trade?
Many other countries don't share the same ideology or values with Americans either,
particularly when America can't provide for the welfare of its own people, so why would they
want to copy that model of decay?
attractive properties in shenzhen or any tier 1 chinese cities are in the millions or tens
of millions of dollars. not likely to jump higher anytime soon but whole lot of downside
potential. Vancouver is full up. why not seattle, DC or somewhere with "cheap" prices?
They have two alternatives to SWIFT - CIPS & NSPK. Further, both Russia and China are
using their own and local currencies in trade, bypassing not only SWIFT fees and delays, but
the USD exchange rate rip-off.
Frankly ZH readers are about 10 yrs behind the latest developments, hence the rednecks
ranting about their already lost cause. Do some research.
"So far, China has exercised restraint." ...because they don't want the world to see what
a truly monstrous regime runs that country...much like Israhell tries to silence and stifle
criticism of its monstrous racist and supremacist regime.
Meanwhile the West is on meds as it willingly takes the dagger someone is handing it to
enable it to commit suicide..
I wonder who is pulling strings in the background?
Canada and australia most certainly did NOT plunder the world, at anytime. We have all the
resources we will ever need,and we have never sought an empire. Don't try to drag us down
into your pit for company. It is your pit, along with Britain. Let the British keep you
company.
China "is ready to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of
misery"
China is very late to the game of "printing debt" It has taken the USA 100 years to
bankrupt itself. China with it's 350% of GDP has managed it in 30 years.
In the meantime, this post on Chile will hopefully fill in some of the gaps as well as
encourage readers who have insight to provide additional comments and highlight any points that
seem inaccurate or incomplete.
It's also worth noting that Pinochet's Chicago School experiment ran quickly into the ditch.
From ECONNED:
Chile has been widely, and falsely, cited as a successful "free markets" experiment. Even
though Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet's aggressive implementation of reforms that were
devised by followers of the Chicago School of Economics led to speculation and looting
followed by a bust, it was touted in the United States as a triumph. Friedman claimed in 1982
that Pinochet "has supported a fully free-market economy as a matter of principle. Chile is
an economic miracle." The State Department deemed Chile to be "a casebook study in sound
economic management."
Those assertions do not stand up to the most cursory examination. Even the temporary gains
scored by Chile relied on heavy-handed government intervention .
The "Chicago boys," a group of thirty Chileans who had become followers of Friedman as
students at the University of Chicago, assumed control of most economic policy roles. In
1975, the finance minister announced the new program: opening of trade, deregulation,
privatization, and deep cuts in public spending.
The economy initially appeared to respond well to these changes as foreign money flowed in
and inflation fell. But this seeming prosperity was largely a speculative bubble and an
export boom. The newly liberalized economy went heavily into debt, with the funds going
mainly to real estate, business acquisitions, and consumer spending rather than productive
investment. Some state assets were sold at huge discounts to insiders. For instance,
industrial combines, or grupos, acquired banks at a 40% discount to book value, and then used
them to provide loans to the grupos to buy up manufacturers.
In 1979, when the government set a currency peg too high, it set the stage for what Nobel
Prize winner George Akerlof and Stanford's Paul Romer call "looting" (we discuss this
syndrome in chapter 7). Entrepreneurs, rather than taking risk in the normal fashion, by
gambling on success, instead engage in bankruptcy fraud. They borrow against their companies
and find ways to siphon funds to themselves and affiliates, either by overpaying themselves,
extracting too much in dividends, or moving funds to related parties.
The bubble worsened as banks gave low-interest-rate foreign currency loans, knowing full
when the peso fell. But it permitted them to use the proceeds to seize more assets at
preferential prices, thanks to artificially cheap borrowing and the eventual subsidy of
default.
And the export boom, the other engine of growth, was, contrary to stateside propaganda,
not the result of "free market" reforms either. The Pinochet regime did not reverse the
Allende land reforms and return farms to their former owners. Instead, it practiced what
amounted to industrial policy and gave the farms to middle-class entrepreneurs, who built
fruit and wine businesses that became successful exporters. The other major export was
copper, which remained in government hands.
And even in this growth period, the gains were concentrated among the wealthy.
Unemployment rose to 16% and the distribution of income became more regressive. The Catholic
Church's soup kitchens became a vital stopgap.
The bust came in late 1981. Banks, on the verge of collapse thanks to dodgy loans, cut
lending. GDP contracted sharply in 1982 and 1983. Manufacturing output fell by 28% and
unemployment rose to 20%. The neoliberal regime suddenly resorted to Keynesian backpedaling
to quell violent protests. The state seized a majority of the banks and implemented tougher
banking laws. Pinochet restored the minimum wage, the rights of unions to bargain, and
launched a program to create 500,000 jobs.
Only a week after the huge mobilizations in Ecuador that successfully
toppled the controversial 'paquetazo', the financial plan imposed on the South American nation
by the International Monetary Fund, another Latin American country has risen up against the
economic policies of its government.
In a country where the minimum wage of 70% of the population barely reaches $700 USD per
month, the news from Chilean president Piñera last week that the fare for a metro ticket
in Santiago would rise from 800 Chilean Pesos to 830 ($1.15 USD) hit hard. Chile, a nation with
a long history of neoliberalism, has been unable to eradicate poverty with privatisation
policies, and it is estimated that around 36% of the urban population live in extreme
poverty.
The supposed "economic miracle" of Chile, which received its name from American economist
Milton Friedman, was a set of liberalising economic measures put in place during the
dictatorship of Pinochet, that imposed a free market in the country with the support from the
United States. This economic system, that continues to be implemented today in Chile, has
benefitted the economic elites whilst creating inequality and suffering for the majority. It's
hardly surprising that thanks to these neoliberal reforms promoted by Friedman, the 90s became
the lost decade of Latin America.
Tired of the economic policies of the government, students and citizens took to the streets
of Chile to protest against the rise in price of the metro ticket, but in reality this was just
the tip of the iceberg. They are in fact protesting against many other social issues such as
high tariffs for electricity and gas, low pensions, and a completely unaffordable health and
education system. Protesters burnt metro stations and public busses, and they looted
supermarkets and public buildings.
When Piñera spoke to the nation on Saturday evening to declare the suspension of the
increase in metro fare, it was already too late to contain the fury that had been unleashed.
Students and young people kept marching and demanding justice, whilst the government declared a
State of Emergency and sent the army to the streets.
That's why we explain to you everything you need to know about the current protests in Chile
and why this explosion of violence is so important in the region.
Police Violence and Democracy in Chile
It's not the first time that police use violence against their own citizens in Chile, a
country which has a long history of repression of the mapuche indigenous communities when they
rise up against the lack of government recognition of their territorial rights.
In fact, police violence against mapuche communities resulted in the murder of community
leader of only 24 years of age, Camilo Catrillanca, last year when he was passing through an
area in which a police operation was being carried out and suddenly found himself in the middle
of a shoot out. A stray bullet hit him in the head and murdered him instantly.
The protests that began in Santiago but that have now extended themselves across the
country, have so far caused around 11 deaths, mostly due to violence at the hands of the police
and the Chilean army. This display of state violence against citizens comes only 30 years after
the dictatorship of Pinochet murdered and disappeared over 40,000 Chileans during its reign of
terror. What's more, according to the National Institute for Human Rights in Chile, there have
been 84 firearm casualties and over 1420 people detained since the protests began last
week.
The reaction from Piñera has focussed on only the violent acts of the protesters,
contributing to the criminalisation of the right to protest in the country. "We have invoked
the Law of State Security, not against citizens, but against a handful of delinquents that have
destroyed property and dreams with violence and wickedness".
He justified police repression of protests by declaring that "democracy has a right to
defend itself", however, he also expressed his intentions to reach agreements to improve the
standard of living for the lower and middle classes of Chile. The actions of the police and the
army over the past week has shocked one of the most democratic countries in the world, and the
second most democratic of Latin America according to Freedom House.
Chile's high score for freedom of assembly and protest may be affected by the actions of the
state against its citizens this week, which seriously affect the right to protest by
criminalising all individuals involved.
Neoliberal Malaise Throughout the Region
Economic malaise in Chile is part of a regional trend that follows recent protests in
Ecuador, that also began as a product of frustration regarding the economic policies of
president Lenín Moreno.
Protests in Ecuador began as a reaction against a set of economic policies referred to as
the 'paquetazo', which were a series of austerity measures imposed on the country by the
International Monetary Fund in order to cut public spending and repay debts faster. This
included the elimination of fuel subsidies, public salary cuts, and huge holiday reductions for
public employees.
Civil society, but mainly indigenous groups led by the Confederation of Indigenous Groups of
Ecuador, took to the streets for weeks to protest against the measures, until president Moreno
declared that the 'paquetazo' would no longer be implemented.
Chileans, no doubt empowered by the recent protests in Ecuador, have also taken to the
streets with the same hopes: that they will achieve with their protests real change regarding
how their government manages the economy. They also make it clear that the poor management of
the economy and imposition of neoliberal policies have devastating and very human consequences
for the most disadvantaged of Latin America.
It's not only Chile and Ecuador that are facing massive citizen unrest in the region.
Haití is also rising up against the corrupt government of Jovenal Moïse and
demanding not only an explanation for what happened with millions of dollars received from
Venezuela, but also an end to neoliberal austerity policies backed by their northern neighbour,
the US.
The neoliberal model is in crisis, and these protests have clearly demonstrated this. Now,
what happens in Chile will depend on Piñera's capacity to negotiate real change, but if
he fails at doing so, it will be impossible to contain the rage that has already been unleashed
in a country where citizens are tired of injustice and inequality.
Piñera promised economic growth neolib style that has failed miserably.
Southamerica in general is suffering from reduced revenues on raw materials as predicted by
some economists. The former president, Bachelet had some success by increasing corps taxes
and using the proceeds to invest primarily in public education but her social policies fell
short on expectations. Whether MMT could have been applied to widen the scope of her social
policies to health care and other essential public services is something that should be
discussed. Back to Piñera, the very first days of protests, that were basically
dominated by students (workers joined later) Piñera accused them for being
"intransigent and violent" but has had to change his stance and protests widened and got
ample support. I think his change is cosmetic and he really doesn't have any idea in his
agenda that would help to ameliorate the problems. His message for students was simple: "in
life, nothing is for free" when he was defending his privatization plans for education.
Piñera is himself a billionaire.
The main slogan in the protests has been "it's not 30 pesos, it's 30 years". This is not
because the Chileans have their maths wrong (in spite of their abominably privatised
education system), but rather because those in the street are most immediately outraged at
the neoliberalism imposed since Pinochet's departure in 1990.
Yet, as usual, most of the commentary in the Anglophone left has predictably opted to
focus on 1973, because CIA meddling is so much more sexy and less threatening than
questioning the accepted economic orthodoxy imposed alternately by Piñera and
Bachelet's Concertación coalition. That said, the pictures of tanks in the street of
Santiago are bone-chillingly evocative of South America Past.
Viewed comfortably from the other side of the Andes, the Chileans have always seemed to
me– for various reasons including a truly brutal police apparatus– much less
effective at rising up against their oppressive governments than their immediate neighbours,
and they have the privatised education, healthcare and pensions, and rampant inequality to
show for it. So I personally am more sceptical that " it will be impossible to contain the
rage that has already been unleashed". I'll believe it, and rejoice, when I see it.
And one last bit of cold water on the celebratory bonfire: Ecuador's Lenín Moreno
immediately announced that he will be reformulating his hated IMF reforms package, so the
victory dance there is highly premature.
It's worth noting that the government and the parliament are quite lost as to why this
protests came about. This is not just about economic abuse, but rather widespread abuse which
can be seen in everything regarding the elite. Collusion, fraud and corruption in the
parliament, the judges, the national prosecution office, the army, the local police force,
the church, several industries, universities, and many more has been unveiled throughout the
last couple of years. And the outcome has been always the same: if it involves someone rich
or powerful, they are given a handslap and told not to do it again (and I mean it quite
literally: there are rich businessmen who have been forced to assist ethics classes as
punishment).
To top it off, the public education and healthcare system has degraded severely. And the
pension system has been unable to deliver for the average citizen, with half of the retired
people receiving less than USD $200 monthly on a country where prices for products and basic
services are on par with those on some European countries.
There are many important issues I'm leaving out, but for me that's the gist of it.
Not quite. If caught, USA courts will punish the elite. In Chile, Bernie Madoff would have
been off the hook just for the fact that he was rich and well connected.
Pepe Escobar has come out with an article laying the blame for all these troubles as being
due to neoliberalism and he makes an interesting case. He postulates that it will not be long
until Brazil is next and you wonder if these riots will confine themselves only to the South
American continent. Those in power always seem to forget a fundamental law – never
cheat a person that has nothing to lose!
Meanwhile, Bolivia shows what happens when a competent leader breaks out of the neoliberal
model. Prosperity for the nation, health and education for the poor. Evo talks like a Gaian
but rules like FDR. He's not afraid to exploit natural resources for the benefit of the
people.
Needless to say, we're working on regime change already, preparing to declare the
opposition leader Mesa as the "real president" of Bolivia, and then invading to enforce our
declared and defined reality. We can't allow competent leaders to survive anywhere.
Regardless of malevolent US intentions I forsee Evo Morales enjoying this next 5 year term
alongside the Bolivian people. US soft power (if you can call sanctions, diplomatic
isolation, and arming insurgents soft power) failed to unseat Maduro, and Morales is arguably
more popular than Maduro.
I'm an optimist by nature (foolish though that may be) and I think The Empire's grasp on
the global south is faltering.
This is the scary problem. I don't think "I can pay half the population to kill the other
half" is that far from the surface with these creeps. It's still the late 1800s there, with
cellphones and automobiles. That's what the neolibs re-created.
I think it is a mistake to see these as a South America thing in isolation. The neoliberal
program of accumulation by dispossession (David Harvey via Escobar) has infected every
economy in the world, regardless of the particulars of the organization of the state. These
protests are of a package with the Gilets Jaunes, Brexiteers, and Trump's supporters in Chris
Arnade's backrow America. When the ponzi really begins to deflate in the tech sector and
information/entertainment economy where the business model is burn baby burn expect more of
the same in suburban USA and in China's mega cities -- although the EU is in worse shape,
apparently -- They are now coming after pension funds with negative interest rates there
(dispossessing the pensioners of their future income).I expect the EU's days are numbered as
a result.
"Entrepreneurs, rather than taking risk in the normal fashion, by gambling on success,
instead engage in bankruptcy fraud. They borrow against their companies and find ways to
siphon funds to themselves and affiliates, either by overpaying themselves, extracting too
much in dividends, or moving funds to related parties."
This sounds like a fairly precise description of the Private Equity business model.
During the recent attempts to "correct" Venezuela, the now adult child of Venezuelan
refugees from the Chavez years not only tried to tell me that Venezuelans were demanding our
help but used Chile as an example of successful countries who blessed our economic reforms.
They have found a home literally and figuratively with the Baptista Cuban community in Miami.
Suffice it to say my minor research into Chile didn't really mesh with her version. I am
willing to admit I am far from neutral on American economic policy and innovations, but have
yet to find any example from the last century where our preferred policies have not led to
looting, corruption and severe societal disruption. We rarely introduce inequality but never
make it better and often make it worse.
We being America not all of us mooks who live here.
" 11 deaths, mostly due to violence at the hands of the police and the Chilean army"
This is contrary to the reporting we've seen, which is that most of the deaths were the
result of arson fires. That doesn't mean it's true – we've seen fictionalized reporting
before; but it does mean that claim needs backup.
There was a video posted on Twitter where a TV news reporter was trying to interview a
common ordinary citizen off the street, and he very politely (truly), was explaining his
position and why he had felt compelled to take to the streets, but the minute it started to
get hairy by him getting vocal about what people were protesting about, she cut him off and
blatantly started mouthing off what appeared to be a scripted bunch of sound bites favorable
to the government; when he persists in, by that point, in a desperate attempt to try to get a
word in edgewise, she just turned away from him and called for backup among the crew, clearly
silencing any opinion that wouldn't be the officially accepted one. That to me sounds like
the people's complaints about the "real" news not getting out are justified.
I put this in to follow my other comment but it's gone.
Who would know the most about Japanification?
The country that has been like this for thirty years, they've had a long time to study
it.
They are still paying back the debt from their 1980s excesses.
This is the future they impoverished in the 1980s.
Richard Koo had studied what had happened in Japan and knew the same would happen in the
West after 2008. He explains the processes at work in the Japanese economy since the 1990s,
which are at now at work throughout the global economy.
Interestingly enough, the Macri neoliberal experiment in Argentina has largely failed, and
voting on October 27th is expected to end Macri's reign in favour of a centre-left/Peronista
ticket, bringing back Sra. Kirschner yet again. Despite horrific inflation, the rise in
poverty and unemployment, etc., etc., there seems to be little in the way of mass demos as in
other So. American countries, as the public still appears to view voting and resultant govt.
changes as de facto "democratic responsiveness" to current discontent. Naturally, if
the new govt. fails in righting societal and economic wrongs, direct action in the streets
may well ensue, with the police and militares taking the usual side of the governing
elites we shall see.
Neoliberals have an imaginary friend. Money. They love it because they think it has
intrinsic value. They think it is elemental. Fundamental. But it isn't. I wonder how much
they will like it when they realize they've been had. When Neoliberals become disillusioned
what do they do next?
There may very well be an international contagion effect regarding anti-austerity
protests. I find myself in Buenos Aires atm and the violence in Ecuador, Bolivia, and
especially Chile has definitely spooked people about the elections on this coming Sunday. The
top two candidates for president are Macri, a mostly neoliberal, and Alberto Fernandez with
the previous president Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner actually running as his vice president.
The Fernandez de Kirchener government spent much more on social programs than Macri, though
it is debatable whether they could be called leftists, and it is commonly said that there was
enormous corruption during that administration.
Whoever wins, a lot of people are going to be enraged, and I have heard over and over
again that the likelihood of a Fernandez win is why the currency is falling against the
dollar and will supposedly plummet like a rock on Monday in the event of a Fernandez win.
There is a far left party that is not doing at all well in the polls, which baffles me
considering how bad the top two candidates seem to be.
Btw, I'm wondering if anyone else is in this town and wants to do a mini-NC meetup? Not
sure how to go about that.
Great stuff, thanks again. I've long been fascinated by Chile, a country that seems to
have so much going for it, and especially its intimate relationship with "Dr Copper",
although I've never been there. I also clearly need to read Econned.
I found this snip (paraphased for brevity) especially thought provoking.
1. State assets were sold at huge discounts to insiders: industrial combines, or
grupos. Banks gave low-interest-rate foreign currency loans, permitting them to use the
proceeds to seize more assets at preferential prices when the peso fell.
2. But the Pinochet regime did not reverse the Allende land reforms and return farms to
their former owners. Instead, it practiced what amounted to industrial policy and gave the
farms to middle-class entrepreneurs, who built fruit and wine businesses that became
successful exporters.
3. The other major export was copper, which remained in government hands.
To try to broaden the context, may I try to take this story back in time a bit? All
amendments are friendly (I freely admit my ignorance, and it's very hard not to be
reductionist in this medium)
1. 19th century Chile is a post-colonial Spanish society, whose agrarian feudal oligarchs
bring in large numbers of European immigrants (Italians, French and German-speakers?).
2. The steam era (ships and trains) enables rapid opening of the Andean mines (mainly
native labor). Limited industrialization follows (mainly European labor). These sectors in
turn foster a diverse (Caucasian) urban bourgeoisie and technocracy.
3. After 1900, a well-funded state sector also arises, but is more corporatist than
socialist, owing to the need to keep the nonwhite indigenes ('indios') from asserting their
rights (the giant llama in the national room). For much the same reason, unionization is kept
within strict bounds (with military force if needed).
Interesting parallel to today's America? where 20 percenter liberals use racial divisions and
fears to checkmate class consciousness and moves to lift the disregarded 'other' out of
penury.
So long as copper royalties are coming in, dissent (and deep social reform) can be kept at
bay, and comfortable order maintained under the benevolent administration of the 20 percent
(serving the .01, who in this case are mostly offshore?)
4. The copper sector, whether or not nominally state controlled, remains de facto under
the thumb of foreign industrials, shippers and trading houses, the original "Metal Men", who
provide capital and innovation, and effectively set prices. But the two world wars take
nearly all the European industrial konzerns (as well as the great merchant houses of
Antwerp and Amsterdam) out of the picture.
After 1945, they are succeeded by the 'Anglo-Saxon' cartels (Anglo-American, Philipp Bros,
Hunt, etc. forbears of Marc Rich and Glencore) who ruthlessly arbitrage and game global
logistics in the wake of decolonization, and also financialize every commodity known to man.
Even the Soviet and Chinese resource ministries must dance to this tune, although that isn't
widely understood at the time.
5. But by the 1960s, oil is displacing metals, including "Dr Copper", as the life blood of
global capitalism. That last bit is critical for Chile, and for Latin America in general.
6. From 1967 or so, up to the present, the story is likely well understood by readers here
and I won't presume/dare to try to summarize it
But the way forward from today isn't clear to me at all. Can Chile unplug itself from the
global cartel? Are there lessons to learn from Russia? From Venezuela?
Free trade and free markets will bring us all prosperity.
After ten years of austerity, they are still trying to peddle this old twaddle to us in
the UK.
We all know what it is now and that it doesn't work.
Everyone in the US was hoping for "hope and change" with Obama, but he bailed out Wall
Street and maintained the status quo. It was just what the Republicans needed.
The house of Representatives was lost in 2010, the Senate in 2014 and the Presidency in
2016.
Full house for the Republicans and the populist Trump is in power.
Everyone in France was sick to death of the status quo and Macron appeared to offer
something new, but he was just a neoliberal Trojan horse.
The French aren't happy.
South America has been suffering this longer than anyone else and they know it just
doesn't work.
They can be tricked into voting for neoliberals, but they aren't going to be happy about
it.
Our Response to the Next Crisis Must Tackle Consumerism Posted on
October 26, 2019 by Yves Smith Yves here. While one can
applaud the sentiments in this post, status competition is a strong feature of most societies.
Admittedly, some have revered accomplishment or sacrifice or exemplary behavior over having a
lot of toys. But so much of our behavior revolves around consumerism that it affects how we
tackle problems. For instance, one strong theme in Green New Deal programs is to build new
energy efficient housing. Yet the energy cost of a new house is roughly 10 years of operating a
not terribly energy efficient existing house of similar square footage.
Admittedly, this article focuses more on consumerism in terms of more mundane purchases like
clothing and devices, but "household formation" and moving almost always involve a buying
stuff. Even if your old goods work well in new digs, there's still always something to buy
curtains, a new lamp .while in the old days, people would inherit houses, furnished, and not
change them much (or if they did, gradually), or lived in rooming houses with very little.
By Rob Macquarie, a writer and researcher focusing on the financial system and its links
to inequality, democracy, and sustainability. He tweets @RJMacquarie. Originally published at
openDemocracy
If there is one way the
next economic crisis won't be the same as the last, it will have to do with the state of
our planet. In 2008, the
Copenhagen Accord hadn't been signed, let alone the Paris Agreement – or millions of
schoolchildren missing Friday lessons to protest the terrifying future they will inherit.
Now, economic transformation is widely viewed as a prerequisite for halting ecological
breakdown. Because of this, the next crisis is often presented by those who long for change as
a golden opportunity, envisaged with massive investment in energy systems, transport, and clean
industrial technology.
To be sure, these changes cannot come quickly enough. Yet they are not the only piece of the
economic, nor ecological, puzzle. The ruling elites of wealthy countries have a poor record in
undertaking ambitious public spending. Instead, they look to ordinary citizens –
recast
over decades as 'consumers' – to carry the load.
Household consumption on aggregate represents the largest chunk of economic activity in
most countries. Though often characterised as 'motor' or
'engine' of growth, as things stand a liferaft would be a
better metaphor . During recessions, household spending can remain relatively flat compared
to investment and therefore GDP more broadly. In the US, consumption, though battered by the
storm of the 2008 crisis,
supported employment in the face of declining business prospects.
Our economic dependency on consumerism is linked to changes afoot at the global level, both
secular and cyclical. On the one hand, the gradual march of (privatised) digital technology and
financialisation have undermined and disrupted investment in the real economy as a source of
stable prosperity. Listlesss productivity
in some G7 nations and a massive reduction in state spending under austerity regimes have
placed much of the burden on households.
In Britain, this sterling effort from the 'good old British
consumer' comes at a cost. Households have been taking on
net debt – in other words, running down their wealth – since 2016. Financial
pundits
present debt-led increases in household spending as a natural source of GDP growth despite
only having assumed such a prominent role following the 1980s' neoliberal turn.
On the other hand, present conditions have also sharpened our reliance on the household
consumer. This is by no means limited to the relatively financialised Anglophone economies.
Germany's mighty manufacturing sector, beset by difficulties from Brexit to global trade
disputes, is behind recent gloom in the
economic figures . Major infrastructure projects, if badly conceived, can lock in an
unhealthy incentive to keep the population spending – see the hapless development of
Berlin's Brandenburg
airport , dependent on retail for up to half of its profits. Meanwhile, the UK's
sickly retail sector , pressed on one side by trade uncertainty, strains under ever-larger
piles of corporate debt.
All of this has disastrous ecological consequences. In 2009, in the wake of the global
recession, Friends of the Earth Europe reported people in
rich countries consume up to 10 times more natural resources than those in the poorest
countries. As development raises standards of living for vast numbers of people living in the
Global South, especially in China and India, keeping material consumption and carbon emissions
from spiralling upwards will require a change of gear in resource efficiency and, simply put,
more frugal behaviour by Western consumers.
Last year an important paper in Nature found
that 'physical needs (that is, nutrition, sanitation, access to energy and elimination of
poverty below the US$1.90 line) could likely be met for 7 billion people at a level of resource
use that does not significantly transgress planetary boundaries'. Meeting 'more qualitative
goals (that is, life satisfaction, healthy life expectancy, secondary education, democratic
quality, social support and equality)' for people in all countries will require major changes
in 'provisioning systems' – that is, an overhaul of economic institutions. In other
words, unnecessary material goods valued by Western shoppers put at risk the attainment of even
more fundamental social and human rights for the majority of the world's population.
So the policy response to a fresh crisis must be viewed through an ecological lens. With
interest rates still at rock-bottom and quantitative easing
alive and kicking , the flow of easy money creates a powerful incentive to urge an anxious
public to 'keep calm and carry on spending'. The planet cannot afford such timidity, nor
complacency over a spontaneous rise in so-called conscious consumerism.
Instead, as well as supply-side measures clustered under a Green New Deal or Green
Industrial Revolution, the crisis toolkit must consider consumer demand. Policy can make a
consumption surge conditional on sustainability with policies like fiscal incentives for retail
companies to apply rigorous, sustainable standards. Electric vehicles already enjoy support
from governments in many countries – notwithstanding some
rowbacks . These schemes
can be designed to contribute to the fiscal 'automatic stabilisers' that push back against
a recession: for instance, by channeling money from penalties for emissions-intensive vehicles
into subsidies for EVs.
Alongside a shake-up of the energy mix, governments must promote the circular economy.
Investment can target projects aimed at reducing household and supply chain waste.
Right-to-repair schemes being pioneered by civil society deserve tax incentives or other
market-shaping assistance from the state. And across all industries, we must move away from
early obsolescence of consumer goods. A report prepared for the
European Commission in 2012 recommended a host of policies to target these issues, such as
grants for industry to initiatives to improve product lifetime or reduced VAT for more
efficient and durable products.
Thinkers pioneering a new economics are joining the dots between the demands of sound
economic management during a downturn, social justice, and the ecological crisis. Vocal
criticism of a decade of austerity laid the groundwork. Now progressives, eager to raise living
standards, must watch their messaging to promote sustainable consumption. Those sounding the
alarm about resource use are right that rich nations must not continue to overspend their
ecological budget.
When the next crisis arrives, parties arguing for a green transformation will have to prove
they understand that.
Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a "mess of pottage" (Genesis 25:27-34).
It's no exaggeration that the birthrights of many, many people are gone.
Were those birthrights sold for a mess of pottage (consumerism) or were they legally
stolen by a unjust economic system with consumerism as pitiful compensation?
Mash up with Facebook and such where people and their data, now improved with the 23
new DNA features , are the product to see how birthrights get sold, seemingly
voluntarily. Dark patterns are noticed popping up everywhere once they are pointed out.
Neo-liberalism needs a new modern name and a better publicist.
I've always suspected "Consumerism" to have been invented and used as a weapon against
unions. We must supply the consumer with inexpensive products, etc. IIRC consumerism didn't
start to enter the dialog until the 80s in any significant way. And then it was everywhere
all at once. Spontaneous realities like that are confusing. Just where did it come from? It
happened in Germany about the same time. They didn't crush their labor/unions like we did. We
were absolutely ruthless. And it was all justified by claiming we had to make sure the
consumer was well supplied. What a bunch of nonsense.
I not only applaud the sentiments but the ideas, many of them otherwise played in many
posts here such as the rigth to repair and a real turn to circular economies. Yet, i still
miss something that being politically very difficult, it is IMO a must: puting legally
binding limits to fossil fuel consumption.
Regarding status competition: I personally have cut my consumption by much in the last
decades although I was never a big spender. I don't think my personal living standard has
declined, on the contrary, I think my life is richer in many aspects. I don't try to sound
exemplary, I am not in many instances. I admit that a big reason for this Is that I have lost
income but lately It has been more a voluntary thing. I am a disastrous manager of
smartphones that too often are lost (I am famously lost-in-thougth in my environment), or
take them to swim with me, or fall and break when I am in a hurry because I forgot something
somewhere. For this reason I cannot afford too expensive smartphones though I don't feel the
need to have the latest. With more people like me, the rigth to repair and recycling of
smartphones is a must. I still consume too much meat, partly cos I like it, and partly
because members of my family with chronic iron defficiency ask for meat. Most importantly, I
have no longer empathy for those that feel the status competition and the impulse to own the
largest house, the fastest car, the latest tech thingy or having dinner in the most expensive
restaurant. I don't feel alone in my environment and a lot of people I know are on the same
page on this. Status competition can die and good riddance should I say.
about iron deficiency Ignacio, I read long ago and it proved true for me that if you take
a good B-complex every day (no problem bec. B is water soluble) it solves iron
deficiency.
Another note about B12. It is not well absorbed by those over 50 and so levels need to be
checked periodically. One of the symptoms of a deficiency is confusion.
I wonder how we could manage to implement potlatch -- where a person's wealth is judged by
what they can give away, rather than the amount that can't be pried away from them by any
possible means.
It may not be potlatch, but ANTI-status competition seems already to be catching on in
places like Sweden, with flight shaming, shaming over owning more than one of the same thing,
shaming over buying new stuff etc..
Subsidies for electric vehicles are unicorn farming. The materials required for a
transition to EVs simply don't exist, the grid can't support it and automobiles facilitate
sprawl, which is at the heart of western consumerism.
Unless you charge your EV with power from your solar cell, EV's are just transference;
from gasoline to fossil fueled power from the power plant.
In lieu of charging your EV with your own solar cell, the CO2 from the power plant needs
to be reduced by emission control to achieve an overall reduction in CO2 to the atmosphere. I
wonder if this will ever happen.
The only advantage for EVs environmentally would be that although it is still a fossil
fuel derivative, its emissions (at the power plant) could be captured and either reprocessed
or sequestered. Also EVs are lighter cars and so require less heavy manufacturing. One
solution no one ever mentions is logistical. Delivery trucks could deliver everything a
neighborhood needed/ordered and leave it at a neighborhood depot. In the walk-to spirit of
the old corner store. And everyone could walk or bike to pick up their orders.
Oh right .. I'm gonna lug that 200lb+ Ikea shelf (could be any large, unweldy item or
items) package on my back !! 2-4 blocks from the 'depot' to my house ?? Even using a bike
would be problematic .. even with the use of an E-bike .. on anything other than level
terrain .. and that is assuming your purchases aren't 'lifted' before you arrive to claim
them !
All this talk of walking or biking to achieve X doesn't take into consideration the multitude
of circumstances .. due to health or logistics, just to name a few .. among various
individuals that preclude such easy and flippant response !
If people were to resort to using draft animals, then perhaps that would work, but not
without adding in other 'externalities' into the mix.
Even when the power is generated using fossil fuels, electric vehicles usually, compared
to gasoline vehicles, show significant reductions in overall well-wheel global carbon
emissions due to the highly carbon-intensive production in mining, pumping, refining,
transportation and the efficiencies obtained with gasoline. This means that even if part of
the energy used to run an electric car comes from fossil fuels, electric cars will still
contribute to reduce CO
2 emissions, which is important since most countries' electricity is generated, at least in
part, by burning fossil fuels.[
Environmental aspects of the electric car That said, Yves has posted several articles
suggesting it is physically impossible to convert the world's fleet of POVs to EVs. If we are
going to continue to pack the planet with people, electrified mass transit is the obvious
choice. My question is what role do EVs play during the transition?
Electric vehicles are actually more efficient in their use of energy and so it's NOT just
transferring energy use from one place to another.
"EVs convert about 59%–62% of the electrical energy from the grid to power at the
wheels. Conventional gasoline vehicles only convert about 17%–21% of the energy stored
in gasoline to power at the wheels"
Don't take this is an argument that electric vehicles don't have any problems, and these
aren't total lifecycle calculations, but thinking the energy use is merely transferred just
seems to be a misconception of how electric vehicles work.
When you charge an EV, where are you getting that electricity from? I think that is what
is being argued. If you are getting that energy from a coal plant, you aren't saving
anything, and plastic requires oil to manufacture. For that matter, what about all the heat
energy used to smelt the copper, etc?
The overall eficiency of a fossil fueled power plant using steam turbines to extract
energy is about 33% on the average. Even if EV's convert 60% of the electrical energy to
power at the wheels, 70% of the enegy is already lost at the power plant.
aye. status symbols mean nothing to me which is a big source of the "weird" label i so
proudly wear.
I'm usually rather filthy dirt and paint stains, holes from barbed wire -- i counter that it
means i work for a living, dammit haven't cut my hair in 15 years(except for the occasional
knot(whip out a pair of wire cutters at a wedding, and remove a knot,lol I'm almost
legendary) and don't even want, let alone need, a new used truck every other year(again, at a
wedding, I come through the dancing people with old milk jugs to get water for the steaming
radiator others are mortified, for some reason because we're all supposed to pretend that we
ain't po folks)
I'm locally notorious for coming out of the landfill complex with more than i go in with,lol
and my shamelessness is actually contributing to open discussion about such things.
i do not hide my contempt for all that pretentious posturing especially if it's people who
should know better .down nose looks at my clutter, when i've been to their house,lol, and
know!
emulating the rich is a cancer on our civilisation ."they're food, people!".
however, i think that globe encircling supply lines and built-to-be-replaced (foreign)
manufacturing are the bigger, if easily related, problem.
doesn't fit easily on a bumpersticker, but the local veggie grower can't compete head to head
with slave labor far away .and shouldn't be expected to global markets are not akin to
gravity or a thunderstorm: they are the products of human minds and human choices(just not
often our choices i don't decide how much plastic is in whatever necessary product i buy)
at the root of all this consumerism is media including the web.
since i took a copywriting class(as in ad copy) in college, i've been immunised against
advertising it just doesn't effect me.
but it sure does effect everyone else.
(i also realise that i am anomalous and unreplicatable in a lot of this i've always been a
weirdo outcast, and so never developed the clique-behaviour of my peers i don't have anything
to prove, because i learned early on not to care what the people around me thought since they
were, apparently, shallow and ignorant, overly concerned with what other mean and shallow
people thought. this might be a possible upside to being bullied/excluded -- given the right
circumstances, it builds independence of mind and a hard, spiny carapace. (this in no way
implies a fondness for bullying and exclusion.))
very similar here. I think the problem is simple greed as a form of addiction. The people
at the top want more. Therefore, sell more. They know the cost of everything and the value of
nothing. Older I get the more and more of my stuff is built in USA prior to 1950. The only
people who know the value of a buck is the ones thats had to work for it.
I got rid of all the crap over the years -- and thats another thing, ever notice how much
plastic crap there is? The car costs the same but its all plastic now and you can't fix it.
Thats another way they rip you off with crapification. Thats why I pulled out of that rat
race. I'm keeping my 30-yr old jeep on buckboard wagon springs.
When I think back to how life was lived in the 1950s to today, the first thing that comes
to mind is how much we as a society have moved away from real household goods of good
materials and quality to a more cheapish plastic throwaway lifestyle via furnishings,
appliances, clothing and plastic bags and bottles everywhere. Every time I see a Wayfair
commercial chills go through me for all the plastic garbage crap that is out there. Isn't
this the crux of the problem, always believing new stuff no matter the quality as long as it
is cheap is the way to life live in America? Get it and then throw it away. This is where the
reversal should happen, getting consumers to buy well made household goods and pay for it so
they can keep it for years and years. Buy quality. Believe in quality. A real wood table or a
real marble one. People have wanted to buy cheap garbagey stuff for too long already, items
no one wants so they get thrown away. I visit estate sales in the past couple years and some
of the furniture the oldsters among us lived with is exquisite, extremely well made. Now
compare to what is out there now. Or clothing, another category. If you buy real fabric like
wool or cotton or silk, your items will last forever. Beverages should be sold in glass
bottles again. Stop living a disposable lifestyle, How to drill that into people who don't
know any better is the trick. But this will be a way for people to stop some of their
nonsensical consumerism. Also an option is to buy used things. In New York many of us found
furniture on the street other people threw out to be great for furnishings. Recycling on a
larger scale.
One issue I have with this is that some elements of structures have improved
significantly. Case in point are windows. Energy efficient windows and glazing are a vast
improvement over that available in the 50s. That said, obtaining efficiency with retrofitting
older structures takes the input of a lot of energy and cost.
re: windows now better than windows 60 years ago.
when we moved back out here, we learned that wife's familia intended to demolish the 1950's
era house we were living in in town(it being an insulationless POS that drunk uncle had let
go to hell was a major factor in building our current house).
so i spent that winter removing all the old windows(and as much of the wood clapboard siding
and cedar interior one by's as i could) and storing them.
single pane and fragile as hell.
just look at them wrong and they break(better once installed).
i used those for the greenhouse attached to the house(passive heating!) but the difference
between those ancient aluminum framed things and the new "e-rated" windows in most of the
house is astounding. on a cold day, place a hand on them and the difference is apparent.
those old ones are sufficient for the greenhouse, though.
(i also used a bunch of even more ancient windows in parts of the house, that my family
had saved some from the teens. the glass is more robust and thicker than the 50's plate,and
the wood framing insulates a bit better than the aluminum but i still went to the trouble to
put shutters on them(some shutters still in progress))
i read a study just recently that said that older windows, repaired properly, are not less
efficient than modern windows. they passed the variety of blower tests.
now, as for e-coatings, triple panes and argon fillings i don't know. but it did say that
this was good news, because people can stop tossing out their historic windows in favor of
the new just for energy savings. it goes without saying that if you live in a place of energy
extremes, your windows shouldn't be huge anyway. the r-value is, even in the most expensive
window, only 1/3 that of the wall or less.
Some solid points here about buying goods based on quality and stuff to last. Why eat off
plastic plates when you can eat off plates made of porcelain? I still have plates given to me
by a girl when she was moving house back in the late 1970s that I constantly use. You cannot
say the same for a plastic plate. If we were forced to move back to a 1950s lifestyle but
with high-tech bolt-ons I do not think that people would mind in the long run. Smaller homes
versus McMansions? Yeah, I could buy into that.
The second half of the equation is that manufactures will have to be forced to make goods
that are built to last at a reasonable price and that are easily maintained & repaired.
We have an antiques furniture store near hear and it can be highly interesting wandering
around and looking at the common place items of past generations. The furniture is built well
and is made of beautiful wood but that does suggest something. When you look at the crap
furniture that is made these days, I seriously doubt that much of it will be found in antique
stores by the next generation as it simply will not last.
And that is the point. making things that last. As an example – light globes. They do
not last that long and they dim but what would it be like if they were manufactured to last
decades? There are currently light globes that were manufacture in the 1890s that are still
burning today with Livermore's Centennial Light Bulb being one example. Imagine if nearly
everything was built to last for years if not a few decades. What is that? Corporations could
not survive with that business model? You wonder then how they managed to make it work a
century ago then.
Planned obsolescence should have been our first clue. It had nothing to do with
competition, or the latest fashion – those were just advertising ploys. Planned
obsolescence was a necessity to keep capitalism going. Because, ironically, capitalism is a
very good supplier. Until demand runs out. Then capitalism has no where to go. Except to dive
deep into consumerism and denial. Which is one reason I keep hoping for an ingenious idea
that puts capitalism to work repairing the environment. I don't know why we can't have
reverse capitalism. It could be a great economic engine for centuries to come.
"Planned obsolescence should have been our first clue"
Many of the people shopping today do not know that a kettle should last 20 years or
blender should last 30. I have a 50 year old electric frypan for goodness sake and it still
works fine.
I know I clued in early and stopped buying from the stores, I look for old stuff at the
thrift stores and if I can't find it there I do without
I don't know if their are any companies around anymore who make quality .products at any
price
we still use by grandma's art deco blender, from the 50's(waring–replacement parts
are still available for pretty cheap, too)
heavy glass jar, steel housing. i replaced the cord(i have a pile of those,lol)
.and being a frequent landfill scavenger, it's crazy what people throw away even with the
recent local wall to wall about permitting a new landfill. lumber to cinder blocks to actual
bricks, boxes of natgeo and scifi mags going back to the 30's and of course, all the
structural steel and slightly bent metal roofing and gutters galore.
what's depressing like mentioned here, is the furniture and appliances not even worth trying
to repair or repurpose. particle board and staples for the former -- melts in the rain and
the cheapest plastic and pseudometal for the latter -- will never decompose.
like with the plastic packaging(which i think is a plot to make us nuts need tools to get
into the damned things), a lot of the "choice" is somewhere upstream of us, but still.
I'd never spend money on the "furniture" i see at the dump.
Enjoy your rant so (of course) I have to nitpick one thing:
>I still have plates given to me by a girl when she was moving house back in the late
1970s that I constantly use. You cannot say the same for a plastic plate.
Actually, you can. Plastic wouldn't have been so much of a problem if we had stuck to
making things like plates out of it. If you don't believe me, give me your china for a bit
(no DON'T seriously!) and see how long it takes my family to break it. The plastic stuff can
be dropped infinite times.
I used that example of the plates because last night I had to throw out a plastic plate as
its surface was 'bubbling'. By the same token, not all those china plates have lasted the
past forty years but more so than if they had been plastic.
we could be satisfied with our material goods a bit more than we are, if those goods were
made and designed properly.
case in point: clothing. there is no actual way to make clothing that is not
environmentally challenging. even back in the days when we did it for purely natural fibers,
dyeworks and processing plants were noxious.
but try to buy anything that isn't some kind of odd blend of plastics and barely-there
fiber now. try to buy something like a good linen shirt. for some of us, these things have
been priced beyond our reach. and a good linen shirt would probably last 5 years or more.
replicate that for every item of clothing you have (barring socks, underwear and shoes
which have to be replaced more often). i don't remember the last time i had something that i
wore regularly which lasted 5 years, but believe it was sometime during the 90s. sometimes it
doesn't last beyond the first wash without snags and oddities appearing. and i am not that
hard on anything, unlike a genuine "working man" who has a ton of muck that has to be washed
out of the clothing every week.
repeat for many household goods. in whose interests is it that we buy, and rebuy the same
crap every single year?
We had a neighbour from the mill-towns of England that brought out a lot of material from
where she worked. The stuff lasted for decades. Clothing was like that once and I have a copy
of an 1805 will in which it mentions what would happen to the clothing as it was rugged
enough that you could pass it along and so was worth mentioning in a will. I read too that in
medieval time a air of shoes would be passed down a family and would last about a century.
The manufacture of clothing that lasts a season is only a commercial decision which we are
all paying for.
One big difference between the way life was lived in the 1950s and today is that in 1950
people could stay in one place and work at the same job and retire. Nowdays, at least in my
line of work, it is difficult to find a job you can count on for more than a few years.
People used to stay married and could remain in the same house for most or all of their life.
I moved all over the country chasing work. I adopted a throwaway lifestyle for my furniture
because if I couldn't throw it away or take it apart somehow I couldn't move it by myself. If
I didn't move myself -- if I paid movers -- it cost more to move most of my stuff than it
cost to toss it -- even 'quality' furnature -- and replace it with more cheap junk I pick up
from the curb or buy at Goodwill Stores, good enough to last until my next move. As for "buy
quality" -- I value the quality of well made furniture efficiently constructed using
materials light in weight, comfortable, stable, and strong; furnature I can easily take apart
and reassemble, and move myself. What I have isn't exactly throwaway, nor is it the kind of
quality you value.
[Even friends have become throwaway in the same sense as my furniture. I write, and call,
and sometimes drive long distances to visit but invariably my friends and I grow apart and
they stop answering. The family I grew up with is scattered from coast-to-coast and much of
it grown as remote as old friends. The family I started has broken up and it too has
scattered in search of work and opportunity.]
Returning to "buy quality" -- where is that stuff sold? I can buy quality names at high
price but the old slogan "quality goes in before the name goes on" is just empty words.
you wouldn't have had to buy and replace or move furniture if we had high quality
built-in, nearly fully furnished apartments.
same goes for the much vaunted "smaller houses". the reason, at least i believe, people
started to go larger is because a smaller space has to be much more carefully designed and
thought out in advance, and furnished with versatile pieces in order to suit the variety of
living functions that the space will be used for. which is easier? getting a
nearly-custom-designed home capable of being used for everything, or adding another/more room
to the plan and putting in more furniture and appliances to suit the activity? most people
have no means to afford architects or interior designers, so simply go with the extra
rooms.
this most readily shows up in the often-repeated fact that you can buy a smaller home, but
finishing it to a decent level will cost you the same or more than a larger one. a lot can be
hidden in big rooms and extra rooms. faulty design, for one.
Jeremy, your comment is very matter-of-fact and very touching, especially the next to last
paragraph. That's where so many of us are. Inode Buddha and Diphtherio stress community. It's
hard to find and hard to make.
"Returning to "buy quality" -- where is that stuff sold? I can buy quality names at high
price but the old slogan "quality goes in before the name goes on" is just empty words."
Unfortunately, the Peoples Republik of NY does not allow trash picking from dumps, so I
resort to Craiglist and eBay. Or simply thrift shops, family, and friends. Yard sales and
estate sales are often gold mines. I *wish* we had boot sales in the USA.
Clothing is all natural BTW: leather, cotton, wool.
I hear you, having moved more than a few times across the country for jobs and
opportunities, something employers used to pay for but no longer. I learned how to streamline
my stuff which means I spend hours before a move to get rid of the nonsense. What does come
to mind though is how much better the furniture and appliances were made back then compared
to now, in other words the quality and workmanship is much higher. Used to buy from Ethan
Allan where actual American people would sign the pieces they made. Sigh. There is something
to be said about buying furniture from the actual person who makes the pieces. Natural
materials and high quality. Just one example.
As you indicated, lives are different now, without the security of family and life long
friends and neighbors. And steady employment. As a way to defeat consumerism it may be
worthwhile to really pay attention to what is being bought and to buy it with quality in mind
so it will endure. Again I have noticed a lot of furniture and art pieces and decorations
that are very high quality at estate sales where these types of items would never be made and
sold anywhere now. Unique pieces, very well made. The way things used to be. We lost that
sensitivity and now buy senselessly. Just to buy, just to fill a void. People don't really
need that many things.
I keep on thinking that economic incentives for refraining from having children would be
nice in order to emphasize how destructive our population has become in creating
anthropogenic global warming. However, it seems to me that it is hard to link social
responsibility to positive economic benefits and far easier to impose financial burdens.
Either way, though, population needs to be addresses or a "circular" economy will be
impossible.
Just what I was going to say
Consumerism goes hand in hand with the brainwashing that goes on.The reason we shop so much
is because it feels bad when we don't, I have actually had people ask me how I manage to not
shop or not watch TV I am now the "strange" old lady.
In my personal experience, I have seen how Poverty reframes and affects all personal
consumption choices.
Lots of compromises between what you would like to buy and what you can afford with the money
you have.
And of course there are strategies to offset that for the informed.
Not an excuse and we all could do better driving our demand to a better outcome–but
not to be ignored or underestimated–imo
Light globes = bulbs, could last very long if they were run with the tungsten filaments at
a lower voltage (cooler).
The trade off is that running the filament cooler causes the light output to drop, so the
electric bill is higher for the same light.
The new LED lamps, assuming they have quality and well-rated electronic components should
be able to last a long time and provide good light at a lower cost.
LED light bulbs should last a very long time. I saved a few of the LED light bulbs after
they failed and tore one apart. Inside there is tiny power supply board to convert the 120 V
alternating current to a level to drive the LEDs on a puck connected to the power supply. I
have a hunch that the LEDs are still working fine. I even wonder how many of the little power
supplies are still working just fine after taking a look at the wire connection between the
power supply and the base of the light bulb assembly. [I haven't tested out my hunch yet --
it's one of many projects part-way along that clutter the folding tables that furnish my
living room.]
Consumerism will be destroyed at the same time all nation/states are destroyed at
Armageddon. Until then Satans system runs the way it is. Greed will not allow humans to get
rid of it.
That looks like vast and generally incorrect exaggeration. While China mode substantial progress in catching up with the West, the
technology is still dominated by the West.
But as technological revolution is slowing down and in some areas coming to the end (die size in semiconductors in one example;
it is impossible to shrink it further; smartphones reached saturation level, and hardware wise their capabilities are far above what
a regular user needs or wants) it is easier for other countries to catch up.
In any case, the main reason for trade war with China is to try to slow down its ascendance.
The problem for China is that China converted to neoliberalism, and as such (like Russia) is subject to all the ills the neoliberal
society tend to bring into the country. Including a very high level of inequality.
Notable quotes:
"... Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other means). ..."
"... Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it. But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world. ..."
It is very popular these days to talk and write about the "trade war" between the United States and China. But is there really
one raging? Or is it, what we are witnessing, simply a clash of political and ideological systems : one being extremely successful
and optimistic, the other depressing, full of dark cynicism and nihilism?
In the past, West used to produce almost everything. While colonizing the entire planet (one should just look at the map of the
globe, between the two world wars), Europe and later the United States, Canada and Australia, kept plundering all the continents
of natural resources, holding hundreds of millions of human beings in what could be easily described as 'forced labor', often bordering
on slavery.
Under such conditions, it was very easy to be 'number one', to reign without competition, and to toss around huge amounts of cash,
for the sole purpose of indoctrinating local and overseas 'subjects' on topics such as the 'glory' of capitalism, colonialism (open
and hidden), and Western-style 'democracy'.
It is essential to point out that in the recent past, the global Western dictatorship (and that included the 'economic system)
used to have absolutely no competition. Systems that were created to challenge it, were smashed with the most brutal, sadistic methods.
One only needs recall invasions from the West to the young Soviet Union, with the consequent genocide and famines. Or other genocides
in Indochina, which was fighting its wars for independence, first against France, later against the United States.
*
Times changed. But Western tactics haven't.
There are now many new systems, in numerous corners of the world. These systems, some Communist, others socialist or even populist,
are ready to defend their citizens, and to use the natural resources to feed the people, and to educate, house and cure them.
No matter how popular these systems are at home, the West finds ways to demonize them, using its well-established propaganda machinery.
First, to smear them and then, if they resist, to directly liquidate them.
As before, during the colonial era, no competition has been permitted. Disobedience is punishable by death.
Naturally, the Western system has not been built on excellence, hard work and creativity, only. It was constructed on fear, oppression
and brutal force. For centuries, it has clearly been a monopoly.
*
Only the toughest countries, like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea or Cuba, have managed to survive, defending they own cultures,
and advancing their philosophies.
To the West, China has proved to be an extremely tough adversary.
With its political, economic, and social system, it has managed to construct a forward-looking, optimistic and extraordinarily
productive society. Its scientific research is now second to none. Its culture is thriving. Together with its closest ally, Russia,
China excels in many essential fields.
That is precisely what irks, even horrifies the West.
For decades and centuries, Europe and the United States have not been ready to tolerate any major country, which would set up
its own set of rules and goals.
China refuses to accept the diktat from abroad. It now appears to be self-sufficient, ideologically, politically, economically
and intellectually. Where it is not fully self-sufficient, it can rely on its friends and allies. Those allies are, increasingly,
located outside the Western sphere.
*
Is China really competing with the West? Yes and no. And often not consciously.
It is a giant; still the most populous nation on earth. It is building, determinedly, its socialist motherland (applying "socialism
with the Chinese characteristics" model). It is trying to construct a global system which has roots in the thousands of years of
its history (BRI – Belt and Road Initiative, often nicknamed the "New Silk Road").
Its highly talented and hardworking, as well as increasingly educated population, is producing, at a higher pace and often at
higher quality than the countries in Europe, or the United States. As it produces, it also, naturally, trades.
This is where the 'problem' arises. The West, particularly the United States, is not used to a country that creates things for
the sake and benefit of its people. For centuries, Asian, African and Latin American people were ordered what and how to produce,
where and for how much to sell the produce. Or else!
Of course, the West has never consulted anyone. It has been producing what it (and its corporations) desired. It was forcing countries
all over the world, to buy its products. If they refused, they got invaded, or their fragile governments (often semi-colonies, anyway)
overthrown.
The most 'terrible' thing that China is doing is: it is producing what is good for China, and for its citizens.
That is, in the eyes of the West, unforgiveable!
*
In the process, China 'competes'. But fairly: it produces a lot, cheaply, and increasingly well. The same can be said about Russia.
These two countries are not competing maliciously. If they were to decide to, they could sink the US economy, or perhaps the economy
of the entire West, within a week.
But they don't even think about it.
However, as said above, to just work hard, invent new and better products, advance scientific research, and use the gains to improve
the lives of ordinary people (they will be no extreme poverty in China by the end of 2020) is seen as the arch-crime in London and
Washington.
Why? Because the Chinese and Russian systems appear to be much better, or at least, simply better, than those which are reigning
in the West and its colonies. And because they are working for the people, not for corporations or for the colonial powers.
And the demagogues in the West – in its mass media outlets and academia – are horrified that perhaps, soon, the world will wake
up and see the reality. Which is actually already happening: slowly but surely.
*
To portray China as an evil country, is essential for the hegemony of the West. There is nothing so terrifying to London and Washington
as the combination of these words: "Socialism/ Communism, Asian, success". The West invents new and newer 'opposition movements',
it then supports them and finances them, just in order to then point fingers and bark: "China is fighting back, and it is violating
human rights", when it defends itself and its citizens. This tactic is clear, right now, in both the northwest of the country, and
in Honk Kong.
Not everything that China builds is excellent. Europe is still producing better cars, shoes and fragrances, and the United States,
better airplanes. But the progress that China has registered during the last two decades, is remarkable. Were it to be football,
it is China 2: West 1.
Most likely, unless there is real war, that in ten years, China will catch up in many fields; catch up, and surpass the West.
Side by side with Russia.
It could have been excellent news for the entire world. China is sharing its achievements, even with the poorest of the poor countries
in Africa, or with Laos in Asia.
The only problem is, that the West feels that it has to rule. It is unrepentant, observing the world from a clearly fundamentalist
view. It cannot help it: it is absolutely, religiously convinced that it has to give orders to every man and woman, in every corner
of the globe.
It is a tick, fanatical. Lately, anyone who travels to Europe or the United States will testify: what is taking place there is
not good, even for the ordinary citizens. Western governments and corporations are now robbing even their own citizens. The standard
of living is nose-diving.
China, with just a fraction of the wealth, is building a much more egalitarian society, although you would never guess so, if
you exclusively relied on Western statistics.
*
So, "trade war" slogans are an attempt to convince the local and global public that "China is unfair", that it is "taking advantage"
of the West. President Trump is "defending" the United States against the Chinese 'Commies'. But the more he "defends them", the
poorer they get. Strange, isn't it?
While the Chinese people, Russian people, even Laotian people, are, 'miraculously', getting richer and richer. They are getting
more and more optimistic.
For decades, the West used to preach 'free trade', and competition. That is, when it was in charge, or let's say, 'the only kid
on the block'.
In the name of competition and free trade, dozens of governments got overthrown, and millions of people killed.
And now?
What is China suppose to do? Frankly, what?
Should it curb its production, or perhaps close scientific labs? Should it consult the US President or perhaps British Prime Minister,
before it makes any essential economic decision? Should it control the exchange rate of RMB, in accordance with the wishes of the
economic tsars in Washington? That would be thoroughly ridiculous, considering that (socialist/Communist) China will soon become
the biggest economy in the world, or maybe it already is.
There is all that abstract talk, but nothing concrete suggested. Or is it like that on purpose?
Could it be that the West does not want to improve relations with Beijing?
On September 7, 2019, AP reported:
White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow compared trade talks with China on Friday to the U.S. standoff with Russia during
the Cold War
"The stakes are so high, we have to get it right, and if that takes a decade, so be it," he said.
Kudlow emphasized that it took the United States decades to get the results it wanted with Russia. He noted that he worked
in the Reagan administration: "I remember President Reagan waging a similar fight against the Soviet Union."
Precisely! The war against the Soviet Union was hardly a war for economic survival of the United States. It was an ideological
battle, which the United States, unfortunately won, because it utilized both propaganda and economic terror (the arms race and other
means).
Now, China is next on the list, and the White House is not even trying to hide it. But China is savvy. It is beginning to understand the game. And it is ready, by all means, to defend the system which has pulled
almost all its citizens out of misery, and which could, one day soon, do the same for the rest of the world.
"... The argument the Bolivian right-wing is using is exactly the same the Brazilian one used after the 2014 results: election fraud. The vice-president of the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Court has already renounced in protest after the institution caved in to the pressure and suspended the publication of the results: ..."
"... Evo Morales is much more fragile than Nicolás Maduro -- even though Bolivia's economy has been much better. The key here is that, in Latin America, every period of economic growth is destined to be followed by a period of economic crisis because it's impelled to follow the neoliberal model of development by the USA. The left-wing presidents are then forced to overcome this through straight up government spending in order to at least alleviate extreme poverty that ravages the subcontinent. ..."
"... But the hardest challenge for the socialists in Latin America are its armed forces: after the 1950s, they were turned into American subsidiaries, each one with a military doctrine that focuses on fighting the "internal enemy" (i.e. the socialists). No Latin American military is able to fight a single conventional war, they are essentially glorified militarized police forces. Maduro has the FANB; Morales doesn't have the Bolivian Armed Forces on his side. ..."
"... Meanwhile, neoliberalism rots. Bolsonaro already know his fate: ..."
"... It must be hard to realize, after years of hallucination and messianic complex, that you were just a disposable puppet of the Americans. ..."
"... A Brazilian prefers to suffer in silence than having to risk his life for a greater cause and, since the 1960s, has an inexplicable fascination with the USA and everything American (Bolsonaro ran his campaign openly as the "Brazilian Trump"). ..."
The argument the Bolivian right-wing is using is exactly the same the Brazilian one used after the 2014 results: election
fraud. The vice-president of the Bolivian Supreme Electoral Court has already renounced in protest after the institution caved
in to the pressure and suspended the publication of the results:
Evo Morales is much more fragile than Nicolás Maduro -- even though Bolivia's economy has been much better. The key here
is that, in Latin America, every period of economic growth is destined to be followed by a period of economic crisis because it's
impelled to follow the neoliberal model of development by the USA. The left-wing presidents are then forced to overcome this through
straight up government spending in order to at least alleviate extreme poverty that ravages the subcontinent.
But the hardest challenge for the socialists in Latin America are its armed forces: after the 1950s, they were turned into
American subsidiaries, each one with a military doctrine that focuses on fighting the "internal enemy" (i.e. the socialists).
No Latin American military is able to fight a single conventional war, they are essentially glorified militarized police forces.
Maduro has the FANB; Morales doesn't have the Bolivian Armed Forces on his side.
Let's wait and see how it evolves.
--//--
Meanwhile, neoliberalism rots. Bolsonaro already know his fate:
It must be hard to realize, after years of hallucination and messianic complex, that you were just a disposable puppet
of the Americans.
However, things are not so simple in Brazil: the majority of the Left is reactionary and pacifist; the Brazilian people has
a high tolerance for misery, is very docile and doesn't have a curriculum of violent uprisings or revolutions.
A Brazilian prefers to suffer in silence than having to risk his life for a greater cause and, since the 1960s, has an
inexplicable fascination with the USA and everything American (Bolsonaro ran his campaign openly as the "Brazilian Trump").
Pepe Escobar presents a high-altitude view of Latin America in general in this regard.
Neoliberalism is over in that continent - and there is a LOT of ground-level intention to
overthrow the whole rule of plunder, in several countries:
Naomi Klein made the same observation a few years ago, that South America was the first
region to suffer from the Shock Doctrine, and has become the leader in recognizing it and
fighting against it.
Not to say we have a done deal yet, but it seems to be an organic work in progress. And
your reports are very sobering. There will be much fire before the burning is finally done,
it seems. But my only point is that maybe the economic cycle of expand and collapse that you
cite is not inevitable. Maybe countries can break out of it.
Escobar's piece was linked in an earlier thread and I assume you've seen it already. It's
pretty sobering too but it paints a future of possibility.
43. Whatever Latin America does to it's 'neoliberal rule of plunder' I will bet you 100 pesos
that whatever comes after it, out of the 'genius' of street protest, it will look more like
Venezuela than .... you see? I can't even come up with a good example of South American
societal order. What you have there is a continent that has not even begun to understand how
deeply embedded in their collective consciousness their 'oppressed' mentality is. And with
good reason. Shit history. But no way is there the enlightened thought capable of building a
nation state that can stand the test of time. 100 pesos.
With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls, the Democrats have declared that the
decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country
has done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to
endless war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed
them off, declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the
choice of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by
Turkey as an existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's
a big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort
of hand wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable
person could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees.
Why must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops
to Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These
forces do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed
their attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John
Kerry admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign
policy was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
gjohnsit on Fri, 10/18/2019 - 5:38pm With a great weeping, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and clutching of pearls,
the Democrats have declared that the decision to withdraw troops from Syria was a
mortal sin .
Joe Biden called it "the most shameful thing that any president has done in modern history in terms of foreign policy." Elizabeth
Warren said Trump "has cut and run on our allies," and "created a bigger-than-ever humanitarian crisis." Kamala Harris announced,
"Yet again Donald Trump [is] selling folks out."
However, it required Mayor Buttigieg to make it a personal
moral imperative .
Meanwhile, soldiers in the field are reporting that for the first time they feel ashamed -- ashamed -- of what their country has
done.
Democrats are totally honest and sincere here. It's not like they would have any
double-standards on this issue.
When Muir asked Buttigieg whether he would stick to his pledge to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan in his first year
despite warnings from top American commanders, Buttigieg ducked the question and insisted that "we have got to put an end to endless
war." Turning to Biden, Muir cited "concerns about any possible vacuum being created in Afghanistan." But Biden brushed them off,
declaring, "We don't need those troops there. I would bring them home."
What makes these statements so remarkable is that experts warn that if the United States withdraws its troops from Afghanistan
in the absence of a peace agreement, Afghanistan will suffer a fate remarkably similar to what is happening in northern Syria.
It's not like this issue is anything less than black or white.
It's not like we would eventually have
the choice
of supporting either a Kurdish/Arab militia tied however loosely to the PKK, a designated terror group perceived by Turkey as an
existential threat, or
Turkey , a NATO member.
We keep hearing how we "betrayed our allies," but who promised the Kurds that we would fight Turkey on their behalf? It's a
big jump from "Let's both fight ISIS" to "Take that, NATO ally." But our garbage media, and our garbage politicians, sort of hand
wave away the fact that you can't "betray" someone by not doing what you never promised to do, especially when no reasonable person
could ever expect you to do it.
Oh wait. It's exactly like that.
All this virtue-signaling amounts to "I want you to send your sons and daughters to kill and maybe die fighting a long-time ally
because otherwise 'Putin will win'!"
Yes, Putin will get more control over a war-torn country, a ruined economy, with bombed-out cities, and millions of refugees. Why
must we deny him of this again?
And then there is the
lack of an AUMF
for us being in Syria. Which makes our occupation of Syria illegal, both by domestic law, and
international law .
Syria is not our country and U.S. troops were never authorized by its sovereign government to be there. Whether or not Washington
likes Damascus is irrelevant, under international law U.S. troops have no right to be there. Even flights over Syrian airspace
by the U.S. coalition are a violation of international agreements.
Why doesn't Bernie or Gabbard mention that this is an illegal war? People might care.
Also, does anyone remember when putting troops in Syria was something to be avoided?
Does anyone else remember the
16 times Obama said there would be no boots on the ground in Syria?
Since 2013, President Obama has repeatedly vowed that there would be no "boots on the ground" in Syria.
But White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president's decision Friday to send up to 50 special forces troops to
Syria doesn't change the fundamental strategy: "This is an important thing for the American people to understand. These forces
do not have a combat mission."
We now have a stage full of presidential candidates that say they love Obama, yet ignore this part of his legacy (that he himself
violated).
Finally there is our legacy in Syria. Our legacy of
war crimes .
"The Commission finds that there are reasonable grounds to believe that international coalition forces may not have directed their
attacks at a specific military objective, or failed to do so with the necessary precaution," it said.
"Launching indiscriminate attacks that result in death or injury to civilians amounts to a war crime in cases in which such
attacks are conducted recklessly," it added.
Engaging in an illegal war while committing war crimes is a "full stop" right there. No amount of virtue-signaling can justify
this.
And yet it still gets worse
.
In a now-famous secretly recorded conversation with Syrian opposition activists in New York, Former Secretary of State John Kerry
admitted that the United States was hoping to use ISIS to undermine the Syrian government. To put it bluntly, U.S. foreign policy
was duplicitous and used terrorism as a tool. This, of course, is a well-documented fact.
If we had a real media these candidates would all be crucified.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public relations
companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of the
public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
The New Arab article quote "public relations firms to brandish their image in the US" has a word usage problem. The correct
word would be burnish, not brandish. You brandish your weapon. You burnish your image.
The UAE is pumping millions of dollars into "vast and influential" lobbying efforts in the US, using a range of public
relations companies to help shape foreign policy issues, a report by a Washington-based non-profit alleged this week.
The report published by the Center for International Policy (CIP) claims that 20 US companies were paid around $20 million
to lobby politicians and other influential institutions on foreign policy issues.
"Though the Emirati's influence operation differs notably from the Saudi's in many ways, both rely heavily on their FARA
registered lobbying and public relations firms to brandish their image in the US, and to keep their transgressions out of
the public consciousness as much as possible," the report reads.
The report is part of CIP's Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative, which aims to elucidate the "half-billion-dollar
foreign influence industry working to shape US foreign policy every single day".
The report added Emirati influence operation targeted legislators, non-profits, media outlets and think-tanks in an attempt
to portray the UAE to the world in a positive light.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the United
States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability to
go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing a long-term
buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by Syrian/Russian/Kurdish
forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the whole
thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking Syrian
forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where it dies
down in a couple weeks.
"Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness" won't happen. The MSM won't allow it.
a lot of people think it is actually kind of *staged* by an agreement with Russia and Turkey, and if so, it'll force the
United States out of northern Syria, make the US look stupid, but actually give everybody what they want. Check it out:
--Turkey makes some initial attacks in northern Syria, tells the US to get out of the way and abandon the Kurds
--The Kurds are forced to ally with Syrian forces, and they are swept into the Syrian Army ranks (negating their ability
to go independent)
--The Syrian Army moves to the border and starts manning border crossings (already happening in many places), providing
a long-term buffer between Kurds and Turkey
--The Turkish-backed terrorist forces are expended in border confrontations (Turkey really does not want them long-term)
--Once things settle down, Syrian refugees move back into Syria, out of Turkey
--US forces are forced to move out of northeastern Syria and out of the oil fields (or be surrounded and starved out by
Syrian/Russian/Kurdish forces)
--Kurds are not wholesale slaughtered, and Democratic presidential candidates are revealed for their foolishness in the
whole thing
--Trump gets more of what he wants--more US troops out of Syria (against the wishes of the deep state)
--Turkey has a protected border and the incesant attacks from Kurds drops to manageable levels due to the Syrian army border
and the Kurds becoming integrated into Syrian forces.
I give this a 50% of how it will play out. Sure, there are current battles ongoing, but so far, Turkey is not attacking
Syrian forces, who are moving up into place on the border in many areas. The central area is still fluid, but let's see where
it dies down in a couple weeks.
(as Kurdish Syria is sometimes called) is that one
of the Kurd leaders became a follower of Murray Bookchin after spending a bunch of time as a Marxist-Leninist, and so portions
of Kurdish society are an experiment in Bookchinism. Here is a
piece by Bookchin's daughter on the correspondence between him and the Kurds. Hopefully the Kurds will find some protection
in the new Putin-brokered Syria.
Otherwise, yeah, the Kurds are an ally of convenience for the Democratic Party and its apologists on that most disgusting of
propaganda instruments, National Public Radio.
but it should have also been illegal for us to arm the same people that we had declared terrorists. Now those people are killing
the people who fought on our side against the ones now doing the killing.. my head is spinning with all the insane talking points
coming from people who have never met a war they didn't support.
This is a good read.
Former and current US officials have slammed the Turkish mercenary force of "Arab militias" for executing and beheading Kurds
in northern Syria. New data from Turkey reveals that almost all of these militias were armed and trained in the past by the CIA
and Pentagon.
By Max Blumenthal
Left: John McCain with then-FSA chief Salim Idriss (right) in 2013; Right: Salim Idriss (center) in October, announcing the establishment
of the National Front for Liberation, the Turkish mercenary army that has invaded northern Syria.
Hmm..kinda hard to explain that huh? The article talks about Idriss in detail. As well as Obama and Hillary's roles in the
'no boots on the ground' war.
This should embarrass every person who is moaning over Trump's actions in Syria. Turkey was coming in one way or another and
the only way to stop them was for our troops to stand in their way. But what really ticks me off is all of that equipment they
left behind on their bug out. Not just tents , TVs and air conditioners and everything in between, but they left weapons and bombs
there and they just blew them up. This will make the defense companies very happy!
After the ceasefire, US backed
#Kurds are deciding to hand over the north of
#Syria to Turkey rather than the
Syrian army. All trump had to promise them was a stake in
#Syria 's oil fields.
https://t.co/euat8DvIa4
Syrian Girl lives in Syria and has been a good source of information, but I'm not sure if what she is reporting is true. But
wouldn't that shut lots of people up?
Obama kept troops out of Syria until the last minute. Then he took a force small enough to justify his successor's escalation.
So when the Turks tried to genocide the Kurds - like they were certain to do - Trump gets the blame. But it was supposed to be
Hillary. What was in it for her? The joy of another country seeing genocide?
The Kurds were promised land and valuable oil fields in North Eastern Syria by... the US. What's wrong with this picture? Damascus
has I invited the Kurds to be part of the multi-ethnic Syria. The Kurds refused and took America's deal. We armed them to the
teeth with 10s of billions of dollars of weapons. What could go wrong? Well just about everything as the US offer was highly illegal,
they are stealing Syrian oil, and Turkey will not accept any Kurdish permanent enclave on her border. Syria, Russia, Iran, China,
Hezbollah, Iraq and more support the reunification of all of Syria. Why were the Kurds so stupid? Go it? Blind belief in the all
powerful US!
(nytimes.com)
427writes in an
op-ed : Yet, as a capitalist, I believe it's time to say out loud what we all know to be
true: Capitalism, as we know it, is dead. Yes, free markets -- and societies that cherish
scientific research and innovation -- have pioneered new industries, discovered cures that have
saved millions from disease and unleashed prosperity that has lifted billions of people out of
poverty. On a personal level, the success that I've achieved has allowed me to embrace
philanthropy and invest in improving local public schools and reducing homelessness in the San
Francisco Bay Area, advancing children's health care and protecting our oceans. But capitalism
as it has been practiced in recent decades -- with its obsession on maximizing profits for
shareholders -- has also led to horrifying inequality. Globally, the 26 richest people in the
world now have as much wealth as the poorest 3.8 billion people, and the relentless spewing of
carbon emissions is pushing the planet toward catastrophic climate change. In the United
States, income inequality has reached its highest level in at least 50 years, with the top 0.1
percent -- people like me -- owning roughly 20 percent of the wealth while many Americans
cannot afford to pay for a $400 emergency. It's no wonder that support for capitalism has
dropped, especially among young people.
To my fellow business leaders and billionaires, I say that we can no longer wash our
hands of our responsibility for what people do with our products. Yes, profits are important,
but so is society. And if our quest for greater profits leaves our world worse off than before,
all we will have taught our children is the power of greed. It's time for a new capitalism -- a
more fair, equal and sustainable capitalism that actually works for everyone and where
businesses, including tech companies, don't just take from society but truly give back and have
a positive impact. What might a new capitalism look like? First, business leaders need to
embrace a broader vision of their responsibilities by looking beyond shareholder return and
also measuring their stakeholder return. This requires that they focus not only on their
shareholders, but also on all of their stakeholders -- their employees, customers, communities
and the planet. Fortunately, nearly 200 executives with the Business Roundtable recently
committed their companies, including Salesforce, to this approach, saying that the "purpose of
a corporation" includes "a fundamental commitment to all of our stakeholders." As a next step,
the government could formalize this commitment, perhaps with the Security and Exchange
Commission requiring public companies to publicly disclose their key stakeholders and show how
they are impacting those stakeholders.
Neocons are lobbyists for MIC, the it is MIC that is the center of this this cult. People like Kriston, Kagan and Max Boot are
just well paid prostituttes on MIC, which includes intelligence agencies as a very important part -- the bridge to Wall Street so to
speak.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Washington Post ..."
"... Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us. ..."
Glenn Greenwald has just published a very important
article in The Intercept that I would have everyone in America read if I could. Titled "With New D.C. Policy Group,
Dems Continue to Rehabilitate and Unify With Bush-Era Neocons", Greenwald's excellent piece details the frustratingly under-reported
way that the leaders of the neoconservative death cult have been realigning with the Democratic party.
This pivot back to the party of neoconservatism's origin is one of the most significant political events of the new millennium,
but aside from a handful of sharp political analysts like Greenwald it's been going largely undiscussed. This is weird, and we need
to start talking about it. A lot. Their willful alignment with neoconservatism should be the very first thing anyone ever talks about
when discussing the Democratic party.
When you hear someone complaining that the Democratic party has no platform besides being anti-Trump, your response should be,
"Yeah it does. Their platform is the omnicidal death cult of neoconservatism."
It's absolutely insane that neoconservatism is still a thing, let alone still a thing that mainstream America tends to regard
as a perfectly legitimate set of opinions for a human being to have. As what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts rightly
calls "the most dangerous ideology that has ever
existed," neoconservatism has used its nonpartisan bloodlust to work with the Democratic party for the purpose of escalating tensions
with Russia on multiple fronts, bringing our species to the brink of what could very well end up being a
world war with a nuclear superpower and its allies.
This is not okay. Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan
member or a child molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Check out leading neoconservative Bill Kristol's response to the aforementioned Intercept article:
... ... ...
Okay, leaving aside the fact that this bloodthirsty psychopath is saying neocons "won" a Cold War that neocons have deliberately
reignited by fanning the flames of the Russia hysteria and
pushing for more escalations , how insane is it that we live in a society where a public figure can just be like, "Yeah, I'm
a neocon, I advocate for using military aggression to maintain US hegemony and I think it's great," and have that be okay? These
people kill children. Neoconservatism means piles upon piles of child corpses. It means devoting the resources of a nation that won't
even provide its citizens with a real healthcare system to widespread warfare and all the death, destruction, chaos, terrorism, rape
and suffering that necessarily comes with war. The only way that you can possibly regard neoconservatism as just one more set of
political opinions is if you completely compartmentalize away from the reality of everything that it is.
This should not happen. The tensions with Russia that these monsters have worked so hard to escalate could blow up at any moment;
there are too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong. The last Cold War brought our species
within a hair's
breadth of total annihilation due to our inability to foresee all possible complications which can arise from such a contest,
and these depraved death cultists are trying to drag us back into another one. Nothing is worth that. Nothing is worth risking the
life of every organism on earth, but they're risking it all for geopolitical influence.
... ... ...
I've had a very interesting last 24 hours. My
article about Senator John
McCain (which I titled "Please Just Fucking Die Already" because the title I really wanted to use seemed a bit crass) has received
an amount of attention that I'm not accustomed to, from
CNN to
USA Today to the
Washington Post . I watched Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar
talking about me on The View . They called me a "Bernie
Sanders person." It was a trip. Apparently some very low-level Republican with a few hundred Twitter followers went and retweeted
my article with an approving caption, and that sort of thing is worthy of coast-to-coast mainstream coverage in today's America.
This has of course brought in a deluge of angry comments, mostly from people whose social media pages are full of Russiagate
nonsense , showing
where McCain's current support base comes from. Some call him a war hero, some talk about him like he's a perfectly fine politician,
some defend him as just a normal person whose politics I happen to disagree with.
This is insane. This man has actively and enthusiastically pushed for every single act of military aggression that America has
engaged in, and some that
it hasn't , throughout his entire career. He makes Hillary "We came, we saw, he died" Clinton look like a dove. When you look
at John McCain, the very first thing you see should not be a former presidential candidate, a former POW or an Arizona Senator; the
first thing you see should be the piles of human corpses that he has helped to create. This is not a normal kind of person, and I
still do sincerely hope that he dies of natural causes before he can do any more harm.
Can we change this about ourselves, please? None of us should have to live in a world where pushing for more bombing campaigns
at every opportunity is an acceptable agenda for a public figure to have. Neoconservatism is a psychopathic death cult whose relentless
hyper-hawkishness is a greater threat to the survival of our species than anything else in the world right now. These people are
traitors to humanity, and their ideology needs to be purged from the face of the earth forever. I'm not advocating violence of any
kind here, but let's stop pretending that this is okay. Let's start calling these people the murderous psychopaths that they are
whenever they rear their evil heads and stop respecting and legitimizing them. There should be a massive, massive social stigma around
what these people do, so we need to create one. They should be marginalized, not leading us.
-- -- --
I'm a 100 percent reader-funded journalist so if you enjoyed this, please consider helping me out by sharing it around, liking
me on Facebook , following me on
Twitter , or throwing some money into my hat on
Patreon .
In trying to make up for my ignorance on Rome's history I came across P. A. Brunt's
"Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic." His account of the innovation of the office of the
tribune gave me a good sense of the intensity of those conflicts:
"In 494 a great body of the plebs sat down en masse outside Rome and refused to serve in
the army. Such a 'secession' or strike undoubtedly occurred in 287, and similar revolutionary
action must have been taken now, to account for the concession the patricians were forced to
make: the creation of the tribunate of the plebs. The ten tribunes were plebeians annually
elected by an assembly organized in voting units calle tribes; these were local divisions of
the state, originally four within the city and seventeen in the adjoining countryside. This
assembly was truly democratic at the start, when the tribes were probably more or less equal
in numbers; the rich had no superior voting power.
The original function of the tribunes was to protect humble Romans against oppression by
the magistrates; they did so by literally stepping between them and their intended victims
(intercessio). The magistrates did not dare touch their persons, which were 'sacrosanct';
that meant that the whole plebs were sworn to avenge them by lynching whoever laid hands on
them. But their power was confined to the city; outside the walls, Roman territory was still
too insecure for any restriction to be allowable on the discretion of the magistrates to act
as they thought best for the public safety. This limitation on tribunician power subsisted
throughout the Republic, long after its rationale had disappeared." p.52
In this light, it seems that the obstructionist quality of tribunician power that Yves'
refers to stemmed from the original need to allow plebs to put the kabosh on patrician power
to avoid revolution. Another instance of when peace brought about by a veto power eventually
makes the veto power appear unnecessary.
The limitation on the power of the tribunes in rural areas was relevant to a factor in
Rome's development Brunt places a lot of weight on: the breakdown of plebian farmholding, in
part through loss of land through absence brought about by conscription, but also by
patrician gang violence. In his telling this alienation by dispossession was ongoing to
varying degrees during the Republic.
During the New Deal, the union leaders were effectively tribunes without veto power, but
still considerable influence as they controlled a large number of voters belonging to
respective unions.
Similar short story was with Russian "Soviets" -- worker and peasant consuls until Stalin
centralization of governance. They were kind of power check on Bolshevik party Politburo (a
kind of Senate, the Bolsheviks party nobility )
By Newdealdemocrat. Originally published at
Angry Bear
"Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny," by Edward J. Watts "The Storm Before the Storm,: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic" by Mike
Duncan "Ten Emperors: Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine," by Barry Strauss
I've recently mentioned that lately I've been unable to read most American history books,
with their currently unwarranted chipper optimism. Instead my recent reading has focused on
other periods of crisis.
One question I've been considering is, just how rare, and how stable have Republics
historically been? There are few antecedents for the experience of the US, because it has
aspires to both be a Republic under the rule of law and simultaneously a superpower. In fact I
believe there are only four, in reverse historical order:
The British Empire (yes, I know,
it's technically a monarchy, but it has been a parliamentary democracy really ever since the
Glorious Revolution 400 years ago). The Dutch Republic (I'm not sure if this really qualifies,
since it was more a confederation of principalities, but it was styled a Republic, and it did
have global interests.) The Republic of Venice (this is a dark horse contender, but this
Republic lasted almost 1200 years, from roughly 600 A.D. until it was conquered by that other
"republican," Napoleon, in 1797). The Roman Republic.
In these four posts, I'm going to summarize what I've learned about the Roman Republic
from the three books that lead this post.
While we're all familiar with Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon, and probably all had to
read Shakespeare's Tragedy of that name (but really about Brutus and Cassius) in high school, I
don't think much attention has been paid in modern education to the Roman Republic, which
lasted 450 years – almost as long as the subsequent western Roman Empire – and was
avowedly the model that inspired the Framers of the American Constitution. None of the books
that have come out in the past few years, to my knowledge, have discussed either the Roman
Republic or other historical antecedents to the US. I believe studying the rise and demise of
the Roman Republic, which during its existence was extremely – probably too –
successful, is well worth the effort.
Without intending so, I read the above three books in reverse chronological order above.
"Ten Emperors" was first, followed by "The Storm Before the Storm." Unfortunately this latter
book (in my opinion) wound up being a chronological blow-by-blow vomiting of not well organized
facts. It desperately needed a list of "dramatic personae" with at least a couple of lines
describing the most prominent 20 or 30 individual's role, so that when they re-appeared after a
30 or 80 page hiatus, I could recollect who they were. It also needed an initial chapter
setting forth the basic governing details of the Republic, and most importantly the roles of
the Senate and the Assemblies. In the end it left me so unsatisfied I went back and found
"Mortal Republic," which was a much more orderly and understandable if less detailed
treatment.
If you are interested in the material, I recommend you read "Mortal Republic" in segments,
and then read so much of "The Storm Before the Storm" to fill in the details until you reach
the same chronological point. Once you do that, when you start the final book, you will see
that the process of Imperial succession in the Empire was very much like the power struggles in
the last 60 years of the Republic, and in particular sets forth Augustus's programme and genius
in more detail.
To cut to the chase , the Roman Republic, which was previously quite stable (as
Republics, once they last a generation or more, tend to be), was toppled by a series of
hammer-blows that fell over roughly a 100 year period. The shortest version is that the type of
factional political violence that brought down the Weimar Republic in 10 years took 100 years
to infect and ultimately destroy the Roman one.
There were three levels of causes for this fall, in order of importance:
The de facto
requirement that all senior magistrates and in particular the consuls (analogous to Presidents)
be military commanders, who frequently raised, and increasingly paid for, their own armies. The
increasing breaches of "mas maiorem," or the customs and norms by which the Republic had
operated, on all sides. The split between the oligarchical "optimates" who dominated the Senate
on the one side vs. the "populares" or ordinary Roman plebeians who dominated the Assemblies,
and also the Italian allies who were not Roman citizens, on the other.
More basically put, #3 was the substantive source of disagreement over which all parties
were willing to go to extremes; #2 was the procedural unraveling of the manner of government;
and #1 over time ensured the rise of what we would now call "caudillos," or political generals,
who had the force to overthrow it.
Both histories I have read suggest that the "turning point" where the stresses started to
undermine the Republic was after its greatest triumph: the defeat and obliteration of Carthage
after the third Punic War.
The Structure of the Roman Republic
From its founding as a trading point on the Tiber River until roughly 600 B.C., Rome was
ruled by Etruscan kings, who were then overthrown and the Republic was founded. On a broader
historical scale, it seems that Republics are actually pretty sturdy forms of government once
their institutions take root after a generation or two. That's good news at the present, where
at very least, for example, Russians and Iranians are getting used to the concepts of having
elections and courts.
The Roman Republic was a system by which "Assemblies" of the tribes of Romans directly
elected the executive officers of the Republic for one year terms. Meanwhile the Senate,
essentially a council of notables, gave direction to those executive officers in the carrying
out of their duties. The lowest level official was a "quaestor," basically an aide de camp and
accountant for a legion; followed by aedile, in charge of religious observances and festivals.
The next rung higher was "praetor," similar to a colonel or brigadier general in an army, who
also acted as a "president pro tempore" when the highest officials were absent. Finally, the
highest office was "consul," of which two were chosen every year, as co-chief executives, lead
prosecutors, and commanders-in-chief of the legions. Upon completion of their terms, consuls
joined the Senate.
Another important office was that of the 10 Tribunes. These were explicitly open only to
plebeians, and were designed to protect their interests. Each of the 10 Tribunes could propose
legislation before the Assemblies, and veto legislation proposed by others. Further, none of
the other Tribunes could override the veto of any single one. As we'l see, this chokepoint
proved a weakness in the structure of the Republic. Additionally, there were also "military
tribunes" in the legions, who represented the interests of the soldiers.
Finally, in case of emergency the Republic allowed for the office of "dictator." Most
importantly, for the first 400 years of its use, this office had a strict 6 month time limit,
which was faithfully respected. At the conclusion of the 6 months, the dictator was required to
hand back power to the normal offices, and the status quo ante structure of government was to
resume. The most famous of these was Cincannatus, who returned to his farm after his six month
office expired.
So powerful was the civic pride in the Republic that, when the Macedonian Pyrrhus (of
"Pyrrhic victory" fame) tried to bribe a relatively poor Roman general, Fabricius, Fabricius
refused by rejoining that the Roman Republic provided those who went into public service with
higher honors than mere wealth could supply. In any event, by 300 B.C. Rome had brought all of
Italy except for the far north under its domination. The other Italian city-states were called
"allies," but really they were tributaries, their form of tribute being the provision of
soldiers to fight in Rome's legions. Upon reaching adulthood, Roman males owed 10 years service
in the legions. Importantly, the pattern was the planting of crops in the early spring, then
going off to fight in the legions' campaigns during the summers, and returning to harvest the
crops in late autumn.
In any event, the accounts agree that matters began to change after 146 BC , when
Rome simultaneously was victorious over Carthage and also Corinth in Greece. Both treatments of
the Republic pick up at that historical turning point. Little known fact: Carthage was also a
democracy, in fact the Romans considered it "too" democratic. Someone go tell Tom Friedman that
two countries having democratic institutions does not mean that they all go happily ever after
to McDonald's.
But it was with the conquest of Carthage, that by happenstance coincided with the sacking of
Corinth in Greece, also by Rome, that the scrappy little Roman Republic, which was founded
roughly in 500 B.C., and had grown to the dominant power in Italy such that the other city
states on the peninsula were its inferior "allies," simultaneously turned into an empire,
dominating the Mediterranean from Spain to Greece on the European side and present day Algeria
and Tunisia on the African side.
The inhabitants of those unfortunate cities who weren't slaughtered were sold into slavery,
and the treasuries of each were sacked, the riches transported to Rome. Rome also thereby came
into possession of extensive silver mines located in Carthage's lands of present-day Spain. In
short, overnight Rome became filthy rich as well as controlling an empire in the central and
western Mediterranean.
But this very wealth permanently upset the balance between the landowning oligarchs in the
Senate vs. the ordinary urban plebeians and rural farmers. For it was the Senate that had the
power of the purse, and thus the power to distribute the land, gold, silver, jewels, slaves,
and other loot plundered from the vanquished states, as well as the new precious ores mined in
Spain. And, unsurprisingly, they allocated it to themselves. Even worse, because the wars in
North Africa, Greece, and Spain lasted years, the legionnaire farmers spent multiple years away
from their fields. When they returned home, they were victors, but their farms had fallen into
ruinous disrepair. For all intents and purposes, they had to sell -- and the buyers who had
money were frequently none other than the wealthy Senators.
A second form of gross inequality was between Roman citizens and their Italian allies.
Because while the allies were vital to Rome's military success, the allies could be treated as
slaves if the Romans wished to do so.
A final form of inequality affected the affluent or wealthy merchant class, called variously
Knights or Equestrians, because they could afford to own horses, and thus serve as cavalrymen
during military campaigns, depending on the account. But because they were not "old money,"
their path to the top rungs of power was blocked by the oligarchs who controlled the
Senate.
The huge inequalities just described gave rise to seething resentment by both the urban and
rural plebeians as well as the Italian allies and the Equestrian class as well. The essential
story of the Roman Republic between 146 BC and its fall a century later was the refusal of the
oligarchs who usually controlled the Senate to make any significant compromises to this state
of affairs, and the increasing violence used both by the opposing classes to wrench change, and
the oligarchs to resist it.
Me: Oh, dear. This isn't "wrong" factually, but it misses the essence of Rome, inborn
class war of creditors vs debtors.
The Republic was never remotely a democracy. It was always run by the autocratic Senate. The
wealthiest 10% controlled the majority of votes which – like the DNC today – was
weighted by wealth categories. 90% of the population's votes counted for just 10%. Leaders
proposing more democratic economic policies were murdered, century after century.
Assassination was a normal tool of the oligarchy.
Rome under the kings was stable. It was the America of its day, attracting immigrants with
their wealth, followers and slaves. They were traditionally non-Roman – Sabine (Numa),
Latin, or from Veii (probably Servius), and although chosen by the Senate, they kept the
oligarchy from waging the class war that ensued under the Republic. In 504 Appius Claudius
brought his wealth and 5,000 men from Sabine territory and was admitted to the Senate. His
namesakes throughout Roman history were intransigent opponents of democracy, triggering
Secession of the Plebs (494 and 450) and subsequent confrontations. They were sort of like
the post-Batista Cubans fleeing to Florida and becoming ultra right-wingers.
Fast forward to the Punic Wars. Toynbee wrote a book saying that the aftermath in 201 was
Hannibal's Revenge. The oligarchy gave the rich campagna lands to itself instead of settling
war veterans. Greek and Macedonian slaves stocked the great plantations being assembled. This
led Tiberius Gracchus and his brother to press for limits on public land grabbing. They and
their followers were killed, as were those of Marius (by the prescriptions of Sulla) and of
Catiline.
I'm writing the 2nd volume of my history of debt to review the collapse of antiquity. The
social struggles were all about debt and land redistribution.When Yves finishes posting this series, I may provide a sample chapter.
The UK doesn't claim to be a republic, but does claim to be a democracy (although
technically since the UK's executive is elected and not inherited, it'd be a republic. Sort
of republican monarchy).
Vlade – there is how one is 'organized' and then how one seems to function as to how
one actually functions. Definitions matter at least in knowing A from B.
UK wise if in
Commons MPs are going to say as they having being lately that they must 'act' in the best
interest of blah, blah – note not represent, but 'act in', then I don't know why people
even bother to vote.
With Parliament being Sovereign, they do as they like. As to the US well
Lincoln did what he had to be win the war but that and changes to how Senators got elected,
and the ever present electoral college, if we have a republic I don't know who is being
represented (I do but it's depressing).
Rome, all I have to say is, to me it's amazing how
many emperors got whacked or killed in battle. Not a place I would have wanted to live in.
Yes, I use 'titus' as in Titus.Andronicus.
Assassination only became a common weapon in Roman politics towards the end of the second
century (the murder of Tiberius Gracchus is considered a major turning point). Up to that
point the nobility favored co-optation instead.
Starting in 367 the consulship was open to
plebeian candidates and within a few decades plebeians were able to gain access to every high
office in the Republic. Wealthy plebeians, that is. You needed money and aristocratic
connections to get elected (nobles had extensive followings of clients whose votes they could
deliver).
Plebeians who served in high office were then eligible for membership in the
Senate. Welcome to the club. The newly-ennobled senators could bring their wealth into play,
marrying into old (and sometimes not too wealthy) patrician families.
A familiar story. And
of course our shake-and-bake aristocrats would "forget where they came from" and become
lifelong supporters of the oligarchy.
"And of course our shake-and-bake aristocrats would "forget where they came from" and
become lifelong supporters of the oligarchy." Not just in the US, but the mother country,
too.
The deracinated elite known as the Chipping Norton Set, which also includes its Notting
Hill and Primrose Hill outposts in London, is a mix of aristocracy, vide David Cameron, and
new money (or "nouves" as old money calls them, as per what Alan Clark said about Michael
Heseltine and other Tory MPs), vide Michael Gove and his wife Sarah Vine, currently gunning
for Meghan Markle.
Synoia and I went to schools with both types. At my alma mater, it was interesting to
observe the "nouves" trying so hard to fit in. The (now) peers I knew, four earls, a
viscount, a baron and two baronets, were easy going and had a sense of paternalism, quite
different from Thatcher's children.
Rome wasn't a democracy has been a constant meaningless statement, starting with many of
the US founders, even to the point more recently in Symes book "The Roman Revolution" where
many argue Rome wasn't a "republic"!
Both words, one Greek, one Latin simply define systems
that may best be described as some sort of self-government, where the general populous
– the citizenry – had some sort of direct role in politics and governance,
leadership changed by elections as opposed to monarchies, "oligarchies" and "dictatorships,"
once again mixing Greek and Roman terms.
Democracy in Athens wasn't even democracy as defined by notions in many academics' heads.
After all they had slaves, how could it be a democracy? The Greek assembly wasn't the only
institution of government in Greek democracies, the "demes" were numerous local structures
connected horizontally as much as vertically and more fundamental, along with various
hierarchical tribe elements, wealth factors etc., similarities the Romans shared.
The Senate in Rome ran foreign affairs, the assemblies, whether organized by tribe or
military unit were composed of every citizen and passed legislation and elected officials and
yes the votes were weighted, but that doesn't discount them. The Senate certainly didn't have
authoritarian control. And yes, the history of Rome was constant struggle between the plebs
and patricians, for example the plebs sitting out of battle till the office of Tribune was
instituted, the simplistic claim Rome wasn't "democracy" is to miss the whole 450 year plot
of the republic.
In fact, Machiavelli in his "Discourses on Livy" states this struggle was at
the heart of the dynamism of the Roman republic.
It can also be noted for all our neo-socialists, it was this "class" struggle that formed
the foundation of Marx's thought and where he got the idea of the "proletariat" as a
revolutionary class, though how one could look at the Roman proletariat in the republic's
last half-century as revolutionary is more than a mystery.
In short, to simply throw away the Roman republic as not being democratic is both wrong
and removes from Western history one of the few examples of self-government we have, as
opposed I suppose to some sort of Platonic notion of "democracy" which never existed.
In trying to make up for my ignorance on Rome's history I came across P. A. Brunt's
"Social Conflicts in the Roman Republic." His account of the innovation of the office of the
tribune gave me a good sense of the intensity of those conflicts:
"In 494 a great body of the plebs sat down en masse outside Rome and refused to serve in
the army. Such a 'secession' or strike undoubtedly occurred in 287, and similar revolutionary
action must have been taken now, to account for the concession the patricians were forced to
make: the creation of the tribunate of the plebs. The ten tribunes were plebeians annually
elected by an assembly organized in voting units calle tribes; these were local divisions of
the state, originally four within the city and seventeen in the adjoining countryside. This
assembly was truly democratic at the start, when the tribes were probably more or less equal
in numbers; the rich had no superior voting power.
The original function of the tribunes was to protect humble Romans against oppression by
the magistrates; they did so by literally stepping between them and their intended victims
(intercessio). The magistrates did not dare touch their persons, which were 'sacrosanct';
that meant that the whole plebs were sworn to avenge them by lynching whoever laid hands on
them. But their power was confined to the city; outside the walls, Roman territory was still
too insecure for any restriction to be allowable on the discretion of the magistrates to act
as they thought best for the public safety. This limitation on tribunician power subsisted
throughout the Republic, long after its rationale had disappeared." p.52
In this light, it seems that the obstructionist quality of tribunician power that Yves'
refers to stemmed from the original need to allow plebs to put the kabosh on patrician power
to avoid revolution. Another instance of when peace brought about by a veto power eventually
makes the veto power appear unnecessary.
The limitation on the power of the tribunes in rural areas was relevant to a factor in
Rome's development Brunt places a lot of weight on: the breakdown of plebian farmholding, in
part through loss of land through absence brought about by conscription, but also by
patrician gang violence. In his telling this alienation by dispossession was ongoing to
varying degrees during the Republic.
Carthaginian silver from Spain poisoned Rome as assuredly as South American silver
poisoned Spain. There is a rule operating there which our men of commerce probably don't like
much.
Also of interest is the Social War, 91-88 BC, in which tributary Italian tribes fought,
not for independence but for Roman citizenship. Somewhat analogous to modern civil rights
movements. Interestingly, the Romans won the war but in order to avoid further costly
conflict, acceded to the tribes' demands.
Who are you talking about? Having read, "A. Lincoln: A Biography", by White Jr., Ronald C,
I can tell you it is not a 'chipper' book, assuming I know what that is. It is one of the
most intense books I've ever read – you get to be Lincoln the whole time he was
President, it is white hot painful.
Maybe instead of "chipper" they meant "hagiographic." I am not familiar with that work by
Ronald C. White, but the blurb includes the phrase, "offers a fresh and compelling definition
of Lincoln as a man of integrity."
Many people would say that Lincoln's greatest contribution was getting assassinated,
paving the way for Radical Reconstruction, which he was against. I do not expect a book
making that case to appear in any airport magazine rack.
Maybe a book could be found titled the greatest tragedy, the assassination of Abraham
Lincoln. His death just added anger to the North's desire for payback. There was
simultaneously too harsh and too lenient treatment of the Southern Slaveocracy.
Followed by the abandonment of the Southern governments then under the control of the black
leadership in 1877 with the withdrawal of the army. The country then ignored the very violent
takeover of the South by the waiting white elites causing the undoing much of the conflict
and death of the previous thirty years. A worse of all outcomes except the continuation of
slavery you could say. Although with the new forms of slavery created in the South after
Reconstruction were not technically slavery, they were damn close at times.
"Only true for mass market history, particularly by non professional historians, who have
to be chipper to sell books and/or get MSM attention." As above, we have the same problem in
the mother country. Boris Johnson, Jacob Rees-Mogg and Jeremy Paxman write for a certain
audience and are often serialised in the Daily Mail and given air time on state broadcasters
like the BBC and Channel 4. The trio have been joined by once serious historians Simon Schama
and David Cannadine. It would be difficult for an EP Thompson or Eric Hobsbawm, whose
daughter is a staunch Blairite, just like the children and grandchildren of Wedgie Benn, to
get published or air time now.
The gap between academic British history and the propaganda peddled by the likes of
British state media organ bbc.com (let alone Boris Johnson) is astounding. Just one example:
I once forced myself to read a bbc.com article that explained how Britain's primary role in
the history of slavery was to end it, and have encountered that unique version of history in
a few other British mass-media productions.
And did you know that in London there is an actual place called the Imperial War Museum,
and it is not some kind of collection of Marxist diatribes and Global South protests, it is a
state-funded temple of reverence for Britain's wars (and admittedly some solid academic
history)?
It is as if an entire country were naked and they were the only ones who didn't know it or
else thought they were hiding it.
We have had that problem in UK all my life. State historians have conspired to create a
clean and uplifting version of British history, over the last 200-300 years, and it is only
now that we Poms are beginning to get our real history, courtesy of Andrew Roberts (on
Napoleon) and David Starkey (on most everything else).
One hopes that academics are respectable people. Can they look in the mirror and recognise
the problem?
I am afraid that Newdealdemocrat's views on Republican Rome do have to be heavily
qualified. And I won't mention that the British Empire and the Republic of Venice were
actually oligarchies. Wait – I just did!
Anyway, when he gets to the part about the Punic Wars he tends to mash the events of the
different wars together. The Romans were not the same people that they were at the beginning
of these wars. The social conditions and mores had changed too much. A serious use of a
timeline is needed so a bit of context here. The three Punic wars were epic on scale and
amounted to world wars at the time. In the second war, Rome went right to the brink and was
nearly snuffed out but managed to hold the line. When the British were fighting the French
during the Napoleonic wars, a lot of British were equating their struggles to the 2nd Punic
War. Here is how it went.
During the first Rome and Carthage went at it for over twenty years until it finally ended.
After a break of twenty years, the went at it again for another seventeen years. After that
war was over, you had peace for about fifty years until the last war which only lasted three
years and after hard fighting, Carthage was no more. And no, it was not really a Republic at
all. So all in all these three wars were spread over nearly 120 years. So lets equate that
with a history of the United States.
Suppose that the US were fighting a country going from the Spanish-American war until the end
of WW1. Then they fought this enemy again from WW2 to near the beginning of the Vietnam war.
The final war would have broken out a few years ago and just finished. So using this idea,
would Newdealdemocrat argue that the Americans of the 1890s were like the Americans of the
1940s & 1950s who would be like modern Americans? Too much water has passed under the
bridge and so it was with the Romans. And certainly you cannot mix up events from these
different American eras without a serious misrepresentation of history.
Re Venice – a republic can be an oligarchy – the point is that the executive
is elected (from some body), not inherited.
From that point, Venice wasn't a republic until about 1000AD, when the Concia started to
form (of all free men). Before that it was appointment from Byzantium. The democratic attempt
changed to oligarchic in about 1300. As a republic it was still pretty stable due to the
extremely convoluted (on purpose) sortition election mechanism, which was making it pretty
hard to impossible to rig future Doges w/o very large consensus in the electorate.
Granted that a republic can be an oligarchy and a good example was East Germany which was
called the German Democratic Republic. I am here to say though that I spent a few hours in
that place and it definitely did not feel like a democratic republic. A few months ago I read
a history of the Republic of Venice and from what I read, it had the same feel as East
Germany once did with its strict controls and ruthlessness.
Indeed (and most of the Soviet-block countries were republics and 'people's republic' and
'democratic', when they were none of these. DPRK is a prime example none. Not democratic, not
peoples' not republic, and partially Korea).
I just want to be reasonably precise, as lots of people assume that democracy and republic
are equal. I don't know whether the author was making that assumption too, or was looking at
republic in the wider sense.
The US can be a republic and not being democratic at all .
vlade and Rev Kev: The Serenissima is fascinating, and it is hard to draw lessons because
it was a highly contradictory place. Venetian justice was supposed to have been relentless
and severe–yet histories tend to clump the repression. Over the long span of time,
Venice wasn't such a bad place to live, and the Republic had a reputation for being more just
than any of the surrounding states. (Although I just peeked at the list of doges, and it was
hard to be a doge in the 900s or so.)
The Republic was highly skeptical of the Inquisition and kept it under control. Compared
other Catholic–and Protestant–states, the Venetians didn't allow the mass panic
and miscarriages of justice that the Inquisition was famous for.
What the Venetians were good at was a kind of civic esprit de corps–all Venetians
seem to have been committeed to the city. There was considerable openness–Venice was a
center for book publishing for centuries. Of course, those in charge of the Republic kept the
university in Padua. On the other hand, Galileo taught at Padua, without incident. Marin
Falier and his attempted coup were a notable exception, which is why history books dwell on
those events.
Venetians loved minutiae, which may be their odd distinguishing characteristic. They saved
everything, in their enormous archives–every record, every blunder, every victory. They
made officials obtain a countersignature–that skepticism, slight lack of trust, was
everywhere.
And what may make them the most exceptional was their island empire: They rule the Ionian
islands in Greece pretty much to the end of the Serenissima. Yet they weren't insular. There
was a reluctant tolerance–the Ghetto in the city itself, the Armenian monasteries in
the lagoon, the large populations of Greek Orthodox on Crete and Cyprus whom they did not
bother much.
Much to contemplate here: But most USonians consider Venice these days to be a shopping
mall. It is hard to find decent books in English on the complicated history of Venice.
I'm not sure it's exactly clear how their government compares to modern types. The best
place to look is Polybius, who was alive during the final Punic war. Here's what he has to
say –
51 1 The constitution of Carthage seems to me to have been originally well contrived as
regards its most distinctive points. 2 For there were kings, and the house of Elders was an
aristocratical force, and the people were supreme in matters proper to them, the entire
frame of the state much resembling that of Rome and Sparta. 3 But at the time when they
entered on the Hannibalic War, the Carthaginian constitution had degenerated, and that of
Rome was better. 4 For as every body or state or action has its natural periods first of
growth, then of prime, and finally of decay, and as everything in them is at its best when
they are in their prime, it was for this reason that the difference between the two states
manifested itself at this time. 5 For by as much as the power and prosperity of Carthage
had been earlier than that of Rome, by so much had Carthage already begun to decline; while
Rome was exactly at her prime, as far as at least as her system of government was
concerned. 6 Consequently the multitude at Carthage had already acquired the chief voice in
deliberations; while at Rome the senate still retained this; 7 and hence, as in one case
the masses deliberated and in the other the most eminent men, the Roman decisions on public
affairs were superior, 8 so that although they met with complete disaster, they were
finally by the wisdom of their counsels victorious over the Carthaginians in the war.
Worth reading the beginning of book 6 too where he compares the different types of
governments and how they evolve, or more likely, devolve. Here he seems to be making that
case that whatever form of republic or democracy the Carthiginians once had, it had devolved
to mob rule by the time of the Punic wars.
I'd like to wait for the entire series before commenting too much, but based upon my
readings on the subject, the connection between oversees military operations and the
disposition of the farmers is incredibly important. It seems to underlie many of the
subsequent problems that contributed to the Fall of the Republic. Without the farmers being
forced off their lands after fighting wars in Africa, Greece, and Spain, they would not have
become reliant upon generals for patronage nor joined the poor masses in Rome itself.
Describing Britain as a "parliamentary democracy" for the past 400 years seems a little
far-fetched. "Constitutional monarchy" would be more accurate, with the monarch sharing power
with Parliament. Parliament itself was a highly elitist affair, dominated by the "landed
classes" (aristocracy & gentry) and chosen by a tiny and well-managed electorate. In
addition, monarchs retained a great deal of power over the choice of ministers. This state of
affairs lasted well into the 19th century. The young Queen Victoria was the very last monarch
to attempt (unsuccessfully) to keep a Prime Minister in office without parliamentary
approval. And democracy (defined as universal suffrage or something close to it) had to wait
until the Reform Bills of 1867 and 1884. By the time a parliamentary democracy exists the
Empire has become a well-established fact.
I believe it was the Irishman Castlereagh who almost single-handedly brought down the
monarchy because of the unparliamentary George III, specifically the attempted seizure of
South America. Once that powerful and knowledgeable King was pushed aside, the next couple of
clowns were dog's meat to politicians determined to center power on the Commons. The MO was
to give a bit and take a lot and thus whittle down the Civil List to a point no future
British monarch had independent power.
I think that the writer misunderstands Roman offices. An aedile was more of an inspector
of public works. The word edile / edilizia is still used in Italian for building /
construction.
The college of pontifexes were the ones in charge of festivals and religious events. And
there were complicated qualifications for membership (involving social class) as well as
complicated rules of behavior expected of these priesthoods.
The de facto requirement that all senior magistrates and in particular the consuls
(analogous to Presidents) be military commanders, who frequently raised, and increasingly
paid for, their own armies.
-- -
We can look to Marius for that.
From Wikipedia*:
Marius and his contemporaries' need for soldiers cemented a paradigmatic shift away from
the levy-based armies of the middle Republic towards open recruitment. Thereafter, Rome's
legions would largely consist of poor citizens (the "capite censi" or "head count") whose
future after service could only be assured if their general could bring about land
distribution and pay on their behalf. In the broad sweep of history, this reliance on poor
men would make soldiers strongly loyal not to the Senate and people of Rome, but to their
generals whom would be perceived as friends, comrades, benefactors, and patrons of
soldiers.[57]
*We can find this subject, Marius military reform, covered in many places, some not as
readily quotable as Wikipedia, which is cited here as an introduction to those who are not
already familiar with. People who want more details can do further research, and those who
object to part or parts of the above can raise them here for readers to discuss/debate or to
correct/update.
Well even the billionaires are panicked now. Whereas traditional oligarchs have sewn their
diamonds in their petticoats and still been massacred. That's very symbolic. Talk about blood
diamonds. It's possible that we are facing the end of an era. To go forward now we can no
longer take from the environment frivolously, beyond our needs. And we will be required by
Nature to leave the world better than we found it. In my mind that leaves all dysfunctional
governments looking pretty stupid.
I recommend Colleen McCullough's First Man in Rome and the subsequent books. It's
historical fiction but is heavily based upon the original sources and provides an
entertaining way to study the fall of the Roman Republic.
The post briefly touches upon it but the rise of the commercial class played directly into
Plato's cycle of governments. The landed aristocracy (Senate) became threatened by the
commercial class (Assembly). This will explode when Marius and Sulla go to war with each
other as the Assembly took away Sulla's rightful command and gave it to Marius.
Of course, back then, losing in politics increasingly became a case of losing your head,
citizenship, or all property. A strong motivation to stay in power regardless of the
cost.
This ought to be an interesting series! I am hoping Newdealdemocrat doesn't just
regurgitate the books he/she mentions but gives us some critical insight of his/her own.
Obviously the Roman Republic is important to Americans since the Founding Fathers were
enamored of Polybius's writings, but it sad they weren't equally interested in understanding
the reasons the Roman Republic collapsed; they might have put more protections into our
Constitution. But in fairness to them, perhaps there just wasn't that much literature on the
subject of the Roman Republic's collapse at that time since it seem that writers previous to
1776 were more interested in the collapse of the Roman Empire than in the Roman Republic.
The collapse of the Roman Republic was very complex and cannot be simplified down into
just one thing or one set of things so I tend to discount those writers who do that. And
every historian that has written about the Roman Republic/Empire's collapses is ethnocentric
and weights history based on what is important to him/her and I don't expect this writer to
be any different. Since I don't know how a writer can avoid understanding history in terms of
his/her own culture instead of the culture that existed at the time, I usually try to find
out who the writer is and what is important to him/her and then I read his/her history within
that context. Since I don't know anything about this writer, I am inclined to withhold
judgement on the validity for now. But even those writers on the Roman Republic who were
obviously biased have provided valuable insights. I am hoping for at least that and maybe
more from this writer.
As the 2nd millennium passes into the 3rd I believe it grows plain our Empire is crumbling
and I fear its last days will come in my lifetime. Empires have ended before – but this
time is different. This end will be far more complete, further reaching, and perhaps more
final than any collapse which occurred in the past. This collapse will signal the end of
Empire but also the end of the Age of Fossil Fuels. And the scale of our collapse will dwarf
the scale of all the collapses of the past. It is strange and eerie to live through last days
– strange days watching the emergence of signs of collapse.
Our civilization is built on the power we obtain from burning fossil fuels. But fossil
fuels are finite. We extracted and burned them at such a rate as now seems unimaginable. They
were a legacy of energy and chemicals such as might have nurtured Humankind for many
millennia. We wastefully burned-up this legacy in less than a century. And now our bright
candle's wick burns close to the pan as we burn what remains of our fossil fuel legacy. If
Humankind's capacity to replace fossil fuels relies upon the use of fossil fuels to discover
and build that replacement – our bridge to the future – I fear we have so
completely burned that bridge and all the bridges behind us. Our collapse will come before we
see full scope of the wonders Climate Chaos holds in promise. Not only have we burned our
bridges, we have so changed our world that our survivors will face constantly changing and
difficult adaptations for many millennia to come.
If only the collapse of our Empire were more like the collapse of Rome or the other
Empires mentioned.
Many thanks to Yves for this post and to the commentariat for their excellent
contributions. Another trip to the library is in order; as often happens, I am made aware of
huge gaps in my knowledge.
I think he is a little harsh on Mike Duncan's "The Storm Before the Storm."
"Unfortunately this latter book (in my opinion) wound up being a chronological
blow-by-blow vomiting of not well organized facts."
There are many ways to tell the story of history, and there is not such thing as an
unbiased, factual account, given the intellectual and ideological biases of any given author,
and the necessary basis in available sources that are in themselves biased to begin with.
That being said, Mike Duncan's book (which I just finished) tries to give a chronological
account of "what happened", and (in my opinion) does so in a clear and coherent fashion,
allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions and interpretation. I wouldn't want people
to avoid the book due to one person's opinion. I agree though that it's helpful to read as
many different takes on a given historical topic as one has the time and inclination for, as
there is no one "correct" or "best" interpretation.
If you like podcasts, "Death Throes of the Republic", by Dan Carlin, covers the same
territory in Carlin's highly engaging and addictive style.
Duncan's book is derived from his podcast of the same name. I haven't listened (I'm an "I,
Claudius" guy) but his "Revolutions" podcast is very very good.
It might be that his Rome podcast works better than his book.
As my mite to the discussion I'd like to recommend as a valuable contribution to the
history of the fall of the Republic Gareth Sampson's The Collapse of Rome. Marius, Sulla,
and the First Civil War (91-70 BC) , Barnsley, South Yorkshire, Pen & Sword Military,
2013, 284 pp. Sampson's thesis is, as has been already pointed out, that the Republic was
inalterably changed by the Social War and Sulla's assault on Rome when he returned from the
East.
Being a neoconservative should receive at least as much vitriolic societal rejection as being a Ku Klux Klan member or a child
molester, but neocon pundits are routinely invited on mainstream television outlets to share their depraved perspectives.
Notable quotes:
"... Some of the "virtual facts:" ..."
"... The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of the Russian government. ..."
"... Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." ..."
"... The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be destroyed and replaced by God knows what . ..."
"... Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. ..."
"... It is beyond scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both political parties ..."
"... I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect. ..."
"... The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are always simplified and usually grossly distorted. ..."
"... Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'. ..."
"... It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled. A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi, is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country, ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen. (Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug", just as they call Assad a "butcher".) ..."
"... Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that attacked us on 9/11. ..."
"... Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown his way by the Arab sheikhs ..."
Mika B remarked a couple of years ago on the show that she and her sex slave stage in the
early morning that the social media were out of control because it is the job of the MSM to
tell people what to think. The Hillary stated recently that life was better when there were
only three TeeVee news outlets because it was easier to keep things under control. Now? My God!
Any damned fool can propagate unauthorized "facts." What? Who?
Well, pilgrims, the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters)
are the preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base
our policy. These "facts" are "ginned up" in the well moneyed hidden staff groups of "hidden"
candidates that are devoted to the seizure of power made possible by a deluded electorate.
These "facts" are then propagated and reinforced through relentless IO campaigns run by
executive "bots" in the MSM and in such remarkable and imaginative efforts as the "White
Helmets" film company manned by jihadis and managed by clubby Brits left over from the Days of
The Raj (sob). These "facts" are now so entrenched in the general mind that they can be used to
denounce people like Rep. (major ) Gabbard as traitors because they challenge them.
Some of the "virtual facts:"
The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist and an inevitable and indeed
indispensable enemy of the US. Anyone who challenges that certitude is an obvious agent of
the Russian government.
Iran is the "greatest supporter of terrorism" in the world." Iran is so designated by the
State Department on the annual list of terrorism supporting states which asserts this to be
true on the basis of Iranian support of Lebanese Hizbullah and Palestinian Hamas, calling
them "terrorist" groups rather than anti -Israeli nationalist resistance organizations. This
Zionist inspired propaganda is spread far and wide by neocon "useful idiots" like Maria
Bartiromo and Jesse Watters.
The Syrian Arab Government is an abomination on the scale of Nazi Germany and must be
destroyed and replaced by God knows what ... "They gassed their own people!" Bullshit! There
is no objective evidence for that. There are nothing but propaganda statements by the FUKUS
governments unsupported by any real evidence. The MI-6 funded (with USAID money) Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights (located in a basement in England) as well as the White Helmets
murder/propaganda operation states that the SAG is guilty as charged but independent
investigation says that assertions of SAG guilt are untrue.
Saudi Arabia is a deeply friendly state and ally of the US. How mad an idea is this! This
theocratic, absolute monarchy is a friend of the US? How insane an idea! Trump has a balance
sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief that MBS and/or his
"country" are our friends. pl
Yes I fully concur. We have gone from fact-based news to faith-based fake news led by the
MSM. I recall at the start of the Iraq War in March 2003, the line was out that British PM
Tony Blair was George W. Bush's "poodle," forgetting entirely that it was the first of the
British "dodgy dossiers" that made the totally discredited claim that Saddam had gotten tons
of yellow cake from Niger. So the British have no military resources but they continue to
maintain the idea that they can manipulate the U.S. and make up for the demise of the old
British empire.
The Steele dossier was the second British "dodgy dossier" that got the ball rolling on
Trump the Russian mole and Putin's "poodle."
So much fraud. But now social media must be patrolled and anyone daring to challenge the
voice of the MSM must be purged by Google, Facebook, Twitter et al.
My question is: When will the machinations of the Big Lie MSM Wurlitzer cross the line and
trigger the backlash that they secretly fear so much? MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or
else his "fake news" polemic will stick... because there is no much truth to it. The
messenger may be crude, but he has the bully pulpit to have a real impact.
I await the release, as Larry Johnson pointed out, of the Horowitz IG report on the
origins of the fake Trump-Russia collusion line. Also the pending Barr-Durham larger report
which is zeroing in on John Brennan.
"MSM has to destroy Trump by 2020 or else..."
The MSM are joined by all those folks who were wined, dined, and degraded by Jeffrey Epstein
and Hollywood hero Harvey Weinstein. Nobody seems to care about who Jeffrey abused, or who
enjoyed his island paradise. Harvey, he's about to buy a free ride out of jail. Meanwhile we
jail idiots who "bribe" there kids way into that "elite" institution - UCLA.
an ideal study would no doubt want to look into the Italy-GB-US angle already concerning
the "first dossier", or whatevers. Didn*t that have mediawise an intermediate French
angle?
This is what happens when the deciders believe their own propaganda. The media now says
that a residual force of American troops and contractors will stay behind at the Deir ez-Zor
oil fields and Al-Tanf base near the Jordon border. The media moguls dare not mention that
the real intention is to prevent the Syrian Arab Army from retaking its own territory or that
Turkey is seizing thousands of square miles of Syria. Syrians with Russia, Chinese and
Iranian aid won't quit until Syria is whole again and rebuilt. This means that America
continues its uninvited unwinnable war in the middle of nowhere with no allies for no reason
at all except to do Israel's bidding and to make money for military contractors. The swamp's
regime change campaign failed. The Houthis' Aramco attack shows that the gulf oil supply is
at risk and can be shut down at will. Continuing these endless wars that are clearly against
the best interests of the American people is insane.
It strikes me, as a matter of observable fact, that the Houthi attack had almost no long run
affect on oil production. Everything was back to normal within 10 days. I think that the
attack was allowed to occur for exactly one reason and that was to start a shooting war
between the USA as KSA's great defender and Iran as the horrible nation that has a mild
dislike for Israel.
It failed. So far.
To believe that the 24/7/52 AWACS, Ground radar, Israeli radar, and the overlapping close in
radar coverage of the Saudi oil fields all failed to detect the drones and cruise missiles is
to believe in more miracles than I can handle on a good day. It also means that assets in
other parts of this world covered by these same type of radars are just as vulnerable to
local disaffected groups.
The FUKUS thinks we are all a bunch of brainless sheep to be led by a ring in our noses. The
'Muktar' is clueless regarding our Saudi brethren, he's supposed to administer how the
overlords say he's to administer, nothing more. The CIA administration still has a hard-on
because they blew it regarding Iran and they're still embarrassed about it.
In two days, counting closer to a day and a half will be the sad anniversary (October 23)
where the Israeli government willfully with forethought let our Marines and other service
personnel bunked with them at the barracks in Beirut die needlessly, because Nahum Admoni
wanted U.S. to get our noses bloodied.
Never mind that the Russians lost close to 30 million to the brotherhood of the Operation
Paper Clip, and the Bormann Group that today controls from behind the scenes most of the
World's money thanks to Martin creating over 750 corporations initially to start with, that
has expanded like a Hydra. Any time that truth (Russia is no longer Communist) rears its ugly
head, the Bormann group goes into overdrive to ensure that the big lie perpetuates.
The FUKUS think we're all a bunch of sheep to be led off a cliff, and the propaganda mills
have created the trail right up to the edge of the precipice that the sheep are trotting.
Amen. The landslide of disinformation and bullshit disseminated on a daily basis by a pliant
media is happily lapped up by ignorant, uninformed Americans. I've had quite an exchange with
a liberal friend of mine who was shrieking MSNBC talking points on Syria and the Kurds. Mind
you, this fellow never served a day in the military. Never held a clearance in his life.
Didn't know a thing about JOPES and how Special Ops forces use a series of written orders
signed off on by the CJCS. Yet, he was qualified to criticize Trump. At the same time not one
of his kids or grandkids are signed up to fight on that frontline. I told him politely to
STFU and get educated before trying to comment on something he knows nothing about.
Thanks Colonel.
I am British and did consider the military in my youth but if I were that age now I would
not. Having seen what my political master, and yours, have asked the military to do the
danger of being sent on some counter product regime change mission or to prop-up someone I
would rather fight is just too great. I would only end up refusing to follow orders which I
understand the military takes a rather dim view of.
... regime change mission or to prop-up someone I would rather fight is just too
great.
once upon a time, and strictly I had opted not to believe either side before that, but
yes, at one point I wondered fully aware they may be legitimate complaints, how would the
UCK, or the Kosovo Liberation Army become the "Western" partner in war.
In hindsight I was made aware of this one grandiose British officer ... once upon a
time.
"if I were that age now..." That is the same line used by the American left since the
'60s.
"I would only end up refusing to follow orders..."
Samantha Power at the UN and James Comey at the FBI both had a "higher loyalty" than to the
elected government or the Constitution on which it is based. That's why they are busy trying
to subvert it.
There's a lot of truth there, Colonel. Life would be better with just three TV new outlets,
huh. Which three? Can you imagine being limited to three cable new outlets? Actually most
people probably limit themselves to three news outlets or less. They find an echo chamber and
stick with it. I thank God I don't have cable or satellite TV and I have too many interests
to engage with talk radio.
I couldn't agree more with your characterization of "virtual facts" about Iran, Syria and
Saudi Arabia. I also agree that those who continue to view Russia as an implacable enemy bent
on our destruction and world domination are liars and/or fools. The Soviet Union was just a
phase, a phase now past. Russia never ended. Conversely, those who insist that Russia is a
newly minted nation of glitter farting unicorns incapable of nefarious behavior are also
fools and/or liars. Russia is a formidable competitor, fully capable and willing to take
prudent actions in pursuit of her interests. We should respect her and seek cooperation where
we can and tolerance where we must.
How the never-Trumpers treat Tulsi Gabbard is shameful. What Clinton recently said is mild
compared to what others have been saying for quite some time. Calling Tulsi a Russian asset
is foolishly wrong. That Russia may prefer Tulsi over other potential Presidential candidates
should be seen as a positive thing. A policy of mutual respect, cooperation and tolerance
between our two countries would benefit the entire world.
America needed to restore the Kuwait monarchy for freedom and democracy. Remember defense
Secretary Dick Cheney sending captured Iraq arms to the Taliban.
Same play book was used to run Libyan arms through Bengazi to Wahhabism freedom fighter
"ISIS" and the al Lindsey McCain head choppers.
The nonsense will end since not even the United States can endure these costs. Did you hear
Trump? 8 trillion yankee dollars and nothing to show for it.
What is highly alarming, almost terrifying, is that really well educated people who have
achieved great things in their careers and are pillars of society believe this crap.
I had dinner guests last week; a former Chairman of a bank and his wife who is a highly
acclaimed Professor of public Health and Epidemiology who told me how awful Trump and Putin
are neither of these friends are what you could remotely classify as Social Justice
leftists.
My problem is that I don't know where to start to try and put them right without them
thinking I'm a tinfoil hatted conspiracy nut. I wish there was a website dedicated solely to
purveying basic truthful information that is not perhaps as esoteric as SST. Should I try and
start one or are there already good examples to point to?
I'm thinking this is so far and so deep there is nothing that can or will be done. Trump's
election and presidency has lifted the curtain on the puppet show. This recent Syria troop
removal is Trump's second attempt at openly declaring troops will be pulled out of Syria only
to have the military has said, "Um, no, we will stay and simply relocate."
Trump openly
called for FISA warrants to be declassified only to have the DOJ and FBI either ignore and
defy him. Groups like Judicial Watch and others go into court to get the requested
information through FOIA and DOJ and FBI lawyers and the courts block them.
It is beyond
scary to see just how entrenched and powerful Deep State is and how it involves/controls both
political parties. Trump has faced hurricane winds of opposition from day one and has been
constantly subverted by his own party and his own people. I don't know how he can get up
every day and continue to fight the obvious and concerted Deep State coup against him. I pray
for him. I pray the rosary for him.
There are members within Trump's own party who have agreed that there should be an
investigation into the impeachment of Trump for running a yellow light (at most). Again,
members of his own party. Renowned Constitutional lawyers John Yoo and Alan Dershowitz, from
Cal-Berkeley and Harvard laws schools respectively, have said that not only has Trump done
nothing, even remotely, which could trigger an impeachment inquiry but if Congress were to do
so it would be unconstitutional and illegal. But alas, who would enforce this? Deep State
snakes like John Roberts at the Supreme Court? Robert has already signed off on the coup (
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/10/john-roberts-mitch-mcconnell-trump-impeachment-trial.amp).
The only thing that separates America from falling into the abyss is Trump, a handful of
people in Washington, a few conservative talk show hosts, and about 40% of America. Many
people have talked a good game at points but I think in the end are just double agents of the
dark side/Deep State (Lindsey Graham, Mitch McConnell, ... IG Horowitz, etc.). And some, such
as Chris Wray, are unabashed dark side/Deep State agents in good standing.
As St. Thomas More said, "The times are never so bad that a good man cannot live in them."
I have faith in Barr. I have faith in Durham. Two men whose Catholic faith is integral to
every aspect of their lives and work. But with as pervasive, entrenched, and powerful as the
Deep State is I'm skeptical they have the power to do anything. Btw, here's U.S. Attorney
John Durham's lecture before the Thomistic Institute at Yale (hosted by the Dominican Order):
https://soundcloud.com/thomisticinstitute/perspective-of-a-catholic-prosecutor-honorable-john-durham
One thing that really amuses me is that the marionettes of Deep State in the media and
politics actually believe that once Trump is gone their puppet show theatre can resume like
nothing happened. Sorry, but there is no coming back from this. They will be lucky if the
worst thing that happens is a sizable part of of the American populace protests by throwing
sand in the gears. I'm afraid it will end much worse.
I doubt there is any magic bullet website or other source of information that would turn
people over night. A good start would be encouraging them to read transcripts of various
Putin and Lavrov speeches and pressers, also Valdai Club, economic forum ect.
Most only get to see the odd sentence or paragragh in western MSM with an entirely
fictional story built around it, so perhaps and MSM piece like that and the transcript of the
relevant presser or speech alongside it.
I suspect the fine detail in Putin and Lavrov's replies to press questions
rather than cliches would surprise many people.
Walrus--100% my experience as well. Many dinners with "liberal" even "progressive" friends,
mostly of the retired kind require great psychic energy. Their Overton Window is 1"-square,
making exchanges very difficult to squeeze even minimal bits of political reality.
My daily
blog tour, like MW's above, takes me through: Moon of Alabama, Naked Capitalism, SST, Caitlin
Johnstone, Grayzone and a few others. I'm intel gathering -- but I need to figure out how to
convey broader perspectives even to my 40-45 year-old children and their friends. Inside the
Beltway assumptions are hard to de-program.
While I agree with the essence of the post I disagree with the characterization of SOHR. It
tends to get its stuff right. I have listed several significant events where SOHR disagreed
with the official narrative: On Sources And Information - The Syrian
Observatory For Human Rights . Those are exactly the moments where SOHR is disregarded by
the pressitude.
It is the selective quoting of such sources that paint them as partisan even as they try
to stay somewhat neutral.
---
@Pat - Any comment to the Gen. McRaven op-ed in the NYT? Our Republic
Is Under Attack From the President If President Trump doesn't demonstrate the leadership that America needs, then it is time
for a new person in the Oval Office.
Isn't it a call to mutiny? It seems to me to be far beyond the allowed political comment
from a retired General.
Those that look up the pole, all they see is assholes. Those that look down all they see is
assholes, but those that look straight ahead, they see which path to take.
The colonel's complaint implicitly assumes that things were not always thus. My adult
experience since I saw a war up close has been that the "facts" of our public discourse are
always simplified and usually grossly distorted.
Is the Iranian regime terrible? Well, yes,
but it is also a regime that holds real elections and often loses them. Not in the same
league of awful with Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union.
Similarly with the other examples. The
"facts" have in each case a basis in truth but do not by themselves give a true picture. Is
our discourse more unfair to Russia than it was to Nasser's Egypt? Is our promotion of Saudi
Arabia any worse than our adulation of Chiang Kai-shek?
Not only are the MSM married to a narrative but they feel compelled to attack the few who
ever challenge the orthodoxy. For example, 'Tulsi Gabbard met with the war criminal Assad'.
It would do our vaunted free press wonders if they traveled to Damascus instead of
repeating the same tired talking points about Syria. I'll never forget the look on Gabbard's
face when she talked about the Syrians came up to her and said, 'why are you attacking us,
what did we do to you'. Meeting real people can undo a lifetime of blather and must be
stopped at all cost.
b Perhaps memory fails me but I think SOHR propagated the SAG gas attacks mythology. I have
stated that McRaven should be recalled to active duty and court-martialed. I could find
several punitice articles in UCMJ under which he could be charged.
When McCain returned from the Hanoi Hilton he could have been prosecuted for treason he was
not because "peace with honour" overrode UCMJ and honour. McRaven is being offered up as a
distraction. Call him back to active duty yes, and assign him somewhere dreary, unimportant
and far from CONUS. Ignore the stuff he is blathering while he is retired, if he repeats
blather while on active duty then the navy might be able to recover some honour.
No...your memory does not fail you, Colonel, the SOHR was the main source cited at MSM level
on the alleged protests which gave place to the destruction of Syria and the legitimation and
labelling of alleged "moderate rebels" which then resulted being but terrorist jihadi groups
brought mainly from abroad under financing and mtrainning of non Syrian actors...
The source on the alleged atrocities commited by Assad was SOHR at the first years of the
war on Syria, along with Doctors Without Borders and "special envoys" by British and French
main papers reporting from the former, and first, "Baba Amr" caliphate in Homs....I am
meaning the times of Sunday Times´ Marie Colvin and the other woman from Le
Figaro , who then resulted or KIA or caught amongst the jihadists ranks along with other
foreign "special envoys" who then were released in a truce with Assad through a safe
corridor, especially made for that end, to Lebanon.
I fear SOHR was the source of the super-trolling consisting on inundating the MSM comments
sections, like that of El País , with dozens of vertical doctored photographs
every time any of us aware entered commenting to debunk their fake news.
I remember this since that was the starting point of Elora as net activist...( till then,
just a baby, peacefully growing up...unaware....but had no election, felt it was a duty,
since, as you comment here, so few people aware...Having known Syria few years before she
could not believe what they were telling about Assad, who, eventhough not being perfect, as
it has been long ago proved any other leader in the world is, had managed to show the
visitant a flourishing Syria where misery present at other ME countries was almost
absent...
It is only lately, when the Syrian war was obviously lost for the US coalition, that the
SOHR started contradicting some fake claims by the White Helmets, especially last two alleged
chemical attacks, if Elora´s not wrong.
Why this, why now, why in this form? Probably those powers behind SOHR trying to secure a
part in the cake of reconstruction and future of Syria...since, it got obvious, love for
Syria is not amongst one of their mottos...
Trump approves $4.5 million in aid for Syria's White Helmets
WASHINGTON -- US President Donald Trump has authorized $4.5 million in aid for Syria's
White Helmets group, famed for rescuing wounded civilians from the frontlines in the civil
war, the White House says today...
Thank you for this refuge from the noise. How long before the strangling of information makes
its way here, and to Craig Murray, Naked Capitalism, and others who look on with clear eyes?
Humans are copy/paste artists and generally not very good at creative thinking. When shown a
series of steps to achieve a reward people will repeat all the steps including clearly
unnecessary ones. Monkeys will drop unnecessary steps and frequently show more creativity by
using a different method to achieve the reward instead of copying.
The old story goes how a woman always cut the ends off a roast before putting it in a pan.
When her daughter asks why she doesn't know, asks her mother who doesn't know and asks the
great grandmother who laughs and says her pan was too small.
I suspect it is a functional tradeoff that lets us transfer great amounts of cultural
information and maintain a civilization of sorts. It creates a tough environment for
innovators and allows for easy manipulation of the majority.
Nature of course always has a sprinkling of minority traits in the gene pool to allow for
sudden changes in the environment. Most likely those of us that are more critical thinkers
and like in depth, multi-dimensional viewpoints and historical knowledge are always going to
be standing by watching the crowd do their copy/paste thing.
The rise of the internet giving easy access to more "sources" means more fragmentation in
worldviews than ever before depending on where people copy/paste from.
Re: only three TV channels and they all said the same thing!
Once Upon a Time, not so long ago, publishing news was hard. For one thing, you needed a
printing press, which was big, expensive and required housing and specialized technicians to
operate it. Not only that, but a printing press cost money for every sheet of paper printed,
and you had to spend more money to distribute what he printed.
They say that "freedom of the press belongs to those who own one" but there's more! Unless
you were already rich and planned to publish as an expensive and time-consuming hobby, you
needed an income stream. You would get some money from subscriptions, but subscriptions are
really a means to sell advertising. Dependence on advertising meant that there were some
people the publisher had to keep happy, and others he could not afford to annoy.
Anyone who knows anything about local news knows this. At best, it's a tightrope walk
between giving subscribers the news they want to know, and not infuriating your advertisers.
The result was a sort of natural censorship. Publishers had to think long and hard before
they published anything that would tork the bigwigs off. The fact that a publisher was tied
to a physical location and physical assets also made libel suits much easier.
The same thing applied to broadcast TV, only more so. It took orders of magnitude more
money, and you were restricted to a limited amount of bandwidth.
The internet changed all that. Now, any anonymous toolio with a laptop ($299 cheap at
WallyWorld) and WiFi (free at many businesses) can go into the news publishing business by
nightfall, and with worldwide distribution and an advertising revenue stream, to boot.
Marginal cost of readership is zero.
Needless to say, this development has The People That Matter very concerned, and they are
working hard to stuff that genie back into the bottle.
For what it's worth, I found the late Udo Ulfkotte's personal-experience book "Bought
Jounalism" to be quite interesting on this topic, as it details the kind of nuts-and-bolts of
print-media prostitution. But I would really like to see an org-chart sometime of the
overlapping, possibly competing, mission control centers (if that's the right phrase) that
control the various "Wurlitzer" messaging and who, ultimately, is on charge of these. It has
been intriguing to watch, since Kerry uttered his "the Internet makes it very hard to govern"
line years ago, the blurry outline of a vast operation to shut down any non-approved media
messages, now including all social media. To give credit where credit is due, "they" sure
have done a bang-up job in feeding bullshit across all platforms down the throats of a
Western people, like a goose being fattened up for foie gras.
"...the US government (along with our British and Israeli helpmates and masters) are the
preeminent creators and purveyors of the manufactured virtual facts on which we base our
policy."
Sir
I've been perplexed for some time what the objectives are of these virtual fact creators?
When one digs into who the movers & shakers are in the virtual fact creation apparatus
then it seems very much analogous to the Jeffrey Epstein orbit. Folks bound together through
the carrot of extraordinary personal gain and the stick of personal destruction. Your
Drinking the Koolaid, is a seminal work in exploring how these virtual facts are created and
how those who challenge the creation are marginalized and even destroyed personally.
IMO, policy making on the basis of virtual facts extends beyond foreign policy to economic
and financial policy as well as healthcare policy in the US. The symptoms are seen in growing
wealth inequality and increased market concentration globally and financial policy completely
unmoored from common sense and sophistry an important element in virtual fact creation.
We're seeing signs of the early breakdown in social cohesion with social unrest in France,
Spain, Hong Kong, Chile, Lebanon, Ecuador. Brexit and the election of Trump despite the
intensity and vitriolic nature of how the media was used against them. The impeachment of
Trump another tool in the desperate attempt to retain and consolidate power. Maybe we're in
the Fourth Turning as Howe & Strauss label it.
"The Soviet Union never ended. Russia is still communist ..."
In the interest of specificity and accountability, where/who in the MSM are asserting
that?
You (PL) are making a serious charge.
Just who is guilty of perpetrating such a blatant falsehood?
well it seems to me that the groundwork is being laid for an authoritarian state - and it
already has sophisticated tools that are unprecedented in their scope and depth and ability
to store data. And the whole enterprise is based on three rules:
1) secrecy - data is restricted to "insiders";
2) deception - the "outsiders" (you know, the citizens) are regarded as a herd of cattle to
be managed - with lies and disinformation so we don't get any ideas;
3) ruthless enforcement to dehumanize and destroy dissent. Just consider the torture and
destruction of Journalist Julian Assange: https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/
Not sure what the appropriate response is but I spend a lot of time at my camp working in
the woods. Thanks, Colonel Lang, for maintaining this site.
Keith Harbaugh
This is my opinion. I am uninterested in proving anything to you. If you listen to what is
said on the MSM (including Fox) it is evident that in the "minds" of the media squirrels
Russia is just the USSR in disguise. Try listening to what they are saying as sub-text.
The request was not just for my benefit, but with the thought that it would be useful to
document the occurrences of such clearly false statements in the media.
It is certainly true that Russia is being demonized in all the MSM I have sampled.
A frequent criticism is that Putin, like Assad, and earlier Saddam and Quadaffi,
is essentially an illegitimate ruler of his country,
ruling through brute force and without the consent of his countrymen.
(Thus the WaPo editorials routinely call Putin a "thug",
just as they call Assad a "butcher".)
I am certainly not endorsing that view, just reporting what I hear and read.
When I hear that, I harken back to my graduate school days,
when the same sort of charges were leveled against America, which was usually spelled
"Amerika", or sometimes "AmeriKKKa", and described as a racist, imperialist, fascist country
whose establishment must be "Smashed".
I believe the core group of people who so wanted a revolution in America in 1970
(which they essentially got, as we have seen over the last 50 years)
are much the same as those now demonizing Russia.
Here is some specificity on their complaints against Russia back then:
They were not opposed to the USSR, or communism.
Many of them were in effect communists.
The cry among many was : "Marx, Mao, and Marcuse" (Herbert Marcuse was a former Brandeis professor who extolled cultural Marxism).
What they did have, in spades, was a feeling that their ancestors had been victimized by the
Czarist regime in Russia,
which, among other supposed sins, had not done enough to prevent pogroms against them.
They seemed to have a deep fear of the Russian people,
based on their long experience with them.
My suspicion (actually, belief) is that the opposition to Putin is based on the fact that
he is sometimes viewed as a throwback to the the Czars,
and that is definitely not something looked upon favorably by many Jews.
"Trump has a balance sheet where a soul should be and that is the basis for the belief
that MBS and/or his "country" are our friends."
Not to defend Trump and his balance sheet mindset with respect to the Saudis, the reality
is that both parties and presidents from George H.W to Bill Clinton to W and Obama have
treated the Saudi monarchy as our "friend", even when they sponsored the terrorists that
attacked us on 9/11.
Tony Blair became a wealthy man after his prime ministership on the back of money thrown
his way by the Arab sheikhs.
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to put out plan on how to pay for 'Medicare for All'" [
CNN ]. • "Pay for" being both delusional and a question nobody, including Warren,
ever asks about war, and "taxes on the middle class" being, shall we say, a well-worn,
content-free trope.
Warren (D)(2): "Why Criticize Warren?" [Nathan Robinson, Current Affairs ]. "What
will the right's main line of attack against Warren be? I think you can see it already,
actually: They will attempt to portray her as inauthentic and untrustworthy. She will be
painted as a Harvard egghead who has suddenly discovered populism for self-serving reasons, a
slippery elite who isn't telling you the truth about her agenda . What worries me about
Elizabeth Warren is that the criticisms of her as untrustworthy are not easy to wave away.
Warren began her 2020 campaign with a video claiming to be a Native American, even though she
isn't one. She
has now tried to bury the evidence that she did this, by deleting the video and all
accompanying social media posts .
I have tried, so far, to avoid lapsing into the usual discussions of "Bernie Sanders
versus Elizabeth Warren," but here I should note that one reason I think Bernie Sanders is
such a powerful potential candidate against Trump is that he doesn't have these kind of messy
problems of authenticity and honesty.
The thing almost nobody denies about Bernie is that you know where he stands."
As The Big Picture says above. This is a massive takedown, and I've focused on a single,
tactical issue, but this post is a must-read in full. If it's correct, the Warren campaign is
a train-wreck waiting to happen.
(Adding, the Cherokee issue really matters to me, because the Penobscots were enormously
powerful allies in the fight against the landfill (and cf. Standing Rock). It just drives me
bananas that Warren didn't check in with the Cherokees before declaring herself one of them.
I think it's an outrage, and I don't care if I get eye-rolls for it.)
"... "Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic," he said. ..."
Share U.S. Attorney General
William Barr raised concerns about the increase in secularism in society in a speech on
Oct. 11, speaking about how that has contributed to a number of social issues plaguing
communities across the nation.
Barr, who
delivered his remarks to students at the University of Notre Dame's law school, drew
attention to the comprehensive effort to drive away religion and traditional moral systems in
society and to push secularism in their place.
"We see the growing ascendancy of secularism
and the doctrine of moral relativism," Barr said.
He said that the forces of secularism are using mass media and popular culture, the
promotion of greater reliance on government intervention for social problems, and the use of
legal and judicial institutions to eliminate traditional moral norms.
Barr explored several of the consequences of "this moral upheaval," highlighting its effect
on all parts of society.
"Along with the wreckage of the family, we are seeing record levels of depression and
mental illness, dispirited young people, soaring suicide rates, increasing numbers of angry and
alienated young males, an increase in senseless violence, and a deadly drug epidemic," he
said.
"Over 70,000 people die a year from drug overdoses," he said. "But I won't dwell on the
bitter results of the new secular age. Suffice it to say that the campaign to destroy the
traditional moral order has coincided, and, as I believe, has brought with it, immense
suffering and misery."
Barr said religion has come under increasing attack over the past 50 years, underscoring how
secularists are using society's institutions to systematically destroy religion and stifle
opposing views.
"Secularists and their allies have marshaled all the forces of mass communication, popular
culture, the entertainment industry, and academia in an unremitting assault on religion and
traditional values. These instruments are used not only to affirmatively promote secular
orthodoxy but also to drown out and silence opposing voices," he said.
He said that people are moving away from "micro-morality" observed by Christians, a system
of morality that seeks to transform the world by focusing on their own personal morality and
transformation. Instead, he said the modern secularists are pushing a "macro-morality," which
focuses on political causes and collective actions to address social problems.
"In the past, when societies are threatened by moral chaos, the overall social costs of
licentiousness and irresponsible personal conduct become so high that society ultimately
recoils and reevaluates the path it is on," Barr said.
"But today, in the face of all the increasing pathologies, instead of addressing the
underlying cause, we have cast the state in the role as the alleviator of bad consequences. We
call on the state to mitigate the social costs of personal conduct and irresponsibility. So the
reaction to growing illegitimacy is not sexual responsibility but abortion; the reaction to
drug addiction is safe injection sites."
"The call comes for more and more social programs to deal with this wreckage, and while we
think we are resolving problems, we [actually] are underwriting them."
He also pointed out how the law has been used to "break down traditional moral values and
establish moral relativism as the new orthodoxy," giving the example of how laws have been used
to aggressively force religious people and entities to subscribe to practices and policies that
are antithetical to their faith .
"The forces of secularism have been continually seeking to eliminate the laws that reflect
traditional moral norms," he said.
Barr also highlighted the role of religion in society, saying it promotes moral discipline
while it influences people's conduct.
"Religion also helps promote moral discipline in society. We're all fallen. We don't
automatically conform our conduct to moral rules, even when we know that they're good for us.
But religion helps teach, train, and habituate people to want what's good," he said.
"It doesn't do this primarily by formal laws -- that is, by coercive power -- it does this
through moral education and by framing society's informal rules -- the customs and traditions
which reflect the wisdom and experience of the ages. In other words, religion helps frame a
moral culture within society that instills and reinforces moral discipline."
It is more accurate to call it Russia's reannexation of Crimea, supported by over 90% of the
people there via an election. Russia didn't invade, it had 20,000 troops based there as
Russian troops have been there for over a century.
Jeffery Epstein should have declared that he was running for President, because according
to the logic of many Democrats and their media allies, Trump would be forced to release him
so as not to interfere in the elections.
Remember Joe Biden claimed that he knew nothing about his son's shady business in Ukraine.
Tucker Carlson broke the big story of the week that was ignored by our corporate media to
include Fox News itself:
'Tucker Carlson Tonight' obtains photo of Joe Biden golfing with his son and Ukrainian
business partner
That said, as
Bloomberg
noted, Liu didn't address specifics about the trade talks in his speech. Instead, the
vice premier said China would expand investments in core technologies to ensure the economic
restructuring of the economy was stable, adding that economic activity in the year ahead is "very
bright."
"We're not worried about short-term economic volatility. We have every confidence in our
ability to meet macroeconomic targets for the year," he said.
As reported on Friday, ahead of the latest round of talks, President Trump's top economic
advisors and industry experts warned him of an economic downturn if a further escalation in the
trade war is seen by 2020. As such, it is likely that a lite trade deal could be on the table next
month.
But as our readers have recently learned, the trade war didn't start the synchronized global
downturn, which has been almost entirely a function of China's clogged up credit impulse...
... so any deal - lite or otherwise - won't result in an immediate acceleration of global
growth; indeed, as some speculate, failure to observe a substantial economic rebound following a
"deal" could well mark the point when central banks and governments finally throw in the towel, as
they finally usher in the final lap in the global race to
debase
destroy fiat currencies and
hyperinflate away the debt: MMT and Helicopter Money.
Trump's pathetic Trade war accomplished nothing. US exports down
18% globally. Farmer destroyed. US markets for all goods harmed.
The world is offloading any and all dependence on US products.
Impulsive stupid jerk. 45% of the world population on US
Sanctions, rising black markets, US supply chain disruptions, US
manufacturing in a recession.
Tariffs are tax deductible so they
do not accumulate any tax benefit to the US Treasury. They are
virtually all rolled over into the national debt. So while the
consumer may not notice a rising CPI, they are getting drown in
Trump Debt, the largest spending deficits in US history, largest
debt to GDP of over 110% and rising. Trump has the fastest
acceleration of US debt of any white house occupancy nearly 4
trillion in 2.7 years. It is obvious Trump is clueless in
virtually everything. Has no capacity to comprehend a thing.
Look at this scatterbrained Turkey Kurds fiasco. Impulsive,
thoughtless and accomplished nothing. US troops now guarding
Syrian oil. Astonishing. Everything this guy touches turned into a
burning crap filled dumpster fire.
'I will be so good at the military, your head will spin'
"When those 'gunds' start shooting they tend to do things"
Then there are no deals from the self-proclaimed "art of the
Deal"... nothing. Look at Iran. He has made negative progress
across the board. Thank to the orange stupid nations across the
globe are circumventing US Dollar Reserve. Each day the US
importance and more importantly reliability is diminished.
Look at Trump in high tech... Merck has developed an Ebola
vaccine in EUROPE not the USA. The USA hasn't even approved it
yet. What is Trump doing... ATTACKING BIG PHARMA. Trumptards love
seeing that. Yet it is the Trumptards that keep screaming to buy
Murica products but if they have to pay more for them, then
suddenly they demonize the US companies. Big Pharma will be the
next sector to joint Semiconductor to leave the USA.
Trump blacklist Big tech. Why? Tech products have a very short
shelf life. If the US doesn't sell tech product what do they have
that others want? COAL? Soy Beans? From smart to stupid. Look at
Intel and Microsoft. Trump band Intel Chip sales to China and
threatens Microsoft operating software. In one year China now has
RISC V chips from Alibaba, all open source and the Chinese
Military has switched to Linux and UNIX GNU. So who loses here?
The US tech businesses. Look at Micron dying on the vine, tossed
from China.
Meanwhile China has 5G and has replaced all US components in
its boards with the help of Hitachi and Panasonic who are doing
the same with all their electronics to avoid Trump Blacklist
compliance. Trump is low tech and dumb as dirt. The US Tech sector
is being carpet bombed under Trump... and without tech, what
products does the US have to sell that world markets want? Not a
god damn thing.
Let's remember that Trump didn't want a partial deal... Now he
will take anything to get him out of his self-made wreckage.
Meanwhile impeachment is coming... Mista no deals is going down in
flames.
Last year 300,000 us farmers grew soy
and had 110 mmt. This year there are 100,000 us Soy farmers
left and they grew 34 mmt... not enough to export.
...
Arbitrary and capricious meddling by US politicians in
commodity contracts renders all contracts voidable under
force majeure. I would have thought with your handle you
would have known this. Those markets will never come back.
They will forever be marginalized and smaller. Trump's
damage to US trade is permanent.
In other words, consolidation among large corp farmers,
decimation of the smaller family farmers? I am truly
asking, but seems to remind me of the trend since the
1980s.
Trump and China claimed "substantial progress" this past spring,
and it all fell apart within a couple months. The same thing will
happen on this "deal"....
@Ron
Unz Thanks to Tucker Carlson's show, some folks on the left like Cohen, Mate and
Greenwald, are more likely to get air time on Fox News than MSNBC and CNN.
Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren is paying Facebook Inc. to run false
advertisements that its Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg is endorsing President Donald
Trump.
Warren's campaign sponsored the posts which were blasted into the feeds of U.S. users of
the social network, as it pushed back against Facebook's policy to exempt politicians' ads
from its third-party fact-checking program.
The ads, which begin with the falsehood, quickly backtracks: "You're probably shocked. And
you might be thinking, 'how could this possibly be true?' Well, it's not." ...
"If Senator Warren wants to say things she knows to be untrue, we believe Facebook should
not be in the position of censoring that speech," Andy Stone, a spokesman for Facebook, said
in a statement to CNN on the ads.
This isn't the first time Warren has used Facebook's own platform to make a political
point. In March, Facebook took down ads from her campaign that called for the company to be
broken up, but later restored them.
This time, Warren's latest ads strike a more forceful tone, calling on users to hold the
Facebook CEO accountable and to back her mission.
"Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once," the ads read. "Now, they're
deliberately allowing a candidate to intentionally lie to the American people."
Great tactic, and Hilarious at that. I passed it on on my face book account. Great political
humor has been a proven vote winner. Anytime you get a chuckle, the residual resentment gets
same relief.
Former World Leaders: The Trade War Threatens
the World's Economy https://nyti.ms/2MAFOTC
NYT - Kevin Rudd, Helen Clark and Carl Bildt - October 11
Despite an interim deal, global peace and prosperity
remain at risk if the United States and China do not
fully resolve their conflict.
(The authors are former prime ministers
of Australia, New Zealand and Sweden.)
This piece has been updated to reflect news developments.
The 18-month trade war between the United States and China represents the single greatest
threat to global economic growth.
President Trump announced on Friday a preliminary trade détente with China, saying
that the two countries have a verbal agreement for an initial phase of a deal. The agreement
reportedly includes concessions from China to protect American intellectual property, to
accept guidelines on managing its currency and to buy tens of billions worth of American
agricultural products. Washington, for its part, will not go through next month with placing
more tariffs on Chinese products.
This is an encouraging sign, but a verbal agreement is just a first step. A failure to
bring the trade war to a final conclusion significantly increases the risk of recession next
year in the United States, Europe, Japan and other developed and emerging economies. It would
also seriously undermine China's near-term growth prospects.
That's why, as representatives of a group of 10 former prime ministers and presidents from
center-left and center-right governments that have enjoyed close relations with both the
United States and China, we are writing to urge Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping to
reach a substantive trade agreement by year's end. It's time to bring this source of global
economic uncertainty to a close.
America's and China's prosperity have been built on global free trade. America has
profited immensely from access to global markets since its birth. China, since opening up 40
years ago, has lifted millions of its people out of poverty largely through global trade.
Indeed, much of the prosperity enjoyed by people across the world is anchored in our ability
to sell goods and services freely across national boundaries.
Now, however, we see global growth in trade lagging behind general economic growth for the
first time in decades. In part, this is the product of the expanding trade war between
America and China, the world's two largest economies. In part, it is because of a more
general outbreak of protectionism around the world. Both these factors threaten continued
global prosperity.
We recognize, as former leaders of countries with longstanding economic relationships with
China, the real difficulties regarding a number of Beijing's trade and economic practices. We
understand, for example, the challenges that arise from Chinese policies on intellectual
property and technology transfer, its restrictions on access to its markets, and its
subsidization of private and public companies that are active in the global marketplace. We
believe that these practices need to change in whichever countries may use them. But it is
particularly important in China, because it is the world's second-largest economy.
At the same time, as countries long committed to the principles of free trade, we do not
see the ever-widening tariff war, started by the United States, as an effective way to
resolve trade and economic disputes. Tariffs, by definition, are the enemy of free trade.
Their cumulative impact, particularly combined with the current resurgence of protectionism
worldwide, only depresses economic growth, employment and living standards. Tariffs raise the
cost of living for working families as consumer prices are driven up.
Stock markets rose on Friday with the news of the preliminary deal. The tariff war has
been creating economic uncertainty, depressing international investor confidence, compounding
downward pressure on growth and increasing the risk of recession. The disruption of global
supply chains is already profound, and it may continue until a final deal is reached.
We believe that the World Trade Organization, despite its limitations, is best positioned
to address China's trade practices. We also believe that the W.T.O. is the most appropriate
forum in which to resolve trade disputes. So we urge the United States and China to work with
other member states to strengthen the W.T.O.'s institutional capacity.
Our group of former prime ministers and presidents includes François Fillon of
France, Joe Clark of Canada, Enrico Letta of Italy, Jan Peter Balkenende of the Netherlands,
Felipe Calderón and Ernesto Zedillo of Mexico, and Han Seung-soo of South Korea. Given
our collective experience, we are not naïve about the inherent complexities in
negotiating trade agreements. Many of us have negotiated free-trade pacts with both the
United States and China. We are deeply familiar with the concerns of each country, including
the domestic political constituencies that argue for continued protection.
Many of those domestic concerns have focused on the long-term enforcement of any
agreement. On this point, we argue that it is in China's own long-term economic interest to
ensure the effective implementation of any new trade deal -- whether involving intellectual
property, technology transfer, state subsidies or market access. Such policies would also
need to apply to all of China's trading partners, just as they would need to apply to its
relationship with the United States.
On the question of enforcement, China must be acutely aware that if it fails to comply
with the terms of the agreement, an already damaging trade war is likely to resume. A new
trade agreement should include strong enforcement provisions, along with strengthened W.T.O.
dispute-resolution mechanisms, to give greater confidence to both parties.
For these reasons, and given the gravity of the global economic outlook for 2020, we urge
both countries to exercise every effort to reach a substantive agreement this year. We also
urge the United States to withdraw the punitive tariffs it has imposed -- and that China do
the same with the reciprocal tariffs it has enacted.
Beyond trade, we are anxious about the wider strategic impact of any further decoupling of
the Chinese and the American economies, particularly in technology and finance. Such a
decoupling would present a long-term threat to global peace and security.
It would also effectively constitute the first step in the declaration of a new Cold War.
As with the last Cold War, many nations would be forced to choose between the two powers. And
that is a choice none of us wants to make.
"... Meanwhile, Chinese consumers aren't paying higher prices for U.S. imports. A study by the Peterson Institute for International Economics shows that since the beginning of 2018, China has raised the average tariff rate on U.S. imports from 8.0 percent to 21.8 percent and has lowered the average tariff rate on all its other trading partners from 8.0 percent to 6.7 percent. China imposed tariffs only on U.S. commodities that can be replaced with imports from other countries at similar prices. It actually lowered duties for those U.S. products that can't be bought elsewhere more cheaply, such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals. Consequently, China's import prices for the same products have dropped overall, in spite of higher tariffs on U.S. imports. ..."
"... Beijing has proved much more capable than Washington of minimizing the pain to its consumers and economy. ..."
"... The uncomfortable truth for Trump is that U.S. trade deficits don't spring from the practices of U.S. trading partners; they come from the United States' own spending habits. ..."
"... The United States has run a persistent trade deficit since 1975, both overall and with most of its trading partners. Over the past 20 years, U.S. domestic expenditures have always exceeded GDP, resulting in negative net exports, or a trade deficit. ..."
"... Even a total Chinese capitulation in the trade war wouldn't make a dent in the overall U.S. trade deficit. ..."
"... The U.S. economy, on the other hand, has had the longest expansion in history, and the inevitable down cycle is already on the horizon: second-quarter GDP growth this year dropped to 2.0 percent from the first quarter's 3.1 percent. ..."
"... If the trade war continues, it will compromise the international trading system, which relies on a global division of labor based on each country's comparative advantage. Once that system becomes less dependable -- when disrupted, for instance, by the boycotts and hostility of trade wars -- countries will start decoupling from one another. ..."
Everyone Loses in the US-Chinese Clash
-- but Especially Americans
... Economists reckon the dead-weight loss arising from the existing tariffs on $200
billion in Chinese imports to be $620 per household, or about $80 billion, annually. This
represents about 0.4 percent of U.S. GDP. If the United States continues to expand its tariff
regime as scheduled, that loss will more than double.
Meanwhile, Chinese consumers aren't paying higher prices for U.S. imports. A study by the
Peterson Institute for International Economics shows that since the beginning of 2018, China
has raised the average tariff rate on U.S. imports from 8.0 percent to 21.8 percent and has
lowered the average tariff rate on all its other trading partners from 8.0 percent to 6.7
percent. China imposed tariffs only on U.S. commodities that can be replaced with imports
from other countries at similar prices. It actually lowered duties for those U.S. products
that can't be bought elsewhere more cheaply, such as semiconductors and pharmaceuticals.
Consequently, China's import prices for the same products have dropped overall, in spite of
higher tariffs on U.S. imports.
Beijing's nimble calculations are well illustrated by the example of lobsters. China
imposed a 25 percent tariff on U.S. lobsters in July 2018, precipitating a 70 percent drop in
U.S. lobster exports. At the same time, Beijing cut tariffs on Canadian lobsters by three
percent, and as a result, Canadian lobster exports to China doubled. Chinese consumers now
pay less for lobsters imported from essentially the same waters.
THE INESCAPABLE DEFICIT
Beijing has proved much more capable than Washington of minimizing the pain to its
consumers and economy. But the trade war would be more palatable for Washington if its
confrontation with China were accomplishing Trump's goals. The president thinks that China is
"ripping off" the United States. He wants to reduce the United States' overall trade deficit
by changing China's trade practices. But levying tariffs on Chinese imports has had the
paradoxical effect of inflating the United States' overall trade deficit, which, according to
the U.S. Census Bureau, rose by $28 billion in the first seven months of this year compared
with the same period last year.
The uncomfortable truth for Trump is that U.S. trade deficits don't spring from the
practices of U.S. trading partners; they come from the United States' own spending habits.
The United States has run a persistent trade deficit since 1975, both overall and with most
of its trading partners. Over the past 20 years, U.S. domestic expenditures have always
exceeded GDP, resulting in negative net exports, or a trade deficit. The shortfall has
shifted over time but has remained between three and six percent of GDP.
Trump wants to boost
U.S. exports to trim the deficit, but trade wars inevitably invite retaliation that leads to
significant reductions in exports. Moreover, increasing the volume of exports does not
necessarily reduce trade deficits unless it is accompanied by a reduction in the country's
spending in terms of consumption and investment. The right way to reduce a trade deficit is
to grow the economy faster than concurrent domestic expenditures, which can be accomplished
only by encouraging innovation and increasing productivity. A trade war does the opposite,
damaging the economy, impeding growth, and hindering innovation.
Even a total Chinese capitulation in the trade war wouldn't make a dent in the overall
U.S. trade deficit. If China buys more from the United States, it will purchase less from
other countries, which will then sell the difference either to the United States or to its
competitors.
For example, look at aircraft sales by the U.S. firm Boeing and its European
rival, Airbus. At the moment, both companies are operating at full capacity. If China buys
1,000 more aircraft from Boeing and 1,000 fewer from Airbus, the European plane-maker will
still sell those 1,000 aircraft, just to the United States or to other countries that might
have bought instead from Boeing.
China understands this, which is one reason it hasn't put
higher tariffs on U.S.-made aircraft. Whatever the outcome of the trade war, the deficit
won't be greatly changed.
A RESILIENT CHINA
The trade war has not really damaged China so far, largely because Beijing has managed to
keep import prices from rising and because its exports to the United States have been less
affected than anticipated.
This pattern will change as U.S. importers begin to switch from
buying from China to buying from third countries to avoid paying the high tariffs. But
assuming China's GDP continues to grow at around five to six percent every year, the effect
of that change will be quite modest.
Some pundits doubt the accuracy of Chinese figures for
economic growth, but multilateral agencies and independent research institutions set Chinese
GDP growth within a range of five to six percent.
Skeptics also miss the bigger picture that China's economy is slowing down as it shifts to
a consumption-driven model. Some manufacturing will leave China if the high tariffs become
permanent, but the significance of such a development should not be overstated. Independent
of the anxiety bred by Trump's tariffs, China is gradually weaning itself off its dependence
on export-led growth. Exports to the United States as a proportion of China's GDP steadily
declined from a peak of 11 percent in 2005 to less than four percent by 2018. In 2006, total
exports made up 36 percent of China's GDP; by 2018, that figure had been cut by half, to 18
percent, which is much lower than the average of 29 percent for the industrialized countries
of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Chinese leaders have long
sought to steer their economy away from export-driven manufacturing to a consumer-driven
model.
To be sure, the trade war has exacted a severe psychological toll on the Chinese economy.
In 2018, when the tariffs were first announced, they caused a near panic in China's market at
a time when growth was slowing thanks to a round of credit tightening. The stock market took
a beating, plummeting some 25 percent. The government initially felt pressured to find a way
out of the trade war quickly. But as the smoke cleared to reveal little real damage,
confidence in the market rebounded: stock indexes had risen by 23 percent and 34 percent on
the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges, respectively, by September 12, 2019. The resilience of
the Chinese economy in the face of the trade war helps explain why Beijing has stiffened its
negotiating position in spite of Trump's escalation.
China hasn't had a recession in the past 40 years and won't have one in the foreseeable
future, because its economy is still at an early stage of development, with per capita GDP
only one-sixth of that of the United States. Due to declining rates of saving and rising
wages, the engine of China's economy is shifting from investments and exports to private
consumption. As a result, the country's growth rate is expected to slow. The International
Monetary Fund projects that China's real GDP growth will fall from 6.6 percent in 2018 to 5.5
percent in 2024; other estimates put the growth rate at an even lower number.
Although the
rate of Chinese growth may dip, there is little risk that the Chinese economy will contract
in the foreseeable future. Private consumption, which has been increasing, representing 35
percent of GDP in 2010 and 39 percent last year, is expected to continue to rise and to drive
economic growth, especially now that China has expanded its social safety net and welfare
provisions, freeing up private savings for consumption.
The U.S. economy, on the other hand, has had the longest expansion in history, and the
inevitable down cycle is already on the horizon: second-quarter GDP growth this year dropped
to 2.0 percent from the first quarter's 3.1 percent. The trade war, without taking into
account the escalations from September, will shave off at least half a percentage point of
U.S. GDP, and that much of a drag on the economy may tip it into the anticipated downturn.
(According to a September Washington Post poll, 60 percent of Americans expect a recession in
2020.) The prospect of a recession could provide Trump with the impetus to call off the trade
war. Here, then, is one plausible way the trade war will come to an end. Americans aren't
uniformly feeling the pain of the tariffs yet. But a turning point is likely to come when the
economy starts to lose steam.
If the trade war continues, it will compromise the international trading system, which
relies on a global division of labor based on each country's comparative advantage. Once that
system becomes less dependable -- when disrupted, for instance, by the boycotts and hostility
of trade wars -- countries will start decoupling from one another.
China and the United States are joined at the hip economically, each being the other's
biggest trading partner. Any attempt to decouple the two economies will bring catastrophic
consequences for both, and for the world at large. Consumer prices will rise, world economic
growth will slow, supply chains will be disrupted and laboriously duplicated on a global
scale, and a digital divide -- in technology, the Internet, and telecommunications -- will
vastly hamper innovation by limiting the horizons and ambitions of technology firms.
...
"... Yes, the U.S. government can hurt Huawei in the short term by limiting their access to technology (and to certain foreign markets). But, absent a viable competitor, this won't have much impact in the long term. Because Huawei is fundamentally not a technology company. Huawei is a human resources company. And is kind of obsessed with survival. ..."
"... Huawei's fundamental purpose has always been about survival. ..."
"... Huawei, like most engineering-based enterprises, has only one real resource, which is the cumulative brainpower of its people. This is the resource that creates the products and sells them to their customers. And as technology changes quickly, they must continually create and recreate the products – and therefore the value of the enterprise. Huawei's main strength is the system they have developed for the creation, assessment and distribution of value by over 190,000 people. It's about HR strategy. ..."
Huawei is going to beat Trump with human resources
By Jeff Towson
President Trump's placement of Huawei on the U.S. entity list was a body blow. The
magnitude of the hit should not be understated. Being cut off from U.S. technology so
suddenly staggered the multinational. But, to their credit, Huawei didn't go down. They took
the hit and stayed on their feet.
I'm not really sure what the U.S. government thought it would achieve with the ban. To
stop Huawei's growth in international markets? To shift 5G market share to Ericsson and
Nokia? To cripple the company? Just an assertion of principle?
I think they really just don't understand Huawei.
Yes, the U.S. government can hurt Huawei in the short term by limiting their access to
technology (and to certain foreign markets). But, absent a viable competitor, this won't have
much impact in the long term. Because Huawei is fundamentally not a technology company.
Huawei is a human resources company. And is kind of obsessed with survival.
Huawei's core strategy has always been about survival.
If you read Ren Zhengfei's talks and papers going back to the early 1990's, what jumps out
at you is how different Huawei is. The goal of the company has never really been about money.
Nor about becoming a tech giant. Nor about innovation. And it has definitely not been about
going public and getting a big payday. Huawei's fundamental purpose has always been about
survival.
"Being big and strong temporarily is not what we want. What we want is the ability and
resilience to survive sustainably," said Ren in 2001.
Actually he has been talking for literally decades about how Huawei can survive long-term
– and about the common causes of corporate decline. My simplistic take is that Ren came
up with a fairly logical plan for long-term survival: Serve your customers no matter what.
Then get big and slowly grind your competitors down with lower costs and greater R&D
spending. And within this, the only resource you really have are your people and their
cumulative brainpower.
Huawei's main resource is its people.
Huawei, like most engineering-based enterprises, has only one real resource, which is the
cumulative brainpower of its people. This is the resource that creates the products and sells
them to their customers. And as technology changes quickly, they must continually create and
recreate the products – and therefore the value of the enterprise. Huawei's main
strength is the system they have developed for the creation, assessment and distribution of
value by over 190,000 people. It's about HR strategy.
Unlike the companies in the U.S. and Europe, where the shareholders are the stakeholders
with ultimate say or multiple stakeholders, such as employees, owners and the community, at
Huawei, the only stakeholders you ever really hear about are the current employees. It's all
about the top contributing, current employees. Shareholders, providers of capital, retired
employees and even the founders are all a distant second in importance.
Note how different this is to other large engineering-focused companies (say GM and
Bosch), where much of the value goes into guaranteed salaries (regardless of contribution)
and into post-retirement benefits (i.e., not current employees). Huawei is not only focused
primarily on this one group, they are also operating much more as a meritocracy with regards
to labor.
Huawei to me looks a lot like what 3G capital has been doing in consumer-facing companies
like Budweiser and Burger King. They have instituted "meritocracy and partnership" on a
massive scale in a knowledge business. There is a lot of ownership. And you rise and fall
based on your performance.
Huawei is awesome at inspiring dedication in their top contributing, current employees.
And that is pretty logical. If brainpower is Huawei's main resource, this is the group that
creates that value. So recruiting and motivating this group is the biggest priority. And they
don't just want them motivated. They want them "all in."
In practice, this is actually pretty complicated. It's a big company. Employees are at
different stages of their lives and careers. How do you get current staff, senior staff and
incoming staff to go "all in" in creating value for customers – and therefore the
enterprise?
My outsider's take is that Huawei is mostly focused on motivating teams and team managers.
High-performance teams with aggressive and dedicated managers are the engine of Huawei. And
these are mostly in sales and marketing and R&D. They make the largest contributions to
the customers and therefore the enterprise. You motivate at the team level and within the
departments that matter most. And then you scale it up.
But how do you assess contributed value?
Staff are rated every 6-12 months across metrics such as sales performance (usually
team-based), talent, dedication, and the potential for advancement. The phrases I keep coming
across in my reading are "dedicated employees" and "high-performance teams." In fact, the
book on their HR book is titled Dedication.
Once assessed, how do you reward performance?
High-performing contributors are given higher bonuses, of course. But they are also
identified and given more opportunities (and responsibilities). They are given more training
and the option to participate in the employee share ownership program (very important). Low
performers, in contrast, are demoted or exited. Meritocracy works in both directions.
And this brings us back to the main point of this article: How does the U.S. tech ban
impact any of this? How does it impact an HR system for motivating the more than 190,000
employees that continually recreate the company and ensure its survival?
In the long term, it doesn't.
Yes, the company took a big hit in the short term in terms of its access to tech
(especially in semiconductors and in the consumer business) and to a few markets. But the
core of the company is still churning along like it has for 30 years. And I think it is very
likely Huawei will overcome these supply chain problems. And, ironically, the current crisis
is probably resulting in increased motivation and dedication across the company.
There has recently been an avalanche of articles and books about the "crisis of capitalism"
predicting its demise or depassement. For those old enough to remember the 1990s, there is a
strange similarity with the then literature arguing that the Hegelian end of history has
arrived. The latter literature was proven wrong. The former, I believe, is factually wrong and
misdiagnoses the problem.
The facts show not the crisis, but on the contrary, the greatest strength of capitalism
ever, both in terms of its geographical span and the expansion to the areas (like leisure time,
or social media) where it has created entirely new markets and commodified things that
historically were never objects of transaction.
Geographically, capitalism is now the dominant (or even the only) mode of production all
over the world whether in Sweden where the private sector employs more than 70% the labor
force, the United States where it employs 85% or in China where the
(capitalistically-organized) private sector produces 80% of the value added.[1] This was
obviously not the case before the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and Russia, nor before
China embarked on what is euphemistically called "transformation" but was in reality
replacement of socialism by capitalist relations of productions.
In addition, thanks to globalization and technological revolutions, a number of new,
hitherto non-existent markets have been created: a huge market for personal data, rental
markets for own cars and homes (neither of which was capital until Uber, Lyft, Airbnb etc. were
created), market for housing of self-employed individuals (which did not exist before WeWork)
and a number of other market such as those for taking care of the elderly, of children, or
pets, market for cooking and delivery of food, market for shopping chores etc.
The social importance of these new markets is that they create new capital, and by placing a
price on things that had none before transform mere goods (use-value) into commodities
(exchange value). This capitalist expansion is not fundamentally different from the expansion
of capitalism in the 18th and 19th century Europe, the one discussed both by Adam Smith and
Karl Marx. Once new markets are created, there is a shadow value placed on all these goods or
activities. This does not mean that we would all immediately run to rent our homes or drive our
cars as taxis, but it means that we are aware of the financial loss that we make by not doing
so. For many of us, once the price is right (whether because our circumstances change or the
relative price increases), we shall join the new markets and thus reinforce them.
These new markets are fragmented, in the sense that they seldom requite a sustained full-day
work. Thus commodification goes together with gig economy. In a gig economy we are both
suppliers of services (we can deliver pizza in the afternoons), and purchasers of many services
that used to be non-monetized (the already mentioned: cleaning, cooking, nursing). This in turn
makes it possible for individuals to satisfy all their needs on the market and in the longer
term raises big issues such as the usefulness and survival of the family.
But if capitalism has spread so much in all directions, why do we speak of its crisis?
Because the malaise which is limited to rich Western countries is supposed to afflict the
entire world. But this is not the case. And the reason why this is not the case is because the
Western malaise is the product of uneven distribution of the gains from globalization, an
outcome not dissimilar to what happened in the 19th century globalization when the gains were
however disproportionally reaped by the Europeans.
When this new bout of globalization began, it was politically "sold" in the West, especially
as it came on the heels of "the end of history", on the premise that it will benefit
disproportionately rich countries and their populations. The outcome was the opposite. It
benefited especially Asia, populous countries like China, India, Vietnam, Indonesia. It is the
gap between the expectations entertained by the Western middle classes and their low income
growth, as well as their slide in the global income position, that fuels dissatisfaction with
globalization. This is wrongly diagnosed as dissatisfaction with capitalism.
There is also another issue. The expansion of market-like approach to societies in all (or
almost all) of their activities, which is indeed a feature of advanced capitalism, has also
transformed politics into a business activity. In principle, politics, no more than our leisure
time, was not regarded as an area of market transaction. But both have become so. This has made
politics more corrupt. It is now considered like any other activity, where even if one does not
engage in explicit corruption during his political tenure, one uses the connections and
knowledge acquired in politics to make money afterwards. That type of commodification has
created widespread cynicism and disenchantment with mainstream politics and politicians.
Thus the crisis is not of capitalism per se, but is the crisis brought about by the uneven
effects of globalization and by capitalist expansion to the areas that were traditionally not
considered apt for commercialization. In other words, capitalism has become too powerful and
has in some cases come into collision with strongly held beliefs. It will either continue with
its conquest of more, yet non-commercialized, spheres, or it would have to be controlled and
its "field of action" reduced to what it used to be.
________________________________
[1] World Bank data, quoted in Capitalism, Alone
-- Branko Milanovic Reply Sunday, October 13, 2019 at 04:46 AM likbez said in reply to
anne... "In addition, thanks to globalization and technological revolutions, a number of new,
hitherto non-existent markets have been created: a huge market for personal data, rental
markets for own cars and homes (neither of which was capital until Uber, Lyft, Airbnb etc. were
created), market for housing of self-employed individuals (which did not exist before WeWork)
and a number of other market such as those for taking care of the elderly, of children, or
pets, market for cooking and delivery of food, market for shopping chores etc."
Opening new markets was the key feature of capitalism from the very beginning. Marx wrote
extensively about this particular feature in his Capital. The current problem is the "end of
growth" and whether capitalism in the form of neoliberalism can deal with "secular stagnation".
So far the answer was "trade wars"
In this particular case Branko Milanovic wrote a weak neoliberal crap, almost apologetic of
neoliberalism in best style of Milton Friedman (who now is really past its self value).
This crisis of neoliberalism (which is the current stage of capitalism, if you want to use
Marxist's terms) is systemic and no tricks like Uber can save us from the "secular
stagnation".
Brexit, Trump election, Trade War with China, EU frictions are all symptoms of the larger
problem: the idea "Financial elites from all over the globe unite" did not work well; the rule
of financial oligarchy always kills growth.
There is also another systemic problem which is known under the name "the end of cheap
oil"
That's why we now have the "secular stagnation" in the USA despite all wonders of modern
technology.
BTW Marxism proved to be mixed blessing with the analysis of capitalism withstanding the test
of the time, but with its idea of "proletarian" as the new ruling class being adamantly false
(and converted into a new secular religion paving the way to Bolshevism and national socialism,
among other things), so anything written by reformed Marxists would be taken with the grain of
salt. Reply Tuesday, October 15, 2019 at 07:18 PM
The term "centrist" is replaced by a more appropriate term "neoliberal oligarchy"
Notable quotes:
"... Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly, suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps. ..."
"... So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House in the first place. ..."
"... For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed path. ..."
"... In a recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point: Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as foreordained. ..."
"... Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much) change. ..."
"... These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy. ..."
"... "For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely. ..."
"... how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal oligarchy" who preceded him? ..."
"... Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the question not only goes unanswered, but unasked. ..."
"... To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie. Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed, apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse "to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war to economic inequality." Just so. ..."
"... Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's what Hillary thought too. ..."
"... Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars. ..."
"... Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no better than last time. ..."
"... I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the price that's going to have to be paid. ..."
"... At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight of hand there corporate Dems. ..."
There is blood in the water and frenzied sharks are closing in for the kill. Or so they
think.
From the time of Donald Trump's election, American elites have hungered for this moment. At
long last, they have the 45th president of the United States cornered. In typically ham-handed
fashion, Trump has given his adversaries the very means to destroy him politically. They will
not waste the opportunity. Impeachment now -- finally, some will say -- qualifies as a virtual
certainty.
No doubt many surprises lie ahead. Yet the Democrats controlling the House of
Representatives have passed the point of no return. The time for prudential judgments -- the
Republican-controlled Senate will never convict, so why bother? -- is gone for good. To back
down now would expose the president's pursuers as spineless cowards. TheNew York
Times, The Washington Post, CNN and MSNBC would not soon forgive such craven behavior.
So, as President Woodrow Wilson, speaking in 1919 put it, "The stage is set, the
destiny disclosed. It has come about by no plan of our conceiving, but by the hand of God." Of
course, the issue back then was a notably weighty one: whether to ratify the Versailles Treaty.
That it now concerns a "
Mafia-like shakedown " orchestrated by one of Wilson's successors tells us something about
the trajectory of American politics over the course of the last century and it has not been a
story of ascent.
The effort to boot the president from office is certain to yield a memorable spectacle. The
rancor and contempt that have clogged American politics like a backed-up sewer since the day of
Trump's election will now find release. Watergate will pale by comparison. The uproar triggered
by Bill Clinton's "
sexual relations " will be nothing by comparison. A de facto collaboration between
Trump, those who despise him, and those who despise his critics all but guarantees that this
story will dominate the news, undoubtedly for months to come.
As this process unspools, what politicians like to call "the people's business" will go
essentially unattended. So while Congress considers whether or not to remove Trump from office,
gun-control legislation will languish, the deterioration of the nation's infrastructure will
proceed apace, needed healthcare reforms will be tabled, the military-industrial complex will
waste yet more billions, and the national debt, already at $22 trillion --
larger, that is, than the entire economy -- will continue to surge. The looming threat posed by
climate change, much talked about of late, will proceed all but unchecked. For those of us
preoccupied with America's role in the world, the obsolete assumptions and habits undergirding
what's still called " national
security " will continue to evade examination. Our endless wars will remain endless and
pointless.
By way of compensation, we might wonder what benefits impeachment is likely to yield.
Answering that question requires examining four scenarios that describe the range of
possibilities awaiting the nation.
The first and most to be desired (but least likely) is that Trump will tire of being a
public piñata and just quit. With the thrill of flying in Air Force One having
worn off, being president can't be as much fun these days. Why put up with further grief? How
much more entertaining for Trump to retire to the political sidelines where he can tweet up a
storm and indulge his penchant for name-calling. And think of the "deals" an ex-president could
make in countries like Israel, North Korea, Poland, and Saudi Arabia on which he's bestowed
favors. Cha-ching! As of yet, however, the president shows no signs of taking the easy (and
lucrative) way out.
The second possible outcome sounds almost as good but is no less implausible: a sufficient
number of Republican senators rediscover their moral compass and "do the right thing," joining
with Democrats to create the two-thirds majority needed to convict Trump and send him packing.
In the Washington of that classic 20th-century film director Frank Capra, with Jimmy Stewart
holding
forth on the Senate floor and a moist-eyed Jean Arthur cheering him on from the gallery,
this might have happened. In the real Washington of "Moscow Mitch"
McConnell , think again.
The third somewhat seamier outcome might seem a tad more likely. It postulates that
McConnell and various GOP senators facing reelection in 2020 or 2022 will calculate that
turning on Trump just might offer the best way of saving their own skins. The president's
loyalty to just about anyone, wives included, has always been highly contingent, the people
streaming out of his administration routinely making the point. So why should senatorial
loyalty to the president be any different? At the moment, however, indications that Trump
loyalists out in the hinterlands will reward such turncoats are just about nonexistent. Unless
that base were to flip, don't expect Republican senators to do anything but flop.
That leaves outcome No. 4, easily the most probable: while the House will impeach, the
Senate will decline to convict. Trump will therefore stay right where he is, with the matter of
his fitness for office effectively deferred to the November 2020 elections. Except as a source
of sadomasochistic diversion, the entire agonizing experience will, therefore, prove to be a
colossal waste of time and blather.
Furthermore, Donald Trump might well emerge from this national ordeal with his reelection
chances enhanced. Such a prospect is belatedly insinuating itself into public discourse. For
that reason, certain anti-Trump pundits are already showing signs of going wobbly,
suggesting , for instance, that censure rather than outright impeachment might suffice as
punishment for the president's various offenses. Yet censuring Trump while allowing him to stay
in office would be the equivalent of letting Harvey Weinstein off with a good tongue-lashing so
that he can get back to making movies. Censure is for wimps.
Besides, as Trump campaigns for a second term, he would almost surely wear censure like a
badge of honor. Keep in mind that Congress's
approval ratings are considerably worse than his. To more than a few members of the public,
a black mark awarded by Congress might look like a gold star.
Restoration Not Removal
So if Trump finds himself backed into a corner, Democrats aren't necessarily in a more
favorable position. And that aren't the half of it. Let me suggest that, while Trump is being
pursued, it's you, my fellow Americans, who are really being played. The unspoken purpose of
impeachment is not removal, but restoration. The overarching aim is not to replace Trump with
Mike Pence -- the equivalent of exchanging Groucho for Harpo. No, the object of the exercise is
to return power to those who created the conditions that enabled Trump to win the White House
in the first place.
Just recently, for instance, Hillary Clinton
declared Trump to be an "illegitimate president." Implicit in her charge is the conviction
-- no doubt sincere -- that people like Donald Trump are not supposed to be president.
People like Hillary Clinton -- people possessing credentials
like hers and sharing her values -- should be the chosen ones. Here we glimpse the true
meaning of legitimacy in this context. Whatever the vote in the Electoral College, Trump
doesn't deserve to be president and never did.
For many of the main participants in this melodrama, the actual but unstated purpose of
impeachment is to correct this great wrong and thereby restore history to its anointed
path.
In a
recent column in The Guardian, Professor Samuel Moyn makes the essential point:
Removing from office a vulgar, dishonest and utterly incompetent president comes nowhere close
to capturing what's going on here. To the elites most intent on ousting Trump, far more
important than anything he may say or do is what he signifies. He is a walking, talking
repudiation of everything they believe and, by extension, of a future they had come to see as
foreordained.
Moyn styles these anti-Trump elites as "neoliberal oligarchy", members of the post-Cold War political
mainstream that allowed ample room for nominally conservative Bushes and nominally liberal
Clintons, while leaving just enough space for Barack Obama's promise of hope-and-(not-too-much)
change.
These "neoliberal oligarchy" share a common worldview. They believe in the universality of freedom as
defined and practiced within the United States. They believe in corporate capitalism operating
on a planetary scale. They believe in American primacy, with the United States presiding over a
global order as the sole superpower. They believe in "American global leadership," which they
define as primarily a military enterprise. And perhaps most of all, while collecting degrees
from Georgetown, Harvard, Oxford, Wellesley, the University of Chicago, and Yale, they came to
believe in a so-called meritocracy as the preferred mechanism for allocating wealth, power and
privilege. All of these together comprise the sacred scripture of contemporary American
political elites. And if Donald Trump's antagonists have their way, his removal will restore
that sacred scripture to its proper place as the basis of policy.
"For all their appeals to enduring moral values," Moyn writes, "the "neoliberal oligarchy" are deploying
a transparent strategy to return to power." Destruction of the Trump presidency is a necessary
precondition for achieving that goal. ""neoliberal oligarchy" simply want to return to the status quo
interrupted by Trump, their reputations laundered by their courageous opposition to his
mercurial reign, and their policies restored to credibility." Precisely.
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
The U.S. military's "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad at the start of the Iraq War, as
broadcast on CNN.
For such a scheme to succeed, however, laundering reputations alone will not suffice.
Equally important will be to bury any recollection of the catastrophes that paved the way for
an über -qualified centrist to lose to an indisputably unqualified and
unprincipled political novice in 2016.
Holding promised security assistance hostage unless a foreign leader agrees to do you
political favors is obviously and indisputably wrong. Trump's antics regarding Ukraine may even
meet some definition of criminal. Still, how does such misconduct compare to the calamities engineered by the "neoliberal
oligarchy" who preceded him? Consider, in particular, the George W. Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 (along with the spin-off wars that followed).
Consider, too, the reckless economic policies that produced the Great Recession of 2007-2008.
As measured by the harm inflicted on the American people (and others), the offenses for which
Trump is being impeached qualify as mere misdemeanors.
Honest people may differ on whether to attribute the Iraq War to outright lies or monumental
hubris. When it comes to tallying up the consequences, however, the intentions of those who
sold the war don't particularly matter. The results include
thousands of Americans killed; tens of thousands wounded, many grievously, or left to
struggle with the effects of PTSD; hundreds of thousands of non-Americans killed or injured ;
millions displaced ;
trillions of dollars expended; radical groups like ISIS empowered (and in its case
even formed
inside a U.S. prison in Iraq); and the Persian Gulf region plunged into turmoil from which it
has yet to recover. How do Trump's crimes stack up against these?
The Great Recession stemmed directly from economic policies implemented during the
administration of President Bill Clinton and continued by his successor. Deregulating the
banking sector was projected to produce a bonanza in which all would share. Yet, as a
direct result of
the ensuing chicanery, nearly 9 million Americans lost their jobs, while overall unemployment
shot up to 10 percent. Roughly 4 million Americans lost their homes to foreclosure. The stock
market cratered and millions saw their life savings evaporate. Again, the question must be
asked: How do these results compare to Trump's dubious dealings with Ukraine?
Trump's critics speak with one voice in demanding accountability. Yet virtually no one has
been held accountable for the pain, suffering, and loss inflicted by the architects of the Iraq
War and the Great Recession. Why is that? As another presidential election approaches, the
question not only goes unanswered, but unasked.
Sen. Carter Glass (D–Va.) and Rep. Henry B. Steagall (D–Ala.-3), the co-sponsors of
the 1932 Glass–Steagall Act separating investment and commercial banking, which was
repealed in 1999. (Wikimedia Commons)
To win reelection, Trump, a corrupt con man (who jumped ship
on his own bankrupt casinos, money in hand, leaving others holding the bag) will cheat and lie.
Yet, in the politics of the last half-century, these do not qualify as novelties. (Indeed,
apart from being the son of a sitting U.S. vice president, what made Hunter Biden
worth $50Gs per month to a gas company owned by a Ukrainian oligarch? I'm curious.) That
the president and his associates are engaging in a cover-up is doubtless the case. Yet another
cover-up proceeds in broad daylight on a vastly larger scale. "Trump's shambolic presidency
somehow seems less unsavory," Moyn writes, when considering the fact that his critics refuse
"to admit how massively his election signified the failure of their policies, from endless war
to economic inequality." Just so.
What are the real crimes? Who are the real criminals? No matter what happens in the coming
months, don't expect the Trump impeachment proceedings to come within a country mile of
addressing such questions.
Exactly. Trump is the result of voter disgust with Bush III vs Clinton II, the presumed
match up for a year or more leading up to 2016. Now Democrats want to do it again, thinking they can elect anybody against Trump. That's
what Hillary thought too.
Now the Republicans who lost their party to Trump think they can take it back with
somebody even more lame than Jeb, if only they could find someone, anyone, to run on that
non-plan.
Trump won for lack of alternatives. Our political class is determined to prevent any
alternatives breaking through this time either. They don't want Trump, but even more they
want to protect their gravy train of donor money, the huge overspending on medical care (four
times the defense budget) and of course all those Forever Wars.
Trump could win, for the same reasons as last time, even though the result would be no
better than last time.
LJ , October 9, 2019 at 17:01
Well, yeah but I recall that what won Trump the Republican Nomination was first and
foremost his stance on Immigration. This issue is what separated him from the herd of
candidates . None of them had the courage or the desire to go against Governmental Groupthink
on Immigration. All he then had to do was get on top of low energy Jeb Bush and the road was
clear. He got the base on his side on this issue and on his repeated statement that he wished
to normalize relations with Russia . He won the nomination easily. The base is still on his
side on these issues but Governmental Groupthink has prevailed in the House, the Senate, the
Intelligence Services and the Federal Courts. Funny how nobody in the Beltway, especially not
in media, is brave enough to admit that the entire Neoconservative scheme has been a disaster
and that of course we should get out of Syria . Nor can anyone recall the corruption and
warmongering that now seem that seems endemic to the Democratic Party. Of course Trump has to
wear goat's horns. "Off with his head".
Drew Hunkins , October 9, 2019 at 16:00
I wish the slick I.D. politics obsessed corporate Dems nothing but the worst, absolute
worst. They reap what they sow. If it means another four years of Trump, so be it. It's the
price that's going to have to be paid.
At a time when a majority of U.S. citizens cannot muster up $500 for an emergency dental
bill or car repair without running down to the local "pay day loan" lender shark (now
established as legitimate businesses) the corporate Dems, in their infinite wisdom, decide to
concoct an impeachment circus to run simultaneously when all the dirt against the execrable
Brennan and his intel minions starts to hit the press for their Russiagate hoax. Nice sleight
of hand there corporate Dems.
Of course, the corporate Dems would rather lose to Trump than win with a
progressive-populist like Bernie. After all, a Bernie win would mean an end to a lot of
careerism and cushy positions within the establishment political scene in Washington and
throughout the country.
Now we even have the destroyer of Libya mulling another run for the presidency.
Forget about having a job the next day and forget about the 25% interest on your credit
card or that half your income is going toward your rent or mortgage, or that you barely see
your kids b/c of the 60 hour work week, just worry about women lawyers being able to make
partner at the firm, and trans people being able to use whatever bathroom they wish and male
athletes being able to compete against women based on genitalia (no, wait, I'm confused
now).
Either class politics and class warfare comes front and center or we witness a burgeoning
neo-fascist movement in our midst. It's that simple, something has got to give!
Hillary Clinton has threatened to enter the 2020 presidential race for president after
President Donald Trump suggested on Twitter that she throw her hat in the ring in an effort to
"steal it away" from Elizabeth Warren. Trump tweeted Tuesday that "Crooked Hillary"
should run for president again to deprive the "Uber Left" Warren of a shot at the White
House, but only on "one condition" to be subpoenaed to "explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors."
I think that Crooked Hillary Clinton should enter the race to try and steal it away from
Uber Left Elizabeth Warren. Only one condition. The Crooked one must explain all of her high
crimes and misdemeanors including how & why she deleted 33,000 Emails AFTER getting "C"
Subpoena!
Five hours after Trump's jab, Clinton replied: "Don't tempt me. Do your job."
Reaction to Clinton's warning was mixed, to say the least. While mainstream media outlets
seemed to love the idea, many social media users recoiled in horror at the thought of a 2016
re-run.
"I don't think my heart could take it" if Hillary really runs again, one fan
proclaimed on Twitter.
"The president is dropping by the city on Thursday for one of his periodic angry
wank-fests at the Target Center, which is the venue in which this event will be inflicted
upon the Twin Cities. (And, just as an aside, given the events of the past 10 days, this one
should be a doozy.) Other Minneapolis folk are planning an extensive unwelcoming party
outside the arena, which necessarily would require increased security, which is expensive.
So, realizing that it was dealing with a notorious deadbeat -- in keeping with his customary
business plan, El Caudillo del Mar-a-Lago has stiffed 10 cities this year for bills relating
to security costs that total almost a million bucks -- the company that provides the security
for the Target Center wants the president*'s campaign to shell out more than $500,000.
This has sent the president* into a Twitter tantrum against Frey, who seems not to be that
impressed by it. Right from when the visit was announced, Frey has been jabbing at the
president*'s ego. From the Star-Tribune:
"Our entire city will stand not behind the President, but behind the communities and
people who continue to make our city -- and this country -- great," Frey said. "While there
is no legal mechanism to prevent the president from visiting, his message of hatred will
never be welcome in Minneapolis."
It is a mayor's lot to deal with out-of-state troublemakers. Always has been."
This is not about Trump. This is not even about Ukraine and/or foreign powers influence on
the US election (of which Israel, UK, and Saudi are three primary examples; in this
particular order.)
Russiagate 2.0 (aka Ukrainegate) is the case, textbook example if you wish, of how the
neoliberal elite manipulates the MSM and the narrative for purposes of misdirecting attention
and perception of their true intentions and objectives -- distracting the electorate from
real issues.
An excellent observation by JohnH (October 01, 2019 at 01:47 PM )
"It all depends on which side of the Infowars you find yourself. The facts themselves are
too obscure and byzantine."
There are two competing narratives here:
1. NARRATIVE 1: CIA swamp scum tried to re-launch Russiagate as Russiagate 2.0. This is
CIA coup d'état aided and abetted by CIA-democrats like Pelosi and Schiff. Treason, as
Trump aptly said. This is narrative shared by "anti-Deep Staters" who sometimes are nicknamed
"Trumptards". Please note that the latter derogatory nickname is factually incorrect:
supporters of this narrative often do not support Trump. They just oppose machinations of the
Deep State. And/or neoliberalism personified by Clinton camp, with its rampant
corruption.
2. NARRATIVE 2: Trump tried to derail his opponent using his influence of foreign state
President (via military aid) as leverage and should be impeached for this and previous
crimes. ("Full of Schiff" commenters narrative, neoliberal democrats, or demorats.)
Supporters of this category usually bought Russiagate 1.0 narrative line, hook and sinker.
Some of them are brainwashed, but mostly simply ignorant neoliberal lemmings without even
basic political education.
In any case, while Russiagate 2.0 is probably another World Wrestling Federation style
fight, I think "anti-Deep-staters" are much closer to the truth.
What is missing here is the real problem: the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA (and
elsewhere).
So this circus serves an important purpose (intentionally or unintentionally) -- to disrupt
voters from the problems that are really burning, and are equal to a slow-progressing cancer in the
US society.
And implicitly derail Warren (being a weak politician she does not understand that, and
jumped into Ukrainegate bandwagon )
I am not that competent here, so I will just mention some obvious symptoms:
Loss of legitimacy of the ruling neoliberal elite (which demonstrated itself in 2016
with election of Trump);
Desperation of many working Americans with sliding standard of living; loss of meaningful
jobs due to offshoring of manufacturing and automation (which demonstrated itself in opioids
abuse epidemics; similar to epidemics of alcoholism in the USSR before its dissolution.
Loss of previously available freedoms. Loss of "free press" replaced by the neoliberal
echo chamber in major MSM. The uncontrolled and brutal rule of financial oligarchy and allied
with the intelligence agencies as the third rail of US politics (plus the conversion of the
state after 9/11 into national security state);
Coming within this century end of the "Petroleum Age" and the global crisis that it can
entail;
Rampant militarism, tremendous waist of resources on the arms race, and overstretched
efforts to maintain and expand global, controlled from Washington, neoliberal empire. Efforts
that since 1991 were a primary focus of unhinged after 1991 neocon faction US elite who
totally controls foreign policy establishment ("full-spectrum dominance). They are stealing money from
working people to fund an imperial project, and as part of neoliberal redistribution of wealth up
Most of the commenters here live a comfortable life in the financially secured retirement,
and, as such, are mostly satisfied with the status quo. And almost completely isolated from
the level of financial insecurity of most common Americans (healthcare racket might be the
only exception).
And re-posting of articles which confirm your own worldview (echo chamber posting) is nice
entertainment, I think ;-)
Some of those posters actually sometimes manage to find really valuable info. For which I
am thankful. In other cases, when we have a deluge of abhorrent neoliberal propaganda
postings (the specialty of Fred C. Dobbs) which often generate really insightful comments from the
members of the "anti-Deep State" camp.
Still it would be beneficial if the flow of neoliberal spam is slightly curtailed.
"... Combat crews of S-400, in Astrakhan Region, held combat exercises against hypersonic target-missiles "Favorit PM" and destroyed all targets. The statement of the press-service of Western Military District announced. The crews of S-400 Triumphs were from the units of air-defense of Leningrad Army of Air Force and Air Defense of Western Military District. ..."
The Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke yesterday at the yearly Valdai
Discussion Club meeting in Sochi. A video with English translations and excerpts of the
transcript are here .
With regards to the global system Putin made an interesting historic comparison:
in the 19th century they used to refer to a "Concert of Powers." The time has come to talk in
terms of a global "concert" of development models, interests, cultures and traditions where
the sound of each instrument is crucial, inextricable and valuable, and for the music to be
played harmoniously rather than performed with discordant notes, a cacophony. It is crucial
to consider the opinions and interests of all the participants in international life. Let me
reiterate: truly mutually respectful, pragmatic and consequently solid relations can only
built between independent and sovereign states .
Russia is sincerely committed to this approach and pursues a positive agenda.
The Concert of
Europe was the balance of power system between 1815 to 1848 and from 1871 to 1914:
A first phase of the Concert of Europe, known as the Congress System or the Vienna System
after the Congress of Vienna (1814–15), was dominated by five Great Powers of Europe:
Prussia, Russia, Britain, France and Austria. [...] With the Revolutions of 1848 the Vienna
system collapsed and, although the republican rebellions were checked, an age of nationalism
began and culminated in the unifications of Italy (by Sardinia) and Germany (by Prussia) in
1871. The German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck re-created the Concert of Europe to avoid
future conflicts escalating into new wars. The revitalized concert included France, Britain,
Austria, Russia, and Italy with Germany as the main continental power economically and
militarily.
Bismark's concert kept peace in a usually warring Europe for 43 years. If Putin wants to be
the new Bismarck I am all for it.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has said that Moscow is helping China build a system to warn
of ballistic missile launches.
Since the cold war, only the United States and Russia have had such systems, which involve
an array of ground-based radars and space satellites. The systems allow for early spotting of
intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Speaking at an international affairs conference in Moscow on Thursday, Putin said Russia
had been helping China develop such a system. He added that "this is a very serious thing
that will radically enhance China's defence capability".
His statement signalled a new degree of defence cooperation between the two former
Communist rivals that have developed increasingly close political and military ties while
Beijing and Washington have sunk into a trade war.
That is as good for China as it is for Russia. China has an immediate need for such a system
because the U.S. is taking a significantly more bellicose posture against it.
The U.S. left the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia to build a nuclear
missiles force in South Asia
that will aim at China. It is now looking for Asian countries in which it could station
such weapons. China is
using its economic might to prevent that but the U.S. is likely to succeed.
While China
has capable weapons and can defend itself against a smaller attack the U.S. has about 20
times more nuclear warheads than China. It could use those in an overwhelming first strike to
decapitate and destroy the Chinese state. An early warning system will give China enough time
to detect such an attack and to launch its own nuclear deterrent against the U.S. The warning
systems will thus checkmate the U.S. first strike capability.
Over the last two years Russia and China both unveiled hypersonic weapons. Currently the
U.S. has neither such weapons nor any defensive system that can protect against these.
Russia was smart enough to develop both - the super fast offensive weapon and a defense
against it. Via Andrei Martyanov we learn of a recent Russian press
notice:
Translation: Combat crews of S-400, in Astrakhan Region, held combat exercises against
hypersonic target-missiles "Favorit PM" and destroyed all targets. The statement of the
press-service of Western Military District announced. The crews of S-400 Triumphs were from
the units of air-defense of Leningrad Army of Air Force and Air Defense of Western Military
District.
And what this "Favorit PM" missile-target complex is? Very simple, it is deeply modernized
good ol' S-300 P series which allows to use missiles of types 5V55 which have their
explosives removed and are capable of atmospheric maneuverable flight with the velocities of
Mach=6 (in excess of 7,000 kilometers per hour). These are genuine hyper-sonic
missile-targets and, evidently, and I don't have any reasons to doubt it, S-400 had very
little problems shooting them down.
On top of the missile warning system China will also want to have that most capable air and
missile defense system. Russia will make it a decent offer.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov's talked a day earlier than Putin. His speech and the Q &
A with him are here
. The talk was mostly about the Middle East and Lavrov's tone was rather angry while he passed
through a long list of U.S. sins in the region and beyond. There were also some interesting
remarks about Turkey, Syria and the Ukraine. The most interesting passage was his response to a
question about U.S. sanction against Russia to which some senators want to add even more.
Lavrov said:
I have heard that Marco Rubio and Ben Cardin are two famous anti-Russia-minded members of the
US Congress. I don't think that this implies that they have any foresight. Those with a more
or less politically mature opinion of the situation should have realised long ago that the
sanctions don't work in the direction they wanted them to work. I believe that they will
never work. We have a territory and its riches that were bestowed on us by God and our
ancestors, we have a feeling of personal dignity, and we also have the armed forces. This
combination makes us very confident. I hope that economic development and all the investment
that has been made and continues to be made will also pay off in the near future.
The U.S. loves to dish out sanctions left and right and the Trump administration has
increased their use. But sanctions, especially unilateral ones, do not work. The U.S. has not
recognized that because it has never assessed whether those sanctions fulfill their aims. A
recent Government Accountability Office report found :
The Departments of the Treasury (Treasury), State (State), and Commerce (Commerce) each
undertake efforts to assess the impacts of specific sanctions on the targets of those
sanctions. [...] However, agency officials cited several difficulties in assessing sanctions'
effectiveness in meeting broader U.S. policy goals , including challenges in isolating the
effect of sanctions from other factors as well as evolving foreign policy goals. According to
Treasury, State, and Commerce officials, their agencies have not conducted such assessments
on their own.
The U.S. sanctions and sanctions and sanctions but never checked if sanctions work to the
intended purpose. The efforts to sanction Russia have surely led to some unintended
consequences. They are the reason why the alliance between China and Russia deepens every day.
The U.S. has the exorbitant privilege of having its own
currency being used as the international reserve. The sanctioning of U.S. dollar transactions
is the reason why the U.S. is now losing it :
Russia's Rosneft has set the euro as the default currency for all its new export contracts
including for crude oil, oil products, petrochemicals and liquefied petroleum gas, tender
documents showed.
The switch from U.S. dollars, which happened in September according to the tender
documents published on Rosneft's website, is set to reduce the state-controlled firm's
vulnerability to potential fresh U.S. sanctions.
Washington has threatened to impose sanctions on Rosneft over its operations in Venezuela,
a move which Rosneft says would be illegal.
Iran has taken comparable steps. It now sells oil to China and India in either local
currencies. Other countries will surely learn from this and will also start to use other
currencies for their energy purchases. As the transactions in dollars decrease they will also
start to use other currencies for their reserves.
But the U.S. is not losing its financial or sole superpower status because of what China or
Russia or Iran have done or do. It is losing it because its has made too many mistakes.
Those states who, like Russia, have done their homework will profit from it.
Posted by b on October 4, 2019 at 18:03 UTC |
Permalink
next page " b: [Iran] now sells oil to China and India
Not to India, but India has said that that will change. India has to be deliberate because it
is angling for a permanent seat in the UNSC.
Russia is building a network of missile defense, early warning, electronic weapons systems
that will ring Greater Eurasia, not just the Russian Federation.
Russia may not produce smart phones and have their own Amazon or Alibaba scale e-commerce
platform, but they have the world class defenses and leading edge counter-strike weapons that
overwhelm anything the US has or will have for a decade to come.
Putin and Lavrov have laid out the diplomatic talking points for a safer, saner world.
And as the saying goes, if you don't talk to Lavrov, then you can talk with Shoigu
(MOD).
The Russians have warned the West. Maybe the West is hard of hearing.
But what is clear, the rest of the world has heard it and they are gravitating toward Russia
and China.
It is losing it because its has made too many mistakes.
A statement that deserves to be unpacked. I think at the core of the "mistakes" is a
certain exceptionalist attitude which carries with it a combination of greed and
hubris that promotes moral turpitude.
When the re-alignment of Russia and China started, I compared them to two soldiers, standing
back-to-back, defensively pointing their guns forward. This is becoming an integrated
continental defense now. Do you think that the two missile warning system will remain
separate? It is sad that it had to come to this, but the AngloZionist mindset of domination
and exploitation is what it is. Russia and China are not benevolent, but a big majority of
countries prefers their economic approach to the Western military - bombed and killed if you
do not comply with master's wishes. Simply, the West is a one-trick-pony in decline,
As the U.S.A.slowly petrifies into an ever more fragile state of existence will the blow that
finally causes it to fracture into a state of catastrophic impotence,( in it's eyes ) mean
that it will die with a whimper or a bang?
Will the politik of the U.S.A.wake up before it's demise and re-orientate it's ethos so as to
integrate with the new order instigated from the east or, like an enraged, immature being try
to bring the rest of the world down with it?
I hope wiser minds than those in the Senate prevail. However I'm not really that optimistic
that they are capable of serious self reflection.
Here is an article that looks at a WikiLeaks document that explains how the United States
Army is preparing to help Washington achieve its national strategic objectives:
This Army manual gives us a very clear view of how Washington uses manipulation through
its influence on the World Bank, IMF, OECD and other "global" groups to wage unconventional
warfare on any nation that doesn't share its view of how the world should function and that
threatens America's control of the globe, including nations like Venezuela, Iran, Russia and
North Korea.
While China has capable weapons and can defend itself against a smaller attack the U.S. has
about 20 times more nuclear warheads than China. It could use those in an overwhelming
first strike to decapitate and destroy the Chinese state.
b, in a nuclear exchange, all it takes is a tiny fraction of the US/China/Russia's nuclear
arsenals to finish off human civilisation, so numbers are irrelevant. Radiation knows no
borders.
Such contributors and Don Bacon, Grieved and Karlof1 might help me (dis)confirm this, but my
impression is that Russia is or could make a case for selling only or primarily defensive
weapons, to pretty much anyone ... with the effect and, say, the intent, to make wars of
aggression, particularly pre-emptive strikes, much less tempting.
By shifting the field advantage towards defense, can it be plausibly proposed that Russia
is working to make the world, overall, a safer place (even if their primary intent might be
to make it safer from attacks initiated by the Unipolar Axis)?
b: The U.S. sanctions and sanctions and sanctions . . .
It even sanctions itself, with tariffs. Free trade is dead!
Don, there's NEVER been free trade, ever, no matter how far back you look in history. Free
trade is imperial speak for the dominant economies dictating to the weaker.
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Oct 4 2019 18:46 utc | 9
my impression is that Russia is or could make a case for selling only or primarily
defensive weapons, to pretty much anyone ...
Isn't this exactly what they're doing. Martynov's writings reveal this proces in detail.
It's a process that has its origins in WWII, a process that also has economic implications
for Russia.
I agree with Barovsky in comment # 8 about the MAD nature of any nuclear war
I also want to posit that until China has its own air and missile defense system that
Russia will use its to insure that any nuclear attack on China will result in global MAD
@ b who wrote
"
But the U.S. is not losing its financial or sole superpower status because of what China or
Russia or Iran have done or do. It is losing it because its has made too many mistakes.
"
it is not the US necessarily that has the sole financial superpower status but the cult of
global private finance ownership that is international and not just the US. And now that
financial superpower status is not just being challenged from outside the Western nations of
empire but from within as I continue to write about in the latest Open Thread. The US state
of California has instantiated public finance for the state...it was signed into law this
past Wednesday and the Western MSM has yet to report or comment on this game changing
initiative.....speaks volumes to the threat it creates to global private finance because
California has the 5th largest GDP in the world.
I had been leaning toward the scenario where the Empire would, eventually, have to be put
down in a violent confrontation, with a CBG sunk, but I am really feeling now, given the
Singapore deal in the EAEU with India and Iran in the wings and the missile-shield over PRC
and Rosneft selling product in Euros and Syria and Iran and Venezuela not being wiped out,
that maybe, just maybe, the Empire will be left in the dust, with no climactic confrontation
required. Maybe I am being naive, but there seems to be evidence to support that idea.
I wish since a while for an US American Gorbachov. This kind of person only is able to bring
down the still running war economy. You would expect some hero like spiritual leader is
necessary. The only thing what was special about the russian version for that job, he was
young. Able to imagine a world without that permanent pressure, that everybody can feel in
every cell of society. Of course, I hoped that trump maybe will do this, but he is twisted in
his own challenges, already old, no real love for the people around him in general. The
actual task is to lead down US from the sole position of power to become the most important
country in the world. I hope US Americans can fell save one day without spending half of
world's expanses on war, which equals that US budget is more than half for this reason. Who
will be able to explain to voters, this isn't a sound deal?
I'm loathe to posit this but if the US follows the demise of previous empires, then only
war will accomplish this but perhaps, just perhaps the mold (or is that mould?) has been
broken? After all, WWI and WWII came about because of competition between dominant economies
and ultimately a redivision of the world into new blocs. But then again, the emergence of the
USSR changed everything, the most momentous event of the 20th century. So perhaps we need a
new USSR but this time a transnational USSR?
My country is in a sorry state of affairs indeed, and listening to those around me, a common
theme occurs, a wish that that slow-coming line in the sand which will truly mark the end of
our illusion of exceptionalism would just get here and be done, so we, or those of us who are
left afterward, can work through those damnable five stages of grieving, and begin the
process of reconstruction and healing what remains.
Judging by comments made here, I've withdrawn hope of either party having anything to
present the citizenry as a way out of our demise, so coast toward that necessary line we do.
Is that too negative?
Slightly off topic, but is not the Western use of children for nefarious purposes increasing?
From the first Hong King rioter who got shot for attacking a policeman, at all of his 14
years of age, through Epstein's sexual use of young girls for blackmail, to Greta and the
climate change screaming kids. If you are younger than 18, and without or with weak parental
oversight due to challenging economic conditions (struggle to survive), you are a fair game
for the Western "elite". Earn some pocket money by burning down Hong Kong.
This will only increase, because it runs parallel to the tactics of turning adults against
each other to miss to notice the "elite's" hand in all of their pockets. Fight each other
people and send your children into the front lines. That is how they channel anger toward's
"elite's" alternative-model enemies (China) and away from the real perpetrators and the real
issues. This is why the images of Hong Kong riots overlap with the two minute hate from the
movie 1984.
Finally, the Communist elite used children too, to do the dying in revolutions, to report
their own parents the communist authorities and to severely punish ideological opponents. The
use of children is nothing new, but it shows total moral depravity.
@ Sally Snyder 7
Thank you for that! And I thought Special Forces was only interested in assassinations.
As you indicate, it's surprising that they put such self-damaging information in print.
They think they're invincible, so we need more Lavrovs to set them straight.
re Paul Damascene #9, I see mutually assured defense as a highly desirable strategy emerging
from Russia and China. If that new 'mad' is expanded to friendlies in the middle east then a
very large sector of the planets continents can be enclosed in a single defensive frame.
I see this as a mighty good potential to arrest the lunatic tendency to war constantly
being chanted by the five eyes and their vassal toadies.
Certainly the elimination of nuclear weapons entirely should be the global objective.
Failing that, the prevention of ground blasts with the consequent dust and threat of nuclear
winter is desirable in my view. High altitude interception may prevent premature detonation
of attacking warheads but it will most likely lead to highly contaminated hot spots on
ground.
There is an evil in warmongering that is utterly beneath contempt.
I see on AMN, the Syrian News site, an article speaking about a new KFC in terrorist-held
Idlib ...
If this isn't a statement about who is collaborating in these wars I don't know what is !!
It is partially about the globalists wanting to increase the extent of their reach (apart
from all the religious and cultural issues too)
...
...but my impression is that Russia is or could make a case for selling only or primarily
defensive weapons, to pretty much anyone ... with the effect and, say, the intent, to make
wars of aggression, particularly pre-emptive strikes, much less tempting.
By shifting the field advantage towards defense, can it be plausibly proposed that
Russia is working to make the world, overall, a safer place (even if their primary intent
might be to make it safer from attacks initiated by the Unipolar Axis)?
Posted by: Paul Damascene | Oct 4 2019 18:46 utc | 9
Imo that's a perfectly sane assessment. It's just an unfortunate prerequisite, and a sign
of the times, that M.A.D. had to be looming in the background before the wisdom could be
recognised and de-escalation could commence.
@ PD 9 shifting the field advantage towards defense
>Actually all nations are supposed to concentrate on defense. The US changed its War
Dept to Defense Dept. --( to throw us off? ) There are few nations that have an overwhelming
offensive capability. Its expensive and requires a lot of people, including mostly
draftees.
> The F-35 jet fighter now goes for about $150 million per copy, in large part because it
is stealthy and can get through enemy defenses. At least that's the plan. But after eighteen
years (and counting) of development, the F-35 still has not been approved for full
production. That's an offensive weapon.
> Another expensive piece of gear is the aircraft carrier, now going for $13 billion per
copy, and several of the newfangled complex features on the new carrier design don't work.
High maintenance, too. Of eleven carriers only two are deplorable currently, none on the east
coast. Carriers have been mostly used to facilitate bombing runs over defenseless third-world
countries. They need a cheap defense.
> Regarding soldiers, few countries have a draft, or a large draft, any longer. No more
major land armies, required for offense. People are expensive, and 70% of US youth don't
qualify for service.
> The US Marine Corps is now going through a change with a new commandant. The main US
enemy now is China, and there's no thought of any war on China itself, only on allied islands
they might grab. So the Marines want to back out of their land warfare stance and concentrate
on Iwo-Jima type operations like the good old days. New USMC Commandant Berger: "We are too
heavy, too cumbersome. We're built for another Desert Storm. We have to go on a diet. .
.we're not going to go head-to-head, tank-on-tank," he said
> The recent Houthi attack on Saudi Arabia was a wake-up call. Drones and missiles,
inexpensive unstoppable and effective.
> So there's a lot of work to do, but yes one can say there is a trend from offense to
defense, and little by little the world might be safer against offensive actions.
I see mutually assured defense as a highly desirable strategy emerging from Russia and
China. If that new 'mad' is expanded to friendlies in the middle east then a very large
sector of the planets continents can be enclosed in a single defensive frame.
Excellent observation Uncle! It's the Empire (and its vassals) versus the planet.
There will never be an American Gorbachev because the American system is completely
different from the Soviet system.
In the USSR, the Communist Party was everything and commanded all the sociometabolical
aspects of society through a centralized State. When the Gorbachev killed the Party, he
killed the USSR. That's why it simply collapsed overnight and in a relatively peaceful
way.
The USA is a pure-blood capitalist society. It functions through a confederation of
capitalists, who command and owns different parts of the means of production. The State,
albeit powerful, is just one instutition among many others in this free market anarchy. The
USA, therefore, is a relatively decentralized society (for its size, it is incredibly
decentralized). In this sense, the USA is more akin to the old Roman Empire than any other
recent liberal or late-feudal empire.
My guess is the USA will degenerate slowly and very violently and chaotically, with a
succession of weak POTUS over a course of at least many decades. It can or cannot lose
territory in this process (I don't think it ever will, unless you're talking about Puerto
Rico and other possessions in the Southwestern Pacific). It almost certainly will provoke
many more wars against foreign nations in the process. It will be a very dangerous period of
Humanity's History, if not mark its end (if a total nuclear war happens).
--//--
I don't think Putin wants to be "the next Bismarck". Bismarck's new Concert was a failure:
it didn't relieve pressure between the imperialist powers in Europe and only gathered
pressure overtime in order to create an even bigger meatgrinder (WWI), which generated an
even bigger revolution (1917). By all intents and purposes, Bismarck's foreign polices were
an abject failure. His domestic record, on the other side, is stellar, since he turned
Germany into a world superpower which, by 1900, had already surpassed the UK in industrial
terms to reach second place overall (behind only the much bigger USA).
..."But the U.S. is not losing its financial or sole superpower status because of what China
or Russia or Iran have done or do. It is losing it because its has made too many
mistakes."...
The cadaver that is the USA, a ruptured spleen of financial criminality, is in it's end
stage of sucking the life of the world, it's host. Russia, China, and like minded sovereign
states are backstopping the US buck into oblivion with their gold purchases. Gold continues
to show the absurdities of the financial status of the US dollar. Gold is inoculating these
states that are being sanctioned and financially harassed. The USA, is a drunken bum in the
gutter looking for his next drink. Time is running short as the world economies are now
contracting into a spiral down the toilet drain taking the great financial criminal with
it.
If any politicians on the global chessboard can rival the statesmanship and intellect in
strategy, it sure is Putin.
Before him maybe de Gaulle, Helmut Schmidt or Churchill. But now? No where in the western
states.
To the growing ties with China and Russia: Irony is, Putin warned the western world, that
if his and Russia's preference of joining the western states would be denied, Russia would be
forced into China's arms, even though they are culturally and religiously much more tied to
Europe and the western world.
US and NATO policy brought the Russians to see the former "yellow menace" as their only
hope; Equally China was forced into the arms of its Russian neighbor, despite the Chinese
tradition of seeing the Russians equally as a not much loved neighbor.
So the "social Imperialists" and "Barbarians" of Russia and the "Yellow Menace" were forced
to overcome their old prejudices.
De Gaulle once said: "One day the Russians will realize again that they are white."
Meaning, when the Soviet system would come crashing down, the Russians would realize, that
they and their culture are European, and not Asian.
When this prophecy actually came true, and Yeltsin and Putin tried to rebuild the bridges
back to their cultural fellow European states, the Neocons destroyed that historic chance of
healing decades and century old wounds.
Putin and Russia actually tried for over a decade to avert this. Only most recently the
fight in the Russian bureaucracy is leading into going into the partnership with China more
broadly. It still is a partnership not of love or true desire, but of simple survival. And
that won't likely ever change.
I am currently reading a great book of the legendary German-French journalists and author
Peter Scholl-Latour about the new cold war against Russia. he published it IIRC over 12 years
ago, with research since the 90s for it, and including previous reports from his visits in
Russia since 1958.
He saw what he discusses here 20 years ago. And the strategic consequences of this idiotic
rejection of Russia's wish to come back into the fold of European nations by the US will
haunt us for generations to come, if it is not fixed.
Only way to that would be if we would have politicians in the EU and Europeans states like
Putin; more concrete: With the backbone, strategic insight, and a strong stand on national
sovereignty.
But with the current politicians in the EU and its states? Certainly no one on the left,
as "sovereignty" is now seen as "Nazi", and left politicians at least here in Germany being
"educated" by NATO think tanks, supporting military "interventions". The only ones who
realize how important sovereignty is for any country, are the new right like Salvini, Le Pen,
and the Nigel Farage. Which maybe a big part of why they are so hysterically attacked by the
MSM and establishment.
But sovereignty is important for the left too, and historically e.g. the older generations
social democrats here knew that. People like Helmut Schmidt realized that no people can be
free, and exercise its self-determination as a nation, without true sovereignty.
But the time of politicians of this class and caliber in the west is long gone. Maybe
another reason, why our politicians hate Putin so much. ;)
It should be obvious to anyone that we're going to see some kind of a joint Sino-Russian
military organization like NORAD. I was wondering about this after Russia sold their S-400 to
China. However, I'm not sure if the Chinese, or Russia, would be open to a Warsaw Pact
version 2. IMO, the inevitable collapse would be like the Soviet Union as WMDs will prevent a
war fought directly between the larger powers. In the meantime, expect more proxy wars fought
globally.
Kiza | Oct 4 2019 19:49 utc | 20:
It's always been like this as that is the most impressionable stage of one's life. I don't
know if this is an increase or not, but I see these useful idiots as activation of sleeper
cells cultivated in educational institutions.
The "Concert of Powers" was marked by numerous wars. Great power conflict in Europe was
avoided in favor of colonial wars. England against Indians, Africans and Asians, but Russia
against Turks too. So much for "truly mutually respectful..." relations. Putin speaks
gibberish. Today, "sovereign" means claiming the right to wage war at will. This is not a
premise for solid relationships, but shifting alliances against the current enemy.
It is incidentally highly unlikely that a basket of currencies could possibly substitute
for a single reserve. If people couldn't make bimetallism work, making bi-, tri-, poly-fiat
currency work isn't happening either. The fluctuations in relative value will destabilize the
financial systems of smaller powers.
Don
I don't see possibility of India getting a UNSC permanent seat any time coming soon, it's a
permanent wishful thinking on India's part. India will need to resolve her problems with
Kashmir and Pakistan before even she be considered. Indian realist analyst know this well. As
matter of fact I don't see any hope that anytime soon we can see a structural change in UN.
It's more possible UN be dissolved like the League was before it be reformed. US and India
only can be short term tactical allies against China, and not even strategic allies since
they both have different postures toward the subcontinent's, Indian Ocean states.
Exactly, which is why I am both confused and frustrated by people taking a side in the
Ukraine-gate farce. Does it matter which flavor of evil is currently provably less corrupt?
They all have almost the same goals: peanuts and platitudes to placate the peasants at home
and Full Spectrum Imperial Dominance abroad. I get trying to figure out the Gordian Knot, but
the Make Believe of Good Cop/Bad Cop is annoying.
- Wars like WW 1 & WW 2 are not going to happen anymore because such wars have simply too
expensive. But instead we'll see a series of smaller wars or proxy wars.
I should think that one reason for the failure of the Second Concert of Europe was that
Britain was determined to eliminate Germany as an economic and political rival and as an
example of what centralised government economic and social planning could do to improve
people's lives and the conditions in which they lived and worked. The reforms that Bismarck
brought to Germany, if only to keep 1848-style revolutions at bay, challenged the prevailing
laissez-faire economic policies (precursor to neoliberalism in our day) in Britain that
favoured the landowning and military elites.
The period 1871 - 1914 was one in which British aristocracy "revitalised" itself (for want
of a better term) by taking brides from American families that made their wealth from
investing in railway development across the US and in new American industries. (Perhaps
"vampirising" American money is the better term.) The classic examples of such marriages are
those of Consuelo Vanderbilt, of the wealthy Vanderbilt family, marrying into the
Spencer-Churchill family; and of Winston Churchill's mother marrying his father. Acquiring
American wealth in this way was one way in which British elites could maintain enough power
to keep a grip on British politics and British colonial politics.
The same period was also one in which European powers competed to chop up Africa and Asia
into colonies or "spheres of influence". So in a sense, the Europeans were already at war
with each other (and the Second Concert was a facade, just as the Cold War of the late 20th
century was a facade): they conducted this war away from their own publics, in areas distant
and remote enough, that most incidents of mass violence or outright land theft could be
covered up. The major exception was Belgian King Leopold's treatment of the area that is now
the Democratic Republic of Congo / Congo (Kinshasa) as he ruled it in the manner of a
mediaeval feudal lord and the atrocities committed there by his government were on a scale
too huge to ignore.
@Paul Damascene #9
Not strictly true.
Two nations, one with sword and shield but the other with only a shield. The first nation can
attack with little fear of reprisal.
Russia is still not going to sell defensive weapons to anyone unless there is a clear overall
strategic benefit.
Ironic that the Great War had to wait until 1914, when Britain's Liberal government was
adopting many of Bismarck's social welfare measures.
I suspect that America's increasing hostility to China reflects a fear of contagion from
the more successful and fairer Chinese system. Just like Britain and Germany in 1914.
Two are listed as being good for target velocity up to 6,415 mph which is well into
hypersonic range.
Another two, target velocities up to 11,185mph - mach 14.7 according mph to mach
converter.
Helmut Schmidt's books on China are impressive, but it's striking that in the first one,
"Nachbar China," of 2006, he totally failed to anticipate the economic collapse of 2008.
Actually, that's not true. When the UK went to war in 1914, they discovered that their
soldiers were so undernourished and unfit to fight for the Empire, that a series of 'social
reforms' were enacted to improve the lot of the working class (or cannon fodder).
"While China has capable weapons and can defend itself against a smaller attack the U.S. has
about 20 times more nuclear warheads than China. It could use those in an overwhelming first
strike to decapitate and destroy the Chinese state."
B, I read your analysis of the China weapons parade and came away with the impression that
US air & sea superiority was over. I thought China already had the S-400 too. I had no
idea that the US was in possession of more nukes than China. I hope that China gets that
system set up quickly, as well as the S-400.
The US is a psychopathic control freak, whose mask has slipped, yet the only one who
doesn't know that is Washington, but when it realizes it, that's when it will become far more
dangerous and may think that their time for a US first nuke strike is running out. Let's hope
they are not that stupid.
Anybody that believes China have only 290 nukes are naive.
Look at all those DF-41 and JL-2/3 missiles they've made. Some of those missiles have MIRV
capability.
What point does lying that way about a deterrence weapon serve? China only has nukes to
deter America from attacking them. The nukes are not intended to ever actually be used, so
why would they lie and pretend to have less than they really have? That makes no sense. If
anything they would lie and pretend to have more than they really do to enhance their
deterrence.
Secret weapons do not make an effective deterrence.
On the other hand, like Japan China probably has big stockpiles of fissile materials
sufficiently enriched that they could make many hundreds of additional nukes in a matter of a
couple weeks, or maybe even just days, if they needed to.
Just to clarify, a 100kg solid chunk of iron traveling at hypersonic speeds and with
decent accuracy would ruin the day for an American aircraft carrier. No nuke is needed.
Furthermore, if China has only 290 nukes, but 5,000 launch vehicles, which ones out of
that 5,000 are armed and have to be destroyed if America does a first strike and wants to
avoid several dozen of its biggest cities being turned into glowing craters in response?
Hint: All 5,000.
So you see, China doesn't really need much more than 290 nukes to prevent America from
attacking, assuming Americans are not stupid. Unfortunately that could very well be a losing
bet.
Washington is not a nation. It is only a city. If the rest of the world wants an honest
glimpse of what this city intends, all it has to do is look at what it has done, and is still
doing, to America's population. Take an honest look, disregarding all testimony. When you
completely disregard the narrative of dc and the media, the picture becomes quite stark quite
quickly.
The reason for the constitutional crisis in Britain in 1910, which resulted in the House of
Lords losing most of its power, was that the Lords refused to approve Lloyd George's People's
Budget, which, according to Wikipedia, "introduced unprecedented taxes on the lands and
incomes of Britain's wealthy to fund new social welfare programs." The upshot of the crisis
was that the budget became law.
. . . picked this up on the web:
In his seminal work On War, Carl von Clausewitz famously declared that, in comparison to the
offense, "the defensive form of warfare is intrinsically stronger than the offensive."
The defender being in his homeland contributes to defensive strength. It's certainly
contributed to US offensive failures in the last fifty years. It took the mighty US Army four
years and over a thousand deaths to pacify Baghdad. So what to do, the US has reverted to
high-level aerial bombing and long-range artillery to kill foreigners. This increases US
opposition, creating more enemies. No shortage of them.
Gotta give you a big Shout-Out for providing that ultra important fact as that marked the
beginning of the reaction to Classical Economists in the UK which was already happening
within the Outlaw US Empire, thus the seed of UK's Neoliberalism was planted and watered. It
also brought the UK and US elite together mind-set-wise.
Josh @51--
Your observation is 100% on the mark! The utterly gross neglect of the USA's human
capital's been ongoing for decades, and was given a great boost by the adoption of
Neoliberalism as basic policy during Carter's presidency, which was subsequently turbocharged
by Reagan/Bush. Profit before people had always been present; but after the "Saving the
bond-holders" deliberately deep recession caused by Volker from 1979-1982, there would be no
more policies aimed at improving social welfare. Instead, they were targeted for destruction
as the Full Employment Act of 1946 was 100% ignored by both Rs & Ds as jobs went offshore
and the Rust Belt oxidized.
--//--
Today, the hollowed-out Outlaw US Empire is a mere Paper Tiger reduced to using terrorists
and terrorism as its policy tools. Slowly, the nations of the world are enacting a de facto
form of containment that will eventually result in the diminishment of The Empire's abilities
and force it to become a normal nation for the first time in its history--hopefully without a
nuclear conflagration.
Putin is a voice of reason in a very sick and twisted world, one that is dominated by an evil
empire whose only purpose seems to be global corporate hegemony.
@2 Red Ryder - Russia is building a network of missile defense, early warning, electronic
weapons systems that will ring Greater Eurasia, not just the Russian Federation.
Always good to see your sweeping strategic view from the commanding heights. I quoted your
opening sentence because it makes such total sense, and also sounds so good. Mackinder has no
need to turn in his grave - the heartland has upended the world to save him the trouble
;)
There will be the invulnerable Eurasia, and the outside.
~~
I'm enjoying all the comments jumping onto the notion of Mutual Assured Defense. It seems
a concept that many here can readily relate to - and sign me up for sure. Thanks to Paul
Damascene for the concept, and uncle tungsten for coining the phrase.
Sharmine Narwani in her recent interview with Ross Ashcroft cited a Twitter comment
somebody made, to the effect that the S-400 was Russia's foreign policy. She was struck by
how perfectly this actually works as a policy. In a world where everybody has an S-400, no
war. Mutually assured defense.
I have long theorized, without a grain of collateral to prove it, that there is only one
security strategy for Russia. If I had a border as extensive as Russia's, I would see that
the only security possible for me would rest in an entire world at peace.
Therefore Russia works towards peace. It's how she conquers the world. As we saw in
Chechnya and in Syria, Russia builds and not destroys. Syria in particular over a long period
showed us precisely how Russia fights - not to "win", not to destroy an enemy, but purely to
lock down the peace and make everything safe. Only those restless souls who would not become
still were killed.
China too shares this same understanding of the Tao - not surprisingly of course. The game
is not to crush the opponent but to render the fight unnecessary. If China conquers the world
it will mean the Mandate Of Heaven has come to rule everywhere. The fight will become
unnecessary.
~~
Federico Pieraccini in his latest
article had this to say about China's strategy:
Beijing's strategy seems to be designed to progress in phases, modulating according to the
reaction of the US, whether aggressive or mild; a kind of capoeira dance where one never
actually hits one's opponent even when one can.
I had to look it up, Brazil's amazing contribution to world peace, the capoeira. I had
never heard of it and now I will never forget it. A brilliant comment from Pieraccini.
Peace is coming to the world faster than war is being left room to break out. And this is
because peacemaking is as dynamic an activity as warmaking . But by its very
nature of not breaking things, it is far less visible.
. . .from Putin
Truly mutually respectful, pragmatic and consequently solid relations can only built between
independent and sovereign states.
. . .from the UN Charter
The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.
Putin is pointing backwards not forwards when you think it through.
No "souvereign" state can be independent in the age of global supply chains and markets,
refugees and global warming. The world is interdependent and always has been since the
evolution of the human species in Africa.
"Souvereignty" and statehood has always been achieved (and lost) by military power. It is
a recipe for war.
This is for the theory. Now for the practice. Of course, Russia has been intervening in
the affairs of other "souvereign" states. Of course Iran has been striving for dominance in
the Middle East. And of course Eastern European states feel squeezed between Russia, the US
and Germany. And of course China pressures Vietnam for the resources of the South China
Sea.
Putin is talking about being polite.
Europe will have neither economic nor political or military power dealing with Russia, the
US or China as individual "sovereign" states. And this is what this populist dance is
about.
The US has not lost influence because of the sanctions, they have lost influence because
they have no longer the technological edge and "souvereign states" have the alternative of
allying with Russia and China. That is a binary choice, not souvereinty.
ciue @ 41:
An intelligent observation, thanks. Though I find myself wondering if the world in which
everyone has a shield, and only one, a sword, is not, perhaps, a world quite changed.
In reading Don Bacon @ 58 and Grieved @ 57, something slid into place for me. As a child
of the Enlightenment, pained as I have been--for all its failings--to see it slip under the
waves, it has been especially painful to see the West despoiling its legacies of democracy
and universal human rights. Nothing has done these more damage than our corrupt, cynical
exploitation of them. When I look to the emergent multipolar model with not inconsiderable
relief, I see it as one in which democracy will not necessarily be a central value or form of
polity.
But if this multipolar principle of the sovereign equality among all of its members is
considered from a certain vantage point, the principle's equivalent in a democratic system of
individuals would be an acceptance of its various citizens as of fundamentally equal worth
regardless of their ideologies or beliefs.
Perhaps if that feature of our own systems were not so close to being lost, a glimpse of
this quality of an international comity wouldn't come to me now as a revelation.
I guess it is a Rorschach test. I don't see how anything in Syria has been resolved
peacefully, I just don't. I am not blaming Russia for it. Putin virtually waited until it
became clear that the US (Obama) would not intervene.
Russians had the worst WWI and WWII experience, plus Chechnya and Afghanistan. No Russian
leader would be able to motivate them for anything else but defense. It took the Moscow
apartment bombings to motivate them for the Chechen war.
weaponized economics USA says it has ability to affect the economic environment, says it can
influence international financial institutions .. says it can use such abilities and
influence to cement multinational coalitions for unconventional warfare campaigns or dissuade
adversary nation-state governments from supporting competitors"
financial blackmail .[nations either join/suffer], the stores of value can be exploited..
the economic space is a war zone the tax, interest rates, legal and bureaucratic measures
used locally, by target states, can be [manipulated] to persuade adversaries, allies, and
surrogates to modify their behavior.. Entire agencies specialize in identifying.
opportunities where financial weapon(s) can be used to provide leverage [to achieve goals]?
Thank you Sally Snyder @ 7 for that link and great explanation. I want to add that I see
evidence the USA uses that same strategy domestically against the leaders of its states, its
cities, its counties, its political parties and privately against the leaders and activist
the world over. Americans rarely have the opportunity you afforded @7 to understand why
things are happening in the USA the way they are.
new subject:
The Great War had to wait until 1914, when Britain's Liberal government was adopting many of
Bismarck's social welfare measures.to Lysias @ 43 <==I certainly do agree with your
reason.. Consider the following
The great war was on hold since 1897, waiting on the British and French bankers to
create a means to finance the war. That financing required the warriors in Europe to
invade and overthrow the US Constitutional prohibition (Article I, Section 9, paragraph 4)
which prohibited Capitation or other direct taxes, not based in proportion to the population.
Amendment 16 ratifed on February 3, 1913 reads, the Congress shall have power to lay and
collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the
several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
Within minutes after the US. Supreme court took up taking non proportional taxes from the
pockets of working Americans the privately owned Federal reserve bank was created, and made
by congress the central bank of the world (1913). So to recap, British adoption of Bismarck's
measures had little to do with the war in Europe, instead it was the the money to be taken by
taxation from the pockets of every American that satisfied the bankers requirement of
suitable and ample capital (Federal Reserve Act of 1913); USA taxes on Americans would
collateral the FR lending, and the USA would guarantee the taxes would be collected and
rendered as required. Once constitutional intent was thwarted, the federal Reserve could lend
to the global warriors who wanted to destroy Germany and take the oil rich land (entire
Middle East) from the Ottoman. It took two world wars and trillions of tax dollars, not to
mention millions of lives, for the pubic nations states to enable the private theft of the
oil rich Middle East lands owned by the Ottomans.
additionally .. Barovsky responded also to lysias @ 43 with "Actually, that's not true.
When the UK went to war in 1914, they discovered that their soldiers were so undernourished
and unfit to fight for the Empire, that a series of 'social reforms' were enacted to improve
the lot of the working class (or cannon fodder).by: Barovsky @ 46
@ somebody 61 I don't see how anything in Syria has been resolved peacefully, I just don't.
Russia's strategy of giving foes a choice of fighting or being bused elsewhere, a choice they
took, was a truly unique peaceful resolution. Never been done before, to my knowledge.
Revolutionary. Wonderful. Peaceful. I liked it.
If I may: A big part of national strategy is to have the populace focusing on "foreign
threats" which takes citizens' minds of their domestic problems. Part of "sovereign equality"
is (at the national level) to mind our own business, not somebody else's.
George Washington dedicates a large part of his farewell address to discussing foreign
relations and the dangers of permanent alliances between the United States and foreign
nations, which he views as foreign entanglements.
Later, we have "War is the Health of the State"
by Randolph Bourne (1918) . . here
". . .The republican State has almost no trappings to appeal to the common man's emotions.
What it has are of military origin, and in an unmilitary era such as we have passed through
since the Civil War, even military trappings have been scarcely seen. In such an era the
sense of the State almost fades out of the consciousness of men. With the shock of war,
however, the State comes into its own again. The Government, with no mandate from the people,
without consultation of the people, conducts all the negotiations, the backing and filling,
the menaces and explanations, which slowly bring it into collision with some other
Government, and gently and irresistibly slides the country into war. . ."
I think we are seeing more like russia/china using a strategy similar to Muhammad Ali's rope
a dope against the u.s. They are both spending their money wisely on building effective
military forces, both defensive and offensive, but they are not wasting their treasure on
imperialist adventures. At the same time, everywhere U.S. has tried to corner a market or
extend itself, they have been getting cut off at the knees by either Russia or China. Russia
put a monkey wrench in U.S. goals in Ukraine, Syria and Venezuela. U.S. went after Iran and
China stepped in with a huge oil purchase and development project. Now I'm reading that
Russia is getting ready to assist Cuba in a major way.
Was it napoleon who said, "when you see your enemy making mistakes, let him"? (paraphrase)
I think they are going to continue trying to avoid a fight while they wait for the U.S. to
either come to its senses, collapse or come to blows, but they won't be the instigator.
U.S. is capitalist and this kind of society is more likely to destruct through a financial
collapse or a civil war than declaring war on either China or Russia. Not that war with China
or Russia can be ruled out, but if it occurred I think it would probably start as a result of
U.S. accidental blowing something up with one of our smart missiles....
This (entertaining) article was written by some street fellow in ukraine around the time
Yanukovich was ousted, but the similarities between Ukraine and US shares a common
perspective of a lot of USA common folk. In usa,you don't ever get to own much (its all
leased or financed) and even if you do, its not hard for them to find a way to liberate it
from you.
I recall US journalist George Seldes remarking his observations as he met the UK
conscripts coming to the WW1 front. His on-the-scene notes of malnourishment and inability to
handle repetitive lifting of ammunition to feed mortars/small cannon, relative to German
conscripts, were telling. Explains the postwar emphasis on sports and diet just to prep for
the next war. Lessons perhaps also applied to American emphasis on spoprts may just be the
overt signs of underlying gov covert funding/subsidies and legislation enabling "league"
monopolies.
Why the understatement? It's the same reason why militaries don't showcase their latest
greatest hardware to the public. Secrecy provides maneuvering room and is only revealed when
appropriate. It's also about managing fear and public opinion in hopes of exerting some
influence over your adversary.
AFAIK, China have not officially stated their holdings. The 290 figure is really an
estimate given by various NGOs.
Time is on the side of the new eastern powers, that is, with each passing month the US
military (& economic) superiority shrinks.
I think that is why China has been able to exercise such restraint with HK, they can put up
with the tantrums till 2047.
The big danger is if those who own the USA try to use their advantage before they lose
it.
They already assume
that an apocalypse is inevitable;
When the elite retreat to bunkers and private islands in Hawaii, New Zealand, Tasmania or
Patagonia
, their main concern is how to keep the deplorable's grubby hands off their stuff when the
shit finally hits the fan.
...re China's invention of gun powder. IIRC Marco Polo brought it back to Europe in 1400s at
a time when China had already advanced it to hand-held-cannon status.
Note well that Europe itself was already in an advanced state of acquisitive madness, as
much as could be enabled by formations of swords and horses occasionally being an
overwhelming weapon .
With gunpowder, force-of-arms were now an overwhelming weapon in far more areas of the
continent.
Then, and only then, could a Columbus et al have set out on voyages of discovery with
confident ability to claim any "new" lands for some king who would fund the mission.
I submit, there is no way a Columbus could set-sail unless he had on-board such
overwhelming weapons.
Else, landing anywhere without such would only permit some sly smiling and trading and
scouting. Any overtly aggressive landing party would be slaughtered by the sheer numbers of
home-team locals.
Re "power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely", gunpowder was the 1st
overwhelming weapon that enabled conquest.
The 2nd overwhelming weapon was the atom-bomb. But IMO, some heroic figures understood
the ramifications its overwhelming-nature; thus they felt motivated to force its sharing, bec
a monopoly guaranteed its use to permit limitless conquering.
Then at that point, science was funded by .govs to invent the next overwhelming weapon
and use it before any delicious target could duplicate it. We are here.
Lavrov: "Those with a more or less politically mature opinion of the situation should have
realised long ago that the sanctions don't work in the direction they wanted them to
work."
Oswald Spengler is good here. What he called Western 'money-thinking' is moving at the moment
in contrary, self-extinguishing, directions. Full spectrum dominance, bankrolled by reserve
currency status, seeks the whole enchilada and potentially once had the wherewithal to
achieve it --if not for the punitive subtractions necessitated by sanctions regimes.
Compounding matters, the exiled nations, having escaped the comforts of the lab, develop
fearsome powers of self-reliance (what North Korea proudly calls juche). Banded together,
these hardened exiles will some day go on to decimate the King's Army:
"Spengler, more poet than historian, offers the penetrating eye of the stranger. His
prescience for the Russian destiny is paraphrased by Kerry Bolton here:
The Russian soul is not the same as the Western Faustian, as Spengler called it, the
'Magian' of the Arabian civilization, or the Classical of the Hellenes and Romans. The
Western Culture that was imposed on Russia by Peter the Great, what Spengler called
Petrinism, is a veneer The Russian soul expresses its own type of infinity, albeit not that
of the Westerner's Faustian soul, which becomes enslaved by its own technics at the end of
its life-cycle."
Many of those 'technics' fall under what Spengler called "money-thinking". At the
twilight of its life-cycle the West threatens to withhold its toxicity from all those who
don't 'play fair', plying its financial sanctions like an overused tool-set: fractional
reserve banking, impudent debt-money that arrives ex nihilo seeking its keep from
God-knows-where, leverage that belabors ever-narrowing denominators of intrinsic
value."
The Western debt pyramid can ill-afford meting out the punishment of exile. On the
contrary it needs everything on Earth plus the minerals of passing meteors and Martian water.
However its petulance and hubris can't resist banishing nations that displease it. When its
petulance exceeds its own diminishing critical mass, the seesaw tips against it.
Re ""power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely", gunpowder was the 1st overwhelming
weapon that enabled conquest."
The history of empires is as long as the history of agriculture and herding, nearly ending
with the advent of nuclear weapons and MAD.
Only one country left trying that needs some sense knocking into it.
I don't think the bussing to Idlib was Russian strategy. The Syrian civil proxy war was a
lot about demographics, Hezbollah tried to save Shiites from mixed areas, dito the Syrian
state with their supporters. It was a local solution that was necessary as Jihadi fighters
come with huge families. Turkey might have had a part as their interest was to have the
Jihadis at the border to fight against the Kurdish groups. You may have noticed that the
Syrian government with support of Russia now attacks the Jihadi fighters in Idlib.
Russia's strategy was to force Turkey on its side without alienating Iran or Syrians. Iran
at one stage seemed ready to support a religious power share the type of Lebanon. The Russian
intervention stopped that idea.
Russia saved the Syrian state and the Syrian state insisted on being secular and getting
rid of all internal ennemies. That is a kind of peace but the peace of the graveyard.
Actually it is quite funny that Putin has started to go back to the 19th century, to
"development models, interests, cultures and traditions " and the "concert of power".
After the Congress of Vienna there was the Russio-Persian war, the Russio-Turkish war, the
battle of Warsaw against Poland, the Crimean war against the Ottoman empire, Britain and
France, advancement in Central Asia and one of the tsars banned Ukrainian language in print.
Never mind the tsars successfully fighting the rebellions of the Russian middle classes.
Though in 1861 Russian serfs were finally freed as they were needed in newly developing
industries. The century ended in 1900 with the Russification of Finland, making Russian the
official language.
@ Peter AU 1 who wrote about the history of empires
"
Only one country left trying that needs some sense knocking into it.
"
That is occurring as we write our textual white noise about the details but the approach is
not a Western knocking some sense into it but an Eastern Art of War approach.
It came to me today that instead of WWIII we need to think of what the world is going
through as a Civilization war or evolution, assuming we make it out the other side of the
conflict. The current empire is trying everything in its quiver of arrows short of MAD to
retain control over the form of social organization with private finance at its core.
But the social organization of the East does not think like that and wants to spread the
wealth and ownership broadly. The East has been taken advantage of and maligned by the West
for centuries and they are not going to continue to let that happen. So they have organized
themselves to beat the West at its own game but are doing so according to the Art of War meme
instead of trying to knock some sense into the West. Since the East is good at playing the
long game in relation to the West they are incrementally wearing down and constraining the
West until it collapses of its inability to bully and Might-Makes-Right itself forward.
As we are watching the end game of those efforts, IMO. I don't see the West holding its
control on empire for much longer because the East is giving example of a better and more
equitable way that will be and is winning over country after country that have been client
states of empire held in place by the jackboot of global private finance.
We are witnessing a Civilization war of our species and it is quite the spectacle, eh?
Another example of the ever sanctioning superpower is losing its status. "Whistleblower
accuses largest US military shipbuilder of putting 'American lives at risk' by falsifying
tests on submarine stealth coating" Another day, another example of failure of the MIC to
deliver.
Huntington Ingalls Industries, which spun-off from Northrop Grumman in 2011, "knowingly
and/or recklessly" filed falsified records with the Navy claiming it had correctly applied a
coating, called a Special Hull Treatment, to Virginia-class attack submarines which would
allow the vessels to elude enemy sonar, the Sept. 26 complaint alleges.
Instead, the complaint said, Huntington Ingalls' Newport News Shipbuilding facility in
Virginia took shortcuts that allegedly "plagued" the class of submarines with problems, and
then retaliated against the employee who spoke up about the issues. At this rate most of the
US navy will be tied up at their home port waiting for repairs.
According to the complaint, Lawrence, a senior engineer at Huntington Ingalls who has
worked there since 2001, has provided evidence of the alleged issues at the company's Newport
News Shipbuilding facility in Virginia. Stay safe Lawrence.
My thoughts also. And we do live in very interesting times for sure.
When I say knocking some sense into, that includes something along the lines of a soviet
style collapse which is the preferable option.
~By The Western debt pyramid can ill-afford meting out the punishment of exile.~
71 FSD
Yeah, it is curious. You would think, with an understanding of its own system - infinite
growth backed by debt - that empire would wisely choose to employ its tentacles, not deny
them. Especially with most states outside of North Korea being open for business in some
shape or form. At this rate the US Treasury will need to authorize the advance sale of
mortgages to the burgeoning colonies on the moon.
To navigate to the summit for the best part of a century. And to squander those gains
within the space of half a young lifetime.
Putin's concept of strong defense is sound. You don't attack if the other side can defend
itself. You negotiate. In Thailand, we rarely see street fights (except between drunk
foreigners).
Why? The national sport is lethal Muay Thai (kick boxing), so you never start a fight, since
the other side can fight, too. You talk it over, negotiate.
Lot of nonsense in this thread. From "gunpowder was the 1st overwhelming weapon that
enabled conquest." When it is trivially simple to argue that the trained, uniformed and
properly regimented Roman Army which came 1500 years earlier was both a better example and
likely not the first.
Equally facile is the claim that "It's the quest for power that corrupts" Whilst its
probably true that some have been corrupted reaching for power it is equally true that many
who for various reasons were not corrupted in the quest, either because they acquired it
through serendipity by way of hereditary or accident, came into power as naive or
ideologically principled upstarts yet as with every leader, they were corrupted by power as
they were convinced no one else could do it (be the bossfella) as well as they.
Emperor Claudius comes to mind as an earlyish big time boss destroyed by power, but callow
youths thrust into power as clan leader when dad and/or older bros were killed in battle and
went on to become bigger arseholes than Dad, are examples which go back to when us mob first
walked upright.
Barovsky
I quoted a sentence by chu teh and was replying to the piece about gunpowder.
As for the power corrupts part, take a look at the US prior to the fall of the Soviet
Union and then what it has become during the time it held virtually absolute power..
Yesterday night The Godfather was broadcasted in a foreign private channel....
I saw a comrade telling about that and arguing that this movie contains the world...and it
is that indeed it encompasses the history of the USA...
"I have "worked" all my life for the welfare of my family, and I have always refused to be
a puppet moved by the threads of the powerful. With you I had other projects Michael. I
thought that one day you could move those threads. Senator Corleone, Governor Corleone, or
more".
Even in the meeting of all the mafia families in New York for to reach a "pact of no
agression" someone states:
As for the power corrupts part, take a look at the US prior to the fall of the Soviet
Union and then what it has become during the time it held virtually absolute power
In the decades since the 1972 Watergate scandal, more charges of corruption have been
leveled against members of presidential administrations than in the preceding two
centuries. Perhaps the most lasting achievement of Ronald Reagan's presidency was the
astonishingly successful campaign to delegitimate government itself, at least in the eyes
of many citizens, and to enshrine individual economic self-interest, manifested in
unregulated "private enterprise," as the paramount value of American life. That
transformation, like the rise of so-called rational choice and utility maximization as the
governing paradigms in the social sciences, has encouraged citizens to seek wealth -- and
to avoid paying taxes or participating in civil society -- as the only sensible strategy.
As a result, the homely virtues of self-discipline, moderation, and reciprocity preached by
Enlightenment thinkers such as Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and Abigail Adams now strike
many Americans as outmoded advice for suckers. If "greed is good," as the Wall Street
character Gordon Gekko asserted, then Donald J. Trump's career of swindling, debt dodging,
and tax evasion might serve as a model to emulate rather than an object lesson in the
mainstreaming of corrupt business practices.1
No one familiar with Alexander Hamilton, Roger "open the purses of the people" Morris or the
roots of the Shay's Rebellion, Whiskey Rebellion, North Carolina Regulator movement and other
people's movements and actions, or the 1787-88 counter-revolutionary coup carried out by the
Constitutional Convention for the purpose of centralizing economic and military power toward
social control and building a continental empire (anyone in any doubt about that should read
the proceedings and the Federalist Papers; Hamilton was especially forthcoming about the
imperial motivation), would have any illusions about how deeply corruption is inherent in the
US system.
Same for imperialism. And all subsequent US history starting and continuing with the
genocide of the First Nations bears this out.
With respect to sanctions, the EU central power ( i.e. Germany ) impossed harsh sanctions
that ended being implemented in full only by southern countries like Spain, who are those who
have seen their commercial excahnges with Russia diminished to the least with the conseuqent
loses for national business, while, in fact, German business continue their exchnage with
Russia as if nothing had happened...
Now that Trump impose import tariffs to Europe, the most affected are, again, those who
fulfilled the US sanctions plan towayds Russia at the letter, i.e. Spain and southern
countries...
If these Southern European Countries would have a sovereign government with any respect
for the people who vote them, they will extract the consequent lesson from all of this...and
would apply the recipe for all this with respect to Russia, Iran, and so on...
The lesson would translate like "the more you comply with US mandate on sanctions against
any other country you have nothing against, even at the price of harming badly your own
economy, the more sanctions/import tariffs will be impossed on yourself at the first
necessity...", which is the old lesson from primary school, "the more weak you would show in
front of a bully...more beating will come..., oor already in grown mafiosi, "more "special
tax" for "protection" to pay"...
Then it is Spain who hosts most of US nuclear deterrence and AFRICOM central command...If
Spain would have a sovereign government with a hint of respect for the people who vote it, an
ultimatum will be possed in front of the yankees, "eliminate import tariffs, stop meddling
with national economy, or pack your things and go home"
The Federal Reserve of the United States has injected about 278,000 million dollars in the
money market in four days. After injecting 53,000 million dollars earlier this week, the
Federal Reserve renewed these operations three times for astronomical amounts representing
75,000 million per day, and has already announced that it will continue to do so daily
until October 10.
The newspaper Le Figaro (1) describes as "astronomical" that jet of fiat money that,
however, does not seem to worry the New York Stock Exchange, with a Dow Jones index that
remained above 27,000 points throughout week. It is normal because, as the Efe agency says,
"Wall Street feeds on the flexibility of the Fed" (2), that is, the massive emissions of
paper money.
It has no different menu to nourish itself and, as specialists say, "the reasons that
lead to lower interest rates are usually not good."
The resistance of Wall Street is explained because these operations only affect the
interbank market, which is short of liquidity "temporarily". Banks that are financed on a
daily basis in this market would suffer a shortage of liquidity as a result of large debt
issues by the Treasury and a strong demand for liquidity from companies facing fiscal
maturities.
But there are more than enough reasons for speculators to worry. "The reasons may be not
only technical," says the newspaper. Some financial institutions have refused to make their
funds available to the market, indicating the possible vulnerability of a participant (bank
or companies) who may not be able to repay the amounts borrowed on a day-to-day basis. If
this situation is confirmed, which is synonymous with the loss of mutual trust in the
interbank market, it could be a more serious crisis than in 2008.
The President of the Federal Reserve, Jerome H. Powell, who took office in February last
year, has no different alternative. He has been a member of the board of governors of the
Federal Reserve since 2012 and knows nothing more than routine: since the late 1970s he is
the first president of the Federal Reserve that does not even have a bachelor's degree in
economics. Does he need it?
The question is whether the gigantic mass of fiat money that it has put into circulation
will be sufficient to avoid a collapse like that of 2007, or another even greater collapse
will occur.
Russ @ 86.. can you tell me more about the continental congress. where can the biographies
and histories be had which might shed some real light on John Hanson first president(1781-1783) of the
United States in Congress Assembled(1776-1789) .. and Samuel Huntington (Conn), and Thomas
McKeen (Delaware) and the others who were elected and served as Presidents of the
[Continental Congress<= the government that defeated the British and that existed between
1776 and 1789}, before the lobbyist imposed ratification to install the US Constitution {a
document that cut off (terminated) the right of self determination and denied bottom up
democracy to the people of the several nations that were in America at the time]. Before the
constitution, the people could and did impose democracy on those who were in charge of the
local, state and central governments (The Articles of Confederation, central government from
1776 to 1789] after the Constitution, [the governed were never heard from again. ]. ..
somebody @59 sez: ""Souvereignty" and statehood ... is a recipe for war."
This is the mindset of the hegemon (or the servant of hegemony, whatever). They cannot
even imagine "Truly mutually respectful, pragmatic and consequently solid relations"
between nations any more than they can imagine others seeking that. They assume that everyone
else is motivated to dominate as they are. They project their own damage from having been
born into an intensely competitive, egotistical, identity -obsessed culture onto the
rest of humanity out of sheer ignorance that things could possible be any different
elsewhere.
Western culture, with the purest expression being in the United States, exalts in the
individual. That sounds like a noble and wonderful thing on the surface, but the practical
effect is to atomize society into isolated and competing hermetic entities. Community is
displaced to accommodate the self. This environment favors the sociopath and the psychopath,
which is why in the West sociopaths and psychopaths most easily accumulate power and rise to
the tops of all of those societies' institutions. It is not surprising that those born into
such an environment imagine it to be the natural order and human nature because that is all
they know and experience.
But of course that is not human nature. The species would have died out far more than a
hundred thousand years ago if it were. Human nature is to build community, and given the
opportunity that is precisely what they do. Community, though, is a threat to the power of
the psychopaths who ascend to the top of capitalist society, so in all institutions in which
those psychopaths gain power they discourage and fight and dismantle community and replace it
with social order built around themselves.
This psycho-driven culture grew to dominate in the West because, like slave-based
societies before, it was economically progressive. Due to the immaturity of communication
technology, individual psychos could assemble and coordinate larger social organizations
directed at production than the population could naturally assemble on its own. But
technology progresses and naturally formed human communities grow in scale and scope over
time. This made slave-based economies obsolete, and is now in the process of obsoleting
psycho-centric economies. It should come as no surprise that this replacement is occurring
most rapidly in cultures where the psycho-centrism had not fully established itself.
Considering the above, my bet is that as we see China's BRI project mature in Africa, that
continent will experience a Renaissance of epic proportions, perhaps even dwarfing China's
accomplishments of the last half century. This is because African cultures are similar to the
Chinese and other Asian cultures in that they have not yet been fully assimilated into the
western worship of "individualism" , so their natural human tendencies towards
community-building are not yet corrupted and subverted.
If China's transition to the dominant progressive power on the planet doesn't shatter the
dangerous American myth of exceptionality, then big portions of Africa moving into first
world status surely will. That's still some decades away, but we should be able to see
undeniable signs of movement in that direction by about 2030 to 2040 (growth in industrial
output and movement up the value added chain, dramatic development of infrastructure, rapid
increases in academic attainment, significant declines in poverty, etc).
Naturally, that is something that few westerners, particularly Americans, can wrap their
heads around because they have a flawed (Hobbesian) understanding of human nature. As they do
with China now, westerners will deny the evidence from their own eyes with regards to Africa
for as long as they can.
wikipedia makes no mention of it but for a long time Thomas McKeen was famous as the villain
in William Cobbett's The Democratic Judge or The Equal Liberty of the Press.
McKeen was a very nasty piece of work-his origins in Delaware are coincidental
"...that is not human nature. The species would have died out far more than a hundred
thousand years ago if it were. Human nature is to build community, and given the opportunity
that is precisely what they do. Community, though, is a threat to the power of the
psychopaths who ascend to the top of capitalist society, so in all institutions in which
those psychopaths gain power they discourage and fight and dismantle community and replace it
with social order built around themselves..."
How true, if a little unfair to psychopaths.
Very interesting.
I don't think it's the use of fiat money itself that's so important but what it's used for.
The money you describe as being used to support Wall Street is a great example of the wrong
use. Supporting a derivative led financial speculation benefitting the 1% vs the belt and
road which is oriented to real economic development which would be a wise productive use of
fiat.
-------------
In a famous critical remark directed at China's heavy reliance on western-style, debt-led
growth – an anonymous author (thought to be Xi or close colleague), noted
(sarcastically) the notion that big trees could be grown 'in the air'. Which is to say: that
trees need to have roots, and to grow in the ground. Instead of the 'virtual', financialised
'activity' of the West, real economic activity stems from the real economy, with roots
planted in the earth. The 'Belt and Road' is just this: intended as a major catalyst to real
economics.When the music stops and the derivative structure starts unraveling showing
multiple claims on ownership who will prevail. I think that there's a new sheriff in town
with the power to back up the 'roots in the ground' team.Posted by: financial matters | Jan
22, 2019 8:46:28 AM | 100
The 1776 Constitution was on a vector. By contrast, the 1788 Constitution was designed to
foreclose any further democratic movement. On the contrary, its main vector was to
concentrate power and wealth up the hierarchy, and to help build an empire for this new
ruling class.] the empire class ...needed a constitution which would centralize government,
strongly concentrate it, turn it into a versatile and brutal weapon on behalf of finance
assaults, military aggression, and police repression. There's only one path forward: We must
resume the American Revolution. by Russ @ 90..
very interesting.. 2012 .. discussion.. your paper .thanks . but still no background on the
people who brought about the 1776 government. and who operated it between its inception 1776
and the Bankers coup that regime changed the 1776 government into the 1788 Constitution of
the United States of America.
As you said in your article, everyone should know about Article 6 in the constitution of the
United States of America (the 1788 government) it saved British and French Aristocracy
<=and kept in power the very people the Americans had sought to remove=> from the
Americans who fought the war. It says All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into,
shall be as valid against the US under this Constitution, as under the confederation (but no
where do I see court cases that say under the 1776 government, that claims to lands, granted
by foreign kings and Queens (land grant estates) were valid? In fact, what I see is that the
Articles of Confederation government was planning to deny title to, and confiscate the lands
which traced to the land grants (G. Washington owned half of West Virginia and all of
Virginia) and the AoC plan was to distribute the land grant lands so confiscated among the
people who lived in America equally?
@WG 91 . . . as we see China's BRI project mature in Africa, that continent will experience a
Renaissance of epic proportions
Yes, and they've got a head start:
African countries with GDP growth rates above 5% in 2018
Libya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, The Gambia, Senegal, Uganda, Burkina Faso.
Kenya, Guinea, Ghana, Egypt, Niger.
Also: China 6.5, US 2.8, France 1.5, Germany 1.4, UK 1.3 . . here
Lot of nonsense in this thread. From "gunpowder was the 1st overwhelming weapon that
enabled conquest."
Posted by: A User | Oct 5 2019 8:38 utc | 81
...re China's invention of gun powder. IIRC Marco Polo brought it back to Europe in
1400s at a time when China had already advanced it to hand-held-cannon status.
Posted by: chu teh | Oct 5 2019 4:51 utc | 69
Agree with the lot of nonsense bit, although there is also a lot of interest. It is true
that China discovered gunpowder, but not sure about the "hand-held-canon status". My version
of reality had it that due to differences of perspective between East and West, China
discovered gunpowder and used it for firecrackers, and (allegedly) never thought of using it
for weapons. Similarly knowledge of the configuration of the stars in relation to location
was discovered by the arabs, long before this knowledge was exploited by Europeans for
navigation. The claim being, that the practical Europeans put scientific discovery to use for
practical benefits while the East - which discovered important segments of that scientific
discovery long before - had "merely" put it to spiritual, cultural and other transcendent
uses.
I absorbed the above factoids (gunpowder and the stars) over half a century ago before I
would have looked at such claims sufficiently critically; to what extent such factoids might
be really true I am not quite sure, although I remain somewhat sceptical about the
"hand-held-canon" claim. The broader claim though about the application of scientific
discovery needs to be reexamined more impartially.
Ian2 @67: "Secrecy ... is only revealed when appropriate."
And the appropriate moment to reveal a strategic doomsday arsenal that only exists to
prevent attack is when that arsenal is fielded. This point is so obvious that it was raised
with humorous intent in the 1964 Kubrick movie Dr. Strangelove .
You only keep weapons systems secret that you intend to use in attacks in order to
surprise your victims. Since America is violently aggressive and regularly attacks other
countries, the US maintains this sort of policy. America is exceptional in this
regard, though. America's focus is on offensive weaponry to attack other countries
with, so keeping those weapons secret helps limit America's victims' abilities to prepare and
defend themselves. Military secrecy is therefore the tool of the aggressor intended to
facilitate sucker-punching its victims. Weapons intended to discourage such attacks
must be advertised loud and clear for their intended deterrence to succeed. This is
why Russia openly announces their new weapons and why China shows theirs off in parades.
China does not intend to use their nukes. They are not like America which is building
tactical nukes to make atomic weapons more palatable to use in practice. There are no
countries in the world that China has shown any interest in attacking anyway, unlike America
which maintains a list of target countries that it is working itself up to attacking.
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<BLOCKQUOTE>Text</BLOCKQUOTE>
< A HREF="http://www.aclu.org/">Headline (not the URL)</A> → Headline (not the URL)
"... The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency ..."
"... The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the military industry complex trough! In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress freedom. ..."
"... With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self determination". ..."
"... In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog) the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of Czechoslovakia in 1938! ..."
"... This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019 claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats ever! ..."
Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
It Is Time for the United States to Stand Up to China in Hong Kong
Tweets aren't enough. Washington must make clear that it expects Beijing to live up to its
commitments -- and it will respond when China does not.
By ELIZABETH WARREN
[ Shocking and appalling; unethical and immoral; discrediting. The intemperate comments of an imperial-minded candidate for the presidency. ]
The democrat coup/impeach/coup machine suffers is bi-polar disorder. Every they way fill the
military industry complex trough!
In their war manic state they supress freedom fighters, and arm their jailers, in their
war depress state they support rioters in Hong Kong. If Donbass rebels were in Macao they would get US support, in Dobass the US will suppress
freedom.
With Ukraine, because the democrat neocons want to surround Russia, US national security
arms Ukriane to forcibly put down Donbass as they attempt some form of "self
determination".
In the case of Hong Kong because US is enemy to the PRC (Red China at Menzie Chinn blog)
the US is all for self determination, like Hitler was for pulling Sudetenland out of
Czechoslovakia in 1938!
This bipolar morality fits with deep state surveillance on Trump in 2016 and in 2019
claiming Trump doing it to Biden so that Trump/DoJ cannot fight corrupt (all) democrats
ever!
1) We don't know for certain what Shokin was investigating and what he wasn't.
2) Ukraine was rife with corruption. But most likely Biden was more concerned with
uprooting pro-Russian elements calling them corrupt as shorthand. Pro-Western corruption was
most likely overlooked.
3) We don't know why Hunter Biden was appointed to the Burisma board along with one of Joe
Biden's big bundlers and the CIA-friendly former President of Poland. We do know that Hunter
was put on the board immediately after the color revolution in Ukraine and that he served a
stint on the National Democratic Institute, which promotes regime change. Much more needs to
be learned about what the Bidens were up to in Ukraine and whether they were carpet baggers
cashing out.
As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him. The
last thing this country needs is a Joe Lieberman with a smiling face serving as President
which is basically what Joe Biden is.
"As I have said, I would be delighted if Trump went down and took Joe Biden with him."
Biden was already destroyed by Ukrainegate, being Pelosi sacrificial pawn (and for such
semi-senile candidate exit now looks the most logical; he can hand around for longer but the
question is why? ), but it is unclear how this will affect Trump.
In any case each accusation of Trump boomerang into Biden. And Biden China story probably
even more interesting then his Ukrainian gate story.
CIA ears over all Ukraine-gate are so visible that it hurts Pelosi case. Schiff is a sad
clown in this circus, and he has zero credibility after his well publicized love story with
Russiagate.
The fact that Warren is now favorite increases previously reluctant Wall Street support
for Trump, who is becoming kind of new Hillary, the establishment candidate.
And if you able to think, trump now looks like establishment candidate, corrupt
interventionist, who is not that far from Hillary in foreign policy and clearly as a "hard
neoliberal" aligns with Hillary "soft neoliberal" stance in domestic policy.
As Warren can pretend that she is better Trump then Trump (and we are talking about
Trump-2016 platform; Trump action were betrayal of his electorate much like was the case with
Obama) she has chances, but let's do not overestimate them.
Pelosi help with Trump re-election can't be underestimated.
If Krugman is surprised that some Democratic donors will support Trump over Warren, he is not
an analyst.
And Obama was a Wall Street prostitute, much like bill Clinton, no questions about it. Trump
betrayal of his voters actually mirror the Obama betrayal. May suspect that Warren will be
malleable with will fold to Wall Street on the first opportunity, governing like Trump-lite.
Warren Versus the Petty Plutocrats. Why do they hate her? It's mainly about their
egos.
By Paul Krugman
Remember when pundits used to argue that Elizabeth Warren wasn't likable enough to be
president? It was always a lazy take, with a strong element of sexism. And it looks
ridiculous now, watching Warren on the campaign trail. Never mind whether she's someone you'd
like to have a beer with, she's definitely someone thousands of people want to take selfies
with.
But there are some people who really, really dislike Warren: the ultrawealthy, especially
on Wall Street. They dislike her so much that some longtime Democratic donors are reportedly
considering throwing their backing behind Donald Trump, corruption, collusion and all, if
Warren is the Democratic presidential nominee.
And Warren's success is a serious possibility, because Warren's steady rise has made her a
real contender, maybe even the front-runner: While she still trails Joe Biden a bit in the
polls, betting markets currently give her a roughly 50 percent chance of securing the
nomination.
But why does Warren inspire a level of hatred and fear among the very wealthy that I
don't think we've seen directed at a presidential candidate since the days of Franklin Delano
Roosevelt?
On the surface, the answer may seem obvious. She is proposing policies, notably a tax on
fortunes exceeding $50 million, that would make the extremely wealthy a bit less so. But
delve into the question a bit more deeply, and Warren hatred becomes considerably more
puzzling.
For the only people who would be directly affected by her tax proposals are those who more
or less literally have more money than they know what to do with. Having a million or two
less wouldn't crimp their lifestyles; most of them would barely notice the change.
At the same time, even the very wealthy should be very afraid of the prospect of a Trump
re-election. Any doubts you might have had about his authoritarian instincts should have been
put to rest by his reaction to the possibility of impeachment: implicit death threats against
whistle-blowers, warnings of civil war and claims that members of Congress investigating him
are guilty of treason.
And anyone imagining that great wealth would make them safe from an autocrat's wrath
should look at the list of Russian oligarchs who crossed Vladimir Putin -- and are now ruined
or dead. So what would make the very wealthy -- even some Jewish billionaires, who should
have a very good idea of the likely consequences of right-wing dominance -- support Trump
over someone like Warren?
There is, I'd argue, an important clue in the "Obama rage" that swept Wall Street circa
2010. Objectively, the Obama administration was very good to the financial industry, even
though that industry had just led us into the worst economic crisis since the 1930s.
Major financial players were bailed out on lenient terms, and while bankers were subjected to
a long-overdue increase in regulation, the new regulations have proved fairly easy for
reputable firms to deal with.
Yet financial tycoons were furious with President Barack Obama because they felt
disrespected. In truth, Obama's rhetoric was very mild; all he ever did was suggest that some
bankers had behaved badly, which no reasonable person could deny. But with great wealth comes
great pettiness; Obama's gentle rebukes provoked fury -- and a huge swing in financial
industry political contributions toward Republicans.
The point is that many of the superrich aren't satisfied with living like kings, which
they will continue to do no matter who wins next year's election. They also expect to be
treated like kings, lionized as job creators and heroes of prosperity, and consider any
criticism an unforgivable act of lèse-majesté.
And for such people, the prospect of a Warren presidency is a nightmarish threat -- not to
their wallets, but to their egos. They can try to brush off someone like Bernie Sanders as a
rabble-rouser. But when Warren criticizes malefactors of great wealth and proposes reining in
their excesses, her evident policy sophistication -- has any previous candidate managed to
turn wonkiness into a form of charisma? -- makes her critique much harder to dismiss.
If Warren is the nominee, then, a significant number of tycoons will indeed go for Trump;
better to put democracy at risk than to countenance a challenge to their imperial
self-esteem. But will it matter?
Maybe not. These days American presidential elections are so awash in money that both
sides can count on having enough resources to saturate the airwaves.
Indeed, over-the-top attacks from the wealthy can sometimes be a political plus. That was
certainly the case for F.D.R., who reveled in his plutocratic opposition: "They are unanimous
in their hate for me -- and I welcome their hatred."
So far Warren seems to be following the same playbook, tweeting out articles about Wall
Street's hostility as if they were endorsements, which in a sense they are. It's good to have
the right enemies.
I do worry, however, how Wall Streeters will take it if they go all out to defeat Warren
and she wins anyway. Washington can bail out their balance sheets, but who can bail out their
damaged psyches?
"Deductive reasoning" within the media message is mob control.
"It ain't what you know... it's what you know that ain't so"#. Keep reading the mainstream
media!
Given enough time [and strategy wrt 2020 election] we will get to the bottom of Obama's
"criminal influence" on 2016 election.
It takes a lot more to debunk the Biden, Clinton, Nuland, Obama Ukraine drama. To my mind,
Ukraine needs to be clean as driven snow* to "earn" javelins to kill Russian speaking
rebels.
Why do US from Obama+ fund rebels in Syria (Sunni radicals mainly) and want to send tank
killers to suppress rebels where we might get in to the real deal?
# conservatives have been saying that about the 'outrage' started by the MSM for
decades.
Warren might be an improvement over the current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial
oligarchy
"Best alternative to the above? Get Liz Warren elected, IMO."
True. IMHO Warren might be an improvement over the
current situation. Moreover she has some sound ideas about taming the financial oligarchy.
The idea of taking on
financial oligarchy will find strong support of voters and in some respects she is "a better Trump then Trump" as for
restoring the honor and wellbeing of the working people mercilessly squeezed and marginalized by neoliberalism in the USA.
Her book "The two income trap"(2004) suggests that this is not just a classic "bait and switch" election trick in
best Obama or Trump style.
And I would say she in her 70 is in better shape then Trump in his 73+. He shows isolated
early signs of neurologic damage (some claim sundowning syndrome:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwh6Fu9BcAw slurring speech patterns, repetitions, disorientation, etc), which is
natural for any person in his 70th subjected to his level of stress.
But it is completely unclear to me whether the impeachment favors Warren or Trump. the treat of impeachment already
cemented fractures in Trump base which now, judging from comments in forums, is really outraged.
Some people are
talking about armed resistance, which is, of course, hopeless nonsense in the current national-security state, but does show
the state of their mind.
Also nobody here can even imagine the amount of dirt Obama administration accumulated by
their actions in Ukraine. They really supported a neo-fascist party and cooperated with neo-Nazi (other important players
were Germany, Poland and Sweden). Just to achieve geopolitical victory over Russia. Kind of total reversion of WWII alliance
for me.
That avalanche of dirt can affect Warren indirectly as she proved to be a weak, unsophisticated politician by
supporting Pelosi drive for impeachment instead of pretending of being neutral. Which would be more appropriate and much
safer position.
Neoliberal democrats despite all Pelosi skills ( see https://mediaequalizer.com/martin-walsh/2017/12/gifford-heres-how-pelosi-learned-mob-like-tactics-from-her-father
) really opened a can of worms with this impeachment.
Also it looks like all of them, including Pelosi, are scared of
CIA: https://galacticconnection.com/nancy-pelosi-admits-congress-scared-cia/
== quote == In response to Senator
Dianne Feinstein’s speech last week calling out the CIA for spying on her staffers, Rep. Nancy Pelosi was asked to comment
and gave what might be the most revealing comments to date as to why Congress is so scared of the CIA:
“I salute
Sen. Feinstein,” Pelosi said at her weekly news conference of the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. “I’ll tell
you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without
evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth.”
Pelosi added that she has
always fought for checks and balances on CIA activity and its interactions with Congress: “You don’t fight it without a price
because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth. ==end==
I strongly doubt that Trump will ever
risk to drop a bomb by declassifying documents about Obama dirty actions in Ukraine; so to speak go "all in" against
neoliberal Democrats and part of intelligence community (and possibly be JFKed).
But Trump is unpredictable and
extremely vindictive. How he will behave after being put against the wall on fake changes is completely unclear. I wonder if
Pelosi correctly calculated all the risks.
I wrote the other day about Wall Street fear and loathing of Elizabeth Warren, suggesting
that it has more to do with threatened egos than with money per se 1/
Some more thoughts on reports that Wall Street Democrats will back Trump over Warren.
Obviously it's hard to know how big a deal this is -- how many of these guys are there, were
they ever really Dems, and will they back Trump as more revelations emerge 1/
So I remembered a sort of time capsule from the eve of the financial crisis that nicely
illustrated how these guys want to be perceived, and retrospectively explains their fury at
no longer getting to pose as economic heroes 2/
The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age
The new titans often see themselves as pillars of a similarly prosperous and expansive
age, one in which their successes and their philanthropy have made government less important
than it once was.
The thing is, even at the time the idea that financial deregulation had ushered in a
golden age of prosperity was flatly contradicted by the data 3/
[Graph]
And of course the financial crisis -- which is generally considered to have begun just
three weeks after that article was published! -- made utter nonsense of their boasting 4/
But they want everyone to forget about the hollowness of their claims to glory; and Warren
won't let that happen, which makes her evil in their minds 5/
When Bill was president Warren met with Hillary and persuaded her to talk Bill into killing
Biden's increased protection for lenders from rapacious borrowers. When Hillary was senator she
supported the Bill. Warren gave an interview on the subject before she was involved in
politics. She was not happy.
Warren was the single female Democratic senator who declined to give Hillary an endorsement
before the primaries started. That's an event of some significance.
During the debates Warren took actions that helped Bernie on several occasions. Someone, I
think Paul Krugman, said Glass Stegall would have done nothing to stop the meltdown because it
didn't deal with shadow banking. Bernie was able to respond that he supported Warren's proposed
Glass Stegall bill, which did have provisions to regulate shadow banking. On another occasion
someone pointed out that Warren's bill did not break up big banks. Warren stated publicly that
the bill didn't propose breaking up too big to fail banks but she supported the idea.
Warren and Sanders both supported Clinton when she had the nomination locked up. It was
Bernie's responsibility to defend his supporters from Team Clinton's smears and insults during
and after the convention.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of her
favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
It wasn't Warren that Clinton invited to the Hamptons to be introduced to a few dozen of
her favorite fundraisers. It was Harris.
But, even if so, Harris was to be nothing more than a Clinton place-holder to be swept
aside one HER decided to resurrect the same Dimocratic party, which she has still not
successfully destroyed, even with minor assistance from Barack, JoJo and Wild Bill. Nope. My
contention is that Hillary Rodent Clinton will sweep the field of duped pseudo-contenders in
a fixed horse race. HRC -- still with her!~
White House Weighs Blocking Chinese Companies From U.S. Exchanges
By Alan Rappeport and Ana Swanson
WASHINGTON -- The Trump administration is discussing whether to block Chinese companies
from listing shares on American stock exchanges, the latest push to try to sever economic
ties between the United States and China, according to people familiar with the
deliberations.
The internal discussions are in their early stages and no decision is imminent, these
people cautioned.
The talks come as senior officials from both countries are scheduled to resume trade
negotiations in Washington early next month. President Trump, who has continued to give mixed
signals about the prospect of a trade deal with China, said earlier this week that an
agreement could come "sooner than you think." His decision to delay an increase in tariffs
until mid-October and China's recent purchases of American agricultural products has fueled
optimism that the talks could produce an agreement.
But the prospect of further limiting American investment in China underscores the
challenge that the two sides will continue to face even as they try to de-escalate a trade
war that has shaken the global economy. The administration has already increased scrutiny of
foreign investment with a particular eye toward China, including expanding the types of
investments that can be subject to a national security review.
Last week, the Treasury Department unveiled new regulations detailing how a 2018 law, the
Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act, will work to prevent foreign firms from
using investments like minority stakes to capture sensitive American information. And the
United States has already blacklisted some Chinese companies, including Huawei, effectively
barring them from doing business with American companies.
Stocks dropped on Friday after a report on the deliberations was published by Bloomberg
News. The market continued to slide through most of the day. At close, the S&P 500 was
down 0.5 percent and the Nasdaq composite index was down 1.1 percent.
Losses were particularly steep in the technology sector, and among semiconductor stocks,
two parts of the market that have been sensitive to the latest updates on the economic
tensions between China and the United States.
Details of how the United States would restrict Chinese companies from American stock
markets were still being worked out and the idea remained in its early stages, the people
familiar with the deliberations said.
China hawks within the administration have discussed the possibility of tighter
restrictions on listed Chinese companies for many months. Supporters say the efforts would
close longstanding loopholes that have allowed Chinese companies with links to its government
to take advantage of America's financial rules and solicit funds from American investors
without proper disclosure.
Skeptics caution that the move could be deeply disruptive to markets and the economy and
risk turning American investors and pension funds into another casualty of the trade war.
The effect of limiting Chinese firms from raising capital inside the United States could
be significant. As of the beginning of this year, 156 Chinese companies were listed on
American exchanges and had a total market capitalization of $1.2 trillion, according to the
U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
"The underlying concerns have merit, but how to deal with them without creating a lot of
collateral damage is tricky," Patrick Chovanec, managing director at Silvercrest Asset
Management, wrote in a post on Twitter. "Abruptly delisting Chinese firms en masse would
clearly send shock waves through markets."
The idea gained traction on Capitol Hill this summer when Republicans and Democrats in the
Senate and the House introduced legislation that would delist firms that were out of
compliance with American regulators for three years. The lawmakers argued that Chinese
companies have been benefiting from American capital markets while playing by a different set
of rules.
American complaints center on a lack of transparency into the ownership and finances of
Chinese firms. The business community has long criticized China for classifying some auditor
reports on company finances as state secrets and outlawing cross-border transfers of
auditors' documentation.
In 2015, the Chinese affiliates of the Big Four accounting firms -- Deloitte Touch
Tohmatsu, KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Ernst & Young -- paid $500,000 each to settle
a dispute about their refusal to provide documentation on Chinese companies to the Securities
and Exchange Commission, which an American judge had ruled was a violation of United States
law.
The White House has grown more interested in blocking Chinese firms in recent weeks, with
some in the administration describing it as a top priority. Officials say the topic is not
yet an issue in bilateral negotiations with the Chinese and inserting it into the talks could
lead negotiations to fall apart again.
"This would be another step in ratcheting up the pressure," said Michael Pillsbury, a
China scholar at the Hudson Institute who said he raised the concept of investment
restrictions with the White House after negotiations with China broke down in the spring.
The White House declined to comment.
The concept has divided Mr. Trump's advisers along their usual fault lines, with Peter
Navarro, Mr. Trump's trade adviser, advocating action and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin
urging caution....
"... The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already, this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. ..."
"... By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes. ..."
"... What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts. ..."
"... There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt? ..."
"... This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren. ..."
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of ..."
"... . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators website at www.creators.com. ..."
"... the Movers and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris).. ..."
"... Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true ..."
"... Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are 38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website. ..."
"... It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for either Trump or Clinton. ..."
"... Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. ..."
Even before seeing the transcript of the July 25 call between President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,
Nancy Pelosi threw the door wide open to impeachment.
Though the transcript did not remotely justify the advanced billing of a "quid pro quo," Pelosi set in motion a process that is
already producing a sea change in the politics of 2020.
The great Beltway battle for the balance of this year, and perhaps next, will be over whether the Democrats can effect a coup
against a president many of them have never recognized as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he took the oath
of office.
Pelosi on Tuesday started this rock rolling down the hill.
She has made impeachment, which did not even come up in the last Democratic debate, the issue of 2020. She has foreclosed bipartisan
compromise on gun control, the cost of prescription drugs, and infrastructure. She has put her and her party's fate and future on
the line.
With Pelosi's assent that she is now open to impeachment, she turned what was becoming a cold case into a blazing issue. If the
Democrats march up impeachment hill, fail, and fall back, or if they vote impeachment only to see the Senate exonerate the president,
that will be the climactic moment of Pelosi's career. She is betting the future of the House, and her party's hopes of capturing
the presidency, on the belief that she and her colleagues can persuade the country to support the indictment of a president for high
crimes.
One wonders: do Democrats, blinded by hatred of Trump, ever wonder how that 40 percent of the nation that sees him as the repository
of their hopes will react if, rather than beat him at the ballot box, they remove him in this way?
The first casualty of Pelosi's cause is almost certain to be the front-runner for the party nomination. Joe Biden has already,
this past week, fallen behind Senator Elizabeth Warren in Iowa, New Hampshire, and California. The Quinnipiac poll has her taking
the lead nationally for the nomination, with Biden dropping into second place for the first time since he announced his candidacy.
By making Ukraine the focus of the impeachment drive in the House, Pelosi has also assured that the questionable conduct of Biden
and son Hunter will be front and center for the next four months before Iowa votes.
What did Joe do? By his own admission, indeed his boast, as vice president, he ordered then-Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko
to either fire the prosecutor who was investigating the company that hired Hunter Biden for $50,000 a month or forego a $1 billion
U.S. loan guarantee that Kiev needed to stay current on its debts.
Biden insists the Ukrainian prosecutor was corrupt, that Hunter had done no wrong, that he himself was unaware of his son's business
ties. All these assertions have been contradicted or challenged.
There is another question raised by Biden's ultimatum to Kiev to fire the corrupt prosecutor or forego the loan guarantee. Why
was the U.S. guaranteeing loans to a Kiev regime that had to be threatened with bankruptcy to get it to rid itself of a prosecutor
whom all of Europe supposedly knew to be corrupt?
Whatever the truth of the charges, the problem here is that any investigation of the potential corruption of Hunter Biden, and
of the role of his father, the former vice president, in facilitating it, will be front and center in presidential politics between
now and New Hampshire.
This is bad news for the Biden campaign. And the principal beneficiary of Pelosi's decision that put Joe and Hunter Biden at the
center of an impeachment inquiry is, again, Warren.
Warren already appears to have emerged victorious in her battle with Bernie Sanders to become the progressives' first choice in
2020. And consider how, as she is rising, her remaining opposition is fast fading.
Senator Kamala Harris has said she is moving her campaign to Iowa for a do-or-die stand in the first battleground state. Senator
Cory Booker has called on donors to raise $1.7 million in 10 days, or he will have to pack it in. As Biden, Sanders, Harris, and
Booker fade, and "Mayor Pete" Buttigieg hovers at 5 or 6 percent in national and state polls, Warren steadily emerges as the probable
nominee.
One measure of how deeply Biden is in trouble, whether he is beginning to be seen as too risky, given the allegations against
him and his son, will be the new endorsements his candidacy receives after this week of charges and countercharges.
If there is a significant falling off, it could be fatal.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided
America Forever . To find out more about Patrick Buchanan and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit
the Creators website at www.creators.com.
They would be, if it were Sanders to get the nomination. Warren's chances are, obviously, better than Biden's - anyone's, save
for complete fringe wackos, are - but, if they really wanted to win, they would need Sanders. Or, even better, Gabbard. But Sanders
is too independent, dangerously so, and Gabbard is an outright enemy of their totalitarian cult. Hence, they pick Warren, who
might be vaaaaaaaaaaguely considered Sanders-lite. But lite is not enough against someone like Trump. Or, even worse for them,
they resort to all possible and impossible machinations to still get Biden nominated. It'll be a screaming mistake, but it's not
excluded at all, given how easily the've just been lured into a trap.
Happened to tune in to Rush Limbaugh yesterday just as he was saying that Pelosi's motivation to spin the wheels was at least
in part to kill two birds with one stone--Trump AND Biden. Mehhh...maybe, but it's been clear from the beginning that the Movers
and Shakers in the Democrat Party have wanted Warren as their standard bearer on the belief that Biden is "yesterday" and that
the rest of the field is either too loony (O'Rourke), nondescript (Booker) or -- potentially -- too corrupt (Harris)..
Warren is the most pro-establishment candidate of all the non-establishment candidates, that is true . Incrowd-lite.
Bernie of course is the big unknown. Will he prevail over Warren?
If this scandal sinks Biden and Trump together, the Dems will come out ahead because they are not committed to Biden as their
nominee. I think Warren will be the biggest net winner. My prediction is that we see an impeachment with the Senate voting on
party lines to acquit. That could still be very damaging to Trump's election chances, if the portion of the public who dislikes
Trump decide that he abused his power.
Roughly 37% of Americans love Trump and will never change their mind. On the other side there are
38% who already supported impeachment based on previous investigations. That leaves 25% of Americans who are likely to be
swayed one way or the other over this. In any case, those 25% are unlikely to be on this website.
The main question, other than whether there is something damning that shows up, is whether the majority of voters think a quid
pro quo is necessary for corruption to be an impeachable offense. It is required in a criminal bribery conviction, but impeachment
isn't a criminal trial. Is the president using a diplomatic call to pressure a foreign government to dig up dirt on his political
rivals something the 25% will be okay with? If they believe the story of Biden's corruption, will they see that as justification
for using a diplomatic talk to push for an investigation into it? Will moderate voters who have a high opinion of Biden from the
his time as Vice President view this as an unfair attack on him or will they change their view of him to match Trump's narrative?
Biden is in a tough spot, because he will be smeared here whether he is guilty or not. Trump is very good as slinging mud to
distract from his actions. And most Americans are very unlikely to parse through the information overload to figure out whether
the fired prosecutor is corrupt, whether the decision to fire him came from Joe or the state department/UK/EU/local protest, whether
Hunter Biden was qualified for the job with his ivy law degree/experience on corp boards/previous consulting experience, and whether
the investigation into Burisma was actuall ongoing when Shokin was fired. Who has time to read through everything and figure out
which side is manufacturing a controversy?
But if Biden decides to go down a Martyr, it wouldn't be difficult for him to take Trump with him.
It'll be interesting to see what the voter turnout will be in 2020. 2016 --one of the most pivotal and controversial elections
in modern times--saw 42% of the electorate stay home. This was a shockingly high numbter, little noted in the press. If you tack
on the 6% who voted for Gary Johnson or Jill Stein, that would mean that 48% of the electorate--nearly half--did NOT vote for
either Trump or Clinton.
These numbers are ominous and do not bode well for the future of this thing of ours.
Well, given that Trump has already released the transcript and Zelensky has already confirmed there were no pressure in their
conversation plus said that Hunter's case is to be investigated by the AG, any impeachment hearings can only be damaging
to those who decide to go further with them, because, as it turns out, there is no basis for such hearings and they were
started a year before the election, showing what those who started them think regarding their own chances to win. If Democrats
want to cut losses, they should stop it now and, using military terms, regroup immediately, nominating Gabbard who consistently
opposed this stillborn impeachment stupidity. But something makes me think they won't. Their visceral hatred to an anti-war candidate
like her is simply too strong.
I think you are missing that Trump's lawyers can subpoena people and drag up a lot of dirt on the Democrats too. I think it can
go both ways.
Still Warren can be tough for Trump. She is not tainted by Clinton. She is a chameleon; will sound sufficiently WASP in New
England and sufficiently woke in California and new York. If Buttgig becomes her sidekick he can get all the gays on-board.
You're missing one thing about Warren: she's a wonk. And she actually has some good ideas alongside the more crazy ones. Even
Tucker Carlson praised her book.
But Warren is an absolute stiff. Zero charisma. Like Kerry or Gore on their very worst day. And in this day and age, where
the only thing that counts for the overwhelming majority of low information voters are soundbites and how telegenic you come off
in a debate, someone like Trump will chew her up and spit her out for breakfast.
Warren? OK. I don't see how she could be any worse than Trump. Plus, we might not feel like we were snorkeling in a cesspool all
the time, like we do now.
Literally every progressive I know save one is team Warren. I think there might be an age divide. Progressives under thirty are
more likely to be for Sanders, and over thirty for Warren.
I have no idea what will happen with the election. But if Trump wins it after the Dems have done nothing for four years except
impeach him - every day is going to be like Christmas.
I sincerely hope that Trump is right in thinking that Biden is his biggest threat, because this affair is going to ensure Warren
is the nominee. I think a lot of proggy Dems know this as well, which partly explains their enthusiasm for impeachment at this
particular moment (not that they haven't been itching for this since November 8, 2016).
I agree Biden and Bernie are toast but Warren is far from a sure thing. Of all the democratic candidates Tulsi is the most attractive
in more ways than one and I could see Tulsi appealing to the many Trump voters who voted for him because he claimed to be non-interventionist
only to discover he is a war-pig like the rest of them. Imagine Tulsi in a debate with Trump! If not Tulsi I would bet another
high profile Dem will enter the race because Warren is un-electable and I would not be surprised to see Hillary get in the race
at the last minute. American's love re-matches and come-back stories.
In breaking news: Pelosi has just revealed who was behind all this. It's Cardinal Richelieu Russians again.
Does the girl even understand that, by saying so, she's, basically, stating that she's the chief Russian agent out there, because
she was the one who initiated that freak show?
Jesus Harold Christ, what a travelling circus. And this passes for a parliament these days.
Ukrainegate is Watergate in reverse. The farcical impeachment unintentionally acts as a foil, amplifying the significance of the
Ukraine stories in the press (John Solomon, Andrew McCarthy) which reveal a culture of corruption and venality permeating the
Democratic leadership: the Clintons, the Bidens, the DNC, the current Democratic caucus, and the entire deep state remnants of
the obama administration. We haven't seen election interference like this since the Watergate break-in and coverup. This impeachment
is the coup-de-grâce of the Democratic Party not just Biden. The Democrat faithful now have a choice between Scylla and Charybdis
- self-proclaimed socialists with a tenuous hold on reality, or the discredited establishment. As an old-school Democrat, I can
only hope that Trump buries them in 2020, so that the Democrats finally get the message and return to their pre-Clinton roots.
It is insane to pursue impeachment this late in a divisive President's mandate. The Democrats should spend their efforts selecting
a moderate nominee that doesn't show signs of cognitive decline (Only candidate that matches these requirements is Tulsi Gabbard.
) rather than make Trump a "victim" in the eyes of many.
Drama Don is doing a good enough job himself to make sure that the Democrats win in 2020. "Trump fatigue" is going to be the
most used expression next fall if Trump runs. If Trump is pushed out before the election, the Republicans may choose a charismatic
new nominee who actually has a chance to win in 2020. The biggest asset that the Democrats have in 2020 is Trump.
Somebody, somewhere, had decided that Democrats stand little chance with Biden, because he is so old and gaffe prone. So they
have put their money on Warren. Warren will choose Buttigieg as VP candidate, primarily because they want all that gay billionaire
money flowing in. At the same time, they tick the SJW boxes -woman, gay candidates, so the left will love them. The fix is in.
Hence the stupid "impeachment " controversy, which is obviously a sham to knock Biden out.
I voted for Trump, not as a Republican because I despise both political parties. I voted for him based on the need for a nationalist
trade policy, and especially because I was so against the TPP --and President Trump rewarded me for that vote his first week in
office by pulling the US out of TPP negotiations. Also I have great respect for you, Mr. Buchanan, and learned much from the 3
of your books I've read and recommended to others. But it looks like President Trump has been using his office for personal political
gain, so I am sorry to admit I support the impeachment investigation to bring the facts to light and make a judgement of whether
it is true he used the office to solicit a foreign country to help undermine his political opponent. But even before this, I'd
decided I will not vote for him again, mainly because I have become alarmed at the looming climate crisis, and believe we need
urgent policy towards full decarbonization of the global energy economy. But that doesn't motivate me to support the impeachment
inquiry, a path I hate and regret...but it seems there is no other way to demand the President not abuse his office and manipulate
foreign governments to help his political career. That is no patriot, that is corrupt and an embarrassment to our nation.
"...effect a coup against a president many of them have never seen as legitimate and have sought to bring down since before he
took the oath of office."
Every single word of that describes the Republicans in Congress during the eight years Obama was president. Every single syllable.
Remember that birth certificate? And remember that Dick Tracy villain, Pocket-Neck McConnell, an excrescence that still infects
us, standing up and actually saying, with a straight face, "Our ONLY goal is to make Obama a one-term president." Never mind an
economy that was in free-fall, right Mitch? Or a couple of bothersome wars going on?
And what about how, for the very first time in history, Standard and Poor's downgraded America's credit rating, all because
of completely meaningless Republican obstruction about the debt ceiling? And when I say completely meaningless, I mean completely
meaningless. Now, under Trump, the deficit is approaching a trillion, and those very same Republicans couldn't give a hoot.
It's all in the great 2012 book, It's Even Worse Than it Looks, by Ornstein and Mann. We've had partisanship and gridlock before.
But what was new is how the Republicans behaved under Obama: they treated him as completely illegitimate from the word go, and
absolutely refused to work with him under any and all circumstances. The stimulus, which by the way saved the entire world economy
from complete meltdown, didn't get a single Republican vote.
But Republicans can feel proud of one thing: their disgusting, scorched-earth, win-at-all-costs tactics are now business-as-usual
in Washington. Probably for all time. Nice going, guys.
Warren is the best candidate to defeat Trump. She is super smart ,honest and works hard as heck for the non 1% to get more of
a fair shake. If she softens her hard left positions she could be a great candidate
I assume most here are sick of hearing about it further today.
I enjoy speculating on what Speaker Pelosi might do with the results of the Impeachment
Inquiry by the House.
Assumption: The House finds grounds for Impeaching Trump and hands it to Pelosi.
What will she do or rather what can she do?
She can have the full House vote to Impeach and march the Articles over to the Senate.
She can have the House Censure Trump, not vote to Impeach, and go no further at this time.
That brings Trump's crimes to light, but saves the country from a Political Trial in the
Senate, that won't convict Trump.
She can hold the Committee's report for review and not go forward until and unless she
see's the POLITICAL need.
She can, IMO, have the House vote Articles of Impeachment and then HOLD them in the House
waiting to take them to the Senate at a much later date of her choice or never.
The Senate cannot act until the Speaker delivers the Articles of Impeachment. No where
does the Constitution declare WHEN those Articles, once voted, must be delivered, only that
they are to be.
She can set a new precedent if she desires. Who can stop her?
This would allow the Articles to float over Trump's head - and the Re-Election campaign
serving to restrain Trump, like a cudgel over his head - preventing or at least limiting more
of Trump's outrageous unconstitutional and illegal acts in Office until Election 2020.
Simultaneously this would allow The House to continue its multiple investigations of
Trump, including the IRS Whistle Blower complaint, further checking Trump, and even to open
more investigations into Trump's abuse of Office, e.g., his use of AG Barr on Ukraine/Biden
as well as investigations of AG Barr pursuing Ukraine/Biden.
Not to mention other investigations into Trump including NY's pursuit of Trump's Tax
Returns, which could well be as revealing as the Ukraine phone call transcript.
So, while today was interesting in D.C., the future is far more so, imho.
1. Biden is now a zombie and has less then zero changes to beat Trump. Even if nothing
explosive will be revealed by Ukraine-gate, this investigation hangs like albatross around
his neck. Each shot at Trump will ricochet into Biden. Add to this China and the best he can
do is to leave the race and claim unfair play.
2. Trump now probably will be reelected on the wave of indignation toward Corporate Dems
new witch hunt. People stopped believing neoliberal MSM around 2015, so now neolibs no longer
have the leverage they get used to. And by launching Ukraine-gate after Russiagate they
clearly overplayed their hand losing critical mass of independents (who previously were ready
to abandon Trump_
3. If unpleasant facts about neolib/neocon machinations to launch Ukraine-gate leak via
alternative press via disgruntled DNC operatives or some other insiders who are privy to the
relevant discussions in the Inner Party, they will poison/destroy the chances of any Dem
candidate be it Warren or anybody else. Joining this witch hunt greatly damages standing of
Warren exposing her as a mediocre, malleable politician ( unlike Tulsi )
4. Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump. This is a huge political mistake which exposes them as
political swindlers.
Neolib/neocon in Democratic Party from now on will be viewed as "The Children of
Lieutenant Schmidt" (a fictional society of swindlers from the 1931 classic "The Little
Golden Calf" by Ilf and Petrov).
I would say that Pelosi might now be able to understand better the situation in which
Wasserman-Shultz had found herself in 2016 and resign.
IMHO this is a king of zugzwang for neoliberal Dems. There is no good exit from this
situation.
After two years of falsely accusing Trump to have colluded with Russia they now allege
that he colluded with Ukraine.
In addition to overpaying their hand that makes it more difficult for the Democrats to
hide their critical role in creating and promoting Russiagate.
Here is one post from MA which tries to analyse this situation:
== quote ==
nil , Sep 25 2019 19:37 utc | 24
I think what's going in the brain trust of the DNC is something like this:
i. Biden is a non-starter with the public. He'll be devoured alive by the Republicans, who
only need to bring up his career to expose his mendacity.
ii. Warren might be co-opted, having been a Republican and fiscal conservative up to the
mid-90s, but what if she isn't?
iii. Sanders is a non-starter, but with the "people who matter". Rather than having to
threaten him with the suspicions around his wife, or go for the JFK solution, they'd rather
[make that] he didn't even get past the primaries, much less elected.
iv. As a CNN talking head said weeks ago, it's better for the wealthy people the DNC is
beholden to that their own candidate loses to Trump if that candidate is Sanders.
So better to hedge their bets start impeachment hearings, give Trump ammunition to destroy
Sanders or Warren. That way, the rich win in all scenarios:
a. If Biden wins the nomination, the campaign will be essentially mudslinging from both
sides about who is more corrupt. The rich are fine with whoever wins.
b. If Warren gets the nomination and is co-opted, the media will let the impeachment
hearings die out, or the House themselves will quickly bury it.
c. If Warren gets the nomination and is not co-opted, or if Sanders get it, the
impeachment will suck up all the air of the room, Trump will play the witchhunt card and will
be re-elected.
That's a very good idea to concentrate on your job instead of some fluff, or worse, criminal
activity.
Millions of dollars, millions of manhours of political discourse and newsmedia coverage,
were wasted on Russiagate. That's a typical "control fraud." Control fraud occurs when a
trusted person in a high position of responsibility in a company, corporation, or state
subverts the organization and engages in extensive fraud (in this case a witch hunt) for
personal gain.
Those hours could have been used researching and discussing country foreign policy,
economic policy, healthcare policy, industrial policy, environment policy and other important
for this nation topics.
Instead the Dems chased a ghost (and they knew that this a ghost) for 3 years and now
Pelosi have just signaled that they will spend the next 6 months chasing another ghost --
trying to impeach Trump for his attempt to re-launch (in his trademark clumsy, bulling way)
investigating Joe Biden's family corruption in Ukraine. Action which is in full compliance
with The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 (FCPA)
During the last two years there were actions of Trump that probably deserved launching
impeachment proceeding. For example, attempt of regime change in Venezuela. But neoliberal
Dems were fully on board with that. So the main loss which this bunch of swindlers can't
settle with is the the loss in their ability to defraud the country: I feel that the
neoliberal Democrats' real problem with Trump is that he ended their scheme of defrauding the
country in favor of his own.
Now with this Ukraine-gate scandal the US voters have, in effect, are being defrauded by a
group of the same sophisticated political swindlers that ruled the county during Clinton and
Obama administrations.
"Instead of running on policy issues the Democrats again tried to find vague dirt with
which they can tarnish Trump."
If Warren is nominated she can run on dirt because she does not have the sewage history.
If she runs on policy people will remember that she will fce 20 million families who got a
$500/month Obamacare tax. These are the families that cost Dems four elections. She should
not mention medicare at all, once she has the nomination.
Impeachment is what happens when a President has sex and lies about it. So it has become
meaningless, thanks to Repubs.
If I were Trump, I would take the impeachment and run with it. Trump will claim he got
impeached because he was hunting for Biden sewage, and there is no Biden, thanks to the
impeachment. His team agrees, take the impeachment and run with it.
Who liked Biden? None of the young turks, they want Biden out as badly as they want Trump
out. I just have this feeling, Biden is a gonner, sort of a bipartisan play if you ask
me.
For The First Time, Warren Beats Out Biden For No. 1 Spot In National Poll
--
Biden gone. Harris gone. Pete gone. Beto gone. It is between Bernie and Liz. Both of whom
will be telling 10 million families that health care is free and they will not get hit with a
$500/month tax. Problem is, voters regret on this is lifelong, a ot of voters, right here in
this blog, think Obamacare was deceptive. But these same voters now put the cost on the
federal debt machine, courtesy of Trump, and they prefer that.
Trump wins as long as there is no blue bar and Repubs avoid mass shootings in Florida or
Texas. We, this group and our favorite economists have lost credibility on medical
programs.
Sanders is spend force in any case. His endorsement does not matter much. But for Warren this
is a blunder. Tulsi is the only one out of this troika who proved to be capable politician.
As I reported on the previous thread, Sanders endorsed the impeachment proceedings in a
tweet I linked to and cited. Gabbard is apparently the only D-Party candidate that said this
decision is a mistake.
This article about her stance is actually balanced. Citing her recent interview by
FOXNews :
"'I have been consistent in saying that I believe that impeachment in this juncture would
be terribly divisive for our country at a time when we are already extremely divided,'
Gabbard explained. 'Hyper-partisanship is one of the things that's driving our country
apart.'
"'I think it's important to defeat Donald Trump. That's why I'm running for president, but
I think it's the American people who need to make their voices heard, making that decision,'
she said.
"Regardless of how you feel about Gabbard, you have to give her credit on this front.
America is extremely divided today and politicians in Washington play into that. The
impeachment saga is a prime example of their role in this division ." [My Emphasis]
When one digs deeper into the forces Gabbard's attacking, she's the most patriotic one of
the entire bunch, including the Rs. I haven't looked at her election websites recently, but
from what I see of her campaign appearances, her and Sanders seem to be sharing each other's
policy proposals, although they both choose to place more emphasis on some than others. For
Gabbard, its the wonton waste and corruption of the Empire that keeps good things from being
done for all citizens at home, whereas Sanders basically inverts the two.
"... Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest of you are on your own." ..."
And yet America's policies were headed in the wrong direction. The big banks kept lobbying Congress to pass a bill that would
gut families' last refuge in the bankruptcy courts -- the same bill we describe in this book. (It went by the awful name Bankruptcy
Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, but it should have been called the Gut the Safety Net and Pay OIT the Big Banks Act.).
The proposed law would carefully preserve bankruptcy protections for the likes of Donald Trump and his friends, while ordinary families
that had been crushed by debts from medical problems or job losses were thrown under the bus.
When we wrote The Two-Income Trap, it was already pretty clear that the big banks would win this battle. The fight kept going
for two more years, but the tide of blame-the-unlucky combined with relentless lobbying and campaign contributions finally overwhelmed
Congress.
In 2005, the Wall Street banking industry got the changes they wanted, and struggling families lost out. After the law was rewritten,
about 800,000 families a year that once would have turned to bankruptcy to try to get back on their feet were shut out of the system.1
That was 800,000 families -- mostly people who had lost jobs, suffered a medical catastrophe, or gone through a divorce or death
in the family. And now, instead of reorganizing their finances and building some security, they were at the mercy of debt collectors
who called twenty or thirty times a day -- and could keep on calling and calling for as long as they thought they could squeeze another
nickel from a desperate family.
As it turned out, the new law tore a big hole in the last safety net for working families, just in time for the Great Recession.
Meanwhile, the bank regulators kept playing blind and deaf while the housing bubble inflated. Once it burst, the economy collapsed.
The foreclosure problem we flagged back in 2003 rolled into a global economic meltdown by 2008, as millions of people lost their
homes, and millions more lost their jobs, their savings, and their chance at a secure retirement. Overall, the total cost of the
crash was estimated as high as S14 trillion.2
Meanwhile, America's giant banks got bailed out, CEO pay shot up, the stock market roared back, and the investor class got rich
beyond even their own fevered dreams.3
A generation ago, a fortune-teller might have predicted a very different future. With so many mothers headed into the workforce,
Americans might have demanded a much heavier investment in public day care, extended school days, and better family leave policies.
Equal pay for equal work might have become sacrosanct. As wages stagnated, there might have been more urgency for raising the minimum
wage, strengthening unions, and expanding Social Security. And our commitment to affordable college and universal preschool might
have become unshakeable.
But the political landscape was changing even faster than the new economic realities. Government was quickly becoming an object
of ridicule, even to the president of the United States. Instead of staking his prestige on making government more accountable and
efficient, Ronald Reagan repeated his famous barb "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are Tin from the government
and I'm here to help."'8 After generations of faithfulness to the promise of the Constitution to promote general welfare, at the
moment when the economic foundations of the middle class began to tremble, our efforts to strengthen each other and offer a helping
hand had become the butt of a national joke.
Those who continued to believe in what we could do together faced another harsh reality: much of government had been hijacked
by the rich and powerful. Regulators who were supposed to watch out for the public interest shifted their loyalties, smiling benignly
as giant banks jacked up short-term profits by cheating families, looking the other way as giant power companies scam mod customers,
and partying with industry executives as oil companies cut comers on safety and environmental rules. In this book we told one of
those stories, about how a spineless Congress rewrote the bankruptcy laws to enrich a handful of credit card companies.
Meanwhile, greed -- once best known for its place on the list of Seven Deadly Sins -- became a point of pride for Wall Street's
Masters of the Universe. With a sophisticated smile, the rallying cry of the rich and fashionable became "1 got mine -- the rest
of you are on your own."
These shifts played nicely into each other. Every' attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules tilted
more and These shifts played nicely into each other. Every attack on "big government" meant families lost an ally, and the rules
tilted more and more in favor of those who could hire armies of lobbyists and lawyers. Lower taxes for the wealthy -- and more money
in the pockets of those who subscribed to the greed-is-good mantra. And if the consequence meant less money for preschools or public
colleges or disability coverage -- the things that would create more security for an overstretched middle class -- then that was
just too bad.
Little by little, as the middle class got deeper and deeper in trouble, government stopped working for the middle class, or at
least it stopped working so hard. The rich paid a little less and kept a little more. Even if they didn't say it in so many words,
they got exactly what they wanted. Remember the 90 percent -- America's middle class, working class, and poor -- the ones who got
70 percent of all income growth from 1935 through 1980?
From 1980-2014, the 90 percent got nothing.9 None. Zero. Zip. Not a penny in income growth. Instead, for an entire generation,
the top 10 percent captured all of the income growth in the entire country. l(X) percent.
It didn't have to be this way. The Two-Income Trap is about families that w'ork hard, but some things go wrong along the way --
illnesses and job losses, and maybe some bad decisions. But this isn't what has put the middle class on the ropes. After all, people
have gotten sick and lost jobs and made less-than-perfect decisions for generations -- and vet, for generations America's middle
class expanded. creating more opportunity to build real economic security and pass on a brighter future to their children.
What would it take to help strengthen the middle class? The problems facing the middle-class family are complex and far-reaching,
and the solutions must be too. We wish there could be a simple silver bullet, but after a generation of relentless assault, there
just isn't. But there is one overriding idea. Together we can. It's time to say it out loud: a generation of I-got-mine policy-making
has failed -- failed miserably, completely, and overwhelmingly. And it's time to change direction before the entire middle class
has been replaced by hundreds of millions of Americans barely hanging on by their fingernails.
Americas middle class was built through investments in education, infrastructure, and research -- and by' making sure we all have
a safety net. We need to strengthen those building blocks: Step up investments in public education. Rein in the cost of college and
cut out- standing student loans. Create universal preschool and affordable child care. Upgrade infrastructure -- mass transit, energy,
communications -- to make it more attractive to build good, middle-class jobs here in America. Recognize that the modem economy can
be perilous, and a strong safety net is needed now more than ever. Strengthen disability coverage, retirement coverage, and paid
sick leave. And for heavens sake, get rid of the awful banker-backed bankruptcy law, so that when things go wrong, families at least
have a chance at a fresh start. We welcome the re-issue of The Two-Income Trap because we see the original book as capturing a critical
moment, those last few minutes in which the explanation of why so many hardworking, plav-by- tho-mlcs people were in so much trouble
was simple: It was their own fault. If only they would just pull up their socks, cinch their belts a little tighter, and stop buying
so much stuff, they -- and our country -- would be just fine. That myth has died. And we say', good riddance.
Minor quibbles aside -- Warren presumably doesn't derive most of her income from capital
owner-ship, and markets are compatible with socialism -- the
Massachusetts senator is right. She and Sanders draw their lineage from distinct political
traditions.
Warren is a regulator at heart who believes that capitalism works well as long as fair
competition exists; Sanders is a class-conscious tribune who sees capitalism as fundamentally unjust . Warren
frames her most ambitious reforms as bids to make capitalism " accountable
"; Sanders pushes legislation called the "
Stop BEZOS Act " and denounces ceos for exploiting
workers . Warren seeks a harmonious accord between workers and employers; Sanders
encourages workers to fight back.
Foreign policy differences spring from their respective traditions as well. While both are
suspicious of military interventionism, Vermont's junior senator has shown himself much more
willing to criticize the crimes of US empire -- famously proclaiming in
a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton that "Henry Kissinger is not my friend." Warren, though a
critic of Bush-style adventurism, sees America's role in more conventional terms, arguing in a
Foreign
Affairs essay this year that we should "project American strength and values
throughout the world."
Warren's political tradition is the left edge of middle-class liberalism; Sanders hails from
America's socialist tradition. Or, to put the distinction in more personal terms: Warren is
Louis
Brandeis , Sanders is Eugene Debs .
A house bill bans using Huawei and ZTE phones; also adds 1 billion in taxpayer paid for
equipment to be donated to to USA companies so the USA companies can trash the China made
equipment and exchange if for 1 billion in USA and Israel made equipment.
I wonder does this mean the USA and Israel cannot compete with the Chinese?
"... Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought' Biden ..."
"... Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it. ..."
Rudy Drops New Bombs: Slams Obama Cabinet 'Pattern Of Corruption'; Claims China 'Bought'
Biden
---
Rudy on a roll. Go look it up on a safe site.
Warren wins the nomination because the issue is Swamp Sewage and she hasn't been around
long enough to emit much of it. Biden has a ton of it. Trump has three years of it.
"... Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues. ..."
"... Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises. ..."
"... As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ). ..."
"... It portrays the Dems as clueless political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo. ..."
The Senate republicans should be forced to block trumps impeachment. This is a good election
issue in deep purple states with a senator up for re election. Plus a good house issue. Let
the people judge both party wagons
Trump and Biden make a perfect pair of party Totem heads
Tulsi is the only talented politician among those who are running on Democratic Platform.
And I applaud her courage to stand against the mob
Warren proved to be a very weak, mediocre politician. By joining the calls to "Impeach
Trump" she proved this again. And this is not the first time she made a very bad call. Looks like she is completely
malleable candidate. The candidate without spine outside his favorite re-regulation issues.
She essentially gave Trump additional ammunition to attack her and poach her supporters. I
would now attack her along the lines:
"Do not believe anything Warren say; she does have spine. Look how easily she was
co-opted to join this witch-hunt. If Warren wins, she will instantly fold and will do what
bought by Wall Street Dems leadership will ask her. I am not perfect but I withstood
Russiagate witch-hunt and that proves that with all my faults I am the only independent
politician in this race, who can go against the flow and deliver what was promised; please
give additional time and I will deliver"
Of course, this is disingenuous projection as Trump did the same, but that's politics
;-)
I still believe that Warren has chances to win against Trump. But with such moves by Dem
leadership this might no longer be true. Why Warren does not attack Trump disastrous domestic
and foreign policy record instead of making such questionable calls is not clear to me. Just
a diagram "Trump promises vs reality" as election advertisement might improve her
chances.
Ukraine-gate impeachment process (aka another attempt to demonize Trump after Russiagate
fiasco) is what Trump badly needs now, as it will cement his voting block and might bring
back those voters who are appalled by his betrayal of almost all election promises.
As Ukraine-gate is based on a false rumor and actually implicates Biden, not Trump (and
after Trump decision to open the transcript Dems now need to move goalposts like it was with
the inner party member Parteigenosse Mueller witch hunt ).
It portrays the Dems as clueless
political scum who are ready to resort to dirty tricks in order to protect neoliberal
warmonger Biden, and maintain Wall-Street favorable status quo.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who has supported the nuclear agreement since its
inception, has levied criticism toward the White House. On June 18, in response to a New York
Times report titled, "Trump Adds Troops After Iran Says It Will Breach Nuclear Deal" (a
questionable media framing given that the U.S. had already violated the deal), she
tweeted:
"I hope Iran chooses a different path. But let's be clear: Trump provoked this crisis. He
has no strategy to contain it, he's burned through our friends and allies, and now he's
doubling down on military force. We can't afford another forever war."
While Warren was correct to argue against war, she opens by appearing to place blame
against Iran, neglecting to acknowledge the U.S.'s role in villainizing Iran in the first
place.
On June 20, after reports of the Navy drone were published, Warren elaborated on her
comments, adopting a stronger oppositional stance to the prospect of war with Iran.
"Trump provoked this crisis, and his reckless foreign policy by tweet will only worsen it.
I've co-sponsored legislation to prohibit a war with Iran. We need to de-escalate tensions --
not let the war hawks in this administration drag us into conflict. #NoWarWithIran"
That same day, she followed with
"Donald Trump promised to bring our troops home. Instead he has pulled out of a deal that
was working and instigated another unnecessary conflict. There is no justification for
further escalating this crisis -- we need to step back from the brink of war."
Here, Warren uses stronger language to denounce Trump's actions, but still falls short of
a moral denunciation of U.S. violence or a more incisive analysis of the Iran nuclear deal's
power relations. Meanwhile, Warren's vote for new sanctions against Iran in 2017 weakens her
legislative record. ...
Warren is far more progressive than mainstream Democrats like Joe Biden. She calls for
withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Warren campaigns for the United
State to rejoin the nuclear accord with Iran and to end trade pacts that hurt workers.
"Warren's foreign policy positions have shifted a fair amount in recent years,
particularly during the past few months," says Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the
University of San Francisco, who provides foreign policy advice to the Warren campaign.
Capitalism, Alone: Four important--but somewhat hidden--themes
I review here four important, but perhaps not immediately apparent, themes from my
Capitalism, Alone. The book contains many other, more topical, subjects that are likely to
attract readers' and reviewers' attention much more than the somewhat abstract or
philosophical issues briefly reviewed here.
1. Capitalism as the only mode of production in the world. During the previous high
point of the British-led globalization, capitalism shared the world with various feudal or
feudal-like systems characterized with unfree labor: forced labor was abolished in
Austria-Hungary in 1848, serfdom in Russia in 1861, slavery ended in the US in 1865, and in
Brazil only in 1888, And labor tied to land continued to exist in India and to a lesser
degree in China. Then, after 1917, capitalism had to share the world with communism which, at
its peak, included almost a third of the world population. It is only after 1989, that
capitalism is not only a dominant, but the sole, system of organizing production (Chapter
1).
2. The global historical role of communism. The existence of capitalism (economic
way to organize society) throughout the world does not imply that the political systems must
be organized in the same way everywhere. The origins of political systems are very different.
In China and Vietnam, communism was the tool whereby indigenous capitalism was introduced
(explained below). The difference in the "genesis" of capitalism, that is, in the way
capitalism was "created" in various countries explains why there are at least two types of
capitalism today. I am doubtful that there would ever be a single type of capitalism covering
the entire globe.
To understand the point about the different origins, one needs to start from the question
of the role of communism in global history and thus from the interpretation (histoire
raisonéee) of the 20th century (Chapter 3).
There are two major narratives of the 20th century: liberal and Marxist; they are both
"Jerusalem"-like in the Russian philosopher Berdiaff's terminology. They see the world
evolving from less developed toward more developed stages ending in either a terminus of
liberal capitalist democracy or Communism (society of plenty).
Both narratives face significant problems in the interpretation of the 20th century.
Liberal narrative is unable to explain the outbreak of the First World War which, given the
liberal arguments about the spread of capitalism, (peaceful) trade, and interdependence
between countries and individuals that ostensibly abhor conflict should never have happened,
and certainly not in the way it did -- namely by involving in the most destructive war up to
date all advanced capitalism countries. Second, liberal narrative treats both fascism and
communism as essentially "mistakes" (cul de sacs) on the road to a chiliastic liberal
democracy without providing much of reasoning as to why these two "mistakes" happened. Thus
the liberal explanations for both the outbreak of the War and the two "cul de sacs" are often
ad hoc, emphasizing the role of individual actors or idiosyncratic events.
Marxist interpretation of the 20th century is much more convincing in both its explanation
of World War I (imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism) and fascism (an attempt by
the weakened bourgeoise to thwart left-wing revolutions). But Marxist view is entirely
powerless to explain 1989, the fall of communist regimes, and hence unable to provide any
explanation for the role of communism in global history. The fall of communism, in a strict
Marxist view of the world, is an abomination, as inexplicable as if a feudal society having
had experienced a bourgeois revolution of rights were suddenly to "regress" and to reimpose
serfdom and the tripartite class division. Marxism has therefore given up trying to provide
an explanation for the 20th century history.
The reason for this failure lies in the fact that Marxism never made a meaningful
distinction between standard Marxist schemes regarding the succession of socio-economic
formations (what I call the Western Path of Development, WPD) and the evolution of poorer and
colonized countries. Classical Marxism never asked seriously whether the WPD is applicable in
their case. It believed that poorer and colonized countries will simply follow, with a time
lag, the developments in the advanced countries, and that colonization and indeed imperialism
will produce the capitalist transformation of these societies. This was Marx's explicit view
on the role of English colonialism in Asia. But colonialism proved too weak for such a global
task, and succeeded in introducing capitalism only in small entropot enclaves such as Hong
Kong, Singapore and parts of South Africa.
Enabling colonized countries to effect both their social and national liberations (note
there was never a need for the latter in advanced countries) was the world-historical role of
communism. It was only Communist or left-wing parties that could prosecute successfully both
revolutions. The national revolution meant political independence. The social revolution
meant abolishment of feudal growth-inhibiting institutions (power of usurious landlords,
labor tied to land, gender discrimination, lack of access to education by the poor, religious
turpitude etc.). Communism thus cleared the path for the development of indigenous
capitalism. Functionally, in the colonized Third World societies, it played the same role
that domestic bourgeoisies played in the West. For indigenous capitalism could be established
only once feudal institutions were swept away.
The concise definition of communism is hence: communism is a social system that enabled
backward and colonized societies to abolish feudalism, regain economic and political
independence, and build indigenous capitalism.
3. The global dominion of capitalism was made possible thanks to (and in turn it
exacerbates) certain human traits that, from an ethical point, are questionable . Much
greater commercialization and greater wealth have in many ways made us more polished in our
manners (as per Montesquieu) but have done so using what were traditionally regarded as vices
-- desire for pleasure, power and profit (as per Mandeville). Vices are both fundamental for
hyper-commercialized capitalism to be "born" and are supported by it. Philosophers accept
them not because they are by themselves desirable, but because allowing their limited
exercise allows the achievement of a greater social good: material affluence (Smith;
Hume).
Yet the contrast between acceptable behavior in hyper-commercialized world and traditional
concepts of justice, ethics, shame, honor, and loss of face, create a chasm which is filled
with hypocrisy; one cannot openly accept that one has sold for a sum of money his/her right
to free speech or ability to disagree with one's boss, and thus arises the need to cover up
these facts with lies or misrepresentation of reality.
From the book:
"The domination of capitalism as the best, or rather the only, way to organize production
and distribution seems absolute. No challenger appears in sight. Capitalism gained this
position thanks to its ability, through the appeal to self-interest and desire to own
property, to organize people so that they managed, in a decentralized fashion, to create
wealth and increase the standard of living of an average human being on the planet by many
times -- something that only a century ago was considered almost utopian.
But this economic success made more acute the discrepancy between the ability to live
better and longer lives and the lack of a commensurate increase in morality, or even
happiness. The greater material abundance did make people's manners and behavior to each
other better: since elementary needs, and much more than that, were satisfied, people no
longer needed to engage in a Hobbesian struggle of all against all. Manners became more
polished, people more considerate.
But this external polish was achieved at the cost of people being increasingly driven by
self-interest alone, even in many ordinary and personal affairs. The capitalist spirit, a
testimony to the generalized success of capitalism, penetrated deeply into people's
individual lives. Since extending capitalism to family and intimate life was antithetical to
centuries-old views about sacrifice, hospitality, friendship, family ties, and the like, it
was not easy to openly accept that all such norms had become superseded by self-interest.
This unease created a huge area where hypocrisy reigned. Thus, ultimately, the material
success of capitalism came to be associated with a reign of half-truths in our private
lives."
4. Capitalist system cannot be changed. The dominion of hyper-commercial capitalism
was established thanks to our desire to permanently keep on improving our material
conditions, to keep on getting richer, a desire which capitalism satisfies the best. This has
led to the creation of a system of values that puts monetary success as its top. In many ways
it is a desirable evolution because "believing" in money alone does away with other
traditional and discriminatory hierarchical markers.
In order for capitalism to exist it needs to grow and to expand to ever new areas and new
products. But capitalism exists not outside of us, as a external system. It is individuals,
that is, us, who, in our daily lives, create capitalism and provide it with new fields of
action -- so much that we had transformed our homes into capital, and our free time into a
resource. This extraordinary commodification of almost all, including what used to be very
private, activities was made possible by our internalization of the system of values where
money acquisition is placed on the pinnacle. If this were not the case, we would not have
commodified practically all that can be (as of now) commodified.
Capitalism, in order to expand, needs greed. Greed has been entirely accepted by us. The
economic system and the system of values are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. Our
system of values enables hyper-commercialized capitalism to function and expand. It then
follows that no change in the economic system can be imagined without a change in the system
of values that underpins it, which the system promotes, and with which we are, in our
everyday activities, fully comfortable. But to produce such a change in values seems, at
present, to be an impossible task. It has been tried before and ended in the most ignominious
failure. We are thus locked in capitalism. And in our activities, day in, day out, we support
and reinforce it.
"Warren's rise shakes up Democratic field" [ The
Hill ]. "A new poll showing Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) leading former Vice President
Joe Biden in Iowa has shaken up the Democratic nomination battle -- and insiders across the
party are gaming out what it all means. Warren currently has 22 percent support to Biden's 20
percent, according to the well-respected Des Moines Register–CNN–Mediacom poll,
released Saturday night. The two are well clear of the rest of the field, with Sen. Bernie
Sanders (I-Vt.) in third place with 11 percent support . With more than four months to go, the
experts all agree that it's too early to make solid predictions. But the battle for Iowa is
heating up by the day."
Is there any reason to see what is going on as more than just Biden support bailing to "Plan
C", i.e., the next most establishment-friendly candidate who has any apparent chance of
winning? Sanders' support seems solid. Admittedly, I would much rather see Sanders slowly
eating away at the "pro-establishment" fraction of Dem voters, but there is nothing to suggest
that he is losing support.
The more I see of Warren, the less I like her- and I would not have voted for her to begin
with. I'm getting very tired of moderate Republicans being packaged and sold as
"progressives".
To her credit, Warren does have a theory of change:
After dinner, "Larry leaned back in his chair and offered me some advice," Ms. Warren
writes. "I had a choice. I could be an insider or I could be an outsider. Outsiders can say
whatever they want. But people on the inside don't listen to them. Insiders, however, get
lots of access and a chance to push their ideas. People -- powerful people -- listen to what
they have to say. But insiders also understand one unbreakable rule: They don't criticize
other insiders.
"• I'm not sure I agree. There are many, many, many of those "boutique lobbying or
consulting shops" -- "
And how is Trump's shakedown hotel any different from DNC dialing for dollars? Or would it
be better if he limited himself just renting out the Lincoln Bedroom like the Clintons did?
I want to reiterate the point that Yglesias seems incapable of recognizing* that a network
of small shops could create more damage than one guy, even a titan. Look at health care policy,
for example. It looks like Elizabeth Warren's daughter runs a body-shop for the kind of person
Yglesias regards as harmless. Thread:
Samuel Douglas Retweeted Samuel Douglas
I spent some time looking into Warren Tyagi's consulting firm (Business Talent Group), and I
learned some interesting things 1/
Elizabeth Warren's daughter co-founded HealthAllies, a venture capital-backed health
benefits firm which was later acquired by United Health Group, the second largest health
insurer in the U.S.
NOTE * Incapable of recognizing, because obviously professionals don't have class
interests.
Wow, thanks for this, Lambert. See my link to the story in a reply
above for yet another shady bit about Warren's daughter. I wouldn't normally find myself on
RedState, but searching 'WARren daughter WFP' in the googlygoo brought this up first and after
a read-through, seems pretty straight-up. It even includes reporting from Jordan Chariton in
the meat of the story.
It's time for Warren to drop out. She's way too compromised.
President Donald Trump delivered a
measured speech to the United Nations General Assembly this morning. Ever the showman who
usually likes to go off-script, Trump was almost painfully presidential – the UN, after
all, is not the forum for off-the-cuff remarks. The speech was wide-ranging, but the overriding
theme was the importance of national pride and sovereignty to every country. "The future,"
Trump told the assembly, "does not belong to globalists." In addition to providing an overview
of America's foreign policy challenges, the president berated China for its unfair trade
practices and its violation of obligations made to the people of Hong Kong. He called for the
empowerment of women and for the rights of the LGBT community to be protected.
Adversaries
Singled Out
Taking aim at the World Trade Organization (WTO) for admitting China , Trump pointed out
that 60,000 American factories have closed since China became a member-state.
"The World Trade Organization needs drastic change," the president said. "The
second-largest economy in the world should not be permitted to declare itself a developing
country in order to game the system at others' expense."
Trump also singled out the governments of Iran and Venezuela . Of the
former, the president made it clear that US sanctions would not be lifted while the Iranian
government continues its aggressive behavior. At the same time, the US leader expressed
sympathy and support for the Iranian people. Such a distinction is important.
Of Venezuela's dictator, Nicolas Maduro – whose role as that country's legitimate
leader is now in dispute – Trump said: "[He] is a Cuban puppet, protected by Cuban
bodyguards, hiding from his own people while Cuba plunders Venezuela's oil wealth to sustain
its own corrupt communist rule."
Expanding on the issue of the Venezuelan government's catastrophic political and economic
policies, Trump warned that "one of the most serious challenges our countries face is the
spectrum of socialism," which he described as "the wrecker of nations and destroyer of
societies."
The Injustice Of Illegal Mass Migration
The president also devoted part of his address to the issue of mass illegal immigration .
Acknowledging that this was not just an American problem but a global one, Trump told the
gathering that every country has the right to secure its own borders. He had a direct message,
though, for open-borders activists whom he accused of cloaking themselves "in the rhetoric of
social justice":
"Your policies are not just. Your policies are cruel and evil. You are empowering criminal
organizations that prey on innocent men, women, and children. You put your own false sense of
virtue before the lives, well-being in [sic] countless innocent people."
It is indeed ironic that the same people who champion the alleged right of people from
Central America to flow unchecked into the United States also feign concern for the economic
deprivation that exists in those countries from which these migrants are coming. Trump made the
counterpoint in succinct fashion:
"[T]hese nations cannot reach their potential if a generation of youth abandon their homes
in search of a life elsewhere."
A Jab At Domestic US Politics
In a continuation of the anti-globalist, sovereign-nations theme, Trump warned against
totalitarianism and the erosion of democracy and individual freedoms. "We must always be
skeptical of those who want conformity and control," he told the assembly. "Even in free
nations, we see alarming signs and new challenges to liberty."
In what seemed to be a thinly veiled reference to the efforts of Democrats and left-wing
activists in the US to reverse the result of the 2016 presidential election, the
Commander-in-Chief went on:
"A permanent political class is openly disdainful, dismissive, and defiant of the will of
the people."
He was not done. Though it would have been entirely inappropriate to openly call out his
political opponents, Trump dwelt on the topic while presenting it as a problem faced by all
free nations – which, in fact, it is:
"A faceless bureaucracy operates in secret and weakens democratic rule. Media and academic
institutions push flat-out assaults on our histories, traditions, and values a free society
must not allow social media giants to silence the voices of the people and a free people must
never, ever be enlisted in the cause of silencing, coercing, canceling, or blacklisting their
own neighbors."
Still on the subject of individual liberty, the president also warned the UN that Americans
would not be deprived of their Second Amendment rights: "There is no circumstance," he warned,
"under which the United States will allow international actors to trample on the rights of our
citizens, including the right to self-defense." To emphasize the point, the president reminded
the assembly that America would not ratify the UN Arms Trade Treaty.
To close his address, the president delivered to the gathered world leaders and ambassadors
a message of unity, peace, and recognition that, like the US, every country in the world
should, first and foremost, act in the interests of its own people. "Lift up your nations," he
told them, "cherish your culture, honor your histories, treasure your citizens, make your
country strong and prosperous and righteous. Honor the dignity of your people and nothing will
be outside of your reach."
Trump's speech was the same boilerplate BS he wheels out all of the time - Israel, Iran,
black and Mexican unemployment, pissing away Trillions on strengthening the military,
etc.
"... With the inaugural "Huawei AppGallery" emerging with the Mate 30, the company has now positioned itself on an investment trajectory to create a new "Huawei core" to compete with the world of Google-led Android systems outright. ..."
"... Beyond Apple and the iPhone, the Android operating system dominates in the global smartphone market. Describing it as an "operating system" is barely fitting; it might otherwise be described as "an ecosystem" with a wide range of Google orientated services within it. ..."
"... They include the popular browser Chrome, the YouTube video service, Google mail and, most critically, the "Google Playstore," which, owing to its popularity, attracts more developers and investors than any other unofficial App stores. This "ecosystem" creates a "web of comfort" which effectively entrenches the consumer in the Android orbit. ..."
"... p until May 2019, Huawei was a part of this orbit. Its subsequent estrangement from Android owing to the American government's decision has forced some difficult choices. It has made markets keen to observe how the Mate 30 will perform given its lack of Google applications and the need for users to obtain some apps through third-party stores. ..."
"... So, the question is: How are they now adapting and making that transition? Bengt Nordstrom of North Stream research in Sweden notes that "they have a strategy to become completely independent from U.S. technology. And in many areas, they have become independent." ..."
"... Huawei's announced bid to invest over 1 billion U.S. dollars in developing its own application "core" or ecosystem. This, in essence, is an effort to get developers to establish applications for the new "Huawei App store" and thus establish a self-reliant, independent path from the world of Android. ..."
"... To achieve this, the company has pledged a competitive revenue sharing scheme of 15 percent to developers, half of that what Apple and Google demand for participation in their own app-stores. ..."
September 21, 2019
Huawei's pivotal moment
By Tom Fowdy
Huawei launched its Mate 30 series on Friday, the first new device produced by the
Shenzhen telecommunications firm since it has been blacklisted by the United States
government and excluded from American technology markets.
The subsequent result of the listing had led Google to sever ties with the company and
prohibit new devices from using its Play Store services and operating system, something which
ultimately impacts the Mate 30 Series, which is using an open-source version of Android.
The impact of it all has led Western commentators to ask questions about Huawei's future
in Western smartphone markets, particularly what applications can it access.
However, not all is bleak, and what may start off as a hindrance for the company is set to
transform into an opportunity. The United States' assault on the company has forced Huawei to
innovate.
With the inaugural "Huawei AppGallery" emerging with the Mate 30, the company has now
positioned itself on an investment trajectory to create a new "Huawei core" to compete with
the world of Google-led Android systems outright.
In this case, what seems like a detriment is part of a broader pivotal moment for Huawei.
The company's portfolio is about to change forever.
Beyond Apple and the iPhone, the Android operating system dominates in the global
smartphone market. Describing it as an "operating system" is barely fitting; it might
otherwise be described as "an ecosystem" with a wide range of Google orientated services
within it.
They include the popular browser Chrome, the YouTube video service, Google mail and,
most critically, the "Google Playstore," which, owing to its popularity, attracts more
developers and investors than any other unofficial App stores. This "ecosystem" creates a
"web of comfort" which effectively entrenches the consumer in the Android orbit.
U p until May 2019, Huawei was a part of this orbit. Its subsequent estrangement from
Android owing to the American government's decision has forced some difficult choices. It has
made markets keen to observe how the Mate 30 will perform given its lack of Google
applications and the need for users to obtain some apps through third-party stores.
So, the question is: How are they now adapting and making that transition? Bengt
Nordstrom of North Stream research in Sweden notes that "they have a strategy to become
completely independent from U.S. technology. And in many areas, they have become
independent."
First of all, we are well aware that Huawei is developing its own Harmony Operating System
as a contingency measure, although it has not chosen to apply it to the Mate 30 as an olive
branch to Google.
Second, and most excitingly is Huawei's announced bid to invest over 1 billion U.S.
dollars in developing its own application "core" or ecosystem. This, in essence, is an effort
to get developers to establish applications for the new "Huawei App store" and thus establish
a self-reliant, independent path from the world of Android.
To achieve this, the company has pledged a competitive revenue sharing scheme of 15
percent to developers, half of that what Apple and Google demand for participation in their
own app-stores.
This effort is combined with a wider scope in research and development from the company,
which is also designed to forfeit dependence upon American technology chains in terms of
critical components and other parts.
We have already seen massive investment pledges from Huawei to build new research and
development centers in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Brazil. They are not empty
promises, but a serious and strategic effort.
In this case, what was intended to be a political effort to destroy and contain Huawei is
likely to prove a pivotal turning point in the company's history with huge repercussions for
global smartphone and technology markets.
Instead of having once been reliant on and thus beneficial to American technology markets,
the outcome is that Huawei will re-emerge independent of and competing against it.
Armed with a pending new operating system, a new application development drive and a
broader research effort, what seemed otherwise a detriment is likely to bring a massive
opportunity. Thus, it is very important to examine the long-term prospects for the company's
fortunes ahead of short-term challenges.
FOX NEWS HOST Tucker Carlson was saying nice things about Elizabeth Warren again.
Well, not entirely nice things.
Speaking at a conference of conservative journalists and intellectuals this summer (*), he
took a moment to label the liberal Massachusetts senator and top contender for the Democratic
presidential nomination a "joke" and a "living tragedy."
But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income
Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in
2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched
Carlson's show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize
influence, has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of
what most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking
up so much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in
his shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise
to power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst
that fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the
Reagan era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley
of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But
it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism."
"We are national conservatives," he said.
Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into
questions about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do
just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which
migrants are allowed into the country.
"In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites."
But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant.
Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ...
"Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
"... "The Kirin 990 is not only an SoC and a 5G modem glued together. We put a lot of effort in integrating the two chips. So the new chip uses less power and generates less heat while getting the job done," said Huawei fellow Ai Wei before the launch event. ..."
"... The whole Kirin 990 5G chip is so dense that it contains 10.3 billion semiconductors, the first and largest of its kind. ..."
"... Another example is AI-based video quality improvements, which takes in a low quality video and render a better one. Objects in the rendered video have much sharper edges. Huawei technicians refused to explain how they made it, but the underlying tech seems to be object recognition, content-based pixel generation and noise reduction, since these are the tricks AI does well. ..."
"... Huawei's P30 Pro smartphone, together with the Kirin 980 chip, has taken "smartphone zoom to the next level," according to third-party review site DxOMark. The phone was on top of all smartphones when it comes to photography in DxOMark's ranking. The Kirin 990 is packed with more graphic features to continue Huawei's dominance. ..."
Smartest and fastest: Huawei reveals new smartphone chip Kirin 990 5G
By Gong Zhe
Chinese smartphone giant Huawei, which has been under heavy attack from the U.S.
government during the last few months, just revealed its next-generation smartphone
system-on-a-chip (SoC) product "Kirin 990 5G," signaling the company's business is not
stalled by foreign strangling.
The launch event was held simultaneously at IFA electronic show in Berlin, Germany, and in
Beijing on Friday.
In his keynote speech, Huawei's head of gadgets Richard Yu told the press that the chip is
more advanced than other flagship smartphone SoCs, because it has a built-in 5G modem.
Current rivals of the chip, like Qualcomm's Snapdragon 855, have no 5G modem and have to
rely on an extra chip to support 5G.
"The Kirin 990 is not only an SoC and a 5G modem glued together. We put a lot of
effort in integrating the two chips. So the new chip uses less power and generates less heat
while getting the job done," said Huawei fellow Ai Wei before the launch event.
The whole Kirin 990 5G chip is so dense that it contains 10.3 billion semiconductors,
the first and largest of its kind.
Flexible AI power
The chip also features three AI cores, two larger than the other smaller. This design,
first in smartphones, saves battery power by only using the small core to process simple AI
tasks, while resorting to the larger cores for more complex jobs.
The company named the cores "Ascend Lite" and "Ascend Tiny" to relate the cores to
Huawei's new, self-proclaimed "fastest AI training chip in the world," the Ascend 910.
Huawei built a showcase at the Beijing launch event to demonstrate the chip's AI power.
They showed a FaceID-like face recognition feature in a Kirin 990-powered developer board
that can work when the person is four meters away from the phone, times further than Apple's
current product.
Another example is AI-based video quality improvements, which takes in a low quality
video and render a better one. Objects in the rendered video have much sharper edges. Huawei
technicians refused to explain how they made it, but the underlying tech seems to be object
recognition, content-based pixel generation and noise reduction, since these are the tricks
AI does well.
Even better photos
Huawei's P30 Pro smartphone, together with the Kirin 980 chip, has taken "smartphone
zoom to the next level," according to third-party review site DxOMark. The phone was on top
of all smartphones when it comes to photography in DxOMark's ranking. The Kirin 990 is packed
with more graphic features to continue Huawei's dominance.
A Kirin 990-powered smartphone can shoot 4K videos (3840 x 2160 pixels) at 60 frames per
second, on par with market flagship phones.
The chip can also run DSLR-level noise-reduction algorithm – namely "Block Match 3D"
– to bring professional tech to consumer devices.
"Porting an algorithm from DSLR to smartphone may be easy. But getting the program to run
fast enough can be hard for any phone maker," Ai told CGTN Digital.
Non-U.S. tech
The design of Kirin 990 is still based on technology Huawei bought from British tech
company ARM, used by several mainstream brands.
After the U.S. began imposing restrictions on Huawei, ARM cut ties with the Chinese phone
maker. Despite this, Huawei has been able to use and modify AMRv8 technology thanks to its
permanent ARM license. Hence why chips like Kirin 990 can still be legally built and
sold.
In addition to ARM, there are other major smartphone tech companies cutting ties with
Huawei, forcing the Chinese company to create its own alternatives. After Google announced to
bar Huawei phones from installing their apps, Huawei started porting its IoT system "Harmony"
to smartphones.
But Huawei still wishes to use technologies from all over the world. As Ai Wei explained
at the launch event, "Huawei will not deliberately remove all U.S. tech from its smartphones.
But when the supply from U.S. was cut, Huawei has to find a way to survive."
"That's why Huawei chose to create its own technology," Ai added....
The point in article after article is that China is emphasizing technical advance in building
the economy from rural to urban applications and the emphasis will not be lessened. The rural
applications I am reading about are especially exciting.
I appreciate the interview, but Clayton Dube as director of the University of Southern
California's U.S.-China Institute knows remarkably little about China or American relations
with China. Possibly Dube is being especially cautious, but still:
"The air in Los Angeles," the academic explains by way of an example, "is influenced by
the air coming out of northern China. But of course, that bad air in China is produced by
factories often producing for the American market. And so we have not only outsourced
production, we've outsourced pollution."
This is absurdly wrong. China has been working on cleaning the environment for years now
and the effects as monitored have been dramatic.
The idea that China thinks of 1849 to 1949 as a colonial period that took them 100 years to
get free from, for instance, immediately helps me understand some of where they are coming
from.
The idea that China thinks of 1849 to 1949 as a colonial period that took them 100 years to
get free from, for instance, immediately helps me understand some of where they are coming
from.
[ Surely so, this very day is "International Day of Peace in Nanjing" in memory of the
victims of the terrible Japanese occupation:
Four Years After Declaring War on Pollution, China Is Winning
Research gives estimates on the longer lives that are now possible in the country.
By Michael Greenstone
On March 4, 2014, the Chinese premier, Li Keqiang, told almost 3,000 delegates at the
National People's Congress and many more watching live on state television, "We will
resolutely declare war against pollution as we declared war against poverty."
China has had the benefit of skipping over other advanced nation's Legacy infrastructure.
Leapfrogging ahead in some areas of development is smart and saves money for China as
well, but that doesn't make China superior to other advanced nations.
The U.S. Has a Fleet of 300 Electric Buses. China Has 421,000
The rest of the world will struggle for years to match China's rapid embrace of electric
transit.
By Brian Eckhouse - Bloomberg
Fearing 'Spy Trains,' Congress May Ban a Chinese Maker of Subway Cars
By Ana Swanson
CHICAGO -- America's next fight with China is unfolding at a glistening new factory in
Chicago, which stands empty except for the shells of two subway cars and space for future
business that is unlikely to come.
A Chinese state-owned company called CRRC Corporation, the world's largest train maker,
completed the $100 million facility this year in the hopes of winning contracts to build
subway cars and other passenger trains for American cities like Chicago and Washington.
But growing fears about China's economic ambitions and its potential to track and spy on
Americans are about to quash those plans. Congress is soon expected to approve legislation
that would effectively bar the company from competing for new contracts in the United States,
citing national security and economic concerns. The White House has expressed its support for
the effort....
Terrific discussion on how the West perceives China...
[ Actually a discussion that shows a remarkable misperception of China even by an American
China academic-specialist. As such the discussion is important though discouraging. ]
"... I always thought globalization was about the opportunity for a handful of businesses and corporations to control major industries around the world. ..."
"... There is an anti-China hawks faction based in the Republican party that has made its present felt. People like Robert Lighthizer, Peter Navarro and Steve Bannon. I have seen this sentiment spill over into Australian politics but they have not reached the stage where they are asking: "Are you now, or have you ever been, born Chinese?". ..."
"... We have also seen hawk factions against Russia, Iran and not long ago Venezuela. The ones for Russia and Iran have been long going but the ones against China and Venezuela were sudden and new. It may be that tomorrow that Trump will do the same against Cuba and threaten any country that does trade with them. Who knows what other country may fall within his sights? ..."
"... it seems business people in the government are being pushed aside by hawkish factions who do not care what effect it has on the economy or the country. Great! ..."
"... Those are the same "hawks" that are busy destroying the rest of America as well. ..."
"... As it is now, China literally has the US by the jewels, and if a serious conflict ever arose, could squeeze them hard. Just their dominance in manufacturing a large percentage of the pharmaceuticals consumed by US patients alone creates a serious vulnerability. ..."
"... Situating the manufacturing in countries that are part of the Chinese sphere of influence won't help much in a conflict. China would probably be able to sweep through much of Southeast Asia quickly or interdict shipments if there was war. ..."
"... the world wide presence/threat of the USA military and diplomatic corps allows globalization to be less risky for USA businesses, so, in effect, the patriotic "spreading of democracy" around the world via military actions is a factor in USA job loss. This is yet another cost of the bloated military to the general USA population. ..."
"... Trump, as usual, got his strings pulled by the Deep State when he went for actual implementation of a campaign promise. The DS doesn't care about working Americans, they are simply against China. ..."
"... as Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, writes: "United States industry is losing ground to foreign competitors on price, quality and technology. In many areas, our manufacturing capacity cannot compete with what exists in Asia." ..."
"... Back in the early 80s I saw a massive warehouse full of machine tools, Bridgeport mills, and such lined up, it seemed forever, the guy there said they were going to China. I asked my Dad about it, and he told me we were selling them to the Chinese for the price of scrap. The whole thing is mindless and pathetic, but the really maddening thing is the slippery way our 'leaders' can keep dodging the blame by simply pointing a finger in whatever direction, and everybody's eyes move in unison. ..."
"... The argument/discussion is not about how and where to outsource our jobs, it's about how stupid it was to do it in the first place ..."
"... Also the Chinese internal market continues to attract MNC's and this attraction will continue to grow far into the future. China's middle class is already larger than the total population of the US and it continues to grow rapidly. While down presently the Chinese internal consumption continues to grow at an annual rate of some 8.5%. ..."
"... Trump's approach to trade is isolating the US, blocking its Co's from the Chinese market, and incentivizing the Chinese to offer better conditions to Co's of the rest of the world. How can that help the US ? ..."
"... The relentless neoliberal race to the bottom, outsourcing, and austerity that marked the death blow to American Labor is over. In that light it makes little difference whether our corporations pull out of China, go to Vietnam, or come home. The exploitation of the poorest is coming to an end. And none too soon. ..."
"... I hope some candidates discuss the imperative to have the US start making it's own medications again. ..."
"... I could not believe the government has allowed the entire supply chain of building blocks of ALL our antibiotics to be sourced almost solely from China. To me THAT'S the national security issue we need to deal with immediately. As well as other vital drugs.. ..."
"... Chinese manufacturers have the wealth and experience to teach production line workers and make things anywhere. Western companies manufacturing in China have belatedly looked for facilities in neighboring countries and found the Chinese are already there. ..."
"... Trump doesn't give a damn about getting manufacturing jobs back into the United States! (Or at least his advisors don't). ..."
"... Low housing costs, lead to lower wages so UK employers were able to compete in a free trade world. William White (BIS, OECD) talks about how economics really changed over one hundred years ago as classical economics was replaced by neoclassical economics. ..."
"... He thinks we have been on the wrong path for one hundred years. Free trade requires a low cost of living and what was known in the 19th century had disappeared by the 20th. The West's high cost of living means high wages and an inability to compete in a free trade world. ..."
By Marshall Auerback, a
market analyst and commentator. Produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media
Institute
"Chimerica" is a term originally coined by the historian Niall Ferguson and economist Moritz
Schularick to describe the growing economic relationship between the U.S. and China since the
latter's entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001. In the words of Ferguson : "The Chinese did the saving, the
Americans the spending. The Chinese did the exporting, the Americans the importing. The Chinese
did the lending, the Americans the borrowing." Much of the pre-crisis boom in global trade was
driven by this economic symbiosis, which is why successive American presidents tolerated this
marriage of convenience
despite the increasing costs to the U.S. economy . The net benefits calculation, however,
began to change after 2008, and the conflict has intensified further after the 2016
presidential election result. Today, the cumulative stress of Donald Trump's escalating trade
war is leading to if not an irreparable breach between the two countries, then certainly a
significant fraying. The imminent resumption of trade talks notwithstanding, the rising cost of
the tariffs is already inducing some U.S. manufacturers to exit China. But in most instances,
they are not returning to home shores.
It may have taken Trump to point out the pitfalls of the Chimerica link, but coming up with
a coherent strategy to replace it is clearly beyond the president's abilities. America is
likely to remain a relative manufacturing wasteland, as barren as Trump's own ill-conceived
ideas on trade. At the same time, it's not going to be an unmitigated victory for China either,
as Beijing is increasingly suffering from a large confluence of internal and external
pressures.
Chimerica helped to launch China as a global trade power. To the extent that this marriage
helped the U.S. economy, it skewed toward the largely blue state coastal regions. Wall Street
banks located on the East Coast happily collected lucrative commissions and investment banking
fees, as China's export proceeds were recycled into U.S. treasuries, stocks, and high-end real
estate while the capital markets boomed; on the West Coast, "new economy" companies thrived,
their growth and profitability unhindered by the onslaught of Chinese manufactured exports. By
contrast, facilitated by technological advances that permitted large-scale outsourcing by U.S.
manufacturers, Chimerica laid waste to much of what was left of America's Rust Belt, and the
politics of many of the displaced workers mutated to the extent that Donald Trump became an
appealing alternative to the establishment in 2016.
The major legacy of Chimerica, then, is that too many American workers have been
semi-permanently replaced by low-cost offshored labor. Prior to great advances in technology,
along with globalization, displacement of the current labor force could only have occurred
through immigration of workers into the country. Historically, displacement by immigrants
generally began at the menial level of the labor force, and became more restrictive as when it
became correlated with significant unemployment. Given the rise of globalization and the
corresponding liberalization of immigration in the past few decades, however, policy no longer
arrests the displacement of American workers. The policy backlash has consequently manifested
itself more via trade protectionism. Trump has sought to consolidate his Rust Belt base of
supporters by launching a trade war, especially versus Beijing, the ultimate effects of which
he hoped would be to re-domicile supply chains that had earlier migrated to China.
Early on in his presidency, there was some hope that Trump's protectionism was at best a
bluff or, at worst, an aberration, and that the return of a Democrat to the White House in 2020
would eventually reestablish the status quo ante. But the president still can't get a wall, and
his protectionism has become more pronounced almost as if to compensate. The problem today is
that even if Trump is voted out of office in 2020, corporate America is becoming less inclined
to wait out the end of his presidency to return to the pre-Trump status quo of parking the bulk
of their manufacturing in China. There is too much risk in putting all of one's eggs in the
China basket, especially given
growing national security concerns . Hence, U.S. companies are taking action. In spite of
decades of investment in these China-domiciled supply chains, a number of American companies
are pulling out:
toy manufacturer Hasbro , Illinois-based
phone accessories manufacturer Xentris Wireless, and lifestyle clothing company PacSun are
a few of the operators who are exiting the country.
But they are not coming back to the U.S., relocating instead to places like Vietnam,
Bangladesh, Mexico, the Philippines and Taiwan. The chief financial officer of Xentris, Ben
Buttolph, says
that the company will never return to China: "We are trying to have multiple locations
certified for all of our products, so that if all of a sudden there's an issue with one of the
locations, we just flip the switch." Likewise, the CEO of Hasbro, Brian Goldner,
recently spoke of "great opportunities in Vietnam, India and other territories like
Mexico."
All is not lost for the U.S., however, as Goldner did celebrate the success of Hasbro's
facility in East Longmeadow, Massachusetts, which has resumed
production of Play-Doh in the U.S. for the first time since 2004 . It is doubtful, however,
that this represents the recapturing of the high value-added supply chains that Trump envisaged
when he first launched his trade assault on Beijing.
In general, as Julius Krein,
editor of American Affairs , writes: "United States industry is losing ground to foreign
competitors on price, quality and technology. In many areas, our manufacturing capacity cannot
compete with what exists in Asia."
These are not isolated examples.
Defense One also notes the following development:
It came without a breaking news alert or presidential tweet, but the technological
competition with China entered a new phase last month. Several developments quietly heralded
this shift: Cross-border investments between the United States and China plunged to their
lowest levels since 2014, with the tech sector suffering the most precipitous drop. U.S. chip
giants Intel and AMD abruptly ended or declined to extend important partnerships with Chinese
entities. The Department of Commerce halved the number of licenses that let U.S. companies
assign Chinese nationals to sensitive technology and engineering projects.
This development consequently makes it hard to proclaim Beijing a winner in this dispute
either. The country still needs access to U.S. high tech. The government announced yet
another fiscal stimulus to the economy earlier this month in response to a cluster of
weakening economic data, much of which is related to the trade shock. It is also the case that
China is being buffeted politically, both externally and internally: externally, in addition to
the escalating trade war, China's own efforts to counter the effects of rising protectionism by
creating a " reverse
Marshall Plan " via the Belt and Road Initiative is
floundering .
China's "iron brother," Pakistan, is increasingly being victimized by India's aggressive
Hindu-centric nationalism . It is hard to imagine the Modi government opportunistically
taking the step of annexing Kashmir and undermining Pakistan, had it not sensed Beijing's
increasing vulnerability.
Internally, Beijing is finding it increasingly challenging as it seeks to enforce its "One
China" policy in Hong Kong and Taiwan. The
withdrawal of the controversial extradition law that first precipitated widespread
demonstrations in Hong Kong has not alleviated the political pressures in the territory, but
simply allowed an even bigger protest culture to take root and strengthen an independent
political mindset. Similarly, Taiwan has also openly supported the Hong Kong protesters,
pledging help to those seeking asylum . Both regions now constitute both a huge humiliation
and challenge to the primacy of China's ruling Communist Party. And now on top of that, foreign
manufacturers are leaving the country, weakening a totally leveraged manufacturing complex.
The implications of this divorce go well beyond the U.S. and China. They constitute another
step toward regionalization, another step away from a quaint ideological "post-history"
construct that saw Washington, D.C., as the head office and the rest of the world as a bunch of
branch plants for "America, Inc." It's hardly comforting to contemplate that the last time we
reached this historic juncture was the early 1900s, when a similarly globalized economy broke
down, followed by the Great War. As Niall Ferguson points out , "a high level of economic integration does not
necessarily prevent the growth of strategic rivalry and, ultimately, conflict." There's no
doubt that both Washington and Beijing will likely making soothing noises to the markets in
order to create favorable conditions for the trade talks in October, but their actions suggest
that they are both digging in
for a longer struggle . Today's trade wars, therefore, are likely to morph into something
more destructive, which is a lose-lose in an era where human advancement depends on greater
integration between economic powers.
There may be another aspect to this development and that is of geopolitics. You can see
that in Marshall's article when the CFO of Xentris said: "We are trying to have multiple
locations certified for all of our products, so that if all of a sudden there's an issue with
one of the locations, we just flip the switch." There is an anti-China hawks faction based in
the Republican party that has made its present felt. People like Robert Lighthizer, Peter
Navarro and Steve Bannon. I have seen this sentiment spill over into Australian politics but
they have not reached the stage where they are asking: "Are you now, or have you ever been,
born Chinese?".
So we have seen a long string of sanctions and tariffs at play so that China will change its
laws and institutions to suit American interests. Yeah, I can't see that happening anytime
soon but hey, America First, Baby. We have also seen hawk factions against Russia, Iran and
not long ago Venezuela. The ones for Russia and Iran have been long going but the ones
against China and Venezuela were sudden and new. It may be that tomorrow that Trump will do
the same against Cuba and threaten any country that does trade with them. Who knows what
other country may fall within his sights?
That being the case if you were running an international country, you can no longer just have
your manufacturing base or service operations just in one country. If Xentris is an example,
US companies may have to split manufacturing into several countries in case one fine day that
Trump will sanction yet another country that your company depends on.
I would imagine that it
would not be so efficient but it seems business people in the government are being pushed
aside by hawkish factions who do not care what effect it has on the economy or the country.
Great!
Those are the same "hawks" that are busy destroying the rest of America as well. Another
four years of this will, effectively, dismantle what democracy is left. The world trade won't
be the big issue. The departure of millions of Americans will.
If that happens, be sure to thank the Catfood Democrats for it. Because they are the
people who will do their very best and hardest to throw the next election to Trump, one way
or another.
It seems like diversification of supply chains can only be a good thing. As it is now,
China literally has the US by the jewels, and if a serious conflict ever arose, could squeeze
them hard. Just their dominance in manufacturing a large percentage of the pharmaceuticals
consumed by US patients alone creates a serious vulnerability.
I really don't think it matters if manufacturing jobs are repatriated to the US, or just
set up and spread around elsewhere for now – since they'll be obsolete jobs in the near
future anyway, as robotics and AI get increasingly efficient at doing the work that human
workers currently do.
Situating the manufacturing in countries that are part of the Chinese sphere of influence
won't help much in a conflict. China would probably be able to sweep through much of
Southeast Asia quickly or interdict shipments if there was war.
So the status quo was preferable? The tone of the article seems to suggest that America should accept it place as a
third-world manufacturer, as if these Asian nations have some magical sauce that can't be
replicated. Gawd.
The US does have a lot of magic. Like one third of FDI related to tax evasion. Pulling Mac
Book manufacturing out of Austin for the lack of one 'screw', etc. So is the premise of going after China on trade and IP policies good. I would agree. Maybe
not in strategy, but at least someone has opened the box.
I agree with your comment, the article suggests the status quo was preferable. Of note, Trump has shown his supporters that something CAN be done other than follow the
"resistance is futile" path of the Bill Clinton/Bush Jr./Obama administrations.
I also suggest that the world wide presence/threat of the USA military and diplomatic
corps allows globalization to be less risky for USA businesses, so, in effect, the patriotic
"spreading of democracy" around the world via military actions is a factor in USA job
loss. This is yet another cost of the bloated military to the general USA population.
I worked in the electronics industry for 30+ years and watched high margin manufacturing
move to Asia. Now the lower level component manufacturers (PCBs, passives) are firmly established in
Asia as the USA companies have helped train worthy competitors overseas. It took 25+ years to move much of USA manufacturing overseas, indicating to me that it
will take a long time to bring it back significantly, well outside the Trump time frame.
But I suspect Trump voters will appreciate Trump's headline efforts. If the Democrats push for more Free Trade as good for the USA, it will hurt them at the
ballot box.
The second time as farce. How tragicomic that Trump has succeeded in little more than
repatriating the manufacture of Play-Doh. On the other hand, the shipping cost of unbaked brick seems a rational factor in Hasbro's
decision. A GND that shortens supply lines would be more effective in repatriating heavy
industry, but then printed circuit boards aren't all that heavy .
The thing is Trump, as usual, got his strings pulled by the Deep State when he went for
actual implementation of a campaign promise. The DS doesn't care about working Americans,
they are simply against China.
So he goes and puts tariffs on a country, not a product. And surprise, said product
doesn't come back on-shore. Comical (and yeah, cosmically a bit just) that Vietnam is getting
so much of that manufacturing. Wasn't what he was elected for.
In general, as Julius Krein, editor of American Affairs, writes: "United States industry
is losing ground to foreign competitors on price, quality and technology. In many areas, our
manufacturing capacity cannot compete with what exists in Asia."
As a engineer up to my elbows in manufacturing for forty years, this was awfully easy to
predict way back then (I gave up complaining about it about 2000), and then watch happen
– real time. And to once again state the obvious, China did not TAKE American jobs,
American CEOs GAVE them our jobs. We will not fix this problem until we identify and fix the
root cause.
Now the only way to fix it is (once again obviously) massive government investment such as
mandated by the GND. We need the GND, it is not only required to save the world, it will save
our country.
Agree, it was predictable, and it was predicted. What we've been talking about is the "Giant sucking sound" Ross Perot foretold would
happen prior to the passing of NAFTA. It wasn't hard back then to see that he was right, but it took a few decades for the
public to feel the impact, boiling frogs and all that.
Back in the early 80s I saw a massive warehouse full of machine tools, Bridgeport mills,
and such lined up, it seemed forever, the guy there said they were going to China. I asked my Dad about it, and he told me we were selling them to the Chinese for the price
of scrap. The whole thing is mindless and pathetic, but the really maddening thing is the slippery
way our 'leaders' can keep dodging the blame by simply pointing a finger in whatever
direction, and everybody's eyes move in unison.
NAFTA and China are two completely separate things. I have actually supported NAFTA in
principle because we should encourage trade to be focused on our immediate neighbors. A
wealthier and safer Mexico and Central America would create markets for us and virtually
eliminate illegal immigrants as the southern border.
China is on the other side of the world and is not part of NAFTA. While we should have
cordial relations with it, if we are looking for inexpensive labor, south of the border is
the better place to focus on that. So Trump's tariffs on China are not the wrong thing to do
per se. The problem is that they are being done in a vacuum of general trade policy where he
is looking at everything as transaction bilateral relations with every country on the planet,
which requires an immense amount of detailed thought and negotiation, neither of which appear
to be a focus of this administration.
The countries that the companies are talking about moving their operations to are
generally part of the new TPP which the US is not part of. So, we have removed ourselves from
having trade relations with countries US CEOs are setting up operations in, but those
countries are now starting to work together to counter both China (original TPP purpose) and
the US (now that the US has bailed on it). Sounds like a recipe for a replay of China's giant
sucking sound.
The argument/discussion is not about how and where to outsource our jobs, it's about how
stupid it was to do it in the first place. Anyone smart enough to breath knows that Mexico is next door, and China is on the other
side of the world, but they are both part of the same giant sucking sound. The fact that you support both NAFTA ,think it was unwise to back out of the TPP, and
think the issue is the present administration's lack of " detailed thought and negotiation
" indicate a truly unbelievable level of denial.
NAFTA and MFN for China were two different actions towards the same goal . . . the use of
Free Trade to dismantle thingmaking in America and re-mantle thingmaking in foreign
export-aggression platforms to use against America.
Free Trade is the new Slavery. Militant Belligerent Protectionism is the new
Abolition.
I remember when a Midwest Democrat (Stabenow?) tried to get a law passed that would
prohibit a US corporation from deducting, from their federal taxes, the cost of moving
factories overseas. A very minor disincentive, but a disincentive nonetheless. The Repubs beat it down as "anti-business". Concern about American workers is something to express in political speeches around
election time but not in legislation.
Hidden within this narrative is the fact that some countries, and not only China, have for
long been playing beggar-thy-neighbor policies by restraining internal consumption and
redirecting savings to the rest of the world that in turn finance their exporting machines.
IMO, the biggest mistake made by China has been not to force fast enough a transition from a
saving economy to a consumer economy with more balanced external relationships.
These kind of
policies are confrontational. As confrontational as tariffs or even as economic sanctions in
my view. Yet, the prevailing economic narrative is that saving and exporting is the right
economic thing to do. In this sense I think it matters a lot to which countries are being re
directed investments of american companies leaving China. My intuition is that, for instance,
Vietnam migth be willing to play this game while Mexico not. Investing in countries that save
too much migth be counterproductive.
I very much regret this aggressive narrative that has become common place in which
countries are identified simply as competitors, if not enemies, in a global chess game.
Political moves are confrontational and or humiliating. These Game of Thrones dynamics are
played precisely when some international consensus in more important things like figthing
climate change would be more than desirable. We are headed to truly bad times.
Here is
an article by Steve Dickinson from the layers office Harris Bricken McVay Sliwoski that
is based on his Co's China practice. Steve's conclusion goes as follows:
The Chinese system put in place from 1992 to 2005 was a unique system and not likely to
be replaced in S.E./South Asia or in any other region of the world. So for manufacturers,
moving to a new region means doing the analysis from the ground up. Simply taking what they
do in China and moving it to a new location is not likely to be a workable solution.
Also the Chinese internal market continues to attract MNC's and this attraction will
continue to grow far into the future. China's middle class is already larger than the total
population of the US and it continues to grow rapidly. While down presently the Chinese
internal consumption continues to grow at an annual rate of some 8.5%.
Personal savings deposited in bank accounts reach the equivalent of some $US 30 Trillion !
Compare that to consumer debt at some $US 6.5 Trillion. In other words China is growing into
the largest consumer market on earth and the biggest advantage that its internal market
procures is its 'economies of scale' that make Chinese productions hyper-competitive. In
other words China is gaining the kind of advantage that the US had along the 20th century.
The advantage of a super large market size that dwarfs other national markets.
Trump's approach to trade is isolating the US, blocking its Co's from the Chinese market,
and incentivizing the Chinese to offer better conditions to Co's of the rest of the world.
How can that help the US ?
The biggest problem of the West and particularly the US is its ideological approach to
economics. The Chinese adopted a pragmatic approach and it has served them well. Time to
relearn the meaning of political economics (économie politique).
I read Dickinson's PR piece linked by laodan. I used to work for a big law firm that had
an international practice group focusing on moving US businesses to China ( I was not
involved in that practice area, did environmental law and litigation.) The firm's PR
department tasked lawyers with certain expertise to generate these kinds of come-ons as part
of the compensation weighting scheme -- publish, and bring in business, or lose out in the
annual "whining for dollars" partnership division of spoils. Eat what you kill.
Dickinson is talking his book, of course. I have no idea if his read of the history and
the current state of affairs in China and the "Asian Tigers" (does anyone use that term any
more?) is accurate and complete, but what he describes is his firm's readiness to help
supranational (emphasize SUPRAnational) and post-national corporate entities get a leg up in
the race to the bottom. He'll help you find the places where the ruling class will give away
the biggest share of the "national birthright" so the corporate entity can maximize profit by
streamlining production and consumption, and of course growth. All the stuff that is killing
the planet. But his time frame, his personal time frame, presumably, as well as the framing
of the corporate shark entities which he is a remora to, cares nothing for the bigger
economic and ecological effects of more stuff, more shipping, more energy use, and of course
more combustion and consumption.
And I'd note that he carefully omits all the baksheesh and greasing of palms that i read
is such an important part of "doing business" at any kind of scale, to varying degrees
everywhere in the world. I wonder if his custom analyses of the relative merits of, say,
Vietnam vs. China vs. Cambodia vs. Taiwan includes sketching out the bribes that have to be
paid to close on the sale of national birthrights on the way to the bottom that the globalist
business model drives everything toward?
I'm sure he would be happy to have the ear and hourly billings of all the great decision
makers of all the various kinds of businesses, high to low tech, wanting to take full
advantage of the "opportunities" that may be on offer, on how to ride the asymptotically
downward curve of the race to the bottom, for fun and profit
Looks like China has had a pretty effective industrial policy, unlike the US where
corporate vampire capital dominion and corruption have bled the mopery white (not a racial
reference, of course ) Do economists and policy wonks in the US even dare to use the phrase
"industrial policy" any more? Or is it just presumed that "shareholder value" trumps all
else? Especially as the author puts it, again quoting Ferguson, where we are "in an era where
human advancement depends on greater integration between economic powers."
The relentless neoliberal race to the bottom, outsourcing, and austerity that marked the
death blow to American Labor is over. In that light it makes little difference whether our
corporations pull out of China, go to Vietnam, or come home. The exploitation of the poorest
is coming to an end. And none too soon.
For national security reasons at minimum, I hope some candidates discuss the imperative to
have the US start making it's own medications again.
Makes more sense to subsidize our production of medication than to give billions in subsidies
to very profitable oil companies.
I agree. I could not believe the government has allowed the entire supply chain of
building blocks of ALL our antibiotics to be sourced almost solely from China. To me THAT'S
the national security issue we need to deal with immediately. As well as other vital
drugs..
Anecdotally, I have started making this my number one political conversation issue –
replete with references ( because of course not a soul believes it at first).. I have yet to
find a single person Repub or Demo who isn't horrified and against it .
Any nation with this much power over our drug supply they could kill millions of us in short
order
Even getting manufacturing out of China will not bankrupt that country as intended. If USA
is intent on pursuing a nationalistic basis to sanctions, I think its bound to fail. Trade
always finds a way as we can well remember from our own commercial / industrial
development.
Chinese manufacturers have the wealth and experience to teach production line workers and
make things anywhere. Western companies manufacturing in China have belatedly looked for
facilities in neighboring countries and found the Chinese are already there. What's still
available is land far from roads and rivers with little power supply.
Another thing is preserving wealth. US Industrialists will keep their money offshore and
remit only as much as they need in the homeland. A major problem imo is a mental restraint in USA thinking. Life is all about competition
and winning. The actual activity, whatever it is, provides no joy unless you win. That
fearful tag "No-one remembers who came second" is banded about. Thats not a philosophy for
happiness. It forces the population into displacement activities few of which are wholesome.
Here endeth the lesson.
It's not a bug, it's a feature! Trump doesn't give a damn about getting manufacturing jobs back into the United States!
(Or at least his advisors don't).
The trick is to move them out of nationalistic China, which is setting itself up as a
competitor for power, and move the jobs into nice docile low-wage colonies, like Mexico and
Indonesia and Bangladesh.
The only catch: China has all the integrated supply lines and is stable. Moving your
manufacturing into a dozen different uncoordinated unstable third-world banana republics has
its own down side.
The UK repealed the Corn Laws to embark on free trade. This reduced the price of bread, and lowered the cost of living, so UK employers could pay
internationally competitive wages. Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
Employees get their money from wages and the employer pays through wages, so the employer
is paying for that bread through wages. Expensive bread leads to higher wages making UK employers unable to compete in a free
trade world. "The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other class
in the community" Ricardo 1815 / Classical Economist
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living) Employees get their money from wages and the employer pays via wages. Employees get less disposable income after the landlords rent has gone.
Employers have to cover the landlord's rents in wages reducing profit. Ricardo is just talking about housing costs, employees all rented in those days. The appalling conditions UK workers lived in during the 19th century were well
documented.
Low housing costs, lead to lower wages so UK employers were able to compete in a free
trade world. William White (BIS, OECD) talks about how economics really changed over one hundred years
ago as classical economics was replaced by neoclassical economics.
He thinks we have been on the wrong path for one hundred years. Free trade requires a low cost of living and what was known in the 19th century had
disappeared by the 20th. The West's high cost of living means high wages and an inability to
compete in a free trade world.
Never mind our companies can off-shore to where employers can pay lower wages for higher
profits. Look at the US cost of living Donald; this is why those jobs ain't coming back. It's hard to make a good profit in the US, when employers have to cover the US cost of
living in wages, reducing profit. The cost of living = housing costs + healthcare costs + student loan costs + other debt
repayments + food + other costs of living
A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis
Fukuyama said it was the end of history.
It was all going so well, until the neoliberals got to work.
The US created an open, globalised world with the Washington Consensus.
China went from almost nothing to become a global super power.
That wasn't supposed to happen, let's get the rocket scientists onto it.
Maximising profit is all about reducing costs.
China had coal fired power stations to provide cheap energy.
China had lax regulations reducing environmental and health and safety costs.
China had a low cost of living so employers could pay low wages.
China had low taxes and a minimal welfare state.
China had all the advantages in an open globalised world.
It did have, but now China has become too expensive and developed Eastern economies are
off-shoring to places like Vietnam, Bangladesh and the Philippines.
An open, globalised world is a race to the bottom on costs.
"The Washington Consensus was always going to work better for China than the US"
the rocket scientists.
Several years ago Naked Capitalism ran an article about how a young George Ball was one of
the New Immoralists for International Corporate Globalonial Plantationism. And that was
before neoliberalism.
"[A]n era where human advancement depends on greater integration between economic
powers."
Oh, by all the gods, no. And what, pray, defines 'human advancement'? What the hell is Mr Auerback talking
about?
Further integration only propels the speed at which resources are extracted and the planet
dies incrementally more. The future will not be one fully integrated planet guided by
whatever-the-hell oligarchs and their 'meritocratic' servitors deign the best options. The
future will of necessity be vastly more local, vastly more hand-made, vastly less energy- and
resource-intensive, and there will be vastly less intercontinental and intra-continental
trade. World-spanning – even continent-spanning political-economic arrangements have no
long term viability whatsoever. Trying to maintain such is a foolish waste of effort and
resources that could be more usefully be directed at de-growth and de-industrialization.
And with that, The Lord Curmudgeon shook his cane one last time at the kids on his lawn
and returned to the troll's cave from which he came.
The last engine of global growth, China, has now reached the end of the line as they have
seen their Minsky Moment coming. China was the latest victim of neoclassical economics. The biggest danger to capitalism is neoclassical economics; it brought capitalism to its
knees in the 1930s and is having another go now.
1929 and 2008 look so similar because they are; it's the same economics and thinking. Richard Vague has analysed the data for 1929 and 2008 and they were even more similar than
they initially appear. Real estate lending was actually the biggest problem in 1929.
Margin lending was another factor in 2008.
The 1920s US mistake is now global.
Japan, the UK, the US, Euro-zone and now China. The last engine of global growth, China, has now reached the end of the line as they have
seen their Minsky Moment coming. The debt fuelled growth model not only runs out of steam, all the debt in the economy then
acts like a drag anchor holding the economy back. Japan has been like this for thirty years.
Richard Koo explains the processes at work in the Japanese economy since the 1990s, which
are at now at work throughout the global economy.
It is unclear why he calls this "incompetence". Tories clearly want to sabotage the deal and at the same time save face. That's
a very tricky task and mistakes were made.
Notable quotes:
"... Politically the Tories have no plan at all, and when the clock stops on Brexit they will completely implode. The Tories are so deadlocked on Brexit that they can't even talk to themselves. ..."
"... You know the conservative party is full of incompetent wankers when the business community prefers a radical socialist over them. ..."
"... Christian Schulz at Citi says "perhaps" Corbyn is no longer as bad an option as no deal, while Deutsche's Oliver Harvey says fears about the Labour leader "may be overstated". ..."
"... "It is not that the financiers favour the opposition leader's plans for 'higher taxes, tighter labour laws, spending increases and the nationalisation of network industries', but that this may cause less harm than leaving the EU without a deal" says the Telegraph. ..."
gjohnsit on Fri, 09/06/2019 - 12:07pm A little over a year ago I wrote
this .
Politically the Tories have no plan at all, and when the clock stops on Brexit they will completely implode. The Tories are
so deadlocked on Brexit that they can't even talk to themselves.
...This is a political and economic disaster, not just waiting to happen, but firmly scheduled...unless Labour's neoliberal
Blairites save them, the Tory government is headed for an epic collapse.
It's rare that my predictions are 100% accurate, but this time I totally nailed it. To give you an idea of how badly the Tories
have bungled things, look at these two headlines.
You know the conservative party is full of incompetent wankers when the business community prefers a
radical socialist over
them.
But while Corbyn may be less popular than no deal among the public, The Daily Telegraph says "the scourge of bankers and avowed
opponent of capitalism, is winning support from unexpected new quarters" with two of the biggest global banks operating in the
City of London "warming to the Labour leader".
According to the paper, he is now seen as the lesser of two evils by analysts at Citibank and Deutsche Bank, two titans of
the financial system.
Christian Schulz at Citi says "perhaps" Corbyn is no longer as bad an option as no deal, while Deutsche's Oliver Harvey
says fears about the Labour leader "may be overstated".
"It is not that the financiers favour the opposition leader's plans for 'higher taxes, tighter labour laws, spending increases
and the nationalisation of network industries', but that this may cause less harm than leaving the EU without a deal" says the
Telegraph.
To put this sentiment in
hard numbers , a coalition led by his party would spur the pound more than 5%.
As for those overstated fears about the Labour leader, that's because of a highly coordinated three year smear campaign by the
very same business community.
Then, his efforts to secure a snap general election -- with the goal of replacing the sacked lawmakers with a new slate of candidates
more aligned with his hard-Brexit views -- were scuppered when opposition Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn refused to play along.
Now, he is effectively trapped in Downing Street, with Corbyn holding the keys. The government plans to propose new elections
again on Monday, but the opposition leader says his party will only support the move when its efforts to prevent a no-deal Brexit
are locked down.
"Certainly his biggest tactical mistake so far was not to realize that it was Corbyn, as leader of the opposition, who effectively
had veto power over when a general election could be held," said Professor Tony Travers, director of the Institute of Public Affairs
at the London School of Economics.
This allows time for Corbyn to appear like a professional leader, so that when he finally allows a general election the memory
of his steady hand will be fresh in the public's mind.
Like all other Tories worldwide, Boris "Tiny" Johnson is a charlatan. Hopefully, the British People will wake up and
end their decades-long nightmare by placing him [Corbyn] in power.
As we need to do, ourselves.
edit: Added Corbyn's name to clarify that last sentence. And we, too, need to remove all Tories from power.
The value of an idea is often assessible by the number and strength of the enemies arrayed against it. Since so many entrenched
interests and Powers-That-Be and elitists/globalists are against Brexit, I'm beginning to think that deal or no deal, Brexit must
in the best interests of the 99%. Otherwise, the 1% wouldn't fight against it so hard.
@edg
I think Brexit is like tariffs. Tariffs are a good idea for the working class because it puts a cost on off-shoring jobs. BUT
the way Trump is doing it is stupid and doesn't help anyone. Same thing with Brexit. It probably helps the 99%, but not the way
the Tories are going about it.
The value of an idea is often assessible by the number and strength of the enemies arrayed against it. Since so many entrenched
interests and Powers-That-Be and elitists/globalists are against Brexit, I'm beginning to think that deal or no deal, Brexit
must in the best interests of the 99%. Otherwise, the 1% wouldn't fight against it so hard.
The fact that Blair, the City of London, and neoliberals the world over hate Brexit and especially no-deal Brexit makes me
think it's probably a good thing. Anything that chips away at the hegemony of global finance seems positive.
The fact that Blair, the City of London, and neoliberals the world over hate Brexit and especially no-deal Brexit makes
me think it's probably a good thing. Anything that chips away at the hegemony of global finance seems positive.
The key to the success of neoliberal was a bunch on bought intellectual prostitutes like Milton Friedman and the drive to
occupy economic departments of the the universities using money from the financial elite. which along with think tank continued
mercenary army of neoliberalism who fought and win the battle with weakened New Del capitalism supporters. After that
neoliberalism was from those departments like the centers of infection via indoctrination of each new generation of students.
Which is a classic mixture of Bolsheviks methods and Trotskyite theory adapted tot he need of financial oligarchy.
Essentially we see the tragedy of Lysenkoism replayed in the USA. When false theory supported by financial oligarchy and then
state forcefully suppressed all other economic thought and became the only politically correct theory in the USA and Western
Europe.
Notable quotes:
"... The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every aspect of managed capitalism -- from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its losers. So government should get out of the market's way. ..."
"... Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies has failed, even on their own terms. ..."
"... Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration. ..."
"... The culprit isn't just "markets" -- some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into practice. ..."
"... The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more efficient. ..."
"... The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy, but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites. ..."
"... The neoliberal ascendance has had another calamitous cost -- to democratic legitimacy. As government ceased to buffer market forces, daily life has become more of a struggle for ordinary people. ..."
"... After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, ours was widely billed as an era when triumphant liberal capitalism would march hand in hand with liberal democracy. But in a few brief decades, the ostensibly secure regime of liberal democracy has collapsed in nation after nation, with echoes of the 1930s. ..."
"... As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society, ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements. ..."
"... Classically, the premise of a "free market" is that government simply gets out of the way. This is nonsensical, since all markets are creatures of rules, most fundamentally rules defining property, but also rules defining credit, debt, and bankruptcy; rules defining patents, trademarks, and copyrights; rules defining terms of labor; and so on. Even deregulation requires rules. In Polanyi's words, "laissez-faire was planned." ..."
"... Around the same time, the term neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives were neoliberals in economics. ..."
"... Lavishly funded centers and tenured chairs were underwritten by the Olin, Scaife, Bradley, and other far-right foundations to promote such variants of free-market theory as law and economics, public choice, rational choice, cost-benefit analysis, maximize-shareholder-value, and kindred schools of thought. These theories colonized several academic disciplines. All were variations on the claim that markets worked and that government should get out of the way. ..."
"... Market failure was dismissed as a rare special case; government failure was said to be ubiquitous. Theorists worked hand in glove with lobbyists and with public officials. But in every major case where neoliberal theory generated policy, the result was political success and economic failure. ..."
"... For example, supply-side economics became the justification for tax cuts, on the premise that taxes punished enterprise. ..."
"... Robert Bork's "antitrust paradox," holding that antitrust enforcement actually weakened competition, was used as the doctrine to sideline the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Supposedly, if government just got out of the way, market forces would remain more competitive because monopoly pricing would invite innovation and new entrants to the market. In practice, industry after industry became more heavily concentrated. ..."
"... Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws. But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth ..."
"... Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from the only one ..."
"... Air travel has been a poster child for advocates of deregulation, but the actual record is mixed at best. Airline deregulation produced serial bankruptcies of every major U.S. airline, often at the cost of worker pay and pension funds. ..."
"... Ticket prices have declined on average over the past two decades, but the traveling public suffers from a crazy quilt of fares, declining service, shrinking seats and legroom, and exorbitant penalties for the perfectly normal sin of having to change plans. ..."
"... A similar example is the privatization of transportation services such as highways and even parking meters. In several Midwestern states, toll roads have been sold to private vendors. The governor who makes the deal gains a temporary fiscal windfall, while drivers end up paying higher tolls often for decades. Investment bankers who broker the deal also take their cut. Some of the money does go into highway improvements, but that could have been done more efficiently in the traditional way via direct public ownership and competitive bidding. ..."
"... The Affordable Care Act is a form of voucher. But the regulated private insurance markets in the ACA have not fully lived up to their promise, in part because of the extensive market power retained by private insurers and in part because the right has relentlessly sought to sabotage the program -- another political feedback loop. The sponsors assumed that competition would lower costs and increase consumer choice. But in too many counties, there are three or fewer competing plans, and in some cases just one. ..."
"... In practice, this degenerates into an infinite regress of regulator versus commercial profit-maximizer, reminiscent of Mad magazine's "Spy versus Spy," with the industry doing end runs to Congress to further rig the rules. Straight-ahead public insurance such as Medicare is generally far more efficient. ..."
"... Several forms of deregulation -- of airlines, trucking, and electric power -- began not under Reagan but under Carter. Financial deregulation took off under Bill Clinton. Democratic presidents, as much as Republicans, promoted trade deals that undermined social standards. Cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was more of a choke point under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush. ..."
"... Dozens of nations, from Latin America to East Asia, went through this cycle of boom, bust, and then IMF pile-on. Greece is still suffering the impact. ..."
"... In fact, Japan, South Korea, smaller Asian nations, and above all China had thrived by rejecting every major tenet of neoliberalism. Their capital markets were tightly regulated and insulated from foreign speculative capital. They developed world-class industries as state-led cartels that favored domestic production and supply. East Asia got into trouble only when it followed IMF dictates to throw open capital markets, and in the aftermath they recovered by closing those markets and assembling war chests of hard currency so that they'd never again have to go begging to the IMF ..."
"... The basic argument of neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work; governments don't . If you want to embellish that story, there are two corollaries: Markets embody human freedom. And with markets, people basically get what they deserve; to alter market outcomes is to spoil the poor and punish the productive. That conclusion logically flows from the premise that markets are efficient. Milton Friedman became rich, famous, and influential by teasing out the several implications of these simple premises. ..."
"... The failed neoliberal experiment also makes the case not just for better-regulated capitalism but for direct public alternatives as well. Banking, done properly, especially the provision of mortgage finance, is close to a public utility. Much of it could be public. ..."
The
invisible hand is more like a thumb on the scale for the world's elites. That's why market
fundamentalism has been unmasked as bogus economics but keeps winning politically.This article appears in the Summer 2019 issue of The American Prospect magazine.
Subscribe here .
Since the late 1970s, we've had a grand experiment to test the claim that free markets
really do work best. This resurrection occurred despite the practical failure of laissez-faire
in the 1930s, the resulting humiliation of free-market theory, and the contrasting success of
managed capitalism during the three-decade postwar boom.
Yet when growth faltered in the 1970s, libertarian economic theory got another turn at bat.
This revival proved extremely convenient for the conservatives who came to power in the 1980s.
The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every
aspect of managed capitalism -- from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to
the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries.
Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is
inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the
market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that
redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its
losers. So government should get out of the market's way.
By the 1990s, even moderate liberals had been converted to the belief that social objectives
can be achieved by harnessing the power of markets. Intermittent periods of governance by
Democratic presidents slowed but did not reverse the slide to neoliberal policy and doctrine.
The corporate wing of the Democratic Party approved.
Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies
has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut,
and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth
is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced
not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback
loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration.
The culprit isn't just "markets" -- some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This
is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised
rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as
sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into
practice.
Recent years have seen two spectacular cases of market mispricing with devastating
consequences: the near-depression of 2008 and irreversible climate change. The economic
collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance. It cost the real U.S. economy
upwards of $15 trillion (and vastly more globally), depending on how you count, far more than
any conceivable efficiency gain that might be credited to financial innovation. Free-market
theory presumes that innovation is necessarily benign. But much of the financial engineering of
the deregulatory era was self-serving, opaque, and corrupt -- the opposite of an efficient and
transparent market.
The existential threat of global climate change reflects the incompetence of markets to
accurately price carbon and the escalating costs of pollution. The British economist Nicholas
Stern has aptly termed the worsening climate catastrophe history's greatest case of market
failure. Here again, this is not just the result of failed theory. The entrenched political
power of extractive industries and their political allies influences the rules and the market
price of carbon. This is less an invisible hand than a thumb on the scale. The premise of
efficient markets provides useful cover.
The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact
do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more
efficient. Yet the theory and practical influence of neoliberalism marches splendidly on,
because it is so useful to society's most powerful people -- as a scholarly veneer to what
would otherwise be a raw power grab. The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this
anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did
neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy,
but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites.
The neoliberal ascendance has had another calamitous cost -- to democratic legitimacy. As
government ceased to buffer market forces, daily life has become more of a struggle for
ordinary people. The elements of a decent middle-class life are elusive -- reliable jobs and
careers, adequate pensions, secure medical care, affordable housing, and college that doesn't
require a lifetime of debt. Meanwhile, life has become ever sweeter for economic elites, whose
income and wealth have pulled away and whose loyalty to place, neighbor, and nation has become
more contingent and less reliable.
Large numbers of people, in turn, have given up on the promise of affirmative government,
and on democracy itself. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, ours was widely billed as an
era when triumphant liberal capitalism would march hand in hand with liberal democracy. But in
a few brief decades, the ostensibly secure regime of liberal democracy has collapsed in nation
after nation, with echoes of the 1930s.
As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society,
ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with
dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements. Several authoritarian thugs,
playing on tribal nationalism as the antidote to capitalist cosmopolitanism, are surprisingly popular.
It's also important to appreciate that neoliberalism is not laissez-faire. Classically, the
premise of a "free market" is that government simply gets out of the way. This is nonsensical,
since all markets are creatures of rules, most fundamentally rules defining property, but also
rules defining credit, debt, and bankruptcy; rules defining patents, trademarks, and
copyrights; rules defining terms of labor; and so on. Even deregulation requires rules. In
Polanyi's words, "laissez-faire was planned."
The political question is who gets to make the rules, and for whose benefit. The
neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman invoked free markets, but in practice the
neoliberal regime has promoted rules created by and for private owners of capital, to keep
democratic government from asserting rules of fair competition or countervailing social
interests. The regime has rules protecting pharmaceutical giants from the right of consumers to
import prescription drugs or to benefit from generics. The rules of competition and
intellectual property generally have been tilted to protect incumbents. Rules of bankruptcy
have been tilted in favor of creditors. Deceptive mortgages require elaborate rules, written by
the financial sector and then enforced by government. Patent rules have allowed agribusiness
and giant chemical companies like Monsanto to take over much of agriculture -- the opposite of
open markets. Industry has invented rules requiring employees and consumers to submit to
binding arbitration and to relinquish a range of statutory and common-law
rights.
Neoliberalism as Theory, Policy, and Power
It's worth taking a moment to unpack the term "neoliberalism." The coinage can be confusing
to American ears because the "liberal" part refers not to the word's ordinary American usage,
meaning moderately left-of-center, but to classical economic liberalism otherwise known as
free-market economics. The "neo" part refers to the reassertion of the claim that the
laissez-faire model of the economy was basically correct after all.
Few proponents of these views embraced the term neoliberal . Mostly, they called
themselves free-market conservatives. "Neoliberal" was a coinage used mainly by their critics,
sometimes as a neutral descriptive term, sometimes as an epithet. The use became widespread in
the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
To add to the confusion, a different and partly overlapping usage was advanced in the 1970s
by the group around the Washington Monthly magazine. They used "neoliberal" to mean a
new, less statist form of American liberalism. Around the same time, the term
neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced
conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives were
neoliberals in economics.
Beginning in the 1970s, resurrected free-market theory was interwoven with both conservative
politics and significant investments in the production of theorists and policy intellectuals.
This occurred not just in well-known conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise
Institute, Heritage, Cato, and the Manhattan Institute, but through more insidious investments
in academia. Lavishly funded centers and tenured chairs were underwritten by the Olin, Scaife,
Bradley, and other far-right foundations to promote such variants of free-market theory as law
and economics, public choice, rational choice, cost-benefit analysis,
maximize-shareholder-value, and kindred schools of thought. These theories colonized several
academic disciplines. All were variations on the claim that markets worked and that government
should get out of the way.
Each of these bodies of sub-theory relied upon its own variant of neoliberal ideology. An
intensified version of the theory of comparative advantage was used not just to cut tariffs but
to use globalization as all-purpose deregulation. The theory of maximizing shareholder value
was deployed to undermine the entire range of financial regulation and workers' rights.
Cost-benefit analysis, emphasizing costs and discounting benefits, was used to discredit a good
deal of health, safety, and environmental regulation. Public choice theory, associated with the
economist James Buchanan and an entire ensuing school of economics and political science, was
used to impeach democracy itself, on the premise that policies were hopelessly afflicted by
"rent-seekers" and "free-riders."
Market failure was dismissed as a rare special case; government failure was said to be
ubiquitous. Theorists worked hand in glove with lobbyists and with public officials. But in
every major case where neoliberal theory generated policy, the result was political success and
economic failure.
For example, supply-side economics became the justification for tax cuts, on the premise
that taxes punished enterprise. Supposedly, if taxes were cut, especially taxes on capital and
on income from capital, the resulting spur to economic activity would be so potent that
deficits would be far less than predicted by "static" economic projections, and perhaps even
pay for themselves. There have been six rounds of this experiment, from the tax cuts sponsored
by Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the immense 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Donald Trump. In
every case some economic stimulus did result, mainly from the Keynesian jolt to demand, but in
every case deficits increased significantly. Conservatives simply stopped caring about
deficits. The tax cuts were often inefficient as well as inequitable, since the loopholes
steered investment to tax-favored uses rather than the most economically logical ones. Dozens
of America's most profitable corporations paid no taxes.
Robert Bork's "antitrust paradox," holding that antitrust enforcement actually weakened
competition, was used as the doctrine to sideline the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Supposedly, if
government just got out of the way, market forces would remain more competitive because
monopoly pricing would invite innovation and new entrants to the market. In practice, industry
after industry became more heavily concentrated. Incumbents got in the habit of buying out
innovators or using their market power to crush them. This pattern is especially insidious in
the tech economy of platform monopolies, where giants that provide platforms, such as Google
and Amazon, use their market power and superior access to customer data to out-compete rivals
who use their platforms. Markets, once again, require rules beyond the benign competence of the
market actors themselves. Only democratic government can set equitable rules. And when
democracy falters, undemocratic governments in cahoots with corrupt private plutocrats will
make the rules.
Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social
questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly
used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws.
But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth.
Conversely, does any serious person think that the inflated pay of the financial moguls who
crashed the economy accurately reflects their contribution to economic activity? In the case of
hedge funds and private equity, the high incomes of fund sponsors are the result of transfers
of wealth and income from employees, other stakeholders, and operating companies to the fund
managers, not the fruits of more efficient management.
There is a broad literature discrediting this body of pseudo-scholarly work in great detail.
Much of neoliberalism represents the ever-reliable victory of assumption over evidence. Yet
neoliberal theory lived on because it was so convenient for elites, and because of the inertial
power of the intellectual capital that had been created. The well-funded neoliberal habitat has
provided comfortable careers for two generations of scholars and pseudo-scholars who migrate
between academia, think tanks, K Street, op-ed pages, government, Wall Street, and back again.
So even if the theory has been demolished both by scholarly rebuttal and by events, it thrives
in powerful institutions and among their political allies.
The Practical Failure of
Neoliberal Policies
Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from
the only one. Electricity deregulation on balance has increased monopoly power and raised costs
to consumers, but has failed to offer meaningful "shopping around" opportunities to bring down
prices. We have gone from regulated monopolies with predictable earnings, costs, wages, and
consumer protections to deregulated monopolies or oligopolies with substantial pricing power.
Since the Bell breakup, the telephone system tells a similar story of re-concentration,
dwindling competition, price-gouging, and union-bashing.
Air travel has been a poster child for advocates of deregulation, but the actual record is
mixed at best. Airline deregulation produced serial bankruptcies of every major U.S. airline,
often at the cost of worker pay and pension funds.
Ticket prices have declined on average over
the past two decades, but the traveling public suffers from a crazy quilt of fares, declining
service, shrinking seats and legroom, and exorbitant penalties for the perfectly normal sin of
having to change plans. Studies have shown that fares actually declined at a faster rate in the
20 years before deregulation in 1978 than in the 20 years afterward, because the prime source
of greater efficiency in airline travel is the introduction of more fuel-efficient planes.
The
roller-coaster experience of airline profits and losses has reduced the capacity of airlines to
purchase more fuel-efficient aircraft, and the average age of the fleet keeps increasing. The
use of "fortress hubs" to defend market pricing power has reduced the percentage of nonstop
flights, the most efficient way to fly from one point to another.
Robert Bork's spurious arguments that antitrust enforcement hurt competition became the
basis for dismantling antitrust. Massive concentration resulted. Charles Tasnadi/AP Photo
In addition to deregulation, three prime areas of practical neoliberal policies are the use
of vouchers as "market-like" means to social goals, the privatization of public services, and
the use of tax subsides rather than direct outlays. In every case, government revenues are
involved, so this is far from a free market to begin with. But the premise is that market
disciplines can achieve public purposes more efficiently than direct public provision.
The evidence provides small comfort for these claims. One core problem is that the programs
invariably give too much to the for-profit middlemen at the expense of the intended
beneficiaries. A related problem is that the process of using vouchers and contracts invites
corruption. It is a different form of "rent-seeking" -- pursuit of monopoly profits -- than
that attributed to government by public choice theorists, but corruption nonetheless. Often,
direct public provision is far more transparent and accountable than a web of contractors.
A further problem is that in practice there is often far less competition than imagined,
because of oligopoly power, vendor lock-in, and vendor political influence. These experiments
in marketization to serve social goals do not operate in some Platonic policy laboratory, where
the only objective is true market efficiency yoked to the public good. They operate in the
grubby world of practical politics, where the vendors are closely allied with conservative
politicians whose purposes may be to discredit social transfers entirely, or to reward
corporate allies, or to benefit from kickbacks either directly or as campaign
contributions.
Privatized prisons are a case in point. A few large, scandal-ridden companies have gotten
most of the contracts, often through political influence. Far from bringing better quality and
management efficiency, they have profited by diverting operating funds and worsening conditions
that were already deplorable, and finding new ways to charge inmates higher fees for necessary
services such as phone calls. To the extent that money was actually saved, most of the savings
came from reducing the pay and professionalism of guards, increasing overcrowding, and
decreasing already inadequate budgets for food and medical care.
A similar example is the privatization of transportation services such as highways and even
parking meters. In several Midwestern states, toll roads have been sold to private vendors. The
governor who makes the deal gains a temporary fiscal windfall, while drivers end up paying
higher tolls often for decades. Investment bankers who broker the deal also take their cut.
Some of the money does go into highway improvements, but that could have been done more
efficiently in the traditional way via direct public ownership and competitive bidding.
Housing vouchers substantially reward landlords who use the vouchers to fill empty houses
with poor people until the neighborhood gentrifies, at which point the owner is free to quit
the program and charge market rentals. Thus public funds are used to underwrite a privately
owned, quasi-social housing sector -- whose social character is only temporary. No permanent
social housing is produced despite the extensive public outlay. The companion use of tax
incentives to attract passive investment in affordable housing promotes economically
inefficient tax shelters, and shunts public funds into the pockets of the investors -- money
that might otherwise have gone directly to the housing.
The Affordable Care Act is a form of voucher. But the regulated private insurance markets in
the ACA have not fully lived up to their promise, in part because of the extensive market power
retained by private insurers and in part because the right has relentlessly sought to sabotage
the program -- another political feedback loop. The sponsors assumed that competition would
lower costs and increase consumer choice. But in too many counties, there are three or fewer
competing plans, and in some cases just one.
As more insurance plans and hospital systems become for-profit, massive investment goes into
such wasteful activities as manipulation of billing, "risk selection," and other gaming of the
rules. Our mixed-market system of health care requires massive regulation to work with
tolerable efficiency. In practice, this degenerates into an infinite regress of regulator
versus commercial profit-maximizer, reminiscent of Mad magazine's "Spy versus Spy," with
the industry doing end runs to Congress to further rig the rules. Straight-ahead public
insurance such as Medicare is generally far more efficient.
An extensive literature has demonstrated that for-profit voucher schools do no better and
often do worse than comparable public schools, and are vulnerable to multiple forms of gaming
and corruption. Proprietors of voucher schools are superb at finding ways of excluding costly
special-needs students, so that those costs are imposed on what remains of public schools; they
excel at gaming test results. While some voucher and charter schools, especially nonprofit
ones, sometimes improve on average school performance, so do many public schools. The record is
also muddied by the fact that many ostensibly nonprofit schools contract out management to
for-profit companies.
Tax preferences have long been used ostensibly to serve social goals. The Earned Income Tax
Credit is considered one of the more successful cases of using market-like measures -- in this
case a refundable tax credit -- to achieve the social goal of increasing worker take-home pay.
It has also been touted as the rare case of bipartisan collaboration. Liberals get more money
for workers. Conservatives get to reward the deserving poor, since the EITC is conditioned on
employment. Conservatives get a further ideological win, since the EITC is effectively a wage
subsidy from the government, but is experienced as a tax refund rather than a benefit of
government.
Recent research, however, shows that the EITC is primarily a subsidy of low-wage employers,
who are able to pay their workers a lot less than a market-clearing wage. In industries such as
nursing homes or warehouses, where many workers qualified for the EITC work side by side with
ones not eligible, the non-EITC workers get substandard wages. The existence of the EITC
depresses the level of the wages that have to come out of the employer's
pocket.
Neoliberalism's Influence on Liberals
As free-market theory resurged, many moderate liberals embraced these policies. In the
inflationary 1970s, regulation became a scapegoat that supposedly deterred salutary price
competition. Some, such as economist Alfred Kahn, President Carter's adviser on deregulation,
supported deregulation on what he saw as the merits. Other moderates supported neoliberal
policies opportunistically, to curry favor with powerful industries and donors. Market-like
policies were also embraced by liberals as a tactical way to find common ground with
conservatives.
Several forms of deregulation -- of airlines, trucking, and electric power -- began not
under Reagan but under Carter. Financial deregulation took off under Bill Clinton. Democratic
presidents, as much as Republicans, promoted trade deals that undermined social standards.
Cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was more of a
choke point under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush.
"Command and control" became an all-purpose pejorative for disparaging perfectly sensible
and efficient regulation. "Market-like" became a fashionable concept, not just on the
free-market right but on the moderate left. Cass Sunstein, who served as Obama's
anti-regulation czar,uses the example of "nudges" as a more market-like and hence superior
alternative to direct regulation, though with rare exceptions their impact is trivial.
Moreover, nudges only work in tandem with regulation.
There are indeed some interventionist policies that use market incentives to serve social
goals. But contrary to free-market theory, the market-like incentives first require substantial
regulation and are not a substitute for it. A good example is the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, which used tradable emission rights to cut the output of sulfur dioxide, the cause of
acid rain. This was supported by both the George H.W. Bush administration and by leading
Democrats. But before the trading regime could work, Congress first had to establish
permissible ceilings on sulfur dioxide output -- pure command and control.
There are many other instances, such as nutrition labeling, truth-in-lending, and disclosure
of EPA gas mileage results, where the market-like premise of a better-informed consumer
complements command regulation but is no substitute for it. Nearly all of the increase in fuel
efficiency, for example, is the result of command regulations that require auto fleets to hit a
gas mileage target. The fact that EPA gas mileage figures are prominently disclosed on new car
stickers may have modest influence, but motor fuels are so underpriced that car companies have
success selling gas-guzzlers despite the consumer labeling.
Image removed
Bill Clinton and his Treasury Secretary, Robert Rubin, were big promoters of financial deregulation.
Politically, whatever rationale there was for liberals to make common ground with
libertarians is now largely gone. The authors of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made no attempt
to meet Democrats partway; they excluded the opposition from the legislative process entirely.
This was opportunistic tax cutting for elites, pure and simple. The right today also abandoned
the quest for a middle ground on environmental policy, on anti-poverty policy, on health policy
-- on virtually everything. Neoliberal ideology did its historic job of weakening intellectual
and popular support for the proposition that affirmative government can better the lives of
citizens and that the Democratic Party is a reliable steward of that social compact. Since
Reagan, the right's embrace of the free market has evolved from partly principled idealism into
pure opportunism and obstruction.
Neoliberalism and Hyper-Globalism
The post-1990 rules of globalization, supported by conservatives and moderate liberals
alike, are the quintessence of neoliberalism. At Bretton Woods in 1944, the use of fixed
exchange rates and controls on speculative private capital, plus the creation of the IMFand
World Bank, were intended to allow member countries to practice national forms of managed
capitalism, insulated from the destructive and deflationary influences of short-term
speculative private capital flows. As doctrine and power shifted in the 1970s, the IMF, the
World Bank, and later the WTO, which replaced the old GATT, mutated into their ideological
opposite. Rather than instruments of support for mixed national economies, they became
enforcers of neoliberal policies.
The standard package of the "Washington Consensus" of approved policies for developing
nations included demands that they open their capital markets to speculative private finance,
as well as cutting taxes on capital, weakening social transfers, and gutting labor regulation
and public ownership. But private capital investment in poor countries proved to be fickle. The
result was often excessive inflows during the boom part of the cycle and punitive withdrawals
during the bust -- the opposite of the patient, long-term development capital that these
countries needed and that was provided by the World Bank of an earlier era. During the bust
phase, the IMF typically imposes even more stringent neoliberal demands as the price of
financial bailouts, including perverse budgetary austerity, supposedly to restore the
confidence of the very speculative capital markets responsible for the boom-bust cycle.
Dozens of nations, from Latin America to East Asia, went through this cycle of boom, bust,
and then IMF pile-on. Greece is still suffering the impact. After 1990, hyper-globalism also
included trade treaties whose terms favored multinational corporations. Traditionally, trade
agreements had been mainly about reciprocal reductions of tariffs. Nations were free to have
whatever brand of regulation, public investment, or social policies they chose. With the advent
of the WTO, many policies other than tariffs were branded as trade distorting, even as takings
without compensation. Trade deals were used to give foreign capital free access and to
dismantle national regulation and public ownership. Special courts were created in which
foreign corporations and investors could do end runs around national authorities to challenge
regulation for impeding commerce.
At first, the sponsors of the new trade regime tried to claim the successful economies of
East Asia as evidence of the success of the neoliberal recipe. Supposedly, these nations had
succeeded by pursuing "export-led growth," exposing their domestic economies to salutary
competition. But these claims were soon exposed as the opposite of what had actually occurred.
In fact, Japan, South Korea, smaller Asian nations, and above all China had thrived by
rejecting every major tenet of neoliberalism. Their capital markets were tightly regulated and
insulated from foreign speculative capital. They developed world-class industries as state-led
cartels that favored domestic production and supply. East Asia got into trouble only when it
followed IMF dictates to throw open capital markets, and in the aftermath they recovered by
closing those markets and assembling war chests of hard currency so that they'd never again
have to go begging to the IMF. Enthusiasts of hyper-globalization also claimed that it
benefited poor countries by increasing export opportunities, but as the success of East Asia
shows, there is more than one way to boost exports -- and many poorer countries suffered under
the terms of the global neoliberal regime.
Nor was the damage confined to the developing world. As the work of Harvard economist Dani
Rodrik has demonstrated, democracy requires a polity. For better or for worse, the polity and
democratic citizenship are national. By enhancing the global market at the expense of the
democratic state, the current brand of hyper-globalization deliberately weakens the capacity of
states to regulate markets, and weakens democracy itself.
When Do Markets Work?
The failure of neoliberalism as economic and social policy does not mean that markets never
work. A command economy is even more utopian and perverse than a neoliberal one. The practical
quest is for an efficient and equitable middle ground.
The neoliberal story of how the economy operates assumes a largely frictionless marketplace,
where prices are set by supply and demand, and the price mechanism allocates resources to their
optimal use in the economy as a whole. For this discipline to work as advertised, however,
there can be no market power, competition must be plentiful, sellers and buyers must have
roughly equal information, and there can be no significant externalities. Much of the 20th
century was practical proof that these conditions did not describe a good part of the actual
economy. And if markets priced things wrong, the market system did not aggregate to an
efficient equilibrium, and depressions could become self-deepening. As Keynes demonstrated,
only a massive jolt of government spending could restart the engines, even if market pricing
was partly violated in the process.
Nonetheless, in many sectors of the economy, the process of buying and selling is close
enough to the textbook conditions of perfect competition that the price system works tolerably
well. Supermarkets, for instance, deliver roughly accurate prices because of the consumer's
freedom and knowledge to shop around. Likewise much of retailing. However, when we get into
major realms of the economy with positive or negative externalities, such as education and
health, markets are not sufficient. And in other major realms, such as pharmaceuticals, where
corporations use their political power to rig the terms of patents, the market doesn't produce
a cure.
The basic argument of neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work;
governments don't . If you want to embellish that story, there are two corollaries: Markets
embody human freedom. And with markets, people basically get what they deserve; to alter market
outcomes is to spoil the poor and punish the productive. That conclusion logically flows from
the premise that markets are efficient. Milton Friedman became rich, famous, and influential by
teasing out the several implications of these simple premises.
It is much harder to articulate the case for a mixed economy than the case for free markets,
precisely because the mixed economy is mixed. The rebuttal takes several paragraphs. The more
complex story holds that markets are substantially efficient in some realms but far from
efficient in others, because of positive and negative externalities, the tendency of financial
markets to create cycles of boom and bust, the intersection of self-interest and corruption,
the asymmetry of information between company and consumer, the asymmetry of power between
corporation and employee, the power of the powerful to rig the rules, and the fact that there
are realms of human life (the right to vote, human liberty, security of one's person) that
should not be marketized.
And if markets are not perfectly efficient, then distributive questions are partly political
choices. Some societies pay pre-K teachers the minimum wage as glorified babysitters. Others
educate and compensate them as professionals. There is no "correct" market-derived wage,
because pre-kindergarten is a social good and the issue of how to train and compensate teachers
is a social choice, not a market choice. The same is true of the other human services,
including medicine. Nor is there a theoretically correct set of rules for patents, trademarks,
and copyrights. These are politically derived, either balancing the interests of innovation
with those of diffusion -- or being politically captured by incumbent industries.
Governments can in principle improve on market outcomes via regulation, but that fact is
complicated by the risk of regulatory capture. So another issue that arises is market failure
versus polity failure, which brings us back to the urgency of strong democracy and effective
government.
After Neoliberalism
The political reversal of neoliberalism can only come through practical politics and
policies that demonstrate how government often can serve citizens more equitably and
efficiently than markets. Revision of theory will take care of itself. There is no shortage of
dissenting theorists and empirical policy researchers whose scholarly work has been vindicated
by events. What they need is not more theory but more influence, both in the academy and in the
corridors of power. They are available to advise a new progressive administration, if
that administration can get elected and if it refrains from hiring neoliberal
advisers.
There are also some relatively new areas that invite policy innovation. These include
regulation of privacy rights versus entrepreneurial liberties in the digital realm; how to
think of the internet as a common carrier; how to update competition and antitrust policy as
platform monopolies exert new forms of market power; how to modernize labor-market policy in
the era of the gig economy; and the role of deeper income supplements as machines replace human
workers.
The failed neoliberal experiment also makes the case not just for better-regulated
capitalism but for direct public alternatives as well. Banking, done properly, especially the
provision of mortgage finance, is close to a public utility. Much of it could be public. A
great deal of research is done more honestly and more cost-effectively in public, peer-reviewed
institutions such as the NIH than by a substantially corrupt private pharmaceutical industry.
Social housing often is more cost-effective than so-called public-private partnerships. Public
power is more efficient to generate, less prone to monopolistic price-gouging, and friendlier
to the needed green transition than private power. The public option in health care is far more
efficient than the current crazy quilt in which each layer of complexity adds opacity and cost.
Public provision does require public oversight, but that is more straightforward and
transparent than the byzantine dance of regulation and counter-regulation.
The two other benefits of direct public provision are that the public gets direct evidence
of government delivering something of value, and that the countervailing power of democracy to
harness markets is enhanced. A mixed economy depends above all on a strong democracy -- one
even stronger than the democracy that succumbed to the corrupting influence of economic elites
and their neoliberal intellectual allies beginning half a century ago. The antidote to the
resurrected neoliberal fable is the resurrection of democracy -- strong enough to tame the
market in a way that tames it for keeps.
Robert Kuttner is co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect, and professor at
Brandeis University's Heller School. His latest book is The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American
Democracy . In addition to writing for the Prospect, he writes for HuffPost, The Boston
Globe, and The New York Review of Books.
"... A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism. In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would participate in a "large-scale uprising." Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, "Banks and money rule the world." ..."
"... In August of this year, a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization began tracking the figure, fewer than half of Americans aged 18–29 had a positive view of capitalism, while more than half had a positive view of socialism. The percentage of young people viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent this year, a 23-percentage point drop in just eight years. ..."
Last month, the Council of Economic Advisers, an agency of the Trump White House, released an extraordinary report titled "The
Opportunity Costs of Socialism." The report begins with the statement: "Coincident with the 200th anniversary of Karl Marx's birth,
socialism is making a comeback in American political discourse. Detailed policy proposals from self-declared socialists are gaining
support in Congress and among much of the younger electorate."
The very fact that the US government officially acknowledges a growth of popular support for socialism, particularly among the
nation's youth, testifies to vast changes taking place in the political consciousness of the working class and the terror this is
striking within the ruling elite. America is, after all, a country where anti-communism was for the greater part of a century a state-sponsored
secular religion. No ruling class has so ruthlessly sought to exclude socialist politics from political discourse as the American
ruling class.
The 70-page document is itself an inane right-wing screed. It seeks to discredit socialism by identifying it with capitalist countries
such as Venezuela that have expanded state ownership of parts of the economy while protecting private ownership of the banks, and,
with the post-2008 collapse of oil and other commodity prices, increasingly attacked the living standards of the working class.
It identifies socialism with proposals for mild social reform such as "Medicare for all," raised and increasingly abandoned by
a section of the Democratic Party. It cites Milton Friedman and Margaret Thatcher to promote the virtues of "economic freedom," i.e.,
the unrestrained operation of the capitalist market, and to denounce all social reforms, business regulations, tax increases or anything
else that impinges on the oligarchy's self-enrichment.
The report's arguments and themes find expression in the fascistic campaign speeches of Donald Trump, who routinely and absurdly
attacks the Democrats as socialists and accuses them of seeking to turn America into another "socialist" Venezuela.
What has prompted this effort to blackguard socialism?
A series of recent polls in the US and Europe have shown a sharp growth of popular disgust with capitalism and support for socialism.
In May of 2017, in a survey conducted by the Union of European Broadcasters of people aged 18 to 35, more than half said they would
participate in a "large-scale uprising." Nine out of 10 agreed with the statement, "Banks and money rule the world."
Last November, a poll conducted by YouGov showed that 51 percent of Americans between the ages of 21 and 29 would prefer to live
in a socialist or communist country than in a capitalist country.
In August of this year, a Gallup poll found that for the first time since the organization began tracking the figure, fewer than
half of Americans aged 18–29 had a positive view of capitalism, while more than half had a positive view of socialism. The percentage
of young people viewing capitalism positively fell from 68 percent in 2010 to 45 percent this year, a 23-percentage point drop in
just eight years.
This surge in interest in socialism is bound up with a resurgence of class struggle in the US and internationally. In the United
States, the number of major strikes so far this year, 21, is triple the number in 2017. The ruling class was particularly terrified
by the teachers' walkouts earlier this year because the biggest strikes were organized by rank-and-file educators in a rebellion
against the unions, reflecting the weakening grip of the pro-corporate organizations that have suppressed the class struggle for
decades.
The growth of the class struggle is an objective process that is driven by the global crisis of capitalism, which finds its most
acute social and political expression in the center of world capitalism -- the United States. It is the class struggle that provides
the key to the fight for genuine socialism.
Masses of workers and youth are being driven into struggle and politically radicalized by decades of uninterrupted war and the
staggering growth of social inequality. This process has accelerated during the 10 years since the Wall Street crash of 2008. The
Obama years saw the greatest transfer of wealth from the bottom to the top in history, the escalation of the wars begun under Bush
and their spread to Libya, Syria and Yemen, and the intensification of mass surveillance, attacks on immigrants and other police
state measures.
This paved the way for the elevation of Trump, the personification of the criminality and backwardness of the ruling oligarchy.
Under conditions where the typical CEO in the US now makes in a single day almost as much as the average worker makes in an entire
year, and the net worth of the 400 wealthiest Americans has doubled over the past decade, the working class is looking for a radical
alternative to the status quo. As the Socialist Equality Party wrote in its program eight years ago, "
The Breakdown of Capitalism and the Fight for Socialism
in the United States ":
The change in objective conditions, however, will lead American workers to change their minds. The reality of capitalism will
provide workers with many reasons to fight for a fundamental and revolutionary change in the economic organization of society.
The response of the ruling class is two-fold. First, the abandonment of bourgeois democratic forms of rule and the turn toward
dictatorship. The run-up to the midterm elections has revealed the advanced stage of these preparations, with Trump's fascistic attacks
on immigrants, deployment of troops to the border, threats to gun down unarmed men, women and children seeking asylum, and his pledge
to overturn the 14th Amendment establishing birthright citizenship.
That this has evoked no serious opposition from the Democrats and the media makes clear that the entire ruling class is united
around a turn to authoritarianism. Indeed, the Democrats are spearheading the drive to censor the internet in order to silence left-wing
and socialist opposition.
The second response is to promote phony socialists such as Bernie Sanders, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and other
pseudo-left organizations in order to confuse the working class and channel its opposition back behind the Democratic Party.
In 2018, with Sanders totally integrated into the Democratic Party leadership, this role has been largely delegated to the DSA,
which functions as an arm of the Democrats. Two DSA members, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in New York and Rashida Tlaib in Detroit, are
likely to win seats in the House of Representatives as candidates of the Democratic Party.
The closer they come to taking office, the more they seek to distance themselves from their supposed socialist affiliation. Ocasio-Cortez,
for example, joined Sanders in eulogizing the recently deceased war-monger John McCain, refused to answer when asked if she opposed
the US wars in the Middle East, and dropped her campaign call for the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
"... As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with. And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of the population eventually fall on their own sword. ..."
"... And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with Iran and Islamic state jihadists.) ..."
"... So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role. ..."
"... It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed. ..."
"... So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite). ..."
"... The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how much money to bribe top officials. ..."
"... As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR. ..."
"... The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't care less about regular citizens and their sufferings. ..."
"... BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say. ..."
"... BTW few republics in former USSR space managed to achieve the standard of living equal to the best years of the USSR (early 80th I think) See https://web.williams.edu/Economics/brainerd/papers/ussr_july08.pdf ..."
"... Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe. ..."
"... Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is corruptible and can eventually change sides. ..."
"... But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie" state. ..."
This is a very complex issue. And I do not pretend that I am right, but I think Brad is way too superficial to be taken seriously.
IMHO it was neoliberalism that won the cold war. That means that the key neoliberal "scholars" like Friedman and Hayek and
other intellectual prostitutes of financial oligarchy who helped to restore their power. Certain democratic politicians like Carter
also were the major figures. Carter actually started neoliberalization of the USA, continued by Reagan,
Former Trotskyites starting from Burnham which later became known as neoconservatives also deserve to be mentioned.
It is also questionable that the USA explicitly won the cold war. Paradoxically the other victim of the global neoliberal revolution
was the USA, the lower 90% of the USA population to be exact.
So there was no winners other the financial oligarchy (the transnational class.)
As for the USSR, the Soviet elite changed sides. I think Putin once said that Soviet system was "unviable" to begin with.
And that's pretty precise diagnosis: as soon as the theocratic elite degenerates, it defects; and the state and the majority of
the population eventually fall on their own sword.
And the USSR clearly was a variation of a theocratic state. That explain also a very high, damaging the economy, level
of centralization (the country as a single corporation) and the high level of ideology/religion-based repression (compare with
Iran and Islamic state jihadists.)
The degeneration started with the death of the last charismatic leader (Stalin) and the passing of the generation which remembers
that actual warts of capitalism and could relate them to the "Soviet socialism" solutions.
So after the WWII the ideology of Bolshevism was dead as it became clear that Soviet style theocratic state is unable to
produce standard of living which Western social democracies were able to produce for their citizens. Rapid degeneration of the
theocratic Bolshevik elite (aka Nomenklatura) also played an important role.
With bolshevism as the official religion, which can't be questioned, the society was way too rigid and suppressed "entrepreneurial
initiative" (which leads to enrichment of particular individuals, but also to the benefits to the society as whole), to the extent
that was counterproductive. The level of dogmatism in this area was probably as close to the medieval position of Roman Catholic
Church as we can get; in this sense it was only national that Cardinal Karol Wojtyla became a pope John Paul II -- he was very
well prepared indeed ;-).
It is important to understand that the Soviet elite changed sides completely voluntarily. Paradoxically it was high level
of KGB functionaries who were instrumental in conversion to neoliberalism, starting with Andropov. It was Andropov, who created
the plan of transition of the USSR to neoliberalism, the plan that Gorbachov tried to implement and miserably failed.
So the system exploded from within because the Party elite became infected with neoliberalism (which was stupid, but reflects
the level of degeneration of the Soviet elite).
The major USA contribution other then supplying the new ideology for the Soviet elite was via CIA injecting God know how
much money to bribe top officials.
As Gorbachov was a second rate (if not the third rate) politician, he allowed the situation to run out of control. And
the efforts to "rock" the system were fueled internally by emerging (as the result of Perestroika; which was a reincarnation of
Lenin's idea of NEP) class of neoliberal Nouveau riche (which run the USSR "shadow economy" which emerged under Brezhnev) and
by nationalist sentiments (those element were clearly supported by the USA and other Western countries money as well as via subversive
efforts of national diaspora residing in the USA and Canada) and certain national minorities within the USSR.
Explosion of far right nationalist sentiments without "Countervailing ideology" as Bolshevism was not taken seriously anymore
was the key factor that led to the dissolution of the USSR.
Essentially national movements allied with Germany that were defeated during WWII became the winners.
The brutal economic rape of the xUSSR space and generally of the whole former Soviet block by the "collective neoliberal
West" naturally followed. Which had shown everybody that the vanguard of Perestroika were simply filthy compradors, who can't
care less about regular citizens and their sufferings.
And the backlash created conditions for Putin coming to power.
BTW this huge amount of loot postponed the internal crisis of neoliberalism which happened in the USA in 2008 probably
by ten years. And it (along with a couple of other factors such as telecommunication revolution) explain relative prosperity of
Clinton presidency. Criminal Clinton presidency I should say.
The majority of the xUSSR space countries have now dismal standard of living and slided into Latin American level of inequality
and corruption (not without help of the USA).
Several have civil wars in the period since getting independence, which further depressed the standard living. Most deindustrialize.
Generally when the particular ideology collapses, far right nationalism fills the void. We see this now with the slow collapse
of neoliberalism in the USA and Western Europe.
Chinese learned a lot from Gorbachov's fatal mistakes and have better economic results as the result of the conversion
to the neoliberalism ("from the above"), although at the end Chinese elite is not that different from Soviet elite and also is
corruptible and can eventually change sides.
But they managed to survive the "triumphal march of neoliberalism" (1980-2000) and now the danger is less as neoliberalism
is clearly the good with expired "use by" date: after 2008 the neoliberal ideology was completely discredited and entered "zombie"
state.
So in the worst case it is the USA which might follow the path of the USSR and eventually disintegrate under the pressure of
internal nationalist sentiments. Such a victor...
Even now there are some visible difference between former Confederacy states and other states on the issues such as immigration
and federal redistributive programs.
"... Never rely on corporate spending for a recovery. Negative interest rates are precisely an attempt to trigger corporate spending ..."
"... It is similar to the period of stagnation the USSR experienced in starting with 70th till its dissolution. The causes are systemic, stemming from a perverted way neoliberalism organizes the society ("Greed is good" "free market", "I am from the government... " "Individual responsibility", shareholder values and other pseudo-religious symbols of faith ) as well as hypertrophy, lack of control and the level of political power of the financial sector under neoliberalism. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, like Bolshevism before it is a Catch 22 and can't be reformed only abolished. In any case due to deregulation of the financial sector and decimation of New Deal safeguards (thanks to Clinton) the US society stepped on the same rake as before Great Depression. ..."
"confess that I am a profound skeptic about deep negative nominal interest rates. A
slightly higher inflation target and policies to fight the asset price configuration called
"secular stagnation" would largely obviate the need, and leave behind a problem easily and
straightforwardly dealt with via expansionary fiscal policy.
And we really do not know how such an institutional reconfiguration would actually
work.
Confronted with a choice between known and understood policies that would work, and new
ones with unknown side effects and effects that might, I do not understand the enthusiasm
for the second:"
Since kalecki progressives have been warned. Never rely on corporate spending for a recovery. Negative interest rates are precisely an attempt to trigger corporate spending
Forget about it. The government needs to borrow at zero real YES no need to go negative
real. And either spend on real outputs or transfer to high marginal spenders ie credit
constrained households. Btw trying to unconstrain household credit. Or reduce its cost ie
rate reduction. Only restores a new higher debt ration equally subject to sudden stop credit
flows in a system conducted by capitalists and for capitalists
Policies to fight
" asset price configuration "
Answer uncle's safe rate set to zero real. That neutralizes the real burden of federal debt. Now output price trends. May
require a coordinating mechanism imposed on corporate pricing decisions
Firms need autonomy
to regulate their relative prices,
not coincidentally determine absolute price levels.
As firms do now in our output pricing
free for all
Where system wide price changes on over all price level movements are not internalized
Brad is pushing a change in macro management policy. To fiscal mobilization of social production level. And the FED manage
the social burden
of federal debt. Since the triumph of monetary first policy
In 1979 on output level and employment
management fiscal activism has become a robin to the feds Batman
No more sez our dear .Brad
"secular stagnation" is the result of systemic crisis of neoliberalism which started in 2008.
Larry Summers:
"Secular Stagnation – a prolonged period in which satisfactory growth can only be
achieved by unsustainable financial conditions –- may be the defining macro-economic
challenge of our times. "
It is similar to the period of stagnation the USSR experienced in starting with 70th till
its dissolution. The causes are systemic, stemming from a perverted way neoliberalism organizes the society
("Greed is good" "free market", "I am from the government... " "Individual responsibility",
shareholder values and other pseudo-religious symbols of faith ) as well as hypertrophy, lack
of control and the level of political power of the financial sector under neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism, like Bolshevism before it is a Catch 22 and can't be reformed only
abolished. In any case due to deregulation of the financial sector and decimation of New Deal
safeguards (thanks to Clinton) the US society stepped on the same rake as before Great
Depression.
As Galbraith aptly said "The man who is admired for the ingenuity of his larceny is almost
always rediscovering some earlier form of fraud. The basic forms are all known, have all been
practiced."
Are the faults of capitalism curable, or are they instead symptoms of a chronic disease?
This is the question posed by Martin Wolf:
What we increasingly seem to have is an unstable rentier capitalism, weakened competition,
feeble productivity growth, high inequality and, not coincidentally, an increasingly degraded
democracy.
There is much to admire in this piece. But I fear it understates the problem with
capitalism.
The Bank of England has given us a big clue here. It points out that the rising profit
share (a strong sign of increased monopoly) is largely confined to the US. In the UK, the
share of profits in GDP has flatlined in recent years. Few, however, would argue that UK
capitalism is less dysfunctional than its US counterpart. Which suggests that the problem
with capitalism is not increased monopoly.
[Graph]
So what is it? Here, I commend some brilliant work by Michael Roberts. Many of the faults
Martin discusses have their origin in a declining rate of profit – a decline which
became acute in the 1970s but which was never wholly reversed.
The causes of this decline are many and debated: an over-accumulation of capital in the
1960s and again in the tech bubble; increased worker militancy in the 60s and 70s; greater
competition both from overseas and internally (see for example William Nordhaus's work); a
slower rate of innovation in many sectors; an inability of shareholder-owned firms to exploit
potential profit opportunities; weak aggregate demand; and so on.
Granted, actually measuring the rate of profit is fraught with difficulty, due to myriad
problems in measuring the capital stock. But the fact that capital spending has been weak for
many years (before Brexit) suggests that incentives to invest are weak – one plausible
reason for which is low profitability.
The financial crisis was a symptom of this. Imagine there had been an abundance of
profitable investment projects in the real economy in the early 00s. The savings glut and
fall in bond yields would then have financed these so we'd have seen a boom in investment,
jobs and incomes. But there was no such abundance, so the savings glut instead financed a
bubble in housing and credit derivatives which ended in crisis.
Many of the things social democrats like Martin deplore about capitalism are in fact
responses since the late 70s to this crisis of profitability. The assertion of management
power – a symptom of which is high CEO salaries – is a (successful) suppression
of worker militancy. Privatizations are an attempt to expand the realm in which capitalists
can make profits. Financialization is the result of a shift away from low-profit activities
in the real economy. And rent-seeking and cronyism reflect attempts to sustain profits in the
face of competition and crisis.
Stagnant productivity tells us that these measures have not wholly worked, in part perhaps
because the same inequality * they have generated tends to depress productivity growth.
If all this is true, or roughly so, then the problems Martin describes are not so easily
cured. When Martin says that "fixing this is a challenge for us all" he is understating the
case.
But is it true? The way to find out is to see if attempts to reform capitalism actually
succeed. Mirabile dictu, there are even some proposals here that do not come from the left.
Sadly, though, one effect of capitalism's crisis has been, as Martin says, to so degrade
democracy as to take intelligent economic policy off the agenda.
* Yes, UK inequality stopped rising a few years ago. But the damage it does is still with
us. If a man has been hit by a bus, you do not restore him to health merely by stopping the
bus.
"The Trade War Spurs China's Technology Innovators Into Overdrive" [
Industry Week ]. "In Shenzhen's glitzy financial district, a five-year-old outfit creates a
360-degree sports camera that goes on to win awards and draw comparisons to GoPro Inc.
Elsewhere in the Pearl River Delta, a niche design house is competing with the world's best
headphone makers. And in the capital Beijing, a little-known startup becomes one of the biggest
purveyors of smartwatches on the planet. Insta360, SIVGA and Huami join drone maker DJI
Technology Co. among a wave of startups that are dismantling the decades-old image of China as
a clone factory -- and adding to Washington's concerns about its fast-ascending international
rival.
Within the world's No. 2 economy, Trump's campaign to contain China's rise is in fact
spurring its burgeoning tech sector to accelerate design and invention. The threat they
pose is one of unmatchable geography: by bringing design expertise and innovation to the place
where devices are manufactured, these companies are able to develop products faster and more
cheaply ." •
Gee, didn't we have this advantage once? Thanks, neoliberals!
"... This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. ..."
"... In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York Times , for example, reported that Warren has been sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution. ..."
"... In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue to falter. ..."
"... The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political revolution." ..."
From forgetting former President Barack Obama's name to having your
wife ask voters to "swallow
a little bit" of his pro-corporate positions on healthcare, the oligarchs in control of the
two-party political system in the United States are well aware of Biden's struggles .
According to the Washington Times , Biden is losing the support from the corporate
media. The editorial
cited a study from Axios which concluded that of 100 media stories about the Biden
campaign that received the most attention on social media, 77 were negative in character. While
Biden consistently leads in the polls, the DNC elite has gone fishing for of an insurance
policy for Biden's flailing campaign.
Enter Elizabeth Warren. At first, the Massachusetts Senator seemed like a dark horse in the
race and a mere thorn in the side of Bernie Sanders. Kamala Harris appeared to be the early DNC
favorite and her campaign has worked overtime to show its commitment to a neoliberal economic
and political agenda. However, Harris was stymied by Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard's
thirty second run
down of her record as Defense Attorney and Attorney General for the state of California
during the second Democratic Party primary debate. Ever since, Harris has seen her stock
decline mightily
in the polls while Elizabeth Warren's polling numbers have increased dramatically.
This is no coincidence. The DNC elite, a who's who of Wall Street donors and "party
insiders," have chosen Elizabeth Warren as the safest insurance policy to Joe Biden. Warren has
positioned herself as the safer version of progressivism in contradistinction to Bernie
Sanders' full-fledged New Deal politics. As far back as late February of 2019, Warren was
deriding corporate "special interests" while signaling that she would not succumb to
"unilateral disarmament" in a general election against Trump by forgoing corporate
donations.
The progressivism of Elizabeth Warren was thus a malleable project with a history of
inconsistency, as evidenced by her constant flip-flopping on issues such as the privatization
of education in Massachusetts.
In recent weeks, Elizabeth Warren has been putting smiles on the faces of the Democratic
Party establishment. Her performance at the DNC's summer fundraiser in San Francisco in late
August received widespread positive coverage from the corporate media. The New York
Times , for example, reported that Warren has been
sending private messages to Democratic Party insiders to let them know that she is more
interested in leading a "revival" of the Democratic Party rather than a revolution.
An article
in The Atlantic provided snippet remarks from people like Don Fowler, described in the
piece as a former DNC-chair and "long-time Clinton-family loyalist," who called Warren "smart
as shit" for her inside-out approach to her political campaign. A more recent editorial in The
New York Times offered a glimpse into Warren's former big donor connections from her
2018 Senate campaign. According to the Times , Warren was able to transfer 10.4
million USD to her presidential campaign effort in part because of the generosity of the
very same corporate elite that she now condemns as holding too much influence over the
Democratic Party. NBC News further revealed that Elizabeth Warren has an open line of
communication with the much maligned but infamous Democratic Party establishment leader,
Hillary Clinton.
In other words, Elizabeth Warren is saying and doing all the right things to position
herself as the DNC's choice for the presidential nomination should the Biden campaign continue
to falter.
Donald Trump is guaranteed the nomination for the Republican Party ticket after
taking over the party in 2016 from defunct establishment figures such as Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush,
and Ted Cruz.
The DNC is looking for a candidate who will oppose Trump but support the
neoliberal and foreign policy consensus that exists in Washington. At first, Warren's mimicry
of Bernie Sanders' talking points raised a few eyebrows on Wall Street. While some of those
eyebrows remain raised, the DNC clearly prefers Warren's "revival" over Sanders' "political
revolution."
That's because Warren's campaign to "revive" the Democratic Party is bereft of political
principle. Whatever Sanders' political limitations as a "left" alternative to the
establishment, the Vermont Senator is by far more progressive than Warren. Warren voted for the
Trump Administration's recent
military budget in 2017 even after tens of billions of dollars were added by Congress to
the original proposal. During Israel's 2014 massacre of the Palestinians in Operation
Protective Edge, Warren claimed Israel had a
right to defend itself. Bernie Sanders offers a clear proposal for Medicare for All already
drafted in the Senate, while Elizabeth Warren believes that Medicare for All can be implemented
in
"many different ways." In CNN's Climate Town Hall, Warren opposed public control of utilities
while Sanders supported it. A deeper look at Elizabeth Warren reveals that she is more aligned
with the establishment than she wants the public to believe.
All of this is to say that the DNC is looking for the best-case scenario for its corporate
masters, which is the worst-case scenario for working people in the United States. The
principle goal of the DNC is to stop Bernie Sanders from getting anywhere near the nomination.
Prior to Warren becoming insurance policy for Joe Biden, the DNC hoped that the Massachusetts
Senator would split supporters of Bernie Sanders down the middle. This would lead either to a
clear path to the nomination for a handpicked candidate (Biden, Harris, fill in the blank) or
to a contested convention where the unelected but very wealthy
"superdelegates" would cast the deciding vote. Should Warren have turned out a lame duck,
the DNC could still rely on over a dozen candidates with careerist ambitions to force a
contested election at the DNC convention in Milwaukee.
Workers in the United States have no insurance policy when it comes to the 2020 presidential
election or any other election for that matter. Austerity, privatization, and super
exploitation is the law of the capitalist land in the USA. Sanders is attractive to many
workers in the U.S. because of his consistent articulation of an anti-austerity platform which
includes living wage employment, a Green New Deal to help provide that employment, and a solid
commitment to Medicare for All. But Sanders remains deeply loyal to the Democratic Party and
has stated firmly on several occasions on the campaign trail that he would support any
Democratic Party candidate should he lose the nomination. Sanders frames Donald Trump as the
most dangerous element in U.S. society even as his own party colludes to prevent him from
having a fair shot at the nomination. Sanders and his supporters must realize that Elizabeth
Warren is not a friend, but an opportunist who is more than willing to profit from their
demise. The best-case scenario for the working class is that wall to wall resistance to Sanders
will lead to a mass exodus from the party and open the door for an independent worker's party
to form amid the collapse of the DNC.
"... Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a detailed plan for cleansing it. ..."
"... "Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken, I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United States." ..."
"... Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders, effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy ..."
Warren and Trump Speeches Attack Corruption,
but Two Different Kinds https://nyti.ms/2IaKMVQ
NYT - Alexander Burns - September 17
In New York, Senator Elizabeth Warren described a government compromised by the influence
of the wealthy. President Trump, in New Mexico, denounced a "failed liberal
establishment."
Senator Elizabeth Warren stood beneath a marble arch in New York City, telling a crowd of
thousands that she would lead a movement to purge the government of corruption. Not far from
the site of a historic industrial disaster, Ms. Warren described Washington as utterly
compromised by the influence of corporations and the extremely wealthy, and laid out a
detailed plan for cleansing it.
"Corruption has put our planet at risk, corruption has broken our economy and
corruption is breaking our democracy," Ms. Warren said Monday evening. "I know what's broken,
I've got a plan to fix it and that's why I'm running for president of the United
States."
Only a few hours later, on a stage outside Albuquerque, President Trump took aim at a
different phenomenon that he also described as corruption. Before his own roaring crowd, Mr.
Trump cast himself as a bulwark against the power not of corporations but of a "failed
liberal establishment" that he described as attacking the country's sovereignty and cultural
heritage.
"We're battling against the corrupt establishment of the past," Mr. Trump said, warning in
grim language: "They want to erase American history, crush religious liberty, indoctrinate
our students with left-wing ideology."
The two back-to-back addresses laid out the competing versions of populism that could come
to define the presidential campaign. From the right, there is the strain Mr. Trump brought to
maturity in 2016, combining the longstanding grievances of the white working class with a
newer, darker angst about immigration and cultural change. And on the left, there is a vastly
different populist wave still gaining strength, defined in economic terms by Ms. Warren,
Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
The messages underlined the possibility that the 2020 election could be the first in a
generation to be fought without an ally of either party's centrist establishment on the
ballot. While it is by no means certain that Ms. Warren will emerge as the Democratic
nominee, two of her party's top three candidates -- Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders -- are
trumpeting themes of economic inequality and promises of sweeping political and social
reform.
Their version of populism, which Mr. Sanders pioneered but did not bring to fruition
when he challenged Hillary Clinton in 2016, is about attacking concentrated wealth and
economic power and breaking its influence over government. Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders,
effectively tied for second place in their party's primary, both describe the country's
political institutions as rotten and vow to make vast changes to the economy . ...
Let's hope the Sanders campaign does not play this card.
"Senator Professor Warren continues to play error-free baseball in this here presidential
campaign. Not only does she schedule a certified Big Speech in Washington Square Park in New
York on Monday night to talk about the contributions of women to the labor movement not far
from the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, but also, in the afternoon, she scoops an
important endorsement across town. From The New York Times:
'The party endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont during the last presidential cycle,
at which time he described Working Families as "the closest thing" to "my vision of
democratic socialism." The group's endorsement of Ms. Warren on Monday, one of the few by a
prominent progressive organization this early in the primary, is sure to turn heads among
left-leaning Democrats who are desperate to defeat the current front-runner, Mr. Biden, in a
primary election where their party's ideological future is at stake.
Mr. Mitchell brushed off the possibility that the group's endorsement would be seen as a
sign of a splintering of the progressive left. The vote among "tens of thousands" of party
members resulted in a commanding majority for Ms. Warren, a party spokesman said; she
received more than 60 percent of the votes on the first ballot.'
The Sanders camp is already raising holy hell. They will now position SPW as a tool of her
corporate masters. (That's been going on for a while now among some of the more enthusiastic
adherents of the Sanders campaign. My guess is that it will become more general now.) The WFP
endorsement is an important and clarifying one. If there is a liberal lane, there's some
daylight open now."
"... I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the window in favor of the shareholders. ..."
Go to the section of Warren's website entitled
"Plans" and at the time of this writing you'll have a choice between a staggering 43 links.
Many of the plans could hugely impact our economy, but one stands above the rest in its
potential to overhaul our commercia landscape. Warren calls the reforms she envisions to
corporate mandates and governance
"accountable capitalism."
Corporations sometimes do bad things, and Warren's plan might stop some of them.
So just what is accountable capitalism? It was originally a bill proposed by Senator Warren
last year. In a fawning write-up in Vox
, Matthew Yglesias inadvertently exposed the idea's flimsy intellectual foundation:
Warren's plan starts from the premise that corporations that claim the legal rights of
personhood should be legally required to accept the moral obligations of personhood.
... ... ...
Warren's plan requires corporations valued at over $1 billion to obtain a special federal
charter. This charter exposes corporations to regulation from a new Office of United States
Corporations that "tells company directors to consider the interests of all relevant
stakeholders -- shareholders, but also employees, customers, and the community within which the
company operates -- when making decisions."
... ... ...
Warren has spent much of her career crusading against the harmful and unjust cozy
relationships between Wall Street and government, often to her credit. It's curious that
someone with such expertise in the matter doesn't seem at all concerned that this new
"accountability" would multiply the number of meetings, phone calls, and emails between senior
regulators and the titans of the private sector.
These billion-dollar corporations already employ armies of lawyers and accountants to
navigate regulatory minefields and turn them into weapons against their smaller competitors.
Does Warren believe this practice will stop overnight?
If most rent-seeking were a matter of nefarious corporate executives buying off weak or
greedy officials, we could just elect better people. The fact that this problem persists over
decades is indicative of a more subtle process. Rent-seeking is an inevitable systemic feature
in a network with thousands of contact points between business and government.
She had her chance in the '08 credit crash when she took on Wall Street & The
Banksters!
She ended up filling the Banksters & 1%'ers pockets with billions of Tarp funds some
of which were donated to her campaign while enacting competition killing Dodd Frank
compliance laws! No one was ever charged or convicted for the $9Trillion debacle!
I recall Barry the magical ***** had similar plans that disappeared the moment of his
coronation/deification. Campaign plans are like that: fictional lies that vanish like
magic.
I do like the author's take on the importance of corporations' fiduciary
responsibility to shareholders, though. There WAS a time when a company's first priority was
customer satisfaction. The moment they became corporations, however, customers went out the
window in favor of the shareholders.
These days, thanks to algos, things like revenue and performance don't even seem to matter
to stock valuation anymore, only buybacks and options seem to keep prices up.
The problem of corporation lack of empathy is not caused by capitalism, it is caused by
the lack of moral values of the people running the corporation. What is needed is a moral
framework within which to raise our young... Religion? Yes! correct answer.
I think the author is too generous with Warren's intentions. She pretends she cares, and
this is her misguided effort to "help". I don't think that's true.
Look at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. It, too, sounds like it's about
"helping" people. Warren proposed the whole thing, and wrote much of the legislation.
Its real purpose, if you look at its actions (which, I remind you, speak louder than
words) is to extort money from large companies in order to fund left-wing activist groups. In
nearly all its settlements, the CFPB offers companies the option to "donate" money to these
third-party groups in lieu of larger fines and penalties. They've diverted billions of
dollars to activist groups. Controlling the money allows them to control the groups, and
these groups can exert all kinds of pressure, usually in ways that would be illegal, if done
directly by the government.
It's the equivalent of having the government fund paramilitary groups or third party
propaganda.
Warren would establish this new "Office of United States Corporations" to extort even more
money, diverted to third parties to use to destroy people, companies, and anything else she'd
like to target but cannot target directly through government because of our pesky
Constitution.
She's an aspiring totalitarian dictator, using clever language and 21st century tools.
Don't pretend, for a moment, that she's interested in "helping" anyone - she'd happily kill
as many people as Hitler or Stalin ever did, if she had the chance.
Steve Peoples and Will Weissert - AP - September 16
NEW YORK -- Elizabeth Warren has released a sweeping anti-government corruption proposal,
providing a detailed policy roadmap for a fight she says is at the core of her presidential
campaign.
The Democratic senator from Massachusetts is announcing the plan Monday in Manhattan's
Washington Square Park, near the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Co., which caught fire in
1911, killing 140-plus workers. Many of those deaths later were attributed to neglected
safety features, such as doors that were locked inside the factory.
Warren's plan would ban lobbyists from many fundraising activities and serving as
political campaign bundlers, tighten limits on politicians accepting gifts or payment for
government actions and bar senior officials and members of Congress from serving on nonprofit
boards. ...
Senator Elizabeth Warren is blitzing the 2020 Democratic primary field with a series of
ambitious policy proposals covering everything from student loans to the use of federal
lands.
Her proposals have become a signature part of her campaign, solidifying her reputation as
a policy wonk and spurring a new campaign slogan: "I have a plan for that."
Big Tech breakup
Child care
Clean energy
Criminal justice
Economic patriotism
Electoral college
Farmers
Filibuster
Green energy
Gun control
Higher education
Housing
Immigration
Minority entrepreneurship
Native American issues
Opioids
Pentagon ethics
Public lands
Puerto Rico
Racial wage disparities
Reparations
Roe v. Wade
Rural communities
State Department
Tax plans
Trade
Voting rights
Wall Street regulation
"... Furthermore, because of the horrific legacy of the one-child policy, China faces a rapidly aging population that will strain resources and reduce the number of working-age people . By 2050, it is estimated that the average Chinese will be 56 years of age. In contrast, the average American will be 44. No amount of spending or legal reform will prevent Beijing's coming demographic crisis. ..."
Part of the Trump administration's
latest round of 15 percent tariffs on Chinese imports went into effect Sunday, with the
rest to follow on December 15. These increases will impact the prices of many consumer goods
that Americans rely on, including clothing, appliances, televisions, smartwatches, textbooks,
diapers, coffee, and even whiskey. And given their timing, they'll likely have an effect on
holiday shopping. This makes all the more welcome President Trump's
recent statement during the G7 summit that China is looking to end the trade war and that
he too is open to making a deal.
Trump is right to negotiate with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as finding an off-ramp from
the trade war should be Washington's priority. America's interest is in out-competing Beijing,
not hurting our own economy in an attempt to damage theirs. The United States has a better hand
here, but we must play it to our advantage.
America's great strength is in our freedom, our market economy, and our democratic system.
The United States has attained a level of prosperity unseen in human history, and that economic
engine is what fuels our military power. Without a strong economy, we cannot have a strong
military. Thus an endless trade war endangers American security in the long term: as both sides
pile on retaliatory tariffs, the risk of recession increases. American consumers will feel each
new trade barrier as it hits their pocketbooks.
Washington must not pursue policies that hurt those it governs. And the suffering inflicted
by a trade war wouldn't just be limited to the pricing of consumer goods. It would also make us
weaker for no good reason. And it would lower tax revenues, requiring America to go further
into debt to maintain our present level of security.
Advertisement
Moreover, long-term trade attacks on China are unnecessary, because China already has more
problems than America. Beijing suffers from high national debt, a lack of clear economic
reform, and a rapidly aging population. It has few, if any, good or timely solutions to these
pressing issues.
According to the Institute of International Finance, China's total national, corporate, and
household debt is now
over 300 percent of its GDP. What makes this especially bad for Beijing is that the debt
was taken on very quickly after the 2008 global recession, without the power of a global
reserve currency to make borrowing easier, as the United States has. Moreover, this debt is
largely corporate and China's state-capitalist system makes it harder for Chinese companies
survive market pressures. Beijing has used cheap credit to fuel its exports and its economic
rise through fully and partially state-controlled national companies.
The Chinese economic system has undergone some reforms in recent years but
still remains too top-down and too focused on exports over consumption as compared to more
developed economies. In other words, China needs to transition to a full market economy like
Taiwan and South Korea did on their paths to prosperity, but it hasn't done so yet.
Furthermore, because of the horrific legacy of the one-child policy, China faces a
rapidly aging population that will strain resources and reduce the number of
working-age people . By 2050, it is estimated that the average Chinese will be 56 years of
age. In contrast, the average American will be 44. No amount of spending or legal reform will
prevent Beijing's coming demographic crisis.
This comparative weakness is why it makes sense to find a trade war off-ramp sooner rather
than later. China needs one badly and will eventually want a deal -- if it doesn't already. As
for the United States, recession may be inevitable, but it would be better if it were not
self-inflicted.
Already the trade war has cost American billions in higher prices for
imported products. American farmers have
been hit hard by China's retaliatory tariffs and, according to
a report by IHS Markit, U.S. manufacturing has shrunk for the first since 2009. Economists
polled by Reuters believe the trade war has increased the risk of a recession, with a
median of those surveyed giving a 45 percent chance of a downturn over the next two years.
Additionally, major
banks have
expressed concerns , as the stock market takes hits with every new tariff increase and
angry statement between Washington and Beijing.
I couldnt disagree more. I want more tariffs against China and Europe. I want closed borders
and zero migration. China has infiltrated our government, our defense agencies, our nuclear
agencies, our major research centers, our college campuses, our media and bribed our
politicians. China is an imminent threat to Hong Kong, Taiwan and its militarization of the
islands in the South China Sea are a threat to all of South Asia. China has been stealing US,
Canadian and European technology for decades to leapfrog the US into technological dominance
globally. China's plan is to force the US our of the Asia Pacific. China has infiltrated
Canada and Australia to a similar degree (if not more) than the US. If you pander to these
free trade globalists then you will be paving the way for a military conflict between Chinese
and American Hegemony in Asia and elsewhere around the world. I dont know about you but I
will take a tariff and trade war over a military war any day. Ramp up those tariffs and shift
those supply chains out of China toward more benevolent allies and the world be be all the
safer for it.
China has been waging a one sided trade war against us for over 30 years, it's about time we
resisted. Becoming more economically intertwined with our dangerous and genocidal rival
doesn't sound like the right answer to me, especially when China will continue protectionist
policies and currency manipulation regardless of what we do. America has allowed its
industrial base to hemorrhage since the 70s, and bending over for our enemy to keep cheap
trash flowing and American factories closed is not the right answer.
Is this a white box article the Chamber of Commerce is using to astroturf?
China is a Monstrous regime that is killing and enslaving its citizens. It will simply
kill everyone over 65, then 60 if it becomes convenient like they did with their one child
policy. Problem solved.
You wish to keep trading with criminals, polluters, and pirates so you can get cheap junk
at WalMart?
You have a job. I wish you would lose yours and that dozens of blue collar had working but
laid off Americans can find one. It isn't how much something costs in dollars (or how much of
your soul it costs), it is how much it costs in your virtuous labor. I'd rather pay double
for stuff but get triple wages rather than pay half but be all but permanently
unemployed.
Well said. Calling off the trade would be good for US consumers and the economy in general.
But while we are on the subject,calling off the war on immigration would also be good for US
consumers and the economy in general.
Wow. This article is off-base on any number of levels.
"These increases will impact the prices of many consumer goods that Americans rely
on,"
No, no they won't. Tariffs are paid for by the importer, not the consumer. If the importer
could randomly increase prices, they would do so without tariffs. The market sets prices.
"America's interest is in out-competing Beijing, not hurting our own economy in an attempt
to damage theirs."
If America could out-compete Beijing, American manufacturing would not have moved to
China. It turns out, the American people simply don't want to live according to 3rd world
standards. We want decent homes and stuff. We don't want to live in a cesspool of pollution.
I'm sure the Chinese people have the same preferences, they just don't get a choice.
"Moreover, long-term trade attacks on China are unnecessary, because China already has
more problems than America."
I agree with the author here, but not for the same reasons. Attacking China doesn't
resolve anything. American companies will just move to a different 3rd world country with
whom we can't complete. Why should I care if my clothes come from China or Vietnam?
I am 100% supportive of the trade war and building the wall and tariffs. I say zero
immigration and make all Chinese Tariffs permanent. Negotiate a trade deal with the tariffs
intact. Id rather have a trade war with China and permanent tariffs than a war with China.
China has been stealing technology and has infiltrated media, government, defense,
education, government officials (usually through bribes) from the US, Canada, Australia and
Europe. China is proving itself to be a threat to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Vietnam, Philippines,
Indonesia, India and South Asia.
Much of this "so called Russia Collusion" is actually a deflection of democratic
politicians China is bribing to take down Trump in order to continue their military and
technological theft, their existing preferential trade and their existing network. China is a
serious danger to the US and the rest of the world. It is preferential to sacrifice a small
amount of prosperity today for long term peace with China.
Propaganda. The aging of Chinese population? Not to worry, China has no real Social Security
system, and so relies on massive surpluses of savings. The 300% consumer debt ratio? That
would cripple any country with no help from trade. Should we let Wells Fargo and Goldman
refinance them?
Farmers hit hard? As I recall we have had the worst corn harvest in decades, and shame on
us for not growing more wheat, oats, and sugar cane. Our beef and poultry prices will be
affected, not to mention our fast food industry, which has been whipsawed by political
correctness. But China will effectively ration its pork, as it faces an even worse African
Swine Flu crisis, and an additional one on grains from the Black Army Worm.
US decline in manufacturing? Look first at our glut of automobiles, and the self vetting
of plant capacity by GM. Don't forget the crisis in car leases, which have made older cars
worth less than their outstanding loans. And note, that the fall in lithium prices indicates
that China's car electrification initiative is falling flat.
One thing left out of the equation is oil. And why should China live high on Iranian oil
(mostly wastefully burned in power plants, mind you, and not cars) while we suffer attacks on
Saudi oil from Iranian proxies (all on ChiRussia's dime)? Puts our trade negotiations in
clear perspective, doesn't it?
Stopping the war will not bring back China as our major trading partner. China is not going
to be in this vulnerable position with America again. She is going to develop other markets
Interestingly, one of the people the Ukrainians gave up in this exchange was Vladimir
Tsemakh, a native of the Donbass who was kidnapped by the Ukie SBU in Novorussia (our noble
"Europeans" did not object to such methods!) and declared the "star witness" against Russia in
the MH-17 (pseudo-)investigation. Even more pathetic is that
the Dutch apparently fully endorsed this load of crapola . Finally, and just for a good
laugh, check out how the infamous'
Bellingcat presented Tsemakh . And then, suddenly, everybody seem to "forget" that "star
witness" and now the Ukies have sent him to Russia. Amazing how fast stuff gets lost in the
collective western memory hole
Thus we see these apparently contradictory developments taking place: on on hand, the
Ukraine finally agreed to a prisoner swap with Russia (a painful one for Russia as Russia
mostly traded real criminals, including a least twobona fide Ukie
terrorist, against what are mostly civilian hostages, but Putin decided – correctly I
think – that freeing Russian nationalists from Ukie jails was more important in this
case) while on the other hand, the Ukronazi armed forces increased their shelling, even with
152mm howitzers which fire 50kg high explosive fragmentation shells, against the Donbass.
Whatever may be the case, this prisoner swap, no matter how one-sided and unfair, is a positive
development which might mark the beginning of a pragmatic and less ideological attitude in
Kiev.
Some very cautious beginnings of a little hint of optimism might be in order following that
exchange, but the big stuff seems to be scheduled for the meeting of the Normandy Group (NG),
probably in France. So far, the Russians have made it very clear that they will not meet just
for the hell of meeting, and that the only circumstance in which the Russians will agree to a
NG meeting would be if it has good chances of yielding meaningful results which, translated
from Russian diplomatic language simply means "if/when Kiev stops stonewalling and sabotaging
everything". Specifically, the Russians are demanding that Zelenskii commit in writing to the
so-called "
Steinmeier formula " and that the Ukrainian forces withdraw from the line of contact. Will
that happen? Maybe. We shall soon find out.
Here is my informal translation of these words:
The international order is being shaken in an unprecedented manner, above all with, if I
may say so, by the great upheaval that is undoubtedly taking place for
the first time in our history , in almost every field and with a
profoundly historic magnitude . The first thing we observe is a major
transformation, a geopolitical and strategic re-composition. We are undoubtedly
experiencing the end of Western hegemony over the world . We were accustomed to an
international order which, since the 18th century, rested on a Western hegemony, mostly
French in the 18th century, by the inspiration of the Enlightenment; then mostly British in
the 19th century thanks to the Industrial Revolution and, finally, mostly American in the
20th century thanks to the 2 great conflicts and the economic and political domination of
this power. Things change. And they are now deeply shaken by the mistakes of Westerners
in certain crises, by the choices that have been made by Americans for several years
which did not start with this administration, but which lead to revisiting certain
implications in conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to rethinking a deep,
diplomatic and military strategy, and sometimes elements of solidarity that we thought were
intangible for eternity, even if we had constituted together in geopolitical moments that
have changed. And then there is the emergence of new powers whose impact we have
probably underestimated for a long time. China is at the forefront, but also the Russian
strategy, which has, it must be said, been pursued more successfully in recent years
. I will come back to that. India that is emerging, these new economies that are also
becoming powers not only economic but political and that think themselves, as some have
written, as real "civilizational states" which now come not only to shake up our
international order but who also come to weigh in on the economic order and to
rethink the political order and the political imagination that goes with it, with much
dynamism and much more inspiration than we have. Look at India, Russia and China. They
have a much stronger political inspiration than Europeans today. They think about our planet
with a true logic, a true philosophy, an imagination that we've lost a little
bit.
... ... ...
6) " Look at India, Russia and China. They have a much stronger political inspiration
than Europeans today. They think about our planet with a true logic, a true philosophy, an
imagination that we've lost a little bit."
This is the "core BRICS" challenge to the Empire: China and Russia have already established
what the Chinese call a "Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for the New Era".
If they can now extend this kind of informal but extremely profound partnership (I think of it
as "symbiotic") to India next, then the BRICS will have a formidable future (especially after
the Brazilian people give the boot to Bolsonaro and his US patrons). Should that fail and
should India chose to remain outside this unique relationship, then the SCO will become the
main game in town. And yes, Macron is spot on: China and, especially, Russia have a
fundamentally different worldview and, unlike the western one, theirs does have "much stronger
political" goals (Macron used the word "aspirations"), "a real philosophy and imagination"
which the West has lost, and not just a "little bit" but, I would argue, completely. But one
way or the other, and for the first time in 1000 years, the future of our planet will not be
decided anywhere in the West, not in Europe (old or "new"), but in Asia, primarily by the
Russian-Chinese alliance. As I explained here , the AngloZionist Empire is
probably the last one in history, definitely the last western one.
Perfect time for Texas to secede from the Union and return to being a Lone Star Nation
State. Price for barrels start at $95 and that's only a former friends and family rate.
The collapse of neoliberalism naturally lead to the collapse of the US influence over the globe. and to the treats to the dollar
as the world reserve currency. That's why the US foreign policy became so aggressive and violent. Neocons want to fight for the
world hegemony to the last American.
Notable quotes:
"... US foreign policy is ever more unstable and confrontational ..."
"... Bolton's brutal defenestration has raised hopes that Trump, who worries that voters may view him as a warmonger, may begin to moderate some of his more confrontational international policies. As the 2020 election looms, he is desperate for a big foreign policy peace-making success. And, in Trump world, winning matters more than ideology, principles or personnel. ..."
"... Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has not merely broken with diplomatic and geopolitical convention. He has taken a wrecking ball to venerated alliances, multilateral cooperation and the postwar international rules-based order. ..."
"... The resulting new world disorder – to adapt George HW Bush's famous 1991 phrase – will be hard to put right. Like its creator, Trump world is unstable, unpredictable and threatening. Trump has been called America's first rogue president. Whether or not he wins a second term, this Trumpian era of epic disruption, the very worst form of American exceptionalism, is already deeply entrenched. ..."
"... driven by a chronic desire for re-election, Trump's behaviour could become more, not less, confrontational during his remaining time in office, suggested Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins university. ..."
"... "The president has proved himself to be what many critics have long accused him of being: belligerent, bullying, impatient, irresponsible, intellectually lazy, short-tempered and self-obsessed," Cohen wrote in Foreign Affairs journal . "Remarkably, however, those shortcomings have not yet translated into obvious disaster. But [that] should not distract from a building crisis of US foreign policy." ..."
"... This pending crisis stems from Trump's crudely Manichaean division of the world into two camps: adversaries/competitors and supporters/customers. A man with few close confidants, Trump has real trouble distinguishing between allies and enemies, friends and foes, and often confuses the two. In Trump world, old rules don't apply. Alliances are optional. Loyalty is weakness. And trust is fungible. ..."
"... The crunch came last weekend when a bizarre, secret summit with Taliban chiefs at Camp David was cancelled . It was classic Trump. He wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for a dramatic peace deal, pushed ahead blindly, then changed his mind at the last minute. Furious over a debacle of his own making, he turned his wrath on others, notably Bolton – who, ironically, had opposed the summit all along. ..."
"... With Trump's blessing, Israel is enmeshed in escalating, multi-fronted armed confrontation with Iran and its allies in Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Add to this recent violence in the Gulf, the disastrous Trump-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, mayhem in Syria's Idlib province, border friction with Turkey, and Islamic State resurgence in northern Iraq, and a region-wide explosion looks ever more likely. ..."
"... "the bipartisan consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it in America's image – has failed and cannot be revived", ..."
With John Bolton dismissed, Taliban peace talks a fiasco and
a trade war with China, US foreign policy is ever more unstable and confrontational
It was by all accounts, a furious row.
Donald Trump was talking about relaxing sanctions on
Iran and holding a summit with its president, Hassan Rouhani, at this month's UN general assembly in New York. John Bolton, his hawkish
national security adviser, was dead against it and forcefully rejected Trump's ideas during a tense meeting in the Oval Office on
Monday.
...Bolton's brutal defenestration has raised hopes that Trump, who worries that voters may view him as a warmonger, may begin
to moderate some of his more confrontational international policies. As the 2020 election looms, he is desperate for a big foreign
policy peace-making success. And, in Trump world, winning matters more than ideology, principles or personnel.
The US president is now saying he is also open to a repeat meeting with North Korea's leader, Kim Jong-un, to reboot stalled nuclear
disarmament talks. On another front, he has offered an olive branch to China, delaying a planned tariff increase on $250bn of Chinese
goods pending renewed trade negotiations next month. Meanwhile, he says, new tariffs on European car imports could be dropped, too.
Is a genuine dove-ish shift under way? It seems improbable. Since taking office in January 2017, Trump has not merely broken with
diplomatic and geopolitical convention. He has taken a wrecking ball to venerated alliances, multilateral cooperation and the postwar
international rules-based order. He has cosied up to autocrats, attacked old friends and blundered into sensitive conflicts he does
not fully comprehend.
The resulting new world disorder – to adapt George HW Bush's famous 1991 phrase – will be hard to put right. Like its creator,
Trump world is unstable, unpredictable and threatening. Trump has been called America's first rogue president. Whether or not he
wins a second term, this Trumpian era of epic disruption, the very worst form of American exceptionalism, is already deeply entrenched.
The suggestion that Trump will make nice and back off as election time nears thus elicits considerable scepticism. US analysts
and commentators say the president's erratic, impulsive and egotistic personality means any shift towards conciliation may be short-lived
and could quickly be reversed, Bolton or no Bolton.
Trump wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for a dramatic peace deal in Afghanistan with the Taliban, pushed ahead blindly,
then changed his mind at the last minute
Trump is notorious for blowing hot and cold, performing policy zigzags and suddenly changing his mind. "Regardless of who has
advised Mr Trump on foreign affairs all have proved powerless before [his] zest for chaos," the
New York Times noted last week
.
Lacking experienced diplomatic and military advisers (he has sacked most of the good ones), surrounded by an inner circle of cynical
sycophants such as secretary of state Mike Pompeo, and driven by a chronic desire for re-election, Trump's behaviour could become
more, not less, confrontational during his remaining time in office, suggested Eliot Cohen, professor of strategic studies at Johns
Hopkins university.
"The president has proved himself to be what many critics have long accused him of being: belligerent, bullying, impatient, irresponsible,
intellectually lazy, short-tempered and self-obsessed," Cohen wrote
in Foreign
Affairs journal . "Remarkably, however, those shortcomings have not yet translated into obvious disaster. But [that] should
not distract from a building crisis of US foreign policy."
This pending crisis stems from Trump's crudely Manichaean division of the world into two camps: adversaries/competitors and supporters/customers.
A man with few close confidants, Trump has real trouble distinguishing between allies and enemies, friends and foes, and often confuses
the two. In Trump world, old rules don't apply. Alliances are optional. Loyalty is weakness. And trust is fungible.
As a result, the US today finds itself at odds with much of the world to an unprecedented and dangerous degree. America, the postwar
global saviour, has been widely recast as villain. Nor is this a passing phase. Trump seems to have permanently changed the way the
US views the world and vice versa. Whatever follows, it will never be quite the same again.
Clues as to what he does next may be found in what he has done so far. His is a truly calamitous record, as exemplified by Afghanistan.
Having vowed in 2016 to end America's longest war, he began with a troop surge, lost interest and sued for peace. A withdrawal deal
proved elusive. Meanwhile, US-led forces
inflicted record civilian casualties .
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest The US and Israeli flags are projected on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in May, marking the anniversary of
the US embassy transfer from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Photograph: Ahmad Gharabli/Getty
The crunch came last weekend when a bizarre, secret
summit with Taliban chiefs at Camp David was cancelled . It was classic Trump. He wanted quick 'n' easy, primetime credit for
a dramatic peace deal, pushed ahead blindly, then changed his mind at the last minute. Furious over a debacle of his own making,
he turned his wrath on others, notably Bolton – who, ironically, had opposed the summit all along.
All sides are now vowing to step up the violence, with the insurgents aiming to disrupt this month's presidential election in
Afghanistan. In short, Trump's self-glorifying Afghan reality show, of which he was the Nobel-winning star, has made matters worse.
Much the same is true of his North Korea summitry, where expectations were raised, then dashed when he got
cold feet
in Hanoi , provoking a backlash from Pyongyang.
The current crisis over Iran's nuclear programme is almost entirely of Trump's making, sparked by his decision last year to renege
on the 2015 UN-endorsed deal with Tehran. His subsequent "maximum pressure" campaign of punitive sanctions has
failed to cow
Iranians while alienating European allies. And it has led Iran to resume banned nuclear activities – a seriously counterproductive,
entirely predictable outcome.
Trump's unconditional, unthinking support for Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's aggressively rightwing prime minister – including tacit
US backing for his proposed annexation of swathes of the occupied territories – is pushing the Palestinians back to the brink, energising
Hamas and Hezbollah, and
raising tensions across the region .
With Trump's blessing, Israel is enmeshed in escalating, multi-fronted armed confrontation with Iran and its allies in Iraq,
Lebanon and Syria. Add to this recent violence in the Gulf, the disastrous Trump-backed, Saudi-led war in Yemen, mayhem in Syria's
Idlib province, border friction with Turkey, and Islamic State resurgence in northern Iraq, and a region-wide explosion looks ever
more likely.
The bipartisan consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it
in America's image – has failed and cannot be revived
Stephen Wertheim, historian
Yet Trump, oblivious to the point of recklessness, remains determined to unveil his absurdly unbalanced Israel-Palestine "deal
of the century" after Tuesday's Israeli elections. He and his gormless son-in-law, Jared Kushner, may be the only people who don't
realise their plan has a shorter life expectancy than a snowball on a hot day in Gaza.
... ... ...
...he is consistently out of line, out on his own – and out of control. This, broadly, is Trump world as it has come to exist
since January 2017. And this, in a nutshell, is the intensifying foreign policy crisis of which Professor Cohen warned. The days
when responsible, trustworthy, principled US international leadership could be taken for granted are gone. No vague change of tone
on North Korea or Iran will by itself halt the Trump-led slide into expanding global conflict and division.
Historians such as Stephen Wertheim say change had to come. US politicians of left and right mostly agreed that "the bipartisan
consensus forged in the 1990s – in which the US towered over the world and, at low cost, sought to remake it in America's image –
has failed and cannot be revived",Wertheim wrote earlier this year
. "But agreement ends there " he continued: "One camp holds that the US erred by coddling China and Russia, and urges a new competition
against these great power rivals. The other camp, which says the US has been too belligerent and ambitious around the world, counsels
restraint, not another crusade against grand enemies."
This debate among grownups over America's future place in the world will form part of next year's election contest. But before
any fundamental change of direction can occur, the international community – and the US itself – must first survive another 16 months
of Trump world and the wayward child-president's poll-fixated, ego-driven destructive tendencies.
Survival is not guaranteed. The immediate choice facing US friends and foes alike is stark and urgent: ignore, bypass and marginalise
Trump – or actively, openly, resist him.
Here are some of the key flashpoints around the globe
United Nations
Trump is deeply hostile to the UN. It embodies the multilateralist, globalist policy approaches he most abhors – because they
supposedly infringe America's sovereignty and inhibit its freedom of action. Under him, self-interested US behaviour has undermined
the authority of the UN security council's authority. The US has rejected a series of international treaties and agreements, including
the Paris climate change accord and the Iran nuclear deal. The UN-backed international criminal court is beyond the pale. Trump's
attitude fits with his "America First" isolationism, which questions traditional ideas about America's essential global leadership
role.
Germany
Trump rarely misses a chance to bash Germany, perhaps because it is Europe's most successful economy and represents the EU, which
he detests. He is obsessed by German car imports, on which protectionist US tariffs will be levied this autumn. He accuses Berlin
– and Europe– of piggy-backing on America by failing to pay its fair share of Nato defence costs. Special venom is reserved for Germany's
chancellor, Angela Merkel, most likely because she is
a woman who stands up to him . Trump recently insulted another female European leader, Denmark's
Mette Frederiksen, after she refused to sell him Greenland .
Israel
Trump has made a great show of unconditional friendship towards Israel and its rightwing prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who
has skilfully maximised his White House influence. But by moving the US embassy to Jerusalem, officially condoning Israel's annexation
of the Golan Heights, and withdrawing funding and other support from the Palestinians, the president has abandoned the long-standing
US policy of playing honest broker in the peace process. Trump has also tried to exploit antisemitism for political advantage, accusing
US Democrat Jews who oppose Netanyahu's policies of "disloyalty" to Israel.
"... By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually "completely real" and "totally bad." ..."
"... The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida. ..."
"... Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an energized left. ..."
"... And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ... ..."
...But he also spoke, in admiring tones and at substantial length, about "The Two-Income Trap:
Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke," the book Warren wrote with her daughter in 2004.
"Elizabeth Warren wrote one of the best books I've ever read on economics," he said.
By that point, he'd already warned his audience about the perils of "monopoly power" and
declared that income inequality, which the right had long been trained to believe is "just a
pure invention of some diabolical French intellectual to destroy America," is actually
"completely real" and "totally bad."
His Bolshevist pronouncements were probably not a surprise to anyone who'd watched Carlson's
show closely in the months leading up to his speech. But Fox, despite its outsize influence,
has a relatively small audience.
And it's not just Carlson's evolution that's escaped notice. It's hard to keep track of what
most of the key players on the right are saying these days, with President Trump soaking up so
much attention.
But while the commander-in-chief thrashes about, something important is taking shape in his
shadow -- the outlines of a new conservatism inspired, or at least elevated, by his rise to
power.
It's a conservatism that tries to wrestle with the post-Cold War, post-industrial angst that
fired his election -- dropping a reflexive fealty to big business that dates back to the Reagan
era and focusing more intently on the struggles of everyday Americans.
"There are many downsides, I will say, to Trump," Carlson said, in his speech this summer.
"But one of the upsides is, the Trump election was so shocking, so unlikely ... that it did
cause some significant percentage of people to say, 'wait a second, if that can happen, what
else is true?' "
The reimagining is playing out not just on Carlson's show or in conservative journals, but
among a small batch of young, ambitious Republicans in Congress led by senators Josh Hawley of
Missouri and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Their populist -- or "nationalist" or "post-liberal" -- prescriptions sometimes smack of
opportunism. And it's still not clear how far they're willing to stray from their party. But it
looks like there are places where the new nationalists could find common cause with an
energized left.
Whether the two sides can actually forge a meaningful alliance in the glare of our
hyperpartisan politics is an open question. But a compact -- even a provisional one -- may
offer the country its best shot at building a meaningful, post-Trump politics.
. . .
CARLSON DELIVERED HIS speech at the National Conservatism Conference -- the first major
gathering aimed at forging a new, right-of-center approach in the age of Trump.
"This is our independence day," said Yoram Hazony, an Israeli political theorist and chief
organizer of the event, in his spirited opening remarks. "We declare independence from
neoconservatism, from libertarianism, from what they call classical liberalism." "We are national conservatives," he said. Any effort to build a right-of-center nationalism circa 2019 inevitably runs into questions
about whether it will traffic in bigotry.
And one of the speakers, University of Pennsylvania law professor Amy Wax, seemed to do just
that -- suggesting that "cultural compatibility" should play a role in deciding which migrants
are allowed into the country. "In effect," she said, this "means taking the position that our country will be better off
with more whites and fewer nonwhites." But Wax's speech, however discomfiting, stood out because it was so discordant. Conference organizers took pains to prevent hate-mongers from attending -- ultimately
rejecting six applicants. ... "Your ideas," he said, "are not welcome here." ...
* At the National Conservatism Conference, an 'Intellectual Trumpist' Movement Begins to
Take Shape
Fearing 'Spy Trains,' Congress May Ban a Chinese Maker of Subway Cars
By Ana Swanson
CHICAGO -- America's next fight with China is unfolding at a glistening new factory in
Chicago, which stands empty except for the shells of two subway cars and space for future
business that is unlikely to come.
A Chinese state-owned company called CRRC Corporation, the world's largest train maker,
completed the $100 million facility this year in the hopes of winning contracts to build subway
cars and other passenger trains for American cities like Chicago and Washington.
But growing fears about China's economic ambitions and its potential to track and spy on
Americans are about to quash those plans. Congress is soon expected to approve legislation that
would effectively bar the company from competing for new contracts in the United States, citing
national security and economic concerns. The White House has expressed its support for the
effort.
Washington's attempt to block a Chinese company from selling train cars inside America is
the latest escalation in a trade war that has quickly expanded from a spat over tariffs and
intellectual property to a broader fight over economic and national security.
President Trump and lawmakers from both parties are increasingly anxious about the economic
and technological ambitions of China, which has built cutting-edge global industries, including
those that produce advanced surveillance technology. Those fears have prompted Washington to
take an expansive view of potential risks, moving beyond simply trying to curtail Chinese
imports.
In addition to slapping tariffs on $360 billion worth of Chinese products, the
administration has banned Chinese companies like Huawei, the telecom giant, from buying
sensitive American technology. It is moving to curb the ability of firms to export technology
like artificial intelligence and quantum computing from the United States to China. And
Congress has given the administration expansive power to block Chinese investment on national
security grounds.
Now lawmakers have added a provision to a military spending bill that would prevent the use
of federal grants to buy subway trains from state-owned or state-controlled companies, a
measure that would effectively block CRRC's business.
The bill has gained bipartisan support from lawmakers who say companies like CRRC pose a
threat to the United States. Part of the concern is economic: Flush with cash from its rapid
growth, China has pumped money into building globally competitive businesses, often creating
overcapacity in markets like steel, solar panels and trains.
That has lowered prices for consumers -- including American taxpayers who pay for subway
cars. While a subway car has not been manufactured solely by an American company in decades,
CRRC's low prices have raised concerns among American freight train companies that the company
could ultimately move into -- and demolish -- their business.
CRRC has consistently underbid its competitors, winning over urban transit agencies that
are saddled with aging infrastructure and tight budgets. For the Chicago L, CRRC's Chicago
subsidiary bid $1.55 million per car, compared with a bid of $1.82 million per car by
Bombardier, the Canadian manufacturer. And CRRC also proposed to build the Chicago facility and
create 170 new jobs.
Legislators argue that Chinese state-owned companies are not pursuing profit, but the policy
aims of the Chinese government to dominate key global industries like electric cars, robotics
and rail.
"When you can subsidize, when you can wholly own an enterprise like China does, you can
create a wholly unlevel playing field," said Senator Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat who is
a co-sponsor of the legislation. "We're used to that unlevel playing field existing between the
U.S. and China, but now it's happening in our own backyard."
Another more nefarious worry is also at play. Lawmakers -- along with CRRC's competitors --
say they are concerned that subway cars made by a Chinese company might make it easier for
Beijing to spy on Americans and could pose a sabotage threat to American infrastructure, though
CRRC says it surrenders control of all technology in the cars to its buyers. Nonetheless,
critics speculate that the Chinese firm could incorporate technology into the cars that would
allow CRRC -- and the Chinese government -- to track the faces, movement, conversations or
phone calls of passengers through the train's cameras or Wi-Fi.
Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, which represents
manufacturers and the United Steelworkers, said the risks of giving a Chinese company the
ability to monitor or control American infrastructure could not be understated given recent
laws requiring Chinese companies to turn over data to Beijing upon request.
"I just think it would be irresponsible to assume the Chinese government to which this firm
must answer would be a reliable security partner, given its well documented track record," Mr.
Paul said.
Whether those fears are justified remains uncertain. Proponents of the bill have not made
clear how subway cars manufactured by a Chinese company would pose a greater espionage threat
than everything else that China makes and sells in the United States, including laptops, phones
and home appliances.
Dave Smolensky, a spokesman for CRRC, said the company was being unfairly targeted by
companies that wanted to legislate a competitor out of business under the guise of national
security. He said the firm was a victim to "an aggressive multimillion-dollar media
disinformation campaign," funded mostly by domestic freight train companies, intended to play
on popular fears about China's rise.
Employees at the Chicago factory also dismissed the concerns, saying they had not seen any
evidence that they were working to construct "spy trains."
"I haven't seen any secret wires yet," said Perry Nobles, an electrician for CRRC who was
rigging wires in the interior of the trains. "With the world full of cellphones and computers,
I'd think there's an easier way to get information."
Rising fears of China's ambitions in Washington have prompted officials to adopt an
unsparing view, with policymakers and national security officials warning domestic and foreign
governments not to trust Chinese equipment.
American officials have waged a global offensive against Huawei, telling other countries
that allowing a Chinese company to build the world's next generation of wireless networks would
be akin to handing national secrets to a foreign agent.
Like CRRC, the fear surrounding Huawei is largely based on concerns about technological
dominance by China's authoritarian government. No one has yet disclosed finding a backdoor in
Huawei's products that would allow it to snoop -- but officials say by the time one is
discovered, it may be too late.
"The Chinese are working to put their systems in networks all across the world so they can
steal your information and my information," Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in an interview
in May. "This administration is prepared to take this on."
As Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, introduced the provision in March, he said,
"China poses a clear and present danger to our national security and has already infiltrated
our rail and bus manufacturing industries."
Representative Kevin McCarthy, a Republican whose California district is home to a Chinese
bus maker, BYD, had opposed a version of the provision that would apply to buses as well as
trains. House lawmakers dropped the bus provision, but the Senate bill would apply to both.
Congress will take the issue up again in the coming weeks as part of the annual defense
bill.
The legislation would not affect the thousands of American subway cars that CRRC previously
won contracts to build, including an 846-car order for the Chicago L. But it would block the
company from future contracts, such as those under consideration by the Chicago Metra and the
Washington Metro.
The Chicago facility is the company's second in the United States. A factory in
Massachusetts that employs more than 150 people is already building trains for Boston, Los
Angeles and Philadelphia, prompting concerns that the company plans to expand rapidly in the
United States as it has in other foreign markets.
Like many Chinese state enterprises, CRRC is guided by Beijing's Made in China 2025 plan,
which lays out an agenda to dominate key industries.
In its 2018 annual report, Liu Hualong, the company's chairman and party secretary, pledged
to pursue the dual goals of "Party construction as well as developing into a world-leading
company with global competitiveness."
"We conscientiously followed the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping,"
the report said, referring to the Chinese president and Communist Party leader.
The last American firm to make passenger rail cars, the Pullman Company, produced its final
car in 1981. Since then, major American cities have bought subway cars from Bombardier and
Japanese manufacturers like Kawasaki, Hyundai and Hitachi.
But American manufacturers of freight rail cars, including the Greenbrier Companies and
TrinityRail, which is based in Mr. Cornyn's home state of Texas, say CRRC could use its footing
in the United States to steal its business. Together with unions and others, they have mounted
a lobbying campaign against CRRC under an umbrella group known as the Rail Security
Alliance.
The group says American taxpayer dollars should not be spent in China, where the empty rail
cars are made before being shipped to the United States for further work at the company's
facilities in Illinois or Massachusetts.
"We think those dollars should stay here," said Erik Olson, the vice president of the Rail
Security Alliance.
CRRC sends over experts from its giant headquarters in Qingdao, China, to plants in other
countries. In Chicago, the American employees call these Chinese citizens "shifu," a polite
term for a skilled worker meaning "master" or "teacher."
On a sunny day in July, the company break room was split between shifus, wearing white
jumpsuits and eating stuffed buns, and American workers, many of whom had joined the company in
the last few months. The gleaming concrete factory floor was bare, save for a few dozen people
installing wiring, air ducts and other components into the empty shells of two rail cars.
"We are a little concerned because it's our livelihood," said Mr. Nobles, who was hired in
March from a previous factory job making frames for the Ford Explorer.
This summer, CRRC replaced the Chinese flag outside the factory with a Chicago flag. It has
also retained two Washington lobbying firms, Squire Patton Boggs and Crossroads Strategies, to
plead its case in Congress.
It may be too late. Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, said he helped sponsor the bill
to prevent the American transit system from being "controlled by a foreign country that is not
particularly friendly to us."
"They spell out in black and white they're going to use foreign investment as a weapon, and
we're taking action to defend ourselves," Mr. Brown said.
"... Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down. ..."
"... Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as whatever was most useful politically. ..."
"Carlson concluded by warning about the many other Boltons in the federal bureaucracy,
saying that "war may be a disaster for America, but for John Bolton and his fellow neocons,
it's always good business."
He went on to slam Trump's special representative for Iran and contender to replace Bolton,
Brian Hook, as an "unapologetic neocon" who "has undisguised contempt for President Trump, and
he particularly dislikes the president's nationalist foreign policy." Iranian Foreign Minister
Mohammad Javad Zarif echoed Carlson hours later in a tweet, arguing that "Thirst for war
– maximum pressure – should go with the warmonger-in-chief." Reuters and
Haaretz
-------------
Yes, people tend to forget that Bolton and all the other neocons are worshipers at the altar
of a secular religion imported to the US by members of the Frankfurt School of Trotskyite
German professors in the 1930s. These people had attempted get the Nazis to consider them
allies in a quest for an ordered world. Alas for them they found that the Nazi scum would not
accept them and in fact began preparations to hunt them down.
Thus the migration to America and in particular to the University of Chicago where they
developed their credo of world revolution under that guidance of a few philosopher kings like
Leo Strauss, the Wohlstetters and other academic "geniuses" They also began an enthusiastic
campaign of recruitment of enthusiastic graduate students who carefully disguised themselves as
whatever was most useful politically.
They are not conservative at all, not one bit. Carlson was absolutely right about that.
They despise nationalism. They despise the idea of countries. In that regard they are like
all groups who aspire to globalist dominion for their particular ideas.
As for the gory details of CIA involvement in the Chilean coup d'état of 1973,
Costa-Gavras' film "Missing" (Universal Pictures, 1982) staring Jack Lemmon and Sissy Spacek
exposes the surreptitious U.S. involvement via CIA operatives, supportive of Pinochet's
cold-bloodied massacre of students and other innocent bystanders. Not surprisingly, the film
was removed from the U.S. market following a lawsuit against the director and Universal
Pictures by former ambassador Nathaniel Davis for defamation of character. When Davis lost his
lawsuit, the film was re-released by Universal in 2006.
The face of neoliberalism in Chile today is disheartened, reflecting deep losses for the
wealthy class as the people of the country reject Milton Friedman's neoliberal policies,
including clever tax evasion techniques by the business class. Could this be the start of a
worldwide movement against neoliberalism?
After all, Chile is the country that neoliberal advocates crowned their "newborn" in the
battle against big government, "get government off our backs," according to Milton Friedman
(and, Reagan picked up on the adage.) But, au contraire, according to the film "Missing,"
fascism took control over Chile. Is it possible that Friedman and Kissinger secretly cherished
a fascist empire, where control would be complete, disguised as "the land of individual
economic freedom?" Whatever their motives, that's what they got, and they never hesitated to
revere Chile's remarkable economic achievements, fascism and all, which is powerfully expressed
in the film "Missing," from end to end the heavy hand of fascism is ever-present.
Today is a new day as the people of Chile abandon decades of rotting neoliberal policies.
They've had enough of Milton Freidman. The people have decided that the "state" is a beneficial
partner for achievement of life's dreams. The "state" is not the menacing force of evil
preached by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
The people of Chile are embracing an anti-neoliberalistic nation/state for the first time in
over four decades. Will the world follow in their footsteps similar to the world adopting the
principles of the "Miracle of Chile" these past four decades?
As for the new way forward, it's all about student debt. Yes, student debt was the catalyst
behind Chile's repudiation of neoliberalism. In 2011 students in Chile made headlines by
launching nationwide strikes over high tuition costs that drove their families into debt (sound
familiar?) The strike lasted for eight months.
Over time, the student marches gained recognition by other like-minded organizations like
trade unions and protests of environmental degradation. According to Tasha Fairfield, an
assistant professor for the London School of Economics' Department of International
Development, the strikes were pivotal: "The student movement played a critical role in creating
political space," according to Fairfield, it "dramatically changed the political context in
Chile and helped to place the issues of Chile's extreme inequalities centrally on the national
agenda," Sebastian Rosemont, Chilean Activists Change the Rules of the Game, Foreign Policy In
Focus, Dec. 2, 2014.
Subsequently, the national election of 2013 swept the left wing into power with a huge wave
of public support, gaining strong majorities in both houses of the National Congress as well as
electing Michelle Bachelet president. The big leftward sweep came as over two thirds of the
population grew to support student demands for free university tuition.
Ever since the 2013 election, neoliberal policies have crumbled like a decrepit equestrian
statue of Pinochet, who carried the stigma of brutal criminality to, and beyond, the grave.
In stark contrast to 40 years ago, today, when students, armed with only stones clashed with
police equipped with full regalia of riot gear, tear gas, and armored vehicles, the harsh
police activity drew heavy international criticism. That, combined with more than two-thirds of
the population in support of the student movement, led to a new politics, Nueva Mayoria (New
Majority), a center-left coalition made up of Bachelet's Socialist Party, the Christian
Democratic Party, and the Party for Democracy.
Whereupon, Nueva Mayoria, turning up its nose to neoliberalism, raised corporate taxes from
20 percent to 25 percent and closed tax loopholes for companies and wealthy business owners.
Those changes added $8.3 billion annually to government coffers, thus, serving as a source of
funds to provide free education to all Chileans by 2020, as well as improved health care, and
including a roll back of the for-profit schools that emerged under Pinochet's dictatorship,
which is another neoliberal fascination, witness the U.S. for-profit schools listed on the New
York Stock Exchange honestly, what's with that? In order to achieve success, the new Chilean
politics astutely employed a key tactical move by applying the corporate tax hikes to only the
largest corporations. As a result, nearly 95% of businesses are not be affected by higher
taxation. This, in fact, served to secure a broad base of support for the new politics by
having those who can afford to pay Pay.
Along those same lines, the new government removed a tax dodge employed by large business
owners that allowed them to mostly escape taxes on $270 billion of profits (similar to the U.S.
15% "carried interest" for private equity entities, e.g., Mitt Romney's 15% tax rate).
Thus, it's little wonder that public backlash is challenging neoliberalism, especially
considering the conditions throughout the Pinochet regime, as described in the meticulously
structured documentary film, "The Pinochet Case," (Icarus Films, 2002), which opens with scenes
of ordinary Chileans scouring the desert for the remains of family members who were tortured
and killed decades previous.
Chile, "The Babe of Neoliberalism," came to life as an experiment for the "Chicago School"
of economic thought. It worked. Today neoliberal theory rules the world, laissez-faire
capitalism as practiced from China to the United States, privatization, open markets, slash
government, and deregulation, in short, "whatever works best for profits works best for
society." But, does it?
Forty years of neoliberal thought and practice has changed the world's socio-economic
landscape, but it only really, truly works for the same class of people today as it did 800
years ago for the nobility of the Middle Ages.
Robert Hunziker lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at [email protected] .
Not so fast. The West still has the technological edge. And huge ultural influence. Most
probably those will be two separate events, if they happen at all.
The Russia question is a very interesting and useful way to approach the much larger
question which is how to manage the "end of Western hegemony".
Mackinder, Brzezinski and other geo-strategic thinkers have long posited that in order to
control the world, one much control Eurasia.
The alliance between China and Russia, by definition, secures their dominance of Eurasia.
Even forty years of U.S. trouble-making in Afghanistan, the geographic heart of Eurasia, has
only proved to be an annoyance slowing the inevitable partnership of China and Russia, and
the growing courtship of India. Recent U.S. interference in the Ukraine was a desperate,
rather ham-handed attempt to deny Russia access to its historic, and only warm water, port in
Crimea (and interfere with Russian gas pipelines to Europe). The Ukrainians seem to be now
coming back to their senses a bit.
[ I may add a comment elucidating some of the long history of Western elite (primarily
British, then U.S.) interference in the affairs of both Russia and China, but most CN readers
should already be aware of the highlights.]
The EU and the euro, both created to prolong the dominance of the U.S., are now clearly
faltering. The EU created a common market and allowed for the expansion of NATO eastward
after the breakup of the Soviet Union and Russia's loss of the Warsaw Pact countries. The
euro, directly tied to the U.S. PetroDollar at its creation, facilitated the greater transfer
of U.S. debt instruments into the European banks, giving the debt addicted U.S. economy more
capacity to expand its financial bubble and extend the era of U.S. dominance. The European
central banks are now at their breaking point.
Thus, the era of U.S. PetroDollar supremacy, and with it U.S. dominance, is now coming to
an end and the scramble for places in the new global system is heating up. The Greeks,
Italians, Germans and Dutch have already signed deals with the Chinese, will the French be
far behind?
Russia, the ambitious junior partner to China, can be seen to be both a cultural and
geographic buffer between the Chinese juggernaut and Western Europe. The Russians have energy
and consumer markets that the Western Europeans need access to if they are going to maintain
any semblance of their present standard of living as U.S. economic dominance recedes. The
nuclear armed U.S. presence on the continent keeps the Europeans cautious; as does their very
precarious debt co-dependency with Wall Street, the Federal Reserve Bank and the U.S.
Treasury.
The northern Europeans don't want to freeze or go broke, so Nord Stream 2 will go ahead.
Trump is truly delusional if he thinks he can keep that from happening. Trump's trade war has
only accelerated the Chinese shift away from the U.S. and toward its well-planned future in
Asia, Europe, Africa and South America. China and Russia are both stockpiling gold in
anticipation of rolling out a new global monetary system to replace the failing U.S.
PetroDollar and SWIFT.
"... After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism. ..."
"... In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation. In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and by such means as we see fit." ..."
"... Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high "the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system." ..."
"... The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another. ..."
This is as good a time as any to point to an alternative vision of foreign policy. One based on the principle of non-interference,
respect for sovereignty, territorial integrity, and, above all, international law. One based on peaceful coexistence and mutual
cooperation. A vision of the world at peace and undivided by arbitrary distinctions. Such a world is possible and even though
there are currently players around the world who are striving in that direction we need look no further than our own history for
inspiration. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you one Henry A. Wallace, for your consideration.
(The following excerpts from an article by Dr. Dennis Etler. Link to the full article provided below.) --
The highest profile figure who articulated an alternative vision for American foreign policy was the politician Henry Wallace,
who served as vice president under Franklin D. Roosevelt from 1940-1944 and ran for president in 1948 as the candidate of the
Progressive Party.
After he became vice president in 1940, as Roosevelt was increasingly ill, Wallace promoted a new vision for America's
role in the world that suggested that rather than playing catch up with the imperial powers, the United States should work with
partners to establish a new world order that eliminated militarism, colonialism and imperialism.
Wallace gave a speech in 1942 that declared a "Century of the Common Man." He described a post-war world that offered "freedom
from want," a new order in which ordinary citizens, rather than the rich and powerful, would play a decisive role in politics.
That speech made direct analogy between the Second World War and the Civil War, suggesting that the Second World War was being
fought to end economic slavery and to create a more equal society. Wallace demanded that the imperialist powers like Britain and
France give up their colonies at the end of the war.
In diplomacy, Wallace imagined a multi-polar world founded on the United Nations Charter with a focus on peaceful cooperation.
In contrast, in 1941 Henry Luce, publisher of Time Magazine, had called for an 'American century,' suggesting that victory in
war would allow the United States to "exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit and
by such means as we see fit."
Wallace responded to Luce with a demand to create a world in which "no nation will have the God-given right to exploit other
nations. Older nations will have the privilege to help younger nations get started on the path to industrialization, but there
must be neither military nor economic imperialism." Wallace took the New Deal global. His foreign policy was to be based on non-interference
in the internal affairs of other countries and mutual respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Sadly, since then, despite occasional efforts to head in a new direction, the core constituency for US foreign policy has been
corporations, rather than the "common man" either in the United States, or the other nations of the world, and United States foreign
relations have been dominated by interference in the political affairs of other nations. As a result the military was transformed
from an "arsenal for democracy" during the Second World War into a defender of privilege at home and abroad afterwards.
-- - Foreign aid for Wallace was not a tool to foster economic dominance as it was to become, but rather "economic assistance without
political conditions to further the independent economic development of the Latin American and Caribbean countries." He held high
"the principle of self-determination for the peoples of Africa, Asia, the West Indies, and other colonial areas." He saw the key
policy for the United States to be based on "the principles of non-interference in the internal affairs of other nations and acceptance
of the right of peoples to choose their own form of government and economic system."
--
Wallace's legacy suggests that it is possible to put forth a vision of an honest internationalism in US foreign policy that
is in essence American. His approach was proactive not reactive. It would go far beyond anything Democrats propose today, who
can only suggest that the United States should not start an unprovoked war with Iran or North Korea, but who embrace sanctions
and propagandist reports that demonize those countries.
Rather than ridiculing Trump's overtures to North Korea, they should go further to reduce tensions between the North and the
South by pushing for the eventual withdrawal of troops from South Korea and Japan (a position fully in line with Wallace and many
other politicians of that age).
Rather than demonizing and isolating Russia (as a means to score political points against Trump), progressives should call for
a real détente, that recognizes Russia's core interests, proposes that NATO withdraw troops from Russia's borders, ends sanctions
and reintegrates Russia into the greater European economy. They could even call for an end to NATO and the perpetuation of the
dangerous global rift between East and West that it perpetuates.
Rather than attempt to thwart China's rise, and attack Trump for not punishing it enough, progressives should seek to create new
synergies between China and the US economically, politically and socioculturally.
-- -
In contrast to the US policy of perpetual war and "destroying nations in order to save them," China's BRI proposes an open plan
for development that is not grounded in the models of French and British imperialism. It has proposed global infrastructure and
science projects that include participants from nations in Africa, Asia, South and Central America previously ignored by American
and European elites -- much as Wallace proposed an equal engagement with Latin America. When offering developmental aid and investment
China does not demand that free market principles be adopted or that the public sector be privatized and opened up for global
investment banks to ravish.
-- The United States should be emulating China, its Belt and Road Initiative and Community of Common Destiny, as a means of revitalizing
its political culture and kicking its addiction to a neo-colonial concept of economic development and growth. Rather than relying
on militarization and its attendant wars to spark the economy, progressives should demand that the US work in conjunction with
nations such as China and Russia in building a sustainable future rather than creating one failed state after another.
Russia has no net public debt left
06:54 09/10/2019 (updated: 07:26 09/10/2019)
MOSCOW, Sep 10 – RIA News. The net public debt of Russia has become negative for
the first time since the introduction of the first sanctions for the annexation of the Crimea
and the fall in oil prices in 2014, RBC writes, with reference to Ministry of Finance and
Central Bank data.
As of August 1, the volume of public debt of the federal government, regions and
municipalities, including state guarantees for enterprise loans, amounted to 16.2 trillion
rubles.
At the same time, the liquid assets of the state – federal authorities, regions
and extrabudgetary state funds – totalled 17.6 trillion ruble son the same
date.
Thus, in the widest sense, the public debt since mid-2019 has become less than the
liquid assets of the "expanded government", the publication indicates.
As noted, this has became possible owing to record reserves that have fully covered the
state debt. That is to say, if Russia needed to immediately pay off all existing debts, this
could be done at the expense of only government deposits with the Central Bank and commercial
banks.
As the Minister of Economic Development, Maxim Oreshkin, emphasized, "what has been
done in Russian macroeconomics from 2014 to 2019 will definitely fall into the textbooks", At
the same time, the flip side of such a tough approach is the lack of fiscal incentives for
economic development.
Over to you Bloomberg, WSJ, FT etc., etc!
Waddya say to that, arseholes?
And think on this, you happy folk of the Exceptional Nation who prosper ever onwards:
MOSCOW, 16 August 2019/ Radio Sputnik . Russia
continues to reduce investments in US bonds in June, reducing their size to 10.8 billion
dollars, the United States Ministry of Finance has reported.
According to Finance Department data, 5,296 billion dollars of this amount is for
long-term securities and 5,552 billion are short – term.
For comparison, in may, the total amount was $ 12 billion.
As part of the de-dollarization course for Russia, other financial instruments are
gaining importance: gold and investments in European and Asian securities, chief expert of
FinEk agency Mikhail Belyaev said on Sputnik radio.
According to the economist, the instability of the US economy also contributes to the
withdrawal of Russian assets from it.
I don't usually find much value at the Atlantic but this article (written before Trump even
fired Bolton) about Trump's FP timeline (and flip flops) and Bolton who was acting like he
was President is very, very good.
It will allow Trump loyalist to more easily support Trump and give everyone else a tad bit of
hope that Trump really won't go bonkers and start any wars.
Since President Trump appears to talk about things and stuff with Tucker Carlson, perhaps he
should ask Tucker Carlson to spend a week thinking . . . and then offer the President some
names and the reasoning for offering those names.
If the President asks the same Establishment who gave him Bolton, he will just be handed
another Bolton. "Establishment" include Pence, who certainly supported Bolton's outlook on
things and would certainly recommend another "Bolton" figure if asked. Let us hope Pence is
not consulted on Bolton's successor.
different clue,
re "Let us hope Pence is not consulted on Bolton's successor."
Understandable point of view but then, Trump still is Trump. He can just by himself and
beyond advice easily find suboptimal solutions of his own.
Today I read that Richard Grenell was mentioned as a potential sucessor.
As far as that goes, go for it. Many people here will be happy when he "who always only
sais what the Whitehouse sais" is finally gone.
And with Trump's biggest military budget in the world he can just continue the arms sale
pitches that are and were such a substantial part of his job as a US ambassador in
Germany.
That said, they were that after blathering a lot about that we should increase our
military budget by 2%, 4%, 6% or 10%, buy US arms, now, and of course the blathering about
Northstream 1 & 2 and "slavedom to russian oil & gas" and rather buy US frack gas of
course.
He could then also take a side job for the fracking industry in that context. And buy
frack gas and arms company stocks. Opportunities, opportunities ...
"... Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist). I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie. ..."
Essentially, Toback argues that Warren's project is to somehow hoodwink us into believing that she is an opponent of neoliberalism
when in reality she is committed to legitimating neoliberalism. For Warren, neoliberalism is simply really 2 legit 2 quit (I'll spare
you the MC Hammer video).
Still, while stark differences between Sanders, Biden and the rest seem obvious to most, when it comes to Elizabeth Warren,
many on the alleged left have taken to collapsing distinctions. They argue that Warren's just as, or even more progressive, equal
but a woman and therefore better, not quite as good but still a fundamental shift to the left, or at the very least, a serious
opponent of neoliberalism. Some have even fantasized that Sanders and Warren function as allies, despite the obvious fact that
they are, you know Running against each other.
All of these claims obscure the fundamental truth that Sanders and Warren are different in kind, not degree. Warren has always
been a market-first neoliberal and nothing she's doing now suggests deviation. Despite her barrage of plans and recent adoption
of left rhetorical shibboleths like "grassroots movements" and "structural change," Warren remains a neoliberal legitimization
machine. Anybody who's serious about amending and expanding the social contract and/or preserving the habitability of the planet
needs to oppose her candidacy now.
Toback nicely weaves together and systematically presents pretty much all the analysis I've seen here at C99%. It's well worth
reading as is the David Harvey interview linked above.
And for some icing on the cake, Toback quotes some lyrics from the splendid Leonard Cohen song 'Democracy':
"It's coming from the sorrow in the street,
the holy places where the races meet;
from the homicidal bitchin'
that goes down in every kitchen
to determine who will serve and who will eat." -- Leonard Cohen
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
might be someone I could support. She said all the right things. That was all I had to judge by. So I took a wait and see.
I have always been able to see the reality of actions that differ from words. Hers don't match. It's far better that she lacks
Obama's charisma and has shown who she is before she's sitting in Trump's chair.
@orlbucfan
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such as
Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of neoliberal
freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
#3
I can sympathize with being weary of theory, but I think it's important to try to be precise in discerning a politician's ideological
underpinnings. And I think there really is a full, expanding, and even oscillating spectrum of ideologies at play.
It seems to me that fascists would more accurately be characterized as "corporate rightwingers. As fed up as I am with Warren's
phony baloney, I don't think she's a fascist or a corporate rightwinger.
Consider Harvey's portrayal of the liberal/neoliberal divide:
In liberal theory, the role of the state is minimal (a "night-watchman" state with laissez faire policies). In neo-liberalism
it is accepted that the state play an active role in promoting technological changes and endless capital accumulation through
the promotion of commodification and monetisation of everything along with the formation of powerful institutions (such
as Central Banks and the International Monetary Fund) and the rebuilding of mental conceptions of the world in favor of
neoliberal freedoms.
over toward Obama. I don't think she's to the left of him. Then again, I'm not really sure how much of what she says I believe.
A lot of it seems mushy and ill-defined (what is "access to healthcare?"), and she certainly isn't consistent in her support for
MFA. For that matter, how can you take large donations from the people who put us where we are if you intend to change the system
they created? Does that mean that the multi-millionaires and billionaires don't like the system they created? That they see its
destructiveness and now, finally, want to head it off? That's the only logical way you can put together "I'm going to change the
system" and "I'm going to take large donations from people who built, maintain, and profit from the system." Since I've seen no
evidence that the "smart money," or any other money, is interested in changing the system, I'd have to reject this hypothesis.
So what am I left with? I'm left with guessing that Warren is another one of those "all we need to do is tweak the system a
little" types--but if that's the case, she's not going to solve global warming, the health care crisis, the economic crisis, the
collapse of wages, the destruction of basic human rights, the destruction--or distortion--of the rule of law, or the endless wars.
All those things have been put in place by the people she wants to take lots of money from. And take it in the dark, too. Spiffing.
She was an outspoken opponent of the TPP in 2015 before she could be seen reasonably as posturing for a Presidential run. The
TPP is the essence of neoliberalism.
I have seen her as an Eisenhower Republican and therefore to the left of the Democratic leadership. I think the Consumer Protection
Agency was an attempt at moderating some of the worst effects of unrestrained capitalism.
Any honest Eisenhower Republican would be a lot better than Clinton or Obama (although still capitalist and imperialist).
I am worried, however, about the palling around with HRC and it seems to me that she is (willingly or unknowingly) being used
as a firebreak to prevent voters from moving to Bernie.
slippery...just like Clinton (Bill I mean). And don't get me started on this whole palling around with Hillary crap. I mean
really Liz?
iv> I see the GLOBALIST shills are in full force on this video, trying to artificially
bring down the ratio from probably 99% Positive that such a bad man is gone. Doesn't matter,
the Silent Majority & good people everywhere know that Bolton was a poor candidate for
that job with a catastrophic failure record & everybody is better of with a more
competent person in that position.
John Bolton is owned by foreign powers like many in Washington. They get paid by their
lobby to push the neocon agenda which translates into robbing the US of it's $ to fight wars
that don't benefit the US.
War monger Bolton. How did that Libya thing work out for Europe ? Now after looking back,
I am sure the African invasion into Europe was planned by Obama and his boss Soros.
Tucker while I agree with you on the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya. But one thing
you left out Tucker. Foxnews hired John Bolton as a Contributer for over a decade. How do you
miss that part.
All the policies in the Middle East are complete and other failures. I'm so sick of neo
cons. You can't get rid of them. You can not get rid of them. It doesn't matter who you vote
for. Constant war. Like every regime couldn't be replaced around the world. Absolutely
ridiculous.
"In Washington, nobody cares what kind of job you did, only that you did the job. Nobody
there learns from mistakes, because mistakes are never even acknowledged. Ever." Yes, Tucker
DOES understand Washington!!!
xt" role="article"> If Bolton becomes a Fox News contributor: I will change the channel
immediately... I already do this when Jeff Epstein's, the child trafficker and rapist, good
buddy Alan Dershowitz comes on as a guest... Do not know why Fox News selects guest
contributors that have their morals/values in the wrong directions...
icle"> Bolton was signatory to PNAC- the project for a new american century, like other
progressives and neo-cons of his generation. They do not view the chaos left by taking out
Ghaddafi and Saddam as problems, rather the creation of failed states was their objective all
along. Members of the GOP went along with these plans where they coincided with their own
political and business objectives- the military industrial complex and the oilmen.
The Pope didn't seem too put out when faced with a long list of accusations against him from
American Catholics as he was flying from Rome to Mozambique. He said he was honored to be
attacked by them.
The book 'How America Wanted to Change the Pope' explores the supposed efforts of the
conservative Catholic opposition in the US to launch a "coup d'état" against Francis.
A copy was given to the pontiff by the author Nicolas Seneze, a journalist from France's
Catholic newspaper La Croix, who was on board the papal plane Wednesday.
"For me it is an honor that Americans attack me," the pope quipped as he received the
book, which he had apparently heard about and wanted to procure.He joked that the book about
his critics "will be a bombshell."
But Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni attempted to deflate tensions, clarifying that the
comments were made informally. He said Francis "always considers it an honor to be
criticized," especially when it comes from "authoritative voices" or, as in this case, "an
important nation."
The "japanification" of America begins. I've stated in this blog more than once that, if
the USA falls, it certainly won't fall like the USSR. The USSR had a very peculiar economic
system, where the PCSU was both the government and the economy: once Gorbachev destroyed his
party, he destroyed the Soviet Union.
The USA, on the other side, is a capitalist economy, which means its "center of command"
is a diffuse web of oligarchic capitalists who govern "in the shadows".
The government of a capitalist society is only one of the many institutions that, in a
diffused fashion, preserves the "market anarchy" (domesticated chaos) that is indispensable
for the existence of capitalism.
America, therefore, is more lika an onion than a jenga tower: if you destroy (peel) one
layer, you still have many more.
Therefore, if the USA collapses, it will probably do so through a gradual descent into
fragmentation and anarchy in a process that will take decades and maybe centuries, in an
analogous form as the Roman Empire in the West.
... ... ...
Today, Sept. 11, is a date that marks two ends:
1) the end of any pretenstions left of a socialist wave in Latin America after the first
one -- Cuba, 1959 -- was successful (so far, the first and only). The CIA masterfully learned
from its mistakes in the island nation and successfully (and brutally) crushed Latin American
socialism;
2) the beginning of the end of the "End of History" era. After the WTC fell, the USA would
begin the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, in what would be the last time the USA acted as
the "king of Nations".
What should've been -- after a wonderful victory in Iraq -- turned out to be a Pyrric
endeavor, as Iran successfully resisted, the rest of the ME didn't budge, and the whole thing
turned into a trillionaire black hole that drained the American coffers, spiked its debt
rates and culminated with the 2008 crisis.
"... But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive, influential Mercer billionaires. ..."
"... Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't. ..."
"... It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon interventionist. ..."
"... It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One. ..."
"... Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016. ..."
No major politician, not even Barack Obama, excoriated the Iraq war more fiercely than did
Trump during the primaries. He did this in front of a scion of the house of Bush and in the
deep red state of South Carolina. He nevertheless went on to win that primary, the Republican
nomination and the presidency on that antiwar message.
And so, to see Bolton ascend to the commanding heights of the Trump White House shocked many
from the time it was first rumored. "I shudder to think what would happen if we had a failed
presidency," Scott McConnell, TAC' s founding editor, said in late 2016 at our foreign
policy conference, held, opportunely, during the presidential transition. "I mean, John
Bolton?"
At the time, Bolton was a candidate for secretary of state, a consideration scuttled in no
small part because of the opposition of Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul. As McConnell
wrote in November of that year: "Most of the upper-middle-level officials who plotted the Iraq
War have retreated quietly into private life, but Bolton has kept their flame alive." Bolton
had already been passed over for NSA, losing out early to the doomed Michael Flynn. Rex
Tillerson beat him for secretary of state. Bolton was then passed over for the role of
Tillerson's deputy. When Flynn flamed out of the White House the following February, Trump
chose a general he didn't know at all, H.R. McMaster, to replace him.
Bolton had been trying to make a comeback since late 2006, after failing to hold his job as
U.N. ambassador (he had only been a recess appointment). His landing spots including a Fox News
contributorship and a post at the vaunted American Enterprise Institute. Even in the early days
of the Trump administration, Bolton was around, and accessible. I remember seeing him multiple
times in Washington's Connecticut Avenue corridor, decked out in the seersucker he notoriously
favors during the summer months. Paired with the familiar mustache, the man is the Mark Twain
of regime change.
But Bolton coupled the Fox and AEI sinecures with gnarlier associations -- for one, the
Gatestone Institute, a, let's say Islam-hostile outfit, associated with the secretive,
influential Mercer billionaires. He also struck a ferocious alliance with the Center for
Security Policy, helmed by the infamous Frank Gaffney, and gave paid remarks to the National
Council for the Resistance of Iran, the lynchpin organization of the People's Mujahideen of
Iran, or MEK. The latter two associations have imbued the spirit of this White House, with
Gaffney now one of the most underrated power players in Washington, and the MEK's "peaceful"
regime change mantra all but the official line of the administration.
More than any of these gigs, Bolton benefited from two associations that greased the wheels
for his joining the Trump administration.
The first was Steve Bannon, the former White House chief strategist. If you want to
understand the administration's Iran policy under Bolton to date, look no further than a piece
by the then-retired diplomat in conservative mainstay National Review in August 2017,
days after Bannon's departure from the White House: "How to Get Out of the Iran Deal." Bolton
wrote the piece at Bannon's urging. Even out of the administration, the former Breitbart
honcho was an influential figure.
"We must explain the grave threat to the U.S. and our allies, particularly Israel," said
Bolton. "The [Iran Deal's] vague and ambiguous wording; its manifest imbalance in Iran's
direction; Iran's significant violations; and its continued, indeed, increasingly, unacceptable
conduct at the strategic level internationally demonstrate convincingly that [the Iran deal] is
not in the national-security interests of the United States."
Then Bolton, as I
documented , embarked on a campaign of a media saturation to make a TV-happy president
proud. By May Day the next year, he would have a job, a big one, and one that Senator Paul
couldn't deny him: national security advisor. That wasn't the whole story, of course. Bolton's
ace in the hole was Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire casino magnate who has helped drive
Trump's Israel policy. If Trump finally moves against Bolton, it will likely be because Adelson
failed to strenuously object.
So will Trump finally do it? Other than White House chief of staff, a position Mick Mulvaney
has filled in an acting capacity for the entire calendar year, national security advisor is the
easiest, most senior role to change horses.
A bombshell Washington Post story lays out the dire truth: Bolton is so distrusted on
the president's central prerogatives, for instance Afghanistan, that he's not even allowed to
see sensitive plans unsupervised.
Bolton has also come into conflict with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, according to three
senior State Department officials. Pompeo is the consummate politician. Though an inveterate
hawk, the putative Trump successor does not want to be the Paul Wolfowitz of the Iran war.
Bolton is a bureaucratic arsonist, agnostic on the necessity of two of the institutions he
served in -- Foggy Bottom and the United Nations. Pompeo, say those around him, is keen to be
beloved, or at least tolerated, by career officials in his department, in contrast with Bolton
and even Tillerson.
The real danger Bolton poses is to the twin gambit Trump hopes to pull off ahead of, perhaps
just ahead of, next November -- a detente deal with China to calm the markets and ending
the war in Afghanistan. Over the weekend, the president announced a scuttled meeting with the
Taliban at Camp David, which would have been an historic, stunning summit. Bolton was
reportedly instrumental in quashing the meet. Still, there is a lot of time between now and
next autumn, and the cancellation is likely the latest iteration of the president's showman
diplomacy.
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general and
ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he didn't.
You confuse "politician" and "liar" here, whereas he is "consummate" at neither politics
nor lying. His politicking has been as botched as his diplomacy; his lying has been
prodigious but transparent.
Bolton has been on the way out now for how many months? I will believe this welcome news
when I see his sorry ___ out the door.
I think much of America and the world will feel the same way.
It doesn't matter whether Bolton's "time is up" or not, because his departure wouldn't
change anything. If he goes, Trump will replace him with some equally slimy neocon
interventionist.
It won't end until we muck out the White House next year. Dumping Trump is Job One.
Oh. Yes. You want to get rid of Trump's partially neocon administration, so that you could
replace it with your own, entirely neocon one. Wake me up when the DNC starts allowing
people like Tulsi Gabbard to get nominated. But they won't. So your party will just repeat
its merry salsa on the same set of rakes as in 2016.
Trump whole administration is just a bunch of rabid neocons who will be perfectly at home (and some were) in Bush II
administration. So firing of Bolton while a step in the right direction is too little, too late.
Notable quotes:
"... Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud. ..."
"... Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor, Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired General Jack Keane. ..."
While there was some feverish speculation as to what an impromptu presser at 1:30pm with US
Secretary of State Pompeo, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin and National Security Adviser Bolton
would deliver, that was quickly swept aside moments later when Trump unexpectedly announced
that he had effectively fired Bolton as National Security Advisor, tweeting that he informed
John Bolton "last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House" after "
disagreeing strongly with many of his suggestions. "
... ... ...
Whatever the reason for Bolton's departure, this means one less warmongering
neocon is left in the DC swamp, and is a prudent and long overdue move by Trump, one which even
Trump's liberals enemies will have no choice but to applaud.
While we await more details on this strike by Trump against the military-industrial
complex-enabling Deep State, here is a fitting closer from Curt Mills via the American
Conservative:
Ending America's longest war would be a welcome rebuttal to Democrats who will, day in and
day out, charge that Trump is a fraud. But to do so, he will likely need a national security
advisor more in sync with the vision. Among them: Tucker Carlson favorite Douglas Macgregor,
Stephen Biegun, the runner-up previously, or the hawkish, but relatively pragmatic retired
General Jack Keane.
Bolton seems to be following the well-worn trajectory of dumped Trump deputies. Jeff
Sessions, a proto-Trump and the first senator to endorse the mogul, became attorney general
and ideological incubator of the new Right's agenda only to become persona non grata in the
administration. The formal execution came later. Bannon followed a less dramatic, but no less
explosive ebb and flow. James Mattis walked on water until he didn't.
And Bolton appeared the leading light of a neoconservative revival, of sorts, until he
didn't.
According to the great military thinker, Maj. Gen. J.F.C. Fuller, 'the object of war is not
victory. It is to achieve political goals.'
Too bad President Donald Trump does not read books. He has started economic wars against
China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela without any clear strategic objective beyond inflating
his ego as the world's premier warlord and punishing them for disobedience.
Trump's wars are economic. They deploy the huge economic and financial might of the United
States to steamroll other nations that fail to comply with orders from Washington. Washington's
motto is 'obey me or else!' Economic wars are not bloodless. Imperial Germany and the Central
Powers were starved into surrender in 1918 by a crushing British naval blockade.
Trade sanctions are not making America great, as Trump claims. They are making America
detested around the globe as a crude bully. Trump's efforts to undermine the European Union and
intimidate Canada add to this ugly, brutal image.
Worse, Trump's tariff war against China has damaged the economy of both nations, the world's
leading economic powers, and raised tensions in Asia. The world is facing recession in large
part due to Trump's ill-advised wars. All to prove Trump's power and glory.
Trump and his advisors are right about China's often questionable trade practices. I did 15
years of business in China and saw a kaleidoscope of chicanery, double-dealing, and corruption.
A favorite Chinese trick was to leave imports baking in the sun on the docks, or long delaying
them by 'losing' paperwork.
I saw every kind of craziness in the Wild East Chinese market. But remember that it's a
'new' market in which western-style capitalism is only one generation old. Besides, China
learned many of its fishy trade practices from France, that mother of mercantilism.
China indeed steals technical and military information on a mass scale. But so does the US,
whose spy agencies suck up information across the world. America's claims to be a victim are
pretty rich.
What Trump & Co don't understand is that China was allowed into America's Greater Asia
Co-Prosperity Sphere by the clever President Nixon to bring it under US influence – just
as Japan and South Korea were in the 1950's. China's trade surplus with the US is its dividend
for playing by Washington's rules. If China's trade bonus is stripped away, so will China's
half-hearted acceptance of US policies. Military tensions will rise sharply.
In China's view, the US is repeating what Great Britain did in the 19th century by declaring
war to force opium grown in British-ruled Burma onto China's increasingly addicted people.
Today the trade crop is soya beans and wretched pigs.
Trump's ultimate objective, as China clearly knows, is to whip up a world crisis over trade,
then dramatically end it – of course, before next year's elections. Trump has become a
master dictator of US financial markets, rising or lowering them by surprise tweets. No
president should ever have such power, but Trump has seized it.
There is no telling how much money his minions have made in short or long selling on the
stock market thanks to insider information. America's trillion dollar markets have come to
depend on how Trump feels when he wakes up in the morning and watches Fox news, the Mother of
Misinformation.
It staggers the imagination to believe that Trump and his minions actually believe that they
can intimidate China into bending the knee. China withstood mass devastation and at least 14
million deaths in World War II in order to fight off Japanese domination. Does the White House
really think Beijing will cave in over soya beans and semi-conductors in a daft war directed by
a former beauty contest and casino operator? China's new emperor, Xi Jinping, is highly
unlikely to lose face in a trade war with the US. Dictators cannot afford to retreat. Xi can
wait it out until more balanced minds again occupy the White House.
Trade wars rarely produce any benefits for either side. They are the equivalent of sending
tens of thousands of soldiers to be mowed down by machine guns on the blood-soaked Somme
battlefield in WWI. Glory for the stupid generals; death and misery for the common soldiers
This fool's war of big egos will inevitably end in a face-saving compromise between
Washington and Beijing. Get on with it.
"... The old adage that the 'sea is always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy. And Iran repeating the same old routines, whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US Administration will inherit the same genes as the last. ..."
"... And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran. The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'. ..."
"... "[So] decoupling is already in motion. Like the shift of tectonic plates, the move towards a new tech alignment with China increases the potential for sudden, destabilizing convulsions in the global economy and supply chains. To defend America's technology leadership, policymakers must upgrade their toolkit to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks. ..."
"... "The key driver of this shift has not been the President's tariffs, but a changing consensus among rank-and-file policymakers about what constitutes national security. This expansive new conception of national security is sensitive to a broad array of potential threats, including to the economic livelihood of the United States, the integrity of its citizens personal data, and the country's technological advantage". ..."
"... A Quinnipiac University survey last week found for the first time in Trump's presidency, more voters now say the economy is getting worse rather than better, by a 37-31 percent margin – and by 41-37 percent, voters say the president's policies are hurting the economy. ..."
"... This is hugely significant. If Trump is experiencing a crisis of public confidence in respect to his assertive policies towards China, the last thing that he needs in the run-up to an election is an oil crisis, on top of a tariff/tech war crisis with China. A wrong move with Iran, and global oil supplies easily can go awry. Markets would not be happy. (So Trump's China 'bind' can also be Iran's opportunity ). ..."
There is consensus amongst the Washington foreign policy élite that all factions in
Iran understand that – ultimately – a deal with Washington on the nuclear issue
must ensue. It somehow is inevitable. They view Iran simply as 'playing out the clock', until
the advent of a new Administration makes a 'deal' possible again. And then Iran surely will be
back at the table, they affirm.
Maybe. But maybe that is entirely wrong. Maybe the Iranian leadership no longer believes in
'deals' with Washington. Maybe they simply have had enough of western regime change antics
(from the 1953 coup to the Iraq war waged on Iran at the western behest, to the present attempt
at Iran's economic strangulation). They are
quitting that failed paradigm for something new, something different.
The pages to that chapter have been shut. This does not imply some rabid anti-Americanism,
but simply the experience that that path is pointless. If there is a 'clock being played out',
it is that of the tic-toc of western political and economic hegemony in the Middle East is
running down, and not the 'clock' of US domestic politics. The old adage that the 'sea is
always the sea' holds true for US foreign policy. And Iran repeating the same old routines,
whilst expecting different outcomes is, of course, one definition of madness. A new US
Administration will inherit the same genes as the last.
And in any case, the US is institutionally incapable of making a substantive deal with
Iran. A US President – any President – cannot lift Congressional sanctions on Iran.
The American multitudinous sanctions on Iran have become a decades' long knot of
interpenetrating legislation: a vast rhizome of tangled, root-legislation that not even
Alexander the Great might disentangle: that is why the JCPOA was constructed around a core of
US Presidential 'waivers' needing to be renewed each six months. Whatever might be agreed in
the future, the sanctions – 'waived' or not – are, as it were, 'forever'.
If recent history has taught the Iranians anything, it is that such flimsy 'process' in the
hands of a mercurial US President can simply be blown away like old dead leaves. Yes, the US
has a systemic problem: US sanctions are a one-way valve: so easy to flow out, but once poured
forth, there is no return inlet (beyond uncertain waivers issued at the pleasure of an
incumbent President).
But more than just a long chapter reaching its inevitable end, Iran is seeing another path
opening out. Trump is in a 'China bind': a trade deal with China now looks "tough to
improbable", according to White House officials, in the context of the fast deteriorating
environment of security tensions between Washington and Beijing. Defense One spells it out:
"It came without a breaking news alert or presidential tweet, but the technological
competition with China entered a new phase last month. Several developments quietly heralded
this shift: Cross-border investments between the United States and China plunged to their
lowest levels since 2014, with the tech sector suffering the most precipitous drop. US chip
giants Intel and AMD abruptly ended
or declined to extend important partnerships with Chinese entities. The Department of Commerce
halved the number of
licenses that let US companies assign Chinese nationals to sensitive technology and engineering
projects.
"[So] decoupling is already in motion. Like the shift of tectonic plates, the move
towards a new tech alignment with China increases the potential for sudden, destabilizing
convulsions in the global economy and supply chains. To defend America's technology leadership,
policymakers must upgrade their toolkit to ensure that US technology leadership can withstand
the aftershocks.
"The key driver of this shift has not been the President's tariffs, but a changing
consensus among rank-and-file policymakers about what constitutes national security. This
expansive new conception of national security is sensitive to a broad array of potential
threats, including to the economic livelihood of the United States, the integrity of its
citizens personal data, and the country's technological advantage".
Trump's China 'bind' is this: A trade deal with China has long been viewed by the White
House as a major tool for 'goosing' the US stock market upwards, during the crucial
pre-election period. But as that is now said to be "tough to improbable" – and as US
national security consensus metamorphoses, the consequent de-coupling, combined with tariffs,
is beginning to bite. The effects are eating away at President Trump's prime political asset:
the public confidence in his handling of the economy: A Quinnipiac University
survey last week
found for the first time in Trump's presidency, more voters now say the economy is getting
worse rather than better, by a 37-31 percent margin – and by 41-37 percent, voters say
the president's policies are hurting the economy.
This is hugely significant. If Trump is experiencing a crisis of public confidence in
respect to his assertive policies towards China, the last thing that he needs in the run-up to
an election is an oil crisis, on top of a tariff/tech war crisis with China. A wrong move with
Iran, and global oil supplies easily can go awry. Markets would not be happy. (So Trump's China
'bind' can also be Iran's opportunity ).
No wonder Pompeo acted with such alacrity to put a tourniquet on the brewing 'war' in the
Middle East, sparked by Israel's simultaneous air attacks last month in Iraq, inside Beirut,
and in Syria (killing two Hizbullah soldiers). It is pretty clear that Washington did not want
this 'war', at least not now. America, as Defense One
noted , is becoming acutely sensitive to any risks to the global financial system from
"sudden, destabilizing convulsions in the global economy".
The recent Israeli military operations coincided with Iranian FM Zarif's sudden summons to
Biarritz (during the G7), exacerbating fears
within the Israeli Security Cabinet that Trump might meet with President Rouhani in NY at
the UN General Assembly – thus threatening Netanyahu's anti-Iran,
political 'identity' . The fear was that Trump could begin a 'bromance' with the Iranian
President (on the Kim Jong Un lines). And hence the Israeli provocations intended to stir some
Iranian (over)-reaction (which never came). Subsequently it became clear to Israel that Iran's
leadership had absolutely no intention to meet with Trump – and the whole episode
subsided.
Trump's Iran 'bind' therefore is somehow similar to his China 'bind': With China, he
initially wanted an easy trade achievement, but it has proved to be 'anything but'. With Iran,
Trump wanted a razzmatazz meeting with Rohani – even if that did not lead to a new 'deal'
(much as the Trump – Kim Jung Un TV spectaculars that caught the American imagination so
vividly, he may have hoped for a similar response to a Rohani handshake, or he may have even
aspired to an Oval Office spectacular).
Trump simply cannot understand why the Iranians won't do this, and he is peeved by the snub.
Iran is unfathomable to Team Trump.
Well, maybe the Iranians just don't want to do it. Firstly, they don't need to: the Iranian
Rial has been recovering steadily over the last four months and manufacturing output has
steadied. China's General Administration of Customs (GAC) detailing the country's oil imports
data shows that China has not cut its Iranian supply after the US waiver program ended on 2
May, but rather, it has
steadily increased Iranian crude imports since the official end of the waiver extension, up
from May and June levels. The new GAC data shows China imported over 900,000 barrels per day
(bpd) of crude oil from Iran in July, which is up 4.7% from the month before.
And a new path is opening in front of Iran. After Biarritz, Zarif flew directly to Beijing
where he discussed a huge, multi-hundred
billion (according to
one report ), twenty-five-year oil and gas investment, (and a separate) 'Road and Belt'
transport plan. Though the details are not disclosed, it is plain that China – unlike
America – sees Iran as a key future strategic partner, and China seems perfectly able to
fathom out the Iranians, too.
But here is the really substantive US shift taking place. It is that which is termed
"a new normal" now
taking a hold in Washington:
"To defend America's technology leadership, policymakers [are] upgrading their toolkit to
ensure that US technology leadership can withstand the aftershocks Unlike the President's trade
war, support for this new, expansive definition of national security and technology is largely
bipartisan, and likely here to stay.
with many of the president's top advisers viewing China first and foremost as a national
security threat, rather than as an economic partner – it's poised to affect huge parts of
American life, from the cost of many consumer goods to the nature of this country's
relationship with the government of Taiwan.
"Trump himself still views China primarily through an economic prism. But the angrier he
gets with Beijing, the more receptive he is to his advisers' hawkish stances toward China that
go well beyond trade."
"The angrier he gets with Beijing" Well, here is the key point: Washington seems to have
lost the ability to summon the resources to try to fathom either China, or the Iranian 'closed
book', let alone a 'Byzantine' Russia. It is a colossal attenuation of consciousness in
Washington; a loss of conscious 'vitality' to the grip of some 'irrefutable logic' that allows
no empathy, no outreach, to 'otherness'. Washington (and some European élites) have
retreated into their 'niche' consciousness, their mental enclave, gated and protected, from
having to understand – or engage – with wider human experience.
To compensate for these lacunae, Washington looks rather, to an engineering and
technological solution: If we cannot summon empathy, or understand Xi or the Iranian Supreme
Leader, we can muster artificial intelligence to substitute – a 'toolkit' in which the US
intends to be global leader.
This type of solution – from the US perspective – maybe works for China, but not
so much for Iran; and Trump is not keen on a full war with Iran in the lead up to elections. Is
this why Trump seems to be losing interest in the Middle East? He doesn't understand it; he
hasn't the interest or the means to fathom it; and he doesn't want to bomb it. And the China
'bind' is going to be all absorbing for him, for the meantime.
This is a Marxist critique of neoliberalism. Not necessary right but they his some relevant
points.
Notable quotes:
"... The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. ..."
"... The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world output. ..."
"... While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy? The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in the latter and meet global demand. ..."
"... The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5 ..."
"... This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state, the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse , causing a financial crisis. ..."
"... The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument, as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6 ..."
"... If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment. ..."
"... The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their home market ..."
"... In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people ..."
"... In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop and finds fascism. ..."
"... The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their support. ..."
"... The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions, imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of neoliberalism. ..."
"... And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more. ..."
"... Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11 Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against it. ..."
The ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth.
But with neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this
ideological prop.
Harry Magdoff's The Age of
Imperialism is a classic work that shows how postwar political decolonization does not
negate the phenomenon of imperialism. The book has two distinct aspects. On the one hand, it
follows in V. I. Lenin's footsteps in providing a comprehensive account of how capitalism at
the time operated globally. On the other hand, it raises a question that is less frequently
discussed in Marxist literature -- namely, the need for imperialism. Here, Magdoff not only
highlighted the crucial importance, among other things, of the third world's raw materials for
metropolitan capital, but also refuted the argument that the declining share of raw-material
value in gross manufacturing output somehow reduced this importance, making the simple point
that there can be no manufacturing at all without raw materials. 1
Magdoff's focus was on a period when imperialism was severely resisting economic
decolonization in the third world, with newly independent third world countries taking control
over their own resources. He highlighted the entire armory of weapons used by imperialism. But
he was writing in a period that predated the onset of neoliberalism. Today, we not only have
decades of neoliberalism behind us, but the neoliberal regime itself has reached a dead end.
Contemporary imperialism has to be discussed within this setting.
Globalization and
Economic Crisis
There are two reasons why the regime of neoliberal globalization has run into a dead end.
The first is an ex ante tendency toward global overproduction; the second is that the
only possible counter to this tendency within the regime is the formation of asset-price
bubbles, which cannot be conjured up at will and whose collapse, if they do appear, plunges the
economy back into crisis. In short, to use the words of British economic historian Samuel
Berrick Saul, there are no "markets on tap" for contemporary metropolitan capitalism, such as
had been provided by colonialism prior to the First World War and by state expenditure in the
post-Second World War period of dirigisme . 2
The ex ante tendency toward overproduction arises because the vector of real wages
across countries does not increase noticeably over time in the world economy, while the vector
of labor productivities does, typically resulting in a rise in the share of surplus in world
output. As Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy argued in Monopoly Capital , following the lead of
Michał Kalecki and Josef Steindl, such a rise in the share of economic surplus, or a shift
from wages to surplus, has the effect of reducing aggregate demand since the ratio of
consumption to income is higher on average for wage earners than for those living off the
surplus. 3
Therefore, assuming a given level of investment associated with any period, such a shift would
tend to reduce consumption demand and hence aggregate demand, output, and capacity utilization.
In turn, reduced capacity utilization would lower investment over time, further aggravating the
demand-reducing effect arising from the consumption side.
While the rise in the vector of labor productivities across countries, a ubiquitous
phenomenon under capitalism that also characterizes neoliberal capitalism, scarcely requires an
explanation, why does the vector of real wages remain virtually stagnant in the world economy?
The answer lies in the sui generis character of contemporary globalization that, for the
first time in the history of capitalism, has led to a relocation of activity from the
metropolis to third world countries in order to take advantage of the lower wages prevailing in
the latter and meet global demand.
Historically, while labor has not been, and is still not, free to migrate from the third
world to the metropolis, capital, though juridically free to move from the latter to the
former, did not actually do so , except to sectors like mines and plantations, which
only strengthened, rather than broke, the colonial pattern of the international division of
labor. 4
This segmentation of the world economy meant that wages in the metropolis increased with labor
productivity, unrestrained by the vast labor reserves of the third world, which themselves had
been caused by the displacement of manufactures through the twin processes of
deindustrialization (competition from metropolitan goods) and the drain of surplus (the
siphoning off of a large part of the economic surplus, through taxes on peasants that are no
longer spent on local artisan products but finance gratis primary commodity exports to
the metropolis instead).
The current globalization broke with this. The movement of capital from the metropolis to
the third world, especially to East, South, and Southeast Asia to relocate plants there and
take advantage of their lower wages for meeting global demand, has led to a desegmentation of
the world economy, subjecting metropolitan wages to the restraining effect exercised by the
third world's labor reserves. Not surprisingly, as Joseph Stiglitz has pointed out, the
real-wage rate of an average male U.S. worker in 2011 was no higher -- indeed, it was
marginally lower -- than it had been in 1968. 5
At the same time, such relocation of activities, despite causing impressive growth rates of
gross domestic product (GDP) in many third world countries, does not lead to the exhaustion of
the third world's labor reserves. This is because of another feature of contemporary
globalization: the unleashing of a process of primitive accumulation of capital against petty
producers, including peasant agriculturists in the third world, who had earlier been protected,
to an extent, from the encroachment of big capital (both domestic and foreign) by the
postcolonial dirigiste regimes in these countries. Under neoliberalism, such protection
is withdrawn, causing an income squeeze on these producers and often their outright
dispossession from their land, which is then used by big capital for its various so-called
development projects. The increase in employment, even in countries with impressive GDP growth
rates in the third world, falls way short of the natural growth of the workforce, let alone
absorbing the additional job seekers coming from the ranks of displaced petty producers. The
labor reserves therefore never get used up. Indeed, on the contrary, they are augmented
further, because real wages continue to remain tied to a subsistence level, even as
metropolitan wages too are restrained. The vector of real wages in the world economy as a whole
therefore remains restrained.
Although contemporary globalization thus gives rise to an ex ante tendency toward
overproduction, state expenditure that could provide a counter to this (and had provided a
counter through military spending in the United States, according to Baran and Sweezy) can no
longer do so under the current regime. Finance is usually opposed to direct state intervention
through larger spending as a way of increasing employment. This opposition expresses itself
through an opposition not just to larger taxes on capitalists, but also to a larger fiscal
deficit for financing such spending. Obviously, if larger state spending is financed by taxes
on workers, then it hardly adds to aggregate demand, for workers spend the bulk of their
incomes anyway, so the state taking this income and spending it instead does not add any extra
demand. Hence, larger state spending can increase employment only if it is financed either
through a fiscal deficit or through taxes on capitalists who keep a part of their income
unspent or saved. But these are precisely the two modes of financing state expenditure that
finance capital opposes.
Its opposing larger taxes on capitalists is understandable, but why is it so opposed to a
larger fiscal deficit? Even within a capitalist economy, there are no sound economic
theoretical reasons that should preclude a fiscal deficit under all circumstances. The root of
the opposition therefore lies in deeper social considerations: if the capitalist economic
system becomes dependent on the state to promote employment directly , then this fact
undermines the social legitimacy of capitalism. The need for the state to boost the animal
spirits of the capitalists disappears and a perspective on the system that is epistemically
exterior to it is provided to the people, making it possible for them to ask: If the state can
do the job of providing employment, then why do we need the capitalists at all? It is an
instinctive appreciation of this potential danger that underlies the opposition of capital,
especially of finance, to any direct effort by the state to generate employment.
This ever-present opposition becomes decisive within a regime of globalization. As long as
finance capital remains national -- that is, nation-based -- and the state is a nation-state,
the latter can override this opposition under certain circumstances, such as in the post-Second
World War period when capitalism was facing an existential crisis. But when finance capital is
globalized, meaning, when it is free to move across country borders while the state remains a
nation-state, its opposition to fiscal deficits becomes decisive. If the state does run large
fiscal deficits against its wishes, then it would simply leave that country en masse ,
causing a financial crisis.
The state therefore capitulates to the demands of globalized finance capital and eschews
direct fiscal intervention for increasing demand. It resorts to monetary policy instead since
that operates through wealth holders' decisions, and hence does not undermine their
social position. But, precisely for this reason, monetary policy is an ineffective instrument,
as was evident in the United States in the aftermath of the 2007–09 crisis when even the
pushing of interest rates down to zero scarcely revived activity. 6
It may be thought that this compulsion on the part of the state to accede to the demand of
finance to eschew fiscal intervention for enlarging employment should not hold for the United
States. Its currency being considered by the world's wealth holders to be "as good as gold"
should make it immune to capital flight. But there is an additional factor operating in the
case of the United States: that the demand generated by a bigger U.S. fiscal deficit would
substantially leak abroad in a neoliberal setting, which would increase its external debt
(since, unlike Britain in its heyday, it does not have access to any unrequited colonial
transfers) for the sake of generating employment elsewhere. This fact deters any fiscal effort
even in the United States to boost demand within a neoliberal setting. 7
Therefore, it follows that state spending cannot provide a counter to the ex ante
tendency toward global overproduction within a regime of neoliberal globalization, which makes
the world economy precariously dependent on occasional asset-price bubbles, primarily in the
U.S. economy, for obtaining, at best, some temporary relief from the crisis. It is this fact
that underlies the dead end that neoliberal capitalism has reached. Indeed, Donald Trump's
resort to protectionism in the United States to alleviate unemployment is a clear recognition
of the system having reached this cul-de-sac. The fact that the mightiest capitalist
economy in the world has to move away from the rules of the neoliberal game in an attempt to
alleviate its crisis of unemployment/underemployment -- while compensating capitalists
adversely affected by this move through tax cuts, as well as carefully ensuring that no
restraints are imposed on free cross-border financial flows -- shows that these rules
are no longer viable in their pristine form.
Some Implications of This Dead End
There are at least four important implications of this dead end of neoliberalism. The first
is that the world economy will now be afflicted by much higher levels of unemployment than it
was in the last decade of the twentieth century and the early years of the twenty-first, when
the dot-com and the housing bubbles in the United States had, sequentially, a pronounced
impact. It is true that the U.S. unemployment rate today appears to be at a historic low, but
this is misleading: the labor-force participation rate in the United States today is lower than
it was in 2008, which reflects the discouraged-worker effect . Adjusting for this lower
participation, the U.S. unemployment rate is considerable -- around 8 percent. Indeed, Trump
would not be imposing protection in the United States if unemployment was actually as low as 4
percent, which is the official figure. Elsewhere in the world, of course, unemployment
post-2008 continues to be evidently higher than before. Indeed, the severity of the current
problem of below-full-employment production in the U.S. economy is best illustrated by capacity
utilization figures in manufacturing. The weakness of the U.S. recovery from the Great
Recession is indicated by the fact that the current extended recovery represents the first
decade in the entire post-Second World War period in which capacity utilization in
manufacturing has never risen as high as 80 percent in a single quarter, with the resulting
stagnation of investment. 8
If Trump's protectionism, which recalls the Smoot-Hawley tariff of 1931 and amounts to a
beggar-my-neighbor policy, does lead to a significant export of unemployment from the
United States, then it will invite retaliation and trigger a trade war that will only worsen
the crisis for the world economy as a whole by dampening global investment. Indeed, since the
United States has been targeting China in particular, some retaliatory measures have already
appeared. But if U.S. protectionism does not invite generalized retaliation, it would only be
because the export of unemployment from the United States is insubstantial, keeping
unemployment everywhere, including in the United States, as precarious as it is now. However we
look at it, the world would henceforth face higher levels of unemployment.
There has been some discussion on how global value chains would be affected by Trump's
protectionism. But the fact that global macroeconomics in the early twenty-first century will
look altogether different compared to earlier has not been much discussed.
In light of the preceding discussion, one could say that if, instead of individual
nation-states whose writ cannot possibly run against globalized finance capital, there was a
global state or a set of major nation-states acting in unison to override the objections of
globalized finance and provide a coordinated fiscal stimulus to the world economy, then perhaps
there could be recovery. Such a coordinated fiscal stimulus was suggested by a group of German
trade unionists, as well as by John Maynard Keynes during the Great Depression in the 1930s.
9
While it was turned down then, in the present context it has not even been discussed.
The second implication of this dead end is that the era of export-led growth is by and large
over for third world economies. The slowing down of world economic growth, together with
protectionism in the United States against successful third world exporters, which could even
spread to other metropolitan economies, suggests that the strategy of relying on the world
market to generate domestic growth has run out of steam. Third world economies, including the
ones that have been very successful at exporting, would now have to rely much more on their
home market.
Such a transition will not be easy; it will require promoting domestic peasant agriculture,
defending petty production, moving toward cooperative forms of production, and ensuring greater
equality in income distribution, all of which need major structural shifts. For smaller
economies, it would also require their coming together with other economies to provide a
minimum size to the domestic market. In short, the dead end of neoliberalism also means the
need for a shift away from the so-called neoliberal development strategy that has held sway
until now.
The third implication is the imminent engulfing of a whole range of third world economies in
serious balance-of-payments difficulties. This is because, while their exports will be sluggish
in the new situation, this very fact will also discourage financial inflows into their
economies, whose easy availability had enabled them to maintain current account deficits on
their balance of payments earlier. In such a situation, within the existing neoliberal
paradigm, they would be forced to adopt austerity measures that would impose income deflation
on their people, make the conditions of their people significantly worse, lead to a further
handing over of their national assets and resources to international capital, and prevent
precisely any possible transition to an alternative strategy of home market-based growth.
In other words, we shall now have an intensification of the imperialist stranglehold over
third world economies, especially those pushed into unsustainable balance-of-payments deficits
in the new situation. By imperialism , here we do not mean the imperialism of this or
that major power, but the imperialism of international finance capital, with which even
domestic big bourgeoisies are integrated, directed against their own working people.
The fourth implication is the worldwide upsurge of fascism. Neoliberal capitalism even
before it reached a dead end, even in the period when it achieved reasonable growth and
employment rates, had pushed the world into greater hunger and poverty. For instance, the world
per-capita cereal output was 355 kilograms for 1980 (triennium average for 1979–81
divided by mid–triennium population) and fell to 343 in 2000, leveling at 344.9 in 2016
-- and a substantial amount of this last figure went into ethanol production. Clearly, in a
period of growth of the world economy, per-capita cereal absorption should be expanding,
especially since we are talking here not just of direct absorption but of direct and indirect
absorption, the latter through processed foods and feed grains in animal products. The fact
that there was an absolute decline in per-capita output, which no doubt caused a decline in
per-capita absorption, suggests an absolute worsening in the nutritional level of a substantial
segment of the world's population.
But this growing hunger and nutritional poverty did not immediately arouse any significant
resistance, both because such resistance itself becomes more difficult under neoliberalism
(since the very globalization of capital makes it an elusive target) and also because higher
GDP growth rates provided a hope that distress might be overcome in the course of time.
Peasants in distress, for instance, entertained the hope that their children would live better
in the years to come if given a modicum of education and accepted their fate.
In short, the ideology of neoliberal capitalism was the promise of growth. But with
neoliberal capitalism reaching a dead end, this promise disappears and so does this ideological
prop. To sustain itself, neoliberal capitalism starts looking for some other ideological prop
and finds fascism. This changes the discourse away from the material conditions of people's
lives to the so-called threat to the nation, placing the blame for people's distress not on the
failure of the system, but on ethnic, linguistic, and religious minority groups, the
other that is portrayed as an enemy. It projects a so-called messiah whose sheer
muscularity can somehow magically overcome all problems; it promotes a culture of unreason so
that both the vilification of the other and the magical powers of the supposed leader
can be placed beyond any intellectual questioning; it uses a combination of state repression
and street-level vigilantism by fascist thugs to terrorize opponents; and it forges a close
relationship with big business, or, in Kalecki's words, "a partnership of big business and
fascist upstarts." 10
Fascist groups of one kind or another exist in all modern societies. They move center stage
and even into power only on certain occasions when they get the backing of big business. And
these occasions arise when three conditions are satisfied: when there is an economic crisis so
the system cannot simply go on as before; when the usual liberal establishment is manifestly
incapable of resolving the crisis; and when the left is not strong enough to provide an
alternative to the people in order to move out of the conjuncture.
This last point may appear odd at first, since many see the big bourgeoisie's recourse to
fascism as a counter to the growth of the left's strength in the context of a capitalist
crisis. But when the left poses a serious threat, the response of the big bourgeoisie typically
is to attempt to split it by offering concessions. It uses fascism to prop itself up only when
the left is weakened. Walter Benjamin's remark that "behind every fascism there is a failed
revolution" points in this direction.
Fascism Then and Now
Contemporary fascism, however, differs in crucial respects from its 1930s counterpart, which
is why many are reluctant to call the current phenomenon a fascist upsurge. But historical
parallels, if carefully drawn, can be useful. While in some aforementioned respects
contemporary fascism does resemble the phenomenon of the 1930s, there are serious differences
between the two that must also be noted.
First, we must note that while the current fascist upsurge has put fascist elements in power
in many countries, there are no fascist states of the 1930s kind as of yet. Even if the fascist
elements in power try to push the country toward a fascist state, it is not clear that they
will succeed. There are many reasons for this, but an important one is that fascists in power
today cannot overcome the crisis of neoliberalism, since they accept the regime of
globalization of finance. This includes Trump, despite his protectionism. In the 1930s,
however, this was not the case. The horrors associated with the institution of a fascist state
in the 1930s had been camouflaged to an extent by the ability of the fascists in power to
overcome mass unemployment and end the Depression through larger military spending, financed by
government borrowing. Contemporary fascism, by contrast, lacks the ability to overcome the
opposition of international finance capital to fiscal activism on the part of the government to
generate larger demand, output, and employment, even via military spending.
Such activism, as discussed earlier, required larger government spending financed either
through taxes on capitalists or through a fiscal deficit. Finance capital was opposed to both
of these measures and it being globalized made this opposition decisive . The
decisiveness of this opposition remains even if the government happens to be one composed of
fascist elements. Hence, contemporary fascism, straitjacketed by "fiscal rectitude," cannot
possibly alleviate even temporarily the economic crises facing people and cannot provide any
cover for a transition to a fascist state akin to the ones of the 1930s, which makes such a
transition that much more unlikely.
Another difference is also related to the phenomenon of the globalization of finance. The
1930s were marked by what Lenin had earlier called "interimperialist rivalry." The military
expenditures incurred by fascist governments, even though they pulled countries out of the
Depression and unemployment, inevitably led to wars for "repartitioning an already partitioned
world." Fascism was the progenitor of war and burned itself out through war at, needless to
say, great cost to humankind.
Contemporary fascism, however, operates in a world where interimperialist rivalry is far
more muted. Some have seen in this muting a vindication of Karl Kautsky's vision of an
"ultraimperialism" as against Lenin's emphasis on the permanence of interimperialist rivalry,
but this is wrong. Both Kautsky and Lenin were talking about a world where finance capital and
the financial oligarchy were essentially national -- that is, German, French, or British. And
while Kautsky talked about the possibility of truces among the rival oligarchies, Lenin saw
such truces only as transient phenomena punctuating the ubiquity of rivalry.
In contrast, what we have today is not nation-based finance capitals, but
international finance capital into whose corpus the finance capitals drawn from
particular countries are integrated. This globalized finance capital does not want the world
to be partitioned into economic territories of rival powers ; on the contrary, it wants the
entire globe to be open to its own unrestricted movement. The muting of rivalry between major
powers, therefore, is not because they prefer truce to war, or peaceful partitioning of the
world to forcible repartitioning, but because the material conditions themselves have changed
so that it is no longer a matter of such choices. The world has gone beyond both Lenin and
Kautsky, as well as their debates.
Not only are we not going to have wars between major powers in this era of fascist upsurge
(of course, as will be discussed, we shall have other wars), but, by the same token, this
fascist upsurge will not burn out through any cataclysmic war. What we are likely to see is a
lingering fascism of less murderous intensity , which, when in power, does not
necessarily do away with all the forms of bourgeois democracy, does not necessarily physically
annihilate the opposition, and may even allow itself to get voted out of power occasionally.
But since its successor government, as long as it remains within the confines of the neoliberal
strategy, will also be incapable of alleviating the crisis, the fascist elements are likely to
return to power as well. And whether the fascist elements are in or out of power, they will
remain a potent force working toward the fascification of the society and the polity, even
while promoting corporate interests within a regime of globalization of finance, and hence
permanently maintaining the "partnership between big business and fascist upstarts."
Put differently, since the contemporary fascist upsurge is not likely to burn itself out as
the earlier one did, it has to be overcome by transcending the very conjuncture that produced
it: neoliberal capitalism at a dead end. A class mobilization of working people around an
alternative set of transitional demands that do not necessarily directly target neoliberal
capitalism, but which are immanently unrealizable within the regime of neoliberal capitalism,
can provide an initial way out of this conjuncture and lead to its eventual transcendence.
Such a class mobilization in the third world context would not mean making no truces with
liberal bourgeois elements against the fascists. On the contrary, since the liberal bourgeois
elements too are getting marginalized through a discourse of jingoistic nationalism typically
manufactured by the fascists, they too would like to shift the discourse toward the material
conditions of people's lives, no doubt claiming that an improvement in these conditions is
possible within the neoliberal economic regime itself. Such a shift in discourse is in
itself a major antifascist act . Experience will teach that the agenda advanced as part of
this changed discourse is unrealizable under neoliberalism, providing the scope for dialectical
intervention by the left to transcend neoliberal capitalism.
Imperialist
Interventions
Even though fascism will have a lingering presence in this conjuncture of "neoliberalism at
a dead end," with the backing of domestic corporate-financial interests that are themselves
integrated into the corpus of international finance capital, the working people in the third
world will increasingly demand better material conditions of life and thereby rupture the
fascist discourse of jingoistic nationalism (that ironically in a third world context is not
anti-imperialist).
In fact, neoliberalism reaching a dead end and having to rely on fascist elements revives
meaningful political activity, which the heyday of neoliberalism had precluded, because most
political formations then had been trapped within an identical neoliberal agenda that appeared
promising. (Latin America had a somewhat different history because neoliberalism arrived in
that continent through military dictatorships, not through its more or less tacit acceptance by
most political formations.)
Such revived political activity will necessarily throw up challenges to neoliberal
capitalism in particular countries. Imperialism, by which we mean the entire economic and
political arrangement sustaining the hegemony of international finance capital, will deal with
these challenges in at least four different ways.
The first is the so-called spontaneous method of capital flight. Any political formation
that seeks to take the country out of the neoliberal regime will witness capital flight even
before it has been elected to office, bringing the country to a financial crisis and thereby
denting its electoral prospects. And if perchance it still gets elected, the outflow will only
increase, even before it assumes office. The inevitable difficulties faced by the people may
well make the government back down at that stage. The sheer difficulty of transition away from
a neoliberal regime could be enough to bring even a government based on the support of workers
and peasants to its knees, precisely to save them short-term distress or to avoid losing their
support.
Even if capital controls are put in place, where there are current account deficits,
financing such deficits would pose a problem, necessitating some trade controls. But this is
where the second instrument of imperialism comes into play: the imposition of trade sanctions
by the metropolitan states, which then cajole other countries to stop buying from the
sanctioned country that is trying to break away from thralldom to globalized finance capital.
Even if the latter would have otherwise succeeded in stabilizing its economy despite its
attempt to break away, the imposition of sanctions becomes an additional blow.
The third weapon consists in carrying out so-called democratic or parliamentary coups of the
sort that Latin America has been experiencing. Coups in the old days were effected through the
local armed forces and necessarily meant the imposition of military dictatorships in lieu of
civilian, democratically elected governments. Now, taking advantage of the disaffection
generated within countries by the hardships caused by capital flight and imposed sanctions,
imperialism promotes coups through fascist or fascist-sympathizing middle-class political
elements in the name of restoring democracy, which is synonymous with the pursuit of
neoliberalism.
And if all these measures fail, there is always the possibility of resorting to economic
warfare (such as destroying Venezuela's electricity supply), and eventually to military
warfare. Venezuela today provides a classic example of what imperialist intervention in a third
world country is going to look like in the era of decline of neoliberal capitalism, when
revolts are going to characterize such countries more and more.
Two aspects of such intervention are striking. One is the virtual unanimity among the
metropolitan states, which only underscores the muting of interimperialist rivalry in the era
of hegemony of global finance capital. The other is the extent of support that such
intervention commands within metropolitan countries, from the right to even the liberal
segments.
Despite this opposition, neoliberal capitalism cannot ward off the challenge it is facing
for long. It has no vision for reinventing itself. Interestingly, in the period after the First
World War, when capitalism was on the verge of sinking into a crisis, the idea of state
intervention as a way of its revival had already been mooted, though its coming into vogue only
occurred at the end of the Second World War. 11
Today, neoliberal capitalism does not even have an idea of how it can recover and revitalize
itself. And weapons like domestic fascism in the third world and direct imperialist
intervention cannot for long save it from the anger of the masses that is building up against
it.
Samuel Berrick Saul, Studies in British Overseas Trade, 1870–1914
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1960).
Paul A. Baran and Paul M. Sweezy, Monopoly Capital (New York:
Monthly Review Press, 1966).
One of the first authors to recognize this fact and its significance was Paul Baran in
The Political Economy of
Growth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1957).
For the role of such colonial transfers in sustaining the British balance of payments and the
long Victorian and Edwardian boom, see Utsa Patnaik, "Revisiting the 'Drain,' or Transfers
from India to Britain in the Context of Global Diffusion of Capitalism," in Agrarian
and Other Histories: Essays for Binay Bhushan Chaudhuri , ed. Shubhra Chakrabarti and
Utsa Patnaik (Delhi: Tulika, 2017), 277-317.
Federal Reserve Board of Saint Louis Economic Research, FRED, "Capacity Utilization:
Manufacturing," February 2019 (updated March 27, 2019), http://fred.stlouisfed.org .
This issue is discussed by Charles P. Kindleberger in The World in Depression,
1929–1939 , 40th anniversary ed. (Oakland: University of California Press,
2013).
Joseph Schumpeter had seen Keynes's The Economic Consequences of the Peace as
essentially advocating such state intervention in the new situation. See his essay, "John
Maynard Keynes (1883–1946)," in Ten Great Economists (London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1952).
Utsa Patnaik is Professor Emerita at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her books include Peasant Class Differentiation (1987),
The Long Transition (1999), and The Republic of Hunger and Other Essays (2007). Prabhat Patnaik
is Professor Emeritus at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi. His books include Accumulation and Stability Under Capitalism (1997),
The Value of Money(2009), and Re-envisioning Socialism(2011).
"... By now the Republican hypocrisy on "fiscal responsibility" has become blindingly obvious: nondefense spending is always bad because it increases the national debt, tax cuts are fine even though they do the same. The political scam here may be more plain than the economic. Democrats understand that if they undertake the onerous task of closing budget deficits with unpopular tax increases and spending cuts, it only sets up the other side to make hay in the next election, then in office to blow up the deficit all over again. We've seen this three times since 1980. ..."
"... When the issues of poverty and inequality came up, a common neoliberal dodge was to invoke the Horatio Alger myth -- that in America, with hard work one can, or should be able to, raise oneself up by one' bootstraps. This switches the question from security made possible by the public sector to an individual responsibility for economic mobility. ..."
"... As it happens, mobility has declined over the long term in the United States, but that aside, it's a two-way street. The escalator of life runs in both directions. Moreover, it's a separate issue from that of poverty or inequality. One can have more mobility and the same or worse poverty or inequality. The rising tide goes out as well as in. ..."
"... The neoliberal remedy for poverty and inequality is commonly held to be education, because workers lack the requisite skills to earn a living wage. It's kind of their fault. All that's needed is some reasonable public expenditure. No deeper structural factors are at issue. This mindset is contradicted now in two ways. ..."
"... It does not require much contemplation to realize that merely splitting up the largest, most offensive corporations brings little promise of curbing their abuses. The Standard Oil monopoly was cut into pieces a century ago, and nobody has accused their spawn (Exxon, Shell, etc.) of being creditable public citizens. Three search engines that send you to the same scurrilous, paid-for content are no better than one. There is no reason to think life in a Walmart warehouse is any better than one in Amazon's. ..."
"... Postal savings banks can shield savers, home buyers, and taxpayers from the adventures of big players in the stock market. Nationalization of pharmaceutical patents could save consumers billions of dollars a year. ..."
"... Neoliberalism in foreign policy means the use of lethal force for the ostensible objectives of humanitarian intervention. This has always been the mask for US efforts to maintain its hegemonic position among world powers. Pressure on Iran or Venezuela or Iraq, for instance, was never credible as any sort of defense against existential threats to the United States, since no such threats from those nations could be demonstrated. The same can be said for the endless US presence in Afghanistan. ..."
"... Credit for the ebb of faith in the use of US military power is due to multiple sources. Foremost among these is the abject debacle of US machinations in Iraq (and Libya, if you're paying attention). These arguably contributed to caution on the part of the Obama Administration with respect to Iran and Syria. Among political figures, perhaps the strongest pressures are generated by Bernie Sanders and yes, Donald Trump. ..."
Sheer up. The Left is winning the battle of ideas. Ideas are the basis for organization, and
organization is prior to change. The signs are in the evolution of statements and platforms
presented by Democratic presidential candidates. As the economist John Maynard Keynes wrote,
eighty and some years ago:
Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influence,
are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the
air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back.
It's our "madmen" (and women) who are more in evidence these days -- not as public
personalities, but in the guise of campaign commitments offered by leading Democratic
politicians. Their ascendance parallels the decline of neoliberal ideology.
In this essay, I'd like to give credit where it is due for the raising of consciousness. In
the process, I would like to foster a keener appreciation for the difference between
progressive and neoliberal doctrine. What does it mean to be left these days? Everybody knows
the extreme point -- wholesale socialization of the commanding heights of the economy. But
where is the separation between hackneyed liberalism, "woke" and otherwise, and emerging
progressive platforms?
It does not always pay to highlight differences. But our ambitions go well beyond a
restoration of the old order under Barack Obama or Bill Clinton. For one thing, the not
unlikely shortcomings of a President Joe Biden could lead us straight back to the current
dilemma, perhaps with a younger, smarter version of Trump. Senators Josh Hawley of Missouri and
Tom Cotton of Arkansas wait impatiently in the wings, tanned, rested, and ready to wreak havoc
anew. We bitterly recall the triumphant victories of 1992 and 2008. Democrats won the White
House and held both houses of Congress; then they stunk up the joint, leading to the midterm
electoral debacles of 1994 and 2010.
The urge to paper over differences, in the interests of antifascist unity, intermingles with
sympathy for the old liberal verities and a reluctance, if not an incapacity, to offer a
forthright critique of progressive alternatives. Among friends, the label "neoliberal" is often
taken as an insult. The desire by liberals to avoid being flanked on the Left is strong. Of
course, being "more left" is not necessarily better, much less a sign of virtue. There have
always been virtuous liberals and low-down radicals.
From my own policy standpoint, I would assert that the radical or progressive option is not
intrinsically preferable to the neoliberal: we need to get down to cases. Here are some leading
examples of the dwindling currency of neoliberal thinking.
Up From Deficit Reduction
By now the Republican hypocrisy on "fiscal responsibility" has become blindingly obvious:
nondefense spending is always bad because it increases the national debt, tax cuts are fine
even though they do the same. The political scam here may be more plain than the economic.
Democrats understand that if they undertake the onerous task of closing budget deficits with
unpopular tax increases and spending cuts, it only sets up the other side to make hay in the
next election, then in office to blow up the deficit all over again. We've seen this three
times since 1980.
The economic bankruptcy of deficit reduction remains elusive to many Democrats. In
increasingly globalized capital markets, the impact of higher deficits on interest rates and
the fabled "crowding out" of investment have failed to transpire. Neither low unemployment nor
monetary stimulus from the Federal Reserve set off ruinous hyperinflation, contrary to the
conventional wisdom.
The growth in popularity of Modern Monetary Theory has further winnowed the ranks of liberal
budget balancers. An exception is Mayor Pete, who had the fortitude to identify himself as an
outlier. In this case, the exception proves the rule, which is that deficit reduction and a
balanced budget have been removed from the panel of Democratic hot buttons.
The Siren
Song of Economic Opportunity
When the issues of poverty and inequality came up, a common neoliberal dodge was to invoke
the Horatio Alger myth -- that in America, with hard work one can, or should be able to, raise
oneself up by one' bootstraps. This switches the question from security made possible by
the public sector to an individual responsibility for economic mobility.
As it happens, mobility has declined over the long term in the United States, but that
aside, it's a two-way street. The escalator of life runs in both directions. Moreover, it's a
separate issue from that of poverty or inequality. One can have more mobility and the same or
worse poverty or inequality. The rising tide goes out as well as in.
The neoliberal remedy for poverty and inequality is commonly held to be education, because
workers lack the requisite skills to earn a living wage. It's kind of their fault. All that's
needed is some reasonable public expenditure. No deeper structural factors are at issue. This
mindset is contradicted now in two ways.
First, the idea of education as an essential,
missing ingredient is being supplanted by the idea that what's at issue is power , both
political and economic . The wealthy control streams of income and institutions of
credentialization that could be rerouted, via taxation, to finance education ("free college")
that has an equalizing effect on wealth and enhances economic security. Most candidates support
ways to reduce the costs of post-secondary education.
Second, power also stems from the operations of racial and gender oppression. Nonwhites and
women are held back due to institutions of racism and sexism. One such institution is the
pairing of local government finance of public education with racial segregation. Segregation
simultaneously stems from and reinforces housing discrimination and wealth inequality.
I would also suggest that wealth inequality and employment discrimination impair family
well-being and foster single-parent, female-headed families with children, which promotes
gender-based oppression in the forms of unequal pay and occupational segregation. Women with a
disproportionate responsibility for the care of children have less power to command livable
wages and to advance in the labor market.
Democratic candidates are aiming closer to the roots of these problems in proposals to
combat institutional racism and to expand subsidized childcare. Pete Buttigieg has proposed a
comprehensive program to deal with institutional racism. Cory Booker has talked of "Baby
Bonds," a prominent proposal aimed at racial wealth inequality. Most candidates pledge a
significant increase in resources for childcare. We are some ways beyond Bill Clinton's "Mend
it, don't end it" response to the limits of affirmative action, or Barack Obama's "Beer
Summit."
Medicare for Lots More People
The limits of Obamacare have become painfully obvious, even as the added benefits of the
program have stoked public appetite for more serious progress. One constraint on the Affordable
Care Act's design at the time was reservations about its impact on the budget deficit, a
concern that looks farcical in retrospect.
The debate among Democrats now is not whether to extend public support for health care, but
by how much, and how rapidly. The implication is that health insurance markets are fatally
flawed, despite neoliberal attempts to improve them.
More broadly, the burgeoning critiques of monopoly, not least in the form of rapacious,
privacy-destroying tech giants whose business models entail pollution of public debate, raise
fundamental questions about markets and the neoliberals who "believe" in them.
It does not require much contemplation to realize that merely splitting up the largest, most
offensive corporations brings little promise of curbing their abuses. The Standard Oil monopoly
was cut into pieces a century ago, and nobody has accused their spawn (Exxon, Shell, etc.) of
being creditable public citizens. Three search engines that send you to the same scurrilous,
paid-for content are no better than one. There is no reason to think life in a Walmart
warehouse is any better than one in Amazon's.
A critique of monopoly can be channeled into consideration of shifting industries into the
public sector. Public broadband can diminish the power of Big Media, which relies on vertical
integration of cable, broadband, and content production. The same could be said of the clawback
of "intellectual property" rights in film and music. Postal savings banks can shield savers,
home buyers, and taxpayers from the adventures of big players in the stock market.
Nationalization of pharmaceutical patents could save consumers billions of dollars a
year.
War Is a Racket
Neoliberalism in foreign policy means the use of lethal force for the ostensible objectives
of humanitarian intervention. This has always been the mask for US efforts to maintain its
hegemonic position among world powers. Pressure on Iran or Venezuela or Iraq, for instance, was
never credible as any sort of defense against existential threats to the United States, since
no such threats from those nations could be demonstrated. The same can be said for the endless
US presence in Afghanistan.
Credit for the ebb of faith in the use of US military power is due to multiple sources.
Foremost among these is the abject debacle of US machinations in Iraq (and Libya, if you're
paying attention). These arguably contributed to caution on the part of the Obama
Administration with respect to Iran and Syria. Among political figures, perhaps the strongest
pressures are generated by Bernie Sanders and yes, Donald Trump.
... ... ...
As this article was being written, the Sanders campaign released additional, detailed plans
pertaining to labor rights, the Green New Deal, and how law enforcement deals with race. In
this respect, his opponents are invariably more fated to play catch-up than to reject his
proposals. The few who tried to plant a flag on their opposition to socialism are passing from
the scene. It's as if Democratic voters have been thirsting for progressive proposals for
decades, and now they will drink as much as can be offered. No candidate so far has proven
willing to rain on this parade.
That's why I say we are witnessing the sunset of neoliberalism.
What democracy they are talking about? Democracy for whom? This Harvard political prostitutes are talking about democracy for oligarchs
which was the nest result of EuroMaydan and the ability of Western companies to buy assets for pennies on the dollar without the control
of national government like happen in xUSSR space after dissolution of the USSR, which in retrospect can be classified as a color revolution
too, supported by financial injection, logistical support and propaganda campaign in major Western MSM.
What Harvard honchos probably does not understand or does not wish to understand is that neoliberalism as a social system lost its
attraction and is in irreversible decline. The ideology of neoliberalism collapsed much like Bolsheviks' ideology. As Politician like
Joe Boden which still preach neoliberalism are widely viewed as corrupt or senile (or both) hypocrites.
The "Collective West" still demonstrates formidable intelligence agencies skills (especially the USA and GB), but the key question
is: "What they are fighting for?"
They are fighting for neoliberalism which is a lost case. Which looks like KGB successes after WWIII. They won many battles and
lost the Cold war.
Not that Bolsheviks in the USSR was healthy or vibrant. Economics was a deep stagnation, alcoholism among working class was rampant,
the standard of living of the majority of population slides each year, much like is the case with neoliberalism after, say, 1991. Hidden
unemployment in the USSR was high -- at least in high teens if not higher. Like in the USA now good jobs were almost impossible to obtain
without "extra help". Medical services while free were dismal, especially dental -- which were horrible. Hospitals were poor as church
rats as most money went to MIC. Actually, like in the USA now, MIC helped to strangulate the economy and contributed to the collapse.
It was co a corrupt and decaying , led by completely degenerated leadership. To put the person of the level of Gorbachov level of political
talent lead such a huge and complex country was an obvious suicide.
But the facts speak for themselves: what people usually get as the result of any color revolution is the typical for any county
which lost the war: dramatic drop of the standard of living due to economic rape of the country.
While far form being perfect the Chinese regime at least managed to lift the standard of living of the majority of the population
and provide employment. After regime change China will experience the same economic rape as the USSR under Yeltsin regime. So in no
way Hong Cong revolution can be viewed a progressive phenomenon despite all the warts of neoliberalism with Chenese characteristics
in mainland China (actually this is a variant of NEP that Gorbachov tried to implement in the USSR, but was to politically incompetent
to succeed)
CHENOWETH: I think it really boils down to four different things. The first is a large and diverse participation that's
sustained.
The second thing is that [the movement] needs to elicit loyalty shifts among security forces in particular, but also other
elites. Security forces are important because they ultimately are the agents of repression, and their actions largely decide
how violent the confrontation with -- and reaction to -- the nonviolent campaign is going to be in the end. But there are other
security elites, economic and business elites, state media. There are lots of different pillars that support the status quo,
and if they can be disrupted or coerced into noncooperation, then that's a decisive factor.
The third thing is that the campaigns need to be able to have more than just protests; there needs to be a lot of variation
in the methods they use.
The fourth thing is that when campaigns are repressed -- which is basically inevitable for those calling for major changes
-- they don't either descend into chaos or opt for using violence themselves. If campaigns allow their repression to throw
the movement into total disarray or they use it as a pretext to militarize their campaign, then they're essentially co-signing
what the regime wants -- for the resisters to play on its own playing field. And they're probably going to get totally crushed.
Wai Sing-Rin @waisingrin • Aug 27
Replying to @ChrisFraser_HKU @edennnnnn_ and 2 others
Anyone who watched the lone frontliner (w translator) sees the frontliners are headed for disaster. They're fighting just
to fight with no plans nor objectives.
They see themselves as heroes protecting the HK they love. No doubt their sincerity, but there are 300 of them left.
These idiots don't hire themselves. The problem is Trump. It doesn't matter whether Bolton
(or Pompeo, or Hook, or Abrams) is in or out as long as Trump himself is in the White
House.
That realization has turned my 2016 protest vote for Trump into a 2020 protest vote for
Elizabeth Warren. The underlying principle is be the same, voting yet again for the lesser
of two evils.
"... Rickards had previously worked for the CIA (possibly still does – who knows?) but now seems to be a free-wheeling business executive, writer and strategic analyst. He tends to circulate outside of the usual middle-ranking semi-elite circles preferring to consort with the less observable, higher-ranking coteries of the inner-party. Moreover, he has nothing but disdain for the run-of-the-mill talking heads to be found (in abundance) in the media and academia – the outer-party. ..."
"... History is the first casualty of media micro-second attention span. An army of pseudo-savants saturate the airways to explain that tariffs are bad, trade wars hurt growth and mercantilism are a throwback to the 17th century. These sentiments come from mainstream liberals and conservatives and tag-along journalists trained in the orthodoxy of so-called free-trade and the false if comforting belief that trade deficits are the flipside of capital surpluses. So, what is the problem? The problem is that perpetual trade deficits have put the United States on a path to a crisis of the US$."[ 1 ] ..."
"... Obama, both Bushes, and Bill Clinton were globalists, defined as those willing to trade-off or compromise US interests for the sake of a stronger global community even conservative hawks like Reagan and JFK were firmly in the globalist camp, as they relied on NATO, the UN and the IMF to pursue their cold war goals. ..."
"... LBJ's administration contrived to conduct the Vietnam War as well as an expensive social programme, simultaneously. A guns plus butter economy. (The original version of the Guns versus butter argument was given in a speech on January 17, 1936, in Nazi Germany. The then Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated: "We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without arms." ) ..."
"... Globally, the leading manufacturer of auto-vehicles is Volkswagen followed by Toyota. GM are 4th and Ford are 8th of ten. Hardly market leaders anymore, but Rickards apportions the blame to 'unfair practices' by foreign manufacturers and argues instead for tariffs. The same goes for other trade partners. Fact that the United States has to a large extent been deindustrialised was a political choice of its own making. ..."
"... There were a number of advantages which accrued to the dollar contingent on the ending of gold convertibility which Eichengreen listed these in his book. But the principle one was making the surplus nations of the world pay for America's wars with an unconvertible currency. Instead of being paid for in gold, or at least a gold-backed currency the world produced goods and services for a piece of green paper backed by nothing. ..."
"... This was to be expected quite simply because at bottom Rickards is a sophist much in the tradition of Protagoras, Gorgias and Thrasymachus "I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" [ 12 ] ..."
"... A view which Rickards would certainly endorse. Beneath the Upper Manhattan, polished chic, there resides a ruthless Cold Warrior. The further one digs into the book, the more this becomes apparent. ..."
"... Many of us are aware of the problems of the USD but few are able to so succinctly explain why and connect the dots to expose the true picture. The bottom line is that the lifespan of the USD as king is almost over ..."
"... The US has been exposed, and so well said, as a predator nation .There must be a reason why China and Russia are buying up as much gold as their economy will permit .The exchange medium used for trade since time immemorial . ..."
"... The Wall Street ethos has always been 'kill or be killed' where bears eat, and bulls eat, but pigs get slaughtered! The problem with today's market & stock valuations is that they are as hyperinflated as Real Estate Commercial & Residential sectors are which leaves no wiggle room for price discovery until there is a system wide crash that mean reverts the valuations back to a realistic price. ..."
"... All that is happening now is that Trump is trying to solve his country's intractable economic and financial problems by looting the rest of the planet. This is not a new development, but Trump is at least refreshingly honest in his public pronouncements. ..."
"... The Nazi Empire imposed tribute on its conquests in identical fashion. Send us your industrial output, agricultural produce and raw materials. In return we'll give you a big credit balance at the Reichsbank. ..."
"... The current (real) military budget is $1,134 billion, around 60% higher than the fictitious figure that is normally touted. ..."
"... Gold could form some kind of basis for exchange in a collapse setting. Other desirable barter items would be alcohol, cigarettes, basic drugs like aspirin and paracetamol, electrical batteries, fuel and similar goods. Maybe ammunition as well. Goods were priced in cigarettes in postwar Germany. ..."
"... Bismarck is normally credited with the choice between Guns and Butter. Goebbels was suggesting that Guns will bring Butter. ..."
"... The crime in all this is in the pursuit of money -- ultimately a wholly artificial concept -- we're wasting immense amounts of resources and human potential, spreading misery and despoliation all over the planet and generally behaving like really awful global citizens. We can and must do better. ..."
"... American exceptionalism, for example, takes it for granted that we in the West are good, and therefore the East must become more like us. But we are logically, and morally, obliged to look at this from the opposite perspective too: What if the Chinese take it for granted that they are good, and therefore the West must become more like them? ..."
"... American parasitism writ large over the last half century has amply signified to the entire world that 'manifest destiny' was merely a ruse to foist American hegemony onto all sovereign nations at the behest of an out-of-control American Oligopoly that was power-tripping post WW2 & drunk on the souls of the poor sots all over the entire world with their power hungry warmongering Military Industrial Complex. ..."
"... Its not "American". We just happen to be the chosen host for this part of history. Before us it was the British Empire that was top dog. ..."
"... You have made the common mistake of asserting that it is America, instead of those who govern (the USA and its pundits) that have engineered the problems you point out. ..."
"... To condense this lengthy essay: This ship is sinking. ..."
"Aftermath" is the latest addition to three previous publications by Rickards, Currency Wars (2011), The Death of Money (2014),
The Road to Ruin (2016). Together, with the present offering (Aftermath, 2019), the author uses the analogy of the Four Horsemen
of the Apocalypse to illustrate the themes of his four books. The latest book is thematic in its approach to the events which have
taken place in the world in general and the United States in particular during this period.
HIGH SOCIETY
Rickards had previously worked for the CIA (possibly still does – who knows?) but now seems to be a free-wheeling business executive,
writer and strategic analyst. He tends to circulate outside of the usual middle-ranking semi-elite circles preferring to consort
with the less observable, higher-ranking coteries of the inner-party. Moreover, he has nothing but disdain for the run-of-the-mill
talking heads to be found (in abundance) in the media and academia – the outer-party.
His observations of this social stratum are unapologetic and caustic:
History is the first casualty of media micro-second attention span. An army of pseudo-savants saturate the airways to explain
that tariffs are bad, trade wars hurt growth and mercantilism are a throwback to the 17th century. These sentiments come from
mainstream liberals and conservatives and tag-along journalists trained in the orthodoxy of so-called free-trade and the false
if comforting belief that trade deficits are the flipside of capital surpluses. So, what is the problem? The problem is that perpetual
trade deficits have put the United States on a path to a crisis of the US$."[
1 ]
As is apparent, his contempt is palpable.
It should be said that much of his writing and theorising is at times occasioned by a high level of sophistication, alas sadly
lacking in most of his contemporaries. But for all his refinement and eloquence that doesn't stop him being, from Off Guardian's
perspective (and mine), on the other side – the side of the Anglo-Zionist empire.
THE GREAT BETRAYAL
Throughout this book and previous books there runs a familiar leitmotif; a sense of betrayal by the present dominant section of
the US elite. This is not by any means an unusual political phenomenon and bears comparison with the stab-in-the-back myth – a notion
doing the rounds in Germany circa 1918.
It held that the German Army did not lose World War I on the battlefield but it was 'traitors' on the home front, especially the
traitorous republicans who overthrew the Hohenzollern monarchy in the German Revolution of 1918–19.
This precedent loosely corresponds to Rickards' belief in the perfidy of the current leadership of the US and his vitriol is directed
against this globalist faction who are firmly ensconced in both Democrat and Republican parties and whom, he argues, have sold the
pass in terms of America's strategic interests. He writes:
Obama, both Bushes, and Bill Clinton were globalists, defined as those willing to trade-off or compromise US interests for
the sake of a stronger global community even conservative hawks like Reagan and JFK were firmly in the globalist camp, as they
relied on NATO, the UN and the IMF to pursue their cold war goals.
However, all was not lost. As a result of
the Presidential election of 2016 when Donald Trump was sworn in on 17 January 2017 as the strongest nationalist since Theodore
Roosevelt. For the first time in 100 years a committed nationalist was sitting in the Oval Office." [
2 ]
The event was obviously political grist to Rickards' mill.
However, precisely how this liberation of the US from the domestic globalists' stranglehold was to be brought about wasn't made
clear, and in fact is barely touched upon by Rickards.
Trump, for all his bombast and promises to Make America Great Again (MAGA), and pursue a radical foreign policy of withdrawal
from globalist wars of choice and military adventurism, has been conspicuous by its absence.
Moreover, from the outset he has been beset by the ancien regime of neo-conservatives and neo-liberals – Bolton, Pompeo and Pence
– entrenched in key US institutions, as well as various think-tanks and media who are still doggedly set upon the realization of
neo-con foreign policy goals.
It seems odd that Rickards doesn't see fit to comment on this important development given that Trumps' campaign promises have
disappeared almost without trace since he entered the Oval Office.
IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID
Rickards is on firmer ground, however, when dissecting the 8th wonder of the world – US economic policy. The US sovereign debt
(i.e., the debt of the Federal Government) to GDP is now at a record, this is unprecedented for a peacetime administration.
In addition, it is also worth noting the magnitude of US private debt and unfunded future liabilities, pensions, Medicaid, social
security and so forth.
This would include household debt, student debt, financial debt, corporate debt, and municipal debt. Add this to sovereign debt
and you get a figure roughly 5 times US sovereign debt, and even this is regarded as being a conservative figure according to many
– see David Stockman, John Mauldin et al).
According to Rickards, the present situation has been largely the result of excess spending by both Democratic and Republican
administrations. The spending has either been on 'Defence' – a Republican favourite – or social like L.B. Johnson's 'Great Society'
programme – a Democratic favourite.
LBJ's administration contrived to conduct the Vietnam War as well as an expensive social programme, simultaneously. A guns plus
butter economy. (The original version of the Guns versus butter argument was given in a speech on January 17, 1936, in Nazi Germany.
The then Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels stated: "We can do without butter, but, despite all our love of peace, not without
arms." )
LBJ's guns-and-butter policies were enacted in the late sixties at the height of the Vietnam war and the Tet Offensive. The utopian
attempt to have the best of both worlds brought LBJ's administration to an end; more importantly, perhaps it was also the beginning
of the process which brought down the curtain on the post WW2 economic world order established at the Bretton Woods conference in
1944.
Because the costs of the Vietnam war were superimposed on the economy not far effectively from full employment, the US domestic
sector was severely destabilised.
Instead of taxing the nation to pay for the war, the government engaged in the more acceptable practice of deficit financing
Vietnam showed that neither the United States nor any other democratic nation can ever again afford the foreign exchange costs
of conventional warfare, although the periphery was still kept in line by American military initiatives most recently in Yugoslavia
and Afghanistan.
The lesson in the long term is that peace will be maintained only by governments refusing to finance the military and other
excesses of the increasingly indebted imperial power." [
3 ]
The figure for the US sovereign debt – began to rise relentlessly from the 1980s onwards approaching wartime levels by the time
of the 2008 blowout.
It has been estimated by some economic theorists that any sovereign Debt-to-GDP figure greater than 60% represents a tripwire
whereby governments should act to rein in government expenditures.
The EU Maastricht criteria, for example, stipulated that EU Debt-to-GDP should not go over 60% except in certain circumstances
and an annual budgetary deficit should not be more than 3%.
That is a pretty tight monetary and fiscal policy EU style, but not to be outdone the spendthrift US was to go on a wild binge
in both fiscal and monetary terms the result of which is a now an unpayable mountain of debt. This gives an indication of how far
US economic policymaking has drifted away from any viable economic strategy.
Rickards fulminates:
To see how America came to this pretty pass we, one needs to review almost 40 years of fiscal policy under Presidents Reagan,
Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, Obama and Trump from the period 1981-2019." [
4 ]
Under Reagan in 1981 US Debt-to-GDP ratio was 32.5%. The President was gung-ho for tax cuts and big spending increases, particularly
'defence' spending. This trend was continued under the tutelage of the Bushes and Clinton, and Debt-to-GDP ratio rose to 56.4% when
Bush Jr, took office and had risen to 82% by the time he left.
The Obama years saw the Debt-to-GDP rise to 100%. The diagram below 2009 debt-to-GDP was 82.3% This figure has risen inexorably
to over 100% in 2018. Yep, here we have the dreaded law of Diminishing returns. Every new dollar of input gives you 90 cents of output.
The above diagram illustrates the growth of debt vis-à-vis National Income (GDP) since the 2008 blowout. Debt has been growing
progressively faster than National Income.
The US economy, like the US shale oil industry, has become a Ponzi scheme in all but name. The Fed's issuance of new debt to pay
off existing debt signals the key moment of the Minsky crisis.[
5 ]
There doesn't appear to be any viable way out this predicament short of a straight default. But Rickards argues that 'the United
States will never default on its debt because the Fed can simply print the money and to pay it off.' This will involve an engineered
inflation to wipe out the debt. But in fact, inflation is the default, a default by the back door. Getting paid in worthless currency
is in essence no different than not getting paid at all.
NO EXIT
As for solutions to a crisis which has seemingly reached the point of no return, all that Rickards can offer is a Japanese scenario
of low or zero growth punctuated by recession for the United States and by implication for the rest of the world. The United States
had its first long decade from 2007 to 2017 and is now into its second decade.
This growth pattern will persist absent of inflationary breakout which the Fed seems powerless to ignite in the short run;
a war; or severe depression perhaps caused by a new financial crisis.[
6 ]
Not much of a prospect for the average family then. But Rickards does give some useful advice to his more opulent readers on how
they should diversify their assets.
There are apparently "luxury bombproof bunkers built in former missile silos and expansive estates in New Zealand loaded with
rations and good wines."
Really? At this point one wonders if Mr Rickards is being serious or just smug.
SOCIAL IMMOBILITY AND THE RISE OF OLIGARCHY
The social and economic impact on levels of inequality in both the US and globally have been extremely deleterious and seem set
to continue. Inequality in income and wealth – a phenomenon identified and outlined by Thomas Piketty – is resulting in societies
which more and more resemble feudal economic and social structures rather than textbook capitalism. Social class is hardening into
social caste and rates of social mobility are decelerating at an alarming rate.
The liberal notion that the individual is the author of his/her own destiny has become a very dubious proposition when the drawbridges
of advantage, birth and preferment are drawn up. Moreover, high levels of income/wealth are not conducive to growth since the new
aristocracy owns most of the wealth/income which is hoarded rather than spent on investment and/or consumption. Stagnation, idled
capital and rent extraction becomes the economic norm.
Inequality is common in college admissions where the wealthy and connected continue to send their sons and daughters to elite schools
while the middle-class are restrained by sky-high tuitions and the burden of student loans.
It's true in the housing market where the rich picked up mansions on the cheap in foreclosure sales whilst the middle-class were
frozen in mortgage negative equity.
It's true in health care, where the rich could afford all the insurance they needed while the middle class were handicapped by
unemployment and the loss of job-related benefits. These disparities also affected the adult children of the middle-class. There
are no gold-plated benefits packages in the gig society
Research shows that fewer than 50% of all children aged 30 today earn more than their parents did at the same age. This 50% figure
compares with 60% who earned more in 1971, and 80% who earned more in 1950.
The American dream of each generation earning more than the prior generation is collapsing before our eyes The middle class is
getting poorer on a relative basis and lagging further behind the rich whose incomes absorb an increasing share of total GDP The
manner in which the rich become rich is variable.
It could be due to a number of unrelated factors Problems arise in the way that the rich stay rich become richer and pass on wealth
to their children and grandchildren." [
7 ]
It is a matter of common knowledge that the traditional techniques of preserving and creating wealth have been long established
in law, customs, education and socialization; these traditional methods being practised over decades, if not centuries, have produced
a system of elite self-recruitment, one moreover which endures through time.
Many of the richest US citizens – e.g., Buffet, Bezos, Zuckerberg – pay minimal tax demands. Much of the wealth of the richest
Americans is never taxed because they hold onto real estate and stocks and pass them onto their beneficiaries tax-free. This is one
of a perfectly legal method of avoiding tax; there are many more too numerous to cite which include various other examples of tax
avoidance/evasion.
Levels of income and wealth inequality within states are usually measured by what is called the Gini Co-efficient. This measure
is a commonly used measure of income inequality that condenses the entire income distribution for a country into a single number
between 0 and 1 or 0% to 100%: the higher the number, the greater the degree of inequality. A rough estimate of inequality is a figure
above 40%.
The United States and China are in the low forties, surrounded by underdeveloped and developing states such as The Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Burundi and El Salvador. At the other end of the spectrum are Sweden, Norway and Iceland.
In this connection the by now well-known study carried out by two American academics at Princeton University Prof Martin Gilens
and North western University Prof Benjamin Page argue that the US is dominated by a rich and powerful elite.
Multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial
independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent
influence."
In plain English: the wealthy few move policy, while the average American has little power.
The two professors came to this conclusion after reviewing answers to 1,779 survey questions asked between 1981 and 2002 on public
policy issues. They broke the responses down by income level, and then determined how often certain income levels and organised interest
groups saw their policy preferences enacted.
Americans do enjoy many features central to democratic governance, such as regular elections, freedom of speech and association
and a widespread (if still contested) franchise. But we believe that if policymaking is dominated by powerful business organisations
and a small number of affluent Americans, then America's claims to be a democratic society are seriously threatened."
In summation, both gentlemen concluded that in essence the US was an oligarchy not a properly functioning democracy. All very
true but somewhat self-evident.
Rickards regards the present situation as being irreversible. He does not present any alternative to this trend other than some
vague hopes that the 'nationalist' President in the Oval Office will turn things around – MAGA in fact.
The golden age of post WW2 capitalism ended when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard in August 1971, which was in effect
a default by the US. Holders of surplus dollars in Europe who were no longer able to swap these dollars for gold but were merely
presented with other US$s with which they had to purchase US Treasurys (Bonds) debts which were never going to be repaid. In the
age of fiat currencies Europe and various other holders of US Treasuries were in fact subsidizing the United States.
POOR LITTLE AMERICA
At this point the book becomes one long whinge about how hard done-by America has been and how the rest of the world has taken
advantage of this benign gentle giant. This rather bizarre belief calls for further analysis. The US pays some of the bill for NATO
whilst European nations pay insufficient amounts for the 'defence' of their countries.
It should be pointed out, however, that in terms of military hardware the NATO alliance is standardized to American specifications.
This means large-scale purchasing of US war materiel which is a gift bonus to the US armaments industry.
Then Germany has the nerve to buy Russian gas transported to Europe via Nordstream 2 which is cheaper and more reliable than US
Liquified Natural Gas (LNG), when in fact they should be buying more expensive and less reliable US LNG. Apparently, Germany ought
really to be subsidising the US shale oil Ponzi racket. Bad, ungrateful Germany.
Then comes the incessant carping regarding trade policy and trade deals. The US in its speed to become a cool, post-modern, financialised
economy apparently forgot about the importance of production. In the automobile industry the once dominant US triad of General Motors,
Ford and Chrysler are no longer in the vanguard and Japan, with South Korea catching up, is now the leading country in the export
of auto vehicles, a position which the US once held. It was the Japanese auto industry which pioneered production methods including
just-in-time deliveries and lean production (Toyota). Was anyone stopping the Americans from innovating?
In rank order. Figures quoted in Global Shift – Peter Dicken.
Globally, the leading manufacturer of auto-vehicles is Volkswagen followed by Toyota. GM are 4th and Ford are 8th of ten.
Hardly market leaders anymore, but Rickards apportions the blame to 'unfair practices' by foreign manufacturers and argues instead
for tariffs. The same goes for other trade partners. Fact that the United States has to a large extent been deindustrialised was
a political choice of its own making.
If the US has lost ground in the competition for trade on world markets that is because of its own insular provincialism and hubris,
not foreign competitive malpractice. Moreover, much of its productive industry which remains has been outsourced to low cost venues
such as China. The US more than anyone should know that its competitors are simply using the same policies that it itself used during
the 19th century to break British trade hegemony.
It has been the same story with agriculture. Trade liberalization (this must rank as the greatest misnomer of trade theory) and
trade treaties have been an example of the blatant unfairness of such agreements. During the Uruguay round of 'talks' (1982-2000):
the United States pushed other countries to open up their markets to areas of 'our' (i.e. the US's) strength, but resisted, successfully
so, to efforts to make us reciprocate.
Construction and maritime services, the areas of advantage of many developing countries were not included in the new agreement.
Worse still, financial services liberalization was arguably even harmful to some developing countries: as large international (read
American) banks squelched local competitors denying them the funds they garnered would be channelled to the international firms with
which they felt comfortable, not the small and medium-sized local firms
As foreign banks took over the banking systems of like Argentina and Mexico worries about small and medium sized firms within
these countries being starved of funds have been repeatedly voiced.
Whether these concerns are valid or not, whether they are exaggerated or not, is not the issue: the issue is that countries should
have the right to make these decisions themselves, as the United States did in its own country during its formative years; but under
the new international rules that America had pushed, countries were being deprived of that right.
Suffice it to say that agriculture has always been a flagrant example of the double standards inherent in the US trade liberalization
agenda. Although we insisted that other countries reduce their barriers to our products and eliminate the subsidies for which those
products competed against ours, the United States kept barriers for the goods produced by the developing countries, and the US continued
massive subsidies to its own produce. [
8 ] EXORBITANT PRIVILEGE
Oh, I almost forgot: the imperial tribute that the world pays to the hegemon; aka the reserve status of the dollar. The role of
the US dollar in the world's political economy gives it advantages which the rest of the dollar surplus-states are dragooned into
accepting. In the late sixties early seventies, the US was on the verge of technical bankruptcy due to its spending profligacy at
home and military adventurism in Indochina. It had three choices of how to deal with this acute problem.
[The] 3 courses open to the US government on the collapse of the Gold Pool in London in 1968 were: immediately pull out of
the war in South-East Asia and cut back overseas and domestic military expenditure to allow the dollar to firm again on world
markets; to continue the war paying for its foreign exchange costs with further outflows of Fort Knox gold; or to induce the Europeans
and other payments surplus areas to continue to accumulate surplus dollars and dollar equivalents (US Treasuries) not convertible
into gold." [ 9 ]
Of course, it was option three that appealed and Nixon in his television broadcast was to announce a 'temporary' suspension of
gold sales by the US to its overseas 'partners'.
The date in question, 15 August 1971, marked the end of one epoch and the beginning of another. The temporary suspension soon
morphed into a permanent one and a global fiat currency regime based on the dollar came into being. This represented a culmination
of a situation in which the US manipulation of the dollar was termed the 'Exorbitant Privilege' by the senior French politician Valery
Giscard d'Estaing. And privilege it was.
The central political fact is that the dollar standard places the direction of the world monetary policy in the hands of a
single country which thereby acquires great influence over the economic destiny of others. It is one thing to sacrifice sovereignty
in the interests of interdependence; it is quite another when the relationship is one-way.
The difference is that between the EEC(EU) and a colonial empire. The brute fact is that the acceptance of a dollar standard
necessarily implies a degree of asymmetry in power which, although it actually existed in the early post-war years, had vanished
by the time that the world sliding into a reluctant dollar standard." [
10 ]
There were a number of advantages which accrued to the dollar contingent on the ending of gold convertibility which Eichengreen
listed these in his book. But the principle one was making the surplus nations of the world pay for America's wars with an unconvertible
currency. Instead of being paid for in gold, or at least a gold-backed currency the world produced goods and services for a piece
of green paper backed by nothing.
Quite a clever little racket when you think about it.
Better still is the way that the two biggest surplus nations, Japan and China, have been the US's main creditors, bankrolling
the US by buying its Treasuries. This had another intended, or perhaps unintended effect: long term interest rates on US bonds came
down (since bond prices and bond interest rates move in opposite directions) and enabled the property bubble to expand until the
inevitable blow-out in 2008.
In mafia terms the US dollar has been a 'made' currency enjoying a set of privileges and protection which it did not earn but
foisted upon others. This is a unique dispensation which is enjoyed by the US to which the rest of the world is excluded.
However, it is in the nature of things that privileges will ultimately get abused. In pushing its luck to the point of abuse the
US should be aware that initial signs are that the world is sloughing off the US dollar. As it proceeds in that direction, the US
currency will lose its position as the global reserve asset. Holders of trillions of dollar-denominated assets will become sellers
eventuating in a collapse of the currency.
The US economy lives like a parasite off its partners in the global system, with virtually no savings of its own. The World
produces whilst North America consumes. The advantage of the US is that of a predator whose advantage is covered, by what others
agree, or are forced, to contribute.
Washington uses various means to make up for its deficiencies: for example, repeated violations of the principles of liberalism,
arms exports, and the hunting-down of oil super-profits (which involves the periodic felling of producers; one of the real motives
behind the wars in Iraq and Central Asia).
But the fact is that the bulk of the American deficit is covered by capital inputs from Europe and Japan, China and the South,
rich oil-producing countries and comprador classes from all regions, including the poorest, in the third world, to which should
be added the debt-service levy that is imposed on nearly every country in the periphery of the global system. The US superpower
depends from day to day on the flow of capital which sustains its economy and society. The vulnerability of the United States
represents a serious danger to Washington's project." [
11 ]
In light of the above we may conclude that – in spite of the irritating name-dropping – Rickards' books are interesting well written
and well-argued; per contra they are very light on facts which have been left deliberately unexamined as well as counter-narratives
which have also been ignored.
This was to be expected quite simply because at bottom Rickards is a sophist much in the tradition of Protagoras, Gorgias
and Thrasymachus "I say that justice is nothing other than the advantage of the stronger" [
12 ]
A view which Rickards would certainly endorse. Beneath the Upper Manhattan, polished chic, there resides a ruthless Cold Warrior.
The further one digs into the book, the more this becomes apparent.
NOTES:-
[1] Rickards – Aftermath – page.21
[2] Ibid., – page.65
[3] Michael Hudson – Super Imperialism – pp.298/99, 32.
[4] Rickards – Ibid. – page.66
[5] Hyman Minsky's theories about debt accumulation received revived attention in the media during the subprime mortgage crisis
of the late 2000s. The New Yorker has labelled it "the Minsky Moment". Minsky argued that a key mechanism that pushes an economy
towards a crisis is the accumulation of debt by the non-government sector. He identified three types of borrowers that contribute
to the accumulation of insolvent debt: hedge borrowers, speculative borrowers, and Ponzi borrowers.
The "hedge borrower" can make debt payments (covering interest and principal) from current cash flows from investments. For
the "speculative borrower", the cash flow from investments can service the debt, i.e., cover the interest due, but the borrower
must regularly roll over, or re-borrow, the principal. The "Ponzi borrower" (named for Charles Ponzi, see also Ponzi scheme) borrows
based on the belief that the appreciation of the value of the asset will be sufficient to refinance the debt but could not make
sufficient payments on interest or principal with the cash flow from investments; only the appreciating asset value can keep the
Ponzi borrower afloat.
[6] Rickards – Ibid., page.85
[7] Rickards – Ibid., page.239
[8] Joseph Stiglitz – The Roaring 90s – pp.206/207
[9] Gold Pool 1968. The price of one troy ounce of gold was pegged to US$35. The larger the gap, known as the gold window,
between free market gold price and the foreign exchange rate, the more tempting it was for nations to deal with internal economic
crises by buying gold at the Bretton Woods price and selling it in the gold markets. It couldn't last and it didn't.
[10] Michael Hudson – Ibid. – p.309
[11] Barry Eichengreen – Exorbitant Privilege – passim.
Frank Lee left school at age 15 without any qualifications,
but gained degrees from both New College Oxford and the London School of Economics (it's a long story). He spent many years as a
lecturer in politics and economics, and in the Civil Service, before retirement. He lives in Sutton with his wife and little dog.
Guy
Excellent article by Frank Lee. Many of us are aware of the problems of the USD but few are able to so succinctly explain
why and connect the dots to expose the true picture. The bottom line is that the lifespan of the USD as king is almost over
.There will not be any rabbit pulled out of the hat to make America great again.That is a feel good cliché used to further
induce the population to go back to sleep.
The US has been exposed, and so well said, as a predator nation .There must be a reason why China and Russia are buying
up as much gold as their economy will permit .The exchange medium used for trade since time immemorial .
FoodBowl
Measuring 'National Debt as a Portion of the US Economy' is for economics classes and for newspapers to publish. The Criminal
Elites look at things differently. They measure the National Debt as a Portion of the 'FEROCIOUS BOMBING POWER the US Possess'.
Also, 'Spreading Chaos Capabilities' is added to the Bombing Power.
From this point of view, they see enormous assets, and the debts becomes less worrying as they see less urgency to deal with
this ever growing liabilities.
Fair dinkum
No analysis required because it's always been the same. The few exploit the many. This has fed the cancers of psychopathy, messiah
complexes and endless wars.
We are rushing towards the midnight sun.
MASTER OF UNIVE
The Wall Street ethos has always been 'kill or be killed' where bears eat, and bulls eat, but pigs get slaughtered! The problem
with today's market & stock valuations is that they are as hyperinflated as Real Estate Commercial & Residential sectors are which
leaves no wiggle room for price discovery until there is a system wide crash that mean reverts the valuations back to a realistic
price.
Warren Buffett is currently sitting on $55 billion in cash so that he does not get destroyed on the upcoming systemic wide
crash. Buffett has never pulled this kind of bread from the table in his lifetime whilst waiting for a systemic crash & the inevitable
fat tail blowout that is poised to rip the face off of the USA & EU as their eyeballs get ripped out too.
Ripping a face off & ripping eyeballs out is day trader speak for kicking counterparties in the groin for the deal. The French
Revolution was all about teaching the financial elite predator class of monetary control freaks who the boss really is when the
gravy train slows during Financial Winter.
And if they can't take the heat they should get out of the kitchen!
RW
mark
All that is happening now is that Trump is trying to solve his country's intractable economic and financial problems by looting
the rest of the planet. This is not a new development, but Trump is at least refreshingly honest in his public pronouncements.
It has always been thus.
The Roman Empire imposed tribute on its subjects. You have to send us so much grain, cattle, so many slaves, so much timber
for shipbuilding, so much precious metal and base metal, so many wild beasts for our circuses. In return we won't kill you.
The Nazi Empire imposed tribute on its conquests in identical fashion. Send us your industrial output, agricultural
produce and raw materials. In return we'll give you a big credit balance at the Reichsbank.
Uncle Sugar says send me your BMWs, fine wines, electronic gadgets, oil and minerals. In return I'll give you some worthless
little pieces of green paper you can exchange for worthless IOUs called Treasury Bills.
The current (real) military budget is $1,134 billion, around 60% higher than the fictitious figure that is normally touted.
The trade deficit is $900 billion. The budget deficit $1,175 billion, over 20% of the overall budget.
America is borrowing around $4 billion a day from the rest of the world. Uncle Sam is the biggest scrounger, parasite, leech,
bludger, and panhandler in the history of the planet.
The official national debt of $22.5 trillion understates the true position by a factor of over ten. Every US man, woman, child,
and babe in arms is in hock to the tune of over $700,000.
The global economy is about to crash, yet again (because it's never really recovered from the 2008 crash)'. Answers on a postcard,
please (and one that doesn't involve giving the banksters eye-watering amounts of money).
Frank Lodge
Without reading the book in question, this seems like an thoroughly sound and incisive review. Just one thing, "cometh" takes
a singular subject.
BigB
Rickards attitude is famously: "Buy gold" to which he creates a fear porn scenario around the coming recession. His solution:
"Buy gold". Not, lets look at the conditions that are causing the underlying boom and bust business cycles and find a solution
that works for humanity. His solution: "Buy gold" which the likes of he and the others who are driving the business cyclical waves
of mutilation have already done to hedge their portfolios. Fuck Ricards. I have no time for those who wish to profit from the
overfinancial immiseration of humanity. And you know where you can stick your gold.
Good luck to anyone who produces gold in an actual collapse scenario. So you need to buy guns and bodyguards for self-protection
if you buy gold...
mark
Gold could form some kind of basis for exchange in a collapse setting. Other desirable barter items would be alcohol, cigarettes,
basic drugs like aspirin and paracetamol, electrical batteries, fuel and similar goods. Maybe ammunition as well. Goods were priced
in cigarettes in postwar Germany.
Gold would probably be of use. Gemstones, jewellery, would not. 99.9% of people are unable to distinguish a real diamond from
a piece of glass.
bevin
"he original version of the Guns versus butter argument was given in a speech on January 17, 1936, in Nazi Germany." Not for the
first time Wikipedia is wrong here. Bismarck is normally credited with the choice between Guns and Butter. Goebbels was suggesting
that Guns will bring Butter.
Martin Usher
Its nice to see this in a book but its really common knowledge. The only thing I'd dispute is this notion of an 'elite', there
is no such thing, its just greed holding the reins -- its like a mass FOMO, nobody's willing to take the long view because it
might mean they'll miss out on what they can grab right now.
The danger we face from this is that if a large enough economic bloc runs by more rational rules then its going to eventually
cream us economically. This forces us to destroy it. This is what's at the bottom of our problems with China. The USSR wasn't
strong or well organized enough to pose a real threat to us so it could be taken down primarily by economic means. The Chinese
learned their lesson from the Russian experience and 'played nice' which they built their country up -- we all heard the commentariat
from a few years ago about them 'not really being communists any more'. Now they're in a position to look us in the eye so we've
got to confront them, to take them down. (You'll notice that one of the conditions that will end the trade war is the 'liberalizing
of capital markets' -- that is, we need to take over their banking system and currency.) If -- when -- this fails then the only
recourse would be actual war.
The crime in all this is in the pursuit of money -- ultimately a wholly artificial concept -- we're wasting immense amounts
of resources and human potential, spreading misery and despoliation all over the planet and generally behaving like really awful
global citizens. We can and must do better.
wardropper
And we certainly must stop talking about "taking down" the Chinese, and instead actually try to understand where they come from,
with their roots in a far more ancient civilized society than ours.
American exceptionalism, for example, takes it for granted that we in the West are good, and therefore the East must become
more like us. But we are logically, and morally, obliged to look at this from the opposite perspective too: What if the Chinese
take it for granted that they are good, and therefore the West must become more like them?
I have been to China, and found the people there to consist of the same mixtures of honest, good, nondescript, sinister and
deplorable as we have here at home.
They also share exactly the same fundamental problem as we do: Their politicians and their people, like ours, are two entirely
separate things. Of course the origins of Chinese, or Russian, society are different from ours, but that is no reason to despise
them. Our origins are often pretty despicable too.
Antonym
The Chinese people are as materialistic or spiritual as any; it is the local deep state (CPC) totalitarian culture that needs
to change.
Robbobbobin
"The crime in all this is in the pursuit of money -- [w]e can and must do better."
Three thousand years?
He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity.
–Ecclesiastes 5:10
Two thousand years?
For the love of money is the root of all evil –1 Timothy 6:10
Surely the Anti Deceased Equine Distress Society has lobbied some sort of statute of limitations onto the books by now?
MASTER OF UNIVE
American parasitism writ large over the last half century has amply signified to the entire world that 'manifest destiny'
was merely a ruse to foist American hegemony onto all sovereign nations at the behest of an out-of-control American Oligopoly
that was power-tripping post WW2 & drunk on the souls of the poor sots all over the entire world with their power hungry warmongering
Military Industrial Complex.
Proof of their combined ignorance with respect to Cybernetics & Systems Theory was their willingness to follow the likes of
the Vietnam War architects that assumed incorrectly that they could impose a closed-looped cybernetic control system over world
finance & mercantilism throughout the entire world at the behest of academic failures like Macnamera who would not know a 'closed-looped
cybernetic' from an open-looped cybernetic if his life & legacy depended on it.
Simply put, American printing presses at the privately owned Federal Reserve cannot even remotely help or assist in anymore
financial profligacy for the Neoconservative or Neoliberal camps of the cerebrally sclerotic & Early Onset Dementia riddled, &
uneducated, financial buffoons that emanated out of the now defunct Chicago School headed up by Strauss et al. in the 60s & 70s.
All the macroeconomic indicators over the last two decades have clearly indicated that the Greenspan era of asset inflation
was nothing more than the undoing of Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker's hard won success during his tenure pre-Greenspan 'Maestro'
halcyon days of animal spirits run amok.
In brief, the United States of America can eat my shorts as it is solely responsible for manufacturing a finance control system
& requisite money pump fraud that is nothing more than a worldwide Ponzi scheme to defraud the entire world of disposable income
& discretionary income gain so that all gains accrue to the rentier class of speculative investors like Warren Buffett & Bob Paulson.
Bottom line is that Warren Buffett will have to purchase all the new automobiles, trucks, houses, mansions, cottages, farms,
cites, towns, railroads, roads, & precious metals as the emerging markets & first world markets all decouple just as Professor
Emeritus Benoit Mandelbrot hypothesized they would just before he died.
Go ahead, America, print the fake fiat greenbacks to infinity in vain hope of extricating yourselves from the intractable financial
muck & mire you are most assuredly going to find yourselves in this approaching October 2019.
Go ahead, Punk, make my day!
Are you feeling lucky, Punk?
RW
Martin Usher
Its not "American". We just happen to be the chosen host for this part of history. Before us it was the British Empire that
was top dog.
Money has no particular loyalty to a country. In pre-WW1 Europe the bourgeois were all intermarried, connected primarily by
wealth and power regardless of their nominal nationality, our present equivalent are similarly connected. Just like WW1 when the
chips are down we -- the ordinary people -- will be sacrificed on the alter of patriotism while they'll survive and prosper.
MASTER OF UNIVE
March 10th 2008 around 11:00am Bear Stearns time New York shitty was the virtual end of American hegemony worldwide forever more
into the obvious future of Macroeconomics & Macroprudential Policy as an ongoing concern. Debt-to-GDP of all sovereign Western
imperialist nations is intractably North of any semblance of sustainability vis-a-vis Finance worldwide or within Emerging Economies
or First World Developed Economies.
Intractable debt limits were broached when Nixon declared the bankruptcy of the Bretton Woods infrastructure of gold backed
USA Reserve Currency Status and then opted in ignorance for the petro-dollar bait & switch fiat USD Finance capture worldwide
which has now come home to roost across the rust belt of the heartland USA, and in places that were once bastions of manufacturing
for the middle class USA blue collar worker such as Detroit or Chicago. Today the business model of the USA is transnationalist
whereby places across the USA are not even remotely financed into that transnationalist Wall Street model of Finance that is wholly
parasitic to the point of crashing mainstreet USA across all sectors of the Service Sector Industries that were supposed to be
replacing the long lost USA Manufacturing Base that was offshored to the Third World sovereigns that would temporarly increase
profit margins for the transnationalist class of corporate parasites run amok to collectively destroy all life on Planet Earth
for centuries to come if we are lucky.
RW
martin
You have made the common mistake of asserting that it is America, instead of those who govern (the USA and its pundits)
that have engineered the problems you point out.
Why would the two parties in congress (Article II followers) and the two fellows with the Article II power, continue to [expand
the debt in fake, made up and useless expenses], unless they were controlled by external forces?
Maybe bankers and their high powered corporations are finding they can no longer easily dupe Americans into delivering their
resources into the pockets of the wealthy. Maybe the American people have drawn the line, no more, will they produce for the IMF,
world bank?
Maybe Americans have decided to refuse the tax burdens imposed to retire the fed debt? Maybe foreign nations have denied the
banks and their corporations access to their resources as a means to pay the USA debt? Maybe script has been recognized as a false
capital in-capable of ruling the world? Maybe organized criminals have taken up positions in the western governments and used
those positions to force on the governed many things? Maybe burdening the USA with debt is part of the plan to bankrupt America?
<==but why should the banks bankrupt America, why has access to education been limited, why has the USA spied on Americans? Why
have the governed Americans been denied access to the USA? Has the USA retired Americans from productive jobs, in order to accelerate
the demise of America? The USA has made Americans into debtors obligated to pay bankers in the form of taxes to be collected by
the USA and remitted to the bankers. <= just as is now occurring in Britain, Greece, France, and other places. Privatization,
monopolization and conversion from public to private franchising and ownership have served as the transforming agents that have
made the elite so wealthy.
Economic Zionism. as opposed to government regulated capitalism, condones no competition, allows no prisoners and either
takes or destroys all likely competitive elements (persons, corporations, or nations) Economic Zionism demands the government
that governs (as in USA governance over Americans) assist in rendering Americans broke. Is it because until Americans are broke,
the EZ bandits are hampered? Is scooping resources into private, monopoly powered, already wealthy hands, the goodies to be had
the goal? Maybe the USA is a privatizing agent instead of a benefactor serving Americans?
In USA governed America, there is much very-productive farm land, millions of tons of minerals, many productive seaports, and
tons and tons of money making monopolies (patents, copyrights, royalties, government franchised goodies, lucrative government
contracts, and plenty of government services and resources) to be privatized for profit. The goodies are located in thousands
of acres of rich farmland, the major ports and services attached thereto, and embedded within little domestic American companies
which the USA debt will eventually burden into bankruptcy. After all "scalping a bankruptcy" is historically a speciality of economic
zionism.
MASTER OF UNIVE
In 1994 JPMorgan management & traders went on a little holiday in Miami to concoct the Global Ponzi of debt & risk associated
with loans into what is known today as the Financialization Process whereby bank risk would be shuffled off of investment bank
balance sheets and onto those speculators that wanted to purchase all that risk involved in the bank portfolios en masse because
they knew how to offload that risk to unsuspecting greater fools that were always certain to come knocking in a climate of upward
growth and yield curve convexity. But the chink in their financial alchemy was obviously debt limits and the ability to track
the risk to the system as a whole given that all transactions in the derivatives world are dark & unregulated due to the helmsmen
like the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson who previous to being nominated as Treasury Secretary was in fact the top man at Goldman
Sachs where he raked in approximately a smooth billion before traversing the revolving door between the Whore House & Goldman
Sachs New York shitty offices.
Casino Banking morphed into Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism when Bob Paulson wanted more Residential Mortgage Backed Security issuance
and pressured Goldman Sachs into providing more issuance via NINJA loans & Liar Loans after 05 when the Wall Street speculators
had to go bottom feeding for loan issuance in order to meet investor demand & apatite for their unhinged Gordon Gecko greed.
'Maestro' Greenspan emphasized his 'flaw' in his macroeconomic model of the world when the investor greed broached fat tails
on the order of a 10% crash of the power laws of distributions of loan issuance. Greenspan never assumed that the Financialization
Process would exceed a default scenario greater than 5-7% of no-performing loans in the subprime issuance tranche.
American exceptionalism via Henry Paulson USA Treasury Secretary 08 is what rendered American Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism wholly
defunct going forward into 2020 & beyond with a permanent lower bound CB Interest Rate Regime & specter of WW3 hot conflagration.
My money is on the pinko Commie bastards this time round the sovereign insolvency loop of domestic misery USA.
WELCOME to the New World Disorder!
RW
nottheonly1
To condense this lengthy essay: This ship is sinking.
This would include household debt, student debt, financial debt, corporate debt, and municipal debt. Add this to sovereign
debt and you get a figure roughly 5 times US sovereign debt, and even this is regarded as being a conservative figure according
to many
One – at least on this side of the screen – cannot but think that all this is by design. The cart is driven intentionally off
the cliff. To start off with a clean slate? Where the wealthy still have their wealth, but the suckers are depending on hand-outs?
An old proverb alledges that: To borrow brings sorrow.
To which only those who make loads of money from lending will disagree. Where are the solutions? No solutions, just listicles
as to how bad it all is? Sure, the West is reminiscent of the HMS Titanic – with the slight difference of the hole made by the
iceberg (debt) extending over the whole length of the ship. It is listing beyond dancing.
Well, I am willing to tell a secret (that isn't one anymore for quite some time):
Outlaw/prohibit Interest .
Prohibit capital gains . Or tax them with 99%.
Prevent under all circumstances a continuation of Performanceless Profits .
Make them punishable with prison time of no less than half of the age at which they were perpetrated. You're 30? You're going
in for 15. You're 65? Easy math.
Fact is, that there are solutions galore to save our souls. Problem is, those whose lives are depending on them, don't demand
them to be implemented. And why would the wealthy tax non-payers like Bezos et al want to change their 'winning team'? That is
a well known no-no. The only solution the masses of the little people can hope for is 'Force Majeur' that works to their benefit.
Shall we wait for that to happen?
I think the Car Wash conspiracy against Lula is a bombshell, and Pepe Escobar's prison
interviews with Lula provide insight to the larger global Borgist conspiracy. Check out what
Lula had to say about the JCPOA. Be sure to read partsI I and II as well.
September 9, 2019
IMF: Firms avoiding tax through 'phantom FDI' worth $15 trillion
By Nicholas Moore
International tax havens are being used to funnel phantom investments worth the same as
the combined annual GDP of China and Germany, according to a new study published by the
International Monetary Fund (IMF) which sheds light on how tax-dodging multinationals are
skewing global foreign direct investment (FDI) data.
The research, conducted by the IMF and the University of Copenhagen using data from the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), shows that 38 percent of
global FDI is "phantom in nature – investments that pass through empty corporate
shells."
That 38 percent slice of FDI is worth around 15 trillion U.S. dollars. Eighty-five percent
of that huge sum passes through just 10 economies, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region, Singapore and Switzerland – all regions with low
corporate tax rates.
Luxembourg, a country with a population of 600,000, hosts more FDI than the entire Chinese
economy, according to the study. At four trillion U.S. dollars, that's 6.6 million U.S.
dollars for each Luxembourger.
Of course, that money isn't going into the pockets of each and every Luxembourger, and
it's not being spent on investment projects in the principality. But why is such a huge sum
passing through the tiny European state?
The study found that phantom investments are a form of financial and tax engineering "to
minimize multinationals' global tax bills." And while corporate shells bring in large sums to
their host countries through company registration fees and providing financial services, the
huge amounts of money involved mean significant tax income losses for countries around the
world.
The report says the phantom FDI phenomenon affects "virtually all economies," no matter
their size or level of development. Across all economies (advanced, emerging markets,
low-income and developing), average outflows towards overseas shell firms represent 25
percent of total FDI.
Phantom investments are not new, and despite increasing international coordination against
the phenomenon, their share of total FDI has grown by around eight percent in the past
decade.
Beyond damaging the tax bases of countries around the world, phantom FDI is also heavily
distorting headline data. Genuine FDI should act as an indicator of international economic
integration, in terms of job creation as well as productivity. But with phantom FDI
representing nearly 40 percent of all overseas investment, the data could mislead
policymakers and skew economic outlooks.
For the tax havens, the huge influx of money towards shell companies also heavily skews
their own data. When Ireland saw its GDP grow by 26 percent in 2015, The Irish Times said
while it may be a statistical fact, the huge growth was "clearly a fiction."
Huge multinational companies like Apple, Google and Facebook have registered assets in
Ireland for tax reasons. As the Irish Times reported, having such assets registered in
Ireland had a limited effect on the economy, but its "impact on the different components of
our economic data is explosive."
The IMF report calls for more international cooperation on "dealing with taxation in
today's globalized economic environment." However, calls from leaders such as French
President Emmanuel Macron for stronger oversight of multinationals and their use of tax
havens have mostly fallen on deaf ears.
Macron called for a global tax on tech giants at the G7 Summit last month, describing as
"crazy" the current setup which gives multinationals "a permanent tax haven status." However,
the U.S. President Donald Trump is firmly against such legislation, after what Macron
described as "very strong lobbying" by American tech giants.
Krugman -- the father of Abenomics -- is tactitly admitting his keynesian ideology is
wrong. Now, all that is left is for him to openly defend austerity and we have a new liberal
consensus for at least the next decade. Keynesianism will enjoy the glory of being the first
liberal ideology to die twice -- first in 1974-5 (stagflatio) which gave birth to the
neokeynesians and the post-keynesians -- and now, with the zombification of Japan and, soon,
South Korea in NE Asia (the "Asian Tigers").
South Korea has a new motto: low growth, low interest rate and low inflation.
South Korea is going the way of Japan. No wonder, since South Korea is a bad carbon copy
of Japan. This explains why Moon Jae-in is trying to link his North-South peace efforts to a
new boom of the South's economy. That's also why the South's reject the North's "one country,
two systems" reunification proposal -- those chaebols need that cheap natural resources and
workforce from the North to initiate a new accumulation cycle of South Korean capitalism.
That's some hundreds of millions of USDs down the drain, which is bad for a country were
one third of its population doesn't even have access to electricity.
I could quote some Marxist articles here to demonstrate Mnuchin is factually wrong. But
I'll be merciful to the anti-marxists in this blog this time and quote a bourgeois economist
who's at least honest in this specific issue:
"... " Fuel to the Fire: How Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten military misadventures. ..."
"... Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism), immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty. ... ..."
In a provocative new book, three scholars from the
libertarian Cato Institute -- John Glaser, Christopher A. Preble and A. Trevor Thrall --
counsel the United States to abandon the pursuit of global primacy for a policy of prudence and
restraint. " Fuel to the Fire: How
Trump Made America's Foreign Policy Even Worse (and How We Can Do Better) " is a scalding
indictment not only of the 45th U.S. president, but also of a morally bankrupt national
security establishment whose addiction to empire has embroiled the nation in misbegotten
military misadventures. American foreign policy professionals may cast the United States as
a benevolent hegemon, defending the liberal or "rules-based" international order. But this
self-serving argument is hard to take seriously, they write, given the hubris, hypocrisy and
coerciveness of the American imperium.
The most surprising argument in "Fuel to the Fire" is that this misguided orientation has
persisted under Donald Trump. This seems counterintuitive. Washington's mandarins have recoiled
in bipartisan horror as the president dismantles their handiwork and pursues his "America
First" agenda. Glaser, Preble and Thrall see Trump -- the "least informed, least
experienced, and least intellectually prepared U.S. president in modern memory" -- as more bark
than bite. True, he has altered specific U.S. positions on trade (more protectionism),
immigration (greater closure) and human rights (deafening silence). But, on balance, they
perceive a depressing continuity between Trump's foreign policy and what preceded it. Abetted
by an invertebrate Congress and emboldened by the military-industrial complex, Trump has
doubled down on the imperial presidency, on inflated threat perceptions, on defense spending
and on the pursuit of global domination. In so doing, they claim, Trump is setting a course for
continued interventionism that is at odds with U.S. ideals and dangerous to American liberty.
...
Elizabeth Warren Stands Out at New Hampshire Democratic
Party Convention https://nyti.ms/2POixCr
NYT - Katie Glueck - September 7
MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s backers roared supportive slogans and banged on
drums as they camped outside Southern New Hampshire University Arena. Backers of Senator
Elizabeth Warren marched as part of a jazz-inflected brass band. A fan of Senator Amy
Klobuchar admonished passers-by to consider electability, and banners associated with Senator
Bernie Sanders that highlighted his own standing in the polls appeared aimed at drawing a
contrast with Mr. Biden.
The New Hampshire Democratic Party State Convention drew 19 of the presidential candidates
and some of the state's most committed party activists -- including more than 1,200 delegates
-- to its gathering here Saturday, offering an early test of campaign organization and
enthusiasm in a contest that is traditionally a must-win for candidates from neighboring
states.
This cycle, that includes Mr. Sanders of Vermont, who won New Hampshire by a wide margin
in 2016, and Ms. Warren of Massachusetts, whose ground game is often regarded as the most
extensive in a contest that party officials describe as still fluid -- though Ms. Warren
received the most enthusiastic reception of the day, with an opening standing ovation that
stretched on for nearly two minutes.
Her supporters wielded inflatable noise makers and she received thunderous applause
throughout her address.
"There is a lot at stake and people are scared," she said. "But we can't choose a
candidate we don't believe in because we're scared."
It's a version of a line that Ms. Warren has deployed before, though it took on new
significance when she deployed it Saturday, days before she faces off against Mr. Biden for
the first time on the debate stage.
While many voters feel warmly toward Mr. Biden, some have also cited the perception that
he is the most electable candidate in the race, rather than displaying outright enthusiasm
for his campaign.
"There's that sense of, we know who Joe is and we trust him," said former State Senator
Sylvia Larsen, the former New Hampshire Senate president. "There's still a little bit of
people still looking around to say, 'Well, O.K., so what else is out there? Where are the
voices? Who else might be a voice?'"
Mr. Biden, the former vice president, was the first of the presidential contenders to
speak, and he received a polite though hardly raucous reception as attendees trickled into
the arena, which was not yet full on Saturday morning.
Mr. Biden has led in most polls here since entering the race -- though the surveys have
been relatively few. He is focused on blue-collar voters, moderates and other Democrats who
believe his more centrist brand offers the most promising path to defeating Mr. Trump, in
contrast to the more progressive coalitions Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders are working to
build.
On the ground, Mr. Sanders's supporters challenged the notion that Mr. Biden is the only
candidate well positioned to defeat Mr. Trump.
"Bernie beats Trump," read one banner hanging in the arena. Outside, another banner
affixed to a pro-Sanders tent read, "In poll after poll after poll Bernie BEATS Trump."
Mr. Sanders received frequent applause throughout his speech and his supporters -- who
appeared dispersed throughout the arena -- greeted many of his remarks with loud whoops.
"Together, we will make Donald Trump a one-term president," he said. "But frankly,
frankly, it is not enough just to defeat Trump. We must do much, much more. We must finally
create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the one percent."
In a sign of organizational strength, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind., was also a
prominent presence at the convention: He had a large cheering contingent that punctuated his
address with rounds of applause. Flush with a field-leading fund-raising haul, his campaign
has significantly expanded its presence in New Hampshire, and has announced the opening of 12
new offices in the state.
Senator Kamala Harris of California had a visible support section, too -- her fans wore
bright yellow T-shirts -- and she also received applause and cheers.
Yet Ms. Harris's standing in the polls has slipped over the summer, and party leaders here
say she does not have the same footprint in the state as some of the other contenders.
Perhaps reflecting those dynamics -- and a lunchtime-hour speaking slot -- her ability to
excite the room was at times uneven.
"Everybody else and the pundits can ride polls; I'm not on that roller coaster," she told
reporters after her speech. "I am working hard, we are steady, I don't get high with the
polls, I don't go low with the polls."
Senator Cory Booker, too, found himself brushing off the polls when speaking to reporters
after giving an energetic speech that resonated in the room. His candidacy has mystified some
veteran New Hampshire Democrats who note his relatively stagnant poll numbers despite
extensive on-the-ground campaign organization, endorsements and an ability to deliver a fiery
speech.
Certainly, the convention is an imperfect test of the state of the New Hampshire primary.
It's a window into the mood of the most plugged-in activists, but isn't necessarily
representative of the entire electorate that will turn out on Primary Day -- and it also drew
attendees from out of state, from places including Massachusetts, New Jersey and even, in at
least one case, California. ...
Your tariffs are 10-25 percent, that means the great workers in the U.S. are paying the
bill.
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
"China is eating the Tariffs." Billions pouring into USA. Targeted Patriot Farmers getting
massive Dollars from the incoming Tariffs! Good Jobs Numbers, No Inflation (Fed). China having
worst year in decades. Talks happening, good for all!
When President Donald Trump wants to convey that something is a big deal, he often reaches
for the same big number: 10,000.
He says it's the number of points the Dow Jones Industrial Average would be up had the
Federal Reserve not raised interest rates. It's the number of people attending his rallies --
or the number forced to wait outside because they couldn't get in.
It's also the number of jobs a company plans to create, the headcount of captured Islamic
State fighters, the number of migrants in a caravan headed to the U.S., and the Allied casualty
count on D-Day.
Sometimes the number is accurate. Other times, it's a wild guess -- or wildly wrong.
Trump on Wednesday predicted the Dow would be up -- another 10,000 points -- if he hadn't
embarked on a trade war with China.
"If I wanted to do nothing with China, my stock market -- our stock market -- would be
10,000 points higher than it is right now," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
That would be a dramatic rise. With the Dow closing at 26,728 on Thursday, another 10,000
points would represent a 37% increase.
Memorable Number
From a marketing standpoint, there's a great reason to use 10,000: It's memorable.
"He uses this round number in particular because it seems big," said Jonah Berger, marketing
professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, which Trump often boasts of
attending.
"He wants to convey something is a big problem, or something would be quite different, so he
uses a big round number to try and sway his audience," said Berger, author of "Contagious: Why
Things Catch On."
Trump has used the number since his 2016 campaign -- in speeches, remarks to reporters and
one-on-one interviews -- but it could take on new significance as he seeks to burnish his
record with the approach of the 2020 election.
The president has repeatedly sought to use 10,000 to his political advantage, even when it
doesn't neatly match reality.
'Horrible People'
For instance, he said in January that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers last year
removed 10,000 known or suspected gang members whom he described as "horrible people." (The
agency actually reported arresting that number but removing 5,872 known or suspected gang
members in fiscal year 2018.)
The White House declined to comment on Trump's use of 10,000.
The president has other verbal habits. He has often cited self-imposed two week deadlines
for major announcements.
While Trump is often faulted by fact-checkers for making false statements, his spokeswoman
has said journalists take the president's words too literally.
"I think the president communicates in a way that some people, especially the media, aren't
necessarily comfortable with," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham told the
Washington Post in a recent interview. "A lot of times they take him so literally. I know
people will roll their eyes if I say he was just kidding or was speaking in hypotheticals, but
sometimes he is."
'Truthful Hyperbole'
Trump defended his use of what he called "truthful hyperbole" in his 1987 book "The Art of
the Deal," calling it an "innocent form of exaggeration."
"People may not always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those
who do," Trump wrote. "People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest
and the most spectacular."
Wittingly or not, Trump has taken to a number that comes up often in history, religion and
culture.
The army of the Ten Thousand marched against Artaxerxes II of Persia. During the conquest of
Mecca, Muhammad was said to have 10,000 soldiers. The King James Bible has dozens of references
to 10,000. Minnesota's nickname is the Land of 10,000 Lakes. A television game show called "The
$10,000 Pyramid" debuted in the U.S. in the early 1970s.
But Trump's references typically are rooted in current affairs.
The president used the number in July to talk about attendance at a North Carolina rally
where his supporters chanted "Send her back!" after he invoked the name of Representative Ilhan
Omar, a Minnesota Democrat.
"We had thousands and thousands of people that wanted to come, and we said, 'Please don't
come,'" Trump said. "It held 10,000 people. It was packed. We could've sold that arena 10
times."
Authorities said 8,000 people got into the arena in Greenville, filling it to capacity,
according to WITN-TV in North Carolina. About 2,000 were denied entry and between 750 and 1,000
were in an overflow area, the station said, citing police estimates.
Booing Ryan
In July, Trump used the number to attack former House Speaker Paul Ryan after the Wisconsin
Republican was quoted in a book saying the president doesn't know how government works.
"I remember a day in Wisconsin -- a state that I won -- where I stood up and made a speech,
and then I introduced him and they booed him off the stage -- 10,000 people," Trump told
reporters at the White House.
The president appeared to be referring to a December 2016 post-election rally in West Allis,
Wisconsin, where he publicly thanked Ryan, who was in the crowd. Audible, but not deafening,
boos were heard as Trump tried to quiet his supporters by telling them that Ryan had improved
"like a fine wine."
Then there's job creation -- a Cameron LNG liquefied natural gas export facility in
Louisiana or an Intel Corp. semiconductor plant in Arizona.
In separate statements, Trump said they'd each create 10,000 jobs.
Bringing Credibility
Whether Trump's use of the number is accurate or not, the specificity can bring credibility
to the president's claims, said Manoj Thomas, a behavioral scientist and marketing professor at
Cornell University's SC Johnson College of Business.
"Using a number to quantify a claim -- even implausible numbers -- makes it more credible
because numbers are concrete," Thomas said. "Claims without any numbers, for example, 'The Dow
would be much higher if not for the trade war,' are more difficult for the human mind to
instinctively process because the information is abstract and lacks specificity."
Trump could add even more credibility to his claim by making the number even more specific,
Thomas said.
For instance, Thomas suggested: "The Dow would be 4,600 points higher if not for the trade
war."
Markets Soar on News of China Talks, but Hopes
for Progress Are Low https://nyti.ms/2LrdVwH
NYT - Ana Swanson and Matt Phillips - September 5
WASHINGTON -- President Trump's decision to renew talks with China in the coming weeks
sent financial markets soaring on Thursday, as investors seized on the development as a sign
that both sides could still find a way out of an economically damaging trade war.
The rally sent the S&P 500 up more than 1 percent, underscoring just how much
financial markets are subsisting on hopes and fears about the trade war. Shares fell through
most of August, as Mr. Trump escalated his fight with China and imposed more tariffs, only to
snap back on Thursday after news of the talks.
But expectations for progress remain low, and many in the United States and China see the
best outcome as a continued stalemate that would prevent a collapse in relations before the
2020 election. Both Mr. Trump and President Xi Jinping of China are under pressure from
domestic audiences to stand tough, and the talks will happen after Mr. Trump's next round of
punishing tariffs take effect on Oct. 1.
"Continuing to talk soothes markets a little bit," said Eswar Prasad, the former head of
the China division at the International Monetary Fund. "But the political cost to making
major concessions is, I think, too high for either side."
The skepticism stems in part from what is emerging as a familiar pattern for Mr. Trump,
for whom China is both a source of leverage and a potential vulnerability heading into an
election year. The president has so far imposed tariffs on more than $350 billion worth of
Chinese goods and routinely shifts from blasting China and threatening additional punishment
to trying to calm the waters in the face of jittery markets and negative economic news.
Over two weeks, Mr. Trump has called Mr. Xi an enemy of America, ordered companies to stop
doing business in China and suggested the United States was in no rush to reach a trade deal.
On Sunday, he moved ahead with his threat to eventually tax every golf club, shoe and
computer China sends into the United States, placing tariffs on another $112 billion of
Chinese goods.
Stock investors have zeroed in on the threat the trade war poses to the economy, buying
and selling in tandem with Mr. Trump's trade whims. Thursday's rally was the fifth positive
performance for the market in the past six sessions. It brought the S&P 500 to within
striking distance -- less than 2 percent -- of its high of 3025.86, reached on July 26.
The coming weeks could result in more of the same, analysts say: tough words when the
president wants to rally his base and a temporary cooling off when it seems to be hurting an
economy that is one of his main arguments for re-election.
Mr. Trump and his advisers are wary of a potential challenge from Democrats who will try
to paint the president as weak on China. Officials are cognizant that striking a deal based
on the kind of limited concessions China is currently offering would most likely be a
political liability in the president's bid for re-election. Democrats, along with some
Republicans, have previously accused Mr. Trump of buckling on China after he reached a deal
that allowed ZTE, the Chinese telecom company, to avoid tough American punishment.
Yet as collateral damage from the trade war increases, Mr. Trump is facing pressure to
relent. The bond market has been flashing warning signs of a potential recession, and both
consumer confidence and the manufacturing sector have slowed.
The trade war is also clearly weighing on the Chinese economy, which is growing at its
slowest pace in more than two decades. But China has responded defiantly, imposing
retaliatory tariffs on $75 billion worth of American goods. The country is preparing to
celebrate the 70th anniversary of its founding on Oct. 1, and analysts say Beijing would be
unlikely to make concessions at such a politically delicate moment.
People familiar with Chinese economic policymaking have said in recent weeks that Chinese
leaders remain interested in reaching a trade deal with the United States, but that they are
wary of what appear to be ever-increasing demands from the United States and what they
describe as frequent shifts in the American negotiating position.
The Chinese government continues to insist that it will not accept any agreement that is
unequal, or that prevents it from pursuing economic policies that it needs for continued
growth.
While both countries have motivation to come to an agreement, each is still insisting the
other will be the first to bend.
"China and the US announced new round of trade talks and will work to make substantial
progress," Hu Xijin, the editor of the state-run Global Times, wrote on Twitter. "Personally
I think the US, worn out by the trade war, may no longer hope for crushing China's will.
There's more possibility of a breakthrough between the two sides." ...
In comparison with Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, Warren is huge progress even with her warts and all.
Notable quotes:
"... the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their 2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if the poll doesn't match what they want it to. ..."
"... Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the primaries or general. ..."
"... The difference no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march again Russia? ..."
"... Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. ..."
"... History will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at the theft of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people. ..."
"... To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. ..."
"... The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann however knew how to prevent that. ..."
"... Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 – indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. ..."
"... Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours from billionaires? ..."
"... I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make it as an independent. Would Sanders? ..."
"... I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their neolib con artistes. ..."
"... America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence. ..."
"... Too late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking. ..."
So: the rise of Elizabeth Warren gives the billionaires a 'progressive' candidate who might either win the
nomination or else at least split progressive voters during the primaries (between Sanders and Warren) and thus give
the nomination to Buttigieg, who is their first choice (especially since both Biden and Harris have been faltering so
badly of late).
I feel like any analysis that even mentions polls is guesswork, because nowadays polls are almost
entirely useless. In that they aren't accurately measuring people who are actually going to go to
open/semi-open or even closed primaries, and caucuses. The cohort of likely voters is different from
the cohort who bothers to pick up a phone call from an unknown (polling) number. Or make it through a
whole poll. Or do any online polls. Or have a reachable phone # at all.
Plus the fact that the DNC is already gaming polls, cherry-picking which are "official" for their
2% threshhold. MSNBC and other networks and pundits also cherry-pick. Or even simply outright lie if
the poll doesn't match what they want it to.
Polling should either be eliminated or held to MUCH more consistent and much more scientific
standards. (demographics, prediction analysis, neutral rather than leading questions, standardized
formats, etc.) Until then they're simply more and more useless as predictors of the real poll, the
primaries or general.
I liked the article other than that though.
mark
"Vote for me, I'm gay!"
"Vote for me, I'm a Red Indian!"
Daniel Rich
Do these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' have names and further affiliations?
Could it be that most of these 'Democratic Party billionaires ' favor the Apartheid State?
Hmmmmm?
George Cornell
David Bradley's The Atlanticmagazine headlined on August 26th, "Elizabeth Warren Manages to Woo the
Democratic Establishment". Wooing in American politics = betraying your principles, cutting deals,
bending to the wishes of the powerful, and all round submissive boot-licking.
Roberto
That would be describing successful politics in any country at any time in history.
An unsuccessful politician would do the inverse of what you list. For those with good memories,
let's try to name some.
George Cornell
Not everyone would agree with that definition of success, but you are quite right.
wardropper
Voice in the "Emperor's New Clothes" story:
"Why don't we just ban all financial support of presidential candidates? – I thought this was supposed
to be about the person best qualified and best suited to run the country "
HEY! Somebody shut that
child up right now, will you!
The significance of Sanders is this: if he wins the nomination he will have done so by leading an
insurrectionary movement, not only within the Democratic Party but in US society itself. He simply
cannot win otherwise. And if he wins the primaries it will have been in spite of the great mass of
money and Establishment influence having been mobilised against him.
In other words he is right to call his supporters a "revolution."
It is of course equally true of the Corbyn movement- any victories are immense defeats for both the
Establishment and its media. That, in itself is important.
And nowhere more than in Canada where the third and fourth parties- the NDP and the Greens- continue
to tack further and further to the right, trying to catch up with the rightward swing of the Liberal
Party -now close to full on neo-naziism- and the ultra right Tories.
Thank You for the link. While I am keenly aware of the untold history of WWII and the fact that
Hitler would have never gotten where he was from 1933-1941 without the propping up by both U.S. and
Zionist interests (mind the redundancy), eager to crush the perceived anti-capitalist behemoth
Soviet Union, I am wondering about the present re-run of the same story unfolding.
The difference
no is, that countries like Canada, the U.S., Australia, UK, Poland, Ukraine, Hungary and with the
AfD Germany are either as fascist, or more fascist than ever before. Once again, Russia is hyped up
to be the eternal arch enemy of 'Western fascist values', 'freedom and democracy'. How much more
difficult would it be today to round up resistance against a fascist axis that is hellbent to march
again Russia?
Sure, Trudeau is nothing but a bag of lukewarm air, but he employs hard core fascists in his
cabinet – paid for by the Canadian people. The rest of the what goes for the 'value West' is more
of a disgrace than at any time before. These are the real dark ages, as I have stated before.
Nothing good can come from these psychopathic puppets in control of countries that ought to deserve
much better. Maybe, just maybe, the people of the countries in question should read Rudi Dutschke's
works about 'Extra Parliamentary Opposition' – for Dummies?
Until Turkey is able to produce S-400 anti-aircraft missile systems – it will buy weapons from Russia.
Turkey intends to buy from Russia additional S-400 air defense systems
While Bernie Sanders is no Henry A. Wallace by a long shot, Elizabeth Warren is the new Harry Trumann.
The Democrats are still the Democratic fascist Party of America and have their party base hypnotized
into believing that it has the well being of its voters on its mind.
That is of course a lie and
pure propaganda. And since the U.S. is the second most vulnerable nation to propaganda and fascism –
with Germany being the number one, in both the past and the present – the people that refuse to leave
the Democratic Fascist Party are remiscent of those people who kept following Hitler, even after it
had become clear that his 'party' would drive Germany into the abyss.
For the brownshirt-like followers of proven war criminals that both lead, or finance the 'party',
absolutely no crime is big enough that would warrant to turn their back on the fascist party.
History
will look at the Sanders Warren debacle in the same way it must look now at
the theft
of the nomination of Henry A. Wallace
in favor of the person that had no whatsoever second
thoughts about dropping two nukes on an enemy that had already succumbed to the Soviet forces. Henry
A. Wallace would heve never dropped these nukes. He was a staunch supporter of the 'common man'. All
his policies reflected that. He was a presidential nominee for, of and by the people.
That did not sit too well with the fascists and they stole the nomination from him. Present day
America has turned into this corrupt cesspool because of this stolen nomination. Everything that is
sickening about the U.S. today, started in 1944. All the surveillance, the mindcontrol, the cold war
and the transformation into a wannabe empire – they are all the result of this infamy by the hands of
the Democratic fascists.
To all the mindless party members of the Democratic fascist party: if you repeat history by
allowing for the second time to install a puppet of the fascist powers in the U.S., you bear the full
responsibilty for the dropping of the next nukes. Suffering from such deep sitting cognitive
dissonance, party members will find all kinds of excuses to prevent the truth from coming out. Just as
there was no war crime by Clinton and Obama sufficient enough to not cheer them like the greatest
baseball team ever. Leave the Democratic fascist party now, or have history piss on your graves.
Norcal
Very convincing argument and link, perfectly done. Thank you nottheonly1.
nottheonly1
Thank You, Norcal. It may be best to download these video clips, since they are all taken down
one after another based on 'copyright issues'.
The difference between Sanders and Wallace is a painful one. Wallace fought against the theft
of his nomination with all he got. Subsequently, he realized that the 'Democratic' party would
never allow for a person with integrity and the well being of the people at heart to win any
nomination. He would have won the following presidency as a third party nominee – Trumann
however knew how to prevent that. As the clip states, the American people only have to be
frightened and you can sell them their own demise on a golden platter. The ridicule and shaming
of those who want a third party can also be traced back to this time.
It is equally very disturbing that the owner class managed to brain wash the people into
accepting the use of 'oligarchs', 'billionaires', or 'donors' when in truth they are the real
fascists Henry Wallace had warned about. This must be reversed by all means available. People
must understand that the concerted use of these euphemisms will make it next to impossible to
accept what these persons really are and what their goals are.
Jen
Much of what is sickening about the US as an imperial power today was present well before 1944 –
indeed was present during the 19th century when the US made colonies of Hawaii and the Philippines
in the 1890s, and occupied Haiti in 1915 (?), not leaving that country until the 1930s. Of course
there was also the genocide of First Nations peoples through the theft of their lands, the wars
waged to force them onto reservations, and the massive slaughter of bison as a way of destroying
many indigenous cultures.
nottheonly1
Yes, but never before was the deliberate change of course towards fascism so blatant than with
the ouster of Wallace. This was the watershed moment that turned the U.S. into the greatest
threat for humanity. When You read about Wallace, You will find out that he generally wanted
reconcile with the Native Indian Nation. He wanted cooperation with the Soviet Union/Russians
for a lasting global peace and prosperity for everyone, not just a few American maggots. Present
day U.S. started at that real day of infamy.
Lysias
Wallace was also a big supporter of establishing Israel.
Seamus Padraig
So, whereas they would be able to deal with Warren, they wouldn't be able to deal with Sanders,
whose policy-record is remarkably progressive in all respects, and not only on domestic U.S.
matters.
Frankly, Bernie could be better on foreign policy. While he
did
vote against the Iraq War–I give him all due credit for that–he hasn't really opposed any of
Washington's other wars, coups and régime-change operations in recent memory. Oh: and Bernie, the
self-described socialist, once referred to Hugo Chavez as a "dead dictator". That being said, he would
still be preferable to the remaining flotsam in the today's Democrap Party.
Rhys Jaggar
Forgive me for saying so, but is a party of working folks really supposed to be grovelling for favours
from billionaires? The Republicans are supposed to be the party for the rich, not the Democrats .
And is not time for billionaires to be bumped off by politicians, not politicians bumped off by
billionaires?
A tad uncritical on Sanders, especially his foreign policies, but otherwise an excellent and closely
argued takedown of the risible but sadly widespread delusion that America is a democracy. Thanks Eric.
Wilmers31
Democracy itself does not say anything about quality of life, it's just a system. US democracy runs
on money. Most thing in life do – pretending it is otherwise, that's where the problem is.
Democracy is just the shell – if you fill it with sh1t it's bad; if you fill it with honey it's
sweet.
Biden is remote-controllable, he'd do as told – so of course big money would prefer him.
I've just the other day written
this piece on democracy
. The immediate context is
the fiasco re the UK Queen granting Boris Johnson's request to prorogue (temporarily dissolve)
parliament, but the issues run deeper and wider.
Dungroanin
I skimmed through and didn't spot one mention of Gabbard!
Seems as if she is being non-personed
and ignored as a viable candidate (much like JC has been over here).
There is a long way to that election yet. (The US, ours is finally within reach, unless some
wildebeast tramples in )
The DNC dirty tricks won't wash this time – perhaps its time to start reading and talking about
the nitty gritty of these leaked mails – if for nothing else for the bravery and ultimate sacrifice
of Seth Rich.
Well I'm already stretched perilous thin, DG, but will give it thought.
Meantime,
this piece from last week
by Katia Novella Miller, first of a two parts with second part to
follow on the same KBNB World News site, gives a precis of what Wikileaks showed the world.
The lack of mention of Gabbard is telling, as is the fact the Billionaire crowd (Rubinites) are
pushing for a candidate I ain't even heard of.
The fact remains, a Sanders – Gabbard ticket
against Trump is the preferable outcome for many observers on the Left.
Just as a reminder, neither Sanders & Gabbard are God like figures, in much the same way
Corbyn ain't, however, they are the best available at this juncture in time if we really want
some change, even if it is incremental.
Dungroanin
I think Gabbard is as authentic a new voice as i have ever seen in the DNC. She may well make
it as an independent. Would Sanders?
I read somewhere that the US electorate were self
identified as third Republican, Democrat and independent.
If they were given an independent ticket- not part of the two billionaire funded main
parties then enough may join the independent third from these.
I'd say if a Gabbard/Paul grassroots campaign run by the Sanders 'momentum' network got
their act together the USA may finally mature into a proper democracy not owned by their
neolib con artistes.
Grafter
America where democracy has been extinguished and their increasingly paranoid voters are under the
mistaken belief that yet another talking head can return them to a fair and impartial existence.
Too
late. Money is king and those that have most want more. The sideshow of elections produces the
performing clowns such as Trump, Obama, Bush etc.all spouting the same vacuous promises on behalf of
their wealthy benefactors. No real choice or change and an illusion of caring for the welfare of their
citizenry. Listen carefully to the clowns, it's the sound of money talking.
It is not vey clear for whom Epstein used to work. Mossad connection is just one hypothesis.
What sovereign state would allow compromising politician by a foreign intelligence service. This
just does not compute.
But the whole tone of discussion below clearly point to the crisis of legitimacy of
neoliberal elite. And Russiagate had shown that the elite cares about it and tried to patch the
cracks.
As Eric
Rasmusen writes: "Everybody, it seems, in New York society knew by 2000 that Jeffrey
Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell were corrupting teenage girls, but the press wouldn't cover it."
Likewise, everybody in New York society has long known that Larry Silverstein, who bought the
asbestos-riddled white elephant World Trade Center in July 2001 and immediately doubled the
insurance, is a mobbed-up friend of Netanyahu and a confessed participant in the controlled
demolition of Building 7 , from which he earned over 700 million insurance dollars on the
pretext that al-Qaeda had somehow brought it down. But the press won't cover that either.
The New York Times , America's newspaper of record, has the investigative talent and
resources to expose major corruption in New York. Why did the Times spend almost two
decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the
absurd tale of Epstein's alleged suicide stand? Why hasn't it used the work of Architects and
Engineers for 9/11 Truth -- including the brand-new University of Alaska study on the controlled
demolition of WTC-7 -- to expose the biggest scandal of the 21 st century, if
not all of American history?
The only conceivable answer is that The New York Times is somehow complicit in these
monstrous crimes. It must be protecting its friends in high places. So who are those friends,
and where are those high places?
One thing Epstein and Silverstein have in common, besides names ending in "-stein," is
alleged involvement in the illicit sex industry. Epstein's antics, or at least some of them,
are by now well-known. Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches
story as a pimp supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside
other illicit activities including "the heroin trade, money laundering
and New York Police corruption." All of this was exposed in a mid-1990s lawsuit. But good
luck finding any investigative reports in The New York Times .
Another Epstein-Silverstein connection is their relationships to major American Jewish
organizations. Even while he was allegedly pimping girls and running heroin, Larry Silverstein
served as president for United Jewish Appeal of New York. As for Epstein, he was the boy toy
and protégé of Les Wexner, co-founder of
the Mega Group of Jewish billionaires associated with the World Jewish Congress, the
Anti-Defamation League, and other pro-Israel groups. Indeed, there is no evidence that
"self-made billionaire" Epstein ever earned significant amounts of money; his only investment
"client" was Les Wexner. Epstein, a professional sexual blackmailer, used his supposed
billionaire status as a cover story. In fact, he was just an employee working for Wexner and
associated criminal/intelligence networks.
Which brings us to the third and most important Epstein-Silverstein similarity: They were
both close to the government of Israel. Jeffrey Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell,
daughter of Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell; among his friends was Ehud Barak, who is currently
challenging Netanyahu for leadership of Israel. Larry Silverstein, too, has friends in high
Israeli places. According to Haaretz , Silverstein has "close ties with Netanyahu"
(speaking to him on the phone every weekend) as well as with Ehud Barak, "whom Silverstein in
the past offered a job as his representative in Israel" and who called Silverstein immediately
after 9/11.
We may reasonably surmise that both Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein have been carrying
on very important work on behalf of the state of Israel. And we may also surmise that this is
the reason The New York Times has been covering up the scandals associated with both
Israeli agents for almost two decades. The Times , though it pretends to be America's
newspaper of record, has always been Jewish-owned-and-operated. Its coverage has always been
grotesquely
distorted in favor of Israel . It has no interest in exposing the way Israel controls the
United States by blackmailing its leaders (Epstein) and staging a fake "Arab-Muslim attack on
America" (Silverstein). The awful truth is that The New York Times is part of the same
Jewish-Zionist "
we control America " network as Jeffrey Epstein and Larry Silverstein.
Epstein "Suicide" Illustrates Zionist Control of USA -- and the Decadence and Depravity
of Western Secularism
Since The New York Times and other mainstream media won't go there, let's reflect on
the facts and lessons of the Jeffrey Epstein suicide scandal -- a national disgrace that ought
to shock Americans into rethinking their worldviews in general, and their views on the official
myth of 9/11 in particular.
On Saturday, August 10, 2019, convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was allegedly
found dead in his cell at Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in New York City, one of
America's most corrupt prisons. The authorities claim Epstein hanged himself. But nobody, not
even the presstitutes of America's corporate propaganda media, convincingly pretends to believe
the official story.
Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile pimp to presidents and potentates. His job was recruiting
young girls for sex, then offering them to powerful men -- in settings outfitted with hidden
video cameras. When police raided his New York townhouse on July 6-7 2019 they found locked
safes full of pornographic pictures of underage girls, along with piles of compact discs
labeled "young (name of girl) + (name of VIP)." Epstein had been openly and brazenly carrying
on such activities for more than two decades, as reported throughout most of that period by
alternative media outlets including my own Truth Jihad Radio and False Flag Weekly News . (Even
before the 2016 elections, my audience knew that both Bill Clinton and Donald Trump were
blackmailed clients of Jeffrey Epstein, that Clinton was a frequent flyer on Epstein's "Lolita
Express" private jet, and that Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein
in the brutal rape of a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.) It was
only in the summer of 2019 that mainstream media and New York City prosecutors started talking
about what used to be consigned to the world of "conspiracy theories."
So who was Epstein working for? His primary employer was undoubtedly the Israeli Mossad and
its worldwide Zionist crime network. Epstein's handler was Ghislaine Maxwell, daughter of
Mossad super-spy Robert Maxwell. According to sworn depositions, Ghislaine Maxwell recruited
underage girls for Epstein and oversaw his sex trafficking operations. As the New Yorker
reported August 16: "In court papers that were unsealed on August 9th, it was alleged that
Maxwell had been Epstein's central accomplice, first as his girlfriend, and, later, as his
trusted friend and procuress, grooming a steady stream of girls, some as young as fourteen,
coercing them to have sex with Epstein at his various residences around the world, and
occasionally participating in the sexual abuse herself." Alongside Maxwell, Epstein's other
Mossad handler was
Les Wexner, co-founder of the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies , who
appears to have originally recruited the penniless Epstein and handed him a phony fortune so
Epstein could pose as a billionaire playboy.
Even after Epstein's shady "suicide" mega-Mossadnik Maxwell continued to flaunt her impunity
from American justice. She no doubt conspired to publicize the August 15 New York Post
photograph of herself smiling and looking "chillingly serene" at In-And-Out-Burger in Los
Angeles, reading The Book of Honor: The Secret Lives and Deaths of C.I.A. Operatives .
That nauseating photo inspired the New
Yorker to accuse her of having "gall" -- a euphemism for the Yiddish chutzpah , a quality
that flourishes in the overlapping Zionist and Kosher Nostra communities.
Maxwell and The New York Post , both Kosher Nostra/Mossad assets, were obviously
sending a message to the CIA: Don't mess with us or we will expose your complicity in these
scandalous crimes. That is the Mossad's standard operating procedure: Infiltrate and compromise
Western intelligence services in order to prevent them from interfering with the Zionists'
over-the-top atrocities. According to French historian
Laurent Guyénot's hypothesis, the CIA's false flag fake assassination attempt on
President John F. Kennedy, designed to be blamed on Cuba, was transformed by Mossad into a real
assassination -- and the CIA couldn't expose it due to its own complicity. (The motive: Stop
JFK from ending Israel's nuclear program.) The same scenario, Guyénot argues, explains
the anomalies of the Mohamed Merah affair
, the Charlie Hebdo killings, and the 9/11 false flag operation. It would not be surprising if
Zionist-infiltrated elements of the CIA were made complicit in Jeffrey Epstein's sexual
blackmail activities, in order to protect Israel in the event Epstein had to be "burned" (which
is apparently what has finally occurred).
So what really happened to Epstein? Perhaps the most likely scenario is that the Kosher
Nostra, which owns New York in general and the mobbed-up MCC prison in particular, allowed the
Mossad to exfiltrate Epstein to Occupied Palestine, where he will be given a facelift, a
pension, a luxury suite overlooking the Mediterranean, and a steady stream of young sex slaves
(Israel is the world's capital of human trafficking, an honor it claimed from the Kosher Nostra
enclaves of Odessa after World War II). Once the media heat wave blows over, Epstein will
undoubtedly enjoy visits from his former Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud
Barak, and various other Zionist VIPs. He may even offer fresh sex slaves to visiting American
congressmen.
This is not just a paranoid fantasy scenario. According to Eric
Rasmusen : "The Justice Dept. had better not have let Epstein's body be cremated. And
they'd better give us convincing evidence that it's his body. If I had $100 million to get out
of jail with, acquiring a corpse and bribing a few people to switch fingerprints and DNA
wouldn't be hard. I find it worrying that the government has not released proof that Epstein is
dead or a copy of the autopsy."
But didn't the alleged autopsy reportedly find broken neck bones that are more commonly
associated with strangulation murders than suicides? That controversy may have been scripted to
distract the public from
an insider report on 4chan , first published before the news of Epstein's "suicide" broke,
that Epstein had been "switched out" of MCC. If so, the body with the broken neck bones wasn't
Epstein's.
The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about Western
secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer believes in
God no longer believes in truth, since God is al-haqq, THE truth, without Whom the whole
notion of truth has no metaphysical basis. The postmodern philosophers understand this
perfectly well. They taught a whole generation of Western humanities scholars that truth is
merely a function of power: people accept something as "true" to the extent that they are
forced by power to accept it. So when the most powerful people in the world insist that three
enormous steel-frame skyscrapers were blown to smithereens by relatively modest office fires on
9/11, that absurd assertion becomes the official "truth" as constructed by such Western
institutions as governments, courts, media, and academia. Likewise, the assertion that Jeffrey
Epstein committed suicide under circumstances that render that assertion absurd will probably
become the official "truth" as recorded and promulgated by the West's ruling institutions, even
though nobody will ever really believe it.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If there
is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get away
with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."
Since God alone can establish metaphysically-grounded limits between what is permitted and what
is forbidden, a world without God will feature no such limits; in such a world Aleister
Crowley's satanic motto "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" becomes the one and
only commandment. In today's Godless West, why should men not "do what they wilt" and
indulge their libidos by raping young girls if they can get away with it? After all, all the
other sexual taboos are being broken, one by one. Fornication, adultery, homosexuality,
sadomasochism, gender-bending all of these have been transformed during my lifetime from crimes
and vices to "human rights" enjoyed by the most liberal and fashionable right-thinking Western
secularists. Even bestiality and necrophilia are poised to become normalized "sexual
identities" whose practitioners will soon be proudly marching in "bestiality pride" and
"necrophilia pride" parades. So why not normalize pedophilia and other forms of rape
perpetrated by the strong against the weak? And why not add torture and murder in service to
sexual gratification? After all, the secret bible of the sexual identity movement is the
collected works of the Marquis de Sade, the satanic prophet of sexual liberation, with whom the
liberal progressivist secular West is finally catching up. It will not be surprising if, just a
few years after the Jeffrey Epstein "suicide" is consigned to the memory hole, we will be
witnessing LGBTQBNPR parades, with the BNPR standing for bestiality, necrophilia, pedophilia,
and rape. (It would have been LGBTQBNPRG, with the final G standing for Gropers like President
Trump, except that the G was already taken by the gays.) The P's, pioneers of pedophile pride
parades, will undoubtedly celebrate Jeffrey Epstein as an ahead-of-his-time misunderstood hero
who was unjustly persecuted on the basis of his unusual sexual orientation.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular West,
which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book on this
once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded by the
limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground.
Correct me if I am wrong but I thought Lucky Larry only leased the WTC buildings rather than
actually purchased them. I think I have read that his investment was in the region of 150
mill for which he has recouped a whopping 4 bill.
Would you please answer a preliminary question before I put finishing this on my busy agenda?
You stake a fair bit of your credit on what you say about Larry Silverstein and insurance. My
present understanding is that the insurance cover for WTC 1 and 2 was increased as a routine
part of the financing deal he had made for a purchase which was only months old. Not true?
Not the full story? Convince us.
As to WTC 7 my understanding is that he had owned the building for some years and had not
recently increased the insurance. Not true? And when did any clause get into his WTC7
insurance contract which might have had some effect on inflating the payout?
“Trump had been credibly accused in a lawsuit of joining Epstein in the brutal rape of
a 13-year-old, to whom Trump then allegedly issued death threats.)”
The “Katie Johnson” case collapsed in 2016 when it was revealed that
“she” was in fact a middle-aged man, a stringer for the Jerry Springer show. Just
another Gloria Allred fraud.
“a society that no longer believes in god no longer believes in the truth, since god is
the truth….blah blah blah”
This is thin gruel indeed…..just silly platitudes from a muzzie convert. There are at
least 100 billion galaxies in the universe with each galaxy containing as many as 100 billion
stars. And there is no telling how many universes there are. Does anyone really believe
Barrett’s preferred deity takes a time out from running this vast empire to service
Barrett’s yearning for “truth”? Just goes to prove that humans will believe
almost any idea as long as it’s sufficiently idiotic.
“The principal conclusion of our study is that fire did not cause the collapse
of WTC 7 on 9/11, contrary to the conclusions of NIST and private engineering firms that
studied the collapse.”
“It is our conclusion based upon these findings that the collapse of WTC 7 was a
global failure involving the near-simultaneous failure of all columns in the building and
not a progressive collapse involving the sequential failure of columns throughout the
building.”
Speaking of the truth v. parody I’d really rather work on the cause of
Epstein’s death –yes I think he’s dead– suicide or
strangulation ?
There are some things the Justice Dept. could do if they wanted to. Why they apparently
didn’t want to expose the corpse in greater detail, let media view the cell, have
correspondent(s) interview the ex- cellmate of Epstein, et.al just leads to suspicions.
This is something they should have to answer for . That includes AG Barr. Trump could make
it happen–like every thing else– if Barr says no. The President won’t.
Dostoyevsky with his “If God does not exist, everything is permitted.”
overlooked the Jewish God who permits much more when it comes to Jewish gentile relations.
The Jewish God is not limited by the Kant’s First Moral Imperative. The Jewish
God’s moral laws are not universal. They are context dependent according to the
Leninist Who, whom rule.
Not so for Silverstein, who apparently began his rags-to-9/11-riches story as a pimp
supplying prostitutes and nude dancers to the shadier venues of NYC, alongside other
illicit activities including “the heroin trade, money laundering and New York
Police corruption.”
I would like to see more about the beginnings of Silverstein’s career.
Good work Kevin, Irrelevant exactly what Silverstein did in way of insurance.The FACT is
that WTC7 DID NOT FALL due to fires. Neither did WTC1 or 2. The 6 million dollar question
is ‘WHO put the ‘bang’ in the building?’ to bring them down, by
what ever means. Im in favour of nukes for 1 and 2.
Answer that! Why isnt Silverstein arrested? I think Kevin provided the answer in the
article..
I just stumbled onto your article from a link on reddit, r/epstein. You make some
convincing arguments. I was thrilled that you brought 9/11 into this – because the
Epstein “suicide” and how it is being covered reminds me so much of how I felt
after 9/11 and the run-up to the war. -But you lost me at the end with the stuff about
Godless secularism. I’ve read the bible and it is not the answer to what’s
wrong with the world.
Why did the Times spend almost two decades ignoring the all-too-obvious antics of
Epstein and Silverstein? Why is it letting the absurd tale of Epstein’s alleged
suicide stand?
One thing cannot be denied : Epstein was arrested, denied bail and jailed awaiting trail
on a Federal indictment for much the same offence he had pleaded guilty to a decade ago,
which did not involve even a single homicide yet made him universally reviled and in as
much trouble with the legal system as a man could be (almost certain never to get out
again). Epstein was in far more trouble that anyone of his financial resources has ever
been, but then that was for paying for sex acts with young teen girls.
What an awesomely impressive testament to the impunity enjoyed by the Jewish
elite Epstein is. It is no wonder that Larry Silverstein was insouciant about the risks of
a Jewish lightning fraud controlled demolition killing thousands of people in a building he
had just bought and increased the insurance coverage of. After all, it wasn’t
anything serious like paying for getting hundreds of handjobs from underage girls. And it
is not like someone like the Pizzagate nut that fired his AR15 into underground child
molestation complex beneath the Dems restaurant/pedophile centre would take all those WTC
deaths seriously enough to shoot at him just because of inevitable internet accusations of
mass murder. Mr Barrett, why don’t you step up and do it, thereby proving you
believe the things you say .
@NoseytheDuke Yes, he leased the World Trade Center buildings one and two from the Port
Authority of New York and New Jersey. He built World Trade Center building seven, having
acquired a ground lease from Port Authority.
I can’t imagine why you ask this question in a public venue. I found the answer in
less than one minute on the internet.
I assume the insurance policies were for the present value of his net profits for the
duration of the leases.
I recall reading about this guy prior to the event. I believe it was USATODAY . He and a
silent partner had bought the complex with a down of 63million and had it insured for
7billion. I thought it odd that the port authority would let go of the property at the
time.
As the building deficiencies became known afterwards,my thoughts were along the line of
insurance fraud.
I came across a copy of the rand Corp “state of the world 2000” which
accurately describes the scenario and resulting culture of terror as “one possible
future “…. funny how it’s taken all these years to discover this
website.
Indeed, there is no evidence that “self-made billionaire” Epstein ever
earned significant amounts of money.
Good thing that Wexner is Jewish so we can discount the possibility that he was telling
the truth the other month when he said that Epstein stole vast amounts of Wexner money
Alongside Maxwell, Epstein’s other Mossad handler was Les Wexner, co-founder of
the notorious Mega Group of billionaire Israeli spies
Wexner and his fellow Mossad spy Maxwell leaving Virginia Roberts alive to repeatedly
sue them, and use the world”s media to accuse them of sexually abusing, trafficking,
pimping her out to VIPs, and fiming the trysts was a brilliant way to keep everything a
secret.
Mossad handler Ghislaine Maxwell, his good friend Ehud Barak, and various other
Zionist VIPs.
Yes, they are the greatest covert operatives ever.
Epstein’s crimes are simple breaches of etiquette when compared to Silverstein. I
believe the term “Silverstein valleys” has been used to describe the melted
granite discovered beneath the former towers, Silverstein grins widely in interviews, while
so many suffered horribly.
One might even consider the 9/11 deaths to be something of a “holocaust”.
Certainly one of the most evil human beings to have walked the Earth.
@Wizard of Oz Silverstein said he gave the okay for wtc 7 to be “pulled”.
The building was on fire at the time. Either someone wired it to be pulled while it was on
fire and already damaged or it was wired for demolition beforehand. The second scenario
seems a lot more likely. In that case all the insurance contract details are largely
irrelevant to the bigger picture.
The idea that the CIA is somehow independent of Mossad and that Mossad would have to warn
the CIA off of the Epstein matter is implausible to me. Guyenot’s hypothesis tends to
give cover to the CIA in the assassination of JFK by claiming that the CIA plot was set in
motion as some sort of attempt to control JFK and that it was hijacked into an actual
assassination by Mossad. That just isn’t credible.
It’s much more accurate to observe that the CIA was erected by the same zionists
who oversaw the creation of Israel and later the forming of Mossad, and that the two
agencies have been joined at the hip ever since.
@WorkingClass Bad cop good cop. NYT is trying to destroy him . Israel says to him
:” send this , do this ,allow us to do this , increase this by this amount , and we
will make sure that in final analysis you don’t get hurt ”
Trump possibly knows that the only people who could hurt him is the Jewish people of power
.
Has NYT ever criticized Trump for relocating embassy , recognizing Golan, for allowing
Israel use Anerican resources to hit Syria or Gaza , for allowing Israel drag US into more
military involvement. for allowing Israel wage war against Gaza ,? Has NYT ever explored
the dynamics behind abrogation of JCPOA and application of more sanctions?
NYT has focused on Russia gate knowing in advance that it has no merit and no public
traction, Is it hurting Trump or itself ?
People with normal IQ would believe that Epstein killed himself, if the following took
place –
Media day and night asking questions about him from 360 degree of inquiries
1 why the surveillance video were not functioning despite the serious nature of the
charges against a man who could rat out a lot in court against powerful people
2 why the coroner initially thought that Epstein was murdered
3 how many guards and how many fell asleep?
4 who and why allowed the spin story around Epstein brilliance and high IQ build up over
the years ?
5 how does Epstein come to get linked to non -Jews people who have absolute loyalty to
Israel
6 how did Epstein get involved with Jewish leaders ?
7 How did Epstein continue to enjoy seat on Harvard and enjoy social celebrity status after
plea deal ?
8 Why did Wexner allow this man so much control over his asset ?
9 Media felt if terrorism were unique Muslim thing , why media is not alluding to the fact
that pedophilia is a unique Jewish thing ?
10 why the angle of Israel being sex slavery capital and Epstein being sex slave pimp not
being connected ?
11 how death in prison in foreign unfriendly countries often become causus celebre by US
media , politicians , NGO and US treasury – why not this death ?
@Fozzy Bear Not true. A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie
Johnson’s case. Shortly before the scheduled press conference at which Johnson was to
appear publicly, she received multiple death threats: “Bloom said that her
firm’s website was hacked, that Anonymous had claimed responsibility, and that death
threats and a bomb threat came in afterwards.”
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/11/3/13501364/trump-rape-13-year-old-lawsuit-katie-johnson-allegation
Johnson folded because she was terrified (and perhaps paid off).
@Twodees Partain In “Body of Secrets” by James Bamford, a newspaper article
from the Truman era is referenced where the OSS, predecessor of the CIA, is described as
“a converted vault in Washington used as an office space for 5 or 6 Jews working to
protect our national secrets” (or similar wording).
Going from memory and gave away my copy of the book….. sorry for the vague
reference, but you can look it up.
@nsa An atheist like “nsa” must concede Dosteovsky’s point from his
novel The Possessed that even for the atheist the concept of God represents the collective
consciousness, highest principles, and ontological aspirations of believers. Given this
sense, “nsa’s” real animus is more than likely an atavistic hatred of
Christians and Muslims, probably for just being alive in his paranoid mind. What imbecility
when this clown cites a multiverse of universes that has no proof and less plausibility for
its existence than the tooth fairy. I’d also bet “nsa” speaks algebra,
too, like the recently deceased mathematical genius, Jeffrey Epstein.
What’s Mr. Wexner’s, Mega’s, and Mossad/CIA’s involvement?
That’s the real question trolls like “nsa” and the Dems and Republicans
alike are crapping in their pants we’ll find out. When evidence starts to cascade out
of their ability to spin or suppress it, things will get interesting. Meanwhile, Fox News
is still doing its best from what I can tell to run cover for 911, now extended to the
suspiciously related perps in the Epstein affair.
“The Epstein affair (like 9/11) illustrates two critically important truths about
Western secularism: there is no truth, and there are no limits. A society that no longer
believes in God no longer believes in truth…..”
“While the Zionists try to make the rest of the World believe that the national
consciousness of the Jew finds its satisfaction in the creation of a Palestinian state,
the Jews again slyly dupe the dumb Goyim. It doesn’t even enter their heads to
build up a Jewish state in Palestine for the purpose of living there; all they want is a
central organisation for their international world swindler, endowed with its own
sovereign rights and removed from the intervention of other states: a haven for convicted
scoundrels and a university for budding crooks.
It is a sign of their rising confidence and sense of security that at a time when one
section is still playing the German, French-man, or Englishman, the other with open
effrontery comes out as the Jewish race.”
More prophetic words were ever spoken or written by any of the statesmen of the
Twentieth Century than these, even though they themselves were insufficient to describe the
horrors that the Zionist state would bring upon the world if left unchecked- and its power
and influence have been unchecked since the 1960’s. The last time that the world
stood up to Zionist power in an appreciable way was during the Suez Crisis.
DOT.. Port loses claim for asbestos removal | Business Insurance https://www.businessinsurance.com › article
› ISSUE01 › port-loses-claim-… May 13, 2001 – The suit sought claim of the Port Authority’s huge cost
of removing asbestos from hundreds of properties ranging from the enormous World Trade
Center complex
DOT…Silverstein knew when he leased WTC 7 that he would have to pay out of pocket
for asbestos abatement removal in WTC 7, multiple millions, which is why the Port Authority
leased it so cheaply.
DOT…In May, 2000, a year before, signing the lease, he already had the design
drawn for a new WTC building. Silverstein had no plans to remove the asbestos as he already
had plans to replace it.
DOT… Larry Silverstein signs the lease just six weeks before the WTC’s twin
towers were brought to the ground by terrorists in the September 11, 2001, attacks.
DOT….After leasing the complex, Silverstein negotiated with 24 insurance
companies for a maximum coverage of $3.55 billion per catastrophic occurrence.
However, the agreements had not been finalized before 9/11.
DOT…..Silverstein tries to sue insurers for double the payout claiming 2
catastrophic occurrences because of 2 planes involved.
DOT….Silver loses that lawsuit but sues the air lines and settles for almost
another billion, $ 750,000,000.
Just another Jew insurance fire folks. He planned on tearing down WTC 7 to begin with.
The only missing DOT is who he hired to set the demolition explosives in WTC 7. Were they
imported from our ME ally?
While people do not agree of detail the main theme is common: government stories explaining
both 9/11 and Epstein death are not credible. And that government tried to create an "artificial
reality" to hide real events and real culprits.
Absence of credible information create fertile ground for creation of myths and rumors,
sometimes absurd. But that'a well known sociaological phenomenon studies by late Tamotsu Shibutani in the
context of WWII rumors ( Improvised News: A Sociological Study of Rumor (1966)).
Now we can interpret famous quote of
William Casey "We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American
public believes is false as an admission of the fact that the government can create artificial
reality" much like in film Matrix and due to thick smoke of propaganda people are simply unable
to discern the truth.
A foreign policy of "maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats,
and complete failure ..now what group does this remind me of?
US State Dept Program Offers $15 Million to Iran Revolutionary Guards September 4,
2019
The US State Department has unveiled a new $15 million "reward program" for anyone who
provides information on the financial inner workings of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, in an
attempt to further disrupt them.
The program comes after the US declared the Revolutionary Guards "terrorists," but remains
very unusual, in as much as it targets an agency of a national government instead of just
some random militant group.
The Financial Times reports on the farce that is our government's Iran policy:
Four days before the US imposed sanctions on an Iranian tanker suspected of shipping oil
to Syria, the vessel's Indian captain received an unusual email from the top Iran official at
the Department of State.
"This is Brian Hook . . . I work for secretary of state Mike
Pompeo and serve as the US Representative for Iran," Mr Hook wrote to Akhilesh Kumar on
August 26, according to several emails seen by the Financial Times. "I am writing with good
news."
The "good news" was that the Trump administration was offering Mr Kumar several million
dollars to pilot the ship -- until recently known as the Grace 1 -- to a country that would
impound the vessel on behalf of the US. To make sure Mr Kumar did not mistake the email for a
scam, it included an official state department phone number.
The administration's Iran obsession has reached a point where they are now trying to bribe
people to act as pirates on their behalf. When the U.S. was blocked by a court in Gibraltar
from taking the ship, they sought to buy the loyalty of the captain in order to steal it.
Failing that, they resorted to their favorite tool of sanctions to punish the captain and his
crew for ignoring their illegitimate demand. The captain didn't respond to the first message,
so Hook persisted with his embarrassing scheme:
"With this money you can have any life you wish and be well-off in old age," Mr Hook wrote in
a second email to Mr Kumar that also included a warning. "If you choose not to take this easy
path, life will be much harder for you."
Many people have already mocked Hook's message for its resemblance to a Nigerian prince
e-mail scam, and I might add that he comes across here sounding like a B-movie gangster.
Hook's contact was not an isolated incident, but part of a series of e-mails and texts that
he has sent to various ships' captains in a vain effort to intimidate them into falling in
line with the administration's economic war. This is what comes of a foreign policy of
"maximum pressure" and swagger: tawdry bribes, heavy-handed threats, and complete
failure.
The Committee of 300 is an evolution of the British East Indies Company Council of 300. The
list personally last seen included many Windsors (Prince Andrew), Rothchilds, other Royals.
Some of the Americans included some now dead and other still living: George HW Bush, Bill
Clinton Tom Steyer, Al Gore, John Kerry, Netanyahu, lots of bankers, Woolsey (ex CIA),
journalists like Michael Bloomberg, Paul Krugman, activists and politians like Tony Blair,
now dead Zbigniew Brzezinski, CEOs Charles and Edgar Bronfman. The list is long and out of
date but these people control much of what goes on whether good or bad. Their hands are
everywhere doing good and maybe some of this bad stuff.
Given the facts a 10 year-old child could see that the official 911 explanation was totally
flawed. Just three of these facts are sufficient, the 'dancing Israelis', Silverstein
admitting to the 'pull (demolish) it' order and the collapse of steel-framed WTC 7 in
freefall despite not being hit. It is not hyperbole to say that America is a failed state
given that the known perpetrators were never even charged. ZOG indeed.
A respectable civil rights attorney, Lisa Bloom, handled Katie Johnson's case.
"Respectable"?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
You do realize that Lisa Bloom is the daughter of Glora Allred and defender of Harvey
Weinstein do you not?
You people are so desperate to try to link Trump to Epstein it's pathetic.
I suggest you go back to your gatekeeping nonsense of trying to discredit the 9/11 Truth
Movement by spreading misinformation about nukes in the towers.
This article stakes out much important ground of information and interpretation Kevin
Barrett. The essay resonates as a historic statement of some of our current predicaments.
What about the comparisons that might be made concerning the mysteries attending the
disappearing corpses of Osama bin Laden and Jeffrey Epstein. And according to Christopher
Ketcham, the release of the High Fivin' Urban Movers back to Israel was partially negotiated
by Alan Dershowitz who played a big role in defending Epstein over a long period.
@anon The ultimate "nutjob quackery" of 9/11 is Phillip Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report,
a document that stands as a testimony and marker signifying the USA's descent into a mad
hatter's imperium of lies. legend and illusion.
It is getting harder and harder to satirize the decadence and depravity of the secular
West, which insists on parodying itself with ever-increasing outlandishness. When the book
on this once-mighty civilization is written, and the ink is dry, readers will be astounded
by the limitless lies of the drunk-on-chutzpah psychopaths who ran it into the ground
@Kevin Barrett Adding to Junior's comment, I quit reading after you wrote of "credible
accusations" of Mr. Trump being involved "in the brutal rape of a 13 year old." And feminist
shakedown artist Lisa Bloom, daughter of the even more infamous feminist shakedown artist G.
Allred, is your "credible source?" Bloom has about as much credibility as the sicko democrat
women who tried to derail Judge Kavanaugh.
Regardless of how much one might hate Trump (and I'm no Trump supporter) levelling such
unfounded accusations is journalistic malfeasance. Did we elect the Devil Incarnate? Mr.
Barrett, I'm done reading you.
The special relationship between the CIA and the Mossad was driven partly by the efforts of
CIA officer James Angleton . Philip Weiss in his article in Mondoweiss entitled "The goy and
the golem: James Angleton and the rise of Israel." states that Angleton's " greatest service
to Israel was his willingness no to say a word about the apparent diversion of highly
enriched plutonium from a plant in Western Pennsylvania to Israel's nascent nuclear program "
The same program which JFK tried to curtail which efforts may have led to his assassination .
a confessed participant in the controlled demolition of Building 7,
For the love of God, this is stupid. Larry Silverstein was talking about the Fire
Commander , for fuck's sake. The Fire Commander made the decision to pull the
firefighters out of the building because they could not put the fire out and were in
unnecessary danger. That's all he meant. There is not one word in this that has anything to
do with a controlled demolition whatsoever.
In order to believe what the 9/11 Douchers would have you believe about this comment, you
would have to believe that 1) Building 7 was wired for demolition beforehand; 2) That the NYC
Fire Commander somehow knew about this; 3) That the NYC Fire Commander was perfectly okay
with allowing his men to spend hours inside a burning building in which he knew that
explosive charges had already been rigged to blow; 4) That the NYC Fire Commander had the
authority to decide when the charges should be blown and had access to the master switch that
would blow them all; 5) That after 7 hours of attempting to fight the fire, the NYC Fire
Commander (who by now can be nothing but a full-fledged member of the conspiracy) decides,
after briefly consulting with Larry Silverstein, "Oh, the hell with this! Let's just blow up
the building now!", to which Larry Silverstein agrees; 6) That after spending 7 hours in a
burning building that had fires burning randomly throughout it and that had been struck by
multiple pieces of debris, all of the explosive charges and their detonators were still in
perfect working order; 7) That none of the firefighters extensively searching the building
for survivors happened to notice any of the pre-placed explosive charges nor thought it
necessary to report about such; 8) That the NYC Fire Commander then proceeds to "pull" the
building after presumably giving some other order for the men to evacuate, which order was
never recorded because the "pull" order must have meant "blow up the building"; 9) And that
Larry Silverstein, after being part of a massive conspiracy involving insurance fraud,
murder, and arson which, if exposed, would send him to a federal death sentence, just decides
to casually mention all of this in a television interview for all and sundry to see, but it
is only the 9/11 Douchers who pick up on the significance of it.
Does any of this sound remotely believable? Did anyone subscribing to this nonsense stop
to think about the context in which this conversation took place? Do any of you 9/11 Douchers
even care that you're being completely ridiculous and grasping at nonexistent straws in your
vain attempt to establish some sort of case for controlled demolition? Do you even care that
everybody can see that what you are saying makes no sense at all? It is perfectly
obvious that Larry Silverstein is NOT talking about controlled demolition here. To
believe otherwise would require you to literally be insane, to not understand the plain
meaning of words and to have no awareness of conversational contexts; yet not only have you
swallowed all of this, you have been beating the drum of this insanity for nearly 20
years.
There is no point in reasoning with an insane person. There is, however, the possibility
that you don't really believe what you are saying and are just flogging a hobbyhorse, in
which case it is you who are engaging in mendacious journalism and trafficking in
lies. In either case, you need to be silenced. Neither lies nor insanity have any "right" to
be uttered in the public square. You 9/11 Douchers are really the ones doing everything you
accuse the mainstream media of doing, and worse. You have become a danger to the public weal
and must be stopped. Your conspiratorial nonsense just isn't cute anymore.
The official stories about the Kennedy assassination, Epstein's death, and 9/11 are
clearly suspect. No one with the capacity for critical thinking can seriously deny this.
Which elements of these stories are true and which are false will never be resolved.
Because:
The mainstream media including Fox News have abdicated their mission as fact finders and
truth tellers. They peddle entertainment and sell ad space. Rachel Maddow foaming at the
mouth about Trump's pee tape and Hannity fulminating about FISA abuse are the same product,
simply aimed at different demographics.
Nothing in the above two paragraphs is even remotely novel. It's all been said before
twenty bazillion times.
Being a feminist or Democrat (or nonfeminist or Republican) is irrelevant to a person's
credibility. It's possible that Lisa Bloom was part of a conspiracy to invent a fictitious
Katy Johnson story, in which case Bloom is guilty of criminal fraud as well as civil libel.
That would be quite a risk for her to take, to say the least. It's also possible that she was
somehow duped by others, in which case they would be running the civil and criminal
liabilities, while she would just get disbarred for negligence.
The same is true of Johnson's attorney Thomas Meagher.
It is also possible that Johnson's story is at least roughly accurate. There is supporting
testimony from another Epstein victim.
If you set aside your prejudices about Democrats-Republicans, feminists-antifeminists,
Trump-Hillary, etc., and just look at what's been reported, you'll agree with me that the
allegations are credible (but of course unproven). If you suffer emotional blocks against
thinking such things about a President, as so many did when similar things were reported
about Bill Clinton, I sympathize but also urge you to get psychiatric treatment so you can
learn to face unpleasant facts and then get to work cleaning up this country.
The release of Prof. J. Leroy Hulsey report on the finite element analysis of the WTC7
collapse should be a big news.
But won't be.
Democracy works this way. The ruling elite, via the media, Hollywood, etc., tell the
people what to think, the people then vote according to the way they think.
So the truth of 9/11 will never be known to the majority unless we have a public statement
from George W. Bush acknowledging that he personally lit the fuse that set off the explosions
that brought WTC 7 down at free-fall
speed .
This is fortunate for the intrepid Dr. Hulsey* who would, presumably, otherwise have had
to be dispatched by a sudden heart attack, traffic accident, weight-lifting accident suicide
with a bullet to the back of the head. As it is, hardly anyone will ever know what he will
say or what it means.
* Fortunate also for those who so rashly advocate for truth here and elsewhere on the yet
to be fully controlled Internets.
Nicely done. Article will not be featured on front page NYT & discussed on TV.
There are many highlights in your article. This is one.
Epstein's career as a shameless, openly-operating Mossad sexual blackmailer -- like the
in-your-face 9/11 coup -- also illustrates another core truth of Western secularism: If
there is no God, there are no limits (in this case, to human depravity and what it can get
away with). Or as Dostoevsky famously put it: "If God does not exist, everything is
permitted."
Please consult the following papers about the CIA/Mossad crimes against humanity and their
pimps who pose as 'politicians' of the fake Western 'democracy' where Epstein was their agent
serving their interest as a PIMP.
{from being the work of a single political party, intelligence agency or country, the
power structure revealed by the network connected to Epstein is nothing less than a criminal
enterprise that is willing to use and abuse children in the pursuit of ever more power,
wealth and control.}
"... What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost . ..."
"... So the more overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates (actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of surprise? ..."
Warren has the Acela corridor's backing and that has been expressed in some fawning
coverage from the likes of the WaPo and NYT. Krugman has hinted that she's his candidate as
well.
Unless something completely untoward happens, expect her to get great reviews in the next
debate.
I don't see how a classic Massachusetts liberal like Warren (to me she's very close to
Teddy K in her policy views ) motivates enough abstaining voters to beat Trump. Not enough
there, there.
Re the polls: Matt Taibbi recently wrote that if Biden lost ground Sanders would be the
likely gainer, since Bernie is the second choice for most Biden supporters. But it appears
Warren is benefiting as Biden slides.
Too bad. Still, maybe it's just the minority of Biden supporters who pick Warren as their
2nd choice who are bailing on Biden so far. Sanders may still gain if the more hard-core
Bidenites begin to leave.
As for Beto's plan to snatch our AK's and AR's, good for him for being so forthright. It's
a terrible idea, but one can appreciate the flat-out honesty.
" the enduring questions surrounding Biden's age and fitness for office may mean
Democrats will lack the "safe" choice they have had in the past, whether the candidate has
been former Vice President Al Gore in 2000, former U.S. Senator John Kerry in 2004 or
Clinton, the former U.S. senator and secretary of state, in 2008 and 2016."
What do all those "safe" candidates have in common? Oh, that's right- they all lost
.
That and they didn't upset the apple carts of the political consultants and the major
donors.
Funnily I think the author is missing several 'safe' candidates still in the running, all
of whom might secure the nomination on the second ballot depending on who the superdelegate
darling is. All of whom would probably be able to uphold that loss record of the safe
candidate.
I didn't click through to read if it was a joke, but I suspect "safe" for Team Blue types
means "a candidate who most assuredly won't be criticized by the Republicans."
Al Gore would blunt whining about the deficit. John Kerry was for a "stronger America."
Hillary was so qualified and had faced all arrows including machine gun fire in Serbia.
Yep, those moderate Republicans are going to eliminate the need for Team Blue elites to ever
have to worry about the poors again.
Right -- and none of them had the press openly speculating about a lack of cognitive
capacity, as is happening with the current "safe" candidate. That's what passes for "safe"
these days, I guess.
Also: "Biden's appeal wanes," Gillibrand crashes and burns, Harris "hasn't caught fire,"
and Black Lives Matter of South Bend calls for Buttigieg to resign as mayor. (What
language(s) will "Mayor Pete" give his resignation speech in, one wonders.)
So the more
overtly neoliberal candidates are stalling or bailing, with the more progressive candidates
(actually or putatively) -- Sanders and Warren -- sailing along. Is that some kind of
surprise?
Essentially it was a threat of military dictatorship that allow right wing forces to
neutralise Brazilian left; in reality national neoliberalism regime that was installed was very
close to the prototypical military dictatorships.
Notable quotes:
"... The internal redistributions and the geopolitical realignments displeased greatly both the United States and Brazil's right-wing forces. One thing that made it difficult for them to counter Lula was the fact that the state of the world-economy in the first decade of the twenty-first century was very favorable to the so-called newly-emerging economies, also known as the BRICS (B for Brazil). ..."
"... The right found a renewed opening in the financial squeeze that ensued. They blamed economic difficulties on corruption and fostered a judicial drive called lava jato (car wash), which evoked the issue of laundering money, something that was indeed widespread . ..."
"... Once Lula was threatened with immediate imprisonment, Brazil's two major popular forces expressed their strong opposition to what they asserted was a political coup d'état. One was the Central Ùnica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), which Lula had once led, and the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Brazil's largest rural organization. ..."
"... The MST and CUT organized significant mobilizations against his imprisonment. But, faced with the threat of the armed forces to intervene (and possibly restore a military regime again), Lula decided to present himself for arrest. He has now been imprisoned. ..."
"... The question today is whether this right-wing coup can succeed. This no longer depends on Lula personally. History may absolve him but the current struggle in Brazil and in Latin America as a whole depends on political organization at the base . ..."
"... In short, the outlook for Brazil and for Latin America as a whole is highly uncertain. Brazil, given its size and its history, is a key zone of the middle-run struggle for a progressive outcome of the struggle between the global left and the global right for resolving the structural crisis in their favor. ..."
On April 7, 2018 in Brazil Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva was arrested and taken to prison in
Curitiba to begin a twelve-year sentence. He was Brazil's president from January 2003 to
January 2011. He was so popular that when he left office in 2011, he had a 90% approval
rate.
Soon afterwards, he was charged with corruption while in office. He denied the charge. He
was however convicted of the charge, a conviction that was sustained by an Appeals Court. He
is still appealing his conviction to the Supreme Court.
Lula was a trade-union leader who founded a workers' party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores
(PT). It was the party of the underclass and one that stood for fundamental change both in
Brazil and in Latin America as a whole.
The internal redistributions and the geopolitical realignments displeased greatly both the
United States and Brazil's right-wing forces. One thing that made it difficult for them to
counter Lula was the fact that the state of the world-economy in the first decade of the
twenty-first century was very favorable to the so-called newly-emerging economies, also known
as the BRICS (B for Brazil).
However, the winds of the world-economy turned, and suddenly revenue for the Brazilian
state (and of course many other states) became scarcer.
The right found a renewed opening in the financial squeeze that ensued. They blamed
economic difficulties on corruption and fostered a judicial drive called lava jato (car
wash), which evoked the issue of laundering money, something that was indeed widespread .
Once Lula was threatened with immediate imprisonment, Brazil's two major popular forces
expressed their strong opposition to what they asserted was a political coup d'état.
One was the Central Ùnica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), which Lula had once led, and the
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Brazil's largest rural organization.
The MST and CUT organized significant mobilizations against his imprisonment. But, faced
with the threat of the armed forces to intervene (and possibly restore a military regime
again), Lula decided to present himself for arrest. He has now been imprisoned.
The question today is whether this right-wing coup can succeed. This no longer depends on
Lula personally. History may absolve him but the current struggle in Brazil and in Latin
America as a whole depends on political organization at the base .
One of the principal characteristics of the structural crisis of the modern
world-system in which we find ourselves is the high volatility of the world-economy .
Should it run even further downward than it is at present, there may well be an upsurge
of popular sentiment against the regime. If it began to include large parts of the
professional strata, an alliance with the underclasses is quite possible.
Even then it will not be easy to change the political realities of Brazil. The army stands
ready probably to prevent a left government from coming to power. Nonetheless one should not
despair. The army was defeated once before and evicted from power. It could be again.
In short, the outlook for Brazil and for Latin America as a whole is highly
uncertain. Brazil, given its size and its history, is a key zone of the middle-run struggle
for a progressive outcome of the struggle between the global left and the global right for
resolving the structural crisis in their favor.
Once again, the proof is in the pudding. But volatility? Yes, indeed. And blowback, too.
"... Can China then depend on widening internal demand to maintain its global edge? There are two reasons why not. The present authorities worry that a widening middle stratum could jeopardize their political control and seek to limit it.[a] ..."
"... The second reason, more important, is that much of the internal demand is the result of reckless borrowing by regional banks, which are facing an inability to sustain their investments. If they collapse, even partially, this could end the entire economic edge[b] of China. ..."
A structural crisis is chaotic. This means that instead of the normal standard set of
combinations or alliances that were previously used to maintain the stability of the system,
they constantly shift these alliances in search of short-term gains. This only makes the
situation worse. We notice here a paradox – the certainty of the end of the existing
system and the intrinsic uncertainty of what will eventually replace it and create thereby a
new system (or new systems) to stabilize realities .
Now, let us look at China's role in what is going on. In terms of the present system,
China seems to be gaining much advantage. To argue that this means the continuing functioning
of capitalism as a system is basically to (re)assert the invalid point that systems are
eternal and that China is replacing the United States in the same way as the United States
replaced Great Britain as the hegemonic power. Were this true, in another 20-30 years China
(or perhaps northeast Asia) would be able to set its rules for the capitalist
world-system.
But is this really happening? First of all, China's economic edge, while still greater
than that of the North, has been declining significantly. And this decline may well amplify
soon, as political resistance to China's attempts to control neighboring countries and entice
(that is, buy) the support of faraway countries grows, which seems to be occurring.
Can China then depend on widening internal demand to maintain its global edge? There are
two reasons why not. The present authorities worry that a widening middle stratum could
jeopardize their political control and seek to limit it.[a]
The second reason, more important, is that much of the internal demand is the result of
reckless borrowing by regional banks, which are facing an inability to sustain their
investments. If they collapse, even partially, this could end the entire economic edge[b] of
China.
In addition, there have been, and will continue to be, wild swings in geopolitical
alliances. In a sense, the key zones are not in the North, but in areas such as Russia,
India, Iran, Turkey, and southeastern Europe, all of them pursuing their own roles by a game
of swiftly and repeatedly changing sides. The bottom line is that, though China plays a
very big role in the short run, it is not as big a role as China would wish and that some in
the rest of the world-system fear. It is not possible for China to stop the disintegration of
the capitalist system. It can only try to secure its place in a future
world-system.
As far as Wallerstein's bottom line: The proof is in the pudding. That said, there seems to
be a tendency to regard Xi as all-powerful. IMNSHO, that's by no means the case, not only
because of China's middle class, but because of whatever China's equivalent of deplorables is.
The "wild swings in geopolitical alliances" might play a role, too; oil, Africa's minerals.
NOTES [a] I haven't seen this point made elsewhere. [b] Crisis, certainly. "Ending the
entire economic edge"? I'm not so sure.
Immanuel Wallerstein, author of The Modern World-System (Volume I, 1974[1]),
Historical Capitalism (1983), The Decline of American Power (2003), and 30 other
books, died on August 31 of this year. He was 89 years old. Oddly, or not, although he was a
Senior Research Scholar at Yale, was head of the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of
Economies, Historical Systems and Civilization at Binghamton University, and received the
Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award from the American Sociological Association, there has
as yet been no obituary for him in any major[2] English, Five-Eyes newspaper that I can find (
France
; Spain ;
Italy ;
Brazil ;
Romania ; Iran (English); Turkey
[3]; and
Turkey (English).
This will not be an obituary for Immanuel Wallerstein; I don't have time to do the reading
required to summarize his personal intellectual history. (I read his short and simple
World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction years ago, before going on to his associate
Giovanni Arrighi's The Long Twentieth Century , which is also a world systems book. I
recommend both, and that's really my object in this post: Getting some of you to read up on
Wallerstein. So in this post, I'm going to share some long extracts from Wallerstein, less
theoretical, and more focused on current events. Use the tools that come to hand!
A structural crisis is chaotic. This means that instead of the normal standard set of
combinations or alliances that were previously used to maintain the stability of the system,
they constantly shift these alliances in search of short-term gains. This only makes the
situation worse. We notice here a paradox – the certainty of the end of the existing
system and the intrinsic uncertainty of what will eventually replace it and create thereby a
new system (or new systems) to stabilize realities .
Now, let us look at China's role in what is going on. In terms of the present system,
China seems to be gaining much advantage. To argue that this means the continuing functioning
of capitalism as a system is basically to (re)assert the invalid point that systems are
eternal and that China is replacing the United States in the same way as the United States
replaced Great Britain as the hegemonic power. Were this true, in another 20-30 years China
(or perhaps northeast Asia) would be able to set its rules for the capitalist
world-system.
But is this really happening? First of all, China's economic edge, while still greater
than that of the North, has been declining significantly. And this decline may well amplify
soon, as political resistance to China's attempts to control neighboring countries and entice
(that is, buy) the support of faraway countries grows, which seems to be occurring.
Can China then depend on widening internal demand to maintain its global edge? There are
two reasons why not. The present authorities worry that a widening middle stratum could
jeopardize their political control and seek to limit it.[a]
The second reason, more important, is that much of the internal demand is the result of
reckless borrowing by regional banks, which are facing an inability to sustain their
investments. If they collapse, even partially, this could end the entire economic edge[b] of
China.
In addition, there have been, and will continue to be, wild swings in geopolitical
alliances. In a sense, the key zones are not in the North, but in areas such as Russia,
India, Iran, Turkey, and southeastern Europe, all of them pursuing their own roles by a game
of swiftly and repeatedly changing sides. The bottom line is that, though China plays a
very big role in the short run, it is not as big a role as China would wish and that some in
the rest of the world-system fear. It is not possible for China to stop the disintegration of
the capitalist system. It can only try to secure its place in a future
world-system.
As far as Wallerstein's bottom line: The proof is in the pudding. That said, there seems to
be a tendency to regard Xi as all-powerful. IMNSHO, that's by no means the case, not only
because of China's middle class, but because of whatever China's equivalent of deplorables is.
The "wild swings in geopolitical alliances" might play a role, too; oil, Africa's minerals.
NOTES [a] I haven't seen this point made elsewhere. [b] Crisis, certainly. "Ending the
entire economic edge"? I'm not so sure.
On April 7, 2018 in Brazil Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva was arrested and taken to prison in
Curitiba to begin a twelve-year sentence. He was Brazil's president from January 2003 to
January 2011. He was so popular that when he left office in 2011, he had a 90% approval
rate.
Soon afterwards, he was charged with corruption while in office. He denied the charge. He
was however convicted of the charge, a conviction that was sustained by an Appeals Court. He
is still appealing his conviction to the Supreme Court.
Lula was a trade-union leader who founded a workers' party, the Partido dos Trabalhadores
(PT). It was the party of the underclass and one that stood for fundamental change both in
Brazil and in Latin America as a whole.
The internal redistributions and the geopolitical realignments displeased greatly both the
United States and Brazil's right-wing forces. One thing that made it difficult for them to
counter Lula was the fact that the state of the world-economy in the first decade of the
twenty-first century was very favorable to the so-called newly-emerging economies, also known
as the BRICS (B for Brazil).
However, the winds of the world-economy turned, and suddenly revenue for the Brazilian
state (and of course many other states) became scarcer.
The right found a renewed opening in the financial squeeze that ensued. They blamed
economic difficulties on corruption and fostered a judicial drive called lava jato (car
wash), which evoked the issue of laundering money, something that was indeed widespread .
Once Lula was threatened with immediate imprisonment, Brazil's two major popular forces
expressed their strong opposition to what they asserted was a political coup d'état.
One was the Central Ùnica dos Trabalhadores (CUT), which Lula had once led, and the
Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), Brazil's largest rural organization.
The MST and CUT organized significant mobilizations against his imprisonment. But, faced
with the threat of the armed forces to intervene (and possibly restore a military regime
again), Lula decided to present himself for arrest. He has now been imprisoned.
The question today is whether this right-wing coup can succeed. This no longer depends on
Lula personally. History may absolve him but the current struggle in Brazil and in Latin
America as a whole depends on political organization at the base .
One of the principal characteristics of the structural crisis of the modern
world-system in which we find ourselves is the high volatility of the world-economy .
Should it run even further downward than it is at present, there may well be an upsurge
of popular sentiment against the regime. If it began to include large parts of the
professional strata, an alliance with the underclasses is quite possible.
Even then it will not be easy to change the political realities of Brazil. The army stands
ready probably to prevent a left government from coming to power. Nonetheless one should not
despair. The army was defeated once before and evicted from power. It could be again.
In short, the outlook for Brazil and for Latin America as a whole is highly
uncertain. Brazil, given its size and its history, is a key zone of the middle-run struggle
for a progressive outcome of the struggle between the global left and the global right for
resolving the structural crisis in their favor.
Once again, the proof is in the pudding. But volatility? Yes, indeed. And blowback, too.
Since 1989, social science has thrown very little light on [such matters as the growth of
extreme right in Austria]. Indeed, its failure has been lamentable. All anyone –
whatever their politics – talks about is globalisation, as though that were anything
more than current rhetoric for the continuing struggle within the capitalist world-economy
over the degree to which transborder flows should be unimpeded It is dust in our eyes.
So, too, is the endless litany about ethnic violence, and here human rights activists, as
well as social scientists, are to blame. Ethnic violence, however horrifying, is not the
preserve of some less fortunate, less wise, less civilised other. It follows from the deep
and growing inequalities within our world-system, and cannot be addressed by moral
exhortation, or by any meddling on the part of the pure and advanced in zones controlled by
the impure and backward. World social science has offered us no useful tools to analyse what
has been happening in the world-system since 1989, and therefore no useful tools to
understand contemporary Austrian reality.
The reason everyone was so appalled by Nazism after 1945 is obvious. While almost
everyone in the pan-European world had been openly and happily racist and anti-semitic before
1945, hardly anyone had intended it to lead where it did. Hitler's Final Solution missed the
entire point of racism within the capitalist world-economy. The object of racism is not to
exclude people, much less exterminate them, but to keep them within the system as
Untermenschen, to be exploited economically and used as political scapegoats . What
happened with Nazism was what the French would call a dérapage – a
blunder, a skid, a loss of control. Or perhaps it was the genie getting out of the
bottle.
It was acceptable to be racist up to the point of a final solution, but no
further . It had always been a delicate game, and no doubt there had been
dérapages before – but never on such a large scale, never in so central
an arena of the world-system, and never that visible. Collectively, the pan-European world
came to terms with what had happened by banning public racism, primarily public
anti-semitism. It became a taboo language .
One of the reasons the EU reacted so strongly to Haider is that Austria has refused to
assume its share of guilt, insisting that it was primarily a victim. Perhaps a majority of
Austrians had not wanted the Anschluss, although it is hard to believe it when you see
newsreel clips of the cheering Viennese crowds. But, more to the point, no non-Jewish,
non-Roma Austrian was considered anything other than German after the Anschluss, and the
majority gloried in that fact.
The realisation that racism had been undone by going much too far had two major
consequences in the post-1945 pan-European world. First, these countries sought to emphasise
their internal virtues as integrative nations untroubled by racist oppression, 'free
countries' facing an 'evil empire' whose racism, in its turn, became a regular theme of
Western propaganda. All sorts of socio-political actions followed from this: the 1954
decision by the US Supreme Court to outlaw racial segregation; the philo-Israel policies of
the whole pan-European world; even the new emphasis on ecumenicism within Western
Christianity (as well as the invention of the idea of a joint Judaeo-Christian heritage).
Second, and just as important, there was a need to restore a sanitised racism to its
original function: that of keeping people within the system, but as Untermenschen. If Jews
could no longer be treated thus, or Catholics in Protestant countries, it was necessary to
look further afield. In the pan-European world the post-1945 period was, at least at first, a
time of incredible economic expansion accompanied by a radically reduced rate of
reproduction. More workers were needed and fewer were being produced than ever before. So
began the era of what the Germans gingerly called the Gastarbeiter.
Who were these Gastarbeiter? Mediterranean peoples in non-Mediterranean Europe, Latin
Americans and Asians in North America, West Indians in North America and Western Europe,
Black Africans and South Asians in Europe. And, since 1989, citizens of the former socialist
bloc. They have come in large numbers because they wanted to come and because they could find
jobs: indeed, were desperately needed to make the pan-European countries flourish. But they
came, almost universally, as persons at the bottom of the heap – economically, socially
and politically
The rhymes with immigration policy debates in this country are obvious. And I love the irony
of dérapage .
My first commentary appeared on October 1, 1998. It was published by the Fernand Braudel
Center (FBC) at Binghamton University. I have produced commentaries on the first and the
fifteenth of every month since then without exception. This is the 500th such commentary.
This will be the last commentary ever.
I have devoted myself to writing these commentaries with complete regularity. But no one
lives forever, and there is no way I can continue doing these commentaries much longer.
So, sometime ago I said to myself I will try to make it to number 500 and then call it
quits. I have made it to 500 and I am calling it quits
The post is dated July 1, 2019, two months before his death. Thats the way to do it.
More:
There is only one language in which all 500 commentaries have been translated. This
language is Mandarin Chinese.
Oh.
It is the future that is more important and more interesting, but also inherently
unknowable. Because of the structural crisis of the modern-world system, it is possible,
possible but not absolutely certain, that a transformatory use of a 1968 complex will be
achieved by someone or some group. It will probably take much time and will continue on past
the point of the end of commentaries. What form this new activity will take is hard to
predict.
So, the world might go down further by-paths. Or it may not. I have indicated in the past
that I thought the crucial struggle was a class struggle, using class in a very broadly
defined sense. What those who will be alive in the future can do is to struggle with
themselves so this change may be a real one. I still think that and therefore I think there
is a 50-50 chance that we'll make it to transformatory change, but only 50-50.
Some might find that optimistic, but personally I find it heartening.
Conclusion
I don't have much to say -- the extracts are far too long! -- but surely Wallerstein's life
was a life well lived.
The new edition of Immanuel Wallerstein's Volume 1 of The Modern World-System, originally
published in 1974, is more beautiful than the original both because of its cover, and because
37 years of subsequent scholarship and world historical events have demonstrated the
scientific and practical utility of the theoretical approach developed in this seminal work
.
The world-systems perspective is a strategy for explaining institutional change that
focuses on whole interpolity systems rather than single polities. The tendency in
sociological theory has been to think of single national societies as whole systems. This has
led to many errors, because the idea of a system usually implies closure and that the most
important processes are endogenous. National societies (both their states and their
nations) have emerged over the last few centuries to become the strongest socially
constructed identities and organizations in the modern world, but they have never been whole
systems. They have always existed in a larger context of important interaction networks
(trade, warfare, long-distance communication) that have greatly shaped events and social
change .
Wallerstein's new Prologue responds to several of the major criticisms that have been made
of Volume 1. Critics said that the book was too economistic, ignoring politics and culture.
Marxists said that Wallerstein ignored class relations. Wallerstein's approach to world
history is evolutionary, though he does not use that word. He compares regions and national
societies with each other within the same time periods, but he also compares them with
earlier and later instances in order to comprehend the long-term trajectories of social
change and to explain the qualitative transformation in systemic logic that began to emerge
in Europe in the long 16th century (1450-1640 CE). His theoretical framework contemplates a
"whole system" and how that system has changed or remained the same over time while expanding
to become a single Earth-wide integrated network.
I work for a law firm that represents Wall Street banks and I can tell you who they don't
like, and that is Sanders and Warren. They hate that Warren created the CFPB and blew the
whistle on Wells Fargo and all the other games being played by Wall Street banks. Therefore, I
will vote for either of them, Warren preferred.
The USA centered global neoliberal empire falls from grace at alarming speed.
Just the discussion of this possibility would be unthinkable in 90th -- the period of triumphal advance of neoliberalism all over
the globe. So thinks did change although it is unclear what is that direction of the social change -- neo-fascism or some kind of return
to the New Del Capitalism (if so who will replace previous, forged by Great Depression political alignment between trade unions and
management against the financial oligarchy, which financial oligarchy managed to broke using neoliberalism as the Trojan horse and bribing
CEOs)
Om a was original fascist movements were also a protest against the rule of financial oligarchy. Even anti-Semitism in Germany was
a kind of perverted protest against financial oligarchy as well. They were quickly subverted and in Germany anti-Semitism degenerated
into irrational hatred and genocide, , but the fact remains. Just looks at
NSDAP program of 1920 . Now we have somewhat
similar sentiments with Wexner and Meta group in the USA. To say that they do not invoke any sympathy is an understatement.
The problem with empires that they do not only rob the "other people". They rob their own people as well, and rob them hard. The
USSR people were really robbed by Soviet military industrial complex and Soviet globalist -- to the far greater extent then the USA
people now. People were really as poor as church rats. Epidemic of alcoholism in the USA resembles the epidemic of narcoaddtion in the
USA --- both are signs of desire then there is no jobs and now chances.
Like the collapse of the USSR was the result of the collapse of bolshevism, the collapse of the USA can be the result of the collapse
of neoliberalism. Whether it will take 10 or 50 years is unclear, but the general tendency is down.
The competitors has grown much strong now and they want their place under then sub. That means squeezing the USA. Trump did agrat
job in alientaing the US and that was probably the most important step is dismantling the USA empire that was taken. Add to that trade
war with China and we have the situation that is not favorable to the USA politically in two important parts of the globe.
Add to this Brexit and we have clear tendency of states to reassert their sovereignty, which start hurting the USA based multinationals.
The only things that work in favor of the USA is that currently there is no clear alternative to neoliberalism other then some kind
of restoration of the New Deal capitalism or neo-fasist dictatorship.
Notable quotes:
"... Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social cohesion of El Salvador. ..."
"... Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance. It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything. ..."
"... Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. ..."
"... You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at all, so we could finally be free people. ..."
"... And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that would be a huge positive step forward. ..."
Years ago, Doug Casey mentioned in a correspondence to me, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed."
Every now and then, you receive a comment that, although it may have been stated casually, has a lasting effect, as it offers
uncommon insight. For me, this was one of those and it's one that I've kept handy at my desk since that time, as a reminder.
I'm from a British family, one that left the UK just as the British Empire was about to begin its decline. They expatriated to
the "New World" to seek promise for the future.
As I've spent most of my life centred in a British colony – the Cayman Islands – I've had the opportunity to observe many British
contract professionals who left the UK seeking advancement, which they almost invariably find in Cayman. Curiously, though, most
returned to the UK after a contract or two, in the belief that the UK would bounce back from its decline, and they wanted to be on
board when Britain "came back."
This, of course, never happened. The US replaced the UK as the world's foremost empire, and although the UK has had its ups and
downs over the ensuing decades, it hasn't returned to its former glory.
And it never will.
If we observe the empires of the world that have existed over the millennia, we see a consistent history of collapse without renewal.
Whether we're looking at the Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire, the Spanish Empire, or any other that's existed at one time, history
is remarkably consistent: The decline and fall of any empire never reverses itself; nor does the empire return, once it's fallen.
But of what importance is this to us today?
Well, today, the US is the world's undisputed leading empire and most Americans would agree that, whilst it's going through a
bad patch, it will bounce back and might even be better than ever.
Not so, I'm afraid. All empires follow the same cycle. They begin with a population that has a strong work ethic and is self-reliant.
Those people organize to form a nation of great strength, based upon high productivity.
This leads to expansion, generally based upon world trade. At some point, this gives rise to leaders who seek, not to work in
partnership with other nations, but to dominate them, and of course, this is when a great nation becomes an empire. The US began
this stage under the flamboyant and aggressive Teddy Roosevelt.
The twentieth century was the American century and the US went from victory to victory, expanding its power.
But the decline began in the 1960s, when the US started to pursue unwinnable wars, began the destruction of its currency and began
to expand its government into an all-powerful body.
Still, this process tends to be protracted and the overall decline often takes decades.
So, how does that square with the quote, "Empires fall from grace with alarming speed"?
Well, the preparation for the fall can often be seen for a generation or more, but the actual fall tends to occur quite rapidly.
What happens is very similar to what happens with a schoolyard bully.
The bully has a slow rise, based upon his strength and aggressive tendency. After a number of successful fights, he becomes
first revered, then feared. He then takes on several toadies who lack his abilities but want some of the spoils, so they do his
bidding, acting in a threatening manner to other schoolboys.
The bully then becomes hated. No one tells him so, but the other kids secretly dream of his defeat, hopefully in a shameful
manner.
Then, at some point, some boy who has a measure of strength and the requisite determination has had enough and takes on the
bully.
If he defeats him, a curious thing happens. The toadies suddenly realise that the jig is up and they head for the hills, knowing
that their source of power is gone.
Also, once the defeated bully is down, all the anger, fear and hatred that his schoolmates felt for him come out, and they
take great pleasure in his defeat.
And this, in a nutshell, is what happens with empires.
A nation that comes to the rescue in times of genuine need (such as the two World Wars) is revered. But once that nation morphs
into a bully that uses any excuse to invade countries such as Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq and Syria, its allies may continue to bow
to it but secretly fear it and wish that it could be taken down a peg.
When the empire then starts looking around for other nations to bully, such as Iran and Venezuela, its allies again say nothing
but react with fear when they see the John Boltons and Mike Pompeos beating the war drums and making reckless comments.
At present, the US is focusing primarily on economic warfare, but if this fails to get the world to bend to its dominance, the
US has repeatedly warned, regarding possible military aggression, that "no option is off the table."
The US has reached the classic stage when it has become a reckless bully, and its support structure of allies has begun to de-couple
as a result.
At the same time that allies begin to pull back and make other plans for their future, those citizens within the empire who tend
to be the creators of prosperity also begin to seek greener pastures.
History has seen this happen countless times. The "brain drain" occurs, in which the best and most productive begin to look elsewhere
for their future. Just as the most productive Europeans crossed the Pond to colonise the US when it was a new, promising country,
their present-day counterparts have begun moving offshore.
The US is presently in a state of suspended animation. It still appears to be a major force, but its buttresses are quietly disappearing.
At some point in the near future, it's likely that the US government will overplay its hand and aggress against a foe that either
is stronger or has alliances that, collectively, make it stronger.
The greatest (so called) threats to America- the Russians, Chinese, Iranians, North Koreans, ISIS, ( fill in the blank for
the latest overseas bogeyman-of-the-week ) pale into a wisp beside the ongoing disintegration of American traditional family life.
Self-discipline, self sacrifice and self restraint are the prices which must be paid for a civilization to survive, much less
flourish, and Americans are increasingly unwilling to pay up. The America of a generation or two down the road will have the social
cohesion of El Salvador.
You also cant warn people about the collapse of empire either. People notoriously go into denial about it and it shocks the
**** out of everybody. Since empires bluff and bluster at the end its all to easy for people want to believe.
Being that history is always written by the tyrant of the time (which in our case was definitely behind the two last empires
and a big player in Rome as and Spain as well) people are also led to believe that empire is a desireable state of cicumstance.
It never was. Its the ambitions and conquistador actions of the collective psychopath. They feed on the strength of civilizations
and utilize it for megalomaniac ambitions over power of others and power over everything.
Those of you hoping for the end of American Empire need to think about what would replace it. if you think that the world would
enter the age of Aquarius and peace will rule the planet you are extremely naive and stupid. If you think that the Chinese would
be more benign rulers you are mistaken. The only reason China doesn't use its military to dominate other countries is because
it is kept in check by the US.
You are completely delusional. The world is not better off under American stewardship. We don't need and shouldn't want anything
to replace it. We don't need and shouldn't want any empire ruling the world. We would be better off without any state at
all, so we could finally be free people.
And no it probably wouldn't be better off under the Chinese. Although if the world stopped respecting American IP law, that
would be a huge positive step forward.
In the real world, Chinese terrorists are just as bad as American terrorists. Despite the most popular hypnosis gripping the
American psyche, you can't have liberty or justice as long as either one is in charge. Whether the Chinese would be worse is debatable.
It's not like America has some great track record to compete against. Their reign has been a complete disaster for human rights.
If China became the new empire we wouldnt live under it. It would be at least 100 years out. This empire will screw everybody
epically first, plus we have decline weather patterns with super solar grand minimum. Also those people's who may see that next
empire will deal with whatever circumstances present themselves and they wont give one **** what we think about it.
Basically power has kept moving west. Nobody will forget the depravity of this one. If written about accurately this one will
be remembered most for the medical tyranny and intentional damage it did to human beings through injections and modified good
supply, as well as moral depravity and proxy sadistic terrorism. Remember empire backed terrorist groups trafficked children and
harvested organs. You can miss it if you want, few will.
I do not _hope_ for an end of the American Empire, and I dread what is going to replace it. Howsoever, no empire lasts forever,
and our empire is near its end. The Chinese are relentlessly cruel, and that's in their genotype. I probably won't live to see
them take over the scraps and bits and pieces of our former empire. Those who are alive and in the prime of their lives when that
happens will suffer unimaginably while they live, and their blood will cry out from the grave after they die. It makes me so heart-sick
I can't bear to think about it for long, but our progeny will be forced to live it without let or hindrance.
Lets find out the whole details of what they have done to our biology and our children's first before we say how cruel China
might be. For starters look at what US and British did in Africa compared to China and Russia's involvement there. They are doing
deals and not killing anybody, same with Venezuela.
Where else you going to go? What nation ISN'T broke? Europe is going to hell. So is South America. Africa has always been hell.
Asia? Look what's going down in Hong Kong. China's broke. Make no mistake, the USA is in decline. But so is the rest of the world...
regardless of what is printed China is not falling, they have a plan and have only advanced it. The debt side will not hurt
them because they have been poor before and they have a route to success. They do not have resources but the industrial side is
needed everywhere in the world. We are talking about a nation that literally prospered off of our garbage and resells it back
to us! Think about it we use something up and pay them to take it away, they recycle it and resell it to us again and moved a
nation 4x our population forward!
You really think debt will hurt them, especially the way the US determines debt! A huge portion of it is in the infrastructucture
in China and along the BRI which will have returns over time, just as if we in the states rebuilt all our infrastructure by living
wage employment rather than MIC investment!
Yes, all are broke. Assisted suicides of countries all over the world. Emphasise on "assisted".
Nations have been demoralized (the US most certainly, check Yuri Bezmenov) we are in destabilization phase already, collapse
has to be next, it is unavoidable now. This will not end well, ignore at your own risk!
I am not talking about countries, just some Life Hedge Regions left in the world. People with brains and resources, you don
need a Life Hedge Property! Away from Northern Hemisphere, away from Ring of Fire, etc... Get in touch. lifehedge(at)
protonmail.com
What got America into trouble was when Americans who thought of themselves as being "exceptional" became exceptionally stupid.
The best and the brightest have already left America. Any wonder why we now depend on Russia to send our astronauts up on their
rockets into space, or depend on China, South Korea, and Japan for our electronic products, or why better health care is found
in other places outside the U.S., why our educational system has become poorer than what it was 60 years ago, etc.,?
When we decided to financialize everything and make nothing but investments we crippled our advancement.
When we decided to take the brightest minds in the world and recruit them into the US and then rather than advance the world
with true science, we offer them lucrative money to enter financial markets to use their knowledge in that field.
We take the ones with morals and principles that choose to actually remain in science and then corrupt them over time with
money/fame to regurgetate whatever their contractor chooses or lose funding for their projects.
We have corrupted every aspect of advancement and now just use our fake printed money to force the desperate to bend to our
will.
Good read on the subject of empires Sir John Glubb - The fate of empires and Search for survival.
We are probably near the end of the American Empire. And a fascinating by product of the HK protests is that we may well be near the end of Chinese Communism.
Nothing moves forward in a straight line. They move up and down. Empires are no exception. The Romans had their ups and downs
throughout the course of their empire. You never know when a down cycle is the end but people who want it to end will always write
articles like this.
American dominance might be drawing to an end....or it might be gearing up to go another 200 years. Nobody knows so it's a
waste of time to speculate.
Thatcher was an English politico. It is not what she said, but what she did that counts. She is probably down in Dante's Inferno,
Ring 8, sub-rings 7-10. (Frauds and false councilors.) See, oh wayward sinners:
http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/circle8b.html
Ah, you think that Milton should be at the bottom, eh? Then, I hope that he knows how to ice skate. (He was the worst kind
of 'class traitor.' [His parents were small store owner/managers.])
Ring 8 of the Inferno is for 'frauds' of all sorts, sub-rings 7-10 are reserved for Thieves, Deceivers, Schismatics, and Falsifiers.
Maggie should feel right at home there.
"... A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else." ..."
A new opinion poll released by NBC News and the Wall Street Journal last Sunday shows that 70% of Americans are "angry" because
our political system seems to only be working for the insiders with money and power. Both Senator Bernie Sanders and Senator Elizabeth
Warren have also reflected on this sentiment during their campaigns. Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system
designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks
dirt on everyone else."
A New York Times opinion article written by the political scientist Greg Weiner felt compelled to push back on this message, writing
a column with the title, The Shallow Cynicism of 'Everything Is Rigged'. In his column, Weiner basically makes the argument that
believing everything is corrupt and rigged is a cynical attitude with which it is possible to dismiss political opponents for being
a part of the corruption. In other words, the Sanders and Warren argument is a shortcut, according to Weiner, that avoids real political
debate.
Joining me now to discuss whether it makes sense to think of a political system as rigged and corrupt, and whether the cynical
attitude is justified, is someone who should know a thing or two about corruption: Bill Black. He is a white collar criminologist,
former financial regulator, and associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. He's also the
author of the book, The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One. Thanks for joining us again, Bill.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: As I mentioned that the outset, it seems that Sanders and Warren are in effect taking an open door, at least when
it comes to the American public. That is, almost everyone already believes that our political and economic system is rigged. Would
you agree with that sentiment that the system is corrupt and rigged for the rich and against pretty much everyone else but especially
the poor? What do you think?
BILL BLACK: One of the principal things I study is elite fraud, corruption and predation. The World Bank sent me to India for
months as an anti-corruption alleged expert type. And as a financial regulator, this is what I dealt with. This is what I researched.
This is a huge chunk of my life. So I wouldn't use the word, if I was being formal in an academic system, "the system." What I would
talk about is specific systems that are rigged, and they most assuredly are rigged.
Let me give you an example. One of the most important things that has transformed the world and made it vastly more criminogenic,
much more corrupt, is modern executive compensation. This is not an unusual position. This is actually the normal position now, even
among very conservative scholars, including the person who was the intellectual godfather of modern executive compensation, Michael
Jensen. He has admitted that he spawned unintentionally a monster because CEOs have rigged the compensation system. How do they do
that? Well, it starts even before you get hired as a CEO. This is amazing stuff. The standard thing you do as a powerful CEO is you
hire this guy, and he specializes in negotiating great deals for CEOs. His first demand, which is almost always given into, is that
the corporation pay his fee, not the CEO. On the other side of the table is somebody that the CEO is going to be the boss of negotiating
the other side. How hard is he going to negotiate against the guy that's going to be his boss? That's totally rigged.
Then the compensation committee hires compensation specialists who–again, even the most conservative economists agree it is a
completely rigged system. Because the only way they get work is if they give this extraordinary compensation. Then, everybody in
economics admits that there's a clear way you should run performance pay. It should be really long term. You get the big bucks only
after like 10 years of success. In reality, they're always incredibly short term. Why? Because it's vastly easier for the CEO to
rig the short-term reported earnings. What's the result of this? Accounting profession, criminology profession, economics profession,
law profession. We've all done studies and all of them say this perverse system of compensation causes CEOs to (a) cheat and (b)
to be extraordinarily short term in their perspective because it's easier to rig the short-term reported results. Even the most conservative
economists agree that's terrible for the economy.
What I've just gone through is a whole bunch of academic literature from over 40-plus years from top scholars in four different
fields. That's not cynicism. That's just plain facts if you understand the system. People like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders,
they didn't, as you say, kick open an open door. They made the open door. It's not like Elizabeth Warren started talking about this
six months ago when she started being a potential candidate. She has been saying this and explaining in detail how individual systems
are rigged in favor of the wealthy for at least 30 years of work. Bernie Sanders has been doing it for 45 years. This is what the
right, including the author of this piece who is an ultra-far right guy, fear the most. It's precisely what they fear, that Bernie
and Elizabeth are good at explaining how particular systems are rigged. They explain it in appropriate detail, but they're also good
in making it human. They talk the way humans talk as opposed to academics.
That's what the right fear is more than anything, that people will basically get woke. In this, it's being woke to how individual
systems have been rigged by the wealthy and powerful to create a sure thing to enrich them, usually at our direct expense.
GREG WILPERT: I think those are some very good examples. They're mostly from the realm of economics. I want to look at one from
the realm of politics, which specifically Weiner makes. He cites Sanders, who says that the rich literally buy elections, and Weiner
counters this by saying that, "It is difficult to identify instances in American history of an electoral majority wanting something
specific that it has not eventually gotten." That's a pretty amazing statement actually, I think, for him to say when you look at
the actual polls of what people want and what people get. He then also adds, "That's not possible to dupe the majority with advertising
all of the time." What's your response to that argument?
BILL BLACK: Well, actually, that's where he's trying to play economist, and he's particularly bad at economics. He was even worse
at economics than he is at political science, where his pitch, by the way is–I'm not overstating this–corruption is good. The real
problem with Senator Sanders and Senator Warren is that they're against corruption.
Can you fool many people? Answer: Yes. We have good statistics from people who actually study this as opposed to write op-eds
of this kind. In the great financial crisis, one of the most notorious of the predators that targeted blacks and Latinos–we actually
have statistics from New Century. And here's a particular scam. The loan broker gets paid more money the worse the deal he gets you,
the customer, and he gets paid by the bank. If he can get you to pay more than the market rate of interest, then he gets a kickback,
a literal kickback. In almost exactly half of the cases, New Century was able to get substantially above market interest rates, again,
targeted at blacks and Latinos.
We know that this kind of predatory approach can succeed, and it can succeed brilliantly. Look at cigarettes. Cigarettes, if you
use them as intended, they make you sick and they kill you. It wasn't that very long ago until a huge effort by pushback that the
tobacco companies, through a whole series of fake science and incredible amounts of ads that basically tried to associate if you
were male, that if you smoked, you'd have a lot of sex type of thing. It was really that crude. It was enormously successful with
people in getting them to do things that almost immediately made them sick and often actually killed them.
He's simply wrong empirically. You can see it in US death rates. You can see it in Hell, I'm overweight considerably. Americans
are enormously overweight because of the way we eat, which has everything to do with how marketing works in the United States, and
it's actually gotten so bad that it's reducing life expectancy in a number of groups in America. That's how incredibly effective
predatory practices are in rigging the system. That's again, two Nobel Laureates in economics have recently written about this. George
Akerlof and Shiller, both Nobel Laureates in economics, have written about this predation in a book for a general audience. It's
called Phishing with a P-H.
GREG WILPERT: I want to turn to the last point that Weiner makes about cynicism. He says that calling the system rigged is actually
a form of cynicism. And that cynicism, the belief that everything and everyone is bad or corrupt avoids real political arguments
because it tires everyone you disagree with as being a part of that corruption. Would you say, is the belief that the system is rigged
a form of cynicism? And if it is, wouldn't Weiner be right that cynicism avoids political debate?
BILL BLACK: He creates a straw man. No one has said that everything and everyone is corrupt. No one has said that if you disagree
with me, you are automatically corrupt. What they have given in considerable detail, like I gave as the first example, was here is
exactly how the system is rigged. Here are the empirical results of that rigging. This produces vast transfers of wealth to the powerful
and wealthy, and it comes at the expense of nearly everybody else. That is factual and that needs to be said. It needs to be said
that politicians that support this, and Weiner explicitly does that, says, we need to go back to a system that is more openly corrupt
and that if we have that system, the world will be better. That has no empirical basis. It's exactly the opposite. Corruption kills.
Corruption ruins economies.
The last thing in the world you want to do is what Weiner calls for, which he says, "We've got to stop applying morality to this
form of crime." In essence, he is channeling the godfather. "Tell the Don it wasn't personal. It was just business." There's nothing
really immoral in his view about bribing people. I'm sorry. I'm a Midwesterner. It wasn't cynicism. It was morality. He says you
can't compromise with corruption. I hope not. Compromising with corruption is precisely why we're in this situation where growth
rates have been cut in half, why wage growth has been cut by four-fifths, why blacks and Latinos during the great financial crisis
lost 60% to 80% of their wealth in college-educated households. That's why 70% of the public is increasingly woke on this subject.
GREG WILPERT: Well, we're going to leave it there. I was speaking to Bill Black, associate professor of economics and law at the
University of Missouri, Kansas City. Thanks again, Bill, for having joined us today.
BILL BLACK: Thank you.
GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
Well, Sanders certainly knows that elections are rigged. But he's not quite right when he says that money does the rigging.
It would be more accurate to say that powerful people are powerful because they're criminals, and they're rich because they're
criminals.
Money is a side effect, not the driver. Specific example: Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth, but Bernie
isn't powerful. The difference is that Bernie ISN'T willing to commit murder and blackmail to gain power.
> Hillary and Bernie are in the same category of net worth
Clinton's net worth (says Google) is $45 million; Sanders $2.5 million. So, an order of magnitude difference. I guess that
puts Sanders in the 1% category, but Clinton is much closer to the 0.1% category than Sanders.
There's also a billion-dollar foundation in the mix.
We had our choice of two New York billionaires in the last presidential election. How is this not accounted for? It's like
the bond market, the sheer weight carries its own momentum.
Very similar to CEO's. I may not own a private jet, but if the company does, and I control the company, I have the benefit
of a private jet. I don't need to own the penthouse to live in it.
"We came, we saw, he died. Tee hee hee!"
"Did it have anything to do with your visit?"
"I'm sure it did."
From a non-legal perspective at least, that makes her an accessory to murder, doesn't it?
Is it fair to say the entire system is rigged when enough interconnected parts of it are rigged that no matter where one turns,
one finds evidence of corruption? Because like it or not, that's where we are as a country.
Yes. And it is also fair to say, and has been said by lots of cynics over the centuries, that both democracy and capitalism
sow the seeds of their own destruction.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to imagine another reason the editorial
board pushed for this line *except* to protect the current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette
gets appointed we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the polity dies. Gore
Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
"Due to technical difficulties, comments are unavailable"
Pisses me off that I gave the propaganda rag of note a click and didn't even get the joy of the comments section. I'm sure
there's some cynical reason why
The other thing is that the NYT runs this pretty indefensible piece by a guy who is a visiting scholar at the American
Enterprise Institute. Just how often does NYT -- whose goal,
according to its
executive editor, "should be to understand different views" -- run a piece from anyone who is leftwing? What's the ratio of pro-establishment,
pro-Washington consensus pieces to those that are not? Glenn Greenwald
points out that the political spectrum at the NYT op-ed page "spans the small gap from establishment centrist Democrats
to establishment centrist Republicans." That, in itself, is consistent with the premise that the system is, indeed, rigged.
I think we have to drill down another level and ask ourselves a more fundamental question "why is cynicism necessarily bad
to begin with?" Black's response of parsing to individual systems as being corrupt is playing into the NYT authors trap, sort
to speak.
This NYT article is another version of the seemingly obligatory attribute of the american character; we must ultimately be
optimistic and have hope. Why is that useful? Or maybe more importantly, to whom is that useful? What is the point?
In my mind (and many a philosopher), cynicism is a very healthy, empowering response to a world whose institutional configuration
is such that it will to fuck you over whenever it is expedient to do so.
Furthermore, the act of voting lends legitimacy to an institution that is clearly not legitimate. The institution is very obviously
very corrupt. If you really want to change the "system" stop giving it legitimacy; i.e. be cynical, don't vote. The whole thing
is a ruse. Boycott it .
Some may say, in a desperate attempt to avoid being cynical, "well, the national level is corrupt but we need to increase engagement
at the community level via local elections ", or something like that. This is nothing more than rearranging the chairs on the
deck of the titanic. And collecting signature isn't going to help anymore than handing out buckets on the titanic would.
So, to answer my own rhetorical question above, "to whom is it useful to not be cynical?" It is useful to those who want things
to continue as they currently are.
So, be cynical. Don't vote. It is an empowering and healthy way to kinda say "fuck you" to the corrupt and not become corrupted
yourself by legitimizing it. The best part about it is that you don't have to do anything.
Viva la paz (Hows that for a non cynical salutation?)
Uh this sounds like the ultimate allowing things to continue as they currently are, do you really imagine the powers that be
are concerned about a low voting rate, and we have one, they don't care, they may even like it that way. Do you really imagine
they care about some phantom like perceived legitimacy? Where is the evidence of that?
Politicians do care about staying in office and will respond on some issues that will cost them enough votes to get booted
from office. But it has to be those particular issues in their own backyard; otherwise, they just kind of limp along with the
lip service collecting their paychecks.
IMO, it is sheer idiocy to not vote. If you are a voter, politicians will pay some attention to you at least. If you don't
vote, you don't even exist to them.
"I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress," said Ocasio-Cortez.
"At minimum there should be a long wait period."
"If you are a member of Congress + leave, you shouldn't be allowed to turn right around&leverage your service for a lobbyist check.
I don't think it should be legal at ALL to become a corporate lobbyist if you've served in Congress."
–AOC, as reported by NakedCapitalism on May 31, 2019
I try to be despairing, but I can't keep up.
Attributed to a generation or two after Lily Tomlin's quote about cynicism.
Out of curiosity, would it be cynical to question that political scientist's grant funding or other sources of income? These
days, I feel inclined to look at what I'll call the Sinclair Rule* , added to Betteridge's, Godwin's and all those other, ahem,
modifications to what used to be an expectation that communication was more or less honest.
* Sinclair Rule, where you add a interpretive filter based on Upton's famous quote: It is difficult to get a man to understand
something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
It's good to look at funding sources. But it's kind of a slander to those who must work for a living when assuming it's paychecks
(which we need to live in this system) that corrupt people.
If it's applied to the average working person, maybe it's often true, maybe it has a tendency to push in that direction, but
if you think there are no workers that realize the industry they are working in might be destructive, that they may be exploited
by such systems but have little choice etc. etc., come now there are working people who are politically aware and do see a larger
picture, they just don't have a lot of power to change it much of the time. Does the average working person's salary depend on
his not understanding though? No, of course not, it merely depends on him obeying. And obeying enough to keep a job, not always
understanding, is what a paycheck buys.
With all the evidence of everyday life (airplanes, drug prices, health insurance, Wall Street, CEO pay, the workforce changes
in the past 20 years if you've been working those years etc) this Greg better be careful as he might be seen as a Witch to be
hanged and burned in Salem, Ma a few hundred years ago.
It's cynical to say it's cynical to believe the system is corrupt.
Greg Weiner is cynic, and his is using his cynicism to dismiss the political arguments of people he disagrees with.
And just this week, I found out I couldn't even buy a car unless I'd be willing to sign a mandatory binding arbitration agreement.
I was ready to pay and sign all the paperwork, and they lay a document in front of me that reserves for the dealer the right to
seek any remedy against me if I harm the dealer (pay with bad check, become delinquent on loan, fail to provide clean title on
my trade); but forces me to accept mandatory binding arbitration, with damages limited to the value of the car, for anything the
dealer might do wrong.
It is not cynical at all when even car dealers now want a permission slip for any harm they might do to me.
Okay, a few more. We are literally facing the possibility of a mass extinction in large part because of dishonesty on the par
of oil companies, politicians, and people paid to make bad arguments.
"Assad (and by implication Assad's forces alone) killed 500,000 Syrians."
"Israel is just defending itself."
I can't squeeze the dishonesty about the war in Yemen into a short slogan, but I know from personal experience that getting
liberals to care when it was Obama's war was virtually impossible. Even under Trump it was hard, until Khashoggi's murder. On
the part of politicians and think tanks this was corruption by Saudi money. With ordinary people it was the usual partisan tribal
hypocrisy.
The motivator is "
Gap Psychology
," the human desire to distance oneself from those below (on any scale), and to come nearer to those above.
The rich are rich because the Gap below them is wide, and the wider the Gap, the richer they are .
And here is the important point: There are two ways the rich widen the Gap: Either gain more for themselves or make sure
those below have less.
That is why the rich promulgate the Big Lie that the federal government (and its agencies, Social Security and Medicare) is
running short of dollars. The rich want to make sure that those below them don't gain more, as that would narrow the Gap.
Negative sum game, where one wins but the other has to lose more so the party of the first part feels even better about winning.
There is an element of sadism, sociopathy and a few other behaviors that the current systems allow to be gamed even more profitably.
If you build it, or lobby to have it built, they will come multiple times.
A successful society should be responsive to both threats and opportunities. Any major problems to that society are assessed
and changes are made, usually begrudgingly, to adapt to the new situation. And this is where corruption comes into it. It short
circuits the signals that a society receives so that it ignores serious threats and elevates ones that are relatively minor but
which benefit a small segment of that society. If you want an example of this at work, back in 2016 you had about 40,000 Americans
dying to opioids each and every year which was considered only a background issue. But a major issue about that time was who gets
to use what toilets. Seriously. If it gets bad enough, a society gets overwhelmed by the problems that were ignored or were deferred
to a later time. And I regret to say that the UK is going to learn this lesson in spades.
'Sanders has said that we live in a "corrupt political system designed to protect the wealthy and the powerful." Warren said
it's a "rigged system that props up the rich and powerful and kicks dirt on everyone else."'
Yet the rest of the article focuses almost entirely on internal US shenanigans. When it comes to protecting wealth and power,
George Kennan hit the nail on the head in 1948, with "we have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3 of its population.
This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the
object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships, which will permit us
to maintain this position of disparity." This, which has underpinned US policy ever since, may not be corrupt in the sense of
illegal, but it certainly seems corrupt in the sense of morally repugnant to me.
About Kennan's comment. That's interesting because no one questioned the word "wealth". Even tho' we had only 6.3% of the world's
population we had 50% of the wealth. The point of that comment had to be that we should "spread the wealth" and we did do just
that. Until we polluted the entire planet. I'd like some MMT person to take a long look at that attitude because it is so simplistic.
And not like George Kennan at all who was sophisticated to the bone. But that's just more proof of a bred-in-the-bone ignorance
about what money really is. In this case Kennan was talking about money, not wealth. He never asked Nepal for advice on gross
national happiness, etc. Nor did he calculate the enormous debt burden we would incur for our unregulated use and abuse of the
environment. That debt most certainly offsets any "wealth" that happened.
Approaching from the opposite direction, if someone were to say "I sincerely believe that the USA has the most open & honest
political system and the fairest economic system in human history" would you not think that person to be incredibly naive (or,
cynically, a liar)?
There has been, for at least the last couple of decades. a determined effort to do away with corruption – by defining it away.
"Citizens United" is perhaps the most glaring example but the effort is ongoing; that Weiner op-ed is a good current example.
What is cynical is everyone's response when point out that the system is corrupt. They all say " always has been, always will be so just deal with it ".
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I think Liz's "the system is rigged
" comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible.
It's time to define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally become, a useful economic
ideology. High time.
Another thing. Look how irrational the world, which is now awash in money, has become over lack of liquidity. There's a big
push now to achieve an optimum flow of money by speeding up transaction time. The Fed is in the midst of designing a new real-time
digital payments system. A speedy accounting and record of everything. Which sounds like a very good idea.
But the predators are
busy keeping pace – witness the frantic grab by Facebook with Libra. Libra is cynical. To say the least. The whole thing a few
days ago on the design of Libra was frightening because Libra has not slowed down; it has filed it's private corporation papers
in Switzerland and is working toward a goal of becoming a private currency – backed by sovereign money no less! Twisted. So there's
a good discussion begging to be heard: The legitimate Federal Reserve v. Libra. The reason we are not having this discussion is
because the elite are hard-core cynics.
"... It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration. ..."
"... In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that, after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration. I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds. ..."
"... The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level. ..."
With Trump acting out egregiously and mainstream Democrats in the House doing nothing more about it than talking up a storm, it
would be hard to imagine the public mood not shifting in ways that would force a turn for the better.
Thus, despite the best efforts of Democratic National Committee flacks at MSNBC, CNN, and, of course, The New York Times, The
Washington Post, and, worst of all, PBS and NPR, the Democratic Party now has a "squad" with which its Pelosiite-Hoyerite-Schumerian
leadership must contend.
It also has Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, front-runners for the presidential nomination, who reject the neoliberal
economic policies that the Democratic Party has been championing since the waning days of the Carter administration.
In calling them front-runners, I haven't forgotten Joe Biden, still in the lead in most polls. It is just that I think that,
after nearly three years of Trump, the candidacy of a doddering Clintonite doofus doesn't – and shouldn't -- merit serious consideration.
I trust that this will become increasingly apparent even to the most dull-witted Democratic pundits, and of course to the vast majority
of Democratic voters, as the election season unfolds.
The better to defeat Trump and Trumpism next year, Sanders or Warren or whichever candidate finally gets the nod, along with
the several rays of light in Congress – there are more of them than just the four that Trump would send back to "where they came
from" -- will undoubtedly make common cause with corporate Democrats at a tactical level.
This is all to the good. Nevertheless, the time to start working to assure that it goes no deeper than that is already upon
us.
When the dust clears, it will become evident that the squad-like new guys and the leading Democrats of the past are not on the
same path; that the former want to reconstruct the Democratic Party in ways that will make it authentically progressive, while the
latter, wittingly or not, want to restore and bolster the Party that made Trump and Trumpism possible and even inevitable.
... ... ...
Could the Israel lobby be next? As Israeli politics veers ever farther to the right, its lobby's stranglehold over the Democratic
Party, though far from shot, is in plain decline -- as increasingly many American Jews, especially but not only millennials, lose
interest in the ethnocratic settler state, or find themselves embarrassed by it.
... ... ...
ANDREW LEVINE is the author most recently of THE AMERICAN IDEOLOGY (Routledge) and
POLITICAL KEY WORDS (Blackwell)
as well as of many other books and articles in political philosophy. His most recent book is
In Bad Faith: What's Wrong With the
Opium of the People . He was a Professor (philosophy) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Research Professor (philosophy)
at the University of Maryland-College Park. He is a contributor to
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics
of Illusion (AK Press).
Strawmannirg has got to be the most cynical behavior in the world. Weiner is the cynic. I
think Liz's "the system is rigged " comment invites discussion. It is not a closed door at
all. It is a plea for good capitalism. Which most people assume is possible. It's time to
define just what kind of capitalism will work and what it needs to continue to be, or finally
become, a useful economic ideology. High time.
Burns me to see yet another "water is not wet" argument being foisted by the NYT, hard to
imagine another reason the editorial board pushed for this line *except* to protect the
current corrupt one percenters who call their shots. Once Liz The Marionette gets appointed
we might get some fluff but the rot will persist, eventually rot becomes putrefaction and the
polity dies. Gore Vidal called America and Christianity "death cults".
"... This is not an unusual position. This is actually the normal position now, even among very conservative scholars, including the person who was the intellectual godfather of modern executive compensation, Michael Jensen. He has admitted that he spawned unintentionally a monster because CEOs have rigged the compensation system. How do they do that? Well, it starts even before you get hired as a CEO. This is amazing stuff. The standard thing you do as a powerful CEO is you hire this guy, and he specializes in negotiating great deals for CEOs. His first demand, which is almost always given into, is that the corporation pay his fee, not the CEO. On the other side of the table is somebody that the CEO is going to be the boss of negotiating the other side. How hard is he going to negotiate against the guy that's going to be his boss? That's totally rigged. ..."
"... Then the compensation committee hires compensation specialists who–again, even the most conservative economists agree it is a completely rigged system. Because the only way they get work is if they give this extraordinary compensation. Then, everybody in economics admits that there's a clear way you should run performance pay. It should be really long term. You get the big bucks only after like 10 years of success. In reality, they're always incredibly short term. Why? Because it's vastly easier for the CEO to rig the short-term reported earnings. What's the result of this? Accounting profession, criminology profession, economics profession, law profession. We've all done studies and all of them say this perverse system of compensation causes CEOs to (a) cheat and (b) to be extraordinarily short term in their perspective because it's easier to rig the short-term reported results. Even the most conservative economists agree that's terrible for the economy. ..."
"... That's what the right fear is more than anything, that people will basically get woke. In this, it's being woke to how individual systems have been rigged by the wealthy and powerful to create a sure thing to enrich them, usually at our direct expense. ..."
BILL BLACK: One of the principal things I study is elite fraud, corruption and predation.
The World Bank sent me to India for months as an anti-corruption alleged expert type. And as a
financial regulator, this is what I dealt with. This is what I researched. This is a huge chunk
of my life. So I wouldn't use the word, if I was being formal in an academic system, "the
system." What I would talk about is specific systems that are rigged, and they most assuredly
are rigged.
Let me give you an example. One of the most important things that has transformed the world
and made it vastly more criminogenic, much more corrupt, is modern executive compensation. This
is not an unusual position. This is actually the normal position now, even among very
conservative scholars, including the person who was the intellectual godfather of modern
executive compensation, Michael Jensen. He has admitted that he spawned unintentionally a
monster because CEOs have rigged the compensation system. How do they do that? Well, it starts
even before you get hired as a CEO. This is amazing stuff. The standard thing you do as a
powerful CEO is you hire this guy, and he specializes in negotiating great deals for CEOs. His
first demand, which is almost always given into, is that the corporation pay his fee, not the
CEO. On the other side of the table is somebody that the CEO is going to be the boss of
negotiating the other side. How hard is he going to negotiate against the guy that's going to
be his boss? That's totally rigged.
Then the compensation committee hires compensation specialists who–again, even the
most conservative economists agree it is a completely rigged system. Because the only way they
get work is if they give this extraordinary compensation. Then, everybody in economics admits
that there's a clear way you should run performance pay. It should be really long term. You get
the big bucks only after like 10 years of success. In reality, they're always incredibly short
term. Why? Because it's vastly easier for the CEO to rig the short-term reported earnings.
What's the result of this? Accounting profession, criminology profession, economics profession,
law profession. We've all done studies and all of them say this perverse system of compensation
causes CEOs to (a) cheat and (b) to be extraordinarily short term in their perspective because
it's easier to rig the short-term reported results. Even the most conservative economists agree
that's terrible for the economy.
What I've just gone through is a whole bunch of academic literature from over 40-plus years
from top scholars in four different fields. That's not cynicism. That's just plain facts if you
understand the system. People like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, they didn't, as you
say, kick open an open door. They made the open door. It's not like Elizabeth Warren started
talking about this six months ago when she started being a potential candidate. She has been
saying this and explaining in detail how individual systems are rigged in favor of the wealthy
for at least 30 years of work. Bernie Sanders has been doing it for 45 years. This is what the
right, including the author of this piece who is an ultra-far right guy, fear the most. It's
precisely what they fear, that Bernie and Elizabeth are good at explaining how particular
systems are rigged. They explain it in appropriate detail, but they're also good in making it
human. They talk the way humans talk as opposed to academics.
That's what the right fear is more than anything, that people will basically get woke. In
this, it's being woke to how individual systems have been rigged by the wealthy and powerful to
create a sure thing to enrich them, usually at our direct expense.
a farmer has at least 3 PhD qualifications just to contend in the business
No need for a tongue-in-cheek, you're on track, if manufacturing food is akin to other
manufacturing.
. . .from last year
August 2018, The fall of employment in the manufacturing sector
Today's manufacturing output is at least 5 percent greater than it was in 2000, but it has
become much more capital intensive and much less labor intensive. Accordingly, workers in
the sector are more likely to have at least some college education than their counterparts
of years past. But there are far fewer manufacturing workers overall, with about 7.5
million jobs lost since 1980.
What is most responsible for the manufacturing job losses? Rising trade with China is often
cited as a possible culprit. But competition from China only accounts for about a fourth of
the decline in manufacturing during the 2000s. This theory is further eroded by the fact
that local markets that did not compete with Chinese imports also saw employment
declines.
A skills mismatch -- the gap between the skills workers have and the skills employers need
-- has also contributed to the decline of manufacturing employment.
Prime age men and women with less than a high school degree have been hit particularly hard
by changes to manufacturing employment. As the manufacturing sector has shifted from
low-skilled to high-skilled work, workers who possess higher skill levels (e.g., engineers,
computer programmers, software developers, etc.) have become more sought after than before.
. . here
And the US supply of STEM graduates for any technical profession seems to be wanting.
Meanwhile we must recognize that employment is not directly tied to the economy, given
mechanization.
All true from both yourself and Paine/Plp except "Hard for the status quo to form a
consensus" which is inherently false based purely on semantics. The status quo must always be
a consensus of sorts or it would not be the status quo regardless of how sordid a sort of
consensus it represents. At the very least our status quo represents the effective majority
consensus of the political elite over matters of governing and simultaneously the effective
consensus of the governed to not overwhelmingly reject the majority consensus of the
political elite. This is not to say that the governed are happy about what they get, but if
they overwhelmingly rejected the political establishment then it would no longer be the
status quo political establishment. Elites learned since the Great Depression that if they
limited their abuse of the common man sufficiently then the combination of general public
apathy regarding politics and the bureaucracy along with the inherent fear of ordinary people
taking action to bring about uncertain change would forever preserve complete elite control
of government apparatus.
"... That assumption looks to be incorrect. New Deal Democrat sent us the latest post from China Law Blog, written by lawyers who specialize in Chinese law with an eye to helping businesses get set up and operate in China. The post by Dan Harris is every bit as firm as its headline: Repeat After Me: There Will be No US-China Trade Deal . It also contains a good summary of key developments and detail on the various goods targeted. Key sections: ..."
"... But what should you make of President Trump's ordering US companies to immediately start looking for an alternative to China? He can't really do that, can he? No, but in many respects this is exactly what Trump has been doing since the U.S.-China trade war began. Trump cannot literally require American companies to pull out of China, but he can and has made it so difficult that they all but have to leave China. And this is what most of the international lawyers and international trade lawyers at my firm have come to believe has been Trump's plan all along. ..."
"... Every step of the way, Trump has made it all but impossible for China to make a trade deal with the United States, which is why this blog has been consistently clear that there will be no trade deal between the United States and China . If the US-China trade war/cold war were really about trade imbalances, it would have ended long ago with China buying more soybeans and Boeing airplanes from the United States. But from the very beginning, the U.S. has demanded China stop stealing IP and open its markets for foreign companies, and there is just no way China will agree to either of these things. Lead negotiator Robert Lighthizer is without a doubt smart enough to have known this all along. All this leads us to believe that the U.S. plan has always been to force a slow decoupling of the U.S. and China and then work to convince the rest of the democratic world (the EU, Australia, Canada, Latin America, Japan, etc.) to decouple from China, as well. In June, in Does China WANT a Second Decoupling? The Chinese Texts Say That it Does we wrote of how China wants this decoupling, as well. ..."
"... The fact that Trump issues this "order" amidst rising recession fears only highlights how ending U.S.-China trade is at the top of his to-do list. ..."
"... The critical part of the China Law Blog's reading is that the Trump Administration is deadly serious about its two big asks, intellectual property and market access. It's credible to attribute that to Trump's US Trade Representative, Lighthizer. As Lambert put it, Lighthizer is the closest thing this Administration has to a Jim Baker. Lighthizer started at Covington & Burling, then served in the Regan Administration as Deputy USTR before going to Skadden. Lighthizer is as fierce a China hawk as they come and has a long history of saying that the entry of China into the WTO was at the expense of US jobs (see here , for instance) and even making a full-throated defense of protectionism . ..."
"... In April, China made a concession to the US by designating all fetanyl products as controlled substances, in the hope that that would reduce shipments to the US. The DEA has stated that China is the main source of US fentanyl . Fentanyl accounted 18,000 overdose deaths in 2018, one fourth of the total. If you count all synthetic opioids, the toll rises to 28,000. China nevertheless claimed even then that fentanyl shipments to the US were "extremely limited" . ..."
"... Fentanyl featured in the escalation on Friday, and it could conceivably serve as the basis for a national emergency threat (even though, per the discussion earlier, it would have good odds of being overturned). One of Trump's four tweets urged US carriers to do more to halt shipments arriving from China or other destinations (Mexico is believed to be a route for the entry of Chinese fentanyl to the US). ..."
"... In May I had a conversation with a long-time friend. My friend works for a global manufacturer with a household name. He has helped oversee construction of plants around the world. He helps source components from around the world. He told me that "everybody's moving out" (of China). ..."
"... A few short years ago they had the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated. This was nicknamed the "everybody but China" pact as that was its mission – to cut China out of the Pacific. Add to that the "Pivot to Asia" introduced by Obama which was to militarily threaten China and the writing was on the wall for China. They were to be boxed in and shut down. Trump may be the front man now for this effort but all the China-hawks have come out of the woodwork to be let loose in the government. ..."
"... I suppose that the plan is to force US companies to bail out of China and relocate to places like Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, etc. But the question is whether these countries have the infrastructure to support these new factories? ..."
"... I have mentioned before the idea of a multipolar world and I believe that we re seeing it now in action. The US and its vassals will be one pole and another one is forming around China, Iran and Russia. I doubt that the EU will be another as they are following what Trump orders even if reluctantly. There may be another factor. For centuries we have had an economy predicated on growth but I suspect that by the end of this century will will have one based on contraction due to climate change and depletion of resources. Better strap in. It could be a bumpy ride. ..."
Trump has been up to what he seems to like to do best: whipsawing those who might be affected by his plans. On Friday, he put
Mr. Market and huge swathes of Corporate America in a tizzy by retaliating against China's tariff increases. China announced that
it would impose new tariffs on $75 billion of US goods and the restart of tariffs on autos and auto parts. Trump tweeted that he
would increase tariffs on Chinese goods already subject to tariffs: the $250 billion at 25% would go to 30% on October 1and the $300
billion at 10% would go to 15% in phases, on September 1 and December 1. Trump also "hereby ordered" US companies to pull out of
China, suggesting that he'd rely on the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977.
Then, as most of you have likely heard, Trump made remarks at the G-7 summit that we widely interpreted as an indicator that he'd
back off again, by admitting to regrets about how the trade spat was going. When the press took up that line, Trump doubled down,
with the White House releasing a statement that Trump's sole regret was not raising tariffs higher.
Needless to say, the all-too-typical Trump to-ing and fro-ing made for an easy target.
From the Washington Post :
Former treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, a veteran of the Clinton and Obama administrations, said the White House's conflicting
statements were just the latest in a string of mixed messages that had made it impossible for people to understand its agenda.
"Deeply misguided policy and strategy has been joined for some time by dubious negotiating tactics, with promises not kept
and threats not carried out on a regular basis," Summers said in an interview. "We are at a new stage now with very erratic presidential
behavior and frequent denials of obvious reality. I know of no U.S. historical precedent."
And despite rousing himself to make a show of his resolve, the Administration did back down on one part of Trump's Friday missives,
that of "ordering" US companies to get out of Dodge, um, China.
From
the Wall Street Journal :
Aides to President Trump said Sunday he has no plans to invoke emergency powers and force companies to relocate operations
from China
"What he is suggesting to American businesses," [economic adviser] Mr. [Larry] Kudlow said, is that "you ought to think about
moving your operations and your supply chains away from China and secondly, we'd like you to come back home."
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin also weighed in, telling "Fox News Sunday" that the president didn't have plans to invoke
emergency powers to force U.S. companies out of China.
"I think what he was saying is he's ordering companies to start looking," Mr. Mnuchin said."
The Journal also pointed out that Trump might have trouble forcing companies to exit:
Both Messrs. Mnuchin and Kudlow said that the president could theoretically force U.S. companies to leave China by invoking
a law known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977, or IEEPA .
According to the Congressional Research Service, IEEPA can be used to deal with "any unusual and extraordinary threat" outside
the U.S. "to the national security, foreign policy or economy of the United States, if the president declares a national emergency
with respect to such threat."
The president is required "in every possible instance" to consult with Congress before exercising authorities granted by IEEPA,
and to specify in a report to lawmakers why the circumstances constitute a threat and why the actions are necessary, CRS said
in a briefing paper on the law issued earlier this year. The president must submit follow-up reports every six months .
Rod Hunter, a partner at Baker McKenzie and expert on international trade, said Mr. Trump could declare a state of emergency
and issue the order, but that doesn't mean it will stand.
"Congress could effectively override such a decision, and private parties would certainly challenge the action as an unconstitutional
takings, a violation of due process rights and beyond the statutory authority granted to the president by Congress," Mr. Hunter
said in an email.
Mind you, just like Brexit, there is a way to do what Trump wants to do that would not be so destructive and shambolic. Trump's
China policy appears to be intended to make American more economically self-sufficient so as to improve the prosperity of US workers,
as well as curb a competing imperialist.
But as we've described at some length in earlier posts, restoring America's manufacturing capabilities isn't just a matter of
weaning itself off cheap Chinese imports. The US has ceded a tremendous amount of know-how, from the factory floor on up. Getting
that back is a generation-long undertaking, requiring commitment to a national strategy that would include significant government
investment in fundamental research, renewed emphasis on education, including much cheaper higher education and vocational training
for those that aren't suited or inclined to go to college, and a reorientation of government spending and subsidies to favor productive
sectors over the connected. Not only would it be difficult to get any Administration to embrace open industrial policy, particularly
one that would break a lot of rice bowls (such as in our hugely wasteful arms industry and our bloated financial sector), maintaining
it beyond even a two-term Presidency would be an even taller order.
But where is the Trump tariff cage match likely to wind up? Given how often Trump has backed off when Mr. Market has had a hissy,
most commentator appear to have assumed before Friday's tit for tat that Trump would back down, if nothing else, in the form of allowing
a lot of exceptions, and the US and China would find a way for Trump to get enough concessions from China that he could declare peace
with honor.
That assumption looks to be incorrect. New Deal Democrat sent us the latest post from China Law Blog, written by lawyers who
specialize in Chinese law with an eye to helping businesses get set up and operate in China. The post by Dan Harris is every bit
as firm as its headline:
Repeat After
Me: There Will be No US-China Trade Deal . It also contains a good summary of key developments and detail on the various goods
targeted. Key sections:
The US-China Trade War Is and Will be the New Normal
I hate to say we told you so, but for nearly a year, WE TOLD YOU SO. Since October, 2018 we have been all but screaming at
anyone and everyone who has product made in China and sold into the United States to get out of China fast, if at all possible.
We say this and we set out the below timeline to prove this not so much to show that we have been right all along, but to try
to convince you that we are right when we now say there will be no resolution to the US-China trade war for a very long
time and you need to act accordingly.
The below is our timeline/proof of our having predicted a straight-line decline in US-China trade relations
But what should you make of President Trump's ordering US companies to immediately start looking for an alternative
to China? He can't really do that, can he? No, but in many respects this is exactly what Trump has been doing since the U.S.-China
trade war began. Trump cannot literally require American companies to pull out of China, but he can and has made it so difficult
that they all but have to leave China. And this is what most of the international lawyers and international trade lawyers at my
firm have come to believe has been Trump's plan all along.
Every step of the way, Trump has made it all but impossible for China to make a trade deal with the United States, which
is why this blog has been consistently clear that there will be no trade deal between the United States and China . If the US-China
trade war/cold war were really about trade imbalances, it would have ended long ago with China buying more soybeans and Boeing
airplanes from the United States. But from the very beginning, the U.S. has demanded China stop stealing IP and open its markets
for foreign companies, and there is just no way China will agree to either of these things. Lead negotiator Robert Lighthizer
is without a doubt smart enough to have known this all along. All this leads us to believe that the U.S. plan has always been
to force a slow decoupling of the U.S. and China and then work to convince the rest of the democratic world (the EU, Australia,
Canada, Latin America, Japan, etc.) to decouple from China, as well. In June, in
Does China WANT a Second Decoupling? The Chinese Texts Say That it Does we wrote of how China wants this decoupling, as well.
This latest Trump "order" does not have the force of law, so in that respect it is not an order at all. But in most other respects
it is. This order indicates Trump's passionate desire to rid the United States of what he sees as the China
scourge . More importantly, it is yet another
clear signal that he will continue to escalate this war with China until such time as he considers the United States to be victorious.
The fact that Trump issues this "order" amidst rising recession fears only highlights how ending U.S.-China trade is at the
top of his to-do list.
So in terms of what this means for your business, it means that you must stop believing there will be a solution to the trade
war that will allow you to go back to doing business with China the way you used to do business with China. You need to instead
recognize that this situation is the New Normal as between the United States and China and that, if anything, things are way more
likely to get worse than they are to get better.
I'm persuaded by this point of view because these writers have adopted the perspective that we've found to be very useful in other
geopolitical negotiations, which is to look at the bargaining position of both sides and see if there is any overlap. If there isn't,
there won't be an agreement unless one of both parties makes a significant concession.
One reason that other observers have likely missed what the China Law Blog discern is that there's an Anglo-American tendency
to assume that differences can be settled and a deal can be had. But as Sir Ivan Rogers pointed out with Brexit, and you have similar
dynamics with the US and China, there aren't precedents for trade deals where the two sides want to get further apart rather than
closer. Sir Ivan is of the point of view that the desire to disengage makes it much harder to come to terms.
The critical part of the China Law Blog's reading is that the Trump Administration is deadly serious about its two big asks,
intellectual property and market access. It's credible to attribute that to Trump's US Trade Representative, Lighthizer. As Lambert
put it, Lighthizer is the closest thing this Administration has to a Jim Baker. Lighthizer started at Covington & Burling, then served
in the Regan Administration as Deputy USTR before going to Skadden. Lighthizer is as fierce a China hawk as they come and has a long
history of saying that the entry of China into the WTO was at the expense of US jobs (see
here , for instance)
and even making a full-throated defense of
protectionism .
A part of the trade spat that hasn't gotten the attention it warrants and seems to confirm the China Law Blog's thesis is the
arm-wrestling over China's fetanyl exports to the US. It's not hard to see that this is an inherently important issue, since as I
understand it, fentanyl is so potent that it is very easy to overdose on it, making it markedly more dangerous than other addictive
drugs. In other words, the high death rate of fentanyl may make reducing supply a more effective strategy than it normally is in
"the war on drugs". Substitution with just about any other controlled substance would be less dangerous. And if Trump were to make
a dent in this problem, it would serve as a PR offset to some of the costs of his China strategy, like lost soyabean exports.
Fentanyl featured in the escalation on Friday, and it could conceivably serve as the basis for a national emergency threat
(even though, per the discussion earlier, it would have good odds of being overturned). One of Trump's four tweets urged US carriers
to do more to halt shipments arriving from China or other destinations (Mexico is believed to be a route for the entry of Chinese
fentanyl to the US).
In other words, it's not clear where this row ends, but there doesn't seem to be a path to depressurization, much the less resolution.
President Trump said China called U.S. officials on Sunday evening and said "let's get back to the table," a day after the
White House said the president regretted not escalating tariffs further on Chinese goods.
Speaking to reporters alongside Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, Mr. Trump called the discussions a "very positive
development." .
The Chinese government didn't immediately respond to Mr. Trump's remarks or to requests to corroborate the president's account
of a phone call having taken place. Chinese government officials have repeatedly said that Beijing wants to negotiate differences
on trade. On Monday, Beijing's lead trade negotiator, Vice Premier Liu He, told a conference that China still wants to continue
trade talks with the U.S. following heightened tensions in the past few days.
In May I had a conversation with a long-time friend. My friend works for a global manufacturer with a household name. He
has helped oversee construction of plants around the world. He helps source components from around the world. He told me that
"everybody's moving out" (of China).
The ones who can have not waited for Trump's message of Friday.
A few short years ago they had the Trans-Pacific Partnership being negotiated. This was nicknamed the "everybody but China"
pact as that was its mission – to cut China out of the Pacific. Add to that the "Pivot to Asia" introduced by Obama which was
to militarily threaten China and the writing was on the wall for China. They were to be boxed in and shut down. Trump may be the
front man now for this effort but all the China-hawks have come out of the woodwork to be let loose in the government.
I suppose that the plan is to force US companies to bail out of China and relocate to places like Vietnam, India, Bangladesh,
etc. But the question is whether these countries have the infrastructure to support these new factories? Do they have a trained,
educated workforce to man these factories? Is there a will to move to such places? As far as those countries are concerned, these
new companies could be seen as a two-edged sword. Yes they will bring investment and opportunities in those countries. But how
will they know if a Trump or someone like him later on will not order those factories out if there is a dispute or if the US demands
that those countries change their laws and open themselves up to financial exploitation? Trump is demanding the same of China
right now. And will Trump demand that all the other western countries move out of China?
I have mentioned before the idea of a multipolar world and I believe that we re seeing it now in action. The US and its
vassals will be one pole and another one is forming around China, Iran and Russia. I doubt that the EU will be another as they
are following what Trump orders even if reluctantly. There may be another factor. For centuries we have had an economy predicated
on growth but I suspect that by the end of this century will will have one based on contraction due to climate change and depletion
of resources. Better strap in. It could be a bumpy ride.
This is all pretty interesting. More theater than trade. And the reason is that there is no demand. Demographics has a lot
to do with it as well. It might not make any difference now how much a company can cut costs by moving to SE Asia because nobody
will be very eager to buy more crap anyway. And manufacturing cannot up and move cheaply if they have to reinvent and retool their
processes to make them more environmentally acceptable. It's a sea change. And a tap-dance.
According to this article,"
The DEA has stated that
China is the main source of US fentanyl. " I followed the link, and found "The DEA has said China is a main
source of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids." Which I take as meaning that even if the US could totally shut down Chinese
synthetic opioid production, someone will still be making and supplying it.
So, if the facts as given above are reconfigured, all it would take is for the Chinese producers of synthetic opioids to pay
the US patent holders their due. Problem solved! All kidding aside, the demands to get intellectual property paid for requires
a very pliant judicial system to actually recognize that an idea should be rightfully owned by a person.
Individual agency is a product of 'enlightenment' thinking which opened the pathway for an idea to be the creation of a person
who willed the idea into existence. A few steps later, a corporation becomes a person and then a group of people can somehow own
a single idea and be able to rent that idea out. To think that the Chinese would accept this cockamamie/historically embedded/English
common law idea would be to deny their own culturally based motivated reasoning.
I don't know how this situation will be resolved, but it is quite laughable that the diversion through tariffs of IP revenues
which in US legal logic should be paid to Corporations is actually going to go to the US Treasury.
"All this leads us to believe that the U.S. plan has always been to force a slow decoupling of the U.S. and China and then
work to convince the rest of the democratic world (the EU, Australia, Canada, Latin America, Japan, etc.) to decouple from China,
as well"
That is about right, and I do not doubt that this is the desire of Trump's negotiating team. Nor do I doubt that they can easily
steer talks to fail as described (by asking for concessions on market access favorable to the US side, AND by refusing to back
down on Huawei etc).
However, while effectively forcing a decoupling of China and US is straightforward, controlling its speed is not. Pull the
plug too fast (which China can threaten to accelerate), and some big US companies eat it. While Lighthizer and friends may be
willing to pay that price, it will make a lot of others very nervous.
Then, perhaps more importantly, is forcing the rest of the world to follow suit (or else there is no point). JP, ROK, DE (the
high tech suppliers besides US) all trade at least as much with China as US. The world market buying Chinese made goods is also
bigger than the US. It would take some skillful diplomacy to make it happen. This is not only beyond the level of the Trump admin,
but I would say all US administrations since the year 2000, with the Iran deal maybe the only exception I can think of.
China will end up defending itself by getting the overly aggressive and self-discrediting Team Trump reelected. By openly provoking
a small proxy conflict for example. Trump gets to do his Ronald Reagan act, which is what his audience wants. It will be a weird
political symbiosis. (an oversized personality can't survive without a suitably inflated enemy, and Joe Biden is no Hillary Clinton.
The media will play along – such drama is the only thing keeping them in business now.)
Anyway, if there is a counterbalancing force to prevent this, I would think it is wall street.
Apparently the US federal workers pension plan has started investing in index funds which include some Chinese companies that
have been in Trump & Co's target list. From the FT this morning:
The letter -- a copy of which was seen by the Financial Times -- said an impending investment shift by the FRTIB would mean
that about $50bn in US government pensions becomes exposed to the "severe and undisclosed" risks of being invested in selected
Chinese companies.
The letter, dated August 26, was copied to senior US officials including Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, and Steven
Mnuchin, Treasury secretary.
"The Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board made a short-sighted -- and foolish -- decision to effectively fund the
Chinese government and Communist party's efforts to undermine US economic and national security with the retirement savings
of members of the US Armed Services and other federal employees," Mr Rubio told the Financial Times.
One thing I remember from early on in this dispute was the US wanting more opportunities to invest in the Chinese market beyond
just exports/manufacturing. If pension funds are getting involved I would think that private investors would like to do the same
thing, which would make long-term decoupling more difficult, especially if US businesses also want to sell things to people in
China even if those things are made elsewhere.
As always your post was very informative and helpful and I certainly believe that pulling the US out of China is the goal of
this whole trade dispute. I just wonder if things like this will put a damper on their plans.
"... I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016 primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they hate her ..."
"... I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now. ..."
"... They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens - including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided with Hillary, not Bernie. ..."
Michael Tracey is the one that wrote the RCP article and also has a video on the topic.
He also does a great job calling out the Russiagate BS.
"Tulsi getting screwed by the DNC" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZMMlQNidlQ&t=440s
There is only one more qualifying poll Monmouth ( tomorrow) before the debates and she
needs two more. Even though the she has qualified in numerous polls such as the Boston
Globe that are not allowed by the DNC. Yes they screwed her.
"It's Official--Tulsi to be Screwed Out of 3rd Debate!!" https://caucus99percent.com/content/its-official-tulsi-be-screwed-out-3rd-debate
I have been for Tulsi because of her foreign policy and wanted her to be able to
give voice to her position during the primary so as to move Bernie to improve his foreign
policy positions and also the public. Tulsi was the one who quit the DNC during the 2016
primary over how Bernie was cheated, so is not afraid to stand up to power - and why they
hate her .
I believe that the Democratic leadership does not want Tulsi in the debates because
they do not want her to take out another candidate like she did in the second debate to
Harris at -12% at around 5% now - not a top tier candidate now.
I am loving now how Bernie is taking on the corporate media and their BS to their
faces.
"Bernie Sanders took a well-deserved shot at The Washington Post this week, saying that
the Jeff Bezos-owned paper doesn't like him because he routinely goes after Amazon for the
horrible treatment of their workers. NBC wasn't too happy about this, and claimed that
Bernie was assaulting "the free press," and said his attacks were just like Trump's"
The powers that be really wanted Joe Biden, but it will become obvious in the coming
months that he has serious cognitive issues - ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2Q0E2dzTJw
).
The only other viable candidate against Bernie is Warren , which it appears the elite
are falling in love with. Warren didn't become a Democrat until 2011 or when she was 62. In
the 90's Warren was on the side of Dow Chemical in the breast implant cases, helping to
reduce payouts to the victims. She will be like Obama - Hope and Change during the election
and Neoliberal when president. I read the NYTimes to see what the Oligarchs are up too.
They have given numerous hit job articles to Bernie, while all of Warrens -
including today - are glowing. That should be a clue about Warren. Also in 2016 she sided
with Hillary, not Bernie.
The IMF loan seems designed to get Macri past the election. It has been used to support
capital flight: to support the peso, the Central Bank sells dollars to "importers" that then
stash the money abroad. This is illegal according to IMF loan terms but the IMF is looking the
other way. It has been granted unprecedented authority to oversee and overrule the Central Bank,
so its failure to act is really suspicious, and reeks of political pressure to crush the left in
Latin America.
Notable quotes:
"... The government also wasted more than $16 billion in unsuccessful attempts to keep the peso from falling, and greatly increased the more problematic foreign component of the public debt. The result has been near-constant recession and high inflation, enormous interest rates, peso depreciation, financial instability, and the huge run-up in public debt. The debt increase is particularly noteworthy because Mr. Macri inherited a low level of public debt. ..."
"... Ironically, the IMF is well-known in Argentina for promoting similarly unworkable policies during the deep depression of 1998 to 2002 -- comparable to America's Great Depression of the 1930s. Yes, history is repeating itself, although in this case the IMF has a stronger partnership with the government than it had 20 years ago. ..."
"... Millions of Argentines remember the last depression and the role the IMF played. Many also remember the rapid improvement in people's lives over the ensuing decade. This collective memory and consciousness may now determine the outcome of this recurring debate over the economy, and with it, the October election, and possibly much of Argentina's future. ..."
"... The IMF loan seems designed to get Macri past the election. It has been used to support capital flight: to support the peso, the Central Bank sells dollars to "importers" that then stash the money abroad. This is illegal according to IMF loan terms but the IMF is looking the other way. It has been granted unprecedented authority to oversee and overrule the Central Bank, so its failure to act is really suspicious, and reeks of political pressure to crush the left in Latin America. ..."
Who is to Blame for Argentina's Economic Crisis?
By Mark Weisbrot - New York Times
What are we to make of Argentina's surprise election results on Monday, which jolted
pollsters and analysts alike, and roiled the country's financial markets? In the presidential
primary for the country's October election, the opposition ticket of Alberto Fernández
trounced the incumbent president Mauricio Macri by an unexpected margin of 47.7 to 32.1
percent.
The Fernández coalition attributes their victory to Mr. Macri's failed economic
policies, blaming him for the current economic crisis, recession, and high inflation. Mr.
Macri, by contrast, blames the fear of a future government of Kirchnerism -- his label for
the opposition -- for both the postelection financial turbulence and also the problems of the
economy since he took office more than three and a half years ago. He argues that both the
markets and the people have everything to fear from such an outcome.
This disagreement is not just an academic argument, nor one specific to Argentina. It is a
recurring, almost archetypical debate during economic crises that spill over into political
contests. In recent years -- in the UK, Spain, France, Greece, and other countries where
failed economic policies faced left-of-center challengers -- Macri's refrain was a frequent
line of attack by incumbents.
Financial markets can move for many reasons, which can be unclear or even based on
misperceptions of reality. In the case of this week's news, we have electoral losses by a
government whose economic policies have clearly failed; and gains by challengers who hail
from a period of strong and widely shared economic growth. This is not something that is
inherently bad for the economy.
With Kirchnerism, Mr. Macri refers to the policies, followers, and presidential
administrations of the Kirchner family, which held office from 2003 to 2015 -- first
Néstor Kirchner, and then Cristina Fernández de Kirchner. The latter is running
as vice-presidential candidate of Alberto Fernández, and is a prominent leader of the
opposition coalition -- although this coalition is much larger and broader than the
"kirchnerista" base.
From the point of view of an economist or social scientist, it's not clear why Kirchnerism
should inspire fear. Looking at the most important economic and social indicators, the
government of the Kirchner presidencies was one of the most successful in the Western
Hemisphere during this period.
Independent estimates show a decline of 71 percent in poverty, and an 81 percent decline
in extreme poverty. The government instituted one of the biggest conditional cash transfer
programs for the poor in Latin America. According to the International Monetary Fund, gross
domestic product per person grew by 42 percent, almost three times the rate of Mexico.
Unemployment fell by more than half, and inequality also fell considerably.
Although economic growth waned in the last few years, and the government made some
mistakes, the result of these two administrations delivered large increases in living
standards for the vast majority of Argentines, by any reasonable comparison.
Economic growth waned in the last few years of her presidency and her government was dealt
an external economic blow. A 2012 ruling of a federal appeals court in New York, widely
regarded dubious and political, took more than 90 percent of Argentina's creditors hostage in
order to force payment to a small group of "vulture funds," who refused to join the debt
restructuring of the early 2000s. The United States government blocked loans from
international lenders such as the Inter-American Development Bank, at a time when the economy
needed the foreign exchange.
By comparison, poverty has increased significantly, income per person has fallen, and
unemployment has increased during Mr. Macri's term, which began in December 2015. Short-term
interest rates, have shot up from 32 percent to 75 percent today; inflation has risen from 18
percent to 56 percent. The public debt has grown from 53 percent of GDP to more than 86
percent last year.
How much of this economic crisis and poor performance is his predecessor's fault?
In 2018 Mr. Macri signed an agreement for a $57 billion loan -- the largest bailout in
history. The loan agreement, along with the reviews since, spell out the government's
economic goals, strategy, and implementation. There is a lot of information publicly
available that details what went wrong.
The main strategy of the program was to restore investor confidence through tighter fiscal
and monetary policy. But, as has often happened, these measures slowed the economy and
undermined investor confidence. By October, the results were vastly worse than the IMF had
projected. The government and IMF doubled down by increasing both fiscal and monetary
tightening, but this did not help.
The government also wasted more than $16 billion in unsuccessful attempts to keep the peso
from falling, and greatly increased the more problematic foreign component of the public
debt. The result has been near-constant recession and high inflation, enormous interest
rates, peso depreciation, financial instability, and the huge run-up in public debt. The debt
increase is particularly noteworthy because Mr. Macri inherited a low level of public
debt.
Ironically, the IMF is well-known in Argentina for promoting similarly unworkable policies
during the deep depression of 1998 to 2002 -- comparable to America's Great Depression of the
1930s. Yes, history is repeating itself, although in this case the IMF has a stronger
partnership with the government than it had 20 years ago.
The Fernández candidates will have to outline how they would get out of this mess.
They can explain how Argentina exited from a much more severe economic crisis, with an
unemployment more than twice as high, and millions of previously middle class people having
fallen into poverty. They can assure creditors that there is no need for default on the
public debt today, as there was then, because it was completely unpayable. But, as in 2003,
the economy cannot recover under the conditions agreed upon with the IMF, and these will have
to be renegotiated.
Millions of Argentines remember the last depression and the role the IMF played. Many also
remember the rapid improvement in people's lives over the ensuing decade. This collective
memory and consciousness may now determine the outcome of this recurring debate over the
economy, and with it, the October election, and possibly much of Argentina's future.
The IMF has learned nothing since the Washington Consensus started being implemented in the
1980s but at least Argentines are quickly repudiating the neoliberals and their savage
policies, until they forget again in a generation.
The IMF loan seems designed to get Macri past the election. It has been used to support
capital flight: to support the peso, the Central Bank sells dollars to "importers" that then
stash the money abroad. This is illegal according to IMF loan terms but the IMF is looking
the other way. It has been granted unprecedented authority to oversee and overrule the
Central Bank, so its failure to act is really suspicious, and reeks of political pressure to
crush the left in Latin America.
Fernandez has already stated that under current terms the loan is unpayable and the terms
will have to be renegotiated.
The situation is similar to Greece and shows that, absent capital controls and decreased
dependency on imports, having your own currency is not enough protection against bondage to
multinational banks.
The situation is similar to Greece and shows that, absent capital controls and decreased
dependency on imports, having your own currency is not enough protection against bondage to
multinational banks....
[ This was the lesson taught and learned by a few countries in the wake of the Asian
currency crises that developed from 1996-1997. These were really Asian, Latin American
currency crises, but the lesson was indelibly learned in Asia.
There is a reason China and Japan and Korea increased foreign currency reserves from
1997-1998.
China Did Not Trick the US -- Trade Negotiators Served Corporate Interests
By Dean Baker
The New York Times ran an article * last week with a headline saying that the 2020
Democratic presidential contenders faced a serious problem: "how to be tougher on trade than
Trump." Serious readers might have struggled with the idea of getting "tough on trade." After
all, trade is a tool, like a screwdriver. Is it possible to get tough on a screwdriver?
While the Times's headline may be especially egregious, it is characteristic of trade
coverage which takes an almost entirely Trumpian view of the topic. The media portray the
issue of some countries, most obviously China, benefiting at the expense of the United
States. Nothing could be more completely at odds with reality.
China has a huge trade surplus with the United States, about $420 billion (2.1 percent of
GDP) as of 2018. However, this doesn't mean that China is winning at the expense of the
United States and because of "stupid" trade negotiators, as Trump puts it.
The U.S. trade deficit with China was not an accident. Both Republican and Democratic
administrations signed trade deals that made it easy to manufacture goods in China and other
countries, and then export them back to the United States.
In many cases, this meant that large U.S. corporations, like General Electric and Boeing,
outsourced parts of their operations to China to take advantage of low-cost labor there. In
other cases, retailers like Walmart set up low-cost supply chains so that they could undercut
their competitors in the U.S. market.
General Electric, Boeing, Walmart and the rest did not lose from our trade deficit with
China. In fact, the trade deficit was the result of their efforts to increase their profits.
They have little reason to be unhappy with the trade deals negotiated over the last three
decades.
It is a very different story for workers in the United States. As a result of the
exploding trade deficit, we lost 3.4 million manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2007, 20
percent of the workers in the sector. This is before the collapse of the housing bubble led
to the Great Recession. We lost 40 percent of all unionized jobs in manufacturing.
This job loss not only reduced the pay of manufacturing workers, but as these displaced
workers flooded into other sectors, it put downward pressure on the pay of less-educated
workers generally. This is a pretty awful story, but it is not a story of China tricking our
so-called stupid negotiators; it is a story of smart negotiators who served well the interest
of corporations.
For some reason, the media always accept the Trumpian narrative that the large trade
deficits the U.S. runs with China (and most of the rest of the world) were the result of
other countries outsmarting our negotiators, or at least an accidental result of past trade
deals. The media never say that large trade deficits were a predictable outcome of a trade
policy designed to serve the wealthy.
The fact that trade is a story of winners and losers within countries, rather than between
countries, is especially important now that our trade conflicts are entering a new phase,
especially with China. While not generally endorsing Trump's reality TV show tactics, most
reporting has taken the position that "we" in the U.S. have genuine grounds for complaint
with China.
The complaints don't center on the under-valuation of China's currency, which is a problem
for manufacturing workers. Rather, the issue that takes center stage is the supposed theft by
China of our intellectual property.
While this sort of claim is routinely asserted, the overwhelming majority of people in the
United States have never had any intellectual property stolen by China. It is companies like
Boeing, GE, Pfizer and Merck that are upset about China not respecting their patent and
copyright claims, and they want the rest of us to have a trade war to defend them.
If the goals of trade policies were put to a vote, these companies would be hugely
outnumbered. However, they can count on the strong support of the media in both the opinion
pages, and more importantly, the news pages. The issue is entirely framed in their favor, and
dissenting voices are as likely to be heard as in the People's Republic of China.
There is a lot at stake in preserving the myth that ordinary workers were hurt as just an
accidental byproduct of globalization. The story is that it just happens to be the case that
hundreds of millions of people in the developing world are willing to do the same work as our
manufacturing workers for a lot less money.
Yes, the loss of millions of manufacturing jobs is a sad story, but is just part of the
picture. There are also millions of smart ambitious people in the developing world who are
willing to do the same work as our doctors, dentists, lawyers and other professions for a lot
less money.
But the people who design trade policy have made sure that these people don't have the
opportunity to put the same downward pressure on our most highly paid workers, as did their
counterparts working in families. And, for what it's worth, the trade model works the same
when we're talking about doctors as manufacturing workers. Less pay for U.S. doctors means
lower cost health care, just as lower pay for textile workers means cheaper clothes.
The key point is that winners in the global economy, along with the big corporations, got
their good fortune because they rigged the process, not because of anything inherent in the
nature of globalization. (This is the point of my book Rigged: How the Rules of Globalization
and the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer. ** )
On this basic point, the media have no more interest in truth than Donald Trump. Hence, we
can expect further media parroting about being "tough" on trade.
"... Still, even if Trump isn't making sense, will China give in to his demands? The short answer is, "What demands?" Trump mainly seems exercised by China's trade surplus with America, which has multiple causes and isn't really under the Chinese government's control. ..."
"... Others in his administration seem concerned by China's push into high-technology industries, which could indeed threaten U.S. dominance. But China is both an economic superpower and relatively poor compared with the U.S.; it's grossly unrealistic to imagine that such a country can be bullied into scaling back its technological ambitions ..."
"... Which brings us to the question of how much power the U.S. really has in this situation. ..."
"... So while Trump's tariffs certainly hurt the Chinese, Beijing is fairly well placed to counter their effects. China can pump up domestic spending with monetary and fiscal stimulus; it can boost its exports, to the world at large as well as to America, by letting the yuan fall. ..."
"... At the same time, China can inflict pain of its own. It can buy its soybeans elsewhere, hurting U.S. farmers. As we saw this week, even a mostly symbolic weakening of the yuan can send U.S. stocks plunging. ..."
"... And America's ability to counter these moves is hindered by a combination of technical and political factors. The Fed can cut rates, but not very much given how low they are already. We could do a fiscal stimulus, but having rammed through a plutocrat-friendly tax cut in 2017, Trump would have to make real concessions to Democrats to get anything more -- something he probably won't do. ..."
"... So Trump is in a much weaker position than he imagines, and my guess is that China's mini-devaluation of its currency was an attempt to educate him in that reality. But I very much doubt he has learned anything. His administration has been steadily hemorrhaging people who know anything about economics, and reports indicate that Trump isn't even listening to the band of ignoramuses he has left. ..."
China Tries to Teach Trump Economics
But he doesn't seem to be learning.
By Paul Krugman
If you want to understand the developing trade war with China, the first thing you need to
realize is that nothing Donald Trump is doing makes sense. His views on trade are incoherent.
His demands are incomprehensible. And he vastly overrates his ability to inflict damage on
China while underrating the damage China can do in return.
The second thing you need to realize is that China's response so far has been fairly
modest and measured, at least considering the situation. The U.S. has implemented or
announced tariffs on virtually everything China sells here, with average tariff rates not
seen in generations. The Chinese, by contrast, have yet to deploy anything like the full
range of tools at their disposal to offset Trump's actions and hurt his political base.
Why haven't the Chinese gone all out? It looks to me as if they're still trying to teach
Trump some economics. What they've been saying through their actions, in effect, is: "You
think you can bully us. But you can't. We, on the other hand, can ruin your farmers and crash
your stock market. Do you want to reconsider?"
There is, however, no indication that this message is getting through. Instead, every time
the Chinese pause and give Trump a chance to rethink, he takes it as vindication and pushes
even harder. What this suggests, in turn, is that sooner or later the warning shots will turn
into an all-out trade and currency war.
About Trump's views: His incoherence is on view almost every day, but one of his recent
tweets was a perfect illustration. Remember, Trump has been complaining nonstop about the
strength of the dollar, which he claims puts America at a competitive disadvantage. On Monday
he got the Treasury Department to declare China a currency manipulator, which was true seven
or eight years ago but isn't true now. Yet the very next day he wrote triumphantly that
"massive amounts of money from China and other parts of the world is pouring into the United
States," which he declared "a beautiful thing to see."
Um, what happens when "massive amounts of money" pour into your country? Your currency
rises, which is exactly what Trump is complaining about. And if lots of money were flooding
out of China, the yuan would be plunging, not experiencing the trivial (2 percent) decline
that Treasury condemned.
Oh well. I guess arithmetic is just a hoax perpetrated by the deep state.
Still, even if Trump isn't making sense, will China give in to his demands? The short
answer is, "What demands?" Trump mainly seems exercised by China's trade surplus with
America, which has multiple causes and isn't really under the Chinese government's
control.
Others in his administration seem concerned by China's push into high-technology
industries, which could indeed threaten U.S. dominance. But China is both an economic
superpower and relatively poor compared with the U.S.; it's grossly unrealistic to imagine
that such a country can be bullied into scaling back its technological ambitions .
Which brings us to the question of how much power the U.S. really has in this
situation.
America is, of course, a major market for Chinese goods, and China buys relatively little
in return, so the direct adverse effect of a tariff war is larger for the Chinese. But it's
important to have a sense of scale. China isn't like Mexico, which sends 80 percent of its
exports to the United States; the Chinese economy is less dependent on trade than smaller
nations, and less than a fifth of its exports come to America.
So while Trump's tariffs certainly hurt the Chinese, Beijing is fairly well placed to
counter their effects. China can pump up domestic spending with monetary and fiscal stimulus;
it can boost its exports, to the world at large as well as to America, by letting the yuan
fall.
At the same time, China can inflict pain of its own. It can buy its soybeans elsewhere,
hurting U.S. farmers. As we saw this week, even a mostly symbolic weakening of the yuan can
send U.S. stocks plunging.
And America's ability to counter these moves is hindered by a combination of technical and
political factors. The Fed can cut rates, but not very much given how low they are already.
We could do a fiscal stimulus, but having rammed through a plutocrat-friendly tax cut in
2017, Trump would have to make real concessions to Democrats to get anything more --
something he probably won't do.
What about a coordinated international response? That's unlikely, both because it's not
clear what Trump wants from China and because his general belligerence (not to mention his
racism) has left America with almost nobody willing to take its side in global disputes.
So Trump is in a much weaker position than he imagines, and my guess is that China's
mini-devaluation of its currency was an attempt to educate him in that reality. But I very
much doubt he has learned anything. His administration has been steadily hemorrhaging people
who know anything about economics, and reports indicate that Trump isn't even listening to
the band of ignoramuses he has left.
So this trade dispute will probably get much worse before it gets better.
""You think you [Trump] can bully us [Xi]. But you can't. We, on the other hand, can ruin
your farmers and crash your stock market. Do you want to reconsider?""
Krugman is putting his "liberal" thinking in to Xi's mind.
US farmers are the darling of the "liberal"? I suspect not so much unless to oppose
Trump.
To see the mechanism that China could crash the stock market requires some thinking.
How could China do such a thing? Tariffs on $100B (in a $19,000B economy) in US exports is
emotional to the exchanges. Dumping US debt would raise interest rates and make T Bills
attractive over stocks, which is not a bad thing. The "liberals" know a 'deplorable' 36000
Dow is a dream. Then what does China do with all those USD?
The issue is a lot of "liberals" do not want Trump to succeed in efforts to reverse the
MNC expulsion of labor from the US to developing countries.
I look forward to Trump asking the DNC select why he or she "wants Xi to win over labor in
the US?"
The underlying loser in the Trump scheme are the MNC's so will the DNC go all in for MNC's
at the expense of the worker?
Nostalgia for a past that never was; Part 1 review of Paul Collier's "The future of
capitalism"
Paul Collier's new book "The future of capitalism" is a very hard book to review. It is
short (215 pages) but it covers an enormous area, from social and economic interpretation of
the past seventy years in the West, to pleas for "ethical" companies, "ethical" families and
even an "ethical" world, to a set of proposals for reform in advanced economies.
The most uncharitable assessment would be to say that, at times, the book comes close (I
emphasize "close") to nationalism, "social eugenics", "family values" of the moral majority
kind, and conservativism in the literal sense of the word because it posits an idealized past
and exhorts us to return there. But one could also say that its diagnosis of the current ills
is accurate and remarkably clear-sighted. Its recommendations are often compelling,
sophisticated and yet common-sensical.
I have therefore decided to divide my review in two parts. In this part I will explain the
points, mostly methodological and historical, on which I disagree with Collier. In the second
part, I will discuss the diagnoses and recommendations on which I mostly agree.
Pragmatism. Collier positions himself as a "pragmatist" battling both (1) ideologues:
Utilitarians, Rawlsian (who are accused, somewhat strangely, of having introduced identity
politics) and Marxists; and (2) populists who have no ideology at all but simply play on
people's emotions. All three kinds of ideologies are wrong because they follow their script
which is inadequate for current problems while populists do not even care to make things
better but only to rule and have a good time. It is only a pragmatic approach that, according
to Collier, makes sense.
Pragmatism however is an ideology like any other. It is wrong to believe oneself exempt
from ideological traps if one claims to be a "pragmatist". Pragmatism collects whatever are
the ruling ideologies today and rearranges them: it provides an interpretative framework like
any other ideology. Pragmatists are, as Keynes said in a similar context "practical men, who
believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, [but] are usually the
slaves of some defunct economist [or ideologue; my addition]."
Adam Smith. The second building block of Collier book is based on his interpretation of
Adam Smith, which has become more popular recently and tries to "soften" the hard edge of the
Adam Smith of the "Wealth of Nations" (self-interest, profit, and power) by a more congenial
Smith from "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". This is an old debate that goes almost 200 years
back ("Die Adam Smith Frage").
There are, I think, if not two Smiths, then one Smith for two sets of circumstances: in
TMS, it is the Smith for our behavior with family, friends and community; in the WoN, it is
the Smith of economic life, our behavior as "economic agents". I discuss this in "Capitalism,
Alone". David Wootton in "Power, Pleasure and Profit" very persuasively makes the same point.
And even Collier says exactly the same thing towards the end of his book, but in the early
parts he argues that the Adam Smith of TMS applies to economics as well.
Now, for an economist only the Smith from the WoN matters. Economists do not claim (or
should not claim) to have particularly valuable insights regarding how people behave outside
of economics. So it is fully consistent for economists to use a model of Smith's homo
economicus who is pursuing monetary gains only, or more broadly, his own utility only. That
of course does not exclude, as Collier and some other writers (e.g., Peter Turchin) seem to
believe, cooperation with others. It is obvious that many of our monetary objectives are
better achieved through cooperation: I am better off cooperating with people at my university
than setting my own university. But whether I do one or the other, I am pursuing my own
selfish interest. I am not doing things for altruistic reasons -- which perhaps I might do in
my interactions with family or friends.
My point in "Capitalism, Alone" is that under hyper-commercialized globalization Smith's
economic sphere is rapidly expanding and "eating up" the sphere where the Smith of TMS
applies. Commodification "invades" family relations and our leisure time. Both Collier and I
agree on that. But while I think that this is an inherent feature of hyper-commercialized
globalization, Collier believes that the clock can be turned back to an "ethical world" which
existed in the past while somehow keeping globalization as it is now. This is an illusion and
leads me to Collier's nostalgia.
Social-democracy. In Collier's view of the Golden Age (1945-75), social-democracy that
brought it about did this for ethical reasons. In several places he repeats more of less this
breathtaking sentence "[Roosevelt] was elected because people recognized the New Deal was
ethical". He argues that the origin of social-democracy lies in a (nice) co-operative
movement, not that the reforms in capitalism after WW1 and WW2 were the product of a century
of often violent struggle of social democratic parties to improve workers' conditions. It is
not because ethical leaders decided suddenly to make capitalism "nicer" but because the two
world wars, the Bolshevik revolution, the growth of social-democratic and communist parties,
and their links with powerful trade unions, exacted the change of course from bourgeoisie
under the looming threat of social disorder and expropriation. So it is not through the
benevolence of the right that capitalism was transformed, but because the upper classes,
chastised by past experience, decided to follow their own enlightened self-interest: give up
some in order to preserve more. (For similar interpretations, see Samuel Moyn, Avner
Offer,)
This difference in the interpretations of history is important because Collier's view
applied to today basically calls for ethical rulers -- to somehow appear. This is why at the
end of the book he discusses how political leaders should be elected (not by party members or
primaries, but by the elected representatives of their parties). My interpretation implies
that unless there are strong social forces that would push back financial sector excesses,
tax evasion, and high inequality nothing will be changed. What matters is not ethics or
ethical leaders but group/class interest and relative power.
The facts. And finally the Arcadia of the trente glorieuses * when Collier holds that
moral giants strode the Earth, companies cared about workers, families were "full" and
"ethical", never really existed, at least not in the way it is described in the book. Yes,
like many others I have pointed out that the trente glorieuses were very good years for the
West both in terms of growth and surely in terms of narrowing of wealth and income
inequalities. But they were no Arcadia and in many respects they were much worse than the
present.
The period of Collier's "ethical family" in which "the husband was the head" when every
member cared for each other, and several generations lived together, was a hierarchical
patriarchy that even legally forbid any other types of family-formation. (I remember that in
my high school in Belgium, only fathers were allowed to sign off on pupils' grades or school
absences. Not mothers.)
In the USA, the Golden Age was the age of social mimicry and conservatism, widespread
racial discrimination, and gender inequality. When it comes to politics, it is often
forgotten that during the Golden Age, France was basically twice on the edge of a civil war:
during the Algerian war and in 1968. Spain, Portugal, and Greece were ruled by quasi-fascist
regimes. Terrorism of RAF and Brigate Rosse came in the 1970s. Finally, if these years were
so good and "ethical" why did we have the universal 1968 rebellion, from Paris to
Detroit?
That imagined world never was, and we are utterly unlikely to return to it; not only
because it never was but because the current word is entirely different. Collier overlooks
that the world of his youth to which he wants people to return was the world of enormous
income differences between the rich world and the Third World. It is for that reason that the
English working class could (as he writes) feel very proud and superior to the people in the
rest of the world. They cannot feel so proud and superior now because other nations are
catching up. Implicitly, regaining self-respect for the English working class requires a
return to such worldwide stratification of incomes.
The book is thus built on the quicksand of a world that did not exist, will not exist, and
on a methodology that I find wanting. 2020s will not be the imagined 1945, however loudly we
clamor for it. But this does not mean that the analyses of current problems and the
recommendations are wrong. Many of them are very good. So I will turn to them next.
How to create an ethical county, if not the world: Part 2 review of Paul Collier's "The
future of capitalism"
This is the second part of my review of Paul Collier's "The future of capitalism". The
first part is here. *
In this review of Collier's policy recommendations, I will break the discussion into three
parts, following Collier's own approach: how to make companies more ethical, families
stronger, and the world better.
Ethical firm. Collier argues that, in order for companies to be seen as ethical and to
offer their workforce meaningful jobs, companies should include workers in management, give
much more power to the middle-level management, and do profit-sharing. These are all
well-taken recommendations, and I believe, like Collier, that they would increase companies'
profitability in addition to providing "better" jobs. The question however is how many
companies nowadays can afford to provide such meaningful and (relatively) stable jobs because
of fast-evolving changes driven by globalization. Nevertheless the idea is correct.
Collier then moves to what may be the most intriguing recommendation in the book and that
goes beyond the usual "let's have higher and more progressive taxes". He looks at the big
divide between the successful global cities (like New York and London) and their left-behind
hinterlands. The success of metropolises comes from economies of scale, specialization, and
complementarity (gains of agglomeration). People can specialize because the demand for
specialized skills is high (the best tax accountants are located in New York not in small
dilapidated cities). Companies can enjoy economies of scale because the demand is high and
specialized workers benefit from complementarity in skills from other workers with whom they
are in close geographical and intellectual contact.
So who are the main winners from metropolises' success, asks Collier? People who own land
and housing (as housing prices skyrocket) and highly skilled professionals who, after paying
higher rents, still make more in global cities than elsewhere. Collier's suggestion then,
based on his work with Tony Venables, is to tax heavily these two groups of people, i.e., to
introduce supplemental taxes which would be geographical: tax housing and high income
individuals living in London.
How to help hinterland catch up? Use the money collected in London or New York to give
subsidies to large cluster-like companies (like Amazon) if they set they businesses in the
left-behind cities like Sheffield or Detroit. One can quibble with this idea but the logic of
the argument is, I think, quite compelling, and the taxation suggested by Collier has the
advantage of going beyond the indiscriminate increase in taxes for all. We are talking here
of targeted taxation and targeted subsidies. This is the lieu fort of Collier's book.
Ethical family. I am less enthusiastic about the suggestions in this area. Here Collier is
at his most conservative although that social conservatism is masked under the cover of
scientific studies that show that children living in "full" families with two heterosexual
parents are doing much better than children living with one parent only.
Collier almost implies that (say) mothers should stay in unloving or abusive relationships
so that there would be both parents present in the family. Such families should, according to
Collier, be given support and for all children public pre-K and K education should be free
(very reasonable). Collier also very persuasively describes manifold advantages that the
children of the rich receive, not only through inheritance but through intangible capital of
parental knowledge and connections. This type of social capital inheritance is not a
well-researched topic and I hope this changes since its importance in real life is
substantial.
Collier displays clear preference for "standard" families and even some "social eugenics"
as when he criticizes UK policy that provides free housing and since 1999 extra benefits for
single mothers to have encouraged "many women...to bear children who will not be raised
well".
The argument that parents should sacrifice themselves (regardless of the psychic cost) for
children is also dangerous. It leads us to a family formation of the 19th century when women
often lived in terrible marriages because of social pressure not to be seen as abandoning or
not caring for their children. This is neither a desirable nor a likely solution for today.
An ethical family should consider interests of all members equally, not subjugate the
happiness of some (mostly mothers) to that of others.
Ethical world. Collier has surprisingly little to say about the ethical world. His ethical
world is a world largely closed to new migration which Collier rejects based on a not
unreasonable view going back to Assar Lindbeck and George Borjas of cultural incompatibility
between the migrants and the natives. Interestingly, Collier does not quote either of these
two authors nor any others. (The book is directed at the general audience so the mentions of
other authors are extremely rare except when it comes to Collier himself and a few of his
co-authors).
It is slightly disconcerting that Collier who has spent more than three decades working on
Africa has almost nothing to say about how Africa and African migration fits into this
"ethical world". There are only two ways in which he addresses migration.
First, migrants or refugees should stay in countries that are geographically close to the
source countries: Venezuelans in Colombia, Syrians in Lebanon and Turkey, Afghanis in
Pakistan. Why the burden of migrants should be exclusively borne by the limitrophe countries
** that are often quite poor is never explained. Surely, an ethical world would require much
more from the rich.
Second, he argues that the West should help good companies invest in poor countries in
order to increase incomes there and reduce migration. But how is this to be achieved is never
explained. It is mentioned almost as an afterthought and is considered deserving of two
sentences only (in two different parts of the book). This is in contrast with a detailed
explanation, discussed above, of how governments should encourage and subsidize large
companies to relocate to second-tier cities. Could a similar scheme be designed for
investments in Africa? Nothing is said.
Further, where does it leave African migrants crisscrossing the Mediterranean as I write?
There are no geographically close countries where they could go (surely not to Libya) nor can
they wait for years in Mali for the Western companies to bring them jobs. Again, nothing is
said on that. It is not surprising that Collier is very supportive of Emmanuel Macron whose
anti-immigration policy is quite obvious, and of Danish Social Democrats that are in the
process of creating a kind of national social democracy with new laws that practically reduce
immigration to a trickle. Collier favors Fortress Europe although he does not say so
explicitly.
In keeping with his anti-immigration stance, Collier argues that migration is not an
integral part of globalization. Why –in principle– goods, services and one factor
of production (capital) should be allowed to move freely while another factor of production
(labor) is to remain stuck is not clear. Surely, the fact that trade is driven by comparative
advantage and migration by absolute is not the reason to be against migration. On exactly the
same grounds, one could be against movement of capital too.
In conclusion, I think that the recommendations regarding the "ethical firm" and
metropolis-hinterland divergence are spot on; the recommendations on "ethical family" are a
combination of very perceptive and sensible points, and a view of the family that at times
comes from a different age, and almost nothing is said about an "ethical world". This latter
is a big omission in the era of globalization, but perhaps Collier was solely interested in
how to improve nation-states.
** Territories situated on a border or frontier. In a broad sense, it means border
countries -- any group of neighbors of a given nation which border each other thus forming a
rim around that country.
"... This strategy is not popular with US corporations and will earn Trump some more opposition. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Sunday announced he would mount a primary challenge to President Trump ..."
Trump has put US companies on alert that he might force them to withdraw from China, where
they have $256 billion invested. He says he is given this power by the 1977 law called the
International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA.
The Republican Party has spent over a century warning against government involvement in
the private sector, but now their leader is doing it big time. Trump ordering companies
around about where they can invest is a form of fascism or rightwing national socialism. Left
socialism is about public sector economic activity for the good of people. National socialism
is the state usurping economic resources on behalf of a small corporate and high-official
elite.
Tara Golshan at Vox explained how Trump unilaterally raised China tariffs in the first
place by 25% (he is threatening to go to 30%):
"Trump's White House cited Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a provision
that gives the secretary of commerce the authority to investigate and determine the impacts
of any import on the national security of the United States -- and the president the power to
adjust tariffs accordingly."
So one thing that is going on is that measures passed by Congress for limited and extreme
situations are being misused by presidents for everyday policy-making. . . here
This strategy is not popular with US corporations and will earn Trump some more
opposition. Former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill.) on Sunday announced he would mount a primary
challenge to President Trump . . .
here
"... Brute facts tell us this. As part of the European Union, the UK and Germany have the same trading rules. Last year, however, Germany exported $134bn of goods to the US whereas the UK exported only $65.3bn. Per head of population, Germany's exports to the US were therefore 60% higher than the UK's. Much the same is true for other non-EU nations. Last year Germany exported $11.8bn to Australia whilst the UK exported just $5.9bn, a per capita difference of over 50%. German exports to Canada were $12bn whilst the UK's were $7.3bn, a 28% per capita difference. German exports to Japan, at $24.1bn were 2.2 times as great per head as the UK's. And German exports to China, at $109.9bn were three times as great per capita as the UK's $27.7bn. ..."
John Bolton says the UK can strike a quick trade deal with the US. This reminds me of an
under-appreciated fact – that it is not trade rules that are significantly holding back
UK exports.
Brute facts tell us this. As part of the European Union, the UK and Germany have the same
trading rules. Last year, however, Germany exported $134bn of goods to the US whereas the UK
exported only $65.3bn. Per head of population, Germany's exports to the US were therefore 60%
higher than the UK's. Much the same is true for other non-EU nations. Last year Germany
exported $11.8bn to Australia whilst the UK exported just $5.9bn, a per capita difference of
over 50%. German exports to Canada were $12bn whilst the UK's were $7.3bn, a 28% per capita
difference. German exports to Japan, at $24.1bn were 2.2 times as great per head as the UK's.
And German exports to China, at $109.9bn were three times as great per capita as the UK's
$27.7bn.
Now, these numbers refer only to goods where Germany has a comparative advantage over the
UK. But they tell us something important. Whatever else is holding back UK exports, it is not
trade rules. Germany exports far more than the UK under the same rules.
As for what it is that is holding back exports, there are countless candidates – the
same ones that help explain the UK's relative industrial weakness: poor management; a lack of
vocational training; lack of finance or entrepreneurship; the diversion of talent from
manufacturing to a bloated financial sector; the legacy of an overvalued exchange rate. And
so on.
If we were serious about wanting to revive UK exports, we would be discussing what to do
about issues such as these. Which poses the question: why, then, does the possibility of
trade deals get so much more media attention?
One reason is that the right has for decades made a consistent error– a form of
elasticity optimism whereby they over-estimate economic flexibility and dynamism. Back in the
80s, Patrick Minford thought, mostly wrongly, that unemployed coal miners and manufacturers
would swiftly find jobs elsewhere as, I dunno, astronauts or lap-dancers. The Britannia
Unchained crew think, again wrongly, that deregulation will create lots of jobs. And some
Brexiters in 2016 thought sterling's fall would give a big boost to net exports.
In the same spirit, they think free trade deals will raise exports a lot. But they won't -
and certainly not enough to offset the increased red tape of post-Brexit trade with the EU.
Jobs and exports just aren't as responsive to stimuli as they think. The economy is more
sclerotic, more path dependent, than that.
Secondly, the BBC has a bias against emergence. It overstates the extent to which outcomes
such as real wages, share prices or government borrowing are the result of deliberate policy
actions and understates the extent to which they are the emergent and largely unintended
result of countless less obvious choices. In this spirit, it gets too excited about trade
deals and neglects the real obstacles to higher exports.
But there's something else. Perhaps the purpose of free trade deals is not to boost
exports at all. It is instead largely totemic. Such deals are one of the few things we'll be
able to do after Brexit that we couldn't do before. They are therefore a symbol of our
new-found sovereignty. They are, alas, largely just that – a symbol.
"John Bolton says the UK can strike a quick trade deal with the US. "
---
Clueless. The US and the UK do not need a trade deal, Brexit is happening because the UK
decided it didn't need any trade deals, open market trading on whatever restrictions foreign
government makes is fine with brexiters.
Way back when we were a smarter people, we assumed that trade deals are a restriction on
trade. They exist to overcome protectionism which was there prior.
"... What has caused the rapid decline in US manufacturing employment in recent decades? This column uses novel data to investigate the role of US multinationals and finds that they were a key driver behind the job losses. Insights from a theoretical framework imply that a reduction in the costs of foreign sourcing led firms to increase offshoring, and to shed labour." [link above] ..."
"... It looks like 'free' trade fundamentalists like Krugman are going to have to revisit their ideology... ..."
"... How pathetic can Democrats get with thier anti-worker policies ..."
"... Late 90's US corporations went whole in to industrializing [extreme low wage] China... FOREX, federal deficits, ignoring the US worker, etc. were in the [sympathetic] mix. There is a chicken, which egg is not important. ..."
"... Personally, I think that Trump is exploiting the distress of the working stiff and not doing anything for him. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership has shown callous indifference toward the working stiff so Trump gets their votes, because at least he will acknowledge that there's a problem unlike kurt and his ilk. ..."
"A new assessment of the role of offshoring in the decline in US manufacturing employment,"
by Christoph Boehm, Aaron Flaaen, Nitya Pandalai-Nayar 15 August 2019 What has caused the rapid decline in US manufacturing employment in recent decades? This
column uses novel data to investigate the role of US multinationals and finds that they were
a key driver behind the job losses. Insights from a theoretical framework imply that a
reduction in the costs of foreign sourcing led firms to increase offshoring, and to shed
labour." [link above]
It looks like 'free' trade fundamentalists like Krugman are going to have to revisit
their ideology...
As for kurt, expect him to continue to deny the fact that 'free' trade has cost a
significant number of jobs and caused enough economic disruption to tilt the election to
Trump in 2016.
Further, expect the Democratic leadership to continue to tout the benefits of 'free' trade
without acknowledging its severe adverse effects, both economically and politically. And of
course, as long as they never acknowledge the adverse effects, they will never have to
address it which will allow Trump to continue to bludgeon them on the issue.
How pathetic can Democrats get with thier anti-worker policies
Late 90's US corporations went whole in to industrializing [extreme low wage] China...
FOREX, federal deficits, ignoring the US worker, etc. were in the [sympathetic] mix. There is
a chicken, which egg is not important.
The US worker lost in the evolutions. Aside from Trump who has tried anything for the US
working stiff?
Personally, I think that Trump is exploiting the distress of the working stiff and not
doing anything for him. Meanwhile, the Democratic leadership has shown callous indifference
toward the working stiff so Trump gets their votes, because at least he will acknowledge that
there's a problem unlike kurt and his ilk.
Trump does not want a new trade deal with China. He wants to decouple the U.S.
economy from the future enemy.
That may well be what is going on here. Something between total insanity and managed
insanity. The next president will unravel all of this in a year or so of effort. That is what
is so damaging. No business can plan on what is next. No policy is long term.
This is pure Trumpian logic unhinged. Hit them twice as hard as they hit you. I would not
dare to guess who is winding him up and pointing him in this direction. Trump has had one of
his busiest weeks yet.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no
one shows up to a Trump rally. China has time to wait this out and the ability to raise some
chaos on their own to help undermine Trump.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no one
shows up to a Trump rally.
I sympathize, but Elizabeth Warren is terrible on foreign policy. When the IDF was
slaughtering civilians in Gaza in 2014 she pushed to release a few hundred million dollars to
"help" Israel "defend" itself. The MSM loves Warren. She is a neoliberal capitalist, liberal
interventionist and splits Sanders' vote.
"... During his meeting with Johnson on Sunday at the G7 in France, the US president raised eyebrows when he responded in the affirmative to questions from reporters on whether he had any second thoughts about the tariff move. ..."
While one may accuse the US president of many things, having second thoughts is hardly one
of them: once Trump has decided on a course of action, he tends to follow through. Which is why
the global press gasped when a rare case of doubt emerged this morning during Trump's breakfast
meeting with the UK's Boris Johnson at the Biarritz G-7, when the US president acknowledged
having second thoughts about the escalating the trade war with China... only for his top
spokeswoman to later retract and say Trump meant he regretted not raising tariffs even
more.
During his meeting with Johnson on Sunday at the G7 in France, the US president raised
eyebrows when he responded in the affirmative to questions from reporters on whether he had any
second thoughts about the tariff move.
Every president of the USA for the past 50 years has cultivated US exports to China. You
want to just throw it away, only two or three years before the purchasing power of China
exceeds that of the USA???
China - 1.5 billion.
USA - 326 million
China growth rate 2018: 6.4%
USA growth rate 2018: 2.8% source
China now produces twice as many graduates a year as the US source
As of 2015, China had already taken global lead in manufacturing output:
source
China - $2,010 billion
USA - $1,867 billion
World market size, based on population:
source
China - 18.7%
USA - 4.3%
Greedy US corporations have been in bed with China robbing the US citizen with all those
job exports to China.
If things were produced in US, the corporations would have made less money, but the US
citizen would have been better off. The trade deficit which has been running for decades
wouldn't have been that much.
Anyone with a lick of commonsense knew Trump's detractors would be gunning for him during
his trip to Europe. Trump has not disappointed these people by continuing his effort to come
across as too clever for his own good. Trump gave these people more ammunition when he said
he has doubts about his actions.
During breakfast with the UK's Boris Johnson at the G-7 meeting in Biarritz, France Trump
acknowledged having second thoughts about the escalating the trade war with China. The
article below explores how this may cause Trump a great deal of grief.
This title symbolizes the new, preferential relationship that Brazil has been pursuing with
the U.S. as a result of the continued efforts by far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to
inaugurate a new phase in Brazil's global role.
Bolsonaro's presidency has initiated deep changes in Brazilian foreign policy, which was
traditionally based on multilateralism, non-interventionism, and a commitment to universal
human rights. Bolsonaro's abandonment of that traditional foreign policy is driven by his
belief that despite changes in the world order, the future will remain U.S.-led -- and, as
such, a partnership with Washington is essential.
With this partnership, however, Brazil is relinquishing its position as a global leader to
become a junior follower of Donald Trump's foreign policy.
Ideological affinity is a major component of Bolsonaro's foreign policy, which has had
practical and immediate consequences for Brazil. For example, due to Trump's trade war with
China, Beijing
has been downgraded in the priorities of Bolsonaro's government despite being Brazil's main
trading partner, and opportunities to increase trade in Asia are now willfully overlooked.
Brazil's prominent leadership role in Latin America is also being sacrificed as a result of
its enthusiastic promotion of U.S. interests in the region.
Ideological Crusade and the U.S.
The new vision guiding Brazilian foreign policy is centered around anti-globalism and
presumptions of Western cultural superiority.
According to this worldview, Bolsonaro's rise to power represents a unique opportunity to
restore traditional moral values that will somehow help Brazil in its mission to save "Western
Civilization" from decline. As such, a partnership with the like-minded Trump is imagined as a
means by which to reaffirm the supremacy of the West.
These ideas form part of the broader ideological agenda which the current Brazilian Minister
of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Araújo, has put forward in various articles. In one of his
most notorious pieces, a journal article entitled
"Trump and the West," Araújo lays bare the version of Brazilian nationalism he aims
to pursue: a national mission to, in essence, recover Brazil's "Western soul."
The
traditional nuclear family and Christian values -- perceived as the hallmarks of "Western
civilization" -- are the central pillars of Araújo's moral nationalism and, as such,
should be seen as the foundation of Brazil's new foreign policy orientation.
Consequences of Brazil's Foreign Policy Shift
If Brazil's new ideological position represents a stark renunciation of its previously
active role in the building of a liberal world order, it is also becoming increasingly clear
that the country will now abandon its previoously progressive contributions to solving major
global problems.
As a consequence, Brazil will no longer be seen as a leader among developing countries -- a
widely-respected role that the country has played since 2003, when Brazilian governments
prioritized South-South cooperation.
Brazil's radical shift in foreign policy orientation is already causing shockwaves at home
and abroad. Bolsonaro often flirts with the idea of potentially
withdrawing from the Paris Environmental Accord , having already
abandoned the Marrakesh Migration Pact . Additional uproar emerged in Brazil due to
Bolsonaro's close ties to Israel and his promise to recognize Jerusalem as its capital and to
close Brazil's embassy in Palestine . In the past, Brazil has systematically defended the
creation of a Palestinian state, and was among the first countries to open an embassy in
Palestine.
Being averse to both multilateralism and cooperation with developing countries, Bolsonaro
seeks to keep his distance from the United Nations and the BRICS. More concretely, Bolsonaro
considers the deepening or even the maintenance of established diplomatic ties with the BRICS
group as detrimental to the new Brazil's alliance with the U.S. Indeed, under Brazil's new
foreign policy priorities, China
and Russia are now perceived as potential adversaries .
In attempting to recover Brazil's "Western soul," Bolsonaro's government hopes to receive
U.S. support in its efforts to become a permanent member of the OECD. The Trump administration
has indicated that
the U.S. will support Brazil's bid to gain admission to the OECD .
In Bolsonaro's evolving geopolitical map, Brazil is slowly abandoning its regional
leadership to align with the U.S.'s interests in Latin America. In this context, Brazil's
engagement with other Latin American countries is mainly based on ideological affinity. Hence
Brazil is showing interest in strengthening bilateral relations with Chile, a country that
Bolsonaro admires principally due to his admiration for Pinochet's brutal dictatorship
(1973-1989) , and with Argentina, with which bilateral relations remain warm as long as the
conservative-minded President Macri remains in power .
The rationale for and discourse surrounding Brazil's blind alignment to the U.S. is facing
heavy criticism from parts of Bolsonaro's own government. These dissident voices can be heard
in the agribusiness sector, the military, and the Brazilian diplomatic corps.
Operating as they do within a clear set of international interests, agribusiness is a pragmatic
group of actors who understand that Bolsonaro's rhetorical tactics are harming their
international interests. Those who consider China a pivotal player in the expansion of
Brazilian agricultural exports are understandably disturbed by Brazil's increasing distance
from the BRICS.
Bolsonaro's foreign policy also faces opposition from within Brazil's Ministry of Foreign
Affairs, where
career diplomats are increasingly voicing their concerns over the president's wanton
abandonment of the multilateralism that Brazil has historically and effectively used to engage
with the rest of the world.
In an increasingly dog-eat-dog world, Bolsonaro hopes that Brazil can establish itself as a
privileged U.S. partner. However, given the waning support for Bolsonaro's foreign policy at
home, as well as its fundamental lack of pragmatism, these radical shifts in Brazil's
international affairs may ultimately prove to be ephemeral.
Helder F. do Vale is an Associate Professor at Hankuk University of Foreign Studies in
South Korea.
Beijing just might be able to doom the president's chance of reelection. They can tune
tariffs to hurt Trump base.
Notable quotes:
"... China's tariff threats take aim at the heart of Trump's political support -- factories and farms across the Midwest and South at a time when the U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing down. Soybean prices sank to a two-week low ..."
"... The tariffs beginning in September include 10% on pork, beef, and chicken, and various other agricultural goods, while soybeans will have the extra 5% tariff on top of the existing 25%. Starting in December, wheat, sorghum, and cotton will also get a 10% tariff. ..."
Some of the countermeasures will take effect starting Sept. 1, while the rest will come into
effect from Dec. 15, according to the announcement Friday from the Finance
Ministry. This mirrors the timetable the U.S. has laid out for 10% tariffs on nearly $300
billion of Chinese shipments
An extra 5% tariff will be put on American soybeans and crude-oil imports starting next
month. The resumption of a suspended extra 25% duty on U.S. cars will resume Dec. 15, with
another 10% on top for some vehicles. With existing general duties on autos taken into account,
the total tariff charged on U.S. made cars would be as high as 50%.
China's tariff threats take aim at the heart of Trump's political support -- factories and
farms across the Midwest and South at a time when the U.S. economy is showing signs of slowing
down. Soybean prices sank to a two-week low
.... ... ...
The tariffs beginning in September include 10% on pork, beef, and chicken, and various other
agricultural goods, while soybeans will have the extra 5% tariff on top of the existing 25%.
Starting in December, wheat, sorghum, and cotton will also get a 10% tariff.
"... "The 2008 experience demonstrated that the U.S. dollar as the global reserve and main trade currency is dangerous for all who use it. Currently any hickup in the U.S. economy leads to large scale recessions elsewhere." ..."
"... It has also become a primary tool for the US to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over the world to enforce extreme uses of sanctions, as in blowing up the Iran deal. Already the EU has explored ways to get around that to work with Iran. ..."
"... The over use of sanctions, and abuse of the US financial position in order to govern others, reinforces the desire to deal with fears that dependence on the dollar risks vulnerability to economic depression due to US irresponsibility. ..."
"... The US is creating a perfect storm for the dollar, with is exactly what it would take to make others undertake the expense and difficulty of replacing it as the world reserve currency and presumed standard of exchange. ..."
"... I just had a thought. The USSA has been doing it all wrong for all these decades. There are at least two responses the USSA could have applied to the obviously impending debacle of simply allowing the Chinese to thoroughly undermine its industrial system. The most obvious response would have been tariffs, which could be perceived as an aggressive policy, but certainly not as the outright aggression of sanctions. ..."
"... Or probably even much better, a 'negative sales tax' on USSA manufactured products, which could in no way be perceived as aggressive at all. Note that there is (I presume) a vast difference between simply subsidizing companies (since subsidies coud then flow directly into the pockets of the companies' capitalists) and providing the companies' customers with a 'negative tax' on USSA produced products (basically an instant rebate). This could effectively provide price parity for the goods produced for the two countries, and could maintain the viability of the USSA manufacturing system. ..."
"... The US ruling class cannot grow out of its desire to extend its rule to the rest of the planet. But humanity is not as malleable as the American people-with their dreams of sharing in the dividends when America (Great Again) (aka its ruling class) orders the rest of the world around and exploits everyone the way that it exploits the working people in the United States. ..."
"... Are you not aware that the Bank of Japan basically owns 70% of the Japanese stock market in the from of ETFs? ..."
"... While Europe and Japan are failing economically at least America is at war with the second biggest power on the planet, making drastic moves justified in the face of a national emergency. ..."
"... I imagine now that John Maynard Keynes'ghost, if it were observing our current global political and economic affairs, would be having a laugh. It was Keynes who suggested the notion of International trade using a common trading currency created purely for International trade purposes, in a system in which nations would not be allowed to build up continuous balance-of-payments surpluses or deficits over several years, but would be required to spend their surpluses on countries forced to go into deficit because of other countries' desires for annual surpluses, leading to trade policies or currency manipulations to achieve such a dubious goal. ..."
"... The real solution though is a different system with some global exchange medium that can not be manipulated by one country or a block of selfish countries. ..."
The U.S. is decoupling itself from China. The effects of that process hurt all global
economies. To avoid damage other countries have no choice but to decouple themselves from the
U.S.
Today's Washington Post front page leads with a highly misleading headline:
It was China, not Trump, which retaliated. Trump reacted to that with a tweet-storm and by
intensifying
the trade war he started . The piece under the misleading headline
even says that :
President Trump demanded U.S. companies stop doing business with China and announced he
would raise the rate of tariffs on Beijing Friday, capping one of the most extraordinary
days in the long-running U.S.-China trade war. ... The day began with Beijing's announcement that it would impose new tariffs on $75 billion
in goods, including reinstated levies on auto products, starting this fall. It came to a
close Friday afternoon with Trump tweeting that he would raise the rate of existing and
planned tariffs on China by 5 percentage points.
Beijing's tariff retaliation was delivered with strategic timing, hours before an
important address by Powell, and as Trump prepared to depart for the G-7 meeting in
Biarritz.
After Trump's move the stock markets had a sad. Trade wars are, at least in the short
term, bad for commerce. The U.S. and the global economy are still teetering along, but will
soon be in recession.
The Trump administration is fine with that. (As is Dilbert creator
Scott
Adams (vid).)
U.S. grand strategy is to prevent other powers from becoming equals to itself or to
even surpass it. China, with with a population four times larger than the U.S., is the
country ready to do just that. It already built itself into an economic powerhouse and it is
also steadily increasing its military might.
China is thus a U.S. 'enemy' even though Trump avoided, until yesterday, to use that
term.
Over the last 20+ years the U.S. imported more and more goods from China and elsewhere
and diminishes its own manufacturing capabilities. It is difficult to wage war against
another country when one depends on that country's production capacities . The U.S. must
first decouple itself from China before it can launch the real war. Trump's trade war with
China is intended to achieve that. As Peter Lee
wrote
when the trade negotiations with China failed:
The decoupling strategy of the US China hawks is proceeding as planned. And economic pain
is a feature, not a bug. ... Failure of trade negotiations was pretty much baked in, thanks to [Trump's trade
negotiator] Lightizer's maximalist demands.
And that was fine with the China hawks.
Because their ultimate goal was to decouple the US & PRC economies, weaken the PRC,
and make it more vulnerable to domestic destabilization and global rollback.
If decoupling shaved a few points off global GDP, hurt American businesses, or pushed
the world into recession, well that's the price o' freedom.
Or at least the cost of IndoPACOM being able to win the d*ck measuring contest in East
Asia, which is what this is really all about.
Trump does not want a new trade deal with China. He wants to decouple the U.S. economy
from the future enemy. Trade wars tend to hurt all involved economies. While the decoupling
process is ongoing the U.S. will likely suffer a recession.
Trump is afraid that a downturn in the U.S. could lower his re-election chances. That
is why he wants to use the Federal Reserve Bank to douse the economy with more money without
regard for the long term consequences. That is the reason why the first part of his tweet
storm yesterday was
directed at Fed chief Jay Powell:
In his order for U.S. companies to withdraw from China, some close to the administration
saw the president embracing the calls for an economic decoupling made by the hawks inside
his administration.
The evidence of the shift may have been most apparent in a 14-word tweet in which Trump
appeared to call Xi an "enemy."
"My only question is, who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?" he said in a
Tweet posted after Powell gave a speech in Jackson Hole that contained implicit criticism
of Trump's trade policies and their impact on the U.S. and global economies.
Jay Powell does not want to lower the Fed interest rate. He does not want to increase bond
buying, i.e. quantitative easing. Interest rates are already too low and to further decrease
them has its own danger. The last time the Fed ran a too-low interest rate policy it caused
the 2008 crash and a global depression.
Expect Trump to fire Powell should he not be willing to follow his command. The U.S. will
push up its markets no matter what.
From Powell's perspective there is an additional danger in lowering U.S. interest
rates. When the U.S. runs insane economic and monetary policies U.S. allies will also want
decouple themselves - not from China but from the U.S. The 2008 experience demonstrated that
the U.S. dollar as the global reserve and main trade currency is dangerous for all who use
it. Currently any hickup in the U.S. economy leads to large scale recessions
elsewhere.
That is why even long term U.S. ally Britain warns of such danger and
looks for a way
out :
Bank of England Governor Mark Carney took aim at the U.S. dollar's "destabilising" role
in the world economy on Friday and said central banks might need to join together to create
their own replacement reserve currency.
The dollar's dominance of the global financial system increased the risks of a liquidity
trap of ultra-low interest rates and weak growth, Carney told central bankers from around
the world gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the United States. ... Carney warned that very low equilibrium interest rates had in the past coincided with wars,
financial crises and abrupt changes in the banking system. ... China's yuan represented the most likely candidate to become a reserve currency to match
the dollar, but it still had a long way to go before it was ready.
The best solution would be a diversified multi-polar financial system, something that
could be provided by technology, Carney said.
Carney speaks of a "new Synthetic Hegemonic Currency (SHC)" which, in a purely
electronic form, could be created by a contract between the central banks of most or all
countries. It would replace the dollar as the main trade currency and lower the risk for
other economies to get infected by U.S. sicknesses (and manipulations).
Carney did not elaborate further but is an interesting concept. The devil will be, as
always, in the details. Will one be able to pay ones taxes in that currency? How will the
value of each sovereign currency in relation to SHC be determined?
That the U.S. dollar is used as a global reserve currency under the Bretton Woods
system is, in the words of the former French Minister of Finance Valéry Giscard
d'Estaing, an "exorbitant privilege". It if wants to keep that privilege it will have to go
back to sane economic and monetary policies. Otherwise the global economy will have no choice
but to decouple from it.
Posted by b on August 24, 2019 at 19:22 UTC |
Permalink
"The 2008 experience demonstrated that the U.S. dollar as the global reserve
and main trade currency is dangerous for all who use it. Currently any hickup in the U.S.
economy leads to large scale recessions elsewhere."
It has also become a primary tool for the US to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over
the world to enforce extreme uses of sanctions, as in blowing up the Iran deal. Already the
EU has explored ways to get around that to work with Iran.
The over use of sanctions, and abuse of the US financial position in order to govern
others, reinforces the desire to deal with fears that dependence on the dollar risks
vulnerability to economic depression due to US irresponsibility.
The US is creating a perfect storm for the dollar, with is exactly what it would take to
make others undertake the expense and difficulty of replacing it as the world reserve
currency and presumed standard of exchange.
No one currency is quite as good now, but one could be improved, or a basket approach
could be used. In the ancient world, they used such a nominal currency as a standard by which
to value real currencies. We could again.
Trump does not want a new trade deal with China. He wants to decouple the U.S. economy
from the future enemy.
That may well be what is going on here. Something between total insanity and managed
insanity. The next president will unravel all of this in a year or so of effort. That is what
is so damaging. No business can plan on what is next. No policy is long term.
This is pure Trumpian logic unhinged. Hit them twice as hard as they hit you. I would not
dare to guess who is winding him up and pointing him in this direction. Trump has had one of
his busiest weeks yet.
I see Elisabeth Warren's crowd sizes are getting very large. I will feel better when no
one shows up to a Trump rally. China has time to wait this out and the ability to raise some
chaos on their own to help undermine Trump.
Sorry guys, it was the realization that the Empire had driven Russia into China's arms
that sparked the 'get tough' attitude on China.
The Empire HAD TO isolate China but their horrendous treatment of Russia provided an
opportunity for China to escape the coming 'smack down' by joining with Russia to challenge
Western global domination.
As usual, it is us 'little people that will suffer for the mistakes of our elites. And
elite propaganda means that most will suffer in silence, not realizing what really
happened.
It should be clear by now that elite adventurism is a choice that is not subject to
democratic controls. The sheeple will sleepwalk into WWIII.
Silver lining? Maybe a multi-lateral world saves us from the the more terrible dystopia of
a unilateral world.
I just had a thought. The USSA has been doing it all wrong for all these decades. There are
at least two responses the USSA could have applied to the obviously impending debacle of
simply allowing the Chinese to thoroughly undermine its industrial system. The most obvious
response would have been tariffs, which could be perceived as an aggressive policy, but
certainly not as the outright aggression of sanctions.
Or probably even much better, a 'negative sales tax' on USSA manufactured products, which
could in no way be perceived as aggressive at all. Note that there is (I presume) a vast
difference between simply subsidizing companies (since subsidies coud then flow directly into
the pockets of the companies' capitalists) and providing the companies' customers with a
'negative tax' on USSA produced products (basically an instant rebate). This could
effectively provide price parity for the goods produced for the two countries, and could
maintain the viability of the USSA manufacturing system.
But... no, we didn't do anything like that. Our Harvard trained economics geniuses hatched
the 'far superior' strategy of 'quantitative easing'. They simply eased all the money out of
the system and into the absurdly deep pockets of the oligarchs, supposedly in order to 'save
the system'. What a masterful strategy! So the options are all used up, and theres no sane
way forward. Great job.
So here's my plan. First, of course, we 'take care of' the lawyers. Well... no. First we
we bulldoze Harvard. Then we institute the mother of all class action lawsuits, the 99% as
plaintiffs and the 1% as defendants, and we clean them out (they will surely run off to
China, but good riddance). We will be left with all their fake money, but at least we can try
to start over.
From the article linked above...Just another model of political technology,....and of
civilization....
Titled 'Green is gold: the strategy and actions to China´s ecological civilization',
the plan that was analyzed during the UNEA assembly explains, in its beginning, its
starting point and destination: "Enjoying a beautiful house, a blue sky, a green land and
clean water is the dream of any Chinese citizen and, therefore, the center of the Chinese
dream (...) To achieve this vision, the government has decided to highlight the concept of
eco-civilization and incorporate it into every aspect of the economy, politics, culture and
social development of the country."
Definitely, a different political technology from that of Bannon...
Dianxi Xiaoge's YouTube channel is contemporary political technology at its finest.
Recommended viewing for all future world leaders.
Can one really get rid of one without just getting a new master? Contributor@4
Why not? Progress is not inevitable but it is possible.
The US ruling class cannot grow out of its desire to extend its rule to the rest of the
planet. But humanity is not as malleable as the American people-with their dreams of sharing
in the dividends when America (Great Again) (aka its ruling class) orders the rest of the
world around and exploits everyone the way that it exploits the working people in the United
States.
Somehow the profits of Empire never quite trickle down to the people who do the work
and man the armies.
Elsewhere, however the dream of ruling the planet either never occurred or was grown out of.
And people would be very happy to live good lives and make the earth a better place for
future generations.
Spot on in the first part of article about the inevitable new Cold War between China and
America and the serious fallout from the breakup of close economic ties. But not so good on
the second half wherein America central bankers are acting "insane"
while the rest of the developed world looks on in horror. Are you forgetting most of the
interest rates in Europe are now negative?
Are you not aware that the Bank of Japan basically owns 70% of the Japanese stock market in
the from of ETFs? America is way behind the curve when it comes to complete surrender to
"market forces." Trump wants Powell to play catchup now that it's game on with China. While
Europe and Japan are failing economically at least America is at war with the second biggest
power on the planet, making drastic moves justified in the face of a national emergency.
China is a bigger threat to America than Russia ever was because their economic model has
been so successful compared to the U.S. This is made more so because we no longer have a
government per se, only competing economic forces, while the Chinese have a government that
runs everything. If they lose this war, they still have a system. If we lose this war, we
lose everything.
I imagine now that John Maynard Keynes'ghost, if it were observing our current global
political and economic affairs, would be having a laugh. It was Keynes who suggested the
notion of International trade using a common trading currency created purely for
International trade purposes, in a system in which nations would not be allowed to build up
continuous balance-of-payments surpluses or deficits over several years, but would be
required to spend their surpluses on countries forced to go into deficit because of other
countries' desires for annual surpluses, leading to trade policies or currency manipulations
to achieve such a dubious goal.
The EU would be looking very different as a result, without a southern zone of debtor
nations with unstable economies and high unemployment, and a northern zone of smug nations
with full employment whose social welfare programs depend on an army of unemployed southerner
immigrants willing to work for peanuts.
When an American claims China has been behaving unfairly, what they really mean is that the
Chinese played America's rigged game and ended up outsmarting the dealer.
Why would others want to de-couple from US? What difference it would make to UK or other
EU vassals to serve FED/petro-dollar or to serve CCP/petro-yuan? Can one really get rid of
one without just getting a new master?
Posted by: Contributor | Aug 24 2019 20:02 utc | 4
The US$ is overvalued because there is, as it is the global reserve currency, a higher
demand for it than otherwise justifiable. In consequence U.S. companies buy up companies in
UK and Europe with an overvalued dollar. When the Fed lowers the price for US$ loans it
increases that effect. The Fed also creates bubbles, see the mortgage crisis, and the
currently overvalued stock markets, that have effects on foreign countries.
Said differently: The U.S. abuses is 'exorbitant privilege'. The hope is that China would
be less inclined to do so.
The real solution though is a different system with some global exchange medium that can
not be manipulated by one country or a block of selfish countries.
Here is an
interesting article entitled "The Dialectic of Globalization," that raises several important
questions pertaining to the phenomenon of globalism from the end of colonialism to the height
of "transnationalism" with the end of the cold war.
I can just about agree with its conclusions and provide my own opinion as to the end of
the "dialectic of globalism," that Trump seems to have, whether wittingly or not, ushered
into its next phase.
International neoliberalism needs vast amounts of regulating, but I do not believe that
Supranational governing agencies will be able to do this fairly and in the light of day. The
only other option then is to reassert state-controlled notions of legality which is what vast
proportions of the west seems to be clamoring for as can be seen with the
Trump-phenomenon.
During election campaign of 2016 many people though that Trump is shrewd real estate
developer who can quickly learn statecraft. He proved to be a primitive emotionally unstably
narcissist, a bully who spoil any negotiation he enters. And has only one tool in his arsenal --
direct threats. Looks like the highest position he is suitable for is a boss of a small NYC
gang.
Notable quotes:
"... Conversely, is the goal to disrupt supply chains and re-domicile them back to the U.S.? If so, then where is his administration's support for R&D, education, and other industrial policies that could enhance national development, thereby making the U.S. a more attractive place to reclaim high valued-added supply chains? ..."
"... In fact, his secretary of education is viscerally hostile to the very concept of publicly funded education (of any kind), as well as being a shill for charter schools and privatized voucher programs (in which her family has vested economic interests ). ..."
"... As Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind argue in a recent American Affairs article, "Trump proudly touts his tax cutting and deregulation prowess, while his budgets slash support for key national investments in building blocks like research and development, manufacturing support programs, infrastructure, and education and training." This comes at a time when America's infrastructure is already one of the worst in the developed world . ..."
"... Furthermore, as recent events have illustrated, there is little Trump can do if and when China devalues its currency to offset the impact of the increased tariff charges he has introduced (or threatened to revive). ..."
"... Berle, Galbraith and others were advocates for local content requirements so as to sustain America's industrial ecosystem. And they favored buffer stocks to reduce global booms and busts. ..."
"... Enough with the "tariff tantrums." Or the silly idea that a modern economy can forfeit manufacturing to its rivals and specialize in finance, entertainment, tourism, and natural resource industries like farming, while making empty pledges about retraining and relocation to help the "losers" of global integration (promises seldom kept). ..."
"... We have a domestic crisis, and must do better than simply retreat to the delusions of neoliberalism or mindless protectionism if the American people are to come out as winners in a viable future trade framework with Beijing and the rest of the world. ..."
"... “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” ..."
"... US elites have had their snouts in the trough, and have been so busy gorging themselves they didn’t notice a new superpower rising. ..."
"... “The family which takes its mauve an cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made hideous by litter, lighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since have been put underground. They pass on into countryside that has been rendered largely invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have an absolute priority in our value system. Such aesthetic considerations as a view of the countryside accordingly come second. On such matters we are consistent.) They picnic on exquisitely packaged food from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius?” ..."
"... Yes. This is one of the better articles written about the absolutely insane and almost suicidal trade policy our elites have pursued and what goals we should pursue. These are key points made: ..."
"... Could be wrong, but when considering the success or failure of the China tariff initiative under some “Grand Strategy” that has been implemented to reorder US relations with China and restore a US manufacturing base, I think it might be useful to move upstream a bit and consider whether it aligns with this administration’s overall “Grand Strategy”. To distill it down to its essence, it’s “Move Fast and Break Things”. ..."
"... Trump is a shameless opportunist with a standard set of tactics, used solely for his own benefit. His only policy goal is more personal power. ..."
"... These pieces that characterize China as some sort of “evil empire” undermine their authors’ credibility. Before complaining in a self-righteous and aggrieved tone over another country’s unfair trade and “national security” practices American commentators might want to take a closer look at this country’s conduct vis a vis its international partners and competitors. (They could also benefit from reading what Michael Hudson has to say about China’s economic practices.) ..."
"... Trump Never Had a Grand Strategy for any action, Including China ..."
Many rationales have been deployed by the president to explain his ongoing embrace of the
tariff weapon. None, however, fully stack up.
Trump has been compared to previous
"tariff men," such as former Republican President William McKinley , who explicitly
campaigned in the 1896 election on a protectionist platform. Like McKinley, Trump has expressed
his support for tariffs in nationalistic terms. He sees them less as a tax on the domestic
consumer, more a key tool to make American business great again, as well as claiming that
tariffs represent a valuable source of
government revenue . This appeal to historical precedent is another worn-out lie to justify
a stupid policy. As the Washington Post
points out , "tariffs haven't been a major source of U.S. revenue in 100 years," and Trump
himself explicitly exempted certain products from tariff increases until December 15 because of
his concern about
the costs that they would impose on U.S. consumers as we head into the Christmas shopping
season. The revenue generation argument is particularly laughable, coming from a man whose
entire working life, both in the public and private sector, has been marked by a complete
indifference to debt buildup, let alone fretting about
paying it back . It's a true perversion of history to connect Trump's tariff legacy in any
way to that of McKinley.
Conversely, is the goal to disrupt supply chains and re-domicile them back to the U.S.?
If so, then where is his administration's support for R&D, education, and other industrial
policies that could enhance national development, thereby making the U.S. a more attractive
place to reclaim high valued-added supply chains? For example, Apple CEO Tim Cook,
justifying his company's decision to manufacture iPhones in China,
pointed to the abundance of skilled manufacturing labor in that country, along with
Beijing's decision to emphasize vocational training at a time when the idea has been virtually
abandoned in the U.S. This a problem that predates Trump, but the president has done nothing to
rectify the deficiency. In fact, his secretary of education is viscerally hostile to the very concept of
publicly funded education (of any kind), as well as being
a shill for charter schools and privatized voucher programs (in which her family
has vested economic interests ).
As
Robert Atkinson and Michael Lind argue in a recent American Affairs article, "Trump proudly
touts his tax cutting and deregulation prowess, while his budgets slash support for key
national investments in building blocks like research and development, manufacturing support
programs, infrastructure, and education and training." This comes at a time when America's
infrastructure is already one of the worst in the developed world
.
Does the president just want to offer American businesses a temporary respite from hostile
Chinese mercantilism via tariffs? If so, his tariffs have hitherto been singularly unsuccessful
in stopping Beijing's mercantilist efforts to try to maximize global market share by dumping
below cost until its foreign rivals are driven out of their home markets. Furthermore, as
recent events have illustrated, there is little Trump can do if and when China devalues its
currency to offset the impact of the increased tariff charges he has introduced (or threatened
to revive).
Is Trump concerned about national security? U.S. lawmakers and intelligence officials have
claimed, for example, that both Huawei and ZTE could be exploited by the Chinese government for
espionage and
sanctions-busting respectively, presenting
a potentially grave national security risk. Yet the president has often appeared prepared
to ignore these concerns, in the interests of using these companies as trade bargaining
chips , designed to secure some additional purchases of American soybeans or, more
generally, as part of a bigger trade deal.
To be sure, some of the president's criticism of the historic status quo in trade is valid,
as the post-industrial wastelands strewn across the country illustrate. China's entry into the
World Trade Organization had
a profoundly negative impact on U.S. manufacturing jobs . We therefore need a national
development strategy that breaks with many of the shibboleths of the so-called " Washington
Consensus ." As I've written
before , the policy goal should be to "change the labor share of the production equation,
so that production vastly increases general welfare and living standards for the largest
possible majority of people. By conducting policy with a view toward favoring labor over
capital, the aim is to produce a larger economy, and more stable (albeit restrained)
profits."
Historically, America has not always approached things simplistically through the lens of
the free market/market fundamentalist paradigm. After World War II, figures such as A.A. Berle
and John Kenneth Galbraith advocated global cartels in commodities to raise incomes in
developing countries, and thereby become additional sources of demand for American
manufacturers. They also looked benignly on transnational industrial cartels at home in the
U.S. Berle, Galbraith and others were advocates for local content requirements so as to
sustain America's industrial ecosystem. And they favored buffer stocks to reduce global booms
and busts.
If Elizabeth Warren and her team better appreciated this history (and Warren is the leading
Democrat offering a
significant reassessment on American trade policy today), they would see that there is a
rich counter-tradition that goes beyond a mindless resort to tariffs or simply breaking up
successful multinational companies that are among America's most profitable. Warren and others
might reassess the virtues of selective cartelization and cooperation. She and other Democratic
presidential candidates could give consideration to constructing a size-neutral regulatory
framework to ensure that such companies operate in the interest of national economic strategy
consistent with military security and widespread prosperity in order to obtain maximum benefits
for American workers and regions. As venture capitalist Peter Thiel has recently argued ,
it is perverse for Google to refuse to do business with the U.S. Pentagon, while conducting
artificial intelligence work in China, which uses AI to sustain its own authoritarianism and
mass surveillance.
Likewise, Big Three tripartism -- a form of economic collaboration amongst businesses, trade
unions, and national governments -- should be further embraced to enhance economic prosperity
and cope with the challenges of state-sponsored Chinese mercantilism. Both market
fundamentalists and pro-business oligarchs like Trump may dismiss collective bargaining as
another kind of labor cartel (the Clayton Antitrust Act, however, exempted unions from
antitrust). One can be both pro-business and pro-labor (i.e., pro-"
national developmentalism "), as Warren appears to be. There is nothing inherently
contradictory in terms of favoring limited pooling in employer federations that can bargain
with unions, R&D consortiums, export consortiums, etc., while allowing these entities to
retain their identity even as they compete with one other. Policies can also be designed to
compensate for the higher cost of labor in SMEs via
Fraunhofer industrial extension services that enable small producers to compete on the
basis of technology, not low wages.
Enough with the "tariff tantrums." Or the silly idea that a modern economy can forfeit
manufacturing to its rivals and specialize in finance, entertainment, tourism, and natural
resource industries like farming, while making empty pledges about retraining and relocation to
help the "losers" of global integration (promises seldom kept).
We have a domestic crisis, and must do better than simply retreat to the delusions of
neoliberalism or mindless protectionism if the American people are to come out as winners in a
viable future trade framework with Beijing and the rest of the world.
A multi-polar world became a uni-polar world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and Francis
Fukuyama said it was the end of history. It didn’t take the US long to lose that advantage. The US was immersed in the cult of individualism and didn’t think about the bigger
picture.
“There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich
class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffett, 25 May
2005
That’s all very well Warren, but how is the US doing against China?
Who cares, I’m making loads of money. Oh dear.
US elites have had their snouts in the trough, and have been so busy gorging themselves
they didn’t notice a new superpower rising.
The 1950s American Dream was captured by John Kenneth Galbraith in “The Affluent
Society”.
“The family which takes its mauve an cerise, air-conditioned, power-steered and
power-braked automobile out for a tour passes through cities that are badly paved, made
hideous by litter, lighted buildings, billboards and posts for wires that should long since
have been put underground. They pass on into countryside that has been rendered largely
invisible by commercial art. (The goods which the latter advertise have an absolute priority
in our value system. Such aesthetic considerations as a view of the countryside accordingly
come second. On such matters we are consistent.) They picnic on exquisitely packaged food
from a portable icebox by a polluted stream and go on to spend the night at a park which is a
menace to public health and morals. Just before dozing off on an air mattress, beneath a
nylon tent, amid the stench of decaying refuse, they may reflect vaguely on the curious
unevenness of their blessings. Is this, indeed, the American genius?”
Private luxury, public squalor
In those days his book made quite a stir and made policymakers rethink their priorities. I
don’t think it would have the same impact now.
It’s a very good book and as relevant today as it was then.
Did you know capitalism works best with low housing costs and a low cost of living?
It’s obvious really.
Employees get their money from wages and the employers pay high housing costs through
wages, reducing profit and driving off-shoring.
This is how Asia did so well at the expense of the West during globalisation. You just
can’t pay those wages in the West, workers can’t afford to live. Multi-national
corporations could make higher profits in Asia due to the low cost of living that they had to
cover in wages.
It’s easier to see with this little equation.
Disposable income = wages – (taxes + the cost of living)
(Michael Hudson condensed)
There is another term in the brackets with taxes.
Current ideas of capitalism comes from neoclassical economics, which is very different to
classical economics.
William White (BIS, OECD) talks about how economics really changed over one hundred years
ago as classical economics was replaced by neoclassical economics.
He thinks we have been on the wrong path for one hundred years.
We think small state, unregulated capitalism is something that it never was, which is
leading to all sorts of problems.
The West never realised that in an open globalised world, the West would be at a severe
disadvantage due to its high cost of living. The West set the rules in a game where China was
guaranteed to win, and it went from almost nothing to become a global superpower.
Observing the world of small state, unregulated capitalism in the 19th century
“The interest of the landlords is always opposed to the interest of every other
class in the community” Ricardo 1815 / Classical Economist
“But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and
fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and
high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to
ruin.” Adam Smith / Classical Economist
I suspect ‘they’ notice. Just a shift of their assets. ‘US Elites’
can leave anytime they want as they have multiple nice homes around the world. No real
allegiance to anything except money.
This article touches on it but really should dwell on it more—-the big picture is
that China policy is a bipartisan failure since before China entered the WTO, apart from the
transfer of wealth from the American middle class to the 1% and China and turning America
into an addict of low(er)-cost, disposable consumer goods.
Feature, not a bug. Trump is a reaction to the disease, not the cause.
Many years ago I read a book about the Japanese exporting machine and how it worked in
practice. What would happen was that every time a Japanese-built car left the docks on a boat
to an overseas country, the Japanese government would write out a cheque to the car
manufacturer for I think about for $600 for every car. That way, when those cars hit the
docks wherever they were being delivered to, that car could be sold for $600 cheaper than the
locally made cars which was designed to send them out of business. France got wind of this
scheme so what they did was to impose a $600 tariff on those very same Japanese cars when
they hit their docks which brought them up to their real cost. Smart move that though
probably illegal these days.
At the time I read that book I thought perhaps a tariff system might work where for any
import that had a local competitor, a tariff could be imposed so that the imported and the
local product were equally priced. Then it would be up to the customer to choose on the basis
of quality. Well it is far too late for that idea as globalization has hollowed out western
manufacturing ability. As Auerback has pointed out, tariffs make no sense unless you are
willing to put in the money to develop R & D, education and industrial policies. I
thought that a core of technical and industrial expertise would be fenced off around the
US’s military production abilities but from an article that appeared on NC recently,
the horse has long bolted here too. I think that real change will only take place when our
just-in-time global supply chains are broken down either through trade conflict or through
the effects of climate change. There is too much money being made in the present set up to
have it change.
Yes. This is one of the better articles written about the absolutely insane and almost
suicidal trade policy our elites have pursued and what goals we should pursue. These are key
points made:
“where is his administration’s support for R&D, education, and other
industrial policies that could enhance national development, thereby making the U.S. a more
attractive place to reclaim high valued-added supply chains? ”
“the policy goal should be to “change the labor share of the production
equation, so that production vastly increases general welfare and living standards for the
largest possible majority of people. By conducting policy with a view toward favoring labor
over capital, the aim is to produce a larger economy, and more stable (albeit restrained)
profits.”
“presidential candidates could give consideration to constructing a size-neutral
regulatory framework to ensure that such companies operate in the interest of national
economic strategy consistent with military security and widespread prosperity in order to
obtain maximum benefits for American workers and regions. ”
I would say that these may imply lowering total factor costs in the economy through
efficient universal healthcare (10% of GDP), massive investment in infrastructure, increases
in educational attainment in trades and sciences and engineering, plus research and
development investments. We should also improve our defense structure to build strategic
depth and resiliency.
Granted, there may be many better strategies for optimizing trade to favor the US. Still,
if tariffs alone are so bad, why does virtually every other country use them? And maintain
them, often at stratospheric levels, for decades?
And decades happens to describe how long Democrats have done precisely nothing at all to
better US trade. In fact, they’ve advocated just the opposite.
So Trump can legitimately make a powerful and irrefutable argument that he has at least
taken concrete steps of some sort to fix the problem. And he can simply cite the
Democrats’ very plain record as proof they cannot be trusted on this score, no matter
what any of them say in primary season.
Could be wrong, but when considering the success or failure of the China tariff initiative
under some “Grand Strategy” that has been implemented to reorder US relations
with China and restore a US manufacturing base, I think it might be useful to move upstream a
bit and consider whether it aligns with this administration’s overall “Grand
Strategy”. To distill it down to its essence, it’s “Move Fast and Break
Things”.
IMO the objectives are to keep opponents off balance, maintain momentum toward further
concentration of power in the executive branch, enrich and politically empower the donor base
(and oneself), divert and redirect the public conversation into social issues, and assure
influential elements in media that resonate with the voter base remain supportive. Chaos,
fostering a perception of unpredictability, state erosion of civil liberties, active use of
markets as a policy tool, foreign military actions that are aligned with the objectives of
influential members of the base, killing congressional legislation in the Senate or
regulations that might disrupt neoliberal policies, and state subsides of favored
constituencies are viewed as positives under this overall strategic framework.
We see this overall strategy repeated in department and agency staffing decisions and in
executive orders on policies ranging from China and trade to the environment, climate change,
public lands and resources, deregulation and public subsidies for Wall Street, military
initiatives, immigration policy, government shutdowns over the budget, etc. In the eyes of
his “true base”, as one of his predecessors called them, I suspect this guy is
considered to be doing a great job. “[S]upport for R&D, education, and other
industrial policies that could enhance national development” isn’t really even on
the table.
Thank you. Exactly. Trump is a shameless opportunist with a standard set of tactics, used
solely for his own benefit. His only policy goal is more personal power.
These pieces that characterize China as some sort of “evil empire” undermine
their authors’ credibility. Before complaining in a self-righteous and aggrieved tone
over another country’s unfair trade and “national security” practices
American commentators might want to take a closer look at this country’s conduct vis a
vis its international partners and competitors. (They could also benefit from reading what
Michael Hudson has to say about China’s economic practices.)
At the end of the day the the west made its own bed and now it has to lie in it. Trying to
pin the blame on China and Russia and roping them into a new nuclear arms race or terrorizing
much weaker countries like Iran and Venezuela will not change the fundamental fact that the
system we created is broken and unsustainable.
We broke it and only we can fix it.
The US moved West. Competition in the US was between the East & the West too. US had
cheap portable energy & people could pay their rent and have some money left over.
Obviously those who are collecting money from houses others move in and out of have the
opportunity to raise more money than those hoping the boss will give them a raise.
It seems that most of the land close to work has been purchased.
Michael Hudson has this situation figured out.
Does anyone force US businesses to buy foreign? Or is the US part of the Chinese empire
and therefore forced to buy its goods? I wonder whether the US military will wake up to the
lack of love of country in the US business sector and close the current forex driven version
of the racket down.
In the recent Camp Kotok MMT discussion (recording for the public posted here https://soundcloud.com/user-529956811/mmt-discussion-raw
), two things stood out for me (believe both were stated by Samuel Rines @SamuelRines on
twitter):
– MMT is "inevitable" (although it is arguable whether his definition and understanding
is correct)
– Warren is the assumed democratic nominee (Bernie or anyone else was not mentioned at
all in ~30 min of this recording)
So, sounds like the FIRE sector is looking to get nice and comfortable while nominally
paying tribute to the plebeians (lest they revolt, that was intimated by above mentioned
Sam)
"... When the economic demise of the USA's examined, the middle finger will be pointed at Neoliberals and all their free lunch allies as they endeavored to sink every boat but their own. ..."
Thank goodness Karl Marx did all that work for us when he did!
Free Lunch worshiping Neoliberals have absolutely nothing when it comes to doing actual
work in the realm of political-economy and have had to rely on lies and force to enforce
their "doctrines."
When the economic demise of the USA's examined, the middle finger will be pointed at
Neoliberals and all their free lunch allies as they endeavored to sink every boat but their
own.
"... Few realize that neoliberalism (which relies on the capture of government and media) has allowed capitalist exploitation in ways that never dreamed of: strip-mining future generations via debt-funded government deficits, fracking society with identity politics, socializing corporate losses via bailouts and environmental destruction, and misallocation of resources via militarism/NWO adventurism. ..."
Brandon Smith - whose political and philosophical views I'm not clear on and thus do not
champion here - nonetheless has a nice deconstruction of the media and the typical lead times
involved when MSM is ordered to foreshadow economic collapse. He suggests six months for this
one, therefore early in 2020, with Trump as the obvious fall guy. Thus, a time for
carpetbaggers to strip more assets, for fascists to tighten controls on the general populace,
and for a new president for the US.
I often cite Shadowstats , but
almost never direct people to read the news it announces on its main page. In response to
Grieved @4, I suggest clicking above and reading the Daily Update and Alert sections followed
by whatever else is fancied to see that indeed a recession is more than forecast:
" ShadowStats' Recession Forecast Remains in Place, With U.S. Economic Activity Still
Sinking; Watch for Continued Flight from the Dollar and Stocks into Gold. Beyond
intensified near-term market risks, the ShadowStats broad outlook in the weeks and months
ahead remains for: (1) a rapidly intensifying U.S. economic downturn, reflected in (2)
mounting selling pressure on the U.S. dollar, (3) continued flight to safety in precious
metals, with upside pressures on gold and silver prices, and (4) increasingly high risk of
extraordinarily heavy stock-market selling. " [Emphasis Original]
The main things I point to using Shadowstats are Unemployment and GDP which are located at
the dropdown Alternative Data menu. Take a look at each, then read the forecasts on the main
page to make your own conclusions. On the older HK protest thread, I linked to this
essay since it tells us how we were maneuvered into our current mess. Most have heard the
term Enron Accounting. Well, that was happening long before Enron became incorporated But we
need to have a Critical Mass of the citizenry understand that fact before we can enter into
the Political Fight required to rescue ourselves.
reply to
"The key wasn't the type of class [for a successful revolution]; rather, the key is the
solidarity of whatever the class consists of--it could even be multi-classed as in poor plus
poor-middle, which is currently the largest within the Outlaw US Empire."
Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 18:15 utc | 5
And the ruling class answer to that? Is to fragment the proletariat into ideological
factions fighting on the basis of: races, religions, gun rights, education levels, cultures
along with a massive dose of medically induced addictions.
The fact that the Democratic Party has made these issues its platform may indicate that
"they" fear a coming awakening before they have managed to secure complete control. Here's
hoping:)
karlof1 @5 said: "Marx's biggest erroneous assumption dawned on me..."
I may be wrong, but I thing you might be confusing Marx's definition of "working
class" with the vulgar and unscientific contemporary definition.
"Working class" does not mean "simple and uneducated laborers with dirt under
their fingernails". For Marx, "working class" has a very specific and scientific
definition, which is the individuals in society who do not own the capital resources
necessary for them to be productive.
In common usage, "working class" is used to refer to people whose salaries are
below some certain level, or who work in manufacturing, or something equally arbitrary. In
the scientific sense, though, the better rough test if someone is a member of the "working
class" is whether or not their income comes from a paycheck with someone else's signature
at the bottom. Do you live off a paycheck? If so, it doesn't matter how big that paycheck is,
within Marxist analysis you are working class. If you do not see yourself as working class it
is because you lack class consciousness, not because you are not working class. A pilot
making $100k/year, assuming he does not own the airliner he is flying, is working class. A
doctor making $200k/year, assuming she does not own the hospital where she works, is working
class. If you make your living by selling your labor to someone who owns capital, then it
doesn't matter how valuable, highly trained, or esoteric your labor is, or whether it is
mental or manual labor, you are working class.
A few percent of Americans are big capitalists who live off their ownership of capital.
Roughly 10% of Americans are little capitalists who own the tools of their trade and are
self-employed. The rest of Americans are either working class, or unemployable sub-working
class.
I'd say using such scientific definitions that pretty close to 80% of Americans are
working class, and that this is fairly similar to the distribution in most developed
countries.
By the way, solidarity is a side effect of class consciousness.
Yes, Divide and Rule ought to be the motto on the USA's money for that's what it's done
over most of its history, particularly since the rise of modern political parties just prior
to the US Civil War. Indeed, being able to arrive at a high degree of solidarity almost
allowed the People's Populist Party to gain the presidency, but it made the strategic mistake
of diluting its solidarity when it fused with that age's D-Party. The primary factors of
division then--sectionalism and racism--were deliberately escalated to include all the facets
of what's now known as the Culture Wars. It would be quite the coup if the situation could be
reversed and the Current Oligarchy's solidarity could be shaken and destabilized to a similar
degree.
Thanks for your reply! The 80% figure came from Marx's writings, although which I'd be
hard pressed to cite at the moment. I agree with your comment on the semantics that drive the
categorization, which is why I linked to The Imperial Middle in my comment since its
class consciousness was directed at trying to become upper-middle then upper class rather
than combining common cause with the lower-middle and lower classes. Indeed, the concerted
effort to eliminate Class as a classifier has succeeded to a great degree within the Outlaw
US Empire such that class consciousness is more often discussed in academia than within the
wide variety of work spaces. An example, my partner and her son were both raised in the
rabidly anti-union South--Georgia specifically--but both now find themselves union members at
their jobs here in Oregon and have needed to be educated about the nature of unions and their
advantages, part of which is becoming cognizant of the class within which you reside. And
yes, it's been a struggle since they were so well indoctrinated by anti-union
propaganda--it's not enough to point to Georgia's adherence to the federal minimum wage while
Oregon is well above it and rising further as one of the main indicator's of unionization's
importance.
Anyway, when Occupy Wall Street began, I was impressed by their use of 1% versus the 99%
to try and promote solidarity and class consciousness. Sanders and others use the term but it
has yet to be absorbed by the mass body politic. How do we get that message through
the massive number of distractions deliberately emplaced to ensure that doesn't occur? How
can you hear the voice of the carnival barker over the noise of the rides?
I know that I am scared. If the American Empire collapses, there goes my pension just like
the Soviet Union. My family needs it to stay alive. Capitalists who avoided being involved
with Maria Butina or imprisoned in Metropolitan Correctional Center have enough sense to
realize a crazy** plutocrat President, Negative Interest Rates, and the continued grounding
of the unsafe 737 Max(s) are going to play hell with their portfolios. NY Times stated the
obvious, "C.E.O.s Should Fear a Recession. It Could Mean Revolution."
**Only a nutty insular Ugly American who never watched the Danish TV show "BORGEN" would
cancel the meeting their PM because she said selling Greenland to the USA is
"absurd".
This point is so huge, it's the mammoth in the small and ever-contracting room that
comprises what remains of Marxist thought. So sadly extinct, perhaps, and it reveals quite
how far the fake left have gone from the theoretical, and in my view practical, roots of
Marxism.
To me, historical materialism and the division of society based on an individual's
relationship to the ownership of the means of production was self-evident from my first weeks
of working in a warehouse in a summer job as a teenager. Of course, I didn't associate it
with such vocabulary at the time, as my exposure to the economic theory which explained what
I experienced lay ahead of me in the years to come.
What I would also come to understand, and would have to accept, is that most people didn't
see it like that.
The idea of a 1% ruling class is a metaphor, but it's a working model to envisage a small
tip of a pyramid ruling over the 99%. Such an imbalance shoud clearly be incapable of
maintaining its dominance, and it does so by drawing a sufficient volume of the rest into its
orbit, and sharing some power (or creating an illusion of doing so) to create a middle class
in alliance with the
ruling class over the proles. Many/most of the 'proles' wouldn't consider themselves as such,
as they are educated and working in an office that doesn't resemble a coal mine or production
line, despite having very little money left after, for example,substantial housing and
education costs. (What that ruling-middle-class alliance consists of is beyond the scope of
this post.)
Were there a genuine class-consciousness based, not on perhaps archaic notions of cultural
class (flat caps and strong regional accents for example), but on whether you depended on
your wage or whether you enjoyed substantial returns on capital ownership, then there might
be a genuine collective sense of political agency among the actual masses, where solidarity
and the threat of mass withdrawal of labour would make them a social force, or class, to be
reckoned with - were there to be a shared political direction.
I suspect that the jewel in the crown of the elite is identity politics. If the fake left
hadn't invented this disaster for genuine working-class (in the widest sense) solidarity,
then the capitalists would have had to invented it themselves. Maybe they did? Divide and
Rule. The oldest imperialist and ruling class trick in the book. Get women versus men,
religions v each other and them all against secularists, LBGTQ+ v 'normies' etc, and bingo!
No chance of a wider working-class unity, especially when the very notion of traditional
'working class' can be demonised as backward, xenophobic and brutal.
And of course it is the fake left that marches to the banner of identity politics, where
it seems the only groups excluded are the traditional working class - and if they were
included would it help? No - if they are just another self interest group fighting for their
place in a new, divisive pecking order of grievance and hopefully privilege, if they can get
to be recognised. So class consciousness in the framework of identity politics would lack the
universalism needed to pose a challenge to the elite. A new understanding of class would need
to shatter the barriers that the fake left have erected, and get ordinary, working people, on
a wage, to see what they have in common, and not what makes them different.
I'd finally add that this analysis, which although I consider Marxist, doesn't implicitly
endorse any specific model or road map of socialism, (if at all) as that's another question
really. Rather it is to illustrate how a potential opposition to the current ruling class
could unite to propose an agency for change, which when faced with the forever endless war of
the ruling class, should at least be a consideration.
reply to
"What gives me hope, though, is how frightened the elites are acting. In some respects they
have a better perspective on things... the higher your point of view the further you can see
and all of that."
Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 22 2019 20:48 utc | 3
Yes, they do appear to be frightened it is very visible in the way they have taken the
rants against Trump to a level that is manic.But their grip seems to have slipped.
A Rasmussen poll found that more than fifty percent do not believe the media when it comes to
Trump and see ongoing and consistent MSM bias.
In addition, the ruling elite appear to be planning yet another recession to knock everyone
down a few pegs as they seem to do every ten years or so. This time they seem to be rushing
into it, possibly trying to launch it before the elections.
What is also interesting is the reaction of people to Epstein's supposed demise. No one is
buying Barr's diagnosis of "suicide." Was it Zappa who said something about the drapes coming
down and you see the brick wall?
Is there hope of real change?
I have been reading up on 5G and given the control mechanisms already in place, if 5G has the
control capabilities it is purported to have, once they roll that baby out it is game over.
So is there hope? I suspect not.
Thanks for providing that Merkley newsletter. I probably have one too, but haven't opened
my email today. As you saw, I culled through lots of Hudson to provide some views. You and
others have asked what solutions does Hudson suggest. What follows is his most direct,
succinct formulation for What
Must Be Done :
" The only way to control banks and their allied rentier sectors is outright
socialization. The past century has shown that if society does not control the banks and
financial sector, they will control society . Their strategy is to block government money
creation so that economies will be forced to rely on banks and bondholders. Regulatory
authority to limit such financial aggression and the monopoly pricing and rent extraction it
supports has been crippled in the West by 'regulatory capture' by the rentier oligarchy.
Attempts to tax away rental income (the liberal alternative to taking real estate and
natural resources directly into the public domain) is prone to lobbying for loopholes and
evasion, most notoriously via offshore banking centers in tax-avoidance enclaves and the
"flags of convenience" sponsored by the global oil and mining companies. This leaves the
only way to save society from the financial power to convert rent into interest to be a
policy of nationalizing natural resources, fully taxing land rent (where land and minerals
are not taken directly into the public domain), and de-privatizing infrastructure and other
key sectors ." [My Emphasis]
So, your "one note samba" is 100% on the mark. But as I asked earlier regarding a related
issue, how do we implement the medicine? How do we overcome the forces of reaction
that have so many levers of control without physically eliminating them? Or, is that the only
open road? Somewhat relatedly,
Sanders has unveiled another major portion of his electoral campaign platform.
IMO, Trump can't be allowed another term, nor can any version of Trump-lite such as Biden.
It certainly appears as I anticipated that Sanders is adding every additional Progressive
policy proposal to his campaign's platform, which is resulting in the gathering of diverse
factions under his tent. The BIG question: Will Sanders stick to his proposals or prove to be
another Obama and sell out as it appeared to many in 2016? That's THE question I want to ask
to his face up close and personal. And I bet a few million more folks want to do the
same.
Marx was concerned with the struggle between the owners of productive assets and those who
utilized those assets to create valuable products.
Few realize that neoliberalism (which relies on the capture of government and media)
has allowed capitalist exploitation in ways that never dreamed of: strip-mining future
generations via debt-funded government deficits, fracking society with identity politics,
socializing corporate losses via bailouts and environmental destruction, and misallocation of
resources via militarism/NWO adventurism.
Capitalist-friendly propaganda claim that the will of the market = the will of the people.
As usual, they don't tell you the whole truth: the market is not 'complete' and therefore the
price of extraction seems much less than it is.
Once the true costs of neoliberalism become apparent, the revolution begins.
The world all over is beginning to stand up in unison against the extreme right and enemy of
environment which is the Brazilian government. a govt elected by a collective hallunation we
can t conceive or explain.
Their greedy farmers won a big congressual mass of support.
However nearly all of Brazilian agricultural exports are easily subject to substitution.
There s simply no time left for organizing economic sanctions: the forest cannot wait. It s
time simply for European, Japanese consumers to boycott everything Brazilian.
Their
supermarket chains should at once give the first shot in the battle to eliminate this threat
called Bolsonaro.
Starting on
October 1st, the
250 BILLION
DOLLARS of goods
and products from
China, currently
being taxed at
25%, will be taxed
at 30%.
Additionally, the
remaining 300
BILLION DOLLARS of
goods and products
from China, that
was being taxed
from September 1st
at 10%, will now
be taxed at 15%.
From the same flaw the western MSM must suffer: did the NYT really expected China would
just treat Trump like a child, wait for him to lose the 2020 election and suddenly make
amends with the USA?
Did it really think this trade war was just a bad taste joke? Did it really think China
would just cave in in order to "defend globalisation"?
Do they really think of America as some kind of transcendental, abstract idea, and not a
concrete entity made of real human beings?
China announces tit for tat tariffs as yuan sinks to new low against the dollar.
Also sinking is Trump's popularity among US voters. AP has him at 36% approval versus 62%
disapproval. Remarkably, Trump's highest mark of 46% approval is for his handling of the
economy.
A no deal Brexit which Trump supports is just the thing to set off a recession in the EU
which spreads to Asia and the US.
What will his approval rating be then?
donkeytale , Aug 23 2019 13:43 utc |
86vk , Aug
23 2019 13:47 utc |
87
Wrong configuration from the last post (#85). I politely ask the administer to delete it.
The plan to retaliate against President Trump's tariffs suggests that neither side in the
trade war is prepared to back down.
I doubted this theory for a very long time, but now I'm beginning to believe it: Americans
really don't think they are responsible for the politicians they elect. They expect the rest
of the world to interpret any wrongdoings of their country as individual flaws of random
politicians. They expect the rest of the world to swallow the abuses by their POTUS under the
idea that they will elect another one the next election cycle. They expect the rest of the
world to be suportive, loyal and patient with their contry forever.
From the same flaw the western MSM must suffer: did the NYT really expected China would
just treat Trump like a child, wait for him to lose the 2020 election and suddenly make
amends with the USA? Did it really think this trade war was just a bad taste joke? Did it
really think China would just cave in in order to "defend globalisation"? Do they really
think of America as some kind of transcendental, abstract idea, and not a concrete entity
made of real human beings? Are they really that dense?
Marx was concerned with the struggle between the owners of productive assets and those who
utilized those assets to create valuable products.
Few realize that neoliberalism (which relies on the capture of government and media) has
allowed capitalist exploitation in ways that never dreamed of: strip-mining future
generations via debt-funded government deficits, fracking society with identity politics,
socializing corporate losses via bailouts and environmental destruction, and misallocation of
resources via militarism/NWO adventurism.
Capitalist-friendly propaganda claim that the will of the market = the will of the people.
As usual, they don't tell you the whole truth: the market is not 'complete' and therefore the
price of extraction seems much less than it is.
Once the true costs of neoliberalism become apparent, the revolution begins.
Yes, is way Warren is a connuation of "Trump tradition" in the USA politics: reling of hate
toward the neoliberalism establishment to get the most votes.
...in a piece
Warren wrote for Medium in which she (rightly) warned of "a precarious economy that is
built on debt -- both household debt and corporate debt." Notably missing was the national
debt, which amounts to around $182,900 per taxpayer and which Warren's policies would only
steepen. How exactly is a government flailing in red ink supposed to make the country solvent?
And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example -- were
themselves at least in part caused by federal interventions?
Those objections aside, it would be wrong to dismiss Warren as just another statist liberal.
She's deeper than that, first of all, having written extensively about economics, including
her book The Two-Income Trap . But more importantly, she's put her finger on something very
important in the American electorate. It's the same force that helped propel Donald Trump to
victory in 2016: a seething anger against goliath institutions that seem to prize profit and
power over the greater welfare. This is firmly in the tradition of most American populisms,
which have worried less about the size of government and more about gilded influence rendering
it inert.
Warren thus has a real claim to the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, which is
deeply skeptical of corporate power. She could even try to out-populist Donald Trump. She's
already released more detailed policy proposals than any of her Democratic rivals, everything
from sledgehammering the rich with new taxes to canceling student debt to wielding antitrust
against big tech companies to subsidizing childcare. All this is chum to at least some of the
Democratic base (old-school sorts rather than the SJWs obsessed with race and gender), and as a
result, she's surged to either second or third place in the primary, depending on what poll you
check. She's even elicited praise from some conservative intellectuals, who view her as an
economic nationalist friendly to the family against the blackhearted forces of big.
America has been in a populist mood since the crash of 2008, yet in every presidential
election since then, there's been at least one distinctly plutocratic candidate in the race. In
2008, it was perennial Washingtonian John McCain. In 2012, it was former Bain Capital magnate
Mitt Romney. (The stupidest explanation for why Romney lost was always that tea party activists
dragged him down. Romney lost because he sounded like an imposter and looked like the guy who
fired your brother from that firm back in 1982.) And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary
Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when you feed a stock portfolio and a government
security clearance into a concentrate machine.
If Elizabeth Warren wins the Democratic nomination next year, it will be the first time
since Bear Stearns exploded that both parties' candidates seem to reflect back the national
temperament. It will also pose a test for Warren herself. On one hand, her economic policies,
bad though they might be, stand a real chance of attracting voters, given their digestibility
and focus on relieving high costs of living. On the other hand -- this is where Fauxcahontas
comes back in -- a white woman claiming Indian status in order to teach at Harvard Law is
pretty much everything Americans hate about politically correct identity politics.
The question, then, is which image of Warren will stick: one is a balm to the country's
economic anxiety; the other is unacceptable to its cultural grievances. Right now we can only
speculate, though it seems certain that Trump will try to define her as the latter while much
of the media will intervene in the other direction.
Her entire political theory seems to have been that giant corporations should not be
allowed to utterly screw the common man. That is about it, and for this she is called a
commie radical. I like her, little afraid of foreign policy
Warren was born into a middle class family, Trump wasn't. Trump is playing the populist, he
has no idea what average Americans deal with.
Warren was raised on the family lore of having native ancestry and she does. Not much
but she does and that's all it takes to start family lore. Her Native American ancestor was
from around the time of the American Revolution and it's easy to see how that legend could
be passed down. There is no proof she ever benefited from this, she was just proud to have
Native American ancestry.
Funny how the RW is so outraged by this one thing. Maybe it would be better for her to
con people, lie and make stuff up nonstop like Trump. It seems a never ending blizzard of
lies and falsehoods renders one immune.
Let's remember that our only effective populist, in fact our only effective president, was
a rich patrician. FDR's roots went back to the Mayflower, yet he was able to break the
influence of the banks and give us 50 years of bubble-free prosperity. The only thing that
counts is GETTING THE WORK DONE.
Her economics aren't bad. She herself claims to be a capitalist, she just wants our massive
economy to also benefit regular folks instead of just the elites. And whatever economic
program she proposes is most likely further left than she thinks necessary because that's a
better negotiating position to start from. Remember every proposal has to go through both
branches of Congress to become law, and they will absolutely try to make everything more
pro-corporate because that is their donor base.
"And what of the fact that some of the economy's woes -- student loan debt, for example --
were themselves at least in part caused by federal
interventions?"
Mr. Purple might want to remind himself that 75% of federal student financial aid in the
1970's was in the form of grants, not loans, and that it was only after the intervention of
conservative Republican congressman Gerald "Jerry" Solomon and the Reagan Administration
that the mix of federal student financial aid was changed to be 75% loans and only 25%
grants. I believe the Congressman used to rail against free riding college students, which
is all well and good until one finds that the "free hand of the market" becomes warped by
so many people being in so much debt, and all of them being too small to save.
Democrats might want to ask Joe Biden about this, considering his support for
legislation that made it harder to discharge student debt in bankruptcy proceedings. They
might also ask Senator Warren about this subject.
Warren believed her family story. Trump, on the other hand, knew that his family was not
Swedish, but knowingly continued the lie for decades, including in "The Art of Deal " -
claimin his grandfather came "from Sweden as a child" (rather than dodging the draft in
Bavaria who made his fortune in red light districts of the Yukon territory before trying to
return to the Reich).
Warren made no money from her heritage claims, but the $413 million (in today's dollars)
given to Trump by his daddy was made by lying to Holocaust survivors in Brooklyn and Queens
who, understandably, did not want to rent property from a German.
Vanity Fair asked him in 1990 if he were not in fact of German origin. "Actually, it was
very difficult," Donald replied. "My father was not German; my father's parents were German
Swedish, and really sort of all over Europe and I was even thinking in the second edition
of putting more emphasis on other places because I was getting so many letters from Sweden:
Would I come over and speak to Parliament? Would I come meet with the president?"
This column was pretty much as I expected. It started out by rehashing all of the Fox News
talking points about Warren, without debunking those that were without merit.
After that it touched on Morning Joe's take on her, just to make it 'fair and
balanced'.
Then it acknowledged, briefly, that she has been correct in many areas. No comment on
how the CFPB recovered hundreds of millions of $$ from corporations that abused their power
or broke the law.
Then it mis-characterized the impact of her policies "sledgehammering the rich",
"economic policies, bad though they might be".
Dismiss Warren all you want. She could very well be the nominee, or the VP. She would
eviscerate Trump in a debate. Her knowledge of issues, facts and policies would show Trump
to be what he is. A narcissistic, idiotic, in-over-his-head clueless and dangerous buffoon.
I anticipate Trump would fall back on his favorite tropes. Pocahontas, socialist,
communist, and MAGA.
My opinion is that the average American is getting really tired of Trump's shtick. The
country is looking for somebody with real solutions to real problems. This reality tv star
act is getting pretty old....
Good article. Especially enjoyed this turn of phrase:
"And in 2016, it was, of course, Hillary Clinton, whose candidacy is what happens when
you feed a stock portfolio and a government security clearance into a concentrate
machine."
Really enjoyable.
I don't think anyone is going to care about the pocahontas thing. This election will be
squarely about Trump. I think Warren is by far the best candidate the dems can bring out if
they want to beat him. A Warren/Buttigieg or a Warren/Tulsi ticket would likely be a
winner.
Bernie's a little too far to the left for Joe Lunchbucket, Joe Biden is a crooked
Hillary wannabe, Kamala Harris is unlikeable, and the rest won't rise out of the dust.
The whole business about her supposed Native American ancestry and whatever claims she made
will make no difference to anybody other than folks like Matt Purple who wouldn't support
her under any circumstances anyway.
Consider that the best-known advocate of the "Pocahontas" epithet is of course Donald
Trump, whose entire reputation is built on a foundation of bulls--t and flim-flam.
"Thus in retrospect was it the "Obama" in "Obamacare" that was the primary driver of
opposition from conservatives, only for their concerns over federal intrusion to mostly
disappear once Trump was at the controls."
No. What disappeared was the Individual Mandate. THAT was what rankled me...the
government can do whatever stupid thing they want as long as they don't try to force me
into it.
"The Democrats could up their game by taking a deeper look into this issue." you mean the CIA democrats like Mark Warner? the
US has nothing to offer the world except war, which is why the people of the US must destroy this country. there is 1000% bipartisan
agreement on the war drive against both china & russia. both parties spend their days yelling at each other about who is the most
commie, like Moscow Mitch or Comrade Nancy, b/c they are unified in their war drive. as they are on anything else that matters.
this country exists to wage war, as the platform for projection of power, against competitors. nothing else. the illusion that
any of the operators w/in the system, any of them at all, are doing anything but crafting a persona in relation to power for self-aggrandizement,
not challenging power in the slightest, is not helpful.
b, what makes you think the Democrats are not in on the scam?
Also, just like the US funds NGOs in other countries, China too spends hugely and has bought many influential lobbyists and
think-tanks as well as media personalities and politicians in the US. Not very different than Israel lobbyists through AIPAC and
the massive Israel First big money. China influence operations in the US is likely significantly larger than US influence operations
in China since China is a closed CCP controlled system.
b wrote
"
The Democrats could up their game by taking a deeper look into this issue.
"
I agree with jb at comment #1
Yes there are "good" Democrats which are very much in the minority. The rest D/R are acolytes for the God of Mammon finance/war
based social order of the West.
Yes, we are in a very strange WWIII with lots of spinning plates and propaganda action and shedding of blood mostly where the
Western public does not "see" it
Excellent work b! Funding what on the surface appears to be a propaganda op aimed at another nation becomes a form of campaign
finance for a president's reelection campaign! I wonder how many such funds went to similar work on previous occasions?
It seems that at some point in time those within the Outlaw US Empire deemed it unimportant that other nations learn the funding
for numerous NGOs seeking to subvert them are overtly financed by the USG and are thus not NGOs at all but CIA appendages; and
that despite the overtness, the USG still claims those organizations to be legitimate NGOs.
I find it worthy in an ironic manner that the USA will soon be eclipsed by the nation it might have become had it not sought
to be a global empire. In fact, it's the very product of those Open Door policy advocates that will soon become the bane of their
descendants who opted for a financialized Free Lunch economy for themselves instead of a massively robust, resilient industrial/commercial
economy for all Americans.
Falun Gong is kinda like Scientology crossed with Amway. Get rich quick while simultaneously healing your goiters. In its best
days it was a terrible scam. Now it is just a blunt instrument that the US State Department uses to try and beat China with.
The Epoch Times' Jeff Carlson has been in the thick of uncovering the broad Democratic Party coup (in league with transnational
intelligence assets) against the Trump Presidency. Thus b's depiction here of the Dems potentially acting in the role of white
knight subverts mountains of evidence. As for Falun Gong's potential affiliations with the CIA and NED that's another quite plausible
storyline altogether.
Funny thing, after watching a Vesti News video on youtube I saw a video ad for the Epoch Times. It had a young white millennial
saying a bunch of propaganda drivel about the evil communist Chinese with regards to the Hong Kong protests.
Without suppression of Wall Street speculators the renaissance on manufacturing is impossible...
Notable quotes:
"... A tooling firm closes, and a complex organism withers. The machinery is sold, sent to the scrapyard, or rusts in place. The manuals are tossed. The managers retire and the workers disperse, taking their skills and knowledge with them. The bowling alley closes. The houses sell at a loss, or won’t see at all. Others, no doubt offshore, get the contracts, the customers, and the knowledge flow that goes with all that. All this causes hysteresis. “The impact of past experience on subsequent performance” cannot be undone simply by helicoptering a new plant in place and offering some tax incentives! To begin with, why would the workers come back? ..."
If I lived in the past, I might assume that re-industrialization would be as easy as building a new plant and plopping it down
in my model town; "build it and they will come." But this America is not that America. Things aren't that frictionless. They are
not, because of a concept that comes with the seventy five-cent word hysteresis attached,
covered here in 2015. Martin Wolf wrote :
"Hysteresis" -- the impact of past experience on subsequent performance -- is very powerful. Possible causes of hysteresis
include: the effect of prolonged joblessness on employability; slowdowns in investment; declines in the capacity of the financial
sector to support innovation; and a pervasive loss of animal spirits.
(To "loss of animal spirits" in the entrepreneurial classes we might add "deaths of despair" in the working class.) And if there
were a lot of people like me, living in the past -- in a world of illusion -- that too would would cause hysteresis, because we would
make good choices, whether for individual careers, at the investment level, or at the policy level, only at random.
Our current discourse on a manufacturing renaissance is marked by a failure to take hysteresis into account. First, I'm select
some representative voices from the discourse. Then, I will present a bracing article from Industry Week, "
Is US Manufacturing Losing Its Toolbox? " I'll conclude by merely alluding to some remedies. (I'm sure there's a post to be written
comparing the policy positions of all the candidate on manufacturing in detail, but this is not that post.)
"We're in the midst of a manufacturing renaissance -- something which nobody thought you'd hear," Trump said. "We're
finally rebuilding our country, and we are doing it with American aluminum, American steel and with our great electrical contractors,"
said Trump, adding that the original NAFTA deal "stole our dignity as a country."
Despite Trump's promises of a manufacturing "renaissance," the country is now in a manufacturing
recession
. The Federal Reserve just reported that the manufacturing sector had a second straight quarter of decline, falling below Wall
Street's expectations. And
for the first
time ever , the average hourly wage for manufacturing workers has dropped below the national average.
Amazingly, under Trump, America has experienced a 2½-year manufacturing jobs boom. More Americans are now employed in well-paying
manufacturing positions than before the Great Recession. The miracle hasn't slowed. The latest jobs report continues to show robust
manufacturing growth, with manufacturing job creation beating economists' expectations, adding the most jobs since January.
Obviously, the rebound in American manufacturing didn't happen magically; it came from Trump following through on his campaign
promises -- paring back job-killing regulations, cutting taxes on businesses and middle-class taxpayers, and implementing trade
policies that protect American workers from foreign trade cheaters.
But nothing has reversed the decline of the county's manufacturing base. From January 2017 to December 2018, it lost nearly
9 percent of its manufacturing jobs, and 17 other counties in Michigan that Mr. Trump carried have experienced similar losses,
according to a newly updated analysis of employment data by the Brookings Institution.
Perhaps the best reality check -- beyond looking at our operational capacity, as we are about to do -- is to check what the people
who will be called upon to do the work might think. From Industry Week, "
Many Parents
Undervalue Manufacturing as a Career for Their Children " (2018):
A mere 20% of parents associate desirable pay with a career in manufacturing, while research shows manufacturing workers actually
earn 13%more than comparable workers in other industries.
If there were a manufacturing renaissance, then parents' expectations salaries would be more in line with reality (in other
words, they exhibit hysteresis).
Another good reality check is what we can actually do (our operational capacity). Here is Tim Cook explaining why Apple ended
up not manufacturing in the United States (
from J-LS's post ).
From Inc. :
[TIM COOK;] "The products we do require really advanced tooling, and the precision that you have to have, the tooling and working
with the materials that we do are state of the art. And the tooling skill is very deep here. In the US you could have a meeting
of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China you could fill multiple football fields.
"The vocational expertise is very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on
that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said this is a
key thing and we've got to correct that. China called that right from the beginning."
With Cook's views in mind, let's turn to the slap of cold water administered by Michael Collins in Industry Week, "
Is US Manufacturing Losing
Its Toolbox? ":
So are we really in the long-hoped-for manufacturing renaissance? The agency with the most accurate predictions on the future
of jobs is the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Their projection to 2026
shows that US manufacturing sector will lose 736,000 manufacturing jobs. I spoke with BLS economists James Franklin and Kathleen
Greene, who made the projections, and they were unwavering in their conclusion for a decline of manufacturing jobs.
This prompted me to look deeper into the renaissance idea, so I investigated the changes in employment and establishments in
38 manufacturing North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) industries from 2002 to 2018. I really hoped that the optimists
were right about the manufacturing renaissance, but
the data I collected in Table 1 (see link) shows some inconvenient truths -- that 37 out of the 38 manufacturing industries
are declining in terms of both number of plants and employees.
So, yeah. Mirage.
... ... ...
A tooling firm closes, and a complex organism withers. The machinery is sold, sent to the scrapyard, or rusts in place. The
manuals are tossed. The managers retire and the workers disperse, taking their skills and knowledge with them. The bowling alley
closes. The houses sell at a loss, or won’t see at all. Others, no doubt offshore, get the contracts, the customers, and the knowledge
flow that goes with all that. All this causes hysteresis. “The impact of past experience on subsequent performance” cannot be undone
simply by helicoptering a new plant in place and offering some tax incentives! To begin with, why would the workers come back?
So, when I see no doubt well-meant plans like Warren’s “Economic Patriotism” — and not to pick on Warren — I’m skeptical. I’m
not sure it’s enough.
Here are her
bullet points:
More actively managing our currency value to promote exports and domestic manufacturing.
Leveraging federal R&D to create domestic jobs and sustainable investments in the future.
Production stemming from federally funded research should take place in the United States
Taxpayers should be able to capture the upside of their research investments if they result in profitable enterprises.
R&D investments must be spread across every region of the country, not focused on only a few coastal cities.
Increasing export promotion to match the efforts of our competitors.
Deploying the massive purchasing power of the federal government to create markets for American-made products.
Restructuring worker training programs to deliver real results for American workers and American companies.
Dramatically scale up apprenticeship programs.
Institute new sectoral training programs.
There’s a lot to like here, but will these efforts really solve the hysteresis that’s causing our tooling problem? Just spit-balling
here, but I’d think about doing more. Start with the perspective that our tooling must be, as much as possible, domestic. (“If your
business depends on a platform, you don’t have a business.” Similarly, if your industrial base depends on the tooling of others,
it’s not an industrial base.)
As tooling ramps up, our costs will be higher. Therefore, consider tariff walls, as used by other developing nations when they
industrialized. Apprenticeships and training are good, but why not consider skills-based immigration that brings in the worker we’d
otherwise have to wait to train?
Further, simply “training” workers and then having MBAs run the firms is a recipe for disaster; management needs to be provided,
too.
Finally, something needs to be done to bring the best and brightest into manufacturing, as opposed to having them work on Wall
Street, or devise software that
cheats
customers with dark patterns. It’s simply not clear to me that a market-based solution — again, not to pick on her — like Warren’s
(“sustainable investments,” “research investments,” “R&D investments,” “export promotion,” and “purchasing power”) meets the case.
It is true that Warren also advocates a Department of Economic Development “that will have a single goal: creating and defending
good American jobs.” I’m not sure that’s meaningful absent an actual industrial policy, democratically arrived at, and a mobilized
population (which is what the Green New Deal ought to do).
"... "The sentiment out in farm country is getting grimmer by the day," said John Heisdorffer, the chairman of the American Soybean Association. "Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these tariffs is mounting. ..."
"... The Republican senator Chuck Grassley, who represents Iowa, a state heavily reliant on agriculture, has called for a quick resolution to the dispute. "Americans understand the need to hold China accountable, but they also need to know that the administration understands the economic pain they would feel in a prolonged trade war," Grassley said in a statement. ..."
American farmers are likely to feel the pain first. Soybean exports to China collapsed last year when the trade war began, and
agricultural exports will be hit harder when, or if, the new tariffs are imposed. Farmers are also suffering from extensive flooding
that has delayed planting.
"The sentiment out in farm country is getting grimmer by the day," said John Heisdorffer, the chairman of the American Soybean
Association. "Our patience is waning, our finances are suffering and the stress from months of living with the consequences of these
tariffs is mounting."
The new round of tariffs will hit other parts of the US food industry, with beans, lentils, honey, flour, corn and oats all on
the list of goods that will be taxed.
... ... ...
The Republican senator Chuck Grassley, who represents Iowa, a state heavily reliant on agriculture, has called for a quick
resolution to the dispute. "Americans understand the need to hold China accountable, but they also need to know that the administration
understands the economic pain they would feel in a prolonged trade war," Grassley said in a statement.
Just days after Trump for the first time linked the ongoing Hong Kong protests with his
assessment of the US-China trade war, Beijing has issued an ultimatum to the White House: the
United States should not link trade negotiations with China to the Hong Kong protests,
denouncing such a move as a miscalculation.
In a short commentary published by Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily late on Monday,
the author said that events in Hong Kong were the internal affairs of China, and linking them
with trade negotiations was a "dirty" aim.
"Making a fuss about Hong Kong will not be helpful to economic and trade negotiations
between China and the US," the commentary said. " They would be naive in thinking China would
make concessions if they played the Hong Kong card " the oped cautioned.
Chinese diplomatic observers also said Beijing considered the worsening situation in Hong
Kong a sovereignty issue and would be highly unlikely to cave to Washington's pressure.
The remarks followed a statement by US Vice-President Mike Pence on Monday which reiterated
President Donald Trump's demand to tie the largely stalled trade talks with Hong Kong's
deepening crisis, a day after hundreds of thousands of people marched peacefully in defiance of
repeated intimidation from Beijing. In an address at the Detroit Economic Club on Monday, Pence
said the Trump administration would continue to urge Beijing to resolve differences with the
protesters peacefully and warned that it would be harder for Washington to make a trade deal
with Beijing if there was violence in the former British territory. Separately, Mike Pompeo
said that China should allow Hong Kong protesters the freedom to express themselves, in what
China saw as clear interference in its own internal matters.
The Chinese article countered by saying that the top priority for Hong Kong was to stop
violence and restore order, adding that US politicians should not send the wrong message to
people creating chaos in the city. "In the face of political intimidation, we not only dare to
say no, but also take countermeasures," it warned.
Global Times, a tabloid controlled by the flagship state-run newspaper People's Daily, also
warned in an editorial on Monday that American political and public opinion elites should not
harbour the illusion they could influence China's decisions on Hong Kong.
"Because of the trade war, the US has lost the ability to impose additional pressure on
China," it said.
"The US should stop its meaningless threat of linking the China-US trade talks with the Hong
Kong problem. Beijing did not expect to quickly reach a trade deal with Washington. More
Chinese people are prepared that China and the US may not reach a deal for a long time."
Chinese analysts noted Trump appeared to have hardened his stance on Hong Kong in the past
week or so, under growing pressure from US lawmakers and extensive media coverage of the
increasingly violent protests. Indeed, it was only a month ago when we reported that "
Trump Abandoned Support For Hong Kong Protests To Revive Trade Talks With Beijing ." Now
that trade war is once again front and center, with Trump using it as leverage for further Fed
rate cuts, the US president is once again refocusing his attention on Hong Kong.
As the
SCMP writes , Trump initially focused on making a deal with China ahead of his 2020
re-election bid and adopted a hands-off approach by characterizing the protests as "riots"
which were a matter for China to handle. Over the past few days, he suggested Chinese President
Xi Jinping should resolve the situation by meeting with protest leaders and warned that any
violence in the handling of the Hong Kong crisis would exacerbate difficulties for attempts to
bring an early end to the trade war.
"Trump's about-face on Hong Kong, from being neutral to piling pressure on Beijing, is
largely due to domestic political pressure ahead of the presidential elections," said Shi
Yinhong, an international relations expert at Renmin University and an adviser to the State
Council which is China's cabinet.
" But the Hong Kong issue concerns China's sovereignty and the government's ability to
maintain stability, which in Beijing's view is of superior priority . China cannot afford to
make much compromise and will do everything to fend off interventions from abroad, in spite of
all the risks and ramifications," he said.
Despite the soured mood between China and the US over their spiralling trade war – as
well as escalating tensions over Huawei, Taiwan and other geopolitical rifts – both sides
were planning further trade talks in the coming 10 days, according to White House chief
economic adviser Larry Kudlow on Sunday.
Any progress would be virtually impossible with analysts cautioning that the US attempt to
"play the Hong Kong card" would further complicate the trade talks.
Meanwhile, in the latest significant escalation in diplomatic tensions, China responded
angrily to Washington's decision on a US$8 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan and
Trump's warning against Huawei citing national security threats.
"When a long list of old problems between the two countries remains unsolved, the US side
is now ramping up the pressure on Hong Kong," said Shen Dingli, a professor of US studies at
Fudan University. "China has so far refused to make concessions in the absence of adequate
mutual respect and trust and I don't think we'll have much room to compromise on Hong Kong or
other issues. We'll have to wait and see what the US would do next," he said.
Shi also said none of the flashpoints in the bilateral ties – from Hong Kong, Taiwan,
to the South China Sea and the denuclearisation of North Korea – had any easy solution in
sight, with both sides showing little willingness to cooperate and accommodate the other's
interests. He said the increasingly hardline, confrontational approach on China by Trump
– who faced mounting pressure in his bid for re-election, especially amid signs of a
looming global economic recession – would only make a trade deal increasingly
unattainable.
"Even if there were no Hong Kong crisis, could the US and China reach a trade deal? Even if
Beijing caved into Washington's pressure on Hong Kong, would it make it easier for them to
bridge their glaring differences in the trade talks and cut a deal?"
Of course not, and since Trump is far more interested in keeping trade war simmering and on
the verge of a substantial escalation if only to keep the Fed on its toes and ready for far
more aggressive rate cuts, and even "some quantitative easing", that's precisely what the US
president wants.
"... Ex-IMF president, and soon to be head of the ECB, Christine Lagarde personally staked her support for President Mauricio Macri's pro-market government when she steamrollered through the IMF's biggest ever bailout of $56 billion for Argentina last year ..."
"... In return for the 2018 Bailout, the IMF demanded its usual pound of flesh policies: Austerity, Austerity and Austerity, spiced with inflation-targeted monetary policy, fiscal tightening, currency controls, and the keys to the Peso printing presses. Give Lagarde some credit -- she did give lip service to the people with a smattering of minor austerity mitigants in terms of gender equality and social provision. But, essentially the IMF's answer to yet another predictable Argentinian crisis was more of the same programme. You know the definition of madness ..."
"... While the new Macri government was welcomed by markets in 2015 -- it was immediately clear it didn't have widespread and deep-rooted political support. His government was perceived as a tool of global investment banks, global money and the supranationals. The electorate went along with it for a while, but the results of "neo-liberalising" the economy were disastrous; killing jobs, creating a balance of payments crisis, devaluation, driving inflation, and yet another flirtation with default -- hence the new IMF bailout. ..."
"... Macri failed to deliver on his promises to the electorate: inflation wasn't reined in, but soared to 60-70. Instead of growth the economy tumbled into recession. And more and more people fell into extreme poverty. Compare and contrast with the experience of Argentina under the populist Peronistas, the Kirchners, who drove recovery in the early 2000s via easy monetary and a massive fiscal spending initiatives. These didn't work so well when commodities declined, recession struck the currency sagged and massive monetary corruption followed. Argentina came close to default in 2012, and a naval vessel was actually seized by one creditor! ..."
"... The answer is not Austerity, Austerity, Austerity -- but that's her most likely only weapon in the ECB's armoury. There are clear parallels between Argentina and Europe -- much to be learnt in how not to handle recovery in the face of populism and undeliverable political promises. ..."
This morning's headlines are screaming how Argentina and President Mauricio Macri have precipitated yet another crisis on the
stressed geopolitical battlefront Relax. We are more than used to dealing with Argentina defaults But, its far more complex than
that. The latest Argentina Dance Macabre is all about Global Credibility. It's another Massive Fail!
What does it say about the credibility of Global Institutions and Policy when Argentina's whole market collapsed following a primary
for an election in December? Ex-IMF president, and soon to be head of the ECB, Christine Lagarde personally staked her support
for President Mauricio Macri's pro-market government when she steamrollered through the IMF's biggest ever bailout of $56 billion
for Argentina last year .
It now looks an extremely poor call on Lagarde's part. Macri won a mere 32% of the vote, while former president Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner won 47%. Don't Cry for Me Argentina indeed Domestic Argentine Politics have left the IMF looking stupid.
There are three major issues to consider here:
First there is the absolute predictability of what's just happened in Argentina:
In return for the 2018 Bailout, the IMF demanded its usual pound of flesh policies: Austerity, Austerity and Austerity, spiced
with inflation-targeted monetary policy, fiscal tightening, currency controls, and the keys to the Peso printing presses. Give Lagarde
some credit -- she did give lip service to the people with a smattering of minor austerity mitigants in terms of gender equality
and social provision. But, essentially the IMF's answer to yet another predictable Argentinian crisis was more of the same programme.
You know the definition of madness
The programme did achieve some minor success: bringing down Argentina's primary deficit and putting the trade balance in to surplus
-- but only because they spent IMF money supporting the peso. "Surprisingly" Austerity wasn't to the electorate's taste -- inflation
remains out of control and poverty is rising allowing politicians to exploit the widening income-gap divide. What a complete shock!
Who could have possibly predicted an unhappy electorate would damn Macri at the polls and favour former Peronista's from the last
century instead? (US Readers -- Massive Sarcasm Alert.)
While the new Macri government was welcomed by markets in 2015 -- it was immediately clear it didn't have widespread and deep-rooted
political support. His government was perceived as a tool of global investment banks, global money and the supranationals. The electorate
went along with it for a while, but the results of "neo-liberalising" the economy were disastrous; killing jobs, creating a balance
of payments crisis, devaluation, driving inflation, and yet another flirtation with default -- hence the new IMF bailout.
Macri failed to deliver on his promises to the electorate: inflation wasn't reined in, but soared to 60-70. Instead of growth
the economy tumbled into recession. And more and more people fell into extreme poverty. Compare and contrast with the experience
of Argentina under the populist Peronistas, the Kirchners, who drove recovery in the early 2000s via easy monetary and a massive
fiscal spending initiatives. These didn't work so well when commodities declined, recession struck the currency sagged and massive
monetary corruption followed. Argentina came close to default in 2012, and a naval vessel was actually seized by one creditor!
The Macri programme effectively went to the dogs y'day. The laughable Argie Century Bond crashed as low as 60 y'day. Default swaps
are 40 cents upfront (pay $40mm to insure $100mm). Short-term debt is yielding near 40%. Argentinians voted for former leftist politician
Kirchner instead, despite the widespread accusations of corruption, and the likelihood her election will simply deepen ongoing crisis.
The second point to this on-going Argentine Crisis is what does it say about Lagarde?
She is a gifted politician, a former French finance and apparently very efficient. She is not a trained central banker, but give
her credit for being self-aware. She recently admitted : "The Argentine economic situation has proved incredibly complicated and
I dare say that many of those involved, including us, underestimated a bit, when we started with the Argentine authorities building
the programme."
Her new job at the ECB is going to be a political minefield. She will need to draw Europe into agreement on fiscal policy support
for Southern European Economies -- which is a massive political issue when she's seen as Macron's candidate, Merkel is about to exit
the stage, and the next crop of German Leader's look crushingly incompetent in the leadership department. The Italian League has
already thrown down it's gauntlet -- if they don't get permission to start spending their way out of recession, they are going to
do it anyway.
Lagarde has to balance the economic conservatism of Europe's strongest economy, Germany, against the risks of "free-spending"
other European's creating further debt crisis. And she has to do it while holding the Euro together, dealing with consequences of
Brexit, and being a distinct number 2 on the priority list for national governments. Is she up to it?
If Lagarde thinks Argentina's economic situation is complex, wait till she tries to balance the ECB. Her job is not to simply
continue the "do-what-ever-it-takes" Mario Draghi "keep-the-Euro-going" mantras, but to actually move the European economy forward
in a political vacuum. The answer is not Austerity, Austerity, Austerity -- but that's her most likely only weapon in the ECB's
armoury. There are clear parallels between Argentina and Europe -- much to be learnt in how not to handle recovery in the face of
populism and undeliverable political promises.
The third point to learnt from the new Argentina crisis is who leads the IMF now that Legarde is off to Frankfurt?
The European's have decided they want their compromise candidate, Kristalina Georgieva, to lead the institution. Its always been
led by a European. Rest of world don't like that. While I'm sure Ms. Georgieva of the World Bank is an excellent candidate I am sure
there are better. Mark Carney -- Canadian and Irish. Why Not. He's a proper banker..
Bravo Argentina! They know how to play the game. He who defaults first can default the most. Get money, pass it around the
corrupt establishment, default again, get mo money!
"... The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.) ..."
"... That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies (essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of the US-centered neoliberal empire. ..."
"... As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants this change. ..."
"... All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of common people as Pentagon budget can attest. ..."
"... That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major donors pressure. ..."
"... In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via "classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.) ..."
It is not about the strategy. It's about the agony. The agony of the US centered global
neoliberal empire.
Trump and forces behind him realized that current set of treaties does not favor the
preservation of the empire and allows new powerful players to emerge despite all
institutionalized looting via World Bank and IMF and the imposition of Washington Consensus.
The main danger here are Germany (and EU in general) and, especially, China.
The current neoliberal order failed to suppress China development enough to block her from
becoming the competitor (and the second largest economy.)
That's why a faction of the USA elite decided to adopt "might makes right" policies
(essentially piracy instead of international law) in a hope that it will prolong the life of
the US-centered neoliberal empire.
As much as Trump proved to be inapt politician and personally and morally despicable
individual (just his known behavior toward Melania tells a lot about him; we do not need
possible Epstein revelations for that) he does represent a faction of the US elite what wants
this change.
All his pro working class and pro lower middle class rhetoric was a bluff -- he is
representative of faction of the US elite that is hell bent on maintaining the imperial
superiority achieved after the collapse of the USSR, whatever it takes. At the expense of
common people as Pentagon budget can attest.
That also explains the appointment of Bolton and Pompeo. That are birds of the feather, not
some maniacs (although they are ;-) accidentally brought into Trump administration via major
donors pressure.
In this sense Russiagate was not only a color revolution launched to depose Trump by
neoliberal wing of Democratic Party and rogue, Obama-installed elements within intelligence
agencies (Brennan, Comey, McCabe, etc.) , but also part of the struggle between the faction of
the US elite that wants "muscular" policy of preservation of the empire (Trump supporters
faction so to speak) and the faction that still wants to kick the can down the road via
"classic neoliberalism" path (Clinton supporters faction so to speak.)
Decline of neoliberalism in not a pretty picture. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Greek version of this saying
which appers in Sophocles’ play Antigoneis more
precise: "evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction". Oscar Wilde — 'When the Gods wish to
punish us, they answer our prayers.'
The United States witnessed three mass shootings in one week recently in California, Texas, and Ohio. There have been more than 250
mass shootings so far in 2019, more than one a day. This year in America,
more than 33,000 shooting incidents have killed more than 8,700 people.
America is the richest country in the world, but it has more than half a million homeless and 28 million people without health
insurance – out of a population of around 325 million. The U.S. infant mortality rate places it 33rd out of wealthiest 36 nations.
... ... ...
People from other industrialized countries must think that the United States has simply gone insane. It is a nation of terrible extremes:
grotesque wealth and horrific poverty, brilliant minds and widespread ignorance, high rates of volunteerism and endemic violence.
America seems to be suffering from some kind of bipolar disorder with pockets of manic energy and large areas of deep depression.
It would be tempting to argue that America is only suffering from a bout of temporary insanity. But mass shootings, gross economic
inequality, and corruption didn't begin when Donald Trump became president. He has made matters worse, to be sure. But these trends
are longstanding.
So, why do Americans put up with such violence, economic inequality, and political nonsense?
... ... ...
Moreover, more than half of Americans
have never traveled to another country. One in ten hasn't even
gone outside the state in which he or she was born. Since most of the news about other countries is negative, Americans naturally
believe that life is more dangerous outside their borders. They haven't actually seen what it's like in other countries, so there's
no way for them to compare the craziness of life in America with life anywhere else.
Of course, plenty of countries experience considerable violence, economic inequality, and political corruption. But they are usually
not powerful industrialized nations.
In the 2019 Global Peace Index
, for instance, the United States ranks 128 th in the world, between South Africa and Saudi Arabia. Kosovo, Haiti, and
Bangladesh all rank higher than America. Part of the reason that the United States ranks so poorly is the amount of military violence
that the country inflicts around the world – through war, arms sales, and military bases. But the high homicide rate in the United
States also dragged its score down.
The GINI index measures a country's economic inequality. The United States,
according to OECD figures , is fourth
from the bottom of the wealthiest countries in the world. Only Chile, Turkey, and Mexico have greater income inequality after taxes
and transfers.
On corruption issues, the United States has generally been in the top twenty in terms of transparency. But in 2018, it
dropped six places to number 22 in the Transparency International
rankings. Here, the influence of the Trump administration has been significant. The problem is not ordinary corruption like bribery.
Rather, Trump is challenging the very foundations of the rule of law. He promised to "drain the swamp" of political influence-peddling
in Washington, DC. But he has only made the nation's capital swampier.
Individuals with mental disorders can seek professional help. They can take medications and enter psychotherapy. They can check
themselves into a hospital.
Trump's claim that China is paying for the tariffs is completely false and basically serves
to redirect income from his poor supporters to his wealthy supporters.
Not only that, the policy will have the consequence of further isolating the United States,
says Michael Hudson.
There's a lot wrong here -- although Warren is a terrific story teller -- but it's really
too bad that Obama didn't say "accounting control fraud," instead of "predatory lending."
Although it's not clear that Warren would have understood him if he had.
You're damn right there's problems with Warren's Obama story: he does five minutes of
research about her career and focus before she arrives, makes sure to be backlit upon her
entrance, rings what comes across as a transparently canned bell and she swoons!
I get that that most people were taken in by that talented, fraudulent shapeshifter, but
this is painful to watch.
https://c.deployads.com/sync?f=html&s=2343&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2019%2F08%2Fa-new-assessment-of-the-role-of-offshoring-in-the-decline-in-us-manufacturing-employment.html
<img src="http://b.scorecardresearch.com/p?c1=2&c2=16807273&cv=2.0&cj=1" />
By Christoph Boehm, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Austin, Aaron
Flaaen, Senior Economist, Research and Statistics Division, Federal Reserve Board, and Nitya
Pandalai-Nayar, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of Texas at Austin. Originally
published at VoxEU
What has caused the rapid decline in US manufacturing employment in recent decades? This
column uses novel data to investigate the role of US multinationals and finds that they were a
key driver behind the job losses. Insights from a theoretical framework imply that a reduction
in the costs of foreign sourcing led firms to increase offshoring, and to shed labour.
One of the most contentious aspects of globalisation is its impact on national labour
markets. This is particularly true for advanced economies facing the emergence and integration
of large, low-wage, and export-driven countries into the global trading system. Contributing to
this controversy, between 1990 and 2011 the US manufacturing sector lost one out of every three
jobs. A body of research, including recent work by Bloom et al. (2019), Fort et al. (2018) and
Autor et al. (2013), has attempted to understand this decline in manufacturing employment. The
focus of this research has been on two broad explanations. First, this period could have
coincided with intensive investments in labour-saving technology by US firms, thereby resulting
in reduced demand for domestic manufacturing labour. Second, the production of manufacturing
goods may have increasingly occurred abroad, also leading to less demand for domestic
labour.
New Facts on Manufacturing Employment, Trade, and Multinational Activity
On the surface, the second explanation appears particularly promising. Manufacturing
employment declined from nearly 16 million workers in 1993 to just over 10 million in 2011,
shown by the black line in Figure 1. This large decline in manufacturing employment coincided
with a surge in outward foreign direct investment (FDI) by US firms (the blue line in Figure
1). Nevertheless, existing theories of trade and multinational production make ambiguous
predictions regarding the link between foreign production and US employment. Further, due to a
lack of suitable firm-level data on US multinationals, there has been limited research on their
role in the manufacturing employment decline (see Kovak et al. 2018 for a recent
exception).
Figure 1 US manufacturing employment and US outward FDI
Source : BEA for FDI; Longitudinal Business Database (LBD) and authors'
calculations for employment.
In a recent paper, we address the question of whether foreign input sourcing of US
multinationals has contributed to a decline in US manufacturing employment (Boehm et al. 2019).
We construct a novel dataset, which we combine with a structural model to show that US
multinationals played a leading role in the decline in US manufacturing employment. Our data
from the US Census Bureau cover the universe of manufacturing establishments linked to
transaction-level trade data for the period 1993-2011. Using two directories of international
corporate structure, we augment the Census data to include, for the first time, longitudinal
information on the direction and extent of firms' multinational operations. To the best of our
knowledge, our dataset is the first to permit a comprehensive analysis of the role of US
multinationals in the aggregate manufacturing decline in the US. With these data, we establish
three new stylised facts.
Fact 1: US-owned multinationals were responsible for a large share of the aggregate
manufacturing employment decline
Our first finding is that US multinational firms, defined as those US-headquartered firms with
foreign-owned plants, contributed disproportionally to the decline in US manufacturing
employment. While 33.3% of 1993 employment was in multinational-owned establishments, this
group directly accounted for 41% of the subsequent decline.
Fact 2: US-owned multinationals had lower employment growth rates than similar
non-multinationals
In Figure 2, we show that multinationals exhibited consistently lower net job creation rates in
the manufacturing sector, relative to other types of firms. Compared to purely domestic firms
and non-multinational exporting firms, multinationals created fewer jobs or shed more jobs in
almost every year in our sample. Of course, these patterns may not be causal, and other
characteristics of multinationals could be driving the low job creation rates. To address this
concern, we control for all observable plant characteristics, and find that multinational
plants experienced lower employment growth than non-multinational owned plants in the same
industry, even when the size and age of the plants are held constant.
Figure 2 Net US manufacturing job creation rates by type of US firm
Source : Authors' calculations based on the LBD, Directory of Corporation
Affiliations (DCA), and Longitudinal Foreign Trade Transactions Dataset (LFTTD)
Fact 3: Newly multinational establishments experienced job losses, while the parent
multinational firm expanded imports of intermediate inputs
An alternative way to assess the role of multinational activity on US employment with our data
is to use an 'event study' framework. We compare the employment growth trajectories of newly
multinational-owned plants to otherwise similar plants in terms of industry, firm age, and
plant size. As can be seen in Figure 3a, prior to the plants becoming part of a multinational,
their growth patterns are not different from the control group. However, in the years following
the multinational expansion, there is a brief positive but then sustained negative trajectory
of employment at these manufacturing plants. Ten years after the transition, these newly
multinational-owned plants have manufacturing employment that is about 20% smaller than an
otherwise similar plant.
Figure 3 US employment and import dynamics at new multinational plants
a) Relative imports
b) Cumulative relative employment (Index)
Source : Authors' calculations based on LBD, DCA, and LFTTD.
Further, these newly multinational firms increase imports following the expansion abroad. As
Figure 3b demonstrates, these firms substantially increase imports both from related parties
and other firms (at arms-length), relative to their control group. Taken together, Figures 3a
and 3b suggest that offshoring might explain the observed negative relationship between trade
and employment.
Structural Analysis: Did the Offshoring of Intermediate Input Production Result in a Net
Employment Decline in the US at the Firm Level?
While the patterns we identify above are suggesting that increased foreign input sourcing by
multinational firms led to a decrease in US manufacturing employment, they are not necessarily
causal. Standard models of importing, such as Halpern et al. (2015), Antras et al. (2017) or
Blaum et al. (2018), make ambiguous predictions as to whether foreign sourcing is associated
with increases or decreases in domestic employment. At the heart of this ambiguity are two
competing forces. First, a reduction in the costs of foreign sourcing leads firms to have
access to cheaper intermediate inputs. As a result, their unit costs fall and their optimal
scale increases. This 'scale effect' raises their US employment. On the other hand, firms
respond by optimally reallocating some intermediate input production towards the location with
lower costs. This 'reallocation effect' reduces US employment. Theoretically, the scale effect
could dominate the reallocation effect and lead to positive employment effects of offshoring,
or vice versa.
We use our microdata to estimate the relative strengths of these two competing forces. We
show that in a conventional class of models and in partial equilibrium, the value of a single
structural constant – the elasticity of firm size with respect to firm production
efficiency – completely determines which of the two forces dominates. Our estimation
approach is to develop a method to structurally estimate an upper bound on this constant using
our data on the universe of US manufacturing firms. While a high value of the upper bound
leaves open the possibility that foreign sourcing and domestic employment are complements, a
low value of the bound unambiguously implies that the two are substitutes.
Our estimates of the bound are small, indicating that during the period 1993-2011, the
reallocation effect was much larger than the scale effect. In other words, during this period
of aggregate manufacturing employment decline, multinationals' foreign input sourcing was
leading to a net decline of manufacturing employment within these firms.
Aggregate Implications for US Manufacturing Employment
It is important to point out that the model we use only speaks to employment changes within
existing firms and does not take into account general equilibrium forces that can also affect
employment. Since such general equilibrium effects are inherently difficult to assess,
estimates of how much of the observed aggregate decline can be attributed to offshoring of
multinational firms are uncertain and often require strong assumptions. We thus proceed under
two alternative sets of assumptions. In the first, we conduct a simple partial equilibrium
aggregation exercise, which uses observed changes in firm cost shares of domestic inputs
together with our estimated parameter bounds to obtain model-implied predictions of the
employment loss due to foreign sourcing. This approach captures both the direct impact of
foreign sourcing by existing firms as well as the first-order impact on domestic suppliers,
holding all else equal. Under the second, we model these indirect, general equilibrium effects,
such as firm entry and exit, explicitly. In both of these scenarios, we find that the
offshoring activities of multinationals explains about one-fifth to one-third of the aggregate
US manufacturing employment decline.
Policy Implications
Our research shows that the global sourcing behaviour of US multinational firms was an
important component of the manufacturing decline observed in the past few decades. These firms
set up production facilities abroad and imported intermediate goods back to the US, with the
consequence of reduced demand for domestic manufacturing workers. While our research suggests
that offshoring had a negative impact on employment, we caution that it does not support the
view that offshoring and trade should be contained with tariffs or other policy interventions.
Previous research has shown that both trade and offshoring are critical for consumers' access
to affordable goods in the US. Instead, our research implies that government assistance for
displaced manufacturing workers could facilitate their transition to new jobs in other
sectors.
Authors' note: Any opinions or conclusions expressed herein are those of the authors and
do not necessarily represent the view of the US Census Bureau or the Board of Governors or its
research staff.
It's not just big-ticket manufacturing (appliances, etc) .little stuff that a nation uses
on a daily basis has been off-shored as well -- electrical wiring, capacitors, even
foodstuffs like cookies and candy.
I think an overlooked aspect is environmental protection and labor working conditions as
well as wages.
We are offshoring our pollution by moving manufacturing to other countries with much less
stringent environmental regulation. Similarly, labor rules in those countries don't require
as much worker safety, so we are offshoring injuries as well.
As the other countries become wealthier and more educated, they are starting to push for
more of these protections as well as higher wages which is forcing the companies to move
their production again to keep their costs low.
An interesting recent trend is the rejection of our "recycling" from countries that used
to receive it, so the feel-good greenwashing of filling the recycling bins is started to
boomerang back to North America as countries ship back the trash parts of the recycling. This
will likely require a second recycling revolution with more domestic processing of recycling
or an admission that it simply isn't going to happen in which case the righteousness quotient
of many suburbanites is going to plummet.
This is such an easy problem to solve from a policy standpoint- and it has been solved by
countries as small as the Netherlands.
Legally mandate a small list of fully recyclable materials for manufacturers to use in
production and packaging, and enforce it with punitive tariffs on non conforming goods. This
can take many forms, one logical option being that of holding companies responsible for the
costs of recycling their products.
This is as applicable to soda bottles as it is to large and complex products like
automobiles; BMW is a world leader in lifecycle waste reduction and recycling of
vehicles.
As usual, the impediment isn't technology or consumerism, it's corporate profitability and
one time costs of adjusting the supply chain.
So the writer says "that government assistance for displaced manufacturing workers could
facilitate their transition to new jobs in other sectors." I take it to mean that a policy
such as "free college" as advocated by Sanders which would involve government funded
vocational training in other sectors would go a long away toward helping those displaced by
outsourcing?
I remember all that BS back in the 80's and 90's everybody was on the bandwagon about
careers in computers, or any other hi-tech. I was one of those who had *some* training at
least .. right before they offshored all those jobs to India. It was a double kick in the
nuts.So, manufacturing went to China, computing went to India. And people wonder why I'm so
bitter and cranky sometimes.
Napoleon: "Money has no Fatherland. Financiers are without patriotism and without shame.
Their sole object is gain." IMHO US manufacturing is the reason why we're not all speaking
German today. And we gave all that capacity away like a bunch of lemmings over the
cliff
"that government assistance for displaced manufacturing workers could facilitate their
transition to new jobs in other sectors."
This "implies" that there are "jobs in other sectors" that create as much economic value,
expertise and "innovation" as manufacturing jobs do. What are they–"service" jobs?
Taking in each other's laundry? Delivering McDonald's to your door? Netflix?
Manufacturing is not just a job category that can be changed out for something shiny and
new, it's vital infrastructure that represents a nation's ability to provide for itself, and
to create a standard of living that reflects that capability. Those "affordable goods" so
important to american "consumers" are manufactured goods. It's not just the price to
buy them, it's the ability to make them that's important.
Like it or not, the once mighty american economy was built on the mightiest manufacturing
capacity that the world had ever known. Trivializing it as being only about cheap stuff is a
colossal mistake. We used to know that, and we've only begun to pay the price for
forgetting.
We* might very well learn to make lasting things of value again .. on a lesser scale,
after half the population is dead from despair, war, and disease ..
Outsourcing of manufacturing jobs by multi-nationals contributed to job losses ..
Really! LOL!
30 years too late for this info.
Wasn't hard to see even way back in the 1980's how multi-nationals were working very hard to
export jobs and import their "anti-labor" behaviour they were excising outside the laws and
borders of the US.
Tariffs were historically used to protect domestic manufacturers. Both the fees and
increased price were use to boot domestic manufacturing, and hence domestic employment.
Yes, during the wave of industrialization. But they don't work so well once consolidation
starts. 1875-1925(roughly) was the golden age of US manufacturing, even the WWII bounce was
government DoD driven. Private ex-DoD manufacturing peaked in 1924 and was flat since then.
Then we have the 97-05 downwave which then has boosted us about back to 1925's ex-DoD high.
Just like the tech wave, it ended.
I mean, by 1925 Portsmouth Ohio was done by 1925, by 1950 they just bled manufacturing
while it consolidated around bigger cities after WWII.
We need self-efficiency not capitalists growth. It ain't happening people. Its over. We
need 10% contraction of GDP just to get manufacturing growing again from a much lower base.
Tariffs are dead in the water for growth now, and act like the opposite. They are also
creating a bubble in "base" consumption while killing domestic production and yes, eventually
overcapacity will kill base consumption and it crash again like last years 4th quarter
driving down domestic manufacturing further.
Anecdotally, in a field I worked in for a while, middle management in a small privately
owned "needle trades" firm, the "growth" among our competitors was in firms that (we assumed)
did their design work in US but manufactured overseas. Domestic manufacturers either adapted
to this, or closed down.
At least in this field, automation had next to nothing to do with it.
Instead, our research implies that government assistance for displaced manufacturing
workers could facilitate their transition to new jobs in other sectors.
Ah yes, the subsidised retraining for manufacturing jobs that, in fact, do not exist.
Louis Uchitelle covered this policy failure in his 2006 book "The Disposable American:
Layoffs and their consequences". Is the phrase "got the T-shirt" relevant here?
For the government to re-employ workers who have lost their factories would be a form of
industrial policy. Ours is never clearly stated, if there is one. But one thing is clear and
that is the government gave the internationals every opportunity to offshore our national
productivity without any safety net for labor except unemployment insurance. Which runs out.
Michael Pettis has just backed a proposal to tax foreign capital saving and investment here
in this country. Because most of it is just financial "investments". Foreign investment for
long term capital projects would be virtually unaffected. It is claimed that this tax on
money parking would reduce out trade deficit and make it fluctuate within an acceptable
balance. By doing something that sounds like real-time exchange rate adjustments for every
transacted trade, now to include foreign investment and savings. So why didn't the
government, after offshoring all those jobs, re-employ all the laid-off workers as banking
and investment managers? So all this unproductive foreign money is skewing our trade balance.
Making our unemployment deeply structural. It is so bizarre that we are "trading" in money at
all. We are trading in the medium of exchange, which is fiat, which itself is susceptible to
exchange rate adjustments with other money and all of it supposedly backed by the
productivity of that country. That foreign productivity is frequently nothing more than IMF
money, stolen and taken out of the country. The P word. Because the world has reached
manufacturing overcapacity, I assume, all this money is totally skewing the ledgers. It's
laughable except for the fact that the bean counters take it seriously. The mess we are in is
something more fundamental than balanced exchange rates. It's more like hoarding at its most
irrational. Way over my head. And for us to fix unemployment here in the US will take far
more than a tax on all this loose international money.
Yeah it's nice to have it "officially" credentialed etc its not like I haven't been saying
this since they passed NAFTA, but then I wasn't "credentialed" so nobody listened . its like,
"No $#!t sherlock ???" pretty much *everyone* who has spent some time in the industrial
sectors knows this by heart without even needing to be told. Of course maybe now its OK to
say it out loud or something . smh.
===the Role of Offshoring in the Decline in US Manufacturing Employment===
It is not just the role of offshoring in the decline of US manufacturing employment, BUT
the effect the offshoring, and the competing with foreign manufacturers, had on the existing
US manufacturing workforce. The manufacturers and manufacturing workers that remain in the US
have to compete with their cheaper foreign competition for work.
I spent most of the last 25 years working in plastics injection molding. After spending
the first six years of my career in plastics/ polymer research and development, I
transitioned to injection molding. In the mid 90's when I started in injection molding,
globalization had already begun especially in the automotive sector. The car manufacturers
were already setting up global and domestic supply chains. But even then the Chicago area
(and the US in general) was heavy in mold making and injection molding businesses.
Then China became a major player in the world economy, NAFTA started, etc. and in the
early 2000's it was like the last manufacturer who gets stuck in the US gets to turn out the
lights!
There were a lot of small to medium size mold maker shops and plastic injection molders in
the Chicago area that went under because they could not compete with the cheaper foreign
competition. It was very sad as I knew many small mom and pop mold makers and injection
molders in the Chicago area who were in business for 20 – 30+ years that closed.
The fact that many businesses/corporations in the US, due to offshoring and globalization,
are forced to compete with foreign competitors that have cheaper labor, less regulation,
cheaper land costs, etc. etc. is beyond reason.
And to this day you can see the effects of neoliberal globalization in any manufacturing
or other business you visit as they are dealing with consequences of having to compete
directly with cheaper foreign competitors through cost cutting, low wages, and running the
employees into the ground.
The tables were tilted against manufacturers and manufacturing employees in the US. It is
like the US manufacturing (and other sectors) are trying to fight a battle with one hand tied
behind our backs.
There is a good book that relates to this post. The book is called Failure to Adjust: How
Americans Got Left Behind in the Global Economy by Edward Alden.
NAFTA killed a bunch of material extraction jobs, but boosted a bunch of auto production
jobs down the supply chain. You can see that on the data. Granted, auto sales have been flat
for 20 year which has led to a flattening of employment growth since 2005 after the material
extraction driven drop.
That is why the Trump Administration just basically rebooted it.
lol, but it created a bunch of debt finance jobs throughout the economy as well, that
boosted existing manufacturing. Offshoring accounts for .1% of the job loss. Most of it is
consolidation and technology. My great grandfather lost his job in 1925 during the first wave
of consolidation. What about that?
As someone working in manufacturing, while I am glad that there is some acknowledgement
that outsourcing is responsible, I strongly disagree about not implementing tariffs.
Effectively workers are competing for a race to the bottom in wages, working conditions, and
other factors like environmental laws.
Guess what if there are tariffs? Things will cost more, but there will also be more jobs
for the working class. Actually there will also be quite a few white collar jobs too.
Engineering, HR, Finance, Sales, etc, are all needed in any manufacturing industry.
I suspect that net, most workers would be better off even if prices were higher due to the
jobs. The thing is, the top 10 percent would not be and the 1 percent would not be. That's
the main reason for this outsourcing. To distribute income upwards so the rich can
parasitically take it.
While our research suggests that offshoring had a negative impact on employment, we
caution that it does not support the view that offshoring and trade should be contained
with tariffs or other policy interventions. Previous research has shown that both trade and
offshoring are critical for consumers' access to affordable goods in the US. Instead, our
research implies that government assistance for displaced manufacturing workers could
facilitate their transition to new jobs in other sectors.
This is where I strongly disagree. As discussed above, I think that the net effect might
be beneficial for the majority of society.
The other is the old retraining claims, which never pan out. What jobs are there? Visit
the communities in the Midwestern US and Southern Ontario. Retraining for what? For jobs that
are part time, minimum wage, with few or no benefits?!
Manufacturing may not have been perfect, but at least there were benefits, it was often
full time, and the salaries allowed a middle class existence.
When I read things like this, as much as I dislike Trump, I can understand why people
would support him.
For the life of me I don't see how any other outcome could have happened. With the
economic system we have embraced at least in my long lifetime, it was inevitable that
"capital" would seek the lowest level playing field in the long term. Nation's boundaries
kept that flow "fenced" to a certain limit for as long as there have been physical borders
between countries. Once the cat was let out of the bag of competing countries after WW2, for
example the Japanese with computer driven machinery (lathes) that crushed American companies
that in too many cases refused to invest and welcomed the slow destruction of organized labor
here in the US, it was inevitable that that condition would be the future of manufacturing
here. The advent of the Mexican maquiladoras gave a great push to the exporting of jobs.
NAFTA put the nails in the coffin so many more of those good paying jobs. "Labor" was never
invited to those global meetings that proved to be so destructive to so many countries.
But, again. The system we embrace can have no other outcome. "Tariffs" will eventually lead
to wars. So in the words of that famous Russian: "What is to be done?"
Anybody have a solution? You will be saving civilization from itself. We need a complete
rethinking of how we live on this planet. That will take better humans that we have now that
lead nations. In the meantime it's, "kill them all and let God sort them out!" The weak will
succumb; the strong will continue to battle for territory, in this case jobs, jobs, jobs.
In my eyes the NWO has lost its stamina in its fight to conquer the world. They started
with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia during degenerate Clinton times and continued with the
so called Color Revolutions. That imitation of human being, General Clark, told us it will be
7 countries in 7 years. That would take care of the M.E. After two successes, Libya and Irak,
the Russians gave their ass in their hands in Syria.
Let's take a look at South America. In Brazil they deposed Rousef and installed that
nincampoop Bolsonaro. To me that victory has all the characteristics of Disney cartoon.
Venezouela now. It was January 2018 they told us they are going to invade to restore
democracy (here we laugh) and human rights (more laughter) and they are still invading. They
know if they ever dare the whole South America will be up in arms and that is too big of a
bite to chew.
Add to this a 24 trillion debt economy with 15% of the Americans homeless and their dream
just fizzled.
Mexico is humanistic and civilised and when something dear to them is threatened THEY RUN
AS ONE TO RING THE CHURCH BELLS. They will not only survive they will come out
victorious.
Some other time we will take a look at this monstrous attack against the white race in
Europe through engineered invasion of Afroasians. Planning and management of Soros. The scum
of the earth.
'The senator had tough words for one of Joe Biden's signature laws'
by Gideon Resnick, Political Reporter...08.14.19...10:57AM ET
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) suggested in an interview Tuesday evening that she would
seek the repeal of the 1994 crime bill -- a historic though highly controversial measure tied
closely to one of her closest competitors for the Democratic presidential nomination.
It "needs to be changed, needs to be rolled back, needs to be repealed." Warren said of
the law, which has become widely bemoaned by criminal justice reform advocates for its
tough-on-crime measures, harsh sentencing guidelines, and general encouragement of the war on
drugs."...
"Biden just 1 point ahead of Warren in new weekly tracking poll"
By Julia Manchester...08/14/19...11:04 AM EDT
"Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) is trailing former Vice President Joe Biden by just 1
point in a new Economist–YouGov weekly tracking poll.
Biden sits at 21 percent support in the survey, while Warren is close behind at 20
percent. The next candidate is Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at 16 percent support among
voters."...
Pennsylvania voters have very strong -- and mostly negative -- views about President
Donald Trump, and about half say they will vote against him no matter his opponent, according
to a new poll of registered voters across the state.
Over multiple questions and surveys, a clear portrait emerges of an electorate deeply
polarized over the president, with strongly held feelings on either side.
About half of voters had a "strongly unfavorable" opinion of the president, twice the
number who held a "strongly favorable" opinion.
And while the divisions among Democratic voters are real during this primary election,
especially across groups such as age, race, and income, the real divide is between the
parties and ideologies: Most Democrats, regardless of which candidate they support, say they
will vote against Trump no matter what. ...
MONACA, Pa. (AP) -- President Donald Trump sought to take credit Tuesday for the
construction of a major manufacturing facility in western Pennsylvania as he tries to
reinvigorate supporters in the Rust Belt towns who helped send him to the White House in
2016.
Trump visited Shell Oil Co.'s soon-to-be completed Pennsylvania Petrochemicals Complex,
which will turn the area's vast natural gas deposits into plastics. The facility, which
critics claim will become the largest air polluter in western Pennsylvania, is being built in
an area hungry for investment.
Speaking to a crowd of thousands of workers dressed in fluorescent orange-and-yellow
vests, Trump said, "This would have never happened without me and us."
In fact, Shell announced its plans to build the complex in 2012, when President Barack
Obama was in office.
A Shell spokesperson said employees were paid for their time attending Trump's
remarks.
Trump used the official White House event as an opportunity to assail his Democratic
rivals, saying, "I don't think they give a damn about Western Pennsylvania, do you?"
The focus is part of a continued push by the Trump administration to increase the
economy's dependence on fossil fuels in defiance of increasingly urgent warnings about
climate change. And it's an embrace of plastic at a time when much of the world is sounding
alarms over its impact.
"We don't need it from the Middle East anymore," Trump said of oil and natural gas,
calling the employees "the backbone of this country."
Trump's appeals to blue-collar workers helped him win Beaver County, where the plant is
located, by more than 18 percentage points in 2016, only to have voters turn to Democrats in
2018's midterm elections. In one of a series of defeats that led to Republicans' loss of the
House, voters sent Democrat Conor Lamb to Congress after the prosperity promised by Trump's
tax cuts failed to materialize.
Beaver County is still struggling to recover from the shuttering of steel plants in the
1980s that surged the unemployment rate to nearly 30%. Former mill towns like Aliquippa have
seen their populations shrink, while nearby Pittsburgh has lured major tech companies like
Google and Uber, fueling an economic renaissance in a city that reliably votes
Democratic.
Trump claimed that his steel and aluminum tariffs have saved those industries and that
they are now "thriving." a description that exaggerates the recovery of the steel
industry.
Trump also took credit for the addition of 600,000 U.S. manufacturing jobs. Labor
Department figures show that roughly 500,000 factory jobs have been added under his
presidency. ...
(Apparently, workers' pay would be docked if they
did not attend; and they were advised to 'behave'.)
"... Now one can probably understand Russiagate (among other things) as both of "Hail Mary" pass to unify those two factions on the base of common external enemy (Russophobia or, better, Russophenia does represent the lowest common denominator between two parties), as well as the attempt to misdirect people away from the fact that Trump's election represents an irreconcilable split in the US elite. ..."
"... Trump faction which can roughly be described as one related to extractive and heavy manufacturing industries (energy, agriculture, mining, construction, steel, aluminum industries, etc.) went to war against FIRE sector, media and tech sectors. Currently they are undergunned and undermanned: MSM and intelligence agencies control is in the hands of the New Class. "Trumpists" can rely only on military intelligence and some MSM outlets (Fox). Moreover Trump himself was quickly neutered and now represents a shadow (or caricature) of former, election time, self. ..."
"... Also "Trumpists" have the intensity and ferocity of people who fight for the right cause (or at least against well-defined enemy -- classic neoliberalism), which is lacking in "classic neoliberals" camp. They also have (temporary and tactical) support of the resurgent nationalist movement. The latter is the natural result of more then 40 year on neoliberal domination (if we count from Carter, who and not Reagan was the first neoliberal president and who started Wall Street deregulation.) ..."
"... That's why the color revolution was launched against Trump camp (nothing personal here, just business) by Dems who represent those three sectors politically. They do not want to lose political power. Which is completely understandable, but let then eat cakes does not work. ..."
"Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Wednesday called Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R-Ky.) "Moscow Mitch" while attacking him for blocking House Democrats'
legislation, including election security measures."...
I like "Moscow Mitch" nickname. It reflects that depth of the split between two factions of
the US elite. The equivalent for Pelosi would probably be to call her "Insurance industry
prostitute." That means war propaganda mode: anybody who does not fully conform to the
classic neoliberal dogma is now Russian stooge and anti-Semite (attack on Corbin and his
faction in the UK)
Now one can probably understand Russiagate (among other things) as both of "Hail Mary"
pass to unify those two factions on the base of common external enemy (Russophobia or,
better, Russophenia does represent the lowest common denominator between two parties), as
well as the attempt to misdirect people away from the fact that Trump's election represents
an irreconcilable split in the US elite.
Trump faction which can roughly be described as one related to extractive and heavy
manufacturing industries (energy, agriculture, mining, construction, steel, aluminum
industries, etc.) went to war against FIRE sector, media and tech sectors. Currently they are
undergunned and undermanned: MSM and intelligence agencies control is in the hands of the New
Class. "Trumpists" can rely only on military intelligence and some MSM outlets (Fox).
Moreover Trump himself was quickly neutered and now represents a shadow (or caricature) of
former, election time, self.
But still he was able to unleash trade war with China which really hurt opposing faction
of the elite.
Also "Trumpists" have the intensity and ferocity of people who fight for the right
cause (or at least against well-defined enemy -- classic neoliberalism), which is lacking in
"classic neoliberals" camp. They also have (temporary and tactical) support of the resurgent
nationalist movement. The latter is the natural result of more then 40 year on neoliberal
domination (if we count from Carter, who and not Reagan was the first neoliberal president
and who started Wall Street deregulation.)
That's why the color revolution was launched against Trump camp (nothing personal
here, just business) by Dems who represent those three sectors politically. They do not want
to lose political power. Which is completely understandable, but let then eat cakes does not
work.
So the real danger for "Clintonists" now is that tech monopolies like Google will be split
and neutered and some investment banks who were too cozy to Clintons might soon have
problems.
In this sense it is prudent to view Elisabeth Warren with her anti-Wall Street stance as a
variation of Trump theme (Trump very quickly folded and became kind of parody on Obama).
Which means that she might have a chance.
I apologize for posting yet another crazy conspiracy story being spread by Trump Supporter
Media
...read this to see how truly crazy the Right Reality is...
Moscow Mitch fits right in with these loonies...'I know the truth, I'm protecting you,
THEY are out to get me, The truth will come out you'll see, it's a secret conspiracy of the
Left', yada, yada, yada
"James O’Keefe’s Google ‘Whistleblower’ Loves QAnon, Accused
‘Zionists’ of Running the Government"
'The former YouTube software engineer believes Google is now trying to “off”
him'
by Will Sommer...08.14.19...3:56PM ET
"Right-wing provocateur James O’Keefe published his latest video on tech giants on
Wednesday, touting an interview with former YouTube software engineer and self-proclaimed
“whistleblower” Zach Vorhies. In the video, Vorhies claims that Google’s
search algorithms are riddled with political bias, and touted a cache of internal Google
files he alleges prove his case.
Vorhies complains that Google doesn’t surface conspiracy theory websites like
InfoWars in one of its news search algorithms. He insists that his information is so valuable
that he has a credible fear that Google could be “trying to off me.”
“Some say that you’re a hero, some are going to say that you have extreme
moral courage,” O’Keefe told the former Googler in the video.
“I always thought that when the time came to do the right thing, in a big way, that
I would always be the one that stood up and did the right thing,” Vorhies replied.
What O’Keefe’s video leaves out, though, is that his much-hyped insider is not
as credible as he claims. On social media, Vorhies is an avid promoter of anti-Semitic
slanders that banks, the media, and the United States government are controlled by
“Zionists.” He’s also pushed conspiracy theories like QAnon, Pizzagate, and
the discredited claim that vaccines cause autism.
On Wednesday, O’Keefe defended Vorhies on Twitter. “Not every source is a
perfect angel,” he tweeted. “Good journalists know this is true.” Vorhies
and Google didn’t respond to requests for comment.
On his Twitter account, @Perpetualmaniac, Vorhies repeatedly attacks Jewish people and
accuses them of a wide range of crimes. (Both O’Keefe and his group, Project Veritas,
promoted Vorhies’s Twitter account in tweets on Monday.)
He even alleges that “Zionists” killed conservative publisher and
O’Keefe mentor Andrew Breitbart, who died of heart failure in 2012.
“It’s very simple, either you go along with the zionists or you end up like
Andrew Breitbart,” Vorhies wrote in January.
In a May tweet, Vorhies accused Israel of plotting the 9/11 attacks, and encouraged
Twitter users to look up 9/11-related conspiracy theory content, providing no evidence of his
claims.
“Israel and the zionist cabal planned 9/11 and its going to all come out,”
Vorhies wrote."..l.
"Trump Is Delaying Tariffs on China for Holiday Shopping Season"
by Shira Feder...08.13.19...11:04AM ET
"The Trump administration announced Tuesday that tariffs set to be imposed Sept. 1 on
Chinese consumer products like electronics, sneakers, and video game consoles will not go
into effect until Dec. 15."...
US to Delay Some China Tariffs Until Stores Stock
Up for Holiday Shoppers https://nyti.ms/2H50NMv
NYT - Ana Swanson - August 13
The Trump administration on Tuesday narrowed the list of Chinese products it plans to
impose new tariffs on as of Sept. 1, delaying levies on cellphones, laptop computers, toys
and other consumer goods until after stores stock up for the back-to-school and holiday
shopping seasons. Stocks soared on the news.
The move, which pushed a new 10 percent tariff on some goods until Dec. 15 and spared
others entirely, came as President Trump faces mounting pressure from businesses and consumer
groups over the harm they say the continuing trade war between the United States and China is
doing.
Mr. Trump's earlier tariffs on Chinese imports were carefully crafted to hit businesses in
ways that everyday Americans would mostly not notice. But his announcement this month of the
10 percent tariff on $300 billion of Chinese goods meant consumers would soon feel the trade
war's sting more directly.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump acknowledged as much.
"We're doing this for the Christmas season," he told reporters around noon. "Just in case
some of the tariffs would have an impact on U.S. customers." ...
... Mr. Trump's comments about the tariffs' impact on consumers followed the United States
trade representative's office announcement that while the new tariffs would take effect as
Mr. Trump had threatened, some notable items would not immediately be subject to them.
Consumer electronics, video game consoles, some toys, computer monitors and some footwear
and clothing items were among the items the trade representative's office said would not be
hit with tariffs until retailers had time to stockpile what they needed for their busiest
time of year.
The administration also said some products were being removed from the tariff list
altogether "based on health, safety, national security and other factors." A spokesman for
the trade representative's office said the products being excluded from the tariffs included
car seats, shipping containers, cranes, certain fish and Bibles and other religious
literature.
The S&P 500 climbed nearly 2 percent after the announcement, lifted partly by stocks
of retailers and computer chip producers that have been sensitive to indications that trade
tensions were getting either better or worse.
Best Buy, which gets a many of the products it sells from China, was among the
best-performing stocks in the S&P 500, up more than 8 percent in morning trading. The
Nasdaq composite index rose more than 2 percent. ...
The United States is openly encouraging a hard or radical split between the United Kingdom
and the European Union. This by way of John Bolton. Why the administration would take such a
position is a puzzle to me, and the openness is shocking.
U.S. supports no-deal Brexit with trade deals ahead, says Bolton
The United States would enthusiastically support a no-deal Brexit if that is what the
British government decided to do, U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Monday
during a visit to London aimed at reassuring Britain over UK-U.S. ties.
"If that's the decision of the British government we will support it enthusiastically, and
that's what I'm trying to convey. We're with you, we're with you," Bolton told reporters
after his first day of meetings.
"They will have to figure out how to do what they can by October 31 or soon thereafter.
From our point of view, we would have been happy to do it before that," the official said.
"The previous government didn't want to do it, this government does. We're very happy about
it," he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump wants to see a successful British exit from the European Union
on October 31 and Washington will be ready to work fast on a U.S.-UK free trade agreement,
Bolton told British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
BBC quoted Bolton as saying that a bilateral agreement or "series of agreements" could be
carved out "very quickly, very straight-forwardly."
He said British officials had given him an unmistakable sense that they were determined to
honor the 2016 referendum vote to leave the EU.
"The fashion in the European Union: When the people vote the wrong way from the way the
elites want to go, it's to make the peasants vote again and again until they get it right,"
Bolton said.
The central message Bolton was delivering is that the United States would help cushion
Britain's exit from the EU with a free trade deal that is being negotiated by U.S. Trade
Representative Robert Lighthizer and his British counterpart, Liz Truss.
Bolton said Britain and the United States could agree trade deals on a sector-by-sector
basis, leaving more difficult areas in the trading relationship until later.
He said the ultimate aim was a comprehensive trade deal, but highlighted that financial
services could be one of the more difficult industries to reach an agreement on.
Bolton had been expected to urge officials from Johnson's government to align its policy
on Iran more along the lines of the United States, which has pushed a much tougher line
against Tehran since withdrawing from world powers' 2015 nuclear agreement with Tehran.
But, after his meetings Bolton said talks on some of these thornier diplomatic issues
could wait.
Johnson has told the European Union there is no point in new talks on a withdrawal
agreement unless negotiators are willing to drop the Northern Irish backstop agreed by his
predecessor Theresa May.
The EU has said it is not prepared to reopen the divorce deal it agreed with May, which
includes the backstop, an insurance policy to prevent the return to a hard border between the
British province of Northern Ireland and EU-member Ireland.
Good to catch you around these economic matters. The WWIII is actually just being waged by
one side, I think. China is the caravan moving on. The fading bark of the dogs is the western
end of the deal, I think. But no time to enlarge on this right now, what with Europe having
the vapors...
Everybody got economics going on, it seems like, and Europe is no exception. Check out
below.
~~
Brexit and the EU
Alastair Crooke has a new piece out, riffing largely on a Pritchard Evans article in the
Telegraph, and including a very hot video clip from the heart of German concerns as the UK
executes Brexit.
I didn't realize how important the UK is to the EU and how its exit changes everything for
Germany. But the EU realpolitik illustrated in this Crooke article and in the 6-minute video
clip of the German speech is an entire facet of Brexit I had never seen until now. Check this
quote:
Speaking in the German parliament, Alice Weidel, the AfD leader, tore into Chancellor
Merkel for her and the Brussels botched handling of Brexit (for which "she, Merkel bears
some responsibility"). Weidel pointed out that "the UK is the second biggest economy in
Europe – as big as the 19 smallest EU members combined". "From an economic
perspective, the EU is shrinking from 27 member-states to 9." [My emphasis]
Crooke and co are saying that the UK departure from the EU changes the entire regime of
monetary controls within this economic union. Crucially, the lead is now shifting away from
Germany and to the failed economic model of France.
To make the chronic acute, now Trump cares, and the US has a stake in this - who knew? The
EU didn't know. It always thought the US was a partner, but maybe not.
If you want to dive straight into the German angst, here's the six-minute video of Alice
Weidel ripping German complacency apart with a call to attention from her constituency in
marginalized eastern Germany: German view of
Brexit
And for the containing article from Crooke - be warned that he quotes Paul Krugman but I
have to say it sounds pretty good to me - here's his article: Germany
Stalls and Europe Craters
Is this the end of the neoliberal counterrevolution in Argentina ? Moor did its duty moor has
to go -- Macri converted Argentina into the Debt slave again and now to get out of this situation
is nest to impossible.
Argentine president suffers crushing defeat in key primaries ahead of general election
Argentina's President Mauricio Macri suffered a crushing defeat as people voted in party
primaries on Sunday ahead of October's general election.
Given that all of the recession-hit South American country's major parties have already
chosen their presidential candidates, the primaries effectively served as a nationwide
pre-election opinion poll.
Center-left nominee Alberto Fernandez led by around 15 points after partial results were
revealed. Center-right Pro-business Macri admitted it had been "a bad election."
The first round of the presidential election will be held on October 27, with a run-off
– if needed – set for November 24.
With 87 percent of polling station results counted, Fernandez had polled 47.5 percent with
Macri on a little more than 32 percent and centrist former finance minister Roberto Lavagna a
distant third on just 8.3 percent.
Macri had been hoping to earn a second mandate, but his chances appear all but over.
If Fernandez was to register the same result in October, he would be president as
Argentina's electoral law requires a candidate to gain 45 percent for outright victory, or 40
percent and a lead of at least 10 points over the nearest challenger.
Inflation and poverty
"We've had a bad election and that forces us to redouble our efforts from tomorrow," said
Macri, whose popularity has plunged since last year's currency crisis and the much-criticized
56 billion U.S.-dollar bail-out loan he secured from the International Monetary Fund.
"It hurts that we haven't had the support we'd hoped for," he added.
Argentina is currently in a recession and posted 22 percent inflation for the first
half of the year – one of the highest rates in the world. Poverty now affects 32
percent of the population.
Backed by the IMF, Macri has initiated an austerity plan that is deeply unpopular among
ordinary Argentines, who have seen their spending power plummet.
The peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year. The Buenos Aires stock
exchange actually shot up eight percent on Friday amid expectation that Macri would do well
in Sunday's vote.
An important task now is to understand why the IMF assistance to Argentina proved damaging to
the economy from the beginning; the data showed the damage being done. However, there was
almost no mention of the problems that developed outside Argentina and there was surprise
when the failure of the economy was reflected in the serious vote against the current
president.
Of course, Joseph Stiglitz watched the same sort of problems unfold in Argentina almost 20
years ago and was severely criticized for discussing them. How did the problems recur so
readily now? Why is IMF national assistance seemingly so dangerous economically?
J.M.Keynes addressed 'foreign exchange' between sovereign states in his original version
of World Bank and International Money Fund, both addressing the fundamental causes of the
Great Depression. These presentations to U.S. government authorities also included the
British application for war debt forgiveness at the termination of hostilities to avoid
repeating post WWI scenarios. These presentations were then made to the Bretton Woods
Conference as the American version of the proposals, reversing institution and purpose as
contrived by Washington's design. Makes interesting reading the cables between Keynes and
London. What exists since Bretton Wood is the American version and as usual it was all
screwed up, but Keynes original proposals contain policies needed for the EAEU's ability to
function (and to avoid the economic causes of the Great Depression).
I recalled it was tax collection that became the failure of the colonial confederation,
the failure of the Continental Congress to meet its obligations, but then interpretations can
vary.
Finally got around to reading Crooke's latest. Yes, the EU's surely in a fix; but IMO,
he's correct about the ultimate source of the problem and the inability of solving it without
a total reformation. However, I would argue that reforming the EU would be a massive error.
IMO, it makes far greater sense to learn from the mistakes and negotiate with Russia and
China to consummate Putin's proposal for an EAEU sans the strangulating aspects of an EAEU
Central Bank and currency--the Euro and EUCB being two of the EU's mistakes. Such a creation
would also see the demise of NATO and the freeing of monies for war to be used on debt
relief, infrastructure, and building public/human capital. Russo- and Sinophobia would
immediately cease. The issues of South Asia would become easier to handle. And to be included
in the club Occupied Palestine would need to become Palestine--one state--thus defusing the
last colonial imposition impeding Eurasian integration/unity.
Yes, the five anglophone entities would be left out in the cold, although I can't see The
City allowing its politicos to blow its opportunity to cash in by having a piece of the
action (but then the British are unpredictable) while Scotland, Ireland and Wales prosper.
Africa would see its future lies in joining with Eurasia.
I don't think either Merkel or Macron have the vision required to even imagine the above
possibility, although I'd be happy to get surprised. But would such a suggestion need to come
from either France or Germany; why not Central and Southern Europe as such a change would
really benefit those nations?
Don't forget the generation that formed the Treaty of Rome and conducted subsequent
negotiations were mostly replaced by the 1980's with a generation not sharing common
experiences that the war generation had. Also, by the 1980's the economic theories being
taught had substantially changed from the economic understandings and experiences of the war
generation.
The war generation had each sovereign country having sufficient and adequate laws governing
banking and finance that prevented most aberrations within that country. Each country had
developed from differing circumstances and had drafted their laws to those specific
circumstances. Finding a common legal denominator proved to be, as they say 'a bridge too
far' but as long as each country's laws were effective, no problems presented.
The subsequent generation under the neoliberal economic theories found the central EU
government devoid of economic governance or regulatory structures; an open field easily
commanded by removing the abilities of each country to provide such governance for their
state. Centralisation of economic power became the problem and the cause of problems that
remain unaddressed and unless address is done, the economic house of cards will not last for
long.
Agreed! That's why I made it a point to list the EUCB and Euro as the two main mistakes
that must be learned from if an EAEU is to be formulated. Both Russia and China are
determined that each nation must remain sovereign, which means each must have control over
its monetary and political systems. Instead of a Union implying a federal structure, the
proposed political entity would be better termed as a Confederation with each nation
retaining its homogeneity. The major difference being the proposed Confederation would have
no trade barriers and visa-free movement for its citizens. (Recall the main failing of the
initial Confederation of United States were the trade barriers erected between states that
prompted the businessmen's revolt that led to the 1787 Constitution and the formation of the
federal United States of America.) If a regional grouping of nations--say the former
Yugoslavian entities--wanted to reform into a larger political-economic unit to better
provide for their collective citizenry, there would be no objection; and the reverse would be
possible as sovereignty of people would remain a foundation of human rights.
Given future challenges, IMO the above makes the best sense for Eurasia and Africa. The
implosion of the Outlaw US Empire and its affect on its hemispheric neighbors remains
unknown. It's possible the once formidable economic magnet of the Empire's economy will
reverse its polarity and drive people out as it did during the Great Depression. The vast
amount and depth of corruption within the Empire will take several generations to be
extinguished, and only then will political reformation become possible.
The establishment just can’t handle it when people begin to figure things about neoliberalism out for themselves, so the
desperate attempts to control the narrative once again surface...
Notable quotes:
"... "This country is filled with a patronage network of well off established people including Democrats who believe everything's fine as it is and are willing to shut their eyes to what's not working – the financial crisis of the working class, the racism underlying the for profit prison system and immigration system, the horrific endless regime change wars and the massive deregulation of banks on Bill Clinton's watch and much more, including the Climate Crisis." ..."
"... Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address the interests of voters. ..."
"... Each generation of Americans frets that they will be the ones who fritter the republic away. At least once every decade, it is the sad lot of some journalist to draw strained parallels between the state of the nation and the last days of the Roman Republic ..."
"... If anything "Russophobia" (Or Russophenia, to be exact) is the sign that the US neoliberal elite feels that it is losing the level of control they are accustomed since Carter. They are panicking and are ready to the slide of governance model from the current "inverted totalitarism" model toward a more repressive regime. ..."
"... Although the question whether the postwar democratic republic model of governance (with the New Deal as the cornerstone in the USA) is compatible with the existence of Wall Street oligarchy and powerful intelligence agencies which serve them as much if not more then the state was probably answered in November, 1963. ..."
Degradation of the elite is probably inevitable with the degradation of the social system
that ensured their rise -- neoliberalism.
As in Roman saying: "Those whom the gods would like to destroy they first make mad".
But the deep, existential crisis of neoliberalism is real and is not going away, no matter
how many times you chant Russia, Russia, Russia. Or China, China, China.
"This country is filled with a patronage network of well off established people including
Democrats who believe everything's fine as it is and are willing to shut their eyes to what's
not working – the financial crisis of the working class, the racism underlying the for
profit prison system and immigration system, the horrific endless regime change wars and the
massive deregulation of banks on Bill Clinton's watch and much more, including the Climate
Crisis."
And even more lemmings of the "rentier class" just check their account in Vanguard or
Fidelity and are satisfied when they are rising.
There are serious arguments in favor of viewing "Russophenia" as a defensive reaction on
the crisis on neoliberalism which provides an easy explanation of the country ills.
In this sense it is similar to the propaganda of Iraq war, which was also designed as the
kludge to cement cracks in the US society -- as in "war is the health of the state" (
although the desire to expropriate Iraq oil was strong too )
Like the Wolfowitz explanation of the Iraq War, Russiagate is the idea around which
varied interests can be organized. Cold Warriors like to hate on Russia. It justifies
arms spending and their own importance. Clintonistas need an excuse to distract from her
being a loser. The DNC needs an excuse for manipulating the candidate selection in favor
of donor interests. "Moderates" need a distraction from their ongoing refusal to address
the interests of voters.
"A republic, madam -- if you can keep it." That was supposedly Benjamin Franklin's reply to
a woman who asked him the result of the Constitutional Convention after it adjourned, in
1787.
Each generation of Americans frets that they will be the ones who fritter the republic away.
At least once every decade, it is the sad lot of some journalist to draw strained parallels
between the state of the nation and the last days of the Roman Republic. Since the election of
Donald Trump in 2016, this has become more like an annual ritual. ...
I am afraid that nothing, or very little is left to preserve.
If anything "Russophobia" (Or Russophenia, to be exact) is the sign that the US neoliberal
elite feels that it is losing the level of control they are accustomed since Carter. They are
panicking and are ready to the slide of governance model from the current "inverted
totalitarism" model toward a more repressive regime.
Witch hunts are always a sign of "tightening the screws" by the ruling elite.
Although the question whether the postwar democratic republic model of governance (with the
New Deal as the cornerstone in the USA) is compatible with the existence of Wall Street
oligarchy and powerful intelligence agencies which serve them as much if not more then the
state was probably answered in November, 1963.
OK, I'm having a very nerdy moment. Trying to understand why US-China bilateral trade
imbalance is so large. NOT because it's important, but just because it's kind of a puzzle; I
guess it's my inner @Brad_Setser 1/
6:39 AM - 10 Aug 2019
So last year US goods imports from China were $539.5 billion, US goods exports $120.3
billion. That's 4.5 to 1. Why so much asymmetry? I think 4 reasons: Hong Kong,
macroeconomics, value-added, and oil 2/
Hong Kong: effectively part of the Chinese economy, and the US runs a large surplus - $37
b in exports, only $6 b in imports. Basically a lot of US goods appear to enter China via HK
(something similar in Europe, where US exports to Germany go via Belgium/Netherlands) 3/
Adding HK reduces the export imbalance to "only" 3.5 to 1. Now macro: the US runs overall
trade deficit, with imports 1.5 times exports. China runs overall surplus, with imports only
0.8 exports. On some sort of gravity-ish story, this suggests ratio "should" be around 2
4/
Now add China's role as "great assembler", with value-added in exports really coming from
elsewhere; famous case of iPhone. Much less true than it used to be, but still means that
Chinese surplus is partly optical illusion 5/
Lastly, China imports a lot of oil, which means other things equal needs to run a surplus
on everything else. Used to be true of US, but with fracking we're now almost self-sufficient
in hydrocarbons (but not exporting to China) This adds a further reason for bilateral 6/
Someone with more time and patience should try to do the full accounting, but I think the
US-China bilateral can mainly be explained by "natural causes"; doesn't have much to do with
either country's trade policy 7/
I guess that Krugman is just a natural law kind of guy wherein IP protectionism and arbitrage
seeking cross border capital flows in an exorbitantly privileged global reserve currency are
just natural phenomenon like meteor showers and rain.
"... Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about the race. ..."
"... This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his supporters said they would definitely vote for him... ..."
A new poll out Tuesday on the New Hampshire Democratic presidential primary shows the
outcome is anyone's guess between former vice president Joe Biden, Senator Bernie Sanders of
Vermont, and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.
Beyond which candidate had what level of support in the first-in-the-nation presidential
primary -- scheduled for February 2020 -- a deeper dive into the Suffolk University/Boston
Globe poll provides a number of other big-picture takeaways.
The top tier is hard to crack
Biden, Sanders, and Warren are the only candidates with support in the double digits (21
percent, 17 percent, and 14 percent, respectively), and a closer read suggests that might not
change anytime soon. Much of this has to do with the fact that a significant portion of their
support is locked down. Nearly half of Sanders' and Biden's supporters in the poll say they
their mind is made up and they aren't looking at supporting anyone else in the field.
Something dramatic could occur, of course, but odds are that the status quo will remain for a
while.
Further, if there are big changes in the race, the poll found that Warren, not someone
else outside of the top three, is in the best position to benefit. Warren was the "second
choice" of 21 percent of respondents. No one else was even close to her in that category.
While Sanders has support locked down now, and Warren has the best potential to
grow , Biden, it appears, has his own lane of supporters that no other candidate is even
contesting. Biden's support is very strong among older voters, moderates, and union members.
For the most part, these voters aren't even looking at other options.
New Hampshire Democrats are moderate
For all the conversation about how far left the Democratic Party has moved in recent
years, the poll shows likely Democratic primary voters have not moved the same way. Yes, a
majority back the Green New Deal concept and Medicare for All, but more than 50 percent
describe themselves as either moderate, conservative, or very conservative. This is compared
with the 45 percent who say they are either liberal or very liberal. While this might seem
like a near tie, consider this survey polled likely Democratic voters -- the party's base --
which is the most liberal. ...
... In fourth place is Senator Kamala Harris of California at 8 percent, followed by South
Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 6 percent and Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii at 3
percent.
Among the reasons why Biden, Sanders, and Warren will be difficult to topple from the
top tier: a significant portion of their supporters say they have made up their minds about
the race.
This is especially the case with Sanders. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- of his
supporters said they would definitely vote for him...
"... "While there were measures that could have been chosen with larger direct effects on supply chains, the announcements from Beijing represent a direct shot at the White House and seem designed for maximum political impact," Krueger said. " We expect a quick (and possibly intemperate) response from the White House, and consequently expect a more rapid escalation of trade tensions." ..."
"... In a mid-day note, Krueger added that "the next stop on the currency manipulation road is probably off the map." Krueger expects Trump's "drumbeat on currency" will get louder, with the potential for the president to use a "charge of currency manipulation to justify some combination of (more) tariffs, investment restrictions and export controls." ..."
"... Instructing state-owned Chinese firms to halt U.S. crop purchases triggered "the obligatory flight-to-quality," which pushed 10-year yields to 1.74%, with two-year yields keeping pace. That was "an impressive move that suggests August will not experience the traditional summer doldrums. Who needs vacation anyway?" ..."
"... Bank investors' eyes were "glued to the yield curve last week," with Trump's tariff tweet on Thursday, Graseck wrote in a note. They're now asking about Morgan Stanley's net interest margin (NIM), outlook. ..."
Analysts continued to warn about the dangers of an escalating trade war on Monday, as
China moved to strike back at the U.S., hitting U.S. stocks and boosting Treasuries.
Semiconductors, with direct exposure to trade, and banks stocks, which are sensitive to
interest rates, were among the decliners. The biggest U.S. banks slid, with the KBW Bank
Index dropping as much as 4.1% to the lowest since June 4. Bank of America Corp. led index
decliners, with a drop of 5.5%, the most since Dec. 4, while Citigroup Inc. shed more than 4%
and JPMorgan Chase & Co. slipped 3.8%.
Micron Technology Inc. fell 6.2% while Texas Instruments Inc. lost 4.4% and Intel Corp.
was down 4%. Apple Inc. dropped 5.6%, the most since May 13. Shares in Chinese tech giants
Alibaba Group Holding and JD.com Inc. fell near two month lows in U.S. Trading.
Agriculture equipment makers Deere & Co. and AGCO Corp. tumbled as China suspended
imports of U.S. agricultural products. The escalating trade tensions are also a major risk
for the U.S. automotive industry, which has a significant exposure to the country. According
to UBS's Global Wealth Management Chief Investment Officer Mark Haefele, the latest spat
raises the possibility that "tariffs could also be placed on auto imports."
President Donald Trump tweeted about China and the Fed on Monday morning, saying: "China
dropped the price of their currency to an almost a historic low. It's called 'currency
manipulation.' Are you listening Federal Reserve? This is a major violation which will
greatly weaken China over time!"
Here's a sample of some of the latest commentary:
Cowen, Chris Krueger
Krueger called China's retaliation "massive," adding that "on a scale of 1-10, it's an 11."
He cited the Chinese government calling on state buyers to halt U.S. agricultural purchases,
while there's "increased anecdotal evidence that the Chinese government is tightening its
overview of foreign firms."
"While there were measures that could have been chosen with larger direct effects on
supply chains, the announcements from Beijing represent a direct shot at the White House and
seem designed for maximum political impact," Krueger said. " We expect a quick (and possibly
intemperate) response from the White House, and consequently expect a more rapid escalation
of trade tensions."
"There now will be increased expectations that the Fed will cut again in September to
offset the drag caused by this escalation in the trade war," he added. "Such moves will only
be a partial, lagged offset to the recessionary headwinds a cycle of retaliation would
cause."
In a mid-day note, Krueger added that "the next stop on the currency manipulation road is
probably off the map." Krueger expects Trump's "drumbeat on currency" will get louder, with
the potential for the president to use a "charge of currency manipulation to justify some
combination of (more) tariffs, investment restrictions and export controls."
BMO, Ian Lyngen
"The wait is over for those wondering how Beijing would respond to Trump's recent tariff
announcement," BMO said. "The result: the yuan was allowed to depreciate well beyond
7.0."
Instructing state-owned Chinese firms to halt U.S. crop purchases triggered "the
obligatory flight-to-quality," which pushed 10-year yields to 1.74%, with two-year yields
keeping pace. That was "an impressive move that suggests August will not experience the
traditional summer doldrums. Who needs vacation anyway?"
"The most significant unknown at this moment," Lyngen added, "is how much further the yuan
will be allowed to fall given that it's already the weakest since 2008."
Morgan Stanley, Betsy Graseck (bank analyst)
Bank investors' eyes were "glued to the yield curve last week," with Trump's tariff tweet on
Thursday, Graseck wrote in a note. They're now asking about Morgan Stanley's net interest
margin (NIM), outlook.
Graseck didn't change her NIM assumptions -- yet. "We bake one additional cut of 25 basis
points in 2019 in-line with our economist, and bake in the 10-year at 1.75% by mid 2020," she
wrote. She'll update NIM and earnings per share estimates "if it looks like these trade
tariffs are going through as September approaches."
Morgan Stanley, Michael Zezas (policy strategist)
"The dynamics of U.S.-China negotiation and macro conditions mean the next round of tariffs
will likely be enacted, and investors are likely to behave as if further escalation will
follow in 2019 until markets price in impacts," Zezas wrote. "This supports our core view of
weaker growth and skews the Fed dovish."
Zezas sees incentives for the U.S. to escalate quickly. If the administration "understands
the Fed's trade policy reaction function, then it may also perceive that a more rapid
escalation could deliver one or more of three beneficial points ahead of the 2020 election:
1) A quicker, potentially more aggressive Fed stimulus response that could help the economy
heading into the election; 2) More time to re-frame the potential economic downside; and 3) A
major concession by China (not our base case, but it is, of course, a possibility)."
Veda, Henrietta Treyz
"The U.S. and China are moving into one of their most aggressive phases yet in the year-plus
long trade war and we fully expect things to escalate from here," Treyz wrote in a note.
Treyz added that China's ability to quickly adjust their currency is an advantage they
have over the U.S. that "goes to the heart of the issue for the Trump administration." The
administration may view China's communist regime as a "systemic advantage" versus "free
markets and democracy" in the U.S., as the Chinese can "subsidize domestic industry, quickly,
enact lower tax rates and provide stimulus."
Furthermore, her conversations with Republicans point to the belief that "China's economy
is on the brink of collapse," she said, with turmoil in Hong Kong "considered evidence of an
organic domestic uprising that many believe the Chinese government cannot contain."
Republicans may also believe Trump will "galvanize" his base behind him, while attracting
"anti-trade and union Democrats in the Rust Belt as he takes on the mantle of a war time
president going into 2020 by engaging in this trade war." ...
On Monday, China announced new tariffs on $60 billion of U.S. exports, and the United
States threatened new tariffs on up to $300 billion of Chinese goods. These actions were
cited as the principle reason for a decline of more than 600 points in the Dow Jones
industrial average, or about 2.4 percent in broader measures of the stock market. With the
total value of U.S. stocks around $30 trillion, this decline represents more than $700
billion in lost wealth.
This was not an isolated event. Again and again in the past year, markets have gyrated in
response to the state of trade negotiations between the United States and China.
The market sensitivity to threats and counter-threats in the trade war is quite
remarkable. Monday's announcement by the Chinese, for example, would be expected to raise
China's tariffs by about $10 billion. Much of this will show up as higher prices for Chinese
importers, and some of it will be avoided by diverting exports of goods such as liquid
natural gas to other markets, so the impact on U.S. corporate profits will be far less than
$10 billion. Meanwhile, U.S. tariffs are likely to raise corporate profits as higher import
costs push some business to domestic producers.
There is the further consideration that reasonable market participants should not have
entirely discounted the possibility of tariff increases Monday and that there surely remains
some chance a trade deal will be reached. So, in fact, the market should not even have moved
in full proportion to the change in corporate profitability associated with new tariffs.
There is a revealing puzzle here. Events whose direct impact on corporate profits is a few
billion dollars seem to be driving market fluctuations that change the total value of
corporations by hundreds of billions of dollars. To be sure, there would be many ways of
refining my calculation of the profit impact to recognize various feedbacks, and certainly
the imposition of tariffs increases uncertainty, which in general depresses markets. But with
any plausible calculation of the direct impact of tariff changes on profitability or
uncertainty about profitability, it is not possible to justify the kinds of changes in market
value we observed Monday or on many other days when there was news about the status of the
U.S.-China trade negotiations.
Part of the answer to the puzzle, I suspect, lies in markets' tendency to sometimes
overreact to news, especially in areas where they do not have long experience. This idea is
supported by the tendency illustrated by the market's Tuesday rally, which took place without
any particularly encouraging U.S.-China developments.
A larger part of the answer probably lies in the idea that the current trade conflict is a
possible prelude to a far larger conflict between the two nations with the largest economies
and greatest power for as far as can be foreseen. When it appears less likely that a conflict
over well-defined and ultimately not-that-difficult commercial issues can be resolved,
rational observers conclude that it is also less likely the United States and China can
manage issues ranging from 5G wireless technology to North Korea, from the future of Taiwan
to global climate change, and from the management of globalization to the security
architecture of the Pacific region.
A world where relations between the United States and China are largely conflictual could
involve a breakdown of global supply chains, a splinternet (as separate, noninteroperable
internets compete around the world), greatly increased defense expenditures and conceivably
even military conflict. All of this would be catastrophic for living standards and would also
have huge adverse effects on the value of global companies.
It is, I suspect, the greater risk of catastrophic medium-run outcomes, rather than the
proximate impact of trade conflicts, that is driving the outsize market reactions to trade
negotiation news.
This carries with it an important lesson for both sides: It is risky to turn the pursuit
of even vital national objectives into an existential crusade. Rather, even when nations have
objectives that are in conflict, it is important to seek compromise, to avoid inflammatory
rhetoric and to confine rather than enlarge the areas where demands are being made.
Establishing credibility that promises will be kept and surprises will be avoided is as or
more important with adversaries as with friends.
As the Trump administration carries on the trade negotiations, and as the presidential
campaign heats up, Americans will do well to remember that there is no greater threat to the
success of our national enterprise over the next quarter-century than mismanagement of the
relationship with China. It is not just possible but essential to be strong and resolute
without being imprudent and provocative.
As has long been expected, the White House is preparing to release a new rule on Wednesday barring
government agencies from buying equipment or doing any kind of business with Chinese telecoms giant
Huawei - ratcheting up tensions between the world's two largest economies at an already precarious
time for the global economy.
The Trump administration is expected to release a rule Wednesday afternoon that bans agencies
from directly purchasing telecom, video surveillance equipment or services from Huawei.
The prohibition was mandated by Congress as part of a broader defense bill signed into law last
year.
"The administration has a strong commitment to defending our nation from foreign
adversaries, and will fully comply with Congress on the implementation of the prohibition of
Chinese telecom and video surveillance equipment, including Huawei equipment,"
said
Jacob Wood, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget.
Per CNBC, the new rule is expected to take effect a week from Wednesday, and it applies not only
to Huawei, but also to a list of other telecom companies that have drawn security concerns, such as
ZTE and Hikvision.
The official said contractors will be able to seek waivers from individual federal agencies if
they believe their business with any of the targeted companies should be exempt from the rule.
Moreover, the new rule will also set a deadline of August 2020 for a broader ban
on
federal contractors doing business with Huawei and other firms.
The law passed by Congress is separate from the Trump Administration's own efforts to keep
Huawei in check.
The Commerce Department instigated the tensions between the US and China after it placed Huawei
on a blacklist that effectively bans the company from buying goods or doing any kind of business
with Huawei. A 90-day grace period that kept Huawei off the blacklist temporarily is now almost
over. And President Trump has apparently walked back his promised, made at the G-20 Summit in
Osaka, to ease the pressure on Huawei.
However, US chipmakers and tech firms can request waivers, and the CEOs of Google, Qualcomm,
Micron, Intel and others met with President Donald Trump at the White House last month and urged
the administration to issue those decisions quickly.
In an interview on CNBC, Huawei CSO Andy Purdy defended the company's track record, arguing that
European leaders in the UK and Germany had told their counterparts in the US that they had found no
evidence that Huawei was a security threat.
"We have tested the products of all vendors to international standards so that there's
trust through verification,"
Purdy said.
All Chinese government agencies
will be prohibited from buying CISCO and other American
telecommunications products. Furthermore, contractors dealing with
Chinese government agencies will also be so prohibited from buying
American telecom products.
America - population 329 million. Economic growth rate: 2.8%
China - population 1.4 billion. Economic growth rate: 6.5%
source:
Wikipedia
China is rapidly industrializing, and has the largest
manufacturing base in the world. The USA is already a mature
industrial economy, and since NAFTA has offshored most of its
manufacturing base. The USA leads the world in the design,
manufacture and export of weapons, but relies on coercive
political relationships (such as NATO) rather than the "free
market" to sell its overpriced and line of products to captive
satellite countries. China is rapidly expanding in the weapons
manufacturing sphere, as is Russia, and offer increasingly
competitive products at lower prices, and with fewer political
strings attached.
Something to think about before breastbeating and cheering
ourselves on.
Trump is getting the **** kicked out of him on CNBC and every
Financial media on the internet. When China dug in, that was the
end of the Trump bluff. For the first time, the absurd articles
about China losing are gone and now the new reality is that China
is going to squeeze the life out of Trump.
Huawei is just
another of Trump's wayward policies of getting Canadian poodles to
kidnap Huawei's founder's daughter. Nice dirty **** Trump. Women
already hate Trump this ices that cake.
Last week Huawei overtook Apple as the second largest smart
phone maker. Huawei announced it no longer had any dependence on
US manufacturers for 5G, another body blow to the blowhard.
Dozens of certifying agencies have no studied Huawei products
and have found zero instances of spyware or any instance of this
hardware being used for spying. In short, Trump and the NSA and
CIA look like a bunch of assholes. This will only accelerate
Huawei's 5G rollout.
Trump is being **** canned in every direction. The great part
of Trump von hitler's personality is that he knows his 10% Sept
Tariffs were essentially the end of his presidency, but is too
arrogant to reverse course. Instead, he is screaming at the Fed
for more loose money to support his bad policies. And he wants
more Farmer WELFARE. That dog don't hunt!
China is not going to roll over over for Trump. The financial
media is now tearing Trump a new ******* every hour. Markets are
not responding to Trump plunge team efforts. They continue to sell
off.
Where's the endgame they ask? This is the same deal as Trump
closing down the gov for nothing. Trumptards cheered as the orange
idiot painted himself in the corner and accomplished nothing. Not
one inch of wall has been constructed since Trump took office.
Trump floats on a raft of ********. Meanwhile Trump has a 20 year
history of hiring Illegals for Trump Organization. Total Fraud and
self dealer.
The GOP is now climbing the walls. Today Trump Screamed at the
Fed to reduce rates emergently and then said it had nothing to do
with China. Astonishing.
When China put an end to US Ag purchases effective immediately
they were basically saying they were tired of Trump's ********.
The farmer associations are turning on Trump round the clock.
Where is Trump? He's hiding out. But of course this has NOTHING to
do with China.
But here is Trump once again playing the phony national
Security card with Huawei when a dozen independent organizations
have published reports and cleared Huawei of the Trump
Administration's phony security claims.
Huawei Honor smartphones and tablets are really good. The top
models are even better than iPhones.
There were some Chinese
smartphones at Best Buy the last time I checked.
But I just bought the 128Gb Lenovo Zuk for $280 from Banggoog a
couple years ago when it was on sale. It's a little problematic to
update Android, but it works perfectly anyway. There is a forum
for Lenovo phones, though, with all answers.
Poland's state security agency arrested Huawei sales
director Wang Weijing and a Polish national over spying.
Dongfan Chung The 74-year-old former Boeing Co. engineer was
convicted in July of six counts of economic espionage and
other federal charges for keeping 300,000 pages of sensitive
papers in his home
Chi Mak He copied and sent sensitive documents on U.S.
Navy ships, submarines and weapons to China by courier.
Don't waste my time. A 20 second google search shows you
have no point, but the one on the top of your head.
Thus, Given the Chinese government's record on espionage,
"a good-faith assertion from Andy is not enough."
"In Huawei's
carrier business
, H1 sales revenue
reached CNY146.5 billion, with steady growth in production and
shipment of equipment for wireless networks, optical
transmission, data communications, IT, and related product
domains. To date, Huawei has secured 50 commercial 5G contracts
and has shipped more than 150,000 base stations to markets
around the world.
In Huawei's
enterprise business
, H1 sales revenue was
CNY31.6 billion. Huawei continues to enhance its ICT portfolio
across multiple domains, including cloud, artificial
intelligence, campus networks, data centers, Internet of
Things, and intelligent computing. It remains a trusted
supplier for government and utility customers, as well as
customers in commercial sectors like finance, transportation,
energy, and automobile.
In Huawei's
consumer business
, H1 sales revenue hit
CNY220.8 billion. Huawei's smartphone shipments (including
Honor phones) reached 118 million units, up
24% YoY
. The
company also saw rapid growth in its shipments of tablets, PCs,
and wearables. Huawei is beginning to scale its device
ecosystem to deliver a more seamless intelligent experience
across all major user scenarios. To date, the Huawei Mobile
Services ecosystem has more than 800,000 registered developers,
and 500 million users worldwide.
"Revenue grew fast up through May," said Liang. "Given the
foundation we laid in the first half of the year, we continue
to see growth even after we were added to the entity list.
That's not to say we don't have difficulties ahead. We do, and
they may affect the pace of our growth in the short term."
He added, "But we will stay the course. We are fully
confident in what the future holds, and we will continue
investing as planned – including a total of CNY120 billion in
R&D this year. We'll get through these challenges, and we're
confident that Huawei will enter a new stage of growth after
the worst of this is behind us."
WHAT A DUMB ****!: Thanks!!! That makes me 3 times
smarter than you because Huawei subcontractors do sell
Huawei products in the USA. You are an ignorant Asian
that should go back to his village and the one room
dirt floor hut... LOL
I'd be the first to say that I don't know everything about this
telecom but I will say this seems like a reasonable decision on
it's face for the US government not to put in Chinese
telecommunications equipment. Of course China is going to not like
it because with Hillary she just gave them direct access to damn
near anything through her email server.
First, Trump coerced the Fed into lowering interest rates which made US Dollars cheaper to
buy then he increased domestic taxation 10% though increasing the tariff on selected Chinese
goods. China then blocks the importation of all US foodstuffs and lowers the price of the
Yuan an amount equal to the tariff increase--and the US treasury and Trump have the gall to
call China the currency manipulator! NO, as usual with the Outlaw US Empire, it's accusations
are psychological projection of what itself does. Hudson discusses it
here . US financial markets have finally awakened to Trump's moves and have fallen 5%
over the last three trading days, with more likely to follow. Hudson on Trump:
"It's all a diversion so that people won't look at what's really happening, only at what
Trump is saying. But as people find that they have to pay higher prices, I don't think
they'll believe Trump. I think he's lost all credibility. That's why the stock market's
collapsing. They're aghast. They think that even Trump can't get away with this big a lie
when it's so obviously false."
As I commented last Friday on the AP article my local paper ran about the tariff hike, it
finally told the truth about who'll pay--US Consumers or China: US Consumers! AP, All
Propaganda, tore a gapping hole into Trump's narrative--but will people believe a media
outlet that's lied so often?
Trump can't win his global trade war. China won't capitulate; it's economy and society are
100x healthier than the Outlaw US Empire's and are resilient where the USA can only claim to
have been once upon a time. Why that is has been explained before. The transcript of this
interview's poor, but the topic covers the
answer by showing how Canada's economy became a victim of the same predators as the
USA's.
We know what happened, how and why. What we don't know how to do is reverse the situation
politically. Hudson compares the dire situation to that of Rome:
"So they obviously, the left-wingers such as Bernie Sanders, want to run for president as
a kind of educational campaign to make their policy clear to the people, but they know that
there's no way in which the ruling class will let them win.
"It's been very clear, if they did win, they would be assassinated very quickly. I've been
told that by presidential candidates. The threat is, you'll never be president, we have ways
of keeping you out, and should you succeed, we will do to you what the Romans did to every
advocate of democracy century after century, assassination."
It seems the best those of us residing within the Outlaw US Empire can hope for is that
Trump's policies will decimate US financial institutions worse than what occurred in 2008.
Hudson's perspective:
"I don't see any popular movement yet. You can very easily see why collapse is
inevitable....
"There's no way of knowing when there will be a break in the chain of payment. Usually
it's a bankruptcy of a big company, very often by fraud, as the 2008 crisis was bank mortgage
fraud. You don't know when people will fight back. Often, surprisingly, they only fight back
when things are getting better. But things still have a way to go to get much worse in
Canada, much worse in the United States, so I don't see any possibility of reform within the
next 4 to 8 years."
[ Thinking through this Brad DeLong post, I am left with the same feeling I had after
reading "The End of History" by Francis Fukuyama. History did not end with the division of
the Soviet Union and evidently neither did the Cold War since the United States from at least
as early as the presidency of George Bush was treating Russia as though the Cold War was
continuing and this continued with Obama and Trump and now China is being openly included
though this too can be traced easily back to the Clinton presidency.
DeLong is wrong, the Cold War is unfortunately not over and won. ]
IMHO both major parties in the Cold war lost and the USA is just another loser like now
defunct the USSR. It is China and Germany which won the Cold War, emerging as two major
economic (and in case of China political) powers.
The USSR was a theocratic state, a self-destructing utopia which nevertheless served a
very useful role -- as a protection mechanism against cannibalistic instincts of the USA
elite.
The key here is that after its dissolution the USA elite stated looting its own people.
Which they were afraid of doing while the USSR was present of the world arena.
But Bolshevism was dead after WWII and eventually Soviet Nomenklatura (and first of all
KGB brass) changed sides and adopted neoliberalism, privatizing the country resources. The
USA helped in this process (bribing considerable part of the elite and first of all Party and
KGB elite including some members of Politburo), but the writing was on the wall.
But after that the stupidity of the USA neoliberal elite ruled supreme. Instead of
cultivating former USSR as a strategic ally by adopting something like Marshall plan, a war
criminal and sex addict Bill Clinton pursued the short sited policy of trying to loot and
kick a Russia into the vassal state sowing the dragon's teeth.
Looting Russia after the dissolution (via Harvard mafia; http://www.softpanorama.org/Skeptics/Pseudoscience/harvard_mafia.shtml
) closed the opportunity of having strategic ally and eventually created a determined
adversary. Which will patiently wait when due to its own stupidity the USA will show the
vulnerable side and then strike.
And that alone is a huge geopolitical defeat of a war criminal (by Nuremberg standards
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuremberg_principles)
Bill Clinton and his administration making him one of the most stupid and destructive USA
president in the country history.
He essentially adopted British empire stance toward Russia. Now we have emerging potential
alliance of Russia and China which complicates the efforts for the preservation of the
USA-centered global neoliberal empire. The USA no longer can dictate it will against this
alliance and that creates additional cracks in the empire façade visible in how EU
reacts to China tariffs and Iran sanctions.
The USA dominance will not evaporate in one year or even in a decade, but it is in decline
and now is really tested by China. Trump dysfunctional attempt to fight for the perseveration
of the empire on three fronts (against Russia, China and Iran) is not very successful, to say
the least.
And people whom he hired ( or who were hired by his handlers) are just a continuation of
the line of Cold War warriors from three previous administration (starting from unforgettable
Madeleine "not so bright" Albright). That's a real gallery of dinosaurs, if you ask me. Looks
like Washington elite lives in its own kingdom of illusions and this echo chamber became
completely disconnected with the reality. Attempt to push despicable and corrupt stooges of
neoliberal status quo like Kamala Harris as a Democratic Party candidate in 2020 is just
another manifestation of the same trend.
Also "neoliberal greed" (TM) destroyed the country manufacturing and without strong
manufacturing capabilities research capabilities are hampered.
For example, the USA neoliberals managed substantially undermine the USA lead in IT and
hardware.
Also using primarily financial instruments to ensure its dominance is a sign of the empire
in decline. The same it true about the existence of huge parasitic, rent oriented finance.
That also suggests that the dollar dominance can't last forever.
Much depends when the regime of "cheap oil" (let's say below $100 per barrel) ends. In any
case, even with $50-$60 oil the secular stagnation is fact of the USA economic life. People
just do not discuss it much anymore, but that's another strategic threat to neoliberalism and
to the USA-centered neoliberal empire. Attempt to grab Venezuela resources is a demonstration
that this treat is taken seriously.
As a side note, Neoliberalism as a social system, surprisingly managed to survive 2008
crisis largely intact converting itself into sudo-theocratic regime ( despite the fact that
ideology was destroyed). It also successfully counterattacked in Argentina, Brazil, and
France. Merkel, who is hard core neoliberal, managed to survive in Germany...
So it looks like it does have some staying power.
See "The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism" by Colin Crouch for an introduction to this
strange phenomenon.
Still with the collapse of neoliberal ideology (essentially Trotskyism for the rich) the
USA faces very uncertain future and supersized military expenses (essentially another form of
looting of common people) does not changed the precarious situation the USA elite got the
county. Neoliberal elite is not longer can rule as usual and the USA people want change. In
other words we have what Marxists used to call a "revolutionary situation". It very much
reminds me the USSR -- empire in 1970th with its stupid, degenerated and cannibalistic
elite.
[ This assertion by DeLong, then leaves me wondering what winning the Cold War then or now
would mean. We have, for instance, now arbitrarily set aside 2 Cold War nuclear arms treaties
since 2001, and are building more nuclear capability when we have weaponry enough to decimate
much of the earth, as does Russia.
Since Russia is now routinely considered a strategic adversary or threatening, we could
not of course have won the Cold War. We routinely accuse supposed political opponents of
being Russian sympathizers.
DeLong must be mistaken, unless there is a meaning of Cold War winning that is unclear to
me. ]
"Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes
itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia
evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers
of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification
for existing from it.
For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of administrative or
political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation of individual
profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks.
And they preach the subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with
the suppression of any regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the
general privatisation of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses."
However, all that is about to change, because as Bank of America team of economists writes,
Trump's latest tariff announcement from last Thursday, when the president shockingly unveiled
10% tariffs on $300BN in Chinese imports starting September 1, "is a major escalation." The
reason for this is that past measures had mostly avoided consumer goods. By contrast, the
threatened tariffs would cover $120bn of consumer goods, out of $300bn in total, and since BofA
expects the tariffs to be implemented, either on schedule or later this year, the period of
dormant trade war inflation is about to end with a bang, not a whimper.
... ... ...
Was Trump's announcement a negotiating tactic?
For the past year, one of the points of
biggest contention among economists and traders is that despite what is now a 1+ year trade war
with China, inflation due to higher tariffs has been strangely missing, with some claiming that
the goods targeted in previous tariff rounds were either not "consumer" enough, or simply had
more affordable substitutes from other, non-Chinese supply chains, allowing US consumer to
avoid having higher prices passed upon them.
However, all that is about to change, because as Bank of America team of economists writes,
Trump's latest tariff announcement from last Thursday, when the president shockingly unveiled
10% tariffs on $300BN in Chinese imports starting September 1, "is a major escalation." The
reason for this is that past measures had mostly avoided consumer goods. By contrast, the
threatened tariffs would cover $120bn of consumer goods, out of $300bn in total, and since BofA
expects the tariffs to be implemented, either on schedule or later this year, the period of
dormant trade war inflation is about to end with a bang, not a whimper.
"... As the U.S. administration is ready to impose a 10 percent tariff on the remaining 300 billion U.S. dollars of Chinese imports, its sincerity in reaching a mutually beneficial trade deal with Beijing that can accommodate each other's major concerns has gone bust. It seems that in the eyes of Washington's China hawks, trade talks are no more than a formality with which to rip China off. ..."
"... While the White House is boasting about taxing China until a trade deal is reached, it should keep in mind that China will only accept a win-win agreement on the basis of mutual respect and equal treatment. ..."
"... Beijing's position has been consistent and clear: China does not want a trade war, but it is not afraid of one and will fight one if necessary. ..."
"... It is therefore hoped that Washington should drop its fantasy to bring Beijing down to its knees with its same and old tricks of maximun pressure. If it truly wants a deal, then they will need to show some real sincerity first. ..."
Despite calling the just-concluded China-U.S. trade talks in
Shanghai "constructive" and hoping for more "positive dialogue," the White House on Thursday
announced plans to impose extra tariffs on Chinese imports from Sept. 1.
Washington's unilateral escalation of trade disputes is a serious breach of trust after the
two sides reached in June consensus to restart trade talks on the basis of equality and mutual
respect.
Apart from undermining the momentum of the newly resumed China-U.S. trade talks, the U.S.
flip-flopping again exemplifies Washington's untrustworthiness in striking a deal and its
disturbing propensity for bullying.
The U.S. administration should bear in mind that its bullying and tariff threat, which has
not worked in the past, will not work this time.
For over a year, the U.S.-initiated trade disputes with China have bogged down not just
economic growth of the two countries but that of the whole world. Meanwhile, an increasingly
capricious Washington is harming the current world order with more uncertainties.
As the U.S. administration is ready to impose a 10 percent tariff on the remaining 300
billion U.S. dollars of Chinese imports, its sincerity in reaching a mutually beneficial trade
deal with Beijing that can accommodate each other's major concerns has gone bust. It seems that
in the eyes of Washington's China hawks, trade talks are no more than a formality with which to
rip China off.
Also, the new twist in China-U.S. trade talks shows that some Washington politicians are
trying to play tough against China on trade matters and gain cheap political points as the new
cycle of U.S. presidential election is looming.
Unlike previous rounds of taxing Chinese imports, the U.S. administration this time is
targeting a wide swath of consumer goods, and therefore, is "using American families as a
hostage" in its trade negotiations, according to Matt Priest, president of the Footwear
Distributors and Retailers of America.
While the White House is boasting about taxing China until a trade deal is reached, it
should keep in mind that China will only accept a win-win agreement on the basis of mutual
respect and equal treatment.
Beijing's position has been consistent and clear: China does not want a trade war, but it is
not afraid of one and will fight one if necessary.
In response to Washington's tariff assaults since March 2018, China has had to take forceful
counter measures. This instance will be no exception.
Still, Beijing remains committed to handling its trade problems with Washington as long as
the settlement is based on mutual respect and equality, and conform to China's core interests.
China, which still sees a steady economic growth and boasts enormous potential for further
development, will always find a way to withstand any pressure if there no deal is reached.
It is therefore hoped that Washington should drop its fantasy to bring Beijing down to its
knees with its same and old tricks of maximun pressure. If it truly wants a deal, then they
will need to show some real sincerity first.
Neoliberalism is an amazing ideological construct: secular religion designed for the rich. The level of brainwashing of
population under neoliberalism probably exceeds achievable in a long run under Bolshevism and Nazism.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its losers. So government should get out of the market's way. ..."
"... By the 1990s, even moderate liberals had been converted to the belief that social objectives can be achieved by harnessing the power of markets. Intermittent periods of governance by Democratic presidents slowed but did not reverse the slide to neoliberal policy and doctrine. The corporate wing of the Democratic Party approved. ..."
"... Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut, and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration. ..."
"... The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more efficient. Yet the theory and practical influence of neoliberalism marches splendidly on, because it is so useful to society's most powerful people -- as a scholarly veneer to what would otherwise be a raw power grab. The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy, but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites. ..."
"... As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society, ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists get along just fine with dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and democracy as complements. Several authoritarian thugs, playing on tribal nationalism as the antidote to capitalist cosmopolitanism, are surprisingly popular. ..."
"... The theory of maximizing shareholder value was deployed to undermine the entire range of financial regulation and workers' rights. Cost-benefit analysis, emphasizing costs and discounting benefits, was used to discredit a good deal of health, safety, and environmental regulation. Public choice theory, associated with the economist James Buchanan and an entire ensuing school of economics and political science, was used to impeach democracy itself, on the premise that policies were hopelessly afflicted by "rent-seekers" and "free-riders." ..."
"... Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws. But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth. Conversely, does any serious person think that the inflated pay of the financial moguls who crashed the economy accurately reflects their contribution to economic activity? In the case of hedge funds and private equity, the high incomes of fund sponsors are the result of transfers of wealth and income from employees, other stakeholders, and operating companies to the fund managers, not the fruits of more efficient management. ..."
"... Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from the only one. Electricity deregulation on balance has increased monopoly power and raised costs to consumers, but has failed to offer meaningful "shopping around" opportunities to bring down prices. We have gone from regulated monopolies with predictable earnings, costs, wages, and consumer protections to deregulated monopolies or oligopolies with substantial pricing power. Since the Bell breakup, the telephone system tells a similar story of re-concentration, dwindling competition, price-gouging, and union-bashing. ..."
"... As regards clear language and definitions, I much prefer Michael Hudson's insistence that, to the liberal economists, free markets were markets free from rent seeking, while to the neoliberals free markets are free from government regulation. ..."
"... In a political system where the reputedly "labor" party would rather lose with their bribe-taking warmongering Goldwater girl than win with a people's advocate, Houston we have a problem. ..."
"... "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." ..."
"... Neoliberalism gave liberals an excuse to sell out in the name of "fresh thinking." Meanwhile the vast working class had become discredited Archie Bunkers in the eyes of the intellectuals after Vietnam and the Civil Rights struggles. ..."
"... I'd add two other consequences of neoliberalism. One is the increasing alienation of citizens from the mechanism for provision of the basic necessities of life. ..."
"... As Phillip Mirowski patiently explains in Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, neoliberalism is not laissez faire. Neoliberal desire a strong government to implement their market based nirvana, as long as they control government. ..."
Since the late 1970s, we've had a grand experiment to test the claim that free markets
really do work best. This resurrection occurred despite the practical failure of laissez-faire
in the 1930s, the resulting humiliation of free-market theory, and the contrasting success of
managed capitalism during the three-decade postwar boom.
Yet when growth faltered in the 1970s, libertarian economic theory got another turn at bat.
This revival proved extremely convenient for the conservatives who came to power in the 1980s.
The neoliberal counterrevolution, in theory and policy, has reversed or undermined nearly every
aspect of managed capitalism -- from progressive taxation, welfare transfers, and antitrust, to
the empowerment of workers and the regulation of banks and other major industries.
Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is
inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the
market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that
redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding its
losers. So government should get out of the market's way.
By the 1990s, even moderate liberals had been converted to the belief that social objectives
can be achieved by harnessing the power of markets. Intermittent periods of governance by
Democratic presidents slowed but did not reverse the slide to neoliberal policy and doctrine.
The corporate wing of the Democratic Party approved.
Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies
has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut,
and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth
is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced
not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback
loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration.
The culprit isn't just "markets" -- some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This
is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised
rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as
sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into
practice.
Recent years have seen two spectacular cases of market mispricing with devastating
consequences: the near-depression of 2008 and irreversible climate change. The economic
collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance. It cost the real U.S. economy
upwards of $15 trillion (and vastly more globally), depending on how you count, far more than
any conceivable efficiency gain that might be credited to financial innovation. Free-market
theory presumes that innovation is necessarily benign. But much of the financial engineering of
the deregulatory era was self-serving, opaque, and corrupt -- the opposite of an efficient and
transparent market.
The existential threat of global climate change reflects the incompetence of markets to
accurately price carbon and the escalating costs of pollution. The British economist Nicholas
Stern has aptly termed the worsening climate catastrophe history's greatest case of market
failure. Here again, this is not just the result of failed theory. The entrenched political
power of extractive industries and their political allies influences the rules and the market
price of carbon. This is less an invisible hand than a thumb on the scale. The premise of
efficient markets provides useful cover.
The grand neoliberal experiment of the past 40 years has demonstrated that markets in fact
do not regulate themselves. Managed markets turn out to be more equitable and more
efficient. Yet the theory and practical influence of neoliberalism marches splendidly on,
because it is so useful to society's most powerful people -- as a scholarly veneer to what
would otherwise be a raw power grab. The British political economist Colin Crouch captured this
anomaly in a book nicely titled The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism . Why did
neoliberalism not die? As Crouch observed, neoliberalism failed both as theory and as policy,
but succeeded superbly as power politics for economic elites.
The neoliberal ascendance has had another calamitous cost -- to democratic legitimacy. As
government ceased to buffer market forces, daily life has become more of a struggle for
ordinary people. The elements of a decent middle-class life are elusive -- reliable jobs and
careers, adequate pensions, secure medical care, affordable housing, and college that doesn't
require a lifetime of debt. Meanwhile, life has become ever sweeter for economic elites, whose
income and wealth have pulled away and whose loyalty to place, neighbor, and nation has become
more contingent and less reliable.
Large numbers of people, in turn, have given up on the promise of affirmative government,
and on democracy itself. After the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, ours was widely billed as an
era when triumphant liberal capitalism would march hand in hand with liberal democracy. But in
a few brief decades, the ostensibly secure regime of liberal democracy has collapsed in nation
after nation, with echoes of the 1930s.
As the great political historian Karl Polanyi warned, when markets overwhelm society,
ordinary people often turn to tyrants. In regimes that border on neofascist, klepto-capitalists
get along just fine with dictators, undermining the neoliberal premise of capitalism and
democracy as complements. Several authoritarian thugs, playing on tribal nationalism as the
antidote to capitalist cosmopolitanism, are surprisingly popular.
It's also important to appreciate that neoliberalism is not laissez-faire. Classically, the
premise of a "free market" is that government simply gets out of the way. This is nonsensical,
since all markets are creatures of rules, most fundamentally rules defining property, but also
rules defining credit, debt, and bankruptcy; rules defining patents, trademarks, and
copyrights; rules defining terms of labor; and so on. Even deregulation requires rules. In
Polanyi's words, "laissez-faire was planned."
The political question is who gets to make the rules, and for whose benefit. The
neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman invoked free markets, but in practice the
neoliberal regime has promoted rules created by and for private owners of capital, to keep
democratic government from asserting rules of fair competition or countervailing social
interests. The regime has rules protecting pharmaceutical giants from the right of consumers to
import prescription drugs or to benefit from generics. The rules of competition and
intellectual property generally have been tilted to protect incumbents. Rules of bankruptcy
have been tilted in favor of creditors. Deceptive mortgages require elaborate rules, written by
the financial sector and then enforced by government. Patent rules have allowed agribusiness
and giant chemical companies like Monsanto to take over much of agriculture -- the opposite of
open markets. Industry has invented rules requiring employees and consumers to submit to
binding arbitration and to relinquish a range of statutory and common-law rights.
Neoliberalism as Theory, Policy, and Power
It's worth taking a moment to unpack the term "neoliberalism." The coinage can be confusing
to American ears because the "liberal" part refers not to the word's ordinary American usage,
meaning moderately left-of-center, but to classical economic liberalism otherwise known as
free-market economics. The "neo" part refers to the reassertion of the claim that the
laissez-faire model of the economy was basically correct after all.
Few proponents of these views embraced the term neoliberal . Mostly, they called
themselves free-market conservatives. "Neoliberal" was a coinage used mainly by their critics,
sometimes as a neutral descriptive term, sometimes as an epithet. The use became widespread in
the era of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
To add to the confusion, a different and partly overlapping usage was advanced in the 1970s
by the group around the Washington Monthly magazine. They used "neoliberal" to mean a
new, less statist form of American liberalism. Around the same time, the term
neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced
conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives were
neoliberals in economics.
Beginning in the 1970s, resurrected free-market theory was interwoven with both conservative
politics and significant investments in the production of theorists and policy intellectuals.
This occurred not just in well-known conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise
Institute, Heritage, Cato, and the Manhattan Institute, but through more insidious investments
in academia. Lavishly funded centers and tenured chairs were underwritten by the Olin, Scaife,
Bradley, and other far-right foundations to promote such variants of free-market theory as law
and economics, public choice, rational choice, cost-benefit analysis,
maximize-shareholder-value, and kindred schools of thought. These theories colonized several
academic disciplines. All were variations on the claim that markets worked and that government
should get out of the way.
Each of these bodies of sub-theory relied upon its own variant of neoliberal ideology. An
intensified version of the theory of comparative advantage was used not just to cut tariffs but
to use globalization as all-purpose deregulation. The theory of maximizing shareholder value
was deployed to undermine the entire range of financial regulation and workers' rights.
Cost-benefit analysis, emphasizing costs and discounting benefits, was used to discredit a good
deal of health, safety, and environmental regulation. Public choice theory, associated with the
economist James Buchanan and an entire ensuing school of economics and political science, was
used to impeach democracy itself, on the premise that policies were hopelessly afflicted by
"rent-seekers" and "free-riders."
Market failure was dismissed as a rare special case; government failure was said to be
ubiquitous. Theorists worked hand in glove with lobbyists and with public officials. But in
every major case where neoliberal theory generated policy, the result was political success and
economic failure.
For example, supply-side economics became the justification for tax cuts, on the premise
that taxes punished enterprise. Supposedly, if taxes were cut, especially taxes on capital and
on income from capital, the resulting spur to economic activity would be so potent that
deficits would be far less than predicted by "static" economic projections, and perhaps even
pay for themselves. There have been six rounds of this experiment, from the tax cuts sponsored
by Jimmy Carter in 1978 to the immense 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed by Donald Trump. In
every case some economic stimulus did result, mainly from the Keynesian jolt to demand, but in
every case deficits increased significantly. Conservatives simply stopped caring about
deficits. The tax cuts were often inefficient as well as inequitable, since the loopholes
steered investment to tax-favored uses rather than the most economically logical ones. Dozens
of America's most profitable corporations paid no taxes.
Robert Bork's "antitrust paradox," holding that antitrust enforcement actually weakened
competition, was used as the doctrine to sideline the Sherman and Clayton Acts. Supposedly, if
government just got out of the way, market forces would remain more competitive because
monopoly pricing would invite innovation and new entrants to the market. In practice, industry
after industry became more heavily concentrated. Incumbents got in the habit of buying out
innovators or using their market power to crush them. This pattern is especially insidious in
the tech economy of platform monopolies, where giants that provide platforms, such as Google
and Amazon, use their market power and superior access to customer data to out-compete rivals
who use their platforms. Markets, once again, require rules beyond the benign competence of the
market actors themselves. Only democratic government can set equitable rules. And when
democracy falters, undemocratic governments in cahoots with corrupt private plutocrats will
make the rules.
Human capital theory, another variant of neoliberal application of markets to partly social
questions, justified deregulating labor markets and crushing labor unions. Unions supposedly
used their power to get workers paid more than their market worth. Likewise minimum wage laws.
But the era of depressed wages has actually seen a decline in rates of productivity growth.
Conversely, does any serious person think that the inflated pay of the financial moguls who
crashed the economy accurately reflects their contribution to economic activity? In the case of
hedge funds and private equity, the high incomes of fund sponsors are the result of transfers
of wealth and income from employees, other stakeholders, and operating companies to the fund
managers, not the fruits of more efficient management.
There is a broad literature discrediting this body of pseudo-scholarly work in great detail.
Much of neoliberalism represents the ever-reliable victory of assumption over evidence. Yet
neoliberal theory lived on because it was so convenient for elites, and because of the inertial
power of the intellectual capital that had been created. The well-funded neoliberal habitat has
provided comfortable careers for two generations of scholars and pseudo-scholars who migrate
between academia, think tanks, K Street, op-ed pages, government, Wall Street, and back again.
So even if the theory has been demolished both by scholarly rebuttal and by events, it thrives
in powerful institutions and among their political allies.
The Practical Failure of Neoliberal Policies
Financial deregulation is neoliberalism's most palpable deregulatory failure, but far from
the only one. Electricity deregulation on balance has increased monopoly power and raised costs
to consumers, but has failed to offer meaningful "shopping around" opportunities to bring down
prices. We have gone from regulated monopolies with predictable earnings, costs, wages, and
consumer protections to deregulated monopolies or oligopolies with substantial pricing power.
Since the Bell breakup, the telephone system tells a similar story of re-concentration,
dwindling competition, price-gouging, and union-bashing.
Air travel has been a poster child for advocates of deregulation, but the actual record is
mixed at best. Airline deregulation produced serial bankruptcies of every major U.S. airline,
often at the cost of worker pay and pension funds. Ticket prices have declined on average over
the past two decades, but the traveling public suffers from a crazy quilt of fares, declining
service, shrinking seats and legroom, and exorbitant penalties for the perfectly normal sin of
having to change plans. Studies have shown that fares actually declined at a faster rate in the
20 years before deregulation in 1978 than in the 20 years afterward, because the prime source
of greater efficiency in airline travel is the introduction of more fuel-efficient planes. The
roller-coaster experience of airline profits and losses has reduced the capacity of airlines to
purchase more fuel-efficient aircraft, and the average age of the fleet keeps increasing. The
use of "fortress hubs" to defend market pricing power has reduced the percentage of nonstop
flights, the most efficient way to fly from one point to another.
In addition to deregulation, three prime areas of practical neoliberal policies are the use
of vouchers as "market-like" means to social goals, the privatization of public services, and
the use of tax subsides rather than direct outlays. In every case, government revenues are
involved, so this is far from a free market to begin with. But the premise is that market
disciplines can achieve public purposes more efficiently than direct public provision.
The evidence provides small comfort for these claims. One core problem is that the programs
invariably give too much to the for-profit middlemen at the expense of the intended
beneficiaries. A related problem is that the process of using vouchers and contracts invites
corruption. It is a different form of "rent-seeking" -- pursuit of monopoly profits -- than
that attributed to government by public choice theorists, but corruption nonetheless. Often,
direct public provision is far more transparent and accountable than a web of contractors.
A further problem is that in practice there is often far less competition than imagined,
because of oligopoly power, vendor lock-in, and vendor political influence. These experiments
in marketization to serve social goals do not operate in some Platonic policy laboratory, where
the only objective is true market efficiency yoked to the public good. They operate in the
grubby world of practical politics, where the vendors are closely allied with conservative
politicians whose purposes may be to discredit social transfers entirely, or to reward
corporate allies, or to benefit from kickbacks either directly or as campaign
contributions.
Privatized prisons are a case in point. A few large, scandal-ridden companies have gotten
most of the contracts, often through political influence. Far from bringing better quality and
management efficiency, they have profited by diverting operating funds and worsening conditions
that were already deplorable, and finding new ways to charge inmates higher fees for necessary
services such as phone calls. To the extent that money was actually saved, most of the savings
came from reducing the pay and professionalism of guards, increasing overcrowding, and
decreasing already inadequate budgets for food and medical care.
A similar example is the privatization of transportation services such as highways and even
parking meters. In several Midwestern states, toll roads have been sold to private vendors. The
governor who makes the deal gains a temporary fiscal windfall, while drivers end up paying
higher tolls often for decades. Investment bankers who broker the deal also take their cut.
Some of the money does go into highway improvements, but that could have been done more
efficiently in the traditional way via direct public ownership and competitive bidding.
Housing vouchers substantially reward landlords who use the vouchers to fill empty houses
with poor people until the neighborhood gentrifies, at which point the owner is free to quit
the program and charge market rentals. Thus public funds are used to underwrite a privately
owned, quasi-social housing sector -- whose social character is only temporary. No permanent
social housing is produced despite the extensive public outlay. The companion use of tax
incentives to attract passive investment in affordable housing promotes economically
inefficient tax shelters, and shunts public funds into the pockets of the investors -- money
that might otherwise have gone directly to the housing.
The Affordable Care Act is a form of voucher. But the regulated private insurance markets in
the ACA have not fully lived up to their promise, in part because of the extensive market power
retained by private insurers and in part because the right has relentlessly sought to sabotage
the program -- another political feedback loop. The sponsors assumed that competition would
lower costs and increase consumer choice. But in too many counties, there are three or fewer
competing plans, and in some cases just one.
As more insurance plans and hospital systems become for-profit, massive investment goes into
such wasteful activities as manipulation of billing, "risk selection," and other gaming of the
rules. Our mixed-market system of health care requires massive regulation to work with
tolerable efficiency. In practice, this degenerates into an infinite regress of regulator
versus commercial profit-maximizer, reminiscent of Mad magazine's "Spy versus Spy," with
the industry doing end runs to Congress to further rig the rules. Straight-ahead public
insurance such as Medicare is generally far more efficient.
An extensive literature has demonstrated that for-profit voucher schools do no better and
often do worse than comparable public schools, and are vulnerable to multiple forms of gaming
and corruption. Proprietors of voucher schools are superb at finding ways of excluding costly
special-needs students, so that those costs are imposed on what remains of public schools; they
excel at gaming test results. While some voucher and charter schools, especially nonprofit
ones, sometimes improve on average school performance, so do many public schools. The record is
also muddied by the fact that many ostensibly nonprofit schools contract out management to
for-profit companies.
Tax preferences have long been used ostensibly to serve social goals. The Earned Income Tax
Credit is considered one of the more successful cases of using market-like measures -- in this
case a refundable tax credit -- to achieve the social goal of increasing worker take-home pay.
It has also been touted as the rare case of bipartisan collaboration. Liberals get more money
for workers. Conservatives get to reward the deserving poor, since the EITC is conditioned on
employment. Conservatives get a further ideological win, since the EITC is effectively a wage
subsidy from the government, but is experienced as a tax refund rather than a benefit of
government.
Recent research, however, shows that the EITC is primarily a subsidy of low-wage employers,
who are able to pay their workers a lot less than a market-clearing wage. In industries such as
nursing homes or warehouses, where many workers qualified for the EITC work side by side with
ones not eligible, the non-EITC workers get substandard wages. The existence of the EITC
depresses the level of the wages that have to come out of the employer's pocket.
Neoliberalism's Influence on Liberals
As free-market theory resurged, many moderate liberals embraced these policies. In the
inflationary 1970s, regulation became a scapegoat that supposedly deterred salutary price
competition. Some, such as economist Alfred Kahn, President Carter's adviser on deregulation,
supported deregulation on what he saw as the merits. Other moderates supported neoliberal
policies opportunistically, to curry favor with powerful industries and donors. Market-like
policies were also embraced by liberals as a tactical way to find common ground with
conservatives.
Several forms of deregulation -- of airlines, trucking, and electric power -- began not
under Reagan but under Carter. Financial deregulation took off under Bill Clinton. Democratic
presidents, as much as Republicans, promoted trade deals that undermined social standards.
Cost-benefit analysis by the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) was more of a
choke point under Barack Obama than under George W. Bush.
"Command and control" became an all-purpose pejorative for disparaging perfectly sensible
and efficient regulation. "Market-like" became a fashionable concept, not just on the
free-market right but on the moderate left. Cass Sunstein, who served as Obama's
anti-regulation czar,uses the example of "nudges" as a more market-like and hence superior
alternative to direct regulation, though with rare exceptions their impact is trivial.
Moreover, nudges only work in tandem with regulation.
There are indeed some interventionist policies that use market incentives to serve social
goals. But contrary to free-market theory, the market-like incentives first require substantial
regulation and are not a substitute for it. A good example is the Clean Air Act Amendments of
1990, which used tradable emission rights to cut the output of sulfur dioxide, the cause of
acid rain. This was supported by both the George H.W. Bush administration and by leading
Democrats. But before the trading regime could work, Congress first had to establish
permissible ceilings on sulfur dioxide output -- pure command and control.
There are many other instances, such as nutrition labeling, truth-in-lending, and disclosure
of EPA gas mileage results, where the market-like premise of a better-informed consumer
complements command regulation but is no substitute for it. Nearly all of the increase in fuel
efficiency, for example, is the result of command regulations that require auto fleets to hit a
gas mileage target. The fact that EPA gas mileage figures are prominently disclosed on new car
stickers may have modest influence, but motor fuels are so underpriced that car companies have
success selling gas-guzzlers despite the consumer labeling.
Politically, whatever rationale there was for liberals to make common ground with
libertarians is now largely gone. The authors of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act made no attempt
to meet Democrats partway; they excluded the opposition from the legislative process entirely.
This was opportunistic tax cutting for elites, pure and simple. The right today also abandoned
the quest for a middle ground on environmental policy, on anti-poverty policy, on health policy
-- on virtually everything. Neoliberal ideology did its historic job of weakening intellectual
and popular support for the proposition that affirmative government can better the lives of
citizens and that the Democratic Party is a reliable steward of that social compact. Since
Reagan, the right's embrace of the free market has evolved from partly principled idealism into
pure opportunism and obstruction.
Neoliberalism and Hyper-Globalism
The post-1990 rules of globalization, supported by conservatives and moderate liberals
alike, are the quintessence of neoliberalism. At Bretton Woods in 1944, the use of fixed
exchange rates and controls on speculative private capital, plus the creation of the IMFand
World Bank, were intended to allow member countries to practice national forms of managed
capitalism, insulated from the destructive and deflationary influences of short-term
speculative private capital flows. As doctrine and power shifted in the 1970s, the IMF, the
World Bank, and later the WTO, which replaced the old GATT, mutated into their ideological
opposite. Rather than instruments of support for mixed national economies, they became
enforcers of neoliberal policies.
The standard package of the "Washington Consensus" of approved policies for developing
nations included demands that they open their capital markets to speculative private finance,
as well as cutting taxes on capital, weakening social transfers, and gutting labor regulation
and public ownership. But private capital investment in poor countries proved to be fickle. The
result was often excessive inflows during the boom part of the cycle and punitive withdrawals
during the bust -- the opposite of the patient, long-term development capital that these
countries needed and that was provided by the World Bank of an earlier era. During the bust
phase, the IMFtypically imposes even more stringent neoliberal demands as the price of
financial bailouts, including perverse budgetary austerity, supposedly to restore the
confidence of the very speculative capital markets responsible for the boom-bust cycle.
Dozens of nations, from Latin America to East Asia, went through this cycle of boom, bust,
and then IMF pile-on. Greece is still suffering the impact. After 1990, hyper-globalism also
included trade treaties whose terms favored multinational corporations. Traditionally, trade
agreements had been mainly about reciprocal reductions of tariffs. Nations were free to have
whatever brand of regulation, public investment, or social policies they chose. With the advent
of the WTO, many policies other than tariffs were branded as trade distorting, even as takings
without compensation. Trade deals were used to give foreign capital free access and to
dismantle national regulation and public ownership. Special courts were created in which
foreign corporations and investors could do end runs around national authorities to challenge
regulation for impeding commerce.
At first, the sponsors of the new trade regime tried to claim the successful economies of
East Asia as evidence of the success of the neoliberal recipe. Supposedly, these nations had
succeeded by pursuing "export-led growth," exposing their domestic economies to salutary
competition. But these claims were soon exposed as the opposite of what had actually occurred.
In fact, Japan, South Korea, smaller Asian nations, and above all China had thrived by
rejecting every major tenet of neoliberalism. Their capital markets were tightly regulated and
insulated from foreign speculative capital. They developed world-class industries as state-led
cartels that favored domestic production and supply. East Asia got into trouble only when it
followed IMFdictates to throw open capital markets, and in the aftermath they recovered by
closing those markets and assembling war chests of hard currency so that they'd never again
have to go begging to the IMF. Enthusiasts of hyper-globalization also claimed that it
benefited poor countries by increasing export opportunities, but as the success of East Asia
shows, there is more than one way to boost exports -- and many poorer countries suffered under
the terms of the global neoliberal regime.
Nor was the damage confined to the developing world. As the work of Harvard economist Dani
Rodrik has demonstrated, democracy requires a polity. For better or for worse, the polity and
democratic citizenship are national. By enhancing the global market at the expense of the
democratic state, the current brand of hyper-globalization deliberately weakens the capacity of
states to regulate markets, and weakens democracy itself.
When Do Markets Work?
The failure of neoliberalism as economic and social policy does not mean that markets never
work. A command economy is even more utopian and perverse than a neoliberal one. The practical
quest is for an efficient and equitable middle ground.
The neoliberal story of how the economy operates assumes a largely frictionless marketplace,
where prices are set by supply and demand, and the price mechanism allocates resources to their
optimal use in the economy as a whole. For this discipline to work as advertised, however,
there can be no market power, competition must be plentiful, sellers and buyers must have
roughly equal information, and there can be no significant externalities. Much of the 20th
century was practical proof that these conditions did not describe a good part of the actual
economy. And if markets priced things wrong, the market system did not aggregate to an
efficient equilibrium, and depressions could become self-deepening. As Keynes demonstrated,
only a massive jolt of government spending could restart the engines, even if market pricing
was partly violated in the process.
Nonetheless, in many sectors of the economy, the process of buying and selling is close
enough to the textbook conditions of perfect competition that the price system works tolerably
well. Supermarkets, for instance, deliver roughly accurate prices because of the consumer's
freedom and knowledge to shop around. Likewise much of retailing. However, when we get into
major realms of the economy with positive or negative externalities, such as education and
health, markets are not sufficient. And in other major realms, such as pharmaceuticals, where
corporations use their political power to rig the terms of patents, the market doesn't produce
a cure.
The basic argument of neoliberalism can fit on a bumper sticker. Markets work;
governments don't . If you want to embellish that story, there are two corollaries: Markets
embody human freedom. And with markets, people basically get what they deserve; to alter market
outcomes is to spoil the poor and punish the productive. That conclusion logically flows from
the premise that markets are efficient. Milton Friedman became rich, famous, and influential by
teasing out the several implications of these simple premises.
It is much harder to articulate the case for a mixed economy than the case for free markets,
precisely because the mixed economy is mixed. The rebuttal takes several paragraphs. The more
complex story holds that markets are substantially efficient in some realms but far from
efficient in others, because of positive and negative externalities, the tendency of financial
markets to create cycles of boom and bust, the intersection of self-interest and corruption,
the asymmetry of information between company and consumer, the asymmetry of power between
corporation and employee, the power of the powerful to rig the rules, and the fact that there
are realms of human life (the right to vote, human liberty, security of one's person) that
should not be marketized.
And if markets are not perfectly efficient, then distributive questions are partly political
choices. Some societies pay pre-K teachers the minimum wage as glorified babysitters. Others
educate and compensate them as professionals. There is no "correct" market-derived wage,
because pre-kindergarten is a social good and the issue of how to train and compensate teachers
is a social choice, not a market choice. The same is true of the other human services,
including medicine. Nor is there a theoretically correct set of rules for patents, trademarks,
and copyrights. These are politically derived, either balancing the interests of innovation
with those of diffusion -- or being politically captured by incumbent industries.
Governments can in principle improve on market outcomes via regulation, but that fact is
complicated by the risk of regulatory capture. So another issue that arises is market failure
versus polity failure, which brings us back to the urgency of strong democracy and effective
government.
After Neoliberalism
The political reversal of neoliberalism can only come through practical politics and
policies that demonstrate how government often can serve citizens more equitably and
efficiently than markets. Revision of theory will take care of itself. There is no shortage of
dissenting theorists and empirical policy researchers whose scholarly work has been vindicated
by events. What they need is not more theory but more influence, both in the academy and in the
corridors of power. They are available to advise a new progressive administration, if
that administration can get elected and if it refrains from hiring neoliberal
advisers.
There are also some relatively new areas that invite policy innovation. These include
regulation of privacy rights versus entrepreneurial liberties in the digital realm; how to
think of the internet as a common carrier; how to update competition and antitrust policy as
platform monopolies exert new forms of market power; how to modernize labor-market policy in
the era of the gig economy; and the role of deeper income supplements as machines replace human
workers.
The failed neoliberal experiment also makes the case not just for better-regulated
capitalism but for direct public alternatives as well. Banking, done properly, especially the
provision of mortgage finance, is close to a public utility. Much of it could be public. A
great deal of research is done more honestly and more cost-effectively in public, peer-reviewed
institutions such as the NIHthan by a substantially corrupt private pharmaceutical industry.
Social housing often is more cost-effective than so-called public-private partnerships. Public
power is more efficient to generate, less prone to monopolistic price-gouging, and friendlier
to the needed green transition than private power. The public option in health care is far more
efficient than the current crazy quilt in which each layer of complexity adds opacity and cost.
Public provision does require public oversight, but that is more straightforward and
transparent than the byzantine dance of regulation and counter-regulation.
The two other benefits of direct public provision are that the public gets direct evidence
of government delivering something of value, and that the countervailing power of democracy to
harness markets is enhanced. A mixed economy depends above all on a strong democracy -- one
even stronger than the democracy that succumbed to the corrupting influence of economic elites
and their neoliberal intellectual allies beginning half a century ago. The antidote to the
resurrected neoliberal fable is the resurrection of democracy -- strong enough to tame the
market in a way that tames it for keeps.
Excellent article and very much appreciated so I can share with confused Liberal friends
(mostly older) who think that they are now, somehow, Neoliberal. As far as market failure is
concerned: I think Boeing is an incredible case in point. When one of the nation's flagship
enterprises captures regulatory processes so completely that it produces a product that
cannot accomplish its one aim: to fly. Btw: I am seeing a lot of use of the "populist" to
describe what might be more correctly described as nativist, xenophobic, anti-democratic,
authoritarian, or even outright fascist leaders. Keep the language clear and insist on
precise definitions.
Excellent article, I agree. As regards clear language and definitions, I much prefer Michael Hudson's insistence that, to
the liberal economists, free markets were markets free from rent seeking, while to the
neoliberals free markets are free from government regulation.
"As governments were democratized, especially in the United States, liberals came to endorse
a policy of active public welfare spending and hence government intervention, especially on
behalf of the poor and disadvantaged. neoliberalism sought to restore the centralized
aristocratic and oligarchic rentier control of domestic politics."
"The economic collapse of 2008 was the result of the deregulation of finance. It cost the
real U.S. economy upwards of $15 trillion (and vastly more globally), depending on how you
count, far more than any conceivable efficiency gain that might be credited to financial
innovation ."
That High Priest of neo-Liberalism Alan Greenspan once said,
"The only thing useful banks have invented in 20 years is the ATM "
Hard to see how the federal government can be gotten back from the cartels at this point-
the whole thing is so corrupt. And the "socialism is bad" mantra has captured a lot of easily
led brains.
In a political system where the reputedly "labor" party would rather lose with their
bribe-taking warmongering Goldwater girl than win with a people's advocate, Houston we have a
problem.
As with anthropogenic climate change, the cause is systemic- the political system is based
on money control and the economic system is based on unsustainable energy use. Absent a
crash, crisis, systematic chaos and destruction I don't see much changing other than at the
margins- the corruption is too entrenched.
The following is a portion of an op-ed piece that appeared in the New
York Times On April 4, 1944 . It was written by Henry Wallace, FDR's vice president;
If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power
ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United
States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include
only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. Most
American fascists are enthusiastically supporting the war effort. They are doing this even
in those cases where they hope to have profitable connections with German chemical firms
after the war ends. They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be
so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition
among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information, and those who stand
for the K.K.K. type of demagoguery.
The European brand of fascism will probably present its most serious postwar threat to
us via Latin America. The effect of the war has been to raise the cost of living in most
Latin American countries much faster than the wages of labor. The fascists in most Latin
American countries tell the people that the reason their wages will not buy as much in the
way of goods is because of Yankee imperialism. The fascists in Latin America learn to speak
and act like natives. Our chemical and other manufacturing concerns are all too often ready
to let the Germans have Latin American markets, provided the American companies can work
out an arrangement which will enable them to charge high prices to the consumer inside the
United States. Following this war, technology will have reached such a point that it will
be possible for Germans, using South America as a base, to cause us much more difficulty in
World War III than they did in World War II. The military and landowning cliques in many
South American countries will find it attractive financially to work with German fascist
concerns as well as expedient from the standpoint of temporary power politics.
Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after
the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.
The full text is quite useful in understanding that there is no question as to how and why
we find ourselves in the present predicament, it is the logical outcome of a process that was
well understood during FDR's tenure.
That understanding has since been deliberately eradicated by the powerful interests that
control our media.
There was a lot of wisdom put forth during and shortly after WWII in both politics (see
above) and economics.
For example, there was a Treasury official, whose name I can't remember right now, who
understood that the Federal government has no real need to collect taxes. And, Keynesianism
prevailed until Milton Friedman and the Chicago School came along and turned everything
upside down with Monetarism.
"absent a crash " I reckon "unsustainable" is an important word to remember. None of it is sustainable all those spinning plates and balls in the air .and the grasshopper
god demands that they keep adding more and more plates and balls.
All based on a bunch of purposefully unexamined assumptions.
Or Edward Abbey: "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell."
I did an A-level (UK exam for 18 year olds) in economics years ago, and despite passing with
an A, I not only couldn't understand this underlying assumption of continued exponential
growth forever, I also couldn't understand why anyone couldn't understand its obvious
absurdity.
Sustainability was a bit of a new word in those days, but when I discovered it, it summed up
my problems with (over-) developed economies.
To add to the confusion, a different and partly overlapping usage was advanced in the
1970s by the group around the Washington Monthly magazine. They used "neoliberal" to mean a
new, less statist form of American liberalism. Around the same time, the term
neoconservative was used as a self-description by former liberals who embraced
conservatism, on cultural, racial, economic, and foreign-policy grounds. Neoconservatives
were neoliberals in economics.
This commenter has been scolded in the past for invoking Charlie Peters and the Washington
Monthly rather than Friedman, Hayek etc. But what Peters' highly influential magazine (and
the transformed New Republic that followed) did was to bring the Democrats into the
neoliberal fold and that may be the real reason it's a beast that can't be killed.
Neoliberalism gave liberals an excuse to sell out in the name of "fresh thinking." Meanwhile
the vast working class had become discredited Archie Bunkers in the eyes of the intellectuals
after Vietnam and the Civil Rights struggles.
It's possible that what really changed the
country was the rise of that middle class that Kuttner now mourns. Suggesting that it was all
the result of a rightwing plan is too easy although that was certainly part of it.
I'd add two other consequences of neoliberalism. One is the increasing alienation of
citizens from the mechanism for provision of the basic necessities of life. Before the 1980s,
for example, water, gas, electricity etc. were provided by publicly-owned utilities with
local offices, recognisable local and national structures, and responsible to an elected
Minister.
If you had a serious problem, then in the final analysis you could write a letter
to your MP, who would take it up with the Minister. Now, you are no longer a citizen but a
consumer, and your utilities are provided by some weird private sector thing, owned by
another company, owned by some third company, frequently based abroad, and with its customer
services outsourced to yet another company which could be anywhere in the world all. All this
involves significant transaction costs for individuals, who are expected to conduct
sophisticated cost-effectiveness comparisons between providers, when in fact they just want
to turn on the tap and have water come out.
The other is that government (and hence the citizen) loses any capacity for strategic
planning. Most nationalized industries in Britain were either created because the private
sector wasn't interested, or picked up when the private sector went bankrupt (the railways
for example). But without ownership, the capacity to decide what you want and get it is much
reduced. You can see that with the example of the Minitel – a proto-internet system
given away free by the French government through the state-owned France Telecom in the early
1980s, and years ahead of anything else. You literally couldn't do anything similar now.
Taking Michael Hudson's work into account, there is a much deeper and older dynamic at
work, of which neoliberalism is just the latest itineration.
A possible explanation goes to the nature of money.
As the accounting device that enables mass societies to function, it amounts to a contract
between the individual and the community, with one side an asset and the other a debt. Yet as
we experience it as quantified hope, we try to save and store it.
Consequently, in order to store the asset, similar amounts of debt have to be created.
Which results in a centripedial effect, as positive feedback draws the asset side to the
center of the social construct, while negative feedback pushes the debt to the edges. It
could be argued this dynamic is the basis of economic hierarchy, not just a consequence.
Yet money and finance function as the economic blood and arteries, circulating value around
the entire community, so the effect of this dynamic is like the heart telling the hands and
feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do get.
Basically we have to accept that while money is an effective medium of exchange, it is not a
productive store of value. We wouldn't confuse blood with fat, or roads with parking lots, so
it should be possible to learn to store value in tangibles, like the strong communities and
healthy environments that will give us the safety and security we presumably save money
for.
As a medium, we own money like we own the section of road we are using, or the fluids passing
through our bodies.
Let the neoliberals chew on that.
Yet money and finance function as the economic blood and arteries, circulating value
around the entire community, so the effect of this dynamic is like the heart telling the
hands and feet they don't need so much blood and should work harder for what they do
get.
Thanks.
Political persuasion is about keeping it simple.
How about; Government was once private. It was called monarchy. Do we want to go back there,
or do we need to better understand the balance between public and private? Even houses have
spaces that are public and spaces that are private.
This is, indeed, an excellent historical overview, evoking some of Kuttner's best writing
over the decades. I would recommend it with no hesitation.
On the other hand, Kuttner's American Prospect has also provided cover for some damaging
faux-progressive enablers of neoliberalism over those decades (IMHO). A puzzlement.
I must remind everyone that Bob Kuttner is no longer what he used to be. Bob Kuttner was
against progressive Dem candidates like Bernie in 2016, and was in bed with THE neoliberal
candidate ..With the passage of time, Kuttner has evolved into a partisan for the sake of
partisanship, instead of being principled.
after reading your comment I went through the post again and found these suspicious
points
"The failure of neoliberalism as economic and social policy does not mean that markets
never work. A command economy is even more utopian and perverse than a neoliberal one. The
practical quest is for an efficient and equitable middle ground. "
so, get in front of the riot and call it a parade? Maybe a little bit.
Also
"Nonetheless, in many sectors of the economy, the process of buying and selling is close
enough to the textbook conditions of perfect competition that the price system works
tolerably well. Supermarkets, for instance, deliver roughly accurate prices because of the
consumer's freedom and knowledge to shop around. Likewise much of retailing . However, when
we get into major realms of the economy with positive or negative externalities, such as
education and health, markets are not sufficient. And in other major realms, such as
pharmaceuticals, where corporations use their political power to rig the terms of patents,
the market doesn't produce a cure."
Probably not working so well for the employees or the farm workers who get food on the
shelf
I guess maybe not practical to change that dynamic? That said, as history the post is as good
as anything else I've seen, and reads well, but maybe does need a grain of salt to make it
more palatable.
"Neoliberalism's premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is
inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of
the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that
redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy's winners and rewarding
its losers. So government should get out of the market's way."
In an otherwise good article the author makes a fundamental error. As Phillip Mirowski
patiently explains in Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, neoliberalism is not laissez
faire. Neoliberal desire a strong government to implement their market based nirvana, as long
as they control government.
The entire point of the Ukraine conflict was to drive a wedge between natural allies in
Europe: Russia and Germany. Together they would form the most powerful economic block on earth.
This is USA greatest fear. Luckily for USA, they succeeded in blocking this alliance...
It all began during what I think of as the " Kristallnacht of international law," 30
August September 1995, when the Empire attacked the Bosnian-Serbs in a direct and total
violation of all the most fundamental principles of international law. Then there was 9/11,
which gave the Neocons the "right" (or so they claimed) to threaten, attack, bomb, kill, maim,
kidnap, assassinate, torture, blackmail and otherwise mistreat any person, group or nation on
the planet simply because " we are the indispensable nation " and " you either are
with the terroristsor with us ". During these same years, we saw Europe become a
third-rate US colony incapable of defending even fundamental European geopolitical interests
while the US became a third-rate colony of Israel equally incapable of defending even
fundamental US geopolitical interests. Most interestingly looking back, while the US and the EU
were collapsing under the weight of their own mistakes, Russia and China were clearly on the
ascend; Russia mostly in military terms (see here and here
) and China mostly economically. Most crucially, Russia
and China gradually agreed to become symbionts which, I would argue, is even stronger
and more meaningful than if these two countries were united by some kind of formal alliance:
alliances can be broken (especially when a western nation is involved), but symbiotic
relationships usually last forever (well, nothing lasts forever, of course, but when a lifespan
is measured in decades, it is the functional equivalent of "forever", at least in geostrategic
analytical terms). The Chinese have now developed an official, special, and unique
expression to characterize that relationship with Russia. They speak of a "Strategic,
comprehensive partnership of coordination for the new era."
... ... ...
Empires cannot only trade. Trade alone is simply not enough to remain a viable empire.
Empires also need military force, and not just any military force, but the kind of military
force which makes resistance futile. The truth is that NO modern country has anywhere near the
capabilities needed to replace the US in the role of World Hegemon: not even uniting the
Russian and Chinese militaries would achieve that result since these two countries do not
have:
1) a worldwide network of bases (which the US have, between 700-1000 depending on how you
count)
2) a major strategic air-lift and sea-lift power projection capability
3) a network of so-called "allies" (colonial puppets, really) which will assist in any
deployment of military force
...
neither China nor Russia have any interests in policing the planet or imposing some regime
change on other countries. All they really want is to be safe from the US, that's it.
This new reality is particularly visible in the Middle-East where countries like the United
States, Israel or Saudi Arabia (this is the so-called "Axis of Kindness") are currently only
capable of deploying a military capable of massacring civilians or destroy the infrastructure
of a country, but which cannot be used effectively against the two real regional powers with a
modern military: Iran and Turkey.
But the most revealing litmus test was the US attempt to bully Venezuela back into
submission. For all the fire and brimstone threats coming out of DC, the entire "Bolton
plan(s?)" for Venezuela has/have resulted in a truly embarrassing failure: if the Sole
"Hyperpower" on the planet cannot even overpower a tremendously weakened country right in its
backyard, a country undergoing a major crisis, then indeed the US military should stick to the
invasion of small countries like Monaco, Micronesia or maybe the Vatican (assuming the Swiss
guard will not want to take a shot at the armed reps of the "indispensable nation"). The fact
is that an increasing number of medium-sized "average" countries are now gradually acquiring
the means to resist a US attack.
So if the writing is on the wall for the AngloZionist Empire, and if no country can replace
the US as imperial world hegemon, what does that mean?
It means the following: 1000 years of European imperialism is coming to an end
!
This time around, neither Spain nor the UK nor Austria will take the place of the US and try
to become a world hegemon. In fact, there is not a single European nation which has a military
even remotely capable of engaging the kind of "colony pacification" operations needed to keep
your colonies in a suitable state of despair and terror. The French had their very last hurray
in Algeria, the UK in the Falklands, Spain can't even get Gibraltar back, and Holland has no
real navy worth speaking about. As for central European countries, they are too busy
brown-nosing the current empire to even think of becoming an empire (well, except Poland, of
course, which dreams of some kind of Polish Empire between the Baltic and the Black Sea; let
them, they have been dreaming about it for centuries, and they will still dream about it for
many centuries to come ).
Now compare European militaries with the kind of armed forces you can find in Latin America
or Asia? There is such a knee-jerk assumption of superiority in most Anglos that they
completely fail to realize that medium and even small-sized countries can develop militaries
sufficient enough to make an outright US invasion impossible or, at least, any occupation
prohibitively expensive in terms of human lives and money (see here
, here and
here ). This
new reality also makes the typical US missile/airstrike campaign pretty useless: they will
destroy a lot of buildings and bridges, they will turn the local TV stations ("propaganda
outlets" in imperial terminology) into giant piles of smoking rubble and dead bodies, and they
kill plenty of innocents, but that won't result in any kind of regime change. The striking fact
is that if we accept that warfare is the continuation of politics by other means, then we also
have to admit, that under that definition, the US armed forces are totally useless since they
cannot help the US achieve any meaningful political goals.
The truth is that in military and economic terms, the "West" has already lost. The fact that
those who understand don't talk, and that those who talk about this (denying it, of course)
have no understanding of what is taking place, makes no difference at all.
...Indeed, if the Neocons don't blow up the entire planet in a nuclear holocaust, the US and
Europe will survive, but only after a painful transition period which could last for a decade
or more. One of the factors which will immensely complicate the transition from Empire to
"regular" country will be the profound and deep influence 1000 years of imperialism have had on
the western cultures, especially in the completely megalomaniac United States ( Professor
John Marciano's "Empire as a way of life" lecture series addresses this topic superbly
– I highly recommend them!): One thousand years of brainwashing are not so easily
overcome, especially on the subconscious (assumptions) level.
Well, the number one factor keeping empire in a hegemonic stance is the hegemonic U.S. dollar.
The empire isn't going anywhere as long as the dollar remains as the worlds reserve currency.
Most of planetary trade goes through Brussels and Wall Street denoted in dollars. Most of the
credit cards carried and used around the world are SWIFT creations.
How and where this will change will be more telling than where the military loses its last
battle.
A usual tour de force by the Saker. But one can see things also very differently.
– Western Imperialism: the Holy Roman Empire never had any colonies. Nor did any of
the Eastern European states. Nor did the Italians states save for the farcical attempts of
Mussolini
– Whas the Turkish empire also due to the Frankish imperialistic popish impulse?
– What the Saker is talking about here are basically GB, France and Holland.
– What about the Russian Empire? What was it but a colonial enterprise? And will rump
Russia endure? I have my doubts. Putin ended the Chechen war by giving Chechnya de facto if not
de jure self governance. Right now things are okey dokey as Russia is bribing Kadyrov and
Kadyrov and Putin having a special personal relationship. But what if circumstances change?
Putin not being there any more and some new Russian government tries to enforce its writ in
Chechnya? On top there is the birthrate in the Caucasus which is two times the Russian
birthrate. Will all those different nationalities still feel bound to Russia in the future? And
will Russians be willing to subsidise the Caucasus for ever?
– The "symbiosis" between Russia and China is laughable. As soon as the Anglo-Zionist
empire really collapses the differences between Russia and China will come to the fore.
To get China´s help after the Ukraine crisis Russia had to give China a free hand in
Mongolia. Before Russia had always seen to it that Mongolia didn´t get too dependent on
China. Half of the foreign exchange of Mongolia was earned by the Russian-Mongolian copper mine
of Erdenet. Three years ago Russia sold its share in Erdenet. By now Erdenet has been pledged
by Mongolias venal politicians as collateral for Chinese loans.
Also China has certainly never forgot that the Russian far East was part of the Qing empire
until the 1850s.Tthis will be brought up again as soon as Russia is sufficiently weak.
Russia was forced into the alliance with China by the West. The only industrial sphere where
Russia does indeed have world class expertise is in armaments. After Ukraine Russia was forced
to share its technology with China. And China will definately put this new knowledge to good
use and in the not so far future overtake Russia in this particular field of expertise. Then
watch what will happen.
– China not interested in old fashioned imperial politics. That is laughable as well.
China has a base in Ceylon now that they got as collateral for a loan that Ceylon
couldn´t repay. China is laying claim to the whole South China sea and even parts of the
200 mile zones of countries like the Philipines, Indonesia and Vietnam. To back up these claims
with military muscle they build navy bases all over the Spratley islands
– China is getting more and more carbon hydrates through pipelines from Central Asia.
At the same time it is mass imprisoning its Turkic population (Uyghus, Kazakhs and Kirgiz). The
way the Chinese treat those people is exactly racist in the way the Saker has described the
European relationship to the rest of the world. If you are a businessman in any one of those
countries you will not be allowed to interact with people of the same faith, culture and almost
the same language who live just across the border in Xinjiang.
The Chinese government has seen to the fact that any member of those minorities lives in
mortal fear of any contact with foreigners. Any business must now be conducted only with ethnic
Chinese. And as as a Kirghiz or Kazakh national you are not distuingishable from a Kirgiz or
Kazakh from Xinjiang you will suffer the same indignities as them when you travel to
Xinjiang.
As venal and corrupt as the elites of the "Stans" might be: even they perceive Chinese
actions in neighbouring Xinjiang as so grossly offensive that they hardly hide their disdain
anymore. In fact I talked to a journalist last week who was present at the latest SCO gathering
in Bishkek. She was astonished at the level of Sinophobia she accountered.
So on the one hand China is in the process of acquiring more and more of the ressources of
the Stans. But on the other hand it is worsening its relationship with the peoples of these
countries.
The Stans are still ruled by the same Soviet nomenklatura. There has been no real change.
The question is how stable this arrangement is. It definately fits the requirement of the
Chinese but the longer this lasts the more the elites of the Stans are coming between China and
their own population.
China is well aware of this. To protect its investment it might have to use force in the
future. And that is what I expect to happen in case one of those pipelines is interrupted. Not
so different from what the West is doing in the Middle East. All that talk of the Saker about
"good" and "bad" civilisations and promised land once the Anglo-Zionist ascendancy is over is
just that: empty words.
In reality Nitzsche is still right: States are the coldest of cold monsters.
It is incredibly , wickedly absurd and naïve to even think that , what you call an
empire
will go down without a world shattering fight.
It is mindless ignorance not to notice the handwriting on the wall.
This entity you call empire , has been preparing for this event for centuries.
They are telling it in our face directly , " new world order", " full spectrum domination"
They have what nobody else has , a proactive plan, a global network of military bases, and
the scariest part is the fact , that they have no moral barriers to say that, it is not going
to be a fair fight. No hold barred ! No laws ! No rules of engagement! The end justifies the
means !
On the end they will not win in fact nobody will .
But the old must die for the new to be .
Our desire to become brought us to this point , it was an exiting ride , but the new humans
will have a " climate change " of consciousness .
That is not a silly hope , that is logic based clearly on design.
Both US Americans and Europeans will, for the very first time in their history, have to
behave like civilized people, which means that their traditional "model of development"
(ransacking the entire planet and robbing everybody blind) will have to be replaced by one in
which these US Americans and Europeans will have to work like everybody else to accumulate
riches.
Most Americans don't get to collect welfare. Most Americans have to get jobs and pay for
stuff. Most Americans who work do NOT accumulate riches – they go broke. Probably the
elite .01% – guys like Jeff Bezos and Jeff Epstein and Bernie Madoff – can get rich
and accumulate riches. That is not "AngloZionist." It's just Zionist.
"... US President Trump does not do that in order to dismantle the dollar or US hegemony because of so called isolationism, as some may think. Trump does that in order to save US hegemony, implementing policies, in my opinion, devised by the US military/intelligence/science community. They now want to hamper globalisation and create fortress US, in order to bring back manufacturing and save as much as possible of the US Empire. Chaos and lack of cooperation in the world benefit the US. They now realise globalisation no longer serves the US as it leads to the rise of developing nations. Thus they no longer support it and even sabotage it." ..."
"... Trump and his trade negotiators continue to insist on China agreeing to an unequal trade treaty. ..."
"... IMO, China can continue to refuse and stand up for its principles, while the world looks on and nods its head in agreement with China as revealed by the increasing desire of nations to become a BRI partner. ..."
"... It should be noted that Trump's approach while differing from the one pushed by Obama/Kerry/Clinton the goal is the same since the Empire needs the infusion of loot from China to keep its financial dollarized Ponzi Scheme functioning. ..."
"... Russia's a target too, but most of its available loot was already grabbed during the 1990s. ..."
"... I keep going back to believing that multilateralism is a code word for no longer allowing empire global private finance hegemony and fiat money. ..."
"... The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire and its associated corporations and vassal nations checkmates what you think Trump's trying to accomplish. Hudson has explained it all very well in a series of recent papers and interviews: Neoliberalism is all about growing Financial Capitalism and using it to exert control/hegemony on all aspects of political-economy. ..."
"... Trump hasn't proposed any new policy to accomplish his MAGA pledge other than engaging in economic warfare with most other nations. His is a Unilateral Pirate Ship out to plunder all and sundry, including those that elected him. ..."
I will mention this again, to see what people here think, as they are intelligent people. I sent mails to Russian and Chinese
authorities about this.
"I will provide you with possible reasons behind the current trade wars and rejection of globalisation by the US. In short,
they think that they will save their hegemony, to a certain degree, that way.
There are long term GDP Growth and Socioeconomic Scenarios developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the
OECD, and the world scientific community. They are generally used to measure the impact of Climate change on the World. In order
to measure it, Socioeconomic Scenarios were developed, as the level of economic growth in the world is very important for determining
the impact of Climate Change in the future. High growth levels will obviously affect Climate Change, so these GDP estimates are
important. The scenarios are with time horizon 2100.
For more on this you can check these studies here, some of the many dealing with this topic. They describe the scenarios for
the world.
There are 5 main scenarios, or "Shared Socioeconomic Pathways". All of them describe different worlds.
SSP 1 - Green World, economic cooperation, reduced inequality, good education systems. High level of economic growth, fast
catch up of the developing world with the developed world. High level of multipolarity.
SSP 2 - More of the same/ Muddling through - continuation of the current trends. Relatively high level of economic growth,
relatively fast catch up of the developing world with the developed world. Good level of multipolarity.
SSP 3 - Regional Rivalry - nationalisms, trade wars, lack of global cooperation, fragmentation of the word, environmental
degradation. Low levels of economic growth everywhere, the developing world remains poor and undeveloped. Low level of multipolarity,
West retains many positions.
SSP 4 Inequality - depicts a world where high-income countries use technological advances to stimulate economic growth;
leading to a high capacity to mitigate. In contrast, developments in low income countries are hampered by very low education
levels and international barriers to trade. Growth is medium, the catch up process between the developing world and the developed
world is not fast. Medium level of multipolarity.
SSP 5 Economic growth and fossil fuels take priority over green world - High levels of economic growth, fast catch up of
the developing world with the developed world. High level of multipolarity.
See SSP 3. A world of rivalry, trade wars, trade barriers, lack of global cooperation, and fragmentation, will lead to lower
level of growth in the developing world, and thus a slow catch up process. Multipolarity in such a world is weak as the developing
world is hampered.
In other words, a world of cooperation between countries will lead to higher economic growth in the developing world, faster
catch up process, and thus stronger multipolarity.
Low cooperation, fragmented world, high conflict scenarios consistently lead to low growth in the developing world and thus
to the US and the West retaining some of its positions - a world with overall bad economy and low level of multipolarity.
Basically, globalisation is key. The developing world (ex West) was growing slowly before globalisation (before 1990). Globalisation
means sharing of technology and knowledge, and companies investing in poorer countries. Outsourcing of western manufacturing.
Etc. After globalisation started in 1990, the developing world is growing very well. It is globalisation that is weakening the
relative power of the West and empowering the developing world. The US now needs to kill globalisation if it is to stop its relative
decline.
So what do we see: exactly attempts to create the SSP 3 scenario. Trade wars, sanctions, attacks on multilateral institutions
- the WTO, on international law, on the Paris Climate Change Agreement (which if accepted would put constraints on the US economy),
on the UN, bullying of Europe, lack of care for european energy needs, support for Brexit (which weakens Europe), crack down on
chinese students and scientists in the US, crack down on chinese access to western science data, demands to remove the perks for
poor countries in the WTO, etc. This is hitting economic growth in the whole world and the global economy currently is not well.
By destroying the world economy, the US benefits as it hampers the rise of the developing nations.
US President Trump does not do that in order to dismantle the dollar or US hegemony because of so called isolationism,
as some may think. Trump does that in order to save US hegemony, implementing policies, in my opinion, devised by the US military/intelligence/science
community. They now want to hamper globalisation and create fortress US, in order to bring back manufacturing and save as much
as possible of the US Empire. Chaos and lack of cooperation in the world benefit the US. They now realise globalisation no longer
serves the US as it leads to the rise of developing nations. Thus they no longer support it and even sabotage it."
You ask, "The concept of multilateralism is not completely clear to me in relation to the global public/private finance issue
and I am not of faith but of questions...."
"In international relations, multilateralism refers to an alliance of multiple countries pursuing a common goal."
The key point for the Chinese during negotiations as I understand them via their published White Paper on the subject is
development and the international rules put in place at WTO for nations placed into the Developing category, which
get some preferential treatment to help their economies mature. As China often reminds the global public--and officials of the
Outlaw US Empire--both the BRI and EAEU projects are about developing the economies of developing economies, that the process
is designed to be a Win-Win for all the developing economies involved. This of course differs vastly from what's known as the
Washington Consensus, where all developing economies kowtow to the Outlaw US Empire's diktat via the World Bank and IMF and thus
become enslaved by dollar dependency/debt. Much is written about the true nature of the Washington Consensus, Perkins Confessions
of an Economic Hit Man and Klein's Disaster Capitalism being two of the more recent and devastating, and many nations
are able to attest to the Zero-sum results. The result is very few nations are willing to subject their economies to the pillaging
via Washington Consensus institutions, which Hudson just recently reviewed.
The Empire is desperate and is looking for ways to keep its Super Imperialism intact and thus continue its policy aimed at
Full Spectrum Dominance. But the Empire's abuse of the dollar-centric institutions of international commerce has only served to
alienate its users who are openly and actively seeking to form parallel institutions under genuine multilateral control.
However as Hudson illustrates, Trump doesn't know what he's doing regarding his trade and international monetary policies. Today's
AP above the fold headline in Eugene's The Register Guard screamed "Trump threatens 10% tariffs;" but unusually for such
stories, it explains that the 10% is essentially a tax on US consumers, not on Chinese companies, which provides a message opposite
of the one Trump wants to impart--that he's being tough on the Chinese when the opposite's true. China will continue to resist
the attempts to allow the international financial sharks to swim in Chinese waters as China is well aware of what they'll attempt
to accomplish--and it's far easier to keep them out than to get them out once allowed in, although China's anti-corruption laws
ought to scare the hell out of the CEOs of those corps.
The Empire wants to continue its longstanding Open Door policy in the realm of target nations opening their economies to the
full force of Imperial-based corps so they can use their financial might to wrestle the market from domestic players and institute
their Oligopoly. China already experienced the initial Open Door (which was aimed at getting Uncle Sam's share of China during
the Unequal Treaties period 115 years ago) and will not allow that to recur. China invokes its right under WTO rules for developing
economies to protect their financial services sector from predation; the Empire argues China is beyond a developing economy and
must drop its shields. We've read what Hudson advised the Chinese to do--resist and develop a publicly-based yuan-centered financial
system that highly taxes privatized rent-seekers while keeping and enhancing state-provided insurance--health, home, auto, life,
etc--while keeping restrictions on foreign land ownership since it's jot allowed to purchase similar assets within the domestic
US market.
The Outlaw US Empire insists that China give so it can take. Understandably, China says no; what we allow you to do, you should
allow us to do. Trump and his trade negotiators continue to insist on China agreeing to an unequal trade treaty. Obviously,
the latest proposal was merely a repetition of what came before and was rejected as soon as the meeting got underway, so it ended
as quickly as it started. IMO, China can continue to refuse and stand up for its principles, while the world looks on and
nods its head in agreement with China as revealed by the increasing desire of nations to become a BRI partner.
It should be noted that Trump's approach while differing from the one pushed by Obama/Kerry/Clinton the goal is the same
since the Empire needs the infusion of loot from China to keep its financial dollarized Ponzi Scheme functioning.
Russia's a target too, but most of its available loot was already grabbed during the 1990s. D-Party Establishment
candidates have yet to let it be known they'll try to do what Trump's failing to do, which of course has nothing to do with aiding
the US consumer and everything to do with bolstering Wall Street's Ponzi Scheme.
Good comment, karlof1 , i think that the attack against China is attack against the heart of multipolarity. It will be good
if b could post about the escalation of the trade war. This is important. The US clearly intends to resist multipoarity, and tries
to stop it.
If I would have had my act together last night I would have posted another link fro Xinhuanet (can't find now) about how
China wants to retain developing nation status and provides as data that the (I think) per capita GDP had gone down....gotten
worse in relation to the US per capita GDP.
I keep going back to believing that multilateralism is a code word for no longer allowing empire global private finance
hegemony and fiat money.
Passer by @30--
The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire and its associated corporations and vassal nations checkmates
what you think Trump's trying to accomplish. Hudson has explained it
all very well in a series of recent papers and interviews: Neoliberalism is all about growing Financial Capitalism and using it
to exert control/hegemony on all aspects of political-economy.
Thus, there's no need to sponsor the reindustrialization that would lead to MAGA. Indeed, Trump hasn't proposed any new
policy to accomplish his MAGA pledge other than engaging in economic warfare with most other nations. His is a Unilateral Pirate
Ship out to plunder all and sundry, including those that elected him.
In your outline, it's very easy to see why BRI is so attractive to other nations as it forwards SSP1. Awhile ago during a discussion
of China's development goals, I posted links to its program that's very ambitious and doing very well with its implementation,
the main introduction portal
being here .
psychohistorian @11 asked: "The concept of multilateralism is not completely clear to me in relation to the global public/private
finance issue and I am not of faith but of questions...."
karlof1 @31 covered it pretty well I think, but I want to try to answer in just a couple sentences (unusual for me).
Global private finance is driven by one thing and one thing only: making maximum profits for the owners quarter by financial
quarter. Global public finance is driven by the agendas of the nations with the public finance, with profits being a secondary
or lesser issue.
This boils down to private finance being forever slave to the mindless whims of "The Market™" (hallowed be Its name),
while public finance is, by its nature, something that is planned and deliberated. Nobody can guess where "The Market™"
(hallowed be Its name) will lead society, though people with the resources like placing bets in stock markets on the direction
It is taking us. On the other hand, if people have an idea which direction society should be heading in, public control
over finance is a precondition to making it so.
"The continuing practice of Neoliberalism by the Outlaw US Empire"
I'm not sure this will be the case anymore -
Former heads of DHS and NSA explain how the U.S. can keep Huawei at bay
"Perhaps more importantly, this proposal demonstrates one way the U.S. can reinforce elements of what the government calls
the “national technology and industrial base” (NTIB), the collection of companies who design, build and supply the U.S. with vital
national-security related technologies."
he war of words between the world's top superpowers is getting more heated by the hour.
China's new ambassador to the United Nations, Zhang Jun, said on Friday that if the United
States wanted to fight China on trade, "then we will fight" and warned that Beijing was
prepared to take countermeasures over new U.S. tariffs, Reuters reports.
"China's position is very clear that if U.S. wishes to talk, then we will talk, if they want
to fight, then we will fight," he told reporters. Calling Trump latest tariff announcement an
"irrational, irresponsible act", Jun said that China "definitely will take whatever necessary
countermeasures to protect our fundamental right, and we also urge the United States to come
back to the right track in finding the right solution through the right way." The ambassador
also took a stab at the disintegration of good relations between the US and North Korea (with
Beijing's blessing no doubt), saying that "you cannot simply ask DPRK to do as much as possible
while you maintain the sanctions against DPRK, that definitely is not helpful" Yun said siding
the the Kim regime. It was more than obvious who the "you" he referred to was.
Pouring more salt on the sound, the Chinese diplomat said North Korea should be encourage,
and "we think at an appropriate time there should be action taken to ease the sanctions",
explicitly taking Pyongyang's side in the ongoing diplomatic saga between Kim and Trump.
When asked if China's trade relations with the United States could harm cooperation between
the countries on dealing with North Korea, Zhang said it would be difficult to predict. He
added: "It will be hard to imagine that on the one hand you are seeking the cooperation from
your partner, and on the other hand you are hurting the interests of your partner."
As North Korea's ally and neighbor, China's role in agreeing to and enforcing international
sanctions on the country over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs has been crucial.
However, it is what he said last that was most notable, as it touched on what will likely be
the next big geopolitical swan, namely Hong Kong. To wit, Jun said that while Beijing is
willing to cooperate with UN member states, it will never allow interference in "internal
affairs" such as the controversial regions of Xinjiang and Tibet, and - last but not least -
Hong Kong.
And in the latest warning to the defiant financial capital of the Pacific Rim, Jun virtually
warned that a Chinese incursion is now just a matter of time, he said that Hong Kong protests
are "really turning out to be chaotic and violent and we should no longer allow them to
continue this reprehensible behavior."
President Donald Trump's threat Thursday to put 10% tariffs on the remaining $300 billion of Chinese imports that aren't subject
to his existing levies
sent markets tumbling from Asia to Europe and in the U.S. on Friday. The new tax would hit American consumers, and businesses
are going to face even more
supply disruptions . China has already vowed to retaliate if Trump follows through.
Bloomberg Economics ' initial estimate of the
additional costs of U.S. tariffs and Chinese retaliation sees both economies taking a 0.2% hit to GDP by 2021.
Meanwhile, a simmering trade fight between Japan and South Korea
is boiling over , putting the health of two Asian export powers at stake. In Europe, concerns are mounting for a
hard U.K. exit from the European Union.
The week ended with fresh numbers out of Washington that show
U.S. trade actually declined during the first
six months of the year as exports flattened out.
@ Posted by: Hor, Jennifer | Aug 3 2019 11:33 utc | 77
The Nordic nations became rich welfare states in the post-war for different reasons.
Sweden already was a rich kingdom/country since the end of the 18th Century. In both WW it
managed to stay neutral, so it went through them relatively unscathed.
Norway was a very poor country until North Sea oil was discovered at the beginning of the
1980s.
I don't know the case of Denmark.
Finland was a poor country which was basically rebuild from zero in the aftermath of WWII,
thanks to the neutrality pact between the USA and the USSR. It was decided that Finland would
be a very prosperous country, without many inner social contradictions, in exchange for
absolute neutrality during the Cold War.
Iceland was very frugal, simple and classless village of fishermen that suddenly became
very prosperous after the 1990s thanks to the sudden expansion of the world banking
sector.
You see, all these countries became prosperous for different reasons. But what they all
had in common was:
1) they all had relatively strong socialist parties/well-organized working classes in the
aftermath of the WWII (except Iceland); and
2) all of them were insignificant countries in a very significant geographic location
(frontier between Iron Curtain and Western Europe). Iceland's case is emblematic in this
aspect, since it won the Cod Wars against a much more powerful enemy (the UK) solely on its
geography (as the main outpost of the GIUK gap).
To put it simply, the countries which managed to create "welfare states" were countries
usually at the cordon sanitaire area that, in a very smart and eventful way, managed to
successfully use both superpowers to extract maximum wealth from an USA that, at the time,
still had the material means to make small countries rich and prosperous (Taiwan and South
Korea were the most emblematic cases in this aspect: both begun their respective
industrialization essentially by blackmailing the USA and the USA/Japan, respectively).
As we well know now, the welfare state quickly evaporated when:
a) the USA begun to degenerate economically after the "stagflation" crisis (triggered by
the oil crisis of 1974-5) that effectively destroyed the prestige of Keynesianism in the West
and paved the way to the rise of Neoliberalism as the new main capitalist doctrine
(Neoliberalism existed since the 1930s). According to the Keynesian "theory", stagflation was
impossible, since supply should always equal demand (so, when unemployment falls, inflation
goes up and vice versa). Stagflation saw both high unemployment and high inflation.
Capitalism's "lifeblood" is the profit rate, and as those begun to fall, America begun to
impose a series of financial weapons which undermined the spreading of the social-democrat
consensus of the post-war, in a process that culminated with the Plaza Accord (1985) –
which killed Japanese and German industrialization.
b) the USSR was destroyed from within in 1991, ending the menace from without and, thus,
the working classes of the cordon sanitaire area main leverage against the capitalists of
their own country. The USA now is the world solitary superpower and can do what it
pleases.
I think that 10 years from now the biggest impact from Trump will be from his cancellation
of the Iran nuclear accord and unilateral imposition of strict sanctions which the Europeans
were not able to bypass in any meaningful way due the prevalence of the US dollar in global
transactions.
There is now significant motivation in Europe and even China in creating a real
alternative to the US dollar for international transactions which bypasses US banks. If this
happens to any significant degree, it would undercut the US dollar as the world's reserve
currency, resulting in a permanent drop in its value.
Without international support, US Government deficits and trade deficits will become
unsustainable, and there will be a significant drop in the American median standard of
living.
Remember all those lies Krugman, EMike and Kurt said about "Bernie Bros?" Well turns out they
are the out of touch elites, not Sanders supporters. They were projecting. Krugman won't even
go all in for Warren!!!
Sanders and Warren voters have astonishingly little in common
His backers are younger, make less money, have fewer degrees and are less engaged in
politics.
By HOLLY OTTERBEIN
07/12/2019 05:01 AM EDT
PHILADELPHIA -- Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are two of the most ideologically
aligned candidates in the Democratic primary -- both left-wing populists who rail against a
"rigged" economic system.
But the fellow enemies of the 1 percent have surprisingly different bases of support.
In poll after poll, Sanders appeals to lower-income and less-educated people; Warren beats
Sanders among those with postgraduate degrees. Sanders performs better with men, Warren with
women. Younger people who vote less frequently are more often in Sanders' camp; seniors who
follow politics closely generally prefer Warren.
Sanders also has won over more African Americans than Warren: He earns a greater share of
support from black voters than any candidate in the race except for Joe Biden, according to
the latest Morning Consult surveys.
For progressive activists, who are gathering this week in Philadelphia at the annual
Netroots Nation conference, it's both promising and a source of concern that the two leading
left-wingers in the primary attract such distinct fans. It demonstrates that a progressive
economic message can excite different parts of the electorate, but it also means that Sanders
and Warren likely need to expand their bases in order to win the Democratic nomination.
Put another way, if their voters could magically be aligned behind one or the other, it
would vastly increase the odds of a Democratic nominee on the left wing of the ideological
spectrum.
The fact that Warren and Sanders' bases don't perfectly overlap hasn't garnered much
public attention, but it's something very much on the minds of their aides and allies.
"It shows that the media does not base their perceptions on data that is publicly
available," said Ari Rabin-Havt, chief of staff to the Sanders campaign. "I think people
develop overly simplistic views of politics that presume that people who live in the real
world think the same way as elite media in D.C. and New York."
It's not a given that Sanders voters would flock to Warren, or vice versa, if one of them
left the race and endorsed the other. In Morning Consult, Reuters-Ipsos and Washington
Post-ABC News polls, more Sanders supporters name Biden as their second choice than Warren --
and a higher percentage of Warren voters pick Kamala Harris as their No. 2 than Sanders,
according to recent surveys.
Wes Bode, a retired contractor in the first-in-the-nation caucus state of Iowa,
illustrates the point: He said he likes that Sanders has "new ideas," such as free college
tuition, and recently attended one of his town halls in the state. But he's fond of Biden,
too, because he's "for the working man."
It might seem unusual that a voter's top picks for 2020 are the two candidates who best
represent the opposite poles of the Democratic Party. But a person like Bode is actually more
common than someone like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, whose favorites are Sanders and
Warren.
For Sanders, the need to grow his base is a problem that dates back to his 2016 run. He
failed to win the nomination that year in large part because he was unable to win over older
voters, especially older voters of color.
"Two places where Bernie has always struggled with is older voters and women to some
degree," said Mark Longabaugh, a top strategist to Sanders in 2016. "Warren is identifiably a
Democrat and runs as a Democrat, so I think many more establishment Democrats in the party
are more drawn to her -- whereas Bernie very intentionally ran for reelection as an
independent and identifies as an independent, and appeals to those who look inside the
Democratic Party and think it's not their thing."
During the 2020 campaign, Sanders' advisers have acknowledged that he needs to appeal more
to older voters, and he's recently been holding more intimate events in the early states that
tend to attract more senior crowds than his rallies do. His team is also trying hard to
expand the primary electorate by turning out infrequent voters.
Warren, meanwhile, is aggressively working to win African American support. Her allies
argue that her performance at events such as Al Sharpton's National Action Network convention
and the She the People conference show that she has room to grow among black voters.
"If you were looking to buy a rising stock, you would look at future market share and
indicators of strong fundamentals," said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change
Campaign Committee, which backs Warren. "Elizabeth Warren has consistently connected on a gut
level with black audiences ... getting standing ovations after connecting her inspiring plans
to her personal story of struggle growing up poor in Oklahoma and being a single mom in
Texas."
Several Democratic operatives said they believe Warren has the ability to expand her base
to include black women in particular.
"She impressed 2,000 top women of color activists at [our conference]," said Aimee
Allison, founder of She the People. "Elizabeth Warren has deepened, sharpened and made racial
justice a grounding component of her policies."
A look at their poll numbers shows how distinct the pools of support for Sanders vs.
Warren are.
Twenty-two percent of Democratic primary voters who earn less than $50,000 annually
support Sanders, while 12 percent are for Warren, according to an average of the past four
weeks of Morning Consult polling. Of those without college degrees, 22 percent are behind
Sanders; 10 percent back Warren.
Roughly the same percentage of voters with bachelor's degrees -- 16 percent and 15
percent, respectively -- support Sanders and Warren. But among those with postgraduate
degrees, 12 percent are for Sanders and 19 percent are for Warren.
There's a similar split based on age, gender and interest in politics. Sanders wins more
than one-third of the 18- to 29-year-olds, while Warren gets 11 percent of them. Warren has
the support of 13 percent of those aged 30 to 44, 12 percent of those aged 45 to 54, and 13
percent of those aged both 55 to 64 and 65 and up. Sanders' support goes down as the age of
voters goes up: He is backed by 25 percent of 30- to 44-year-olds, 17 percent of 45- to
54-year-olds, 12 percent of 55- to 64-year-olds, and 8 percent of those 65 and older.
Twenty percent of men support Sanders and 11 percent support Warren; 18 percent of women
are behind Sanders and 14 percent are behind Warren.
Warren also performs best among voters who are "extremely interested" in politics (winning
17 percent of them), while Sanders is strongest among those who are "not at all interested"
(26 percent).
As for black voters, 19 percent are behind Sanders, while 9 percent support Warren.
With Biden still atop most polls, even after a widely panned performance at the first
Democratic debate, some progressives still fear that Warren and Sanders could divide the left
and hand the nomination to the former vice president.
"There's a lot of time left in this campaign," said Sean McElwee, co-founder of the
liberal think tank Data for Progress. "But one thing that's clear is that it's very important
for the left that we ensure that we don't split the field and allow someone like Joe Biden to
be the nominee."
"Elizabeth Warren on student loans: New bill would cancel debt for millions"
By Katie Lobosco, CNN...18 hrs ago
"Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren is introducing a bill Tuesday that would cancel the
student loan debts of tens of millions of Americans, a plan she first proposed on the
campaign trail in April.
The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate is partnering with South Carolina Rep. James
Clyburn, also a Democrat, who will sponsor companion legislation in the House.
The bill would forgive $50,000 in student loans for Americans in households earning less
than $100,000 a year, resulting in immediate relief to more than an estimated 95% of the 45
million Americans with student debt.
For those earning more than $100,000, the bill would offer partial debt relief with the
amount getting gradually smaller until it phases out. Households that make more than $250,000
are not eligible for any debt relief.
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said."...
Warren's campaign has said that she would pay for the debt relief -- as well as her plan
to make tuition free at public colleges -- with revenue from her proposed wealth tax. It
would assess a 2% tax on wealth above $50 million and a 3% tax on wealth above $1
billion.
The one-time debt cancellation could cost $640 billion, the campaign has said.
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, another Democratic presidential hopeful, also has a student
debt cancellation proposal. But his goes further and would cancel all $1.6 trillion in
outstanding loan debt. There would be no eligibility limitations and it would be paid for
with a new tax on Wall Street speculation. Sanders has proposed making tuition free at public
colleges, as well.
As proposed, Warren's bill would ensure that the debt canceled would not be taxed as
income. Those borrowers with private loans would be allowed to convert them into federal
loans so that they could be forgiven. ...
When the United States government wants to raise money from individuals, its mode of
choice, for more than a century, has been to tax what people earn -- the income they receive
from work or investments.
But what if instead the government taxed the wealth you had accumulated?
That is the idea behind a policy Senator Elizabeth Warren has embraced in her presidential
campaign. It represents a more substantial rethinking of the federal government's approach to
taxation than anything a major presidential candidate has proposed in recent memory -- a new
wealth tax that would have enormous implications for inequality.
It would shift more of the burden of paying for government toward the families that have
accumulated fortunes in the hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. And over time, such
a tax would make it less likely that such fortunes develop.
What is the Warren plan?
Developed by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, two University of California, Berkeley,
economists who are leading scholars of inequality, the proposal is to tax a family's wealth
above $50 million at 2 percent a year, with an additional surcharge of 1 percent on wealth
over $1 billion.
Mr. Saez and Mr. Zucman estimate that 75,000 households would owe such a tax, or about one
out of 1,700 American families.
A family worth $60 million would owe the federal government $200,000 in wealth tax, over
and above what they may owe on income from wages, dividends or interest payments.
If the estimates of his net worth are accurate, Mr. Buffett would owe the I.R.S. about
$2.5 billion a year, in addition to income or capital gains taxes. The Waltons would owe
about $1.3 billion each.
The tax would therefore chip away at the net worth of the extremely rich, especially if
they mainly hold investments with low returns, like bonds, or depreciating assets like
yachts.
It would work a little like the property tax that most cities and states impose on real
estate, an annual payment tied to the value of assets rather than income. But instead of
applying just to homes and land, it would apply to everything: fine art collections, yachts
and privately held businesses.
What are the arguments against it?
They are both philosophical and practical.
On the philosophical side, you can argue that people who have earned money, and paid
appropriate income tax on it, are entitled to the wealth they accumulate.
Moreover, the wealth that individual families accumulate under the current system is
arguably likelier to be put to work investing in large-scale projects that make the economy
stronger. They can invest in innovative companies, for example, or huge real estate projects,
in ways that small investors generally can't. ...
2016 was widely recognized as the year of "populism," more adequately described as the year
of revolt against the political Establishment -- in both Parties. The Democratic Primary in
2016 was a battle of progressive forces against the Democratic Establishment, and the battle
lines were clearly drawn. Those lines remain much the same as we approach 2020.
On the Progressive or Populist side were those who opposed the endless wars in the Middle
East, and on the Establishment side those who supported those long and bloody wars. On the
Progressive Side were those who supported badly needed domestic reforms, most notably Medicare
for All, which after all is a reform of almost 20% of the entire economy and a reform that has
to do with life itself. In contrast on the Establishment side were those who supported
ObamaCare, a device for leaving our health care to the tender mercies of the Insurance
behemoths with its ever increasing premiums and ever decreasing coverage.
In 2016 the pundits gave progressives little chance of success. Hillary Clinton was a
shoo-in, we were all assured by a horde of "reliable sources." And given the control that the
Clintonites exercised over the Democratic Party apparatus, there was little prospect of a
successful rebellion and every chance of having one's career badly damaged by opposing Party
elite. Summer soldiers and duplicitous candidates were not interested in challenging the
Establishment.
In 2016 Bernie Sanders was the only politician who was willing to take on the Establishment.
Although not technically a Democrat, he caucused with them and worked with them. And he was a
lifelong, reliable and ardent advocate for Medicare for All and a consistent opponent of the
endless wars. For these things he was prepared to do battle against overwhelming odds on the
chance that he might prevail and because from his grass roots contacts he sensed that a
rebellion was brewing.
In 2016 only one among the current crop of candidates followed Bernie, supported him and
joined him on the campaign trail -- Tulsi Gabbard. At the time she was a two term Congresswoman
and Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), a career building position, from
which she would have to resign in order to support one of the candidates. Moreover, reports
said she bridled at the internal bias of the DNC in favor of Hillary. To express her
displeasure with the DNC and to support Bernie, she had to defy the Clinton Establishment,
which might even have terminated her political career. But she was a foe of the endless wars,
partly based on her own experience as a National Guard member who had been deployed to Iraq in
a medical unit and saw the ravages of war first hand. So she joined Bernie, introducing him at
many of his rallies and strengthening his antiwar message.
Bernie and Tulsi proved themselves in the defining battle of 2016. They let us know
unequivocally where they stand. And Bernie might well have won the nomination were he not
cheated out of it by the Establishment which continues to control the levers of power in the
Democratic Party to this day.
In 2016 these two stood in stark contrast to the other 2020 Democratic candidates. Let us
take one example of these others, Elizabeth Warren, a darling of the main stream media which
often refers to her as ideologically aligned to Bernie Sanders. Perhaps she is so aligned at
times -- at least in words; she is after all in favor of Medicare for All, although she hastens
to add that she is "open to other approaches." That qualifier is balm to the ears of the
Insurance behemoths. Translation: she has already surrendered before the battle has begun.
In 2016 a critical primary for Bernie was Masschusetts where Senator Warren wields
considerable influence. Clinton defeated Sanders there by a mere 1.5% whereas she had lost to
Obama there by 15% in 2008. Wikipedia has this to say of the
primary:
"Following the primary, Elizabeth Warren, the state's senior US senator, was widely
criticized by Sanders supporters online for her refusal to endorse him prior to the primary.
Supporters of Bernie Sanders have argued that an endorsement from Warren, whose political
positions were similar to that of Sanders's, and who was a frequent critic of Hillary Clinton
in the past, could have handed Massachusetts to him. "
One must conclude that either Warren does not genuinely share the views of Sanders or she is
loath to buck the Establishment and fight for those views. In either event she, and the others
who failed to back Bernie in 2016, are not made of the stuff that can win Medicare for All,
bring an end to the regime change wars and illegal sanctions of the last four or more
administrations, begin serious negotiations to end the existential nuclear peril, and address
the many other problems facing us and all of humanity.
“Bernie walked the walk”
When was that? The time he toured through Baltimore and called it a third world city while
assiduously not discussing how, why, and because of who it became so?
The way he openly sold out to Clinton and ducked into his new third manor house to avoid
being held to task for leaving his base out to dry the very moment they were ready to
seriously break ranks from the neolib political machine?
Is he walking the walk now as he tries to rationalize away his underpaying of his campaign
workers and cuts hours to minimize the costs of the 15 dollar floor price he demanded for
everyone other employer?
The man is a DNC stooge through and through.
And Tulsi being anti-war out of personal squeamishness doesn’t make up for the rest of
her painfully party-line-compliant platform, particularly when the Deep State has multiple
active avenues available to at the very least keep our military presence still existing
military presence trapped and held hostage. All the dove cooing in recorded world history
won’t hold up when, not if, Britain or France or whoever deliberately sinks another
navy vessel and drags her by the hair into another desert scrum.
@Tusk As with the 1960 Presidential Election, Hillary stole that election fair and
square. Had Sanders went full third party, it would’ve destroyed the Democrats
outright. Despite Clinton’s cheating, Bernie went ahead and bent the knee. Strangely
enough, Trump’s victory saved Sanders and his faction. Had Clinton won, she
would’ve purged the Sanders supporters relentlessly.
There is such a thing as a tactical retreat. Now he’s able to play again.
is that our “establishment elite” have failed the United States of
America.
How, you may ask ?
The answer is simple.
By defrauded us into multiple illegal wars of aggression they have bankrupted the entire
nation.
The iron fact is that because our “elites” lied us into illegal war we are now
22.5 trillion dollars in heinous debt.
Why is this okay ?
The answer is simple.
It is not okay, NOT AT ALL .
And it is not enough (anymore) to just demand we “end our wars”, Mr.
Walsh.
The cost in treasure has been too high and the burden on the US taxpayer too obscene.
Without demanding “accountability” from our elites, who lied us into this
catastrophe, our nation is most probably going under.
I say…. make them pay …”every penny”…. for the cost of
the wars they lied us into.
An initiative, like the “War fraud Accountability Act” (retroactive to 2002)
would do just that.
it would replenish the coffers of our nation with all the assets of the larcenous
profiteers who deceived us all….into heinous war debt.
As we witness the rise of China as the new global economic powerhouse, we can see first
hand how a nation can rise to immense wealth and global influence “precisely
because” it was never deceived by its “ruling class” into squandering all
its resources initiating and fighting endless criminal wars.
Just imagine where the USA would be today, had we chosen the same course.
Until Dems are willing to refuse to depend on Haim Saban’s “generous
donation” to the Dem candidate, none of their candidates will deserve to be the the
POTUS candidate. Ditto for the Republicans and their fetish with Shelly Adelson. Candidates
must kowtow to Israel or else there will be no dough for them and they might even be
challenged in their incumbencies next time around by ADL/AIPAC. Until we get rid of Israeli
money and political power, we are toast.
1)Both Sanders and Gabbard are onboard for going to war against Christian Russia over
Crimea..Sanders has gone so far as saying that a Military response against Russia is an
option if all else fails in getting Russia out of Crimea…
2)Both Sanders and Gabbard are waging a war of RACIAL EXTERMINATION against Working Class
Native Born White American Males….And that’s WHITE GENOCIDE!!!!
@Kronos Bernie “bent the knee” once and got to enjoy his lakeside home and
his wife protected from fraud prosecution after she stole money from People’s United
Bank for her college scam.
He is owned.
If Tulsi were a serious threat she would be neutralized one way or another.
“Progressives” are virtue signaling fools–the kleptocracy marches on and
laughs at them.
One has to wonder where Dems like Warren and their identity politics is taking the US.
Will everyone who even slightly disagrees with them be labeled a terrorist?
The overwhelming correlation between austerity and Brexit
Jeff Spross
July 22, 2019
Across the pond, the Brexit disaster continues to unfold in newly disastrous ways. Theresa
May has resigned as prime minister, and the Trump-esque Boris Johnson looks like a lock to
replace her. Parliament members -- up to and including Johnson's own fellow Conservatives --
are panicking that the new prime minister may try hardline tactics to force Brexit through,
plan or no plan.
At this point, predicting how this mess will end is a fool's errand. But there are still
lessons to be learned from how it began.
In particular, the Conservatives might want to look in the mirror -- and not just because
it was their government that called the Brexit vote in the first place. It turns out the
brutal austerity they imposed on Britain after the global 2008 financial crisis probably goes
a long way towards explaining why Brexit is happening at all.
In the run-up to the Brexit referendum in 2016, much of the campaigning in favor of
"Leave" was unabashedly racist. Hard-right political groups like the U.K. Independence Party
(UKIP) painted a picture of native Britons overrun by hordes of foreign immigrants that were
straining the country's health care, housing, public services, jobs and wages to the breaking
point. The thing is, the racism was a particular poisonous way of framing a very real
underlying economic fear: all those necessities really had become harder to come by.
Yet, as it is in America, actual evidence linking influxes of immigrants to rising
scarcity in jobs and wages and other services is scarce. But something else had also recently
happened that could explain why hospitals and schools were closing and why public aid was
drying up: massive cuts to government spending.
A decade ago, the aftershocks of the global financial crisis had shrunk Britain's economy
by almost 3 percent, kicking unemployment up from 5 percent to 8 percent by 2010. Under
then-Prime Minister David Cameron, the Conservatives in power concluded that "confidence"
among investors was necessary to restore economic growth -- and that meant cuts to government
spending to balance the budget.
Thus the Conservatives pushed through a ferocious austerity package: Overall government
spending fell 16 percent per person. Schools, libraries, and hospitals closed; public
services like garbage collection ground to a halt; poverty shot up; and homelessness doubled.
Despite unemployment staying stubbornly high and GDP growth staying stubbornly low -- in
defiance of their own economic theory -- the Conservatives crammed through even more
reductions in 2012. "It is hard to overestimate how devastating Cameron's austerity plan was,
or how fast it happened," the British journalist Laurie Penny observed. A United Nations
report from last year called the cuts "punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous."
But the damage was not evenly distributed across the country. At the district level --
Britain's units of local governance -- the reductions in spending ranged from 6.2 percent to
an astonishing 46.3 percent from 2010 to 2015. The districts that were already the poorest
were generally the hardest hit.
These differences across districts allowed Thiemo Fetzer, an associate professor of
economics at the University of Warwick, to gauge the correlation between the government cuts
and whether a district voted Leave or Remain. "Austerity had sizable and timely effects,
increasing support for UKIP across local, national, and European elections," Fetzer wrote in
a recent paper. He found that UKIP's share of a district's vote jumped anywhere from 3.5 to
11.9 percentage points in correlation with austerity's local impact. "Given the tight link
between UKIP vote shares and an area's support for Leave, simple back-of-the-envelope
calculations suggest that Leave support in 2016 could have been easily at least 6 percentage
points lower," Fetzer continued. As tight as the Brexit referendum was, that alone could have
been enough to swing it.
Other studies have shown links between how a local British community's economic fortunes
fared and how it voted for Brexit as well. Economists Italo Colantone and Piero Stanig found
that support for Leave was "systematically higher" in the regions of the country hit hardest
by trade with China over the last three decades. Another analysis by Torsten Bell showed a
strong correlation between British income inequality as of 2015 and Brexit support, with
higher local vote shares for Leave the lower the local incomes were. (It's worth noting the
Bell didn't find a correlation with Brexit when he looked at how local incomes changed from
2002 to 2015, but that's also a weird time frame to choose, as it mashes together a period of
wage growth before 2008 with a major drop afterwards.)
Inequality in Britain had been worsening for decades, as the upper class in the City of
London pulled further and further ahead of the largely rural working class, setting the stage
for Brexit. And then austerity fell hardest on the shoulders of the latter group, compounding
the effect.
"Individuals tend to react to the general economic situation of their region, regardless
of their specific condition," Colantone and Stanig wrote. But Fetzer was able to break out
some individual data in his analysis of austerity, and he found a correlation with Brexit
votes there as well. Individual Britons who were more exposed to welfare state cuts -- in
particular a reduction in supports for housing costs -- were again more likely to vote for
UKIP. "Further, they increasingly perceive that their vote does not make a difference, that
they do 'not have a say in government policy' or that 'public officials do not care,'" Fetzer
observed.
It isn't that the economic dislocation of the 2008 crisis and the ensuing austerity crunch
made Britons more racist. By all accounts, half or more of the country has consistently
looked askance on immigration going back decades. (Indeed, international polling suggests a
certain baseline dislike for immigration is a near-universal human condition.) What changed
in the last few years was the willingness of certain parts of British society to act
politically on those attitudes. And that, arguably, is where the economics come in.
Work from the Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman is instructive here. He found that
periods of economic growth, where people feel the future is bright, make national populations
more open, generous, and liberal. Times of economic contraction and stagnation have the
opposite effect.
The British people, like everyone everywhere, are a mix of good and evil impulses. But by
decimating public investment in a self-destructive quest for investor-led growth, the British
government created a monster from those impulses. And the reckoning for that terrible error
is still unfolding.
if - what should I call them? centerists? - like Krugman, Kurt and EMike really cared about
racism they'd be in favor of ambitious programs so that voters' living standards rise.
Instead they push incrementalism and make excuses about Dems never having any power.
Tut! Tut! Tut! It's not politically correct for Democrats to talk about the economy,
inequality, and dislocation, is it? If people keep raising the issue, Democrats might be
forced into acknowledging problems they helped to create. Worse, they might have to craft a
coherent economic message that their Big Money puppeteers might not like! OMG!!!
Armageddon!!!
He presented no evidence, just pundicizing based on priors.
Well I looked and could find no change in growth, it has been declining steadily since
1990, and the ten years has been correspondingly dropping since 1980.
So, I I am supposed to see evidence, then cite the chart I am supposed to look at. We are
tired of useless pundicizers.
No, he would have cited evidence.
If he had any brains he would have recognized that we got the secstags going around, meaning
the one cannot just look at the eight year recession cycle, one has to look at the full
monetary cycle.
It is easy to tell the dufas among economists, they never look at nor cite any data.
For example, Krugman ignored the fact that Obamacare raised monthly taxes about $500 per
household, lost four elections, proved himself a dolt and now want to write off Obamacare.
Never once did Krugman make any attempt to correlate the Obamacare taxes with election
losses, not once. He preferred the delusion, same as most of our favorite economists, I can
count the one who actually look.
As Kurt said, being delusional hysterical freaks who send hundreds of billions to wealthy
people then complain? Stupid,stupid stupid.
You are exactly right here - Obamacare subsidies should have tapered off or been taxed away
around the top 20% of income rather than the top 60. Big mistake - but it was a compromise to
get several republicans to vote yes, but they (the Rs) negotiated in bad faith and then
didn't do what they promised. But hey - when have the H brothers let facts get in the way of
what they know, know, know about me.
OK, obviously I need to weigh in on Elizabeth Warren's trade proposal. I've been a huge
fan of her plans so far. This one, not so much, although some of the critiques are overdone
1/
Last month, I released my economic patriotism agenda -- my commitment to fundamentally
changing the government's approach to the economy so that we put the interests of American
workers and families ahead of the interests of multinational corporations. I've already
released my ideas for applying economic patriotism to manufacturing and to Wall Street. This
is my plan for using economic patriotism to overhaul our approach to trade.
8:41 AM - 30 Jul 2019
The truth is that this would have been a bad and destructive plan if implemented in, say,
1980. At this point it's still problematic, but not disastrous (this is going to be a long
tweet storm) 2/
Background: the way we currently do trade negotiations is that professionals negotiate out
of public view, but with input from key business players. Then Congress gets an up or down
vote on the result 3/
This can sound like a process rigged in favor of special interests. But it was created by
FDR, and its actual intent was largely the opposite. It took away the ability of
Congresspeople to stuff trade bills with goodies for their donors and districts 4/
And while business interests certainly got a lot of input, it was set up in a way that set
different groups against each other -- exporters versus import-competing industries -- and
this served the interests of the general public 5/
Without this system we wouldn't have achieved the great opening of world markets after
World War II -- and that opening was a very good thing overall, especially for poor
countries, and helped promote peace 6/
So what has changed? The key point is that the system pretty much achieved its goals;
we're a low-tariff world. And that has had a peculiar consequence: these days "trade
negotiations" aren't mainly about trade, they're about intellectual property and regulation
7/
And it's not at all clear that such deals are actually good for the world, which is why I
was a soft opponent of TPP 8/
Not to keep you in suspense, I'm thumbs down. I don't think the proposal is likely to be
the terrible, worker-destroying pact some progressives assert, but it doesn't look like a
good thing either for the world or for the United States, and you have to wonder why the
Obama administration, in particular, would consider devoting any political capital to getting
this through.
So what Warren proposes is that we partially unravel the system FDR built, making trade
negotiations more transparent and giving Congress a bigger role in shaping the deals. This
sounds more democratic, but that's a bit deceiving 9/
Mainly it would substitute one kind of special interest distortion for another. That would
have been a clearly bad thing when trade deals were actually about trade. Today, I think it's
ambiguous 10/
Warren would also expand the criteria for trade policy to include a number of non-trade
goals, like labor rights and environmental protection. Here again there are arguments on both
sides 11/
On one side, the potential for abuse would be large -- we could be slapping tariffs on
countries for all kinds of reasons, turning trade policy into global power politics, which
would be really bas for smaller, weaker countries 12/
On the other hand, there are some cases where trade policy will almost surely have to be
used to enforce some common action. If we ever do act on climate change, carbon tariffs will
be needed to discipline free riders 13/
"President Obama on Sunday praised the energy bill passed by the House late last week as
an 'extraordinary first step,' but he spoke out against a provision that would impose trade
penalties on countries that do not accept limits on global warming pollution."
And I also think the report gives a false impression of what this is about, making it seem
as if it's nothing but dirty politics...
Overall, this is the weakest Warren plan so far. (Still waiting to hear from her on health
care! Harris has taken point there, and done it well) But it's not bad enough to change the
verdict that she's the strongest contender on policy grounds 14/
He backs Harris's attempt to split difference on health care reform.
The problem with PK and Kurt and EMike is that if you don't deliver better services and
rising living standards - no matter the excuses we don't care about your excuses -
you're going to get more racism, demagogues like Trump and toxic politics.
The Dems's track record for the past 40 years is objectively awful. PK lives in a rich
man's bubble if he believes corporate trade has been good for humanity and peace.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Montana Gov. Steve Bullock (D) sparred Tuesday night
over her proposed "no first use" policy on nuclear weapons during the Democratic debate.
In defending the proposed policy, Warren argued for diplomatic and economic solutions to
conflict, saying "we should not be asking our military to take on jobs that do not have a
military solution."
But Bullock opposed that proposal, saying, "I don't want to turn around and say, 'Well,
Detroit has to be gone before we would ever use that.'"
Warren is the lead sponsor of the Senate version of a bill that would make it U.S. policy
not to use nuclear weapons first.
It has long been the policy of the United States that the country reserves the right to
launch a preemptive nuclear strike.
Former President Obama reportedly weighed changing the policy before leaving office, but
ultimately did not after advisers argued doing so could embolden adversaries.
Backers of a no first use policy argue it would improve U.S. national security by reducing
the risk of miscalculation while still allowing the United States to launch a nuclear strike
in response to an attack.
During the debate, Warren argued such a policy would "make the world safer."
"The United States is not going to use nuclear weapons preemptively, and we need to say so
to the entire world," she said. "It reduces the likelihood that someone miscalculates,
someone misunderstands."
Bullock argued he wouldn't want to take the option off the table, but that there should be
negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.
"Never, I hope, certainly in my term or anyone else would we really even get close to
pulling that trigger," he said. "Going from a position of strength, we should be negotiating
down so there aren't nuclear weapons. But drawing those lines in the sand at this point, I
wouldn't do."
Warren shot back that the world is closer to nuclear warfare after Trump's presidency,
which is seeing the end of a landmark arms control agreement with Russia, the development of
a low-yield submarine-launched warhead and the U.S. withdrawal from the Iran nuclear
agreement.
"We don't expand trust around the world by saying, 'you know, we might be the first one to
use a nuclear weapon,'" she said. "We have to have an announced policy that is one the entire
world can live with."
Bullock said he agreed on the need to return to nonproliferation standards but that
unpredictable enemies such as North Korea require keeping first use as an option.
"When so many crazy folks are getting closer to having a nuclear weapon, I don't want them
to think, 'I could strike this country,'" he said. "Part of the strength really is to
deter."
----
Long-standing US policy has been to lump chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons in a single
category. So, our guv'mint implicitly reserves the
right to respond to a chemical attack (say) with
nuclear weapons. This was how the US got het up
about Iraq's supposed 'weapons of mass destruction',
which is how the US lumps them together under
the heading 'CBN' weapons. Iraq certainly
had chemical weapons, possibly biological ones,
and much less plausibly a nuclear weapons program.
It was all about those mysterious 'aluminum tubes',
which supposedly could be used for uranium-enriching centrifuges. (Not these tubes,
apparently.)
But I digress. Suffice it to say, the US has
quite a few self-serving policies.
Now, the real question is, how much longer
do we want to have Mr Trump in control
of the nuclear football, as the nuke-
authorizing gadget is known?
The global smartphone bust is currently underway
(has been for some time) - but
there's a new, surprising trend that could highlight one reason why the Trump administration has
waged economic war against China.
First, let's start with the global smartphone shipment data
from the
International Data
Corporation
(IDC) Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker.
This new data details how worldwide smartphone shipments fell 2.3% in 2Q19 YoY. It also states
that smartphone manufacturers shipped 333.2 million phones in 2Q19, which was up 6.5% QoQ.
An escalating trade war between the US and China contributed to sharp declines in shipments in
both countries over the last year. However, the declines weren't nearly as severe as expected in
China over 1H19 versus 1H18, suggesting that three years of a smartphone bust in Asia could be
nearing a recovery phase. Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan and China) maintained solid momentum in 2Q
YoY, with shipments up 3% in the quarter fueled by Southeast Asia markets.
The surprising trend IDC detected is that Huawei surpassed Apple in 2Q19, making it the
first time in seven years that Samsung and Apple weren't the top smartphones manufactures in the
world.
Now it seems that a South Korea company [Samsung] and a Chinese company [Huawei] are the world
leaders in smartphone shipments, something that has irritated the Trump administration.
Samsung ranked No.1 with 75.5 million shipments in 2Q19, a 5.5% YoY increase. Huawei was No.2
with 58.7 million shipments in 2Q19, a 8.3% YoY jump. Apple was No.3 with 33.8 million shipments in
2Q19, a -18.2% YoY plunge.
1) Huawei announces a .6%
decline in shipments worldwide over the Q1 numbers.
2) Huawei announces an all-time high in domestic
operations that now take up 62% of its sales.
What do these two numbers hide?
That Huawei's shipments to the international market must have
suffered a considerable decline.
That the rise in sales in low-value Chinese phones doesn't
begin to offset the large drop in high-value developed world sales
except on a purely nominal numerical basis of numbers of phones
sold. The money isn't in the phones. It's in the plans. In fact,
China pioneered the idea of giving the phones away for free and
then making it all back on the gated connection plans.
But there's no way that one Chinese plan equals one western
plan in profitability back to the company, so buffing up the
domestic numbers at the expense of the cash cow numbers overseas
is ultimately not a good business strategy.
Plus of course Huawei can report any number it wants inside
China and nobody has any way of testing its veracity. They could
have shipped 20,000,000 phones to distributors on consignment and
then marked it up as sales.
It's still high-end, per se. But the price premium is no
longer justified because other companies have commoditized the
high-end features.
Frankly, the company was doomed the moment
Jobs died and the reins were turned over to Cook - an
accountant by training, who clearly has no futurist vision or
marketing skill whatsoever.
Jobs might have been a puffed up peacock, but he was a
master of creating the Reality Distortion Field.
There is one big problem that no one is talking about. The cell
phone market is over saturated! Practically everyone has got a
cell phone these days. It's like the auto industry. There has
been an over production 10 billion automobiles in the world for
7.2 billion people, of which half really can't afford to buy, much
less drive, or even have a place to park it. I have seen people
with 3 and 4 cell phones, but you only have 2 ears. How are more
cell phones going to help you? Even women don't multitask that
well.
The only thing that would make sales better on cell
phones is if you could combine the computing power of a Cray
computer into a roll-up tablet. Or, maybe a brain implant would
be even better.
Tim Cook: "When you step back and consider
Wearables and Services together two areas where we have
strategically invested in last several years, they now approach
the size of a Fortune 50 company."
Just as investors thought it was safe to buy-the f**king-dip after Powell's plunge,
President Trump steals the jam out of their donut by announcing new China tariffs...
"... on September 1st, putting a small additional Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300
Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China into our Country "
In a series of tweets, Trump laid out the state of the China trade deal... in a word -
terrible...
Our representatives have just returned from China where they had constructive talks having
to do with a future Trade Deal. We thought we had a deal with China three months ago, but
sadly, China decided to re-negotiate the deal prior to signing. More recently, China agreed
to...
...buy agricultural product from the U.S. in large quantities, but did not do so.
Additionally, my friend President Xi said that he would stop the sale of Fentanyl to the
United States – this never happened, and many Americans continue to die! Trade talks
are continuing, and...
...during the talks the U.S. will start, on September 1st, putting a small additional
Tariff of 10% on the remaining 300 Billion Dollars of goods and products coming from China
into our Country. This does not include the 250 Billion Dollars already Tariffed at
25%...
...We look forward to continuing our positive dialogue with China on a comprehensive Trade
Deal, and feel that the future between our two countries will be a very bright one!
"... Mr. Trump's anger was fueled, in part, by the fact that China has not begun buying large amounts of American farm products, which the president promised farmers would happen after a June meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. ..."
"... Mr. Trump took credit for China's weakening economy, saying the tariffs he's placed on $250 billion worth of Chinese goods have put enormous pressure on the country, costing it jobs and prompting companies to leave. ..."
"... American and Chinese negotiators finished talks on Wednesday with little progress toward ending a trade war that has shaken the world's economic confidence and rattled markets. ..."
"... Instead, both sides appear to be settling in for a lengthy economic conflict. ..."
"... Senior Chinese officials who gathered at an economic meeting on Tuesday run by China's top leader, Xi Jinping, stressed that the country had to rely on domestic demand to manage "new risks and challenges" and ward off what they described as "downward pressure on the economy," according to the Chinese state news media. China could turn "a crisis into an opportunity," the report added. ..."
"... A lengthy trade war presents China's leaders with some difficult options. China is enduring an economic slowdown that has been made worse by the trade tensions. Beijing has responded by ratcheting up spending on infrastructure and other big-ticket projects, a reliable growth strategy that nevertheless could worsen the country's debt problems and do little to solve economic imbalances that could hinder its long-term prospects. ..."
"... At a daily news briefing on Wednesday, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign Ministry, said that "only if the U.S. shows sufficient integrity and sincerity, and conducts trade talks with the spirit of equality, mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual accommodation, can the trade talks make progress." ... ..."
"... the trade pressure by the United States on China has from the beginning been about undermining Chinese development. The US point has always been to stop Chinese scientific and technological advance but the Chinese have always understood and that is just not ever going to happen. ..."
"... Accept United States restrictions on Chinese investments in sensitive technologies without retaliating. ..."
"... Open up its services and agricultural sectors to full American competition. ..."
President Trump took credit for weakening
China's economy and downplayed the likelihood
of a trade deal before the 2020 election.
His comments came as his top negotiators were sitting
down to dinner with their counterparts in Shanghai.
Trump Goads China as Trade Talks
Resume https://nyti.ms/32X4vBj
NYT - Ana Swanson and Jeanna Smialek - July 30
WASHINGTON -- President Trump lashed out at China on Tuesday morning as trade talks
between the two nations resumed, taking credit for weakening China's economy and downplaying
the likelihood of a deal before the 2020 election.
The president's comments, in posts on Twitter and remarks to the press, came just as his
top negotiators were sitting down to dinner with their counterparts at the Fairmont Peace
Hotel in Shanghai. While both sides are trying to get trade talks back on track, Mr. Trump's
angry words underscored the diminishing prospects for a transformative trade deal anytime
soon and the extent to which the bilateral relationship has not unfolded in the way that Mr.
Trump expected.
"I think the biggest problem to a trade deal is China would love to wait and just hope,"
the president said. "They hope -- it's not going to happen, I hope, but they would just love
if I got defeated so they could deal with somebody like Elizabeth Warren or Sleepy Joe Biden
or any of these people, because then they'd be allowed and able to continue to rip off our
country like they've been doing for the last 30 years."
Mr. Trump's anger was fueled, in part, by the fact that China has not begun buying
large amounts of American farm products, which the president promised farmers would happen
after a June meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. Mr. Trump emerged from that
meeting in Osaka, Japan, saying he had agreed to postpone tariffs on an additional $300
billion of Chinese products and allow American firms to resume sales of nonsensitive goods to
the Chinese telecom firm Huawei. In return, Mr. Trump said China would immediately start
buying American agricultural goods, touting it as a big win for farmers.
But no such purchases have happened, and, in the weeks since, Chinese officials disputed
that they had agreed to buy more farm products as a condition of the talks. On Sunday,
Chinese state media reported that "millions of tons" of American soybeans had been shipped to
China. But Mr. Trump on Tuesday said no such purchases had materialized.
China "was supposed to start buying our agricultural product now -- no signs that they are
doing so," Mr. Trump tweeted. "That is the problem with China, they just don't come
through."
His comments on Tuesday appeared to be an effort to give his negotiators more leverage and
to pressure China into making concessions in talks this week. Mr. Trump took credit for
China's weakening economy, saying the tariffs he's placed on $250 billion worth of Chinese
goods have put enormous pressure on the country, costing it jobs and prompting companies to
leave.
But he seemed to veer between goading China to quickly accede to America's demands and
suggesting the country could get a better deal if it waits and a Democrat wins the 2020
presidential election. ...
US-China Trade Talks End With No Deal
in Sight https://nyti.ms/2GE3LHt
NYT - Alexandra Stevenson - July 31
American and Chinese negotiators finished talks on Wednesday with little progress toward ending a trade war that has
shaken the world's economic confidence and rattled markets.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Robert E. Lighthizer, the Trump administration's top
trade negotiator, were seen leaving trade talks on Wednesday, the Chinese state news media
said.
Both sides "conducted frank, efficient and constructive in-depth exchanges on major issues
of common interest in the economic and trade field," said a statement late in the day that
was released by CCTV, China's state broadcaster.
Another round of high-level talks will take place in the United States in September, CCTV
reported.
The Trump administration had not yet released its own statement.
The meeting marked the first formal resumption of talks after negotiations fell apart
almost three months ago, with each side pointing fingers at the other for derailing a deal.
They agreed to try again after meeting last month on the sidelines of the Group of 20 summit
meeting in Osaka, Japan.
Instead, both sides appear to be settling in for a lengthy economic conflict.
Senior Chinese officials who gathered at an economic meeting on Tuesday run by China's top
leader, Xi Jinping, stressed that the country had to rely on domestic demand to manage "new
risks and challenges" and ward off what they described as "downward pressure on the economy,"
according to the Chinese state news media. China could turn "a crisis into an opportunity,"
the report added.
A lengthy trade war presents China's leaders with some difficult options. China is
enduring an economic slowdown that has been made worse by the trade tensions. Beijing has
responded by ratcheting up spending on infrastructure and other big-ticket projects, a
reliable growth strategy that nevertheless could worsen the country's debt problems and do
little to solve economic imbalances that could hinder its long-term prospects.
Should China reach a quick deal, on the other hand, the country's leaders risk looking
weak in the face of foreign powers, undermining the Communist Party's historical claim to
rule.
At a daily news briefing on Wednesday, Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Foreign
Ministry, said that "only if the U.S. shows sufficient integrity and sincerity, and conducts
trade talks with the spirit of equality, mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual
accommodation, can the trade talks make progress." ...
As I have repeatedly documented on Economist's View, the trade pressure by the United States
on China has from the beginning been about undermining Chinese development. The US point has
always been to stop Chinese scientific and technological advance but the Chinese have always
understood and that is just not ever going to happen.
Trump is asking China to redo just about everything with its economy
By Heather Long - Washington Post
The Trump administration has finally presented the Chinese government with a clear list of
trade demands. It's long and intense (there are eight sections), and President Trump isn't
just asking Chinese President Xi Jinping for a few modifications. He's asking Xi to
completely change his plans to turn the Chinese economy into a tech powerhouse.
The demands include the following:
• China will cut the $336 billion U.S.-China trade deficit by at least $200 billion
by 2020, a 60 percent reduction.
• China will stop subsidizing tech companies.
• China will cease stealing U.S. intellectual property.
• China will cut its tariffs on U.S. goods by 2020.
• China will not retaliate against the United States (including against U.S.
farmers).
• The Chinese government will open China to more U.S. investment.
U.S.-China Trade Talks End With Strong Demands, but Few Signs of a Deal
By Keith Bradsher
BEIJING -- The extensive list of United States trade demands was unexpectedly sweeping,
and showed that the Trump administration has no intention of backing down despite Beijing's
assertive stance in the last few days. "The list reads like the terms for a surrender rather
than a basis for negotiation," said Eswar Prasad, an economics professor at Cornell
University.
Here are the highlights of the demands:
China must
■ Cut its trade surplus by $100 billion in the 12 months starting in June, and by
another $100 billion in the following 12 months.
■ Halt all subsidies to advanced manufacturing industries in its so-called Made In
China 2025 program. The program covers 10 sectors, including aircraft manufacturing, electric
cars, robotics, computer microchips and artificial intelligence.
■ Accept that the United States may restrict imports from the industries under Made
in China 2025.
■ Take "immediate, verifiable steps" to halt cyberespionage into commercial networks
in the United States.
■ Strengthen intellectual property protections.
■ Accept United States restrictions on Chinese investments in sensitive technologies
without retaliating.
■ Cut its tariffs, which currently average 10 percent, to the same level as in the
United States, where they average 3.5 percent for all "noncritical sectors."
■ Open up its services and agricultural sectors to full American competition.
The United States also stipulated that the two sides should meet every quarter to review
progress.
We are told constantly that the 2016 referendum gives our government a mandate for a No
Deal Brexit, and that we would not respect democracy if we failed to leave. Both arguments
are obviously false, yet they so often go unchallenged in the media.
Brexit like Trump election was a protest against neoliberal globalization. A sign of collapse
of neoliberal ideology and the grip of neoliberal elite on the population.
In essence, a "no confidence" vote for the neoliberal elite in both countries.
Of course, Simon Wren-Lewis is afraid to acknowledged this and is engaged in
sophistry.
Who gives a monkeys? The real issue is that the selfish, disorientated and cowardly way the
Dems are conducting this race is handing Trump a winning platform for 2020.
After long hard thinking I have come to the sad conclusion that Trump is right and that he is
indeed a genius. He has achieved what he had set out to do. He has polarised the standard
bearer for democracy in the world. He has enriched himself and his family. He has broken
American society, possibly irreversibly. He has brought about change in the worlds economies.
He has also managed to set the debate and the stage to win in 2020. Now some may say he has
been an awful president, but looking at his strategy he has been highly successful. He may
not be what we want but he has certainly been better at feeling the pulse of America and
deciding which medicine to give. A truly evil genius indeed.
Sanders and Warren are the only two with some kind of personality. The others look like they
were created by lobbyists and corporate donors in a lab on a computer like Kelly Lebrock from
Weird Science.
The point about taxes going up is a red herring and a straw man argument. If you get
insurance through your employer, you pay anywhere from $300/month to $1200/month for yourself
and family. Through a Medicare for all plan, that payment would disappear. Yes, you'd pay
more in taxes to cover your health insurance, but it would likely be lower than private
insurance, a net gain, with better coverage, no deductible or co-pays. Even if it was the
same, it's still a wash. You're eliminating an expense for a tax. Plus, you're not paying for
some executive's perks and exorbitant salary.
Personally, I'd feel better paying $50,000-$75,000/year to a government administrator than
$10M-$20M/year + perks to a CEO.
Obama was simply being honest there. By any standard, Obama, both Clinton's, Gore (except for
climate change) and Biden are at best moderate Republicans. Each would qualify as being to
the right of Richard Nixon (leaving aside the issue of integrity).
In the case of Bill Clinton, Americans had not got woken to the fact that, while a little
less by Democrats, the middle class was nontheless being screwed by both parties. Obama's
rhetoric was enough cover to fool the public into thinking he would fight for real change.
Both Gore and especially Hillary showed what the public now thinks of "moderates". Bernie
Sanders and/or Elizabeth Warren are the only chances to beat Trump in 2020.
Reparations for slavery, the elimination of private insurance, free health care for anyone
who overstays a visa or walks over from Mexico, and a crystal lady.
We are in trouble. My nightmare of a Trump re-election is more and more likely.
Warren and Sanders clearly demonstrated that a party wanting to win should nominate one of
them.
They enthralled the audience, and showed they possess a vision for the future that every
other Democratic candidate claims to eventually want, when there's time, maybe, perhaps if
they get a majority someday.
Clearly Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren were the clear winners of the night! They shamed
the listless other candidates, none of whom exhibited a similar energy, excitement &
vision for the future of the country. Despite a definite veneer of displeasure by your
account, both the audience at the event, and those watching at home felt the excitement of
progressive proposals won the day.
When Sanders declared he's in favor of free healthcare and free education for illegal
immigrants there was -at best - muted criticism from the other candidates.
Most Americans are likely outraged by this suggestion and this will play in Trump's
favor.
It's obvious that John Delaney is simply a plant by Big Business (which has both the centrist
Democrats and all of Republicans in its pocket) to troll and derail the candidacy of
progressives Sanders and Warren. His sole function is to throw a monkey wrench in their path
and be a "nattering nabob of negativism" (to quote Agnew) regarding their policies. That's
all he does all day and all night, and the centrist-loving moderators and journalists love
giving him infinite time to do his damage
The answer is obvious: if you want your best shot at 86-ing the orange pestilence, then it
has to be Warren/Sanders or Sanders/Warren. You're not supposed to signal your vice-president
until after you've got the nomination, I know, but surely having Trump as president has
shredded all previous norms? Go now, right now, and say that it'll be you two. You can even
keep it open and say that you don't know who'll head the ticket but it will be Warren and
Sanders. That would crush all opposition and keep churning interesting as a guessing game.
Maybe Warren should head the ticket. I know that Sanders is very sharp and he plays
basketball but if he was president then he'd be asking for a second term and to get sworn in
when he's 83 and being in one's eighties might be too much of a psychological barrier. My
suggestion, though, would be it's Sanders/Warren but on the promise that Sanders will step
aside during his first term, after two years and one day (meaning that Warren could serve out
the rest of the term and still then run for two more terms under her own steam).
That would guarantee the first female president and so quieten down the phoney-baloney
identity politics drones; better, it would mean that the US would get an excellent leader in
Elizabeth Warren, no matter her bodily organs; it would pull together the Crooked H.
adherents and get them on side, if they truly care about getting female in there and if it
doesn't it will expose them as the phonies they are. And it would keep matters on policy,
when Trump is weak, rather than personalities, which is the territory on which Trump wants to
fight.
Warren: "We beat it by being the party of big structural change." The issue is whether
"regulation" is big enough and structural enough.
Sanders: "To stand with the working class* of American that for the last 45 years has been
decimated." Then the Canada bus trip. "We need a mass political movement. Take on the greed
and the corruption of the ruling class of this country." Plugs website.
Sanders was better; working the bus trip in was good.
NOTE *
Guardian paraphrase : "Bernie Sanders pledged to stand by the US middle class , recounting his recent trip to Canada to
emphasize the high price of insulin in America." Lol.
The allergy to the phrase "working class" is not accidental. They want as many Americans
as possible thinking they're just temporarily embarrassed millionaires.
As someone who has spent most of my life in the working class, made it to the middle, got
knocked down again, and made my way back up to the middle again, there is most certainly a
difference.
When was the last time (if ever) that someone said the words "ruling class" in a
presidential debate? (I assume that Eugene Debs was never invited to any presidential
debate.)
Even that Bernie said "working class" won points with me. Typical of the Guardian to change
it to "middle class".
Williamson was impressive.
I liked that Warren showed fire and guts. Her policies would be a real change for the better,
especially if pushed farther. My real question about her is whether she would stand up to the
other side and fight to win.
For me, the biggest difference between Bernie and Warren is that I am starting to hope that
Warren would really fight, but I know Bernie would.
I like Bernie better, but I like Warren too, and I *DO* trust her to fight.
The big tell was when she went to Washington as a Senator and Larry Summers said don't
criticize us in public if you want to be part of the club, and she not only ignored that but
told on him publicly!
Two actually GOOD people! They were my dream team last night.
I agree. I'm highly skeptical of Warren delivering anything (especially a victory), and I
don't really trust her to try very hard to implement her plans. Watching her in this debate
opened a thin crack in my icy wall of distrust. I hope she proves me wrong.
Eh . Warren for all her sociopolitical baggage is a completely different animal to the
Blue Dog Corporatist DNC fundie or the Free Market Conservative slash Goat picked me to
administrate reality for everyone dilemma.
But yeah feel [tm] free [tm] to play curricular firing squad and then wonder why ones head
is sore from the effects of banging on an sacrilegious edifice .
I think a photo finish by Sanders and Warren, Buttigieg in the running followed by
Klobuchar, Beto fading, the centrists losing big, Williamson a dark horse coming up on the
outside.
By one key metric -- Google interest -- Marianne Willamson was the dominant figure of the debate. and that's tells a lot about
debate aorgnizers which are not interested in real political debase. Just interested in the debate as a political show. They
are too interested in promoted identity politics to devide the electorate, to allow discussion of really important for the
nation question such as rampant militarism.
Notable quotes:
"... A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for." ..."
"... Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party, judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of government policy to solve problems in society. ..."
"... One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype. ..."
A lot of liberals will love her for her quip, "I don't understand why anybody goes to all the trouble of
running to the president of the United States to talk about what we really can't do and shouldn't fight for."
Of course, she's celebrating one of the big problems in our political system -- no presidential
candidate wants to acknowledge the limits of the power of the office, the presence of the opposition party,
judicial review, the inherent difficulties of enacting sweeping changes through legislation, or the limit of
government policy to solve problems in society.
One of the reasons Americans are so cynical is that they've seen plenty of politicians come and go, with
almost every one of them promising the moon and very few living up to the hype.
Advertisement
Warren shamelessly insisted that the government could pay for quality health care for every American -- and
illegal immigrants, too! -- just by raising taxes on billionaires and big corporations. Warren made clear
tonight that she's not going to let a little thing like fiscal reality get in between her and the nomination.
... ... ...
Tonight was another night where you could easily forget Amy Klobuchar was on stage. Back when Klobuchar's campaign was in the
nascent stage, people wondered how "Minnesota nice" would play on a national debate stage. We can now declare it boring,
predictable, and forgettable.
Russiagate is both sign of degradation of neoliberal elite and weakening of neoliberal social system now is deep social crisis
as "rising tide does not lift all boats" and the level of inequality achieved destabilized the society.
Notable quotes:
"... There is a increasing body of evidence to suggest that Trump-Putin was a trumped up psy-ops campaign designed to demonize Russia (and Trump.) Some if Mueller's allegations rest on very shaky grounds. ..."
"... It does not take any courage at all to call Donald Trump a race baiting big stupid orange buffoon. It also accomplishes nothing to blame the Russians for his election. Well that does accomplish something. It makes the Democratic Party look puny, weak, and disconnected from the lives of the majority of US citizens. I won't press too hard on that part though because it was already established fact long before Donald Trump entered politics. ..."
Neoliberals/neocons like you are so detached from reality that it hurt. You better stop
posting as you understand nothing and can learn absolutely nothing. You views are essentially
frozen for the last three years and you definitely are unable to evolve above the level of a
typical neoliberal propaganda.
Neoliberal ideology is discredited since 2008 and neoliberal elite lost the control of the
electorate via usual "divide and conquer" identity politics in 2016; the neoliberal economics
entered the state of "secular stagnation" (according to Summers) and chances that it can
escape this state are non-existent.
Why it is so difficult to understand the USA is facing the crisis of neoliberalism much
like the USSR faced the crisis of Bolshevism since 1960th.
And that Trump election was direct result of this crisis and the betrayal of working and
lower middle class by "Clintonized" Dems, which become essentially Republican light (or
"party of soft neoliberals") as well as the second war party (and being a war party means
that you do not need to win the elections, MIC rules the country in any case). That's why
Russiagate was launched to patch the cracks in the neoliberal façade and as a smoke
screen for neoliberal Dems political fiasco.
And Paine is right: after Bill Clinton sold Democratic Party to Wall Street it did not
care one bit about the workers. Clinton's idea was that workers have nowhere to go. He was
right for 20 years or so but then Dems were trumped ;-)
IMHO the best way for Neoliberal Dems in 2020 is to commit suicide by selecting
semi-senile neoliberal Biden (who, essentially, is "Hillary light", especially in foreign
policy ). This way the party can get rid of Clinton mafia.
But I think Warren has a chance in this cycle despite all her blunders.
As a side note, I still hope that war criminal Bill Clinton will be tarred and feathered
and then lynched with Epstein. And please note that unlike Epstein, Bill can't claim asylum
in Israel.
P.S. Please do not reply to this post. You can't say anything useful or constructive on
the topic.
You have no real evidence for that fact, just supposition from some set of assumptions. Yet
the articles posted continue to identify limits to what Uncle can do. like pay attention to
demographics on entitlements, Malthus lives on,just one of the articles finding evidence of
limits, compared to your invention.
You keep missing the fact that the white wage class has repeatedly voted to destroy unions,
to have state level republican control and to vote in every model legislation that ALEC and
Mackinaw Center hand them. Also, under normal (ie: when Rs didn't use procedure to prevent
everything) circumstance, Ds really haven't had much power nationally since Reagan. But do go
on.
The Dems failed to provide a progressive
Wage class benefiting alternative
To hate and self destructive spite
For
40 years b4 Trump won the rust bowl derby
Racism is either a matter of degrees or, if you prefer, we are all racists. That is exactly
what that joke line "I don't see color" means. When black people are racist and they get
special treatment for being racist then that is about the most racist thing that I see around
today that is still widespread.
The fraction factions are disgusting and soft racism is
pervasive. But what many liberals do not get is that just calling people out (as they say) as
racist really leads to more racism rather than less. If you want peer pressure to work for
you, then first you must work to establish yourself as peer.
I understand that you are not the only graduate of the idiot school of childish
psychology, but you are a consistent advocate of the practices as is your little nemesis
ilsm.
I really strongly disagree with this. I try really hard to both notice and to correct any
engaging in implicit bias. I also reject the idea that a person can be measured by the hue of
their skin, where they worship (or if they do) and their sex or sexuality. My midwestern
sensibilities tell me that what really matters is how hard you try and how decent of a human
being you are. I don't see how you can 1. think that the Trump/Russia thing is a hoax after
reading the Mueller report, 2. think that Trump belongs in office and is not doing serious
irreparable damage to the United States and still be a good person. I also don't see how you
can be anti-racist and support Trump. In fact, I think this is axiomatic.
I have provided the footnote about 50x. The report plainly states that there was coordination
between known actors of the Russian government and Trump campaign officials, and that they
could not get documentary evidence BECAUSE OBSTRUCTION - which, btw where the headline
charges against both Nixon and Clinton. Also - Mueller SPECIFICALLY said that there is no
legal standard for collusion and that there was likely conspiracy, but obstruction.
Qualifying to be anti-racist - against racism, racist policy, structural racism
overtly.
Faux evidence? WTF are you talking about.
You support a racist. You cannot support a racist implementing racist policy measure in an
extra legal way without yourself tacitly agreeing that said racism is just fine. Again - this
is axiomatic and I am sorry that shining a light on it hurts your feelings, but you can
change. I invite you to.
Such inflammatory charges!!! Meanwhile Democrats have no urgency about investigating this.
Why the dillydallying? Because that's what Democrats are genetically programmed to do? Or
because there is no there there?
There is a increasing body of evidence to suggest that Trump-Putin was a trumped up
psy-ops campaign designed to demonize Russia (and Trump.) Some if Mueller's allegations rest
on very shaky grounds.
I think that personal criticisms of an ant does not amount to a hill of beans, but rather
reduces one to being an ant-man. I don't care for all those holes in my yard and I certainly
do not want to see a long file of ants headed towards my pantry, but I have no personal
accusations that are worth leveling against ants. I do not even squish a bug that stays out
of my house. I let the ant lions that surround my home take care of most of the ants and when
that fails and some start heading inside my home then I spray Raid in their path.
I advise everyone to always make friends with everyone that they do not want to kill. A
key part of that is to know and observe one's own boundaries when dealing with others. One
can criticize an idea or an action without the implicit arrogance required to pass judgement
on others, which explicitly leads to most people not giving a damn what one has to say
anyway. I prefer to not back anyone into a corner unless I am holding a gun.
Yeah - okay. But when someone lies, dissembles, makes stuff up out of whole cloth all in
support of a person who has demonstrated repeatedly that they think that white is right -
they are racist. That's fine.
When ilsm has the courage and morality to call Trump what he
is, then I will give him quarter. Until then, he is as evil as they come in my book.
Evil comes in far more significant sizes than any anonymous blog commenter on an Internet
economics board frequented by a small group of nerds and geeks. If you believe that ilsm is
evil then you are lucky enough to have never encountered any real evil.
It does not take any
courage at all to call Donald Trump a race baiting big stupid orange buffoon. It also
accomplishes nothing to blame the Russians for his election. Well that does accomplish
something. It makes the Democratic Party look puny, weak, and disconnected from the lives of
the majority of US citizens. I won't press too hard on that part though because it was
already established fact long before Donald Trump entered politics.
Stages of capitalist development explain more than white papers and
propaganda can conceal. The relevant comparative period is 1990 - present (China/Russia)
versus 1950-1980 (US/West).
Ex-communist countries like Russia and China have experienced the same decline in the share
of public property, but starting from a much higher level of public wealth. The share of
net public wealth was as large as 70–80 percent in both countries in 1980, and fell
to 20 percent (Russia) and 30–35 percent (China) in 2015.
The Chinese share is higher but not incomparable to that observed in Western high-income
countries during the "mixed economy" period (1950–1980).
In other words, China and Russia have ceased to be communist in that public ownership is
no longer the dominant form of property. However, these countries still have much more
significant public wealth than Western high-income economies, due largely to lower public
debts and greater public assets.
Epstein and use of sex with underage girls to compromise politicians is a definite sign of the
collapse of the West. It's very much like what happened in the late Roman Empire.
When Rome was in its ascendancy and at its height, the leaders of Rome were all native
Romans or at least native Italians. If they were born in other parts of the Empire, they were
of Roman culture and had Roman names and Roman values. They had a stake in their
civilization.
But as time went on, all of this started changing.
By the time the barbarians invaded the Empire wholesale -- starting with the battle of
Adrianople in 378 AD -- the handwriting was already on the wall. Within 30 years, the
barbarians controlled the entire Empire.
The old political structure had completely collapsed. Native Romans were leaving the Empire,
going to barbarian lands, to avoid onerous taxation. The currency was worthless. The economy
was in a shambles. The military structure had completely collapsed. None of the soldiers were
Italians; they were all barbarians hired as mercenaries. Likewise, here in the US, few
Americans in the diminishing middle class want to join the military. The city of Rome itself
was sacked in 410 AD and it never really recovered.
International Man :
Economically, the US government continues to spend ever-increasing
amounts of money. In 2018 alone, the federal deficit was $779 billion -- a $113 billion
increase from the year before. Politicians on both sides of the aisle are falling over
themselves to offer new government freebies that could pay for college, medical care, and the
list goes on.
How does this play into the theme of US decadence?
Doug Casey : Well, whether you're an individual or a family or a country, when you live
above your means, you're almost by that very fact decadent. You're not planning for the
future.
But the US government's debt and reported deficits represent only current cash outlays, not
obligations in the form of future spending. If the deficits were represented with accrual
accounting -- which is what businesses have to do -- the annual deficits would probably be more
like $3 trillion.
Not to mention that interest rates are artificially suppressed to about 2% in the US. At
more normal levels of, say, 6%, the annual deficit would be about $800 billion higher. So the
financial situation is actually much, much worse than it seems.
On top of all this is the fact that these deficits come during a time of supposed recovery.
But the "recovery" has been ramped up by creating trillions of new dollars and allowing people
to borrow at effectively negative interest rates, certainly after inflation. This is all very
decadent.
Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. That's not the attitude of a rising
civilization.
The opposite of "decadent" is to be constructive, disciplined, forward-thinking, and
self-respecting. You produce more than you consume and save the difference.
That's exactly the opposite of what Americans are doing today.
We're completely decadent.
Small comfort that the Europeans are even worse off than we are.
International Man:
On an individual level, Americans are living beyond their means. Many
Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.
What does this say about a society?
Doug Casey: It augurs very poorly.
The average American is one paycheck from not being able to pay his rent. When the
distortions that have been cranked into the economy over just the last 10 years unwind and the
economy as a whole goes downhill again, there are going to be millions of people who can't pay
their rent. Many millions more are going join the 42 million Americans now living on food
stamps.
The social repercussions of this are predictable.
The population will get angry; many will go into the streets and riot. They're going to vote
overwhelmingly for some politician who says that he -- or quite possibly she -- can cure all
their problems by giving them free stuff stolen from rich people.
In a way it's understandable, because the fact of the matter is the rich have indeed been
getting richer at an accelerating rate.
Why?
Because they're the ones that get to stand next to the firehose of money that's coming out
of Washington. They get it first; they get most of it. It's another sign of a society in
decline: the dominance of cronies. That creates a lot of class antagonism.
It's going to explode and be really ugly. Perhaps one thing keeping a lid on the situation
is the huge number of Americans on psychiatric drugs: Zoloft, Prozac, and a hundred others.
Perhaps millions of others don't care as long as their internet connection enables them to play
video games.
International Man :
Aside from the financial aspect of decadence, what is happening
culturally and intellectually in the United States? For example, many Americans are rejecting
biological facts in favor of the politically correct fad of the day. Is this a sign of
decline?
Doug Casey : The PC types say there are supposed to be 30 or 40 or 50 different genders --
it's a fluid number. It shows that wide swathes of the country no longer have a grip on actual
physical, scientific reality. That's more than a sign of decline; it's a sign of mass
psychosis.
There's no question that some males are wired to act like females and some females are wired
to act like males. It's certainly a psychological aberration but probably has some basis in
biology.
The problem is when these people politicize their psychological peculiarities, try to turn
it into law, and force the rest of the society to grant them specially protected status.
Thousands of people every year go to doctors to have themselves mutilated so that they can
become something else. Today they can often get the government or insurers to pay for it.
If you want to self-mutilate, that's fine; that's your business even if it's insane. To make
other people pay for it is criminal. But it's now accepted as normal by most of society.
The acceptance of politically correct values -- "diversity," "inclusiveness" -- trigger
warnings, safe spaces, gender fluidity, multiculturalism, and a whole suite of similar things
that show how degraded society has become. Adversaries of Western civilization like the
Mohammedan world and the Chinese justifiably see it as weak, even contemptible.
As with Rome, collapse really comes from internal rot.
Look at who people are voting for. It's not that Americans elected Obama once -- a mob can
be swayed easily enough into making a mistake -- but they reelected him. It's not that New
Yorkers elected Bill de Blasio once, but they reelected him by a landslide. All of the
Democratic candidates out there are saying things that are actually clinically insane and are
being applauded.
International Man :
In fact, in the recent Democratic debate, candidate Julián Castro
even mentioned giving government-funded abortions to transgender women -- biological men. It
received one of the loudest bouts of applause from the audience.
That's not to mention that two other candidates spoke in broken Spanish when responding to
the moderator's questions.
Doug Casey: As you said, it got a lot of applause.
US presidential candidates speaking in Spanish would be very much like an ancient Roman
addressing the Forum in Gothic, not Latin. It's all over for a culture when it starts using the
language of its conqueror. In a restaurant here in Aspen, the owners have a sign in Spanish
that refers to the progress of the Reconquista -- the recapture of the American Southwest from
the Anglos. Perhaps someone will speak Arabic in the next debates.
I hate to sound defeatist, but it's all over for what was once known as American
civilization. The celebrity of AOC is indicative. How else could a 29-year-old Puerto Rican
waitress, poorly educated and not very bright, set the political tone for the whole
country?
International Man :
Is America's late-stage decadence a product of its political and
economic decline or vice versa?
Doug Casey : The decadence we see all around us is arising from every source. Cultural,
economic, and political. Cultural decline is the most basic area. Massive immigration of people
with different cultures, languages, and religions guarantee it. Especially if they're coming
because of free benefits. Many actually despise traditional American culture, as well as
holding the current culture in contempt.
Their views are then reflected in a corruption of the politics. We see that with the
apparent acceptance of the Squad -- although I prefer to call them the "Gang of Four." Politics
engenders economic distortions. Part of the problem is that politics completely dominates the
economy today.
For Trumpers to think that building a wall is going to change things is naïve. A wall
will be about as effective as a kid's sandcastle on the beach to hold back the waves.
"... I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren! ..."
"... Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity. ..."
"... Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering. ..."
"... Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate! ..."
"... Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary were all part of the same administration. ..."
I like Elizabeth Warren, I would vote for her, . Not fond of some of her foreign policy positions, and I don't like how worked
up Trump gets her. Forget about Trump, lets here what you plan on doing with the presidency E. Warren!
In the primaries I will support Gabbard, I believe she is as real of an anti-war candidate as there is, not perfect, but it
is all relative.
Sanders would get my vote, too, although I do fear he is a bit of a "sheep-dog" but I'd give him a shot.
If not one of those candidates, oddly, I'll vote for Trump. Biden and Harris are both IMO DNC monsters like Clinton who will
get us into nuclear war due to a combination of excessive hubris and flat out neocon/neolib stupidity.
I see a repeat of the 2016 election on the horizon, with the DNC doubling down on idiocy and losing in a similar fashion. They
haven't learnt a thing from 2016 and think hyperventilating while screaming Trump, Trump, Trump is going to win the election.
Warren's okay but it's hard to get past her support for Hillary in 2016 and not for Sanders whose policies reflect hers. So
for me, Sanders is still the best, Warren 2nd. However, Trump will destroy him with Socialist scaremongering.
My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute, will
vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump.
My feeling is that there will be war in Trump's second term. Trump will be much bolder and more fascist after getting another
mandate and having nothing to lose. Trump will be a war President having invested more than any other President on military hardware
and itching to show it off. He hasn't fired his hawks for a reason. He will be more full of himself and his own importance in
history. His Zionist financiers will get their money's worth in spades. His agenda will be more hostile on Iran and China and
he'll finish what he started in Venezuela. He will lose the detente with NK, and after the election, he will no longer give friendly
lip service to Russia especially on Syria and Venezuela and will expect Russia to go along with what he has planned for Iran.
Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed him
if he decides not to run for a second term. He will return to the JCPOA. I don't like Biden's ingratiation with Zionists, but
the reality is that Biden and Trump will be the choices, so hold your nose, because it's Biden or war and further regime change
ambitions with Trump and maybe even a manipulated Trump 3rd term using war as the excuse to prolong his mandate!
"My bet is that the nominee will be Biden, because Biden can beat Trump in the election and Democrats, at the last minute,
will vote out of fear of running someone who might lose to Trump....."
Biden is Hillary without the feminist support. No way that he could beat Trump.
"Biden is older and will not want war (with any country) complicating his Presidency, and may choose a VP ready to succeed
him if he decides not to run for a second term. .."
Biden has no conception of giving up office. As to war he will be as ready to start wars as he was when he and Obama and Hillary
were all part of the same administration.
There is only one Democrat, among the announced candidates, who can beat Trump and his name is Sanders.
The purpose of the "Clintonized" Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent to neoliberal rule in an orderly fashion. The
militarization of US economy and society means that by joining the war coalition, the Democratic party doesn't have to win any presidential
elections to remain in power. Because military-industrial complex rules the country.
Yes Clinton neoliberals want to stay in control and derail Sanders, much like they did in 2016. Biden and Harris are Clinton faction
Trojan horses to accomplish that. But times changed and they might have to agree on Warren inread of Biden of Harris.
Notable quotes:
"... Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with. ..."
"... Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their priorities). ..."
"... So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have. ..."
"... I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt and hamstring any legislation that he proposes ..."
"... electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin. ..."
"... The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that doesn't make it impossible. ..."
"... Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you; they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go. ..."
"... In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan. ..."
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street – at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession perhaps or maybe even worse. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
"... By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort to 'money.' In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead. ..."
"... Could that be why "our" three-letter agencies have been stocking up on that substance for awhile, now? ..."
"... " The purpose of the Democratic Party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion." ..."
"... Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the election to maintain standing with big biz donors. ..."
"... Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America. ..."
"... actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else. ..."
"... the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power at the expense of the party and the country. ..."
"... The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations, social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy and for Main Street businesses. ..."
"... The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street businesses forced to compete with monopolies. ..."
That 2020 existential battle, of course, is always cast as between the Democrats and the Republicans.
But there's another existential battle going on, one that will occur before the main event -- the battle for control of the Democratic
Party. In the long run, that battle may turn out to be more important than the one that immediately follows it.
... ... ...
Before mainstream Democrats can begin the "existential battle" with the forces of Trump and Republicanism, they have to win the
existential battle against the force that wants to force change on their own party.
They're engaged in that battle today, and it seems almost all of the "liberal media," sensing the existential nature of the threat,
is helping them win it. Katie Halper, in a second perceptive piece on the media's obvious anti-Sanders bias, "
MSNBC's Anti-Sanders
Bias Is Getting Truly Ridiculous ," writes: "When MSNBC legal analyst Mimi Rocah (
7/21/19 ) said that Bernie Sanders 'made [her] skin crawl,'
though she 'can't even identify for you what exactly it is,' she was just expressing more overtly the
anti-Sanders bias that pervades the network."
... ... ...
MSNBC is clearly acting as a messaging arm of the Democratic Party mainstream in its battle with progressives in general and Sanders
in particular, and Zerlina Maxwell, who's been variously employed by that mainstream, from her work with Clinton to her work on MSNBC,
is an agent in that effort.
Let me repeat what Matt Taibbi wrote: " [Sanders'] election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic Party, forcing
everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector. "
Agreed. Trump fought the swamp, and the swamp won. Trump campaigned on ending our stupid pointless wars and spending that
money on ourselves – and it looked at first like he might actually deliver (how RACIST of the man!) but not to worry, he is now
surrounded by uber hawks and the defense industry dollars are continuing to flow. Which the Democrats are fine with.
Trump campaigned on enforcing the laws against illegal immigration and limiting legal immigration, but he's now pretty much
given up, the southern border is open full "Camp of the Saints" style and he's pushing for more legal 'guest' workers to satisfy
the corporate demands for cheap labor – and the Democrats are for this (though Sanders started to object back in 2015 before he
was beaten down).
Trump campaigned on a populist platform, but once elected the only thing he really pushed for was a big juicy tax cut for
himself and his billionaire buddies – which the Democrats are fine with (how come they can easily block attempts to stop the flow
of cheap labor across the southern border, but not block massive giveaway tax cuts to the super rich? Because they have their
priorities).
Soon I expect that Trump will propose massive regressive tax increases on the working class – which of course the Democrats
will be fine with ('to save the planet').
So yeah, Trump is governing a lot like Hilary Clinton would have.
And elections are pretty much pointless. Even if Sanders does win, he'll get beaten down faster even than Trump was.
I think people have a hard time with real inflection points. Most of life uses more short-term linear decision making. But
at inflection points we have multiple possibilities that turn into rather surprising turns of events, such as Brexit and Trump.
We still have people saying in the UK – "but they wouldn't do that!" The hell "they" won't. Norms are thrown out of the window
and people start realising how wide the options are. This is not positive or negative. Just change or transformation.
That is my philosophical way of agreeing with you! It is easy to point at the hostility of the mainstream media and DNC as
there being no way for Sanders to win. After all in 2004, look what the media and DNC did to Howard Dean. But people weren't dying
then like they are now. The "Great Recession" wasn't on anyone's radar. People felt rich, like everything would be fine. We are
not in that situation – the facts on the ground are so wildly different that the DNC and mainstream media will find it hard to
stay in control.
I think it's much more likely that a Sanders victory would see the Clintonistas digging even further into the underbelly
of the Democratic Party. There they would covertly and overtly sabotage Sanders, brief against him in the press and weaken, corrupt
and hamstring any legislation that he proposes.
If Sanders should win against Trump expect the establishment to go into full revolt. Capital strike, mass layoffs, federal
reserve hiking interest rates to induce a recession, a rotating cast of Democrats siding with Republicans to block legislation,
press comparing him to worse than Carter before he even takes office and vilifying him all day every day.
I wouldn't be shocked to see Israel and the Saudis generate a crisis in, for example, Iran so Sanders either bends the knee
to the neocons or gets to be portrayed as a cowardly failure for abandoning our 'allies' for the rest of his term.
You've just convinced me that the American Experiment is doomed. No one else but Sanders can pull America out of its long slow
death spiral and your litany of the tactics of subversion of his presidency is persuasive that even in the event of his electoral
victory, there will be no changing of the national direction.
I'm reading a series of essays by Morris Berman in his book "Are We There Yet". A lot of critics complain that he is too much
the pessimist, but he presents some good arguments, dark though they may be, that the American Experiment was doomed from the
start due to the inherent flaw of Every Man For Himself and its "get mine and the hell with everybody else" attitude that has
been a part of the experiment from the beginning.
He is absolutely right about one thing, we are a country strongly based on hustling for money as much or more than anything
else, and both Trump and the Clintons are classic examples of this, and why the country often gets the leaders it deserves.
That's why I believe that we need people like Sanders and Gabbard in the Oval Office. It is also why I believe that should
either end up even getting close, Nax is correct. Those with power in this country will not accept the results and will do whatever
is necessary to subvert them, and the Voter will buy that subversion hook, line, and sinker.
No. The point is that electing Sanders can not be the endgame, only the beginning. I think Nax is completely right that
a Sanders win would bring on the full wrath of all its opponents. Then the real battle would begin.
The notion that real change could happen in this country by winning an election or two is naive in the extreme. But that
doesn't make it impossible.
Lots of people hired by the Clintons, Obama, Rahm Emanuel, Cuomo, etc. will have to be defenestrated. Lose their public
sector jobs, if not outright charged with crimes. No one must be left in a position to hurt you after the election. Anyone on
the "other side" must lose all power or ability to damage you, except those too weak. These people can be turned and used by you;
they can be kept in line with fear. But all the leaders must go.
In order for Sanders to survive the onslaught that will surely come, he must have a jobs program ready to go on day one
of his administration- and competent people committed to his cause ready to cary out the plan.
The high ground is being able to express a new vision for the common good, 24/7, and do something to bring it about. You win
even if you suffer losses.
Without that, life in the USA will become very disruptive to say the least.
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
Pretty bad optics on MSNBC's part being unable to do simple numbers and I can fully believe that their motto starts with the
words "This is who we are". Jimmy Dore has put out a few videos on how bad MSNBC has been towards Bernie and Progressives lately
so it is becoming pretty blatant. Just spitballing a loose theory here but perhaps the Democrats have decided on a "poisoned chalice"
strategy and do want not to win in 2020.
After 2008 the whole economy should have had a major re-set but Obama spent tens of trillions of dollars saving Wall Street
– at the expense of Main Street – so that nothing got resolved about the problems that caused the crash in the first place. Trump's
policies are doubling down on these problems so there is going to be a major disruption coming down the track. A major recession
perhaps or maybe even worse.
Point is that perhaps the Democrats have calculated that it would be best for them to leave the Republicans in power to own
this crash which will help them long term. And this explains why most of those democrat candidates look like they have fallen
out of a clown car. The ones capable of going head to head with Trump are sidelined while their weakest candidates are pushed
forward – people like Biden and Harris. Just a theory mind.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
By owning the means of production, the Oligarchs will be able to produce the machinery of oppression without the resort
to 'money.'
In revolutionary times, the most valuable commodity would be flying lead.
If the nation wishes true deliverance, not just from Trump and Republicans, but from the painful state that got Trump elected
in the first place, it will first have to believe in a savior.
No, no, no, no, no. No oooshy religion, which is part of what got us into this mess. Cities on a hill. The Exceptional Nation(tm).
Obligatory burbling of Amazing Grace. Assumptions that everyone is a Methodist. And after Deliverance, the U S of A will be magically
re-virginated (for the umpteenth time), pure and worthy of Manifest Destiny once again.
If you want to be saved, stick to your own church. Stop dragging it into the public sphere. This absurd and sloppy religious
language is part of the problem. At the very least it is kitsch. At its worst it leads us to bomb Muslim nations and engage in
"Crusades."
Other than that, the article makes some important points. In a year or so, there will be a lot of comments here on whether
or not to vote for the pre-failed Democratic candidate, once the Party dumps Bernie Sanders. There is no requirement of voting
for the Democrats, unless you truly do believe that they will bring the Deliverance (and untarnish your tarnished virtue). Vote
your conscience. Not who Nate Silver indicates.
Yes, this election is starting to remind me of 2004. High-up Dems, believing they're playing the long game, sacrifice the
election to maintain standing with big biz donors. The leading issue of the day (Iraq/GWOT/Patriot Act) was erased from mainstream
US politics and has been since. Don't for a minute think they won't do a similar thing now. Big donors don't particularly fear
Trump, nor a 6-3 conservative supreme court, nor a Bolton state dept, nor a racist DHS/ICE – those are not money issues for them.
Sadly, when Sanders speaks of a "revolution", and when he is referred to as a revolutionary, while at the same time accepting
that the Democratic Party is a Party of the top 10%, puts into context just how low the bar is for a political revolution in America.
The candidate who would fight and would govern for the 90% of Americans is a revolutionary.
The fact that it can be said as a given that neither major Party is being run specifically to serve the vast majority of our
country is itself an admission for that the class war begun by Reagan has been won, in more of a silent coup, and the rich have
control of our nation.
Sadly, actual democracy is an impediment to those who wield power in today's America, and in that respect the class war
continues to be waged, primarily through divisive social issues to divert our attention from the looting being done by and for
the rich and the decline in opportunity and economic security for everyone else.
Sanders is considered a revolutionary merely for stating the obvious, stating the truth. That is what makes him dangerous to
those that run the Democratic Party, and more broadly those who run this nation.
Sanders would do better to cast himself not as a revolutionary, but as a person of the people, with the belief that good government
does not favor the wants of the richest over the needs of our country. That is what makes him a threat. To the rich unseen who
hold power, to the Republican Party, and to some Democrats.
I agree with the thesis here, and confess to being puzzled by comments on LGM (for example) politics threads of the ilk "I'm
with Warren but am good with Buttigieg too," or "I'm with Sanders but am good with Harris, too," etc.
I love reading Taibbi, but in
his article , that quote, " Sanders is the revolutionary. His election would mean a complete overhaul of the Democratic
Party, forcing everyone who ever worked for a Clinton to look toward the private sector ," should be the lede, and its buried
2/3 of the way down.
This primary season is about how the Democratic Party consultant class, I call them leeches, is fighting for its power
at the expense of the party and the country.
Yves writes: it is unfortunate that this struggle is being personified, as in too often treated by the media and political
operatives as being about Sanders.
I agree. Sanders represents the continuing New Deal-type policies. The DLC-type New Democrats (corporatists) have been
working to destroy New Deal Democrats and policies as a force in the party. The New Deal Democrats brought in bank regulations,
social security, medicare, the voting rights act, restraint on financial predation, and various economic protections for the little-guy
and for Main Street businesses.
The DLC Dems have brought deregulation of the banks and financial sector, an attempt to cut social security, expansion
of prisons, tax cuts for corporations and the billionaires, the return of monopoly power, and the economic squeeze on Main Street
businesses forced to compete with monopolies.
The MSM won't talk about any of the programmatic differences between the two sides. The MSM won't recognize the New Deal style
Democratic voters even exist; the New Deal wing voters are quickly labeled 'deplorable' instead voters with competing economic
policies to the current economic policies.
So, we're left with the MSM focusing on personalities to avoid talking about the real policy differences, imo.
When Bernie talks about a revolution, he explains how it must be from the grassroots, from the bottom up. If he manages to
get elected, his supporters have to make sure they get behind the politicians who also support him and, if they don't, get rid
of them.
Without continuing mass protests, nothing is going to happen. Other countries have figured this out but Americans remain clueless.
Warren's plan would overhaul the process by which the U.S. proposes, writes, finalizes and
enforces trade deals while imposing strict standards for any nation seeking or currently in a
free trade deal with the U.S.
ADVERTISEMENT
In a Medium post outlining the
extensive trade proposal, Warren said her approach to trade is centered on using the United
States' immense leverage to protect domestic industries and workers.
Warren argued U.S trade policy has ceded too much power to international corporations,
squandering the country's ability to defend its manufacturers, farmers and laborers.
"As President, I won't hand America's leverage to big corporations to use for their own
narrow purposes," Warren wrote. "We will engage in international trade -- but on our terms and
only when it benefits American families."
Trump has imposed more than $250 billion in tariffs on Chinese goods, foreign steel and
aluminum, solar panels, and washing machines since taking office in 2017. The president has
used import taxes as leverage in trade talks and inducement for companies to produce goods in
the U.S., but manufacturing job gains and activity have faded throughout the year.
U.S. farmers and ranchers have also lost billions of dollars in foreign sales due to
retaliatory tariffs imposed on American agricultural goods.
Warren acknowledged that while tariffs "are an important tool, they are not by themselves a
long-term solution to our failed trade agenda and must be part of a broader strategy that this
Administration clearly lacks."
Warren said she instead would pursue deals and renegotiate current agreement to "force other
countries to raise the bar on everything from labor and environmental standards to
anti-corruption rules to access to medicine to tax enforcement."
To do so, Warren would expand the ability of Congress and noncorporate advocates to see and
shape trade deals as their being negotiated, not after they have been submitted to lawmakers
for approval
Warren proposed staffing trade advisory panels with a majority of representatives from labor
and environmental and consumer advocacy groups. She also called for special advisory panels for
consumers, rural areas and each region of the country, "so that critical voices are at the
table during negotiations."
Under Warren's plan, trade negotiators would be required to submit drafts of pending
agreements to Congress and submit them for public comment through the same process used by
federal regulators to propose and finalize rules.
Warren's plan also raises the bar for entry into a trade deal with the U.S. and seizes more
power for the federal government to enforce agreements.
Warren proposed a list of nine standards required of any country seeking a U.S. trade deal
including several international tax, climate and human rights treaties. She noted that the U.S.
"shamefully" does not comply with some of these standards, but would do so under her
presidency.
The plan also excludes any nation on the Treasury Department's currency manipulation
monitoring list from a potential U.S. trade deal. As of May, that list includes China, Germany,
Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore and Vietnam.
Nations in trade deals with the U.S. would also be required to support subsidies for green
energy, follow U.S. food inspection standards, pay a fee on goods produced using
"carbon-intensive" processes and agree to stricter anti-trust standards.
"... Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways: ..."
"... i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power; ..."
"... (ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;" ..."
"... (iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders; ..."
"... iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its business party duopoly. ..."
"... It is not broken. It is fixed. Against us. ..."
"... The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts. ..."
"... By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity" and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background. ..."
"... When this political theatre in the US finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard core imperialists who's time has reached its end. ..."
"... This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry ..."
Mainstream Dems are performing their role very well. Most likely I am preaching to the choir. But anyways, here is a review
of Lance Selfa's book "Democrats: a critical history" by Paul Street :
Besides preventing social movements from undertaking independent political activity to their left, the Democrats have
been adept at killing social movements altogether. They have done – and continue to do – this in four key ways:
i) inducing "progressive" movement activists (e.g. Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and the leaders of Moveon.org and United
for Peace and Justice today) to focus scarce resources on electing and defending capitalist politicians who are certain to
betray peaceful- and populist-sounding campaign promises upon the attainment of power;
(ii) pressuring activists to "rein in their movements, thereby undercutting the potential for struggle from below;"
(iii) using material and social (status) incentives to buy off social movement leaders;
iv) feeding a pervasive sense of futility regarding activity against the dominant social and political order, with its
business party duopoly.
The militarization of US economy and society underscores your scenario. By being part of the war coalition, the Democratic
party, as now constituted, doesn't have to win any presidential elections. The purpose of the Democratic party is to diffuse public
dissent in an orderly fashion. This allows the war machine to grind on and the politicians are paid handsomely for their efforts.
By joining the war coalition, the Democrats only have leverage over Republicans if the majority of citizens get "uppity"
and start demanding social concessions. Democrats put down the revolt by subterfuge, which is less costly and allows the fiction
of American Democracy and freedom to persist for a while longer. Republicans, while preferring more overt methods of repressing
the working class, allow the fiction to continue because their support for authoritarian principles can stay hidden in the background.
I have little faith in my fellow citizens as the majority are too brainwashed to see the danger of this political theatre.
Most ignore politics, while those that do show an interest exercise that effort mainly by supporting whatever faction they belong.
Larger issues and connections between current events remain a mystery to them as a result.
Military defeat seems the only means to break this cycle. Democrats, being the fake peaceniks that they are, will be more than
happy to defer to their more authoritarian Republican counterparts when dealing with issues concerning war and peace. Look no
further than Tulsi Gabbard's treatment in the party. The question is really should the country continue down this Imperialist
path.
In one sense, economic recession will be the least of our problems in the future. When this political theatre in the US
finally reaches its end date, what lies behind the curtain will surely shock most of the population and I have little faith that
the citizenry are prepared to deal with the consequences. A society of feckless consumers is little prepared to deal with hard
core imperialists who's time has reached its end.
This wrath of frustrated Imperialists will be turned upon the citizenry.
Estou procurando o primeiro mundo para explorar essas áreas em parceria e agregando
valor. Por isso, a minha aproximação com os Estados Unidos
[ I'm asking the First World to exploit these areas in partnership and aggregating value.
Hence my approximation with the USA ]
This makes it very clear Bolsonaro is not choosing his economic partners on the basis of
what is better for Brazil, but for what is better to the (neo)liberal order (i.e. the West).
His usage of Cold War propaganda terminology ("First World" as a synonym to "USA") gives him
up.
The Brazilian government knows there's a massive mineral reserve in Amazon territory
(Serra dos Carajás, eastern Amazon rainforest) since the times of the military
dictatorship (1964-1985); however, the importance of the rainforest in the ecological
regulation of the world kept them from fully exploiting them -- until now.
There are plenty of minerals the Americans can get their hands at in the Serra dos
Carajás (mainly iron, but also rare metals and uranium), but Pepe Escobar rose an
interesting hypothesis in
a recent article for the Asia Times , where he stated that:
And then there's the crucial – for the industrialized West – niobium angle (a
metal known for its hardness). Roughly 78% of Brazilian niobium reserves are located in the
southeast, not in the Amazon, which accounts at best for 18%. The abundance of niobium in
Brazil will last all the way to 2200 – even taking into consideration non-stop,
exponential Chinese GDP growth. But the Amazon is not about niobium. It's about gold
– to be duly shipped to the West.
We already know Russia and China have been stocking up gold to their reserves in order to
prepare a dedollarization process. Gold is the shortest path to dedollarize a national and/or
regional financial system because, traditionally, it served as universal money until the fiat
currency era (1971-). It's a universal language in the financial world to tell another
country that you ultimately have the leverage to do finance outside the American system (i.e.
that you're not bullshitting).
With this seemingly rushed decision to seize Amazonic gold from the Brazilians -- and
right after the last disappointing 2.1% GDP growth in this last quarter -- it looks like the
dedollarization enforced by China and Russia is finally beginning to bite in the USA.
But we must not get to the illusion the gold standard will come back: if this is the
beginning of a new Gold Rush, then it will not last for much, since most geologists agree the
world reserves of gold are almost all exploited (they can do a good extrapolation to the gold
available in the Earth thanks to some cosmologogical science about the origins of the planet
that I don't understand very well, so this diagnosis is -- contrary to the infamous oil
predictions -- pretty much definitive). The gold standard, by the way, was terrible: it was a
deflationary system that led to periodical famine in Europe during the Industrial Revolutions
(gold could not be produced, so production stopped when prices went down too much) and
probably was the main factor that triggered the French Revolution of 1789.
@ vk with the report on the empire rape of Brazil and words about gold as a value attached to
"money"
Sorry about what is slated to happen to the Amazon region.
Gold has been historically attached to the "value" of money and silver as well to a lesser
degree. That said, they represent physical value to the specie of exchange, if attached.
Specie with physical value is one step removed from barter. If/when the specie becomes
fiat, meaning no more connection to physical value then it becomes debt at its core unless
you and others have faith that it has more than the "paper printed on".
And that is where we are at today. In 1971, gold was removed from connection to the global
Reserve Currency which then made "money" fiat and it has been that way until the present.
But that debt laden fiat money system is a cancer on the lifeblood of human interactions
and China and other countries are saying to the elite that own global Western private finance
that they want to return to value associated money AND the controls over the
manipulation/elimination of that value.
Socialism or barbarism is the question on the table.
"... Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior. ..."
"Empires in decline tend to behave badly. Indeed, whether British, French or Russian, the
twilight years of imperialism often brought brutal repression of subjects abroad, the
suppression of civil liberties at home and general varieties of brutality toward foreigners, be
they refugees or migrants.
Aggressive wars abroad pollute the domestic political discourse and breed
hypernationalism, racism and xenophobia. The 18 or so years of war following the 9/11 attacks
have seen this ostensible republic sink to new lows of behavior.
Aggressive wars of choice have ushered in rampant torture, atrocities in Iraq's Abu Ghraib
prison, indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay, extraordinary rendition, drone assassinations,
warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance of the citizenry...
It's all connected. The empire -- all empires -- eventually come home."
Maj. Danny Sjursen, An American Tragedy: Empire at Home and Abroad
EU bureaucracy is not compatible with UK identity.
I agree re. a sort of fundamental 'spirit'. So far, since 1973 (EEC, idk if this was
properly done, you say not: fraudulent ) EU-UK relations have not been riven by
disruptive strife or even temp. explosive argument (in part due to EU rules etc.)
Accomodations were made.. An apogee of hand-holding-harmony was reached when Mitterand and
Thatcher convinced the Germans to give up the D-mark in return for blessing the
re-unification of Germany. The UK did not join the Euro zone (1992). So the UK was overall a
big 'winner' on several levels (imho.)
Brexit is the first step in bringing politics back to local accountability
I hope so but dangers lurk and i am pessimistic. Crash-out on 31 Oct. will happen, and
will have a horrific impact. In any case the political accountability of the Gvmt. in the UK
is at present abysmally low.
"... The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato. ..."
"... Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them ..."
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
"As I turn 75, there's no simpler way to put it than this: I'm an old man on a new planet -- and, in case it isn't instantly
obvious, that's not good news on either score...
And I find myself looking at a world that, had you described it to me in the worst moments of the Vietnam War years when I
was regularly in the streets protesting, I would never have believed possible. I probably would have thought you stark
raving mad. Here I am in an America not just with all the weirdness of Donald Trump, but with a media that feeds on his
every bizarre word, tweet, and act as if nothing else were happening on the face of the Earth. If only...
If you had told me that, in the next century, we would be fighting unending wars from Afghanistan to Somalia and beyond I would
have been shocked. If you had added that, though even veterans of those wars largely believe they shouldn't have been fought,
just about no one would be out in the streets protesting, I would have thought you were nuts."
Tom Engelhardt,
TomDispatch
"The Babylonian starlight brought
A fabulous, formless darkness in;
Odour of blood when Christ was slain
Made all platonic tolerance vain,
And vain all Doric discipline."
William Butler Yeats
"The reason is partly because of a glitch in human cognition known as the just world hypothesis or just world fallacy, which
causes us to assume that if bad things are happening to someone, it's because that person deserves it. Blaming the victim
is more psychologically comfortable than seeing that we live in an unjust world where we could very easily become victim ourselves
someday, and we select for that comfort over rational analysis.
Like other cognitive biases, this one fundamentally boils down to our annoying psychological tendency to select for cognitive
ease over cognitive discomfort. It feels more psychologically comfortable to interpret new information in a way that
confirms our preexisting opinions, so we get
confirmation bias
.
It feels psychologically comfortable to assume something is true after hearing it repeated many times, so we get the
illusory
truth effect
. It feels more psychologically comfortable to believe we live in a fair world where people get what
they deserve than to believe we're in a chaotic world where many of the most materially prosperous people are also the most
depraved and sociopathic, and that we could be next in line to be victimized by them, so we get
the just world fallacy."
Caitlin Johnstone,
The Just World Fallacy: Why People Bash Assange and Defend Power
"
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead
to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form,
and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If
we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against
the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them
."
Karl Popper
"And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation
of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must
speak."
Martin Luther King,
A Time to Break the Silence
, April 1967
"What does it profit a man, to gain the whole world, but lose his soul?"
The New Quincy Institute Seeks Warmongering Monsters to Destroy Andrew Bacevich on his new left-right group, which is
going hammer and tongs against the establishment on foreign policy. By
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos •
July 30, 2019
Andrew J. Bacevich participates in a panel discussion at the U.S. Naval War College in 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication
Specialist 1st Class Christian S. Eskelund/Released) For the last month, the foreign policy establishment has been abuzz over the
new kid on the block: the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft , named
for John Quincy Adams. Adams, along with our first president George Washington,
warned of foreign entanglements and the urge to go
abroad in "search of monsters to destroy," lest America's fundamental policy "insensibly change from liberty to force
. She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit ."
Those in the foreign policy Blob have had different reactions to the "upstart" think tank. These are the preeminent organizations
that stand imperious in size and square footage, but have lacked greatly in wisdom and clarity over the last 20 years. Quincy will
stand apart from them in two significant ways: it is drawing its intellectual and political firepower from both the anti-war Left
and the realist and restraint Right. And it is poised to support a new "responsible statecraft," one that challenges the conditions
of endless war, including persistent American militarism here and abroad, the military industrial complex, and a doctrine that worships
primacy and a liberal world order over peace and the sovereignty of other nations.
Quincy, which is rolling out its statement of principles this
week (its official launch will be in the fall), is the brainchild of Trita Parsi, former head of the National Iranian-American Council,
who saw an opening to bring together Left and Right academics, activists, and media disenchanted by both sides' pro-war proclivities.
Together with Vietnam veteran and former Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich (also a longtime TAC contributor), the
Carnegie Endowment's Suzanne DiMaggio, Columbia University's Stephen Wertheim, and investigative journalist Eli Clifton, the group
wants to serve as a counterweight to both liberal interventionists like the Brookings Institution and Council on Foreign Relations,
and the war hawks and neoconservatives of the Heritage Foundation and Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
They've already taken hits from both sides of the establishment, dismissed brusquely
as naive , or worse,
isolationist (that swipe from neoconservative Bill Kristol, whose now-defunct Weekly Standard once ran a manifesto headlined
"The Case for American Empire"
). The fact that Quincy will be funded by both George Soros on the Left and the Charles Koch Foundation on the Right has brought
some rebuke from unfriendlies and even some friendlies. The former hate on one or the other powerful billionaire, while the latter
are wary of Soros' intentions (he's has long been a financial supporter of
"soft-power"
democracy movements overseas, some of which have encouraged revolution and regime change).
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But Quincy's timing couldn't be more perfect. With a president in the White House who has promised to draw down U.S. involvement
overseas (with the exception of his Iran policy, he has so far held to much of that pledge), and national conservatives coming around
to TAC's long-held worldview on realism and restraint (and an increasing willingness to reach across the aisle to work with
like-minded groups and individuals), Quincy appears poised to make some noise in Washington.
According to the group's new statement of principles , "responsible
statecraft" 1) serves the public interest, 2) engages the world, 3) builds a peaceful world, 4) abhors war, and 5) is democratic.
Andrew Bacevich and Trita Parsi expanded on this further in a recent Q&A with TAC.
(Full disclosure: the author is on Quincy's steering committee and TAC also receives funding from the Charles Koch Foundation.)
TAC : Quincy's principles -- and thus it's name -- are rooted in the mission of "responsible statecraft." Can you give
me a sense of what that means in practical terms, and why you settled on this phrasing for the institute?
AB: With the end of the Cold War, policy elites succumbed to an extraordinary bout of hubris, perhaps best expressed in the claim
that history had designated the United States as its "indispensable nation." Hubris bred recklessness and irresponsibility, with
the Iraq war of 2003 as Exhibit A. We see "responsible statecraft" as the necessary antidote. Its abiding qualities are realism,
restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement. While the QI is not anti-military, we are wary of war except when all other alternatives
have been exhausted. We are acutely conscious of war's tendency to produce unintended consequences and to exact unexpectedly high
costs.
TAC : Quincy is a trans-partisan effort that is bringing together Left and Right for common cause. Is it a challenge?
AB: It seems apparent to us that the myriad foreign policy failures and disappointments of the past couple of decades have induced
among both progressives and at least some conservatives a growing disenchantment with the trajectory of U.S. policy. Out of that
disenchantment comes the potential for a Left-Right coalition to challenge the status quo. The QI hopes to build on that potential.
TAC : Two of the principles take direct aim at the current foreign policy status quo: responsible statecraft abhors war,
and responsible statecraft is democratic (calling out a closed system in which Americans have had little input into the wars waged
in their names). How much of what Quincy aims to do involves upending conventional norms, particularly those bred and defended by
the Washington "Blob"?
AB: In a fundamental sense, the purpose of the QI is to educate the American people and their leaders regarding the Blob's shortcomings,
exposing the deficiencies of old ideas and proposing new ones to take their place.
TAC: That said, how much blowback do you anticipate from the Washington establishment, particularly those think tanks and
individuals whose careers and very existence depend on the wheels of militarism forever turning?
AB : Plenty. Proponents of the status quo are entrenched and well-funded. Breaking old habits -- for example, the practice of
scattering U.S. military bases around the world -- will not come easily.
TAC : There has been much ado about your two primary funders -- Charles Koch and George Soros. What do you say to critics
who suggest you will be tied to/limited by their agendas?
AB: Our funding sources are not confined to Koch and Soros and we will continue to broaden our support base. It's not for me to
speak for Koch or Soros. But my guess is they decided to support the QI because they support our principles. They too believe in
policies based on realism, restraint, prudence, and vigorous engagement.
TAC : Better yet, how did you convince these two men to fund something together?
TP: It is important to recognize that they have collaborated in the past before, for instance on criminal justice reform. This
is, however, the first time they've come together to be founding funders of a new entity. I cannot speak for them, but I think they
both recognize that there currently is a conceptual deficit in our foreign policy. U.S. elite consensus on foreign policy has collapsed
and the void that has been created begs to be filled. But it has to be filled with new ideas, not just a repackaging of old ideas.
And those new ideas cannot simply follow the old political alignments. Transpartisan collaboration is necessary in order to create
a new consensus. Koch and Soros are showing tremendous leadership in that regard.
TAC : The last refuge of a scorned hawk is to call his critics "isolationist." It would seem as though your statement of
principles takes this on directly. How else does Quincy take this often-used invective into account?
AB : We will demonstrate through our own actions that the charge is false.
TAC : Critics (including James Traub,
in his own piece on Quincy
) say that Washington leaders, once in office, are "mugged by reality," suggesting that the idea of rolling back military interventions
and avoiding others sounds good on paper but presidents like Barack Obama had no choice, that this is all about protecting interests
and hard-nosed realism. The alternative is a bit naive. How do you respond?
AB: Choices are available if our leaders have the creativity to recognize them and the gumption to pursue them. Obama's patient
and resolute pursuit of the Iran nuclear deal affirms this possibility. The QI will expose the "we have no choice" argument as false.
We will identify and promote choice, thereby freeing U.S. policy from outmoded habits and stale routines.
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is e xecutive editor at . Follow her on Twitter
@Vlahos_at_TAC
QI is a welcome change from the endless, whining tirade of the old hawks.
I wish them well in gaining influence in DC.
I hope that they can give voice to the growing numbers of us who do not support illegal invasions, funding dissidents to
foment regime change and our flawed system of selecting key allies (regardless of their human rights records) and protecting
them and their interests at all cost. This has been a drain our economic resources and moral standing.
In this time, when nationalism and disaster capitalism seem to be winning on both sides of the Atlantic, it seems there
is little hope for peace, decency and diplomacy.
QI has a huge challenge to take on the parasitic organism that is the war machine, but any initiative is better than none.
If Quincy is to have any chance of success in its mission, it will have to tackle the issues surrounding Federal election campaign
financing. The current rules give a handful of American billionaires effective control over US Middle East policy. What is
good for donors like Sheldon and Miriam Edelson is not necessarily good for the American public. Donald Trump was elected president
of the US not Prime Minister of Israel.
I did read one of Mr. Basevich's books a few years ago and my take away remains valid today: The US cannot afford to be
the policeman of the world.
Trump definitely contributes a lot to the collapse of classic neoliberalism. He rejected neoliberal globalization in favor of using
the USA dominant position for cutting favorable to the USA bilateral deals. That undermined the role of dollar of the world reserve
currency and several mechanisms emerged which allow completely bypass dollar system for trade.
Notable quotes:
"... US President Donald Trump's ruthless use of the centrality of his country's financial system and the dollar to force economic partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic interdependence. ..."
"... A new world is emerging, in which it will be much harder to separate economics from geopolitics. ..."
US President Donald Trump's ruthless use of the centrality of his country's financial system and the dollar to force economic
partners to abide by his unilateral sanctions on Iran has forced the world to recognise the political price of asymmetric economic
interdependence.
In response, China (and perhaps Europe) will fight to establish their own networks and secure control of their nodes. Again, multilateralism
could be the victim of this battle.
A new world is emerging, in which it will be much harder to separate economics from geopolitics. It's not the world according
to Myrdal, Frank, and Perroux, and it's not Tom Friedman's flat world, either. It's the world according to Game of Thrones
.
It made me do a face palm. Somebody thought they had separated economics from geopolitics or power…or at least they wanted
people to believe that and the jig is up.
“One reason for this is that in an increasingly digitalised economy, where a growing part of services are provided at zero
marginal cost, value creation and value appropriation concentrate in the innovation centers and where intangible investments are
made. This leaves less and less for the production facilities where tangible goods are made.”
It depends on what you mean by value.
If value is dollars in someone’s Cayman Islands tax-free account, then value is concentrated in NYC and SF.
But if we follow Natural Law (Marx or Mohammed) and define value as labor, then this is exactly wrong. A Natural Law economy
tries to maximize paid and useful work, because people are made to be useful.
The digital world steadily eliminates useful work, and steadily crams down the wages for the little work that remains. Real
value is avalanching toward zero, while Cayman value is zooming to infinity.
He’s talking more about the whims of the stock market and of our intellectual property laws. For example the marginal cost
for Microsoft to issue another copy of “Windows” is zero. Even their revised iterations of the OS were largely a rehash of the
previous software. Selling this at high prices worked out well for a long time but now the software can practically be had for
free because competitors like Linux and Android are themselves free. So digital services with their low marginal cost depend on
a shaky government edifice (patent enforcement, lack of antitrust) to prop up their value. Making real stuff still requires real
labor and even many proposed robot jobs–driving cars, drone deliveries, automated factories and warehouses–are looking dubious.
Dean Baker has said that the actual investment in automation during the last decades has slowed–perhaps because expensive and
complicated robots may have trouble competing with clever if poorly paid humans. And poorly paid is the current reality due to
population increases and political trends and perhaps, yes, automation.
And even if the masters of the universe could eliminate labor they would then have nobody to buy their products. The super
yacht market is rather small.
>the distribution of gains from openness and participation in the global economy is increasingly skewed. …. True, protectionism
remains a dangerous lunacy.
Well “openness and participation” is looking like lunacy to the Deplorables for exactly the reason given, so what is actually
on offer here?
With useful physical labor being off-shored, first world citizens should all be made shareholders in the new scheme. We shall
all then become dividend collecting layabouts buying stuff made by people we do not know, see, or care about. If they object we
simply have the military mount a punitive expedition until they get whipped back into shape. Sort of like now but with a somewhat
larger, more inclusive shareholder base. It will be wonderful!
Are you sayin’ the lefty Social Wealth Fund concept is really just another way of replicating the same old bougie program of
domination and suppression?
I’m saying that it can be and historically, and that there are and have been multi-national systems of super exploitation of
peripheral, primarily resource exporting populations, relative to a more broadly distributed prosperity for “higher” skilled populations
of the center. This has been a common perspective within anti-imperialist movements.
The argument is not without merit. Is this a “contradiction among the people” where various sectors of a larger labor movement
can renegotiate terms, or is it some more intransigent, deeply antagonistic relationship is a crucial question. The exportation
of manufacturing to the periphery is disrupting the political status-quo as represented by the center’s centrism, political sentiments
are breaking away to the left and right and where they’ll land nobody knows.
Why is Iran such a high priority for so many US elites?
I was just reading this John Helmer below, like Pepe Escobar I’m not sure who’s buttering his bread but it’s all food for thought
and fresh cooked blinis are tastier than the Twinkies from the western msm, and this thought came to mind: Iran is the perfect
test ground for the US to determine Russian weapons and tactical capabilities in a major war context in 2019. That alone might
make it worth it to the Pentagon, why they seem so enthusiastic to take the empire of chaos to unforseen heights (depts?). Somewhat
like the Spanish Civil War was a testing ground for the weapons of WW2.
1. Because it has a lot of non US controlled Oil.
2. Because it is Central on the eastern end of the silk road.
3. Because it does not kiss the US Ring bearers hand at every opportunity, and the US is determined to make it an example not
to be followed.
But consider Saudi us relations… who is kissing who’s ring?
Or consider Israeli us relations… ditto.
We’re a thuggish whore whose favors are easily bought; bring dollars or votes. Or kiss the ring.
An environmental insight here. The world stands devastated. It has reached its carrying capacity for thoughtless humans. From
here on in we have to take the consequences of our actions into account. So when it is said, as above, that the dollar exchange
rate is more important than the other bilateral exchange rates, I think that is no longer the reality. There is only a small amount
of global economic synergy that operates without subsidy. The vast majority is subsidized. And the dollar is just one currency.
And, unfortunately, the United States does not control the sun and the wind (well we’ve got Trump), or the ice and snow. Let alone
the oceans. The big question going forward is, Can the US maintain its artificial economy? Based on what?
That is a factor that seems ignored by the philosophers who are the subjects of the headline posting. It is a great oversight,
a shoe which has been released and is now impacting the floor. “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men”
Looks like the world order established after WWIII crumbed with the USSR and now it is again the law if jungles with the US as the
biggest predator.
Notable quotes:
"... The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet. ..."
"... Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure, dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence, not democracy ..."
"... A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism" (meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest. ..."
"... For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.) to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness. ..."
"... Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II. ..."
"... Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards. ..."
"... Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations' International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity." ..."
"... This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago, and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer. ..."
"... England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank." ..."
"... But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium. ..."
"... On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas, this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions attack on Europe ..."
"... The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above. In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945. ..."
"... By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands. ..."
"... It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either. ..."
"... But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3 billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid. ..."
"... It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. ..."
"... Anticipating just such a double-cross, President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe. ..."
"... It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence. ..."
"... Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs, but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and settle for being a dominant minority. ..."
"... Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change. ..."
"... Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms". Interesting times. ..."
"... Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. ..."
"... To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles. ..."
"... Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet again. Nothing to see here, actually. ..."
"... So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change. ..."
"... Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. ..."
"... I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. ..."
"... If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be" to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing. ..."
"... In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3. ..."
"... Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble." ..."
"... He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas. ..."
"... The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run. ..."
"... Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics" on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners. ..."
"... Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence. There will be fierce competition to fill the gap. ..."
"... On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top. I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect. ..."
"... Former US ambassador, Chas Freeman, gets to the nub of the problem. "The US preference for governance by elected and appointed officials, uncontaminated by experience in statecraft and diplomacy, or knowledge of geography, history and foreign affairs" https://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_882041135&feature=iv&src_vid=Ge1ozuXN7iI&v=gkf2MQdqz-o ..."
"... Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT. ..."
"... The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy. ..."
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected, thanks to the very same Neocons
who gave the world the Iraq, Syria and the dirty wars in Latin America. Just as the Vietnam War drove the United States off gold
by 1971, its sponsorship and funding of violent regime change wars against Venezuela and Syria – and threatening other countries
with sanctions if they do not join this crusade – is now driving European and other nations to create their alternative financial
institutions.
This break has been building for quite some time, and was bound to occur. But who would have thought that Donald Trump would become
the catalytic agent? No left-wing party, no socialist, anarchist or foreign nationalist leader anywhere in the world could have achieved
what he is doing to break up the American Empire. The Deep State is reacting with shock at how this right-wing real estate grifter
has been able to drive other countries to defend themselves by dismantling the U.S.-centered world order. To rub it in, he is using
Bush and Reagan-era Neocon arsonists, John Bolton and now Elliott Abrams, to fan the flames in Venezuela. It is almost like a black
political comedy. The world of international diplomacy is being turned inside-out. A world where there is no longer even a pretense
that we might adhere to international norms, let alone laws or treaties.
The Neocons who Trump has appointed are accomplishing what seemed unthinkable not long ago: Driving China and Russia together
– the great nightmare of Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. They also are driving Germany and other European countries into
the Eurasian orbit, the "Heartland" nightmare of Halford Mackinder a century ago.
The root cause is clear: After the crescendo of pretenses and deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria, along with our absolution
of the lawless regime of Saudi Arabia, foreign political leaders are coming to recognize what world-wide public opinion polls reported
even before the Iraq/Iran-Contra boys turned their attention to the world's largest oil reserves in Venezuela: The United States
is now the greatest threat to peace on the planet.
Calling the U.S. coup being sponsored in Venezuela a defense of democracy reveals the Doublethink underlying U.S. foreign
policy. It defines "democracy" to mean supporting U.S. foreign policy, pursuing neoliberal privatization of public infrastructure,
dismantling government regulation and following the direction of U.S.-dominated global institutions, from the IMF and World Bank
to NATO. For decades, the resulting foreign wars, domestic austerity programs and military interventions have brought more violence,
not democracy.
In the Devil's Dictionary that U.S. diplomats are taught to use as their "Elements of Style" guidelines for Doublethink, a "democratic"
country is one that follows U.S. leadership and opens its economy to U.S. investment, and IMF- and World Bank-sponsored privatization.
The Ukraine is deemed democratic, along with Saudi Arabia, Israel and other countries that act as U.S. financial and military protectorates
and are willing to treat America's enemies are theirs too.
A point had to come where this policy collided with the self-interest of other nations, finally breaking through the public
relations rhetoric of empire. Other countries are proceeding to de-dollarize and replace what U.S. diplomacy calls "internationalism"
(meaning U.S. nationalism imposed on the rest of the world) with their own national self-interest.
This trajectory could be seen 50 years ago (I described it in Super Imperialism [1972] and Global Fracture [1978].) It had to
happen. But nobody thought that the end would come in quite the way that is happening. History has turned into comedy, or at least
irony as its dialectical path unfolds.
For the past half-century, U.S. strategists, the State Department and National Endowment for Democracy (NED) worried that
opposition to U.S. financial imperialism would come from left-wing parties. It therefore spent enormous resources manipulating parties
that called themselves socialist (Tony Blair's British Labour Party, France's Socialist Party, Germany's Social Democrats, etc.)
to adopt neoliberal policies that were the diametric opposite to what social democracy meant a century ago. But U.S. political planners
and Great Wurlitzer organists neglected the right wing, imagining that it would instinctively support U.S. thuggishness.
The reality is that right-wing parties want to get elected, and a populist nationalism is today's road to election victory in
Europe and other countries just as it was for Donald Trump in 2016.
Trump's agenda may really be to break up the American Empire, using the old Uncle Sucker isolationist rhetoric of half a century
ago. He certainly is going for the Empire's most vital organs. But it he a witting anti-American agent? He might as well be – but
it would be a false mental leap to use "quo bono" to assume that he is a witting agent.
After all, if no U.S. contractor, supplier, labor union or bank will deal with him, would Vladimir Putin, China or Iran be any
more naïve? Perhaps the problem had to erupt as a result of the inner dynamics of U.S.-sponsored globalism becoming impossible
to impose when the result is financial austerity, waves of population flight from U.S.-sponsored wars, and most of all, U.S. refusal
to adhere to the rules and international laws that it itself sponsored seventy years ago in the wake of World War II.
Dismantling International Law and Its Courts
Any international system of control requires the rule of law. It may be a morally lawless exercise of ruthless power imposing
predatory exploitation, but it is still The Law. And it needs courts to apply it (backed by police power to enforce it and punish
violators).
Here's the first legal contradiction in U.S. global diplomacy: The United States always has resisted letting any other country
have any voice in U.S. domestic policies, law-making or diplomacy. That is what makes America "the exceptional nation." But for seventy
years its diplomats have pretended that its superior judgment promoted a peaceful world (as the Roman Empire claimed to be), which
let other countries share in prosperity and rising living standards.
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their equity
share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy. Without such power, the United States would not join
any international organization. Yet at the same time, it depicted its nationalism as protecting globalization and internationalism.
It was all a euphemism for what really was unilateral U.S. decision-making.
Inevitably, U.S. nationalism had to break up the mirage of One World internationalism, and with it any thought of an international
court. Without veto power over the judges, the U.S. never accepted the authority of any court, in particular the United Nations'
International Court in The Hague. Recently that court undertook an investigation into U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan, from its torture
policies to bombing of civilian targets such as hospitals, weddings and infrastructure. "That investigation ultimately found 'a reasonable
basis to believe that war crimes and crimes against humanity."
[1]
Donald Trump's National Security Adviser John Bolton erupted in fury, warning in September that: "The United States will use any
means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court," adding that
the UN International Court must not be so bold as to investigate "Israel or other U.S. allies."
That prompted a senior judge, Christoph Flügge from Germany, to resign in protest. Indeed, Bolton told the court to keep out of
any affairs involving the United States, promising to ban the Court's "judges and prosecutors from entering the United States." As
Bolton spelled out the U.S. threat: "We will sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system, and we will prosecute them in the
U.S. criminal system. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We
will let the ICC die on its own. After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us."
What this meant, the German judge spelled out was that: "If these judges ever interfere in the domestic concerns of the U.S. or
investigate an American citizen, [Bolton] said the American government would do all it could to ensure that these judges would no
longer be allowed to travel to the United States – and that they would perhaps even be criminally prosecuted."
The original inspiration of the Court – to use the Nuremburg laws that were applied against German Nazis to bring similar prosecution
against any country or officials found guilty of committing war crimes – had already fallen into disuse with the failure to indict
the authors of the Chilean coup, Iran-Contra or the U.S. invasion of Iraq for war crimes.
Dismantling Dollar Hegemony from the IMF to SWIFT
Of all areas of global power politics today, international finance and foreign investment have become the key flashpoint. International
monetary reserves were supposed to be the most sacrosanct, and international debt enforcement closely associated.
Central banks have long held their gold and other monetary reserves in the United States and London. Back in 1945 this seemed
reasonable, because the New York Federal Reserve Bank (in whose basement foreign central bank gold was kept) was militarily safe,
and because the London Gold Pool was the vehicle by which the U.S. Treasury kept the dollar "as good as gold" at $35 an ounce. Foreign
reserves over and above gold were kept in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, to be bought and sold on the New York and London
foreign-exchange markets to stabilize exchange rates. Most foreign loans to governments were denominated in U.S. dollars, so Wall
Street banks were normally name as paying agents.
That was the case with Iran under the Shah, whom the United States had installed after sponsoring the 1953 coup against Mohammed
Mosaddegh when he sought to nationalize Anglo-Iranian Oil (now British Petroleum) or at least tax it. After the Shah was overthrown,
the Khomeini regime asked its paying agent, the Chase Manhattan bank, to use its deposits to pay its bondholders. At the direction
of the U.S. Government Chase refused to do so. U.S. courts then declared Iran to be in default, and froze all its assets in the United
States and anywhere else they were able.
This showed that international finance was an arm of the U.S. State Department and Pentagon. But that was a generation ago,
and only recently did foreign countries begin to feel queasy about leaving their gold holdings in the United States, where they might
be grabbed at will to punish any country that might act in ways that U.S. diplomacy found offensive. So last year, Germany finally
got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. U.S. officials pretended to feel shocked at the insult
that it might do to a civilized Christian country what it had done to Iran, and Germany agreed to slow down the transfer.
But then came Venezuela. Desperate to spend its gold reserves to provide imports for its economy devastated by U.S. sanctions
– a crisis that U.S. diplomats blame on "socialism," not on U.S. political attempts to "make the economy scream" (as Nixon officials
said of Chile under Salvador Allende) – Venezuela directed the Bank of England to transfer some of its $11 billion in gold held in
its vaults and those of other central banks in December 2018. This was just like a bank depositor would expect a bank to pay a check
that the depositor had written.
England refused to honor the official request, following the direction of Bolton and U.S. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo.
As Bloomberg reported: "The U.S. officials are trying to steer Venezuela's overseas assets to [Chicago Boy Juan] Guaido to help bolster
his chances of effectively taking control of the government. The $1.2 billion of gold is a big chunk of the $8 billion in foreign
reserves held by the Venezuelan central bank."
Turkey seemed to be a likely destination, prompting Bolton and Pompeo to warn it to desist from helping Venezuela, threatening
sanctions against it or any other country helping Venezuela cope with its economic crisis. As for the Bank of England and other European
countries, the Bloomberg report concluded: "Central bank officials in Caracas have been ordered to no longer try contacting the Bank
of England. These central bankers have been told that Bank of England staffers will not respond to them."
This led to rumors that Venezuela was selling 20 tons of gold via a Russian Boeing 777 – some $840 million. The money probably
would have ended up paying Russian and Chinese bondholders as well as buying food to relieve the local famine.
[4] Russia denied this report, but Reuters has confirmed is that Venezuela has sold 3 tons of a planned 29 tones of gold to the
United Arab Emirates, with another 15 tones are to be shipped on Friday, February 1.
[5] The U.S. Senate's Batista-Cuban hardliner Rubio accused this of being "theft," as if feeding the people to alleviate the
U.S.-sponsored crisis was a crime against U.S. diplomatic leverage.
If there is any country that U.S. diplomats hate more than a recalcitrant Latin American country, it is Iran. President Trump's
breaking of the 2015 nuclear agreements negotiated by European and Obama Administration diplomats has escalated to the point of threatening
Germany and other European countries with punitive sanctions if they do not also break the agreements they have signed. Coming on
top of U.S. opposition to German and other European importing of Russian gas, the U.S. threat finally prompted Europe to find a way
to defend itself.
Imperial threats are no longer military. No country (including Russia or China) can mount a military invasion of another major
country. Since the Vietnam Era, the only kind of war a democratically elected country can wage is atomic, or at least heavy bombing
such as the United States has inflicted on Iraq, Libya and Syria. But now, cyber warfare has become a way of pulling out the
connections of any economy. And the major cyber connections are financial money-transfer ones, headed by SWIFT, the acronym for the
Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, which is centered in Belgium.
Russia and China have already moved to create a shadow bank-transfer system in case the United States unplugs them from SWIFT.
But now, European countries have come to realize that threats by Bolton and Pompeo may lead to heavy fines and asset grabs if they
seek to continue trading with Iran as called for in the treaties they have negotiated.
On January 31 the dam broke with the announcement that Europe had created its own bypass payments system for use with Iran
and other countries targeted by U.S. diplomats. Germany, France and even the U.S. poodle Britain joined to create INSTEX -- Instrument
in Support of Trade Exchanges. The promise is that this will be used only for "humanitarian" aid to save Iran from a U.S.-sponsored
Venezuela-type devastation. But in view of increasingly passionate U.S. opposition to the Nord Stream pipeline to carry Russian gas,
this alternative bank clearing system will be ready and able to become operative if the United States tries to direct a sanctions
attack on Europe.
I have just returned from Germany and seen a remarkable split between that nation's industrialists and their political leadership.
For years, major companies have seen Russia as a natural market, a complementary economy needing to modernize its manufacturing and
able to supply Europe with natural gas and other raw materials. America's New Cold War stance is trying to block this commercial
complementarity. Warning Europe against "dependence" on low-price Russian gas, it has offered to sell high-priced LNG from the United
States (via port facilities that do not yet exist in anywhere near the volume required). President Trump also is insisting that NATO
members spend a full 2 percent of their GDP on arms – preferably bought from the United States, not from German or French merchants
of death.
The U.S. overplaying its position is leading to the Mackinder-Kissinger-Brzezinski Eurasian nightmare that I mentioned above.
In addition to driving Russia and China together, U.S. diplomacy is adding Europe to the heartland, independent of U.S. ability to
bully into the state of dependency toward which American diplomacy has aimed to achieve since 1945.
The World Bank, for instance, traditionally has been headed by a U.S. Secretary of Defense. Its steady policy since its inception
is to provide loans for countries to devote their land to export crops instead of giving priority to feeding themselves. That is
why its loans are only in foreign currency, not in the domestic currency needed to provide price supports and agricultural extension
services such as have made U.S. agriculture so productive. By following U.S. advice, countries have left themselves open to food
blackmail – sanctions against providing them with grain and other food, in case they step out of line with U.S. diplomatic demands.
It is worthwhile to note that our global imposition of the mythical "efficiencies" of forcing Latin American countries to
become plantations for export crops like coffee and bananas rather than growing their own wheat and corn has failed catastrophically
to deliver better lives, especially for those living in Central America. The "spread" between the export crops and cheaper food imports
from the U.S. that was supposed to materialize for countries following our playbook failed miserably – witness the caravans and refugees
across Mexico. Of course, our backing of the most brutal military dictators and crime lords has not helped either.
Likewise, the IMF has been forced to admit that its basic guidelines were fictitious from the beginning. A central core has been
to enforce payment of official inter-government debt by withholding IMF credit from countries under default. This rule was instituted
at a time when most official inter-government debt was owed to the United States. But a few years ago Ukraine defaulted on $3
billion owed to Russia. The IMF said, in effect, that Ukraine and other countries did not have to pay Russia or any other country
deemed to be acting too independently of the United States. The IMF has been extending credit to the bottomless it of Ukrainian corruption
to encourage its anti-Russian policy rather than standing up for the principle that inter-government debts must be paid.
It is as if the IMF now operates out of a small room in the basement of the Pentagon in Washington. Europe has taken
notice that its own international monetary trade and financial linkages are in danger of attracting U.S. anger. This became clear
last autumn at the funeral for George H. W. Bush, when the EU's diplomat found himself downgraded to the end of the list to be called
to his seat. He was told that the U.S. no longer considers the EU an entity in good standing. In December, "Mike Pompeo gave a speech
on Europe in Brussels -- his first, and eagerly awaited -- in which he extolled the virtues of nationalism, criticised multilateralism
and the EU, and said that "international bodies" which constrain national sovereignty "must be reformed or eliminated."
[5]
Most of the above events have made the news in just one day, January 31, 2019. The conjunction of U.S. moves on so many fronts,
against Venezuela, Iran and Europe (not to mention China and the trade threats and moves against Huawei also erupting today) looks
like this will be a year of global fracture.
It is not all President Trump's doing, of course. We see the Democratic Party showing the same colors. Instead of applauding democracy
when foreign countries do not elect a leader approved by U.S. diplomats (whether it is Allende or Maduro), they've let the mask fall
and shown themselves to be the leading New Cold War imperialists. It's now out in the open. They would make Venezuela the new Pinochet-era
Chile. Trump is not alone in supporting Saudi Arabia and its Wahabi terrorists acting, as Lyndon Johnson put it, "Bastards, but they're
our bastards."
Where is the left in all this? That is the question with which I opened this article. How remarkable it is that it is only right-wing
parties, Alternative for Deutschland (AFD), or Marine le Pen's French nationalists and those of other countries that are opposing
NATO militarization and seeking to revive trade and economic links with the rest of Eurasia.
The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed observer like
me. It took a colossal level of arrogance, short-sightedness and lawlessness to hasten its decline -- something that only crazed
Neocons like John Bolton, Elliot Abrams and Mike Pompeo could deliver for Donald Trump.
[2] Patricia Laya, Ethan Bronner and Tim Ross,
"Maduro Stymied in Bid to Pull $1.2 Billion of Gold From U.K.," Bloomberg, January 25, 2019. Anticipating just such a double-cross,
President Chavez acted already in 2011 to repatriate 160 tons of gold to Caracas from the United States and Europe.
Well, if the StormTrumpers can tear down all the levers and institutions of international US dollar strength, perhaps they
can also tear down all the institutions of Corporate Globalonial Forced Free Trade. That itself may BE our escape . . . if there
are enough millions of Americans who have turned their regionalocal zones of habitation into economically and politically armor-plated
Transition Towns, Power-Down Zones, etc. People and places like that may be able to crawl up out of the rubble and grow and defend
little zones of semi-subsistence survival-economics.
If enough millions of Americans have created enough such zones, they might be able to link up with eachother to offer hope
of a movement to make America in general a semi-autarchik, semi-secluded and isolated National Survival Economy . . . . much smaller
than today, perhaps likelier to survive the various coming ecosystemic crash-cramdowns, and no longer interested in leading or
dominating a world that we would no longer have the power to lead or dominate.
We could put an end to American Exceptionalism. We could lay this burden down. We could become American Okayness Ordinarians.
Make America an okay place for ordinary Americans to live in.
If Populists, I assume that's what you mean by "Storm Troopers", offer me M4A and revitalized local economies, and deliver
them, they have my support and more power to them.
That's why Trump was elected, his promises, not yet delivered, were closer to that then the Democrats' promises. If the Democrats
promised those things and delivered, then they would have my support.
If the Democrats run a candidate, who has a no track record of delivering such things, we stay home on election day. Trump
can have it, because it won't be any worse.
I don't give a damn about "social issues." Economics, health care and avoiding WWIII are what motivates my votes, and I think
more and more people are going to vote the same way.
Good point about Populist versus StormTrumper. ( And by the way, I said StormTRUMper, not StormTROOper). I wasn't thinking
of the Populists. I was thinking of the neo-etc. vandals and arsonists who want us to invade Venezuela, leave the JCPOA with Iran,
etc. Those are the people who will finally drive the other-country governments into creating their own parallel payment systems,
etc.
And the midpoint of those efforts will leave wreckage and rubble for us to crawl up out of. But we will have a chance to crawl
up out of it.
My reason for voting for Trump was mainly to stop the Evil Clinton from getting elected and to reduce the chance of near immediate
thermonuclear war with Russia and to save the Assad regime in Syria from Clintonian overthrow and replacement with an Islamic
Emirate of Jihadistan.
Much of what will be attempted " in Trump's name" will be de-regulationism of all kinds delivered by the sorts of basic Republicans
selected for the various agencies and departments by Pence and Moore and the Koch Brothers. I doubt the Populist Voters wanted
the Koch-Pence agenda. But that was a risky tradeoff in return for keeping Clinton out of office.
The only Dems who would seek what you want are Sanders or maybe Gabbard or just barely Warren. The others would all be Clinton
or Obama all over again.
I couldn't really find any details about the new INSTEX system – have you got any good links to brush up on? I know they made
an announcement yesterday but how long until the new payment system is operational?
arguably wouldn't it be better if for USD hegemony to be dismantled? A strong USD hurts US exports, subsidizes American consumption
(by making commodities cheaper in relative terms), makes international trade (aka a 8,000-mile+ supply chain) easier.
For the sake of the environment, you want less of all three. Though obviously I don't like the idea of expensive gasoline,
natural gas or tube socks either.
It would be good for Americans, but the wrong kind of Americans. For the Americans that would populate the Global Executive
Suite, a strong US$ means that the stipends they would pay would be worth more to the lackeys, and command more influence.
Dumping the industrial base really ruined things. America is now in a position where it can shout orders, and drop bombs,
but doesn't have the capacity to do anything helpful. They have to give up being what Toynbee called a creative minority, and
settle for being a dominant minority.
Having watched the 2016 election closely from afar, I was left with the impression that many of the swing voters who cast
their vote for Trump did so under the assumption that he would act as a catalyst for systemic change.
What this change would consist of, and how it would manifest, remained an open question. Would he pursue rapprochement with
Russia and pull troops out of the Middle East as he claimed to want to do during his 2016 campaign, would he doggedly pursue corruption
charges against Clinton and attempt to reform the FBI and CIA, or would he do both, neither, or something else entirely?
Now we know. He has ripped the already transparent mask of altruism off what is referred to as the U.S.-led liberal international
order and revealed its true nature for all to see, and has managed to do it in spite of the liberal international establishment
desperately trying to hold it in place in the hope of effecting a seamless post-Trump return to what they refer to as "norms".
Interesting times.
Exactly. He hasn't exactly lived up to advanced billing so far in all respects, but I suspect there's great deal of skulduggery
going on behind the scenes that has prevented that. Whether or not he ever had or has a coherent plan for the havoc he has
wrought, he has certainly been the agent for change many of us hoped he would be, in stark contrast to the criminal duopoly parties
who continue to oppose him, where the daily no news is always bad news all the same. To paraphrase the infamous Rummy, you
don't go to war with the change agent and policies you wished you had, you go to war with the ones you have. That might be the
best thing we can say about Trump after the historic dust of his administration finally settles.
Look on some bright sides. Here is just one bright side to look on. President Trump has delayed and denied the Clinton Plan
to topple Assad just long enough that Russia has been able to help Assad preserve legitimate government in most of Syria and defeat
the Clinton's-choice jihadis.
That is a positive good. Unless you are pro-jihadi.
Clinton wasn't going to "benefit the greater good" either, and a very strong argument, based on her past behavior, can be made
that she represented the greater threat. Given that the choice was between her and Trump, I think voters made the right decision.
Hudson's done us a service in pulling these threads together. I'd missed the threats against the ICC judges. One question:
is it possible for INSTEX-like arrangements to function secretly? What is to be gained by announcing them publicly and drawing
the expected attacks? Does that help sharpen conflicts, and to what end?
Maybe they're done in secret already – who knows? The point of doing it publicly is to make a foreign-policy impact, in this
case withdrawing power from the US. It's a Declaration of Independence.
It certainly seems as though the 90 percent (plus) are an afterthought in this journey to who knows where? Like George C.Scott
said while playing Patton, "The whole world at economic war and I'm not part of it. God will not let this happen." Looks like
we're on the Brexit track (without the vote). The elite argue with themselves and we just sit and watch. It appears to me that
the elite just do not have the ability to contemplate things beyond their own narrow self interest. We are all deplorables now.
The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected
Is not supported by this (or really the rest of the article). The past tense here, for example, is unwarranted:
At the United Nations, U.S. diplomats insisted on veto power. At the World Bank and IMF they also made sure that their
equity share was large enough to give them veto power over any loan or other policy.
And this
So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. Germany agreed
to slow down the transfer.
Doesn't show Germany as breaking free at all, and worse it is followed by the pregnant
But then came Venezuela.
Yet we find out that Venezuela didn't managed to do what they wanted to do, the Europeans, the Turks, etc bent over yet
again. Nothing to see here, actually.
So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change.
"So what I'm saying is he didn't make his point. I wish it were true. But a bit of grumbling and (a tiny amount of) foot-dragging
by some pygmy leaders (Merkel) does not signal a global change."
I'm surprised more people aren't recognizing this. I read the article waiting in vain for some evidence of "the end of our
monetary imperialism" besides some 'grumbling and foot dragging' as you aptly put it. There was some glimmer of a buried lede
with INTEX, created to get around U.S. sanctions against Iran ─ hardly a 'dam-breaking'. Washington is on record as being annoyed.
Currency regime change can take decades, and small percentage differences are enormous because of the flows involved. USD
as reserve for 61% of global sovereigns versus 64% 15 years ago is a massive move. World bond market flows are 10X the size
of world stock market flows even though the price of the Dow and Facebook shares etc get all of the headlines.
And foreign exchange flows are 10-50X the flows of bond markets, they're currently on the order of $5 *trillion* per day. And
since forex is almost completely unregulated it's quite difficult to get the data and spot reserve currency trends. Oh, and buy
gold. It's the only currency that requires no counterparty and is no one's debt obligation.
That's not what Hudson claims in his swaggering final sentence:
"The end of our monetary imperialism, about which I first wrote in 1972 in Super Imperialism, stuns even an informed
observer like me."
Which is risible as not only did he fail to show anything of the kind, his opening sentence stated a completely different reality:
"The end of America's unchallenged global economic dominance has arrived sooner than expected" So if we hold him to his first
declaration, his evidence is feeble, as I mentioned. As a scholar, his hyperbole is untrustworthy.
No, gold is pretty enough lying on the bosom of a lady-friend but that's about its only usefulness in the real world.
Always bemusing that gold bugs never talk about gold being in a bubble . yet when it goes south of its purchase price speak
in tongues about ev'bal forces.
thanks Mr. Hudson. One has to wonder what has happened when the government (for decades) has been shown to be morally and otherwise
corrupt and self serving. It doesn't seem to bother anyone but the people, and precious few of them. Was it our financial and
legal bankruptcy that sent us over the cliff?
Indeed! It is to say the least encouraging to see Dr. Hudson return so forcefully to the theme of 'monetary imperialism'.
I discovered his Super Imperialism while looking for an explanation for the pending 2003 US invasion of Iraq. If you
haven't read it yet, move it to the top of your queue if you want to have any idea of how the world really works. You can
find any number of articles on his web site that return periodically to the theme of monetary imperialism. I remember one in particular
that described how the rest of the world was brought on board to help pay for its good old-fashioned military imperialism.
If it isn't clear to the rest of the world by now, it never will be. The US is incapable of changing on its own a corrupt
status quo dominated by a coalition of its military industrial complex, Wall Street bankers and fossil fuels industries. As long
as the world continues to chase the debt created on the keyboards of Wall Street banks and 'deficits don't matter' Washington
neocons – as long as the world's 1% think they are getting 'richer' by adding more "debts that can't be repaid (and) won't be"
to their portfolios, the global economy can never be put on a sustainable footing.
Until the US returns to the path of genuine wealth creation, it is past time for the rest of the world to go its own way with
its banking and financial institutions.
In other words, after 2 World Wars that produced the current world order, it is still in a state of insanity with the same
pretensions to superiority by the same people, to get number 3.
UK withholding Gold may start another Brexit? IE: funds/gold held by BOE for other countries in Africa, Asian, South America,
and the "stans" with start to depart, slowly at first, perhaps for Switzerland?
Where is the left in all this? Pretty much the same place as Michael Hudson, I'd say. Where is the US Democratic Party in all
this? Quite a different question, and quite a different answer. So far as I can see, the Democrats for years have bombed, invaded
and plundered other countries 'for their own good'. Republicans do it 'for the good of America', by which the ignoramuses mean
the USA. If you're on the receiving end, it doesn't make much difference.
Agreed! South America intervention and regime change, Syria ( Trump is pulling out), Iraq, Middle East meddling, all predate
Trump. Bush, Clinton and Obama have nothing to do with any of this.
" So last year, Germany finally got up the courage to ask that some of its gold be flown back to Germany. "
What proof is there that the gold is still there? Chances are it's notional. All Germany, Venezuela, or the others have is
an IOU – and gold cannot be printed. Incidentally, this whole discussion means that gold is still money and the gold standard
still exists.
What makes you think that the gold in Fort Knox is still there? If I remember right, there was a Potemkin visit back in the
70s to assure everyone that the gold was still there but not since then. Wait, I tell a lie. There was another visit about two
years ago but look who was involved in that visit-
And I should mention that it was in the 90s that between 1.3 and 1.5 million 400 oz tungsten blanks were manufactured in the
US under Clinton. Since then gold-coated tungsten bars have turned up in places like Germany, China, Ethiopia, the UK, etc so
who is to say if those gold bars in Fort Knox are gold all the way through either. More on this at --
http://viewzone2.com/fakegoldx.html
It wasn't last year that Germany brought back its Gold. It has been ongoing since 2013, after some political and popular pressure
build up. They finished the transaction in 2017. According to an article in Handelblatt (but it was widely reported back then)
they brought back pretty much everything they had in Paris (347t), left what they had in London (perhaps they should have done
it in reverse) and took home another 300t from the NY Fed. That still leaves 1236t in NY. But half of their Gold (1710t) is now
in Frankfurt. That is 50% of the Bundesbanks holdings.
They made a point in saying that every bar was checked and weighed and presented some bars in Frankfurt. I guess they didn't
melt them for assaying, but I'd expect them to be smart enough to check the density.
Their reason to keep Gold in NY and London is to quickly buy USD in case of a crisis. That's pretty much a cold war plan, but
that's what they do right now.
Regarding Michal Hudsons piece, I enjoyed reading through this one. He tends to write ridiculously long articles and in the
last few years with less time and motivation at hand I've skipped most of his texts on NC as they just drag on.
When I'm truly fascinated I like well written, long articles but somehow he lost me at some point. But I noticed that some
long original articles in US magazines, probably research for a long time by the journalist, can just drag on for ever as well
I just tune out.
This is making sense. I would guess that tearing up the old system is totally deliberate. It wasn't working so well for us
because we had to practice too much social austerity, which we have tried to impose on the EU as well, just to stabilize "king
dollar" – otherwise spread so thin it was a pending catastrophe.
Now we can get out from under being the reserve currency – the currency that maintains its value by financial manipulation
and military bullying domestic deprivation. To replace this old power trip we are now going to mainline oil. The dollar will become
a true petro dollar because we are going to commandeer every oil resource not already nailed down.
When we partnered with SA in Aramco and the then petro dollar the dollar was only backed by our military. If we start monopolizing
oil, the actual commodity, the dollar will be an apex competitor currency without all the foreign military obligations which will
allow greater competitive advantages.
No? I'm looking at PdVSA, PEMEX and the new "Energy Hub for the Eastern Mediterranean" and other places not yet made public.
It looks like a power play to me, not a hapless goofball president at all.
So sand people with sociological attachment to the OT is a compelling argument based on antiquarian preferences with authoritarian
patriarchal tendencies for their non renewable resource . after I might add it was deemed a strategic concern after WWII .
Considering the broader geopolitical realities I would drain all the gold reserves to zero if it was on offer . here natives
have some shiny beads for allowing us to resource extract we call this a good trade you maximize your utility as I do mine .
Hay its like not having to run C-corp compounds with western 60s – 70s esthetics and letting the locals play serf, blow back
pay back, and now the installed local chiefs can own the risk and refocus the attention away from the real antagonists.
Indeed. Thanks so much for this. Maybe the RICS will get serious now – can no longer include Brazil with Bolsonaro. There needs
to be an alternate system or systems in place, and to see US Imperialism so so blatantly and bluntly by Trump admin –
"US
gives Juan Guaido control over some Venezuelan assets" – should sound sirens on every continent and especially in the developing
world. I too hope there will be fracture to the point of breakage. Countries of the world outside the US/EU/UK/Canada/Australia
confraternity must now unite to provide a permanent framework outside the control of imperial interests. The be clear, this must
not default to alternative forms of imperialism germinating by the likes of China.
" such criticism can't begin to take in the full scope of the damage the Trump White House is inflicting on the system of global
power Washington built and carefully maintained over those 70 years. Indeed, American leaders have been on top of the world for
so long that they no longer remember how they got there.
Few among Washington's foreign policy elite seem to fully grasp the complex system that made U.S. global power what it
now is, particularly its all-important geopolitical foundations. As Trump travels the globe, tweeting and trashing away, he's
inadvertently showing us the essential structure of that power, the same way a devastating wildfire leaves the steel beams of
a ruined building standing starkly above the smoking rubble."
I read something like this and I am like, some of these statements need to be qualified. Like: "Driving China and Russia together".
Like where's the proof? Is Xi playing telephone games more often now with Putin? I look at those two and all I see are two egocentric
people who might sometimes say the right things but in general do not like the share the spotlight. Let's say they get together
to face America and for some reason the later gets "defeated", it's not as if they'll kumbaya together into the night.
This website often points out the difficulties in implementing new banking IT initiatives. Ok, so Europe has a new "payment
system". Has it been tested thoroughly? I would expect a couple of weeks or even months of chaos if it's not been tested, and
if it's thorough that probably just means that it's in use right i.e. all the kinks have been worked out. In that case the transition
is already happening anyway. But then the next crisis arrives and then everyone would need their dollar swap lines again which
probably needs to cleared through SWIFT or something.
Anyway, does this all mean that one day we'll wake up and a slice of bacon is 50 bucks as opposed to the usual 1 dollar?
Driving Russia and China together is correct. I recall them signing a variety of economic and military agreement a few years
ago. It was covered in the media. You should at least google an issue before making silly comments. You might start with the report
of Russia and China signing 30 cooperation agreements three years ago. See
https://www.rbth.com/international/2016/06/27/russia-china-sign-30-cooperation-agreements_606505
. There are lots and lots of others.
He's draining the swamp in an unpredicted way, a swamp that's founded on the money interest. I don't care what NYT and
WaPo have to say, they are not reporting events but promoting agendas.
The financial elites are only concerned about shaping society as they see fit, side of self serving is just a historical
foot note, Trumps past indicates a strong preference for even more of the same through authoritarian memes or have some missed
the OT WH reference to dawg both choosing and then compelling him to run.
Whilst the far right factions fight over the rudder the only new game in town is AOC, Sanders, Warren, et al which Trumps supporters
hate with Ideological purity.
Highly doubt Trump is a "witting agent", most likely is that he is just as ignorant as he almost daily shows on twitter. On
US role in global affairs he says the same today as he did as a media celebrity in the late 80s. Simplistic household "logics"
on macroeconomics. If US have trade deficit it loses. Countries with surplus are the winners.
On a household level it fits, but there no "loser" household that in infinity can print money that the "winners" can accumulate
in exchange for their resources and fruits of labor.
One wonder what are Trumps idea of US being a winner in trade (surplus)? I.e. sending away their resources and fruits of labor
overseas in exchange for what? A pile of USD? That US in the first place created out of thin air. Or Chinese Yuan, Euros, Turkish
liras? Also fiat-money. Or does he think US trade surplus should be paid in gold?
When the US political and economic hegemony will unravel it will come "unexpected". Trump for sure are undermining it with
his megalomaniac ignorance. But not sure it's imminent.
Anyhow frightening, the US hegemony have its severe dark sides. But there is absolutely nothing better on the horizon, a crash
will throw the world in turmoil for decades or even a century. A lot of bad forces will see their chance to elevate their influence.
There will be fierce competition to fill the gap.
On could the insane economic model of EU/Germany being on top of global affairs, a horribly frightening thought. Misery and
austerity for all globally, a permanent recession. Probably not much better with the Chinese on top.
I'll take the USD hegemony any day compared to that prospect.
Michael Hudson, in Super Imperialism, went into how the US could just create the money to run a large trade deficit with the
rest of the world. It would get all these imports effectively for nothing, the US's exorbitant privilege. I tied this in with this graph from MMT.
The trade deficit required a large Government deficit to cover it and the US government could just create the money to cover
it.
Then ideological neoliberals came in wanting balanced budgets and not realising the Government deficit covered the trade deficit.
The US has been destabilising its own economy by reducing the Government deficit. Bill Clinton didn't realize a Government surplus is an indicator a financial crisis is about to hit. The last US Government surplus occurred in 1927 – 1930, they go hand-in-hand with financial crises.
Richard Koo shows the graph central bankers use and it's the flow of funds within the economy, which sums to zero (32-34 mins.).
The Government was running a surplus as the economy blew up in the early 1990s. It's the positive and negative, zero sum, nature of the monetary system. A big trade deficit needs a big Government deficit to cover it. A big trade deficit, with a balanced budget, drives the private sector into debt and blows up the economy.
It should be remembered Bill Clinton's early meeting with Rubin, where in he was informed that wages and productivity had diverged –
Rubin did not blink an eye.
"... But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said. ..."
"... Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not just those offered by politicians. ..."
"... But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive ..."
"... With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020 and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years), over following few years. ..."
Elizabeth Warren became a household name thanks to her prescient warning of what became a global financial crisis.
Now she's staking her credentials on another forecast of fiscal trauma ahead. The Democratic presidential candidate published an
online essay this week saying that a rise in consumer and corporate debt is imperilling the longest expansion in US history.
"Whether
it's this year or next year, the odds of another economic downturn are high - and growing," Warren wrote.
Her prediction could help
her win over primary voters by tapping into anxieties about middle-class economic stability despite broad gains over the past decade.
But Warren's opponents could seize on her warning to undermine her credibility should a crash fail to materialise before next year's
election, and some economists sympathetic to her agenda say that - for the moment - her conclusion of a looming recession is overblown.
Recessions are notoriously difficult to forecast. Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending, yet it was roughly
five years later when the US housing market fully collapsed.
And although her dire forecast echoed in style some warnings made by
Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign, Warren hasn't aligned with him in portraying her potential election to the White
House as the only way to avert disaster. "I went through this back in the years before the 2008 crash, and no one wanted to listen.
So, here we are again," Warren said on Capitol Hill last week. "I'm trying to point out where the warning signs are. I hope
our regulators and Congress listen, make changes, and that the economy strengthens."
Even economists who like her prescription are skeptical about her diagnosis. Warren rooted her concerns about
the economy in a Federal Reserve report that found a 6.8 per cent increase in household debt over the past decade, allowing the Massachusetts
senator to write that American families are "taking on more debt than ever before." But that figure is not adjusted for inflation,
nor is it adjusted for population growth - and the number of US households has risen by 9.5 per cent during the same period, meaning
that Fed data also shows debt levels have fallen on a per capita basis.
"I don't see a huge bubble on the other side of household
debt that is going to savage people's assets," said Josh Bivens, director of research at the liberal Economic Policy Institute. At
the moment, families can afford their debt because of low interest rates, and that minimises the risks to the economy. American households
are devoting less than 10 per cent of their disposable income to debt service, down from roughly 13 per cent in 2008, according to
the Fed. This doesn't mean that Warren is wrong to conclude that families are burdened by student debt and childcare costs, just
that data suggests the debt produced by those expenses is unlikely to cause a downturn.
Part of Warren's forecast hinges on a spike
in interest rates that seems unlikely as most benchmark rates have declined since November. Warren has assembled a litany of proposals
aimed at bringing down household debt, through student loan forgiveness and affordable childcare availability as well as a housing
plan designed to lower rent costs. She touted her policy agenda - which has propelled her higher in the polls - as ways to avert
her predicted crash.
Warren's warning of a downturn is a somewhat unique maneuver for a presidential candidate. Past White House hopefuls have waited
for the downturns to start before capitalising on them. Bill Clinton won the presidency in 1992, for example, on a post-recession
message summed up by then-adviser James Carville's edict to focus on "the economy, stupid."
Warren also warned this week that an increase in corporate borrowing could crush the economy.
But Dean Baker, the co-founder of the liberal Centre for Economic and Policy Research, said that the increase in corporate debt
has corresponded with higher profits and manageably low interest rates. "The idea that you're going to have this massive cascade
of defaults - it's very hard to see," Baker said.
While the US economy may not be entering into a recession, many economic forecasters say growth is still slowing because of global
and demographic pressures. Evidence of this has already caused Fed officials to signal that they plan to cut interest rates at their
meeting next week. Trump has repeatedly called for the Fed to make even steeper cuts to improve his economic track record.
Michael Madowitz, an economist at the Centre for American Progress, said that most predictions about recessions were wrong, not
just those offered by politicians.
But he interpreted Warren's essay as a broader warning about how Trump's efforts to support growth by curbing regulations and
attacking government institutions might eventually be destructive. "It's hard to say what a debt-driven problem would look like until
it happens," Madowitz said.
"I think it's also reasonable to elevate concern at the moment given how politicised Trump has made apolitical economic institutions
like the Fed. That's not a free lunch. It creates real risks, so it's more important than usual to think about what happens if things
go bump in the night."
AP Mick 8 hours ago
I really have no idea about economics - seriously the mechanics of world financing, where every country seems
to in debt baffles me. But if you look at the last 40 years or so - my adult life - there seems to be a stock market crash about
each 10 years and a recession in the USA about each 10 years. From memory, stock markets in 1987, 1997, 2008 (I suppose also dot
com stuff in around 1999/2000 as well). Recessions in the US in early 90's, early 2000's, 2009 into 2010's.
With my total lack of understanding of world economics I predict a stock market crash sometime between May 2020 and October 2020
and a recession, including Australia (worse than the unofficial one we have really been in here in Australia for the last 10 years),
over following few years.
I wonder how my predictions will stand up to the experts. Gillespie 8 hours ago No facts seem to be the hallmark of your post.
"Warren first warned in 2003 about subprime mortgage lending" shshus 10 hours ago The incoming economic meltdown in a insanely indebted
global ponzi scheme is a no brainer. Despite Trump's usual bombast, the US economy is hardly growing and manufacturing is already
in recession. The lunatic policies of central banks to offer free money at almost zero interest rates has caused a greed based credit
frenzy that is simply unsustainable. The coming economic collapse will be far worse as the trade wars between US and China and rest
of the world will simply compound the problem. Australia is particularly vulnerable in both economic and strategic terms. Time to
batten the hatches, rather than pile on more consumer debt.
"... The nationalist faction of the party played a critical role. The Greek media begun a new round of propaganda against Tsipras administration. They managed to persuade many Greeks that the agreement for the name of North Macedonia was an act of treason against Greece's national interest. And that, New Democracy, the traditional right, is still patriotic and would had never sign such an agreement. This was actually the epicenter of propaganda. Of course, the truth is that the neoliberal New Democracy would had sign whatever the Western imperialists wanted. It's ideologically identical with them, after all. ..."
The result of the recent Greek national elections will puzzle future historians for decades. The Greek voters gave a clear victory
to the conservative right party, New Democracy, which will govern with 158 seats, without the need to make any coalitions.
It could be characterized a "paradoxical" result mainly for two reasons:
First, the voters gave a clear governmental order to one of the traditional powers of the old political system, which are highly
responsible for the Greek crisis that erupted in 2010. Several top names of the new government, and even New Democracy leader, Kyriakos
Mitsotakis, have been accused of being involved in various corruption scandals, in the not so distant past.
Second, the fact that the voters elected perhaps the most fanatically neoliberal government ever. This means that Mitsotakis administration
is expected to implement the brutal neoliberal policies imposed by Greece's creditors to the letter. Recall that those policies deepened
the recession and made things worse for the economy.
It is now well-known that Greece's creditors sacrificed the country to save the banks. Yet, after nine years of brutal austerity
measures, the economy is not looking good at all. Debt has reached 180% of GDP from 120% when Greece entered the bailout program.
Banks have been bailed-out with billions and still are not lending money to real economy and especially the small-medium business
sector.
Yet, right before the election day, a New Democracy member (Babis Papadimitriou) who got elected,
suggested that the 'safety pillow' of 37 billion - which the Greek government managed to collect through the brutal
implementation of insane surpluses - should be given to the banks!
Note that Babis Papadimitriou is a former journalist worked for the Skai TV station. The station openly supported New Democracy,
and its owners are part of the oligarchy that was very displeased with the SYRIZA administration. That's because Tsipras was not
willing to succumb to oligarchy's interests.
The current New Democracy party is a product of the Greek oligarchy establishment. The party - especially after the eruption of
the Greek crisis in 2010 - has been transformed into an unprecedented and peculiar mixture of some of the most fanatic neoliberals
and some of the most fanatic nationalists.
The nationalist faction of the party played a critical role. The Greek media begun a
new round
of propaganda against Tsipras administration. They managed to persuade many Greeks that the agreement for the name of
North Macedonia was an act of treason against Greece's national interest. And that, New Democracy, the traditional right, is still
patriotic and would had never sign such an agreement. This was actually the epicenter of propaganda. Of course, the truth is that
the neoliberal New Democracy would had sign whatever the Western imperialists wanted. It's ideologically identical with them, after
all.
The bad news for the neoliberal establishment is that SYRIZA managed to maintain a significant portion of its power (31.53%).
This has brought a kind of embarrassment to the establishment because SYRIZA is still not under full control. It is not accidental
that various circles close to New Democracy were implying that apart from a clear victory, another target would be the strategic
defeat of SYRIZA. Meaning, the return of SYRIZA to its pre-crisis 3% level.
So, the establishment sense that there is a 'danger' that the party could slip again away from the neoliberal order imposed by
the power centers inside and outside Greece. Maintaining such a power, it may become a real threat to the neoliberal order again.
However, many of these things probably won't matter because now New Democracy has four years to implement the most devastating
neoliberal program, without any significant resistance. This is its sole mission. To transform the country into a neoliberal paradise
for the oligarchs and the foreign investment 'predators'. And this 'brilliant' plan will be paid one more time by the Greeks, who
will see the destruction of public health and education. The destruction of social state. The complete looting of public property.
The destruction of whatever has left from labor rights and social security.
The Greeks have just committed suicide by electing the most fanatically neoliberal government ever.
I agree wholeheartedly with Tucker Carlson...This whole stupid Russia hysteria propagated
by most of the media made me, an old timer liberal, agree with Tucker. Well played Democratic
Party... well played.
Tucker's question about what should happen to the people who attempted to reverse the will
of the American people? The answer is very straightforward. Those found guilty of sedition
and treason should by law hanged by the neck until dead. This might discourage further
efforts to undermine the will of the American people.
Looks like Mueller was a figurehead and Weismann or somebody else was the driving force
behind the report. Some legal experts now hope that DOJ will open inqury about who really wrote
Mueller report. Mueller was not aware about basic facts in his report. Compare with Joe diGenova The public got to see
Mueller's incompetence - YouTube
Mueller is NO hero. He's a corrupt, coward, a traitor to the state, bought by the
ideological DEM Globalists. A shame to the USA. He should end in jail!!
"... The USA hegemony is based on ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. And BTW both Russia and China are neoliberal countries. That's probably why President Putin calls the USA administration "partners," despite clearly anti-Russian policies of all US administrations since 1991. ..."
"... One fascinating fact that escapes my understanding is why the USA elite wasted colossal advantage it got after the collapse of the USSR in just 25 years or so. I always thought that the USA elite is the most shrewd out of all countries. ..."
"... May be because they were brainwashed by neocon "intellectuals." I understand that most neocons are simply lobbyists of MIC, and MIC has huge political influence, but still neocon doctrine is so primitive that no civilized elite can take it seriously. ..."
"... I also understand Eisenhower hypocritical laments that "train with MIC left the station" and that the situation can't be reversed (lament disguised as a "warning"; let's remember that it was Eisenhower who appointed Allen Dulles to head the CIA. ..."
>US hegemony is imposed militarily, both covertly and overtly, throughout the world. It is maintained through the petrodollar,
corporate power, and the Federal Reserve Bank and its overseas counterparts
All true, but the key element is missing. The USA hegemony is based on ideological hegemony of neoliberalism. And BTW both
Russia and China are neoliberal countries. That's probably why President Putin calls the USA administration "partners," despite
clearly anti-Russian policies of all US administrations since 1991.
Ability to use military is important but secondary. Without fifth column of national elites which support neoliberalism that
would be impossible, or at least more difficult to use. Like it was when the USSR existed (Vietnam, Cuba, etc). The USSR has had
pretty powerful military, which was in some narrow areas competitive, or even superior to the USA, but when the ideology of Bolshevism
collapsed, the elite changed sides and adopted a neoliberal ideology. This betrayal led to the collapse of the USSR and all its
mighty military and the vast KGB apparatus proved to be useless.
In this sense, the article is weak, and some comments are of a higher level than the article itself in the level of understanding
of the situation (Simon in London at December 21, 2018, at 9:23 am one example; longevity of neoliberalism partially is connected
to the fact that so far there is no clear alternative to it and without the crisis similar to Great Depression adoption of New
Deal style measures is impossible )
It is really sad that the understanding that the destiny of the USA is now tied to the destiny of neoliberalism (much like
the USSR and Bolshevism) is foreign for many.
So it might well be that the main danger for the US neoliberal empire now is not China or Russia, but the end of cheap oil,
which might facilitate the collapse of neoliberalism as a social system based on wasteful use on commodities (and first of all
oil)
One fascinating fact that escapes my understanding is why the USA elite wasted colossal advantage it got after the collapse
of the USSR in just 25 years or so. I always thought that the USA elite is the most shrewd out of all countries.
May be because they were brainwashed by neocon "intellectuals." I understand that most neocons are simply lobbyists of MIC,
and MIC has huge political influence, but still neocon doctrine is so primitive that no civilized elite can take it seriously.
I also understand Eisenhower hypocritical laments that "train with MIC left the station" and that the situation can't be reversed
(lament disguised as a "warning"; let's remember that it was Eisenhower who appointed Allen Dulles to head the CIA.
"... Now, "we have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central bank money," Keating has said, "Liberal economics has run into a dead end and has had no answer to the contemporary malaise." What does the disavowal mean? In terms of his Labor heir Bill Shorten's growing appetite for redistributive taxation and close relationship to the union movement, it means "if Bill Shorten becomes PM, the rule of engagement between labour and capital will be rewritten," according to The Australian this week. Can't wait! ..."
"... Might be true. But frightening that people should naively still think that democracy is to be found in the 'Dictatorship of the Proletariat' ..."
"... most "isms" kill off their rivals and the unbelievers when they usurp powe ..."
"... Vested interests and the dollar seem to have all the power. Lies and deception are so common the truth is seen as the enemy. The voting public are merely fools for manipulation. Nah, neo-liberalism is not government, it is something far nastier, and clearly not what the public vote for, presuming a vote actually counts for anything anymore. ..."
For 40 years, the ideology popularly known as "neoliberalism" has dominated political decision-making in the English-speaking
west.
People hate
it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services, poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the
forcibly unemployed have delivered, not promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth
of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered
vulgar
yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate resources that one of its megaphones
once declared its triumph "the end of history".
... ... ...
Paul Keating's rejection
It was a year ago that a third sign first appeared, when the dark horse of Australian prime ministers, Paul Keating, made public
an on-balance rejection of neoliberal economics. Although Liberal PM Malcolm Fraser instigated Australia's first neoliberal policies,
it was Keating's architecture of privatisation and deregulation as a Labor treasurer and prime minister that's most well remembered.
Now, "we have a comatose world economy held together by debt and central bank money," Keating has said, "Liberal economics has run
into a dead end and has had no answer to the contemporary malaise." What does the disavowal mean? In terms of his Labor heir Bill Shorten's growing appetite for redistributive taxation and close relationship to the union movement, it means "if Bill Shorten becomes
PM, the rule of engagement between labour and capital will be rewritten," according to The Australian this week. Can't wait!
Tony
Abbott becomes a fan of nationalising assets
Or maybe's Sukkar's right about the socialists termiting his beloved Liberal party. How else to explain the earthquake-like paradigm
shift represented by the sixth sign? Since when do neoliberal conservatives argue for the renationalisation of infrastructure, as
is the push of Tony Abbott's gang to nationalise the coal-fired Liddell power station? It may be a cynical stunt to take an unscientific
stand against climate action, but seizing the means of production remains seizing the means of production, um, comrade. "You know,
nationalising assets is what the Liberal party was founded to stop governments doing," said Turnbull, even as he hid in the dens
and in the rocks of the mountains to weather – strange coincidence –
yet another Newspoll
loss.
"new introduction to a re-released Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto.
Collective, democratic political action is our only chance for freedom and enjoyment."
Might be true. But frightening that people should naively still think that democracy is to be found in the 'Dictatorship of
the Proletariat' [ ie those who know what's good for you even if you don't like it ] of the Communist Manifesto after the revelations
of what that leads to in the Gulag Archipelago , Mao's China , Pol Pot , Kim John - un .
How quickly the world forgets. - you
might just as well advocate Mein Kampf it's the same thing in the end !
That's what you claim and it might be so but I'm not interested in keeping a score on the matter. The point you failed to get
is that the people you mentioned where totalitarian thugs. They used the banner of communism to achieve their ends. They would
have used what ever ideology that was in fashion to achieve the same results.
Does present day neo-liberalism actually qualify as a political movement?
Vested interests and the dollar seem to have all the power. Lies and deception are so common the truth is seen as the enemy.
The voting public are merely fools for manipulation. Nah, neo-liberalism is not government, it is something far nastier, and clearly
not what the public vote for, presuming a vote actually counts for anything anymore.
"... If the US wants to play law-fare, plausibly the Russians should respond in kind. What we have done to Russia just for any part of this could easily be a tort in a US court. False claims that result in damages are actionable. ..."
"... There were a number of us who were poking holes in the regime's narrative about the "hack" of DNC and now another federal judge has proof in front of him that, in fact, the murdered Seth Rich and his brother Aaron were the source of a thumb-drive with the e-mails. ..."
"... Oh, and by the way. The US chose to violate the Russian embassy facilities at least as flagrantly as the Iranian teenagers did in Tehran but without the excuse of youthful exuberance. ..."
For two years, Democrats have waited on Robert Mueller to deliver a death blow to the Trump presidency,"
The New York Times observed on July 20
. "On Wednesday, in back-to-back hearings with the former special counsel, that wish could face its final make-or-break moment."
very fact that Democrats had to subpoena Mueller in order to create this final moment should in fact be the final reminder of
what a mistake it was
for Democrats to have waited on him. If Mueller had incriminating information yet to share, or had been stymied from doing his
work, or if Attorney General William Barr had somehow misrepresented his findings, then it stands to reason that Mueller would be
welcoming the opportunity
to appear before Congress, not
resisting
it. The reality is that Mueller's investigation did not indict anyone on the Trump campaign for collusion with Russia, or even
for anything related to the 2016 election. Mueller's report found no evidence of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, and
even undermined the case
for it .
That said, there are unresolved matters that Mueller's testimony could help clarify. Mueller claimed to have established
that the Russian government conducted "a sweeping and systematic" interference campaign in order to elect Trump, yet the contents
of his report don't support that allegation. The Mueller report repeatedly excludes countervailing information in order to suggest,
misleadingly, that the Trump campaign had suspect "links" and "ties" to people connected with Russia. And Mueller and other intelligence
officials involved in the Russia probe made questionable investigative decisions that are worthy of scrutiny. To address these issues,
here are some questions that Mueller could be asked...
You have been very consistent Mr. Mate. I applaud you. Let me make a few observations. There are two things to consider. One
is the allegations that resulted in Mueller's so-called investigation and two is the "investigation" itself.
As for the allegation of (a) Russian interference/"meddling" in the 2016, you have provided the ammunition that shoots the
allegation full of holes. Timing after the election, minuscule budget compared to actors actually trying to influence the election,
advertising content frequently having nothing to do with the election and, finally, a US district judge that pointed out that
Mueller hadn't shown that the Russian government was behind the Internet Research Agency and ordered him to cease and desist.
Everybody seems to go oh, well, that's alright at this point but it's not.
The United States government seized Russian owned properties
in the United States without compensation, it expelled Russian diplomats and pressed our vassal states to expel Russian diplomats,
it expanded an economic war with Russia by increasing the sanctions that the US imposed on Russia for their successful resistance
to the US coup in Ukraine as well as barring Russian citizens from obtaining visas to the US.
If the US wants to play law-fare,
plausibly the Russians should respond in kind. What we have done to Russia just for any part of this could easily be a tort in
a US court. False claims that result in damages are actionable.
Then you have (b) the US claim that the dastardly forces of evil and/or wickedness (the GRU) broke into the DNC computers and
stole all these e-mails which demonstrated what a bunch of b***ards the DNC were and released them to the world so that now everybody
knew that the DNC was a corrupt and evil organization. More sanctions all around for Russia. Wait, what? Oh, right, the GRU.
There
were a number of us who were poking holes in the regime's narrative about the "hack" of DNC and now another federal judge has
proof in front of him that, in fact, the murdered Seth Rich and his brother Aaron were the source of a thumb-drive with the e-mails.
Oops. But the more sanctions all around on Russia are still in place without any justification. To make matters worse, I read
on Reuters that FBI director Wray is claiming that the Russians are going to interfere in the 2020 elections. Has anybody read
the story of the little boy who cried wolf? They interfered in the 2016 election....ah, no, they didn't....They were going to
interfere in the elections of our European vassals....ah, no, they didn't.
Without putting too fine a point on it, the Mueller "report" is nothing but a tissue of lies, innuendo, and misinformation
tantamount to fraud. It probably isn't worth the match to set it on fire (at least with Ken Starr we got something so salacious
that we could skip the Playboy). What the Mueller "report" is, however, is a relatively crude effort to cover up the efforts of
the "deep state" (FBI, CIA, NSA, DIA, etc etc) to fix the 2016 election for their preferred candidate - Three Names. And that
isn't just highly illegal, it's a violation of the oath that you take to uphold the constitution. They should be in jail and somebody
should be investigating Seth Rich's murder.
Jeffrey Harrison says: July 23, 2019 at 11:46 pm
Oh, and by the way. The US chose to violate the Russian embassy facilities at least as flagrantly as the Iranian teenagers
did in Tehran but without the excuse of youthful exuberance.
That bill alone makes Warren a viable candidate again, despite all her previous blunders. She is a courageous woman, that
Warren. And she might wipe the floor with the completely subservant to Israel lobby Trump. Who betrayed his electorate
in all major promises.
Notable quotes:
"... Not only would Warren's legislation prohibit some of the most destructive private equity activities, but it would end their ability to act as traditional asset managers, taking fees and incurring close to no risk if their investments go belly up. The bill takes the explicit and radical view that: ..."
"... Private funds should have a stake in the outcome of their investments, enjoying returns if those investments are successful but ab-1sorbing losses if those investments fail. ..."
"... Critics will say that Warren's bill has no chance of passing, which is currently true but misses the point. ..."
"... firms would share responsibility for the liabilities of companies under their control, including debt, legal judgments, and pension obligations to "better align the incentives of private equity firms and the companies they own." The bill, if enacted, would end the tax subsidy for excessive leverage and closes the carried interest loophole. ..."
"... The bill also seeks to ban dividends to investors for two years after a firm is acquired. Worker pay would be prioritized in the bankruptcy process, with guidelines intended to ensure affected employees are more likely to receive severance pay and pensions. It would also clarify gift cards are consumer deposits, ensuring their priority in bankruptcy proceedings. If enacted, private equity managers will be required to disclose fees, returns, and political expenditures. ..."
"... This is a bold set of proposals that targets abuses that hurt workers and investors. Most readers may not appreciate the significance of the two-year restriction on dividends. One return-goosing strategy that often leaves companies crippled or bankrupt in its wake is the "dividend recap" in which the acquired company takes on yet more debt for the purpose of paying a special dividend to its investors. Another strategy that Appelbaum and Batt have discussed at length is the "op co/prop co." Here the new owners take real estate owned by the company, sell it to a new entity with the former owner leasing it. The leases are typically set high so as to allow for the "prop co" to be sold at a richer price. This strategy is often a direct contributor to the death of businesses, since ones that own their real estate usually do so because they are in cyclical industries, and not having lease payments enables the to ride out bad times. The proceeds of sale of the real estate is usually dividended out to the investors, hence the dividend restriction would also pour cold water on this approach. ..."
"... However, there is precedent in private equity for recognizing joint and several liability of an investment fund for the obligations of its portfolio companies. In a case that winded its way through the federal courts until last year ( Sun Capital Partners III, LP v. New England Teamsters & Trucking Indus. Pension Fund ), the federal court held that Sun Capital Partners III was liable under ERISA, the federal pension law, for the unfunded pension obligations of Scott Brass, a portfolio company of that fund. The court's key finding was that Sun Capital played an active management role in Scott Brass and that its claim of passive investor status therefore should not be respected. ..."
"... Needless to say, private equity firms have worked hard to minimize their exposure to the Sun Capital decision, for example by avoiding purchasing companies with defined benefit pension plans. The Warren bill, however, is so broad in the sweep of liability it imposes that PE firms would be unlikely to be able to structure around it. It is hard to imagine the investors in private equity funds accepting liability for what could be enormous sums of unfunded pension liabilities ultimately flowing onto them. Either they would have to set up shell companies to fund their PE investments that could absorb the potential liability, or they would have to give up on the asset class. Either way, it would mean big changes to the industry and potentially a major contraction of it. ..."
"... I am surprised that Warren sought to make private equity funds responsible for the portfolio company debts by "joint and several liability". You can get to economically pretty much the same end by requiring the general partner and potentially also key employees to guarantee the debt and by preventing them from assigning or buying insurance to protect the guarantor from being liable. There is ample precedent for that for entrepreneurs. Small business corporate credit cards and nearly all small business loans require a personal guarantee. ..."
"... Warren's bill also has strong pro-investor provisions. It takes on the biggest feature of the ongoing investor scamming, which is the failure of PE managers to disclose to the investors all of the fees they receive from portfolio companies. The solution proposed by the bill to this problem is exceedingly straightforward, basically proclaiming, "Oh yeah, now you will have to disclose that." The bill also abolishes the ability of private equity managers to claim long term capital gains treatment on the 20 percent of fund profits that they receive, which is unrelated to the return on any capital that the private equity managers may happen to invest in a fund. ..."
"... We need a reparations movement for all those workers harmed by private equity. Seriously. ..."
"... It's so nice to see someone taking steps to protect the rights and compensation of the people actually doing the work at the companies and putting their interests first in case of bankruptcy. That those who worked hardest to make the company succeed were somehow the ones who took it in the shorts the worst has always struck me as a glaring inequity bordering on cruelty. ..."
Elizabeth Warren's
Stop Wall Street Looting Act , which is co-sponsored by Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, Mark Pocan and Pramila Jayapal, seeks to
fundamentally alter the way private equity firms operate. While the likely impetus for Warren's bill was the spate of private-equity-induced
retail bankruptcies, with Toys 'R' Us particularly prominent, the bill addresses all the areas targeted by critics of private equity:
how it hurts workers and investors and short-changes the tax man, thus burdening taxpayers generally.
Putin was apparently explaining a fairly straightforward and, to many observers, valid
assessment of international politics. Namely, that Western establishments and institutions,
including the mainstream media, are experiencing a crisis in authority. That crisis has arisen
over several years due to popular perception that the governance of the political class is not
delivering on democratic demands of accountability and economic progress. That in turn has led
people to seek alternatives from the established parties, a movement in the US and Europe which
is denigrated by the establishment as "populist" or rabble rousing.
Putin was not advocating any particular politics or political figures. He was merely
pointing out the valid observation that the so-called liberal establishment has become
obsolete, or dysfunctional.
In her speech this week, May sought to lay on a sinister spin to Putin's remarks as being
somehow him egging on authoritarianism and anti-democratic politics.
Another example of distortion came from Donald Tusk, the European Council President, who
also said of Putin's interview:
"I strongly disagree with the main argument that liberalism is obsolete. Whoever claims
that liberal democracy is obsolete, also claims that freedoms are obsolete, that the rule of
law is obsolete and that human rights are obsolete For us in Europe, these are and will
remain essential and vibrant values. What I find really obsolete are: authoritarianism,
personality cults, the rule of oligarchs."
Tusk's depiction of Putin being anti-democratic, anti-human rights and anti-law is a
specious misdirection, or as May would say, "cynical falsehood".
Political leaders like May and Tusk are living in denial. They seem to suffer from a charmed
delusion that all is rosy with the state of Western democracy. That somehow Western states are
the acme of benign "liberalism".
By blaming evident deep-seated problems of poverty and apathy towards establishment politics
on "sinister" targets of "populism" and "authoritarian strong men" is a form of escapism from
reality.
In May's case, she has added good reason to escape from reality. Her political career is
ending in disaster and disgrace for having led Britain into a shambles over its Brexit
departure from the European Union. Of course, she would like a distraction from her abysmal
record, and she seemed to find one in her farewell speech by firing a dud diatribe at
Putin.
But let's re-examine her self-congratulatory claim more closely. "No one comparing the
quality of life or economic success of liberal democracies like the UK, France and Germany to
the Russian Federation would conclude that our system is obsolete."
There are two parts to that.
First, May is giving the usual establishment spiel about presumed superiority of Western
"liberal democracy" as opposed to politics and governance in Russia.
This week coming, May hands in her resignation as Conservative party prime minister to the
unelected head of state, Queen Elizabeth. The British monarch and her heirs rule as official
head of state by a presumed "divine order". Some democracy that is!
May's successor will either be Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt. The next prime minister of
Britain will be elected solely by members of Britain's Conservative party. As the Washington
Post noted this week, the Tory party represents less than one per cent of the British
population. So, the new leader of the United Kingdom is being decided not by a democratic
national mandate, but by a tiny minority of party members whose demographic profile is
typically rightwing, ardent nationalists, pro-militarist, white and elderly males. Moreover,
the "selection" of new leader comes down to a choice between two politicians of highly dubious
quality whose foreign policy tendency is to play sycophants to Washington. The way Johnson and
Hunt have, for example, lent support to Trump's reckless aggression towards Iran is a portent
of further scraping and bowing to American warmongering typical of Britain's "special
relationship".
In the second part of May's presumed virtuous liberal democracy, she hails the "quality of
economic success" of her nation as opposed to Russian society.
No-one, least of all Putin, is denying that reducing poverty is a social challenge for
Russia. In a recent nationwide televised Q&A, the "elected" (please note) head of the
Russian state called poverty reduction a priority for his government. However, Russia certainly
doesn't need advice from the United Kingdom or many other Western states on that issue.
A recent major
study in Britain found that some 21 per cent of the population (14 million people) are
living in poverty. Homelessness and aggravated crime figures are also off the charts due to
collapsing public services over a decade of economic austerity as deliberate government policy.
The inequality gap between super-rich and poverty among the mass of people has exploded to a
chasm in Britain, as in the US and other Western states.
These are some of the urgent issues that Putin was referring to when he asserted the
"liberal idea is obsolete". Can anyone objectively surveying the bankrupt state of Western
societies honestly dispute that?
Western states are fundamentally broken down because "liberalism" is an empty term which
conceals rapacious corporate capitalism and the oligarchic rule of an elite political class.
The advocates of "liberalism" like Britain's May, Johnson, Hunt or Tusk are the ones who are
anti-democracy, anti-human rights and anti-law. Their denial about the systemic cause of
poverty and injustice within their own societies and their complicity in American imperialist
warmongering in the Middle East or belligerence towards Russia and China is the true "quality"
of their "democratic principles".
If that's not obsolete then what is? And that's why May took a weird parting shot at Putin
in a desperate diversion from reality.
"... If you believe the US media if they just removed Putin, Russia would go back to being a good little puppet state just like under Yeltins. Which is a shockingly naïve way to look at international relations. ..."
"... It is not just Chinese but Asian in general. Watch several seasons of the Japanese cartoon "Gundam" and get back to me about who the good guys are and who the bad guys are in it. ..."
"... People always suffer when they allow corrupt sociopaths to gain power. That is as true today as it was in Germany in 1930's and 40's. ..."
"... According to news reports since the moron in charge announced that he had signed an executive order 'blacklisting' Huawei, those lovely humans at Google are denying Huawei phones access to gmail and playstore. The android operating system is open source and still available to Huawei. ..."
"... Doubtless FB and M$ will follow suit. Getting rid of all the nasty stuff that spies on users 24/7/365 now means that Huawei phones have all the advantages with none of the disadvantages. ..."
"... In Games of Thrones, the good characters are regularly disembowled, choked and drowned to death. Or turn evil. The evil characters grow in power and menace and rarely perish. The overwhelming message is that all people and all power are evil. There is no good in the world or what good there is will be quickly stomped out. Resistance is useless. ..."
"... The main message is really that resistance is futile . If the powers that be can condition the contemporary (and naturally idealistic) Western youth to accept that hypothesis, any threat to their depredations and financial tyranny is rendered impotent. If resistance is futile, said youth will simply have to accept how things are and try to stay out of the way of tyrannical kings, rapacious queens, brutal captains of the guards and wanton dragons. I.e. sit down and shut up while HRC, John Bolton, John Brennan and James Clapper ruin the planet. ..."
"... In the US 33% supported unilateral action, 70% of congress voted for the unilateral military action ..."
"... Thomas Jefferson said: "I tremble for my countrymen because I know God is just..." ..."
"... "The powerful do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." ..."
"... The movies Hollywood produced are often telling psychological conflicts as the central story. Each character has a certain fixed attitude and the interacting of the characters create the story. It does not matter if the setting is in antic times or in the far future. In the end there are always the bad and the good guy slamming it out in a fistfight. ..."
"... The historic Chinese drama which I currently favor are based on sociological storytelling. As they develop the stories form their characters. Their attitudes change over time because the developing exterior circumstances push them into certain directions. Good becomes bad and again good. The persons change because they must, not because the are genetically defined. I find these kind of movies more interesting. ..."
"... The take away quote "Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by the United States." Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ??? ..."
"... I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy. The spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z? ..."
"... My own view is that, as with everything the US has done lately, it already lost the war before it even stepped into battle in the theater. ..."
"... Strangest thing of all that the US itself would do the forcing out of itself from the world's trust. ..."
"... As I've written previously, the political philosophers of the nascent USA thought they would have a Natural Aristocracy ( here and here ) somewhat based on a meritocratic system instead of the Old World's Inherited Aristocracy based on blood relations and closed to anyone not within a very small circle. Yet it was still an Aristocracy with all it inherent evils, and it is that vast assortment of evils the US citizenry has yet to overcome in its supposed--idealized--quest for self-government. ..."
"... If you are interested in watching a film with a sociological approach to telling a story and you are close to a cinema, Mike Leigh's "Peterloo" just started screening last Thursday in Australia. The film is an exploration of British society during the Regency period (in the early 19th century), the class attitudes and opinions prevalent then, and the conditions and events that led to 60,000 - 100,000 labouring class people gathering at St Peter's Field in Manchester in August 1819, and how it was viciously broken up by cavalry and foot soldiers acting on orders of the aristocracy. ..."
"... The culture I am immersed in (USA) is heavily weighted toward the dramatic and two dimensional. Simply put, mass perspective engineering is geared to over simplify and reinforce these views with media imprinting via hollywood, madison ave. etc. The lenses through which impressions from the "outside world" pass through engineered to give the desired results rather than expand consciousness or engender critical thinking. In short, we are breeding for weakness and gullibility. ..."
"... If it is Hollywood, then you can be certain the intention is to manipulate the younger generation to supporting and idolising their permanent wars. On the face of it, that indeed appears to be the case. ..."
" Why The Takedown Of Heinz-Christian Strache Will Strengthen The Right | Main May 19, 2019 The story in the
American Conservative is very weak: that "the Americans" have already won the war is just
due to the built-in superiority: the "land of the free" against "communist dictatorship"
(so everybody knows who has to win). Or, a variation, "free market" against "state-owned".
A typical statement of that article: "China views commercial relations with other
countries as an extension of the political conflict between Western democracies and itself
-- that is, an extension of war." -- a very defining element of the "American" character,
to project the own aggression onto others.
There was another opinion-piece somewhere, can't find it anymore, where the author
argued that hopefully that "trade-war" will do really good for the Chinese economy --
forget about the US, and develop the home market.
As I believe that the sanctions are a great gift to Russia, I also believe that this
"trade-war" is a (potential) great gift to China.
That was an interesting article on psychological vs sociological storytelling and it makes
a good companion piece when thinking about how the US media personalizes US geo-political
conflicts with the heads of rival state (Putin, Xi, Castro, Kim Jong-un, Khomeini,
Gaddafi).
If you believe the US media if they just removed Putin, Russia would go back to
being a good little puppet state just like under Yeltins. Which is a shockingly naïve
way to look at international relations. States have permanent interests and any competent
head of State will always represent those interests to the best of their ability. True, you
could overthrow the government and replace every senior government figure with a compliant
puppet (which the US always tries to do), but the permanent interests that arise from the
inhabitants of the State will always rise up and (re)assert themselves. When the State
leadership is bribed or threatened into ignoring or acting against these needs it
ultimately creates a failed State.
Even the US media seems to subconsciously understand this, when they talk of "overly
ambitious US goals of remaking societies", however, they never make the logical next step
of investigating why these States do not wish to be remade as per the US imagined ideal,
what the interests of these actually are and how diplomacy can resolve conflicts.
According
to the US media everything boils down to the US = good, anyone who disagrees with our
policies = bad and diplomacy is just a measure of how vulgar our threats are during talks.
I'm specifically thinking of the US Ambassador to Russia, John Huntsman's boast of a US
aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean as being 100,000 tons of diplomacy to Russia - of all
the ridiculous and stupid things to says to Russia when supposedly trying to "ease"
tensions (I still can't believe Huntsmen, former Ambassador to China under Obama, is
regarded a "serious" professional ambassador within the State departments when compared to
all the celebrity ambassadorships the US President for fundraiser).
It is not just Chinese but Asian in general. Watch several seasons of the Japanese
cartoon "Gundam" and get back to me about who the good guys are and who the bad guys
are in it.
The whole notion that the "good guys" and the "bad guys" are set in stone
is antithetical to any worldview founded in Buddhism/Confucianism, or influenced by the
same. Can you imagine western children's programming teaching ambiguity between good and
evil? That which is which depends upon the observer's perspective? This is the sort of
concept that few western people get exposed to until graduate level ethics and philosophy
courses.
Or maybe not. I have never seen a single episode of "Game of Thrones" and maybe
that delves into ethical complexities that typical western mass media avoids. I wouldn't
know. What I do know is that this moral and ethical complexity is something that most Asian
children are introduced to before they hit their teens.
Trump just tweeted "If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran. Never
threaten the United States again!". Needless to say, more ridiculousness, Trump is pretty
close to plagiarizing himself with his prior comments regarding North Korean "North Korean
Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the "Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times." Will
someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a
Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button
works!". I think Trump is getting desperate now waiting by the phone for the Iranians to
call him. Trump is certainly still smarting after the failed Venezuela coup and wants to
avoid a second embarrassing defeat, however I doubt the Iranians will care that much about
his latest threat by tweet.
GOT was jarring this season. In the penultimate episode, a dragon wreaks havoc on a western
capital city, brutally murdering most of its inhabitants.
It is impossible not to make the correlation of the dragon as China and kings landing
(The city) as Washington d.c.
From this one can glean that they were attempting to show the ascendancy of China and
the utter destruction of the U.S. With shades of gray thrown about as to if the people of
the city deserved to be burned alive and as to whether the dragon and its rider, China,
have become what they originally set out to vanquish. The old Nietzsche maxim...those who
fight with monsters...
It was indeed unsettling because there are no moral winners. It is well realised for
this reason but poorly written and produced in other aspects as noted above by other
posters.
"First published From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College: "There will
be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple
conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the
headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more
decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our
economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of
killing."
"Excerpts From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival':
"Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the
territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of
that posed formerly by the Soviet Union.
This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and
requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose
resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.
These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet
Union, and Southwest Asia.
There are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the U.S. must show the
leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of
convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a
more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests.
Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the
advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking
to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the
mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or
global role. An effective reconstitution capability is important here, since it implies
that a potential rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a predominant military
position in the world."
... access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil"
GOT is an allegory that explores the nature of power. If you see China's destruction of
Washington it says more about you than the show. Firebombing of Dresden might be a more apt
analogy.
People always suffer when they allow corrupt sociopaths to gain power. That is as true
today as it was in Germany in 1930's and 40's.
The complaints about poor writing are just fan sadness at unexpected horrors that
actually make sense for the show. Loose ends created by these horrors will likely be
resolved in the last episode tonight.
WJ @13 thanks for the link, I am eternally hopeful that this particular thread gets pulled
on until it unravels.
One of my distinct memories of the immediate aftermath of 9/11 (I lived in NYC at the
time), was the trumpeting of the Post and other tabloids about 'the Dancing Arabs,' which
obviously fanned the flames of hatred towards the designated villains. Once it was revealed
that they were actually Israelis, then crickets until the whole thing was shoved down the
memory hole.
I'm going out today to buy a couple of Huawei 'phones'.
According to news reports since the moron in charge announced that he had signed an
executive order 'blacklisting' Huawei, those lovely humans at Google are denying Huawei
phones access to gmail and playstore. The android operating system is open source and still
available to Huawei.
Doubtless FB and M$ will follow suit. Getting rid of all the nasty stuff that spies on
users 24/7/365 now means that Huawei phones have all the advantages with none of the
disadvantages.
They put their own chips in newer models and I have no doubt will find enough bright
sparks to take over apps integration meaning that this divergence point will become a boon
not a hurdle. Even better a Huawei costs 60% of a comparable korean model and half the
price of the fbi backdoored american shit.
I really like thinking expressed by an un-named english politician in a Henry Jackson
Society report: ""Huawei has long been accused of espionage" – a claim repeatedly
denied by the firm – and notes that "while there are no definitely proven cases", a
precautionary principle should be adopted."
All politicians are crooks and liars, everybody says so, lets lock em all up right now,
no need for evidence or trial or any of that due process nonsense, the precautionary
principle should apply.
I have never seen a single episode of "Game of Thrones" and maybe that delves into
ethical complexities that typical western mass media avoids. I wouldn't know.
Having suffered through four seasons of Game of Thrones, after a degree in philology and
literature, I'd be happy to share my impressions with you. In Games of Thrones, the good
characters are regularly disembowled, choked and drowned to death. Or turn evil. The evil
characters grow in power and menace and rarely perish. The overwhelming message is that all
people and all power are evil. There is no good in the world or what good there is will be
quickly stomped out. Resistance is useless.
The main message is really that resistance is futile . If the powers that be can
condition the contemporary (and naturally idealistic) Western youth to accept that
hypothesis, any threat to their depredations and financial tyranny is rendered impotent. If
resistance is futile, said youth will simply have to accept how things are and try to stay
out of the way of tyrannical kings, rapacious queens, brutal captains of the guards and
wanton dragons. I.e. sit down and shut up while HRC, John Bolton, John Brennan and James
Clapper ruin the planet.
Despite impressive production values, excellent acting (for the most part) and majestic
locations, Game of Thrones is truly the most evil large scale creative work I've ever seen.
On a philosophical level, Game of Thrones has no redeeming features. At best an
impressionable mind might come away with a hedonist mindset, i.e. the traditional salve of
weak spirits, carpe diem .
PS. There's some very good comments at the tail end of the
Takedown of Heinz-Christian Strache including one of my own covering in some depth the
Austrian political background to this event. Worth revisiting if you only saw the early
comments.
Using populations per country from '03 we get the following conclusions:
of the 36 countries outside the US we get 33% of the world population where
less than 8% supported unilateral military action by American and her allies
and 57% supported under no circumstances
this list excludes 42 additional countries with another 40% of world population who have
had their governments overthrown or attempted to be overthrown by the US since WWII
In the US 33% supported unilateral action, 70% of congress voted for the unilateral
military action
Being that the invasion was illegal and unpopular, the Bush admin invented a 'coalition
of the willing to give the appearance of support.
The Trump admin needed to create a similar type of facade for the Venezuelan coup. Such
things are needed specifically because the move is so unpopular and illegal.
I suppose that is a valid theory. But as the viewer we know the motivations of Dany and
why in some small regard the people in King's Landing deserve a little roughing up.
Thomas Jefferson said: "I tremble for my countrymen because I know God is just..."
The difference here is that we judge Assad even though we don't see what he is truly
doing.
Here we see what Dany has done, mass slaughter, and think to ourselves...we kinda had it
coming.
Concerning your take on GoT: Isn't this really the thesis of Thucydides through and
through reflected in GoT almost to a T?
"The powerful do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." GoT is not disturbing to be nihilistic and shocking. It is holding up a mirror to
history. But the quality of the show has declined since they have come to the end of the road in
adapting the source material. The show has overtaken the books.
The take away quote
"
As of the end of March, overseas investors bought a net of 1.77 trillion yuan (about 260.3
billion U.S. dollars) of bonds at the country's interbank bond market, up 31 percent from a
year earlier, and held 5.4 trillion yuan of yuan-denominated financial assets, up 19
percent year on year, according to the central bank.
"
What us peasants don't know is the extent to which China will let foreign investment
influence their socialistic ways. That said, China is the new empire, private or public is
yet to be determined but guess where all the "smart" money in the world is going? The money
movements are a giant sucking sound that will leave America under the global economic
bus.
Or not and China maintains its socialistic ways including projecting them around the
world.
The movies Hollywood produced are often telling psychological conflicts as the central
story. Each character has a certain fixed attitude and the interacting of the characters
create the story. It does not matter if the setting is in antic times or in the far
future. In the end there are always the bad and the good guy slamming it out in a
fistfight.
The historic Chinese drama which I currently favor are based on sociological
storytelling. As they develop the stories form their characters. Their attitudes change
over time because the developing exterior circumstances push them into certain
directions. Good becomes bad and again good. The persons change because they must, not
because the are genetically defined. I find these kind of movies more interesting.
That's the difference between materialism (marxism) and idealism (kantism, hegelianism
and noekantism). Besides, an idealist tv series helps selling more merch and doing more
sequels, hence the capitalist preference for idealism.
The take away quote
"Wang also reiterated the principled stand against the "long-arm jurisdiction" imposed by
the United States."
Empire is having its hand slapped back in Venezuela, Iran, Syria, ???
Where are they going to get their war on?
I see empire as a war junkie and they are starting to twitch in withdrawals which is
dangerous but a necessary stage. Trumps latest tweets show that level of energy. The
spinning plates of empire are not wowing the crowds like before.....what is plan Z?
Hot tip, GOT is just a movie. Please, no more psychological insights.
What fans really need, is some REAL WORLD justice, something that's noticeably missing
in today's world.
I agree that the American Conservative article was weak - as b obviously thought. It has
the US trade war against China completely wrong. I side with b in his hunch that China will
win. My own view is that, as with everything the US has done lately, it already lost the
war before it even stepped into battle in the theater.
And let's counter the author's point, in the weak article, that China needs the US trade
surplus more than the US needs the imports from China. The author says that China has no
way to substitute for exports to the US. There's abundant recent analysis on this, showing
the relatively small part of China's economy that hinges on this trade, but here's a good
Sputnik interview that illustrates how easily China can simply absorb goods into its own
domestic market:
"...we have our colossal domestic market, which has no competitors throughout the world.
Our consumer and innovation markets provide us with a large number of advantages and
room, giving China an opportunity to make a manoeuvre. Therefore, their blockage gives
China a chance to become even stronger. We must express our appreciation to our mentor,
Trump, for this, for this lesson and for forcing China to figure out how to withstand the
threats on its own."
The US used to be an important nation to do business with - commercial, diplomatic,
military. But as it has become "agreement incapable", nations are forced to replace it.
This takes a little time and readjustment, but then the change is permanent.
Strangest thing of all that the US itself would do the forcing out of itself from the
world's trust.
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman discussed regional developments, including efforts to
strengthen security and stability, in a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo, the Saudi Media Ministry tweeted on Sunday.
"We want peace and stability in the region but we will not sit on our hands in light
of the continuing Iranian attack," Jubeir said. "The ball is in Iran's court and it is up
to Iran to determine what its fate will be."
He said the crew of an Iranian oil tanker that had been towed to Saudi Arabia early
this month after a request for help due to engine trouble were still in the kingdom
receiving the "necessary care". The crew are 24 Iranians and two Bangladeshis .
Is this a veiled threat on the lives of these crew members?
Re@ 51 James, well Sputniknews is reporting that the Saudi's claim that the Houthis are
planning to attack 300 critical infrastructure facilities in Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates in the coming weeks so that might be the instigating event your concerned
about
Thanks for your kudos! As I've written previously, the political philosophers of the
nascent USA thought they would have a Natural Aristocracy ( here and
here ) somewhat based on a meritocratic system instead of the Old World's Inherited
Aristocracy based on blood relations and closed to anyone not within a very small circle.
Yet it was still an Aristocracy with all it inherent evils, and it is that vast assortment
of evils the US citizenry has yet to overcome in its supposed--idealized--quest for
self-government.
Recall that George Washington was deemed safe to become the first
president because he could be trusted not to proclaim himself king --something often
forgotten by students of US History.
I've often lamented on the nature of the 1787 Constitution because it allows any POTUS
to become a king with almost zero hindrances on the power wielded. Sure, compared with
other systems of government at the time, the USA's was revolutionary, but only down to the
waist to borrow a phrase from Gilbert & Sullivan. Madison's theory, IMO, was--other
than being Aristocratic--okay until his most important check/balance was removed--that of
the "dueling oval office" where the losing POTUS candidate was awarded the
Vice-Presidency--imagine Hillary Clinton as Veep with Trump in the driver seat! IMO,
the
12th Amendment fatally wounded Madison's construction of a government that arrived at
great decisions based on a consensus of genuine national interests instead of partisanship.
Arguing that action is the great fault that must be corrected doesn't get much play
nowadays. Indeed, it's very difficult to debate Constitutional Reform given the engineered
political climate since the current situation suits the Ruling Oligarchy just fine.
I hope everyone had an opportunity to click the link I provided to the series of
paintings known as The Course of Empire . ICYMI, here it is again .
Please note which Empire's being copied and compare that with the predominant architectural
theme in the Outlaw US Empire's Imperium. Creditors ruled and eventually destroyed that
Empire. That's one historical lesson that's totally omitted from the historiography of the
USA.
By and large, we know what and where the problems are. The fundamental question is, will
we ever get the opportunity to fix them?
Their disadvantage is that they have to import energy. So they need export if they do
not wish to run a trade deficit.
They do not necessarily need the US for this though if they can trade in Yuan.
b, it is generally fund raising time during this time for some publishers (i.e.
counterpunch etc) and I would like to send you something as well. Can you please post the
payment information. Thanks.
If you are interested in watching a film with a sociological approach to telling a story
and you are close to a cinema, Mike Leigh's "Peterloo" just started screening last Thursday
in Australia. The film is an exploration of British society during the Regency period (in
the early 19th century), the class attitudes and opinions prevalent then, and the
conditions and events that led to 60,000 - 100,000 labouring class people gathering at St
Peter's Field in Manchester in August 1819, and how it was viciously broken up by cavalry
and foot soldiers acting on orders of the aristocracy.
The film is at least 150 minutes long and is a highly immersive experience. There is not
much plot in the Hollywood sense of the term. I believe reviews have been mixed with most
film critics complaining about the film being too long and boring. But if you are prepared
to watch a film that uses a sociological approach to telling a narrative, then you'll agree
with me that the film actually isn't long enough.
Very interesting studies and the ideas that they might spawn. The near parallels of the
micro and macro as well as the flow patterns.
The culture I am immersed in (USA) is heavily weighted toward the dramatic and two
dimensional. Simply put, mass perspective engineering is geared to over simplify and
reinforce these views with media imprinting via hollywood, madison ave. etc. The lenses
through which impressions from the "outside world" pass through engineered to give the
desired results rather than expand consciousness or engender critical thinking. In short,
we are breeding for weakness and gullibility.
In regard to large scale dynamics resembling the physics of things like the laws of
thermodynamics, I am wondering if phenomena like those alluded to above might be engulfed
and influenced by these kinds of natural patterns. So for example: Looking past the drama
of sanctions, trade wars, and good guys vs. bad guys, wont the large scale movements caused
by these things begin to move according to a kind of physics?
I keep wondering what the result of this latest round of economic warfare will lead to.
If the USA continues to sanction, embargo and blockade (at the behest of banking cartels?)
will this not cause a mass exodus from dollar reserves, SWIFT, BIS and the like? I hear all
sorts of opinions, bushels of dis-info and I'm mostly at a loss as to what to think. We are
clearly nearing the end of the Bretton-Woods era so a reset is in order. The USA is a mere
6% of the world population and some would say at the end of it's due date as far an being
an "international influencer".
So if they and their EU poodles go ahead and sanction every nation who refuses to bend
the knee what's stopping these nations from simply bypassing these decrees and going about
their business? I get the sense that this is already happening quietly. Russia, China and
various partner nations are creating alternatives in many forms, be they interweb servers,
financial networks, OBOR, SCO and more I have never heard of.
Perhaps the ratcheting up of tensions could also be swept up in the turbulence of
thermodynamics? If sanctions become embargoes and then blockades, what happens to the
"compressions ratios in the Straits of Hormuz?
Well, I've come across a few advertisements, but I always thought it was some kind of
children's video game. I cannot imagine why anyone other than a socially stunted and
mis-developed American or Americanised adolescent could want to watch such infantile
deranged garbage.
If it is Hollywood, then you can be certain the intention is to manipulate the younger
generation to supporting and idolising their permanent wars. On the face of it, that indeed
appears to be the case.
That Time Warren Cheered Trump. Well, this was disappointing... Elizabeth Warren stands up
and applauds Trump's promise that "America will never be a socialist country." https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=416898935744430
Assuming the decoupling would take place, that could be easily perceived as "strategic
blackmail" imposed by the Trump administration. Yet what the Trump administration wants is not
exactly what the US establishment wants – as shown by an
open letter to Trump signed by scores of academics, foreign policy experts and business
leaders who are worried that "decoupling" China from the global economy – as if
Washington could actually pull off such an impossibility – would generate massive
blowback.
What may actually happen in terms of a US-China "decoupling" is what Beijing is already,
actively working on: extending trade partnerships with the EU and across the Global South.
And that will lead, according to Li, to the Chinese leadership offering deeper and wider
market access to its partners. This will soon be the case with the EU, as discussed in Brussels
in the spring.
Sun Jie, a researcher at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese
Academy of Social Sciences, said that deepening partnerships with the Association of Southeast
Asian Nations (Asean) will be essential in case a decoupling is in the cards.
For his part Liu Qing, an economics professor at Renmin University, stressed the need for
top international relations management, dealing with everyone from Europe to the Global South,
to prevent their companies from replacing Chinese companies in selected global supply
chains.
And Wang Xiaosong, an economics professor at Renmin University, emphasized that a concerted
Chinese strategic approach in dealing with Washington is absolutely paramount.
All about
Belt and Road
A few optimists among Western
intellectuals would rather characterize what is going on as a vibrant debate between proponents
of "restraint" and "offshore balancing" and proponents of "liberal hegemony". In fact, it's
actually a firefight.
Among the Western intellectuals singled out by the puzzled Frankenstein guy, it is virtually
impossible to find another voice of reason to match Martin Jacques , now a senior fellow
at Cambridge University. When China Rules the World , his hefty tome published 10 years ago,
still leaps out of an editorial wasteland of almost uniformly dull publications by so-called
Western "experts" on China.
Jacques has understood that now it's all about the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road
Initiative:
"BRI has the potential to offer another kind of world, another set of values, another set
of imperatives, another way of organizing, another set of institutions, another set of
relationships."
Belt and Road, adds Jacques, "offers an alternative to the existing international order. The
present international order was designed by and still essentially privileges the rich world,
which represents only 15% of the world's population. BRI, on the other hand, is addressing at
least two-thirds of the world's population. This is extraordinarily important for this moment
in history."
Dmitry Orlov offers a highly-pertinent review of a current report to the US Congress about
the severe degradation of the US's capacity to produce ANY heavy industrial goods - including
advanced weapons such as replacement aircraft carriers, cruisers, tanks and all the rest -
within its own borders, independent of (exceedingly vulnerable) global supply networks:
Also, the US only has 'plenty' of fossil-hydrocarbon fuel on cloud-cuckoo-land paper. In
reality, it has quite a lot of such stuff which it will never access, and will never be able
to access, because of the non-negotiable, iron logic of EROEI and EROCI (the second acronym
relating to energy returned on financial capital invested; currently a long way red-ink
negative across the whole US fracking ponzi). EROEI refers to the even more intractable,
terminally-insoluble problem of energy returned on ENERGY invested. When this gets down to
around 4 to 1 or thereabouts, it's game over for actually being able to maintain an
industrial hitech society that can hope - credibly - to do fossil-hydrocarbon mining in any
seriously challenging conditions - which most of the world's remaining pools of such fuels
now exhibit.
These predicaments are qualitatively different from problems; problems, by definition, can
hope to be solved; predicaments, inherently, can't be, and can only be endured. The world is
now close to the edge of a decisive non-availability of sufficient fossil-hydrocarbon fuels
to keep even a skeleton semblance of modern hitech industrial society operating - at all.
That's the predicament that is already staring us in the face, and that will soon be
trampling us into the ground. Doesn't mean that hopeless political inadequates such as
PompousHippo and The Insane Geriatric Walrus won't attempt to trigger such insanity as an
aggression against Iran, though, they being too stupid, too delusional, and too
morally-degenarate, to know any better.
This is the overall situation which insists that the US has literally zero chance of
attacking Iran, and actually getting anything remotely resembling a 'win' out of it. Read
Dmitry's piece to get a more detailed outline of why this is so.
PS: The above considerations apply just as decisively to the US's nuclear weapon capacity
as they do to all the other hitech industrial toys which USAmerica is now barely able to
produce on its own - at all.
"... Of course, correlation is not causation, and there is no shortage of alternative explanations for the decline in U.S. manufacturing. Globalization, offshoring, and skills gaps are just three frequently cited causes. Moreover, some researchers, like MIT's David Autor, have argued that workers are benefiting from working alongside robots. ..."
"... Yet the evidence suggests there is essentially no relationship between the change in manufacturing employment and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the United States. (We introduce a three-year time lag to allow for robots to influence the labor market and continued with the most recent data, 2012). ..."
"... Korea, France, and Italy also lost fewer manufacturing jobs than the United States even as they introduced more industrial robots. On the other hand, countries like the United Kingdom and Australia invested less in robots but saw faster declines in their manufacturing sectors. ..."
Don't blame the robots for lost manufacturing jobs
Scott Andes and Mark Muro
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
a recent blog we described new research by George Graetz
and Guy Michaels that shows the impact of automation
technology in productivity statistics. So now there is good
evidence that robots are a driver of economic growth.
However, this new evidence poses a question: Has
productivity growth from robots come at the cost of
manufacturing jobs?
Between 1993 and 2007 (the timeframe studied by Graetz and
Micheals) the United States increased the number of robots
per hour worked by 237 percent. During the same period the
U.S. economy shed 2.2 million manufacturing jobs. Assuming
the two trends are linked doesn't seem farfetched.
Of course, correlation is not causation, and there is no
shortage of alternative explanations for the decline in U.S.
manufacturing. Globalization, offshoring, and skills gaps are
just three frequently cited causes. Moreover, some
researchers, like MIT's David Autor, have argued that workers
are benefiting from working alongside robots.
So is there a relationship between job loss and the use of
industrial robots?
The substantial variation of the degree to which countries
deploy robots should provide clues. If robots are a
substitute for human workers, then one would expect the
countries with much higher investment rates in automation
technology to have experienced greater employment loss in
their manufacturing sectors. Germany deploys over three times
as many robots per hour worked than the United States,
largely due to Germany's robust automotive industry, which is
by far the most robot-intensive industry (with over 10 times
more robots per worker than the average industry). Sweden has
60 percent more robots per hour worked than the United States
thanks to its highly technical metal and chemical industries.
Yet the evidence suggests there is essentially no
relationship between the change in manufacturing employment
and robot use. Despite the installation of far more robots
between 1993 and 2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its
manufacturing jobs between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33
percent drop in the United States. (We introduce a three-year
time lag to allow for robots to influence the labor market
and continued with the most recent data, 2012).
Korea,
France, and Italy also lost fewer manufacturing jobs than the
United States even as they introduced more industrial robots.
On the other hand, countries like the United Kingdom and
Australia invested less in robots but saw faster declines in
their manufacturing sectors.
"Despite the installation of far more robots between 1993 and
2007, Germany lost just 19 percent of its manufacturing jobs
between 1996 and 2012 compared to a 33 percent drop in the
United States. "
Yes the U.S. and Germany have a similar
pattern. So what.
Why Factory Jobs Are Shrinking Everywhere
by Charles Kenny
April 28, 2014, 1:16 PM EDT
A report from the Boston Consulting Group last week
suggested the U.S. had become the second-most-competitive
manufacturing location among the 25 largest manufacturing
exporters worldwide. While that news is welcome, most of the
lost U.S. manufacturing jobs in recent decades aren't coming
back. In 1970, more than a quarter of U.S. employees worked
in manufacturing. By 2010, only one in 10 did.
The growth in imports from China had a role in that
decline–contributing, perhaps, to as much as one-quarter of
the employment drop-off from 1991 to 2007, according to an
analysis by David Autor and colleagues at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology. But the U.S. jobs slide began well
before China's rise as a manufacturing power. And
manufacturing employment is falling almost everywhere,
including in China. The phenomenon is driven by technology,
and there's reason to think developing countries are going to
follow a different path to wealth than the U.S. did-one that
involves a lot more jobs in the services sector.
Pretty much every economy around the world has a low or
declining share of manufacturing jobs. According to OECD
data, the U.K. and Australia have seen their share of
manufacturing drop by around two-thirds since 1971. Germany's
share halved, and manufacturing's contribution to gross
domestic product there fell from 30 percent in 1980 to 22
percent today. In South Korea, a late industrializer and
exemplar of miracle growth, the manufacturing share of
employment rose from 13 percent in 1970 to 28 percent in
1991; it's fallen to 17 percent today.
"... People hate it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services, poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the forcibly unemployed have delivered, not promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered vulgar yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate resources that one of its megaphones once declared its triumph "the end of history". ..."
For 40 years, the ideology popularly known as "neoliberalism" has dominated political
decision-making in the English-speaking west.
People
hate it . Neoliberalism's sale of state assets, offshored jobs, stripped services,
poorly-invested infrastructure and armies of the forcibly unemployed have delivered, not
promised "efficiency" and "flexibility" to communities, but discomfort and misery. The wealth
of a few has now swelled to a level of conspicuousness that must politely be considered
vulgar
yet the philosophy's entrenched itself so deeply in how governments make decisions and allocate
resources that one of its megaphones once declared its triumph "the end of history".
It wasn't, as
even he admitted later . And given some of the events of the contemporary political moment,
it's possible to conclude from auguries like smoke rising from a garbage fire and patterns of
political blood upon the floor that history may be hastening neoliberalism towards an end that
its advocates did not forecast.
Three years ago,
I remarked that comedian Russell Brand may have stumbled onto a stirring spirit of the
times when his "capitalism sucks" contemplations drew stadium-sized crowds. Beyond Brand
– politically and materially – the crowds have only been growing.
Is the political zeitgeist an old
spectre up for some new haunting? Or are the times more like a strong angel proclaiming
with a loud voice, "the combination of inequality and low wage growth is fuelling discontent.
Time to sing a new song."
In days gone past, they used to slice open an animal's belly and study the shape of its
spilled entrails to find out. But we could just keep an eye on the news.
Here are my seven signs of the neoliberal apocalypse:
... ... ...
5. The reds are back under the beds
... ... ...
6. Tony Abbott becomes a fan of nationalising assets
... How else
to explain the earthquake-like paradigm shift represented by the sixth sign? Since when do
neoliberal conservatives argue for the renationalisation of infrastructure, as is the push of
Tony Abbott's gang to nationalise the coal-fired Liddell power station?
It may be a cynical stunt to take an unscientific stand against climate action, but seizing
the means of production remains seizing the means of production, um, comrade.
"You know, nationalising assets is what the Liberal party was founded to stop governments
doing," said Turnbull, even as he hid in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains to weather
– strange coincidence – yet
another Newspoll loss.
The real leader of the American Right today is not President Donald Trump. It's Tucker
Carlson.
He's the best communicator in the country, he's talking about the most important issues, and
he has a platform the Left hasn't been able to take away ( yet
). And they're getting desperate, even to the point of
doxxing his home address and
attacking his house .
Tucker is preaching unwanted truths from within Conservatism Inc. I'm sure the top
executives of the nonprofits clustered in Northern Virginia are furious he's on the air.
Certainly, any lowly staffer at any Conservatism Inc. organization who raised his arguments
would be fired.
Perhaps the most revealing exchange of the last year came a few months ago when Carlson
spoke at the Turning Point USA conference [ Betrayal:
American Conservatives and Capitalism, by Gregory Hood, American
Renaissance, January 28, 2019]. While Charlie Kirk desperately tried to convince the young
crowd to support tax cuts for Big Tech, Carlson had them
laughing at conservatism's "inflexible theories ."
Tucker Carlson is sparking the intellectual renaissance the GOP desperately needs.
Could he run for office? Some Leftists are afraid he will --
Jeet Heer suggested he might be the "competent & effective
Trump" that could come after the current president. But Carlson might be stronger where he
is.
Perhaps then Carlson should take his case to the people. [ Tucker Carlson for
president, by Damon Linker, The Week, June 7, 2019] He's certainly a
better spokesperson for Trump than Trump himself.
Tom Cotton wanted to "slash" legal immigration to 700K which is still at race replacement
levels. We need a complete moratorium or the next best thing. Cotton is also as much a
proponent of MIGA, if not more so, than Trump so an asterisk must be placed by his name.
If Trump were really a 4D chessmaster he should have asked Jeff Sessions to stay in the
Senate, where he commanded the respect of both parties, to help shepherd through
restrictionist immigration legislation. Then he should have appointed Kobach to DHS while he
had momentum right after taking office. Instead we got Kirsten Nielsen who was a supporter of
DACA.
Ted Cruz is capable of winning the Republican nomination but he doesn't have the appeal to
win working class white Democrats as Trump did. His religious fundamentalism could annoy some
independents.
incredibly citing smears from the Southern Poverty Law Center. This defamation is
arguably what dissuaded Trump from appointing him.
And we voted for Trump to fight the corrupt establishment and entrenched (((special
interests))). Not shrink from them.
I think Tucker Carlson could probably beat Trump in the Republican primaries. Tucker's
problem is that he thinks if he can keep preaching race blindness and anti-identity politics
every night and that it will eventually resonate with the Jewish led left. It won't and it
never will and identity politics is here to stay so it's time whites start engaging in it.
Tucker is also fine and dandy with the country becoming 90% non-white as long as those
non-whites adhere to race blindness and the Constitution. I'd say the early returns tell us
that they adhere to third world/non-white tribalism.
But at the end of the day none of these men will mount a racial defense of white Americans
as it's either against their religion or their ideology. Whites are being attacked as a race
so must be defended as a race and not simply as "Americans".
The demographic situation will be even worse in 2024, so unless the Republican candidate
can secure at least 65-68% of the white vote (instead of the usual 59-60%) then this is all
an exercise in futility. Then the discussion should turn to secession by any means necessary
to secure a future for white people in North America. The (((status quo))) ensures white
genocide.
Degeneration of the USA elite really is getting speed.
Notable quotes:
"... I've been watching in complete dismay for more than two decades now how many unbelievably empty people run for the highest office in the US. These people are empty. No substance, no soul, no brain or heart. Nothing. ..."
I've been watching in complete dismay for more than two decades now how many
unbelievably empty people run for the highest office in the US. These people are empty. No
substance, no soul, no brain or heart. Nothing.
"... The biggest economic problem is "corporate welfare" find out how much subsidy the UK government 'gives' to profitable corporations, the ordinary taxpayers loss. ..."
Marx, Engels and Gramsci all died before the second world war began. I doubt they had much to
say about what caused it.
Regarding the posited failure of "neoliberalism", if you want to know what real failure of
a political and economic system looks like, have a look at the consequences of Marxism for
every country where it held sway in the 20th century.
A recession followed by a few years of sluggish growth is hardly catastrophic
Democratic socialism must take the place of this capitalist system where 50% of the global
economy is owned by just 1% of the population, patently unfair for billions of people. To
have 1% having more than they could possibly spend in a lifetime is ludicrous while we have
others starving and millions of "people" living below the poverty line.
The capitalist (USA) system diverts huge amounts of money via corporations 50% of
the global economy to just 1% of the global population, which is patently unfair. The 1%
ownership grows every day because these 1% people have a mental illness called insatiable
greed, where enough is never enough. Yes 'fair trade' would help, but what must be broken is
the compliance of conservative governments around the world who fail to tax these
corporations a 'fair share' of taxation to help "the people" to raise their living standards.
We must adopt democratic socialism with million of USA citizens voted for with Bernie
Sanders, and as is practiced in the Nordic countries, who tax corporations fairly and obtain
a good standard of living for "their people."
What comes next? Hopefully some kind of neo-nationalistic Westernism in which the societies
that, up until the turmoil of the 60s and 70s shaped the course of global affairs, rediscover
their roots and identifies.
If "neoliberalism" seems to be in retreat, perhaps the simplest explanation is that the
cultures that gave rise to it - western, Christian, often English-speaking cultures - most
certainly ARE in retreat.
How can we answer questions like "what is happening to us?" or "How should we react?" When
we can't even identify the "us" or the "we"?
We need government that will restrain capitalism and use the system for the benefit of "the
people" not the corporations. Which in practice means "don't vote conservative."
Yes, the point is that unrestrained capitalism does wreck lives, but continues to
feed the 1% with mare more than they could ever spend. This is precisely why we need a system
of democratic socialism as practiced on the Nordic countries, where "the people" come first
and the corporations run a distant second.
However if the UK continues to elect conservative
governments the reverse will always be the case, with "the people" running a distant second.
Globalization, capitalist society in the 70s quickly became ownership of 50% (and continuing
to grow) of the global economy by just 1% of the population. We need to change to democratic
socialism as practiced by the Nordic countries.
The biggest economic problem is "corporate welfare" find out how much subsidy the UK
government 'gives' to profitable corporations, the ordinary taxpayers loss.
How we got here was via the capitalist system whereby 50% of the global economy is now owned
bt just 1% of the global population. A collection of individuals who are filthy rich but who
also have the mental illness of insatiable greed, and who won't be satisfied until they own
60% and so on. They avoid paying tax, and conservative governments help them by providing
loop holes in taxation legislation so their corporations can avoid paying tax or pay up to 5%
of their huge incomes in a token gesture. In Australia out of 1,500 corporations surveyed 579
have not paid a cent since at least 2013. The Australian people should be marching in the
streets for a 'fair go' but the apathy prevents that. They probably won't get angry until
such time as they realize that the 1% own 70% of the global economy and they are being
squeezed even harder into 14 hour days without a break, only then will they crack, if at all.
Quantitative easing first upped the stock market and therefore the retirement portfolios of
the US middle class as well as the portfolios of the wealthy, and now the US economy is
finally producing middle class jobs (recent report, NY Times) and not just the upper middle
class.
------------------
Rubbish!
QE is just the creation of trillions more in debt. Artificially raising asset prices is not a
free market. A free market depends on people being able to pay the prices. But today in the
UK, people require three loans to buy a house the price of which has been artificially raised
by QE. That enriches the homeowner, the bank, and estate agent. but in equal measure, it
impoverishes the house buyer.
the blowing up of asset prices will have to go on forever (still, not one penny of QE has
been repaid), or the system will collapse. But that is impossible. It will destroy the value
of money. See what happens to stock prices each time the US "threatens" to raise interest
rates and stop QE programmes. And just check out personal debt levels in the UK and US. It is
unsustainable.
The basic problem of neoliberalism is that it demands low pay as a competitive measure.
But that means people have less money to spend in the consumer economy. So neoliberalism
requires deregulated banking, pushing up asset prices, so people feel wealthy and take on
more debt with which to compensate their low pay, and so they can shop. But that in turn
leads to higher debts until the debts are not likely to be repaid. Banks collapse.
The bailouts and money printing has raised asset prices as you say. So now they are at
record highs. And if the system demands they go higher while keeping down pay. Who the Fuck
is going to pay?
The system is designed to collapse. It only exists today thanks to the creation of money
that does not really exist. We may as well adopt grass as money as keep this system
going.
The flipside of artificial growth in asset prices is the falling value of earnings.
in 1996, UK average pay equalled 30-35% of a typical house. Today, it is only 10% of a
house, and in London, 7%. And for the system to function, that percentage must fall.
No, quite a lot of people have been writing about it. Marx, Engels and Gramski all discussed
the tendency of free market economics to lead to conflict. More recently you could look at
the work of Galbraith, Sachs and Frank Stilwell, just off the top of my head.
You failed to understand the article. It says the post war period (1945-70s) was the longest
and most successful economic run, especially for working classes, in history.
It is "neoliberalism" since the late 70s that led to the trebling of personal debts on
stagnant wages, and finally the collapse of the banks. And ever since the whole economic show
has only been kept alive with life-saving drugs (QE which is basically pretending there is a
cash flow rather than reality of a solvency crisis, govt set zero interest rates, bailouts).
But we have merely got stagnation.
And your last point is a straw man. Hardly anyone wants to replace this failing system
with Stalinism.
We have had two contrasting economic systems in the West since the War. The one had far
more regulation, and stronger wage growth for workers, the latter since 1979 has been
neoliberalism.
The first collapsed in the stagnation of the 70s. The latter died in 2008, and has been
kept going through state support and printing trillions more in debt. But the bailouts are
failing. They are failing because it was never a cash flow crisis. It was a solvency crisis.
Now the debts are even greater.
Selective description posing as analysis and allowing the emotional triggers of a couple of
key phrases to justify the selectiveness. It sounds magisterial but it ain't and, as others
have pointed out, it gives us little on where do we go from here. This is precisely because
he has really not told us what he thinks here is, how we got here, and why we got here.
The last thing a capitalist corporation wants is to compete (i.e. having actual competition).
What they want is monopoly. That's why they "rig" the markets - among others by merging with
and acquiring their competitors until they reach near monopoly in their industry (or
industries).
That's the essence of the statement that "there never have been free markets, only rigged
markets". And there never will be. "Free markets" are transient phenomena that exist only for
relatively short time periods during which the leading players do the rigging. The only
factor that could keep free markets "free" is government - and that's why it is hated so much
by corporations and is rendered practically toothless in the US. It limits their ability to
rig and to loot.
The only form the phrase "free markets" exist for prolonged periods of time is when it is
used as a propaganda slogan by neoliberal ideologues (even though it is the exact opposite of
what really happens).
And why has it taken so long for such an article to be published? Many of the points in this
article should have been apparent to intelligent commentators right after the 2008 crisis.
Why has it taken so long for political fallout?
The major reason is cited: Parties such as New Labour, supposedly of the Left that
continued to support this failing system. Gordon Brown bailed out the banks, claimed to save
the world, and then let it all go on as before. A Disgrace of a leader that history will
condemn as a fool. And how many commentators of the time lauded him for it? Far too many. And
many of them still in the jobs. Jesus Wept!
What the writer understands and too many are in denial about is this. New Labour is dead.
It died in 2007-8 with the collapse of the banks.
Then the amazing coincidence that the third party (the Lib Dems) was taken over by the
neoliberals just before the Financial Crisis brought the neoliberal age to an end, and which
went onto support the True Neoliberal party (the Tories). In the US, a man who ran on a
candidacy of Change only for the world to find out it was bluster and rhetoric! Obama will
not go down as a Great President at all. He tried to bail out a failing system. He will be a
footnote in history.
Then those bloody bailouts. They not only bailed out the bankers and the rich. They bailed
out millions of largely older voters, artificially pumping up house prices. The old vote. And
they voted to back this grand theft against Reason, and the younger generations. The result
of the bailouts will be a far greater Financial Crisis than 2008. The disconnect between
people's debts and wages is worse today than in 2006. That can mean only one thing. Collapse
is coming. And now the debts are even bigger. Bailouts are wrong, have failed, and will not
be politically acceptable again.
Conservative parties will be repositories for those afraid of change, and those happy to
be bailed out until the crisis explodes again. On the change side, if we do not have Left
Populism, we will get nationalism.
In terms of stronger border controls there is no doubt this is happening. The US, Europe and
here in Australia the governments grip on border entries has only got tighter. As for
international labour migration, Trump, Brexit and the European refugee crisis will see
increasing pressure on lowering the numbers of migrant workers.
Increasing labour migration has been a ploy by government to try and make globalisation work,
as globalisation requires the free flow of labour across international borders. The political
pressure to reduce migrant numbers will be too much to resist, and greater controls will be
put in place.
This is not a choice between A or B. Stop fighting yesterday's battles. Its over, just as the
article declares. What is developing as we speak will steer tomorrow's civilization and it
will be neither of the old paradigms. We have to come to a consensus about where we want to
go. What principles do we have faith in to inform our assessments of what we keep or alter?
What roles will we play? What will our purpose(s) be? That is the business we need to be
about to arrive at an orderly, deliberate future, prepared for a long journey to a better
world. Or we push and pull in all different directions and go round and round the same old
ground making the same old mistakes until the world moves on and leaves us behind. We will
need to work together or fail each alone. Are you ready?
Looks like Warren weakness is her inability to distinguish between key issues and periferal
issues.
While her program is good and is the only one that calls for "structural change" (which is
really needed as neoliberalism outlived its usefulness) it mixes apple and oranges. One thing
is to stop neoliberal transformation of the society and the other is restitution for black
slaves. In the latter case why not to Indians ?
I'd argue that Warren's newly tight and coherent story, in which her life's arc tracks the
country's, is contributing to her rise, in part because it protects her against other stories
-- the nasty ones told by her opponents, first, and then echoed by the media doubters
influenced by her opponents. Her big national-stage debut came when she
tangled with Barack Obama's administration over bank bailouts, then set up the powerhouse
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). But she was dismissed as too polarizing, even by
some Democrats, and was passed over to run it. In 2012, Massachusetts's Scott Brown mocked Warren as
"the Professor," a know-it-all Harvard schoolmarm, before she beat him to take his Senate seat.
After that, Donald Trump began
trashing her as "Pocahontas" in the wake of a controversy on the campaign trail about her
mother's rumored Native American roots. And Warren scored an own goal with a video that announced
she had "confirmed" her Native heritage with a DNA test, a claim that ignored the brutal
history of blood-quantum requirements and genetic pseudoscience in the construction of
race.
When she announced her presidential run this year, some national political reporters
raised
questions about her likability
, finding new ways to compare
her to Hillary Clinton, another female candidate widely dismissed as unlikable. A month into
Warren's campaign, it seemed the media was poised to Clintonize her off the primary stage. But
it turned out she had a plan for that, too.
I n the tale that is captivating crowds on the campaign trail, Warren is not a professor or
a political star but a hardscrabble Oklahoma "late-in-life baby" or, as her mother called her,
"the surprise." Her elder brothers had joined the military; she was the last one at home, just
a middle-schooler when her father had the massive heart attack that would cost him his job. "I
remember the day we lost the station wagon," she tells crowds, lowering her voice. "I learned
the words 'mortgage' and 'foreclosure' " listening to her parents talk when they thought
she was asleep, she recalls. One day she walked in on her mother in her bedroom, crying and
saying over and over, " 'We are not going to lose this house.' She was 50 years old,"
Warren adds, "had never worked outside the home, and she was terrified."
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This part of the story has been a Warren staple for years: Her mother put on her best dress
and her high heels and walked down to a Sears, where she got a minimum-wage job. Warren got a
private lesson from her mother's sacrifice -- "You do what you have to to take care of those
you love" -- and a political one, too. "That minimum-wage job saved our house, and it saved our
family." In the 1960s, she says, "a minimum-wage job could support a family of three. Now the
minimum wage can't keep a momma and a baby out of poverty."
That's Act I of Warren's story and of the disappearing American middle class whose
collective story her family's arc symbolizes. In Act II, she walks the crowd through her early
career, including some personal choices that turned her path rockier: early marriage, dropping
out of college. But her focus now is on what made it possible for her to rise from the working
class. Warren tells us how she went back to school and got her teaching certificate at a public
university, then went to law school at another public university. Both cost only a few hundred
dollars in tuition a year. She always ends with a crowd-pleaser: "My daddy ended up as a
janitor, but his baby daughter got the opportunity to become a public-school teacher, a law
professor, a US senator, and run for president!"
Warren has honed this story since her 2012 Senate campaign. Remember her "Nobody in this
country got rich on his own" speech ? It was an explanation of how the
elite amassed wealth thanks to government investments in roads, schools, energy, and police
protection, which drew more than 1 million views on YouTube. Over the years, she has become the
best explainer of the way the US government, sometime around 1980, flipped from building the
middle class to protecting the wealthy. Her 2014 book, A Fighting Chance , explains how
Warren (once a Republican, like two of her brothers) saw her own family's struggle in the
stories of those families whose bankruptcies she studied as a lawyer -- families she once
thought might have been slackers. Starting in 1989, with a book she cowrote on bankruptcy and
consumer credit, her writing has charted the way government policies turned against the middle
class and toward corporations. That research got her tapped by then–Senate majority
leader Harry Reid to oversee
the Troubled Assets Relief Program after the 2008 financial crash and made her a
favorite on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart . Starting in the mid-2000s, she
publicly clashed with prominent Democrats,
including Biden , a senator at the time, over bankruptcy reforms, and later with
then–Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner over the bank bailouts.
Sanders, of course, has a story too, about a government that works for the "millionaires and
billionaires." But he has a hard time connecting his family's stories of struggle to his
policies. After his first few campaign events, he ditched the details about growing up poor in
Brooklyn. In early June, he returned to his personal story in a New York Timesop-ed .
W arren preaches the need for "big structural change" so often that a crowd chanted the
phrase back at her during a speech in San Francisco the first weekend in June. Then she gets
specific. In Act III of her stump speech, she lays out her dizzying array of plans. But by then
they're not dizzying, because she has anchored them to her life and the lives of her listeners.
The rapport she develops with her audience, sharing her tragedies and disappointments --
questionable choices and all -- makes her bold policy pitches feel believable. She starts with
her proposed wealth tax: two cents on every dollar of your worth after $50 million, which she
says would raise $2.75 trillion over 10 years. (She has also proposed a 7 percent surtax on
corporate profits above $100 million.)
Warren sells the tax with a vivid, effective comparison. "How many of you own a home?" she
asks. At most of her stops in Iowa, it was roughly half the crowd. "Well, you already pay a
wealth tax on your major asset. You pay a property tax, right?" People start nodding. "I just
want to make sure we're also taxing the diamonds, the Rembrandts, the yachts, and the stock
portfolios." Nobody in those Iowa crowds seemed to have a problem with that.
Then she lays out the shocking fact that
people in the top 1 percent pay roughly 3.2 percent of their wealth in taxes, while the bottom
99 percent pay 7.4 percent.
That "big structural change" would pay for the items on Warren's agenda -- the programs that
would rebuild the opportunity ladder to the middle class -- that have become her signature:
free technical school or two- or four-year public college; at least partial loan forgiveness
for 95 percent of those with student debt; universal child care and prekindergarten, with costs
capped at 7 percent of family income; and a pay hike for child-care workers.
"Big structural change" would also include strengthening unions and giving workers 40
percent of the seats on corporate boards. Warren promises to break up Big Tech and Big Finance.
She calls for a constitutional amendment to protect the right to vote and vows to push to
overturn Citizens United . To those who say it's too much, she ends every public event
the same way: "What do you think they said to the abolitionists? 'Too hard!' To the suffragists
fighting to get women the right to vote? 'Too hard!' To the foot soldiers of the civil-rights
movement, to the activists who wanted equal marriage? 'Give up now!' " But none of them
gave up, she adds, and she won't either. Closing that way, she got a standing ovation at every
event I attended.
R ecently, Warren has incorporated into her pitch the stark differences between what
mid-20th-century government offered to black and white Americans. This wasn't always the case.
After a speech she
delivered at the Roosevelt Institute in 2015, I heard black audience members complain about her
whitewashed version of the era when government built the (white) middle class. Many black
workers were ineligible for Social Security; the GI Bill didn't prohibit racial
discrimination ; and federal loan guarantees systematically excluded black home buyers and
black neighborhoods. "I love Elizabeth, but those stories about the '50s drive me crazy," one
black progressive said.
The critiques must have made their way to Warren. Ta-Nehisi Coates recently
toldThe New Yorker that after his influential Atlanticessay
"The Case for Reparations" appeared five years ago, the Massachusetts senator asked to meet
with him. "She had read it. She was deeply serious, and she had questions." Now, when Warren
talks about the New Deal, she is quick to mention the ways African Americans were shut out. Her
fortunes on the campaign trail brightened after April's She the People forum in Houston, where she joined eight
other candidates in talking to what the group's founder, Aimee Allison, calls "the real
Democratic base": women of color, many from the South. California's Kamala Harris, only the
second African-American woman ever elected to the US Senate, might have had the edge coming in,
but Warren surprised the crowd. "She walked in to polite applause and walked out to a standing
ovation," Allison said, after the candidate impressed the crowd with policies to address black
maternal-health disparities, the black-white wealth gap, pay inequity, and more.
G Jutson says:
July 4, 2019 at 1:00 pm
Well here we are in the circular firing squad Obama warned us about. Sander's fan boys vs.
Warren women. Sanders has been our voice in DC on the issues for a generation. He has changed
the debate. Thank you Bernie. Now a Capitalist that wants to really reform it can be a viable
candidate. Warren is that person. We supported Sanders last time to help us get to this
stage. Time to pass the baton to someone that can beat Trump. After the Sept. debates I
expect The Nation to endorse Warren and to still hear grumbling from those that think moving
on from candidate Bernie somehow means unfaithfulness to his/our message .
Kenneth Viste says: June 27, 2019 at 5:52 am
I would like to hear her talk about free college as an investment in people rather than an
expense. Educated people earn more and therefore pay more taxes than uneducated so it pays to
educate the populous to the highest level possible.
Jim Dickinson says: June 26, 2019 at 7:11 pm
Warren gets it and IMO is probably the best Democratic candidate of the bunch. Biden does
not get it and I get depressed seeing him poll above Warren with his tired corporate ideas
from the past.
I have a different take on her not being progressive enough. Her progressive politics are
grounded in reality and not in the pie in the sky dreams of Sanders, et al. The US is a
massively regressive nation and proposing doing everything at once, including a total revamp
of our healthcare system is simply unrealistic.
That was my problem with Sanders, who's ideas I agree with. There is no way in hell to
make the US into a progressive dream in one election - NONE.
I too dream of a progressive US that most likely goes well beyond what most people
envision. But I also have watched those dreams collapse many, many times in the past when we
reach too far. I hope that we can make important but obtainable changes which might make the
great unwashed masses see who cares about them and who does not.
I hope that she does well because she has a plan for many of the ills of this nation. The
US could certainly use some coherent plans after the chaos and insanity of the Trump years.
Arguing about who was the best Democratic candidate in 2016 helped put this schmuck in office
and I hope that we don't go down that path again.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:13 pm
I had a misunderstanding about one key aspect of Warren's political history. I had always
thought that she was neutral in 2016 between Sanders and Hillary Clinton. On CNN this
morning, a news clip showed that Warren in fact endorsed Hillary Clinton publicly, shouting
"I'm with her," BEFORE Sanders withdrew from the race. This action had the effect of
weakening Sanders' bargaining position vis a vis Clinton once he actually withdrew. Clinton
proceeded to treat Sanders and his movement like a dish rag. I am now less ready to support
Warren in any way.
Robert Andrews says: June 26, 2019 at 12:17 pm
I have three main reasons I do not want Senator Warren nominate which are:
Not going all out for a single payer healthcare system. This is a massive problem with
Warren. With her starting out by moving certain groups to Medicare is sketchy at best. Which
groups would be graced first? I am sure whoever is left behind will be thrilled. Is Warren
going to expand Medicare so that supplemental coverages will not be needed anymore? Crying
about going too far too fast is a losing attitude. You go after the most powerful lobby in
the country full bore if you want any kind of real and lasting changes.
With Warren's positions and actions with foreign policy this statement is striking, "Once
Warren's foreign policy record is scrutinized, her status as a progressive champion starts to
wither. While Warren is not on the far right of Democratic politics on war and peace, she
also is not a progressive -- nor a leader -- and has failed to use her powerful position on
the Senate Armed Services Committee to challenge the status quo" - Sarah Lazare. She is the
web editor at In These Times. She comes from a background in independent journalism for
publications including The Intercept, The Nation, and Tom Dispatch. She tweets at
@sarahlazare.
Lastly, the stench with selling off her integrity with receiving corporate donations again
if nominated is overpowering.
For reference, she was a registered Republican until the mid 1990's.
Joan Walsh, why don't you give congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard any presence with your
articles? Her level of integrity out shines any other female candidate and Gabbard's
positions and actions are progressive. I don't want to hear that she isn't a major player,
because you have included Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gabbard's media blackout has been
dramatic, thank you for your contribution with it also.
Robert Andrews says: June 27, 2019 at 8:29 am
I was impressed with Warren on the debate, especially since she finally opened her arms to
a single payer healthcare system.
Caleb Melamed says: June 26, 2019 at 2:35 pm
Gabbard is playing a very important role in this race, whatever her numbers (which are
probably higher than those being reported and are sure to go up after tonight). In some ways,
her position in 2020 resembles that of Sanders in 2016--the progressive outlier, specifically
on issues relating to the U.S. policy of endless war. Gabbard makes Sanders look more
mainstream by comparison on this issue (though their difference is more one of emphasis than
substance), making it much harder for the DNC establishment to demonize and ostracize
Sanders. (Third Way really, really wants to stop Sanders--they have called him an
"existential threat.") Gabbard's important role in this respect is one reason the DNC and its
factotums are expending such effort on sliming her.
By the way, Nation, you have now reprinted my first comment to this article five (5)
times!
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:19 pm
Tulsi,
Our most eloquent anti-military-interventionism candidate, hands down.
Richard Phelps says: June 26, 2019 at 1:29 pm
Unfortunately EW doesn't beat Trump past the margin of error in all the polls I have seen.
Bernie does in most. The other scary factor is how so many neoliberals are now talking nice
about her. They want anyone but the true, consistent progressive, Bernie. And her backing
away from putting us on a human path on health care, like so many other countries, is
foreboding of a sellout to the health insurance companies, a group focused on profits over
health care for our citizens. A group with no redeeming social value. 40,000+ people die each
year due to lack of medical care, so the company executives can have their 8 figure salaries
and golden parachutes when they retire. Also don't forget they are adamantly anti union.
Where is Warren's fervor to ride our country of this leach on society? PS I donated $250 to
her last Senate campaign. I like her. She is just not what we need to stop the final stages
of oligarchic take over, where so much of our resources are wasted on the Pentagon and
unnecessary wars and black opps. It is not Bernie or bust, it is Bernie or oligarchy!!!
Walter Pewen says: June 27, 2019 at 10:52 am
Frankly, having family from Oklahoma I'd say Warren IS a progressive. Start reading
backwards and you will find out.
Clark Shanahan says: June 26, 2019 at 1:24 pm
You certainly shall never see her call out AIPAC.
She has since tried to shift her posture.. but, her original take was lamentable.
You really need to give Hillary responsibility for her loss, Andy
Also, to Obama, who sold control of the DNC over to Clinton Inc in Sept, 2015.
I'll vote for Warren, of course.
Sadly, with our endless wars and our rogue state Israel, Ms Warren is way too deferential;
seemingly hopeless.
Walter Pewen says: June 28, 2019 at 11:22 am
I don't want to vote for Biden. And if he gets the nomination I probably won't. And I've
voted the ticket since 1976. I DO NOT like Joe Biden. Contrary to the media mind fuck we are
getting in this era. And I'll wager a LOT of people don't like him. He is a dick.
Karin Eckvall says: June 26, 2019 at 10:50 am
Well-done article Ms. Walsh. Walter, I want to vote for her but can't because although she
has plans to deal with the waste and corruption at the Pentagon, she has not renounced our
endless militarism, our establishment-endorsed mission to police the world and to change
regimes whenever we feel like it.
If you have ever traveled in Russia outside of Moscow, you certainly have some horrible
stories to tell about its atrocious roads, food and lodging or rather lack thereof. Things have
changed greatly, and they keep changing. Now there are modern highways, plenty of cafés
and restaurants, a lot of small hotels; plumbing has risen to Western standards; the old pearls
of architecture have been lavishly restored; people live better than they ever did. They still
complain a lot, but that is human nature. Young and middle-aged Russians own or charter motor
boats and sail their plentiful rivers; they own country houses ("dachas") more than anywhere
else. They travel abroad for their vacations, pay enormous sums of money for concerts of
visiting celebrities, ride bikes in the cities – in short, Russia has become as
prosperous as any European country.
This hard-earned prosperity and political longevity allows President Putin to hold his own
in the international affairs. He is one of a few experienced leaders on the planet with twenty
years at the top job. He has met with three Popes of Rome, four US Presidents, and many other
rulers. This is important: 93-years old Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad who ruled his Malaysia
for 40 years and has been elected again said the first ten years of a ruler are usually wasted
in learning the ropes, and only after first twenty does he becomes proficient in the art of
government. The first enemy a ruler must fight is his own establishment: media, army,
intelligence and judges. While Trump is still losing in this conflict, Putin is doing fine
– by his Judoka evasive action.
Recently a small tempest has risen in the Russian media, when a young journalist was
detained by police, and a small quantity of drugs was allegedly discovered on his body. The
police made many mistakes in handling the case. Perhaps they planted the evidence to frame the
young man; perhaps they had made the obvious mistakes to frame the government. The response has
been tremendous, as if the whole case had been prepared well in advance by the opposition
hell-bent to annoy and wake up the people's ire against the police and administration. Instead
of supporting the police, as Putin usually does, in this case he had the journalist released
and senior police officers arrested. This prompt evasive action undid the opposition's build-up
by one masterly stroke.
Recently he openly declared his distaste for liberalism in the interview for the FT . This is a major
heresy, like Luther's Ninety-five Theses. "The liberals cannot dictate Their diktat can be seen
everywhere: both in the media and in real life. It is deemed unbecoming even to mention some
topics The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of
the overwhelming majority of the population." Putin condemned liberals' drive for more
immigration. He called Angela Merkel's decision to admit millions of immigrants a "cardinal
mistake"; he "understood" Trump's attempt to stop the flow of migrants and drugs from
Mexico.
Putin is not an enemy of liberalism. He is rather an old-fashionable liberal of the 19
th century style. Not a current 'liberal', but a true liberal, rejecting
totalitarian dogma of gender, immigration, multiculturalism and R2P wars. "The liberal idea
cannot be destroyed; it has the right to exist and it should even be supported in some things.
But it has no right to be the absolute dominating factor."
In Putin's Russia liberalism is non-exclusive, but presents just one possible line of
development. Homosexuals are not discriminated against nor promoted. There are no gay parades,
no persecution of gays, either. Russian children aren't being brainwashed to hate their
fathers, taken away from their families and given to same-sex maniacs, as it happened in the
recent Italian case . Kids aren't
being introduced to joys of sex in primary schools. People are not requested to swear love to
transgenders and immigrants. You can do whatever you wish, just do not force others to follow
you – this is Putin's first rule, and this is true liberalism in my book.
There is very little immigration into Russia despite millions of requests: foreigners can
come in as guest workers, but this does not lead to permanent residency or citizenship. The
Police frequently check foreign-looking people and rapidly deport them if found in breach of
visa rules. Russian nationalists would want even more action, but Putin is a true liberal.
... ... ...
Why does Putin care about the US? Why can't he just stop taking dollars? This means he is an
American stooge! – an eager-for-action hothead zealot would exclaim. The answer is, the
US has gained a lot of power; much more than it had in 1988, when Reagan negotiated with
Gorbachev. The years of being the sole superpower weren't wasted. American might is not to be
trifled with.
New York Times insinuated.
True, Russia is big enough to survive even that treatment, but Russians have got used to a
good life, and they won't cherish being returned to the year 1956. They took action to prevent
these worst-case scenarios; for instance, they sold much of their US debt and
moved out of Microsoft , but these things are time-consuming and expensive. Putin hopes
that eventually the US will abandon its quest for dominance and assume a live-and-let-live
attitude as demanded by the international law. Until it happens, he is forced to play by
Washington rules and try to limit antagonism.
An experienced broker came in, promising to deliver the deal. It is the Jewish state,
claiming to have the means to navigate the US in the desired direction. This is a traditional
Jewish claim, used in the days of the WWI to convince the UK to enter the deal: you give us
Palestine; we shall bring the US into the European war on your side. Then it worked: the Brits
and their Aussie allies stormed Gaza, eventually took over the Holy Land, issued the Balfour
declaration promising to pass Palestine to the Jews, and in return, fresh American troops
poured into the European theatre of war, causing German surrender.
This time, the Jewish state proposed that Putin should give up his ties with Iran; in
return, they promised to assist in general warming of Russo-American relations. Putin had a
bigger counter-proposal: Let the US lift its Iran sanctions and withdraw its armed forces from
Syria, and Russia will try to usher Iranian armed forces out of Syria, too. The ensuing
negotiations around Iran-Syria deal would lead to recognition of the US and Israel interests in
Syria, and further on it could lead to negotiations in other spheres.
This was a clear win-win proposal. Iran would emerge free of sanctions; Israel and the US
would have their interests recognised in Syria; the much-needed dialogue between Russia and the
US will get a jump-start. But Israel does not like win-win proposals. The Jewish state wants
clear victories, preferably with their enemy defeated, humiliated, hanged. Israel rejected the
proposal, for it wanted Iran to suffer under sanctions.
... ... ...
Russia certainly wants to live in peace with the US, but not at the price Mr Netanyahu
suggested. Mr Patrushev condemned the US sanctions against Iran. He
said that Iran shot down the giant American drone RQ-4A Global Hawk worth more than a hundred
million dollars over Iranian territory, not in the international airspace as the Pentagon
claimed. He stated that American "evidence" that Iran had sabotaged tankers in the Persian Gulf
was inconclusive. Russia demanded that the United States stop its economic war against Iran,
recognize the legitimate authorities of Syria, led by President Bashar Assad, and withdraw its
troops from Syria. Russia expressed its support for the legitimate government in Venezuela.
Thus, Russia showed itself at this difficult moment as a reliable ally and partner, and at the
same time assured the staggering Israeli leadership of its friendship.
The problem is that the drive for war with Iran is not gone. A few days ago, the Brits
seized an Iranian super-tanker in the Straits of Gibraltar. The tanker was on its way to
deliver oil to Syria. Before that, the United States had almost launched a missile attack on
Iran. At the last moment, when the planes were already in the air, Trump stopped the operation.
It is particularly disturbing that he himself unambiguously hinted that the operation was
launched
without his knowledge . That is, the chain of commands in the US is now torn, and it is not
clear who can start a war. This has to be taken into account both in Moscow and in Tehran.
... ... ...
Russia wants to help Iran, not out of sheer love to the Islamic Republic, but as a part of
its struggle for multi-polar world, where independent states carry on the way they like. Iran,
North Korea, Venezuela – their fight for survival is a part and parcel of Russia's
struggle. If these states will be taken over, Russia can become the next victim, Putin
feels.
... ... ...
In this situation, Putin tries to build bridges to the new forces in Europe and the US, to
work with nationalist right. It is not the most obvious partner for this old-fashioned liberal,
but they fit into his idea of multi-polarity, of supremacy of national sovereignty and of
resistance to the world hegemony of Atlantic powers. His recent visit to Italy, a country with
strong nationalist political forces, had been successful; so was his meeting with the Pope.
In the aftermath of the audience with the Pope, Putin strongly defended the Catholic Church,
saying that "There are problems, but they cannot be over-exaggerated and used for destroying
the Roman Catholic Church itself. I get the feeling that these liberal circles are beginning to
use certain problems of the Catholic Church as a tool for destroying the Church itself. This is
what I consider to be incorrect and dangerous. After all, we live in a world based on Biblical
values and traditional values are more stable and more important for millions of people than
this liberal idea, which, in my opinion, is really ceasing to exist". For years, the Europeans
haven't heard this message. Perhaps this is the right time to listen.
The author is referring to WWI and the Balfour Declaration of Nov 1917 which indeed was
drafted on behalf of Jewish Zionist interests who in return did their level best in bringing
Wilson, who was long backed by NYC banking interests (hence the Federal Reserve Act of 1913
enacted on his watch), into the war which materially changed its dynamics and outcome.
The Ukraine in all this? I would think it a far bigger concern for Russia in any
trilateral meeting.
Do not expect anything on the Ukraine in the near future. Trump wants the DNC to nominate
guaranteed loser Biden. Then he can beat him senseless using 'Ukrainian tampering with U.S.
elections' via Biden's family business interests (1).
_____
Now that the Mueller exoneration is complete, the door is open to improved U.S. –
Russia relations. The important thing is looking at Putin's and Trump's actions , more
so than their words.
Trump's words sound 'officially concerned' about Crimea. However, this is primarily for EU
consumption. What actions has the Trump administration taken about Crimea? Little or nothing
depending on how you score the matter. So tacit acknowledgement pending a quid pro quo
.
Putin administration words (but not Putin himself) have said strong sounding things about
Iran. However, there are no actions that support a deep relationship.
-- Russia sells munitions to Iran on a 'cash & carry' basis along with many other nations
including Turkey. Russia and Israel have much stronger ties on the military equipment basis.
Look at their recent joint sale of AWACS to India (2).
-- Russia continues to let the Israeli air force freely strike Iranian al'Hezbollah and
al'Quds targets in Syria.
It looks like the quid pro quo arrangement will be Crimea for an Iranian exit from
Syria. It's a deal that would help peace throughout the region.
But he is hampered by his "deep state", by Pompeo and Bolton; about the latter, Trump
himself said that he wants to fight with the whole world. Presidents can't always remove
the ministers from whom they want to get rid of – even the absolute monarchs of the
past did not always succeed.
Actually, Trump is using Bolton against the deep state.
First and foremost, it is and advanced and skillful form of ' Good Cop – Bad
Cop '. When Bolton says something and Trump openly disagrees, it places the Fake Steam
Media complex in an untenable position. If they treat the story fairly, they embrace the
anathema of saying positive things about Trump. But they do not have any options to twist the
facts into their desired anti-American propaganda.
Secondarily, it also cleverly drives a wedge between two DNC factions:
-1- The true Clintonista believer, stricken by Trump Derangement Syndrome [TDS], will not
accept anything less than Impeachment. Preferably followed by turning him over to the Fascist
Stormtroopers of Antifa.
-2- Those with a less deranged view realise that a successful Impeachment process would
generate President Pence. And, he would be much more likely to accept Bolton's advice.
Perhaps Pence would pick Bolton to be Vice President.
Look at the circular firing squad that is forming up in the DNC nomination process to see
how Trump's deliberate agitation of various factions is working in his favor. The TDS faction
is winning and as a result the eventual DNC candidate will be unelectable.
@AghaHussain sts
plans have failed to materialise in Syria. The author here does a very good job of explaining
Russia's position and between his and Saker's analyses your argument is kaput and only fools
would buy it.
The Zionists went away empty handed with their visits to Russia and President Putin and if
anything Russia's resistance to the Zionists has hardened lately.
People who have two dimensional thinking and a limited box of clues seem to think it is as
simple as just saying no and digging their heels in but that way makes wars. Russia does not
have the sort of power nor an insane leadership that it would take for that.
The best hope for an internal Iranian solution is IRGC enlightened self interest. A fairly
bloodless replacement of Khameni with a general from the IRGC. It worked in Egypt and the
world welcomed that military solution. One can be 99% certain that replacing Khameni would be
just as welcome.
The new 'General Ayatollah in Chief' would have a free hand to disengage from Khameni's
extremism. The economic recovery from ending sanctions would guarantee internal popularity.
Think of it as MIGA, Make Iran Great Again , though they are unlikely to use that
exact phrase.
It's ludicrous to imagine that Russians are so wedded to the good life that they do not
dare antagonise Amerikastan. What "good life" is this? Ask the pensioners struggling on a few
thousand rubles a month how the hell they are supposed to manage. The luxuries enjoyed by the
yuppies in Moscow (most of whom, fluently English speaking and firmly pro-Amerikastani, are a
fifth column of Quislings) are not the life that the factory worker in Volgograd or the
farmer outside St Petersburg will recognise.
I want to sidetrack the thread to the matter of Edward Snowden.
Putin made a comment early on 'a strange young man'.
I understand exactly what he was saying. I am the same. No leaks. ht is a matter of
honour.
OTOH, confronted by wall-to-wal evil bullshit as he was, I think he was not in the wrong
(but have a little internal conflict on that, since the secrets 4 have to keep now are ooly
technical and at times commercial, such a dilemna never arises.
In no situation would such be ethical.
he was sorry for Sowden's girlfriend, he dumped her. but, not long after, she was with
him. Very romantic. Doubtless, Russian secret services had some role.
I like the happy ending there, it is very romantic.
Would make a great movie, but not possible from Hollywood, perhaps Russia could revive its
moribund film industry?
Oct 20, 2018 Putin: Russia Getting Rid Of US Dollar Matter Of National Security
Russian president Vladimir Putin: "That's what our American friends are doing. They're
undermining trust in the dollar as a universal payment instrument and the main reserve
currency."
@AmRusDebate t in
2014, and had gone so deep that there is no light at the end of the tunnel now. It is still
used by the Empire as an annoying sore right next to Russia, but that's all it can be. It did
not and could not deliver what the Empire was hoping for. The imperial planners never take
into account the critical condition for their "color revolutions" to bring US-friendly
compradores to power anywhere: the country in question must be rotten through and through.
Thus, instead of useful sharp tools they get worthless pieces of shit. They are still trying
to use an inevitable stink for their purposes, but that's the only use shit is good for.
It's not just Moscow yuppies. Visit any provincial city in Russia today and you'd see that
it looks way better than it ever did in the USSR. There are cafes everywhere and lots of
people in them spending serious money, because they can afford that. Drive on any road, in or
between the cities, and you can see that the roads are in a better shape than they ever were,
and there are lots of gas stations, cafes, and hotels along them, all doing brisk business.
Russians have ten times more cars now than they had in the USSR, and they drive a lot.
@A123 be deployed
right on Russia's border on yet another side. Russia would be readily bottled up and be
denied the freedom to navigate through the surrounding waters. And it would be more
vulnerable to land invasion from more points.
Russia should continue disentangling itself from US and US-Controller financial systems
and institutions. Keep becoming more able to sustain its people without so many imports of
foodstuffs and manufactured goods alike.
Far from giving up Crimea, Russia should bide its time and wait to retake the Donbass
region or more when Ukraine collapses, breaks up, and/or is outright occupied by the US.
I rather doubt you're in any position to judge whether Khameni is a sociopath.
And your fixation on regime change is noted. The ultimate expression of Western arrogance:
You, you benighted, retrograde, sociopathic worm, are not a fit chief executive of your
nation so we have decided you must go. If we have to kill hundreds of thousands of your
people that's just an unavoidable cost of our being the excellent people we are.
Liberalism in the West today is similar to communism in the SU in the late 80's: a
decrepit ideology that offers nothing to ordinary people and whose adherents are incapable of
anything but mouthing the same rubbish over and over. It will similarly die a well-deserved
death.
You can bet that the likes of Rachel Maddow will never change their tune on the subject
of Russiagate.
However, with the election season heating up, it might seem wise for them to
start singing a different tune altogether, such as Sanders and Warren are too radical to have
any chance of defeating Trump.
The saddest thing of all is that the Dems' fixation on Russia
and Putin is now coming back to bite them in the ass. Trump could not have asked for a better
gift.
"... You hypocrites! You build monuments for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If we had lived in the days of our ancestors , we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of His messengers ..."
"... this entire Russian collusion meme seems as though it is an hysterical reaction to the spin put out by the Clinton political faction and their neoliberal enablers after their shocking loss in the 2016 Presidential election. ..."
"... the financial corruption and private pilfering using public power, money laundering and the kind of soft corruption that is rampant amongst our new elite is all there ..."
"... We are reassured and misled by the same kinds of voices that have always served the status quo and the monied interests, the think tanks, the so-called 'institutes,' and the web sites and former con men who offer a constant stream of thinly disguised propaganda and misstatements of principle and history. We are comforted by their lies. ..."
"... We wish to strike a deal with the Lord, and a deal with the Devil -- to serve both God and Mammon as it suits us. It really is that cliché. And it is so finely woven into the fabric of our day that we cannot see it; we cannot see that it is happening to us and around us. ..."
"... It has always been so, especially in times of such vanity and greed as are these. Then is now. There is nothing new under the sun. And certainly nothing exceptional about the likes of us in our indulgent self-destruction. ..."
"He drew near and saw the city, and he wept for it saying, 'If you had only recognized the things that make for peace.
But now you are blinded to them. Truly, the days will come when your enemies will set up barriers to surround you, and hem
you in on every side. Then they will crush you into the earth, you and your children. And they will not leave one stone
upon another, because you did not recognize the way to your salvation.'"
Luke 19:41-44
"You hypocrites! You build monuments for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. And you say, 'If
we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of His messengers.'"
Matthew 23:29-30
...the results of the Senate GOP finding no evidence of 'collusion' with Russia by the Trump Administration to influence the
results of the presidential election..
This last item is not surprising, because this entire Russian collusion meme seems as though it is an hysterical reaction
to the spin put out by the Clinton political faction and their neoliberal enablers after their shocking loss in the 2016 Presidential
election.
Too bad though, because the financial corruption and private pilfering using public power, money laundering and the kind
of soft corruption that is rampant amongst our new elite is all there. And by there we mean on both sides of the fence -- which
is why it had to take a back seat to a manufactured boogeyman.
... ... ...
There is a long road ahead before we see anything like a resolution to this troubling period in American political history.
We look back at other troubled periods and places, and either see them as discrete and fictional, a very different world apart,
or through some rosy lenses of good old times which were largely benign and peaceful. We fail to see the continuity, the similarity,
and the commonality of a dangerous path with ourselves. As they did with their own times gone by. Madness blinds its acolytes, because
they wish it so. They embrace it to hide their shame.
We are reassured and misled by the same kinds of voices that have always served the status quo and the monied interests,
the think tanks, the so-called 'institutes,' and the web sites and former con men who offer a constant stream of thinly disguised
propaganda and misstatements of principle and history. We are comforted by their lies.
People want to hear these reassuring words of comfort and embrace it like a 'religion,' because they do not wish to draw the
conclusions that the genuine principles of faith suggest (dare we say command in this day and age) in their daily lives.
They blind themselves by adopting a kind of a schizoid approach to life, where 'religion' occupies a discrete, rarefied space, and
'political or economic philosophy' dictates another set of everyday 'practical' observances and behaviors which are more pliable,
and pleasing to our hardened and prideful hearts.
We wish to strike a deal with the Lord, and a deal with the Devil -- to serve both God and Mammon as it suits us. It really is
that cliché. And it is so finely woven into the fabric of our day that we cannot see it; we cannot see that it is happening to us
and around us.
And so we trot on into the abyss, one exception and excuse and rationalization for ourselves at a time. And we blind ourselves
with false prophets and their profane theories and philosophies.
As for truth, the truth that brings life, we would interrupt the sermon on the mount itself, saying that this sentiment was all
very well and good, but what stocks should we buy for our portfolio, and what horse is going to win the fifth at Belmont? Tell us
something useful, practical! Oh, and can you please fix this twinge in my left shoulder? It is ruining my golf game.
"Those among the rich who are not, in the rigorous sense, damned, can understand poverty, because they are poor themselves,
after a fashion; they cannot understand destitution. Capable of giving alms, perhaps, but incapable of stripping themselves
bare, they will be moved, to the sound of beautiful music, at Jesus's sufferings, but His Cross, the reality of His Cross, will
horrify them. They want it all out of gold, bathed in light, costly and of little weight; pleasant to see, hanging from a woman's
beautiful throat."
Léon Bloy
No surprise in this. It has always been so, especially in times of such vanity and greed as are these. Then is now. There
is nothing new under the sun. And certainly nothing exceptional about the likes of us in our indulgent self-destruction.
"... When tariffs went up from 0 to 10% on some product categories last year, many suppliers agreed to absorb half that amount (5%) in exchange for larger orders. The logic was as follows: higher orders lead to better deals with component suppliers and to higher production efficiencies, which means lower costs. ..."
"... Do you ship American wood for processing in China and re-exporting to the US? You might have issues getting that material into China as smoothly as before. And then, the US Customs office might give you a hard time when you bring the goods in, too! ..."
"... Who knows what non-monetary barriers the Chinese will erect. One can count on their creativity ..."
"... Several US companies asked our company to look for assembly plants in Vietnam and, in those cases where we found some options, they were much more expensive than China. There is a reason why China's share of hard goods production in Asia has kept growing in recent years -- competition is often non-existent. ..."
"... Now, with China's products suddenly much more expensive, what are these competing countries going to do? Won't they take advantage of it and push wages further up, at least for the export manufacturing sector? ..."
"... Mexico should be the clear winner of this trade war. They are next to the US, their labor cost is comparable to that of China, and many American companies have long had extensive operations there. ..."
Based on
allthe
articles I have read about the current geopolitical situation, I am not optimistic about
the affect of the US-China trade war on American importers. Dan Harris, who wrote "
the US-China Cold War start now, " announced that a "mega-storm" might be coming, and he
may be right.
Now, if things turn out as bad as predicted, and if tariffs apply on more goods imported
from China to the US -- and at higher rates -- what does it mean for US importers?
What
will the damage from the US-China trade war look like?
These are my thoughts about who or what is going to be hit hard by the ongoing 'trade
war:'
1. Small importers will be hit much harder than larger ones
If you work with very large Chinese manufacturers, many of them have already started to set
up operations outside of mainland China, for the simple reason that most of their customers
have been pushing for that.
They are in Vietnam, Malaysia, etc. And this is true in most industries -- from apparel to
electronics.
Do they still have to import most of their components from China? It depends on their
footprints. As I wrote before :
You set up a mammoth plant and you don't want your high-value component suppliers to be
more than 1 hour away from you, for just-in-time inventory replenishment? They can be
requested to set up a new manufacturing facility next to you.
2. A higher total cost of goods purchased from China
This one is obvious. If you have orders already in production, they will cost you more than
expected.
The RMB might slide quite a bit, and that might alleviate the total cost. I hope you have
followed my advice and started paying your suppliers in RMB , to benefit
from it automatically.
Beijing might also give other forms of subsidies to their exporters. They might be quite
visible (e.g. a higher VAT rebate) or totally 'under the table'.
3. Difficult
negotiations with Chinese suppliers
Can you say the tariffs are Beijing's fault, and so your suppliers should absorb the
tariffs? That's not going to work.
When tariffs went up from 0 to 10% on some product categories last year, many suppliers
agreed to absorb half that amount (5%) in exchange for larger orders. The logic was as follows:
higher orders lead to better deals with component suppliers and to higher production
efficiencies, which means lower costs.
When tariffs go from 10% to 35%, what else can US buyers give their counter-parties?
Payments in advance? Lower quality standards? I don't believe that.
4. Difficulties at
several levels in the supply chain
Do you ship American wood for processing in China and re-exporting to the US? You might have
issues getting that material into China as smoothly as before. And then, the US Customs office
might give you a hard time when you bring the goods in, too!
Who knows what non-monetary barriers the Chinese will erect. One can count on their
creativity
5. Short-term non-elasticity of alternative sources
There are a finite number of Vietnamese export-ready manufacturers that can make your
orders. And, chances are, their capacity is already full. If you haven't prepared this move for
months (or years), other US companies have. The early bird gets the worm
Same thing with Thailand, Indonesia, India, and so on, with the exception of apparel and
(maybe) footwear.
Several US companies asked our company
to look for assembly plants in Vietnam and, in those cases where we found some options, they
were much more expensive than China. There is a reason why China's share of
hard goods production in Asia has kept growing in recent years -- competition is often
non-existent.
6. Faster cost increases in other low-cost Asian countries
Now, with China's products suddenly much more expensive, what are these competing countries
going to do? Won't they take advantage of it and push wages further up, at least for the export
manufacturing sector?
There could be some 'silver linings' due to the trade war
It is not all bad news though. We may see these benefits caused by China and the USA
slugging it out too:
7. Many opportunities for Mexico
Mexico should be the clear winner of this trade war. They are next to the US, their labor
cost is comparable to that of China, and many American companies have long had extensive
operations there.
8. Rapid consolidation in the Chinese manufacturing sector
The fittest will survive. Many uncompetitive manufacturers and traders will fold. Consolidation
will accelerate. I often look at what happened in Japan and South Korea . Each of these countries
developed very fast and, when the going got tough, the export manufacturing sector got
devastated. Only the most competitive survived.
9. Relaxed enforcement of anti-pollution
regulations in China?
I'd bet that, if the tariffs hit hard, far fewer operations will get closed for
environmental reasons. Preserving employment and social peace will prevail.
"... There are two problems with storming the Winter Palace. First, you won't have a decisive majority of Americans behind you. Second, you have no idea what you'd do if somehow did seize the Winter Palace. You could conceivably solve the first problem by going balls out demagogue a la Hugo Chavez; but, like Chavez, you'd have to dispense with democracy to keep power because you have no solution to the second problem. For my money, a decent social democracy-universal healthy care, more progressive taxes, a higher minimum wage, more affordable college education, etc.- is plenty hard enough to secure. ..."
"... Before the long-decline began in the 70s, a large fraction of the UK's economic activity was chartered, regulated, and/or managed for the people. That's not capitalism, by definition. ..."
"Does anybody around here have anything useful to suggest"
both demonstration and general strikes are powerful ways to express popular outrage. one is planned
on for the 17th (too soon) and another more organized one is being planned for march.
"the British welfare state, the war on poverty/great society policy era, and the Scandinavian
social model are" not replacements for capitalism. They are forms of capitalism. And the sorts
of policies that go with these versions of conventional social democracy are...pretty much the
platform articles that Clinton ran on. Which is the serious reason the American right despised
Hillary. They, at least, didn't have any trouble telling the candidates apart.
There are two problems with storming the Winter Palace. First, you won't have a decisive majority
of Americans behind you. Second, you have no idea what you'd do if somehow did seize the Winter
Palace. You could conceivably solve the first problem by going balls out demagogue a la Hugo Chavez;
but, like Chavez, you'd have to dispense with democracy to keep power because you have no solution
to the second problem. For my money, a decent social democracy-universal healthy care, more progressive
taxes, a higher minimum wage, more affordable college education, etc.- is plenty hard enough to
secure.
Before the long-decline began in the 70s, a large fraction of the UK's economic activity was
chartered, regulated, and/or managed for the people. That's not capitalism, by definition. (Socialism
was a market/trade-based system at its inception. The tendencies with alternative economic models
came later.)
"And the sorts of policies that go with these versions of conventional social democracy are...pretty much the platform
articles that Clinton ran on."
I guess I missed Clinton advocating for the nationalization of health care, education, energy
production, and transportation.
And the "welfare state" has little to do with "social democracy" (whatever that recent nonsense
phrase means), all of them were developed by socialist movements.
"... The idea of the 'American dream' seems to have morphed into a nasty belief that if you're poor it's your own fault. You didn't 'want it enough'. You must be secretly lazy and undeserving, even if you're actually working three jobs to survive, or even if there are no jobs. ..."
"... It always seems very odd to me that so many people who think like that profess to be Christian. 'Poverty equals moral failure' is the complete opposite of what Jesus Christ got into so much trouble for saying. ..."
The idea of the 'American dream' seems to have morphed into a nasty belief that if
you're poor it's your own fault. You didn't 'want it enough'. You must be secretly lazy and
undeserving, even if you're actually working three jobs to survive, or even if there are no
jobs.
This view has taken hold in the UK too, where the tabloids peddle the view that anyone who
claims state benefits must be a fraud. But at least, people here and in mainland Europe have
the direct experience of war within living memory and we understand that you can lose
everything through no fault of your own. In the US, even when there's a natural disaster like
Katrina it seems to be the poor people's fault for not having their own transport and money
to go and stay somewhere else.
It always seems very odd to me that so many people who think like that profess to be
Christian. 'Poverty equals moral failure' is the complete opposite of what Jesus Christ got
into so much trouble for saying.
Pretty superficial article, but some points are interesting. Especially the fact that the collapse of neoliberalism
like collapse of Bolshevism is connected with its inability to raise the standard of living of population in major Western
countries, despite looting of the USSR and Middle eastern countries since 1991. Spoils of victory in the Cold War never got to
common people. All was appropriated by greedy "New Class" of neoliberal oligarchs.
The same was true with Bolshevism in the USSR. The communist ideology was dead after WWII when it became clear that
"proletariat" is not a new class destined to take over and the "iron law of oligarchy" was discovered. Collapse happened
in 45 years since the end of WWII. Neoliberal ideology was dead in 2008. It would be interesting to see if neoliberalism
as a social system survives past 2050.
The level of degeneration of the USA elite probably exceeds the level of degeneration of Nomenklatura even now.
Notable quotes:
"... A big reason why liberal democracies in Europe have remained relatively stable since WWII is that most Europeans have had hope that their lives will improve. A big reason why the radical vote has recently been on the rise in several European countries is that part of the electorate has lost this hope. People are increasingly worried that not only their own lives but also the lives of their children will not improve and that the playing field is not level. ..."
"... As a result, the traditional liberal package of external liberalisation and internal redistribution has lost its appeal with the electorate, conceding ground to the alternative package of the radical right that consists of external protectionism and internal liberalisation ..."
"... Mr Mody said the bottom half of German society has not seen any increase in real incomes in a generation. ..."
"... The reforms pushed seven million people into part-time 'mini-jobs' paying €450 (£399) a month. It lead to corrosive "pauperisation". This remains the case even though the economy is humming and surging exports have pushed the current account surplus to 8.5pc of GDP." ..."
"... "British referendum on EU membership can be explained to a remarkable extent as a vote against globalisation much more than immigration " ..."
"... As an FYI to the author immigration is just the flip side of the same coin. Why were immigrants migrating? Often it's because they can no longer make a living where they left. Why? Often globalization impacts. ..."
"... The laws of biology and physics and whatever else say that the host that is being parasitised upon, cannot support the endless growth of the parasites attached upon it. The unfortunate host will eventually die. ..."
"... "negative effects of globalisation: foreign competition, factory closures, persistent unemployment, stagnating purchasing power, deteriorating infrastructures and public services" ..."
"... he ruling elites have broken away from the people. The obvious problem is the gap between the interests of the elites and the overwhelming majority of the people. ..."
"... One of the things we must do in Russia is never to forget that the purpose of the operation and existence of any government is to create a stable, normal, safe and predictable life for the people and to work towards a better future. ..."
"... "If you're not willing to kill everybody who has a different idea than yourself, you cannot have Frederick Hayek's free market. You cannot have Alan Greenspan or the Chicago School, you cannot have the economic freedom that is freedom for the rentiers and the FIRE (finance, insurance, real estate) sector to reduce the rest of the economy to serfdom." ~ Michael Hudson ..."
"... I'm surprised more people don't vote for neo-fascist parties like the Golden Dawn. Ordinary liberal politics has completely failed them. ..."
The more a local economy has been negatively affected by the two shocks, the more its
electors have shifted towards the radical right and its policy packages. These packages
typically combine the retrenchment against international openness and the liberalisation of the
internal market and more convincingly address the demand for protection by an electorate that,
after the austerity following the Crisis, no longer trusts alternatives based on more liberal
stances on foreign relations and the parallel promise of a stronger welfare state.
A big reason why liberal democracies in Europe have remained relatively stable since WWII is
that most Europeans have had hope that their lives will improve. A big reason why the radical
vote has recently been on the rise in several European countries is that part of the electorate
has lost this hope. People are increasingly worried that not only their own lives but also the
lives of their children will not improve and that the playing field is not level.
On the one hand, despite some progress in curtailing 'tax havens' in recent years, there has
never been as much wealth in tax havens as there is today (Zucman 2015). This is seen as unfair
because, if public goods and services (including those required to help the transition to a
'green economy') have to be provided in the regions where such hidden wealth comes from, lost
tax revenues have to be compensated for by higher taxes on law-abiding households.
On the other hand, fairness is also undermined by dwindling social mobility. In the last
decades, social mobility has slowed down across large parts of the industrialised world (OECD
2018), both within and between generations. Social mobility varies greatly across regions
within countries, correlates positively with economic activity, education, and social capital,
and negatively with inequality (Güell at al. 2018). Renewed migration from the South to
the North of Europe after the Crisis (Van Mol and de Valk 2016) is a testimony of the widening
relative lack of opportunities in the places that have suffered the most from competition from
low-wage countries.
Concluding Remarks
Globalisation has come accompanied by the Great Convergence between countries around the
world but also the Great Divergence between regions within several industrialised countries.
The same holds within the EU. In recent years, redistributive policies have had only a very
limited impact in terms of reversing growing regional inequality.
As a result, the traditional
liberal package of external liberalisation and internal redistribution has lost its appeal with
the electorate, conceding ground to the alternative package of the radical right that consists
of external protectionism and internal liberalisation.
This is both inefficient and unlikely to
lead to more regional convergence. What the political and policy debate in Europe is arguably
missing is a clearer focus on two of the main underlying causes of peoples' growing distrust in
national and international institutions: fiscal fairness and social mobility.
Right. It would be better to say "the traditional New Deal liberal package " has not lost
its appeal, it was killed off bit by bit starting with NAFTA. From a 2016 Thomas Frank essay
in Salon:
That appeal to [educated credentialed] class unity gives a hint of what Clintonism was
all about. To owners and shareholders, who would see labor costs go down as they took
advantage of unorganized Mexican labor and lax Mexican environmental enforcement, NAFTA held
fantastic promise. To American workers, it threatened to send their power, and hence their
wages, straight down the chute. To the mass of the professional-managerial class, people who
weren't directly threatened by the treaty, holding an opinion on NAFTA was a matter of
deferring to the correct experts -- economists in this case, 283 of whom had signed a
statement declaring the treaty "will be a net positive for the United States, both in terms
of employment creation and overall economic growth."
The predictions of people who opposed the agreement turned out to be far closer to what
eventually came to pass than did the rosy scenarios of those 283 economists and the
victorious President Clinton. NAFTA was supposed to encourage U.S. exports to Mexico; the
opposite is what happened, and in a huge way. NAFTA was supposed to increase employment in
the U.S.; a study from 2010 counts almost 700,000 jobs lost in America thanks to the treaty.
And, as feared, the agreement gave one class in America enormous leverage over the other:
employers now routinely threaten to move their operations to Mexico if their workers
organize. A surprisingly large number of them -- far more than in the pre-NAFTA days -- have
actually made good on the threat.
Twenty years later, the broader class divide over the subject persists as well.
According to a 2014 survey of attitudes toward NAFTA after two decades, public opinion
remains split. But among people with professional degrees -- which is to say, the liberal
class -- the positive view remains the default. Knowing that free-trade treaties are always
for the best -- even when they empirically are not -- seems to have become for the
well-graduated a badge of belonging.
The only internal redistribution that's happened in the past 25 – 30 yearsis from
the bottom 80% to the top 10% and especially to the top 1/10th of 1 %.
Not hard to imagine why the current internal redistribution model has lost its appeal with
the electorate.
I think there are two different globalizations that people are responding to.
1. Their jobs go away to somewhere in the globe that has lower wages, lower labor
protections, and lower environmental protections. So their community largely stays the same
but with dwindling job prospects and people slowly moving away.
2. The world comes to their community where they see immigrants (legal, illegal, refugees)
coming in and are willing to work harder for less, as well as having different appearance,
languages, religion, and customs. North America has always had this as we are built on
immigration. Europe is much more focused on terroire. If somebody or something has only been
there for a century, they are new.
If you combine both in a community, you have lit a stick of dynamite as the locals feel
trapped with no way out. Then you get Brexit and Trump. In the US, many jobs were sent
overseas and so new people coming in are viewed as competitors and agents of change instead
of just new hired help. The same happened in Britain. In mainland Europe with less inequality
and more job protection, it is more of just being overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of
newcomers in a society that does not prize that at all.
I saw the warning signs when Golden Dawn appeared in Greece
The liberals said it was just a one off, as they always do, until it isn't.
How did successful Germany turn into a country where extremism would flourish?
The Hartz IV reforms created the economic hardship that causes extremism to flourish.
"Germany is turning to soft nationalism. People on low incomes are voting against authority
because the consensus on equality and justice has broken down. It is the same pattern across
Europe," said Ashoka Mody, a former bail-out chief for the International Monetary Fund in
Europe.
Mr Mody said the bottom half of German society has not seen any increase in real
incomes in a generation. The Hartz IV reforms in 2003 and 2004 made it easier to fire
workers, leading to wage compression as companies threatened to move plants to Eastern
Europe.
The reforms pushed seven million people into part-time 'mini-jobs' paying €450
(£399) a month. It lead to corrosive "pauperisation". This remains the case even though
the economy is humming and surging exports have pushed the current account surplus to 8.5pc
of GDP."
This is a successful European country, imagine what the others look like.
"British referendum on EU membership can be explained to a remarkable extent as a vote
against globalisation much more than immigration "
As an FYI to the author immigration is just the flip side of the same coin. Why were
immigrants migrating? Often it's because they can no longer make a living where they left.
Why? Often globalization impacts.
Another recap about that really just mourns the lack of trust in the establishment, with
no answers. More "I can't believe people are sick to death of experts of dubious skills but
networking "
What it is just admitted that a system that can only work great for 20% of any given
population if they are born in the right region with the right last name just simply not work
except as an exercise in extraction?
And about the EU as if it could never be taken over by bigger authoritatians than the ones
already populating it.
Then see how much those who think it is some forever bastion of liberalism over sovereignity
likes it .
"Another recap about that really just mourns the lack of trust in the establishment,
with no answers."
Usually it involves replacing the establishment or creating an internal threat to
reinstate compliance in the establish (Strauss and Howe).
Strategies for initiate the former may be impossible in this era where the deep state can
read your thoughts through digital media so you would like it would trend to the latter.
Mmmmm, yes, migration, globalisation and such like.
But, unregulated migration into an established environment, say a country, say, UK, on one
hand furthers profits to those benefiting from low labour wages (mainly, friends of people
working for governments), but on the other leads to creation of parallel societies, where the
incoming population brings along the society they strived to escape from. The Don calls these
sh***hole societies. Why bring the f***ing thing here, why not leave it where you escaped
from.
But the real betrayal of the native population happens when all those unregulated migrants
are afforded immediate right to social security, full access to NHS and other aspects of
state support, services that they have not paid one penny in support before accessing that
particular government funded trough. And then the parasitic growth of their "family and
extended family" comes along under the banner of "human rights".
This is the damnation of the whole of Western Civilisation which had been hollowed out
from within by the most devious layer of parasitic growth, the government apparatus. The
people we pay for under the auspices that they are doing some work for us, are enforcing
things that treat the income generators, the tax paying society as serfs whose primary
function in life is to support the parasites (immigrants) and parasite enablers
(government).
The laws of biology and physics and whatever else say that the host that is being
parasitised upon, cannot support the endless growth of the parasites attached upon it. The
unfortunate host will eventually die.
Understanding of this concept is most certainly within mental capabilities of all those
employed as the "governing classes " that we are paying for through our taxes.
Until such time when legislation is enacted that each and every individual member of
"government classes " is made to pay, on an indemnity basis, through financial damages,
forced labour, organs stripping or custodial penalties, for every penny (or cent, sorry,
yanks), of damage they inflict on us taxpayers, we are all just barking.
This piece does an admirable job conflating globalisation and the ills caused by the
neoliberal capture of social democratic parties/leaders. Did people just happen to lose hope,
or were they actively betrayed? We are left to guess.
"negative effects of globalisation: foreign competition, factory closures, persistent
unemployment, stagnating purchasing power, deteriorating infrastructures and public
services"
Note that these ills could also be laid at the feet of the austerity movement, and the
elimination/privatisation of National Industrial Policy, both cornerstones of the neoliberal
infestation.
Not only is globalization not new, all of the issues that come with it are old news.
All of it.
Part of the problem is that the global economic order is still in service to the same old
same old. They have to rebrand every so often to keep the comfortable even more comfortable.
Those tasked with keeping the comfortable more comfortable have to present this crap as "new
ideas" for their own careerism or actually do not realize they haven't espoused a new idea in
500 years.
Putin's recent interview with Financial Times editor offers a clear-eyed perspective on
our changing global structure:
"What is happening in the West? What is the reason for the Trump phenomenon, as you said,
in the US? What is happening in Europe as well? The ruling elites have broken away from the
people. The obvious problem is the gap between the interests of the elites and the
overwhelming majority of the people.
Of course, we must always bear this in mind. One of the things we must do in Russia is
never to forget that the purpose of the operation and existence of any government is to
create a stable, normal, safe and predictable life for the people and to work towards a
better future.
You know, it seems to me that purely liberal or purely traditional ideas have never
existed. Probably, they did once exist in the history of humankind, but everything very
quickly ends in a deadlock if there is no diversity. Everything starts to become extreme one
way or another.
Various ideas and various opinions should have a chance to exist and manifest themselves,
but at the same time interests of the general public, those millions of people and their
lives, should never be forgotten. This is something that should not be overlooked.
Then, it seems to me, we would be able to avoid major political upheavals and troubles.
This applies to the liberal idea as well. It does not mean (I think, this is ceasing to be a
dominating factor) that it must be immediately destroyed. This point of view, this position
should also be treated with respect.
They cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do
over the recent decades. Diktat can be seen everywhere: both in the media and in real life.
It is deemed unbecoming even to mention some topics. But why?
For this reason, I am not a fan of quickly shutting, tying, closing, disbanding
everything, arresting everybody or dispersing everybody. Of course, not. The liberal idea
cannot be destroyed either; it has the right to exist and it should even be supported in some
things. But you should not think that it has the right to be the absolute dominating factor.
That is the point. Please." ~ Vladmir Putin
He's talking about the end of neoliberalism, the economic fascism that has gripped the
world for over 40 years:
"If you're not willing to kill everybody who has a different idea than yourself, you
cannot have Frederick Hayek's free market. You cannot have Alan Greenspan or the Chicago
School, you cannot have the economic freedom that is freedom for the rentiers and the FIRE
(finance, insurance, real estate) sector to reduce the rest of the economy to serfdom." ~
Michael Hudson
Let's get back to using fiscal policy for public purpose again, to granting nations their
right to self-determination and stopping the latest desperate neoliberal attempt to change
international norms by installing fascist dictators (while pretending they are different) in
order to move the world backwards to a time when "efforts to institutionalize standards of
human and civil rights were seen as impingements on sovereignty, back to the days when no one
gave a second thought to oppressed peoples."
Very interesting article, and even more interesting conversation! There is a type of
argument that very accurately points out some ills that need addressing, and then goes on to
spout venom on the only system that might be able to address those ills.
It may be that the
governing classes are making life easy for themselves. How to address that is the hard and
difficult issue. Most of the protection of the small people comes from government.
Healthcare, schools, roads, water etc.(I'm in scandinavia).
If the government crumbles, the
small people have to leave. The most dreadful tyranny is better than a failed state with
warring factions.
The only viable way forward is to somehow improve the system while it is
(still) running. But this discussion I do not see anywhere.
If the discussion does not
happen, there will not be any suggestions for improvement, so everything stays the same.
Change is inevitable – it what state it will catch us is the important thing. A cashier
at a Catalonian family vineyard told me the future is local and global: the next level from
Catalonia will be EU. What are the steps needed to go there?
Same old, Same old. Government is self-corrupting and is loath to change. People had
enough July fourth 1776.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty
and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted
among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever
any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to
alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such
principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to
effect their Safety and Happiness."
FWIW: The fireworks we watch every Fourth of July holiday are symbolic!!!!
The cashier seems to be envisioning a neoliberal paradise where the nation-state no longer
exists. But who, then, collects the taxes that will pay for infrastructure, healthcare,
education, public housing, and unemployment insurance? The European Parliament?
Will Germans
and Finns be willing to pay high taxes in order to pay for those services for Greeks and
Spaniards?
Look at the unemployment rate in Greece the Germans would simply say that the
Greeks are lazy parasites and don't want to work (rather than understand that the economic
conditions don't allow for job creation), and they would vote for MEPs that vote to cut taxes
and welfare programs.
But maybe this was the plan all along you create this neoliberal paradise, and slowly but
surely, people will dismantle all but the bare bones of the welfare state.
I believe that one of the fundamental flaws in the logic behind the EU is this assumption
of mobility. Proponents of the EU imagine society to be how it is described in economics
textbooks: a bunch of individual actors seeking to maximize their incomes that don't seem to
exist in any geographic context. The reality is that people are born into families and
communities that speak a language. Most of them probably don't want to just pack up all of
their things, relocate, and leave their family and home behind every time they get a new job.
People throughout history have always had a very strong connection to the land on which they
were raised and the society into which they were brought up; more accurately, for most of
human history, this formed the entire existence, the entire universe, of most people
(excluding certain oppressed groups, such as slaves or the conquered).
Human beings are not able to move as freely as capital. While euros in Greece can be sent
to and used instantly in Germany, it is not so easy for a Greek person to leave the society
that their ancestors have lived in for thousands of years and move to a new country with a
new culture and language. For privileged people that get to travel, this doesn't sound so
bad, but for someone whose family has lived in the same place for centuries and never learned
to speak another language, this experience would be extremely difficult. For many people over
the age of 25, it might not even be a life worth living.
In the past, economic difficulties would lead to a depreciation of a nation's currency and
inflation. But within the current structure of the Eurozone, it results in deflation as euros
escape to the core countries (mainly Germany) and unemployment. Southern Europeans are
expected to leave everything they have ever known behind and move to the countries where
there is work, like Germany or Holland. Maybe for a well-educated worldly 18 year old, that's
not so bad, but what about a newly laid-off working class 35 year-old with a wife and kids
and no college degree? He's supposed to just pick up his family and leave his parents and
relatives behind, learn German, and spend the rest of his life and Germany? His kids now have
to be German? Would he even be able to get a job there, anyway? Doing what? And how is he
supposed to stop this from happening, how is he supposed to organize politically to keep jobs
at home? The Greek government can hardly do anything because the IMF, ECB, and European
Commission (all unelected officials) call the shots and don't give them any fiscal breathing
room (and we saw what happened the last time voters tried to assert their autonomy in the
bailout deal referendum), and the European Parliament doesn't have a serious budget to
actually do anything.
I'm surprised more people don't vote for neo-fascist parties like the
Golden Dawn. Ordinary liberal politics has completely failed them.
"... “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both. ..."
The neoliberal era is being undermined from two directions. First, if its record of economic
growth has never been particularly strong, it is now dismal. Europe is barely larger than it
was on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007; the United States has done better but even its
growth has been anaemic. Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the
future is most likely one of secular stagnation .
Worse, because the recovery has been so weak and fragile, there is a widespread belief that
another financial crisis may well beckon. In other words, the neoliberal era has delivered the
west back into the kind of crisis-ridden world that we last experienced in the 1930s. With this
background, it is hardly surprising that a majority in the west now believe their children will
be worse off than they were. Second, those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no
longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they are increasingly in open revolt. We are
witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes,
just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s.
A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual
voices raised against it. From the mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was
increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers. But since the western financial
crisis, the centre of gravity of the intellectual debate has shifted profoundly. This is most
obvious in the United States, with economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dani
Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs becoming increasingly influential. Thomas Piketty's Capital in the
Twenty-First Century has been a massive seller. His work and that of Tony
Atkinson and Angus Deaton have pushed the question of the inequality to the top of the
political agenda. In the UK, Ha-Joon Chang , for long isolated within
the economics profession, has gained a following far greater than those who think economics is
a branch of mathematics.
Meanwhile, some of those who were previously strong advocates of a neoliberal approach, such
as Larry Summers and the Financial Times 's Martin Wolf, have become extremely critical.
The wind is in the sails of the critics of neoliberalism; the neoliberals and monetarists are
in retreat. In the UK, the media and political worlds are well behind the curve. Few recognise
that we are at the end of an era. Old attitudes and assumptions still predominate, whether on
the BBC's Today programme, in the rightwing press or the parliamentary Labour party.
As Thomas
Piketty has shown, in the absence of countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing
inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late 70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since
the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none. As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a
winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot, as graphically illustrated by
the support for Trump and Sanders in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. This popular revolt is often described, in a somewhat
denigratory and dismissive fashion, as populism. Or, as Francis Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent essay
in
Foreign Affairs: “‘Populism’ is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that
they don’t like.” Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is
generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually
both.
"... The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending, greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined. ..."
"... And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both political parties. ..."
"... only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget "extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system. ..."
"... In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of catastrophic global heating. ..."
The US today is a global empire. Our country's military, ballooning to some 2.1 million
in uniform at a time that there is really no significant war underway. US military spending,
greater in constant dollars than at any time since WWII, represents 34% of all global military
spending, and the US military budget, depending on how one counts it, is larger than the next
largest eight-to-ten countries' military budgets combined.
To show how ridiculously huge the US military is, consider that at $220 billion for fiscal
year 2020, the US budget for Veterans Affairs alone (that's the agency that provides assistance
of all kinds, including medical, to those who served in the military, not counting career
soldiers who receive a pension that is counted separately) this one military budget line item
is larger than the entire military budget of China, and is more than three times as large as
the entire military budget of Russia, considered by many to be our primary "adversary"!
And remember -- US empire and militarism is and has always been supported by both
political parties.
... ... ...
I read that a recent Gallup Organization poll shows a significant drop in the percentage of
US Americans who are "extremely proud" of their country. True, 45% still say they are "proud"
of America, but normally that is how many say they are "extremely proud" to be Americans.
That's a significant fall-off. Even among normally super-patriotic Republicans the percentage
of those saying they are "extremely proud" this July 4 of this country was down to 76%, a 10%
drop from 2003, and close to the 68% low point reached at one point during the Obama
administration.
The main cause of the loss of patriotic ardor appears to be dismay or disgust with the US
political system. According to the poll, only 32% of Americans say they are "proud" (forget
"extremely proud"!) of America's vaunted political system. In a close second for popular
disgust, only 37% said they are "proud" of the US health care system.
So I guess I'm in pretty good company. I won't be oohing and aaahing at the local fireworks
display this year. It's basically a glorification of US war-making anyhow, and there's nothing
at all to be proud of in that regard, particularly with the US in the midst of a $1.5-trillion
upgrade of its nuclear arsenal, threatening war with Iran, pulling out of a Reagan-era treaty
banning intermediate-range nuclear missiles, and embarking in a new arms race both in space and
in virtually unstoppable hypersonic cruise missiles.
In my view, my country has become the world's leading "rogue" nation, dismissive of all
international laws and codes of conduct, actively attacking many countries on its own
authority, without the support of UN Security Council resolutions, exonerating war crimes
committed by its soldiers, and committed to the first use of nuclear weapons, both as a first
strike against major power rivals like Russia and China, and against non-nuclear nations like
Iran, and equally dismissive of all efforts, large and small, to respond to the crisis of
catastrophic global heating. [
At home, the US legal system has become a supine supporter of
virtually unlimited executive power, of unchecked police power, and of repressive actions
against the supposedly constitutionally protected free press.
It's tempting to hope that the decline noted by Gallup in the percent of Americans
expressing "extreme pride" and even of "pride" in the US, but support for the US among the
country's citizens still remains shamefully high in the face of all these negatives.
Anyhow, count me among those who won't be celebrating today's July 4 national
holiday.
"... "Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization." ..."
"... Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army fell thousands of troops short of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017 Department of Defense poll that found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z. ..."
"... These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right alliance between two influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months, they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. ..."
"... In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill ultimately passed the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be vetoed by President Trump. That such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy." ..."
"... And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives, and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come. ..."
"... In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this." ..."
"... It is little recognized how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC while also taking heavy casualties. ..."
"... We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South. ..."
"... Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. ..."
"... President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions. ..."
Peace activism is rising, but that isn't translating into huge street demonstrations, writes Allegra Harpootlian.
W hen Donald Trump entered the Oval Office in January 2017, Americans took to the streets all across the country to protest their
instantly endangered rights. Conspicuously absent from the newfound civic engagement, despite more than a decade and a half of this
country's fruitless, destructive wars across the Greater Middle East and northern Africa, was antiwar sentiment, much less an actual
movement.
Those like me working against America's seemingly
endless
wars wondered why the subject merited so little discussion, attention, or protest. Was it because the still-spreading war on
terror remained shrouded in government secrecy? Was the lack of media coverage about what America was doing overseas to blame? Or
was it simply that most Americans didn't care about what was happening past the water's edge? If you had asked me two years ago,
I would have chosen "all of the above." Now, I'm not so sure.
After the enormous demonstrations
against the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the antiwar movement disappeared almost as suddenly as it began, with some even openly
declaring it dead. Critics
noted the long-term absence of significant protests against those wars, a lack of political will in Congress to deal with them,
and ultimately,
apathy on matters of war and peace when compared to issues like health care, gun control, or recently even
climate
change .
The pessimists have been right to point out that none of the plethora of marches on Washington since Donald Trump was elected
have had even a secondary focus on America's fruitless wars. They're certainly right to question why Congress, with the constitutional
duty to declare war, has until recently allowed both presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump to wage war as they wished without
even consulting them. They're right to feel nervous when a national
poll shows that more Americans think we're fighting a war in Iran (we're not) than a war in Somalia (
we are ).
But here's what I've been wondering recently: What if there's an antiwar movement growing right under our noses and we just haven't
noticed? What if we don't see it, in part, because it doesn't look like any antiwar movement we've even imagined?
If a movement is only a movement when people fill the streets, then maybe the critics are right. It might also be fair to say,
however, that protest marches do not always a movement make. Movements are
defined by their ability to challenge the status
quo and, right now, that's what might be beginning to happen when it comes to America's wars.
What if it's Parkland students
condemning American imperialism or groups fighting the
Muslim Ban that are
also fighting the war on terror? It's veterans not only trying to take on the wars they fought in, but putting themselves on
the front lines of the
gun control
,
climate change , and police brutality debates. It's
Congress
passing the first War Powers Resolution in almost 50 years. It's Democratic presidential candidates
signing a pledge to end America's endless wars.
For the last decade and a half, Americans -- and their elected representatives -- looked at our endless wars and essentially
shrugged. In 2019, however, an antiwar movement seems to be brewing. It just doesn't look like the ones that some remember from
the Vietnam era and others from the pre-invasion-of-Iraq moment. Instead, it's a movement that's being woven into just about every
other issue that Americans are fighting for right now -- which is exactly why it might actually work.
An estimated 100,000 people protested the war in Iraq in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 15, 2007 (Ragesoss, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia
Commons)
A Veteran's Antiwar Movement in the Making?
During the Vietnam War of the 1960s
and early 1970s, protests began with religious groups and peace organizations morally opposed to war. As that conflict intensified,
however, students began to join the movement, then civil rights leaders such as
Martin Luther King, Jr. got involved,
then war veterans who had witnessed the horror firsthand stepped in -- until, with a seemingly constant storm of protest in the
streets, Washington eventually withdrew from Indochina.
You might look at the lack of public outrage now, or perhaps the
exhaustion of having been outraged
and nothing changing, and think an antiwar movement doesn't exist. Certainly, there's nothing like the active one that fought against
America's involvement in Vietnam for so long and so persistently. Yet it's important to notice that, among some of the very same
groups (like veterans, students, and even politicians) that fought against that war, a healthy
skepticism about America's 21st century wars, the Pentagon, the military industrial complex, and even the very idea of American
exceptionalism is finally on the rise -- or so the
polls tell us.
"Arlington West of Santa Monica," a project of Veterans for Peace, puts reminders of the costs of war on the beach in Santa Monica,
California. (Lorie Shaull via Flickr)
Right after the midterms last year, an organization named Foundation for Liberty and American Greatness
reported mournfully that younger Americans were "turning on the country and forgetting its ideals," with nearly half believing
that this country isn't "great" and many eyeing the U.S. flag as "a sign of intolerance and hatred." With millennials and Generation
Z rapidly becoming the
largest voting bloc in America for the next 20 years, their priorities are taking center stage. When it comes to foreign policy
and war, as it happens, they're quite different from the generations that preceded them. According to the
Chicago Council of Global Affairs ,
"Each successor generation is less likely than the previous to prioritize maintaining superior military power worldwide as a
goal of U.S. foreign policy, to see U.S. military superiority as a very effective way of achieving U.S. foreign policy goals, and
to support expanding defense spending. At the same time, support for international cooperation and free trade remains high across
the generations. In fact, younger Americans are more inclined to support cooperative approaches to U.S. foreign policy and more
likely to feel favorably towards trade and globalization."
Although marches are the most public way to protest, another striking but understated way is simply not to engage with the systems
one doesn't agree with. For instance, the vast majority of today's teenagers aren't at all interested in joining the all-volunteer
military. Last year, for the first time since the height of the Iraq war 13 years ago, the Army
fell thousands of troops short
of its recruiting goals. That trend was emphasized in a 2017
Department of Defense poll that
found only 14 percent of respondents ages 16 to 24 said it was likely they'd serve in the military in the coming years. This has
the Army so worried that it has been refocusing its recruitment efforts on
creating an entirely new strategy aimed specifically at Generation Z.
In addition, we're finally seeing what happens when soldiers from America's post-9/11 wars come home infused with a sense of
hopelessness in relation to those conflicts. These days, significant numbers of young veterans have been returning
disillusioned and ready to lobby Congress
against wars they once, however unknowingly, bought into. Look no further than a new left-right
alliance between two
influential veterans groups, VoteVets and Concerned Veterans for America, to stop those forever wars. Their campaign, aimed specifically
at getting Congress to weigh in on issues of war and peace, is emblematic of what may be a diverse potential movement coming together
to oppose America's conflicts. Another veterans group, Common Defense, is similarly asking politicians to sign a
pledge to end those wars. In just a couple of months,
they've gotten on board 10 congressional sponsors, including freshmen heavyweights in the House of Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
and Ilhan Omar.
And this may just be the tip of a growing antiwar iceberg. A misconception about movement-building is that everyone is there
for the same reason, however broadly defined. That's often not the case and sometimes it's possible that you're in a movement and
don't even know it. If, for instance, I asked a room full of climate-change activists whether they also considered themselves part
of an antiwar movement, I can imagine the denials I'd get. And yet, whether they know it or not, sooner or later fighting climate
change will mean taking on the Pentagon's global footprint, too.
Think about it: not only is the U.S. military the world's
largest
institutional consumer of fossil fuels but, according to a
new report from Brown University's Costs of War Project, between 2001 and 2017, it released more than 1.2 billion metric tons
of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere (400 million of which were related to the war on terror). That's equivalent to the emissions
of 257 million passenger cars, more than double the number currently on the road in the U.S.
A Growing Antiwar Movement in Congress
One way to sense the growth of antiwar sentiment in this country is to look not at the empty streets or even at veterans organizations
or recruitment polls, but at Congress. After all, one
indicator of a successful movement, however
incipient, is its power to influence and change those making the decisions in Washington. Since Donald Trump was elected, the most
visible evidence of growing antiwar sentiment is the way America's congressional policymakers have increasingly become engaged with
issues of war and peace. Politicians, after all, tend to follow the voters and, right now, growing numbers of them seem to be following
rising antiwar sentiment back home into an expanding set of debates about war and peace in the age of Trump.
In campaign season 2016, in an op-ed in The Washington Post , political scientist Elizabeth Saunders wondered whether foreign policy would play a significant role
in the presidential election. "Not likely," she concluded. "Voters do not pay much attention to foreign policy." And at the time,
she was on to something. For instance, Sen. Bernie Sanders, then competing for the Democratic presidential nomination against Hillary
Clinton, didn't
even prepare stock answers to basic national security questions, choosing instead, if asked at all, to quickly pivot back to
more familiar topics. In a debate with Clinton, for instance, he was asked whether he would keep troops in Afghanistan to deal with
the growing success of the Taliban. In his answer, he skipped Afghanistan entirely, while warning only vaguely against a "quagmire"
in Iraq and Syria.
Heading for 2020, Sanders is once again competing for the nomination, but instead of shying away from foreign policy, starting
in 2017, he became the face of what could be a
new American
way of thinking when it comes to how we see our role in the world.
In February 2018, Sanders also became the first senator to risk
introducing a war powers resolution to end American support for the
brutal Saudi-led war in Yemen. In April 2019, with the sponsorship of other senators added to his, the bill
ultimately passed
the House and the Senate in an extremely rare showing of bipartisanship, only to be
vetoed by President Trump. That
such a bill might pass the House, no less a still-Republican Senate, even if not by a veto-proof majority, would have been unthinkable
in 2016. So much has changed since the last election that support for the Yemen resolution has now become what Tara Golshan at
Vox termed "a litmus test of the Democratic Party's progressive shift on foreign policy."
Nor, strikingly enough, is Sanders the only Democratic presidential candidate now running on what is essentially an antiwar platform.
One of the main aspects of Elizabeth
Warren's foreign policy plan, for instance, is to "seriously review the country's military commitments overseas, and that includes
bringing U.S. troops home from Afghanistan and Iraq." Entrepreneur Andrew Yang and former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel have
joined Sanders and Warren in signing a pledge to end America's forever wars if elected.
Beto O'Rourke has called for the repeal
of Congress's 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force that presidents have cited ever since whenever they've sent American forces
into battle. Marianne Williamson , one of the
many (unlikely) Democratic candidates seeking the nomination, has even proposed a plan to transform America's "wartime economy into
a peace-time economy, repurposing the tremendous talents and infrastructure of [America's] military industrial complex to the work
of promoting life instead of death."
And for the first time ever, three veterans of America's post-9/11 wars -- Seth Moulton and Tulsi Gabbard of the House of Representatives,
and South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg -- are running for president, bringing their
skepticism about American interventionism with them. The very inclusion of such viewpoints in the presidential race is bound
to change the conversation, putting a spotlight on America's wars in the months to come.
Get on Board or Get Out of the Way
When trying to create a movement, there are three likely
outcomes : you will
be accepted by the establishment, or rejected for your efforts, or the establishment will be replaced, in part or in whole, by those
who agree with you. That last point is exactly what we've been seeing, at least among Democrats, in the Trump years. While 2020
Democratic candidates for president, some of whom have been in the political arena for decades, are gradually hopping on the end-the-endless-wars
bandwagon, the real antiwar momentum in Washington has begun to come from new members of Congress like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
(AOC) and Ilhan Omar who are unwilling to accept business as usual when it comes to either the Pentagon or the country's forever
wars. In doing so, moreover, they are responding to what their constituents actually want.
As far back as 2014, when a
University of Texas-Austin Energy Poll asked people where the U.S. government should spend their tax dollars, only 7 percent
of respondents under 35 said it should go toward military and defense spending. Instead, in a "pretty significant political shift"
at the time, they overwhelmingly opted for their tax dollars to go toward job creation and education. Such a trend has only become
more apparent as those
calling
for free public college, Medicare-for-all, or a Green New Deal have come to
realize that they could pay for such ideas if America would stop pouring
trillions of dollars into wars that never should have been launched.
The new members of the House of Representatives, in particular, part of the youngest, most diverse crew
to date , have begun to replace the old guard and are increasingly signalling their readiness to throw out policies that don't
work for the American people, especially those reinforcing the American war machine. They understand that by ending the wars and
beginning to scale back the military-industrial complex, this country could once again have the resources it needs to fix so many
other problems.
In May, for instance, Omar tweeted , "We
have to recognize that foreign policy IS domestic policy. We can't invest in health care, climate resilience, or education if we
continue to spend more than half of discretionary spending on endless wars and Pentagon contracts. When I say we need something
equivalent to the Green New Deal for foreign policy, it's this."
A few days before that, at a House Committee on Oversight and Reform hearing, Ocasio-Cortez
confronted executives from military contractor TransDigm about the way they were price-gouging the American taxpayer by selling
a $32 "non-vehicular clutch disc" to the Department of Defense for $1,443 per disc. "A pair of jeans can cost $32; imagine paying
over $1,000 for that," she said. "Are you aware of how many doses of insulin we could get for that margin? I could've gotten over
1,500 people insulin for the cost of the margin of your price gouging for these vehicular discs alone."
And while such ridiculous waste
isn't news to those of us who follow Pentagon spending closely, this was undoubtedly something many of her millions of supporters
hadn't thought about before. After the hearing,
Teen Vogue
created a list of the "5 most ridiculous things the United States military has spent money on," comedian
Sarah Silverman tweeted out the AOC
hearing clip to her 12.6 million followers, Will and Grace actress
Debra Messing publicly expressed her gratitude
to AOC, and according to Crowdtangle, a social media analytics tool, the
NowThis clip of her in that congressional
hearing garnered more than 20 million impressions.
Ocasio-Cortez calling out costs charged by military contractor TransDigm. (YouTube)
Not only are members of Congress beginning to call attention to such undercovered issues, but perhaps they're even starting to
accomplish something. Just two weeks after that contentious hearing, TransDigm
agreed to return $16.1 million
in excess profits to the Department of Defense. "We saved more money today for the American people than our committee's entire budget
for the year," said House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings.
Of course, antiwar demonstrators have yet to pour into the streets, even though the wars we're already involved in continue to
drag on and a possible new one with Iran looms on the horizon. Still, there seems to be a notable trend in antiwar opinion and activism.
Somewhere just under the surface of American life lurks a genuine, diverse antiwar movement that appears to be coalescing around
a common goal: getting Washington politicians to believe that antiwar policies are supportable, even potentially popular. Call me
an eternal optimist, but someday I can imagine such a movement helping end those disastrous wars.
Allegra Harpootlian is a media associate at
ReThink Media , where she works with leading experts
and organizations at the intersection of national security, politics, and the media. She principally focuses on U.S. drone policies
and related use-of-force issues. She is also a political partner with the
Truman National Security Project . Find her on Twitter
@ally_harp .
"How Obama demobilized the antiwar movement"
By Brad Plumer
August 29, 2013
Washington Post
"Reihan Salam points to a 2011 paper by sociologists Michael T. Heaney and Fabio Rojas, who find that antiwar protests shrunk
very quickly after Obama took office in 2008 -- mainly because Democrats were less likely to show up:
Drawing upon 5,398 surveys of demonstrators at antiwar protests, interviews with movement leaders, and ethnographic observation,
this article argues that the antiwar movement demobilized as Democrats, who had been motivated to participate by anti-Republican
sentiments, withdrew from antiwar protests when the Democratic Party achieved electoral success, if not policy success in ending
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Heaney and Rojas begin by puzzling over a paradox. Obama ran as an antiwar candidate, but his first few years in office were
rather different: "As president, Obama maintained the occupation of Iraq and escalated the war in Afghanistan. The antiwar movement
should have been furious at Obama's 'betrayal' and reinvigorated its protest activity. Instead, attendance at antiwar rallies
declined precipitously and financial resources available to the movement dissipated.""
Rob , July 4, 2019 at 14:20
The author may be too young to realize that the overwhelming driving force in the anti-Vietnam War movement was hundreds
of thousands of young men who were at risk of being drafted and sent to fight, die and kill in that godforsaken war. As the
movement grew, it gathered in millions of others as well. Absent the military draft today, most of America's youth don't seem
to give half a damn about the current crimes of the U.S. military. As the saying goes: They have no skin in the game.
bardamu , July 3, 2019 at 20:21
There has again been some shift in Sanders' public positions, while Tulsi Gabbard occupies a position that was not represented
in '16, and HR Clinton was more openly bent on war than anyone currently at the table, though perhaps because that much of her
position had become so difficult to deny over the years.
That said, Clinton lost to Obama in '08 because she could not as effectively deny her militarism. There was at the time within
the Democratic Party more and clearer movement against the wars than there is now. One might remember the run for candidacy
of Dennis Kucinich, for example. The 8 years of the Obama regime were a consistent frustration and disappointment to any antiwar
or anticorporate voice within the Democratic Party, but complaints were muted because many would not speak against a Blue or
a Black president. More than at any prior time, corporate media spokespersons could endorse radically pro-corporate positions
and imply or accuse their opposition of racism.
That leaves it unclear, however, what any antiwar voices have to do with the Democratic Party itself, particularly if we
take "the party" to mean the political organization itself as opposed to the people whom it claims to represent. The Party and
the DNC were major engines in the rigging of the 2016 Democratic nomination–and also, lest we forget, contributors to the Donald
Trump nomination campaign.
It should not escape us, as we search for souls and soulfulness among these remnants of Democratic Parties Past, that any
turn of the party against war is surely due to Hillary Clinton's loss to presumed patsy candidate Donald Trump in 2016–the least
and second-least popular major presidential contenders in history, clearly, in whichever order one wishes to put them.
There is some value in realism, then. So as much as one hates to criticize a Bernie Sanders in anything like the present
field that he runs in, his is not a consistently antiwar position: he has gone back and forth. Tulsi Gabbard is the closest
thing to an antiwar candidate within the Party. And under even under the most favorable circumstances, 2020 is at best not her
year.
Most big money says war. scorched earth, steep hierarchy, and small constitution. Any who don't like it had best speak up
and act up.
I am for Tulsi, a Senator from Hawaii not a rep as this article says. Folk Music was in when the peace movement was strong
and building, the same for Folk Rock who songs also had words you could get without Google.
So my way of "hoping" for an Anti-War/Peace Movement is to have a Folk Revival in my mind.
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 14:11
The answer to the question why anti war movement is dead is so simple and obvious but apparently invisible to most Dems/libs/progressives
(excuse my inability to discern the distinctions between labels). The answer points to our onetime "peace" president Obama.
As far as foreign interventions go (and domestic spying, among other things) Obama had continued Baby Bush's policy. Even worse,
Obama had given a bipartisan seal of approval (and legality) to most of Baby Bush's crimes. In other words, for 8 years, meaning
during the "peace" president's reign, the loyal "lefty" sheeple have held their mouth when it came to war and peace.
Obama and the Dems have very effectively killed the ant war movement
The establishment will always be pro-war because there's so much money in it. Street demonstrations will never change that,
as we recently learned with Iraq. The only strategy that has a chance of working is anti-enlistment. If they don't have the
troops they can't invade anywhere, and recruitment is already a problem. It needs to be a bigger problem.
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 11:51
Sorry, ALL of these Democrat wannabes save one is ignorant of foreign affairs, foreign policy and its destruction of what
they blather on about – domestic vote-getting sky pies. Oh yes, free everything: schools, health care, social justices and services.
It's as though the MIC has not stolen the money from the public's pockets to get rich by sending cheap fodder out there to get
killed and wounded, amputated physically and mentally.
Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't stand
the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men, because she drew a bad
one. Huma was better company. Since she didn't know anything beyond the superficial, she did whatever the "experts" whispered
in her ears: War! Obama was in the same boat. The target, via gaining total control of oil from Libya to Syria and Iran was
her Putin hate. So her experts set up the Ukraine. The "experts" are the MIC/CIA and our fearless, brainless, corrupt military.
They have whispered the same psychotic message since the Gulf of Tonkin. We've lost to everyone with whom we've crossed swords
and left them devastated and America diminished save for the few.
So I was a Sanders supporter until he backed the warrior woman and I, like millions of others backed off of her party. It's
still her party. Everyone just loves every victim of every kind. They all spout minor variations on the same themes while Trump
and his neocons quietly install their right wing empire. Except for one who I spotted when she had the independence to go look
for herself in Syria.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate to be the candidate who has a balance of well thought through, realistic foreign policy
as well as the domestic non-extremist one. She has the hurdle of being a too-pretty woman, of being from the remotest state,
and not being a screamer. Even this article, written about peace by a woman fails to talk about her.
Tulsi has the registered voter count and a respectable budget, but the New York Times which is policy-controlled by a few
of Hillary's billionaire friends has consistently shut her out, because Tulsi left the corrupt Hillary-owned DNC to back Sanders
and Hillary never forgave her.
If you want to know who is against Trump and war, take 5 minutes and listen to what she really said during the 1st debate
where the CBS folks gave her little room to talk. It will change your outlook on what really is possible.
Hi Anonymot; I also exited my Sanders support after over 100 cash donations and over a years painful effort. I will never
call him Bernie again; now it is Sanders, since Bernie makes him sound cute and cute was not the word that came into my mind
as Mr. Sanders missed his world moment at the democratic election and backed Hillary Clinton (I can not vote for EVIL). Sanders
then proceeded to give part of my money to the DNC & to EVIL Hillary Clinton.
So then what now? Easy as Pie; NO MORE DEMOCRATS EVER. The DNC & DCCC used Election Fraud & Election Crimes blatantly to
beat Bernie Sanders. Right out in the open. The DNC & DCCC are War Mongering more then the Republicans which is saying allot.
The mass media and major Internet Plateforms like Goggle & Facebook are all owned by Evil Oligarchs that profit from WAR and
blatantly are today suppressing all dissenting opinions (anti Free Speech).
I stopped making cash donation to Tulsi Gabbard upon the realization that the Democrats were not at all a force for Life
or Good and instead were a criminal organization. The voting for the lessor of two EVILs is 100% STUPID.
I told Tim Canova I could not support any Democrat ever again as I told Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi is still running as a criminal
democrat. If she would run independent of the DNC then I would start to donate cash to her again. End of my story about Tulsi.
I do like her antiwar dialog, but there is no; so called changing, the DNC from the inside. The Oligarchs own the DNC and are
not supportive of "We The People" or the Constitution, or the American Republic.
The end of Tim Canova's effort was he was overtly CHEATED AGAIN by the DNC's Election Fraud & Election Crimes in his 2018
run for congress against Hillary Clinton's 100% corrupt campaign manager; who congress seated even over Tim's asking them not
to seat her until his law suites on her election crimes against him were assessed. Election crimes and rigged voting machines
in Florida are a way of life now and have been for decades and decades.
All elections must be publicly funded. All votes must be on paper ballots and accessible for recounts and that is just the
very minimums needed to start changing the 100% corrupted election system we Americans have been railroaded into.
The supreme Court has recently ruled that gerrymandering is OK. The supreme court has proven to be a political organization
with their Bush Gore decision and now are just political hacks and as such need to be ELECTED not appointed. Their rulings that
Money is Free Speech & that Corporations are People has disenfranchised "We the People". That makes the Supreme Court a tool
to be used by the world money elite to overturn the constitution of the United States of America.
No More War. No More War. No More War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 16:40
Absolutely spot-on, superb comment, P .Brooks.
DW
Nathan Mulcahy , July 3, 2019 at 18:08
I saw the light (with what the Dems are really about) after Kucinich's candidacy. That made me one of the very few lefties
in my circle not to have voted for Obama even the first time around. I hear a lot of talk about trying to reform the party from
inside. Utter bu** sh**. "You cannot reform Mafia".
Ever since Kucinich, I have been voting Green. No, this is not a waste of my vote. Besides, I cannot be complicit to war
crimes – that's what it makes anyone who votes for either of the two parties.
Steven , July 3, 2019 at 13:56
Wow you said a mouthful. It's worse than that its a cottage industry that includes gun running, drug running and human trafficking
netting Trillions to the MIC, CIA and other alphabet agencies you can't fight the mark of the beast.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:01
I fully back/endorse Gabbard, but
The battering of Bernie is not fair. He is NOT a Democrat, therefore him being able to get "inside" that party to run AS
a Dem put him in a tenuous situation. He really had no option other than to support HRC lest his movement, everyone's movement,
would get extra hammering by the neocons and status quo powers. He wouldn't be running, again, had he not done this. Yeah, it's
a bad taste, I get it, but had he disavowed HRC would the outcome -Trump- been any different? The BLAME goes fully on the DNC
and the Clintons. Full stop.
I do not see AOC as a full progressive. She is only doing enough to make it appear so. The Green New Deal is stolen from
the Green Party and is watered down. Think of this as "Obama Care" for the planet. As you should know, Gabbard's Off Fossil
Fuels Act (OFF) actually has real teeth in it: and is closer to the Green Party's positions.
I support movements and positions. PRIMARY is peace. Gabbard, though not a pacifist, has the right path on all of this: I've
been around long enough to understand exactly how she's approaching all of this. She is, however, taking on EVERYONE. As powerful
a person as she is (she has more fortitude than the entire lot of combined POTUS candidates put together) going to require MASSIVE
support; sadly, -to this point- this article doesn't help by implying that people aren't interested in foreign policy (it perpetuates
the blockout of it- people have to be reeducated on its importance- not something that the MIC wants), people aren't yet able
to see the connections. The education will occur will it happen in a timely way such that people would elect Gabbard? (things
can turn on a dime, history has shown this; she has the makeup that suggests that she's going to have a big role in making history).
I did not support Bernie (and so far have not- he's got ample support; if it comes down to it he WILL get my vote- and I've
held off voting for many years because there's been no real "peace" candidate on the plate). Gabbard, however, has my support
now, and likely till the day I die: I've been around long enough to know what constitutes a great leader, and not since the
late 60s have we had anyone like her. If Bernie gets the nomination it is my prediction that he will have Gabbard high on his
staff, if not as VP: a sure fire way to win is to have Gabbard as VP.
I'm going to leave this for folks to contemplate as to whether Gabbard is real or not:
In a context in which Rio de Janeiro's evangelical churches have been accused of laundering money for the drug trafficking
gangs, all elements of Afro-Brazilian culture including caipoeira, Jango drumming, and participation in Carnaval parades, have
been banned by the traffickers in many favelas.
[end excerpt]
"caipoeria," is something that Gabbard has practiced:
"I trained in different martial arts since I was a kid including Capoeira -- an amazing art created by slaves in Brazil who
were training to fight and resist against their slave masters, disguising their training with music, acrobatics, and dance.
Yesterday I joined my friends Mestre Kinha and others at Capoeira Besouro Hawai'i for their batizado ceremony and some fun!
" – Tulsi Gabbard December 9, 2018
The GOAL is to get her into the upper halls of governing power. If the people cannot see fit to it then I'll support Sanders
(in the end) so that he can do it.
Harpootlian claims to see what's going on, but, unfortunately, she's not able to look close enough.
Anonymot, thank you for leading out here with Gabbard and her message.
michael , July 4, 2019 at 08:10
If Gabbard had the MSM coverage Buttigieg has received she probably be leading in the polls. It is surprising(?) that this
supposedly anti-war author mentions corporatist Mayor Pete but not Gabbard.
David , July 4, 2019 at 19:55
She DOES (briefly)mention Gabbard, but she missed the fact that Gabbard is the most strongly anti-war candidate. She gets
it entirely wrong about Buttigieg, who is strikingly pro-war, and supports getting in to a war with Iran.
And sadly, Ms. Gabbard is mired at the 1% mark in the polls, even after having performed so well in the debate.
This seems to me an indication of the public's lack of caring about our foreign wars.
antonio Costa , July 3, 2019 at 19:06
The reason she's "mired" is because a number of polls don't include her!! However they include, Marianne Williamson.
How's that for inverse totalitarianism par excellence .
Skip Scott , July 4, 2019 at 07:05
I did see one poll that had her at 2%. And given the reputation of many polling outfits, I take any professed results with
a grain of salt. Tulsi's press coverage (what little she gets) has been mostly defamatory to the point of being libelous. If
her strong performance continues in the primary debates despite all efforts to sabotage her, I think she could make a strong
showing. That said, at some point she will have to renounce the DNC controlled democratic party and run as an Independent if
she wants to make the General Election debates for 2020.
"Hillary signed the papers and talked the brainless idiocy that set the entire Middle East on fire, because she couldn't
stand the sight of a man with no shirt on and sitting on the Russian equivalent of a Harley. She hates men "
If I were to psychologize, I would conjecture more un-gendered stereotype, namely that of a good student. He/she diligently
learns in all classes from the prescribed textbooks and reading materials, and, alas, American education on foreign affairs
is dominated by retirees from CIA and other armchair warriors. Of course, nothing wrong about good students in general, but
I mean the type that is obedient, devoid of originality and independent thinking. When admonished, he/she remembers the pain
for life and strives hard not to repeat it. E.g. as First Lady, Hillary kissed Arafat's wife to emulate Middle East custom,
and NY tabloids had a feast for months.
Concerning Tulsi, no Hillary-related conspiracy is needed to explain the behavior of the mass media. Tulsi is a heretic to
the establishment, and their idea is to be arbiters of what and who belongs to the "mainstream", and what is radical, marginal
etc. Tulsi richly deserves her treatment. Confronted with taunts like "so you would prefer X to stay in power" (Assad, Maduro
etc.) she replies that it should not be up to USA to decide who stays in power, especially if no better scenario is in sight.
The gall, the cheek!
Strangely enough, Tulsi gets this treatment in places like The Nation and Counterpunch. As the hitherto "radical left" got
a whiff of being admitted to the hallowed mainstream from time to time, they try to be "responsible".
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:39
Yes! Thank You I was gritting my teeth reading this article #Tulsi2020
Eddie , July 3, 2019 at 11:42
The end of the anti-war movement expired when the snake-oil pitchman with the toothy smile and dark skin brought his chains
we could beleive in to the White House. The so-called progressives simply went to sleep while they never criticized Barack Obama
for escalating W. Bush's wars and tax cuts for the rich.
The fake left wing in the US remained silent when Obama dumped trillions of dollars into the vaults of his bankster pals
as he stole the very homes from the people who voted him into office. Then along came the next hope and change miracle worker
Bernie Sanders. Only instead of working miracles for the working class, Sanders showed his true colors when he fcuked his constituents
to support the hated Hillary Clinton.
Let's start facing reality. The two-party dictatorship does not care about you unless you can pony up the big bucks like
their masters in the oligarchy and the soulless corporations do. Unless and until workers end to the criminal stranglehold that
the big-business parties and the money class have on the government, things will continue to slide into the abyss.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:33
An informed awareness of imperialism must also include an analysis of how "technology" is used and abused, from the use of
"superior" weaponry against people who do not have such weapons, from blunderbuss and sailing ships, to B-52s and napalm, up
to and including technology that may be "weaponized" against civilian populations WiTHIN a society, be it 24/7 surveillance
or robotics and AI that could permit elites to dispense with any "need", on the part of the elites, to tolerate the very existence
of a laborung class, or ANY who earn their wealth through actual work, from maids to surgeons, from machine operators to professors.
Any assumption, that any who "work", even lawyers or military officers, can consider their occupation or profession as "safe",
is to assume that the scapegoating will stop with those the highly paid regard as "losers", such comfortable assumption may
very well prove as illusory and ephemeral as an early morning mist before the hot and merciless Sun rises.
The very notions of unfettered greed and limitless power, resulting in total control, must be recognized as the prime drivers
of endless war and shock-doctrine capitalism which, combined, ARE imperialism, unhinged and insane.
michael , July 3, 2019 at 11:06
This article is weak. Anyone who could equate Mayor Pete or the eleven Democrat "ex"-military and CIA analysts who gained
seats in Congress in 2018 as anti-war is clueless. Tulsi Gabbard is anti-regime change war, but is in favor of fighting "terrorists"
(created mostly by our CIA and Israel with Saudi funding). Mike Gravel is the only true totally anti-war 'candidate' and he
supports Gabbard as the only anti-War of the Democrats.
In WWI, 90% of Americans who served were drafted, in WWII over 60% of Americans who served were drafted. The Vietnam War "peace
demonstrations" were more about the Draft, and skin-in-the-game, than about War. Nixon and Kissinger abolished the Draft (which
stopped most anti-war protests), but continued carpet bombing Vietnam and neighboring countries (Operations Menu, Freedom Deal,
Patio, etc), and Vietnamized the War which was already lost, although the killing continued through 1973. The abolition of the
Draft largely gutted the anti-war movement. Sporadic protests against Bush/ Cheney over Afghanistan and Iraq essentially disappeared
under Obama/ Hillary in Afghanistan and Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia and Sudan. Since their National Emergency proclamations
no longer ever end, we are in a position to attack Venezuela (Obama), Ukraine (Obama), South Sudan (Obama), Iran (Carter, Clinton),
Libya (Obama), Somalia (Obama), Yemen (Obama), Nicaragua (Trump) and even Burundi (Obama) and the Central African Republic (Obama).
The continuing support of death squads in Honduras and other Latin American countries ("stability is more important than democracy")
has contributed to the immigration crises over the last five years.
As Pelosi noted about Democratic progressives "there are like five of them". Obama not only failed to reverse any of the police
state and warmongering of Bush/Cheney, he expanded both police state (arresting and prosecuting Chelsea Manning for exposing
war crimes, as well as more whistleblowers than anyone in history), and wars in seven Arab Muslim countries. Black Americans,
who had always been an anti-War bloc prior to Obama, converted to the new America. The Congressional Democrats joined with Republicans
to give more to the military budget than requested by Trump. (Clinton squandered the Peace Dividend when the Soviet Union fell,
and Lee Camp has exposed the $21 TRILLION "lost" by the Pentagon.)
The young author see anti-war improvements that are not there. The US is more pro-war in its foreign policies than at any time
in its history. When there was a Draft, the public would not tolerate decades of war (lest their young men died). Sanctions
are now the first attack (usually by National Emergencies!); the 500,000 Iraqi children killed by Clinton's sanctions (Madeline
Albright: "we think it was worth it!") is just sadism and psychopathy at the top, which is necessary for War.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 11:38
Superb comment, michael, very much agreed with and appreciated.
DW
Anonymot , July 3, 2019 at 12:06
You are absolutely right. Obama and Hillary were the brilliant ideas of the MIC/CIA when they realized that NO ONE the Republicans
put up after Bush baby's 2nd round. They chose 2 "victims" black & woman) who would do what they were told to do in order to
promote their causes (blacks & get-filthy rich.) The first loser would get the next round. And that's exactly what happened
until Hillary proved to be so unacceptable that she was rejected. We traded no new war for an administration leading us into
a neo-nazi dictatorship.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:04
Thank you for this comment!
Mickey , July 3, 2019 at 10:47
Tulsi Gabbard is the only peace candidate in the Democratic Party
Many current crises have the potential to escalate into a major confrontation between the nuclear powers, similar to the
Cuban missile crisis, though there is no comparable sense of alarm. Then, tensions were at boiling point, when a small military
exchange could have led to nuclear annihilation. Today there are many more such flashpoint – Syria, the South China Sea, Iran,
Ukraine to name a few. Since the end of the Cold War there has been a gradual movement towards third world war. Condemnation
of an attack on Iran must include, foremost, the warning that it could lead the US into a confrontation with a Sino-Russian
alliance. The warning from history is states go to war over interests, but ultimately – and blindly – end up getting the very
war they need to avoid: even nuclear war, where the current trend is going. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:36
Many truly superb, well-informed, and very enlightening comments on this thread.
My very great appreciation to this site, to its authors, and to its exceptionally thoughtful and articulate commenters.
DW
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 10:20
I appreciate this author's perspective, research, and optimism.
Clearly, the young ARE far more open to embracing a future less warlike and hegemonic, while far too many of my generation
are wedded to childish myth and fantasy around U$ driven mayhem.
However, I would suggest that vision be broadened beyond opposition to war, which opposition, while important, must be expanded
to opposition to the larger issue of imperialism, itself.
Imperialism is not merely war, it includes economic warfare, both sanctions, internationally, and predatory debt loads, domestically,
in very many nations of the world, as well as privatization of the commons (which must be understood to include all resources
necessary to human existence).
Perpetual war, which profits only the few, is driven by precisely the same aims as pitting workers against each other, worldwide,
in a "game" of "race to the bottom", creating "credit" rather than raising wages, thus creating life-long indebtedness of the
many, which only benefits monopolized corporate interests, as does corporate ownership of such necessities as water, food production,
and most channels of communication, which permits corporations to easily shape public perception toward whatever ends suit corporate
purposes while also ensuring that deeper awareness of what is actually occurring is effectively stifled, deplatformed, or smeared
as dangerous foreign fake news or as hidden, or even as blatant, racial or religious hatred.
Above all, it is critically important that all these interrelated aspects of deliberate domination, control, and diminishment,
ARE talked about, openly, that we all may have better grasp of who really aligns with creating serious systemic change, especially
as traditionally assumed "tendencies" are shifting, quickly and even profoundly.
For example, as many here point out, the Democrats are now as much a war party as the Republicans, "traditionally" have been,
even as there is clear evidence that the Republican "base" is becoming less willing to go to war than are the Democratic "base",
as CNN and MSNBC media outlets strive to incite a new Cold War and champion and applaud aggression in Syria, Iran, and North
Korea.
It is the elite Democratic "leadership" and most Democratic Presidential hopefuls who now preach or excuse war and aggression,
with few actual exceptions, and none of them, including Tulsi Gabbard, have come anywhere near openly discussing or embracing,
the end of U$ imperialism.
Both neoliberal and neocon philosophies are absolutely dedicated to imperialism in all its destructive, even terminal, manifestations.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:16
Exactly!
Gabbard has spoken out against sanctions. She understands that they're just another form of war.
The younger generations won't be able to financially support imperialist activities. And, they won't be, as the statements
to their enlistment numbers suggest, able to "man the guns." I'm thinking that TPTB are aware of this (which is why a lot of
drone and other automation of war machinery has been stepped up).
The recent alliance of Soros and Charles Koch, the Quincy Institute, is, I believe, a KEY turning point. Pretty much everything
Gabbard is saying/calling for is this institute's mission statement: and people ought to note that Gabbard has been in Charles
Koch's circle- might very well be that Gabbard has already influenced things in a positive way.
I also believe that all the great independent journalists, publishers (Assange taking the title here) and whistleblowers
(Manning taking the title here) have made a HUGE impact. Bless them all.
The US government consistently uses psychological operations on its own citizens to manufacture consent to kill anyone and
everyone. Meaningless propaganda phrases such as "Support Our Troops" and "National Security" and "War on Terror" are thrown
around to justify genocides and sieges and distract us from murder. There is no left wing or in American politics and there
has not been one since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan. All we have is neoconservatives and neoliberals representing the business
party for four decades. Killing is our business and business is good. Men are as monkeys with guns when it comes to politics
and religion.
One might be hard-pressed to find more outright perversions of reality in a mere two pages of text. Congratulations Congress,
you have indeed surpassed yourself.
So it's those dastardly Russians and Iranians who are responsible for the destabilization of the Middle East, "complicating
Israel's ability to defend itself from hostile action emanating from Syria." And apparently, it's the "ungoverned space" in
Syria that has "allowed" for the rise of terrorist factions in Syria, that (we must be reminded) are ever poised to attack "Western
targets, our allies and partners, and the U.S. homeland."
Good grief.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 08:29
Thank you Joe Lauria and Consortiumnews.
There is much wisdom and a good deal of personal experience being expressed on these pages. I especially want to thank IvyMike
and Dao Gen. Ivy Mike you're so right about our troops in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, draftees and volunteers, they fought what
was clearly an internal civil war fought valiantly, beyond that point, Vietnam was a political mess for all involved. And Dao
Gen all of your points are accurate.
As for our legislators, please read the linked Foreign Affairs press release signed by over 400 leglislators On May 20th.,
2019 that address "threats to Syria" including the Russia threat. Clearly it will take action by the People and Peace candidates
to end this travesty of a foreign policy.
Vietnam a war triggered by the prevention of a mandated election by the USA which Ho Chi Minh was likely to win, who had
already recently been Premier of a unified Vietnam.
Sorry, being courageous in a vicious cause is not honorable.
Speaking a true history and responsibility is honorable.
Bob Van Noy , July 3, 2019 at 11:07
No need to be sorry James Clooney. I did not mention honor in my comment, I mentioned valiant (courage and determination).
American troupes ultimately fight honorably for each other not necessarily for country. This was the message and evaluation
of Captain Hal Moore To General Westmorland And Robert McNamera after the initial engagement of US troops and NVA and can be
viewed as a special feature of the largely inaccurate DVD "We Were Soldiers And Young).
The veterans group About Face is doing remarkable work against the imperial militarization that threatens to consume our
country and possibly the world. This threat includes militarization of US police, a growing nuclear arms race, and so-called
humanitarian wars. About Face is also working to train ordinary people as medics to take these skills into their communities
whose members are on the front lines of police brutality.
Tulsi Gabbard is the only candidate with a strong, enlightened understanding of the costs of our many imperial wars Costs to
ourselves in the US and costs to the people we invade in order to "save" them. I voted for McGovern in 1972. I would vote for
Tuldi's Gabbard in 2020 if given the chance.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:35
Vote for her now by supporting her*! One cannot wait until the DNC (or other party) picks the candidate FOR us. Anyone serious
about peace ought to support her, and do it now and far into the future. I have always supported candidates who are champions
for peace, no matter their "party" or whatever: I did not, though I wish that I had, support Walter Jones -of Freedom Fries
fame- after he did a 180 (Gabbard knew Jones, and respected him); it took a lot of guts for him to do this, but his honest (like
Ron Paul proved) was proven and his voters accepted him (and likely shifted their views along with him).
* Yeah, one has to register giving money, but for a lousy $1 She has yet to qualify for the third debate (need 130k unique
donations): and yet Yang has! (nothing against him, but come on, he is not "Commander in Chief" material [and at this time it
is, as Gabbard repeats, the single most important part of being president]).
Mary Jones-Giampalo , July 4, 2019 at 00:43
Strongly agree Only Tulsi
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:14
Not surprising there was little or no antiwar sentiment in the newfound civic engagement after Trump's election, since the
majority of those participating were supporters of the war criminals Obama, Clinton, and their corporate, war mongering DEM
party. Those same people today, support Obama-chaperone Biden, or one of the other vetted corporate DEMs, including socialist-in-name-only
Sanders, who signed the DEM loyalty oath promising to continue austerity for the poor, socialism for rich, deregulation, militarism,
and global war hegemony. The only party with an antiwar blank was the Green Party, which captured >2% of the ~130 million votes
in the rigged election- even though Stein is as competent as Clinton, certainly more competent than Trump, and the Green platform,
unlike Sanders', explained how to pay for social and environmental programs by ending illegal wars in at least 7 countries,
closing 1000 military command posts located all over earth, removing air craft carrier task forces from every ocean, cutting
defense spending.
I believe the CIA operation "CARWASH" was under Obama, which gave us Ultra fascism in one of the largest economies in the
world, Brazil.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:02
Superb comment, trieke, and I especially appreciate your mention of Jill Stein and the Green Party.
It is unfortunate that the the Green New Deal, championed by AOC is such a pale and intentionally pusillanimous copy of the
Green New Deal articulated by Stein, which pointedly made clear that blind and blythe economic expansion must cease, that realistic
natural constraints and carrying capacity be accepted and profligate energy squandering come to an end.
That a sane, humane, and sustainable economic system, wholly compatible with ecological responsibility can provide neaningful
endeavor, justly compensated, for all, as was coherently addressed and explained to any who cared to examine the substance of
that, actual, and realistic, original, GND.
Such a vision must be part of successfully challenging, and ending, U$ imperialism.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 14:53
And Trump likely signed a GOP pledge. It's all superficial crap, nothing that is really written in stone.
I LOVE Stein. But for the sake of the planet we have little time to wait on getting the Green Party up to speed (to the clasp
the levers of power). Unless Gabbard comes out on top (well, the ultimate, and my favorite, long-shot would be Gravel, but reality
is something that I have to accept) it can only really be Sanders. I see a Sanders nomination as being the next best thing (and,
really, the last hope as it all falls WAY off the cliff after that). He would most certainly have Gabbard along (if not as VP,
which is the best strategy for winning, then as some other high-ranking, and meaningful cabinet member). Also, there are a lot
of folks that would be coming in on his coattails. It is THESE people that will make the most difference: although he's got
his flaws, Ro Kana would be a good top official. And, there are all the supporters who would help push. Sanders is WAY better
than HRC (Obama and, of course, Trump). He isn't my favorite, but he has enough lean in him to allow others to help him push
the door open: I'll accept him if that's what it take to get Gabbard into all of this.
Sometimes you DO have to infiltrate. Sanders is an infiltrator (not a Dem), though he treads lightly. Gabbard has already
proven her intentions: directly confronted the DNC and the HRC machine (and her direct attack on the MIC is made very clear);
and, she is indirectly endorsed by some of the best people out there who have run for POTUS: Jill Stein; Ron Paul; Mike Gravel.
We cannot wait for the Dems (and the MIC) to disarm. We need to get inside "the building" and disarm. IF Sanders or Gabbard
(and no Gravel) don't get the nomination THEN it is time to open up direct "warfare" and attack from the "outside" (at this
time there should be enough big defectors to start swinging the tide).
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:34
Yes trieke, I voted for Stein in 2016, and I plan on voting Green Party again in 2020. I see too many fellow progressives/liberals/leftists
(whatever the hell we want to call ourselves) agonizing about which compromised Democrat to vote-for, trying to weigh their
different liabilities, etc. I've come to believe that my duty as a voter is to vote for the POTUS candidate/party whose stances/platform
are closest to my views, and that's unequivocally the Green Party. My duty as a voter does NOT entail 'voting for a winner',
that's just part of the two-party-con that the Dems & Reps run.
jmg , July 3, 2019 at 07:06
The big difference is that, during the Vietnam years, people could *see* the war. People talked a lot about "photographs
that ended the Vietnam war", such as the napalm girl, etc.
The government noticed this. There were enormous pressures on the press, even a ban on returning coffin photos. Now, since
the two Iraq wars, people *don't see* the reality of war. The TV and press don't show Afghanistan, don't show Yemen, didn't
show the real Iraq excepting for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange, who are in prison because of this.
And the wars go on:
"The US government and military are preventing the public from seeing photographs that depict the true horror of the Iraq
war."
For example, we all know that mainstream media is war propaganda now, itself at war on truth and, apart from some convenient
false flags to justify attacks, they very rarely let the very people suffering wars be heard to wake viewers up, and don't often
even show this uncensored reality of war anymore, not like the true images of this old, powerful video:
Happy Xmas (War Is Over! If You Want It)
So this is Xmas
And what have you done
-- John Lennon
mbob -- thank you -- has already put this very well, but it is above all the Dems, especially Obama and the Clintons, who
killed the antiwar movement. Obama was a fake, and his foreign policy became even more hawkish after Hillary resigned as SoS.
His reduction of Libya, the richest state in Africa, to a feudal chaotic zone in which slavery is once more prominent and his
attempt to demonize Syria, which has more semi-democracy and women's rights than any of the Islamic kingdoms the US supports
as its allies, and turn Syria into a jihadi terrorist hell, as well as Obama's bombing of other nations and his sanctions on
still other nations such as Venezuela, injured and killed at least as many people as did GW Bush's invasion of Iraq. Yet where
was the antiwar movement? In the 21st century the US antiwar movement has gained most of its strength from anti-Repub hatred.
The current uptick of antiwar feeling is probably due mostly to hatred of Trump. Yet Trump is the first president since Carter
not to invade or make a major attack on a foreign country. As a businessman, his policy is to use economic warfare instead of
military warfare.
I am not a Trump supporter, and strong sanctions are a war crime, and Trump is also slow to reduce some of Obama's overseas
bombing and other campaigns, yet ironically he is surely closer to being a "peace president" than Obama. Moreover, a major reason
Trump won in 2016 was that Hillary was regarded as the war and foreign intervention candidate, and in fact if Hillary had won,
she probably would have invaded Syria to set up her infamous "no-fly zone" there, and she might have bombed Iran by now. We
might even be in a war with Russia now. At the same time, under Trump the Dem leadership and the Dem-leaning MSM have pursued
an unabashedly neocon policy of attacking from the right Trumps attempts at detente with Russia and scorning his attempts to
negotiate a treaty with N Korea and to withdraw from Syria and Afghanistan. The main reason why Trump chose dangerous neocons
like Bolton and Pompeo as advisors was probably to shield himself a little from the incessant and sometimes xenophobic attacks
from the Dem leadership and the MSM. The Dem leadership seems motivated not only by hatred of Trump but also, and probably more
importantly, by a desire to get donations from the military-industrial complex and a desire to ingratiate itself with the Intel
Community and the surveillance state in order to get various favors. Look, for example, at Adam Schiff, cheerleader-in-chief
for the IC. The system of massive collusion between the Dem party elite and the US deep state was not as advanced during the
Vietnam War era as it is now. 2003 changed a lot of things.
The only Dem presidential candidates who are philosophically and securely antiwar are Gabbard and Gravel. Even Bernie (and
even more so, Warren) can't be trusted to stand up to the deep state if elected, and anyway, Bernie's support for the Russiagate
hoax by itself disqualifies him as an antiwar politician, while the Yemen bill he sponsored had a fatal loophole in it, as Bernie
well knew. I love Bernie, but he is neither antiwar nor anti-empire. As for Seth Moulton, mentioned in the article, he is my
Rep, and he makes some mild criticisms of the military, but he is a rabid hawk on Syria and Iran, and he recently voted for
a Repub amendment that would have punished Americans who donate to BDS organizations. And as for the younger generation of Dems,
they are not as antiwar as the article suggests. For every AOC among the newly elected Dems in 2018, there were almost two new
Dems who are military vets or who formerly worked for intel agencies. This does not bode well. As long at the deep state, the
Dem elite, and the MSM are tightly intertwined, there will be no major peace movement in the near future, even if a Dem becomes
president. In fact, a Dem president might hinder the formation of a true antiwar movement. Perhaps when China becomes more powerful
in ten or twenty years, the unipolar US empire and permanent war state will no longer look like a very good idea to a large
number of Americans, and the idea of a peace movement will once again become realistic. The media have a major role to play
in spreading truthful news about how the current US empire is hurting domestic living standards. Rather than hopey-hope wish
lists, no-holds-barred reporting will surely play a big role.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:05
Absolutely superb comment, Dao Gen.
DW
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:07
Another fine example of why I think there is hope! (some very sharp commentators!)
A strong leader can make all the difference. The example gets set from the top: not that this is my preference, just that
it's the reality we have today. MLK Jr. was such a leader, though it was MANY great people that were in his movement/orbit that
were the primary architects. I suppose you could say it's a "rally around the flag" kind of deal. Just as Trump stunned the
System, I believe that it can be stunned from the "left" (the ultimate stunning would be from a Gravel win, but I'm thinking
that Gabbard would be the one that has what it takes to slip past).
I really wish that people would start asking candidates who they think have been good cabinet members for various positions.
This could help give an idea of the most important facet of an administration: who the POTUS selects as key cabinet members
tells pretty much everything you need to know. Sadly, Trump had a shot at selecting Gabbard and passed on her: as much as I
detest Trump, I gave him room in which to work away from the noecon/neolib death squads (to his credit he's mostly just stalemated
them- for a rookie politician you could say that this has been an impressive feat; he's tried to instigate new wars but has,
so far, "failed" [by design?]).
geeyp , July 3, 2019 at 01:19
"We saved more money today for the American people ." – Elijah Cummings. Yea? Well then, give it to us!! You owe us a return
of our money that you have wasted for years.
mark , July 3, 2019 at 00:17
Same old, same old, same old, same old.
Prospective candidates spewing out the same tired old hot air about how, this time, it really, really, really, really will be
different.
There won't be any more crazy multitrillion wars for Israel.
Honest.
Just like Dubya.
Just like Obomber.
Just like the Orange Baboon.
Whilst simultaneously begging for shekels from Adelson, Saban, Singer, Marcus.
And this is the "new anti war movement."
Yeah.
Tom Kath , July 3, 2019 at 00:04
Every extreme elicits an extreme response. Our current western pacifist obsession is no exception. By prohibiting argument,
disagreement, verbal conflict, and the occasional playground "dust up" on a personal level, you seem to make the seemingly less
personal war inevitable.
Life on earth is simply not possible without "a bit of biff".
An aware person may not react extremely to a extreme. USA slaughtered 5 to 10 million Vietnamese for no apparent reason other
than projection of power yet the Vietnamese trade with the USA today.
Who prohibits argument? Certainly not those with little power; it's the militarily and politically powerful that crush dissent,
(Tinamen Square , Occupy Wall Street). How much dissent does the military allow? Why is Assange being persecuted?
I believe even the most militant pacifist would welcome a lively debate on murder, death and genocide, as a channel for education
and edification.
Antonio Costa , July 2, 2019 at 20:53
Weak essay. AOC hops from cause to cause. She rarely/ever says anything about US regime change wars, and the bombing of children.
She's demonstrated no anti-war bona fides.
Only Tulsi Gabbard has forthright called for an end to regime change wars, the warmongers and reduction in our military.
The power is with the powerful. We'll not see an end to war, nor Medicare for All or much of anything regarding student debt.
These are deep systemic problems calling for systemic solutions beginning with how we live on the planet(GND is a red herring),
the GDP must become null and void if we are to behave as if plundering the planet is part of "progress". It needs to be replaced
to some that focuses on quality of life as the key to prosperity. The geopolitics of the world have to simply STOP IT. It's
not about coalitions between Russia and China and India to off-set the US imperialists. That's an old game for an empty planet.
The planet is full and exceeding it capacity and is on fire. Our geopolitics must end!
Not one of these candidates come close to focusing on the systemic problem(s) except Gabbard's focus on war because it attacks
the heart of the American Imperial Empire.
Maxime , July 3, 2019 at 09:24
I agree with you that you americans will probably not see the end of your system and the end of your problems any time soon.
BUT I disagree on that you seems to think it's inevitable. I'm not american, I'm french, and reading you saying you think
medicare for all, no student debt and end to endless wars are systemic problems linked to GDP and the current economic system
is well, amusing. We have medicare for all, in fact even better than your medicare, we have no student cost for our educating
system, and still in both cases often better results than yours, even if we are behind some of our northern neighbors, but they
don't pay for these either. And we don't wage endless wars, even if we have ourselves our own big war problems, after all we
were in Lybia, we are in Syria, we are in Mali and other parts of Africa.
We also have a big militaro-industrial complex, in fact very alike the american one. But we made clear since much longer
than we would not accept as much wars, in part because the lesson we got from WW2 and Cold War was to learn to live together
with our hated neighbor. You know, the one the other side of the Rhine. Today France is a diplomatic superpower, often the head
of the european spear onthe subject, we got feared elite military, and we are proud of that, but we would not even accept more
money (in proportion) given to our military complex.
And you know the best news (for the americans)? we have an history of warmongering going back millenias. We learn to love
Caesar and the "Guerre des Gaules", his invasion of Gauls. We learn how Franks invaded their neighbors and built the first post-roman
Empire. We learn how crusaders were called Franks, how we built our nation and his pride on ashes of european continental english
hopes and german holy empire aspirations. We learn how Napolean nearly achieved to built a new continental Empire, how we never
let them passed at Verdun, and how we rose in the face of a tyran in 1944.
All of this is still in our history books, and we're still proud of it. But today, if most of us were to be asked what we
were proud about recent wars France got into, it would be how our president vetoed USA when they tried to got UN into Irak and
forced them to invade illegally, and without us.
I think my country's revelation was Algeria's independance war. One bloody and largely filled with war crimes and crimes against
humanity. We're ashamed of it, and I think we, as a nation, learned from it that stopping wars on our soil wasn't enough. I
still don't understand how americans can still wage wars after Vietnam, but I am not american. Still, even the most warmongering
nation can learn. Let's hope you will be quicker than us, because we got millennias of bloody history before even the birth
of USA.
Eddie S , July 3, 2019 at 23:15
Thanks Maxime for a foreign perspective! I'm often curious what people in foreign countries think of our current politics
in the US,especially when I read analysis/commentaries by US writers (even ones I respect) who say "Oh most of our allies think
this or that" -- - maybe they're right or maybe they're wrong or somewhere in-between, but it's interesting getting a DIRECT
opinion from a fellow left-of-center citizen from a foreign state.
I agree with your points that European countries like France almost all have their own bloody history including an imperial
period, but the two big World Wars that killed SO many people and destroyed so many cities in Europe were so tragic and wasteful
that I suspect they DO continue to act as a significant deterrent to the saber-rattling that the US war mongers are able to
engage-in. For too many US citizens 'war' is just something that's mentioned & sometimes displayed on a screen, just like a
movie/TV program/video-game, and there's a non-reality to it because it's so far away and seldom directly affects them. Geography
has famously isolated us from the major death & destruction of war and enables too many armchair warriors to talk boldly and
vote for politicians who pander to those conceits. In a not-so-subtle way, the US IS the younger offspring of Europe, where
Europe has grown-up due to some hard lessons, while the US is going through its own destructive stage of 'lesson-learning'.
Hopefully this learning stage will be over soon and won't involve a world war.
DW Bartoo , July 3, 2019 at 12:48
Tulsi Gabbard is, indeed,pointing at part of a major organ of imperialism, Antonio Costa, yet habeas corpus, having the whole
body of imperialism produced is necessary for the considered judgement of a people long terrorized by fictitious "monsters"
and "demons", if they are to understand that shooting warfate is but one part of the heart, while the other is economic warfare.
Both brutally destructive, even if the second is hidden from public awareness or dismissed as "a price worth paying". Imperialism
pays no price (except "blow-back", which is merely "religious extremism" as explained by a fully complicit MSM).
And the "brain" behind it all?
That is corporate/military/political/deep state/media greed – and their desperate need/ambition for total, and absolute,
control.
Only seeing the whole body may reveal the true size of the threat and the vicious nature of the real danger.
Some may argue that it is "too soon", "too early", or "too costly", politically, for Gabbard, even if she, herself, might
see imperialism as the real monster and demon, to dare describe the whole beast.
Frankly, this time, Tulsi's candidacy, her "run" for President, is not likely to see her become the Dem nominee, most likely
that will be Kamala Harris (who will happily do the bidding of brute power), rather, it is to lay the firm and solid foundation
of actual difference, of rational perspective, and thoughtful, diplomatic international behavior.
To expose the whole, especially the role of the MSM, in furthering all the rest of the lumbering body of Zombie imperialism,
would be far more effective in creating an substantial "opening" for alternative possibilities, even a new political party,
next time.
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:31
I'm figuring that Warren and Harris will take one another out. Climbing to the top requires this. But, Gabbard doesn't stop
fighting, and if there's a fighter out there it is her: mentally and physically she is the total package.
Sanders' 2016 campaign was ignored, he wasn't supposed to go anywhere, but if not for the DNC's meddling he would be POTUS
right now (I have zero doubt over that). So too was Obama's climb from nowhere: of course, Obama was pushed up by the System,
the System that is NOT behind Gabbard. And then there's the clown at the helm (Trump). I refuse to ignore this history.
Gababard is by no means out. Let's not speak of such things, especially when her campaign, and message, is just starting
to burst out: the MSM is the last to admit the state of things unfavorable to the wealthy, but out on the Internet Gabbard is
very much alive. She is the best candidate (with the best platform of visibility) for peace. She has all the pieces. One comment
I read out on the internet (someone, I believe, not in the US) was that Gabbard was a gift to the Americans. Yes, I believe
this to be the case: if you really look closely you'll see exactly how this is correct. I believe that we cannot afford to treat
this gift with other than the utmost appreciation. Her sincerity when she says that she was/is willing to die for her fellow
soldiers (in reference to LBGT folks, though ALL apply) is total. She is totally committed to this battle: as a warrior in politics
she's proven herself with her support, the loyalty, for Sanders (at risk to her political career- and now look, she's running
for POTUS, she continues to come out on top!).
IvyMike , July 2, 2019 at 20:14
I burned my draft card, grew my hair out, and smoked pot and was anti war as heck. But the peace demonstrations (and riots)
in the 60's and 70's did not have much effect on how the U.S. Government prosecuted the Vietnam War. It is little recognized
how hard American troops fought from 1965 to 1968. Our air mobile troops in particular made a great slaughter of NVA and VC
while also taking heavy casualties.
We were having such success that no one in the military thought the enemy could keep up the fight. Then, the Tet offensive
with the beaten enemy attacking every city in the South.
Then the politicians and Generals knew, given the super power politics surrounding the war, that we had lost. We had failed
to recognize that we had not intervened in a Civil War, in truth Vietnam as a whole was fighting for freedom from Imperialism
and we had no friends in the South, just a corrupt puppet government. Instead of getting out, Nixon made the unforgivable choice
to slowly wind the war down until he could get out without losing, Peace With Honor the ultimate triumph of ego over humanity.
Americans had a chance to choose a peace candidate in 1972, instead Nixon won with a big majority.
The military has never been able to admit they were defeated on the battlefield by North Vietnam, blaming it instead on the
Liberal Media and the Anti War movement. Believing that lie they continue to fight unwinnable wars in which we have no national
interest at stake. The media and the people no longer fight against war, but it never really made a difference when we did.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 05:17
I too hoped for a miracle and voted for George. But then I always voted for the loser in whatever state I happened to be
living in at the particular time. I think Carter was a rare winning pick by me but only once. I got disgusted with voting and
sat out the Clinton campaigns, only returning to vote against the Bush juggernaut. In retrospect, Perot should have won to make
a real difference. I sided with the winner in Obama, but the loser turned out to be America getting saddled with that two-faced
hypocrite. Nobel Peace Prize winner indeed! (What did he spend the money on?) When you listen to their campaign promises be
aware they are telegraphing how they plan to betray you.
triekc , July 3, 2019 at 07:45
American people in mass need to hit reset button. A yellow vest-like movement made up of tens of millions of woke people,
who understand the democrats and republicans are the left and right wing of the oligarch party,
US elections have been and continue to be rigged, and the US constitution was written to protect the property (such
as slaves) of oligarchs from the people, the founding oligarchs feared real democracy, evident by all the safeguards they built
into our government to protect against it, that remain in tact today.
We need a new 21st century constitution. Global capitalism needs to be greatly curtailed, or ended out right, replaced by
ecosocialism, conservation, restoration of earth focussed society
Seer , July 3, 2019 at 15:38
And just think that back then there was also Mike Gravel. The CIA did their work in the 60s to kill the anti-war movement:
killing all the great social leaders.
Why wars are "lost" is because hardly is there a time when there's an actual "mission statement" on what the end of a given
war will look like. Tulsi Gabbard has made it clear that she would NOT engage in any wars unless there was a clear objective,
a clear outcome lined out, and, of course, it was authorized by THE PEOPLE (Congress).
All wars are about resources. We cannot, however, admit this: the ruling capitalists won't allow that to be known/understood
lest they lose their power.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 04:59
Ya got all that right, especially the part about the analysts essentially declaring the war lost after Tet. I remember that
offered a lot of hope on the campuses that the war would soon end (even though we lost), especially to those of us near graduation
and facing loss of that precious 2S deferment. Yet the big fool marched on, getting my generation needlessly slaughtered for
four or five more years.
And, yes, the 2 or 3 million dead Vietnamese did matter, to those with a conscience. Such a price to keep Vietnam out of
Russia's and China's orbit. Meanwhile they set an independent course after kicking us out of their land and even fought a war
with China. We should still be paying reparations for the levels of death and destruction we brought to a country half a world
away with absolutely no means or desire to threaten the United States. All our wars of choice, starting with Korea, have been
similar crimes against humanity. Turkey shoots against third world societies with no way to do us any harm. But every one of
them fought ferociously to the death to defend their land and their people. Inevitably, every occupier is sent packing as their
empire crumbles. Obviously, Americans have been too thick to learn this from mere history books. We will only learn from our
tragic mistakes. I see a lot of lessons on the upcoming schedule.
USA did not "intervene" in a civil war. USA paid France to continue it's imperial war and then took over when France fled
defeated. USA prevented a mandated election Ho Chi Minh would win and then continued western imperial warfare against the Vietnamese
( even though Vietnamese was/is bulwark against China's territorial expansion).
mauisurfer , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
The Watson study says: "Indeed, the DOD is the world's largest institutional user of petroleum and correspondingly,
the single largest producer of greenhouse gases (GHG) in the world.4"
This is a gross UNDERcount of emissions. It includes ONLY petroleum burned.
It does NOT count explosions from bombs, missiles, rockets, rifles, etc.
Perhaps someone could provide an estimate of this contribution to greenhouse gases???
Don't worry, Elizabeth Warren has a plan to operate the military on renewables! (she can continue to make sure her constituency,
which is Raytheon, is well served)
Raytheon, one of the biggest employers in Warren's state, where it's headquartered, "has a positive relationship with Sen.
Warren, and we interact with her and her staff regularly," Michael Doble, a spokesman for the company, said.
jo6pac , July 2, 2019 at 20:12
This awful news for the merchants of death and I'm sure they're working overtime to stop silliness;-). I do hope this isn't
killed by those that love the endless wars.
Thanks AH
mbob , July 2, 2019 at 20:10
Perhaps there is no open anti-war movement because the Democratic party is now pro-war. Rather than support President
Trump's efforts to end the Korean War, to reduce our involvement in the Middle East and to pursue a more peaceful path with
Russia, the Democratic party (with very, very few exceptions) is opposed to all these things.
The Democratic party places its hatred for Trump above its professed love of peace.
President Obama, the Nobel peace prize winner, started a war with Libya, which had neither attacked nor threatened the
US and which, by many accounts, was trying to improve relations with the US. GW Bush unnecessarily attacked Iraq and Clinton
destroyed Haiti and bombed Yugoslavia, among other actions.
From a peace perspective, Trump looks comparatively great (provided he doesn't attack Iraq or invade Venezuela). But, since
it's impossible to recognize Trump for anything positive, or to support him in any way, it's now impossible for Democrats to
promote peace. Doing so might help Trump. It would, of necessity, require acknowledging Trump's uniqueness among recent US Presidents
in not starting new wars.
Realist , July 3, 2019 at 03:28
I agree. mbob makes perfect sense in his analysis.
The Democrats must be brought back to reality with a sound repudiation by the voters, otherwise they are of no use to America
and will have no long-term future.
Obama escalated Afghanistan when he had a popular mandate to withdraw. He facilitated the the Syrian rebellion in conjunction
with ISIS funding Saudi Arabia and Qatar. He instigated the Zalaya (primarily Hillary) and the Ukraine rebellion.
Trump supports the Yemeni genocide.
But yes citizens have been directed to hate Trump the man/symptom rather than the enduring Imperial predatory capitalistic
system.
Opps sorry; so many interventions and invasions, under Obama, special forces trained Malian general overthrew the democratically
elected president of Mali, result, more war,death and destruction.
Robert , July 3, 2019 at 10:48
You are correct in your analysis. Allegra Harpootlian is searching for the peace lobby among Democrat supporters, where it
no longer resides.
As a result of corporate-controlled mainstream media and their support for Democrat elites, Democrat supporters have largely
been brainwashed into hatred for Donald Trump and everything he stands for. This hatred blinds them to the far more important
issue of peace.
Strangely, there is huge US support to remove troops from the ME, but this support resides with the overwhelming majority
of Donald Trump voters. Unfortunately, these are not individuals who typically go to peace demonstrations, but they are sincere
in bringing all US troops home from the ME. Donald Trump himself lobbied on this, and with the exceptions of his anti-Iranian
/ pro-Israel / pro-Saudi Arabia stance and withdrawal from JCPOA, he has not only backed down from military adventurism, but
is the first President since Eisenhower to raise the issue of the influence of the military-industrial complex.
In the face of strong opposition, he is the first President ever to enter North Korea and meet with Kim Jong Un to discuss
nuclear weapons. Mainstream media continues its war-mongering rhetoric, attacking Trump for his "weakness" in not retaliating
against Iran, or in meeting "secretly" with Putin.
Opposition to Trump's peace efforts are not limited to MSM, however, but are entrenched in Democrat and Republican elites,
who attack any orders he gives to withdraw from the ME. It was not Trump, but Democrat and Republican elites who invited NATO's
Stoltenberg to speak to Congress in an attempt to spite Trump.
In essence, you have President Trump and most of his supporters trying to withdraw from military engagements, with
active opposition from Democrats like Adam Schiff, and Republican elites, actively promoting war and military spending.
DJT is like a less-likeable Inspector Clouseau. Sometimes ineptitude is a blessing. You also have a few Republicans, like
journalist Tucker Carlson of Fox News, and Democrats, like Tulsi Gabbard, actively pushing the message of peace.
Erelis , July 3, 2019 at 20:45
I think you got it. The author is right in the sense that there is an anti-war movement, but that movement is in many ways
hidden. As bizarre as it may seen counter to CW wisdom, and in some way ironically crazy, one of the biggest segments of anti-war
sentiment are Trump supporters. After Trump's decision not to attack Iran, I went to various right wing commentators who attacked
Trump, and the reaction against these major right wing war mongers was to support Trump. And with right wing commentators who
supported Trump, absolute agreement. These is of course based on my objective reading reading and totally subjective. But I
believe I am right.
This made me realize there is an untapped anti-war sentiment on the right which is being totally missed. And a lack of imagination
and Trump derangment syndrome which blocks many on the anti-war Left to see it and use it for an anti-war movement. There was
an article in The Intercept that looked research on the correlation between military deaths and voting preference. Here is the
article:
And the thing is that Trump was in many ways the anti-war candidate. And those areas that had high military death rates voted
for Trump. I understand the tribal nature of political affiliation, but it seems what I have read and this article, there may
be indeed an untapped anti-war stance with Trump supporters.
And it really just challenges my own beliefs that the major obstacle to the war mongers are Trump supporters.
mbob – I couldn't have said it better myself. Except to add that in addition to destroying Libya, the Nobel Peace Prize winner
Obama, ably assisted by Hillary Clinton, also destroyed Honduras and the Ukraine.
Anarcissie , July 3, 2019 at 11:55
Historically, the Democratic Party has been pro-war and pro-imperialism at least since Wilson. The hatred for Trump on their
part seems to be based entirely on cultural issues -- he is not subservient enough to their gods.
But as for antiwar demonstrations, it's been proved in the streets that they don't accomplish anything. There were huge demonstrations
against the war in Vietnam, but it ground on until conservatives got tired of it. At least half a million people demonstrated
against the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and no one important cared. Evidently more fundamental issues than the war of the moment
are involved and I think that is where a lot of people are turning now. The ruling class will find this a lot harder to deal
with because it's decentralized and widely distributed. Hence the panic about Trump and the seething hatred of Sanders.
mbob , July 3, 2019 at 18:15
I attempted to make three points in my post. First, Democrats are now pro-war. Second, solely regarding peace, Trump looks
better than all other recent Presidents because he hasn't started any new wars. Third, the inability of Democrats (or the public
as a whole) to give Trump the benefit of a doubt, or to support him in any way, is contrary to the cause of peace.
Democrats should, without reservation, support Trump's effort to end the Korean War. They should support Trump's desire to
improve relations with Russia. They don't do either of those things. Why? Because it might hurt them politically.
Your comment does not challenge the first two points and reinforces the third.
As for Yemen, yes, Trump is wrong. Democrats rightly oppose him on Yemen -- but remarkably tepidly. Trump is wrong about
a lot of things. I don't like him. I didn't vote for him. But I will vote for him if Democrats nominate someone worse than him,
which they seem inclined to do. (Gabbard is better than Trump. Sanders probably. Maybe Warren. Of the three, only Warren receives
positive press. That makes me skeptical of her.)
Trump stood up to his advisors, Bolton and Pompeo, regarding both Iran and Venezuela. Obama, on the other hand, did not.
He followed the advice of his advisors, with disastrous consequences.
>>In addition to Tuesday's sanctions, the Treasury Department issued an advisory to maritime shipping companies, warning
them off transporting oil to Syria or risking their property and money seized if kept with financial institutions that follow
U.S. sanctions law.
"The United States will aggressively seek to impose sanctions against any party involved in shipping oil to Syria, or seeking
to evade our sanctions on Iranian oil," said Sigal Mandelker, the Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence,
in a release. "Shipping companies, insurers, vessel owners, managers, and operators should all be aware of the grave consequences
of engaging in sanctionable conduct involving Iranian oil shipments."<<
Today British marines seized a tanker near Gibraltar for the crime of transporting oil to Syria. And Trumpian peaceful military
seized Syrian oil fields. Traditional war is increasingly augmented by piracy, which is less bloody, but trades outright carnage
for deprivation of civilians. Giving "measured praise" for that makes me barf.
The problem here is that the US population is too brainwashing with jingoism and Exceptionalism to value Tulsi message. The
US army is mercenary army and unlike situation with the draft people generally do not care much when mercenaries die. That makes
any anti-war candidate vulnerable to "Russiagate" smear.
He/she need to have a strong domestic program to appeal to voters, So far Warren is in better position in this area then
Tulsi.
Notable quotes:
"... The Drudge Report website had its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the debate. ..."
"... On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced an article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of Defense." ..."
"... In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will tell you that answer is unacceptable." ..."
"... Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment, saying that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end." ..."
"... Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to "defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging ..."
"... In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the Vietnam War back in 1968. ..."
"... And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be at war with Russia and possibly also with China. ..."
"... Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities, leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past twenty years. ..."
"... Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. ..."
"... She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren, who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups, but she has moderated her views recently. ..."
"... To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. ..."
Last Wednesday’s debate among half of the announced Democratic Party candidates to become their party’s nominee for
president in 2020 was notable for its lack of drama. Many of those called on to speak had little to say apart from the usual
liberal bromides about health care, jobs, education and how the United States is a country of immigrants. On the following
day the mainstream media anointed Elizabeth Warren as the winner based on the coherency of her message even though she said
little that differed from what was being presented by most of the others on the stage. She just said it better, more
articulately.
The New York Times’
coverage was typical, praising Warren for her grasp of the issues and her ability to present the same
clearly and concisely, and citing a comment "They could teach
classes in how Warren talks about a problem and weaves in answers into a story. She's not just
wonk and stats." It then went on to lump most of the other candidates together, describing
their performances as "ha[ving] one or two strong answers, but none of them had the electric,
campaign-launching moment they were hoping for."
Inevitably, however, there was some disagreement on who had actually done best based on
viewer reactions as well as the perceptions of some of the media that might not exactly be
described as mainstream. The Drudge Report website
had
its poll running while the debate was going on and it registered overwhelmingly in favor of
Hawaiian Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard. Likewise, the Washington Examiner , a right-wing
paper, opined that Gabbard had won by a knockout based on its own polling. Google's search
engine reportedly saw a surge in searches linked to Tulsi Gabbard both during and after the
debate.
On the following day traditional conservative Pat Buchanan produced
an
article entitled "Memo for Trump: Trade Bolton for Tulsi," similar to a comment made by
Republican consultant Frank Luntz "She's a long-shot
to win the presidency, but Tulsi Gabbard is sounding like a prime candidate for Secretary of
Defense."
Tulsi, campaigning on her anti-war credentials, was indeed not like the other candidates,
confronting directly the issue of war and peace which the other potential candidates studiously
avoided. In response to a comment by neoliberal Congressman Tim Ryan who said that the U.S. has
to remain "engaged" in places like Afghanistan, she referred to two American soldiers who had
been killed that very day, saying "Is that what you will tell the parents of those two soldiers
who were just killed in Afghanistan? Well, we just have to be engaged? As a soldier, I will
tell you that answer is unacceptable."
At another point she expanded on her thinking about America's wars, saying "Let's deal with
the situation where we are, where this president and his chickenhawk cabinet have led us to the
brink of war with Iran. I served in the war in Iraq at the height of the war in 2005, a war
that took over 4,000 of my brothers and sisters in uniforms' lives. The American people need to
understand that this war with Iran would be far more devastating, far more costly than anything
that we ever saw in Iraq. It would take many more lives. It would exacerbate the refugee
crisis. And it wouldn't be just contained within Iran. This would turn into a regional war.
This is why it's so important that every one of us, every single American, stand up and say no
war with Iran."
Tulsi also declared war on the Washington Establishment,
saying
that "For too long our leaders have failed us, taking us into one regime change war after
the next, leading us into a new Cold War and arms race, costing us trillions of our hard-earned
tax payer dollars and countless lives. This insanity must end."
Blunt words, but it was a statement that few Americans whose livelihoods are not linked to
"defense" or to the shamelessly corrupt U.S. Congress and media could disagree with, as it is
clear that Washington is at the bottom of a deep hole and persists in digging. So why was there
such a difference between what ordinary Americans and the Establishment punditry were seeing on
their television screens? The difference was not so much in perception as in the desire to see
a certain outcome. Anti-war takes away a lot of people's rice bowls, be they directly employed
on "defense" or part of the vast army of lobbyists and think tank parasites that keep the money
flowing out of the taxpayers' pockets and into the pockets of Raytheon, General Dynamics,
Boeing and Lockheed Martin like a perpetual motion machine.
In the collective judgment of America's Establishment, Tulsi Gabbard and anyone like her
must be destroyed. She would not be the first victim of the political process shutting out
undesirable opinions. One can go all the way back to Eugene McCarthy and his opposition to the
Vietnam War back in 1968. McCarthy was right and Lyndon Johnson and the rest of the Democratic
Party were wrong. More recently, Congressman Ron Paul tried twice to bring some sanity to the
Republican Party. He too was marginalized deliberately by the GOP party apparatus working
hand-in-hand with the media, to include the final insult of his being denied any opportunity to
speak or have his delegates recognized at the 2012 nominating convention.
And the beat goes on. In 2016, Debbie Wasserman Shultz, head of the Democratic National
Committee, fixed the nomination process so that Bernie Sanders, a peace candidate, would be
marginalized and super hawk Hillary Clinton would be selected. Fortunately, the odor emanating
from anything having to do with the Clintons kept her from being elected or we would already be
at war with Russia and possibly also with China.
Tulsi Gabbard has let the genie of "end the forever wars" out of the bottle and it will be
difficult to force it back in. She just might shake up the Democratic Party's priorities,
leading to more questions about just what has been wrong with U.S. foreign policy over the past
twenty years. To qualify for the second round of debates she has to gain a couple of points in
her approval rating or bring in more donations, either of which is definitely possible based on
her performance. It is to be hoped that that will occur and that there will be no Debbie
Wasserman Schultz hiding somewhere in the process who will finagle the polling results.
Yes, to some critics, Tulsi Gabbard is
not a perfect candidate . On most domestic issues she appears to be a typical liberal
Democrat and is also conventional in terms of her accommodation with Jewish power, but she also
breaks with the Democratic Party establishment with her pledge to pardon Chelsea Manning,
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
She also has more of a moral compass than Elizabeth Warren,
who cleverly evades the whole issue of Middle East policy, or a Joe Biden who would kiss
Benjamin Netanyahu's ass without any hesitation at all. Gabbard has openly criticized Netanyahu
and she has also condemned Israel's killing of "unarmed civilians" in Gaza. As a Hindu, her
view of Muslims is somewhat complicated based on the historical interaction of the two groups,
but she has moderated her views recently.
To be sure, Americans have heard much of the same before, much of it from out of the
mouth of a gentleman named Donald Trump, but Tulsi Gabbard could well be the only genuine
antiwar candidate that might truly be electable in the past fifty years. It is essential
that we Americans who are concerned about the future of our country should listen to what she
has to say very carefully and to respond accordingly.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a
501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more
interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is
councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its
email is [email protected]
Over the last two years, a different, in some ways unrecognizable Larry Summers has been appearing in newspaper editorial pages.
More circumspect in tone, this humbler Summers has been arguing that economic opportunities in the developing world are slowing,
and that the already rich economies are finding it hard to get out of the crisis. Barring some kind of breakthrough, Summers says,
an era of slow growth is here to stay.
In Summers's recent writings, this sombre conclusion has often been paired with a surprising political goal: advocating for a
"responsible nationalism". Now he argues that politicians must recognise that "the basic responsibility of government is to maximise
the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global good".
One curious thing about the pro-globalisation consensus of the 1990s and 2000s, and its collapse in recent years, is how closely
the cycle resembles a previous era. Pursuing free trade has always produced displacement and inequality – and political chaos, populism
and retrenchment to go with it. Every time the social consequences of free trade are overlooked, political backlash follows. But
free trade is only one of many forms that economic integration can take. History seems to suggest, however, that it might be the
most destabilising one.
... ... ...
The international systems that chastened figures such as Keynes helped produce in the next few years – especially the Bretton
Woods agreement and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt) – set the terms under which the new wave of globalisation
would take place.
The key to the system's viability, in Rodrik's view, was its flexibility – something absent from contemporary globalisation,
with its one-size-fits-all model of capitalism. Bretton Woods stabilised exchange rates by pegging the dollar loosely to gold, and
other currencies to the dollar. Gatt consisted of rules governing free trade – negotiated by participating countries in a series
of multinational "rounds" – that left many areas of the world economy, such as agriculture, untouched or unaddressed. "Gatt's purpose
was never to maximise free trade," Rodrik writes. "It was to achieve the maximum amount of trade compatible with different nations
doing their own thing. In that respect, the institution proved spectacularly successful."
Partly because Gatt was not always dogmatic about free trade, it allowed most countries to figure out their own economic objectives,
within a somewhat international ambit. When nations contravened the agreement's terms on specific areas of national interest, they
found that it "contained loopholes wide enough for an elephant to pass", in Rodrik's words. If a nation wanted to protect its steel
industry, for example, it could claim "injury" under the rules of Gatt and raise tariffs to discourage steel imports: "an abomination
from the standpoint of free trade". These were useful for countries that were recovering from the war and needed to build up their
own industries via tariffs – duties imposed on particular imports. Meanwhile, from 1948 to 1990, world trade grew at an annual average
of nearly 7% – faster than the post-communist years, which we think of as the high point of globalisation. "If there was a golden
era of globalisation," Rodrik has written, "this was it."
Gatt, however, failed to cover many of the countries in the developing world. These countries eventually created their own system,
the United Nations conference on trade and development (UNCTAD). Under this rubric, many countries – especially in Latin America,
the Middle East, Africa and Asia – adopted a policy of protecting homegrown industries by replacing imports with domestically produced
goods. It worked poorly in some places – India and Argentina, for example, where the trade barriers were too high, resulting in
factories that cost more to set up than the value of the goods they produced – but remarkably well in others, such as east Asia,
much of Latin America and parts of sub-Saharan Africa, where homegrown industries did spring up. Though many later economists and
commentators would dismiss the achievements of this model, it theoretically fit Larry Summers's recent rubric on globalisation:
"the basic responsibility of government is to maximise the welfare of citizens, not to pursue some abstract concept of the global
good."
The critical turning point – away from this system of trade balanced against national protections – came in the 1980s. Flagging
growth and high inflation in the west, along with growing competition from Japan, opened the way for a political transformation.
The elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were seminal, putting free-market radicals in charge of two of the world's
five biggest economies and ushering in an era of "hyperglobalisation". In the new political climate, economies with large public
sectors and strong governments within the global capitalist system were no longer seen as aids to the system's functioning, but
impediments to it.
Not only did these ideologies take hold in the US and the UK; they seized international institutions as well. Gatt renamed itself
as the World Trade Organization (WTO), and the new rules the body negotiated began to cut more deeply into national policies. Its
international trade rules sometimes undermined national legislation. The WTO's appellate court intervened relentlessly in member
nations' tax, environmental and regulatory policies, including those of the United States: the US's fuel emissions standards were
judged to discriminate against imported gasoline, and its
ban on imported shrimp caught without turtle-excluding
devices was overturned. If national health and safety regulations were stricter than WTO rules necessitated, they could only
remain in place if they were shown to have "scientific justification".
The purest version of hyperglobalisation was tried out in Latin America in the 1980s. Known as the "Washington consensus", this
model usually involved loans from the IMF that were contingent on those countries lowering trade barriers and privatising many of
their nationally held industries. Well into the 1990s, economists were proclaiming the indisputable benefits of openness. In an
influential 1995 paper, Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner wrote: "We find no cases to support the frequent worry that a country might
open and yet fail to grow."
But the Washington consensus was bad for business: most countries did worse than before. Growth faltered, and citizens across
Latin America revolted against attempted privatisations of water and gas. In Argentina, which followed the Washington consensus
to the letter, a grave crisis resulted in
2002 , precipitating an economic collapse and massive street protests that forced out the government that had pursued privatising
reforms. Argentina's revolt presaged a left-populist upsurge across the continent: from 1999 to 2007, leftwing leaders and parties
took power in Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, all of them campaigning against the Washington consensus on globalisation.
These revolts were a preview of the backlash of today.
Rodrik – perhaps the contemporary economist whose views have been most amply vindicated by recent events – was himself a beneficiary
of protectionism in Turkey. His father's ballpoint pen company was sheltered under tariffs, and achieved enough success to allow
Rodrik to attend Harvard in the 1970s as an undergraduate. This personal understanding of the mixed nature of economic success may
be one of the reasons why his work runs against the broad consensus of mainstream economics writing on globalisation.
"I never felt that my ideas were out of the mainstream," Rodrik told me recently. Instead, it was that the mainstream had lost
touch with the diversity of opinions and methods that already existed within economics. "The economics profession is strange in
that the more you move away from the seminar room to the public domain, the more the nuances get lost, especially on issues of trade."
He lamented the fact that while, in the classroom, the models of trade discuss losers and winners, and, as a result, the necessity
of policies of redistribution, in practice, an "arrogance and hubris" had led many economists to ignore these implications. "Rather
than speaking truth to power, so to speak, many economists became cheerleaders for globalisation."
In his 2011 book The Globalization Paradox
, Rodrik concluded that "we cannot simultaneously pursue democracy, national determination, and economic globalisation." The
results of the 2016 elections and referendums provide ample testimony of the justness of the thesis, with millions voting to push
back, for better or for worse, against the campaigns and institutions that promised more globalisation. "I'm not at all surprised
by the backlash," Rodrik told me. "Really, nobody should have been surprised."
But what, in any case, would "more globalisation" look like? For the same economists and writers who have started to rethink
their commitments to greater integration, it doesn't mean quite what it did in the early 2000s. It's not only the discourse that's
changed: globalisation itself has changed, developing into a more chaotic and unequal system than many economists predicted. The
benefits of globalisation have been largely concentrated in a handful of Asian countries. And even in those countries, the good
times may be running out.
Statistics from Global Inequality
, a 2016 book by the development economist Branko Milanović, indicate that in relative terms the greatest benefits of globalisation
have accrued to a rising "emerging middle class", based preponderantly in China. But the cons are there, too: in absolute terms,
the largest gains have gone to what is commonly called "the 1%" – half of whom are based in the US. Economist Richard Baldwin has
shown in his recent book, The Great Convergence, that nearly all of the gains from globalisation have been concentrated in six countries.
Barring some political catastrophe, in which rightwing populism continued to gain, and in which globalisation would be the least
of our problems – Wolf admitted that he was "not at all sure" that this could be ruled out – globalisation was always going to slow;
in fact, it already has. One reason, says Wolf, was that "a very, very large proportion of the gains from globalisation – by no
means all – have been exploited. We have a more open world economy to trade than we've ever had before." Citing The Great Convergence,
Wolf noted that supply chains have already expanded, and that future developments, such as automation and the use of robots, looked
to undermine the promise of a growing industrial workforce. Today, the political priorities were less about trade and more about
the challenge of retraining workers , as technology renders old jobs obsolete and transforms the world of work.
Rodrik, too, believes that globalisation, whether reduced or increased, is unlikely to produce the kind of economic effects it
once did. For him, this slowdown has something to do with what he calls "premature deindustrialisation". In the past, the simplest
model of globalisation suggested that rich countries would gradually become "service economies", while emerging economies picked
up the industrial burden. Yet recent statistics show the world as a whole is deindustrialising. Countries that one would have expected
to have more industrial potential are going through the stages of automation more quickly than previously developed countries did,
and thereby failing to develop the broad industrial workforce seen as a key to shared prosperity.
For both Rodrik and Wolf, the political reaction to globalisation bore possibilities of deep uncertainty. "I really have found
it very difficult to decide whether what we're living through is a blip, or a fundamental and profound transformation of the world
– at least as significant as the one that brought about the first world war and the Russian revolution," Wolf told me. He cited
his agreement with economists such as Summers that shifting away from the earlier emphasis on globalisation had now become a political
priority; that to pursue still greater liberalisation was like showing "a red rag to a bull" in terms of what it might do to the
already compromised political stability of the western world.
Rodrik pointed to a belated emphasis, both among political figures and economists, on the necessity of compensating those displaced
by globalisation with retraining and more robust welfare states. But pro-free-traders had a history of cutting compensation: Bill
Clinton passed Nafta, but failed to expand safety nets. "The issue is that the people are rightly not trusting the centrists who
are now promising compensation," Rodrik said. "One reason that Hillary Clinton didn't get any traction with those people is that
she didn't have any credibility."
Rodrik felt that economics commentary failed to register the gravity of the situation: that there were increasingly few avenues
for global growth, and that much of the damage done by globalisation – economic and political – is irreversible. "There is a sense
that we're at a turning point," he said. "There's a lot more thinking about what can be done. There's a renewed emphasis on compensation
– which, you know, I think has come rather late."
As Noam Chomsky
says, the term globalisation has been appropriated by a narrow sector of power and privilege to
refer to their version of international integration and it makes sense for them to own the term
because anyone who is opposed to their version becomes anti-globalisation -- someone who is
primitive and wants to go back to the stone age and that everyone likes international integration
but not the investor rights version of it.
In reality globalization was a politically correct term for neocolonialism
Notable quotes:
"... In finance, the change was marked by a fundamental shift in governments' attitudes away from managing capital flows and toward liberalization ..."
Globalization is in trouble. A populist backlash, personified by U.S. President Donald
Trump, is in full swing. A simmering trade war
between China and the United States could easily boil over. Countries across Europe are
shutting their borders to immigrants. Even globalization's biggest boosters now concede that it
has produced lopsided benefits and that something
will have to change .
Today's woes have their roots in the 1990s, when policymakers set the world on its current,
hyperglobalist path, requiring domestic economies to be put in the service of the world economy
instead of the other way around. In trade, the transformation was signaled by the creation of
the World Trade Organization, in 1995. The WTO not only made it harder for countries to shield
themselves from international competition but also reached into policy areas that international
trade rules had not previously touched: agriculture, services, intellectual property,
industrial policy, and health and sanitary regulations. Even more ambitious regional trade
deals, such as the North American Free Trade Agreement, took off around the same time.
In finance, the change was marked by a fundamental shift in governments' attitudes away from
managing capital flows and toward liberalization. Pushed by the United States and global
organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, countries freed up vast quantities of short-term finance to slosh
across borders in search of higher returns.
At the time, these changes seemed to be based on sound economics. Openness to trade would
lead economies to allocate their resources to where they would be the most productive. Capital
would flow from the countries where it was plentiful to the countries where it was needed. More
trade and freer finance would unleash private investment and fuel global economic growth.
But
these new arrangements came with risks that the hyperglobalists did not foresee, although
economic theory could have predicted the downside to globalization just as well as it did the
upside.
"... The key point, is that this happened in the 1980's – 90's. Vast profit possibilities were opening up through digitalization, corporate outsourcing, globalization and the internet. The globalists urgently wanted that money, and had to have political compliance. They found it in Neoliberalism and hijacked both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party, creating "New Labour" (leader Tony Blair) through classless "modernization" following Margaret Thatcher's lead. ..."
"... Great blast by Jonathan Cook – I feel as if he has read my thoughts about the political system keeping the proles in an Orwellian state of serfdom for plunder and abuse under the guise of “democracy” and “freedom”. ..."
"... But the ideas of the Chicago School in cohorts with the Frankfurters and Tavistockers were already undermining our hopeful vision of the world while the think tanks at the foundations, councils and institutes were flooding the academies with the doctrines of hardhead uncompromising Capitalism to suck the blood off the proles into anaemic immiseration and apathetic insouciance. ..."
"... With the working class defeated and gone, where is the spirit of resistance to spring from? Not from the selfishness of the new generation of smartphone addicts whose world has shrunk to the atomic MEism and who refuse to open their eyes to what is staring in their face: debt slavery, for life. Maybe the French can do it again. Allez Gilets Jaunes! ..."
This is a very good article on UK politics, but I would have put more emphasis on the
background. Where we are today has everything to do with how we got here.
The UK has this basic left/right split (Labour/Conservative) reaching far back into its
class based history. Sad to say, but within 5 seconds a British person can determine the
class of the person they are dealing with (working/ middle/ upper) and act accordingly
– referencing their own social background.
Margaret Thatcher was a lower middle class grocer's daughter who gained a rare place at
Oxford University (on her own high intellectual merits), and took on the industrial wreckers
of the radical left (Arthur Scargill etc.). She consolidated her power with the failure of
the 1984-85 Miner's Strike. She introduced a new kind of Conservatism that was more classless
and open to the talents, adopting free market Neoliberalism along with Ronald Reagan. A large
section of the aspirational working class went for this (many already had middle class
salaries) and wanted that at least their children could join the middle class through the
university system.
The key point, is that this happened in the 1980's – 90's. Vast profit possibilities
were opening up through digitalization, corporate outsourcing, globalization and the
internet. The globalists urgently wanted that money, and had to have political compliance.
They found it in Neoliberalism and hijacked both the Conservative Party and the Labour Party,
creating "New Labour" (leader Tony Blair) through classless "modernization" following
Margaret Thatcher's lead.
The story now, is that the UK public realize that the Globalist/Zionist/SJW/Open
Frontiers/ Neoliberal crowd are not their friends . So they (the public) are backtracking
fast to find solid ground. In practice this means 1) Leave the Neoliberal/Globalist EU (which
has also been hijacked) using Brexit 2) Recover the traditional Socialist Labour Party of
working people through Jeremy Corbyn 3) Recover the traditional Conservative Party ( Britain
First) through Nigel Farage and his Brexit movement.
Hence the current and growing gulf that is separating the British public from its
Zio-Globalist elite + their media propagandists (BBC, Guardian etc.).
She introduced a new kind of Conservatism that was more classless …
Or just plain anti-working class.
It was actually Thatcher who started the neo-liberal revolution in Britain. To the extent
that she refused to finish it, the elites had Tony Blair in the wings waiting to go.
Great blast by Jonathan Cook – I feel as if he has read my thoughts about the
political system keeping the proles in an Orwellian state of serfdom for plunder and abuse
under the guise of “democracy” and “freedom”. Under this system if
anyone steps out of line is indeed sidelined for the “anti-semitic” treatment,
demonized, vilified and, virtually hanged and quartered on the public square of the
mendacious media.
In the good old days, when there was a militant working class and revolting (!) unionism,
we would get together at meetings, organize protests and strikes and confront bosses and
officialdom. There was camaraderie, solidarity, loyalty and confident defiance that we were
fighting for a better world for ourselves and our children – and also for people less
fortunate than us in other countries.
But the ideas of the Chicago School in cohorts with the Frankfurters and Tavistockers were
already undermining our hopeful vision of the world while the think tanks at the foundations,
councils and institutes were flooding the academies with the doctrines of hardhead
uncompromising Capitalism to suck the blood off the proles into anaemic immiseration and
apathetic insouciance.
... ... ... .
With the working class defeated and gone, where is the spirit of resistance to spring
from? Not from the selfishness of the new generation of smartphone addicts whose world has
shrunk to the atomic MEism and who refuse to open their eyes to what is staring in their
face: debt slavery, for life. Maybe the French can do it again. Allez Gilets Jaunes!
@Miro23
ic get pissed off and vote in the conservatives who then privatise everything. And this game
continues on and on. The British public are literally headless chickens running around not
knowing what on earth is going on. They’re not interested in getting to the bottom of
why society is the way it is. They’re all too comfortable with their mortgages, cars,
holidays twice a year, mobile phones, TV shows and football.
When all of this disappears,
then certainly, they will start asking questions, but when that time comes they will be
utterly powerless to do anything, as a minority in their own land. Greater Israel will be
built when that time comes.
No one at the time had much idea about Neoliberalism and none at all about Globalization.
This was all in the future.
And it was the British working class who were really cutting their own throats, by
wrecking British industry (their future employment), with constant political radicalism and
strikes.
"... That distrust of the establishment has had highly visible political consequences: Farage, Trump, and Le Pen on the right; but also in new parties on the left ..."
In the years that followed, the crash, the crisis of the eurozone and the worldwide drop in
the price of oil and other commodities combined to put a huge dent in global trade. Since 2012,
the IMF reported in its World Economic Outlook for October 2016
, trade was growing at 3% a year – less than half the average of the previous three
decades. That month, Martin Wolf argued in a column that globalisation had "lost dynamism", due
to a slackening of the world economy, the "exhaustion" of new markets to exploit and a rise in
protectionist policies around the world. In an interview earlier this year, Wolf suggested
to me that, though he remained convinced globalisation had not been the decisive factor in
rising inequality, he had nonetheless not fully foreseen when he was writing Why Globalization
Works how "radical the implications" of worsening inequality "might be for the US, and
therefore the world".
Among these implications appears to be a rising distrust of the establishment that is blamed
for the inequality. "We have a very big political problem in many of our countries," he said.
"The elites – the policymaking business and financial elites – are
increasingly disliked . You need to make policy which brings people to think again that
their societies are run in a decent and civilised way."
That distrust of the establishment has had highly visible political consequences: Farage,
Trump, and Le Pen on the right; but also in new parties on the left, such as Spain's Podemos,
and curious populist hybrids, such as Italy's
Five Star Movement . As in 1997, but to an even greater degree, the volatile political
scene reflects public anxiety over "the process that has come to be called
'globalisation'".
If the critics of globalisation could be dismissed before because of their lack of economics
training, or ignored because they were in distant countries, or kept out of sight by a wall of
police, their sudden political ascendancy in the rich countries of the west cannot be so easily
discounted today.
I heard this on the Anti-Zionist Christian station TruNews, which may not be the most
reliable source. But their correspondent, who just returned from the G-20, is reporting that
there is some scuttlebutt afoot that Tucker Carlson may replace John Bolton as Trump's NSA.
This may have arisen as Bolton was dispatched to Mongolia while Trump was meeting Kim Jong-un
at the DPRK border, with Tucker on hand to view it all up close. Then Tucker had a cordial
interview with Trump which is appearing in installments on his show. It's no secret that Trump
has about had it with Bolton's constant war mongering.
It was further reported that Carlson has ambitions to run for the presidency in 2024. Tucker
knows that he is on a short leash at Fox, and must pull his punches somewhat if he wants to
keep his job. Only his high ratings may be saving him. I would not rule out that he may be
looking for new worlds to conquer. It's nice to see Mr. Trump apparently throwing war hawk
Hannity under the bus in favor of Tucker. If nothing else, Trump is a master at keeping
everyone guessing.
Just in time for the 2020 presidential election, the Democrats have discovered that there is
real economic inequality in the United States. But they have not yet fully addressed the role
that the Democratic party and its leaders have played in creating this vast inequality that led
to the election of President Donald Trump in 2016.
The presidential candidates have been slow to fully recognize the role that former President
Bill Clinton's globalization policies (NAFTA and WTO) played in the outsourcing of American
jobs or the lowering of wages for workers.
As the Democratic presidential debates have shown, Vice President Biden is having a hard
time defending his long public record, especially as an opponent of federally mandated "forced"
busing to integrate our public schools decades after the Supreme Court's overturning of racial
segregation in Brown v. Board of Education (1954). As a Senator Joe Biden was a free
trade advocate as well.
But Senator Biden played a large role in creating inequality in two additional realms. He
was a strong backer of a 2005 bankruptcy "reform" law that made it harder for people to file
personal bankruptcy and to wipe out all of their debts. Given that perhaps as many as fifty
percent of all personal bankruptcies in America are caused by debt incurred from health care
not covered by insurance, this was an especially cruel blow to those seeking relief from their
heavy debt loads.
In "'
Lock the S.O.B.s Up: Joe Biden and the Era of Mass Incarceration ," The New York
Times documents his decades-long support of tough on criminals legislation, culminating in
the 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. This bill, signed into law by President
Clinton, has been blamed for the jailing of high numbers of African Americans and other
minorities, in particular.
Unlike the Republicans whose goal is to increase inequality by lowering taxes on the
wealthy, at least the Democrats seem sincere about reducing it. To do this, they have fallen
all over themselves to offer free college tuition and to reduce student loan debt. Sen. Bernie
Sanders recently proposed to
eliminate all student loans entirely .
Why have Democrats focused on college as a means of solving economic inequality? Statistics
have shown that in general the more education you have, the higher your lifetime earnings will
be. For example, men with bachelor's degrees earn nearly a million more
dollars in median lifetime earnings than high school graduates.
Globalization is simply a neoliberal economic substitute for colonialism.
Neoliberals contrary to popular opinion do not believe in self-regulating markets as
autonomous entities. They do not see democracy as necessary for capitalism.
The neoliberal globalist world is not a borderless market without nations but a doubled
world (economic -global and social- national) . The global economic world is kept safe from
democratic national demands for social justice and equality, and in return each nation enjoys
cultural freedom.
Neoliberals see democracy as a real problem. Democracy means the unwashed masses can
threaten the so called market economy (in fact manipulated and protected markets) with worker
demands for living wages and equality and consumer demands for competitive pricing and safe
products. Controlling both parties with money prevents that.
In fact, neoliberal thinking is comparable to that of John Maynard Keynes in one respect :
"the market does not and cannot take care of itself".
The neoliberal project did not liberate markets so much as protect them by protecting
capitalism against the threat of democracy and to reorder the world where borders provide a
captive market
Neoliberals insulate the markets by providing safe harbor for capital, free from fear of
infringement by policies of progressive taxation or redistribution. They do this by
redesigning government, laws, and other institutions to protect the market.
For example the stock market is propped up by the Feds purchases of futures, replacing the
plunge protection teams intervention at an even more extreme level. Manipulation of economic
statistics by the BLS also serve a similar purpose.
Another example is getting government to accept monopoly capitalism over competitive
capitalism and have appointed judges who believe illegal collusion is nothing more than
understandable and legal "conscious parallelism"
Now it seems to me the Koch-Soros think tank is an attempt to unify the neoliberal
globalist forces which represent factions from international greenies to nationalist
protectionists . In other words to repackage and rename neoliberal globalism while keeping
its essence. Be interesting to see what they come up with.
As for China opening to private international finance. They already did that but this
takes it to a new level. Like I said. Fake wrestling. This was one of the demands in the
trade negotiations by Trump. Why take one of your chips off the table if the game is for
real?
China was Made in USA (includes the City of London) like the EU and Putins neoliberal
Russia.
One day they will get around telling us they are all buddies, or maybe not. I suspect they
have a lot of laughs playing us like they do.
I could be wrong but this is more interesting than the official and semi official
narratives.
"... if the US ever held unipolar control in reality it was briefly during the period after the downfall of the USSR and up until the conquest of Iraq. ..."
"... An economic system, of which the financial system is a part of, is one of the fundamental structures of any society. Societies in today's world are defined at the sovereign state level, and the economic systems are defined by the governments of these states ..."
"... 'Globalism' as discussed in these blogs, in opposition to 'multi-polarity' is not about global commerce, but rather about an effort by a certain group of wealthy elites, primarily centered in London and New York, and commonly referred to as 'Globalists' to transfer the authority for the definition and control of economic systems from sovereign states to a set of international institutions under their control. ..."
"... In doing so they strip the sovereignty from sovereign states, as as already happened with the EU, and create a global dictatorship, under the control of the 'Globalists' and completely isolated from any democratic oversight. A fascist project in the purest sense of fascism. ..."
"... The 'Multi-polar' group of nations are those nations who oppose this fascist project and who are working to maintain and restore the sovereignty of nations. ..."
Stating "globalism" is antithetical to "multipolarity" is a non-sequitor.
Globalism is the financial structure (or "system" if you will) through which capitalist
enterprises function. This is complex of course and includes capital markets, corporations,
multinational corporations, currency markets, commodities markets, trading agreements.
Politicians intervene in the functioning of globalism so there is seldom if ever anything
like a globalism free of political influence.
OTOH, "multipolarity" has no structure that I can see. It is an empty vessel, purely a
political, statist-inspired idea (whereas globalism is a "thing" which contains
political and economic ideas of course but those ideas may or may not be statist in concept
depending on the context) which can mean anything to anyone at any point in time.
I guess I would say the term is purely Orwellian. Thus, without reading anything other
than James's comment I would guess the author's idea is either nonsensical or propagandistic
in nature.
For me, the world became "multipolar" the minute the US invaded Iraq in 2003. The idea
that the US wishes to maintain its "unipolar" leadership of the world may be true in the
wishful sense of some neocons, however if the US ever held unipolar control in reality it
was briefly during the period after the downfall of the USSR and up until the conquest of
Iraq.
Today, I view the world as both multipolar and globalist. While many of the political and
economic tensions we see result from the disconnects between national political and global
economic conditions, I think we must admit if we are honest that many of the more recent
tensions are simply the result of Trump's presidency, which has the intended affect of being
"a bull in the china shop" of the globalist system.
This is not necessarily a bad thing in theory. Sadly, however, Trump is a geopolitical and
foreign policy moron who doesn't know what he is doing beyond enriching himself and creating
daily fake news headlines in hopes of being re-elected on behalf of the same global elites he
playacts at combatting for his worshipful audience of true believers.
'Globalism is the financial structure (or "system" if you will) through which capitalist
enterprises function.'
What B.S.!!
An economic system, of which the financial system is a part of, is one of the
fundamental structures of any society. Societies in today's world are defined at the
sovereign state level, and the economic systems are defined by the governments of these
states , which are supposed to function on behalf of the population of each state, and
in democratic states, are also supposed to be under the control of the overall population
through their democratic institutions. International institutions are there to coordinate
commerce between the different economic systems of sovereign states.
'Globalism' as discussed in these blogs, in opposition to 'multi-polarity' is not
about global commerce, but rather about an effort by a certain group of wealthy elites,
primarily centered in London and New York, and commonly referred to as 'Globalists' to
transfer the authority for the definition and control of economic systems from sovereign
states to a set of international institutions under their control.
In doing so they strip the sovereignty from sovereign states, as as already happened
with the EU, and create a global dictatorship, under the control of the 'Globalists' and
completely isolated from any democratic oversight. A fascist project in the purest sense of
fascism.
The 'Multi-polar' group of nations are those nations who oppose this fascist project
and who are working to maintain and restore the sovereignty of nations.
@ donkeytale 15
I think the world has always been multipolar, the differences that give the definition
coming to (being presented to) the forefront, or being dissimilated, according to choice and
circumstance. The globalist direction aims to interweave or merge these differences (cultural
and historic, religion, philosophy and so on), or at least bring them under a common control.
So the idea that multipolarity represents anything more than increased recognition of various
regional power as opposed to recognition of one regional power (say western) as more visible,
is not much more than an indication of how global policy will be conducted, i.e. with an
emphasis on regional responsibility.
Recent US policy is not aimed at destroying the globalist order, it is a result of the
failure of one format of the globalist order, where the global financial order no longer
fitted into national or regional economic sense. This was the gfc, and there is simply no way
to continue the flow of trade and finance as it existed for the previous decades. The easing
of rates across the globe is paliative, it is no solution, you only have to look at national
debt levels to understand this, or in Eurozone try target2 differences. The world is now
partly funded by negative yielding debt. All of this works contrary to capitalist (in its
basic honest philosophy) understanding. In short "something" is going to happen to readjust
this circumstance, planned or otherwise. I have watched how in EU the single currency has
been used to takeover the traditional national hierarchies (banking, political and to a
degree social), but we don't have that sort of framework accepted at global level, only
various currency pegs, bilateral arrangements and so on. The IMF and sdr is not much liked.
What I have noted is virtual central bank currency is being promoted in several ways, be it
the bis just announcing it may become a necessity face to cryptocurrency or similar (with a
caveat of harmonising monetary policy) , EU organising a parallel payment system that avoids
commercial banks, even Instex is along these lines. Where the US and some others truly stand
with regard to this is a different question, as for now it (et al) still enjoy a financial
hegemony that is both organised and profitable. Interesting times, I just hope that a major
event is not the catalyst for reform, that the various parties can agree to withdraw to more
localised structure and agreement if any grand plans meet the resistance or failure that is
already partly visible. I doubt that will be allowed though, by the time people really want
to take part, there won't be much option left and circumstance will already be already
confused and conflictive.
@31 donkeytale.. well, if the usa didn't commit as much paper money as it does to the
military complex it runs, i suppose the financial complex where the us$ can be printed ad
nauseam might come into question.. the sooner oil isn't pegged to the us$ and etc. etc.
happens, the better off the world will be... and, i don't blame the usa people for this..
they are just being used as i see it - much the same here in canada with our politicians
thinking the prudent thing to do is to support the status quo.. the problem is the status quo
can only go on for so long, before a change inevitably happens...
as for swift - they went along with usa sanctions back in 2011 on iran, but then it was
brought to court in europe and overturned... but again - they are back in the same place
bowing down to usa exceptionalism... call it what you want.. another system needs to get made
if this one that exists is beholden to a special interest group - usa-uk-europe, where others
are 2nd rate citizens of the world... same deal imf... these world financial institutions
need to be changed to reflect the changes that are taking place... the voting rights of the
developed countries are skewed to favour the ones who have been raping and pillaging africa,
and etc. etc.. you may not think it matters, but i personally do.. and i don't blame the usa
for it..but they are being used as a conduit to further an agenda which is very unbalanced
and unfriendly to the world as i see it..
I am afraid that I cannot agree with much of what you said.
Dictatorship, as a governance system, has always failed, and will always fail. The
'Globalists' who grabbed power, and imposed an effective oligarchic dictatorship, in the U.S.
in 1980 and the EU since 1990, have clearly demonstrated this fact through the destruction of
the economies of the U.S. and much of Europe and the impoverishment of their populations. And
since 2001, they have used the U.S. and British military and intelligence services and NATO
as their personal bludgeon in order to force the submission of any state that did not
voluntarily submit to their project of a 'Global' dictatorship.
Resistance to this 'Globalist' project is at the root of almost all conflicts in the world
today. The 'Multi-Polar' nations resisting the 'Globalists', in Ukraine, Syria, North Korea,
Venezuela, etc. is one front in this resistance. The other front is the resistance of
'Nationalists' (such as Trump, the Brexiteers, the Yellow Vests, and populists across Europe)
to the 'Globalists.
The Trump Presidency is not the cause of tensions in the world today, as you suggest, but
rather the symptom. Trump understands that without an industrial base, the U.S. is condemned
to becoming the 'India' of the Americas'. The central theme of his actions is to restore the
U.S. industrial base and U.S. sovereignty, which have largely been destroyed by the
'Globalists' and their 'Deep State' machine over the past 40 years. The 'Globalists' need
only the U.S. military and intelligence services, and care nothing for its population and
less for its sovereignty, and thus are fighting Trump every step of the way.
Trump may be coarse and a buffoon, and he may be completely wrong in carrying Israel's
water with respect to Iran, but he is just about the only American politician that I see that
is working on behalf of the U.S. population rather than on behalf of the 'Globalists'.
Reversing the 'Globalization' that has savaged the U.S. and Europe over the past several
decades will not come easily, nor without pain and tensions, and winners and losers. However
failure to do so guarantees the likely rapid and long term decline and impoverishment of all
populations under 'Globalist' control.
dh-mtl @29 explained it well, I thought, but some still don't seem to get it.
It is the difference between the UN, which has a law-based charter which upholds the national
sovereignty of each nation and forbids aggression against any sovereign country, and
the WTO, which is a rules-based agreement which forbids any national government to pass laws
which interfere in the profits of corporations.
Globalism is the project in which capital has complete freedom to do as it will, while humans
and national governments are forbidden such freedom.
Putin and Lavrov frequently point to the difference between international law, which they
support, and the "rules-based order" which the US and its partners-in-crime support, in which
the rules are used to destroy sovereign countries and enrich the multi-national corporations
which strip the planet at will, and go to the cheapest labor countries, with no environmental
laws, for their global production lines.
A multi-polar world is one with many sovereign countries, ruled by international law,
respected by all, with peaceful relations between all countries.
Globalism is when corporations rule the world, and we continue on the path of destruction of
all the natural wealth of the world in the turning of nature into commodities and then
trash.
@ wagelaborer who wrote
"
Globalism is the project in which capital has complete freedom to do as it will, while humans
and national governments are forbidden such freedom.
"
Perfectly stated!
I appreciate you, dh-mtl, bevin and others responding to donkeytale. I have not read the
comment because donkeytale is on bypass for me but it is nice to read other commenters taking
on donkeytale BS for others to see....thanks
Sorry if I need to pick your resopnse to donkeytale apart but there are a lot of
inconsistencies in your argument.
The 'Globalists' who grabbed power, and imposed an effective oligarchic dictatorship, in
the U.S. in 1980 and the EU since 1990, have clearly demonstrated this fact through the
destruction of the economies of the U.S. and much of Europe and the impoverishment of their
populations.
You seem to imply that the 'globalists' (illuminati, Zionist bankers etc., etc.) did not
exist or had power before the 1980s, which could not be further from the truth. There are
several reasons why neo-liberalism took hold in the 1980s, creating the economic narrative
and agenda of today, none of which, are related to some kind of power grab by people that did
not hold any power beforehand. The threat of the cold war was waning in the 1980s and elites
felt less pressured by local populations potentially becoming 'too' sympathetic to communism
anymore. So they began rolling back social policies implemented in the post-war years to
counter communism's appeal. Computer technology going mainstream, creating all sorts of
economic spillovers to be harnessed by increased open and international trade was another
reason, there were many more. But the people you call 'globalists' controlled matters much,
much earlier than the 1980s.
The other front is the resistance of 'Nationalists' (such as Trump, the Brexiteers, the
Yellow Vests, and populists across Europe) to the 'Globalists.
If there truly were such politicians as 'nationalists' who somehow only hold the best
interest of their native people at heart, then why is that most European populists cosy up to
Israel? None of them have tried to reclaim control over their Central Banks and in the case
of i.e. Italy, do they try to break free from the Euro? Why are Polish nationalists rabidly
supporting the build up of US arms on their territory? I think it is about time to see beyond
this silly dichotomy of 'Globalist' vs 'Nationalist', at least while these Nationalists do
nothing substantial to actually help their lot and further squeeze the lower classes of their
countries in good neo-liberal fashion, same as their Globalist political 'opponents' they
claim to oppose.
Trump may be coarse and a buffoon, and he may be completely wrong in carrying Israel's
water with respect to Iran, but he is just about the only American politician that I see
that is working on behalf of the U.S. population rather than on behalf of the 'Globalists'.
So you admit that Trump is essentially a controlled zionist buffoon but at the same time
he is working towards restoring US sovereignty on behalf of the people? You mean he worked
for the US people when he lowered taxes for the rich even further, creating an ever larger US
public debt, and throwing Americans further into debt servitude of private finance? Or do you
mean his still open promise to invest large sums in the US crumbling infrastructure? Oh
right, he has instead opted to increase defence spending to combat the US many imaginary
enemies around the globe.
Look, I agree with you that global neo-liberalism is bad for the vast majority of people
on this planet but don't go looking for help from false prophets, such as Trump or other
'nationalists', you will only find yourself completely disappointed before long.
donkeytale , Jun 30, 2019 6:48:21 PM |
58dh-mtl , Jun 30, 2019 6:50:23 PM |
59
@50 Alexander P
Response to a few of your criticisms.
1. You say 'You seem to imply that the 'globalists' (illuminati, Zionist bankers etc.,
etc.) did not exist or had power before the 1980s'.
Not at all. They lost power from the mid-1930s to 1980. They regained power with Reagan,
followed by Clinton, W, and Obama. You only need to look at any graph that shows when income
inequality in the U.S. began to ramp up. The date is clear - 1980.
2. You say. 'If there truly were such politicians as 'nationalists' who somehow only hold
the best interest of their native people at heart'.
I didn't say that these 'Nationalists' or 'Populists' hold the best interests of their
native peoples at heart. Usually they are only interested in what they see as best for
themselves. But there is no doubt that they are resisting the 'Globalists' push to strip
their countries of their sovereignty, to transfer their wealth to the 'Globalist' elites, to
transfer their industries to wherever labor is the cheapest. I said that this was a 'second
front' against the 'Globalists'. And there is no doubt, from the fight that the 'Globalists'
are waging against Trump, 'Brexit' and populists and nationalists across Europe, that the
'Globalists' take this 'front' seriously.
3. You say. 'don't go looking for help from false prophets, such as Trump'.
You are right. It is unlikely that Trump will be able to 'Make America Great Again'. At
best he may be able to break the 'Globalists' hold on power in the U.S. However, this is a
necessary first step if the U.S. is ever to recover wealth and power that it had during the
middle of the last century, but which today is rapidly evaporating.
I agree with Alexander P that nationalist and populist presentation is often either
controlled opposition or a method of splintering and isolating influence. That is not to say
there are a lot of public in many countries who are sincere in their sentiment.
Sorry no link, recent :
"As he arrived at the Kempinski hotel lobby last December, journalists scuffled with
bodyguards as they tried to get their microphones and cameras close. Despite being jostled,
Zanganeh remained calm and waited to deliver a simple message: Iran can’t participate
in OPEC’s production cuts as long as it remains under U.S. sanctions and won’t
allow other members to steal its rightful market share."
I.E. approval for continued reduced opec oil supply to support prices depends on Iran (?),
lower prices otherwise affecting all other producers, and/or Iran is making the case that
sanctions are a theft of market share by other producers. The latter has been a part of the
cause of hostility in the gulf.
In Germany
"The 2018 report by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution of Germany
(Bundesmat fur Verfassungsschutz, BfV), which was released on June 27, 2019 by the Federal
Minister of the Interior, Horst Seehofer and Thomas Haldenwang, head of the organization,
examines the activities of the intelligence services of the Iranian regime in Germany....
The BfV annual report states: "The central task of the Iranian intelligence services is to
spy against opposition movements and confront these movements. In this regard, evidences of
state-sponsored terrorism in Europe, which originates in Iran, have intensified during 2018."
" etc
is being used by ncr (the article source) to the effect of calling for closure of the
Iranian embassy. That aside, the report does show Germany is moving towards, or is willing
to, apply pressure on Iran now. France has also given indication that it is not fully behind
Iran (reprimand and warning on not respecting jcpoa etc.)
You are correct to say inequality began rising again in 1980; however, the rise must be
attributed to Carter and Volker--Reagan just continued the process. It seemed odd the GHW
Bush initially opposed it as "Voodoo Economics" but readily championed it all as VEEP, making
it just a political posture in the nomination race.
Thanks for the excellent response. One thing I failed to take into account is the
difference between the EU and the US financial systems so thanks for that corrective
explanation.
The Euro represents the biggest failure of the EU from where I sit. Centralised control of
the currency and banking systems is a grave error in that construct and the "European
Parliament" just seems too silly for me to even contemplate, although I'm sure there is some
logical explanation for its existence that I'm missing.
And you bet, I'm also sure the day of reckoning for the global debt overload is fast
approaching. What I don't understand is how one form of capitalism (neoliberal) versus
another (state managed) makes any difference in how this debt overload developed. China, for
instance, has used similar stimulus methods more frequently even than the US since 2008 to
keep its economic growth chugging along and certainly way more than the EU, which under
stimulated its own economy in response to the recession.
IMHO, Brexit is a forced over the top politicised reaction to this conservative German-led
response in light of the fact the UK kept its own currency and banking systems separate and
had the means to provide stimulus but didn't under the Tory buffoons in charge.
Grexit made much more sense to me than Brexit for many reasons. I was dismayed when the
Greek people failed in their courage after voting in Syriza follow through and tell the
Germans to take the Euro and their debt and put it where the sun don't shine.
What I believe people are tending to forget or overlook, such as wagelabourer @ 48 and
dh-mtl elsewhere, that while these postwar international re-orderings such as NATO, the UN
and the EU are nowhere near perfect, they are also not purely NWO conspiratorial constructs.
Rather they were created for a very specific purpose stemming from a lesson of history which
seems to have been rather easily tossed aside because of the relative success of these same
institutions: that is, clashing nationalisms inevitably lead to major conflict and
devastating wars, especially among the major imperialist states.
A while ago we discussed the obfuscation of classical economics in order to elevate the Junk
Economics of Randian Neoliberalism. And with Trump's Trade War and the 2020 election cycle's
start, I think it wise to revisit what's proven to be a timeless Michael Hudson essay from
2010, "America's
China Bashing: A Compendium of Junk Economics" , which provided the ground work for the
subsequent book he published on the topic.
The following excerpt remains the underlying issue prompting Trump's Trade War with
China:
"The cover story is that foreign exchange controls and purchases of U.S. securities keep
the renminbi's exchange rate low, artificially spurring its exports. The reality, of
course, is that these controls protect China from U.S. banks creating free 'keyboard
credit' to buy out Chinese companies to buy out Chinese companies or load down its economy
with loans to be paid off in renminbi whose value will rise against the deficit-ridden
dollar. It's the Wall Street arbitrage opportunity of the century that banks are
pressing for, not the welfare of American workers ."
As the years between have shown, the Chinese aren't fools and probably know more about
economics than their politicized US counterparts, Trump especially included.
@ William Gruff with the dh-mtl update about "control" during the early part of last
century....I agree and thanks
@ karlof1 with the Michael Hudson link.....I put a comment up last night with a quote from
Xinhuanet
"
BEIJING, June 30 (Xinhua) -- China on Sunday rolled out revised negative lists for foreign
investment market access, introducing greater opening-up and allowing foreign investors to
run majority-share-controlling or wholly-owned businesses in more sectors.
"
It makes me worry about how much of "China" will be allowed to be bought/controlled by the
private finance folk. I have been wondering about this since 2008 when the US started running
the "printing presses" bigly enough to double the deficit in less than 10 years.....I didn't
get any of those trillions, did you? At some point I expect there to be a meeting of global
"big wigs" who say they own this or that and wonder how that meeting will turn out relative
to Bretton Woods.
I still see China throwing out a faux lifeline to the private finance folk that will be
reeled in after the transition to a China led world.....want to make it look like the Koch
brothers and Soros with their new peace tank are leading the parade.....
"... Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by Americans. ..."
"... In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place." ..."
"... In the new book, Banking on the People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter. ..."
"... Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this runaway crony capitalism. ..."
"... The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt, and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations. ..."
Trump Invites Debates over Omnivorous Crony Capitalism
Donald J. Trump's 2020 election strategy is to connect
his potential Democratic opponents with "socialism." Trump plans to use this attack on the
Democrats even if Senator Bernie Sanders, who proudly calls himself a "democratic socialist,"
doesn't become the presidential nominee (Sanders has been decisively re-elected in Vermont).
Senator Elizabeth Warren is distancing herself from the socialist "label." She went so far
as to
tell the New England Council "I am a capitalist to my bones."
Sanders and Warren are not what they claim to be. They are both updating Roosevelt's New
Deal and more closely resemble the Social Democrats that have governed western European
democracies for years, delivering higher standards of living than that experienced by
Americans.
The original doctrine of socialism meant government ownership of the means of production
– heavy industries, railroads, banks, and the like. Nobody in national politics today is
suggesting such a takeover. As one quipster put it, "How can Washington take ownership of the
banks when the banks own Washington?"
Confronting Trump on the "socialism" taboo can open up a great debate about the value of
government intervention for the good of the public. Sanders can effectively argue that people
must choose either democratic socialism or the current failing system of corporate socialism.
That choice is not difficult. Such an American democratic socialism could provide almost all of
the long overdue solutions this country needs: full more efficient Medicare for all;
tuition-free education; living wages; stronger unions; a tax system that works for the people;
investments in infrastructure and public works; reforms for a massive, runaway military budget;
the end of most corporate welfare; government promotion of renewable energies; and the end of
subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear power.
In my presidential campaigns I tried to make corporate socialism – also called
corporate welfare or crony capitalism – a major issue. Small business is capitalism
– free to go bankrupt – while corporate capitalism – free to get bailouts
from Washington – is really a form of corporate socialism. This point about a corporate
government was documented many years ago in books such as America, Inc. (1971) by Morton
Mintz and Jerry Cohen.
Now, it is even easier to make the case that our political economy is largely controlled by
giant corporations and their political toadies. Today the concentration of power and wealth is
staggering. Just six capitalist men have wealth to equal the wealth of half of the world's
population.
The Wall Street collapse of 2008-2009 destroyed eight million jobs, lost trillions of
dollars in pension and mutual funds, and pushed millions of families to lose their homes.
Against this backdrop, the U.S. government used trillions of taxpayer dollars to bail out, in
various ways, the greedy, financial giants, whose reckless speculating caused the collapse.
In May 2009, the moderate Senator from Illinois, Dick Durbin, said: "The banks – hard
to believe when we're facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created – are still
the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place."
Is there a single federal government agency or department that can say its most powerful
outside influence is NOT corporate? Even the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations
Board are under more corporate power than union power.
Who better than Trump, on an anti-socialist fantasy campaign kick, can call attention to the
reality that Big Business controls the government and by extension controls the people? In
September 2000, a Business Week poll found over 70 percent of people agreeing that big
business has too much control over their lives (this was before the horrific corporate
crimes and scandals of the past two decades). Maybe that is why support in polls for
"socialism" against "capitalism" in the U.S. is at a 60 year high.
People have long experienced American-style "socialism." For example, the publicly owned
water and electric utilities, public parks and forests, the Postal Service, public libraries,
FDIC guarantees of bank deposits (now up to $250,000), Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,
etc.
What the public is not sufficiently alert to is that Big Business has been profitably taking
over control, if not outright ownership, of these public assets.
In the new book, Banking on the
People , by Ellen Brown, readers can get an idea of the way large banks, insurers, and
the giant shadow banking system – money market funds, hedge funds, mortgage brokers, and
other unregulated financial intermediaries – speculate and shift deep risk and their
failures onto Uncle Sam. These corporate predators gouge customers, and, remarkably, show a
deep aversion for productive investment as if people matter.
Moreover, they just keep developing new, ever riskier, multi-tiered instruments (eg.
derivatives) to make money from money through evermore complex, abstract, secret,
reckless, entangled, globally destabilizing, networks. Gambling with other people's money is a
relentless Wall Street tradition.
The crashes that inevitably emerge end up impoverishing ordinary people who pay the price
with their livelihoods.
Will the Democrats and other engaged people take Trump on if he tries to make "socialism"
the big scare in 2020? Control of our political economy is not a conservative/liberal or red
state/blue state issue. When confronted with the specifics of the corporate state or corporate
socialism, people from all political persuasions will recognize the potential perils to our
democracy. No one wants to lose essential freedoms or to continue to pay the price of this
runaway crony capitalism.
The gigantic corporations have been built with the thralldom of deep debt – corporate
debt to fund stock buybacks (while reporting record profits), consumer debt, student loan debt,
and, of course, government debt caused by drastic corporate and super-rich tax cuts. Many
trillions of dollars have been stolen from future generations.
No wonder a small group of billionaires, including George Soros,
Eli Broad , and Nick Hanauer, have just publicly urged a modest tax on the super wealthy.
As Hanauer, a history buff and advocate of higher minimum wages, says – "the pitchforks
are coming."
We’ll see how neoliberal MSM will spin this, but I would say Sanders emerged unscathed, Harris attacked and "wounded" Biden, Biden
sounded like a lightweight, Gillibrand seems to be a very unpleasant person although different form Harris...
Notable quotes:
"... as if polling on donald trump and stuff is just so interesting ..."
"... Kamala Harris got more floor time than anyone else. Harris ended Biden's campaign. The debate is rigged against Bernie Sanders. ..."
"... Did Harris get the debate questions in advance? ..."
"... Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage. ..."
"... Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala The Cop. ..."
Pathetic, the whole scene is pathetic. What a way to run a putative democracy, bring back the league of women voters to run
the debates and that idiot with the graphs during commercial breaks while watching this online, I want to break his freaking head
sorry.
I had the idea that your sensibilities were rather more refined than that, knowing anything about or not.
Her manner of speaking is like someone who doesn’t care, doesn’t take the whole thing seriously. It’s like someone who
is cheaply casually condescending on the whole thing, on her having to be there. That’s what I perceived. It is deeply disqualifying
from any leadership position. “Food fight”? We at that level now? That makes her cool? My god, what garbage.
FWIW, Boot Edge Edge’s prehensile sincerity was masterful in my view – shows some real talent.
I’m just observing this out of academic interest and hope we’ll all have a chance to vote for Bernie in the general. But from
tonight, Boot Edge Edge to me stood out as a talent – and everyone else (besides Bernie who was reliably on message and will keep
going more or less the same after this) was garbage or unnecessary (Biden is a disgrace), and the first debate was better.
Cal2, June 27, 2019 at 11:19 pm
In that case, Donald Trump gets our votes, as well as keeping all the potential crossovers, who had supported Trump last time,
and would have voted for Sanders-Gabbard.
Harris will alienate The Deplorables, the military, the White Working Class or even black people, who know her as Kamala
The Cop.
Sanders-Harris would be political suicide for the Democrats.
From
Unz
comment: "Tangentially related, but check out this great interview with Putin:
https://www.ft.com/content/878d2344-98f0-11e9-9573-ee5cbb98ed36 The man's intelligence and seriousness is always impressive. The contrast with the nauseating rubbish that
comes out of Western politicians could not be more striking, no wonder they hate the guy."
Notable quotes:
"... "One of the things we must do in Russia is never to forget that the purpose of the operation and existence of any government is to create a stable, normal, safe and predictable life for the people and to work towards a better future ." ..."
"... Putin has recognized the influence of our "regime change" wars on the immigrant problem in Europe. He addressed it forcefully in his UN General Assembly speech in 2015 where he asks NATO "Do you know what you've done?" with regards to creating the immigration problems in Europe. Watch here https://youtu.be/q13yzl6k6w0. ..."
"... From Putin's 2007 Munich speech to this 2015 UN speech and many interviews along the way, I've learned to pay attention to what Putin says. He seems to have an extremely good handle on world events and where they are leading. ..."
"... The neoliberal economic plan is to suck the wealth out of the working class and funnel it up to the top 10%, especially the 1%. How to keep the working class from noticing the theft? ..."
"... neo-liberalism (aka "crony capitalism") is about compromising the state and the society that it protects in favor of wealthy, powerful interests. Thus, at it's core, it's against the people. ..."
"... Look at the whine ass, crying, warmongering. narcissist psychopathic bullies we get. I am envious of the Russians having a leader they can be proud of. ..."
"... Been about 60 years since I have had a president to be proud of, back when America WAS great,,, and they killed him. ..."
Putin said in an interview with the Financial Times Friday that the "[neo]liberal idea has
become obsolete," and referred to Germany's decision to welcome more than one million
refugees -- many fleeing savage urban warfare in Syria -- as a "cardinal mistake."
It is only the last part of the very long interview, where Putin indeed speaks of the
'obsolesce' of the '[neo]liberal idea', that seems to be of interest to the media. Most of the
interview is in fact about other issues. The media also do not capture how his 'obsolete'
argument is ingrained in the worldview Putin developed, and how it reflects in many of his
answers.
Here are excerpts that show that the gist of Putin's 'obsolete' argument is not against the
'[neo]liberal idea', but against what may be best called 'international
(neo-)[liberalism'.
Putin explains why U.S. President Donald Trump was elected:
Has anyone ever given a thought to who actually benefited and what benefits were gained from
globalisation, the development of which we have been observing and participating in over the
past 25 years, since the 1990s?
China has made use of globalisation, in particular, to pull millions of Chinese out of
poverty.
What happened in the US, and how did it happen? In the US, the leading US companies -- the
companies, their managers, shareholders and partners -- made use of these benefits. [..] The
middle class in the US has not benefited from globalisation; it was left out when this pie
was divided up.
The Trump team sensed this very keenly and clearly, and they used this in the election
campaign. It is where you should look for reasons behind Trump's victory, rather than in any
alleged foreign interference.
On Syria:
Primarily, this concerns Syria, we have managed to preserve Syrian statehood, no matter what,
and we have prevented Libya-style chaos there. And a worst-case scenario would spell out
negative consequences for Russia.
...
I believe that the Syrian people should be free to choose their own future.
...
When we discussed this matter only recently with the previous US administration, we said,
suppose Assad steps down today, what will happen tomorrow?
Your colleague did well to laugh, because the answer we got was very amusing. You cannot
even imagine how funny it was. They said, "We don't know." But when you do not know what
happens tomorrow, why shoot from the hip today? This may sound primitive, but this is how it
is.
On 'western' interventionism and 'democracy promotion':
Incidentally, the president of France said recently that the American democratic model
differs greatly from the European model. So there are no common democratic standards. And do
you, well, not you, but our Western partners, want a region such as Libya to have the same
democratic standards as Europe and the US? The region has only monarchies or countries with a
system similar to the one that existed in Libya.
But I am sure that, as a historian, you will agree with me at heart. I do not know whether
you will publicly agree with this or not, but it is impossible to impose current and viable
French or Swiss democratic standards on North African residents who have never lived in
conditions of French or Swiss democratic institutions. Impossible, isn't it? And they tried
to impose something like that on them. Or they tried to impose something that they had never
known or even heard of. All this led to conflict and intertribal discord. In fact, a war
continues in Libya.
So why should we do the same in Venezuela? ...
Asked about the turn towards nationalism and more rightwing policies in the U.S. and many
European countries, Putin names immigration as the primary problem:
What is happening in the West? What is the reason for the Trump phenomenon, as you said, in
the US? What is happening in Europe as well? The ruling elites have broken away from the
people. The obvious problem is the gap between the interests of the elites and the
overwhelming majority of the people .
Of course, we must always bear this in mind. One of the things we must do in Russia is
never to forget that the purpose of the operation and existence of any government is to
create a stable, normal, safe and predictable life for the people and to work towards a
better future.
There is also the so-called [neo]liberal idea, which has outlived its purpose. Our Western
partners have admitted that some elements of the [neo]liberal idea, such as multiculturalism,
are no longer tenable.
When the migration problem came to a head, many people admitted that the policy of
multiculturalism is not effective and that the interests of the core population should be
considered. Although those who have run into difficulties because of political problems in
their home countries need our assistance as well. That is great, but what about the interests
of their own population when the number of migrants heading to Western Europe is not just a
handful of people but thousands or hundreds of thousands?
...
What am I driving at? Those who are concerned about this, ordinary Americans, they look at
this and say, Good for [Trump], at least he is doing something, suggesting ideas and looking
for a solution.
As for the [neo]liberal idea, its proponents are not doing anything. They say that all is
well, that everything is as it should be. But is it? They are sitting in their cosy offices,
while those who are facing the problem every day in Texas or Florida are not happy, they will
soon have problems of their own. Does anyone think about them?
The same is happening in Europe. I discussed this with many of my colleagues, but nobody
has the answer. The say they cannot pursue a hardline policy for various reasons. Why
exactly? Just because. We have the law, they say. Well, then change the law!
We have quite a few problems of our own in this sphere as well.
...
In other words, the situation is not simple in Russia either, but we have started working to
improve it. Whereas the [neo]liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. The
migrants can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants must be
protected. What rights are these? Every crime must have its punishment.
So, the [neo]liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the
interests of the overwhelming majority of the population. Or take the traditional values. I
am not trying to insult anyone, because we have been condemned for our alleged homophobia as
it is. But we have no problems with LGBT persons. God forbid, let them live as they wish. But
some things do appear excessive to us.
They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles. I cannot even say exactly
what genders these are, I have no notion. Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with
that. But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional
family values of millions of people making up the core population.
While Putin says that [neo]liberalism is 'obsolete' he does not declare it dead. He sees it
as part of a spectrum, but says that it should not have a leading role:
You know, it seems to me that purely [neo]liberal or purely traditional ideas have never
existed. Probably, they did once exist in the history of humankind, but everything very
quickly ends in a deadlock if there is no diversity. Everything starts to become extreme one
way or another.
Various ideas and various opinions should have a chance to exist and manifest themselves,
but at the same time interests of the general public, those millions of people and their
lives, should never be forgotten. This is something that should not be overlooked.
Then, it seems to me, we would be able to avoid major political upheavals and troubles.
This applies to the [neo]liberal idea as well. It does not mean (I think, this is ceasing to
be a dominating factor) that it must be immediately destroyed. This point of view, this
position should also be treated with respect.
They cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do
over the recent decades. Diktat can be seen everywhere: both in the media and in real life.
It is deemed unbecoming even to mention some topics. But why?
For this reason, I am not a fan of quickly shutting, tying, closing, disbanding
everything, arresting everybody or dispersing everybody. Of course, not. The [neo]liberal
idea cannot be destroyed either; it has the right to exist and it should even be supported in
some things. But you should not think that it has the right to be the absolute dominating
factor. That is the point. Please.
There is much more in the interview - about Russia's relations with China, North Korea, the
Skripal incident, the Russian economy, orthodoxy and the [neo]liberal attack on the Catholic
church, multilateralism, arms control and the G-20 summit happening today.
But most '[neo]liberal' media will only point to the 'obsolete' part and condemn Putin for
his rallying against immigration. They will paint him as being in an alt-right corner. But even
the Dalai Lama, held up as an icon by many [neo]liberals, says that "Europe is for
Europeans" and that immigrants should go back to their own countries.
Moreover, as Leonid Bershidsky
points out , Putin himself is, with regards to the economy and immigration, a staunch
[neo]liberal:
Putin's cultural conservatism is consistent and sincere.
...
On immigration, however, Putin is, in practice, more [neo]liberal than most European leaders.
He has consistently resisted calls to impose visa requirements on Central Asian countries, an
important source of migrant labor. Given Russia's shrinking working-age population and
shortage of manual workers, Putin isn't about to stem that flow, even though Central Asians
are Muslims – the kind of immigrants Merkel's opponents, including Trump, distrust and
fear the most.
What Putin is aiming at, says Bershidsky, is the larger picture:
[W]hat Putin believes has outlived its usefulness isn't the [neo]liberal approach to
migration or gender, nor is it [neo]liberal economics – even though Russia has, in
recent months, seen something of a shift toward central planning. It is the [neo]liberal
world order. Putin wants to keep any talk of values out of international politics and forge
pragmatic relationships based on specific interests.
...
Putin's drive to put global politics on a more transactional basis isn't easy to defeat; it's
a siren song, and the anti-immigrant, culturally conservative rhetoric is merely part of the
music.
There is in my view no 'siren-song' there and nothing that has to be defeated. It is just
that Putin is more willing to listen to the people than most of the western wannabe
'elite'.
The people's interest is simply not served well by globalization, [neo]liberal
internationalism and interventionism. A transactional approach to international policies, with
respect for basic human decency, is in almost every case better for them.
Politicians who want the people's votes should listen to them, and to Vladimir Putin.
Posted by b on June 28, 2019 at 01:50 PM |
Permalink
It is hard to exaggerate Putin's accomplishments. He almost single-handedly saved Russia from
the chaos of the Yeltsin era and near collapse. He has reestablished Russia as a major power.
In the face of the American world rampage, he has helped stabilize MENA. By merging Russia's
Eurasian Union with China's OBOR, he has helped to set Eurasia on a road to peaceful economic
development. He has even managed to get China, India, and Pakistan talking to one another and
cooperating in a variety of Eurasian projects.
I doubt he has more than 10 years left as a Russian leader, and maybe not even that. When
he finally passes, he will be remembered as another Churchill or Bismarck.
Hmmm... Putin says the problem is 'multi-culturalism', 'migrants'? What kind of bullshit is
this?
Putin doesn't mention that the migrant crisis was caused by Western resource wars, in
Syria, Libya and elsewhere. That neoliberalism's impact on the poor countries has led to
the vast exodus into Europe and N. America.
I have a feeling that Putin is playing the 'RT game', targeting those disaffected people,
who have, in turn been the target of racist, islamaphobic propaganda by Western states,
states that for obvious reasons (self-incrimination) won't state the real reasons for
the exodus.
The page on [neo]liberalism in the classic sense the way it was envisioned in the late 18th
and 19th century has long been passed. [neo]liberalism as in nurturing the human soul and
intellect and allowing each individual to draw on their qualities and contribute to society
with their fullest potential has been supplanted by material and physical liberties alone
(Gender, Sexuality, Free Trade, Free Migration aka Free Movement of Slave Labor etc). What
today is called [neo]liberalism, which I like to equate with neo-[neo]liberalism and social
'progressivism', are both parts of post-modernism, a societal model that is falling and
failing under its own weight of hubris and inconsistencies.
The 'Do as thou wilt' mindset pushed on the people by the elites is deliberate with the
only end goal of creating their 'ideal' world. A world not based on morality, spirituality
and absolute truths, but relativism, materialism, loss of basic notions such as gender,
family, belonging, in short loss of identity and purpose for mankind to obtain ever greater
control over the masses. People are beginning to notice it, however, even if only
subconsciously and start to push back against it. Putin knows this, and that is what he is
laying out in his interview.
"They claim now that children can play five or six gender roles. I cannot even say exactly
what genders these are, I have no notion. Let everyone be happy, we have no problem with
that. But this must not be allowed to overshadow the culture, traditions and traditional
family values of millions of people making up the core population.'
It has become la la land in the West in regards to gender...if a person wants to be gay,
be gay, but let's not force everyone else to pretend reality is not reality..nature choose
(dichotomy) for you to be male or female, sucks if that doesn't match your preferences but
better luck next life...accept the reality you are in and let's not force everyone one else
to pander to your delusions..
See also:
'Sex change' is biologically impossible," said McHugh. "People who undergo
sex-reassignment surgery do not change from men to women or vice versa. Rather, they become
feminized men or masculinized women. Claiming that this is civil-rights matter and
encouraging surgical intervention is in reality to collaborate with and promote a mental
disorder."
I'm reading the Kremlin's transcript I linked to at the Gabbard thread where I posted a very
short excerpt. I continue to read it but stopped to post another very short excerpt IMO is
very important:
"One of the things we must do in Russia is never to forget that the purpose of the
operation and existence of any government is to create a stable, normal, safe and predictable
life for the people and to work towards a better future ." [My Emphasis]
Here are excerpts that show that the gist of Putin's 'obsolete' argument is not against the
'[neo]liberal idea', but against what may be best called 'international
(neo-)liberalism'.
Just a matter of academic rigour: liberalism is extinct; neoliberalism is
literally the "new liberalism", it's successor doctrine. Therefore, when we speak of
"liberalism" after 1945, we're automatically referring to neoliberalism.
neoliberalism was created at Mont Pelerin in the 1930s, and its founding narrative
states that everything that happened between/since the death of liberalism (1914-1918)
and their own hegemony (1974-75) was an abortion of History and should've never happened.
Hence the name "neoliberalism": the new liberalism (adapted to the system of fiat
currency instead of the gold standard); the revival of liberalism; the return of
liberalism (the [neo]liberals).
It's also important to highlight that neoliberalism is not an ideology, but a
doctrine (which encompass mainly policies, but may also encompass ideals). It is wrong, for
example, to compare socialism with neoliberalism (socialism as anti-neoliberalism):
socialism is a scientific theory, and, as a social theory, encompasses a new socioeconomic
system, a new set of ideologies, a new set of cultures and a new set of political doctrines.
Neoliberalism, therefore, is just one aspect with which the capitalist elites engage
against socialism historically (in the doctrinal "front").
Generic question: How many of the 2020 candidates for US President could hold up their end of
an interview with such knowledge and style?
Personally I was impressed by Putin's bluntness in stating Merkel had made a "cardinal
mistake" when she opened the borders to the hundreds of thousands of illegals. And also
this:
And we set ourselves a goal, a task -- which, I am certain, will be achieved -- to adjust
pensions by a percentage that is above the inflation rate.
Compare that to the deliberate US policy if doing the exact opposite.
Can you imagine Trump writing like this? Or Obama, for that matter? Or Bush the Dimmer, or
Clinton, or Bush the Spook, or Reagan, or Carter...Hell, you'd have to go back to JFK to find
this sort of skill with language and deep analysis. And maybe not then. "They" say you get
the leaders you deserve. In that case the Russians have been nice and we Americans have been
very, very naughty.
Putin has recognized the influence of our "regime change" wars on the immigrant problem in
Europe. He addressed it forcefully in his UN General Assembly speech in 2015 where he asks
NATO "Do you know what you've done?" with regards to creating the immigration problems in
Europe. Watch here https://youtu.be/q13yzl6k6w0.
From Putin's 2007 Munich speech to this 2015 UN speech and many interviews along the way,
I've learned to pay attention to what Putin says. He seems to have an extremely good handle
on world events and where they are leading.
In the west our governments call Mr Putin a thug, a gangster. But, I've never seen any of our
politicians sit down and frankly and comprehensively lay out there views, goals, thoughts and
musings. To be a good leader or politician you have do have vision, but in the west here i
just see talking heads and soundbites, no soul.
Oh, yeah, the "[neo]liberals" are indignant over his pointing out that mass migration causes
social disruption.
He racist!
The neoliberal economic plan is to suck the wealth out of the working class and funnel
it up to the top 10%, especially the 1%. How to keep the working class from noticing the
theft?
How about divide and conquer? That seems to work. Take the native working class and divide it
any way that works in that society. In the US, traditionally, it was race, but they added sex
a couple of decades ago, then opened the doors to immigration and threw in national origin,
and now, just for kicks and giggles, everybody gets to define their own gender and sexual
preferences. Awesome. The US is now divided into 243,000,000 separate categories of
specialness. And if you don't accept everything someone else tells you as gospel, you are a
bigot of some sort (depending on their self identification. It varies.)
They divided up Yemen and Libya by tribes, Iraq and Yugoslavia by religion, it works the same
in every country.
When the US blows, it's going to be spectacular.
I'm always impressed with Putin's grasp and breadth a la Chirac, whom he admires and
emulates.
I posted a few excerpts I felt very important to this and the Gabbard threads; and at the
latter I now insist this interview be read, not just suggested. That BigLie Media chose to
pounce on Putin's critique of the [neo]liberal Idea displays its agenda and its extremely
sorry attempt to discredit/smear Putin yet again. IMO, such media smeared itself. The
give-and-take was very productive and informative, containing many lessons, a few of which I
pointed to.
Putin's now at the G-20 and has already had one bilateral meeting with TrumpCo.
Sputnik offers this recap that includes links to its additional articles published
during the day. Much has occurred, and Trump has yet to storm out. Some of the photos are
priceless, the May/Putin handshake perhaps being the most telling.
That there is a Putin that today leads a great country like Russia seems like a miracle and
he appeared at the very moment that Russia needed him.
Part of the West elite hate of Putin is that compared to them he gives off an aura of
honesty and truthfulness that is absent from leaders in the West.
The "multi-cultural" issue, to the extent that it is an issue, is only an issue as an
effect of the actual problem. It is effectively a scapegoat. No one would care about
"multiculturalism" if there was a fair economic order in which living standards were
increasing.
The problem is that western capitalism wants it both ways, it sees the
demographic problem it faces and it wants the labor of migrants but it does not want to
improve society, it wants to keep its slice of the pie. Hence things will get economically
worse while migrants will be an easy "cause" at which to point for the unthinking person. In
that sense it becomes a problem insofar as it contributes to fascism, nothing else
changing.
Putin is right about China utilizing globalization to the benefit of society while
the west is only interested in globalization insofar as it opens markets and creates profit
for those who own social production. But of course Marx predicted this all long ago, so it is
not perhaps surprising that the Chinese Communist Party would be more intelligent here. There
is nothing more symptomatic or demonstrative here than the fact that, while western countries
debate over a few tens of thousands of immigrants being "too many", China is capable of such
feats as eradicating poverty and building incredible and modern infrastructure while being a
land of over a billion people.
Reading over the Gabbard comments, I was reminded of another big divide in the US by party.
Americans treat their parties like their tribes and viciously attack heretics of other
tribes. The media fans the flames and keeps the "elections" going for years, without a
break.
Meanwhile, our ruling overlords pick their next puppet, let us all "vote" on computerized
machines, and then the talking heads announce the "winner".
And it all starts over.
neo-liberalism (aka "crony capitalism") is about compromising the state and the society
that it protects in favor of wealthy, powerful interests. Thus, at it's core, it's against
the people.
To compensate and distract from this corruption, the people are presented with the
'fruits' of a [neo]liberal society: quasi"-freedoms" like gender rights, civil rights, and
human rights. I say "quasi-" because these rights are abridged by the powerful elite as they
see fit (witness rendition and torture, pervasive surveillance, and Assange).
We fight among ourselves about walls and bathrooms as elites destroy the Commons. In this
way, they pick our pockets and kneecap our ability to fight back at the same time.
Boy did Russia luck out. Yeltsin was smart picking this man.... Look at the whine ass,
crying, warmongering. narcissist psychopathic bullies we get. I am envious of the Russians
having a leader they can be proud of.
Been about 60 years since I have had a president to be proud of, back when America WAS
great,,, and they killed him.
300,000 demonstrate in Prague against right-wing Czech government
An estimated 300,000 people protested in the Czech capital of Prague last Sunday against
the right-wing government of Prime Minister Andrei Babiš. At what was the biggest
demonstration in the Czech Republic since the so-called Velvet Revolution of 1989, protesters
demanded the resignation of the billionaire founder of the right-wing neo-liberal party
ANO.
After the approximately 750-meter-long Wenceslas Square was determined to be too small to
hold the protest, the demonstration was moved to the Letná Plateau on the banks of the
Vltava, the site of the mass protests against the Stalinist regime 30 years ago. Three
decades later it has become clear that the restoration of capitalism in Eastern Europe has
not brought the promised prosperity and freedom. Instead, unprecedented levels of social
inequality are being overseen by a thoroughly corrupt, authoritarian elite.
For seven weeks, thousands of Czechs have protested against Babiš, who is accused
of corruption and of using his political power for private, business purposes. The protests
are also directed against Czech Justice Minister Marie Benešova, who is accused of
obstructing investigations against Babiš. According to Forbes magazine, the assets of
the Czech Prime Minister are estimated at around 3.3 billion euros, making him the second
richest man in the country.
The participants in Sunday's demonstration were overwhelmingly workers, youth and
pensioners, the majority of whom have suffered from the incessant attacks on social rights
and benefits carried out by successive Czech governments. Posters at the demo read
"Disappear" and "Babiš resign." Further protests have been announced for August, and
could continue up to the date planned to celebrate the toppling of the former Stalinist
regime in 1989.
The mass protests in the Czech Republic are yet another indication of the international
resurgence of the class struggle. Particularly in Eastern Europe, more and more people have
taken to the streets or gone on strike in recent months to protest against catastrophic
living conditions, poor wages and corrupt governments. The recent strike by Polish teachers
was the largest in Poland in 30 years, and a strike by Hungarian auto workers nearly
paralysed European production at Volkswagen. In Serbia and Albania thousands have taken to
the streets to vent their opposition to their corrupt right-wing governments.
While the Czech and European press crows about continuing economic growth and low
unemployment, the reality for ordinary people is very different. Rapidly rising rents in the
cities and price increases for food, electricity and gasoline are driving many families to
desperation. Prague is already one of the most expensive cities in Europe. In 2018, around 17
percent of Czechs lived in poverty.
The precarious economic reality becomes clear once one examines the increase in private
indebtedness. As Radio Praha reported, around ten percent of the population can no longer pay
their debts and must forfeit their property and possessions. This total includes around
10,000 persons aged between 18 and 29, and around 400 debtors under 18. Against such a
background of social misery the Babiš government has pledged to implement further
social cuts.
A number of right-wing, pro-European Union forces are seeking to exploit the legitimate
protests against the hated billionaire for their own purposes. These forces are opposed to
toppling the government and any expansion of the protests. Several representatives of these
organisations have openly declared they do not seek to reverse the outcome of the 2017
election, which resulted in Babiš's party as frontrunner. Instead they would be
satisfied instead with his removal as head of government.
In particular, the organizers of "One Million Moments for Democracy," who are close to
social-democratic and conservative pro-EU forces, want to force the government to adopt a
stronger pro-European policy. "We are not making a revolution, but rather returning to the
legacy and values of 1989," said one of the initiators, Benjamin Roll.
These forces base themselves entirely on the criticism of Babiš made by Brussels. A
recent European Commission audit report concluded that Babiš exerted huge influence
over his holding, Agrofert, which he officially outsourced to two trust funds. On the basis
of numerous examples, the 71-page report explained how EU subsidies finished up in the
coffers of Babis' company. A demand has been raised for the return of over 17 million
euros.
Babiš responded by calling the Brussels report an "attack on the Czech Republic,"
raising the prospect that the Czech Republic may prove to be as difficult for the EU as
Hungary under its right-wing Prime Minister Victor Orban.
The Babiš government typifies all those forces that committed themselves to
capitalism thirty years ago and shamelessly plundered the economy at the expense of the
people. The son of a functionary of the Communist Party, Babiš studied in Paris and
Geneva. From 1985 to 1991 he was head of the Czechoslovak commercial agency in Morocco.
During this time, he is said to have worked under the code name "Bures" for the Stalinist
secret service, a claim Babiš denies. The files kept in the Slovakian capital
Bratislava have been falsified, he argues. What is clear is that he had close contacts to the
former state leadership and in the early 1990s used his links to consolidate Agrofert into a
billion-dollar company.
Babiš entered politics in 2011 with the ANO party, which is completely geared to
his person and interests. Babiš founded the party after both the social-democratic and
conservative parties had become increasingly discredited. He won the 2017 general election
with a clear majority but less than two years later he faces the protest of hundreds of
thousands.
Sorry, but this is very inaccurate. The government is not right-wing, but sort of a weird
centrist muddle. CSSD is by no means a "successor to the Stalinist state party" – in
fact, it was banned under the previous regime and its members exiled or imprisoned. And the
protests, most importantly, are not against the government as such, but specifically
against the prime minister and the minister of justice. The organisers keep repeating they
consider the government to be legitimate but that these two people specifically
should resign.
I see those developments in Czech Republic along lines of that of Hungary, Romania or
Poland where right wing nationalist parties are forming some sort of united front of anti
EU block against policies of more EU independence from US spreading broadly in western EU.
Such anti EU submission to US politics is publicly peddled mostly under anti-Russian
political stand of national security, that still resonate strongly on Eastern Europe while
old existential imperative of accommodation with Russia is still entrenched within western
establishment.
All that is a part of US meddling into EU to assert direct and overwhelming control over
EU in sociopolitical and financial realm and weaken orbcutting them from economic relations
with Russia and China, both targets of US frontal imperial assault for the same reason of
direct subjugation to US dictate.
But all that is not as much aimed at removal of local oligarchic elites but to demand
class discipline, to make them realize that close coordination and integration of global
counterrevolutionary offensive led by US is critical to suppressing of exploding global
class struggle worldwide that severely threatens them all.
Make no mistake. The revealed supposed acute conflicts among global elites are solely
based on mistrust of how to deal with exploding class struggle best, in most effective ways
while assuring that their power and position among global ruling elite is enhanced or
remain unchanged while they are all solidly united against international working class.
This time is no different than in last millennium when despite seemingly mortal
conflicts among ruling elites they always united and supported each other in one united
political/economic/military block to defeat working class revolution.
"... Putin said: "[neo]liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have been attempting to do over the recent decades." ..."
"... Putin said: "What happened in the US, and how did it happen? In the US, the leading US companies -- the companies, their managers, shareholders and partners -- made use of these benefits. The middle class hardly benefited from globalization. The Trump team sensed this very keenly and clearly, and they used this in the election campaign. It is where you should look for reasons behind Trump's victory, rather than in any alleged foreign interference." ..."
In an exclusive interview with FT on Thursday, Russian
President Vladimir Putin touted the growth of national populism in Europe and America while
saying that [neo]liberalism is "spent" as an ideology. He spoke on numerous issues at length,
which we have broken down here by topic.
[neo]liberal Governments
On the eve of the G20 summit, Putin said that the "[neo]liberal idea" had "outlived its
purpose" as the public has turned against immigration and multiculturalism. His push back on
[neo]liberalism aligns Putin with leaders like US president Donald Trump, Hungary's Viktor
Orban, Matteo Salvini in Italy, and the Brexit insurgency in the UK.
Putin said: "[neo]liberals] cannot simply dictate anything to anyone just like they have
been attempting to do over the recent decades."
Immigration and Refugees
He said that Chancellor Angela Merkel's decision to admit over 1 million refugees to German
was a "cardinal mistake" and praised President Trump for trying to stop migrants and drugs from
Mexico.
Putin said: "This [neo]liberal idea presupposes that nothing needs to be done. That migrants
can kill, plunder and rape with impunity because their rights as migrants have to be protected.
Every crime must have its punishment. The [neo]liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come
into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population."
On Election Interference
While Putin has been targeted in the U.S., namely for attempting to intervene in the
country's elections, Putin denied it and called the idea "mythical interference".
Putin said: "What happened in the US, and how did it happen? In the US, the leading US
companies -- the companies, their managers, shareholders and partners -- made use of these
benefits. The middle class hardly benefited from globalization. The Trump team sensed this very
keenly and clearly, and they used this in the election campaign. It is where you should look
for reasons behind Trump's victory, rather than in any alleged foreign interference."
The China/U.S. Trade War
With regard to the ongoing trade war between the U.S. and China, Putin called the situation
"explosive", blaming the issue on American unilateralism.
"Our relations with China are not motivated by timeserving political or any other
considerations. China is showing loyalty and flexibility to both its partners and opponents.
Maybe this is related to the historical features of Chinese philosophy, their approach to
building relations," Putin said.
A New Nuclear Arms Race
He also expressed concern about a new nuclear arms race.
"The cold war was a bad thing . . . but there were at least some
rules that all participants in international communication more or less adhered to or tried to
follow. Now, it seems that there are no rules at all," Putin said.
... ... ...
The Russian Economy
Speaking about his own country, Putin said: "Real wages are not in decline in Russia. On the
contrary, they are starting to pick up. The macroeconomic situation in the country is stable.
As for the central bank, yes, it is engaged in a gradual improvement of our financial system:
inefficient and small-capacity companies, as well as semi-criminal financial organizations are
leaving the market, and this is large-scale and complicated work."
"... If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region, not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and Iran. ..."
"... Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S. government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution. ..."
"... OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running. ..."
If I were a particularly cynical analyst, it might look to me like global capitalism,
starting right around 1990, freed by the collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it
wanted, more or less immediately started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout
the Greater Middle East. My cynical theory would kind of make sense of the "catastrophic policy
blunders" that the United States has supposedly made in Iraq, Libya, and throughout the region,
not to mention the whole "Global War on Terror," and what it is currently doing to Syria, and
Iran.
Take a good look at
this Smithsonian map of where the U.S.A. is "combating terrorism." Note how the U.S.
military (i.e., global capitalism's unofficial "enforcer") has catastrophically blundered its
way into more or less every nation depicted. Or ask our "allies" in Saudi Arabia, Israel,
Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and so on. OK, you might have to reach
them in New York or London, or in the South of France this time of year, but, go ahead, ask
them about the horrors they've been suffering on account of our "catastrophic blunders."
See, according to this crackpot conspiracy theory that I would put forth if I were a
geopolitical analyst instead of just a political satirist, there have been no "catastrophic
policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is
proceeding exactly according to plan. The regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those
who wouldn't have been regime-changed, or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime
change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have been
a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people or the
"sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful. Global
capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open for
business or not.
Take a look at that map again. What you're looking at is global capitalism cleaning up after
winning the Cold War. And yes, I do mean global capitalism, not the United States of
America (i.e., the "nation" most Americans think they live in, despite all evidence to the
contrary). I know it hurts to accept the fact that "America" is nothing but a simulation
projected onto an enormous marketplace but seriously, do you honestly believe that the U.S.
government and its military serve the interests of the American people? If so, go ahead, review
the history of their activities since the Second World War, and explain to me how they have
benefited Americans not the corporatist ruling classes, regular working class Americans, many
of whom can't afford to see a doctor, or buy a house, or educate their kids, not without
assuming a lifetime of debt to some global financial institution.
OK, so I digressed a little. The point is, "America" is not at war with Iran. Global
capitalism is at war with Iran. The supranational corporatist empire. Yes, it wears an American
face, and waves a big American flag, but it is no more "American" than the corporations it
comprises, or the governments those corporations own, or the military forces those governments
control, or the transnational banks that keep the whole show running.
This is what Iran and Syria are up against. This is what Russia is up against. Global
capitalism doesn't want to nuke them, or occupy them. It wants to privatize them, like it is
privatizing the rest of the world, like it has already privatized America according to my
crackpot theory, of course.
if I were a geopolitical analyst, I might be able to discern a pattern there, and
possibly even some sort of strategy.
Sounds good.
Some other people did it before, wrote it down etc. but it's always good to see that
stuff.
it might look to me like global capitalism, starting right around 1990, freed by the
collapse of the U.S.S.R. to do whatever the hell it wanted, more or less immediately
started dismantling uncooperative power structures throughout the Greater Middle East.
.there have been no "catastrophic policy blunders," not for global capitalism. The
Restructuring of the Greater Middle East is proceeding exactly according to plan. The
regional ruling classes are playing ball, and those who wouldn't have been regime-changed,
or are being regime-changed, or are scheduled for regime change.
Sure, for the actual people of the region, and for regular Americans, the last thirty years
of wars, "strategic" bombings, sanctions, fomented coups, and other such shenanigans have
been a pointless waste of lives and money but global capitalism doesn't care about people
or the "sovereign nations" they believe they live in, except to the extent they are useful.
Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not.
Spot on.
Now .there IS a bit of oversight in the article re competing groups of people on top of
that "Global capitalist" bunch.
It's a bit more complicated than "Global capitalism".
Jewish heavily influenced, perhaps even controlled, Anglo-Saxon "setup" .. or Russian
"setup" or Chinese "setup".
Only one of them can be on the top, and they don't like each other much.
And they all have nuclear weapons.
"Global capitalism" idea is optimistic. The global overwhelming force against little
players. No chance of MAD there so not that bad.NOPE IMHO.
There is a chance of MAD.
That is the problem . Well, at least for some people.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
I was a union man in my youth. We liked Capitalism. We just wanted our fair share of the
loot. The working class today knows nothing about organizing. They don't even know they are
working class. They think they are black or white. Woke or Deplorable.
ALL OF US non billionaires are coming up on serious hard times. Serious enough that we
might have to put aside our differences. The government is corrupt. It will not save us.
Instead it will continue to work to divide us.
Another great article by C J Hopkins.
Hopkins (correctly) posits that behind US actions, wars etc lies the global capitalist
class.
"Global capitalism has no nations. All it has are market territories, which are either open
for business or not"
This is correct -- but requires an important caveat.
Intrinsic to capitalism is imperialism. They are the head & tail of the same coin.
Global capitalists may unite in their rapacious attacks on average citizens the world over.
However, they will disunite when it comes to beating a competitor to a market.
The "West" has no (real) ideological differences with China, Russia & Iran. This is a
fight between an existing hegemon & it's allies & a rising hegemon (China) & it's
allies.
In many ways it's similar to the WW I situation: an established imperial country, the UK,
& it's allies against a country with imperial pretensions -- Germany (& it's
allies)
To put it in a nice little homily: the Capitalist wolves prefer to eat sheep (us) -- but,
will happily eat each other should they perceive a sufficient interest in doing so.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of
monopolies.
In most key sectors, competition ends up producing monopolies or their near-equivalent,
oligopolies. The many are weeded out (or swallowed up) by the few . The
situation is roughly the same with democracy, which historically has always resulted in
oligarchy, as occurred in ancient Rome and Athens.
Globalists are not Capitalists. There is no competition. Just a hand full of monopolies.
These stateless corporate monopolists are better understood as Feudalists. They would have
everything. We would have nothing. That's what privatization is. It's the Lords ripping off
the proles.
You are right in expecting that in Capitalism there would be competition – the
traditional view that prices would remain low because of competition, the less competitive
removed from the field, and so on. But that was primitive laisser-faire Capitalism on a fair
playing field that hardly existed but in theory. Occasionally there were some "good"
capitalists – say the mill-owner in a Lancashire town who gave employment to the
locals, built houses, donated to charity and went to the Sunday church service with his
workers. But even that "good" capitalist was in it for the profit, which comes from taking
possession for himself of the value added by his workers to a commodity.
But modern Capitalism does not function that way. There are no mill-owners, just absentee
investor playing in, usually rigged, stock market casinos. Industrial capitalism has been
changed into financial Capitalism without borders and loyalty to worker or country. In fact,
it has gone global to play country against country for more profit.
Anyway, the USA has evolved into a Fascist state (an advanced state of capitalism, a.k.a.
corporatocracy) as Chomsky stated many years ago. Seen from abroad here's a view from the
horse's mouth ( The Guardian is official organ of Globalist Fascism).
"... This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example. ..."
"... Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare -- air, land, sea, space, and cyber." ..."
"... And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something deeper? ..."
"... The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity. "Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security apparatus lost military capacity. ..."
"... "The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you can't defend yourself." ..."
"... In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation, regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block the exploitation of market power. ..."
Wall Street's short-term incentives have decimated our defense industrial base and
undermined our national security.
Early this year, U.S. authorities filed criminal
charges -- including bank fraud, obstruction of justice, and theft of technology -- against the
largest maker of telecommunications equipment in the world, a Chinese giant named Huawei.
Chinese dominance in telecom equipment has created a crisis among Western espionage agencies,
who, fearful of Chinese spying, are attempting to prevent the spread of Huawei equipment
worldwide, especially
in the critical 5G next-generation mobile networking space.
In response to the campaign to block the purchase of Huawei equipment, the company has
engaged in a public relations offensive. The company's CEO, Ren Zhengfei, portrayed Western
fears as an advertisement for its products, which are, he said, "so good that the U.S.
government is scared." There's little question the Chinese government is interested in using
equipment to spy. What is surprising is Zhengfei is right about the products. Huawei, a
relatively new company in the telecom equipment space, has amassed top market share because its
equipment -- espionage vulnerabilities aside -- is the best value on the market.
In historical terms, this is a shocking turnaround. Americans invented the telephone
business and until recently dominated production and research. But in the last 20 years, every
single American producer of key telecommunication equipment sectors is gone. Today, only two
European makers -- Ericsson and Nokia -- are left to compete with Huawei and another Chinese
competitor, ZTE.
This story of lost American leadership and production is not unique. In fact, the
destruction of America's once vibrant military and commercial industrial capacity in many
sectors has become the single biggest unacknowledged threat to our national security. Because
of public policies focused on finance instead of production, the United States increasingly
cannot produce or maintain vital systems upon which our economy, our military, and our allies
rely. Huawei is just a particularly prominent example.
When national security specialists consider preparedness, they usually think in terms of the
amount of money spent on the Pentagon. One of President Donald Trump's key campaign promises
was to aggressively raise the military budget, which he, along with Congress, started doing in
2017. The reaction was instant. "I'm heartened that Congress recognizes the sobering effect of
budgetary uncertainty on America's military and on the men and women who provide for our
nation's defense," then-defense secretary Jim Mattis said. Budgets have gone up every year
since.
Higher budgets would seem to make sense. According to the 2018 National Defense
Strategy, the United States is shifting away from armed conflicts in the Middle East to "great
power" competition with China and Russia, which have technological parity in many areas with
the United States. As part of his case for higher budgets, Mattis told Congress that "our
military remains capable, but our competitive edge has eroded in every domain of warfare --
air, land, sea, space, and cyber."
In some cases, our competitive edge has not just been eroded, but is at risk of being -- or
already is -- surpassed. The Chinese surge in 5G telecom equipment, which has dual civilian and
military uses, is one example. China is making key investments in artificial
intelligence, another area of competition. They even seem to be able to mount a rail gun on a naval ship ,
an important next generation weapons technology that the U.S. Navy has yet to incorporate.
And yet, the U.S. military budget, even at stalled levels, is still larger than the next
nine countries' budgets combined. So there's a second natural follow-up question: is the
defense budget the primary reason our military advantage is slipping away, or is it something
deeper?
The story of Huawei, and many others, suggests the latter.
♦♦♦
For over a century, America led the world in producing telecommunications equipment. The
American telecom industry, according to Zach Mottl of Atlas Tool Works, a subcontractor in the
industry, used to be a "crown jewel of American manufacturing." Mottl's company had been a
manufacturing supplier to AT&T and its Bell Labs from the early 1900s until the early
2000s. "The radar system was invented here. The transistor came out of Bell Labs. The laser. I
mean all of these high-tech inventions that have both commercial and military applications were
funded out of the research," Mottl told TAC . More than just the sexy inventions, there
was a domestic industrial sector which could make the equipment. Now, in a strategic coup for
our adversaries, that capability is gone.
Yet it wasn't one of those adversaries that killed our telecommunications capacity, but one
of our own institutions, Wall Street, and its pressure on executives to make decisions designed
to impress financial markets, rather than for the long-term health of their companies. In 1996,
AT&T spun off Bell Labs into a telecom equipment company, Lucent Technologies, to take
advantage of investors' appetite for an independent player selling high-tech telecom gear after
Congress deregulated the telecommuncations space. At the time, it was the biggest initial
public offering in history, and became the foundation of a relationship with financial markets
that led to its eventual collapse.
The focus on stock price at Lucent was systematic. The stock price was posted daily to
encourage everyone to focus on the company's relationship with short-term oriented financial
markets. All employees got a small number of "Founder's Grant Share Options," with executives
offered much larger slugs of stock to solidify the connection. When Richard McGinn became CEO
in 1997, he focused on financial markets.
Lucent began to buy up companies. According to two scholars , "The perceived
need to compete for acquisitions became a 'strategic' justification for keeping stock prices
high. This in turn demanded meeting or exceeding quarterly revenue and earnings targets,
objectives with which Lucent top executives, led by the hard-driving McGinn, became
obsessed."
Lucent got even more aggressive. McGinn's subordinate, an executive named Carly Fiorina,
juiced returns with a strategy based on lending money to risky startups who would then turn
around and buy Lucent equipment. Fiorina collected $65
million in compensation as the stock soared. And then, when the dot-com boom turned to
bust, the company, beset by accounting scandals designed to impress shareholders and the
financial markets, embarked on massive layoffs. CEO McGinn was among those laid off, but with a
$12.5 million severance package -- royal compensation for taking one of America's strategic
industrial assets down the road toward total destruction.
In the early 2000s, the telecom equipment market began to recover from the recession.
Lucent's new strategy, as Mottl put it, was to seek "margin" by offshoring production to China,
continuing layoffs of American workers and hiring abroad. At first, it was the simpler parts of
the telecom equipment, the boxes and assembly, but soon contract manufacturers in China were
making virtually all of it. American telecom capacity would never return.
Lucent didn't recover its former position. Chinese entrants, subsidized heavily by the
Chinese state and using Western technology, underpriced
Western companies. American policymakers, unconcerned with industrial capacity, allowed Chinese
companies to capture market share despite the predatory subsidies and stolen technology. In
2006, French telecom equipment maker Alcatel bought Lucent, signifying the end of American
control of Bell Labs. Today, Huawei, with state backing, dominates the market.
The erosion of much of the American industrial and defense industrial base proceeded like
Lucent. First, in the 1980s and 1990s, Wall Street financiers focused on short-term profits,
market power, and executive pay-outs over core competencies like research and production, often
rolling an industry up into a monopoly producer. Then, in the 2000s, they offshored production
to the lowest cost producer. This finance-centric approach opened the door to the Chinese
government's ability to strategically pick off industrial capacity by subsidizing its
producers. Hand over cash to Wall Street, and China could get the American crown jewels.
The loss of manufacturing capacity has been devastating for American research capacity.
"Innovation doesn't just hover above the Great Plains," Mottl said. "It is built on steady
incremental changes and knowledge learned out of basic manufacturing." Telecommunications
equipment is dual use, meaning it can be used for both commercial and military purposes. The
loss of an industrial base in telecom equipment meant that the American national security
apparatus lost military capacity.
This loss goes well beyond telecom equipment. Talking to small manufacturers and
distributors who operate in the guts of our industrial systems offers a perspective on the
danger of this process of financial predation and offshoring. Bill Hickey, who headed his
family's metal distributor, processor, and fabricator, has been watching the collapse for
decades. Hickey sells to "everyone who uses steel," from truck, car, and agricultural equipment
manufacturers to stadiums and the military.
Hickey, like many manufacturers, has watched the rise of China with alarm for decades.
"Everyone's upset about the China 2025 plan," he told TAC , referencing the current
Chinese plan causing alarm among national security thinkers in Washington. "Well there was a
China 2020 plan, 2016 plan, 2012 plan." The United States has, for instance, lost much of its
fasteners and casting industries, which are key inputs to virtually every industrial product.
It has lost much of its capacity in grain oriented flat-rolled electrical steel, a specialized
metal required for highly efficient electrical motors. Aluminum that goes into American
aircraft carriers now often comes from China.
Hickey told a story of how the United States is even losing its submarine fleet. He had a
conversation with an admiral in charge of the U.S. sub fleet at the commissioning of the USS
Illinois , a Virginia-class attack submarine, who complained that the United States was
retiring three worn-out boats a year, but could only build one and a half in that time. The
Trump military budget has boosted funding to build two a year, but the United States no longer
has the capacity to do high quality castings to build any more than that. The supply chain that
could support such surge production should be in the commercial world, but it has been
offshored to China. "You can't run a really high-end casting business on making three
submarines a year," Hickey said. "You just can't do it." This shift happened because Wall
Street, or "the LBO (leveraged buy-out) guys" as Hickey put it, bought up manufacturing
facilities in the 1990s and moved them to China.
"The middle-class Americans who did the manufacturing work, all that capability, machine
tools, knowledge, it just became worthless, driven by the stock price," he said. "The national
ability to produce is a national treasure. If you can't produce you won't consume, and you
can't defend yourself."
The Loss of the Defense Industrial Base
But it's not just the dual-use commercial manufacturing base that is collapsing. Our policy
empowering Wall Street and offshoring has also damaged the more specialized defense base, which
directly produces weaponry and equipment for the military.
How pervasive is the loss of such capacity? In September 2018, the Department of Defense
released findings of its analysis into its supply chain. The results highlighted how fragile
our ability to supply our own military has become.
The report listed dozens of militarily significant items and inputs with only one or two
domestic producers, or even none at all. Many production facilities are owned by companies that
are financially vulnerable and at high risk of being shut down. Some of the risk comes from
limited production capability. Mortar tubes, for example, are made on just one production line,
and some Marine aircraft parts are made by just one company -- one which recently filed for
bankruptcy.
At risk is everything from chaff to flares to high voltage cable, fittings for ships,
valves, key inputs for satellites and missiles, and even material for tents. As Americans no
longer work in key industrial fields, the engineering and production skills evaporate as the
legacy workforce retires.
Even more unsettling is the reliance on foreign, and often adversarial, manufacturing and
supplies. The report found that "China is the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty
chemicals used in munitions and missiles . A sudden and catastrophic loss of supply would
disrupt DoD missile, satellite, space launch, and other defense manufacturing programs. In many
cases, there are no substitutes readily available." Other examples of foreign reliance included
circuit boards, night vision systems, batteries, and space sensors.
The story here is similar. When Wall Street targeted the commercial industrial base in the
1990s, the same financial trends shifted the defense industry. Well before any of the more
recent conflicts, financial pressure led to a change in focus for many in the defense industry
-- from technological engineering to balance sheet engineering. The result is that some of the
biggest names in the industry have never created any defense product. Instead of innovating new
technology to support our national security, they innovate new ways of creating monopolies to
take advantage of it.
A good example is a company called TransDigm. While TransDigm presents itself as a designer
and producer of aerospace products, it can more accurately be described as a designer of
monopolies. TransDigm began as a private equity firm, a type of investment business, in 1993.
Its mission, per
its earnings call , is to give "private equity-like returns" to shareholders, returns that
are much higher than the stock market or other standard investment vehicles.
It achieves these returns for its shareholders by buying up companies that are sole or
single-source suppliers of obscure airplane parts that the government needs, and then
increasing prices by as
much as eight times the original amount . If the government balks at paying, TransDigm has
no qualms daring the military to risk its mission and its crew by not buying the parts. The
military, held hostage, often pays the ransom. TransDigm's gross profit margins using this
model to gouge the U.S. government are a robust 54.5 percent. To put that into perspective,
Boeing and Lockheed's profit margins are listed at 13.6 percent and 10.91 percent. In many
ways, TransDigm is like the pharmaceutical company run by Martin Shkreli, which bought rare
treatments and then price gouged those who could not do without the product. Earlier this year,
TransDigm
recently bought the remaining supplier of chaff and one of two suppliers of flares,
products identified in the Defense Department's supply chain fragility report.
Yet, Trandigm's stock price thrives because Wall Street loves monopolies, regardless of who
they are taking advantage of. Take this
analysis from TheStreet from March 2019, published after the latest Inspector General
report and directly citing many of the concerning facts from the report as pure positives for
the investor:
The company is now the sole supplier for 80% of the end markets it serves. And 90% of the
items in the supply chain are proprietary to TransDigm. In other words, the company is
operating a monopoly for parts needed to operate aircraft that will typically be in service for
30 years . Managers are uniquely motivated to increase shareholder value and they have an
enviable record, with shares up 2,503% since 2009.
Fleecing the Defense Department is big business. Its executive chairman W. Nicholas Howley,
skewered by Democrats and Republicans alike in a May 2019 House Oversight hearing for making up
to 4,000 percent excess profit on some parts and stealing from the American taxpayer, received
total compensation of over $64
million in 2013 , the fifth most among all CEOs, and
over $13 million in 2018 , making him one
of the most highly compensated CEOs no one has ever heard of . Shortly after May's hearing,
the company agreed to voluntarily return $16 million in overcharges to the Pentagon, but the
share price is at near record highs.
L3 Technologies, created in 1997, has taken a different, but also damaging, approach to
monopolizing Defense Department contracts. Originally, it sought to become "the Home Depot of
the defense industry" by going on an acquisition binge, according
to its former CEO Frank Lanza. Today, L3 uses its size, its connections within the government,
and its willingness to offer federal employees good-paying jobs at L3, to muscle out
competitors and win contracts, even if the competitor has
more innovative and better priced products . This practice attracted the ire of two
Republican congressmen from North Carolina, Ted Budd and the late Walter Jones, who found
in 2017 that L3 succeeds, in part, due to "blatant corruption and obvious disregard of American
foreign interest in the name of personal economic profit."
Like TransDigm, this isn't L3's first brush with trouble. It was
temporarily suspended from U.S. government contracting for using "extremely sensitive and
classified information" from a government system to help its international business interests.
It was the subject of a scathing Senate Armed Services Committee investigation
for
failing to notify the Defense Department that it supplied faulty Chinese counterfeit parts
for some of its aircraft displays. And it agreed to pay a
$25.6 million settlement to the U.S. government for knowingly providing defective weapon
sights for years to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Yet, also like TransDigm, L3 has thrived despite its troubles. When the company was granted
an open-ended contract to update the Air Force's electronics jamming airplane in 2017,
Lieutenant General Arnold Bunch
outlined the Air Force's logic at a House Armed Services Subcommittee meeting. L3, he said,
is the only company that can do the job. "They have all the tooling, they have all the existing
knowledge, and they have the modeling and all the information to do that work," he said.
In other words, because L3 has a monopoly, there was no one else to pick. The system -- a
system designed by the financial industry that rewards monopoly and consolidation at the
expense of innovation and national security -- essentially made the pick for him. It is no
wonder our military capacities are ebbing, despite the large budget outlays -- the money isn't
going to defense.
♦♦♦
In fact, in some ways, our own defense budgets are being used against us when potential
adversaries use Wall Street to take control of our own Pentagon-developed technologies.
There's no better example than China's takeover of the rare earth metal industry, which is
key to both defense and electronics. The issue has frequently made the front page during the
recent trade war, but the seldom-discussed background to our dependence on China for rare
earths is that, just like with telecom equipment, the United States used to be the world leader
in the industry until the financial sector shipped the whole thing to China.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the Defense Department invested in the development of a
technology to use what are known as rare-earth magnets. The investment was so successful that
General Motors engineers, using Pentagon grants, succeeded in creating a
rare earth magnet that is now essential for nearly every high-tech piece of military equipment
in the U.S. inventory, from smart bombs and fighter jets to lasers and communications devices.
The benefit of DARPA's investment wasn't restricted to the military. The magnets make cell
phones and modern commercial electronics possible.
China recognized the value of these magnets early on. Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping
famously said in 1992 that "The Middle East has oil, China has rare earth," to underscore
the importance of a rare earth strategy he adopted for China. Part of that strategy was to take
control of the industry by manipulating the motivations of Wall Street.
Wall Street's outsized control over defense contracting and industry means that every place
a foreign adversary can insert itself into American financial institutions, it can insert
itself into our defense industry.
At an Armed Services Committee hearing in 2018, Representative Carol Shea-Porter talked
about how constant the conflict between financial concentration and patriotism had been in her
six years on the committee. She recounted a CEO once telling her, in response to her concern
about the outsourcing of defense industry parts, that he "[has] to answer to stockholders."
Who are these stockholders that CEOs are so compelled to answer to? Oftentimes, China.
Jennifer M.
Harris , an expert in global markets with experience at the U.S. State Department and the
U.S. National Intelligence Council, researched a recent
explosion of Chinese strategic investment in American technology companies. She found that
China has systematically targeted U.S. greenfield investments, "technology goods (especially
semiconductors), R&D networks, and advanced manufacturing."
The trend accelerated, until the recent flare-up of tensions between the United States and
China. "China's foreign direct investment (FDI) stock in the U.S.
increased some 800% between 2009 and 2015," she wrote. Then, from 2015 to 2017, "Chinese
FDI in the U.S. climbed nearly four-fold, reaching roughly $45.6 billion in 2016 , up from just
$12.8 billion in 2014."
This investment runs right through Wall Street, the key lobbying group trying to ratchet
down Trump's tough negotiating posture with the Chinese. Rather than showing concern about the
increasing influence of a foreign power in our commerce and industry, Wall Street banks have
repeatedly followed Archie Cox down the path of easy returns.
In 2016, J.P. Morgan Chase agreed to pay a
$264 million bribery settlement to the U.S. government for creating a program, called "Sons
and Daughters," to gain access to Chinese money by selectively hiring the unqualified offspring
of high-ranking Communist Party officials and other Chinese elites. Several other banks are
under investigation for similar practices, including Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, who, not
coincidentally,
hired the son of China's commerce minister. It appears to have worked out for them. In
2017, Goldman Sachs
partnered with the Chinese government's sovereign wealth fund to invest $5 billion Chinese
government dollars in American industry.
In short, China is becoming a significant shareholder in U.S. industries, and is selectively
targeting those with strategic implications. Congresswoman Shea-Porter's discovery that defense
industry CEOs aren't able to worry about national security because they "[have] to answer to
shareholders" was disturbing enough. But the fact that it potentially translates as CEOs not
being able to worry about national security because they have to answer to the Chinese should
elevate the issue to the top of our national security discussion. This nexus of China, Wall
Street, and our defense industrial base may be the answer to why our military advantage is
ebbing. Even when American ingenuity can thrive, too often the fruits go to the Chinese.
In short, the financial industry, with its emphasis on short-term profit and
monopoly , and its willingness to ignore national security for profit, has warped our very
ability to defend ourselves.
How Did We Get Here?
Believe it or not, America has been here before. In the 1920s and 1930s, the American
defense industrial base was being similarly manipulated by domestic financiers for their own
purposes, retarding innovation and damaging the nation's ability to defend itself. And American
military readiness was ebbing in the midst of an increasingly dangerous world full of rising
autocracies.
Today it might be artificial intelligence or drones, but in the 1930s the key military
technology was the airplane. And as with much digital technology today, while Americans
invented the airplane, many of the fruits went elsewhere. The reason was similar to the problem
of Wall Street today. The American aerospace industry in the 1930s was undermined by fights
among bankers over who got to profit from associated patent rights.
In 1935, Brigadier General William Mitchell told Congress that the United States didn't have
a single plane that could go against a "first-class power." "It is a disgraceful situation and
is due," he said, "for one thing, to this pool of patents." The lack of aerospace capacity
reflected a broader industrial problem. Monopolists refused to invest in factories to produce
enough steel, aluminum, and magnesium for adequate military readiness, for fear of losing
control over prices.
New Dealers investigated, and by the time war broke out, the Roosevelt administration was in
the midst of a sustained anti-monopoly campaign. The Nazi war machine, like China today, gave
added impetus to the problem of monopoly in key technology-heavy industries. In 1941, an
assistant attorney general for the antitrust division, Norman Littell, gave a speech to the
Indiana State Bar Association about what he called "The German Invasion of American
Business."
The Nazis, he argued, used legal techniques, like patent laws, stock ownership, dummy
corporations, and cartel arrangements, to extend their power into the United States. "The
distinction between bombing a vital plant out of existence from an airplane and preventing that
plant from coming into existence in the first place [through cartel arrangements]," he said,
"is largely a difference in the amount of noise involved."
Nazis used their American subsidiary corporations to spy on U.S. industrial capacity and
steal technology, such as walkie-talkies, intertank and ground-air radio communication systems,
and shortwave sets developed by the U.S. Army and Navy. They used patents or cartel
arrangements to restrict the production of stainless steel, tungsten-carbide, and fuel
injection equipment. According to the U.S. military after the war, I.G. Farben, the Nazi
chemical monopoly, had influence over American production of "synthetic gas and oils,
dyestuffs, explosives, synthetic rubber ('Buna'), menthol, cellophane, and other products," and
sought to keep the United States "entirely dependent" on Germany for certain types of
electrical equipment.
The Nazis took advantage of an industrial system that was, like the current one, organized
along short-term objectives. But seeing the danger, New Dealers attacked the power of
financiers through direct financing of factories, excess profits taxes, and the breaking of the
power of the Rockefeller, Dupont, and Mellon empires through bank regulation and antitrust
suits. They separated the makers of airplanes from airlines, a sort of Glass Steagall for
aerospace. During the war itself, antitrust chief Thurman Arnold, and those he influenced,
sought to end international cartels and loosen patent rules in part because they allowed
control over American industry by the Nazis.
After the war, the link between global cartels and national security vulnerabilities was a
key driver of American trade and military strategy. America pursued globalization, but with two
differences from the form we have today. First, strategists sought to prevent the recurrence of
global cartels and monopolies. Second, they sought to become industrially intertwined with
allies, not rivals. While multinational corporations stretched across the West, they did not
locate production or technology development in Moscow or among strategic rivals, as we do today
in China.
Domestically, anti-profiteering institutions and rules protected against corruption,
especially important when the defense budget comprised a large chunk of overall American
research and development. The Defense Department's procurement agency -- the Defense Logistics
Agency -- was enormously powerful and oversaw procurement and supply challenges. The Pentagon
had the power to force suppliers of sole source products -- contractors that had monopolies --
to reveal cost information to the government. The financial health of defense contractors
mattered, but so did value to the taxpayer, a skilled defense industrial workforce, and the
ability to deliver quality products to aid in national defense.
A fragmented base of contractors and subcontractors ensured redundancy and competition, and
a powerful federal apparatus with thousands of employees with expertise in pricing and
negotiation kept prices reasonable. The Defense Department could even take ownership of
specialized tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare
part needs -- which is precisely where TransDigm specializes. This authority and expertise had
been carefully cultivated over decades to provide the material necessary to equip American
soldiers for World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and the first Gulf war.
In the 1980s, while Ronald Reagan allowed Wall Street free rein elsewhere in the economy, he
mostly kept Wall Street from going after the defense base. But scholars began debating whether
it made sense to have such a large and expensive negotiating apparatus to deal with
contractors, or if a more "cooperative" approach should be taken. Business consultants
argued that the Pentagon could save money if it would simply be "a better customer, by
being less adversarial and more trusting" of defense contractors.
With the end of the Cold War, these arguments found new resonance. Bill Clinton took the
philosophical change that Reagan had pushed on the civilian economy, and moved it into the
defense base. In 1993, Defense Department official William Perry gathered CEOs of top defense
contractors and told them that they would have to merge into larger entities because of reduced
Cold War spending. "Consolidate or evaporate," he said at what became known as "The Last
Supper" in military lore. Former secretary of the Navy John Lehman noted, "industry leaders
took the warning to heart." They reduced the number of prime contractors from 16 to six;
subcontractor mergers quadrupled from 1990 to 1998. They also loosened rules on sole source --
i.e. monopoly -- contracts, and slashed the Defense Logistics Agency, resulting in thousands of
employees with deep knowledge of defense contracting leaving the public sector.
Contractors increasingly dictated procurement rules. The Clinton administration approved
laws changing procurement, which, as the Los Angeles Times put it, got rid of the
government's traditional goals of ensuring "fair competition and low prices." They reversed
what the New Dealers had done to insulate American military power from financiers.
The administration also pushed Congress to allow foreign imports into
American weapons through waivers of the Buy America Act, and demanded procurement officers stop
asking for cost data. Mass offshoring took place, and businesses could increase prices
radically.
This environment attracted private-equity shops, and swaths of the defense industry shifted
their focus from aerospace engineering to balance sheet engineering. From 1993 to 2000, despite
dramatic declines in Cold War military spending and declines in the number of workers in the
defense industrial base and within the military, defense stocks outperformed the S&P.
Today, the American defense establishment quietly finds itself in the same predicament it
did in the 1930s. Despite spending large amounts of money on weapons systems, it often gets
substandard equipment. It is dependent for key sources of supply on business arrangements with
potentially hostile powers. The problem is so big, so toxic, and so difficult that few
lawmakers even want to take it on. But the increasingly obvious danger of Chinese power means
we can no longer ignore it.
The Fix
Fortunately, this is fixable. Huawei's predatory pricing success has shown policymakers all
over the world what happens when we don't protect our vital industrial capacity. Last year,
Congress strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the committee
that reviews foreign investment and mergers. The Trump tariffs have begun forcing a
long-overdue conversation across the globe about Chinese steel and aluminum overcapacity, and
Democrats like Representative Dan Lipinski are focused on reconstituting domestic manufacturing
ability.
Within the defense base itself, every example -- from TransDigm to L3 to Chinese
infiltration of American business -- has drawn the attention of members of Congress.
Representatives Ted Budd and Paul Cook are Republicans and Representatives Jackie Speier and Ro
Khanna are Democrats. They are not alone. Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and
Representative Tim Ryan have joined Khanna's demand for a TransDigm investigation.
Moreover, focus on production is bipartisan. One of the most ardent opponents of
consolidation in the 1990s is current presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, who in 1996
passed an amendment to block Pentagon subsidies for defense mergers, or what he called "Payoffs
for Layoffs." On the other end of the spectrum, Trump has refocused national security and trade
officials on the importance of domestic manufacturing.
Defense officials have also become acutely aware of the problem. In a 2015 briefing at the
Pentagon, in response to questions about Lockheed's acquisition of Sikorsky, then secretary of
defense Ash Carter
emphasized the importance of not having "excessive consolidation," including so-called
vertical integration, in the defense industry because it is "[not] good for the defense
marketplace, and therefore, for the taxpayer and warfighter in the long run." Carter's
acquisition chief, Frank Kendall,
also noted the "significant policy concerns" posed by the "continuing march toward greater
consolidation in the defense industry at the prime contractor level" and the effect it has on
innovation.
American policymakers in the 1990s lost the ability to recognize the value of production
capacity. Today, many of the problems highlighted here are still seen in isolation, perhaps as
instances of corruption or reduced capacity. But the problems -- diminished innovation,
marginal quality, higher prices, less redundancy, dependence on overseas supply chains, a lack
of defense industry competition, and reduced investment in research and development -- are not
independent. They are the result of the financialization of industry and of monopoly. It's time
for a new strategic posture, one that puts a premium not just on spending the right amount on
military budgets, but also on ensuring that financial actors don't capture what we do spend. We
must begin once again to recognize that private industrial capacity is a vital national
security asset that we can no longer allow Wall Street to pillage. By seeing the problem in its
totality, we can attack the power of finance within the commercial and defense base and restore
our national security capacity once again.
There are many levers we can use to reorder our national priorities. The Defense Department,
along with its new higher budgets, should have more authority to promote competition, break up
defense conglomerates, restrict excess defense contractor profits, empower contracting officers
to get cost information, and block private equity takeovers of suppliers. Congress could
reinstate the authority of the Defense Department to simply take ownership of specialized
tooling rights to create competition in monopolistic markets with specialized spare part needs,
a power it once had.
In the commercial sector, rebuilding the industrial base will require an aggressive
national mobilization strategy. This means aggressive investment by government to rebuild
manufacturing capacity, selective tariffs to protect against Chinese or foreign predation,
regulation to stop financial predation by Wall Street, and anti-monopoly enforcement to block
the exploitation of market power.
Policymakers must recognize that industrial capacity is a public good and short-term actors
on Wall Street have become a serious national security vulnerability. While private businesses
are essential to our common defense, the public sector must once again structure how we
organize our national defense and protect our defense industrial base from predatory finance.
For several decades, Wall Street has been organizing not just the financing of defense
contractors, but the capabilities of our very defense posture. That experiment has been a
failure. It is time to wake up, before it's too late.
Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Open Markets Institute. His book, Goliath: The
100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, is due out this fall from Simon &
Schuster. Lucas Kunce spent 12 years in the United States Marine Corps, and is a veteran of the
Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The views presented are those of the authors and do not necessarily
represent the views of the Department of Defense or its components. This article was supported
by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. The contents of this publication are solely the
responsibility of the authors.
Sobering read. However, it is likely that only a major war will spur legislators and
administrators into action. Until then Wall Street will reign and the US administrations will
keep threatening countries with sanctions if they buy equipment that prevents the US to
conduct an easy bombing campaign on them.
I've heard similar stories about the imminent collapse of the Russian Defense sector, they
can't make their own parts, they lack diversity of suppliers, there is a huge brain drain, no
customers (somewhat true since we practice extortion).
I'm not dismissing the author, actually quite the opposite and I am agreeing with you. The
secret ingredient is an actual sense of danger. The Russians are terrified, we pretend to be
terrified but know it's all threat inflation. If we had honest people in Congress proposing
targeted budgets for real needs rather than 'freedom of navigation' when we know it's power
projection then the fear of God might return to our habits. The author brought up the 20/30's
I bet WW2 gave us that fear again.
Dude, your government stopped being able to do anything this complicated somewhere around
1995. Your infrastructure is in shambles and diabetics are dying because of an insulin
monopoly that forces them to ration medication. The rope remark resembles you.
This is the longest litany about demise of American prowess in technology that I've ever read
in TAC so far. The story of destruction of Bell Labs, described in details by Matt Stoller is
very accurate: I have been eyewitness to it from 1983 and up to its gruesome end. Carly
Fiorina, one of the runners for President in 2016, delivered American icon coup-the-grace.
She even justified her claim on presidency on business experience: destruction of another
icon of American high-tech – Hewlett-Packard. Alas, there is the most fundamental
reason for the current situation in the 21-st century USA, was formulated 100+ years ago by
Vladimir Lenin: "For profit capitalists will be eager to sell us rope, with which we'll
hung them" .
Would anybody protest today that profit IS the Nature of capitalism ? And
more: those who substitute Reality with their wet dreams might be cured by watching
Democratic 2020 debates.
Great piece. There are lots of good articles here but not that many that tell something I
really didn't already know. Great perspective on the whole China issue. Amazing how sick our
financialized economy really is when you look under the hood.
This is excellent information. Hope folks on the Hill are reading this.
The Wall Street and finance industry depend on US military, long-term this is a disaster, but
they care only for short-term profits. Whoever thought that principles of free market apply
internationally, where other goverments are free to influence "free trade" in any way they
wish, while US goverment will do nothing is an idiot.
"... Glenn Greenwald called out journalists and columnists pushing for a war with Iran and lamented that people who have been continually wrong are often hailed as the voice of authority and reason in an interview with FNC's Tucker Carlson on Friday. ..."
Glenn Greenwald called out journalists and columnists pushing for a war with Iran and
lamented that people who have been continually wrong are often hailed as the voice of authority
and reason in an interview with FNC's Tucker Carlson on Friday.
Greenwald specifically took aim at Jeffrey Goldberg of 'The Atlantic' who he said got a
promotion for being wrong about the war in Iraq.
VIDEO
Posted by: John Smith | Jun 27, 2019 1:05:43 AM |
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"... Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow. ..."
Sanders, by contrast, was not a troublemaker at all. He talked about his blue-sky political
ideals as something he believed in passionately, but he separated that idealism from his
practical legislative work, which was grounded in vote counts." In other words Warren put
principles over party in the interest of advancing the issues she cared about, like a true
progressive. Sanders' messaging "revolution" was all talk and bluster but no show. Warren has
been praised
for "picking strategic battles she won with a specific set of political skills. 'I would say
she's the best progressive Democratic politician I've seen since Bobby Kennedy,'" reports the
political writer Robert Kuttner. Before she went into electoral politics Warren had already
received credit from Obama and others for establishing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
(CFPB) a progressive half-billion dollar New Deal-type agency. Can another person be named who
has been responsible for establishing a comparable key regulatory agency in recent decades? By
contrast the not easily dismissed explanation about
Sanders' lack of such accomplishments is "in a business where personal relations count, Sanders
is viewed as a brusque and inflexible loner."
Which then is the true WaPo "Revolutionary?" The tame lion who talks a good game or the
principled brinkswoman who plays a good game? It is Warren who complained to the NYT: " Democrats have been unwilling to get out there and fight." Warren did fight during
her campaign for and service in the Senate, even acquiring a reputation
(among
males , at least) for "stridency" as she was learning the ropes for coping with a
systemically corrupt political order. We should doubt anyone within such a system who is not as
strident or angry as Warren. That stance tended to enhance her power to change the system, at
least until she decided to campaign for president as a way to acquire more power to reform it.
She then appropriately revealed
"a folksier, more accessible side that wasn't always apparent in her role" in the Senate.
Former congressman Barney Frank, always a sharp observer of such matters, said of Warren,
after she had barely completed two years of her brand new "strident" career in electoral
politics: "Right now, she's as powerful a spokesperson on public policy as you could be in the
minority . She has an absolute veto over certain public-policy issues, because Democrats are
not going to cross her . Democrats are afraid of Elizabeth Warren." Can anything remotely
similar be said of Sanders after his 30 years in Washington? Indeed, Frank expressed what
Politico reported as a consensus view
that "[Sanders'] legislative record was to state the ideological position he took on the left,
but with the exception of a few small things, he never got anything done . He has always talked
about revolution, but on Dodd-Frank and Obamacare, he left the pitchfork at home and joined the
Democrats."
Warren acquired power to make change. After two more years she was so powerful that the
Clinton establishment unsuccessfully pressured her to endorse Clinton in the primaries, and
Sanders' acolytes would blame her for not making Sanders the victor by performing as his
unsolicited super-endorser. It takes exceptional strategic and other political skills, focus
and commitment to gain such power in such a short time. Unlike Sanders, even Warren's enemies
do not claim she is ineffective.
Warren, no less than Sanders, has clearly stated that the reason for her candidacy is to
fight "against a small group that holds far too much power, not just in our economy, but also
in our democracy." She says her purpose is not "to just tinker around the edges --
a tax credit here, a regulation there. Our fight is for big, structural change" of
plutocracy, "a rigged system that props up the rich and the powerful and kicks dirt on everyone
else." WaPo must have missed these parts of Warren's presidential
announcement speech which promised this challenge to the power of the systemically corrupt
plutocracy. It is the central motif of her campaign. And of course, "she has a plan for that"
– her first plan. It is her
bill S.3357. 15 th Cong. – the "Anti-Corruption and Public Integrity
Act."
Warren's announcement of her presidential candidacy made clear that she considers Trump to
be merely a symptom of this larger problem – the detritus of a crumbling democracy. Just
cleaning up the garbage is not going to solve the systemic problem of plutocracy from which he
emerged. If not systemically fixed today with more than cosmetics, Warren understands, the
corrupt plutocracy is capable of generating even more toxic products tomorrow.
Therefore, from the very start of her highly effective campaign Warren positioned herself in
opposition not just to Trump but to the economically "rich and powerful [who] have rigged our
political system as well. They've bought off or bullied politicians in both parties to
make sure Washington is always on their side." Like Sanders at his best , she calls this system by its proper name. "When
government works only for the wealthy and well-connected, that is corruption --
plain and simple. Corruption is a cancer on our democracy. And we will get rid of it
only with strong medicine -- with real, structural reform. Our fight is to
change the rules so that our government, our economy, and our democracy work for
everyone." She emphasized to Emily Bazelon, writing for the NYT: " It's structural change that interests me." She
toldTIME "If we want to make real change in this country, it's got to be systemic
change."
Ignoring the fetid distraction of Trump to focus her advocacy instead on the necessary
systemic reforms is a winning progressive strategy. Establishment Democrats will again
predictably
ignore this strategy, as they did in 2016, at their peril. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has already
accurately
predicted the result of sending what Naomi Klein calls ,
"tepid centrists carrying the baggage of decades of neoliberal suffering" to battle against
mobilized totalitarians: "We have a very real risk of losing the presidency to Donald Trump if
we don't have a presidential candidate that's fighting for true transformational change in
lives of working people in the United States."
Warren has taken on the task of defeating, not appeasing, the corrupt establishment which is
willing in 2020 as it was in 2016 to take just that risk in order to preclude a progressive
revival. Warren's plan is, "First: We need to change the rules to clean up Washington. End the
corruption." This is not an opportunistic aspersion by a political con-artist, like Trump's
totally phony "drain the swamp" slogan, soon belied by his own most corrupt administration in
recent history. With Trump second to none in pandering to plutocrats, even a broad section of
his own base has abandoned the remaining mere 23% of
Americans who think he has made any progress on this central campaign promise. In Warren's
case, according to a New Yorkerprofile , "her agenda
of reversing income inequality and beating back the influence of corporate power in politics .
are issues that Warren has pursued for three decades." Her mission has nothing to do with
political calculation. It constitutes hard-earned strategic wisdom about priorities.
Once the systemic corruption is ended all the other crises from climate change and energy to
health and food policy and much more can finally all respond to currently disempowered
majorities. Systemic anti-corruption reform sustains itself first through the watchdog agencies
it creates; solutions for these other issues are not similarly sustainable once the corrupt
plutocracy refocuses its purchased influence on any modest measures that may filter through its
defenses in singular and usually highly constricted moments of reform. For example Obama's
singular unambiguous reform – the Iran nuclear deal – and other more modest Obama
reforms have been killed or wounded by Trump, because Obama left the MIC, Big
Pharma, Wall Street and the other components of the corrupt plutocracy with even
more power than he found them. Through his strategic malfeasance, for motives that
historians will need to pick over, Obama's 8 years were therefore not just unproductive, but
counterproductive for democracy and social justice.
For Warren this issue of the corrupt plutocracy is not just a majoritarian favorite adopted
to boost a political campaign. Obama campaigned
as one "tired of business as usual in Washington" who would "overcome all the big money and
influence" there and get the "lobbyists [who] dominate our government system in Washington" and
their "undue influence" out of "our way." But he woke up president not so "tired of business as
usual in Washington"after all. Refreshed by record-setting campaign cash from the Wall Street
plutocracy he did the opposite
of what many thought to be his central campaign promise. Roger D. Hodge, Mendacity of Hope:
Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism (2010) ( Obama
"the best friend Wall Street could hope for").
Warren does not seem to be just another mendacious politician on this priority issue of the
day. It is one for which Warren's prior expertise and activism drew her into politics. This is
uniquely her
own issue, emergent from a highly successful academic and policy career which brought her
into contact with the corruption which then shaped her views about its centrality. It is less
that Warren needs to be president in the mode of the usual megalomaniacal career politician
than that this paramount issue calls her to bring to the presidency her unique skills acquired
during an extraordinarily successful career outside of electoral politics. Warren herself
confides : "I know why I'm here. I have ideas for how we bring systemic change to this
country. And we're running out of time." As a University of Chicago economist told the
NYT ,
"Wall Street and its allies are more afraid of her than Bernie because when she says she'll
change the rules, she's the one who knows how to do it." Such knowledge is a relevant strategic
distinction, unlike WaPo's "Revolution versus Reform" nonsense, for the very reason that
progressive failure has for two generations been driven by lack of competent strategy not lack
of motivational ideology.
Zach Carter's
argument quoted above can be interpreted to suggest another answer than WaPo's misguided
theory for this key question of the difference between Sanders and Warren. Some claim their
differences are merely symbolic, "differences of temperament, style," " and
world views," much in the same manner as the other candidates who are mining the plutocratic
wing's war-chest of symbolic and diversionary identity politics, and single issue politics,
while at the same time they raise
money from plutocrats to seed and foster those divide and conquer divisions and strategic
errors among progressives. That argument goes that these are just different flavors of
progressivism, wholly unrelated to strategic success. But to deny the existence of objectively
important – indeed decisive strategic – differences between the two progressives in
the race would also be just as wrong as the ridiculous and disputable subjectivity of the
"Revolution versus Reform" distraction marketed by WaPo and others. It invites progressives to
distribute themselves randomly according to the subjective appeal of various styles and smiles
rather than be guided by disciplined thoughtful strategic choice which has become the decisive
factor for recovering democracy.
In the face of such distracting theories of difference, it is important for progressives to
debate and answer this question for themselves, well before the primaries, so as not to
squander their resources of time, finances and conviviality fighting
among themselves over largely subjective triggers during the important lead-up to the primary
elections. For the primaries they must be strategically united in order to win against a
plutocracy which rarely finds itself strategically impaired. I have argued at length
elsewhere that the contemporary uniquely extended failure of democracy in America since
Buckley – which can be quantified by the metric of rising economic inequality
– is fundamentally due to the failure of progressives over two generations to unite
behind effective strategy to fight the corrupt plutocracy as their priority. At those times of
similarly profound crises in the past, progressives have successfully formulated and united
behind effective strategy. In the United States, due to its own systemic cultural legacy of
racist slavery, genocide, and imperialism, joined by more universally shared issues of
patriarchy and plutocracy, there will always be fertile soil for the emergence of latent
anti-democratic elements into a totalitarian mobilization when an authentic and competent
opposition is laking. This was understood from early days, such as Franklin's famous
qualification "if you can keep it."
Trump is the direct and predictable product of the progressive failure to have forged an
effective opposition to corrupt plutocracy by the time of that strategic moment when popular
trust has been lost in the plutocratic "
center ." Lack of a unifying progressive strategy meant that volatile and highly
manipulable proto-totalitarian element would look elsewhere. As Slavoj Zizek, Trouble in
Paradise (2014) 115, posits: "The rise of Fascism is not only the Left's failure, but also
proof that there was a revolutionary potential, a dissatisfaction, which the Left was not able
to mobilize." Proto-totalitarian Trumpism is what arises when progressives are unable to unite
strategically.
The Plutocracy and its propagandists take a keen and well-financed interest in prolonging
this division among progressives. They now back Biden, or Trump. Recent reliable polling shows
Biden 30% – Sanders 19% – Warren 15%. This current data shows that supporters of
the two progressives, if united, would defeat the
plutocracy 's
status quo candidate. As the progressive choice between Sanders and Warren lingers through
the summer of 2019 in a mere contest of subjective tastes it will aggravate yet another in a
series of historical failures by progressives to unite strategically and competently at a time
when the stakes are now the highest. Continued progressive failure to act strategically for
decisively wresting control of the Democratic Party from its corrupt plutocratic establishment
will only move the country further in the direction of totalitarianism. Sanders failed at this
task in 2016 though progressives provided him resources and support to do the job. Yet another
progressive failure to organize strategically behind a competent progressive in the 2020
primaries could be terminal. The likes of WaPo will not do it for them. The necessary exercise
of their own strategic judgment in this choice needed to prevail in 2020 will be a useful
exercise of an unexercised muscle by progressives. To elect a strategist progressives must
master the strategy.
The purpose of this article is to discuss four issues for which there is evidence of an
objectively salient strategic difference between these two leading alternatives to Biden beyond
those already discussed. Though the " eminently
beatable" Biden currently leads the plutocracy's large stable of compromised candidates, it is
difficult to imagine Biden not tripping fatally over his own serial, legendarily tone-deaf and
unrepented gaffes. The plutocracy may need to draw on its deep bench in later innings.
Progressives need be prepared. The objective evidence below can assist progressives in making
the necessary early strategic choice between the two progressives for opposing the plutocracy's
eventual candidate which will help them to resist predictable distractions. The alternative to
such a strategic decision is bickering over subjective, standard-free, factually contested
assertions that too often seem to belie unattractive motivations if not actual bot
provocateurs.
Some might object that 2019 is too early for progressives to rely on polls or even to make
such a choice. My own experience in authoring a long 2015 Huffington Post article strongly
supporting Sanders is that discerning use of early polling data can provide a reliable guide to
what will remain as the decisive factors through to the end of the campaign cycle, and even
beyond. The present piece is offered in the same spirit as my 2015
article which remains relevant as an example of how early the disastrous outcome of the
establishment Democrats' 2016 status quo approach could be predicted. Since the decisive
factors are now discernible there is no advantage and great risk in delaying the inevitable
choice that progressives will make.
I disclose my personal views at the outset, if they are not already clear. Though I
supported Sanders extensively through advocacy and as a state delegate for Sanders in 2016,
lending a good deal of my time and even some money to the effort, my experience produced high
regard for self-organizing Sanders supporters but quite the opposite for the man himself.
Certainly by the time of his craven speech
at the Democratic Convention in July, if
notearlier , I had
concluded he was an incompetent
betrayer of the important role and opportunity he had been granted by his supporters, which
he wasted at a crucial moment in American history. When he is compared to Elizabeth Warren, I
now find Sanders to be
unreliable , inauthentic, and wrongly motivated as a career politician with no other
relevant skill base. This perspective has been elaborated at greater length by Jeffrey St.
Clair (2016), as referenced below.
Sanders is concededly good at expounding majoritarian policies and his nominal independence
allows him rhetorical distance from the plutocratic wing of the Democrats, which creates guilt
by association and a fat target
for the proto-totalitarian (also called "populist") right-wing. I do not deny the sincerity of
his progressive views. He has a role. That role is not a leadership role. The problem with
Sanders is execution. Chris Smith
makes a similar point in Vanity Fair when he observes that Sanders "is very good at
raising money .what Sanders was less good at in 2016 was spending his large pile of money to
win votes. Particularly the crucial Democratic primary votes of women and African-Americans.
Sanders is showing little sign that he's going to get it right this time around." Marketing
strategy is not political strategy. Sanders ran a both lucrative and wasteful 2016 campaign in
these respects and also in his failure to elaborate detailed strategy to support his big
themes, which also drew justifiable criticism of his competence.
If Bernie Sanders has not, Elizabeth Warren clearly has learned each of these lessons from
Sanders' flawed campaign. She has been generating detailed policy at such a fast pace it is
difficult to see anyone catching up to her, though Sanders has tried by feebly issuing a less
nuanced version of Wilson's college debt plan. Warren has demonstrated her ability to run a
highly effective campaign on limited funds. Spending money effectively is a strategic skill.
There do not seem to be any third-string cronies around her siphoning off funds into useless
sideshows. One imagines that if Warren possessed Sanders' 2016 mostly wasted pile of loot she
would already have reorganized the Inauthentic Opposition party – as Sheldon Wolin described the Democrats
in 2008 – into a true opposition party that it was designed by Martin Van Buren
to be at its inception.
As for Sanders' problem with reaching African-Americans, according to Rev. Al
Sharpton his progressive rival has no such problem. Of course, "Kamala [Harris] connects
with black-church audiences. Cory Booker, too," says Sharpton. "And I'll tell you who surprised
me: Liz Warren. She rocked my organization's convention like she was taking Baptist preacher
lessons." Warren thus readily solves the biggest demographic problem Sanders had and still has:
black women, particularly in the south. And this Oklahoma woman might also surprise with her
ability to use "
southern charm " to flip the script for white women still living under the South's
unreconstructed patriarchy. Her primary-election campaign strategy has been preparing her with
the experience to play an unprecedented role in American political history in the 2020 general
election.
An establishment Democratic Congressman offered
a similar observation about Warren's potential: "If she can make the leap to being a candidate
that played in the rural Midwest it could be really interesting to watch." By comparison
Sanders, used to "giving the same stump speech at event after event, numb to the hunger of the
beast he had awakened," St. Clair (2016) 8, brings a known and dated turn to the stage, which
like Biden's has little potential to surprise on its up side potential among new demographics
in this manner. The sooner Warren becomes the acknowledged front runner in the party, the
sooner she can use her proven networking skills within the party to bring some order to the
crowded primary field for purposes of deploying them effectively to reach various such
disaffected demographics. She is the person most capable of turning the lemon of an overcrowded
field of contenders into lemonade. Organizing such cooperation is something foreign to Sanders'
experience, which was demonstrated in his shutting out potential allies from his campaign. Yet
it is a significant potential strategic factor that Warren can uniquely bring for the essential
redefinition of the Democratic Party in 2020.
We already know Sanders capitulated to the plutocracy in 2016 for no
reason that he could credibly
explain . After promising his supporters to carry the fight to the Convention floor he
folded long prior to the Convention. What exactly is to be gained by progressives in trusting
Sanders not to do the same thing again? We now have the alternative of Warren who gives us no
reason to doubt and some reason to trust that she will " persist " with strategic intelligence rather
than capitulate under similar circumstances. She combines the unique qualities of a true policy
expert with the ability to communicate. But most important she is someone who has not been a
career politician, and therefore is not, like Sanders, "year after year: a politician who
promises one thing and delivers, time and again, something else entirely." St. Clair (2016) 18.
In 2016 this habit, in the form of deference to the plutocracy he campaigned against, delivered
Trump.
Having disclosed this general point of view toward the two progressives, I try to remove
these subjective understandings largely derived from my involvement in 2016 on behalf of
Sanders' effort from the analysis below of four objective factors that distinguish Sanders'
from Warren based on opinion polling of their supporters. Those with a different experience
than mine can nevertheless use these objective factors to make a strategic progressive choice.
The issue raised here is not so much about the contested fact-based considerations above, but
about the necessity for progressives to made a strategic decision based on uncontested
objective facts. The argument is that there is no reason to delay making that strategic
choice.
... ... ...
If it is true that Warren is attracting support on her merits and not for her
gender, the men who are supporting Sanders in excess numbers and at the same time prioritized a
progressive victory in 2020 should make a primary choice only after they a) get better informed
about Warren, b) read the writing of polling trendlines on the wall, c) not be fooled by
Sanders' "socialism" gambit, and d) eschew even the appearance of gender bias by immediately
unifying progressive support behind Warren.
2016 was then, 2020 is already now. Warren is not remotely a Clinton.*
* This article is based in part on the author's book, "Strategy for Democracy: From
Systemic Corruption to Proto-Totalitarianism in the Second Gilded Age Plutocracy, and
Progressive Responses" which is currently available as a free ebook .
Rob Hager is a public interest litigator who filed an amicus brief
in the Montana sequel to Citizens United and has worked as an international consultant on
anti-corruption policy and legislation.
"... The Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. ..."
"... Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the "Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies ..."
In its most recent analysis, Gallup
found that from 1994 to 2018, the percentage of all Democrats who call themselves liberal more
than doubled from 25 percent to 51 percent.
Over the same period, the percentage of Democratic moderates and conservatives fell
steadily, with the share of moderates dropping from 48 to 34 percent, and of conservatives
dropping from 25 to 13 percent. These trends began to accelerate during the administration of
George W. Bush and have continued unabated during the Obama and Trump presidencies.
... ... ...
The anti-establishment faction contributed significantly to the large turnout increases in
Democratic primaries last year.
Pew found that from 2014 to 2018, turnout in House primaries rose from 13.7 to 19.6 percent
of all registered Democrats, in Senate primaries from 16.6 to 22.2 percent and in governor
primaries from 17.1 to 24.5 percent.
... ... ...
The extensive support among prospective Democratic presidential candidates for
Medicare for All , government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage reflects the
widespread desire in the electorate for greater
protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism -- in response to "increasingly
incomplete risk protection in an era of dramatic social change," as the political scientist
Jacob Hacker put it in "
Privatizing Risk without Privatizing the Welfare State: The Hidden Politics of Social Policy
Retrenchment in the United States ." Support for such protections is showing signs of
becoming a litmus test for candidates running in the 2020 Democratic presidential
primaries.
... ... ...
Sawhill looks at the ideological shifts in the Democratic electorate less from a historical
perspective and more as a response to contemporary economic and social dislocation. Among both
conservatives and liberals, Sawhill argued, there is "an intellectual awakening about the flaws
of modern capitalism" -- a recognition of the failings of "neoliberalism, the idea that a
market economy with a few light guardrails is the best way to organize a society." This
intellectual climate may result in greater receptivity among voters to more radical
proposals.
These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem for liberals and the Democratic
Party," (sigh). Here we go again. I am an older guy (Caucasian). I attended Texas A&M
University from 1978 to 1982. My tuition payments during that entire time was $4 per credit
hour. Same for every Texas resident during that time. Roughly $128 per year. Had Texas
A&M not offered education at this modest entry point financially, I would still be
working in the Holiday Inn kitchen washing dishes. Like I was in high school. So, I don't
understand why older guys who went to school on the cheap, like me, and probably like Mr.
Edsall, are writing articles about "radical" proposals like "free" or at least "affordable"
education for Americans. We could achieve this very easily if America refocused on domestic
growth and health and pulled itself out of its continuous wars. America has spent $6 Trillion
dollars on war since 2001. For what? Nothing. Imagine how much college tuition we could have
paid instead. Imagine how that would change America. What is radical is killing people of
color in other countries for no goal and no reason. Let's refocus on domestic USA issues that
are important. Like how to get folks educated so they/we can participate in the US economy.
Mr. Edsall, what did you pay to
go to school per year? Was that "radically" cheap? For me, it was not radical to pay $128 per year. It was a blessing.
Bruce Rozenblit Kansas City, MO
Jan. 23 Times Pick
To the conservative, liberal means socialist. Unfortunately, they don't know what socialism
is. They think socialism is doing nothing and getting paid for it, a freeloader society.
Socialism is government interference in the free market, interference in production.
Ethanol
is socialism. Oil and gas subsidies are socialism. Agricultural price supports are socialism.
Tax breaks and subsidies are socialism. The defence industry is socialism. All of these
socialist policies greatly benefit big business. What liberals want is socialism of a similar
nature that benefits people. This would include healthcare, education, public transportation,
retirement, and childcare. Currently, people work their tails off to generate the profits
that pay for corporate socialism and get next to nothing in return. Daycare costs as much as
many jobs pay.
Kids graduate from college $50,000 in debt. Get sick and immediately go
bankrupt. They have to work past 70. Pursuing these policies is not some far out leftist
agenda. They are the norm in most industrialized nations.
It's hard to live free or die if
you don't have anything to eat. It's easy to be a libertarian if you make a million bucks a
year. Liberals are not advocating getting paid for doing nothing. They want people to have
something to do and get paid for it. That is the message that should be pushed. Sounds pretty
American to me. 27 Replies
This old white (liberal) man regrets that I was born too late for the FDR New Deal era and
too early to be part of this younger generation taking us back to our roots. I lived in
America when we had a strong middle class and I have lived through the Republican
deconstruction of the middle class, I much preferred the former.
Economic Security and FDR's second bill of rights is a very
good place for this new generation to pick up the baton and start running. 4 Replies
Are these really moves to the left, or only in comparison to the lurch further right by the republicans. What is wrong with
affordable education, health care, maternal and paternal leave, and a host of other programs that benefit all people? Why
shouldn't we have more progressive tax rates? These are not radical ideas. 6 Replies
As a senior, who has been a healthcare provider for decades, I hope that people will not be
afraid if they get sick, that people will not fear going bankrupt if they get sick, that they
do not have to fear they will die needlessly if they get sick, because they did not have
proper access to haeathcare treatment. If a 29 year old woman from Queens, Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez, can fulfill my hopes and dreams, and alleviate these fears, just to get humane
healthcare - then I say "You Go Girl!" What a wonderful world that would be..... 9 Replies
Moving to the left??? I'm 64 years old. I started out on the left and haven't moved leftward
in all these years. I'm just as far left now as when I registered to vote as a Democrat when
I was 18. We called it being liberal and the Democratic Party reflected my beliefs.
The
Democratic Party, thanks largely to the Clintons and their DLC nonsense, has certainly moved
to the right. So far right that I haven't been able to call it the Democratic Party. So far
right that I have seriously considered changing my party affiliation. Right now, the only
think keeping me in the party is this influx of vibrant new faces. One thing that will make
me leave is any ascendancy of the corporate lapdog "New Democrat Coalition" attempting to
keep my party in thrall to the Republicans. No. The electorate has not shifted sharply
leftward. We've been here all along. Our party went down a wrong path. It had better get back
on track or become a footnote. 12 Replies
I work with young adults in a university setting. The university I work for used to be really
inexpensive. It is still relatively inexpensive and still a bargain. Most of the students
have student loans. They can not make enough money in the summer or during the term to pay
for tuition, fees, housing, and food. They need jobs that will pay enough to pay for those
loans. They also need portable health care. As the employer based health insurance gets
worse, that portable health care becomes a necessity so they can move to where the jobs are.
So if a livable wage and universal health care are far left ideas then so be it. I am a
leftist. 1 Reply
Every Democrat should sign on to FDR's 1944 Economic Bill of Rights speech. It is hardly
radical, but rather the foundation of the modern Democratic Party, or at least was before
being abrogated by the "new Democrats." Any Dem not supporting it is at best one of the
"Republican-lights" who led the Dem party into the wilderness. It would also behoove the
party to resurrect FDR's Veep Henry Wallace's NY Times articles about the nature of big
businesses and fascism, also from '44. Now that was a party of the people. 7 Replies
@Michael. Pell grants and cheap tuition allowed me to obtain a degree in aerospace
engineering in 1985. I'd like to think that that benefited our country, not radicalized it.
I don't think that's entirely accurate, and even if true, leaving students to
the predations of private lenders isn't the answer. Although I'm willing to entertain your
thesis, soaring tuition has also been the way to make up for the underfunding of state
universities by state legislatures.
At the same time, there's been an increase since the 70s
in de luxe facilities and bloated administrator salaries. When administrators make budget
cuts, it isn't for recreational facilities and their own salaries -- it's the classics and
history departments, and it's to faculty, with poorly paid part-time adjuncts teaching an
unconscionable share of courses. So universities have been exacerbating the same unequal
division between the people who actually do the work (faculty) and the people who allocate
salaries (administrators) -- so too as in the business world, as you say.
I have a friend who lives on the West Coast and is constantly posting on social media about
"white privilege" and how we all need to embrace far left policies to "even the playing
field" for minorities. I always bristle at this, not because I don't support these policies,
but because this person chooses to live in a city with actually very few minorities. She also
lives in a state that's thriving, with new jobs, new residents and skyrocketing real estate
values. I, by contrast, live in a state that's declining....steadily losing jobs, businesses
and residents....leaving many people feeling uneasy and afraid. I also live in a city with a
VERY high minority crime rate, which also makes people uneasy and afraid. Coastal liberals
like my friend will instantly consider anyone who mentions this a racist, and hypocritically
suggest that our (assumed) racism is what's driving our politics. But when I look around here
and see so many Trump supporters (myself NOT included), I don't see racists desperately
trying to retain their white privilege in a changing world. I see human beings living in a
time and place of great uncertainty and they're scared! If Dems fail to notice this, and fail
to create an inclusive message that addresses the fears of EVERYBODY in the working/middle
class, regardless of their skin color, they do so at their own peril. Especially in parts of
the country like mine that hold the key to regaining the WH. Preaching as my friend does is
exactly how to lose. 5 Replies
A majority of Americans, including independent voters and some Republicans favor Medicare for
all, a Green New Deal, and higher taxes on the rich. While Trump has polarized voters around
race, Ocasio-Cortez is polarizing around class -- the three-fourths of Americans working
paycheck to paycheck against the 1 percenters and their minions in both parties. Reading the
tea leaves of polls and current Democratic Party factions as Edsall does, is like obsessing
about Herbert Hoover's contradictory policies that worsened the Depression. If Ocasio-Cortez
becomes bolder and calls for raising the business taxes and closing tax incentives,
infrastructure expansion, and federal jobs guarantee, she'll transform the American political
debate from the racist wall meme to the redistribution of wealth and power America needs. 1
Reply
Labels such as 'liberal" fail to characterize the political agenda articulated by Bernie
Sanders. By style and substance, Sanders represented a departure from the hum-drum norm. Is
something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when student debt totals
$1.5 trilliion? His mantle falls to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her followers. One hundred
years ago, American progressivism was spawned by Robert La Follette. As governor and senator
from Wisconsin, and as failed third party candidate for president, La Follette called for
laws to protect youth from horrendous labor practices. He called for laws to protect civil
rights. In time, many of La Follette's positions became mainstream. Will history repeated
itself? Maybe. The rise of "liberalism" in the Democratic Party is therapeutic, as evidenced
by youthful audiences who attended the Sander's rallies. Increasing voter turnout will take
back government from a minority that undermines the essence of a democratic system. A
Democratic counterbalance to the Republican "Freedom Caucus" may appear divisive to some. To
others, it offers a path to the future. 4 Replies
Ok, from the perspective of a rural white midwest retiree independent with post graduate
education, the issues weren't the democrats moving to the left, it was the Republican party
turning right (and they show no signs of stopping). Who is against an equal opportunity for
an equal quality education for everyone? My college costs years ago could be met with a
barely minimum wage job and low cost health insurance provided by the school and I could
graduate without debt even from graduate school. Seeing what years of Republican rule did to
our college and university systems with a raise in tuition almost every year while
legislative support declined every year, who is happy with that? Unions that used to provide
a majority of the apprenticeships in good jobs in the skilled were killed by a thousand tiny
cuts passed by Republicans over the years. The social safety net that used to be a hand up
became an ever diminishing hand out. What happened is those that had made it even to the
middle class pulled the ladder up behind them, taking away the self same advantages they had
in the past and denying future generations the opportunity. The young democrats and
independents coming along see this all too clearly. 1 Reply
These so-called liberal and progressive ideas aren't new. They work now in other countries
and have so for many, many years, but the rich keep screaming capitalism good, socialism bad
all the while slapping tariffs on products and subsidizing farmers who get to pretend that
this is somehow still a free market. It's fun to watch my neighbors do mental gymnastics to
justify why subsidizing soy bean farmers to offset the tariffs is a strong free market, but
that subsidizing solar panels and healthcare is socialism AKA the devil's work. All of this
underscores the reality that, much like geography, Americans are terrible with economics.
The tensions between progressive and moderate positions, liberal and conservative positions
in the Democratic Party and in independents, flow from and vary based on information on and
an understanding of the issues. What seems to one, at first glance, radically
progressive/liberal becomes more mainstream when one is better informed. Take just one issue,
Medicare for all, a progressive/liberal objective. At first glance people object based on two
main points: costs and nefarious socialism. How do you pay for Medicare for all? Will it add
to the debt? Will socialism replace our capitalist economy? People who have private medical
insurance pay thousands in premiums, deductibles, co-pays each year. The private insurance is
for profit, paying CEO's million dollar salaries and returns to stockholders. People paying
these private insurance premiums would pay less for Medicare and have more in their own
pockets. Medicare for all is no more nefariously socialistic than social security. Has social
security ended capitalism and made America a socialist country? I think not. Is social
security or Medicare adding to the national debt? Only if Congress will continue to play
their tribal political games. These programs are currently solvent but definitely need
tweaking to avoid near term shortfalls. A bipartisan commission could solve the long term
solvency issues. The more we know and understand about progressive/liberal ideas, the less
radical they become. The solution is education. 17 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Absolutely correct. According to the Bible of Saint Reagan, Socialism for
corporations and the rich: Good. Socialism for the poor and working class: bad.
@Michael - cheaper tuition starts with getting the Federal Govt out of the student loan
business, it's as simple as that. Virtually unlimited tuition dollars is what drove up
tuition rates. Higher Ed is a business, make no mistake.
@Bruce, have you ever considered creating a new "reality" network where the truth about
things could be told? You're quite good at articulating and defining how the world works,
without all the usual nonsense. I really appreciate your comments.
Can we please, please stop talking about AOC? Sure, she's young and energetic and is worthy
of note, but what has she accomplished? It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account-
and yell "health care and education for all!' But please, AOC, tell us how you are going to
not only pay for these ideas but actually get them through Congress and the Senate? It's just
noise, until then, and worse, you're creating a great target for the right that will NOT move
with you and certainly can label these ideas as leftist nutism- which would be fine, if we
weren't trying to get Trump out of office ASAP.. Dreams are great. Ideals are great. But
people who can get stuff actually done move the needle...less rhetoric, more actual plans
please.. 10 Replies
Its ok for a far right bigoted clown to be elected to the president and a tax cut crazy party
that wants to have a full scale assault against the environment and force more medical
related bankruptcies to be in charge? The safe candidate protected by 800 superdelegates in
2016 was met with a crushing defeat. The Democratic establishment wants a safe neo con
corporatist democrat. Fair taxation and redistribution of wealth is not some far out kooky
idea. The idea that the wealthiest Americans getaway with paying tax at 15%, if at all, is
ruinous to the country. Especially since there is an insane compulsion to spend outlandish
trillions on "national security". Universal health care would save the country billions of
dollars. Medicare controls costs much more effectively than private insurers. As with defense
the US spends billions more on health care than other countries and has worse medical
outcomes. Gentrification has opened fissures in the Democrats. The wealthy price out other
established communities. The problems of San Francisco and Seattle and other places with
gentrification need to be addressed before an open fissure develops in the party. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh It's time for higher education to stop being a business. Likewise it's time to
stop electing leaders who are businessmen/women. 38 Replies
One could argue that many of these ideas are not that far left - rather it's a result of more
and more Americans realizing that WE are not the problem. Clean water and air, affordable
health care and affordable education are not that radical.
@Midwest Josh Hmmm, how old are you Midwest Josh? There were student loans back in the 1970s
when college cost me about $400 a year. Maybe something happened when that failed Hollywood
actor spouted slogans like "Government is not the solution, government is the problem" (and,
no, it was not taken out of context, he most definitely DID mean that government is the
problem - look it up) www.remember-to-breathe.org 38 Replies
You are studying this like it represents some kind of wave but in fact it is just a few
districts out of 435. These young women seem extraordinarily simply because the liberal media
says they are extraordinary. If the media attention on these new representatives were to
cease, no one except their families, their staff, and maybe Stephen Colbert would notice. 9
Replies
Finally, the left came out of its hibernation. We have spent the last decade or more either
sleeping or hiding, while at the same time, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, Trump, and his
minions were taking over our government---It is such a breath of fresh air to finally listen
to airwaves filled with outrage over CEO's making millions of dollars an hour, of companies
that have become monopolies, of tax plans that bring back the middle class---it took us a
while, but we are back. 2 Replies
For so long (40+ years) the political spectrum has been pulled wildly and radically to the
right across so many issues. The Democratic party has for the most part ''triangulated''
their stances accordingly to essentially go along with republicans and corporate interests
for a bargain of even more tax/corporate giveaways to hold the line on social issues or
programs. It has now gotten to the point that continuous war has been waged for two (2)
decades and all the exorbitant costs that go along with that. There has been cut, after cut
after cut whereas some people and businesses are not paying any taxes at all now.
Infrastructure, social spending and education are all suffering because the cupboard is now
bare in the greatest and most richest country in the world. It just came out the other day
that ONLY (26) people have as much wealth as the bottom half of the entire world's
population. That amount of wealth in relation to dwindling resources of our planet and
crushing poverty for billions is abjectly obscene on so many levels. Coupled with all of the
above, is the continued erosion of human rights. (especially for women and dominion over
their own bodies) People are realizing that the founding fathers had a vision of a secular
and Progressive nation and are looking for answers and people that are going to give it to
them. They are realizing that the Democratic party is the only party that will stand up for
them and be consistent for all.
Democrats just don't like to win presidential elections. Go ahead. Move left. But remember,
you are not taking the rest of the country with you. As a NeverTrump Republican, I'll vote
for a moderate Democrat in 2020. No lefties. Sorry. Don't give the country a reason to give
Trump four more years. Win the electoral college vote instead of complaining about it. The
anti-Trump is a moderate. 5 Replies
"These "big, bold leftist ideas" pose a strategic problem." No they don't. The Real Problem
is the non-thinking non-Liberal 40% of Democrats and their simpatico Republicans who are
programmed to scream, "How will we pay for all that?" Don't they know all that money will
just be stolen? They were silent when that money was stolen by the 0.1% for the Tax Giveaway
(they're now working on tax giveaway 2.0) and by the military-industrial complex (to whom
Trump gave an extra $200,000,000,000 last year), various boondoggle theft-schemes like the
Wall, the popular forever Wars (17 years of Iraq/Afghanistan has cost $2,400,000,000,000 (or
7 times WW2)), and the Wall Street bailouts. Don't those so-called Democrats realize whose
money that was? First of all, it's our money. And second, our money "spent" on the People is
a highly positive investment with a positive ROI. Compare that to money thrown into the usual
money pits which has no return at all - except more terrorists for the military, more income
inequality for the Rich, and Average incomes of $422,000 for Wall Street. When the People's
money is continually stolen, how can anyone continue to believe that we're living in a
democracy?
Bruce, a succinct summary of your post is this: What we have now is socialism for the wealthy
and corporations (who, as SCOTUS has made clear, are people, too) and rugged individualism
for the rest of us. What we're asking for is nothing more than a level playing field for all.
And I hope that within my lifetime SCOTUS will have an epiphany and conclude that, gosh,
maybe corporations aren't people after all. We can only hope. 27 Replies
Edsall writes with his normal studious care, and makes some good points. Still, I am growing
weary of these "Democrats should be careful and move back to the center" opinions. Trump
showed us that the old 'left-right-center' way of thinking is no longer applicable. These
progressive policies appeal to a broad majority of Americans not because of their ideological
position, but because so many are suffering and are ready to give power to representatives
who will finally fight for working families. Policies like medicare for all are broadly
popular because the health insurance system is broken and most people are fed up and ready to
throw the greedy bums out. We've been trying the technocratic incrementalism strategy for too
long, with too little to show for it. Bold integrity is exactly what we need. 1 Reply
@Bruce Rozenblit Thank you; as others have commented already, this is so well said. To build
on your point: just yesterday, a commenter on a NYT article described AOC as a communist.
Incredible. The extent to which decent, pragmatic and, in a bygone era, mainstream, ideas are
now painted as dangerous, extreme, and anti-American is both absurd and disturbing. 27
Replies
If Hillary were President, there would never have been a shutdown. That is the lesson that
Mrs. Pelosi, AOC and Democrats should carry forward to 2020. 5 Replies
@LTJ No one is promoting ''free stuff'' - what is being proposed is that people/corporations
pay into a system Progressively upwards (especially on incomes above 10,000,000 dollars per
year) that allowed them and gave them the infrastructure to get rich in the first place. I am
sure you would agree that people having multiple homes, cars, and luxury items while children
go hungry in the richest nation in the world is obscene on its face. Aye ?
@Ronny Respectfully, President Clinton had a role in the deconstruction of the middle class.
My point is many of the folks in the news today were in congress that far back. Say what you
will about President Trump and Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez,I believe they both have exposed
the left,the right,the press for what they are. Please choose your own example. I don't agree
with all of her positions, but I can't express how I enjoy her making the folks that under
their watch led us to where we find ourselves today squirm and try to hide their anger for
doing what she does so well. I've been waiting 55 years for this. Thank you AOC.
@Bruce Rozenblit Bruce, spot on. The point of the New Deal was not to replace capitalism with
socialism, but to save capitalism from itself by achieving the balance that would preserve a
capitalist economic system but one in which the concerns of the many in terms of freedom from
want and freedom from fear were addressed. In other words, the rich get to continue to be
rich, but not without paying the price of not being hung in the public square - by funding an
expanding middle class. A middle class that by becoming consumers, made the rich even richer.
But then greed took over and their messiah Saint Reagan convinced this large middle class
that they too could be rich and so cutting taxes for the wealthy (and in the process
redistributing the wealth from the expanding middle class to the wealthy) would one day
benefit them - when they were wealthy. Drunk on the promise of future wealth, and working
harder than ever, the middle class failed to notice whose ox was being gored and voted
Republican. And now finally, the pendulum swings. Amen. 27 Replies
@Socrates I'm reminded of a poll I saw several years ago that presented positions on issues
without attaching them to any individual politician or affixing labels of party or ideology.
The pol aimed to express the issue in neutral language without dog whistles or buzzwords.
When the pollsters had the data, they looked for the member of Congress whose positions best
reflected the view of the majority of respondents. It was Dennis Kucinich, the scary liberal
socialist bogeyman of his day.
I lived in Europe for a long time. Not even most right wing parties there wish to abolish
universal healthcare, replace low or tuition-free colleges with college debt, etc. The US has
politically drifted far to the right when the center Democrats were in charge. Now Trump is
lurching the country to extreme raw capitalism at the cost of national debt, even our
environment and climate, Democrats need to stop incrementalism. Simple as that. 1 Reply
@Michael Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was opposed to the eternal triumvirate axis of inhumane
evil aka capitalism, militarism and racism. King was a left-wing socialist community
organizer. In the mode of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And the Nazarene of Matthew 25:
31- 46. America's military and prison industrial complexes are the antithesis of America' s
proclaimed interests and values. America is number one in arms, money and prisoners. MAGA? 38
Replies
Bernie and AOC don't seem all that radical to me for the reason this op-ed points out -- I
grew up in a New Deal Democratic family. My Grampa was an electrician supervisor for the City
of Chicago and my Granma was a legal secretary. They wanted universal health care and free
education and jobs for all. Those things made sense then, and they make sense now. They
provide solutions to the deep problems of our society, so who wouldn't want them? We've had a
lab test -- other than actual jobs for all Northern Europe has these things and we don't.
Neo-liberalism, its Pay-Go formula for government, and its benefits for the rich fails on
most counts except producing massive inequality and concentrated wealth. Bernie voters want
solutions to inequality and climate change, and they are readily available if government can
be wrested from the hands of Republicans like Trump and neo-liberals.
@Michael To me, the key sentence in your excellent post is that American needs to "refocus on
domestic growth and health and pull itself out of its continuous wars." All policiticians
hoping for our votes in the future need to make clear where they stand on this. As to those
who say that making all those weapons creates jobs, is there any reason that we couldn't
instead start producing other quality goods in the U.S. again? 38 Replies
@chele Me too! I am 72 y/o, retired, college educated at a rather tough school in which to
gain entrance. Lived below my means for over 40 years. Parents are both WW2 Marine Corps
officers(not career), who voted Republican and were active in local elections. They would be
shocked and disgusted at what that "party" represents now.
I think you look at all this in a vacuum. Democrats veered left because there was a need to
counterbalance what was happening on the right. They see Republicans aggressively trying to
undo all the gains the left had achieved the previous several decades. Civil rights, Womens'
rights, anti-poverty efforts, and so on all not just being pushed to the right, but forced to
the right with a bulldozer. It got to a tipping point where Democrats could clearly see the
forest for the trees. A great deal of this was a result of Republicans inability to candy
coat their agenda. Universal healthcare....not being replaced by affordable alternatives, but
by nothing. Tax cuts that were supposed to help the middle class, but, as evidenced by the
government shutdown, giving them no economic breathing room. And, in fact, making their tax
cut temporary, something nearly impossible to reverse with such a high deficit. Attacking
immigrants with no plan on who, actually, would do the work immigrants do. The list goes on
and on. In the past, many social programs were put in place not so much to alleviate
suffering as to silence the masses. Now Republicans feel the time has come to take it all
back, offering easily seen through false promises as replacements. That the left should see
the big picture here and say "Not so fast" should come as absolutely no surprise. All they
need now is a leader eloquent enough to rally the masses.
I think the Democratic Party is finally returning to its roots. We are now engaging in the
same politics which gave us control of the House for about fifty years. I went to my first
International Union convention is 1972 at which Ted Kennedy was one of the featured speakers.
One of the themes of the convention was healthcare for all. Now it treated as some sort of
radical proposal from the left. I am not certain why clean air and water, affordable health
care and housing, combating climate change, raising wages, taxing the highest income
brackets, updating our infrastructure, solving the immigration issue, and providing aid not
weapons to other nations, are considered liberal or socialistic. I think it represents the
thinking of a progressive society looking to the future rather than living in the past. 1
Reply
@David G. I would also say that many people think a cooperative economic enterprise, such as
a worker owned factory, is Socialism. But this is blatantly wrong and is pushed by the rich
business and stock owners to denigrate these types of businesses. Cooperatives have often
proven themselves quite successful in navigating a free market system, while simultaneously
focussing on workers rights and ownership. We need more if this in North America. 27 Replies
@Samuel She's been in office less than a month. You want to shut down the conversation that
is finally bringing real hope & passion to average people, & is bringing a new set of
goals (& more integrity) to the Democratic Party? Paying for single-payer has been
rehashed many times; just look at all the other 'civilized' countries who have it. For once,
try putting the savings from ending co-pays, deductibles, & premiums into the equation.
Think about the savings from large-group bids, & negotiations for drug prices, & the
savings from preventative medicine heading off more expensive advanced treatment. Bernie
Sanders has been explaining all this for years now. 'Less rhetoric'? The conversation is
(finally) just now getting started! You start by explaining what is possible. When enough
people understand it, the needle will start to move. Watch.
@JBC, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was voted into congress and then the media took notice. It wasn't
the other way around. My only hope is that she stays the course.
@Bruce Rozenblit And don't forget the biggest socialist project of our time - the wall! And
withholding 800k employee checks to do so? That's socialism at gun point. 27 Replies
There are two points left out of all of the analysis of both Pressley's and Ocasio-Cortez's
campaigns. First of all, both women did old fashioned retail politics, knocking on doors,
sending out postcards, gathering as many volunteers as they could and talking about the
issues with voters face to face. They took nothing for granted. This is precisely what
Crowley and Capuano did not do. Second, they actually listened to the voters regarding what
they needed and wanted in Congressional representation. What both of the stand for is neither
Liberal or Conservative. What they stand for human values. This is not to say that Capuano
and Crowley did not stand for these same values, but they took the voter for granted. That is
how you lose elections. The Democrats are going back to their roots. They have found that the
Mid-terms proved that issues of Health Care, minimum wages, good educations for all despite
economic circumstances, and how important immigration is to this country really matter to the
voters. They need to be braver in getting this across before the next election And the press
might want to start calling the candidates Humane, period. 1 Reply
@MIMA Yes, absolutely. I'm retired from the healthcare field after practicing 38 years. It is
unconscionable that we question the access of healthcare to everyone. The complaint usually
heard from the right is about "the takers." Data I've seen indicates that the majority on
"the dole" are workers, who can't make ends meet in the gig economy or the disabled. That
some lazy grubbers are in the system is unavoidable; perfection is the enemy of the good.
@Stu Sutin I agree, "Liberal" is too broad a term, as so-called liberals do not agree on
everything, especially the degree. We can be socially liberal, while economically
moderate--or vice versa. Some believe in John Maynard Keynes economics, but appose abortion.
Some want free college tuition, while others support public schools but do not support the
public paying for higher education. Our foreign policy beliefs often differ greatly. What
joins us is a belief in a bottom up economy, not top down--and a greater belief in civil
liberties and a greater distribution of wealth. Beyond that, our religious and cultural
beliefs often differ.
I think the Internet has provided an influx of new understanding for the American left.
They've learned that things considered radical here are considered unexceptional in the rest
of the developed world. There is a realization that the only reason these are not normal here
is because of a lack of political will to enact them. That will is building as the ongoing
inequities are splashed across the front pages and the twitter feeds. It is the beginning of
the end for American exceptionalism (a term coined by Stalin as America resisted the wave of
socialism spreading around the world in the early 20th century). Unbridled capitalism lasted
longer than communism but only because its costs were hidden longer. We need to find the
sustainable middle path that allows for entrepreneurship along with a strong social safety
net (and environmental protection). This new crop of progressive Democrats (with strong
electoral backing) might lead the way.
at 63, I was there. I don't want second Trump administration either, but the route to a
Democratic victory is not cozying up to the corporations and the wealthy, but by stating
clearly, like FDR, "they are unanimous in their hate for me, and I welcome their hatred." We
need people who are willing to say that the rich deserve to be taxed at a higher rate,
because they have benefited more from our society, that no income deserves to be taxed at a
lower rate than the wages paid to working people, and that vast wealth needs to be earned,
not inherited. Emmanuel Saez makes persuasive arguments, but they need to be made in the
language of the working people. 12 Replies
@Michael Your $128 a year would be more like $414 or so in today's dollars. Still . . . I
went to Brooklyn College, part of the tuition-free City University of New York from
1969-1973. We paid a $53 general fee at the start of every semester ($24 for a summer
semester), and that was it. Wealthy or poor, everyone paid the same amount (about $334 in
today's dollars). 38 Replies
@JRS Democratic party leaders have been in favor of more border security and an overhauled
immigration system for as long as I've been alive. The suggestion (clearly this comment's
intention) that Democrats favor "open" borders, ports, etc., is a myth propagated by an ever
more influential right wing. And it's working: it's been repeated so often that it's now
virtually an assumption that Democrats favor open borders, despite that fact that any
critical thought on the subjection indicates the opposite is true.
I'm a very moderate Democrat -liberal on social issues and very supportive of free global
trade- who would vote for any of the current Democrats over Trump, but would leave the party
if AOC's ideas became the norm. I don't have a problem in principle with a 70% top marginal
tax rate or AOC's Green New Deal- Meaning, these aren't moral issues for me per se. I just
believe they would bankrupt the economy and push us into a chaos far worse than what we're
seeing under Trump. 5 Replies
@Michael The increase in fees for education to include the books along with the lowering of
standards for the classes taken is part and parcel of the reagan revolution to remake
American society. One of the most problematic things for those seeking to undo what FDR did
was the plethora of well educated and well read people American had managed to create. How
were they going to be able to overcome this? You can deduce whatever methods you may know but
I saw them tank the economy on purpose and prey on the fear that it created with more and
more radical propaganda. Once they got into office they removed the best and brightest of our
Civil Service and began making legal the crimes they wanted to commit and changing laws and
procedures for how things were done so that people would eventually come to think of this as
the "right" way when it was in fact purpose designed to deny them their due. 38 Replies
Younger candidates, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, appeal to younger voters. John Kennedy
appealed to WWII veterans, most of whom were in their 30s when they elected him. One of the
reasons for Barack Obama's support in 2008 among younger voters is that he was a younger
candidate and they identified with a younger candidate. That appeal to a younger electorate
will play a larger role in future elections. Don't focus too strongly on issues. Democrats
will win by a landslide in 2020 if they nominate a younger candidate that can inspire younger
voters. November 3, 2020. 1 Reply
@Samuel Actually, running a campaign and getting elected is a significant accomplishment.
Before anyone decides about what bills to promote and means of paying for them, we need a
momentum of discourse, and promoting that discourse is another major accomplishment. You and
many millions of others, also, have good reasons to be frustrated. Let's just try to actually
"work" at talking the talking and walking the walk, and maybe we will--or maybe we
won't--arrive some place where we can see some improvement.
The interesting part of this piece is the statement about politicians moving unwillingly. So
some Democratic Congressmen and Congresswomen are allowing their personal beliefs to be
compromised for the glory of being elected or re-elected? Sounds like someone I would not
care to support. 2 Replies
A great essay! The wild card in all this analysis, of course, is what happens when these
(now) young voters, age, eventually partner, and have kids. As every generation has shown,
the needs of a voter changes as they age. I'm surrounded by many new neighbors with little
kids who moved out of Brooklyn and Jersey City who suddenly find themselves concerned about
rising property taxes- they now see the balance between taxes and services. Not something
they worried about a few years ago. 2 Replies
@Tracy Rupp I am a senior citizen heterosexual white male. I do not apologize for my race,
gender, etc. In fact, I am proud of our accomplishments. I do apologize for my personal
wrongs, and strive to improve myself.
"This will be difficult, given the fact that what is being proposed is a much larger role for
government, and that those who are most in need of government support are in the bottom half
of the income distribution and disproportionately minority -- in a country with a long racist
history." True enough, but if progressives want actual people in that bottom half to lead
happier lives, the focus of any programs should not be to employ armies in left-leaning and
self-perpetuating "agencies," but rather to devise policies to help people develop the
self-discipline to: A) finish high school, B) postpone the bearing of children until marriage
(not as a religious construct but as a practical expression of commitment to the child's
future), and; C) Find and get a regular job. These are supported by what objective, empirical
data we have. These have not struck me as objectives of the rising left in the Democratic
party. Mostly, I see endless moral preening, and a tribal demonizing of the "other," just
exactly as they accuse the "other." In this case the "other" is we insufficiently "woke" but
entirely moderate white folks who still comprise a plurality of Americans. I see success on
the left as based primarily on an ability to express performative outrage. But remember, you
build a house one brick at a time, which can be pretty boring, and delivers no jolt of
dopamine as would manning the barricades, but which results in a warm, dry, comfortable place
to live. 4 Replies
@Concerned Citizen For your information, Holiday Inns typically had a restaurant in the hotel
in the days Michael is talking about so... whatever! 38 Replies
My father fought in Germany during WWII, then came home and went to college on the GI bill.
Both my parents received federal assistance for a loan on their first house. Later, during
retirement, they were taken care of by Medicare and given an income by Social Security. They
worked hard, kept their values, lived modestly, and voted for Democrats. Apparently, they
were wild-eyed, leftist-socialist radicals, and I never knew it.
@Bruce Shigeura AOC in some ways is doing what Bernie was doing -- mobilizing people around
class as you say -- but the difference is that AOC doesn't shy away from issues of racial
justice. Bernie seemed to want to unite people by ignoring issues of race, as if he was
afraid that mentioning race too much might drive Whites away. AOC seems able to hold whites
on the class issue while still speaking to the racial justice issues that are important to
non-Whites. She's an extraordinary phenomenon: smart, engaging, articulate and with personal
connections to both the White and Non-White worlds, so she threatens neither and appeals to
both.
@Stu Sutin "Is something wrong about aspiring to free college education in an era when
student debt totals $1.5 trilliion?" Yes. If you're the Congressperson who gets his/her
funding from the lenders.
A O-C has yet to open a district office. A O-C is more interested in "national" issues and
exposure than those of her district. What A O-C may have forgotten is that it is her district
and constituents that have to re-elect her in less than 2 tears (or not): "Would you rather
have a Congress member with an amazing local services office, or one that leads nationally on
issues?" she queried her 1.9 million followers on Instagram -- a number that is well over
twice the population of her district. The results strongly favored national issues."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/22/nyregion/aoc-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-district-office.html
As Mr. Edsall points out, her district is not necessarily progressive and liberal and while
there may be national issues, at the bottom line, many of her instagram groupies are not her
constituents. Democrats like to constantly point out that Ms. Clinton won the popular vote,
and she was the non-liberal-progressive Democrat. I am sure that the Republicans pray for the
success of the Democratic left. They seek to give voice to that left. That will bring the
swing votes right back to or over to the Republicans, without, but possibly even with Mr.
Trump (if the Democrats cross a left-wing tipping point). Bottom line, instagram is fine and
likes are great, twitter is good for snappy answers, but representatives to the House have to
deliver to their district and constituents. A O-C leads, but to the salvation of the
Republican party. 6 Replies
@Joshua Schwartz M. Ocasio-Cortez explained on The Late Show the other night that the reason
she has not opened her district office is due to the Government Shutdown. The people charged
with setting up the office are on furlough, the money for the office is being held up and she
staff or furnish the office.
Isn't this somehow the natural swing of things? Years of heavy-handed politics benefitting
small minorities on the right have taken their toll, so now new ideas are up at bat. By the
way, these ideas aren't really that bold at all - many countries have living minimum wages or
mandatory healthcare, and are thriving, with a much happier population. Only in the context
of decades-long, almost brainwash-like pounding of these ideas as 'Un-American' or
'socialist' can they be seen as 'bold'. American exeptionalism has led to a seriously
unbalanced and dangerously threatened social contract. Tell me again, Republicans: why is a
diverse, healthy and productive population living under inspiration instead of constant fear
so bad?
The "experts" offering advice here seem to have forgotten that Hillary Clinton listened to
them in 2016: the party decided that appealing to suburban Republicans and Jeb Bush voters
was more important than exciting the Democratic party base. The other hazard of calculated
politics is that the candidate is revealed to be a phony, believing in nothing but power or
that it's simply "her turn" -- an uncompelling program for a voter. 1 Reply
They will all face primary challengers in 2020. Tlaib and Omar didn't even win a majority of
the primary vote. There were so many candidates running in those primaries, they only managed
a plurality. And let's be honest about the demographic changes in the districts Pressley and
Ocasio Cortez won. They went from primarily ethnic White to minority majority. Both women
explicitly campaigned on the premise that their identity made them more representative of the
district than an old White male incumbent. Let's not sugarcoat what happened: they ran
explicitly racist campaigns. They won with tribalism, not liberal values. Democrats actually
need more candidates like Lucy McBath, Antonio Delgado, and Kendra Horn if they want to
retain Congressional control and change policy. And many minorities and immigrants aren't
interested in the far left faction. We don't have a problem with Obama and a moderate
approach to social democracy.
@JABarry - Some data: Canada has a program like Medicare for All, and its bottom line health
care statistics are better than ours in spite of a worse climate. We paid $9506.20 per person
for health care in 2016. In Canada, they paid $4643.70. If our system we as efficient as
Canada's, we would save over $1.5 TRILLION each and every year. This is money that can be
used for better purposes. If one uses the bottom line statistics, we see that both Canada and
the UK (real socialized medicine) do better than we do: Life expectancy at birth (OECD):
Canada- 81.9, UK - 81.1, US - 78.8 Infant Mortality (OECD)(Deaths per 1,000): Canada - 4.7,
UK - 3.8, US - 6.0 Maternal Mortality (WHO): Canada - 7, UK - 9, US - 14 Instead of worrying
how we would pay for it, we will have the problem of how to spend all the money we would
save. BTW can you point to a period where too high federal debt hurt the economy? In 1837 the
federal debt as a percentage of GDP was 0%; it was 16% in October of 1929. Both were followed
horrendous depression. It was 121% in 1946 followed by 27 years of Great Prosperity.
Best comment in some time. I work and live too much in the'big flat'. I am a very hard core
Chicago Democratic Liberal from birth, but the distressed towns and small cities are facing
extinction. then what?
@In the know I'm formerly Republican, and female. I'm on the ACA, and while premiums were
going up slowly, they've exploded in the past two years due to Republican sabatoge. They are
certainly no reason to vote for Trump.
@Midwest Then the rich will only be eligible for college. Give me government intervention any
time. I am retired military . Off base in Lewes De a mans hair cut is now 20.00 plus tips.
Just a plain cut. On base with gov intervention it 12.00 . Capitalism you support is only for
the 1 percent the 99 percent never gets ahead. 38 Replies
She has a massive throng of twitter followers, is completely unconcerned with facts, uses
publicity to gain power and seems unwilling to negotiate on her positions. Remind you of
anyone else? 3 Replies
The establishment is trying so hard to spin the progressives push on the issues of Medicare
for All, free state college and university tuition, a livable wage of $15/hr as ponies and
fairy dust and an extreme "socialist" makeover/takeover of America. But from all the polls
that I've seen, these policies are actually quite popular even with a majority of
Republicans. Yes, a majority of Republicans. A Medicare for All would cover everybody,
eliminate health insurance premiums for individuals and businesses ( which by the way are
competing with businesses in other countries that have a single-payer system) and would save
$2 trillion over ten years (Koch bothers funded study). The result would be a healthy and
educated populace. But how to pay for this? Well, we spend over $700 billion on our military
while Russia spends $20 billion and China spends $146 billion, so there seems to be plenty of
money that is already being spent to be redirected back to us without compromising national
security. A Medicare for All system supports a private healthcare system just as it is now,
except instead of giving some insurance company our premium who then skims off a big chunk
for their profit, we pay it to our government who then administers the payments to the
healthcare provider(s). The system is in place and has been for people 65 years and older and
works very well with high satisfaction rates. Just expand it to all. 2 Replies
@Midwest Josh Wrong!!! Tuition's have skyrocketed because for past 35 years States have
slashed support for public universities. The Federal Government took over student loan
business from predatory banks which was a very good thing but unfortunately have kept
interest rates high ... Student loans is a profit center for Federal Government 38 Replies
@Concerned Citizen Go ahead and check the holiday inn in Palestine Texas. It had a small
restaurant in 1978. I was their dishwasher. There was no ford plant nearby. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit Well put. As Martin Luther King Jr. said: "We all too often have socialism
for the rich and rugged free market capitalism for the poor." 27 Replies
@stuart They used to call it the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party". I was glad when
Thomas Edsall finally got around, in this piece, to mentioning that what is often thought of
as a radical leftist turn today, due to just how far to the right our general political
discussions had gone, was actually pretty much mainstream Democratic policy for much of the
middle 20th century.
@Len Charlap Quite simply Canada's healthcare quality is ranked 16th in the world, while ours
is lower ranked at 23rd. And we pay twice as much. That indicates some funny business going
on.
It is remarkable that "big, bold leftist ideas" include - preserving the historical
relationship between the minimum wage and the cost of living - lowering the cost of college
to something in line with what obtained for most public colleges and universities in the 50s,
60s and 70s and exist in the rest of the Western world today - adapting our existing Medicare
system to deliver universal coverage of the kind generally supported across the political
spectrum in Canada and the UK Democrats should reject the "leftist" label for these ideas and
explain that it is opposition to these mainstream ideas that is, in fact, ideological and
extreme. 2 Replies
@Marc Except that's outright false. Offices are open. All the other new Congress members from
New York are setup and taking care of people. She doesn't care about constituent service. She
revels in the media attention, but isn't getting anything done even in the background. NY has
three Congress members (Lowey, Serrano, Meng) whose under-appreciated work on the
appropriations committee actually helps ensure our region's needs and liberal priorities are
reflected in federal spending. Meanwhile Ocasio Cortez is working on unseating Democrats
incumbents she deems insufficiently leftist e.g. Cuellar, Jeffries. Who needs Republicans
when you have Socialists trying to destroy the Democratic Party.
The NYT should consider getting some columnists who reflect the new (FDR? new?) trends in the
country and in the Democratic party. The old Clinton/Biden/Edsall Republican lite approach --
all in for Wall Street -- is dying. Good riddens. BTW I'm a 65 year old electrical engineer.
1 Reply
You're missing something big here, sir. Capuano was a Clinton superdelegate in 2016 who
declared well before the primaries (like all other Mass superdelegates, save for Warren who
waited until well after the primaries.) Thereby in effect telling constituents that their
vote was irrelevant, as they were willing to override it. Somerville went for Sanders 57% to
42%. Putting party over voters maybe isn't a great idea when 51% of voters in Massachusetts
are registered Unenrolled (Independent) and can vote in primaries. Bit rich to signal that
our votes don't matter, but then expect it later as it maybe actually does matter after all.
Pressley was all in for Clinton, which is of course suspect. But like me, she had only one
vote.
@C Wolfe Wow. Funky Irishman has been, for many months, writing about and presenting
excellent data showing that the US is actually a center-left (if not strongly progressive)
country. I used to present this evidence to Richard Luettgen (where has he gone??) who kept
insisting we are center-right (but never, as was his custom, presented any evidence for
this). your example is the best I've ever seen. I'm a member of a 4000-strong Facebook group,
the "Rational Republicans" (seriously - a local attorney with a decidedly liberal bent
started it and almost beat regressive Patrick McHenry here in Asheville). I've been making
this point on the FB page for the past year and people are stunned when they see the numbers.
I'm going to post your example as well. Excellent!
It's funny to watch people shocked when she makes her proposal. Her ideas are very old and
have worked in the past in various cultures. But the point that she can voice them is because
she can. Her people put her there because she said those things with their approval. She
reflects her community ideals. Just like Steve King.
I'm already tired of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and I'm a liberal and Hispanic...its constant
overkill, everybody falling over her, total overexposure. The news media has found their
darling for the moment. Let's see what she accomplishes, what bills she proposes and passes
that is the work to be done not being in the news 24/7.
Until the left figures out that every single one of their most desired Policy Implementations
are only feasible with controlled immigration and secured borders doesn't matter who the
messenger is. Want Single Payer Healthcare? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want free
College? Can't have it and Open Borders too. Want Guaranteed Basic Income? Cannot have it in
any form without absolutely controlling the Border. So, either you want that influx of new
voters to win elections or you want to see new policy changes that will benefit all
Americans. Pick one and fight for it. You seem to have chosen the new voters. 3 Replies
@Matt Williams But they are extraordinary, relative to their bought and paid for colleagues.
That came first and the media is reporting it. Their authenticity is naive, but it shouldn't
be, and that's the story. It's a glimmer of hope for democracy that may be extinguished -
let's celebrate this light in the darkness, while it lasts.
@Bruce Rozenblit This is. Spot. On. The socialism of: Privatize the profits, socialize the
losses. It's defined American economic and social policy for the last 30+ years and we can
see the results today. 27 Replies
@shstl I agree and as a moderate Democrat, I already feel like an outsider, so imagine what
independents are thinking. AOC stated that she wants to primary Hakeem Jeffries, who is a
moderate. With statements like these, made before spending a day in congress, who needs the
GOP to tear apart the Democratic party? Sanders didn't even win the primary and his
supporters claim the primary was stolen. We lost the house and senate all by ourselves. I
already have AOC fatigue and my rejoice for the blue wave is still there but fading.
The Democratic party was shoved to the right with Bill Clinton's Third Way ideology that made
its focus the same wealthy donor class as the Republicans, while breaking promises to its
former base, the middle and working class. This led to the unchecked capitalism that produced
the Crash of '08, and the subsequent bail out to Wall St. The powers running the DNC - all
Third Way disciples, like Hilary - refused to take up any of these "socialist" causes because
their wealthy donors didn't want to have their escalating wealth diminished. Meanwhile these
Democrats In Republican Clothing were banking on continued support from those they had
abandoned. And they got it for years...until now. Now, finally, we're getting candidates who
represent those abandoned, and who are refusing to hew to the poobah's Third Way agenda. But
the Old Guard is trying to retain their power by labeling these candidates as "socialists",
and "far left". Well, if that's true, then FDR was a "socialist" too. Funny though how all
those "socialists" who voted for FDR, Truman, JFK, and LBJ enjoyed such capitalistic benefits
like good paying jobs, benefits, home ownership, good education, and the fruits of Big
Guv'mint like the Interstate Highway system, electricity, schools, the Space Program and all
the benefits that produced. It was only when we turned our backs on that success and relied
on unchecked capitalism that most of America began their slide backwards. We need to go left
to go forward.
Why is the media lionizing this ignorant, undisciplined child? She should shut up, sit down,
learn how to listen and learn from her elders in government. She is acting like a college
student, who has no one to hold her accountable for her reckless, stupid behavior. Why does
the media seem to be enamored of her?????
@Michael Lucky for you. I went to the University of Michigan at roughly the same time and it
was no where near that cheap--not even close. And housing? Don't get me started on that. Even
then it took my breath away. 38 Replies
@chele That which you are pleased to call the DLC nonsense originated not with the Clintons,
but with one of the worst presidential defeats the Democratic party ever suffered: the 1972
campaign of George McGovern. That debacle resulted in a second Nixon administration and I
hope that the current trends within the Democratic party do not result in a second Trump
administration.
It is exceeding strange to me that "Conservatives" in the US consider Medicare for all and
universal access to higher education as being radical, pie-in-the-sky, proposals. Here in
Canada we have had universal medicare for a half a century and it has proven itself to be
relatively effective and efficient and has not driven us into penury. As for free access to
education beyond high school, I remember learning a while ago that the US government
discovered that it had earned a return of 700% on the money spent on the GI Bill after WWII
which allowed returning GIs to go to colleges and universities. The problem with American
conservatives is that they see investments in the health, welfare and education of the
citizenry as wasteful expenditures, and wasteful expenditures such as the resources going to
an already bloated military, and of course tax cuts for themselves as investments.
@chele Amen to you! I too am old guy (79) and think Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a savior of
the Democratic Party! She is young and has great ideas. I agree with you about the Clintons,
they led the party down a sinkhole. I agree with just about everything I have heard
Alexandria espouse. She is refreshing. Glad she is kicking the butts of those old guard
Democrats that have fossilized in place--they are dinosaurs. 12 Replies
@Tracy Rupp The problem with blaming a group based on demographics, rather than behavior or
ideology, is that you are likely to be disappointed. There are a lot of people who are not
old white men who are just as seduced by money, power, and local privilege as was the old
guard. Feminists writing letters to condemn a male student who made charges of being sexually
harassed by his female professor; African American activists who refuse to reject the
antisemitism of charismatic cult leaders. Human beings in charge will be flawed, regardless
of their race, gender identity, or sexual orientation. As the balance of power changes hands,
corruption too will become more diverse. 6 Replies
Money is the mother's milk of politics, so let me comment on "many of whom did not want the
Democrats to nominate a candidate with deep ties to party regulars and to the major donor
community." Include me. Because the major donor community is Charles E Schumer, Leader
Democrats, House Top Contributors, 1989 - 2018 1 Goldman Sachs 2 Citigroup Inc 3 Paul, Weiss
et al 4 JPMorgan Chase & Co 5 Credit Suisse Group That is Wall Street Nancy Pelosi,
leader Democrats, House Top Contributors, 2017 - 2018 1 Facebook Inc 2 Alphabet Inc (Google)
2 Salesforce.com 4 University of California 5 Intel Corp $13,035 That is Silicon Valley . The
U of CA should spent its money on students What is the interest of these donors ? For Wall
Street, it is maximizing profits by suppressing wages, outsourcing to of enterprises it owns
to low wage countries, and immigration of people willing to work for less For Silicon Valley
it is Mining your data, violating your privacy, and immigration of people willing to work for
less via H1B To win general (not primary) elections you need large amounts of money. At in
return for this money, you need to take care of your donors, lest you find you without money
in the next election Until the Democratic Party frees itself of this system, it will spout
liberal rhetoric, but do little to help average Americans As Sanders showed, it can do so,
running on small donations. DNC, eye on frightened donors, killed his attempt. 1 Reply
"The most active wing of the Democratic Party -- the roughly 20 percent of the party's
electorate that votes in primaries and wields disproportionate influence over which issues
get prioritized -- has moved decisively to the left." Yet it seems that you feel that the
party should ignore them and move to the center right in order to capture suburban Republican
women, who will revert back to the Republican party as soon as (and if) it regains something
resembling sanity. Do you seriously think that its worth jettisoning what you describe as
"the most active wing of the party" for that? 2 Replies
@David G. See Norway, Denmark, Germany, England and Finland. Citizens have jobs and health
care; education is affordable and subsidized. Not all young people attend universities; many
go to vocational schools which prepare them for good jobs. We could do the same. 27 Replies
@Midwest Josh That is so NOT true Midwest Josh. The unattainable loans and interest problems
are because the private sector has been allowed into the student loan game. The government
should be the underwriter for all student loan programs unless individual schools offer
specialized lending programs. Whenever the government privatizes anything the real abuse
starts and the little guy gets hurt. 38 Replies
@Bruce Rozenblit, at the end of a long line of commenters, I add my congratulations for a
well-articulated overview of our political dilemma. Both "trickle-down"economics and
"neo-liberalism" have brought us to this pass, giving both Democrats and Republicans a way of
rewarding their corporate masters. I believe both Cinton and Obama believed they could find a
balance between the corporate agenda and a secure society. We see with hindsight how this has
hailed to materialize, and are rightly seeking a more equitable system – one that
addresses the common sense needs of all of us. I, for one, am overjoyed that the younger
generation has found its voice, and has a cause to support. My recollection of demonstrating
against the Viet Nam war (and the draft), marching for civil rights, and even trying to
promote the (then largely inchoate) women's rights movement, still evokes a passionate
nostalgia. We have witnessed an entire generation that lacked passion for any cause beyond
their individual desires. It's good to have young men and women reminding us of our values,
our aspirations, and our power as citizens. As the bumper sticker says, "If you think
education is expensive – try ignorance." Thanks again for a fine post. 27 Replies
@Quiet Waiting That was FIFTY YEARS AGO. People who fought in the Spanish-American War were
still casting ballots, for heaven's sake. McGovern has been used by Third Way apologists as a
cautionary tale to provide cover for doing what they clearly wanted to do anyway. The other
reality is that the McGovern/Nixon race took place in a time when there was broad consensus
that many of the social programs Republicans are now salivating over privatizing weren't
going anywhere. 12 Replies
Abolishing ICE is tantamount to having open borders. No modern country can allow all people
who are able to get to its borders to just move in, and take advantage of its government
services. If a country were to start offering Medicare for All, no or reduced college
tuition, a universal jobs guarantee, a $15 minimum wage, and wage subsidies to the entire
bottom half through an expansion of the Earned Income Tax Credit, paid maternity/paternity
leave, and free child care, it would need tax-payers to support these plans. It could not
afford to support all of the poor, uneducated migrants who have been illegally crossing our
borders, let alone all of those who would run here if ICE were to be abolished. Look at
Canada which has more of a social safety net than is offered in our country. It has
practically no illegal immigrants. (A long term illegal immigrant had to sue for the
government to pay for her extensive medical care, and the court decisions appear to have
limited government payment of her medical bills just to her and not to other illegal
migrants.) It picks the vast majority of its legal immigrants on a merit system that
prioritizes those who would contribute a special needed skill to the Canadian economy, who
are fluent in English and/or French, and who could easily assimilate. Thus, most of Canada's
immigrants start paying hefty taxes as soon as they move to Canada, helping to support the
country's social safety net. 1 Reply
@Samuel To pay for universal health care you capture all the money currently being spent for
the health care system. That includes all the employer insurance premiums, VA medical care
costs, military medical costs, all out-of-pocket expenses, everything. That provides plenty
of money for our health care needs as exemplified by the costs in other advanced countries
with better systems. Also re-activate parts of the ACA that were designed to control and
reduce costs but that have gone unfunded. Reduce hospital and hospital administration costs,
which are exorbitant and provide little real health care benefit. There will be plenty of
funds for actual provider salaries (physicians, nurses, technicians, pharmacists, etc). 10
Replies
You have to accept some of this polling data with a grain of salt. Most of the population has
no idea what "moderate," "slightly liberal," or extremely liberal mean. These tend to be
labels that signify how closely people feel attached to other people on the left side of the
ideological spectrum. The same is true, btw, of people on the right. The odd thing is that if
you ask Trump voters about the economic policies they favor, they generally agree that social
security ought to be expanded, that the government has an obligation to see that everyone has
medical care, that taxes on the rich should be higher and that we ought to be spending more
money, not less on education. Where you see a divergence is on issues tightly aligned with
Trump and on matters that touch on racial resentment. Trump voters do not favor cuts in
spending on the poor, though they do support cuts in "welfare." The moral of the story is
that a strategic Democratic politician who can speak to these Trump voters on a policy level
or at the level of values -- I'm thinking Sharrod Brown -- may be able to win in 2020 with a
landslide.
I saw AOC on the Colbert Show recently and one of her first statements was in regards to
wearing red nail polish. I turned it off. Enough of the red lipstick as well. Please. Next
she'll discuss large hoop earrings. 1 Reply
O'Cortez is a "Fantasy Socialist. She says the stupidest and most outlandish things so the
media puts a microphone in front of her face. She hates when folks fact check her because
nothing she is saying adds up. O'Cortez has all of the same "spread the wealth" tendencies as
the previous president who was much more cunning and clever at hiding his true Socialist
self.
@chele Right on. I expect there is a very large contingent of us. It is disheartening to be
associated by age and ethnicity with the corporatist financial elite power mongers who
control both parties and the media. But we can still continue vote the right way and spread
the word to fight corruption and corporatism. Eschew New Democrats like ORourke. The first
commitment to find out about is the commitment to restore democracy and cut off the power of
the financial elite in politics. All the other liberal sounding stuff is a lie if that first
commitment is not there. Because none of it will happen while the financial elite are
controlling votes. There will always be enough defectors against, for example, the mainstream
support for medicare for all national health care to keep it from happening if New Democrats
aren't understood as the republican lite fifth column corrupters they really are. 12 Replies
Chock full of very interesting data, but we tend to to believe Zeitz's conclusion that Dems
are just returning to their roots, following the spectacular 2008 failures that saw no
prosecutions - in starkest contrast to the S&L failure and boatload of bankers charged:
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/magazine/only-one-top-banker-jail-financial-crisis.html
To the extent this primary voter data is replicated across the country in Dem primaries, and
not just the AOC and Ayana Pressley races, we could be convinced some massive swing is
occurring in Dem primary results. Until then, we tend to believe that the cycle of 30-50
House seats which swing back and forth as Dem or GOP from time to time (not the exact same
30-50 districts each cycle, but about 30-50 in total per election cycle or two) is a
continuation of a long-term voting trend. Unpacking the egregious GOP'er gerrymandering, as
is the goal of Eric Holder and Barack Obama: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/voting-gerrymander-elections.html
which has blunted Dem voter effects, will be of far more consequence - get ready !
@Michael Gig'em dude. Class of '88, and I feel the same way. And as far as I can tell, the
increase has been almost totally because state support has fallen in order to fund tax cuts
for the people, like us, who got the free education. Who says you can't have your cake and
eat it too? You just have to raid everyone else's plate. 38 Replies
I understand the Andy Warhol concept of everyone having 15 minutes of fame. But it's absurd
that AOC's 15 minutes of fame coincide with her first 15 minutes in office.
Ocasio-Cortez and the rest haven't been in Congress a month. Get back to me when anyone of
them even gets a bill passed naming a Post Office. Until the, maybe you ought to learn your
jobs?
@In the know, Your party invented the fundamental ACA program. It was the brainchild of the
Heritage Foundation that started this fiasco that you'd like to blame on Dems. Also, you
simply cannot argue that the Republicans attempted to implement the program in good faith.
They have done everything they can to sabotage it. In the end, Republicans don't want people
to have affordable health care. It doesn't fit their "family-unfriendly" philosophy.
Furthermore, the only real business-friendly ideas Republicans embrace are a) eliminate
taxes, b) remove regulations, c) pay employees nothing. If you as a woman believe these are
notions that strengthen you or your family, I'm at a total loss in understanding your
reasoning.
@Matt Williams - You are ignoring the many statistics in the article that apply to the
Democratic party as a whole. For example: "From 2008 to 2018, the percentage of Democrats who
said the government should create "a way for immigrants already here illegally to become
citizens if the meet certain requirements" grew from 29 to 51 percent, while the share who
said "there should be better border security and stronger enforcement of immigration laws"
fell from 21 to 5 percent." There are many others.
"...as millennials and minorities become an ever-larger proportion of the party, it will have
a natural constituency..." I would counter that as they start to actually pay taxes then the
millennials will adopt the standard liberal plaint, 'raise the taxes on everybody except me'
@D I Shaw I think the precise point is that would much easier to do A,B, and C if there were
universal health care, job guarantees, and clean water to drink. It is much easier to make
good long-term decisions when you aren't kept in a state of perpetual desperation.
These 'new' ideas are not new, nor are they 'progressive democrats'', nor are they even the
democratic party's per se. More importantly, the 'issue', for which no one has come up with a
solution, is the same -- how are we going to pay for this all? The GAO reported in '16 that
Sander's proposal for payment was completely unsustainable. Similarly, Cortez's plan for a
tax rate of 70% of earnings (not capital gains) over $10mm per annum does not come close to
funding 'medicare for all', 'free collage/trade school', and 'the New Green Deal'. Our
military is a 'jobs program' rooted in certain state's economy -- it is going to be very
difficult to substantially reduce those expenditures any time soon. The purpose of government
is governance -- what politician is going to have the integrity and cujones to tell the
American people that we need these 'liberal' policies, but that every single one of us is
going to have to contribute, even those at the far lower income strata? Are we all willing to
work longer in life and live in much smaller houses/apartments to do what is necessary? If
the answer is yes, then and only then can any of us claim the moral high ground. Until then,
it's just empty rhetoric for political gain and personal Aggrandizement of so-called
progressives. 5 Replies
@chele I'm an "elder millennial" in my 30s. The first US election I really paid attention to
was in 2000. Remember how all of the Democrats would gripe about, "oh I really *like* Nader,
but the Green Party candidate is never going to win..." It's a party in dire straights when
the ideological base doesn't even particularly love its candidates on the issues. Repeat in
2004 with Kerry. Obama managed to win based on charisma and the nation's collective disgust
with the neocons, but then we did it again with Hillary. 12 Replies
Sorry libs, but with the exception of the Left Coast, and Manhattan, there is not alot of
attention given AOC and her silly class warfare 70% tax nonsense, that goes with the Dem/Lib
territory--nothing new or exciting with her. Being a certain ethnicity or gender is not
exciting or inherently "good" as Progressives attempt to convince others. Identity politics
is nonsense. When she does something of merit, not simply engage in publicity stunts and
class warfare nonsense then maybe she will get some attention outside of Lib/Wacko world.
"With all the attention that is being paid to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ayanna Pressley,
Rashida Tlaib" Other than these opinion pages and the Lib coasts, not so much. 2 Replies
Since Reagan there has been a steady drumbeat to the right and far-right policies. We've
lived so long in this bubble that we've normalized these For-the-Rich policies as centrist.
So I don't accept the writer's premise that the Democratic party is moving to a radical left.
The Democratic party is simply embracing pro middle class policies that were once the norm
between 1935-1979. And I welcome the shift of the pendulum. 1 Reply
@Giacomo That's right, this country can afford trillions for the Pentagon system--the
military-industrial complex, to coin a phrase--and foolishly criminal wars, but it can't
afford national health insurance, something that some industrialized countries have had since
the late 19th century. Anybody who thinks these ideas are "radical" or "leftist" clearly
understands nothing about politics.
The shift claimed by Mr. Edsall among democratic voters who claim to be liberal or
progressive is more illusion than reality. With President Obama more democrats are willing
and indeed proud that our party represents the cutting edge principle that we protect the
needs and interests of those struggling to find a place in our society. For a long time
Democrats bought into the notion that the word liberal was some how shameful. But now with
the machinations of a McConnell and Trump it becomes obvious that Democratic principles of
justice for all and fighting for economic equality are not outside ideas, but actually
central to the growth of our country. No longer will we kow tow to a false stilted opinion,
but stand up proudly for what we believe and fight for.
AOC behaves like a sanctimonious know-it-all teenager....entertaining for about 5 minutes,
then just plain annoying and tiresome. Does not bode well for the Democratic Party,...
Actually, people like AOC or Bernie aren't that far left at all. Internationally, they'd be
considered pretty centrist. They're simply seen as "far left" because the Overton window in
DC is far to the right. Even domestically, policies like universal healthcare and a living
wage enjoy solid majority support, so they're perfectly mainstream
I understand what you are saying, but please remember- half of this country thinks- rightly
or wrongly- that AOC and many of her ideals are unobtainable and socialist. Whether they are
or are not is NOT the point. We need ideas that are palatable to the mainstream, average
American- not just those of us on the liberal wings. And I AM one of those. Since you bring
up Bernie- how well did that work out? The country isn't ready for those ideas. And rightly
or wrongly, pursuing them at all cost will end up winning Trump the next election.
@Jose Pieste Well here in Australia its 10 minute waits for appointments made on the same
day. I have MS and see my specialist without a problem. And the government through the PBS
prescription benefit scheme pays $78 of my $80 daily tablets. We are not as phenomenally
wealthy a country as the USA and we mange it with universal health care. I pay about $30
Australian for each doctor's visit and sometimes with bulk billing that is free too. You
reflect a uniquely American attitude about social services that is not reflective of what is
done in other modern democracies. I really do feel for you my friend and for all Americans
who have been comprehensively hoodwinked by the "can't afford it" myth. You can pay for
trillion dollar tax cuts for people who don't need it. Honestly mate - you have been conned.
@Samuel Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has sponsored or co-sponsored 18 bills in the House, including
original co-sponsor with Rep. Pressley of H.R.678 -- 116th Congress (2019-2020) To provide
back pay to low-wage contractor employees, and for other purposes. 10 Replies
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, as is well documented here and throughout world media, prefers spotlights
and baffling interviews to opening her district office and serving her electorate. As with
every other media creation, the shiny star that it has made of Ms. Ocasio-Cortez will fade
soon. The arc of her House career will as well. 4 Replies
"What pundits today decry as a radical turn in Democratic policy and politics actually finds
its antecedents in 1944." This quote in the article should have been the lede. Instead, it
appears 66 paragraphs into the article. What is now being called "left" used to be called
"center." It used to be called the values and the core of the Democratic party.
@Derek Flint There was a reason for the DLC's decision to be more center left. The Democrats
were losing and this gave them a chance to win, which they did with Clinton, almost Gore, and
Obama. 12 Replies
@Jason A. Representatives should represent their constituents. For example, if most of the
voters one represents want Medicare, perhaps that's a sign that one should reconsider their
anti-Medicare views. And think about why constituents want Medicare.
The leftward swing of the Democrats is in direct proportion to the rightward swing of the
Republicans and a gut reaction to the GOP's failure to do anything constructive while in
power -- i.e. failure to replace Obamacare with Trump's promise of "cheaper and better;"
failure to repair our crumbling infrastructure, and yet another failed attempt at
trickle-down economics by robbing the U.S. Treasury with a massive tax cut for the rich that
provided absolutely no benefits for the middle class and the poor. As always, what the
Republicans destroy the Democrats will have to fix.
@Quiet Waiting, the DLC was officially formed after Mondale's loss, in '85. the DLC's main
position is that economic populism is not politically feasible. But I don't recall either
McGovern or Mondale's losses being attributed to being too pro-worker, too pro-regulation of
capitalism, or making tax rates progressive again. Further, the idea that economic populism
has no political value was just disproved by a demagogue took advantage of it to get elected.
The RP's mid-term losses and other data points show that people in the middle are realizing
Trump's not really a populist. Those economic Trump voters, some of whom voted for Obama
twice, are up for grabs. Why would you be afraid that the DP's shift to raising taxes on the
wealthy and being pro-worker will result in a Trump victory? 12 Replies
@Michael The cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security has increased as a fraction of
tax receipts. Twice the as many people go to college as when you went, so the subsidies are
spread more thinly. Colleges have more bureaucrats than professors because of multiple
mandates regarding sex, race, income, sexual preference, etc. People have not been willing to
see taxes raised, so things like college subsidies get squeezed. The US decided in the 1940s
that the only way to avoid a repeat of WW1 and WW2 was to provide a security blanket for
Western Europe and Japan (and really, the world), and prevent military buildups in either
region while encouraging economic development. The world is as a result more peaceful,
prosperous, and free than ever in human history, despite "its continuous wars" as you put it.
For the US to pull back would endanger the stability that gave us this peace and prosperity,
but Trump is with you all the way on that one, so it must be a good idea. Liberal reforms
will mean tax increases, especially Medicare for all, but also more college subsidies, which
largely benefit the middle class and up. Liberal reformers need to convince the public to
send more money to the IRS, for which there is no evident support. Let's not confuse
opposition to Trump with a liberal groundswell. 38 Replies
Why do Political Commentators and Analysts keep operating under the delusion that people vote
their skin colour ? People vote their economic interests. I am all in favour of National
Health Care Letting Immigrants who have not committed a crime stay and become citizens. But I
am also in favour of stricter Border Control as I feel our duty is to the poor citizens of
America. Send Economic aid to poorer countries, help them establish just governments. As for
Ocasio-Cortez, she is aiming too high and has too many lies about her past to go much higher.
The meanings of these labels--liberal, left, center, conservative--, and of the spectrum
along which they supposedly lie, changes year to year, and most pundits and politicians seem
to use them to suit their own purposes. When you realize that a significant group of people
voted for Obama and then for Trump, you realize how radically the politics of the moment can
redefine the terms. The Democrats could create a narrative that unites the interests of all
economically disadvantaged people, including white people. Doing so would create a broad
majority and win elections, but it would arouse the fury of the oligarchs, who will demonize
them as "socialists." But as Obamacare proved, if actually you do something that helps people
across the board even the Republicans and the media will have a hard time convincing people
that they are oppressed, for example, by access to health insurance. For the oligarchs, as
for the Republicans, success depends on creating a narrative that pits the middle class
against the poor. In its current, most vulgar form, this includes pitting disadvantaged white
people against all the rest, but the Republicans have an advantage in that their party is
united behind the narrative. Democratic politicians may be united against Trump, but that
means nothing. The challenge will be uniting the politicians who run on economic justice with
the establishment Democrats who have succeeded by hiding their economic conservativism behind
identity politics.
I applaude AOC. I am 72 white male. I have been waiting for someone like AOC to emerge. I
wish her the best and will work for her positions and re-elections and ultimate ambitions.
She is a great leader, teacher, learner, whip smart, and should not be taken likely. Go for
it AOC! Realize your full potential.
Someone as thoroughly imbedded in the establishment as this Op-Ed writer is necessarily going
to need to be educated on what the political center of gravity really is. The Democrats have
shifted RIGHT over the past few decades. Under Bill Clinton and Pelosi, Schumer, Feinstein
and Obama. They are not left, not center-left, not center, but instead center-right. They
have pursued a center-right agenda that does not engage with the rigged economy or widening
inequality, or inadequate pay, or monopolist abuse of power, or adequate regulation and
punishment of corporate crime. They have enthusiastically embraced our deeply stupid wars of
choice, and wasted trillions that could have been put to productive use at home. The new
generation of progressive Democrats seek to move the debate BACK TO THE CENTER or Center-Left
if you will. Not the Left or Far-Left. They want to address the issues the current Democrat
Establishment have ignored or exacerbated, because they are in essence, the same rarified
rich as the lobbyists and donors they mingle with. The issues that affect MOST of us, but not
the FEW of them. The endgame of this shift is that Obama engineered a pseudo-recovery that
saw the very rich recover their gains, but the poor become MORE impoverished. Such is the
rigged economy, 21st Century style. Things have to change, the old guard have to be neutered.
Too much wealth and power is concentrated in too few hands, and it's too detrimental to our
pseudo-democracy.
This is the difference between R & D's. OAC may get her support from well-to-do, educated
whites, but her platform focuses on those left behind. Even her green revolution will provide
jobs for those less well off. R's, on the other hand, vote only for candidates that further
their selfish interests.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez and her legislative cohorts are a much needed breath of fresh, progressive
air for the U.S. Congress. And I say that as someone going on age 70 who was raised and
educated in the conservative Deep South. Go left, young people!
@Bruce Rozenblit Unfortunately, the hot button on fox is the word socialism. so undo the
negative press there and have a chance of implementing fairer policies. 27 Replies
@Samuel "It's easy to go to a rooftop- or a twitter account- and yell "health care and
education for all!'" Its not easy to get anyone to listen. The moral impetus precedes the
"actual plans," which come out of the legislative process, Why would you be against this
getting attention?Unless, of course, you oppose health care and education for all. 10 Replies
The further the Democrats go Left with all the cultural politics including white people
bashing and calling Men toxic, the further I am heading towards the right. I personally can't
stand what the Democratic Party has turned into. We'll see who wins in 2020. I think a lot of
people forget what happens in mid term elections. People vote for change and then, after
seeing what they wrought, switch back.
I am a old white male geezer and lifelong liberal living in complete voter disenfranchisement
in Florida due to gerrymandering, voter suppression and rigged election machines (how else
does one explain over 30,000 votes in Broward County that failed to register a preference for
the Senate or Governor in a race where the Republican squeaked in by recount?). I am pleased
to finally see the party moving away from corporatist and quisling centrists to take on
issues of critical import for the economy, the environment and the literal health of the
nation. As "moderate" Republicans come to a cognitive realization that they too are victims
of the fascist oligarch billionaire agenda to end democracy; they too will move to the left.
So, I for one am not going to worry an iota about this hand-wringing over something akin to
revolution and instead welome what amounts to the return of my fellow New Deal Democrats.
Too much attention here to this new cohort of self important attention seekers presenting as
civil servants. Not one of them has had any legislative experience in their lives how can
they do all they say they want. They have no grasp of policy economics and politics. Are they
too good to recall the wise words of Sam Rayburn - "Those who go along get along" or is that
too quaint outdated and patriarchal for them? Why dont journalists and other pols call them
out. Example, AOC calls for 70% marginal tax rate - saying we had it before, ha ha. Yes but
only when defense spending as percent of gdp was 20-40 percent, in the depth of WW2 and the
cold war, life and death struggles - it is now 5%, no one has the stomach for those rates
now, and no need for them to boot. Free school, free healthcare, viva la stat! yeah ok who
will pay for it? Lots of ideas no plans, flash in the pan is what it is, it will die down
then settle in for a long winter.
There is a difference between posturing as a leader and actually leading. So, there is
another, and very direct, way for real Americans to end the shutdown: Recall petitions. With
very little money, why not target Mitch McConnell. Laid off federal workers could go
door-to-door in Kentucky. The message, not just to the Senate majority leader, would be
powerful. And this need not be limited. There are some easy targets among GOP senators.
Perhaps Ms. Ocasio-Cortez can achieve greater national standing with a clipboard and pen down
on the hustings.
All this fuss over a bright young person who stopped complaining and ran for office. She has
a platform. Time will tell how effective she will be. Right now, she's connecting to those
young and old who believe we can do better. If you had a choice who would you rather share a
beer with?A Trump supporter who has no interest beyond building an ineffective wall or an
Ocasio-Cortez supporter, full of ideas, some fanciful, some interesting but most off all
energy and light versus fear and hate?
I'm a liberal Democrat and I remain very skeptical regarding the platforms of these new
members of Congress. Youthful exuberance is admirable, but it's not sufficient to address
complicated issues related to fairness. Fairness does not always mean equity of wealth. Some
people have more because they have worked more, worked longer, or took more risks with their
money. Should the nurse who worked three jobs to make $150,000/year be made to sacrifice a
significant portion for those who chose to work less? Such an anecdotal question may seem
naive, but these are the kinds of questions asked by regular Americans who often value social
programs, but also value fairness. The claim that only some tiny fraction of the 1% will bear
the cost of new programs and will alone suffer increased taxation is simply untrue, and those
who are making this claim know it. This tiny group of wealthy knows how to hide its money
off-shore and in other ways, as documented in the Times last year. Everyone knows the
low-lying fruit for increased taxation is the upper middle class: Those who work hard and
save hard and are nowhere near the top of the wealth pyramid. It's that nurse with the three
jobs, or the small business owner who now clears $200,000 a year, or the pair of teachers
who, after 25 years of teaching, now bring home $150,000 combined. Those are the targets of
the proposed "new" taxes. Don't believe the hype. I'm a liberal, and I know what's up with
these people. 4 Replies
Ocasio-Cortez represents the success of a progressive in ousting a white liberal in a safely
Democratic district. While interesting, that doesn't provide much of a blueprint for winning
in 2020 in districts and states that voted for Trump. As noted elsewhere in this newspaper,
of the roughly 60 new Democrats in Congress elected in 2018, two-thirds, were pragmatic
moderates that flipped Republican seats. Progressives were notably less successful in
flipping Republican seats.
Just keep in mind that what the author deems "radical" ideas are considered mainstream in the
rest of the developed world. We are an extreme outlier in lacking some form of universal
health care, for example. Also, while the NYT clearly saw Bernie's 2016 campaign as
shockingly radical, the very people Edsall says we must court were wild about Bernie. His
message about income inequality resonates with anyone living paycheck to paycheck and the
only thing "radical" about it is that he said the truth out loud about the effects of
unbridled capitalism. The neoliberal types that the NYT embraces are the milquetoast people
who attract a rather small group of voters, so, I am not too eager to accept his analysis. I
fully expect the Times to back Gillibrand and Biden, maybe even that other corporatist,
Booker. They don't scare the moneyed class.
The Dems have been drifting to the right for decades, egged on by pundits who keep telling
them to move to the center. Do the math: moving to the center just moves the center to the
right. Frankly, Nixon was more liberal than most of today's Dems. A move to the left is long
overdue.
The rumblings in the Democratic party may represent a realization that WE THE PEOPLE deserve
a bigger slice of the pie. Democrats such as Sanders, Warren and AOC are tapping into a
reservoir of voters who have been excluded from the American Dream by design. The new message
seems to be "fairness". I think that translates into government which does the most good for
the greatest number of people. Candidates who embody that principle will be the new leaders.
Ignore at your peril.
@Quiet Waiting: if voters believe republicans are helping them economically then follow them
off the cliff. Hopefully enough voters will try a more humane form of capitalism. 12 Replies
Ms Ocasio Cortez is a partial illustration of Reagan's dictum that "The trouble with our
liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so". In
the case of AOC she is not only very ignorant but she believes many things that are actually
not true. For her to actually believe that the "world will end in 12 years" and
simultaneously believe that, even if true, Congress could change this awful fact is so
breathtakingly ignorant one hardly knows where to start.
Maybe it's worth considering that a lot of those spooky millennials, the stuff of campfire
scare stories, themselves grew up in the suburbs. They are the children of privilege who have
matured into a world that is far less secure and promising than that of their swing-voter
soccer moms. Health care, student debt, secure retirement, and the ability to support a
family are serious concerns for them. And don't even get me started on climate change and the
fossil fuel world's stranglehold on our polity.
@dudley thompson, if you are one of those elite moderate liberals against the "lefties"
concern about college and medical costs, protections for workers and the environment, and
progressive taxation, then in the end getting your vote isn't worth sacrificing the votes of
all the other people who do care about those things. Your "moderate" way may calm those swing
voters who fear change, and allow them to vote for the Democrat, but it also demoralizes and
disappoints the much larger group of potential Democratic voters that craves change.
@Jessica Summerfield ..."article described AOC as a communist." And I saw an article describe
Ross Douthat as a "columnist"... equally misleading. Will the calumny never cease? 27 Replies
Thomas, this "left" used to be known as the middle. A commitment to housing instead of an
acceptance of homelessness. Dignity. A tax system designed to tax wealthy people, not, as we
have now, a tax system designed to tax the middle class and poor. Can we all just take a look
at what is being promoted -- look at what AOC is proposing compared to Eisenhower era tax
rates. We have lurched right so that event center-right is now considered left.
Rage is the political fuel that fires up the Left. Rage also is the source of some very bad
ideas. Having bad ideas is the reason people don't vote for a political party in a
presidential election. The democrats are now the party of socialism, open borders, very high
taxes, anti-religious bigotry, abolishment of free speech, rewriting the constitution,
stuffing the Supreme Court, impeachment of the President, and being intolerance of other
views. They have also alienated 64 million Americans by calling them deplorables, racist and
a host of other derogatory terms. Not a good strategy to win over voters in swing states.
They also have attacked all men and white men in particular. They think masculinity is toxic
and that gender is not biological but what a person believes themselves to be (noticed that I
used the plural pronoun?). So far a long list of bad ideas. Let's see how it plays out in
2020. 1 Reply
We need to be careful what we refer to as left. Is the concept that we have access to
affordable housing, healthcare, and decent jobs really a position of the far left? Not
really. The 1944 progressives saw access to basic life as a right of all people. This is why
young educated progressives support policies that encourage success within the unregulated
capitalist economy that has been created over the last 40 years. The evidence illustrates
that federal and state governments need to help people survive, otherwise we are looking at
massive amounts of inequality that affect the economy and ultimately affect the very people,
the extremely rich, who support deregulation.
@Bruce Rozenblit The Republicans great skill has been selling lies to the socially
conservative to get their greedy financial agenda through. They have never cared about their
voters other than how best to spin their rhetoric. 27 Replies
Moving left takes a twitter account, a quixotic mentality and the word free. Its sedition
arousing rhetoric is blinkered by the lack of a viable strategy to support and move it
forward. Liberals thrive on the free media attention which feeds their rancor and aplomb.
Liberals are the infants of the Democratic Party. They're young, cute and full of amusing
antics. They have an idyllic view of what the world can be but without efficacy. When they
are challenged, or don't get enough attention, they revert to petulance. As all mammals do,
most liberals eventually grow up to join the Democratic median. Those that don't become the
party regalers brought out when the base needs energized. They grow old and fade away,
remembered only for their flamboyance and dystopian view of the world. The Democratic Party
has never been more fractured since its inception. With close to thirty potential candidates
for President, it is going to take a coalition within their party in order to put forth a
viable nominee. Then the party infighting will commence which will lead the party into
defeat. Democrats must focus on a untied party platform which is viable and will produce
results for the American people. Enough of the loquacious hyperbole and misandrous language;
it's time to stop reacting and start leading.
If it looks like the Democrats are moving strongly to the left, it's because they have
stopped chasing the GOP over the cliff in a vain effort to meet them in some mythical middle.
That's why the gap is widening; Republicans have not slowed in their headlong rush to
disaster. In truth it is the Republican Party and its messaging machine that has been doing
its best to drag America to the extreme right by controlling the narrative and broadcasting
talking points picked up and amplified by the Mainstream Media. The Mainstream Media has its
own issues. Increasingly consolidated under corporate ownership into fewer and fewer hands,
it has developed a reflex aversion to anything that looks too 'left' and a suspicion of
anything that looks progressive. The desperate battle for eyeballs in a fragmenting market
has also taken a toll; deep journalism or reporting that risks alienating any part of the
shrinking audience for traditional news is anathema to the bean counters who have
financialized everything. Deliberate intimidation by the right has also taken a toll.
Republicans have no answers; Democrats do - and that's the gist of it. The real challenge is
to prevail against a party that has embraced disinformation, the politics of resentment and
destruction - and the Mainstream Media that has failed to call them out on it.
We are looking at a future Speaker of the House. Watch out Republicans, this woman is not
afraid of you white, stodgy, misogynistic and racist haters. Your party, once a viable and
caring party, is dead.
The Republican Party used to be a moderate political party that was fully capable of
governing. Over the years, the right wing of the party assumed control and they became a
radically conservative party that basically hated government and did nothing for the benefit
of average Americans. As a result, many voters came to believe that a more liberal stance was
preferred to what the Republicans had become. Basically, the Republican Party veered sharply
to the right and went off and left a lot of their earlier supporters, like me.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is the perfect foil to the Trump twitter fest we've been subjected
to for the past 2 years. However, enough of the tit for tat -- I would still like to see the
freshman representative put forth some legislation for a vote.
In terms of policies, this "sharp shift to the left" represents a return to the New Deal and
the Great Society and a renewed commitment to civil rights. It is a return to things we never
should have turned away from.
@Tracy Rupp Don't be so quick to condemn. The really old white men of today defeated Germany
and Japan. Then those same old white men went into Korea and then Vietnam. Ok so maybe you
have a point.
Shifted to the LEFT? After decades of movement to the Right, by the GOP and even assisted by
Dems such as the Clintons, etc., this political movement is merely a correction, not a
radical shift as your article contends.
Just as the reader comments from yesterday's opinion piece on the Covington School story by
David Brooks reveal rampant confirmation bias, the comments here reveal an equally relevant
truth: nobody, but nobody, eats their own like the left. The "Down With Us" culture in full
effect.
I am confused about what message, what issues resonate with the "moderate" people who are
disaffected from the liberal message of the Democrats on the left. What policies would bring
them to vote Democratic, what is it about health care for all, a living wage and opening the
voting process to all people are they opposed to. Is it policy or message that has them
wavering?
@dudley thompson Do you consider Eisenhower leftist? (highest tax rates ever). How about
Nixon? (established the EPA). We have lurched so far right in this country that the middle
looks left. I'm sick of the labels -- listen to what these leaders are actually proposing. If
you don't understand how the marginal tax rate works, look it up. If you don't realize we
once didn't accept mass homelessness and mass incarceration as a fact of life in America,
learn some history. We're living in a myopic, distorted not-so-fun-house where up is down and
center is left. We need to look with fresh eyes and ask what our communal values are and what
America stands for. 5 Replies
Here is a thought I would like to share with the New York Times: Thomas Edsall's article is
excellent. The corollary I draw from it that the paper that projects itself as the voice of
the liberals in this county has to understand that it has fallen behind times. If the
statistics and commentary accompanying it is a criteria to consider, The Times should move to
a more progressive editorial platform. The sooner, the better! The support given by this
paper to Hillary Rodham Clinton over Bernie Sanders in 2016 is unforgivable. The attitude
exhibited towards Elizabeth Warren is hardy different. This has to change if you want to keep
your relevance unless you believe publishing Edsall's essay is just part of your "diversity"
policy. What the followers of AOC and other progressives are clamoring for are very basic
human needs that have been delivered in affluent (and not so affluent) societies all over the
globe. No need to name those countries, by now the list is well known. What do we need
delivered: Universal Healthcare, Free Public Education K through College, No Citizens United,
Total Campaign Finance Reform, Regulation of Wall Street, Regulation of Pharma, Regulation of
Big Tech, Gender Equality, 21st Century Infrastructure. All paid for by cutting the Military
and Defense Budget Waste (cf Charlie Grassley, a buddy of Karl Marx) and taxing the top
percent at levels AOC cites and Professors Suez and Zucman concur with in their Times OpEd.
Democrats need to win elections first. Progressive ideas may have support on the coasts and
cities but fall flat in red states where there is still widespread dislike for immigrants and
minorities and strong opposition to "having my hard-earned tax money supporting free stuff
for the undeserving who can't/won't take care of themselves." Because the Electoral College
gives red states disproportionate representation the Democrats must win some red states to
win a presidential election. Running on a strong progressive platform won't work in those
Republican-majority states. What Democrats need is a "Trojan Horse" candidate. Someone who
can win with a moderate message that has broad appeal across the entire country but who will
support and enact a strong progressive agenda once he/she is elected. And on a local election
level, Democrats need to field candidates whose message is appropriate for their local
constituency -- progressive in liberal states, more moderate in conservative areas. Winning
elections comes first. Let's do what it takes to win and not let our progressive wish list
blind us to the importance of winning elections.
@Westchester Guy: Leftists want amnesty and, eventually, open borders. This is utterly and
totally incompatible with their push for "free" college, universal health care, and so forth.
The fiscal infeasibility is so obvious that one could only believe in these coexisting
policies if they were blinded by something, like Trump hatred, or just plain dishonest. The
"leftist" label for the new Democrat party is entirely appropriate. You also have your own
bigots to counter Trump. The difference is that their bigotry is sanctioned by most of the
mainstream media.
Has AOC or any other liberal offered any feasible policy to improve the lives of the people
they claim to help? Just take a good hard look at NYC where AOC is from which for many years
the Public Housing Authority cannot even provide adequate heat in the building the city owns.
So while AOC dreams of taxing the wealthy 70% perhaps she needs to slow down and catch up to
reality to realize what she offers is only building towards another Venezuela.
This article is half poison pill. By reading it, you learn a lot about Democratic Party
voting patterns, but you also have to endure a number of false ideas, the worst of which is
Edsall's warning that radical Democrats will foment internal chaos leading to electoral loss.
The fact is, it is the corporate democrats, who in the last 40 years abandoned the base of
working, blue collar democrats in favor of their Wall Street overlords. It is the corporate
democrats who created the billionaire class by reducing corporate tax rates. It is the
corporate Democrats who by reducing marginal tax rates created the plutocracy. It is the
corporate democrats who gave *Trillions of Dollars* to Bush and Obama's perpetual wars and
$70 Billion more than the defense department asks. This impoverishing the citizenry with debt
is their legacy as much as the Republicans. This shoveling of money to the 1% who abandoned
the middle class has been a train ridden by Corporate Democrats. It is the Corporate
Democrats who caused all this friction by letting the middle class fall off the edge of the
economic cliff -- all the while proclaiming how much they care. They show up on MLK day and
read flowing speeches from the podium when what we really need is activism and changes in
marginal tax rates, defense spending and the Medical Insurance and care oligopoly. So now
there is revolution brewing in response to the Corporate Democrats' appeasement of the
Oligarchy? Good. Bring it on.
Honestly, it is the centrist, neoliberal wing of the Democratic party that gave up on talking
to the Midwest and focused on the coasts. That was the Clinton strategy and it didn't work.
Although AOC comes from an urban area, her message is broad: she is for the struggling,
working person. Edsall underestimates AOC's basis in economic thinking and her appeal to
flyover country. She speaks carefully and justly to social issues, but she also speaks to the
"kitchen table" issues that middle America is concerned with--in a much more real way than
the neoliberal Dems have figured out how to.
Please end you outsized coverage of AOC. I really don't know how you justify all the news
coverage. She is one of 435 representatives, and a new one at that. No accomplishments, just
a large Instagram following.
@John Patt Everybody over the age of 50 should apologize for giving our young people
catastrophic climate change, endless wars, broken healthcare, crumbling infrastructure, ever
widening income and wealth disparates, unaffordable post-secondary education, rampant gun
violence, no voice for labor. We over 50 didn't care enough to vote and to make enough
political noise to keep these things from happening. We over 50 all have personal
responsibilities for this messed up world we're leaving the young. 6 Replies
@Zor The answer is no. Remember Schumer saying that for every urban vote Democrats lost by
running Hillary, they would gain 2 suburban votes. It didn't turn out that way. The centrist,
corporatist Democrats (including Hillary and Biden) have no clue how to reach the working
class of any race. The working class focus of AOC is the Democratic Party's best chance at a
future. But of course the establishment, centrist, corporatist Democrats are still focused on
helping their big money donors. Here's another question: Just how are establishment,
centrist, corporatist Democrats different from Republicans?
Here's my thing- though I'm a deeply liberal person who shares a lot of political beliefs
with Ocasio-Cortez, I'm am not the least bit interested in her. Why? Because she's one
representative of a district all the way across the country from where I live. I care about
about my newly flipped district in Sherman Oaks. I care about my solidly Democratic district
in Santa Rosa. Just because one charismatic representative from Brooklyn has a good Twitter
feed doesn't mean that I have to care or that she deserves a highly-placed role on an
important committee. She's a freshman. Let her learn. And then, go ahead and tell me she
deserves a seat.
There really is not a far left in America. You guys have this weird aversion to moderate
sensible socialism that -as the saying goes- is only in America. Our conservative government
in Australia accepts it as a given the things AOC is fighting for. There is nothing weird
about universal health care in modern advanced countries. The conservatives have a magic word
in the USA that they us as a bogeyman and the word is socialism. Ironically they don't mind
Trump snuggling up to extreme left dictators like Kim and ex KGB Soviet operatives like Don's
supervisor Vlad Putin who by definition had to be a card carrying communist to get to his
position. But moderate socialism is all over northern Europe, NZ, UK and Australia. You
people are oppressed by conservatives playing the "that's socialism" card at every turn. We
never ask where does the money come from? here. The money seems to be there in all the
countries that take care of the health of their citizens. America is a wonderful country with
fantastic people- I love visiting... but to use an Aussie word - crikey I wouldn't want to
live there. 1 Reply
A.O.C. Alexandria "Overexposure" Cortez. This young woman is talented but should pace herself
a bit. It's not a marathon but it's not a sprint either. Let's call it "middle distance" in
track terms. You need to save some breath for when it's really needed. Pace for long term
influence on policy. Or be a "one hit wonder".
@Matt Williams Exactly. I'm a Democratic in a conservative area, and all my Democrat friends
think this woman is nuts. Our Senator Jon Tester is wonderful. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Hard
pass. 9 Replies
@Cass You may self-identify as a moderate but you sound like a conservative. Please go join
the other party of no ideas if AOC strikes you as radical. The majority of Democrats don't
agree with you.
Ideology fails when it meets reality. Trump and McConnell are busy teaching the American
middle class what it is to be reduced to poverty - health care they can't afford, rising
taxes on those who have had some economic success, elimination of well paying jobs, and on
and on. Those voters are understandably interested in pocket book issues, the resurgence of
progressive candidates meets this newly emphasized need. In addition, look at the population
demographics. The baby boomers were a "bump" in population, they in turn have produced a new
bump in their children, who are now adults. The boomers were quite left, their children have
inherited some of this belief system - equal rights and protection and support of those with
less opportunity. The voters in general are also completely fed up with politicians lying to
them and taking away their benefits. They generally have a mistrust both of the right wing
destruction of our norms, and the Democrats failure to fight back (Garland should have been
appointed even in the face of McConnell's calumny). The new face of the Democratic party
feeds pocketbook issues, a belief that America is, in fact, a melting pot, and the need for
restoration of our Democracy. This pretty much covers all the bases, the Democrats just need
to get better at educating the populace.
By and large, the majority of 2600+ counties that Trump carried are not economically well
off. However, they are socially very traditional. Do the Democrats have a message that will
resonate with millions of these traditional white middle/lower middle class voters in the
hinterland? 1 Reply
have you listened to her interviews? she doesn't say much of anything. all political about
all these socialist ideas with no means or method of how to get there. and thank goodness she
has no clue how to get there
I used to be friends with a very high-achieving guy I met as a 15-year-old on a teen summer
tour in Israel, run by the national Reform synagogue movement, in 1985. In the course of our
frienship spanning the final years of high school through the beginning of college, gradually
fading to an email or 2 once every couple years; our different paths & outlooks became
very stark, though we'd both call ourselves liberals. My friend left no stone unturned in his
unambivalent achievement orientation, embracing w/religious fervor the absolute virtue of
success, the unimpeachable morality & integrity of our meritocracy, & meritocratic
ideals/ethos. Naturally, he wound up at Harvard, majoring in government, followed by Harvard
Law. What struck me throughout was the unvarnished "empiricism" of his outlook: rarefied,
lofty principles or romantic ideals seemed alien: the nitty gritty of practical &
procedural realities were the whole picture. The one time we explicitly discussed comparative
politics, he only gravitated toward the topic of Harold Washington's coalition-building
prowess. He was an ardent Zionist ("Jewish homeland!"), with little apparent interest in
theology or spirituality for that matter. Eventually he went into corporate law, negotiating
executive compensation. I think he epitomized the Clinton Democrat: A "Social justice," equal
opportunity for all, meritocracy "synthesis." In a word, that peculiarly "practical,"
pragmatic liberalism was *ultimately conservative*.
Let us all remember that since Reagan the "center" has moved decidedly right. So when we talk
about a move left, we are moving back to where we were in the 1950s-1970's. For example take
AOC's tax proposal. Right out of that time period. Look at the GOP platform in the 1950's. It
reads like a progressive platform today. So let's put this in perspective. Everything is
relative and we have adjusted to right wing dominant politics today.
Edsall looks at the fact the Democrats (and, indeed, the whole country) are moving in a
progressive direction. He does not look at the question of why. I maintain that with an
increase in educated voters, the country is moving towards policies that work, that are good
for the country as a whole, not just for a minority. The other wealthy countries, all with a
universal government health care system such as an improved Medicare for all, get BETTER
health care as measured by all 16 of the bottom line public health statistics for ALL of
their people at a cost of less than HALF per person as we pay. High inequality has been bad
for the economy and governance of this country. Look at what happened in 1929 and 2008 both
preceded by periods of high inequality. Compare that with the long period of low inequality
after WWII of Great Prosperity. Today as a result of terrible SCOTUS decisions, the Super
Rich pushing the country towards oligarchy. The situation at our borders was actually better
before 2003 when ICE was created. It has perpetrated so many atrocities, rightly garnered
such a terrible reputation, why isn't it time to abolish the thing and start over with a new
more humane organization. After all, the Germans did not keep the Gestapo after the war. I
running out of space, but let me end by saying we are now getting more progressive voters
that say that 2 + 3 = 5, and fewer conservative ones who say 2 + 3 = 23 and fewer moderates
who want to compromise on 2 + 3 = 14.
@Concerned Citizen, likewise, public education is funded largely by property taxes, even on
those who do not have children in school, or whose children are out of school. This is not
"someone else's" money! It is all our money, and this is the way we choose to employ it
– to educate all our children, realizing, I hope, that educated children are a major
asset of a developed country. 38 Replies
Until AOC starts to achieve some actual LEGISTATIVE VICTORIES, I'm not prepared to follow her
ANYWHERE. I'm willing to listen to what she has to say, some of which I agree with and some I
question. I lean Left on most issues but I'm not a fanatic, and fanatics exist on BOTH sides
of the political spectrum. I believe that one must PROVE themselves before being beatified.
In substance, I'm open to the "new wing" of the Democratic party which I am, officially, a
member of. Let me add that I will NEVER cast a vote for anyone calling themselves a
Republican because that very label is forever tainted in my book. But I don't much care for
the 'tit for tat' Tweeting from AOC either, writing about Joe Lieberman (whom I do not like)
"who dat"? What is "dat", Miss AOC?
The insane part of this never gets addressed. Why should Americans political interests and
aspirations be controlled by two monopolistic parties? 1 Reply
The country may be in a need of a more social agenda, but this agenda must perceptible help
the depressed white rural folk first. Nothing will work what make those, who are already
falling behind feel like a "basket of deplorables". I hope AOC will find a way not just to
become a poster star of the progressive urban left, but also understand the ailing of the
depressed rural right.
The Democratic Party needs to do a very good job of educating an electorate (and possibly
some of its own members) that has for more than 30 years drunk the kool-aid of the "lower our
taxes," small government, and deregulation gurus. We have such a predatory capitalism now,
with government failing over and over again to reign in huge corporations headed by those who
think they should be determining everything from economic to housing to health to foreign
policy. Enough already. Most of the young members of Congress need a lot more experience and
more immersion in the nitty gritty of creating legislation before they can take the reins,
but they can educate their constituents. And maybe they can convince others that everyone
gains through a more level playing field.
Calling these ideas left is a joke. AOC and Bernie Sanders would practically be conservatives
in Canada and Europe. What we have are 3 unofficial parties: 1. The party of people with good
ideas who aren't afraid to speak about them because they aren't beholden to big donors 2. The
party of watered down, unpopular ideas that are vetted by 20 pollsters and donors before
seeing the light of day 3. The party that gets into office by tapping into people's primal
fears, and avoids policy altogether Republicans have been moving the goalposts for decades
now, how can you even tell left from right anymore?
@A. Stanton Since 1990, there have been funding gaps, shutdowns or serious threats of
shutdowns almost every year. The have become routine tactics in the effort of each party to
drive a hard bargain.
Running up the Democratic vote in Blue states by pandering to left leaning views will not
unseat DJT in 2020. Winning the popular vote by 3 or 3 million yields the same results.
Unless or until we adopt the Nation Popular Vote Intrastate Compact or reapportion the House
more equitably, Republicans will continue to exploit the Electoral College's
antimajoritarianism. Courting the minority of lefties mimics DJT's courting of his base; last
November proved that elections are won in the middle. Appealing to moderates in purple states
is the only path to 270. If you have any doubt, ask private citizen HRC how much good the
Democratic over-vote did for her.
@Bruce Rozenblit What is exceedingly strange to me is that those who rail against socialism
completely misread socialism at it's very roots; Family. 27 Replies
Yes, because all these pundits got 2016 so right. They are people with their own opinions,
just like everyone else, except the punditry has a vested interest in maintaining the status
quo that has been so good to them for so long. Enough already! Times, you're as much to blame
as these pundits for 2016!
When progressive solutions are proposed, the opposition yells "socialism" while others bring
up the cost of progressive solutions. No one talks about the significant portion of our
nation's wealth spent on the military. We don't audit the Pentagon or do due diligence on the
efficiency of huge projects undertaken by the military nor do we question the profits of the
industrial-military complex. Meanwhile, Russia manipulated our latest presidential race,
underscoring the worry over cyber attacks. Climate events in the country mean our citizens
experience life changing events not brought on by terrorists or immigrants. A medical event
in a family can initiate bankruptcy; we all live on that edge. Our infrastructure projects
have been delayed for so long that America looks like a second rate country. Income
inequality is ongoing with no sign of lessening. Suicide is on the increase while death by
drugs is an epidemic. An education for students can mean large debt; efforts to train the
workforce for the technological world are inconsistent. For many of us, the hate and fear
promoted in this country is repulsive. Because our society works for an ever smaller number
of us, Americans are increasingly understanding that a sustainable, just society works for
all it's citizens. We are exhausted by the stalemate in Washington leaving us caring very
little about the labels of progressive, moderate, or conservative. We just know what needs to
change.
Edall's final point that thsese are Democrats returning to Democratic roots and not a wave of
radicalism. I along with a lot of other older voters was infected with a kind of gradualism.
I voted for Hilary, much now to my dismay. AOC among others is stating what she, and what
many of us want. The old Democratic party was a mirror image of Republicans, with taking the
same money, voting for the same wars, and within it all a kind of shame,liberal as a kind of
curse, where we were afraid to make our own agenda, make our own plan for America. taking the
burden, in health care, college education, immigration, is an investment in the future
The New Democratic approach in essence is taking wealth and redistributing it, along with
promising free goods and services. Is that high-minded or simply a Brave New World. The
underlying assumption seems to be the rest of America will not find that worrisome, and that
what happened in MA and NY represents a nationwide trend. 3 Replies
These voters are not moving to the left. They are correcting a trend to the right that
accelerated with Reagan: the rise of corporate dominance and societal control; the loss of
worker rights, healthcare and protections through destruction of our unions; and the mass
incarceration of our nation's young African American men for minor drug offenses, thus
destroying their futures and communities. These "left" liberals are fighting to bring back
democratic norms and values that were once taken for granted among those of all political
stripes.
I have always voted in every primary. I have always voted for the most "leftist" available.
So did my whole family, and all the people with whom I discussed our voting. The issue was
always "most leftist available." That often was not very leftist at all. That is what has
changed. Now the option is there. It isn't because we vote for it. We vote for it now because
now we can, now the choice is there. What has changed is not so much the voters as the
invisible primary before anyone asks us voters. What changed is the Overton Window of
potential choices allowed to us. I think voters would have done this a long time ago, if
they'd had the opportunity. So why now? Abject failure of our politics to solve our problems
has been true for decades, so it isn't mere failure. I'd like to think it was voter
rebellion. We just wouldn't vote for their sell outs. Here, that meant Bernie won our
primary, and then we did not turn out for Her. We finally forced it. The money men could not
get away with it anymore.
It is strange that Mr Edsall frames Medicare 4 All , Free College , and higher taxes on
wealthy as RADICAL leftist ideas .. when it fact each of these proposals have the majority of
support from Americans.. The most current poll shows 70% support for Medicare 4 All.. so you
are only radical if you DON'T support.
Unless the progressives start addressing the concerns of the middle class, they will drive
the Democratic Party right off the cliff. You remember us, don't you? People who have tried
to do things right and work hard. Granted, our cares and concerns aren't that sexy or
tweetable so it's easy for you newly elected firebrands to overlook us. Don't forget, we are
the ones who will ultimately foot the bills for your giveaways.
The notion that democrats are moving leftward is borne on revisionist history. There's
nothing new or bold being proposed; Zeitz is right on the money.
"Medicare for All, government-guaranteed jobs and a higher minimum wage" I have a question to
all the "progressive" Democratic voices in Congress - how are you going to pay for such an
agenda? Money doesn't just grow on trees. Either you will have to cut funds from another
program, or raise taxes. Most of these progressive people favor raising taxes on the wealthy.
But what is your definition of "wealthy"? $10 million in annual income? $1 million in annual
income? $500k? $200k? Almost all the proposals I have seen coming from progressives involves
increasing tax rates for families making more than $200k, either through higher rates, phased
out deductions, or ineligibility for certain programs. A professional couple where both are
software engineers could easily surpass this threshold, but they are not rich. They struggle
to pay the mortgage, save for the future, pay taxes, and provide for their children. Why
should they be forced to pay more in taxes percentage-wise than a family earning $100k or
$60k? It is for these reasons that I as an independent will never support progressive
candidates. These candidates lack basic math abilities and a basic notion of fairness. So if
the Democratic party starts to embrace some of the policies espoused by these progressives,
they are on a path to lose elections in the future. 1 Reply
@AutumnLeaf Mitch McConnell blocked Obama at every turn; he denied him the appointment of a
moderate respected Judge to the SC, a Judge the GOP had voted for on the Superior Court.
Congress wasted time with 40 attempts to declare the ACA unconstitutional; the Plan was
modeled on a Romney Plan in MA. Scalia's Citizens United Decision declared that corporations
are people; Scalia knew that he was using a Superior Ct. Decision with a transcription error:
word spoken: corporation; word transcribed: individual. Scalia spent a lot of time at
corporate lodges, "hunting"; mainly eating until he finally ate himself to death. McConnell
spends his time with mine owners. Trump spends his time with lobbyists for Israel and Saudi
Arabia. 9 Replies
I think this article underscores the incredible opportunity available to the left if they
pick a radical democratic socialist candidate. If they are already winning the college
educated crowd that is gentrifying these major urban areas and losing the poorer minority
crowd that is voting for people like the Clinton's over Sanders or Crowley over AOC; we are
getting the people whom one would think would be less incentivized to vote for our platform
and we can gain the people who would benefit more from our platform.Therefore, it is really
just a question of exposure and talking to these people. Reaching out to minorities; talking
about mass-incarceration, how it disproportinately affects precisely these minority voters
that we have to gain; and how the moderate democrats have been benefiting economically and
politically from the chaos and inequities in these communities for years. It is a question of
messaging. Minorities are our natural allies. They are disproportinately affected by the
inequality; and as soon as we can reach them; tell them that there brothers, husbands, sons
are coming home, and that we have a job for them to support their family when they do, that
is a huge % of voters that will swing our way, and accelerate the pace of our revolution--and
what critics will come to remember as the end of their decadence and control over all facets
of society, to the detriment of everyone else. The end is coming--and a new, better society
is on the verge of being reborn 1 Reply
Of all of those quoted in this article, the only one who really gets it right is Joshua
Zeitz. FDR's 1944 State of the Union address should be required reading for every Democrat,
and every Establishment talking head who warns against alienating suburban voters by
advocating for a New Deal social safety net. I share the sentiments of many on who have
responded by noting that it was, and is, the leadership of the Democratic Party that has
moved right rather than the Democratic electorate that shifted left. Don't believe me? Go
back through the sixteen years of the Clinton and Obama presidencies and see how many times
each referenced Ronald Reagan versus even mentioning Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, or
Lyndon Johnson.
Medicare for all? Get ready for 6-week waits for a 10 minute appointment (and that will be
just for primary care). After that, expect to wait 6-12 months to see a specialist. 1 Reply
@José Franco I will not dig out social security trustees' projections of future
funding requirements or the possible solutions bandied about by politicians (google them),
but one single tweak would eliminate any projected shortfalls. Currently the FICA
contribution is limited to earnings of $132,900. Those who earn over that amount pay no FICA
tax on the earnings above that level. The person earning a million dollars in 2019 will stop
paying FICA on his earnings by mid-February. Applying FICA to all earnings of all earners
would keep social security solvent. No raise in retirement age, no reduction in benefits, no
insolvency. As to Medicare's solvency and public benefits, see the excellent comments of Len
Charlap. 17 Replies
There are several issues upon which I and my like-minded moderate family members will cast
our votes in 2020: - Border security and the end to the brazen exploitation of our citizenry
by the millions of foreign migrants who illegally, and with an attitude of entitlement,
trespass into our sovereign country year after year...costing our taxpayers billions. -
Reckless proposals to increase government benefit programs that aren't affordable without
raising taxes, threatening our already stressed social security safety net. - The rise of
Antisemitism and the mendacious obsession with Israel amongst leftists within Congress, as
well as within the ranks of their constituents. Democrats will need to address these issues
to our satisfaction if they want our votes. 2 Replies
Ed, it's time to retire. If you spent time looking at the actual data, Democratic primary
voters, particularly those in overly restrictive closed primary states like New York, are
older, wealthier, "socially liberal" and "fiscally conservative." They are what we would have
called moderate/Rockefeller Republicans 40 years ago, but they vote Democratic because that's
who their parents voted for. Most progressive voters today, the ones who support Medicare for
all, investment in public higher education, taxation on wealth (you know, those pesky issues
that mainstream Democrats used to support 30-40 years ago) are younger and more likely to be
unaffiliated with any political party. This is why Bernie did much better in states with open
primaries, and Hillary did better in closed primary states like NY AOC won in spite of NY's
restrictive primary system. She was able to achieve this because many of the older Democratic
establishment voters who would have voted for Crowley stayed home, and she was able to
motivate enough first-time young voters in her district to register as a Dem and vote for
her. (First time voters in NY can register with party 30 days prior to primary election)
Let's be clear though: your premise that Dem primary voters are driving the party's shift to
the left couldn't be further from the truth--the progressive shift in the body politic you
describe is coming from younger, independent, working class voters and is redefining the
American left.
From the NYT , Edsall April 19, 2018 The Democrats' Gentrification Problem "Conversely, in
the struggling Syracuse metropolitan area (Clinton 53.9 percent, Trump 40.1 percent),
families moving in between 2005 and 2016 had median household incomes of $35,219 -- $7,229
less than the median income of the families moving out of the region, $42,448." Syracuse, a
democratic City in one of the most democratic States in the US, so assuredly democratic that
Democratic Presidential candidates rarely show up has been left by the Democrats and the
Democratic Governor ,Cuomo, in a death spiral of getting poorer by the day That in a State,
that includes NYC, the international capital of the global billionaire elite. Exactly, what
have the Democrats done to help ?
"Sawhill argues that if the goal of Democrats is victory, as opposed to ideological purity,
they must focus on general election swing voters who are not die-hard Democrats." Wow, what
an original argument! I have been hearing the exact same thing since I registered to vote at
age 18 in 1977. Democrats are always urged to support the "sensible, centrist" candidates who
keep on losing elections to Republicans who drag their party, and the whole country by
default, even further to the right. JFK was called a communist and worse by pundits like this
and he would have won by a landslide in 1964. How about if Democrats for once push for
policies that are backed by 90 percent of Americans, like Medicare For All, the higher
minimum wage, universal college education, renewable energy and the rest of the Green New
Deal and higher marginal tax rates for the rich. I would love to see just one presidential
candidate run on this platform before I die so I can fill out my ballot without holding my
nose. 1 Reply
Kind of make sense considering how far to the right the Republican Party has gone with the
Donald. And he's a guy who was a Democrat at one point. He's a dangerous mr nobody. Let's
counter going far to the left so we can come back to some middle ground.
@Len Charlap Canada can also more easily afford universal healthcare and a stronger social
safety net because it doesn't have the outsized military budget that we do. 17 Replies
@Ronny I agree with you - have a subsidized education - (rather I prefer to say equal access
to education) as well as health care guarantees to a greater extent equality of opportunity -
which is what all democratic societies should strive for. It's not equality of outcome but
equality of opportunity. Children should not be punished for have parents of lesser means or
being born on the wrong side of the tracks...
Until I see well-crafted legislation that is initiated by her that will help improve the
lives of many she's just another politician with sound bite platitudes. She doesn't even have
a district office in the Bronx yet to the chagrin of many of the constituents.
@Midwest Josh Perhaps student loans made by the FED at the rates they charge the big banks in
their heist of the American economy achieved back in 1913. 38 Replies
AOC is a liberal darling who's stated (on 60 Minutes) that unemployment rates are low because
everyone is working two jobs; I might add, that has nothing to do with how unemployment rates
are figured and come on, "everyone?" And recently she's stated that the world will end in 12
years if we don't do something about climate change. Come on, this is silliness, ignorance
and borderline stupidity. If she's the poster child for the Democrats, then she's the gift
that will keep on giving to the GOP.
I grew up during the Vietnam War, and over the years came to admire the American people who
ultimately forced their government to withdraw from an immoral (and disastrous) military
adventure. This is rare in human history. Rare in American history too, as the follies in
Iraq drag on and on to remind us. Perhaps the American people are becoming themselves again.
I wouldn't call it drifting left at all.
Thomas Edsall's column is yet another conservative spin on Democrats from The New York Times.
Where are the voices of progressive Democrats, who form the overwhelming majority of New York
City residents? Of New York state residents? Who form the core of the Democratic Party's
support. The Times insists that these conservative voices are the only ones deserving of
publication here. Where in the world did the notion come from that The Times was a "liberal"
publication?
@Chris Young, It seems you aonly approve of departments that teach what you consider
"productive." If schools become an adjuct to the marketplace, then only the material,
quantifiable results will be the metric by which the value of education is measured. This
will leave us, as in some ways we are already becoming, a population that emulates robots,
and has no use for critical thinking, ethics, or art. The profit in education is in the
quality of the students it turns out into the world, not on a corporate balance sheet. 38
Replies
It's all good but important to expand the focus on the entirety of the Democrats in Congress
- and the amazing age range and gender mix. The opportunities are vast - an intergenerational
government of forward thinking, principled women and men. Please media pundits - avoid focus
on only 1 or 2. There are brilliant ideas pouring forth - let the ideas from every corner
flow! Remember that the intense media focus on Trump, liberal as well as conservative,
contributed significantly to what happened in election 2016.
If by liberal you mean the circular firing squad of the politics of aggrievement, no. My
politics fall in line with FDR's Second Bill of Rights. Here he describes them in 1944
https://youtu.be/3EZ5bx9AyI4
"...true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security & independence.
"Necessitous men are not free men." People who are hungry & out of a job are the stuff of
which dictatorships are made... We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under
which a new basis of security & prosperity can be established for all -- regardless of
station, race, or creed. Among these are: The right to a useful and remunerative job...; The
right to earn enough to provide adequate food & clothing & recreation; The right of
every farmer to raise & sell his products at a return which will give him & his
family a decent living; The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an
atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition & domination by monopolies at home or
abroad; The right of every family to a decent home; The right to adequate medical care &
the opportunity to achieve & enjoy good health; The right to adequate protection from the
economic fears of old age, sickness, accident & unemployment; The right to a good
education." That is where Democrats used to be. Then came the Corporate Democrats, the DLC
and the Clintons.
This piece misses more than it hits. Where it misses particularly is in it's insistence that
the Class interest of working class Democrats pulls the Party right, rather than left, and
that the insurgents are mostly young, white gentrifying liberals. This is not altogether
false, but misses that many of the gentrifiers are not middle class themselves, but lower
middle class young people with huge college debt who could never dream of living in upper
middle class enclaves like most of the opinion writers in the Time for example. So they move
into the inner city, make it safe for professionals, and then yes, Brooklyn goes white.
Harlem goes white. Berkeley loses its working class majority. Etc. The big problem for the
left of the Democratic Party is not that its mostly young, white and middle class; it is that
the very term "liberal" is now widely understood by working class people as meaning
"establishment." And they are against the "establishment". As it happens, so are the young
insurgents. This then is the task for the left of the Democrats; to unite the culturally
conservative working class with the emerging multi-racial, multi-ethnic youth vote to take
down both the reactionary Right and the Liberal establishment. And the only reason such a
sentiment seems crazy is that the New York Times, far from being a bastion of the resistance
to Trump is actually a bulwark of that Liberal Establishment. Stats are stats but the future
is unwritten.
AOC is pretty interesting. She's charismatic, fearless....and I'm trying to think of
something else. OH, she's personally attractive. If the government gig falls apart she can
probably get TV work. But as an intellectual light or a rational political leader -- she is
clearly lacking. OF course that may not matter as the earth will come to an end in 12 years.
Which is even more ludicrous than saying the earth is only 6000 years old. She is simply
spouting far left talking points which are driven by emotion, not rational thought. And she
keeps making unforced errors in her public speaking engagements. She really doesn't appear to
understand what she's talking about and can't respond to reasonable questions about her
policy positions. But then, that's not too unlike much of the left. So maybe she's a perfect
fit for a fact free faction which is beginning to run the dem party. 1 Reply
One commenter gave a really insightful look at socialism for corporations and the rich here,
otherwise known to most of us as corporate welfare, including subsidies to oil companies, who
seem rich enough, but nevertheless, extend their "impoverished" bank accounts for more of our
dollars. Successful corporations, will reward investors, CEO's, hedge fund managers, all
those at the top, but the worker, not too much for that drone, who was part of the reason of
the success of that corporation. Socialism has been tainted by countries with autocratic
rulers , uneducated masses, and ofttimes, as in Latin America, religious masses. But,
Scandinavia, has shown us a socialism to envy. It's confident citizens know that much of what
makes life livable has been achieved. Finland rates as one of the happiest countries in the
world. Taxes are high, but one isn't bankrupted because of illness, one doesn't lose a home
because of a catastrophic illness, education is encouraged, and one doesn't have to pay the
debt off for 30 years or more. The infrastructure is a priority, war is not. It just seems
like it's a secure way to live. This is socialism I wish we could duplicate. Does anyone
consider that socialism also includes our police, libraries, fire stations, roads, and so
much more? Used for the good of society, it's a boon for all, rather than unregulated
capitalism which enriches the few at the expense of most of us. 3 Replies
@Reilly Diefenbach "Democratic socialism" isn't a thing, but implies two contradictory
ideals. Social democracy is thing, a good thing, and in line with what Nordic nations have.
38 Replies
Never has someone gotta so much for doing so little. None of this means anything if it
doesn't become law. As a life long Liberal Democrat (there, I said it) myself, I find it
infuriating when Liberal/Progressive politicians get out-sized credit for their good
intentions while those same good intentions threaten party unity. The Progressive idea of
party unity seems to be limited to getting what they want or they'll walk away. They just
know better, so there's no need for compromise. Never mind that they have no way of enacting
any of this legislation -- and more often than not Progressives lose at the polls. These
"kids" need to wake up and realize that there are no moral victories in politics. The ONLY
goal of any Democrat has to be unseating Trump and McConnell, everything else is a noise, and
a dangerous distraction.
I support universal health care, free college for students who meet enhanced entrance
requirements and raising marginal tax rates to 70% on wealthy Americans. Yet I do not support
an expansion of the EITC, ending immigration enforcement or putting workers on boards of
directors. So where do I stand? All my life I've voted Democratic. But there has been a
seismic shift in politics. And after the shift I will most likely vote Republican or for a
third party. The issue that causes my change in affiliation is the Me Too movement. I find it
repugnant that feminists seem to argue that the media rather than the courts should determine
guilt or innocence in sexual assault cases. Bill Cosby had an agreement with Andrea Constand
in their case. But feminists weren't happy with the outcome. So they resorted to extra-legal
means to get Cosby convicted. This included a media campaign in which the NY Times and the
New Yorker wrote stories highlighting accusations of 60 women for which statutes of
limitations had elapsed. But statutes of limitations are there for a reason. This became
clear in the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh which degenerated into a trial for rape. Nobody
except maybe the accuser could remember in any detail events at the party in which the rape
had presumably occurred. So the confirmation became one of character assassination in which
Kavanaugh was convicted of drinking beer. I will NEVER vote for any politician who supports
the Me Too movement.
"... protection from the vicissitudes of market capitalism"? People want protection from
monopoly capitalism. The left-right frame is a fallacy. If you put the actual policies on the
table, the great majority want single payer, clean elections, action on climate change, etc.
Pitting Left v. Right only redounds to tribalism. It ends up with a President who shuts down
the business of which he himself is the CEO. That's not great.
"... "The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity," Carlson told his audience. "Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence. Above all, deep relationships with other people." ..."
"... Our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even bother to understand our problems. ..."
"... The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy. Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined. Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies possible. ..."
"... You'd think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of native-born Americans who are slipping behind. ..."
"... The project of fashioning an ethnoreligious American identity has always been in conflict with a dominant and defining American impulse: to get rich. The United States has always been a distinctly commercial republic with expansionary, imperial impulses. ..."
"... rapid cultural change can make a truly common national identity hard to come by, if not impossible. It's not clear to me how important it is to have one. But it does seem that a badly bifurcated cultural self-understanding can have very dramatic and potentially dangerous political consequences. David Cameron imperiled the integrity of the entire European Union by fundamentally misunderstanding the facts about the evolution of British national identity and putting it up for a vote. Donald Trump, you may have noticed, has called for a referendum on American national identity, and he's getting one. ..."
"... Worker solidarity has been on the downturn for many years. In many businesses & industries through the 1960s the possibility existed to be hired without a college degree or advanced training & to rise in responsibility & income through on the job training or by attending night school. ..."
"... What ideas does he have for addressing the negative consequences of capitalism? If not regulation or a functioning welfare state, then what? ..."
"... Condemning the ruling class and then directing all the anger at immigrants, the poor, and minorities is an old political tool. Carlson argues our problems are caused by the most powerless and poorest among us. The richest and most powerful are simply criticized for letting it happen, not designing and ruling the system. ..."
His populist
attacks on the priorities of the "ruling class" have
set off a maelstrom.
Competing notions
of American national identity are coming to
dominate American politics.
On Jan. 2, a
searing
Tucker Carlson monologue
on Fox News
resonated across every corner of the
conservative movement.
"The goal for
America is both simpler and more elusive than
mere prosperity," Carlson told his audience.
"Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other
people."
Our leaders
don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who
feel no long-term obligation to the people
they rule. They're day traders. Substitute
teachers. They're just passing through. They
have no skin in this game, and it shows.
They can't solve our problems. They don't
even bother to understand our problems.
The idea that
families are being crushed by market forces
seems never to occur to them. They refuse to
consider it. Questioning markets feels like
apostasy. Both sides miss the obvious point:
Culture and economics are inseparably
intertwined. Certain economic systems allow
families to thrive. Thriving families make
market economies possible.
Carlson pointed
specifically to problems faced by rural white
America, the crucial base of Republican voters:
"Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male
unemployment. A terrifying drug epidemic." How,
Carlson asked, "did this happen?"
You'd think
our ruling class would be interested in
knowing the answer. But mostly they're not.
They don't have to be interested. It's
easier to import foreign labor to take the
place of native-born Americans who are
slipping behind.
Despite this
failing of conservatism, Carlson contended that
only the Republican Party can lead the country
back to salvation:
There's no
option at this point. But first, Republican
leaders will have to acknowledge that market
capitalism is not a religion. Market
capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a
toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship
it. Our system was created by human beings
for the benefit of human beings. We do not
exist to serve markets. Just the opposite.
Any economic system that weakens and
destroys families is not worth having. A
system like that is the enemy of a healthy
society.
... ... ...
In addition to
Carlson, one of the
most engaged critics
of the Republican
establishment is
Oren Cass
, a
senior fellow at the
Manhattan Institute
and the author of "
The
Once and Future
Worker
."
In his book, Cass
faults both parties,
but his condemnation
of the Democratic
Party is far harsher
than his critique of
the Republican
Party:
Republicans have
generally
trusted that
free markets
will benefit all
participants,
prized the
higher output
associated with
an 'efficient'
outcome, and
expressed
skepticism that
political actors
could identify
and pursue
better outcomes,
even if any
existed. Their
labor-market
policy could
best be
described as one
of benign
neglect.
Democrats, in
contrast,
can sound
committed to a
more
worker-centric
model of growth,
but rather than
trusting the
market too much,
they trample it.
The party's
actual agenda
centers on the
interests
advanced by its
coalition of
labor unions,
environmentalists,
and identity
groups. Its
policies rely on
an expectation
that government
mandates and
programs will
deliver what the
market does not.
This agenda
inserts
countless
regulatory
wedges that aim
to improve the
conditions of
employment but
in the process
raise its cost,
driving apart
the players that
the market is
attempting to
connect.
In a
Salon review
of "The Once and Future
Worker,"
Samuel Hammond
, director of welfare policy
at the libertarian Niskanen Center -- a
Washington a think tank I
described
last week -- writes:
Indeed, far
from the usual conservative manifesto, 'The
Once and Future Worker,' is a scathing
critique of globalization, open immigration,
and the commoditization of labor -- forces
which Cass believes have ransacked working
class fortunes across three decades of
neoliberal hegemony.
Cass is eager to
place himself at the disposal of both parties.
He was one of 13 ideologically ambidextrous
authors of a joint Brookings-American Enterprise
Institute report, "
Work,
Skills, Community: Restoring Opportunity for the
Working Class
." The November 2018 study
pointed to areas of concord between segments of
the right and the left.
The 13 authors
found common ground on a set of proposals that
call for both more spending and tougher work
requirements. These proposals include expanding
the earned-income tax credit to cover childless
workers, including experimenting with a new wage
subsidy; getting recipients of government
subsidies back to work, including beneficiaries
of means-tested government programs; and
enlarging eligibility for the child and
dependent care tax credit.
While it is
possible, in theory, that Carlson and Cass could
support Democratic candidates, they sharply
disagree with the Democratic Party on the highly
salient issue of immigration.
The United
States should limit increases in its supply
of unskilled immigrant labor. This new
approach would require first and foremost
that criteria for allowing entrance into the
country emphasize education level --
attainment of a college degree, in
particular.
In the case of
undocumented immigrants, Cass's policy would be
to "require unskilled illegal immigrants to
leave."
Carlson is more
extreme. On Dec. 4, Carlson
told viewers
that "a
new analysis of census
data shows that
sixty-three percent of noncitizens in the U.S.
receive some kind of welfare benefits," before
adding:
Every night,
hundreds of thousands of our citizens,
Americans, sleep outdoors on the street,
they're homeless. The country's middle class
is shrinking and dying younger. The third
year in a row. Again, these are American
citizens. Some of them probably think they
should have first dibs on help from the
government, but they're not getting it.
Later that month,
Carlson escalated his claim that immigration was
too costly for Americans:
It's
indefensible, so nobody even tries to defend
it. Instead, our leaders demand that you
shut up and accept this. We have a moral
obligation to admit the world's poor, they
tell us, even if it makes our own country
poor and dirtier and more divided.
... ... ...
In addition to
the discrete conservative factions Cass and
Carlson represent, there is another dissident
wing of conservatism, represented by the
Niskanen Center
, which attempts to
appeal
to
moderates and centrists
of both parties.
"Working within
the broad and diverse intellectual tradition of
liberalism, we are fashioning a new synthesis
that closes the rift within that tradition that
emerged over the question of socialism,"
Brink Lindsey
, the center's vice president
for policy, wrote
in an essay
seeking to explain the broad
goals of the organization.
Lindsey, in
contrast to Cass, is far more critical of the
contemporary right than of the left.
Over the
course of the 21st century, the conservative
movement, and with it the Republican Party,
has fallen ever more deeply under the sway
of an illiberal and nihilistic populism --
illiberal in its crude exploitation of
religious, racial, and cultural divisions;
nihilistic in its blithe indifference to
governance and the established norms and
institutions of representative
self-government. This malignant development
made possible the nomination and election of
Donald Trump, whose two years in power have
only accelerated conservatism's and the
GOP's descent into the intellectual and
moral gutter.
Despite his
severe view of the Republican Party, Lindsey
contends that the goal of the Niskanen think
tank is the "reimagining of the center-right":
It is our
goal to make the case for a principled
center-right in American politics today that
is distinctly different from either movement
conservatism or its degenerate, populist
offshoot.
One question, of
course is, what kind of policy options a
center-right think tank can offer to disaffected
voters on matters involving race and
immigration, subjects that help drive the very
polarization they regret.
One of Tucker
Carlson's own primary concerns is immigration --
and, as a likely subtext, race.
Carlson argues
that capitalism is "not a religion but a tool
like a toaster or staple gun." He is focusing
attention, in fact, on the
godless capitalism
that Will Wilkinson of
the Niskanen Center, described in "How
Godless
Capitalism Made America
Multicultural" -- a problem that Wilkinson
correctly points out affects "all wealthy,
liberal-democratic countries."
Wilkinson
explains:
The project
of fashioning an ethnoreligious American
identity has always been in conflict with a
dominant and defining American impulse: to
get rich. The United States has always been
a distinctly commercial republic with
expansionary, imperial impulses. High demand
for workers and settlers led early on to a
variegated population that encouraged the
idea, largely traceable to Tom Paine, that
American national identity is civic and
ideological rather than racial and ethnic.
Contemporary
political polarization reflects the
intensification of the endless struggle to
integrate America and, more recently, to
assimilate millions of newcomers, some legal,
some not.
Wilkinson
addresses this conundrum:
Assimilation
is an issue not because it isn't happening,
but because it is. The issue is that the
post-1968 immigrants and their progeny are
here at all. And their successful
assimilation means that American culture,
and American national identity, has already
been updated and transformed.
This process can
be very hard for some people, especially white
voters over 50 (a strong Trump constituency) to
accept:
Swift and
dramatic cultural changes can leave us with
the baffled feeling that the soil in which
we laid down roots has somehow become
foreign. Older people who have largely lost
the capacity to easily assimilate to a new
culture can feel that the rug has been
pulled out from under them.
The result,
according to Wilkinson, to whom I will give the
last word, is that
rapid
cultural change can make a truly common
national identity hard to come by, if not
impossible. It's not clear to me
how
important it is to have one. But it does
seem that a badly bifurcated cultural
self-understanding can have very dramatic
and potentially dangerous political
consequences. David Cameron imperiled the
integrity of the entire European Union by
fundamentally misunderstanding the facts
about the evolution of British national
identity and putting it up for a vote.
Donald Trump, you may have noticed, has
called for a referendum on American national
identity, and he's getting one.
Worker solidarity has
been on the downturn for
many years. In many
businesses & industries
through the 1960s the
possibility existed to
be hired without a
college degree or
advanced training & to
rise in responsibility &
income through on the
job training or by
attending night school.
It was not uncommon for
department heads to have
started at the bottom.
The acceleration of
disparity & the
breakdown in employee
cooperation happened
during the yuppie
explosion beginning in
the Reagan era.
Disparagement of those
in the rank & file by
phalanxes of greedy,
arrogant Geckos, always
present previously, but
now greatly expanded,
led to dissolution of an
egalitarian structure
based on strong labor
unions. Today with
outsourcing, automation
& largely unrestricted
immigration leading a
race to the economic
bottom, the service
sector will be the only
place for millions of
Americans. With every
passing year, however,
memories will cease of
better times & the young
will have no reference
other than the
historical record of
another way.
Carlson is absolutely
right about capitalism.
But his rejection of
liberal ideas is just a
way to pivot the focus
onto his usual
xenophobia. What ideas
does he have for
addressing the negative
consequences of
capitalism? If not
regulation or a
functioning welfare
state, then what? All
he's doing is setting up
an argument for
intensifying an
anti-immigrant ethos
that inevitably turns
its crosshairs on the
usual domestic
scapegoats. If he has no
ideas except to insist
Democrats can't be
trusted, then he's just
going to reignite the
old racism. I agree with
him on capitalism but I
am not buying what he's
selling.
Corporate America has
spent millions warning
people against the evils
of socialism and 'big
brother government'.
Their goal is for the
citizens to remove the
shackles of the above
mentioned suppressors of
human dignity and
initiatives. Accept,
instead, the caring,
benevolent dictates of
corporate rule. They,
and only they, know what
is good for you.
Condemning the ruling
class and then directing
all the anger at
immigrants, the poor,
and minorities is an old
political tool. Carlson
argues our problems are
caused by the most
powerless and poorest
among us. The richest
and most powerful are
simply criticized for
letting it happen, not
designing and ruling the
system.
Carlson's
solution to inequality
and powerlessness is to
let poor whites become
farm workers, maids, and
hotel service workers.
He wants people to fight
over welfare crumbs
rather than
reestablishing a healthy
social safety net.
Blaming the rich while
attacking the poor and
minorities is how
fascism came to power.
Looks like Bolton is dyed-in-the-wool imperialist. He believes the United States can do what wants without regard to
international law, treaties or the роlitical commitments of previous administrations.
Notable quotes:
"... Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean ..."
...Zionists know what they want, are willing to work together towards their goals, and put their money where their mouth
is. In contrast, for a few pennies the goyim will renounce any principle they pretend to cherish, and go on happily proclaiming
the opposite even if a short while down the road it'll get their own children killed.
The real sad part about this notion of the goy as a mere beast in human form is maybe not that it got codified for eternity
in the Talmud, but rather that there may be some truth to it? Another way of saying this is raising the question whether the goyim
deserve better, given what we see around us.
Israel is an Anglo American aircraft carrier to control the Eastern Mediterranean and prevent a Turko Egyptian and possibly Persian
invasion of Greece & the West
Tucker ,,,, you are kind of restoring what little faith i had left of the mainstream press
with this upload its not mutch and it has a long long way to go , but it is a start thank the
guy in the sky
I just upvoted a Tucker Carlson video. I am baffled. BTW, Jimmy Dore said TC's more
deserving of a Noble peace prize then Obama, who, of course, never should have had one in the
first place. They should be able to take them back, though it means that most of them should
be returned.
I just upvoted a Tucker Carlson video. I am baffled. BTW, Jimmy Dore said TC's more
deserving of a Noble peace prize then Obama, who, of course, never should have had one in the
first place. They should be able to take them back, though it means that most of them should
be returned.
Tucker i disagreed with u in past on many things but i genuinely am impressed with your
stance and your moral compass on wars and learning from the past.. kudos to u on this
one...it shows we can disagree on many policies yet still respect and support one another on
humanity. Glad u worked on Trump on that one.
Tucker! You are a hero of the American Conservative movement. Perhaps the President saw
your show when he cancelled those attacks. You need to target the snakes around Trump:
Bolton, Pompeo and CIA Gina.
On the surface, it appears the dying empire must finally grab everything, no matter how
historically untouchable, in last ditch claim on total power.
Of course this is bad on every level, it's immoral, unethical, illegal, doomed to fail,
and doomed to hasten failure of the entire enterprise.
I'm dreaming here, but the best plan is to fade slowly into the night and put on the make
up tomorrow.
But anyway, the fully doomed and immoral path has a bright side for the MIC--it's a lock
on anyone who would try to shut it down. We will continue to do stupid things so we must
continue to do stupid things.
That does not change the fact that Trump foreign policy is a continuation of Obama fogirn policy. It is neocon forign policy directed
on "full spectrum dominance". Trump just added to this bulling to the mix.
Notable quotes:
"... When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter because I want both sides." ..."
"... I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now. ..."
"... Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House. ..."
"... Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition." ..."
"... Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population. ..."
In a stunningly frank moment during a Sunday
Meet the Press interview focused on President Trump's decision-making on Iran, especially last week's "brink of war" moment which
saw Trump draw down readied military forces in what he said was a "common sense" move, the commander in chief threw his own national
security advisor under the bus in spectacular fashion .
Though it's not Trump's first tongue-in-cheek denigration of Bolton's notorious hawkishness, it's certainly the most brutal and
blunt take down yet, and frankly just plain enjoyable to watch. When host Chuck Todd asked the president if he was "being pushed
into military action against Iran" by his advisers in what was clearly a question focused on Bolton first and foremost, Trump responded:
"John Bolton is absolutely a hawk. If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
Trump began by explaining, "I have two groups of people. I have doves and I have hawks," before leading into this sure to be classic
line that is one for the history books: "If it was up to him he'd take on the whole world at one time, okay?"
During this section of comments focused on US policy in the Middle East, the president reiterated his preference that he hear
from "both sides" on an issue, but that he was ultimately the one making the decisions.
When pressed on the dangers of having such an uber-hawk neo-conservative who remains an unapologetic cheerleader of the 2003 Iraq
War, and who laid the ground work for it as a member of Bush's National Security Council, Trump followed with, "That doesn't matter
because I want both sides."
And in another clear indicator that Trump wants to stay true to his non-interventionist instincts voiced on the 2016 campaign
trail, he explained to Todd that:
I was against going into Iraq... I was against going into the Middle East . Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle
East right now.
It was the second time this weekend that Trump was forced to defend his choice of Bolton as the nation's most influential foreign
policy thinker and adviser. When peppered with questions at the White House Saturday following Thursday night's dramatic "almost
war" with Iran, Trump said that he "disagrees" with Bolton "very much" but that ultimately he's "doing a very good job".
Bolton has never kept his career-long goal of seeing regime change in Tehran a secret - repeating his position publicly every
chance he got, especially in the years prior to tenure at the Trump White House.
But Bolton hasn't had a good past week: not only had Trump on Thursday night shut the door on Bolton's dream of overseeing a major
US military strike on Iran, but he's been pummeled in the media.
Even a Fox prime time show (who else but Tucker of course) colorfully described him as a "bureaucratic tapeworm" which periodically
reemerges to cause pain and suffering.
It's great that the biggest war mongers are the ones that not only never served but in the case of Bolton, purposely avoided
serving. They should send that ****** to Iran so we can see just how supportive he is when he's actually in danger.
This guy is a worthless piece of **** and Trump's an idiot for hiring him.
Being a cheerleader for the Iraq war is as ridiculous as that ******* mustache. He's just letting neocons have a front row
seat to power. That's how he's keeping them from jumping ship to become democrats. They have no principles. They're just power
worshippers.
Do ya all remember when Trump took office? Losers use military strategy that is overwhelming bombardment b4 land attack. I
thought that Donnie can not survive this pressure. Looks like now he is riding horse with banner in hands. Thumb up, MJT
I was against going into the Middle East...$7 Trillion? So why is Jared trying to give away $50 Billion more? People thought
they voted for MAGA, but they got Jared...MMEGA.
How about MJANYA?...Make Jared a New Yorker Again. Send Jared and Ivanka back to New York before it's $10 Trillion.
Bolton! So much winning! And there's also Perry: Rick Perry, Trump's energy secretary, was flagged for describing Trumpism
as a "toxic mix of demagoguery, mean-spiritedness, and nonsense that will lead the Republican Party to perdition."
Trump "unleashes"? For those who think, he also said Bolton is doing a good job. Crap headline. I think Solomon said, "In a
multitude of counselors there is victory".
What kind of unprofessional dingus talks openly about employee issues? That's not how you run a organization. That's how you
run a reality television show.
Sides? I could hire Hobo Joe, the bum that huffs paint and drinks scotch out of plastic bottle while yelling at traffic by
the intersection, as my advisor. He'd probably tell me to do some whacky stuff. But why would I do that?
There is no side to hear. Bomb everyone. That is John Bolton's side. It isn't worth hearing. The man shouldn't be drawing a
paycheck. He shouldn't be drawing breath. He should be pushing up daisies. He the same as ISIS.
Reading is fundamental....and certainly not needed to spout opinions. In fact, reading, combined with critical thinking, logic
and reason, just gets in the way of forming opinions. Or should I say "repeating" other's opinions.
"Chuck we've spent 7 trillion dollars in the Middle East right now."....Yes, just like your *** bosses wanted and needed and
you dumb ******* sheep still think voting matters.
Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton was one of the architects of the Iraq War under George W. Bush, and now he's
itching to start a war with Iran -- an even bigger country with almost three times the population.
Democrats in Congress have the power to pull us back from the brink , but they need to act now. Once bombs start falling and
troops are on the ground, there will be massive political pressure to rally around the flag.
Working paper suggests "Late Capitalism" (i.e. neoliberalism + austerity + outsourcing
essential public services) is less efficient than the Soviet centralized system:
Stiglitz does not explain us what forces can bring this so called "progressive capitalism". So far I not see social forces
that can enact it.
Why financial oligarchy that is the ruling class under the neoliberalism relinquish the power voluntarily, without a fight?
After all they control the state and counterattack any changes: look at color revolution (aka Russiagate) launched against Trump,
who represent adherents of a different flavor of neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism entered zombie stage as ideology was discredited in 2008, but there is not still a viable alternative to it. Trump
is promoting "national neoliberalism" -- neoliberalism without globalization and with trade wars between rival economic blocks.
It might be worse then classic neoliberalism for common people.
Notable quotes:
"... By contrast, the third camp advocates what I call progressive capitalism , which prescribes a radically different economic agenda, based on four priorities. The first is to restore the balance between markets, the state and civil society. Slow economic growth, rising inequality, financial instability and environmental degradation are problems born of the market, and thus cannot and will not be overcome by the market on its own. Governments have a duty to limit and shape markets through environmental, health, occupational safety and other types of regulation. It is also the government's job to do what the market cannot or will not do, such as actively investing in basic research, technology, education and the health of its constituents. ..."
"... The rise in corporate market power, combined with the decline in workers' bargaining power, goes a long way toward explaining why inequality is so high and growth so tepid. Unless government takes a more active role than neoliberalism prescribes, these problems will likely become much worse, owing to advances in robotisation and artificial intelligence. ..."
"... There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism. But a comprehensive agenda along the lines sketched above absolutely can. Much will depend on whether reformers are as resolute in combating problems like excessive market power and inequality as the private sector is in creating them. ..."
"... This agenda is eminently affordable; in fact, we cannot afford not to enact it. The alternatives offered by nationalists and neoliberals would guarantee more stagnation, inequality, environmental degradation and political acrimony, potentially leading to outcomes we do not even want to imagine. ..."
"... Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron. Rather, it is the most viable and vibrant alternative to an ideology that has clearly failed. As such, it represents the best chance we have of escaping our current economic and political malaise. ..."
Bill Clinton and Tony Blair represented neoliberalism with a human face but remained beholden to an expired ideology. Photograph:
Mark Lennihan/AP W hat kind of economic system is most conducive to human wellbeing? That question has come to define the current
era, because, after 40 years of neoliberalism in the United States and other advanced economies, we know what doesn't work.
The neoliberal experiment – lower taxes on the rich, deregulation of labour and product markets, financialisation, and globalisation
– has been a spectacular failure. Growth is lower than it was in the quarter-century after the second world war, and most of it has
accrued to the very top of the income scale. After decades of
stagnant or even falling incomes for those below them, neoliberalism must be pronounced dead and buried.
Vying to succeed it are at least three major political alternatives: far-right nationalism, centre-left reformism and the progressive
left (with the centre-right representing the neoliberal failure). And yet, with the exception of the progressive left, these alternatives
remain beholden to some form of the ideology that has (or should have) expired.
The centre-left, for example, represents neoliberalism with a human face. Its goal is to bring the policies of former US president
Bill Clinton and former British prime minister Tony
Blair into the 21st century, making only slight revisions to the prevailing modes of financialisation and globalisation.
Meanwhile, the nationalist right disowns globalisation, blaming migrants and foreigners for all of today's problems. Yet as Donald
Trump's presidency has shown, it is no less committed – at least in its American variant – to tax cuts for the rich, deregulation
and shrinking or eliminating social programmes.
By contrast, the third camp advocates what I call
progressive
capitalism , which prescribes a radically different economic agenda, based on four priorities. The first is to restore the balance
between markets, the state and civil society. Slow economic growth, rising inequality, financial instability and environmental degradation
are problems born of the market, and thus cannot and will not be overcome by the market on its own. Governments have a duty to limit
and shape markets through environmental, health, occupational safety and other types of regulation. It is also the government's job
to do what the market cannot or will not do, such as actively investing in basic research, technology, education and the health of
its constituents.
The second priority is to recognise that the "wealth of nations" is the result of
scientific inquiry – learning about the world around us – and social organisation that allows large groups of people to work
together for the common good. Markets still have a crucial role to play in facilitating social cooperation, but they serve this purpose
only if they are governed by the rule of law and subject to democratic checks. Otherwise, individuals can get rich by exploiting
others, extracting wealth through rent-seeking rather than creating wealth through genuine ingenuity. Many of today's wealthy took
the exploitation route to get where they are. They have been well served by Trump's policies, which have encouraged rent-seeking
while destroying the underlying sources of wealth creation. Progressive capitalism seeks to do precisely the opposite.
There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism
This brings us to the third priority: addressing the growing problem of concentrated
market power . By exploiting information advantages, buying up potential competitors and creating entry barriers, dominant firms
are able to engage in large-scale rent-seeking to the detriment of everyone else. The rise in corporate market power, combined with
the decline in workers' bargaining power, goes a long way toward explaining why inequality is so high and growth so tepid. Unless
government takes a more active role than neoliberalism prescribes, these problems will likely become much worse, owing to advances
in robotisation and artificial intelligence.
The fourth key item on the progressive agenda is to sever the link between economic power and political influence. Economic power
and political influence are mutually reinforcing and self-perpetuating, especially where, as in the US, wealthy individuals and corporations
may spend without limit in elections. As the US moves ever closer to a fundamentally undemocratic system of "one dollar, one vote",
the system of checks and balances so necessary for democracy likely cannot hold: nothing will be able to constrain the power of the
wealthy. This is not just a moral and political problem: economies with less inequality actually
perform better .
Progressive-capitalist reforms thus have to begin by curtailing the influence of money in politics and reducing wealth inequality.
There is no magic bullet that can reverse the damage done by decades of neoliberalism. But a comprehensive agenda along the
lines sketched above absolutely can. Much will depend on whether reformers are as resolute in combating problems like excessive market
power and inequality as the private sector is in creating them.
A comprehensive agenda must focus on education, research and the other true sources of wealth. It must protect the environment
and fight climate change with the same vigilance as the Green New Dealers in the US and Extinction Rebellion in the United Kingdom.
And it must provide public programmes to ensure that no citizen is denied the basic requisites of a decent life. These include economic
security, access to work and a living wage, health care and adequate housing, a secure retirement, and a quality education for one's
children.
This agenda is eminently affordable; in fact, we cannot afford not to enact it. The alternatives offered by nationalists and neoliberals
would guarantee more stagnation, inequality, environmental degradation and political acrimony, potentially leading to outcomes we
do not even want to imagine.
Progressive capitalism is not an oxymoron. Rather, it is the most viable and vibrant alternative to an ideology that has clearly
failed. As such, it represents the best chance we have of escaping our current economic and political malaise.
Joseph E Stiglitz is a Nobel
laureate in economics, university professor at Columbia University and chief economist at the Roosevelt Institute.
Project Syndicate
"... Republicanism and true Christianity are mutually exclusive. There is nothing for them to quote. Sharing your wealth? Giving to the poor? Egalitarianism? Loving your neighbour? The Good Samaritan? ..."
"... Best to pretend that Christianity is about extreme right wing economic policy (and fascist social mores), even though it is the opposite. ..."
"... And Tea Partiers like Ayn Rand? The most anti-Christian and anti-American lunatic you can find? The corporate agenda and Wall Street interests trump everything else. No news there. ..."
"... A lot of these people describe themselves as Christian, makes you wonder which part of Jesus' message they loved more, the part that said the poor should rot without help, or the part where he said violence was justified and the chasing of wealth is to be lauded. ..."
It never stops to amaze me how the American Republican Right claims to be Christian. Have you
noticed that they NEVER quote the words of Jesus Christ? I don't blame them,
Republicanism and true Christianity are mutually exclusive. There is nothing for them to
quote. Sharing your wealth? Giving to the poor? Egalitarianism? Loving your neighbour? The
Good Samaritan?
Dirty words all. Best to pretend that Christianity is about extreme right wing
economic policy (and fascist social mores), even though it is the opposite.
If Jesus came to the US today, he would not like Republicans and they would not like him.
Santorum, Palin, Limbaugh etc. would strap him to the electric chair and pull the lever if
they could, no doubt.
And Tea Partiers like Ayn Rand? The most anti-Christian and anti-American lunatic you
can find? The corporate agenda and Wall Street interests trump everything else. No news
there.
The most bizarre aspect of the rights infatuation with Ayn Rand is that she was an
ardent Atheist who's beliefs are diametrically opposite to those of Jesus & the
Bible.
A lot of these people describe themselves as Christian, makes you wonder which part of
Jesus' message they loved more, the part that said the poor should rot without help, or the
part where he said violence was justified and the chasing of wealth is to be lauded.
"the only way you're gonna be able to sleep at night (and go to heaven in the afterlife) is
to believe that the system has some moral justification based on the laws of nature"
I think this is one of the drivers in the shift from Catholicism to Protestanism,
especially in Northern Europe.
For Medieval Catholics everyone was where God had put them, so the rich were rich and the
poor poor as part of Gods plan, and anyone trying to change it was going against God.
Which is handy if you are a Baron or Bishop living the high life surrounded my thousands of
starving peasants (having armed retainers also helped).
Come the industrial revolution and the rise of the business and trade classes that's not so
appealing, so now God rewards the virtuous and hard working, who naturally rise to the
top.
"... Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets. ..."
"... "It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people." ..."
"... The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow the pain. ..."
"... But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress. Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent ..."
"... Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing. ..."
"... Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered by social programs. ..."
"... In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember. ..."
"... "We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'" ..."
"... "When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us. Poor people feel abandoned." ..."
On the ragged streets of the shantytown across the road, where stinking outhouses sit alongside shacks fashioned from rusted sheets
of tin, families have surrendered hopes that sewage lines will ever reach them.
They do not struggle to fashion an explanation for their declining fortunes: Since taking office more than three years ago, President
Mauricio Macri has broken with the budget-busting populism that has dominated Argentina for much of the past century, embracing the
grim arithmetic of economic orthodoxy.
Mr. Macri has slashed subsidies for electricity, fuel and transportation, causing prices to skyrocket, and recently prompting
Ms. Genovesi, 48, to cut off her gas service, rendering her stove lifeless. Like most of her neighbors, she illegally taps into the
power lines that run along the rutted dirt streets.
"It's a neoliberal government," she says. "It's a government that does not favor the people."
The tribulations playing out under the disintegrating roofs of the poor are a predictable dimension of Mr. Macri's turn away
from left-wing populism. He vowed to shrink Argentina's monumental deficits by diminishing the largess of the state. The trouble
is that Argentines have yet to collect on the other element the president promised: the economic revival that was supposed to follow
the pain.
Mr. Macri's supporters heralded his 2015 election as a miraculous outbreak of normalcy in a country with a well-earned reputation
for histrionics. He would cease the reckless spending that had brought Argentina infamy for defaulting on its debts eight times.
Sober-minded austerity would win the trust of international financiers, bringing investment that would yield jobs and fresh opportunities.
But as Mr. Macri seeks re-election this year, Argentines increasingly lament that they are absorbing all strife and no progress.
Even businesses that have benefited from his reforms complain that he has botched the execution, leaving the nation to confront the
same concoction of misery that has plagued it for decades. The economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and
joblessness is stuck above 9 percent.
Poverty afflicts a third of the population, and the figure is climbing.
Far beyond this country of 44 million people, Mr. Macri's tenure is testing ideas that will shape economic policy in an age of
recrimination over widening inequality. His presidency was supposed to offer an escape from the wreckage of profligate spending while
laying down an alternative path for countries grappling with the worldwide rise of populism. Now, his presidency threatens to become
a gateway back to populism. The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck
above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
Image
The Argentine economy is contracting. Inflation is running above 50 percent, and joblessness is stuck above 9 percent. Poverty afflicts
a third of the population. Credit Sarah Pabst for The New York Times
As the October election approaches, Mr. Macri is contending with the growing prospect of a challenge from the president he succeeded,
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who faces a
series of criminal indictments for corruption . Her unbridled spending helped deliver the crisis that Mr. Macri inherited. Her
return would resonate as a rebuke of his market-oriented reforms while potentially yanking Argentina back to its accustomed preserve:
left-wing populism, in uncomfortable proximity to insolvency.
The Argentine peso lost half of its value against the dollar last year, prompting the central bank to lift interest rates to a
commerce-suffocating level above 60 percent. Argentina was forced to secure a $57 billion
rescue from the International
Monetary Fund , a profound indignity given that the fund is widely despised here for the austerity it imposed in the late 1990s,
turning an economic downturn into a depression.
For Mr. Macri, time does not appear to be in abundant supply. The spending cuts he delivered hit the populace immediately. The
promised benefits of his reforms -- a stable currency, tamer inflation, fresh investment and jobs -- could take years to materialize,
leaving Argentines angry and yearning for the past.
In much of South America, left-wing governments have taken power in recent decades as an angry corrective to dogmatic prescriptions
from Washington, where the Treasury and the I.M.F. have focused on the confidence of global investors as the key to development.
Left-wing populism has aimed to redistribute the gains from the wealthy to everyone else. It has aided the poor, while generating
its own woes --
corruption and depression in
Brazil , runaway inflation and financial ruin in Argentina. In Venezuela, uninhibited spending has turned the country with the
world's largest proven oil reserves into a land where
children starve .
Mr. Macri sold his administration as an evolved form of governance for these times, a crucial dose of market forces tempered
by social programs.
In the most generous reading, the medicine has yet to take effect. But in the view of beleaguered Argentines, the country
has merely slipped back into the rut that has framed national life for as long as most people can remember.
"We live patching things up," said Roberto Nicoli, 62, who runs a silverware company outside the capital, Buenos Aires. "We
never fix things. I always say, 'Whenever we start doing better, I will start getting ready for the next crisis.'"
Cultivating wealth
... ... ...
In the beginning, there was Juan Domingo Perón, the charismatic Army general who was president from 1946 to 1955, and then again
from 1973 to 1974. He employed an authoritarian hand and muscular state power to champion the poor. He and his wife, Eva Duarte --
widely known by her nickname, Evita -- would dominate political life long after they died, inspiring politicians across the ideological
spectrum to claim their mantle.
Among the most ardent Peronists were Néstor Kirchner, the president from 2003 to 2007, and his wife, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner,
who took office in 2007, remaining until Mr. Macri was elected in 2015.
Their version of Peronism -- what became known as Kirchnerism -- was decidedly left-wing, disdaining global trade as a malevolent
force. They expanded cash grants to the poor and imposed taxes on farm exports in a bid to keep Argentine food prices low.
As the country's farmers tell it, Kirchnerism is just a fancy term for the confiscation of their wealth and the scattering of
the spoils to the unproductive masses. They point to Ms. Kirchner's 35 percent tax on soybean exports.
"We had a saying," Mr. Tropini says. "'For every three trucks that went to the port, one was for Cristina Kirchner.'"
reduction in export taxes.
"You could breathe finally," Mr. Tropini, the farmer, says.
He was free of the Kirchners, yet stuck with nature. Floods in 2016 wiped out more than half of his crops. A drought last year
wreaked even more havoc.
"This harvest, this year," he says, "is a gift from God."
But if the heavens are now cooperating, and if the people running Buenos Aires represent change, Mr. Tropini is critical of Mr.
Macri's failure to overcome the economic crisis.
A weaker currency makes Argentine soybeans more competitive, but it also increases the cost of the diesel fuel Mr. Tropini needs
to run his machinery. High interest rates make it impossible for him to buy another combine, which would allow him to expand his
farm.
In the first years of Mr. Macri's administration, the government lifted controls on the value of the peso while relaxing export
taxes. The masters of international finance delivered a surge of investment. The economy expanded by nearly 3 percent in 2017, and
then accelerated in the first months of last year.
But as investors grew wary of Argentina's deficits, they fled, sending the peso plunging and inflation soaring. As the rout continued
last year, the central bank mounted a futile effort to support the currency, selling its stash of dollars to try to halt the peso's
descent. As the reserves dwindled, investors absorbed the spectacle of a government failing to restore order. The exodus of money
intensified, and another potential default loomed, leading a chastened Mr. Macri to accept a rescue from the dreaded IMF.
Administration officials described the unraveling as akin to a natural disaster: unforeseeable and unavoidable. The drought hurt
agriculture.
Money was flowing out of developing countries as the Federal Reserve continued to lift interest rates in the United States, making
the American dollar a more attractive investment.
But the impact of the Fed's tightening had been widely anticipated. Economists fault the government for mishaps and complacency
that left the country especially vulnerable.
.... ... ...
Among the most consequential errors was the government's decision to include Argentina's central bank in a December 2017 announcement
that it was raising its inflation target. The markets took that as a signal that the government was surrendering its war on inflation
while opting for a traditional gambit: printing money rather than cutting spending.
... ... ...
The government insists that better days are ahead. The spending cuts have dropped the budget deficit to a manageable 3 percent
of annual economic output. Argentina is again integrated into the global economy.
"We haven't improved, but the foundations of the economy and society are much healthier," said Miguel Braun, secretary of economic
policy at the Treasury Ministry. "Argentina is in a better place to generate a couple of decades of growth."
... ... ...
Their television flashes dire warnings, like "Danger of Hyper Inflation." Throughout the neighborhood, people decry the sense
that they have been forsaken by the government.
Trucks used to come to castrate male dogs to control the packs of feral animals running loose. Not anymore. Health programs for
children are less accessible than they were before, they said.
Daisy Quiroz, 71, a retired maid, lives in a house that regularly floods in the rainy season.
"When our president Cristina was here, they sent people to help us," she says. "Now, if there's problems, nobody helps us.
Poor people feel abandoned."
... ... ...
Daniel Politi contributed reporting from Buenos Aires. Peter S. Goodman is a London-based European economics correspondent.
He was previously a national economic correspondent in New York. He has also worked at The Washington Post as a China correspondent,
and was global editor in chief of the International Business Times. @
petersgoodman
As a matter of semantics, neo-liberalism delivered on the promise of freedom...for
capitalists to be free of ethical accountability, social responsibility, and government
regulation and taxes...
"... If 'free markets' of enterprising individuals have been tested to destruction, then capitalism is unable to articulate an ideology with which to legitimise itself. ..."
"... Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist ideologies and an order of market feudalism. ..."
"... The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue. ..."
"... Only in theory is neoliberalism a form of laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is not a case of the state saying, as it were: 'OK everyone, we'll impose some very broad legal parameters, so we'll make sure the police will turn up if someone breaks into your house; but otherwise we'll hang back and let you do what you want'. ..."
"... Hayek is perfectly clear that a strong state is required to force people to act according to market logic. If left to their own devices, they might collectivise, think up dangerous utopian ideologies, and the next thing you know there would be socialism. ..."
"... This the paradox of neoliberalism as an intellectual critique of government: a socialist state can only be prohibited with an equally strong state. That is, neoliberals are not opposed to a state as such, but to a specifically centrally-planned state based on principles of social justice - a state which, to Hayek's mind, could only end in t totalitarianism. ..."
"... It should be understood (and I speak above all as a critic of neoliberalism) that neoliberal ideology is not merely a system of class power, but an entire metaphysic, a way of understanding the world that has an emotional hold over people. For any ideology to universalize itself, it must be based on some very powerful ideas. Hayek and Von Mises were Jewish fugitives of Nazism, living through the worst horrors of twentieth-century totalitarianism. There are passages of Hayek's that describe a world operating according to the rules of a benign abstract system that make it sound rather lovely. To understand neoliberalism, we must see that it has an appeal. ..."
"... However, there is no perfect order of price signals. People do not simply act according to economic self-interest. Therefore, neoliberalism is a utopian political project like any other, requiring the brute power of the state to enforce ideological tenets. With tragic irony, the neoliberal order eventually becomes not dissimilar to the totalitarian regimes that Hayek railed against. ..."
The other point to be made is that the return of fundamentalist nationalism is arguably a
radicalized form of neoliberalism. If 'free markets' of enterprising individuals have
been tested to destruction, then capitalism is unable to articulate an ideology with which to
legitimise itself.
Therefore, neoliberal hegemony can only be perpetuated with authoritarian, nationalist
ideologies and an order of market feudalism.
In other words, neoliberalism's authoritarian orientations, previously effaced beneath
discourses of egalitarian free-enterprise, become overt.
The market is no longer an enabler of private enterprise, but something more like a
medieval religion, conferring ultimate authority on a demagogue.
Individual entrepreneurs collectivise into a 'people' serving a market which has become
synonymous with nationhood. A corporate state emerges, free of the regulatory fetters of
democracy.
The final restriction on the market - democracy itself - is removed. There then is no
separate market and state, just a totalitarian market state.
Yes, the EU is an ordoliberal institution - the state imposing rules on the market from
without. Thus, it is not the chief danger. The takeover of 5G, and therefore our entire
economy and industry, by Huawei - now that would be a loss of state sovereignty. But because
Huawei is nominally a corporation, people do not think about is a form of governmental
bureaucracy, but if powerful enough that is exactly what it is.
Pinkie123: So good to read your understandings of neoliberalism. The political project is the
imposition of the all seeing all knowing 'market' on all aspects of human life. This version
of the market is an 'information processor'. Speaking of the different idea of the
laissez-faire version of market/non market areas and the function of the night watchman state
are you aware there are different neoliberalisms? The EU for example runs on the version
called 'ordoliberalism'. I understand that this still sees some areas of society as separate
from 'the market'?
ADamnSmith: Philip Mirowski has discussed this 'under the radar' aspect of neoliberalism. How
to impose 'the market' on human affairs - best not to be to explicit about what you are
doing. Only recently has some knowledge about the actual neoliberal project been appearing.
Most people think of neoliberalism as 'making the rich richer' - just a ramped up version of
capitalism. That's how the left has thought of it and they have been ineffective in stopping
its implementation.
Neoliberalism allows with impunity pesticide businesses to apply high risk toxic pesticides
everywhere seriously affecting the health of children, everyone as well as poisoning the
biosphere and all its biodiversity. This freedom has gone far too far and is totally
unacceptable and these chemicals should be banished immediately.
The left have been entirely wrong to believe that neoliberalism is a mobilisation of
anarchic, 'free' markets. It never was so. Only a few more acute thinkers on the left
(Jacques Ranciere, Foucault, Deleuze and, more recently, Mark Fisher, Wendy Brown, Will
Davies and David Graeber) have understood neoliberalism to be a techno-economic order of
control, requiring a state apparatus to enforce wholly artificial directives.
Also, the work
of recent critics of data markets such as Shoshana Zuboff has shown capitalism to be evolving
into a totalitarian system of control through cybernetic data aggregation.
Only in theory is neoliberalism a form of laissez-faire. Neoliberalism is not a case of the
state saying, as it were: 'OK everyone, we'll impose some very broad legal parameters, so
we'll make sure the police will turn up if someone breaks into your house; but otherwise
we'll hang back and let you do what you want'.
Hayek is perfectly clear that a strong state
is required to force people to act according to market logic. If left to their own devices,
they might collectivise, think up dangerous utopian ideologies, and the next thing you know
there would be socialism.
This the paradox of neoliberalism as an intellectual critique of
government: a socialist state can only be prohibited with an equally strong state. That is,
neoliberals are not opposed to a state as such, but to a specifically centrally-planned state
based on principles of social justice - a state which, to Hayek's mind, could only end in t
totalitarianism.
Because concepts of social justice are expressed in language, neoliberals
are suspicious of linguistic concepts, regarding them as politically dangerous. Their
preference has always been for numbers. Hence, market bureaucracy aims for the quantification
of all values - translating the entirety of social reality into metrics, data, objectively
measurable price signals. Numbers are safe. The laws of numbers never change. Numbers do not
lead to revolutions. Hence, all the audit, performance review and tick-boxing that has been
enforced into public institutions serves to render them forever subservient to numerical
(market) logic. However, because social institutions are not measurable, attempts to make
them so become increasingly mystical and absurd. Administrators manage data that has no
relation to reality. Quantitatively unmeasurable things - like happiness or success - are
measured, with absurd results.
It should be understood (and I speak above all as a critic of neoliberalism) that
neoliberal ideology is not merely a system of class power, but an entire metaphysic, a way of
understanding the world that has an emotional hold over people. For any ideology to
universalize itself, it must be based on some very powerful ideas. Hayek and Von Mises were
Jewish fugitives of Nazism, living through the worst horrors of twentieth-century
totalitarianism. There are passages of Hayek's that describe a world operating according to
the rules of a benign abstract system that make it sound rather lovely. To understand
neoliberalism, we must see that it has an appeal.
However, there is no perfect order of price signals. People do not simply act according to
economic self-interest. Therefore, neoliberalism is a utopian political project like any
other, requiring the brute power of the state to enforce ideological tenets. With tragic
irony, the neoliberal order eventually becomes not dissimilar to the totalitarian regimes
that Hayek railed against.
"Liberal" originally meant the freedom to trade and do business. Before liberalism trade was
controlled by cartels, guilds and gifted by prerogative. The freedom to trade is not the root
cause of our problems. The drift to monopoly and the legal enforcement of it is new and
should be resisted. But the freedom to do business is a freedom for us all.
1. Hayek's book 'The Road to Serfdom' uses an erroneous metaphor. He argues that if we allow gov regulation, services and spending
to continue then we will end up serfs. However, serfs are basically the indentured or slave labourers of private citizens and
landowners not of the state. Only in a system of private capital can there be serfs. Neo liberalism creates serfs not a public
system.
2. According to Hayek all regulation on business should be eliminated and only labour should be regulated to make it cheap
and contain it so that private investors can have their returns guaranteed. Hence the purpose of the state is to pass laws to
suppress workers.
These two things illustrate neo-liberalism. Deception and repression of labour.
"... First, neoliberalism, to those who understand how finance works (no mainstream economist, then) was never an economic theory, but rather a business model: essentially it describes how to structure an economy for rent seeking. ..."
"... Michael Hudson describes it as "pro-finance". His definition of austerity, which is part and parcel of the neoliberal business model, is also worth quoting: "austerity is what a good economic policy looks like to a creditor [rentier]"; in other words, it has nothing to do with the economically meaningless notion of good housekeeping (state finances are radically different from household finances). ..."
"... The term "neoliberal" is misleading. Neoliberals put capital above people. Neoliberals are the next-worst thing to neoconservatives. That said, why would anybody trust a pols promise? ..."
Neoliberalism is not an ideology in its practical application. It is a business model for
structuring the economy for rent seeking or wealth extraction: turning everything into a cash
cow to be milked until it's dry and then move on to the next one.
First, neoliberalism, to those who understand how finance works (no mainstream
economist, then) was never an economic theory, but rather a business model: essentially it
describes how to structure an economy for rent seeking.
Michael Hudson describes it as "pro-finance". His definition of austerity, which is
part and parcel of the neoliberal business model, is also worth quoting: "austerity is what a
good economic policy looks like to a creditor [rentier]"; in other words, it has nothing to
do with the economically meaningless notion of good housekeeping (state finances are
radically different from household finances).
Second, the freedom that Adam Smith talked about was freedom for the real economy from
rent seeking, from wealth extraction - freedom, in modern parlance, from the neoliberal
business model.
I think you are confusing the state with the ideology. Neoliberalism is an ideology that has
become embedded in the state. Of course it is the state that privatises public services to
private firms. But the ideology behind that policy is what George Monbiot is writing about.
I work for the NHS myself. Take for example, the policy of foundation trusts bidding to
run services hundreds of miles from their bases, etc. It may be state policy, but it is a
neoliberal nonsense. You would find the NHS littered with bureaucracy that would not be there
if the neoliberal ideology of trying to foster "competition" had not become a state
policy.
"Neoliberalism promised freedom – instead it delivers stifling control"
The term "neoliberal" is misleading.
Neoliberals put capital above people.
Neoliberals are the next-worst thing to neoconservatives.
That said, why would anybody trust a pols promise?
imo
Unlike the privatisations of the 80s and 90s there's barely any pretence these days
that new sell-offs are anything more than simply part of a quest to find new avenues for
profit-making in an economy with tons of liquid capital but not enough places to profitability
put it.
Back in the Thatcher/Reagan years there were at people around who genuinely believed in the
superiority of the market, or at least, made the effort to set out an intellectual case for
it.
Now we're in a different era. After 2008, hardly anyone really believes in neoliberal
ideas anymore, not to the point that they'd openly make the case for them anyway. But while
different visions have appeared to some extent on both left and right, most of those in
positions of power and influence have so internalised Thatcher's 'there is no alternative'
that it's beyond their political horizons to treat any alternatives which do emerge as
serious propositions, let alone come up with their own.
So neoliberalism stumbles on almost as a reflex action. Ben Fine calls it a 'zombie' but I
think the better analogy is cannibalism. Unlike the privatisations of the 80s and 90s there's
barely any pretence these days that new sell-offs are anything more than simply part of a
quest to find new avenues for profit-making in an economy with tons of liquid capital but not
enough places to profitability put it. Because structurally speaking most of the economy is
tapped out.
Privatising public services at this point is just a way to asset strip and/or funnel
public revenue streams to a private sector which has been stuck in neoliberal short-term, low
skill, low productivity, low wage, high debt mode for so long that it has lost the ability to
grow. So now it is eating itself, or at least eating the structures which hold it up and
allow it to survive.
Technocratic, neoliberal, Clinton Democrat ideas which have already proven to fail.
She's for the working class, so long as that working class wears a white collar.
"... The Obama administration also proved itself largely incapable of enforcing laws against white-collar crime. Department of Justice careerists like Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer were terrified that anything more than gentle wrist-slap fines would undermine the stability of the financial sector . As a result, despite massive fraud carried out during the housing bubble and the ensuing crash , no major bank and none of their top executives were convicted of anything. ..."
"... Most damning of all, neoliberalism under Obama turned in the worst economic performance since the 1930s . Despite the fact that the 2008 crash left obvious excess capacity, there was no catch-up growth -- on the contrary, growth was about two-thirds the 1945-2007 average, with no sign of speeding up on the horizon. Even 10 years after the start of the recession, there is every sign that the economy is still depressed. ..."
"... So despite the confident predictions of the Chicago School, the political economy created by neoliberalism turned out to be identical to 1920s laissez-faire economics in every important respect. The United States is once again a country which functions mostly on behalf of a tiny capitalist elite. It has the same extreme inequality, the same bloated, crisis-prone financial sector, the same corruption, and the same political backlash to the status quo and rising extremist factions. ..."
From the late 1980s to 2016, neoliberal ideas held hegemonic sway among the Democratic
elite. But the economy created by this ideology -- and the ensuing crises -- is a major reason
why Clinton lost to Trump and the party is completely out of power today. This obvious failure
has provided an ideological opening that the American left has been eager to fill.
Yet even the left-wing is divided about the best way forward. Should it follow Elizabeth
Warren's lead and promise a return to the trust-busting ways of the early 20th century? Or
should it emulate the more sweeping, Nordic-style politics of Bernie Sanders? Or perhaps the
Democratic Socialists of America are right and something even more extreme is needed.
... ... ...
The Democrats swept to power in a wave election in 2008, as the economy entered free fall.
They had every opportunity to abandon neoliberalism and return to the kind of New Deal policy
that the Great Recession called for -- and they blew it.
... ... ...
Incredibly, the Democrats responded by doubling down on neoliberalism. Over and over again
during the Obama years, the party elite proved itself overly sympathetic to the concerns of the
market.
Instead of attacking the concentrated wealth and power of big finance, Democrats took the
neoliberal route and passed a blizzard of complicated rules in the Dodd-Frank financial reform
package that attempted to reduce specific financial sector risk. Many of those provisions were
quite worthy, to be sure, but after the crisis the biggest banks are even
larger than they were before the crisis and financial sector profits quickly bounced back
to their previous levels.
The Obama administration also proved itself largely incapable of enforcing laws against
white-collar crime. Department of Justice careerists like Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer were terrified
that anything more than gentle wrist-slap fines would undermine
the stability of the financial sector . As a result, despite
massive fraud carried out
during the housing bubble and the ensuing crash , no major
bank and none of their top executives were convicted of anything.
Most damning of all, neoliberalism under Obama turned in the worst economic performance
since the 1930s . Despite the fact that the 2008 crash left obvious excess capacity, there
was no catch-up growth -- on the contrary, growth was about two-thirds the 1945-2007 average,
with no sign of speeding up on the horizon. Even 10 years after the start of the recession,
there is every sign that the economy is still depressed.
So despite the confident predictions of the Chicago School, the political economy created by
neoliberalism turned out to be identical to 1920s laissez-faire economics in every important
respect. The United States is once again a country which functions mostly on behalf of a tiny
capitalist elite. It has the same extreme inequality, the same bloated, crisis-prone financial
sector, the same corruption, and the same political backlash to the status quo and rising
extremist factions.
"... A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every 12 minutes . What's more, after decades of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually -- the suicide rate -- has been increasing sharply since the late 1990s. Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do homicides , even though the murder rate gets so much more attention. ..."
"... In some states the upsurge was far higher: North Dakota (57.6%), New Hampshire (48.3%), Kansas (45%), Idaho (43%). ..."
"... Since 2008 , suicide has ranked 10th among the causes of death in this country. For Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, however, it comes in second; for those between 35 and 45, fourth. The United States also has the ninth-highest rate in the 38-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Globally , it ranks 27th. ..."
"... The rates in rural counties are almost double those in the most urbanized ones, which is why states like Idaho, Kansas, New Hampshire, and North Dakota sit atop the suicide list. Furthermore, a far higher percentage of people in rural states own guns than in cities and suburbs, leading to a higher rate of suicide involving firearms, the means used in half of all such acts in this country. ..."
"... Education is also a factor. The suicide rate is lowest among individuals with college degrees. Those who, at best, completed high school are, by comparison, twice as likely to kill themselves. Suicide rates also tend to be lower among people in higher-income brackets. ..."
"... Evidence from the United States , Brazil , Japan , and Sweden does indicate that, as income inequality increases, so does the suicide rate. ..."
"... One aspect of the suicide epidemic is puzzling. Though whites have fared far better economically (and in many other ways) than African Americans, their suicide rate is significantly higher . ..."
"... The higher suicide rate among whites as well as among people with only a high school diploma highlights suicide's disproportionate effect on working-class whites. This segment of the population also accounts for a disproportionate share of what economists Anne Case and Angus Deaton have labeled " deaths of despair " -- those caused by suicides plus opioid overdoses and liver diseases linked to alcohol abuse. Though it's hard to offer a complete explanation for this, economic hardship and its ripple effects do appear to matter. ..."
"... Trump has neglected his base on pretty much every issue; this one's no exception. ..."
Yves here. This post describes how the forces driving the US suicide surge started well before the Trump era, but explains how
Trump has not only refused to acknowledge the problem, but has made matters worse.
However, it's not as if the Democrats are embracing this issue either.
BY Rajan Menon, the Anne and Bernard Spitzer Professor of International Relations at the Powell School, City College of New
York, and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University's Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. His latest book is The Conceit of Humanitarian Intervention
Originally published at
TomDispatch .
We hear a lot about suicide when celebrities like
Anthony Bourdain and
Kate Spade die by their own hand.
Otherwise, it seldom makes the headlines. That's odd given the magnitude of the problem.
In 2017, 47,173 Americans killed themselves.
In that single year, in other words, the suicide count was nearly
seven times greater than the number
of American soldiers killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq wars between 2001 and 2018.
A suicide occurs in the United States roughly once every
12 minutes . What's more, after decades
of decline, the rate of self-inflicted deaths per 100,000 people annually -- the suicide rate -- has been increasing sharply since
the late 1990s. Suicides now claim two-and-a-half times as many lives in this country as do
homicides , even
though the murder rate gets so much more attention.
In other words, we're talking about a national
epidemic of self-inflicted
deaths.
Worrisome Numbers
Anyone who has lost a close relative or friend to suicide or has worked on a suicide hotline (as I have) knows that statistics
transform the individual, the personal, and indeed the mysterious aspects of that violent act -- Why this person? Why now? Why in
this manner? -- into depersonalized abstractions. Still, to grasp how serious the suicide epidemic has become, numbers are a necessity.
According to a 2018 Centers for Disease Control study , between
1999 and 2016, the suicide rate increased in every state in the union except Nevada, which already had a remarkably high rate. In
30 states, it jumped by 25% or more; in 17, by at least a third. Nationally, it increased
33% . In some states the upsurge was far
higher: North Dakota (57.6%), New Hampshire (48.3%), Kansas (45%), Idaho (43%).
Alas, the news only gets grimmer.
Since 2008 , suicide has ranked 10th
among the causes of death in this country. For Americans between the ages of 10 and 34, however, it comes in second; for those between
35 and 45, fourth. The United States also has the ninth-highest
rate in the 38-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Globally , it ranks 27th.
More importantly, the trend in the United States doesn't align with what's happening elsewhere in the developed world. The World
Health Organization, for instance, reports
that Great Britain, Canada, and China all have notably lower suicide rates than the U.S.,
as do all but
six countries in the European Union. (Japan's is only slightly lower.)
World Bank statistics show that, worldwide,
the suicide rate fell from 12.8 per 100,000 in 2000 to 10.6 in 2016. It's been falling in
China ,
Japan
(where it has declined steadily for nearly a
decade and is at its lowest point in 37 years), most of Europe, and even countries like
South Korea and
Russia that
have a significantly higher suicide rate than the United States. In Russia, for instance, it has dropped by nearly 26% from a
high point of 42 per 100,000 in
1994 to 31 in 2019.
We know a fair amount about the patterns
of suicide in the United States. In 2017, the rate was highest for men between the ages of 45 and 64 (30 per 100,000) and those 75
and older (39.7 per 100,000).
The rates in rural counties are almost double those in the most urbanized ones, which is why states like Idaho, Kansas, New
Hampshire, and North Dakota sit atop the suicide list. Furthermore, a far higher percentage of people in rural states own
guns than in cities and suburbs, leading to a
higher rate of suicide involving firearms, the means used in half
of all such acts in this country.
There are gender-based differences as well.
From 1999 to 2017, the rate for men was substantially higher than for women -- almost four-and-a-half times higher in the first of
those years, slightly more than three-and-a-half times in the last.
Education is also a factor. The suicide rate is
lowest among individuals with college degrees. Those who, at best, completed high school are, by comparison, twice as likely to kill
themselves. Suicide rates also tend to be lower
among people in higher-income brackets.
The Economics of Stress
This surge in the suicide rate has taken place in years during which the working class has experienced greater economic hardship
and psychological stress. Increased competition from abroad and outsourcing, the results of globalization, have contributed to job
loss, particularly in economic sectors like manufacturing, steel, and mining that had long been mainstays of employment for such
workers. The jobs still available often paid less and provided fewer benefits.
Technological change, including computerization, robotics, and the coming of artificial intelligence, has similarly begun to displace
labor in significant ways, leaving Americans without college degrees, especially those 50 and older, in
far more difficult straits when it comes to
finding new jobs that pay
well. The lack of anything resembling an
industrial policy of a sort that exists in Europe
has made these dislocations even more painful for American workers, while a sharp decline in private-sector union membership
-- down
from nearly 17% in 1983 to 6.4% today -- has reduced their ability to press for higher wages through collective bargaining.
Furthermore, the inflation-adjusted median wage has barely budged
over the last four decades (even as
CEO salaries have soared). And a decline in worker productivity doesn't explain it: between 1973 and 2017 productivity
increased by 77%, while a worker's average hourly wage only
rose by 12.4%. Wage stagnation has made it
harder for working-class
Americans to get by, let alone have a lifestyle comparable to that of their parents or grandparents.
The gap in earnings between those at the top and bottom of American society has also increased -- a lot. Since 1979, the
wages of Americans in the 10th percentile increased by a pitiful
1.2%. Those in the 50th percentile did a bit better, making a gain of 6%. By contrast, those in the 90th percentile increased by
34.3% and those near the peak of the wage pyramid -- the top 1% and especially the rarefied 0.1% -- made far more
substantial
gains.
And mind you, we're just talking about wages, not other forms of income like large stock dividends, expensive homes, or eyepopping
inheritances. The share of net national wealth held by the richest 0.1%
increased from 10% in the 1980s to 20% in 2016.
By contrast, the share of the bottom 90% shrank in those same decades from about 35% to 20%. As for the top 1%, by 2016 its share
had increased to almost 39% .
The precise relationship between economic inequality and suicide rates remains unclear, and suicide certainly can't simply be
reduced to wealth disparities or financial stress. Still, strikingly, in contrast to the United States, suicide rates are noticeably
lower and have been declining in
Western
European countries where income inequalities are far less pronounced, publicly funded healthcare is regarded as a right (not
demonized as a pathway to serfdom), social safety nets far more extensive, and
apprenticeships and worker
retraining programs more widespread.
Evidence from the United States
, Brazil ,
Japan , and
Sweden does indicate that, as income inequality increases,
so does the suicide rate. If so, the good news is that progressive economic policies -- should Democrats ever retake the White
House and the Senate -- could make a positive difference. A study
based on state-by-state variations in the U.S. found that simply boosting the minimum wage and Earned Income Tax Credit by 10%
appreciably reduces the suicide rate among people without college degrees.
The Race Enigma
One aspect of the suicide epidemic is puzzling. Though whites have fared far better economically (and in many other ways)
than African Americans, their suicide rate is significantly
higher . It increased from 11.3 per 100,000
in 2000 to 15.85 per 100,000 in 2017; for African Americans in those years the rates were 5.52 per 100,000 and 6.61 per 100,000.
Black men are
10 times more likely to be homicide victims than white men, but the latter are two-and-half times more likely to kill themselves.
The higher suicide rate among whites as well as among people with only a high school diploma highlights suicide's disproportionate
effect on working-class whites. This segment of the population also accounts for a disproportionate share of what economists Anne
Case and Angus Deaton have labeled "
deaths of despair
" -- those caused by suicides plus
opioid overdoses
and liver diseases linked to alcohol abuse. Though it's hard to offer a complete explanation for this, economic hardship and
its ripple effects do appear to matter.
According to a study by the
St. Louis Federal Reserve , the white working class accounted for 45% of all income earned in the United States in 1990, but
only 27% in 2016. In those same years, its share of national wealth plummeted, from 45% to 22%. And as inflation-adjusted wages have
decreased for
men without college degrees, many white workers seem to have
lost hope of success of
any sort. Paradoxically, the sense of failure and the accompanying stress may be greater for white workers precisely because they
traditionally were much
better off economically than their African American and Hispanic counterparts.
In addition, the fraying of communities knit together by employment in once-robust factories and mines has increased
social isolation
among them, and the evidence that it -- along with
opioid addiction and
alcohol abuse -- increases the risk of suicide
is strong . On top of that,
a significantly higher proportion of
whites than blacks and Hispanics own firearms, and suicide rates are markedly higher in states where gun
ownership is more widespread.
Trump's Faux Populism
The large increase in suicide within the white working class began a couple of decades before Donald Trump's election. Still,
it's reasonable to ask what he's tried to do about it, particularly since votes from these Americans helped propel him to the White
House. In 2016, he received
64% of the votes of whites without college degrees; Hillary Clinton, only 28%. Nationwide, he beat Clinton in
counties where deaths of despair rose significantly between 2000 and 2015.
White workers will remain crucial to Trump's chances of winning in 2020. Yet while he has spoken about, and initiated steps aimed
at reducing, the high suicide rate among
veterans , his speeches and tweets have never highlighted the national suicide epidemic or its inordinate impact on white workers.
More importantly, to the extent that economic despair contributes to their high suicide rate, his policies will only make matters
worse.
The real benefits from the December 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act championed by the president and congressional Republicans flowed
to those on the top steps of the economic ladder. By 2027, when the Act's provisions will run out, the wealthiest Americans are expected
to have captured
81.8% of the gains. And that's not counting the windfall they received from recent changes in taxes on inheritances. Trump and
the GOP
doubled the annual amount exempt from estate taxes -- wealth bequeathed to heirs -- through 2025 from $5.6 million per individual
to $11.2 million (or $22.4 million per couple). And who benefits most from this act of generosity? Not workers, that's for sure,
but every household with an estate worth $22 million or more will.
As for job retraining provided by the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, the president
proposed
cutting that program by 40% in his 2019 budget, later settling for keeping it at 2017 levels. Future cuts seem in the cards as
long as Trump is in the White House. The Congressional Budget Office
projects that his tax cuts alone will produce even bigger budget
deficits in the years to come. (The shortfall last year was
$779 billion and it is expected to
reach $1 trillion by 2020.) Inevitably, the president and congressional Republicans will then demand additional reductions in spending
for social programs.
This is all the more likely because Trump and those Republicans also
slashed corporate taxes
from 35% to 21% -- an estimated
$1.4
trillion in savings for corporations over the next decade. And unlike the income tax cut, the corporate tax has
no end
date . The president assured his base that the big bucks those companies had stashed abroad would start flowing home and produce
a wave of job creation -- all without adding to the deficit. As it happens, however, most of that repatriated cash has been used
for corporate stock buy-backs, which totaled more than
$800 billion last year. That, in turn, boosted share prices, but didn't exactly rain money down on workers. No surprise, of course,
since the wealthiest 10% of Americans own at least
84% of all stocks and the bottom
60% have less than
2% of them.
And the president's corporate tax cut hasn't produced the tsunami of job-generating investments he predicted either. Indeed, in
its aftermath, more than 80% of American
companies stated that their plans for investment and hiring hadn't changed. As a result, the monthly increase in jobs has proven
unremarkable compared to President Obama's
second term, when the economic recovery that Trump largely inherited began. Yes, the economy did grow
2.3%
in 2017 and
2.9% in 2018 (though not
3.1% as the president claimed). There wasn't, however, any "unprecedented economic boom -- a boom that has rarely been seen before"
as he insisted in this year's State of the Union
Address .
Anyway, what matters for workers struggling to get by is growth in real wages, and there's nothing to celebrate on that front:
between 2017 and mid-2018 they actually
declined by 1.63% for white workers and 2.5% for African Americans, while they rose for Hispanics by a measly 0.37%. And though
Trump insists that his beloved tariff hikes are going to help workers, they will actually raise the prices of goods, hurting the
working class and other low-income Americans
the most .
Then there are the obstacles those susceptible to suicide face in receiving insurance-provided mental-health care. If you're a
white worker without medical coverage or have a policy with a deductible and co-payments that are high and your income, while low,
is too high to qualify for Medicaid, Trump and the GOP haven't done anything for you. Never mind the president's
tweet proclaiming that "the Republican Party Will Become 'The Party of Healthcare!'"
Let me amend that: actually, they have done something. It's just not what you'd call helpful. The
percentage of uninsured
adults, which fell from 18% in 2013 to 10.9% at the end of 2016, thanks in no small measure to
Obamacare , had risen to 13.7% by the end of last year.
The bottom line? On a problem that literally has life-and-death significance for a pivotal portion of his base, Trump has been
AWOL. In fact, to the extent that economic strain contributes to the alarming suicide rate among white workers, his policies are
only likely to exacerbate what is already a national crisis of epidemic proportions.
Trump is running on the claim that he's turned the economy around; addressing suicide undermines this (false) claim. To state
the obvious, NC readers know that Trump is incapable of caring about anyone or anything beyond his in-the-moment interpretation
of his self-interest.
Not just Trump. Most of the Republican Party and much too many Democrats have also abandoned this base, otherwise known as
working class Americans.
The economic facts are near staggering and this article has done a nice job of summarizing these numbers that are spread out
across a lot of different sites.
I've experienced this rise within my own family and probably because of that fact I'm well aware that Trump is only a symptom
of an entire political system that has all but abandoned it's core constituency, the American Working Class.
Yep It's not just Trump. The author mentions this, but still focuses on him for some reason. Maybe accurately attributing the
problems to a failed system makes people feel more hopeless. Current nihilists in Congress make it their duty to destroy once
helpful institutions in the name of "fiscal responsibility," i.e., tax cuts for corporate elites.
I'd assumed, the "working class" had dissappeared, back during Reagan's Miracle? We'd still see each other, sitting dazed on
porches & stoops of rented old places they'd previously; trying to garden, fix their car while smoking, drinking or dazed on something?
Those able to morph into "middle class" lives, might've earned substantially less, especially benefits and retirement package
wise. But, a couple decades later, it was their turn, as machines and foreigners improved productivity. You could lease a truck
to haul imported stuff your kids could sell to each other, or help robots in some warehouse, but those 80s burger flipping, rent-a-cop
& repo-man gigs dried up. Your middle class pals unemployable, everybody in PayDay Loan debt (without any pay day in sight?) SHTF
Bug-out bags® & EZ Credit Bushmasters began showing up at yard sales, even up North. Opioids became the religion of the proletariat
Whites simply had much farther to fall, more equity for our betters to steal. And it was damned near impossible to get the cops
to shoot you?
Man, this just ain't turning out as I'd hoped. Need coffee!
We especially love the euphemism "Deaths O' Despair." since it works so well on a Chyron, especially supered over obese crackers
waddling in crusty MossyOak™ Snuggies®
This is a very good article, but I have a comment about the section titled, "The Race Enigma." I think the key to understanding
why African Americans have a lower suicide rate lies in understanding the sociological notion of community, and the related concept
Emil Durkheim called social solidarity. This sense of solidarity and community among African Americans stands in contrast to the
"There is no such thing as society" neoliberal zeitgeist that in fact produces feelings of extreme isolation, failure, and self-recriminations.
An aside: as a white boy growing up in 1950s-60s Detroit I learned that if you yearned for solidarity and community what you had
to do was to hang out with black people.
" if you yearned for solidarity and community what you had to do was to hang out with black people."
amen, to that. in my case rural black people.
and I'll add Hispanics to that.
My wife's extended Familia is so very different from mine.
Solidarity/Belonging is cool.
I recommend it.
on the article we keep the scanner on("local news").we had a 3-4 year rash of suicides and attempted suicides(determined by chisme,
or deduction) out here.
all of them were despair related more than half correlated with meth addiction itself a despair related thing.
ours were equally male/female, and across both our color spectrum.
that leaves economics/opportunity/just being able to get by as the likely cause.
Actually, in the article it states:
"There are gender-based differences as well. From 1999 to 2017, the rate for men was substantially higher than for women -- almost
four-and-a-half times higher in the first of those years, slightly more than three-and-a-half times in the last."
which in some sense makes despair the wrong word, as females are actually quite a bit more likely to be depressed for instance,
but much less likely to "do the deed". Despair if we mean a certain social context maybe, but not just a psychological state.
Suicide deaths are a function of the suicide attempt rate and the efficacy of the method used. A unique aspect of the US is
the prevalence of guns in the society and therefore the greatly increased usage of them in suicide attempts compared to other
countries. Guns are a very efficient way of committing suicide with a very high "success" rate. As of 2010, half of US suicides
were using a gun as opposed to other countries with much lower percentages. So if the US comes even close to other countries in
suicide rates then the US will surpass them in deaths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_methods#Firearms
Now we can add in opiates, especially fentanyl, that can be quite effective as well.
The economic crisis hitting middle America over the past 30 years has been quite focused on the states and populations that
also tend to have high gun ownership rates. So suicide attempts in those populations have a high probability of "success".
I would just take this opportunity to add that the police end up getting called in to prevent on lot of suicide attempts, and
just about every successful one.
In the face of so much blanket demonization of the police, along with justified criticism, it's important to remember that.
As someone who works in the mental health treatment system, acute inpatient psychiatry to be specific, I can say that of the
25 inpatients currently here, 11 have been here before, multiple times. And this is because of several issues, in my experience:
inadequate inpatient resources, staff burnout, inadequate support once they leave the hospital, and the nature of their illnesses.
It's a grim picture here and it's been this way for YEARS. Until MAJOR money is spent on this issue it's not going to get better.
This includes opening more facilities for people to live in long term, instead of closing them, which has been the trend I've
seen.
One last thing the CEO wants "asses in beds", aka census, which is the money maker. There's less profit if people get better
and don't return. And I guess I wouldn't have a job either. Hmmmm: sickness generates wealth.
President Donald Trump has announced that he will decide whether or not to add another $300
billion in tariffs on imports from China, in addition to the $200 billion he has already
imposed, and that he will do so in the two weeks following the G20 summit in Osaka. Trump's
"Art of the Deal" pressure tactics are familiar. He wants to try to make China give even
greater concessions, perhaps following a frosty meeting between the two leaders on the
sidelines of the G20, or perhaps no meeting at all.
China, however, is in no mood to make concessions.
Behind Trump's impulsiveness can be glimpsed a profound shift in U.S. trade policy, and in
US diplomacy, which has transformed the nature of international relations, with particularly
disturbing implications in the case of U.S.-China ties.
Donald Trump, acting on the advice of U.S. trade representative Robert Lighthizer and
Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin, is making demands of China -- or for that matter
Mexico, Germany, or France -- in a unilateral manner. He has attempted to immediately implement
tariffs and other forms of punishment (such as bans for reasons of national security in the
case of Huawei phones) without any institutional consultative process.
The U.S. constitution has a "commerce clause" that clearly assigns to Congress the power "to regulate
commerce with foreign
Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes." Since 2002, the trade
promotion authority (an upgraded version of the fast-track authority established in 1974) gives
the president the right to negotiate trade agreements that Congress can vote for or against,
but cannot amend.
Over the last 20 years, fast-tracking has become the center of trade policy to a degree that
undermines the balance of powers and the constitution.
Although the executive's usurpation of trade authority has a long history, only now is the
president making such a transparent move to exclude the legislature -- not to mention economic
experts, let alone citizens -- from the formulation of trade policy. That means that a handful
of people can make decisions that impact every aspect of the U.S. economy.
Newspapers rarely mention the role of Congress in trade negotiations with China. It's almost
as if the various congressional committees involved in formulating trade policy have no role in
this process.
Equally striking is the absence from the policy debate of multilateral institutions that
address trade issues according to common practices and international law. For instance, the
World Trade Organization was established in 1993 with an explicit mandate to address trade and
tariff issues. The WTO and its trade experts once played a central role in U.S. trade
discussions -- when U.S. policy ostensibly conformed to established global norms, and
Washington even set new models for the world to follow.
Trump's unilateral demands of China make it crystal clear that Trump, and Trump alone, is
empowered to decide trade policy. What institutions and mechanisms remain to assure that the
president's authority in trade negotiations will not be abused and that trade is conducted with
the long-term interests of the country in mind?
But it goes further than that. Now Trump is demanding "detailed and enforceable commitments"
from China as a condition for a trade deal, suggesting that the United States alone determines
whether or not China is conforming with the agreement. Such an approach makes sense in
Washington these days. After all, the U.S. Commerce Department
imposed an export ban on the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE last year because it
did not pay fines for violating U.S. sanctions against sales to North Korea and Iran. In other
words, the United States thinks it can unilaterally set sanctions and punish violators without
any consultation with multilateral institutions.
This step goes beyond what the Chinese can tolerate.
"China is not a criminal. Nor is it making any mistakes. Why does the US want to supervise
us?" remarked Professor Wang Yiwei of Renmin University of China in a
recent interview , "If there's a supervision team to oversee the implementation, just like
what happened to ZTE, it is definitely directed at sovereignty and can't be accepted."
These "enforceable commitments" are offensive to China for a reason. This approach to trade
seems little different from the sanctions regimes that the United States put in place against
Iraq before its military invasion, or against Iran as part of an increasing military buildup
that could end in a military conflict. Moreover, the increased U.S. military drills off the
Chinese coast has given the trade negotiations process a negative spin.
The recent comments about the political protests in Hong Kong by secretary of state Mike
Pompeo suggest that those tariffs could quickly become sanctions -- which require even less
adherence to international norms.
And then, in the midst of all that tension, the U.S. military released an
Indo-Pacific Stategy Paper that refers to Taiwan as a "country," the first time the United
States has done so officially in 40 years. The agreement between the United States and the
People's Republic of China, after the normalization of diplomatic relations, required that the
United States not recognize Taiwan as a country, and the People's Republic of China has stated
explicitly that military action was an option in the case of U.S. interference in the Taiwan
question.
The combination of these actions threatens to erase all established norms between the two
nations.
The United States is now considering ending agricultural exports to China, and China is
considering cutting off the sales of rare earth elements to the United States. The latter are
essential for the guidance systems and for sensors in missiles and advance fighter planes. A
F-35 Fighter, for instance, requires 920 pounds of rare earth elements like neodymium iron
boron magnets and samarium cobalt magnets,
according to the Asia Times .
The risk of a rapid acceleration in tensions is no longer theoretical. Remember: the U.S.
decision to end the sale of scrap metal and copper to Japan in 1940, followed by the oil
embargo on August 1, 1941, transformed a trade war into a real war.
Trade should remain separate from security concerns. Moreover, it should not be the
plaything of a small number of men in the White House. The United States and China need to open
a broad dialogue on common concerns, from climate change and rapid technological evolution to
the growing concentration of wealth globally. That dialogue should rely more on citizen-led
dialogues and scholar-led conferences in order to move beyond the narrow negotiation process
that has brought the two countries to the brink of war.
"... Threats are cheap, but Mr. Trump can't really follow through without turning farmers, Wall Street and the stock market, Walmart and much of the IT sector against him at election time if his tariffs on China increase the cost of living and doing business. His diplomatic threat is really that the US will cut its own economic throat, imposing sanctions on its own importers and investors if China does not acquiesce. ..."
"... China has a great sweetener that I think President Xi Jinping should offer: It can nominate Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. We know that he wants what his predecessor Barack Obama got. And doesn't he deserve it more? After all, he is helping to bring Eurasia together, driving China and Russia into an alliance with neighboring counties, reaching out to Europe. ..."
President Trump has threatened China's President Xi that if they don't meet and talk at the
upcoming G20 meetings in Japan, June 29-30, the United States will not soften its tariff war
and economic sanctions against Chinese exports and technology.
Some meeting between Chinese and U.S. leaders will indeed take place, but it cannot be
anything like a real negotiation. Such meetings normally are planned in advance, by specialized
officials working together to prepare an agreement to be announced by their heads of state. No
such preparation has taken place, or can take place. Mr. Trump doesn't delegate authority.
He opens negotiations with a threat. That costs nothing, and you never know (or at least, he
never knows) whether he can get a freebee. His threat is that the U.S. can hurt its adversary
unless that country agrees to abide by America's wish-list. But in this case the list is so
unrealistic that the media are embarrassed to talk about it. The US is making impossible
demands for economic surrender – that no country could accept. What appears on the
surface to be only a trade war is really a full-fledged Cold War 2.0.
America's wish list: other countries' neoliberal subservience
At stake is whether China will agree to do what Russia did in the 1990s: put a Yeltsin-like
puppet of neoliberal planners in place to shift control of its economy from its government to
the U.S. financial sector and its planners. So the fight really is over what kind of planning
China and the rest of the world should have: by governments to raise prosperity, or by the
financial sector to extract revenue and impose austerity.
U.S. diplomacy aims to make other countries dependent on its agricultural exports, its oil
(or oil in countries that U.S. majors and allies control), information and military technology.
This trade dependency will enable U.S. strategists to impose sanctions that would deprive
economies of basic food, energy, communications and replacement parts if they resist U.S.
demands.
The objective is to gain financial control of global resources and make trade "partners" pay
interest, licensing fees and high prices for products in which the United States enjoys
monopoly pricing "rights" for intellectual property. A trade war thus aims to make other
countries dependent on U.S.-controlled food, oil, banking and finance, or high-technology goods
whose disruption will cause austerity and suffering until the trade "partner" surrenders.
China's willingness to give Trump a "win"
Threats are cheap, but Mr. Trump can't really follow through without turning farmers, Wall
Street and the stock market, Walmart and much of the IT sector against him at election time if
his tariffs on China increase the cost of living and doing business. His diplomatic threat is
really that the US will cut its own economic throat, imposing sanctions on its own importers
and investors if China does not acquiesce.
It is easy to see what China's answer will be. It will stand aside and let the US
self-destruct. Its negotiators are quite happy to "offer" whatever China has planned to do
anyway, and let Trump brag that this is a "concession" he has won.
China has a great sweetener that I think President Xi Jinping should offer: It can nominate
Donald Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. We know that he wants what his predecessor Barack Obama
got. And doesn't he deserve it more? After all, he is helping to bring Eurasia together,
driving China and Russia into an alliance with neighboring counties, reaching out to
Europe.
Trump may be too narcissistic to realize the irony here. Catalyzing Asian and European trade
independence, financial independence, food independence and IT independence from the threat of
U.S. sanctions will leave the U.S. isolated in the emerging multilateralism.
America's wish for a neoliberal Chinese Yeltsin (and another Russian Yeltsin for that
matter)
A good diplomat does not make demands to which the only answer can be "No." There is no way
that China will dismantle its mixed economy and turn it over to U.S. and other global
investors. It is no secret that the United States achieved world industrial supremacy in the
late 19 th and early 20 th century by heavy public-sector subsidy of
education, roads, communication and other basic infrastructure. Today's privatized,
financialized and "Thatcherized" economies are high-cost and inefficient.
Yet U.S. officials persist in their dream of promoting some neoliberal Chinese leader or
"free market" party to wreak the damage that Yeltsin and his American advisors wrought on
Russia. The U.S. idea of a "win-win" agreement is one in which China will be "permitted" to
grow as long as it agrees to become a U.S. financial and trade satellite, not an independent
competitor.
Trump's trade tantrum is that other countries are simply following the same economic
strategy that once made America great, but which neoliberals have destroyed here and in much of
Europe. U.S. negotiators are unwilling to acknowledge that the United States has lost its
competitive industrial advantage and become a high-cost rentier economy. Its GDP is
"empty," consisting mainly of the Finance, Insurance and Real Estate (FIRE) rents, profits and
capital gains while the nation's infrastructure decays and its labor is reduced to a prat-time
"gig" economy. Under these conditions the effect of trade threats can only be to speed up the
drive by other countries to become economically self-reliant.
The crux of the "trade" dispute is never discussed: the Chinese refusal to allow the
international financial services sector to penetrate the Chinese economy and operate freely.
Get it? The Chinese won't let the Jews in to loot the place and the Jews are pissed.
Trumpstein, the cryto Jew, has promised his sponsors to rectify the situation. The Chinese
witnessed what happened when Yeltsin allowed the IMF to parachute Jeffrey Sachs and his Jew
Boys into Russia in 1991 Jews looted the place mercilessly, calling it democracy and
capitalism, and Russia is still recovering. The Chinese have a bright future, as long as they
keep the Jews out.
I agree.
I am afraid spokes person Trump and those he is speaking for have it wrong. They believe
external trade is interfering with the La-Zi-Faire fat cat monopoly powered corporations the
CPI (congress, president and Israeli governance represent.
Few western companies can compete because only monopoly endowed Global corporations are
allowed or licensed to compete. Individual ability, the creative mind of the lone rangers
with highly disruptive inventions and ideas, are not allowed access to the knowledge or money
to play. Making people pay for sleazy operating systems when better ones are free, allowing
big corporations to hack the data of everyone, and on and on.
Even when a person finds a way to play and actually produces a product or concept, the
financial condition of the inventor is so weak or the barriers to promote his product is so
strong that as soon as the idea or product is patented or copyrighted it somehow absorbed
into one of the monopoly powered giants; in other words, competition is only allowed if the
competitor gives the profits to one of the monopoly powered giants. China should be
complaining, at least their competitors can produce, in the USA governed America unlicensed
competition is denied.
Copyright, patents, standardized testing and licensing every breath have terminated
competition in America.
America still competes with Americans as long as the business does not compete with the
global corporations.
The problem Trump thinks he can solve, is not sourced in India, China, Iran, Russia, or
any other nation. The problem is at home, in government policy, laws that turn capitalistic
competition into monopolistic fat-cat wealth storing private domain havens. Education by
degree and license by examination and standardization of performance are used to restrict
competition. Education, is a bureaucracy and no matter its efficiency; a degree cannot
provide competitive performance. The USA governance over America has served only the interest
of monopoly endowed corporations and their oligarch owners and investors. Trump is trying to
overcome foreign competition, by threat and blocking maneuvers, to deny foreigners the fruits
of their competitive successes I do not believe he can be successful. Already the Russian and
Chinese have developed a new currency and banking system to circumvent the Trump block. Work
around-s are in progress everywhere.. Soon even the USA will not be allowed to compete I
fear.
It is not a matter of where the competition comes from, its that the monopoly powers have
used the behavior enforcing rule making capacity of the USA to deny native American
creativity; creativity that America needs to be competitive. USA policy continues to be to
enrich a few by channeling and encapsulating all effort within the confines of the monopoly
holders instead of encouraging every back yard to be a new competitor. It will be many years
before Americans will be able to compete..
What Trump is now demanding reminds me of the brutally efficient system that Trump grew up
in: New York City business. (Author Tom Wolfe has a great line in his book The Bonfire Of The
Vanities that the strange, unrelenting background droning sound one hears in NYC is that of
"people constantly braying for money").
New York City real estate in particular is an area of business that is so brutally
competitive, unscrupulous , and backstabbing that it is best described as war under another
name. It is a business arena where a close friend one day can turn into a staunch enemy the
next. Trust is rare.
New York real estate, in fact, brings to mind the old saying about sausage making: You
would never eat it if you saw it being made. Yet deals are made. In fact, a lot of them. This
is the milieu Trump comes from.
Trump isn't one of those more genteel, old-time American negotiators of prior years the
author of this article speaks fondly of. These are the very same people who so readily agreed
to disasters like NAFTA or allowed, for instance, Or allowed Japan to levy two hundred
percent duties on things like American made Harley Davidson motorcycles while the USA was
pressured (or bribed) to apply few if any comparable duties on Japanese motorcycles or
automobiles (or virtually anything else Japan sold in the USA). These toothless. genteel
types also stood back for decades and allowed Japan to use red tape (like obscure safety
regulations for instance) to make it almost impossibly difficult to sell American products
like automobiles in Japan.
These very same US negotiators, politicians, and bureaucrats have more recently stood back
and allowed China to absolutely devastate American manufacturing.
Screw China, It's now payback time. The Chinese are shaking in their boots because the
previously hoodwinked and comatose Americans are finally waking up. No more wimpy Obama or
Bush looking out for our interests. It is now Truly Scary Trump instead.
Wait until the negotiations are concluded to see if they are successful. The sausage that
comes out of them might be very appealing for the first time in many, many decades.
" His diplomatic threat is really that the US will cut its own economic throat, imposing
sanctions on its own importers and investors if China does not acquiesce "
I get that the US financial system is up to no good with their positions on China but the
criticisms Trump made of China are correct. They have lots of tariffs on finished goods from
the US. They require technology transfer to do business there. Their government and industry
are tied at the hip and they are manipulating their currency. All these things are true and
if we keep trading with them with the same terms we have been we would lose ALL our
industrial infrastructure. Now we hear over and over how we can't build anything but the
Chinese went from being dirt farmers to the largest industrial power in a fairly short period
of time. Could we not do the same at least for our own countries market? Certainly global
trade destruction between countries is not a good thing but we'd be fools to keep on as we
are now. At some point when you dig a hole you have to stop to get yourself out.
I don't think we have a choice if we wish to continue to be an industrialized country. All
those that say China will do fine without us are not taking into account how all the other
countries who are being handled the exact same way as we are, are going to handle China's
trade with them. Will they keep allowing China to have large tariffs on their products while
they Chinese ship whatever they wish into theirs? I'm not so sure they will. If the US starts
refusing the Chinese free entry without reciprocal trade then I can easily see others
following our lead.
We should have stopped this many years ago but as bad as the situation is now it will only
get worse if we don't act.
Let them remove their tariffs. We should take every single anti-trade act and tariff they
have on us, weigh them on China and "then" negotiate. If they don't wish to it's their
country they can do what they please and so can we.
"The crux of the "trade" dispute is never discussed: the Chinese refusal to allow the
international financial services sector to penetrate the Chinese economy and operate freely.
Get it? "
Absolutely. Like inviting a handful of worms into your apple -- economy hollowed out in an
eye blink.
However, there is another side to this "trade dispute" coin.
FIRE want to economicly destroy China. The neocon', MIC, security sector wants to destroy
China's 2025 plan to become high-tech world leaders. 5G, AI, semi conductors etc are some of
the areas that China's public/private sectors are voraciously pushing. Hence, the
(wonderfully "free market") US attacks on Heiwai.
These short term US gambles are more than likely to pay off by the medium-long term
undermining of US hegemony via Eurasian integration led by China & Russia.
And all the time we are left wondering whether the US will choose the "Samson Option" rather
than accept reduced status. (Insane with power lust, the US can't even accept "first among
equals")
The US is making impossible demands for economic surrender – that no country could
accept. What appears on the surface to be only a trade war is really a full-fledged Cold
War 2.0
.
Typical mobster protection racket threats. Now the US has moved from waging military wars
on behalf of their Jewish owners to aggressively push their neoliberal economic warfare for
them. The facade for promoting democracy and human rights is no longer required.
And to call attempts at starving the population and murdering children by denying them
essential medicines as has happened in Iraq and now is going on in Iran and Venezuela, a Cold
War 2.0 is a gross understatement. It is a flagrant act of war. America is launching a war of
attrition on the world and who better to spearhead that war than an idiot manipulated by
Zionist Jews? The fact that many countries remain silent is testament to their surrender. But
China may prove to be a different proposition.
"the United States achieved world industrial supremacy in the late 19th and early 20th
century" That is a myth. The US may have had the highest GDP because it was the leader in
manufacturing, as China is now, but Europe and in particular Germany was far ahead of the US
in technology and science. If you compare China to the US today the situation is very similar
to comparing the US to Germany before 1939. Germany was far ahead of the US in the number of
Nobel Prizes received thru 1945 and very few of the Americans that did receive the Nobel
Prize were native born. The US received a few Nobel Prizes starting in the 1940's because
some recent European immigrants that became US citizens received it for work they had done in
Europe. The three biggest technological breakthroughs of WW II were the jet, the rocket and
the atomic bomb. Germany invented the jet, built the first modern rockets and the German
scientist Otto Hahn split the atom in 1939 (for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1944)
kicking off the USA's atomic bomb project and Germany's limited attempt. The people that
eventually achieved success in the US were almost all recent European immigrants (Bethe,
Teller, etc.), many being Jewish.
I basically agree with the rest of the article. I believe Trump's tactics make sense. The
problem is it's too late. The US economy can't be fixed by anyone. The US has 22 trillion
dollars in debt and will never be able to pay it back. The dollar is going to take a deep
dive within the next few years and it will lose its status as the reserve currency. I believe
this based upon what people like Peter Schiff, Paul Craig Roberts, David Stockman and Ron
Paul say.
I think the two biggest events of the last 75 years were WW II, completely changing the
countries that run the world and the emergence of a backwards and dirt poor China to become
an economic powerhouse and I think they will get stronger.
The US is making impossible demands for economic surrender – that no country could
accept.
Yes country. If the world was one big free trade area, it there were no bloks or even no
countries in the sense we understand them then the population of the would be wealthier, on
average. But countries are not primarily economic units, even if one can look at them as
such.
Nation states exist and have the emergent quality that they to survive against other
nation states and the best way to do that is to gain extra power relative to other states, or
at least maintain their position. Why would America agree to terms of trade that do not
maintain its position relative to China.
U.S. negotiators are unwilling to acknowledge that the United States has lost its
competitive industrial advantage
There is no absolute standards by which such an advantage could be judged. The terms of
trade that are finally settled on will be a compromise and reflect the interests of both, and
the total balance of forces between the two.
The combination of both nations will make it extremely difficult for Washington to impose
its hegemonic agenda without serious repercussions as two of the world's leading military
forces seek to increase the level of co-operation between their nations.
Trump's Trade Tariff Theatre 2018 results:
Country/Trade Balance/2018 vs. 2017
Mexico: trade DEFICIT -$81.5 billion; up 14.9% from 2017;
Canada: trade DEFICIT -$19.8 billion; up 15.8% from 2017;
China: trade DEFICIT -$375.6 billion; up 11.6% from 2017;
South Korea: trade DEFICIT -$17.9 billion; down 22.4% from 2017;
Japan: trade DEFICIT -$67.7 billion; down 1.8% from 2017
Germany: trade DEFICIT -$68.3 billion; up 7.2% from 2017;
France: trade DEFICIT -$16.2 billion; up 5.8% from 2017;
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: trade DEFICIT -$10.5 billion; up 313.3% from 2017;
Russia: trade DEFICIT -$14.1 billion; up 40.9% from 2017;
Asia: trade DEFICIT -$622.2 billion; up 8.8% from 2017;
Europe: trade DEFICIT -$202.4 billion; up 16.6% from 2017;
World: trade DEFICIT -$795.7 billion; up 10.4% from 2017
To all of the "free traders", the media ,and academia ,i have this simple question:
why i cant purchase a Toyota work van(the best and must popular of the world),neither here in
the USA nor abroad and bring it in?
how come that even in Cuba there are more of those Toyota work van than here in all
continental USA.
In 25 year i has to purchase more than 6 work vans,and like Penelope i have been waiting for
the Toyota ,and still waiting.
They ,the free traders,did not has allowed not even one.
The problem with the zio/US is the control of the US by the zionists and this control is
derived via the zionist privately owned FED and IRS that they got installed in 1913 and then
came the debt and wars and the hijacking of the foreign policy by the satanic zionists and
the US gov was started on a down hill slide pushed started by the zionists!
The trade policy of the zio/US has turned Russia into the largest grain exporter in the
world and turned Russia into an agriculture miracle , this can be shown by watch videos of
Russian agriculture on youtube. Germany is also in Russia building cars and other industrial
products for Russia thus bypassing the zio/US trade sanctions and last but not least Russia
is trading in non dollars in trade with more and more countries such as China thus
effectively rendering the dollar non and void in international trade.
So the people of the zio/US can thank their zionist masters for the demise of America and
true to form the zionist parasites are killing their American host
Join Mike Maloney as he examines the latest moves in the US/China trade war, and visits
some compelling arguments from the Foundation for Economic Education.
The "Chinese dragon" of the last two decades may be faltering but it is still hailed by
many as an economic miracle. Far from a great advance for Chinese workers, however, it is the
direct result of a consolidation of power in the hands of a small clique of powerful
families, families that have actively collaborated with Western financial oligarchs.
"Threats are cheap, but Mr. Trump can't really follow through without turning farmers, Wall
Street and the stock market, Walmart and much of the IT sector against him at election time
if his tariffs on China increase the cost of living and doing business. "
Tariffs are taxes and both governments like collecting taxes.
Farmers. Farmers sell a commodity so if they cannot sell to China one result is they will
sell to other customers while China buys more from other producers.
Cost of living. DC does not care. There is a solid inflation lobby in the fed that
supports increasing the cost of living.
"Walmart and much of the IT sector against him." I am not buying it.
Well, more accurate to say that Germany and Britain invented the jet engine independently
of each other. Just as they both invented radar independently of each other as well.
As it is, the post-war jet engine was based primarily on the British design of Frank
Whittle, though some of the German ideas were also later incorporated.
Warren (D)(1): "Elizabeth Warren to introduce bill cancelling up to $50,000 in student debt
for most borrowers" [
MarketWatch ]. "The Democratic Senator of Massachusetts plans to introduce legislation in
the coming weeks that mirrors her presidential campaign proposal
Under the proposal
Warren released as part of her presidential campaign in April, borrowers with a household
income of less than $100,000 would have $50,000 of their student debt cancelled and borrowers
with an income between $100,000 and $250,000 would be eligible for some student debt
cancellation -- though not the full $50,000. Borrowers earning $250,000 or more would receive
no debt cancellation.
Her campaign estimated the plan would cost $640 billion, which would be paid through a tax
on the ultra-wealthy." • I don't think it makes sense to introduce free college without
giving relief to those who, because they chose to be born at the wrong time, are subject to a
lifetime of debt, so kudos to Warren.
That said, note the complex eligibility requirements; Warren just can't help herself. Also,
of course, you can drown in an inch of water, so pragmatically, even $50,000 might not mean all
that much, especially since servicers gotta servicer.
Warren (D)(2): "Elizabeth Warren's plan to pass her plans" (interview) [Ezra Klein,
Vox ]. Klein: "Do you think that there's a way to sequence your agenda such that you're
building momentum as opposed to losing it?" Warren: "Here's my theory: It starts now. That's
what true grassroots building is about. Green New Deal. More and more people are in that fight
and say that matters to me. Medicare-for-all, that fight that matters to me [No, it doesn't.
–lambert]. As those issues over the next year and a quarter get clearer, sharper, they're
issues worth fighting for, and issues where we truly have leadership on it, have people out
there knocking doors over it . You asked me about my theory about this. This is the importance
of engaging everyone. The importance not just of talking to other senators and representatives
but the importance of engaging people across this country." • This language seems awfully
vague, to me. For example, when Sanders says "Not me, us," I know there's a campaign structured
to back the words up. I don't get that sense with Warren. I also know that Sanders knows who
his enemies are ("the billionaires"). Here again, Warren feels gauzy to me ("the wealthy"). And
then there's this. Warren: "I believe in markets But markets without rules are theft." This is
silly. Markets with rules can be theft too! That's what
phishing equilibria are all about! (And the Bearded One would would argue that labor
markets under capitalism are theft , by definition.) But I'd very much
like to hear the views of readers less jaundiced than I am. Clearly Warren has a complex piece
of policy in her head, and so she and Klein are soul-mates.
Warren (D)(1): [Team Warren, Medium ]. "The
rising cost of rent reflects a basic supply-and-demand problem. There aren't enough places to
rent that are affordable to lower-income families. That's because developers can usually turn
bigger profits by building fancier new units targeted at higher-income families rather than
units targeted at lower-income families. The result is a huge hole in the marketplace."
•
I'm not a housing maven by any stretch of the imagination, but I think a story that doesn't
consider the role of private equity in snapping up distressed housing after the Crash is likely
to be a fairy tale.
Warren (D)(2): "The Memo: Warren's rise is threat to Sanders" [
The Hill ]. "'She certainly does seem to be taking votes away from him,' said Democratic
strategist Julie Roginsky. 'It seems as if, as she is rising, he is falling.'" • The
national averages don't show that.
"... As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning on
her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them. ..."
"... Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them and
would need those movements to push them through. ..."
"... As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration. I will
not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself to be
a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues. ..."
As it is, it seems that the corporate Democrats and Clintonites new strategy is to promote Warren and then start leaning
on her heavily in an effort to convert Warren to the neoliberal "dark side" or have her not be a problem for them.
Warren has unfortunately shown just how easy it is to get her to back down under pressure and there is also the fact that she
has been willing to carry water for the Clintonites before to advance her own political career like she did in the 2016 election.
At this point, I would seriously consider Yang to be my third choice after Sanders and Gabbard if it came down to it. Warren
would probably be either incapable or unwilling to face any serious political opposition either from Trump or neoliberal Democrats
and would probably cave.
Her stance on single payer is troubling and telling, and her foreign policy positions and worldview are absolutely atrocious.
She has good policy ideas (not great political instincts), but none of the ideas at the present time have movements behind them
and would need those movements to push them through.
Is she the person to lead movements and to help them grow? I can't see anyone making that case. She has had an impact on issues,
with the CFPB, which is good, but that was her work within academia. Different animal than actual movement building. Here, we
have single payer and she has backtracked.
So, changes that may happen down the road, great. At least provides some alternatives and possibly a path from here to there.
But, the fights we could win in the shorter term? Waffles. No thanks. I think she can play a great role in her current position
or if Bernie were to win, in his administration, but I think she would be very problematic as a general election nominee. Just
my opinion. I like her more than Biden and a number of others running but that says more about them than her.
The first thought that entered my mind when I saw that quote from Biden was that he really is suffering from cognitive decline.
As for Warren, I believe she could have value in a narrowly defined (finance-related) role in a Sanders administration.
I will not vote for her for president. Her foreign policy is atrocious, she doesn't support single payer, and she has proven herself
to be a garden variety neoliberal on all but her own niche issues.
The only candidates besides Sanders I would vote for (Gabbard and Gravel) have less chance of getting the nomination than he
does. If Sanders is not the Democratic nominee, I will once again be voting Green.
"... "When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief, it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that disguise are those we instruct in error." ..."
"There
was time when average Americans could be counted upon to know correctly whether the country was going up or down, because in those
days when America prospered, the American people prospered as well. These days things are different.
Let's look at it in a statistical sense. If you look at it from the middle of the 1930's (the Depression) up until the year
1980, the lower 90 percent of the population of this country, what you might call the American people, that group took home 70
percent of the growth in the country's income. If you look at the same numbers from 1997 up until now, from the height of the
great Dot Com bubble up to the present, you will find that this same group, the American people, pocketed none of this country's
income growth at all.
Our share of these great good times was zero, folks. The upper ten percent of the population, by which we mean our country's
financiers and managers and professionals, consumed the entire thing. To be a young person in America these days is to understand
instinctively the downward slope that so many of us are on."
Thomas Frank, Kansas City Missouri, 6 April 2017
"When the modern corporation acquires power over markets, power in the community, power over the state and power over belief,
it is a political instrument, different in degree but not in kind from the state itself. To hold otherwise -- to deny the political
character of the modern corporation -- is not merely to avoid the reality. It is to disguise the reality. The victims of that
disguise are those we instruct in error."
John Kenneth Galbraith
One of the older male anchors on financial TV today noted, in a very condescending tone, that for some reason Elizabeth Warren
'has an attitude' when it comes to corporations.
I hope she and some of her like minded fellows get their opportunity to extend the hand of equal justice to these smug serial
felons, pampered polecats, and corporatist clowns. It has been a long time coming.
" -- seems to me a very complicated explanation for: If a country doesn't produce what it
consumes Such a country is entirely F ed!"
This is totally NOT what I said, so I'll restate my point differently.
IF people (localists, sovereignists etc.) really wanted less globalisation, without global
supply chains, etc., then it would be possible, at a price (in terms of productivity).
BUT in reality localists, sovereignists etc. don't really want de-globalisation for the sake
of it, they mostly want to increase exports and decrease imports, and in fact these localists
desires are stronger in countries (USA, UK) that are big net importers, and therefore think
they are losing in the globalisation race.
The reason localists want to increase exports and decrease imports is that it is a form of
mercantilism: if exports increase and imports decrease, there are more jobs and
contemporaneously there are also more profits for businesses, so it's natural that countries
want to import less and export more.
BUT exports are a zero sum game, so while this or that country can have some advantages by
being a net exporter, this automatically means that some other country becomes a net importer,
so onne can't solve the problem of unemployment by having everyone being net exporters (as
Krugman once joked by having everyone export to Mars).
So the big plan of localists cannot work in aggregate, if it works for one country it
creates a problem for another country. This is a really big problem that will cause increasing
international tensions.
We are seeing this dinamic, IMHO, in the Brexit negotiations, where in my opinion many
brexiters had mercantilist hopes, but of course the EU will not accept an accord that makes it
easy for the UK to play mercantilist.
I'll add that I think that Brexiters don't really realise that they are mercantilists,
but if you look at the demands and hopes of many Brexiters this is their "revealed
preference".
This is also a problem because apparently many people (not only the Brexiters, see also
EU's policies towards Greece) don't really realise what's the endgame for the policies they are
rooting for, it seems more like a socially unconscious tendency, so it is difficult to have a
rational argument with someone that doesn't really understand what he wants and what he is in
practice trying to do.
The reason that every country is trying to play mercantilist is that in most countries
inequality rose in the last decades, which creates a tendency towards underconsumption, that
must be countered through one of these 3 channels: (1) Government deficits; (2) Easy money
finance and increased levels of financial leverage; (3) net exports.
The first two channels lead to higher debt levels, the third apparently doesn't but, as
on the other side of net exports there has to be a net importer, in reality it still relies on
an increase in debt levels, only it is an increase in debt levels by someone else (sometimes
known as the net exporter -- "vendor-financing" the net importer)
The increase in leverage goes hand in hand with an increase of the value of capital assets
VS GDP, that is an increase of the wealth to income ratio.
So ultimately the increased level of inequality inside countries (as opposed to economic
inequality between countries, that is falling) leads to a world where both debt levels and
asset prices grow more than proportionally to GDP, hence speculative behaviour, and an economy
that is addicted to the increase of debt levels, either at home or abroad (in the case of net
exporting countries).
The countries that seriously want to become net exporters have to depress internal
consumption, which makes the problem worse at a world level. The countries like the USA, where
internal consumption is too much a big share of the pie relative to what the USA could gain by
exports, are forced to the internal debt route, and so are more likely to become net
importers.
However, in this situation where everyone acts mercantilist, by necessity someone will end
up a net importer because import/export is a zero sum game, so it doesn't really make sense to
blame this or that attitude of, for example, Americans for they being net importers: they are
forced into it because otherwise they would be in perma-depression.
“But it is unquestionably and unarguably true that American conflict (which may or may
not be of a military nature) with a rising China is literally inevitable”
As long as the US Casino -(”the stock market”) will react unfavourable to a
(real) American-Chinese conflict – there will be no (real) American-Chinese conflict
–
(just the games which are going on currently) – and just never forget – all of my
Chinese friends are really ”tough gamblers”.
“As long as the US Casino -(”the stock market”) will react unfavourable
to a (real) American-Chinese conflict – there will be no (real) American-Chinese
conflict “
Crash, then conflict?
One possibility is a US market crash entirely due to domestic shenanigans, followed by
demagogue blaming it all on “Chiner.”
The first explicit reaction against globalization to gain
popular attention was the Battle of Seattle in 1999
Why not the Zapatista uprising in 1994? It was explicitly against Nafta and neoliberalism.
The 1997 Asian financial crisis also triggered a very strong reaction against the US centered
globalized financial system, its hedge funds, and the IMF.
the neoliberal ideology on which it rested, didn't face any serious challenge until the
Global Financial Crisis of 2008
In 2003, the unified challenge of the poorer countries was so serious that it the collapsed
the WTO talks to the point that it has never recovered. 2008 was simply catastrophic.
More than globalization being challenged, I think it is US hegemony. Trump is definitely
uniting its challengers with his media circus in Venezuela, disruptive tariff threats against
Mexico, and the blacklisting of Huawei.
Likbez 06.09.19 at 11:38 pm (no link)
Trump election in 2016 was in essence a rejection of neoliberal globalization by the
American electorate which showed the USA neoliberal establishment the middle finger. That's
probably why Russiagate hysteria was launched to create a smoke screen and patch the
cracks.
The same is probably true about Brexit. That's also explains Great Britain prominent role
in pushing anti-Russia hysteria.
I think the collapse of neoliberal ideology in 2008 (along with the collapse of financial
markets) mortally wounded "classic" neoliberal globalization. That's why we see the
conversion of classic neoliberalism into Trump's "national neoliberalism" which rejects
"classic" neoliberal globalization based on multinational treaties like WTO.
As the result of crisis of neoliberal ideology we see re-emergence of far-right on the
political scene. We might also see the emergence of hostile to each other trading blocks
(China Russia Turkey Iran; possibly plus Brazil and India ) vs G7. History repeats
I suspect that the USA neoliberal elite (financial oligarchy and MIC) views the current
trade war with China as the key chance to revitalize Cold War schemes and strategically
organize US economic, foreign and security policies around them. It looks like this strategic
arrangement is very similar to the suppression of the USSR economic development during the
Cold War.
The tragedy is that Trump administration is launching the conflict with China, while
simultaneously antagonizing Russia, attacking EU and undermining elements of the postwar
world order which propelled the USA to its current hegemonic position.
"... The US has decided that China can't be allowed to become a technological power any more than it is now. It's fine if all they do is make T-shirts, and low-tech crap, but anything more advanced then a digital alarm clock can not be allowed. ..."
"... Anytime you weaponize something (the dollar), countermeasures will be invented to neutralize that weapon........only a matter of time. ..."
"... We're so balls deep in debt la la land now that having a conversation about wealth creation via production feels a lot like making balloon animals while wearing a clown suit. ..."
"... Much More Than a Trade War ..."
"... it signals the implosion of America's tinsel, derivative-based economy ..."
"... the high dive of the middle class into serfdom ..."
"... Politicians here in the US are desperate for me to believe it is all China's fault. Not the lying, stealing politicians and MBAs that have stolen my future but China. I am not buying it. Even if China has stolen America's wealth, who let them? Who helped and got rich? That's right, US politicians and MBAs. ..."
"... The only reason why this is a trade war in the first place, is because we're attempting to undo the shitty deals signed by Bill Clinton. Let this be a lesson: Don't sign shitty deals. No matter how much they donate to your campaign. ..."
"... Asking this of a politician is like asking a leech to stop living off blood. ..."
I watch Fox News Sunday and today all of the usual suspects were blaming Trump for
everything under the sun--including committing crimes and needing to be put in jail. It bears
repeating that they said the same things about Reagan and his trade wars--which benefited
Americans immensely.
Trump will win unless the Dems can get rid of him. China is a paper tiger and always has
been.
They are a totalitarian communist state and as such are a sworn enemy of the US and its
historic peoples. They must be taken down and that is not hyperbole--they never should have
been allowed to trade with the civilized world in the first place without first shutting down
the Kims in Norkland and dismantling their communist state.
Russia would have been more in
order in 1992 than China. ******* Clintons.
(Those companies and organizations which have contributed to and/or financed the creation
of the Chinese Communist Party's ultra-Orwellian system for command and control: Social
Credit System.)
Microsoft, Cisco, Apple, Yahoo, Narus
Rockefeller Foundation, MIT, Princeton University, University of Texas System,
Northwestern University, Oregon State Treasury, et al.
Recommended Reading:
The People's Republic of the Disappeared --- by Michael Caster
Bullets and Opium --- by Liao Yiwu
The People's Republic of Amnesia --- by Louisa Lim
Recommended Viewing:
In the Name of Confucius --- DVD (Jia Kongzi, Zhi Ming)
Free China - Free China --- DVD (Zi You Zhongguo)
The Sun Behind the Clouds [Tibet's Struggle for Freedom] --- DVD
Is it so hard to understand that the chinks KNOW that the yuan is trash and that's why
both the CB and the public are stacking gold. They're preparing for what comes next.
According to Jim Willie, that will be an Asian gold trade note as proposed by the PM of
Malaysia.
"China and its citizens would greatly benefit from eliminating barriers."
It's too bad they never did this, but now it no longer matters. The US has decided that
China can't be allowed to become a technological power any more than it is now. It's fine if
all they do is make T-shirts, and low-tech crap, but anything more advanced then a digital
alarm clock can not be allowed.
China would do best to forget about the US and hope that it can make due with it's
domestic market. With 1.3 billion people this seems like it should be possible.
They need dollars to buy US goods and services. They also need them to buy oil from
Saudis. They have dollar based loans that require payment in dollars.
"The United States has discovered the Achilles heel of China. The same one Japan had in
the 80s when it seemed that it was going to invade the world. Its dependence on the US dollar
to maintain its large domestic imbalances, a very fragile house of cards of excess capacity,
real estate bubble and unproductive spending."
Oh, yeah. .......we just "figured" that one out. It's not like we haven't used that scheme
on.......well, EVERYONE. Even our own citizens are slaves to a debt dollar system. It is all
we got left......well that and the A-bomb. But at the same time, it is our biggest weakness
because if we can't get the world to expand dollar debt, 5 hen we will have to do it
ourselves. Hence the, "China is not the largest holder of US bonds in the world, not even
close. It's the
US . In fact, China has already reduced part of its holdings in US bonds and yields fell
."
We are the largest holder of our own debt.....and can print up what we need to buy what is
necessary to drive yields down. But at some point it will be like playing monopoly with
yourself......a zero sum game. Anytime you weaponize something (the dollar), countermeasures
will be invented to neutralize that weapon........only a matter of time.
Indeed. Anyone pushing that narrative is part of the totalitarian regime or is dumb as a
bag of hammers. Either way, they lose all credibility in my opinion.
The author has never been to China to know anything about it, much less write about it,
and he knows even less about the trade relationships of the two countries.
For instance, He says: " China has a trade deficit with most of its other partners"....
WRONG!!!! It is the U.S. who has the deficits with other countries, not China! China
has a manufacturing economy, not a consumer economy, so the trade balance is in its favor, as
manufacturing economies are in demand and have very little deficit.
And the author also reveals his biases about China by saying: "China's Achilles heel has
been to try to be a reserve currency whilst maintaining capital controls and increasing state
intervention...." What do you think the U.S. Federal Reserve does, if it is not the very same
thing? Weren't they the ones who sets interest rates, control the rates of inflation,
dictating the supply of money, and doing economic bailouts to the banks in 2008 and 2009 with
our money?
Secondly, he is just regurgitating the same old propaganda already put out about China,
and really doesn't provide anything new. Why can't ZH find better writers to publish than
this?
You are correct. China usually runs surpluses. But not with everyone.
In 2018, China posted a trade surplus of USD 351.76 billion, the lowest since 2013, as
exports increased 9.9 percent, its strongest performance in seven years, while imports were
up 15.8 percent. The biggest trade surpluses were recorded with Hong Kong, the US, the
Netherlands, India, the UK, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia. China recorded trade deficits
with Taiwan, South Korea, Australia, Germany, Brazil and South Africa.
"China's Achilles heel has been to try to be a reserve currency whilst maintaining
capital controls and increasing state intervention...."
This is impossible. One cannot institute strong capital controls and have a reserve
currency at the same time. China knows this and has never tried to become the reserve
currency.
yeah, they said they'd work on "migration" into their country, and try to do something
about those staged caravans..but what they didn't do is say they'd stop their citizens from
invading the US like they have been doing for decades, and they didn't say they'd secure
their side of the border between the US and Mexico. So, how is the border more secure
exactly? Oh, and they didn't say they'd pay for a wall.
These same games go on, round and round, between both parties, with people twisting
everything, including nothing burgers and actual defeats into some kind of bizarre "winning"
********, to avoid legitimate criticism of their idol in the White House. Trumpets and
Obamabots are peas in a pod in more ways than they realize, but watch out, you'll get an eye
jab if you walk between them, with all the fingers pointing.
Winning, like alcohol, is addictive. Sometimes you find yourself all out of booze, so you
find yourself taking swigs of Aqua Velva. Lots of Aqua Velva heads around here.
Same old script: China bad. China steals. China need to shape up or else. USA good. USA too soft on China. USA will be great again when China surrenders to US
slavery. Think that about sums up these articles.
I agree. The "investor" class. And by that i do not mean all investors, just the non
productive LEECHES at the top playing games with fake "financial instruments"
They are non producers. They are lampreys. Same as on the bottom. I have absolutely no
problem with rich people. I am blessed to hang with many self made millionaires who are all
about designing / manufacturing unique products sold all over the world. They produce wealth
and a product, not by skimming.
We're so balls deep in debt la la land now that having a conversation about wealth
creation via production feels a lot like making balloon animals while wearing a clown
suit.
But.... it actually works. There will ALWAYS be a market for well engineered quality
products . ALWAYS.
Don't chase that race to the bottom. That is what was sold to the Us
Consooooooooooooooooooooooooooomer (**** I hate that name, I am not a consumer) for the last
thirty year. They bought the ****, they own it. **** em, let 'em choke on the icrapple and
other swarf.
Ha.
I am not balls deep in debt. My total life debt so far is $800. USA incorporated... THEY
have debt. That is not my debt.
Politicians here in the US are desperate for me to believe it is all China's fault. Not
the lying, stealing politicians and MBAs that have stolen my future but China. I am not buying it. Even if China has stolen America's wealth, who let them? Who helped and got rich? That's
right, US politicians and MBAs.
Yes, we have Democrat and Republican pols at the federal level spending this country into
decline by trillions, and financing it all with inflation, which is why we're paying higher
prices for virtually everything now, than we've ever paid.
The only reason why this is a trade war in the first place, is because we're attempting to
undo the shitty deals signed by Bill Clinton. Let this be a lesson: Don't sign shitty deals.
No matter how much they donate to your campaign.
"... If lunatics and scoundrels dress in fine attire they are merely better dressed lunatics and scoundrels. ..."
"... What an apt definition of those, who, among other things, robbed the Greek economy and flooded the EU countries with "refugees", most of whom have never even been in any war zone. let alone Syria. ..."
"... French Foreign Minister Talleyrand had it right when, commenting on Napoleon's defeat, he said of the reconstituted Bourbon Dynasty "Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublié ni rien apprendre" or as is commonly quoted in English, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing." ..."
While the European Parliament doesn't have too much real power, the most important thing
is that it was the dress rehearsal of its countries' national elections. And this rehearsal
shows that the establishment is in a bad trouble. Though it was crystally clear since Italy
'18.
What's needed here is a REAL and ACCURATE defining of "center", particularly
"center-right" and "fringe". What "center-right"? There is no real "center-right" when it
comes to the EU and bowing before the Commission, as the "center-right" agree with pulling in
even the marxist in all but name Greens of all countries just so they can keep the real
right, the Eurosceptics and Leavers out. All the more reason, Nigel Farage, far from being
some right-wing lunatic the BBC would have you believe, is actually at this point being FAR
too politically correct, refusing to ally with Le Pen and Salvini. The right HAS TO ally with
each other, across Europe, to have any influence. Whining about past statements by old man Le
Pen that are 40 years old or crying about the roots of some who support the AfD holds nothing
productive for their cause. The "center-right" is nothing but the center-left, incorrectly
labeled.
A very healthy development. My concern about it all, however, are the characters of the
individuals who lead such revolts against the Establishment. You need outsiders and often
obnoxious people to lead such movements, but they often don't make great leaders once they
are in. (My biggest problem with Trump is Trump.)
I hope the Establishment gets it – really gets it – and this change in Western
politics moves the whole body politic in the correct/reformist direction.
"Smashed"? Not even close. A major reshuffling, sure, but the combination of anti-EU
parties, eurosceptics, and outright racists hasn't grown all that much. In fact, in the light
of how the Brits have mishandled Brexit, certain major anti-EU figures now campaigned on
"reform from within" platforms rather than their long-held exit positions. Those who still
want to see the EU broken up, or reduced to the next best thing, a neoliberal free-trade
zone, remain a tiny minority.
On the other hand, I'll never forgive neither Tories nor Labour that thanks to their
stupidity, we still have that bloviating joke of a pied piper running around. He is quite
fitting, though, in the era of brainless populism, a Churchill for our time, the man who
goads Britain into war against nazi Germany (in his own tiny mind, obviously), then jumps
ship when hostilities begin, his job complete: "I have nothing to offer but your blood, toil,
tears, and sweat. You shall fight on the beaches, you shall fight on the landing grounds, you
shall fight in the fields and in the streets, you shall fight in the hills. If the British
Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, nincompoops will still say, 'This was
his finest hour.'"
Even when they move into the living room, leaders of fringe and former fringe parties tend
to be ego maniacal prima donas, and have a very hard time getting along, leave alone
cooperating for mutual gain.
If lunatics and scoundrels dress in fine attire they are merely better dressed lunatics
and scoundrels.
What an apt definition of those, who, among other things, robbed the Greek economy and
flooded the EU countries with "refugees", most of whom have never even been in any war zone.
let alone Syria.
Farage's win will lead to the Conservatives under Johnson providing a 'hard Brexit'. When
Britain survives and thrives, that will be the nail in the coffin of the EU, at least as it
is currently constituted.
French Foreign Minister Talleyrand had it right when, commenting on Napoleon's defeat, he
said of the reconstituted Bourbon Dynasty
"Personne n'est corrigé; personne n'a su ni rien oublié ni rien apprendre"
or as is commonly quoted in English, "They have learned nothing and forgotten nothing."
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose, or so our would-be European
totalitarians would have it.
The Globalists and their "Establishment" are not "Smashed" yet.
--
The Evil Union (EU)
There is an evil union called the E.U.
That tells other countries what to do
Many people of these countries did not get to vote
On whether their country should join this huge "lifeboat"
Instead their "leaders" signed their countries away
And now these peoples' are forced to obey
The dictums that emanate from an E.U. cabal
Are they now prisoners of these globalist rascals?
This Evil Union (EU) was planned many years ago
There is evidence to prove this: Do the people know?
They could be the "guinea pigs" of the New World Order
The one world government: the end game of the traitors
How can countries escape from this undemocratic EU?
Are they now prisoners, being told what to do?
By bureaucrats and, an EU, "Unelected Commission"
Has "democracy" been subverted by getting E.U. "admission"?
Excellent outcome for Europe and the EU. The establishment is not smashed. It is put on
hold (a bit). The greens are a welcome new block in the parliament. The nationalist-right did
win a bit but certainly not as much as predicted.
So now we have a more diverse parliament where discussions and fights will get much harder
and for real. Voter outcome is rising too. Just like a real democracy with a real electorat
and a real parliament. The EU is growing up. Hurray.
Just look at the record. Trump -- a cross between a carney barker and a conman -- beat a
neoliberal in 2016. Right-wing populists have scored big in Austria, Italy, Britain, and
Brazil since then. Just recently, Australia's right-of-center Labor coalition won their
election. And in the European Union's latest contest, Greens won big while right-wing parties
made gains in some areas. All these victories came at the expense of neoliberal centrists.
Bottom line: Across the world, people are finally wising up to the fact that neoliberalism
has failed them economically, politically, and environmentally. In fact, the climate crisis
-- an existential threat to human civilization -- is a direct result of the global neoliberal
juggernaut that has swept the developed world. So are the record levels of income and wealth
disparity, and the subversion of democracy by a powerful oligarchy -- particularly in the
US.
The only folks who didn't get the memo on this appears to be the neoliberal mafia that
runs the Democratic Party and the mainstream media here in the US.
At a time when neoliberalism is all but dead, Democrats and the mainstream media are
pushing Joe Biden, a neoliberal with a track record of supporting corporations and financial
interests above the people's interests; a man who's backed by PACs; a man whose small-bore
response to the climate crisis amounts to mass genocide for people and the species we share
the planet with.
According to The Hill's media reporter, Joe Concha, Biden is getting more media coverage
than all the other Democratic candidates combined, and the month after he announced, in one
week alone, Biden was mentioned 1400 times, to 400 for Sanders, who is running second in the
polls. This kind of backing by the party and the press is reminiscent of how they treated
Hillary Clinton in 2016, and the results will probably be the same.
@gjohnsit Like a
brontosaurus with a fatal wound, it thrashes in the swamp, crushing anything nearby, while
the nerve impulses crawl towards it's plum-sized brain. Like a blind drunk man whose life is
making its final spin around the drain picking a bar fight with a bunch of tough guys half
his age. Like a gambler going all in on one last hand. Dying, but not dead, and dangerous
because it has nothing left to lose.
@Raggedy Ann
I find the Democrats far more repulsive than the Republicans. At least the Republicans openly
avow their evil intentions while the Democrats hide the dagger and poison the chalice (a
little hyperbole hurts no one) in order to harm those who trust them. I won't register as a
Democrat this time but I will vote for Bernie if the DNC somehow fails to stop him. However,
I don't think the Democrats will be that incompetent in obeying the oligarchy's wishes.
Is there a third party candidate? People want to know.
"... Hospital executives, who each make millions of dollars a year, preside over an industry where about 5,000 patients die every week from preventable problems in U.S. hospitals, according to physicians at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The watchdogs who call out this deadly hazard live on a fraction of that amount as they try to save lives. ..."
"... A major reason why our society's best are so often last while our worst are first is the media's infatuation with publicizing the worst and ignoring the best. Warmongers get press. The worst politicians are most frequently on the Sunday morning TV shows – not the good politicians or civic leaders with proven records bettering our society. ..."
"... Ever see Congressman Pascrell (Dem. N.J.) on the Sunday morning news shows? Probably not. He's a leader who is trying to reform Congress so that it is open, honest, capable and represents you the people. Surely you have heard of Senator Lindsey Graham (Rep. S.C.) who is making ugly excuses for Donald Trump, always pushing for war and bloated military budgets, often hating Muslims and Arabs and championing the lawless American Empire. He is always in the news, having his say. ..."
"... The eight days of this Civic Superbowl got far less coverage than did Tiger Woods losing another tournament that year or the dismissive nicknames given by the foul-mouth Trump to his mostly wealthy Republican opponents on just one debate stage. ..."
"... If the whole rotted-out edifice comes crashing down, there won't be enough coerced taxpayer dollars anymore to save the Plutocrats, with their limitless greed and power. Maybe then the best can have a chance to be first. ..."
If you want to see where a country's priorities lie, look at how it allocates its money
Plutocrats like to control the range of permissible public dialogue. Plutocrats also like to shape what society values.
If you want to see where a country's priorities lie, look at how it allocates its money.
While teachers and nurses earn comparatively little for performing critical jobs, corporate bosses including those who
pollute our planet and bankrupt defenseless families, make millions more. Wells Fargo executives are cases in point. The
vastly overpaid CEO of General Electric left his teetering company in shambles. In 2019, Boeing's CEO got a bonus
(despite the Lion Air Flight 610 737 Max 8 crash in 2018). Just
days
before
a second deadly 737 Max 8 crash in Ethiopia.
This disparity is on full display in my profession. Public interest lawyers and public defenders, who fight daily for a
more just and lawful society, are paid modest salaries. On the other hand, the most well compensated lawyers are
corporate lawyers who regularly aid and abet corporate crime, fraud, and abuse. Many corporate lawyers line their
pockets by shielding the powerful violators from accountability under the rule of law.
Physicians who minister to the needy poor and go to the risky regions, where Ebola or other deadly infectious diseases
are prevalent, are paid far less than cosmetic surgeons catering to human vanities. Does any rational observer believe
that the best movies and books are also the most rewarded? Too often the opposite is true. Stunningly gripping
documentaries earn less than 1 percent of what is garnered by the violent, pornographic, and crude movies at the top of
the ratings each week.
On my weekly radio show, I interview some of the most dedicated authors who accurately document perils to health and
safety. The authors on my program expose pernicious actions and inactions that jeopardize people's daily lives. These
guests offer brilliant, practical solutions for our widespread woes (see ralphnaderradiohour.com). Their important
books, usually go unnoticed by the mass media, barely sell a few thousand copies, while the best-seller lists are
dominated by celebrity biographies. Ask yourself, when preventable and foreseeable disasters occur, which books are more
useful to society?
The monetary imbalance is especially jarring when it comes to hawks who beat the drums of war.
For example,
people who push for our government to start illegal wars (eg. John Bolton pushing for the war in Iraq) are rewarded with
top appointments. Former government officials also get very rich when they take jobs in the defense industry. Do you
remember anyone who opposed the catastrophic Iraq War getting such lucrative rewards?
The unknown and unrecognized people who harvest our food are on the lowest rung of the income ladder despite the
critical role they play in our lives. Near the top of the income ladder are people who gamble on the prices of food via
the commodities market and those who drain the nutrients out of natural foods and sell the junk food that remains, with
a dose of harmful additives. Agribusiness tycoons profit from this plunder.
Those getting away with major billing fraud grow rich. While those people trying to get our government to do something
about $350 billion dollars in health care billing fraud this year – like Harvard Professor Malcolm K. Sparrow – live on
a college professor's salary.
Hospital executives, who each make millions of dollars a year, preside over an industry where about 5,000 patients die
every week from preventable problems in U.S. hospitals, according to physicians at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. The
watchdogs who call out this deadly hazard live on a fraction of that amount as they try to save lives.
Even in sports, where people think the best athletes make the most money, the reverse is more often true.
Just
ask a red-faced Brian Cashman, the Yankees GM, who, over twenty years, has spent massive sums on athletes who failed
miserably to produce compared to far lesser-paid baseball players. Look at today's top ranked Yankees – whose fifteen
"stars" are injured, while their replacements are playing spectacularly for much smaller compensation than their high
priced teammates.
A major reason why our society's best are so often last while our worst are first is the media's infatuation with
publicizing the worst and ignoring the best.
Warmongers get press. The worst politicians are most frequently on
the Sunday morning TV shows – not the good politicians or civic leaders with proven records bettering our society.
Ever see Congressman Pascrell (Dem. N.J.) on the Sunday morning news shows? Probably not. He's a leader who is trying to
reform Congress so that it is open, honest, capable and represents you the people. Surely you have heard of Senator
Lindsey Graham (Rep. S.C.) who is making ugly excuses for Donald Trump, always pushing for war and bloated military
budgets, often hating Muslims and Arabs and championing the lawless American Empire. He is always in the news, having
his say.
Take the 162 people who participated in our Superbowl of Civic Action at Constitution Hall in Washington D.C. in May and
September 2016. These people have and are changing America. They are working to make food, cars, drugs, air, water,
medical devices, and drinking water safer. Abuses by corporations against consumers, workers and small taxpayers would
be worse without them. Our knowledge of solutions and ways to treat people fairly and abolish poverty and advance public
services is greater because of their courageous hard work. (see breakingthroughpower.org).
The eight days of this Civic Superbowl got far less coverage than did Tiger Woods losing another tournament that year or
the dismissive nicknames given by the foul-mouth Trump to his mostly wealthy Republican opponents on just one debate
stage.
All societies need play, entertainment, and frivolity. But a media obsessed with giving 100 times the TV and radio time,
using our public airwaves for free, to those activities than to serious matters crucial to the most basic functioning of
our society is assuring that the worst is first and the best is last.
Just look at your weekly TV Guide.
If the whole rotted-out edifice comes crashing down, there won't be enough coerced taxpayer dollars anymore to save the
Plutocrats, with their limitless greed and power. Maybe then the best can have a chance to be first.
"... China assembled an "unreliable entities list" for retaliation against foreign companies, individuals and organizations that "do not follow market rules, violate the spirit of contracts, blockade and stop supplying Chinese companies for noncommercial reasons, and seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies." ..."
"... And out of nowhere, Trump warned Mexico to stop the immigrant flow in 10-days or face tariffs. Global CEOs who were rushing to rearchitect their China supply chains, digested the risk that these investments could be instantly devastated by some future tariff - imposed to achieve Americas geopolitical objectives - and they prepared to warn shareholders they're putting new investment on hold. As the US treasury yield curve inverted, with 3mth bills at 2.34% and 10yrs at 2.12%. Which of course, is one of the most reliable warnings of looming recession. ..."
"... "Tariffs are being used as a proactive, combative tool. The GDP hit will be at least double. Modelling these tariffs require more complex frameworks." ..."
"... " Global trade was already in the process of fracturing ," added the strategist. "Now Huawei can't use Google's operating system." Their phones are as good as paperweights. "But do you really want to bet that Huawei can't spend the next 6mths building a competing operating system?" We're entering a world of competing superpowers. " The overall impact will be to operate economies with redundant technologies, fewer efficiencies, lower ROEs, lower ROAs. And ironically, or perhaps by design, it'll be bad for profits, but okay for labor ." ..."
Submitted by Eric Peters, CIO of One River Asset Management
"Don't say we didn't warn you!" declared the China People's Daily. And historians rushed to remind us that Beijing used the phrase
in advance of their 1962 border war with India and 1979 war with Vietnam.
China assembled an "unreliable entities list" for retaliation against foreign companies, individuals and organizations that "do
not follow market rules, violate the spirit of contracts, blockade and stop supplying Chinese companies for noncommercial reasons,
and seriously damage the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese companies."
Pence responded by warning Beijing we could double tariffs. "Engaging in activities that run afoul of US sanctions can result
in severe consequences, including a loss of access to the US financial system," warned the US Treasury's undersecretary for terrorism
– you see, the Europeans are building systems to circumvent American sanctions. Today, those sanctions are directed at Iran, Russia,
North Korea, Venezuela, but tomorrow they may be directed at China.
Naturally, the Europeans threatened only themselves - 1,500-year habits are hard to break. Germany and France fought bitterly
over who would become European Commission President. Brussels warned Rome to honor its obligation to contain its growing debt. Italy's
Salvini threatened to launch a parallel currency – step #1 in the process to abandon the euro and default.
And out of nowhere, Trump warned Mexico to stop the immigrant flow in 10-days or face tariffs. Global CEOs who were rushing to
rearchitect their China supply chains, digested the risk that these investments could be instantly devastated by some future tariff
- imposed to achieve Americas geopolitical objectives - and they prepared to warn shareholders they're putting new investment on
hold. As the US treasury yield curve inverted, with 3mth bills at 2.34% and 10yrs at 2.12%. Which of course, is one of the most
reliable warnings of looming recession.
Framework
"Economists generally use tax frameworks to evaluate the trade war," said my favorite strategist. "They calculate a -0.4% hit
to GDP, which is not such a big deal. But they're using the wrong tool." Tax frameworks treat tariffs as a tax. They then model
how a nation's currency adjusts to the tax, how corporate profit margins shrink to absorb the tax, and how consumers shoulder the
remaining burden. "Tariffs are being used as a proactive, combative tool. The GDP hit will be at least double. Modelling these tariffs
require more complex frameworks."
"If all of the affected nations simply agreed to adopt new tax regimes, then the tax framework would work fine," continued my
favorite strategist. "But the world has built specialized supply chains. So if Nation A tries to hurt Nation B, and Nation B is
part of critical supply chains that impact Nation A, then there are many things B can do to harm A in non-linear ways." Banning
rare earth metal exports is a small example. "Once Apple locks down their product production for Nov 2019 release, China knows exactly
how to push that past Feb 2020."
" Global trade was already in the process of fracturing ," added the strategist. "Now Huawei can't use Google's operating system."
Their phones are as good as paperweights. "But do you really want to bet that Huawei can't spend the next 6mths building a competing
operating system?" We're entering a world of competing superpowers. " The overall impact will be to operate economies with redundant
technologies, fewer efficiencies, lower ROEs, lower ROAs. And ironically, or perhaps by design, it'll be bad for profits, but okay
for labor ."
"... The Wall Street Crash in 1929 exposed the fragility and rottenness of much in the United States. Brexit may do the same in Britain. In New York 90 years ago, my father only truly appreciated how bad the situation really was when his boss said to him in a low voice: "Remember, when we are writing this story, the word 'panic' is not to be used." ..."
There is a story about an enthusiastic American who took a phlegmatic English friend to see the Niagara Falls.
"Isn't that amazing?" exclaimed the American. "Look at that vast mass of water dashing over that enormous cliff!"
"But what,"
asked the Englishman, "is to stop it?"
My father,
Claud Cockburn, used to tell this fable to illustrate what, as a reporter in New York on the first day of the Wall Street
Crash on 24 October 1929, it was like to watch a great and unstoppable disaster taking place.
I thought
about my father's account of the mood on that day in New York as
Theresa
May
announced her departure as prime minister, the latest milestone – but an important one – in the implosion of British
politics in the age of
Brexit
.
Everybody with their feet on the ground has a sense of unavoidable disaster up ahead but no idea of how to avert it; least
of all May's likely successors with their buckets of snake oil about defying the EU and uniting the nation.
It is a mistake to put all the blame on the politicians. I have spent the last six months travelling around Britain,
visiting places from Dover to Belfast, where it is clear that parliament is only reflecting real fault lines in British
society. Brexit may have envenomed and widened these divisions, but it did not create them and it is tens of millions of
people who differ radically in their opinions, not just an incompetent and malign elite.
Even so, May
was precisely the wrong political personality to try to cope with the Brexit crisis: not stupid herself, she has a
single-minded determination amounting to tunnel vision that is akin to stupidity. Her lauding of consensus in her
valedictory speech announcing her resignation was a bit rich after three years of rejecting compromise until faced with
imminent defeat.
Charging
ahead regardless only works for those who are stronger than all obstacles, which was certainly not the case in Westminster
and Brussels. Only those holding all the trump cards can ignore the other players at the table. This should have been
blindingly clear from the day May moved into Downing Street after a referendum that showed British voters to be split down
the middle, something made even more obvious when she lost her parliamentary majority in 2017. But, for all her tributes to
the virtues of compromise today, she relied on the votes of MPs from the sectarian Protestant DUP in Northern Ireland, a
place which had strongly voted to remain in the EU.
Her
miscalculations in negotiating with the EU were equally gross. The belief that Britain could cherry pick what it wanted from
its relationship with Europe was always wishful thinking unless the other 27 EU states were disunited. It is always in the
interests of the members of a club to make sure that those who leave have a worse time outside than in.
The balance
of power was against Britain and this is not going to change, though
Boris
Johnson
and Dominic Raab might pretend that what has been lacking is sufficient willpower or belief in Brexit as a sort
of religious faith. These are dangerous delusions, enabling Nigel Farage to sell the idea of "betrayal" and being "stabbed
in the back" just like German right-wing politicians after 1918.
Accusations
of treachery might be an easy sell in Britain because it is so steeped in myths of self-sufficiency, fostered by
self-congratulatory films and books about British prowess in the Second World War. More recent British military failures in
Iraq and Afghanistan either never made it on to the national news agenda or are treated as irrelevant bits of ancient
history. The devastating Chilcot report on Britain in the Iraq War received insufficient notice because its publication
coincided with the referendum in 2016.
Brexiters
who claim to be leading Britain on to a global stage are extraordinarily parochial in their views of the outside world. The
only realistic role for Britain in a post-Brexit world will be, as ever, a more humble spear carrier for Trump's America. In
this sense, it is appropriate that the Trump state visit should so neatly coincide with May's departure and the triumphant
emergence of Trump's favourite British politicians, Johnson and Farage.
Just how
decisive is the current success of the Brexiters likely to be? Their opponents say encouragingly that they have promised
what they cannot deliver in terms of greater prosperity so they are bound to come unstuck. But belief in such a comforting
scenario is the height of naivety because the world is full of politicians who have failed to deliver the promises that got
them elected, but find some other unsavoury gambit to keep power by exacerbating foreign threats, as in India, or locking up
critics, as in Turkey.
Britain is
entering a period of permanent crisis not seen since the 17
th
century.
Brexit was a symptom as well as a cause of divisions. The gap between the rich and the poor, the householder and the tenant,
the educated and the uneducated, the old and the young, has grown wider and wider. Brexit became the great vent through
which grievances that had nothing to with Brussels bubbled. The EU is blamed for all the sins of de-industrialisation,
privatisation and globalisation and, if it did not create them, then it did not do enough to alleviate their impact.
The
proponents of Leave show no sign of having learned anything over the last three years, but they do not have to because they
can say that the rewards of Brexit lie in a sun-lit future. Remainers have done worse because they are claiming that the
rewards of the membership of the EU are plenteous and already with us. "If you wish to see its monument, look around you,"
they seem to say. This is a dangerous argument: why should anybody from ex-miners in the Welsh Valleys to former car workers
in Birmingham or men who once worked on Dover docks endorse what has happened to them while Britain has been in the EU? Why
should they worry about a rise or fall in the GDP when they never felt it was their GDP in the first place?
May is
getting a sympathy vote for her final lachrymose performance, but it is undeserved. Right up to the end there was a
startling gap between her words and deeds. The most obvious contradiction was her proclaimed belief that "life depends on
compromise". But it also turns out that "proper funding for mental health" was at the heart of her NHS long term plan,
though hospital wards for the mentally ill continue to close and patients deep in psychosis are dispatched to the other end
of the country.
The Wall
Street Crash in 1929 exposed the fragility and rottenness of much in the United States. Brexit may do the same in Britain.
In New York 90 years ago, my father only truly appreciated how bad the situation really was when his boss said to him in a
low voice: "Remember, when we are writing this story, the word 'panic' is not to be used."
"... The long, dense economic relationship appears to have passed its peak, writes Patrick Lawrence. ..."
"... The fallout from these mutually imposed taxes on trade will be considerable all by itself. Global supply chains will inevitably be disrupted -- a potential threat to worldwide economic stability. U.S. importers are expected to start shifting purchases away from China in favor of alternative suppliers with lower cost structures. American investors are likely to reconsider the mainland as a production platform, in many cases diverting investment dollars elsewhere. ..."
"... In the financial markets, this process is termed "decoupling." The long, dense economic relationship between the U.S. and China, the reasoning runs, appears to have passed its peak. ..."
"... With bilateral trade talks stalled, both sides have begun to indicate -- directly or by inference -- that they are now prepared to draw blood. Once the long-term damage begins, as appears increasingly likely, it is difficult to see how there will be any turning back from it. ..."
"... The only known back door into Huawei systems was created by the National Security Agency, which hacked its servers at some point between 2010 and 2012; this was revealed in the documents Edward Snowden made public in mid -- 2013. In effect, the U.S. accuses China of doing what it has already done. ..."
"... "When it comes to policy caprice motivated by paranoia and Deep State lies, the attack on Huawei is in a class all by itself," David Stockman, the former White House budget director, wrote on his blog earlier this month. "The whole case has been confected by Washington-domiciled economic nationalists who think prosperity stems from the machinations of the state and that state-sponsored 'national champions' are essential to winning the race for global economic and technological dominance." ..."
"... Last week the president suggested that the Huawei dispute can be negotiated as part of a broader agreement on trade. At the same time, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has been crisscrossing the country to warn U.S. companies, universities, and other institutions of the perils of doing business with China. Coats's focus is on the high-technology sector. ..."
"... There are two lessons to draw from this spectacle. Trump's position on Huawei gives the game away: If the company is truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as a chip to be bargained in trade talks with Beijing. Equally, Coats's barnstorming tour is a clear indication that the national security apparatus is actively seeking to cast China as a strategic threat to the U.S. -- as the Pentagon declared it to be in a defense review earlier this year. ..."
"... Turning off the supply of rare earths is not the "nuclear option" China may consider it, as there are alternative suppliers. At the same time, the mainland accounts for nearly three-quarters of world supplies. When it blocked sales to Japan during a diplomatic dispute in 2010, prices rose precipitously and there was mayhem among manufacturers dependent on Chinese supplies. ..."
"... Xi made a remark in Jiangxi that is not to be missed. "We are now embarking on a new Long March," he said, referencing the famous retreat Mao led after Chinese Nationalists defeated the Red Army in 1934. "And we must start all over again." ..."
"... Unless Washington opens to a more cooperative partnership with Beijing -- an unlikely prospect -- this could be the moment China begins to displace the U.S. as the preeminent power in the western Pacific. ..."
"... The US has to regain a real economy and stop the insane military spending. Regardless of China. ..."
"... ‘”Trump’s position on Huawei gives the game away: If the company is truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as a chip to be bargained in trade talks with Beijing.” Absolutely the case. Trump has been caught before in this same kind of contradictory stance, as with tariffs on steel and aluminum. ..."
"... Trump seems to think he can command the wind and the waves. He has an immense ego, and there is the fact that he is a good deal less clever than he thinks he is. ..."
"... Trump believes that by intimidation and threats, he can make something happen that cannot happen through the ordinary operations of the economies. In this we see him most like the thugs that came to run a number of European countries in the 1930s. ..."
"... Trump’s “MAGA” is nothing more than thinking you can make that heart-warming post-WWII slogan, “the American Dream,” come alive again, many decades later and in an entirely different set of circumstances. “The American Dream” was based in a world where almost every competitor was prostrate from war while America remained relatively unscathed. So, America supplied, for a while, a huge share of the world’s demands, but its share has been declining ever since. ..."
"... Naturally, many Americans want to believe otherwise. Trump’s base – the nation’s Wal-Mart shoppers and the residents of its huge gulag of trailer parks – certainly does, and its hopes comes tinged with everything from superstition to religiosity. ..."
"... America’s elites, the members of its power establishment, do not believe in the same way, but they are deeply concerned about America’s relative decline. ..."
"... They do believe that America’s still great remaining strength can be used to extract concessions from the world without sacrificing anything at home and without sacrificing its role as the center of world empire, a role that comes with many perks and privileges ..."
"... One thinks of the infamous German industrialists and bankers’ – as well as notable American ones – early support for Hitler, although I do not mean to say the situations are identical. ..."
"... You can try fighting by the methods Trump is using, but those methods risk, through acts like the blithe laying on of massive new tariffs and sanctions, not only reduced economic activity in the world, they risk ultimately real wars. ..."
"... The real pity is that Trump at his core is not that much different from the rest of the fools who have been leading this country for the past several decades. He’s just “old school” in his style: he doesn’t wear soft kid gloves whilst attempting to strangle his geopolitical competitors the way all his chums before him did, the sonorous Barack Obama included. ..."
"... Constant warfare is a big part of US consumption. ..."
"... It is becoming increasingly clear that the US is subject to an arms industry racket which is draining its resources and ruining its real potential. ..."
"... We are becoming a country of idle over-weight vets running around on motorcycles wearing red MAGA hats, supported by billionaires, while the rest toil. ..."
"... This will likely come to a head sooner rather than later, and the conflict can be understood in broader terms as between a hegemonic global model and a multi-polar global model ..."
"... While confidence that such measures can inflict enormous harm is justified, the corresponding confidence that America’s preeminent position atop the world’s economic structures is not subject to challenge or change is misguided. The challenge has been ongoing for over five years now, and the change will likely appear suddenly. The preference would be for the U.S. guided to a soft landing into a multi-polar world, but Washington’s policy hawks seem committed to rolling the dice. ..."
"... Washington’s policy setters are gangsters who operate largely through intimidation, extortion and racketeering. ..."
"... This trade war sounds dangerous – didn’t the Smoot Hawley tariffs precipitate the great depression? And the inevitable economic war (even if it is a faux war based on lies, driven by the neocons) could well lead to a real war if we let it….. ..."
"... But trade wars are easy to win! Our very smart cheeto-in-chief has told us. You wouldn’t doubt him would you? ..."
"... The US has abdicated their manufacturing and innovative technologies, shutting down heavy industry under Reagan and Bush I (replacing it with a “service economy”) while outsourcing high end technology and offshoring technical jobs, initially to China mostly under Clinton and Bush II. ..."
"... It’s tempting to conclude that tariffs and action against Huawei are part of the same strategy. I don’t think they are. The tariffs are playing to Trump’s voter gallery. ..."
"... So long as the Chinese can find a way to save face AND give face to Trump, compromise is possible. Huawei is about the Deep State being unable to access Huawei’s facilities. Its a double bluff. The NSA etc (via 5 Eyes) have great access to western controlled telecoms. ..."
The long, dense economic relationship appears to have passed its peak, writes Patrick
Lawrence.
Special to Consortium News
P resident Donald Trump's trade war with China is swiftly taking a decisive turn for the
worse.
Step by step, each measure prompting retaliation, a spat so far limited to tariff increases,
now threatens to transform the bilateral relationship into one of managed hostility extending
well beyond economic issues. Should Washington and Beijing define each other as adversaries, as
they now appear poised to do, the consequences in terms of global stability and the balance of
power in the Pacific are nearly incalculable.
The trade dispute continues to sharpen. Later this week Beijing is scheduled
to raise tariffs already in place on $60 billion worth of American exports -- the latest in
a running series of escalations Washington set in motion nearly a year ago. Two weeks later the
U.S., having increased tariffs on $200 billion worth of Chinese products earlier this month, is
to consider imposing levies on an additional $325 billion worth of imports from the
mainland.
The fallout from these mutually imposed taxes on trade will be considerable all by
itself. Global supply chains will inevitably be disrupted -- a potential threat to worldwide
economic stability. U.S. importers are expected to start shifting purchases away from China in
favor of alternative suppliers with lower cost structures. American investors are likely to
reconsider the mainland as a production platform, in many cases diverting investment dollars
elsewhere.
For its part, China is already rotating its gaze westward toward the Middle East and Europe.
As if to underscore the point, the East Hope Group, a large Chinese manufacturer, announced
late last week that it plans to
invest $10 billion in Abu Dhabi's industrial sector. Beijing is already drawing Western
Europe into its trillion-dollar Belt
and Road Initiative . In time, Europe could begin to replace the U.S. as a source of the
foreign investment capital China needs.
Decoupling
In the financial markets, this process is termed "decoupling." The long, dense economic
relationship between the U.S. and China, the reasoning runs, appears to have passed its
peak.
With bilateral trade talks stalled, both sides have begun to indicate -- directly or by
inference -- that they are now prepared to draw blood. Once the long-term damage begins, as
appears increasingly likely, it is difficult to see how there will be any turning back from
it.
Two weeks ago, the White House issued an executive order barring
purchases of telecommunications equipment from any foreign company deemed to pose a threat to
U.S. national security. It also requires American companies to obtain licenses before exporting
U.S. telecoms technology to such firms. While an administration official described the order as
"company and country agnostic," it is all but explicitly intended to damage the global position
of Huawei, the highly competitive Chinese company that is a leader in cellular telephone sales
and 5G telecommunications networks.
Huawei has long been in Washington's sights. Chief among the allegations against it , the
company is accused of providing China with a "back door" into its telecoms networks, so
allowing Beijing to spy on any entity using Huawei equipment. The U.S. has never provided
evidence of this, and both Huawei and Beijing vigorously deny any such arrangement. The
only known back door into Huawei systems was created by the National Security Agency, which
hacked its servers at some point between 2010 and 2012; this was revealed in the documents
Edward Snowden made public in mid -- 2013. In effect, the U.S. accuses China of doing what it
has already done.
"When it comes to policy caprice motivated by paranoia and Deep State lies, the attack
on Huawei is in a class all by itself," David Stockman, the former White House budget director,
wrote on his blog earlier this month. "The whole case has been confected by
Washington-domiciled economic nationalists who think prosperity stems from the machinations of
the state and that state-sponsored 'national champions' are essential to winning the race for
global economic and technological dominance."
Contradictory Narrative
There is little question that freezing Huawei out of the U.S. market and depriving it of
U.S. -- made components will do damage, in all likelihood lasting, to the company. The
Eurasia Group terms the administration's executive order "a grave escalation with China
that at a minimum plunges the prospect of continued trade negotiations into doubt." But as it
has on other policy questions, the Trump administration is tripping over its own contradictory
narratives at this point.
Last week the president suggested
that the Huawei dispute can be negotiated as part of a broader agreement on trade. At the same
time, Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence, has been crisscrossing the country
to
warn U.S. companies, universities, and other institutions of the perils of doing business
with China. Coats's focus is on the high-technology sector.
There are two lessons to draw from this spectacle. Trump's position on Huawei gives the
game away: If the company is truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as
a chip to be bargained in trade talks with Beijing. Equally, Coats's barnstorming tour is a
clear indication that the national security apparatus is actively seeking to cast China as a
strategic threat to the U.S. -- as
the Pentagon declared it to be in a defense review earlier this year.
Beijing has so far shown restraint in its responses, but there are signs it is stiffening
its spine. On Friday it issued a draft of its own set of
tighter regulations governing potential cyber-security breaches.
Xi Jinping had earlier visited a rare-earth processing facility in Jiangxi Province -- a
move read as the Chinese leader's subtle suggestion that Beijing may consider blocking exports
of minerals that are essential components in a variety of high-tech devices.
Turning off the supply of rare earths is not the "nuclear option" China may consider it,
as there are alternative suppliers. At the same time, the mainland accounts for nearly
three-quarters of world supplies. When it blocked sales
to Japan during a diplomatic dispute in 2010, prices rose precipitously and there was
mayhem among manufacturers dependent on Chinese supplies.
Xi made a remark in Jiangxi that is not to be missed. "We are now embarking on a new Long
March," he said, referencing the famous retreat Mao led after Chinese Nationalists defeated the
Red Army in 1934. "And we must start all over again."
With formal talks lapsed for the time being, there is now no shortage of signaling from
either Washington or Beijing. But Xi, China's most assertive leader since the Great Helmsman,
appears to understand the moment as larger than mere gestures. U.S. -- China relations have
entered a decisive phase. America cannot win in a long-term confrontation with China.
Unless Washington opens to a more cooperative partnership with Beijing -- an unlikely
prospect -- this could be the moment China begins to displace the U.S. as the preeminent power
in the western Pacific.
Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the International
Herald Tribune , is a columnist, essayist, author, and lecturer. His most recent book is "Time
No Longer: Americans After the American Century" (Yale). Follow him @thefloutist . His web site is www.patricklawrence.us.
Support his work via www.patreon.com/thefloutist .
If you value this original article, please considermaking a donationto Consortium News so we can bring you more stories like this
one.
dean 1000 , May 31, 2019 at 11:12
The Empire the US built and acquired after WWII could not last no matter who is president.
We have been advised of this coming reality for 30 or 40 years. Washington can’t adjust
b/c it is controlled by a two party system that is owned by the 10%.
Since wall street bought a bunch of manufacturing companies and exported them to China the
US hasen’t had a real economy. It has been one bubble economy after another. A stock
bubble, tech bubble, dot com bubble, and a killer 8 trillion $ housing bubble, and a
completely unnecessary bank bailout.
The US has to regain a real economy and stop the insane military spending. Regardless of
China.
Zhu , May 31, 2019 at 06:14
Trump, in effect, is walling the US off from the rest of the world, as Ming-Qing dynasty
China did until 1911.it turned out badly for Chinese people. It’s likely to turn out
badly for the US.
Truth , May 29, 2019 at 17:27
One solution to rare minerals is to break the illegal clinton & bush era mining
agreements around the Grand canyon and Nevada which has turned our resources into cash from
russia and canada into the pockets of the deep state “elected” in D<C and
these states. It would be nice if every now and then a real journalist who publishes a full
story would get a complete story published. Consortium does better than most but still needs
to step up their game.
An article that includes explaining why all NAFTA and trade agreements since Kennedy have
been total sellouts of USA in exchange for party owned companies of the "elected"
‘”Trump’s position on Huawei gives the game away: If the company is
truly a national security threat, it makes no sense to offer it as a chip to be bargained in
trade talks with Beijing.” Absolutely the case. Trump has been caught before in this same kind of contradictory stance, as with tariffs on
steel and aluminum.
I think the truth is that he is a man ready to use any gimmick to get what he wants,
regardless of logic or facts or principle. Another way to say that is to speak of a criminal
mentality.
It is exactly what the mob has always done in making someone an offer they can’t
refuse. “Don’t want to pay protection money? Well, don’t be surprised if
your joint gets burned down.”
Trump essentially wants to transfer huge amounts of trade surplus from China to the United
States, not by any change in the economic activity or policies of the two countries but by
fiat.
But of course, the world doesn’t work that way.
The United States’ trade deficits are its own doing, not China’s. The United
States doesn’t save, and it doesn’t tax adequately. It consumes, and a productive
country like China is only too pleased to supply what it wants. That makes a flow of goods in
one direction and a flow of money in the other. Economics 101.
Trump seems to think he can command the wind and the waves. He has an immense ego, and
there is the fact that he is a good deal less clever than he thinks he is.
Trump believes that by intimidation and threats, he can make something happen that cannot
happen through the ordinary operations of the economies. In this we see him most like the
thugs that came to run a number of European countries in the 1930s.
He genuinely does not understand – or if he understands, he doesn’t care
– what is behind the surpluses and deficits and just insists that they will be changed
as a matter of his personal will. Does that not remind us of anyone from history?
At any rate, it comes down to his admiring “the strong man” and believing he,
and he alone, can play that role for the United States. And there are more than a few
Americans that believe him too. After all, the great American journalist and historian who
documented the rise and fall of the Nazis, William L. Shirer, once said that he thought the
United States might be the first country to go fascist voluntarily. He based that thought on
his observation of many attitudes and beliefs and trends in the United States.
Trump’s “MAGA” is nothing more than thinking you can make that
heart-warming post-WWII slogan, “the American Dream,” come alive again, many
decades later and in an entirely different set of circumstances. “The American
Dream” was based in a world where almost every competitor was prostrate from war while
America remained relatively unscathed. So, America supplied, for a while, a huge share of the
world’s demands, but its share has been declining ever since.
In today’s world, all the old competitors have not only come roaring back, but a lot
of new ones have come into being, and that reality is the future.
Naturally, many Americans want to believe otherwise. Trump’s base – the
nation’s Wal-Mart shoppers and the residents of its huge gulag of trailer parks –
certainly does, and its hopes comes tinged with everything from superstition to
religiosity.
America’s elites, the members of its power establishment, do not believe in the same
way, but they are deeply concerned about America’s relative decline. They have been
working away for years on the problem, as in their past bashing of Japan or China, but they
are not ready to work for fundamental change in America, as, for example, in its tax and
savings structures and its grotesque inequalities.
They do believe that America’s still great remaining strength can be used to extract
concessions from the world without sacrificing anything at home and without sacrificing its
role as the center of world empire, a role that comes with many perks and privileges. And
while most of them do not like Trump’s style or background, I think for now they are
willing to see whether he can get the ugly job done. One thinks of the infamous German
industrialists and bankers’ – as well as notable American ones – early
support for Hitler, although I do not mean to say the situations are identical.
You can try fighting by the methods Trump is using, but those methods risk, through acts
like the blithe laying on of massive new tariffs and sanctions, not only reduced economic
activity in the world, they risk ultimately real wars.
Even if they don’t go so far as war, they are shaking up some fundamental post-WWII
arrangements that America is going to miss. Decades-old allies, like some of those in Europe,
are beginning to re-think their relationship with such a hostile, single-minded America and
to glance around in other directions, as towards the very China Trump attacks and towards
Russia, a country whose openness to business would have resembled a miracle under the
communists and whose wealth of natural resources offers altogether new opportunities.
Realist , May 30, 2019 at 01:32
The real pity is that Trump at his core is not that much different from the rest of the
fools who have been leading this country for the past several decades. He’s just
“old school” in his style: he doesn’t wear soft kid gloves whilst
attempting to strangle his geopolitical competitors the way all his chums before him did, the
sonorous Barack Obama included.
The problem that bothers the US policy makers is real: what to do about the balance of
payments deficit? The Trump team seems to be nit-picking areas where imports can be reduced,
for instance by blocking Chinese tech exports.
All of these moves are nonsense because they
miss the real problem: the US economy has a long standing structural quandary. It devotes so
much of its resources to flashy, ornamental and useless defense high tech weapons and gismos
that it is running itself into the ground.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the US is
subject to an arms industry racket which is draining its resources and ruining its real
potential. What needs to be done is to cut the military budget in half and redirect the
resources to improving the infrastructure of the country and making investment once again
profitable inside the USA. Where is the politician who dares make these proposals? Wake up
America. We are becoming a country of idle over-weight vets running around on motorcycles
wearing red MAGA hats, supported by billionaires, while the rest toil.
bardamu , May 29, 2019 at 00:07
It is strange to discuss confrontation with China only in terms of trade deals so soon
after Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” Trump’s militarism with respect to
North Korea, and the militarism of both the Obama and Trump regimes as regards Russia and
also through western and central Asia, which are clearly areas in which China has no less
natural interest than the United States.
Among these, surely tariffs are the least of most anyone’s worries.
jaycee , May 28, 2019 at 16:27
This will likely come to a head sooner rather than later, and the conflict can be
understood in broader terms as between a hegemonic global model and a multi-polar global
model.
The hegemonic global model has been an American project since the demise of the Soviet
Union, usually presented in euphemism – “globalization”, the
“exceptional” nation, the “rule-based international system”, etc. In
recent years, US politicians have overstepped by a reckless use of the international
financial system to deter designated adversaries.
Presently moving through Congress are bills
designed to use sanctions (“maximum pressure”) to attack both Russia’s Nordstream natural gas pipeline to Europe and China’s claims in the South China Sea.
While confidence that such measures can inflict enormous harm is justified, the corresponding
confidence that America’s preeminent position atop the world’s economic
structures is not subject to challenge or change is misguided. The challenge has been ongoing
for over five years now, and the change will likely appear suddenly. The preference would be
for the U.S. guided to a soft landing into a multi-polar world, but Washington’s policy
hawks seem committed to rolling the dice.
Realist , May 28, 2019 at 17:41
Washington’s policy setters are gangsters who operate largely through intimidation,
extortion and racketeering. If you look up the definitions of those words you will see they
describe to a tee what the American government does. Shutting down Nordstream (and all the
other sanctions over transparently absurd claims) is meant entirely to damage the Russian
economy and destabilise the country’s government, plus to steal away customers in the
energy sector.
They are protecting nobody’s “rights of navigation” in the
South China Sea, rather they are telegraphing to Bejing that Chinese trade with the world can
be shut down on a moment’s notice by Uncle Sam, specifically they are trying to put the
kibosh on the Chinese “Belt and Road Initiative.” The cusses in Washington have
gone so far as to tell Canada that it does not have control over the Northwest Passage, long
considered to be within its internal waters–you know, all those islands connected by
ice for most of the year. Hence forth, Washington decreed that they are international waters
and that it would control them. If that’s being a good neighbor to a country that has
supported your every crazed demand for over 200 years, the “Great White North”
needs to get a restraining order from the World Court against Uncle Sam, plus they need to
find better friends elsewhere on the planet.
I tend to substitute the euphemism “rogue nation” for those others.
Excellent comment.
Realist , May 28, 2019 at 16:22
India, Vietnam, and the Philippines will thank China for the opportunity to manufacture
schlock for sale at Wal*Mart and for the major investments that new Chinese shareholders will
have made in their companies. These countries will now have wares to trade along the Belt and
Road linking all of Eurasia where everyone keeps getting richer by the day. Since people the
world over, except for congenitally retarded neocons, know a good deal when they see one, all
these countries will start telling Uncle Sam to cram it when he keeps demanding they sanction
their new found friends and trading partners because freedom and democracy, Putin and the
other names on Sam’s shit list. They’ll start deciding that all those American
bases give them no clout, no influence, no pay-off and no security… nothing useful at
all, unless prosecuting the crimes and repairing the damage caused by the garrison soldiers
provides local entertainment. It will be time to relocate those rat-holes to the American
side of Trump’s Wall.
Will the silver lining be new American self-sufficiency in manufacturing? The development
of needed resources using new innovative technologies? A plethora of jobs at good pay for
working American men and women? Will American oligarchs once again begin investing in America
itself? If you can arrange that with American greenbacks now buying a tenth as many Yuans,
Euros, Yen, Rupees, Rubles and even Pesos than they once did because Trump decided to
“shake things up,” maybe you can sell all those treasuries needed to run the
government in Washington to the Tooth Fairy.
It’s not true that “you can never go
home again:” just watch the dollars come flooding back to North America when the whole
rest of the world stops trading in them. This whole bit of history should be engaging to
watch on some future television show similar to James Burke’s
“Connections.”
If only Barack Obama had eased up on the extreme Trump bashing at
that White House Correspondents’ Dinner.
Harpo Kondriak , May 28, 2019 at 20:13
“Watch those dollars come flooding back” – when the real fun starts.
Those that don’t understand why there has been little inflation from the bank bailouts
will get their answer. And they won’t like it.
Seamus Padraig , May 28, 2019 at 14:46
As a life-long protectionist, I always believed that our foolish dependence on imports
would ultimately end in tears, and it is now clear how right I was. Just to think: we could
have saved ourselves all this trouble and misery simply by voting down NAFTA and declining to
extend Most-Favored Nation trade status (as it used to be called) to China 25 years ago. But
now, putting our industry back on track is really gonna hurt. Pity …
Zhu , May 31, 2019 at 06:39
Any US reindustrialization is likely employ robots. The homeless will just keep on
increasing.
Godfree Roberts , May 28, 2019 at 12:29
“Europe could begin to replace the U.S. as a source of the foreign investment
capital China needs.”?
China is the leading recipient of FDI but its need for foreign capital is rapidly diminishing
and it is the world leader in IP
Zhu , May 31, 2019 at 06:40
A fair amount of foreign investment is laundered bribe money from China.
evelync , May 28, 2019 at 11:28
This trade war sounds dangerous – didn’t the Smoot Hawley tariffs precipitate
the great depression?
And the inevitable economic war (even if it is a faux war based on lies, driven by the
neocons) could well lead to a real war if we let it…..
I can’t help but secretly imagine that perhaps the retaliation that Patrick Lawrence
writes about – namely China’s shift to other trade partners – happens
smoothly and quickly enough to deprive our neocons of their super power resources to put an
end to what Charles Misfeldt in his comments refers to as Crooks, liars, thieves, cowards and
traitors running things…..errr ruining things.
I know that’s not the answer because it could be devastating too.
It’s up to the electorate to shift away from the ideologues, both neoliberal and
neocons.
But will we demand better government?
Most politicians in power have been too afraid to challenge the idea of
“exceptionalism” which is used to keep the primitive war machine going.
Thanks for the article and the interesting and informative comments….much
appreciated…
Jeff Harrison , May 28, 2019 at 11:19
But trade wars are easy to win! Our very smart cheeto-in-chief has told us. You
wouldn’t doubt him would you?
Actually, one wonders why anyone takes the US and its accusations seriously. Especially by
the European vassal states. Yes, your equipment/software will have a backdoor if the US wants
one there. That much is clear from the Snowden releases. And a Reuters report this morning
gives a hint at how it’s done. Huawei apparently is continuing to make the mistake of
sending things out via FedEx. Magically, two of the parcels wound up in the US without the
benefit of Huawei changing their shipping request. Huawei would never have known if they
hadn’t looked at the routing of the parcel after they got it. Hopefully, there
wasn’t any sensitive information in the documents routed to the US because it’s a
sure thing that the USG now has copies of them. Same for the European vassals. Angela
Merkel’s phone hacked. Electronic interception equipment installed on undersea
telephone cables. That’s before we get to the NSA office in all the telecoms spying on
us. Most of the world’s telecommunications run through the US. So, not only do we get
to listen in on a phone call from Paris to Des Moines, we get to listen in on one from Paris
to Shanghai.
And the European vassals continue to toe the American line albeit a bit more
reluctantly.
michael , May 28, 2019 at 11:15
The US has abdicated their manufacturing and innovative technologies, shutting down heavy
industry under Reagan and Bush I (replacing it with a “service economy”) while
outsourcing high end technology and offshoring technical jobs, initially to China mostly
under Clinton and Bush II.
Short-term profits soared with the cheaper labor, but giving away
high end technologies leading to innovations for China was resoundingly stupid. Chinagate was
(is) much more dangerous than Russiagate to National Security.
Having given away
America’s capabilities to China, no amount of negotiating will “level the playing
field” . We can no longer compete with China not because of labor costs, but because of
the improvements the Chinese have made in so many fields over twenty years, while America sat
stagnant (except of course for overpriced weapons and surveillance tools to watch American
citizens).
Zhu , May 31, 2019 at 06:47
The US has always imported its Einsteins and Teslas. We Americans are educated to be
cannon fodder in wars of vanity. At best, we’re educated to be Trump – Romney
style connivrrs and crooks.
Historically, when two hegemonic powers clash the result is always war. What we are
witnessing between Washington and Beijing today is no different. But Washington will not
allow China to ‘displace the US as the preeminent power in the western Pacific.’
The trade war will become world war. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
does not have a valid certificate (Firefox warned me).
Charles Misfeldt , May 28, 2019 at 08:44
I look at this picture and see all the representative’s on America’s side of
the table are conservative scumbags who have no intention of engaging in behavior that
benefits myself or the majority in America. Crooks, liars, thieves, cowards and
traitors…
MichaelWme , May 28, 2019 at 06:55
“a spat so far limited to tariff increases”
Not quite. The US has announced that any Chinese person travelling outside of China can be
arrested, as it had Meng Wanzhou arrested in Canada for selling Huawei phones to Iranians.
China threatened to execute 3 Canadians in retaliation, so Canada released Ms Meng from
prison and put her under house arrest while the legal processes of extradition are now
thought to require many years.
China hasn’t executed the 3 Canadians, and Ms Meng is in
her C$20 million home, and is likely to remain there for the foreseeable future. What
happened to Ms Meng can happen to any Chinese executive who travels outside China to the EU
or the Americas or Japan.
E Wright , May 28, 2019 at 04:50
It’s tempting to conclude that tariffs and action against Huawei are part of the
same strategy. I don’t think they are. The tariffs are playing to Trump’s voter
gallery.
So long as the Chinese can find a way to save face AND give face to Trump,
compromise is possible. Huawei is about the Deep State being unable to access Huawei’s
facilities. Its a double bluff. The NSA etc (via 5 Eyes) have great access to western
controlled telecoms.
They don’t want to lose that access by allowing an outside
operator, so they accuse Huawei of what they are doing, on the assumption that Beijing does
what they do.
Via ChasFreeman.net,
Remarks to the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies China Program
Ambassador Chas W. Freeman, Jr. (USFS, Ret.)
Senior Fellow, Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, Brown University
Stanford, California, 3 May 2019
President Trump's trade war with China has quickly metastasized into every other domain
of Sino-American relations.
Washington is now trying to dismantle China's
interdependence with the American economy, curb its role in global governance, counter its foreign
investments, cripple its companies, block its technological advance, punish its many deviations
from liberal ideology, contest its borders, map its defenses, and sustain the ability to penetrate
those defenses at will.
The message of hostility to China these efforts send is consistent and apparently
comprehensive. Most Chinese believe it reflects an integrated U.S. view or strategy. It does not.
There is no longer an orderly policy process in Washington to coordinate, moderate, or
control policy formulation or implementation. Instead, a populist president has effectively
declared open season on China.
This permits everyone in his administration to go after
China as they wish. Every internationally engaged department and agency – the U.S. Special Trade
Representative, the Departments of State, Treasury, Justice, Commerce, Defense, and Homeland
Security – is doing its own thing about China. The president has unleashed an undisciplined
onslaught. Evidently, he calculates that this will increase pressure on China to capitulate to his
protectionist and mercantilist demands. That would give him something to boast about as he seeks
reelection in 2020.
Trump's presidency has been built on lower middle-class fears of displacement by immigrants and
outsourcing of jobs to foreigners. His campaign found a footing in the anger of ordinary Americans
– especially religious Americans – at the apparent contempt for them and indifference to their
welfare of the country's managerial and political elites. For many, the trade imbalance with China
and Chinese rip-offs of U.S. technology became the explanations of choice for increasingly unfair
income distribution, declining equality of opportunity, the deindustrialization of the job market,
and the erosion of optimism in the United States.
In their views of China, many Americans now appear subconsciously to have combined
images of the insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, Japan's unnerving 1980s challenge to U.S. industrial and
financial primacy, and a sense of existential threat analogous to the Sinophobia that inspired the
Anti-Coolie and Chinese Exclusion Acts.
Meanwhile, the ineptitude of the American elite revealed by the 2008 financial crisis, the
regular eruptions of racial violence and gun massacres in the United States, the persistence of
paralyzing political constipation in Washington, and the arrogant unilateralism of "America First"
have greatly diminished the appeal of America to the Chinese elite.
As a result, Sino-American interaction is now long on mutual indignation and very short
on empirically validated information to substantiate the passions it evokes.
On each
side, the other is presumed guilty of a litany of iniquities. There is no process by which either
side can achieve exoneration from the other's accusations. Guesstimates, conjectures,
a priori
reasoning
from dubious assumptions, and media-generated hallucinations are reiterated so often that they are
taken as facts. The demagoguery of contemporary American populism ensures that in this country
clamor about China needs no evidence at all to fuel it. Meanwhile, Chinese nationalism answers
American rhetorical kicks in the teeth by swallowing the figurative blood in its mouth and
refraining from responding in kind, while sullenly plotting revenge.
We are now entering not just a post-American but
post-Western
era.
In
many ways the contours of the emerging world order are unclear. But one aspect of them is certain:
China will play a larger and the U.S. a lesser role than before in global and regional governance.
The Trump administration's response to China's increasing wealth and power does not bode well for
this future. The pattern of mutual resentment and hostility the two countries are now establishing
may turn out to be indelible. If so, the consequences for both and for world prosperity and peace
could be deeply unsettling.
For now, America's relationship with China appears to have become a vector compounded of many
contradictory forces and factors, each with its own advocates and constituencies. The resentments
of some counter the enthusiasms of others. No one now in government seems to be assessing the
overall impact on American interests or wellbeing of an uncoordinated approach to relations with
the world's greatest rising power. And few in the United States seem to be considering the
possibility that antagonism to China's rise might end up harming the United States and its Asian
security partners more than it does China. Or that, in extreme circumstances, it could even lead
to a devastating trans-Pacific nuclear exchange.
Some of the complaints against China from the squirming mass of Sinophobes who have attached
themselves to President Trump are entirely justified. The Chinese have been slow to accept the
capitalist idea that knowledge is property that can be owned on an exclusive basis. This is, after
all, contrary to a millennial Chinese tradition that regards copying as flattery, not a violation
of genius. Chinese businessfolk have engaged in the theft of intellectual property rights not just
from each other but from foreigners. Others may have done the same in the past, but they were
nowhere near as big as China. China's mere size makes its offenses intolerable. Neither the
market economy in China nor China's international trade and investment relationships can realize
their potential until its disrespect for private property is corrected. The United States and the
European Union (EU) are right to insist that the Chinese government fix this problem.
Many Chinese agree. Not a few quietly welcome foreign pressure to strengthen the enforcement of
patents and trademarks, of which they are now large creators, in the Chinese domestic market. Even
more hope the trade war will force their government to reinvigorate "reform and opening." Fairer
treatment of foreign-invested Chinese companies is not just a reasonable demand but one that serves
the interests of the economically dominant but politically disadvantaged private sector in China.
Chinese protectionism is an unlatched door against which the United States and others should
continue to push.
But other complaints against China range from the partially warranted to the patently bogus.
Some recall Hermann Göring's cynical observation at Nuremberg that:
"The people can always be
brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are
being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to
danger. It works the same way in any country."
There is a lot of this sort of manipulative
reasoning at play in the deteriorating U.S. security relationship with the Chinese. Social and
niche media, which make everything plausible and leave no truth unrefuted, facilitate this. In the
Internet miasma of conspiracy theories, false narratives, fabricated reports, fictive "facts," and
outright lies, baseless hypotheses about China rapidly become firm convictions and long-discredited
myths and rumors find easy resurrection.
Consider the speed with which a snappy phrase invented by an Indian polemicist –
"debt-trap diplomacy" – has become universally accepted as encapsulating an alleged Chinese policy
of international politico-economic predation. Yet the only instance of a so-called a "debt trap"
ever cited is the port of Hambantota, commissioned by the since-ousted autocratic president of Sri
Lanka to glorify his hometown.
His successor correctly judged that the port was a white
elephant and decided to offload it on the Chinese company that had built it by demanding that the
company exchange the debt to it for equity. To recover any portion of its investment, the Chinese
company now has to build some sort of economic hinterland for the port. Hambantota is less an
example of a "debt trap" than of a stranded asset.
Then too, China is now routinely accused of iniquities that better describe the present-day
United States than the People's Middle Kingdom. Among the most ironic of such accusations is the
charge that it is China, not a sociopathic "America First" assault on the international
status
quo
, that is undermining both U.S. global leadership and the multilateral order remarkably
wise American statesmen put in place some seven decades ago. But it is the United States, not
China, that is ignoring the U.N. Charter, withdrawing from treaties and agreements, attempting to
paralyze the World Trade Organization's dispute resolution mechanisms, and substituting bilateral
protectionist schemes for multilateral facilitation of international trade based on comparative
advantage.
The WTO was intended as an antidote to mercantilism, also known as "government-managed trade."
China has come strongly to support globalization and free trade. These are the primary sources of
its rise to prosperity. It is hardly surprising that China has become a strong defender of the
trade and investment regime Americans designed and put in place.
By contrast, the Trump administration is all about mercantilism – boosting national power by
minimizing imports and maximizing exports as part of a government effort to manage trade with
unilateral tariffs and quotas, while exempting the United States from the rules it insists that
others obey.
I will not go on except to note the absurdity of the thesis that "engagement" failed to
transform China's political system and should therefore be abandoned. Those who most vociferously
advance this canard are the very people who used to complain that changing China's political order
was
not
the objective of engagement but that it
should
be. They now condemn
engagement because it did not accomplish objectives that they
wanted
it to have but used to
know that it
didn't
. It is telling that American engagement with other illiberal societies
(like Egypt, the Israeli occupation in Palestine, or the Philippines under President Duterte) is
not condemned for having failed to change them.
That said, we should not slight the tremendous impact of America's forty-year opening to China
on its socioeconomic development.
American engagement with China helped it develop
policies that rapidly lifted at least 500 million people out of poverty.
It transformed
China from an angry, impoverished, and isolated power intent on overthrowing the capitalist world
order to an active, increasingly wealthy, and very successful participant in that order. It
midwifed the birth of a modernized economy that is now the largest single driver of the world's
economic growth and that, until the trade war intervened, was America's fastest growing overseas
market. American engagement with China helped reform its educational system to create a
scientific, technological, engineering, and mathematical ("STEM") workforce that already accounts
for one-fourth of such workers in the global economy. For a while, China was a drag on human
progress. It is now an engine accelerating it. That transformation owes a great deal to the
breadth and depth of American engagement with it.
Nor should we underestimate the potential impact of the economic decoupling, political
animosity, and military antagonism that U.S. policy is now institutionalizing.
Even if
the two sides conclude the current trade war, Washington now seems determined to do everything it
can to hold China down. It seems appropriate to ask: can the United States succeed in doing this?
What are the probable costs and consequences of attempting to do it? If America disengages from
China, what influence, if any, will the United States have on its future evolution? What is that
evolution likely to look like under conditions of hostile coexistence between the two countries?
Some likely answers, issue by issue.
First
: the consequences of
cutting back Sino-American economic
interdependence.
The supply chains now tying the two economies together were forged by market-regulated
comparative advantage. The U.S. attempt to impose government-dictated targets for Chinese
purchases of agricultural commodities, semiconductors, and the like represents a political
preemption of market forces. By simultaneously walking away from the Paris climate accords, TPP,
the Iran nuclear deal, and other treaties and agreements, Washington has shown that it can no
longer be trusted to respect the sanctity of contracts. The U.S. government has also demonstrated
that it can ignore the economic interests of its farmers and manufacturers and impose politically
motivated embargoes on them. The basic lesson Chinese have taken from recent U.S. diplomacy is
that no one should rely on either America's word or its industrial and agricultural exports.
For these reasons, the impending trade "deal" between China and the United States – if there is
one – will be at most a truce that invites further struggle. It will be a short-term expedient,
not a long-term reinvigoration of the Sino-American trade and investment relationship to American
advantage. No future Chinese government will allow China to become substantially dependent on
imports or supply chains involving a country as fickle and hostile as Trump's America has proven to
be. China will instead develop non-American sources of foodstuffs, natural resources, and
manufactures, while pursuing a greater degree of self-reliance. More limited access to the China
market for U.S. factories and farmers will depress U.S. growth rates. By trying to reduce U.S.
interdependence with China, the Trump administration has inadvertently made the United States the
supplier of last resort to what is fast becoming the world's largest consumer market.
The consequences for American manufacturers of "losing" the China market are worsened by the
issue of scale. China's non-service economy already dwarfs that of the United States. Size
matters. Chinese companies, based in a domestic market of unparalleled size, have economies of
scale that give them major advantages in international competition. American companies producing
goods – for example, construction equipment or digital switching gear – have just been put at a
serious tariff disadvantage in the China market as China retaliates against U.S. protectionism by
reciprocating it. One side effect of the new handicaps U.S. companies now face in the China market
is more effective competition from Chinese companies, not just in China but in third country
markets too.
Second
: the U.S. effort to
block an expanded Chinese role in global
governance
.
This is no more likely to succeed than the earlier American campaign to persuade allies and
trading partners to boycott the Chinese-sponsored Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
That has isolated the United States, not China. Carping at the Belt and Road initiative and
related programs from outside them does nothing to shape them to American advantage. It just
deprives American companies of the profits they might gain from participating in them.
The United States seems to be acting out of nostalgia for the simplicities of a bipolar world
order, in which countries could be pressured to stand with either the United States or its then
rival. But China is not hampered by a dysfunctional ideology and economic system, as America's
Soviet adversary was. What's more, today's China is an integral member of international society,
not a Soviet-style outcast. There is now, quite literally, no country willing to accept being
forced to make a choice between Beijing and Washington. Instead, all seek to extract whatever
benefits they can from relations with both and with other capitals as well, if they have something
to offer. The binary choices, diplomatic group-think, and trench warfare of the Cold War have been
succeeded by national identity politics and the opportunistic pursuit of political, economic, and
military interests wherever they can be served. Past allegiances do not anywhere determine current
behavior.
The sad reality is that the United States, which led the creation of the Bretton Woods
institutions that have been at the core of the post-World War II rule-bound international system,
now offers these institutions and their members neither funding nor reform. Both are necessary to
promote development as balances of supply, demand, wealth, and power shift. The new
organizations, like the AIIB and the New Development Bank, that China and others are creating are
not predatory intrusions into the domain of American-dominated international finance. They are
necessary responses to unmet financial and economic demand. Denouncing them does not alter that
reality.
Other countries do not see these organizations as supplanting pre-existing lending institutions
long led by the United States. The new institutions supplement the World Bank Group and regional
development banks. They operate under slightly improved versions of the lending rules pioneered by
the Bretton Woods legacy establishments. China is a major contributor to the new development
banks, but it does not exercise a veto in them as the U.S. does in the IMF and World Bank. The
AIIB's staff is multinational (and includes Americans in key positions). The New Development
Bank's first president is Indian and its principal lending activity to date has been in South
Africa.
Washington has chosen to boycott anything and everything sponsored by China. So far, the sad
but entirely predictable result of this attempt to ostracize and reduce Chinese influence has not
curbed China's international clout but magnified it. By absenting itself from the new
institutions, the United States is making itself increasingly irrelevant to the overall governance
of multilateral development finance.
Third
: the U.S. campaign to
block China's international investments,
cripple its technology companies, and impede its scientific and technological advance.
The actions of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to prevent
Chinese investment in American industry and agriculture are well publicized and are becoming ever
more frequent. So are official American denunciations of Chinese telecommunications companies like
Huawei and ZTE amidst intermittent efforts to shut them down. In an ominous echo of World War I's
anti-German, World War II's anti-Japanese, and the Cold War's anti-communist xenophobia, the FBI
has begun issuing loud warnings about the menace posed by the large Chinese student presence on
American campuses. Washington is adjusting visa policies to discourage such dangerous people from
matriculating here. It has also mounted a strident campaign to persuade other countries to reject
Chinese investments under the "Belt and Road" initiative.
In the aggregate, these policies represent a decision by the U.S. political elite to try to
hamstring China, rather than to invest in strengthening America's ability to compete with it.
There is no reason whatsoever to believe this approach can succeed. China's foreign direct
investments have more than doubled over the past three years. Third countries are openly declining
to go along with U.S. opposition to intensified economic relations with China. They want the
capital, technology, and market openings that Chinese investment provides. U.S. denunciations of
their interest in doing business with China are seldom accompanied by credible offers by American
companies to match what their Chinese competitors offer. You can't beat something with nothing.
It's also not clear which country is most likely to be hurt by U.S. government obstruction of
collaboration between Chinese and American STEM workers. There is a good chance the greatest
damage will be to the United States. A fair number of native-born Americans seem more interested
in religious myths, magic, and superheroes than in science. U.S. achievements in STEM owe much to
immigration and to the presence of Chinese and other foreign researchers in America's graduate
schools. The Trump administration is trying to curtail both.
China already possesses one-fourth of the world's STEM workforce. It is currently graduating
three times as many STEM students annually as the United States. (Ironically, a significant
percentage of STEM graduates in the United States are Chinese or other Asian nationals. Around
half of those studying computer sciences in the United States are such foreigners.) American loss
of contact with scientists in China and a reduced Chinese presence in U.S. research institutions
can only retard the further advance of science in the United States.
China is rapidly increasing its investments in education, basic science, research, and
development even as the United States reduces funding for these activities, which are the
foundation of technological advance. The pace of innovation in China is visibly accelerating.
Cutting Americans off from interaction with their Chinese counterparts while other countries
continue risks causing the United States to fall behind not just China but other foreign
competitors.
Finally
: the
U.S. military
is in China's face
.
The U.S. Navy and Air Force patrol China's coasts and test its defenses on a daily basis. U.S.
strategy in the event of war with China – for example, over Taiwan – depends on overcoming those
defenses so as to be able to strike deep into the Chinese homeland. The United States has just
withdrawn from the treaty on intermediate nuclear forces in part to be able to deploy nuclear
weapons to the Chinese periphery. In the short term, there is increasing danger of a war by
accident, triggered by a mishap in the South China Sea, the Senkaku Archipelago, or by efforts by
Taiwanese politicians to push the envelope of mainland tolerance of their island's unsettled
political
status quo
. These threats are driving growth in China's defense budget and its
development of capabilities to deny the United States continued military primacy in its adjacent
seas.
In the long term, U.S. efforts to dominate China's periphery invite a Chinese military response
on America's periphery like that formerly mounted by the Soviet Union. Moscow actively patrolled
both U.S. coasts, stationed missile-launching submarines just off them, supported anti-American
regimes in the Western Hemisphere, and relied on its ability to devastate the American homeland
with nuclear weapons to deter war with the United States. On what basis does Washington imagine
that Beijing cannot and will not eventually reciprocate the threat the U.S. forces surrounding
China appear to pose to it?
Throughout the forty-two years of the Cold War, Americans maintained substantive
military-to-military dialogue with their Soviet enemies. Both sides explicitly recognized the need
for strategic balance and developed mechanisms for crisis management that could limit the risk of a
war and a nuclear exchange between them. But no such dialogue, understandings, or mechanisms to
control escalation now exist between the U.S. armed forces and the PLA. In their absence Americans
attribute to the PLA all sorts of intentions and plans that are based on mirror-imaging rather than
evidence.
The possibility that mutual misunderstanding will intensify military confrontation and increase
the dangers it presents is growing. The chances of this are all the greater because the internal
security and counterintelligence apparatuses in China and the United States appear to be engaged in
a contest to see which can most thoroughly alienate the citizens of the other country. China is a
police state. For Chinese in America, the United States sometimes seems to be on the way to
becoming one.
It's hard to avoid the
conclusion
that, if Washington stays on its current
course, the United States will gain little, while ceding substantial ground to China and
significantly increasing risks to its wellbeing, global leadership, and security.
Economically
, China will become less welcoming to American exports. It will
pursue import substitution or alternative sourcing for goods and services it has previously sourced
in the United States. With impaired access to the world's largest middle class and consumer
economy, the United States will be pushed down the value chain. China's ties to other major
economies will grow faster than those with America, adversely affecting U.S. growth rates. Any
reductions in the U.S. trade deficit with China will be offset by increases in trade deficits with
the countries to which current production in China is relocated.
China's role in
global governance
will expand as it adds new institutions and
funds to the existing array of international organizations and takes a larger part in their
management. The Belt and Road initiative will expand China's economic reach to every corner of the
Eurasian landmass and adjacent areas. The U.S. role in global rule-making and implementation will
continue to recede. China will gradually displace the United States in setting global standards
for trade, investment, transport, and the regulation of new technologies.
Chinese
technological innovation
will accelerate, but it will no longer advance
in collaboration with American researchers and institutions. Instead it will do so indigenously
and in cooperation with scientists outside the United States. U.S. universities will no longer
attract the most brilliant students and researchers from China. The benefits of new technologies
developed without American inputs may be withheld rather than shared with America, even as the
leads the United States has long enjoyed in science and technology one-by-one erode and are
eclipsed. As cordiality and connections between China and the United States wither, reasons for
Chinese to respect the intellectual property of Americans will diminish rather than increase.
Given the forward deployment of U.S. forces, the Chinese
military
has the great
advantage of a defensive posture and short lines of communication. The PLA is currently focused on
countering U.S. power projection in the last tenth or so of the 6,000-mile span of the Pacific
Ocean. In time, however, it is likely to seek to match American pressure on its borders with its
own direct military pressure on the United States along the lines of what the Soviet armed forces
once did.
The adversarial relationship that now exists between the U.S. armed forces and the PLA already
fuels an arms race between them. This will likely expand and accelerate. The PLA is rapidly
shrinking the gap between its capabilities and those of the U.S. armed forces. It is developing a
nuclear triad to match that of the United States. The good news is that mutual deterrence seems
possible. The bad news is that politicians in Taiwan and their fellow travelers in Washington are
determinedly testing the policy frameworks and understandings that have, over the past forty years,
tempered military confrontation in the Taiwan Strait with dialogue and rapprochement. Some in
Taiwan seem to believe that they can count on the United States to intervene if they get themselves
in trouble with Chinese across the Strait. The Chinese civil war, suspended but not ended by U.S.
unilateral intervention in 1950, seems closer to a resumption than it has been for decades.
As a final note on politico-military aspects of Sino-American relations, in the United States,
security clearances are now routinely withheld from anyone who has spent time in China. This
guarantees that few intelligence analysts have the Fingerspitzengefühl – the feeling derived from
direct experience – necessary to really understand China or the Chinese. Not to worry. The
administration disbelieves the intelligence community. Policy is now made on the basis of
ignorance overlaid with media-manufactured fantasies. In these circumstances, some enterprising
Americans have taken to combing the dragon dung for nuggets of undigested Chinese malevolence, so
they can preen before those in power now eager for such stuff. There is a Chinese expression that
nicely describes such pretense: 屎壳螂戴花儿 -- 又臭又美 – "a dung beetle with flowers in its hair still
stinks."
All said, this does not add up to a fruitful approach to dealing with the multiple challenges
that arise from China's growing wealth and power. So,
what is to be done?
该怎么办？
Here are a few
suggestions
.
First
, accept the reality that China is both too big and too embedded in the
international system to be dealt with bilaterally. The international system needs to adjust to
and accommodate the seismic shifts in the regional and global balances of wealth and power that
China's rise is causing. To have any hope of success at adapting to the changes now underway,
the United States needs to be backed by a coalition of the reasonable and farsighted. This
can't happen if the United States continues to act in contempt of alliances and partnerships.
Washington needs to rediscover statecraft based on diplomacy and comity.
Second
, forget government-managed trade and other forms of mercantilism. No
one can hope to beat China at such a statist game. The world shouldn't try. Nor should it
empower the Chinese government to manage trade at the expense of market forces or China's
private sector. Governments can and – in my opinion – should set economic policy objectives,
but everyone is better off when markets, not politicians, allocate capital and labor to achieve
these.
Third
, instead of pretending that China can be excluded from significant
roles in regional and global governance, yield gracefully to its inclusion in both. Instead of
attempting to ostracize China, leverage its wealth and power in support of the rule-bound order
in which it rose to prosperity, including the WTO.
Fourth
, accept that the United States has as much or more to gain than to
lose by remaining open to science, technology, and educational exchanges with China. Be
vigilant but moderate. Err on the side of openness and transnational collaboration in
progress. Work on China to convince it that the costs of technology theft are ultimately too
high for it to be worthwhile.
Fifth
and finally, back away from provocative military actions on the China
coast. Trade frequent "freedom of navigation operations" to protest Chinese interpretations of
the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea for dialogue aimed at reaching common understandings
of relevant interests and principles. Ratify the Convention on the Law of the Sea and make use
of its dispute resolution mechanisms. As much as possible, call off military confrontation and
look for activities, like the protection of commercial shipping, that are common interests.
Seek common ground without prejudice to persisting differences.
In
conclusion
:
both China and the United States need a peaceful
international environment to be able to address long-neglected domestic problems.
Doing
more of what we're now doing threatens to preclude either of us from sustaining the levels of
peace, prosperity, and domestic tranquility that a more cooperative relationship would afford.
Hostile coexistence between two such great nations injures both and benefits neither. It
carries unacceptable risks. Americans and Chinese need to turn from the path we are now on.
We can – we must – find a route forward that is better for both of us.
The article presents itself as being forward thinking, yet no
mention of the robot revolution and how destabilizing it will be
for both sides. As it stands today, it seems the economic conflict
is between the US and China-perhaps. But when these robots come on
line the economic war is going to be between the laborer and the
employee world wide.
The demise of the US economy and
manufacturing base in the US is a direct result of cheap labor, so
one has a clear picture of what cheap labor will do. Outside of
stuff falling from the sky for free, there isn't anything that
will be more devastating to the world labor market than a robot
enhanced with AI. Sure, products may become cheaper due to
reduced labor cost, but if people do not have a job to raise
enough income, then how are they going to buy stuff? Clearly, the
whole capitalistic system will collapse and then what? What will
be our choices? Will we have to shun progress in order to save the
current system that has brought us all this wonderful labor saving
innovation? Will people choose the hard road over the easy road?
It seems to me that things always take the path of least
resistance.
The only advantage China has is cheap labor.The robot revolution
will upset the apple cart for both sides. It will be interesting,
to say the least, when both sides realize that innovation is both
a blessing and a curse.
This is a pretty good article, I agree with a lot of it. The part
I don't like is the author's extreme worship of property rights.
He ignores the commons, things held in common by the people,
things like science and culture. For example, Disney's copyright
on its films will never expire if Disney can help it. Even an
American's personal data is now someone else's private property,
probably including their genetic data since even genes can be
patented.
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
"... United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old, it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting. That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are voting for. ..."
"... Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of political powers. ..."
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
Uh, no, Tom, she won't be collecting a lot of voters, well, at least not near enough. Biden
has already been "chosen" like Hillary was over Bernie last time. You should know by now Tom,
we don't select our candidates, they're chosen for us for our own good. 2 hours ago
This is going to take a long time. You just can't turn this ship around overnight.
US Political System:
United States is neither a Republic and even less Socialistic. US, in the technical
literature, is called a Polyarchy (state capitalism). Polyarchy (state capitalism) idea is old,
it goes back to James Madison and the foundation of the US Constitution. A Polyarchy is a
system in which power resides in the hands of those who Madison called the wealth of the
nation. The educated and responsible class of men. The rest of the population is to be
fragmented and distracted. They are allowed to participate every couple of years by voting.
That's it. The population have little choice among the educated and responsible men they are
voting for.
This is not an accident. America was founded on the principle, explained by the Founding
Father that the primary goal of government is to protect the minority of the opulent against
the majority. That is how the US Constitution was designed sort of ensuring that there will be
a lot of struggle. US is not as the same as it were two centuries ago but that remains the
elites ideal.
Polyarchy (state capitalism) it is a system where small group actually rules on behalf of
capital, and majority's decision making is confined to choosing among selective number of
elites within tightly controlled elective process. It is a form of consensual domination made
possible by the structural domination of the global capital which allowed concentration of
political powers.
A republic is SUBORDINATE to democracy. Polyarchy can't be subordinated to any form of
Democracy. 2 hours ago Is the author, to use an English term, daft? Tulsi Gabbard won't get out
of the primaries, much less defeat Sanders or Biden. Farage achieved his goal (Brexit), then
found out (SHOCK!) that the will of the people doesn't mean anything anymore.
If Luongo had wanted to talk about the people's uprising, he should've mentioned the Tea
Party. 3 hours ago Gabbard appears to have some moral fibre and half a backbone, at least for a
politician, regardless of their views, Farage is a slimy charlatan opportunistic populist shill
3 hours ago (Edited) I like Tulsi Gabbard on MIC stuff (and as a surfer in my youth - still
dream about that almost endless pipeline at Jeffreys Bay in August), but...
On everything else?
She votes along party lines no matter what bollocks legislation the Democrats put in front
of Congress. And anyone standing full-square behind Saunders on his socialist/marxist
agenda?
Do me a favour. 1 hour ago (Edited) Farage left because he saw what UKIP was becoming...a
zionazi party.
Also Gabbard is a CFR member. 3 hours ago Gold, Goats and Guns? Certainly not guns under
President Gabbard! Here's her idea of "common sense gun control:"
I'm totally against warmongering, but I have to ask - what good is it to stop foreign
warmongering, only to turn around and incite civil war here by further raping the 2nd
Amendment? The CFR ties are disturbing as hell, too. And to compare Gabbard to Ron Paul? No,
just...no! 3 hours ago Always been a fan of Bernie, but I hope Gabbard becomes president. The
world would breathe a huge sigh of relief (before the assassination). 4 hours ago By this time
in his 1st term, Obama had started the US Wars in Syria and Libya and has restarted the Iraq
War.
Thus far Trump has ended the War in Syria, pledged not to get us dragged into Libya's civil
wars and started a peace process with North Korea.
Venezuela and Iran look scary. We don't know what Gabbard would actually do when faced with
the same events. Obama talked peace too.
"... The REAL REASON behind the TRADE WAR: Israhell: "I want Iran embargoed and starved to death." China: "I will buy Iran's oil." BAM! Trade War! ..."
The 'play of the day' above comes against a backdrop of markets trying to accentuate the
positive in the latest US-China trade war deterioration. Indeed, Moody's has declared a trade
deal will still be done and a Bloomberg survey of US economists shows around two thirds think a
deal will be signed by year-end, a fifth by 2020, and only 13% don't see a deal for at least
five years. Field Marshall, please take these men and women out and have them shot, there's a
good chap.
The rhetoric from China has turned starkly, aggressively nationalist. The Global Times is
calling for a "People's War", a 1930's Mao reference to repelling Japanese imperialism; "trade
war" now fills Chinese media, having been largely absent for months; and Tuesday's People's
Daily mouthpiece posted an image of the Chinese flag with "Talk -- fine! Fight -- we'll be
there! Bully us -- delusion!" superimposed on it. US President Trump is also not backing down
in a further set of trade-related tweets, again stating tariff revenues will support 'patriot'
farmers and adding: "China will be pumping money into their system and probably reducing
interest rates, as always, in order to make up for the business they are, and will be, losing.
If the Federal Reserve ever did a "match," it would be game over, we win! In any event, China
wants a deal!"
A huge fiscal deficit; trade tariffs; a rapid increase in military expenditure; 'Patriot'
farmers; and a political call for lower interest rates for a national struggle. It all sounds
very Chinese, doesn't it? But that shouldn't be a surprise. Last year's ' The Rise and Fall and
Rise of the Great Powers (and Great Currencies)' argued the historical lessons of the economics
of past power struggles are that one must have low borrowing costs, spend a lot on a large
military, and be mercantilist if your enemy is. True, one also needs to be economically
vibrant, and that isn't assured with mercantilism, militarism and large fiscal deficits. Yet
real free trade, pacifism, and austerity is *ruinous* for Great Power . Which is why the EU is
not a Great Power but a Great Whinger.
Some in the markets are starting to get this.
Regular Bloomberg commentator Noah Smith yesterday published an article --'The Grim Logic
Behind Trump's Trade War With China'-- that admits he was wrong to expect a trade deal, that
Trump is doubling down, and concludes "There may be a grim sort of logic to this approach If
Trump wants to slow China's ascent as a superpower, a trade war might be an effective way to do
it. If the harm to the US is modest and the costs for China are severe and lasting, Trump might
conclude that the former are acceptable losses. Geopolitical primacy, not maximum prosperity
for Americans, might be the president's true objective . if weakening China really is the goal,
then this could be just the opening rounds of a long and grinding trade war." That's' what I
argued back in November 2017's 'On Your Marx' special reports, which stressed a New Cold War
was likely ahead.
However, many in markets are still acting like a Treasury clerk telling Churchill that
Badolf Hissler can offer him a great deal on cut-price bullets, ships, and planes .
On a related front, we see reports of an alleged Iranian drone attack on Saudi oil
pipelines(!); also hear Iran's leader say there will be no war with the US; and Trump has
stated reports of 120,000 US troops moving to the region are fake news -- because if he were to
send troops it would " a hell of a lot more ." Mixed messages to put it mildly.
for 40 years, western liberals and capitalists have had a nebulous idea of China
developing, opening and "liberalizing." It hasn't usually occurred in the ways they wanted,
but China certainly has become a big market and has moved towards a more open economy and
somewhat, more open society overall, while still maintaining a "fascist" structure.
But we can all agree - that process is done. China's economy, society and politics are
what they are. The country is "grown-up." Do not ever expect the communist party to change
the tight, top-down structure it has. Do not expect changes to politics, do not expect anyone
in China to give up control, and certainly don't expect foreigners to have any say or
influence within China. China will always do exactly what benefits China and the CCP.
Trump is merely being a realist. So accept that, and trade/invest/exchange
accordingly.
Is it any surprise that a "Noah Smith" of Bloomberg would attribute all the wrong
motives and strategy behind President Trump's and America's trade dispute with China's
totalitarian regime?
That he sees the Chinese Communist Party as honest, good faith partners in this
scenario?
There is nothing Trump could ever do to please the internationalist media.
I seriously doubt if "weakening" China is Trump's primacy here. Perhaps a by-product but
let's finally admit one thing: The US-China trade arrangement is egregious at best. What no one is willing to discuss yet is the fact that this "philosophy" of evening out
trade with China will soon take on a life of its own: With the US consumer. We need to bring back a lot of jobs back to the US economy and that's not rocket science.
It won't happen overnight but it will indeed happen.
What is the point of this piece? To demonstrate the author’s wit and historical
knowledge (was that entire little playlet not invented)?
To maximize American prosperity long term, should the US simply allow China to cheat,
manipulate and intimidate its way to the top? China has proven that, unlike the US, its
growth is a zero sum game. It adds nothing to the equation of global growth except cheap
labor, which subtracts wealth from other nations by taking away their well-paid manufacturing
jobs. It contributes almost no raw materials, imports its food and energy, and has stolen
most of its technology at enormous cost to Western innovators.
The US has always provided net inputs to the system of global growth. Natural resources,
renewable materials (crops, renewable energy), and the relentless innovation and productivity
increases of its workforce. China is an extractor. Thus it needs to expand its borders
through exploitative economic imperialist initiatives under their One Belt One Road scam, and
their militaristic imperialism in the South China Sea. The US is a machine that puts out far
more than it takes in. China is the opposite. If the US directs its economic output away from
China’s vast and relentless maw, China’s machine will slow and sputter.
The real point of the trade war is to end the vacuum of Western and Asian prosperity by
China’s greedy and imperialist machine of economic destruction. China knows and
implements that its economic growth by definition comes at the cost of others’
prosperity. That the US took 20 years to wake the **** up is astonishing.
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
Bolton power over Trump is connected to Adelson power over Trump. To think about Bolton as pure advisor is to seriously
underestimate his role and influence.
Notable quotes:
"... But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety. ..."
"... A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U. ..."
"... "Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," ..."
"... Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble. ..."
"... The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo, especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas. ..."
"... Tulsi for Sec of State 2020... ..."
"... Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner for failing to "win". ..."
"... You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the last 50 years. ..."
"... I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people and far too many details. ..."
"... Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they could matter. ..."
"... Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central to many of our poor strategic decision making. ..."
"... I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he really does not want one. ..."
"... "Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats." ..."
"... So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks ..."
"... If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee? ..."
It's time for Trump to stop John Bolton and Mike Pompeo from
sabotaging his foreign policy | Mulshine
"I put that question to another military vet, former Vietnam Green Beret Pat Lang.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed," said Lang of Trump.
But Lang, who later spent more than a decade in the Mideast, noted that Bolton has no direct
control over the military.
"Bolton has a problem," he said. "If he can just get the generals to obey him, he can start
all the wars he wants. But they don't obey him."
They obey the commander-in-chief. And Trump has a history of hiring war-crazed advisors who
end up losing their jobs when they get a bit too bellicose. Former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
comes to mind."
" In Lang's view, anyone who sees Trump as some sort of ideologue is missing the point.
"He's an entrepreneurial businessman who hires consultants for their advice and then gets
rid of them when he doesn't want that advice," he said.
So far that advice hasn't been very helpful, at least in the case of Bolton. His big mouth
seems to have deep-sixed Trump's chance of a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. And
that failed coup in Venezuela has brought up comparisons to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion
during the Kennedy administration." Mulshine
--------------
Well, pilgrims, I worked exclusively on the subject of the Islamic culture continent for the
USG from 1972 to 1994 and then in business from 1994 to 2006. I suppose I am still working on
the subject. pl
I don't get it I suppose. I'd always thought that maybe you wanted highly opinionated Type A
personalities in the role of privy council, etc. You know, people who could forcefully
advocate positions in closed session meetings and weren't afraid of taking contrary
positions. But I always figured you needed to keep the blowhards under cover so they wouldn't
stick their feet in their mouths and that the public position jobs should go to the smoothies..You, know, diplomats who were capable of some measure of subtlety.
But these days it's the loudmouths who get these jobs, to our detriment. When will senior
govt. leaders understand that just because a person is a success in running for Congress
doesn't mean he/she should be sent forth to mingle with the many different personalities and
cultures running the rest of the world?
A clod like Bolton should be put aside and assigned
the job of preparing position papers and a lout Like Pompeo should be a football coach at RoosterPoot U.
No. I would like to see highly opinionated Type B personalities like me hold those jobs. Type
B does not mean you are passive. It means you are not obsessively competitive.
"Once he's committed to a war in the Mideast, he's just screwed,"
Not only Trump, at the same time the swamp creatures risk losing control over the Democrat
primaries, too. With a new major war in the Mideast, Tulsi Gabbard's core message of
non-interventionism will resonate a lot more, and that will lower the chances of the
corporate DNC picks. A dangerous gamble.
Interesting post, thank you sir. Prior to this recent post I had never heard of Paul
Mulshine. In fact I went through some of his earlier posts on Trump's foreign policy and I
found a fair amount of common sense in them. He strikes me as a paleocon, like Pat Buchanan,
Paul Craig Roberts, Michael Scheuer, Doug Bandow, Tucker Carlson and others in that mold.
The other day I was thinking to myself that if Trump decides to dismiss Bolton or Pompeo,
especially given how terrible Venezuela, NKorea, and Iran policies have turned out (clearly
at odds with his non-interventionist campaign platform), who would he appoint as State Sec
and NS adviser? and since Bolton was personally pushed to Trump by Adelson in exchange for
campaign donation, would there be a backlash from the Jewish Republican donors and the loss
of support? I think in both cases Trump is facing with big dilemmas.
My best hope is that
Trump teams up with libertarians and maybe even paleocons to run his foreign policy. So far
Trump has not succeeded in draining the Swamp. Bolton, Pompeo and their respective staff
"are" indeed the Swamp creatures and they run their own policies that run against Trump's
America First policy. Any thoughts?
Keeping Bolton and Pompeo on board is consistent with Trump's negotiating style. He is full
of bluster and demands to put the other side in a defensive position. I guess it was a
successful strategy for him so he continues it. Many years ago I was across the table from
Trump negotiating the sale of the land under the Empire State Building which at the time was
owned by Prudential even though Trump already had locked up the actual building. I just sat
there, impassively, while Trump went on with his fire and fury. When I did not budge, he
turned to his Japanese financial partner and said "take care of this" and walked out of the
room. Then we were able to talk and negotiate in a logical manner and consumate a deal that
was double Trump's negotiating bid. I learned later he was furious with his Japanese partner
for failing to "win".
You can still these same traits in the way that Trump thinks about other countries - they
can be cajoled or pushed into doing what Trump wants. If the other countries just wait Trump
out they can usually get a much better deal. Bolton and Pompeo, as Blusterers, are useful in
pursuing the same negotiation style, for better or worse, Trump has used for probably for the
last 50 years.
I have seen this style of negotiations work on occasion. The most important lesson I've learned is the willingness to
walk. I'm not sure that Trump's personal style matters that much in complex negotiations among states. There's too many people
and far too many details. I see he and his trade team not buckling to the Chinese at least not yet despite the intense
pressure from Wall St and the big corporations.
Having the neocons front & center on his foreign policy team I believe has negative
consequences for him politically. IMO, he won support from the anti-interventionists due to
his strong campaign stance. While they may be a small segment in America in a tight race they
could matter.
Additionally as Col. Lang notes the neocons could start a shooting match due to
their hubris and that can always escalate and go awry. We can only hope that he's smart
enough to recognize that. I remain convinced that our fawning allegiance to Bibi is central
to many of our poor strategic decision making.
Just out of curiosity: Did the deal go through in the end, despite Trump's ire? Or was
Trump so furious with the negotiating result of his Japanese partner that he tore up the
draft once it was presented to him?
I agree that this is Trump's style but what he does not seem to understand is that in
using jugheads like these guys on the international scene he may precipitate a war when he
really does not want one.
Mulshine's article has some good points, but he does include some hilariously ignorant bits
which undermine his credibility.
"Jose Gomez Rivera is a Jersey guy who served in the State Department in Venezuela at the
time of the coup that brought the current socialist regime to power."
Wrong. Maduro was elected and international observers seem to agree the election was
fair.
"Perhaps the biggest lie the mainstream media have tried to get over on the American
public is the idea that it is conservatives, that start wars. That's total nonsense of
course. Almost all of America's wars in the 20th century were stared by liberal Democrats."
So what exactly is Pussy John, then, just a Yosemite Sam-type bureaucrat with no actual
portfolio, so to speak? I defer to your vastly greater knowledge of these matters, but at
times it sure seems like they are pursuing a rear-guard action as the US Empire shrinks and
shudders in its death throes underneath them, and at others it seems like they really have no
idea what to do, other than engage in juvenile antics, snort some glue from a paper bag and
set fires in the dumpsters behind the Taco Bell before going out into a darkened field
somewhere to violate farm animals.
If were Lavrov, what would I think to myself were I to
find myself on the other side of a phone call from PJ or the Malignant Manatee?
"... Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington. ..."
"... Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' ( 8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts. ..."
"... This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration? ..."
"... Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO's newest member. ..."
"... At this stage, it doesn't matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions. ..."
Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging
their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia's security. Current US paranoia about everything
Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia's
direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine
and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised 'in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp' (
5 ).
Obama went on: 'The Russians can't change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country,
their economy doesn't produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.' What he feared most about Putin was
the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: '37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald
Reagan would roll over in his grave' ( 6 ).
By January 2017, Reagan's eternal rest was no longer threatened. 'Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,' Putin
concluded ( 7 ). Historians will study
this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing
of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any
entente between Moscow and Washington.
Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump
and Putin would deprive them of a 'presentable' enemy once ISIS's military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe
an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow's alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails
fitted the bill. And the neocons, who 'promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel's security non-negotiable' (
8 ), hated Trump's neo-isolationist instincts.
The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their
middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (
9 ). So they were searching for any information
or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, everyone
had his particular motive for striking the same victim.
The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such
as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects
of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump's jibes about their expertise. During
the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because
he 'would put at risk our country's national security and wellbeing.' Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (
10 ).
Ambitions of a 'deep state'?
The press feared that Trump's incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military
crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press
criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though
that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying
the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.
Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass
surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had
become the intelligence services' 'most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with
hidden intelligence officials.' This at a time when 'Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as
well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing
-- eager -- to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging
those behaviours might be' ( 11 ).
The anti-Russian coalition hadn't then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a 'deep state'.
'There really is, at this point,' he said 'obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in
Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president
on the other.' One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump's enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about
Trump -- financial, electoral, sexual -- capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (
12 ).
Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a 'Trump-Putin ticket', has
transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative
bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert
opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.
This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses
the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump's election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia.
Has Washington's aggrieved reaction to a foreign power's interference in a state's domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no
one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel's phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but
by the Obama administration?
The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director
James Clapper in January: 'The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II.
That doesn't include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose.
Russia has done it some 36 times.' This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times 's fulminations against Moscow's trickery.
The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia's president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor
in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance
of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as 'a victory for Russian democracy'
and declared that 'the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday For the first time
in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.'
Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining
resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President
Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about 'the spectre of [Russian] aggression', encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute
to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.
No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers
(trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow's expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation
of 'America's commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them' and regretted that Mike
Pence's views 'aren't as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.'
At this stage, it doesn't
matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own
conclusions.
The Agenda welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, who over the past decade
and a half has made his name as a columnist, activist and author. He's been a vociferous public
critic of presidents on both sides of the American political spectrum, and his latest book,
'America, the Farewell Tour,' is nothing short of a full-throated throttling of the political,
social, and cultural state of his country.
I walked down a long service road into the remains of an abandoned lace factory. The road was pocked with holes Pilled with
fetid water. There were saplings and weeds poking up from the cracks in the asphalt. Wooden crates, rusty machinery, broken
glass, hulks of old Piling cabinets, and trash covered the grounds. The derelict complex, 288,000 square feet, consisted of two
huge brick buildings connected by overhead, enclosed walkways.
The towering walls of the two buildings, with the service road
running between them, were covered with ivy. The window panes were empty or had frames jagged with shards of glass. The
thick wooden doors to the old loading docks stood agape. I entered the
crumbling complex through a set of double wooden doors into a cavernous hall.
The wreckage of industrial America lay before me, home to
flocks of pigeons that, startled by my footsteps over the pieces of glass
and rotting floorboards, swiftly left their perches in the rafters and air
ducts high above my head. They swooped, bleating and clucking, over
the abandoned looms.
The Scranton Lace Company was America. It employed more than
1,200 workers on its imported looms, some of the largest ever built.
Throughout history, all great civilizations have ultimately decayed. And America will not be an exception, according to former
journalist and war correspondent, Chris Hedges. And while Hedges doesn't offer a date, he maintains we are in the final throes
of implosion -- and it won't be pretty.
The book is thoroughly researched and the author knows his history. And despite some of the reviews it is not so much a political
treatise as it is an exploration of the American underbelly -- drugs, suicide, sadism, hate, gambling, etc. And it's pretty dark;
although he supports the picture he paints with ample statistics and first person accounts.
There is politics, but the politics provides the context for the decay. And it's not as one-dimensional as other reviewers
seemed to perceive. Yes, he is no fan of Trump or the Republican leadership. But he is no fan of the Democratic shift to identity
politics, or antifa, either.
One reviewer thought he was undermining Christianity but I didn't get that. He does not support "prosperity gospel" theology,
but I didn't see any attempt to undermine fundamental religious doctrine. He is, after all, a graduate of Harvard Divinity School
and an ordained Presbyterian minister.
He puts the bulk of the blame for the current state of decay, in fact, where few other writers do -- squarely on the back of
capitalist America and the super-companies who now dominate nearly every industry. The social and political division we are now
witnessing, in other words, has been orchestrated by the capital class; the class of investors, banks, and hedge fund managers
who don't create value so much as they transfer it to themselves from others with less power. And I think he's spot on right.
We have seen a complete merger of corporate and political America. Politicians on both sides of the aisle serve at the pleasure
of the capitalist elite because they need their money to stay in power. Corporations enjoy all the rights of citizenship save
voting, but who needs to actually cast a ballot when you can buy the election.
And what the corpocracy, as I call it, is doing with all that power is continuing to reshuffle the deck of economic opportunity
to insure that wealth and income continue to polarize. It's a process they undertake in the name of tax cuts for the middle class
(which aren't), deregulation (which hurts society as a whole), and the outright transfer of wealth and property (including millions
of acres of taxpayer-owned land) from taxpayers to shareholders (the 1%).
I know because I was part of it. As a former CEO and member of four corporate boards I had a front row seat from the 1970s
on. The simplest analogy is that the gamblers rose up and took control of the casinos and the government had their backs in a
kind of quid pro quo, all having to do with money.
They made it stick because they turned corporate management into the ultimate capitalists. The people who used to manage companies
and employees are now laser focused on managing the companies' stock price and enhancing their own wealth. Corporate executives,
in a word, became capitalists, not businessmen and women, giving the foxes unfettered control of the hen house.
They got to that position through a combination of greed -- both corporate management's and that of shareholder activists --
but were enabled and empowered by Washington. Beginning in the 1970s the Justice Department antitrust division, the Labor Department,
the EPA, and other institutions assigned the responsibility to avoid the concentration of power that Adam Smith warned us about,
and to protect labor and the environment, were all gutted and stripped of power.
They blamed it on globalism, but that was the result, not the cause. Gone are the days of any corporate sense of responsibility
to the employees, the collective good, or the communities in which they operate and whose many services they enjoy. It is the
corporate and financial elite, and they are now one and the same, who have defined the "me" world in which we now live.
And the process continues: "The ruling corporate kleptocrats are political arsonists. They are carting cans of gasoline into
government agencies, the courts, the White House, and Congress to burn down any structure or program that promotes the common
good." And he's right. And Trump is carrying those cans.
Ironically, Trump's base, who have been most marginalized by the corpocracy, are the ones who put him there to continue the
gutting. But Hedges has an explanation for that. "In short, when you are marginalized and rejected by society, life often has
little meaning. There arises a yearning among the disempowered to become as omnipotent as the gods. The impossibility of omnipotence
leads to its dark alternative -- destroying like the gods." (Reference to Ernest Becker's The Denial of Death.)
The economic history and understanding of economic theory here is rich and detailed. Capitalism, as Marx and others pointed
out, creates great wealth in the beginning but is doomed to failure due to its inability to continue to find sources of growth
and to manage inequities in wealth creation. And you don't have to be a socialist to see that this is true. Capitalism must be
managed. And our government is currently making no attempt to do so. It is, in fact, dynamiting the institutions responsible for
doing so.
All told, this is a very good book. If you don't like reading about underbellies (I found the chapter devoted to sadism personally
unsettling, being the father of two daughters.) you will find some of it pretty dark. Having said that, however, the writing is
very good and Hedges never wallows in the darkness. He's clearly not selling the underbelly; he's trying to give it definition.
I did think that some of the chapters might have been broken down into different sub-chapters and there is a lack of continuity
in some places. All told, however, I do recommend the book. There is no denying the fundamental thesis.
The problem is, however, we're all blaming it on the proverbial 'other guy.' Perhaps this book will help us to understand the
real culprit -- the capitalist collective. "The merging of the self with the capitalist collective has robbed us of our agency,
creativity, capacity for self-reflection, and moral autonomy." True, indeed.
The inimitable Hedges is not only a saint with a penetrating intelligence, but also a man of superior eloquence with the power
to pull you into his descriptions of the collapse of western civilization. Hedges says that the new American Capitalism no longer
produces products -- rather America produces escapist fantasies. I found this paragraph [page 233] particularly relevant. The
act of being dedicated to the 'greater good' has in itself become dangerous.
Chris Hedges: "We do not become autonomous and free human beings by building pathetic, tiny monuments to ourselves. It is through
self-sacrifice and humility that we affirm the sanctity of others and the sanctity of ourselves. Those who fight against cultural
malice have discovered that life is measured by infinitesimal and often unacknowledged acts of solidarity and kindness. These
acts of kindness spin outward to connect our atomized and alienated souls to others. The good draws to it the good. This belief
-- held although we may never see empirical proof -- is profoundly transformative. But know this: when these acts are carried
out on behalf of the oppressed and the demonized, when compassion defines the core of our lives, when we understand that justice
is a manifestation of love, we are marginalized and condemned by our sociopathic elites."
If you've never read Hedges - get it now. If you've read him before - there's nothing new here.
Chris Hedges is a writer who has a knack for seeing the big picture and connecting the dots. A chronic pessimist in the best
sense, a bitter prophet warning us of the last days of the decaying empire, his page-turning prose carving through the morass
of today's mania and derangement. For that, he's in the company somewhere between Cornel West and Morris Berman (the later, whose
book Why America Failed, is better than this. If you're familiar with Hedges, but not Morris Berman, go find Berman instead).
I give this three stars only because there isn't much new here if you're familiar with his material. I felt this book to be
an update of Empire of Illusion, punched up by old articles from his weekly column at Truthdig. Aside from the introductory chapter,
he revisits themes of sadism, the decline of literacy, of labor, of democratic institutions, and so on, which are too familiar.
The pages and pages detailing the BDSM craze I felt were excessive in their prurient voyeurism which journalistic approaches can
fall into. Not saying he's wrong at all, but this tone could put off some readers, erring on excessive preacherly seminarian virtue
signaling as he points out the sins of the world and shouts - "Look! Look at what we've done!"
Heartbreaking to read but so true. In our "truth is not truth" era Mr. Hedges once again writes the sad and shocking obituary
for American Democracy and sounds the prophetic alarm to those revelers while Rome burns. All empires come and go but I never
thought I'd be a witness to one. Something sick and traitorous has infected the soul of America and I fear it's going to be some
demented combination of the worst elements in 1984 and Brave Bew World. The most important work currently published but will anyone
listen? Will anything change?
The author is honest and intelligent. When you take a detailed look at reality it can seem harsh.
Don't shoot the messenger who has brought bad news. We need to know the truth. Read, listen, learn. Engage in positive actions
to improve the situation.
Chris has given us a wake-up call.
The military sucks up 54% of
discretionary federal spending. Pentagon bloat has a huge effect on domestic priorities; the
nearly $1
trillion a year that goes to exploiting, oppressing, torturing, maiming and murdering
foreigners could go to building schools, college scholarships, curing diseases, poetry slams,
whatever. Anything, even tax cuts for the rich, would be better than bombs. But as then GOP
presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in 2015, "The military is not a social experiment.
The purpose of the military is to
kill people and break things ." If you're like me, you want as little killing and breaking
as possible.
Unfortunately, no major Democratic presidential candidate favors substantial cuts to
Pentagon appropriations.
Current frontrunner Joe Biden (
33% in the polls) doesn't talk
much about defense spending. He reminds us that his son served in Iraq (so he cares about
the military) and that we shouldn't prioritize defense over domestic programs. Vague. Though
specific programs might get trimmed, Lockheed Martin could rest easy under a President
Biden.
"Since he arrived in Congress, [runner-up] Bernie Sanders [19%] has been a fierce
crusader against Pentagon spending , calling for defense cuts that few Democrats have been
willing to support," The Hill reported in 2016. "As late as 2002, he supported a 50 percent cut
for the Pentagon." Bernie is
still a Pentagon critic but he won't commit to a specific amount to cut. He wouldn't
slash and Bern. He'd trim.
Elizabeth Warren (8%) wants "to identify which programs actually benefit American security
in the 21st century, and which programs merely line the pockets of defense contractors -- then
pull out a sharp knife and make some
cuts ."
... ... ...
Kamala Harris (5%) has not weighed
in on military spending. She has received substantial campaign contributions from the
defense industry, though.
The Democrats on Wars for Fun
As senator, Biden voted for the optional wars against
Afghanistan and
Iraq . He
lied about his votes so maybe he felt bad about them. He similarly seems to regret
his ro le in
destroying Libya.
Sanders voted to invade Afghanistan . His
comment at the time reads as hopelessly naïve about the bloodthirsty Bush-Cheney regime:
"The use of force is one tool that we have at our disposal to fight against the horror of
terrorism and mass murder it is something that must be used wisely and with great discretion."
Sanders voted against
invading Iraq , favored regime change in Libya (
albeit nonviolently ) and voted to bomb Syria .
There have been no major new wars since 2013, when Warren joined the Senate so her antiwar
bona fides have not been tested. Like many of her colleagues, she wants an end to the "forever
war" against Afghanistan. She also wants us out of
Syria .
Democrats on NSA Spying Against Americans
... ... ...
Joe Biden, though to the right on other foreign-policy issues, was a critic of NSA spying
for years, going
back at least to 2006. Under Obama, however, he
backtracked . Even worse, Biden
called the president of Ecuador in 2013 to request that he deny asylum to NSA whistleblower
Edward Snowden.
"... the Huawei controversy is part of a wider conflict, with America determined to stop the Chinese changing the world's power structure, moving it from under America's control. When China was just a cheap manufacturing centre for low-tech goods, that was one thing. But when China started developing advanced technologies and began to dominate global trade, that was another. China must be put back in its box. ..."
"... America failed to bring Russia to her knees, so now the focus is directly on destroying, or at least containing China. China has already outspent America in Africa, Central and South America, buying influence away from America in her traditional spheres of influence. Attempts to neutralise North Korea are coming unstuck. ..."
"... Behind the cyber war, there is a financial war. In the financial war, America has the advantage of its currency hegemony, which it exercises to the full. It has allowed Americans to have lived beyond their means by importing more goods than they export, and the government spends more than it receives in taxes. In order to achieve these benefits, inward capital flows are necessary to finance them. To date, these have totalled in current value-terms some $25 trillion, being total foreign ownership of dollar assets and deposits. ..."
"... In 2017, Hong Kong was the third largest recipient of foreign direct investment (substantially property) after the US and China. FDI inflows rose by £104bn to total nearly $2 trillion. Largest investors were China, followed by corporate money channeled through offshore centers. ..."
"... China is sure to see the financial and monetary stability of Hong Kong as being vital to the Mainland's interests. Apart from the Bank of China's Hong Kong subsidiary being the second largest issuer of bank notes, the Peoples' Bank itself maintains reserve balances in Hong Kong dollars, which in the circumstances Kyle Bass believes likely, they can increase to support the HKMA's management of the currency peg. ..."
"... The alternative is for Washington to recognise and accept that its days of being a uni-polar global power are coming to an end but that is not possible when power is in the hands of maniacal psychos like Bolt-on. ..."
"... Bretton Woods, World Bank, IMF, BIS, just for starters. The US/UK built the present financial system. Of which most of the world has joined, because in the main it profits them. ..."
"... What are the benefits? Being enslaved by a bunch of inbred assholes in Switzerland? ..."
Behind the Huawei story, we must not forget there is a wider financial war being waged by
America against China and Russia. Stories about China's banks being short of dollars are
incorrect: the shortage is of inward capital flows to support the US Government's budget
deficit. By attracting those global portfolio flows instead, China's Belt and Road Initiative
threatens US Government finances, so the financial war and associated disinformation can be
expected to escalate. Hong Kong is likely to be in the firing line, due to its role in
providing China with access to international finance.
Introduction
Huawei is hitting the headlines. From ordering the arrest of its Chief Financial Officer in
Vancouver last December to the latest efforts to dissuade its allies from adopting Huawei's 5G
mobile technology, it has been a classic deep state operation by the Americans. Admittedly, the
Chinese have left themselves open to attack by introducing a loosely-drafted cybersecurity law
in 2016/17 which according to Western defence circles appears to require all Chinese technology
companies to cooperate with Chinese intelligence services.
Consequently, no one now knows whether to trust Huawei, who have some of the leading
technology for 5G. The problem for network operators is who to believe. Intelligence services
are in the business of dissembling, which they do through political puppets, all of which are
professionals at being economical with the truth. Who can forget Weapons of Mass Destruction?
More recently there was the Skripal poisoning mystery: the Russians would have been
bang-to-rights, if it wasn't for Skripal's links through Pablo Miller to Christopher Steele,
who put together the dodgy dossier on Trump's alleged behaviour in a Russian hotel.
The safest course is to never believe anything emanating from a government security agency,
which does not help hapless network operators. They, and the rest of us, should look at
motives. The attack on Huawei is motivated by a desire to impede China's technological
progress, which is already eclipsing that of America, and America is using her leadership of
the 5-eyes intelligence group of nations to impose her geostrategic will on her allies. The row
in Britain this week escalated from a cabinet-level security breech on this subject, to
American threats of withholding intelligence from the UK if UK companies are permitted to order
Huawei 5G equipment, to the sacking of the Minister of Defence.
A threat to withhold intelligence sharing, if carried out, only serves to isolate the
Americans. But you can see how desperate the Americans are to eliminate Huawei. Furthermore,
the Huawei controversy is part of a wider conflict, with America determined to stop the Chinese
changing the world's power structure, moving it from under America's control. When China was
just a cheap manufacturing centre for low-tech goods, that was one thing. But when China
started developing advanced technologies and began to dominate global trade, that was another.
China must be put back in its box.
So far, all attempts to do so appear to have failed. Control of Afghanistan, seen as an
important source of minerals ready to be exploited by China, has been a costly failure for the
West. Attempts to wrest control of Syria from Russia's sphere of influence also failed. Russia
is China's economic and military ally. America failed to bring Russia to her knees, so now the
focus is directly on destroying, or at least containing China. China has already outspent
America in Africa, Central and South America, buying influence away from America in her
traditional spheres of influence. Attempts to neutralise North Korea are coming unstuck.
In truth, there is an undeclared war between China and Russia on one side, and America and
her often reluctant allies on the other. It will now escalate, mainly because America
increasingly needs global portfolio flows to cover her deficits.
America's financial war
strategy
Behind the cyber war, there is a financial war. In the financial war, America has the
advantage of its currency hegemony, which it exercises to the full. It has allowed Americans to
have lived beyond their means by importing more goods than they export, and the government
spends more than it receives in taxes. In order to achieve these benefits, inward capital flows
are necessary to finance them. To date, these have totalled in current value-terms some $25
trillion, being total foreign ownership of dollar assets and deposits.
America's policy of living beyond its means now requires more than just recycled trade
flows: inward portfolio flows are required as well. Global portfolios, comprised of commercial
cash balances as well as investment money, periodically increase their exposure to other
regions, potentially leaving America short. The problem is resolved by destabilising the region
that has most recently benefited from capital investment, to encourage money to return to
dollars and thus America's domestic markets. Now that she is due to escalate infrastructure
spending both in China and along the new silk roads, it is China's turn.
This will be the opinion of Qiao Liang, who was a Major-General in the PLA and one of its
chief strategists. It was his explanation for the South-East Asian crisis of 1997, when a run
started on the Thai baht and spread to all neighbouring countries. In the decade prior to the
crisis, the region saw substantial inward capital flows, so much so that countries such as
Malaysia, the Philippines and Indonesia ran significant deficits on their balance of payments.
This conflicted with the US's trade balance, which was beginning to deteriorate. The solution
was the collapse of the South-east Asia investment story, which stimulated the re-allocation of
investment resources in favour of the dollar and America.
Qiao Liang cites a number of other examples from the Latin-American crisis in the
early-1980s to Ukraine, whose yellow revolution reversed investment flows into Central Europe.
This did not go to plan, with over a trillion dollars-worth of investment coming out of Europe,
most being redirected to the Chinese economy, which was the most attractive destination at that
time. Through the new Shanghai-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect, in April 2014 China
facilitated inward investment and the ability for foreign investors to realise profits without
going through exchange controls.
Being the gateway for foreign investors, our story now moves to Hong Kong. According to
Chinese and Russian intelligence sources, America tried to destabilise it with covert support
for the Occupy Hong Kong movement between September and December 2014. The Fed ended its QE
that October, and international capital was needed back in the US. The Americans had also
escalated the row over the Spratly Islands and Scarborough Shoal at the beginning of that year,
which effectively halted free trade negotiations between China, Japan, South Korea, Macau,
Taiwan and Hong Kong. The Chinese hoped this potential free trade area could be expanded to
include the ASEAN FTA, which would then have been the largest in the world by GDP and an area
in which they could develop the renminbi as the reserve currency.
These plans were effectively scuppered, but China was not provoked into a public response by
these actions. Instead, they started reducing their US Treasury holdings in their dollar
reserves from $1.27 trillion to $1.06 trillion in 2016 – not a great fall, but
demonstrating they were not recycling their trade surpluses into dollars.
All that happened at a time when both the American and global economies were expanding
– admittedly at muted rates. Trump's trade protectionism has changed that, and early
indications are that the US economy is now stalling. Tax revenues are falling short, while
government expenditures are rising. America now urgently needs more inward capital flows to
finance the growing budget deficit.
If Qiao Liang were to comment, doubtless his conclusion would be that America will increase
its attack on China to precipitate disinvestment and reallocation to the dollar. And so, the
attacks have begun; first by trying to break Huawei. Now, the mainstream media, perhaps with
off-the-record briefings, are claiming China and Hong Kong are facing difficulties.
Last week, the Wall Street Journal published an article claiming China's banks are running
out of dollars. Clearly, this is untrue. China's banks can acquire dollars any time they want,
either by selling other foreign currencies in the market, or by selling renminbi to the
People's bank. They have their dollar position because they choose to have it, and furthermore
all commercial banks use derivatives, which are effectively off-balance sheet exposure.
Furthermore, with the US running a substantial trade deficit with China, dollars are flooding
in all the time.
Following the WSJ article, various other commentators have come up with similar stories. How
convenient, it seems, for the US Government to see these bearish stories about China, just when
they need to ramp up inward portfolio flows to finance the budget deficit.
There is, anyway, a general antipathy among American investors to the China story, so we
should not be surprised to see the China bears restating their case. One leading China bear, at
least by reputation for his investment shrewdness, is Kyle Bass of Hayman Capital Management.
According to , he has written his first investment letter in three years, saying of Hong Kong,
"Today, newly emergent economic and political risks threaten Hong Kong's decades of stability.
These risks are so large they merit immediate attention on both fronts."
If only it were so simple. It is time to put the alternative case. Hong Kong is important,
because China uses Hong Kong and London to avoid being dependent on the US banking system for
international finances. And that's why the US's deep state want to nail Hong Kong.
Lop-sided
analysis
Bass is correct in pointing out the Hong Kong property market appears highly geared, and
that property prices for office, residential and retail sectors have rocketed since the 2003
trough. To a large extent it has been the inevitable consequence of the currency board link to
the US dollar, which broadly transfers the Fed's inflationary monetary policy to Hong Kong's
more dynamic economy. Bass's description of the relationship between the banks, the way they
finance themselves and property collateral is reminiscent of the factors that led to the
secondary banking crisis in the UK in late-1973. Empirical evidence appears to be firmly on
Bass's side.
Except, that is, for a significant difference between events such as the UK's secondary
banking crisis, and virtually every other property crisis. Hong Kong is a truly international
centre, and the banks' role in property transactions is as currency facilitator rather than
lender. In 2017, Hong Kong was the third largest recipient of foreign direct investment
(substantially property) after the US and China. FDI inflows rose by £104bn to total
nearly $2 trillion. Largest investors were China, followed by corporate money channeled
through offshore centers.
So, yes, Hong Kong banks will be hurt by a property crisis, but not as much as Bass implies.
It is foreign and Chinese banks that have much of the property as collateral. It is not the
Hong Kong banks that have fuelled the property boom with domestic credit, but foreign
money.
Bass fails to mention that a collapse in property prices and the banking system is unlikely
to be confined to Hong Kong. Central banks have made significant progress in ensuring all
banking systems are tied into the same credit cycle. Unwittingly, they have simply guarenteed
that the next credit crisis will hit everyone at the same time. It won't be just Hong Kong, but
the EU, Japan, Britain and America. Everyone will be in difficulty to a greater or lesser
extent.
Interestingly, the Lehman crisis, which occurred after Hong Kong property prices had already
doubled from 2003, caused strong inflows to develop, driving the Hong Kong dollar to the top of
its peg. The situation appears to be similar today, with US outward investment at low levels,
but near-record levels of foreign ownership of dollar assets. Despite Hong Kong's foreign
direct investment standing at $2 trillion, the prospect of capital repatriation to Hong Kong
should not be ignored.
Probably the most important claim in Bass's letter is over the future of the currency peg
operated by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA). He claims that the "aggregate balance",
which is a line-item in the HKMA's balance sheet, is the equivalent of the US Fed's excess
reserves, and that "Once depleted, the pressure on the currency board will become untenable and
the peg will break."
The aggregate balance on the HKMA's balance sheet has declined significantly over the last
year, from HK$180bn to HK$54.4bn currently. The decision about changes in aggregate balances
comes from the banks themselves, and for this reason they are commonly taken to reflect capital
flows into and out of the Hong Kong dollar. This is different from aggregate balances
reflecting actual pressures on the peg, as suggested by Bass.
The HKMA maintains a US dollar coverage of 105%-112.5% of base money (currently about 110%)
and has further unallocated dollar reserves if necessary. The peg is maintained by the HKMA
varying its base money, not just by managing a base lending rate giving a spread over the Fed's
fund rate, not just by influencing the commercial banks' aggregate balances, but by addressing
the three other components that make up the monetary base. These are Certificates of
Indebtedness, Government notes and coins in circulation and Exchange Fund Bills and Notes
(EFBNs). In practice, it is the EFBNs in conjunction with the aggregate balances that are used
to adjust the monetary base and keep the currency secured in the Convertibility Zone of 7.75
and 7.85 to the US dollar.
In maintaining the peg, the HKMA prioritises maintaining it over managing the money supply.
There is little doubt this goes against the grain of mainstream Western economists who believe
inflation good, deflation bad. Over the last year base money in Hong Kong contracted from
HK$1,695bn to HK1,635bn. Does this worry the HKMA? Not at all.
How the Chinese will act in the circumstances of a new global credit crisis is yet to be
seen, but we should bear in mind that they are probably less Keynesian in their approach to
economics and finance than Westerners. Admittedly, they have freely used credit expansion to
finance economic development, but theirs is a mercantilist approach, which differs
significantly from ours. We simply impoverish our factors of production through wealth transfer
by monetary inflation. We think this can be offset by fuelling financial speculation and asset
inflation. China enhances her production and innovation by generating personal savings. Wealth
is created by and linked more directly to production.
The objectives and effects of monetary and credit inflation between China's application of
it and the way we do things in the West are dissimilar, and it is a common mistake to ignore
these differences. The threat to China's ability to manage its affairs in a credit crisis is
significantly less than the threat to Western welfare-dependent nations whose governments are
highly indebted, while China's is not.
China is sure to see the financial and monetary stability of Hong Kong as being vital to the
Mainland's interests. Apart from the Bank of China's Hong Kong subsidiary being the second
largest issuer of bank notes, the Peoples' Bank itself maintains reserve balances in Hong Kong
dollars, which in the circumstances Kyle Bass believes likely, they can increase to support the
HKMA's management of the currency peg.
Conclusions
It is a mistake to think the Hong Kong property market is as much of a systemic danger as it
first appears. Expectations of a devaluation of the peg appear to be wishful thinking by the
bears.
Far more important are the consequences of the cyber and financial war being pursued against
China and Russia, its close ally, by the American deep state. Under President Trump it was
accelerated by his trade tariff policies, which are fundamentally an attack on China's economy.
China will be a hard nut to crack, and the effect of America's trade protectionism has been to
trigger a diminution in international trade, which is now becoming apparent. The negative
effects on the American economy appear to be being underestimated.
The attempt to destroy Huawei's 5G global ambitions is both the current and most visible
part of an undeclared cyber and financial war. Trade protectionism was only a step along the
way. The financial war is now escalating with the global economy facing at least a significant
recession, almost certain to trigger an overdue credit crisis. The Chinese have long been on a
financial war footing, as shown by Qiao Liang's analysis of how America needs global portfolio
flows and what they are prepared to do to attract them. Western thinking that the Chinese and
their Russian allies are vulnerable to American hegemony has been disproved time and again.
Financial analysts consistently fail to understand the Chinese are not muppets.
China will not be provoked, and by standing firm, they are sure to protect Hong Kong and get
on with diverting investment flows from a failing US economy into its Belt and Road Initiative.
This will force a financial crisis on the Americans of their own making. At least, that's how
China has always seen it and they see no need for their passive financial war strategy to
change.
The Washington strategy described here to prevent China from becoming a global player in
geo-politics and technology is doomed to failure as more and more countries side with China
(including Russia, which wants its own share of the action). It will lead to a hot war and I
believe Washington knows this and is stepping in that direction.
The alternative is for Washington to recognise and accept that its days of being a
uni-polar global power are coming to an end but that is not possible when power is in the
hands of maniacal psychos like Bolt-on.
Bretton Woods, World Bank, IMF, BIS, just for starters. The US/UK built the present
financial system. Of which most of the world has joined, because in the main it profits
them.
All clubs have rules. All clubs have requirements. Or else, by by.
China wants in the club, wants the club facilities, the club benefits, wants to go to the
parties and be warmly accepted at the bar. But it doesn't like the rules. But it doesn't like
being outside the club either.
The Communist Chinese government, decades used to treating its own people as dirt. This is
how they roll.
So too Iran, Maduro, Cuba, Putin.
They want the benefits of the west, but not the strings. State Street, as we say in
Massachusetts ( State Street in Boston is where the state capital is, and it is one way
only)
"...financial war being waged by America against China and Russia."
And by China and Russia against America. Lets not pretend the Russians and Chinese are
innocent victims here. Its a competition. Thats the way the world works. Were all competing
for trade, money and resources.
My reading is that the core psychological principle of neoliberalism, that life is an accumulation of moments of utility
and disutility, is alive and well within certain sectors of the "left". A speech (or email or comment at a meeting) should be
evaluated by how it makes us feel, and no one should have the right to make us feel bad.
Not sure about this "utility/disutility" dichotomy (probably you mean market fundamentalism -- belief that market ( and market
mechanisms) is a self regulating, supernaturally predictive force that will guide human beings to the neoliberal Heavens), but, yes,
neoliberalism infected the "left" and, especially, Democratic Party which was converted by Clinton into greedy and corrupt "DemoRats'
subservient to Wall Street and antagonistic to the trade unions. And into the second War Party, which in certain areas is even more
jingoistic and aggressive then Republicans (Obama color revolution in Ukraine is one example; Hillary Libya destruction is another;
both were instrumental in unleashing the civil war on Syria and importing and arming Muslim fundamentalists to fight it).
It might make sense to view neoliberalism as a new secular religion which displaced Marxism on the world arena (and collapse of
the USSR was in part the result of the collapse of Marxism as an ideology under onslaught of neoliberalism; although bribes of USSR
functionaries and mismanagement of the economy due to over centralization -- country as a single gigantic corporation -- also greatly
helped) .
Neoliberalism demonstrates the same level of intolerance (and actually series of wars somewhat similar to Crusades) as any monotheistic
religion in early stages of its development. Because at this stage any adept knows the truth and to believe in this truth is to be
saved; everything else is eternal damnation (aka living under "authoritarian regime" ;-) .
And so far there is nothing that will force the neoliberal/neocon Torquemadas to abandon their loaded with bombs jets as the tool
of enlightenment of pagan states ;-)
Simplifying, neoliberalism can be viewed an a masterfully crafted, internally consistent amalgam of myths and pseudo theories
(partially borrowed from Trotskyism) that justifies the rule of financial oligarchy and high level inequality in the society (redistribution
of the wealth up). Kind of Trotskyism for the rich with the same idea of Permanent Revolution until global victory of neoliberalism.
That's why neoliberals charlatans like Hayek and Friedman were dusted off, given Nobel Prizes and promoted to the top in economics:
they were very helpful and pretty skillful in forging neoliberal myths. Especially Hayek. A second rate economist who proved to be
the first class theologian .
Promoting "neoliberal salvation" was critical for the achieving the political victory of neoliberalism in late 1979th and discrediting
and destroying the remnants of the New Deal capitalism (already undermined at this time by the oil crisis)
Neoliberalism has led to the rise of corporate (especially financial oligarchy) power and an open war on labor. New Deal policies
aimed at full employment and job security have been replaced with ones that aim at flexibility in the form of unstable employment,
job loss and rising inequality.
This hypotheses helps to explain why neoliberalism as a social system survived after its ideology collapsed in 2008 -- it just
entered zombie stage like Bolshevism after WWII when it became clear that it can't achieve higher standard of living for the population
then capitalism.
Latest mutation of classic neoliberalism into "national neoliberalism" under Trump shows that it has great ability to adapt to
the changing conditions. And neoliberalism survived in Russia under Putin and Medvedev as well, despite economic rape that Western
neoliberals performed on Russia under Yeltsin with the help of Harvard mafia.
That's why despite widespread criticism, neoliberalism remains the dominant politico-economic theory amongst policy-makers both
in the USA and internationally. All key global neoliberal global institutions, such as the G20, European Union, IMF, World bank,
and WTO still survived intact and subscribe to neoliberalism. .
Neoliberalism has led to the rise of corporate (especially financial oligarchy) power and an open war on labor. New Deal policies
aimed at full employment and job security have been replaced with ones that aim at flexibility in the form of unstable employment,
job loss and rising inequality.
This hypotheses helps to explain why neoliberalism as a social system survived after its ideology collapsed in 2008 -- it just
entered zombie stage like Bolshevism after WWII when it became clear that it can't achieve higher standard of living for the population
then capitalism.
Latest mutation of classic neoliberalism into "national neoliberalism" under Trump shows that it has great ability to adapt to
the changing conditions.
that's why despite widespread criticism, neoliberalism remains the dominant politico-economic theory amongst policy-makers both
in the USA and internationally. All key global neoliberal global institutions, such as the G20, European Union, IMF, World bank,
and WTO still survived intact and subscribe to neoliberalism. .
"... The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral sanction campaigns. ..."
"... Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO... Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles. ..."
"... He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of Euro-Atlantic narratives. ..."
...Beijing and Moscow share one very big objective: resist U.S. dominance. Washington
expanded NATO up to Russia's borders; America's navy patrols the Asia-Pacific and treats those
waters as an American lake. Elsewhere there is no issue upon which Washington fails to
sanctimoniously pronounce its opinion and piously attempt to enforce its judgment.
Unfortunately, for quite some time Washington has seemed determined to give both China and
Russia good cause for discontent. Instead, in response, Washington should do its best to
eliminate behaviors which bring its two most important competitors together. Then the United
States wouldn't need to worry what Presidents Putin and Xi were saying to one another
.
Thus, Washington has done much to bring its two leading adversaries together. However,
hostility is a limited basis for agreement. There is no military alliance, despite Chinese
participation in a Russian military exercise last fall. Neither government is interested in
going to war with America and certainly not over the other’s grievances. A shared sense
of threat could change that, but extraordinarily sustained and maladroit U.S. policies would be
required to create that atmosphere.
When the two countries otherwise act for similar purposes, it usually is independently, even
competitively, rather than cooperatively. For instance, both are active in Cuba, contra
Washington’s long-failed policy of starving the regime into submission. Beijing and
Moscow also are both supporting Venezuela’s beleaguered Maduro government. However, China
and Russia appear to be focused on advancing their own government’s influence, even
against that of the other.
Both nations have a United Nations Security Council veto, though the PRC traditionally has
preferred to abstain, achieving little, rather than cast a veto. However, working together they
could more effectively reshape allied proposals for UN action. They could do much the same in
other multilateral organizations, though usually without having a veto.
The real test for having an “unprecedentedly high level” relationship would
be to coordinate diplomatic campaigns against U.S. policies. Working together they are more
likely to split off American allies and friends from unpopular initiatives, such as unilateral
sanction campaigns. Europe is more likely to cooperate if the PRC, valued for its economic
connections, joined Russia, still distrusted for its confrontation with Ukraine and
interference in domestic European politics. So far this former communist “axis” has
been mostly an inconvenience for the United States, rather than a significant hindrance,
Still, that could change if the Trump administration makes ever more extraordinary
assertions of unilateral power. Washington officials appear to sense the possibilities, having
periodically whined about cooperation between China and Russia, apparently ill-prepared for any
organized opposition to U.S. policies.
... ... ...
Doug Bandow is a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and a former Special Assistant to
President Ronald Reagan. He is the author of Foreign Follies: America's New Global Empire
.
"China appears poised to absorb Russia’s sparsely populated east."
Good Lord, but when does this endless BS end? Seriously, no-one really believes this
yet these clowns and fools keep trotting out these absurd canards.
"In a sense, the Putin-Xi meeting was much ado about nothing. The relationship
revolves around what they are against, which mostly is the United States. They would have
little to talk about other than the latest grievance about America to express or American
activity to counter."
Yeah sure... no reason why Putin and Xi wouldn't want to talk about economic links
given that Russia-China trade is now over $100B per year equivalent.... a figure reached
more than 5 years earlier than Western "experts" had predicted, and which is growing very
strongly.
Lets all mindlessly repeat the platitudes of Thinktankistan entities like CATO...
Russian economy is smaller than new York... Russian relies on oil sales and doesn't make
anything.... These sock puppets must think we are imbeciles.
Orwell predicted "It is a warfare of limited aims between
combatants who are unable to destroy one another, have no material cause
for fighting and are not divided by any genuine ideological difference."
He's an Atlantacist fool. Senior fellow at the CATO institute, pretty much says it
all. His style is to drop the odd truth-bomb (like criticizing the ill-advised NATO
expansion and US geopolitical belligerence) but he still sticks to the main planks of
Euro-Atlantic narratives.
My reading is that the core psychological principle of neoliberalism, that life is an accumulation of moments of utility
and disutility, is alive and well within certain sectors of the "left". A speech (or email or comment at a meeting) should be
evaluated by how it makes us feel, and no one should have the right to make us feel bad.
Not sure about this "utility/disutility" dichotomy (probably you mean market fundamentalism -- belief that market ( and market
mechanisms) is a self regulating, supernaturally predictive force that will guide human beings to the neoliberal Heavens), but, yes,
neoliberalism infected the "left" and, especially, Democratic Party which was converted by Clinton into greedy and corrupt "DemoRats'
subservient to Wall Street and antagonistic to the trade unions. And into the second War Party, which in certain areas is even more
jingoistic and aggressive then Republicans (Obama color revolution in Ukraine is one example; Hillary Libya destruction is another;
both were instrumental in unleashing the civil war on Syria and importing and arming Muslim fundamentalists to fight it).
It might make sense to view neoliberalism as a new secular religion which displaced Marxism on the world arena (and collapse of
the USSR was in part the result of the collapse of Marxism as an ideology under onslaught of neoliberalism; although bribes of USSR
functionaries and mismanagement of the economy due to over centralization -- country as a single gigantic corporation -- also greatly
helped) .
Neoliberalism demonstrates the same level of intolerance (and actually series of wars somewhat similar to Crusades) as any monotheistic
religion in early stages of its development. Because at this stage any adept knows the truth and to believe in this truth is to be
saved; everything else is eternal damnation (aka living under "authoritarian regime" ;-) .
And so far there is nothing that will force the neoliberal/neocon Torquemadas to abandon their loaded with bombs jets as the tool
of enlightenment of pagan states ;-)
Simplifying, neoliberalism can be viewed an a masterfully crafted, internally consistent amalgam of myths and pseudo theories
(partially borrowed from Trotskyism) that justifies the rule of financial oligarchy and high level inequality in the society (redistribution
of the wealth up). Kind of Trotskyism for the rich with the same idea of Permanent Revolution until global victory of neoliberalism.
That's why neoliberals charlatans like Hayek and Friedman were dusted off, given Nobel Prizes and promoted to the top in economics:
they were very helpful and pretty skillful in forging neoliberal myths. Especially Hayek. A second rate economist who proved to be
the first class theologian .
Promoting "neoliberal salvation" was critical for the achieving the political victory of neoliberalism in late 1979th and discrediting
and destroying the remnants of the New Deal capitalism (already undermined at this time by the oil crisis)
Neoliberalism has led to the rise of corporate (especially financial oligarchy) power and an open war on labor. New Deal policies
aimed at full employment and job security have been replaced with ones that aim at flexibility in the form of unstable employment,
job loss and rising inequality.
This hypotheses helps to explain why neoliberalism as a social system survived after its ideology collapsed in 2008 -- it just
entered zombie stage like Bolshevism after WWII when it became clear that it can't achieve higher standard of living for the population
then capitalism.
Latest mutation of classic neoliberalism into "national neoliberalism" under Trump shows that it has great ability to adapt to
the changing conditions. And neoliberalism survived in Russia under Putin and Medvedev as well, despite economic rape that Western
neoliberals performed on Russia under Yeltsin with the help of Harvard mafia.
That's why despite widespread criticism, neoliberalism remains the dominant politico-economic theory amongst policy-makers both
in the USA and internationally. All key global neoliberal global institutions, such as the G20, European Union, IMF, World bank,
and WTO still survived intact and subscribe to neoliberalism. .
Neoliberalism has led to the rise of corporate (especially financial oligarchy) power and an open war on labor. New Deal policies
aimed at full employment and job security have been replaced with ones that aim at flexibility in the form of unstable employment,
job loss and rising inequality.
This hypotheses helps to explain why neoliberalism as a social system survived after its ideology collapsed in 2008 -- it just
entered zombie stage like Bolshevism after WWII when it became clear that it can't achieve higher standard of living for the population
then capitalism.
Latest mutation of classic neoliberalism into "national neoliberalism" under Trump shows that it has great ability to adapt to
the changing conditions.
that's why despite widespread criticism, neoliberalism remains the dominant politico-economic theory amongst policy-makers both
in the USA and internationally. All key global neoliberal global institutions, such as the G20, European Union, IMF, World bank,
and WTO still survived intact and subscribe to neoliberalism. .
Multipolarity has taken a back seat. Iranian economy is bad, turkish economy is bad, India
stopped buying iranian oil, Brazil got taken over via Bolsonaro, China was intimidated to
give better trade conditions, Russian growth rate is weak. Even Khamenei admits that Europe
has left the JCPOA in practice.
Europe remains a vassal. There are no prospects for european independence from the looks
of it.
The growth rates of those who oppose the US have been hit.
Active measures are being taken to oppose multipolarity on all fronts.
The truth is that you guys underestimate the US. They fight good.
Underlying issues though, such as changing demographics and inreasing debt levels are
still weakening the US in the long run.
But they are not out of the game and they won't be for at least another 20 years. The US
decline is going to be slower that you thought.
The granting of a "permanent normal trading relationship" (PNTR) and then the subsequent
accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001 have been a boon for China, but the
persistence of ongoing American trade deficits have led many,
including the current president, to judge the United States a loser in ongoing trade
negotiations with Beijing. It's not a totally irrational judgment: China's WTO accession
hasn't been
great for U.S. manufacturers .
Part of the problem stems from the extraordinary fact that Washington has seldom deployed a
negotiator who is actually well-versed in trade issues. Since the days of the Clinton
administration, it has been the U.S. Treasury Secretary, as opposed to the country's chief
trade representative, who has consistently directed trade negotiations, with the resultant (and
eminently predictable) impact that financial interests have superseded those of any other
economic sector. That pattern was briefly disrupted when President George W. Bush appointed
Alcoa's CEO, Paul O'Neill, to head the Treasury, and then CSX president John W. Snow, but
ultimately the " Wall Street uber alles " mentality again prevailed with the appointment
of Hank Paulson (to be followed by Tim Geithner, Jack Lew, and now Steve Mnuchin -- all of whom
have finance-centric backgrounds).
For all of the supposed financial sophistication of America's Wall Street-based Treasury
Secretaries, it is indeed ironic that China has consistently been able to play them for fools
with the implied threat of its so-called "nuclear option," a highly flawed
narrative that alleges that as a final resort, Beijing would dump its huge stockpile of
U.S. Treasuries, thereby driving up U.S. rates, and creating a catastrophic depression for the
U.S. economy. That so-called threat to the bond market is the traditional reason why successive
Treasury Secretaries have been hesitant to resort to the blunt trauma force of trade sanctions
or tariffs when it came to negotiating with Beijing. They were also comforted by the idea that
as it modernized, China would increasingly abide by traditional norms of free trade doctrine
against all
available evidence that shows that it has not played by the same rules.
Let's leave aside the internal incoherence of the nuclear option: China exiting
dollar-denominated assets could well create downward pressure on the external value of the
free-floating currency. But that would enhance U.S. export competitiveness, assuming, of
course, that America has anything left to export, an unfortunate legacy of the Treasury's
malign neglect of U.S. manufacturing. It's also operationally wrong (see here
for further detail), and mistakenly assumes (against all historical evidence to the contrary)
that Beijing would pursue an economic policy that is the functional equivalent of cutting its
own nose to spite its face, as Paul Krugman, among others, notes.
Even if Paulson, Geithner, Lew, Mnuchin, etc., didn't truly believe in the "nuclear option,"
they have been happy to tamp down the possibility of a trade war in order to keep the capital
markets stable. Each trade "deal" has therefore largely sustained the status quo, the price for
which sees Beijing usually offering up a few well-timed purchases of soybeans or Boeing
aircraft (although the latter will be more problematic in light of the 737 fiasco). But China's
policy makers have never been forced to deal with the economic consequences of their country's
mercantilism, which has resulted in the steady erosion of America's Rust Belt, as the U.S.
economy gave back the considerable employment gains it achieved during the 1990s, via
a
historic contraction in manufacturing employment .
Things have changed markedly since Trump seized the "China trade" portfolio from the
Treasury's Steve Mnuchin, and placed it under the control of Robert Lighthizer, the current
trade representative. Unusually for a member of the Trump administration, Lighthizer actually
knows his brief. He has had literally decades of experience in trade issues, dating from his
days as a deputy U.S. trade representative in 1983 (when Japan was widely perceived as the main
trade threat), to his current role as America's chief trade negotiator. As Trump's U.S. Trade
Representative (USTR), he has provided policy flesh and bones to the president's robustly
unilateral approach in trade.
If anything, Lighthizer's trade hawkishness has become even more pronounced over the years,
as he has shifted his attention away from Japan to China. In his 2010 congressional
testimony , he argued that U.S. policy makers gravely underestimated the threat posed to
American manufacturing by virtue of China's entry into the WTO, marshaling an array of evidence
to cast doubt on the idea that its entry had brought any significant economic benefits to U.S.
workers and businesses. He also highlighted the mercantilist nature of Beijing's state
capitalism and noted that the country's administrative complexity likely precluded it embracing
WTO rules, even if wanted to do so (which he doubted):
"As part of China's system, specific large companies receive government patronage in the
form of credit, contracts, and subsidies. The Chinese government, in turn, sees these
'national champions' as a means of competing with foreign rivals and encourages their
dominant role in the domestic economy and in export markets
{[S]cholars have questioned whether -- given its lack of institutional capacity and the
complexity of its constitutional, administrative, and legal system -- China is even capable
of complying with its WTO obligations.
No doubt in thrall to the prevailing free-trade ideology, Washington's "policy passivity"
made it loath to use available tools such as the WTO's "421" special safeguards to counter
the resultant trade shock. In that same testimony, Lighthizer also signaled that he was
uninterested in the niceties of WTO style multilateralism, more inclined to the use of "
aggressive unilateralism "
via executive orders, diplomatic pressure, and most importantly,
the use of Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act to levy tariffs on various
products, premised on the notion that the targeted country (in today's case, China)
represented a national security threat.
Most significant from the Lighthizer perspective is an explicit rejection of the idea that
China needs to do more than just buy more U.S. goods before the two countries strike a
permanent trade deal, which in any case is highly problematic if the end objective is to bring
the bilateral trade balance between the two countries to zero.
"The scope for explosive growth in soybeans is actually fairly limited, as the pre-tariff
base for soybeans [the number one or two largest U.S. export to China] was quite high -- the
United States was supplying $12 billion of China's almost $40 billion in oil seed imports. A
huge tilt away from Brazil might cause U.S. beans exports to double, but getting much more
than that would be difficult (there is a natural seasonality to soybean trade that favors
alternating supply from the Southern and Northern Hemispheres).
"The real growth would need to come in sectors where China doesn't buy much now. Corn. Rice.
Perhaps pork and beef Getting really big numbers there though would risk pushing up U.S.
prices, and getting China to abandon its goal of self-sufficiency in basic grains."
So U.S. farm prices would be pushed up, which would hurt U.S. domestic consumers, even as it
cosmetically dresses up America's trade position vis a vis China.
"China has signaled it is willing to let foreign firms take majority stakes in a few more
sectors, and has reiterated its belief that technology transfer isn't a legal requirement for
entry into the Chinese market. There are likely to be settlements on some long-standing
disputes as well -- the rating agencies have gotten approval to enter the Chinese market; Visa,
American Express and Mastercard likely will
finally get approval too (
Mastercard through a joint venture not everything changes); and some tariffs introduced as
retaliation in the past may get dropped."
But how does the entry into China of consumer credit card companies or the ratings agencies
help Americans? Ironically, this looks precisely like the kind of sop to finance that Trump
said he would eschew. However, because of corporate/Wall Street pressure, the Trump agenda
pivoted a few months ago from selective decoupling and protection of American strategic
industries to opening up China for U.S. investment and pushing China to treat American
companies doing business in China more equally. That is why leading U.S. companies have become
friendlier and increasingly less critical of the president's trade policy, even as the economic
commentariat has continued to blast him.
Trump himself needs to understand that a third to a half of 'trade' is really transnational
production with inputs from suppliers coordinated by mostly third-party manufacturers in Asia
(notably in semiconductors). The purpose of modern mercantilism (particularly as it is
practiced in China today) is not just to sell more finished goods but to try to monopolize the
high value added rungs of supply chains. It is unclear that targeting China's bilateral trade
surplus with the United States will ultimately disrupt these entrenched supply chains. It
almost certainly won't bring semiconductor manufacturing back to America's shores.
In the end, therefore, pushing China's leadership to make structural changes to open up
China to American companies is probably an illusion. Beijing is unlikely to rip up the model
that has seen it create national champions that can now compete successfully with America's
biggest corporations. It may make token promises to curtail cybertheft, or the subsidies that
the administration complains create an uneven playing field for American companies. But, as
noted above, even Lighthizer himself has cast doubt that Beijing could enforce those promises,
given the administrative complexity of its system of governance. In his eagerness to claim a
win, therefore, Trump ironically might end up settling for the usual Faustian bargain: more
large Chinese purchases, selective decoupling of supply chains (as American companies
rethink
their reliance on China ), and increased domestic protection for certain sectors (such as
5G) on national security grounds, Lighthizer's considerable efforts notwithstanding. We may
have reached the peak as far as this particular tariff war goes, but the longer-term trade
tensions will almost certainly persist well beyond this hollow 'victory,' which Mr. "Art of the
Deal" will no doubt claim for himself when the negotiations do officially end.
Excellent assessment of the situation here. I suppose another factor for Trump is the fact
that as the US 2020 elections drew ever nearer, he will want some sort of win – any
sort of win – to take to the American people to show that he was tough on China and got
a better deal. His opponents will disagree with the deal. Hell, probably most economists will
disagree but Trump will only care what his supporters think as they are the ones that will
re-elect him.
But of course the interests of people like Robert Lighthizer may come into play here as he
may not care what Trump wants. He is the sort of person that might just blow up negotiations
in order to be tough on China to get it to buckle. I have seen this movie before. Let me
quote from a Salon article here-
"In the summer of 1941, before leaving for Placentia Bay, U.S. President Franklin D.
Roosevelt had ordered a freeze on Japanese assets. That measure required the Japanese to seek
and obtain licenses to export and pay for each shipment of goods from the United States,
including oil. This move was most distressing to the Japanese because they were dependent on
the United States for most of their crude oil and refined petroleum products. However,
Roosevelt did not want to trigger a war with Japan. His intention was to keep the oil flowing
by continuing to grant licenses. Roosevelt had a noose around Japan's neck, but he chose not
to tighten it. He was not ready to cut off its oil lifeline for fear that such a move would
be regarded as tantamount to an act of war.
That summer, while Roosevelt, his trusted adviser Harry Hopkins and U.S. Undersecretary of
State Sumner Welles were attending the shipboard conference off Newfoundland and Secretary of
State Cordell Hull was on vacation at the Greenbrier in West Virginia, the authority to grant
licenses to export and pay for oil and other goods was in the hands of a three-person
interagency committee. It was dominated by Assistant Secretary of State Dean Acheson, whom
one historian described as the "quintessential opportunist of U.S. foreign policy in
1941."
Acheson favored a "bullet-proof freeze" on oil shipments to Japan, claiming it would not
provoke war because "no rational Japanese could believe that an attack on us could result in
anything but disaster for his country." With breathtaking confidence in his own judgment, and
ignoring the objections of others in the State Department, Acheson refused to grant licenses
to Japan to pay for goods in dollars. That effectively ended Japan's ability to ship oil and
all other goods from the United States.
Acheson's actions cut off all American trade with Japan. When Roosevelt returned, he decided
not to overturn the "state of affairs" initiated by Acheson, apparently because he feared he
would otherwise be regarded as an appeaser. Once Roosevelt perpetuated Acheson's trade
embargo, the planners in Japan's imperial military headquarters knew that oil to fuel their
fleet, as well as rubber, rice and other vital reserves, would soon run out."
And we all know what happened next. So I would not be surprised if Robert Lighthizer could
very well be the re-encarnation of Dean Acheson and given half a chance, would seek to put
China under the gun if he thought that he would get away with it.
Rev Kev
I hope you are right. LIghthizer is actually one of the few beacons of hope in the Trump
Administration. But I fear he'll drink the Trump Kool-Aid and basically settle for less than
half a loaf. That's a fascinating historical precedent you have cited. Thank you for bringing
it to my attention.
Very interesting article. In the mean time Japans aim was land conquest. They raped,
murdered, and pillaged their neighbors so WWII USA/Japan was not avoidable to say the least.
They worshipped an emperor and thought they were superior ideologically and militarily. One
could argue that they should have addressed the Japan issue years earlier.
Trump has taken on 20+ years of terrible trade deals and is now stepping up to change it. He
should be applauded! Instead, everyone in the peanut gallery (news media) takes pot shots at
him. We are dealing with a "COMMUNIST" country here which says it all. We now have a business
man running the USA thank God. To make changes will take time!
Darn. When I read the headline, I hoped the article would explain what a victory in U.S.
trade policy with China would look like -- that is, what kind of trade relationship would
"rectify lingering structural problems that have devastated U.S. manufacturing (with genuine
enforcement provisions)." That's a tough question to answer! But all this article describes
is why Trump's policy won't achieve that result. Every policy tried so far has not achieved
that result, so it's not really surprising that this one won't either. In fact, the article
seems to suggest that China cannot play by reasonable trade rules. So what is victory?
Seriously, we need an answer to that one.
How can State Capitalism have caused that 'quantum leap' for China when everyone told us
Central Planning does not work?
If it does work, maybe the US should try it in a way other than the PPT, Fed bailouts, ag
subsidies, military industrial complex, mortgage subsidies, sanctions on rivals, military
action on rivals, etc they already do.
As I understand it, US manufacturing left the US for other countries because of the lower
cost of labour and the lower cost of doing business in foreign countries. What would bring
manufacturing back from foreign countries? Maybe when the cost of doing business in the US
(i.e., wages and salaries of the working class) are lower than those in foreign countries.
Maybe a labour contigent made up entirely of robots would bring back manufacturing to the
US.
While lower wage costs helped drive it, now they the ever rising cost of shipping their
wares. Course they have seen the Chinese boycotts work so well, they may think they will have
a US version to deal with, as so many dislike ok, hate globalization, that any that smacks of
it has a PR problem. Course its likely we will see a repeat of NKoroea too
different budget line probably, so can still be presented as cost-saving also factor in
the use of consultants before/during/after off-shoring – but again different budget
line!
I'm not sure at all what others think a "victory' would look like, but to me it would be
anything that finally raises the profile our (Western Nations) reliance (addiction?) on
supply chains emanating from CHina that impact, negatively, our National Security. If we
could even BEGIN to discuss this dilema I'd be satisfied. And it appears we are beginning to
question the dependence.
China has been at war with the United States for decades. It is an all domain,
unrestricted war. The Chinese do not play by any rules but their own. They have used the
West's strengths of an open political and market system against North American and European
industrialized democracies.
A win against China means re-industrializing the United States across all manufacturing
industries. Tariffs and regulations are the most efficient means to effect this result.
Negotiating is a fool's errand. China will not live up to its obligations under the
agreement anyway.
Perhaps, readers should ask themselves if China is beginning to resemble the Third Reich.
Dictatorship, concentration camps, military buildup, territorial expansion, religious
persecution, military aggression, economic warfare, racist ideology If so, then we should
determine what steps the West and its allies in the East should take to ensure its survival
and prosperity.
Probably we need tariffs to protect against the wage race to the bottom. Not at all clear
trumps 25% threat is high enough.
But spending big on overdue infra would employ lots of blue collars, some at union wages not
in competition w foreign labor, and focusing on higher unemployment regions first avoids
inflation.
Regarding changes in Chinese gov us has been warmonger for decades, assassinates foreign
leaders etc China so far not nearly as aggressive.
Our corporations which benefit from unlimited credit via our very own Military Industrial
Capitalism are no different from China's SOEs. China is protecting essential industries, so
are we. We have tried to force austerity on the rest of our economy – but China does
not. Why is that? And because we have succeeded in establishing the world's most unequal
society, we should be proud of our success. Mindless and shameful as it has been. China
doesn't think it would be politically beneficial to do that to 1.5 billion Chinese. They will
find their own way. Why should they now shoot themselves in the foot just because we did? For
them to bend to our demand that they stop being so mercantilist means they would have to
impose austerity on their people to some degree. It's an appropriate point for a showdown.
And I can't imagine we will win unless we are willing to continue our own ridiculous social
"structure" which is undemocratic and tyrannical. We're looking at a political revolution
because everyone is fed up. China is not. Who's right? We can only brag that we have the
"liberal" high ground because we haven't faced facts yet.
The latest Iran sanctions salvo, the claim that "waivers" for China and others will be
eliminated, is another complication. It will be perceived, with good reason, as deliberately
interfering with world trade under false pretenses. An aggressive follow-up and this could be
an effective way for team Trump to get out of whatever agreements they made in negotiations
so far. More drama
I would not say advantage US; for example China needs US semiconductors. To me if feels
like the US and China are two pilots locked in a kamikaze plane together; both nations are
floating on a sea of debt and IMO prone to massive downside risk during a recession (eg, US
corporate balance sheets are in very poor shape due to debt used to fund stock buybacks). The
US has the reserve currency, but China has sane leadership and doesn't have to carry around
other countries. Interesting times.
@ William Gruff
"Planned economies cannot have overproduction problems like market economies do" I don't
agree with that; look at China's empty cities (overproduction of everything in that city).
The recent book China's Great Wall of Debt went through China's massive overproduction of
certain items (do they really need that much cement?). The book's thesis is that China builds
what it knows how to build, whether it needs it or not.
Way to brave predictions, I think... I think he grossly underestimates
durability of neoliberal state like the USA. May be in 20 years the USA will really start
experiencing huge problems like he described due to the end of cheap oil". But before that only
huge exogenous shock can crash such a society.
Notable quotes:
"... It will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip the entire system into a defunct state. ..."
"... And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement; Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the store are digging around in dumpsters ..."
"... well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market is doing so well. ..."
"... But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever. ..."
"... While, on the surface, people support ideas like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on. ..."
"... Since I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. ..."
"... Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever. ..."
"... with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the nation’s money, I am not optimistic… ..."
"... The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and war–world war. ..."
"... In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away. ..."
"... But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life, capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global South and developing nations in general. ..."
"... Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical power. ..."
"... He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s. ..."
"... All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time. ..."
The Saker: You recently wrote an article titled " Is the USS
Ship of Fools Taking on Water? " in which you discuss the high level of stupidity in
modern US politics? I have a simple question for you: do you think the Empire can survive Trump
and, if so, for how long?
Dmitry Orlov: I think that the American empire is very much over already, but it hasn't been
put to any sort of serious stress test yet, and so nobody realizes that this is the case. Some
event will come along which will leave the power center utterly humiliated and unable to
countenance this humiliation and make adjustments. Things will go downhill from there as
everyone in government in media does their best to pretend that the problem doesn't exist. My
hope is that the US military personnel currently scattered throughout the planet will not be
simply abandoned once the money runs out, but I wouldn't be too surprised if that is what
happens.
The Saker: Lastly, a similar but fundamentally different question: can the USA (as
opposed to the Empire) survive Trump and, if so, how? Will there be a civil war? A military
coup? Insurrection? Strikes? A US version of the Yellow Vests?
Dmitry Orlov: The USA, as some set of institutions that serves the interests of some
dwindling number of people, is likely to continue functioning for quite some time. The question
is: who is going to be included and who isn't? There is little doubt that retirees, as a
category, have nothing to look forward to from the USA: their retirements, whether public or
private, have already been spent. There is little doubt that young people, who have already
been bled dry by poor job prospects and ridiculous student loans, have nothing to look forward
to either.
But, as I've said before, the USA isn't so much a country as a country club. Membership has
its privileges, and members don't care at all what life is like for those who are in the
country but aren't members of the club. The recent initiatives to let everyone in and to let
non-citizens vote amply demonstrates that US citizenship, by itself, counts for absolutely
nothing. The only birthright of a US citizen is to live as a bum on the street, surrounded by
other bums, many of them foreigners from what Trump has termed "shithole countries."
It
will be interesting to see how public and government workers, as a group, react to the
realization that the retirements they have been promised no longer exist; perhaps that will tip
the entire system into a defunct state.
And once the fracking bubble is over and another third of the population finds that it can
no longer afford to drive, that might force through some sort of reset as well. But then the
entire system of militarized police is designed to crush any sort of rebellion, and most people
know that. Given the choice between certain death and just sitting on the sidewalk doing drugs,
most people will choose the latter.
And so, Trump or no Trump, we are going to have more of the same: shiny young IT specialists
skipping and whistling on the way to work past piles of human near-corpses and their excrement;
Botoxed housewives shopping for fake organic produce while hungry people in the back of the
store are digging around in dumpsters; concerned citizens demanding that migrants be allowed
in, then calling the cops as soon as these migrants set up tents on their front lawn or ring
their doorbell and ask to use the bathroom; well-to-do older couples dreaming of bugging out to
some tropical gringo compound in a mangrove swamp where they would be chopped up with machetes
and fed to the fish; and all of them believing that things are great because the stock market
is doing so well.
At this rate, when the end of the USA finally arrives, most of the people won't be in a
position to notice while the rest won't be capable of absorbing that sort of upsetting
information and will choose to ignore it. Everybody wants to know how the story ends, but that
sort of information probably isn't good for anyone's sanity. The mental climate in the US is
already sick enough; why should we want to make it even sicker?
I love Orlov’s wit and general cynical attitude as it mirrors mine (perhaps not the
wit). I think he seems to understand the Ukraine and Russia relatively well though I’m
not in a position to question him on that but I do know something about the politics of
NATO/EU/USA and their intentions and that Orlov gets.
But he simply does not understand the USA. He’s been predicting collapse for some
time and it has not occurred or come close to happening. Washington is filled with smart
kleptocrats who understand they cannot afford to destroy the country that keeps on giving
them the wealth and power they crave. Trump, can flounce around Washington and the rest of
the country and do and say outrageous things and it has no effect on life whatsoever.
If
anything the economy actually is “better” not as good as the cooked statistics
indicate but things have improved for people I know in that area. Americans, despite the
obvious propaganda nature of the media still are true-believers in the official Narrative
because meaning and myth always trumps reality.
While, on the surface, people support ideas
like higher minimum wage, universal health-care and other aspects of social democracy, it
their masters say “no” then they’ll forgo it and take pride in their
ability to endure suffering, early death, their children on heroin or meth, and so on.
Since
I’m fairly “connected” to the lower/working class and its struggles in my
part of the world I can assure you people almost enjoy suffering to a degree that foreigners
easily miss and seldom ascribe it to the thieves and criminals who run our society. Americans
strut around but feel powerless and don’t have a plan or think they can have a plan
because they lack the conceptual frameworks to understand that their leadership is thoroughly
rotten.
Having said that, I agree with Auslander, Americans don’t need the central
government and would do better, initially, in a highly chaotic situation and establish their
own order in their communities and rig up a new set of arrangements very quickly.
In some
ways the fall of Washington would be the best thing to ever happen in my country.
I am afraid you are wrong. Orlov does understand the US, just like I do, as I have lived
in the US. Yes, Orlov has been predicting the collapse of the US, and it will happen. I would
like to direct your attention to the following video (the second part is very
interesting):
Will there be a civil war in the US, like in the 1861-1865 period ? No, I don’t
think so. Will there be severe social disturbances ? Yes, these I do expect, leading to the
break up of the US. The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force
will be the old South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. The US has been
kicking the financial can down the road for a long time. This cannot last for ever.
“The only part of the US which probably will emerge as a cohesive force will be the old
South, Dixie land, which has history and tradition behind it. ”
Maybe, but actually I would say most regions of the USA have some kind of “old
tradition” —and a lot nicer ones than that of the old racist South. I’ll
take New England and the Maritimes any day over the steamy South where the kudzu creeps over
I mean *everything*, the snakes proliferate, and you can’t survive the summer without
AC 24/7.
Well…I just started in on this piece and already I have a major
beef…Orlov’s notion that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was good for
Russia…
China was [and arguably still is] an empire of diverse regions, ethnicities and
religions…but how is that holding China back today, or during previous centuries of
imperial glory…?
Clearly China doesn’t fit into Orlov’s idea of an empire as a ‘wealth
pump’ that sucks from the periphery to enrich the center…this is true of course
of exploitation-based imperial projects such as western colonialism…but is clearly not
applicable to the Chinese model, which has been both the biggest and most durable empire in
human history…so that is a big hole in Orlov’s ‘theory’…
It is true that the USSR was a fundamentally different kind of empire from the
exploitative western colonialism…and it is also true that it ultimately did not
succeed…although it managed to accomplish almost incomprehensible progress in
modernization, science and technology…and industrialization…the foundations of
Russian strength today rest squarely on the foundations put in place during the Stalin
era…
Elsewhere on this site there is a brilliant series of essays by Ramin Mazaheri about the
tumultuous cultural revolution of the 1960s…and why it was necessary…Russia
also needed a cultural revolution around this time…the system needed to be rejigged to
better serve the people…in living standard…fairness and
justice…opportunity for social advance…etc…
But it never happened…instead the system became more sclerotic than ever…and
the welfare of the people stagnated…at the very moment in time when the capitalist
west, especially the United States, was able to reign in the appetites of its parasite class
and provide the people with a decent share of its [largely ill-gotten, by means of global
finance colonialism] gains…[during the postwar decades, the share of national wealth
of the 0.1 percent fell to an all time low of about 7 percent…about a quarter of
historic, and current levels]…
This was the golden age in the US…well paying jobs in industry were plentiful and
the company president made perhaps ten times what the shop floor worker took home…a
second household income was completely unnecessary…university education at state
colleges was practically free…
The life of the Soviet citizen in the1960s was not too far behind…Stalin’s
five year plans in the1930s had created an industrial powerhouse…it was Russia’s
ability to produce that allowed it to prevail over Germany in the existential war…and
despite the devastation of the people, cities and countryside Russia was able to quickly
become a technological superpower…as an aerospace engineer I have a deep appreciation
of the depth and breadth of Russian technical achievements and the basic scientific advances
that made that possible…the US was laughably left in the dust, despite having skimmed
the cream of Nazi Germany’s technical scientific talent…and contrary to what US
propaganda would have the people believe…
... ... ...
Of course the massive Chinese empire has been adapting like this for centuries, if not
millennia…Russia with the Soviet Union only needed to make similar smart
adjustments…instead they threw out the baby with the bathwater…let’s see
where Russia goes from here, but with people like Siluanov and Nabiullina in charge of the
nation’s money, I am not optimistic…
But back to Orlov…let’s see where he goes after starting off very clumsily.
.
The acceleration of economic collapse in the West will be likely bring (overt) fascism and
war–world war.
In particular, the AngloNazi sorry Anglosphere nations (Britain, Canada, Australia, New
Zealand, and of course America) are a clear and present threat that should not be
underestimated, discounted, or spin-doctored away.
As collapse intensifies, these Anglo American entities led by the USA will surely lash out
in even more aggressive wars to maintain their unipolar world order that they have ruled over
since the fall of the Soviet Union. The use of tactical nuclear weapons, bio-warfare, and
other "exotic" weapons should not be ruled out.
At base, the Anglo Americans possess an inbred sense of economic entitlement. They whine
like snowflakes about the foreign outsourcing of jobs or "illegal immigrants stealing our
jobs" as a chauvinistic demand for a greater share of the economic spoils of imperialism.
But the Anglos studiously avoid facing the reality that their precious way of life,
capitalist system, and Anglo-American world order itself are premised upon their own ruthless exploitation of the Global
South and developing nations in general.
And God forbid that the Anglos lose their parasitic way of life and (horror) are compelled
to live like the vast majority of humanity in the developing world from Africa to Asia to
Latin America to the Middle East.
The disaffected middle classes and labor aristocracy of the Anglosphere will comprise the
grassroots basis for 21st-century fascism, similar to how these socio-economic classes were
the grassroots support for the German Third Reich or Mussolini's Italy in the 1930s-40s.
Trump and the MAGA hordes, as well as similar xenophobic and nationalist movements
throughout the Anglosphere and Europe, are only a precursor to what is coming. They represent
the grievances of the lower-middle classes within the Anglo American Empire and Europe who
want a greater cut of the economic loot of empire for themselves–which necessitates an
even more aggressive and militaristic grab for global resources, markets, and geopolitical
power.
As Martin Lee has put it, the Beast reawakens.
Boswald Bollocksworth on April 17, 2019 · at 9:37 pm EST/EDT
He’s way too negative on the USA’s domestic prospects. Despite its absurdities, the US system is fundamentally robust
and unlikely to suffer any major, sudden collapse, at least for many decades. It will certain decline further, plumbing the
depths of depravity more than it has to date, but the system will chug along. The US has vacuumed up talent from all over the
world, bolstering it’s economic capacity and the rents extracted by oligo. It’s day to day institutions, such as courts, post
offices and the like function better now than they did in the 80s or 90s.
All the incentives are there to keep the thing together, with little real risk of some sort of succession movement or
serious insurrection. The main advantages the US has on this score are it’s mass surveillance system, policing infrastructure
and media. The US media can make the great bulk of the people believe absolutely anything, if given enough time.
The US capacity to meddle overseas will wither, after all how well can a submarine filled with drag queens and single
mothers operate? And who’d be willing to endure shelling for a monstrosity like contemporary America?
But the domestic system is brilliantly designed, not going anywhere.
Well after reading the entire piece, I must admit I'm not impressed
The main global dynamic right now is the Chinese industrial and economic juggernaut a
geopolitically resurgent Russia and the unraveling of the dollar dominated global financial
order
The problem with the west is not so much cultural as it is economic the west is a giant
Ponzi scheme that must ultimately collapse as all 'financialized' economies have collapsed
since the beginning of money as any careful reader of Michael Hudson can tell you
One morning we will wake up and the machine will be out of gas simple as that no money no
funny
That's why the rest of the world is moving toward a trading system that circumvents the
dollar, or any kind of so-called 'reserve' currency the US itself is shoving this process
forward by weaponizing trade and finance by means of sanctions gone wild
There does not need to be any kind of universal trading currency in the digital age it is
simply a matter of putting the settlement mechanisms in place and more important, bypassing
the HUMAN exchange networks now in place ie the old boys club through which dollar
denominated global trade now flows
Once these processes mature, there will be no way of perpetuating the western financial
Ponzi scheme it has crashed before most recently a decade ago but has been kept on life
support by negative interest rates, plus further impoverishment of the marginal class but
once the reserve currency is gone, and with it the ability to print free money the machine is
dead for good
At that point the west needs to earn its living the honest way that may be a tough
transition
This is an interesting but probably way too simplistic view. The USA as a neoliberal
superpower can't change its course. It now depends and it turn needs to support all the
neoliberal empire superstructure no matter what. Or vanish as en empire. Which is not in
Washington and MIC or Wall Street interests.
So "Empire Uber Alles" is the current policy which will remain in place. Even a slight
deviation triggers the reaction of the imperial caste (Mueller witch hunt is one example,
although I do not understand why it lasted so long, as Trump folded almost instantly and became
just Bush III with the same set of neocons driving the USA foreign policy )
The internal logic of neoliberal empire is globalization -- enforcing opening of internal
markets of other countries for the US multinationals and banks. So the conflict with the
"nationalist" (as as neocon slur them "autocratic") states, which does not want to became the USA
vassals ( like the Russia and China ) is not the anomaly, but the logical consequence of the USA
status and pretenses as imperial center. Putin tried to establish some kind of détente
several time. He failed: "Carnage needs to be destroyed" is the only possible attitude and it
naturally created strong defensive reaction which in turn strains the USA resources.
Meantime the standard of living of workers and middle class dropped. While most of the drop
is attributable to neoliberalism redistribution of wealth up, part of it is probably is
attributable to the imperial status of the USA.
The USA neoliberal elite after 1991 became completely detached from reality (aka infected
with imperil hubris) and we have what we have.
Those 700 billions that went to Pentagon speak for themselves.
And in turn create the caste of imperial servants that are strongly interested in maintaining
the status quo and quite capable to cut short any attempts to change it. The dominance of neocons
(who are essentially lobbyists of MIC) in the Department of State is a nice illustration of this
mouse trap.
So the core reason of the USA current neocon foreign policy is demands and internal dynamics
of neoliberal globalization and MIC.
In other words, as Dani Rodik said "...today's Sino-American impasse is rooted in
"hyper-globalism," under which countries must open their economies to foreign companies,
regardless of the consequences for their growth strategies or social models."
The American foreign policy Blob's latest worry is that Venezuela's radical leftist
government is
reaching out to the Middle East for support against growing pressure from Washington.
Specifically, President Nicolás Maduro is reportedly trying to establish extensive
political and financial links with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his ally in Lebanon,
Hezbollah . The
latter has repeatedly condemned
U.S. policy towards Maduro , and already appears to have
shadowy economic ties to Caracas. There are indications that Maduro's regime may be
utilizing Hezbollah to launder funds from the illegal drug trade.
Washington's fear is that lurking behind an Assad-Hezbollah-Maduro alliance is America's
arch-nemesis, Iran, which has close relations with both Assad and Hezbollah. Tehran's apparent
objective would be to strengthen the Venezuelan regime, boost anti-U.S. sentiment in the
Western Hemisphere, and perhaps acquire some laundered money
from a joint Maduro-Hezbollah operation to ease the pain of U.S. economic sanctions
re-imposed following the Trump administration's repudiation of the nuclear deal.
Although Iran, Assad, and Hezbollah remain primarily concerned with developments in their
own region, the fear that they want to undermine Washington's power in its own backyard is not
unfounded. But U.S. leaders should ask themselves why such diverse factions would coalesce
behind that objective.
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It is hardly the only example of this to emerge in recent years, and the principal cause
appears to be Washington's own excessively belligerent policies. That approach is driving
together regimes that have little in common except the need to resist U.S. pressure.
Washington's menacing posture undermines rather than enhances American security, and especially
in one case -- provoking an expanding entente between Russia and China -- it poses a grave
danger.
The current flirtation between Caracas and anti-American factions in the Middle East is not
the first time that American leaders have worried about collaboration among heterogeneous
adversaries. U.S. intelligence agencies and much of the foreign policy community warned for
years about cooperation between Iran
and North Korea over
both nuclear and ballistic missiletechnology
. During the Cold War, a succession of U.S. administrations expressed frustration and anger at
the de facto alliance between the totalitarian Soviet Union and democratic India. Yet the
underlying cause for that association was not hard to fathom. Both countries opposed U.S.
global primacy. India was especially uneasy about Washington's knee-jerk diplomatic and military support for
Pakistan , despite that country's history of dictatorial rule and aggression.
Alienating India was a profoundly unwise policy. So, too, has been Washington's longstanding
obsession with weakening and isolating Iran and North Korea. Those two countries have almost
nothing in common, ideologically, politically, geographically, or economically. One is a weird
East Asian regime based on dynastic Stalinism, while the other is a reactionary Middle East
Muslim theocracy. Without the incentive that unrelenting U.S. hostility provides, there is
little reason to believe that Tehran and Pyongyang would be allies. But Washington's vehemently
anti-nuclear policy towards both regimes, and the brutal economic sanctions that followed, have
helped cement a de facto alliance between two very strange bedfellows.
Iranian and North Korean leaders have apparently reached the logical conclusion that the
best way to discourage U.S. leaders from considering forcible regime change towards either of
their countries was to cooperate in strengthening their respective nuclear and missile
programs. Washington's
regime change wars , which ousted Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Moammar Gaddafi -- and
the unsuccessful attempt to overthrow Syria's Assad -- reinforced such fears.
The most worrisome and potentially deadly case in which abrasive U.S. behavior has driven
together two unlikely allies is the deepening relationship between Russia and China.
Washington's
"freedom of navigation" patrols in the South China Sea have antagonized Beijing, which has
extensive territorial claims in and around that body of water. Chinese protests have grown in
both number and intensity. Bilateral relations have also deteriorated because of Beijing's
increasingly aggressive posture toward Taiwan and
Washington's growing support for the island's de facto independence. The ongoing trade war
between the United States and China has only added to the animosity. Chinese leaders see
American policy as evidence of Washington's determination to continue
its status of primacy in East Asia, and they seek ways to undermine it.
Russia's grievances against the United States are even more pronounced. The expansion of
NATO to the borders of the Russian Federation, Washington's repeated trampling of Russian
interests in the Balkans and the Middle East, the imposition of economic sanctions in response
to the Crimea incident, the Trump administration's withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear
Forces treaty,
U.S. arms sales to Ukraine , and other provocations have led to a new
cold war . Russia has moved to increase diplomatic,
economic, and even military cooperation with China. Beijing and Moscow appear to be
coordinating
policies on an array of issues,
complicating Washington's options .
Close cooperation between Russia and China is all the more remarkable given the extent of
their bitterly competing interests in Central Asia and elsewhere. A mutual fear of and anger
toward the United States, however, seems to have overshadowed such potential quarrels -- at
least for now.
There even appears to be a "grand collusion" of multiple U.S. adversaries forming. Both
Russia and China are increasing their economic links with
Venezuela , and Russia's military involvement with the Maduro regime is also on the rise.
Last month, Moscow dispatched two nuclear-capable bombers to Caracas
along with approximately 100 military personnel. The latter contingent's mission was to
repair and refurbish Venezuela's air defense system in light of Washington's menacing rhetoric.
That move drew a
sharp response from President Trump.
Moscow's policy toward the Assad government, Tehran, and Hezbollah has also become more
active and supportive. Indeed, Russia's military intervention in Syria, beginning in 2015, was
a
crucial factor in tilting the war in favor of Assad's forces, which have now regained
control over most of Syria. Washington is thus witnessing Russia getting behind two of its
major adversaries: Venezuela and an Iran-led coalition in the Middle East.
This is a classic example of
balancing behavior on the part of countries worried about a stronger power that pursues
aggression. Historically, weaker competitors face a choice when confronting such a power:
bandwagon or attempt to balance against that would-be hegemon. Some very weak nations may
have little choice but to cower and accept dependent status, but most midsize powers (and even
some small ones) will choose the path of defiance. As part of that balancing strategy, they
tend to seek any allies that might prove useful, regardless of differences. When the perceived
threat is great enough, such factors are ignored or submerged. The United States and Britain
did so when they formed the Grand Alliance with the totalitarian Soviet Union in World War II
to defeat Nazi Germany. Indeed, the American revolutionaries made common cause with two
reactionary autocracies, France and Spain, to win independence from Britain.
The current U.S. policy has produced an array of unpleasant results, and cries out for
reassessment. Washington has created needless grief for itself. It entails considerable
ineptitude to foster collaboration between Iran and North Korea, to say nothing of adding
Assad's secular government and Maduro's quasi-communist regime to the mix. Even worse are the
policy blunders that have driven Russia to support such motley clients and forge ever-closer
economic and military links with a natural rival like China. It is extremely unwise for any
country, even a superpower, to multiply the number of its adversaries needlessly and drive them
together into a common front. Yet that is the blunder the United States is busily
committing.
Ted Galen Carpenter, a senior fellow in security studies at the Cato Institute and a
contributing editor at , is the author of 12 books and more than 800 articles. His latest book
is Gullible Superpower: U.S. Support for Bogus Foreign Democratic Movements (2019).
"I never thought I'd be saying this, but if the Soviet Union still existed, the United States
would not dare to do what it is doing now" – said to me by an anti-Communist Romanian
who had fled Romania when it was still Communist ruled. We were attending a demonstration
against the Clinton air war which was the final death blow to Yugoslavia.
The emergence of a powerful anti-American world coalition is a good thing; US world
hegemony has been good neither for the US nor for the world. The main danger is that the US,
seeing its power slip away, will resort to all out war, even nuclear war. I pray that the US
rulers are at least sane even if they are quite evil and over-bearing.
Current US foreign policy, set by the White House and Commander-in-Chief, reflects the beliefs
of the Deplorables who put Trump into office: sadly, most of these dupes believe the myth of
American Exceptionalism [copyright Sarah Palin]. The nexus of confusing social media and
reality TV with genuine reality, and 1950s Hollywood jingoism, has them waiting for a crisis
[possibly a gay Star Wars/Kardashian-type monster] that can only be saved before the final
commercial by their 'Hero'.
Hello,
Let's see here.
It's gotten to the point where the great United States is ruled by Trump and the strangest of
people, like freak Bolton and Pompeo and the Presidents son in law?
Are the voters nuts? The lousy choices of war mongers Hillary and Trump?
Look at the foreign leaders in the pictures.
Then look at the nasty hate filled, historically ignorant bums I named above.
The difference?
They, the leaders of those four nations threaten no one and no other nation, but clown Trump
and his advisers do every day.
Take away any power from Trump and his advisers, yeah, wishful thinking, I know, and read a
book by Noam Chomsky or an article or three by Bernie Sanders and maybe you will see what a
circus the white house is, of this nation. Ironically, America has never been LESS great. What
a damn crying shame, know what I mean?
There is a diverse coalition of weaker countries opposing the U.S. because
A. Each have been the target of regime change and figure they they better pool their resources
and help each other when they can 'the axis of resistance'.
or
B. The wolves are waiting at the wood's edge just waiting to humiliate the United States, the
last flickering light of all that is good.
Well since we are a nation of narcissists we believe B because we cannot fathom that other
countries act in their own interests.
"The current U.S. policy has produced an array of unpleasant results, and cries out for
reassessment."
"RE-assess" implies there was an original assessment. I've seen no evidence that this
revolving-door administration ever "assessed" any foreign policy principles in the first
place.
With no strategy to pursue, they mostly just react to random events around the world,
treating each as equally meaningful -- like a dog chasing its tail.
As generations replace generations, the world forgets which country has saved them again and
again. Just wait until they cry-out for someone in a Red MAGA hat to save them just one more
time –
Well, it is the correct assessment of to-day's reality. But is it something new? Back in 1994
great Samuel Huntington published well known article "Clash of Civilizations?" and predicted
literally all what happened to USA if we will choose the road of being world policeman and
"big brother". Among all – Russia and China united against America and even events in
Ukraine as complete trouble for us. Alas, he was not listened and now almost forgotten. It is
a shame!
Alliances are forged out of interest, like the 'dynastic Stalinism' of North Korea and the
'Muslim theocracy' of Iran. As Ted Galen Carpenter points out: 'The most worrisome and
potentially deadly case is the deepening relationship between Russia and China.' Interest
cuts across all apparently unifying principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology,
politics – everything. We unite with the enemies of our principles, because that is
what serves our interest. An alliance between Moscow and Beijing is the one most likely to
drag us into global confrontation. It is the interconnectedness of disputes that can turn a
localized flashpoint into a world war. The pattern of history shows the pursuit of interest
frequently 'undermines rather than enhances' those interests. https://www.ghostsofhistory.wordpress.com/
The Israeli military officers have an inside joke that Hasan Nasrallah is unable to lie.
Indeed, the Hezbollah leader is one of the most truthful and straightforward leader in the
world. What else could explain the US Mainstream media making absolutely sure that deplorable
American citizens never hear his speeches? They might notice that he makes a lot of sense,
fights terrorism, and protects the people of Lebanon: Christians, Shiite muslims and Sunni
muslims. I have seen Nasrallah answer a question about accusations of Hezbollah trafficking
in the drug trade. I believe his unequivocal denial far more than I do the empty accusations
that are linked and parroted by the author of this article.
"... As Trump's belligerence toward America's enemies and allies has made the dollar's reserve status "intolerable" for many, Keen believes there's a "one in three" chance that the dollar loses its reserve status within ten years. ..."
"... I don't think the Saudis are going to go through with it though, because they're incredibly intimately tied up with American military power and it would just be too dangerous for them to do that. But I know China and Russia and, to some extent, Europe are talking about it because they are sick of the extent to which this is being used as a bullying tool by America. Particularly – just one recent example – the decision not to let Iran use the SWIFT system for international payments. ..."
"... That could never have happened if the American dollar wasn't the reserve currency. And you get American imposing its political will on the rest of the world using the fact that it's the reserve currency. And of course that's become intolerable under Trump. So I think the odds are, let's say, one in three of a serious breakdown in that in the next 10 years. ..."
Though the Saudis have denied it, reports last month that the Kingdom was privately threatening to
ditch the dollar as the currency of choice for its oil trade have helped reignite speculation that
the greenback could soon lose its reserve currency status, as a few
financial luminaries
have warned.
Though many mainstream financial analysts categorically
dismiss the idea that the dollar's dominance is in any way under threat, reports about the threats
to the petrodollar have prompted many to question how exactly, does the average American benefit
from the dollar's reserve currency status, and would the greenback's fall from grace have a
negative, or positive, impact on the livelihood of the averagee American worker?
Well, economist Steve Keen has a few theories about what might happen if the dollar stops being
the vessel via which a large plurality of global trade is conducted. And he shared his views with
Erik Townsend during this week's episode of
MacroVoices
.
When most people think about the risks associated with the dollar losing its reserve status,
runaway inflation probably ranks high on the list. But Keen believes these risks are probably
overblown,for several reasons.
First, importers often hedge out foreign exchange risk
between two and five years out. And even once the dollar's weakness starts to bite, company's will
often simply absorb some of the margin pressure to maintain market share.
While prices
might move marginally higher, Keen doubts the outcome would destabilize large swaths of the US
economy, as the reserve alarmists have warned
.
The real impact would be felt by Americans wanting to travel overseas, who would see their
purchasing power collapse as the costs of traveling abroad skyrocket.
Erik:
Now, most of the products that you see at Walmart in the United States
are imported from China. It seems to me that, if this were to occur and there was a marked
devaluation of the US dollar versus other currencies, that would result in a massive inflation
shock in the real economy in the US because we don't have the manufacturing capacity to make
widgets in the United States. That's all gone offshore, to the detriment, perhaps, of the
American worker.
But we don't have that capacity. So if, all of a sudden, we have to pay much higher prices in
dollars in order to generate the same price in yuan or yen or whatever for the imported goods,
doesn't that result in a really big inflation shock inside the US?
Steve:
It can.
Inflation shocks, you have to look at them in a
proper empirical context.
And most economists simply assume any currency devaluation will lead to an equivalent
inflation spike in the country that is devaluing.
What actually happens quite frequently is firms will try to – first of all,
you have
long-term contracts determining prices that are often set out two to five years in advance,
particularly for industrial goods.
But mainly we have importers putting a markup on their imports for their profit
level.
They are willing to cut their markup to hang onto market share to some extent.
So you don't see a 100% pass-through of that sort of thing.
You might see 30%
pass-through. So if you had a 10-15-20% devaluation in the economy in the American dollar, then
you could see, yes, a 5 or 7 maybe
– I wouldn't say going beyond 10% – spike in the
inflation rate.
But, yes, you could see that spike occurring. And it would also – obviously cramp the style
of any Americans wanting to go on overseas holidays. So there would definitely be a decrease in
the American living standards.
And it would bring home to people, too, the extent to
which you have been deindustrialized and relied upon this exorbitant privilege to get over it.
If the exorbitant privilege goes, then you wear the full consequences of being deindustrialized
in the last 25 years.
Similarly, worries that a weaker dollar would cause interest rates in the US to skyrocket are
also overblown, Keen believes. Just look at Japan: Interest rates have been mired near zero for 15
years now, regardless of what's been happening with the yen. Because it's not the external market
that sets interest rates in the US - that's now the Federal Reserve's job.
Steve:
So I can see it as giving America quite a severe jolt.
But it
won't be something which causes interest rates to go sky-high. They will still be held in a band
by the Federal Reserve.
You might see rises in corporate rates and so on, but not large
rises in the rates on American government debt.
Circling back to the inspiration for this topic, Townsend asked Keen if he really believes the
Saudis seriously considering ditching the dollar, or if these leaks are merely idle threats. Keen
believes it's the latter,
given how dependent the Saudis are on American support in the
form of both supplying arms and purchasing oil.
The real risk for the dollar lies in
Europe and China. Europe's search for an alternative to SWIFT, which was inspired by Trump's
decision to ditch the Iran deal, was a major catalyst for this.
As Trump's belligerence toward America's enemies and allies has made the dollar's reserve status
"intolerable" for many, Keen believes there's a "one in three" chance that the dollar loses its
reserve status within ten years.
Erik:
Steve, let's come to the current risks that the US dollar faces in
terms of maintaining its reserve currency status and talk about how real they are. Is this talk
from Saudi Arabia just saber-rattling? Or are they really serious about ditching the dollar?
Likewise, we had another comment last week from, I believe it was a former
undersecretary of the UN, calling for a global currency to replace the US dollar as the world's
reserve currency. Are these things really at risk of actually happening?
Or is this just talk?
Steve:
I think it's at risk of happening.
I don't think the Saudis
are going to go through with it though,
because they're incredibly intimately tied up
with American military power and it would just be too dangerous for them to do that. But I know
China and Russia and, to some extent, Europe are talking about it because they are sick
of the extent to which this is being used as a bullying tool
by America. Particularly –
just one recent example – the decision not to let Iran use the SWIFT system for international
payments.
That could never have happened if the American dollar wasn't the reserve currency. And you
get American imposing its political will on the rest of the world using the fact that it's the
reserve currency. And of course that's become intolerable under Trump. So I think the odds are,
let's say, one in three of a serious breakdown in that in the next 10 years.
That's not to say that this couldn't be stopped,
but the more the US tries to impose its
will on the rest of the world, the more likely other world powers will rebel.
But it could also be prevented. It's one of these things – it doesn't have the weight of
financial numbers behind it like I could see with the credit crunch back in 2008 to say a crisis
is inevitable.
But, certainly, there will be strains on the system and the American dominance can't be
guaranteed. And the more America now tries to assert that dominance, the more likely it is to
encourage one of those alternatives to be developed.
As history has proven time and time again, no reserve currency reigns forever...
...So, With America's allies and enemies looking for ways to mitigate their reliance on the
dollar, what, ultimately, would be the impact if the world decides to ditch the greenback?
While the decline in demand would probably cause the dollar to weaken, that could benefit the
American working class. Given that President Trump's confrontation approach to diplomacy has caused
this process to accelerate, as Europe, Russia and China have repeatedly, this is one way in which
what Keen describes as Trump's leveraging America's reserve-currency status as a "thug's tool" (by
threatening sanctions against its enemies), could circuitously benefit the working class Americans
who make up a large portion of his base.
Obviously,
it's going to mean a reduction in demand for American dollars on foreign
exchange markets, which must mean a fall in the price over time.
And it will be
complicated by the usual spot and hedge markets and so on. But, yes, seeing a fall in the value
of the dollar, unless America's financial sector could no longer use the fact that it was
American to have the power it has over financial institutions elsewhere in the world, so that
the scale of the financial sector would be pulled back, your manufacturing sector would be more
competitive. But, as you know, you don't have the industrial pattern you used to have.
You've still got some outstanding corporations and outstanding technological capability. But
you don't have that machine tool background. T
he skilled workers that used to exist
there aren't there anymore.
So there would be a serious shock to America with
more expensive goods to be imported from overseas and a slow shift towards having a local
manufacturing capability,
making up for the damage of the last 25 years.
I can see a lot of social conflict out of that as well, but a positive for the American
working class, who really have been done over in the last quarter century. And that's partly the
reason why Trump has come about.
And, ironically, Trump is part of the reason why this
might come to an end, given how much he's used his bombast and the American reserve currency
status as a thug's tool in foreign relations rather than an intelligent person's tool.
In summary, although every reserve currency in history has lost its status as its economic
dominance has faded,
the US might be the first to lose that status because of an organized
rebellion that it helped provoke
via its willingness to use sanctions and other tools as a
weapon for punishing its adversaries and rewarding its friends.
This slur "authoritarian state" is now peddled by neocons as synonym for the "countries we do not like"
This neocons in not very inventive... We already saw this line from Robert Kagan, who
actually is a better writer. This neocon/neolib pressitute can't even use proper terms such as
"neoliberalism" and "Washington consensus"
And slide to far-right nationalism and neo-fascism is direct result of neoliberalism
dominance for the last 40 years (since Carter) and sliding of the standard of living of workers
and the middle class.
Notable quotes:
"... Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world. ..."
As international rivalry intensifies, the core strategic task for the U.S.-led democratic
community is to contain the geopolitical influence and political disruption caused by
authoritarian great powers, namely China and Russia. Yet that task is made all the harder
because illiberalism -- and sympathy for those illiberal powers -- is simultaneously surging
among key actors on the political right. If the U.S. and its allies are to succeed in the great
global rivalry of the 21st century, the right must confront the threat of illiberalism within
its ranks -- just as the left did during a previous twilight struggle in the 20th century.
... ... ...
This time, the threat is not expansionist communism, but a combination of autocracy and
geopolitical revisionism. China has been moving toward a dystopian future of high-tech
authoritarianism, as it pushes for greater power and influence overseas. Putin's Russia has
consolidated an illiberal oligarchy, while using information warfare, political meddling and
other tools to subvert liberal democracies in Europe, the U.S. and beyond.
Both countries have touted the virtues of their systems, while arguing that Western
values are a source of decadence, amorality and disorder in the Western world.
... ... ...
It is not for nothing that the political scientist Marc Plattner has
written that the gravest threat to liberal democracy today is “that it will end up
being abandoned by substantial segments of the right.” And even in the U.S., there are
alarming signs that conservative commitment to the norms of liberal democracy is under
strain.
Communism was not a threat, but actually benefited the world in many ways.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair share of wealth and
income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed, capitalism returned to its avaricious roots,
resulting in stagnant wages for the working class. And the pauperization of the working class
in recent decades is the cause for the current revolt against liberal capitalism.
So it was the competition from communism that was helping capitalism to stay healthy. Without
it capitalism has degenerated into a Dickensian dystopia. We should therefore welcome any
alternative socio-economic models to liberal capitalism.
It was communism that put pressure on capitalism to provide labor a fair
share of wealth and income. As soon as Soviet communism collapsed,
capitalism returned to
Thats a great point Che.
I have never ever looked at it from that angle.
Interesting.
Robert Kagan of the Brookings Institution, who has long been a leading conservative
intellectual, warns that this disillusion with liberal democracy “is clearly present
among American conservatives, and not just among the ‘alt-right.’
Honest and real conservatives are far and fewer in today's MAGA/tea party infested GOP.
Forget career politicians like Ted Cruz or McConnell, even the previously decent conservative
think tanks/pundits like from NR or Erik Erickson or others have all given up on any
principles and just bow at the altar of Trump now.
No they haven’t, Trump decided to put McConnell in charge so of course the
#neverTrumpers like the McConnell presidency...which consists of appointing Republican judges
at record pace and little else.
The biggest need is to resist holy warriors like Hal Brands who want to destroy the world
if it resists their version of revealed truth. They are the biggest threat to the human
future. The United States has to learn to live in a world that it cannot control. The
American goal should be to work towards a constructive human future not some kind of holy war
to impose American control on the rest of the world. The United States is the biggest
military spender. In recent history, It has been the world's global aggressor.
It has an
history of wars that have made little difference whether America won or lost them. Perhaps
the United States could succeed with some kind of genocide that wiped out all of the parts of
the world that refuse to accept American supremacy. But, short of that kind of disgrace, the
United States is not going to succeed in achieving any meaningful goal through war. As long
as America does not destroy the world, the future is going to be determined by economic
competition and the destinies that the people of different parts of the world choose for
themselves.
I had wondered if it was noticed the Liberalism was dying. The world has turned hard
right, with all the anger, nationalism, do-as-I-say, and social intolerance.
I don't even the children of today.
I might suggest that liberals themselves are destroying their freedoms with illogical
illiberal liberalism.
YOU can't do that, say that, act like that, think like that...no no no...we must act and
be correct, nice, polite, all forgiving and never critical.
Huh?
The freedoms that so many of us marched for, fought for, voted for, sang about (thank gawd
the music still lives), got bloody for, even died for, are slipping away quicker than you can
say me, me, me...it's all about me.
Maybe...small maybe...our youth can once again awaken America and the world's conscience.
Maybe? Maybe not!
Wha? It seems our LIttle Cultural Revolution is just warming up. Wait till AOC et al are
all growed up.
"This is a moment when the “free world” needs to be strong and united."
Is this the same "free" world that jails grandmothers over contested historical views?
That has reneged on free speech?
Thanks to a truly ethnomasochistic immigration policy, I assure you that this will not
happen. The West will be lucky if squeaks through this period without a civil war.
"... Today's Sino-American impasse is rooted in "hyper-globalism," under which countries must open their economies to foreign companies, regardless of the consequences for their growth strategies or social models. But a global trade regime that cannot accommodate the world's largest trading economy is a regime in urgent need of repair. ..."
"... Today's impasse between the US and China is rooted in the faulty economic paradigm I have called "hyper-globalism," under which countries must open their economies to foreign companies maximally, regardless of the consequences for their growth strategies or social models. This requires that national economic models – the domestic rules governing markets –converge considerably. Without such convergence, national regulations and standards will appear to impede market access. They are treated as "non-tariff trade barriers" in the language of trade economists and lawyers. ..."
Today's Sino-American impasse is rooted in "hyper-globalism," under which countries must open their economies to
foreign companies, regardless of the consequences for their growth strategies or social models. But a global trade regime that cannot
accommodate the world's largest trading economy is a regime in urgent need of repair.
CAMBRIDGE – The world economy desperately needs a plan for "peaceful coexistence" between the United States and China. Both sides
need to accept the other's right to develop under its own terms. The US must not try to reshape the Chinese economy in its image
of a capitalist market economy, and China must recognize America's concerns regarding employment and technology leakages, and accept
the occasional limits on access to US markets implied by these concerns.
The term "peaceful coexistence" evokes the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev understood
that the communist doctrine of eternal conflict between socialist and capitalist systems had outlived its usefulness. The US and
other Western countries would not be ripe for communist revolutions anytime soon, and they were unlikely to dislodge the Communist
regimes in the Soviet bloc. Communist and capitalist regimes had to live side by side.
Peaceful coexistence during the Cold War may not have looked pretty; there was plenty of friction, with each side sponsoring its
own set of proxies in a battle for global influence. But it was successful in preventing direct military conflict between two superpowers
armed to the hilt with nuclear weapons. Similarly, peaceful economic coexistence between the US and China is the only way
to prevent costly trade wars between the world's two economic giants
Today's impasse between the US and China is rooted in the faulty economic paradigm I have
called "hyper-globalism," under
which countries must open their economies to foreign companies maximally, regardless of the consequences for their growth strategies
or social models. This requires that national economic models – the domestic rules governing markets –converge considerably. Without
such convergence, national regulations and standards will appear to impede market access. They are treated as "non-tariff trade barriers"
in the language of trade economists and lawyers.
Thus, the main US complaint against China is that Chinese industrial policies make it difficult for US companies to do business
there. Credit subsidies keep state companies afloat and allow them to overproduce. Intellectual property rules make it easier for
copyrights and patents to be overridden and new technologies to be copied by competitors. Technology-transfer requirements force
foreign investors into joint ventures with domestic firms. Restrictive regulations prevent US financial firms from serving Chinese
customers. President Donald Trump is apparently ready to carry out his threat of slapping additional punitive tariffs on $200 billion
of Chinese exports if China does not yield to US demands in these areas.
For its part, China has little patience for arguments that its exports have been responsible for significant whiplash in US labor
markets or that some of its firms are stealing technological secrets. It would like the US to remain open to Chinese exports and
investment. Yet China's own opening to world trade was carefully managed and sequenced, to avoid adverse impacts on employment and
technological progress.
Peaceful coexistence would require that US and China allow each other greater policy space, with international economic integration
yielding priority to domestic economic and social objectives in both countries (as well as in others). China would have a free hand
to conduct its industrial policies and financial regulations, in order to build a market economy with distinctive Chinese characteristics.
The US would be free to protect its labor markets from
social dumping and to exercise greater oversight over Chinese investments that threaten technological or national security objectives.
The objection that such an approach would open the floodgates of protectionism, bringing world trade to a halt, is based on a
misunderstanding of what drives open trade policies. As the principle of comparative advantage indicates, countries trade because
it is in their own interest. When they undertake policies that restrict trade, it is either because they reap compensating benefits
elsewhere or because of domestic political failures (for example, an inability to compensate the losers).
In the first instance, freer trade is not warranted because it would leave society worse off. In the second case, freer trade
may be warranted, but only to the extent that the political failure is addressed (and compensation is provided). International agreements
and trade partners cannot reliably discriminate between these two cases. And even if they could, it is not clear they can provide
the adequate remedy (enable compensation, to continue the example) or avoid additional political problems (capture by other special
interests such as big banks or multinational firms).
Consider China in this light. Many analysts believe that China's industrial policies have played a key role in its transformation
into an economic powerhouse. If so, it would be neither in China's interests, nor in the interest of the world economy, to curb such
practices. Alternatively, it could be that these policies are economically harmful on balance, as others have argued. Even in that
case, however, the bulk of the costs are borne by the Chinese themselves. Either way, it makes little sense to empower trade negotiators
– and the special interests lurking behind them – to resolve fundamental questions of economic policy on which there is little agreement
even among economists.
Those who worry about the slippery slope of protectionism should take heart from the experience under the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade prior to the establishment of the World Trade Organization. Under the GATT regime, countries had much greater freedom
to pursue their own economic strategies. Trade rules were both weaker and less encompassing. Yet world trade expanded (relative to
global output) at a more rapid clip in the three and a half decades after World War II than it has under the post-1990 hyper-globalist
regime. Similarly, one can make a convincing case that, thanks to its unorthodox growth policies, China today is a larger market
for foreign exporters and investors than if it had stuck to WTO-compliant policies.
Finally, some may say that these considerations are irrelevant, because China has acceded to the WTO and must play by its rules.
But China's entry into the WTO was predicated on the idea that it had become a Western-style market economy, or would become one
soon. This has not happened, and there is no good reason to expect that it will (or should). A mistake cannot be fixed by compounding
it.
A global trade regime that cannot accommodate the world's largest trading economy – China – is a regime in urgent need of repair.
"... Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985, for instance. ..."
"... Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view, but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.) ..."
"... Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board of his National Council for the American Worker (which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders in its job postings. ..."
"... There are more former Goldman Sachs employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined. ..."
"... It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives ..."
"... As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish. The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon. " ..."
"... Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the passing of a bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional $550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation. ..."
"... Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better. ..."
"... We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more" ..."
"Unlike other presidents, I keep my promises," Trump boasted in a
speech delivered on Saturday to the Republican Jewish Congress
at a luxury hotel in Las Vegas. Many in the audience wore red yarmulkes emblazoned with his name. In his speech, Trump condemned
Democrats for allowing "the terrible scourge of anti-Semitism to take root in their party" and emphasized his loyalty to Israel.
Trump has kept some of his promises. So far, he has kept every promise that he made to the Jewish community. Yet he has reneged
on his promises to white America – the promises that got him elected in the first place. It is a betrayal of the highest order: millions
of white Americans placed their hopes in Trump and wholeheartedly believed that he would be the one to make America great again.
They were willing to endure social ostracism and imperil their livelihoods by supporting him. In return, Trump has turned his back
on them and rendered his promises void.
The most recent example of this is Trump's failure to keep his promise to close the border. On March 29, Trump threatened to close
the border if Mexico did not stop all illegal immigration into the US. This would likely have been a highly effective measure given
Mexico's dependence on cross-border trade. Five days later, he suddenly retracted this threat and said that he would give Mexico
a " one-year warning
" before taking drastic action. He further claimed that closing the border would not be necessary and that he planned to establish
a twenty-five percent
tariff on cars
entering the US instead.
Trump's failure here is his alone. Closing the border could be accomplished with a simple executive order. It has happened
before: Reagan ordered the closing of the border when DEA agent Enrique "Kiki" Camarena was murdered on assignment in Mexico in 1985,
for instance.
Trump's empty threats over the past two years have had real-world consequences, prompting waves of migrants trying to sneak
into the country while they still have the chance. His recent move to cut all foreign aid to Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador
is another empty gesture that will probably have similar consequences. The funds directed to those countries were used for programs
that provided citizens with incentives not to migrate elsewhere. (The situation was not ideal from an isolationist point of view,
but a wiser man would have built the wall before cutting off the aid.)
The past two years have seen a surge in illegal immigration without precedent in the past decade. Since late December, the Department
of Homeland Security has released 125,565 illegal aliens into the country. In the past two weeks alone,
6,000 have been admitted. According to current projections, 2019 will witness around 500,000 to 775,000 border crossings. Additionally,
about 630,000 illegal aliens will be added to the population after having overstayed their visas. By the end of the year,
more than one million illegal aliens will have been added to the population:
These projections put the number of illegal aliens added to the U.S. population at around one to 1.5 million, on top of the
11 to
22 million illegal aliens who are already living across the country. This finding does not factor in the illegal aliens who
will be deported, die over the next year, or leave the U.S. of their own will. As DHS data has revealed, once border crossers
and illegal aliens are released into the country, the overwhelming majority are never deported.
In February, Trump signed a
bill allowing the DHS
secretary to add another 69,320 spots to the current H-2B cap of 66,000. On March 29, DHS began this process by announcing that it
would issue an additional
30,000 H-2B visas this year. The H-2B visa program allows foreign workers to come to the US and work in non-agricultural occupations.
Unlike the H-1B program, a Bachelor's degree is not required; most H-2B workers are employed in construction, maintenance, landscaping,
and so on. The demographic most affected by the expansion of the H-2B program will be unemployed working-class Americans. This flies
in the face of Trump's promise to protect American workers and stop importing foreigners.
Trump has indicated that he has plans to expand the H-1B visa program as well. "We want to encourage talented and highly skilled
people to pursue career options in the U.S.," he said in a
tweet in January.
Trump's betrayal of American workers is perhaps best encapsulated by the fact that one of the members of the advisory board
of his National Council for the American Worker
(which claims to "enhance employment opportunities for Americans of all ages") is the CEO of IBM, a company that has
expressed a preference for F-1 and H-1B visa holders
in its job postings.
Trump has been working on legal immigration with Jared Kushner, who has quietly been crafting a
plan to grant
citizenship to more "low- and high-skilled workers, as well as permanent and temporary workers" (so, just about everyone). Kushner's
plan proves the folly of the typical Republican line that legal immigration is fine and that only illegal immigration should be opposed.
Under his plan, thousands of illegal aliens will become "legal" with the stroke of a pen.
There is a paucity of anti-immigration hardliners in Trump's inner circle (though Stephen Miller is a notable exception). Trump
has surrounded himself with moderates: the Kushners, Mick Mulvaney, Alex Acosta, and others. There are more former Goldman Sachs
employees in the Trump White House than in the Obama and Bush administrations combined.
The new DHS secretary, Kevin McAleenan, who was appointed yesterday following Kirstjen Nielsen's resignation, is a middle-of-the-road
law enforcement official who served under Obama and Bush and is responsible for the revival of the "
catch-and-release " policy, whereby
illegal aliens are released upon being apprehended. It was reported last week that Trump was thinking of appointing either Kris Kobach
or Ken Cuccinelli to a position of prominence (as an "
immigration czar "),
but this appears to have been another lie.
Trump's failure to deliver on his promises cannot be chalked up to congressional obstruction. Congress. As Kobach said in a recent
interview , "It's not like we're powerless and it's not like we have to wait for Congress to do something. . . . No, we can actually
solve the immediate crisis without Congress acting." Solving the border crisis would simply demand "leadership in the executive branch
willing to act decisively." Kobach recently outlined an intelligent
three-point plan that Trump could implement:
Publish the final version of the regulation that would supersede the Flores Settlement. The initial regulation was
published by the Department of Homeland
Security in September 2018. DHS could have published the final regulation in December. Inexplicably, DHS has dragged its feet. Finalizing
that regulation would allow the United States to detain entire families together, and it would stop illegal aliens from exploiting
children as get-out-of-jail free cards. Set up processing centers at the border to house the migrants and hold the hearings in one
place. The Department of Justice should deploy dozens of immigration judges to hear the asylum claims at the border without releasing
the migrants into the country. FEMA already owns
thousands of travel trailers and mobile homes that it has used to address past hurricane disasters. Instead of selling them (which
FEMA is currently doing), FEMA should ship them to the processing centers to provide comfortable housing for the migrants. In addition,
a fleet of passenger planes should deployed to the processing centers. Anyone who fails in his or her asylum claim, or who is not
seeking asylum and is inadmissible, should be flown home immediately. It would be possible to fly most migrants home within a few
weeks of their arrival. Word would get out quickly in their home countries that entry into the United States is not as easy as advertised.
The incentive to join future caravans would dissipate quickly. Publish a proposed Treasury regulation that prohibits the sending
home of remittances by people who cannot document lawful presence in the United States. This will hit Mexico in the pocketbook: Mexico
typically brings in well over $20 billion a year in
remittances , raking in
more than $26 billion in 2017. Then, tell the government of Mexico that we will finalize the Treasury regulation unless they do two
things to help us address the border crisis: (1) Mexico immediately signs a "safe third country agreement" similar to our agreement
with Canada. This would require asylum applicants to file their asylum application in the first safe country they set foot in (so
applicants in the caravans from Central America would have to seek asylum in Mexico, rather than Canada); and (2) Mexico chips in
$5 billion to help us build the wall. The threat of ending remittances from illegal aliens is a far more powerful one than threatening
to close the border. Ending such remittances doesn't hurt the U.S. economy; indeed, it helps the economy by making it more likely
that such capital will be spent and circulate in our own country. We can follow through easily if Mexico doesn't cooperate.
It would not be all that difficult for Trump to implement these proposals. Kobach still has faith in Trump, but his assessment
of him appears increasingly to be too generous. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Trump is not actually interested in
curbing immigration and reversing America's demographic decline. He is a con artist and a coward who is willing to betray millions
of white Americans so that he can remain in the good graces of establishment neoconservatives . At the same time, he wants to
maintain the illusion that he cares about his base.
As Ann Coulter has put it, "He's like a waiter who compliments us for ordering the hamburger, but keeps bringing us fish.
The hamburger is our signature dish, juicy and grilled to perfection, you've made a brilliant choice . . . now here's your salmon.
"
Nearly everything Trump has done in the name of restricting immigration has turned out to be an empty gesture and mere theatrics:
threatening to close the border, offering protections to "Dreamers" in exchange for funding for the ever-elusive wall, threatening
to end the "anchor baby" phenomenon with an executive order (which never came to pass), cutting off aid to Central American countries,
claiming that he will appoint an "immigration czar" (and then proceeding to appoint McAleenan instead of Kobach as DHS secretary),
and on and on.
While Trump has failed to keep the promises that got him elected, he has fulfilled a number of major promises that he made to
Israel and the Jewish community.
First, he moved the American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Trump claimed that the move would only cost $200,000, but in
reality it will end up being more than
$20 million . The construction
of the embassy also led to a series of bloody protests; it is located in East Jerusalem, which is generally acknowledged to be Palestinian
territory.
Second, he pulled the US out of the Iran nuclear deal. Netanyahu
claimed on Israeli TV that Israel was responsible for convincing him to exit the deal and reimpose sanctions on Iran. (Both Trump
and Netanyahu falsely alleged that Iran lied about the extent of its nuclear program; meanwhile, Israel's large arsenal of chemical
and biological weapons has escaped mention.) Third, he put an end to American funding for Palestinians. This coincided with the
passing of a
bill that codified a $38 billion, ten-year foreign aid package for Israel. Trump also authorized an act allocating an additional
$550 million toward US-Israel missile and tunnel defense cooperation.
Fourth, he recognized Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights (in defiance of the rest of the world, which recognizes the
Golan Heights as Syrian territory under Israeli occupation). Trump's Golan Heights proclamation was issued on March 21 and was celebrated
by Israel. Trump's track record on Israel shows that he is capable of exercising agency and getting things done. But he has failed
to address the most pressing issue that America currently faces: mass immigration and the displacement of white Americans. The most
credible explanation for his incompetence is that he has no intention of delivering on his promises. There is no "Plan," no 4-D chess
game. The sooner white Americans realize this, the better.
If you haven't picked up a copy of Vicky Ward's book, Kushner, Inc.: Greed. Ambition. Corruption. The Extraordinary Story
of Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump , you really should.
I haven't read Mr. Graham's essay yet, but I thought those two links would fit in nicely. I stay in a low boil, like it is,
and having plodded through both those reviews, I can't stand reading too much on this topic at once.
Something's gotta give. Or are the brainless goy just going to let themselves be led off a cliff?
Oh, yes. There's an interview with Ward on
BookTV .
Yep. Trump's a lying POS pond scum like the rest of the DC swamp that he said he was going to drain, turns out he is one of them
all along. We elected America's first Jewish president, nothing more. He needs to change his campaign slogan to MIGA, Make Israel
Great Again, that was the plan of his handlers all along.
What I want to know is, who are those idiots who still keep showing up at his rallies? Are they really that dumb?
Even Sanders came out and said we can't have open borders. I've also heard him said back in 2015 that the H1b visa program
is a replacement program for American workers. If he grows a pair and reverts back to that stance, teams up with Tulsi Gabbard,
I'll vote for them 2020. Fuck Trump! Time for him and his whole treasonous rat family to move to Israel where they belong.
His "implicitly white" supporters would have abandoned him in droves, not wanting to be associated with a racist, thus pointing
up the weakness of implicit whiteness as a survival strategy. And is it actually a survival strategy? A closer look at it makes
me think it's more of a racial self-extermination strategy. After all, what kind of a survival strategy is it that can't even
admit its goals to itself? And it's exactly this refusal of whites to explicitly state that they collectively want to continue
to exist as a race that is the greatest impediment to their doing so. It's an interesting problem with no easy solution. How
do you restore the will to live to a race that seems to have lost it? And not only lost its will to live, but actually prides
itself on doing so? Accordingly, this "betrayal" isn't a betrayal at all. It's what American whites voted for and want. Giving
their country away and accepting their own demographic demise is proof of their virtue; proof of their Christian love for all
mankind.
You are definitely onto something here.
Still, I feel it's not that deep and complicated. It could be that they simply don't believe that the danger is closing in.
Boils down to wrong judgment. People who haven't had the need to think hard about serious things tend to develop that weakness.
I guess that boils down to "good times make weak men."
Hard times are coming and they'll make hard men.
The catch is simple: will be enough of them in time ?
Switching to the Democrats is no solution. The DNC has proven itself to be a criminal organization through sabotaging Sander's
campaign and then being instrumental in creating Russophobia, in collusion with Obama, the CIA, the FBI, and the DoJ. The DNC
has rules in place stating that super delegates – elitists aligned with the DNC – can vote if one nominee does not win on the
first ballot at the National Convention.
Because we have a HUGE number of hats in the Democratic ring, the chances that the nomination
will not be decided on a first vote are extremely high, with the result being that the Democratic nominee is not going to be decided
by voters in the primaries but by super delegates, i.e., the elitists and plutocrats.
Democracy exists when we vote to support
candidates chosen by the elites for the elites; when we stop doing that, the elites turn on democracy. It is a sham; we will have
a choice in 2020: between Pepsi and Coke. You are free to choose which one you prefer, because you live in a democracy. For more
on the rigging of the democratic primaries for 2020, see
Nationalize the banks and all financial services from fancy hedge funds to scuzzy pay-day
loaners. Force, insofar as poss, repatriation of 'abroad' capital. Put capital controls in
place. ( -- > ..unemployment !)
Pass to a flat tax (Federal) of say 13% and make sure absolutely everyone pays it,
including Corps at 15% or so? (Corp. tax in the US is absurd, hard to discuss as it always is
in some kind of fin. landscape) .. Prison if need be. (> unemployment.) Let States be more
free (other topic) Big fortunes/profits are basically confiscated to the tune of 70-90 % in
the transition phase.
Break up Big Corps, particularly GAFAMs (Google, Apple, Facebk, Amazon, Microsft) into
smaller pieces, with the 'rationale' (it might fly ...), Competition has to be encouraged,
we can't have Monopolies!
Dismantle the 'foreign' military control (bases, etc. etc.) by 50% (again might fly.)
Audit the Pentagon, cut, cut, all the graft and scams have to go. (Unemployment again)
Quality controls of an independent type (one can dream) must be instored (see b's post)
Repatriate the personnel (> unemployment)
Social etc. Set up a 2 tier health system. Tier 1 is basic, good, even excellent health
care, nationalised (with some room for State characteristics), Tier 2 can be allowed to
subsist, private clinics, private insurance (again, this might fly.) This means that 90% of
private insurance has to go, the cos. must be terminated.
Dismantle Big Agri in favor of smaller, more 'lucrative' for their owners / managers,
farms. So, all present subisdies to farms are cut, abolished, and -- ppl have to pay more for
their food! (then what.. etc.)
My suggestions are perhaps not that great (badly tailored? too piece-meal, not adjusted to
collapse?) but this is the kind of thing that needs to be discussed immediately and decided
on, even if in a jerky and confrontational fashion.
The end of capitalism, in disguise. US pol structure does not allow for such, as the US
(and other West, the US is just a stellar ex.) are ruled by rapacious coproratist (typo)
oligarchs. Won't happen.
Noirette recommends that we "Nationalize the banks and all financial services from fancy
hedge funds to scuzzy pay-day loaners."
In Hudson's long interview with Siman he says, "...only a public bank can write down the
debts -- like student debts today -- without hurting an independent oligarchic financial
class."
I have not come to the part regarding how to cut the oligarchs loose.
To student debts and pay-day loan victims, one can add debts owed by small farmers and
those underwater mortgage holders who were abandoned by Obama.
I see MoA folk beginning to dig into Michael Hudson's 4-part interview with John Siman of
Naked Capitalism , which is excellent. But, please ensure you're beginning with the
first and going in order. IMO, going to Hudson's website is the best way to accomplish that.
This is the main page. Part 1: "The
Delphic Oracle as their Davos." Part 2: "Mixed economies and monopoly." Part 3: "The DNA of
Western civilization is financially unstable." Part 4: "Up in Arms." Part 4 is at page top.
"Today's neoliberal wasteland is basically a reaction against the 19thcentury reformers,
against the logic of classical British political economy. The hatred of Marx is ultimately
the hatred of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill, because neoliberals realize that Smith and
Mill and Ricardo were all leading to Marx. He was the culmination of their free market views
-- a market free from rentiers and monopolists.
"That was the immediate aim of socialism in the late 19thcentury. The logic of classical
political economy was leading to a socialist mixed economy. In order to fight Marxism, you
have to fight classical economics and erase memory of how civilization has dealt with (or
failed to deal with) the debt and rent-extracting problems through the ages. The history of
economic thought and the original free-market economics has to be suppressed. Today's choice
is therefore between socialism or barbarism, as Rosa Luxemburg said."
What Hudson's providing is a political-economic template for a Beyond Sanders presidential
candidate. Sanders, ICYMI, introduced the Senate's version of
Medicare For All which is a fundamental component of the type of mixed economy Hudson's
advocating.
Since the 1971 floating of the US dollar onto the global markets, and 1973 creation of the
Petro dollar, the world has experienced a consistent collapse of productive manufacturing jobs,
infrastructure investment, long term planning on the one hand and a simultaneous increase of
de-regulation, short term speculation, financial services, and low wage retail jobs. During
this post 1971 process of decline, debt slavery became a norm both in developed countries and
developing sector nations alike, while outsourcing caused the castration of national
sovereignty and an ever greater reliance on "cheap labor" and "cheap resources" from abroad. It
was even called the
"controlled disintegration" policy of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker in 1978 as he
was preparing to raise interest rates to levels that made it impossible for a majority of small
and medium agro-industrial enterprises to compete against corporate monoliths. The most
concrete model of this collapse was unveiled to the world in 1996 by the late American
economist Lyndon LaRouche known as the Triple Curve Collapse Function.
Some have called this collapse "a failure of globalization". Executive Intelligence Review's
Dennis Small has
repeatedly stated over many years that this is characterization is false. Globalization
should rather be seen as a complete success- in that when looked at from a top down
perspective, it becomes increasingly clear that the architects of this policy achieved exactly
what they set out to do. That intention was to impose an artificial closed/zero-sum game
paradigm upon a species whose distinguishing characteristic is its creative reason and capacity
constantly grow and self-perfect both on the surface of the earth and beyond. A primary figure
in the oligarchy's tool box of sociopathic agents who shaped this program for depopulation and
zero sum thinking over the years is a Canadian-born operative by the name of Maurice Strong.
Although having died in 2015, Strong's life and legacy are worth revisiting as it provides the
modern reader a powerful, albeit ugly insight into the methods and actions of the British-Deep
State agenda that so mis-shaped world history through the latter half of the 20 th
century.
While this exercise will have value for all truth seekers, this story should carry
additional weight for Canadians currently witnessing
their own government collapsing under the weight of the contradictions built into a system
which Strong led in shaping (i.e.: the need for nuclear and industrial productive potential
embodied by SNC Lavalin and the obedience to a "green" post-industrial paradigm antagonistic to
such productive capacity).
Journalist Elaine Dewar's groundbreaking 1994 book "Cloak of Green" which every
truth-seeker should read, dealt rigorously with Strong's role as a recruit of Rockefeller
assets in the 1950s, an oil baron, vice president of Power Corporation by 30, Liberal Party
controller, Privy Councilor, and founder of Canada's neo-colonial external aid policy towards
Africa which tied Africa into IMF debt slaves, we will focus here on the role Strong has played
since 1968 in subverting the anti-entropic potential of both his native Canada and the world at
large. It was through this post-1968 role that Strong performed his most valued work for the
genocidal agenda of his British masters who seek to reduce the world population to a "carrying capacity"
of less than a billion .
RIO and Global Governance
In 1992, Maurice Strong had been assigned to head the second Earth Summit (the first having
been the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment also chaired by Strong). The Rio
Summit had established a new era in the consolidation of NGOs and corporations under the
genocidal green agenda of controlled starvation masquerading behind the dogma of
"sustainability'. This doctrine was formalized with Agenda 21 and the Earth
Charter , which Strong co-authored with his collaborated Jim Macneil during the 1990s. At
the opening of the Rio Summit, Strong announced that industrialized countries had "developed
and benefited from the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption which have produced
our present dilemma. It is clear that current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the
affluent middle class, involving high meat intake, consumption of large amounts of frozen and
convenience foods, use of fossil fuels, appliances, home and work-place air-conditioning, and
suburban housing- are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to
environmentally damaging consumption patterns."
"The concept of national sovereignty has been an immutable, indeed sacred, principle of
international relations. It is a principle which will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the
new imperatives of global environmental cooperation. What is needed is recognition of the
reality that in so many fields, and this is particularly true of environmental issues, it is
simply not feasible for sovereignty to be exercised unilaterally by individual nation-states,
however powerful. The global community must be assured of environmental security."
Two years earlier, Strong gave an interview
wherein he described a "fiction book" he was fantasizing about writing which he described in
the following manner:
" What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the
Earth comes from the actions of the rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich
countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they
do it? The group's conclusion is 'no'. The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So,
in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the
industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that
about?"
When this statement is held up parallel to this man's peculiar life, we quickly come to see
that the barrier between reality and fiction is more than a little blurry.
The Destruction of Nuclear Power
It is vital to examine Strong's role in crippling Canada's potential to make use of nuclear
power, one of the greatest beacons of hope mankind has ever had to break out of the current
"fixed" boundaries to humanity's development. Indeed, the controlled use of the atom, along
with the necessary discovery of new universal principles associated with this endeavor, have
always represented one of the greatest strategic threats to the oligarchic system, which
depends on a closed system of fixed resources in order to both manage current populations and
justify global governance under "objective" frameworks of logic. Fission and fusion processes
exist on a level far beyond those fixed parameters that assume the earth's "carrying capacity"
is no greater than the 2 billion souls envisioned by today's London-centered oligarchy. If
mankind were to recognize his unique creative potential to continuously transcend his
limitations by discovering and creating new resources, no empire could long exist. With Canada
as the second nation to have civilian nuclear power, and a frontier science culture in physics
and chemistry, the need to destroy this potential in the mind of the British Deep State of
Canada was great indeed.
To get a better sense of the anti-nuclear role Strong has played in Canadian science policy,
we must actually go back once again to Strong's reign at the Department of External Aid in
1966.
Humanity's trend towards utilizing ever more dense forms of fire was always driven by a
commitment to scientific and technological progress. The realization that this process drives
the increase of human potential population density (both in quantity and quality of life) was
recognized at the turn of the 20th century and serves as the foundation for American economist
Lyndon LaRouche's method of economic forecasting. The graph above features American per capita
access to energy and the post-1975 sabotage of the expected transition to nuclear fission and
fusion
Technological Apartheid for Africa
A key reason that Strong had been brought into Canada's Civil Service to head up the
External Aid office in 1966 was to sabotage the international efforts leading scientists and
statesmen had achieved in making Canada an exporter of its original CANDU reactors. Since 1955,
leading patriots within Atomic Energy Canada Ltd. (AECL) and the National Research Council such
as C.D. Howe and his collaborator C.W. Mackenzie, ensured that the export of advanced nuclear
technology was made available to developing countries such as India and Pakistan. In Canada
this policy was advanced vigorously by Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker, who also saw atomic power as the key to world peace.
The banners under which this advanced technology transfer occurred were both the Columbo Plan and President
Dwight Eisenhower's
Atoms for Peace . This progressive approach to international development defined "external
aid" not around IMF conditionalities, or simply money for its own sake, but rather as the
transfer of the most advanced science and technology to poor countries with the explicit
intention that all nations would attain true sovereignty. This is the model that China has
adopted today under the
Belt and Road Initiative.
When Strong got to work in External Aid, and later formed the Canadian International
Development Agency, Canada's relationship to "LDCs" (lesser developed countries) became reduced
to advancing "appropriate technologies" under the framework of monetarism and a perverse form
of systems analysis. After JFK's assassination, a parallel operation was conducted in America's
USAid. No technology or advanced infrastructure policy necessary for the independence of former
colonies were permitted under this precursor to what later became known as "sustainability" and
"zero growth". Under Strong's influence, Canada's role became perverted into inducing LDCs to
become obedient to IMF/World Bank "conditionalities" and the reforms of their bureaucracies
demanded by the OECD in order to receive money. Both in Canada and in developing countries,
Strong was among the key agents who oversaw the implementation of the OECD's strategy of
"closed systems analysis" for national policy management.
Petrol and Pandas
In his role as President of Petro Canada (1976-78), Strong endorsed the national call to create a nuclear moratorium for
Canada which had been carried out by the Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility in
1977. This document not only demanded an immediate halt to the continuation of all reactors
then under construction, but also made the sophistical argument that more jobs could be created
if "ecologically friendly" energy sources and conservation methods were developed instead of
nuclear and fossil fuels. Strange desires coming from an oil executive, but not so strange
considering Strong's 1978-1981 role as Vice-President of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), an
organization founded by the British and Dutch monarchies as a Royal Dutch Shell initiative in
1963. Strong was Vice President during the same interval that WWF co-founder Prince Philip was
its President.
In 1971, while still heading up the External Aid Department, Strong was a founding member of
the 1001 Club, which was an elite international organization created by Prince Bernhard of the
Netherlands created to finance the emerging green agenda for world governance. The 1001 Club
worked in tandem with Prince Bernhard's other secretive club known as the "Bilderberg Group"
which he founded in 1954. In this position, Strong helped to recruit 80 Canadian "initiates" to
this elite society otherwise known as "Strong's Kindergarten", the most prominent being Lord
Conrad Black, Barrick Gold's Peter Munk (1927-2018) and Permindex's late Sir Louis Mortimer
Bloomfield (1906-1984). As documented elsewhere, the latter was discovered to be at the heart
of the plot to
assassinate President John F. Kennedy by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.
Strong Decapitates Ontario Nuclear Energy
By 1992, Strong had completed his role heading the Rio Earth Summit in Brazil and had
returned to his native land to attempt to finalize the dismantling of Canada's nuclear program
in his new assignment as President of Ontario Hydro, a position he held from 1992 to 1995 under
the formal invitation of Bob Rae, then-NDP Premier of Ontario and brother of Power Corp.'s John
Rae. Bob Rae later served as the leader of the Liberal Party from 2011-2013 in preparation for
Justin Trudeau's appointment to become the party's new figurehead in April of 2013.
Strong was brought in to this position at the time that Ontario had the most ambitious
nuclear program in North America and was proving to be a thorn in the side of the zero-growth
agenda demanded by the British Empire. The completion of the massive Darlington system in
Ontario had demonstrated what successful long-term science planning could accomplish, although
the utility found itself running far over budget. The budgetary problems (which occurred during
a deep recession in 1992) were used by Strong to "restructure" the provincial energy
utility.
The "remedies" chosen by Strong to solve Ontario Hydro's financial woes involved immediately
canceling all new planned nuclear energy development, firing 8 of the 14 directors, and
downsizing the utility by laying off 14 000 employees, many of whom were the most specialized
and experienced nuclear technicians in Canada.
Before leaving his post in 1995 with the fall of Bob Rae's government, Strong ensured that
his work would continue with his replacement Jim MacNeill who headed Ontario Hydro from 1994 to
1997. MacNeill was co-architect of both the Earth Charter and the genocidal Agenda 21 during
the Rio Summit and a long time Deep State agent. Under MacNeill, Strong's mandate to
unnecessarily shut down eight reactors for refurbishment and one permanently was effected in
1997, while Ontario Hydro itself was broken up into three separate entities. With the
irreparable loss of specialized manpower and skills Strong and MacNeill left Ontario Hydro and
AECL mortally wounded for years to come.
Surprising all observers, AECL and the Ontario utilities were able to remobilize their
remaining forces to pull together the successful refurbishment of all reactors– the last
of which came back online in October 2012. While Canada's moratorium on nuclear power
continued, with SNC Lavelin's 2011 takeover, an approach for cooperation on international
nuclear construction in
partnership with China began in July 2014, much to Strong's chagrin.
Strong's Failed Attempt to Infiltrate China
For much of the 21 st century, Strong's talents were put to use in an attempt to
subvert the aspirations of Asian development, and of a Eurasian alliance formed around the
driving economic grand design of the emerging Belt and Road Initiative. Strong was deployed to
Beijing University where he acted as Honorary Professor and Chairman of its Environmental
Foundation and Chairman of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Research on Security and
Sustainability for Northwest Asia.
In the face of the meltdown of the Trans-Atlantic economy, the Chinese have successfully
resisted the Green New Deal agenda that demanded the submission of their national sovereignty
to the "New World Order" of zero-growth and depopulation. In spite of this pressure, a powerful
tradition of Confucianism and its commitment to progress has demonstrated its powerful
influence in the various branches of the Chinese establishment who see China's only hope for
survival located in its strategic partnership with Russia and long term mega projects to lift
its people out of poverty and into the 22nd Century. This was made fully clear when China
rejected the "special relationship" with Canada in December 2017 .
Speaking of the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative which had combined with the
Eurasian Economic Union and BRICS, President Xi Jinping stated in 2017: "We should foster a
new type of international relations featuring win-win cooperation; and we should forge
partnerships of dialogue with no confrontation and of friendship rather than alliance. All
countries should respect each other's sovereignty, dignity and territorial integrity, each
other's development paths and social systems, and each other's core interests and major
concerns In pursuing the Belt and Road Initiative, we will not resort to outdated geopolitical
maneuvering. What we hope to achieve is a new model of win-win cooperation. We have no
intention to form a small group detrimental to stability, what we hope to create is a big
family of harmonious co-existence."
The Belt and
Road Initiative has arisen as a true opposition to the bipolar insanity of western right
wing militarism/monetarism on the one side and left wing depopulation under "
Green New Deals " on the other. Trillions of dollars of credit in great infrastructure
projects across Eurasia, Africa and Latin America have resulted in the greatest burst of
cultural optimism, productivity and if the population and leadership of the west act with the
proper passion and wisdom, there is a very good opportunity to rid humanity of the legacy of
Maurice Strong.
Trump's Kakistocracy Is Also a Hackistocracy: The invasion of hucksters has reached the
Federal Reserve.
By Paul Krugman
It's no secret that Donald Trump has appointed a lot of partisan, unqualified hacks to key
policy positions. A few months ago my colleague Gail Collins asked readers to help her select
Trump's worst cabinet member. It was a hard choice, because there were so many qualified
applicants.
The winner, by the way, was Wilbur Ross, the commerce secretary. That looks like an even
better call now: Ross's department has reportedly prepared a report declaring that imports of
European cars threaten U.S. national security. This is both ludicrous and dangerous. It gives
Trump the right to start a new phase in his trade war that would inflict severe economic
damage while alienating our allies -- and, as a result, undermine national security.
Until recently, however, one agency had seemed immune to the continuing hack invasion: the
Federal Reserve, the single institution most crucial to economic policymaking. Trump's Fed
nominees, have, by and large, been sensible, respected economists. But that all changed last
week, when Trump said he planned to nominate Stephen Moore for the Fed's Board of
Governors.
Moore is manifestly, flamboyantly unqualified for the position. But there's a story here
that goes deeper than Moore, or even Trump; it's about the whole G.O.P.'s preference for
hucksters over experts, even partisan experts.
About Moore: It goes almost without saying that he has been wrong about everything. I
don't mean the occasional bad call, which all of us make. I mean a track record that includes
predicting that George W. Bush's policies would produce a magnificent boom, Barack Obama's
policies would lead to runaway inflation, tax cuts in Kansas would produce a "near immediate"
boost to the state's economy, and much more. And, of course, never an acknowledgment of error
or reflection on why he got it wrong.
Beyond that, Moore has a problem with facts. After printing a Moore op-ed in which all the
key numbers were wrong, one editor vowed never to publish the man's work again. And a
blizzard of factual errors is standard practice in his writing and speaking. It's actually
hard to find cases where Moore got a fact right.
Yet Moore isn't some random guy who caught Trump's eye. He has long been a prominent
figure in the conservative movement: a writer for the Wall Street Journal editorial page,
chief economist of the Heritage Foundation, a fixture on the right-wing lecture circuit.
Why?
You might say that the G.O.P. values partisan loyalty above professional competence. But
that's only a partial explanation, because there are plenty of conservative economists with
solid professional credentials -- and some of them are pretty naked in their partisanship,
too. Thus, a who's who of well-known conservative economists rushed to endorse the Trump
administration's outlandish claims about the benefits from its tax cut, claims they knew full
well were unreasonable.
Nor has their partisanship been restrained and polite. Many of us are still mourning the
death of Alan Krueger, the Princeton economist best known for research -- since vindicated by
many other studies -- showing that increases in the minimum wage don't usually seem to reduce
employment. Well, the Nobel-winning conservative economist James Buchanan denounced those
pursuing that line of research as "a bevy of camp-following whores."
So conservatives could, if they wanted, turn for advice to highly partisan economists with
at least some idea of what they're doing. Yet these economists, despite what often seem like
pathetic attempts to curry favor with politicians, are routinely passed over for key
positions, which go to almost surreally unqualified figures like Moore or Larry Kudlow, the
Trump administration's chief economist.
Many people have described the Trump administration as a kakistocracy -- rule by the worst
-- which it is. But it's also a hackistocracy -- rule by the ignorant and incompetent. And in
this Trump is just following standard G.O.P. practice.
Why do hacks rule on the right? It may simply be that a party of apparatchiks feels
uncomfortable with people who have any real expertise or independent reputation, no matter
how loyal they may seem. After all, you never know when they might take a stand on
principle.
In any case, there will eventually be a price to pay. True, there is, wrote Adam Smith, "a
great deal of ruin in a nation." America isn't just an immensely powerful, wealthy,
technologically advanced, peaceful country. We're also a nation with a long tradition of
dedicated public service.
Even now -- as I can attest from personal interactions -- a great majority of those
working for the Treasury Department, the State Department and so on are competent,
hard-working people trying to do the best they can for their country.
But as top jobs systematically go to hacks, there is an inevitable process of corrosion.
We're already seeing a degradation of the way our government responds to things like natural
disasters. Well, there will be more and bigger disasters ahead. And the people in charge of
dealing with those disasters will be the worst of the worst.
"... I believe that the current GLOBAL elites do understand exactly what they are doing and the potential consequences to the ongoing existence of private finance. ..."
"... The war that is being waged is an attempt to keep private finance in charge of our world ..."
"But current American elites have no concept of own actions having consequences."
I believe that the current GLOBAL elites do understand exactly what they are doing and the
potential consequences to the ongoing existence of private finance.
The war that is being waged is an attempt to keep private finance in charge of our world
and they are losing I am pleased to report
@Anon
You are no Christians. USAism and all radical Protestantism is abusing the surface of
Christianity for satanic anti-Christianity.
There is no Christianity but what is rooted in the old and everlasting Church of which
Christ is the Head in the Holy Spirit, as laid in apostle's hands and transferred by Church
fathers.
Christianity is genuinely collectivist, it has nothing to do with the perverted
individualism of Anglosaxon background and does not agree with the inherent nihilistic energy
of capitalism.
"... As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans. ..."
"... What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most Germans were glad they did. ..."
"... How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies" that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent? ..."
"... Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal. ..."
Imagine this situation: Your country has had a military setback in a war that was supposed to be over after a few months of "shock
and awe." Because of that war, it has lost the goodwill and prestige of much of the international community.
The national debt has grown to staggering size. Citizens complain bitterly about the government, especially the legislative branch,
for being a bunch of do-nothings working solely for themselves or for special interest groups. In fact, the political scene has pretty
much lost its center -- moderates are attacked by all sides as the political discourse becomes a clamor of increasingly extreme positions.
It seems there are election campaigns going on all the time, and they are increasingly vicious. The politicians just want to argue
about moral issues -- sexuality, decadent art, the crumbling family and the like -- while pragmatic matters of governance seem neglected.
Sound familiar? That society was Germany of the 1920s -- the ill-fated Weimar Republic. But it also describes more and more the
political climate in America today.
Germans were worried about the future of their country. They suffered from all sorts of terror, as assassinations, coup attempts
and crime pulled their society apart. The left blamed the right; the right blamed the left, and the political center simply dried
up.
To get themselves out of the mess, Germans might have demanded government that carefully mended fences with its allies and enemies;
one that judiciously hammered out compromises among the various political parties and sought the middle path.
But we know that didn't happen. In Germany of the 1920s, as now in 21st-century America, appeals to reason and prudence were no
way to get votes in times of crisis. Much more effective were appeals to the anger and fear of the German people. A politician could
attract more votes by criticizing the government than by praising it, and a vicious negative campaign was usually more effective
than a clean one. One of the problems of democracy is that voters aren't always rational, and appeals like these could be very effective.
As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring
more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans.
What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone
who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most
Germans were glad they did.
Of course, America is not 1920s Germany, and we are certainly not on the verge of a fascist state. But neither have we experienced
the deep crises the Germans faced. The setbacks of the Iraq/Afghan war are a far cry from the devastating loss of the First World
War; we are not considered the scourge of the international community, and we don't need wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf
of bread. But even in these relatively secure times, we have shown an alarming willingness to choose headstrong leadership over thoughtful
leadership, to value security over liberty; to accept compromises to constitutional principles, and to defy the opinion of the rest
of the world.
How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured
several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more
fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies"
that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent?
Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World
War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal.
The time is coming for us to pull back from the brink again. This must happen before the government gets so strong that it can
completely demonize opposition, gain complete control of the media, and develop dossiers on all its citizens. By then it will be
too late, and we'll have ourselves to blame.
Brian E. Fogarty, a sociology professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, is the author of "
War, Peace, and the Social
Order ."
"... As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans. ..."
"... What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most Germans were glad they did. ..."
"... How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies" that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent? ..."
"... Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal. ..."
Imagine this situation: Your country has had a military setback in a war that was supposed to be over after a few months of "shock
and awe." Because of that war, it has lost the goodwill and prestige of much of the international community.
The national debt has grown to staggering size. Citizens complain bitterly about the government, especially the legislative branch,
for being a bunch of do-nothings working solely for themselves or for special interest groups. In fact, the political scene has pretty
much lost its center -- moderates are attacked by all sides as the political discourse becomes a clamor of increasingly extreme positions.
It seems there are election campaigns going on all the time, and they are increasingly vicious. The politicians just want to argue
about moral issues -- sexuality, decadent art, the crumbling family and the like -- while pragmatic matters of governance seem neglected.
Sound familiar? That society was Germany of the 1920s -- the ill-fated Weimar Republic. But it also describes more and more the
political climate in America today.
Germans were worried about the future of their country. They suffered from all sorts of terror, as assassinations, coup attempts
and crime pulled their society apart. The left blamed the right; the right blamed the left, and the political center simply dried
up.
To get themselves out of the mess, Germans might have demanded government that carefully mended fences with its allies and enemies;
one that judiciously hammered out compromises among the various political parties and sought the middle path.
But we know that didn't happen. In Germany of the 1920s, as now in 21st-century America, appeals to reason and prudence were no
way to get votes in times of crisis. Much more effective were appeals to the anger and fear of the German people. A politician could
attract more votes by criticizing the government than by praising it, and a vicious negative campaign was usually more effective
than a clean one. One of the problems of democracy is that voters aren't always rational, and appeals like these could be very effective.
As usually happens in times of distress, the Germans became a people for whom resolve was valued more highly than prudence, daring
more than caution, and righteousness more than discretion. In many ways, they were a people not so different from today's Americans.
What was needed, the Germans thought, was a strong leader -- someone who would put an end to politics as usual; most of all, someone
who could unite all the divisions in Germany and dispel the clamor. They found that leader in Adolf Hitler, and for a time, most
Germans were glad they did.
Of course, America is not 1920s Germany, and we are certainly not on the verge of a fascist state. But neither have we experienced
the deep crises the Germans faced. The setbacks of the Iraq/Afghan war are a far cry from the devastating loss of the First World
War; we are not considered the scourge of the international community, and we don't need wheelbarrows full of money to buy a loaf
of bread. But even in these relatively secure times, we have shown an alarming willingness to choose headstrong leadership over thoughtful
leadership, to value security over liberty; to accept compromises to constitutional principles, and to defy the opinion of the rest
of the world.
How would we react if things got worse? If we were to lose the war in Iraq, leaving a fundamentalist regime in place; if we endured
several more major terrorist attacks; if the economy collapsed; if fuel prices reached $7 per gallon -- would we cling even more
fiercely to our democratic ideals? Or would we instead demand greater surveillance, more secret prisons, more arrests for "conspiracies"
that amount to little more than daydreams, and more quashing of dissent?
Our history suggests the latter. We Americans have had our flights from democracy -- the internment of Japanese-Americans in World
War II, the Red Scare and the McCarthy era, Watergate -- but we have always pulled back from the brink and returned to normal.
The time is coming for us to pull back from the brink again. This must happen before the government gets so strong that it can
completely demonize opposition, gain complete control of the media, and develop dossiers on all its citizens. By then it will be
too late, and we'll have ourselves to blame.
Brian E. Fogarty, a sociology professor at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul, is the author of "
War, Peace, and the Social
Order ."
"... Writing off Brazil (and India and South Africa for that matter) just because the empire has succeeded in swinging an election or two in those places, or because the empire's lawfare scams seem to be working at the moment, is a mistake. ..."
"... These conspicuous successes of the Empire of Chaos , as Escobar calls America, do not significantly change the anti-imperialist attitudes of the populations in these countries. ..."
Writing off Brazil (and India and South Africa for that matter) just because the
empire has succeeded in swinging an election or two in those places, or because the empire's lawfare scams seem to be working at the moment, is a mistake.
These conspicuous
successes of the Empire of Chaos , as Escobar calls America, do not significantly
change the anti-imperialist attitudes of the populations in these countries.
There will be
backlash against the fascists in Brazil, and the right wing leaderships in governments
elsewhere in Latin America that the US has maneuvered into place as these leaders fail to
deliver material gains to their populations. And fail they will considering we are in
late-stage capitalism.
"... By Thomas Ferguson, Director of Research for the Institute of New Economic Thinking; Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Originally published at the Institute of New Economic Thinking website ..."
"... Kane, who coined the term "zombie bank" and who famously raised early alarms about American savings and loans, analyzed European banks and how regulators, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, backstop them. ..."
"... We are only interested observers of the arm wrestling between the various EU countries over the costs of bank rescues, state expenditures, and such. But we do think there is a clear lesson from the long history of how governments have dealt with bank failures . [If] the European Union needs to step in to save banks, there is no reason why they have to do it for free best practice in banking rescues is to save banks, but not bankers. That is, prevent the system from melting down with all the many years of broad economic losses that would bring, but force out those responsible and make sure the public gets paid back for rescuing the financial system. ..."
"... In 2019, another question, alas, is also piercing. In country after country, Social Democratic center-left parties have shrunk, in many instances almost to nothingness. In Germany the SPD gives every sign of following the French Socialist Party into oblivion. Would a government coalition in which the SPD holds the Finance Ministry even consider anything but guaranteeing the public a huge piece of any upside if they rescue two failing institutions? ..."
Running in the background, though, was a new, darker theme: That the post-2008 reforms had gone too far in restricting policymakers'
discretion in crises. The trio most responsible for making the post-Lehman bailout revolution -- Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner,
and Henry Paulson --
expressed their
misgivings in a joint op-ed :
But in its post-crisis reforms, Congress also took away some of the most powerful tools used by the FDIC, the Fed and the Treasury
the FDIC can no longer issue blanket guarantees of bank debt as it did in the crisis, the Fed's emergency lending powers have
been constrained, and the Treasury would not be able to repeat its guarantee of the money market funds.
These powers were critical in stopping the 2008 panic The paradox of any financial crisis is that the policies necessary to
stop it are always politically unpopular. But if that unpopularity delays or prevents a strong response, the costs to the economy
become greater.
We need to make sure that future generations of financial firefighters have the emergency powers they need to prevent the next
fire from becoming a conflagration.
Sotto voce fears of this sort go back to the earliest reform discussions. But the question surfaced dramatically in Timothy Geithner's
2016 Per Jacobsson Lecture, " Are We Safer? The Case for Strengthening
the Bagehot Arsenal ." More recently, the Group of Thirty
has advanced similar suggestions -- not too surprisingly, since Geithner was co-project manager of the report, along with Guillermo
Ortiz, the former Governor of the Mexican Central Bank, who introduced the former Treasury Secretary at the Per Jacobson lecture.
Aside from the financial collapse itself, probably nothing has so shaken public confidence in democratic institutions as the wave
of bailouts in the aftermath of the collapse. The redistribution of wealth and opportunity that the bailouts wrought surely helped
fuel the populist surges that have swept over Europe and the United States in the last decade. The spectacle of policymakers rubber
stamping literally unlimited sums for financial institutions while preaching the importance of austerity for everyone else has been
unbearable to millions of people.
Especially in money-driven political systems, affording policymakers unlimited discretion also plainly courts serious risks. Put
simply, too big to fail banks enjoy a uniquely splendid situation of "heads I win, tails you lose" when they take risks. Scholars
whose research INET has supported, notably
Edward Kane , have shown how the certainty of government bailouts advantages large financial institutions, directly affecting
prices of their bonds and stocks.
For these reasons INET convened a panel at a G20 preparatory meeting in Berlin on "
Moral Hazard Issues in Extended Financial Safety Nets ."
The Power Point presentations of the three panelists are presented in the order in which they gave them, since the latter ones sometimes
comment on Edward Kane
's analysis of the European banks. Kane, who coined the term "zombie bank" and who famously raised early alarms about American
savings and loans, analyzed European banks and how regulators, including the U.S. Federal Reserve, backstop them.
Peter Bofinger
, Professor of International and Monetary Economics at the University of Würzburg and an outgoing member of the German Economic Council,
followed with a discussion of how the system has changed since 2008.
Helene Schuberth
, Head of the Foreign Research Division of the Austrian National Bank, analyzed changes in the global financial governance system
since the collapse.
The panel took place as public discussion of a proposed merger between two giant German banks, the Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank,
reached fever pitch. The panelists explored issues directly relevant to such fusions, without necessarily agreeing among themselves
or with anyone at INET.
But the point Robert Johnson, INET's President, and I
made some years back , amid an earlier wave of talk about using public money to bail out European banks, remains on target:
We are only interested observers of the arm wrestling between the various EU countries over the costs of bank rescues,
state expenditures, and such. But we do think there is a clear lesson from the long history of how governments have dealt with
bank failures . [If] the European Union needs to step in to save banks, there is no reason why they have to do it for free best
practice in banking rescues is to save banks, but not bankers. That is, prevent the system from melting down with all the many
years of broad economic losses that would bring, but force out those responsible and make sure the public gets paid back for rescuing
the financial system.
The simplest way to do that is to have the state take equity in the banks it rescues and write down the equity of bank shareholders
in proportion. This can be done in several ways -- direct equity as a condition for bailout, requiring warrants that can be exercised
later, etc. The key points are for the state to take over the banks, get the bad loans rapidly out of those and into a "bad bank,"
and hold the junk for a decent interval so the rest of the market does not crater. When the banks come back to profitability,
you can cash in the warrants and sell the stock if you don't like state ownership. That way the public gets its money back .at
times states have even made a profit.
In 2019, another question, alas, is also piercing. In country after country, Social Democratic center-left parties have shrunk,
in many instances almost to nothingness. In Germany the SPD gives every sign of following the French Socialist Party into oblivion.
Would a government coalition in which the SPD holds the Finance Ministry even consider anything but guaranteeing the public a huge
piece of any upside if they rescue two failing institutions?
there needs to be an asset tax on/break up of the megas. End the hyper-agglomeration of deposits at the tail end.
not holding my breath though. (see NY state congressional delegation)
to be generous, tax starts at $300 billion. Even then it affects only a dozen or so US banks. But would be enough to clamp
down on the hyper-scale of the largest US/world banks.
The world would be better off with lot more mid-sized regional players.
Anyone who mentions Timmy Geithner without spitting did not pay attention during the Obama reign of terror. He and Obama crowed
about the Making Home Affordable Act, implying that it would save all homeowners in mortgage trouble, but conveniently neglected
to mention that less than 100 banks had signed up. The thousands of non-signatories simply continued to foreclose. Not to mention
Eric Holder's intentional non-prosecution of banksters. For these and many other reasons, especially his "Islamic State is only
the JV team" crack, Obama was one of our worst presidents.
Fergusons graph on DBK's default probabilities coincides with the ECB's ending its asset purchase programme and entering the
"reinvestment phase of the asset purchase programme". https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/implement/omt/html/index.en.html
The worst of the euro zombie banks appear to be getting tense and nervous. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKpzCCuHDVY
Maybe that is why Jerome Powell did his volte-face last month on gradually raising interest rates. Note that the Fed also reduced
its automatic asset roll-off. I'm curious if the other euro-zombies in the "peers" return on equity chart are are experiencing
volatility also.
Apparently the worst fate you can suffer as long as you don't go Madoff is Fuld. According to wikipedia his company manages
a hundred million which must be humiliating. It's not as humiliating as locking the guy up in prison would be by a very long stretch.
Greenspan famously lamented that there isn't anything the regulators can really do except make empty threats. This is dishonest.
The regulations are not carved in stone like the ten commandments. In China they execute incorrigible financiers all the time.
Everybody forgets (or at least does not mention) that Greenspan was a member of the Class of '43, the (mostly Canadian) earliest
members of the Objectivist Cult with guru Ayn Rand. Expecting him to act rationally is foolish. It may happen accidentally (we
do not know why he chose to let the economy expand unhindered in 1999), but you cannot count on it. In a world with information
asymmetry expecting markets to be concerned about reputation is ridiculous. To expect them to police themselves for long term
benefit is even more ridiculous.
I think Finance is currently about 13% of the S&P 500, down from the peak of about 18% or so in 2007. I think we will have
a healthy economy and improved political climate when Finance is about 8-10% of the S&P 500 which is about where I think finance
plays a healthy, but not overwhelming rentier role in the economy.
If if 2016 there were some hope not we know that Trump folded. Completely. He actually is not a President. he is a marionette.
Notable quotes:
"... Bankers & Trump: Bankers know you capture catch more flies with money honey. ..."
"... " former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do. ..."
"... "Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues. ..."
"... And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China. ..."
"The Trump campaign, meanwhile, delved into message tailoring, sentiment manipulation and machine learning." - Oh, please,
this sounds like a stereotypical Google-centric view of things. They of course left out the most important part of the campaign,
the key to its inception, which could be described in terms like "The Trump campaign, meanwhile, actually noticed the widespread
misery and non-recovery in the parts of the US outside the elite coastal bubbles and DC beltway, and spotted a yuuuge political
opportunity." In other words, not sentiment manipulation – that was, after all, the Dem-establishment-MSM-wall-street-and-the-elite-technocrats'
"America is already great, and anyone who denies it is deplorable!" strategy of manufactured consent – so much as actual *reading*
of sentiment. Of course if one insisted on remaining inside a protective elite echo chamber and didn't listen to anything Trump
or the attendees actually said in those huge flyover-country rallies that wasn't captured in suitably outrageous evening-news
soundbites, it was all too easy to believe one's own hype.
" former secretary of state Henry Kissinger, who has known Trump socially for decades and is currently advising the president-elect
on foreign policy issues " - I really, really hope this is just Hammerin' Hank tooting his own horn, as he and his sycophants
in the FP establishment and MSM are wont to do.
"Trump dumps the TPP: conservatives rue strategic fillip to China" (Guardian) Another wedge angle for Trumps new-found
RINO "friends" to play. Trump will have as many problems with Ayn Ryan Congress as Obama/Clinton on economic issues.
"The TPP excludes China, which declined to join, proposing its own rival version, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
(RCEP), which excludes the US." You see, it is all China's fault. No info presented on why China "declined" to join.
And if Abe's Japan were really an independent country, they'd pick up the TPP baton and sell it to China.
This commenter Libezkova was right: Trump folded. And probably he was a phony fighter with neoliberalism and globalization from
the very beginning. So voters were deceived exactly like they were with Obama.
Notable quotes:
"... It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee. ..."
"... There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the straw. ..."
"... This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things. ..."
"... Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance. "An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-) ..."
"... In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated. ..."
"At every point of the race, Mr. Trump was doing better among white voters without a college degree than Mitt Romney did
in 2012 - by a wide margin. Mrs. Clinton was also not matching Mr. Obama's support among black voters."
"Mrs. Clinton's gains were concentrated among the most affluent and best-educated white voters, much as Mr. Trump's gains
were concentrated among the lowest-income and least-educated white voters."
Trump won the Republican primary and general election.
""Trump dominated - in the primary and general elections - those districts represented by Congress's most conservative members,"
Tim Alberta wrote in National Review (he is now at Politico):
They once believed they were elected to advance a narrowly ideological agenda, but Trump's success has given them reason to
question that belief.
Among these archconservatives, who in the past had been fanatical in their pursuit of ideological purity, the realization that
they can no longer depend on unfailing support from their constituents has provoked deep anxiety."
These archconservatives who say that Trump's flimsy mandate is just based on just 80,000 votes in the rustbelt are in for a
rude awakening. He won the primary. In Northern States. In Southern States. Everywhere.
It's hilarious that the progressive neoliberals like DeLong, Krugman, Drum, Yglesias etc have said exactly nothing about
Trump's tweets at Congressional Republicans over the independent ethics committee.
There is a propaganda technique where you describe straw-person characterizations then undermine them. When in fact the whole
longwinded campaign depends on readers and listeners not bothering or too tired to focus and see the mischaracterizations in the
straw.
This whole thing is an apologia, for propaganda purposes, as I see it. We all need to take care. It takes a lot of money
and effort to organize such propaganda exercises. Please take care in using and reusing these type things.
"Trump has converted the GOP into a populist, America First party" is an overstatement. He definitely made some efforts
in this direction, but it is premature to declare this "fait accompli".
If we consider two possibilities: "GOP establishment chew up Trump" and "Trump chew up GOP establishment" it is clear that
possibility is more probable.
Theoretically that might give Democrats a chance, but I think the Clintonized Party is too corrupt to take this chance.
"An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought." ;-)
In any case, 2018 elections will be very interesting as I think that the process of a slow collapse of neoliberal ideology
and the rise of the US nationalist movements ("far right") will continue unabated.
This is the same process that we see in full force in EU.
Carlson is saying Trump's not "capable" of sustained focus on the sausage-making of right-wing policy.
The clickbait (out of context) headline makes it sound like a more general diss. I'm not supporting Trump here [standard disclaimer],
but these gotcha headlines are tiresome.
"... It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too. ..."
"... Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. ..."
"... What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate. ..."
"... Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness ..."
"... The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted. ..."
"... Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges. ..."
"... Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be. ..."
Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special
counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to
uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.
Painting the pig's face
The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings
of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to
emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is
happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.
Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged,
self-harming neoliberal capitalism.
The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us
and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.
It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention
from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the
left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Mired in corruption
What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was
inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption
among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting
the Democratic leadership too.
An anti-corruption investigation would have run much deeper and exposed far more. It would have highlighted
the Clinton Foundation, and the role of mega-donors like James Simons, George Soros and Haim Saban who funded Hillary's campaign
with one aim in mind: to get their issues into a paid-for national "consensus".
Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the
Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed
in the content of the DNC emails. It was the leaking / hacking of those emails that provided the rationale for Mueller's investigations.
What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent
party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate.
So, in short, Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent
both targeting Trump for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership
for its own, equally corrupt practices.
Trump empowered
But it's far worse than that. It is not just that the left wasted two years of political energy on
Russiagate. At the same time, they empowered Trump, breathing life into his phony arguments that he is the anti-establishment president,
a people's president the elites are determined to destroy.
Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he
refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness.
And he is doing so not because he wants to reform or overthrow turbo-charged capitalism but because he wants to remove the last,
largely cosmetic constraints on the system so that he and his friends can plunder with greater abandon – and destroy the planet more
quickly.
The other wing of the neoliberal establishment, the one represented by the Democratic party leadership, fears
that exposing capitalism in this way – making explicit its inherently brutal, wrist-slitting tendencies – will awaken the masses,
that over time it will risk turning them into revolutionaries. Democratic party leaders fear Trump chiefly because of the threat
he poses to the image of the political and economic system they have so lovingly crafted so that they can continue enriching themselves
and their children.
Trump's genius – his only genius – is to have appropriated, and misappropriated, some of the language of the
left to advance the interests of the 1 per cent. When he attacks the corporate "liberal" media for having a harmful agenda, for serving
as propagandists, he is not wrong. When he rails against the identity politics cultivated by "liberal" elites over the past two decades
– suggesting that it has weakened the US – he is not wrong. But he is right for the wrong reasons.
TV's version of clickbait
The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them
wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait,
just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate.
The handful of corporations that own the US media – and much of corporate America besides – are there both
to make ever-more money by expanding profits and to maintain the credibility of a political and economic system that lets them make
ever more money.
The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other
words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump,
prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They
care much less whether the pig's face remains painted.
So Trump is right that the "liberal" media is undemocratic and that it is now propagandising against him. But
he is wrong about why. In fact, all corporate media – whether "liberal" or not, whether against Trump or for him – is undemocratic.
All of the media propagandises for a rotten system that keeps the vast majority of Americans impoverished. All of the media cares
more for Trump and the elites he belongs to than it cares for the 99 per cent.
Gorging on the main course
Similarly, with identity politics. Trump says he wants to make (a white) America great again, and uses the
left's obsession with identity as a way to energize a backlash from his own supporters.
Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head
of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the
political cul-de-sac of identity politics.
Just as Mueller put the left on standby, into waiting-for-the-Messiah mode, so simple-minded, pussy-hat-wearing
identity politics has been cultivated in the supposedly liberal bastions of the corporate media and Ivy League universities – the
same universities that have turned out generations of Muellers and Clintons – to deplete the left's political energies. While we
argue over who is most entitled and most victimised, the establishment has carried on raping and pillaging Third World countries,
destroying the planet and siphoning off the wealth produced by the rest of us.
These liberal elites long ago worked out that if we could be made to squabble among ourselves about who was
most entitled to scraps from the table, they could keep gorging on the main course.
The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised
with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders
the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that
class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges.
The Corbyn experience
3. But the most important lesson of all for the left is that support among its ranks for the Mueller inquiry
against Trump was foolhardy in the extreme.
Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent
for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains.
And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.
If there is any doubt about that look to the UK. Britain now has within reach of power the first truly progressive
politician in living memory, someone seeking to represent the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. But Jeremy Corbyn's experience as
the leader of the Labour party – massively swelling the membership's ranks to make it the largest political party in Europe – has
been eye-popping.
I have documented Corbyn's travails regularly in this blog over the past four years at the hands of the British
political and media establishment. You can find many examples
here.
Corbyn, even more so than the small, new wave of insurgency politicians in the US Congress, has faced a relentless
barrage of criticism from across the UK's similarly narrow political spectrum. He has been attacked by both the rightwing media and
the supposedly "liberal" media. He has been savaged by the ruling Conservative party, as was to be expected, and by his own parliamentary
Labour party. The UK's two-party system has been exposed as just as hollow as the US one.
The ferocity of the attacks has been necessary because, unlike the Democratic party's success in keeping a
progressive leftwinger away from the presidential campaign, the UK system accidentally allowed a socialist to slip past the gatekeepers.
All hell has broken out ever since.
Simple-minded identity politics
What is so noticeable is that Corbyn is rarely attacked over his policies – mainly because they have
wide popular appeal. Instead he has been hounded over fanciful claims that, despite being a life-long and very visible anti-racism
campaigner, he suddenly morphed into an outright anti-semite the moment party members elected him leader.
I will not rehearse again how implausible these claims are. Simply look through these previous
blog posts
should you be in any doubt.
But what is amazing is that, just as with the Mueller inquiry, much of the British left – including prominent
figures like Owen Jones and the supposedly countercultural Novara Media – have sapped their political energies in trying to placate
or support those leading the preposterous claims that Labour under Corbyn has become "institutionally anti-semitic". Again, the promotion
of a simple-minded identity politics – which pits the rights of Palestinians against the sensitivities of Zionist Jews about Israel
– was exploited to divide the left.
The more the left has conceded to this campaign, the angrier, the more implacable, the more self-righteous
Corbyn's opponents have become – to the point that the Labour party is now in serious danger of imploding.
A clarifying moment
Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and
one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be.
That is not because a leftwing US president would be more corrupt or more likely to have colluded with a foreign
power. As the UK example shows, it would be because the entire media system – from the New York Times to Fox News – would be against
such a president. And as the UK example also shows, it would be because the leaderships of both the Republican and Democratic parties
would work as one to finish off such a president.
In the combined success-failure of the Mueller inquiry, the left has an opportunity to understand in a much
more sophisticated way how real power works and in whose favour it is exercised. It is moment that should be clarifying – if we are
willing to open our eyes to Mueller's real lessons.
But sophistication of intelligence agencies now reached very high level. Russiage was pretty dirty but pretty slick operation. British
thre letter againces were even more devious, if we view Skripals poisoning as MI5/Mi6 "witness protection" operation due to possible
Skripal role in creating Steele dossier. So let's keep wanting the evnet. The election 2020 might be event more interesting the Elections
of 2016. Who would suggest in 2015 that he/she elects man candidate from Israel lobby instead of a woman candidate from the same lobby?
Notable quotes:
"... The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an attack on them. ..."
"... Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared him perfectly for his present role. ..."
"... the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. ..."
"... The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. ..."
"... Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. ..."
"... Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged. ..."
"... Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. ..."
One might object that Trump, a billionaire TV star, does not resemble his followers. But this misses the powerful intimacy that he
establishes with them, at rallies, on TV and on Twitter. Part of his malicious genius lies in his ability to forge a bond with people
who are otherwise excluded from the world to which he belongs. Even as he cast Hillary Clinton as the tool of international finance,
he said:
I do deals – big deals – all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance.
These are hard-driving, vicious cut-throat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table
and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage.
With these words he brought his followers into the boardroom with him and encouraged them to take part in a shared, cynical exposure
of the soiled motives and practices that lie behind wealth. His role in the Birther movement, the prelude to his successful presidential
campaign, was not only racist, but also showed that he was at home with the most ignorant, benighted, prejudiced people in America.
Who else but a complete loser would engage in Birtherism, so far from the Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Harvard aura that elevated
Obama, but also distanced him from the masses?
The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but
it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an
attack on them. 'The fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority', Adorno wrote, 'his resemblance to ham actors and asocial
psychopaths', facilitates the identification, which is the basis of the ideal. On the Access Hollywood tape, which was widely assumed
would finish him, Trump was giving voice to a common enough daydream, but with 'greater force' and greater 'freedom of libido' than
his followers allow themselves. And he was bolstering the narcissism of the women who support him, too, by describing himself as
helpless in the grip of his desires for them.
Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far
more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising
slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared
him perfectly for his present role. According to Adorno,
the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them
psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than
by any intrinsic superiority.
To meet the unconscious wishes of his audience, the leader
simply turns his own unconscious outward Experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use
of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their sensitivity.
All he has to do in order to make the sale, to get his TV audience to click, or to arouse a campaign rally, is exploit his own
psychology.
Using old-fashioned but still illuminating language, Adorno continued:
The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous
spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance,
functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds.
Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well
as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was
particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. As with the Birther movement or Access
Hollywood, Trump's self-debasement – pretending to sell steaks on the campaign trail – forges a bond that secures his idealised status.
Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the
neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic
Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged.
Yet no one who lived through the civil rights and feminist rebellions of recent decades can believe that an economic programme
per se is a sufficient basis for a Democratic-led politics.
This holds as well when it comes to trying to reach out to Trump's supporters. Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent
approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. But if we understand the personal
level at which pro-Trump strivings operate, we may better appeal to the other half, and in that way forestall the coming emergency.
"... It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin. ..."
"... What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting the Democratic leadership too. ..."
"... Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed in the content of the DNC emails. ..."
"... What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate. ..."
"... Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness ..."
"... The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait, just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump, prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They care much less whether the pig's face remains painted. ..."
"... Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the political cul-de-sac of identity politics. ..."
"... The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges. ..."
"... Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be. ..."
Here are three important lessons for the progressive left to consider now that it is clear the inquiry by special
counsel Robert Mueller into Russiagate is never going to
uncover collusion between Donald Trump's camp and the Kremlin in the 2016 presidential election.
Painting the pig's face
The left never had a dog in this race. This was always an in-house squabble between different wings
of the establishment. Late-stage capitalism is in terminal crisis, and the biggest problem facing our corporate elites is how to
emerge from this crisis with their power intact. One wing wants to make sure the pig's face remains painted, the other is
happy simply getting its snout deeper into the trough while the food lasts.
Russiagate was never about substance, it was about who gets to image-manage the decline of a turbo-charged,
self-harming neoliberal capitalism.
The leaders of the Democratic party are less terrified of Trump and what he represents than they are of us
and what we might do if we understood how they have rigged the political and economic system to their permanent advantage.
It may look like Russiagate was a failure, but it was actually a success. It deflected the left's attention
from endemic corruption within the leadership of the Democratic party, which supposedly represents the left. It rechannelled the
left's political energies instead towards the convenient bogeymen targets of Trump and Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Mired in corruption
What Mueller found – all he was ever going to find – was marginal corruption in the Trump camp. And that was
inevitable because Washington is mired in corruption. In fact, what Mueller revealed was the most exceptional forms of corruption
among Trump's team while obscuring the run-of-the-mill stuff that would have served as a reminder of the endemic corruption infecting
the Democratic leadership too.
An anti-corruption investigation would have run much deeper and exposed far more. It would have highlighted
the Clinton Foundation, and the role of mega-donors like James Simons, George Soros and Haim Saban who funded Hillary's campaign
with one aim in mind: to get their issues into a paid-for national "consensus".
Further, in focusing on the Trump camp – and relative minnows like Paul Manafort and Roger Stone – the
Russiagate inquiry actually served to shield the Democratic leadership from an investigation into the much worse corruption revealed
in the content of the DNC emails. It was the leaking / hacking of those emails that provided the rationale for Mueller's investigations.
What should have been at the front and centre of any inquiry was how the Democratic party sought to rig its primaries to prevent
party members selecting anyone but Hillary as their presidential candidate.
So, in short, Russiagate has been two years of wasted energy by the left, energy that could have been spent
both targeting Trump for what he is really doing rather than what it is imagined he has done, and targeting the Democratic leadership
for its own, equally corrupt practices.
Trump empowered
But it's far worse than that. It is not just that the left wasted two years of political energy on
Russiagate. At the same time, they empowered Trump, breathing life into his phony arguments that he is the anti-establishment president,
a people's president the elites are determined to destroy.
Trump faces opposition from within the establishment not because he is "anti-establishment" but because he
refuses to decorate the pig's snout with lipstick. He is tearing the mask off late-stage capitalism's greed and self-destructiveness.
And he is doing so not because he wants to reform or overthrow turbo-charged capitalism but because he wants to remove the last,
largely cosmetic constraints on the system so that he and his friends can plunder with greater abandon – and destroy the planet more
quickly.
The other wing of the neoliberal establishment, the one represented by the Democratic party leadership, fears
that exposing capitalism in this way – making explicit its inherently brutal, wrist-slitting tendencies – will awaken the masses,
that over time it will risk turning them into revolutionaries. Democratic party leaders fear Trump chiefly because of the threat
he poses to the image of the political and economic system they have so lovingly crafted so that they can continue enriching themselves
and their children.
Trump's genius – his only genius – is to have appropriated, and misappropriated, some of the language of the
left to advance the interests of the 1 per cent. When he attacks the corporate "liberal" media for having a harmful agenda, for serving
as propagandists, he is not wrong. When he rails against the identity politics cultivated by "liberal" elites over the past two decades
– suggesting that it has weakened the US – he is not wrong. But he is right for the wrong reasons.
TV's version of clickbait
The corporate media, and the journalists they employ, are propagandists – for a system that keeps them
wealthy. When Trump was a Republican primary candidate, the entire corporate media loved him because he was TV's equivalent of clickbait,
just as he had been since reality TV began to usurp the place of current affairs programmes and meaningful political debate.
The handful of corporations that own the US media – and much of corporate America besides – are there both
to make ever-more money by expanding profits and to maintain the credibility of a political and economic system that lets them make
ever more money.
The "[neo]liberal" corporate media shares the values of the Democratic party leadership. In other
words, it is heavily invested in making sure the pig doesn't lose its lipstick. By contrast, Fox News and the shock-jocks, like Trump,
prioritise making money in the short term over the long-term credibility of a system that gives them licence to make money. They
care much less whether the pig's face remains painted.
So Trump is right that the "liberal" media is undemocratic and that it is now propagandising against him. But
he is wrong about why. In fact, all corporate media – whether "liberal" or not, whether against Trump or for him – is undemocratic.
All of the media propagandises for a rotten system that keeps the vast majority of Americans impoverished. All of the media cares
more for Trump and the elites he belongs to than it cares for the 99 per cent.
Gorging on the main course
Similarly, with identity politics. Trump says he wants to make (a white) America great again, and uses the
left's obsession with identity as a way to energize a backlash from his own supporters.
Just as too many on the left sleep-walked through the past two years waiting for Mueller – a former head
of the FBI, the US secret police, for chrissakes! – to save them from Trump, they have been manipulated by liberal elites into the
political cul-de-sac of identity politics.
Just as Mueller put the left on standby, into waiting-for-the-Messiah mode, so simple-minded, pussy-hat-wearing
identity politics has been cultivated in the supposedly liberal bastions of the corporate media and Ivy League universities – the
same universities that have turned out generations of Muellers and Clintons – to deplete the left's political energies. While we
argue over who is most entitled and most victimised, the establishment has carried on raping and pillaging Third World countries,
destroying the planet and siphoning off the wealth produced by the rest of us.
These liberal elites long ago worked out that if we could be made to squabble among ourselves about who was
most entitled to scraps from the table, they could keep gorging on the main course.
The "[neo]liberal" elites exploited identity politics to keep us divided by pacifying the most maginalised
with the offer of a few additional crumbs. Trump has exploited identity politics to keep us divided by inflaming tensions as he reorders
the hierarchy of "privilege" in which those crumbs are offered. In the process, both wings of the elite have averted the danger that
class consciousness and real solidarity might develop and start to challenge their privileges.
The Corbyn experience
3. But the most important lesson of all for the left is that support among its ranks for the Mueller inquiry
against Trump was foolhardy in the extreme.
Not only was the inquiry doomed to failure – in fact, not only was it designed to fail – but it has set a precedent
for future politicised investigations that will be used against the progressive left should it make any significant political gains.
And an inquiry against the real left will be far more aggressive and far more "productive" than Mueller was.
If there is any doubt about that look to the UK. Britain now has within reach of power the first truly progressive
politician in living memory, someone seeking to represent the 99 per cent, not the 1 per cent. But Jeremy Corbyn's experience as
the leader of the Labour party – massively swelling the membership's ranks to make it the largest political party in Europe – has
been eye-popping.
I have documented Corbyn's travails regularly in this blog over the past four years at the hands of the British
political and media establishment. You can find many examples
here.
Corbyn, even more so than the small, new wave of insurgency politicians in the US Congress, has faced a relentless
barrage of criticism from across the UK's similarly narrow political spectrum. He has been attacked by both the rightwing media and
the supposedly "liberal" media. He has been savaged by the ruling Conservative party, as was to be expected, and by his own parliamentary
Labour party. The UK's two-party system has been exposed as just as hollow as the US one.
The ferocity of the attacks has been necessary because, unlike the Democratic party's success in keeping a
progressive leftwinger away from the presidential campaign, the UK system accidentally allowed a socialist to slip past the gatekeepers.
All hell has broken out ever since.
Simple-minded identity politics
What is so noticeable is that Corbyn is rarely attacked over his policies – mainly because they have
wide popular appeal. Instead he has been hounded over fanciful claims that, despite being a life-long and very visible anti-racism
campaigner, he suddenly morphed into an outright anti-semite the moment party members elected him leader.
I will not rehearse again how implausible these claims are. Simply look through these previous
blog posts
should you be in any doubt.
But what is amazing is that, just as with the Mueller inquiry, much of the British left – including prominent
figures like Owen Jones and the supposedly countercultural Novara Media – have sapped their political energies in trying to placate
or support those leading the preposterous claims that Labour under Corbyn has become "institutionally anti-semitic". Again, the promotion
of a simple-minded identity politics – which pits the rights of Palestinians against the sensitivities of Zionist Jews about Israel
– was exploited to divide the left.
The more the left has conceded to this campaign, the angrier, the more implacable, the more self-righteous
Corbyn's opponents have become – to the point that the Labour party is now in serious danger of imploding.
A clarifying moment
Were the US to get its own Corbyn as president, he or she would undoubtedly face a Mueller-style inquiry, and
one far more effective at securing the president's impeachment than this one was ever going to be.
That is not because a leftwing US president would be more corrupt or more likely to have colluded with a foreign
power. As the UK example shows, it would be because the entire media system – from the New York Times to Fox News – would be against
such a president. And as the UK example also shows, it would be because the leaderships of both the Republican and Democratic parties
would work as one to finish off such a president.
In the combined success-failure of the Mueller inquiry, the left has an opportunity to understand in a much
more sophisticated way how real power works and in whose favour it is exercised. It is moment that should be clarifying – if we are
willing to open our eyes to Mueller's real lessons.
But sophistication of intelligence agencies now reached very high level. Russiage was pretty dirty but pretty slick operation. British
thre letter againces were even more devious, if we view Skripals poisoning as MI5/Mi6 "witness protection" operation due to possible
Skripal role in creating Steele dossier. So let's keep wanting the evnet. The election 2020 might be event more interesting the Elections
of 2016. Who would suggest in 2015 that he/she elects man candidate from Israel lobby instead of a woman candidate from the same lobby?
Notable quotes:
"... The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an attack on them. ..."
"... Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared him perfectly for his present role. ..."
"... the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than by any intrinsic superiority. ..."
"... The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance, functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds. ..."
"... Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. ..."
"... Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged. ..."
"... Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. ..."
One might object that Trump, a billionaire TV star, does not resemble his followers. But this misses the powerful intimacy that he
establishes with them, at rallies, on TV and on Twitter. Part of his malicious genius lies in his ability to forge a bond with people
who are otherwise excluded from the world to which he belongs. Even as he cast Hillary Clinton as the tool of international finance,
he said:
I do deals – big deals – all the time. I know and work with all the toughest operators in the world of high-stakes global finance.
These are hard-driving, vicious cut-throat financial killers, the kind of people who leave blood all over the boardroom table
and fight to the bitter end to gain maximum advantage.
With these words he brought his followers into the boardroom with him and encouraged them to take part in a shared, cynical exposure
of the soiled motives and practices that lie behind wealth. His role in the Birther movement, the prelude to his successful presidential
campaign, was not only racist, but also showed that he was at home with the most ignorant, benighted, prejudiced people in America.
Who else but a complete loser would engage in Birtherism, so far from the Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Harvard aura that elevated
Obama, but also distanced him from the masses?
The consistent derogation of Trump in the New York Times or on MSNBC may be helpful in keeping the resistance fired up, but
it is counterproductive when it comes to breaking down the Trump coalition. His followers take every attack on their leader as an
attack on them. 'The fascist leader's startling symptoms of inferiority', Adorno wrote, 'his resemblance to ham actors and asocial
psychopaths', facilitates the identification, which is the basis of the ideal. On the Access Hollywood tape, which was widely assumed
would finish him, Trump was giving voice to a common enough daydream, but with 'greater force' and greater 'freedom of libido' than
his followers allow themselves. And he was bolstering the narcissism of the women who support him, too, by describing himself as
helpless in the grip of his desires for them.
Adorno also observed that demagoguery of this sort is a profession, a livelihood with well-tested methods. Trump is a far
more familiar figure than may at first appear. The demagogue's appeals, Adorno wrote, 'have been standardised, similarly to the advertising
slogans which proved to be most valuable in the promotion of business'. Trump's background in salesmanship and reality TV prepared
him perfectly for his present role. According to Adorno,
the leader can guess the psychological wants and needs of those susceptible to his propaganda because he resembles them
psychologically, and is distinguished from them by a capacity to express without inhibitions what is latent in them, rather than
by any intrinsic superiority.
To meet the unconscious wishes of his audience, the leader
simply turns his own unconscious outward Experience has taught him consciously to exploit this faculty, to make rational use
of his irrationality, similarly to the actor, or a certain type of journalist who knows how to sell their sensitivity.
All he has to do in order to make the sale, to get his TV audience to click, or to arouse a campaign rally, is exploit his own
psychology.
Using old-fashioned but still illuminating language, Adorno continued:
The leaders are generally oral character types, with a compulsion to speak incessantly and to befool the others. The famous
spell they exercise over their followers seems largely to depend on their orality: language itself, devoid of its rational significance,
functions in a magical way and furthers those archaic regressions which reduce individuals to members of crowds.
Since uninhibited associative speech presupposes at least a temporary lack of ego control, it can indicate weakness as well
as strength. The agitators' boasting is frequently accompanied by hints of weakness, often merged with claims of strength. This was
particularly striking, Adorno wrote, when the agitator begged for monetary contributions. As with the Birther movement or Access
Hollywood, Trump's self-debasement – pretending to sell steaks on the campaign trail – forges a bond that secures his idealised status.
Since 8 November 2016, many people have concluded that what they understandably view as a catastrophe was the result of the
neglect by neoliberal elites of the white working class, simply put. Inspired by Bernie Sanders, they believe that the Democratic
Party has to reorient its politics from the idea that 'a few get rich first' to protection for the least advantaged.
Yet no one who lived through the civil rights and feminist rebellions of recent decades can believe that an economic programme
per se is a sufficient basis for a Democratic-led politics.
This holds as well when it comes to trying to reach out to Trump's supporters. Of those providing his roughly 40 per cent
approval ratings, half say they 'strongly approve' and are probably lost to the Democrats. But if we understand the personal
level at which pro-Trump strivings operate, we may better appeal to the other half, and in that way forestall the coming emergency.
The column praises Elizabeth Warren. Leonhardt (like his colleague Paul Krugman) is careful
to refrain from declaring his intention to vote for her in the primary. I am planning to vote
for her. I mostly agreed with the column to begin with, but was not convinced by Leonard's
praise of Warren's emphasis on aiming for more equal pre-fiscal distribution of income rather
than just relying on taxes and transfers to redistribute.
In particular, I was not convinced by
This history suggests that the Democratic Party's economic agenda needs to become more
ambitious. Modest changes in the top marginal tax rate or in middle-class tax credits aren't
enough. The country needs an economic policy that measures up to the scale of our
challenges.
Here two issues are combined. One is modest vs major changes. The other is that
predistribution is needed in addition to redistribution, as discussed even more clearly
here
"Clinton and Obama focused on boosting growth and redistribution," Gabriel Zucman, a
University of California, Berkeley, economist who has advised Warren, says. "Warren is
focusing on how pretax income can be made more equal."
The option of a large change in the top marginal tax rate and a large middle class tax
credit isn't considered in the op-ed. I think this would be excellent policy which has
overwhelming popular support as measured by polls (including the support of a large fraction of
self declared Republicans). I note from time to time that, since 1976 both the Democrats who
have been elected president campaigned on higher taxes on high incomes and lower taxes on the
middle class (and IIRC none of the candidates who lost did).
After the jump, I will make my usual case. But first, I note Leonardt's excellent argument
for why "soak the rich and spread it out thin" isn't a sufficient complete market oriented
egalitarian program. It is phrased as a question.
"How can the next president make changes that will endure, rather than be undone by a future
president, as both Obama's and Clinton's top-end tax increases were?"
Ahh yes. High taxes on high income and high wealth would solve a lot of problems. But they
will be reversed. New programs such as Obamacare or Warren's proposed universal pre-K and
subsidized day care will not. Nor will regulatory reforms such as mandatory paid sick leave and
mandatory paid family leave. I am convinced that relatively complicated proposals are more
politically feasible, not because it is easier to implement them, but because it is very hard
to eliminate programs used by large numbers of middle class voters.
I'd note that I had already conceded the advantage of a regulatory approach which relies on
the illusion that the costs must be born by the regulated firms. Here I note that fleet fuel
economy standards are much more popular than increased gasoline taxes. One is a market oriented
approach. The other is one that hides behind the market as consumers don't know that part of
the price of a gas guzzler pays the shadow price of reducing fleet average milage.
OK my usual argument after the jump
It is unusual for me to disagree with Baker, Leonhardt, and (especially) Krugman. I am quite
sure that the Democratic candidate for president should campaign on higher taxes on the rich
and lower taxes for the non-rich.
To be sure, I can see that that isn't the only possible policy improvement. Above, I note
the advantages of hiding spending by mandating spending by firms and of creating entitlements
which are very hard for the GOP to eliminate. I'd add that we have to do a lot to deal with
global warming. Competition policy is needed for market efficiency. I think unions and
restrictions on firing without cause have an effect on power relations which is good in
addition to the effect on income distribution.
But I don't understand the (mildly) skeptical tone. I will set up and knock down some straw
men
1) Total straw -- US voters are ideological conservatives and operational liberals. They
reject soaking the rich, class war, and redistribution. To convince them to help the non rich,
one has to disguise what one is doing.
2) Extremely high marginal tax rates are bad for the economy. Here this is often conceded,
in particular by people arguing for modest increases in the top marginal tax rate. The claim is
not supported by actual evidence. In particular the top rate was 70% during the 60s boom.
3) High tax rates cause tax avoidance. This reduces efficiency and also means that they
don't generate the naively expected revenue. There is very little evidence that this is a huge issue . In
particular there was a huge increase in tax sheltering after the 1981 Kemp-Roth tax cuts and
reforms. It is possible to design a tax code which makes avoidance difficult (as shown by the
1986 Kemp-Bradley tax reform). It is very hard to implement such a code without campaigning on
soaking the rich and promoting class uh struggle.
4) More generally, redistribution does not work -- the post tax income distribution is not
equalized because the rich find a way. This is super straw again. All the international and
time series evidence points the other way.
I don't see a political or policy argument against a large increase in taxes on high incomes
(70% bracket starting at $400,000 a year) used to finance a large expansion of the EITC (so
most households receive it).
I think a problem is that a simple solution does not please nerds. I think another is that a
large fraction of the elite would pay the high taxes and it is easier to trick them into trying
to make corporations pay the costs.
First, whenever anybody (that I hear or read) talks about what to do with the revenue from
higher taxes on the rich, they always suggest this or that government program (education,
medical, housing). I always think of putting more money back in the pockets of my middle 59%
incomes to make up for the higher consumer prices they will have to pay when the bottom 40%
get unionized.
Of course the 59% can use that money to pay taxes for said government programs -- money is
fungible. But, that re-inserts an important element or dimension or facet which seems
perpetually forgotten (would not be in continental Europe or maybe French Canada).
Don't forget: predistribution goal = a reunionized labor market. Don't just look to Europe
for redistribution goals -- look at their predistribution too.
Bert Schlitz , March 17, 2019 10:14 pm
Nobody in the 60's that was taxed at a marginal 70% rate paid 70%. The top effective rate
was about 32-38%, which was far higher than today, but you get the point. The income tax code
was as much control of where investment would take place as much as anything ..Ronald Reagan
whined about this for years. Shove it grease ball. There was a reason why.
Redistribution won't work because the system is a debt based ponzi scheme. The US really
hasn't grown much since 1980, instead you have had the growth in debt.
You need to get rid of the federal reserve system's banks control of the financial system,
which they have had since the 1830's in terms of national control(from Hamilton's Philly,
which was the financial epicenter before that) and de Rothschild free since the 1930's(when
the bank of de Rothschild ala the Bank of England's reserve currency collapsed). Once we have
a debt free currency that is usury free, then you can develop and handle intense changes like
ecological problems ala Climate Change, which the modern plutocrats cannot and will not
solve.
They have been ramming debt in peoples face since 1950 and since 1980 it has gotten
vulgar. They know they are full of shit and can't win a fair game.
run75441 , March 18, 2019 6:09 am
Robert:
Would you agree a secure healthcare system without work requirements for those who can not
afford healthcare is a form of pre-distribution of income? Today's ACA was only a step in the
right direction and is being tampered with by ideologs to limit its reach. It can be improved
upon and have a socio-economic impact on people. Over at Medpage where I comment on
healthcare, the author makes this comment:
"Investing in improvements in patients' social determinants of health -- non-medical areas
such as housing, transportation, and food insecurity -- is another potentially big area, he
said. "It's a major opportunity for plans to position around this and make it real. The more
plans can address social determinants of health, [the more] plans can become truly
organizations dedicated to health as opposed to organizations dedicated to incurring medical
costs, and that to me is a bright future and a bright way to position the industry."
Many of the "social determinants of health" are not consciously decided by the patient and
are predetermined by income, social status or politics, and education. What is being said in
this paragraph makes for nice rhetoric and is mostly unachievable due to the three factors I
suggested. And yes, you can make some progress. People can make healthy choices once the
pre-determinants to doing so are resolved.
Another factor which was left dangling when Liebermann decided to be an ass is Long Term
Healthcare for the elderly and those who are no longer capable. Medicare is only temporary
and Medicaid forces one to be destitute. There is a large number of people who are
approaching the time when they will need such healthcare till death. We have no plans for
this tsunami of people.
The tax break was passed using Reconciliation. In 7-8 years out, there is a planned shift
in taxes to be levied on the middle income brackets to insure the continuamce of Trump's tax
break for the 100 or so thousand households it was skewed towards. If not rescinding the tax
break then it should be fixed so it sunsets as did Bush's tax break due to its budget
creating deficit. Someone running for the Pres position should be discussing this and
pointing out how Republicans have deliberately undermined the middle income brackets.
We should not limit solutions to just income when there are so many areas we are lacking
in today.
Mu $.02.
Robert Waldmann , March 18, 2019 4:47 pm
I guess I consider food stamps, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security old age pensions and
disability pensions to be redistribution. My distinction is whether it is tax financed.
Providing goods or services as in Medicare and food stamps seems to me basically the same as
providing cash as in TANF and old age pensions.
There is also a difference between means tested and age dependent eligiability, but I
don't consider it fundamental.
I assert that Medicare (especially plan B) is a kind of welfare basically like TANF and
food stamps.
(and look forward to a calm and tranquil discussion of that opinion).
run75441 , March 18, 2019 9:01 pm
Robert:
Medicare is 41% funded by general revenues. The rest comes from payroll taxes and
beneficiary premiums. Advantage plans cost more than traditional Medicare for providing the
same benefits and also extract a premium fee. I do not believe I have been mean to you. I
usually question to learn more. I am happy to have your input.
I am writing for Consumer Safety Org on Woman's healthcare this time and also an article
on the Swiss struggling to pay for cancer fighting drugs.
Empire disintegrated because of natural tendency to over-expand. This tendency is almost
impossible for elite to resist, especially neoliberal elite as among them there is a growing and
more and influential strata of "imperial servants".
The collapse of the US empire is intrinsically linked to the collapse of neoliberalism.
The USA has now increasingly dysfunctional political system incapable of wise foreign policy.
The current generation of US political leaders are all poisoned by the dream of ruling the globe
which was a real possibility after the collapse of the USSR and which they were unable to resist.
Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Venezuela in different way way demonstrated the the US empire tend
to commit costly blunders. First of all engaging the empire in unwinnable wars with unexpected
blowbacks.
Notable quotes:
"... Professor Richard Wolff reveals the unexpected truth about imperialism on the Thom Hartmann program! ..."
RT correspondent Eisa Ali reports on the latest Brexit drama in the UK Parliament. Then,
economist and founder of Democracy at Work Richard Wolff joins Rick Sanchez to discuss, arguing
that the Brexit debate constitutes "an endless struggle about what doesn't matter" and that
whether the British are "in" or "out" of Europe is an irrelevant distraction from the problems
really faced by the UK.
HealthcareHot TopicsPoliticsUS/Global Economics Brad DeLong got
a huge amount of attention by saying it was time for neoliberals such as Brad DeLong to pass
the baton to those to their left. Alarmingly, he seems to have written this first on twitter.
Zach Beuchamp rescued it from tawdry twitter to now very respectable blogosphere with
an interview.
One interesting aspect is that Brad has very little criticism of 90s era Brad's policy
proposals. Basically, the argument is that Democrats must stick together, because Republicans
are purely partisan and no compromise with them is possible. I absolutely agree with Brad on
this.
But I also want to look at criticisms of Clinton/Obama center left policy as policy.
Brad tries to come up with 2 examples
I could be confident in 2005 that [recession] stabilization should be the responsibility
of the Federal Reserve. That you look at something like laser-eye surgery or rapid
technological progress in hearing aids, you can kind of think that keeping a market in the
most innovative parts of health care would be a good thing. So something like an
insurance-plus-exchange system would be a good thing to have in America as a whole.
It's much harder to believe in those things now. That's one part of it. The world appears
to be more like what lefties thought it was than what I thought it was for the last 10 or 15
years.
Now monetary vs fiscal policy is only considered right vs left because of the prominence and
fanaticism of Milton Friedman. Is see no connection between laser eye surgery, hearing aids,
and private health insurance. Medicare for all is not a National Health Service (note I am not
conceding that a national health service would be bad for medical innovation). Brad did not
advocate insurance/plus/exchange system in 1993. He (and Bentson, Summers and Rubin) advocated
a payroll tax financed system not the Clinton-Clinton and Magaziner mess. I think he is
stretching to get a second example.
I think the first isn't really left vs right and the second is and always was a bad
political calculation. IIRC Obama certainly said that he thought single payer was better policy
but politically impossible. That was the general line on the center left wonkosphere. I think
the case for insurance-plus-exchange was at most a bad political argument disguised as a bad
policy argument.
In another twitter thread (no not the one where he says twitter is a horrible medium for
serious discussion) Paul Krugman comments
I want to focus on two of his tweets
Last point: wages. Here's where research has convinced me and others that wages are much
less determined by supply and demand, much more determined by market power, than we used to
believe. This implies a much bigger role for "predistribution" policies like minimum wage
hikes 10/
Pro-union policies, and more than we used to think. "Let the market do its thing, but
spend more on education/training and a bigger EITC" no longer sounds like wisdom 11/
I listed this as the one economist's mea culpa based on empirical evidence which came to my
mind. A lot of center left economists used to oppose minimum wage increases and were convinced
by empirical evidence (mostly by Card and Krueger) that this is actually good policy. But I
don't see any problem with the EITC. Rather, economics 101 based arguments against the minimum
wage and unions have been undermined by evidence*.
I think Krugman's problem with "a bigger EITC" is political. It appears on the Federal
budget so deficit hawks won't allow a really huge increase. In contrast, people can think firms
pay the minimum wage, so increasing it sounds like a cheap way to help the working poor.
More generally, I don't see any reason to abandone redistribution (like the EITC). In fact,
I think that is both excellent policy and political dynamite. I note that Bill Clinton and
Barack Obama campaigned promising to raise taxes on the rich and cut taxes on everyone else.
Also they won. Other Democrats didn't promise that and they lost. A more progressive income tax
is a relatively market respecting policy long supported by left of center economists. Oh and
also Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. I don't think there is any evidence against the Clinton 1993 tax
increase combined with EITC increase.
The fact that it is totally obvious that it is good politics (rejected absolutely by the
Republican party and supported by most self identified Republicans) doesn't mean that it is too
obvious to stress. It means debating redistribution vs predistribution is a distraction
(which
one here is not like the others) ?
I personally have criticisms of Bill Clinton type neoliberalism after the jump
OK so what can I add ?
I could bring up a really bad Clinton administration policy proposal based on neoliberalism:
financial deregulation, and, in particular, Clinton's last act signing the commodity futures
modernization act. This was absolutely policy based on pro free market beliefs of people who
cared about fighting poverty (Rubin himself was a relative skeptic compared to other people and
the Clinton Treasury whom I will not name and criticize).
I won't discuss welfare reform or the Clinton crime bill. Both were opposed by the center
left wonks. That was politics not policy.
But there was strong support among neoliberal wonks for reinventing government, that is for
outsourcing and replacing public provision of services with vouchers. There clearly was a
strong view that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector. There was I think
sincere support for reducing the number of Federal employees.
I think there is now strong evidence that the public sector is often more efficient than the
private sector. Part of the case was politics disguised as policy. Voters hate the bloated
Federal Bureacuracy (based on total fantasy about its size and cost). There is a theoretical
argument that civil servants don't work because it is very hard to fire them. In fact, they do
work. This is a failure of vulgar economics 101 in which people are assumed to care only about
consumption and leisure.
In contrast there are huge problems with contracting out to private firms. The incentives
civil servants face is enough to overcome the laziness of people less lazy than me (almost
everyone) but it is nothing compared to the incentives private contractors have to take
advantage of the government. What I always say is that a large state is costly, but the cost
depends on the surface area -- it is very costly for the state for modestly paid civil servants
negotiate with businessmen and highly paid private managers (before going out the revolving
door). Reinventing government makes it more costly. The key example is not a Clinton reform
(although Clinton reluctantly signed the bill) Medicare Advantage was supposed to cause
Medicare to wither on the vine because the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS)
couldn't compete with private insurance. By 2010 defenders of private insurance (crucially
including Joe Lieberman) were absolutely determined to prevent the CMS from competing with
private insurance, because they knew private insurance companies couldn't survive the
competition.
Also school vouchers have been shown to have large negative
effects on achievement.
I'd say considerable evidence of positive long term effects of welfare programs has
accumulated. The assumption based on economimics 101 that welfare reduces pre-transfer income
by distorting incentives has not fared so well. The evidence tends to suggest direct benefits.
I promised not to discuss this one, because I am sure that welfare reform was based on
political calculations not bad policy analysis (it was not a policy of the Rubin wing of the
party -- Rubin advised Clinton to veto the bill).
Now on another topic. How about winning elections. Isn't that important too ?
In the interview, Brad discusses policy and parliamentary (in the USA Congressional)
politics. He could also argue about electoral politics and say Democrats have to move left to
win elections. In any case I will argue that.
Brad's argument is distantly related to the mobilize the base vs capture the center
political strategies. He doesn't stress this in the twitter thread or the interview, but he
could discuss voters and how few genuinely indpendent voters there are. Like me, he can vividly
recall the 80s when lots of smart Democrats (and also Robert Waldmann) argued that the party
had to move rightward to recapture the center. I recall reading something by Robert Kuttner
about what the party needed was left populism and this was blocked by the power of money in the
Democratic party (think Bernie Sanders back when Sanders was mayor of Burlington). When I first
read that, I thought it was crazy. Now I think it is totally right. Also note that, by
promoting the internet, Al Gore saved the party from centrists like Al Gore. Now candidates and
candidate-candidates can raise huge amounts of money with small donations and don't have to get
along with and flatter rich people. Obama proved this 8 years before Sanders proved it
again.
There are fewer swing voters and much less ticket splitting than their used to be. This
means that elections are determined mainly by whether young people vote. Sneering and
Alexandria Ocasio Cortez is not good political strategy (also unwise unless one is a smart as
she is and few people are).
* I have to say what I think of unions there was a liberaltarian argument that unions help
insiders and create inequality (and support racial segregation). Also it was argued that unions
prevented productivity growth by featherbeading and generally being rigid. These claims were
never supported by evidence (empirically oriented labor economists like Richard Friedman always
contested them}. In any case, the extreme decline of unions in the USA provides strong evidence
that unions weren't the problem. They declined at the same time that there was a huge increase
in inequality (there has also been an increase in racial wage differentials). Also their
decline correlated with a marked decline in the rate of productivity growth. This is crude
evidence, but detailed evidence long contradicted the case against unions. I think part of the
shift is new evidence and part of the shift is more respect for evidence vs theory among
economists. On the other hand, it's a whole lot easier to raise taxes on the rich and cut taxes
on the non rich than to bring unions back.
The media and the establishment are focused on Trump and his personality. They don't want
to delve into the zeitgeist that allowed him to defeat two political dynasties. That's what
they should be focused on.
It's a similar zeitgeist that caused Brexit. That elected Salvini and 5 Star in Italy.
That's behind Gilets Jaunes who are now in their 18th week of protests in France. China going
more totalitarian by the day under Chairman Xi.
The Party of Davos have ruled for 40-50 years. We've got unprecedented wealth inequality.
We've got endless wars with no benefit for the Deplorables. All they have are opioids. More
dying of that than automobile accidents. Health care, tuition, rents all rising. A double
standard in tthe application of the law. Hypocrisy oozing from every pore of the ruling
elites. Bribing their way to elite colleges while espousing meritocracy.
Is this what Howe & Strauss mean by the Fourth Turning?
In Europe it was right-wing governments who were largely responsible for introducing elements
of a welfare state as a means of protecting capitalism and preventing the spread of
socialism. Most real socialists opposed the welfare state efforts as they regarded them as a
smoke screen.
If the 1% in the United States wish to enjoy the fruits of capitalism long term, they should
do the same otherwise it'll be 1848 all over again. So yes, ""history repeats itself--the
first as tragedy and then as farce", it's just that Marx was referring to larger events over
a longer time frame than consecutive presidential elections.
I remember that this was particularly true of Bismark. We already have a mixed economy in th
US. Social Security, hospital emergency rooms, a graduated progressive income tax systems,
local arrangements for giving low income people a break on property taxes both for real
estate taxes and taxes on cars, etc. I suppose you are aware that people with higher incomes
pay the great bulk of income taxes in the US? Are you familiar with the EITC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi... what kind of change do you want to make, a guaranteed
government provided income? Forgiveness of college load debt? What?
A couple of points he makes in passing surprised me:
1) "It's why they are using the non-issue of the Irish border ..." Is it really a non-issue,
and why? Surely it is a big issue, and intrinsically explosive? Maybe I am missing something
there.
2) "The Labour party is squealing out of both sides of its mouth trying to get themselves
out of the corner they've painted themselves into. Because they can read the polls. And what
was a solid Labour lead in the winter has become a solid Tory lead in the Spring." Is it really
so that that huge Labour lead has been turned into - of all things - a Tory lead? Horror
of horrors. If true, the present day Brits are unfathomable. And what about the first part of
that citation - what about turning it around and expressing it in terms of the reality, which
is that the Labour Party consists of two wholly different, wholly contradictory, and wholly
ireconcilable parts, namely the socialist majority standing behind Corbyn and the lying fascist
corporatist right-wing 5th columnists whose sole objective is to sabotage the previous group in
every manner possible. Would perhaps a better statement be that the difference between these
two groups is being made more explicit than ever (which, I would have thought, would only
increase Corbyn's support not decrease it)? Or is that just my wishful thinking and the UK
masses are being successfully hoodwinked by the propaganda of the 2nd group as spouted by the
MSM?
Comments on those two issues anyone, from those closer to the action? (Comments from Bevin
would be especially gratefully read!)
Posted by: BM | Mar 16, 2019 9:58:53 AM |
172 ... ... ...
The other most ridiculous thing, probably moreso when you think about this Monty
Pythonesque British escapade into hillarity is the fact such grand sweeping measures are
allowed on a simple majority vote of the populace, thus ensuring approximately half the
population will detest the result no matter what.
Say what you will about the US of A-holes, and I admit nearly all of what you say is true
(except of course for the oft repeated mis-trope that Trump = US in all his venal stupidity.
No, he only represents roughly 35%...and true that is egregious enough...) at least in the US
such grand sweeping measures able to be put to a vote to the nation as a whole (iow, amending
the Constitution) either require super majority of state legislatures or a super majourity of
Congress criminals to pass.
The fact an entire nation of blooming idiots in England are where they are today is insanely
larfably and udderly absurd. Also, infotaining.
And to think Theresa May is the headliner fronting this comedy act for the ages.
All this inspired of course by the equally ridiculous US president and his chief strategist
the completely nutz Bannon.
... ... ...
Posted by: donkeytale | Mar 16, 2019 10:49:56 AM |
173@ bevin | Mar 15, 2019 3:45:05 PM; Jen | Mar 15, 2019 3:49:59 PM; mourning dove |
Mar 15, 2019 3:59:32 PM
Posted by: ex-SA | Mar 16, 2019 9:18:03 AM | 171
A few half-baked thoughts on this: it seems to me both sides of this argument have some
merits. On the one side I am inclined to agree with ex-SA that the working classes in the
colonising countries have had by and large a pretty cushy life since after the 2nd World War
when compared to the disenfranchised of the colonised countries, both before and after
(ostensible but not really real) decolonisation.
The brutality of neoliberalism and austerity on working people in the rich nations (but
arguably even more so on those in poor nations!) does not in my view very seriously detract
from that argument.
One thing that does arguably somewhat detract from the above argument is that when viewed in
non-materialistic terms, those living in the so-called rich countries often have markedly
meaningless and miserable lives compared to many poor people living in materially poor
countries (extreme destitution obviously aside) - in other words they are miserably
unhappy.
Many people in Germany, for example, earn relatively high wages, most of which they spend on
very high housing costs (and energy costs etc) - often alone, and spend the rest of their
income on highly processed food from supermarkets that costs a multiple of what the simple
basic local foodstuffs that were eaten in former times would cost (and still could if you know
how to live more meaningfully); and meanwhile their life is spiritually frozen and devoid of
worthwhile meaning.
In contrast, often people living materially poor lives in undeveloped and in materialist
terms extremely poor countries, but living much closer to nature and with much warmer intra-
and inter-familial relations in extended families, and have a philosophy of life that is less
exclusively materialist and much more conducive to spiritual well-being. I would argue however
that this aspect is largely tangental to the issue of winners and losers of colonialism.
I agree with Bevin @ 131's point about the destitution of the British working classes prior
to the first world war, but what about post-1960's? I don't really see that the lifestyles of
the worst victims of austerity today are comparable to the lifestyles of the poor in the 18th
or 19th century? I think the lives of even the poorest of the poor (excluding probably the
homeless) in the West are massively subsidised by the spoils of the (ongoing) rape of the
colonised countries.
The entire expectations of people in the West - including the poor - are based on
assumptions of entitlement to things which are critically dependent on the rape and theft of
the resources of the colonised countries. Look at the extraordinarily privileged living
standards of ordinary working people in Belgium today, as an extreme example!
It is always interesting to reflect that in former times the West was always viewed as the
poor part of the world, and the East as wealthy - and historically it is true that throughout
most of recorded history the East was extremely wealthy compared to the pauper West - the
current-day material wealth of the West relative to the East should be viewed as an
extraordinary anomaly! The first Westerners to visit the East marvelled at its phenomenal
wealth and envied it. That indeed was the primary cause of the Crusades - the paupers of the
West envied the riches of the East and drummed up pseudo-religious excuses to rape and pillage
whatever they could grab. It is not without reason that most of the economically poorest
countries in reacent times are precisely those countries with the most abundant valuable
natural resources.
"Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and
Google," read the ads which began to run on Friday, According to Politico
. "We all use them. But in their rise to power, they've bulldozed competition, used our private
information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor."
As these companies have grown larger and more powerful, they have used their resources and
control over the way we use the Internet to squash small businesses and innovation , and
substitute their own financial interests for the broader interests of the American people. To
restore the balance of power in our democracy, to promote competition, and to ensure that the
next generation of technology innovation is as vibrant as the last, it's time to break up our
biggest tech companies. -Elizabeth Warren
Facebook confirmed with Politico that the ads had been taken down and said said the
company is reviewing the matter. "The person said, according to an initial review, that the
removal could be linked to the company's policies about using Facebook's
brand in posts ."
Around a dozen other ads placed by Warren were not affected.
"... He apparently still sees neoliberalism as way to "control capitalism's worst tendencies," when in fact neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids. In other words, he's completely lost. ..."
"... Black seems to be seeing a change of heart where there is simply a temporary surrender until the coalition of " neoliberal shills" can infiltrate and then overthrow again the "left policies that are bound to lead to destruction". ..."
"... And he seems to be blaming the blue dogs for not drumming into the plebs' heads that the former Presidents' (Clinton/Obama's) policy were great in order that the coalition grew. This was not a mea culpa. It was Delong's realistic strategy outline for neoliberal's continuance. And perhaps, a thinly veiled request for a policy position for himself or his son in any new lefty administration. ..."
"... Wasn't DeLong the economist so threatened to kneecap any academic economist and policy wonk who went against Hillary in the last election? He sounds practically mafiaso in this post . ..."
"... It's hard to take DeLong seriously. Contrary to what he says, the GOP and Dems have worked closely and successfully to implement neo-liberalism in America. ..."
"... My feeling is DeLong and the neo-liberal donor class are already conceding the 2020 election; seeing it as a repeat of the 1984 Mondale debacle. They want the young socialist side of the Democratic Party to take the blame, so in 2024 the donor class can run a candidate pushing new and improved neo-liberalism. Trump seems to be making the same calculation as he moves away from his populist/nationalist policies to become just another in a long line of Koch brother GOP neo-liberal stooges. ..."
"... Brad DeLong is brilliant, yet pushed the magical thinking of neoliberalism for 30 years. Am I missing something here? ..."
"... the university professors, who teach but do not learn. ..."
"... But when it came to Hillary running for President in 2016, DeLong fell in line and endorsed her, despite HRC's bad ("complete flop"?) decisions along the way as Senator and SOS (Honduras, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, Wall Street Speeches and Clinton Foundation grift). Can DeLong be trusted? ..."
MARC STEINER: So I mean, there's one quote that kind of sums up for me. When he
wrote: "Barack Obama rolls into office with Mitt Romney's healthcare policy, with John McCain's
climate policy, with Bill Clinton's tax policy, and George H.W. Bush's foreign policy. And did
George H.W. Bush, did Mitt Romney, did John McCain say a single good word about anything Barack
Obama ever did over the course of eight solid years? No f'n way he did not," is what he said.
Cleaned it up just a little bit. But that kind of sums up, in many ways, exactly what he was
saying.
BILL BLACK: Brad DeLong is brilliant. And he writes really well. And he has, in a
super short form, captured it exactly. All of Obama's key policies were the product of very
conservative views that are, on many economic fronts, literally to the right of these crazies
that are the Republicans who constitute the House and the Senate. And even when they're not to
the right of the crazies, they're way, way right, and they're inferior. Right? The progressive
policies are fundamentally superior. Market regulation is a terrible failure. It is
criminogenic.
I'll give you one example. He ends by saying wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if we could
use cap and trade to create an incentive for, you know, 20-plus million people to do the right
thing? Because again, the neoliberal view is if they do the right thing they will get a profit.
See? It'll all be wonderful. They'll all do the right thing. Except that it's vastly easier on
something like cap and trade to do the wrong thing. To lie, to commit fraud about whether
you're actually reducing the pollution, and collect the fees. And so he doesn't realize, still,
I think, that we are incentivizing not 20 million people to do the right thing, but literally 2
billion people to do the wrong thing. And you know, often that will be the result, the wrong
thing.
MARC STEINER: So, two final questions here. So in this–what's moving ahead
here. Let me just posit this. So how did Democrats and the left respond to this? We're about to
see an MSNBC clip from the CPAC meeting that took place in D.C. last weekend. And this is
clearly going to be part of their major attack in the coming elections. Think about this vis a
vis the long road. Let's watch this.
TED CRUZ: Look, I think there's a technical description of what's going on, which is
that Democrats have gone bat crap crazy.
MIKE PENCE: That system is socialism.
SEBASTIAN GORKA: That is why Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has introduced the Green New
Deal. It's a watermelon. Green on the outside. Deep, deep red communist on the inside. They
want to take your pickup truck. They want to rebuild your home. They want to take away your
hamburgers. This is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved.
MARC STEINER: So clearly this is going to be part of this strategy coming forth. I'm
thinking about the long road and how this fits in, because this clearly is going to be the
opposition, what they're going to start doing.
BILL BLACK: So literally, the watermelon guy, Gorka, is literally a Croatian
fascist.
MARC STEINER: No question. No question.
BILL BLACK: I mean the Ustase, the pro-Hitler Croatian fascists. So progressives
should take enormous comfort from Brad DeLong. He is one of the most influential economists. He
wasn't just a theorist. He actually was there designing and implementing these policies at the
most senior levels of the Clinton administration. And he says they are failures. They're
political failures and they're often economic failures. And he says the left is
composed–the progressive wing of the Democratic Party–of among the best people in
the world. Their policies are typically wonderful. Excellent for the world. We need to get
behind them. And the idea that we should continue to listen to the New Democrats, the Wall
Street Democrats, and take guidance from them, is preposterous; that they must exit the stage
and the baton must pass to the progressives to take the leadership role. And that they're doing
an excellent job of that, and should continue and expand that leadership
ok after reading the comments i'm discouraged again. delong isn't a signal of a sea change
of heart among neoliberals. but it's more friction for the neoliberals to cope with, and it
is useful politically. he did admit that the policies he had espoused were wrong, and that
the neoliberal view of the world was inaccurate. this isn't going to be easy for the krugmans
to ignore.
delong personally could be another david brock; time will tell, and how he responds to the
wave of criticism he will face from former colleagues.
DeLong gives a qualified support to MMT, saying that it's not foolproof but better than
the alternatives. As MMT-ers remind us, in political economy the policies are a different
matter.
Reminds me of a bit of physics theories, that an old one is retired when a newer theory
explains reality better. Except the old theorys were designed to conceal, not explain,
reality.
Thanks for this link. It was such a short, clear analysis. In econospeak it was like a
memo to a colleague. So Brad DeLong is on our list of good guys. How nice. The questions I am
left with are about the usefulness of interest rates at all, and I vaguely remember Randy
Wray saying stg. like 'interest rates should be kept very low to insure against inflation'
which makes sense. Interest rates themselves could be pushing bubbles. And then what exactly
are we talking about with the word "inflation"? I like (DeLong's or MMT's?) theory about
inflated assets (govt bonds here) – that prices stay within a balance because there are
fewer greater fools than we imagine. Maybe. But it might be nice to actually come up with a
better remedy if and when the SHTF. A fiscal means of adjusting the balance without harming
ordinary people. (MMT does this best.) The only method I know about is devaluing a currency
and keeping on as is. Nobody loses any value that way because more dollars balance out the
inflated values. But neoliberals are definitely batshit about currency devaluations. As if
money had some intrinsic value. Maybe it's just a trade thing – but if so, you'd think
it could be separated out from the rest of the uses of money. Maybe firewalls. So maybe I'll
read some more Brad. Thanks.
I'm not rejoicing about this, and having read the VOX interview, I don't quite understand
Steiner's and Black's enthusiasm. DeLong doesn't want to pass the baton at all -- he wants to
crapify valid and essential policies: expanded, improved Medicare for All, the Green New
Deal, MMT with a Job Guarantee, and a foreign policy not based on forever-wars. And that's
exactly what the neoliberals intend to do: crapification on a grand scale.
"Market-friendly neoliberals, rather than pushing their own ideology, should work to
improve ideas on the left. This, [DeLong] believes, is the most effective and sustainable
basis for Democratic politics and policy for the foreseeable future."
Hey, DeLong, listen up: expanded, improved Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a federal
Job Guarantee, and a foreign policy (and defense budget) ending forever-wars are NOT ideas
that need improving. They ARE the improvements. Neoliberalism is dead, and we intend to bury
it.
No. It means argue with them, to the extent that their policies are going to be wrong and
destructive, but also accept that there is no political path to a coalition built from the
Rubin-center out. Instead, we accommodate ourselves to those on our left. To the extent that
they will not respond to our concerns, what they're proposing is a helluva better than the
poke-in-the-eye with a sharp stick. That's either Trumpist proposals or the current
status.
Basically he's saying we don't have the numbers and building a coalition with the right
hasn't worked, so now we should build one with the left. He's not actually saying the
progressive policies are better, just that they have a better chance of getting their agenda
forward with progressives than with conservatives.
The key to all of this from my perspective is they don't have the numbers. The American
empire is in accelerating decline. Every major system is broken and corrupt. Government can't
fix the problems. Populism elected Trump, and now voters will swing the other way looking for
the magic bullet. The corporatists choices are deliberate sabotage of the electoral system,
because good old fashioned corruption will no longer suffice, or capitulate to the left.
DeLong sounds like a trial balloon to me.
Read up on his Wikipedia entry and the following bit grabbed my attention-
"In 1990 and 1991 DeLong and Lawrence Summers co-wrote two theoretical papers that were
to become critical theoretical underpinnings for the financial deregulation put in place when
Summers was Secretary of the Treasury under Bill Clinton."
I would be very wary on any advice that he gives out myself.
He doesn't have to convince me, so it doesn't matter that he won't. But if he can convince
a few shaky Democrats on the less-right side that it's futile to try to reform the Republican
Party from within
Basically he's saying we don't have the numbers and building a coalition with the right
hasn't worked, so now we should build one with the left. He's not actually saying the
progressive policies are better, just that they have a better chance of getting their
agenda forward with progressives than with conservatives.
Exactly. He hasn't changed his neoliberal stripes. He in no way admits, or feels sorry
for, the incredible destruction neoliberal policies have wreaked on the masses here and
abroad. He apparently still sees neoliberalism as way to "control capitalism's worst
tendencies," when in fact neoliberalism is capitalism on steroids. In other words, he's
completely lost.
Although he has a wide audience and any change in his rhetoric can theoretically be
positive, there's no way he should be trusted. His change of opinion is not a substantive
change of heart. It's out of absolute necessity due to the incredible pressure exerted by
the grassroots. That pressure should never cease, or rest on its laurels, because the
Brad DeLong's of the world change their tune.
The thing to rejoice or be sad about is not whether DeLong abandons centrism and becomes a
leftist (or if you believe he has); it's whether the Left has a place at the table, which is
what he is acknowledging.
For years, the Centrists have ignored or hippy-punched the Left while bargaining with the
Right, which has pulled the Centrists ever-further to the right.
When a Centrist like DeLong says they should argue with the Left about lefty policies;
when he says Centrists should pass the baton to the Left, he is acknowledging they have power
now that must be reckoned with.
Acquiring enough power that the Establishment must treat with them should be the goal of
all people on the left. It's far more important than winning any specific election.
(Let's just skip over distinctions between 'left', 'liberal' and 'progressive' in reading
my comment. Those terms are entirely over-loaded and you can tell who I mean)
Forget "left," "right," and "progressive" and look at the actual policies that a group
brings to politics–that's where you will find what is best for the public. Try to list
T's policies and you will see what I mean.
I agree. Black seems to be seeing a change of heart where there is simply a temporary
surrender until the coalition of " neoliberal shills" can infiltrate and then overthrow again
the "left policies that are bound to lead to destruction".
Delong asserts that once these
neoliberal Econ policies work then this great coalition was going to feel less grinchy and
the trickling would indeed then have trickled. He blames the politics not the economics.
And
he seems to be blaming the blue dogs for not drumming into the plebs' heads that the former
Presidents' (Clinton/Obama's) policy were great in order that the coalition grew. This was
not a mea culpa. It was Delong's realistic strategy outline for neoliberal's continuance. And
perhaps, a thinly veiled request for a policy position for himself or his son in any new
lefty administration.
I'm not sure I agree with Prof. Black here either. Wasn't DeLong the economist so threatened to kneecap any academic economist and policy
wonk who went against Hillary in the last election? He sounds practically mafiaso in
this post .
"Mind you: The day will come when it will be time to gleefully and comprehensively trash
people to be named later for Guevarista fantasies about what their policies are likely to do.
The day will come when it will be time to gleefully and comprehensively trash people to be
named later for advocating Comintern-scale lying to voters about what our policies are like
to do. And it will be important to do so then–because overpromising leads to bad policy
decisions, and overpromising is bad long-run politics as well."
That doesn't seem like integrity to me. It appears to be more opportunistic. He'll happily
kick you whenever he thinks he can get away with it.
It's hard to take DeLong seriously. Contrary to what he says, the GOP and Dems have worked
closely and successfully to implement neo-liberalism in America. He cites ObamaCare? The GOP
pretended to be against it in order to win support from the less bright side of the political
left bell curve and to wean them away from things like the public option or single-payer. But
the GOP never went past Kabuki theatre to dismantle ObamaCare when they had the power to do
so.
DeLong gives no policy specifics outside of some boring carbon tax stuff. Will he support
protectionism? Single-payer? Nationalisation of Wall Street? Dismantling the US empire? Huge
punitive tax increases on the wealthy? These are all things the Democratic donor class (which
of course has a strong overlap with the GOP donor class) will never accept.
And what about ideas to deal with AI, deindustrialisation, automation, guaranteed income,
etc? And since neo-liberals are 100% committed to mass immigration policies that at the same
time increases total GDP but reduce per capita GDP; how will they react if progressive
finally wake up and realise that taking in millions of low skilled workers in a future where
demand for labour is radically reducing is a total recipe for disaster? Not to mention that
the welfare state they are proposing will be impossible without very strict immigration
policies, not to mention the terrible impact mass immigration has on the climate.
My feeling is DeLong and the neo-liberal donor class are already conceding the 2020
election; seeing it as a repeat of the 1984 Mondale debacle. They want the young socialist
side of the Democratic Party to take the blame, so in 2024 the donor class can run a
candidate pushing new and improved neo-liberalism. Trump seems to be making the same
calculation as he moves away from his populist/nationalist policies to become just another in
a long line of Koch brother GOP neo-liberal stooges.
The problem is that Trump's radical energy and ideas seduced many Americans who are now
disappointed with his decidedly low-energy accomplishments. Basically the only campaign
promises he kept were those he made to the Israel lobby. Now Trump is conceding the high
energy and new idea ground to the Democratic left. He is switching from radical to
establishment. This will open the door to say Bernie Sanders to win in 2020. But you can rest
assured that the most voracious opponents that Bernie will have to get past will be Brad
DeLong and the Democratic donor class when they realise this just might not be 1984 all over
again.
Brad DeLong is brilliant, yet pushed the magical thinking of neoliberalism for 30 years.
Am I missing something here? Is Bill Black patting him on the back because he's brilliant at
sophistry?
Back 15 years or so ago, I read DeLong's blog daily, trying to learn more economics than I
know. I quit because it didn't make any sense. I remember there being these broad principles,
but they had to be applied in a very narrow sense. One I remember vividly was DeLong's
objections to consumer boycotts of foreign goods to end abuse of workers. These boycotts are
counterproductive, he opined, and therefore you are just hurting the people you're trying to
help. You should just shop as normal. So, I presume he regarded it as all right for me to
choose products that are the color I want, the size I want, the whatever I want, except for
the way it's produced I want. He did not like considerations of right and wrong among the
people.
DeLong has always been among the most thoughtful of centrists. He reminds me of people I
know who are instinctively quite left wing but who's instincts are even stronger to stay
within their own particular establishment circle and to side with the winners. Back in the
1990's I knew a few formerly left Labour supporters who became cautious Blairites (or at
least Brownites). Some were opportunists of course, but some put it simply – 'I'm tired
of losing. The reality is that a pure left wing government will not get elected under current
conditions, we've proved this over decades. The only way we can protect the poor and
vulnerable is to make peace with at least some of the capitalists, and remake ourselves as
the party of growth and stability. If we can achieve growth, we can funnel as much as
possible as this to the poor'.
What he seems to be saying is that the left wing analysis (economically and politically)
is at least as intellectually tenable as those in the Centre and right, even if he has his
doubts. He is honest enough to know that the political strategy of making common cause with
'moderate' Republicans hasn't worked and won't work. And he doesn't see 'the Left' as any
worse than so called moderates or centre right (which of course distinguishes him from many
Dems). So he is seeing the way the wind is blowing and is tacking that way. Essentially, he
is recognising that the Overton Window is shifting rapidly to the left, and as a good
centrist, he's following wherever the middle might be.
Whatever you think of his motivations (and from my reading over the years of his writings
I think he has a lot more integrity than most of his colleagues. and is also very smart), the
reality is that a successful left wing movement will need establishment figures like him to
be 'on board'. Of course, they'll do their best to grab the steering wheel – the task
is to keep them on board without allowing them to do that.
The 'first step' is to admit you have a problem, and it's obvious that those of us
who self-identify as progressives, if not socialists, have taken that step, admitting that as
democrats, we have a problem.
The eleven-dimension game that we were sold, and that we so wishfully believed in, turned
out to be a massive delusion, and ultimately an empty promise on the part of the democratic
leadership.
The ' powder ' was kept dry, but ultimately stolen.
We were left defenseless, and became prey, and third-way democrats are the architects of
our collective loss.
I'm taking DeLong at his word.
He may be the exception that proves the rule, and the Clinton wing of the democratic party
may yet wrong-foot us, continue to mis-lead, and capitulate in the face of the enemy, but it
strikes me as totally to be expected that reality should eventually dawn on at least a few of
the folks responsible for the epic failures of democratic leadership.
I'm a big fan of that old saw, 'Lead, follow, or get out of the way' , democrats,
fearful after losing to the likes of Reagan, decided to follow, and now find themselves as
lost as the rest of us.
It doesn't strike me as totally impossible that a few of them might decide to ' get out
of the way ', if only to be able to face themselves in the mirror.
>MARC STEINER: You–do you think that the Wall Street Democrats, folks who are in
the investment world, along with the Chuck Schumers of the world, are going to acquiesce? ..
but are actually going to take seriously what DeLong said? -- -- -
>BILL BLACK: No, but that's because Brad DeLong has vastly more integrity than they do.
They know, however, that they've been conned, played, and they're absolute fools in the
game.
For as long as Black has been around, I would not expect him to argue that "Wall Street
Democrats" have been "conned, played, and they're absolute fools in the game". Democrats such as Schumer, HRC, and Obama are in on the con and are not "absolute
fools". They have the money and power to show that they were not working for chump change.
I agree. I see no evidence that people Wall Street/corporate Democrats have collectively
been "fooled" by Republicans. Take Obamacare for example, Obama mumbled some "facts" about
health-care briefly at the beginning of the process and never mentioned anything like how
much the US spends relative to other OECD countries which, with his bully-pulpit, he could
have done to create a more reasonable system. All he would have to have done is cite
statistics, studies, facts, facts, facts, facts about other health-care systems and the
obvious corruption, inefficiency or our own. He could easily have gotten some equivalent of
the "public option" or a more managed system like in continental Europe had he hammered away
at FACTS.
I don't think Obama ever had any intention of changing health-care from a profit-making
industry to a public utility like what the rest of the world enjoys. I don't think Obama ever
had any intention of being anything but a center-right (not a centrist) POTUS. I don't buy
into this "we were fooled" argument.
Guys like DeLong may have been fooled but I believe,
more likely (and I know the Washington milieu), he pulled the wool rather intensively over
his own eyes as many brilliant people did in the Clinton/Obama administrations because it was
a good career move. I don't, btw, believe this was directly and consciously a deliberate
plan–I believe it was something to do with a profound ignorance on the part of many if
not most Washingtonians (and indeed most intellectuals in the USA) of the role of the
unconscious in the psyche. I've seen it. A big player (a family friend) from the Clinton era
went into Big Pharma thinking he could "do good" and he was sincere about it. But I also knew
he liked money and the lifestyle that it brings–later he said that he was fooled after
six or seven years of lavish salaries.
I noticed that too. Black often strikes me as having a very crude framework that is either
naivete or (more likely imo) bad faith and intentional misleading. It's just too much of a
cartoon to be believed, even if (like me) you're not an insider who personally knows the
players (as Black does DeLong.)
Repubs are "crazies" while Progressives have "wonderful, superior" policies. Ok sure This
is not much more sophisticated thinking than team Red or team Blue that you get from your
Aunt Irene or somebody.
"TIME TO POUND MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL ONCE AGAIN"
" My two cents' worth–and I think it is the two cents' worth of everybody who worked
for the Clinton Administration health care reform effort of 1993-1994–is that Hillary
Rodham Clinton needs to be kept very far away from the White House for the rest of her life.
Heading up health-care reform was the only major administrative job she has ever tried to do.
And she was a complete flop at it. She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the
managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn't
smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care
Czar role quickly."
But when it came to Hillary running for President in 2016, DeLong fell in line and
endorsed her, despite HRC's bad ("complete flop"?) decisions along the way as Senator and SOS
(Honduras, Libya, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine, Wall Street Speeches and Clinton Foundation
grift). Can DeLong be trusted?
Can't say whether DeLong can be trusted but I can imagine him remembering Keynes' famous
line about changing his opinion when new information becomes available. That said, I can not
imagine what new information may have come about, aside from Trump's unexpected wrecking of
main stream Republicans, that had him change his mind about HRC. Her truth has been evident
for decades and the more power she amassed over those years only made her truth ever more
execrable.
They know, however, that they've been conned, played, and they're absolute fools in the
game.
Thank you Mr. Black for the laugh this morning. They know exactly what they have been
doing. Whether it was deregulating so that Hedge funds and vulture capitalism can thrive, or
making sure us peons cannot discharge debts, or making everything about financalization. This
was all done on purpose, without care for "winning the political game". Politics is
economics, and the Wall Street Democrats have been winning.
For sure. I'm quite concerned at the behavior of the DNC leadership and pundits. They are
doubling down on blatant corporatist agendas. They are acting like they have this in the bag
when objective evidence says they do not and are in trouble. Assuming they are out of touch
is naive to me. I would assume the opposite, they know a whole lot more than what they are
letting on.
I think the notion that the DNC and the Democrat's ruling class would rather lose to a
like-minded Republican corporatist than win with someone who stands for genuine progressive
values offering "concrete material benefits." I held my nose and read comments at the kos
straw polls (where Sanders consistently wins by a large margin) and it's clear to me that the
Clintonista's will do everything in their power to derail Bernie.
Daily Kos is like a yoga session compared to all of the Obots and Clintonites on Balloon
Juice. One particular article "writer" there by the name of Annie Laurie is a textbook
example of said Clinton die-hards and she whips up all of her cohorts into a rabid,
anti-Sanders frenzy every time she posts.
Despite all of the complaining about Trump, I am sure that these neoliberals and
identitarians would pine for the days of his administration and pal around with ex-president
Trump much like they did with W. Bush. If Saint Harris or Saint Biden lose they will fail to
shield the take-over of the political leadership of the unwashed masses of ignorant peasants
who elected Sanders or Gabbard. Then places like Daily Kos and Balloon Juice will bemoan the
fact that we did not listen to those who know what is best for us lowly knaves.
Though I like Bill Black a lot–seems like a very hip guy and has done marvelous work
for many years. However, my father got his second master's degree in economics around
1961–he did it as a career move. Eventually when I got old enough he told me that the
field was "bullshit" and based on false assumptions about reality, however, the math worked
so everyone believed in the field. Economics, as I looked into it is, indeed, a largely
bullshit discipline that should never have been separated from politics or other fields.
We have a kind of fetishistic attitude towards "the economy" which is religious. "It's the
economy, stupid" is an example of this fetish. I've talked to economists who really believes
that EVERYTHING is a commodity and all motivations, interests, all come down to some kind of
market process. This is utterly false and goes directly against what we've learned about
social science, human motivation including happiness studies.
Economics also ignores history–people are motivated more by myth than by facts on
the ground. This is why neoliberals are so confused when their models don't work. Thomas
Frank described how Kansans favored policies that directly harmed them because of religious
and cultural myths–this is, in fact, true everywhere and always has been. We aren't
machines as economists seem to believe. All economists, particularly those who rely on "math"
to describe our society need to be sent to re-education camps.
Keynes' "animal spirits" and the "tragedy of the commons" (Lloyd, 1833 and Hardin, 1968)
both implied that economics was messier than Samuelson and Friedman would have us believe
because there are actual people with different short- and long-term interests.
The behavioral folks (Kahnemann, Tversky, Thaler etc.) have all shown that people are even
messier than we would have thought. So most macro-economic stuff over the past half-century
has been largely BS in justifying trickle-down economics, deregulation etc.
There needs to be some inequality as that provides incentives via capitalism but
unfettered it turns into France 1989 or the Great Depression. It is not coincidence that the
major experiment in this in the late 90s and early 2000s required massive government
intervention to keep the ship from sinking less than a decade after the great uregulated
creative forces were unleashed.
MMT is likely to be similar where productive uses of deficits can be beneficial, but if
the money is wasted on stupid stuff like unnecessary wars, then the loss of credibility means
that the fiat currency won't be quite as fiat anymore. Britain was unbelievably economically
powerfully in the late 1800s but in half a century went to being an economic afterthought
hamstrung by deficits after two major wars and a depression.
So it is good that people like Brad DeLong are coming to understand that the pretty
economic theories have some truths but are utter BS (and dangerous) when extrapolated without
accounting for how people and societies actually behave.
I never understood the incentive to make more money–that only works if money = true
value and that is the implication of living in a capitalist society (not
economy)–everything then becomes a commodity and alienation results and all the
depression, fear, anxiety that I see around me. Whereas human happiness actually comes from
helping others and finding meaning in life not money or dominating others. That's what social
science seems to be telling us.
I read DeLong's piece in an airport last Tuesday, so I may have missed something (or I may
have read an abridged version). But I think Steiner and Black read a little too much into
it.
I interpreted DeLong's statement essentially as saying now neoliberals will have to make
policy by collaborating with the left rather than the right. And I certainly didn't get the
sense he was looking to the left to lead, but instead how neoliberals could co-opt the left,
or simply be "freeloaders".
So the position is not that neoliberals should abandon their policy beliefs. It's that you
need to reorient your understanding of who your coalition is.
Brad DeLong
Yes, but that's also relevant to policy beliefs, right?
.
.
We need Medicare-for-all, funded by a carbon tax, with a whole bunch of UBI rebates for the
poor and public investment in green technologies.
.
How does Bernie fit in here? Ever?
We already are paying more for the medical care that is being provided than what single
lpayer will cost. I am so tired of the "How are you gonna pay for it" stuff. We already are,
it's just a question of what bucket it comes from.
True, but there still has to be a way of transferring the funds from the "private" bucket
to the "government" bucket. MMT is one way of doing that, but still not acknowledged as a
possibility by the PTB – except for the military, of course.
I'd rather see it taken out of the military, since that would be a good thing in itself,
and the carbon tax (merely one of many measures, of course) rebated and/or used specifically
to remediate climate deterioration. Rebating a carbon tax both protects it politically and
corrects the harm that would otherwise be done to poor people.
Take it out if the property taxes that Muni's have to use to insure all of their
employees.
Take it out of all the money that business pays to health insurance.
Cut the military budget in half and tell a few if the tributaries "You are on your own".
Cut the Navy in half and police only the Pacific.. tell Europe they are on the hook for the
Atlantic and Mediterranean.
Start there and you will get pretty close to $3 Trillion.
Quoting DeLong: " He says we are discredited. Our policies have failed. And they've failed
because we've been conned by the Republicans."
That's welcome, but it's still making excuses. Neoliberal policies have failed because the
economics were wrong, not because "we've been conned by the Republicans." Furthermore, this
may be important – if it isn't acknowledged, those policies are quite likely to come
sneaking back, especially if Democrats are more in the ascendant., as they will be, given the
seesaw built into the 2-Party.
Might be right there. Groups like the neocons were originally attached the the left side
of politics but when the winds changed, detached themselves and went over to the Republican
right. The winds are changing again so those who want power may be going over to what is
called the left now to keep their grip on power. But what you say is quite true. It is not
really the policies that failed but the economics themselves that were wrong and which, in an
honest debate, does not make sense either.
"And they've failed because we've been conned by the Republicans.""
Not at all. What about the "free trade" hokum that Deong and his pal Krugman have been
peddling since forever? History and every empirical test in the modern era shows that it
fails in developing countries and only exacerbates inequality in richer ones.
That's just a failed policy.
I'm still waiting for an apology for all those years that those two insulted anyone who
questioned their dogma as just "too ignorant to understand."
It's intriguing, but two other voices come to mind. One is Never Let a Serious Crisis Go
To Waste by Mirowski and the other is Generation Like by Doug Rushkoff. Neoliberalism is
partially entrepreneurial self-conceptions which took a long time to promote. Rushkoff's
Frontline shows the Youtube culture. There is a girl with a "leaderboard" on the wall of her
suburban room, keeping track of her metrics. There's a devastating VPRO Backlight film on the
same topic. Internet-platform neoliberalism does not have much to do with the GOP. It's going
to be an odd hybrid at best – you could have deep-red communism but enacted for and by
people whose self-conception is influenced by decades of Becker and Hayek? One place this
question leads is to ask what's the relationship between the set of ideas and material
conditions-centric philosophies? If new policies pass that create a different possibility
materially, will the vise grip of the entrepreneurial self loosen? Partially yeah, maybe, a
Job Guarantee if it passes and actually works, would be an anti-neoliberal approach to jobs,
which might partially loosen the regime of neoliberal advice for job candidates delivered
with a smug attitude that There Is No Alternative. (Described by Gershon). We take it
seriously because of a sense of dread that it might actually be powerful enough to lock us
out if we don't, and an uncertainty of whether it is or not.
There has been deep damage which is now a very broad and resilient base. It is one of the
prongs of why 2008 did not have the kind of discrediting effect that 1929 did. At least
that's what I took away from _Never Let_. Brad DeLong handing the baton might mean something
but it is not going to ameliorate the sense-of-life that young people get from managing their
channels and metrics.
Take the new 1099 platforms as another focal point. Suppose there were political measures
that splice in on the platforms and take the edge off materially, such as underwritten
healthcare not tied to your job. The platforms still use star ratings, make star ratings seem
normal, and continually push a self-conception as a small business. If you have overt DSA
plus covert Becker it is, again, a strange hybrid,
Your comment is very insightful. Neoliberalism embeds its mindset into the very fabric of
our culture and self-concepts. It strangely twists many of our core myths and beliefs.
Thanks Jeremy! Glad you saw it as you are one of the Major Mirowski Mentioners on NC and I
have enjoyed your comments. Hope to chat with you some time.
This is nothing but a Trojan horse to 'co-opt' and 'subvert'. Neoliberals sense a risk to
their neo feudal project and are simply attempting to infiltrate and hollow out any threats
from within.
There are the same folks who have let entire economics departments becomes mouthpieces for
corporate propaganda and worked with thousands of think tanks and international organizations
to mislead, misinform and cause pain to millions of people.
The have seeded decontextualized words like 'wealth creators' and 'job creators' to create
a halo narrative for corporate interests and undermine society, citizenship, the social good,
the environment that make 'wealth creation' even possible. So all those take a backseat to
'wealth creator' interests. Since you can't create wealth without society this is some
achievement.
Its because of them that we live in a world where the most important economic idea is
protecting people like Kochs business and personal interests and making sure government is
not 'impinging on their freedom'. And the corollary a fundamental anti-human narrative where
ordinary people and workers are held in contempt for even expecting living wages and
conditions and their access to basics like education, health care and living conditions is
hollowed out out to promote privatization and become 'entitlements'.
Neoliberalism has left us with a decontextualized highly unstable world that exists in a
collective but is forcefully detached into a context less individual existence. These are not
mistakes of otherwise 'well meaning' individuals, there are the results of hard core
ideologues and high priests of power.
Two thumbs up. This has been an ongoing agenda for decades and it has succeeded in
permeating every aspect of society, which is why the United States is such a vacuous,
superficial place. And it's exporting that superficiality to the rest of the world.
I read Brad DeLong's and Paul Krugman's blogs until their contradictions became too great.
If anything, we need more people seeing the truth. The Global War on Terror is into its 18th
year. In October the USA will spend approximately $6 trillion and will have accomplish
nothing except to create blow back. The Middle Class is disappearing. Those who remain in
their homes are head over heels in debt. The average American household carries $137,063 in
debt. The wealthy are getting richer. The Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates families
together have as much wealth as the lowest half of Americans. Donald Trump's Presidency and
Brexit document that neoliberal politicians have lost contact with reality. They are
nightmares that there is no escaping. At best, perhaps, Roosevelt Progressives will be reborn
to resurrect regulated capitalism and debt forgiveness. But more likely is a middle-class
revolt when Americans no longer can pay for water, electricity, food, medicine and are jailed
for not paying a $1,500 fine for littering the Beltway.
A civil war inside a nuclear armed nation state is dangerous beyond belief. France is
approaching this.
Debt forgiveness is something we don't hear much about, even from the Bernie Sanders left.
Very important policy throughout history, as Michael Hudson has so thoroughly documented.
The tapes,
released on Sunday by Media Matters for America , a progressive watchdog group, are
recordings of Carlson from 2006 to 2011 when the media personality regularly called in to
The Bubba the Love Sponge Show . The nationally-syndicated program featured shock jock
host Todd "Bubba" Clem, who legally changed his name to Bubba the Love Sponge Clem in 1998, and
broadcast from Tampa, Florida.
The three-and-half minutes of audio features a wide variety of subjects including Carlson,
Bubba and an unnamed co-host discussing Warren Jeffs, who is currently serving a life sentence
after being convicted of two counts of felony child sexual assault.
"(Jeffs) is in prison because he's weird and unpopular and he has a different lifestyle that
other people find creepy," Carlson says in a clip from August 2009 following a discussion about
the charges brought against Jeffs.
"No, he is an accessory to the rape of children. That is a felony and a serious one at
that," a co-host responds, prompting Carlson to ask what he means by an "accessory."
"He's got some weird, religious cult where he thinks it's okay to, you know, marry underage
girls, but he didn't do it," Carlson said. "Why wouldn't the guy who actually did it, who had
sex with an underage girl, he should be the one who is doing life."
"Look, just to make it absolutely clear. I am not defending underage marriage at all. I just
don't think it's the same thing exactly as pulling a child from a bus stop and sexually
assaulting that child," Carlson added later in the interview.
In a separate interview, dated September 5, 2009, Carlson says that the charges against
Jeffs for sexual assault are "bulls--t" because he is not "accused of touching anybody. He is
accused of facilitating a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a 27-year-old man. That's the
accusation. That's what they're calling felony rape."
In another interview, Carlson referred to Martha Stewart's daughter Alexis Stewart as
a"'c--nt" and, in yet another one, called Britney Spears and Paris Hilton "biggest white
wh--res in America."
Carlson also found himself caught in a discussion about his daughter's boarding school in
October 2009, and allegations from Bubba and his co-host that girls attending boarding schools
often experiment with same-sex relationships.
"A pension is not a 'gratuity.' A pension is wages you could have taken in cash, but
prudently and conservatively set aside for your old age. It's your money. If your
employer, for every pay period, does not set aside and designate it to go into a
pension plan, your employer is stealing from you. The way to get this is to require pay
stubs to itemize the amount of money that has been contributed to your pension plan."
David Cay Johnston
"Capitalism is at risk of failing today not because we are running out of innovations,
or because markets are failing to inspire private actions, but because we've lost sight
of the operational failings of unfettered gluttony. We are neglecting a torrent of
market failures in infrastructure, finance, and the environment. We are turning our
backs on a grotesque worsening of income inequality and willfully continuing to slash
social benefits. We are destroying the Earth as if we are indeed the last generation."
Jeffrey Sachs
"We are coming apart as a society, and inequality is right at the core of that. When
the 90 percent are getting worse off and they're trying to figure out what happened,
they're not people like me who get to spend four or five hours a day studying these
things and then writing about them -- they're people who have to make a living and get
through life. And they're going to be swayed by demagogues and filled with fear about
the other, rather than bringing us together.
President Theodore Roosevelt said we shall all rise together or we shall all fall
together, and we need to have an appreciation of that.
I think it would be easy for someone to arrive in the near future and really create
forces that would lead to trouble in this country. And you see people who, they're not
the leaders to pull it off, but we have suggestions that the president should be
killed, that he's not an American, that Texas can secede, that states can ignore
federal law, and these are things that don't lack for antecedents in America history
but they're clearly on the rise.
In addition to that, we have this large, very well-funded news organization that is
premised on misconstruing facts and telling lies, Faux News that is creating, in a
large segment of the population -- somewhere around one-fifth and one-fourth of it --
belief in all sorts of things that are detrimental to our well-being.
So, no, I don't see this happening tomorrow, but I have said for many years that if we
don't get a handle on this then one of these days our descendants are going to sit down
in high-school history class and open a textbook that begins with the words:
The
United States of America was
and then it will dissect how our experiment in
self-governance came apart."
"... Instead of serving as a counter weight to the market, then, the family was invaded and undermined by the market. The sentimental veneration of motherhood, even at the peak of its influence in the late nineteenth century, could never quite obscure the reality that unpaid labour bears the stigma of social inferiority when money becomes the universal measure of value. ..."
"... Commercial television dramatizes in the most explicit terms the cynicism that was always implicit in the ideology of the marketplace. The sentimental convention that the best things in life are free has long since passed into oblivion. Since the best things clearly cost a great deal of money, people seek money, in the world depicted by commercial television, by fair means or foul. ..."
"... Throughout the twentieth century liberalism has been pulled in two directions at once: toward the market and (not withstanding its initial misgivings about government) toward the state. On the one hand, the market appears to be the ideal embodiment of the principle-the cardinal principle of liberalism-that individuals are the best judges of their own interests and that they must therefore be allowed to speak for themselves in matters that concern their happiness and well-being. But individuals cannot learn to speak for themselves at all, much less come to an intelligent understanding of their happiness and well-being, in a world in which there are no values except those of the market. Even liberal individuals require the character-forming discipline of the family, the neighbourhood, the school, and the church, all of which (not just the family) have been weakened by the encroachments of the market. ..."
"... The market notoriously tends to universalize itself. It does not easily coexist with institutions that operate according to principles antithetical to itself: schools and universities, newspapers and magazines, charities, families. Sooner or later the market tends to absorb them all. It puts an almost irresistible pres sure on every activity to justify itself in the only items it recognizes: to become a business proposition, to pay its own way, to show black ink on the bottom line. It turns news into entertainment, scholarship into professional careerism, social work into the scientific management of poverty. Inexorably it remodels every institution in its own image. ..."
"... In the attempt to restrict the scope of the market, liberals have therefore turned to the state. But the remedy often proves to be worse than the disease. The replacement of informal types of association by formal systems of socialization and control weakens social trust, undermines the willingness both assume responsibility for one's self and to hold others accountable for their actions destroys respect for authority and thus turns out to be self-defeating. Neighbourhoods, which can serve as intermediaries between the family and the larger world. Neighbourhoods have been destroyed not only by the market-by crime and drugs or less dramatically by suburban shopping malls-but also by enlightened social engineering. ..."
"... "The myth that playgrounds and grass and hired guards or supervisors are innately wholesome for children and that city streets, filled with ordinary people, are innately evil for children, boils down to a deep contempt for ordinary people." In their contempt planners lose sight of the way in which city streets, if they are working as they should, teach children a lesson that cannot be taught by educators or professional caretakers: that "people must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if they have no ties to each other." When the corner grocer or the locksmith scolds a child for running into the street, the child learns something that can't be learned simply by formal instruction. ..."
"... The crisis of public funding is only one indication of the intrinsic weakness of organizations that can no longer count on informal, everyday mechanisms of social trust and control. ..."
If terms like "populism" and "community" figure prominently in political discourse today, it is because the ideology of the Enlightenment,
having come under attack from a variety of sources, has lost much of its appeal. The claims of universal reason are universally suspect.
Hopes for a system of values that would transcend the particularism of class, nationality, religion, and race no longer carry much
conviction. The Enlightenment's reason and morality are increasingly seen as a cover for power, and the prospect that the world can
he governed by reason seems more remote than at any time since the eighteenth century. The citizen of the world-the prototype of
mankind in the future, according to the Enlightenment philosophers-is not much in evidence. We have a universal market, but it does
not carry with it the civilizing effects that were so confidently expected by Hume and Voltaire. Instead of generating a new appreciation
of common interests and inclinations-if the essential sameness of human beings everywhere-the global market seems to intensify the
awareness of ethnic and national differences. The unification of the market goes hand in hand with the fragmentation of culture.
The waning of the Enlightenment manifests itself politically in the waning of liberalism, in many ways the most attractive product
of the Enlightenment and the carrier of its best hopes. Through all the permutations and transformations of liberal ideology, two
of its central features have persisted over the years: its commitment to progress and its belief that a liberal state could dispense
with civic virtue. The two ideas were linked in a chain of reasoning having as its premise that capitalism had made it reason able
for everyone to aspire to a level of comfort formerly accessible only to the rich. Henceforth men would devote themselves to their
private business, reducing the need for government, which could more or less take care of itself. It was the idea of progress that
made it possible to believe that societies blessed with material abundance could dispense with the active participation of ordinary
citizens in government.
After the American Revolution liberals began to argue-in opposition to the older view that "public virtue is the only foundation
of republics," in the words of John Adams -- that proper constitutional checks and balances would make it advantageous even for bad
men to act for the public good," as James Wilson put it. According to John Taylor, "an avaricious society can form a government able
to defend itself against the avarice of its members" by enlisting the "interest of vice ...on the side of virtue." Virtue lay in
the "principles of government," Taylor argued, not in the "evanescent qualities of individuals." The institutions and "principles
of a society may be virtuous, though the individuals composing it are vicious."
Meeting minimal conditions
The paradox of a virtuous society based on vicious individuals, however agree able in theory, was never adhered to very consistently.
Liberals took for granted a good deal more in the way of private virtue than they were willing to acknowledge. Even to day liberals
who adhere to this minimal view of citizenship smuggle a certain amount of citizenship between the cracks of their free- market ideology.
Milton Friedman himself admits that a liberal society requires a "minimum degree of literacy and knowledge" along with a "widespread
acceptance of some common set of values." It is not clear that our society can meet even these minimal conditions, as things stand
today, but it has always been clear, in any case, that a liberal society needs more virtue than Friedman allows for.
A system that relies so heavily on the concept of rights presupposes individuals who respect the rights of others, if only because
they expect others to respect their own rights in return. The market itself, the central institution of a liberal society, presupposes,
at the very least, sharp-eyed, calculating, and clearheaded individuals-paragons of rational choice. It presupposes not just self
interest but enlightened self-interest. It was for this reason that nineteenth-century liberals attached so much importance to the
family. The obligation to support a wife and children, in their view, would discipline possessive individualism and transform the
potential gambler, speculator, dandy, or confidence man into a conscientious provider. Having abandoned the old republican ideal
of citizenship along with the republican indictment of luxury, liberals lacked any grounds on which to appeal to individuals to subordinate
private interest to the public good.
But at least they could appeal to the higher selfishness of marriage and parenthood. They could ask, if not for the suspension
of self-interest, for its elevation and refinement. The hope that rising expectations would lead men and women to invest their ambitions
in their offspring was destined to be disappointed in the long run. The more closely capitalism came to be identified with immediate
gratification and planned obsolescence, the more relentlessly it wore away the moral foundations of family life. The rising divorce
rate, already a source of alarm in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, seemed to reflect a growing impatience with the constraints
imposed by long responsibilities and commitments.
The passion to get ahead had begun to imply the right to make a fresh start whenever earlier commitments became unduly burden
some. Material abundance weakened the economic as well as the moral foundations of the "well-'ordered family state" admired by nineteenth-century
liberals. The family business gave way to the corporation, the family farm (more slowly and painfully) to a collectivized agriculture
ultimately controlled by the same banking houses that had engineered the consolidation of industry. The agrarian uprising of the
1870s, 1880s, and l890s proved to be the first round in a long, losing struggle to save the family farm, enshrined in American mythology,
even today, as the sine qua non of a good society but subjected into practice to a ruinous cycle of mechanization, indebtedness,
and overproduction.
The family invaded
Instead of serving as a counter weight to the market, then, the family was invaded and undermined by the market. The sentimental
veneration of motherhood, even at the peak of its influence in the late nineteenth century, could never quite obscure the reality
that unpaid labour bears the stigma of social inferiority when money becomes the universal measure of value.
In the long run women were forced into the workplace not only because their families needed extra income but because paid labour
seemed to represent their only hope of gaining equality with men. In our time it is increasingly clear that children pay the price
for this invasion of the family by the market. With both parents in the workplace and grandparents conspicuous by their absence,
the family is no longer capable of sheltering children from the market. The television set becomes the principal baby-sitter by default.
Its invasive presence deals the final blow to any lingering hope that the family can provide a sheltered space for children to grow
up in.
Children are now exposed to the out side world from the time they are old enough to be left unattended in front of the tube. They
are exposed to it, moreover, in a brutal yet seductive form that reduces the values of the marketplace to their simplest terms.
Commercial television dramatizes in the most explicit terms the cynicism that was always implicit in the ideology of the marketplace.
The sentimental convention that the best things in life are free has long since passed into oblivion. Since the best things clearly
cost a great deal of money, people seek money, in the world depicted by commercial television, by fair means or foul.
Throughout the twentieth century liberalism has been pulled in two directions at once: toward the market and (not withstanding
its initial misgivings about government) toward the state. On the one hand, the market appears to be the ideal embodiment of the
principle-the cardinal principle of liberalism-that individuals are the best judges of their own interests and that they must therefore
be allowed to speak for themselves in matters that concern their happiness and well-being. But individuals cannot learn to speak
for themselves at all, much less come to an intelligent understanding of their happiness and well-being, in a world in which there
are no values except those of the market. Even liberal individuals require the character-forming discipline of the family, the neighbourhood,
the school, and the church, all of which (not just the family) have been weakened by the encroachments of the market.
The market notoriously tends to universalize itself. It does not easily coexist with institutions that operate according to
principles antithetical to itself: schools and universities, newspapers and magazines, charities, families. Sooner or later the market
tends to absorb them all. It puts an almost irresistible pres sure on every activity to justify itself in the only items it recognizes:
to become a business proposition, to pay its own way, to show black ink on the bottom line. It turns news into entertainment, scholarship
into professional careerism, social work into the scientific management of poverty. Inexorably it remodels every institution in its
own image.
Weakening social trust
In the attempt to restrict the scope of the market, liberals have therefore turned to the state. But the remedy often proves
to be worse than the disease. The replacement of informal types of association by formal systems of socialization and control weakens
social trust, undermines the willingness both assume responsibility for one's self and to hold others accountable for their actions
destroys respect for authority and thus turns out to be self-defeating. Neighbourhoods, which can serve as intermediaries between
the family and the larger world. Neighbourhoods have been destroyed not only by the market-by crime and drugs or less dramatically
by suburban shopping malls-but also by enlightened social engineering.
The main thrust of social policy, ever since the first crusades against child labour, has been to transfer the care of children
from informal settings to institutions designed specifically for pedagogical and custodial purposes. Today this trend continues in
the movement for daycare, often justified on the undeniable grounds that working mothers need it but also on the grounds that daycare
centers can take advantage of the latest innovations in pedagogy and child psychology. This policy of segregating children in age-graded
institutions under professional supervision has been a massive failure, for reasons suggested some time ago by Jane Jacobs in The
Death and Life of Great American Cities, an attack on city planning that applies to social planning in general.
"The myth that playgrounds and grass and hired guards or supervisors are innately wholesome for children and that city streets,
filled with ordinary people, are innately evil for children, boils down to a deep contempt for ordinary people." In their contempt
planners lose sight of the way in which city streets, if they are working as they should, teach children a lesson that cannot be
taught by educators or professional caretakers: that "people must take a modicum of public responsibility for each other even if
they have no ties to each other." When the corner grocer or the locksmith scolds a child for running into the street, the child learns
something that can't be learned simply by formal instruction.
What the child learns is that adults unrelated to one another except by the accident of propinquity uphold certain standards and
assume responsibility for the neighbourhood. With good reason, Jacobs calls this the "first fundamental of successful city life,"
one that "people hired to look after children cannot teach because the essence of this responsibility is that you do it without being
hired."
Neighbourhoods encourage "casual public trust," according to Jacobs. In its absence the everyday maintenance of life has to be
turned over to professional bureaucrats. The atrophy of informal controls leads irresistibly to the expansion of bureaucratic controls.
This development threatens to extinguish the very privacy liberals have always set such store by. It also loads the organizational
sector with burdens it cannot support. The crisis of public funding is only one indication of the intrinsic weakness of organizations
that can no longer count on informal, everyday mechanisms of social trust and control.
The taxpayers' revolt, although itself informed by an ideology of privatism resistant to any kind of civic appeals, at the same
time grows out of a well-founded suspicion that tax money merely sustains bureaucratic self-aggrandizement
The lost habit of self-help
As formal organizations break down, people will have to improvise ways of meeting their immediate needs: patrolling their own
neighbourhoods, withdrawing their children from public schools in order to educate them at home. The default of the state will thus
contribute in its own right to the restoration of informal mechanisms of self-help. But it is hard to see how the foundations of
civic life can be restored unless this work becomes an overriding goal of public policy. We have heard a good deal of talk about
the repair of our material infrastructure, but our cultural infrastructure needs attention too, and more than just the rhetorical
attention of politicians who praise "family values" while pursuing economic policies that undermine them. It is either naive or cynical
to lead the public to think that dismantling the welfare state is enough to ensure a revival of informal cooperation-"a thousand
points of light." People who have lost the habit of self-help, who live in cities and suburbs where shopping malls have replaced
neighbourhoods, and who prefer the company of close friends (or simply the company of television) to the informal sociability of
the street, the coffee shop, and the tavern are not likely to reinvent communities just because the state has proved such an unsatisfactory
substitute. Market mechanisms will not repair the fabric of public trust. On the contrary the market's effect on the cultural infrastructure
is just as corrosive as that of the state.
A third way
We can now begin to appreciate the appeal of populism and communitarianism. They reject both the market and the welfare state
in pursuit of a third way. This is why they are so difficult to classify on the conventional spectrum of political opinion. Their
opposition to free-market ideologies seems to align them with the left, but 'their criticism of the welfare state (whenever this
criticism becomes open and explicit) makes them sound right-wing. In fact, these positions belong to neither the left nor the right,
and for that very reason they seem to many people to hold out the best hope of breaking the deadlock of current debate, which has
been institutionalized in the two major parties and their divided control of the federal government. At a time when political debate
consists of largely of ideological slogans endlessly repeated to audiences composed mainly of the party faithful, fresh thinking
is desperately needed. It is not likely to emerge, however, from those with a vested interest in 'the old orthodoxies. We need a
"third way of thinking about moral obligation," as Alan Wolfe puts it, one that locates moral obligation neither in the state nor
in the market but "in common sense, ordinary emotions, and everyday life."
Wolfe's plea for a political program designed to strengthen civil society, which closely resembles the ideas advanced in The Good
Society by Robert Bellah and his collaborators, should be welcomed by the growing numbers of people who find themselves dissatisfied
with the alternatives defined by conventional debate. These authors illustrate the strengths of the communitarian position along
with some of its characteristic weaknesses. They make it clear that both the market and the state presuppose the strength of "non-economic
ties of trust and solidarity" as Wolfe puts it. Yet the expansion of these institutions weakens ties of trust and thus undermines
the preconditions for their own success. The market and the "job culture," Bellah writes, are "invading our private lives," eroding
our "moral infrastructure" of "social trust." Nor does the welfare state repair the damage. "The example of more successful welfare
states ... suggests that money and bureaucratic assistance alone do not halt the decline of the family" or strengthen any of the
other "sustaining institutions that make interdependence morally significant." None of this means that a politics that really mattered-a
politics rooted in popular common sense instead of the ideologies that appeal to elites-would painlessly resolve all the conflicts
that threaten to tear the country apart. Communitarians underestimate the difficulty of finding an approach to family issues, say,
that is both profamily and profeminist.
That may be what the public wants in theory. In practice, however, it requires a restructuring of the workplace designed to make
work schedules far more flexible, career patterns less rigid and predictable, and criteria for advancement less destructive to family
and community obligations. Such reforms imply interference with the market and a redefinition of success, neither of which will be
achieved without a great deal of controversy.
"... As Sen. Elizabeth Warren has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy." You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites. ..."
"... Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare and getting out of wars. ..."
Not surprised at all. The election is over, the voters are now moot. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren
has famously said with respect to cabinet and other political appointments, "Personnel Is Policy."
You can see the outline of the Trump administration's real policies being shaped before our eyes
via his proposed cabinet appointees, covered by Politico and other sites.
Also no mention of NAFTA or renegotiating trade deals in the new transition agenda. Instead
there's just a bunch of vague Chamber of Commercesque language about making America attractive
to investors. I think our hopes for a disruptive Trump presidency are quickly being dashed.
Sanders, Warren and others should hold Trump's feet to the fire on the truly populist things
he said and offer to work with him on that stuff. Like preserving Social Security and Medicare
and getting out of wars.
As to the last point, appointing Bolton or Corker Secretary of State would be a clear indication
he was just talking. A clear violation of campaign promises that would make Obama look like a
choirboy. Trump may be W on steroids.
I can't imagine how he's neglected to update his transition plan regarding nafta. After all,
he's already been president-elect for, what, 36 hours now? And he only talked about it umpteen
times during the campaign. I'm sure he'll renege.
Hell, it took Clinton 8 hours to give her concession speech.
On the bright side, he managed to kill TPP just by getting elected. Was that quick enough for
you?
All Risk and no reward asked me this, and here is the truth of it all:
9 minutes ago
iSage, what do you have to say about the fraudulent debt-based money system that is
protected by all political classes, even as it enslaves and impoverishes the masses of
people?
The debt is a creation of fiat money, pure and simple, living beyond our means. We were
taken off the gold standard by FDR and Nixon closed the gold window to finance JFK's Vietnam
war. Thus establishing the Petro Dollar, via having the House of Fraud sell their black gold
(oil) in fiat dollars, for tech know how and military protection.
The Fed is an illegal entity, which controls our money supply and interest rates
artificially. They can do this because we are a bankrupt nation going back to the 1930's.
We are a captured nation under LOST, Laws of the Seas Treaty, thus the Gold Tassels around
our flag in courts and federal buildings. Our names are in CAPS in all birth certs, because
we are slaves to the system, due to this bankruptcy and treaty.
It is a farce the American people have been fleeced and lied to all their lives, thinking
the Das Kapital capitalism is great. It is a *** communist construct, to enslave us
further.
Right after the seven neoliberal Blairites
left the Labour party towards the formation of a new "independent" party, three
Tories decided to join them.
Three Conservatives have quit their party to join the new
Independent Group of MPs, declaring that hard Brexiters have taken over and that the
modernising wing of the party has been 'destroyed'. Anna Soubry, Sarah Wollaston and Heidi
Allen explained their decision to join the new group, founded this week by seven Labour MPs,
who also left their party. "
It all happened too fast and someone would be rather naive to believe that these moves were not
pre-agreed and fully coordinated.
All the picks appear to be carefully selected. The establishment takes back those who has
raised carefully with the 'principles' of the neoliberal ideology in order to save them from
the collapsing conservative party and the Corbynism-'contaminated' Labour. Next step, a third
'independent' party with the mission to save neoliberalism.
It's not hard to guess the source of funding of this new party. It is the part of the big
capital, especially the financial sector and the pro-Israeli lobby in the UK, that benefits
from the neoliberal globalization. Therefore, it is the part of the big capital that seeks to
reverse Brexit at all costs and shares common ideas and interests with the lobbies that control
the EU.
"... While the Tea Party was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-, it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering. Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. ..."
"... Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders' energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood" path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy. ..."
"... In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism. ..."
"... We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism. ..."
"... While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."' ..."
In Chapter 1, we traced the rise of our neoliberal conjuncture back to the crisis of liberalism during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, culminating in the Great Depression. During this period, huge transformations in capitalism proved impossible
to manage with classical laissez-faire approaches. Out of this crisis, two movements emerged, both of which would eventually shape
the course of the twentieth century and beyond. The first, and the one that became dominant in the aftermath of the crisis, was the
conjuncture of embedded liberalism. The crisis indicated that capitalism wrecked too much damage on the lives of ordinary citizens.
People (white workers and families, especially) warranted social protection from the volatilities and brutalities of capitalism.
The state's public function was expanded to include the provision of a more substantive social safety net, a web of protections for
people and a web of constraints on markets. The second response was the invention of neoliberalism. Deeply skeptical of the common-good
principles that undergirded the emerging social welfare state, neoliberals began organizing on the ground to develop a "new" liberal
govemmentality, one rooted less in laissez-faire principles and more in the generalization of competition and enterprise. They worked
to envision a new society premised on a new social ontology, that is, on new truths about the state, the market, and human beings.
Crucially, neoliberals also began building infrastructures and institutions for disseminating their new' knowledges and theories
(i.e., the Neoliberal Thought Collective), as well as organizing politically to build mass support for new policies (i.e., working
to unite anti-communists, Christian conservatives, and free marketers in common cause against the welfare state). When cracks in
embedded liberalism began to surface -- which is bound to happen with any moving political equilibrium -- neoliberals were there
with new stories and solutions, ready to make the world anew.
We are currently living through the crisis of neoliberalism. As I write this book, Donald Trump has recently secured the U.S.
presidency, prevailing in the national election over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Throughout the election, I couldn't
help but think back to the crisis of liberalism and the two responses that emerged. Similarly, after the Great Recession of 2008,
we've saw two responses emerge to challenge our unworkable status quo, which dispossesses so many people of vital resources for individual
and collective life. On the one hand, we witnessed the rise of Occupy Wall Street. While many continue to critique the movement for
its lack of leadership and a coherent political vision, Occupy was connected to burgeoning movements across the globe, and our current
political horizons have been undoubtedly shaped by the movement's success at repositioning class and economic inequality within our
political horizon. On the other hand, we saw' the rise of the Tea Party, a right-wing response to the crisis. While the Tea Party
was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was
perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-,
it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism.
Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering.
Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. There were just too many fissures and fault lines in
the glossy, cosmopolitan world of left neoliberalism and marketized equality. Indeed, while Clinton ran on status-quo stories of
good governance and neoliberal feminism, confident that demographics and diversity would be enough to win the election, Trump effectively
tapped into the unfolding conjunctural crisis by exacerbating the cracks in the system of marketized equality, channeling political
anger into his celebrity brand that had been built on saying "f*** you" to the culture of left neoliberalism (corporate diversity,
political correctness, etc.) In fact, much like Clinton's challenger in the Democratic primary, Benie Sanders, Trump was a crisis
candidate.
Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders'
energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood"
path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy.
Universal health care. Free higher education. Fair trade. The repeal of Citizens United. Trump offered a different response to
the crisis. Like Sanders, he railed against global trade deals like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). However, Trump's
victory was fueled by right neoliberalism's culture of cruelty. While Sanders tapped into and mobilized desires for a more egalitarian
and democratic future, Trump's promise was nostalgic, making America "great again" -- putting the nation back on "top of the world,"
and implying a time when women were "in their place" as male property, and minorities and immigrants were controlled by the state.
Thus, what distinguished Trump's campaign from more traditional Republican campaigns was that it actively and explicitly pitted
one group's equality (white men) against everyone else's (immigrants, women, Muslims, minorities, etc.). As Catherine Rottenberg
suggests, Trump offered voters a choice between a multiracial society (where folks are increasingly disadvantaged and dispossessed)
and white supremacy (where white people would be back on top). However, "[w]hat he neglected to state," Rottenberg writes,
is that neoliberalism flourishes in societies where the playing field is already stacked against various segments of society,
and that it needs only a relatively small select group of capital-enhancing subjects, while everyone else is ultimately dispensable.
1
In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg
argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many
concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism.
We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left
neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested
in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right
and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political
philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism.
While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking
with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the
chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."'
Mark Fisher, the author of Capitalist Realism, put it this way:
The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity. The very oppressive pervasiveness
of capitalist realism means that even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have a disproportionately
great effect. The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under
capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.4
I think that, for the first time in the history of U.S. capitalism, the vast majority of people might sense the lie of liberal,
capitalist democracy. They feel anxious, unfree, disaffected. Fantasies of the good life have been shattered beyond repair for most
people. Trump and this hopefully brief triumph of right neoliberalism will soon lay this bare for everyone to see. Now, with Trump,
it is absolutely clear: the rich rule the world; we are all disposable; this is no democracy. The question becomes: How will we show
up for history? Will there be new stories, ideas, visions, and fantasies to attach to? How can we productively and meaningful intervene
in the crisis of neoliberalism? How can we "tear a hole in the grey curtain" and open up better worlds? How can we put what we've
learned to use and begin to imagine and build a world beyond living in competition? I hope our critical journey through the neoliberal
conjuncture has enabled you to begin to answer these questions.
More specifically, in recent decades, especially since the end of the Cold War, our common-good sensibilities have been channeled
into neoliberal platforms for social change and privatized action, funneling our political energies into brand culture and marketized
struggles for equality (e.g., charter schools, NGOs and non-profits, neoliberal antiracism and feminism). As a result, despite our
collective anger and disaffected consent, we find ourselves stuck in capitalist realism with no real alternative. Like the neoliberal
care of the self, we are trapped in a privatized mode of politics that relies on cruel optimism; we are attached, it seems, to politics
that inspire and motivate us to action, while keeping us living in competition.
To disrupt the game, we need to construct common political horizons against neoliberal hegemony. We need to use our common stories
and common reason to build common movements against precarity -- for within neoliberalism, precarity is what ultimately has the potential
to thread all of our lives together. Put differently, the ultimate fault line in the neoliberal conjiuicture is the way it subjects
us all to precarity and the biopolitics of disposability, thereby creating conditions of possibility for new coalitions across race,
gender, citizenship, sexuality, and class. Recognizing this potential for coalition in the face of precarization is the most pressing
task facing those who are yearning for a new world. The question is: How do we get there? How do we realize these coalitional potentialities
and materialize common horizons?
Ultimately, mapping the neoliberal conjuncture through everyday life in enterprise culture has not only provided some direction
in terms of what we need; it has also cultivated concrete and practical intellectual resources for political interv ention and social
interconnection -- a critical toolbox for living in common. More specifically, this book has sought to provide resources for thinking
and acting against the four Ds: resources for engaging in counter-conduct, modes of living that refuse, on one hand, to conduct one's
life according to the norm of enterprise, and on the other, to relate to others through the norm of competition. Indeed, we need
new ways of relating, interacting, and living as friends, lovers, workers, vulnerable bodies, and democratic people if we are to
write new stories, invent new govemmentalities, and build coalitions for new worlds.
Against Disimagination: Educated Hope and Affirmative Speculation
We need to stop turning inward, retreating into ourselves, and taking personal responsibility for our lives (a task which is ultimately
impossible). Enough with the disimagination machine! Let's start looking outward, not inward -- to the broader structures that undergird
our lives. Of course, we need to take care of ourselves; we must survive. But I firmly believe that we can do this in ways both big
and small, that transform neoliberal culture and its status-quo stories.
Here's the thing I tell my students all the time. You cannot escape neoliberalism. It is the air we breathe, the water in which
we swim. No job, practice of social activism, program of self-care, or relationship will be totally free from neoliberal impingements
and logics. There is no pure "outside" to get to or work from -- that's just the nature of the neoliberalism's totalizing cultural
power. But let's not forget that neoliberalism's totalizing cultural power is also a source of weakness. Potential for resistance
is everywhere, scattered throughout our everyday lives in enterprise culture. Our critical toolbox can help us identify these potentialities
and navigate and engage our conjuncture in ways that tear open up those new worlds we desire.
In other words, our critical perspective can help us move through the world with what Henry Giroux calls educated hope. Educated
hope means holding in tension the material realities of power and the contingency of history. This orientation of educated hope knows
very well what we're up against. However, in the face of seemingly totalizing power, it also knows that neoliberalism can never become
total because the future is open. Educated hope is what allows us to see the fault lines, fissures, and potentialities of the present
and emboldens us to think and work from that sliver of social space where we do have political agency and freedom to construct a
new world. Educated hope is what undoes the power of capitalist realism. It enables affirmative speculation (such as discussed in
Chapter 5), which does not try to hold the future to neoliberal horizons (that's cruel optimism!), but instead to affirm our commonalities
and the potentialities for the new worlds they signal. Affirmative speculation demands a different sort of risk calculation and management.
It senses how little we have to lose and how much we have to gain from knocking the hustle of our lives.
Against De-democratization: Organizing and Collective Coverning
We can think of educated hope and affirmative speculation as practices of what Wendy Brown calls "bare democracy" -- the basic
idea that ordinary' people like you and me should govern our lives in common, that we should critique and try to change our world,
especially the exploitative and oppressive structures of power that maintain social hierarchies and diminish lives. Neoliberal culture
works to stomp out capacities for bare democracy by transforming democratic desires and feelings into meritocratic desires and feelings.
In neoliberal culture, utopian sensibilities are directed away from the promise of collective utopian sensibilities are directed
away from the promise of collective governing to competing for equality.
We have to get back that democractic feeling! As Jeremy Gilbert taught us, disaffected consent is a post-democratic orientation.
We don't like our world, but we don't think we can do anything about it. So, how do we get back that democratic feeling? How do we
transform our disaffected consent into something new? As I suggested in the last chapter, we organize. Organizing is simply about
people coming together around a common horizon and working collectively to materialize it. In this way, organizing is based on the
idea of radical democracy, not liberal democracy. While the latter is based on formal and abstract rights guaranteed by the state,
radical democracy insists that people should directly make the decisions that impact their lives, security, and well-being. Radical
democracy is a practice of collective governing: it is about us hashing out, together in communities, what matters, and working in
common to build a world based on these new sensibilities.
The work of organizing is messy, often unsatisfying, and sometimes even scary. Organizing based on affirmative speculation and
coalition-building, furthermore, will have to be experimental and uncertain. As Lauren Berlant suggests, it means "embracing the
discomfort of affective experience in a truly open social life that no
one has ever experienced." Organizing through and for the common "requires more adaptable infrastructures. Keep forcing the existing
infrastructures to do what they don't know how to do. Make new ways to be local together, where local doesn't require a physical
neighborhood." 5 What Berlant is saying is that the work of bare democracy requires unlearning, and detaching from, our
current stories and infrastructures in order to see and make things work differently. Organizing for a new world is not easy -- and
there are no guarantees -- but it is the only way out of capitalist realism.
Getting back democratic feeling will at once require and help us lo move beyond the biopolitics of disposability and entrenched
systems of inequality. On one hand, organizing will never be enough if it is not animated by bare democracy, a sensibility that each
of us is equally important when it comes to the project of determining our lives in common. Our bodies, our hurts, our dreams, and
our desires matter regardless of our race, gender, sexuality, or citizenship, and regardless of how r much capital (economic,
social, or cultural) we have. Simply put, in a radical democracy, no one is disposable. This bare-democratic sense of equality must
be foundational to organizing and coalition-building. Otherwise, we will always and inevitably fall back into a world of inequality.
On the other hand, organizing and collective governing will deepen and enhance our sensibilities and capacities for radical equality.
In this context, the kind of self-enclosed individualism that empowers and underwrites the biopolitics of disposability melts away,
as we realize the interconnectedness of our lives and just how amazing it feels to
fail, we affirm our capacities for freedom, political intervention, social interconnection, and collective social doing.
Against Dispossession: Shared Security and Common Wealth
Thinking and acting against the biopolitics of disposability goes hand-in-hand with thinking and acting against dispossession.
Ultimately, when we really understand and feel ourselves in relationships of interconnection with others, we want for them as we
want for ourselves. Our lives and sensibilities of what is good and just are rooted in radical equality, not possessive or self-appreciating
individualism. Because we desire social security and protection, we also know others desire and deserve the same.
However, to really think and act against dispossession means not only advocating for shared security and social protection, but
also for a new society that is built on the egalitarian production and distribution of social wealth that we all produce. In this
sense, we can take Marx's critique of capitalism -- that wealth is produced collectively but appropriated individually -- to heart.
Capitalism was built on the idea that one class -- the owners of the means of production -- could exploit and profit from the collective
labors of everyone else (those who do not own and thus have to work), albeit in very different ways depending on race, gender, or
citizenship. This meant that, for workers of all stripes, their lives existed not for themselves, but for others (the appropriating
class), and that regardless of what we own as consumers, we are not really free or equal in that bare-democratic sense of the word.
If we want to be really free, we need to construct new material and affective social infrastructures for our common wealth. In
these new infrastructures, wealth must not be reduced to economic value; it must be rooted in social value. Here, the production
of wealth does not exist as a separate sphere from the reproduction of our lives. In other words, new infrastructures, based on the
idea of common wealth, will not be set up to exploit our labor, dispossess our communities, or to divide our lives. Rather, they
will work to provide collective social resources and care so that we may all be free to pursue happiness, create beautiful and/or
useful things, and to realize our potential within a social world of living in common. Crucially, to create the conditions for these
new, democratic forms of freedom rooted in radical equality, we need to find ways to refuse and exit the financial networks of Empire
and the dispossessions of creditocracy, building new systems that invite everyone to participate in the ongoing production of new
worlds and the sharing of the wealth that we produce in common.
It's not up to me to tell you exactly where to look, but I assure you that potentialities for these new worlds are everywhere
around you.
Don't the people pulling the strings behind the media understand what they have done?
They have convinced a large part of the nation that everything that they were taught from
childhood is a fraud.
Civilizations are only held together by the "glue" of shared beliefs. The
deep-state-media-complex has just applied a solvent to the very glue that holds the entire
culture together.
And Hopkins says a disillusioned people might realize
in reality they are living in a neo-feudalist, de facto global capitalist empire
administrated by omnicidal money-worshipping human parasites that won't be satisfied until
they've remade the whole of creation in their nihilistic image.
There has been a longstanding bipartisan attack against the nation, and I use that term as
defined as "a stable, historically developed community of people with a territory, economic
life, distinctive culture, and language in common."
But I don't think the "deep-state-media-complex" is concerned by this. Again, feature not
bug.
We live in a goon-run surveillance economy, backed up by the strong arm of a mighty
surveillance state apparatus, and nobody -- I mean nobody -- really stands up to it, calling
out the real economic problems without a politically correct overlay that focuses on
drummed-up social issues or other media-driven diversion tactics. As much as Hollywood
theatrics are used as a way to sell the current setup as a functioning Republic to the serfs,
none of our never-been-so-wealthy elected leadership has the morality to challenge the
corrupt system. There's a reason for their crumbly back bones.
Despite the fake-morality play, using kids and babies as props in this fake-feminist era,
we don't even have leaders morally uncompromised enough to take on the Swamp in minor ways,
not in a surveillance state / surveillance economy, where all of the morally blemished
political elites have a lot to lose -- financially.
Political elites have a lot to lose financially, even though few of them ever took the
classic road to riches, including taking on financial risk to create quality jobs for US
citizens, as opposed to using cheap foreign wage slaves whose low wages are pumped up by
welfare for US-born kids, making it easy for them to work cheaply for elites.
Most of our rich political elites have never started businesses, employing US citizens to
make tangible items, like cake mixes or ketchup, but somehow in this finacialized
surveillance economy, all of our political leaders are flat-out rich with a lot to lose from
speaking out against the rigged system, much less actually doing something about it.
Even without extra, ratings-boosting, sexual or other Swamp-exploitable foibles, that
means a lot of leverage for surveillance goons to hold over political decision-makers' heads
if they don't do their bidding, especially in a survelliance state / survelliance economy,
wherein every nook and cranny of their lives is scrutinized to the hilt.
And it's perfectly okay for our power couples to put riches over morality because, like
the aristocrats producing golden heirs to assume the throne in other eras when aristocratic
couples and static wealth reigned supreme, our business and political leaders have all
reproduced, putting them as above firing and above morality as other elites in the
family-friendly, fake-feminist era. Everything elites do is for their babies, regardless of
how venal it is.
Despite all of the surveillance that renders the Fourth Amendment null and void for
cash-strapped serfs no less than elites and that stymies the First Amendment, suppressing the
serfs from calling out the economic situation for what it is no less than elites, corruption
is at all time highs.
Think that has anything to do with the brass-knuckle silencing tactics, made possible by
the surveillance state?
Our so-called leaders don't even bother to challenge the most basic threats to
constitutional liberty, much less the shaky foundation of our part-time / temp / churn-job
economy, with its welfare-subsidized legal & illegal immigrant workforce and our
single-mom & married-mom workforce, able to work part-time and in temp jobs for beans,
thereby supplementing spousal income, rent-covering child support or the welfare they collect
by staying under the earned-income limits for multiple welfare programs during working months
in single-breadwinner households with US-born kids.
It is not even semi-quality jobs that support most households at the growing bottom. It is
the already intact socialist system propping up a willing, cheap labor force for big
corporations, that supports a large percentage of American households. Who needs Bernie's
socialism when we already have a platter of 100%-free, non-contributory, pay-per-birth
socialism, offered up by the Republican and Democratic Uniparty to drive down wages for
non-welfare-eligible citizens 40 years?
Bernie is no stand-out Rebel. American corporations love socialism.
Even though the rebel Bernie has never held more than one senate seat, single-breadwinner
households with US-born kids are already supplied with hundreds in free EBT food,
reduced-cost housing, hundreds in monthly cash assistance, free electrcity and up to $6,431
in refundable child tax credit cash when they are willing to work part time or in temp
positions for low wages, staying below the earned-income limits for welfare during working
months. That's how they undercut millions of underemployed citizens who lack unearned income
streams from .gov, and no corporate-owned political rebel in the surveillance state is
willing to stand up to it.
No politician on the right or the left is free enough from the surveillance economy /
surveillance state's goon squad to say what that means for vanquished middle-class prosperity
in the USA.
It's not just student loans, either, no matter how much the establishment wants that to be
the main problem so that they can blow another housing bubble with the mostly unmarried
Millennials in their part-time / churn jobs. Truth is: Few of those college grads except the
dual-high-earner parents in their family-friendly / absenteeism-friendly jobs -- keeping two
of the few jobs with benefits and good wages under one roof and halving the size of the
house-buying and rent-covering middle class while low-wage daycare workers or grandparents
raise their kids -- can afford to buy a house. The above-firing group in the top 20%,
however, can afford more palatial houses than any non-rich group of non job creators in US
history.
In the long-gone America with the broad middle class and the mostly married, stay-at-home
moms, most couples paid off modest houses by retirement, and most single earners with one,
earned-only income stream could afford the dignity of a modest apartment, whereas most of
today's working women will face insurmountable rent costs in retirement, just like they do
during working years.
That is what the fake feminists have accomplished for the bottom 80%, but the
family-friendly princesses in their palaces have not made any compromises. They humanize that
by adding layers of absenteeism privileges for low-wage mommies in discriminatory
voted-best-for-moms jobs, plus welfare and cash handouts through the progressive tax code to
soften the brutality of this churn-job economy. But those womb-privileged single moms find
themselves in the same dismal economic boat with the single, childless women in the bottom
80% after their kids turn 18, and the wage-supplementing, pay-per-birth freebies from
goverment dry up.
Lacking a student loan debt does not overcome the insurmountable cost of housing for
single breadwinners, whether they are male or female, non-custodial parents, middle-aged or
older with no kids, older with no kids under 18 or younger in the years before family
formation beefs up their income with cash-check tax code privileges, monthly welfare access
and crony-parent workplace privileges. With none of the unearned income streams accruing to
womb-productive single earners, the single earners relying relying on earned-only income from
one person cannot even afford rent for a one-room apartment in a safe or unsafe area, much
less a house. And there are more single earners than ever; we are the majority.
The childbearing-aged Millennials will be the focus of every economist and of all
political hacks, seeking votes from the mostly older and middle-aged citizens who bother to
show up on voting day, not the Xers with one, earned-only income stream and no kids under 18
and, thus, no handouts from Uncle Sam and the Treasury Department pumping up their wages in
this dismal scam landscape of a churn-job gig economy.
Thanks to feminism, there are more & more of us in that category in this era of
single, "independent" career women, and it is going to get worse and worse as this group hits
retirement age. It will be worse for everyone except the dual-high-earner parents -- the
tax-advantaged, "needs-the-job," above-firing "talent" who were needed at work because of
their talent, but who were somehow on a an expensive, lengthy, family-friendly vacation every
couple of months during their above-firing, childbearing-aged working years, not to mention
all of the mornings and afternoons of excused absenteeism (for kids, for kids!) and their
multiple pregnancy leaves.
These working-parents-in-charge, with their libertine, back-watching, family-friendly work
schedules, sure do fire a lot of the non-family-friendly non culture fits whose every day,
all-day hard work helps to keep their bonus numbers up. They fire away for the most trivial
and pettiest of infractions in the churn machine of America's unprofessional-to-the-max
corporate workplaces. Use and lose. Churn and burn. It equals family-friendly job
security.
But regardless of how they did it, they will still retire into their luxury apartments or
cathedral-ceiling homes, with two streams of SS income and two 401k streams.
Whereas, however hard they work and however much they help to pump up the crony-parent
managers' bonuses, a huge number of divorced or never-married, single-breadwinner Xers who,
since they did not have kids, did not need tax credit handouts to boost up their low wages,
nor above-firing absenteeism privileges, benefits, decent-paying jobs or even a modicum of
job security will retire into the most spartan and hopeless of "retirement" situations.
They will have nothing but one stream of very inadequate, non-rent-covering SS, into which
they contributed either 7.5% or 15.3% of every dime they earned, unlike these glorified
single moms and immigrants, raking in 100%-free monthly welfare by the truckloads, in
addition to bigly, refundable cash-assistance welfare checks from the progressive tax code
that top out at $6,431 all through their childbearing years, even though they do not pay
income taxes in many cases and even though they work part time .
The average employed person in the USA is a part-time worker. That is the
reality of automation, fake womb-productivity-based feminism and 4 decades of
welfare-supported mass immigration.
Retirement will be just as bad, if not worse, for the even bigger group of hear-them-roar,
fake-feminist, ever-more-never-married, part-time-job-holding, pink-hatted "career" women --
with all of their hypocritical, un-feminist, womb-focused demands of .gov and their
much-maligned soy-boy sperm providers -- in the equally underemployed Millennial
generation.
But in an anti-individual, anti-liberty and corrupt-to-the-core survelliance state
economy, with a Constitution based on individual liberty in suspension, all that counts is a
functioning feudal structure for aristocratic baby makers in the top 1 -- 20%, pumping out
heirs to the thrones in a financialized economy that favors static wealth, and the illusion
of benevolence that they create by throwing lots of mom-pampering cake crumbs to their
womb-productive, welfare-qualified, legal & illegally-in-this-country cheap, groveling
servants. A ton of Hollywood-lite, weepy-eyed media concern for the mommies and babies around
the globe adds gloss to this fake-morality veneer.
Trump said something about the immigration part of this corrupt equation, saying it
loudly enough to divert attention from the fact that he is not really doing anything about
the onslaught of 40 years of mass-scale, welfare-aided legal & illegal immigration that
keeps wages at rock bottom for cashing-in employers.
Turns out, Bernie, however saintly by comparison with other politicians in the
surveillance state / surveillance economy, was not without goon-exploitable human foibles,
like a $600,000 rustic lake house needing "help" from interior designers and a spousal-income
controversy. Bernie fans should not forget that the Deep State cutthroats are not at all
above exploiting it with no mercy, no matter how many cutesy baby pics they wave around to
prove their humanity. They are shameless enough to use it against him, no matter how
knee-deep in Swamp dollars they are.
That goes for the lovely, family-friendly leaders in both of our corrupt, Swamp-controlled
parties. And it would not matter if a truly kick- *** superhero arose to take on the Swamp
Goliath.
This Surveillance Swamp is too deep even for Mister Rodgers to wade through. If he ran for
office on a platform of true reform, the Surveillance Swampers would be accusing him of
bacchanalian bathroom activity, telling him they have video conformation of that, along with
proof from credit-rating agencies of his cardigan sweater-buying shopaholic sprees right down
to his last bank transaction.
We live in KGB country, where it is easy to pull politicians off of any real reformist
path. No wonder, swampers are so concerned with Russia, thirty years after the Cold War
ended. Rich US politicians, in a rigged surveillance economy, live in Stalinist Russia --
Stalinist Russia with an increased surveillance capacity, whereas the serfs live under the
same economic & government surveillance without even the reward of a quality non-churn
job, an independent roof over their heads or a safe neighborhood.
What a great trade off: our liberty and our widespread middle class in return for
end-to-end financial security for the top 1 -- 20% and womb-productivity-based welfare
security for some part-time-working, womb-productive citizens and noncitizens in the bottom
80% during their baby-making years. Oh, we serfs also get to hear the virtue-signaling chorus
of the racism and sexism fighters, and a few of them make bank off of discrimination
lawsuits.
"... Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants. ..."
"... If I understand you correctly, we are in the best of all worlds? ..."
@Commentator Mike
Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not
economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the
ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.
So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right
culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types
especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to
work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them
that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true
capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e.,
what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the
same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're
impossible.
None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new
experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to
differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on
the far-left.
That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists,
although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.
In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory
it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to
suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.
China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is
suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them
first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.
@Captain Willard You
must be under the delusion we live in a Constitutional Republic.
Oligarchy (from Greek ὀλιγαρχία
(oligarkhía); from ὀλίγος (olígos),
meaning 'few', and ἄρχω (arkho), meaning 'to rule or to
command')[1][2][3] is a form of power structure in which power rests with a small number of
people. These people may be distinguished by nobility, wealth, family ties, education or
corporate, religious, political, or military control. Such states are often controlled by
families who typically pass their influence from one generation to the next, but inheritance
is not a necessary condition for the application of this term.
@redmudhooch "
Socialism is government by the working class"
Socialism is government by the ruling honchos who have figured out how to appear as
altruistic saviors while living the life of Riley and holding the carrot of prosperity in
front of the noses of the disenfranchised peasants.
Your transparent mindset of : Socialism never worked because the wrong people were in
charge of every attempt to actualize it, and if the right folks go at it in the "right"
manner it will finally work., has been exposed as the lie it is.
This nonsense of : the Russians, Chinese, all of East Europe, Cuba, Venezuela, etc, etc.
they really did not understand Marx, and they really did not want to establish a true "
Farmers and Workers paradise", as according to Marx, so if we, the new generation of "Woke"
"Jungsozialisten", if we go at it, there will be no failure this time, this nonsense has run
it time and more and more otherwise unknowing peoples are finally waking up it's the lies and
madness
Myself, I spent time in the seventies behind the "Iron Curtain" before the wall came down
and I will never forget the morgue-like atmosphere of the grey cities and the dead eyes of
the hopeless natives, and ignoranti like you are striving to repeat these humans tragedies
over and over, regardless of how many time they fail and how much travail and suffering they
generate.
Authenticjazzman "Mensa" qualified since 1973, airborne trained US Army vet, and pro jazz
artist.
@Stephen Paul Foster "
The profit motive" after being replaced with the Socialist rubber-stamp which holds power of
life or death over it's hapless subjects, and make no bones about wielding it's ruthless
fatal power, would seem like altruism and benevolency in retrospect.
@ploni almoniT
he runaway over-use of the narcissism cliché has been fueled mostly by copy-cats with
weak vocabularies who use it deliriously as a general purpose put-down of men who aren't
slobs.
"... It would seem that many of the Trotskyites of the past have now become neocons favouring capitalism and imperialist military intervention under guise of "human rights" promotion, as have some other communists. ..."
@Commentator Mike
Today's system is a hybrid of a late finance-stage global capitalism and cultural–not
economic–Marxism. Instead of class struggle, we have identity politics. Instead of the
ownership of the means of production, we have tranny bathrooms.
So the right-wingers (like Peter Hitchens) who say that 'Marxism won' are half right
culturally, not economically. What causes all the confusion (among the libertarian types
especially) is that capitalism in reality does not in any way resemble how it ought to
work according to libertarian theories and never did. But when you point out to them
that capitalism never worked in practice to begin with, they answer: 'But true
capitalism has never even been tried!' And of course, they're right. 'True' capitalism (i.e.,
what libertarian theory calls capitalism) really never has been tried, and for exactly the
same reason that perpetual motion machines have never been tried either: they're
impossible.
None of which means I'm a 'pure' socialist. I'm open to mixed-economies and new
experiments. I usually characterize myself more as a national socialist, mostly to
differentiate myself from the 'world revolution' Trotskyite socialists who now predominate on
the far-left.
That means I also take some inspiration from some fascists and national-syndicalists,
although I don't regard any of them as holy writ, either.
In my opinion, the number one success factor for a civilization is not what theory
it professes, but rather who controls it. Theories will always have to be modified to
suit the circumstances; but the character of a people is much harder to change.
China's prospering because it's controlled by Chinese engineers; our civilization is
suffocating because it's controlled by Jew-bankers and Masonic lawyers. Get rid of them
first, and we can debate monetary theory till we're blue in the face.
I think that applying the old concepts of Marxism is no longer possible in the west since
there is hardly a genuine proletariat as a proper class any more with the deindustrialisation
and the transfer of major industries to China and other Asian and Latin American countries.
On the other hand the lumpenproletariat has grown and will grow further with greater
automation in industry.
Many more people are now unemployed, underemployed, in service industries, part-time and
temporary jobs, or ageing old age pensioners and retirees.
With the greater atomisation of the individual, break up of families, greater mobility,
the concept of classes rooted long-term in their communities seems less applicable. You could
say most of the global proletariat is now in China.
It would seem that many of the Trotskyites of the past have now become neocons favouring
capitalism and imperialist military intervention under guise of "human rights" promotion, as
have some other communists.
Paul Edward Gottfried's "The Strange Death of Marxism" seems to offer some explanations
but is not of much use in developing a new activism capable of taking on the system or
providing a more viable alternative.
classical concepts of socialism and capitalism, and left and right politics
The left/right concept is no longer valid. For one thing, of what use is a $15. minimum
wage (apparently a standard "left" plank) if there aren't any jobs? Take a look at Andrew
Yang. At least he is posing the right questions.
Andrew Yang's Pitch to America – We Must Evolve to a New Form of
Capitalism
"... While the Tea Party was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-, it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism. ..."
"... Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering. Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. ..."
"... Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders' energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood" path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy. ..."
"... In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism. ..."
"... We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism. ..."
"... While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."' ..."
In Chapter 1, we traced the rise of our neoliberal conjuncture back to the crisis of liberalism during the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, culminating in the Great Depression. During this period, huge transformations in capitalism proved impossible
to manage with classical laissez-faire approaches. Out of this crisis, two movements emerged, both of which would eventually shape
the course of the twentieth century and beyond. The first, and the one that became dominant in the aftermath of the crisis, was the
conjuncture of embedded liberalism. The crisis indicated that capitalism wrecked too much damage on the lives of ordinary citizens.
People (white workers and families, especially) warranted social protection from the volatilities and brutalities of capitalism.
The state's public function was expanded to include the provision of a more substantive social safety net, a web of protections for
people and a web of constraints on markets. The second response was the invention of neoliberalism. Deeply skeptical of the common-good
principles that undergirded the emerging social welfare state, neoliberals began organizing on the ground to develop a "new" liberal
govemmentality, one rooted less in laissez-faire principles and more in the generalization of competition and enterprise. They worked
to envision a new society premised on a new social ontology, that is, on new truths about the state, the market, and human beings.
Crucially, neoliberals also began building infrastructures and institutions for disseminating their new' knowledges and theories
(i.e., the Neoliberal Thought Collective), as well as organizing politically to build mass support for new policies (i.e., working
to unite anti-communists, Christian conservatives, and free marketers in common cause against the welfare state). When cracks in
embedded liberalism began to surface -- which is bound to happen with any moving political equilibrium -- neoliberals were there
with new stories and solutions, ready to make the world anew.
We are currently living through the crisis of neoliberalism. As I write this book, Donald Trump has recently secured the U.S.
presidency, prevailing in the national election over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton. Throughout the election, I couldn't
help but think back to the crisis of liberalism and the two responses that emerged. Similarly, after the Great Recession of 2008,
we've saw two responses emerge to challenge our unworkable status quo, which dispossesses so many people of vital resources for individual
and collective life. On the one hand, we witnessed the rise of Occupy Wall Street. While many continue to critique the movement for
its lack of leadership and a coherent political vision, Occupy was connected to burgeoning movements across the globe, and our current
political horizons have been undoubtedly shaped by the movement's success at repositioning class and economic inequality within our
political horizon. On the other hand, we saw' the rise of the Tea Party, a right-wing response to the crisis. While the Tea Party
was critical of status-quo neoliberalism -- especially its cosmopolitanism and embrace of globalization and diversity, which was
perfectly embodied by Obama's election and presidency -- it was not exactly anti-neoliberal. Rather, it was anti-left neoliberalism-,
it represented a more authoritarian, right [wing] version of neoliberalism.
Within the context of the 2016 election, Clinton embodied the neoliberal center that could no longer hold. Inequality. Suffering.
Collapsing infrastructures. Perpetual war. Anger. Disaffected consent. There were just too many fissures and fault lines in
the glossy, cosmopolitan world of left neoliberalism and marketized equality. Indeed, while Clinton ran on status-quo stories of
good governance and neoliberal feminism, confident that demographics and diversity would be enough to win the election, Trump effectively
tapped into the unfolding conjunctural crisis by exacerbating the cracks in the system of marketized equality, channeling political
anger into his celebrity brand that had been built on saying "f*** you" to the culture of left neoliberalism (corporate diversity,
political correctness, etc.) In fact, much like Clinton's challenger in the Democratic primary, Benie Sanders, Trump was a crisis
candidate.
Both Sanders and Trump were embedded in the emerging left and right responses to neoliberalism's crisis. Specifically, Sanders'
energetic campaign -- which was undoubtedly enabled by the rise of the Occupy movement -- proposed a decidedly more "commongood"
path. Higher wages for working people. Taxes on the rich, specifically the captains of the creditocracy.
Universal health care. Free higher education. Fair trade. The repeal of Citizens United. Trump offered a different response to
the crisis. Like Sanders, he railed against global trade deals like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). However, Trump's
victory was fueled by right neoliberalism's culture of cruelty. While Sanders tapped into and mobilized desires for a more egalitarian
and democratic future, Trump's promise was nostalgic, making America "great again" -- putting the nation back on "top of the world,"
and implying a time when women were "in their place" as male property, and minorities and immigrants were controlled by the state.
Thus, what distinguished Trump's campaign from more traditional Republican campaigns was that it actively and explicitly pitted
one group's equality (white men) against everyone else's (immigrants, women, Muslims, minorities, etc.). As Catherine Rottenberg
suggests, Trump offered voters a choice between a multiracial society (where folks are increasingly disadvantaged and dispossessed)
and white supremacy (where white people would be back on top). However, "[w]hat he neglected to state," Rottenberg writes,
is that neoliberalism flourishes in societies where the playing field is already stacked against various segments of society,
and that it needs only a relatively small select group of capital-enhancing subjects, while everyone else is ultimately dispensable.
1
In other words, Trump supporters may not have explicitly voted for neoliberalism, but that's what they got. In fact, as Rottenberg
argues, they got a version of right neoliberalism "on steroids" -- a mix of blatant plutocracy and authoritarianism that has many
concerned about the rise of U.S. fascism.
We can't know what would have happened had Sanders run against Trump, but we can think seriously about Trump, right and left
neoliberalism, and the crisis of neoliberal hegemony. In other words, we can think about where and how we go from here. As I suggested
in the previous chapter, if we want to construct a new world, we are going to have to abandon the entangled politics of both right
and left neoliberalism; we have to reject the hegemonic frontiers of both disposability and marketized equality. After all, as political
philosopher Nancy Fraser argues, what was rejected in the election of 2016 was progressive, left neoliberalism.
While the rise of hyper-right neoliberalism is certainly nothing to celebrate, it does present an opportunity for breaking
with neoliberal hegemony. We have to proceed, as Gary Younge reminds us, with the realization that people "have not rejected the
chance of a better world. They have not yet been offered one."'
Mark Fisher, the author of Capitalist Realism, put it this way:
The long, dark night of the end of history has to be grasped as an enormous opportunity. The very oppressive pervasiveness
of capitalist realism means that even glimmers of alternative political and economic possibilities can have a disproportionately
great effect. The tiniest event can tear a hole in the grey curtain of reaction which has marked the horizons of possibility under
capitalist realism. From a situation in which nothing can happen, suddenly anything is possible again.4
I think that, for the first time in the history of U.S. capitalism, the vast majority of people might sense the lie of liberal,
capitalist democracy. They feel anxious, unfree, disaffected. Fantasies of the good life have been shattered beyond repair for most
people. Trump and this hopefully brief triumph of right neoliberalism will soon lay this bare for everyone to see. Now, with Trump,
it is absolutely clear: the rich rule the world; we are all disposable; this is no democracy. The question becomes: How will we show
up for history? Will there be new stories, ideas, visions, and fantasies to attach to? How can we productively and meaningful intervene
in the crisis of neoliberalism? How can we "tear a hole in the grey curtain" and open up better worlds? How can we put what we've
learned to use and begin to imagine and build a world beyond living in competition? I hope our critical journey through the neoliberal
conjuncture has enabled you to begin to answer these questions.
More specifically, in recent decades, especially since the end of the Cold War, our common-good sensibilities have been channeled
into neoliberal platforms for social change and privatized action, funneling our political energies into brand culture and marketized
struggles for equality (e.g., charter schools, NGOs and non-profits, neoliberal antiracism and feminism). As a result, despite our
collective anger and disaffected consent, we find ourselves stuck in capitalist realism with no real alternative. Like the neoliberal
care of the self, we are trapped in a privatized mode of politics that relies on cruel optimism; we are attached, it seems, to politics
that inspire and motivate us to action, while keeping us living in competition.
To disrupt the game, we need to construct common political horizons against neoliberal hegemony. We need to use our common stories
and common reason to build common movements against precarity -- for within neoliberalism, precarity is what ultimately has the potential
to thread all of our lives together. Put differently, the ultimate fault line in the neoliberal conjiuicture is the way it subjects
us all to precarity and the biopolitics of disposability, thereby creating conditions of possibility for new coalitions across race,
gender, citizenship, sexuality, and class. Recognizing this potential for coalition in the face of precarization is the most pressing
task facing those who are yearning for a new world. The question is: How do we get there? How do we realize these coalitional potentialities
and materialize common horizons?
Ultimately, mapping the neoliberal conjuncture through everyday life in enterprise culture has not only provided some direction
in terms of what we need; it has also cultivated concrete and practical intellectual resources for political interv ention and social
interconnection -- a critical toolbox for living in common. More specifically, this book has sought to provide resources for thinking
and acting against the four Ds: resources for engaging in counter-conduct, modes of living that refuse, on one hand, to conduct one's
life according to the norm of enterprise, and on the other, to relate to others through the norm of competition. Indeed, we need
new ways of relating, interacting, and living as friends, lovers, workers, vulnerable bodies, and democratic people if we are to
write new stories, invent new govemmentalities, and build coalitions for new worlds.
Against Disimagination: Educated Hope and Affirmative Speculation
We need to stop turning inward, retreating into ourselves, and taking personal responsibility for our lives (a task which is ultimately
impossible). Enough with the disimagination machine! Let's start looking outward, not inward -- to the broader structures that undergird
our lives. Of course, we need to take care of ourselves; we must survive. But I firmly believe that we can do this in ways both big
and small, that transform neoliberal culture and its status-quo stories.
Here's the thing I tell my students all the time. You cannot escape neoliberalism. It is the air we breathe, the water in which
we swim. No job, practice of social activism, program of self-care, or relationship will be totally free from neoliberal impingements
and logics. There is no pure "outside" to get to or work from -- that's just the nature of the neoliberalism's totalizing cultural
power. But let's not forget that neoliberalism's totalizing cultural power is also a source of weakness. Potential for resistance
is everywhere, scattered throughout our everyday lives in enterprise culture. Our critical toolbox can help us identify these potentialities
and navigate and engage our conjuncture in ways that tear open up those new worlds we desire.
In other words, our critical perspective can help us move through the world with what Henry Giroux calls educated hope. Educated
hope means holding in tension the material realities of power and the contingency of history. This orientation of educated hope knows
very well what we're up against. However, in the face of seemingly totalizing power, it also knows that neoliberalism can never become
total because the future is open. Educated hope is what allows us to see the fault lines, fissures, and potentialities of the present
and emboldens us to think and work from that sliver of social space where we do have political agency and freedom to construct a
new world. Educated hope is what undoes the power of capitalist realism. It enables affirmative speculation (such as discussed in
Chapter 5), which does not try to hold the future to neoliberal horizons (that's cruel optimism!), but instead to affirm our commonalities
and the potentialities for the new worlds they signal. Affirmative speculation demands a different sort of risk calculation and management.
It senses how little we have to lose and how much we have to gain from knocking the hustle of our lives.
Against De-democratization: Organizing and Collective Coverning
We can think of educated hope and affirmative speculation as practices of what Wendy Brown calls "bare democracy" -- the basic
idea that ordinary' people like you and me should govern our lives in common, that we should critique and try to change our world,
especially the exploitative and oppressive structures of power that maintain social hierarchies and diminish lives. Neoliberal culture
works to stomp out capacities for bare democracy by transforming democratic desires and feelings into meritocratic desires and feelings.
In neoliberal culture, utopian sensibilities are directed away from the promise of collective utopian sensibilities are directed
away from the promise of collective governing to competing for equality.
We have to get back that democractic feeling! As Jeremy Gilbert taught us, disaffected consent is a post-democratic orientation.
We don't like our world, but we don't think we can do anything about it. So, how do we get back that democratic feeling? How do we
transform our disaffected consent into something new? As I suggested in the last chapter, we organize. Organizing is simply about
people coming together around a common horizon and working collectively to materialize it. In this way, organizing is based on the
idea of radical democracy, not liberal democracy. While the latter is based on formal and abstract rights guaranteed by the state,
radical democracy insists that people should directly make the decisions that impact their lives, security, and well-being. Radical
democracy is a practice of collective governing: it is about us hashing out, together in communities, what matters, and working in
common to build a world based on these new sensibilities.
The work of organizing is messy, often unsatisfying, and sometimes even scary. Organizing based on affirmative speculation and
coalition-building, furthermore, will have to be experimental and uncertain. As Lauren Berlant suggests, it means "embracing the
discomfort of affective experience in a truly open social life that no
one has ever experienced." Organizing through and for the common "requires more adaptable infrastructures. Keep forcing the existing
infrastructures to do what they don't know how to do. Make new ways to be local together, where local doesn't require a physical
neighborhood." 5 What Berlant is saying is that the work of bare democracy requires unlearning, and detaching from, our
current stories and infrastructures in order to see and make things work differently. Organizing for a new world is not easy -- and
there are no guarantees -- but it is the only way out of capitalist realism.
Getting back democratic feeling will at once require and help us lo move beyond the biopolitics of disposability and entrenched
systems of inequality. On one hand, organizing will never be enough if it is not animated by bare democracy, a sensibility that each
of us is equally important when it comes to the project of determining our lives in common. Our bodies, our hurts, our dreams, and
our desires matter regardless of our race, gender, sexuality, or citizenship, and regardless of how r much capital (economic,
social, or cultural) we have. Simply put, in a radical democracy, no one is disposable. This bare-democratic sense of equality must
be foundational to organizing and coalition-building. Otherwise, we will always and inevitably fall back into a world of inequality.
On the other hand, organizing and collective governing will deepen and enhance our sensibilities and capacities for radical equality.
In this context, the kind of self-enclosed individualism that empowers and underwrites the biopolitics of disposability melts away,
as we realize the interconnectedness of our lives and just how amazing it feels to
fail, we affirm our capacities for freedom, political intervention, social interconnection, and collective social doing.
Against Dispossession: Shared Security and Common Wealth
Thinking and acting against the biopolitics of disposability goes hand-in-hand with thinking and acting against dispossession.
Ultimately, when we really understand and feel ourselves in relationships of interconnection with others, we want for them as we
want for ourselves. Our lives and sensibilities of what is good and just are rooted in radical equality, not possessive or self-appreciating
individualism. Because we desire social security and protection, we also know others desire and deserve the same.
However, to really think and act against dispossession means not only advocating for shared security and social protection, but
also for a new society that is built on the egalitarian production and distribution of social wealth that we all produce. In this
sense, we can take Marx's critique of capitalism -- that wealth is produced collectively but appropriated individually -- to heart.
Capitalism was built on the idea that one class -- the owners of the means of production -- could exploit and profit from the collective
labors of everyone else (those who do not own and thus have to work), albeit in very different ways depending on race, gender, or
citizenship. This meant that, for workers of all stripes, their lives existed not for themselves, but for others (the appropriating
class), and that regardless of what we own as consumers, we are not really free or equal in that bare-democratic sense of the word.
If we want to be really free, we need to construct new material and affective social infrastructures for our common wealth. In
these new infrastructures, wealth must not be reduced to economic value; it must be rooted in social value. Here, the production
of wealth does not exist as a separate sphere from the reproduction of our lives. In other words, new infrastructures, based on the
idea of common wealth, will not be set up to exploit our labor, dispossess our communities, or to divide our lives. Rather, they
will work to provide collective social resources and care so that we may all be free to pursue happiness, create beautiful and/or
useful things, and to realize our potential within a social world of living in common. Crucially, to create the conditions for these
new, democratic forms of freedom rooted in radical equality, we need to find ways to refuse and exit the financial networks of Empire
and the dispossessions of creditocracy, building new systems that invite everyone to participate in the ongoing production of new
worlds and the sharing of the wealth that we produce in common.
It's not up to me to tell you exactly where to look, but I assure you that potentialities for these new worlds are everywhere
around you.
Tucker dishes it out but he sure can't take it. He invites the guy on because of his
critique of climate change warriors flying around in jets but gets more truth than he
bargained for. A millionaire paid by billionaires not to talk about tax avoidance. I read
Carlson is heir to the Swansons frozen food empire. Then there's Anderson Cooper heir to the
Vanderbilt fortune and Wolf Blitzer with his $5 million salary at CNN. Chris Matthews and
Rachel Maddow over at MSNBC at $5 and $6 million per year respectively. And you wonder why
they talk all day long about issues that don't matter to most Americans.
I changed the term Capitalism to Neoliberalism, as Capitalism has multiple forms incliudong
New DealCapitalism and Neoliberlaism. It is Neoliberlaism that won in 1980 with "Reagan
revolution."
Good to see an article that doesn't blame only the "Jews" seems some people here have a
terrible time believing that there can be more than 1 single cause of wars or other troubles.
I thought all our military heros were required to read and understand Sun Tzu's Art of
War? Seems they skipped a few chapters and cheated on the exam.
Neoliberalism always fails. Neoliberalism is growing and the white population is dying
.hmmmm
The 'flaw' (intentional) in Neoliberalism is that it was never intended to improve the
conditions of the common man. Capital, was only ever intended to fill the coffers of princes,
kings, dukes, barons and lesser nobles so that they would have a medium of exchange for
services that they, themselves, were incapable of producing/providing.
And, as we now see the full long term 'effects' of Neoliberalism, wealth disparity,
homelessness, drug addiction, increased suicide rates, lowered longevity, stagnant wages,
staggeringly high personal, corporate, and sovereign debt levels, increases in personal
bankruptcy (particularly health care related), predatory lending, a monopolistic private
sector, corporate dominance of government (think ALEC and uncontrolled corporate lobbying),
unrestricted immigration (think removal of sanctions on employers for illegals), destruction
of unions (& pensions), encouragement of offshoring and destructive mergers and
acquisitions via changes to the tax code, massive overspending on the military along with an
aggressive empire-building posture, trickle down economics, etc.
The current situation in the U.S. should not be a surprise it started about 38 years ago.
You voted for it and now you will have to live with it. China is indeed kicking our ass, our
"leaders" are far too corrupt to change course, we've hit the iceberg already.
No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will
be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
Welcome to the Saint Reagan Revolution. Have a nice day .
@TKK immigrate a
replacement population if not hostile? Why would you export your industry if not hostile?
You don't dig out and convert your economy to first world standards overnight.
So, the trend lines are clear. The West and U.S. is a finance oligarchy in decline, while
Russia is on a ascendant path. These lines will cross over at some point in near future. One
could even squint and say that Russia is no longer an Oligarchy of special interests, and is
moving into Byzantium mode e.g. symphony of Church and State. Many Russian thinkers are
projecting another 40 years or so to consolidate the gains.
Last night on "Tucker Carlson Tonight," Tucker interviewed J.D. Vance. The interview is
called "Why has the Democratic party turned into the party of the upper class" (February 14,
2019)
Carlson: Well for generations everybody in America knew what the stereotypes were
for the two political parties. Democrats were the party of the working class: Coal miners,
factory workers, your local beat cop. Republicans were the party of lawyers, and doctors, and
they spent a lot of time at country clubs. Remember? Things have changed a lot. Now Democrats
have become the party of the elite professional class. They're consultants, i-bankers,
socialites eager to lecture you about open borders, global warming, from their gated
communities. Nobody knows that change better, or has watched it more carefully than the
author of "Hillbilly Elegy," J.D. Vance. We spoke to him recently about it:
Carlson: J.D. Vance: Thanks for joining us. Because you don't live in Washington
and you think bigger thoughts than the rest of us who are completely consumed by this dumb
new cycle, I want to ask you a broader question: The parties have re-aligned. They don't
represent the same people they thought they represented, or that they've represented for the
last 70 years. I'm not sure their leaders understand this, but you do. Who do the parties
represent as of right now?
Vance: Well, at a big level the Democratic Party increasingly represents
professional class elites and Republicans represent middle and working class wage earners in
the middle of the country. Now I will say I think Democratic leaders kind of get this. If you
look at the big proposals from the 2020 presidential candidates: Universal child care,
debt-free college, even medicare for all which is framed as this lurch to the left, but is
really just a big hand-out to doctors, physicians, pharmaceutical companies and hospitals.
The sort of get that they're the party of the professional class and a lot of their policies
are geared towards making life easier for professional class Americans. The problem I have is
that my party, the Republican Party, hasn't quite figured out that we basically inherited a
big chunk of the old FDR coalition: The middle of the country, working and middle class blue
collar folks, the sort of people who work, pay their taxes, send their kids into the military
-- that's increasingly the base of the Republican Party, but the Republican donor elites are
actually not aligned with those folks in a lot of ways and so there's this really big
miss-match, big-picture, within the Republican Party.
Carlson: So I'm completely fascinated by what you just said -- something I've never
thought of in my life -- that medicare for all is actually a sop for the professional class.
That's a whole separate segment and I hope you'll come back and unpack that all. But more
broadly what you're saying I think is that the Democratic Party understands what it is, and
who it represents, and affirmatively represents them. They do things for their voters. But
the Republican Party doesn't actually represent its own voters very well.
Vance: Yes, that's exactly right. I mean look at who the Democratic Party is -- and
look, I don't like the Democratic Party's policies; most of the time I disagree with them --
but I at least admire that they know who their voters are and they actually -- just as raw,
cynical politics -- do a lot of things to serve those voters. Now look at who Republican
voters increasingly are: They're people who disproportionately serve in the military, but
Republican foreign policy has been a disaster for a lot of veterans. They're
disproportionately folks who want to have more children, they're people who want to have more
single-earner families, they're people who don't necessarily want to go to college, but they
want to work in an economy where, if you play by the rules, you could actually support a
family on one income. Have Republicans done anything for those people, really, in the last 15
or 20 years? I think you can point to some policies of the Trump administration -- certainly
instinctively the President gets who his voters are and what he has to do to service those
folks -- but at the end of the day the broad elite of the party, the folks who really call
the shots, the think-tank intellectuals, the people who write the policy, I just don't think
they realize who their own voters are. Now the slightly more worrying implication is that
maybe some of them do realize who their voters are, they just don't actually like those
voters a lot.
Carlson: Well, that's it. So, I watch the Democratic Party and I notice that if
there's a substantial block within it -- it's this unstable coalition of all these groups
that have nothing in common -- but the one thing they have in common is that the Democratic
Party will protect them. You criticize a block of Democratic voters and they're on you like a
wounded wombat -- they'll bit you! The Republicans watch their voters come under attack and
sort of nod in agreement: Yeah, these people should be attacked.
Vance: That's absolutely right. If you talk to people who spent their lives in DC
-- I know you live in DC, I've spent a lot of my life here -- the people who spend their time
in DC, who work on Republican campaigns, who work at conservative think-tanks -- now this
isn't true of everybody -- but a lot of them actually don't like the people who are voting
for Republican candidates these days. And if you ultimately boil down the Never Trump
phenomenon -- what is the Never Trump phenomenon? -- I was very critical of the President
during the campaign -- but the Never Trump phenomenon is primarily not about the President.
It's about the people who are most excited about somebody who was anti-elitest effectively
taking over the Republican Party. They recognize that Trump was -- whatever his faults -- a
person who instinctively understood who Republicans needed to be for. And at the end of the
day, I think they don't think they necessarily want the Republican Party to be for those
folks. They don't like the policies that will come from it, they don't like necessarily the
country that will come from it, and so there's a lot of vitriol directed at people who voted
for Donald Trump, whether excitedly or not.
Carlson: If the Republican Party has a future, it'll be organized around the ideas
you just laid out -- maybe led by you or by somebody who thinks like you, I'm serious. That's
what it needs. I think. J.D. Vance. Thank you.
"... To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock. ..."
"... Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is currently set to expire in 2022). ..."
"... But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently published by WSJ's "Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory." ..."
"... But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. ..."
"... That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's? ..."
"... Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes. ..."
"... This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires urgent treatment. ..."
For better or worse, Republican Senator and one-time presidential candidate Marco Rubio
isn't about to let
the Democrats own the fight to curtail one of the most flagrant examples of post-crisis
corporate excess. And if he can carve out a niche for himself that might one day help him
credibly pitch himself as a populist firebrand, much like the man who went on to claim the
presidency after defeating him in the Republican primary, well, that sounds to us like a
win-win.
To that end, the senator from Florida on Tuesday unveiled a proposal to limit corporate
buybacks. Unlike a plan pitched by Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer earlier this month, Rubio's
plan would seek to end preferential tax treatment of share buybacks, by decreeing that any
money spent on buybacks would be considered - for tax purposes - a dividend paid to
shareholders, even if individual investors didn't actually part with any stock.
According to CNBC
, the plan calls for every shareholder to receive an imputed portion of the funds equivalent to
the percentage of company stock they own, which, of course, isn't the same thing as directly
handing capital to shareholders (it simply changes the tax rate that the company buying back
the shares would pay).
Ultimately, Rubio hopes that these changes would discourage companies from buying back
stock. Those companies that continued to buy back shares would help contribute to higher
revenues by increasing the funds that can be taxed, while also raising the rate at which this
money can be taxed. Any tax revenue generated by these changes could then be used to encourage
more capital investment, Rubio said. As part of the proposal, Rubio would make a provision in
the tax law that allows companies to deduct capital investment permanent (that provision is
currently set to expire in 2022).
But before lawmakers take their next steps toward regulating how and when companies should
return excess capital to shareholders, they might want to take a look at a column recently
published by WSJ's
"Intelligent Investor" that expounds a concept called "the bladder theory."
Overall, however, buybacks (and dividends) return excess capital to investors who are free
to spend or reinvest it wherever it is most needed. By requiring companies to hang onto their capital instead of paying it out, Congress might
- perhaps - encourage them to invest more in workers and communities.
But the law most likely to govern here is the Law of Unintended Consequences. The history of investment by corporate managers with oodles of cash on their hands isn't
encouraging. Hugh Liedtke, the late chief executive of Pennzoil, reportedly liked to quip
that he believed in "the bladder theory:" Companies should pay out as much cash as possible,
so managers couldn't piss all the money away.
That companies bought back a record $1 trillion worth of stock last year while employers
like GM slashed jobs and closed factories has stoked criticisms of the Trump tax cuts, but as
the gulf between the rich and the poor grows ever more wide (a phenomenon for which we can
thank the Federal Reserve and other large global central banks) it's worth wondering: facing a
simmering backlash to one of the most persistent marginal bids in the market place, have
investors already become too complacent about proposals like Rubio's?
We ask only because
the Dow soared more than 350 points on Tuesday, suggesting that, even as Rubio added a
bipartisan flavor to the nascent movement to curb buybacks, investors aren't taking these
proposals too seriously - at least not yet.
Celotex
This still doesn't address the insider trading aspect of stock buybacks, with insiders front-running the buyback.
vladiki
No one's arguing that if a company's groaning with cash then buybacks make sense. But it's the other 95% of of them that
are the problem. Compare the 20 year graphs of buybacks with corporate profits, corporate debt, corporate tax paid, corporate
dividends paid.
They tell you what everyone in higher management knows - that they're a tax-free dividend mechanism pretending to be
"capital rationalisation".
Worse, since they're largely funded by increased corporate debt (!) they amount to corporate strip-mining by senior
management. This is disgraceful and dangerous. The debt will bust some corporations when the inevitable next downturn comes.
This buyback cancer, which has grown rapidly because of corrupt SEC thinking and perverse tax incentives, requires
urgent treatment.
james diamond squid
Everyone is in on this ponzi. I'm expecting tax deductions for buying stocks/homes.
For decades we have heard about the loss of industrial production throughout what is called the "Rust Belt". It's presented,
even as recent as the prior presidential election as a relative regional problem that only began post-Reagan.
With all due respect, it looks like you forgot that at some point quantity turns into quality, so making simple extrapolations
might well result in an oversimplification of the current situation.
You essentially ignore the current reality of rising popular anger, and the fact of breaking of the social contract by neoliberal
(and first of all financial) oligarchy, which is as detached from "deplorable" as French aristocracy ("let them eat cakes" mentality.)
While less dangerous for the oligarchy then when the USSR used to exist, the level of social anger comes into play as never
before. In 2016 became a material factor that decided the elections. I do not see that 2020 will be different.
The most detrimental effects from outsourcing and offshoring will come to the forefront probably in 10 years or so when the
oil price might be well over $100 per barrel. But even now this huge social experiment on live people in redistribution of wealth
up turn out to be detrimental for the unity of the country (and not only to the unity).
The current squabble between globalist, Clinton wing of Democratic Party allied with the corporatists with the Republican Party
(with supporting intelligence agencies) and rag-tag forces of the opposition is a good indication of the power of this resentment.
Spearheaded by intelligence agencies (with material support from British government ) attack on Trump (aka Russiagate) is the
attack on the idea of an alternative for neoliberal globalization, not so much on the personality or real or perceived Trump actions;
the brutal, Soviet-style attack on the deviation from neoliberal status quo directed on the political elimination of the opposition
by elimination of Trump from the political scene. Much like Show Trials were in the USSR (in this case people were charged to
be British spies ;-)
There are two countries now co-existing within the USA borders. Which often speak different languages. One is the country of
professionals, managers, and capital owners (let's say top 10%). The other is the country of common people (aka "deplorable",
or those who are below median wage -- ~$30K in 2017; ratio of average and median wage is now around 65% ).
With the large part of the latter living as if they live in a third world country. That's definitely true for McDonald, Wall-mart
(and all retail) employees (say, all less than $15 per hour employees, or around half of US workers).
I think the level of anger of "deplorable" will play the major role in 2020 elections and might propel Warren candidacy. That's
why now some MSM are trying to derail her by exploiting the fact that she listed her heritage incorrectly on several applications.
But when the anger of "deplorable" is in play, then, as Donald Trump aptly quipped, one could stand in the middle of Fifth
Avenue, shoot somebody and do not lose any voters. I think this is now true for Warren too.
-- The United States has lost approximately 42,400 factories since 2001
-- The United States has lost a total of about 5.5 million manufacturing jobs since October 2000
-- From 1999 to 2008, employment at the foreign affiliates of US parent companies increased an astounding 30 percent to 10.1 million
-- In 1959, manufacturing represented 28 percent of U.S. economic output. In 2008, it represented 11.5 percent
-- As of the end of 2009, less than 12 million Americans worked in manufacturing. The last time less than 12 million Americans
were employed in manufacturing was in 1941. The United States has lost a whopping 32 percent of its manufacturing jobs since the
year 2000
-- As of 2010 consumption accounts for 70 percent of GDP. Of this 70 percent, over half is spent on services
-- In 2001, the United States ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use. Today it ranks 15th
-- Asia produces 84% of printed circuit boards used worldwide.
-- In September 2011, the Census Bureau said 46.2 million Americans are now living in poverty, which is the highest number of
poor Americans in the 52 years that records have been kept
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos exposing himself, and exposes the National Inquirer for attempted
blackmail. A young senator, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, snaring the headlines and proposing a
preposterous New Green Deal – while further splitting the Democrats. Europe plunging back
into recession. The UK no closer to a Brexit Deal (hang-on, that's not a headline that's just
normal..) Deutsche Bank paying up to demonstrate it can borrow in markets. Santander facing a
Euro 50 bln breach of promise lawsuit from Andreas Orcel (proving the Spanish banking adage: At
Santander – you are either a Botin or a.. servant..) So much out there
Are all these things linked? Yes – the world we live in determines the functionality
of global markets. You might believe Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was the victim of an
Inquirer effort to "catch and kill" a story the paper has on Mr Trump's activities in Moscow,
or you might believe Deutsche Bank's problems are part of a deeper malaise across European
banking. Whatever the news changes our perceptions.
... ... ...
It's a difficult one: the current iteration of capitalism has spawned increased Global
Poverty, Income Inequality, Urban Deprivation, Squalor and Filth. Yet, somehow, such iniquity
isn't actually bad for markets? Should I therefore hurrah the continuation of low rates as good
for markets and ignore the bad for people thing? What's to worry about when share-buybacks push
up stock prices, and the Fed is keeping rates artificially low to i) placate the president, and
ii) counter the president's trade policies.
Long term – even my most hardened sink or sink free-market capitalist critics admit we
face a disruptive inequality crisis. We can address it sooner or later. The imbalances are
growing and the rules of mean reversion apply as much to society and politics as they do to
markets ! Long-term markets would probably function better if everyone is positively motivated.
Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism and economics got it. So do most people – but
the sad reality is Change is Difficult – especially when the market leads opinion!
I've been thinking about the "hows" of making the world a better place all weekend, but I
don't know enough 'ologys or medicine to cure drug abuse, chronic greed, urban mental illness,
virtue-signaling philanthropy, or how to reform out education systems and society to improve
everyone's opportunities.
What I do suspect is markets are building up great long-term underlying weaknesses, but in
the short-terms low interest rates for longer is a distortion, but positive for financial asset
prices That can't be a good thing?
Shallow people and trolls are fond of saying, of capitalism, "this is not capitalism." In
1964 Professor Quigley (Tragedy And Hope) identified 5 stages of capitalism, and we have come
a long way since then, for the worse. But, like the current communist Chinese, it is all
capitalism, stock markets, banks and all. I believe Marx was right when he said communism and
capitalism are the same thing, at a different stage. We need some kind of free market. But as
to this capitalism thing, it is still a new phenomenon in history, and it is not working.
for all you keyboard commando defenders of Adam Smith one thing you fail to comprehend is
that life is about more than what you can just buy and sell, that is the point. Failing to
recognize this fact will only hasten your demise. On top of that, if 'true capitalism' is not
what we have now you say, which is a valid point, then how did we get here? That is how it
started out and now look where it ended up. It was flawed from the start because of the power
of greed in order to purchase influence and infiltrate your 'pure system'.
Where's Capitalism? This country is more fascist than Italy during Mussolini. So again.
This itineration ? This what, version? There aren't flavors to freedom , fknut.
There's something amiss in our money system and it's killing us. Why, in a system of
Fractional Reserve Banking, do the banks no longer need or want savers to deposit savings
with them? What happened?
For decades the various commercial banks courted depositors like eager suiters. They
offered competing interest rates on savings accounts, promoted their 5 and 10 year CDs, even
offered free toasters for opening a new savings account. Something fundamental changed with
the repeal of Glass-Steagal in November, 1999. Banks now promote their "services" - which
cost money - and their loans. Mortgage loans, HELOCs, car loans, student loans, credit cards,
all manner of loans. We're inundated with offers from banks to loan us money.
Prior to the repeal of Glass-Steagal the saying was, "The only way to get a loan is to
prove you don't need one."
Long term speaking, global 'capitalism' is really an alliance between global bankers and
one strong country at a time, to use that country's government to blow a national money and
asset bubble. ('Imperial' is probably better than 'national.')
First it was the Dutch Empire, then it was the British, and then it was America. When one
top country's strength is spent by debt, corruption and easy living, the bankers move on to
the next one.
Things look bad today because we're near the end of one global empire but the next one
(India) is still some way off. The elites have to do whatever ad hoc trickery to keep the
current charade going, absent real strength and growth from a new national bubble.
Until neoliberal elite stops its brutal squeeze of workers, expect collapsing of the social contract. The country was already
in a pre-revolutionary state in 2016 with the net result of election of Trump over Clinton (and, given a chance, people would
have chosen Sanders over Trump).
The color revolution against Trump, which is underway, is, as s side effect, undermining of influence of neoliberal MSM (aka
"fake news" ) and social unity of the nation. When the President calls WaPo "Bezos blog" that's delegitimization (and naked Bezos
photos does not help either) When FBI is compared to STASI and Mueller investigation is called a witch hunt that points on the
deeply divided country with the fractured neoliberal elite experiencing the crisis of legitimacy.
But the basic problem is that it costs a lot of money to cultivate a segment of the market now as it involves creation of a
group of new consumers. And the more sophisticated the segment is, the more expensive it is. If workers are squashed (good jobs
are displaced by McJob and/or permatemps) you face stagnation as top 10% can't replace bottom 80% as consumers.
That's probably why the US economy can't escape secular stagnation and reported growth is within the error margin of measurements
and heavily depends on the inflation metric and "expansive" treatment of GDP (gambling, financial industries, military expenses,
etc)
Paul Krugman said the US economy may be heading into a recession On the positive side that might end Trump run and give Warren
a chance. On the negative it will amplify the current inequality problems and might provoke social unrest.
Bert Schlitz , February 11, 2019 3:13 pm
Sorry, Lilbez, Trump didn't win anything and was a neoliberal invention which coincides with evangelical voters. Why you keep
on missing that point? Don't you want to admit that?
Another little fact, Sprague's growth peaked in 1959. It actually was bleeding jobs by the late 60's which triggered the real
strikes. Maybe, just maybe that growth was a illusion of the war driven destruction.
spencer , February 11, 2019 4:20 pm
Bert -- the first death of manufacturing was the New England textile and shoe industries in the 1920's–1940s. Those industries
finally became too small to have a significant negative impact in New England in the 1960s and 1970s. Boston and other New England
areas started rebounding in the 1960s, largely on the back of aerospace and other technology intensive industries. But the 1970
recession was lead by the fall in those industries. So the Massachusetts Miracle appeared to start with the recovery from the
1970 recession. What made Mass different. One by the 1960s shoes and textiles has become so small that they were no longer a significant
drag on the economy. Second, Massachusetts continued its very large investment in education, and it was not only MIT, but throughout
the public secondary and college level schools. So it had the educated population to move into the very early stages of the emerging
information technology industries that later came to be known as the Massachusetts Miracle. So Mass went through the death of
its key manufacturing industries earlier than other regions, but continued to invest heavily in education, something I'm afraid
I do not see in the Midwest. Moreover, in the Midwest the traditional industries are still large enough that weakness in them
still has a significant negative impact on GDP. Moreover, the growth we do see in autos and other Midwestern industries is occurring
in the South and does not help the Midwest much -- Alabama is now the second most important manufacturer of cars and light trucks.
There is a certain validity to your analysis, but it is off by enough to be misleading.
Kaleberg , February 11, 2019 7:53 pm
Spencer is right about manufacturing vanishing over a much longer time frame. Manufacturing jobs have been vanishing since
the early 20th century. A lot of this is increased efficiency. It used to take over 100 work-hours to build a car. Now it's down
to 20 and still falling. New England industrialized early, and by the 1970s the dead/dying shoe industry was a major item in the
presidential debates. In 'Still the Iron Age', Smil points out that the steel industry has probably gained an order of magnitude
in efficiency over the last 30 years, but this kind of thing never gets press coverage. Basic oxygen furnaces and direct reduction
or iron don't make good news stories.
The places that have recovered first emphasized education and having a broad portfolio. Who would have imagined how important
furniture design and manufacturing would be to Los Angeles recovery from the aerospace collapse after the Cold War? The big difference
with our "Rust Belt" is the overall massive level of denial combined with vicious racism and antisemitism: "If we could just kill
enough blacks and Jews, they'll start making washing machines here again."
Amazon boss Jeff Bezos exposing himself, and exposes the National Inquirer for attempted
blackmail. A young senator, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, snaring the headlines and proposing a
preposterous New Green Deal – while further splitting the Democrats. Europe plunging back
into recession. The UK no closer to a Brexit Deal (hang-on, that's not a headline that's just
normal..) Deutsche Bank paying up to demonstrate it can borrow in markets. Santander facing a
Euro 50 bln breach of promise lawsuit from Andreas Orcel (proving the Spanish banking adage: At
Santander – you are either a Botin or a.. servant..) So much out there
Are all these things linked? Yes – the world we live in determines the functionality
of global markets. You might believe Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos was the victim of an
Inquirer effort to "catch and kill" a story the paper has on Mr Trump's activities in Moscow,
or you might believe Deutsche Bank's problems are part of a deeper malaise across European
banking. Whatever the news changes our perceptions.
The trick is too separate the chaos of new flow from the tau of markets . Markets are linear
functions of buy/sell – they are not necessarily about common sense. To illustrate: last
week I wrote about Italy, pointing out just how hopelessly its ensnared and entrapped within
the straight-jacket of the Euro, with little prospect of growth, employment or upside.
Yet Italian bonds are one of the top performing assets – AND WILL REMAIN SO –
because the ECB can't afford to let Italy go, and Europe sliding back into downturn pretty much
ensures they'll continue to bailout Italy and likely resurrect QE in some form – watch
out for something like long-term repos. An article in one weekend paper says the EU is now
turning a blind eye to European governments spending their way out of austerity driven
recession.
Therefore, smart investors might agree with my analysis of Italy as unsustainable, yet keep
buying Italy, and will keep on buying right up to the moment the arbitrage cracks. (According
the theory of flight bumble-bees can't fly – but they do.) That's why the smart hedge
fund bosses are watching the succession for Draghi's job at the ECB so carefully, and weighting
populism in Germany so carefully – as it requires a complicit German electorate to keep
the Euro illusion going. I suspect they care considerably less about the current spat betwixt
France and Italy – entertaining as it is.
On a purely common sense Macro perspective, you should probably ignore Europe completely.
Who cares about counties with sub 1% growth, demographic time-bombs ticking away, and a
hopeless mish-mash of unpredictable populist politics coming to the fore? Go invest in the fast
growing economies of Africa and Asia instead.. Yet, it still makes sense to arb the European
game.
Such things are just facets of the six-impossible things before breakfast approach to
investment.
Using the same logic, you might see US stock and bond markets as a screaming buy!
US growth remains robust – despite the FED clearly indicating its dialing back rate
hikes. Essentially rates will remain flat. Is that a problem? From the market's perspective
– get out the party hats! There is no long term inflation threat because there is zero
wage pressure. Despite "full employment" US companies pay as little as they can. Wages aren't
rising.
Low rates will fuel yet more share buy-backs for Bernie Sanders to fulminate against. Share
buybacks are great for the market and excellent for senior executives and owners of businesses
– converting equity into massively underpriced debt and handing more capital back to
them. More highly levered companies don't actually build anything more, or create new jobs but
the rich get richer – and, heck, isn't that what capitalism is all about? In the
short-run .
Last week I commented in the Morning Porridge about Squalor and Creeping Poverty in San
Francisco. It was an eye-opener. It got about a quarter
of a million views on Zerohedge , I got trolled and called a communist /socialist
/democratic no-nothing stooge. (On the plus side, I got over 300 comments from porridge
readers, and only one was nasty. The rest ranged from supportive to constructively
critical.)
It's a difficult one: the current iteration of capitalism has spawned increased Global
Poverty, Income Inequality, Urban Deprivation, Squalor and Filth. Yet, somehow, such iniquity
isn't actually bad for markets? Should I therefore hurrah the continuation of low rates as good
for markets and ignore the bad for people thing? What's to worry about when share-buybacks push
up stock prices, and the Fed is keeping rates artificially low to i) placate the president, and
ii) counter the president's trade policies.
Long term – even my most hardened sink or sink free-market capitalist critics admit we
face a disruptive inequality crisis. We can address it sooner or later. The imbalances are
growing and the rules of mean reversion apply as much to society and politics as they do to
markets ! Long-term markets would probably function better if everyone is positively motivated.
Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism and economics got it. So do most people – but
the sad reality is Change is Difficult – especially when the market leads opinion!
I've been thinking about the "hows" of making the world a better place all weekend, but I
don't know enough 'ologys or medicine to cure drug abuse, chronic greed, urban mental illness,
virtue-signaling philanthropy, or how to reform out education systems and society to improve
everyone's opportunities.
What I do suspect is markets are building up great long-term underlying weaknesses, but in
the short-terms low interest rates for longer is a distortion, but positive for financial asset
prices That can't be a good thing?
No country or region of the world has ever broke out of the chains of
poverty through the magic of the market. And no country has developed because of the
benevolence of foreign capital. None. The consistent historical record has entailed growth and
development anchored in highly nationalist economic agendas with heavy involvement of public
institutions.
In fact, for much of medieval and early modern Europe, with England leading the way, national
economies were built around mercantilism. This was a system that directly employed state power
for national economic accumulation. Merchants and rulers drunk from the same teacup.
This system of mercantilism is in fact still alive today: For example, American military power
is intricately tied to business interests for national accumulation and when American
politicians talk about 'our national interest,' they primarily mean economic.
With a terribly disappointing record of modest growth, at best, without transformation, the
neoliberal creed has come under increasing doubt from the front-runner converts of the 1980s,
including our own NRM regime in Uganda. There has been a striking turnaround in rhetoric though
not practice.
It is instructive to hear the Ugandan ruler belatedly lamenting the dubious practices of
multinational telecom companies that evade taxes and repatriate all their profits: That is
precisely what we signed up for. Sorry Mr President. With rapidly growing and
disproportionately young populations, African countries are increasingly seen as the main
frontier for product innovation and experimentation. So, China's aggressive penetration of the
continent, seductively using infrastructural projects, has to be viewed in that light –
to capture markets and raw materials for the long-term.
The raw end to Africa's place in the global economy, and for which African governments show
little concern, is the one-way traffic of an unlimited open policy in Africa, but not for
African products out of Africa, not in China or India and not in the West.
Part of the problem, we are often told, is not having competitive products for the so-called
global markets, but how on earth is this ever going to happen when local producers are overrun
on the home turf by cheap Chines goods? Much the same way we hunger for foreign investors,
there is a rather misleading obsession with exporting to foreign markets. But the immediate,
domestic market provides the necessary testing ground for breaking into the distant
consumer.
African governments, more so the one of Mr Museveni, will do well to fully concede to the
neoliberal mirage. Markets can theoretically do many things, but they have never on their own,
delivered robust and sustained growth or brought about economic transformation. There is now
wide consensus in academic circles that fiscal coercion, to direct credit and investment to
certain critical sectors of a poor economy, is crucial to propel and sustain high growth.
For Uganda, the greatest obstacle to a radical rethink and turnaround of national economic
policy is the powerful cabal, comprising local comprador class and foreign speculators, who
have profiteered enormously from the laissez faire system, including commandeering public
property and using state power for economic predation.
In that regard, the struggle for political change is also, in fact, most importantly in
concrete terms, a struggle for economic revolution, to embark on a wholly different approach to
a long-term national economic strategy.
Without an internally coherent and clearly articulated long-term plan for economic
transformation, away from the orthodoxy of the IMF and the World, Uganda will remain trapped in
poverty 50 years down the road. Dr Khisa is assistant professor at North Carolina State
University (USA). [email protected]
"... The opposite of a neoliberal economic agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but democratic re-engagement. Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to cutting taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course not even the Coalition believes that any more. These days they proudly subsidise their friends and regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their preferred form. ..."
"... While the hypocrisy is staggering, at least voters can now see that politics, and elections, matter. Having been told for decades that it was "global markets" that shaped our society, it's now clear that it is actually the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott who decide whether we get new coal mines or power stations. Luckily, millions of voters now realise that if it's OK to subsidise new coal mines, there's no reason we can't subsidise renewables instead. ..."
"... So, what to nationalise? What new machinery of state should we build first? Should we create a national anti-corruption watchdog, replace the productivity commission with a national interest commission, or abolish the failed network of finance sector regulators and build a new one from scratch? ..."
"... The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size and role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build. ..."
"... class warfare (by the rich against the 99%, though I should not need to say that) is still very much alive. ..."
"... The rise of nationalism is indeed worrying situation.. but its clear that mass discontent is driving a 'shift' away from the status quo and that opportunists of every creed are all trying to get in on the action.. ..."
"... the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is population growth and lack of natural resources and meaningful 'employment' .. which self serving politicians are exploiting via playing the fear card and creating further division in society in order to embrace and increase their own power. Further more, no one, it seems, has any valid answers as regards resolving the division and creating a path forward.. thereby making more conflict an inevitability. ..."
"... Like Octopus, the globalists have every one of their eight legs in a different pot of gold. On their arms, suction cups maintain an iron grip. Trying to pull those suckers out, leaves us raw and bleeding. To release their grip, without hurting ourselves, we must aim for the brain. ..."
"... Murdoch's media empire has arms in every Democracy on earth. As his poisonous ink spread across our lands, we wallowed in the dark. ..."
"... The Oil and Coal Tycoons have arms in every black hole on earth. As their suckers pull black gold from the land beneath our feet, we choke on the air we breathe. ..."
"... The Financial Tyrants have arms in our buildings, factories, farms and homes. Their suckers stripped our pockets bare and we ran out of money. ..."
"... The False Prophets spread their arms into our private lives. Their suckers turned our modest, humble faiths into global empires filled with mega-churches, televangelists, jet-setting preachers and evangelical armies Hell bent on disruption and destruction. ..."
"... Neoliberalism may be dead but the former Trotskyites who invented it are still alive and they still have an agenda. ..."
"... Neo Liberalism was a project cooked up back in the late 1970s by the Capital owning classes & enacted by successive govts of "right" or "left" ever since. They feared the growing power of the working & middle classes which they felt threatened their own power & wealth. So they set out to destroy any ability of the working class to organise & to gut the middle class. ..."
"... Key to this was decoupling wages from productivity & forcing us all into debt peonage. Deregulation of the financial markets & the globalization of capital markets, disastorous multilateral trade deals & off shoring jobs, slashing state social programmes, Union busting laws all part of the plan. All covered with a lie that we live in meritocracies & the "best & brightest" are in charge. The result has been evermore riches funneled to the wealthiest few percent & a wealth gap bigger than that of the gilded age ..."
"... The majority press are so organised around the idea that neoliberalism in the sense captured economically and to some extent socially as construed in the article above; ..."
"... Rumours of neoliberalism's death have been somewhat exaggerated. Its been on life support provided by the LNP since John Howard and there are still a few market fundamentalists lurking in the ranks of the ALP, just waiting for their chance to do New Labor MkII in memory of Paul Keating. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's lasting legacy will not be the ludicrous economic programs, privatizations and deregulation, those can all be rolled back if some party would grow a spine. The real damage was caused by the aping of the US and UK's cult of individual responsibility, the atomizing effects of neoliberal anti-social policy and demonization of collective action including unionism. ..."
The opposite of a neoliberal economic agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but
democratic re-engagement. Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to cutting
taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course not even
the Coalition believes that any more. These days they proudly subsidise their friends and
regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their preferred form.
While the hypocrisy is staggering, at least voters can now see that politics, and elections,
matter. Having been told for decades that it was "global markets" that shaped our society, it's
now clear that it is actually the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott who decide whether we
get new coal mines or power stations. Luckily, millions of voters now realise that if it's OK
to subsidise new coal mines, there's no reason we can't subsidise renewables instead.
Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world Read more
The parliament is filling with people of all political persuasions who, if nothing else,
decry the neoliberal agenda to shrink our government and our national vision. While there's
obviously quite a distance between MPs who want to build the nation, one new coal mine at a
time, and those who want to fill our cities with renewable energy, the whole purpose of
democracy is to settle such disputes at the ballot box.
So, what to nationalise? What new machinery of state should we build first? Should we create
a national anti-corruption watchdog, replace the productivity commission with a national
interest commission, or abolish the failed network of finance sector regulators and build a new
one from scratch?
... ... ...
The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size and
role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build. But we need to
do more than talk about tax and regulation. Australia is one of the oldest parliamentary
democracies in the world, and we once helped lead the world in the design of democratic
institutions and the creation of an open democratic culture. Let's not allow the legacy of
neoliberalism to be a cynical belief that there is no point repairing and rebuilding the
democratic institutions that ensure not just our economy thrives, but our society as well. A
quick look around the world provides clear evidence that there really are a lot of
alternatives.
Richard Denniss is chief economist for the Australia Institute
Mmmm, well, class warfare (by the rich against the 99%, though I should not need to say that)
is still very much alive.
Globalisation-driven financial deregulation was commenced here by Hawke Labor from 1983 as
a Laberal facade for the Australian chapter of the transnational ruling class policy of
self-enrichment. It was sold to the aspirationals as the ever-popular This Will Make You Rich
- as ever-rising house prices did, for home-owners then (paid for now through housing
unaffordability for their descendants). Then, transnational capital was able to loot both
aspirationals' productivity gains (easily 10% of GDP) plus usurious interest from the
borrowings made by the said aspirationals (easily 6% of GDP) to keep up with the Joneses.
Now, it loots 90% of all increases in GDP, leaving just 10% in crumbs from the filthy rich
man's table for 15 million workers to share.
We don't notice as much as we should, because the mainstream (mainly but not only Murdoch)
media is very good at persuading us - then and now - that there is nothing to see. It is a
tool of that transnational class, its role being to manufacture our consent to our own
exploitation. Thus they play the man because it is politically easier than open demands that
the public be robbed. In the case of penalty rates, thus adopting the obvious hypocrisy of
which "The Australian" accuses Shorten. Or they play the woman, in the case of the ferocious,
relentless media vilification of Julia Gillard and Gillard Labor – five years after the
demonization of Gillard Labor's Great Big New (Carbon) Tax, the need for one is now almost
universally accepted. Or they play the players, hence a focus on Dutton's challenge that
pretends that he has meaningful policies.
Labor's class traitors clearly intended to aggressively apply the standard neoliberal
model – look at how it helps their careers after politics (ask Anna Blight)! Shorten is
not working to promote some progressive agenda, he is doing as little as possible, and
expects to simply be voted into The Lodge as a committed servant of transnational
capitalism.
I stopped voting 40 years ago because the voting system is mathematically rigged to favor
the duopoly. Until a large number of minor parties can share their preferences and beat the
majors, which is now starting to happen. This is not just voting for a good representative,
but voting against the corrupt parties. A minority government should lead to proper debate in
parliament. More women will lead to lower levels of testosterone fuelled sledging and better
communication. A "Coalition of Representative Independents" could form government in the
future, leading by consensus and constantly listening to the community.
The rise of nationalism is indeed worrying situation.. but its clear that mass discontent is
driving a 'shift' away from the status quo and that opportunists of every creed are all
trying to get in on the action..
The big nut to crack is HOW do we collectively find sane and
honest leadership ? A huge part of the problem is the ongoing trend of disdain for government
in favor of embracing private monopolies as the be all and end all for solving the ongoing
societal rift. .. which has created a centralization of wealth and the power that that wealth
yields.. allied to the fact that huge swaths of the population in EVERY nation were hiding
when the brains were allocated.. and hence are very easy to dupe..
the elephant in the room
that no one wants to discuss is population growth and lack of natural resources and
meaningful 'employment' .. which self serving politicians are exploiting via playing the fear
card and creating further division in society in order to embrace and increase their own
power. Further more, no one, it seems, has any valid answers as regards resolving the
division and creating a path forward.. thereby making more conflict an inevitability.
Like Octopus, the globalists have every one of their eight legs in a different pot of gold.
On their arms, suction cups maintain an iron grip. Trying to pull those suckers out, leaves
us raw and bleeding. To release their grip, without hurting ourselves, we must aim for the
brain.
Murdoch's media empire has arms in every Democracy on earth. As his poisonous ink spread
across our lands, we wallowed in the dark.
The Oil and Coal Tycoons have arms in every black hole on earth. As their suckers pull
black gold from the land beneath our feet, we choke on the air we breathe.
The Financial Tyrants have arms in our buildings, factories, farms and homes. Their
suckers stripped our pockets bare and we ran out of money.
The False Prophets spread their arms into our private lives. Their suckers turned our
modest, humble faiths into global empires filled with mega-churches, televangelists,
jet-setting preachers and evangelical armies Hell bent on disruption and destruction.
Denniss offers us the cure! Start thinking fresh and new and starve the globalists to
death. They fed us BS, we ate BS and now we are mal-nourished. We need good, healthy
ideas.
Land. Infrastructure. Time.
Time - "WE" increased productivity and the globalists stole the rewards. Time to increase
our FREE time. 32 hours is the NEW full time. Pay us full time wages, give us full time
benefits, and reduce our work days by 20% and suddenly we have 20% more jobs. As the incomes
of billionaires drop, the money in circulation will increase. We are the job creators - not
globalists.
21st Century Infrastructure is about healthy human beings - not the effing economy. Think
healthcare, education, senior care and child care. If we find out you have sent your money
off-shore, your local taxes will increase by ten. So please, do, send your money off-shore -
our cities and towns would love to increase taxes on your stores, offices and real estate by
ten.
No more caps on taxes. If you are a citizen, you pay social taxes on every dime you get.
In America you will be paying 15.3% of every dollar to social security. That's $153,000.00 a
year for every million dollars you take out of our economy.
Land is not something you put in a museum, lock away in a vault, or wear on your neck.
Think fresh and new. If you own land, you are responsible for meeting community rules.
No more empty, weed filled lots allowed. If you have empty land, you better put in a nice
garden, pretty trees and walkways or we will do it for you and employ "eminent-domain" on
your bank accounts to pay for it.
No more empty buildings. If you own an empty building you will put it to good use, or we
will do it for you - and keep the profits to fund our local governments, schools, hospitals,
and senior/child care centers.
No more slumlords allowed. We have basic standards, for everyone. If we catch you renting
a slum to anyone, we will make repairs for you, and if you do not pay the bill, we will put a
lien on your building and wait until you sell it to pay ourselves back.
We do not trust you big-box types anymore. If you want to build your mega-store in our
cities, towns or communities, you must, first, deposit the entire cost of tearing it down,
and landscaping a park, or playground when you leave. While you stay, we will invest your
deposit in index funds and assure ourselves enough money down the road.
Sorry you BIG guys and gals, but you will find our countries are very expensive places for
you to invest. We put our families, our neighborhoods and our lives first.
However - and it's a big however - there is a very real danger that at the next election
the libs will again win by default due to the fact that many traditional labour voters are
defecting to the greens instead. Sadly, LNP supporters are a lot less likely to vote green.
Our best hope is to wipe the LNP out at the next election by voting labour, and then at the
election after that establishing the greens in opposition. It is unfortunatly unlikely to
happen at the next election....and I just hope that voters in certain seats understand that
by voting for the greens they might be in fact unwittingly handing the reins back to the
least green party of all: the LNP.
Neo Liberalism was a project cooked up back in the late 1970s by the Capital owning classes
& enacted by successive govts of "right" or "left" ever since. They feared the growing
power of the working & middle classes which they felt threatened their own power &
wealth. So they set out to destroy any ability of the working class to organise & to gut
the middle class.
Key to this was decoupling wages from productivity & forcing us all
into debt peonage. Deregulation of the financial markets & the globalization of capital
markets, disastorous multilateral trade deals & off shoring jobs, slashing state social
programmes, Union busting laws all part of the plan. All covered with a lie that we live in
meritocracies & the "best & brightest" are in charge. The result has been evermore
riches funneled to the wealthiest few percent & a wealth gap bigger than that of the
gilded age
The majority press are so organised around the idea that neoliberalism in the sense captured
economically and to some extent socially as construed in the article above; as normal and
natural that nothing can be done. As the system folds we see in its place Brexit, neoconservatism, Trump.
This is not new found freedom or Liberatarianism but a post liberal
world where decency and open mindedness and open nuanced debate take a a back seat to
populism and demagoguery.
The whole purpose of Anglophone liberal democracy has been twofold: 1. to establish and
protect private property rights and 2. TO guarantee some individual liberties. Guess who
benefits from the enshrinement of private property rights as absolute? Big owners, and you
know who they are. ... Individual tights are just not that sacred, summon the latest
bogeyman, and they can be shrunken or tossed.
Neoliberalism, the economic stablemate of big religion's Prosperity Evangelism cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
.
Dual streams of bull shit to confuse the citizens while the Country's immense wealth is
stolen.
It seems there's been a turning point recently though in the ideas of neoliberalism, as
pointed out by Denniss that suddenly it's okay for all and sundry to talk about nationalising
industries and infrastructure. It will probably take a couple of decades to turn things
around in practical ways. And there are surely plenty of powerful supporters of the ideas of
neoliberalism still around.
Is neo-liberalism really dead or is it wishful thinking?
If neo-liberalism really is on the decline in Australia, all i can say is bravo to Australia,
use this opportunity to build a stronger government and regain the terrain that was lost
during the TINA (there is no alternative) years.
Here in Canada neo-liberalism is stronger than ever, maybe because of the proximity to the
cancerous tumor at the south, so when i read this article, i did it with a bit of skepticism
but also with a bit of envy and a bit of hope for the future.
Neoliberalism is *not* dead, and it is counter-productive to claim that it is. It is clearly
the driver of what passes for policy by the LNP government. Just as trickle-down economics
remains as the basis of the government's economic actions.
It will look like it's dead when back bone services and infrastructure utilities are returned
to public ownership.
Those things are not fit for market style private ownership for a few big reasons:
They are by their nature natural monopolies (so a market private ownership won't work and
will rapidly creep up prices of reduced service precisely because they not in a natural
market context.
These core services and utilities are mega scale operations beyond a natural market ROI
value.
These core sovereign services and utilities, are nation critical to the national economy
and political stability. The last thing we want to do is hand that sovereign power over to
private control.
Australia is a very fortunate country. It enjoys national sovereignty, unshackled by
crippling bonds to anything like the neoliberal EU. It is thus able to concentrate on solving
its own issues.
Great article. Must say that we do have more than one vote per electorate. They're called
preference votes. Kerryn Phelps get 23% of the primary PLUS a heap of preferences! But a
proportional system would change a whole lot of results
Firstly we are not in America. America is a basket case and has been since, well, forever.
Secondly the so called "housing crisis" is a simple consequence of a growing population.
In the 1950s there were just 8m people in Australia, there 10m in the 1960s and 12m in the
1970s. And, no, neo-liebralism didn't cause the growing population. People having sex and
living longer caused the growing population. It is therefore all the more remarkable that we
have actually built enough houses to house a population which has doubled in size.
Thirdly, in the last 30 years 1 billion people have been lifted out of poverty. When you
talk about huge, unprecedented, un-fucking-believable levels of poverty, super-massive
inequality, dissatisfaction (Really? This is now a measure?), unemployment/sub-employment and
casualization, collapse (collapse?) of public services, high(er) costs of living.....do you
think you're being a little overly dramatic?
Do you really think it all comes to back to one silly economic theory?
Nothing to do with the reality of automation, globalisation, growing populations and the
realities of living in 2018 rather than 1978?
Are voters around the world going hard against Neoliberalism? (I note it's now a
capitalised term).
In the US they voted for a billionaire who blamed immigrants for people's problems while
promising tax and spending cuts.....sounds like an even more extreme version of
neo-liberlaism to me.
In Britain they voted for Brexit to....oh that's right....kick out immigrants and burn
"red tape".
In Brazil, yep, more neo-liberalism on steroids.
In fact, looking around the world it's actually the far right which are seizing power.
And this is the issue with the obsessive preoccupation with community decline. It feeds
directly into the hands of fascism and the far right.
I'm not saying things are perfect. I would prefer to see much more government investment.
The only way we'll get that is to educate ourselves about how government finances work so
that we're not frightened off by talk of deficits.
However, by laying this all on the door of one rather silly economic theory is to ignore
that economics is nothing without human beings. It is human beings who are responsible for
all of the good and bad in the world. No theory is going change that. If the world is the way
it is it's because humans made it like this.
The "deterioration of the environment"? We did that not neo-liberalism .....
In answer to the headline article question, yes WE citizens should collectively strive to
think radically, bigger and better than the existing status quo.
PAY CITIZENS TO VOTE!
We must bypass the vested interests and create a new system which encourages active,
regular participation in democracy.... lest we wake up one day and realise too late that, by
stealth and citizen apathy, the plutocrats and their corporate fascist servants have usurped
our nation state, corrupted our law and weakened our institutions, to such a point that our
individual rights are permanently crushed.
Change is coming, like it or not. This century - there is great risk to society that
advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and lifespan enhancing
genetic engineering will be used by ultra-rich plutocrats to make the vast majority of
humanity redundant (within a couple of generations).
Citizens should advocate for DIRECT DEMOCRACY in which citizens are PAID on a per vote per
issue basis (subject to verification checks that support the rewarding of effort- citizens
should be asked to first demonstrate that they have made effort to obtain sufficient
knowledge on a particular topic, prior to being rewarded for their service of voting. Such a
process can be opt-in, those who want to be paid, work to do so by learning about the
governance issue which is to be voted upon. In this way, a minimum wage can be obtained by
direct citizen participation in the governance of communities and our nation). We have the
technologies TODAY to undertake open-ledger, smart-phone enabled, digital/postal voting on a
per issue basis... which can be funded by EFFECTIVE taxation on large multinational
corporations and ultra-wealthy (foreign) shareholders. Citizen will is needed to influence
change - the major political parties did not want a Federal ICAC and they certainly will not
support paid direct citizen democracy unless voters overwhelming demand it.
Citizens already accept that politicians are paid to vote (and frequently "rewarded" for
their "service" to large corporations and wealthy (foreign) shareholders by unethical,
corrupt means). Thus, in principle, why can society not collectively accept direct payment to
citizens for their individual vote upon an issue? Why do citizens continue to accept
archaic systems of democracy which have clearly FAILED to meet the needs of our population in
the 21st century?
Citizens are not sufficiently politically engaged in democracy and their civic
responsibilities BECAUSE they are not incentivised to do so and because they are economic
slaves without the luxury of time to sort through deliberate overload of disinformation,
distortion, distraction and deception. Citizens are struggling to obtain objective
understanding and to think critically because these crucial functions of democracy are
innately discouraged by our existing 20th century economy (that is, slaves are busy support
the systems of plutocrats in order that they may live, ants to a queen).
We must advocate for change in the systems of democracy which are failing our communities,
our nation, our planet. For too long, plutocrats and their servants have maintained control
over economic slaves and the vast majority of the population because citizens have accepted
the status quo of being governed by the powerful.
Technology has permanently changed our species. We must all collectively act before innate
human greed, lust for power and fear of loss of control (by the wealthy few) lead the
majority on an irrational path toward destruction - using the very technologies which helped
set us free from the natural world!
In answer to the headline article question, yes WE citizens should collectively strive to
think radically, bigger and better than the existing status quo. PAY CITIZENS TO VOTE!
We must bypass the vested interests and create a new system which encourages active,
regular participation in democracy.... lest we wake up one day and realise too late that, by
stealth and citizen apathy, the plutocrats and their corporate fascist servants have usurped
our nation state, corrupted our law and weakened our institutions, to such a point that our
individual rights are permanently crushed.
Change is coming, like it or not. This century - there is great risk to society that
advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and lifespan enhancing
genetic engineering will be used by ultra-rich plutocrats to make the vast majority of
humanity redundant (within a couple of generations).
Citizens should advocate for DIRECT DEMOCRACY in which citizens are PAID on a per vote per
issue basis (subject to verification checks that support the rewarding of effort- citizens
should be asked to first demonstrate that they have made effort to obtain sufficient
knowledge on a particular topic, prior to being rewarded for their service of voting. Such a
process can be opt-in, those who want to be paid, work to do so by learning about the
governance issue which is to be voted upon. In this way, a minimum wage can be obtained by
direct citizen participation in the governance of communities and our nation). We have the
technologies TODAY to undertake open-ledger, smart-phone enabled, digital/postal voting on a
per issue basis... which can be funded by EFFECTIVE taxation on large multinational
corporations and ultra-wealthy (foreign) shareholders. Citizen will is needed to influence
change - the major political parties did not want a Federal ICAC and they certainly will not
support paid direct citizen democracy unless voters overwhelming demand it.
Citizens already accept that politicians are paid to vote (and frequently "rewarded" for
their "service" to large corporations and wealthy (foreign) shareholders by unethical,
corrupt means). Thus, in principle, why can society not collectively accept direct payment to
citizens for their individual vote upon an issue? Why do citizens continue to accept
archaic systems of democracy which have clearly FAILED to meet the needs of our population in
the 21st century?
Citizens are not sufficiently politically engaged in democracy and their civic
responsibilities BECAUSE they are not incentivised to do so and because they are economic
slaves without the luxury of time to sort through deliberate overload of disinformation,
distortion, distraction and deception. Citizens are struggling to obtain objective
understanding and to think critically because these crucial functions of democracy are
innately discouraged by our existing 20th century economy (that is, slaves are busy support
the systems of plutocrats in order that they may live, ants to a queen).
We must advocate for change in the systems of democracy which are failing our communities,
our nation, our planet. For too long, plutocrats and their servants have maintained control
over economic slaves and the vast majority of the population because citizens have accepted
the status quo of being governed by the powerful.
Technology has permanently changed our species. We must all collectively act before innate
human greed, lust for power and fear of loss of control (by the wealthy few) lead the
majority on an irrational path toward destruction - using the very technologies which helped
set us free from the natural world!
Richard went off the rails in his opening sentence: "The opposite of a neoliberal economic
agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but democratic re-engagement."
I say this because economically misinformed democratic engagement is a shackle around
democracy, at best, if not fatal to democracy. And the biggest and most fundamental
misinformation, spouted every bit as much by ALP and Greens as the Libs, is that we must
strive for a "sustainable surplus".
As Richard rightly observes, "Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to
cutting taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course
not even the Coalition believes that any more." But that doesn't stop them, or Labor, or the
Greens from guaranteeing the continuance of the neoliberal cut & privatise mania by
insisting that they believe in "budget repair" and "return to surplus" - an insistence which
their economically illiterate or misled supporters accept. If you believe in the obviously
ridiculous necessity for a currency issuer to run balanced budgets, you are forced into
invalid neoliberal thinking, into accepting a false "necessity" for cuts and privatisations,
or economy-sedating taxation increases.
Rumours of neoliberalism's death have been somewhat exaggerated. Its been on life support
provided by the LNP since John Howard and there are still a few market fundamentalists
lurking in the ranks of the ALP, just waiting for their chance to do New Labor MkII in memory
of Paul Keating.
Neoliberalism's lasting legacy will not be the ludicrous economic programs, privatizations
and deregulation, those can all be rolled back if some party would grow a spine. The
real damage was caused by the aping of the US and UK's cult of individual responsibility, the
atomizing effects of neoliberal anti-social policy and demonization of collective action
including unionism.
All of which have hastened the atrophy of our democracy.
First things first lets get rid of the neo-liberal national dinosaurs still wallowing in
parliament unaware of the mass extinction awaiting them in March next year. At the same time
vote in a minority Labor government with enough independent cross benchers, including a
preponderance of Greens to keep the bastards honest.
Then just maybe we can start looking at the wider project of repairing Australian society
and democracy while we try and reverse the near-decade of damage the LNP have done with their
dangerous pro-fossil fuel stance, their insane climate change denial and hypocritical big
business friendly economic policies.
The irony is that it's simple. It's the Heath Robinson contraptions that the economic
priesthood for the plutocracy snow us with that are complicated, that turn us off economic
thinking because they are impenetrable and make no sense. The simplicity comes from
accepting the blinding obvious truth, once you think about it. The federal government is the
monopoly issuer of the AUD. The rest of the world are users, not issuers. Its "budgets" are
not our budgets. Nothing like them. Kind of the opposite. Its surpluses are the economy's
deficits. Its deficits are the economy's surpluses.
"... The opposite of a neoliberal economic agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but democratic re-engagement. Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to cutting taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course not even the Coalition believes that any more. These days they proudly subsidise their friends and regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their preferred form. ..."
"... While the hypocrisy is staggering, at least voters can now see that politics, and elections, matter. Having been told for decades that it was "global markets" that shaped our society, it's now clear that it is actually the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott who decide whether we get new coal mines or power stations. Luckily, millions of voters now realise that if it's OK to subsidise new coal mines, there's no reason we can't subsidise renewables instead. ..."
"... So, what to nationalise? What new machinery of state should we build first? Should we create a national anti-corruption watchdog, replace the productivity commission with a national interest commission, or abolish the failed network of finance sector regulators and build a new one from scratch? ..."
"... The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size and role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build. ..."
"... class warfare (by the rich against the 99%, though I should not need to say that) is still very much alive. ..."
"... The rise of nationalism is indeed worrying situation.. but its clear that mass discontent is driving a 'shift' away from the status quo and that opportunists of every creed are all trying to get in on the action.. ..."
"... the elephant in the room that no one wants to discuss is population growth and lack of natural resources and meaningful 'employment' .. which self serving politicians are exploiting via playing the fear card and creating further division in society in order to embrace and increase their own power. Further more, no one, it seems, has any valid answers as regards resolving the division and creating a path forward.. thereby making more conflict an inevitability. ..."
"... Like Octopus, the globalists have every one of their eight legs in a different pot of gold. On their arms, suction cups maintain an iron grip. Trying to pull those suckers out, leaves us raw and bleeding. To release their grip, without hurting ourselves, we must aim for the brain. ..."
"... Murdoch's media empire has arms in every Democracy on earth. As his poisonous ink spread across our lands, we wallowed in the dark. ..."
"... The Oil and Coal Tycoons have arms in every black hole on earth. As their suckers pull black gold from the land beneath our feet, we choke on the air we breathe. ..."
"... The Financial Tyrants have arms in our buildings, factories, farms and homes. Their suckers stripped our pockets bare and we ran out of money. ..."
"... The False Prophets spread their arms into our private lives. Their suckers turned our modest, humble faiths into global empires filled with mega-churches, televangelists, jet-setting preachers and evangelical armies Hell bent on disruption and destruction. ..."
"... Neoliberalism may be dead but the former Trotskyites who invented it are still alive and they still have an agenda. ..."
"... Neo Liberalism was a project cooked up back in the late 1970s by the Capital owning classes & enacted by successive govts of "right" or "left" ever since. They feared the growing power of the working & middle classes which they felt threatened their own power & wealth. So they set out to destroy any ability of the working class to organise & to gut the middle class. ..."
"... Key to this was decoupling wages from productivity & forcing us all into debt peonage. Deregulation of the financial markets & the globalization of capital markets, disastorous multilateral trade deals & off shoring jobs, slashing state social programmes, Union busting laws all part of the plan. All covered with a lie that we live in meritocracies & the "best & brightest" are in charge. The result has been evermore riches funneled to the wealthiest few percent & a wealth gap bigger than that of the gilded age ..."
"... The majority press are so organised around the idea that neoliberalism in the sense captured economically and to some extent socially as construed in the article above; ..."
"... Rumours of neoliberalism's death have been somewhat exaggerated. Its been on life support provided by the LNP since John Howard and there are still a few market fundamentalists lurking in the ranks of the ALP, just waiting for their chance to do New Labor MkII in memory of Paul Keating. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's lasting legacy will not be the ludicrous economic programs, privatizations and deregulation, those can all be rolled back if some party would grow a spine. The real damage was caused by the aping of the US and UK's cult of individual responsibility, the atomizing effects of neoliberal anti-social policy and demonization of collective action including unionism. ..."
The opposite of a neoliberal economic agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but
democratic re-engagement. Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to cutting
taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course not even
the Coalition believes that any more. These days they proudly subsidise their friends and
regulate their enemies in order to reshape Australia in their preferred form.
While the hypocrisy is staggering, at least voters can now see that politics, and elections,
matter. Having been told for decades that it was "global markets" that shaped our society, it's
now clear that it is actually the likes of Barnaby Joyce and Tony Abbott who decide whether we
get new coal mines or power stations. Luckily, millions of voters now realise that if it's OK
to subsidise new coal mines, there's no reason we can't subsidise renewables instead.
Neoliberalism: the idea that swallowed the world Read more
The parliament is filling with people of all political persuasions who, if nothing else,
decry the neoliberal agenda to shrink our government and our national vision. While there's
obviously quite a distance between MPs who want to build the nation, one new coal mine at a
time, and those who want to fill our cities with renewable energy, the whole purpose of
democracy is to settle such disputes at the ballot box.
So, what to nationalise? What new machinery of state should we build first? Should we create
a national anti-corruption watchdog, replace the productivity commission with a national
interest commission, or abolish the failed network of finance sector regulators and build a new
one from scratch?
... ... ...
The death of neoliberalism means we can finally have a national debate about the size and
role of government, and the shape of the economy and society we want to build. But we need to
do more than talk about tax and regulation. Australia is one of the oldest parliamentary
democracies in the world, and we once helped lead the world in the design of democratic
institutions and the creation of an open democratic culture. Let's not allow the legacy of
neoliberalism to be a cynical belief that there is no point repairing and rebuilding the
democratic institutions that ensure not just our economy thrives, but our society as well. A
quick look around the world provides clear evidence that there really are a lot of
alternatives.
Richard Denniss is chief economist for the Australia Institute
Mmmm, well, class warfare (by the rich against the 99%, though I should not need to say that)
is still very much alive.
Globalisation-driven financial deregulation was commenced here by Hawke Labor from 1983 as
a Laberal facade for the Australian chapter of the transnational ruling class policy of
self-enrichment. It was sold to the aspirationals as the ever-popular This Will Make You Rich
- as ever-rising house prices did, for home-owners then (paid for now through housing
unaffordability for their descendants). Then, transnational capital was able to loot both
aspirationals' productivity gains (easily 10% of GDP) plus usurious interest from the
borrowings made by the said aspirationals (easily 6% of GDP) to keep up with the Joneses.
Now, it loots 90% of all increases in GDP, leaving just 10% in crumbs from the filthy rich
man's table for 15 million workers to share.
We don't notice as much as we should, because the mainstream (mainly but not only Murdoch)
media is very good at persuading us - then and now - that there is nothing to see. It is a
tool of that transnational class, its role being to manufacture our consent to our own
exploitation. Thus they play the man because it is politically easier than open demands that
the public be robbed. In the case of penalty rates, thus adopting the obvious hypocrisy of
which "The Australian" accuses Shorten. Or they play the woman, in the case of the ferocious,
relentless media vilification of Julia Gillard and Gillard Labor – five years after the
demonization of Gillard Labor's Great Big New (Carbon) Tax, the need for one is now almost
universally accepted. Or they play the players, hence a focus on Dutton's challenge that
pretends that he has meaningful policies.
Labor's class traitors clearly intended to aggressively apply the standard neoliberal
model – look at how it helps their careers after politics (ask Anna Blight)! Shorten is
not working to promote some progressive agenda, he is doing as little as possible, and
expects to simply be voted into The Lodge as a committed servant of transnational
capitalism.
I stopped voting 40 years ago because the voting system is mathematically rigged to favor
the duopoly. Until a large number of minor parties can share their preferences and beat the
majors, which is now starting to happen. This is not just voting for a good representative,
but voting against the corrupt parties. A minority government should lead to proper debate in
parliament. More women will lead to lower levels of testosterone fuelled sledging and better
communication. A "Coalition of Representative Independents" could form government in the
future, leading by consensus and constantly listening to the community.
The rise of nationalism is indeed worrying situation.. but its clear that mass discontent is
driving a 'shift' away from the status quo and that opportunists of every creed are all
trying to get in on the action..
The big nut to crack is HOW do we collectively find sane and
honest leadership ? A huge part of the problem is the ongoing trend of disdain for government
in favor of embracing private monopolies as the be all and end all for solving the ongoing
societal rift. .. which has created a centralization of wealth and the power that that wealth
yields.. allied to the fact that huge swaths of the population in EVERY nation were hiding
when the brains were allocated.. and hence are very easy to dupe..
the elephant in the room
that no one wants to discuss is population growth and lack of natural resources and
meaningful 'employment' .. which self serving politicians are exploiting via playing the fear
card and creating further division in society in order to embrace and increase their own
power. Further more, no one, it seems, has any valid answers as regards resolving the
division and creating a path forward.. thereby making more conflict an inevitability.
Like Octopus, the globalists have every one of their eight legs in a different pot of gold.
On their arms, suction cups maintain an iron grip. Trying to pull those suckers out, leaves
us raw and bleeding. To release their grip, without hurting ourselves, we must aim for the
brain.
Murdoch's media empire has arms in every Democracy on earth. As his poisonous ink spread
across our lands, we wallowed in the dark.
The Oil and Coal Tycoons have arms in every black hole on earth. As their suckers pull
black gold from the land beneath our feet, we choke on the air we breathe.
The Financial Tyrants have arms in our buildings, factories, farms and homes. Their
suckers stripped our pockets bare and we ran out of money.
The False Prophets spread their arms into our private lives. Their suckers turned our
modest, humble faiths into global empires filled with mega-churches, televangelists,
jet-setting preachers and evangelical armies Hell bent on disruption and destruction.
Denniss offers us the cure! Start thinking fresh and new and starve the globalists to
death. They fed us BS, we ate BS and now we are mal-nourished. We need good, healthy
ideas.
Land. Infrastructure. Time.
Time - "WE" increased productivity and the globalists stole the rewards. Time to increase
our FREE time. 32 hours is the NEW full time. Pay us full time wages, give us full time
benefits, and reduce our work days by 20% and suddenly we have 20% more jobs. As the incomes
of billionaires drop, the money in circulation will increase. We are the job creators - not
globalists.
21st Century Infrastructure is about healthy human beings - not the effing economy. Think
healthcare, education, senior care and child care. If we find out you have sent your money
off-shore, your local taxes will increase by ten. So please, do, send your money off-shore -
our cities and towns would love to increase taxes on your stores, offices and real estate by
ten.
No more caps on taxes. If you are a citizen, you pay social taxes on every dime you get.
In America you will be paying 15.3% of every dollar to social security. That's $153,000.00 a
year for every million dollars you take out of our economy.
Land is not something you put in a museum, lock away in a vault, or wear on your neck.
Think fresh and new. If you own land, you are responsible for meeting community rules.
No more empty, weed filled lots allowed. If you have empty land, you better put in a nice
garden, pretty trees and walkways or we will do it for you and employ "eminent-domain" on
your bank accounts to pay for it.
No more empty buildings. If you own an empty building you will put it to good use, or we
will do it for you - and keep the profits to fund our local governments, schools, hospitals,
and senior/child care centers.
No more slumlords allowed. We have basic standards, for everyone. If we catch you renting
a slum to anyone, we will make repairs for you, and if you do not pay the bill, we will put a
lien on your building and wait until you sell it to pay ourselves back.
We do not trust you big-box types anymore. If you want to build your mega-store in our
cities, towns or communities, you must, first, deposit the entire cost of tearing it down,
and landscaping a park, or playground when you leave. While you stay, we will invest your
deposit in index funds and assure ourselves enough money down the road.
Sorry you BIG guys and gals, but you will find our countries are very expensive places for
you to invest. We put our families, our neighborhoods and our lives first.
However - and it's a big however - there is a very real danger that at the next election
the libs will again win by default due to the fact that many traditional labour voters are
defecting to the greens instead. Sadly, LNP supporters are a lot less likely to vote green.
Our best hope is to wipe the LNP out at the next election by voting labour, and then at the
election after that establishing the greens in opposition. It is unfortunatly unlikely to
happen at the next election....and I just hope that voters in certain seats understand that
by voting for the greens they might be in fact unwittingly handing the reins back to the
least green party of all: the LNP.
Neo Liberalism was a project cooked up back in the late 1970s by the Capital owning classes
& enacted by successive govts of "right" or "left" ever since. They feared the growing
power of the working & middle classes which they felt threatened their own power &
wealth. So they set out to destroy any ability of the working class to organise & to gut
the middle class.
Key to this was decoupling wages from productivity & forcing us all
into debt peonage. Deregulation of the financial markets & the globalization of capital
markets, disastorous multilateral trade deals & off shoring jobs, slashing state social
programmes, Union busting laws all part of the plan. All covered with a lie that we live in
meritocracies & the "best & brightest" are in charge. The result has been evermore
riches funneled to the wealthiest few percent & a wealth gap bigger than that of the
gilded age
The majority press are so organised around the idea that neoliberalism in the sense captured
economically and to some extent socially as construed in the article above; as normal and
natural that nothing can be done. As the system folds we see in its place Brexit, neoconservatism, Trump.
This is not new found freedom or Liberatarianism but a post liberal
world where decency and open mindedness and open nuanced debate take a a back seat to
populism and demagoguery.
The whole purpose of Anglophone liberal democracy has been twofold: 1. to establish and
protect private property rights and 2. TO guarantee some individual liberties. Guess who
benefits from the enshrinement of private property rights as absolute? Big owners, and you
know who they are. ... Individual tights are just not that sacred, summon the latest
bogeyman, and they can be shrunken or tossed.
Neoliberalism, the economic stablemate of big religion's Prosperity Evangelism cult.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology
.
Dual streams of bull shit to confuse the citizens while the Country's immense wealth is
stolen.
It seems there's been a turning point recently though in the ideas of neoliberalism, as
pointed out by Denniss that suddenly it's okay for all and sundry to talk about nationalising
industries and infrastructure. It will probably take a couple of decades to turn things
around in practical ways. And there are surely plenty of powerful supporters of the ideas of
neoliberalism still around.
Is neo-liberalism really dead or is it wishful thinking?
If neo-liberalism really is on the decline in Australia, all i can say is bravo to Australia,
use this opportunity to build a stronger government and regain the terrain that was lost
during the TINA (there is no alternative) years.
Here in Canada neo-liberalism is stronger than ever, maybe because of the proximity to the
cancerous tumor at the south, so when i read this article, i did it with a bit of skepticism
but also with a bit of envy and a bit of hope for the future.
Neoliberalism is *not* dead, and it is counter-productive to claim that it is. It is clearly
the driver of what passes for policy by the LNP government. Just as trickle-down economics
remains as the basis of the government's economic actions.
It will look like it's dead when back bone services and infrastructure utilities are returned
to public ownership.
Those things are not fit for market style private ownership for a few big reasons:
They are by their nature natural monopolies (so a market private ownership won't work and
will rapidly creep up prices of reduced service precisely because they not in a natural
market context.
These core services and utilities are mega scale operations beyond a natural market ROI
value.
These core sovereign services and utilities, are nation critical to the national economy
and political stability. The last thing we want to do is hand that sovereign power over to
private control.
Australia is a very fortunate country. It enjoys national sovereignty, unshackled by
crippling bonds to anything like the neoliberal EU. It is thus able to concentrate on solving
its own issues.
Great article. Must say that we do have more than one vote per electorate. They're called
preference votes. Kerryn Phelps get 23% of the primary PLUS a heap of preferences! But a
proportional system would change a whole lot of results
Firstly we are not in America. America is a basket case and has been since, well, forever.
Secondly the so called "housing crisis" is a simple consequence of a growing population.
In the 1950s there were just 8m people in Australia, there 10m in the 1960s and 12m in the
1970s. And, no, neo-liebralism didn't cause the growing population. People having sex and
living longer caused the growing population. It is therefore all the more remarkable that we
have actually built enough houses to house a population which has doubled in size.
Thirdly, in the last 30 years 1 billion people have been lifted out of poverty. When you
talk about huge, unprecedented, un-fucking-believable levels of poverty, super-massive
inequality, dissatisfaction (Really? This is now a measure?), unemployment/sub-employment and
casualization, collapse (collapse?) of public services, high(er) costs of living.....do you
think you're being a little overly dramatic?
Do you really think it all comes to back to one silly economic theory?
Nothing to do with the reality of automation, globalisation, growing populations and the
realities of living in 2018 rather than 1978?
Are voters around the world going hard against Neoliberalism? (I note it's now a
capitalised term).
In the US they voted for a billionaire who blamed immigrants for people's problems while
promising tax and spending cuts.....sounds like an even more extreme version of
neo-liberlaism to me.
In Britain they voted for Brexit to....oh that's right....kick out immigrants and burn
"red tape".
In Brazil, yep, more neo-liberalism on steroids.
In fact, looking around the world it's actually the far right which are seizing power.
And this is the issue with the obsessive preoccupation with community decline. It feeds
directly into the hands of fascism and the far right.
I'm not saying things are perfect. I would prefer to see much more government investment.
The only way we'll get that is to educate ourselves about how government finances work so
that we're not frightened off by talk of deficits.
However, by laying this all on the door of one rather silly economic theory is to ignore
that economics is nothing without human beings. It is human beings who are responsible for
all of the good and bad in the world. No theory is going change that. If the world is the way
it is it's because humans made it like this.
The "deterioration of the environment"? We did that not neo-liberalism .....
In answer to the headline article question, yes WE citizens should collectively strive to
think radically, bigger and better than the existing status quo.
PAY CITIZENS TO VOTE!
We must bypass the vested interests and create a new system which encourages active,
regular participation in democracy.... lest we wake up one day and realise too late that, by
stealth and citizen apathy, the plutocrats and their corporate fascist servants have usurped
our nation state, corrupted our law and weakened our institutions, to such a point that our
individual rights are permanently crushed.
Change is coming, like it or not. This century - there is great risk to society that
advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and lifespan enhancing
genetic engineering will be used by ultra-rich plutocrats to make the vast majority of
humanity redundant (within a couple of generations).
Citizens should advocate for DIRECT DEMOCRACY in which citizens are PAID on a per vote per
issue basis (subject to verification checks that support the rewarding of effort- citizens
should be asked to first demonstrate that they have made effort to obtain sufficient
knowledge on a particular topic, prior to being rewarded for their service of voting. Such a
process can be opt-in, those who want to be paid, work to do so by learning about the
governance issue which is to be voted upon. In this way, a minimum wage can be obtained by
direct citizen participation in the governance of communities and our nation). We have the
technologies TODAY to undertake open-ledger, smart-phone enabled, digital/postal voting on a
per issue basis... which can be funded by EFFECTIVE taxation on large multinational
corporations and ultra-wealthy (foreign) shareholders. Citizen will is needed to influence
change - the major political parties did not want a Federal ICAC and they certainly will not
support paid direct citizen democracy unless voters overwhelming demand it.
Citizens already accept that politicians are paid to vote (and frequently "rewarded" for
their "service" to large corporations and wealthy (foreign) shareholders by unethical,
corrupt means). Thus, in principle, why can society not collectively accept direct payment to
citizens for their individual vote upon an issue? Why do citizens continue to accept
archaic systems of democracy which have clearly FAILED to meet the needs of our population in
the 21st century?
Citizens are not sufficiently politically engaged in democracy and their civic
responsibilities BECAUSE they are not incentivised to do so and because they are economic
slaves without the luxury of time to sort through deliberate overload of disinformation,
distortion, distraction and deception. Citizens are struggling to obtain objective
understanding and to think critically because these crucial functions of democracy are
innately discouraged by our existing 20th century economy (that is, slaves are busy support
the systems of plutocrats in order that they may live, ants to a queen).
We must advocate for change in the systems of democracy which are failing our communities,
our nation, our planet. For too long, plutocrats and their servants have maintained control
over economic slaves and the vast majority of the population because citizens have accepted
the status quo of being governed by the powerful.
Technology has permanently changed our species. We must all collectively act before innate
human greed, lust for power and fear of loss of control (by the wealthy few) lead the
majority on an irrational path toward destruction - using the very technologies which helped
set us free from the natural world!
In answer to the headline article question, yes WE citizens should collectively strive to
think radically, bigger and better than the existing status quo. PAY CITIZENS TO VOTE!
We must bypass the vested interests and create a new system which encourages active,
regular participation in democracy.... lest we wake up one day and realise too late that, by
stealth and citizen apathy, the plutocrats and their corporate fascist servants have usurped
our nation state, corrupted our law and weakened our institutions, to such a point that our
individual rights are permanently crushed.
Change is coming, like it or not. This century - there is great risk to society that
advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and lifespan enhancing
genetic engineering will be used by ultra-rich plutocrats to make the vast majority of
humanity redundant (within a couple of generations).
Citizens should advocate for DIRECT DEMOCRACY in which citizens are PAID on a per vote per
issue basis (subject to verification checks that support the rewarding of effort- citizens
should be asked to first demonstrate that they have made effort to obtain sufficient
knowledge on a particular topic, prior to being rewarded for their service of voting. Such a
process can be opt-in, those who want to be paid, work to do so by learning about the
governance issue which is to be voted upon. In this way, a minimum wage can be obtained by
direct citizen participation in the governance of communities and our nation). We have the
technologies TODAY to undertake open-ledger, smart-phone enabled, digital/postal voting on a
per issue basis... which can be funded by EFFECTIVE taxation on large multinational
corporations and ultra-wealthy (foreign) shareholders. Citizen will is needed to influence
change - the major political parties did not want a Federal ICAC and they certainly will not
support paid direct citizen democracy unless voters overwhelming demand it.
Citizens already accept that politicians are paid to vote (and frequently "rewarded" for
their "service" to large corporations and wealthy (foreign) shareholders by unethical,
corrupt means). Thus, in principle, why can society not collectively accept direct payment to
citizens for their individual vote upon an issue? Why do citizens continue to accept
archaic systems of democracy which have clearly FAILED to meet the needs of our population in
the 21st century?
Citizens are not sufficiently politically engaged in democracy and their civic
responsibilities BECAUSE they are not incentivised to do so and because they are economic
slaves without the luxury of time to sort through deliberate overload of disinformation,
distortion, distraction and deception. Citizens are struggling to obtain objective
understanding and to think critically because these crucial functions of democracy are
innately discouraged by our existing 20th century economy (that is, slaves are busy support
the systems of plutocrats in order that they may live, ants to a queen).
We must advocate for change in the systems of democracy which are failing our communities,
our nation, our planet. For too long, plutocrats and their servants have maintained control
over economic slaves and the vast majority of the population because citizens have accepted
the status quo of being governed by the powerful.
Technology has permanently changed our species. We must all collectively act before innate
human greed, lust for power and fear of loss of control (by the wealthy few) lead the
majority on an irrational path toward destruction - using the very technologies which helped
set us free from the natural world!
Richard went off the rails in his opening sentence: "The opposite of a neoliberal economic
agenda isn't a progressive economic agenda, but democratic re-engagement."
I say this because economically misinformed democratic engagement is a shackle around
democracy, at best, if not fatal to democracy. And the biggest and most fundamental
misinformation, spouted every bit as much by ALP and Greens as the Libs, is that we must
strive for a "sustainable surplus".
As Richard rightly observes, "Neoliberalism taught us that "there is no alternative" to
cutting taxes, cutting services and letting the banks treat us as they see fit. But of course
not even the Coalition believes that any more." But that doesn't stop them, or Labor, or the
Greens from guaranteeing the continuance of the neoliberal cut & privatise mania by
insisting that they believe in "budget repair" and "return to surplus" - an insistence which
their economically illiterate or misled supporters accept. If you believe in the obviously
ridiculous necessity for a currency issuer to run balanced budgets, you are forced into
invalid neoliberal thinking, into accepting a false "necessity" for cuts and privatisations,
or economy-sedating taxation increases.
Rumours of neoliberalism's death have been somewhat exaggerated. Its been on life support
provided by the LNP since John Howard and there are still a few market fundamentalists
lurking in the ranks of the ALP, just waiting for their chance to do New Labor MkII in memory
of Paul Keating.
Neoliberalism's lasting legacy will not be the ludicrous economic programs, privatizations
and deregulation, those can all be rolled back if some party would grow a spine. The
real damage was caused by the aping of the US and UK's cult of individual responsibility, the
atomizing effects of neoliberal anti-social policy and demonization of collective action
including unionism.
All of which have hastened the atrophy of our democracy.
First things first lets get rid of the neo-liberal national dinosaurs still wallowing in
parliament unaware of the mass extinction awaiting them in March next year. At the same time
vote in a minority Labor government with enough independent cross benchers, including a
preponderance of Greens to keep the bastards honest.
Then just maybe we can start looking at the wider project of repairing Australian society
and democracy while we try and reverse the near-decade of damage the LNP have done with their
dangerous pro-fossil fuel stance, their insane climate change denial and hypocritical big
business friendly economic policies.
The irony is that it's simple. It's the Heath Robinson contraptions that the economic
priesthood for the plutocracy snow us with that are complicated, that turn us off economic
thinking because they are impenetrable and make no sense. The simplicity comes from
accepting the blinding obvious truth, once you think about it. The federal government is the
monopoly issuer of the AUD. The rest of the world are users, not issuers. Its "budgets" are
not our budgets. Nothing like them. Kind of the opposite. Its surpluses are the economy's
deficits. Its deficits are the economy's surpluses.
Former RBA governor says "Coalition pursues low-tax road to jobs and growth despite lack of
evidence to support it"
The incumbent political cabal of grifters and leaners aren't interested in evidence, for
the self righteous it has always been inconvenient & unnecessary.
Neo liberal capitalism is based on the premise that the Govt. sector
has a minimal role to play in the economy in a regulatory manner
, in the provision of goods/services and in redistributing wealth
........basically, the less Govt. the better.
As a starting point, it is best to consider what level of services
society expects from Govt. and to cost these, that then gives
you an amount of revenue required to fund these.......in Australia
our figure in 2017 was 28.2% of GDP (which also allowed for a
$6.2b. deficit and for some debt repayment)...the Federal share of this
was 21.6 % of GDP. In the world of wealthy countries (the OECD)
we sit at 27th of 35 ie: we are a low taxing country....the OECD average
is 34.3%.
The next part of any debate is what range and quality of services we expect
...in the US their social services/$'s provided by Govt. has plummeted by 50%
since neo liberalism was introduced (the Reagan era) whilst, for example Defence/
Security has risen by 5% of GDP and is by far the highest proportion in the world.
In Australia our proportions have changed far less......even with Medicare,
PBS, Child care subsidies, Education spending etc. our revenue rate has
dropped from an average of 33.5% of GDP to an average of 26.2% since the
1980's. (NDIS is too recent to be included but will up the ante).
The next step to consider is WHERE will the revenue come from and this
is where we have NOT followed the US in their lunacy.......since Reagan
their tax take from corporate profits and income taxes from the rich have
plummeted (and their deficits risen inexorably).
Putting it simply, Australia has indeed swallowed the neoliberal pill, but
has largely preserved its social amenity and the size of its Govt. sector.
It has privatised much but kept many aspects in public hands eg; much
of our healthcare. The pressures continue to privatise more, however
it still sees the Govt. being the funder but not the provider.....THAT has
been our massive change. Our reality has also been that household
incomes have been stagnant for years for at least 50% of our population
(it is worse in the US) as have been our income support payments ie:
Pensions and benefits (especially the latter that have gone backwards).
and our social mobility ie: the support/opportunity for people to move
from low to higher incomes (mostly via higher educational achievement)
have also stagnated in many cohorts.......in other words neoliberalism
has changed Australia, it has allowed the affluent and rich to improve
their situations but has seen stagnation for everyone else .......not
exactly a success after > 35 years, but at least not as bad as the US !
Neo-liberalism and it's form of capitalism is obviously not working; it's more of a Ponzi
scheme, and causes societal division and inequality to an extreme. These intransigent
politicians will keep taking us down the road of destruction unless we stop them.
Morrison and his cohort are dangerous, very dangerous, and will become even worse because
what they do is transparent, and we let them get away with it. To them, they see their
positions of power, and their actions, as being approved by the voting public to keep the
unethical behaviour going.
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Neo-liberalism = Failed Democracy/Corrupt government/Corporate feudalism.
Really no other way to describe it, and it's consequences.
And more and more people are waking up to this fact.
It's the 'what to do about it' that is the problem.
Overturn the government?
Revolution?
Bring back the tumbrils?
Personally, I'd think an aware, involved, and empowered citizenry would be the best solution.
Capitalism has brought lots of debt to the masses. $4 trillion of it in fact and that will
lead to poverty and misery if it can't be paid back readily.
Capitalism is fine until it enters this debt binge stage and then it needs a great big
correction to get it back on an even keel.
Since the 1980's and Thatcher and Reagan, the dominant political and economic rational has
been neo-liberalism. Even under Blair and Brown (labour PM's in the UK) the thinking was
neo-liberalism, as it largely was under Rudd and Gillard in Australia.
It is decades of right wing thinking which has been all pervasive in western societies and it
will take decades to correct the faults that have been created in society; starting with
changing the perceived accepted idea that govts do not exist to create jobs and that we
exist, as individuals, to serve the economy (as is evidenced by the punishing of the
unemployed and the drive to get women back into work as soon as possible after having
children).
Neoliberalism's great strength is its ability to divide and rule effectively via its
emphasis on individual responsibility and its insistence (as Thatcher cynically thundered)
that there is no such thing as society.
In the absence of any kind of inspirational narrative or indeed hope, the morally bankrupt
LNP have actually come to believe their own TINA propaganda. Their impoverished imaginations
just can't imagine any other way of maintaining the status quo for their constituency than by
keeping as much of the population as possible undereducated but surviving sufficiently to be
jealous of what they have and fearful of the state taking it away.
An atomised population is one in which daily life, in the words of Thomas Hobbes, is a
'war of all against all'. How pathetic that conservative governments in 2018 remain intent on
driving us back to a 'state of nature' Hobbes was condemning in 1651.
While our governments continue to be run by and for the benefit of big business and the
wealthy at the expense of the rest of society, low-taxing neoliberal dogma will remain the
order of the day.
Dear Bernie, when have ideologues of any persuasion ever, ever relied on evidence...
The Neo-liberal project was conceived as an ideology- a way to hollow out the democratic
legitimacy, and replace it with a Corporatocracy... This was based less on an economic
rationale but more as a reaction to the democratization of voices and the challenges they
posed to the 'old world' spheres of authority and power that emerged front he 60's and early
70's.
The Washington Consensus was the ideological product of this reaction- so vigorously
championed by Reagan and Thatcher- who could forget her silly remark that there is no such
thing as a society...
That's why the electorate in today's democratic countries seem to be only left with
"rhetorical" Leaders- windbags, whose pronouncements signify nothing.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist but* if was I would say that the lizard people introduced the
word "neo-liberalism" to distract people from the real issues......
But seriously, what the hell do people even mean by this term? darkbluedragon bless
his/her/their/its cotton socks has done his/her/their/its best to explain what it is. In
fact, if in 2019 we no longer identify along the lines of traditional gender roles why does
anyone think we can agree on a over-arching economic theory which apparently is responsible
for all of the woes in the world?
And actually the premise of all of this is of course how shit everything is today. People
love talking about how the world was so much better 40 years ago or whenever.
You know when women and minorities were discriminated against and so there were more jobs for
white men. Good times I say.
The reality is that the world is the way it is because of people. If neo-liberalism is all
about greed and meanness then frankly it's because people are greedy and mean. 100 years ago
we were killing each other with bayonets. Bankers screwing vulnerable customers is an
improvement compared to that shit.
Many people who talk about "neo-liebralism" in the political sense instead of the economic
sense are also terrified of government deficits and think government finances are like a
households. So what are you going to do?
If we're all going to become economists overnight (which I would strongly advise against)
then we may as well go the whole hog and understand the other side of the coin i.e. the
different monetary theories. But no side of the coin is going to be perfect
because....because....people, people. People in the shit sense and a people in the glorious
sense. People in all senses....
*Why does "I'm not.....but" always mean "I am"? I'm not racist but...I don't mean to be
rude but........
During their undergraduate years future politicians and business people learn about ideas
that then form the foundations of their understanding of the world and how it works.
Unfortunately, while the scholarship moves on, the politicians and business people don't,
having dedicated their lives to their careers. So we end up with governments of people
operating on principles some decades out of date, and often discredited. And when they want
advice, who do they turn to? Not academia (and if they do they usually ignore it), but to
business people, who are working off the same base.
It is often noticed that politicians in the twenty-first century seem to be applying
nineteenth century solutions to twentieth century problems. What can be done?
In the absence of an RC, then at least a twenty-year comparative analysis of the economic
and social 'benefits' (few) and costs (incalculable) of privatisation to the taxpayers of
Australia, and the 'benefits' (massive) and costs (none) to the private sector. Surely
someone has his data at their fingertips?
At long freaking last some sanity is creeping back into the discussion of economics amongst
those who have run the economy. Neo-liberal capitalism has run its course. It ended ten years
ago in the GFC and probably before. Whatever good it has done is being undone in its
extremes.
Even the capitalists at capitalist central do not believe in capitalism. When broke during
the GFC they declared they were "too big to fail" and so market forces no longer applied to
them. The people who own and run the capitalist system have long abandoned it but the
Corporate State and its serfs - such as the liberal party - want to foist it on the peasants
as a means of control.
The "too big to fail" capitalists park their business risk in the treasuries of the West and
pocket the profits and then blame the poor for the lack of public money. It would be funny if
it wasn't doing so much damage.
On climate change capitalism has failed. It has no way to deal with such an emergency.
Capitalism has always taken such things as clean air, water and land from others without
compensation and turned them into massive profit for the few. It can never tackle climate
change as it means paying for environmental damage and other public resources and that
contradict centuries of capitalist exploitation.
The answer for the right-wing neo-liberal capitalist is what it has always been when
confronted with the contradictions of capitalism. Racism and division. Exactly what the
IPA-liberal party has been about this last week big time. It is all normal for this
system.
Following the twin shocks of 2016 -- the U.K. Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump
in the U.S. -- right-leaning nationalism and populism appear to be gaining steam, buoyed by the
public's dissatisfaction with globalization. At the same time, the political left is also
growing more ambitious and confident; for instance, according to one recent poll, Americans
aged 18-29 have a more positive view of socialism than of capitalism. Overall, the elite
consensus surrounding the neoliberal economic model -- which advocated a relatively small role
for government, deregulating markets to encourage competition, and liberalized international
trade and financial policies -- is teetering.
In emerging markets, meanwhile, a related series of debates are unwinding, and have been for
many years. Among these countries, the neoliberal economic model peaked in popularity sometime
in the 1990s, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and amidst optimism in an
accelerating globalization, epitomized in the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
Even at its peak, however, the neoliberal reform program was always implemented unevenly across
countries and adapted to local contexts. Since then, a number of alternative models have been
proposed in response to a series of economic and political shocks, from the Asian financial
crisis to the "Pink Tide" in Latin America to the Arab Spring. These experiences provide a
fertile ground for assessing the possible futures of capitalism, across both emerging and
developed markets.
Neoclassical economics' focus on individual incentives and utility maximization misses much
bigger questions about structural power relations, which play a central role in determining
economic outcomes. Similarly, individuals' desires for status, happiness, and identity are
first order concerns, and cannot be easily incorporated into neoclassical models based on
assumptions of rationality. Alternative, heterodox approaches to economics -- which had
flourished in earlier eras but lost ground to neoclassical approaches in recent decades -- are
due for a revival. Such approaches could, for example, pay more attention to crises, tipping
points, and transitions rather than equilibria outcomes; provide a richer treatment of power
and politics; and study how governments create and shape markets, rather than simply respond to
market failures.
So what's next? The return to New Deal capitalism? But coalition of workers a management that
was at the core of the New Deal Capitalism does not exits. Look whom Democratic Party represents
today: they represent Wall Street and intelligence agencies.
The problem is that almost every authority figure - in economics, politics and the media -
tells us otherwise. You will hear plenty this week, as the global elite converge on the Swiss
mountain resort of Davos to discuss the challenges facing our economies and our world. Yet, I
can guarantee that despite all the talk, there will be no substantive questioning of the
immoral foundation of our modern economies.
The current inequality crisis is the direct result of this moral failure. Our exclusive,
highly unequal society based on extreme wealth for the few may seem sturdy and inevitable right
now, but it will collapse. Before long, the pitchforks will come out and the ensuing chaos will
benefit no one. Not wealthy people like me - and certainly not the poorest people who have
already been left behind.
To avert this existential crisis, we must drive a stake through the heart of the neoliberal
religion that instantly rewards greed at the expense of our future. We must replace it with a
new economic framework that recognises that justice and inclusion are not the result of
economic prosperity, but rather the cause of economic prosperity.
Only a society that seeks to include all its people in the economy can succeed in the long
term: no company, and certainly no billionaire is an island. We owe our wealth to society - to
the millions working each day for us at home and across the world, often for poverty wages. We
owe our fortunes to governments, who provide the education, the infrastructure, and the
research investment on which we build our empires. None of the companies I have invested in
would have been able to function without this.
A fundamental prerequisite for a more just society is that the wealthiest should pay their
fair share of tax. However, as Oxfam's inequality report, Private Wealth or Public
Good , demonstrates, this is not happening. Here in the United States, the richest in
society – people like me – have just benefited from one of the biggest tax cuts in
decades. Meanwhile our public schools are crumbling, and our healthcare system continues to
exclude millions, leading to huge pain and suffering. The top rates of tax on the wealthiest
people and corporations are lower than they have been for decades. Unprecedented levels of tax
avoidance and evasion ensure that the super-rich pay even less.
There can be no moral justification for this behaviour beyond a discredited neoliberal dogma
that if everyone maximises their selfishness, the world will somehow be a better place: that
ever-lower taxation on the richest will somehow benefit us all; that health and education left
to the mercy of the free market, available only to those who have the money to pay for them, is
somehow more efficient. It has no economic justification, either. As Henry Ford famously
identified, you can't grow a business or an economy if people are impoverished.
I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that the richest in our society can and should pay a
lot more tax to help build a more equal society and prosperous economy. As Oxfam shows, a
fairer tax system could help ensure that every child gets an education, and that no one lives
in fear of getting sick because they can't afford their medical bills.
Ultimately it is our humanity, not the absence of it, that is the true source of economic
growth and a flourishing civilisation. This is not just an imperative for activists and
academics but for all of us – including every billionaire. It is no longer a question of
whether we can afford to do this but rather whether we can afford not to.
"... The elite thinkers who penned this manifesto need to wake up. Any chance of holding onto Western Civilization and "the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe and Comenius (Comenius?)" lies with the nationalist right. The academic left no longer gives a shit about the Western Canon, they're all just dead privileged white guys to them. Book burnings to follow. ..."
"... Did Cook and other so called Geniuses ever consider our nations are failing apart because we finance and fight wars for Israel. What would the trillions spent in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East have fixed in our own country. ..."
"... "The first is the status-quo cheerleaders like the European writers of liberalism's latest – last? – manifesto. With every utterance they prove how irrelevant they have become, how incapable they are of supplying answers to the question of where we must head next. They adamantly refuse both to look inwards to see where [neo]liberalism went wrong and to look outwards to consider how we might extricate ourselves." ..."
"... "Action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority, without which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance in the direction indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action." ..."
"... Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group. ..."
"... Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia. Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn. ..."
"... Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently either doesn't care or is unable to change. ..."
"... If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War). ..."
"... However, that classical liberalism has absolutely nothing to do with what this author labels "liberalism'. The modern so-called "neoliberalism" he talks about is a complete reversal of the original ideals of the classical liberals. ..."
"... In medieval times, the "nobles" could throw peasants who revolted too much off their land, impoverishing them in the process. The monarchies of the time could exert much control on the nobles, and indirectly on the peasants, BUT they had to be careful themselves, as there were a lot more peasants than nobles or royalty. Pushing too hard could initiate revolts, almost all of which would not bode well for the nobles or royalty. ..."
"... They are responsible for the islamization of Europe as well as destruction of the European "social fabric", for the longest time, which was based on ethnicity and commonality of purpose. ..."
"... The EU switched to open external frontiers, Asian outsourcing and the free international flow of capital (i.e. the full Neo-Liberal agenda), and it was when the consequences (de-industrialization, unemployment, mass non-European immigration) became apparent, that the public turned against the EU. ..."
Unless the tide can be turned, elections across the European Union will be "the most calamitous that we have ever known: victory
for the wreckers; disgrace for those who still believe in the legacy of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe, and Comenius; disdain for intelligence
and culture; explosions of xenophobia and antisemitism; disaster".
The elite thinkers who penned this manifesto need to wake up. Any chance of holding onto Western Civilization and "the legacy
of Erasmus, Dante, Goethe and Comenius (Comenius?)" lies with the nationalist right. The academic left no longer gives a shit about
the Western Canon, they're all just dead privileged white guys to them. Book burnings to follow.
Thirty Elite ..really how about fucking Communists. Social media is a cancer on society run by Jews for the Deep State. Meanwhile
in Israel they murder Palestinians, bulldoze their homes, build a wall and throw blacks out. Did Cook and other so called Geniuses
ever consider our nations are failing apart because we finance and fight wars for Israel. What would the trillions spent in Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Middle East have fixed in our own country.
To put it bluntly: Does anyone have John Wick's phone number? We can take care of these problems very quickly.
"The first is the status-quo cheerleaders like the European writers of liberalism's latest – last? – manifesto. With every utterance
they prove how irrelevant they have become, how incapable they are of supplying answers to the question of where we must head
next. They adamantly refuse both to look inwards to see where [neo]liberalism went wrong and to look outwards to consider how we might
extricate ourselves."
Indeed, once they lie they must continue to lie, even they admit it:
"Action makes propaganda's effect irreversible. He who acts in obedience to propaganda can never go back. He is now obliged
to believe in that propaganda because of his past action. He is obliged to receive from it his justification and authority,
without which his action will seem to him absurd or unjust, which would be intolerable. He is obliged to continue to advance
in the direction indicated by propaganda, for action demands more action."
– from ' Propaganda ', by French communist, Jacques Ellul
Henryk Broder (also a Jew) recently spoke (on invitation) before the AfD faction of the Bundestag -- one theme of his talk
was: Seit die Menschen nicht mehr an Gott glauben, glauben sie allen möglichen Unsinn -- since people stopped believing
in God, they believe in all kinds of nonsense.
'Liber' in Latin means:
1) free (man)
2) free from tribute
3) independent, outspoken/frank
4) unimpeded
5) void of
The author needs to recheck his definitions. Voluntary exchange, consent, free markets, free will, etc are just some of the
concepts at the heart of the true libertarian thought. The ruling class has successfully ruled out any concept of consent. Keep
bringing consent up and their philosophies will be shown to be the same as gang rapists.
"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance
of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing
liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want
to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into
a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau. What an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight!"
– Ludwig Von Mises
"What is needed to save us is radical change. Not tinkering, not reform, but an entirely new vision that removes the individual
and his personal gratification from the centre of our social organisation."
I feel Cook's scorn for the hypocrisy of Levy and his self-infatuated band of scribblers and talkers, but when I hear someone
proposing to "save us" with "radical change" my reaction is: I don't want anyone trying to "save" me, particularly someone who
wants to do it in a "radical" way, which usually means a lot of coercion and often killing. He never gets to the specifics of
what that salvation will look like, but if the past is any indication, being saved by radicals means, learning-to-love the radicals
as they coerce you to do what they think is best for you and being happy to see your "personal gratification" eclipsed by theirs.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of our "radicals" in Congress wants to put that "new vision" into place. I'll go with reactionaries
instead.
Bernard Henry Levy is a Sephardic jew born in Algeria ,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard-Henri_L%C3%A9vy
, He lives in France and is always warmongering for Israel , demanding that the " west " intervenes and bombs all the countries
that he orders Libia, Syria , Iraq , Ukraine , Russia , Venezuela , Afghanistan , Iran , Yemen , Cuba , you name it .
The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have previously ascribed to a group I call
the "dissenters" – understands that radical new thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by
the old liberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to explore its ideas, to experiment,
to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.
Much the same could have been said about the last days of the USSR, or for that matter the last phase of the 30 Years War
or the Napoleonic Wars. As back then, so now: The old elite and new authoritarians actively crushing the new group, well, they
are are actively crushing _themselves_ at an even greater rate than they are crushing the new group.
Example: Decay of Democratic leadership -- which is now, apparently, two old crazy people, one of which has active dementia.
Waiting in the wings we see various groups that hate each other and propose what is pretty clearly a loot and burn approach to
governing the US. They vary only in whom they will loot and what they will burn.
Example: Decay of the media, which now knows it is as ineffective as Russian propaganda towards the USSR's end, and apparently
either doesn't care or is unable to change.
Example: Reaction to yellow vests in France, which drew the reactions described in Cook's article (at the root of this comment
thread). "Back to your kennels, curs!" isn't effective in situations like this, but it seems to be the only reply the EU has.
New groups take over when the old group has rotted away. At some point, Cook's third alternative will be all that is left.
The real question is what will be happening world wide at that point. If resource scarcity prompts armed response, well, humanity
has enough shiny new weapons _and untried weapons technologies_ to produce destruction as surprising in its extent as WW I and
WW II were for their times [1] (or as the self supporting tercio was during the 30 Years War).
Counterinsurgency
1] To understand contemporary effect of WW I on survivors, think of a the survivors of a group playing paintball who accidentally
got hold of grenade launchers but somehow didn't realize that until the game was over. WW II was actually worse -- people worldwide
really expected another industrialized war within 20 years (by AD 1965), this one fought with nuclear weapons.
"[neo]Liberalism, like most ideologies, has an upside. Its respect for the individual and his freedoms, "
Yes, that was an ideal of the original , 19th century classical liberalism. Other features of the classical liberal ideal were:
1] small governments tightly constrained to particular functions [ defense, courts only]
2]freedom of trade between individuals.
However, that classical liberalism has absolutely nothing to do with what this author labels "liberalism'. The modern so-called "neoliberalism" he talks about is a complete reversal of the original ideals of the classical liberals.
Many people have an erroneous concept of the relationships between "leaders" and their "subjects".
In medieval times, the "nobles" could throw peasants who revolted too much off their land, impoverishing them in the process.
The monarchies of the time could exert much control on the nobles, and indirectly on the peasants, BUT they had to be careful
themselves, as there were a lot more peasants than nobles or royalty. Pushing too hard could initiate revolts, almost all of which
would not bode well for the nobles or royalty.
It is entirely possible that our "leaders" are fearful of losing control with the proliferation of the internet and social
media, and the ability for every person with an internet connection to be a seeker of truth and a "true" journalist, free of the
constraints of the "old systems, the "powers that be" are running scared. They no longer control the narrative, as much as they
would like to the jewish "brainwashing" of the masses is starting to wear off.
They are responsible for the islamization of Europe as well as destruction of the European "social fabric", for the longest
time, which was based on ethnicity and commonality of purpose. That has pretty much been lost, with the introduction of immigrants
who don't even know how to read or use flush toilets. Add to that, the prohibition on criticism of many practices of these immigrants,
as well as making excuses for their criminality. The debasement of European societies is deliberate. The elites want destruction,
period they want their "new world order"
no nationalism before ours. Apparently, only Jewish Identity is real while all others are false identities no better than false
idols.
Cultural Marxism : Its central idea is to soften up and prepare Western Civilization for economic Marxism after a
gradual, relentless, sustained attack on every institution of Western culture, including schools, literature, art, film, the
Christian religious tradition, the family, sexual mores, national sovereignty, etc. The attacks are usually framed in Marxist
terms as a class struggle between oppressors and oppressed; the members of the latter class allegedly include women, minorities,
homosexuals, and adherents of non-Western ideologies such as Islam. Cultural Marxism has been described as "the cultural branch
of globalism."
Trotskyism : The political, economic, and social principles advocated by Trotsky especially the theory and practice
of communism developed by or associated with Trotsky and usually including adherence to the concept of worldwide revolution
as opposed to socialism in one country.
Bernard Henry Levy is like a vulture, he was in the Yugoslavian wars also , in the Georgian invasion of Russia wherever he goes
there will be war , blood and misery , soon
The Guardian ( of the British Empire ) like other " prestigious " " liberal " journals has to be read the other way around
. If they praise a lot someone , it means that this someone is a servant of the western System , and if they critizise sistematically
someone , it means that he probably is a patriot ,that defends his country from western greed .
If the attitude of the nation's Elites is "You the National Folk are NOT our people and, if anything, we globo-homo
elites side with the foreign masses who shall replace you" , then the attitude of the National Folk should be "You the
globo-homo pseudo-national elites are not OUR leaders, and if anything, we patriotic folks side with foreign elites who shall
subvert you."
[neo]Liberalism, like most ideologies, has an upside. Its respect for the individual and his freedoms, its interest in nurturing
human creativity, and its promotion of universal values and human rights over tribal attachment have had some positive consequences
Nazi Germany was beaten, so was the USSR. Liberalism wins actual and cold wars, it's stronger because it creates a larger more
powerful economy. The only trouble is it sows the seeds of long term future dissolution.
More immediately pertinent, Liberalism, in
its current self correcting theory of the free market mutation is not working against China because the entry of a billion Chinese
into the globalized labour market is eroding the basis for indigenous labour in Western countries along with their productive
capacity.
The problem is that the business class are strongly incentivized to like a hagfish eating up the economic and demographic
core of Western countries from the inside.
If the EU were by the Europeans for the Europeans and not promoting anti-European policies like population replacement by non-Europeans
then there would be no need to call for the various exits.
Bernard-Henri Levy is (((liberal elite)))? Why the unnecessary occlusion? His position precisely reflects the Jewish Tanakh politics of foreign nation destruction. These politics are not vague in their
book, nor do they differ in the slightest from his politics. See his simultaneous support of both Jewish nationalism and liberalism
for non-Jews that is the marker of Jewish Supremacy.
Re: Dante
Although Guelph by ethnicity, Dante was a Ghibelline imperialist, that is a monarchist, who supported the Holy Roman Empire.
The HRE was the nobility or land-owner faction. The Papacy was the supporter of the merchant class. Dante was the opposite of
everything that Bernard Levy is espousing, and his most famous work, the Inferno, was an allegory that reflected those politics.
Levy's invocation of Dante is strange in that it either reveals a curious lack of knowledge in regard to Dante or a disingenuous
co-opting of his illustrious name for political purposes.
Excellent piece, as always, Jonathan! What is missing is your vision of the doctrine you approve of. I understood you do not like
neoliberalism, fine. I understand you do not like nationalism of Trump and Salvini, of Le Pen and BNP, fine. But what do you like?
Give us a hint. Is it Corbyn's Labour and Sanders' Dems? Or more radical Communism?
I absolutely agree with the necessity of restoring value and focus to the family/tribe/community, but I'm deeply suspicious of
any blanket indictment of individualism. Individualism is not inherently destructive selfishness, any more than using the resources
of the state to benefit its people is inherently "socialist."
Any plan for moving forward that starts by bad-mouthing individualism is simply riding history's baby-with-the-bathwater pendulum
to the opposite extreme – a sad and hollow caricature of communitarianism immediately made suspect by the coercive abuses baked
into systems such as communism, theocracy, faceless bureaucracy, homogenizing consumerism, etc
According to a book I read, How Sweden Became Multicultural , a man named (((David Schwarz))) almost singlehandedly
spearheaded the changes that led to Sweden becoming a multicultural country, one in which they are destined to become a minority.
(((Emanuel Celler))) also made it his lifelong mission to get the restrictionist Immigration Act of 1924 repealed and replaced
by the non-restrictionist Immigration Act of 1965.
Thanks to George Soros and the work of his Open Society Foundations, this story has been replicated in almost all Western
nations.
As George W Bush once infamously claimed, Mission Accomplished !
The letter was penned by Bernard Henry Levy a French jew. this guy, an Israeli firster, is a warmonger of the worst kind. he was
behind the destruction of Libya. Actively supports the aggression on Syria, Yemen; Calls for aggression on Iran. He opposes the
planned US withdrawal from Syria and thinks that trump is a danger to the "Jewish people" . The fact that he is sponsoring
the letter speaks volumes. He doesn´t like politicians who favor nationalist policies; he calls them populists. He doesn't like
criticism of Israeli racist policies, he calls it anti-Semitism, etc. I wonder how he managed to secure so many signatures.
Yes, but he's attacked for other reasons entirely. As matters stand, if you join in the vilification of Jeremy Corbyn, you're
helping to establish Zionism as unassailable.
It's a bit like if you were Labour, and this were 1940. You might not like Churchill, but the alternative is to accede
to appeasing Hitler. That was in fact the choice Labour faced, and they had to swallow Churchill -- for the time being.
It's no longer a matter of liking Corbyn. It's a matter of who would rather have to put up with: Corbyn or Zionist domination?
@Anon
Because BHL is himself a multimillionare: "His father, André Lévy, was the founder and manager of a timber company, Becob, and
became a multimillionaire from his business In 2004, his fortune amounts to 150 million euros. Owner of seven companies, his fortune
comes essentially from the inheritance of his parents, then completed by stock exchange investments (he is in 2000 suspected of
insider trading by the Commission des opérations de bourse) "
@Christopher
Black ts of European people. The EU switched to open external frontiers, Asian outsourcing and the free international flow
of capital (i.e. the full Neo-Liberal agenda), and it was when the consequences (de-industrialization, unemployment, mass non-European
immigration) became apparent, that the public turned against the EU.
The ideal solution would be a return to the original EEC (with its closed external frontier and removal of internal barriers
to the internal movement of people and goods), but it's probably too late for that, as the whole Europe idea will probably be
trashed in the counter reaction with a return to all the inter-European trade hassles of the 1950's and 60's.
What we are experiencing today is the worst and most extreme form of predatory and parasitic
financialised monopoly crony capitalism (crapitalism), allied with blatant aggressive
jingoistic militarism and the crudest form of imperialist exploitation.
I'm not sure even Marx envisaged anything this corrupt and degraded. This must be the
terminal stage of crapitalism's death throes. It can only end in war and complete
collapse.
It comes as no surprise to see the Faux Left Blairite Backstabbers and the
Oh-So-Right-On-Politically-Correct Trudeau Regime leading the charge for a bog standard
Pinochet style US coup behind the likes of Trump, Bolton, Pompeo and recycled neocon war
criminal and death squad queen Abrams.
They have taken off the mask and showed their true colours. The final outcome is uncertain
but the fall out will extend way beyond Venezuela. It may well sound the death knell of our
current system.
Isn't it amazing how the scum of the Earth arrange to get into high places? I am totally
outraged that Canada had anything to do with fostering a coup in Venezuela! It disturbs my
sense of national sovereignty and I rue the day that Trudeau made this apostosy a member of
his cabinet. What a poor choice for a Minister of Foreign Affairs! Just consider Canada's
recent problems with Saudi Arabia, the Meng problem with /China, the chastising of Russia
because it protected its sole military base on the Black Sea and now this foolish
interference in Venezuela's internal affairs brought on by US sanctions. Canada's stupidity
in all these matters makes me bilious.
Trudeau made Soros' protege Chrystia Freeland part of his cabinet because it was on that
condition that Soros generously funded and otherwise caused Trudeau's election bid to be well
supported. Billionaires make "democratic" politics so very easy. Canadians, naive,
unquestioning, insouciant, swayed by very well rewarded PR & media and with the
transacted aquiesence of the other two warmongering neoliberal parties (Conservative &
NDP) voted their hopes and Justin Trudeau to PM. But positioning Chrystia Freeland on the
global stage and creating a neoliberal path to imperious fascist globalization is the
assigned purpose of the swish disposable Canadian Dauphin. Harper played his Soros assigned
role, Trudeau will play his and Chrystia hers and they, as quislings all, will exit rewarded
as pet functionaries of Soros and his overly entitled ilk. We authorize Soros by wishing
& believing this coup is at worst simply a flawed democracy. Ukraine was a Soros coup,
Canada is a Soros coup and Venezuela is a Soros coup. All very, very profitable. Don't look,
this is how omelettes are made. Our political parties are always for rent by billionaires
–that is the main function of political parties. Being corrupt is a design
characteristic not a flaw. Buying political parties in supposed democracies is easier, less
risky and much more profitable than stealing candy from babies. Canada is undefended against
billionaires, invest here, concentrated public assets and resources are available and the
quaint people are professionally deactivated. m\\
"... Unfettered individual creativity may have fostered some great – if fetishised – art, as well as rapid mechanical and technological developments. But it has also encouraged unbridled competition in every sphere of life, whether beneficial to humankind or not, and however wasteful of resources. ..."
"... At its worst, it has unleashed quite literally an arms race, one that – because of a mix of our unconstrained creativity, our godlessness and the economic logic of the military-industrial complex – culminated in the development of nuclear weapons. We have now devised the most complete and horrific ways imaginable to kill each other. We can commit genocide on a global scale ..."
"... Those among the elites who understand that neoliberalism has had its day are exploiting the old ideology of grab-it-for-yourself capitalism while deflecting attention from their greed and the maintenance of their privilege by sowing discord and insinuating dark threats. ..."
"... The criticisms of the neoliberal elite made by the ethnic nationalists sound persuasive because they are rooted in truths about neoliberalism's failure. But as critics, they are disingenuous. They have no solutions apart from their own personal advancement in the existing, failed, self-sabotaging system. ..."
"... This trend – what I have previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old neoliberal elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to explore its ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to. ..."
Ok neoliberalism is bad and is collapsing. We all understadn that. The different in opinions
here is only in timeframe of the collapse and the main reason (end of cheap oil, WWIII, etc).
But so far no plausible alternative exists. Canwe return to the New Deal, if top management
betrayed the working class and allied with capital owners in a hope later to became such
capital owners themselves (and many did).
The experience of the USSR tells as that each Nomenklatura (technocratic elite with the goal
of "betterment" of people) degrade very quickly (two generations were enough for Bolshevik's
elite for complete degradation) and often is ready switch sides for the place in neoliberal
elite.
So while after 2008 neoliberalism exist in zombie states (which is more bloodthirsty then
previous) they issue of successor to neoliberalism is widely open.
In one sense, their diagnosis is correct: Europe and the [neo]neoliberal tradition are
coming apart at the seams. But not because, as they strongly imply, European politicians are
pandering to the basest instincts of a mindless rabble – the ordinary people they have so
little faith in.
Rather, it is because a long experiment in Neoliberalism has finally run its course.
Neoliberalism has patently failed – and failed catastrophically.
... ... ...
Neoliberalism, like most ideologies, has an upside. Its respect for the individual and his
freedoms, its interest in nurturing human creativity, and its promotion of "universal values"
over tribal attachment have had some positive consequences.
But neoliberal ideology has been very effective at hiding its dark side – or more
accurately, at persuading us that this dark side is the consequence of neoliberalism's
abandonment rather than inherent to the neoliberal's political project.
The loss of traditional social bonds – tribal, sectarian, geographic – has left
people today more lonely, more isolated than was true of any previous human society. We may pay
lip service to universal values, but in our atomised communities, we feel adrift, abandoned and
angry.
Humanitarian resource grabs
The neoliberal's professed concern for others' welfare and their rights has, in reality,
provided cynical cover for a series of ever-more transparent resource grabs. The parading of
neoliberalism's humanitarian credentials has entitled our elites to leave a trail of carnage
and wreckage in their wake in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria and soon, it seems, in Venezuela.
We have killed with our kindness and then stolen our victims' inheritance.
Unfettered individual creativity may have fostered some great – if fetishised
– art, as well as rapid mechanical and technological developments. But it has also
encouraged unbridled competition in every sphere of life, whether beneficial to humankind or
not, and however wasteful of resources.
At its worst, it has unleashed quite literally an arms race, one that – because of
a mix of our unconstrained creativity, our godlessness and the economic logic of the
military-industrial complex – culminated in the development of nuclear weapons. We have
now devised the most complete and horrific ways imaginable to kill each other. We can commit
genocide on a global scale .
Meanwhile, the absolute prioritising of the individual has sanctioned a pathological
self-absorption, a selfishness that has provided fertile ground not only for capitalism,
materialism and consumerism but for the fusing of all of them into a turbo-charged
neoliberalism. That has entitled a tiny elite to amass and squirrel away most of the planet's
wealth out of reach of the rest of humanity.
Worst of all, our rampant creativity, our self-regard and our competitiveness have blinded
us to all things bigger and smaller than ourselves. We lack an emotional and spiritual
connection to our planet, to other animals, to future generations, to the chaotic harmony of
our universe. What we cannot understand or control, we ignore or mock.
And so the neoliberal impulse has driven us to the brink of extinguishing our species and
possibly all life on our planet. Our drive to asset-strip, to hoard resources for personal
gain, to plunder nature's riches without respect to the consequences is so overwhelming, so
compulsive that the planet will have to find a way to rebalance itself. And if we carry on,
that new balance – what we limply term "climate change" – will necessitate that we
are stripped from the planet.
Nadir of a dangerous arrogance
One can plausibly argue that humans have been on this suicidal path for some time.
Competition, creativity, selfishness predate neoliberalism, after all. But neoliberalism
removed the last restraints, it crushed any opposing sentiment as irrational, as uncivilised,
as primitive.
Neoliberalism isn't the cause of our predicament. It is the nadir of a dangerous arrogance
we as a species have been indulging for too long, where the individual's good trumps any
collective good, defined in the widest possible sense.
The neoliberal reveres his small, partial field of knowledge and expertise, eclipsing
ancient and future wisdoms, those rooted in natural cycles, the seasons and a wonder at the
ineffable and unknowable. The neoliberal's relentless and exclusive focus is on "progress",
growth, accumulation.
What is needed to save us is radical change. Not tinkering, not reform, but an entirely new
vision that removes the individual and his personal gratification from the centre of our social
organisation.
This is impossible to contemplate for the elites who think more neoliberalism, not less, is
the solution. Anyone departing from their prescriptions, anyone who aspires to be more than a
technocrat correcting minor defects in the status quo, is presented as a menace. Despite the
modesty of their proposals, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and Bernie Sanders in the US have been
reviled by a media, political and intellectual elite heavily invested in blindly pursuing the
path to self-destruction.
Status-quo cheerleaders
As a result, we now have three clear political trends.
The first is the status-quo cheerleaders like the European writers of neoliberalism's latest
– last? –
manifesto . With every utterance they prove how irrelevant they have become, how incapable
they are of supplying answers to the question of where we must head next. They adamantly refuse
both to look inwards to see where neoliberalism went wrong and to look outwards to consider how
we might extricate ourselves.
Irresponsibly, these guardians of the status quo lump together the second and third trends
in the futile hope of preserving their grip on power. Both trends are derided indiscriminately
as "populism", as the politics of envy, the politics of the mob. These two fundamentally
opposed, alternative trends are treated as indistinguishable.
This will not save neoliberalism, but it will assist in promoting the much worse of the two
alternatives.
Those among the elites who understand that neoliberalism has had its day are exploiting
the old ideology of grab-it-for-yourself capitalism while deflecting attention from their greed
and the maintenance of their privilege by sowing discord and insinuating dark threats.
The criticisms of the neoliberal elite made by the ethnic nationalists sound persuasive
because they are rooted in truths about neoliberalism's failure. But as critics, they are
disingenuous. They have no solutions apart from their own personal advancement in the existing,
failed, self-sabotaging system.
The new authoritarians are reverting to old, trusted models of xenophobic nationalism,
scapegoating others to shore up their own power. They are ditching the ostentatious,
conscience-salving sensitivities of the neoliberal so that they can continue plundering with
heady abandon. If the ship is going down, then they will be gorging on the buffet till the
waters reach the dining-hall ceiling.
Where hope can reside
The third trend is the only place where hope can reside. This trend – what I have
previously ascribed to a group I call the "dissenters" – understands that radical new
thinking is required. But given that this group is being actively crushed by the old neoliberal
elite and the new authoritarians, it has little public and political space to explore its
ideas, to experiment, to collaborate, as it urgently needs to.
Social media provides a potentially vital platform to begin critiquing the old, failed
system, to raise awareness of what has gone wrong, to contemplate and share radical new ideas,
and to mobilise. But the neoliberals and authoritarians understand this as a threat to their
own privilege. Under a confected hysteria about "fake news", they are rapidly working to snuff
out even this small space.
We have so little time, but still the old guard wants to block any possible path to
salvation – even as seas filled with plastic start to rise, as insect populations
disappear across the globe, and as the planet prepares to cough us out like a lump of infected
mucus.
We must not be hoodwinked by these posturing, manifesto-spouting liberals: the philosophers,
historians and writers – the public relations wing – of our suicidal status quo.
They did not warn us of the beast lying cradled in our midst. They failed to see the danger
looming, and their narcissism blinds them still.
We should have no use for the guardians of the old, those who held our hands, who shone a
light along a path that has led to the brink of our own extinction. We need to discard them, to
close our ears to their siren song.
There are small voices struggling to be heard above the roar of the dying neoliberal elites
and the trumpeting of the new authoritarians. They need to be listened to, to be helped to
share and collaborate, to offer us their visions of a different world. One where the individual
is no longer king. Where we learn some modesty and humility – and how to love in our
infinitely small corner of the universe.
Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include
"Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East"
(Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books).
His website is www.jonathan-cook.net .
With the growing movement towards nuclear war, we have indeed reached the nadir. It is
important to see how humanity got here, for the signs are ominous.
The pattern of history is clear. Power (manifested as interest) has been present in every
conflict of the past – no exception. It is the underlying motivation for war.
Other
cultural factors might change, but not power. Interest cuts across all apparently unifying
principles: family, kin, nation, religion, ideology, politics – everything. We unite
with the enemies of our principles, because that is what serves our interest. It is power,
not any of the above concepts, that is the cause of war.
Maybe it is just me but I didn't see any actual solution or much of anything in his third
group. You know, the one with all the "correct" answers. All I saw was that it was a glorious
vision without all the failings of the other two while rejecting all the badthink.
Every major tragedy in human history starts out with people thinking they have a system
better than all the previous that ever occurred. It too soon becomes a religion that needs to
defend itself by executing all the blasphemers.
Maybe it is just me but I didn't see any actual solution or much of anything in his
third group. You know, the one with all the "correct" answers. All I saw was that it was a
glorious vision without all the failings of the other two while rejecting all the
badthink.
Exactly.
I've been waiting for the author, or some from his "group", to post here at least a LINK
to that solution, even a suggestion, of theirs. Hell, even the proper analysis of what's not
right. A foundation of sort.
So far, as you said, nothing.
Anon[248], February 3, 2019 at 5:29 am GMT
Levy another Jewish "intellectual" shilling for globalization and open borders - for Western nations only, to hasten their
demise. What else is new?
Looks like pendulum moved in opposite direction and neoliberals (and first of all financial
oligarchy) might be crashed by the return of the New Deal style regulations as well as higher
taxes on incomes. the latter measure is popular even in the USA.
Notable quotes:
"... By Don Quijones of Spain, Mexico, and the UK, and an editor at Wolf Street. Originally published at Wolf Street ..."
"... The bill will face stiff opposition from the domestic banking sector as well as the European Commission, which in 2017, under pressure from Europe's banking lobbies, abandoned its own pledge to break-up too-big-to-fail lenders. ..."
"... Since the global financial crisis, big banks on both sides of the Atlantic have been fighting tooth and nail all regulatory attempts to split their deposit-taking commercial units from their riskier investment banking units. ..."
By Don Quijones of Spain, Mexico, and the UK, and an editor
at Wolf Street. Originally published at
Wolf Street
On Friday, Italy's coalition government
unveiled new banking regulations that it hopes to pass in the coming months, including a
rule that would separate banks' commercial and investment arms. It would be the Italian
equivalent of the Glass-Steagall Act, the 1933 U.S. law that separated commercial banks that
took deposits, made loans, and processed transaction, from riskier investment banking
activities. The law was designed to protect deposits. Its repeal in 1999 led to the
consolidation of the U.S. banking sector, unfettered risk-taking by deposit-taking banks, and
arguably the Financial Crisis just eight years later.
... ... ...
The bill will face stiff opposition from the domestic banking sector as
well as the European Commission, which in 2017, under pressure from Europe's banking lobbies,
abandoned its own pledge to break-up too-big-to-fail lenders.
Since the global financial crisis, big banks on both sides of the Atlantic have been
fighting tooth and nail all regulatory attempts to split their deposit-taking commercial units
from their riskier investment banking units. Such legislation would would make each entity
smaller. And that is not in the interests of the big banks, nor the ECB, which
hopes to breathe life into a new generation of trans-European super-banks by serving as
matchmaker to Europe's largest domestic lenders.
Is anyone else tired of the longest, least productive waste of war in American history ? What
have we achieved, where are we going with this ? More war.
We are being fed a fairy tale of war about what men, long dead, did. And the reason they did
it. America is being strangled by the burden of belief that now is like then.
By the patrician men and women administrators, posturing as soldiers like the WW2 army, lie
for self profit. Why does anyone believe them ? Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, each an economic
decision, rather than a security issue.
Capitalists need their options regulated and their markets ripped from their control by the
state. Profits must be subject to use it to a social purpose or heavily taxed. Dividends
executive comp and interest payments included
Well done! Much clearer than your usual. There are several distinct motivations for taxes. We
have been far enough from fairness to workers, for so long, that we need to use the tax
system to redistribute the accumulated wealth of the plutocrats.
So I would say high marginal rates are a priority, which matches both objectives. Wealth
tax is needed until we reverse the massive inequality supported by the policies of the last
40 years.
Carbon tax and the like are a different thing, use of the tax code to promote a particular
policy and reduce damage to the commons.
"...we need to use the tax system to redistribute the accumulated wealth of the plutocrats.
So I would say high marginal rates are a priority..."
Forgive me, but high marginal rates (which I hugely favor) don't "redistribute the
accumulated wealth" of the plutocrats. If such high marginal rates are ever enacted, they'll
apply only to the current income of such plutocrats.
You merged paragraphs, and elided the next one. The way I see it, high rates are a
prerequisite to prevent the reaccumulation of obscene wealth, and its diversion into
financial gambling.
But yes that would be a very slow way to redistribute what has already accumulated.
Didn't mean to misinterpret what you were saying, sorry. High rates are not only "a
prerequisite to prevent the reaccumulation of obscene wealth," they are also a reimposition
of fair taxation on current income (if it ever happens, of course).
Wealth tax is needed until we reverse the massive inequality supported by the policies of the
last 40 years. Carbon tax and the like are a different thing, use of the tax code to promote
a particular policy and reduce damage to the commons.
"
more wisdom as usual!
Although wealth tax will be unlikely, it could be a stopgap; could also be a guideline to
other taxes as well. for example, Elizabeth points out that billionaires pay about 3% of
their net worth into their annual tax bill whereas workers pay about 7% of their net worth
into their annual tax bill. Do you see how that works?
it doesn't? this Warren argument gives us a guideline. it shows us where other taxes
should be adjusted to even out this percentage of net worth that people are taxed for. Ceu,
during the last meltdown 10 years or so ago, We were collecting more tax from the payroll
than we were from the income tax. this phenomenon was a heavy burden on those of low net
worth. All this needs be resorted. we've got to sort this out.
and the carbon tax? may never be; but it indicates to us what needs to be done to make
this country more efficient. for example some folks, are spending half a million dollars on
the Maybach automobile, about the same amount on a Ferrari or a Alfa Romeo Julia
quadrifoglio, but the roads are built for a mere 40 miles an hour, full of potholes.
What good is it to own a fast car like that when you can't drive but 40 -- 50 miles an
hour? and full of traffic jams. something is wrong with taxation incentives. we need to get a
better grid-work of roads that will get people there faster.
Meanwhile most of those sports cars just sitting in the garage. we need a comprehensive
integrated grid-work of one way streets, roads, highways, and interstates with no traffic
lights, no stop signs; merely freeflow ramp-off overpass interchanges.
Jesus Christ said, in so many words, that a man's worth will be judged by his generosity and
his avarice.
" 24And the disciples were amazed at His words. But Jesus said to them again, "Children,
how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! 25It is easier for a camel to pass through the
eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." 26They were even more
astonished and said to one another, "Who then can be saved?"
Neoliberalism like Bolshevism is sticky, so the collapse "USSR-style" is a real possibility if nationalist sentiments explode
in the USA. But I would give it 40 years instead of 20. This forecast has a distinct advantage that nobody will remember it in 40
years ;-)
I think the U.S. is at most 20 years away from severe dysfunction at every level of society,
and possibly even civil war and break up.
I mention this only because I can sense a certain desperation in your post and why not
counter it with pessimistic reality? The U.S. is not the only country in the world. 95% of
the world's population, and 80% of it's economy, is outside the U.S.
The unipolar moment of American dominance is over, finished, never to return. Still
possible to have a decent life for awhile, but we'll see. Just remember, Europeans believed
in the early 20th century that they would rule the world for centuries to come, if not
millenia. They had no reason to believe otherwise. Look how that turned out.
Money quote: " neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at large, and to
make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were under
feudalism."
Notable quotes:
"... ... if you take the Bible literally, it's the fight in almost all of the early books of the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, all about the fight over indebtedness and debt cancellation. ..."
"... neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at large,and to make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were under feudalism. ..."
"... They call themselves free marketers, but they realize that you cannot have neoliberalism unless you're willing to murder and assassinate everyone who promotes an alternative ..."
"... Just so long as you remember that most of the strongest and most moving condemnations of greed and money in the ancient and (today) western world are also Jewish--i.e. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, the Gospels, Letter of James, etc. ..."
"... The history of Jewish banking after the fall or Rome is inextricable from cultural anti-judaism of Christian west and east and de facto marginalization/ghettoization of Jews from most aspects of social life. The Jewish lending of money on interest to gentiles was both necessary for early mercantilist trade and yet usury was prohibited by the church. So Jewish money lenders were essential to and yet ostracized within European economies for centuries. ..."
"... Now Christianity has itself long given up on the tradition teaching against usury of course. ..."
"... In John, for instance most of the references to what in English is translated as "the Jews" are in Greek clearly references to "the Judaeans"--and especially to the ruling elite among the southern tribe in bed with the Romans. ..."
Just finished reading the fascinating
Michael Hudson interview I linked to on previous thread; but since we're discussing Jews
and their religion in a tangential manner, I think it appropriate to post here since the
history Hudson explains is 100% key to the ongoing pain us humans feel and inflict. My
apologies in advance, but it will take this long excerpt to explain what I mean:
"Tribes: When does the concept of a general debt cancellation disappear historically?
"Michael: I guess in about the second or third century AD it was downplayed in the Bible.
After Jesus died, you had, first of all, St Paul taking over, and basically Christianity was
created by one of the most evil men in history, the anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria. He
gained power by murdering his rivals, the Nestorians, by convening a congress of bishops and
killing his enemies. Cyril was really the Stalin figure of Christianity, killing everybody
who was an enemy, organizing pogroms against the Jews in Alexandria where he ruled.
"It was Cyril that really introduced into Christianity the idea of the Trinity. That's
what the whole fight was about in the third and fourth centuries AD. Was Jesus a human, was
he a god? And essentially you had the Isis-Osiris figure from Egypt, put into Christianity.
The Christians were still trying to drive the Jews out of Christianity. And Cyril knew the
one thing the Jewish population was not going to accept would be the Isis figure and the
Mariolatry that the church became. And as soon as the Christian church became the
establishment rulership church, the last thing it wanted in the West was debt
cancellation.
"You had a continuation of the original Christianity in the Greek Orthodox Church, or the
Orthodox Church, all the way through Byzantium. And in my book And Forgive Them Their Debts,
the last two chapters are on the Byzantine echo of the original debt cancellations, where one
ruler after another would cancel the debts. And they gave very explicit reason for it: if we
don't cancel the debts, we're not going to be able to field an army, we're not going to be
able to collect taxes, because the oligarchy is going to take over. They were very explicit,
with references to the Bible, references to the jubilee year. So you had Christianity survive
in the Byzantine Empire. But in the West it ended in Margaret Thatcher. And Father
Coughlin.
"Tribes: He was the '30s figure here in the States.
"Michael: Yes: anti-Semite, right-wing, pro-war, anti-labor. So the irony is that you have
the people who call themselves fundamentalist Christians being against everything that Jesus
was fighting for, and everything that original Christianity was all about."
Hudson says debt forgiveness was one of the central tenets of Judaism: " ... if
you take the Bible literally, it's the fight in almost all of the early books of the Old
Testament, the Jewish Bible, all about the fight over indebtedness and debt
cancellation. "
Looks like I'll be purchasing Hudson's book as he's essentially unveiling a whole new,
potentially revolutionary, historical interpretation.
@ karlof1 with the Michale Hudson link....thanks!!
Here is the quote that I really like from that interview
"
Michael: No. You asked what is the fight about? The fight is whether the state will be taken
over, essentially to be an extension of Wall Street if you do not have government planning.
Every economy is planned. Ever since the Neolithic (era), you've had to have (a form of)
planning. If you don't have a public authority doing the planning, then the financial
authority becomes the planners. So globalism is in the financial interest –Wall Street
and the City of London, doing the planning, not governments. They will do the planning in
their own interest. So neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at
large,and to make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were
under feudalism.
"
karlof1, please email me as I would like to read the book as well and maybe we can share a
copy.
And yes, it is relevant to Netanyahoo and his ongoing passel of lies because humanity has
been told and been living these lives for centuries...it is time to stop this shit and grow
up/evolve
@13 / 78 karlof1... thanks very much for the links to michael hudson, alastair crooke and the
bruno maraces articles...
they were all good for different reasons, but although hudson is being criticized for
glossing over some of his talking points, i think the main thrust of his article is very
worthwhile for others to read! the quote to end his article is quite good "The question is,
who do you want to run the economy? The 1% and the financial sector, or the 99% through
politics? The fight has to be in the political sphere, because there's no other sphere that
the financial interests cannot crush you on."
it seems to me that the usa has worked hard to bad mouth or get rid of government and the
concept of government being involved in anything.. of course everything has to be run by a
'private corp' - ie corporations must run everything.. they call them oligarchs when talking
about russia, lol - but they are corporations when they are in the usa.. slight rant..
another quote i especially liked from hudson.. " They call themselves free marketers,
but they realize that you cannot have neoliberalism unless you're willing to murder and
assassinate everyone who promotes an alternative ." that sounds about right...
@ 84 juliania.. aside from your comments on hudsons characterization of st paul "the
anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria" further down hudson basically does the same with father
coughlin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin..
he gets the anti-semite tag as well.. i don't know much about either characters, so it's
mostly greek to me, but i do find some of hudsons views especially appealing - debt
forgiveness being central to the whole article as i read it...
it is interesting my own view on how money is so central to the world and how often times
I am incapable of avoiding the observation of the disproportionate number of Jewish people in
banking.. I guess that makes me anti-semite too, but i don't think of myself that way.. I
think the obsession with money is killing the planet.. I don't care who is responsible for
keeping it going, it is killing us...
Just so long as you remember that most of the strongest and most moving condemnations
of greed and money in the ancient and (today) western world are also Jewish--i.e. Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Micah, the Gospels, Letter of James, etc.
The history of Jewish banking after the fall or Rome is inextricable from cultural
anti-judaism of Christian west and east and de facto marginalization/ghettoization of Jews from
most aspects of social life. The Jewish lending of money on interest to gentiles was both
necessary for early mercantilist trade and yet usury was prohibited by the church. So Jewish
money lenders were essential to and yet ostracized within European economies for
centuries.
Now Christianity has itself long given up on the tradition teaching against usury of
course.
I too greatly admire the work of Hudson but he consistently errs and oversimplifies
whenever discussing the beliefs of and the development of beliefs among preNicene followers
of the way (as Acts puts is) or Christians (as they came to be known in Antioch within
roughly eight or nine decades after Jesus' death.) Palestinian Judaism in the time of Jesus
was much more variegated than scholars even twenty years ago had recognized. The gradual
reception and interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls in tandem with renewed research into
Phili of Alexandria, the Essenes, the so-called Sons of Zadok, contemporary Galilean zealot
movements styles after the earlier Maccabean resistance, the apocalyptism of post exilic
texts like Daniel and (presumably) parts of Enoch--all paint a picture of a highly diverse
group of alternatives to the state-Church once known as Second Temple Judaism that has been
mistaken as undisputed Jewish "orthodoxy" since the advent of historical criticism.
The
Gospel of John, for example, which dates from betweeen 80-120 and is the record of a much
earlier oral tradition, is already explicitly binitarian, and possibly already trinitarian
depending on how one understands the relationship between the Spirit or Advocate and the Son.
(Most ante-Nicene Christians understood the Spirit to be *Christ's* own spirit in distributed
form, and they did so by appeal to a well-developed but still largely under recognized strand
in Jewish angelology.)
The "theological" development of Christianity occurred much sooner
that it has been thought because it emerged from an already highly theologized strand or
strands of Jewish teaching that, like Christianity itself, privileged the Abrahamic covenant
over the Mosaic Law, the testament of grace over that of works, and the universal scope of
revelation and salvation as opposed to any political or ethnic reading of the "Kingdom."
None
of these groups were part of the ruling class of Judaean priests and levites and their
hangers on the Pharisees.
In John, for instance most of the references to what in English is
translated as "the Jews" are in Greek clearly references to "the Judaeans"--and especially to
the ruling elite among the southern tribe in bed with the Romans.
So the anti-Judaism/Semiti
of John's Gispel largely rests on a mistranslation. In any event, everything is much more
complex than Hudson makes it out to be. Christian economic radicalism is alive and well in
the thought of Gregory of Nysa and Basil the Great, who also happened to be Cappadocian
fathers highly influential in the development of "orthodox" Trinitarianism in the fourth
century.
I still think that Hudson's big picture critique of the direction later Christianity
took is helpful and necessary, but this doesn't change the fact that he simplifies the
origins, development, and arguably devolution of this movement whenever he tries to get
specific. It is a worthwhile danger given the quality of his work in historical economics,
but still one has to be aware of.
This "apostolic exhortation" is probably the most sharp critique of neoliberalism by a church leader.
Notable quotes:
"... "In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," the pope wrote. "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." ..."
"... In his exhortation, the pope also attacked economic inequality, suggesting Christians have a duty to combat it to comply with the Ten Commandments -- specifically the prohibition on killing. ..."
Pope Francis delivers a speech March 15, 2013, during a meeting of the world's cardinals. (Osservatore Romano/EPA)
Pope Francis has released a sharply worded take on capitalism and the world's treatment of its poor, criticizing "trickle-down"
economic policies in no uncertain terms.
In the
first lengthy writing of his papacy -- also known as an "apostolic exhortation" -- Francis says such economic theories naively
rely on the goodness of those in charge and create a "tyranny" of the markets.
"In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," the pope wrote. "This opinion,
which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and
in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."
While popes have often warned against the negative impact of the markets, Francis's verbiage is note-worthy because of its use
of the phrase "trickle-down" -- a term that came into popular usage as a description for former president Ronald Reagan's economic
policies. While the term is often used pejoratively, it describes an economic theory that remains popular with conservatives in the
United States today.
The theory holds that policies benefiting the wealthiest segment of society will also help the poor, by allowing money to "trickle
down" from the top income levels into the lower ones. Critics, including President Obama, say the policies, usually focused on tax
cuts and credits that primarily benefit upper-income Americans, concentrate wealth in the highest income levels and that the benefits
rarely trickle down to the extent proponents suggest.
In his exhortation, the pope also attacked economic inequality, suggesting Christians have a duty to combat it to comply with
the Ten Commandments -- specifically the prohibition on killing.
"Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also
have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality," the pope wrote. "Such an economy kills."
"We have created new idols," Francis wrote. "The worship of the ancient golden calf ... has returned in a new and ruthless guise
in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."
The pope also attacks "consumerism": "It is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging
to the social fabric."
Here is the entire passage:
I. SOME CHALLENGES OF TODAY'S WORLD
52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many
fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people's welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications.
At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences.
A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich
countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly
evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion
by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their
instant application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to
new and often anonymous kinds of power.
No to an economy of exclusion
53. Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we
also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not
a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a
case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality.
Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless.
As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any
means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a "disposable" culture
which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has
to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's underside or its
fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the
"leftovers".
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by
a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has
never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the
sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which
excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without
being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain,
and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity
deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for
lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
No to the new idolatry of money
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves
and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the
denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35)
has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly
human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of
real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity
enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and
financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise
any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its
own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their
own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving
tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which
tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless
before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
No to a financial system which rules rather than serves
57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful
derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since
it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response
which is outside of the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable,
unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement.
Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in
mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: "Not to share
one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but
theirs".
[55]
58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political
leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics
of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ
to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics
and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.
No to the inequality which spawns violence
59. Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples
is reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without
equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode.
When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes
or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply
because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust
at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence
and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If every action has its consequences,
an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized
in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the so-called "end of history",
since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.
60. Today's economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with
inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot
and never will be able to resolve. This serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though
nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply
content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations,
they claim that the solution is an "education" that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even
more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in
their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.
CHAPTER TWO: AMID THE CRISIS
OF COMMUNAL COMMITMENT
50. Before taking up some basic questions related to the work of evangelization, it may be
helpful to mention briefly the context in which we all have to live and work. Today, we
frequently hear of a "diagnostic overload" which is not always accompanied by improved and
actually applicable methods of treatment. Nor would we be well served by a purely sociological
analysis which would aim to embrace all of reality by employing an allegedly neutral and
clinical method. What I would like to propose is something much more in the line of an
evangelical discernment. It is the approach of a missionary disciple, an approach "nourished by
the light and strength of the Holy Spirit".
[53]
51. It is not the task of the Pope to offer a detailed and complete analysis of contemporary
reality, but I do exhort all the communities to an "ever watchful scrutiny of the signs of the
times".
[54] This is in fact a grave responsibility, since certain present realities, unless
effectively dealt with, are capable of setting off processes of dehumanization which would then
be hard to reverse. We need to distinguish clearly what might be a fruit of the kingdom from
what runs counter to God's plan. This involves not only recognizing and discerning spirits, but
also – and this is decisive – choosing movements of the spirit of good and
rejecting those of the spirit of evil. I take for granted the different analyses which other
documents of the universal magisterium have offered, as well as those proposed by the regional
and national conferences of bishops. In this Exhortation I claim only to consider briefly, and
from a pastoral perspective, certain factors which can restrain or weaken the impulse of
missionary renewal in the Church, either because they threaten the life and dignity of God's
people or because they affect those who are directly involved in the Church's institutions and
in her work of evangelization.
52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from
the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve
people's welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time
we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day,
with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are
gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living
frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is
increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little
dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative,
rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant
application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and
information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power.
53. Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard
the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion
and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly
homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This
is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are
starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition
and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence,
masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without
possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have
created a "throw away" culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about
exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it
means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's
underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it.
The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the "leftovers".
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that
economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater
justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the
facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power
and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are
still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that
selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it,
we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other
people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's
responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the
market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of
opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly
accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us
overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of
the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf.
Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the
dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis
affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real
concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating
the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of
ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.
Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to
exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which
unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of
interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies
and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread
corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst
for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything
which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is
defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come
to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human,
because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the
manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a
committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are
absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he
calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement.
Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance
and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political
leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: "Not to share one's wealth with
the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which
we hold, but theirs".
[55]
58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change
of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with
determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each
case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is
obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the
poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an
ethical approach which favours human beings.
59. Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and
inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate
violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal
opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for
growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global –
is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent
on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not
the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the
system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to
spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and
quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If
every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a
constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized in unjust social
structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the
so-called "end of history", since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development
have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.
60. Today's economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that
unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric.
Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able
to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security,
even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create
new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the
poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they
claim that the solution is an "education" that would tranquilize them, making them tame and
harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the
widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments,
businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.
61. We also evangelize when we attempt to confront the various challenges which can arise.
[56] On occasion these may take the form of veritable attacks on religious freedom or new
persecutions directed against Christians; in some countries these have reached alarming levels
of hatred and violence. In many places, the problem is more that of widespread indifference and
relativism, linked to disillusionment and the crisis of ideologies which has come about as a
reaction to any-thing which might appear totalitarian. This not only harms the Church but the
fabric of society as a whole. We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to
be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a
common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.
62. In the prevailing culture, priority is given to the outward, the immediate, the visible,
the quick, the superficial and the provisional. What is real gives way to appearances. In many
countries globalization has meant a hastened deterioration of their own cultural roots and the
invasion of ways of thinking and acting proper to other cultures which are economically
advanced but ethically debilitated. This fact has been brought up by bishops from various
continents in different Synods. The African bishops, for example, taking up the Encyclical
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , pointed out years ago that there have been frequent attempts
to make the African countries "parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel. This is often true
also in the field of social communications which, being run by centres mostly in the northern
hemisphere, do not always give due consideration to the priorities and problems of such
countries or respect their cultural make-up".
[57] By the same token, the bishops of Asia "underlined the external influences being
brought to bear on Asian cultures. New patterns of behaviour are emerging as a result of
over-exposure to the mass media As a result, the negative aspects of the media and
entertainment industries are threatening traditional values, and in particular the sacredness
of marriage and the stability of the family".
[58]
63. The Catholic faith of many peoples is nowadays being challenged by the proliferation of
new religious movements, some of which tend to fundamentalism while others seem to propose a
spirituality without God. This is, on the one hand, a human reaction to a materialistic,
consumerist and individualistic society, but it is also a means of exploiting the weaknesses of
people living in poverty and on the fringes of society, people who make ends meet amid great
human suffering and are looking for immediate solutions to their needs. These religious
movements, not without a certain shrewdness, come to fill, within a predominantly
individualistic culture, a vacuum left by secularist rationalism. We must recognize that if
part of our baptized people lack a sense of belonging to the Church, this is also due to
certain structures and the occasionally unwelcoming atmosphere of some of our parishes and
communities, or to a bureaucratic way of dealing with problems, be they simple or complex, in
the lives of our people. In many places an administrative approach prevails over a pastoral
approach, as does a concentration on administering the sacraments apart from other forms of
evangelization.
64. The process of secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of
the private and personal. Furthermore, by completely rejecting the transcendent, it has
produced a growing deterioration of ethics, a weakening of the sense of personal and collective
sin, and a steady increase in relativism. These have led to a general sense of disorientation,
especially in the periods of adolescence and young adulthood which are so vulnerable to change.
As the bishops of the United States of America have rightly pointed out, while the Church
insists on the existence of objective moral norms which are valid for everyone, "there are
those in our culture who portray this teaching as unjust, that is, as opposed to basic human
rights. Such claims usually follow from a form of moral relativism that is joined, not without
inconsistency, to a belief in the absolute rights of individuals. In this view, the Church is
perceived as promoting a particular prejudice and as interfering with individual freedom".
[59] We are living in an information-driven society which bombards us indiscriminately with
data – all treated as being of equal importance – and which leads to remarkable
superficiality in the area of moral discernment. In response, we need to provide an education
which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.
65. Despite the tide of secularism which has swept our societies, in many countries –
even those where Christians are a minority – the Catholic Church is considered a credible
institution by public opinion, and trusted for her solidarity and concern for those in greatest
need. Again and again, the Church has acted as a mediator in finding solutions to problems
affecting peace, social harmony, the land, the defence of life, human and civil rights, and so
forth. And how much good has been done by Catholic schools and universities around the world!
This is a good thing. Yet, we find it difficult to make people see that when we raise other
questions less palatable to public opinion, we are doing so out of fidelity to precisely the
same convictions about human dignity and the common good.
66. The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social
bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because
the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our
differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith
to their children. Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction
that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensible contribution of
marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple. As the French
bishops have taught, it is not born "of loving sentiment, ephemeral by definition, but from the
depth of the obligation assumed by the spouses who accept to enter a total communion of life".
[60]
67. The individualism of our postmodern and globalized era favours a lifestyle which weakens
the development and stability of personal relationships and distorts family bonds. Pastoral
activity needs to bring out more clearly the fact that our relationship with the Father demands
and encourages a communion which heals, promotes and reinforces interpersonal bonds. In our
world, especially in some countries, different forms of war and conflict are re-emerging, yet
we Christians remain steadfast in our intention to respect others, to heal wounds, to build
bridges, to strengthen relationships and to "bear one another's burdens" ( Gal 6:2).
Today too, various associations for the defence of rights and the pursuit of noble goals are
being founded. This is a sign of the desire of many people to contribute to social and cultural
progress.
Money quote: " neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at large, and to
make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were under
feudalism."
Notable quotes:
"... ... if you take the Bible literally, it's the fight in almost all of the early books of the Old Testament, the Jewish Bible, all about the fight over indebtedness and debt cancellation. ..."
"... neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at large,and to make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were under feudalism. ..."
"... They call themselves free marketers, but they realize that you cannot have neoliberalism unless you're willing to murder and assassinate everyone who promotes an alternative ..."
"... Just so long as you remember that most of the strongest and most moving condemnations of greed and money in the ancient and (today) western world are also Jewish--i.e. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah, the Gospels, Letter of James, etc. ..."
"... The history of Jewish banking after the fall or Rome is inextricable from cultural anti-judaism of Christian west and east and de facto marginalization/ghettoization of Jews from most aspects of social life. The Jewish lending of money on interest to gentiles was both necessary for early mercantilist trade and yet usury was prohibited by the church. So Jewish money lenders were essential to and yet ostracized within European economies for centuries. ..."
"... Now Christianity has itself long given up on the tradition teaching against usury of course. ..."
"... In John, for instance most of the references to what in English is translated as "the Jews" are in Greek clearly references to "the Judaeans"--and especially to the ruling elite among the southern tribe in bed with the Romans. ..."
Just finished reading the fascinating
Michael Hudson interview I linked to on previous thread; but since we're discussing Jews
and their religion in a tangential manner, I think it appropriate to post here since the
history Hudson explains is 100% key to the ongoing pain us humans feel and inflict. My
apologies in advance, but it will take this long excerpt to explain what I mean:
"Tribes: When does the concept of a general debt cancellation disappear historically?
"Michael: I guess in about the second or third century AD it was downplayed in the Bible.
After Jesus died, you had, first of all, St Paul taking over, and basically Christianity was
created by one of the most evil men in history, the anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria. He
gained power by murdering his rivals, the Nestorians, by convening a congress of bishops and
killing his enemies. Cyril was really the Stalin figure of Christianity, killing everybody
who was an enemy, organizing pogroms against the Jews in Alexandria where he ruled.
"It was Cyril that really introduced into Christianity the idea of the Trinity. That's
what the whole fight was about in the third and fourth centuries AD. Was Jesus a human, was
he a god? And essentially you had the Isis-Osiris figure from Egypt, put into Christianity.
The Christians were still trying to drive the Jews out of Christianity. And Cyril knew the
one thing the Jewish population was not going to accept would be the Isis figure and the
Mariolatry that the church became. And as soon as the Christian church became the
establishment rulership church, the last thing it wanted in the West was debt
cancellation.
"You had a continuation of the original Christianity in the Greek Orthodox Church, or the
Orthodox Church, all the way through Byzantium. And in my book And Forgive Them Their Debts,
the last two chapters are on the Byzantine echo of the original debt cancellations, where one
ruler after another would cancel the debts. And they gave very explicit reason for it: if we
don't cancel the debts, we're not going to be able to field an army, we're not going to be
able to collect taxes, because the oligarchy is going to take over. They were very explicit,
with references to the Bible, references to the jubilee year. So you had Christianity survive
in the Byzantine Empire. But in the West it ended in Margaret Thatcher. And Father
Coughlin.
"Tribes: He was the '30s figure here in the States.
"Michael: Yes: anti-Semite, right-wing, pro-war, anti-labor. So the irony is that you have
the people who call themselves fundamentalist Christians being against everything that Jesus
was fighting for, and everything that original Christianity was all about."
Hudson says debt forgiveness was one of the central tenets of Judaism: " ... if
you take the Bible literally, it's the fight in almost all of the early books of the Old
Testament, the Jewish Bible, all about the fight over indebtedness and debt
cancellation. "
Looks like I'll be purchasing Hudson's book as he's essentially unveiling a whole new,
potentially revolutionary, historical interpretation.
@ karlof1 with the Michale Hudson link....thanks!!
Here is the quote that I really like from that interview
"
Michael: No. You asked what is the fight about? The fight is whether the state will be taken
over, essentially to be an extension of Wall Street if you do not have government planning.
Every economy is planned. Ever since the Neolithic (era), you've had to have (a form of)
planning. If you don't have a public authority doing the planning, then the financial
authority becomes the planners. So globalism is in the financial interest –Wall Street
and the City of London, doing the planning, not governments. They will do the planning in
their own interest. So neoliberalism is the fight of finance to subdue society at
large,and to make the bankers and creditors today in the position that the landlords were
under feudalism.
"
karlof1, please email me as I would like to read the book as well and maybe we can share a
copy.
And yes, it is relevant to Netanyahoo and his ongoing passel of lies because humanity has
been told and been living these lives for centuries...it is time to stop this shit and grow
up/evolve
@13 / 78 karlof1... thanks very much for the links to michael hudson, alastair crooke and the
bruno maraces articles...
they were all good for different reasons, but although hudson is being criticized for
glossing over some of his talking points, i think the main thrust of his article is very
worthwhile for others to read! the quote to end his article is quite good "The question is,
who do you want to run the economy? The 1% and the financial sector, or the 99% through
politics? The fight has to be in the political sphere, because there's no other sphere that
the financial interests cannot crush you on."
it seems to me that the usa has worked hard to bad mouth or get rid of government and the
concept of government being involved in anything.. of course everything has to be run by a
'private corp' - ie corporations must run everything.. they call them oligarchs when talking
about russia, lol - but they are corporations when they are in the usa.. slight rant..
another quote i especially liked from hudson.. " They call themselves free marketers,
but they realize that you cannot have neoliberalism unless you're willing to murder and
assassinate everyone who promotes an alternative ." that sounds about right...
@ 84 juliania.. aside from your comments on hudsons characterization of st paul "the
anti-Semite Cyril of Alexandria" further down hudson basically does the same with father
coughlin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Coughlin..
he gets the anti-semite tag as well.. i don't know much about either characters, so it's
mostly greek to me, but i do find some of hudsons views especially appealing - debt
forgiveness being central to the whole article as i read it...
it is interesting my own view on how money is so central to the world and how often times
I am incapable of avoiding the observation of the disproportionate number of Jewish people in
banking.. I guess that makes me anti-semite too, but i don't think of myself that way.. I
think the obsession with money is killing the planet.. I don't care who is responsible for
keeping it going, it is killing us...
Just so long as you remember that most of the strongest and most moving condemnations
of greed and money in the ancient and (today) western world are also Jewish--i.e. Isaiah,
Jeremiah, Micah, the Gospels, Letter of James, etc.
The history of Jewish banking after the fall or Rome is inextricable from cultural
anti-judaism of Christian west and east and de facto marginalization/ghettoization of Jews from
most aspects of social life. The Jewish lending of money on interest to gentiles was both
necessary for early mercantilist trade and yet usury was prohibited by the church. So Jewish
money lenders were essential to and yet ostracized within European economies for
centuries.
Now Christianity has itself long given up on the tradition teaching against usury of
course.
I too greatly admire the work of Hudson but he consistently errs and oversimplifies
whenever discussing the beliefs of and the development of beliefs among preNicene followers
of the way (as Acts puts is) or Christians (as they came to be known in Antioch within
roughly eight or nine decades after Jesus' death.) Palestinian Judaism in the time of Jesus
was much more variegated than scholars even twenty years ago had recognized. The gradual
reception and interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls in tandem with renewed research into
Phili of Alexandria, the Essenes, the so-called Sons of Zadok, contemporary Galilean zealot
movements styles after the earlier Maccabean resistance, the apocalyptism of post exilic
texts like Daniel and (presumably) parts of Enoch--all paint a picture of a highly diverse
group of alternatives to the state-Church once known as Second Temple Judaism that has been
mistaken as undisputed Jewish "orthodoxy" since the advent of historical criticism.
The
Gospel of John, for example, which dates from betweeen 80-120 and is the record of a much
earlier oral tradition, is already explicitly binitarian, and possibly already trinitarian
depending on how one understands the relationship between the Spirit or Advocate and the Son.
(Most ante-Nicene Christians understood the Spirit to be *Christ's* own spirit in distributed
form, and they did so by appeal to a well-developed but still largely under recognized strand
in Jewish angelology.)
The "theological" development of Christianity occurred much sooner
that it has been thought because it emerged from an already highly theologized strand or
strands of Jewish teaching that, like Christianity itself, privileged the Abrahamic covenant
over the Mosaic Law, the testament of grace over that of works, and the universal scope of
revelation and salvation as opposed to any political or ethnic reading of the "Kingdom."
None
of these groups were part of the ruling class of Judaean priests and levites and their
hangers on the Pharisees.
In John, for instance most of the references to what in English is
translated as "the Jews" are in Greek clearly references to "the Judaeans"--and especially to
the ruling elite among the southern tribe in bed with the Romans.
So the anti-Judaism/Semiti
of John's Gispel largely rests on a mistranslation. In any event, everything is much more
complex than Hudson makes it out to be. Christian economic radicalism is alive and well in
the thought of Gregory of Nysa and Basil the Great, who also happened to be Cappadocian
fathers highly influential in the development of "orthodox" Trinitarianism in the fourth
century.
I still think that Hudson's big picture critique of the direction later Christianity
took is helpful and necessary, but this doesn't change the fact that he simplifies the
origins, development, and arguably devolution of this movement whenever he tries to get
specific. It is a worthwhile danger given the quality of his work in historical economics,
but still one has to be aware of.
This "apostolic exhortation" is probably the most sharp critique of neoliberalism by a church leader.
Notable quotes:
"... "In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," the pope wrote. "This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting." ..."
"... In his exhortation, the pope also attacked economic inequality, suggesting Christians have a duty to combat it to comply with the Ten Commandments -- specifically the prohibition on killing. ..."
Pope Francis delivers a speech March 15, 2013, during a meeting of the world's cardinals. (Osservatore Romano/EPA)
Pope Francis has released a sharply worded take on capitalism and the world's treatment of its poor, criticizing "trickle-down"
economic policies in no uncertain terms.
In the
first lengthy writing of his papacy -- also known as an "apostolic exhortation" -- Francis says such economic theories naively
rely on the goodness of those in charge and create a "tyranny" of the markets.
"In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a
free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world," the pope wrote. "This opinion,
which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and
in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting."
While popes have often warned against the negative impact of the markets, Francis's verbiage is note-worthy because of its use
of the phrase "trickle-down" -- a term that came into popular usage as a description for former president Ronald Reagan's economic
policies. While the term is often used pejoratively, it describes an economic theory that remains popular with conservatives in the
United States today.
The theory holds that policies benefiting the wealthiest segment of society will also help the poor, by allowing money to "trickle
down" from the top income levels into the lower ones. Critics, including President Obama, say the policies, usually focused on tax
cuts and credits that primarily benefit upper-income Americans, concentrate wealth in the highest income levels and that the benefits
rarely trickle down to the extent proponents suggest.
In his exhortation, the pope also attacked economic inequality, suggesting Christians have a duty to combat it to comply with
the Ten Commandments -- specifically the prohibition on killing.
"Just as the commandment 'Thou shalt not kill' sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also
have to say 'thou shalt not' to an economy of exclusion and inequality," the pope wrote. "Such an economy kills."
"We have created new idols," Francis wrote. "The worship of the ancient golden calf ... has returned in a new and ruthless guise
in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose."
The pope also attacks "consumerism": "It is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging
to the social fabric."
Here is the entire passage:
I. SOME CHALLENGES OF TODAY'S WORLD
52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from the advances being made in so many
fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve people's welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications.
At the same time we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day, with dire consequences.
A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich
countries. The joy of living frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is increasingly
evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion
by the enormous qualitative, quantitative, rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their
instant application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and information, which has led to
new and often anonymous kinds of power.
No to an economy of exclusion
53. Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we
also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not
a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This is a
case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are starving? This is a case of inequality.
Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless.
As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any
means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have created a "disposable" culture
which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has
to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's underside or its
fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the
"leftovers".
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by
a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has
never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the
sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which
excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without
being aware of it, we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other people's pain,
and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity
deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for
lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
No to the new idolatry of money
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly accept its dominion over ourselves
and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the
denial of the primacy of the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf. Ex 32:1-35)
has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly
human purpose. The worldwide crisis affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of
real concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity
enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and
financial speculation. Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise
any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its
own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their
own economies and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread corruption and self-serving
tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which
tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless
before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
No to a financial system which rules rather than serves
57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful
derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since
it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a committed response
which is outside of the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable,
unmanageable, even dangerous, since he calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement.
Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in
mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: "Not to share
one's wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which we hold, but
theirs".
[55]
58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change of approach on the part of political
leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics
of each case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is obliged in the name of Christ
to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and a return of economics
and finance to an ethical approach which favours human beings.
No to the inequality which spawns violence
59. Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and inequality in society and between peoples
is reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without
equal opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for growth and eventually explode.
When a society – whether local, national or global – is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes
or resources spent on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not the case simply
because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust
at its root. Just as goodness tends to spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence
and quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If every action has its consequences,
an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized
in unjust social structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the so-called "end of history",
since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.
60. Today's economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that unbridled consumerism combined with
inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric. Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot
and never will be able to resolve. This serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security, even though
nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create new and more serious conflicts. Some simply
content themselves with blaming the poor and the poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations,
they claim that the solution is an "education" that would tranquilize them, making them tame and harmless. All this becomes even
more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in
their governments, businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.
CHAPTER TWO: AMID THE CRISIS
OF COMMUNAL COMMITMENT
50. Before taking up some basic questions related to the work of evangelization, it may be
helpful to mention briefly the context in which we all have to live and work. Today, we
frequently hear of a "diagnostic overload" which is not always accompanied by improved and
actually applicable methods of treatment. Nor would we be well served by a purely sociological
analysis which would aim to embrace all of reality by employing an allegedly neutral and
clinical method. What I would like to propose is something much more in the line of an
evangelical discernment. It is the approach of a missionary disciple, an approach "nourished by
the light and strength of the Holy Spirit".
[53]
51. It is not the task of the Pope to offer a detailed and complete analysis of contemporary
reality, but I do exhort all the communities to an "ever watchful scrutiny of the signs of the
times".
[54] This is in fact a grave responsibility, since certain present realities, unless
effectively dealt with, are capable of setting off processes of dehumanization which would then
be hard to reverse. We need to distinguish clearly what might be a fruit of the kingdom from
what runs counter to God's plan. This involves not only recognizing and discerning spirits, but
also – and this is decisive – choosing movements of the spirit of good and
rejecting those of the spirit of evil. I take for granted the different analyses which other
documents of the universal magisterium have offered, as well as those proposed by the regional
and national conferences of bishops. In this Exhortation I claim only to consider briefly, and
from a pastoral perspective, certain factors which can restrain or weaken the impulse of
missionary renewal in the Church, either because they threaten the life and dignity of God's
people or because they affect those who are directly involved in the Church's institutions and
in her work of evangelization.
52. In our time humanity is experiencing a turning-point in its history, as we can see from
the advances being made in so many fields. We can only praise the steps being taken to improve
people's welfare in areas such as health care, education and communications. At the same time
we have to remember that the majority of our contemporaries are barely living from day to day,
with dire consequences. A number of diseases are spreading. The hearts of many people are
gripped by fear and desperation, even in the so-called rich countries. The joy of living
frequently fades, lack of respect for others and violence are on the rise, and inequality is
increasingly evident. It is a struggle to live and, often, to live with precious little
dignity. This epochal change has been set in motion by the enormous qualitative, quantitative,
rapid and cumulative advances occuring in the sciences and in technology, and by their instant
application in different areas of nature and of life. We are in an age of knowledge and
information, which has led to new and often anonymous kinds of power.
53. Just as the commandment "Thou shalt not kill" sets a clear limit in order to safeguard
the value of human life, today we also have to say "thou shalt not" to an economy of exclusion
and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly
homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points? This
is a case of exclusion. Can we continue to stand by when food is thrown away while people are
starving? This is a case of inequality. Today everything comes under the laws of competition
and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence,
masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without
possibilities, without any means of escape.
Human beings are themselves considered consumer goods to be used and then discarded. We have
created a "throw away" culture which is now spreading. It is no longer simply about
exploitation and oppression, but something new. Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it
means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society's
underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it.
The excluded are not the "exploited" but the outcast, the "leftovers".
54. In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that
economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater
justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the
facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power
and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are
still waiting. To sustain a lifestyle which excludes others, or to sustain enthusiasm for that
selfish ideal, a globalization of indifference has developed. Almost without being aware of it,
we end up being incapable of feeling compassion at the outcry of the poor, weeping for other
people's pain, and feeling a need to help them, as though all this were someone else's
responsibility and not our own. The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the
market offers us something new to purchase. In the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of
opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.
55. One cause of this situation is found in our relationship with money, since we calmly
accept its dominion over ourselves and our societies. The current financial crisis can make us
overlook the fact that it originated in a profound human crisis: the denial of the primacy of
the human person! We have created new idols. The worship of the ancient golden calf (cf.
Ex 32:1-35) has returned in a new and ruthless guise in the idolatry of money and the
dictatorship of an impersonal economy lacking a truly human purpose. The worldwide crisis
affecting finance and the economy lays bare their imbalances and, above all, their lack of real
concern for human beings; man is reduced to one of his needs alone: consumption.
56. While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating
the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of
ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation.
Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to
exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which
unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules. Debt and the accumulation of
interest also make it difficult for countries to realize the potential of their own economies
and keep citizens from enjoying their real purchasing power. To all this we can add widespread
corruption and self-serving tax evasion, which have taken on worldwide dimensions. The thirst
for power and possessions knows no limits. In this system, which tends to devour everything
which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is
defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.
57. Behind this attitude lurks a rejection of ethics and a rejection of God. Ethics has come
to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human,
because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the
manipulation and debasement of the person. In effect, ethics leads to a God who calls for a
committed response which is outside the categories of the marketplace. When these latter are
absolutized, God can only be seen as uncontrollable, unmanageable, even dangerous, since he
calls human beings to their full realization and to freedom from all forms of enslavement.
Ethics – a non-ideological ethics – would make it possible to bring about balance
and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political
leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: "Not to share one's wealth with
the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own goods which
we hold, but theirs".
[55]
58. A financial reform open to such ethical considerations would require a vigorous change
of approach on the part of political leaders. I urge them to face this challenge with
determination and an eye to the future, while not ignoring, of course, the specifics of each
case. Money must serve, not rule! The Pope loves everyone, rich and poor alike, but he is
obliged in the name of Christ to remind all that the rich must help, respect and promote the
poor. I exhort you to generous solidarity and to the return of economics and finance to an
ethical approach which favours human beings.
59. Today in many places we hear a call for greater security. But until exclusion and
inequality in society and between peoples are reversed, it will be impossible to eliminate
violence. The poor and the poorer peoples are accused of violence, yet without equal
opportunities the different forms of aggression and conflict will find a fertile terrain for
growth and eventually explode. When a society – whether local, national or global –
is willing to leave a part of itself on the fringes, no political programmes or resources spent
on law enforcement or surveillance systems can indefinitely guarantee tranquility. This is not
the case simply because inequality provokes a violent reaction from those excluded from the
system, but because the socioeconomic system is unjust at its root. Just as goodness tends to
spread, the toleration of evil, which is injustice, tends to expand its baneful influence and
quietly to undermine any political and social system, no matter how solid it may appear. If
every action has its consequences, an evil embedded in the structures of a society has a
constant potential for disintegration and death. It is evil crystallized in unjust social
structures, which cannot be the basis of hope for a better future. We are far from the
so-called "end of history", since the conditions for a sustainable and peaceful development
have not yet been adequately articulated and realized.
60. Today's economic mechanisms promote inordinate consumption, yet it is evident that
unbridled consumerism combined with inequality proves doubly damaging to the social fabric.
Inequality eventually engenders a violence which recourse to arms cannot and never will be able
to resolve. It serves only to offer false hopes to those clamouring for heightened security,
even though nowadays we know that weapons and violence, rather than providing solutions, create
new and more serious conflicts. Some simply content themselves with blaming the poor and the
poorer countries themselves for their troubles; indulging in unwarranted generalizations, they
claim that the solution is an "education" that would tranquilize them, making them tame and
harmless. All this becomes even more exasperating for the marginalized in the light of the
widespread and deeply rooted corruption found in many countries – in their governments,
businesses and institutions – whatever the political ideology of their leaders.
61. We also evangelize when we attempt to confront the various challenges which can arise.
[56] On occasion these may take the form of veritable attacks on religious freedom or new
persecutions directed against Christians; in some countries these have reached alarming levels
of hatred and violence. In many places, the problem is more that of widespread indifference and
relativism, linked to disillusionment and the crisis of ideologies which has come about as a
reaction to any-thing which might appear totalitarian. This not only harms the Church but the
fabric of society as a whole. We should recognize how in a culture where each person wants to
be bearer of his or her own subjective truth, it becomes difficult for citizens to devise a
common plan which transcends individual gain and personal ambitions.
62. In the prevailing culture, priority is given to the outward, the immediate, the visible,
the quick, the superficial and the provisional. What is real gives way to appearances. In many
countries globalization has meant a hastened deterioration of their own cultural roots and the
invasion of ways of thinking and acting proper to other cultures which are economically
advanced but ethically debilitated. This fact has been brought up by bishops from various
continents in different Synods. The African bishops, for example, taking up the Encyclical
Sollicitudo Rei Socialis , pointed out years ago that there have been frequent attempts
to make the African countries "parts of a machine, cogs on a gigantic wheel. This is often true
also in the field of social communications which, being run by centres mostly in the northern
hemisphere, do not always give due consideration to the priorities and problems of such
countries or respect their cultural make-up".
[57] By the same token, the bishops of Asia "underlined the external influences being
brought to bear on Asian cultures. New patterns of behaviour are emerging as a result of
over-exposure to the mass media As a result, the negative aspects of the media and
entertainment industries are threatening traditional values, and in particular the sacredness
of marriage and the stability of the family".
[58]
63. The Catholic faith of many peoples is nowadays being challenged by the proliferation of
new religious movements, some of which tend to fundamentalism while others seem to propose a
spirituality without God. This is, on the one hand, a human reaction to a materialistic,
consumerist and individualistic society, but it is also a means of exploiting the weaknesses of
people living in poverty and on the fringes of society, people who make ends meet amid great
human suffering and are looking for immediate solutions to their needs. These religious
movements, not without a certain shrewdness, come to fill, within a predominantly
individualistic culture, a vacuum left by secularist rationalism. We must recognize that if
part of our baptized people lack a sense of belonging to the Church, this is also due to
certain structures and the occasionally unwelcoming atmosphere of some of our parishes and
communities, or to a bureaucratic way of dealing with problems, be they simple or complex, in
the lives of our people. In many places an administrative approach prevails over a pastoral
approach, as does a concentration on administering the sacraments apart from other forms of
evangelization.
64. The process of secularization tends to reduce the faith and the Church to the sphere of
the private and personal. Furthermore, by completely rejecting the transcendent, it has
produced a growing deterioration of ethics, a weakening of the sense of personal and collective
sin, and a steady increase in relativism. These have led to a general sense of disorientation,
especially in the periods of adolescence and young adulthood which are so vulnerable to change.
As the bishops of the United States of America have rightly pointed out, while the Church
insists on the existence of objective moral norms which are valid for everyone, "there are
those in our culture who portray this teaching as unjust, that is, as opposed to basic human
rights. Such claims usually follow from a form of moral relativism that is joined, not without
inconsistency, to a belief in the absolute rights of individuals. In this view, the Church is
perceived as promoting a particular prejudice and as interfering with individual freedom".
[59] We are living in an information-driven society which bombards us indiscriminately with
data – all treated as being of equal importance – and which leads to remarkable
superficiality in the area of moral discernment. In response, we need to provide an education
which teaches critical thinking and encourages the development of mature moral values.
65. Despite the tide of secularism which has swept our societies, in many countries –
even those where Christians are a minority – the Catholic Church is considered a credible
institution by public opinion, and trusted for her solidarity and concern for those in greatest
need. Again and again, the Church has acted as a mediator in finding solutions to problems
affecting peace, social harmony, the land, the defence of life, human and civil rights, and so
forth. And how much good has been done by Catholic schools and universities around the world!
This is a good thing. Yet, we find it difficult to make people see that when we raise other
questions less palatable to public opinion, we are doing so out of fidelity to precisely the
same convictions about human dignity and the common good.
66. The family is experiencing a profound cultural crisis, as are all communities and social
bonds. In the case of the family, the weakening of these bonds is particularly serious because
the family is the fundamental cell of society, where we learn to live with others despite our
differences and to belong to one another; it is also the place where parents pass on the faith
to their children. Marriage now tends to be viewed as a form of mere emotional satisfaction
that can be constructed in any way or modified at will. But the indispensible contribution of
marriage to society transcends the feelings and momentary needs of the couple. As the French
bishops have taught, it is not born "of loving sentiment, ephemeral by definition, but from the
depth of the obligation assumed by the spouses who accept to enter a total communion of life".
[60]
67. The individualism of our postmodern and globalized era favours a lifestyle which weakens
the development and stability of personal relationships and distorts family bonds. Pastoral
activity needs to bring out more clearly the fact that our relationship with the Father demands
and encourages a communion which heals, promotes and reinforces interpersonal bonds. In our
world, especially in some countries, different forms of war and conflict are re-emerging, yet
we Christians remain steadfast in our intention to respect others, to heal wounds, to build
bridges, to strengthen relationships and to "bear one another's burdens" ( Gal 6:2).
Today too, various associations for the defence of rights and the pursuit of noble goals are
being founded. This is a sign of the desire of many people to contribute to social and cultural
progress.
"... By #SlayTheSmaugs, an elected Bernie delegate in Philly. ..."
"... #STS believes that the billionaire class are Smaugs (the greed incarnate dragon of The Hobbit), immorally hoarding wealth for no reason beyond ego gratification. To "Slay" the Smaugs, we need a confiscatory wealth tax, stronger democratic institutions to impose it, and a shared moral agreement that #GreedIsEvil to justify it. ..."
"... More; charitable foundations are not the same thing, in many cases, as true charity. Instead foundations often function as hoard preservers as well, and enrich their leadership too. ..."
"... After a certain level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not money any more. ..."
"... Wealth on this scale has nothing to do with financial security or luxurious living. For the trivial, it is (as per D. Trump) a game and money is how you keep score. For the serious, it has to do with power, with the ability to affect other people's lives without their consent. That is why the Smaugs' wealth is absolutely our business. It should be understood that we're talking about taking very large amounts of money and power away from very rich people, people for whom money and power are pretty much the only things they value. It will not be pretty. ..."
"... If we fail to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three classes of humans left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves. ..."
"... A more modern similarity of the US is Rome. Vassals have been going full retard for several years now, traitors sell international competitors military secrets while the biggest merchants buy off the Senate. ..."
"... Isn't there an idiom about cutting off the head of the snake? Once you deal with the strongest opponents, it's easier to go after the others. Too big to fail is nothing short of feeding the beast. ..."
"... I disagree strongly with your premise that some sort of pure and natural meritocracy has ever existed, or could ever exist in human society. Corrupt and oppressive people will always define as "meritorious" those qualities that they themselves possess– whether wealth, "gentle birth," "technical skills," or whatever. We all possess the same merit of being human. ..."
"... Meritocracy is not the same as recognizing greater and lesser degrees of competence in various activities. It is absurd to deny that some are more skillful at some things than others. Assigning the relative "merit" to various competencies is what I find objectionable. ..."
"... Encouraging ethical behavior has nothing to do with ranking the "merit" levels of different occupations. While some occupations are inherently unethical, like that of an assassin, most can be performed in such a way as to do no harm to others, and some are nearly always beneficial to society at large. ..."
By #SlayTheSmaugs, an elected Bernie delegate in Philly.
#STS believes that the billionaire class are Smaugs (the greed incarnate dragon of
The Hobbit), immorally hoarding wealth for no reason beyond ego gratification. To "Slay" the Smaugs,
we need a confiscatory wealth tax, stronger democratic institutions to impose it, and a shared moral
agreement that #GreedIsEvil to justify it.
Worshiping Wealth
When Gordon Gekko proclaimed that 'Greed is Good' in 1987, it was an obvious rejection of several
millennia of teachings by traditional prophets and priests. Yet when Gekko preached greed, he was
merely reinforcing the current cultural norm; greed had already been rebranded a virtue. (Still,
the speech was to remind us Gekko was a bad guy). Consider that Madonna had proclaimed herself a
Material Girl three years earlier, and "Living Large" was cool. Conspicuous consumption is walking
the talk that greed is good.
Why had greed become good? I blame the creation of a credit-fueled culture of constant consumption
that necessarily praises coveting stuff, plus the dismantling of the regulatory state that had kept
Wall Street and wannabe oligarchs in check.
Our healthy cultural adoration of the self-made man, of respect for success, warped into worship
of the rich. They are not the same. Wealth can be inherited, stolen through fraud and other illegal
activities, or harvested from bubbles; none of these or myriad other paths to riches is due respect,
much less worship. Paired with another 80's definition-government is the problem-worshiping wealth
facilitates all the dysfunction in our government.
Remembering Greed is Evil
Thirty years later, the old social norm-the one that protected the many from the few, the one
that demonized greed as a deadly sin-is resurgent. We have a Pope who preaches against greed, and
who
walks his talk . We had a Presidential candidate of a major party-Bernie Sanders-who railed against
those living embodiments of greed, the Billionaire Class, and walked his talk by rejecting their
money. At the convention, he has invited delegates to four workshops, one of which is "One Nation
Now: Winning the Fight Against Racism and Greed". We have a late night comedian-John Oliver-
ridiculing the prosperity gospel
and taking on the debt
industry . We have mass consciousness rising, reflected in Occupy, the label "the 99%", BLM and
more.
But we need more voices insisting #GreedIsEvil. We need to teach that basic message at home, in
school, and in houses of worship. We need to send the right signals in our social interactions. We
need to stop coveting stuff, and start buying with a purpose: Shopping locally, buying American,
buying green and clean, and buying less. We need to waste less, share more and build community. We
need to re-norm-alize greed as evil, make it shameful again. Then we will have redefined ourselves
as citizens, not consumers.
But make no mistake: America cannot become a just nation simply by the 99% becoming more virtuous.
The cultural shift is necessary but not sufficient, for norms alone do not deliver social and economic
justice. Shame will not slay the Smaugs; we need structural change in the political economy.
Extreme greed, the greed of Smaugs, is categorically different than the petit greed underlying
the irrational, constant consumption and the worship of wealth. Extreme greed manifests as a hoard
of wealth so great that "purchasing power" is an irrelevant concept; a hoard so great it lacks any
utility other than to be sat upon as a throne, gratifying the Smaug's ego and symbolizing his power.
That greed must be understood as an intolerable evil, something so base and malevolent that the full
power of the state must be used against it.
This essay is my contribution to the cause of returning extreme greed to its rightful place in
the pantheon of ultimate evils. Here is the thesis: extreme greed must be 'slain' by the state because
extreme greed is brutally violent.
The Stealth Violence of False Scarcity and "Cutting Corners"
Greed's violence is quiet and deadly: The violence of false scarcity and of "corner cutting".
Scarcity is not having enough because there just isn't enough to go round, like the
nearly 50 million people who don't reliably have food during the year, including 15 million kids.
False scarcity is when actually, there's plenty to go around, but people generally don't have enough
because of hoarders.
It's a concentrated version of what happened to pennies in 1999. People keeping pennies in piggy
banks created a
shortage felt throughout New York City . If only people had broken open their piggy banks, and
used their pennies, there would have been plenty of pennies in circulation, and shopkeepers wouldn't
lose money by rounding purchases down. In this piece, I'm focusing on false scarcity of dollars,
not pennies, and the maiming and premature death that results from false dollar scarcity. But the
idea is essentially the same; there's just far fewer relevant piggy banks.
By the quiet violence of 'corner cutting', I'm referring to unsafe, even deadly, workplaces that
could be safe if the employers invested in safety.
Sporadically, greed also drives overt, and sometimes profoundly bloody violence to protect the
hoard. Think of employer violence against unions and union organizers,
a la Henry Ford , or
John D. Rockefeller . Nonetheless in this country now, the violence of greed tends to be more
covert. It is that quiet violence, in both forms, I want you to hear now.
As Sanders often reminds us, in this, the richest nation in the world, nearly 50 million people
are living in poverty; roughly one in seven Americans. And as Sanders explained, in a
speech in West Virginia , 130,000 people die each and every year as a result of poverty. I have
not read the study Sanders referred to, so I don't know how much it overlaps with
the rise
of suicide that accelerated after 2006 and which appears to be correlated with financial stress.
Nor do I know how it overlaps with the
documented increase in white mortality that also appears to correlate with financial stress.
Regardless of overlap, however, each of these studies reflects the quiet violence of false scarcity.
Naked Capitalism has featured many posts documenting the damage of greed;
this is a recent one .
Chronic and acute financial stress from false scarcity maims, and kills. And Smaugs create false
scarcity to feed money to their egos and maintain their oligarchic power.
As Lambert often says, they don't call it class warfare for nothing.
But wait, you might insist, how false is the scarcity, really? How much do a few billionaires
matter? Ranting that greed is evil is all well and good, but really, can a relative handful of people
be manufacturing scarcity where there is none, shortening and taking millions of lives in the process?
Aren't you making your target too narrow in going after the Smaugs?
Twenty people had hoarded $732,000,000,000. America is a nation of about 300,000,000 people. That
means 20 people could give a combined $2,370 to every American, and still hoard $1 billion each.
I'm not suggesting that's how the redistribution should be done, but it's notable that in an era
when
some 200 million Americans haven't been able to save $1000 for an emergency, twenty people could
give everyone over two grand while remaining fabulously wealthy.
Now, these 20 monstrous people, these full grown Smaugs, are not alone in their extreme greed.
Adding in the assets of the next 380 richest Americans brings the total wealth hoarded to $2.34 trillion.
That number is so large it's hard to process , so let's think this through.
First, imagine that we took all of that money with a confiscatory tax, except we again left each
of the 400 people with $1 billion. They would still be obscenely rich, so don't pity them.* Our tax
thus netted $1.94 trillion. Since that's still an unimaginable number, let's compare it to some recent
government spending.
In December 2015, Congress funded five years' worth of infrastructure construction. Congress and
President Obama were very self-congratulatory because our infrastructure is a mess, and building
things involves good paying jobs. So, how much did five years of infrastructure building and job
creation cost?
$305 billion . That's less than the $400 billion we let the 400 Smaugs keep at the start of this
thought experiment. With the $1.94 trillion we imagine confiscating, we could keep building at the
2015 pace for 32 years. Or we could spend it much faster, and create an economic boom the like of
which this nation hasn't seen in generations.
Even Bernie Sanders, he of the supposedly overly ambitious, unable-to-be-paid for initiatives,
only
proposed spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over five years -a bit more than half what our
tax would net. (Nor did this supposed radical call for a confiscatory wealth tax to fund his plan.)
Sanders estimated his proposal would create 13 million good paying jobs. With nearly double the money,
surely we get nearly double the jobs? Let's be conservative and say 22 million.
In sum, we could confiscate most of the wealth of 400 people-still leaving them obscenely rich
with $1 billion each-and create 22 million good paying jobs over five years. But we don't; we let
the Smaugs keep their hoards intact. Now consider this is only taxing 400 people; what if we taxed
the richest 2,000 people more justly? What if we taxed corporations effectively? What if we stopped
giving corporate welfare? A confiscatory wealth tax, however, simply isn't discussed in polite company,
any more than a truly progressive income tax is, or even serious proposals to end corporate welfare.
The best we can do is agree that really, someday soon, we should end the obscenity that is the carried
interest loophole.
False scarcity isn't simply a failure of charity, a hoarding of wealth that should be alms for
the poor. False scarcity is created through the billionaires' control of the state, of public policy.
But the quiet violence of greed isn't visited on the 99% only through the failure to pay adequate
taxes. Not even through the Smaugs' failure to have their corporations pay adequate wages, or benefits.
Predatory lending, predatory servicing, fraudulent foreclosure, municipal bond rigging, and pension
fund fleecing are just some of the many other ways immoral greed creates false scarcity.
While false scarcity has the broadest impact, it is not the only form of stealth violence used
by the billionaires in their class war against the rest of us. The Ford and Rockefeller style violence
of fists and guns may be rare in the U.S. these days, but a variant of it remains much too common:
Unsafe workplaces, the quiet violence of "cutting corners". Whether it's
the coal industry , the
poultry
industry , or the
fracking and
oil industries, or myriad other industries, unsafe workplaces kill, maim and sicken workers.
Part of the political economy restructuring we must do includes transforming the workplace.
Feel the Greed
Let us remember why this stealth violence exists-why false scarcity and unsafe workplaces exist.
People who have more money than they hope to spend for the rest of their lives, no matter how
many of their remaining days are "rainy"; people who have more money to pass on than their children
need for a lifetime of financial security, college and retirement included; people who have more
money to pass on than their grandchildren need for a similarly secure life–these people insist on
extracting still more wealth from their workers, their clients, and taxpayers for no purpose beyond
vaingloriously hoarding it.
Greed is evil, but it comes in different intensities. Petit greed is a corrosive illness that
decays societies, but can be effectively ameliorated through norms and social capital. Smaug greed
is so toxic, so potent, that the state is the only entity powerful enough to put it in check. Greed,
particularly Smaug greed, must be put in check because the false scarcity it manufactures, and the
unsafe workplaces it creates, maim and kill people. The stealth violence of Smaug greed justifies
a tax to confiscate the hoards.
#GreedIsEvil. It's time to #SlayTheSmaugs
*One of the arguments against redistribution is that is against the sacrosanct efficient market,
which forbids making one person better off if the price is making someone else worse off. But money
has diminishing returns as money after a certain point; the purchasing power between someone
with one billion and ten billion dollars is negligible, though the difference between someone with
ten thousand and a hundred thousand, or a hundred thousand and a million is huge. After a certain
level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not money any more. Thus taking
it and using it as money isn't making someone 'worse off' in an economic sense. Also, when considering
whether someone is 'worse off', it's worth considering where their money comes from; how many people
did they leave 'worse off' as they
extracted the money? Brett ,
July 22, 2016 at 10:07 am
After a certain level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not
money any more.
It quite literally isn't "money" as we regular folks know it beyond a certain point – it's
tied up in share value and other assets. Which of course raises the question – when you decide
to do your mass confiscation of wealth, who is going to be foolish enough to buy those assets
so you actually have liquid currency to spend on infrastructure as opposed to illiquid assets?
Or are you simply going to print money and spend it on them?
Wealth on this scale has nothing to do with financial security or luxurious living. For
the trivial, it is (as per D. Trump) a game and money is how you keep score. For the serious,
it has to do with power, with the ability to affect other people's lives without their consent.
That is why the Smaugs' wealth is absolutely our business. It should be understood that we're
talking about taking very large amounts of money and power away from very rich people, people
for whom money and power are pretty much the only things they value. It will not be pretty.
People become rich and stay that way because of a market failure that allows them to accumulate
capital in the same way a constricted artery accumulates blood. What I'm wondering, continuing
this metaphor, is what happens when all that money is released back into the market at once via
a redistribution - toxic shock syndrome.
You can see what happens to markets in places where "virtual money" (capital) brushes up against
the real economy: the dysfunctional housing situation in Vancouver, London, New York, and San
Francisco.
It may be wiser to argue for wealth disintegration instead of redistribution.
Yes I was thinking about that money is just something the government prints to make the system
work smoothly. But that, and pretty much any view of money, obscures the problem with the insanely
"wealthy".
If these people, instead of having huge bank accounts actually had huge armies the government
would move to disarm them. It wouldn't re-distribute the tanks and rifles. It would be obviously
removing a threat to everybody.
Now there would be the temptation to wave your hands and say you were "melting it into plowshares"
but that causes an accounting problem - that is, the problem being the use of accounting itself.
Destroying extreme wealth and paying for say roads is just two different things and making them
sound connected is where we keep getting bogged down. Not a full-on MMT'er yet but it really has
illuminated that fact.
The western assumption is that money is a commodity, from salt to gold, to bitcoin, we assume
it can be manufactured, but the underlaying reality is that it is a social contract and every
asset is presumably backed by debt.
Here is an interesting link which does make the point about the contractual basis of money in
a succinct fashion; http://rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us/opinions/ideas/economics/jubilee/
Since the modern commodity of money is backed by debt and largely public debt, there is enormous
pressure to create as much debt as possible.
For instance, the government doesn't really budget, it just writes up these enormous bills, attaches
enough goodies to get the votes and the president can only pass or veto it and with all the backing
and no other method, a veto is a weak protection.
To budget is to prioritize and spend according to ability. What they could do would be to break
these bills into all their various "line items," have every legislator assign a percentage value
to each one, put them back together in order of preference and then the president would draw the
line.
It would balance the power and reduce the tendency to overspend, but it would blow up our financial
system, which if anyone notices, is based on the sanctity of government debt.
If instead of borrowing the excess money out of the system, to spend on whatever, if the government
threatened to tax it out, people would quickly find other ways to store value than as money in
the financial system.
Since most of us save for the same general reasons, from raising children to retirement, we
could invest in these as public commons, not try to save for our exact needs. This would serve
to strengthen communities and their environments, as everyone would be more dependent on those
around them, not just having a private bank account as their personal umbilical cord.
We treat money as both medium of exchange and store of value. As Rick points out above, a medium
is like blood in the body and it needs to be carefully regulated. Conversely, the store of value
in the body is fat and while many of us do carry an excess, storing it in the circulation system
is not wise. Clogged arteries, poor circulation and high blood pressure are analogous to a bloated
financial system, poor circulation and QE.
Money is not a commodity, but a contract.
Do you realize that this supposed billionaire wealth does not consist of actual US dollars
and that, if one were to liquidate such wealth (in order to redistribute it in "fair" equal-dollars)
that number might drastically change?
The main thing these people (and indeed your pension funds) are actually hoarding are financial
assets, and those, it turns out, are actually "scarce". Or, well, I don't know what else you would
call trillions of bonds netting a negative interest rate and an elevated P/E stock market in a
low-growth environment.
It's a bit of a pickle from a macro environment. You can't just force them to liquidate their
assets, or else the whole system would collapse. It also kind of escapes the point that someone
has to hold each asset. I would be excited to see what happens when you ask Bill Gates to liquidate
his financial assets (in order to distribute the cash). An interesting thought, for sure. And
one that would probably bring the market closer to reasonable valuations.
It is simply a wrong conclusion to say "Wealth is x, and if we distribute it, everyone would
get x divided by amount of recipients in dollar terms". Now if you wanted to redistribute Bill
Gates' stake in Microsoft in some "fair" way, you could certainly try but that's not really what
you proposed.
Either way you can't approach wealth policy from a macro perspective like this, because as
soon as you start designing macro-level policy to adjust (i.e. redistribute) this wealth, the
value of it will fluctuate very wildly in dollar terms and may well leave everyone less well off
in some weird feedback loop.
"The full power of the state must be used against" #extremegreed: Except, of course, "L'etat
c'est moi "
Of course as a Bernie supporter, the writer knows that, knows that it is a long game to even
start to move any of the hoard out of Smaug's cave, that there are dwarves with glittering eyes
ready to take back and reduce to ownership and ornamentation the whole pile (maybe they might
'share" a little with the humans of Lake Town who suffered the Dragon's Fire but whose Hero drove
a mystical iron arrow through the weak place in Smaug's armor, all while Sauron and Saruman are
circling and plotting and growing hordes of genetically modified Orcs and Trolls and summoning
the demons from below
The Elves seem to be OK with a "genteel sufficiency," their wealth being useful durable stuff
like mithril armor and those lovely houses and palaces up in the trees. Humans? Grabbers and takers,
in Tolkien's mythology. I would second that view - sure seems to me that almost any of us, given
a 1000-Bagger like Zuckerman or Jobs or that Gates creature fell into, or Russian or Israeli or
African or European oligarchs for that matter (pretty universal, and expected given Davos and
Bilderberg and Koch summits) the old insatiable lambic system that drives for pleasure-to-the-max
and helps our baser tribal drives and penchant for violence to manifest and "thrive" will have
its due. Like 600 foot motor yachts and private-jet escape pods and pinnacles islands with Dr.
No-style security provided by guns and accountants and lawyers and faux-legitimate political rulers
for hire
Lots of analysis of "the problem." Not so much in the way of apparent remedies, other than
maybe lots of bleeding, where the mopes will do most of it and if history is any guide, another
Smaug will go on around taking all the gold and jewels and other concentrated wealth back to another
pile, to sit on and not maybe even gloat over because the scales are just too large
Still hoping for the emergence of an organizing principle that is more attractive that "take
whatever you can and cripple or kill anyone who objects "
"People who have more money than they hope to spend for the rest of their lives, no matter
how many of their remaining days are "rainy"; people who have more money to pass on than their
children need for a lifetime of financial security, college and retirement included; people
who have more money to pass on than their grandchildren need for a similarly secure life–these
people insist on extracting still more wealth from their workers, their clients, and taxpayers
for no purpose beyond vaingloriously hoarding it."
These are people who are obscenely wealthy as opposed to merely wealthy. The fastest way to
challenge their toxic power would be to help the latter group understand that their interests
are not aligned with the former. Most millionaires (as opposed to billionaires) will eventually
suffer when the last few drops of wealth remaining to the middle and working classes are extracted.
Their future prosperity depends on the continued existence of a viable, mass consumer economy.
The billionaires imagine (in my view falsely) that they will thrive in a neo-feudal future–
where they own everything and the vast majority of humanity exists only to serve their needs.
This is the future they are attempting to build with the new TPP/TISA/TTIP regime. If we fail
to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three classes of humans
left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves. Most neoliberal professionals, who imagine
that they will be in that second group, are delusional. Did the pharaohs have any need for people
like Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd?
Pharaohs didn't need a middle/professional class as large as the ones in most western democracies
today. But, we are going in the pharaonic direction.
The problem our polite, right wing professional classes face is that they are increasingly
too numerous for society's needs. Hence the creeping gig-i-fication of professional employment.
The wage stagnation in all but the most guild-ridden (medicine) professions.
It's so reminiscent of what happened to the industrial working class in the late 70s and 80s.
I still remember the "well-reasoned", literate arguments in magazine op-eds proclaiming how line
workers had become "excess" in the face of Asian competition and automation. How most just needed
to retrain, move to where the jobs are, tighten their belts, etc. It's identical now for lawyers,
radiologists, and many layers of the teaching professions. If I weren't part of that "professional"
class I'd find the Schadenfreude almost too delicious.
If we fail to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three
classes of humans left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves.
Sounds about right, but you are overlooking the fact that the largest class will be The Dead.
They will not need nearly so many of Us, and we will be thinned, trimmed, pruned, marooned, or
otherwise made to go away permanently (quietly, for preference, I assume, but any way will do).
Ergo, the violence of ineffectual health care, toxic environment, poisonous food, dangerous
working conditions and violence (for instance, guns and toxic chemicals) in our homes, schools,
streets, workplaces, cities and, well, everywhere are not only a feature, but a major part of
the plan.
It has been extensively documented that the merely wealthy are very upset at the obscenely
wealthy.
If the author is truly focusing on a tax for obscene wealth I'd like to know a specific threshold.
Is it 1 Billion and up? annual limit how many times the median income before it kicks in?
Well, I'm happy to have a discussion about at what threshold a confiscatory wealth tax should
kick in; it's the kind of conversation we have with estate taxes.
I'm thinking a one off wealth tax, followed by a prevention of the resurrection of the problem
with a sharply progressive income tax. Is $1 billion the right number for this initial reclamation?
maybe. It is about the very top few, not the merely wealthy.
$1 billion is a reasonable amount of assets for determining whether to confiscate a portion
of a person's wealth in taxes. Or perhaps we could base it on a percentage of GDP. The U.S. GDP
in 2015 was approximately $17.9 trillion. Anyone with $1.79 billion or more in assets would have
1% of 1% of the U.S. GDP (0.01%). That's a lot of wealth, and surely justifies a heavy tax.
'Professionals, who imagine that they will be in that second group, are delusional. Did the
pharaohs have any need of Paul Krugman'
Sure they did. Those were called Priests who told the people what the gods were thinking. And
since Pharoah's concluded themselves gods. The slaves revolt by working less. Anybody notice the
dropping production levels the last couple of years? Whipping the slaves didn't turn out well
for the Egyptians.
A more modern similarity of the US is Rome. Vassals have been going full retard for several
years now, traitors sell international competitors military secrets while the biggest merchants
buy off the Senate.
Ceasar becomes more a figurehead until one leads a coup which has not happened yet. Aquiring
more slaves begins to cost more than what the return in general to the society brings but the
Smaugs do not care about that until the barbarians begin to revolt (See Orlando for example, the
shooter former employee of DHS. Probably pissed some of his comrades were deserted by US in some
manner.
My point was that the category of people in this priestly caste will likely be far, far smaller
than the millions of credentialed neoliberal professionals currently living large in the top 10%
of the developed world.
Interesting mental image– to see Paul Krugman chanting praises to the new Son of the Sun God
the Donald!!
Look, there's a simple way to #SlayTheSmaugs, and it's a confiscatory wealth tax coupled with
a sharply progressive income tax, as part of an overall restructuring of the political economy.
Simple, is of course, not easy; indeed my proposal is currently impossible. But like Bernie
I'm trying to change the terms of political debate, to normalize what would previously be dismissed
as too radical to be countenanced.
I don't think the looting professional class needs to be slain, in the #SlayTheSmaugs sense.
I think they can be brought to heel simply by enforcing laws and passing new ones that are already
within acceptable political debate, such as one that defines corruption as using public office
for private gain. I think norms matter to the looting professional class as well. Another re-norm-ilization
that needs to happen is remembering what a "profession" used to be
Friends and neighbors!! Most of this "wealth" is ephemeral, it is based on the "value of assets"
like stocks, bonds, real estate, et al. If all of this "wealth" gets liquidated at the same time,
values would collapse. These people are fabulously wealthy because of the incredible inflation
we have seen in the "assets" they hold.
Remember, during the Great Depression the "wealth" wasn't confiscated and redistributed, it
was destroyed because asset values collapsed and over 2000 banks failed wiping out customer accounts.
This also collapsed the money supply causing debt defaults, businesses failures, and worker laid
offs. No one had any money because there was none.
The US was on the gold standard limiting the creation of liquidity. President Roosevelt went
off the gold standard so that he could work to increase the money supply. It took a long time.
The result of the depression was decades of low debt, cheap housing, and hard working people who
remembered the hard times. The social mood gradually changed as their children, born in more prosperous
times, challenged the values of their parents.
Even though the bulk of what the super rich hold is in paper assets, they still hold tons of
real economy assets. They've succeeded in buying enough prime and even merely good real estate
(like multiple townhouses in Upper West Side blocks and then creating one monster home behind
the facade) to create pricing pressure on ordinary renters and homeowners in the same cities,
bidding art through the roof, owning mega-yachts and private airplanes, and most important of
all, using the money directly to reshape society along their preferred lines, witness charter
schools.
If you are going to fight against the "Greed is Good" mentality, you are going to have to address
the habits of the average middle class household. Just take a look at the over accumulation of
amenities and creature comforts. The desire to signal ones status/wealth through "stuff" is totally
out of control and completely divorced from means/income.
"But we need more voices insisting #GreedIsEvil. We need to teach that basic message at home,
in school, and in houses of worship. We need to send the right signals in our social interactions.
We need to stop coveting stuff, and start buying with a purpose: Shopping locally, buying American,
buying green and clean, and buying less. We need to waste less, share more and build community.
We need to re-norm-alize greed as evil, make it shameful again. Then we will have redefined ourselves
as citizens, not consumers."
Isn't there an idiom about cutting off the head of the snake? Once you deal with the strongest
opponents, it's easier to go after the others. Too big to fail is nothing short of feeding the
beast.
There was a time not that long ago that I would have opposed a "confiscatory wealth tax". After
looking at what most of those in the .1% are doing with their wealth, and their contempt for the
average person, those days are long gone. Plus it's good economics.
The only question is what is "obscene wealth". Well like pornography, I think we know it when
we see it.
I am wondering about the distribution of all this concentrated wealth; how much of it is spread
around in the equities and bond markets?
And if that amount was redistributed to the general public how much of it would return to the
equities and bond market?
I'm thinking not very much which would have catastrophic effects on both markets, a complete
reordering. This would undoubtedly crush the borrowing ability of our Federal government, upset
the apple cart in other words. With less money invested in the equities market it would undoubtedly
return to a lower more realistic valuation; fortunes would be lost with no redistribution.
Fair to ask: How do we achieve a confiscatory wealth tax without catastrophic unintended consequences?
But that's a very different question than: should we confiscate the Smaug's wealth?
One mechanism might be to have a government entity created to receive the stocks, bonds and
financial instruments, and then liquidate them over time. E.g. Buffett has been giving stock to
foundations for them to sell for awhile now; same kind of thing could be done. But sure, let's
have the "How" conversation
If lobbying were outlawed at the Federal level the billionaires and multi millionaires would
need to invest in something else. That signal has a multiplier effect.so your right eboit enforcement
of mostly what is on the books already. A 'wall' doesnt have to be built for illegal immigrants
either. Fine a couple dozen up the wazoo and the signal gets passed the game is over.
But until a few people's daughters are kidnapped or killed like in other 3rd world countries,
it wont change. That is sad but reality is most people do not do anything until it effects them.
I started slightly ahead of the crowd in summer of 2007 but that is because a regional banker
told me as we liked discussing history to look at debt levels of 1928 and what happened next.
On top of that, we are the like the British empire circa 1933 so we get the downside of that as
well.
Pain tends to be the catalyst of evolution that fully awakens prey to the predators.
I am sorry, Sir Smaug slayer. The underlying theme of your lengthy disquisition is that Sanders
is the legitimate voice of the 99%, and his future complicity within the Democratic Party is thereby
ameliorated by his current proposals within it. This is the true meat of your discourse ranging
so far and wide – even with the suggestion early on that we the 99% need tutoring on the evils
of greed.
Not so. That ship has sailed. Our Brexit is not yet upon us, but that it is coming, I have
no doubt. The only question is when. To paraphrase a Hannah Sell quote on such matters. . . for
decades working class people have had no representation in the halls of Congress. All of the politicians
. . . without exception, have stood in the interests of the 1% and the super-rich.
Bernie Sanders included. Hannah's remarks were more upbeat – she made an exception for Jeremy
Corbyn. Unfortunately, I can't do that. Bernie has folded. We need to acknowledge that.
One of the arguments against redistribution is that is against the sacrosanct efficient
market, which forbids making one person better off if the price is making someone else worse
off.
I think you mean downward redistribution here since upward redistribution seems to be rather
sacrosanct and definitely makes one person better off at the price of making many someones worse
off to make it happen.
Confiscatory wealth tax is too blunt an instrument to rectify the root causes discussed in
this article, and you do not want a blunt impact to the effect of disincentivizing pursuit of
financial success.
Further Centralization the populous' money will incite more corruption which is what allows
the have's to continue lording it over the have nots.
What are alternatives?
Instead Focus on minimizing corruption,
Then it will be possible to implement fair legislation that limits the options of the greed to
make decisions that results in unfair impacts on the lower class.
Increase incentives to share the wealth, (tax deductible charitable giving is an example).
We do need to encourage meritocracy whenever possible, corruption and oppression is the antithesis
to that.
We need to stop incentivizing utilization of debt, that puts the haves in control of the have
nots.
"Financial success. " As long as those words go together, and make an object of desire, the
fundamental problem ain't going away.
Of course the underlying fundamental problem of human appetite for pleasure and power ain't
going away either. Even if a lot of wealth was taken back (NOT "confiscated") from the current
crop and hopeful horde of kleptocrats
"We do need to encourage meritocracy whenever possible, corruption and oppression is the antithesis
to that."
I disagree strongly with your premise that some sort of pure and natural meritocracy has
ever existed, or could ever exist in human society. Corrupt and oppressive people will always
define as "meritorious" those qualities that they themselves possess– whether wealth, "gentle
birth," "technical skills," or whatever. We all possess the same merit of being human.
An Egyptologist, with an Oxbridge degree and extensive publications has no merit– in any meaningful
sense– inside a frozen foods warehouse. Likewise, the world's best frozen foods warehouse worker
has little to offer, when addressing a conference focused on religious practices during the reign
of Ramses II. Meritocracy is a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence of oligarchy.
An Egyptologist, with an Oxbridge degree and extensive publications has no merit– in any
meaningful sense– inside a frozen foods warehouse. Likewise, the world's best frozen foods
warehouse worker has little to offer, when addressing a conference focused on religious practices
during the reign of Ramses II. Meritocracy is a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence
of oligarchy.
I am confused.
You claim meritocracy is "a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence of oligarchy",
but (seemingly) appeal to meritocratic principles to claim a warehouse worker doesnt offer much
to an academic conference. Can you clear up my misunderstanding?
I agree, btw, that Idealized meritocracy has never existed (nor can). Follow up question: There
has never been an ideal ethical human, does that mean we should stop encouraging ethical behavior?
Meritocracy is not the same as recognizing greater and lesser degrees of competence in various
activities. It is absurd to deny that some are more skillful at some things than others. Assigning
the relative "merit" to various competencies is what I find objectionable.
Encouraging ethical behavior has nothing to do with ranking the "merit" levels of different
occupations. While some occupations are inherently unethical, like that of an assassin, most can
be performed in such a way as to do no harm to others, and some are nearly always beneficial to
society at large.
Someone who did nothing but drink whiskey all day, and tell funny stories in a bar, is far
more beneficial to society at large than a busy, diligent economist dreaming up ways to justify
the looting of the kleptocrats.
Wealth Redistribution occurs when the peasants build a scaffold and frog march the aristocracy
up to a blade; when massive war wipes out a generation of aristocracy in gas filled trenches or
in the upcoming event.
"... Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy. Today, in view of the common good, there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service of life, especially human life. ..."
"... Production is not always rational, and is usually tied to economic variables which assign to products a value that does not necessarily correspond to their real worth. This frequently leads to an overproduction of some commodities, with unnecessary impact on the environment and with negative results on regional economies.[133] The financial bubble also tends to be a productive bubble. The problem of the real economy is not confronted with vigour, yet it is the real economy which makes diversification and improvement in production possible, helps companies to function well, and enables small and medium businesses to develop and create employment. ..."
"... Whenever these questions are raised, some react by accusing others of irrationally attempting to stand in the way of progress and human development. But we need to grow in the conviction that a decrease in the pace of production and consumption can at times give rise to another form of progress and development. ..."
"... The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment; as long as the clearing of a forest increases production, no one calculates the losses entailed in the desertification of the land, the harm done to biodiversity or the increased pollution. In a word, businesses profit by calculating and paying only a fraction of the costs involved. Yet only when "the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations",[138] can those actions be considered ethical. An instrumental way of reasoning, which provides a purely static analysis of realities in the service of present needs, is at work whether resources are allocated by the market or by state central planning. ..."
I'm an environmental scientist, not an economist, but it seems to me that Pope Francis has some
sensible things to say, as in the following from Laudato si:
IV. POLITICS AND ECONOMY IN DIALOGUE FOR HUMAN FULFILMENT
189. Politics must not be subject to the economy, nor should the economy be subject to
the dictates of an efficiency-driven paradigm of technocracy. Today, in view of the common good,
there is urgent need for politics and economics to enter into a frank dialogue in the service
of life, especially human life. Saving banks at any cost, making the public pay the price,
foregoing a firm commitment to reviewing and reforming the entire system, only reaffirms the absolute
power of a financial system, a power which has no future and will only give rise to new crises
after a slow, costly and only apparent recovery. The financial crisis of 2007-08 provided an opportunity
to develop a new economy, more attentive to ethical principles, and new ways of regulating speculative
financial practices and virtual wealth. But the response to the crisis did not include rethinking
the outdated criteria which continue to rule the world. Production is not always rational,
and is usually tied to economic variables which assign to products a value that does not necessarily
correspond to their real worth. This frequently leads to an overproduction of some commodities,
with unnecessary impact on the environment and with negative results on regional economies.[133]
The financial bubble also tends to be a productive bubble. The problem of the real economy is
not confronted with vigour, yet it is the real economy which makes diversification and improvement
in production possible, helps companies to function well, and enables small and medium businesses
to develop and create employment.
190. Here too, it should always be kept in mind that "environmental protection cannot be assured
solely on the basis of financial calculations of costs and benefits. The environment is one of
those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces".[134] Once more,
we need to reject a magical conception of the market, which would suggest that problems can be
solved simply by an increase in the profits of companies or individuals. Is it realistic to hope
that those who are obsessed with maximizing profits will stop to reflect on the environmental
damage which they will leave behind for future generations? Where profits alone count, there can
be no thinking about the rhythms of nature, its phases of decay and regeneration, or the complexity
of ecosystems which may be gravely upset by human intervention. Moreover, biodiversity is considered
at most a deposit of economic resources available for exploitation, with no serious thought for
the real value of things, their significance for persons and cultures, or the concerns and needs
of the poor.
191. Whenever these questions are raised, some react by accusing others of irrationally
attempting to stand in the way of progress and human development. But we need to grow in the conviction
that a decrease in the pace of production and consumption can at times give rise to another form
of progress and development. Efforts to promote a sustainable use of natural resources are
not a waste of money, but rather an investment capable of providing other economic benefits in
the medium term. If we look at the larger picture, we can see that more diversified and innovative
forms of production which impact less on the environment can prove very profitable. It is a matter
of openness to different possibilities which do not involve stifling human creativity and its
ideals of progress, but rather directing that energy along new channels.
192. For example, a path of productive development, which is more creative and better directed,
could correct the present disparity between excessive technological investment in consumption
and insufficient investment in resolving urgent problems facing the human family. It could generate
intelligent and profitable ways of reusing, revamping and recycling, and it could also improve
the energy efficiency of cities. Productive diversification offers the fullest possibilities to
human ingenuity to create and innovate, while at the same time protecting the environment and
creating more sources of employment. Such creativity would be a worthy expression of our most
noble human qualities, for we would be striving intelligently, boldly and responsibly to promote
a sustainable and equitable development within the context of a broader concept of quality of
life. On the other hand, to find ever new ways of despoiling nature, purely for the sake of new
consumer items and quick profit, would be, in human terms, less worthy and creative, and more
superficial.
193. In any event, if in some cases sustainable development were to involve new forms of growth,
then in other cases, given the insatiable and irresponsible growth produced over many decades,
we need also to think of containing growth by setting some reasonable limits and even retracing
our steps before it is too late. We know how unsustainable is the behaviour of those who constantly
consume and destroy, while others are not yet able to live in a way worthy of their human dignity.
That is why the time has come to accept decreased growth in some parts of the world, in order
to provide resources for other places to experience healthy growth. Benedict XVI has said that
"technologically advanced societies must be prepared to encourage more sober lifestyles, while
reducing their energy consumption and improving its efficiency".[135]
194. For new models of progress to arise, there is a need to change "models of global development";[136]
this will entail a responsible reflection on "the meaning of the economy and its goals with an
eye to correcting its malfunctions and misapplications".[137] It is not enough to balance, in
the medium term, the protection of nature with financial gain, or the preservation of the environment
with progress. Halfway measures simply delay the inevitable disaster. Put simply, it is a matter
of redefining our notion of progress. A technological and economic development which does not
leave in its wake a better world and an integrally higher quality of life cannot be considered
progress. Frequently, in fact, people's quality of life actually diminishes – by the deterioration
of the environment, the low quality of food or the depletion of resources – in the midst of economic
growth. In this context, talk of sustainable growth usually becomes a way of distracting attention
and offering excuses. It absorbs the language and values of ecology into the categories of finance
and technocracy, and the social and environmental responsibility of businesses often gets reduced
to a series of marketing and image-enhancing measures.
195. The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations,
reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased,
little concern is given to whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the
environment; as long as the clearing of a forest increases production, no one calculates the losses
entailed in the desertification of the land, the harm done to biodiversity or the increased pollution.
In a word, businesses profit by calculating and paying only a fraction of the costs involved.
Yet only when "the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized
with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations",[138]
can those actions be considered ethical. An instrumental way of reasoning, which provides a purely
static analysis of realities in the service of present needs, is at work whether resources are
allocated by the market or by state central planning.
196. What happens with politics? Let us keep in mind the principle of subsidiarity, which grants
freedom to develop the capabilities present at every level of society, while also demanding a
greater sense of responsibility for the common good from those who wield greater power. Today,
it is the case that some economic sectors exercise more power than states themselves. But economics
without politics cannot be justified, since this would make it impossible to favour other ways
of handling the various aspects of the present crisis. The mindset which leaves no room for sincere
concern for the environment is the same mindset which lacks concern for the inclusion of the most
vulnerable members of society. For "the current model, with its emphasis on success and self-reliance,
does not appear to favour an investment in efforts to help the slow, the weak or the less talented
to find opportunities in life".[139]
197. What is needed is a politics which is far-sighted and capable of a new, integral and interdisciplinary
approach to handling the different aspects of the crisis. Often, politics itself is responsible
for the disrepute in which it is held, on account of corruption and the failure to enact sound
public policies. If in a given region the state does not carry out its responsibilities, some
business groups can come forward in the guise of benefactors, wield real power, and consider themselves
exempt from certain rules, to the point of tolerating different forms of organized crime, human
trafficking, the drug trade and violence, all of which become very difficult to eradicate. If
politics shows itself incapable of breaking such a perverse logic, and remains caught up in inconsequential
discussions, we will continue to avoid facing the major problems of humanity. A strategy for real
change calls for rethinking processes in their entirety, for it is not enough to include a few
superficial ecological considerations while failing to question the logic which underlies present-day
culture. A healthy politics needs to be able to take up this challenge.
198. Politics and the economy tend to blame each other when it comes to poverty and environmental
degradation. It is to be hoped that they can acknowledge their own mistakes and find forms of
interaction directed to the common good. While some are concerned only with financial gain, and
others with holding on to or increasing their power, what we are left with are conflicts or spurious
agreements where the last thing either party is concerned about is caring for the environment
and protecting those who are most vulnerable. Here too, we see how true it is that "unity is greater
than conflict".[140]
The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in
the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies,
a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial
implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.
Notable quotes:
"... His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil." He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship" that "condemns and enslaves men and women." ..."
"... The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck, the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of America in Washington. ..."
"... Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and, most notably, Greece . But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, to the left. ..."
"... Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism. George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way. ..."
"... Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors, John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor." ..."
"... Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people, not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff." ..."
"... In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night. ..."
"... It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si'," released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush. ..."
"... The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies, a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy. ..."
"... "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians, the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment." ..."
"... "I'm a believer in capitalism but it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government ..."
"... "What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. ..."
ASUNCIÓN, Paraguay - His speeches can blend biblical fury with apocalyptic doom. Pope Francis
does not just criticize the excesses of global capitalism. He compares them to the "dung of the devil."
He does not simply argue that systemic "greed for money" is a bad thing. He calls it a "subtle dictatorship"
that "condemns and enslaves men and women."
Having returned to his native Latin America, Francis has renewed his left-leaning critiques on
the inequalities of capitalism, describing it as an underlying cause of global injustice, and a prime
cause of climate change. Francis escalated that line last week when he made a
historic apology for the crimes of the Roman Catholic Church during the period of Spanish colonialism
- even as he called for a global movement against a "new colonialism" rooted in an inequitable economic
order.
The Argentine pope seemed to be asking for a social revolution. "This is not theology as usual; this is him shouting from the mountaintop," said Stephen F. Schneck,
the director of the Institute for Policy Research and Catholic studies at Catholic University of
America in Washington.
The last pope who so boldly placed himself at the center of the global moment was John Paul II,
who during the 1980s pushed the church to confront what many saw as the challenge of that era, communism.
John Paul II's anti-Communist messaging dovetailed with the agenda of political conservatives eager
for a tougher line against the Soviets and, in turn, aligned part of the church hierarchy with the
political right.
Francis has defined the economic challenge of this era as the failure of global capitalism to
create fairness, equity and dignified livelihoods for the poor - a social and religious agenda that
coincides with a resurgence of the leftist thinking marginalized in the days of John Paul II. Francis'
increasingly sharp critique comes as much of humanity has never been so wealthy or well fed - yet
rising inequality and repeated financial crises have unsettled voters, policy makers and economists.
Left-wing populism is surging in countries immersed in economic turmoil, such as Spain, and,
most notably, Greece. But even in the United States, where the economy has rebounded, widespread
concern about inequality and corporate power are propelling the
rise of liberals like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts,
who, in turn, have pushed the Democratic Party presidential front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton,
to the left.
Even some free-market champions are now reassessing the shortcomings of unfettered capitalism.
George Soros, who made billions in the markets, and then spent a good part of it promoting the spread
of free markets in Eastern Europe, now argues that the pendulum has swung too far the other way.
"I think the pope is singing to the music that's already in the air," said Robert A. Johnson,
executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking, which was financed with $50 million
from Mr. Soros. "And that's a good thing. That's what artists do, and I think the pope is sensitive
to the lack of legitimacy of the system."
Many Catholic scholars would argue that Francis is merely continuing a line of Catholic social
teaching that has existed for more than a century and was embraced even by his two conservative predecessors,
John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Pope Leo XIII first called for economic justice on behalf of workers
in 1891, with his encyclical "Rerum Novarum" - or, "On Condition of Labor."
Mr. Schneck, of Catholic University, said it was as if Francis were saying, "We've been talking
about these things for more than one hundred years, and nobody is listening."
Francis has such a strong sense of urgency "because he has been on the front lines with real people,
not just numbers and abstract ideas," Mr. Schneck said. "That real-life experience of working with
the most marginalized in Argentina has been the source of his inspiration as pontiff."
Francis made his speech on Wednesday night, in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, before nearly 2,000 social
advocates, farmers, trash workers and neighborhood activists. Even as he meets regularly with heads
of state, Francis has often said that change must come from the grass roots, whether from poor people
or the community organizers who work with them. To Francis, the poor have earned knowledge that is
useful and redeeming, even as a "throwaway culture" tosses them aside. He sees them as being at the
front edge of economic and environmental crises around the world.
In Bolivia, Francis praised cooperatives and other localized organizations that he said provide
productive economies for the poor. "How different this is than the situation that results when those
left behind by the formal market are exploited like slaves!" he said on Wednesday night.
It is this Old Testament-like rhetoric that some finding jarring, perhaps especially so in the
United States, where Francis will visit in September. His environmental encyclical, "Laudato Si',"
released last month, drew loud criticism from some American conservatives and from others who found
his language deeply pessimistic. His right-leaning critics also argued that he was overreaching and
straying dangerously beyond religion - while condemning capitalism with too broad a brush.
"I wish Francis would focus on positives, on how a free-market economy guided by an ethical framework,
and the rule of law, can be a part of the solution for the poor - rather than just jumping from the
reality of people's misery to the analysis that a market economy is the problem," said the Rev. Robert
A. Sirico, president of the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, which advocates
free-market economics.
Francis' sharpest critics have accused him of being a Marxist or a Latin American Communist, even
as he opposed communism during his time in Argentina. His tour last week of Latin America began in
Ecuador and Bolivia, two countries with far-left governments. President Evo Morales of Bolivia, who
wore a Che Guevara patch on his jacket during Francis' speech, claimed the pope as a kindred spirit
- even as Francis seemed startled and caught off guard when Mr. Morales gave him a wooden crucifix
shaped like a hammer and sickle as a gift.
Francis' primary agenda last week was to begin renewing Catholicism in Latin America and reposition
it as the church of the poor. His apology for the church's complicity in the colonialist era received
an immediate roar from the crowd. In various parts of Latin America, the association between the
church and economic power elites remains intact. In Chile, a socially conservative country, some
members of the country's corporate elite are also members of Opus Dei, the traditionalist Catholic
organization founded in Spain in 1928.
Inevitably, Francis' critique can be read as a broadside against Pax Americana, the period of
capitalism regulated by global institutions created largely by the United States. But even pillars
of that system are shifting. The World Bank, which long promoted economic growth as an end in itself,
is now increasingly focused on the distribution of gains, after the Arab Spring revolts in some countries
that the bank had held up as models. The latest generation of international trade agreements includes
efforts to increase protections for workers and the environment.
The French economist Thomas Piketty argued last year in a surprising best-seller, "Capital
in the Twenty-First Century," that rising wealth inequality was a natural result of free-market policies,
a direct challenge to the conventional view that economic inequalities shrink over time. The controversial
implication drawn by Mr. Piketty is that governments should raise taxes on the wealthy.
Mr. Piketty roiled the debate among mainstream economists, yet Francis' critique is more unnerving
to some because he is not reframing inequality and poverty around a new economic theory but instead
defining it in moral terms. "Working for a just distribution of the fruits of the earth and human
labor is not mere philanthropy," he said on Wednesday. "It is a moral obligation. For Christians,
the responsibility is even greater: It is a commandment."
Nick Hanauer, a Seattle venture capitalist, said that he saw Francis as making a nuanced point
about capitalism, embodied by his coinage of a "social mortgage" on accumulated wealth - a debt to
the society that made its accumulation possible. Mr. Hanauer said that economic elites should embrace
the need for reforms both for moral and pragmatic reasons. "I'm a believer in capitalism but
it comes in as many flavors as pie, and we have a choice about the kind of capitalist system that
we have," said Mr. Hanauer, now an outspoken proponent of redistributive government policies
like a higher minimum wage.
Yet what remains unclear is whether Francis has a clear vision for a systemic alternative to the
status quo that he and others criticize. "All these critiques point toward the incoherence of the
simple idea of free market economics, but they don't prescribe a remedy," said Mr. Johnson, of the
Institute for New Economic Thinking.
Francis acknowledged as much, conceding on Wednesday that he had no new "recipe" to quickly change
the world. Instead, he spoke about a "process of change" undertaken at the grass-roots level.
"What can be done by those students, those young people, those activists, those missionaries
who come to my neighborhood with the hearts full of hopes and dreams but without any real solution
for my problems?" he asked. "A lot! They can do a lot. "You, the lowly, the exploited, the poor
and underprivileged, can do, and are doing, a lot. I would even say that the future of humanity is
in great measure in your own hands."
Religion is definitely a useful tool fight neoliberalism. Actually outside of far right and religious
fundamentalists almost any tool that is useful for fighting neoliberalism should be viewed positively.
Currently Catholicism opposes neoliberalism more actively and probably somewhat more successfully due
to the statute of Pope Francis then Orthodox Church.
Notable quotes:
"... The conflict between Russia and the West, therefore, is portrayed by both the ROC and by Vladimir Putin and his cohorts as nothing less than a spiritual/civilizational conflict. ..."
Amidst the geopolitical confrontation between Vladimir Putin's Russia and the US and its allies,
little attention has been paid to the role played by religion either as a shaper of Russian domestic
politics or as a means of understanding Putin's international actions. The role of religion has long
tended to get short thrift in the study of statecraft (although it has been experiencing a bit of
a renaissance of late), yet nowhere has it played a more prominent role – and perhaps nowhere has
its importance been more unrecognized – than in its role in supporting the Russian state and Russia's
current place in world affairs.
And while much attention has been paid to the growing authoritarianism of the Kremlin and on the
support for Putin's regime on the part of the Russian oligarchs whom Putin has enriched through his
crony capitalism, little has been paid to the equally critical role of the Russian Orthodox Church
in helping to shape Russia's current system, and in supporting Putin's regime and publicly conflating
the mission of the Russian state under Vladimir Putin's leadership with the mission of the Church.
Putin's move in close coordination with the Russian Orthodox Church to sacralize the Russian national
identity has been a key factor shaping the increasingly authoritarian bent of the Russian government
under Putin, and strengthening his public support, and must be understood in order to understand
Russia's international behavior.
The close relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) and the Russian state based upon
a shared, theologically-informed vision of Russian exceptionalism is not a new phenomenon. During
the days of the Czar, the Russian ruler was seen as God's chosen ruler of a Russian nation tasked
with representing a unique set of value embodied by Russian Orthodoxy, and was revered as "the Holy
Orthodox Czar". Today, a not dissimilar vision of Russian exceptionalism is once again shared by
the ROC and the Kremlin, and many Russians are beginning to see Vladimir Putin in a similar vein
– a perception encouraged both by Putin and by the Church, each of which sees the other as a valuable
political ally and sees their respective missions as being interrelated.
... ... ...
When Putin came to power he shrewdly noted the ROC's useful role in boosting nationalism and the
fact that it shared his view of Russia's role in the world, and began to work toward strengthening
the Church's role in Russian society. Early in his presidency the Russian Duma passed a law returning
all church property seized during the Soviet era (which act alone made the ROC one of the largest
landholders in Russia). Over the past decade and a half, Putin has ordered state-owned energy firms
to contribute billions to the rebuilding of thousands of churches destroyed under the Soviets, and
many of those rich oligarchs surrounding him are dedicated supporters of the ROC who have contributed
to the growing influence of the church in myriad ways. Around 25,000 ROC churches have been built
or rebuilt since the early 1990′s, the vast majority of which have been built during Putin's rule
and largely due to his backing and that of those in his close circle of supporters. Additionally,
the ROC has been given rights that have vastly increased its role in public life, including the right
to teach religion in Russia's public schools and the right to review any legislation before the Russian
Duma.
The glue that holds together the alliance between Vladimir Putin and the ROC, and the one that
more than any other explains their mutually-supporting actions, is their shared, sacralized vision
of Russian national identity and exceptionalism. Russia, according to this vision, is neither Western
nor Asian, but rather a unique society representing a unique set of values which are believed to
be divinely inspired. The Kremlin's chief ideologue in this regard is Alexander Dugin (see a good
summary of the historical roots of Dugin's philosophy and of his impact on the Russian government
here.) According to this vision of the relationship between church, state, and society, the state
dominates, the ROC partnering with the state, and individuals and private organizations supporting
both church and state. This has provided the ideological justification for Putin's crackdown on dissent,
and the rationale behind the Church's cooperation with the Kremlin in the repression of civil society
groups or other religious groups which have dissenting political views. And the ROC's hostility toward
the activities in Russia of other religious groups have dovetailed with that of Putin, who views
independent religious activity as a potential threat to his regime.
Internationally, Russia's mission is to expand its influence and authority until it dominates
the Eurasian landmass, by means of a strong central Russian state controlling this vast territory
and aligned with the ROC as the arm of the Russian nation exercising its cultural influence. This
vision of Russian exceptionalism has met with broad resonance within Russia, which goes a long way
to explaining Putin's sky high polling numbers. Putin has successfully been able both to transfer
to himself the social trust placed by most Russians in the ROC and has also to wrap himself in the
trappings of almost a patron saint of Russia. The conflict between Russia and the West, therefore,
is portrayed by both the ROC and by Vladimir Putin and his cohorts as nothing less than a spiritual/civilizational
conflict. If anyone thought Europe's wars over religion were finished in 1648, the current standoff
with Russia illustrates that that is not the case.
Huge external debt plus high unemployment represents two vital preconditions of rise far right nationalism and fascism in all
its multiple incarnations. In this sence Ulrain, Argentina and Brasil are different links of the common chain of
events.
In a way fascism is a way of reaction of nation deeply in crisis. In essence this is introduction of war time
restrictions on political speech and freedoms of the population. The Catch 22 is that often this is done not so much to
fight external threat, but top preserve the power of existing financial oligarchy. Which fascist after coming to power quickly
include in government and and desire of which are disproportionally obeyed by fascist state.
What in new in XXI century is the huge growth of power on intelligence agencies which is way represent crippling fascism or
neofascism. In a way, then intelligence agencies became political kingmakers (as was the case with the assassination of JFK,
impeachment of Nixon, elections of Clinton, Bush II, and Obama, as well as establishing Mueller commission after Trump
victory), we can speak about sliding the county of the county toward fascism.
Notable quotes:
"... In Italy in the 1920s, repayment of war debts from WWI led to austerity and recession that preceded the rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. In Germany, payment of war reparations and repayment of industrial loans limited the ability of the Weimar government to respond to the Great Depression. Liberal governments that facilitated the financialization of industrial economies in the 1920s were left to serve as debt collectors in the capitalist crisis that followed. ..."
"... The practical problem with doing this is the power of creditors. Debtors that repudiate their debts are closed out of capital markets. The power to create money that is accepted in payment is a privilege of the center countries that also happen to be creditors. Capitalist expansion creates interdependencies that produce immediate, deep shortages if debts aren't serviced. Debt is a weapon whose proceeds can be delivered to one group and the obligation to repay it to another. The U.S. position was expressed when the IMF knowingly made unpayable loans to Ukraine to support a U.S. sponsored coup there in 2015 ..."
"... Propaganda was developed and refined by Edward Bernays in the 1910s to help the Wilson administration sell WWI to a skeptical public. It has been used by the American government and in capitalist advertising since that time. The idea was to integrate psychology with words and images to get people to act according to the desires and wishes of those putting it forward. ..."
"... The operational frame of propaganda is instrumental: to use people to achieve ends they had no part in conceiving. The political perspective is dictatorial, benevolent or otherwise. Propaganda has been used by the American government ever since. Similar methods were used by the Italian and German fascists in their to rise to power. ..."
"... Following WWII, the U.S. brought 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers (and their families) to the U.S. to work for the Department of Defense and American industry through a program called Operation Paperclip . Many were dedicated and enthusiastic Nazis. Some were reported to have been bona fide war criminals. In contrast to liberal / neoliberal assertions that Nazism was irrational politics, the Nazi scientists fit seamlessly into American military production. There was no apparent contradiction between being a Nazi and being a scientist. ..."
"... A dimensional tension of Nazism lay between romantic myths of an ancient and glorious past and the bourgeois task of moving industrialization and modernity forward. The focus of liberal and neoliberal analysis has been on this mythology as an irrational mode of reason. Missing is that Nazism wouldn't have moved past the German borders if it hadn't had bourgeois basis in the science and technology needed for industrial might. This keeps the broad project within the ontological and administrative premises of liberalism. ..."
"... The way to fight fascists is to end the threat of fascism. This means taking on Wall Street and the major institutions of Western capitalism ..."
Missing from explanations of the rise of Mr. Bolsonaro is that for the last decade Brazil
has experienced the worst economic
recession in the country's history (graph below). Fourteen million formerly employed,
working age Brazilians are now unemployed. As was true in the U.S. and peripheral Europe from
2008 forward, the liberal response has been austerity as the Brazilian ruling class was made
richer and more politically powerful.
Since 2014, Brazil's public debt/GDP ratio has climbed from 20% to 75%
proclaims a worried IMF. That some fair portion of that climb came from falling GDP due to
economic austerity mandated by the IMF and Wall Street is left unmentioned. A decade of
austerity got liberal President Dilma Rousseff removed from office in 2016 in what can only be
called a Wall Street putsch. Perhaps Bolsonaro will tell Wall Street where to stick its loans
(not).
Back in the U.S., everyone knows that the liberalization of finance and trade in the 1990s
was the result of political calculations. That this liberalization was/is bipartisan suggests
that maybe the political calculations served certain economic interests. Never mind that these
interests were given what they asked for and crashed the economy with it. If economic problems
result from political calculations, the solution is political -- elect better leaders. If they
are driven by economic interests, the solution is to change the way that economic relationships
are organized.
Between 1928 and 1932 German industrial production fell by 58%. By 1933, six million
formerly employed German workers were begging in the streets and digging through garbage
looking for items to sell. The liberal (Socialist Party) response was half-measures and
austerity. Within the liberal frame, the Depression was a political problem to be addressed in
the realm of the political. Centrist accommodation defined the existing realm. Adolf Hitler was
appointed Chancellor of Germany in 1933, the pit of the Great Depression.
In Brazil in the early-mid 2000s, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, better known as Lula,
implemented a Left program that pulled twenty million Brazilians out of poverty. The Brazilian
economy briefly recovered after Wall Street crashed it in 2008 before Brazilian public debt was
used to force the implementation of austerity. Dilma Rousseff capitulated and Brazil re-entered
recession. Rousseff was removed from power in 2016. Hemmed in by Wall Street and
IMF mandated austerity , any liberal government that might be elected would meet the same
fate as Rousseff.
In Italy in the 1920s, repayment of war debts from WWI led to austerity and recession that
preceded the rise of fascist leader Benito Mussolini. In Germany, payment of war reparations
and repayment of industrial loans limited the ability of the Weimar government to respond to
the Great Depression. Liberal governments that facilitated the financialization of industrial
economies in the 1920s were left to serve as debt collectors in the capitalist crisis that
followed.
Since 2008, the fiscal structure of the EU (European Union) combined with wildly unbalanced
trade relationships led to a decade of austerity, recession and depression for the European
periphery. In the U.S., by 2009 Wall Street was pushing austerity and cuts to Social Security
and Medicare as necessary to fiscal stability. The consequences of four decades of
financialized neoliberal trade policies were by no means equally shared. Internal and external
class relations were made evident through narrowly distributed booms followed by widely
distributed busts.
With the presumed shared goal of ending the threat of fascism:
The ideological premises behind the logic that claims fascists as the explanation of fascism
emerge from liberalism. The term here is meant as description. Liberalism proceeds from
specific ontological assumptions. Within this temporal frame, a bit of social logic: If
fascists already existed, why didn't fascism? The question of whether to fight fascists or
fascism depends on the answer. The essentialist view is that characteristics intrinsic to
fascists make them fascists. This is the basis of scientific racism. And it underlies fascist
race theory.
The theory of a strongman who exploits people who have a predisposition towards fascism is
essentialist as well if receptivity is intrinsic, e.g. due to psychology, genetics, etc.
Liberal-Left commentary in recent years has tended toward the essentialist view -- that
fascists are born or otherwise predisposed toward fascism. Unconsidered is that non-fascists
are equally determined in this frame. If 'deplorables' were born that way, four decades of
neoliberalism is absolved.
The problem of analogy, the question of what fascism is and how European fascism of the
twentieth century bears relation to the present, can't be answered in the liberal frame. The
rise and fall of a global radical right have been episodic. It has tied in history to the
development of global capitalism in a center-and-periphery model of asymmetrical economic
power. Finance from the center facilitates economic expansion until financial crisis interrupts
the process. Peripheral governments are left to manage debt repayment with collapsed
economies.
Globally, debt has forced policy convergence between political parties of differing
ideologies. European center-left parties have pushed austerity even when ideology would suggest
the opposite. In 2015, self-identified Marxists in Greece's SYRIZA party capitulated to the
austerity and privatization demands from EU creditors led by Germany. Even Lenin negotiated
with Wall Street creditors (on behalf of Russia) in the months after the October Revolution. In
a political frame, the solution from below is to elect leaders and parties who will act on
their rhetoric.
The practical problem with doing this is the power of creditors. Debtors that repudiate
their debts are closed out of capital markets. The power to create money that is accepted in
payment is a privilege of the center countries that also happen to be creditors. Capitalist
expansion creates interdependencies that produce immediate, deep shortages if debts aren't
serviced. Debt is a weapon whose proceeds can be delivered to one group and the obligation to
repay it to another. The U.S. position was expressed when the IMF knowingly made unpayable
loans to Ukraine to support a U.S. sponsored coup there in 2015.
Fascist racialization has analog in existing capitalist class relations. Immigration status,
race and gender define a social taxonomy of economic exploitation. Race was invented decades into the
Anglo-American manifestation of slavery to naturalize exploitation of Blacks. Gender difference
represents the evolution of unpaid to paid labor for women in the capitalist West. Claiming
these as causing exploitation gets the temporal sequence wrong. These were / are exploitable
classes before explanations of their special status were created.
This isn't to suggest that capitalist class relations form a complete explanation of fascist
racialization. But the ontological premise that 'freezes,' and thereby reifies racialization,
is fundamental to capitalism. This relates to the point argued below that the educated German
bourgeois, in the form of the Nazi scientists and engineers brought to the U.S. following WWII,
found Nazi racialization plausible through what has long been put forward as an antithetical
mode of understanding. Put differently, it wasn't just the rabble that found grotesque racial
caricatures plausible. The question is why?
Propaganda was developed and refined by Edward Bernays in the 1910s to help the Wilson
administration sell WWI to a skeptical public. It has been used by the American government and
in capitalist advertising since that time. The idea was to integrate psychology with words and
images to get people to act according to the desires and wishes of those putting it
forward.
The operational frame of propaganda is instrumental: to use people to achieve ends they had
no part in conceiving. The political perspective is dictatorial, benevolent or otherwise.
Propaganda has been used by the American government ever since. Similar methods were used by
the Italian and German fascists in their to rise to power.
Since WWI, commercial propaganda has become ubiquitous in the U.S. Advertising firms hire
psychologists to craft advertising campaigns with no regard for the concern that psychological
coercion removes free choice from capitalism. The distinction between political and commercial
propaganda is based on intent, not method. Its use by Woodrow Wilson (above) is instructive: a
large and vocal anti-war movement had legitimate reasons for opposing the U.S. entry into WWI.
The goal of Bernays and Wilson was to stifle political opposition.
Following WWII, the U.S. brought 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers (and their
families) to the U.S. to work for the Department of Defense and American industry through a
program called Operation Paperclip . Many were
dedicated and enthusiastic Nazis. Some were reported to have been bona fide war criminals. In
contrast to liberal / neoliberal assertions that Nazism was irrational politics, the Nazi
scientists fit seamlessly into American military production. There was no apparent
contradiction between being a Nazi and being a scientist.
The problem isn't just that many committed Nazis were scientists. Science and technology
created the Nazi war machine. Science and technology were fully integrated into the creation
and running of the Nazi concentration camps. American race 'science,' eugenics, formed the
basis of Nazi race theory. Science and technology formed the functional core of Nazism. And the
Nazi scientists and engineers of Operation Paperclip were major contributors to American
post-war military dominance.
A dimensional tension of Nazism lay between romantic myths of an ancient and glorious
past and the bourgeois task of moving industrialization and modernity forward. The focus of
liberal and neoliberal analysis has been on this mythology as an irrational mode of reason.
Missing is that Nazism wouldn't have moved past the German borders if it hadn't had bourgeois
basis in the science and technology needed for industrial might. This keeps the broad project
within the ontological and administrative premises of liberalism.
This is no doubt disconcerting to theorists of great difference. If Bolsonaro can impose
austerity while maintaining an unjust peace, Wall Street and the IMF will smile and ask for
more. American business interests are already
circling Brazil, knowing that captive consumers combined with enforceable property rights
and a pliable workforce means profits. Where were liberals when the Wall Street that Barack
Obama saved was squeezing the people of Brazil, Spain, Greece and Portugal to repay debts
incurred by the oligarchs? Liberalism is the link between capitalism and fascism, not its
antithesis.
Having long ago abandoned Marx, the American Left is lost in the temporal logic of
liberalism. The way to fight fascists is to end the threat of fascism. This means taking on
Wall Street and the major institutions of Western capitalism
Rob Urie is an artist and political economist. His book Zen Economics is
published by CounterPunch Books.
Leaving aside his frequent criticisms of populism, Pope Francis called for a "Christian populism" during a visit
to Sicily this weekend, insisting that true populism must listen to and serve the people.
"Be afraid of the deafness that fails to hear the people," Francis said during his
homily
at Mass in Palermo Saturday. "This is the only possible populism: listening to your people, the only
Christian populism: listening to and serving the people, without shouting, accusing, or stirring up contentions."
Seeming to channel John F. Kennedy, the pope invited his hearers to take initiative rather than asking what the
Church and society can do for them.
"Wait not for the Church to do something for you, but begin yourself," Francis said. "Wait not for society to do
it, do it yourself."
The pope's apparent openness to populism -- or at least a version of it -- marks a significant change from earlier
discourses, in which Francis condemned populism, tying its rise to selfishness and egotism.
Last year, the pontiff
warned
of the perils of populism in western democracies, telling the German newspaper
Die Zeit
that "populism is
evil and ends badly, as the past century showed."
In an anti-nationalist
speech
in March 2017, the pope told European heads of state that there is a need "to start thinking once again as
Europeans so as to avert the opposite dangers of a dreary uniformity or the triumph of particularisms."
The European Union will only be lasting and successful if the common will of Europe "proves more powerful than the
will of individual nations," Francis said, advocating for a stronger, consolidated Europe against the rising tide of
populist movements.
Solidarity is "the most effective antidote to modern forms of populism," Pope Francis told the European Union
leaders, Francis said, while denouncing nationalism as a modern form of selfishness.
The pontiff contrasted solidarity, which draw us "closer to our neighbors," with populism, which is "the fruit of
an egotism that hems people in and prevents them from overcoming and 'looking beyond' their own narrow vision."
This past June, Pope Francis went further still,
insisting
that populism was not the solution to Europe's immigration crisis, just as Italy's new populist
government was beginning to enact measures to curb illegal immigration.
In an interview with Reuters, the pope was asked what he thought the solution is to the immigration crisis that
seems to be causing Europe to crumble.
"Populism is not the solution," Francis said emphatically, adding that Europe would disappear without migrants
because no one is having children.
Summing up, the pope said that "populism does not solve the problem; what solves it is welcoming, studying,
settling, and prudence, because prudence is a virtue of government and the government must reach an agreement. I can
receive a certain number and settle them."
On Tuesday, the Vatican and the World Council of Churches (WCC) will begin a two-day joint
conference
in Rome on "Migration, Xenophobia and politically motivated Populism."
The WCC is
partnering
with the Vatican department for Promoting Integral Human Development in organizing the conference as
part of ongoing work toward "peace-building and migration."
The secretary general of the WCC, Rev. Olav Fykse Tveit, said the meeting would be a "very useful and significant
workshop to dig a bit deeper" into the problems of xenophobia as an expression of populism, as well as its links to
racism, conflict, and violence in countries around the world.
"... By #SlayTheSmaugs, an elected Bernie delegate in Philly. ..."
"... #STS believes that the billionaire class are Smaugs (the greed incarnate dragon of The Hobbit), immorally hoarding wealth for no reason beyond ego gratification. To "Slay" the Smaugs, we need a confiscatory wealth tax, stronger democratic institutions to impose it, and a shared moral agreement that #GreedIsEvil to justify it. ..."
"... More; charitable foundations are not the same thing, in many cases, as true charity. Instead foundations often function as hoard preservers as well, and enrich their leadership too. ..."
"... After a certain level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not money any more. ..."
"... Wealth on this scale has nothing to do with financial security or luxurious living. For the trivial, it is (as per D. Trump) a game and money is how you keep score. For the serious, it has to do with power, with the ability to affect other people's lives without their consent. That is why the Smaugs' wealth is absolutely our business. It should be understood that we're talking about taking very large amounts of money and power away from very rich people, people for whom money and power are pretty much the only things they value. It will not be pretty. ..."
"... If we fail to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three classes of humans left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves. ..."
"... A more modern similarity of the US is Rome. Vassals have been going full retard for several years now, traitors sell international competitors military secrets while the biggest merchants buy off the Senate. ..."
"... Isn't there an idiom about cutting off the head of the snake? Once you deal with the strongest opponents, it's easier to go after the others. Too big to fail is nothing short of feeding the beast. ..."
"... I disagree strongly with your premise that some sort of pure and natural meritocracy has ever existed, or could ever exist in human society. Corrupt and oppressive people will always define as "meritorious" those qualities that they themselves possess– whether wealth, "gentle birth," "technical skills," or whatever. We all possess the same merit of being human. ..."
"... Meritocracy is not the same as recognizing greater and lesser degrees of competence in various activities. It is absurd to deny that some are more skillful at some things than others. Assigning the relative "merit" to various competencies is what I find objectionable. ..."
"... Encouraging ethical behavior has nothing to do with ranking the "merit" levels of different occupations. While some occupations are inherently unethical, like that of an assassin, most can be performed in such a way as to do no harm to others, and some are nearly always beneficial to society at large. ..."
By #SlayTheSmaugs, an elected Bernie delegate in Philly.
#STS believes that the billionaire class are Smaugs (the greed incarnate dragon of
The Hobbit), immorally hoarding wealth for no reason beyond ego gratification. To "Slay" the Smaugs,
we need a confiscatory wealth tax, stronger democratic institutions to impose it, and a shared moral
agreement that #GreedIsEvil to justify it.
Worshiping Wealth
When Gordon Gekko proclaimed that 'Greed is Good' in 1987, it was an obvious rejection of several
millennia of teachings by traditional prophets and priests. Yet when Gekko preached greed, he was
merely reinforcing the current cultural norm; greed had already been rebranded a virtue. (Still,
the speech was to remind us Gekko was a bad guy). Consider that Madonna had proclaimed herself a
Material Girl three years earlier, and "Living Large" was cool. Conspicuous consumption is walking
the talk that greed is good.
Why had greed become good? I blame the creation of a credit-fueled culture of constant consumption
that necessarily praises coveting stuff, plus the dismantling of the regulatory state that had kept
Wall Street and wannabe oligarchs in check.
Our healthy cultural adoration of the self-made man, of respect for success, warped into worship
of the rich. They are not the same. Wealth can be inherited, stolen through fraud and other illegal
activities, or harvested from bubbles; none of these or myriad other paths to riches is due respect,
much less worship. Paired with another 80's definition-government is the problem-worshiping wealth
facilitates all the dysfunction in our government.
Remembering Greed is Evil
Thirty years later, the old social norm-the one that protected the many from the few, the one
that demonized greed as a deadly sin-is resurgent. We have a Pope who preaches against greed, and
who
walks his talk . We had a Presidential candidate of a major party-Bernie Sanders-who railed against
those living embodiments of greed, the Billionaire Class, and walked his talk by rejecting their
money. At the convention, he has invited delegates to four workshops, one of which is "One Nation
Now: Winning the Fight Against Racism and Greed". We have a late night comedian-John Oliver-
ridiculing the prosperity gospel
and taking on the debt
industry . We have mass consciousness rising, reflected in Occupy, the label "the 99%", BLM and
more.
But we need more voices insisting #GreedIsEvil. We need to teach that basic message at home, in
school, and in houses of worship. We need to send the right signals in our social interactions. We
need to stop coveting stuff, and start buying with a purpose: Shopping locally, buying American,
buying green and clean, and buying less. We need to waste less, share more and build community. We
need to re-norm-alize greed as evil, make it shameful again. Then we will have redefined ourselves
as citizens, not consumers.
But make no mistake: America cannot become a just nation simply by the 99% becoming more virtuous.
The cultural shift is necessary but not sufficient, for norms alone do not deliver social and economic
justice. Shame will not slay the Smaugs; we need structural change in the political economy.
Extreme greed, the greed of Smaugs, is categorically different than the petit greed underlying
the irrational, constant consumption and the worship of wealth. Extreme greed manifests as a hoard
of wealth so great that "purchasing power" is an irrelevant concept; a hoard so great it lacks any
utility other than to be sat upon as a throne, gratifying the Smaug's ego and symbolizing his power.
That greed must be understood as an intolerable evil, something so base and malevolent that the full
power of the state must be used against it.
This essay is my contribution to the cause of returning extreme greed to its rightful place in
the pantheon of ultimate evils. Here is the thesis: extreme greed must be 'slain' by the state because
extreme greed is brutally violent.
The Stealth Violence of False Scarcity and "Cutting Corners"
Greed's violence is quiet and deadly: The violence of false scarcity and of "corner cutting".
Scarcity is not having enough because there just isn't enough to go round, like the
nearly 50 million people who don't reliably have food during the year, including 15 million kids.
False scarcity is when actually, there's plenty to go around, but people generally don't have enough
because of hoarders.
It's a concentrated version of what happened to pennies in 1999. People keeping pennies in piggy
banks created a
shortage felt throughout New York City . If only people had broken open their piggy banks, and
used their pennies, there would have been plenty of pennies in circulation, and shopkeepers wouldn't
lose money by rounding purchases down. In this piece, I'm focusing on false scarcity of dollars,
not pennies, and the maiming and premature death that results from false dollar scarcity. But the
idea is essentially the same; there's just far fewer relevant piggy banks.
By the quiet violence of 'corner cutting', I'm referring to unsafe, even deadly, workplaces that
could be safe if the employers invested in safety.
Sporadically, greed also drives overt, and sometimes profoundly bloody violence to protect the
hoard. Think of employer violence against unions and union organizers,
a la Henry Ford , or
John D. Rockefeller . Nonetheless in this country now, the violence of greed tends to be more
covert. It is that quiet violence, in both forms, I want you to hear now.
As Sanders often reminds us, in this, the richest nation in the world, nearly 50 million people
are living in poverty; roughly one in seven Americans. And as Sanders explained, in a
speech in West Virginia , 130,000 people die each and every year as a result of poverty. I have
not read the study Sanders referred to, so I don't know how much it overlaps with
the rise
of suicide that accelerated after 2006 and which appears to be correlated with financial stress.
Nor do I know how it overlaps with the
documented increase in white mortality that also appears to correlate with financial stress.
Regardless of overlap, however, each of these studies reflects the quiet violence of false scarcity.
Naked Capitalism has featured many posts documenting the damage of greed;
this is a recent one .
Chronic and acute financial stress from false scarcity maims, and kills. And Smaugs create false
scarcity to feed money to their egos and maintain their oligarchic power.
As Lambert often says, they don't call it class warfare for nothing.
But wait, you might insist, how false is the scarcity, really? How much do a few billionaires
matter? Ranting that greed is evil is all well and good, but really, can a relative handful of people
be manufacturing scarcity where there is none, shortening and taking millions of lives in the process?
Aren't you making your target too narrow in going after the Smaugs?
Twenty people had hoarded $732,000,000,000. America is a nation of about 300,000,000 people. That
means 20 people could give a combined $2,370 to every American, and still hoard $1 billion each.
I'm not suggesting that's how the redistribution should be done, but it's notable that in an era
when
some 200 million Americans haven't been able to save $1000 for an emergency, twenty people could
give everyone over two grand while remaining fabulously wealthy.
Now, these 20 monstrous people, these full grown Smaugs, are not alone in their extreme greed.
Adding in the assets of the next 380 richest Americans brings the total wealth hoarded to $2.34 trillion.
That number is so large it's hard to process , so let's think this through.
First, imagine that we took all of that money with a confiscatory tax, except we again left each
of the 400 people with $1 billion. They would still be obscenely rich, so don't pity them.* Our tax
thus netted $1.94 trillion. Since that's still an unimaginable number, let's compare it to some recent
government spending.
In December 2015, Congress funded five years' worth of infrastructure construction. Congress and
President Obama were very self-congratulatory because our infrastructure is a mess, and building
things involves good paying jobs. So, how much did five years of infrastructure building and job
creation cost?
$305 billion . That's less than the $400 billion we let the 400 Smaugs keep at the start of this
thought experiment. With the $1.94 trillion we imagine confiscating, we could keep building at the
2015 pace for 32 years. Or we could spend it much faster, and create an economic boom the like of
which this nation hasn't seen in generations.
Even Bernie Sanders, he of the supposedly overly ambitious, unable-to-be-paid for initiatives,
only
proposed spending $1 trillion on infrastructure over five years -a bit more than half what our
tax would net. (Nor did this supposed radical call for a confiscatory wealth tax to fund his plan.)
Sanders estimated his proposal would create 13 million good paying jobs. With nearly double the money,
surely we get nearly double the jobs? Let's be conservative and say 22 million.
In sum, we could confiscate most of the wealth of 400 people-still leaving them obscenely rich
with $1 billion each-and create 22 million good paying jobs over five years. But we don't; we let
the Smaugs keep their hoards intact. Now consider this is only taxing 400 people; what if we taxed
the richest 2,000 people more justly? What if we taxed corporations effectively? What if we stopped
giving corporate welfare? A confiscatory wealth tax, however, simply isn't discussed in polite company,
any more than a truly progressive income tax is, or even serious proposals to end corporate welfare.
The best we can do is agree that really, someday soon, we should end the obscenity that is the carried
interest loophole.
False scarcity isn't simply a failure of charity, a hoarding of wealth that should be alms for
the poor. False scarcity is created through the billionaires' control of the state, of public policy.
But the quiet violence of greed isn't visited on the 99% only through the failure to pay adequate
taxes. Not even through the Smaugs' failure to have their corporations pay adequate wages, or benefits.
Predatory lending, predatory servicing, fraudulent foreclosure, municipal bond rigging, and pension
fund fleecing are just some of the many other ways immoral greed creates false scarcity.
While false scarcity has the broadest impact, it is not the only form of stealth violence used
by the billionaires in their class war against the rest of us. The Ford and Rockefeller style violence
of fists and guns may be rare in the U.S. these days, but a variant of it remains much too common:
Unsafe workplaces, the quiet violence of "cutting corners". Whether it's
the coal industry , the
poultry
industry , or the
fracking and
oil industries, or myriad other industries, unsafe workplaces kill, maim and sicken workers.
Part of the political economy restructuring we must do includes transforming the workplace.
Feel the Greed
Let us remember why this stealth violence exists-why false scarcity and unsafe workplaces exist.
People who have more money than they hope to spend for the rest of their lives, no matter how
many of their remaining days are "rainy"; people who have more money to pass on than their children
need for a lifetime of financial security, college and retirement included; people who have more
money to pass on than their grandchildren need for a similarly secure life–these people insist on
extracting still more wealth from their workers, their clients, and taxpayers for no purpose beyond
vaingloriously hoarding it.
Greed is evil, but it comes in different intensities. Petit greed is a corrosive illness that
decays societies, but can be effectively ameliorated through norms and social capital. Smaug greed
is so toxic, so potent, that the state is the only entity powerful enough to put it in check. Greed,
particularly Smaug greed, must be put in check because the false scarcity it manufactures, and the
unsafe workplaces it creates, maim and kill people. The stealth violence of Smaug greed justifies
a tax to confiscate the hoards.
#GreedIsEvil. It's time to #SlayTheSmaugs
*One of the arguments against redistribution is that is against the sacrosanct efficient market,
which forbids making one person better off if the price is making someone else worse off. But money
has diminishing returns as money after a certain point; the purchasing power between someone
with one billion and ten billion dollars is negligible, though the difference between someone with
ten thousand and a hundred thousand, or a hundred thousand and a million is huge. After a certain
level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not money any more. Thus taking
it and using it as money isn't making someone 'worse off' in an economic sense. Also, when considering
whether someone is 'worse off', it's worth considering where their money comes from; how many people
did they leave 'worse off' as they
extracted the money? Brett ,
July 22, 2016 at 10:07 am
After a certain level of accumulation money is simply ego gratifying points, it's not
money any more.
It quite literally isn't "money" as we regular folks know it beyond a certain point – it's
tied up in share value and other assets. Which of course raises the question – when you decide
to do your mass confiscation of wealth, who is going to be foolish enough to buy those assets
so you actually have liquid currency to spend on infrastructure as opposed to illiquid assets?
Or are you simply going to print money and spend it on them?
Wealth on this scale has nothing to do with financial security or luxurious living. For
the trivial, it is (as per D. Trump) a game and money is how you keep score. For the serious,
it has to do with power, with the ability to affect other people's lives without their consent.
That is why the Smaugs' wealth is absolutely our business. It should be understood that we're
talking about taking very large amounts of money and power away from very rich people, people
for whom money and power are pretty much the only things they value. It will not be pretty.
People become rich and stay that way because of a market failure that allows them to accumulate
capital in the same way a constricted artery accumulates blood. What I'm wondering, continuing
this metaphor, is what happens when all that money is released back into the market at once via
a redistribution - toxic shock syndrome.
You can see what happens to markets in places where "virtual money" (capital) brushes up against
the real economy: the dysfunctional housing situation in Vancouver, London, New York, and San
Francisco.
It may be wiser to argue for wealth disintegration instead of redistribution.
Yes I was thinking about that money is just something the government prints to make the system
work smoothly. But that, and pretty much any view of money, obscures the problem with the insanely
"wealthy".
If these people, instead of having huge bank accounts actually had huge armies the government
would move to disarm them. It wouldn't re-distribute the tanks and rifles. It would be obviously
removing a threat to everybody.
Now there would be the temptation to wave your hands and say you were "melting it into plowshares"
but that causes an accounting problem - that is, the problem being the use of accounting itself.
Destroying extreme wealth and paying for say roads is just two different things and making them
sound connected is where we keep getting bogged down. Not a full-on MMT'er yet but it really has
illuminated that fact.
The western assumption is that money is a commodity, from salt to gold, to bitcoin, we assume
it can be manufactured, but the underlaying reality is that it is a social contract and every
asset is presumably backed by debt.
Here is an interesting link which does make the point about the contractual basis of money in
a succinct fashion; http://rs79.vrx.palo-alto.ca.us/opinions/ideas/economics/jubilee/
Since the modern commodity of money is backed by debt and largely public debt, there is enormous
pressure to create as much debt as possible.
For instance, the government doesn't really budget, it just writes up these enormous bills, attaches
enough goodies to get the votes and the president can only pass or veto it and with all the backing
and no other method, a veto is a weak protection.
To budget is to prioritize and spend according to ability. What they could do would be to break
these bills into all their various "line items," have every legislator assign a percentage value
to each one, put them back together in order of preference and then the president would draw the
line.
It would balance the power and reduce the tendency to overspend, but it would blow up our financial
system, which if anyone notices, is based on the sanctity of government debt.
If instead of borrowing the excess money out of the system, to spend on whatever, if the government
threatened to tax it out, people would quickly find other ways to store value than as money in
the financial system.
Since most of us save for the same general reasons, from raising children to retirement, we
could invest in these as public commons, not try to save for our exact needs. This would serve
to strengthen communities and their environments, as everyone would be more dependent on those
around them, not just having a private bank account as their personal umbilical cord.
We treat money as both medium of exchange and store of value. As Rick points out above, a medium
is like blood in the body and it needs to be carefully regulated. Conversely, the store of value
in the body is fat and while many of us do carry an excess, storing it in the circulation system
is not wise. Clogged arteries, poor circulation and high blood pressure are analogous to a bloated
financial system, poor circulation and QE.
Money is not a commodity, but a contract.
Do you realize that this supposed billionaire wealth does not consist of actual US dollars
and that, if one were to liquidate such wealth (in order to redistribute it in "fair" equal-dollars)
that number might drastically change?
The main thing these people (and indeed your pension funds) are actually hoarding are financial
assets, and those, it turns out, are actually "scarce". Or, well, I don't know what else you would
call trillions of bonds netting a negative interest rate and an elevated P/E stock market in a
low-growth environment.
It's a bit of a pickle from a macro environment. You can't just force them to liquidate their
assets, or else the whole system would collapse. It also kind of escapes the point that someone
has to hold each asset. I would be excited to see what happens when you ask Bill Gates to liquidate
his financial assets (in order to distribute the cash). An interesting thought, for sure. And
one that would probably bring the market closer to reasonable valuations.
It is simply a wrong conclusion to say "Wealth is x, and if we distribute it, everyone would
get x divided by amount of recipients in dollar terms". Now if you wanted to redistribute Bill
Gates' stake in Microsoft in some "fair" way, you could certainly try but that's not really what
you proposed.
Either way you can't approach wealth policy from a macro perspective like this, because as
soon as you start designing macro-level policy to adjust (i.e. redistribute) this wealth, the
value of it will fluctuate very wildly in dollar terms and may well leave everyone less well off
in some weird feedback loop.
"The full power of the state must be used against" #extremegreed: Except, of course, "L'etat
c'est moi "
Of course as a Bernie supporter, the writer knows that, knows that it is a long game to even
start to move any of the hoard out of Smaug's cave, that there are dwarves with glittering eyes
ready to take back and reduce to ownership and ornamentation the whole pile (maybe they might
'share" a little with the humans of Lake Town who suffered the Dragon's Fire but whose Hero drove
a mystical iron arrow through the weak place in Smaug's armor, all while Sauron and Saruman are
circling and plotting and growing hordes of genetically modified Orcs and Trolls and summoning
the demons from below
The Elves seem to be OK with a "genteel sufficiency," their wealth being useful durable stuff
like mithril armor and those lovely houses and palaces up in the trees. Humans? Grabbers and takers,
in Tolkien's mythology. I would second that view - sure seems to me that almost any of us, given
a 1000-Bagger like Zuckerman or Jobs or that Gates creature fell into, or Russian or Israeli or
African or European oligarchs for that matter (pretty universal, and expected given Davos and
Bilderberg and Koch summits) the old insatiable lambic system that drives for pleasure-to-the-max
and helps our baser tribal drives and penchant for violence to manifest and "thrive" will have
its due. Like 600 foot motor yachts and private-jet escape pods and pinnacles islands with Dr.
No-style security provided by guns and accountants and lawyers and faux-legitimate political rulers
for hire
Lots of analysis of "the problem." Not so much in the way of apparent remedies, other than
maybe lots of bleeding, where the mopes will do most of it and if history is any guide, another
Smaug will go on around taking all the gold and jewels and other concentrated wealth back to another
pile, to sit on and not maybe even gloat over because the scales are just too large
Still hoping for the emergence of an organizing principle that is more attractive that "take
whatever you can and cripple or kill anyone who objects "
"People who have more money than they hope to spend for the rest of their lives, no matter
how many of their remaining days are "rainy"; people who have more money to pass on than their
children need for a lifetime of financial security, college and retirement included; people
who have more money to pass on than their grandchildren need for a similarly secure life–these
people insist on extracting still more wealth from their workers, their clients, and taxpayers
for no purpose beyond vaingloriously hoarding it."
These are people who are obscenely wealthy as opposed to merely wealthy. The fastest way to
challenge their toxic power would be to help the latter group understand that their interests
are not aligned with the former. Most millionaires (as opposed to billionaires) will eventually
suffer when the last few drops of wealth remaining to the middle and working classes are extracted.
Their future prosperity depends on the continued existence of a viable, mass consumer economy.
The billionaires imagine (in my view falsely) that they will thrive in a neo-feudal future–
where they own everything and the vast majority of humanity exists only to serve their needs.
This is the future they are attempting to build with the new TPP/TISA/TTIP regime. If we fail
to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three classes of humans
left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves. Most neoliberal professionals, who imagine
that they will be in that second group, are delusional. Did the pharaohs have any need for people
like Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd?
Pharaohs didn't need a middle/professional class as large as the ones in most western democracies
today. But, we are going in the pharaonic direction.
The problem our polite, right wing professional classes face is that they are increasingly
too numerous for society's needs. Hence the creeping gig-i-fication of professional employment.
The wage stagnation in all but the most guild-ridden (medicine) professions.
It's so reminiscent of what happened to the industrial working class in the late 70s and 80s.
I still remember the "well-reasoned", literate arguments in magazine op-eds proclaiming how line
workers had become "excess" in the face of Asian competition and automation. How most just needed
to retrain, move to where the jobs are, tighten their belts, etc. It's identical now for lawyers,
radiologists, and many layers of the teaching professions. If I weren't part of that "professional"
class I'd find the Schadenfreude almost too delicious.
If we fail to prevent the imposition of this transnational regime there will only be three
classes of humans left: kleptocrats, their favored minions, and slaves.
Sounds about right, but you are overlooking the fact that the largest class will be The Dead.
They will not need nearly so many of Us, and we will be thinned, trimmed, pruned, marooned, or
otherwise made to go away permanently (quietly, for preference, I assume, but any way will do).
Ergo, the violence of ineffectual health care, toxic environment, poisonous food, dangerous
working conditions and violence (for instance, guns and toxic chemicals) in our homes, schools,
streets, workplaces, cities and, well, everywhere are not only a feature, but a major part of
the plan.
It has been extensively documented that the merely wealthy are very upset at the obscenely
wealthy.
If the author is truly focusing on a tax for obscene wealth I'd like to know a specific threshold.
Is it 1 Billion and up? annual limit how many times the median income before it kicks in?
Well, I'm happy to have a discussion about at what threshold a confiscatory wealth tax should
kick in; it's the kind of conversation we have with estate taxes.
I'm thinking a one off wealth tax, followed by a prevention of the resurrection of the problem
with a sharply progressive income tax. Is $1 billion the right number for this initial reclamation?
maybe. It is about the very top few, not the merely wealthy.
$1 billion is a reasonable amount of assets for determining whether to confiscate a portion
of a person's wealth in taxes. Or perhaps we could base it on a percentage of GDP. The U.S. GDP
in 2015 was approximately $17.9 trillion. Anyone with $1.79 billion or more in assets would have
1% of 1% of the U.S. GDP (0.01%). That's a lot of wealth, and surely justifies a heavy tax.
'Professionals, who imagine that they will be in that second group, are delusional. Did the
pharaohs have any need of Paul Krugman'
Sure they did. Those were called Priests who told the people what the gods were thinking. And
since Pharoah's concluded themselves gods. The slaves revolt by working less. Anybody notice the
dropping production levels the last couple of years? Whipping the slaves didn't turn out well
for the Egyptians.
A more modern similarity of the US is Rome. Vassals have been going full retard for several
years now, traitors sell international competitors military secrets while the biggest merchants
buy off the Senate.
Ceasar becomes more a figurehead until one leads a coup which has not happened yet. Aquiring
more slaves begins to cost more than what the return in general to the society brings but the
Smaugs do not care about that until the barbarians begin to revolt (See Orlando for example, the
shooter former employee of DHS. Probably pissed some of his comrades were deserted by US in some
manner.
My point was that the category of people in this priestly caste will likely be far, far smaller
than the millions of credentialed neoliberal professionals currently living large in the top 10%
of the developed world.
Interesting mental image– to see Paul Krugman chanting praises to the new Son of the Sun God
the Donald!!
Look, there's a simple way to #SlayTheSmaugs, and it's a confiscatory wealth tax coupled with
a sharply progressive income tax, as part of an overall restructuring of the political economy.
Simple, is of course, not easy; indeed my proposal is currently impossible. But like Bernie
I'm trying to change the terms of political debate, to normalize what would previously be dismissed
as too radical to be countenanced.
I don't think the looting professional class needs to be slain, in the #SlayTheSmaugs sense.
I think they can be brought to heel simply by enforcing laws and passing new ones that are already
within acceptable political debate, such as one that defines corruption as using public office
for private gain. I think norms matter to the looting professional class as well. Another re-norm-ilization
that needs to happen is remembering what a "profession" used to be
Friends and neighbors!! Most of this "wealth" is ephemeral, it is based on the "value of assets"
like stocks, bonds, real estate, et al. If all of this "wealth" gets liquidated at the same time,
values would collapse. These people are fabulously wealthy because of the incredible inflation
we have seen in the "assets" they hold.
Remember, during the Great Depression the "wealth" wasn't confiscated and redistributed, it
was destroyed because asset values collapsed and over 2000 banks failed wiping out customer accounts.
This also collapsed the money supply causing debt defaults, businesses failures, and worker laid
offs. No one had any money because there was none.
The US was on the gold standard limiting the creation of liquidity. President Roosevelt went
off the gold standard so that he could work to increase the money supply. It took a long time.
The result of the depression was decades of low debt, cheap housing, and hard working people who
remembered the hard times. The social mood gradually changed as their children, born in more prosperous
times, challenged the values of their parents.
Even though the bulk of what the super rich hold is in paper assets, they still hold tons of
real economy assets. They've succeeded in buying enough prime and even merely good real estate
(like multiple townhouses in Upper West Side blocks and then creating one monster home behind
the facade) to create pricing pressure on ordinary renters and homeowners in the same cities,
bidding art through the roof, owning mega-yachts and private airplanes, and most important of
all, using the money directly to reshape society along their preferred lines, witness charter
schools.
If you are going to fight against the "Greed is Good" mentality, you are going to have to address
the habits of the average middle class household. Just take a look at the over accumulation of
amenities and creature comforts. The desire to signal ones status/wealth through "stuff" is totally
out of control and completely divorced from means/income.
"But we need more voices insisting #GreedIsEvil. We need to teach that basic message at home,
in school, and in houses of worship. We need to send the right signals in our social interactions.
We need to stop coveting stuff, and start buying with a purpose: Shopping locally, buying American,
buying green and clean, and buying less. We need to waste less, share more and build community.
We need to re-norm-alize greed as evil, make it shameful again. Then we will have redefined ourselves
as citizens, not consumers."
Isn't there an idiom about cutting off the head of the snake? Once you deal with the strongest
opponents, it's easier to go after the others. Too big to fail is nothing short of feeding the
beast.
There was a time not that long ago that I would have opposed a "confiscatory wealth tax". After
looking at what most of those in the .1% are doing with their wealth, and their contempt for the
average person, those days are long gone. Plus it's good economics.
The only question is what is "obscene wealth". Well like pornography, I think we know it when
we see it.
I am wondering about the distribution of all this concentrated wealth; how much of it is spread
around in the equities and bond markets?
And if that amount was redistributed to the general public how much of it would return to the
equities and bond market?
I'm thinking not very much which would have catastrophic effects on both markets, a complete
reordering. This would undoubtedly crush the borrowing ability of our Federal government, upset
the apple cart in other words. With less money invested in the equities market it would undoubtedly
return to a lower more realistic valuation; fortunes would be lost with no redistribution.
Fair to ask: How do we achieve a confiscatory wealth tax without catastrophic unintended consequences?
But that's a very different question than: should we confiscate the Smaug's wealth?
One mechanism might be to have a government entity created to receive the stocks, bonds and
financial instruments, and then liquidate them over time. E.g. Buffett has been giving stock to
foundations for them to sell for awhile now; same kind of thing could be done. But sure, let's
have the "How" conversation
If lobbying were outlawed at the Federal level the billionaires and multi millionaires would
need to invest in something else. That signal has a multiplier effect.so your right eboit enforcement
of mostly what is on the books already. A 'wall' doesnt have to be built for illegal immigrants
either. Fine a couple dozen up the wazoo and the signal gets passed the game is over.
But until a few people's daughters are kidnapped or killed like in other 3rd world countries,
it wont change. That is sad but reality is most people do not do anything until it effects them.
I started slightly ahead of the crowd in summer of 2007 but that is because a regional banker
told me as we liked discussing history to look at debt levels of 1928 and what happened next.
On top of that, we are the like the British empire circa 1933 so we get the downside of that as
well.
Pain tends to be the catalyst of evolution that fully awakens prey to the predators.
I am sorry, Sir Smaug slayer. The underlying theme of your lengthy disquisition is that Sanders
is the legitimate voice of the 99%, and his future complicity within the Democratic Party is thereby
ameliorated by his current proposals within it. This is the true meat of your discourse ranging
so far and wide – even with the suggestion early on that we the 99% need tutoring on the evils
of greed.
Not so. That ship has sailed. Our Brexit is not yet upon us, but that it is coming, I have
no doubt. The only question is when. To paraphrase a Hannah Sell quote on such matters. . . for
decades working class people have had no representation in the halls of Congress. All of the politicians
. . . without exception, have stood in the interests of the 1% and the super-rich.
Bernie Sanders included. Hannah's remarks were more upbeat – she made an exception for Jeremy
Corbyn. Unfortunately, I can't do that. Bernie has folded. We need to acknowledge that.
One of the arguments against redistribution is that is against the sacrosanct efficient
market, which forbids making one person better off if the price is making someone else worse
off.
I think you mean downward redistribution here since upward redistribution seems to be rather
sacrosanct and definitely makes one person better off at the price of making many someones worse
off to make it happen.
Confiscatory wealth tax is too blunt an instrument to rectify the root causes discussed in
this article, and you do not want a blunt impact to the effect of disincentivizing pursuit of
financial success.
Further Centralization the populous' money will incite more corruption which is what allows
the have's to continue lording it over the have nots.
What are alternatives?
Instead Focus on minimizing corruption,
Then it will be possible to implement fair legislation that limits the options of the greed to
make decisions that results in unfair impacts on the lower class.
Increase incentives to share the wealth, (tax deductible charitable giving is an example).
We do need to encourage meritocracy whenever possible, corruption and oppression is the antithesis
to that.
We need to stop incentivizing utilization of debt, that puts the haves in control of the have
nots.
"Financial success. " As long as those words go together, and make an object of desire, the
fundamental problem ain't going away.
Of course the underlying fundamental problem of human appetite for pleasure and power ain't
going away either. Even if a lot of wealth was taken back (NOT "confiscated") from the current
crop and hopeful horde of kleptocrats
"We do need to encourage meritocracy whenever possible, corruption and oppression is the antithesis
to that."
I disagree strongly with your premise that some sort of pure and natural meritocracy has
ever existed, or could ever exist in human society. Corrupt and oppressive people will always
define as "meritorious" those qualities that they themselves possess– whether wealth, "gentle
birth," "technical skills," or whatever. We all possess the same merit of being human.
An Egyptologist, with an Oxbridge degree and extensive publications has no merit– in any meaningful
sense– inside a frozen foods warehouse. Likewise, the world's best frozen foods warehouse worker
has little to offer, when addressing a conference focused on religious practices during the reign
of Ramses II. Meritocracy is a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence of oligarchy.
An Egyptologist, with an Oxbridge degree and extensive publications has no merit– in any
meaningful sense– inside a frozen foods warehouse. Likewise, the world's best frozen foods
warehouse worker has little to offer, when addressing a conference focused on religious practices
during the reign of Ramses II. Meritocracy is a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence
of oligarchy.
I am confused.
You claim meritocracy is "a neoliberal myth, intended to obscure the existence of oligarchy",
but (seemingly) appeal to meritocratic principles to claim a warehouse worker doesnt offer much
to an academic conference. Can you clear up my misunderstanding?
I agree, btw, that Idealized meritocracy has never existed (nor can). Follow up question: There
has never been an ideal ethical human, does that mean we should stop encouraging ethical behavior?
Meritocracy is not the same as recognizing greater and lesser degrees of competence in various
activities. It is absurd to deny that some are more skillful at some things than others. Assigning
the relative "merit" to various competencies is what I find objectionable.
Encouraging ethical behavior has nothing to do with ranking the "merit" levels of different
occupations. While some occupations are inherently unethical, like that of an assassin, most can
be performed in such a way as to do no harm to others, and some are nearly always beneficial to
society at large.
Someone who did nothing but drink whiskey all day, and tell funny stories in a bar, is far
more beneficial to society at large than a busy, diligent economist dreaming up ways to justify
the looting of the kleptocrats.
Wealth Redistribution occurs when the peasants build a scaffold and frog march the aristocracy
up to a blade; when massive war wipes out a generation of aristocracy in gas filled trenches or
in the upcoming event.
"... "Among us is the great accuser, the one who will always accuse us in front of God to destroy us: Satan. He is the great accuser. And when I enter into this logic of accusing, cursing and looking to do evil to others, I enter into the logic of the 'Great Accuser' who is a 'Destroyer,' who doesn't know the word 'mercy," he added. ..."
"The only possible populism," Francis said, is a Christian kind that "listens to and serves
the people without shouting, accusing, stirring up quarrels,"
according to The Associated Press .
... ... ...
"Only the merciful resemble God the father. 'Be merciful, just as your father is merciful.'
This is the path, the path that goes against the spirit of the world," Francis said in a
Thursday homily.
"Among us is the great accuser, the one who will always accuse us in front of God to destroy
us: Satan. He is the great accuser. And when I enter into this logic of accusing, cursing and
looking to do evil to others, I enter into the logic of the 'Great Accuser' who is a
'Destroyer,' who doesn't know the word 'mercy," he added.
"... The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the wrecking ball has been brought to that. ..."
"... And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle ..."
Populism by itself cannot hold together for a lack of common values. However, Christian
Populism can hold the long road by emphasising the common values of French Christians and
European Christians.
Globalist mass-migration theology was an obvious attempt to suppress or replace common
European Christian values. In direct opposition to the Globalist screed -- Christian
Populists are rising up in France, Poland, Hungary, Italy, Austria, and elsewhere. All with a
common, unifying Christian cause and true European Values.
This movement is different from those that have come before. In the past, Anti-Christian,
Leftist, Socialism has managed to hijack Populist efforts. Here the Christian backbone of the
movement prevents that fate.
It's not true that people as a whole are driven by endless greed and 'bottomless human
desire'.
In general, people understand the limits of the world, and the mass of commoners merely
want something small and safe a nice little home, the ability to raise a family, a safe
neighbourhood and decent schools, no worries about medical care – and stability in all
of this, knowing that their little petit bourgeois lives will not be undermined or destroyed.
That is it.
There may be a little 'dreaming' about wealth and expensive toys, cars, homes, apparel,
but that is not very 'driven'. People are overall content with something humble, a safe,
stable little corner, having 'enough' and no worries.
The problem is that people are not given this, they don't have their stable little corner
in security, they see and watch what little they have being undermined. Oligarchs demand
'more', sponsoring progressive impoverishment as they extract more profit; as well as seeking
control by sponsoring social turmoil, in part via waves of invited arrivals who create great
difficulties for humble working class lives and stability.
The humble-petit-bourgeois dream is not a bad one, and seems realistic if
globalist-oligarch forces are kept in check. Europe has shown this is workable, with a number
of societies over decades, with essentially zero poverty amongst legal residents. But the
wrecking ball has been brought to that.
And perhaps the contentedness of so many Europeans for so long, has left them weakened
in spirit, and vulnerable to all the propaganda and manipulations now being used to destroy
what they have had. Perhaps it's just one more round of the famous cycle
Hard times make strong people
Strong people make good times
Good times make weak people
Weak people make hard times
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
Everybody is analyzing analyzing ..and nobody is coming out in the end with solution
not even with the hint of solution.
Everything is becoming so superficial, Speeches of politicians are totally superficial now.
News station propagate superficiality.
Accusations against Trump supporters are examples of superficiality.
..
We are living in abstract world, There is no more reality.
..
And I am net even talking about comments here.
We left the reality so far behind that if we look back we do not even see it.
@anon A lot of truth in what you say. Personally, I'm ashamed to admit that I bought into
the 'Red peril' nonsense when I was young. When leftists–yeah, back then it was the
leftists–tried to warn us that the elites were going to bust the unions, export jobs and
roll-out 'free trade', I didn't believe them. I actually couldn't then imagine that any
non-communist would be so diabolical! I was a pretty naïve kid, all in all. But then, I
guess most kids by nature are.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article. How come whenever Joe
Blow (or Jacques Bonhomme) wants something essential like healthcare, transportation or an
affordable dwelling, he is denounced as 'greedy' for demanding a bunch of 'gibmedats', but when
the big multi-national corporations want another free-trade treaty or another tax cut, this is
labelled 'progress'?
I guess that's why I just can't get into conservatism.
All of this actually helps the EU, which is not a globalist project but a regionalist
alternative to globalism. Globalism was imposed on a very reluctant EU in the 1980s by a then
hyperdominant US (I'm old enough to remember!) with Margaret Thatcher acting as an American
Trojan horse within the EU. It has never worked precisely because it contradicts the inherent
regionalist logic that underlies the whole idea of European integration.
Thus, the more the US globalist project goes under, the more the EU and similar regionalist
projects in other parts of the world come to the fore.
Just as Trumpmania spawned the pro-US and pro-globalist Brexiteers in the summer of 2016,
Trump's bull in a china shop blundering and the self-destruction of American power that has
entailed has empowered the various protest movements we've seen in Europe, none of which are
calling for the withdrawal of their countries from the EU.
People instinctively sense that Trump has defeated the notorious "TINA" argument, which in
Europe meant "the US won't let us do anything else". The ongoing collapse of American power
makes for a very turbulent and unstable situation in the world but fundamentally, we're all on
the right track. For European integration, that doesn't mean collapse but a return to the
original post-WWII project, designed to allow us to have our respective nationalisms without
killing each other at regular intervals.
That concept is so alien to the American experience that it is unsurprising that Americans
have difficulty in understanding it. Americans need to stop lumping themselves together with
Europeans and calling us all "Westerners".
@obwandiyag Contrary to obwandiyag, Durocher came over to me as the sort of sour
conservative who can't deliver goods for the people and therefore reflects that, well, people
oughtn't to demand so much goods.
Well, both kinds, the libertarian and the sour conservative, have a certain disregard for the
average guy.
The average guy is by no means crying "me,me,me" all the time and he doesn't demand the best
and the most of everything. Also, he is quite prepared too work for life, if his work is within
his range of capabilities and if it doesn't develop into a kind of modern slave labour.
But he sees, and reads, that technology improves which means that life should become easier
not more difficult.
And he too often sees that in fact he has to live worse than his father – or, if he is
the father, he sees that his sons will live worse than he. And he asks why. And the media can
give no honest explanation. (Nor can Durocher.)
In the " west " , the working people are extracted to the last cent with the all the locals IRS
and varied taxes . This surplus goes to pay faraonic governement bureaucracies which live on
the taxpayers and humiliate them , goes to subvention tax free oligarchs , and goes to
subvention all kind of stupid utopias and a wide array of social bums national and foreign .
They have killed the hen of the golden eggs . The CCCP fell in the 1990`s , our EUUSACCCP will
fall in the 2020`s ?
By the way will the Cesar of the western Roman Empire Trumpo Maximo order you Microncito
Napoleonis to go away like he is doing with his rebelius consul Maduro Petrolero ? After all
Microncito is very mean with his subdits , and after all he is not supported by the Cesar of
the eastern Roman Empire Putinos Bizantinii like Maduro Petrolero is , it would be an easy coup
, and very popular .
@Jewish minds Trump Zionism. Completely agree on "representative" democracy being a sham,
and on the feasibility and great importance of direct democracy. Realistically, though, one
still needs legal specialists who can draft workable laws and ensure their compatibility with
existing laws and constitutions. Some sort of hybrid system – a lawmaking institution, be
it elected or appointed – with oversight and ultimate arbitration by the citizens will
probably work better in practice.
Probably just as important is the media – the kind of oligarchic concentration we have
right now in the mass media is going to interfere with any kind of democracy, however much
improved over the current dysfunctional and discredited system.
I'll tell you what the average Joe Blow(Yellow Vest)wants, and it is not just more "Shiny
stuff".
1) He/She wants to be left alone. H/S is sick of breaking some law every time H/S merely
sets foot out of their house. Police forces have become nothing more than revenue sources for
the ever growing police state and have absolutely nothing to do with protecting the common man.
Pulling a cell phone out of your pocket at the wrong time is enough to get you killed by tyrant
with a badge.
2) H/S wants to be able to make enough money to raise a family and live comfortably. H/S is
sick of watching the top 1% steal everything that is not nailed down through such scams as
fractional reserve banking and stock market swindles. As the old saying goes: Give a man a gun
and he can rob a bank, give a man a bank and he can rob the world.
3)H/S wants a REAL form "affirmative action", where every man/woman is chosen for their
ability not the color of their skin or their ethnicity. A world where an an individual is
judged on their ability and nothing more.
4) H/S wants to be safe in their neighborhoods as they watch them being flooded by
uncivilized and criminal immigrants. All the while his and hers own government is confiscating
their means of self protection through such things as gun control.
5) H/S is sick of watching programs such as Social Security and Medicare being bled dry by
people who have never contributed a dime to such programs, while H/S has contributed to these
programs their entire working lives.
6)H/S is sick of these never ending wars, which are started but never fought by the men in
suits. They are tired of watching the blood suckers of war stealing not only the treasure of
their country, but the very lives of their sons and daughters. All they are saying is give
peace a chance.
So you see, it is much more than a bunch of whiny socialist wanting more free stuff.
I detect more than a whiff of National Review in this article.
Yeah. You could have replaced the byline with any one of Conservative, Inc.'s generic hack
writers and other than Durocher's improved erudition, nobody would have known the
difference.
@Michael Kenny I agree . We europeans are not " westeners " ( " occidentales " , "
occidentaux " ) ,we are just europeans , greco-roman europeans .
To call western europeans " westeners " is an English fraud , followed by the US , made to
isolate Russia from the rest of Europe and preventing the formation of a strong continental
Europe from Lisbon to Vladivostok .
We europeans , produced the greco-roman culture , the Christian culture , we consider
ourselves the land of Christian and greco-roman civilization . We consider ourselves the
fathers of most of the Americas .
For us ,europeans , at least for old ones , the " westeners " were the half mexican people
from Texas to California , the cowboys , the vaqueros . And the US easteners were the yankees
.
We always liked the cowboys , the soul of north America , the roots of north America , and
we always felt some uneasiness and distrust of the yankees , those excentric , warmonger ,
greedy , rootless ex-europeans .
All this shows the limits both of official Europeanism and short-sighted demotic populism.
The goal of both is to distract the French from their real problems, namely their spiritual
and demographic collapse. The EU as such is not the source, or even a significant cause, of
France's problems.
Germany passes immigration law to lure non-EU skilled workers . It is silly to call for
cohesion unless you halt immigration and have the strength to sacrifice for that end. France is
much further down the road to dissolution than they are over the Rhine. Germany has not
suffered much so mar, they can take far more immigration than France. Germany' business class
has reasons for increasing immigration into Germany, which is becoming ever more powerful
though building up its economic strength by abandoning ll nuclear capacity and defence against
other countries, and keeping labour costs low–by any means necessary. The USA is turning
away from defending Germany (which tried to claim the costs of it taking million refugees
should be counted as a defence contribution). For now, Germany thinks it has enough cohesion in
reserve to sacrifice some to building up its economic strength and productive capacity in
particular. In the EU, France will be subjected to German priorities.
The troubles that our society is experiencing are also sometimes due and related to the
fact that too many of our fellow citizens believe that they can earn without effort . . .
It is comparative. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants and refugees, come from
countries where if you don't work you starve. But those countries lack the flexibility
conferred by the gentrified, relaxed and complex societies of Europe.
Going all out rather than tepidly for native demographic strength is probably a bad idea,
because we don't know what national or personal qualities are going to be needed to cope with
the unexpected type of challenges that will certainly be posed in our future.
@Johnny Walker Read You are essentially right, but some of your points speak more to
America than France. In particular, police tends to be a lot less trigger-happy and generally
more lenient in France. Considering the scale of the French protests, I would say overall the
number of people who got hurt by police is very low. I even suspect that the few really bad
cases were committed not by regular police but by special agents provocateurs, trying to incite
violence in order to create a pretext for cracking down.
Amusing anecdote – I spent a couple of months in Paris a goodish number of years ago.
One French guy told me that he was stopped while driving drunk by police. He explained to them,
"it is the last night before I will be thirty years old." Police told him, "o.k., you be
careful now while driving home" and let him go.
With a monetary system based on debt, and the counterfeiting and issuance of money privately
controlled, it was inevitable that globalization and the elimination of state sovereignty would
result. Global financial capitalism is the maximizing of profit for private gain and the
socialization of losses by the state. Although, nation-states are now nothing more than
subsidiaries of the global banking cartel. As debt levels grow well beyond the ability of
states to service, let alone repay, the banking cartel need seamless access to other nation's
resources to keep the ponzi going – hence the unified global banking cartel, always
acting in concert.
The counterfeiting racket is quite ingenious. The public demanding more and more state
subsidies to ensure their standards of living, as high paying jobs disappear, never to return,
give the political class free rein to borrow well beyond tax levels, or their ability to ever
repay. Of course, there isn't sufficient savings to fund this level of borrowing on a global
scale (public and private) so it must be manufactured, or more bluntly, counterfeited. The
banking cartel then takes it's skim off the top in fees, seniorage, and interest. Over time,
this enormous skim has allowed them to buy whatever, and whomever, they want.
We live in an age of money illusion, where the enormous amount of phony money has corrupted
every aspect of society, and disguises late-stage, economic collapse. It's just as likely the
the global economy has been going nowhere in the last ten years but we can't tell because GDP,
being a measure of money transactions, presents a false picture of growth, disguised by the
enormous quantities of money counterfeited over the decade, and indeed since Mr. Greenspan took
the helm at the Fed.
It has been very successful, however, in inflating all asset classes, other than commodities
(controlled by futures derivatives trading), to increase collateral for even more debt
issuance. Of course, all these assets are tightly controlled by the counterfeiters.
Unfortunately, we have reached a point where even interest can't be paid, let alone principle.
And the underlying asset values look to be poised for collapse. Counterfeiting more money, ie.
QE, will most certainly be redeployed, but should result in collapsing currencies around the
globe, as all are in the same boat.
In effect, the western world has created a neo-feudal order, with money counterfeiters being
the overlords, rather than the land-holding thugs of the past.
A rather sad piece from someone not quite au fait with current thinking though understandable
under the circumstances.
Politics today is no longer of the 'left' or the 'right', but of globalism or nationalism. Yes,
groups like Antifa cling to the old while supporting the fascist Establishment with fascist
action. Odd lot those people.
Essentially you can't have a just society where usuary, share dealing and currency speculation
take place. The termites that practice this sort of lifestyle need to be given a spade to dig
the earth and grow their own veggies!
And democracy is just a smoke screen permitting special interest groups to over ride the
popular consensus. To have it clarified by a popular vote one way or the other is a good idea,
but can only work where the local culture supports the concept as in Switzerland, as opposed to
California where it doesn't really work properly, since the culture is alien to that sort of
concept.
Old man Le Pen's daughter is a wiley old solicitor that speaks like a fisherman's wife. The old
man won't be bothered about what has happened to his party, though it is surprising things have
stagnated a bit for National Rally.
The EU should not have expanded in to Eastern Europe and it should never have permitted the
sort of third rate politicians such as Junkers, Moderini, the Kinnocks to have the power and
the gravy they have got. The ultimate weakness is having Rothschild control all the banks and
operate his money laundering business in the City of London. The EU is just another scam and
the 520 million people in the EU are sick of it.
If you think the US is a poisoned chalice, the EU by comparison drank the Coudenhove-Calergi
poison fifty years ago and is just about to go tits up and expire. Immigrants or no immigrants,
the Austro-Japanese Richard Coudenhove-Calergi brand of pure poison has destroyed everything of
worth in Europe.
This writer touches on the edges of the truth without actually pointing a finger at the cause:
greed through usuary, share dealing and currency speculation. Until you deal with this cancer
and the termites that promote it you will never find an answer.
"... The Russians say that the preposterous Protestant fundamentalist evangelicalism is a "pseudo-religion that represents Western egoism and noting more." This type of Protestantism is obviously anti-Christian at its very core, but this is precisely the type of bastardized and heretical Christianity that would be expected to unfold in the radical individualist atmosphere of the US. ..."
"... You may be interested to know that many Russian Orthodox Christians think the radical individualist Libertarianism so popular in the US is actually "Satanic." What they mean by that is that it is the polar opposite of the Church's teaching. ..."
"... You can have Christ or you can have Mammon. Which do you choose to worship? You surely cannot worship both. ..."
"... The modern economy is built largely on fraud; it creates money out of thin air. Who's going to pay for all of this? Why, the simple worker is going to, who produces the value behind all of this bubble. We need a fair economic system where money and capital are equivalent, and are the expression of real work. ..."
The truth is that neoliberalism really does against the teaching of the Church, especially the Orthodox and Catholic branches
of the Church which adhere more to the true religion.
The Russians say that the preposterous Protestant fundamentalist evangelicalism is a "pseudo-religion that represents Western
egoism and noting more." This type of Protestantism is obviously anti-Christian at its very core, but this is precisely the type
of bastardized and heretical Christianity that would be expected to unfold in the radical individualist atmosphere of the US.
You may be interested to know that many Russian Orthodox Christians think the radical individualist Libertarianism so popular
in the US is actually "Satanic." What they mean by that is that it is the polar opposite of the Church's teaching.
... You can have Christ or you can have Mammon. Which do you choose to worship? You surely cannot worship both.
Moscow Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church:
The modern economy is built largely on fraud; it creates money out of thin air. Who's going to pay for all of this? Why,
the simple worker is going to, who produces the value behind all of this bubble. We need a fair economic system where money and
capital are equivalent, and are the expression of real work.
His Holiness Kirill Gundyaev Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias
"... The Russians say that the preposterous Protestant fundamentalist evangelicalism is a "pseudo-religion that represents Western egoism and noting more." This type of Protestantism is obviously anti-Christian at its very core, but this is precisely the type of bastardized and heretical Christianity that would be expected to unfold in the radical individualist atmosphere of the US. ..."
"... You may be interested to know that many Russian Orthodox Christians think the radical individualist Libertarianism so popular in the US is actually "Satanic." What they mean by that is that it is the polar opposite of the Church's teaching. ..."
"... You can have Christ or you can have Mammon. Which do you choose to worship? You surely cannot worship both. ..."
"... The modern economy is built largely on fraud; it creates money out of thin air. Who's going to pay for all of this? Why, the simple worker is going to, who produces the value behind all of this bubble. We need a fair economic system where money and capital are equivalent, and are the expression of real work. ..."
The truth is that neoliberalism really does against the teaching of the Church, especially the Orthodox and Catholic branches
of the Church which adhere more to the true religion.
The Russians say that the preposterous Protestant fundamentalist evangelicalism is a "pseudo-religion that represents Western
egoism and noting more." This type of Protestantism is obviously anti-Christian at its very core, but this is precisely the type
of bastardized and heretical Christianity that would be expected to unfold in the radical individualist atmosphere of the US.
You may be interested to know that many Russian Orthodox Christians think the radical individualist Libertarianism so popular
in the US is actually "Satanic." What they mean by that is that it is the polar opposite of the Church's teaching.
... You can have Christ or you can have Mammon. Which do you choose to worship? You surely cannot worship both.
Moscow Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church:
The modern economy is built largely on fraud; it creates money out of thin air. Who's going to pay for all of this? Why,
the simple worker is going to, who produces the value behind all of this bubble. We need a fair economic system where money and
capital are equivalent, and are the expression of real work.
His Holiness Kirill Gundyaev Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russias
The process of the marketization of the economy from Mill to Becker described earlier is
concluded in Becker's notions of "Human Capital" and "Economics of Crime and Punishment."
Becker reformulates the ethical modes by which one governs one's self by theorizing the
economic self as human capital that generates labor in return for income. Such self-government
is conducted by economizing one's earning power, the form of power that one commands over one's
labor. Theorizing self-government as a form of command over one's own labor, Becker inserts the
power relations of the market, which Smith identified as purchasing power over other people's
labor, into the ethical sphere of the relationship between a person andherself.
Becker's theory of self-government also entails a transformation of the technologies of the
self into an askesis of economizing the scarce means of the marketized self that have
alternative uses for the purpose ofmaximizing the earning and purchasing power one commands in
the mar- ketized economy.
The marketization of the self that turned zoon oikonomikon into a power-craving homo
economicus also makes him governable by the political monarch, as demonstrated in the Economic
analysis of Crime and Punishment. Economic man is governed through the legal framework of the
mar- ket economy. Human action is controlled by tweaking a matrix of punishments and incentives
that make the governed subject, as a prudent creature who craves to maximize his economic
power, freely choose the desired course of action that will ensure economic growth. At the same
time that Becker's technologies of the conduct of the marketized self establish a neoliberal
self-mastery, they also enable the governmental technology of conducting one self conduct in
the all-encompassing and ever growing marketized economy. Although Becker seems to reverse the
ageold ethical question, that is, how can a human, as a governed subject, become free in the
economy, into the technological one of how one can make a free human governable, the end result
is pretty much the same, as the economy is reconstituted as a sphere in which the subject is
seen as free and governed.
A neoliberal interpretation of Hobbes's economic power is found in Tullock and Buchanan's
use of economic theory to "deal with traditional problems of political science," that is, to
trace the works of Smithian economic power that have by now been transposed onto the political
sphere: Incorporat(ing) political activity as a particular form of exchange; and, as in the
market relation, mutual gains to all parties are ideally expected to result from the collective
relation. In a very real sense, therefore, political action is viewed essentially as a means
through which the "power" of all participants may be increased, if we define "power" as the
ability to command things that are desired by men. To be justified by the criteria employed
here, collective action must be advantageous to all parties. (Tullock and Buchanan 1962:23)
[Jan 29, 2019] A State of Neoliberalism by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (New African Black Panther Party)
Highly recommended!
References omitted
Notable quotes:
"... "number of refugees and displaced persons increased dramatically over the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced." ..."
"... In The Road to Serfdom ..."
"... The Road to Serfdom ..."
"... When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism -- the Mont Pelerin Society -- it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations ..."
"... Masters of the Universe ..."
"... As an ideology, neoliberalism borrows heavily from Trotskyism. "One can view neoliberalism as Trotskyism refashioned for elite ..."
"... proletarians of all countries unite ..."
"... neoliberal elites of all countries unite. ..."
"... Today Trotskyism no more confines itself to "informing" the bourgeoisie. Today Trotskyism is the center and the rallying point for the enemies of the Soviet Union, of the proletarian revolution in capitalist countries, of the Communist International. Trotskyism is trying not only to disintegrate the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, but also to disintegrate the forces that make for the dictatorship of the proletariat the world over. ..."
"... The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism ..."
"... Donald Trump is a visible product of this culture, but clearly is not the choice of the elite ruling class to serve as their "front man" for President. Rather, his role seems to have been to polarize the electorate in such a way as to assure Hillary Clinton the election, just as Bernie Sanders played a role of mobilizing the left-neoliberal camp and then sheep-dogging it into Hillary's camp. ..."
"... Bernie Sanders is this election's Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running for re-election. ..."
"... "An extraordinary feature of the U.S. electoral process is that the two dominant parties collude to dictate – via their own bipartisan "commission" – who is allowed to participate in the officially recognized presidential debates. Needless to say, the two parties set impossible barriers to the participation of any candidates other than their own . Most potential voters are thereby prevented from acquainting themselves with alternatives to the dominant consensus. ..."
"... Citizens United ..."
"... as deep in the shadows as possible ..."
"... Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an "oligarchy" in which "unlimited political bribery" has created "a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors ..."
The fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism is not simply a question of
private vs. state ownership of the means of production but of the nature of the state itself.
This is because the state is an instrument of class dictatorship. In this epoch, the state will
be either a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or a dictatorship of the proletariat. The
dictatorship of the proletariat has only one rationale for its existence which is to transform
class society into classless society and the state into a non-state that will wither away as
classless society is achieved. However, there is a great danger of the dictatorship of the
proletariat transforming back into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and thereby restoring
capitalism, so long as classes continue to exist under socialism.
Class struggle intensifies under socialism, and will until the basis of class divisions no
longer continues to be present. Communism is necessarily a global system, stateless and
classless and without national boundaries. At this stage in the evolution of
capitalist-imperialism, independent national states have ceased to exist as the global
capitalist system becomes ever more hegemonic. In this period the World Proletarian Socialist
Revolution cannot simply liberate one country at a time and meanwhile peacefully co-exist with
the global capitalist system. Rather we must wage revolution globally to defeat
capitalist-imperialism and achieve a global dictatorship of the proletariat. A system of global
revolutionary intercommunalism would be the logical form for this proletarian dictatorship.
The U.S. Military is deployed globally with bases in the majority of countries and
"partnership" arrangements to train and advise most of the world's armed forces. The U.S. is
the dominant force in NATO and of the United Nations' armed forces. A recent report by the
Institute for Economics and Peace found a mere ten nations on the planet are not at war and
completely free from conflict. The report cites an historic 10-year deterioration in world
peace, with the "number of refugees and displaced persons increased dramatically over
the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine
countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced
persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced
and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced."[1] According to the report, the
United States spends an outrageously high percentage of the globe's military expenditures -- 38
percent -- while the next largest military spender, China, accounted for considerably less, 10
percent of the global share. [2]
The principle contradiction in the world today is between the need of the monopoly
capitalist ruling class to consolidate its global hegemony and the chaos and anarchy (including
the threat of a Third World War) it is unleashing by attempting to do so. The so-called "War on
Terrorism" is but a front for capitalist-imperialism's aggressive attempts to consolidate its
global bourgeois dictatorship and subordinate every country to its hegemonic control. The
essence of communism is community, and capitalist-imperialism is the antithesis of community,
particularly under neo-liberalism, which is the final stage of imperialism. As George Monbiot
explained:
"The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938 . Among
the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich
Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt's
New Deal and the gradual development of Britain's welfare state, as manifestations of a
collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.
" In The Road to
Serfdom , published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing
individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control . Like Mises's book
Bureaucracy ,
The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy
people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax.
When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of
neoliberalism -- the Mont Pelerin Society -- it was supported financially by millionaires and
their foundations .
"With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the
Universe as "a kind of neoliberal International": a transatlantic network of
academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement's rich backers funded a
series of think tanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the
American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of
Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also
financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and
Virginia.
"As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek's view that governments should
regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way, among American apostles
such as Milton Friedman, to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for
efficiency." [3]
As an ideology, neoliberalism borrows heavily from Trotskyism. "One can view
neoliberalism as Trotskyism refashioned for elite . " [4] Instead of "
proletarians of all countries unite " we have [the] slogan "
neoliberal elites of all countries unite. " [5] Stalin purged Trotsky, but
some of his disciples made the transition to become founding intellectuals of neoliberal
ideology, and in particular its "neo-conservative" wing. "Neoliberalism is also an example of
emergence of ideologies, not from their persuasive power or inner logic, but from the private
interests of the ruling elite. Political pressure and money created the situation in which
intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail much like Catholicism prevailed during Dark Ages in
Europe. In a way, this is return to Dark Ages on a new level." [6]
Trotsky's elitism and contempt for the masses led naturally to neoliberalism. As M.J. Olgin
pointed out: Today Trotskyism no more confines itself to "informing" the bourgeoisie.
Today Trotskyism is the center and the rallying point for the enemies of the Soviet Union, of
the proletarian revolution in capitalist countries, of the Communist International. Trotskyism
is trying not only to disintegrate the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, but
also to disintegrate the forces that make for the dictatorship of the proletariat the world
over.[7]
Neoliberalism also borrows from the ideology of fascism. As Giovanni Gentile, "The
Philosopher of Fascism" expressed in a quote often attributed to Mussolini: "Fascism should
more properly be called corporatism , since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Gentile also stated in The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism , that "mankind only
progresses through division, and progress is achieved through the clash and victory of one side
over another." [8]
Neoliberalism is a new form of corporatism based on the ideology of market fundamentalism,
dominance of finance and cult of rich ("greed is good") instead of the ideology on racial or
national superiority typical for classic corporatism. Actually, some elements of the idea of
"national superiority" were preserved in a form superiority of "corporate management" and top
speculators over other people. In a way, neoliberalism considers bankers and corporations top
management to be a new Aryan race. As it relies on financial mechanisms and banks instead of
brute force of subduing people the practice of neoliberalism outside of the G7 is also called
neocolonialism. Neoliberal practice within G7 is called casino capitalism, an apt term that
underscore [s] the role of finance and stock exchange in this new social order. Neoliberalism
is an example of emergence of ideologies not from their persuasive power or inner logic, but
from the private interests of ruling elite. Political pressure and money created the
situation in which intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail .
Neoliberalism is not a collection of theories meant to improve the economy. Instead, it
should be understood as a class strategy designed to redistribute wealth upward toward an
increasingly narrow fraction of population (top 1%). It is the Marxist idea of "class
struggle" turned on its head and converted into a perverted "revolt of the elite,"
unsatisfied with the peace of the pie it is getting from the society. While previously
excessive greed was morally condemned, neoliberalism employed a slick trick of adopting
"reverse," Nietzschean Ubermench morality in bastartized form propagated in the USA under the
name of Randism. [9]
This neoliberal transformation of the society into a top 1% (or, more correctly, 0.01%)
"have and have more" and "the rest" undermined and exploited by financial oligarchy with near
complete indifference to what happens with the most unprotected lower quintile of the
population. The neoliberal reformers don't care about failures and contradictions of the
economic system which drive the majority of country population into abject poverty, as it
happened in Russia. Nor do they care about their actions such as blowing financial bubbles,
like in the USA in 2008 can move national economics toward disaster. They have a somewhat
childish, simplistic "greed is good" mentality: they just want to have their (as large as
possible) piece of economic pie fast and everything else be damned. In a way, they are
criminals and neoliberalism is a highly criminogenic creed, but it tried to conceal the
racket and plunder it inflicts of the societies under the dense smoke screen of "free market"
newspeak.
That means that in most countries neoliberalism is an unstable social order as plunder
can't continue indefinitely. It was partially reversed in Chile, Russia, and several other
countries. It was never fully adopted in northern Europe.
One can see an example of this smoke screen in Thatcher's dictum of neoliberalism: "There
is no such thing as society. There are only individuals and families." In foreign policy
neoliberalism behaves like brutal imperialism which subdue countries either by debt slavery
or direct military intervention. In a neoliberal view the world consist of four concentric
cycles which in order of diminishing importance are .
Finance
Economics
Society
Planet
Finance is accepted as the most important institution of the civilization which should
govern all other spheres of life. It is clear that such a one-dimensional view is wrong, but
neoliberals like communists before them have a keen sense of mission and made its "long march
through the institutions" and changed the way Americans think (Using the four "M" strategy --
money, media, marketing, and management)
A well-oiled machine of foundations, lobbies, think-tanks, economic departments of major
universities, publications, political cadres, lawyers and activist organizations slowly and
strategically took over nation after nation. A broad alliance of neo-liberals,
neo-conservatives and the religious right successfully manufactured a new common sense,
assaulted Enlightenment values and formed a new elite, the top layer of society, where this
"greed is good" culture is created and legitimized. [10]
Donald Trump is a visible product of this culture, but clearly is not the choice of the
elite ruling class to serve as their "front man" for President. Rather, his role seems to have
been to polarize the electorate in such a way as to assure Hillary Clinton the election, just
as Bernie Sanders played a role of mobilizing the left-neoliberal camp and then sheep-dogging
it into Hillary's camp. As Bruce A. Dixon explained:
" Bernie Sanders is this election's Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the
Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat
running for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to
the left of the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination.
Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and
voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the
Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two-party
box." [11]
Once you realize what the principle contradiction in the world is, and how the game of
bourgeois "democracy" is played, the current election become as predictable and blatantly
scripted as professional wrestling. As Victor Wallace explained:
"An extraordinary feature of the U.S. electoral process is that the two dominant
parties collude to dictate – via their own bipartisan "commission" – who is
allowed to participate in the officially recognized presidential debates. Needless to say,
the two parties set impossible barriers to the participation of any
candidates other than their own . Most potential voters are thereby prevented from
acquainting themselves with alternatives to the dominant consensus.
"This practice has taken on glaring proportions in the 2016 campaign, which has been
marked by justified public distrust of both the dominant-party tickets. Preventing
election-theft would initially require breaking up the bipartisan stranglehold over who can
access the tens of millions of voters.
"Another distinctive U.S. trait is the absence of any constitutional guarantee of the
right to vote. Instead, a multiplicity of state laws govern voter-eligibility, as well as
ballot-access. A few states set ballot-access requirements so high as to effectively
disqualify their residents from supporting otherwise viable national candidacies. As for
voter-eligibility, it is deliberately narrowed through the time-honored practice of using
"states' rights" to impose racist agendas. Most states deny voting rights to ex-convicts, a
practice that currently disenfranchises some 6 million citizens, disproportionately from
communities of color. More recently, targeting the same constituencies, many states have
passed onerous and unnecessary voter-ID laws.
"The role of money in filtering out viable candidacies is well known. It was reinforced
by the Supreme Court'sCitizens Uniteddecision of 2010, which opened
the gate to unlimited corporate contributions.
"The priorities of corporate media point in a similar direction. Even apart from their
taste for campaign-advertising, their orientation toward celebrity and sensationalism prompts
them to give far more air-time to well known figures – the more outrageous, the better
– than to even the most viable candidates who present serious alternatives. Trump's
candidacy was thus "made" by the media, even as they kept the Sanders challenge to
Clintonas deep in the shadows as
possible." [12]
Moreover, the media, which in the U.S. is 90% owned by just six mega-corporations,
[13]
cooperates closely with the dominant establishment of the two parties in framing the questions
that are posed in the debates. And they explicitly maintain the fiction that the "commission"
running the debates is "non-partisan" when in fact it is bipartisan. [14]
"Turning finally to the voting process itself, the longest-running scandal is the
holding of elections on a workday. In recent years, the resulting inconvenience has been
partially offset by the institution of early voting, which however has the disadvantage of
facilitating premature choices and of being subject to varied and volatile rules set by state
legislatures.
"The actual casting of votes on Election Day is further subject to a number of possible
abuses. These include: 1) insufficient polling places in poor neighborhoods, sometimes
resulting in waiting periods so long that individuals no longer have the time to vote; 2) the
sometimes aggressive challenging of voters' eligibility by interested parties; 3) the use of
provisional ballots which may easily end up not being counted; and 4), perhaps most
significantly, the increasingly complete reliance on computerized voting, which allows for
manipulation of the results (via "proprietary" programs) in a manner that cannot be detected.
(The probability of such manipulation – based on discrepancies between exit-polls and
official tallies – was documented by Marc Crispin Miller
in his book on the 2004 election.
"The corporate media add a final abuse in their rush – in presidential races
– to announce results in some states before the voting process has been completed
throughout the country." [15]
Despite multiple releases of hacked e-mails by WikiLeaks revealing the whole process in
detail, it seems to have little effect on the masses or on the game. The most recent batch come
from Obama's personal e-mail account and reveal that the Bush administration contacted the
future president multiple times before the election in 2008, secretly organizing the transition
of power. In one e-mail President Bush states:
" We are now at the point of deciding how to staff economic policy during the
transition, who should be the point of contact with Treasury and how to blend the transition
and campaign economic policy talent.
Normally these decisions could be made after the election, and ideally after the
selection of a National Economic Advisor, but, of course, these are not normal times. "
[16]
.... ... ...
The illusion of "democracy" is wearing thin:
Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the
Thom Hartmann Program that the
United States is now an "oligarchy" in which "unlimited political bribery" has created "a
complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors ." Both
Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, "look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to
themselves."
Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on
campaign financing like Citizens United .
Transcript:
HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, "unlimited money in politics." It seems like
a violation of principles of democracy. Your thoughts on that?
CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political
system. Now it's just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of
getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies
to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we've just seen a complete
subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect
and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election's over. The incumbents,
Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.
Somebody's who's already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than
somebody who's just a challenger . [21]
... ... ...
Kevin "Rashid" Johnson is the Minister of Defense, New African Black Panther Party
(Prison chapter)
"... As our society rushes toward technological ataraxia , it may do us some good to ponder the costs of what has become Silicon Valley's new religious covenant. For the enlightened technocrat and the venture capitalist, God is long dead and buried, democracy sundered, the American dream lost. These beliefs they keep hush-hushed, out of earshot of their consumer base. Best not to run afoul of the millions of middle-class Americans who have developed slavish devotions to their smartphones and tablets and Echo Dots, pouring billions into the coffers of the ballooning technocracy. ..."
"... The problem with Silicon Valley elites is a bit simpler than that. They are all very smart, but their knowledge is limited. They know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition. Hence they see everything as an engineering problem, something with an optimal, measurable solution. ..."
"... As Tucker Carlson is realizing, Artificial Intelligence eliminating around 55% of all jobs (as the Future of Employment study found) so that wealthy people can have more disposable income to demand other services also provided by robots is madness. This is religious devotion either to defacto anarcho-capitalism, transhumanism, or both. ..."
"... @TheSnark -- valid observation: The Silicon Valley elites " know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition." Religion is not an engineering issue. Knowing a little about history, philosophy, human condition would help them to understand that humans need something for their soul. And the human soul is not described by boolean "1"s or "0"s ..."
"... Zuckerberg's comment about the Roman Empire is bizzare.to say the least. Augustus didn't create "200 years of peace". The Roman Empire was constantly conquering its neighbors. And of the first 5 Roman Emperors, Augustus was the only one who defintly died of natural causes ..."
"... This time period was an extremely violent time period. The fact that Zuckerberg doesn't realize this, indicates to me that while he is smart at creating a business, he is basically a pseudo-intellectual ..."
They've rejected God and tradition in favor of an egoistic radicalism that sees their fellow man as expendable.
As our society rushes toward technological ataraxia , it may do us some good to ponder the costs of what has become
Silicon Valley's new religious covenant. For the enlightened technocrat and the venture capitalist, God is long dead and buried,
democracy sundered, the American dream lost. These beliefs they keep hush-hushed, out of earshot of their consumer base. Best not
to run afoul of the millions of middle-class Americans who have developed slavish devotions to their smartphones and tablets and
Echo Dots, pouring billions into the coffers of the ballooning technocracy.
While Silicon Valley types delay giving their own children screens, knowing full well their deleterious effects on cognitive and
social development (not to mention their addictive qualities), they hardly bat an eye when handing these gadgets to our middle class.
Some of our Silicon oligarchs have gone so far as to call these products "demonic," yet on they go ushering them into schools, ruthlessly
agnostic as to whatever reckoning this might have for future generations.
As they do this, their political views seem to become more radical by the day. They as a class represent the junction of meritocracy
and the soft nihilism that has infiltrated almost every major institution in contemporary society. By day they inveigh against guns
and walls and inequality; by night they decamp into multimillion-dollar bunkers, safeguarded against the rest of the world, shamelessly
indifferent to their blatant hypocrisy. This cognitive dissonance results in a plundering worldview, one whose consequences are not
yet fully understood but are certainly catastrophic. Its early casualties already include some of the most fundamental elements of
American civil society: privacy, freedom of thought, even truth itself.
Hence a recent
New York Times profile of Silicon Valley's anointed guru, Yuval Harari. Harari is an Israeli futurist-philosopher whose apocalyptic
forecasts, made in books like Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow , have tantalized some of the biggest names on the political
and business scenes, including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. The Times portrays Harari as gloomy about the
modern world and especially its embrace of technology:
Part of the reason might be that Silicon Valley, at a certain level, is not optimistic on the future of democracy. The more
of a mess Washington becomes, the more interested the tech world is in creating something else, and it might not look like elected
representation. Rank-and-file coders have long been wary of regulation and curious about alternative forms of government. A separatist
streak runs through the place: Venture capitalists periodically call for California to secede or shatter, or for the creation
of corporate nation-states. And this summer, Mark Zuckerberg, who has recommended Mr. Harari to his book club, acknowledged a
fixation with the autocrat Caesar Augustus. "Basically," Mr. Zuckerberg told The New Yorker, "through a really harsh approach,
he established 200 years of world peace."
Harari understands that liberal democracy is in peril, and he's taken it upon himself to act as a foil to the anxieties of the
elite class. In return, they regale him with lavish dinner parties and treat him like their maharishi. Yet from reading the article,
one gets the impression that, at least in Harari's view, this is but a facade, or what psychologists call "reaction formation." In
other words, by paying lip service to Harari, who is skeptical of their designs, our elites hope to spare themselves from incurring
any moral responsibility for the costs of their social engineering. And "social engineering" is not a farfetched term to use. A portion
of the Times article interrogates the premise of Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World , which tells
the story of a totalitarian regime that has anesthetized a docile underclass into blind submission:
As we boarded the black gull-wing Tesla Mr. Harari had rented for his visit, he brought up Aldous Huxley. Generations have
been horrified by his novel "Brave New World," which depicts a regime of emotion control and painless consumption. Readers who
encounter the book today, Mr. Harari said, often think it sounds great. "Everything is so nice, and in that way it is an intellectually
disturbing book because you're really hard-pressed to explain what's wrong with it," he said. "And you do get today a vision coming
out of some people in Silicon Valley which goes in that direction."
Here, Harari divulges with brutal frankness the indisputable link between private atheism and political thought. Lacking an immutable
ontology, man is left in the desert, unmoored from anything to keep his insatiable passions in check. His pride entices him into
playing the role of God.
At one point in the article, Harari wonders why we should even maintain a low-skilled "useless" class, whose work is doomed to
disappear over the next several decades, replaced by artificial intelligence. "You're totally expendable," Harari tells his audience.
This is why, the Times says, the Silicon elites recommend social engineering solutions like universal income to try and mitigate
the more unpleasant effects of that "useless" class. They seem unaware (or at least they're incapable of admitting) that human nature
is imperfect, sinful, and can never be perfected from on high. Since many of the Silicon breed reject the possibility of a
timeless, intelligent metaphysics (to say nothing of Christianity), such truisms about our natures go over their heads. Metaphysics
aside, the fact that our elites are even thinking this way to begin with -- that technology may render an entire underclass "expendable"
-- is in itself cause for concern. (As Keynes once quipped, "In the long run we are all dead.")
Harari seems to have a vendetta against traditions -- which can be extrapolated to the tradition of Western civilization writ
large -- for long considering homosexuality aberrant. He is quoted as saying, "If society got this thing wrong, who guarantees it
didn't get everything else wrong as well?" Thus do the Silicon elites have the audacity to shirk their entire Western birthright,
handed down to them across generations, in the name of creating a utopia oriented around a modern, hyper-individualistic view of
man.
When man abandons God, he begins to channel his religious desire, more devouring than even his sexual instinct, into other worldly
outlets. Thus has modern liberalism evolved from a political school of thought into an out-and-out ecclesiology, one that perverts
elements of Christian dogma into technocratic channels. (Of course, one can debate whether this was liberalism's intent in the first
place.) Our elites have crafted for themselves a new religion. Humility to them is nothing more than a vice.
The reason the elites are entertaining alternatives to democracy is because they know that so long as we adhere to constitutional
government -- our American system, even in its severely compromised form -- we are bound to the utterly natural constraints hardwired
by our framers (who, by the way, revered Aristotle and Jesus). Realizing this, they seek alternative forms in Silicon Valley social
engineering projects, hoping to create a regime that will conform to their megalomaniacal fancies.
If there is a silver lining in all this, it's that in the real word, any such attempt to base a political regime on naked ego
is bound to fail. Such things have been tried before, in our lifetimes, no less, and they have never worked because they cannot work.
Man should never be made the center of the universe because, per impossible, there is already a natural order that cannot
be breached. May he come to realize this sooner rather than later. And may Mr. Harari's wildest nightmares never come to fruition.
Paul Ingrassia is a co-host of the Right on Point podcast. To listen to his podcast, click
here .
"in the real word, any such attempt to base a political regime on naked ego is bound to fail. Such things have been tried before,
in our lifetimes, no less, and they have never worked because they cannot work."
But they can create hells on earth for many decades, in which millions are consumed, until played out.
As Kipling so aptly put it, in the final stanzas of a poem:
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
"The reason the elites are entertaining alternatives to democracy is because they know that so long as we adhere to constitutional
government -- our American system, even in its severely compromised form -- we are bound to the utterly natural constraints hardwired
by our framers (who, by the way, revered Aristotle and Jesus)."
Um, you do know that one of the gravest dangers the founders feared was democracy? And the bulwarks they put in place are all
meant to constraint majority rule? Now, if the argument you are making that the elites have so corrupted the hoi polloi that only
rule by a minority of REAL AMERICANS can save us, say so, don't do the idiotic dodge of invoking democratic arguments while obviously
advocating minority rule.
The problem with Silicon Valley elites is a bit simpler than that. They are all very smart, but their knowledge is limited.
They know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition.
Hence they see everything as an engineering problem, something with an optimal, measurable solution.
As a result, they do not even understand the systems they have built; witness Zuckerberg struggling to get Facebook under control.
If they go the way the author fears it will be by accident, not design. Despite their smarts, they really don't know what they
are doing in terms of society.
As Tucker Carlson is realizing, Artificial Intelligence eliminating around 55% of all jobs (as the Future of Employment study
found) so that wealthy people can have more disposable income to demand other services also provided by robots is madness. This
is religious devotion either to defacto anarcho-capitalism, transhumanism, or both.
They're literally selling out human existence for their own myopic short-term gain, yet have a moral superiority complex.
I suppose the consensus is that the useless class gets welfare depending on their social credit score. Maybe sterilization will
lead to a higher social credits score. Dark days are coming.
@TheSnark -- valid observation: The Silicon Valley elites " know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but
know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition." Religion is not an engineering issue. Knowing a little about history,
philosophy, human condition would help them to understand that humans need something for their soul. And the human soul is not
described by boolean "1"s or "0"s
Western Culture is struggling to adapt to the new communication technologies that inhabit the Internet. That the developers of
these technologies see themselves as gods of a sort is entirely consistent with human history and nature.
The best historical example of how new communication technology can change society occurred about 500 years ago, when the printing
press was developed in Europe. A theologian and professor named Martin Luther (Perhaps you have heard of him?) composed a list
of 95 discussion questions regarding the then-current activities of The Church. That list, known as the "95 Theses" was posted
on the chapel door in Wittenburg, Germany. Before long, the list was transcribed and published. The list, and many responses,
were distributed throughout Europe. The Protestant Reformation was sparked.
The Press and Protestant Reformation it launched remains a primary foundation of today's Western Culture. It has initiated
much violence, much dissension, war with millions of deaths, The Enlightenment, and much else. The printing press ushered in the
modern era.
Just as the printing press enabled profound change in the world 500 years ago, The Internet is prompting similar disruption
today. I think we are in the early stages, and estimate that our great great grandchildren will be among the first to fully appreciate
what has been gained and lost as a result of this technology.
So the arrogance of religious believers convinced that they know "the TRUTH!", are the only ones to do so, and are justified in
forcing non-believers to act as "God says!" is to be completely ignored?
Methinks we're seeing a huge case of projection here .
The problem is also that once those religious foundations are gone, they don't come back easily. How can you talk to an atheist/muslim/buddhist
who doesn't even believe that lying is always sin? People in the west have started to think that all our nice freedoms and comfort
have magically come from the heart of humans, that we are all somehow equal and want the same things but the bible tells us the
real story: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
Then we have religions who fundamentally do not even view death as a problem. Now this is where we enter the danger zone. In
the west we have lived on such a good, superior Christian foundation we seem to have forgotten how truly horrible and inferior
the alternatives are. Suddenly you get people who endorse cannibalism and child sacrifice again, I have seen this myself. How
do you even explain to somebody that this is wrong when he fundamentally disagrees on the morality of killing?
People don't understand that Christian morality was hard fought for, they refuse to understand that human beings do not have
a magical switch that makes them disapprove of murder.
Thousands were burned alive in England just for wanting to read the bible. It is like a technological innovation. We found
a trick in the human condition, we discovered the truth about humanity. Now these coddled silicon valley people who have grown
up in a Christian society with Christian morality and protections in their arrogance think that Christian behavior is the base
of human morality anyway and needs no protection. Thanks to them in no small part the entire world is currently doing its utmost
to reject the reality of the bible. We see insane propositions that say we should not judge people. Or that everyone is equal.
Of course the bible never says that with the meaning they imply, but it was coopted beautifully for their own evil agenda. Yes
evil, did I mention that our technocratic genius overlords don't believe in that either?
How can you talk with somebody that has rejected the most base truths of human life. How can you say a murderer is equal to
a non-criminal? You must understand that these new age fake Christians truly think like this, they truly believe that everyone
is equal. You can't allow yourself to think that 'oh they just mean we are all equal like.. on a human level, in our humanity'.
Nono, I made the mistake to be too charitable with them. They actually think we are all equal no matter what. I found it hard
to believe that we have degenerated so much, I have been in a quasi state of shock for a long time over this.
Zuckerberg's comment about the Roman Empire is bizzare.to say the least. Augustus didn't create "200 years of peace". The
Roman Empire was constantly conquering its neighbors. And of the first 5 Roman Emperors, Augustus was the only one who defintly
died of natural causes
This time period was an extremely violent time period. The fact that Zuckerberg doesn't realize this, indicates to me that
while he is smart at creating a business, he is basically a pseudo-intellectual
"... Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently – the greatest democracy. ..."
Marks **** s Hitler, but Hitler was pretty good at *** ing Marks too. Listen to this logic: The party that Hitler belonged
to, was called National-Socialist, yet he hated communist and attacked Russia.
Communism and socialism are the same. There never was communism – that's what they were "aspiring" to become in some distant
utopian future. So Hitler attacking Russia because they were communist is like US attacking France because they are capitalists.
Total propaganda BS on the part of the Nazis – calling themselves "Socialists".
The whole last century has been spent on one major task by the west: Combat socialism. Mainly by wars, but propaganda also.
And yet, socialism refuses to die. And the idea will never die. I know, someone will say, where have you been in the last almost
30 years? Capitalism defeated socialism in the cold war. Not so fast. Capitalism may have scored a major victory but it may have
sustained a mortal self-inflicted wound of propaganda nature. In the last 100 years 3 major ways to fight socialism domestically
were discovered:
FDR approach – include little bit of socialism into capitalism, to prevent a lot of socialism (total takeover). Nazi
Germany approach – include none of socialism, but only use its name for propaganda and pretend that all is hunky-dory, and
that "socialism" is already here. US approach – include a little bit of fake socialism in order to prevent a lot of real
socialism from taking over. That's how multiculturalism came into being.
Again, I must say that the best approach was FDR's. If capitalism wants to survive – that's the way to go. Despite all the
numerous wars against socialist countries, US haven't been able to erase the idea of socialism like they were hoping for.
If you want proof of this, just look at the last US election. Along comes Bernie Sanders, just mentions the name socialism
few times – claiming himself to be one – socialist, and wins the primaries, only to be robbed by the Democratic mafia bosses who
couldn't stand the idea of "socialist" running for president – after all the US has done to destroy socialism.
By the way, I think that Bernie is a good guy, but he is probably as much socialist as Adolf used to be. It still demonstrates
the power of the socialist idea to attract people. Pretty clever propaganda ploy on Bernie's part, but there was no chance in
hell the "democrats" would let him run for president on that platform.
And he would have defeated Trump. Talking about exercise in futility – US trying to erase the idea of socialism. That's what
made them inflict the mortal wound of fake socialism on themselves and might in the end destroy them. FDR approach was the best
– little bit of socialism to prevent a lot of it.
How about " Nope ". Communism is an end ; Socialism is a means that Marx considered the most likely to
enable the end-point to be achieved. It's akin to saying that a mall (the end) and a car (the means) are "the same
thing", on the basis that a car is an efficient way to get to the mall.
To flesh it out: Communism is explicitly anarchic, and is mainly characterised by
material abundance and the fulfillment of (self-limited) wants;
no ownership of property (not by individuals or the state);
no class stratification (and hence no political organisations whatsoever);
work as a 'prime want' (not a disutility that must be compensated).
This all seems slightly silly when you write it down, so Marx recognised that there had to be a ' radical transformation
of consciousness ' whereby people didn't want what they couldn't have.
He reckoned that the best way was to entrust an enlightened clique (the ' vanguard of the proletariat ') to take control,
and to force society towards the 'end' by coercion – until such time as the end was in sight, whereupon the enlightened vanguard
would relinquish control and society would be on a glide path to utopia.
And doing that specifically requires that the 'vanguard' controls production and allocation decisions during the transition
– which he thought (wrongly) means that the means of production must be owned by the State.
Hence Socialism.
His end is correct so long as you add one adjective. A society free of artificial stratification is a desirable
end. His means were totally wrong because he was a fucking idiot (as well as being a parasitic charlatan). The State
would not relinquish control under any circumstances, and will actively undermine any mechanism that raises everyone (because
that would narrow the gap between the political class and the demos can't have that).
A society free of artificial stratification is where we will end up once technological progress gets past its next 'knee' ('
The Singularity ') it would be hastened if the parasites in the global political class are put to the sword.
I don't think you understood my argument here. You are correct. Socialism and Communism are not the same in philosophical sense.
My argument was that for all practical purposes Communism never existed – and probably never will. Only Socialism existed in one
form or another in few dozen countries.
Those who really, really didn't want socialism, thought that it would be a great idea to fake it – so people won't miss
it so much. Prime examples of this great idea – fake it, so hopefully you won't have to make it – are Nazi Germany and currently
– the greatest democracy.
[Jan 29, 2019] A State of Neoliberalism by Kevin "Rashid" Johnson (New African Black Panther Party)
Highly recommended!
References omitted
Notable quotes:
"... "number of refugees and displaced persons increased dramatically over the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced." ..."
"... In The Road to Serfdom ..."
"... The Road to Serfdom ..."
"... When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism -- the Mont Pelerin Society -- it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations ..."
"... Masters of the Universe ..."
"... As an ideology, neoliberalism borrows heavily from Trotskyism. "One can view neoliberalism as Trotskyism refashioned for elite ..."
"... proletarians of all countries unite ..."
"... neoliberal elites of all countries unite. ..."
"... Today Trotskyism no more confines itself to "informing" the bourgeoisie. Today Trotskyism is the center and the rallying point for the enemies of the Soviet Union, of the proletarian revolution in capitalist countries, of the Communist International. Trotskyism is trying not only to disintegrate the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, but also to disintegrate the forces that make for the dictatorship of the proletariat the world over. ..."
"... The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism ..."
"... Donald Trump is a visible product of this culture, but clearly is not the choice of the elite ruling class to serve as their "front man" for President. Rather, his role seems to have been to polarize the electorate in such a way as to assure Hillary Clinton the election, just as Bernie Sanders played a role of mobilizing the left-neoliberal camp and then sheep-dogging it into Hillary's camp. ..."
"... Bernie Sanders is this election's Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat running for re-election. ..."
"... "An extraordinary feature of the U.S. electoral process is that the two dominant parties collude to dictate – via their own bipartisan "commission" – who is allowed to participate in the officially recognized presidential debates. Needless to say, the two parties set impossible barriers to the participation of any candidates other than their own . Most potential voters are thereby prevented from acquainting themselves with alternatives to the dominant consensus. ..."
"... Citizens United ..."
"... as deep in the shadows as possible ..."
"... Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the Thom Hartmann Program that the United States is now an "oligarchy" in which "unlimited political bribery" has created "a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors ..."
The fundamental difference between socialism and capitalism is not simply a question of
private vs. state ownership of the means of production but of the nature of the state itself.
This is because the state is an instrument of class dictatorship. In this epoch, the state will
be either a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or a dictatorship of the proletariat. The
dictatorship of the proletariat has only one rationale for its existence which is to transform
class society into classless society and the state into a non-state that will wither away as
classless society is achieved. However, there is a great danger of the dictatorship of the
proletariat transforming back into a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and thereby restoring
capitalism, so long as classes continue to exist under socialism.
Class struggle intensifies under socialism, and will until the basis of class divisions no
longer continues to be present. Communism is necessarily a global system, stateless and
classless and without national boundaries. At this stage in the evolution of
capitalist-imperialism, independent national states have ceased to exist as the global
capitalist system becomes ever more hegemonic. In this period the World Proletarian Socialist
Revolution cannot simply liberate one country at a time and meanwhile peacefully co-exist with
the global capitalist system. Rather we must wage revolution globally to defeat
capitalist-imperialism and achieve a global dictatorship of the proletariat. A system of global
revolutionary intercommunalism would be the logical form for this proletarian dictatorship.
The U.S. Military is deployed globally with bases in the majority of countries and
"partnership" arrangements to train and advise most of the world's armed forces. The U.S. is
the dominant force in NATO and of the United Nations' armed forces. A recent report by the
Institute for Economics and Peace found a mere ten nations on the planet are not at war and
completely free from conflict. The report cites an historic 10-year deterioration in world
peace, with the "number of refugees and displaced persons increased dramatically over
the decade, doubling from 2007 to 2015, to approximately 60 million people. There are nine
countries with more than 10 per cent of their population classified as refugees or displaced
persons with Somalia and South Sudan having more than 20 per cent of their population displaced
and Syria with over 60 per cent displaced."[1] According to the report, the
United States spends an outrageously high percentage of the globe's military expenditures -- 38
percent -- while the next largest military spender, China, accounted for considerably less, 10
percent of the global share. [2]
The principle contradiction in the world today is between the need of the monopoly
capitalist ruling class to consolidate its global hegemony and the chaos and anarchy (including
the threat of a Third World War) it is unleashing by attempting to do so. The so-called "War on
Terrorism" is but a front for capitalist-imperialism's aggressive attempts to consolidate its
global bourgeois dictatorship and subordinate every country to its hegemonic control. The
essence of communism is community, and capitalist-imperialism is the antithesis of community,
particularly under neo-liberalism, which is the final stage of imperialism. As George Monbiot
explained:
"The term neoliberalism was coined at a meeting in Paris in 1938 . Among
the delegates were two men who came to define the ideology, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich
Hayek. Both exiles from Austria, they saw social democracy, exemplified by Franklin Roosevelt's
New Deal and the gradual development of Britain's welfare state, as manifestations of a
collectivism that occupied the same spectrum as nazism and communism.
" In The Road to
Serfdom , published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing
individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control . Like Mises's book
Bureaucracy ,
The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy
people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax.
When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of
neoliberalism -- the Mont Pelerin Society -- it was supported financially by millionaires and
their foundations .
"With their help, he began to create what Daniel Stedman Jones describes in Masters of the
Universe as "a kind of neoliberal International": a transatlantic network of
academics, businessmen, journalists and activists. The movement's rich backers funded a
series of think tanks which would refine and promote the ideology. Among them were the
American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Cato Institute, the Institute of
Economic Affairs, the Centre for Policy Studies and the Adam Smith Institute. They also
financed academic positions and departments, particularly at the universities of Chicago and
Virginia.
"As it evolved, neoliberalism became more strident. Hayek's view that governments should
regulate competition to prevent monopolies from forming gave way, among American apostles
such as Milton Friedman, to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for
efficiency." [3]
As an ideology, neoliberalism borrows heavily from Trotskyism. "One can view
neoliberalism as Trotskyism refashioned for elite . " [4] Instead of "
proletarians of all countries unite " we have [the] slogan "
neoliberal elites of all countries unite. " [5] Stalin purged Trotsky, but
some of his disciples made the transition to become founding intellectuals of neoliberal
ideology, and in particular its "neo-conservative" wing. "Neoliberalism is also an example of
emergence of ideologies, not from their persuasive power or inner logic, but from the private
interests of the ruling elite. Political pressure and money created the situation in which
intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail much like Catholicism prevailed during Dark Ages in
Europe. In a way, this is return to Dark Ages on a new level." [6]
Trotsky's elitism and contempt for the masses led naturally to neoliberalism. As M.J. Olgin
pointed out: Today Trotskyism no more confines itself to "informing" the bourgeoisie.
Today Trotskyism is the center and the rallying point for the enemies of the Soviet Union, of
the proletarian revolution in capitalist countries, of the Communist International. Trotskyism
is trying not only to disintegrate the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union, but
also to disintegrate the forces that make for the dictatorship of the proletariat the world
over.[7]
Neoliberalism also borrows from the ideology of fascism. As Giovanni Gentile, "The
Philosopher of Fascism" expressed in a quote often attributed to Mussolini: "Fascism should
more properly be called corporatism , since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Gentile also stated in The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism , that "mankind only
progresses through division, and progress is achieved through the clash and victory of one side
over another." [8]
Neoliberalism is a new form of corporatism based on the ideology of market fundamentalism,
dominance of finance and cult of rich ("greed is good") instead of the ideology on racial or
national superiority typical for classic corporatism. Actually, some elements of the idea of
"national superiority" were preserved in a form superiority of "corporate management" and top
speculators over other people. In a way, neoliberalism considers bankers and corporations top
management to be a new Aryan race. As it relies on financial mechanisms and banks instead of
brute force of subduing people the practice of neoliberalism outside of the G7 is also called
neocolonialism. Neoliberal practice within G7 is called casino capitalism, an apt term that
underscore [s] the role of finance and stock exchange in this new social order. Neoliberalism
is an example of emergence of ideologies not from their persuasive power or inner logic, but
from the private interests of ruling elite. Political pressure and money created the
situation in which intellectually bankrupt ideas could prevail .
Neoliberalism is not a collection of theories meant to improve the economy. Instead, it
should be understood as a class strategy designed to redistribute wealth upward toward an
increasingly narrow fraction of population (top 1%). It is the Marxist idea of "class
struggle" turned on its head and converted into a perverted "revolt of the elite,"
unsatisfied with the peace of the pie it is getting from the society. While previously
excessive greed was morally condemned, neoliberalism employed a slick trick of adopting
"reverse," Nietzschean Ubermench morality in bastartized form propagated in the USA under the
name of Randism. [9]
This neoliberal transformation of the society into a top 1% (or, more correctly, 0.01%)
"have and have more" and "the rest" undermined and exploited by financial oligarchy with near
complete indifference to what happens with the most unprotected lower quintile of the
population. The neoliberal reformers don't care about failures and contradictions of the
economic system which drive the majority of country population into abject poverty, as it
happened in Russia. Nor do they care about their actions such as blowing financial bubbles,
like in the USA in 2008 can move national economics toward disaster. They have a somewhat
childish, simplistic "greed is good" mentality: they just want to have their (as large as
possible) piece of economic pie fast and everything else be damned. In a way, they are
criminals and neoliberalism is a highly criminogenic creed, but it tried to conceal the
racket and plunder it inflicts of the societies under the dense smoke screen of "free market"
newspeak.
That means that in most countries neoliberalism is an unstable social order as plunder
can't continue indefinitely. It was partially reversed in Chile, Russia, and several other
countries. It was never fully adopted in northern Europe.
One can see an example of this smoke screen in Thatcher's dictum of neoliberalism: "There
is no such thing as society. There are only individuals and families." In foreign policy
neoliberalism behaves like brutal imperialism which subdue countries either by debt slavery
or direct military intervention. In a neoliberal view the world consist of four concentric
cycles which in order of diminishing importance are .
Finance
Economics
Society
Planet
Finance is accepted as the most important institution of the civilization which should
govern all other spheres of life. It is clear that such a one-dimensional view is wrong, but
neoliberals like communists before them have a keen sense of mission and made its "long march
through the institutions" and changed the way Americans think (Using the four "M" strategy --
money, media, marketing, and management)
A well-oiled machine of foundations, lobbies, think-tanks, economic departments of major
universities, publications, political cadres, lawyers and activist organizations slowly and
strategically took over nation after nation. A broad alliance of neo-liberals,
neo-conservatives and the religious right successfully manufactured a new common sense,
assaulted Enlightenment values and formed a new elite, the top layer of society, where this
"greed is good" culture is created and legitimized. [10]
Donald Trump is a visible product of this culture, but clearly is not the choice of the
elite ruling class to serve as their "front man" for President. Rather, his role seems to have
been to polarize the electorate in such a way as to assure Hillary Clinton the election, just
as Bernie Sanders played a role of mobilizing the left-neoliberal camp and then sheep-dogging
it into Hillary's camp. As Bruce A. Dixon explained:
" Bernie Sanders is this election's Democratic sheepdog. The sheepdog is a card the
Democratic party plays every presidential primary season when there's no White House Democrat
running for re-election. The sheepdog is a presidential candidate running ostensibly to
the left of the establishment Democrat to whom the billionaires will award the nomination.
Sheepdogs are herders, and the sheepdog candidate is charged with herding activists and
voters back into the Democratic fold who might otherwise drift leftward and outside of the
Democratic party, either staying home or trying to build something outside the two-party
box." [11]
Once you realize what the principle contradiction in the world is, and how the game of
bourgeois "democracy" is played, the current election become as predictable and blatantly
scripted as professional wrestling. As Victor Wallace explained:
"An extraordinary feature of the U.S. electoral process is that the two dominant
parties collude to dictate – via their own bipartisan "commission" – who is
allowed to participate in the officially recognized presidential debates. Needless to say,
the two parties set impossible barriers to the participation of any
candidates other than their own . Most potential voters are thereby prevented from
acquainting themselves with alternatives to the dominant consensus.
"This practice has taken on glaring proportions in the 2016 campaign, which has been
marked by justified public distrust of both the dominant-party tickets. Preventing
election-theft would initially require breaking up the bipartisan stranglehold over who can
access the tens of millions of voters.
"Another distinctive U.S. trait is the absence of any constitutional guarantee of the
right to vote. Instead, a multiplicity of state laws govern voter-eligibility, as well as
ballot-access. A few states set ballot-access requirements so high as to effectively
disqualify their residents from supporting otherwise viable national candidacies. As for
voter-eligibility, it is deliberately narrowed through the time-honored practice of using
"states' rights" to impose racist agendas. Most states deny voting rights to ex-convicts, a
practice that currently disenfranchises some 6 million citizens, disproportionately from
communities of color. More recently, targeting the same constituencies, many states have
passed onerous and unnecessary voter-ID laws.
"The role of money in filtering out viable candidacies is well known. It was reinforced
by the Supreme Court'sCitizens Uniteddecision of 2010, which opened
the gate to unlimited corporate contributions.
"The priorities of corporate media point in a similar direction. Even apart from their
taste for campaign-advertising, their orientation toward celebrity and sensationalism prompts
them to give far more air-time to well known figures – the more outrageous, the better
– than to even the most viable candidates who present serious alternatives. Trump's
candidacy was thus "made" by the media, even as they kept the Sanders challenge to
Clintonas deep in the shadows as
possible." [12]
Moreover, the media, which in the U.S. is 90% owned by just six mega-corporations,
[13]
cooperates closely with the dominant establishment of the two parties in framing the questions
that are posed in the debates. And they explicitly maintain the fiction that the "commission"
running the debates is "non-partisan" when in fact it is bipartisan. [14]
"Turning finally to the voting process itself, the longest-running scandal is the
holding of elections on a workday. In recent years, the resulting inconvenience has been
partially offset by the institution of early voting, which however has the disadvantage of
facilitating premature choices and of being subject to varied and volatile rules set by state
legislatures.
"The actual casting of votes on Election Day is further subject to a number of possible
abuses. These include: 1) insufficient polling places in poor neighborhoods, sometimes
resulting in waiting periods so long that individuals no longer have the time to vote; 2) the
sometimes aggressive challenging of voters' eligibility by interested parties; 3) the use of
provisional ballots which may easily end up not being counted; and 4), perhaps most
significantly, the increasingly complete reliance on computerized voting, which allows for
manipulation of the results (via "proprietary" programs) in a manner that cannot be detected.
(The probability of such manipulation – based on discrepancies between exit-polls and
official tallies – was documented by Marc Crispin Miller
in his book on the 2004 election.
"The corporate media add a final abuse in their rush – in presidential races
– to announce results in some states before the voting process has been completed
throughout the country." [15]
Despite multiple releases of hacked e-mails by WikiLeaks revealing the whole process in
detail, it seems to have little effect on the masses or on the game. The most recent batch come
from Obama's personal e-mail account and reveal that the Bush administration contacted the
future president multiple times before the election in 2008, secretly organizing the transition
of power. In one e-mail President Bush states:
" We are now at the point of deciding how to staff economic policy during the
transition, who should be the point of contact with Treasury and how to blend the transition
and campaign economic policy talent.
Normally these decisions could be made after the election, and ideally after the
selection of a National Economic Advisor, but, of course, these are not normal times. "
[16]
.... ... ...
The illusion of "democracy" is wearing thin:
Former president Jimmy Carter said Tuesday on the nationally syndicated radio show the
Thom Hartmann Program that the
United States is now an "oligarchy" in which "unlimited political bribery" has created "a
complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors ." Both
Democrats and Republicans, Carter said, "look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to
themselves."
Carter was responding to a question from Hartmann about recent Supreme Court decisions on
campaign financing like Citizens United .
Transcript:
HARTMANN: Our Supreme Court has now said, "unlimited money in politics." It seems like
a violation of principles of democracy. Your thoughts on that?
CARTER: It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political
system. Now it's just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of
getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies
to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we've just seen a complete
subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect
and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election's over. The incumbents,
Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves.
Somebody's who's already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than
somebody who's just a challenger . [21]
... ... ...
Kevin "Rashid" Johnson is the Minister of Defense, New African Black Panther Party
(Prison chapter)
"... Rajan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, spoke about the "concentrated and devastating" impact of technology and trade on blue-collar communities in areas like the Midwest, the anger toward "totally discredited" elites following the 2008 financial crisis, and the subsequent rise of populist nationalism, seen as a way to restore a sense of community via exclusion ..."
"... In his talk, Rajan focused on three questions related to current populist discontent: 1. Why is anger focused on trade? 2. Why now? 3. Why do so many voters turn to far-right nationalist movements? ..."
"... Frankly, "crony capitalism" has always been the primary one, as even Adam Smith noted ..."
"... Communities have become politically disempowered in large part because they have become economically disempowered. ..."
The wave of populist nationalism that has been sweeping through Western democracies
in the past two years is "a cry for help from communities who have seen growth bypass them."
So said Raghuram Rajan, the former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, during a keynote address he gave at the Stigler Center's
conference on the political
economy of finance that took place in June.
Rajan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, spoke about the "concentrated and devastating"
impact of technology and trade on blue-collar communities in areas like the Midwest, the anger toward "totally discredited" elites
following the 2008 financial crisis, and the subsequent rise of populist nationalism, seen as a way to restore a sense of community
via exclusion.
In his talk, Rajan focused on three questions related to current populist discontent: 1. Why is anger focused on trade? 2. Why
now? 3. Why do so many voters turn to far-right nationalist movements?
"Pointing fingers at these communities and telling them they don't understand is not the right answer," he warned. "In many ways,
the kind of angst that we see in industrial countries today is similar to the bleak times [of] the 1920s and 1930s. Most people in
industrial countries used to believe that their children would have a better future than their already pleasant present. Today this
is no longer true." ...
There's quite a bit more. I don't agree with everything he (Raghuram) says, but thought it might provoke discussion.
The understanding of exploitation of wage earning production workers is a better base then the 18th century liberal ideal of equality
Exploitation and oppression are obviously not the same even if they make synergistic team mates more often then not.
So long as " them " are blatantly oppressed it's easy to forget you are exploited. Unlike oppression exploitation can be so
stealthy.
So not part of the common description of the surface of daily life
Calls for equality must include a careful answer to the question "Equal with who ? "
Unearned equality is not seen as fair to those who wanna believe they earned their status. Add in the obvious : to be part
of a successful movement aimed at exclusion of some " thems " or other is narcotic
Just as fighting exclusion can be a narcotic too for " thems "
But fighting against exclusion coming from among a privileged rank among the community of would be excluders.
That is a bummer. A thankless act of sanctimony. Unless you spiritually join the " thems"
Now what have we got ?
Jim Crow thrived for decades it only ended when black arms and hands in the field at noon ...by the tens of millions were no
longer necessary to Dixie
"Pointing fingers at these communities and telling them they don't understand is not the right answer," he warned. "In many ways,
the kind of angst that we see in industrial countries today is similar to the bleak times [of] the 1920s and 1930s. Most people
in industrial countries used to believe that their children would have a better future than their already pleasant present. Today
this is no longer true." ...
I thought this sort of thinking was widely accepted only in 2016 we were told by the center left that no it's not true.
"Rajan, a professor of finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, spoke about the "concentrated and devastating"
impact of technology and trade on blue-collar communities in areas like the Midwest, the anger toward "totally discredited" elites
following the 2008 financial crisis, and the subsequent rise of populist nationalism, seen as a way to restore a sense of community
via exclusion."
Instead the center left is arguing that workers have nothing to complain about and besides they're racist/sexist.
'"These communities have become disempowered partly for economic reasons but partly also because decision-making has increasingly
been centralized toward state governments, national governments, and multilateral [agreements]," said Rajan. In the European
Union, he noted, the concentration of decision-making in Brussels has led to a lot of discontent.'
I'd suggest that this part is not true. Communities have become politically disempowered in large part because they have
become economically disempowered. A shrinking economy means a shrinking tax base and less funds to do things locally. Even
if the local government attempts to rebuild by recruiting other employers, they end up in a race to the bottom with other communities
in a similar situation.
I'd also suggest that the largest part of the "discontent" in the EU is not because of any "concentration of decision-making",
but because local (and regional, and national) politicians have used the EU as a convenient scapegoat for any required, but unpopular
action.
"... As our society rushes toward technological ataraxia , it may do us some good to ponder the costs of what has become Silicon Valley's new religious covenant. For the enlightened technocrat and the venture capitalist, God is long dead and buried, democracy sundered, the American dream lost. These beliefs they keep hush-hushed, out of earshot of their consumer base. Best not to run afoul of the millions of middle-class Americans who have developed slavish devotions to their smartphones and tablets and Echo Dots, pouring billions into the coffers of the ballooning technocracy. ..."
"... The problem with Silicon Valley elites is a bit simpler than that. They are all very smart, but their knowledge is limited. They know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition. Hence they see everything as an engineering problem, something with an optimal, measurable solution. ..."
"... As Tucker Carlson is realizing, Artificial Intelligence eliminating around 55% of all jobs (as the Future of Employment study found) so that wealthy people can have more disposable income to demand other services also provided by robots is madness. This is religious devotion either to defacto anarcho-capitalism, transhumanism, or both. ..."
"... @TheSnark -- valid observation: The Silicon Valley elites " know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition." Religion is not an engineering issue. Knowing a little about history, philosophy, human condition would help them to understand that humans need something for their soul. And the human soul is not described by boolean "1"s or "0"s ..."
"... Zuckerberg's comment about the Roman Empire is bizzare.to say the least. Augustus didn't create "200 years of peace". The Roman Empire was constantly conquering its neighbors. And of the first 5 Roman Emperors, Augustus was the only one who defintly died of natural causes ..."
"... This time period was an extremely violent time period. The fact that Zuckerberg doesn't realize this, indicates to me that while he is smart at creating a business, he is basically a pseudo-intellectual ..."
They've rejected God and tradition in favor of an egoistic radicalism that sees their fellow man as expendable.
As our society rushes toward technological ataraxia , it may do us some good to ponder the costs of what has become
Silicon Valley's new religious covenant. For the enlightened technocrat and the venture capitalist, God is long dead and buried,
democracy sundered, the American dream lost. These beliefs they keep hush-hushed, out of earshot of their consumer base. Best not
to run afoul of the millions of middle-class Americans who have developed slavish devotions to their smartphones and tablets and
Echo Dots, pouring billions into the coffers of the ballooning technocracy.
While Silicon Valley types delay giving their own children screens, knowing full well their deleterious effects on cognitive and
social development (not to mention their addictive qualities), they hardly bat an eye when handing these gadgets to our middle class.
Some of our Silicon oligarchs have gone so far as to call these products "demonic," yet on they go ushering them into schools, ruthlessly
agnostic as to whatever reckoning this might have for future generations.
As they do this, their political views seem to become more radical by the day. They as a class represent the junction of meritocracy
and the soft nihilism that has infiltrated almost every major institution in contemporary society. By day they inveigh against guns
and walls and inequality; by night they decamp into multimillion-dollar bunkers, safeguarded against the rest of the world, shamelessly
indifferent to their blatant hypocrisy. This cognitive dissonance results in a plundering worldview, one whose consequences are not
yet fully understood but are certainly catastrophic. Its early casualties already include some of the most fundamental elements of
American civil society: privacy, freedom of thought, even truth itself.
Hence a recent
New York Times profile of Silicon Valley's anointed guru, Yuval Harari. Harari is an Israeli futurist-philosopher whose apocalyptic
forecasts, made in books like Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow , have tantalized some of the biggest names on the political
and business scenes, including Barack Obama, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. The Times portrays Harari as gloomy about the
modern world and especially its embrace of technology:
Part of the reason might be that Silicon Valley, at a certain level, is not optimistic on the future of democracy. The more
of a mess Washington becomes, the more interested the tech world is in creating something else, and it might not look like elected
representation. Rank-and-file coders have long been wary of regulation and curious about alternative forms of government. A separatist
streak runs through the place: Venture capitalists periodically call for California to secede or shatter, or for the creation
of corporate nation-states. And this summer, Mark Zuckerberg, who has recommended Mr. Harari to his book club, acknowledged a
fixation with the autocrat Caesar Augustus. "Basically," Mr. Zuckerberg told The New Yorker, "through a really harsh approach,
he established 200 years of world peace."
Harari understands that liberal democracy is in peril, and he's taken it upon himself to act as a foil to the anxieties of the
elite class. In return, they regale him with lavish dinner parties and treat him like their maharishi. Yet from reading the article,
one gets the impression that, at least in Harari's view, this is but a facade, or what psychologists call "reaction formation." In
other words, by paying lip service to Harari, who is skeptical of their designs, our elites hope to spare themselves from incurring
any moral responsibility for the costs of their social engineering. And "social engineering" is not a farfetched term to use. A portion
of the Times article interrogates the premise of Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World , which tells
the story of a totalitarian regime that has anesthetized a docile underclass into blind submission:
As we boarded the black gull-wing Tesla Mr. Harari had rented for his visit, he brought up Aldous Huxley. Generations have
been horrified by his novel "Brave New World," which depicts a regime of emotion control and painless consumption. Readers who
encounter the book today, Mr. Harari said, often think it sounds great. "Everything is so nice, and in that way it is an intellectually
disturbing book because you're really hard-pressed to explain what's wrong with it," he said. "And you do get today a vision coming
out of some people in Silicon Valley which goes in that direction."
Here, Harari divulges with brutal frankness the indisputable link between private atheism and political thought. Lacking an immutable
ontology, man is left in the desert, unmoored from anything to keep his insatiable passions in check. His pride entices him into
playing the role of God.
At one point in the article, Harari wonders why we should even maintain a low-skilled "useless" class, whose work is doomed to
disappear over the next several decades, replaced by artificial intelligence. "You're totally expendable," Harari tells his audience.
This is why, the Times says, the Silicon elites recommend social engineering solutions like universal income to try and mitigate
the more unpleasant effects of that "useless" class. They seem unaware (or at least they're incapable of admitting) that human nature
is imperfect, sinful, and can never be perfected from on high. Since many of the Silicon breed reject the possibility of a
timeless, intelligent metaphysics (to say nothing of Christianity), such truisms about our natures go over their heads. Metaphysics
aside, the fact that our elites are even thinking this way to begin with -- that technology may render an entire underclass "expendable"
-- is in itself cause for concern. (As Keynes once quipped, "In the long run we are all dead.")
Harari seems to have a vendetta against traditions -- which can be extrapolated to the tradition of Western civilization writ
large -- for long considering homosexuality aberrant. He is quoted as saying, "If society got this thing wrong, who guarantees it
didn't get everything else wrong as well?" Thus do the Silicon elites have the audacity to shirk their entire Western birthright,
handed down to them across generations, in the name of creating a utopia oriented around a modern, hyper-individualistic view of
man.
When man abandons God, he begins to channel his religious desire, more devouring than even his sexual instinct, into other worldly
outlets. Thus has modern liberalism evolved from a political school of thought into an out-and-out ecclesiology, one that perverts
elements of Christian dogma into technocratic channels. (Of course, one can debate whether this was liberalism's intent in the first
place.) Our elites have crafted for themselves a new religion. Humility to them is nothing more than a vice.
The reason the elites are entertaining alternatives to democracy is because they know that so long as we adhere to constitutional
government -- our American system, even in its severely compromised form -- we are bound to the utterly natural constraints hardwired
by our framers (who, by the way, revered Aristotle and Jesus). Realizing this, they seek alternative forms in Silicon Valley social
engineering projects, hoping to create a regime that will conform to their megalomaniacal fancies.
If there is a silver lining in all this, it's that in the real word, any such attempt to base a political regime on naked ego
is bound to fail. Such things have been tried before, in our lifetimes, no less, and they have never worked because they cannot work.
Man should never be made the center of the universe because, per impossible, there is already a natural order that cannot
be breached. May he come to realize this sooner rather than later. And may Mr. Harari's wildest nightmares never come to fruition.
Paul Ingrassia is a co-host of the Right on Point podcast. To listen to his podcast, click
here .
"in the real word, any such attempt to base a political regime on naked ego is bound to fail. Such things have been tried before,
in our lifetimes, no less, and they have never worked because they cannot work."
But they can create hells on earth for many decades, in which millions are consumed, until played out.
As Kipling so aptly put it, in the final stanzas of a poem:
As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;
And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!
"The reason the elites are entertaining alternatives to democracy is because they know that so long as we adhere to constitutional
government -- our American system, even in its severely compromised form -- we are bound to the utterly natural constraints hardwired
by our framers (who, by the way, revered Aristotle and Jesus)."
Um, you do know that one of the gravest dangers the founders feared was democracy? And the bulwarks they put in place are all
meant to constraint majority rule? Now, if the argument you are making that the elites have so corrupted the hoi polloi that only
rule by a minority of REAL AMERICANS can save us, say so, don't do the idiotic dodge of invoking democratic arguments while obviously
advocating minority rule.
The problem with Silicon Valley elites is a bit simpler than that. They are all very smart, but their knowledge is limited.
They know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition.
Hence they see everything as an engineering problem, something with an optimal, measurable solution.
As a result, they do not even understand the systems they have built; witness Zuckerberg struggling to get Facebook under control.
If they go the way the author fears it will be by accident, not design. Despite their smarts, they really don't know what they
are doing in terms of society.
As Tucker Carlson is realizing, Artificial Intelligence eliminating around 55% of all jobs (as the Future of Employment study
found) so that wealthy people can have more disposable income to demand other services also provided by robots is madness. This
is religious devotion either to defacto anarcho-capitalism, transhumanism, or both.
They're literally selling out human existence for their own myopic short-term gain, yet have a moral superiority complex.
I suppose the consensus is that the useless class gets welfare depending on their social credit score. Maybe sterilization will
lead to a higher social credits score. Dark days are coming.
@TheSnark -- valid observation: The Silicon Valley elites " know everything about electronics, computers, and coding, but
know little of history, philosophy, or the human condition." Religion is not an engineering issue. Knowing a little about history,
philosophy, human condition would help them to understand that humans need something for their soul. And the human soul is not
described by boolean "1"s or "0"s
Western Culture is struggling to adapt to the new communication technologies that inhabit the Internet. That the developers of
these technologies see themselves as gods of a sort is entirely consistent with human history and nature.
The best historical example of how new communication technology can change society occurred about 500 years ago, when the printing
press was developed in Europe. A theologian and professor named Martin Luther (Perhaps you have heard of him?) composed a list
of 95 discussion questions regarding the then-current activities of The Church. That list, known as the "95 Theses" was posted
on the chapel door in Wittenburg, Germany. Before long, the list was transcribed and published. The list, and many responses,
were distributed throughout Europe. The Protestant Reformation was sparked.
The Press and Protestant Reformation it launched remains a primary foundation of today's Western Culture. It has initiated
much violence, much dissension, war with millions of deaths, The Enlightenment, and much else. The printing press ushered in the
modern era.
Just as the printing press enabled profound change in the world 500 years ago, The Internet is prompting similar disruption
today. I think we are in the early stages, and estimate that our great great grandchildren will be among the first to fully appreciate
what has been gained and lost as a result of this technology.
So the arrogance of religious believers convinced that they know "the TRUTH!", are the only ones to do so, and are justified in
forcing non-believers to act as "God says!" is to be completely ignored?
Methinks we're seeing a huge case of projection here .
The problem is also that once those religious foundations are gone, they don't come back easily. How can you talk to an atheist/muslim/buddhist
who doesn't even believe that lying is always sin? People in the west have started to think that all our nice freedoms and comfort
have magically come from the heart of humans, that we are all somehow equal and want the same things but the bible tells us the
real story: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.
Then we have religions who fundamentally do not even view death as a problem. Now this is where we enter the danger zone. In
the west we have lived on such a good, superior Christian foundation we seem to have forgotten how truly horrible and inferior
the alternatives are. Suddenly you get people who endorse cannibalism and child sacrifice again, I have seen this myself. How
do you even explain to somebody that this is wrong when he fundamentally disagrees on the morality of killing?
People don't understand that Christian morality was hard fought for, they refuse to understand that human beings do not have
a magical switch that makes them disapprove of murder.
Thousands were burned alive in England just for wanting to read the bible. It is like a technological innovation. We found
a trick in the human condition, we discovered the truth about humanity. Now these coddled silicon valley people who have grown
up in a Christian society with Christian morality and protections in their arrogance think that Christian behavior is the base
of human morality anyway and needs no protection. Thanks to them in no small part the entire world is currently doing its utmost
to reject the reality of the bible. We see insane propositions that say we should not judge people. Or that everyone is equal.
Of course the bible never says that with the meaning they imply, but it was coopted beautifully for their own evil agenda. Yes
evil, did I mention that our technocratic genius overlords don't believe in that either?
How can you talk with somebody that has rejected the most base truths of human life. How can you say a murderer is equal to
a non-criminal? You must understand that these new age fake Christians truly think like this, they truly believe that everyone
is equal. You can't allow yourself to think that 'oh they just mean we are all equal like.. on a human level, in our humanity'.
Nono, I made the mistake to be too charitable with them. They actually think we are all equal no matter what. I found it hard
to believe that we have degenerated so much, I have been in a quasi state of shock for a long time over this.
Zuckerberg's comment about the Roman Empire is bizzare.to say the least. Augustus didn't create "200 years of peace". The
Roman Empire was constantly conquering its neighbors. And of the first 5 Roman Emperors, Augustus was the only one who defintly
died of natural causes
This time period was an extremely violent time period. The fact that Zuckerberg doesn't realize this, indicates to me that
while he is smart at creating a business, he is basically a pseudo-intellectual
The EU didn't impose austerity on the UK, its own government did. We don't have the euro, in
case you haven't noticed. The US is our top overseas buyer. If we want more of that, we'll
have to take something like TTIP or worse.
The EU was a voice for African, Caribbean and Pacific producers against US transnationals,
and offered favorable terms. We've weakened that voice.
Brexit makes us more dependent on the IMF, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Citigroup
and Morgan Stanley. They're not EU bodies.
Britain opposed EU democratisation for forty years by upholding national governments' veto
powers over proposals supported by elected MEPs.
You voted against everything you claim to uphold. Because it was a vote against
everything.
None of that's even the issue. Do you have an insight to offer beyond antipathy to the
EU?
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on
that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets
broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In
other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce
grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the
guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their
folly and change course?"
What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all
the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up
diversity.
And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices
would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might
change course?
Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.
mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm
GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social,
economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no
serious comparison with third world countries and regions.
As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as
compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of
recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.
If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any
real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based
on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information
ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and
irresponsibility.
That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the
rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune
to challenge.
Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am
The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere
citizens having influencing decisions like that.
Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm
What ineffable flummadiddle!
Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed
ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a
baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller
of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).
So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!
But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public
then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a
Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.
It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through
with it.
Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm
"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually
existed is beside the point."
It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of
the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in
Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national
independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.
Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm
It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.
We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats,
frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And
they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.
A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that
Americans will be Americans again.
Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm
An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of
the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those
institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.
As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and
their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and
evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to
rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.
Can the elite be afflicted by some mass disease. Is Neoconservatism a deadly infection ?
Theoretically Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based on
that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information ever gets
broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and irresponsibility. In
other words they spearheaded a dangerous disease to stay in power. And eventually got infected themselves.
Notable quotes:
"... "But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their folly and change course?" ..."
"... That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune to challenge. ..."
"... The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere citizens having influencing decisions like that. ..."
"... An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated. ..."
"... As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and evil - begin to have real effect. ..."
"But what if the elites get things wrong? What if the policies they promulgate produce
grotesque inequality or lead to permanent war? Who then has the authority to disregard the
guardians, if not the people themselves? How else will the elites come to recognize their
folly and change course?"
What if, on election day, you only have a choice between 2 candidates. Both favoring all
the wrong choices, but one tends to talk up Christianity and family and the other talks up
diversity.
And both get their funding from the very wealthy and corporations. And any 3rd choices
would be "throwing your vote away". How would you ever get to vote for someone who might
change course?
Democracy has little to actually do with choice or power.
mlopez, January 18, 2019 at 6:22 pm
GB may not have been any utopia in 1914, but it was certainly geo-politically dominant. It's common people's social,
economic and cultural living standards most assuredly was vastly improved over Russian, or European peasants. There can be no
serious comparison with third world countries and regions.
As for the US, there can be absolutely no debate about its own dominance, or material standard of living after 1945 as
compared to any where else in the world. More importantly, even uneducated and very contemporary observers were capable of
recognizing how our elites had sold out their interests in favor of the furtherance of their own.
If we are on about democratic government, then it's been generations since either country and their peoples have had any
real democracy. Democracy depends on information freely available and responsibility of the citizenry to make decisions based
on that information. The political elites have made certain precious little of reliable, unclouded and relevant information
ever gets broadcast even while popularizing, promoting and rewarding every form of misrepresentation, ignorance and
irresponsibility.
That is how they maintain control and manipulate government to facilitate their own interests to the detriment of the
rest of society. Bretix and President Trump have upset their apple cart, which they felt certain was invulnerable and immune
to challenge.
Hello / Goodbye, January 19, 2019 at 11:40 am
The elites aren't interested in polls showing Americans want out of Syria and Afghanistan, are they? Can't have mere
citizens having influencing decisions like that.
Patzinak, January 19, 2019 at 5:07 pm
What ineffable flummadiddle!
Prominent Brexiteers include Boris Johnson (dual UK/US citizenship, educated in Brussels and at Eton and Oxford, of mixed
ancestry, including a link - by illegitimate descent - to the royal houses of Prussia and the UK); Jacob Rees-Mogg (son of a
baron, educated at Eton and Oxford, amassed a solid fortune via hedge fund management); Arron Banks (millionaire, bankroller
of UKIP, made to the Brexit campaign the largest ever political donation in UK politics).
So much for "the elite" being against Brexit!
But the main problem with Brexit is this. Having voted by a slim margin in favour of Brexit, the Great British Public
then, in the general election, denied a majority to the government that had undertaken to implement it, and elected a
Parliament of whom, by a rough estimate, two thirds oppose Brexit.
It ain't that "the elite" got "things wrong". It's that bloody Joe Public can't make his mind what to do - and go through
with it.
Rossbach, January 20, 2019 at 2:14 pm
"Whether the imagined utopia of a dominant Great Britain prior to 1914 or a dominant America after 1945 ever actually
existed is beside the point."
It wasn't to restore any defunct utopia that led people to vote for Brexit or Donald Trump; it was to check the descent of
the Anglosphere into the totalitarian dystopia of forced multi-cultural globalism that caused voters to reject the EU in
Britain and Hillary Clinton in the US. It is because they believed that only with the preservation of their national
independence was there any chance or hope for a restoration of individual liberty that our people voted as they did.
Ratings System, January 17, 2019 at 1:27 pm
It's why they won't enjoy their privileges much longer. That stale charade can't and won't last.
We don't have a meritocracy. We have a pseudo-meritocracy with an unduly large contingent of aliens, liars, cheats,
frauds, and incompetents. They give each other top marks, speak each other's PC language, and hire each other's kids. And
they don't understand why things are falling apart, and why they are increasingly hated by real Americans.
A very nasty decade or two is coming our way, but after we've swept out the filth there will be a good chance that
Americans will be Americans again.
Paul Reidinger, January 17, 2019 at 2:03 pm
An excellent piece. I would add only that the so-called elites mentioned by Mr Bacevich are largely the products of
the uppermost stratum of colleges and universities, at least in the USA, and that for a generation or more now, those
institutions have indoctrinated rather than educated.
As their more recent alumni move into government, media and cultural production, the primitiveness of their views and
their inability to think - to say nothing of their fundamental ignorance about our civilization other than that it is bad and
evil - begin to have real effect. The new dark age is no longer imminent. It is here, and it is them. I see no way to
rectify the damage. When minds are ruined young, they remain ruined.
"... According to Oreshkin, the US should stop trying to blame the troubles of "open societies" on someone else, but look for the root of its problems at home. ..."
"... "Look at what is happening in America. Over the past 30 years real income of the middle class and below haven't grown almost at all. The expenses for healthcare and education have risen trifold, even taking inflation in account," Oreshkin told RT during a press conference in Davos. " Naturally, it has led to the growth of dissent in America, becoming one of the factors in Donald Trump, with all his peculiar rhetoric, becoming the president ." ..."
"... The Russian then hit the bullseye: "the problems are within the US. An external enemy, which impedes them and causes all the trouble in the US – whether Russia or China – is just substitution of concepts. " ..."
"... "Until every country realizes that the problems exist, above all, in themselves and not in some external forces, such mindset will persist and we'll continue to hear such statements," Oreshkin added, yet we are confident that anyone who relayed his important message would be dubbed a Kremlin agent and branded fake news ..."
Yet while Soros' aggressive
3295-word attack on China took many by surprise, what was just as notable was China's
response to Soros' scathing criticism: there was none.
In fact, China made it quite clear that in its opinion, Soros is no longer relevant saying
that " statements by certain people, which portray black as white and distort facts, are
completely pointless and not worthy of even a rebuttal. "
Of course, the best way for Beijing to respond to Soros' damning insinuations and
accusations is merely to ignore them, while implicitly stating that Soros is not only senile
but ideologically motivated and "distorting the facts", in short: not even worthy of a
rebuttal.
That said, Soros took aim not only at China, but also Russia, saying "I've been
concentrating on China, but open societies have many more enemies, Putin's Russia foremost
among them."
And unlike China, Russia's response to Soros' remarks was somewhat more explicit, with
Russia's Minister for Economic Development Maksim Oreshkin saying that " Washington should
focus on actually fixing its domestic problems instead of searching for external enemies to
blame them on ."
According to Oreshkin, the US should stop trying to blame the troubles of "open societies"
on someone else, but look for the root of its problems at home.
"Look at what is happening in America. Over the past 30 years real income of the middle
class and below haven't grown almost at all. The expenses for healthcare and education have
risen trifold, even taking inflation in account," Oreshkin told
RT during a press conference in
Davos. " Naturally, it has led to the growth of dissent in America, becoming one of the factors
in Donald Trump, with all his peculiar rhetoric, becoming the president ."
The Russian then hit the bullseye: "the problems are within the US. An external enemy,
which impedes them and causes all the trouble in the US – whether Russia or China –
is just substitution of concepts. "
The official warned that such an approach – expressed by Soros and other figures of
the US elite – sows nothing but confrontation, which ultimately harms the US itself end
impedes economic growth worldwide.
"Until every country realizes that the problems exist, above all, in themselves and not in
some external forces, such mindset will persist and we'll continue to hear such statements,"
Oreshkin added, yet we are confident that anyone who relayed his important message would be
dubbed a Kremlin agent and branded fake news.
Jan 25, 2019 | #GiletsJaunes
, including rising minimum wage by 40%, defaulting on sovereign debt ("already repaid several times"), exiting the EU, suppressing
speed cameras on roads, banning plastic, weakening pharmaceutical companies, and exiting NATO
Frederic Py @ Frel_7 Dec 2018
No such thing as "official" demandS on a grassroots movement which started on a single issue and has no real figurehead. This
is just an attempt to politicize a headless movement
"... the Davos crew is trying to combat populism, according to The Washington Post . It is kind of amazing that the rich people at Davos would not understand how absurd this is. ..."
"... The real incredible aspect of Davos is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is quite explicitly about rich people trying to set an agenda for the world. ..."
"... It is important to remember, the World Economic Forum is not some sort of international organization like the United Nations, the OECD, or even the International Monetary Fund. It is a for-profit organization that makes money by entertaining extremely rich people. The real outrage of the story is that top political leaders, academics, and new outlets feel obligated to entertain them. ..."
"... Davos ought to be treated as a conspiracy against labor, representative government, environmental regulation and decent living standards, but of course our admiring national press corps doesn't see it that way -- their bosses attend, after all. ..."
"... It may be best to avoid the term "populist" because it tends to be applied indiscriminately to the likes of Trump and to leftist reformers. Or if it is used for Trump it should be "fake populist". Opposition to corporatist globalization can be populistic, but Trump's version so far has been mostly fake. ..."
"... Two kinds of populism: rightwing populism (which often looks like fascism) and leftwing populism. They are quite different critters and they don't have a lot to do with each other though they agree on a few things. ..."
"... People REALLY need to re-read 1984 & refresh their memories of Orwellian good-is-bad brainwashing ..."
"... Trump is a rightwing populist, but it is very confusing. In the US anyway and often in general, rightwing populists are NOT the enemies of the rich. Note Mussolini and Hitler. Fascism really is a type of rightwing populism. ..."
"... Rightwing populism pretends to be for the people and is to some extent (protectionism, isolationalism, nationalism) but in a lot of other ways, it's just fake and it's always a cover for class rule and rule by the rich. ..."
"... The rich will go to fascism or rightwing populism if they get a threat from the Left (read Trotsky), but they don't really like them very much, think they are classless brutes, barbarians, racists, bigots, etc. ..."
"... They're not worried about Donnie. He's no class traitor. They're worried about the populism of the Left and possibly about rightwing populism in Europe. Bolzonaro and Trump are hardly threats to capital. ..."
"... He pretends to be a populist because it helps him. For example, he doesn't care about illegal immigration. He's been happy to hire undocumented workers his whole life, even now in office. But it gets his base fired up so he rails about immigration. He has no ideology, he will use whatever helps him. ..."
"... Rightwing populism is NOT cool in my boat. Rightwing populism is Bolsonaro. It's Duterte too, but that's a bit different, he's a bit more pro-people. Erdogan is a rightwing populist too, but he's rather socialist. Marie Le Pen is out and out socialist and she gets called rightwing populist. Orban is 5X more socialist than Venezuela and he gets called rightwing populist. It's all very confusing. ..."
"... But in the US and Latin America, rightwing populism is ugly stuff all right, and it tends to be associated with fascism! ..."
Let's see, cattle ranchers are against vegetarianism, coal companies are against restricting CO2 emissions, and the Davos crew
is trying to combat populism, according to
The Washington Post . It is kind of amazing that the rich people at Davos would not understand how absurd this is.
Yeah, we get that rich people don't like the idea of movements that would leave them much less rich, but is it helpful to their
cause to tell us that they are devoting their rich people's conference to combating them? The real incredible aspect of Davos
is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is quite explicitly about rich people trying
to set an agenda for the world.
It is important to remember, the World Economic Forum is not some sort of international organization like the United Nations,
the OECD, or even the International Monetary Fund. It is a for-profit organization that makes money by entertaining extremely rich
people. The real outrage of the story is that top political leaders, academics, and new outlets feel obligated to entertain them.
And the fact that so many Americans -(and especially American workers) still mistake Von Clownstick as a so called ''Populist''
- and being on their side - is... unbearable!
He IS in fact a rigthwing populist of a sort. That's what rightwing populism in the US looks like, and what it's always looked
like. Bunch of crap huh? Gimme Marie Le Pen any day.
"The real incredible aspect of Davos is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is
quite explicitly about rich people trying to set an agenda for the world." \
Agreed - like how people almost worship British Royals.. or American celebrities... and yet, unfortunately, isn't it true that
the greedmongers at Davos are not "trying," but rather "largely succeeding" at setting said world agenda?
Nothing to see here, folks, move right along . . .
Davos and TED Talks. One entertains the rich, the other the smart. The skiing is better at Davos, the ideas are better at a
TED Talk. Just remember, most of the rich aren't smart and most of the smart aren't rich. So it's all rather silly, 'though it's
easier to get rich if you're smart than it is to get smart if you're rich. Don't ask me how I know that, but I'll tell you, if
you have an ounce of human kindness in you, learning the second half of that lesson is more painful than the first.
None of this would be half as much fun outside the glare of publicity, or if not heavily spiced with the envy of the excluded.
Ishi--I don't disagree with you. Just not as stupid as the Davos drivel. Perhaps I should have said 'less bad' ideas, but I
liked the cadence of 'better' and 'better.' Gotta have cadence if you want to get the People Marching.
Davos ought to be treated as a conspiracy against labor, representative government, environmental regulation and decent
living standards, but of course our admiring national press corps doesn't see it that way -- their bosses attend, after all.
Firstly we have to treat the so called ''Populists'' as a conspiracy against labor - because they pretended in the utmost conspirational
way to be on labors side.
While It always was as clear as mud that Davos was a Party of the Rich!
It may be best to avoid the term "populist" because it tends to be applied indiscriminately to the likes of Trump and to
leftist reformers. Or if it is used for Trump it should be "fake populist". Opposition to corporatist globalization can be populistic,
but Trump's version so far has been mostly fake.
You guys need to read up. Two kinds of populism: rightwing populism (which often looks like fascism) and leftwing populism.
They are quite different critters and they don't have a lot to do with each other though they agree on a few things.
That's basically my take, too. The term is purposely misused by the propagandists to get normal people thinking "Populism"
must be something they don't like. People REALLY need to re-read 1984 & refresh their memories of Orwellian good-is-bad brainwashing.
[and even "brainwashing" is an orwellian term! Brain-NUMBING, maybe... but nothing's getting cleaned, that's for sure]
Nope US rightwing populism has often looked a lot like Trump's crap. I mean some of it was better. I have a soft spot for Huey
Long. But in the US, rightwing populism just helps the rich mostly and it tends to be fascist.
''The term is purposely misused by the propagandists to get normal people thinking "Populism" must be something they don't
like'' You mean some con-artists have conned people who liked the term ''Populism'' into liking idiocy - racism and nationalism?.
Trump is a rightwing populist, but it is very confusing. In the US anyway and often in general, rightwing populists are
NOT the enemies of the rich. Note Mussolini and Hitler. Fascism really is a type of rightwing populism.
Rightwing populism pretends to be for the people and is to some extent (protectionism, isolationalism, nationalism) but
in a lot of other ways, it's just fake and it's always a cover for class rule and rule by the rich.
The rich will go to fascism or rightwing populism if they get a threat from the Left (read Trotsky), but they don't really
like them very much, think they are classless brutes, barbarians, racists, bigots, etc.
But the rich allow them because they think they can control them and not let them get out of hand. This is what happened in
Germany. This is what often happens actually.
In a sense, rightwing populism IS fake populism because it pretends to be for the people while often fucking them over with
rightwing class rule via fascism. It's still populism, it's just not for the people. It's fraudulent, iike most rightwing bullshit.
- AND! -
to suggest - or imply? - that the type of ''Populism'' Trump -(and other so called ''Populists) represent - IS to ''leave the
Davos Crowd much less rich'' -
could be the funniest thing ever written on this blog?
They're not worried about Donnie. He's no class traitor. They're worried about the populism of the Left and possibly about
rightwing populism in Europe. Bolzonaro and Trump are hardly threats to capital.
He pretends to be a populist because it helps him. For example, he doesn't care about illegal immigration. He's been happy
to hire undocumented workers his whole life, even now in office. But it gets his base fired up so he rails about immigration.
He has no ideology, he will use whatever helps him.
and to makes sure not to be misunderstood - I also think Davos is ''pathetic'' and ''hypocritical'' - and everything
else one wants to throw at it -
BUT as one of my favorite American Philosophers said:
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
And I think he meant the current ''Populists'' of this planet! -(and lets include especially the Brazilian one too)
But isn't it GREAT- that also ''the rich'' are starting to battle morons and a...holes like Baron von Clownsticks -(or the
nationalistic idiots in the UK - or the Neo Nazis in Germany?) -
For I while I thought I was left ALL alone in order to battle the type of ''Populism''- which is nothing else than the sick
racist phantasies of some nationalistic a...holes?
Rightwing populism is NOT cool in my boat. Rightwing populism is Bolsonaro. It's Duterte too, but that's a bit different,
he's a bit more pro-people. Erdogan is a rightwing populist too, but he's rather socialist. Marie Le Pen is out and out socialist
and she gets called rightwing populist. Orban is 5X more socialist than Venezuela and he gets called rightwing populist. It's
all very confusing.
But in the US and Latin America, rightwing populism is ugly stuff all right, and it tends to be associated with fascism!
"... the Davos crew is trying to combat populism, according to The Washington Post . It is kind of amazing that the rich people at Davos would not understand how absurd this is. ..."
"... The real incredible aspect of Davos is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is quite explicitly about rich people trying to set an agenda for the world. ..."
"... It is important to remember, the World Economic Forum is not some sort of international organization like the United Nations, the OECD, or even the International Monetary Fund. It is a for-profit organization that makes money by entertaining extremely rich people. The real outrage of the story is that top political leaders, academics, and new outlets feel obligated to entertain them. ..."
"... Davos ought to be treated as a conspiracy against labor, representative government, environmental regulation and decent living standards, but of course our admiring national press corps doesn't see it that way -- their bosses attend, after all. ..."
"... It may be best to avoid the term "populist" because it tends to be applied indiscriminately to the likes of Trump and to leftist reformers. Or if it is used for Trump it should be "fake populist". Opposition to corporatist globalization can be populistic, but Trump's version so far has been mostly fake. ..."
"... Two kinds of populism: rightwing populism (which often looks like fascism) and leftwing populism. They are quite different critters and they don't have a lot to do with each other though they agree on a few things. ..."
"... People REALLY need to re-read 1984 & refresh their memories of Orwellian good-is-bad brainwashing ..."
"... Trump is a rightwing populist, but it is very confusing. In the US anyway and often in general, rightwing populists are NOT the enemies of the rich. Note Mussolini and Hitler. Fascism really is a type of rightwing populism. ..."
"... Rightwing populism pretends to be for the people and is to some extent (protectionism, isolationalism, nationalism) but in a lot of other ways, it's just fake and it's always a cover for class rule and rule by the rich. ..."
"... The rich will go to fascism or rightwing populism if they get a threat from the Left (read Trotsky), but they don't really like them very much, think they are classless brutes, barbarians, racists, bigots, etc. ..."
"... They're not worried about Donnie. He's no class traitor. They're worried about the populism of the Left and possibly about rightwing populism in Europe. Bolzonaro and Trump are hardly threats to capital. ..."
"... He pretends to be a populist because it helps him. For example, he doesn't care about illegal immigration. He's been happy to hire undocumented workers his whole life, even now in office. But it gets his base fired up so he rails about immigration. He has no ideology, he will use whatever helps him. ..."
"... Rightwing populism is NOT cool in my boat. Rightwing populism is Bolsonaro. It's Duterte too, but that's a bit different, he's a bit more pro-people. Erdogan is a rightwing populist too, but he's rather socialist. Marie Le Pen is out and out socialist and she gets called rightwing populist. Orban is 5X more socialist than Venezuela and he gets called rightwing populist. It's all very confusing. ..."
"... But in the US and Latin America, rightwing populism is ugly stuff all right, and it tends to be associated with fascism! ..."
Let's see, cattle ranchers are against vegetarianism, coal companies are against restricting CO2 emissions, and the Davos crew
is trying to combat populism, according to
The Washington Post . It is kind of amazing that the rich people at Davos would not understand how absurd this is.
Yeah, we get that rich people don't like the idea of movements that would leave them much less rich, but is it helpful to their
cause to tell us that they are devoting their rich people's conference to combating them? The real incredible aspect of Davos
is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is quite explicitly about rich people trying
to set an agenda for the world.
It is important to remember, the World Economic Forum is not some sort of international organization like the United Nations,
the OECD, or even the International Monetary Fund. It is a for-profit organization that makes money by entertaining extremely rich
people. The real outrage of the story is that top political leaders, academics, and new outlets feel obligated to entertain them.
And the fact that so many Americans -(and especially American workers) still mistake Von Clownstick as a so called ''Populist''
- and being on their side - is... unbearable!
He IS in fact a rigthwing populist of a sort. That's what rightwing populism in the US looks like, and what it's always looked
like. Bunch of crap huh? Gimme Marie Le Pen any day.
"The real incredible aspect of Davos is that so many political leaders and news organizations would go to a meeting that is
quite explicitly about rich people trying to set an agenda for the world." \
Agreed - like how people almost worship British Royals.. or American celebrities... and yet, unfortunately, isn't it true that
the greedmongers at Davos are not "trying," but rather "largely succeeding" at setting said world agenda?
Nothing to see here, folks, move right along . . .
Davos and TED Talks. One entertains the rich, the other the smart. The skiing is better at Davos, the ideas are better at a
TED Talk. Just remember, most of the rich aren't smart and most of the smart aren't rich. So it's all rather silly, 'though it's
easier to get rich if you're smart than it is to get smart if you're rich. Don't ask me how I know that, but I'll tell you, if
you have an ounce of human kindness in you, learning the second half of that lesson is more painful than the first.
None of this would be half as much fun outside the glare of publicity, or if not heavily spiced with the envy of the excluded.
Ishi--I don't disagree with you. Just not as stupid as the Davos drivel. Perhaps I should have said 'less bad' ideas, but I
liked the cadence of 'better' and 'better.' Gotta have cadence if you want to get the People Marching.
Davos ought to be treated as a conspiracy against labor, representative government, environmental regulation and decent
living standards, but of course our admiring national press corps doesn't see it that way -- their bosses attend, after all.
Firstly we have to treat the so called ''Populists'' as a conspiracy against labor - because they pretended in the utmost conspirational
way to be on labors side.
While It always was as clear as mud that Davos was a Party of the Rich!
It may be best to avoid the term "populist" because it tends to be applied indiscriminately to the likes of Trump and to
leftist reformers. Or if it is used for Trump it should be "fake populist". Opposition to corporatist globalization can be populistic,
but Trump's version so far has been mostly fake.
You guys need to read up. Two kinds of populism: rightwing populism (which often looks like fascism) and leftwing populism.
They are quite different critters and they don't have a lot to do with each other though they agree on a few things.
That's basically my take, too. The term is purposely misused by the propagandists to get normal people thinking "Populism"
must be something they don't like. People REALLY need to re-read 1984 & refresh their memories of Orwellian good-is-bad brainwashing.
[and even "brainwashing" is an orwellian term! Brain-NUMBING, maybe... but nothing's getting cleaned, that's for sure]
Nope US rightwing populism has often looked a lot like Trump's crap. I mean some of it was better. I have a soft spot for Huey
Long. But in the US, rightwing populism just helps the rich mostly and it tends to be fascist.
''The term is purposely misused by the propagandists to get normal people thinking "Populism" must be something they don't
like'' You mean some con-artists have conned people who liked the term ''Populism'' into liking idiocy - racism and nationalism?.
Trump is a rightwing populist, but it is very confusing. In the US anyway and often in general, rightwing populists are
NOT the enemies of the rich. Note Mussolini and Hitler. Fascism really is a type of rightwing populism.
Rightwing populism pretends to be for the people and is to some extent (protectionism, isolationalism, nationalism) but
in a lot of other ways, it's just fake and it's always a cover for class rule and rule by the rich.
The rich will go to fascism or rightwing populism if they get a threat from the Left (read Trotsky), but they don't really
like them very much, think they are classless brutes, barbarians, racists, bigots, etc.
But the rich allow them because they think they can control them and not let them get out of hand. This is what happened in
Germany. This is what often happens actually.
In a sense, rightwing populism IS fake populism because it pretends to be for the people while often fucking them over with
rightwing class rule via fascism. It's still populism, it's just not for the people. It's fraudulent, iike most rightwing bullshit.
- AND! -
to suggest - or imply? - that the type of ''Populism'' Trump -(and other so called ''Populists) represent - IS to ''leave the
Davos Crowd much less rich'' -
could be the funniest thing ever written on this blog?
They're not worried about Donnie. He's no class traitor. They're worried about the populism of the Left and possibly about
rightwing populism in Europe. Bolzonaro and Trump are hardly threats to capital.
He pretends to be a populist because it helps him. For example, he doesn't care about illegal immigration. He's been happy
to hire undocumented workers his whole life, even now in office. But it gets his base fired up so he rails about immigration.
He has no ideology, he will use whatever helps him.
and to makes sure not to be misunderstood - I also think Davos is ''pathetic'' and ''hypocritical'' - and everything
else one wants to throw at it -
BUT as one of my favorite American Philosophers said:
"Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity."
And I think he meant the current ''Populists'' of this planet! -(and lets include especially the Brazilian one too)
But isn't it GREAT- that also ''the rich'' are starting to battle morons and a...holes like Baron von Clownsticks -(or the
nationalistic idiots in the UK - or the Neo Nazis in Germany?) -
For I while I thought I was left ALL alone in order to battle the type of ''Populism''- which is nothing else than the sick
racist phantasies of some nationalistic a...holes?
Rightwing populism is NOT cool in my boat. Rightwing populism is Bolsonaro. It's Duterte too, but that's a bit different,
he's a bit more pro-people. Erdogan is a rightwing populist too, but he's rather socialist. Marie Le Pen is out and out socialist
and she gets called rightwing populist. Orban is 5X more socialist than Venezuela and he gets called rightwing populist. It's
all very confusing.
But in the US and Latin America, rightwing populism is ugly stuff all right, and it tends to be associated with fascism!
I would also say ideas like people age and gradually become irrelevant no matter how
strongly they are propelled by the power of the state and MSM. When neoliberalism became the
object of jokes, it is clear that its time has passed.
Neoliberal ideology experienced a severe crisis in 2007 and was by-and-large
discredited.
But Neoliberalism as a social system is resilient and can continue to exist for some time
even after ideology itself was discredited. Probably 30-50 years, if we think that
neoliberalism is a perverted flavor of Trotskyism (Financial elite of all countries unite;
Permanent neoliberal revolution until the global victory of neoliberalism) and Bolshevism
lasted 50 years after the crisis of its ideology in early 60th.
So I think that neoliberalism entered its "zombie phase." It became more bloodthirsty,
aggressive (look at Trump) and even managed to stage revenge in Argentina and Brasil deposing
less neoliberal governments with hardcore neoliberal.
But ideas age and die like people and in 2019 the ideas of neoliberalism are essentially
dead. So now it is clinging by the pure power of propaganda and coercion. That is the road to
nowhere, and I expect this neoliberalism position in the USA will be further undermined
by-elections of 2020. Maybe tax regime will start to change to byte top 1%, and maybe there is
be local and quickly suppressed insurrections/strikes, like in France; I do not know. But with
the level of inequality intact, the cracks might widen.
Degeneration of the neoliberal elite (Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, Pompeo, etc.) is another
obvious problem. Filters work in such a way that capable (and this potentially dangerous to the
system) people are eliminated at early stages of political selection. That might s danger for
the USA is not so distant future as a viable, cohesive society and currently, the Congress
really reminds Soviet Politburo. Bunch on Mayberry Machiavelli.
At least in Australia politicians started openly discuss alternatives. Here in the USA,
there is dead silence. That means that the Congress is a part of the problem, not a part of the
solution.
Another problem is with the level of militarism in the USA society. The size of MIC is a
huge problem and like cancer is curable only by surgical means. The fact is that politicians
are arguing about 5 billion wall which is something like one percent of F35 program cost (
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/f-35-program-costs-jump-to-406-billion-in-new-pentagon-estimate
)
At this point, people stop to trust both politicians and MSM re-defining them as "fake news"
which means the crisis of legitimacy of the neoliberal elite. And I think that the USA either
reached this point or is very close.
That's why the US neoliberal elite decided to cement the cracks in the neoliberal
ideological façade via Russophobia in best neo-McCarthyism fashion. The idea is to
define the common enemy and mobilizing the society against it, leaving internal frictions on
the "day after." But it looks like neoliberalism which Sheldon Wolin defined as "inverted
totalities" is bad on mass mobilization. It no longer can produce slogans or politician who can
ignite passion of common people. Obama was a fake. So is Trump.
And Russiagate gambit produced some unwanted to neoliberals externalities like the society
attention to intelligence-driven machinations and their role as a political force under
neoliberalism. Including the role of British intelligence services.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been wanting to write a response to Aaron Major's (paywalled)
article on ideas and economic power for
Catalyst.
Major argues that they don't matter nearly as much as you might think. This means that a lot of recent work focusing on economic
ideas leads us in the wrong direction.
And yet, though motivated by a genuine concern for the damage that neoliberalism has done, building a critique of neoliberalism
through an idea-centered framework is both politically disarming and reinforces pernicious aspects of the neoliberal project.
One of the recurring points that emerges from a close reading of idea-centered accounts of political and economic change is that
the materialist social context -- the structure of social divisions formed along economic lines and the way power is distributed
across those divisions -- exerts a great deal of influence over both the content of ideas as well as their relative influence.
The neoliberal political-economic agenda, like others before it, advances through a favorable balance of social forces while simultaneously
trying to obscure the role that power and material advantage plays in its success. If the strength and resilience of the elitist,
pro-capital, and dehumanizing policies and practices that are often summarized as "neoliberal" is reduced to, or primarily explained
as, the impact of ideas, and those ideas are not grounded in the balance of material forces that gives them shape and influence,
then one can easily walk away with the impression that the solution to neoliberalism is found in intellectual debate and critique,
and not what is really needed: political mobilization.
Here, in particular, he focuses on the work of Mark Blyth:
Mark Blyth's Great Transformations helped spur the recent surge in idea-centered political economy and so serves as a useful starting
point for this discussion. Like other political economists, Blyth argues that transitions from one political-economic era to another
are caused by deep, punctuated crisis. However, whereas realist political science imagines perfectly rational actors approaching
a crisis like any other problem to be solved, Blyth questions this basic premise. Political actors are not rational, he argues,
but rather rely on prevailing norms and ideas to serve as a kind of "instruction sheet" that they follow. During moments of crisis,
dominant models of economic management fail, leaving political actors grasping for some way of understanding the nature of the
problems that they face and means to address them. This opens the door to once-sidelined experts and intellectuals to chart a
new path forward by writing a new, workable instruction sheet.
Major respects what Blyth is doing – but thinks it is nonetheless misconceived.
To make a strong ideational argument stick, it is not enough to show that some ideas mattered for some social or policy change.
Rather, one has to be able to support two additional claims. First, that the formation, circulation, and debate over different
policy ideas can be explained independent of other material forces. Materialist political economy, from which Blyth is trying
to break, does not deny that economic policymaking has an important ideational component of the sort that Blyth describes, but
it also insists that material social factors play a powerful agenda-setting role, limiting the scope of policy debate. Second,
a strong ideational argument needs to be able to explain why one set of ideas beat out other, competing ideas in purely ideational
terms. A strong ideational argument suggests that the victory of one idea over another can be explained by the character of the
idea itself, not by the power or position of the actors who champion it. Great Transformations falters on both counts. What Blyth's
account reveals, though he never addresses it explicitly, is that the ideas that framed early New Deal policy innovations were
themselves shaped by the structures of US industry and agriculture and the strength of competing economic classes. It is because
US labor was organized and militant that the Roosevelt administration sought an economic program that would forge an alliance
with the working class. The political capacity of social classes not only affected which policies worked, and which policies failed
-- it also affected how policies were crafted and which ones were advanced. Blyth's more recent Austerity: History of a Dangerous
Idea is marred by the same analytical unevenness the book is hamstrung by the insistence that the story of austerity can be told
as a history of ideas. Taken as a whole, Blyth's work points to a critical challenge that scholars have faced in trying to make
idea-centered arguments for political and economic change stick, and that is explainingidea selection. Rarely does anything of
historical significance happen without heated debate, and the turn to neoliberalism is no exception. Margaret Thatcher may have
successfully exported her pithy, dismissive "There Is No Alternative," but her numerous opponents begged to differ. Sides are
formed, measures are proposed, and rationalizations are given. But who wins? Blyth's own accounts of major policy change highlights
critical moments in times of crisis when state elites were grappling with competing ideas, but neither Great Transformations nor
Austerity can really explain why some ideas went on to shape policy and others found their way into the dustbin of history.
Billionaire Michael Dell, chief executive officer of the eponymous technology giant, rejected a suggestion by U.S. Representative
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of a 70-percent marginal tax rate on the wealthiest Americans.
"No, I'm not supportive of that," Dell said at a Davos panel on making digital globalization inclusive. "And I don't think it
will help the growth of the U.S. economy. Name a country where that's worked."
She may not be in Davos, but the New York representative's influence is being felt on the slopes of the Swiss Alps. Three weeks
after Ocasio-Cortez floated the idea in an interview on "60 Minutes" to raise the top marginal tax rate on Americans' income of more
than $10 million to 70 percent, it was a hot topic at the gathering of the global financial and political elite.
... ... ...
"My wife and I set up a foundation about 20 years ago and we would've contributed quite a bit more than a 70 percent tax rate
on my annual income," Dell said. "I feel much more comfortable with our ability as a private foundation to allocate those funds than
I do giving them to the government."
Erik Brynjolfsson, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was on the panel with Dell, said such a rate worked
in the U.S. after World War II. But other executives were opposed, including Salesforce.com Inc. Co-Chief Executive Officer Keith
Block.
... ... ...
Billionaire investor Ray Dalio suggested that the idea may have legs in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election. Discussing
the outlook for a slowing world economy Tuesday, Dalio said that next year will see "the beginning of thinking about politics and
how that might affect economic policy beyond. Something like the talk of the 70 percent income tax, for example, will play a bigger
role." He didn't mention Ocasio-Cortez by name.
Currently in the U.S., the top marginal tax rate is 37 percent, which takes effect on income of more than $510,300 for individuals
and $612,350 for married couples, according to the Tax Foundation.
The fortunes of a dozen attendees at the World Economic Forum in 2009 have soared by a combined $175 billion, a Bloomberg analysis
found. The same cannot be said for people on the other end of the social spectrum: A report from Oxfam on Monday revealed that the
poorest half of the world saw their wealth fall by 11 percent last year.
I would also say ideas like people age and gradually become irrelevant no matter how
strongly they are propelled by the power of the state and MSM. When neoliberalism became the
object of jokes, it is clear that its time has passed.
Neoliberal ideology experienced a severe crisis in 2007 and was by-and-large
discredited.
But Neoliberalism as a social system is resilient and can continue to exist for some time
even after ideology itself was discredited. Probably 30-50 years, if we think that
neoliberalism is a perverted flavor of Trotskyism (Financial elite of all countries unite;
Permanent neoliberal revolution until the global victory of neoliberalism) and Bolshevism
lasted 50 years after the crisis of its ideology in early 60th.
So I think that neoliberalism entered its "zombie phase." It became more bloodthirsty,
aggressive (look at Trump) and even managed to stage revenge in Argentina and Brasil deposing
less neoliberal governments with hardcore neoliberal.
But ideas age and die like people and in 2019 the ideas of neoliberalism are essentially
dead. So now it is clinging by the pure power of propaganda and coercion. That is the road to
nowhere, and I expect this neoliberalism position in the USA will be further undermined
by-elections of 2020. Maybe tax regime will start to change to byte top 1%, and maybe there is
be local and quickly suppressed insurrections/strikes, like in France; I do not know. But with
the level of inequality intact, the cracks might widen.
Degeneration of the neoliberal elite (Trump, Pelosi, Schumer, Pompeo, etc.) is another
obvious problem. Filters work in such a way that capable (and this potentially dangerous to the
system) people are eliminated at early stages of political selection. That might s danger for
the USA is not so distant future as a viable, cohesive society and currently, the Congress
really reminds Soviet Politburo. Bunch on Mayberry Machiavelli.
At least in Australia politicians started openly discuss alternatives. Here in the USA,
there is dead silence. That means that the Congress is a part of the problem, not a part of the
solution.
Another problem is with the level of militarism in the USA society. The size of MIC is a
huge problem and like cancer is curable only by surgical means. The fact is that politicians
are arguing about 5 billion wall which is something like one percent of F35 program cost (
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-10/f-35-program-costs-jump-to-406-billion-in-new-pentagon-estimate
)
At this point, people stop to trust both politicians and MSM re-defining them as "fake news"
which means the crisis of legitimacy of the neoliberal elite. And I think that the USA either
reached this point or is very close.
That's why the US neoliberal elite decided to cement the cracks in the neoliberal
ideological façade via Russophobia in best neo-McCarthyism fashion. The idea is to
define the common enemy and mobilizing the society against it, leaving internal frictions on
the "day after." But it looks like neoliberalism which Sheldon Wolin defined as "inverted
totalities" is bad on mass mobilization. It no longer can produce slogans or politician who can
ignite passion of common people. Obama was a fake. So is Trump.
And Russiagate gambit produced some unwanted to neoliberals externalities like the society
attention to intelligence-driven machinations and their role as a political force under
neoliberalism. Including the role of British intelligence services.
For the last couple of weeks, I've been wanting to write a response to Aaron Major's (paywalled)
article on ideas and economic power for
Catalyst.
Major argues that they don't matter nearly as much as you might think. This means that a lot of recent work focusing on economic
ideas leads us in the wrong direction.
And yet, though motivated by a genuine concern for the damage that neoliberalism has done, building a critique of neoliberalism
through an idea-centered framework is both politically disarming and reinforces pernicious aspects of the neoliberal project.
One of the recurring points that emerges from a close reading of idea-centered accounts of political and economic change is that
the materialist social context -- the structure of social divisions formed along economic lines and the way power is distributed
across those divisions -- exerts a great deal of influence over both the content of ideas as well as their relative influence.
The neoliberal political-economic agenda, like others before it, advances through a favorable balance of social forces while simultaneously
trying to obscure the role that power and material advantage plays in its success. If the strength and resilience of the elitist,
pro-capital, and dehumanizing policies and practices that are often summarized as "neoliberal" is reduced to, or primarily explained
as, the impact of ideas, and those ideas are not grounded in the balance of material forces that gives them shape and influence,
then one can easily walk away with the impression that the solution to neoliberalism is found in intellectual debate and critique,
and not what is really needed: political mobilization.
Here, in particular, he focuses on the work of Mark Blyth:
Mark Blyth's Great Transformations helped spur the recent surge in idea-centered political economy and so serves as a useful starting
point for this discussion. Like other political economists, Blyth argues that transitions from one political-economic era to another
are caused by deep, punctuated crisis. However, whereas realist political science imagines perfectly rational actors approaching
a crisis like any other problem to be solved, Blyth questions this basic premise. Political actors are not rational, he argues,
but rather rely on prevailing norms and ideas to serve as a kind of "instruction sheet" that they follow. During moments of crisis,
dominant models of economic management fail, leaving political actors grasping for some way of understanding the nature of the
problems that they face and means to address them. This opens the door to once-sidelined experts and intellectuals to chart a
new path forward by writing a new, workable instruction sheet.
Major respects what Blyth is doing – but thinks it is nonetheless misconceived.
To make a strong ideational argument stick, it is not enough to show that some ideas mattered for some social or policy change.
Rather, one has to be able to support two additional claims. First, that the formation, circulation, and debate over different
policy ideas can be explained independent of other material forces. Materialist political economy, from which Blyth is trying
to break, does not deny that economic policymaking has an important ideational component of the sort that Blyth describes, but
it also insists that material social factors play a powerful agenda-setting role, limiting the scope of policy debate. Second,
a strong ideational argument needs to be able to explain why one set of ideas beat out other, competing ideas in purely ideational
terms. A strong ideational argument suggests that the victory of one idea over another can be explained by the character of the
idea itself, not by the power or position of the actors who champion it. Great Transformations falters on both counts. What Blyth's
account reveals, though he never addresses it explicitly, is that the ideas that framed early New Deal policy innovations were
themselves shaped by the structures of US industry and agriculture and the strength of competing economic classes. It is because
US labor was organized and militant that the Roosevelt administration sought an economic program that would forge an alliance
with the working class. The political capacity of social classes not only affected which policies worked, and which policies failed
-- it also affected how policies were crafted and which ones were advanced. Blyth's more recent Austerity: History of a Dangerous
Idea is marred by the same analytical unevenness the book is hamstrung by the insistence that the story of austerity can be told
as a history of ideas. Taken as a whole, Blyth's work points to a critical challenge that scholars have faced in trying to make
idea-centered arguments for political and economic change stick, and that is explainingidea selection. Rarely does anything of
historical significance happen without heated debate, and the turn to neoliberalism is no exception. Margaret Thatcher may have
successfully exported her pithy, dismissive "There Is No Alternative," but her numerous opponents begged to differ. Sides are
formed, measures are proposed, and rationalizations are given. But who wins? Blyth's own accounts of major policy change highlights
critical moments in times of crisis when state elites were grappling with competing ideas, but neither Great Transformations nor
Austerity can really explain why some ideas went on to shape policy and others found their way into the dustbin of history.
"... The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us". ..."
"... But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow Vests! ..."
"... In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone. ..."
"... This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him. ..."
"... Observing Macron, the people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall – they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action to save themselves and their country. ..."
"... This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together. ..."
"... Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened, looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds either! ..."
"... Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. ..."
"... France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in Mélenchon 's accurate description. ..."
"... This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is already history. ..."
"... Or at least, for the people to be given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power. ..."
"... By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be described as revolutionary. ..."
"... Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold, the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement, or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe . ..."
"... Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more realistic scenario today, than in the past. ..."
The magazine LePoint is one of the main media outlets of the French
conservative "centre-right". One of its December issues carries the cover title France
Faces its History. 1648, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 four centuries of revolutions.
The cover features also a painting by Pierre-Jérôme Lordon, showing people
clashing with the army at Rue de Babylone , in Paris, during the
Revolution of 1830. Perhaps this is where Luc Ferry, Chirac's former minister, got his idea
from, when, two days ago, he asked the Army to intervene and the police to start shooting and
killing Yellow Vests.
Do not be surprised if you haven't heard this from your TV or if you don't know that the
level of police repression and violence in France, measured in people dead, injured and
arrested, has exceeded everything the country has experienced since 1968. Nor should you
wonder why you don't know anything about some Yellow Vest's new campaign calling for a
massive run on French banks. Or why you have been lead you to believe that the whole thing is
to do with fuel taxes or increasing minimum wage.
The vast majority of European media didn't even bother to communicate to their readers
or viewers the main political demands of the Yellow Vests ; and certainly, there hasn't
been any meaningful attempt to offer an insightful interpretation of what's happening in
France and there is just very little serious on-the-ground reporting, in the villages and
motorways of France.
Totalitarianism
Following Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo, European Powers formed the Holy Alliance banning
Revolutions.
Nowadays, Revolutions have just been declared inconceivable (Soros – though not just
him – has been giving a relentless fight to take them out of history textbooks or, as a
minimum, to erase their significance and meaning). Since they are unthinkable they cannot
happen. Since they cannot happen they do not happen.
In the same vein, European media sent their journalists out to the streets in Paris on
Christmas and New Year's days, counted the protesters and found that they weren't too many
after all. Of course they didn't count the 150,000 police and soldiers lined up by Macron on
New Year's Eve. Then they made sure that they remain "impartial" and by just comparing
numbers of protesters, led viewers to think that we are almost done with it – it was
just a storm, it will pass.
The other day I read a whole page article about Europe in one of the most "serious" Greek
newspapers, on 30.12. The author devoted just one single meaningless phrase about the Vests.
Instead, the paper still found the way to include in the article the utterly stupid statement
of a European Right-Wing politician who attributed the European crisis to the existence of
Russia Today and Sputnik! And when I finally found a somewhat more serious article online
about the developments in France, I realized that its only purpose was to convince us that
what is happening in France surely has nothing to do with 1789 or 1968!
It is only a pity that the people concerned, the French themselves, cannot read in Greek.
If they could, they would have realized that it does not make any sense to have "Revolution"
written on their vests or to sing the 1789 song in their demonstrations or to organize
symbolic ceremonies of the public "decapitation" of Macron, like Louis XV. And the French
bourgeois press would not waste time everyday comparing what happens in the country now with
what happened in 1968 and 1789.
Totalitarianism is not just a threat. It's already here. Simply it has omitted to
announce its arrival. We have to deduce its precence from its results.
A terrified
ruling class
The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has
no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the
revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us".
A few months ago, all we had about Macron in the papers was praise, inside and outside of
France – he was the "rising star" of European politics, the man who managed to pass the
"reforms" one after the other, no resistance could stop him, he would be the one to save and
rebuild Europe. Varoufakis admired and supported him, as early as of the first round of the
2017 elections.
Now, the "chosen one" became a burden for those who put him in office. Some of them
probably want to get rid of him as fast as they can, to replace him with someone else, but
it's not easy – and even more so, it is not easy given the monarchical powers conferred
by the French constitution to the President. The constitution is tailored to the needs of a
President who wants to safeguard power from the people. Those who drafted it could not
probably imagine it would make difficult for the Oligarchy also to fire him!
And who would dare to hold a parliamentary or presidential election in such a situation,
as in France today? No one knows what could come out of it. Moreover, Macron does not have a
party in the sense of political power. He has a federation of friends who benefit as long as
he stays in power and they are damaged when he collapses.
The King is naked
"The King is naked", points out Le Point's editorial, before, with almost sadistic
callousness, posing the question: "What can a government do when a remarkable section of the
people vomits it?"
But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages
devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a
single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which
led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a
Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will
produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow
Vests!
They predicted it, they saw it coming, but they didn't believe it!
Yet they could have predicted all that. It would have sufficed, had they only taken
seriously and studied a book published in France in late 2016, six months before the
presidential election, highlighting the explosive nature of the social situation and warning
of the danger of revolution and civil war.
The title of the book was "Revolution". Its author was none other than Emmanuel Macron
himself. Six months later, he would become the President of France, to eventually verify, and
indeed rather spectacularly, his predictions. But the truth is probably, that not even he
himself gave much credit to what he wrote just to win the election.
By constantly lying, politicians, journalists and intellectuals reasonably came to believe
that even their own words are of no importance. That they can say and do anything they want,
without any consequence.
In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every
night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone.
This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from
reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected
him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him.
Unwise and Arrogant, he made no effort to hide – this is how sure he felt of
himself, this is how convinced his environment was that he could infinitely go on doing
anything he wanted without any consequences (same as our Tsipras). Thus, acting foolishly and
arrogantly, he left a few million eyes to see his real face. This was the last straw that
made the French people realize in a definite way what they had already started figuring out
during Sarkozy's and Hollande's, administration, or even earlier. Observing Macron, the
people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall –
they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action
to save themselves and their country.
There was nobody else to make it in their place.
Macron as a Provocateur.
Terror in Pompeii
This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron
was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited
Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together.
It was just then, that Bucephalus (*) sprang from the depths of historical Memory,
galloping without a rider, ready to sweep away everything in his path.
Now those in power look at him with fear, but fearful too are both the "radical right" and
the "radical left". Le Pen has already called on protesters to return to their homes and give
her names to include in her list for the European election!
Mélenchon supports the Vests – 70% of their demands coincide with the program
of his party, La France Insoumise – but so far he hasn't dared to join the
people in demanding Macron's resignation, by adopting the immense, but orphan, cry of the
people heard all over France: "Macron resign". Perhaps he feels that he hasn't got the steely
strength and willpower required for attempting to lead such a movement.
The unions' leadership is doing everything it can to keep the working class away from the
Vests, but this stand started causing increasing unrest at its base.
Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul
capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to
experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened,
looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of
which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving
lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People
could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds
either!
In fact, this is also a further confirmation of the depth of the movement. Lenin ,
who, in any event knew something about revolutions, wrote in 1917: "In a revolutionary
situation, the Party is a hundred times farther to the left than the Central Committee and
the workers a hundred times farther to the left than the Party."
"Revolutionary
Situation" and Power Vacuum
Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two
demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the
percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.
France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and
the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a
situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in
Mélenchon 's accurate description.
This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history
teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn
a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and
an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not
for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian
Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible
eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of
intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is
already history.
People's Sovereignty at the center of demands
Starting from fuel tax the revolting French have now put at the centre of their demands,
in addition to Macron's resignation, the following:
preserving the purchasingpower of the poorest social strata, e.g.
with the abolition of VAT on basic necessities to ensure decent standards of living for the
entire population,
the right of people to provoke referendums on any issue, the Citizens'
Initiative Referendum (RIC), including referendums to revokeelectedrepresentatives (the President, MPs, mayors, etc. ) when they violate their mandate,
all that in the context of establishing a SixthFrenchRepublic .
In other words, they demand a profound and radical " transformation " of the
Western bourgeois-democratic regime, as we know it, towards a form of directdemocracy in order to take back the state, which has gradually and in a totalitarian
manner – but while keeping up democratic appearances – passed under direct and
full control of the Financial Capital and its employees. Or at least, for the people to be
given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power.
These are not the demands of a fun-club of Protagoras or of some left-wing or right-wing
groupuscule propagating Self-Management or of some club of intellectuals. Nor are they the
demands of only the lowest social strata of the French nation.
They are supported, according to the polls and put forward by at least three quarters of
French citizens, including a sizeable portion of the less poor. In such circumstances, these
demands constitute in effect the Will of the People, the Will of the Nation.
The Vests are nothing more than its fighting pioneers. And precisely because it is the
absolute majority of people who align with these demands, even if numbers have somewhat gone
down since the beginning of December, the Vests are still wanted out on the streets.
By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas
of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be
described as revolutionary.
And also because it is not only the President and the Government, who have been debunked
or at least de-legitimized, but it's also the whole range of state and political
institutions, the parties, the unions, the "information" media and the "ideologists" of the
regime.
The questioning of the establishment is so profound that any arguments about violence and
the protesters do not weaken society's support for them. Many, but not all, condemn violence,
but there are not many who don't go on immediately to add a reminder of the regime's social
violence against the people. When a famous ex-boxer lost his temper and reacted by punching a
number of violent police officers, protesters set up a fundraising website for his legal
fees. In just two hours they managed to raise around 120.000 euro, before removing the page
over officials' complaints and threats about keeping a file on anyone who contributes money
to support such causes.
Until now, an overwhelming majority of the French people supports the demands while an
absolute majority shows supports for the demonstrations; but of course, it is difficult to
keep such a deadlock and power-void situation going for long. They will sooner or later
demand a solution, and in situations such as these it is often the case that public opinion
shifts rapidly from the one end of the political spectrum to the other and vice versa,
depending on which force appears to be more decisive and capable of driving
society out of the crisis.
The organization of the Movement
Because the protesters have no confidence in the parties, the trade unions, or anyone else
for that matter, they are driven out of necessity into self-organization, as they already do
with the Citizens' Assemblies that are now emerging in villages, cities and motorway camps.
Indeed, by the end of the month, if everything goes well, they will hold the first "
AssemblyofAssemblies ".
Similar developments have also been observed in many revolutionary movements of this kind
in various countries. A classic example is the spontaneous formation of the councils (
Soviets ) during the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold,
the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a
way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement,
or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for
France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe .
Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level
of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the
necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more
realistic scenario today, than in the past.
Because the movement's Achilles' Heel is that, while it is already in the process of
forming a political proposition, it still, at least for now, does not offer any economic
alternative or a politically structured, democratically controlled leadership.
Effective Democracy is an absolute requirement in such a front, because it is the
only way to synthesize the inevitablydifferentlevels of
consciousness within the People and to avoid a split of the movement between "left"
and "right", between those who are ready to resort to violence to achieve their ends and
those who have a preference for more peaceful, gradual processes.
Such a " front " could perhaps also serve as a platform for solidifying a
program and vision, to which the various parties and political organizations could
contribute.
In her CritiqueoftheRussianRevolutionRosaLuxemburg , the leader of the German Social Democracy was overly critical
of the Bolsheviks , even if, I think, a bit too severe in some points. But she closes
her critique with the phrase: " They at least dared "
Driven by absolute Need, guided by the specific way its historical experience has formed
its consciousness, possessing a Surplus of Consciousness, that is able to feel the
unavoidable conclusions coming out of the synthesis of the information we all possess, about
both the "quality" of the forces governing our world and the enormous dangers threatening our
countries and mankind, the French People, the French Nation has already crossed the
Rubicon.
By moving practically to achieve their goals at a massive scale, and regardless of what is
to come next, the French people has already made a giant leap up and forward and, once more
in its history, it became the world's forerunner in tackling the terrible economic,
ecological, nuclear and technological threats against human civilization and its
survival.
Without the conscious entry of large masses into the historical scene, with all the
dangers and uncertainties that such a thing surely implies, one can hardly imagine how
humanity will survive.
"... The best approach to retirement would be a more generous Social Security system plus single payer, so that older people don't have to worry about Medicaid crapification like joining a HMO or drug plans and so everyone gets the benefit of limiting drug price increases and getting rid of costly middlemen. You'll notice that Fink said squat about companies needing to do their bit to help with retirement by halting discrimination against older workers. Creating more opportunities for those who want to work to keep working would do a good deal to reduce retirement insecurity. ..."
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink Tells Corporate CEOs to Engage in Better Eyewash Posted on
January 21, 2019 by Yves Smith One of the sorry spectacles
of modern life is having prominent individuals who profit from and serve as prime exemplars of
major social ills trying to depict themselves as part of the solution, when they haven't gone
through any sort of Damascene conversion o give their virtue-signalling even a thin veneer of
legitimacy.
Today's object lesson is Larry Fink, the Chairman and CEO of the ginormous fund manager
BlackRock (not to be confused with the private equity/alternative asset manager Blackstone).
BlackRock, with $6.2 trillion under management as of October, 2018, is the largest asset
manager in the world,.
Fink became a big cheerleader of sustainability in early 2018, which makes him awfully late
to this party; "environment, social, and governance" has been an investment fad for well over a
decade. We've embedded his 2019 letter letter to CEOs at this end of this post.
One imagines that Fink thinks his missive is forthright, but it doesn't even register as
either a "dare to be great" exhortation or an incisive analysis. Instead, it comes off as a
rehash of Davos Man worries, with it all too evident that Fink and his fellow travelers are in
comfortable denial about the rot in the foundations of the political and social order.
Fink Is the Last to Lecture; He's Patient Zero of the Problem
Nowhere does Fink mention the elephant in the room: high levels of income and wealth
inequality. Heavens no. All that populist revolt and decline in faith in globalization is due
to the great unwashed masses wanting companies to step in because governments haven't responded
adequately. No, I am not making that up. Fink never acknowledges that the sustained war on New
Deal safety nets and labor protections, and the resulting rise in insecurity and lack of class
mobility are fueling this legitimacy crisis.
Fink can't afford to acknowledge that he exemplifies the problem. Supersized finance sectors
have played a big, direct role in the rise in inequality in advanced economies. These studies
have also found that the growth in secondary market trading is particularly unproductive in
economic terms. And not to belabor the obvious, but rising levels of pay in finance since the
early 1980s have also led to a brain drain, particularly of mathematics and physicians who
became "quants"
As Dr. Asbhy Monk pointed out in talk at CalPERS, you are twice as likely to become a
billionaire in asset management as you are in tech. While the 1% consists largely of CEOs and
their top retainers (such as partners at the toniest law and consulting firms), the top 0.1%
consists mainly of private equity and hedge fund heavyweights. Fink, a billionaire is
a member of the 0.1% club .
Nor is Fink a credible party to tell other CEOs how to behave. He's been one of the 25
most overpaid CEOs . It should come as no surprise that BlackRock is also less likely than
other large fund managers to vote against CEO pay packages. Can't risk alienating prospects for
401(k) mandates, now can we?
The New Corporate Salvation: "Purpose"
The big theme of Fink's letter is that companies need to put "purpose" first. He's very late
to this party too. We wrote back in 2007 of Financial Times writer John Kay's discussion of the
idea of obliquity, that in complex systems, it is actually counterproductive to try to pursue
goals directly, because the environment is too complicated to be able to map a straight path.
One of the implications is that companies that focus on profits don't wind up being the most
profitable in their industry: the one with loftier goals do better.
The wee problem with Fink's exhortation for those businesses that fetishized maximizing
shareholder value to start focusing on nobler aims is that it is very hard to change the
culture of large organizations, short of a replacing lots of people at the top. And that sort
of shakeup pretty much never happens save as a result of a major crisis.
Fink contends that companies will have to take the demand of millennials that companies put
improving society over generating profit. However, given that these same millennials are
perfectly happy to work for elite (Google and Facebook) and not-so-elite companies that are
putting more and more surveillance technology in place, and are all too happy to give personal
data away (DNA???? What are you thinking?), the days of millennial uppity-ness are likely to be
short lived.
A Bit Too Obvious that Fink Is Talking His Book
Larry, a pro tip: if you are going to pretend to offer advice, it has to be credible. This
isn't:
Unnerved by fundamental economic changes and the failure of government to provide lasting
solutions, society is increasingly looking to companies, both public and private, to address
pressing social and economic issues.
This is true only by by "society" he means the old money 400 families sort. Everyone else
who has been paying attention has noticed that the compensation for CEOs and top executives has
kept rising relentlessly, while they pay of ordinary people has languished and their jobs have
become less secure. And no one on the wrong side of this trade is going as a supplicant to
"companies" and plead with them to do better. Laborers got safer working conditions and
eventually shorter workweeks and better pay only after years of struggle that included killing
of labor leaders, and even then, those gains were solidified for a few decades primarily to
hold Communism at bay.
The reason that Bernie Sanders is the most popular politician in the US and that Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez has caught on like a house on fire is that they have put economic inequality and
injustice at the center of their agendas, and American are hungry for the types of change they
are advocating. More female and minority board members means squat to American who are living
paycheck to paycheck.
A plausible pitch would have gone more like: "The pitchforks are coming,. You can either
remain a target or figure out what you need to do to have your leadership group look less like
out-of-touch greedheads." But I doubt that Fink will be in the vanguard of business leaders
arguing for the need to give up excesses like corporate jets.
Another tell that the times that the word "sustainable" appears in Fink's letter, it refers
to financial performance, not to sustainability as it is usually used in the wider world, for
needing to work within planetary resource limits. But if Fink were to be at all candid on this
front, he'd have to admit that huge swathe of investee companies should be radically downsized
or liquidated, such as oil and gas exploration and development companies, airlines, fast
fashion companies, and plastics makers like Dow Chemical. And then we have other companies that
are negative value added societally, such as health insurers and banks. Recall that the Bank of
England's Andrew Haldane, in a 2010 back of the envelope estimate of the GDP cost of the crisis
that proved to be accurate, ascertained that
banks could not begin to pay for the damage they did . In other words, a banking industry
that creates global crises is negative value added from a societal standpoint. It is purely
extractive.
But a more obvious howler is Fink's discussion of how companies have to help with
retirement:
Retirement, in particular, is an area where companies must reestablish their traditional
leadership role. For much of the 20th Century, it was an element of the social compact in
many countries that employers had a responsibility to help workers navigate retirement. In
some countries, particularly the United States, the shift to defined contribution plans
changed the structure of that responsibility, leaving too many workers unprepared. And nearly
all countries are confronting greater longevity and how to pay for it. This lack of
preparedness for retirement is fueling enormous anxiety and fear, undermining productivity in
the workplace and amplifying populism in the political sphere.
In response, companies must embrace a greater responsibility to help workers navigate
retirement, lending their expertise and capacity for innovation to solve this immense global
challenge. In doing so, companies will create not just a more stable and engaged workforce,
but also a more economically secure population in the places where they operate.
Fink can't possibly admit that the "save in financial assets" model for retirement cannot
possibly work, particularly in a backdrop where advanced economies desperately need to reduce
their populations as part of a program to curb resource demands. The old model the US had for
saving for retirement was the 30 year mortgage. Men (it was then almost entirely men) got jobs
that would last 20+ years. Paying down the mortgage was forced savings. The house would become
mortgage-free around the time of retirement, lowering household costs when income dropped.
The compound interest magic that made Warren Buffett rich depends on corporate profit growth
and/or falling interest rates. In aggregate corporate profit growth depends on population
growth and productivity growth. Labor is the biggest input cost for goods and obviously for
services, so productivity growth generally speaking will reduce the amount of labor. When
workers had more bargaining power, the benefits of productivity gains were once split between
profits and wage increases, but those days ended in the mid-1970s.
Or to put it another way, trees can't grow to the sky. The US is already at a record high
level of profit share to GDP. Corporations have been the biggest buyers of stocks in the US for
years and that has to slow down due to debt levels and rising interest rates making that game
less attractive than it used to be.
You don't have to look hard to see that valuation of financial assets are attenuated, and
with central banks determined over time to get back to more normal interest rates, it's not as
if there's good reason to expect the financial markets to be a friendly setting for the next
few years.
Michael Hudson has documented how in Bronze Age societies that excessive financial burdens,
in the form of debt, were periodically wiped clean in jubilees. We don't have such enlightened
approaches for pro-actively cancelling or cutting dysfunctional financial claims. We instead
have financial crises or wars or revolutions do the trick.
The best approach to retirement would be a more generous Social Security system plus
single payer, so that older people don't have to worry about Medicaid crapification like
joining a HMO or drug plans and so everyone gets the benefit of limiting drug price increases
and getting rid of costly middlemen. You'll notice that Fink said squat about companies needing
to do their bit to help with retirement by halting discrimination against older workers.
Creating more opportunities for those who want to work to keep working would do a good deal to
reduce retirement insecurity.
So Fink is yet another one of those squillionaires who doesn't get that his patter has a
Versailles circa 1788 feel to it. But at least his version is bland and conventional. He could
be trying to pitch some technology snake oil instead.
FTA "The fund groups were particularly irked by a 'Statement of Principles' drawn up by
Godfrey signing them up to put clients first. Their objection was to the extra bureaucracy
involved.
Another bone of contention is the IA's stance on bosses' pay. It set up a working group to
look at excessive rewards – which could embarrass some fund managers."
Stealing from the rich like that, he should be ashamed /sx2
Return to the tax rates in effect during the Eisenhower administration (with adjustments
to the table to reflect inflation, of course). Then the government could use the extra income
to pay for additional benefits.
(Note to NC readers – that last sentence should really be "..to pretend to pay for "
but perhaps it's better to let them hold onto some of their fantasies)
my god. what a masterpiece. I'm gonna read this one twice. First thoughts: I love it; I
almost passed it by because shiney objects; 6.2 trillion is a punchline; the Finkster as
patient zero is a new Marvel Comic Evil Hero for Real; I'm getting a front-row seat on
history, past and future; human rationalization is the great twister; defined contribution
plans is greed on steroids; I even took notes on the inside of the envelope; "sustainability"
as a financial performance legitimizer – my god it's just the opposite – it's a
financial performance control; the Finkster is in the .1% club of delusional gods on the
Cystine (sp?)Chapel; profit IS inequality bec. growth is secondary and therefore finance is
Un-f'ing-productive but masquerades as productive; a few objections: I like the Millenials
(most of them, but not the quants); Rupert Sheldrake rules: knowledge (per this post) goes
around the world at mach speed and then exponentiates! – thank you god for small favors
like Yves; and we will survive because we will come together.
"... The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us". ..."
"... But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow Vests! ..."
"... In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone. ..."
"... This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him. ..."
"... Observing Macron, the people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall – they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action to save themselves and their country. ..."
"... This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together. ..."
"... Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened, looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds either! ..."
"... Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. ..."
"... France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in Mélenchon 's accurate description. ..."
"... This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is already history. ..."
"... Or at least, for the people to be given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power. ..."
"... By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be described as revolutionary. ..."
"... Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold, the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement, or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe . ..."
"... Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more realistic scenario today, than in the past. ..."
The magazine LePoint is one of the main media outlets of the French
conservative "centre-right". One of its December issues carries the cover title France
Faces its History. 1648, 1789, 1830, 1848, 1871 four centuries of revolutions.
The cover features also a painting by Pierre-Jérôme Lordon, showing people
clashing with the army at Rue de Babylone , in Paris, during the
Revolution of 1830. Perhaps this is where Luc Ferry, Chirac's former minister, got his idea
from, when, two days ago, he asked the Army to intervene and the police to start shooting and
killing Yellow Vests.
Do not be surprised if you haven't heard this from your TV or if you don't know that the
level of police repression and violence in France, measured in people dead, injured and
arrested, has exceeded everything the country has experienced since 1968. Nor should you
wonder why you don't know anything about some Yellow Vest's new campaign calling for a
massive run on French banks. Or why you have been lead you to believe that the whole thing is
to do with fuel taxes or increasing minimum wage.
The vast majority of European media didn't even bother to communicate to their readers
or viewers the main political demands of the Yellow Vests ; and certainly, there hasn't
been any meaningful attempt to offer an insightful interpretation of what's happening in
France and there is just very little serious on-the-ground reporting, in the villages and
motorways of France.
Totalitarianism
Following Napoleon's defeat in Waterloo, European Powers formed the Holy Alliance banning
Revolutions.
Nowadays, Revolutions have just been declared inconceivable (Soros – though not just
him – has been giving a relentless fight to take them out of history textbooks or, as a
minimum, to erase their significance and meaning). Since they are unthinkable they cannot
happen. Since they cannot happen they do not happen.
In the same vein, European media sent their journalists out to the streets in Paris on
Christmas and New Year's days, counted the protesters and found that they weren't too many
after all. Of course they didn't count the 150,000 police and soldiers lined up by Macron on
New Year's Eve. Then they made sure that they remain "impartial" and by just comparing
numbers of protesters, led viewers to think that we are almost done with it – it was
just a storm, it will pass.
The other day I read a whole page article about Europe in one of the most "serious" Greek
newspapers, on 30.12. The author devoted just one single meaningless phrase about the Vests.
Instead, the paper still found the way to include in the article the utterly stupid statement
of a European Right-Wing politician who attributed the European crisis to the existence of
Russia Today and Sputnik! And when I finally found a somewhat more serious article online
about the developments in France, I realized that its only purpose was to convince us that
what is happening in France surely has nothing to do with 1789 or 1968!
It is only a pity that the people concerned, the French themselves, cannot read in Greek.
If they could, they would have realized that it does not make any sense to have "Revolution"
written on their vests or to sing the 1789 song in their demonstrations or to organize
symbolic ceremonies of the public "decapitation" of Macron, like Louis XV. And the French
bourgeois press would not waste time everyday comparing what happens in the country now with
what happened in 1968 and 1789.
Totalitarianism is not just a threat. It's already here. Simply it has omitted to
announce its arrival. We have to deduce its precence from its results.
A terrified
ruling class
The French bourgeoisie is the politically most experienced ruling class in Europe. It has
no illusions about the challenge it faces. Le Point put its file on the
revolt of the vests under the self-telling title "What is waiting us".
A few months ago, all we had about Macron in the papers was praise, inside and outside of
France – he was the "rising star" of European politics, the man who managed to pass the
"reforms" one after the other, no resistance could stop him, he would be the one to save and
rebuild Europe. Varoufakis admired and supported him, as early as of the first round of the
2017 elections.
Now, the "chosen one" became a burden for those who put him in office. Some of them
probably want to get rid of him as fast as they can, to replace him with someone else, but
it's not easy – and even more so, it is not easy given the monarchical powers conferred
by the French constitution to the President. The constitution is tailored to the needs of a
President who wants to safeguard power from the people. Those who drafted it could not
probably imagine it would make difficult for the Oligarchy also to fire him!
And who would dare to hold a parliamentary or presidential election in such a situation,
as in France today? No one knows what could come out of it. Moreover, Macron does not have a
party in the sense of political power. He has a federation of friends who benefit as long as
he stays in power and they are damaged when he collapses.
The King is naked
"The King is naked", points out Le Point's editorial, before, with almost sadistic
callousness, posing the question: "What can a government do when a remarkable section of the
people vomits it?"
But it's not only the king who is naked. The whole system is naked. In the many pages
devoted by the magazine to demonstrate that what the Vests want is unfeasible, not even a
single serious word is written about what needs to be done to deal with the deep causes which
led the French to revolt. Today's capitalism of Macron, Merkel and Trump does not produce a
Roosevelt and New Deal or Popular Fronts – and we have to wait to see if it will
produce a Hitler as some are trying to achieve. For the time being, it only produces Yellow
Vests!
They predicted it, they saw it coming, but they didn't believe it!
Yet they could have predicted all that. It would have sufficed, had they only taken
seriously and studied a book published in France in late 2016, six months before the
presidential election, highlighting the explosive nature of the social situation and warning
of the danger of revolution and civil war.
The title of the book was "Revolution". Its author was none other than Emmanuel Macron
himself. Six months later, he would become the President of France, to eventually verify, and
indeed rather spectacularly, his predictions. But the truth is probably, that not even he
himself gave much credit to what he wrote just to win the election.
By constantly lying, politicians, journalists and intellectuals reasonably came to believe
that even their own words are of no importance. That they can say and do anything they want,
without any consequence.
In Oscar Wilde's masterpiece "The Picture of Dorian Gray", the main character looks every
night at his horrible real self in the mirror. But he looks at it alone.
This is where Macron made his most fatal mistake, being arrogant and markedly cut off from
reality – with the confidence given to him by the mighty elite forces, which elected
him and by his contempt of the common people which characterizes him.
Unwise and Arrogant, he made no effort to hide – this is how sure he felt of
himself, this is how convinced his environment was that he could infinitely go on doing
anything he wanted without any consequences (same as our Tsipras). Thus, acting foolishly and
arrogantly, he left a few million eyes to see his real face. This was the last straw that
made the French people realize in a definite way what they had already started figuring out
during Sarkozy's and Hollande's, administration, or even earlier. Observing Macron, the
people understood what lied ahead for them. They felt their backs against the wall –
they felt that they had only themselves to rely on, that they had to take themselves action
to save themselves and their country.
There was nobody else to make it in their place.
Macron as a Provocateur.
Terror in Pompeii
This was the decisive moment, the moment the historical mission of Macron
was achieved . By establishing the most absolute control of Finance over Politics, he himself invited
Revolution. His triumph and his tragedy came together.
It was just then, that Bucephalus (*) sprang from the depths of historical Memory,
galloping without a rider, ready to sweep away everything in his path.
Now those in power look at him with fear, but fearful too are both the "radical right" and
the "radical left". Le Pen has already called on protesters to return to their homes and give
her names to include in her list for the European election!
Mélenchon supports the Vests – 70% of their demands coincide with the program
of his party, La France Insoumise – but so far he hasn't dared to join the
people in demanding Macron's resignation, by adopting the immense, but orphan, cry of the
people heard all over France: "Macron resign". Perhaps he feels that he hasn't got the steely
strength and willpower required for attempting to lead such a movement.
The unions' leadership is doing everything it can to keep the working class away from the
Vests, but this stand started causing increasing unrest at its base.
Many established "leftists" or "radical" intellectuals, who used to feverishly haul
capitalism over the coals – although the last thing they really wanted was to
experience a real revolution during their lifetime – they too, stand now frightened,
looking at an angry Bucephalus running ahead of them. They prefer a stable capitalism, of
which they can constitute its "consciousness", writing books, appearing on shows and giving
lectures, analyzing its crises and explaining its tribulations. They idea that the People
could at some point take seriously what they themselves said, never crossed their minds
either!
In fact, this is also a further confirmation of the depth of the movement. Lenin ,
who, in any event knew something about revolutions, wrote in 1917: "In a revolutionary
situation, the Party is a hundred times farther to the left than the Central Committee and
the workers a hundred times farther to the left than the Party."
"Revolutionary
Situation" and Power Vacuum
Today, four out of five French people disapprove of Macron's policies and one in two
demands that he resigns immediately. We assume that this percentage is greater than the
percentage of Russians who wanted the ousting of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917.
France is currently almost in a state of Power Vacuum . The president and
the government cannot in essence govern and the people cannot tolerate them. It is not a
situation of dual power, but a situation of dual legitimacy , in
Mélenchon 's accurate description.
This is a typical definition of a revolutionary situation . As history
teaches us, the emergence of such a situation is necessary but not sufficient condition for a victorious Revolution. What is required in or order to turn
a rebellion into a potentially victorious Revolution, is a capable and decided leadership and
an adequate strategy, program and vision. These elements do not seem to exist, at last not
for now, in today's France, as they did not exist in May 1968 or during the Russian
Revolution of February 1917. Therefore, the present situation remains open to all possible
eventualities; there must be no doubt however, that this is the beginning of a period of
intense political and class conflicts in Europe, and that the Europe, as we know it, is
already history.
People's Sovereignty at the center of demands
Starting from fuel tax the revolting French have now put at the centre of their demands,
in addition to Macron's resignation, the following:
preserving the purchasingpower of the poorest social strata, e.g.
with the abolition of VAT on basic necessities to ensure decent standards of living for the
entire population,
the right of people to provoke referendums on any issue, the Citizens'
Initiative Referendum (RIC), including referendums to revokeelectedrepresentatives (the President, MPs, mayors, etc. ) when they violate their mandate,
all that in the context of establishing a SixthFrenchRepublic .
In other words, they demand a profound and radical " transformation " of the
Western bourgeois-democratic regime, as we know it, towards a form of directdemocracy in order to take back the state, which has gradually and in a totalitarian
manner – but while keeping up democratic appearances – passed under direct and
full control of the Financial Capital and its employees. Or at least, for the people to be
given the opportunity to develop an effective way of controlling state power.
These are not the demands of a fun-club of Protagoras or of some left-wing or right-wing
groupuscule propagating Self-Management or of some club of intellectuals. Nor are they the
demands of only the lowest social strata of the French nation.
They are supported, according to the polls and put forward by at least three quarters of
French citizens, including a sizeable portion of the less poor. In such circumstances, these
demands constitute in effect the Will of the People, the Will of the Nation.
The Vests are nothing more than its fighting pioneers. And precisely because it is the
absolute majority of people who align with these demands, even if numbers have somewhat gone
down since the beginning of December, the Vests are still wanted out on the streets.
By reversing Marx's famous formula in German Ideology , the ideas
of the dominant class do not dominate society. This is why the situation can be
described as revolutionary.
And also because it is not only the President and the Government, who have been debunked
or at least de-legitimized, but it's also the whole range of state and political
institutions, the parties, the unions, the "information" media and the "ideologists" of the
regime.
The questioning of the establishment is so profound that any arguments about violence and
the protesters do not weaken society's support for them. Many, but not all, condemn violence,
but there are not many who don't go on immediately to add a reminder of the regime's social
violence against the people. When a famous ex-boxer lost his temper and reacted by punching a
number of violent police officers, protesters set up a fundraising website for his legal
fees. In just two hours they managed to raise around 120.000 euro, before removing the page
over officials' complaints and threats about keeping a file on anyone who contributes money
to support such causes.
Until now, an overwhelming majority of the French people supports the demands while an
absolute majority shows supports for the demonstrations; but of course, it is difficult to
keep such a deadlock and power-void situation going for long. They will sooner or later
demand a solution, and in situations such as these it is often the case that public opinion
shifts rapidly from the one end of the political spectrum to the other and vice versa,
depending on which force appears to be more decisive and capable of driving
society out of the crisis.
The organization of the Movement
Because the protesters have no confidence in the parties, the trade unions, or anyone else
for that matter, they are driven out of necessity into self-organization, as they already do
with the Citizens' Assemblies that are now emerging in villages, cities and motorway camps.
Indeed, by the end of the month, if everything goes well, they will hold the first "
AssemblyofAssemblies ".
Similar developments have also been observed in many revolutionary movements of this kind
in various countries. A classic example is the spontaneous formation of the councils (
Soviets ) during the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917.
Although it is difficult to form an opinion from afar about how the situation may unfold,
the formation of a such a United Front from grassroots could perhaps offer a
way out with regards to the need for a political leadership for the movement,
or even of the need to work out a transitional economic program for
France, which must also serve as a transitional program for Europe .
Contrary to how things were a century ago, certain factors such as the educational level
of the lower social classes, the existence of a number of critical, radical thinkers with the
necessary intellectual skills and the Internet, render such a possibility a much more
realistic scenario today, than in the past.
Because the movement's Achilles' Heel is that, while it is already in the process of
forming a political proposition, it still, at least for now, does not offer any economic
alternative or a politically structured, democratically controlled leadership.
Effective Democracy is an absolute requirement in such a front, because it is the
only way to synthesize the inevitablydifferentlevels of
consciousness within the People and to avoid a split of the movement between "left"
and "right", between those who are ready to resort to violence to achieve their ends and
those who have a preference for more peaceful, gradual processes.
Such a " front " could perhaps also serve as a platform for solidifying a
program and vision, to which the various parties and political organizations could
contribute.
In her CritiqueoftheRussianRevolutionRosaLuxemburg , the leader of the German Social Democracy was overly critical
of the Bolsheviks , even if, I think, a bit too severe in some points. But she closes
her critique with the phrase: " They at least dared "
Driven by absolute Need, guided by the specific way its historical experience has formed
its consciousness, possessing a Surplus of Consciousness, that is able to feel the
unavoidable conclusions coming out of the synthesis of the information we all possess, about
both the "quality" of the forces governing our world and the enormous dangers threatening our
countries and mankind, the French People, the French Nation has already crossed the
Rubicon.
By moving practically to achieve their goals at a massive scale, and regardless of what is
to come next, the French people has already made a giant leap up and forward and, once more
in its history, it became the world's forerunner in tackling the terrible economic,
ecological, nuclear and technological threats against human civilization and its
survival.
Without the conscious entry of large masses into the historical scene, with all the
dangers and uncertainties that such a thing surely implies, one can hardly imagine how
humanity will survive.
The problem is not Russia; the problem is the crisis of neoliberalism in the USA. And related legitimization of neoliberal
elite, which now Deep State is trying ot patch with anti-Russian hysteria
Notable quotes:
"... That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present. ..."
Baseless Russiagate allegations continue to risk war with Russia.
Anti-Trump Frenzy Threatens to End Superpower Diplomacy | The Nation
The New Year has brought a torrent of ever-more-frenzied allegations that President Donald Trump has long had a conspiratorial relationship
-- why mince words and call it "collusion"? -- with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin.
Why the frenzy now? Perhaps because Russiagate promoters in high places are concerned that special counsel Robert Mueller will
not produce the hoped-for "bombshell" to end Trump's presidency. Certainly,
New York Times columnist
David Leonhardt seems worried, demanding, "The president must go," his drop line exhorting, "What are we waiting for?" (In some
countries, articles like his, and there are very many, would be read as calling for a coup.) Perhaps to incite Democrats who have
now taken control of House investigative committees. Perhaps simply because Russiagate has become a political-media cult that no
facts, or any lack of evidence, can dissuade or diminish.
And there is no new credible evidence, preposterous claims notwithstanding. One of The New York Times '
own recent "bombshells,"
published on January 12, reported, for example, that in spring 2017, FBI officials "began investigating whether [President Trump]
had been working on behalf of Russia against American interests." None of the three reporters bothered to point out that those "agents
and officials" almost certainly included ones later reprimanded and retired by the FBI itself for their political biases. (As usual,
the Times buried its self-protective disclaimer deep in the story: "No evidence has emerged publicly that Mr. Trump was secretly
in contact with or took direction from Russian government officials.")
Whatever the explanation, the heightened frenzy is unmistakable, leading the "news" almost daily in the synergistic print and
cable media outlets that have zealously promoted Russiagate for more than two years, in particular the Times , The Washington
Post , MSNBC, CNN, and their kindred outlets. They have plenty of eager enablers, including the once-distinguished Strobe Talbott,
President Bill Clinton's top adviser on Russia and until recently president of the Brookings Institution.
According to Talbott
, "We already know that the Kremlin helped put Trump into the White House and played him for a sucker . Trump has been colluding
with a hostile Russia throughout his presidency." In fact, we do not "know" any of this. These remain merely widely disseminated
suspicions and allegations.
In this cult-like commentary, the "threat" of "a hostile Russia" must be inflated along with charges against Trump. (In truth,
Russia represents no threat to the United States that Washington itself did not provoke since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.)
For its own threat inflation, the Times featured not an expert with any plausible credentials but Lisa Page, the former FBI
lawyer with no known Russia expertise, and who was one of those reprimanded by the agency for anti-Trump political bias. Nonetheless,
the Times quotes Page
at length : "In the Russian Federation and in President Putin himself you have an individual whose aim is to disrupt the Western
alliance and whose aim is to make Western democracy more fractious in order to weaken our ability to spread our democratic ideals."
Perhaps we should have guessed that the democracy-promotion genes of J. Edgar Hoover were still alive and breeding in the FBI, though
for the Times , in its exploitation of the hapless and legally endangered Page, it seems not to matter.
Which brings us, or rather Russiagate zealots, to the heightened "threat" represented by "Putin's Russia." If true, we would expect
the US president to negotiate with the Kremlin leader, including at summit meetings, as every president since Dwight Eisenhower has
done. But, we are told, we cannot trust Trump to do so, because,
according to The Washington Post , he has repeatedly met with Putin alone, with only translators present, and concealed
the records of their private talks, sure signs of "treasonous" behavior, as the Russiagate media first insisted following the Trump-Putin
summit in Helsinki in July 2018.
It's hard to know whether this is historical ignorance or Russiagate malice, though it is probably both. In any event, the truth
is very different. In preparing US-Russian (Soviet and post-Soviet) summits since the 1950s, aides on both sides have arranged "private
time" for their bosses for two essential reasons: so they can develop sufficient personal rapport to sustain any policy partnership
they decide on; and so they can alert one another to constraints on their policy powers at home, to foes of such détente policies
often centered in their respective intelligence agencies. (The KGB ran operations against Nikita Khrushchev's détente policies with
Eisenhower, and, as is well established, US intelligence agencies have run operations against Trump's proclaimed goal of "cooperation
with Russia.")
That is, in the modern history of US-Russian summits, we are told by a former American ambassador who knows, the "secrecy
of presidential private meetings has been the rule, not the exception." He continues, "There's nothing unusual about withholding
information from the bureaucracy about the president's private meetings with foreign leaders . Sometimes they would dictate a memo
afterward, sometimes not." Indeed, President Richard Nixon, distrustful of the US "bureaucracy," sometimes met privately with Kremlin
leader Leonid Brezhnev while only Brezhnev's translator was present.
Nor should we forget the national-security benefits that have come from private meetings between US and Kremlin leaders. In October
1986, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev met alone with their translators and an American official who took
notes -- the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished. The result,
in 1987, was the first and still only treaty abolishing an entire category of such weapons, the exceedingly dangerous intermediate-range
ones. (This is the historic treaty Trump has said he may abrogate.)
And yet, congressional zealots are now threatening to subpoena the American translator who was present during Trump's meetings
with Putin. If this recklessness prevails, it will be the end of the nuclear-superpower summit diplomacy that has helped to keep
America and the world safe from catastrophic war for nearly 70 years -- and as a new, more perilous nuclear arms race between the
two countries is unfolding. It will amply confirm a thesis set out in my book
War with Russia? -- that anti-Trump
Russiagate allegations have become the gravest threat to our security.
The following correction and clarification were made to the original version of this article on January 17: Reagan and Gorbachev
met privately with translators during their summit in Reykjavik, Iceland, in October 1986, not February, and Reagan was also accompanied
by an American official who took notes. And it would be more precise to say that the two leaders, despite their disagreements, agreed
in principle that nuclear weapons should be abolished.
Stephen F. Cohen is professor emeritus of politics and Russian studies at Princeton and NYU and author of the new book
War with Russia? From Putin and
Ukraine to Trump and Russiagate . This commentary is based on the most recent of his weekly discussions of the new US-Russian
Cold War with the host of the John Batchelor radio show. (The podcast is
here . Previous installments, now in their fifth year, are at
TheNation.com . )
"... Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity. ..."
"... I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people ..."
It should be pointed out that the Integrity Initiative recently claimed on Twitter that some of the documents leaked in batch
#4 were not theirs and had been misrepresented as part of the organisation.
It doesn't really matter, though: all that we know, anti-socialist shills writing propaganda on behalf of II (Nimmo, Cohen,
Reid-Ross) have confirmed their own roles, and the Twitter account was proven to have pushed out slanderous material on Jeremy
Corbyn.
Note that "misrepresented" could have referred to the inclusion of the Corbyn slide show document which was presented at but
created by the II.
This organisation and all of those part of it should be treated as enemies of the people, as they have attacked, disingenuously
and using smears,
-Yellow Vests
– Jill Stein
-Jeremy Corbyn
-George Galloway
-Seuams Milne
-German Left Party
-French Left Party
-French Communist Party
-Greek Communist Party
-Podemos
-Norwegian Red Party
-Norwegian Socialist Left Party
-Swedish Left Party
-Swedish Greens
-International Anti-NATO Groups
-Greyzone Project
-Julian Assange
-MintPressNews
Via
-Infiltrating Corbyn and Sanders campaigns
-Inserting propaganda anonymously into local media including the Daily Beast, Buzzfeed, The Times, the Guardian, and more
-Using social media to orchestrate hate and dismissal campaigns against those mentioned above
-Hosting events for collaboration between members
-Building online "clusters" to deploy and shape discourse in the media and elsewhere
By repeating or openly collaborating with:
-Ben Nimmo
-Oz Katergi
-Anne Applebaum
-Peter Pomerantsev
-Bellingcat
-Atlantic Council
-Carole Cadwalladr
-David Aaronovitch
-Center For A Stateless Society
-PropOrNot
-Alexander Reid-Ross
-Nick Cohen
-Michael Weiss
-Jamie Fly
-Jamie Kirchick
Directed by:
-Tory Government
-NATO
-Facebook
-German Multinationals
Sedition is a crime and it is clear that the multiple seditious acts of II and IfS toward
many countries and with their band of controlled journalists was a deliberate and planned activity.
I don't expect any prosecutions but there is a chance of promotional impediments applying to some of those named. At least
for the next month. Every named employee of II and IfS is an enemy of democracy and its people.
@30 karlof1.. it is kind of a 2 pronged thing... like a left right punch aimed to get rid of
him, or keep him in line..
i agree with don @31...exceptionalism is a sickness that has a distinct usa ring to it..
not everyone is susceptible to it, but way too many are and the msm feeds it by never shining
any light on anything outside of the usa... usa is indoctrinated into it's own 24/7 and has
no concept of what is happening outside itself and - even worse - doesn't have any interest..
they have been told they are the greatest... why would anyone need to know about what is
happening outside the usa when you have been told yours is the greatest nation and all great
things happen inside your bubble? and this is the rationale why so many want to come to this
great land too... it is a great indoctrination thing built into the collective psyche..
that the usa is on a downhill slope and going down is very clear... whether trump hangs in
for the term or does another one, is of little consequence.. the usa is on a downhill slope
moving towards a uni-polar world whether it can fit that in with it's exceptionalism or
not..
@ james | Jan 15, 2019 9:32:26 PM | 33 that the usa is on a downhill slope and going down is very clear. But that's totally
okay with me if it means less war. Fewer men women and children killed by aerial bombing,
less displacement, fewer crippling injuries, physical and mental. moving towards a uni-polar world
I think you meant multi-polar, which is also a good thing. That's the best way our
communities function, and likewise for the world community.
"Instead, the Chinese government has been piling on loans to businesses and state-owned
enterprises, pushing the SOEs to spend more, and so on. Basically it has kept investment
going despite low returns. Yet this process has to have some limits – and when it hits
the (great) wall, it's hard to see how consumption can rise fast enough to take up the
slack."
Proof Krugman has been corrupted by free lunch economics!
If interest on savings is very low, returns on capital investment should be very low.
The lower limit on returns to capital is the real interest rate on savings. In China,
inflation makes interest on savings negative. So, returns on investment can be negative, just
less negative than interest on savings.
The only way investment can be funded is by workers spending less on consumption than they
earn working or from other sourcees. If workers are investing a lot, they have individually
decided they should not consume more, because there is no shortage of goods andd services to
buy in China.
This is a very different situation than in the US where 90% of the population has too
little money to buy what they want or need, and thus they borrow money to pay for
consumption. Wages are too low in the US to fund investment so a great deal of scarcity
exists in the US of several consumption goods which result in rapid inflation in the prices
of those goods, and thus very high returns to capotal even as interest on savings are kept
artificially low in order to allow for high defaults on bad consumer debt, consumer debt
needed to pay the high inflated price of selected scarce consumption goods due to under
investment.
In China, workers earn so much more than they are accustomed to consume they have
investing in housing so housing costs are very low, and housing exists in excess.
In the US, workers earn less than they need to consume, so hiusing is extremely scarce and
consumption prices have inflated at high rates.
Now, while China uses Keynes and sees excess housing as a good thing, the US uses free
lunch economics and sees scarce housing as a good thing because housing inflation "creates
wealth".
China has embraced private capital in many ways much more than the US since the 80s, with
returns to private capital falling to very low levels, while in the US, building capital is
thwarted to generate capital scarcity and high rates of capital price inflation. To "create
wealth" from capital scarcity.
"[W]hile in the US, building capital is thwarted to generate capital scarcity and high rates
of capital price inflation. To 'create wealth' from capital scarcity."
Alternatively, in the U.S. there is a combination of excess of capital and insufficient
investment alternatives (due to growing income and wealth inequality and excessive market
power, anti-competitive business practices and insufficient anti-trust enforcement) that
causes investors to chase unproductive returns and unrealistically bid-up asset prices.
Name the excess capital from paying too much to workers to build capital assets.
The only thing that I can think of that might be true is too much paying of workers to
create TV shows, movies, and computer games.
Except, in this media sector, big companies buying competitors along with buying back
shares of their stocks with profits is spawning ever more competitors. As much as Comcast
tries to eliminate competition, investors keep paying workers to build new streaming services
with content only the new companies have by paying more workers to produce TV and movies.
But this is standard economic theory: technology cuts costs, which cuts prices which
increases demand so the workers eliminated by technology get retasked producing more, but the
more is so much more, more workers are needed. The equilibrium is reached when long term
revenue just barely pays for all the workers long term.
You might object to everyone consuming more media content because you are like Miltion
Friedman a classic Jew stereotype puritian who believes the mmasses must work more and suffer
by consuming less, so you can be an elite preaching values you will not embrace for
yourself.
Ie, you did not state: "I am paid too much which is a sign of too many workers being paid
too much due to too much investment driving up wages".
Please send me $1000 a month for the rest of my life as debt. Then collect your money,
debt, after I'm dead. After all, your debt does not need to be repaid by my working for
income and not consuming using all or more of my income!
Or you believe the Venezuela economic policy is fantastic and should be adopted in the US,
because Trump and the GOP were not creating structural long term borrowing and spending fast
enough 2017-2018?
Yes the management of the domestic market development might fail to take adequate
measures
Indeed the macro managers may lose their way
But the techniques that got them this far
Are still solid
And with augmentation
Can continue high speed expansion of the production system and urbanization
Price regulation could and should be
CO ordinated with a mark up market
Land lots market value zeroed out
thru a 100 % George tax
And corporate debt placed in special investment vehicles and managed uniformly
Thru a universal default insurance system.
Run by a state default insurance agency
Imagine conservatives electing representatives to Congress who hiked the "gas tax" and then
offered lots more money to States that had elected legislatures that hiked their gas tax to
generate the matching funds to get Federal gas tax funds that were spent on transportation.
"Gas taxes" are not limited to fuel, but include fees on tires, which cost based on wear
on roads, ie, a big rig uses big costly ties that last maybe 25,000 miles so the more use of
the road the more tax paid. But increasingly cars have high cost performance tires. Then
there are use taxes based on the size plus load of the vehicle. A very high tax rate on
fossil fuels will eliminate their use requiring moving to a fee based on miles driven and
capacity of the vehicle, maybe by open road tolling.
But as transportation is a living cost, living costs need to be increased in Trumpland to
create the coastal economies Trump lives in and builds his resorts in. Economies with high
living costs to pay the high wages of all the workers who moved from low living cost
conservative places to high living cost liberal places.
So, all capital assets must be consumed in an average of 3 years? A ten year old house would
need to be burned down. Steeet torn up after five years returned to farm or forest land?
Average useful life of assets is probably 30 years, but at that point they still have a
minimum of 10% of cost in residual value, and paying workers to invest in existing capital at
3-5% annually will maintaiin the asset value of over half of assets for centuries. Spending
another 2% will replace all of the other half. So, spending 10% of GDP will increase capital
assets by 3% easy every year, which 70/3 means doubling total assets every 25 years.
Your 40% would mean doubling assets every 70/35% or two years.
Assuming assets keep increasing GDP becyond the addition to GDP from building productive
assets.
Note, cars are productive assets, ie, a car gets you to work. A house with utilities frees
up probably 5 hours a day to be used working for others. Try being homeless or living in a
tar paper shack with nothing but a pot belly stove and water from a pond half a mile away.
The capital asset like a house includes roads, running water and sewage, and fuel to cook and
heat with zero labor, which are paid for for with $100 in labor for a family unit up to 4,
more or less. Paying $100 a week frees up at least 25 hours of unpaid household labor,
collecting/cutting wood for energy, walking to the pond to fetch water, walking along a trail
to work and shop.
Yes, the management of the domestic market development might fail to take adequate
measures
Indeed the macro managers may lose their way
But, the techniques that got them this far
Are still solid
And with augmentation
Can continue high-speed expansion of the production system and urbanization
Price regulation could and should be
Coordinated with a markup market ...
[ Important criticism and agreed. Prominent Western economists have usually been unwilling
to look to the structure of the Chinese economy and specific techniques that have been used
to spur development. ]
Brad DeLong has been wrong about China since 1980, Jeffrey Sachs and Stanley Fischer since
1990, Paul Krugman since 2011... The problem is that they simply never look at the Chinese
institutions that have driven 9.5% yearly growth in GDP and 8.5% yearly growth in per capita
GDP these 42 years. Suddenly, then, Krugman decides that what has driven Chinese growth is of
no consequence because China has (gasp) too few people.
Imagine a China of too few people, and I could care less about the age ratios, which I
have and which are of no concern relative to productivity growth which is just what China is
focusing on.
"On one side, China's problems are real. On the other, the Chinese government –
hindered neither by rigid ideology nor by anything resembling a democratic political process
– has repeatedly shown its ability and willingness to do whatever it takes to prop up
its economy. It's really anyone's guess whether this time will be different, or whether
Xi-who-must-be-obeyed can pull out another recovery."
By God, Jeeves, I think he's got it.
Tonight's music recommendation is the Jefferson Airplane.
He makes great points, and I'm encouraged that he's allowed to do so on to a big and
important audience.
I remember when his predecessor, Bill O'Rielly, claimed to have seen the evidence of
Saddam's WMD, and told his audience, on the run up to war, and I was appalled. As indeed, it
turned out he too was lying.
When the ZUSA was entrenched in the highly profitable war on Vietnam, there seemed to be no
way to end it. Protests in the streets and at the universities, and anger at the war and war
pig$ seemed to no avail.
But then a phenomena began. Fragging.
one wonders .
at seven minutes in, Carlson interviews a senator. The senator does his best to lie and
deceive, as only a ZUS senator can. But Tucker eviscerates him on screen.
now if this senator, and others like him, were themselves put into peril by these
serial, treasonous wars for Israel, would they still be so keen to have Americans die,
slaughtering innocent people- to bolster and benefit the main enemy of America; Israel?
I imagine the parent of a young American, who's life was sacrificed to augment the career of
Lindsey Graham. Or other Americans who're fed up with the endless wars for Israel, and are
willing to do something about the treasonous scum who're demanding and foisting all of these
Satanic wars.
Just as Tucker says, any general who advocates for these wars, should be required to
actually visit a battlefield, so too I wonder about the politicians, and how they eventually
have to go home, and live among their constituents. What if some of the worst of them, like
Graham for instance, were to actually suffer some consequence for all the evil he's done, and
continues to do?
Of course I'm not advocating anything illegal. Just ruminating on potential solutions to the
Eternal Wars for Israel – which are nothing more or less than a continuation of the first
two World Wars (for Israel) duh
END the FED!
(or watch your nation bankrupted and looted and made to die for Israel)
Don Lemon -- has it nailed. As we told you Tuesday night - you could've seen this coming - the FBI has suspected this for some
time.
The bureau opened a criminal investigation into the president more than a year ago, on the grounds that no loyal American would
fire a leader as impressive as FBI director James Comey. Putin must have ordered it. The Washington Post concurred with this.
As one of the paper's columnists noted, Trump has also "endorsed populism." That's right. Populism.
It has the stink of Russia all over it. Smells like vodka and day-old herring.
''Tis booming because the left/liberal/metropolitan muesli crunching elites (and I include
the Tories in that) who have reigned disdainfully over us since the Second World War have
ignored our fears over mass immigration and the changing of our established traditions and
cultures. They have also connived in the insanity of insisting every hair brained liberal
idea is worthy of being protected by the human rights legislative farce. Rapists being
offered a say in the upbringing of their issue, school uniforms being dragged into law and a
thousand and other one 'special issues' to a tiny minority being rammed down the throats of
the fed up majority at every opportunity by activists.
But that's the point, isn't it? That populist has been so vaguely defined that it encompasses
anything the authors don't like. It's a straw man, a pejorative.
Populism is a belief in the goodness of people, a belief that masses make better decisions
than elites and that the the rule of the elite come at the expense of the demos.
It's a term synonymous with grassroots, popular democracy. Proponents of elite rule with
reductionistic views democracy (rule with the consent of the governed and all that trash)
call their grassroots opponents 'populists' in attempt to tie them to strong men.
Noam Chomsky has a view on this issue and I am inclined to think he has a better
understanding of it than the author of this piece.
Chomsky rejects the term "populism" in this matter and offers, instead, the proposal that
;
"Working people are turning against elites and dominant institutions that have been
punishing them for a generation"
The theory of 'cause and effect' seems eminently more sensible to me than the shrill cries
of "It was the internet wot dun it"
The elites and dominant institutions that Chomsky refers to ( including mainstream media )
precipitated the current shift and would do better to acknowledge the part they played in it,
rather than insult and demean the consequential reaction of people on the receiving end of
it.
The enemy is not populism, it's the right's capture of the populist narrative. Trump is a
faux populist that has nothing but disdain for the people he employs and the people
rules.
The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through
our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my
ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Isaac Asimov
"A Cult of Ignorance". Newsweek, January 21, 1980.
the very old school Christian conservative libertarians and old skool nutty right have
seized on the success populist narrative has had in recent elections and referendum.
I would argue that is is because establishment figures in the Democratic party -- the New
Democrats -- decided that the days of class struggle were over, that 'we are all capitalists
now' and ceded the populist narrative to the right. Yes, this a populist moment and the
question is not if we can reestablish faith in the elite but whether we can ensure that the
new populism goes is a left rather than right direction.
I don't agree that populism lacks depth -- probably because when I think of populism I
think of left populist intellectuals like Friere, Martin-Baro and the like who thought that
democracy should be built on the virtues of the people.
The occupy movement was a populist movement. It said we, the people on the ground, know
better than the elites in the towers. It made decisions democratically, this in stark
contrast to the hierarchical structures of decision making exercised by the financial elite.
I think populism, or grassroots, popular democracy has intellectual depth and
sophistication. Take a look a the writing of Sheldin Wolin, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, David
Graeber . . .
I don't agree with most of the definitions of populism we've been offered -- I think they
are little more that pejoratives dressed in academic language and have as much depth as the
right's favored "snowflake" pejorative.
I remember watching 'Tomorrows World' ' in the 1970s and they showed us an unpuncturable
cycle tyre that would last 25,000 miles.
The patent was bought by Europe's largest cycle tyre manufacturer, and AFAIK that was the
last ever heard of it.
If that happened why is the water fuel idea so fanciful?
If you inject water into the inlet port or combustion chamber of a petrol engine, compression
ratios, power output and efficiency can be raised dramatically, this has been known since WW1
and was employed in high altitude aero engines during WW2, yet has never been taken up by any
major car manufacturer as far as I know, why?
So the notion that inventions could be suppressed for commercial reasons is really not
fanciful at all, it would make less sense for such technology, if it existed, to be made
altruistically available on a single purchase basis than to shitcan it.
As far as I can see, our country has been ruled by a right-wing, monied elite for many
years- not a 'liberal' one. Liberals at least tend to think in terms of economic equality and
social freedoms, whatever their other faults might be.
But many working class and middle class people still carry on voting Tory even though it's
against their own interests.
We don't have a 'liberal elite' in the UK. We still have the old-fashioned right wing Tory
elite in power based on class and wealth. Why 'liberals' get all the abuse these days is
beyond me.
I'm researching populism on youtube - and it is seedy- and I have yet to turn on the FB news
feed, but the algorithms do support populism- watch a PragerU video and the feed is full of
other rightwing nonsense.
And all of it has the same empty lines.
I watched the Oxford Union Steve Bannon address- and it could have come from a left
winger- the globalised corporate world has abandoned the little guy, and Trump is fixing
it.
The on message is the MSM is lying
PC and activists are totalitarian = commies
either capitalism or socialism [commies] = freedom vs enslavement
and an over whelming anti intellectualism - where have we heard that before.
True but there is still a case for having decent housing etc and training our own
professionals as well and not hollow out professionals from less advantaged countries. When
we took hundreds of nurses from the Philippines in 2000 and whole clinics there had to shut
to terrible detriment of ill locals
"But populism has two chief characteristics. First, it offers immediate and supposedly
obvious answers to complicated problems, which usually blame some other group along the
way."
I think this point (simple solutions to complex problems) is often overstated. If you take
the issue of immigration (an issue that has fuelled populism) , it actually shouldn't
necessarily be that difficult to bring the number of new immigrants down, except that the
political and media establishment pretend that it is.
Take Trump's plan to build a wall on the Mexican border. I see absolutely nothing wrong
with this as it is ultimately every country's prerogative to defend its borders.
Ditto for intra-EU immigration (perhaps the main reason for Brexit): the EU acts as if
this principle of free movement is sacred, but why should that be the case? Or Germany, where
I live, where the constitution guarantees a right to asylum for those seeking refuge in the
country. Again, this is spoken of as though it were cast in stone, when it really shouldn't
be that difficult to amend. So I don't necessarily believe that solutions to problems always
have to be difficult and complicated.
I agree that advances in people's abilities to interact with greater numbers of other people
tend to usher in periods of social upheaval. A lot of the current nationalistic,
anti-foreigner sentiments are the result of our initial reactions against unfamiliar
influences coming from groups with whom we previously had relatively little contact.
Brexit, "Make America Great Again", and similar movements are the collective screams of
resistance against dealing with unfamiliarity, learning new things, and growing. Over time,
we will adapt, but this will probably require a generation or so, at minimum.
Of course, given the high pace of technological change, we are likely to be collectively
bonded together even more tightly before we are able to adapt to the current state of the
world. It won't be long before people will all be interconnected via implants, which means
that each and every thing we do and every emotion we have will be sent out over the
net.
In a way Populism is somewhat similar to Marxism: implicit message is that the class struggle
in the societies is the key problem, which is completely true. American middle class was robbed
from 1970th of a considerable chunk of its standard of living. So it is not surprising that the
neoliberal elite ( the News Class of as they are called the US nomenklatura) now feels threatened
and resorts to censorship, usage of intelligence agencies and mass surveillance, and other
oppressive tactics to squash the dissent.
But in such cases the dissent grows stronger despise such an efforts and might turn, at some
point, into insurrection against financial oligarchy as Marxists predicted.
The only problem is with Marxism is that they considered working class to the the next
dominant class and this proved to be a false idea. That will never never happens.
Populism is a range of political approaches that deliberately appeal to "the people,"
often juxtaposing this group against a so-called "elite." There is no single definition of
the term, which developed in the 19th century and has been used to mean various things
since that time. Few politicians or political groups describe themselves as "populists",
and in political discourse the term is often applied to others pejoratively. Within
political science and other social sciences, various different definitions of populism have
been used, although some scholars propose rejecting the term altogether.
the wiki
page is a bit more expansive you should try reading it.
The left is also guilty of populist ideas- blaming the rich, or banking [when in the UK we
get a lot of tax from international banking as a service].
The right has just seized on populism and mainly through social media- brexit and trump
are proof its works- but the people behind the populist message are the same old tired neo
con christian right of the Reagan era and the sad old far right conspiracy nut jobs. Their
message failed in the past- but people like Rees-mogg can now seize on this technique.
Your misunderstanding of what socialism means indicates you swallow the new right wing
propaganda. Poorly funded education will result in people without proper opportunity- S.Korea
is not a socialist country but they spend a huge amount on education and reap the rewards.
But they have a culture where children doing well academically is praised but can also have
negative pressure consequences.
It is complicated and worth discussion but populism wants the easy message.
One of the better reports on populism I've see recently is ''European Disunion'' by Yascha
Mounk, a lecturer on government at Harvard
https://newrepublic.com/article/143604/european-disunion-rise-populist-movements-means-democracy
.
A analysis by Harvard ''Trump, Brexit, and the Rise of Populism: Economic Have-Nots and
Cultural Backlash'' found that the primary factor driving populism is a cultural backlash
i.e. against [neo]liberal policies and immigration.
Populism is growing because wealth is being concentrated into the hands of the wealthy, at
the expense of everyone else.
Generations, instead of doing better, through working are doing worse because governments
are allowing individuals and corporations to reduce terms and conditions of the
workforce.
Twenty years ago, many UK workers had company pension schemes and jobs that paid the rent
& bills. Now, the pensions have largely dried up and as housing has got more expensive,
and incomes have shrunk.
Those at the top are pushing those beneath them closer to a bowl of rice a day, and shrug
at the social consequences as inevitable - and a necessary step to protect shareholder values
and profits.
In essence, it is the same situation that gave rise to populism in the thirties.
Who do you blame for the fact that house prices have gone up?
Who do you blame for the fact that your pension is going to be smaller than your
parents'?
Thing is the populist politicians are the very same people who cut your pension and made
money out of it. They just want you to blame someone else.
Some highlights from this thread (no names, no pack drill):
Populism is a kickback and correction to the forty years of political correctness where
the white masses of Europe and America were forbidden by the liberal establishment to be
their real selves
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites.
Perhaps the reason that "populism" is thriving is that the liberal elites who ruled us
in the entire post war period became complacent out of touch with those they were meant to
represent.
there are millions of others whose voices have been ignored or silenced by the
mainstream news
We are disenfranchised by what the elites are saying because the elites control the
narrative in a way that makes sure the power will always reside with them.
The MSM has always been biased-
Why is democracy booming the article asks.
Well because the lies and bullshit of the liberal elite are there for all to see.
Take a look at what the MSM refuses to report, or what it deliberately distorts,
You can see the problem. It's like they are all reading from the same limited script which
has been handed to them. Given the freedom to express our opinions, we are regurgitating what
someone else has told us to say.
Maybe we should not be too pessimistic. The levels of opportunity for expression that the
internet and social media have given us might currently have exceeded our ability to think
critically about whatever bullshit we are being fed, but future generations may be better.
After all, it's only a small step from doubting whatever mainstream thought tells you, to
starting to wonder who is telling you to doubt those things and why and then to actually go
back and think for yourself about the issues.
So Corbyn and Trump are the same because they both have shirts. Well, color me
convinced!
Like so many of these articles -- including the long but uninformative 'long read' on the
same topic -- there is no mention of the failures of the elites.
Clinton sold us a false bill of goods. The Washington Consensus on economics would make
the country richer and, after some 'pain', would benefit the working class. Sure you wouldn't
be making cars but after some retraining you would work in tech.
This was a broken promise -- de industrialization has devastated the upper midwest. The
goods are made in China and the money goes to Bezos. People are rightly upset.
The Washington Consensus on war sold us a false bill of goods. Instead of peace through
strength we have seen a century of endless conflict. We have been caught in state of constant
killing since 2001 and we are no safer for it. Indeed the conflicts have created new enemies
and the only solution on offer is a hair of the dog solution.
People are fed up with the elite consensus because of the failures of the elites. Nowhere
are the repeated failures of the elites, the decades of broken promises mentioned in the
articles. Instead, those of us who prefer Sanders to Clinton, Corbyn to Blair are mesmerized
by emotional appeals and seduced by simplistic appeals to complex problems. And they wonder
why we don't accept their analyses . . .
TL;DR -- clickbait didn't get us here. The broken promises of the Washington consensus
did.
Why is populism booming asks the writer - simple, because people feel that no-one's
listening. Can it really be a surprise to The Guardian Opinion writers that people who have a
zero hours contract, pay a high rent and have little job security won't vote for more of the
same?
It's not a question as the writer suggests of 'if this wave of populism drifts into
authoritarianism or worse' it's more a question of when - and when it does the liberal left
will still be asking themselves - why?
Ship of Fools is, says the opening flap of the book, "the story of the new American
elites, a group whose power and wealth has grown beyond imagination even as the rest of the
country has withered. The people who run America now barely interact with it. They fly on their
own planes, ski on their own mountains, watch sporting events from the stands in skyboxes. They
have total contempt for you."
In thumbnail, that could not possibly be a more accurate description of American elites, not
to mention the reaction they produced: the election of Donald Trump. As someone who long ago
left the precincts of Inside the Beltway Washington, D.C. to come home to the wilds of Central
Pennsylvania, it was plain what was coming down the pike in November of 2016. This area was
awash in Trump signs. They were everywhere, even hand-painted on the sides of barns. As it
were, this was a sure sign of what Tucker describes this way:
Trump's election wasn't about Trump. It was a throbbing middle finger in the face of
America's ruling class. It was a gesture of contempt, a howl of rage, the end result of
decades of selfish and unwise decisions made by selfish and unwise leaders. Happy countries
don't elect Donald Trump president. Desperate ones do.
Bingo.
On page after page Ship of Fools discusses the problems that millions of Americans
have long since grasped -- sometimes without even formally being aware just what they were
coming to understand. Among them:
• "a meritocracy" that is about the business of creating "its own kind of
stratification, a kind more rigid than the aristocracy it replaced."
• Apple, on the one hand, has an astounding record of iPhones being assembled in China
by Foxconn, "a Taiwanese company that is the biggest electronics manufacturer in the world."
That would be workers making less than two dollars an hour, and who report "being forced to
stand for twenty-four hours at a time" with others "beaten by their supervisors." On the other
hand, the company gets a pass because "like virtually every big employer in American life, has
purchased indulgences from the church of cultural liberalism. Apple has a gay CEO with
fashionable social views. The company issues statements about green energy and has generous
domestic partner benefits. Apple publicly protested the Trump administration's immigration
policies. The company is progressive in ways that matter in Brooklyn. That's enough to stop any
conversation about working conditions in Foxconn factories." Concern about this from the
American ruling class? Zero.
• Then there's Uber, presenting itself to the public with the same liberal wokeness as
Apple. But in reality? In reality Uber's more than one million drivers "would make Uber the
second-largest private sector employer in the world." Ahhhh but there's a catch, which the book
zeroes in on. "But employees are expensive, they require vacation days and health-care
benefits. They have rights. In the United States, employees receive unemployment insurance, and
they are entitled to compensation for on-the-job injuries." But does Uber do these things? Of
course not. By playing a game that says their drivers aren't employees but rather
"contractors," like a small independent business -- Uber escapes these responsibilities.
• And let's not forget Facebook. In perhaps the most frightening section of the book,
Tucker details the degree to which Facebook "continues to gather ever-growing amounts of
intimate information about its customers," something about which "most people have no idea."
Tucker writes:
Use Facebook's mobile app on your phone? Facebook sees and records everywhere you go.
Facebook knows the stores you visited, the events you attended, and whether you walked,
drove, or rode your bike. Because Facebook is integrated onto so many other sites, the
company also knows much of your Web browsing history as well, even when you're not browsing
on Facebook.
Worse? There is the admission from Facebook's first president, Sean Parker, that, as Tucker
writes, Parker "admitted that Facebook can override the free will of its users. The product is
literally addictive. It was engineered to be that way."
There's more here on Facebook, much more that will raise the hair on the back of readers',
not to mention Facebook users', necks. And much more to Ship of Fools . There is a
thorough-going discussion of Cesar Chavez who founded the United Farmworkers union in the
1960s. As a serious Bobby Kennedy fan in that time-period, I well recall Chavez and RFK's
alliance with him that made repeated headlines in the day. What Tucker reminds here is that
there was no stauncher opponent of illegal immigration than the then-liberal hero Cesar Chavez.
Chavez went to incredible lengths to fight the problem, even going to the extent of having his
union members out "intercepting Mexican nationals as they crossed the border and assaulted them
in the desert. Their tactics were brutal: Chavez's men beat immigrants with chains, clubs, and
whips made of barbed wire. Illegal aliens who dared to work as scabs had their houses bombed
and cars burned. The union paid Mexican officials to keep quiet." Which is to say, Cesar Chavez
on illegal immigration makes Trump look like a wimp. And this being a Tucker Carlson book,
there is the humorous irony as he notes that Cesar Chavez, who died in 1993, is so revered by
liberals surely unaware of his actual position on illegals that there is a California state
holiday named for him, along with all manner of schools, libraries, highways, and one
college.
Not spared in this book -- as well they should not be -- is the GOP Washington
Establishment. Tucker lasers in on outgoing Speaker Paul Ryan, saying that he has been a leader
in the open borders movement. He runs through various Ryan actions that made clear "Republicans
in Congress don't care about the territorial integrity of the country."
This is a superb book, filled with eye-popping information on just how today's American
ruling class conducts itself. As soon as the book appeared, it shot to the top of the
bestseller lists, as well it should.
A word here about the author. In the headlines the other day was a tale of Antifa thugs
gathering outside the Carlson home -- he was at the Fox TV studio -- yelling and screaming as
an attempt was made to knock down the front door, damaging it as Tucker's wife, fearing a home
invasion, hid in the pantry calling the police.
This in fact was just one more incident in a list of similar attacks made by mobs of
fascist-minded thugs who have made it their business to go after any recognizable conservative
or Trump supporter across the country. It takes courage to go on the most popular cable network
night after night and stand up for conservative values in an atmosphere where the Left is in a
furious fight to gain permanent power and privilege over their fellow Americans. Tucker Carlson
-- like his colleagues Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham -- thankfully have that courage in
spades.
Violence is in the DNA of the American Left -- and it always has been. From the use of the
Ku Klux Klan as the military arm of the Democratic Party to labor violence, the 1960s Weather
Underground and anti-Vietnam War protests, not to mention the window smashers of Occupy Wall
Street and now the hooded thugs of Antifa, the Left's instinctive use of violence has never
changed. It is imperative to understand that this is, indeed, straight-up fascism. Antifa --
and those who defend them in the liberal media and the Democratic Party and in scores of venues
across the country, college campuses notably -- need to be called out for what they are.
"Antifa" is, in reality, "Profa" -- pro-fascist, not anti-fascist. They are the philosophical
descendants of Mussolini's "black shirts" -- with the addition of hoods to hide their
paramilitary faces. And when they show up and physically attack someone's home, they should be
tracked down, arrested, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
It is amazing -- and I have written on this subject a great deal in this space -- that to
believe in a colorblind America as Tucker Carlson does, to oppose identity politics, the latter
which I have long since termed the son of segregation and grandson of slavery because it is, in
fact, racist -- is to be accused, of all ridiculous things, of "white nationalism." It should
not escape that the Carlson accusers on this score have a serious projection problem.
As Ship of Fools makes crystal clear, Americans face a serious problem in dealing
with this cast of characters who populate the American elites. These elites do indeed hold
millions of Americans in contempt -- and the election of Donald Trump was the answer. But
Donald Trump will not be president forever, and, as Tucker points out, "if you want to save
democracy, you've got to practice it."
Originally from: President Trump's Losing Strategy: Embracing Brazil and Confronting China
James Petras January 8, 2019
Introduction
The US embraces a regime doomed to failure and threatens the world's most dynamic economy. President Trump has lauded Brazil's
newly elected President Jair Bolsonaro and promises to promote close economic, political, social and cultural ties. In contrast the
Trump regime is committed to dismantling China's growth model, imposing harsh and pervasive sanctions, and promoting the division
and fragmentation of greater China.
Washington's choice of allies and enemies is based on a narrow conception of short-term advantage and strategic losses.
In this paper we will discuss the reasons why the US-Brazilian relation fits in with Washington's pursuit for global domination
and why Washington fears the dynamic growth and challenge of an independent and competitive China.
Brazil in Search of a Patron
Brazil's President, Jair Bolsonaro from day one, has announced a program to reverse nearly a century of state directed economic
growth. He has announced the privatization of the entire public sector, including the strategic finance, banking, minerals, infrastructure,
transport, energy and manufacturing activities. Moreover, the sellout has prioritized the centrality of foreign multi-national corporations.
Previous authoritarian civilian and military regimes protected nationalized firms as part of tripartite alliances which included
foreign, state and domestic private enterprises.
In contrast to previous elected civilian regimes which strived – not always successfully – to increase pensions, wages and living
standards and recognized labor legislation, President Bolsonaro has promised to fire thousands of public sector employees, reduce
pensions and increase retirement age while lowering salaries and wages in order to increase profits and lower costs to capitalists.
President Bolsonaro promises to reverse land reform, expel, arrest and assault peasant households in order to re-instate landlords
and encourage foreign investors in their place. The deforestation of the Amazon and its handover to cattle barons and land speculators
will include the seizure of millions of acres of indigenous land.
In foreign policy, the new Brazilian regime pledges to follow US policy on every strategic issue: Brazil supports Trump's economic
attacks on China, embraces Israel's land grabs in the Middle East, (including moving its capital to Jerusalem), back US plots to
boycott and policies to overthrow the governments of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua. For the first time, Brazil has offered the Pentagon
military bases, and military forces in any and all forthcoming invasions or wars.
The US celebration of President Bolsonaro's gratuitous handovers of resources and wealth and surrender of sovereignty is celebrated
in the pages of the Financial Times, the Washington Post and the New York Times who predict a period of growth, investment and recovery
– if the regime has the 'courage' to impose its sellout.
As has occurred in numerous recent experiences with right wing neo-liberal regime changes in Argentina, Mexico, Colombia and Ecuador,
financial page journalists and experts have allowed their ideological dogma to blind them to the eventual pitfalls and crises.
The Bolsonaro regime's economic policies ignore the fact that they depend on agro-mineral exports to China and compete with US
exports Brazilian ago-business elites will resent the switch of trading partners.. They will oppose, defeat and undermine Bolsonaro's
anti-China campaign if he dares to persists.
Foreign investors will takeover public enterprises but are not likely to expand production given the sharp reduction of employment,
salaries and wages, as the consumer market declines.
Banks may make loans but demand high interest rates for high 'risks' especially as the government will face increased social opposition
from trade unions and social movements, and greater violence from the militarization of society.
Bolsonaro lacks a majority in Congress who depend on the electoral support of millions of public employees, wage and salaried
workers ,pensioners,and gender and racial minorities. Congressional alliance will be difficult without corruption and compromises
Bolsonaro's cabinet includes several key ministers who are under investigation for fraud and money laundering. His anti-corruption
rhetoric will evaporate in the face of judicial investigations and exposés.
Brazil is unlikely to provide any meaningful military forces for regional or international US military adventures. The military
agreements with the US will carry little weight in the face of deep domestic turmoil.
Bolsanaro's neo-liberal policies will deepen inequalities especially among the fifty million who have recently risen out of poverty.
The US embrace of Brazil will enrich Wall Street who will take the money and run, leaving the US facing the ire and rejection of
their failed ally.
The US Confronts China
Unlike Brazil, China is not prepared to submit to economic plunder and to surrender its sovereignty. China is following its own
long-term strategy which focuses on developing the most advanced sectors of the economy – including cutting edge electronics and
communication technology.
Chinese researchers already produce more patents and referred scientific articles than the US. They graduate more engineers, advanced
researchers and innovative scientists than the US based on high levels of state funding . China with an investment rate of over 44%
in 2017, far surpasses the US. China has advanced, from low to high value added exports including electrical cars at competitive
prices. For example, Chinese i-phones are outcompeting Apple in both price and quality.
China has opened its economy to US multi-national corporations in exchange for access to advanced technology, what Washington
dubs as 'forced' seizures.
China has promoted multi-lateral trade and investment agreement ,including over sixty countries, in large-scale long-term infrastructure
agreements throughout Asia and Africa.
Instead of following China's economic example Washington whines of unfair trade, technological theft, market restrictions and
state constraints on private investments.
China offers long-term opportunities for Washington to upgrade its economic and social performance – if Washington recognized
that Chinese competition is a positive incentive. Instead of large-scale public investments in upgrading and promoting the export
sector, Washington has turned to military threats, economic sanctions and tariffs which protect backward US industrial sectors. Instead
of negotiating for markets with an independent China, Washington embraces vassal regimes like Brazil's under newly elected President
Jair Bolsonaro who relies on US economic control and takeovers.
ORDER IT NOW
The US has an easy path to dominating Brazil for short-term gains – profits, markets and resources, but the Brazilian model is
not viable or sustainable. In contrast the US needs to negotiate, bargain and agree to reciprocal competitive agreements with China
..The end result of cooperating with China would allow the US to learn and grow in a sustainable fashion.
"... Soon, if Trump keeps the government shutdown, those idled federal workers just might be seen in the streets. ..."
"... "The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that France DID help bring about in Kiev are now rocking the very foundations of the French Republic." ..."
"... Metaphorically, Rome burns while Nero and his Senators fiddle ..."
George Galloway
weighs in on the chaos engulfing the Empire in Washington, London and Paris. The
Neoliberal ship is foundering while the uplifting of people-based policies of Russia and
China keep them on track to reach their aims. Soon, if Trump keeps the government
shutdown, those idled federal workers just might be seen in the streets. George has a
penchant for connecting things, and had this to say about Macron:
"The very conditions Macron strove so very hard to bring about in Damascus and that
France DID help bring about in Kiev are now rocking the very foundations of the French
Republic."
The false flag of Austerity--Neoliberalism preying on its own as was predicted at its
beginnings is what we're witnessing, while the actors that created the situation cling with
bloody hands to the ship of state unwilling to surrender the wheel to those who might salvage
the situation.
Metaphorically, Rome burns while Nero and his Senators fiddle .
The book, Profit over People by Noam Chomsky, Linguist turned political / social critic, is
an indictment against the process of globalization currently in vogue. Supporters of U.S.
International policy and trade agreements beware. If you agree with present policy then this
book is not for you. However, if you seek to examine your views, or if you need data to
utilize as a critique of current policy then Noam Chomsky offers a strong expose of
capitalism and globalization.
The book revolves around several major themes, including an examination of neoliberalism,
its definition, history, and how it is utilized in current policy. Next, Mr. Chomsky turns to
how consent for neoliberalism is manufactured through institutions such as the media. He ends
with a critique of U.S. Foreign policy especially in Latin America, the NAFTA agreement, and
insights into the Zapatista rebellion in Chiapas Mexico during the 1990's.
Mr. Chomsky uses neoliberalism as a pejorative term to connote the practices of economic
liberalization, privatization, free trade, open markets, and deregulation. In 'Profit over
People' it is defined "as the policies and processes whereby a relative handful of private
interests are permitted to control as much as possible of social life in order to maximize
their personal profit." Neoliberalism is based on the economic theories of Friedrich Hayek,
Milton Friedman, and the policies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
At the time of 'Profit Over People,' Neoliberalism had been the dominant economic paradigm
for a couple decades. In his critique of this paradigm, Mr. Chomsky observed that it was
being used to justify the corporate domination of the civic and public life of nations
including the U.S. He also noted that through neoliberalism, capitalism was being equated
with democracy and supporters were using this perspective to advocate for deregulation
policies as well as international trade agreements. He insinuated that at the same time
corporations were manufacturing consent for economic liberalization their real goal was to
attempt to gain control of international markets. A quote from the introduction illustrates
this theme;
"....as Chomsky points out, markets are almost never competitive. Most of the economy is
dominated by massive corporations with tremendous control over their markets and that
therefore face precarious little competition of the sort described in economic textbooks and
politicians speeches. Moreover, corporations themselves are effectively totalitarian
organizations, operating along nondemocratic lines."
Contemplating the issues Mr. Chomsky raises it is difficult to be objective with him
because his argument is so one-sided. He does not have one good thing to say about the
effects of globalization or trade agreements. There definitely are some negative effects of
globalization, yet it raises red flags in the mind of a discerning reader when positive
effects are overlooked. For example, he is very critical of NAFTA and provides evidence in
support of his argument, yet his critique is before NAFTA even went into effect.
Still, although a little outdated, and opinionated, Profit over People provides important
insights into the process of globalization, and who gains from the process. Mr. Chomsky
raises legitimate concerns about current trends in global development, and the forces behind
it. This is why I consider 'Profit over People' a book worth reflecting on.
The quote below is from Tucker book... Tucker Carlson for President ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... What was written as an allegory is starting to feel like a documentary, as generations of misrule threaten to send our country beneath the waves. ..."
"... Facts threaten their fantasies. And so they continue as if what they're doing is working, making mistakes and reaping consequences that were predictable even to Greek philosophers thousands of years before the Internet. ..."
"... They're fools. The rest of us are their passengers. ..."
Most terrifying of all, the crew has become incompetent. They have no idea how to sail. They're spinning the ship's wheel like
they're playing roulette and cackling like mental patients.
The boat is listing, taking on water, about to sink. They're totally
unaware that any of this is happening. As waves wash over the deck, they're awarding themselves majestic new titles and raising
their own salaries. You look on in horror, helpless and desperate. You have nowhere to go. You're trapped on a ship of fools.
Plato imagined this scene in The Republic. He never mentions what happened to the ship. It would be nice to know. What
was written as an allegory is starting to feel like a documentary, as generations of misrule threaten to send our country beneath
the waves.
The people who did it don't seem aware of what they've done. They don't want to know, and they don't want you to tell them.
Facts threaten their fantasies. And so they continue as if what they're doing is working, making mistakes and reaping consequences
that were predictable even to Greek philosophers thousands of years before the Internet.
They're fools. The rest of us are their passengers.
I encourage people to read this book. My four star rating certainly does NOT reflect my
agreement with all of his points and arguments. However, debate and understanding of other
viewpoints is important. Compared to many other right-wing books, Tucker I think makes a lot
of valid points.
However, I am dinging him one-star because I don't think he put himself really out there.
I suspect he wants to protect his viewership on Fox by not calling out Trump when
appropriate. Tucker never once mention Trump where Trump does not stand for what Tucker
stands for. The words civility is often mentioned; yet nothing about our President outright
meanness, cruelty, and lack of civility. Also, I get and agree with the subject of Free
Speech and some of the extremists on the left. Yet failing to mention the attacks on the free
press from Trump illustrates his weakness to be completely objective. (Yes the MSM is
liberal, but free press is still part of our democracy). Probably most important is Tucker's
failure to even address tax and fiscal policy in regards to the elites. Maybe Tucker thinks a
ballooning debt is okay (both Obama and Trump); and the Trump tax cut is not part of the
elite structure to gain even more power. Seems odd to me.
Other noteworthy items for potential readers. Be prepared for two long rants. While I lean
liberal, I had no idea what Chelsea Clinton was up to. Apparently she is destroying the
world. lol. It's almost like Tucker just has a personal vendetta with her. I myself don't
keep up with any President's kids. ...okay, that's a little bit of a lie. I find the SNL
skits on Don Jr. and Eric very funny. Tucker's other personal vendetta is with Ta-Nehisi
Coates. I got in the first two minutes Tucker didn't like the book and thought it full of
holes. I didn't agree with everything Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote either just like I don't agree
with everything Tucker writes; but I have rated both as four stars.
T.C. - Kudos, you absolutely nailed it with title and introduction. The first paragraph
exacts our situation, and lowers down your reader ever so softly, allowing us to know: You Do
Get It. Perhaps best explified with this little zinger:
"Happy countries don't elect Donald Trump as President - Desperate Ones Do!"
And, please accept a Big Thank You for taking the time to narrate your own book. IT truly
is the best way to consume the content.
"Nothing is really hidden - Only ignored!!" I sincerely doubt our ruling class - which
reasoned away why Trump was ever elected.. Will Ever Get This Point. Today's ruling elite's
are fully insulated and it is EXACTLY the way they like it. They have it Far Too Good living
in a No Answer Required reality while being fed by lobbists. Heck our leadership is so far
removed, they couldn't hear the ever increasing cries for Civil Revolution that have bellowed
on since at least, 2010. On the other hand, Donald Trump sure did! He campaigned exactly on
this. And some of us that voted for him, are willing to bet too - The Wizards of Oz [Federal
Reserve] were listening as rebels yelled with question of their secret club and it's role in
this funneling - decades long downward swirel. Lest anyone forget, it was they [under FDR's
New Deal] who are postured with pinnicle to shield us from another Great Depression.
So What if Trump tells lies. Don't you get it? It's FREE Speech on Steroids. He's making a
statement about our First Amendment.
Your next 8 chapters... profoundly filled with deep and convincing material.. albeit,
sometimes shocking in perspective... clearly articulates our reality... all of which, when
glued together tells us exactly what we know: The Boat has Run Amuk!
The meaty middle of your publication... filled with oceans of content - leaves this reader
to wonder which think tank supported your endevour? I mean, material like this doesn't just
come from perusing the Washington or New York Post. Lastly, you give thanks to your Fox Team
but come on... this is far too volumous for stellar three research artists to uncover - even
if given 5 years.
Notwithstanding, it was your epilog that brought my Biggest Disappointment. Any sailor
knows if you want to Right a Rolled Ship, you'll first need Force - to get the thing
uprighted, and a Super Slurping Sump to get it drained. Only then, can we change how it
Floats.. and which way it Sails. In fairness, perhaps you are implying the ship was uprighted
by such a force back in Nov. 2016, with the election of President Trump. If so, I clearly
missed that one from you.
Amazingly, with just under two years in office, his administration has made tremendous
headway at operating the bilge. And, I don't think there has been another president in the
history of your country who has Done More of what he campaigned on, to this point in any
administration. And only the next election cycle will determine if the Coast Guard has begun
sailing toward us in rescue.
With our capitalistic democracy you can't just wish the boat to flip and drain. While your
"Tend to the Population" idea is both eloquent and laudable - and will help change the course
once the keel is down.. it does nothing to cause money to stop flowing up the hill. When 2%
of the population holds 90% of the wealth, when the outdated middle class based Income
Taxation System is wrapped around a middle class that is no longer in existence, then there's
little hope for the lower 10% to emerge. Heck, take this to a basic conversation about our
democracy. We have lost faith in the power of our vote against the lobbists. The middle and
lower class population can't spare the time to handle your decentralized suggestion even if
leaders did fork over some power. We fell in the ocean long ago and are doing all we can to
tread water, while fending off the circling sharks.
Sir, you know full well there is no incentive in our current democracy which will change
what has been 40+ years in the making.. that which your middle 8 chapters so eloquently
reveal. Oh, one or two politicians with genuine heart will try. But the two party system and
all it's disfunctional glory will only laugh.
You suggest our leaders should proceed slow, that they decentralize power. Again laudable
in therory, but reality suggests we stand too far devided in these "United States" and far
too loudly is the call for revolution. The politicians are pandering the point!
We need to break the Democratically Elected, Capitalistically Funded - Autocratcy! Short
of a mutiny, I for one have lost faith to believe anything else is going to right the ship.
Rather than offer a mildly soft solution, your book needed to speak to action. And how it
will get done!
Love him or loathe him (I happen to know him, and I'd describe him as a "charming rogue"
after sitting next to him at dinner on several occasions), the author has some very
interesting things to say about why we as a nation seem to be headed in the direction we're
heading. A few of his facts that he uses to back up his ideas seem a little "let me see if I
can find an obscure fact or quote to back my point up" and fly in the face of reality (which
is why I only gave 4 stars), but he presents some ideas that everyone should consider - you
may choose not accept them, but an open-minded, independent person would take the time to
actually think about what he's saying instead of dismissing it out of hand.
Bill Hughes 4.0 out of 5 stars
I'm giving Carlson's tome three out of five stars. November 3, 2018
Format: Hardcover Let's face it, we live in trying times. Take politics for example. Donald
Trump's Right-leaning Republicans (The Repugs) couldn't be more divided from Nancy Pelosi's
Liberal Democrats (The Dims) on just about every serious issue. How wide? Think Atlantic Ocean
wide!
We don't need any expert to tell us that either. Things are so bad, most sane people won't
bring up sensitive subjects, such as government, race, immigration, the environment, and on and
on, in the company of strangers. To do so is to risk starting WWIII. Under the reign of "El
Presidente," aka "The Donald," it has all gotten worse.
When I was growing up in a heavily-democratic South Baltimore, a Republican was a novelty.
There was only one on my block in Locust Point. She kept a low profile. This was so even during
the halcyon days of Republican Theodore "Teddy" McKeldin, twice mayor of Baltimore and twice
governor of Maryland.
Things have changed dramatically. Now, my old democratic political club on South Charles
Street, near the Cross Street market, "The Stonewall," a once-strong bastion for the working
class, is no more. Its boss, Harry J. "Soft Shoes" McGuirk, too, has passed on to his final
reward. Its loyal followers, the ever faithful precinct workers, have vanished along with it.
Instead, there's a booming housing market with properties, new and old, selling in Federal
Hill, and Locust Point, too, for over one half million dollars.
During my salad days, you could have bought a whole block of houses in Locust Point for that
kind of money. That day is over.
The Millennials, aka "Generation Y," have flooded the area. They have also found it hard to
identify with either major political party, or major institutions, according to a recent Pew
Study. Bottom line: The Millennials have demonstrated little or no interest in democratic
machine politics. This is not a good sign for maintaining a vigorous participatory democracy at
either the local or national level.
Enter Tucker Carlson and his best-selling book, "Ship of Fools: How a Selfish Ruling Class
is Bringing America to the Brink of Revolution." It couldn't be more timely with divisions in
the country rising daily and sometimes leading to - violence!
The author zeroed in on America's grasping ruling clique. I like to call them "The 1% Gang."
The numbers keep changing for the worse. One study shows them owning about 40 percent of the
country's wealth. They own more wealth than the bottom 90 percent combined, according to a
Federal Survey of Consumers Finances.
In a recent "Portside" commentary, writer Chuck Collins, pointed out that the wealth of
America's three richest families has grown by 6,000 percent since 1982. Today, they owned as
"much wealth as the bottom half of the U.S. population combined." (11.02.18)
Carlson labeled the "1% Gang" as "globalist" schemers who could care less about the folks at
the bottom - or our America. He wrote that they hide their contempt for the poor and working
class behind the "smokescreen of identity politics." They are leaving us with a "Them vs. Us"
society, he warned - "a new class system."
How did Donald Trump win in 2016? Carlson gives his spin on that controversial election: He
said, "desperate" countries elect candidates like Trump. The voters were, in effect, giving the
"middle finger" to the ruling class, after decades of "unwise leaders." Once the voters believe
that "voting is pointless," anything can happen. Wise leaders should understand this. But after
listening to Hillary Clinton perpetually whine about her losing bid, "poor Hillary," in 2016,
for the highest office, I'm not so sure they do.
To underscore the charge of unwise leadership, the author pointed to the stupid decisions to
"invade Iraq and bail out Wall Street lowering interest rates, opening borders and letting the
manufacturing sector collapse and the middle class die." The people, Carlson emphasized, sent a
strong message: "Ignore voters for long enough and you get Donald Trump." To put it another
way, Hillary's "Deplorables" had spoken out loud and clear.
I especially enjoyed how Carlson ripped into the Neocons' leading warmonger, Bill Kristol.
He exposed the latter's secret agenda to become the "ideological gatekeeper of the Republican
party." Kristol believed the U.S. should be bombing and invading countries throughout the
Middle East. His main claim to infamy was his support for the illegal and immoral U.S. invasion
of Iraq. When Trump critiqued the Iraq War and its promoters, Carlson wrote "Kristol erupted."
That feud continues to this day. I'm sure if Trump goes along with a US invasion of Iran, they
will patch things up - quickly.
Question: Shouldn't warmongering be a "Hate Crime?"
In summing up his book, Carlson said that the "1% Gang," hasn't gotten the message. They are
"fools, unaware that they are captains on a sinking ship."
Let's hope the Millennials are listening. It sure is odd, however, that this book advocating
"reason" in our political life, comes from a commentator associated with a television station
which is known as a bastion of unreason - Fox News! The author is an anchor on the Fox News
Channel.
Although, Carlson deserves credit for blasting both the Left and Right in his book, I found
some of his arguments lacking substance. Nevertheless, his main point about greedy lunatics
running the country into the ground, and the need for a campaign to stop them, warrants
immediate attention by an informed electorate.
I'm giving Carlson's tome three out of five stars.
While Tucker uses logic and facts to make his arguments, Cenk uses feelings to
support his. If anyone is still a follower of Cenk after this video, then Tucker is right, the
level of delusion in society is staggering.
Chunk really is a disingenuous slime ball. He brings up food as evidence of our
"multiculturalism", it's such a moronic example. The fundamentals of culture that Tucker was
speaking of include our beliefs enshrined in the constitution, freedom of speech, our
egalitarianism, capitalism, the English language, ingenuity, entrepreneurial spirit, all of the
god-given rights we believe in, self defense, etc. It's very uniquely American and to have
millions upon millions of Hondurans or Mexicans or whatever flood in, not assimilate, and
change the language and the freedoms/god-given rights we believe in, that will displace OUR
culture with theirs.... and clearly our culture is superior, if it wasn't then they'd be the
one's with a rich country that we'd want to move to. Who gives a fuck if we like to eat tacos
or pasta you greasy slime ball. Basically if Glob of Grease was right then there would be no
such thing as assimilation.
At the risk of sounding misogynistic I have to say listening to a liberal is like listening to
a woman. No matter how wrong they are in their mind they're right. No matter how much logic
& common sense you throw their way it's never enough for them to understand. That's what it
be like watching these "debates". This is why a lot of the left when it comes to men are
considered BETA. They have the skewed mind like that of a female, men appeal more to logic than
emotional rhetoric like what Cenk was speaking from. This is why civilizations of the past have
all gone the way of the dodo bird. Because they'll allow themselves to become so diverse to the
point of collapse. It's funny too because all of the countries they beg us to allow in are some
of the most segregated countries on the planet, such as Asia.
The quote below is from Tucker book... Tucker Carlson for President ;-)
Notable quotes:
"... What was written as an allegory is starting to feel like a documentary, as generations of misrule threaten to send our country beneath the waves. ..."
"... Facts threaten their fantasies. And so they continue as if what they're doing is working, making mistakes and reaping consequences that were predictable even to Greek philosophers thousands of years before the Internet. ..."
"... They're fools. The rest of us are their passengers. ..."
Most terrifying of all, the crew has become incompetent. They have no idea how to sail. They're spinning the ship's wheel like
they're playing roulette and cackling like mental patients.
The boat is listing, taking on water, about to sink. They're totally
unaware that any of this is happening. As waves wash over the deck, they're awarding themselves majestic new titles and raising
their own salaries. You look on in horror, helpless and desperate. You have nowhere to go. You're trapped on a ship of fools.
Plato imagined this scene in The Republic. He never mentions what happened to the ship. It would be nice to know. What
was written as an allegory is starting to feel like a documentary, as generations of misrule threaten to send our country beneath
the waves.
The people who did it don't seem aware of what they've done. They don't want to know, and they don't want you to tell them.
Facts threaten their fantasies. And so they continue as if what they're doing is working, making mistakes and reaping consequences
that were predictable even to Greek philosophers thousands of years before the Internet.
They're fools. The rest of us are their passengers.
Tucker Carlson, Fox News host and author of "Ship of Fools", joins Ben to discuss the social
impact of rapid technological advances, what role government should or shouldn't play in the
economy, and how both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are able to appeal to the same
voters.
I am 73 and voted for Bill Clinton both times. Was heavily involved in local union as
president of a local. I have witnessed the declining middle class. The loss of our critical
steel industry and the SHAFTA deal as we termed it NAFTA was first started by Bush Senior
adopted as a center piece by Bill Clinton and and supported by both party's. Then we
witnessed the migration of jobs, factories and the middle class becoming food stamp
recipients. I couldn't understand how our country willing destroyed our manufacturing jobs. I
wondered how we could ever fight a world war with no Steel and Aluminum plants. I became very
disillusioned with both political party's. I felt Neither party gave a dime about the real
loss to our country.
When the Towers fell I witnessed how it must have been when Pearl Harbor was attacked.
People actually came together the Recruiter offices were packed with both men and women
wanting to extract revenge on the terrorist. Then the longest war in our history began. It
saddens me to say that our wonderful country hasn't won a war since World War 2. But not
because of our military but the politicians . Vietnam was a for profit war most that fought
there didn't have a clue as to why we were bogged down there and not one of the Generals had
any idea how to fight this terrible travesty that took over 58000 lives and uncounted lives
of veterans since.
When Trump announced his bid for president he was ridiculed by the elite from both party's
. He listened to the disillusioned to the workers that lost everything. When Trump won it was
a shot across the bow of the powers that be.
Our president is far from perfect however he heard the masses and brought back some
semblance of sanity. Once again President has given hope to our country that had been
commandeered by an apologist President . Who was not respected on the world stage. Thank you
Tucker for this book.
If there's one word that describes Tucker Carlson, it is "sharp." He cuts to the core of each
issue, explains it concisely, and shucks away the hidden agendas of those who want to
manipulate the issue for their own self-serving agendas.
That's exactly what he does in this book. It is written conversationally, the way Tucker
Carlson talks on TV. He has condensed millions of words about the advent of Donald Trump into
two sentences: "Countries can survive war and famines and disease. They cannot survive
leaders who despise their own people." Tucker elaborates:
=====
Donald Trump was in many ways an unappealing figure. He never hid that. Voters knew it. They
just concluded that the options were worse -- and not just Hillary Clinton and the Democratic
Party, but the Bush family and their donors and the entire Republican leadership, along with
the hedge fund managers and media luminaries and corporate executives and Hollywood
tastemakers and think tank geniuses and everyone else who created the world as it was in the
fall of 2016: the people in charge. Trump might be vulgar and ignorant, but he wasn't
responsible for the many disasters America's leaders created .
There was also the possibility that Trump might listen. At times he seemed interested in
what voters thought. The people in charge demonstrably weren't. Virtually none of their core
beliefs had majority support from the population they governed .Beginning on election night,
they explained away their loss with theories as pat and implausible as a summer action movie:
Trump won because fake news tricked simple minded voters. Trump won because Russian agents
"hacked" the election. Trump won because mouth-breathers in the provinces were mesmerized by
his gold jet and shiny cuff links.
=====
He covers many insights provided in other excellent books by Laura Ingraham, Newt
Gingrich, Anne Coulter, Charles Murray, and Jordan Peterson. But he brings them into the
sharpest focus in his own unique way. For example, he addresses the issue of income
inequality, which the Republican and Conservative Establishments seems afraid of:
====
America thrived for 250 years mostly because of its political stability. The country had no
immense underclass plotting to smash the system. There was not a dominant cabal of the
ultrawealthy capable of overpowering the majority. The country was fundamentally stable. On
the strata of that stability its citizens built a remarkable society.
In Venezuela . small number of families took control of most of the Venezuelan economy.
America isn't Venezuela. But if wealth disparities continue to grow, why wouldn't it be? Our
political leaders ought to be concerned. Instead they work to make the country even less
stable, by encouraging rapid demographic change
====
He is courageous in pointing out that excessive immigration, of the kind that Wall Street
Republicans and Liberals Democrat want, is perhaps detrimental to the interests of most
Americans:
====
. Democrats know immigrants vote overwhelmingly for them, so mass immigration is the most
effective possible electoral strategy: You don't have to convince or serve voters; you can
just import them. Republican donors want lower wages.
====
He talks about the social stratification of American society: that we have become an
overly-credentialized society that concentrates its wealth into a tiny number of elites,
while the middle class struggles far in the rea:
====
The path to the American elite has been well marked for decades: Perform well on standardized
tests, win admission to an elite school, enter one of a handful of elite professions, settle
in a handful of elite zip codes, marry a fellow elite, and reproduce.
=====
Tucker castigates the corruption of Conservatives and Liberals. He characterizes
Republican House leader Paul Ryan as a bought-and-paid-for tool of multinational
corporations. He talks about how Liberals have also become corrupted. The old-time Liberals
(like his elementary school teacher) were an affable group of socially-conscious,
well-meaning, and charmingly eccentric people. Some of those Liberals are still around. But
many have become the greediest of Wall Street charlatans who operate the most oppressive
companies here and abroad. Even worse, they have come do despise their fellow American
citizens who have been distressed by the unstable economy of recent decades:
====
This is the unspoken but core assumption of modern American elites: I went to Yale and live
on ten acres in Greenwich because I worked hard and made wise choices. You're unemployed and
live in an apartment in Cleveland because you didn't. The best thing about old-fashioned
liberals was how guilty they were. They felt bad about everything, and that kept them
empathetic and humane. It also made them instinctively suspicious of power, which was useful.
Somebody needs to be.
=====
Tucker concludes by explaining why the Establishments of both parties are whining about
what they think is "the end of democracy" (translation: "We, the Establishment, think
democracy is ending because the people won't vote for our candidates"). Then he gives the
Establishment his trademark, one-sentence summation:
"If you want to save democracy, you've got to practice it."
Tucker Carlson does a good job, in this book, of laying out the mistakes being made by the
Political Establishment in America. He takes both flavors of the Establishment to task. Both
the smug, leftist Democrats and the soft Republican RINO's. I thought that I was educated on
the problems being caused by this 'Ship of Fools' but Mr. Carlson informed me that things
were even worse than I feared.
Where the book is weak is in the area of offered solutions. This is why I only gave it 4
stars. Mr. Carlson assumes that the Establishment set is purely driven by greed and a selfish
desire for more and more power. So, his 'Solution' is to just tongue-lash them for being so
greedy and selfish. He seems to assume that such shaming will force them to reform from
within. This is delusional.
The Establishment is driven not only by greed and a lust for power. Many of them truly
believe in a Marxist-Socialist ideology. They have taken over the education system, the
legacy media, Hollywood and many big internet companies. This makes their ideology
self-perpetuating. They cannot and will not reform on their own. Mr. Carlson is walking up
the gangplank and joining the 'Ship of Fools' if he believes that 'self-reform' is a
solution.
No, there are only two solutions. One is the election of 'disruptors', like President
Trump, who will gradually reform both the Government and the Education System so as to
replace Marxist-Socialism with a return to the core American principles of a Representative
Republic. The other, I am sad to say, is forcible suppression of the Establishment Class by
the American People. The smug elites may imagine that the police and military will support
them. However, they won't do it against their own people. Especially for a ruling class that
does nothing but belittle both the police and the military at every opportunity.
I truly don't want to see this second approach implemented. America already has enough
blood-stained pages in her history. Nevertheless, if the Establishment and the
Marxist-Socialist Education system is not reined in, it will end up with many of the
Establishment Class hanging from lampposts or facing firing squads. I truly hope it does not
come to that.
"Ship of Fools" extends the recent run of books that attack the American
ruling class as decayed and awful. However it is characterized, as the professional-management
elite, the Front Row Kids, or one of many other labels, all these books argue the ruling class
is running our country into the ground, and most argue it is stupid and annoying to boot. I
certainly agree, and I also tend to agree with the grim prognostication in the subtitle, that
revolution is coming -- that is, this will end in blood. What this book fails to offer, though,
just like all these books, is any kind of possible other solution. Which, after a while,
reinforces the reader's conclusion that there is no other solution.
Not a word in this book is truly original. That's not to say it's bad: Carlson is highly
intelligent and well informed, and his book is extremely well written, clever, funny, and
compelling. As with most current political books, Donald Trump appears often, not as himself,
but as a phenomenon, whose rise deserves and requires explanation, and who therefore implicitly
frames the book, though the author stops mentioning him about halfway through. Carlson's
thoughts on Trump, however, are no more original than the rest of the book, the basic
conclusion of which is that actions have consequences, and Trump is a natural consequence of
the actions taken by our ruling class. In Greek myth, when you sow the earth with dragon's
teeth, you get fierce warriors; today, when you harrow the disempowered with rakes, you get
Trump.
Carlson, in his Introduction, recites a familiar litany, of the evisceration of the middle
class and the emergence of the new class system, where there is a great gulf set between the
ruling class and the mass of Americans. Part of the gap is money, shown by increased income and
asset inequality. Part of the gap is status, as shown by behavior, such as consumption habits,
but even more visible in differences in opportunity, where many desirable options are available
to those who pass elite filters such as attending the right universities, and are wholly
unavailable to the rest. Few people, of whatever political persuasion, would deny the emergence
of this gap; it is what conclusions to draw that are in dispute.
This widening horizontal fracture between mass and elite is reflected in the political
parties. The Democrats have shifted from a party of the masses, to a party focused on elite
concerns, such as "identity politics, abortion, and abstract environmental concerns." They
ignore existential threats to the non-elites such as the loss of good manufacturing jobs, the
opioid epidemic, the dropping life span of the non-elite, and that Obamacare and crony
capitalism handouts to the insurance companies and lawyers have made insurance unaffordable for
the working class. The Republicans have always been more focused on the elite (until Trump),
and so have shifted position less, but are no less blameless. Carlson recognizes that the
common Republican talking point, that nobody in America is actually poor by historical
standards, is mostly irrelevant for these purposes. Inequality is perceived on a relative
scale, and it creates envy. As Jonathan Haidt has explained at length, for many people's moral
views, fairness is a key touchstone, and abstract economic arguments are not an adequate
response. And whatever the causes or rationales, this abandonment of the masses by both parties
leaves nobody with power representing the non-elite.
Now, I think this horizontal fracture analysis of the political parties is a bit too
simplistic. I see American politics as a quadrant, in which neoliberal Democrats like Hillary
Clinton have more in common with elite-focused Republicans like Jeb Bush than they do with
either Bernie Sanders Democrats or Trump Republicans, who have much in common with each other.
Carlson collapses this quadrant into a duality, in essence lumping Clinton and Bush into one
group, and Sanders and Trump acolytes into another. This conceals certain critical issues,
especially between the two portions of the quadrant that constitute those excluded from the
ruling class. But I suppose Carlson's main goal is to highlight the elite/non-elite distinction
on which he builds his case.
The rest of the book is an expansion on this Introduction, in which history is intertwined
with analysis of the present day. Carlson heavily focuses on immigration, i.e., "Importing a
Serf Class." This is the issue most clearly separating the ruling class from the ruled.
Democrat and Republican elites have actively cooperated to flood America with alien immigrants,
legal and illegal, against the wishes and interests of the masses. Diversity is not our
strength, "it's a neutral fact, inherently neither good nor bad. . . . Countries don't hang
together simply because. They need a reason. What's ours?" Carlson contrasts Cesar Chavez, who
hated illegal immigrants as wage-lowering scum, with today's elites, who demand illegal
immigrants so they can be waited on hand and foot in their gated palaces. These changes are
reflected in the official programs of the parties and in the pronouncements of their mandarins
-- or they were, until Trump showed up, and modified the Republican approach. What is more,
they extend now to seemingly unrelated single-issue pressure groups -- the Sierra Club, for
example, now shrilly demands unlimited immigration, increased pressure on the environment be
damned.
Immigration, though, is just one example of how the elites now ignore the legitimate
interests of the working class. Apple treats workers (Chinese, to be sure) like slaves, but
burns incense at the concerns of the elite such as gender inequality in management, so no
attention is paid to the workers -- the time of Dorothy Day is long gone. Amazon treats its
employees as human robots, yet nobody in power complains. Facebook corrupts our youth through
deliberate addiction and is chummy with killer regimes, yet no Congressman challenges them for
that. Meanwhile the Democratic Party has exiled real representatives of the masses, whom they
used to lionize, such as Ralph Nader. How do the elites reconcile this behavior in their own
minds? They are united in their belief that their elite status is the result of merit, what
Carlson cleverly calls "secular Calvinism." The masses have less because they deserve less.
That is to say, elite liberals, in particular, no longer challenge the hierarchy on behalf of
the truly powerless, which is, as Jordon Peterson points out, the traditional and valid role of
the Left. Instead, they denigrate the powerless, the bitter-clingers, the deplorables, while
assuring themselves that because they focus on elite matters supposedly related to
"oppressions," such as granting new rights to homosexuals (a wealthy and powerful group), that
they are somehow maintaining their traditional role.
Carlson also covers "Foolish Wars," in which the masses die for elite stupidity, such as
George W. Bush's delusion that the Arab world wanted democracy. Again, the cutting humor shows
through: "One thing that every late-stage ruling class has in common is a high tolerance for
mediocrity. . . . The talentless prosper, rising inexorably toward positions of greater power,
and breaking things along the way. It happened to the Ottomans. Max Boot is living proof it's
happening in America." Trump, at least in the campaign, saw the demands for ever-more foreign
wars as what they are -- an abomination. The ruling classes, on the other hand, are all for
more wars -- a departure from the past, especially among Democrats.
It's not just Max Boot that Carlson attacks by name. He slices up Bill Kristol for several
pages. It is brutal. (I was a young intern in the White House when Dan Quayle was Vice
President and Kristol his chief of staff. Kristol was a preening moron even then; unlike a fine
wine, he has not improved with age.) Carlson also savages Ta-Nehisi Coates at length, although
that's a bit like thrashing a man tied up in a gimp suit, too easy. Referring to Coates's
miserable book, he says "It's a measure how thoroughly the diversity cult has corroded the
aesthetic standards of our elite that the book was greeted with almost unanimous praise, which
is to say, lying."
Next comes free speech. Liberals used to support free speech, no matter the cause; now the
elite is eager to violently suppress speech that displeases them (or, more accurately, speech
that threatens them by proving to be effective in eroding their power). Such suppression is
primarily something pushed by the Left, though the elite Right is happy to cooperate. Carlson
adduces the infamous dawn SWAT raids on conservatives by elite Democrats in Wisconsin, led by
Milwaukee district attorney John Chisholm, judge Barbara Kluka, and prosecutor Francis Schmitz
(who have escaped punishment, so far, unfortunately, although if the revolution that Carlson
seems to predict arrives, hopefully they will be remembered). Brendan Eich and James Damore
also make an appearance, as individuals persecuted by the elites, in the form of corporations,
for their speech.
Carlson makes an important point here, one ignored by the odious coterie of
inside-the-beltway corporate Republicans and #NeverTrumpers -- that even though they are not
subject to the First Amendment, it is false that corporations who behave this way cannot or
should not be disciplined. As he notes, "Government regulates all sorts of speech in the
private sector." What government doesn't do is regulate speech in a way that protects
conservatives -- restriction of speech is a sword used only to enforce the dominion of the
Left. The Right needs to weaponize it against the Left, not to defend an abstract and
unnecessary principle that is ignored when harm is done to them. As I have written elsewhere, a
good place to start would be legislatively forbidding all sizeable corporations from any
discrimination based on speech or other expressive action (such as donating money to a cause)
that the federal government could not legally forbid (e.g.., obscenity). The law would be
enforced by massive statutory damages ($500,000 per occurrence), one-way fee shifting against
the companies, and a huge federal enforcement bureaucracy empowered with broad discovery
powers. This would apply both to protect employees and, critically, to protect all speech and
actions of the public where the corporation, such as Twitter or Facebook, offers a supposedly
neutral platform for the public to make statements. It would further apply, beyond mere speech,
to forbid discrimination by all entities providing services analogous to common carriers, such
as payment processors, notably PayPal, and credit card processors, whose services are now being
selectively denied to suppress conservative speech. In addition, online shopping platforms such
as Amazon would also be deemed common carriers, not permitted to refuse to list any non-illegal
good for sale if they held themselves out as acting as a seller of general merchandise, or as
acting as a platform to match third-party sellers and buyers. All this would be a good start to
break the power of the corporate Left; it would be a change from conservatives' belief that
private businesses should be left alone, but if they won't leave us alone, there is no reason
we should leave them alone.
Identity, and its uses by the ruling class, swing next into the author's crosshairs. Carlson
notes the elites don't bear the costs of the "diversity cult"; the masses do. The elites whip
up fear of white supremacists as a political tool, even though the sum total of real white
supremacists is trivial and they have no power. That is, the elites inflame racial passions for
every group but whites, not realizing how dangerous that is. Of the obvious question, why
whites shouldn't organize as a group, Carlson points out that some have asked the question,
"but so far they have been self-discrediting: haters, morons, and charlatans. What happens when
someone calm and articulate does it?" I am not eager to find out, but we are probably going
to.
And, on feminism, Carlson notes the inconvenient truth that women are far less happy, as
reported by the University of Chicago's longitudinal General Social Survey, than they were
forty years ago, and that those with traditional views of gender roles are much happier, in
general and in their marriages, than their harpy cousins. The latter, though, are dominant in
the elites; Carlson names here names and shames Sheryl Sandberg. Moreover, the elites mandate a
focus on their obsessive concerns about sexual behavior, including demanding the masses endorse
claims utterly divorced from reality. "Men posing as female weight lifters isn't the biggest
problem Western civilization faces, but it's an ominous symptom of deeper rot. When the people
in charge retreat into fantasy, and demand that everyone else join them there, society itself
becomes impervious to reality." Non-elite men, meanwhile, are treated like dirt, can't find
jobs, and die at ever-younger ages, and the elite doesn't care -- in fact, it (mostly)
discreetly celebrates. Finally, on environmentalism, elites don't care about the actual
environment, cleaning up the trash, but rather about abstractions like supposed global warming,
while they urge their private jets to greater speed.
It is a fast and compelling read. True, every so often Carlson missteps when talking about
history. No, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the crown prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
assassinated in 1914, was not "a second-string Austrian nobleman." Nor is it even remotely true
that "Divide and conquer. That's how the British ruled India." Equally untrue is that "The
right to express your views is the final bulwark that shields the individual from the mob that
disagrees with him." The right to own and carry effective military weaponry, enshrined in the
Second Amendment, is that right. Speech is a distant second as a bulwark. For a very smart man,
Carlson seems to avoid any but recent history, and given these examples, that is probably a
wise choice for him.
OK, so far, so good. The book is worth reading -- as I say, nothing original, but for those
not attuned to such matters and looking for a primer, an excellent read. I eagerly looked
forward to the last chapter, or rather the Epilogue, "Righting the Ship." That was a mistake.
It is less than two pages. It offers bad history, suggesting that the only two alternatives are
a system of oppressive rulers and oppressed serfs, and democracy. The former, supposedly, is
the norm; our democracy is special, but it is under attack. Carlson therefore offers us, or
rather our ruling class, two options: suspend democracy, or "attend to the population . . . If
you want to save democracy, you've got to practice it." The alternative is likely civil
war.
This is not helpful. Leaving aside that democracy is far from the only system that has
provided a proper equilibrium between the ruling class and the masses (as Carlson himself
admits when talking at length about the disappearance today of noblesse oblige), Carlson offers
no reason at all for the ruling classes to take his advice. Why would they? Even if they
accepted his analysis, which they don't, and won't, there is zero historical example of a
late-stage ruling class reforming itself voluntarily. Carlson's Epilogue is just so much space
filling. I suspect he knows that, too, which is why his Introduction is longer and more
apocalyptic -- because he thinks that rupture is the future, and only hopes it will involve
minimal violence. Rupture is almost certainly inevitable, but the end result is unlikely to be
the saving of democracy as it exists now, since democracy is an inherently unstable system and
at least partially responsible for the core fact of which Carlson complains, the rot of the
ruling class. Thus, this book is a decent introduction to the topic of ruling class vice and
decay, but no more. 16 people found this helpful
Helpful1 1 commentReport abuse
Enlightening, but with Frustrations
I like to watch Tucker Carlson's show on the Fox network. This book reads just like his
opening monologues on his show, and I think that some (maybe much) of its content is a direct
spinoff from that show. His writing sounds just like he speaks on his program. It is terse,
compact, and often riveting. It is well written, and I did not observe any "typos" in its
pages. He also provides excellent summaries of a wide ranging set of topics. For all of that,
I would give the book a 5 star rating.
However, the book has a serious weakness for anyone who desires to use it to identify sources
either easily or accurately. For examples, Tucker often directly quotes individuals (using
quotation marks) but does not provide the sources where he obtained the quoted information.
Many times he will refer to articles in Time magazine, or the Washington Post, or the Los
Angeles Times, etc., but does not give the author of the articles, nor the titles, nor the
dates. This makes a reader wonder precisely what those sources are. I recognize that Tucker
is writing for an "ordinary reader," but for any reader who desires to have precise source
data, this book is completely lacking. For that reason, I gave it a 4 star rating.
Being pre-baby boomer (1943) I have witnessed most of this. I guess I was aware on some level
but not until Bill Clinton did I really start to pay close attention to political slide that
is so evident now. Much of the Democratic screed is utter BS but to youngsters it is new,
exciting and entirely believable because they have no from of reference.
The average liberal, democrat, or progressive might want to avoid this book unless they
possess a fair amount of courage. I'm talking about the courage to have their world view
challenged. About what, you ask? A short, partial list includes immigration, racism,
environmentalism, global warming, and the first amendment. And left wing folks are not the
heroes of the piece. Then again, this book is not full of heroes. But the elites and ruling
classes, most--but certainly not all--of whom are are left wing as described
here--consistently occupy the roles of the villains in Ship of Fools. Tucker writes clearly
and concisely in sketch and essay format. Each topic he tears into, and there are many, ends
up shredded, in ruins when he's done with it and moves on. My only regret as he angers me
about one issue and then the next is that he fails to offer solutions. I believe that's from
whence the anger emanates. Readers might like to read that there is something obvious, if not
easy, they can do to correct the moronic and hypocritical deeds the elites have bequeathed to
the rest of us.
Being a fairly regular viewer of Tucker Carlson Tonight, I had heard a.lot of his views on,
e.g., Environmentalism, Gender Issues, Feminism, etc. What I appreciated about his book was
that he explained how, when and why these became issues for America and the process by which
so many good ideas have been derailed by greed, personal agendas, and selfishness.
On balance, he's right! ! I'm a great fan of Tucker Carlson on TV; he routinely takes on the
lip flappers in the same way he does in this book. Every night. Five nights a week. And to
what end?
The subject is hypocrisy, pure and unadulterated. It won't change, no matter what. Reading
books like it only serves to frustrate me because people like Tucker know what's going on and
we are all powerless to do anything about it. Yes, I'll vote and go to meetings, but it's all
so miniscule.
Keep on truckin Tucker. Maybe someday somebody will listen.
My copy of the book went from page 184 to 217, which is bad enough, but from page 217 onward
it was a rehash of Chapter 6. Fortunately, I also purchased the CD or I would never know what
else Tucker had to say. Amazon, look into this!
The book itself, what I could read of it, is right on. He says we're on the brink of
revolution. I think we're already there. We are no longer a republic; we are an oligarchy,
IMO. Tucker points out the reasons why. Much of what he says in the book you have probably
heard him say on his show. That may prevent you from buying this book but sometimes
repetition is good, especially when it's on subjects that address our imminent demise as a
sovereign nation if we don't wake up. Tucker is not an alarmist; he's a realist. Liberals
will hate this book b/c truth hurts.
I give Mr. Carlson a four for his succinct statement of the major political/social problem of
our society. It can be found in the preface and itself is a major contribution to
understanding society's major challenge and the imperative to address it.
95% of the book is devoted to fleshing out the problem. But this section is much too verbose.
Also Carlson tucks in his pet opinions uch as his belief that global warming is not
happening. That is not at all essential to his argument. Whatever side one is on, the pet
opinions distract from the imperative of the fundamental problem and tend to be divisive.
He gets one star for the solution to the problem. It is covered in the last paragraph on
the last page. One might hope that almost half of the book might be devoted to it. After all,
it does little good to identify a problem and then leave the reader to fend for himself in
solving it. The absence of his thinking about it makes one wonder how serious he is in
addressing society's greatest challenge. This book needed an enlightened and heavy-handed
editor.
At this point, deja vu mind-set returns to teach a powerful lesson. Having once witnessed a
major historical reversal, one knows that historical determinism isan illusion -- opium for
people on the edge of a nervous breakdown.
Machiavelli insisted that surrender is a bad idea because we never know what surprises
fortune may have in store for us. In Machiavelli's view, there are "good times" and "bad times"
in politics, and the good ruler is not one who can fend off the "bad times" so much, as one who
has accumulated enough goodwill among citizens to help him ride out those bad times.
The argument of this short book is that European Union is going through a really bad time
today, torn apart by numerous crises that damage confidence in the future of the project among
citizens across the continent. So the disintegration of the union is one of the most likely
outcomes.
For A. Roy, a writer has the responsibility to take sides overtly.
In these violent diatribes, she tears the masks of the `missionaries to redeem the wretched'
and of those preaching privatization and globalization as the one and only solution for the
whole world's economic problems.
The hypocrisy of globalization
For A. Roy, globalization has nothing to do with the eradication of poverty. It will not pull
the Third World out of the stagnant morass of illiteracy, religious bigotry or
underdevelopment. In India, 70 % of the population still has no electricity and 30 % is still
illiterate.
Globalization means crudely and cruelly `Life is Profit'. `Its realm is raw capital, its
conquest emerging markets, its prayers profits, its borders limitless, its weapons
nuclear.'
Privatization (of agriculture, seeds, water supply, electricity, power plants, commodities,
telecommunications, knowledge) consists only in the transfer of productive public assets from
the State to private interests (transnational corporations).
The globalization's economic agenda `munches through the economies of poor countries like a
cloud of locusts.' One example: by hugely subsidizing their farm industries, the rich
countries put impoverished subsistence farmers in the Third World out of business and chase
them into the cities.
The hypocrisy of the war against terrorism
For A. Roy, the rich countries are the real worshippers of the cult of violence. They
manufacture and sell almost all the world's weapons and possess the largest stockpile of
weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, nuclear).
At the head of ICAT (The Coalition Against Terror) stays a country which spends mind-boggling
military budgets to fight a few bunches of manipulated terrorists created by the hegemon
himself. It committed `the most of genocides, ethnic cleansing, and human rights violations.
It sponsored, armed and financed untold numbers of dictators and supports military and
economic terrorism.' Its aim is full spectrum dominance.
But, as Paul Krugman remarked, the replacement of the Cold War issue by the (manipulated)
terrorism one as a justification for massive military spending was (and is) a very big
failure.
Arundhati Roy's bitter and angry texts are a must read for all those who want to
understand the world we live in.
Arundhati Roy bristles at being called a "writer-activist" (too much like sofa-bed, she
says), but the rest of us should be grateful that the author of "The God of Small Things" is
taking on the establishment, here and in India.
Part of Mrs. Roy's greatness is that she is not colored by the partisan debates that
influence the dialogue on issues such as globalization in America. She is an
equal-opportunity critic, taking on Clinton and Bush. Although other authors pledge no
allegiance to either side of the aisle, Roy has a fresh perspective, and has a take on
globalization that I haven't found in works by American authors.
This book is set up as a collection (a rather random collection) of several essays. The first
essay gives a wonderful perspective of globalization (ie. the expansion of American business
interests) from a foreign perspective. She examines the impact of the global economic
movement on the actual people being affected by it at the lowest level. She reveals the
influence of the privatization of the electric industry through the eyes of India's poorest
citizens.
The second essay goes in-depth into politics in India, primarily addressing the enormous
number of dams being built in the country, and the impacts (economic, environmental, social)
that they will have. Mrs. Roy explicitly recounts how Enron scammed the Indian government
into building new power generators, and how this will cost India hundreds of millions per
year while lining the pockets of American business interests.
Critics will say that "Power Politics" is devoid of hard facts and analysis, but there can be
no doubt that this book is worth a read. She may lack the economic background of Stiglitz,
but her passion and style, in addition to her ability to articulate the important issues in
the globalization debate in a readable manner, will be appreciated by anyone with an interest
in global economic expansion.
Questionable, but still interesting perspective. Ignore marketing crap -- clearly there is marketing push within this presentation
-- she wants your subscriptions. "This is Main Street vs Wall Street" dichotomy sounds plausible. Neoliberalism is, in essence, is the
restoration of power of financial oligarchy.
But the idea of secret open bailout might explain why shale oil became so prominent despite high cost of producing it: Wall Street
was subsidised via backchannels for bringing price downand supporting shale companies by the US goverment
$21 trillion in "missing money" at the DOD and HUD that was discovered by Dr. Mark Skidmore and Catherine Austin Fitts in 2017
has now become a national security issue. The federal government is not talking or answering questions, even though the DOD recently
failed its first ever audit.
Fitts says, "This is basically an open running bailout. Under this structure, you can transfer assets out of the federal government
into private ownership, and nobody will know and nobody can stop it. There is no oversight whatsoever. You can't even know who is
doing it. I'm telling you they just took the United States government, they just changed the governance model by accounting policy
to a fascist government. If you are an investor, you don't know who owns those assets, and there is no evidence that you do. . .
. If the law says you have to produce audited financial statements and you refuse to do so for 20 years, and then when somebody calls
you on it, you proceed to change the accounting laws that say you can now run secret books for all the agencies and over 100 related
entities."
In closing, Fitts says, "We cannot sit around and passively depend on a guy we elected President. The President cannot fix this.
We need to fix this. . . . This is Main Street versus Wall Street. This is honest books versus dirty books. If you want the United
States in 10 years to resemble anything what it looked like 20 years ago, you are going to have to do it, and there is no one else
who can do it. You have to first get the intelligence to know what is happening."
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, Publisher of "The Solari Report." Donations:
https://usawatchdog.com/donations/
Greg, with all due respect I don't you understand what CAF is saying. Forget about a dollar reset. The fascists, using
the Treasury, Exchange Stabilization Fund, HUD, DOD and any agency they choose, have turned the US government into a gigantic
money laundering operation. And they maintain two sets of books - the public numbers are a complete sham. Any paper assets held
by private citizens are not secure, are likely rehypothecated, and when convenient can be frozen or siezed by these fascists in
Washington. There is no limit to how many dollars the FED can create secretly and funnel out through the ESF/Treasury to prop
up and bail out any bank, black ops, pet project, mercenary army or paper assets they choose. The missing $21 trillion is probably
a drop in the bucket as there is no audit and no honest books for us to examine. In sum, all paper asset pricing in dollars is
a fraud and a sham. Any paper assets you think you own, whether it be stocks, bonds, or real estate are pure illusion: they can
be repriced or stolen at any time; in reality, you own nothing. To the man and woman on the street I say this: get out of paper,
get out of these markets and convert to tangibles in your physical possession - and do it secretly and privately, avoid insurances,
records, paper trails. This mass defrauding of the American people by this corrupt government in Washington will come crashing
down when the US dollar is displaced from reserve status; this is what China and Russia and the BRICS are setting the stage for:
world trade without the US dollar. When this happens, your dollars will become virtual toilet paper and all of your paper assets
will go poof.
"We have to fix this". Ok how does the individual fix this? Private armies are running around doing whatever private armies
do and I, the one man, is suppose to fix this. Please, will someone tell us what we are suppose to do, specific instructions not
a mix of large words that say " we must fix this", damn, we need a leader. Greg you ask almost every person you interview what
the middle class should be doing to protect themselves and you never get a "real" answer, just a dance around. Also you ask numerous
people what this coming change is going to look like and again, just silence or dance music, no answers. Damn we need a leader.
Your trying very hard to give us information that will help us weather the coming storm, so thank you for all you do, and you
do more than anyone else out there.
Question, why in part do I feel I am being lied to? Is it subscription hustle or is it, don't you believe your lying eyes!
Without knowing exactly what is what, anyone who would've watched Herbert Walker Bush's funeral with reactions from those who
received cards, whether they be Bush family, the Clintons, the Obamas and entourage. Jeb Bush went from being proud and patriotic
to panic like the funeral that he was at was for the whole family.
Joe Biden looked like he had a major personal accident and no way to get to the bathroom for cleanup.
George W. Bush after being asked a question, of which the answer was, "Yep" then proceeded to appear resigned and stoic! What
ever was on those cards essentially amounted to, for all those receiving a card, "the gig is up" and it appears they all damn
well knew it.
So, Catherine Austin Fitts, explain your, "Trump is colluding with the Bushies," I would say, that Canary in this mine of inquiry
is dead. I'm just an old disabled Vietnam vet of plebeian background and certainly not a revolving door Washington DC Beltway
patrician, so any explanation needs to be delivered in slow, logical step-by-step progression for I have not mastered the art
of selling the sizzle in hopes that the dupes will later pay for the steak. I prefer, Greg, when you actually get more combative
with Ms. Fitts. Make America, great again and do so, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
35 min: Fitts gives a great synopsis of the problem. She never deviates in all of her interviews. greg doesn't seem to understand
at all. She repeats herself MULTIPLE TIMES and greg is still asking the same irrelevant PREPPER questions. IT DOES NOT MATTER
WHAT ASSETS YOU HOLD GREG, AND THAT INCLUDES GOLD!!!! WHEN YOU'RE EXISTING IN A TYRANNICAL SYSTEM THAT STEALS AT WILL FROM ITS'
CONSTITUENCY YOU CAN'T actually OWN ANYTHING!!!! lord! only so many ways to say
She lost credibility when she said Trump has "made a deal with the Bushes." That defies logic. The Bushes made a deal with
Trump! Trump has gained full control of the military with a $ 1 1/2 trillion war chest. Trump and Putin are putting the China
toothpaste back in the tube.
This woman clearly knows nothing about the plan..she has not even mentioned that the world bank president has resigned who
was appointed by obumma. And that is HUGE. She was in government in the corruption, but she doesn't know how things will be fixed..she's
not in that loop of current things in the new reset..shes coming from her own perceptions
This woman always make me sick to my stomach. She comes out and says a bunch of scary stuff and offers no solution. If it's
too much for just one person, then we the people need to take control. We don't need a central bank. We need local and state banks
like the Bank of North Dakota then we can migrate over to them and then shut down the Fed.
"... Tucker Carlson's critique of unrestrained capitalism last week sent the Respectable Righ t into apoplectic fury. That's why it's irrelevant -- and why Carlson is increasingly emerging as a name to conjure with. ..."
"... Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating ..."
"... Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... The Right Should Reject Tucker Carlson's Victimhood Populism ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... National Review? ..."
"... [T]he primary responsibility for creating a life of virtue and purpose rests with families and individuals. In fact, it is still true that your choices are far more important to your success than any government program or the actions of any nefarious banker or any malicious feminist. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson Claims Market Capitalism Has Undermined American Society. He's Wrong. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... America Needs Virtue before Prosperity ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds ..."
"... Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal people ..."
"... Carlson's economic populism pairs with his support for patriotic immigration reform: both policies aim to serve the people's interest and strengthen America as a unified community. This vision conflicts with multinational corporations who would rather see America as one giant strip mall filled with atomized customers. Not surprisingly, these companies oppose patriotic immigration reform. Also not surprisingly, so does Conservatism Inc. ..."
"... The only institution that can stand up to corporations and tell them to change is the state -- which happens to be the only institution patriots can have any influence over. Academia, Hollywood, corporate America, and the Establishment Media are all under the thrall of Cultural Marxists. (The churches are a more complicated matter, but fewer Americans listen to religious leaders in our day and age.) ..."
"... Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway. ..."
"... Don't cry in 2020 if Donald Trump loses because he took advice from the same market capitalists who tried to sink him and his movement back in 2016 – the same people who destroyed Romney's chances in 2012. He's already well on his way with deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, some of his supporters seem eager to help him in that losing effort. ..."
"... In my view, I think the message is clear. Government's role of facilitator, monitor and guarantor of fair practices has decided to jump in bed on the side of business and that without guarantee of a fair distribution to the US citizens, who in the case of government subsidies, contracts and bailouts are footing the bill for a good deal of financial misconduct and lousy adherence to best practices as they reap the benefits. ..."
"... Oh–I get it. The problem is not Capitalism. It's that we don't have more of it. God you people are brazenly ingenuous. ..."
"... Deregulating big biz without corresponding relaxations on common people is wrong and we must oppose it. No tax cuts for biz without much bigger ones for the common people! ..."
"... Some below average dude above said "this country has nothing resembling Capitalism going on. Big Business is in bed with Big Feral Gov't. "Crony Capitalism" may not roll off the tongue, but that's the usual fair description of it." Hear that on Fox News? Oh, if only we were all controlled and dominated by Capitalists. If only capitalists owned all the major media. If only Capitalists owned all the politicians. If only capitalists made up all the leading politicians. If only all the bankers were Capitalists If only the Fed was made up of capitalists. Then we would finally have true capitalism. ..."
"... But wait a minute. That's EXACTLY the situation that we do have. What that means is that we have EXACTLY the capitalism that capitalism produces. We have EXACTLY the capitalism that the leading capitalists, who will always control the capitalist government and the capitalist economy, want and need. ..."
"... And before anyone starts with "its the globalists." Globalism is capitalism. Capitalism brought the black slaves here, capitalism is bringing the Mexicans here. Slave labor/cheap labor is the name of the game, always has been. Nothing new. Globalism=capitalism ..."
"... Capitalist wars are also driving the refugees from their homelands. Whether in Iraq, Sudan or Honduras, wars are a twofer for capitalists, massive war profiteering, theft of resources, with the added bonus of driving refugees into Europe/America to lower the standard of living and decrease wages for us. ..."
"... Privatization of public property/resources is theft, privatization today is strictly about prioritizing money away from the commons and general welfare and giving total monopoly to the inbred 1% rent-seeking parasites, monopoly of resources (food, water, air, shelter), monopoly of control, monopoly of propaganda, monopoly of Policy, monopoly of money, monopoly of war. ..."
"... Most people, including below average guy above don't wan't to accept this, usually because of ignorance or "muh capitalism" and "muh free markets " brainwashing by Fox "News". They have been programmed subconsciously into thinking that any other alternative method will not work or it is "evil socialism". They are still interested in making rentier classes out of each other and fucking over their children's future, while propping up their capitalist overlords. ..."
"... Meet the New World Order. Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world/ ..."
"... and give it a rest with the "freedumb" BS you goon. The US has the largest prison population in the world. You go to jail for smoking a joint for goodness sake. At the same time capitalist bankers make off with trillions in stolen wealth without a slap on the wrist. ..."
"... Not to mention the spying/surveillance, Patriot Act, assassinations and indefinite detention of Americans with no due process, Anti-BDS laws, a totally rigged judicial system, a healthcare system that is nothing short of a racket, a fake media totally controlled by the capitalist war profiteers and corporate parasites. Everything that you accuse "communists" of is what is actually happening under the Capitalists. ..."
"... I agree with Tucker that the family unit is the most important reason why America is degenerating, resulting in less people getting married, less children, less everything, creating a vacuum that can only be filled by foreign invasion. The lack of strong families is also the reason for the rise in suicides, drug addiction, crime, treason, etc., etc. ..."
"... Militant feminism has made it such that husbands and wives become economic competitors rather than complementary partners. Families have become less important as compared to each partner seeking financial success above all else ..."
"... There is a disincentive to have children because it is an obstacle to climbing the corporate ladder. If you don't have children, there is not a lot of benefit to being married, so divorces increase. ..."
"... As Tucker says, no woman wants to marry a man who makes less than she does. So, as more women are forced into the workforce, less marriages happen. ..."
"... Uncontrolled immigration helps the ruling class to reduce wages, also contributing to declining families. Legal immigration decimates the middle class ..."
"... If that isn't enough, mass distribution of pornography, deviant sex, gender perversion, LGBTQXYZZY , all contribute to the breaking of traditional intimacy between one man and one woman, that is the foundation of marriage and stable families. ..."
"... And there are the fake wars. As sons, and now daughters, go off to fight in foreign lands that have not attacked us, only one parent stays behind to raise the family, inadequately. Moreover, when these traumatized soldiers return from battle, they are seldom able to re-integrate into the family unit, and in a large number of cases, divorces and criminal behavior result. ..."
"... Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free" "market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused, stupid, disingenuous liars. ..."
"... Free markets are crookedness factories. As a PhD from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no free market! It's all crooked!" ..."
Tucker Carlson's critique of unrestrained capitalism last week sent the Respectable Right into apoplectic
fury. That's why it's irrelevant -- and why Carlson is increasingly emerging as a name to conjure with.
In a now-celebrated monologue on his Fox News show, Carlson blamed multinational
corporations and urban elites for the decline of Middle America. [
Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating , Fox
News , January 3, 2019] He listed several social ills that he attributed to unrestrained
capitalism, including predatory loans, higher drug use ,
declining marriage
rates , and shuttered factories.
Carlson lambasted "conservatives" who bemoan the decay of the family but refuse to consider
if capitalism played any role in that tragedy. According to Carlson, "conservatives" consider
criticism of the free market to be
apostasy.
He offered this blunt advice to Republicans who want to make America great again.
Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion.
Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to
worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not
exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Needless to say, this opinion was met with frothing anger by several
Conservatism Inc. writers, a crowd that seems to believe the free market a holy thing that must not
suffer blasphemy. They were upset that anyone would dare suggest that the state could act to
rectify social ills, arguing that this was rank demagogy and antithetical to conservatism.
National Review published several op-eds condemning Tucker's monologue -- a sure sign
of Respectable Right displeasure.
David
French , briefly Bill Kristol's Never
Trump catspaw, represented the typical response in
The Right Should Reject Tucker Carlson's Victimhood Populism . [ National
Review , January 4, 2019]. French claims to agree with Carlson that Middle America suffers
from numerous ills, but he argues the state should play no role with fixing them. Thus payday
loans are a necessary part of capitalism, drug criminalization is bad because it puts nice
minorities in jail, and radical feminism and Affirmative Action aren't serious concerns.
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic
cultural changes -- civil rights, women's rights, a technological revolution as significant
as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual revolution,
etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of
what they are doing to you.
French's solution is for the working class to go to
community college and for America to magically experience an organic renewal of virtue.
It's all up to the individual to make America better:
[T]he primary responsibility for creating a life of virtue and purpose rests with families
and individuals. In fact, it is still true that your choices are far more important to your
success than any government program or the actions of any nefarious banker or any malicious
feminist.
It is certainly true that your family and your own choices has a great influence over
whether you live a virtuous and even happy life. But that does not show how social ills will
somehow be corrected by self-help advice.
Additionally, as one man from a
Midwest town destroyed by plant closures pointed out on Twitter, community college and
re-training are not sufficient in equaling the old
manufacturing jobs . "'New tech always comes along to save the day' does not apply. The
late 19th-Century farm workers who flocked to Henry Ford for jobs after the
last great labor upheaval have nowhere to go this time," the man, Tom Ferguson, tweeted.
Greenville has only 8,000 residents, but is the largest city in Montcalm County. The plant
closure eliminated 3,000 jobs. As long as we're quantifying, I'll note the equivalence to
3,000,000 (sic) jobs being lost in New York City.
4/20 The local community
college offered communications and other job-skills courses. My recollection says this noble
effort, measured across 3,000 layoffs, was not very meaningful.
8/20 "New tech always comes
along to save the day" does not apply. The late 19th-Century farm workers who flocked to
Henry Ford for jobs after the last great labor upheaval have nowhere to go this time.
11/20
(See the whole thread here , here , or (as a screenshot)
here .)
French also failed to consider how much influence a "
malicious
feminist " can have over the lives of
normal people. Just one "offensive" tweet can cost somebody their career and reputation if
Leftists stir up a mob . Good luck finding a job if your
Google history is says you're a sexist. Additionally,
Human Resources Departments are run to conform to Leftist dictates, and your private speech
and views could draw the suspicion of HR at any time.
Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro
attacked Carlson in two separate articles. The first, for his own website, zealously defended
the greatness of the free market and the purity of movement conservatism: "Traditional
conservatives recognized that the role of economics is to provide prosperity – to raise
the GDP," is a sentence that best summarizes Shapiro's ridiculous retconning of a
once-great movement [ Tucker
Carlson Claims Market Capitalism Has Undermined American Society. He's Wrong. , by Ben
Shapiro, Daily Wire , January 4, 2019]
Shapiro truly believes the free market is one of the greatest things to ever exist and it
must not be restrained. All social problems, according to him, are due to individual choices
and we should not seek collective solutions to social ills like declining marriage rates and
fewer good jobs for working-class males. Trust the free market and insist a virtue renewal will
resolve the problems state aims to solve.
Shapiro followed up his Daily Wire column with a short column in National
Review that also insisted we need a virtue renewal instead of a state intervention into
the market. Shapiro believes we just need Americans to stop wanting "stuff" and exhibit virtue
in order to bring back Middle America [
America Needs Virtue before Prosperity , by Ben Shapiro, National Review ,
January 8, 2019].
"Carlson's claim that material gain isn't enough to provide happiness doesn't lead him back
to virtue, which would bolster additional freedom. It leads him to the same material solutions
that undercut virtue in the first place," Shapiro concluded,.
It would be nice if people would make themselves better and get the right job training after
they read one National Review column. But that's not going to happen and Shapiro
offers no means for enacting a renewal of virtue.
In effect, all of Carlson's Conservatism Inc. critics demand we must do nothing about the
woes of working-class whites and the free market will figure out something.
So at a time when a majority of Americans -- including a majority of Republicans --
support single-payer healthcare and other big government initiatives, Conservatism Inc.
pundits offer platitudes about limited government and the greatness of capitalism [
Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds , by Kathleen
Elkins, CNBC , August 14, 2018].
This will not end well. Indeed, Carlson anticipated noted this response in his monologue:
Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible
people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal
people
(Carson did not directly mention immigration, somewhat surprising because it has been one of
his long-standing concerns. But it ties into this debate. Many of the Conservativism Inc, types
outraged at Tucker also support mass immigration and buy into the notion that America is a "
nation of
immigrants ." They see America as primarily an economy or an idea, not a nation. Tucker's
national populism reverses those false notions -- America is a nation first and its
primary responsibility
is to its citizens , not the GDP.
Carlson's economic populism pairs with his support for patriotic immigration reform: both
policies aim to serve the people's interest and strengthen America as a unified community. This
vision conflicts with multinational corporations who
would rather see America as one giant strip mall filled with atomized customers. Not
surprisingly, these companies oppose patriotic immigration reform. Also not surprisingly, so
does Conservatism Inc.
The unfortunate fact is that American corporations pose the greatest threat to our
fundamental liberties and way of life. They censor free speech, make banking difficult for
political dissidents, exclusively promote progressive causes, listen to foreign governments
more than our own, promote mass immigration, and demonstrate a loyalty only to their own
profits and power. Currently, in fact, they are increasingly
boycotting Tucker Carlson's show, to Leftist
applause .
The only institution that can stand up to corporations and tell them to change is the state
-- which happens to be the only institution patriots can have any influence over. Academia,
Hollywood, corporate America, and the Establishment Media are all under the thrall of Cultural
Marxists. (The churches
are a more
complicated matter, but fewer Americans listen to religious leaders in our day and
age.)
Americans cannot expect a civic renewal from our social institutions. Conservatives wield
zero influence over a culture that encourages drug use, sexual promiscuity, agnosticism, and
women's' choosing career over family. We are not going to experience a social renaissance just
by wishing for one.
If we want our society to improve, we have to push for state policies with that goal in
mind. There is no other option.
It's time to discard the worn-out conservative dogmas and make the state serve the people.
National populism is the only path for Republicans to remain viable and (yes!) make our country
great again.
Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source
Inside The Beltway. Tucker Carlson Routs Conservatism Inc. On Unrestrained Capitalism --
And Immigration, by Washington Watcher - The Unz Review
The first two comments on this blog perfectly illustrate why conservatives are in so much
trouble: they refuse to let go of old – harmful – dogmas, preferring to
rationalize them instead; they fail to embrace the policies that could realistically assure a
positive outcome for themselves and their beliefs. This leaves them vulnerable to rhetorical
conmen like Ben Shapiro and outfits like the National Review – controlled opposition if
I ever saw it.
It's not surprising to me that the National Review would oppose Carlson's viewpoint, as
the article mentioned. Here are the readership demographics of the National Review: 60+ with
an average annual salary somewhere north of $200,000. With that in mind, ask yourself if it
is really more likely that the National Review is interested in preserving the principles of
free market capitalism than they are merely interested in preserving the pocketbooks of their
donors and readers.
And let's be honest, Ben Shapiro was brought in by the National Review to
run interference after the disastrous failure of their market capitalism-based NeverTrump
critiques back in 2016; their front cover during that campaign was entitled "Against Trump".
Despicable.
Ben Shapiro's shtick is to mix "muh feminism" rhetoric popular with the youth
with "muh unregulated markets" rhetoric popular with the National Review donors in order to
obscure the line between the two. The end result is that you hear exactly what you want to
hear (a temporary, but hollow, pleasure) while nothing is ever ultimately done to address the
cause of "muh feminism" in the first place which just so happens to be some of the same
things pushed by the National Review, as Tucker Carlson noted. This is the kind of thing that
explains why you lost the culture war. You embraced rhetoric over reason with no mind to the
future.
What the responder here has done is merely repackage old assertions with new rhetoric. He
makes the same kind of outlandish and unrealistic claims as Shapiro, even if he is unaware
– wishing for miracles, essentially. He points out an issue (say the tax code) and then
claims this problem is the ultimate source of all our problems. Lost in this analysis is any
sense of probability. What is the probability that the tax code (or anything else he
mentioned) will spontaneously fix itself against the wishes of the public, according to all
the polls? Answer: very small, probably zero. So, why bother with that approach?
Ask yourself why we shouldn't address the crime rate with the same logic. We could abolish
the prison system and just hope that there is a solution to the ensuing rampant dysfunction
by wishing for it. Obviously, that's stupid and the public would never go for it, ever. So,
why is this logic smart for economics and politics?
Could the National Review and their conman Ben Shapiro really be so obtuse as to really
believe that their suggestions are even a remote possibility? I doubt it. Or maybe they have
an ulterior motive, as I have already mentioned: run interference with cleverly chosen words
while fundamental problems affecting actual republican voters go unaddressed – poverty,
suicide, revocation of fundamental liberties, a growing police state, and rampant internet
censorship; meanwhile, rich National Review donors continue to line their pocketbooks with
cheap labor immigration.
Also unaddressed in multiple – often disingenuous – critiques of Tucker
Carlson is exactly how supporters of voodoo economics have any solutions themselves beyond
mere rhetoric. Do they even bother at this point? I didn't see much in these rebuttals other
than assertions and semantics games. Perhaps, instead, these people have a track record of
success that might lead one to believe Elysium is around the corner? Hardly. They have a
track record of continual failure. So, why believe them here?
Wage growth has been stagnant for decades while healthcare costs, public debt, and tuition
have soared. They've done next to nothing on immigration; their proposal before Trump was to
double it. These are also the same people who claimed NAFTA would be great for the American
worker – that people could just get retrained. Also wrong. NAFTA has exploded the trade
deficit while workers often work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. The culture
wars? Total failure. Freedom of religion, of speech, and of association are on life support
– often at the behest of multinational corporations that threaten boycotts or deny
service to conservative viewpoints. What about the rise of China? Totally wrong. That nation
is eating our lunch. Sucks that we had to export our industries to them. As we speak, they're
considering an armed assault against Taiwan while Rand says their military is probably strong
enough to defeat ours if we came to their defense.
Meanwhile, cultural conservatives have lost every battle in the United States mainland.
The movement is so weak we can't even protect our own borders because, according to Nancy
Pelosi, "that's not who we are." You want to know who else agrees with Nancy? Multinational
corporations and National Review donors. Funny how those issues go hand-in-hand. It's almost
like these trucons care more about low taxes than mass immigration. Which do you care more
about?
And that's why conservatives lose. They refuse to choose between pie-in-the-sky dogma that
benefits others at their expense and practical solutions to the issues at hand. They'll
justify the current order with statements like "this isn't capitalism, if only we had real
capitalism" not realizing that this is the real capitalism the ruling class wants because it
benefits them economically, not you the ordinary man.
Ironically, this result is similar to Alexander Fraser Tytler's critique of democracy
– that it ends as soon as the public realizes they can vote themselves free goodies.
The often missed point of Lord Tytler's argument is that, when given a choice, the average
person will forego sacrifice with long-term benefits, instead choosing short-term pleasures
with long-term consequences; the end result is dysfunction and ruin. In this case, market
capitalists make the same mistake. They embrace disastrous long-term policies –
immigration, deregulation, monopolies, a warped tax code, punishing the poor – in order
to preserve their short-term bank accounts. We will lose the nation if they and their
supporters are allowed to carry the day. That's what happens when you let your enemy control
every lever of power in society; they use it to their benefit and at your expense. And that's
exactly what free market capitalists advocate, even if they don't directly state it. Thus,
the need for regulation and the exercise of power from the sole places where we have it: the
government and the military.
Don't cry in 2020 if Donald Trump loses because he took advice from the same market
capitalists who tried to sink him and his movement back in 2016 – the same people who
destroyed Romney's chances in 2012. He's already well on his way with deregulation and tax
cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, some of his supporters seem eager to help him in that
losing effort.
In my view, I think the message is clear. Government's role of facilitator, monitor and
guarantor of fair practices has decided to jump in bed on the side of business and that
without guarantee of a fair distribution to the US citizens, who in the case of government
subsidies, contracts and bailouts are footing the bill for a good deal of financial
misconduct and lousy adherence to best practices as they reap the benefits.
Solutions:
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards of
stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as or
with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and similar
capacities)
just for starters -- I am a pro capitalist. But what we are experiencing is not capitalism.
@Achmed E. Newman As a long-time libertarian, I'd agree with you for the most part. But
I've had an epiphany in the last 2 years. All freedoms are not created equal. One of the
things beltway-tarians such as the Koch-funded Cato Institute push is the idea that an
increase in freedom in any area is good because the benefits "trickle down." Bullcrap!
Deregulating big biz without corresponding relaxations on common people is wrong and we must
oppose it. No tax cuts for biz without much bigger ones for the common people!
Some below average dude above said "this country has nothing resembling Capitalism going on.
Big Business is in bed with Big Feral Gov't. "Crony Capitalism" may not roll off the tongue,
but that's the usual fair description of it." Hear that on Fox News? Oh, if only we were all controlled and dominated by Capitalists. If
only capitalists owned all the major media. If only Capitalists owned all the politicians. If
only capitalists made up all the leading politicians. If only all the bankers were
Capitalists If only the Fed was made up of capitalists. Then we would finally have true
capitalism.
But wait a minute. That's EXACTLY the situation that we do have. What that means is that
we have EXACTLY the capitalism that capitalism produces. We have EXACTLY the capitalism that
the leading capitalists, who will always control the capitalist government and the capitalist
economy, want and need.
Newsflash! There can be no Capitalism that is different from what we've got today. You
would have to kill all the capitalists, to start over, because they would just buy their way
right back to the top. The money all accrues to the top, very quickly. It's like a bad game
of Monopoly. They take the money they've accumulated, and, realizing that money is just a
means to an end, put it to work. They buy political power, and use the combination of
political and financial/economic power to cement their monopoly. The very first thing they do
it to pull up the "ladder of success" after themselves.
When nobody else can climb the ladder, we get frustrated, and want to change the rules to
allow an "even playing field." This is exactly what the early winners of Capitalism will not
allow, and they go to great lengths to prevent it. They also complain bitterly about any and
all attempts to even out the effects of Capitalism.
That "evil government" that you hate is nothing more than the organization of the
capitalists. Every member of the government is a Capitalist, often funded into power by even
richer capitalists. We do not have a government, we have puppets of capitalists or as you Fox
News Hannity enthusiasts call it "the deep state"
Government was intended to be of the people, by the people, for the people, and to serve the
people, not the Corporation.
To the (((shill))) Shapiro
If we all had a PhD, there would be EXACTLY the same number of people being paid poverty
wages and exactly the same number unemployed. McDonalds and Wal-Mart don't pay a penny more
for a fry cook or greeter with a PhD. It's capitalism that determines the jobs and the pay,
not the education level of the masses.
When capitalism tells the masses to "go get an education" as being the solution to their
poverty, it's nothing more than saying, "you workers need to compete harder among yourselves
for the few good-paying jobs that capitalism has to offer." Thanks to the capitalists sending
the good paying middle class jobs to slave labor countries so they could make a few dollars
more.
And before anyone starts with "its the globalists."
Globalism is capitalism. Capitalism brought the black slaves here, capitalism is bringing the
Mexicans here. Slave labor/cheap labor is the name of the game, always has been. Nothing new.
Globalism=capitalism
Capitalist wars are also driving the refugees from their homelands. Whether in Iraq, Sudan
or Honduras, wars are a twofer for capitalists, massive war profiteering, theft of resources,
with the added bonus of driving refugees into Europe/America to lower the standard of living
and decrease wages for us.
Privatization of public property/resources is theft, privatization today is strictly about
prioritizing money away from the commons and general welfare and giving total monopoly to the
inbred 1% rent-seeking parasites, monopoly of resources (food, water, air, shelter), monopoly
of control, monopoly of propaganda, monopoly of Policy, monopoly of money, monopoly of
war.
Most don't have a clue what Socialism actually is. Socialism is government by the
working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society
anywhere in the world. Obviously.
The New World Order is being brought to you through capitalism, private banking and
corporate monopoly over EVERYTHING. You think your imaginary boogie-man socialists and
communists are scary? Wait till Monsanto/Bayer have total monopoly over our food and water,
they're getting very close, better wake up. Jesus warned you.
Some miserably mediocre guy above said "Jesus didn't warn me that I'd better love "my"
government."
He warned you about the love of money AKA capitalism, and what it leads to. You like being
replaced with cheap labor, H1B visa slaves, alright that's fine, but I think most American
workers are a little tired of it.
Problem today mediocre dude, is that governments aren't "governments" but private
corporations, with shareholders, operating in the public sector. Again, government is the
PEOPLE. The citizens, the workers. Of the people, by the people, for the people, and to serve
the people, not the Corporation. Not the parasite. You got it backwards son.
Most people, including below average guy above don't wan't to accept this, usually because
of ignorance or "muh capitalism" and "muh free markets " brainwashing by Fox "News". They have
been programmed subconsciously into thinking that any other alternative method will not work
or it is "evil socialism". They are still interested in making rentier classes out of each
other and fucking over their children's future, while propping up their capitalist
overlords.
I get that you are too young, too stupid, or both, to imagine freedom
and give it a rest with the "freedumb" BS you goon. The US has the largest prison
population in the world. You go to jail for smoking a joint for goodness sake. At the same
time capitalist bankers make off with trillions in stolen wealth without a slap on the
wrist.
Not to mention the spying/surveillance, Patriot Act, assassinations and indefinite
detention of Americans with no due process, Anti-BDS laws, a totally rigged judicial system,
a healthcare system that is nothing short of a racket, a fake media totally controlled by the
capitalist war profiteers and corporate parasites. Everything that you accuse "communists" of
is what is actually happening under the Capitalists.
Ask Julian Assange or Snowden about this freedumb you speak of.
I agree with Tucker that the family unit is the most important reason why America is
degenerating, resulting in less people getting married, less children, less everything,
creating a vacuum that can only be filled by foreign invasion. The lack of strong families is also the reason for the rise in suicides, drug addiction,
crime, treason, etc., etc.
But Tucker can't tell us the reason for why this has been happening for decades now. He
can't point to the deliberate manipulation of America by strong Jewish forces. The family
unit has been the thrust of these attacks, and nobody realizes it.
... ... ...
3. Militant feminism has made it such that husbands and wives become economic competitors
rather than complementary partners. Families have become less important as compared to each
partner seeking financial success above all else.
There is a disincentive to have children
because it is an obstacle to climbing the corporate ladder. If you don't have children, there
is not a lot of benefit to being married, so divorces increase. After his divorce, one of the
managers in my company has been living together with his girlfriend for 11 years, and they
have no intention of getting married or having children. They are together because neither
can afford housing on their own and their joint income makes it possible. With only economic
necessity holding them together, there is every reason to expect cheating or unexpected
dissolution of the partnership when better financial opportunities present themselves. As
Tucker says, no woman wants to marry a man who makes less than she does. So, as more women
are forced into the workforce, less marriages happen.
... ... ...
5. Uncontrolled immigration helps the ruling class to reduce wages, also contributing to
declining families. Legal immigration decimates the middle class.
6. If that isn't enough, mass distribution of pornography, deviant sex, gender perversion, LGBTQXYZZY , all contribute to the breaking of traditional intimacy between one man and one
woman, that is the foundation of marriage and stable families.
7. And there are the fake wars. As sons, and now daughters, go off to fight in foreign
lands that have not attacked us, only one parent stays behind to raise the family,
inadequately. Moreover, when these traumatized soldiers return from battle, they are seldom
able to re-integrate into the family unit, and in a large number of cases, divorces and
criminal behavior result.
Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had
capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be
hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free"
"market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused, stupid,
disingenuous liars.
Look, what you call "capitalism" and "free markets" just means scams to make rich people
richer. You read some simple-minded description of some pie-in-the-sky theory of some perfect
world where rational actors make the best possible decisions in their own interest without
any outside interference, and you actually think you are reading a description of something
real.
I'll tell you what's real. Crookedness. Free markets are crookedness factories. As a PhD
from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no free
market! It's all crooked!"
@Achmed E. Newman "We need nationalism without capitalism and socialism without
internationalism" ~ Gregor Strasser
In the American case, that would also in effect restrict all transfer payments to being
within kin-groups and at the local / state / civil society level. America could have had a
workable welfare state if the right leadership had governed it (i.e. if there had been no
Sexual Revolution amplified by feminism and Cultural Marxist subversion of critical
institutions) and if resources of middle class white families were not transferred to
non-white underclass dysfunctional degenerates.
Tucker's show is the only political opinion show I watch. The rest of Fox is pretty much
Neocon Central. CNN/MSNBC are jokes parading as news outlets. I love it when Trump
continually calls them Fake News, which is exactly what they are.
But it's ominous that so many corporations have stopped advertising on Tucker's show. Fox
now finds itself in a bind. Not knowing he would become such a threat to the established
order when they gave him a prime time gig, they may well prefer to get rid of him. And they
could use the convenient excuse that no one wants to advertise on the show anymore. But
Carlson has become such a popular pundit that, if they fired him, it could well spell the end
of Fox as viewers would leave in droves.
Free speech is dying in newsrooms everywhere and is endangered on the Internet also, with
all-powerful leftist corporations like Google deciding what (to them) is acceptable speech.
I'd just hate to see Tucker go the way of Phil Donohue, who lost his MSNBC show (at the time
the most popular on the network) because he was against the Iraq war.
It's kinda weird watching you two trade blows.. from the outside your differences seem
about 10% of your shared disgust of the MSM.
I'm guessing you'll thump each other to a draw and both fall over exhausted, having left the
genuine shared enemy untouched.
In what world is that a sensible outcome?! Stop being such macho douches and start playing a
smart political game, or just get used to being shat on by the incumbent powers. Your
choice..
@Achmed E. Newman yes, I agree with you Mr. Newman.. but there is something still missing
to explain how the good wholesome concept of Capitalism has captured the governed of nearly
every nation state and placed them into a prison farm where the monopoly powered corporate
private capitalist can extort as much as they please.
Keeping the economic environment fair, open, free, in a fully restrained completely fair
play condition is an absolute requirement of capitalism is the only legitimate function of
government; in fact, it is the essence of a government that is formed of the substance of the
right of self determination. When monopoly powers are generated by government and given to
private private enterprise, or or when government services are privatized, capitalism has
been turned into captivism and the market has be turned into a human farm yard, allowing
those with the monopoly powers to cull and harvest the herds as they wish.
Instead of government doing its job; the USA has actually become the center for biasing
capitalism. It continues to bestow monopoly powers (copyright, patents, and it continues to
give government grants to universities that use the grants to take the risk that industry
should be taking, to investigate new ideas and new products and it continues to allow its
obligations to the governed to be privatized ). Basically the University has become the
middle man between government and monopoly powered capitalism. The government gives the
University a grant, the grant is used to fund training programs called Phd studies, and after
a while the (the research encounters a promising discovery, and the corporate department is
created within the University but funded by the governed in the form of a government grant.
Next when a product of substance is sufficiently understood and most of the questions about
it fully explored at government expense (note the privately owned monopoly powered
corporation does not have to put any money at risk, until the University develops the product
so billions of research dollars are funded from the pockets of the governed, for the
practical benefit of one of the monopoly powered corporations), the entire university
department become employees of the patent acquiring monopoly powered privately owned
corporation. Then as if to add insult to injury, the government has been allowing the private
corporations to offer the services the government is suppose to offer (like the water
companies, the power companies, the garbage companies, the security companies, the production
of weapons, and the likes, all of these government monopolies have been sold off or licensed
to private enterprise.in a monopoly transfer concept called privatization or grant by
government contract)
so in fact there is no such thing as capitalism in the USA governed America, its privatized
monopoly ism.
What makes monopolies so bad is that they prevent competition (and competition is the name
of the game in capitalism ). Someone in his back yard invents something that puts Apple or
Microsoft, or IBM or the Federal Reserve out of business, just as the University of Australia
has invented a way to supply the whole world with nearly free energy, the solar and wind
power are used when functioning while the excess is stored so that the capacity of the wind,
solar and hydro storage are sufficient to generate, store and provide a flow of energy
sufficient to supply the needs of the world, yet few have heard about it, because the media
is another privatized thing, and it(the media) will remain silent about such innovation, at
least, until it can force the university to sell its patents to one of the mega buck monopoly
powered corporations. This solar, wind and hydro
combinationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lk3elu3zf4 is not really a new science discovery
, its an application using proven methodology) would eliminate the need for gas and oil in
the world, and that would solve the C02 problem which is the essence of global warming
.
The problem with capitalism USA style is that government must function as an independent
third party, some the USA cannot seem to be, an honest broker.. the government must deny any
kind of favouritism to any and all that would in any way bias discovery, bias competition, or
bias the financing of investigations that might lead to discovery or financing needed to
build the infra structure that allows the new invention to replace the old. History shows the
problem with republics, is that the corrupt soon own the government, at least that seems to
fit the conditions in the UK, USA, Israel, France, and Saudi Arabia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lk3elu3zf4
@obwandiyag The same thing was in the Soviet Union. Any problem was dismissed on account
that they would go away once they had more communism. And it was always emphasized that it
must be so because it was scientifically proven by Marx. The libertarian idiots like our
Achmed here are no different than those communist idiots.
@Achmed E. Newman Indeed, the examples below are not free market capitalism, but these
are what too many erroneously think is the result of free market capitalism:
– Trade deals made by Big Gov are not free market capitalism.
– Special exemptions from competition for those connected to Big Gov is not free market
capitalism.
– Big Gov granting monopolies to unions is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov granted monopolies to utility companies are not free market capitalism.
– No bid Big Gov contracts are not free market capitalism.
– Gov laws supporting rent controls are not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov price fixing is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov income taxes are not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov property taxes are not free market capitalism
– The Big Gov authorized Federal Reserve is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov massive taxes on every aspect of the economy are not free market capitalism,
and which often lead to companies setting up shop elsewhere.
– Big Gov fees for services from agencies we already pay for are not free market
capitalism.
– Big Gov subsidies of "alternative energy" which cannot otherwise compete is not free
market capitalism.
The list of Big Government intervention in the economy is endless.
Big Gov intervention is the problem, not free market capitalism
@Achmed E. Newman " a land full of people encouraged to be irresponsible by, yes, you
guessed it, Big Government." Sure. OK.
But watch an hour of TV & try to tell me it's ONLY big Gov encouraging people to be
irresponsible.
Our whole consumer culture makes a virtue out of irresponsibility & the plain stupid
& juvenile. (Incidentally, it is utter crock that the Right wants "virtuous" citizens.
Where would the Oligarchs be if masses of people started being virtuous ? Honesty, truth,
justice, impulse control & rational desires would wreck their whole grubby set-up.
Indeed, a virtuous public might actually start thinking & thinking might lead to
lamp posts & pitch forks .)
@redmudhooch You simply don't know the difference between authoritarian Big Government
intervention in the economy, which is sadly what we increasingly have and is what you
advocate more of, vs. a truly free market economy.
But then Communists have made ignorance and being wrong an art form.
Another undefined slogan in this era of muddle headed thinking, or of no thinking at
all.
The 'again' suggests there once upon a times there was this great America.
I cannot be too difficult to specify when this great America existed, and what was so great
about it.
But I wonder if it is as in one of Deighton's Cold War novels, German refugees from the east
meeting in West Berlin, 'talking about a society that never was'.
What's the difference between government controlling every aspect of business, or business
controlling every aspect of government?
Would there be two different outcomes?
I keep hearing about "free markets" but I've never actually encountered one. It seems we will
die slowly of taxation and regulation while blaming Ron Paul and his friends for our misery.
If there were free markets we would be able to sell coal and oil to China and buy weapons
from Russia, build nuclear power plants, desalination plants, and LNG ports. But our wise
overlords in D.C. won't permit this. Also, the pride of those Marxists who were converted in
the 70's and 80's won't let them admit they were cruelly deceived.
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards
of stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as
or with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and
similar capacities)
You hit the jackpot, this is a good start but needs to go much further to drive the
powerful interest groups out of Government.
It doesn't matter if you believe in capitalism, socialism both or neither. Left or Right
politics, big or small government or none. Everyone should recognize that without this
process NOTHING will ever change, absent perhaps a bloody revolution.
It's a full time job for citizens of every country to guard their government from being
hijacked by special interest groups. In most cases they fail and almost always it's the same
group ending up with all the power. Crony capitalist elites.
In America and most of Europe the Crony Capitalistic elites running the country have
joined small part of the left wing – SJW types and allow them good access to their
media outlets and small share of the loot. This mercenary army of SJW then in turn barks and
gnaws at anyone threatening the status quo. It's a win win. In the meantime both the
traditional left (pro working class) and the right have no voices or influence.
Our own (Icelandic) banking crash enabled similar process as you describe, grants to
political parties are limited, MP's have to publish their ownership in corporations etc and
all kinds of limitations. We are currently enjoying the benefits. It will last few years more
– by then the elites will be back in full force.
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards
of stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as
or with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and
similar capacities)
Where can we find a free market? The US markets are so skewed by regulation that there is not
one commodity that has a 'free' market. Add to that the fact that the government has
abandoned its policy of preventing market dominance through monopoly. Add to that the US tax
payers feeding money into the wealthiest government in the world, a quantity of money that
attracts the least beneficial leeches from around the world. The government attracts leeches,
otherwise known as individual or corporate government contractors, being overpaid money from
the tax payers to support their companies that can't make it in the 'free' market: these
companies need the handouts to help them survive.
So where's the free market? It exists only in the small companies that litter the USA and
who battle the big corporates, like Amazon, that survive on tax handouts, beating their
competitors by bribing politicians rather than fighting the good fight in the free
market.
"the free market"?
[MORE]
'This "equilibrium" graph (Figure 3) and the ideas behind it have been re-iterated so many
times in the past half-century that many observes assume they represent one of the few firmly
proven facts in economics. Not at all. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that demand
equals supply in any market and that, indeed, markets work in the way this story
narrates.
We know this by simply paying attention to the details of the narrative presented. The
innocuous assumptions briefly mentioned at the outset are in fact necessary joint conditions
in order for the result of equilibrium to be obtained. There are at least eight of these
result-critical necessary assumptions: Firstly, all market participants have to have "perfect
information", aware of all existing information (thus not needing lecture rooms, books,
television or the internet to gather information in a time-consuming manner; there are no
lawyers, consultants or estate agents in the economy). Secondly, there are markets trading
everything (and their grandmother). Thirdly, all markets are characterized by millions of
small firms that compete fiercely so that there are no profits at all in the corporate sector
(and certainly there are no oligopolies or monopolies; computer software is produced by so
many firms, one hardly knows what operating system to choose ). Fourthly, prices change all
the time, even during the course of each day, to reflect changed circumstances (no labels are
to be found on the wares offered in supermarkets as a result, except in LCD-form). Fifthly,
there are no transaction costs (it costs no petrol to drive to the supermarket, stock brokers
charge no commission, estate agents work for free – actually, don't exist, due to
perfect information!). Sixthly, everyone has an infinite amount of time and lives infinitely
long lives. Seventhly, market participants are solely interested in increasing their own
material benefit and do not care for others (so there are no babies, human reproduction has
stopped – since babies have all died of neglect; this is where the eternal life of the
grown-ups helps). Eighthly, nobody can be influenced by others in any way (so trillion-dollar
advertising industry does not exist, just like the legal services and estate agent
industries).
It is only in this theoretical dreamworld defined by this conflagration of wholly unrealistic
assumptions that markets can be expected to clear, delivering equilibrium and rendering
prices the important variable in the economy – including the price of money as the key
variable in the macroeconomy. This is the origin of the idea that interest rates are the key
variable driving the economy: it is the price of money that determines economic outcomes,
since quantities fall into place.
But how likely are these assumptions that are needed for equilibrium to pertain? We know that
none of them hold. Yet, if we generously assumed, for sake of argument (in good economists'
style), that the probability of each assumption holding true is 55% – i.e. the
assumptions are more likely to be true than not – even then we find the mainstream
result is elusive: Because all assumptions need to hold at the same time, the probability of
obtaining equilibrium in that case is 0.55 to the power of 8 – i.e. less than 1%! In
other words, neoclassical economics has demonstrated to us that the circumstances required
for equilibrium to occur in any market are so unlikely that we can be sure there is no
equilibrium anywhere. Thus we know that markets are rationed, and rationed markets are
determined by quantities, not prices.
On our planet earth – as opposed to the very different planet that economists seem to
be on – all markets are rationed. In rationed markets a simple rule applies: the short
side principle. It says that whichever quantity of demand or supply is smaller (the 'short
side') will be transacted (it is the only quantity that can be transacted). Meanwhile, the
rest will remain unserved, and thus the short side wields power: the power to pick and choose
with whom to do business. Examples abound. For instance, when applying for a job, there tend
to be more applicants than jobs, resulting in a selection procedure that may involve a number
of activities and demands that can only be described as being of a non-market nature (think
about how Hollywood actresses are selected), but does not usually include the question: what
is the lowest wage you are prepared to work for?
Thus the theoretical dream world of "market equilibrium" allows economists to avoid talking
about the reality of pervasive rationing, and with it, power being exerted by the short side
in every market. Thus the entire power hiring starlets for Hollywood films, can exploit his
power of being able to pick and choose with whom to do business, by extracting 'non-market
benefits' of all kinds. The pretense of 'equilibrium' not only keeps this real power
dimension hidden. It also helps to deflect the public discourse onto the politically more
convenient alleged role of 'prices', such as the price of money, the interest rate. The
emphasis on prices then also helps to justify the charging of usury (interest), which until
about 300 years ago was illegal in most countries, including throughout Europe.
However, this narrative has suffered an abductio ad absurdum by the long period of near zero
interest rates, so that it became obvious that the true monetary policy action takes place in
terms of quantities, not the interest rate.
Thus it can be plainly seen today that the most important macroeconomic variable cannot be
the price of money. Instead, it is its quantity. Is the quantity of money rationed by the
demand or supply side? Asked differently, what is larger – the demand for money or its
supply? Since money – and this includes bank money – is so useful, there is
always some demand for it by someone. As a result, the short side is always the supply of
money and credit. Banks ration credit even at the best of times in order to ensure that
borrowers with sensible investment projects stay among the loan applicants – if rates
are raised to equilibrate demand and supply, the resulting interest rate would be so high
that only speculative projects would remain and banks' loan portfolios would be too
risky.
The banks thus occupy a pivotal role in the economy as they undertake the task of creating
and allocating the new purchasing power that is added to the money supply and they decide
what projects will get this newly created funding, and what projects will have to be
abandoned due to a 'lack of money'.
It is for this reason that we need the right type of banks that take the right decisions
concerning the important question of how much money should be created, for what purpose and
given into whose hands. These decisions will reshape the economic landscape within a short
time period.
Moreover, it is for this reason that central banks have always monitored bank credit creation
and allocation closely and most have intervened directly – if often secretly or
'informally' – in order to manage or control bank credit creation. Guidance of bank
credit is in fact the only monetary policy tool with a strong track record of preventing
asset bubbles and thus avoiding the subsequent banking crises. But credit guidance has always
been undertaken in secrecy by central banks, since awareness of its existence and
effectiveness gives away the truth that the official central banking narrative is
smokescreen.'
https://professorwerner.org/shifting-from-central-planning-to-a-decentralised-economy-do-we-need-central-banks/
"Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible
people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal
people "
"Even in the US most of nine Labour policies we put to people received majority
backing
Tucker's point is that the "Free Market" system of America is run by an amoral predator class
looking out for only its own interests. What is missing is a sense of noblesse oblige
rank has its privileges, but also its own duties to others in the system. Shapiro is but
another amoral schmuck looking out only for himself.
@redmudhooch So true. All these libertarians think capitalism automatically implies
competition , but in the real world, that's just a temporary phase. Once the oligopoly
stage of capitalism is reached, businesses cease to compete with one another and simply
collude–to take over the government, among other things. Then you have business and
government working together to shaft the common man (they'll call it "public/private
partnership," or some such).
Competition is simply not a permanent part of capitalism, any more than the
maggot-phase is a permanent part of being a fly. In the end, the 'free' market is destined to
give way either to Jew-Bolshevism or to National Socialism. Personally, I opt for the
latter.
It looks like a pipe dream, and perhaps it is, do you have better alternative?
Of course: socialists, pure capitalists and libertarians can all continue to sit in their
little corner and continue to argue against each other like they have done for the past
decades, totally powerless and ignored. All waiting for.. what? At least here is an idea to
start with, a common ground.
Think about it, while commenters "Achmed E. Newman" and "redmudhooch" almost
totally disagree on ideological grounds It seems obvious they could march in a lockstep in a
political movement trying to separate the Government from crony capitalism – with all
the Unz crowd and majority of the public close behind them. It would be a beautiful
sight!
Washington filled with protesters with signs: "We want our Government back" or "The best
Government money can by doesn't work – lets try something else"
The MSM would be powerless, their heads would explode trying to dig up slander against
such movement.
@aspnaz aspnaz says: "Where can we find a free market? "
It's now called "the black market" don't you know.
Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro etc, like most here, wouldn't know a free market if it bit
them in the a$$.
Carlson and Shapiro et all are nothing more than shills for the state [again, like most
here].
aspnaz says: "So where's the free market? It exists only in the small companies that
litter the USA and who battle the big corporates"
Outside of "illegal" black markets, that's pretty much true.
Corporations are creatures of the state and are protected by the state. Hell, they
are the state!
As you obviously know, government/ the state is the problem- never the
solution.
The only real political "solution" [as I see it] would be to return the government to its
original size and functions, getting rid of the 1000's of regulatory agencies [EPA, FDA,
BATF, CIA FBI NSA etc etc etc ad nauseum], plus all welfare , government-run "healthcare",
social "security" etc. etc.
And of course, getting rid of the standing army and all associated, to boot.
And to a nation of government indoctrinated, [virtually] commie slaves whose only desire
is to live at the expense of everyone else, that "solution" is entirely out of the
question.
But even if it were possible to return to the original constitutional government
limitations, seeing as how, judging by the results to date, the constitution and bill of
rights obviously was not/is not a secure enough chain on federal government growth and its
ever increasing interference in all markets [and all areas of our lives], that "solution"
would only give us all, at most, about 10 years of relative freedom and prosperity, if even
that.
So unless we could figure out some new, better way to permanently chain down the
government to a constitution and bill of rights and keep it out of everything else , then a
dreamed of return to an allegedly "constitutionally limited" government would only provide a
temporary, short term reprieve, as I see it.
@niceland Unfortunately the prescriptions are naive.
c. with a bit of grammatical tidying up is already the rule I say with some confidence.
The problem is what they might do in the hope of employment when they retire from the armed
forces. Perhaps a four year embargo on receiving any direct or indirect benefit from the arms
industry might be worth thinking about.
a. is an invitation to legal ingenuity. Ever heard of a "blind trust"? How blind is the
politician to the reality of his interests even if his wife isn't the trustee. And if you
banned blind trusts you wouldn't stop the spouse, siblings or children standing in for the
politician as investor.
b. You could prevent them getting paid directly and immediately but they could often make
a case that the consulting was just part of a politician's and some bureaucrats' everyday job
and involved both giving and receiving information and advice. And, as to the money side of
it, nearly all Congressmen spend a great deal of their time raising money for their
reelection campaigns so they wouldn't be asking to be paid personally in most cases. And if
the worst came to the worst a PAC fund could receive the money.
Ironically I came to tuckers same conclusion about a decade ago while being redpilled by neo
reactionaries. They of course are technofuturist post humanists which is why its ironic, but
they did encourage me to more radically check my premises and i had to admit capitalism had
probably done more harm to west civ tham communism in fact without capitalism there is no
communism. I had to admit my reflex unequivocal defense of capitalism was more coldwar anti
socialism refelex mixed with theoretical capitalism. Oh im still a capitalist but like tucker
i think its a tool and we who love it have to remember why we love it or ought to, because it
serves us, iy might also be a beautiful machine but if it didnt serve us theres no reason to
support it. i also had to admit not only do we not actually have capitalism but corporatism
and corporatism is inevitable tendency of capitalism but that we dont really think capitalism
functions well without intervention as we pretend we just think it functions best when
conservatives invent the interventions .we know left un tended monopolies and cartels form,
we know that large corporations will use their size to crush smarter more innovative new
firms,price fixing will happen, we dont allow a free market in all sorts of things from child
porn to heroine, yet inexplicably other porn and alcohol are ok.I also had to admit it wasnt
true that capitalism needs democracy, capitalism finds ways of thriving in any government
from stalinist communist to monarchies to managed theocracies or anything in between.Finally
I had to admit apes are both capitalist and socialist creatures and white apes particularly
so, we are the most capitalistic yet have the lowest tolerance for watching suffering, now
that can be for the most part solved with market solutions to social safety if we are willing
to admit that despite our hatred of socialists we are never the less social apes. And this is
perhaps the crux of the matter, HBD some people are just genetically more capable than others
in a free market some will thrive others not so much over time some will really really thrive
others not so much at all. so yeah white nationalism is a must actually any nation must be an
ethno state because your only real chance of overcoming this natural difference is to start
with a group that at least fairly homogenous, but then you must intervene. NO NOT BECAUSE
THEY ARE HUMANS WITH RIGHTS FUCKEM NO NOT BECAUSE THEYRE MUH WHITE BROS
because theres more of them than us cog elites and as tucker points out eventually if we make
it worth their wiles they will just take our shit. Capitalism does require some form of
government even if its just my gang enforcing my rules. all civilization is built on violence
and the proles have it they just dont use it because frankly we are their slaves we make the
world better for them or they replace us.its in our interest to be their stewards. its also a
better way to live with bakers wives and steam fitters smiling and happy nd pumping out
children to ward off the other nations. As elites we must do for them what they can not
naturally do for themselves a nation is a family or ought to be, everyone has a place. Thats
not to say we ought not find ways to stretch our right tale and shorten our left tail which
will make us tighter knit and more efficient and less fractured.
besides its simply retarded to give away your best tech to your enemies and and then buy it
back from them while leaving your 90% unemployed. This idea that thats capitalism implies
that you intend to reduce americans to the status of the least paid third worlder and only
when hes willing to work for those wages will you hire him- well good luck with that all I
can say is where are you going to hide.Heres the thing all the smart people do not in fact
rise to the elite in fact more and more get locked out in a way that prevents them from even
breeding statistically the average proles are producing 50% of each year cognitive elite
children they are less stable cog elites in as much as their children more likely to revert
to mean but never the less they will meet and fuck your children at harvard and contribute
50% of elite generation and some hybrid vigor.you really dont want 50% of the gifted
struggling in tiny houses and gigs deciding they really ought to be figuring out how to build
a robot army to take you out because they can they have the numbers
Inside beltway crap.
Capitalism have been hijacked long time ago by the secret private bank.Central economic
control.
The average american citizen daily survival depends on the will to deliver the goods from
roughly 11 corporations and their subsidiary networks.And for those who are trying to control
morality "happy fishing day".
@follyofwar Phil Donohue had his issues but was a semi-honest liberal and was the only
popular talking head that I recall who was opposed to the Iraq war and asking the hard
questions and second guessing politicians.
Mr. "no spin zone" Bill O' Reilly and many others gave us nothing but spin and just
vomited out the neocon talking points.
@Wally Do you get your talking points from Ayn Rand's didactic, absurd novel "Atlas
Shrugged?" Paul Ryan did, and what did he ever do for the country besides give more tax cuts
to the rich?
Take power away from the elected politicians who can be bribed by the capitalists, and give
it to average people. Adopt the Athenian system of choosing officials by lot from all
citizens, and capitalism may have to reform.
"Dreams, you've been hanging on
To dreams when all your dreaming should be done
Dreams, about the way the world could be
You keep dreaming , despite reality
"Dreams, that Donald Trump is not a fraud,
Dreams, that Obama was not a fraud,
Dreams, that Reagan was not a fraud,
Dreams, that all the rest were not frauds,
Dreams, that the Constitution is not a scam,
[MORE] Dreams, that the Supreme Court is not a scam,
Dreams, that the Federal Reserve is not a scam,
Dreams, that the C.I.A. is not a scam,
Dreams, that the F.B.I. is not a scam,
Dreams, that the cops and the courts are not a scam,
Dreams, that the Pentagon is not a scam,
Dreams, that 9/11 was not a scam,
Dreams, that the war on terror is not a scam,
Dreams, that Social Security is not a scam,
Dreams, that public education is not a scam .." [and so on and so forth] .
@anon anon[393] • Disclaimer says: "..i had to admit capitalism had probably done
more harm to west civ tham communism in fact without capitalism there is no communism ."
If you [ or anyone else] wanted to live under an entirely voluntary communist/socialist [
or whatever] system, while others freely chose not to, then I personally would have no
problem with that.
But of course, that is not whats being implied in all of this back and forth. The
discussion here and elsewhere is ultimately always about who gets to enforce, at the point of
a gun, their own imagined "ideal" system on everyone else, via everybodys imagined best
friend/big brother, the government, regardless of individual preference.
Private socialism? Go for it.
Not a problem [except for those who try to live under it], but "go ahead, make my day" as
someone once said.
After all , the very first Plymouth colony in the "New World" was founded on full on
socialism, and therefor quickly failed, but , I remind myself: the one thing that we learn
from history is that we don't learn anything from history.
@EliteCommInc. I would take it a step further. As it stands now, Congress exempts itself
from just about every law and regulation that it imposes on the rest of us. Also, most people
are unaware that federal judges do not pay "income taxes".
What is needed it a Constitutional amendment to wit:
"Congress shall make NO LAW that does not apply equally to itself, the legislative branch,
the executive branch, the judicial branch, and its agencies, departments, and subdivisions,
thereof. All federal agencies, departments, and subdivisions thereof are prohibited from
enacting any rulemaking without express approval of Congress. Corporate charters shall not
confer the status of personhood on corporations"."
@Achmed E. Newman Great comment! I found Tucker's speech to be vague and largely off
point. We do not have capitalism, we have "currently existing capitalism"- like the left
called the USSR "currently existing socialism", libertarians know, as Rand said, capitalism
is an Unknown Ideal.
As a fellow traveller with Ron Paul, Tucker still has libertarian leanings. He seems confused
sometimes about his stand on the Drug War, too often settling for his trope that interdiction
at the border will actually stop the overdose deaths, rather than recognizing interdiction
has been a failure for a hundred years. And how can he recognize that our foreign wars
involve us in one futile crisis after another, without asking why after a century of the war
on drugs, we are still experiencing a drug crisis? He says he regrets his "long haired
libertarian youth", thereby marking himself as just another old fogey who can't remember the
fun he had When he was young.
Instead of pearl clutching, he could strike the biggest blow to international corporatism by
acknowledging the crucial role that de- dollariztion is playing. He could recognize the role
of the Fed in creating international power centers in NYC, London, Zurich now being
challenged by Moscow and Beijing.
Like all conservatives, and alas libertarians as well, he doesn'understand the US Individual
Income Tax, the original Populist response to big government enabled crony capitalism. He
doesn't understand the income tax is a tax on the exploitation of a federal privilege for
profit, not an UN-apportioned tax on "everything that comes in". See http://www.losthorizons.com
And please, bring a real libertarian on as his straw man, not that awful, slow thinking slow
talking Objectivist !
Libertarianism needs white nationalism, but at least libertarians consistently call out the
Federal Reserve. Tucker never has to my knowledge, maybe because he doesn't understand or
isn't interested in monetary policy. But monetary policy affects all aspects of the economy,
from wages to international trade. Tucker is libertarian on foreign policy, among other
things, and the last time I checked, he's no Bernie Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez when it comes to
domestic policy. Does he favor socialized medicine, public higher education, expansion of the
welfare state, and government housing for all? His main gripe is with many corporations' love
of cheap foreign labor, big tech censorship, and "free" trade. Oh, and he thinks the rich
need to be taxed a little more. Can't say I disagree with him there. However, I don't even
see any evidence that he is a race realist. I like him, but he seems like the quintessential
civic nationalist to me, though that could just be the mask he has to wear.
The foreign labor aspect does need to be reined in (hence why libertarianism needs
racial/ethnic nationalism). Google is hardly a private company as it was seed funded by the
CIA and NSA. Facebook regularly colludes with Israeli/U.S. Intelligence. It is not
unlibertarian to oppose "private" companies that become arms of the state to shut down
opposition. The whole free trade vs. protectionism debate is more complicated than either
side will admit. Both policies create winners and losers to varying degrees as Trump's
tariffs have shown, and the Federal Reserve mucks up things either way. There is no free
market in America.
@Anon Good rebuttal to Achmed E. Newman's comment and the Hallelujah Chorus replying to
him. Carlson's point about market capitalism being a religion to conservatives triggers them
mightily.
"... Crumbling of neoliberal ideology now is an undisputable scientific fact. While neoliberal practice continues since 2008 unabated, and neoliberalism even managed (not without help from some three-letter agencies) staged counterrevolutions in several countries such as Ukraine, Argentina, and Brazil (the phenomena known as "Strange non-death of Neoliberalism"). ..."
"... The current level of degeneration of the neoliberal elite is another interesting factor. Essentially neoliberal oligarchy (and this is first of all financial oligarchy) and their political stooges lost the legitimacy in the minds of the majority of the electorate in the USA (Trump+Sanders supporters). ..."
"... Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society. ..."
"... Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal people ..."
My impression is that it is impossible to separate the current backlash on globalization
from the backlash on neoliberalism as an ideology.
Crumbling of neoliberal ideology now is an undisputable scientific fact. While neoliberal
practice continues since 2008 unabated, and neoliberalism even managed (not without help from
some three-letter agencies) staged counterrevolutions in several countries such as Ukraine,
Argentina, and Brazil (the phenomena known as "Strange non-death of Neoliberalism").
One of the fundamental forces behind the last 25 years of neoliberal globalization is the
availability of cheap oil. If this period is coming to an end in a decade or two (as in
prolonging period of over $100 per barrel prices) the reversal of neoliberal globalization
might acquire a completely different pace and scale.
The current level of degeneration of the neoliberal elite is another interesting factor.
Essentially neoliberal oligarchy (and this is first of all financial oligarchy) and their
political stooges lost the legitimacy in the minds of the majority of the electorate in the USA
(Trump+Sanders supporters).
In this sense, I would like to emphasize an amazing and unexplainable (given Fox news owner)
speech by Tucker Carlson on Jan 2, 2009.
He offered this blunt advice to Republicans:
Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool,
like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the
benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and
destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy
society.
This is probably the first statement that neoliberalism is the enemy of healthy society on
Fox.
This might not end well as financial oligarchy is entrenched and does not was to share power
with anybody. Indeed, Carlson anticipated the resistance to his views in the way similar to
FDR:
Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible
people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal
people
This also shed additional light of Russiagate, as an attempt to cement cracks in the
neoliberal society by uniting the nation against the common enemy. In no way Russiagate is only
about Trump.
Questionable, but still interesting perspective. Ignore marketing crap -- clearly there is marketing push within this presentation
-- she wants your subscriptions. "This is Main Street vs Wall Street" dichotomy sounds plausible. Neoliberalism is, in essence, is the
restoration of power of financial oligarchy.
But the idea of secret open bailout might explain why shale oil became so prominent despite high cost of producing it: Wall Street
was subsidised via backchannels for bringing price downand supporting shale companies by the US goverment
$21 trillion in "missing money" at the DOD and HUD that was discovered by Dr. Mark Skidmore and Catherine Austin Fitts in 2017
has now become a national security issue. The federal government is not talking or answering questions, even though the DOD recently
failed its first ever audit.
Fitts says, "This is basically an open running bailout. Under this structure, you can transfer assets out of the federal government
into private ownership, and nobody will know and nobody can stop it. There is no oversight whatsoever. You can't even know who is
doing it. I'm telling you they just took the United States government, they just changed the governance model by accounting policy
to a fascist government. If you are an investor, you don't know who owns those assets, and there is no evidence that you do. . .
. If the law says you have to produce audited financial statements and you refuse to do so for 20 years, and then when somebody calls
you on it, you proceed to change the accounting laws that say you can now run secret books for all the agencies and over 100 related
entities."
In closing, Fitts says, "We cannot sit around and passively depend on a guy we elected President. The President cannot fix this.
We need to fix this. . . . This is Main Street versus Wall Street. This is honest books versus dirty books. If you want the United
States in 10 years to resemble anything what it looked like 20 years ago, you are going to have to do it, and there is no one else
who can do it. You have to first get the intelligence to know what is happening."
Join Greg Hunter as he goes One-on-One with Catherine Austin Fitts, Publisher of "The Solari Report." Donations:
https://usawatchdog.com/donations/
Greg, with all due respect I don't you understand what CAF is saying. Forget about a dollar reset. The fascists, using
the Treasury, Exchange Stabilization Fund, HUD, DOD and any agency they choose, have turned the US government into a gigantic
money laundering operation. And they maintain two sets of books - the public numbers are a complete sham. Any paper assets held
by private citizens are not secure, are likely rehypothecated, and when convenient can be frozen or siezed by these fascists in
Washington. There is no limit to how many dollars the FED can create secretly and funnel out through the ESF/Treasury to prop
up and bail out any bank, black ops, pet project, mercenary army or paper assets they choose. The missing $21 trillion is probably
a drop in the bucket as there is no audit and no honest books for us to examine. In sum, all paper asset pricing in dollars is
a fraud and a sham. Any paper assets you think you own, whether it be stocks, bonds, or real estate are pure illusion: they can
be repriced or stolen at any time; in reality, you own nothing. To the man and woman on the street I say this: get out of paper,
get out of these markets and convert to tangibles in your physical possession - and do it secretly and privately, avoid insurances,
records, paper trails. This mass defrauding of the American people by this corrupt government in Washington will come crashing
down when the US dollar is displaced from reserve status; this is what China and Russia and the BRICS are setting the stage for:
world trade without the US dollar. When this happens, your dollars will become virtual toilet paper and all of your paper assets
will go poof.
"We have to fix this". Ok how does the individual fix this? Private armies are running around doing whatever private armies
do and I, the one man, is suppose to fix this. Please, will someone tell us what we are suppose to do, specific instructions not
a mix of large words that say " we must fix this", damn, we need a leader. Greg you ask almost every person you interview what
the middle class should be doing to protect themselves and you never get a "real" answer, just a dance around. Also you ask numerous
people what this coming change is going to look like and again, just silence or dance music, no answers. Damn we need a leader.
Your trying very hard to give us information that will help us weather the coming storm, so thank you for all you do, and you
do more than anyone else out there.
Question, why in part do I feel I am being lied to? Is it subscription hustle or is it, don't you believe your lying eyes!
Without knowing exactly what is what, anyone who would've watched Herbert Walker Bush's funeral with reactions from those who
received cards, whether they be Bush family, the Clintons, the Obamas and entourage. Jeb Bush went from being proud and patriotic
to panic like the funeral that he was at was for the whole family.
Joe Biden looked like he had a major personal accident and no way to get to the bathroom for cleanup.
George W. Bush after being asked a question, of which the answer was, "Yep" then proceeded to appear resigned and stoic! What
ever was on those cards essentially amounted to, for all those receiving a card, "the gig is up" and it appears they all damn
well knew it.
So, Catherine Austin Fitts, explain your, "Trump is colluding with the Bushies," I would say, that Canary in this mine of inquiry
is dead. I'm just an old disabled Vietnam vet of plebeian background and certainly not a revolving door Washington DC Beltway
patrician, so any explanation needs to be delivered in slow, logical step-by-step progression for I have not mastered the art
of selling the sizzle in hopes that the dupes will later pay for the steak. I prefer, Greg, when you actually get more combative
with Ms. Fitts. Make America, great again and do so, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
35 min: Fitts gives a great synopsis of the problem. She never deviates in all of her interviews. greg doesn't seem to understand
at all. She repeats herself MULTIPLE TIMES and greg is still asking the same irrelevant PREPPER questions. IT DOES NOT MATTER
WHAT ASSETS YOU HOLD GREG, AND THAT INCLUDES GOLD!!!! WHEN YOU'RE EXISTING IN A TYRANNICAL SYSTEM THAT STEALS AT WILL FROM ITS'
CONSTITUENCY YOU CAN'T actually OWN ANYTHING!!!! lord! only so many ways to say
She lost credibility when she said Trump has "made a deal with the Bushes." That defies logic. The Bushes made a deal with
Trump! Trump has gained full control of the military with a $ 1 1/2 trillion war chest. Trump and Putin are putting the China
toothpaste back in the tube.
This woman clearly knows nothing about the plan..she has not even mentioned that the world bank president has resigned who
was appointed by obumma. And that is HUGE. She was in government in the corruption, but she doesn't know how things will be fixed..she's
not in that loop of current things in the new reset..shes coming from her own perceptions
This woman always make me sick to my stomach. She comes out and says a bunch of scary stuff and offers no solution. If it's
too much for just one person, then we the people need to take control. We don't need a central bank. We need local and state banks
like the Bank of North Dakota then we can migrate over to them and then shut down the Fed.
"... Tucker Carlson's critique of unrestrained capitalism last week sent the Respectable Righ t into apoplectic fury. That's why it's irrelevant -- and why Carlson is increasingly emerging as a name to conjure with. ..."
"... Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating ..."
"... Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... The Right Should Reject Tucker Carlson's Victimhood Populism ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... National Review? ..."
"... [T]he primary responsibility for creating a life of virtue and purpose rests with families and individuals. In fact, it is still true that your choices are far more important to your success than any government program or the actions of any nefarious banker or any malicious feminist. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson Claims Market Capitalism Has Undermined American Society. He's Wrong. ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... America Needs Virtue before Prosperity ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... National Review ..."
"... Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds ..."
"... Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal people ..."
"... Carlson's economic populism pairs with his support for patriotic immigration reform: both policies aim to serve the people's interest and strengthen America as a unified community. This vision conflicts with multinational corporations who would rather see America as one giant strip mall filled with atomized customers. Not surprisingly, these companies oppose patriotic immigration reform. Also not surprisingly, so does Conservatism Inc. ..."
"... The only institution that can stand up to corporations and tell them to change is the state -- which happens to be the only institution patriots can have any influence over. Academia, Hollywood, corporate America, and the Establishment Media are all under the thrall of Cultural Marxists. (The churches are a more complicated matter, but fewer Americans listen to religious leaders in our day and age.) ..."
"... Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway. ..."
"... Don't cry in 2020 if Donald Trump loses because he took advice from the same market capitalists who tried to sink him and his movement back in 2016 – the same people who destroyed Romney's chances in 2012. He's already well on his way with deregulation and tax cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, some of his supporters seem eager to help him in that losing effort. ..."
"... In my view, I think the message is clear. Government's role of facilitator, monitor and guarantor of fair practices has decided to jump in bed on the side of business and that without guarantee of a fair distribution to the US citizens, who in the case of government subsidies, contracts and bailouts are footing the bill for a good deal of financial misconduct and lousy adherence to best practices as they reap the benefits. ..."
"... Oh–I get it. The problem is not Capitalism. It's that we don't have more of it. God you people are brazenly ingenuous. ..."
"... Deregulating big biz without corresponding relaxations on common people is wrong and we must oppose it. No tax cuts for biz without much bigger ones for the common people! ..."
"... Some below average dude above said "this country has nothing resembling Capitalism going on. Big Business is in bed with Big Feral Gov't. "Crony Capitalism" may not roll off the tongue, but that's the usual fair description of it." Hear that on Fox News? Oh, if only we were all controlled and dominated by Capitalists. If only capitalists owned all the major media. If only Capitalists owned all the politicians. If only capitalists made up all the leading politicians. If only all the bankers were Capitalists If only the Fed was made up of capitalists. Then we would finally have true capitalism. ..."
"... But wait a minute. That's EXACTLY the situation that we do have. What that means is that we have EXACTLY the capitalism that capitalism produces. We have EXACTLY the capitalism that the leading capitalists, who will always control the capitalist government and the capitalist economy, want and need. ..."
"... And before anyone starts with "its the globalists." Globalism is capitalism. Capitalism brought the black slaves here, capitalism is bringing the Mexicans here. Slave labor/cheap labor is the name of the game, always has been. Nothing new. Globalism=capitalism ..."
"... Capitalist wars are also driving the refugees from their homelands. Whether in Iraq, Sudan or Honduras, wars are a twofer for capitalists, massive war profiteering, theft of resources, with the added bonus of driving refugees into Europe/America to lower the standard of living and decrease wages for us. ..."
"... Privatization of public property/resources is theft, privatization today is strictly about prioritizing money away from the commons and general welfare and giving total monopoly to the inbred 1% rent-seeking parasites, monopoly of resources (food, water, air, shelter), monopoly of control, monopoly of propaganda, monopoly of Policy, monopoly of money, monopoly of war. ..."
"... Most people, including below average guy above don't wan't to accept this, usually because of ignorance or "muh capitalism" and "muh free markets " brainwashing by Fox "News". They have been programmed subconsciously into thinking that any other alternative method will not work or it is "evil socialism". They are still interested in making rentier classes out of each other and fucking over their children's future, while propping up their capitalist overlords. ..."
"... Meet the New World Order. Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354-500-revealed-the-capitalist-network-that-runs-the-world/ ..."
"... and give it a rest with the "freedumb" BS you goon. The US has the largest prison population in the world. You go to jail for smoking a joint for goodness sake. At the same time capitalist bankers make off with trillions in stolen wealth without a slap on the wrist. ..."
"... Not to mention the spying/surveillance, Patriot Act, assassinations and indefinite detention of Americans with no due process, Anti-BDS laws, a totally rigged judicial system, a healthcare system that is nothing short of a racket, a fake media totally controlled by the capitalist war profiteers and corporate parasites. Everything that you accuse "communists" of is what is actually happening under the Capitalists. ..."
"... I agree with Tucker that the family unit is the most important reason why America is degenerating, resulting in less people getting married, less children, less everything, creating a vacuum that can only be filled by foreign invasion. The lack of strong families is also the reason for the rise in suicides, drug addiction, crime, treason, etc., etc. ..."
"... Militant feminism has made it such that husbands and wives become economic competitors rather than complementary partners. Families have become less important as compared to each partner seeking financial success above all else ..."
"... There is a disincentive to have children because it is an obstacle to climbing the corporate ladder. If you don't have children, there is not a lot of benefit to being married, so divorces increase. ..."
"... As Tucker says, no woman wants to marry a man who makes less than she does. So, as more women are forced into the workforce, less marriages happen. ..."
"... Uncontrolled immigration helps the ruling class to reduce wages, also contributing to declining families. Legal immigration decimates the middle class ..."
"... If that isn't enough, mass distribution of pornography, deviant sex, gender perversion, LGBTQXYZZY , all contribute to the breaking of traditional intimacy between one man and one woman, that is the foundation of marriage and stable families. ..."
"... And there are the fake wars. As sons, and now daughters, go off to fight in foreign lands that have not attacked us, only one parent stays behind to raise the family, inadequately. Moreover, when these traumatized soldiers return from battle, they are seldom able to re-integrate into the family unit, and in a large number of cases, divorces and criminal behavior result. ..."
"... Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free" "market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused, stupid, disingenuous liars. ..."
"... Free markets are crookedness factories. As a PhD from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no free market! It's all crooked!" ..."
Tucker Carlson's critique of unrestrained capitalism last week sent the Respectable Right into apoplectic
fury. That's why it's irrelevant -- and why Carlson is increasingly emerging as a name to conjure with.
In a now-celebrated monologue on his Fox News show, Carlson blamed multinational
corporations and urban elites for the decline of Middle America. [
Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But for everyone else, it's infuriating , Fox
News , January 3, 2019] He listed several social ills that he attributed to unrestrained
capitalism, including predatory loans, higher drug use ,
declining marriage
rates , and shuttered factories.
Carlson lambasted "conservatives" who bemoan the decay of the family but refuse to consider
if capitalism played any role in that tragedy. According to Carlson, "conservatives" consider
criticism of the free market to be
apostasy.
He offered this blunt advice to Republicans who want to make America great again.
Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a religion.
Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to
worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do not
exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Needless to say, this opinion was met with frothing anger by several
Conservatism Inc. writers, a crowd that seems to believe the free market a holy thing that must not
suffer blasphemy. They were upset that anyone would dare suggest that the state could act to
rectify social ills, arguing that this was rank demagogy and antithetical to conservatism.
National Review published several op-eds condemning Tucker's monologue -- a sure sign
of Respectable Right displeasure.
David
French , briefly Bill Kristol's Never
Trump catspaw, represented the typical response in
The Right Should Reject Tucker Carlson's Victimhood Populism . [ National
Review , January 4, 2019]. French claims to agree with Carlson that Middle America suffers
from numerous ills, but he argues the state should play no role with fixing them. Thus payday
loans are a necessary part of capitalism, drug criminalization is bad because it puts nice
minorities in jail, and radical feminism and Affirmative Action aren't serious concerns.
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic
cultural changes -- civil rights, women's rights, a technological revolution as significant
as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual revolution,
etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of
what they are doing to you.
French's solution is for the working class to go to
community college and for America to magically experience an organic renewal of virtue.
It's all up to the individual to make America better:
[T]he primary responsibility for creating a life of virtue and purpose rests with families
and individuals. In fact, it is still true that your choices are far more important to your
success than any government program or the actions of any nefarious banker or any malicious
feminist.
It is certainly true that your family and your own choices has a great influence over
whether you live a virtuous and even happy life. But that does not show how social ills will
somehow be corrected by self-help advice.
Additionally, as one man from a
Midwest town destroyed by plant closures pointed out on Twitter, community college and
re-training are not sufficient in equaling the old
manufacturing jobs . "'New tech always comes along to save the day' does not apply. The
late 19th-Century farm workers who flocked to Henry Ford for jobs after the
last great labor upheaval have nowhere to go this time," the man, Tom Ferguson, tweeted.
Greenville has only 8,000 residents, but is the largest city in Montcalm County. The plant
closure eliminated 3,000 jobs. As long as we're quantifying, I'll note the equivalence to
3,000,000 (sic) jobs being lost in New York City.
4/20 The local community
college offered communications and other job-skills courses. My recollection says this noble
effort, measured across 3,000 layoffs, was not very meaningful.
8/20 "New tech always comes
along to save the day" does not apply. The late 19th-Century farm workers who flocked to
Henry Ford for jobs after the last great labor upheaval have nowhere to go this time.
11/20
(See the whole thread here , here , or (as a screenshot)
here .)
French also failed to consider how much influence a "
malicious
feminist " can have over the lives of
normal people. Just one "offensive" tweet can cost somebody their career and reputation if
Leftists stir up a mob . Good luck finding a job if your
Google history is says you're a sexist. Additionally,
Human Resources Departments are run to conform to Leftist dictates, and your private speech
and views could draw the suspicion of HR at any time.
Daily Wire editor-in-chief Ben Shapiro
attacked Carlson in two separate articles. The first, for his own website, zealously defended
the greatness of the free market and the purity of movement conservatism: "Traditional
conservatives recognized that the role of economics is to provide prosperity – to raise
the GDP," is a sentence that best summarizes Shapiro's ridiculous retconning of a
once-great movement [ Tucker
Carlson Claims Market Capitalism Has Undermined American Society. He's Wrong. , by Ben
Shapiro, Daily Wire , January 4, 2019]
Shapiro truly believes the free market is one of the greatest things to ever exist and it
must not be restrained. All social problems, according to him, are due to individual choices
and we should not seek collective solutions to social ills like declining marriage rates and
fewer good jobs for working-class males. Trust the free market and insist a virtue renewal will
resolve the problems state aims to solve.
Shapiro followed up his Daily Wire column with a short column in National
Review that also insisted we need a virtue renewal instead of a state intervention into
the market. Shapiro believes we just need Americans to stop wanting "stuff" and exhibit virtue
in order to bring back Middle America [
America Needs Virtue before Prosperity , by Ben Shapiro, National Review ,
January 8, 2019].
"Carlson's claim that material gain isn't enough to provide happiness doesn't lead him back
to virtue, which would bolster additional freedom. It leads him to the same material solutions
that undercut virtue in the first place," Shapiro concluded,.
It would be nice if people would make themselves better and get the right job training after
they read one National Review column. But that's not going to happen and Shapiro
offers no means for enacting a renewal of virtue.
In effect, all of Carlson's Conservatism Inc. critics demand we must do nothing about the
woes of working-class whites and the free market will figure out something.
So at a time when a majority of Americans -- including a majority of Republicans --
support single-payer healthcare and other big government initiatives, Conservatism Inc.
pundits offer platitudes about limited government and the greatness of capitalism [
Most young Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, new report finds , by Kathleen
Elkins, CNBC , August 14, 2018].
This will not end well. Indeed, Carlson anticipated noted this response in his monologue:
Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible
people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal
people
(Carson did not directly mention immigration, somewhat surprising because it has been one of
his long-standing concerns. But it ties into this debate. Many of the Conservativism Inc, types
outraged at Tucker also support mass immigration and buy into the notion that America is a "
nation of
immigrants ." They see America as primarily an economy or an idea, not a nation. Tucker's
national populism reverses those false notions -- America is a nation first and its
primary responsibility
is to its citizens , not the GDP.
Carlson's economic populism pairs with his support for patriotic immigration reform: both
policies aim to serve the people's interest and strengthen America as a unified community. This
vision conflicts with multinational corporations who
would rather see America as one giant strip mall filled with atomized customers. Not
surprisingly, these companies oppose patriotic immigration reform. Also not surprisingly, so
does Conservatism Inc.
The unfortunate fact is that American corporations pose the greatest threat to our
fundamental liberties and way of life. They censor free speech, make banking difficult for
political dissidents, exclusively promote progressive causes, listen to foreign governments
more than our own, promote mass immigration, and demonstrate a loyalty only to their own
profits and power. Currently, in fact, they are increasingly
boycotting Tucker Carlson's show, to Leftist
applause .
The only institution that can stand up to corporations and tell them to change is the state
-- which happens to be the only institution patriots can have any influence over. Academia,
Hollywood, corporate America, and the Establishment Media are all under the thrall of Cultural
Marxists. (The churches
are a more
complicated matter, but fewer Americans listen to religious leaders in our day and
age.)
Americans cannot expect a civic renewal from our social institutions. Conservatives wield
zero influence over a culture that encourages drug use, sexual promiscuity, agnosticism, and
women's' choosing career over family. We are not going to experience a social renaissance just
by wishing for one.
If we want our society to improve, we have to push for state policies with that goal in
mind. There is no other option.
It's time to discard the worn-out conservative dogmas and make the state serve the people.
National populism is the only path for Republicans to remain viable and (yes!) make our country
great again.
Washington Watcher [ email him ] is an anonymous source
Inside The Beltway. Tucker Carlson Routs Conservatism Inc. On Unrestrained Capitalism --
And Immigration, by Washington Watcher - The Unz Review
The first two comments on this blog perfectly illustrate why conservatives are in so much
trouble: they refuse to let go of old – harmful – dogmas, preferring to
rationalize them instead; they fail to embrace the policies that could realistically assure a
positive outcome for themselves and their beliefs. This leaves them vulnerable to rhetorical
conmen like Ben Shapiro and outfits like the National Review – controlled opposition if
I ever saw it.
It's not surprising to me that the National Review would oppose Carlson's viewpoint, as
the article mentioned. Here are the readership demographics of the National Review: 60+ with
an average annual salary somewhere north of $200,000. With that in mind, ask yourself if it
is really more likely that the National Review is interested in preserving the principles of
free market capitalism than they are merely interested in preserving the pocketbooks of their
donors and readers.
And let's be honest, Ben Shapiro was brought in by the National Review to
run interference after the disastrous failure of their market capitalism-based NeverTrump
critiques back in 2016; their front cover during that campaign was entitled "Against Trump".
Despicable.
Ben Shapiro's shtick is to mix "muh feminism" rhetoric popular with the youth
with "muh unregulated markets" rhetoric popular with the National Review donors in order to
obscure the line between the two. The end result is that you hear exactly what you want to
hear (a temporary, but hollow, pleasure) while nothing is ever ultimately done to address the
cause of "muh feminism" in the first place which just so happens to be some of the same
things pushed by the National Review, as Tucker Carlson noted. This is the kind of thing that
explains why you lost the culture war. You embraced rhetoric over reason with no mind to the
future.
What the responder here has done is merely repackage old assertions with new rhetoric. He
makes the same kind of outlandish and unrealistic claims as Shapiro, even if he is unaware
– wishing for miracles, essentially. He points out an issue (say the tax code) and then
claims this problem is the ultimate source of all our problems. Lost in this analysis is any
sense of probability. What is the probability that the tax code (or anything else he
mentioned) will spontaneously fix itself against the wishes of the public, according to all
the polls? Answer: very small, probably zero. So, why bother with that approach?
Ask yourself why we shouldn't address the crime rate with the same logic. We could abolish
the prison system and just hope that there is a solution to the ensuing rampant dysfunction
by wishing for it. Obviously, that's stupid and the public would never go for it, ever. So,
why is this logic smart for economics and politics?
Could the National Review and their conman Ben Shapiro really be so obtuse as to really
believe that their suggestions are even a remote possibility? I doubt it. Or maybe they have
an ulterior motive, as I have already mentioned: run interference with cleverly chosen words
while fundamental problems affecting actual republican voters go unaddressed – poverty,
suicide, revocation of fundamental liberties, a growing police state, and rampant internet
censorship; meanwhile, rich National Review donors continue to line their pocketbooks with
cheap labor immigration.
Also unaddressed in multiple – often disingenuous – critiques of Tucker
Carlson is exactly how supporters of voodoo economics have any solutions themselves beyond
mere rhetoric. Do they even bother at this point? I didn't see much in these rebuttals other
than assertions and semantics games. Perhaps, instead, these people have a track record of
success that might lead one to believe Elysium is around the corner? Hardly. They have a
track record of continual failure. So, why believe them here?
Wage growth has been stagnant for decades while healthcare costs, public debt, and tuition
have soared. They've done next to nothing on immigration; their proposal before Trump was to
double it. These are also the same people who claimed NAFTA would be great for the American
worker – that people could just get retrained. Also wrong. NAFTA has exploded the trade
deficit while workers often work longer hours for less pay and fewer benefits. The culture
wars? Total failure. Freedom of religion, of speech, and of association are on life support
– often at the behest of multinational corporations that threaten boycotts or deny
service to conservative viewpoints. What about the rise of China? Totally wrong. That nation
is eating our lunch. Sucks that we had to export our industries to them. As we speak, they're
considering an armed assault against Taiwan while Rand says their military is probably strong
enough to defeat ours if we came to their defense.
Meanwhile, cultural conservatives have lost every battle in the United States mainland.
The movement is so weak we can't even protect our own borders because, according to Nancy
Pelosi, "that's not who we are." You want to know who else agrees with Nancy? Multinational
corporations and National Review donors. Funny how those issues go hand-in-hand. It's almost
like these trucons care more about low taxes than mass immigration. Which do you care more
about?
And that's why conservatives lose. They refuse to choose between pie-in-the-sky dogma that
benefits others at their expense and practical solutions to the issues at hand. They'll
justify the current order with statements like "this isn't capitalism, if only we had real
capitalism" not realizing that this is the real capitalism the ruling class wants because it
benefits them economically, not you the ordinary man.
Ironically, this result is similar to Alexander Fraser Tytler's critique of democracy
– that it ends as soon as the public realizes they can vote themselves free goodies.
The often missed point of Lord Tytler's argument is that, when given a choice, the average
person will forego sacrifice with long-term benefits, instead choosing short-term pleasures
with long-term consequences; the end result is dysfunction and ruin. In this case, market
capitalists make the same mistake. They embrace disastrous long-term policies –
immigration, deregulation, monopolies, a warped tax code, punishing the poor – in order
to preserve their short-term bank accounts. We will lose the nation if they and their
supporters are allowed to carry the day. That's what happens when you let your enemy control
every lever of power in society; they use it to their benefit and at your expense. And that's
exactly what free market capitalists advocate, even if they don't directly state it. Thus,
the need for regulation and the exercise of power from the sole places where we have it: the
government and the military.
Don't cry in 2020 if Donald Trump loses because he took advice from the same market
capitalists who tried to sink him and his movement back in 2016 – the same people who
destroyed Romney's chances in 2012. He's already well on his way with deregulation and tax
cuts for the rich. Unfortunately, some of his supporters seem eager to help him in that
losing effort.
In my view, I think the message is clear. Government's role of facilitator, monitor and
guarantor of fair practices has decided to jump in bed on the side of business and that
without guarantee of a fair distribution to the US citizens, who in the case of government
subsidies, contracts and bailouts are footing the bill for a good deal of financial
misconduct and lousy adherence to best practices as they reap the benefits.
Solutions:
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards of
stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as or
with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and similar
capacities)
just for starters -- I am a pro capitalist. But what we are experiencing is not capitalism.
@Achmed E. Newman As a long-time libertarian, I'd agree with you for the most part. But
I've had an epiphany in the last 2 years. All freedoms are not created equal. One of the
things beltway-tarians such as the Koch-funded Cato Institute push is the idea that an
increase in freedom in any area is good because the benefits "trickle down." Bullcrap!
Deregulating big biz without corresponding relaxations on common people is wrong and we must
oppose it. No tax cuts for biz without much bigger ones for the common people!
Some below average dude above said "this country has nothing resembling Capitalism going on.
Big Business is in bed with Big Feral Gov't. "Crony Capitalism" may not roll off the tongue,
but that's the usual fair description of it." Hear that on Fox News? Oh, if only we were all controlled and dominated by Capitalists. If
only capitalists owned all the major media. If only Capitalists owned all the politicians. If
only capitalists made up all the leading politicians. If only all the bankers were
Capitalists If only the Fed was made up of capitalists. Then we would finally have true
capitalism.
But wait a minute. That's EXACTLY the situation that we do have. What that means is that
we have EXACTLY the capitalism that capitalism produces. We have EXACTLY the capitalism that
the leading capitalists, who will always control the capitalist government and the capitalist
economy, want and need.
Newsflash! There can be no Capitalism that is different from what we've got today. You
would have to kill all the capitalists, to start over, because they would just buy their way
right back to the top. The money all accrues to the top, very quickly. It's like a bad game
of Monopoly. They take the money they've accumulated, and, realizing that money is just a
means to an end, put it to work. They buy political power, and use the combination of
political and financial/economic power to cement their monopoly. The very first thing they do
it to pull up the "ladder of success" after themselves.
When nobody else can climb the ladder, we get frustrated, and want to change the rules to
allow an "even playing field." This is exactly what the early winners of Capitalism will not
allow, and they go to great lengths to prevent it. They also complain bitterly about any and
all attempts to even out the effects of Capitalism.
That "evil government" that you hate is nothing more than the organization of the
capitalists. Every member of the government is a Capitalist, often funded into power by even
richer capitalists. We do not have a government, we have puppets of capitalists or as you Fox
News Hannity enthusiasts call it "the deep state"
Government was intended to be of the people, by the people, for the people, and to serve the
people, not the Corporation.
To the (((shill))) Shapiro
If we all had a PhD, there would be EXACTLY the same number of people being paid poverty
wages and exactly the same number unemployed. McDonalds and Wal-Mart don't pay a penny more
for a fry cook or greeter with a PhD. It's capitalism that determines the jobs and the pay,
not the education level of the masses.
When capitalism tells the masses to "go get an education" as being the solution to their
poverty, it's nothing more than saying, "you workers need to compete harder among yourselves
for the few good-paying jobs that capitalism has to offer." Thanks to the capitalists sending
the good paying middle class jobs to slave labor countries so they could make a few dollars
more.
And before anyone starts with "its the globalists."
Globalism is capitalism. Capitalism brought the black slaves here, capitalism is bringing the
Mexicans here. Slave labor/cheap labor is the name of the game, always has been. Nothing new.
Globalism=capitalism
Capitalist wars are also driving the refugees from their homelands. Whether in Iraq, Sudan
or Honduras, wars are a twofer for capitalists, massive war profiteering, theft of resources,
with the added bonus of driving refugees into Europe/America to lower the standard of living
and decrease wages for us.
Privatization of public property/resources is theft, privatization today is strictly about
prioritizing money away from the commons and general welfare and giving total monopoly to the
inbred 1% rent-seeking parasites, monopoly of resources (food, water, air, shelter), monopoly
of control, monopoly of propaganda, monopoly of Policy, monopoly of money, monopoly of
war.
Most don't have a clue what Socialism actually is. Socialism is government by the
working-class. There is not the slightest hint of the working-class ruling over society
anywhere in the world. Obviously.
The New World Order is being brought to you through capitalism, private banking and
corporate monopoly over EVERYTHING. You think your imaginary boogie-man socialists and
communists are scary? Wait till Monsanto/Bayer have total monopoly over our food and water,
they're getting very close, better wake up. Jesus warned you.
Some miserably mediocre guy above said "Jesus didn't warn me that I'd better love "my"
government."
He warned you about the love of money AKA capitalism, and what it leads to. You like being
replaced with cheap labor, H1B visa slaves, alright that's fine, but I think most American
workers are a little tired of it.
Problem today mediocre dude, is that governments aren't "governments" but private
corporations, with shareholders, operating in the public sector. Again, government is the
PEOPLE. The citizens, the workers. Of the people, by the people, for the people, and to serve
the people, not the Corporation. Not the parasite. You got it backwards son.
Most people, including below average guy above don't wan't to accept this, usually because
of ignorance or "muh capitalism" and "muh free markets " brainwashing by Fox "News". They have
been programmed subconsciously into thinking that any other alternative method will not work
or it is "evil socialism". They are still interested in making rentier classes out of each
other and fucking over their children's future, while propping up their capitalist
overlords.
I get that you are too young, too stupid, or both, to imagine freedom
and give it a rest with the "freedumb" BS you goon. The US has the largest prison
population in the world. You go to jail for smoking a joint for goodness sake. At the same
time capitalist bankers make off with trillions in stolen wealth without a slap on the
wrist.
Not to mention the spying/surveillance, Patriot Act, assassinations and indefinite
detention of Americans with no due process, Anti-BDS laws, a totally rigged judicial system,
a healthcare system that is nothing short of a racket, a fake media totally controlled by the
capitalist war profiteers and corporate parasites. Everything that you accuse "communists" of
is what is actually happening under the Capitalists.
Ask Julian Assange or Snowden about this freedumb you speak of.
I agree with Tucker that the family unit is the most important reason why America is
degenerating, resulting in less people getting married, less children, less everything,
creating a vacuum that can only be filled by foreign invasion. The lack of strong families is also the reason for the rise in suicides, drug addiction,
crime, treason, etc., etc.
But Tucker can't tell us the reason for why this has been happening for decades now. He
can't point to the deliberate manipulation of America by strong Jewish forces. The family
unit has been the thrust of these attacks, and nobody realizes it.
... ... ...
3. Militant feminism has made it such that husbands and wives become economic competitors
rather than complementary partners. Families have become less important as compared to each
partner seeking financial success above all else.
There is a disincentive to have children
because it is an obstacle to climbing the corporate ladder. If you don't have children, there
is not a lot of benefit to being married, so divorces increase. After his divorce, one of the
managers in my company has been living together with his girlfriend for 11 years, and they
have no intention of getting married or having children. They are together because neither
can afford housing on their own and their joint income makes it possible. With only economic
necessity holding them together, there is every reason to expect cheating or unexpected
dissolution of the partnership when better financial opportunities present themselves. As
Tucker says, no woman wants to marry a man who makes less than she does. So, as more women
are forced into the workforce, less marriages happen.
... ... ...
5. Uncontrolled immigration helps the ruling class to reduce wages, also contributing to
declining families. Legal immigration decimates the middle class.
6. If that isn't enough, mass distribution of pornography, deviant sex, gender perversion, LGBTQXYZZY , all contribute to the breaking of traditional intimacy between one man and one
woman, that is the foundation of marriage and stable families.
7. And there are the fake wars. As sons, and now daughters, go off to fight in foreign
lands that have not attacked us, only one parent stays behind to raise the family,
inadequately. Moreover, when these traumatized soldiers return from battle, they are seldom
able to re-integrate into the family unit, and in a large number of cases, divorces and
criminal behavior result.
Idiots on here are always going on about how we don't got capitalism, if we only had
capitalism, we don't got free markets, if only we had free markets, then everything would be
hunky-dory. Without any proof, of course, because there never was and never will be a "free"
"market." The US has plenty capitalism. And everything sucks. And they want more. Confused, stupid,
disingenuous liars.
Look, what you call "capitalism" and "free markets" just means scams to make rich people
richer. You read some simple-minded description of some pie-in-the-sky theory of some perfect
world where rational actors make the best possible decisions in their own interest without
any outside interference, and you actually think you are reading a description of something
real.
I'll tell you what's real. Crookedness. Free markets are crookedness factories. As a PhD
from Chicago Business School told me, "Free markets?! What free markets?! There is no free
market! It's all crooked!"
@Achmed E. Newman "We need nationalism without capitalism and socialism without
internationalism" ~ Gregor Strasser
In the American case, that would also in effect restrict all transfer payments to being
within kin-groups and at the local / state / civil society level. America could have had a
workable welfare state if the right leadership had governed it (i.e. if there had been no
Sexual Revolution amplified by feminism and Cultural Marxist subversion of critical
institutions) and if resources of middle class white families were not transferred to
non-white underclass dysfunctional degenerates.
Tucker's show is the only political opinion show I watch. The rest of Fox is pretty much
Neocon Central. CNN/MSNBC are jokes parading as news outlets. I love it when Trump
continually calls them Fake News, which is exactly what they are.
But it's ominous that so many corporations have stopped advertising on Tucker's show. Fox
now finds itself in a bind. Not knowing he would become such a threat to the established
order when they gave him a prime time gig, they may well prefer to get rid of him. And they
could use the convenient excuse that no one wants to advertise on the show anymore. But
Carlson has become such a popular pundit that, if they fired him, it could well spell the end
of Fox as viewers would leave in droves.
Free speech is dying in newsrooms everywhere and is endangered on the Internet also, with
all-powerful leftist corporations like Google deciding what (to them) is acceptable speech.
I'd just hate to see Tucker go the way of Phil Donohue, who lost his MSNBC show (at the time
the most popular on the network) because he was against the Iraq war.
It's kinda weird watching you two trade blows.. from the outside your differences seem
about 10% of your shared disgust of the MSM.
I'm guessing you'll thump each other to a draw and both fall over exhausted, having left the
genuine shared enemy untouched.
In what world is that a sensible outcome?! Stop being such macho douches and start playing a
smart political game, or just get used to being shat on by the incumbent powers. Your
choice..
@Achmed E. Newman yes, I agree with you Mr. Newman.. but there is something still missing
to explain how the good wholesome concept of Capitalism has captured the governed of nearly
every nation state and placed them into a prison farm where the monopoly powered corporate
private capitalist can extort as much as they please.
Keeping the economic environment fair, open, free, in a fully restrained completely fair
play condition is an absolute requirement of capitalism is the only legitimate function of
government; in fact, it is the essence of a government that is formed of the substance of the
right of self determination. When monopoly powers are generated by government and given to
private private enterprise, or or when government services are privatized, capitalism has
been turned into captivism and the market has be turned into a human farm yard, allowing
those with the monopoly powers to cull and harvest the herds as they wish.
Instead of government doing its job; the USA has actually become the center for biasing
capitalism. It continues to bestow monopoly powers (copyright, patents, and it continues to
give government grants to universities that use the grants to take the risk that industry
should be taking, to investigate new ideas and new products and it continues to allow its
obligations to the governed to be privatized ). Basically the University has become the
middle man between government and monopoly powered capitalism. The government gives the
University a grant, the grant is used to fund training programs called Phd studies, and after
a while the (the research encounters a promising discovery, and the corporate department is
created within the University but funded by the governed in the form of a government grant.
Next when a product of substance is sufficiently understood and most of the questions about
it fully explored at government expense (note the privately owned monopoly powered
corporation does not have to put any money at risk, until the University develops the product
so billions of research dollars are funded from the pockets of the governed, for the
practical benefit of one of the monopoly powered corporations), the entire university
department become employees of the patent acquiring monopoly powered privately owned
corporation. Then as if to add insult to injury, the government has been allowing the private
corporations to offer the services the government is suppose to offer (like the water
companies, the power companies, the garbage companies, the security companies, the production
of weapons, and the likes, all of these government monopolies have been sold off or licensed
to private enterprise.in a monopoly transfer concept called privatization or grant by
government contract)
so in fact there is no such thing as capitalism in the USA governed America, its privatized
monopoly ism.
What makes monopolies so bad is that they prevent competition (and competition is the name
of the game in capitalism ). Someone in his back yard invents something that puts Apple or
Microsoft, or IBM or the Federal Reserve out of business, just as the University of Australia
has invented a way to supply the whole world with nearly free energy, the solar and wind
power are used when functioning while the excess is stored so that the capacity of the wind,
solar and hydro storage are sufficient to generate, store and provide a flow of energy
sufficient to supply the needs of the world, yet few have heard about it, because the media
is another privatized thing, and it(the media) will remain silent about such innovation, at
least, until it can force the university to sell its patents to one of the mega buck monopoly
powered corporations. This solar, wind and hydro
combinationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lk3elu3zf4 is not really a new science discovery
, its an application using proven methodology) would eliminate the need for gas and oil in
the world, and that would solve the C02 problem which is the essence of global warming
.
The problem with capitalism USA style is that government must function as an independent
third party, some the USA cannot seem to be, an honest broker.. the government must deny any
kind of favouritism to any and all that would in any way bias discovery, bias competition, or
bias the financing of investigations that might lead to discovery or financing needed to
build the infra structure that allows the new invention to replace the old. History shows the
problem with republics, is that the corrupt soon own the government, at least that seems to
fit the conditions in the UK, USA, Israel, France, and Saudi Arabia. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Lk3elu3zf4
@obwandiyag The same thing was in the Soviet Union. Any problem was dismissed on account
that they would go away once they had more communism. And it was always emphasized that it
must be so because it was scientifically proven by Marx. The libertarian idiots like our
Achmed here are no different than those communist idiots.
@Achmed E. Newman Indeed, the examples below are not free market capitalism, but these
are what too many erroneously think is the result of free market capitalism:
– Trade deals made by Big Gov are not free market capitalism.
– Special exemptions from competition for those connected to Big Gov is not free market
capitalism.
– Big Gov granting monopolies to unions is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov granted monopolies to utility companies are not free market capitalism.
– No bid Big Gov contracts are not free market capitalism.
– Gov laws supporting rent controls are not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov price fixing is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov income taxes are not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov property taxes are not free market capitalism
– The Big Gov authorized Federal Reserve is not free market capitalism.
– Big Gov massive taxes on every aspect of the economy are not free market capitalism,
and which often lead to companies setting up shop elsewhere.
– Big Gov fees for services from agencies we already pay for are not free market
capitalism.
– Big Gov subsidies of "alternative energy" which cannot otherwise compete is not free
market capitalism.
The list of Big Government intervention in the economy is endless.
Big Gov intervention is the problem, not free market capitalism
@Achmed E. Newman " a land full of people encouraged to be irresponsible by, yes, you
guessed it, Big Government." Sure. OK.
But watch an hour of TV & try to tell me it's ONLY big Gov encouraging people to be
irresponsible.
Our whole consumer culture makes a virtue out of irresponsibility & the plain stupid
& juvenile. (Incidentally, it is utter crock that the Right wants "virtuous" citizens.
Where would the Oligarchs be if masses of people started being virtuous ? Honesty, truth,
justice, impulse control & rational desires would wreck their whole grubby set-up.
Indeed, a virtuous public might actually start thinking & thinking might lead to
lamp posts & pitch forks .)
@redmudhooch You simply don't know the difference between authoritarian Big Government
intervention in the economy, which is sadly what we increasingly have and is what you
advocate more of, vs. a truly free market economy.
But then Communists have made ignorance and being wrong an art form.
Another undefined slogan in this era of muddle headed thinking, or of no thinking at
all.
The 'again' suggests there once upon a times there was this great America.
I cannot be too difficult to specify when this great America existed, and what was so great
about it.
But I wonder if it is as in one of Deighton's Cold War novels, German refugees from the east
meeting in West Berlin, 'talking about a society that never was'.
What's the difference between government controlling every aspect of business, or business
controlling every aspect of government?
Would there be two different outcomes?
I keep hearing about "free markets" but I've never actually encountered one. It seems we will
die slowly of taxation and regulation while blaming Ron Paul and his friends for our misery.
If there were free markets we would be able to sell coal and oil to China and buy weapons
from Russia, build nuclear power plants, desalination plants, and LNG ports. But our wise
overlords in D.C. won't permit this. Also, the pride of those Marxists who were converted in
the 70's and 80's won't let them admit they were cruelly deceived.
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards
of stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as
or with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and
similar capacities)
You hit the jackpot, this is a good start but needs to go much further to drive the
powerful interest groups out of Government.
It doesn't matter if you believe in capitalism, socialism both or neither. Left or Right
politics, big or small government or none. Everyone should recognize that without this
process NOTHING will ever change, absent perhaps a bloody revolution.
It's a full time job for citizens of every country to guard their government from being
hijacked by special interest groups. In most cases they fail and almost always it's the same
group ending up with all the power. Crony capitalist elites.
In America and most of Europe the Crony Capitalistic elites running the country have
joined small part of the left wing – SJW types and allow them good access to their
media outlets and small share of the loot. This mercenary army of SJW then in turn barks and
gnaws at anyone threatening the status quo. It's a win win. In the meantime both the
traditional left (pro working class) and the right have no voices or influence.
Our own (Icelandic) banking crash enabled similar process as you describe, grants to
political parties are limited, MP's have to publish their ownership in corporations etc and
all kinds of limitations. We are currently enjoying the benefits. It will last few years more
– by then the elites will be back in full force.
a. no member of an elected position should be permitted to own stock, sit on the boards
of stock or financial instititions which they are the creators of regulations and laws.
b. elected and appointed government employees are barred from consulting and working as
or with private sector companies.
c. senior military leaders are barred from working with or for private industry in any
manner related to government provides services and goods, (except as instructors, and
similar capacities)
Where can we find a free market? The US markets are so skewed by regulation that there is not
one commodity that has a 'free' market. Add to that the fact that the government has
abandoned its policy of preventing market dominance through monopoly. Add to that the US tax
payers feeding money into the wealthiest government in the world, a quantity of money that
attracts the least beneficial leeches from around the world. The government attracts leeches,
otherwise known as individual or corporate government contractors, being overpaid money from
the tax payers to support their companies that can't make it in the 'free' market: these
companies need the handouts to help them survive.
So where's the free market? It exists only in the small companies that litter the USA and
who battle the big corporates, like Amazon, that survive on tax handouts, beating their
competitors by bribing politicians rather than fighting the good fight in the free
market.
"the free market"?
[MORE]
'This "equilibrium" graph (Figure 3) and the ideas behind it have been re-iterated so many
times in the past half-century that many observes assume they represent one of the few firmly
proven facts in economics. Not at all. There is no empirical evidence whatsoever that demand
equals supply in any market and that, indeed, markets work in the way this story
narrates.
We know this by simply paying attention to the details of the narrative presented. The
innocuous assumptions briefly mentioned at the outset are in fact necessary joint conditions
in order for the result of equilibrium to be obtained. There are at least eight of these
result-critical necessary assumptions: Firstly, all market participants have to have "perfect
information", aware of all existing information (thus not needing lecture rooms, books,
television or the internet to gather information in a time-consuming manner; there are no
lawyers, consultants or estate agents in the economy). Secondly, there are markets trading
everything (and their grandmother). Thirdly, all markets are characterized by millions of
small firms that compete fiercely so that there are no profits at all in the corporate sector
(and certainly there are no oligopolies or monopolies; computer software is produced by so
many firms, one hardly knows what operating system to choose ). Fourthly, prices change all
the time, even during the course of each day, to reflect changed circumstances (no labels are
to be found on the wares offered in supermarkets as a result, except in LCD-form). Fifthly,
there are no transaction costs (it costs no petrol to drive to the supermarket, stock brokers
charge no commission, estate agents work for free – actually, don't exist, due to
perfect information!). Sixthly, everyone has an infinite amount of time and lives infinitely
long lives. Seventhly, market participants are solely interested in increasing their own
material benefit and do not care for others (so there are no babies, human reproduction has
stopped – since babies have all died of neglect; this is where the eternal life of the
grown-ups helps). Eighthly, nobody can be influenced by others in any way (so trillion-dollar
advertising industry does not exist, just like the legal services and estate agent
industries).
It is only in this theoretical dreamworld defined by this conflagration of wholly unrealistic
assumptions that markets can be expected to clear, delivering equilibrium and rendering
prices the important variable in the economy – including the price of money as the key
variable in the macroeconomy. This is the origin of the idea that interest rates are the key
variable driving the economy: it is the price of money that determines economic outcomes,
since quantities fall into place.
But how likely are these assumptions that are needed for equilibrium to pertain? We know that
none of them hold. Yet, if we generously assumed, for sake of argument (in good economists'
style), that the probability of each assumption holding true is 55% – i.e. the
assumptions are more likely to be true than not – even then we find the mainstream
result is elusive: Because all assumptions need to hold at the same time, the probability of
obtaining equilibrium in that case is 0.55 to the power of 8 – i.e. less than 1%! In
other words, neoclassical economics has demonstrated to us that the circumstances required
for equilibrium to occur in any market are so unlikely that we can be sure there is no
equilibrium anywhere. Thus we know that markets are rationed, and rationed markets are
determined by quantities, not prices.
On our planet earth – as opposed to the very different planet that economists seem to
be on – all markets are rationed. In rationed markets a simple rule applies: the short
side principle. It says that whichever quantity of demand or supply is smaller (the 'short
side') will be transacted (it is the only quantity that can be transacted). Meanwhile, the
rest will remain unserved, and thus the short side wields power: the power to pick and choose
with whom to do business. Examples abound. For instance, when applying for a job, there tend
to be more applicants than jobs, resulting in a selection procedure that may involve a number
of activities and demands that can only be described as being of a non-market nature (think
about how Hollywood actresses are selected), but does not usually include the question: what
is the lowest wage you are prepared to work for?
Thus the theoretical dream world of "market equilibrium" allows economists to avoid talking
about the reality of pervasive rationing, and with it, power being exerted by the short side
in every market. Thus the entire power hiring starlets for Hollywood films, can exploit his
power of being able to pick and choose with whom to do business, by extracting 'non-market
benefits' of all kinds. The pretense of 'equilibrium' not only keeps this real power
dimension hidden. It also helps to deflect the public discourse onto the politically more
convenient alleged role of 'prices', such as the price of money, the interest rate. The
emphasis on prices then also helps to justify the charging of usury (interest), which until
about 300 years ago was illegal in most countries, including throughout Europe.
However, this narrative has suffered an abductio ad absurdum by the long period of near zero
interest rates, so that it became obvious that the true monetary policy action takes place in
terms of quantities, not the interest rate.
Thus it can be plainly seen today that the most important macroeconomic variable cannot be
the price of money. Instead, it is its quantity. Is the quantity of money rationed by the
demand or supply side? Asked differently, what is larger – the demand for money or its
supply? Since money – and this includes bank money – is so useful, there is
always some demand for it by someone. As a result, the short side is always the supply of
money and credit. Banks ration credit even at the best of times in order to ensure that
borrowers with sensible investment projects stay among the loan applicants – if rates
are raised to equilibrate demand and supply, the resulting interest rate would be so high
that only speculative projects would remain and banks' loan portfolios would be too
risky.
The banks thus occupy a pivotal role in the economy as they undertake the task of creating
and allocating the new purchasing power that is added to the money supply and they decide
what projects will get this newly created funding, and what projects will have to be
abandoned due to a 'lack of money'.
It is for this reason that we need the right type of banks that take the right decisions
concerning the important question of how much money should be created, for what purpose and
given into whose hands. These decisions will reshape the economic landscape within a short
time period.
Moreover, it is for this reason that central banks have always monitored bank credit creation
and allocation closely and most have intervened directly – if often secretly or
'informally' – in order to manage or control bank credit creation. Guidance of bank
credit is in fact the only monetary policy tool with a strong track record of preventing
asset bubbles and thus avoiding the subsequent banking crises. But credit guidance has always
been undertaken in secrecy by central banks, since awareness of its existence and
effectiveness gives away the truth that the official central banking narrative is
smokescreen.'
https://professorwerner.org/shifting-from-central-planning-to-a-decentralised-economy-do-we-need-central-banks/
"Socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a group of responsible
people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that protects normal
people "
"Even in the US most of nine Labour policies we put to people received majority
backing
Tucker's point is that the "Free Market" system of America is run by an amoral predator class
looking out for only its own interests. What is missing is a sense of noblesse oblige
rank has its privileges, but also its own duties to others in the system. Shapiro is but
another amoral schmuck looking out only for himself.
@redmudhooch So true. All these libertarians think capitalism automatically implies
competition , but in the real world, that's just a temporary phase. Once the oligopoly
stage of capitalism is reached, businesses cease to compete with one another and simply
collude–to take over the government, among other things. Then you have business and
government working together to shaft the common man (they'll call it "public/private
partnership," or some such).
Competition is simply not a permanent part of capitalism, any more than the
maggot-phase is a permanent part of being a fly. In the end, the 'free' market is destined to
give way either to Jew-Bolshevism or to National Socialism. Personally, I opt for the
latter.
It looks like a pipe dream, and perhaps it is, do you have better alternative?
Of course: socialists, pure capitalists and libertarians can all continue to sit in their
little corner and continue to argue against each other like they have done for the past
decades, totally powerless and ignored. All waiting for.. what? At least here is an idea to
start with, a common ground.
Think about it, while commenters "Achmed E. Newman" and "redmudhooch" almost
totally disagree on ideological grounds It seems obvious they could march in a lockstep in a
political movement trying to separate the Government from crony capitalism – with all
the Unz crowd and majority of the public close behind them. It would be a beautiful
sight!
Washington filled with protesters with signs: "We want our Government back" or "The best
Government money can by doesn't work – lets try something else"
The MSM would be powerless, their heads would explode trying to dig up slander against
such movement.
@aspnaz aspnaz says: "Where can we find a free market? "
It's now called "the black market" don't you know.
Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro etc, like most here, wouldn't know a free market if it bit
them in the a$$.
Carlson and Shapiro et all are nothing more than shills for the state [again, like most
here].
aspnaz says: "So where's the free market? It exists only in the small companies that
litter the USA and who battle the big corporates"
Outside of "illegal" black markets, that's pretty much true.
Corporations are creatures of the state and are protected by the state. Hell, they
are the state!
As you obviously know, government/ the state is the problem- never the
solution.
The only real political "solution" [as I see it] would be to return the government to its
original size and functions, getting rid of the 1000's of regulatory agencies [EPA, FDA,
BATF, CIA FBI NSA etc etc etc ad nauseum], plus all welfare , government-run "healthcare",
social "security" etc. etc.
And of course, getting rid of the standing army and all associated, to boot.
And to a nation of government indoctrinated, [virtually] commie slaves whose only desire
is to live at the expense of everyone else, that "solution" is entirely out of the
question.
But even if it were possible to return to the original constitutional government
limitations, seeing as how, judging by the results to date, the constitution and bill of
rights obviously was not/is not a secure enough chain on federal government growth and its
ever increasing interference in all markets [and all areas of our lives], that "solution"
would only give us all, at most, about 10 years of relative freedom and prosperity, if even
that.
So unless we could figure out some new, better way to permanently chain down the
government to a constitution and bill of rights and keep it out of everything else , then a
dreamed of return to an allegedly "constitutionally limited" government would only provide a
temporary, short term reprieve, as I see it.
@niceland Unfortunately the prescriptions are naive.
c. with a bit of grammatical tidying up is already the rule I say with some confidence.
The problem is what they might do in the hope of employment when they retire from the armed
forces. Perhaps a four year embargo on receiving any direct or indirect benefit from the arms
industry might be worth thinking about.
a. is an invitation to legal ingenuity. Ever heard of a "blind trust"? How blind is the
politician to the reality of his interests even if his wife isn't the trustee. And if you
banned blind trusts you wouldn't stop the spouse, siblings or children standing in for the
politician as investor.
b. You could prevent them getting paid directly and immediately but they could often make
a case that the consulting was just part of a politician's and some bureaucrats' everyday job
and involved both giving and receiving information and advice. And, as to the money side of
it, nearly all Congressmen spend a great deal of their time raising money for their
reelection campaigns so they wouldn't be asking to be paid personally in most cases. And if
the worst came to the worst a PAC fund could receive the money.
Ironically I came to tuckers same conclusion about a decade ago while being redpilled by neo
reactionaries. They of course are technofuturist post humanists which is why its ironic, but
they did encourage me to more radically check my premises and i had to admit capitalism had
probably done more harm to west civ tham communism in fact without capitalism there is no
communism. I had to admit my reflex unequivocal defense of capitalism was more coldwar anti
socialism refelex mixed with theoretical capitalism. Oh im still a capitalist but like tucker
i think its a tool and we who love it have to remember why we love it or ought to, because it
serves us, iy might also be a beautiful machine but if it didnt serve us theres no reason to
support it. i also had to admit not only do we not actually have capitalism but corporatism
and corporatism is inevitable tendency of capitalism but that we dont really think capitalism
functions well without intervention as we pretend we just think it functions best when
conservatives invent the interventions .we know left un tended monopolies and cartels form,
we know that large corporations will use their size to crush smarter more innovative new
firms,price fixing will happen, we dont allow a free market in all sorts of things from child
porn to heroine, yet inexplicably other porn and alcohol are ok.I also had to admit it wasnt
true that capitalism needs democracy, capitalism finds ways of thriving in any government
from stalinist communist to monarchies to managed theocracies or anything in between.Finally
I had to admit apes are both capitalist and socialist creatures and white apes particularly
so, we are the most capitalistic yet have the lowest tolerance for watching suffering, now
that can be for the most part solved with market solutions to social safety if we are willing
to admit that despite our hatred of socialists we are never the less social apes. And this is
perhaps the crux of the matter, HBD some people are just genetically more capable than others
in a free market some will thrive others not so much over time some will really really thrive
others not so much at all. so yeah white nationalism is a must actually any nation must be an
ethno state because your only real chance of overcoming this natural difference is to start
with a group that at least fairly homogenous, but then you must intervene. NO NOT BECAUSE
THEY ARE HUMANS WITH RIGHTS FUCKEM NO NOT BECAUSE THEYRE MUH WHITE BROS
because theres more of them than us cog elites and as tucker points out eventually if we make
it worth their wiles they will just take our shit. Capitalism does require some form of
government even if its just my gang enforcing my rules. all civilization is built on violence
and the proles have it they just dont use it because frankly we are their slaves we make the
world better for them or they replace us.its in our interest to be their stewards. its also a
better way to live with bakers wives and steam fitters smiling and happy nd pumping out
children to ward off the other nations. As elites we must do for them what they can not
naturally do for themselves a nation is a family or ought to be, everyone has a place. Thats
not to say we ought not find ways to stretch our right tale and shorten our left tail which
will make us tighter knit and more efficient and less fractured.
besides its simply retarded to give away your best tech to your enemies and and then buy it
back from them while leaving your 90% unemployed. This idea that thats capitalism implies
that you intend to reduce americans to the status of the least paid third worlder and only
when hes willing to work for those wages will you hire him- well good luck with that all I
can say is where are you going to hide.Heres the thing all the smart people do not in fact
rise to the elite in fact more and more get locked out in a way that prevents them from even
breeding statistically the average proles are producing 50% of each year cognitive elite
children they are less stable cog elites in as much as their children more likely to revert
to mean but never the less they will meet and fuck your children at harvard and contribute
50% of elite generation and some hybrid vigor.you really dont want 50% of the gifted
struggling in tiny houses and gigs deciding they really ought to be figuring out how to build
a robot army to take you out because they can they have the numbers
Inside beltway crap.
Capitalism have been hijacked long time ago by the secret private bank.Central economic
control.
The average american citizen daily survival depends on the will to deliver the goods from
roughly 11 corporations and their subsidiary networks.And for those who are trying to control
morality "happy fishing day".
@follyofwar Phil Donohue had his issues but was a semi-honest liberal and was the only
popular talking head that I recall who was opposed to the Iraq war and asking the hard
questions and second guessing politicians.
Mr. "no spin zone" Bill O' Reilly and many others gave us nothing but spin and just
vomited out the neocon talking points.
@Wally Do you get your talking points from Ayn Rand's didactic, absurd novel "Atlas
Shrugged?" Paul Ryan did, and what did he ever do for the country besides give more tax cuts
to the rich?
Take power away from the elected politicians who can be bribed by the capitalists, and give
it to average people. Adopt the Athenian system of choosing officials by lot from all
citizens, and capitalism may have to reform.
"Dreams, you've been hanging on
To dreams when all your dreaming should be done
Dreams, about the way the world could be
You keep dreaming , despite reality
"Dreams, that Donald Trump is not a fraud,
Dreams, that Obama was not a fraud,
Dreams, that Reagan was not a fraud,
Dreams, that all the rest were not frauds,
Dreams, that the Constitution is not a scam,
[MORE] Dreams, that the Supreme Court is not a scam,
Dreams, that the Federal Reserve is not a scam,
Dreams, that the C.I.A. is not a scam,
Dreams, that the F.B.I. is not a scam,
Dreams, that the cops and the courts are not a scam,
Dreams, that the Pentagon is not a scam,
Dreams, that 9/11 was not a scam,
Dreams, that the war on terror is not a scam,
Dreams, that Social Security is not a scam,
Dreams, that public education is not a scam .." [and so on and so forth] .
@anon anon[393] • Disclaimer says: "..i had to admit capitalism had probably done
more harm to west civ tham communism in fact without capitalism there is no communism ."
If you [ or anyone else] wanted to live under an entirely voluntary communist/socialist [
or whatever] system, while others freely chose not to, then I personally would have no
problem with that.
But of course, that is not whats being implied in all of this back and forth. The
discussion here and elsewhere is ultimately always about who gets to enforce, at the point of
a gun, their own imagined "ideal" system on everyone else, via everybodys imagined best
friend/big brother, the government, regardless of individual preference.
Private socialism? Go for it.
Not a problem [except for those who try to live under it], but "go ahead, make my day" as
someone once said.
After all , the very first Plymouth colony in the "New World" was founded on full on
socialism, and therefor quickly failed, but , I remind myself: the one thing that we learn
from history is that we don't learn anything from history.
@EliteCommInc. I would take it a step further. As it stands now, Congress exempts itself
from just about every law and regulation that it imposes on the rest of us. Also, most people
are unaware that federal judges do not pay "income taxes".
What is needed it a Constitutional amendment to wit:
"Congress shall make NO LAW that does not apply equally to itself, the legislative branch,
the executive branch, the judicial branch, and its agencies, departments, and subdivisions,
thereof. All federal agencies, departments, and subdivisions thereof are prohibited from
enacting any rulemaking without express approval of Congress. Corporate charters shall not
confer the status of personhood on corporations"."
@Achmed E. Newman Great comment! I found Tucker's speech to be vague and largely off
point. We do not have capitalism, we have "currently existing capitalism"- like the left
called the USSR "currently existing socialism", libertarians know, as Rand said, capitalism
is an Unknown Ideal.
As a fellow traveller with Ron Paul, Tucker still has libertarian leanings. He seems confused
sometimes about his stand on the Drug War, too often settling for his trope that interdiction
at the border will actually stop the overdose deaths, rather than recognizing interdiction
has been a failure for a hundred years. And how can he recognize that our foreign wars
involve us in one futile crisis after another, without asking why after a century of the war
on drugs, we are still experiencing a drug crisis? He says he regrets his "long haired
libertarian youth", thereby marking himself as just another old fogey who can't remember the
fun he had When he was young.
Instead of pearl clutching, he could strike the biggest blow to international corporatism by
acknowledging the crucial role that de- dollariztion is playing. He could recognize the role
of the Fed in creating international power centers in NYC, London, Zurich now being
challenged by Moscow and Beijing.
Like all conservatives, and alas libertarians as well, he doesn'understand the US Individual
Income Tax, the original Populist response to big government enabled crony capitalism. He
doesn't understand the income tax is a tax on the exploitation of a federal privilege for
profit, not an UN-apportioned tax on "everything that comes in". See http://www.losthorizons.com
And please, bring a real libertarian on as his straw man, not that awful, slow thinking slow
talking Objectivist !
Libertarianism needs white nationalism, but at least libertarians consistently call out the
Federal Reserve. Tucker never has to my knowledge, maybe because he doesn't understand or
isn't interested in monetary policy. But monetary policy affects all aspects of the economy,
from wages to international trade. Tucker is libertarian on foreign policy, among other
things, and the last time I checked, he's no Bernie Sanders or Ocasio-Cortez when it comes to
domestic policy. Does he favor socialized medicine, public higher education, expansion of the
welfare state, and government housing for all? His main gripe is with many corporations' love
of cheap foreign labor, big tech censorship, and "free" trade. Oh, and he thinks the rich
need to be taxed a little more. Can't say I disagree with him there. However, I don't even
see any evidence that he is a race realist. I like him, but he seems like the quintessential
civic nationalist to me, though that could just be the mask he has to wear.
The foreign labor aspect does need to be reined in (hence why libertarianism needs
racial/ethnic nationalism). Google is hardly a private company as it was seed funded by the
CIA and NSA. Facebook regularly colludes with Israeli/U.S. Intelligence. It is not
unlibertarian to oppose "private" companies that become arms of the state to shut down
opposition. The whole free trade vs. protectionism debate is more complicated than either
side will admit. Both policies create winners and losers to varying degrees as Trump's
tariffs have shown, and the Federal Reserve mucks up things either way. There is no free
market in America.
@Anon Good rebuttal to Achmed E. Newman's comment and the Hallelujah Chorus replying to
him. Carlson's point about market capitalism being a religion to conservatives triggers them
mightily.
"... "Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be summed up in GDP is an idiot," he scoffed at one point, and later elaborated: "Market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it." His speech reached a remarkable crescendo: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having." ..."
"... conservatives could also use this to finally connect with those market-critiquing progressives across the aisle -- or at least to understand them ..."
The bell tolled last week on the Jan. 2 edition of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," his Fox News show. Carlson spent several minutes
in the first half of the show bemoaning the plight of American men, who, as one segment title put it, are "in decline as the
ruling class looks away."
... ... ...
What happens when Tucker Carlson makes sense? - The Washington Post
Still, there were some uncomfortable truths to be found in between the finger-pointing. Men
are
struggling: Even the American Psychological Association, the country's largest professional organization of
psychologists, agrees, and is crafting
new standards
to address it. Marriage rates
are
eroding
, especially among the poor, and
trade shocks
-- especially to the manufacturing sector --
have
lowered men's earnings and their marriage
market potential. Yes, well-educated elites
do
tend to value stable marriages for themselves, even while
championing atypical family structures and laissez-faire lifestyles in public.
Carlson's
Wednesday night monologue
was part of a larger critique of American financial systems and the failures of free
market capitalism, and his commentary was on target there, too.
"Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be summed up in GDP is an idiot," he scoffed at one
point, and later elaborated: "Market capitalism is not a religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or
a toaster. You'd have to be a fool to worship it." His speech reached a remarkable crescendo: "Any economic system
that weakens and destroys families is not worth having."
In a follow-up interview with the news site
Vox
, Carlson elaborated on his counterintuitive views...
... ... ...
Intriguingly, now that Carlson is speaking the truth, it's progressive outlets and personalities
who seem most willing to engage with his rather out-of-character commentary. (There were positive
write-ups in the Atlantic
and the above piece in Vox, as well as approving chatter on social media and thoughtful
discussion
elsewhere
.) And while conservatives were quick to defend his less-than-fact-based scapegoating of feminism, they
seem less eager to countenance his newly woke ideas.
That's a shame. Carlson's fiery new take should appeal to his traditional constituency, which
purports to have an interest in issues of the family and social stability. But conservatives could also use this to
finally connect with those market-critiquing progressives across the aisle -- or at least to understand them...
So this neoliberal stooge woke up and started advocating mixed economy. Very interesting.
Notable quotes:
"... What we see right away is that even now, with all the privatization etc. that has taken place, government at various levels employs about 15 percent of the work force – roughly half in education, another big chunk in health care, and then a combination of public services and administration. ..."
"... Follow The New York Times Opinion section on ..."
Maybe not everything should be privatized. There are private activities that could plausibly be made public, like utilities, which
in some cases are publicly owned already.
There
are private activities that could plausibly be made public, like utilities, which in some cases are publicly owned already. Credit
Eric Thayer for The New York Times
A mind is a terrible thing to lose, especially if the mind in question is president of the United States. But I feel like taking
a break from that subject. So let's talk about something completely different, and probably irrelevant.
I've had several interviews lately in which I was asked whether capitalism had reached a dead end, and needed to be replaced with
something else. I'm never sure what the interviewers have in mind; neither, I suspect, do they. I don't think they're talking about
central planning, which everyone considers discredited. And I haven't seen even an implausible proposal for a decentralized system
that doesn't rely on price incentives and self-interest – i.e., a market economy with private property, which most people would consider
capitalism.
So maybe I'm being dense or lacking in imagination, but it seems to be that the choice is still between markets and some kind
of public ownership, maybe with some decentralization of control, but still more or less what we used to mean by socialism. And everyone
either thinks of socialism as discredited, or pins the label on stuff – like social insurance programs – that isn't what we used
to mean by the word.
But I've been wondering, exactly how discredited is socialism, really? True, nobody now imagines that what the world needs is
the second coming of Gosplan. But have we really established that markets are the best way to do everything? Should everything be
done by the private sector? I don't think so. In fact, there are some areas, like education, where the public sector clearly does
better in most cases, and others, like health care, in which the case for private enterprise is very weak. Add such sectors up, and
they're quite big.
In other words, while Communism failed, there's still a pretty good case for a mixed economy – and public ownership/control could
be a significant, although not majority, component of that mix. My back of the envelope says that given what we know about economic
performance, you could imagine running a fairly efficient economy that is only 2/3 capitalist, 1/3 publicly owned – i.e., sort-of-kind-of
socialist.
I arrive at that number by looking at employment data
. What we see right away is that even now, with all the privatization etc. that has taken place, government at various levels
employs about 15 percent of the work force – roughly half in education, another big chunk in health care, and then a combination
of public services and administration.
Looking at private sector employment, we find that another 15 percent of the work force is employed in education, health, and
social assistance. Now, a large part of that employment is paid for by public money – think Medicare dollars spent at private hospitals.
Much of the rest is paid for by private insurers, which exist in their current role only thanks to large tax subsidies and regulation.
And there's no reason to think the private sector does these things better than the public. Private insurers don't obviously provide
a service that couldn't be provided, probably more cheaply, by national health insurance. Private hospitals aren't obviously either
better or more efficient than public. For-profit education is actually a disaster area.
So you could imagine an economy in which the bulk of education, health, and social assistance currently in the private sector
became public, with most people at least as well off as they are now.
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Then there are other private activities that could plausibly be public. Utilities are heavily regulated, and in some cases are
publicly owned already. Private health insurance directly employs hundreds of thousands of people, with doubtful social purpose.
And I'm sure I'm missing a few others.
By and large, other areas like retail trade or manufacturing don't seem suitable for public ownership – but even there you could
see some cases. Elizabeth Warren is suggesting public manufacture of
generic drugs , which isn't
at all a stupid idea.
Put all of this together, and as I said, you could see an economy working well with something like 1/3 public ownership.
Now, this wouldn't satisfy people who hate capitalism. In fact, it wouldn't even live up to the old slogan about government controlling
the economy's "commanding heights." This would be more like government running the boiler in the basement. Also, I see zero chance
of any of this happening in my working lifetime.
But I do think it's worth trying to think a bit beyond our current paradigm, which says that anything you could call socialist
has been an utter failure. Maybe not so much?
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View all New York Times newsletters. Paul Krugman has
been an Opinion columnist since 2000 and is also a Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York Graduate Center. He
won the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on international trade and economic geography.
@ PaulKrugman
. Dr. Krugman missed the largest communist socialist organization in the USA - the military! The live on communes called bases.
They have everything provided including clothes, housing, food and training. They get routine exercise as they prepare to defend
the country in a world with no credible threat. It is like summer camp year round. The biggest irony? This communist orgsnization
fought and trained for conflicts with communists. .
To see what the government can do to support the economy we don't need to look farther than our own borders. The government
has been crucial to the development and maintenance of many economic activities as they exist today. Much of our shiny technology
owes its existence to government investment. Government investment was crucial to the development of flat screens and touch screens.
GPS based products rely for their operation on continued government support. Mariana Mazzucato makes the point more completely
in her book "the Entrepreneurial State." We should re-examine many areas of the economy to see where the government already has
a positive impact. Where we find positive effects, we should try to extend those effects in the same and other enterprises - we
should also look to see what is not working and eliminate or curtail the negative impacts of those activities. Outdoor recreation
and tourism is another area of the economy that thrives on government support. Those activities contribute far more to the local
economy of many rural areas than what they currently rely on in extractive activities like mining, oil and gas production and
logging. Expanding outdoor activities and tourism will also require finding ways to reduce the risk of fires in many remote areas,
which will also create jobs. (anyone for raking?) So thank you Professor Krugman for highlighting the possibilities of a mixed
economy, but as you suggest, we need to broaden our imagination.
Can the state be a better capitalist? I always hear how Norway has done an amazing job of creating a sovereign wealth fund,
funded by their petroleum production taxes and fees. Last I checked, the US produces a lot of petroleum, but we don't have a sovereign
wealth fund with $165,000 per person. Do we see our severance fees and royalties in other ways or do socialist economies do a
better job in managing the funds?
Capitalism can be a bit of a boxing match. Not everything needs to be (should be?) a boxing match. A little Fri nite music
for Krug - Alison Krause doing Simon & Garfunkel https://youtu.be/hci5q3G6-FA
Dr. Krugman - Please provide concrete examples of how other nations deal with such concepts as public/private in realistic
ways that help the ordinary citizen. Bashing what we've got without profiling meaningful reforms only goes so far.
The roots of capitalism lie in how we create capital - on the basis of debt and, for the most part, by private sector banks.
It's done using fractional reserve banking - taking money created by the state (promissory notes) and lending it over and over
- by a factor of around eight times. The key - money is only created on the promise of a "profit", ie, economic growth. It's why
GDP growth is always the measure of "progress". As this system becomes ever more dysfunctional and our thoughts turn to sustainability,
it is logical we need to think about different systems of creating money. Why not by the state? 2008 is the answer to anyone who
says it won't work - private sector banks created commercial paper out of fraudulent debt - not rational, efficient, or fair by
any measure. China is an example of an economy where the state creates commercial money. It seems to be doing rather well, especially
in building infrastructure that benefits peoples lives. Of course, we criticize China for not playing by the "rules" - our rules,
of course, rules that are driving us over a cliff. I believe it's fundamental that we think of ways in which we can reduce the
amount of commercial money created for profit by private sector banks in favour of money created for the common good. A nice side
effect will be the increasing irrelevance of private-sector "wealth" - a way of scaling back inequality.
Krugman the liberal with a conscience, wouldn't go so far as to point out the many pros vs the cons of the EU social democracy
systems. That would be going too far. The Democratic Party still need to raise plenty of corporate money to run in 2020. He'll
continue with the anti Trump, anti GOP tirades. And write MAYBE not everything should be privatized as a profit center---in an
operating democracy. Americans will still be left uninformed about what they should be demanding from the govt they stand in long
lines to elect. Thus be left more vulnerable to GOP propaganda and maybe even future Trumps, now swimming up from the swamp.
So why doesn't our liberal with a conscience make concrete comparisons in real people terms with our PAST GENERATIONS when
the middle class was expanding, and with other capitalist democracies now? American past examples are all there---upward mobility,
unions, secure pensions, high tax rates on the wealthy, better regulations, infrastructure and highway building, low cost college
tuition at state universities--etc etc . .... etc. The data is all there, as would befit an economist who won a special Nobel
in economics. And who now works with an institute at City University of NY that studies income inequality. For more informative
reading instead, read Leonhardt's column--When the Rich Said No to Getting Richer. And the recent Edsall column on big money influence
in our politics. That's a topic most columnists and pundits avoid, except for 1 line occasionaly to show they're hip to it. Then
they go on to something else to stay safe and centrist in line with our warped political spectrum. As our columnists stay careful
in our FOX News/GOP/corporate political culure, we get more realistic, informative mini columns from many reader commenters instead
of the columnists. It's the reader commenters, not the columnists who up the sales of the NYTimes.
I read that Canada avoided our 08 crash because it had earlier refused to merge with US banks. Maybe that's sensible 'conservativsm'---
to conserve their more balanced banking system and economy. Bernie Sanders once had a senate hearing on health care with witnessess
from Canada and 4 other countries on how they pay for and use health care for all. Our media ignored it---I happened to catch
it on cspan. Is Krugman even aware of this? Citizens of dozens of other countries wouldn't put up even with Obamacare, which is
a vast improvement over the previous non system. But it keeps insurance profits subsidized by our taxes. Abroad, if not single
payer, then their govts regulate premium prices for their citizens with insurance mandates. If they didn't the citizens would
vote them out. This difference should rate a few columns by Krugman the economist, concerned about inequality. But he avoids these
comparisons. It's how he and the NYT are positioning themselves in our politics---humanitarian, but not too much. At least we
have reader comments to give some realistic data on other countries to Americans who are mostly kept in the dark by their media.
@Meredith I'm sorry Meredith, but your charge is unfair. I don't know how long you've been reading Krugman's column in the
NYT, but he's literally published DOZENS of them comparing our healthcare 'system' with that of other countries, before, during,
and after the implementation of Obamacare. And then there's his NYT blog, where wrote similarly but on a more advanced level.
The last thing you could say about Krugman is that he's been 'captured' by the wealthy elite. Anything but.
re: the case for a mixed economy The choice of markets or public ownership or any combination of the two is not the answer
or even the question. By the way communism has never been given a fair shot. You mentioned the key to any discussion of economics...
self-interest. Communisms downfall has always been self-interest (GREED). Greed comes in a number of guises. Military dictatorships
or the NYSE. Capitalism's dead end is its ultimate goal... One conglomeration with one CEO.
@morgan If Communism had a downfall, then it had a shot, and it failed. There's no reason to think that, as a system run by
fallible human beings, the outcome would EVER be any different. Capitalism, on the other hand, has many flavors, almost all of
which we ignore here in the USA, except the one that seeks to destroy our public institutions in the name of an extreme libertarianism
masquerading as a Utopia of 'free markets'. Whether by committee or by the wealthy, redistribution of wealth by the few has always
been a fool's game. Regulatory vigilance, constant reform, and transparent oversight, has proven itself the best partner of capitalism
in every case. There IS a middle ground with capitalism that we ignore for the extremes of either wealth, or control.
Krugman says "But have we really established that markets are the best way to do everything? Should everything be done by the
private sector? I don't think so." Gosh, don't THINK so? Krugman cautiously asks the question. He doesn't want to offend any centrist
Democratic party leaders needing campaign money, and one of them may someday pick him as Treasury Secretary. CNN's Ali Velsh who
is from Canada, stated flatly on TV that free market health care has never worked in any country. The incentives are not aligned
to provide care that was deemed a right in most modern nations in 20th Century. But not deemed a right in USA. Krugman, as a winner
of a special Nobel prize in economics, might actually compare the international GINI Score ranking of countries on their citizens'
economic moblity. Americans ranks behind other democracies---that are also capitalist countries. Othe countries like profits too,
but profits are not prioritized above all else like here. But to criticize this underlying causation is to look too left wing
liberal socialist unAmerican, etc etc. Krugman shies away. That would seem the perfect topic for a Krugman-type columnist who
titles himself a liberal with a conscience.
Hey, where's the usual easy Trump bashing that gives us all such emotional catharsis? Is Krugman realizing his anti Trump/Gop
columns aren't enough, that we actually need more? Such as questioning the basic tenets of our political culture? That it's not
only Trump that is weakening our democracy? This column is just a start---Krugman stays careful not to go too far to criticize
our warped norms.
Omg! Warrens idea of public mfgr of generic drugs "isn't a stupid idea"? Is that all you can think up to say, PK? Tell us why
it ISN'T stupid. PK wants to look like a humanitarian but still stick with the main Democratic party positions---but this party
has to vie with GOP for campaign money. And PK is seen by the Times as its prestigious 'liberal' columnist. To not look too liberal
by our warped standards, PK in effect helps to marginalize any ideas that are truly progressive and needed. They're not stupid,
but are they smart? For whom? Policies that are called progressive in the US, are centrist in other capitalist democracies---
but keep that dark. Hey, 'liberal', where's your conscience you told us about? Talk not about those who hate capitalism, but those
who want to keep it, if it is properly regulated by elected govt. Talk about how our politics are regulated by corporations --through
donor money and norm setting, esp for the media. It's obvious--our columnists are careful to stay safe within the guidelines set
up. There are many ways to influence 'free speech' without actual govt censorship. We see this daily in our news media, careful
to stay within guidelines.
Economies are human, social creations, they are not at all like solar systems, for example. As human creations, they should
serve human interests. That will not happen independent of the political system of democracy. In the US, democracy is seriously
corrupted by the power of oligarchs, so the failures of the US economy to do its job cannot be solved by purely economic re-arranging.
Assuming that power is back in the hands of people, what should we expect from an economy? Three things: 1. sufficient production
of goods and services (this is the free market's strong point), 2. fair (not necessarily equal) distribution of these (this a
the free market's weak point), and 3. jobs that satisfy workers' needs for sociability and dignity. (This is a strong point of
Marx's thought.) # 2 and 3 require an intelligent, well-functioning democracy. Framing this in old, worn out terms like capitalism
and socialism, terms undermined by decades of rhetorical conflict, is not helpful...
A perhaps implausible proposal for a decentralized system that doesn't rely in a market economy with private property (which
most people would consider capitalism): - The Firm in Illyria: Market Syndicalism, by Benjamin Ward, published in The American
Economic Review , Vol. 48, No. 4 (Sep., 1958).
I remember seeing Dr Krugman in a Sunday TV panel discussion on US economic and tax policy. During his turn he spoke strictly
in terms of the merits as policy. His fellow panelist George Will followed him and wisely avoided expressing any opinions about
economic policy and instead made a sarcastic remark about the political chances of implementing the policy being discussed. I
like to think we can discuss policy proposals whether or not they have a chance politically to become law. The alternative might
not even appeal to George Will.
Hey, I think you are talking about China....the proportions are not quite what you suggest (1/3 public) but by incorporating
capitalism into a communist model, they are able to get the benefits of both.
Public manufacture of generic drugs... Where, without competition, would be the incentive for maintaining quality and/or efficiency?
Where would be the incentive for improvement of the drugs themselves - increased effectiveness, less side effects, etc? Orwell's
horse ("I must work harder!") was a figment of his imagination. Krugman forgets just what is the part of capitalism that brings
the most to the table, competition.
@MS Competition for what? Wealth, of course. And we're back to those whose greed will never be satisfied. Why not "cooperation"?
A competition for who can do the most good for humanity.
@MS Is MS really think that competition among the drug lords of big pharma is truly competition ? Reminds me of the book on
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations with a photo of a huge factory belching smoke on his cover. When Adam Smith wrote his book in the
late 18th century, a factory was ten people making pins.
As I understand it, most, if not all, of the attempts at creating a "socialist" economy haven't really merited the name. They've
tended to be autocratic regimes that falsely used the term "socialism" as a means of suggesting to their citizens that they would
have a more participatory government. They were cynical charades. I would love to see a true socialist element in our economy,
i.e., one that actually placed the needs of the citizens above the needs of plutocrats. Healthcare, in particular, seems to be
an ideal candidate for public ownership. Too many companies today in the field are unnecessarily driving up the cost of care for
all of us.
Krugman's thought experiment here seems to too readily accept that the questioner of "capitalism" knows what they're asking
about, deflected by wanting speculation about whatever else -- supplements? ("mixed economy") Alternatives? I've spent many years
with this issue, if I may say so. One aspect that ready critics of "capitalism" don't seem to appreciate is the difference between
capital-intensive business and capitalISM. The latter is about profit at any cost and tends to be predatory. The former is normal
business whose investors accept a reasonable margin and sustain concerns about employee quality of life, corporate citizenship,
professional ethics, etc. as part of normal business. Normal business accepts a degree of regulatory constraint for the sake of
a level playing field and reliable futures market (in an idiomatic sense), which is required for long-term investment. Libertarian
Republicans apparently regard all regulation as "Socialist," but actually socialism is just a bad theory of democratic republicanism
(small-d, small-r). If one examines the history of so-called "socialism," it's a history of desire for a democratic republic without
much sophistication about making an economy innovative, resiliant, etc.; and a bad sense of government that enables prosperity.
Questioning whether "capitalism" has run its course is an unwitting invitation to have one's sense of economics and good government
enlightened.
It's shocking that an economist finds a mixed economy has to "have a case made for it". It is very obvious that the private
sector is not going to undertake any endeavor that helps everybody and not just its own competitive advantage. And it's obvious
that regulating the private sector doesn't put them on the right road; just from running amok. Infrastructure, healthcare, education,
environment, climate change -- the private sector -- you kidding?? And of course we have the great benefits of Citizens United
to thank for assisting corporations to focus our politics upon what needs to be done. The GOP has succeeded beyond all expectations
in ruining the country by doing favors for corporations.
Socialized agriculture, socialized defense companies, socialized churches, socialized border security walls and socialized
tax cuts are what america has. Republicans are hypocrites. Without the huge government subsidies that farmers get-many many billions,
including but not limited to the 12 billion from trump after china imposed soyabean tariffs, the farmers would all be out of business
by now. Defense companies are financed by ten and even hundreds of billions of pentagon spending. They can't survive on exports
to saudi arabia alone. The pentagon gets hundreds of billions from government when there has been no war since world war 2, other
than the ones it created in vietnam and iraq. Evangelical churches, GOP enterprises. are financed by tax charity, basically by
government and they are socialist organizations. Trump wants to spend 5 billion of tax payer money for a border wall, after talking
nonsense about making mexico paying for it-it would be a socialist border wall. The 2017 gop tax cut is socialist welfare for
billionaires and corporations. It has added 1 trillion to the federal deficit. Trump and his party are the socialist party serving
the top 0.1 percent of the wealthiest.
A mixed economy is the best economic model. Capitalism is purely about profit. A purely private economy would create a society
with a handful of ultrawealthy people, a small middle class and many tens or hundreds of millions of poor people with no basic
health and education services- a system like the one that existed in the king, baron and serf era in england, and in many developing
countries. We would have a trump tower with a corrupt and criminal politician and businessman sitting in it, and homeless people
and slums surrounding the building for miles. Companies would pollute and destroy the air and water with impunity. The air in
the cities would be hard to breathe, and the water would contain poisonous chemicals. Many millions would starve, be unable to
go to school and get health services, and live in dirt and squalor. Global climate change would accelerate and the human species
would soon be extinct. All relations with friends and allies alike would be purely business transactions and russia, china and
hackers would be an much bigger threat than they are. saudi arabia can murder journalists-we will look the other way, just selling
them arms and buying their oil.A purely public economy would give us job security for life, and cheap products and services, but
they would all be poor in quality, and at the cost of higher taxes.When people want free electricity, and the local politician
wants to give it to them,the utility company goes bankrupt.There will be no innovation
For me this is one of the long awaited topics that I have been hoping Krugman would engage; Now more than ever we need discussions
of alternatives to the capitalism we have evolved to with its tacit assumption that it is the best of all possible models and
that growth is essential. Paul do you really believe that growth can be endless without environmental consequences? I would like
to see Krugman wade in on this and especially address newer discoveries of the de-growth movement embodied in stock flow consistent
modeling done by Tim Jackson (Prosperity without Growth) and others that show that virtually zero growth can be sustainable and
perhaps more stable than our current system.
There are 3 basic methods in a modern industrialized societies in which ownership of the means of production can be accomplished.
1. Ownership by a special group, called capitalists, or rentiers is apart from labor in enterprises which produce goods and services.
2. The government can own enterprise and employees like in the British Health Service can be state employees. The state can run
the enterprise at a profit or run it paid for partially or completely by the taxpayer. 3. As in Germany in Part labor can have
a voting share either complete as in a cooperative such as the Spanish Mondragon and ownership can be by the workers with a lead
worker or even Union Official managing the company. Many mixes are possible and all posibilities need to be seriously considered.
This has yet to be done in a serious or empirical fashion
What is the end game for right wingers? If everything is privatized and jobs are insecure, people will be afraid to spend.
And we'll live in a feudalistic society. Think about that before you take away working class pensions to give tax cuts to the
rich.
One of the biggest socialist enterprises in america is the federal reserve board. They poured 4.5 trillion into banks and the
economy to lower interest rates. It has turned out to be welfare for wall street and corporations. Trump and the wall street journal
editors are complaining about this socialism for corporations when they attack and criticize the fed chief. The fed needs to go
back to their main role-containing inflation. Let the stocks drop by 40 percent. The market will eventually adjust. With no place
for their money, and low bond and cd rates, the investors will go back into stocks. After all the fed money sloshing around in
the system has dried up banks and corporations will go back to paying mom and pop investors like you and me 5 percent. It will
be great for financial stability as well. People have been forced to take too much risk in the stock market for years because
of near zero interest savings and cd rates. Safe cds should pay interest rates well above inflation. Mortgage rates were low in
2008 even before the fed intervened. There was no need for the fed to pour in trillions. Fed intervention made sense till two
years ago. No longer-it is just socialism for billionaires. They should have raised interest rates much faster than they have
in the last two years and got out in a hurry. The interest rates are still too low. Mom and Pop investors are making a sacrifice
to make hedge fund managers and CEOs even wealthier.
Actually Krugman sells socialism in America short, as practiced before our Founders formally engraved it in the Constitution
with government operation of the mail. Before the term socialism was coined there were socialized sidewalks, public schools, socialized
fire departments, socialized police departments ET CETERA! with no one back then dissenting from necessary partial socialist governance.
It was only after the Civil War in the rightwing drift against socialism caused by the desires of massive private concentrated
wealth that the socialist menace began to be a thing. It isn't, it never was, tho it, socialism in practice, will continue, the
alternative being the alt-truth of for-profit governance, i.e. Medieval Feudalism sane peoples have long jettisoned as the ne
plus ultra of concentrated wealth incarnate. That's how absolute monarchs appointed themselves as heads of state, rule by the
wealthiest pirates (e.g. Donald Trump) of their time for which little-s socialism has always been the NECESSARY CORRECTIVE.
The rich people want to privatize more and make more money for themselves. Privatizing puts them beyond public scrutiny and
we wont really understand when they are failing us. We have to protect our democartic institutions and make income distribution
more equal.
Technology is about to change society in a most drastic way. Unless the transformation is properly controlled the outcome could
be disastrous. This enormous task cannot succeed without the government setting the strategy and providing the resources necessary
to implement if The Chinese government has defined the goals and is engaged in working out a process of implementation. They have
so far produced a successful version of a mixed economy. We may adopt perhaps a different mix but their example is worth to learn
from
It's an indication of how far we've fallen that an article like this has to make a case for a mixed economy. Even for Adam
Smith it was self-evident that government had a key role to play. When Smith talked the value of free markets he was not talking
about an uncontrolled private sector. He was talking about a new and better system that could be achieved if government would
stop the private sector from perverting the markets--through monopoly behavior and influence over government policy. He was FIGHTING
the kind of nonsense we have today. Krugman is actually arguing for the mainstream against the lunatic fringe. The idea that the
liberated private sector is going to solve all problems has no basis in historical fact. The strength of capitalism is its efficiency
in achieving its own ends. It will not miraculously assure the well-being of the population if government doesn't make it. It
will not defend the environment or educate the population. It will not even provide the resources for its own success. The should
be no question about the need for a mixed economy. It's the only way to get the job done.
I work for a government agency. I have worked for private enterprise in the past. In a very simplistic way, I think the main
difference between the two is that private enterprise takes in money, uses it to purchase goods and services and outputs something
with the purpose to generate more money. Public 'enterprise' takes in money, uses it to purchase goods and services and outputs
something with the purpose of improving (or if you like, maintaining) society. The issue is that money is easy to count, while
literacy and good roads are much more difficult to quantify. Also, I'm always struck by how private enterprise can do whatever
it likes because it has the freedom to completely fail. I think it's easy to use this metric to see where private enterprise is
not really appropriate. National parks, national defense, public infrastructure and so on; we don't want more money from these
things, and they can't fail like Nokia. What is really lacking is a public willing to have an extended and thoughtful discussion
on what we want as public goods, and what we think they are worth.
My real challange for Proff Krugman is to explain how an economy with zero or declining population would work it seems to me
that our capitalistic system needs an ever increasing population.
That is the big, unspoken, truth about the industrialized world that no one wants to talk about or acknowledge: material wealth
tends to lower birth rates. Like climate change, the deniers would have you believe something different, that the world is overpopulated
today and exploding tomorrow. The truth is, while global population is indeed increasing, the rate of increase is slowing down
dramatically, as people exit systemic poverty and enter into relative wealth that is a consequence of industrialization. The implication
is obvious even in our times of protectionism and manufactured xenophobia: if a market economy is to be maintained and there are
limited supplies of workers, we either need to encourage domestic birth rates, or accept the idea of immigration and worker productivity
(and just compensation) as a necessary part of transitioning to a sustainable human presence on this planet. There is no way out
of this conundrum. Just as with climate change, hard choices will need to be made--our desires, wishes, and pet ideologies won't
matter if we wish to provide a decent future for our children and their children. Else, what is this all for?
@David Staszsk : We're approaching 350 million at what seems like breakneck speed. Aren't you confusing the US with Italy,
where the birth rate is barely equal to the death rate?
@Craig Hill But it isn't. While most of the industrialized West is at or below the replacement rate (births/deaths), the US
is one of the few that doesn't have to worry (as much). Why? Our heretofore open attitude toward immigration. But, like everything
else, Trump and the GOP is destroying that advantage as well. Talk to a fruit farmer and ask them about their harvest plans. Their
loss of income due to an inability to hire labor is just the beginning.
Some industries require heavy investment that only Government can provide. How would America produce stealth fighters and aircraft
carriers, and operate them, without many tens of billions of Government spending on a handful of private companies that produce
defense products like Northrop and Boeing ? The pentagon greatly wastes money because of government throwing money at them with
no accountability whatsoever, producing 20,000 dollar toilet seats. The GOP and their supporters do all that while they deny unlucky
and disabled people food stamps. China's massive government investment in the last 40 years, in their export oriented industries,
education and defense has been a huge success for them. The US has been on the decline for 40 years now, because of it's overdependance
on private investment. The US Government needs to invest a lot more in it's people-in education, health care and by attracting
immigrants to cover labor shortages in some areas, to compete with China in the 21st century, but with the 21 trillion debt and
many GOP reactionaries(basically ignorant and some crazy and misguided people calling it 'socialism'). Private companies lead
America's innovation and create new services and jobs, but Government and it's enterprises play a crucial role. If Obama had not
intervened in 2008 GM and Ford would only be found in history books.
Why do we need government ? Companies and their shareholders only care about profit. Left to themselves rapacious and unethical
corporations adopt unfair and monopolistic practices, produce poor quality and overpriced products, and provide substandard services
and cheat consumers. Historically, they have even hired armies, and occupied and impoverished countries in the European colonial
era. Companies, when there is no regulation, heavily pollute the air and water, pouring industrial waste into the oceans and our
drinking water. Global climate change and deforestation, worsened by non-government and destructive government policies is causing
wild fires, floods, droughts and hurricanes, melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and higher carbon monoxide levels, and
accelerating at an unprecedented pace. Corporations, overall, do not protect us from our enemies and from hackers(except for a
few defense and software companies).Drug companies and insurance companies keep hiking the prices of even generic drugs that have
been in the market since the 1950s and 70s.Public steel, utility and telecommunication companies. and collective farms have been
a failure however.Often, there is no real accountability for Government money and services, and employees are not motivated, knowing
their jobs are secure even if they don't show up,and a lack of competition results in shoddy products and poor service. But public
schools,universities and local government provide good,low cost services.
Implausible or not, Parecon (for Participatory Economy), a proposal described in the book The Political Economy of Participatory
Economics by Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, is a decentralized system that doesn't rely on price incentives and self-interest,
The perfect example of the advantages of public ownership is the Los Angeles power company. In 2001, Enron wreaked havoc (and
profited from it) in California's newly deregulated private electricity markets. The targeted manipulations sent prices skyrocketing,
and triggered rolling blackouts elsewhere throughout the state, while Los Angeles remained untouched by any of it. Prices in LA
remained stable, and power was uninterrupted. Another benefit came from Los Angeles Water & Power's independence from a profit
motive. Faced with growing power demand, instead of building a new plant (which would have ensured growing revenues to a private
power company), LA W&P paid for each household to receive a compact fluorescent bulb. The resulting reduced consumption by its
more than 1 million housing units reduced LA W&P's income, but eliminated the need for a new plant.
Thanks for motivating me to read again a clearly written clear-headed history of, and manifesto for recovering, the achievements
of our "mixed economy" - Hacker and Pierson, American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper
(2017).
@MarkerZero it is great that you appreciate Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. I very much have been influenced by them and quoted
them in my post as well. Check out Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson; Making America Great Again: The Case for the Mixed Economy"
- Foreign Affairs - May/June 2016)
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-03-21/making
-...
"Put all of this together, and as I said, you could see an economy working well with something like 1/3 public ownership. Now,
this wouldn't satisfy people who hate capitalism." Perhaps not, but would it satisfy ""capitalists" who hate socialism? Over the
years I have had the pleasure of meeting Americans visiting in Norway who, rather that finding the socialist hell-hole they expected
to encounter, found that things they'd brand socialism worked surprisingly well here. What has often intrigued me has been their
unwillingness to apply, even as an experiment, the "Norwegian way" in their own country. Is there an inherent fear in Americans
of being proven wrong that they cannot live with? Case in point: every year in the wake of snowstorms and rainstorms hundreds
of thousands of people across America lose their power for days and weeks. Why don't they put their cables in the ground where
the wind cannot get to them? Why do they insist on paying over and over and over again to put the cables in the air? Is there
some particular capitalist "intelligence" that dictates that is better to pay $100 ten times over than to pay $500 once and be
done with it?
Our government built the interstate highway system using competitive bidding with private sector contractors. The deign specs
and overall management was the government's responsibility. A fantastic success. WW II was successfully executed by our government
overseeing the military/allies and the private economy to defeat two powerful enemies. They did for the COMMON GOOD of the world
not to maximize profits. When government works it can implement grand achievement. When corrupted by free marketeers nothing gets
done.
In fact, a mixed or (better) hybrid economy should include three sectors of unequal but flexible size: a. the private market-oriented,
profit-driven system, b. the public service-oriented and social equity-driven system, and the cooperate-associative, proximity-oriented
and non-profit system. Each answers a clear needs of human societies, each corresponds to a basic instinct of the species: the
aggressive acquisitive drive of the meat-eating killer, the stability expected by the family-breeding tribe member, the solidarity
and cooperation needed by the pack-hunter. The first is essentially dynamic, geared for progress and growth, the second is basically
static, geared for fairness and predictability, the third is adaptive and responsive to immediate needs. Their relative sizes
should be allowed to vary according to the evolution of social and political life, science and technology, and material survival
conditions -- and political rules should make sure that each survives and plays its role.
@Yves Leclerc I couldn't have said it better myself. Joyeuses fêtes, fellow Montrealer. & while we're at it, let's raise a
glass for Hydro-Quebec, our much-maligned healthcare system & the non-profits who contribute so much to making our lives easier
in our wonderful city. La Porte Jaune, I'm thinking of you.
We should make public all those things necessary for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that, were they left to the
free market, would not be available to one and all equally. We already do that with police and fire protection and public infrastructure.
We should also add health care and education at all levels to that list, for a start.
You have to start by completely discarding the word "socialism." It aborts every potentially useful exploration of any kind
of concept. I know that's not justified, but it's the sad truth. Lots of good ideas could be aired out fairly if called by some
other names and discussed in terms that specifically denounced "socialism."
@John Call it capitalistic humanism, or humanistic capitalism. It should put needs of people before (or at least on equal footing
with) needs of profit. As we used to say in the old days....
Maybe Prof. Krugman owes an apology to Bernie Sanders, whose plan for Sinle Payer Healthcare he derided as "rainbows and puppy
dogs" during the last presidential campaign.
I found this entry by Krugman is awfully weak, but it's not too surprising. Robert Reich, for instance, has a recent short
video out about this issue of when to privatize and when not to, and it's more thought out. I hate to think this, but Krugman's
apparent weakness on this issue seems to reflect what I see is a major problem with the "big media" like the NYT. It's mostly
all Republicans all the time, even if it's total criticism of Republicans, and harsh criticism of Republicans is not the same
as developing alternative views (e.g., Rachel Maddow nonstop criticism of Republicans). You just never hear sustained coverage
about serious alternative ideas and the groups working on them. You have to go somewhere else to see that sort of news. There's
hardly any sustained investigation into what you could call progressive left views, ideas, and actions. The big media is incredibly
biased in this regard, and so it's not too surprising that Krugman, for some reason, seems so incapable of expressing alternative
ideas to privatization and capitalism.
Averous and greed are what drive capitalist economies. But there is nothing in the book of human nature that says they must
be the only characteristics that drive capitalist economies. Why not compassion and empathy?
Hey Paul, Do not cut your "life time" short. Problem with economists or whatever your called is that you can not see what's
coming because you are sworn to look through those broken glasses. Capitalism and for that matter PRIVATE OWNERSHIP OF PROPERTY,
are two of the most ridiculous delusional concepts that selfishness has ever conned us with. I mean, really Paul, how can somebody
who is going to be dead eventually own any "THING". We can not even own our own bodies for that long. All so, this ridiculous
notion is that there is not ENOUGH therefore we have to hoard what we have... BTW Paul, there are an estimated 8,000,000 people
starving to death in just in that Nation that the Saudis want to own. Come on, Paul. It just makes sense for everyone to have
what they need regardless of what some billionaire might thik he/she "owns".
It's been my experience that markets are really good at what they do up until the point at which they are really bad. I keep
a running list of market failures, which includes but is not limited to: police departments, fire departments, public health departments,
pharmaceuticals, journalism, and education. Pharmaceuticals: The fact that we are running out of new antibiotics is a market failure
which can be solved be subsuming new drug development into public health departments (most drug development is government funded
US university backed research anyway). Journalism: The market solution to journalism is the cable news business model which prizes
infotainment, eye balls on the screen, and click bait above real journalism. Real journalism is funded by charitable donations
like paying $44 per month to The New York Times, for example. The market solution for education is that rich people get really
good schools and poor people get really bad schools. If you live in a state with a high GDP per capita you get better schools
than poorer states, for example see the state Arizona. What is the business model for education? If the thing you are producing
cannot be exchanged in a market it has no value. Even pro-free market economists recognized that light houses were considered
public goods and that by collectively allocating public resources for them they facilitated commerce and increased wealth. The
fact that most republicans ignore this today is purely spiteful.
The Second Income Plan provides a Third Path - having the advantages of capitalism while sharply reducing inequality and many
other disadvantages. It can be combined with a Universal Basic Income with no net cost to the treasury. See: SECOND INCOMES at
aesopinstitute.org Here is a path to ending concern about the stock market that makes possible greater returns. 85-90% of an individual's
funds should be invested in Treasury Bills, the safest place to put money on this planet. The remaining funds can best be invested
with modest amounts, as highly leveraged as possible, in a substantial number of high risk opportunities (ideally an Angel investment
portfolio). This is the prescription for investors by Nassim Taleb in his book - THE BLACK SWAN: The Impact of the Highly Improbable.
(See page 205)
" For-profit education is actually a disaster area." The City University of New York is an obviously a prime example of the
excellence of public education if it employs a professor of your obvious ineptitude. BTW, where did you matriculate? If, by picking
any one of a dozen private, for-profit, rip-off colleges you are making a case for public education, you obviously haven't been
working with public school students lately. In my upper middle class community, the public high school, fed by a half dozen public
grade schools, is, with numerous exceptions, nevertheless graduating students who have a mediocre grade school education. And
at least a dozen of the teachers, highly paid and highly protected, couldn't pass an ordinary, private university entrance exam.
I never cease to be amazed at the astounding ineptitude of the public education system, while the private, Catholic system continues
to roll out educated citizens. (I'm not Catholic). A generalization like yours is certainly indicative of the failure of Yale
University.
@Good John Fagin That's odd. So many other countries are doing a much better job in public education. Check out the OECD PISA
results if you want to see how your argument against public education holds up.
Re:Elizabeth Warren's idea of the US government manufacturing generic drugs -it is a great idea. According to Ralph Nader most
of our antibiotics are manufactured in China. That worries me and it should worry you.
Let's face it, healthcare is undoubtedly the 800 pound gorilla in the room when it comes to a debate on the relationship between
public and private economies. Many NYT commenters want to see Medicare for All become a reality in order to cut out all the profiteering
in healthcare, and so that we would have a universal national one size fits all healthcare system. To this I say that Medicare
profiteering is rampant with waste fraud and abuse by doctors and hospitals accounting for as much as 40% of Medicare's costs.
So, if we really want to socialize healthcare, and take care of everyone, and control the costs we already have a national healthcare
system. It is called the VA. In the VA the government owns all the hospitals and all the medical staff are government employees.
We really need VA healthcare for everyone. Again, if one believes that socialism is the answer to solving our largest crisis,
healthcare, and we also believe that no one should ever profit from providing healthcare, then VA healthcare for all is the only
option.
One important rule to understand the capitalist-socialist dichotomy: Capitalism has no national allegiance; socialism is required
to adhere to political allegiances
It might be pointed out that even Adam Smith would have supported most of this. His primary thesis was that government has
to set the rules or the private sector will go off perverting the free market he so valued. He also had no illusions about the
private sector delivering education, social services, or other necessary functions. This idea that the unchained private sector
is the solution to all problems is not free market economics -- it's wildly radical nonsense. The private sector, left to its
own devices, will undermine the free market and the conditions needed for its success.
Well, my view is that "capitalism" and "socialism" (or "communism") do not exist and never could - over the longer term. The
flirtation with "communism" was (or is) a "flash in the pan" relatively speaking and pure "capitalism" would be similarly disastrous
if tried - consider the near attempt of the contemporary United States. In other words a "mixed economy" or "social democracy"
is a "no-brainer" - and I think it a major embarrassment to the humanity that any of us thought differently in this our modern
era. We are unfortunately seemingly naturally inclined to "black and white" or "all or nothing" thinking - but we can be schooled
to overcome it for our own benefit if we so allow. Much of the sad experience of the last 150 years - and particularly the last
80 - could have been avoided if one Karl Marx had not been a chauvinistic and egotistical nationalist who wanted to go down in
history as the father of a revolution in Germany that would be much bigger and better than the one in France. He wanted the "workers
of the world' to "unite" simply for his glorification I contend. We might have had no fascist reaction, no fog of cold war. And
a lot less dead in hot ones. Imagine. Much of the world now could have been an international association of interconnected and
peace-loving social democracies of highly educated, civilised and ecologically concerned citizens like Denmark and Sweden. Imagine
again. All lost because of one man's intellectual dishonesty and obstinacy.
"And I'm sure I'm missing a few others." Banking, for goodness sake. The idea is catching on, so get out of the way. For starters,
how about allowing the Post Office to do some local loan business to take away the awful people who do payday lending at very
high interest rates? Lobbyists for that lot should be thrown out.
@Bartolo Indian government just inaugurated India Post Payments bank. India Post is equivalent of USPS. Virtually every village
has a post office. Banking reaches everyone. Profits - minimal. But with limited options (savings, CDs, monthly income scheme,
pension distribution , small loans only), to ensure the private banking can continue with all the fancier products, bigger loans
etc.
Socialism isn't a failure in happier countries than ours: Sweden, Denmark, Finland, for instance. They have a mix of private
and public ownership of essential services like healthcare and education. And social services. For profit healthcare is an oxymoron.
Profit always wins over good healthcare and slicing and dicing services and procedures to squeeze every nickel and dime out of
them leads to very bad medicine.
The worst part of capitalism is extreme concentration of wealth in a few hands, further aggravated by foolish taxation policies.
Quality of education is uneven because of wide variation in local resources. Uniform federal funding of education would solve
this problem. Same applies to healthcare. Equal level of healthcare is possible only by a single payer system such as Medicare.
Public health which ranges from providing clean food, clean air, clean water, and vaccinations to garbage collection and dispositions
is a matter that is better publicly handled. Continuous reeducation of workers displaced by automation or outsourcing is another
matter that capitalism has ignored. Cremation or burial need to be publicly funded for those considered indigent when they were
alive.
The devil would be in the political mayhem that would take place as we decide what should be capitalist and what should be
socialist. Even if you base the decision on answering the question "What does every person need to live in this world?" you will
have massive disagreements. Insurance is inherently socialist - it requires everyone contribute so that the ones who need $ can
get it when the need it, on the theory that sooner or later we're all going to need it - but look at how insanely people (and
corporations) have resisted Medicare for all and even Obamacare. On the other hand, the liquor industry doesn't need to be socialist
- everybody doesn't need it and won't need it if they don't want it.
@Brookhaw Ever consider checking out how other countries do things? You can't skew the statistics forever by stacking everything
in the hands of the top 20-30% & still consider that on average, you're doing better than everybody else. The success of a few
outliers do not a functional country make & no, you don't need the oil revenue of Norway to make sure that the basic needs of
all citizens are met. It may not be easy & it's probably too late for the USA, as it takes generations of stability & hard work
to pull it off, but the most successful countries in the twenty-first century either did just that or are trying very hard to
do this well.
Socialism works if you have oil like in Norway where there's a trillion in surplus in profit. With 5 million population you
could have train service everywhere and elder care wherever you look. Wait they do have poverty. Never mind. Democratic Socialism,
neither Democratic or Socialist, could be done here. But when the deficit reaches a gazillion and Alexandra Ocasio Cortez appointee's
are running Ford and trying to select next years colors and mpg ratings why not cancel the government debt. It's not new it's
even in the - you guessed it, the Bible. Wait a second being a billionaire is so common. Who wants to be a trillionaire?
I hate capitalism. I want something better. Capitalism is greedy, completely materialistic and gives no regard for human values.
The earth and human civilization cannot survive unregulated capitalism, and capitalists don't care. Either we will create new
ways of living or catastrophic environmental collapse will bring human civilization as it exists today to an end.
This is where liberals lose me. Sure there are areas of the economy that should be run by the government. Health care definitively
is one of them (or at the very least a public option) But advocating socialism as opposed to social democracy is a NO NO. Last
country that when full blast socialism was Venezuela 20 years ago and look at the results. Many other disastrous examples abound,
Cuba any one?
Capitalism's strength is wealth creation in the hands of the few, who then use this wealth to further enhance their wealth
via control of governmental policy - all of which is contrary to the needs of the many. People who think a lot deeper than Krugman
question whether it makes sense to talk about democracy in a capitalist society - and there are academic studies that support
this. See: https://www.thenation.com/article/noam-chomsky-neoliberalism-destroying-democracy
/
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
Regarding socialism, the concept implies bottom-up control of policy which has only been achieved briefly, on very small scale
in societies and in history of which most are unaware. Dominant capitalist societies have attacked countries economically and
militarily that have tried a socialist model. Whether these would have eventually adopted a bottom-up power structure is unclear.
I agree with Paul Krugman, generally. But the issue respecting 1/3rd socialism and 2/3rds capitalism is that the socialist
sector would be the servant of the capitalist sector that would suck the life blood (tax revenues) needed to sustain a productive
health and education sector. One only need look at the military-industrial complex (MIC) to support my observation. The DoD spends
"Huge" taxpayer funds to support global military dominance. How much of that (socialist) military budget is contrived by capitalist
politician-lobbyists and over-spent with the blessing of the (socialist) military establishment that is recharacterized as "profit"
is anyone's guess. The socialist Defence Budget, and privatized NASA budget, fall outside the normal bounds of markets as the
buyers of these goods and services tend to be sovereign governments and sovereign corporations - TBTF. Eventually, retiring military
leaders that sanction budget directives that enrich capitalist corporations that make these military 'assets', end up post-retirement
as directors or officers of the MIC - i.e. Dick Chaney did well swinging socialist government business toward his business interests.
I accept Krugman's estimation that a minor portion of government-associated business can cut-out the middleman and become more
transparent and cost-effective producer of social goods and services - but only if there is an independent board and executive
team NOT expecting "fringe benefits" doing so.
Well, let's be honest, the "socialism is failure" paradigm is based on the corrupt and totalitarian regimes of the Soviets
and Eastern Europe. Yes, they failed. We know that. But Jesus, can we advertise the successes of Socialism for a damn second!!!!
C'mon, use the old brain. It is mixed economies that have yielded the best set of results in the modern era. There is no question
about that. Can we stop with the inane arguments! A certain amount of socialism is good! Let's debate the right balance. Fine.
But I'm sick of litigating the idea that some socialism is good.
One question that I think doesn't get enough attention is: Can capitalism exist without the need for constant growth? My intuition
is that it can, but most people regard the assumption of constant growth as a law of nature.
I am happy to see someone point this out. The mantra of growth is, ironically, the one thing agreed upon by all political persuasions,
but it's actually the least sustainable approach that could be imagined. I'd like to hear how capitalism might exist without it,
but even more I'd like to hear of any long-term workable system that's compatible with a steady state rather than unlimited growth.
@Chris Winter and John Steady-state economics has been seriously proposed. There is a non-profit dedicated to its theory and
implementation: the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy,
https://steadystate.org/discover/steady-state-economy-definition
/
Every human activity needs some sort of regulation to prevent exploitation of the vulnerable. Also, those portions of incomes
so high that they can't possibly be spent need to be transferred to those who will spend them. That keeps the money circulating
so that everyone benefits. This is what is needed, not arguing about public vs. private. Every activity can be private; that's
fine. But every activity also requires oversight to prevent harm to others. Unfortunately, people will tend to misbehave if they
can get away with it.
What is ignored in this innocent debate is the finicky nature of politics. The political swings from say, Kennedy era public
spending to Reagan era private enterprise along with a degraded view of government, can wreak havoc on those dependent on "government".
I think of my friend who benefited for years on a "minority owned business" provision to get contracts for his business. He believed
it was an entitlement. Then the Bush Administration cut out that provision and he ended up living out of his car. The lesson is
always: Don't get dependent on government.
The argument against socialism is totally disingenuous and purely tactical. "Socialism" has been purposefully cast as the "other"
in financial systems, exactly the same as foreigners have been cast as the "other." Socialism has always been a part of our democratic
(not capitalistic) system. Building infrastructure, public education, public transportation, public health, public law enforcement
are all socialism. Anti-monopoly laws are socialism. One can be reasonably certain that as soon as labels are used to evaluate
policy rather than content and benefits it is a "red herring" argument to distract from opportunism by the perpetrators.
@BB It could be argued that the United States was built through socialism. The Founding Fathers enshrined a national, government-run
mail delivery system in the Constitution that united the states. President James Monroe expanded the mission of the U.S. Army
Corps of Engineers from building coastal forts to surveying and improving inland waterways in 1824, helping to open the western
frontier to expansion. President Abraham Lincoln and Congress provided taxpayer-funded grants and government-backed bonding as
incentives for private companies to build transcontinental railroads and telegraph lines, uniting the continent. President Franklin
Roosevelt used taxpayer funding to subsidize the expansion of electricity into rural areas, bringing large portions of the country
into the 20th century. President Dwight Eisenhower proposed a taxpayer-funded interstate highway system that made America's a
truly national economy.
I suspect the only segment which can tolerate the inefficiency of humans is the government. Private firms will always seek
the most efficient means to provide goods and services, thus the push to automate and deploy AI. There is nothing wrong with this,
for example, the time saved using self checkout with portable scanners is wonderful, of course there are displaced workers.
@Awake Private firms always seek the most efficient way to make money. The mission is to make more money than last year. To
increase shareholder value. That is the extent of it.
@Awake You apparently have never worked for a large corporation. I have worked for three different corporations that had annual
budgeting procedures that were so inefficient it was often well into March before workers had anything to do. As a contract consultant
I spent eight months on contract doing nothing while management considered which of two alternatives plans to implement. I have
worked for a corporation where the internal charge for parking within the basement of a company owned building was far higher
than the rates at commercial parking garages within a few blocks, so the manager of the department with the most company cars
moved them saving his department money but decreasing the company's bottom line. I worked for a company where it became fashionable
for executives to send documents to one another via FedEx overnight instead of via interoffice mail. Sorting took place in Memphis
instead of the basement and the documents arrived two or three hours later or if the documents were ready early enough in the
day, twenty hours later.
@Dink Singer: As you correctly note, large bureaucracies have inefficiencies regardless of whether they're publicly owned or
privately owned. The Dilbert strip shows private enterprise, after all...
From a cost efficiency standpoint, more public control of some industries is easily justified. The part of the puzzle that
hasn't been solved is innovation. Without incentives brought about by capitalism, Google search, smart phones, YouTube, tablets
not to mention thousands of applications making your phone or tablet or PC so useful, would not arrive in 100 years let alone
one generation.
@Tom from The most patient investor in R&D is the federal government. For the obvious reason that more than 90% of R&D just
proves what does not work. The CIA helped fund some of the original research that ended up being Google, and an Italian college
professor (paid for by government money) made an important breakthrough as well. Read Mariano Mazzucato's The Entrepreneurial
State.
@Tom from Chris below goes no where near far enough. The entire technological platform on which Google, smart phones, YouTube
and the rest rely would have taken at least decades longer to develop without Government action and support. There quite literally
would not have been a "Silicon Valley" without the massive government investment in aerospace and defense in the 50's and 60's.
@Chris Herbert - Exactly right. The initial spadework -- fundamental research in materials, computing, biology that has led
to technological revolutions, was funded by the government usually without any vision whatsoever of the end application. It is
this that we are in great danger of getting away from, in doing applied research with an immediate end in mind (e.g. magic bullet
drugs for cancer).
A more realistic solution that wouldn't require the consent of our lawmakers would be to set up private companies that don't
operate soley on the profit margin, and instead work to provide a good or service to the public better than the current players;
treat their employees well and not pollute, cheat, steal, etc.; and provide a reasonable rate of return for investors (7% or so),
with any extra profits being split up and reinvested, given as bonuses to workers, investors, and consumers, etc. by a predetermined
formula. Western Europe gives lie to the argument that socialism doesn't work, but anybody who has been paying attention knows
lawmakers and their handlers will not abide by it, and sabotage it first chance they got. Instead we can set up a sort of private
socialist system, to compete in areas where the profit motive doesn't provide for the best outcomes, in areas like alternative
energy, internet cooperatives, drug discovery and manufacture, insurance cooperatives, etc. Graduate schools could be set up as
such allowing people to use their school money and the assets of the school to invent new products that could be then brought
to the public under such rules. The private sector would be free to compete, but the profit motive wouldn't be the only game in
town.
I have imagined a pair of such systems. One can't exist without the other. They are called Faction-Free Democracy and Democrato-Capitalism.
They are based on the fact that our supply of money is unlimited. I have been preaching this gospel for years, including comments
on this blog. I finally wrote a book about it called "Faction-Free Democracy." You can look it up. It provides government funding
for almost everything, and models the government on the democracy of ancient Athens. Many people call it "socialism" but in fact
it is a real democracy instead of the phony one we have now, which is, according to the Framers, a republic. Yes, it is possible
to have a government modeled on Athenian democracy. Computers don't you know. We could have a world-wide democracy if we wished.
It provides a Social Security Lifetime Supplement of $36,000 per year per citizen from birth to death. Don't be scared, check
it out. To paraphrase Keynes: "The new ideas expressed here are extremely simple and should be obvious. The difficulty lies, not
in the new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones, which are now intertwined in every corner of our minds, and do not wish to
be disturbed."
If what Prof. Krugman were to happen in the US, it would just make them a bit more similar to European nations. Nothing revolutionary
in European views, but definitevely so for the American mindset. I think it would also make the US a stronger a more cohesive
nation. But expect private interests getting in the way of that by all means.
Private individuals and self interest are of course abstractions that do not stand by themselves in reality, apart of the common
sense ideology. They are mediated by social activities (via exchange -selling my capacity to work or buying what I need in the
market). I don't produce something to consume it myself, as in earlier economies of self subsistence. The computer I'm writing
on was made by others. Therefore I depend on others' products to live in society as I am not capable of producing my own means
of subsistence. The social wealth (all the products of use) produced by the collective worker (all of those who work for a wage)
is though appropriated by private individuals. But that is only a phenomenon that exists in a society where the means of production
are individually appropriated. This happens even in China despite its "socialist" or mixed "economy." So socialism is not just
the collective ownership of production means. It is the democratic control of the same, which does not happen under the regime
of capital accumulation (even in those 'state owned enterprises'). The baptism of fire of capital was the dispossession of lands
held in common by peasants in England starting in the xv century They were freed from their means of production and forced to
work for others. This operation has been repeated since then-even in China as recent as a decade ago. Those cities, roads, and
factories were made with the work of newly "freed" labor from the soil they used to till.
Krugman says socialism is an utopia or it does not work based on the experience of the former Soviet Union or currently in
China. Both are examples of centralized economies rather than socialism where the means of production (land, factories, technologies,
etc) are democratically controlled. Indeed, this centralization has favored the concentration of wealth produced in those two
areas of the world. The Russian oligarchs and the Alibabas come from somewhere, and the state has been there to help them along.
So let's keep apart the idea of socialism as a way of producing and appropriating this product from the form of government that
either fosters or suppresses it. There is not a clear example of the former. All the existing governments have so far mostly suppressed
socialism as a mode of production despite their name. The so called mixed economies were the result of the truce between capital
and labor after ww2. After that truce ended in the 1970s with low profitability capital has taken the offensive with both neoliberalism
and globalization, which ran out of steam in 2008. We are now facing the dystopia of a capital regime in trouble and unable to
deal with catastrophic climate change, the global poverty it has produced, the millions unemployed in the global south or precariously
living in the midst of concentrated wealth like in the US, and the demoralization produced by this social malaise Economists need
to deal with this dystopia and stop living in denial.
Professor Krugman are you not looking at the data? Total federal, state and local government spending was 37.9% of GDP in 2014
( https://data.oecd.org/gga/general-government-spending.htm
). The largest shares go to my mom and my kids (thanks taxpayers!). Government expenditure is not the same as GDP but are
you saying we should shrink government by 15% (5% of GDP) or grow it? If more money flows through DC (or, for this Californian,
Sacramento), will additional lobbying for regulation delivering rents to unions and corporations be worthwhile? Lack of antitrust
enforcement is doing more for the top .1% and to the bottom 10% than anything but maybe our silly tax code. Please think and write
more about that.
I think many sectors could benefit from a greater role for cooperatives: one-member-one-vote rather than one-share-one-vote.
Also, there could be mandatory inclusion of labor and public members on corporate boards. The current private sector model is
focused on growth, rather than service or maintenance, and typically has a very short time horizon. If our goal is sustainability
over the longer term, we need a better mix of governance and finance than at present. I completely agree with Dr. Krugman about
the need for better structures to meet public purposes such as health, education, utilities, and a basic social safety net including
housing.
The positive feedback loops of so-called network effects are concentrating economic and political power into black holes of
incredible wealth. When things get too out-of-balance, society, like an ecology, disintegrates. A mixed economy can help maintain
that balance. But, as things are going, it looks increasingly like many, many people are going to suffer first until some form
of balance, social, economic and ecological, is restored.
My suggested guideline is simple. If an organizations highest priority should be to be the public it should be socialized (tax
supported). If an organizations highest priority is profit its private. A healthy mixed economy is in our future. We just have
to make it happen.
It is amazing that Paul is a bit embarrassed to say the private sector isn't able to do everything well. It is sooo clear that
most of the big problems of this Country are a consequence of government being unable to do what has to be done. Of course, the
GOP doesn't want to do anything. But infrastructure, opioid addiction, health care more generally, education, research, the arts,
foreign policy, and politics in general are not where capitalism shines. In fact, simply making a profit very often isn't a good
motivator when it makes providing goods and services simply an expense instead of an objective. Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube,
Instagram are cases in point, where the money motive has corrupted large portions of these enterprises, driving out responsibility.
The issue we need to discuss first is corruption. What else can you call the fact that our representatives are for sale to
the highest bidder? We the public are clearly not capable of being represented in that system. Thus we are not. The issue of socialism
vs capitalism is totally misrepresented by most commentators and media. If we define socialism as taxpayer funded programs for
the public we've had the mixed economy Paul suggests for many years. Social security and medicare are the most referenced but
there are many more; public schools, the post office, libraries, museums, highways and roads, water, sewage, parks, local police
and government services..... But our unrepresentatives have shifted socialism on behalf of the public to socialism for the corporations,
subsidizing many industries like oil and agriculture while vilifying socialism on behalf of the public. The military and the banking
system are the most aggregis of the socialized, consuming over half our GDP. None of this will change until we deal with the corruption
of our representatives. Paul is stating the obvious, a mixed economy currently serves both the public and private sectors, but
is under relentless pressure to go private. Public institutions like schools and prisons have already been privatized. But when
we get our representatives back we have to decide what it makes sense to socialize and privatize. My suggested guideline is simple.
@Ed...if we get our representatives back. Absent another FDR and an overhaul of the democratic party that will embrace a New
Deal, the democrats will not dominate our governments and remain beholden to the same interests that prioritize short-term gain
over even their own long-term interests.
According to my cable-internet installer, a) Ethernet has defeated all other network protocols, b) Ma Bell was broken up over
long distance, a topic no one cares about anymore, c) no one can make money delivering generic IP packets, so d) the government
should re-create a national monopoly on fiber to homes and businesses, and e) bid out the installation and operation to local
contractors. This would allow one big govt-run system (furnace) and all the installers and network operators would still have
jobs. Happy Holidays.
Protecting our natural and cultural resources will unfortunately require a degree of protectionism. But this is a more sustainable
solution for both our country AND the rest of the world. If we can favor LOCAL COMMERCE through local/municipal, county and state
governments that preferentially support local/small-scale business, our carbon footprints and carbon sequestration figures, for
examples, would improve. Federal-/national-level governance and multinational capitalism are, in concert, destroying the planet.
Fortunately, our resource-richness allows us NOT to have to compete with the world's lowest bidders, in terms of exploitation
of workers and the environment.
@carl bumba, Yes we should try to think more locally, but moneyed interests think and act in concert globally, and a local
mindset where we ignore issues that don't affect us directly leaves us all at the mercy of the globalists.
In the 1920s, the British government initiated what was in effect an experiment comparing public and private design and manufacture
of an airship. This was before improvements in airplanes made airships obviously uncompetitive. The government designed and built
one airship, the R101, while a private corporation designed and built another, the R100. The government airship was a disaster,
literally. 48 people were killed when it crashed on its first attempt at a really long flight, in October 1930. Neville Shute
Norway, an engineer who had worked on the R100, later said he believed one of the big advantages of the private airship was that
it was under the scrutiny of suspicious government safety inspectors. The engineers building the government airship were not subjected
to the same hostile scrutiny by the government--after all they were the government--so they were able to get away with things
that should not have been permitted.
Neither pure 'capitalism' nor pure 'socialism' (or whatever may lie at the other end of the spectrum) have existed for centuries.
The unregulated seeking of profits, just as a centrally controlled economy, would be disastrous in any country and we do well
to understand the benefits of a mixed economy. The political economist Charles Lindblom "once described markets as being like
fingers: nimble and dexterous. Governments, with their capacity to exercise authority, are like thumbs: powerful but lacking subtlety
and flexibility. The invisible hand is all fingers. The visible hand is all thumbs. One wouldn't want to be all thumbs, of course,
but one wouldn't want to be all fingers, either. Thumbs provide countervailing power, constraint, and adjustment to get the best
out of those nimble fingers." (Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson; Making America Great Again: The Case for the Mixed Economy" - Foreign
Affairs - May/June 2016)
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2016-03-21/making-america-great-again
In comparative economics courses at US universities during the 1970s, large utilities experiencing decreasing long-run average
costs (like power generation/distribution; telephone companies; certain aspects of airliners; etc) and certain other production
where firms might have large numbers of employees, were hinted-at as prime candidates for being [quasi-]publicly sourced. What
the resulting system was called seemed less important than output and cost (Pareto, Nash, other) efficiencies. In some countries,
such industries flip back and forth between private and public production (or finance) over the decades, rendering those nations
characterized as more or less socialistic or capitalistic at the time, depending on how the highest profile firms are supported
by whatever prevailing administration (or ownership group) has power. This also can do wonders for public deficits and accumulated
debt in a very short period of time.
What about the broadcasting industry? Imagine watching television with programs not being broken up by commercials. Nowadays
is seems as if half of program time is taken up with commercials. Imagine having the quality of news, public affairs, and entertainment
approaching that of the BBC. A very intelligent and competent television producer reminded me many years ago, "Television is not
an information and entertainment medium, it's an advertising medium." We almost had a total national public broadcasting system
instead of the small sliver we have today . Congress narrowly supported the private system when the issue was decided in the 1920's.
Too bad it went that way.
@Bill So true. Then maybe we shouldn't reflexively trust corporate news, like NYT, to provide us with unbiased truth. For example,
many people here seem to adopt views about "fly-over country" without ever really knowing it, firsthand. Likewise, readers' opinions
here seem to be frequently formed by comparisons between REAL people (who are not Trump supporters) and DEPICTIONS of real people
(who are Trump supporters). This is problematic.
Paul's totally on target and the timing just might be perfect. Hopefully, he and others can build on this with actual examples
of other modern countries that have made this transformation successfully and the Democratic Party could finally UNITE around
a prudent vision for the voters .. . the two key words? Prudent and UNITE.
this brilliant and important piece misses a key phrase: the natural ecology. under pure capitalism the earth & the life support
systems it provides have no monetary value. therefore they exist merely to be exploited (and destroyed) for private profit. in
the long run such a system will doom us all. in fact, you could say in the short term it's already doing just that.
The primary arbiter of the effectiveness of free markets must be the presence of effective competition. If natural forces or
regulation do not insure effective competition in a market segment then the interests of the consumer must be enforced by regulation.
If regulation does not suceed public ownership is the most obvious alternative. The common belief that, if unregulated, markets
will function to the benefit of consumers and, on a larger scale, societies, is woefully misguided.
Retirement is a major area that could benefit from public ownership and control. Think of how much 401(k) gains are lost to
the private financial services industry. Think about how much lower administrative overhead Social Security has than private financial
service industry companies. Think what an expansion of the Social Security social insurance model could do to resolve the retirement
crisis.
As a teacher of economics I am wondering the same thing. Are we at a point where economies are so large and complicated, and
prosperity is so great (though not for realized for everyone), that some new economic system is called for. Call it "creative
destruction" turned towards the economic system itself.
Just by the mention of a ratio of 2/3:1/3, Mr. Krugman illuminates his belief that, no mater what perils capitalism may bring,
it is still twice as better than an economy that is heavily controlled by a government that is by and for the people. Eventually,
we may have a government capable of leading the economy, but for now, and without any evidence, commentators like Mr. Krugman,
cynically let us know that we should mostly just stay the course and give our money to the profit seekers. here's another way
to think about this: not only could all the people working in health care be public employees, but they and the people who need
medical care (all of us) could have our care subsidized by the creators of the drugs and diagnostic tools that save us. It is
important to remember that in health care there are statistics that show specific percentages of those subjected to certain drugs
or tests are actually harmed by those drugs and tests. It seems reasonable that those manufacturers should be in partnership with
the government for (and on the hook for) costs associated with their imperfect products. That is more of a real public interest
led economy where capitalism, because it harms people (as part of its nature), is humbled by the public good to subsidize their
mistakes and support the health of the citizenry.
@rick Let's see. You want the drug companies to underwrite the cost of patients who would receive their products. I think the
drug producers would love that scheme.
The socialist-capitalist, mixed economy, discussion in America is long overdue and, contrary to Prof. Krugman's guess that
it would be "probably irrelevant", quite relevant indeed. The Chinese economy is the leading capitalist-socialist economy: "Real
GDP Growth YoY data in China is updated quarterly, available from Mar 1992 to Sep 2018, with an average rate of 9.2 %."
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/china/real-gdp-growth
The World Bank illustrates the difference in GDP percentage growth since 1960 for the U.S. and China. Clearly, the Chinese
will over-take U.S. economy (GDP) in a matter of decades - likely when a millennial becomes President of the U.S. and China.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG?locations=CN-US
Despite the evidence, Americans still think that the U.S. will defeat the historic odds and remain the world's leading economy
and military power that it is today. In a world of increasing militarism, the future is uncertain. With unabated sustainable growth
of GHG emissions, millennials will need to get involved in politics sooner than any prior generation: their standard of living
is at real risk, they are part of the solution. The present U.S. Trump administration's denial of the science behind global warming
and climate change is the problem.
Some areas should be free market: Any area where there is clear competition -- e.g. automobiles. Some areas should be either
government owned, or tightly regulated: Utilities fall in this category, as it is very inefficient to have competition in electricity,
water, sewer, or wired communication. Cable TV would have fit in here 20 years ago, but there are enough other alternatives that
this is no longer the case. Some areas where the industry has an impact on the common good -- businesses that pollute come to
mind -- need regulations that govern that aspect. Any business that is "too big to fail" should get bailed out once: And then
broken up into at least 3 smaller companies. Other areas of regulation: Overlapping directorships within an industry. Banks should
not be in the insurance business. Nor in the stock selling business.
Krugman fails to mention the that most of the 2/3 capilaist portion of the ecomony he talks about isn't really capitalism,
it dominated bystate sanctioned monopolies. No one really believes in a ture capilaist economy, if they did they would be arguing
for the elimination of the largest distortions to a capitalist economy in the United States; tradmarks, patent, and limited liability
corporations. these three distort from a freemarket truely capitalist economy much more than wlefare, public education, regulated
healthcare. The government regulation inflicted by these three government mandates is much greater than Obama care and welfare
ever could be.
The question of "how discredited is socialism?" is odd. "Discredited" by whom? and in what context? Ronald Reagan crisscrossed
the country on behalf of the AMA, fear-mongering about ending freedom forever because the AMA hated the idea of socialized medicine:
Medicare. Today, many Americans seem not to know that original Medicare is a government-run program (socialized insurance, not
socialized medicine) -- less expensive to run, higher quality results, better at controlling costs -- far better than the wolf-in-sheep's
clothing Medicare Advantage programs that socialize risk, privatize profits, and make mountains of money for shareholders/execs.
Polls show Americans have become far more comfortable with govt-run healthcare -- hence its importance in Nov18 ... and likely
continued importance in 2020. And, last time I checked, Warren's drug manufacture plan included more than generics -- e.g., new
drugs with insufficient profit potential -- for rare diseases, or that cure, or that will be used rarely (like new antibiotics).
I'd prefer Prof. Krugman spend more time on economic explanations -- not worrying so much about political feasibility, prognosticating,
and inflammatory labels. Maybe then he'd discuss economic, public policy -- and moral -- benefits of the NY Health Act, "Improved
Medicare for all NYers," better than any current public or private insurance. If it becomes law in 2019, the feasibility of national
single-payer will no longer be in question...just the terms.
Capitalism begins to look a lot like state socialism when there is heavy concentration in the industry, for example, only one
commercial jet manufacturer or only one military fighter jet manufacturer or High tech controlled by Amazon, Google, Apple, FaceBook.
Capitalism works when there is competition, not monopoly. We are not as purely capitalistic as we like to think.
Free education for all advanced by Bernie Sanders is a first step that is needed. This is neither a socialism nor a capitalism.
We have Medicaid to take care of poor. It is just a matter of adequately funding it. Next, setup public works program where unemployed
can work for food stamps. Provide more public housing. This guarantees the basic necessities of food, shelter, education and health
care. Pay for it by reverting to taxation of 60s. I don't know whether it is socialism or capitalism, but it certainly is a basic
function of the government to take care of its own citizens.
We're at a point where a globalized administrative and distributive system can be successfully implemented. The only thing
in the way is capitalism, and private ownership of the existing first steps, twisted to the will of the super-elite. All we need
to do is turn that system into a global, public set of utilities, whose purpose is service, not profit. When the need for capital
accumulation grows to handle macro problems, it can be managed more efficiently this way, without the massive drain of corruption
that has heretofore hobbled all such efforts. The truck is going to be to make this system responsive and coherent, and that will
involve far greater integration of existing financial systems and processes into other service organizations, to make them useful
platforms for exchange management instead of the bubble casino fantasies built for the few they are today. This is an entirely
feasible proposition, and is only impossible because of the desperate, self-serving greed of those now owning it all. Remove them,
and their ownership, as a significant first step, and the rest becomes far more obvious soon thereafter. Or, continue living in
the clouds hoping a few useless tweaks will fix a broken global capitalist order. The stay will, however, be short, and the fall
is a long distance.
The fundamental problem with the idea of a mixed economy maybe be with the politicians who are advocating for it. Consider
at this moment, Jeremy Corbyn in the UK and the Brexit mess. No one has contributed less to that problem than Corbyn and the Labour
Party. Or here at home, Bernie Sanders. Nice guy whose ideas harken back to Norman Thomas -- a wonderful man and perennial candidate
for POTUS who never won. The message about a mixed economy has and has lacked a spokesperson who can make its case and get people
to vote for them.
The problem as I see it, Professor Krugman is that there ARE people who believe that Gosplan and the Great Leap Forward, or
their equivalents, are the answer. While most are in College classrooms there are an increasing number of 20-something congresspersons
among them. They are too inexperienced and uninformed even to imagine the ways in which their cherished solutions are and have
been disasters. We are currently living through a national nightmare with thuggish real estate developers in charge of things,
but coming out the other side into someone's rosy vision of the Worker's Paradise is certainly not the answer.
I would like you to include a small sliver for co-operatives. I grew up in a farm community where a a co-op was a major source
of seed etc. Later I lived in a cooperative community where both our homes and local grocery store was a co-op. These are just
a few examples of how co operatives are used to supply basic and essential components of daily life without a profit margin.I
even get a check now and then when the grocery has a "profit."
I grew up in a military family that has fought every American war in history. Healthcare for us was provided by the public,
not private. The military provided public, not private education. Is the military socialist?? No. It's a combination of socialism
and capitalism, and it works.
Advances in medicine is an area that works amazing well through a public-private hybrid. In fact, biotech and big Pharma companies
even lobby for strong public sector funding for basic medical research. Why is that? Well, basic research has been the economic
driving force of this country where all the most important scientific advances have come from. However, it makes no sense for
the private sector to fund basic research (unless they are a charity) because it is unclear whether advances will quickly generate
a profit. However, without such advances, the private sector will dry up because they won't fund this type of research. See where
this is going. On the other hand, it is easy to justify public funding of basic research because 1) it trains our next generation
of cutting edge scientists and engineers; 2) nearly all discoveries that power the next "big thing" that transforms our economy
comes from basic research; 3) many basic discoveries are quickly converted into products and companies, again, driving the economy;
4) the most competitive countries have strong basic research. Even China, which is notorious for stealing technology and violating
IP, is investing heavily in basic research. This is just a model where even the private sector says the role of the public sector
is essential. If we can accept this fact, why can't we accept the fact that there are other areas that can't be done as well in
the private sector as it can in the public sector?
Professor, you're position is actually a restatement of "Rockefeller Republicanism." Named after Nelson Rockefeller (former
Vice President and NY Governor), Rocky's version of Republicanism believed that the government that governed least, governs best,
but with a big "however." Rockefeller knew that the markets we're imperfect, did not address every American's needs or desires,
and in some cases, failed miserably. He believed government had a role in the economy, but that did not necessarily translate
into large government organizations employing large numbers of public employees. Rocky pioneered (at the time) new, innovative
ways to address market failures like the quasi-government corporation. They worked by the government setting up a publicly owned
corporation, loaning the entity tax dollars "start-up" finds, and giving it a clear, simple mission. Take the NYS Thruway Authority.
Before there was an interesting highway system, there was the Thruway Authority commissioned with construction, operation and
management of limited access high-speed roads to connect the state's major urban areas. The initial taxpayer funded investment
was repaid via tolls paid by users. Expansion and maintenance was done by floating binds on public markets to be repaid by toll
revenues. When the bonds were paid off, tolls were mandated to drop (they did). This system worked without the "for profit" incentives
of the private sector that raises costs to users. Rocky Republicanism works.
"Socialization of investment" is necessary to keep investment flowing when the private sector is in full retreat due to the
paranoia du jour. Some public needs, such as health care and housing, are too important to be left to the individual calculations
of firms with short term views and short term bottom lines.
The key to success in any form of enterprise is motivating the leaders. Corporate CEOs respond to bonuses and options; lower
level managers respond to promotions. What are the corresponding lures in public-sector enterprises? Altruism doesn't quite cut
it. Maybe China has an answer?
@Subhash Garg You may establish government-owned companies that are legally normal companies but mainly or fully national owned.
In this way, you can ensure that CEO get bonuses if they do well etc., but the difference being that the top CEO salaries will
not be 50 MUSD, but a fraction of that. Personally, I think it is possible to find someone doing a good job as a CEO for a 1 MUSD
salary.
@Subhash Garg Largely the same, good salaries and bonuses for effective employees and managers. Don't see why cutting out absent
shareholders and incestuous "rock star" CEOs wouldn't help.
None of us lives our own lives by one pure ideology or rigid set of values. Why should we insist that one economic system will
serve our needs, now, tomorrow and forever? Of course, it depends on what our goals and values are. If we believe that acquiring
great wealth is the purpose of life and work, we will have a purely capitalist system where a few achieve that goal. If we believe
that living comfortably with a modicum of security in a stable, healthy society where everyone has enough, we will want that "mixed"
system. I prefer the latter.
Krugman describes some of continental Europe. I am not saying it's good or bad, but there is something out there to see how
that kind of mixed economy works.
Private, corporate interests should be put on notice: if you can't get the job done efficiently at a reasonable cost with on-going
respect for privacy rights and without endangering large numbers of the population, someone else is going to step in. That someone
else is all of us. Instead, things now are the other way around: the Republican hidden "master plan" is to privatize as much of
government functions as possible so that massive profits can flow from the billions spend. The other view, the other side, should
be a clear threat to private enterprise and intentionally so: do it well with respect for human decency or you will be replaced.
.... When life expectancies are declining, despite our tremendous resources and wealth, a degree of protectionism is in order.
Local, small-scale interaction, both public and private - need to be promoted and supported, over the long-term. Our 'sustainability'
depends on us protecting our cultural and natural resources.
Dr. Krugman misses the most important parameter for hierarchical social organization, which is the LEVEL of interaction. The
public/private debate here contrasts ONLY federal or national-level public institutions with private sector alternatives, both
at the national-level, e.g. power and telecommunication utilities, and local businesses and contractors. Sure, "central planning"
is widely discredited (and "decentralized" programs rely on market forces). But, historically, most of these organizations were
HIERARCHICAL networks; governments were not hubs of unstructured networks, but the top of pyramids of organizational levels. Governments
that plan and operate at the LOCAL level through local, public institutions and elections, in support of local commerce and businesses,
are not so easily discredited. The Washington swamp DOES need draining (for want of a biology-grounded metaphor). Municipal, county
and (to a lesser extent) state governments need to be EXPANDED. We are the only superpower, BY FAR. We don't need to have extensive
military commitments and alliances throughout the world anymore. These are NOT required for national security. This is an excuse;
they protect our domination of the global marketplace. We don't need more national and multinational corporations. BOTH agribusiness,
corporate franchises, etc. AND federal programs are terrible for life in middle America. When life expectancies...
The criteria for public regulation/ownership should be whether the goods or services that a business provides are deemed either
unethical to withhold from all citizens, or where the deprivation of those goods or services to some citizens adversely affects
all citizens. Clearly health care and education fall into that category. Nobody would make the argument that it is ethical to
deprive a child of education or health care because the parents were too poor to afford them. But uneducated or sick citizens
is not just an ethical failure. There is significant economic damage to everyone if large segments of the population are sick
and uneducated. Besides education and health care, other businesses with a compelling public interest come to mind. Mr. Krugman
mentioned utilities (no one wants people denied access to clean water or electric power). But a free and open internet is, or
should be, an area where the public has a compelling interest. Progressives should make the case why there is a compelling public
interest to take ownership of, or regulate, these industries. Then the political climate would be more favorable to, for example,
Medicare for all.
So can Prof. Krugman explain why public is more efficient only it isn't? If a private concern can sell something for $10 with
a $1 profit, then a public concern could sell it for $9. Seems elementary to me. Public companies can use the same techniques
as private ones to determine demand. The profit motive is societal. It's not elemental.
There is no sense in having a committee of communists decide how much milk should be on the grocery store shelf. Capitalism
is golden at responding to supply and demand. Yet, basics like roads, public safety, protection of our country (military), parks,
education, healthcare, and basic protections for the young, sick, disabled and elderly should be the collective responsibility
of all our citizens mainly through our local, state and federal governments. Quality of life should be the goal of humanity. It
is also high time for Peace on Earth Good Will Toward Man.
Dr. K. Your best column since your call over a decade ago about a possible looming meltdown with your prescient observation
re " they are selling each other condos down there in Florida". I would only disagree that it should be a greater figure for government
running business, not only does this create better paying jobs for a greater number of people hopefully with benefits, but so
much of the economy today allows private interests to capitalize on public investment not only resulting from public funded infrastructure
but R and D by government entities that private interests were allowed, or lobbied into, reaping the enormous profits from. Forty
years of runaway capitalism has produced little other than extreme inequality, the time is long overdue to correct these inequities,
another thing that needs to be addressed is vulture capitalism that has seen so many mergers and acquisitions turn into little
more than grand theft done by lawyers and bankers as they buy or gain control of one company after the other, fire millions in
the name of efficiency, load it up with debt to pay themselves huge sums and dump the carcass on shareholders, fully fifty percent
of these deals are bad for the companies not to mention the lives ruined, there is in my opinion a very good case these " venture
capitalists" should be in prison. China with its central planning has done a good job in this area as well, people get to greedy
they are executed, good riddance.
@Ted OK Ted, make the case: What law did they break? "there is in my opinion a very good case these " venture capitalists"
should be in prison." I'll leave this absurd statement for another day: "Forty years of runaway capitalism has produced little
other than extreme inequality"
A paradigm that says "Anything you could call socialist has been an utter failure". Interesting thinking. Medicare. Social
Security. Failures? Hmmnn. Wall Street has been an utter failure, destroying the economy in the Great Depression and nearly doing
so Great Recession--which was saved by public programs, policies, and very public bailouts. And Wall Street doesn't do a whole
lot of good (when the bad is included) on an ongoing basis. (I can hear the right-wingers howling on that one--innovation, start-ups,
and yada, yada). Privatization of prisons and schools has been a disaster. Privately--owned utilities are generally a ripoff.
The US health insurance system is a disaster. Several western European and Scandinavian countries have done quite well with public
ownership of the healthcare system, and ownership (and real) regulation of others. It won't happen here, though, as Greed runs
the show.
"...Private insurers don't..provide a service that couldn't be provided..by national health insurance. Private hospitals aren't
obviously either better or more efficient than [their] public [counterparts] "So you could imagine..health..currently in the private
sector [becoming] public, with most people at least as well off as they are now..." [op cit] -- Yes, by all means! -- For example?
Check out what's already in place: the VA healthcare [totally government run] System, where I'm enrolled, as a veteran... -- And
do you know what I think? 1. It words, "just fine." 2. It's cost efficient, as far as I can tell. 3. And I'm not complaining at
all. 4. In fact? I'm grateful! *** "...Also, I see zero chance of any of this happening in my working lifetime..." [op cit] --
Too bad! -- Because when you consider that most of our "advanced" Neighbors have long since instituted "Socialized Medicine,"
it begs the question: 1. "What do they know, that we don't?" 2. And, "Why haven't we done likewise?" *** It's become apparent,
that Americans have a penchant, for re-living the glory days of our past -- That is, debunking "progress," in favor of ways that
have always been familiar, and still seem to work -- Want to be relegated to history's, "Junk-heap?" It's oh, so easy! Just keep
on resisting -- 1. Better ideas. 2. Obvious examples, that work(!) 3. Sound advice, from those in the know. *** "Good luck," I
say, heading into the future-- And may God help the hard-headed among us !
Three "human rights": education, health care and housing. They should be guaranteed by the government, that is us, and taken
away from the unavoidable profiteering that is implicit with private sector enterprise. It would make for better economies and
a more just society.
@Davide How can housing be guaranteed? Say all 320 million people would want to live in the Bay Area. There is not enough space
to guarantee housing here. If not, then you have winners and losers no matter what type of housing distribution you adopt like
by birth, lottery or anything else.
Very helpful. Wouldn't it be a good idea for insurance of all types - auto, home, life - to be a government run, not for profit,
sector? What added value does a private insurance company give to anyone but the owners?
The whole socialism/capitalism thing is so muddied it would be hard to get a clear eyed view to compare. So called private
entities get subsidies of varying kinds and many state owned enterprises are run more like for profit ventures. Companies have
become so used to subsidy that they often get it without even asking for it. An example of the mess is my employer- a private,
faith based hospital system. The building that houses the facility is city owned and leased to the private company in a sweetheart
deal and it also receives a subsidy in the form of a city sales tax that is used for capital expenses. In addition, the operator
gets a tax exemption as a "faith based not for profit". It also gets discounts on some supplies and other subsidies as part of
various government programs. The recent Apple expansion in Austin, Texas was announced and it comes with subsidies. The Amazon
expansion involves massive subsidy to get jobs in Virginia and New York that according to this paper were the obvious places to
put them. Billionaire team owners routinely ask the city, county or state to fund new stadiums. While we are at it, there are
even more forms of subsidy. Comcast & AT&T have copper or fiber running in my back yard without my permission or compensation.
CenterPoint Energy has a natural gas line running underground in my yard and I get no compensation for it. Entergy has an underground
power line and - you guessed it- they do not pay me a cent for it.
America actually has a gigantic state sector: the military-industrial complex. We also have a huge, and bloated bureaucracy
- not so much at the federal level - but at the state and municipal level, where nothing of real importance is done but where
we still expect to pay middle-class salaries to these low-level civil servants on the backs of working-class taxpayers. Most of
what the federal government does should remain as government work. But the state and municipal governments should be substantially
reduced: very few jobs at that level are necessary or valuable to society, and there are far-too many mid-level managers in state
and municipal government that are sucking the taxpayer dry. They take all the money that the taxpayer would like to give to the
struggling, the young, and the disabled, and they use it to pay themselves handsome salaries. That certainly should end.
@Purity of Let me make the argument that water and sewer services operated by municipalities are the most important components
of good health followed rapidly by fire safety services offered by code enforcement officers and fire departments.
@Purity Let me remind you that the majority of municipal/state employees are educators from k-graduate school. Then of course
police, jailers and sanitation. The middle managers that you are complaining about are very small item in these budgets.
You and David Brooks should get together and write a collaborative column. David advocated for a similar mix in a recent column.
Great minds thinking alike?
I have often wondered ... what would "society" be if it followed the military model: everybody has a MOS (job), food, housing,
health care, retirement ...
A large share of the commenters here seem to not remember or be aware of some of the "features" of socialism that capitalism
effectively saved us from. A key rule to remember of government, no matter how benign - you don't get a choice. You don't choose
how much to contribute (taxes), you don't choose your service provider (no competition), and you have limited ability to effect
a change (and only if you are lucky enough to live in a socialist system that is also a democracy.). Take a look at the history
of the 70s US and Britain before the market reforms in both countries...
@random I drive to work on paved roads with functional traffic lights, although they could be better synchronized, and if I
saw an accident, I could call 911and get a trained operator who would dispatch the appropriate well trained and equipped first
responders. I choose to pay for this through my votes on City Council and County Board members. If you do not want to pay for
that, take the license plate off of your vehicle and stay off the roads.
@random Anyone remember the hated HMOs from the 90's? Today, you want an MRI you get it in the morning, whether you need it
or not. Put all medical care under the g'ment, care will be rationed by time rather than dollars- you may get that MRI or joint
replacement in 4 months by the Dr. of a bureaucrat's choice. It's going to be really difficult to unwind the choice of today to
that system.
Most of your points are not really true; but especially so if you consider free migration. One of the side-effects of widespread
xenophobia is to gerrymander the world by blocking that most basic form of voting; voting with your feet.
Firemen are honored, and esteemed, by both sides of the political fence. But fire departments are socialist government in the
sense that they are there, paid by all for the good of all, because if one house burns, the fire may spread. It used to be, however,
that in the USA in the 19th century, firemen were paid by private insurance companies, and there were competing fire companies
who would not put out your fire if you had not signed with them. We are glad now that that period is over. But the situation with
health care today is identical. When will we Americans learn that the health of each of us impacts the whole. You have to put
out a house on fire even if the residents have not paid insurance, because the fire can spread (infection) and damage the whole
town (body).
So, we're looking for some kind of equilibrium with public and private control of the means of production. I think that is
going on. And, it changes with each new generation, the goal posts move. The pendulum swings between the public and private. It
is burdened by history. For me, I am not an economist I'm a LiArt guy, I am a cog in this system, and, it took me a while to accept
that. But, having accepted that, I set my own economic goals and have achieved much of it. Healthcare was a no-brainer, I paid
for and have had health insurance for myself and family all my working life. I am retired now, am comfortable, still working to
leave something of a legacy for my children. This is something to think about. What is the right mix? Everything economic requires
conscious effort. Capitalism and democracy work together and we are constantly looking for that equilibrium. I don't think it
can be reduced to a nice, neat formula. It is dynamic and everything can be fungible. Of course, there may come a time when I
won't care one whit about anything. That is when my long-term disability insurance should kick in, but, who knows, really, and
I probably will not care.
This should be a blinding statement of the obvious with historical data to demonstrate the statement's truth. Decades of Republican
propaganda exploiting the quasi-intellectual concepts of the libertarian laissez faire economics has created a mantra for "conservatives"
that is in serious need of challenge. Good on Paul Krugman for confronting Republican economic theory.
@Taxidermitist, probably because "free" is a chimera. Schools need to be maintained and upgrades. Teachers need to be paid
(a lot more then at present) and textbooks need to be printed. The cost of all these things comes from the taxes that most citizens
regularly vote against. It behooves us as a nation to provide the highest quality education at the lowest possible cost – hence
the public option is the most pragmatic, as well as the most practical. I think most people would support a public service requirement
for graduates to spend x number of years in national service (not necessarily military) in exchange for their "free" education.
"Free" is a loaded word, as well as being misleading.
Thank you Paul. Progressives must make the case that in order for Market Capitalism to be sustainable; Public sharing of Health
Care, Education, Retirement Security, and National Park Lands with Environmental Protections must be part of our Common Goods
we all need to exist. Progressives do not need to demonize Big Multinational Business. Just appeal to their own self interest
by stating that if we share the risks of Health, Ed, and Retirement, Markets will be free of areas that they inherently fail at,
and people will have more resources and time for pursuit of Free Enterprize.
@Michael W. Espy. Business pays for most non research healthcare today. Commercial insurance pays a premium so Medicare can
pay direct costs only and Medicaid pays a fraction of actual costs.
It seems to me that focusing on public or private ownership, exclusively, misses the boat. Enterprise size is the issue. Could
anything be more wasteful than the Pentagon or more socially destructive than Amazon? Small and medium sized enterprises (schools,
towns, water departments, farms, factories, retail, etc) may be less efficient than large ones in some measures, but they may
also avoid the externalities of big ones, so should be better for society on balance -- including geographic equity (i.e., they
can make it outside of the coasts). But bigness can only be controlled through regulation, which has almost no friends and is
more vilified than socialism.
The reason for privatization has always been the obscene profits available to those few at the top, not "efficiency". Even
with a 2/3 private, 1/3 public economy, the income distribution would remain vertiginously skewed on the private side, with some
making billions and other pennies. The money will be used, as ever, to buy power, posing a continuous threat to the system. Let's
get money out of politics first and then see what new economic equilibrium we settle in to.
I have always felt that we should let the government do what it does best and let the private sector do what it does best.
Mr. Krugman makes a valid case for the "mixed economy," but right-wing conservatives, who benefit the most from private ownership
that is subsidized with huge tax benefits, will howl at the thought. It's Socialism! That term has become a pejorative for anything
that smacks of the government taking over what the private sector has been doing, even when done poorly -- think providing adequate
medical care for all Americans. Just look what's happened with so-called Obamacare. A sitting President had the courage to tackle
this problem and he lost both houses of Congress. Did the Republicans who control Congress try to fix the broken system? No, they
made political hay by voting to repeal the Affordable Care Act more than 50 times.
The utilities sector too. It makes no sense to privatize things for which there can be no meaningful competition. What we actually
find is that services and price controls are strictly controlled by public utility commissions. So what was the point of it being
a private enterprise?
Totally agree; the profit motive does not bode well for public benefit. Two points: 1) My husband was on dialysis for ten months,
and had a kidney transplant in January 2009, paid for by the government. 2) Does anyone believe that the private sector will send
a letter across the country, indeed halfway around the world (think Guam) for 55 cents? We must not let the Postal Service be
privatized! It pays for itself, and cannot be duplicated by the private sector.
We're in a mixed economy, already. Although not to the level that Krugman proposes. It's been a series of back and forth, with
the Republicans curtailing taxpayer public social investments -- only if it does not serve their purposes (or there could be potential
sizable donations as a result). It's a matter of keeping this in perspective: That is already the US economy -- we just have to
make sure it is working for the public good instead of tax dollars and national heritages (public lands and resources) supporting
private interests. Do more of this where it makes sense? Absolutely. Not in Krugman's working lifetime? Maybe not -- there's new
blood with the desire to do the monumental task of mobilizing America and the world with a New Green Deal. That's just scratching
the surface. And, they are definitely not afraid of the word socialism. Mixed economy it is and will be -- in spite of Trump and
the Republican party.
As a European I live under a system where [still] many public services are without a doubt public: healthcare, infrastructure,
education. Even utilities & public transport, although privatized, are mainly private monopolies, coming forth out of public services.
For me it's simple: you don't make a profit off the back of the sick, the poor and the children. And infrastructure is a necessary
evil that needs to be public, too. I don't mind private clinics, as long as public service offers the basics needed to keep people
healthy. Extra care, softer pillows, luxury rooms and caviar for breakfast; if you want it, pay for it. Why not? The same for
utilities (which should be public & non-profit, to my opinion) and education. If making a profit on the service hurts the economy
(which is the case with education, health care, utilities and infrastructure), then it should be a non-profit, public service.
And it doesn't hurt to have private companies doing the bidding for the subcontracts/services; as long as it's an open and transparent
process, not a corruption. Simply put: if it is essential to our well-being, for our basic needs, make it public (or subsidize
the rents, f.i.). Leaves us with the question: what is essential? - Water, electricity (gas for heating?), healthcare, education,
infrastructure, public transport. What else? - Housing? For sure. Public housing for the poorest is essential. - Internet/TV/Radio/Telephone?
Not sure. What do I miss?
@Timo van Esch, in this excellent and very complete list, you missed the courts, which in the US are a mechanism for extracting
revenue from those who can least afford it. Our prisons are overflowing with people unable to pay fines, who are being charged
rent for their incarceration. "If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed," if an oft quoted part of people being
informed of their rights. What is not stated is that they will be presented with a bill for services - even from the Public Defender's
office, and charged interest and penalties for failure to pay – even additional imprisonment in a vicious circle.
@michaeltide Very interesting, I had no idea a bill followed. I guess it's safe to say that public legal service rates are
lower than than market rates! (By the way, Michael, to answer your earlier question: Trump supporters voted for Trump to be president,
to solve our current problems, NOT to be our friend, neighbor, role model or have Camelot-charm/sex appeal.)
"Now, this wouldn't satisfy people who hate capitalism." No, Paul, it wouldn't -- as someone who hates capitalism myself, I
can corroborate your claim. But what you have set forth here is a real start, too. People who hate capitalism tend to be people
who hate the predatory, rent-seeking, deregulated and rigged capitalism practiced now, the kind that has slowly turned our country,
as the systemic level, into an anti-democratic oligo-pluto-kakistocracy with the rhetorical trappings of a legitimate republic.
Those who are arguing that greed is what demolishes both socialism and capitalism miss the salient point that capitalism (as we
know it) is exhausting itself in part because it has nearly fulfilled its own logic: the more we automate, the less money we spend
on salaried employees; the fewer salaried employees, the smaller the workforce, the bigger the bottom line, but the bigger the
underclass of unemployed and potentially unemployable poor. Marx spoke often about the "means of production"; the transformation
and partial, if not total, automation of these means seem to me inevitable, and profoundly dangerous for all but a tiny elite.
There are those of us who would back any step in the right direction. The best analogy, perhaps, is in American healthcare policy.
Those of us who lean left of Sanders believe, almost unanimously, that a single-payer system is the only one befitting a civilized
nation. But the ACA was a start, and improvement. If you're game, I'm game.
Mr. Krugman is almost as savvy re politics as he is with economics - I am sincere ... and it's high praise, of course. So,
to bandy about words like socialism and even communism - words which almost everyone agrees are "fighting words" is either horridly
insensitive or a rare lapse in judgment on his part If there WERE op-eds like is "behind what used to be called the Iron Curtain,"
they might score almost as many debating points about the failure of capitalism as Mr. Krugman strews as he basically finds nice
things to say about what he calls socialism. I disagree very strongly with him that education is an area where the "public model"
can take a bow. The Lincolnesque photo of him indicates that he probably was schooled (publicly ?) long enough ago so that oh-how-far-it's-fallen
may not be apparent to him. As a guess, he has grand children who either live in a 1% type community or attend private school.
(Not snide - just trying to fathom how he could be SO out-of-touch.) In fact, that's what's so awful about the "public model"
- people not accountable to anyone really, holding jobs for life. It surely had a lot to do with the collapse of countries like
East Germany ... and bodes ill if, say, utilities are de-privatized. OTOH, I think he is uncharacteristically tepid when it comes
to our health care vs. most other (mostly) comfortable societies. Our bang-for-the-bucks is appalling. Obamacare's lack of a "public
option" cemented a miserable status quo for anyone not rich.
we have a mixed economy now: it's good for the rich and bad for everyone else. and with President Trump's goverment shutdown,
we're on the way to realizing a long-held Republican goal: a return to slavery, starting with government employees working for
nothing right before Christmas.
Many who love the market system are either autocrats and boards of autocrats running their companies or the politicians bought
and paid for by such. The market system definitely has its place but I am not sure that it has the ability and the patience to
develop what truly reorients mankind's progression. The Greeks instauration to democracy, the Renaissance, the Moon program, the
Genome project, were not created by the market, nor was the big data revolution and A.I. which were driven by the emergence of
neural networks, birthed in universities. Neither will the market bring about the proper approach to climate change and population
control. Now, once a direction with potential is determined then the market knows how to implement it. Socialism and Market economy
are words mostly used by people in tribal camps who, for the most part, are useless in the long run. I do not think that rats
like the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, or Carl Icahn and others (such as Trump) contribute anything to society. They are worse
than Clorox!
A mind is a terrible thing to waste, especially if the mind in question is an economist. But we are here to bury capitalism
not to praise it dear Brutus [sic]. We already have a mixed economy. Communism for bankers and the ultra-rich and capitalism for
the once great middle-class, and fascism for the poor. Do try to think a bit beyond our current predicament even if those stock
buy-back strategies didn't workout so well.
1)I really dislike how the meaning of the term "socialism" has been undermined by its repeated use as a pejorative. Any public-sector
activity the right doesn't like is labelled "socialist." Now we're stuck trying to explain what it actually is to a bunch of people
who still support the gold standard. Gah. 2)The idea of the government taking back its patents on generic drugs makes perfect
sense. I'd rather have the federal government manufacturing insulin than watch more price fixing by a cartel of private companies,
which is what we have now.
With rising profits, and declining services, there's a lot of room for Government to be competitive with the public sector.
If you scratch the surface of a large company, you will find the same inefficiency as in government, only higher salaries and
profit (some of which is guaranteed through 'government work'. Lots of good 'in-house' work has been provided by the state and
federal government in engineering, research, ship repair and consumer protection. I worked for Alaska Railroad when it was owned
by Department of Transportation, and it was pretty good. Probably a money-loser, but people liked that you could pull the string
and get off where you liked, or stop the train and get on in the bush. You had to sign a paper saying you'd take to the hills
and fight if the Russians attacked. There's nothing like that at Facebook.
The entire 20th century was a search for the balance between public and private economy in democratic societies throughout
the world. Japan, South Korea, Uruguay, Chile, Germany, Canada, Sweden -- any number of nations demonstrate different ways to
balance it all. Their experimentation is there recorded and available for anyone to study. Do you think anyone in the US government
does? While this column is welcome, America seems doomed to debate the knowledge of the middle of the last century over again,
as if it had never happened -- in economics as in all things -- why? Because History and other knowledge has been replaced by
Ideology through Paid Commercial Media, both legacy and digital. This helped accomplish the great dumbing down initiated by the
Reagan administration to cut pell grants and essentially as much education funding as possible. Replacing scholarships into a
monetized banking scam. Aided and abetted by Democrats who controlled the house and had no interest in educating the voters that
Republican Ideology wasn't based on truth. A whole generation of college professors didn't happened, or rather the more intelligent
candidates were systematically replaced by the more wealthy candidates. This process has brought reduced elite education to nothing
more than a fetishized luxury good -- credentials replacing achievement as a career goal. The triumph of nepotism then follows
logically. The telegenic filled in for leadership for both parties.
What we have to overcome, is this childish idea, capitalism would be a sort of natural law that will provide for us all! Eventually!
i.e. something like god's little brother. The problem is not so much that free markets don't work, but that some markets are not,
and will never be free e.g. health (people will pay anything for a treatment if it means life or death, and nothing if they don't
need that treatment; lower prices will not increase demand); food (people have to eat; their demand can not drop to zero); ditto
housing; and especially labour (people have to work to provide for themselves; the so called Manchester capitalism throve exactely
on that) N.B.: A free market is a market in which supply and demand float freely, coupled by the price, not a market without any
regulations! That would be a lawless market i.e. a gold digger town economy. Such markets tend not to remain free for long. Furthermore,
please remember: A free market produces an equilibrium, and that's it! The point of equilibrium might still be unacceptable for
moral reasons e.g such an equilibrium could very well be high unemployment, or a food shortage. And about privatisation: Even
microeconomic science tells us that things will become more efficient if there is competition, not just because the players are
private. A private monopolist is as bad, or even worse than a public one.
Jeff Bezos collects almost 9 million dollars an hour at his job while I make 15 dollars an hour at mine. I spend every dollar
I make to survive, which makes my economic worth zero. Bezos collects his dollars into the billions and has a gigantic economic
worth. Because I live my life without enough money it's easy for me to forget that we are not economic things and that our value
and worth cannot be summed by economic terms. I don't have any value or worth, I am not a commodity, I am not a variable or a
statistic. I am not a cog in a wheel or a rat in a race. None of us are, but our culture conditions us to accept ourselves as
consumers and nothing else. When we worry about our worth and value as people we are using incompatible terms. Bezos is not worth
more than me or anyone else. He is not more valuable than anyone else. The only difference between Bezos and myself is that his
ability to consume is off the charts and mine is minimal. If we really are economic entities then I am an earthbound worm eating
dirt while Bezos exists as a tremendous black hole consuming matter, light, and everything else. I don't want to be a black hole.
I want to create, like the burning stars, shedding heat and light as I consume what I am. It's a choice to be a black hole or
a star. Create more, consume less.
The United States of America of today has effectively two systems: capitalism - the main one -, and socialism, in the Pentagon
(which is between one tenth and one quarter of the American economy, depending on how you want to count it). The Pentagon is effectively
socialist because, given the sui generis nature of the defense sector and the advanced level of the American capitalism, it runs,
internally, a perfectly planned economy. How is it done? It receives unconditional and unlimited amounts of money-capital directly
from the USG. Yes, the "outside world" is still capitalist, and many Pentagon contracts end up fueling the capitalist part of
the country - and that's why the capitalist part of the USA is still the hegemonic one - but, in its inner logic, it is socialist.
Why the USA accepts a big chunk of its economy to be socialist? Because the use value of national security requires absolute efficiency
in terms of logistic readiness and lethal efficacy: you can't not bomb country X simply because the quantity of missiles Y would
not be on a scale sufficient large enough to meet the necessary profit rates of supplier Z. No, if you need 1 missile Y at exact
time W to achieve a military victory against country X, you bet your life the Pentagon will have it -- regardless if it is "cost
effective" from the capitalist point of view. The only other time the USA was as socialist was during FDR: this reveals the American
pragmatism towards the overall survival of capitalism.
What the late Louis Kelso, inventor of the Employee Stock Ownership Plan used by 11,000 companies, called The Second Income
Plan, deserves consideration. See SECOND INCOMES at aesopinstitute.org for a description. This is a Third Way that captures the
advantages of capitalism while overcoming many of the disadvantages.
I believe that a combination of Capitalism & Socialism can work & is already working ,like the VA, which I use & i'm completely
satisfied. Social security doesn't pay all my bills, but without it I would depend on the one day old Doughnut Company to eat.
Having said all of the above, what made America Great is incentive, motivation & creativity that is the result of Capitalism.
Socialism must be used in Education, rather then the insurance loan that put Graduates in debt for years. It should not be an
open door to higher education, but given to only those that are qualified. Universal Health care has to be Socialized, & given
only to the needy. Neither Socialism or Capitalism is the answer when used without the other, together it's not perfect but better
than alone.
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
"Russian Orthodox Church says smartphones a harbinger of the Antichrist"
"MOSCOW (AP) -- The head of the Russian Orthodox Church says the data-gathering capacity
of devices such as smartphones risks bringing humanity closer to the arrival of the
Antichrist.
In an interview shown Monday on state TV, Patriarch Kirill said the church does not oppose
technological progress but is concerned that "someone can know exactly where you are, know
exactly what you are interested in, know exactly what you are afraid of" and that such
information could be used for centralized control of the world.
"Control from one point is a foreshadowing of the coming of Antichrist, if we talk about
the Christian view. Antichrist is the person who will be at the head of the world wide web
that controls the entire human race," he said."
Voters around the world revolt against leaders who won't improve their lives.
Newly-elected Utah senator Mitt Romney kicked off 2019 with an op-ed in the Washington Post
that savaged Donald Trump's character and leadership. Romney's attack and Trump's response
Wednesday morning on Twitter are the latest salvos in a longstanding personal feud between the
two men. It's even possible that Romney is planning to challenge Trump for the Republican
nomination in 2020. We'll see.
But for now, Romney's piece is fascinating on its own terms. It's well-worth reading. It's a
window into how the people in charge, in both parties, see our country.
Romney's main complaint in the piece is that Donald Trump is a mercurial and divisive
leader. That's true, of course. But beneath the personal slights, Romney has a policy critique
of Trump. He seems genuinely angry that Trump might pull American troops out of the Syrian
civil war. Romney doesn't explain how staying in Syria would benefit America. He doesn't appear
to consider that a relevant question. More policing in the Middle East is always better. We
know that. Virtually everyone in Washington agrees.
Corporate tax cuts are also popular in Washington, and Romney is strongly on board with
those, too. His piece throws a rare compliment to Trump for cutting the corporate rate a year
ago.
That's not surprising. Romney spent the bulk of his business career at a firm called Bain
Capital. Bain Capital all but invented what is now a familiar business strategy: Take over an
existing company for a short period of time, cut costs by firing employees, run up the debt,
extract the wealth, and move on, sometimes leaving retirees without their earned pensions.
Romney became fantastically rich doing this.
Meanwhile, a remarkable number of the companies are now bankrupt or extinct. This is the
private equity model. Our ruling class sees nothing wrong with it. It's how they run the
country.
Mitt Romney refers to unwavering support for a finance-based economy and an internationalist
foreign policy as the "mainstream Republican" view. And he's right about that. For generations,
Republicans have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while
simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars. Modern Democrats generally support those
goals enthusiastically.
There are signs, however, that most people do not support this, and not just in America. In
countries around the world -- France, Brazil, Sweden, the Philippines, Germany, and many others
-- voters are suddenly backing candidates and ideas that would have been unimaginable just a
decade ago. These are not isolated events. What you're watching is entire populations revolting
against leaders who refuse to improve their lives.
Something like this has been in happening in our country for three years. Donald Trump rode
a surge of popular discontent all the way to the White House. Does he understand the political
revolution that he harnessed? Can he reverse the economic and cultural trends that are
destroying America? Those are open questions.
But they're less relevant than we think. At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest
of us will be gone, too. The country will remain. What kind of country will be it be then? How
do we want our grandchildren to live? These are the only questions that matter.
The answer used to be obvious. The overriding goal for America is more prosperity, meaning
cheaper consumer goods. But is that still true? Does anyone still believe that cheaper iPhones,
or more Amazon deliveries of plastic garbage from China are going to make us happy? They
haven't so far. A lot of Americans are drowning in stuff. And yet drug addiction and suicide
are depopulating large parts of the country. Anyone who thinks the health of a nation can be
summed up in GDP is an idiot.
The goal for America is both simpler and more elusive than mere prosperity. It's happiness.
There are a lot of ingredients in being happy: Dignity. Purpose. Self-control. Independence.
Above all, deep relationships with other people. Those are the things that you want for your
children. They're what our leaders should want for us, and would want if they cared.
But our leaders don't care. We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to
the people they rule. They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through.
They have no skin in this game, and it shows. They can't solve our problems. They don't even
bother to understand our problems.
One of the biggest lies our leaders tell us that you can separate economics from everything
else that matters. Economics is a topic for public debate. Family and faith and culture,
meanwhile, those are personal matters. Both parties believe this.
Members of our educated upper-middle-classes are now the backbone of the Democratic Party
who usually describe themselves as fiscally responsible and socially moderate. In other words,
functionally libertarian. They don't care how you live, as long as the bills are paid and the
markets function. Somehow, they don't see a connection between people's personal lives and the
health of our economy, or for that matter, the country's ability to pay its bills. As far as
they're concerned, these are two totally separate categories.
Social conservatives, meanwhile, come to the debate from the opposite perspective, and yet
reach a strikingly similar conclusion. The real problem, you'll hear them say, is that the
American family is collapsing. Nothing can be fixed before we fix that. Yet, like the
libertarians they claim to oppose, many social conservatives also consider markets sacrosanct.
The idea that families are being crushed by market forces seems never to occur to them. They
refuse to consider it. Questioning markets feels like apostasy.
Both sides miss the obvious point: Culture and economics are inseparably intertwined.
Certain economic systems allow families to thrive. Thriving families make market economies
possible. You can't separate the two. It used to be possible to deny this. Not anymore. The
evidence is now overwhelming. How do we know? Consider the inner cities.
Thirty years ago, conservatives looked at Detroit or Newark and many other places and were
horrified by what they saw. Conventional families had all but disappeared in poor
neighborhoods. The majority of children were born out of wedlock. Single mothers were the rule.
Crime and drugs and disorder became universal.
What caused this nightmare? Liberals didn't even want to acknowledge the question. They were
benefiting from the disaster, in the form of reliable votes. Conservatives, though, had a ready
explanation for inner-city dysfunction and it made sense: big government. Decades of
badly-designed social programs had driven fathers from the home and created what conservatives
called a "culture of poverty" that trapped people in generational decline.
There was truth in this. But it wasn't the whole story. How do we know? Because virtually
the same thing has happened decades later to an entirely different population. In many ways,
rural America now looks a lot like Detroit.
This is striking because rural Americans wouldn't seem to have much in common with anyone
from the inner city. These groups have different cultures, different traditions and political
beliefs. Usually they have different skin colors. Rural people are white conservatives,
mostly.
Yet, the pathologies of modern rural America are familiar to anyone who visited downtown
Baltimore in the 1980s: Stunning out of wedlock birthrates. High male unemployment. A
terrifying drug epidemic. Two different worlds. Similar outcomes. How did this happen? You'd
think our ruling class would be interested in knowing the answer. But mostly they're not. They
don't have to be interested. It's easier to import foreign labor to take the place of
native-born Americans who are slipping behind.
But Republicans now represent rural voters. They ought to be interested. Here's a big part
of the answer: male wages declined. Manufacturing, a male-dominated industry, all but
disappeared over the course of a generation. All that remained in many places were the schools
and the hospitals, both traditional employers of women. In many places, women suddenly made
more than men.
Now, before you applaud this as a victory for feminism, consider the effects. Study after
study has shown that when men make less than women, women generally don't want to marry them.
Maybe they should want to marry them, but they don't. Over big populations, this causes a drop
in marriage, a spike in out-of-wedlock births, and all the familiar disasters that inevitably
follow -- more drug and alcohol abuse, higher incarceration rates, fewer families formed in the
next generation.
This isn't speculation. This is not propaganda from the evangelicals. It's social science.
We know it's true. Rich people know it best of all. That's why they get married before they
have kids. That model works. But increasingly, marriage is a luxury only the affluent in
America can afford.
And yet, and here's the bewildering and infuriating part, those very same affluent married
people, the ones making virtually all the decisions in our society, are doing pretty much
nothing to help the people below them get and stay married. Rich people are happy to fight
malaria in Congo. But working to raise men's wages in Dayton or Detroit? That's crazy.
This is negligence on a massive scale. Both parties ignore the crisis in marriage. Our
mindless cultural leaders act like it's still 1961, and the biggest problem American families
face is that sexism is preventing millions of housewives from becoming investment bankers or
Facebook executives.
For our ruling class, more investment banking is always the answer. They teach us it's more
virtuous to devote your life to some soulless corporation than it is to raise your own
kids.
Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook wrote an entire book about this. Sandberg explained that our
first duty is to shareholders, above our own children. No surprise there. Sandberg herself is
one of America's biggest shareholders. Propaganda like this has made her rich.
We are ruled by mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule.
They're day traders. Substitute teachers. They're just passing through. They have no skin in
this game, and it shows.
What's remarkable is how the rest of us responded to it. We didn't question why Sandberg was
saying this. We didn't laugh in her face at the pure absurdity of it. Our corporate media
celebrated Sandberg as the leader of a liberation movement. Her book became a bestseller: "Lean
In." As if putting a corporation first is empowerment. It is not. It is bondage. Republicans
should say so.
They should also speak out against the ugliest parts of our financial system. Not all
commerce is good. Why is it defensible to loan people money they can't possibly repay? Or
charge them interest that impoverishes them? Payday loan outlets in poor neighborhoods collect
400 percent annual interest.
We're OK with that? We shouldn't be. Libertarians tell us that's how markets work --
consenting adults making voluntary decisions about how to live their lives. OK. But it's also
disgusting. If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans,
whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street.
And by the way, if you really loved your fellow Americans, as our leaders should, if it
would break your heart to see them high all the time. Which they are. A huge number of our
kids, especially our boys, are smoking weed constantly. You may not realize that, because new
technology has made it odorless. But it's everywhere.
And that's not an accident. Once our leaders understood they could get rich from marijuana,
marijuana became ubiquitous. In many places, tax-hungry politicians have legalized or
decriminalized it. Former Speaker of the House John Boehner now lobbies for the marijuana
industry. His fellow Republicans seem fine with that. "Oh, but it's better for you than
alcohol," they tell us.
Maybe. Who cares? Talk about missing the point. Try having dinner with a 19-year-old who's
been smoking weed. The life is gone. Passive, flat, trapped in their own heads. Do you want
that for your kids? Of course not. Then why are our leaders pushing it on us? You know the
reason. Because they don't care about us.
When you care about people, you do your best to treat them fairly. Our leaders don't even
try. They hand out jobs and contracts and scholarships and slots at prestigious universities
based purely on how we look. There's nothing less fair than that, though our tax code comes
close.
Under our current system, an American who works for a salary pays about twice the tax rate
as someone who's living off inherited money and doesn't work at all. We tax capital at half of
what we tax labor. It's a sweet deal if you work in finance, as many of our rich people do.
In 2010, for example, Mitt Romney made about $22 million dollars in investment income. He
paid an effective federal tax rate of 14 percent. For normal upper-middle-class wage earners,
the federal tax rate is nearly 40 percent. No wonder Mitt Romney supports the status quo. But
for everyone else, it's infuriating.
Our leaders rarely mention any of this. They tell us our multi-tiered tax code is based on
the principles of the free market. Please. It's based on laws that the Congress passed, laws
that companies lobbied for in order to increase their economic advantage. It worked well for
those people. They did increase their economic advantage. But for everyone else, it came at a
big cost. Unfairness is profoundly divisive. When you favor one child over another, your kids
don't hate you. They hate each other.
That happens in countries, too. It's happening in ours, probably by design. Divided
countries are easier to rule. And nothing divides us like the perception that some people are
getting special treatment. In our country, some people definitely are getting special
treatment. Republicans should oppose that with everything they have.
What kind of country do you want to live in? A fair country. A decent country. A cohesive
country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own
profit and amusement. A country you might recognize when you're old.
A country that listens to young people who don't live in Brooklyn. A country where you can
make a solid living outside of the big cities. A country where Lewiston, Maine seems almost as
important as the west side of Los Angeles. A country where environmentalism means getting
outside and picking up the trash. A clean, orderly, stable country that respects itself. And
above all, a country where normal people with an average education who grew up in no place
special can get married, and have happy kids, and repeat unto the generations. A country that
actually cares about families, the building block of everything.
What will it take a get a country like that? Leaders who want it. For now, those leaders will
have to be Republicans. There's no option at this point.
But first, Republican leaders will have to acknowledge that market capitalism is not a
religion. Market capitalism is a tool, like a staple gun or a toaster. You'd have to be a fool
to worship it. Our system was created by human beings for the benefit of human beings. We do
not exist to serve markets. Just the opposite. Any economic system that weakens and destroys
families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society.
Internalizing all this will not be easy for Republican leaders. They'll have to unlearn
decades of bumper sticker-talking points and corporate propaganda. They'll likely lose donors
in the process. They'll be criticized. Libertarians are sure to call any deviation from market
fundamentalism a form of socialism.
That's a lie. Socialism is a disaster. It doesn't work. It's what we should be working
desperately to avoid. But socialism is exactly what we're going to get, and very soon unless a
group of responsible people in our political system reforms the American economy in a way that
protects normal people.
If you want to put America first, you've got to put its families first.
Adapted from Tucker Carlson's monologue from "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on January 2,
2019.
"... America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society." ..."
"... He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement." ..."
"... The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher wrote of Carlson's monologue, "A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president. ..."
"... The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke ..."
"... Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites -- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people." ..."
"... "What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?" ..."
"... Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald Trump, whose populist-lite presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it." ..."
"... Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative, thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment. ..."
"... Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax. ..."
"... "I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not." ..."
"... Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed." ..."
"... But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left. ..."
"... Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin. ..."
"... Hillbilly Elegy ..."
"... Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a function or raw nature." ..."
"All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God."
Last Wednesday, the conservative talk show host Tucker Carlson started a fire on the right after airing a prolonged
monologue on his show that was, in essence, an indictment of American capitalism.
America's "ruling class," Carlson says, are the "mercenaries" behind the failures of the middle class -- including sinking
marriage rates -- and "the ugliest parts of our financial system." He went on: "Any economic system that weakens and destroys families
is not worth having. A system like that is the enemy of a healthy society."
He concluded with a demand for "a fair country. A decent country. A cohesive country. A country whose leaders don't accelerate
the forces of change purely for their own profit and amusement."
The monologue was stunning in itself, an incredible moment in which a Fox News host stated that for generations, "Republicans
have considered it their duty to make the world safe for banking, while simultaneously prosecuting ever more foreign wars." More
broadly, though, Carlson's position and the ensuing controversy reveals an ongoing and nearly unsolvable tension in conservative
politics about the meaning of populism, a political ideology that Trump campaigned on but Carlson argues he may not truly understand.
Moreover, in Carlson's words: "At some point, Donald Trump will be gone. The rest of us will be gone too. The country will remain.
What kind of country will be it be then?"
The monologue and its sweeping anti-elitism drove a wedge between conservative writers. The American Conservative's Rod Dreher
wrote of Carlson's monologue,
"A man or woman who can talk like that with conviction could become president. Voting for a conservative candidate like that would
be the first affirmative vote I've ever cast for president." Other conservative commentators scoffed. Ben Shapiro wrote in
National Review that Carlson's monologue sounded far more like Sens. Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren than, say, Ronald Reagan.
I spoke with Carlson by phone this week to discuss his monologue and its economic -- and cultural -- meaning. He agreed that his
monologue was reminiscent of Warren, referencing her 2003
bookThe Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Growing Broke . "There were parts of the book that I disagree
with, of course," he told me. "But there are parts of it that are really important and true. And nobody wanted to have that conversation."
Carlson wanted to be clear: He's just asking questions. "I'm not an economic adviser or a politician. I'm not a think tank
fellow. I'm just a talk show host," he said, telling me that all he wants is to ask "the basic questions you would ask about any
policy." But he wants to ask those questions about what he calls the "religious faith" of market capitalism, one he believes elites
-- "mercenaries who feel no long-term obligation to the people they rule" -- have put ahead of "normal people."
But whether or not he likes it, Carlson is an important voice in conservative politics. His show is among the
most-watched television programs in America. And his raising questions about market capitalism and the free market matters.
"What does [free market capitalism] get us?" he said in our call. "What kind of country do you want to live in? If you put
these policies into effect, what will you have in 10 years?"
Populism on the right is gaining, again
Carlson is hardly the first right-leaning figure to make a pitch for populism, even tangentially, in the third year of Donald
Trump, whose populist-lite
presidential candidacy and presidency Carlson told me he views as "the smoke alarm ... telling you the building is on fire, and unless
you figure out how to put the flames out, it will consume it."
Populism is a rhetorical approach that separates "the people" from elites. In the
words of Cas
Mudde, a professor at the University of Georgia, it divides the country into "two homogenous and antagonistic groups: the pure people
on the one end and the corrupt elite on the other." Populist rhetoric has a long history in American politics, serving as the focal
point of numerous presidential campaigns and powering William Jennings Bryan to the Democratic nomination for president in 1896.
Trump borrowed some of that approach for his 2016 campaign but in office has governed as a fairly orthodox economic conservative,
thus demonstrating the demand for populism on the right without really providing the supply and creating conditions for further ferment.
When right-leaning pundit Ann Coulter
spoke with Breitbart Radio about Trump's Tuesday evening Oval Office address to the nation regarding border wall funding, she
said she wanted to hear him say something like, "You know, you say a lot of wild things on the campaign trail. I'm speaking to big
rallies. But I want to talk to America about a serious problem that is affecting the least among us, the working-class blue-collar
workers":
Coulter urged Trump to bring up overdose deaths from heroin in order to speak to the "working class" and to blame the fact
that working-class wages have stalled, if not fallen, in the last 20 years on immigration. She encouraged Trump to declare, "This
is a national emergency for the people who don't have lobbyists in Washington."
Ocasio-Cortez wants a 70-80% income tax on the rich. I agree! Start with the Koch Bros. -- and also make it WEALTH tax.
These sentiments have even pitted popular Fox News hosts against each other.
Sean Hannity warned his audience that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's economic policies would mean that "the rich people
won't be buying boats that they like recreationally, they're not going to be taking expensive vacations anymore." But Carlson agreed
when I said his monologue was somewhat reminiscent of Ocasio-Cortez's
past comments on the economy , and how even a strong economy was still leaving working-class Americans behind.
"I'm just saying as a matter of fact," he told me, "a country where a shrinking percentage of the population is taking home
an ever-expanding proportion of the money is not a recipe for a stable society. It's not."
Carlson told me he wanted to be clear: He is not a populist. But he believes some version of populism is necessary to prevent
a full-scale political revolt or the onset of socialism. Using Theodore Roosevelt as an example of a president who recognized that
labor needs economic power, he told me, "Unless you want something really extreme to happen, you need to take this seriously and
figure out how to protect average people from these remarkably powerful forces that have been unleashed."
"I think populism is potentially really disruptive. What I'm saying is that populism is a symptom of something being wrong," he
told me. "Again, populism is a smoke alarm; do not ignore it."
But Carlson's brand of populism, and the populist sentiments sweeping the American right, aren't just focused on the current
state of income inequality in America. Carlson tackled a bigger idea: that market capitalism and the "elites" whom he argues are
its major drivers aren't working. The free market isn't working for families, or individuals, or kids. In his monologue, Carlson
railed against libertarian economics and even payday loans, saying, "If you care about America, you ought to oppose the exploitation
of Americans, whether it's happening in the inner city or on Wall Street" -- sounding very much like Sanders or Warren on the left.
Carlson's argument that "market capitalism is not a religion" is of course old hat on the left, but it's also been bubbling on
the right for years now. When National Review writer Kevin Williamson
wrote
a 2016 op-ed about how rural whites "failed themselves," he faced a massive backlash in the Trumpier quarters of the right. And
these sentiments are becoming increasingly potent at a time when Americans can see both a booming stock market and perhaps their
own family members struggling to get by.
Capitalism/liberalism destroys the extended family by requiring people to move apart for work and destroying any sense
of unchosen obligations one might have towards one's kin.
At the Federalist, writer Kirk Jing
wrote of Carlson's
monologue, and a
response
to it by National Review columnist David French:
Our society is less French's America, the idea, and more Frantz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" (involving a very different
French). The lowest are stripped of even social dignity and deemed
unworthy of life . In Real America, wages are stagnant, life expectancy is crashing, people are fleeing the workforce, families
are crumbling, and trust in the institutions on top are at all-time lows. To French, holding any leaders of those institutions
responsible for their errors is "victimhood populism" ... The Right must do better if it seeks to govern a real America that exists
outside of its fantasies.
J.D. Vance, author of
Hillbilly Elegy
, wrote that the [neoliberal] economy's victories -- and praise for those wins from conservatives -- were largely meaningless
to white working-class Americans living in Ohio and Kentucky: "Yes, they live in a country with a higher GDP than a generation ago,
and they're undoubtedly able to buy cheaper consumer goods, but to paraphrase Reagan: Are they better off than they were 20 years
ago? Many would say, unequivocally, 'no.'"
Carlson's populism holds, in his view, bipartisan possibilities. In a follow-up email, I asked him why his monologue was aimed
at Republicans when many Democrats had long espoused the same criticisms of free market economics. "Fair question," he responded.
"I hope it's not just Republicans. But any response to the country's systemic problems will have to give priority to the concerns
of American citizens over the concerns of everyone else, just as you'd protect your own kids before the neighbor's kids."
Who is "they"?
And that's the point where Carlson and a host of others on the right who have begun to challenge the conservative movement's orthodoxy
on free markets -- people ranging from occasionally mendacious bomb-throwers like Coulter to writers like
Michael Brendan Dougherty -- separate
themselves from many of those making those exact same arguments on the left.
When Carlson talks about the "normal people" he wants to save from nefarious elites, he is talking, usually, about a specific
group of "normal people" -- white working-class Americans who are the "real" victims of capitalism, or marijuana legalization, or
immigration policies.
In this telling, white working-class Americans who once relied on a manufacturing economy that doesn't look the way it did in
1955 are the unwilling pawns of elites. It's not their fault that, in Carlson's view, marriage is inaccessible to them, or that marijuana
legalization means more teens are smoking weed (
this probably isn't true ). Someone,
or something, did this to them. In Carlson's view, it's the responsibility of politicians: Our economic situation, and the plight
of the white working class, is "the product of a series of conscious decisions that the Congress made."
The criticism of Carlson's monologue has largely focused on how he deviates from the free market capitalism that conservatives
believe is the solution to poverty, not the creator of poverty. To orthodox conservatives, poverty is the result of poor decision
making or a
lack of virtue that can't be solved by government programs or an anti-elite political platform -- and they say Carlson's argument
that elites are in some way responsible for dwindling marriage rates
doesn't make sense .
But in French's response to Carlson, he goes deeper, writing that to embrace Carlson's brand of populism is to support "victimhood
populism," one that makes white working-class Americans into the victims of an undefined "they:
Carlson is advancing a form of victim-politics populism that takes a series of tectonic cultural changes -- civil rights, women's
rights, a technological revolution as significant as the industrial revolution, the mass-scale loss of religious faith, the sexual
revolution, etc. -- and turns the negative or challenging aspects of those changes into an angry tale of what they are
doing to you .
And that was my biggest question about Carlson's monologue, and the flurry of responses to it, and support for it: When other
groups (say, black Americans) have pointed to systemic inequities within the economic system that have resulted in poverty and family
dysfunction, the response from many on the right has been, shall we say,
less than
enthusiastic .
Really, it comes down to when black people have problems, it's personal responsibility, but when white people have the same
problems, the system is messed up. Funny how that works!!
Yet white working-class poverty receives, from Carlson and others, far more sympathy. And conservatives are far more likely to
identify with a criticism of "elites" when they believe those elites are responsible for the
expansion of trans
rights or creeping secularism
than the wealthy and powerful people who are investing in
private prisons or an expansion
of the
militarization of police . Carlson's network, Fox News, and Carlson himself have frequently blasted leftist critics of market
capitalism and efforts to
fight
inequality .
I asked Carlson about this, as his show is frequently centered on the turmoils caused by "
demographic change
." He said that for decades, "conservatives just wrote [black economic struggles] off as a culture of poverty," a line he
includes in his monologue .
He added that regarding black poverty, "it's pretty easy when you've got 12 percent of the population going through something
to feel like, 'Well, there must be ... there's something wrong with that culture.' Which is actually a tricky thing to say because
it's in part true, but what you're missing, what I missed, what I think a lot of people missed, was that the economic system you're
living under affects your culture."
Carlson said that growing up in Washington, DC, and spending time in rural Maine, he didn't realize until recently that the same
poverty and decay he observed in the Washington of the 1980s was also taking place in rural (and majority-white) Maine. "I was thinking,
'Wait a second ... maybe when the jobs go away the culture changes,'" he told me, "And the reason I didn't think of it before was
because I was so blinded by this libertarian economic propaganda that I couldn't get past my own assumptions about economics." (For
the record, libertarians have
critiqued Carlson's
monologue as well.)
Carlson told me that beyond changing our tax code, he has no major policies in mind. "I'm not even making the case for an
economic system in particular," he told me. "All I'm saying is don't act like the way things are is somehow ordained by God or a
function or raw nature."
And clearly, our market economy isn't driven by God or nature, as the stock market soars and unemployment dips and yet even those
on the right are noticing lengthy periods of wage stagnation and dying little towns across the country. But what to do about those
dying little towns, and which dying towns we care about and which we don't, and, most importantly, whose fault it is that those towns
are dying in the first place -- those are all questions Carlson leaves to the viewer to answer.
If China Is Suffering So Much Because of Trump's Trade War, Why Is Its Surplus Up So
Much?
By Dean Baker
Donald Trump has made his tariffs against China and other countries a big part of his
agenda as president. He even went so far as to dub himself "Tariff Man" on Twitter.
The media have been quick to assume that Tariff Man is accomplishing his goals, especially
with regard to China. It is standard for news articles, like this one, to assert that China's
economy is suffering in large part because of Trump's tariffs.
In fact, through the first ten months of 2018 China's trade surplus * with the United
States on trade in goods has been $344.5 billion. This is up 11.5 percent from its surplus in
the same months last year.
The tariffs surely are having some effect, and China's surplus would almost certainly be
larger if they were not in place. But it is difficult to believe that China's $13.5 trillion
dollar economy (measured at exchange rate values) could be hurt all that much by somewhat
slower growth in its trade surplus with the United States. (For arithmetic fans, the surplus
is equal to 2.5 percent of China's GDP. We are talking about slower growth in this
surplus.)
It is worth noting that we will not be getting new trade data until the government
shutdown is over since the Census Bureau is one of the government agencies without funding
for fiscal year 2019.
I posted an NYT piece the other day
that described an automobile-headlight
manufacturer in Michigan who was struggling
to get LED bulbs from China, where they were
usually in plentiful supply, So, he was just
*trying* to stockpile some inventory.
Trump Has Promised to Bring Jobs Back. His Tariffs Threaten to Send Them Away.
By Peter S. Goodman
For EBW Electronics, the biggest hit has come through increased costs for components,
including transistors, resistors and capacitors. Across the breadth of the factory, workers
in blue lab coats slot these nibs of metal into circuit boards and then attach LED lights,
most of these items imported from China.
These components are produced at enormous scale in China. Even with tariffs on Chinese
imports, American factories have no incentive to make them, because profit margins are tiny,
and the costs are vast.
"Nobody in this country wants to make these things," said Mr. Steeby, the EBW president,
echoing a contention heard widely here.
The company has filed for exemptions from the tariffs, but has yet to hear back from the
federal government. And EBW has encountered stiff resistance in passing on the extra costs to
its customers, though it is obliged to continue delivering lights to major auto manufacturers
at agreed-upon prices, or pay fines for interfering with production.
"We're the monkey in the middle," said Mr. LeBlanc, the EBW chairman.
If Mr. Trump follows through on threats to raise tariffs to 25 percent, EBW and its 230
employees could face dire circumstances.
"At 25 percent, we are not making money," Mr. Steeby said. "There's a threat that you
cease to exist, or there's a threat that jobs move to Mexico."
In an era of anxiety over global competition, EBW has engaged Chinese suppliers to produce
a crucial commodity -- American paychecks. Now, Mr. Trump's tariffs have put jobs at
risk.
"There's no intelligence to the way this is being done," Mr. Steeby said. "The tariffs are
designed to hurt China, but they are being paid by American companies."
Of course, the Mr. Steeby, President of EBW Electronics, is without question, honest and
trustworthy. Like a boy scout, he would never lie. What he said should be taken as the gospel
truth, not a grain of salt.
I posted an NYT piece the other day
that described an automobile-headlight
manufacturer in Michigan who was struggling
to get LED bulbs from China, where they were
usually in plentiful supply, So, he was just
*trying* to stockpile some inventory.
[ There is no indication the company is stockpiling LED bulbs, and there is no indication
there is stockpiling as yet through the economy. ]
[ No, the matter is important, and I am correct and do not care to be baited.
This is no data showing that American companies are stockpiling. American companies have
long operated with minimal inventory and a change would be dramatic. ]
"... Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble, which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible without 2008 events. ..."
Barkley insists on a left-right split for his analysis of political parties and their attachment to vague policy tendencies
and that insistence makes a mess of the central issue: why the rise of right-wing populism in a "successful" economy?
Naomi Klein's book is about how and why centrist neoliberals got control of policy. The rise of right-wing populism is often
supposed (see Mark Blyth) to be about the dissatisfaction bred by the long-term shortcomings of or blowback from neoliberal policy.
Barkley Rosser treats neoliberal policy as implicitly successful and, therefore, the reaction from the populist right appears
mysterious, something to investigate. His thesis regarding neoliberal success in Poland is predicated on policy being less severe,
less "shocky".
In his left-right division of Polish politics, the centrist neoliberals -- in the 21st century, Civic Platform -- seem to disappear
into the background even though I think they are still the second largest Party in Parliament, though some seem to think they
will sink in elections this year.
Electoral participation is another factor that receives little attention in this analysis. Politics is shaped in part by the
people who do NOT show up. And, in Poland that has sometimes been a lot of people, indeed.
Finally, there's the matter of the neoliberal straitjacket -- the flip-side of the shock in the one-two punch of "there's no
alternative". What the policy options for a Party representing the interests of the angry and dissatisfied? If you make policy
impossible for a party of the left, of course that breeds parties of the right. duh.
Likbez,
Bruce,
Blowback from the neoliberal policy is coming. I would consider the current situation in the USA as the starting point of this
"slow-motion collapse of the neoliberal garbage truck against the wall." Neoliberalism like Bolshevism in 1945 has no future,
only the past. That does not mean that it will not limp forward in zombie (and pretty bloodthirsty ) stage for another 50 years.
But it is doomed, notwithstanding recently staged revenge in countries like Ukraine, Argentina, and Brazil.
Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble,
which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible
without 2008 events.
At least half of Americans now hate soft neoliberals of Democratic Party (Clinton wing of Bought by Wall Street technocrats),
as well as hard neoliberal of Republican Party, which created the " crisis of confidence" toward governing neoliberal elite in
countries like the USA, GB, and France. And that probably why the intelligence agencies became the prominent political players
and staged the color revolution against Trump (aka Russiagate ) in the USA.
The situation with the support of neoliberalism now is very different than in 1994 when Bill Clinton came to power. Of course,
as Otto von Bismarck once quipped "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." and another
turn of the technological spiral might well save the USA. But the danger of never-ending secular stagnation is substantial and
growing. This fact was admitted even by such dyed- in-the-wool neoliberals as Summers.
This illusion that advances in statistics gave neoliberal access to such fine-grained and timely economic data, that now it
is possible to regulate economy indirectly, by strictly monetary means is pure religious hubris. Milton Friedman would now be
laughed out the room if he tried to repeat his monetarist junk science now. Actually he himself discarded his monetarist illusions
before he died.
We probably need to the return of strong direct investments in the economy by the state and nationalization of some assets,
if we want to survive and compete with China. Australian politicians are already openly discussing this, we still are lagging
because of "walking dead" neoliberals in Congress like Pelosi, Schumer, and company.
But we have another huge problem, which Australia and other countries (other than GB) do not have: neoliberalism in the USA
is the state religion which completely displaced Christianity (and is hostile to Christianity), so it might be that the lemming
will go off the cliff. I hope not.
The only thing that still keeps neoliberalism from being thrown out to the garbage bin of history is that it is unclear what
would the alternative. And that means that like in 1920th far-right nationalism and fascism have a fighting chance against decadent
neoliberal oligarchy.
Previously financial oligarchy was in many minds associated with Jewish bankers. Now people are more educated and probably
can hang from the lampposts Anglo-Saxon and bankers of other nationalities as well ;-)
I think that in some countries neoliberal oligarchs might soon feel very uncomfortable, much like Soros in Hungary.
As far as I understood the level of animosity and suppressed anger toward financial oligarchy and their stooges including some
professors in economics departments of the major universities might soon be approaching the level which existed in the Weimar
Republic. And as Lenin noted, " the ideas could become a material force if they got mass support." This is true about anger as
well.
If I could pinpoint where the things went wrong for the
west – I would say it happened when they invented the idiocy of multiculturalism. It was
supposed to prevent socialist revolution and on the face of it, it seemed pretty clever, but
it's actually a moronic idea.
The thing that you are supposed to prevent should be the absolute worst case scenario,
replaced with more benign idea. With multiculturalism – its' actually the opposite.
The remedy is worse than the malady. Multiculturalism is going to destroy the western
civilization.
With that in mind and in the spirit of public service, I propose to replace the propaganda
slogan: Diversity is our strength (which doesn't make sense to anybody), with a more logical
and understandable propaganda slogan:
Diversity is our perversity. What Lies Behind the Malaise of the West?
Elite double income families have enjoyed great prosperity and influence and required many
desk jobs for their wives and daughters, preferably in government. They have been fine, had a
kid or two now and again and are very keen on their own self perceived virtue. Deep down they
know the two incomes they enjoy comes at the expense of working class men who might aspire to
better but are now rarely satisfied.
Further down the ladder poor men and women can rarely form bond and form stable families.
They have little money and their women would rather use Uncle Sam as a partner.
They are harassed by one do-gooding government department after another.
The same do-Gooders have no problem with poor communities being flooded with porn and
smut, nor do they seem overly concerned about rising house prices and rent. Wonder why?
There is a cancer in the entire west, and it is leading to great inequality.
MEN MUST STOP CHASING SEX AND THINK OF THEIR NEIGHBOR PARTICULARLY THEIR POOR
NEIGHBOR.
@Ace
"All if this combines to ensure that America is the go-to place for clowns everywhere.
Nothing will be able to correct this cavalcade of lunacy, chaos, depravity, and destruction
except economic catastrophe, coming soon to a neighborhood on top of you. Then to be followed
immediately by dictatorship and years of statist and racial excess until, with luck, we
reduscover what we have now uf we'd but lift a finger to protect it."
Congratulations, you are a doormat to the decline. So, what are you prepared to do about
this dire situation other than lament and complain?
"... Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble, which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible without 2008 events. ..."
Barkley insists on a left-right split for his analysis of political parties and their attachment to vague policy tendencies
and that insistence makes a mess of the central issue: why the rise of right-wing populism in a "successful" economy?
Naomi Klein's book is about how and why centrist neoliberals got control of policy. The rise of right-wing populism is often
supposed (see Mark Blyth) to be about the dissatisfaction bred by the long-term shortcomings of or blowback from neoliberal policy.
Barkley Rosser treats neoliberal policy as implicitly successful and, therefore, the reaction from the populist right appears
mysterious, something to investigate. His thesis regarding neoliberal success in Poland is predicated on policy being less severe,
less "shocky".
In his left-right division of Polish politics, the centrist neoliberals -- in the 21st century, Civic Platform -- seem to disappear
into the background even though I think they are still the second largest Party in Parliament, though some seem to think they
will sink in elections this year.
Electoral participation is another factor that receives little attention in this analysis. Politics is shaped in part by the
people who do NOT show up. And, in Poland that has sometimes been a lot of people, indeed.
Finally, there's the matter of the neoliberal straitjacket -- the flip-side of the shock in the one-two punch of "there's no
alternative". What the policy options for a Party representing the interests of the angry and dissatisfied? If you make policy
impossible for a party of the left, of course that breeds parties of the right. duh.
Likbez,
Bruce,
Blowback from the neoliberal policy is coming. I would consider the current situation in the USA as the starting point of this
"slow-motion collapse of the neoliberal garbage truck against the wall." Neoliberalism like Bolshevism in 1945 has no future,
only the past. That does not mean that it will not limp forward in zombie (and pretty bloodthirsty ) stage for another 50 years.
But it is doomed, notwithstanding recently staged revenge in countries like Ukraine, Argentina, and Brazil.
Excessive financialization is the Achilles' heel of neoliberalism. It inevitably distorts everything, blows the asset bubble,
which then pops. With each pop, the level of political support of neoliberalism shrinks. Hillary defeat would have been impossible
without 2008 events.
At least half of Americans now hate soft neoliberals of Democratic Party (Clinton wing of Bought by Wall Street technocrats),
as well as hard neoliberal of Republican Party, which created the " crisis of confidence" toward governing neoliberal elite in
countries like the USA, GB, and France. And that probably why the intelligence agencies became the prominent political players
and staged the color revolution against Trump (aka Russiagate ) in the USA.
The situation with the support of neoliberalism now is very different than in 1994 when Bill Clinton came to power. Of course,
as Otto von Bismarck once quipped "God has a special providence for fools, drunkards, and the United States of America." and another
turn of the technological spiral might well save the USA. But the danger of never-ending secular stagnation is substantial and
growing. This fact was admitted even by such dyed- in-the-wool neoliberals as Summers.
This illusion that advances in statistics gave neoliberal access to such fine-grained and timely economic data, that now it
is possible to regulate economy indirectly, by strictly monetary means is pure religious hubris. Milton Friedman would now be
laughed out the room if he tried to repeat his monetarist junk science now. Actually he himself discarded his monetarist illusions
before he died.
We probably need to the return of strong direct investments in the economy by the state and nationalization of some assets,
if we want to survive and compete with China. Australian politicians are already openly discussing this, we still are lagging
because of "walking dead" neoliberals in Congress like Pelosi, Schumer, and company.
But we have another huge problem, which Australia and other countries (other than GB) do not have: neoliberalism in the USA
is the state religion which completely displaced Christianity (and is hostile to Christianity), so it might be that the lemming
will go off the cliff. I hope not.
The only thing that still keeps neoliberalism from being thrown out to the garbage bin of history is that it is unclear what
would the alternative. And that means that like in 1920th far-right nationalism and fascism have a fighting chance against decadent
neoliberal oligarchy.
Previously financial oligarchy was in many minds associated with Jewish bankers. Now people are more educated and probably
can hang from the lampposts Anglo-Saxon and bankers of other nationalities as well ;-)
I think that in some countries neoliberal oligarchs might soon feel very uncomfortable, much like Soros in Hungary.
As far as I understood the level of animosity and suppressed anger toward financial oligarchy and their stooges including some
professors in economics departments of the major universities might soon be approaching the level which existed in the Weimar
Republic. And as Lenin noted, " the ideas could become a material force if they got mass support." This is true about anger as
well.
"... If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in reserve. ..."
"... To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in their possession. ..."
"... I would venture to guess that most people in the US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions to pay much attention to the political realm ..."
"... The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House, the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses ..."
It is already safe to declare Trump's plan to Make America Great Again (MAGA) a failure.
Beneath the rosy statistics of US economic growth hides the hideous fact that it is the
result of a tax holiday granted to transnational corporations to entice them to repatriate
their profits. While this hasn't helped them (their stocks are currently cratering) it has
been a disaster for the US government as well as for the economic system as whole. Tax
receipts have shrunk. The budget deficit for 2018 exceeds $779 billion.
Meanwhile, the trade wars which Trump initiated have caused the trade deficit to
increase by 17% from the year before. Plans to repatriate industrial production from
low-cost countries remain vaporous because the three key elements which China had as it
industrialized (cheap energy, cheap labor and low cost of doing business) are altogether
missing. Government debt is already beyond reasonable and its expansion is still
accelerating, with just the interest payments set to exceed half a trillion a year within a
decade.
This trajectory does not bode well for the continued existence of the United States as a
going concern. Nobody, either in the United States or beyond, has the power to
significantly alter this trajectory. Trump's thrashing about may have moved things along
faster than they otherwise would have, at least in the sense of helping convince the entire
world that the US is selfish, feckless, ultimately self-destructive and generally
unreliable as a partner. In the end it won't matter who was president of the US -- it never
has. Among those the US president has succeeded in hurting most are his European allies.
His attacks on Russian energy exports to Europe, on European car manufacturers and on
Europe's trade with Iran have caused a fair amount of damage, both political and economic,
without compensating for it with any perceived or actual benefits.
Meanwhile, as the globalist world order, which much of Europe's population appears ready
to declare a failure, begins to unravel, the European Union is rapidly becoming
ungovernable, with established political parties unable to form coalitions with
ever-more-numerous populist upstarts. It is too early to say that the EU has already failed
altogether, but it already seems safe to predict that within a decade it will no longer
remain as a serious international factor.
Although the disastrous quality and the ruinous mistakes of Europe's own leadership
deserve a lot of the blame, some of it should rest with the erratic, destructive behavior
of their transoceanic Big Brother. The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional
affair, unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington, which is going to either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get
chased out from much of the world.
The departure from Syria is inevitable whether Trump, under relentless pressure from his
bipartisan warmongers, backtracks on this commitment or not. Now that Syria has been armed
with Russia's up-to-date air defense weapons the US no longer maintains air superiority
there, and without air superiority the US military is unable to do anything. Afghanistan is
next; there, it seems outlandish to think that the Washingtonians will be able to achieve
any sort of reasonable accommodation with the Taliban.
Their departure will spell the end of Kabul as a center of corruption where foreigners
steal humanitarian aid and other resources. Somewhere along the way the remaining US troops
will also be pulled out of Iraq, where the parliament, angered by Trump's impromptu visit
to a US base, recently voted to expel them. And that will put paid to the entire US
adventure in the Middle East since 9/11: $4,704,439,588,308 has been squandered, to be
precise , or $14,444 for every man, woman and child in the US.
The biggest winners in all of this are, obviously, the people of the entire region,
because they will no longer be subjected to indiscriminate US harassment and bombardment,
followed by Russia, China and Iran, with Russia solidifying its position as the ultimate
arbiter of international security arrangements thanks to its unmatched military
capabilities and demonstrated knowhow for coercion to peace. Syria's fate will be decided
by Russia, Iran and Turkey, with the US not even invited to the talks. Afghanistan will
fall into the sphere of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. And the biggest losers will
be former US regional allies, first and foremost Israel, followed by Saudi Arabia.
My question for you is this: where would you place the US (or the Empire) on your 5 stages
of decline and do you believe that the US (or the Empire) can reverse that trend?
Here is Dmitry's reply:
Collapse, at each stage, is a historical process that takes time to run its course as the
system adapts to changing circumstances, compensates for its weaknesses and finds ways to
continue functioning at some level. But what changes rather suddenly is faith or, to put it
in more businesslike terms, sentiment. A large segment of the population or an entire
political class within a country or the entire world can function based on a certain set of
assumptions for much longer than the situation warrants but then over a very short period of
time switch to a different set of assumptions. All that sustains the status quo beyond that
point is institutional inertia. It imposes limits on how fast systems can change without
collapsing entirely. Beyond that point, people will tolerate the older practices only until
replacements for them can be found.
Stage 1: Financial collapse. Faith in "business as usual" is lost.
Internationally, the major change in sentiment in the world has to do with the role of the
US dollar (and, to a lesser extent, the Euro and the Yen -- the other two reserve currencies
of the three-legged globalist central banker stool). The world is transitioning to the use of
local currencies, currency swaps and commodities markets backed by gold. The catalyst for
this change of sentiment was provided by the US administration itself which sawed through its
own perch by its use of unilateral sanctions. By using its control over dollar-based
transactions to block international transactions it doesn't happen to like it forced other
countries to start looking for alternatives. Now a growing list of countries sees throwing
off the shackles of the US dollar as a strategic goal. Russia and China use the ruble and the
yuan for their expanding trade; Iran sells oil to India for rupees. Saudi Arabia has started
to accept the yuan for its oil.
This change has many knock-on effects. If the dollar is no longer needed to conduct
international trade, other nations no longer have hold large quantities of it in
reserve. Consequently, there is no longer a need to buy up large quantities of US
Treasury notes. Therefore, it becomes unnecessary to run large trade surpluses with the US,
essentially conducting trade at a loss. Further, the attractiveness of the US as an export
market drops and the cost of imports to the US rises, thereby driving up cost inflation. A
vicious spiral ensues in which the ability of the US government to borrow internationally to
finance the gaping chasm of its various deficits becomes impaired. Sovereign default of the
US government and national bankruptcy then follow.
The US may still look mighty, but its dire fiscal predicament coupled with its denial of
the inevitability of bankruptcy, makes it into something of a Blanche DuBois from the
Tennessee Williams play "A Streetcar Named Desire." She was "always dependent on the kindness
of strangers" but was tragically unable to tell the difference between kindness and desire.
In this case, the desire is for national advantage and security, and to minimize risk by
getting rid of an unreliable trading partner.
How quickly or slowly this comes to pass is difficult to guess at and impossible to
calculate. It is possible to think of the financial system in terms of a physical analogue,
with masses of funds traveling at some velocity having a certain inertia (p = mv) and with
forces acting on that mass to accelerate it along a different trajectory (F = ma). It is also
possible to think of it in terms of hordes of stampeding animals who can change course
abruptly when panicked. The recent abrupt moves in the financial markets, where trillions of
dollars of notional, purely speculative value have been wiped out within weeks, are more in
line with the latter model.
Stage 2: Commercial collapse. Faith that "the market shall provide" is lost.
Within the US there is really no other alternative than the market. There are a few rustic
enclaves, mostly religious communities, that can feed themselves, but that's a rarity. For
everyone else there is no choice but to be a consumer. Consumers who are broke are called
"bums," but they are still consumers. To the extent that the US has a culture, it is a
commercial culture in which the goodness of a person is based on the goodly sums of money in
their possession. Such a culture can die by becoming irrelevant (when everyone is dead
broke) but by then most of the carriers of this culture are likely to be dead too.
Alternatively, it can be replaced by a more humane culture that isn't entirely based on the
cult of Mammon -- perhaps, dare I think, through a return to a pre-Protestant, pre-Catholic
Christian ethic that values people's souls above objects of value?
Stage 3: Political collapse. Faith that "the government will take care of you" is
lost.
All is very murky at the moment, but I would venture to guess that most people in the
US are too distracted, too stressed and too preoccupied with their own vices and obsessions
to pay much attention to the political realm . Of the ones they do pay attention, a fair
number of them seem clued in to the fact that the US is not a democracy at all but an
elites-only sandbox in which transnational corporate and oligarchic interests build and knock
down each others' sandcastles.
The extreme political polarization, where two virtually identical pro-capitalist, pro-war
parties pretend to wage battle by virtue-signaling may be a symptom of the extremely decrepit
state of the entire political arrangement: people are made to watch the billowing smoke and
to listen to the deafening noise in the hopes that they won't notice that the wheels are no
longer turning.
The fact that what amounts to palace intrigue -- the fracas between the White House,
the two houses of Congress and a ghoulish grand inquisitor named Mueller -- has taken center
stage is uncannily reminiscent of various earlier political collapses , such as the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire or of the fall and the consequent beheading of Louis
XVI. The fact that Trump, like the Ottoman worthies, stocks his harem with East European
women, lends an eerie touch. That said, most people in the US seem blind to the nature of
their overlords in a way that the French, with their Gilettes Jaunes movement (just
as an example) are definitely not.
Stage 4: Social collapse. Faith that "your people will take care of you" is lost.
I have been saying for some years now that within the US social collapse has largely run
its course, although whether people actually believe that is an entire matter entirely.
Defining "your people" is rather difficult. The symbols are still there -- the flag, the
Statue of Liberty and a predilection for iced drinks and heaping plates of greasy fried foods
-- but the melting pot seems to have suffered a meltdown and melted all the way to China. At
present half the households within the US speak a language other than English at home, and a
fair share of the rest speak dialects of English that are not mutually intelligible with the
standard North American English dialect of broadcast television and university lecturers.
Throughout its history as a British colony and as a nation the US has been dominated by
the Anglo ethnos. The designation "ethnos" is not an ethnic label. It is not strictly based
on genealogy, language, culture, habitat, form of government or any other single factor or
group of factors. These may all be important to one extent or another, but the viability of
an ethnos is based solely on its cohesion and the mutual inclusivity and common purpose of
its members. The Anglo ethnos reached its zenith in the wake of World War II, during which
many social groups were intermixed in the military and their more intelligent members.
Fantastic potential was unleashed when privilege -- the curse of the Anglo ethnos since
its inception -- was temporarily replaced with merit and the more talented demobilized men,
of whatever extraction, were given a chance at education and social advancement by the GI
Bill. Speaking a new sort of American English based on the Ohio dialect as a Lingua Franca,
these Yanks -- male, racist, sexist and chauvinistic and, at least in their own minds,
victorious -- were ready to remake the entire world in their own image.
They proceeded to flood the entire world with oil (US oil production was in full flush
then) and with machines that burned it. Such passionate acts of ethnogenesis are rare but not
unusual: the Romans who conquered the entire Mediterranean basin, the barbarians who then
sacked Rome, the Mongols who later conquered most of Eurasia and the Germans who for a very
brief moment possessed an outsized Lebensraum are other examples.
And now it is time to ask: what remains of this proud conquering Anglo ethnos today? We
hear shrill feminist cries about "toxic masculinity" and minorities of every stripe railing
against "whitesplaining" and in response we hear a few whimpers but mostly silence. Those
proud, conquering, virile Yanks who met and fraternized with the Red Army at the River Elbe
on April 25, 1945 -- where are they? Haven't they devolved into a sad little subethnos of
effeminate, porn-addicted overgrown boys who shave their pubic hair and need written
permission to have sex without fear of being charged with rape?
Will the Anglo ethnos persist as a relict, similar to how the English have managed to hold
onto their royals (who are technically no longer even aristocrats since they now practice
exogamy with commoners)? Or will it get wiped out in a wave of depression, mental illness and
opiate abuse, its glorious history of rapine, plunder and genocide erased and the statues of
its war heros/criminals knocked down? Only time will tell.
Stage 5: Cultural collapse. Faith in "the goodness of humanity" is lost.
The term "culture" means many things to many people, but it is more productive to observe
cultures than to argue about them. Cultures are expressed through people's stereotypical
behaviors that are readily observable in public. These are not the negative stereotypes often
used to identify and reject outsiders but the positive stereotypes -- cultural standards of
behavior, really -- that serve as requirements for social adequacy and inclusion. We can
readily assess the viability of a culture by observing the stereotypical behaviors of its
members.
It is possible to quote statistics or to provide anecdotal evidence to assess the state
and the viability of a culture, but your own eyes and other senses can provide all the
evidence you need to make that determination for yourself and to decide how much faith to put
in "the goodness of humanity" that is evident in the people around you.
Dmity concluded his reply by summarizing his view like this:
Cultural and social collapse are very far along. Financial collapse is waiting for a
trigger. Commercial collapse will happen in stages some of which -- food deserts, for
instance -- have already happened in many places. Political collapse will only become visible
once the political class gives up. It's not as simple as saying which stage we are at. They
are all happening in parallel, to one extent or another.
My own (totally subjective) opinion is that the US has already reached stages 1 through 4,
and that there are signs that stage 5 has begun; mainly in big cities as US small towns and
rural areas (Trump's power base
Don't expect these two losers to fix anything, they will only make things worse
In the meantime, the US ruling elites are locked into an ugly internal struggle which only
further weakens the US. What is so telling is that the Democrats are still stuck with their
same clueless, incompetent and infinitely arrogant leadership, in spite of the fact that
everybody knows that the Democratic Party is in deep crisis and that new faces are desperately
needed. But no, they are still completely stuck in their old ways and the same gang of
gerontocrats continues to rule the party apparatus.
That is another surefire sign of degeneracy: when a regime can only produce incompetent,
often old, leaders who are completely out of touch with reality and who blame their own
failures on internal ("deplorables") and external ("the Russians") factors. Again, think of the
Soviet Union under Brezhnev, the Apartheid regime in South Africa under F. W. de Klerk, or the
Kerensky regime in 1917 Russia.
As for the Republicans, they are basically a subsidiary of the Israeli Likud Party. Just
take a look at the long list of losers the Likud produced at home, and you will get a sense of
what they can do in its US colony.
Eventually the US will rebound; I have no doubts about that at all. This is a big country
with millions of immensely talented people, immense natural resources and no credible threat to
it's territory. But that can only happen after a real regime change (as opposed to a change in
Presidential Administration) which, itself, is only going to happen after an "E2 catastrophe"
collapse.
The EU has already morphed into a strictly regional affair, unable to project power or
entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes for Washington, which is going to
either depart voluntarily (due to lack of funds) or get chased out from much of the
world.
Well, it's O.K. to have online therapy with that brief dopamine rush every now and then.
Does help, I guess.
But, looks like, in order to keep having the "fix" the blathering is becoming ludicrous.
Starting to feel desperate.
Like: " unable to project power or entertain any global geopolitical ambitions. Same goes
for Washington .".
"... As for the international financial system - "a lottery whose winnings flow from the South to the North", according to Mshana's definition - the general consensus was that it needed to be reformed. Mechanisms need to be put in place to limit the arbitrary movement of speculative capital and make sure that the capital invested in poor countries actually stays there and is used for development. ..."
"... As far as the new methods of debt cancellation are concerned, "these are inadequate and do not solve the problem", Mshana explained. "What is needed is total cancellation and the introduction of a whole new system". One striking proposal was for an International Court under the aegis of the United Nations to judge the legitimacy of debts, taking into account the joint responsibility of debtors and creditors. ..."
Criticism of neoliberal globalization cannot only be economic; it must also be theological. Theological analysis formed part of
two workshops in which the WCC covered the theme of alternatives to economic globalization. "We have seen that the neoliberal paradigm
is a new Tower of Babel, an arrogant project that aims to impose a uniformity that is contrary to God's will for a kingdom that respects
diversity", stated Mshana. "The churches have a great opportunity here for prophetic condemnation and education."
Participants at the workshops agreed that in matters such as access to clean water, "when it comes to choosing between the technical
or the ethical approach, between the market or human rights, priority must go to the latter", Mshana stated. The churches can therefore
make a valuable contribution: "The churches must work very hard to bring pressure to bear on the international financial institutions
not just to go along with the market solution".
The workshops also tackled the subjects of world trade, the international financial system and debt, all of which, in their present
form, are harmful to the poor. With regard to trade, participants gave their backing to campaigns for fair trade like the Trade for
people, not people for trade campaign sponsored by the Ecumenical Advocacy Alliance.
As for the international financial system - "a lottery whose winnings flow from the South to the North", according to Mshana's
definition - the general consensus was that it needed to be reformed. Mechanisms need to be put in place to limit the arbitrary movement
of speculative capital and make sure that the capital invested in poor countries actually stays there and is used for development.
As far as the new methods of debt cancellation are concerned, "these are inadequate and do not solve the problem", Mshana explained.
"What is needed is total cancellation and the introduction of a whole new system". One striking proposal was for an International
Court under the aegis of the United Nations to judge the legitimacy of debts, taking into account the joint responsibility of debtors
and creditors.
"... While we have failed to live out our love, international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization have enforced finance and trade policies which have indebted nations and forced them to service social and economic debt rather than their people and Earth. ..."
"... When US and Canadian corporations extract minerals and resources from other countries in order to operate without environmental safeguards or labour codes, do not pay their fair share of taxes and royalties, and use paramilitary forces against protesters and to displace indigenous communities; ..."
"... There is a new world in the making. You are working on behalf of Your people and restoring the good Earth You created. This world matters as do people's concrete struggles within it. It is our reminder to care for each other and all of Creation. You are a God of redemption, not of destruction, and invite us to participate in redemptive acts. ..."
We confess that the whole of Creation bears the marks of God. God is our Creator; we love
God, all of Creation and one another. We see that God wants the world to be a circle where
everyone has a place. However, in North America, we have failed to live out our love.
While we have failed to live out our love, corporations have pursued violent development
grabbing air, land and water; drowning islands; desertifying lands; violating human rights; and
creating conditions of war.
While we have failed to live out our love, international financial institutions like the
International Monetary Fund, World Bank and World Trade Organization have enforced finance and
trade policies which have indebted nations and forced them to service social and economic debt
rather than their people and Earth.
In our limitless pursuit of individual and national wealth and power, we are complicit in a
market system that exploits natural resources and people within and beyond our borders:
When temporary foreign workers care for our children and grandparents, work on our farms,
receive low wages, work long hours, live and work in harsh conditions, are vulnerable to abuse,
have their human rights violated, fill other jobs that the common excuse says: "no North
American would do";
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those
things which we ought not to have done.
When companies designate landfills and chemical dumps in the neighbourhoods of poor and
marginalized people;
When US and Canadian corporations extract minerals and resources from other countries in
order to operate without environmental safeguards or labour codes, do not pay their fair share
of taxes and royalties, and use paramilitary forces against protesters and to displace
indigenous communities;
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those
things which we ought not to have done.
When those who have contributed the least to greenhouse gas emissions are the first to
suffer the effects of climate change, and we demand that they reduce their greenhouse gas
emissions without taking care of our own;
When we have watched the increased reliance on the military to pursue national
self-interest, defend corporate interests, and cause forced migration in the rest of the
world;
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; and we have done those
things which we ought not to have done.
For too long, we have said and done too little. We have prioritized profit at the expense of
clean air and water, devastated species and ecosystems, devalued people and their cultures,
enriched the wealthy few and impoverished the poorest in our society and the global family.
These examples demonstrate the ecological debt we owe to Earth and the ecological
indebtedness of the rich to the poor. The cry of Earth and the poor are one.
Wisdom
Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from
the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city. On either side
of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each
month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ( Revelation
22:1-2)
We are compelled and inspired by this vision of hope with respect to poverty, wealth and
ecology, a new vision of Earth and the people who are dependent upon its abundance.
The great tree, echoing Genesis description of an idyllic garden, spans the river of the
water of life. This image evokes not a singular tree but a vast, verdant forest that provides
twelve kinds of fruit. In this way, the tree will bring food for all of God's people every
month of the year. The vision of a redeemed Creation is one of a healthy Earth that will bring
healing to the nations.
We have heard the wisdom of the worker, the scientist, the ancestor, the great tree, the
river of the water of life. We have heard the wisdom of Your whole Creation calling us toward
healing.
There is a new world in the making. You are working on behalf of Your people and restoring
the good Earth You created. This world matters as do people's concrete struggles within it. It
is our reminder to care for each other and all of Creation. You are a God of redemption, not of
destruction, and invite us to participate in redemptive acts.
Healing
Creator, You endowed all of Your Creation with dignity, including human beings, a shining
strand in the glimmering web of life.
Yet today, Creation is not the way it is supposed to be. We've seen the toxic pools, the
gouged Earth, the forecasts of increased global average temperatures that will permanently
change life on Earth. Climate change is the enveloping reality we live in.
We are alarmed by the increased concentration of wealth owned by a few. We know that poverty
strips dignity away.
We have put our faith in what we have created – idols of gold and silver, luxury and
consumer goods, markets and technology - rather than in You, our Creator.
Creator, enliven our imaginations to restore Your Creation. Heal our broken lives and
communities.
Redeemer, save us from our greed, and the structures, policies and laws we've established
that sustain and protect unearned privilege. We have heard the indictment in the gospel of
Luke: "we take what we did not deposit, we reap what we did not sow." Already, we are taking
more than Earth can offer, and returning more waste than Earth can absorb.
Save us from a "prosperity" gospel that neglects Your radical gospel of justice and hope for
all.
Redeemer, grant us the courage to restore Your Creation. Heal our broken lives and
communities.
Holy Spirit, come quickly. We are poor, we are rich; we are oppressed, we are oppressors.
Reconcile us to one another, reconcile us with Earth. May the churches we represent be agents
of reconciliation, centres for caring communities and shared sacrifice, models of an ethic of
solidarity with future generations and our neighbours. Light us with a passion for justice,
peace and solidarity.
Holy Spirit, breathe into us the passion to work together, to restore Your Creation. Heal
our broken lives and communities.
Thanksgiving
We give thanks for young people who are inventing new forms of resistance to greed and
injustice through forums like the Occupy movement and the "people's microphone."
We give thanks for the prophets among us who challenge our idolatry of the unregulated
Market and who confront us with our addiction to the carbon economy.
We give thanks for the elders among us, who help us remember a time when it wasn't always
like this; who call on the community's invisible heart to counter the Market's invisible hand;
who help us to remember what a moral economy looks like.
We give thanks for the witness of those of our ancestors who have taught us our rightful
place in Creation and who have spoken truth to power; who understood that Christ is found among
those who are hungry, homeless, imprisoned and downtrodden.
We give thanks for our ecumenical partners who continue to deepen our common witness based
on ecojustice principles of solidarity, sufficiency, sustainability and equity in the economy
and Earth.
We give thanks for the power of being together, and for all those friends and allies who
help us to remember who we are as a justice loving people.
************
Vision & Action
Write the vision; make it plain on tablets, so that a runner may read it.For
there is still a vision (Habbakuk 2: 2-3)
We see a time of new beginnings, of Jubilee, when greenhouse gases in the atmosphere no
longer threaten life, when the carbon economy has been transformed, and we no longer mortgage
our children's future. We see a time when unsustainable development has been rejected in favour
of just, participatory and sustainable communities. We see a time when Earth has begun its
regeneration and like God with Noah, we have covenanted with God and Creation to never destroy
it again.
What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have
works? (James 2:14)
We commit ourselves to lives of integrity and justice where we share all God's resources
equitably, reduce our carbon footprint, seek right relationship in our economic transactions
and strengthen the campaign for climate justice.
We call on churches, interfaith partners and all people of goodwill to work together to
achieve this timeless and compelling vision. In order to mobilize appropriate resources and as
a first step we call on the World Council of Churches, its member churches, and its sister
ecumenical bodies to undertake a decade of action on ecojustice encompassing both ecological
and economic justice.
We call on our North American churches to take action to transition from carbon-based to
renewable energy, to narrow the gap between those of us who are rich and those of us who are
poor, to respond to the needs of climate refugees, to hold their pension fund and investment
managers accountable for the ethical implications of their investments, and to advocate for
policies that will restore ecological balance.
We call on businesses and industries to commit to principles of integrity by complying with
human rights codes; by shifting investments from carbon-based to renewable energy; and by
showing leadership in reducing the gap between the rich and the poor by paying fair wages and
paying their fair share of taxes.
We call on our governments to govern with integrity by implementing a moratorium on further
development of the tar sands; compelling corporations to operate with the highest available
environmental and labour standards wherever they do business on the globe; prohibiting
excessive interest rates; legislating an international financial transactions tax to begin to
make restitution for ecological debt; reallocating budgets from the military and systems of
death and destruction to systems that promote the abundance of life; working for a new
financial architecture; and ensuring that commercial banking is clearly separated from
investment banking (speculative investments and financial transactions).
"... 47 representatives of churches from Central and Eastern Europe, along with resource persons, met June 24-28 in Budapest, Hungary. They were from Orthodox, Protestant and Roman Catholic churches, including a presenter delegated by the Council of the European Bishops' Conferences. In addition, 30 guests and staff persons of regional and international ecumenical and civil organizations from around the world were present. All these came to Budapest at the invitation of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the WARC European Area Committee. Also accompanying the process was the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The consultation is part of the joint process on globalization of these organizations that grew out of the call of the WARC General Council in 1997 in Debrecen, Hungary for "covenanting for justice in the economy and the earth (Processus Confessionis)" and the recommendations on globalization made by the General Assembly of the World Council Churches 1998 in Harare. It is the second in a series of regional meetings that began with a symposium in Bangkok and will continue with meetings of churches in the Pacific, Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and North America. The consultation was graciously supported and hosted by the Reformed Church in Hungary, and was held at the Reformed Theological College (Raday) of Budapest. ..."
"... The Foundations of the Social Concept of the ROC ..."
MESSAGE FROM THE JOINT CONSULTATION ON GLOBALIZATION IN CENTRAL
AND EASTERN EUROPE: RESPONSES TO THE ECOLOGICAL, ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES, JUNE, 24-28,
2001, BUDAPEST
47 representatives of churches from Central and Eastern Europe, along with resource
persons, met June 24-28 in Budapest, Hungary. They were from Orthodox, Protestant and Roman
Catholic churches, including a presenter delegated by the Council of the European Bishops'
Conferences. In addition, 30 guests and staff persons of regional and international ecumenical
and civil organizations from around the world were present. All these came to Budapest at the
invitation of the World Council of Churches (WCC), the World Alliance of Reformed Churches
(WARC), the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the WARC European Area Committee. Also
accompanying the process was the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The consultation is part of
the joint process on globalization of these organizations that grew out of the call of the WARC
General Council in 1997 in Debrecen, Hungary for "covenanting for justice in the economy and
the earth (Processus Confessionis)" and the recommendations on globalization made by the
General Assembly of the World Council Churches 1998 in Harare. It is the second in a series of
regional meetings that began with a symposium in Bangkok and will continue with meetings of
churches in the Pacific, Western Europe, Latin America, Africa and North America. The
consultation was graciously supported and hosted by the Reformed Church in Hungary, and was
held at the Reformed Theological College (Raday) of Budapest.
To be more
vigilant
About a decade ago, we, the people and churches in Central and Eastern Europe rejoiced as we
realized we were free. It was as if a deep shadow had passed by and that full daylight had
returned.
As we review the past ten years, it becomes clear that the magnitude and content of the
problems encountered have been grossly underestimated by both governments and churches. Also,
as we listen to reports from those whose suffering is most severe, we conclude that not all
their difficulties arise directly out of what happened more than ten years ago. This suggests
the need to be more vigilant in our journey with the women and men of Central and Eastern
Europe.
The countries in the region enjoy great cultural and religious diversity. We heard that some
of them show economic growth, increasing employment and environmental improvements according to
the data available. In the region as a whole, however, rising unemployment and the falling
value of pensions and wages has plunged millions of women and men into poverty. UNDP statistics
report (cf. United Nations Development Programme, Human Development Report for Central and
Eastern Europe and CIS, New York 1999; http.//www.undp.org/rbec/publications) , that
1989 about 14 million people in the former communistic block lived on less than four
dollars a day. By the mid-nineties that number had risen to 147 million people.
At the same time, and in sharp contrast, there has developed a new feature, that of
excessive wealth for a small minority.
Life expectancy fell significantly in some of the countries.
Health care, schooling and education standards declined.
Commerce based criminality grew rapidly.
Search for explanations
In relation to these facts, we felt a moral duty to search more diligently for additional
explanations for the prevailing mood of disappointment and the sense of betrayal. Working in
groups, the consultation examined the ecological, cultural, economic and social effects of
globalization on the region. The groups produced reports including the analysis, evaluation and
proposals for alternative action, which are reflected in this message. They identified two main
reasons behind the present difficulties in the region.
First was the actual way in which the challenge of the transformation of society was handled
by most authorities after 1989. Whereas Communism had depended on unrestricted state planning,
politicians and leaders now embraced the unrestrained market-mechanism as the path to a better
future. They did not discern that a market without social, cultural, and institutional
frameworks would undermine the very fabric of society. Privatization, liberalization and
deregulation of the market for the sake of economic growth was made a prerequisite for
receiving external loans and financial assistance . This neo-liberal �shock therapy',
requiring a shrinking role for the state, simply disabled existing social provisions for
ordinary women and men.
Second was the dynamic released by the new global information and communication technologies
and the phenomenal expansion of new �global' markets. These are often labeled �
globalization '. It is a complex term. Where it refers to growing possibilities for genuine
co-operation between nations and peoples with opportunities for communication and common
action, it has a positive connotation. Our consultation, for instance, benefited greatly from
the participation of Christians from many continents.
It has negative connotations where it refers to the dominance exercised by an ideology
legitimizing and promoting the unrestrained activities of players in the global markets, and
the unprecedented concentration of financial power in the hands of self-appointed
�rulers'. The unregulated flow of capital becomes the arbiter of the economic goodness
or badness of all human or political actions. In our consultation we made a clear distinction
between this neo-liberal project, which some call � globalism ', and the historic
process of �globalization' already referred to. It is driven by powerful economic self
interest. It commercializes human and institutional relationships and the very sources of life;
the earth, water, air and even the human body itself. The ideology, power structures and
practices this project entails accounts for dramatic changes in the economies and societies of
Central and Eastern Europe. Its immediate effects are to put pressure on governments at all
levels to cut social, medical, educational and environmental expenditure in order to be
�attractive' in the eyes of �global' capital. Women and other vulnerable groups
bear the greatest burden of its consequences.
This ideological emphasis on privatisation at any price, has undermined existing
infrastructures. Minimising the role of the state, it left the poor without adequate protection
and support and opened the door to criminal and speculative activities. Irresponsible owners
who had no interest in the fate of either companies or employees bought out many of the newly
privatised enterprises and banks. Alternative paths to ownership were hardly considered, nor
the idea that ownership brings social obligations.
Justice to the poor
This confusion about �globalization' is often used as an alibi, not only by important
international agencies, such as the IMF, the WTO and the World Bank, but also a growing number
of national governments. They demand harsh sacrifices of ordinary women and men as indicated
already. They do this despite reliable evidence that economic growth fails to promote human
development unless there is
adequate support for the poor, unemployed, and other vulnerable groups;
environmental protection;
transparency and accountability in government, and
effective participation by civil society (including labor unions).
Given this situation, our meeting arrived at the unequivocal conclusion:
No authority inside or outside the region should ever escape its responsibility to do to
justice to the poor and the needy by claiming the unavoidability of the requirements of
globalization.
Policies justified in this way are contrary to both scientific findings and the core of
Christian faith. They have to stop unconditionally and immediately. For, as it is stated so
well in the recent Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church:
"...the danger of differences that may emerge between people's will and international
organization's decisions should not be underestimated. These organizations may become
instruments for the unfair dominion of strong over weak countries, rich over poor, the
technologically and informationally developed over the rest. They may also practice double
standards, by applying international law in the interest of more influential states. All this
compels the Orthodox Church to call the powers that be, both on national and international
levels, to utter responsibility." (cf. The Foundations of the Social
Concept of the ROC )
12. It is vitally important for Christians to recognize that dependence upon this
neo-liberal ideology has deeply spiritual implications. It compels every participant to invest
his or her faith in Mammon. The question for us is a simple one, in whom do we put our trust
and in whom do we believe. Faith in the God of life sets us free from domination by Mammon.
This is not only a domain where churches can speak, but should speak. This faith, translated
into appropriate actions, is the ground of hope against that despair which, until now, so
characterizes the present situation and not just in this region.
SERVE PEOPLE, NOT POWER
CALL TO GOVERNMENTS AND TO THE WIDER PUBLIC IN THE REGION
1. Globalization dramatically transforms the nature of power. Democratically elected
governments and their delegates in international organisations are increasingly losing power to
the growing influence of international bureaucracies, transnational corporations, media-owners
and actors in the field of financial �global' capital. We challenge these power
structures, urging them to become more transparent, accountable and representative. The peoples
of the world should seize control of global political and economic processes. Democracy should
be reinstated in the new forms of decision-making, at local, national and international
levels.
2. Many political and economic processes require some kind of regulation at the
international level. They should not be employed by the state at the expense of the necessary
protection of vulnerable people.
3. The guiding idea for all our recommendations is the Biblical motif of Jubilee (Lev 25, Dt
15,Neh 5,Jes 61, Luc 4). This implies that all people are entitled to the basic resources of
life and the public provision that enables them to live in the household (oikonomia) of God's
creation. The economy of our societies ought therefore to be always household-orientated.
This insight leads us to the following recommendations.
Recommendations
4. Global finance should not be allowed to monopolise the decisive role in national and
regional economies by rendering them over-dependent on Foreign Direct Investment and
speculative capital. We strongly recommend that governments persist in striving for the
development of their home-economy, with special attention to the role of medium and small
businesses, and warn them against prioritising export-orientation at their expense.
5. Local economic initiatives need to be supported. This implies the strengthening of local
governments. Public authorities at all levels should insist on the maintenance of adequate
social support for the poor and strong environmental standards and resist international
financial pressure to eliminate them. 6. We ask governments to support the international
actions of those governments and civil organisations which, in order to democratise the
international monetary system, seek to regulate the flow of speculative international capital.
We ask the same support, especially from the rich industrialised countries, for international
efforts (like in Rio and Kyoto) in favour of the environment.
7. Nations seeking entry to the European Union should equip their electorate to make
informed decisions through accurate and transparent evaluation of the impact on social security
and other vital interests of their citizens.
8. Governments should safeguard cultural values, the dignity and rights of all women and
men, and their unhindered development. Economic globalization in its present form threatens
values such as justice, charity, peace and sobriety which are rooted in Christian traditions.
It replaces them with the values of unrestrained consumerism and increasing commercialisation
(or monetisation) of society. Education, health care, arts, sports, the media, the environment
and even safety are increasingly dominated by financial considerations. The culture of economic
rivalry is usurping the culture of social co-operation with adverse consequences for weak and
vulnerable people.
9. Public resources, which from a Christian perspective are designed to serve the common
good, should not be ransomed to privatisation policies by governments whether or not they are
under pressure from external donors.
10. We ask governments to serve people, not power.
CHOOSE LIFE, NOT DEATH
A call to churches
1. Today we are confronted by the domination of the idols of competition, consumption and
comfort. The Christian understanding of oikonomia , of the world as God's household,
embraces relations between people and God, social harmony and peaceful coexistence of human
beings with the whole of God's creation. This urges churches and Christians to show the world
the example of living according to the principles of cooperation, interdependence and
compassion deeply rooted in the Trinitarian basis of our faith. We ask the Holy Spirit for the
gift of discernment by which to read the signs of our time and to �distinguish the
spirits'.
2. In challenging economic globalization the Church is confronted with Jesus' words, "You
cannot serve God and mammon." (Mt. 6:24). Will the churches have the courage to engage with the
�values' of a profit-orientated way of life as a matter of faith, or will they withdraw
to a private life? This is the question our churches must answer... or lose their very
soul!
3. The message of the Gospel and our traditions teach us neither to be acquiescent to the
dominant powers of this world, nor to escape the responsibilities into private expressions of
faith. Christian communities should radiate love, joy and peace, attract and call others to a
new way of life. Our mission is to transform life around us and to respond to all human beings,
especially those who are suffering, oppressed and marginalized. In doing so, we proclaim
Christ. We urge the churches to raise their prophetic voice so that changes are made for the
benefit every person in every part of the world.
4. Churches need to engage in a serious way with the following questions.
Which processes in international politics and the economy are caused by the intrinsic
development of trade, information flow, cultural exchange etc.? and
Which are the result of �forced global transformation' aimed at securing the
dominance of the richest countries, as well as economic and political groups?
What are the positive aspects of increasing international cooperation which can be
employed for advancing the Christian mission in word and deed?
How can Christian values, traditions and cultures be preserved and thrive in the context
of globalization?
5. Global economy and global power can be called to account by a global civil society
equipped for broad social advocacy. International Christian organizations can provide a basis
for cooperation open to and responsive to others, including research bodies, trade unions,
environmental movements, and communities of followers of world
faiths.
Recommendations
6. The negative social consequences of globalization must be counterbalanced by effective
attention to the needs of the poor, the vulnerable and the powerless.
We call upon churches:
To resist socially counterproductive policies, especially social and tax dumping and to
preserve the dignity of labour.
To support economic and cultural alternatives to homogenization, including small
businesses, local credit and savings mechanisms, independent information exchange systems,
with efforts to protect and revitalize national cultures and identities, through mutual
tolerance and dialogue.
To encourage a process of 'localization', by having regard for to the expectations,
traditions and lifestyles of people in their own place and supporting their initiatives.
To increase their efforts in the fields of charitable service and social advocacy.
To raise awareness that integration is accompanied by growing ethnic and religious
tension in some parts of the world and separation in others; and to investigate the roots of
these conflict situations, which lie not only in these specific regions, but also in the
field of international politics and economy.
7. We call the churches to remember that they are founded on families and therefore need
them to be strong. Family crises have been caused by forced industrialization and now by
globalization. The solution lies in a rediscovery moral values, the ties between the
generations, respect for parenthood and the place of women in families and society.
8. We call our churches to make the care of the environment a major priority for Christian
reflection and social action. It is the �sustainable society' and �sustainable
communities' rather than economics, which matter. The European Christian Environmental Network
is a useful contact.
9. We urge the churches in the region to increase public awareness about globalization and
its consequences for their population. People need to be informed about the nature of decisions
made by their governments in relation to international institutions, and must be able to
influence those decisions. Churches can empower the voice of ordinary people by raising their
concerns with the authorities.
10. Churches and ecumenical groups in the region are encouraged to use the expertise and
linkages that the Centre for Networking, Training and Development being established by European
Contact Group, the Work and Economy Network, and the Ecumenical Academy in Prague can
provide.
11. We ask churches in our region to respond more actively to WCC's invitation to reflect on
globalization and to search for alternatives to it; to CEC's process on the role of churches in
European integration and also to WARC's Debrecen call for Processus Confessionis - a committed
process of recognition, education and confession regarding economic injustice and ecological
destruction.
12. We call the churches in the West to resist the destructive forces of economic
globalization and to be advocates for global social justice.
We ask the churches and the people in the West to influence public opinion and to persuade
decision-makers in politics, economy and other sectors of society to stop the exploitation and
exclusion of the majority of the population of the world and the destruction of the earth by
the 'golden billion' - the population of Western industrialised countries.
14.We ask the churches to educate their members so that they may rediscover the traditional
Christian values of self-restraint and asceticism (simplicity of lifestyle), and to propagate
them in society as a way of counteracting individualism and consumerism, and as an alternative
foundation for economic and social development.
15. We strongly support the Message to the Churches in the North from the participants of
the Symposium on the Consequences of Economic Globalization (Bangkok, Thailand, November 12-15,
1999) that was shared at our meeting.
16.We assure the churches in the global South of our solidarity. Our part of Europe bears a
considerable measure of responsibility for many developments, with both good and bad
consequences, in Southern countries.
17.Today our peoples share many similar problems and challenges, and we deeply need each
other in order to find solutions. In the spirit of ecumenical partnership for mutual being we
call the WCC and other ecumenical organizations to support cooperation and networking between
churches in CEEurope and with churches in the global South through consultation on
globalization. 18. Global networking between Christians and others on the issues of
globalization is urgently needed, especially from parish to parish, from one group of
researchers to another, e.g. from a Reformed radio in Hungary to a Catholic newspaper in
Indonesia and a Moslem TV studio in Kazakhstan. Ecumenical and interfaith organizations will
play the key role in this network building. We should not let the spirit of this world separate
us. The difficult reality we are facing requires a response which we can only make
together.
19. We acknowledge the work done by Anglican, Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant Churches, as
well as international Christian organizations, which have studied the problems of globalization
and have acted in this regard. The process started by the World Coucil of Churches and the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches must be encouraged, continued and broadened.
20. We commit ourselves to establishing an effective follow-up process to this consultation
in the region of Central and Eastern Europe.
And Elijah
came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be
God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word (I
Kings 18:21).
It seems to me that for many Christians the Gospel of Neoliberalism has replaced
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I've known that for a long time, and have blogged about it before ( here , and
here , and
here
).
But today I was reminded of it again when several people brought various articles on it to my
attention:
Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is
a typical symptom of the impotent venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology
it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging from performance
anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.
Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on
external, often shifting, norms. This results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has
aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers".
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as
neoliberalism. The story it tells is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic
and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better off we will be.
Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be
freed from social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our
norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly
colonising the rest of the world.
Neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a
state of nature it calls the market) and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently
selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to suppress these characteristics, neoliberalism
celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest, leads to
innovation and economic growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
When a Christian script was running in many people's minds (see Counterscript to know what
that refers to) Greed was regarded as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but in the Gospel according
to Neoliberalism, it is the supreme virtue.
And
for many Christians, the Neoliberal script has started to drown out the Christian one, and so
raises the question of Elijah: How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God,
follow him: but if Baal, then follow him .
"Baal" is a word that means lord or master, and the deity referred to was Melqart, the god of
the Phoenician city of Tyre. Melqart was a god of rain and fertility, and hence of material
prosperity, and was invoked by Phoenician traders for protection of their commercial
enterprises. In other words, the cult of Baal was a prosperity cult, which had lured the people
of Israel, and was actively promoted by their Phoenician queen Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab.
The people of Israel had the prosperity script playing in their minds.
In our day too, many Christians have the prosperity script playing in their minds.
The post immediately preceding this one, on
Neopentecostal churches and their celebrity pastors [& here ]
, points to a phenomenon that Christian missiologists like to refer to as inculturation or
contextualisation, which, in a good sense, means making the Christian gospel understandable to
people living in a particular culture or context. But in the prosperity gospel preached by some
Neopentecostals, the Christian gospel has been swamped by the values of Neoliberalism. One
could say that "prosperity theology" is the contextualisation of the Christian gospel in a
society dominated by Neoliberal values, but to such an extent that the result is
syncretism.
But while the Neopentecostals sometimes do this explicitly, many other Christian groups do it
implicitly, and we need to ask ourselves where our values really come from -- from the gospel
of Jesus Christ, or from the gospel of the Market. Jesus Christ is the love of God incarnate,
but the Market, or Melqart, or Mammon, is the love of money incarnate.
When the world urges us to celebrate the virtues of Greed, whether subtly or blatantly, do we
resist it? Are we even aware of what is happening? Or do we simply allow that script to play in
our heads, telling us "You deserve it"?
Last week a couple of journalists were asking me why Neopentecostal churches that preach a
properity gospel, like T.B. Joshua's Synagogue Church of all Nations, are growing in
popularity, and one answer is that given by George Monbiot in the article quoted above -- that
the values of Neoliberalism, promoted by Reagan and Thatcher, are now colonising the whole
world.
Blessed are the sarcastic, for they shall succeed in business
I have sometimes suspected that the phrase "Christian Businessman" was an oxymoron, a
contradiction in terms, and that suspicion was reinforced by an article I have just read on the
Web. Harvard
Study Shows that Sarcasm is Actually Good for You :
Data from a recent study entitled, The Highest Form of Intelligence: Sarcasm Increases
Creativity for Both Expressers and Recipients, suggests that the delivery and deciphering of
sarcasm offers psychological benefits that have been largely underappreciated and long
overlooked.
The article tells us that the research was sponsored by Harvard Business School,
Columbia Business School and INSEAD ("The Business School for the World").
For as long as I can remember, I have been aware of the saying "Sarcasm is the lowest form of
wit."
The article I just cited tells us that people who believe that are stupid and uncreative.
So what is sarcasm, and why is it something that Christians should avoid if possible?
sarcasm n. Bitter or wounding remark, taunt, esp. one ironically worded [1]
The English word
sarcasm is derived from the Greek sarkasmos , which suggests the image of a
predator devouring its prey. So if, as the article, suggests the people most likely to succeed
in business are those who habitually go around making nasty remarks about others, and the most
effective bosses are those who habitually tear strips off their underlings, the term
"unscrupulous businessman" is a pleonastic redundancy.
Well what's new? I think most of us knew that.
I think we all knew that "business ethics" was a contradiction in terms. I recall seeing a
cartoon in Mad magazine that had some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for
commemorative postage stamps (remember them?), and one showed two people hugging each other,
each with knife in hand, stabbing the other in the back. That was to commemorate 100 years of
business ethics.
What's new in this article is a kind of psychological proof that nastiness works, that
being sarcastic gives you the edge in business. So sarcasm is a virtue to be inculcated and
cultivated. Yet it is the very opposite of ubuntu and Christian values.
Nearly every Sunday in Orthodox Churches we sing the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12).
Why so often?
Perhaps because of the frequency with which we are bombarded with propaganda to do the
opposite. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy , but being sarcastic is the
very opposite of being merciful. Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth . Wrong, say the business
gurus. Blessed are the pushy.
It is perhaps easier to find Christian values among the scruffy beatniks and drop-outs from
society than among the business leaders.
As one beat generation writer said to the square who offered him an advertising job: 'I'll
scrub your floors and carry out your slops to make a living, but I will not lie for you, pimp
for you, stool for you or rat for you.'[2]
It is the worshippers of the bitch-goddess Success who hold out sarcasm as a
virtue and a behavioural ideal.
______________
Notes
[1] Concise Oxford Dictionary , Fifth Edition.
[2] Lipton, Lawrence. 1959. The holy barbarians . New York: Messner.
"... In an increasingly fragmented world, the Orthodox churches acknowledge and defend the dignity of every human being and cultivate human solidarity. In addressing violence in the marketplace, even if people accept in their hearts the virtues of justice and peace, the market operates with its own autonomous logic and economic practices. It is guided by the belief that there can be a 'total free market' in which unregulated competing economic relationships of individuals in pursuit of their economic gains can lead to optimum good. It advocates that free markets without government 'interference' would be the most efficient and socially optimal allocation of resources. ..."
"... Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank Chief Economist (1997-2000) and Nobel Laureate in Economics notes that economic globalization in its current form risks exacerbating poverty and increasing violence if not checked, because it is impossible to separate economic issues from social and political issues. ..."
"... Orthodoxy believes that all political and economic theories and practices are subject to criticism and modification aimed to overcoming those aspects of them that generate violence and injustice. ..."
"... The logic of the market must not only seek the maximization of profits favoring and serving only those who have economic capital and power. Economic practices must ensure just and sustainable development for all people. We cannot talk about a really free economy without entering into particular judgments about what kinds of exchange are conducive to the flourishing of life and what kinds are not. ..."
The peacemaking vocation of the church is a dynamic process of a never-ending personal and
communal transformation that reflects the human and fallible struggle to participate in God's
Trinitarian life. St. Nicholas Cabasilas epigrammatically summarizes the Orthodox view on
peacemaking: "Christians, as disciples of Christ, who made all things for peace, are to be
'craftsmen of peace.' They are called a peaceable race since 'nothing is more characteristic of
a Christian than to be a worker for peace." In being "craftsmen of peace" the Orthodox churches
unite themselves in prayer, vision, and action with all those Christians who pray that God's
Kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. The aspiration to live in peace and justice
unite Christians with people of living faiths and ideologies in a shared vision, hope, and
actions for less violence, injustice, and oppression. An effective intervention in situations
of conflict, injustice and oppression requires the churches not to ignore what is possible to
learn from advances in political sciences and economics as well as from successful economic and
political policies and practices that aim to transform conflicts into life opportunities.
In addressing the root causes of injustice and violence in the marketplace, the Orthodox
Churches recognize the autonomy of the inherent rationality of the market and leave the
development of economic theories and policies to those who understand its dynamics better. The
Churches, however, critique economic theories and practices based on their performance and
their effects upon the people. Their criticism contributes towards a revisionary logic of the
market that favors economic practices that generate greater opportunities for a more equitable
and just distribution of power and resources.
Today, one-and-a-half billion people live in areas affected by instability, conflict or
large-scale, organized criminal violence. The causes of conflict arise from economic, political
and security dynamics. Political exclusion and inequality affecting regional, religious, or
ethnic groups are associated with higher risks of civil war, while inequality between richer
and poorer households is closely associated with higher risks of violence. The disparity
between the rich and poor between and within nations is increasing. Unemployment is on the
rise, pushing more and more people into poverty, malnutrition, poor health, depression,
violence, insecurity, fear, and desperation. There are nearly one billion undernourished people
on our planet and this number is increasing by 68 people every minute; that is more than one
every second. The human cost of violence cannot be ignored by anyone who considers all human
beings to be icons of God.
The economic and monetary crisis that leads to an increased disparity between rich and poor
is understood mostly by the Orthodox Churches to be primarily a 'spiritual' and/or cultural
crisis. It is attributed to unrestrained individualism that leads to an excessive desire for
wealth and to consumerism. Individualism and consumerism have disconnected people from loving
God and their neighbor, thus preventing them from reflecting in their lives God's love for all
creation.
St. John Chrysostom, a notable preacher of the undivided Church, stated that not to be an
advocate of the poor would be "the worst inhumanity." [1] Being
the advocate of the poor leads him to refute point by point all the arguments by which the
affluent justified the marginalization of the poor and their indifference towards them. Christ
in a privileged manner is identified with the poor. The poor are not the spectacle of human
misery and suffering that evokes compassion or disgust, but they are the icons of Christ, the
presence of Christ in the broken world. This is their dignity! If you refuse to give bread to
the poor, you ignore Christ who desires to be fed: "You eat in excess; Christ eats not even
what he needs At the moment, you have taken possession of the resources that belong to Christ
and you consume them aimlessly." [2] The
poor for St. John Chrysostom are the liturgical images of the most holy elements in all of
Christian worship: the altar and the body of Christ. [3]
The Orthodox Churches advocate a culture of compassion in which people share their material
resources with those in need. Charity and compassion are not virtues to be practiced just by
those who have the material resources and means. They are virtues that promote the communal
love that Christians should have for all human beings. Every human being, regardless of whether
he or she is rich or poor must be charitable and compassionate to those lacking the basic
material resources for sustenance. [4] St.
Basil exhorts the poor to share even the minimal goods that they may have. [5]
Almsgiving leads people to God and grants to all the necessary resources for sustenance and
development of their human potential. However, a voluntary sharing of resources in the present
world is not enough. Building a culture of peace demands global and local institutional changes
and new economic practices that address at more fundamental level the root causes of poverty.
It calls for a fusion of the Christian culture of compassion with the knowledge that we have
acquired through experience and the advances of social science about the structural sources of
poverty and its multifaceted aspects that urgently need to be addressed through reflective
concerted actions.
In an increasingly fragmented world, the Orthodox churches acknowledge and defend the
dignity of every human being and cultivate human solidarity. In addressing violence in the
marketplace, even if people accept in their hearts the virtues of justice and peace, the market
operates with its own autonomous logic and economic practices. It is guided by the belief that
there can be a 'total free market' in which unregulated competing economic relationships of
individuals in pursuit of their economic gains can lead to optimum good. It advocates that free
markets without government 'interference' would be the most efficient and socially optimal
allocation of resources.
Many economists and institutions of global development agencies
embrace economic globalization as indisputable reality and suggest that there is no alternative
to this. They assume that Neoliberalism contributes to the prosperity and the equitable
development of all nations. Unfortunately though, its economic practices have not been designed
to meet the immediate needs of the world's poor people. Global inequalities between nations and
within nations are widening. Joseph Stiglitz, former World Bank Chief Economist (1997-2000) and
Nobel Laureate in Economics notes that economic globalization in its current form risks
exacerbating poverty and increasing violence if not checked, because it is impossible to
separate economic issues from social and political issues.
The Orthodox Churches are not in a position to suggest concrete alternatives to economic
globalization, nor do they intend to endorse or reject complex economic policies and practices
that regulate the global economy. Yet, based on the eschatological orientation of the Christian
gospel, Orthodoxy believes that all political and economic theories and practices are subject
to criticism and modification aimed to overcoming those aspects of them that generate violence
and injustice.
The logic of the market must not only seek the maximization of profits favoring
and serving only those who have economic capital and power. Economic practices must ensure just
and sustainable development for all people. We cannot talk about a really free economy without
entering into particular judgments about what kinds of exchange are conducive to the
flourishing of life and what kinds are not.
The Churches are led by their faith to take an
active role in fostering economic practices that reflect God's peace and justice. These
economic practices integrate in their logic those elements of social life that promote a
culture of compassion that unites all human beings in peace and justice. Indispensable aspects
of this culture are: respect for the dignity and the rights of all human beings; equitable
socio-economic relationships; broad participation in economic and political decision-making;
and just sharing of resources and power.
Once, we put human faces to all those millions of people who suffer the consequences of an
inequitable distribution of power and resources, it becomes evident that it is an indispensable
aspect of the church's mission to the world to be involved through prayers and thoughtful
actions in noble efforts to eradicate poverty and injustice.
"... Consolidation of mankind on the basis of the moral commandments of God is fully consistent with the Christian mission. This incarnation of globalization provides an opportunity for fraternal mutual assistance, free exchange of creative achievements and knowledge, respectful coexistence of different languages and cultures, the joint protection of nature - would be a reasonable and pious. ..."
"... If the essence of globalization is only to overcome the division between the people, the content of its economic processes had to be overcome inequalities, the prudent use of earthly riches, equitable international cooperation. ..."
"... In contrast to the immutability and universality of moral commandments, the economy cannot have a universal solution for all peoples and all times. A variety of people, God created in the world, reminds us that every nation has its task by the Creator, each valuable in the sight of the Lord, and everyone is able to contribute to the creation of our world. ..."
"... Although outwardly visible collapse of the world colonial system, the richest states of the world in pursuit of the ever-receding horizons of consumption continue to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. It is impossible to recognize to be just international division of labor in which some countries are suppliers of absolute values, especially human labor or raw materials irreversible, while others - suppliers of conditional values in the form of financial resources. ..."
"... Money payed for non-renewable natural resources are often taken in the literal sense "from the air", due to the work of the printing press - thanks to the monopoly position of issuers of world currency. As a result, the abyss in the socio-economic status between the nations and entire continents is becoming increasingly profound. This one-sided globalization, giving undue advantages to some of its participants at the expense of the others, entails a partial and, in some cases, virtually completes loss of sovereignty. ..."
"... If mankind needed freely traded currencies throughout the world to serve as a universal yardstick for economic calculations, the production of such units should be under fair international control, where all states of the world will proportionally participate. Possible benefits of such emissions could be channeled to the development of the poverty-stricken regions of the planet. ..."
"... National governments are increasingly losing their independence and becoming less dependent on the will of their own people, and more and more - the will of the transnational elite. Themselves, these elites are not constituted in the legal space, and is therefore not accountable to neither the people nor the national governments, becoming a shadow regulator of social and economic processes. Greed shadow rulers of the global economy leads to the fact that a thin layer of "elite" is getting richer and at the same time more and more relieved of the responsibility for the welfare of those whose labor created the wealth. ..."
"... Moral society should not increase the gap between rich and poor. Strong does not have the moral right to use their benefits at the expense of the weak, but on the contrary - are obliged to take care of those who are dispossessed. People who are employed should receive decent remuneration. ..."
"... Whole countries and nations are plunged into debt, and generations that are not yet born are doomed to pay the bills of their ancestors. ..."
"... Business expectations in lending, often ghostly becomes more profitable than the production of tangible goods. In this regard, it must be remembered about the moral ambiguity of the situation, when money is "make" new money without the application of human labor. Declaring credit sphere to be the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real economic sector comes into conflict with the moral principles, reveled by God condemning usury. ..."
"... Attempts by indigenous people of the rich countries to stop the migration flow are futile, because come in conflict with greed of their own elites who are interested in the low-wage workforce. But even more inexorable factor driving migration was the spread of hedonic quasi -religion capturing not only elite, but also the broad masses of people in countries with high living standards. Renunciation of procreation for the most careless, smug and personal existence becomes signs of the times. The popularization of the ideology of child-free, the cult of childless and without family life for themselves lead to a reduction in the population in the most seemingly prosperous societies. ..."
"... We must not forget that the commandment to all the descendants of Adam and Eve, said: "Fill the earth and subdue it." Anyone who does not want to continue his race will inevitably have to give way to the ground for those who prefer having children over material well-being. ..."
"... Globalization has accelerated the consumer race disproportionate to earth resources granted to mankind. Volumes of consumption of goods in those countries, which are recognized worldwide for the samples and which are equal to billions of people, have long gone beyond the resource capabilities of these "model" countries. There is no doubt that, if the whole of humanity will absorb the natural wealth of the intensity of the countries that are leaders in terms of the consumption, there will be an environmental disaster on the planet. ..."
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate
has published a draft of the document "Economy in the context of globalization. Orthodox
ethical view. " This document demonstrates the key positions of the Russian Church on a number
of issues relating to the economy and international relations.
1. The Russian Orthodox Church demonstrates that it supports only the trends in modern
international processes that aim to build a multi-polar world, and the dialogue of
civilizations and cultures on the basis of traditional, non-liberal values:
Consolidation of mankind on the basis of the moral commandments of God is fully
consistent with the Christian mission. This incarnation of globalization provides an
opportunity for fraternal mutual assistance, free exchange of creative achievements and
knowledge, respectful coexistence of different languages and cultures, the joint protection of
nature - would be a reasonable and pious.
If the essence of globalization is only to overcome the division between the people, the
content of its economic processes had to be overcome inequalities, the prudent use of earthly
riches, equitable international cooperation.
2. At the same time a large part of the document critically examines the process of
globalization. Church officials say that globalization "remove barriers to the spread of sin
and vice." The Russian Church condemns Westernization and dissemination of the Western cult of
consumption, noting that "the Western way of development" is a road to nowhere, to hell, and
the abyss:
Catch-up model of modernization", having before people's eyes uncritically perceived
external sample, not only destroys the social structure and spiritual life of the "catch-up"
societies, but often does not allow to approach the idol in the material sphere, imposing
unacceptable and ruinous economic decisions.
In contrast to the immutability and universality of moral commandments, the economy
cannot have a universal solution for all peoples and all times. A variety of people, God
created in the world, reminds us that every nation has its task by the Creator, each valuable
in the sight of the Lord, and everyone is able to contribute to the creation of our
world.
3. The Church denounced neocolonialism and the exploitation of the Third World by Western
multinationals. The Russian Orthodox Church considers such a policy to be deeply unjust and
sinful. Control over the financial sector as the main weapon of the new colonialism is
specially marked:
Although outwardly visible collapse of the world colonial system, the richest states of
the world in pursuit of the ever-receding horizons of consumption continue to enrich themselves
at the expense of everyone else. It is impossible to recognize to be just international
division of labor in which some countries are suppliers of absolute values, especially human
labor or raw materials irreversible, while others - suppliers of conditional values in the form
of financial resources.
4. The Christian approach to the economy that the Russian Orthodox Church insists on is
primarily ontological. The only alternative to the global fictitious liberal economy can only
be a real Christian economy. The hegemony of global plutocracy, which is based on financial
capital and the dollar as the universal currency, can be countered only by a global policy of
sovereignty:
Money payed for non-renewable natural resources are often taken in the literal sense
"from the air", due to the work of the printing press - thanks to the monopoly position of
issuers of world currency. As a result, the abyss in the socio-economic status between the
nations and entire continents is becoming increasingly profound. This one-sided globalization,
giving undue advantages to some of its participants at the expense of the others, entails a
partial and, in some cases, virtually completes loss of sovereignty.
5. As one of the ways to solve this problem (dollar hegemony), the Church proposes to
establish international control over global currencies:
If mankind needed freely traded currencies throughout the world to serve as a universal
yardstick for economic calculations, the production of such units should be under fair
international control, where all states of the world will proportionally participate. Possible
benefits of such emissions could be channeled to the development of the poverty-stricken
regions of the planet.
6. However, the strengthening of international institutions, according to representatives of
the Russian Orthodox Church, should not lead to the strengthening of the transnational elite.
The unconditional support of state sovereignty against the transnational elite is a distinctive
feature of the position of the Orthodox Church. This differs the Orthodox from Catholics, who
are members of the globalist transnational centralized structure, in contrast to the Orthodox
Churches, which are united in faith, but not administratively.
National governments are increasingly losing their independence and becoming less
dependent on the will of their own people, and more and more - the will of the transnational
elite. Themselves, these elites are not constituted in the legal space, and is therefore not
accountable to neither the people nor the national governments, becoming a shadow regulator of
social and economic processes. Greed shadow rulers of the global economy leads to the fact that
a thin layer of "elite" is getting richer and at the same time more and more relieved of the
responsibility for the welfare of those whose labor created the wealth.
7. The gap between rich and poor, predatory morality of "free capitalism" in the version of
Hayek, and neoliberal thoughts, according to the representatives of the Russian Orthodox
Church, is incompatible with Christian teaching:
Moral society should not increase the gap between rich and poor. Strong does not have
the moral right to use their benefits at the expense of the weak, but on the contrary - are
obliged to take care of those who are dispossessed. People who are employed should receive
decent remuneration.
8. The Russian Church openly declares his attitude to usury as a sinful phenomenon, and
notes the destructiveness of the global debt economy:
Whole countries and nations are plunged into debt, and generations that are not yet born
are doomed to pay the bills of their ancestors.
Business expectations in lending, often ghostly becomes more profitable than the
production of tangible goods. In this regard, it must be remembered about the moral ambiguity
of the situation, when money is "make" new money without the application of human labor.
Declaring credit sphere to be the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real
economic sector comes into conflict with the moral principles, reveled by God condemning
usury.
9. Such an important aspect of modern life like mass migration is not left unattended.
Unlike the Catholic approach that unduly favors migrants, particularly in Europe, the Orthodox
notices the negative nature of the process, as well as the fact that it leads to confrontation
of different identities and value systems. In addition, the Orthodox Church propose to look at
the roots of this phenomenon. The reason for the migration is the liberal, hedonistic ideology
bleeding the peoples of Europe and the interests of the capitalist elite, who need a cheap and
disenfranchised workforce:
Attempts by indigenous people of the rich countries to stop the migration flow are
futile, because come in conflict with greed of their own elites who are interested in the
low-wage workforce. But even more inexorable factor driving migration was the spread of hedonic
quasi -religion capturing not only elite, but also the broad masses of people in countries with
high living standards. Renunciation of procreation for the most careless, smug and personal
existence becomes signs of the times. The popularization of the ideology of child-free, the
cult of childless and without family life for themselves lead to a reduction in the population
in the most seemingly prosperous societies.
We must not forget that the commandment to all the descendants of Adam and Eve, said:
"Fill the earth and subdue it." Anyone who does not want to continue his race will inevitably
have to give way to the ground for those who prefer having children over material
well-being.
10. The Russian Church noted that the current level of consumption and the ideology of
infinite progress are incompatible with the limited resources of the planet:
Globalization has accelerated the consumer race disproportionate to earth resources
granted to mankind. Volumes of consumption of goods in those countries, which are recognized
worldwide for the samples and which are equal to billions of people, have long gone beyond the
resource capabilities of these "model" countries. There is no doubt that, if the whole of
humanity will absorb the natural wealth of the intensity of the countries that are leaders in
terms of the consumption, there will be an environmental disaster on the planet.
This document is very important because it shows that the Russian Orthodox Church not only
occupies a critical position in relation to the liberal globalization, but also offers a
Christian alternative to globalization processes. While Catholics and most Protestant
denominations have passionate humanist ideas, and in the best case, criticize globalization
from the left or left-liberal positions, the Russian Orthodox Church advocate sovereignty and
national identity. The most important aspect of the Orthodox critique of globalization is the
idea of multipolarity and the destructiveness of modern Western civilization's path.
It in known that the problem of human rights is thoroughly Orthodox: "The power and means for
promoting worldwide equality and brotherhood lie not in waging crusades but in freely accepting
the cross." He urges a radically personal solution, one that takes as its model the saint, the
martyr, and the ascetic. Here Anastasios draws on the traditional Orthodox understanding of
freedom, which is ordered and tempered by ascetical practice, self-control, and placing limits on
material desires. Churches are to become "laboratories of selfless love," places where the
Kingdom of God is manifest on earth. "Our most important right is our right to realize our
deepest nature and become 'children of God' through grace," he says.
Lest this approach be interpreted as a justification of passiveness and quietism, Anastasios
also urges Christians to exercise their ethical conscience in the world. "Christians must be
vigilant, striving to make the legal and political structure of their society ever more
comprehensive through constant reform and reassessment," he says.
"... Neoliberalism basically makes culture a personal choice. You are free to choose whatever culture you want. Freedom is the ability to do whatever you want to do and no one can stand in your way. But that doesn't work if you are a Christian. ..."
"... In neoliberal ideology, culture is something that humanity added to the world. Culture doesn't reflect any reality out there. There is no purpose. There is no God. It's just biology, chemistry, physics, what they call "natural laws". ..."
"... But what are neoliberals trying to do? They are trying to impose a multicultural culture. That's the problem. A multicultural culture is impossible, It's a contradiction. On one side, they talk about women`s rights and on the other side they support radical islamists who want legalization of Sharia law in the US. It's just insane! There is no way of making sense of it. And that's why I think they don't have any future ..."
You are not alone in asking the question: How is it possible that we can be so antagonistic towards conservative traditional Christianity
and yet so accepting of Islam?
I think we have to understand that there has been a revolution in the US and the West in general. An ideological revolution for
neoliberalism.
Neoliberalism is dedicated to scientific rationalism, the neoliberal conception of life: science, biology, chemistry, physics,
mathematics, that's it. Everything else is the matter of your own personal opinion.
When that began to make its way into our culture and policy, in the 1960's in particular, it gave rights to something called "emancipatory
politics". The emancipation has to be freedom or liberation.
Emancipatory politics basically says that traditions are bad and that customs discriminate people. Emancipation dictates that
If a person want to be Islamic, he can be Islamic, if he wants to be homosexual, he can be homosexual, if he wants to change gender,
he can change it. And any tradition that stands against that has to be pushed aside because it is considered to be discriminatory.
Over the last several decades we've seen a redefinition of the American Public Square. The American Public Square used to be very
Christian. It was guided by primarily Anglo-Protestant traditional norms. Now it is being governed much more by these emancipatory-politics
norms. Therefore, if you are considered to be a part of the group that was not allowed into the Public Square because of Christianity,
now you are going to get special treatment. They are going to make laws for you and, as a part of those laws, they have to cast out
the Christianity that was impeding you from coming into the Public Square.
Traditional morality and customs are now considered as evil and discriminatory. Neoliberalism is actually much more accommodating
to Islam than to Christianity. Why? Because Islam was considered to be discriminated as well as feminists, LGBT, African-Americans,
and other national minorities. Any group that was once pushed out from public participation will now be allowed in.
Neoliberalism basically makes culture a personal choice. You are free to choose whatever culture you want. Freedom is the
ability to do whatever you want to do and no one can stand in your way. But that doesn't work if you are a Christian.
Remember, neoliberalism says science is the only way we can know. So, if science is the only way we can know, what is culture?
In neoliberal ideology, culture is something that humanity added to the world. Culture doesn't reflect any reality out there.
There is no purpose. There is no God. It's just biology, chemistry, physics, what they call "natural laws".
So, in that way, culture is how we impose meanings and purposes on a meaningless and purposeless world. Who am I to tell you that
your way of imposing meanings is bad and the way how I impose it is good? The problem is culture itself. One cannot think about biology,
chemistry, physics without culture. Those things are culture. So culture is inescapable.
But what are neoliberals trying to do? They are trying to impose a multicultural culture. That's the problem. A multicultural
culture is impossible, It's a contradiction. On one side, they talk about women`s rights and on the other side they support radical
islamists who want legalization of Sharia law in the US. It's just insane! There is no way of making sense of it. And that's why
I think they don't have any future.
"... He wrote in the first chapter of this 2005 book, "Like cancer in the human body, liberalism in the body of the church begins undetected and unrecognized. By the time Christians recognize the cancer of liberalism and are stirred to action, often it is too late to stop its deadly progress. The damage has been done, and a spiritual crisis is upon the church. The Orthodox Presbyterian Church [OPC] is now in such a spiritual crisis, and the crisis has spread well beyond it. ..."
"... He asserts, "neo-liberals pretend to be what they are not, and profess to believe what they do not Neo-liberals profess salvation by faith in Christ alone, but they teach salvation by Christ plus man's faithfulness. Neo-liberals profess to believe in the authority of Scripture, but they teach the primacy of human scholarship Neo-liberals profess to preach the all-sufficiency of His obedience for the salvation of souls. Neo-liberals profess to believe in full assurance of salvation, but they teach that the believer can never be assured." (Pg. 65-66) ..."
"... He asks, "how does a neo-liberal minority dominate the OPC today?... liberals rely on the cooperation, or at least inaction, of the doctrinally indifferent . Their watchword is tolerance. They see controversy as one of the greatest evils, and they see tolerance of varying views under one big confessional tent as the way to avoid controversy Doctrinal disputes are an airing of dirty laundry that must be avoided Intolerance of error becomes the only intolerable thing." (Pg. 313-314) ..."
He wrote in the first chapter of this 2005 book, "Like cancer in the human body, liberalism
in the body of the church begins undetected and unrecognized. By the time Christians recognize
the cancer of liberalism and are stirred to action, often it is too late to stop its deadly
progress. The damage has been done, and a spiritual crisis is upon the church. The Orthodox
Presbyterian Church [OPC] is now in such a spiritual crisis, and the crisis has spread well
beyond it. The crisis centers on the conflict between authentic Biblical Christianity and an
Antichristian counterfeit. The church needs to understand the nature of this crisis, how it
came about, its deadly effects, and what Scripture says must be done. That is the purpose of
this book." (Pg. 11-12) He adds, "we shall see how present-day neo-liberalism strikingly
parallels the old liberalism, but with contemporary points of emphasis and new subtleties we
shall examine neo-liberalism's corrupting influence on the OPC and other denominations." (Pg.
15-16) Significantly, he adds, "this book is a call to recognize the dangers of remaining in
the OPC, and to acknowledge that the time has come to separate from it." (Pg. 28)
He is strongly critical of Norman Shepherd [e.g., The
Call of Grace ]: "Norman Shepherd and those who follow his errors substitute the waters of
baptism for the blood of Christ. They teach, in effect, that God's covenant is a covenant in
water, not blood." (Pg. 53) He adds, "In God's economy, faith and works are mutually exclusive
in justification; mingling the two is impossible but Shepherd says that the impossible is not
only possible, but necessary. He redefines faith to be 'faith-plus.' He erects a false doctrine
of justification that un-Scripturally packs all sorts of works into the 'saving faith' which he
equates with 'justifying faith.'" (Pg. 55)
He asserts, "neo-liberals pretend to be what they are not, and profess to believe what they
do not Neo-liberals profess salvation by faith in Christ alone, but they teach salvation by
Christ plus man's faithfulness. Neo-liberals profess to believe in the authority of Scripture,
but they teach the primacy of human scholarship Neo-liberals profess to preach the
all-sufficiency of His obedience for the salvation of souls. Neo-liberals profess to believe in
full assurance of salvation, but they teach that the believer can never be assured." (Pg.
65-66)
He argues, "In the long run, it is not simply a matter of the OPC tolerating the preaching
of two gospels. The true Gospel is being displaced. Satan is quite content to fight a war of
attrition. If the false gospel continues to be propagated at the seminary level as the one that
is 'truly Reformed,' it will take only a generation for the preaching of the true Gospel to
become rare or even die out entirely in the denomination. That is exactly what has happened in
other denominations." (Pg. 125) He charges, "The OPC has had thirty years to purge itself of
these errors, and has repeatedly refused to do so. Instead of removing the cancer it has
stimulated its growth. In 2004 it showed once again that it has no stomach for the hard choices
it needs to make." (Pg. 237) He adds, "it is not surprising that Norman Shepherd's heresies,
which were allowed to take root over thirty years ago, have spread like a cancer in the years
since. It is not surprising that Shepherd and his followers continue to be welcome in many
parts of the OPC. It is not surprising that Richard Gaffin's teachings have become the dominant
position at Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia, and have flowed from there into the churches
of the OPC and other denominations." (Pg. 284)
He asks, "how does a neo-liberal minority dominate the OPC today?... liberals rely on the
cooperation, or at least inaction, of the doctrinally indifferent . Their watchword is
tolerance. They see controversy as one of the greatest evils, and they see tolerance of varying
views under one big confessional tent as the way to avoid controversy Doctrinal disputes are an
airing of dirty laundry that must be avoided Intolerance of error becomes the only intolerable
thing." (Pg. 313-314)
He recalls the separation of his own home congregation from the OPC: "before deciding to
recommend separation from the OPC, the session authorized a Sunday evening study series on the
doctrinal issues at stake The study shifted its focus to the errors commonly
taught---Shepherdism, Federal Vision theology, and the New Perspective on Paul The congregation
subsequently separated from the OPC by voting on a resolution of separation It also made it
clear that the congregation was separating from the authority of a body that has abandoned the
marks of a true church of Jesus Christ, rather than withdrawing under the authority of that
body as if it still possessed the Biblical qualities to exercise spiritual authority." (Pg.
339-340) He concludes, "this book has been a call to recognize the new dangers of remaining in
the OPC, and to acknowledge that the time has come to separate from it. We urge you to be
obedient to that Biblical imperative, no matter what the cost." (Pg. 365)
This book will be of interest to those concerned with the Federal Vision and Norman Shepherd
controversies, as well as debates within the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and other
conservative Reformed denominations.
"... Whereas previously many conservatives focused on disputing the legal legitimacy of progressive policies, some conservatives have switched to opposing these policies under the banner of religious freedom. ..."
In Bannon's telling, the greatest mistake the baby
boomers made was to reject the traditional "Judeo-Christian" values of their parents. He considers this a historical crime,
because in his telling it was Judeo-Christian values that enabled Western Europe and the United States to defeat European
fascism, and, subsequently, to create an "
enlightened
capitalism
" that made America great for decades after World War II.
The
enormous
amount
of
media
attention
he
has received and his various
interviews
,
talks
,
and
documentaries
strongly
suggest that he believes the world is on the verge of disaster -- and that without Judeo-Christianity, the American culture war
cannot be won, enlightened capitalism cannot function, and "
Islamic
fascism
" cannot be defeated.
This is where Bannon invokes the "Russian
traditionalism" of Vladimir Putin, and it's important to recognize why he does so. In his 2014 Vatican talk, Bannon made it
clear
that
Putin is "playing very strongly to U.S. social conservatives about his message about more traditional values." As a recent
Atlantic
essay
convincingly argues, upon his return to office in 2012, Putin realized that "large patches of the West despised feminism and
the gay-rights movement." Seizing the opportunity, he transformed himself into the "New World Leader of Conservatism" whose
traditionalism would offer an alternative to the libertine West that had long shunned him.
... ... ...
...Bannon also highlights differences between
Judeo-Christian traditionalism and the thinking of Alexander Dugin, who
he
(hyperbolically) credits
as being the intellectual mastermind of the traditionalist movement in Russia. In contrast to
mainline American social conservatives, Dugin
sees
the
anti-globalism and anti-Americanism of certain expressions of Islam as having much in common with his own distinctive brand of
traditionalism. In fact, Dugin
views
conservative
American evangelicalism as an aberration from historical Christianity, and a cipher for neoliberal capitalism.
In contrast to Bannon's realpolitik, Sergei Lavrov, the
Russian minister of foreign affairs, has called for a greater long-term cooperation with the West -- for a "partnership of
civilizations" to combat modern geopolitical problems, especially ISIS.
In
his words
, "We believe that universal human solidarity must have a moral basis resting on traditional values which are
essentially common for all of the world's leading religions. I would like to draw your attention to the joint statement made
by Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia and Pope Francis, in which they reiterated their support for the family as a
natural center of life for individuals and society." The same values that motivate Russia's foreign policy (especially its
role in the Middle East) are, to Lavrov, the bedrock of the Christian civilization represented by the Patriarch and the pope.
"... The second reason is now more pertinent than when it was first given. The capitalist system, by its very nature, places the preponderance of wealth in the hands of a small minority. ..."
"... As G.K. Chesterton rightly stated, the problem with capitalism is that it produces too few capitalists! ..."
"... The above were only some of the reasons why the Distributists, who formed the Distributist League in 1926, thought that the capitalist economy would eventually collapse. These were not, however, the only problems which they found with the system. ..."
"... The idea that if every man simply seeks after his own economic interest, all will be provided for and prosper, was almost universally rejected during these decades. We see strong reactions to economic liberalism in Russian Communism, German National Socialism, Italian Fascism, Austrian, Portuguese, and Spanish Corporatism, British Fabian Socialism, along with the American "New Deal" leftism. Thus, in the 1930s and 1940s, most of the world was ordered by ideologies which explicitly rejected the premises of economic liberalism. We must, also, not forget the international economic crash of the late 20s and early 30s, which produced economic depression, totalitarian regimes, and, finally, world war. ..."
In truly "prophetic" utterances, the analysis of present circumstances, along with a
consideration of the laws written into human nature which manifest themselves in history, can
yield a prediction concerning the general outline of things to come. This judgment of the
well-informed and perceptive mind, is somewhat undermined by only one factor. The universe and
the "universe" of human society in which the inherent laws written into human nature by its
Creator reveal themselves in historical events, is also a universe which contains free
creatures who are undetermined as regards the means they can employ to achieve their
specifically human end. Human freedom inserts a variable in the material necessity of the
universe.
This contingency and variability has its ultimate source in the spirituality of the
human soul. It is precisely on account of his materialistic rejection of the human soul, that
Karl Marx, for instance, could make such ridiculously precise predictions as to the "necessary"
movement of economic, political, and social history. This does not mean, however, that there is
not an inherent natural law which determine which human endeavors will "work" and which will
lead to catastrophe.
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, there were a group of scholars,
theologians, philosopher, social critics, and poets, who predicted the inevitable demise of the
capitalist economic system which was just developing in Continental Europe, but had been
operative for 100 years in England. When you read their works, especially the British authors
of the early 20th century, here we include Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton, and Arthur Penty,
one is struck by the fact that their analyzes are more valid today than they were 70 or 80
years ago, their predictions more likely to be imminently fulfilled.
What they predicted was
nothing less than the collapse of the capitalist system. In the case of Belloc, in his book The
Servile State, it was predicted that capitalism would soon transform itself into an economic
and social system which resembled the slave economies of the pre-Christian and early Christian
eras. Why did they predict such a collapse or inevitable transformation? In their writings,
many reasons are given, however, we can narrow them down to three. The first, they referred to
as the "capitalist paradox." The paradox is a consequence of capitalism being an economic
system which, in the long run, "prevents people from obtaining the wealth produced and prevents
the owner of the wealth from finding a market." Since the capitalist strives both for ever
greater levels of production and lower wages, eventually "the laborer who actually produces
say, boots cannot afford to buy a sufficient amount of the boots which he himself has made."
This leads to the "absurd position of men making more goods than they need, and yet having less
of those goods available for themselves than they need."1
The second reason is now more pertinent than when it was first given. The capitalist system,
by its very nature, places the preponderance of wealth in the hands of a small minority. This
monopoly on the money supply by banking and financial concerns, becomes more absolute as the
capital-needing consumer must go to the banks to borrow money. Usury, now called "interest,"
insures that those who first possesses the money for loan, will end up with a greater portion
of the money supply than they possessed before the loan was issued. As wages stagnate and
interest payments become increasingly impossible to make, massive numbers of defaults will
inevitably produce a crisis for the entire financial system.2
When entire nations default on
loans, there will be a crisis throughout the entire international financial system. Demise is,
therefore, built into the very structure of the capitalistic system in which capital (i.e., all
kinds of wealth whatsoever which man uses with the object of producing further wealth, and
without which the further wealth could not be produced. It is a reserve without which the
process of production is impossible)3 is primarily in the hands of the few.
As G.K. Chesterton
rightly stated, the problem with capitalism is that it produces too few capitalists! The third
fact concerning capitalism which the Distributists thought would inevitably bring down the
system or lead to its fundamental transformation, was the general instability and personal
insecurity which marks a full-blown capitalist economy. What accounts for this general feeling
of insecurity and instability, which characterizes both the individual "wage-earner" and the
society living under capitalism, is the always present fear of unemployment and, hence, of
destitution and the fact that a laborer's real wages leave him with only enough money to cover
the expenses of the day. Saving, so as to provide an economic hedge against the misfortune of
unemployment or personal crisis, becomes almost impossible.4
The above were only some of the reasons why the Distributists, who formed the Distributist
League in 1926, thought that the capitalist economy would eventually collapse. These were not,
however, the only problems which they found with the system.
The social consequences of the majority being unable to afford real property, the decline
and, eventual, disappearance of the trade guilds and vocational corporations, the "necessity"
of wives and mothers entering the "work force," the end of small-scale family -owned businesses
and farms, the decline of the apprentice system were all indictments of capitalism in the mind
of those who sought to chart out a "third way" between capitalism, which is simply liberalism
in the economic sphere, and socialism.
There is little doubt that the problems with capitalism which were cited by the
Distributists have only grown in their proportion in our own time. The concentration of wealth,
exemplified by the recent merger of Citicorp and Travelers which produced the largest banking
institution in the United States with assets of $700 billion, simply boggles the mind. The
institution of usury, always an necessary adjunct of economic liberalism, has caused in recent
years more bankruptcies and personal debt than ever before in history. Nations, such as
Indonesia, are tottering on the brink of social, economic, and political chaos because of their
inability to pay the interest on their hundreds of billions of dollars in bank debt. If such a
nation should go into default, it could threaten to throw a whole variety of nations into
recession, depression, or worse.
It is not proper to say that the predictions of the imminent demise of capitalism were
totally without fulfillment. The 1920s, 30s, and 40s witnessed reaction after reaction to the
radical individualism which is the fundamental idea of liberal capitalism. Truly, the market is
the institutionalization of individualism and non-responsibility. Neither buyer nor seller is
responsible for anything but himself.5
The idea that if every man simply seeks after his own
economic interest, all will be provided for and prosper, was almost universally rejected during
these decades. We see strong reactions to economic liberalism in Russian Communism, German
National Socialism, Italian Fascism, Austrian, Portuguese, and Spanish Corporatism, British
Fabian Socialism, along with the American "New Deal" leftism. Thus, in the 1930s and 1940s,
most of the world was ordered by ideologies which explicitly rejected the premises of economic
liberalism. We must, also, not forget the international economic crash of the late 20s and
early 30s, which produced economic depression, totalitarian regimes, and, finally, world
war.
There is one fact which separates our day from the days of the 30s and 40s, however. The
concentration of wealth and capital, the inadequacy of a man's pay to provide the basics of
life and to provide for savings for the future, the lack of real property generously and
broadly distributed, is masked by the reality of easy credit. Easy credit, which is not
ultimately "easy" at all on the borrower, anesthetizes the populace to the grim facts of
capitalist monopoly. Since we seem to be able to get all the things that we want, the reality
of real money being increasingly unavailable to the average man is lost in the delusionary
state of the consumerist utopia. Only when the "benefit" of usurious credit is cut off, do we
realize the full extent of the problem. The greatest problem with liberal capitalism, however,
is not the concentration of wealth or real property, the greatest "existential" problem created
by capitalism is the problem of the very meaning and reality of work. To work is essential to
what it means to be a human being. Next to the family, it is work and the relationships
established by work that are the true foundations of society.6 In modern capitalism, however,
it is productivity and profit which are the basic aims, not the providing of satisfying work.
Moreover, since "labor saving" devices are the proudest accomplishments of industrial
capitalism, labor itself is stamped with the mark of undesirability. But what is undesirable
cannot confer dignity.7
It is not merely that industrial capitalism has produced forms of work, both manual and
white-collared, which are "utterly uninteresting and meaningless. Mechanical, artificial,
divorced from nature, utilizing only the smallest part of man's potential capacities,
[sentencing] the great majority of workers to spending their working lives in a way which
contains no worthy challenge, no stimulus to self-perfection, no chance of development, no
element of Beauty, Truth, Goodness."8 Rather, capitalism has so fundamentally alienated man
from his own work, that he no longer considers it his own. It is those with the financial
monopoly who determine what forms of work are to exist and which are "valuable" (i.e., useful
for rendering profits to the owners of money).9 Since man spends most of his days working, his
entire existence becomes hollowed out, serving a purpose which is not of his own choosing nor
in accord with his final end.
In regard to the entire question of a "final end," if we are to consider capitalism from a
truly philosophical perspective, we must ask of it the most philosophical of questions, why?
What is the purpose for which all else is sacrificed, what is the purpose of continuous growth?
Is it growth for growth's sake? With capitalism, there is no "saturation point," no condition
in which the masters of the system say that the continuous growth of corporate profits and the
development of technological devices has ceased to serve the ultimate, or even the proximate,
ends of mankind. Perhaps, the most damning indictment of economic liberalism, indeed, of any
form of liberalism, is its inability to answer the question "why."
A) Corporatism: The Catholic Response
1) The History of the "Third Way"
To understand the history of the "Third Way," a name given to an economic system which is
neither Marxist nor Capitalist by French corporatist thinker Auguste Murat (1944), we must
consider the social, political, and economic realities which originally motivated its main
advocates. Originally, "Corporatism," later to be termed "Distributism" by its British
advocates Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, was a response on the part of German
traditionalists and Catholics to the inroads which the ideology of the French Revolution had
made into their country in the early and middle years of the 19th century. The institutions
which were being defended in Corporatist thought were the ancient "estates" or "guilds" which
had been the pillars of Christian Germany for centuries. These corporate bodies, grouping
together all the men of a particular occupation or social function, were an institutional
opposition to the revolutionary doctrines of individualism and human equality. One early
rightist thinker, Adam Muller, upheld the traditional idea of social stratification based upon
an organic hierarchy of estates or guilds (Berufstandische). Such a system was necessary on
account of the essential dissimilarity of men. Moreover, such a system would prevent the
"atomization" of society so much desired by the revolutionaries who wished to remake in a new
form that which had been pulverized by liberalism.10
2) Von Ketteler and the Guild System
It was, however, a German nobleman and prelate, Wilhelm Emmanuel, Baron von Ketteler
(1811-1877), Bishop of Mainz, who directed Corporatism into new avenues and forced it to
address new concerns. The realities which Bishop von Ketteler knew the Catholic mind had to
address was the new reality of industrialism and economic liberalism. As Pope Leo XIII himself
admitted on several occasions, it was the thought of Bishop von Ketteler which helped shape his
own encyclical letter on Catholic economic teaching Rerum Novarum (1891).11 The "new things"
His Holiness was addressing were capitalism and socialism. Both meet with his condemnation,
although capitalism is condemned with strong language as an abuse of property, a deprivation of
the many by the few, while socialism is dismissed outright as being contrary to man's inherent
right to own property.12
Von Ketteler, also, in his book Die Arbeiterfrage und das Christenthum (Christianity and the
Labor Problem), attacks the supremacy of capital and the reign of economic liberalism as the
two main roots of the evils of modern society. Both represented the growing ascendancy of
individualism and materialism, twin forces that were operating to "bring about the dissolution
of all that unites men organically, spiritually, intellectually, morally, and socially."
Economic liberalism was nothing but an application of materialism to society." The working
class are to be reduced to atoms and then mechanically reassembled. This is the fundamental
generative principle of modern political economy."13 What Ketteler sought to remedy was "This
pulverization method, this chemical solution of humanity into individuals, into grains of dust
equal in value, into particles which a puff of wind may scatter in all directions."14 Bishop
von Ketteler's solution to this problem of the pulverization of the work force and the ensuing
injustice which this would inevitably breed, was to propose an idea which was the central
concept of medieval and post-medieval economic life, the guild system. When responding to a
letter from a group of Catholic workers who had submitted the question "Can a Catholic
Workingman be a member of the Socialist Worker's Party?," Bishop von Ketteler outlined the
basic structure of these vocational guilds or Berufstandische: First, "The desired
organizations must be of natural growth; that is, they must grow out of the nature of things,
out of the character of the people and its faith, as did the guilds of the Middle Ages."
Second, "They must have an economic purpose and must not be subservient to the intrigues and
idle dreams of politicians nor to the fanaticism of the enemies of religion." Third, "They must
have a moral basis, that is, a consciousness of corporative honor, corporative responsibility,
etc. Fourth, "They must include all the individuals of the same vocational estates." Fifth,
"Self-government and control must be combined in due proportion."
The guilds which von Ketteler was advocating were to be true social corporations, true
vocational "bodies" which were to have a primarily economic end, and yet, be animated by the
"soul" of a common faith. These "bodies," just like all organic entities, would be made up of
distinct parts all exercising a unique role in their particular trade. In the days of corporate
giants and trade unions, it is, perhaps, impossible to imagine vocational organizations which
include both owners and workers, along with technicians of all types. These organizations would
regulate all aspects of their particular trade, including wages, prices for products, quality
control, along with certifying that all apprentices has the requisite skills to adequately
perform the guild's particular art.
3) The Guild System and Social Solidarity
Following the intellectual path charted by von Ketteler, another German Catholic, Franz
Hitze (1851-1921), wrote of the social, psychological, and, even, spiritual purposes which
would be served by the vocational corporations or guilds. Claiming that "economic freedom" was
only a myth serving to disguise the fact that capital actually ordered things completely with a
single eye to its own advantage, Hitze saw no alternative to the economic and social control
traditionally exercised by the guilds. It would be such organizations which overcame the
antagonism between capital and labor which fed Marxist propaganda. In his book Kapital und
Arbeit und die Reorganisation der Gesellschaft (Capital and Labor and the Reorganization of
Society), Hitze states that such organizations would also end the fierce competition which is
totally inconsistent with the idea of the Common Good and social solidarity. This idea that an
economy can be ordered on the basis of "mutuality" and the identification of the interests of
employer and employee, is difficult for those who assume that an economic system must be
powered by competition and self-interest. It must be remembered, however, that such was the
economic system of Christendom until the guilds were destroyed by the advent of the French
Revolution.
What these traditional vocational groups were able to foster during the ages in which they
ordered the life of the craftsman, was a decentralization both of property and of economic
power. They, also, enabled the average craftsman to have a real say in the workings of his
trade. Such economic "federalism" or decentralization prevented the development of financial
monopolies. As Hilaire Belloc states, "Above all, most jealously did the guild safeguard the
division of property, so that there should be formed within its ranks no proletariat upon the
one side, and no monopolizing capitalist upon the other."15
B) Chesterbelloc and Distributism
It was in the early years of this century, that Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton, joined
by a former Socialist Arthur Penty, inspired by Rerum Novarum, attempted to articulate an
economic system which stood on a totally different set of principles than did the "new things"
of capitalism and socialism. The name they gave to this system, Distributism, awkward as they
themselves realized, expressed not the socialist idea of the confiscation of all private
property, but rather, the wide-spread distribution of land, real-property, the means of
production, and of financial capital, amongst the greater part of the families of a nation.
Such a concept, along with their encouragement of the guild system, of a return to the agrarian
life, and of their condemnation of the taking of interest on non-productive loans, formed the
core of this "new" economic model.
In his book Economics for Helen, Belloc identifies the nature of the Distributist State by
distinguishing this type of state and social and economic system from that of the Servile State
and the Capitalist State. The Servile State is the one of classical antiquity, in which vast
masses of the people work as slaves for the small class of owners. In this way, the economic
state of antiquity is very similar to the economic system of our own time, insofar as a very
small minority possess real property, land, the means of production, and financial capital,
while the great mass of the population does not possess these goods to any significant degree.
How does Belloc distinguish the Servile State from that of the Capitalist State, in which he
counts the Britain of his own time? The difference is that, whereas the Servile State is based
on coercion to force the greater part of the population, which does not possess property, to
work for those who do, the Capitalist State employs "free" laborers who can choose to sign a
work contract with one employer or another. In the liberal Capitalist State, one is "free" to
choose to apply for work or accept work from one of the various owners of the means of
production. In return for this work, the laborer receives a wage which is a small portion of
the wealth that he produces.16
What distinguishes the Distributist State from the two States mentioned above, is that
instead of a small minority of men owning the means of production, there is a wide distribution
of property. In this regard, Belloc defines property as "the control of wealth by someone."17
Property must, then, be controlled by someone, since wealth which is not kept or used up by
someone would perish and cease to be wealth.
1) England's Journey for Distributism to Capitalism
It is Belloc's historical thesis, that it was not the industrialism of the late 18th and
early 19th centuries which brought about the rise of capitalism, but rather, England was a
capitalist state in the making long before the emergence of the railroad or the factory. The
Servile State, the state in which a small number of owners controlled the land and the men who
worked the land, was a mark of the Roman civilization which gradually transformed itself, under
the influence of the Catholic Church, into the feudal system in which the servus went from
being a "slave" who owned nothing, to being a "serf" who could retain [some] of what he
produced in the fields. The serf had the right to pass the land down to his own kin and he
could not be throw off his land. Thus, the personal security and economic and social stability
which characterized the Roman estate system, was carried over into medieval times.18
This historical movement, under the aegis of the Church, towards a man working on the land
which he himself owned, and working for his own benefit and for that of his family, came to an
end in England in the 16th century during the reign of King Henry VIII. Since the Distributist
State had grown up under the eye of Holy Mother Church, it should not be surprising that it
would end when She was attacked and surpressed. According to Belloc, it was King Henry's
confiscation of the monastery lands in England, and his action of parceling them out among his
wealthy supporters, which marked the beginning of the transformation of England from a nation
in which property, the land, and the means of production were widely distributed, to one in
which a small number of families control increasingly greater shares of the land. The coming of
protestantism marked the transformation of the average Englishman from independent yeoman to
tenant farmer. The concentration of wealth would occur, then, long before England would become
the industrial power of the world in the 19th century.19
2) Small is Beautiful
There can be no doubt as to the most general form of family ownership foreseen and advocated
by Belloc and Chesterton. For them, the most humane and stable economic system was one in which
a majority of families farmed land which they themselves owned, doing it with tools which were
also their own.20 Here he was following the lead of Pope Leo XIII, who in Rerum Novarum,
advocates a similar aim: "We have seen therefore that this great labor question cannot be
solved save by assuming as a principle that private ownership must be held sacred and
inviolable. The law, therefore, should favor ownership and its policy should be to induce as
many as possible to obtain a share in the land, the gulf between vast wealth and sheer poverty
will be bridged... A further consequence will be the greater abundance of the fruits of the
earth. Men always work harder and more readily when they work on that which belongs to them;
nay, and those that are dear to them. . . men would cling to the country of their birth, for no
one would exchange his country for a foreign land if his own afforded him the means of living a
decent and happy life."21
Being Englishmen, the idea that the land meant wealth was inevitably ingrained in their
conception of economics. Ownership of the land by the families who themselves worked the land
would also mean financial stability, no fear of unemployment, a family enterprise which could
engage, in some measure, all members, an ability to put aside food and supplies to create a
hedge against destitution, a way of providing not only for one's children but for one's
children's children, along with creating an economic structure which is not oriented towards
corporate profits but towards providing for familial subsistence and a local market. Belloc
speaks of this type of Distributist economy as the one most general throughout the history of
mankind, with the possible exception of the slave economy. Capitalism and Socialism are
certainly recent interlopers on the human economic scene.22
Next we must address the ways in which such a Distributist idea can be implemented on the
personal and community level. In this regard, our next article will focus on the concept of a
"parallel economy" formed by those who wish to begin to implement the economic teachings of
Rerum Novarum and Quadragesimo Anno, along with focusing on the agrarian idea both as Catholic
thought and human good sense.
"... Consolidation of mankind on the basis of the moral commandments of God is fully consistent with the Christian mission. This incarnation of globalization provides an opportunity for fraternal mutual assistance, free exchange of creative achievements and knowledge, respectful coexistence of different languages and cultures, the joint protection of nature - would be a reasonable and pious. ..."
"... If the essence of globalization is only to overcome the division between the people, the content of its economic processes had to be overcome inequalities, the prudent use of earthly riches, equitable international cooperation. ..."
"... In contrast to the immutability and universality of moral commandments, the economy cannot have a universal solution for all peoples and all times. A variety of people, God created in the world, reminds us that every nation has its task by the Creator, each valuable in the sight of the Lord, and everyone is able to contribute to the creation of our world. ..."
"... Although outwardly visible collapse of the world colonial system, the richest states of the world in pursuit of the ever-receding horizons of consumption continue to enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else. It is impossible to recognize to be just international division of labor in which some countries are suppliers of absolute values, especially human labor or raw materials irreversible, while others - suppliers of conditional values in the form of financial resources. ..."
"... Money payed for non-renewable natural resources are often taken in the literal sense "from the air", due to the work of the printing press - thanks to the monopoly position of issuers of world currency. As a result, the abyss in the socio-economic status between the nations and entire continents is becoming increasingly profound. This one-sided globalization, giving undue advantages to some of its participants at the expense of the others, entails a partial and, in some cases, virtually completes loss of sovereignty. ..."
"... If mankind needed freely traded currencies throughout the world to serve as a universal yardstick for economic calculations, the production of such units should be under fair international control, where all states of the world will proportionally participate. Possible benefits of such emissions could be channeled to the development of the poverty-stricken regions of the planet. ..."
"... National governments are increasingly losing their independence and becoming less dependent on the will of their own people, and more and more - the will of the transnational elite. Themselves, these elites are not constituted in the legal space, and is therefore not accountable to neither the people nor the national governments, becoming a shadow regulator of social and economic processes. Greed shadow rulers of the global economy leads to the fact that a thin layer of "elite" is getting richer and at the same time more and more relieved of the responsibility for the welfare of those whose labor created the wealth. ..."
"... Moral society should not increase the gap between rich and poor. Strong does not have the moral right to use their benefits at the expense of the weak, but on the contrary - are obliged to take care of those who are dispossessed. People who are employed should receive decent remuneration. ..."
"... Whole countries and nations are plunged into debt, and generations that are not yet born are doomed to pay the bills of their ancestors. ..."
"... Business expectations in lending, often ghostly becomes more profitable than the production of tangible goods. In this regard, it must be remembered about the moral ambiguity of the situation, when money is "make" new money without the application of human labor. Declaring credit sphere to be the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real economic sector comes into conflict with the moral principles, reveled by God condemning usury. ..."
"... Attempts by indigenous people of the rich countries to stop the migration flow are futile, because come in conflict with greed of their own elites who are interested in the low-wage workforce. But even more inexorable factor driving migration was the spread of hedonic quasi -religion capturing not only elite, but also the broad masses of people in countries with high living standards. Renunciation of procreation for the most careless, smug and personal existence becomes signs of the times. The popularization of the ideology of child-free, the cult of childless and without family life for themselves lead to a reduction in the population in the most seemingly prosperous societies. ..."
"... We must not forget that the commandment to all the descendants of Adam and Eve, said: "Fill the earth and subdue it." Anyone who does not want to continue his race will inevitably have to give way to the ground for those who prefer having children over material well-being. ..."
"... Globalization has accelerated the consumer race disproportionate to earth resources granted to mankind. Volumes of consumption of goods in those countries, which are recognized worldwide for the samples and which are equal to billions of people, have long gone beyond the resource capabilities of these "model" countries. There is no doubt that, if the whole of humanity will absorb the natural wealth of the intensity of the countries that are leaders in terms of the consumption, there will be an environmental disaster on the planet. ..."
The Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate
has published a draft of the document "Economy in the context of globalization. Orthodox
ethical view. " This document demonstrates the key positions of the Russian Church on a number
of issues relating to the economy and international relations.
1. The Russian Orthodox Church demonstrates that it supports only the trends in modern
international processes that aim to build a multi-polar world, and the dialogue of
civilizations and cultures on the basis of traditional, non-liberal values:
Consolidation of mankind on the basis of the moral commandments of God is fully
consistent with the Christian mission. This incarnation of globalization provides an
opportunity for fraternal mutual assistance, free exchange of creative achievements and
knowledge, respectful coexistence of different languages and cultures, the joint protection of
nature - would be a reasonable and pious.
If the essence of globalization is only to overcome the division between the people, the
content of its economic processes had to be overcome inequalities, the prudent use of earthly
riches, equitable international cooperation.
2. At the same time a large part of the document critically examines the process of
globalization. Church officials say that globalization "remove barriers to the spread of sin
and vice." The Russian Church condemns Westernization and dissemination of the Western cult of
consumption, noting that "the Western way of development" is a road to nowhere, to hell, and
the abyss:
Catch-up model of modernization", having before people's eyes uncritically perceived
external sample, not only destroys the social structure and spiritual life of the "catch-up"
societies, but often does not allow to approach the idol in the material sphere, imposing
unacceptable and ruinous economic decisions.
In contrast to the immutability and universality of moral commandments, the economy
cannot have a universal solution for all peoples and all times. A variety of people, God
created in the world, reminds us that every nation has its task by the Creator, each valuable
in the sight of the Lord, and everyone is able to contribute to the creation of our
world.
3. The Church denounced neocolonialism and the exploitation of the Third World by Western
multinationals. The Russian Orthodox Church considers such a policy to be deeply unjust and
sinful. Control over the financial sector as the main weapon of the new colonialism is
specially marked:
Although outwardly visible collapse of the world colonial system, the richest states of
the world in pursuit of the ever-receding horizons of consumption continue to enrich themselves
at the expense of everyone else. It is impossible to recognize to be just international
division of labor in which some countries are suppliers of absolute values, especially human
labor or raw materials irreversible, while others - suppliers of conditional values in the form
of financial resources.
4. The Christian approach to the economy that the Russian Orthodox Church insists on is
primarily ontological. The only alternative to the global fictitious liberal economy can only
be a real Christian economy. The hegemony of global plutocracy, which is based on financial
capital and the dollar as the universal currency, can be countered only by a global policy of
sovereignty:
Money payed for non-renewable natural resources are often taken in the literal sense
"from the air", due to the work of the printing press - thanks to the monopoly position of
issuers of world currency. As a result, the abyss in the socio-economic status between the
nations and entire continents is becoming increasingly profound. This one-sided globalization,
giving undue advantages to some of its participants at the expense of the others, entails a
partial and, in some cases, virtually completes loss of sovereignty.
5. As one of the ways to solve this problem (dollar hegemony), the Church proposes to
establish international control over global currencies:
If mankind needed freely traded currencies throughout the world to serve as a universal
yardstick for economic calculations, the production of such units should be under fair
international control, where all states of the world will proportionally participate. Possible
benefits of such emissions could be channeled to the development of the poverty-stricken
regions of the planet.
6. However, the strengthening of international institutions, according to representatives of
the Russian Orthodox Church, should not lead to the strengthening of the transnational elite.
The unconditional support of state sovereignty against the transnational elite is a distinctive
feature of the position of the Orthodox Church. This differs the Orthodox from Catholics, who
are members of the globalist transnational centralized structure, in contrast to the Orthodox
Churches, which are united in faith, but not administratively.
National governments are increasingly losing their independence and becoming less
dependent on the will of their own people, and more and more - the will of the transnational
elite. Themselves, these elites are not constituted in the legal space, and is therefore not
accountable to neither the people nor the national governments, becoming a shadow regulator of
social and economic processes. Greed shadow rulers of the global economy leads to the fact that
a thin layer of "elite" is getting richer and at the same time more and more relieved of the
responsibility for the welfare of those whose labor created the wealth.
7. The gap between rich and poor, predatory morality of "free capitalism" in the version of
Hayek, and neoliberal thoughts, according to the representatives of the Russian Orthodox
Church, is incompatible with Christian teaching:
Moral society should not increase the gap between rich and poor. Strong does not have
the moral right to use their benefits at the expense of the weak, but on the contrary - are
obliged to take care of those who are dispossessed. People who are employed should receive
decent remuneration.
8. The Russian Church openly declares his attitude to usury as a sinful phenomenon, and
notes the destructiveness of the global debt economy:
Whole countries and nations are plunged into debt, and generations that are not yet born
are doomed to pay the bills of their ancestors.
Business expectations in lending, often ghostly becomes more profitable than the
production of tangible goods. In this regard, it must be remembered about the moral ambiguity
of the situation, when money is "make" new money without the application of human labor.
Declaring credit sphere to be the main engine of the economy, its predominance over the real
economic sector comes into conflict with the moral principles, reveled by God condemning
usury.
9. Such an important aspect of modern life like mass migration is not left unattended.
Unlike the Catholic approach that unduly favors migrants, particularly in Europe, the Orthodox
notices the negative nature of the process, as well as the fact that it leads to confrontation
of different identities and value systems. In addition, the Orthodox Church propose to look at
the roots of this phenomenon. The reason for the migration is the liberal, hedonistic ideology
bleeding the peoples of Europe and the interests of the capitalist elite, who need a cheap and
disenfranchised workforce:
Attempts by indigenous people of the rich countries to stop the migration flow are
futile, because come in conflict with greed of their own elites who are interested in the
low-wage workforce. But even more inexorable factor driving migration was the spread of hedonic
quasi -religion capturing not only elite, but also the broad masses of people in countries with
high living standards. Renunciation of procreation for the most careless, smug and personal
existence becomes signs of the times. The popularization of the ideology of child-free, the
cult of childless and without family life for themselves lead to a reduction in the population
in the most seemingly prosperous societies.
We must not forget that the commandment to all the descendants of Adam and Eve, said:
"Fill the earth and subdue it." Anyone who does not want to continue his race will inevitably
have to give way to the ground for those who prefer having children over material
well-being.
10. The Russian Church noted that the current level of consumption and the ideology of
infinite progress are incompatible with the limited resources of the planet:
Globalization has accelerated the consumer race disproportionate to earth resources
granted to mankind. Volumes of consumption of goods in those countries, which are recognized
worldwide for the samples and which are equal to billions of people, have long gone beyond the
resource capabilities of these "model" countries. There is no doubt that, if the whole of
humanity will absorb the natural wealth of the intensity of the countries that are leaders in
terms of the consumption, there will be an environmental disaster on the planet.
This document is very important because it shows that the Russian Orthodox Church not only
occupies a critical position in relation to the liberal globalization, but also offers a
Christian alternative to globalization processes. While Catholics and most Protestant
denominations have passionate humanist ideas, and in the best case, criticize globalization
from the left or left-liberal positions, the Russian Orthodox Church advocate sovereignty and
national identity. The most important aspect of the Orthodox critique of globalization is the
idea of multipolarity and the destructiveness of modern Western civilization's path.
It in known that the problem of human rights is thoroughly Orthodox: "The power and means for
promoting worldwide equality and brotherhood lie not in waging crusades but in freely accepting
the cross." He urges a radically personal solution, one that takes as its model the saint, the
martyr, and the ascetic. Here Anastasios draws on the traditional Orthodox understanding of
freedom, which is ordered and tempered by ascetical practice, self-control, and placing limits on
material desires. Churches are to become "laboratories of selfless love," places where the
Kingdom of God is manifest on earth. "Our most important right is our right to realize our
deepest nature and become 'children of God' through grace," he says.
Lest this approach be interpreted as a justification of passiveness and quietism, Anastasios
also urges Christians to exercise their ethical conscience in the world. "Christians must be
vigilant, striving to make the legal and political structure of their society ever more
comprehensive through constant reform and reassessment," he says.
"... An exclusive interview with Dr. Ovidiu Hurduzeu, Romanian economist and sociologist, and one of the main proponents of Distributism in Romania. Special for Katehon.com ..."
An exclusive interview with Dr. Ovidiu Hurduzeu, Romanian economist and sociologist, and
one of the main proponents of Distributism in Romania. Special for Katehon.com
Why distributism?
To understand the importance of distributism, we need to compare it to both communism and
capitalism, the two systems that distributism is opposed to. In a distributist society there is
wide and equitable distribution of property and ownership. In communism you have collective
ownership and collective redistribution of property. People do not have economic freedom; they
are wage-slaves to the state. In the so called "free, democratic and capitalist" society, the
capital, and most of the property, belong to a small class called 'capitalists', while the mass
of the citizens are obliged to work for the few capitalists in return for a wage. Distributism
does not separate ownership and work any longer. It seeks to establish an economic and social
order, where most people have real, debt-free productive property. (In capitalism, the
"property" of the common person is mortgaged or purchased on credit; it is merely a rented
good). In practical terms a distributist order is achieved through the widespread dissemination
of family-owned businesses, employee ownership, cooperatives, and any other arrangement
resulting in well-divided property.
What are the main problems that plague Romania and other Eastern European countries? How can
they be solved?
The main problem that has confronted Romania and other Eastern European countries is the
reckless adoption of the neoliberal economic model. In the aftermath of communism's collapse,
the collective ownership of land and the means of production (state assets) were transferred to
the private sector (local oligarchs and foreign individuals and companies). Such a process was
the main culprit behind the huge concentration of wealth, widespread poverty and the
destruction of the national economies. Today, Eastern Europe is made up of what distributists
call "servile states", with Romania being a case in point. Politically and economically, the
country is enslaved to the globalist power centers, while its citizens are constrained to work
under servile conditions in the rich EU countries, or are wage-slaves for transnational
corporations operating in Romania. There is no long-term solution unless the system of property
rights is completely reformed. Only the widespread ownership of property will make Romanians
sufficiently well off so that they can have a say in how they are governed.
Romania is a Christian-orthodox country while distributism is a catholic economic doctrine.
Do you see some contradictions here?
Distributism is more than an economic doctrine. It is a set of concrete economic practices
based on the Christian anthropology of the person. The main economic actors of liberalism are
homo oeconomicus and homo interlopus, while distributism can function only within a community
of persons. What I mean by person and personal has nothing to do with the atomistic
individualism of liberalism. It refers to the relational aspect of creation. Both Catholicism
and Orthodoxy envisage the human person in relation to God, to other human beings, and to the
rest of creation. The personalist aspects of distributism and its "small is beautiful" tenet
are what makes it very attractive to the orthodox world. It is not surprising that Solzhenitsyn
greatly admired the famous distributist thinker G.K. Chesterton. Solzhenitsyn conceived his own
version of distributism as a "democracy of small areas" (Rebuilding Russia) in the tradition of
Russian zemstvos. Catholic writers such as G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc were very
influential in disseminating the distributist ideas of the West. And yet distributism could
never really challenge liberalism and its economic doctrines. In the light of history, one can
discern two main reasons for its failure in the Western countries. One reason is the
forgetfulness and abandonment of the Person and of the community of persons created in the
image and likeness of God; another reason is the loss of the agrarian tradition that
Distributism was based on. The Western world replaced the person with the monadic individual of
liberalism, while the agrarian Weltanschauung gave way to an addiction to technology and
unbridled commercialism.
Distributism had its moment of glory in the 1920's. What can you tell us about the "Green
Rising"?
The aftermath of World War I saw an agrarian-distributist revolution, known as "the Green
Rising", which swept across Europe from Ireland and Scandinavia through Germany to the Slav
world. G.K. Chesterton underscored its historical significance: "It is a huge historical hinge
and turning point, like the conversion of Constantine or the French Revolution...What has
happened in Europe since the war (World War I) has been a vast victory for the peasant, and
therefore a vast defeat for the communists and the capitalists." Chesterton does not exaggerate
at all. "To observers in the 1920's" - writes the conservative writer Allan C. Carlson in the
'Third Ways' – "the future of Eastern Europe seemed to lie with the peasant 'Green', not
the Bolshevik 'Red' ". The Green Rising saw agrarian parties, with their radical distributist
programs, come to power in Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, and Finland, and strongly
influenced the situation in the Baltic States and Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, the great
distributist movement of the 1920's was largely crushed by the mid 1930's, and is now mostly
forgotten.
What distributist principles of organizing an economy are most suitable to the orthodox
countries? Is a "Christian-orthodox economy" still possible?
A Christian-orthodox economy is not only possible; it is the only way that could lead to the
transformation of our societies for the better. When communism collapsed, the liberals injected
the virus of a plutocratic economy and rampant individualism into our societies. If communists
dispossessed the populace in the name of collective ownership and a communal monopoly, the
liberals created a dispossessed "lonely crowd" that was forced to work for subsistence wages in
the name of the "free market". Both communism and the "new capitalists" instituted master-slave
relations in the former Soviet bloc. That is unacceptable from a Christian point of view. As
Christians, we cannot accept the neoliberal tenet that "there is no such thing as society"
(Margaret Thatcher). Individualism and ruthless competition are utterly unchristian. A
Christian orthodox society is a cooperative one in which loving our neighbors is the norm, and
the common rules are enforced in a way that maximizes personal responsibility. Due to their
communal organization, there was simply no poverty among the first Christians; they had no fear
of becoming slaves in order to support themselves. Today, a distributist society should
challenge the neo-liberal economic model in the way the cooperative society of the first
Christians challenged the slave-based economic order of the Roman Empire. We are not talking
here about idealism, utopia or socialist solutions in the form of welfare and punitive
taxation. We do not want to repeat the cycle of disempowerment and dependency. We need to
provide the conditions for social justice through a widespread distribution of property, the
remoralization of the markets, and recapitalization of the poor.
Does Romania have an intellectual tradition of non-liberal economic thought? What value does
this heritage have for today's economists?
Indeed, Romania had a solid intellectual tradition of non-liberal economic thought. A
mention must be made to the agrarian economists Virgil Madgearu (one of the leaders of the
National Peasant Party), Mircea Vulcanescu (one of Romania's greatest thinkers ever, he died in
prison as a Christian martyr), and Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, the founder of the ecological
economy. They belong to different economic schools and yet they share the same fondness for
agrarian and Christian values. Today's Romanian economists are too busy following orders from
the West to pay any attention to the great Romanian economists of the past.
How can the distributist principles be implemented in real economic policies? Are there any
political forces in Romania that want to bring the distributist ideas into reality?
The country needs a new "Green rising" to complete what the Romanian agrarians left
unfinished. "If the Peasants' Party is to be victorious in elections" - wrote Virgil Madgearu
– "the shape of things would be changed." The National Bank would no longer be the
economic fortress of the Liberal oligarchy. Trusts would no longer enslave and exploit the
state. Their selfish and venal leaders would no longer be enthroned in overseeing positions
over the country's destiny. Civil liberties, nowadays suffocated, and stolen civil rights would
be fully restored, and the constitutional-parliamentary regime would become a reality,
benefiting the development of popular masses as well as civilization."
Unfortunately, I do not see any real chance for Romania of adopting sweeping changes like
the ones envisaged by Madgearu in the 1920's. There are no political forces in today's Romania
strong enough to challenge the dominance of liberalism.
Do you see any relevance of the distributist model to Russian society in general, and the
Russian economy in particular?
I think that distributism is germane to Russian realities and not a foreign import like
communism and liberalism. And it is the only economic model that can vanquish the Liberals on
their own ground (the economy). Russia, like the Third Rome, should not forget the lessons of
Byzantine recovery. When confronted with a series of serious crises in the 7th century, the
Byzantine Empire adopted a brilliant distributist strategy. As a consequence, it went from near
disintegration to being the main power in Europe and the Near East. The pillar of this strategy
was the peasant-soldier who became a producer rather than consumer of the empire's wealth.
Fighting for their own lands and families, soldiers performed better. As staunch Christians,
the Byzantines survived by simplifying their social, political, and economic systems within the
constraints of less available resources. They moved from extensive space-based development to
simplified, local, intensive development. (That's the lesson the Soviet Union did not learn,
and failed as a result.) "In this sense, Byzantium" - writes Joseph A. Tainter – "may be
a model or prototype for our own future, in broad parameters but not in specific details."
Today's Global Empire is an integrated hyper-complex system that is very costly to human
society. It has reached the limits of its expansion and faces collapse because it tries to
solve its problems in the same outdated way: investing in more complexity and expansion. So far
its growth has been subsidized by the availability of cheap human and natural resources, as
well as a "world currency" that the Global Empire totally controls. A multipolar world and a
finite planet make investment in complexity no longer a problem-solving tool – the costs
exceed the benefits. If Russia could adopt distributism and follow the Byzantium-like
strategies of intensive development, the Third Rome can save herself and become a genuine
"prototype of our future".
The institutional church, in the afore-mentioned "Orthodox countries," basically functions
as a neoliberal corporation. If we think of bishops and patriarchs as "top managers" (CEOs),
and priests as lower-level administrators, in charge of specific, money-making divisions, and
the lay people as simple workers (or, worse, resources), the parallel is striking. The church
normally enjoys the monopoly status, and exploits it to a very high degree. There are many
direct and indirect benefits that the church (just as any major corporation in the neoliberal
world) enjoys: the state support, which ranges (depending on the country) from special,
tax-free status for its property and income, priests' salaries and pensions paid by the state,
to the privileged access to state officials, party leaders and the media, privileged treatment
in the (in)justice system, etc. In return, the church provides useful ideological narratives,
and the "moral support" to the dominant socio-political system.
When it comes to its internal functioning, the parallel with the neoliberal corporate world
is even more discernible. The selection of new top managers (bishops) is highly nontransparent,
subject to various types of corruption, and only occasionally and secondary based on
meritocracy and their (real) social contribution. In many (although, to be fair, not all)
dioceses, if you're a priest (lower-level administrator) that means that your primary duty is
to make money and send the assigned sum/percentage to the top management (bishop and/or
patriarch). The more money you produce/collect the better. If you're really successful (you
send a lot of money), and you make the senior management really happy, you will be rewarded by
certain privileges and the management will be ready to overlook many of your misconducts,
incompetence, lack of the very elementary Christian sense of compassion, etc. It normally does
not matter whether you're a good priest or not (in the old-fashioned sense, that is
someone who cares about the people, who is fully invested in liturgical services and parish
life in a self-sacrificing way, who aspires to live, as much as possible, according to the
Gospel, and so forth); following our neoliberal church, making a lot of money makes you a good
priest. (This, of course, does not mean that there are no many wonderful bishops and priests,
who exercise their pastoral service with the utmost care and love, to which the above described
system does not apply.)
If you are, on the other hand, a priest who believes in Christ, who tries to practice your
faith through the loving relationships with other people, if you, out of that faith and love,
use the church property in such a way that is beneficial for others and for the whole
community, but you do not produce "profits," you're potentially in trouble. If you, moreover,
dare to speak your mind, to tell the truth, to criticize the "management" for their
misconducts, for not living Christian lives, for not really practicing Orthodoxy and so on --
you're, more often than not, finished.
The neoliberal senior management does not tolerate disobedience, protests, different ways of
thinking. Neoliberalism is not there to promote freedom, critical thinking, creativity, general
well-being, or, for that matter, anything else that might be meaningful from a human
and humane point of view. It is there to affirm obedience, vertical distribution of
power, and, above all, profits, that contribute to the replication and expansion of power. This
neoliberal, corporate slavery is, of course, not advertised that way; it is normally advertised
as "competitiveness," "flexibility," "innovation," and so forth. In the church context, it is
advertised as "tradition," "centuries-old practices," "Christian life," "reverence," etc.
The alliance between big businesses, political ideologies and religion is not something new.
In the U.S. the alliance between the corporate sector and the religious (church) institutions
is a very well-known phenomenon. Not so much in the Orthodox world, which often believes that
it is immune to the various monstrosities coming from the "West." And many in the West
believe the same, except that they formulate it differently -- for them Orthodoxy appears as
fundamentally incompatible with the "Western values." It's a high time to reconsider and reject
this narrow ideological frame, which seriously distorts the image of (our neoliberal)
reality.
Davor Džalto is Associate Professor and Program Director for Art History and Religious
Studies at The American University of Rome President of the Institute for the Study of Culture
and Christianity.
Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives
on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay
are solely the author's and do not represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian
Studies Center.
"... At least in nature, "smart" parasites may perform helpful functions, such as helping their host find food. But as the host weakens, the parasite lays eggs, which hatch and devour the host, killing it. That is what predatory finance is doing to today's economies. It's stripping assets, not permitting growth or even letting the economy replenish itself. ..."
"... MH: The financial sector is a rentier sector – external to the "real" economy of production and consumption, and therefore a form of overhead. As overhead, it should be a subtracted from GDP. ..."
"... In the name of saving "the market," the Fed and ECB therefore overruled the market. Today, over 80 percent of U.S. home mortgages are guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority. Banks won't make loans without the government picking up the risk of non-payment. So bankers just pretend to be free market. That's for their victims. ..."
"... The "flight to security" is a move out of the stock and bond markets into government debt. Stocks and bonds may go down in price, some companies may go bankrupt, but national governments can always print the money to pay their bondholders. Investors are mainly concerned about keeping whatthey have – security of principal. They are willing to be paid less income in exchange for preserving what they have taken. ..."
"... But the way Wall Street administrators at the Treasury and Fed plan the crisis is for small savers to lose out to the large institutional investors. So the bottom line that I see is a slow crash. ..."
"... U.S. diplomats radically changed IMF lending rules as part of their economic sanctions imposed on Russia as result of the coup d'état by the Right Sector, Svoboda and their neo-Nazi allies in Kiev. The ease with which the U.S. changed these rules to support the military coup shows how the IMF is simply a tool of President Obama's New Cold War policy. ..."
"... The main financial innovation by Apple has been to set up a branch office in Ireland and pretend that the money it makes in the Untied States and elsewhere is made in Ireland – which has only a 15 percent income-tax rate ..."
"... It would seem to be an anomaly to borrow from banks and pay dividends. But that is the "cannibalism" stage of modern finance capitalism, U.S.-style. For the stock market as a whole, some 92 percent of earnings recently were used to pay dividends or for stock buybacks. ..."
Michael Hudson: The financial sector today is decoupled from industrialization. Its main
interface with industry is to provide credit to corporate raiders. Their objective isasset
stripping, They use earnings to repay financial backers (usually junk-bond holders), not to
increase production. The effect is to suck income from the company and from the economy to pay
financial elites.
These elites play the role today that landlords played under feudalism. They levy interest
and financial fees that are like a tax, to support what the classical economists called
"unproductive activity." That is what I mean by "parasitic."
If loans are not used to finance production and increase the economic surplus, then interest
has to be paid out of other income. It is what economists call a zero-sum activity. Such
interest is a "transfer payment," because it that does not play a directly productive function.
Credit may be a precondition for production to take place, but it is not a factor of
production as such.
The situation is most notorious in the international sphere, especially in loans to
governments that already are running trade and balance-of-payments deficits. Power tends to
pass into the hands of lenders, so they lose control – and become less democratic.
To return to my use of the word parasite, any exploitation or "free lunch" implies a host.
In this respect finance is a form of war, domestically as well as internationally.
At least in nature, "smart" parasites may perform helpful functions, such as helping their
host find food. But as the host weakens, the parasite lays eggs, which hatch and devour
the host, killing it. That is what predatory finance is doing to today's economies. It's
stripping assets, not permitting growth or even letting the economy replenish itself.
The most important aspect of parasitism that I emphasize is the need of parasites to control
the host's brain. In nature, a parasite first dulls the host's awareness that it is being
attacked. Then, the free luncher produces enzymes that control the host's brain and make it
think that it should protect the parasite – that the outsider is part of its own body,
even like a baby to be specially protected.
The financial sector does something similar by pretending to be part of the industrial
production-and-consumption economy. The National Income and Product Accounts treat the
interest, profits and other revenue that Wall Street extracts – along with that of the
rentier sectors it backs (real estate landlordship, natural resource extraction and
monopolies) – as if these activities add to Gross Domestic Product. The reality is that
they are a subtrahend, a transfer payment from the "real" economy to the Finance, Insurance and
Real Estate Sector. I therefore focus on this FIRE sector as the main form of economic overhead
that financialized economies have to carry.
What this means in the most general economic terms is that finance and property ownership
claims are not "factors of production." They are external to the production process. But they
extract income from the "real" economy.
They also extract property ownership. In the sphere of public infrastructure – roads,
bridges and so forth – finance is moving into the foreclosure phase. Creditors are trying
to privatize what remains in the public domains of debtor economies. Buyers of these assets
– usually on credit – build interest and high monopoly rents into the prices they
charge.
JR: What is your vision for the next few decades of the global economy?
MH: The financial overhead has grown so large that paying interest, amortization and fees
shrinks the economy. So we are in for years of debt deflation. That means that people have to
pay so much debt service for mortgages, credit cards, student loans, bank loans and other
obligations that they have less to spend on
goods and services. So markets shrink. New investment and employment fall off, and the economy
is falls into a downward spiral.
My book therefore
devotes a chapter to describing how debt deflation works. The result is a slow crash. The
economy just gets poorer and poorer. More debtors default, and their property is transferred to
creditors. This happens not only with homeowners who fall into arrears, but also corporations
and even governments. Ireland and Greece are examples of the kind of future in store for
us.
Financialized economies tend to polarize between creditors and debtors. This is the dynamic
that Thomas Piketty leaves out of his book, but his statistics show that all growth in income
and nearly all growth in wealth or net worth has accrued to the One Percent, almost nothing for
the 99 Percent.
Basically, you can think of the economy as the One Percent getting the 99 Percent
increasingly into debt, and siphoning off as interest payments and other financial charges
whatever labor or business earns. The more a family earns, for instance, the more it can borrow
to buy a nicer home in a better neighborhood – on mortgage. The rising price of housing
ends up being paid to the bank – and over the course of a 30-year mortgage, the banker
receives more in interest than the seller gets.
Economic polarization is also occurring between creditor and debtor nations. This
issplitting the eurozone between Germany, France and the Netherlands in the creditor camp,
against Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy (the PIIGS) falling deeper into debt,
unemployment and austerity – followed by emigration and capital flight.
This domestic and international polarization will continue until there is a political fight
to resist the creditors. Debtors will seek to cancel their debts. Creditors will try to
collect, and the more they succeed, the more they will impoverish the economy.
Background
JR: Let's talk about your history, why did you become an economist?
MH: I started out wanting to be a musician – a composer and conductor. I wasn't very
good at either, but I was a very good interpreter, thanks to working with Oswald Jonas in
Chicago studying the musical theories of Heinrich Schenker. I got my sense of aesthetics from
music theory, and also the idea of modulation from one key to another. It is dissonance that
drives music forward, to resolve in a higher key or overtone.
When I was introduced to economics by the father of a schoolmate, I found it as aesthetic as
music, in the sense of a self-transforming dynamic through history by challenge and response or
resolution. I went to work for banks on Wall Street, and was fortunate enough to learn about
how central mortgage lending and real estate were for the economy. Then, I became Chase
Manhattan's balance-of-payments economist in 1964, and got entranced with tracing how the
surplus was buried in the statistics – who got it, and what they used it for. Mainly the
banks got it, and used it to make new loans.
I viewed the economy as modulating from one phase to the next. A good interpretation would
explain history. But the way the economy worked was nothing like what I was taught in school
getting my PhD in economics at New York University. So I must say, I enjoyed contrasting
reality with what I now call Junk Economics.
In mainstream textbooks there is no exploitation. Even fraudulent banks, landlords and
monopolists are reported as "earning" whatever they take – as if they are contributing to
GDP. So I found the economics discipline ripe for a revolution.
JR: What is the difference between how economics is taught vs. what you learned in your
job?
MH: For starters, when I studied economics in the 1960s there was still an emphasis on the
history of economic thought, and also on economic history. That's gone now.
One can easily see why. Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill and other classical economists sought
to free their societies from the legacy of feudalism: landlordism and predatory finance, as
well as from the monopolies that bondholders had demanded that governments create as a means of
paying their war debts.
Back in the 1960s, just like today, university courses did not give any training in actual
statistics. My work on Wall Street involved National Income and Product Accounts and the
balance-of-payments statisticspublished by the Commerce Department every three months, as well
as IMF andFederal Reserve statistics. Academic courses didn't even make reference to accounting
– so there was no conceptualization of "money," for instance, in terms of the liabilities
side of the balance sheet.
New York University's money and banking course was a travesty. It was about helicopters
dropping money down – to be spent on goods and services, increasing prices. There was no
understanding that the Federal Reserve's helicopter only flies over Wall Street, or that banks
create money on its own computers. It was not even recognized that banks lend to customers
mainly to buy real estate, or speculate in stocks and bonds, or raid companies.
Economics is taught like English literature. Teachers explain the principle of "suspension
of disbelief." Readers of novels are supposed to accept the author's characters and setting. In
economics, students are told to accept just-pretend parallel universe assumptions, and then
treat economic theory as a purely logical exercise, without any reference to the world.
The switch from fiction to reality occurs by taking the policy conclusions of these
unrealistic assumptions as if they do apply to the real world: austerity, trickle-down
economics shifting taxes off the wealthy, and treating government spending as "deadweight" even
when it is on infrastructure.
The most fictitious assumption is that Wall Street and the FIRE sector add to
output, rather than extracting revenue from the rest of the economy.
JR: What did you learn in your work on the US oil industry?
MH: For starters, I learned how the oil industry became tax-exempt. Not only by the
notorious depletion allowance, but by offshoring profits in "flags of convenience" countries, in
Liberia and Panama. These are not real countries. They do not have their own currency, but use
U.S. dollars. And they don't have an income tax.
The international oil companies sold crude oil at low prices from the Near East or Venezuela
to Panamanian or Liberian companies – telling the producing countries that oil was not
that profitable. These shipping affiliates owned tankers, and charged very high prices to
refineries and distributors in Europe or the Americas. The prices were so high that these
refineries and other "downstream" operations marketing gas to consumers did not show a profit
either. So they didn't have to pay European or U.S. taxes. Panama and Liberia had no income tax.
So the global revenue of the oil companies was tax-free.
I also learned the difference between a branch and an affiliate. Oil wells and oil fields
are treated as "branches," meaning that their statistics are consolidated with the head office
in the United States. This enabled the companies to take a depletion allowance for emptying out
oil fields abroad as well as in the United States.
My statistics showed that the average dollar invested by the U.S. oil industry was returned
to the United States via balance-of-payments flows in just 18 months. (This was not a profit
rate, but a balance-of-payments flow.) That finding helped the oil industry get exempted from
President Lyndon Johnson's "voluntary" balance-of-payments controls imposed in 1965 when the
Vietnam War accounted for the entire U.S. payments deficit. Gold was flowering out to France,
Germany and other countries running payments surpluses.
The balance-of-payments accounting format I designed for this study led me to go to work for
an accounting firm, Arthur Andersen, to look at the overall U.S. balance of payments. I found
that the entire deficit was military spending abroad, not foreign aid or trade.
Junk Economics
JR: Why do you think there is a disconnect between academic economic theory and the way
that international trade and finance really works?
MH: The aim of academic trade theory is to tell students, "Look at the model, not at how
nations actually develop." So of all the branches of economic theory, trade theory is the most
wrongheaded.
For lead nations, the objective of free trade theory is to persuade other countries not to
protect their own markets. That means not developing in the way that Britain did under its
mercantilist policies thatmade it the first home of the Industrial Revolution. It means not
protecting domestic industry, as the United States and Germany did in order to catch up with
British industry in the 19 th century and overtake it in theearly 20 th
century.
Trade theorists start with a conclusion: either free trade or (in times past) protectionism.
Free trade theory as expounded by Paul Samuelson and others starts by telling students to
assume a parallel universe – one that doesn't really exist. The conclusion they start
with is that free trade makes everyone's income distribution between capital and labor similar.
And because the world has a common price for raw materials and dollar credit, as well as for
machinery, the similar proportions turn out to mean equality. All the subsequent assumptions
are designed to lead to this unrealistic conclusion.
But if you start with the real world instead of academic assumptions, you see that the world
economy is polarizing. Academic trade theory can't explain this. In fact, it denies that
today's reality can be happening at all!
A major reason why the world is polarizing is because of financial dynamics between creditor
and debtor economies. But trade theory starts by assuming a world of barter. Finally, when the
transition from trade theory to international finance is made, the assumption is that countries
running trade deficits can "stabilize" by imposing austerity, by lowering wages, wiping out
pension funds and joining the class war against labor.
All these assumptions were repudiated already in the 18 th century, when Britain
sought to build up its empire by pursuing mercantilist policies. The protectionist American
School of Economics in the 19 th century put forth the Economy of High Wages
doctrine to counter free-trade theory. None of this historical background appears in today's
mainstream textbooks. (I provide a historical survey in Trade, Development and
Foreign Debt , new ed., 2002. That book summarizes my course in international trade
and finance that I taught at the New School from 1969 to 1972.)
In the 1920s, free-trade theory was used to insist that Germany could pay reparations far
beyond its ability to earn foreign exchange. Keynes, Harold Moulton and other economists
controverted that theory. In fact, already in 1844, John Stuart Mill described how paying
foreign debts lowered the exchange rate. When that happens, what is lowered is basically wages.
So what passes for today's mainstream trade theory is basically an argument for reducing wages
and fighting a class war against labor.
You can see this quite clearly in the eurozone, above all in the austerity imposed on
Greece. The austerity programs that the IMF imposed on Third World debtors from the 1960s
onward. It looks like a dress rehearsal to provide a cover story for the same kind of
"equilibrium economics" we may see in the United States.
JR: Can the US pay its debts permanently? Does the amount of federal debt, $18 or $19
trillion even matter? Should we pay down the national debt?
MH: It is mainly anti-labor austerity advocates who urge balancing the budget, and even to
run surpluses to pay down the national debt. The effect must be austerity.
A false parallel is drawn with private saving. Of course individuals should get out of debt
by saving what they can. But governments are different. Governments create money and spend it
into the economy by running budget deficits. The paper currency in your pocket is technically a
government debt. It appears on the liabilities side of the public balance sheet.
When President Clinton ran a budget surplus in the late 1990s, that sucked revenue
out of the U.S. economy. When governments do not run deficits, the economy is
obliged to rely on banks – which charge interest for providing credit. Governments can
create money on their own computers just as well. They can do this without having to pay
bondholders or banks.
That is the essence of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). It is elaborated mainly at the
University of Missouri at Kansas City (UMKC), especially by Randy Wray – who has just
published a number of books on money – and Stephanie Kelton, whom Bernie Sanders
appointed as head of the Senate Democratic Budget Committee.
If the government were to pay off its debts permanently, there would be no money –
except for what banks create. That has never been the case in history, going all the way back
to ancient Mesopotamia. All money is a government debt, accepted in payment of taxes
This government money creation does not mean that governments can pay foreign
debts. The danger comes when debts are owed in a foreign currency. Governments are unable to
tax foreigners. Paying foreign debts puts downward pressure on exchange rates. This leads to
crises, which often end by relinquishing political control to the IMF and foreign banks. They
demand "conditionalities" in the form of anti-labor legislation and privatization.
In cases where national economies cannot pay foreign debts out of current
balance-of-payments revenue, debts should be written down, not paid off. If they are not
written down, you have the kind of austerity that is tearing Greece apart today.
JR: You say that mainstream economic theory and academic study is pro-creditor? Why is
this the case?
MH: Thorstein Veblen pointed out that vested interests are the main endowers and backers of
the higher learning in America. Hardly by surprise, they promote a bankers'-eye view of the
world. Imperialists promote a similar self-serving worldview.
Economic theory, like history, is written by the winners. In today's world that means the
financial sector. They depict banks as playing a productive role, as if loans are made to help
borrowers earn the money to pay interest and still keep something for themselves. The pretense
is that banks finance industrial capital formation, not asset stripping.
What else would you expect banks to promote? The classical distinction between productive
and unproductive (that is, extractive) loans is not taught. The result has been to turn
mainstream economics as a public-relations advertisement for the status quo, which meanwhile
becomes more and more inequitable and polarizes the economy.
JR: What can be learned by studying the history of economic thought? What did Adam Smith
and the people in his era and those which followed him understand that would be useful to us
now?
MH: If you read Adam Smith and subsequent classical economists, you see that their main
concern was to distinguish between productive and unproductive economic activity. They wanted
to isolate unproductive rentier income, and unproductive spending and credit.
To do this, they developed the labor theory of value to distinguish value from price –
with "economic rent" being the excess of price over socially necessary costs of production.
They wanted tofree industrial capitalism from the legacy of feudalism: tax-like groundrent paid
to a hereditary landed aristocracy. They also opposed the monopolies that bondholders had
insisted that governments create to sell off to pay the public debt. That was why the East
India Company and the South Sea Company were created with their special privileges.
Smith and his followers are applauded as the founding fathers of "free market" economics.
But they defined free markets in a diametrically opposite way from today's self-proclaimed
neoliberals. Smith and other classical economists urged markets free from economic
rent.
These classical reformers realized that progressive taxation to stop favoring
rentiers required a government strong enough to take on society's most powerful and
entrenched vested interests. The 19 th -century drive for Parliamentary reform in
Britain aimed at enabling the House of Commons to override the House of Lords and tax the
landlords. (This rule finally passed in 1910 after a constitutional crisis.) Now there has been
a fight by creditors to nullify democratic politics, most notoriously in Greece.
Today's neoliberals define free markets as those free for rent-seekers and
predatory bankers from government regulation and taxes.
No wonder the history of economic thought has been stripped away from the curriculum.
Reading the great classical economists would show how the Enlightenment's reform program has
been inverted. The world is now racing down a road to the Counter-Enlightenment, a neo-
rentier economy that is bringing economic growth to a halt.
JR: Why does economic thought minimize the role of debt? I.e. I read Paul Krugman and he
says the total amount of debtisn't a problem, for example you can't find the internet bust in
GDP or the 1987 crash?
MH: When economists speak of money, they neglect that all money and credit is debt. That is
the essence of bookkeeping and accounting. There are always two sides to the balance sheet. And
one party's money or savings is another party's debt.
Mainstream economic models describe a world that operates on barter, not on credit. The
basic characteristic of credit and debt is that it bears interest. Any rate of interest can be
thought of as a doubling time. Already in Babylonia c. 1900 BC, scribes were taught to c
alculate compound interest, and how long it took a sum to double (5 years) quadruple (10 years)
or multiply 64 times (30 years). Martin Luther called usury Cacus, the monster that absorbs
everything. And in Volume III of Capital and also his Theories of Surplus
Value , Marx collected the classical writings about how debts mount up at interest by
purely mathematical laws, without regard for the economy's ability to pay.
The problem with debt is not only interest. Shylock's loan against a pound of flesh was a
zero-interest loan. When crops fail, farmers cannot even pay the principal. They then may lose
their land, which is their livelihood. Forfeiture is a key part of the credit/debt dynamic. But
the motto of mainstream neoliberal economics is, "If the eye offends thee, pluck it out."
Discussing the unpayability of debt is offensive to creditors.
Anyone who sets out to calculate the ability pay quickly recognizes that the overall volume
of debts cannot be paid. Keynes that made point in the 1920s regarding Germany's inability to
pay reparations.
Needless to say, banks and bondholders do not want to promote any arguments explaining the
limits to how much can be paid without pushing economies into depression. That is what my
Killing the
Host is about. It is the direction in which the eurozone is now going, and the United
States also issuffering debt deflation.
Turning to the second part of your question, Krugman and others say that debt doesn't matter
because "we owe it to ourselves." But the "we" who owe it are the 99 Percent; the people who
are "ourselves" are the One Percent. So the 99 Percent Owe the One Percent. And they owe more
and more,thanks to the "magic of compound interest."
Krugman has a blind spot when it comes to understanding money. In his famous debate with
Steve Keen, he denied that banks create money or credit. He insists that commercial banks only
lend out deposits. But Keen and the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) school show that loans
create deposits , not the other way around. When a banker writes a loan on his computer
keyboard, he creates a deposit as the counterpart.
Endogenous money is easily created electronically. That privilege enables banks to charge
interest. Governments could just as easily create money on their own computers. Neoliberal
privatizers want to block governments from doing this, so that economies will have to rely on
commercial banks for the money and credit they need to grow.
The mathematics of compound interest means that economies can only pay their debts by
creating a financial bubble – more and more credit to bid up asset prices for real
estate, stocks and bonds, enabling banks to make larger loans. Today's economies are obliged to
develop into Ponzi schemes to keep going – until they collapses\ in a crash.
JR: The models of the macroeconomy to forecast the future and to develop policy at
institutions like the IMF, often consider finance and banking as just another sector of
industry, like construction or manufacturing. How do these institutions consider their model of
the financial sector?
MH: The IMF acts as the collection agent for global bondholders. Its projections begin by
assuming that all debts can be paid, if economies will cut wages and wiping out pension funds
so as to pay banks and bondholders.
As long as creditors remain in control, they are quite willing to sacrifice the 99 Percent
to pay the One Percent. When IMF "stabilization" programs end up destabilizing their hapless
victims, mainstream media blame the collapse on the debtor country for not shedding enough
blood to impose even more austerity.
Economists often define their discipline as "the allocation of scarce resources among
competing ends." But when resources or money really become scarce, economists call it
a crisis and say that it's a question for politicians, not their own department. Economic
models are only marginal – meaning, small changes, not structural.
The only trend that does grow inexorably is that of debt. The more it grows, the
more it slows the "real" economy of production and consumption. So something must give: either
the economy, or creditor claims. And that does indeed change the structure of the economy. It
is a political as well as an economic change.
Regarding the second part of your question – how creditor institutions model the
financial sector – when they look at prices they only consider wages and consumer prices,
not asset prices. Yet most bank credit is tied to asset prices, because loans are made to buy
homes or commercial real estate, stocks or bonds, not bread and butter.
Not looking at what is obviously important requires a great effort of tunnel vision. But as
Upton Sinclair noted, there are some jobs – like being a central banker, or a New
York Times editorial writer – that require the applicant not to understand
the topic they are assigned to study. Hence, you have Paul Krugman on money and banking, the
IMF on economic stabilization, and Rubinomics politicians on bailing out the banks instead of
saving the economy.
If I can add a technical answer: The IMF does not recognize that the "budget problem"
– squeezing domestic currency out of the economy by taxing wages and industry – is
quite different from the "transfer problem" of converting this money into foreign exchange.
That distinction was the essence of the German reparations debate in the 1920s. It is a focus
of my history of theories of Trade, Development and
Foreign Debt .
Drawing this distinction shows why austerity programs do not help countries pay their
foreign debt, but tears them apart and induces emigration and capital flight.
JR: Does the financial sector add to GDP?
MH: The financial sector is a rentier sector – external to the "real" economy
of production and consumption, and therefore a form of overhead. As overhead, it should be a
subtracted from GDP.
JR: In the way that oil industry funded junk science on global warming denial, Wall
Street funds and endows junk economics and equilibrium thinking?
Falling on your face is a state of equilibrium. So is death – and each moment of
dying. Equilibrium is simply a cross section in time. Water levels 20 or 30 feet higher would
be another form of equilibrium. But to the oil industry, "equilibrium" means their earnings
continuing to grow at the present rate, year after year. This involves selling more and more
oil, even if this raises sea levels and floods continents. That is simply ignored as not
relevant to earnings. By the time that flooding occurs, today's executives will have taken
their bonuses and capital gains and retired.
That kind of short-termism is the essence of junk economics. It is tunnel-visioned.
What also makes economics junky is assuming that any "disturbance" sets in motion
countervailing forces that return the economy to its "original" state – as if this were
stable, not moving down the road to debt peonage and similar economic polarization.
The reality is what systems analysts call positive feedback: When an economy gets out of
balance, especially as a result of financial predators, the feedback and self-reinforcing
tendencies push it further and further out of balance.
My trade theory book traced the history of economists who recognize this. Once a class or
economy falls into debt, the debt overhead tends to grow steadily until it stifles market
demand and subjects the economy to debt deflation. Income is sucked upward to the creditors,
who then foreclose on the assets of debtors. This shrinks tax revenue, forcing public budgets
into deficit. And when governments are indebted, they becomemore subject to pressure to
privatization of public enterprise. Assets are turned over to monopolists, who further shrink
the economy by predatory rent seeking.
An economy going bankrupt such as Greece and having to sell off its land, gas rights, ports
and public utilities is "in equilibrium" at any given moment that its working-age population is
emigrating, people are losing their pensions and suffering.
When economists treat depressions merely as self-curing "business downturns," they are
really saying that no government action is required from "outside" "the market" to rectify
matters and put the economy back on track to prosperity. So equilibrium thinking isbasically
anti-government libertarian theory.
But when banks are subjected to "equilibrium" by writing down debts in keeping with the
ability of borrowers to pay, WallStreet's pet politicians and economic journalists call this a
crisis and insist that the banks and bondholders must be saved or there will be a crisis. This
is not a solution. It makes the problem worse and worse.
There is an alternative, of course. That is to understand the dynamics at work transforming
economic and socialstructures. That's what classical economics was about.
The post-classical revolution was marginalist. That means that economists only look at small
changes, not structural changes. That isanother way of saying that reforms are not necessary
– because reforms change structures, not merely redistribute a little bit of income as a
bandage.
What used to be "political economy" gave way to just plain "economics" by World War I. As it
became increasingly abstract and mathematical, students who studied the subject because they
wanted to make the world better were driven out, into other disciplines. That was my experience
teaching at the New School already nearly half a century ago. The discipline has become much
more tunnel-visioned since then.
Present state of financial world
JR: We see around the world something like 25% of all national debt is now has a yield
priced in negative interest rates? What does this mean? Do you see this continuing?
MH: On the one hand, negative interest rates reflect a flight to security by investors. They
worry that the debts can't be paid and that there are going to be defaults.
They also see that the United States and Europe are in a state of debt deflation, where
people and businesses have to pay banks instead of spending their income on goods and services.
So markets shrink, sales and profits fall, and the stock market turns down.
This decline was offset by the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank trying to
re-inflate the Bubble Economy by Quantitative Easing – providing reserves to the banks in
exchange for their portfolio of mortgages and other loans. Otherwise, the banks would have had
to sell these loans in "the market" at falling prices.
In the name of saving "the market," the Fed and ECB therefore overruled the market. Today,
over 80 percent of U.S. home mortgages are guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority. Banks
won't make loans without the government picking up the risk of non-payment. So bankers just
pretend to be free market. That's for their victims.
The "flight to security" is a move out of the stock and bond markets into government debt.
Stocks and bonds may go down in price, some companies may go bankrupt, but national governments
can always print the money to pay their bondholders. Investors are mainly concerned about
keeping whatthey have – security of principal. They are willing to be paid less income in
exchange for preserving what they have taken.
Here's the corner that the economy has backed itself into. The solution to most problems
creates new problems – blowback or backlash, which often turn out to be even bigger
problems. Negative interest rates mean that pension funds cannot invest in securities that
yield enough for them to pay what they have promised their contributors. Insurance companies
can't earn the money to pay their policyholders. So something has to give.
There will be breaks in the chain of payments. But the way Wall Street administrators at the
Treasury and Fed plan the crisis is for small savers to lose out to the large institutional
investors. So the bottom line that I see is a slow crash.
JR: Could there be a more symbiotic relationship with global financial institutions? For
money to have value, doesn't it need a functioning economy, rather than an
entirelyfinancialized one?
MH: Money is debt. It is a claim on some debtor. Government money is a claim by its
holder on the government, settled by the government accepting it as payment for tax debts.
Being a claim on a debtor, money does not necessarily need a functioning economy. It can be
part of a foreclosure process, transferring property to creditors. A financialized economy
tends to strip the economy of money, by sucking up to the creditor One Percent on top. That
is what happened in Rome, and the result was the Dark Age.
JR: In 2007/2008 we had a subprime crash and since 2014 we've had a commodities crash
where oil prices are low, is this because of what's going on in emerging market economies? Are
emerging market economies and China the next subprime?
MH: The current U.S. and Eurozone depression isn't because of China. It's because of
domestic debt deflation. Commodity prices and consumer spending are falling, mainly because
consumers have to pay most of their wages to the FIRE sector for rent or mortgage payments,
student loans, bank and credit card debt, plus over 15 percent FICA wage withholding for Social
Security and Medicare (actually, to enable the government to cut taxes on the higher income
brackets), as well income and sales taxes. After all this is paid, consumers don't have that
much left to spend on commodities. So of course commodity prices are crashing.
Oil is a special case. Saudi Arabia is trying to drive U.S. fracking rivals out of business,
while also hurting Russia. This lowers gas prices for U.S. and Eurozone consumers, but not by
enough to spur economic recovery.
JR: You've written that we're entering a financial cold war – the IMF and the US
have been very strict on debt repayment for loans from debtor nations, but in Ukraine they've
made an exception regarding Russia, could you discuss your recent writing on that?
MH: U.S. diplomats radically changed IMF lending rules as part of their economic sanctions
imposed on Russia as result of the coup d'état by the Right Sector, Svoboda and their
neo-Nazi allies in Kiev. The ease with which the U.S. changed these rules to support the
military coup shows how the IMF is simply a tool of President Obama's New Cold War policy.
The
aim was to enable the IMF to keep lending to the military junta even though Ukraine is in
default of its $3 billion debt to Russia, even though it refuses to negotiate payment, and even
though IMF money has been used to fund kleptocrats such as Kolomoisky to field his own army
against Russian speakers in Donbas. Ukraine has no foreseeablemeans of paying off the IMF and
other creditors, given its destruction of its export industry in the East. My articles on this
are on my website, michael-hudson.com
.
JR: Today's economy has some truly amazing technology from companies like Apple, but
Apple is also example of financial engineering, you outline this in your book, what financial
innovations havebeen associated with the story of Apple's stock?
MH: The main financial innovation by Apple has been to set up a branch office in Ireland and
pretend that the money it makes in the Untied States and elsewhere is made in Ireland –
which has only a 15 percent income-tax rate
The problem is that if Apple remits this income back to the United States, it will have to
pay U.S. income tax. It wants to avoid this – unless Wall Street can convince politicians
to declare a "tax holiday" would let tax avoiders bring all their foreign money back to the
United States "tax free." That would be a tax amnesty only for the very wealthy, not for the 99
Percent.
JR: This tax angle explains why Apple, almost the wealthiest company in the world, has
been urged by activist shareholders to borrow. Why should the richest company have to go into
debt?
MH: The answer is that Apple can borrow from U.S. banks at a low interest rate to pay
dividends on its stock, instead of paying these dividends by bringing its income back home and
paying the taxes that are due.
It would seem to be an anomaly to borrow from banks and pay dividends. But that is the
"cannibalism" stage of modern finance capitalism, U.S.-style. For the stock market as a whole,
some 92 percent of earnings recently were used to pay dividends or for stock buybacks.
JR: What is the eventual outcome of all theses corporate buybacks to pump up share
prices?
MH: The problem with a company using its revenue simply to buy its own shares to support
their price (and hence, enable CEOs to increase their salaries and bonuses, and make more
capital gains on their stock options) is that the price fillip is temporary. Last year saw the
largest volume of U.S. stock buybacks on record. But since January 1, the market has fallen by
about 20 percent. The debts that companies took on to buy stocks remain in place; and the
earnings that companies used to buy these stocks are now gone.
Corporations did not use their income to invest in long-term expansion. The financial time
frame always has been short-term. Projects with long-term paybacks are cut back, because CEOs
and financial managers simply want to take their money and run. That is the financial
mentality.
JR: What is the outcome of all theses corporate buybacks to pump up share
prices?
MH: When the dust settles, companies financialized in this way are left as debt-leveraged
shells. CEOs then go to their labor unions and threaten to declare bankruptcy if the unions
don't scale back their pension demands. So there is a deliberate tactic to force companies into
debt for short-term earnings and stock-price gains in the short term, and a more intensive
class war against present and past employees and pensioners as a longer-term policy.
JR: Why do business schools endorse of financialization? Reversing
short-termism?
MH: The financial sector is the major endower of business schools. They have become training
grounds for Chief Financial Officers. AtHarvard, Prof. Jensen reasoned that managers should aim
at serving stockholders, not the company as such. The result was an "incentive" system tying
management bonuses to the stock price. So naturally, CFOs used corporate earnings for stock
buybacks and dividend payouts that provided a short-term jump in the stock price.
The ideological foundation of today's business schools is that economic control should be
shifted out of government hands into those of financial managers – that is, Wall Street.
That is their idea of freeenterprise. Its inevitable tendency is to end in more centralized
planning by Wall Street than in Washington.
The aim of this financial planning is quite different from that of governments. As I wrote
in Killing the
Host : "The euro and the ECB were designed in a way that blocks government money
creation for any purpose other than to support the banks and bondholders. The financial sector
takes over the role of economic planner, putting its technicians in charge of monetary and
fiscal policy without democratic voice or referendums over debt and tax policies."
Financial planning always has been short-term. That is why planning should not be consigned
to banks and bondholders. Their mentality is extractive, and that ends up hit-and-run. What
passes for mainstream financial analysis is simply to add up how much is owed and demand
payment, not help the economy grow. To financial managers, economic prosperity and unemployment
is an "externality" – that is, not part of the equation that they are concerned with.
Future
JR: The story of Greece in recent years is relevant to our discussion because the
political party Syriza took over with ideas that were traditionally representing the left? Does
the body of traditional left ideas have the ability to solve some of the challenges regarding
financial warfare?
MH: The left and former Social Democratic or Labour parties have dome to focus on political
and cultural issues, not the economic policy that led to their original creation. What is
lacking is a focus on rent theory and financial analysis. Part of the explanation probably is
covert U.S. funding and sponsorship of Blair-type neoliberals.
The eurozone threatened Greece with domestic destabilization if it did not surrender to the
Troika's demands. Syriza's leaders worried that the ensuing turmoil would bring a right-wing
neo-Nazi group such as Golden Dawn into power, or a military dictatorship as a client oligarchy
for U.S. and German neoliberals.
So the political choice today is much like the 1930s, when the global economy also broke
down. The choice is between nationalism and populism on the right, or socialism reviving what
used to be left-wing politics.
JR: Could there be a debt write down? Isn't someone's debts another person's savings, i.e.
pension funds, 401k, retirement funds?
MH: The problem is indeed that one party's debt finds its counterpart in some other party's
savings. Not paying debts therefore involves annulling some other party's financial claims on
the debtor. What happens to the savings on the other side of the savings/debt balance
sheet?
JR: The political question is, who will lose first?
MH: The answer is, the least politically protected. The end game is "Big fish eat little
fish." Pension funds are in the front line of sacrifice, while government bondholders are the
most secure. Greek pensionsalready have been written down, and the savings of U.S. pension
funds, Social Security and other social programs are the first to be annulled.
The only way to achieve a fair debt cancellation is to write down the debts of the
wealthiest, not the most needy. That is the opposite of how matters are being resolved today.
That is why southern Europe is being radicalized over the debt issue.
JR: Will financialized economies implode? Leaving the non-financialized ones?
MH: The One Percent who hold most of the economy's savings are quite willing to plunge
society into depression to collect on their savings claims. Their greed is why we are in an
economic war much like Rome's Conflict of the Orders that shaped the Republic, and its century
of civil war between creditors and debtors, 133-29 BC.
Argentina has been imploding, just as Third World debtors were obliged to do when they
accepted IMF austerity programs and "conditionalities" for loans to keep their currencies from
depreciating. To avoid being forced to adopt such self-defeating and anti-democratic policies,
it looks like countries will have to move out of the U.S. and Eurozone orbit into that of the
BRICS. That is why today's financial crisis is leading to a New Cold War. It is as much
financial as it is military.
JR: How would you advise a politician to restore prosperity in the future?
MH: The problem is who to give advice to. Most politicians today – at least in the
United States – are proxies for their campaign contributors. President Obama is basically
a lobbyist for his Wall Street in the Democratic Party's Robert Rubin gang. That kind of
demagogue wouldn't pay any attention to policies that I or other economists would make. Their
job is not to make the economy better, but to defend their campaign contributors among the One
Percent at the economy's expense.
But when I go to China or Russia, here's what I advise (without much success so far, I
admit):
First, tax land rent and other economic rent. Make it the tax base. Otherwise, this rental
value will end up being pledged to banks as interest on credit borrowed to buy rent-yielding
assets.
Second, make banks into public utilities. Credit creation is like land or air: a monopoly
created by society. As organs of public policy they would not play the derivatives casino, or
make corporatetakeover loans to raiders, or falsify mortgage documents.
Third, do not privatize basic utilities. Public ownership enables basic services to be
provided at cost, on a subsidized basis, or freely. That will make the economy more
competitive. The cost of upgrading public infrastructure can be defrayed by basing the tax
system on economic rent, not wages.
Does it have to be this way ?
The Eurozone die is cast. Countries must withdraw from the euro so that governments can
create their own money once again, and resist creditor demands to carve up and privatize their
public domain.
For the United States, I don't see a concerted alternative to neoliberalism squeezing more
and more interest and rent out of the economy, making the present slump even deeper in
debt.
How won't debts be paid?
There are two ways not to pay debts: either by annulling or repudiating them, or by
foreclosure when creditors take or demand property in lieu of monetary payment.
The first way not to pay is to default or proclaim a Clean Slate. The most successful
example in modern times is the German Economic Miracle – the Allied Monetary Reform of
1948. That cancelled Germany's internal debts except for wages owed by employers, and minimum
working balances.
The United States Government has fought against creation of an international court to
adjudicate the ability of national economies to pay debts. If such a court is not
created, the global economy will fracture. That is occurring in what looks like a New Cold War
pitting the United States and its NATO satellites against the BRICS (China, Russia, South
Africa, Brazil and India) along with Iran and other debtors.
The US preferred policy is for countries to sell off whatever is in their public domain when
they lack the money to pay their debts. This is the "foreclosure" stage.
Short of these two ways of not paying debts, economies are submitting to debt deflation.
That strips income from producers and consumers, businesses and governments to pay creditors.
As the debtor economy weakens, the debt arrears mount up – often at rising interest rates
to reflect the risk of non-payment as creditors realize that there is no "business as usual'
way in which the debts can be paid.
Debtor countries may postpone the inevitable by borrowing from the IMF or U.S. Treasury to
buy out bondholders. This saves the latter from taking a loss – leaving the debtor
country with debts that are even harder to annul, because they are to foreign governments and
international institutions. That is why it is a very bad policy for countries to move from
owing money to private bondholders to owing the IMF or European Central Bank, whose demands are
unforgiving.
In the long term, debts won't be paid in the way that Rome's debts were not paid. The money
economy itself was stripped, and the empire fell into a prolonged Dark Age. That is the fate
that will befall the West if it continues to support the "rights" of creditors over the right
of nations and economies to survive.
This is a transcript from an interview on the
XE Podcast conducted by Justin Ritchie.
"... Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us, the better off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world. ..."
"... How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him ..."
"... But in the prosperity gospel preached by some Neopentecostals, the Christian gospel has been swamped by the values of Neoliberalism. One could say that "prosperity theology" is the contextualisation of the Christian gospel in a society dominated by Neoliberal values, but to such an extent that the result is syncretism. ..."
And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if
Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word (I Kings 18:21).
It seems to me that for many Christians the Gospel of Neoliberalism has replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I've known that for
a long time, and have blogged about it before (
here , and
here , and
here ). But today I was reminded of it again
when several people brought various articles on it to my attention:
Bullying used to be confined to schools; now it is a common feature of the workplace. This is a typical symptom of the impotent
venting their frustration on the weak – in psychology it's known as displaced aggression. There is a buried sense of fear, ranging
from performance anxiety to a broader social fear of the threatening other.
Constant evaluations at work cause a decline in autonomy and a growing dependence on external, often shifting, norms. This
results in what the sociologist Richard Sennett has aptly described as the "infantilisation of the workers".
Today the dominant narrative is that of market fundamentalism, widely known in Europe as neoliberalism. The story it tells
is that the market can resolve almost all social, economic and political problems. The less the state regulates and taxes us,
the better off we will be. Public services should be privatised, public spending should be cut, and business should be freed from
social control. In countries such as the UK and the US, this story has shaped our norms and values for around 35 years: since
Thatcher and Reagan came to power. It is rapidly colonising the rest of the world.
Neoliberalism draws on the ancient Greek idea that our ethics are innate (and governed by a state of nature it calls the market)
and on the Christian idea that humankind is inherently selfish and acquisitive. Rather than seeking to suppress these characteristics,
neoliberalism celebrates them: it claims that unrestricted competition, driven by self-interest, leads to innovation and economic
growth, enhancing the welfare of all.
When a Christian script was running in many people's minds (see
Counterscript to know what that refers to)
Greed was regarded as one of the Seven Deadly Sins, but in the Gospel according to Neoliberalism, it is the supreme virtue.
And for many Christians, the Neoliberal script has started to drown out the Christian one, and so raises the question of Elijah:
How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him .
"Baal" is a word that means lord or master, and the deity referred to was Melqart, the god of the Phoenician city of Tyre. Melqart
was a god of rain and fertility, and hence of material prosperity, and was invoked by Phoenician traders for protection of their
commercial enterprises. In other words, the cult of Baal was a prosperity cult, which had lured the people of Israel, and was actively
promoted by their Phoenician queen Jezebel, the wife of King Ahab. The people of Israel had the prosperity script playing in their
minds.
In our day too, many Christians have the prosperity script playing in their minds.
The post immediately preceding this one, on
Neopentecostal churches and their celebrity pastors , points to a phenomenon that Christian missiologists like to refer to as
inculturation or contextualisation, which, in a good sense, means making the Christian gospel understandable to people living in
a particular culture or context. But in the prosperity gospel preached by some Neopentecostals, the Christian gospel has been swamped
by the values of Neoliberalism. One could say that "prosperity theology" is the contextualisation of the Christian gospel in a society
dominated by Neoliberal values, but to such an extent that the result is syncretism.
But while the Neopentecostals sometimes do this explicitly, many other Christian groups do it implicitly, and we need to ask ourselves
where our values really come from -- from the gospel of Jesus Christ, or from the gospel of the Market. Jesus Christ is the love
of God incarnate, but the Market, or Melqart, or Mammon, is the love of money incarnate.
When the world urges us to celebrate the virtues of Greed, whether subtly or blatantly, do we resist it? Are we even aware of
what is happening? Or do we simply allow that script to play in our heads, telling us "You deserve it"?
Last week a couple of journalists were asking me why Neopentecostal churches that preach a properity gospel, like T.B. Joshua's
Synagogue Church of all Nations, are growing in popularity, and one answer is that given by George Monbiot in the article quoted
above -- that the values of Neoliberalism, promoted by Reagan and Thatcher, are now colonising the whole world.
"... While she went under a 'Conservative' label, Thatcher was actually a neo-liberal. Her economic reforms would change Britain, but not in a way genuine 'conservatives' would have liked. In the Thatcher years, de-industrialization was welcomed. There was to be no state-aid to manufacturers who hit difficulties because of the high pound, unlike the billions of pounds in bailouts which the banks received in 2008. ..."
The era of what J.K. Galbraith called " private opulence and public squalor " really
began in Britain in 1979 with the election of Margaret Thatcher as prime minister. She was
determined to dismantle the post-war Keynesian economic model.
While she went under a 'Conservative' label, Thatcher was actually a neo-liberal. Her
economic reforms would change Britain, but not in a way genuine 'conservatives' would have
liked. In the Thatcher years, de-industrialization was welcomed. There was to be no state-aid
to manufacturers who hit difficulties because of the high pound, unlike the billions of pounds
in bailouts which the banks received in 2008.
During the 1980s, industrial towns in the north, Scotland, Wales and the Midlands took a big
hit. They had their heart and soul knocked out of them and they've never really recovered to
this day.
The economy was Americanized and financialized. The gap between rich and poor which had
reached historically low levels by the mid 1970s, began to rise sharply.
As the people at the very top of the pyramid pulled away from the rest, their wealth, often
boosted by the privatization of publicly-owned assets, a new underclass dependent on welfare
payments emerged at the bottom.
These trends were exacerbated by the austerity program of the last ten years with the burden
of the £500 billion bank bailouts being imposed on ordinary people. Local authorities
have seen the money they receive from central government
slashed and instead of making savings at the top, most have preferred to cut frontline
services, such as libraries and toilets.
A couple of weeks ago I visited Swindon, in Wiltshire, in south-western England. It was once
a famous railway town. Its engineering works were opened in 1843. But as the Thatcher
government targeted British Rail Engineering Ltd, a part of the state-owned railway, for
privatization, the works closed down in 1986.
I worked in Swindon for a while in the early 1990s. I remember it was still quite prosperous
then. But when I went back two weeks ago I was shocked to see just how run down it had become.
It's always been a very friendly place, but it's clear that the last few years haven't treated
it well. My wife and I parked in a council-owned multi-storey car park that looked as if it
hadn't had a coat of paint since the 1980s.
You'll find this low level of maintenance of municipal facilities across the UK now because
of the cuts. In the pre-neoliberal era, we used to have park wardens in uniforms. Local
authorities even operated self-service restaurants. There was a real pride in making your town
look smart and having excellent facilities for local people and those who visited.
The decline of the UK's seaside resorts has been particularly striking. Last year I took my
mother to Blackpool, in the north-west of England, to see the house where she was living when
WWII began.
We were both surprised to see so many hotels and guest houses boarded up along the South
Shore. Surprised, too, to see some parts of town looking so poor. In 2013, a report by the
Centre for Social Justice', said that Blackpool and seaside resorts like it had become "
dumping grounds for people facing problems such as unemployment, social exclusion and
substance abuse ." Sophie McBain wrote about the decline of Blackpool here .
While
here is a picture feature on the same theme from the Daily Mail Scarborough, on the
'opposite' North Yorkshire coast, is as beautiful as Sorrento on a sunny day, but here again,
facilities are being lost. In June this year, demolition work on the seafront Futurist Theatre,
where the Beatles once played, began. The council said it was 'not
sustainable'.
In Exmouth, in East Devon, the much-loved Elizabeth Hall, dating from the Victorian age, and
which I visited in 2012, has been demolished to make way for a Premier
Inn.
It's as if preserving the local heritage, doesn't matter to those in charge. Note that the
East Devon Council, which voted for the demolition of the historic hall, went under the name
'Conservative'. Surely we could get them under the 'Trades Description Act'?
So much that was of great worth has been destroyed by the neoliberals in the last forty
years. But we shouldn't just give up. There are practical steps that a government which
actually cared about Britain could take (along with local authorities and businesses), to undo
some of the damage and get the country looking smart again.
As I argued here , Labour
leader Jeremy Corbyn's 'Build it in Britain' plan, announced in July, is exactly what is needed
to regenerate the national economy.
The
cuts in government funding to local authorities, which will be even worse next year must be
reversed and councils obliged to spend the new money they receive not on high salaries for
executive officers, but on front-line services that the public rely on.
There must be no more closures of libraries, toilets and other council-run facilities, and
wherever possible, those that have been shut down in recent years, need to be re-opened.
Banks should be made to keep local branches open too. Almost 3,000 have shut in just three years which is an
absolutely disgrace given the huge profits these financial institutions make.
Public transport should be renationalized, with fares reduced by 50 percent across the
board, and at the same time car-parking prices in town centers slashed to encourage more
visitors. No new out-of-town retail parks should be sanctioned.
Rents and rates for town centers need to be significantly lowered with councils acting
swiftly to make sure that there are no boarded-up outlets in our high streets.
Britain's seaside resorts need a special 'Marshall Plan' style regeneration package. In
2017, the UK government
said it would contribute £40m from 2019-21 to the so-called Coastal Communities
Fund', set up in 2012.
But this is a drop in the ocean and has of course been negated by the overall impact of
austerity on local communities.
In the late 1970s, as I noted in my Guardian article 'The
great British seaside sell-off', a benign state met almost all of British holidaymakers' needs,
from cheap transport to and from the resort, to hotels and extensive leisure facilities run by
councils.
Government and local authorities can't do much about the weather, but they could do a lot
more to encourage Britons to holiday at least once a year in their own country as the knock-on
economic and social benefits would be immense.
How about each household being given a £100 voucher to go towards a break at a UK
seaside resort and heavily reduced fares on the new publicly-owned British Rail and National
Bus Company to take them there? Politicians could lead by example and take their main summer
holidays in Britain, as Labour's Harold Wilson, who loved the Scilly Isles, used to do in the
1960s.
Of course MPs need to go abroad and see how other countries operate, but first and foremost
they need to be aware of the state of their own backyard and they can only get that if they
travel around more, as the admirable Chris Williamson does with his Democracy Roadshow.
Run-down Britain can be fixed, but it requires a major change in how we do things. If we
carry on as we are at present, one shudders to think where we'll be in another forty years. And
when it comes to the Brexit debate, it's worth remembering that all this decline has taken
place during the time Britain has been a member of the European Union.
"... Subsidizing Europe's postwar recovery was not only of immense economic importance to Washington, it was also of vital strategic importance in pushing back against Soviet influence in Europe. Immediately after the war, this influence was riding high on the back of the Red Army's seminal role in liberating the continent from fascism ..."
"... A portion of Marshall aid money – in total some $12 billion (over $100 billion today) over four years between 1948 and 1952 – was diverted to fund various covert operations under the auspices of the CIA, designed to penetrate and subvert those governments and political parties that elicited a leaning towards socialist and communist ideas. ..."
"... Washington's influence over the European Union continues to this day. Most prominently the economic model that underpins this crisis-ridden economic and increasingly political bloc, neoliberalism, is one made in America. From inception as the lodestar of Western economic thought in the mid 1970s, prior to its adoption as the economic base of the US and UK in the early 1980s, neoliberalism has functioned alongside Washington's military might and overweening cultural values as part of an architecture of imperialism to which European elites have signed up as fully-fledged disciples, consciously or otherwise ..."
We live in a world fashioned by Washington, and as 2019 approaches the dire
consequences remain woefully evident. In 1948 US State Department mandarin George Kennan – the man
credited with devising the policy of
containment vis-à-vis the Soviet Union at the end of WWII, – laid bare the focus
of US foreign policy in the postwar period:
" We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population
Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern or relationships which will permit us
to maintain this position of disparity. To do so, we will have to dispense with all
sentimentality and daydreamings We are going to have to deal in straight power concepts
."
The " pattern of relationships " advocated by Kennan is embodied in the panoply of
international institutions that have governed our world and dominated the planet's economic,
geopolitical, and military architecture in the seven decades since.
The World Bank and the IMF came out of the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, along with the
establishment of the dollar as the world's primary international reserve currency.
The Truman administration's 1947 National
Security Act gave birth to a US military-industrial complex that married the nation's
economy to what was destined to become and remain a vast security and intelligence
apparatus.
NATO, an instrument of US imperial power, was established in 1949, the year after the
Marshall
Plan (European Recovery Program) was rolled out with the objective of creating markets and
demand in Europe for US exports; Washington having emerged from the war as a global economic
hegemon and creditor nation without peer. A similar plan was also rolled out to rebuild the
Japanese economy on the same basis.
Pausing for a moment, it has to count as a remarkable feat of forward thinking on the part
of US policymakers, embarking on a plan to not only affect the economic and industrial recovery
of its two defeated enemies, Germany and Japan, immediately after the war, but turn them into
regional economic powerhouses.
Subsidizing Europe's postwar recovery was not only of immense economic importance to
Washington, it was also of vital strategic importance in pushing back against Soviet influence
in Europe. Immediately after the war, this influence was riding high on the back of the Red
Army's seminal role in liberating the continent from fascism, buttressed by resistance
movements across occupied Europe in which Communist partisans had been most prominent.
A portion of Marshall aid money – in total some $12 billion (over $100 billion today)
over four years between 1948 and 1952 – was diverted to fund various covert operations
under the auspices of the CIA, designed to penetrate and subvert those governments and
political parties that elicited a leaning towards socialist and communist ideas.
In their titanic work 'The Untold History of the United States', co-authors Peter Kuznick
and Oliver Stone reveal that one of those operations involved " supporting a guerrilla army
in Ukraine called Nightingale, which had been established by the Wehrmacht in the spring of
1941 with the help of Stephan Bandera, head of the Ukrainian National Organization's more
radical wing OUN-B. The following year, Mikola Lebed founded the organization's terrorist arm,
the Ukrainian Insurgent Army made up of ultranationalist Ukrainians, including Nazi
collaborators ."
Given the nefarious role of Washington and its allies in aiding and abetting the rebirth of
ultra-nationalism in Ukraine in our time, Marx's dictum – History repeats itself, first
as tragedy, second as farce – is hard to avoid.
Another institution that was established with US economic and strategic objectives in mind
was the European Coal and Steel
Community (ECSC) in 1951, the forerunner of today's European Union. Yes, that's right; the
original incarnation of the EU was a triumph not of European diplomacy but US
diplomacy.
In his 2011 book 'The Global Minotaur', left-leaning economist Yanis Varoufakis writes:
" Students of European integration are taught that the European Union started life in
the form of the ECSC. What they are less likely to come across is the well-kept secret that it
was the United States that cajoled, pushed, threatened and sweet-talked the Europeans into
putting it together Indeed, it is indisputable that without the United States' guiding hand the
ECSC would not have materialized ."
He goes on:
" There was one politician who saw this clearly: General Charles de Gaulle, the future
President of France When the ECSC was formed, de Gaulle denounced it on the basis that it was
creating a united Europe in the form of a restrictive cartel and, more importantly, that it was
an American creation, under Washington's influence ."
Washington's influence over the European Union continues to this day. Most prominently the
economic model that underpins this crisis-ridden economic and increasingly political bloc,
neoliberalism, is one made in America. From inception as the lodestar of Western economic thought in the mid 1970s, prior to its
adoption as the economic base of the US and UK in the early 1980s, neoliberalism has functioned
alongside Washington's military might and overweening cultural values as part of an
architecture of imperialism to which European elites have signed up as fully-fledged disciples,
consciously or otherwise.
... ... ...
John Wight has written for a variety of newspapers and websites, including the
Independent, Morning Star, Huffington Post, Counterpunch, London Progressive Journal, and
Foreign Policy Journal.
The Case for a Mixed Economy
Maybe not everything should be privatized
By Paul Krugman
A mind is a terrible thing to lose, especially if the mind in question is president of the
United States. But I feel like taking a break from that subject. So let's talk about
something completely different, and probably irrelevant.
I've had several interviews lately in which I was asked whether capitalism had reached a
dead end, and needed to be replaced with something else. I'm never sure what the interviewers
have in mind; neither, I suspect, do they. I don't think they're talking about central
planning, which everyone considers discredited. And I haven't seen even an implausible
proposal for a decentralized system that doesn't rely on price incentives and self-interest
– i.e., a market economy with private property, which most people would consider
capitalism.
So maybe I'm being dense or lacking in imagination, but it seems to be that the choice is
still between markets and some kind of public ownership, maybe with some decentralization of
control, but still more or less what we used to mean by socialism. And everyone either thinks
of socialism as discredited, or pins the label on stuff – like social insurance
programs – that isn't what we used to mean by the word.
But I've been wondering, exactly how discredited is socialism, really? True, nobody now
imagines that what the world needs is the second coming of Gosplan. But have we really
established that markets are the best way to do everything? Should everything be done by the
private sector? I don't think so. In fact, there are some areas, like education, where the
public sector clearly does better in most cases, and others, like health care, in which the
case for private enterprise is very weak. Add such sectors up, and they're quite big.
In other words, while Communism failed, there's still a pretty good case for a mixed
economy – and public ownership/control could be a significant, although not majority,
component of that mix. My back of the envelope says that given what we know about economic
performance, you could imagine running a fairly efficient economy that is only 2/3
capitalist, 1/3 publicly owned – i.e., sort-of-kind-of socialist.
I arrive at that number by looking at employment data. What we see right away is that even
now, with all the privatization etc. that has taken place, government at various levels
employs about 15 percent of the work force – roughly half in education, another big
chunk in health care, and then a combination of public services and administration.
Looking at private sector employment, we find that another 15 percent of the work force is
employed in education, health, and social assistance. Now, a large part of that employment is
paid for by public money – think Medicare dollars spent at private hospitals. Much of
the rest is paid for by private insurers, which exist in their current role only thanks to
large tax subsidies and regulation.
And there's no reason to think the private sector does these things better than the
public. Private insurers don't obviously provide a service that couldn't be provided,
probably more cheaply, by national health insurance. Private hospitals aren't obviously
either better or more efficient than public. For-profit education is actually a disaster
area.
So you could imagine an economy in which the bulk of education, health, and social
assistance currently in the private sector became public, with most people at least as well
off as they are now.
Then there are other private activities that could plausibly be public. Utilities are
heavily regulated, and in some cases are publicly owned already. Private health insurance
directly employs hundreds of thousands of people, with doubtful social purpose. And I'm sure
I'm missing a few others.
By and large, other areas like retail trade or manufacturing don't seem suitable for
public ownership – but even there you could see some cases. Elizabeth Warren is
suggesting public manufacture of generic drugs, which isn't at all a stupid idea.
Put all of this together, and as I said, you could see an economy working well with
something like 1/3 public ownership.
Now, this wouldn't satisfy people who hate capitalism. In fact, it wouldn't even live up
to the old slogan about government controlling the economy's "commanding heights." This would
be more like government running the boiler in the basement. Also, I see zero chance of any of
this happening in my working lifetime.
But I do think it's worth trying to think a bit beyond our current paradigm, which says
that anything you could call socialist has been an utter failure. Maybe not so much?
"Then there are other private activities that could plausibly be public. Utilities are
heavily regulated, and in some cases are publicly owned already."
I look at public utilities and see extremely weak regulation.
The free lunch economic criticism of public utility regulation until Jimmy Carter was it
increased consumer costs too much by paying too much to workers to provide too much service
and build too much capital.
And Germany and UK owned utilities more than the US, which meant that populists or
progressives, the Bernies and AOCs, demanded more mining of fossil fuels even when cheaper,
cleaner alternatives, were available.
How will Bernie and AOC create jobs when all their policies kill jobs, but prevent
creating new jobs in the US? Why won't they end up protecting coal mining jobs ten times more
than Trump? Or will they become Clinton: "your jobs that that made you middle class are never
coming back, and creating new jobs cost too much in higher taxes, so no new jobs".
Was and is the older liberal paradigm
Reinvigorated
Recall this De facto abandonment
Of organized labor
allowed full collaboration
Between progressive professional class
Elements
and major corporate bottom lines
ane and I want to take this opportunity to wish you and yours a very healthy and happy new
year.
It goes without saying that 2019 will be a pivotal and momentous time for our country and
the entire planet. As you know, there is a monumental clash now taking place between two very
different political visions. Not to get you too nervous, but the future of our country and
the world is dependent upon which side wins that struggle.
The bad news is that in the United States and other parts of the world, the foundations of
democracy are under severe attack as demagogues, supported by billionaire oligarchs, work to
establish authoritarian type regimes. That is true in Russia. That is true in Saudi Arabia.
That is true in the United States. While the very rich get much richer these demagogues seek
to move us toward tribalism and set one group against another, deflecting attention from the
real crises we face.
The good news is that, all across this country, people are getting politically involved
and are fighting back. They are standing up for economic, political, social and racial
justice.
In the last year we saw courageous teachers, in some of the most conservative states in
the country, win strikes as they fought for adequate funding for education.
We saw low paid workers at Amazon, Disney and elsewhere undertake successful struggles to
raise their wages to a living wage – at least $15 an hour.
We saw incredibly courageous young people, who experienced a mass shooting in their
school, lead successful efforts for commonsense gun safety legislation.
We saw diverse communities stand together in the fight against mass incarceration and for
real criminal justice reform.
We saw tens of thousands of Americans, from every walk of life, take to the streets and
demand that politicians respond to the global crisis of climate change.
As we enter 2019, it seems to me that we must mount a two-pronged offensive. First, we
must vigorously take on the lies, bigotry and kleptocratic behavior of the most irresponsible
president in the modern history of our country. In every way possible, we must stand up to
the racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia and religious intolerance of the Trump
administration.
But fighting Trump is not enough.
The truth is that despite relatively low unemployment, tens of millions of Americans
struggle daily to keep their heads above water economically as the middle class continues to
shrink.
While the rich get richer, 40 million live in poverty, millions of workers are forced to
work two or three jobs to pay the bills, 30 million have no health insurance, one in five
cannot afford their prescription drugs, almost half of older workers have nothing saved for
retirement, young people cannot afford college or leave school deeply in debt, affordable
housing is increasingly scarce, and many seniors cut back on basic needs as they live on
inadequate Social Security checks.
Our job, therefore, is not only to oppose Trump but to bring forth a progressive and
popular agenda that speaks to the real needs of working people. We must tell Wall Street, the
insurance companies, the drug companies, the fossil fuel industry, the military-industrial
complex, the National Rifle Association and the other powerful special interests that we will
not continue to allow their greed to destroy this country and our planet.
Politics in a democracy should not be complicated. Government must work for all of the
people, not just the wealthy and the powerful. As a new House and Senate convene next week,
it is imperative that the American people stand up and demand real solutions to the major
economic, social, racial and environmental crises that we face. In the richest country in the
history of the world, here are some (far from all) of the issues that I will be focusing on
this year. What do you think? How can we best work together?
Protect American democracy: Repeal Citizens United, move to public funding of elections
and end voter suppression and gerrymandering. Our goal must be to establish a political
system that has the highest voter turnout in the world and is governed by the democratic
principle of one person - one vote.
Take on the billionaire class: End oligarchy and the growth of massive income and wealth
inequality by demanding that the wealthy start paying their fair share of taxes. We must
rescind Trump's tax breaks for billionaires and close corporate tax loopholes.
Increase Wages: Raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour, establish pay equity for women and
revitalize the trade union movement. In the United States, if you work 40 hours a week, you
should not live in poverty.
Make health care a right: Guarantee health care for everyone through a Medicare-for-all
program. We cannot continue a dysfunctional healthcare system which costs us about twice as
much per capita as any other major country and leaves 30 million uninsured.
Transform our energy system: Combat the global crisis of climate change which is already
causing massive damage to our planet. In the process, we can create millions of good paying
jobs as we transform our energy system away from fossil fuel and into energy efficiency and
sustainable energy.
Rebuild America: Pass a $1 trillion infrastructure plan. In the United States we must not
continue to have roads, bridges, water systems, rail transport, and airports in
disrepair.
Jobs for All: There is an enormous amount of work to be done throughout our country
– from building affordable housing and schools to caring for our children and the
elderly. 75 years ago, FDR talked about the need to guarantee every able-bodied person in
this country a good job as a fundamental right. That was true in 1944. It is true today.
Quality Education: Make public colleges and universities tuition free, lower student debt,
adequately fund public education and move to universal childcare. Not so many years ago, the
United States had the best education system in the world. We much regain that status
again.
Retirement Security: Expand Social Security so that every American can retire with dignity
and everyone with a disability can live with security. Too many of our elderly, disabled and
veterans are living on inadequate incomes. We must do better for those who built this
country.
Women's rights: It is a woman, not the government, who should control her own body. We
must oppose all efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade, protect Planned Parenthood and oppose
restrictive state laws on abortion.
Justice for All: End mass incarceration and pass serious criminal justice reform. We must
no longer spend $80 billion a year locking up more people than any other country. We must
invest in education and jobs, not jails and incarceration.
Comprehensive immigration reform: It is absurd and inhumane that millions of hardworking
people, many of whom have lived in this country for decades, are fearful of deportation. We
must provide legal status to those who are in the DACA program, and a path to citizenship for
the undocumented.
Social Justice: End discrimination based on race, gender, religion, place of birth or
sexual orientation. Trump cannot be allowed to succeed by dividing us up. We must stand
together as one people.
A new foreign policy: Let us create a foreign policy based on peace, democracy and human
rights. At a time when we spend more on the military than the next ten countries combined, we
need to take a serious look at reforming the bloated and wasteful $716 billion annual
Pentagon budget.
In the New Year, let us resolve to fight like we have never fought before for a
government, a society and an economy that works for all of us, not just those on top.
The Ghost of Trump Chaos Future
Sorry, investors, but there is no sanity clause.
By Paul Krugman
Two years ago, after the shock of Donald Trump's election, financial markets briefly
freaked out, then quickly recovered. In effect, they decided that while Trump was manifestly
unqualified for the job, temperamentally and intellectually, it wouldn't matter. He might
talk the populist talk, but he'd walk the plutocratic walk. He might be erratic and
uninformed, but wiser heads would keep him from doing anything too stupid.
In other words, investors convinced themselves that they had a deal: Trump might sound
off, but he wouldn't really get to make policy. And, hey, taxes on corporations and the
wealthy would go down.
But now, just in time for Christmas, people are realizing that there was no such deal --
or at any rate, that there wasn't a sanity clause. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) Put an
unstable, ignorant, belligerent man in the Oval Office, and he will eventually do crazy
things.
To be clear, voters have been aware for some time that government by a bad man is bad
government. That's why Democrats won a historically spectacular majority of the popular vote
in the midterms. Even the wealthy, who have been the prime beneficiaries of Trump policies,
are unhappy: A CNBC survey finds that millionaires, even Republican millionaires, have turned
sharply against the tweeter in chief.
But market behavior has, until recently, been a different story.
The reality that presidential unfitness matters for investors seems to have started
setting in only about three weeks (and around 4,000 points on the Dow) ago. First came the
realization that Trump's much-hyped deal with China existed only in his imagination. Then
came his televised meltdown in a meeting with Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, his abrupt
pullout from Syria, his firing of Jim Mattis and his shutdown of the government because
Congress won't cater to his edifice complex and build a pointless wall. And now there's buzz
that he wants to fire Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve.
Oh, and along the way we learned that Trump has been engaging in raw obstruction of
justice, pressuring his acting attorney general (who is himself a piece of work) over the
Mueller investigation as the tally of convictions, confessions and forced resignations
mounts.
But let's play devil's advocate here: Does all this Trump chaos matter for the economy, or
for the stock market (which isn't at all the same thing)? At first sight, it's not all that
obvious.
After all, aside from the prospect of trade war, none of Individual-1's tantrums,
unpresidential as they are, have much direct economic impact. Even the government shutdown
will impose only a modest drag on overall spending.
And even trade war might not do that much harm, as long as it's focused mainly on China,
which is only one piece of U.S. trade. The really big economic risk was that Trump might
break up Nafta, the North American trade agreement: U.S. manufacturing is so deeply
integrated with production in Canada and Mexico that this would have been highly disruptive.
But he settled for changing the agreement's name while leaving its structure basically
intact, and the remaining risks don't seem that large.
So why do investors seem to be losing their what-me-worry attitude? It's not so much what
Trump is doing, as what he might do in the future -- or, perhaps even more important, what he
might not do.
The truth is that most of the time, presidential actions don't matter much for the
economy; short-term economic management is mainly up to the Fed. But when bad things happen,
we do need the White House to step up. In 2008 and 2009, it mattered a lot that officials of
both the outgoing Bush administration and the incoming Obama administration responded
competently and intelligently to the financial crisis.
Unfortunately, there's no reason to expect a comparable degree of competence if something
goes wrong again.
Consider how the Trumpistas have responded to falling stocks. So far these are just a
minor economic bobble. Yet Trump himself, having claimed credit when stocks were rising, has
flown into a rage and lashed out; hence the attacks on Powell. Meanwhile, top officials are
still claiming that last year's tax cut was a triumph in the teeth of the evidence, and
issuing bizarre statements -- via Twitter -- about the health of the banks, which nobody was
questioning.
Now imagine how this administration team might cope with a real economic setback, whatever
its source. Would Trump look for solutions or refuse to accept responsibility and focus
mainly on blaming other people? Would his Treasury secretary and chief economic advisers
coolly analyze the problem and formulate a course of action, or would they respond with a
combination of sycophancy to the boss and denials that anything was wrong? What do you
think?
Let's be clear: There isn't an obvious crisis-level threat looming at the moment. But
growth is slowing, and as the bumper stickers don't quite say, stuff happens. And if and when
it does, the people who would be supposed to deal with it are the gang that can't think
straight. Merry Christmas.
"He might talk the populist talk, but he'd walk the plutocratic walk."
What does PK mean here by populist? Good or bad?
"In other words, investors convinced themselves that they had a deal: Trump might sound
off, but he wouldn't really get to make policy. And, hey, taxes on corporations and the
wealthy would go down.
But now, just in time for Christmas, people are realizing that there was no such deal --
or at any rate, that there wasn't a sanity clause. (Sorry, couldn't help myself.) Put an
unstable, ignorant, belligerent man in the Oval Office, and he will eventually do crazy
things."
Is this true. Are wealthy investor worried about Trump in particular? He just cut their
taxes.
"To be clear, voters have been aware for some time that government by a bad man is bad
government. That's why Democrats won a historically spectacular majority of the popular vote
in the midterms."
Not clear at all. Yes it had a large part to do with it. What was the Dems message? Did
they all talk about Trump?
Unfortunately PK is pulling this out of his behind to fill column space.
"Even the wealthy, who have been the prime beneficiaries of Trump policies, are unhappy: A
CNBC survey finds that millionaires, even Republican millionaires, have turned sharply
against the tweeter in chief.""
Again not clear that the wealthy are unhappy. They got massive tax cuts. There is no
populist movement challenging them.
"Again not clear that the wealthy are unhappy. They got massive tax cuts. There is no
populist movement challenging them."
So the rich guys behind Sears are really really happy?
Why hasn't Trump created millions of Sears customers flush with cash shopping at Sears? My
guess is the prime Sears customer before 1990 voted for and supports Trump. Sears was the
store for rural America, especially when you add in Kmart.
On the other hand, my guess is neither Bezos nor Warren Buffett nor Elon Musk is paying
significantly less in taxes as a result of the Trump tax cuts.
The corporations Bezos owns have no profits so paid no taxes on profits before. Ditto with
Elon Musk.
Buffett structured his coorporation based on the 50% plus tax on profits of the 60s, 70s,
80s which promoted owning assets for the very long term, and the tax law vhanges promoting
asset churn, pump and dump, did not change his theory of "wealth", so hes done nothing to
benefit from the tax cuts, but he sees harm to his businesses flowing from the Trump taxes
and cost cutting taking money out of consumer pockets, hurting his extensive consumer
business holdings long run.
(Insurers as holding companies pay taxes on profits differently than a shareholder
business does, so by owning the entire corporattion with profits flowing to the holding
company and then used to pay claims, no taxes are due. But increasing assets is capital gains
that are not taxed until sold, but Buffett almost never sells assets, except at a loss, which
means no taxes owed.)
Buffett companies pay lots of taxes, but on labor costs and on property, but has never
paid taxes on wealth, and seldom on profits, which was by Keynesian tax policy design.
Profits paid to workers to build more assets is the Keynesian ideal. More capital assets
destroys wealth abd increases labor costs to exceed capital asset prices.
The problem today is too little capitalism, too much rent seeking, too much restriction by
rent seekers on capitalists.
Trump and his administration are rent seekers who want to make capital much scarcer. They
hate China and Germany which built too much capital. And Bezos who pays too much to workers
to build ever more capital, increases the number of workers paid too much.
Wonder what McConnell thinks of Bezos. Is building a big distribution center in Kentucky a
good thing? Or is driving up wages in Kentucky a bad thing? Is higher worker incomes a good
thing, or is the higher living costs that result from higher wages a bad thing? Is stealing
jobs from liberal coastal elite cities a good thing, or does driving up living costs in
Kentucky to catch up with coastal elite suburban living costs a bad thing?
"So the rich guys behind Sears are really really happy?"
The rich get most of the capital income, from rent, dividends, interest, etc. they win no
matter what. They're invested in EVERYTHING and pay minions to try to earn them more than
average.
Heads they win, tails we lose.
The main thing is worker power. Krugman's take is - forgive me - a little naive. Or maybe
it is just meant for the naive bien pensant plebes like you and me.
It's hard to tell with Krugman. At least he and DeLong admit what Piketty has reported
even if they don't dwell on it.
We are ruled by an oligarchy. Most of the income goes to this oligarchy no matter the rent
seeking and living costs and profits and asset values etc. They win no matter what and they
pay people to obfuscate and spread propaganda about how we're a meritocracy where people earn
what they deserve.
"The truth is that most of the time, presidential actions don't matter much for the economy;
short-term economic management is mainly up to the Fed."
Free lunch economics!
The Fed has zero authority to manage the economy.
The economy is workers paying workers, through intermediaries.
The Fed can buy labor IOUs so past and future labor prices do not fluctuate wildly and
thus cause too little or too much paying for labor based market speculation on labor
prices.
Ie, if market speculation is that future labor prices will be significantly lower, workers
will not be paid the higher current price in expectation profit will be made paying the lower
price in the future. The Fed can buy labor futures to keep future prices as high as they are
today. However, labor can only be traded as assets. The Fed can never set labor prices by
paying workers.
Again. The Fed can never set labor prices by paying workers.
So, if businesses and government decides to kill jobs, the Fed is totally powerless.
While Bush and Obama were president, the policy priority was cutting paying workers,
driven by conservatives in control of the GOP.
And since Trump, the conservatives have been even more vigously trying to kill payments to
workers,, but wanting much more consumption spending.
However, no one has found a way to consume without paying workers to at least deliver the
goods made by not paying US workers. And the boomers are cashing in labor IOUs earned before
1990 and 2000 when they paid higher taxes and higher consumer prices.
I accumulated all my labor IOUs before 2000, and I count on the Fed to keep them from
becoming worth less or, worse, worthless.
But all the Fed is doing is creating labor IOUs that Millennials will need to buy with
labor without consumption.
If they don't, the economy will crash like it has in Greece, Venezuela, Germany before the
rise of Hitler, ...
Being about the same age as Trump, I expect to not be around when that happens. Which
means Trump knows he's eagerly pillaging and plundering the future.
Tanstaafl.
Remember, Venezuela was the richest nation in Latin America, and then wealth was taxed for
redistribution, and the wealth has vanished into nothingness, nowhere. Ie, if the rich simply
took the wealth and left, where are the Venezuela multibillionaires living today with all the
stolen trillions in Venezuela wealth?
It's Cold, Dark and Lacks Parking. But Is This Finnish Town the World's Happiest?
By Patrick Kingsley
Dec. 24, 2018
141
Leer en español
KAUNIAINEN, Finland -- Jan Mattlin was having what counts as a bad day in Kauniainen.
He had driven to the town's train station and found nowhere to park. Mildly piqued, he
called the local newspaper to suggest a small article about the lack of parking spots.
To Mr. Mattlin's surprise, the editor put the story on the front page.
"We have very few problems here," recalled Mr. Mattlin, a partner at a private equity
firm. "Maybe they didn't have any other news available."
Such is the charmed life in Kauniainen (pronounced: COW-nee-AY-nen), a small and wealthy
Finnish town that can lay claim to being the happiest place on the planet.
Public Ownership Is Suitable for All Sectors
Matt Bruenig December 24, 2018
Paul Krugman has a piece in the New York Times where he argues in favor of a mixed
economy. The piece is meant to be a limited defense of public ownership and production
against those who categorically argue against government enterprises. But Krugman's argument
ends up being far too limited in my view. Due to the wonders of our financial system, public
ownership could be extended to the vast majority of the economy without presenting any
problems.
Here's Krugman:
But I've been wondering, exactly how discredited is socialism, really? True, nobody now
imagines that what the world needs is the second coming of Gosplan. But have we really
established that markets are the best way to do everything? Should everything be done by the
private sector? I don't think so. In fact, there are some areas, like education, where the
public sector clearly does better in most cases, and others, like health care, in which the
case for private enterprise is very weak. Add such sectors up, and they're quite big.
He goes on to argue that the education, health care, and social assistance sectors, which
employ around one-third of US workers, are often better run by the government. He also
briefly dabbles in the idea that certain natural monopolies like utilities are also better
run publicly. But that's the limit of Krugman's imagination on these things. He concludes
that "by and large, other areas like retail trade or manufacturing don't seem suitable for
public ownership."
Why Not Own It All?
When Krugman says the retail and manufacturing sectors are not suitable for public
ownership, I think he is suffering from a lack of imagination about how such public ownership
could be structured.
Public ownership generally comes in three forms:
1. General government (GG) services like education, health care, and social
assistance.
2. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) like utilities, transit systems, and the post
office.
3. Social wealth funds (SWFs) like the Alaska Permanent Fund that are able to own
basically anything.
Krugman only considers GG and SOEs in his piece. Thus, since he thinks retail and
manufacturing are not suitable as GG or SOEs, he concludes that they should not be done
publicly. But retail, manufacturing, and basically anything else not suitable for GG and SOEs
are suitable for SWFs.
The state can very competently own retail and manufacturing companies by simply buying up
their stock and acting like an institutional investor. For instance, a social wealth fund
created by the federal government could gradually buy up stock in Amazon and Walmart to get
into retail and buy up stock in US Steel and General Motors to get into manufacturing. The
latter is not even a hypothetical because the government did recently buy up almost all of
the GM stock during the financial crisis, though it subsequently sold off its stake.
The genius of modern finance has been to create corporate ownership arrangements that
allow basically anyone, including the government, to own shares of any company in any sector
while being as involved (or uninvolved) as they want to be in steering the company. A federal
social wealth fund, like the one we advocate, should be able to take advantage of modern
shareholding institutions to expand public ownership into every aspect of the US economy.
Neoliberalism glory days are firmly in the past: the social pendulum now
starts moving in the opposite direction and will hit neoliberal square in the head:
deregulation and privatization are no longer fashionable ideas. Nationalization and regulation
of financial industry are.
Neoliberalism will continue to exist in its bloodthirsty zombie state for a while
(especially in the USA, the citadel of neoliberalism with the largest army of bought economists
-- high priests of this cult), but I think 40-50 years is max. With "cheap oil" depletion it
might be much sooner.
The quote
"Hence the policy advice of neoliberalism as a counsel of despair: get the state's nose out
of the economy as much as possible. When the state is neither an instrument of positive
redistribution nor an instrument of growth-boosting investment, its interventions in the
economy are likely to go strongly awry. And to the extent that a reduction in the economic role
of an elite-controlled state can be required as a price for rapid incorporation of an area into
the global economy, such a reduction should be required."
is either idiotism, or neoliberal propaganda, or both.
Like Trotskyism, Neoliberalism is statism par excellence: it comes to power via the "quiet
coup" and then uses the state to enforce and protect markets. Can be called neo-Trotskyism (it
rehashes the idea of Permanent Revolution and many other things) or "Trotskyism for the
rich." Reply
Russophobia is the standard deflection trick, designed to cement cracks in neoliberal society facade. And deep distrust of common
people toward neoliberal elite. With neoliberal elite completely immersed in its own groupthink, which reaches the level "Let them eat
cakes".
Notable quotes:
"... We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave. ..."
"... It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that Trump or Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises. ..."
While Russia-mania is widespread among today's political and cultural elites, it is not uniform.
For an older, right-wing section of the Western political and media class, otherwise known as the Cold War Re-Enactment Society,
Russia looms large principally as a military, quasi-imperial threat. Jim Mattis, the former US marine and general, and now US defence
secretary, said Russia was responsible
for 'the biggest attack [on the world order] since World War Two'. Whether this is true or not is beside the point. What matters
is that Russia appears as a military aggressor. What matters is that Russia's actions in Ukraine – which were arguably a defensive
reaction to NATO and the EU's expansion into Russia's traditional ally – are grasped as an act of territorial aggrandisement. What
matters is that Russia's military operations in Syria – which, again, were arguably a pragmatic intervention to stabilise the West-stoked
chaos – are rendered as an expression of imperial aggression. What matters is that Russian state involvement in the poisoning of
the Skripals in Salisbury – which, given its failure, proved Russian incompetence – is presented as 'part of a pattern of Russian
aggression against Europe and its near neighbours, from the western Balkans to the Middle East', to
quote Theresa May.
And it matters because, if Russia is dressed up as the West's old Cold War adversary, just with a new McMafia logo, then the crumbling,
illegitimate and increasingly pointless postwar institutions through which Western elites have long ordered the world, suddenly look
just that little bit more solid, legitimate and purposeful. And none more so than NATO.
This is why NATO has this year been accompanying its statements
warning Russia to 'stop its reckless pattern of
behaviour' with some of the
largest military exercises since the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly three decades ago. Including one in November in Norway, involving
50,000 troops, 10,000 vehicles, 250 aircraft and 60 warships.
Then there is the newer form of Russia-mania. This has emerged from within the political and cultural elite that came to power
after the Cold War, ploughing an uninspiring third way between the seeming extremes of the 20th century's great ideologies. Broadly
social democratic in sentiment, and elitist and aloof in practice, this band of merry technocrats and their middle-class supporters
have found in 'Russia' a way to avoid having to face up to what the populist revolt reveals – that the majority of Western citizens
share neither their worldview nor their wealth. Instead, they use 'Russia' to displace the people as the source of discontent and
political revolt.
We have seen this play out in the US in the continuing obsession, fronted by Troll-Finder General Robert Mueller, over alleged
Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election. And the same obsession has emerged in the UK, too, with politicians and pundits
claiming that a shadowy network of Russian influence tipped the EU referendum in favour of Leave.
It is never quite clear how the 'Russians' or 'Putin' did all this, beyond Facebook ads and decidedly dubious talk of so-called
dark money. But then clarity is not the point for this stripe of Russia-maniac. He or she simply wants to believe that
Trump or
Brexit were not what they were. Not expressions of popular
will. Not manifestations of popular discontent. Not democratic exercises.
No, they were the result, as one Tory MP
put it , of 'the covert and overt forms of malign influence used by Moscow'.
Or, in
the words of an Observer columnist, 'a campaign that purported to be for the "left behind" was organised and funded by men with
links across the global network of far-right American demagogues and kleptomaniac dictators such as Putin'.
Such has been the determination to blame 'Russia' or 'Putin' for the political class's struggles, that in August Tom Watson, Labour's
conspiracy-theory-peddling deputy leader,
called for a public inquiry into an alleged Russian Brexit plot. '[Voters] need to know whether that referendum was stolen or
not', he said.
Such a call ought to be mocked. After all, it is absurd to think 'Russia', 'Putin' and the trolls are the power behind every populist
throne. But the claims aren't mocked – they're taken as calls to action. Think of anything viewed as a threat to our quaking political
and cultural elites in the West, and you can bet your bottom ruble that some state agency or columnist is busy identifying Putin
or one of his legion of bots and trolls as the source. The
gilet jaunes protests
in France?
Check . Climate change?
Check . Italy's Five Star Movement?
Check
.
And all this from a nation with a GDP
equivalent to Spain, an ageing, declining population, and a failing infrastructure. The reality of Russia is not that of a global
threat, but of a struggling state. Russia is weak. Yet in the minds of those clinging desperately to the status quo, 'Russia' has
never been more powerful.
"... Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military establishment. ..."
If Syria wins the award for Country of the Year 2018, I'd hate to see who gets the Wooden
Spoon for 2018. There must be quite a few serious contenders for that prize!
Britain must surely be in the running for many reasons: among others, the sheer
disaster that is Theresa May's government (and the various clowns and thuggish goons that
constitute her Cabinet), the Brexit mess, the Skripal poisoning circus, Britain's own
collapse in controlling the propaganda narrative on Syria and the revelations about Integrity
Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, and their ties to the British military
establishment.
"... What is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic. ..."
"... The movement toward the neoliberal utopia of a pure and perfect market is made possible by the politics of financial deregulation. And it is achieved through the transformative and, it must be said, destructive action of all of the political measures (of which the most recent is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), designed to protect foreign corporations and their investments from national states) that aim to call into question any and all collective structures that could serve as an obstacle to the logic of the pure market: the nation, whose space to manoeuvre continually decreases; work groups, for example through the individualisation of salaries and of careers as a function of individual competences, with the consequent atomisation of workers; collectives for the defence of the rights of workers, unions, associations, cooperatives; even the family, which loses part of its control over consumption through the constitution of markets by age groups. ..."
"... The neoliberal programme draws its social power from the political and economic power of those whose interests it expresses: stockholders, financial operators, industrialists, conservative or social-democratic politicians who have been converted to the reassuring layoffs of laisser-faire, high-level financial officials eager to impose policies advocating their own extinction because, unlike the managers of firms, they run no risk of having eventually to pay the consequences. Neoliberalism tends on the whole to favour severing the economy from social realities and thereby constructing, in reality, an economic system conforming to its description in pure theory, that is a sort of logical machine that presents itself as a chain of constraints regulating economic agents. ..."
"... This structural violence also weighs on what is called the labour contract (wisely rationalised and rendered unreal by the "theory of contracts"). Organisational discourse has never talked as much of trust, co-operation, loyalty, and organisational culture as in an era when adherence to the organisation is obtained at each moment by eliminating all temporal guarantees of employment (three-quarters of hires are for fixed duration, the proportion of temporary employees keeps rising, employment "at will" and the right to fire an individual tend to be freed from any restriction). ..."
"... How could we not make a special place among these collectives, associations, unions, and parties for the state: the nation-state, or better yet the supranational state - a European state on the way toward a world state - capable of effectively controlling and taxing the profits earned in the financial markets and, above of all, of counteracting the destructive impact that the latter have on the labour market. This could be done with the aid of labour unions by organising the elaboration and defence of the public interest . Like it or not, the public interest will never emerge, even at the cost of a few mathematical errors, from the vision of accountants (in an earlier period one would have said of "shopkeepers") that the new belief system presents as the supreme form of human accomplishment. ..."
What is neoliberalism? A programme for destroying collective structures which may impede the pure market logic.
As the dominant discourse would have it, the economic world is a pure and perfect order, implacably unrolling the logic of its
predictable consequences, and prompt to repress all violations by the sanctions that it inflicts, either automatically or -- more
unusually -- through the intermediary of its armed extensions, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the policies they impose: reducing labour costs, reducing public expenditures and making work
more flexible. Is the dominant discourse right? What if, in reality, this economic order were no more than the implementation of
a utopia - the utopia of neoliberalism - thus converted into a political problem ? One that, with the aid of the economic
theory that it proclaims, succeeds in conceiving of itself as the scientific description of reality?
This tutelary theory is a pure mathematical fiction. From the start it has been founded on a formidable abstraction. For, in the
name of a narrow and strict conception of rationality as individual rationality, it brackets the economic and social conditions of
rational orientations and the economic and social structures that are the condition of their application.
To give the measure of this omission, it is enough to think just of the educational system. Education is never taken account of
as such at a time when it plays a determining role in the production of goods and services as in the production of the producers
themselves. From this sort of original sin, inscribed in the Walrasian myth (
1 ) of "pure theory", flow all of the deficiencies and
faults of the discipline of economics and the fatal obstinacy with which it attaches itself to the arbitrary opposition which it
induces, through its mere existence, between a properly economic logic, based on competition and efficiency, and social logic, which
is subject to the rule of fairness.
That said, this "theory" that is desocialised and dehistoricised at its roots has, today more than ever, the means of making
itself true and empirically verifiable. In effect, neoliberal discourse is not just one discourse among many. Rather, it is a
"strong discourse" - the way psychiatric discourse is in an asylum, in Erving Goffman's analysis (
2 ) . It is so strong and so hard to combat only because
it has on its side all of the forces of a world of relations of forces, a world that it contributes to making what it is. It does
this most notably by orienting the economic choices of those who dominate economic relationships. It thus adds its own symbolic force
to these relations of forces. In the name of this scientific programme, converted into a plan of political action, an immense
political project is underway, although its status as such is denied because it appears to be purely negative. This project aims
to create the conditions under which the "theory" can be realised and can function: a programme of the methodical destruction
of collectives .
The movement toward the neoliberal utopia of a pure and perfect market is made possible by the politics of financial deregulation.
And it is achieved through the transformative and, it must be said, destructive action of all of the political measures (of
which the most recent is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), designed to protect foreign corporations and their investments
from national states) that aim to call into question any and all collective structures that could serve as an obstacle to
the logic of the pure market: the nation, whose space to manoeuvre continually decreases; work groups, for example through the individualisation
of salaries and of careers as a function of individual competences, with the consequent atomisation of workers; collectives for the
defence of the rights of workers, unions, associations, cooperatives; even the family, which loses part of its control over consumption
through the constitution of markets by age groups.
The neoliberal programme draws its social power from the political and economic power of those whose interests it expresses:
stockholders, financial operators, industrialists, conservative or social-democratic politicians who have been converted to the reassuring
layoffs of laisser-faire, high-level financial officials eager to impose policies advocating their own extinction because, unlike
the managers of firms, they run no risk of having eventually to pay the consequences. Neoliberalism tends on the whole to favour
severing the economy from social realities and thereby constructing, in reality, an economic system conforming to its description
in pure theory, that is a sort of logical machine that presents itself as a chain of constraints regulating economic agents.
The globalisation of financial markets, when joined with the progress of information technology, ensures an unprecedented mobility
of capital. It gives investors concerned with the short-term profitability of their investments the possibility of permanently comparing
the profitability of the largest corporations and, in consequence, penalising these firms' relative setbacks. Subjected to this permanent
threat, the corporations themselves have to adjust more and more rapidly to the exigencies of the markets, under penalty of "losing
the market's confidence", as they say, as well as the support of their stockholders. The latter, anxious to obtain short-term profits,
are more and more able to impose their will on managers, using financial directorates to establish the rules under which managers
operate and to shape their policies regarding hiring, employment, and wages.
Thus the absolute reign of flexibility is established, with employees being hiring on fixed-term contracts or on a temporary basis
and repeated corporate restructurings and, within the firm itself, competition among autonomous divisions as well as among teams
forced to perform multiple functions. Finally, this competition is extended to individuals themselves, through the individualisation
of the wage relationship: establishment of individual performance objectives, individual performance evaluations, permanent evaluation,
individual salary increases or granting of bonuses as a function of competence and of individual merit; individualised career paths;
strategies of "delegating responsibility" tending to ensure the self-exploitation of staff who, simple wage labourers in relations
of strong hierarchical dependence, are at the same time held responsible for their sales, their products, their branch, their store,
etc. as though they were independent contractors. This pressure toward "self-control" extends workers' "involvement" according to
the techniques of "participative management" considerably beyond management level. All of these are techniques of rational domination
that impose over-involvement in work (and not only among management) and work under emergency or high-stress conditions. And they
converge to weaken or abolish collective standards or solidarities (
3 ) .
In this way, a Darwinian world emerges - it is the struggle of all against all at all levels of the hierarchy, which finds support
through everyone clinging to their job and organisation under conditions of insecurity, suffering, and stress. Without a doubt, the
practical establishment of this world of struggle would not succeed so completely without the complicity of all of the precarious
arrangements that produce insecurity and of the existence of a reserve army of employees rendered docile by these social processes
that make their situations precarious, as well as by the permanent threat of unemployment. This reserve army exists at all levels
of the hierarchy, even at the higher levels, especially among managers. The ultimate foundation of this entire economic order placed
under the sign of freedom is in effect the structural violence of unemployment, of the insecurity of job tenure and the menace
of layoff that it implies. The condition of the "harmonious" functioning of the individualist micro-economic model is a mass phenomenon,
the existence of a reserve army of the unemployed.
This structural violence also weighs on what is called the labour contract (wisely rationalised and rendered unreal by the
"theory of contracts"). Organisational discourse has never talked as much of trust, co-operation, loyalty, and organisational culture
as in an era when adherence to the organisation is obtained at each moment by eliminating all temporal guarantees of employment (three-quarters
of hires are for fixed duration, the proportion of temporary employees keeps rising, employment "at will" and the right to fire an
individual tend to be freed from any restriction).
Thus we see how the neoliberal utopia tends to embody itself in the reality of a kind of infernal machine, whose necessity imposes
itself even upon the rulers. Like the Marxism of an earlier time, with which, in this regard, it has much in common, this utopia
evokes powerful belief - the free trade faith - not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers
of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification
for existing from it. For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of
administrative or political barriers capable of inconveniencing the owners of capital in their individual quest for the maximisation
of individual profit, which has been turned into a model of rationality. They want independent central banks. And they preach the
subordination of nation-states to the requirements of economic freedom for the masters of the economy, with the suppression of any
regulation of any market, beginning with the labour market, the prohibition of deficits and inflation, the general privatisation
of public services, and the reduction of public and social expenses.
Economists may not necessarily share the economic and social interests of the true believers and may have a variety of individual
psychic states regarding the economic and social effects of the utopia which they cloak with mathematical reason. Nevertheless, they
have enough specific interests in the field of economic science to contribute decisively to the production and reproduction of belief
in the neoliberal utopia. Separated from the realities of the economic and social world by their existence and above all by their
intellectual formation, which is most frequently purely abstract, bookish, and theoretical, they are particularly inclined to confuse
the things of logic with the logic of things.
These economists trust models that they almost never have occasion to submit to the test of experimental verification and are
led to look down upon the results of the other historical sciences, in which they do not recognise the purity and crystalline transparency
of their mathematical games, whose true necessity and profound complexity they are often incapable of understanding. They participate
and collaborate in a formidable economic and social change. Even if some of its consequences horrify them (they can join the socialist
party and give learned counsel to its representatives in the power structure), it cannot displease them because, at the risk of a
few failures, imputable to what they sometimes call "speculative bubbles", it tends to give reality to the ultra-logical utopia (ultra-logical
like certain forms of insanity) to which they consecrate their lives.
And yet the world is there, with the immediately visible effects of the implementation of the great neoliberal utopia: not only
the poverty of an increasingly large segment of the most economically advanced societies, the extraordinary growth in income differences,
the progressive disappearance of autonomous universes of cultural production, such as film, publishing, etc. through the intrusive
imposition of commercial values, but also and above all two major trends. First is the destruction of all the collective institutions
capable of counteracting the effects of the infernal machine, primarily those of the state, repository of all of the universal values
associated with the idea of the public realm . Second is the imposition everywhere, in the upper spheres of the economy and
the state as at the heart of corporations, of that sort of moral Darwinism that, with the cult of the winner, schooled in higher
mathematics and bungee jumping, institutes the struggle of all against all and cynicism as the norm of all action and behaviour.
Can it be expected that the extraordinary mass of suffering produced by this sort of political-economic regime will one day serve
as the starting point of a movement capable of stopping the race to the abyss? Indeed, we are faced here with an extraordinary paradox.
The obstacles encountered on the way to realising the new order of the lone, but free individual are held today to be imputable to
rigidities and vestiges. All direct and conscious intervention of whatever kind, at least when it comes from the state, is discredited
in advance and thus condemned to efface itself for the benefit of a pure and anonymous mechanism, the market, whose nature as a site
where interests are exercised is forgotten. But in reality, what keeps the social order from dissolving into chaos, despite the growing
volume of the endangered population, is the continuity or survival of those very institutions and representatives of the old order
that is in the process of being dismantled, and all the work of all of the categories of social workers, as well as all the forms
of social solidarity, familial or otherwise.
The transition to "liberalism" takes place in an imperceptible manner, like continental drift, thus hiding its effects from view.
Its most terrible consequences are those of the long term. These effects themselves are concealed, paradoxically, by the resistance
to which this transition is currently giving rise among those who defend the old order by drawing on the resources it contained,
on old solidarities, on reserves of social capital that protect an entire portion of the present social order from falling into anomie.
This social capital is fated to wither away - although not in the short run - if it is not renewed and reproduced.
But these same forces of "conservation", which it is too easy to treat as conservative, are also, from another point of view,
forces of resistance to the establishment of the new order and can become subversive forces. If there is still cause for some
hope, it is that forces still exist, both in state institutions and in the orientations of social actors (notably individuals and
groups most attached to these institutions, those with a tradition of civil and public service) that, under the appearance of simply
defending an order that has disappeared and its corresponding "privileges" (which is what they will immediately be accused of), will
be able to resist the challenge only by working to invent and construct a new social order. One that will not have as its only law
the pursuit of egoistic interests and the individual passion for profit and that will make room for collectives oriented toward the
rational pursuit of ends collectively arrived at and collectively ratified .
How could we not make a special place among these collectives, associations, unions, and parties for the state: the nation-state,
or better yet the supranational state - a European state on the way toward a world state - capable of effectively controlling and
taxing the profits earned in the financial markets and, above of all, of counteracting the destructive impact that the latter have
on the labour market. This could be done with the aid of labour unions by organising the elaboration and defence of the public
interest . Like it or not, the public interest will never emerge, even at the cost of a few mathematical errors, from the vision
of accountants (in an earlier period one would have said of "shopkeepers") that the new belief system presents as the supreme form
of human accomplishment.
Pierre Bourdieu. Professor at the Collège de France Translated by Jeremy J. Shapiro
( 1 ) Auguste Walras (1800-66), French economist,
author of De la nature de la richesse et de l'origine de la valeur ("On the Nature of Wealth and on the Origin of Value")(1848).
He was one of the first to attempt to apply mathematics to economic inquiry.
( 2 ) Erving Goffman. 1961. Asylums: Essays on
the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates . New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
( 3 ) See the two journal issues devoted to "Nouvelles
formes de domination dans le travail" ("New forms of domination in work"), Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales , nos.
114, September 1996, and 115, December 1996, especially the introduction by Gabrielle Balazs and Michel Pialoux, "Crise du travail
et crise du politique" & Work crisis and political crisis, no. 114: p.3-4.
Craig Murray is right that "As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies
the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier."
Collapse of neoliberal ideology and rise of tentions in neoliberal sociarties resulted in unprecedented increase of covert and false
flag operations by British intelligence services, especially against Russia, which had been chosen as a convenient scapegoat.
With Steele dossier and Skripal affair as two most well known.
New Lady Macbeth (Theresa May) Russophobia is so extreme that her cabinet derailed the election of a Russian to head
Interpol.
Looks like neoliberalism cannot be defeated by and faction of the existing elite. Only when shepp oil end mant people will
have a chance. The US , GB and EU are part of the wider hegemonic neoliberal system. In fact rejection of neoliberal
globalization probably will lead to "national neoliberals" regime which would be a flavor of neo-fascism, no more no less.
Notable quotes:
"... The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. ..."
"... I learnt how highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane just happened to be on holiday in the United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign. ..."
"... It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely unbalanced panel of British military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia. ..."
"... the MOD-sponsored Institute for Statecraft has been given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money by the FCO to spread covert disinformation and propaganda, particularly against Russia and the anti-war movement. Activities include twitter and facebook trolling and secretly paying journalists in "clusters of influence" around Europe. Anonymous helpfully leaked the Institute's internal documents. Some of the Integrity Initiative's thus exposed alleged covert agents, like David Aaronovitch, have denied any involvement despite their appearance in the documents, and others like Dan Kaszeta the US "novichok expert", have cheerfully admitted it. ..."
"... By sleuthing the company records of this "Scottish charity", and a couple of phone calls, I discovered that the actual location of the Institute for Statecraft is the basement of 2 Temple Place, London. This is not just any basement – it is the basement of the former London mansion of William Waldorf Astor, an astonishing building . It is, in short, possibly the most expensive basement in London. ..."
"... Which is interesting because the accounts of the Institute for Statecraft claim it has no permanent staff and show nothing for rent, utilities or office expenses. In fact, I understand the rent is paid by the Ministry of Defence. ..."
"... I have a great deal more to tell you about Mr Edney and his organisation next week, and the extraordinary covert disinformation war the British government wages online, attacking British citizens using British taxpayers' money. Please note in the interim I am not even a smidgeon suicidal, and going to be very, very careful crossing the road and am not intending any walks in the hills. ..."
"... I am not alleging Mr Bracey-Lane is an intelligence service operative who previously infiltrated the Labour Party and the Sanders campaign. He may just be a young man of unusually heterodox and vacillating political opinions. He may be an undercover reporter for the Canary infiltrating the Institute for Statecraft. All these things are possible, and I have no firm information. ..."
"... one of the activities the Integrity Initiative sponsors happens to be the use of online trolls to ridicule the idea that the British security services ever carry out any kind of infiltration, false flag or agent provocateur operations, despite the fact that we even have repeated court judgements against undercover infiltration officers getting female activists pregnant. The Integrity Initiative offers us a glimpse into the very dirty world of surveillance and official disinformation. If we actually had a free media, it would be the biggest story of the day ..."
"... As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier. ..."
"... You can bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply "the enemy". ..."
The British state can maintain its spies' cover stories for centuries. Look up Eldred Pottinger, who for 180 years appears
in scores of British history books – right up to and including William Dalrymple's Return of the King – as a British officer who
chanced to be passing Herat on holiday when it came under siege from a partly Russian-officered Persian army, and helped to organise
the defences. In researching
Sikunder Burnes, I discovered and published from the British Library incontrovertible and detailed documentary evidence that
Pottinger's entire journey was under the direct instructions of, and reporting to, British spymaster Alexander Burnes. The first
historian to publish the untrue "holiday" cover story, Sir John Kaye, knew both Burnes and Pottinger and undoubtedly knew he was
publishing lying propaganda. Every other British historian of the First Afghan War (except me and latterly
Farrukh Husain) has just followed Kaye's official propaganda.
Some things don't change. I was irresistibly reminded of Eldred Pottinger just passing Herat on holiday, when I learnt how
highly improbable left wing firebrand Simon Bracey-Lane
just happened to be on holiday in the
United States with available cash to fund himself, when he stumbled into the Bernie Sanders campaign.
Recent university graduate Simon Bracey-Lane took it even further. Originally from Wimbledon in London, he was inspired to
rejoin the Labour party in September when Corbyn was elected leader. But by that point, he was already in the US on holiday. So
he joined the Sanders campaign, and never left.
"I had two weeks left and some money left, so I thought, Fuck it, I'll make some calls for Bernie Sanders," he explains. "I just
sort of knew Des Moines was the place, so I just turned up at their HQ, started making phone calls, and then became a fully fledged
field organiser."
It is, to say the least, very interesting indeed that just a year later the left wing, "Corbyn and Sanders supporting" Bracey-Lane
is hosting a very right wing event, "Cold War Then and Now", for the shadowy neo-con Institute for Statecraft, at which an entirely
unbalanced panel of British
military, NATO and Ukrainian nationalists extolled the virtues of re-arming against Russia.
Nor would it seem likely that Bracey-Lane would be involved with the Integrity Initiative. Even the mainstream media has been
forced to give a few paragraphs to the outrageous Integrity Initiative, under which the MOD-sponsored Institute for Statecraft
has been given millions of pounds of taxpayers' money by the FCO to spread covert disinformation and propaganda, particularly against
Russia and the anti-war movement. Activities include twitter and facebook trolling and secretly paying journalists in "clusters of
influence" around Europe. Anonymous helpfully leaked the Institute's internal documents. Some of the Integrity Initiative's thus
exposed alleged covert agents, like David Aaronovitch, have denied any involvement despite their appearance in the documents, and
others like Dan Kaszeta the US "novichok expert", have cheerfully admitted it.
The mainstream media have
tracked down
the HQ of the "Institute for Statecraft" to a derelict mill near Auchtermuchty. It is owned by one of the company directors, Daniel
Lafayeedney, formerly of D Squadron 23rd SAS Regiment and later of Military Intelligence (and incidentally born the rather more prosaic
Daniel Edney).
By sleuthing the company records of this "Scottish charity", and a couple of phone calls, I discovered that the actual location
of the Institute for Statecraft is the basement of 2 Temple Place, London. This is not just any basement – it is the basement of
the former London mansion of William Waldorf Astor, an astonishing building.
It is, in short, possibly the most expensive basement in London.
Which is interesting because the accounts of the Institute for Statecraft claim it has no permanent staff and show nothing
for rent, utilities or office expenses. In fact, I understand the rent is paid by the Ministry of Defence.
Having been told where the Institute for Statecraft skulk, I tipped off journalist Kit Klarenberg of Sputnik Radio to go and physically
check it out. Kit did so and was
aggressively
ejected by that well-known Corbyn and Sanders supporter, Simon Bracey-Lane. It does seem somewhat strange that our left wing
hero is deeply embedded in an organisation that
launches troll attacks on Jeremy Corbyn.
I have a great deal more to tell you about Mr Edney and his organisation next week, and the extraordinary covert disinformation
war the British government wages online, attacking British citizens using British taxpayers' money. Please note in the interim I
am not even a smidgeon suicidal, and going to be very, very careful crossing the road and am not intending any walks in the hills.
I am not alleging Mr Bracey-Lane is an intelligence service operative who previously infiltrated the Labour Party and the
Sanders campaign. He may just be a young man of unusually heterodox and vacillating political opinions. He may be an undercover reporter
for the Canary infiltrating the Institute for Statecraft. All these things are possible, and I have no firm information.
But one of the activities the Integrity Initiative sponsors happens to be the use of online trolls to ridicule the idea that the
British security services ever carry out any kind of infiltration, false flag or agent provocateur operations, despite the fact that
we even have repeated court judgements against undercover infiltration officers getting female activists pregnant. The Integrity
Initiative offers us a glimpse into the very dirty world of surveillance and official disinformation. If we actually had a free media,
it would be the biggest story of the day.
As the Establishment feels its grip slipping, as people wake up to the appalling economic exploitation by the few that underlies
the very foundations of modern western society, expect the methods used by the security services to become even dirtier.
You can
bank on continued ramping up of Russophobia to supply "the enemy".
As both Scottish Independence and Jeremy Corbyn are viewed as
real threats by the British Establishment, you can anticipate every possible kind of dirty trick in the next couple of years, with
increasing frequency and audacity
It is very interesting and educational to read this pre-election article two years later and see where the author is
right and where he is wrong. The death of neoliberalism was greatly exaggerated. It simply mutated in the USA into "national
neoliberalism" under Trump. As no clear alternative exists it remain the dominant ideology and universities still
brainwash students with neoclassical economics. And in way catchy slogan "Make America great again" under Trump
means "Make American working and lower middle class great again"
It is also clear that Trump betrayed or was forced to betray most of his election promises. Standrd of living of common
americans did not improve under his watch. most of hi benefits of his tax cuts went to large corporations and financial
oligarch. He continued the policy of financial deregulation, which is tantamount of playing with open fire trying to
warm up the house
What we see under Trump is tremendous growth of political role of intelligence agencies which now are real kingmakers and can
sink any candidate which does not support their agenda. And USA intelligence agencies operated in 2016 in close cooperation
with the UK intelligence agencies to the extent that it is not clear who has the lead in creating Steele dossier. They are
definitely out of control of executive branch and play their own game. We also see a rise of CIA democrats as a desperate
attempt to preserve the power of Clinton wing of the Democratic Party ('soft neoliberals" turned under Hillary into into warmongers
and neocons) . Hillary and Bill themselves clearly belong to CIA democrats too, not only to Wall Street democrats, despite the fact
that they sold Democratic Party to Wall Street in the past. New Labor in UK did the same.
But if it is more or less clear now what happened in the USa in 2016-2018, it is completely unclear what will happen next.
I think in no way neoliberalism will start to be dismantled. there is no social forces powerful enough to start this job, We
probably need another financial crisi of the scale of 2008 for this work to be reluctantly started by ruling
elite. And we better not to have this repetition of 2008 as it will be really devastating for common people.
Notable quotes:
"... the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye turned to corporate evasion. ..."
"... It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism, when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present. ..."
"... In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has stagnated for over 30 years . ..."
"... On average, between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real incomes between 2005 and 2014. ..."
"... As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late 70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none. As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable. ..."
"... Foreign Affairs ..."
"... "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both. ..."
"... According to a Gallup poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population. ..."
"... The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement. ..."
"... Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely one of secular stagnation . ..."
"... those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes, just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s. ..."
In the early 1980s the author was one of the first to herald the emerging dominance of neoliberalism in the west. Here he argues
that this doctrine is now faltering. But what happens next?
The western financial crisis of 2007-8 was the worst since 1931, yet its immediate repercussions were surprisingly modest. The
crisis challenged the foundation stones of the long-dominant neoliberal ideology but it seemed to emerge largely unscathed. The banks
were bailed out; hardly any bankers on either side of the Atlantic were prosecuted for their crimes; and the price of their behaviour
was duly paid by the taxpayer. Subsequent economic policy, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, has relied overwhelmingly on monetary
policy, especially quantitative easing. It has failed. The western economy has stagnated and is now approaching its lost decade,
with no end in sight.
After almost nine years, we are finally beginning to reap the political whirlwind of the financial crisis. But how did neoliberalism
manage to survive virtually unscathed for so long? Although it failed the test of the real world, bequeathing the worst economic
disaster for seven decades, politically and intellectually it remained the only show in town. Parties of the right, centre and left
had all bought into its philosophy, New Labour a classic
in point. They knew no other way of thinking or doing: it had become the common sense. It was, as Antonio Gramsci put it, hegemonic.
But that hegemony cannot and will not survive the test of the real world.
The first inkling of the wider political consequences was evident in the turn in public opinion against the banks, bankers and
business leaders. For decades, they could do no wrong: they were feted as the role models of our age, the default troubleshooters
of choice in education, health and seemingly everything else. Now, though, their star was in steep descent, along with that of the
political class. The effect of the financial crisis was to undermine faith and trust in the competence of the governing elites. It
marked the beginnings of a wider political crisis.
But the causes of this political crisis, glaringly evident on both sides of the Atlantic, are much deeper than simply the financial
crisis and the virtually stillborn recovery of the last decade. They go to the heart of the neoliberal project that dates from the
late 70s and the political rise of Reagan and Thatcher, and embraced at its core the idea of a global free market in goods, services
and capital. The depression-era system of bank regulation was dismantled, in the US in the 1990s and in Britain in 1986, thereby
creating the conditions for the 2008 crisis. Equality was scorned, the idea of trickle-down economics lauded, government condemned
as a fetter on the market and duly downsized, immigration encouraged, regulation cut to a minimum, taxes reduced and a blind eye
turned to corporate evasion.
It should be noted that, by historical standards, the neoliberal era has not had a particularly good track record. The most dynamic
period of postwar western growth was that between the end of the war and the early 70s, the era of welfare capitalism and Keynesianism,
when the growth rate was double that of the neoliberal period from 1980 to the present.
But by far the most disastrous feature of the neoliberal period has been the huge growth in inequality. Until very recently, this
had been virtually ignored. With extraordinary speed, however, it has emerged as one of, if not the most important political issue
on both sides of the Atlantic, most dramatically in the US. It is, bar none, the issue that is driving the political discontent that
is now engulfing the west. Given the statistical evidence, it is puzzling, shocking even, that it has been disregarded for so long;
the explanation can only lie in the sheer extent of the hegemony of neoliberalism and its values.
But now reality has upset the doctrinal apple cart. In the period 1948-1972, every section of the American population experienced
very similar and sizable increases in their standard of living; between 1972-2013, the bottom 10% experienced falling real income
while the top 10% did far better than everyone else. In the US, the median real income for full-time male workers is now lower than
it was four decades ago: the income of the bottom 90% of the population has
stagnated for over 30 years .
A not so dissimilar picture is true of the UK. And the problem has grown more serious since the financial crisis. On average,
between 65-70% of households in 25 high-income economies experienced stagnant or falling real
incomes between 2005 and 2014.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot
The reasons are not difficult to explain. The hyper-globalisation era has been systematically stacked in favour of capital against
labour: international trading agreements, drawn up in great secrecy, with business on the inside and the unions and citizens excluded,
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the
Transatlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) being but the latest examples; the politico-legal attack on the unions;
the encouragement of large-scale immigration in both the US and Europe that helped to undermine
the bargaining power of the domestic workforce; and the failure to retrain displaced workers in any meaningful way.
As Thomas Piketty has shown, in the absence of
countervailing pressures, capitalism naturally gravitates towards increasing inequality. In the period between 1945 and the late
70s, Cold War competition was arguably the biggest such constraint. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been none.
As the popular backlash grows increasingly irresistible, however, such a winner-takes-all regime becomes politically unsustainable.
Large sections of the population in both the US and the UK are now in revolt against their lot, as graphically illustrated by
the support for Trump and Sanders in the US and the Brexit vote in the UK. This popular revolt is often described, in a somewhat
denigratory and dismissive fashion, as populism. Or, as Francis Fukuyama writes in a recent excellent
essay
in Foreign Affairs : "'Populism' is the label that political elites attach to policies supported by ordinary citizens
that they don't like." Populism is a movement against the status quo. It represents the beginnings of something new, though it is
generally much clearer about what it is against than what it is for. It can be progressive or reactionary, but more usually both.
Brexit is a classic example of such populism. It has overturned a fundamental cornerstone of UK policy since the early 1970s.
Though ostensibly about Europe, it was in fact about much more: a cri de coeur from those who feel they have lost out and been left
behind, whose living standards have stagnated or worse since the 1980s, who feel dislocated by large-scale immigration over which
they have no control and who face an increasingly insecure and casualised labour market. Their revolt has paralysed the governing
elite, already claimed one prime minister, and left the latest one fumbling around in the dark looking for divine inspiration.
The wave of populism marks the return of class as a central agency in politics, both in the UK and the US. This is particularly
remarkable in the US. For many decades, the idea of the "working class" was marginal to American political discourse. Most Americans
described themselves as middle class, a reflection of the aspirational pulse at the heart of American society. According to a Gallup
poll, in 2000 only 33% of Americans called themselves working class; by 2015 the figure was 48%, almost half the population.
Brexit, too, was primarily a working-class revolt. Hitherto, on both sides of the Atlantic, the agency of class has been in retreat
in the face of the emergence of a new range of identities and issues from gender and race to sexual orientation and the environment.
The return of class, because of its sheer reach, has the potential, like no other issue, to redefine the political landscape.
The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, is a function of politics
The re-emergence of class should not be confused with the labor movement. They are not synonymous: this is obvious in the US
and increasingly the case in the UK. Indeed, over the last half-century, there has been a growing separation between the two in Britain.
The re-emergence of the working class as a political voice in Britain, most notably in the Brexit vote, can best be described as
an inchoate expression of resentment and protest, with only a very weak sense of belonging to the labour movement.
Indeed, Ukip has been as important – in the form of immigration and Europe – in shaping its current attitudes as the Labour party.
In the United States, both Trump and Sanders have given expression to the working-class revolt, the latter almost as much as the
former. The working class belongs to no one: its orientation, far from predetermined, as the left liked to think, is a function of
politics.
The neoliberal era is being undermined from two directions. First, if its record of economic growth has never been particularly
strong, it is now dismal. Europe is barely larger than it was on the eve of the financial crisis in 2007; the United States has done
better but even its growth has been anaemic. Economists such as Larry Summers believe that the prospect for the future is most likely
one of secular stagnation .
Worse, because the recovery has been so weak and fragile, there is a widespread belief that another financial crisis may well
beckon. In other words, the neoliberal era has delivered the west back into the kind of crisis-ridden world that we last experienced
in the 1930s. With this background, it is hardly surprising that a majority in the west now believe their children will be worse
off than they were. Second, those who have lost out in the neoliberal era are no longer prepared to acquiesce in their fate – they
are increasingly in open revolt. We are witnessing the end of the neoliberal era. It is not dead, but it is in its early death throes,
just as the social-democratic era was during the 1970s.
A sure sign of the declining influence of neoliberalism is the rising chorus of intellectual voices raised against it. From the
mid-70s through the 80s, the economic debate was increasingly dominated by monetarists and free marketeers. But since the western
financial crisis, the centre of gravity of the intellectual debate has shifted profoundly. This is most obvious in the United States,
with economists such as Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, Dani Rodrik and Jeffrey Sachs becoming increasingly influential. Thomas Piketty's
Capital in the Twenty-First Century has been a massive seller. His work and that of
Tony Atkinson
and Angus Deaton have pushed the question of the inequality to the top of the political agenda. In the UK,
Ha-Joon Chang , for long isolated within the economics
profession, has gained a following far greater than those who think economics is a branch of mathematics.
Meanwhile, some of those who were previously strong advocates of a neoliberal approach, such as Larry Summers and the Financial
Times 's Martin Wolf, have become extremely critical. The wind is in the sails of the critics of neoliberalism; the neoliberals
and monetarists are in retreat. In the UK, the media and political worlds are well behind the curve. Few recognize that we are at
the end of an era. Old attitudes and assumptions still predominate, whether on the BBC's Today programme, in the rightwing
press or the parliamentary Labor party.
Following Ed Miliband's resignation as Labour leader, virtually no one foresaw the triumph of
Jeremy Corbyn in the subsequent leadership election.
The assumption had been more of the same, a Blairite or a halfway house like Miliband, certainly not anyone like Corbyn. But the
zeitgeist had changed. The membership, especially the young who had joined the party on an unprecedented scale, wanted a complete
break with New Labour. One of the reasons why the left has failed to emerge as the leader of the new mood of working-class disillusionment
is that most social democratic parties became, in varying degrees, disciples of neoliberalism and uber-globalisation. The most extreme
forms of this phenomenon were New Labour and the Democrats, who in the late 90s and 00s became its advance guard, personified by
Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, triangulation and the third way.
But as David Marquand observed in a review for the New Statesman , what is the point of a social democratic party if
it doesn't represent the less fortunate, the underprivileged and the losers? New Labour deserted those who needed them, who historically
they were supposed to represent. Is it surprising that large sections have now deserted the party who deserted them? Blair, in his
reincarnation as a money-obsessed consultant to a shady bunch of presidents and dictators, is a fitting testament to the demise of
New Labour.
The rival contenders – Burnham, Cooper and Kendall – represented continuity. They were swept away by Corbyn, who won nearly 60%
of the votes. New Labour was over, as dead as Monty Python's parrot. Few grasped the meaning of what had happened. A Guardian
leader welcomed the surge in membership and then, lo and behold, urged support for Yvette Cooper, the very antithesis of the
reason for the enthusiasm. The PLP refused to accept the result and ever since has tried with might and main to remove Corbyn.
Just as the Labour party took far too long to come to terms with the rise of Thatcherism and the birth of a new era at the end
of the 70s, now it could not grasp that the Thatcherite paradigm, which they eventually came to embrace in the form of New Labour,
had finally run its course. Labour, like everyone else, is obliged to think anew. The membership in their antipathy to New Labour
turned to someone who had never accepted the latter, who was the polar opposite in almost every respect of Blair, and embodying an
authenticity and decency which Blair patently did not.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better
Corbyn is not a product of the new times, he is a throwback to the late 70s and early 80s. That is both his strength and also
his weakness. He is uncontaminated by the New Labour legacy because he has never accepted it. But nor, it would seem, does he understand
the nature of the new era. The danger is that he is possessed of feet of clay in what is a highly fluid and unpredictable political
environment, devoid of any certainties of almost any kind, in which Labour finds itself dangerously divided and weakened.
Labour may be in intensive care, but the condition of the Conservatives is not a great deal better. David Cameron was guilty of
a huge and irresponsible miscalculation over Brexit. He was forced to resign in the most ignominious of circumstances. The party
is hopelessly divided. It has no idea in which direction to move after Brexit. The Brexiters painted an optimistic picture of turning
away from the declining European market and embracing the expanding markets of the world, albeit barely mentioning by name which
countries it had in mind. It looks as if the new prime minister may have an anachronistic hostility towards China and a willingness
to undo the good work of George Osborne. If the government turns its back on China, by far the fastest growing market in the world,
where are they going to turn?
Brexit has left the country fragmented and deeply divided, with the very real prospect that Scotland might choose independence.
Meanwhile, the Conservatives seem to have little understanding that the neoliberal era is in its death throes.
Dramatic as events have been in the UK, they cannot compare with those in the United States. Almost from nowhere,
Donald Trump rose to capture the Republican nomination
and confound virtually all the pundits and not least his own party. His message was straightforwardly anti-globalisation. He believes
that the interests of the working class have been sacrificed in favour of the big corporations that have been encouraged to invest
around the world and thereby deprive American workers of their jobs. Further, he argues that large-scale immigration has weakened
the bargaining power of American workers and served to lower their wages.
He proposes that US corporations should be required to invest their cash reserves in the US. He believes that the North American
Free Trade Agreement (Nafta) has had the effect of exporting American jobs to Mexico. On similar grounds, he is opposed to the TPP
and the TTIP. And he also accuses China of stealing American jobs, threatening to impose a 45% tariff on Chinese imports.
To globalisation Trump counterposes economic nationalism: "Put America first". His appeal, above all, is to the white working
class who, until Trump's (and Bernie Sander's) arrival on the political scene, had been ignored and largely unrepresented since the
1980s. Given that their wages have been falling for most of the last 40 years, it is extraordinary how their interests have been
neglected by the political class. Increasingly, they have voted Republican, but the Republicans have long been captured by the super-rich
and Wall Street, whose interests, as hyper-globalisers, have run directly counter to those of the white working class. With the arrival
of Trump they finally found a representative: they won Trump the Republican nomination.
Trump believes that America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources
The economic nationalist argument has also been vigorously pursued by
Bernie Sanders , who ran Hillary Clinton extremely
close for the Democratic nomination and would probably have won but for more than 700 so-called super-delegates, who were effectively
chosen by the Democratic machine and overwhelmingly supported Clinton. As in the case of the Republicans, the Democrats have long
supported a neoliberal, pro-globalisation strategy, notwithstanding the concerns of its trade union base. Both the Republicans and
the Democrats now find themselves deeply polarised between the pro- and anti-globalisers, an entirely new development not witnessed
since the shift towards neoliberalism under Reagan almost 40 years ago.
Another plank of Trump's nationalist appeal – "Make America great again" – is his position on foreign policy. He believes that
America's pursuit of great power status has squandered the nation's resources. He argues that the country's alliance system is unfair,
with America bearing most of the cost and its allies contributing far too little. He points to Japan and South Korea, and NATO's
European members as prime examples. He seeks to rebalance these relationships and, failing that, to exit from them.
As a country in decline, he argues that America can no longer afford to carry this kind of financial burden. Rather than putting
the world to rights, he believes the money should be invested at home, pointing to the dilapidated state of America's infrastructure.
Trump's position
represents a major critique of America as the world's hegemon. His arguments mark a radical break with the neoliberal, hyper-globalisation
ideology that has reigned since the early 1980s and with the foreign policy orthodoxy of most of the postwar period. These arguments
must be taken seriously. They should not be lightly dismissed just because of their authorship. But Trump is no man of the left.
He is a populist of the right. He has launched a racist and xenophobic attack on Muslims and on Mexicans. Trump's appeal is to a
white working class that feels it has been cheated by the big corporations, undermined by Hispanic immigration, and often resentful
towards African-Americans who for long too many have viewed as their inferior.
A Trump America would mark a descent into authoritarianism characterised by abuse, scapegoating, discrimination, racism, arbitrariness
and violence; America would become a deeply polarised and divided society. His threat to impose
45%
tariffs on China , if implemented, would certainly provoke retaliation by the Chinese and herald the beginnings of a new era
of protectionism.
Trump may well lose the presidential election just as Sanders failed in his bid for the Democrat nomination. But this does not
mean that the forces opposed to hyper-globalisation – unrestricted immigration, TPP and TTIP, the free movement of capital and much
else – will have lost the argument and are set to decline. In little more than 12 months, Trump and Sanders have transformed the
nature and terms of the argument. Far from being on the wane, the arguments of the critics of hyper-globalisation are steadily gaining
ground. Roughly two-thirds of Americans agree that "we should not think so much in international terms but concentrate more on our
own national problems". And, above all else, what will continue to drive opposition to the hyper-globalisers is inequality.
"... I don't like using the term "neo-liberalism" that much because there is nothing "new" or "liberal" about it, the term itself just helps hide the fact that it's a political project more about power than profit and the end result is more like modern feudalism - an authoritarian system where the lords (bankers, energy companies and their large and inefficient attendant bureaucracies), keep us peasants in thrall through life long debt-slavery simply to buy a house or exploit us as a captured market in the case of the energy sector. ..."
"... Since the word "privatisation" is clearly no longer popular, the latest buzzword from this project is "outsourcing". ..."
"... As far as I can see "neo-liberalism", or what I prefer to call managerial and financialised feudalism is not dead, it's still out and about looking around for the next rent-seeking opportunity. ..."
"... In the political arena, is enabling porkies facilitate each other in every lunatic pronouncement about "Budget repair" and "on track for a surplus". And its spotty, textbook-spouting clones ("all debt is debt! Shriek, gasp, hyperventilate!") fall off the conveyor belts of tertiary education Australia-wide, then turn up on The Drum as IPA 'Research Fellows' to spout their evidence-free assertions. ..."
"... And don't forget the handmaiden of neoliberalism is their macroeconomic mythology about government "debt and borrowing" which will condemn our grandchildren to poverty - inter-generational theft! It also allows them to continue dismantling government social programs by giving tax-cuts to reduce "revenue" and then claiming there is no money to fund those programs. ..."
"... "Competition" as the cornerstone of neoliberal economics was always a lie. Corporations do their best to get rid of competitors by unfair pricing tactics or by takeovers. And even where some competitors hang in there by some means (banks, petrol companies) the competition that occurs is not for price but for profit. ..."
"... We find a shift away from democratic processes and the rise of the "all new adulation of the so-called tough leader" factor, aka Nazism/Fascism. From Trump to Turkey, Netanyahu to Putin, Brazil to China, the rise of the "right" in Europe, the South Americas, where the leader is "our great and "good" Teacher", knows best, and thus infantalises the knowledge and awareness of the rest of the population. Who needs scientists, when the "leader" knows everything? ..."
"... There are indeed alternatives to neoliberalism, most of which have been shown to lead back to neoliberalism. Appeals for fiscal and monetary relief/stimulus can only ever paper over the worst aspects of it's relentless 'progress', between wars, it seems. ..."
"... Neoliberalism seems vastly, catastrophically misunderstood. Widely perceived as the latest abomination to spring from the eternal battle 'twixt Labour and Capital, it's actual origins are somewhat more recent. Neoliberalism really, really is not just "Capitalism gone wrong". It goes much deeper, to a fundamental flaw buried( more accurately 'planted') deep in the heart of economics. ..."
"... In 1879 an obscure journalist from then-remote San Francisco, Henry George, took the world by storm with his extraordinary bestseller Progress and Poverty . Still the only published work to outsell the Bible in a single year, it did so for over twenty years, yet few social justice advocates have heard of it. ..."
"... George gravely threatened privileged global power-elites , so they erased him from academic history. A mind compared, in his time with Plato, Copernicus and Adam Smith wiped from living memory, by the modern aristocracy. ..."
"... In the process of doing so, they emasculated the discipline of economics, stripped dignity from labour, and set in motion a world-destroying doctrine. Neo-Classical Economics(aka neoliberalism) was born , to the detriment of the working-citizen and the living world on which s/he depends. ..."
I don't like using the term "neo-liberalism" that much because there is nothing "new" or
"liberal" about it, the term itself just helps hide the fact that it's a political project
more about power than profit and the end result is more like modern feudalism - an
authoritarian system where the lords (bankers, energy companies and their large and
inefficient attendant bureaucracies), keep us peasants in thrall through life long
debt-slavery simply to buy a house or exploit us as a captured market in the case of the
energy sector.
Since the word "privatisation" is clearly no longer popular, the latest buzzword from this
project is "outsourcing". If you've had a look at The Canberra Times over the last couple of
weeks there have been quite a few articles about outsourcing parts of Medicare and Centrelink, using labour hire companies and so on – is this part of a current LNP plan
to "sell off" parts of the government before Labour takes the reins in May?
As far as I can see "neo-liberalism", or what I prefer to call managerial and
financialised feudalism is not dead, it's still out and about looking around for the next
rent-seeking opportunity.
Neoliberalism "dead"?
I think not.
It is riveted on the country like a straitjacket.
Which is exactly what it was always intended to be, a system gamed and rigged to ensure the
wage-earning scum obtain progressively less and less of the country's productive wealth,
however much they contributed to it.
The wage theft and exploitation Neoliberalism fosters has become the new norm.
Neoliberal idealogues thickly infest Federal and State Treasuries.
In the political arena, is enabling porkies facilitate each other in every lunatic
pronouncement about "Budget repair" and "on track for a surplus".
And its spotty, textbook-spouting clones ("all debt is debt! Shriek, gasp, hyperventilate!")
fall off the conveyor belts of tertiary education Australia-wide, then turn up on The Drum as
IPA 'Research Fellows' to spout their evidence-free assertions.
The IPA itself has moles in govt at every level--even in your local Council.
Certainly in ours.
Neoliberalism is "dead"?
Correction.
Neoliberalism is alive, thriving---and quick to ensure its glaring deficiencies and
inequities are solely attributable to its opponents. Now THERE'S a surprise.....
Agree! And don't forget the handmaiden of neoliberalism is their macroeconomic mythology
about government "debt and borrowing" which will condemn our grandchildren to poverty -
inter-generational theft! It also allows them to continue dismantling government social programs by giving tax-cuts
to reduce "revenue" and then claiming there is no money to fund those programs.
Neoliberalism will not be dead until the underpinning of neoliberalism is abandoned by ALP
and Greens. That underpinning is their mindless attachment to "budget repair" and "return to
surplus". The federal government's "budget" is nothing like a currency user's budget.
Currency users collect in order to spend whereas every dollar spent by the federal government
is a new dollar and every dollar taxed by the federal government is an ex-dollar. A currency
cannot sensibly have "debt" in the currency that it issues and no amount of surplus or
deficit now will enhance or impair its capacity to spend in future. A currency issuer does
not need an electronic piggybank, or a Future Fund, or a Drought Relief Fund. It can't max
out an imaginary credit card. It's "borrowing" is just an exchange of its termless no-coupon
liabilities (currency) for term-limited coupon-bearing liabilities (bonds). The federal
budget balance is no rational indicator of any need for austerity or for stimulus. The
rational indicators are unemployment (too small a "deficit"/too large a surplus) and
inflation (too large a "deficit"/too small a "surplus"). Federal taxation is where dollars go
to die. It doesn't "fund" a currency issuer's spending - it is there to stop the dollars it
issues from piling up and causing inflation and to make room for spending by democratically
elected federal parliament. The name of the game is to balance the economy, not the entirely
notional and fundamentally irrelevant "budget".
"Competition" as the cornerstone of neoliberal economics was always a lie. Corporations do
their best to get rid of competitors by unfair pricing tactics or by takeovers. And even
where some competitors hang in there by some means (banks, petrol companies) the competition
that occurs is not for price but for profit.
And changing the electoral system? Yes indeed. After years of observation it seems to me
that the problem with our politics is not individual politicians (although there are notable
exceptions) but political parties. Rigid control of policies and voting on party instruction
(even by the Greens) makes the proceedings of parliament a complete waste of time. If every
policy had to run the gauntlet of 150 people all voting by their conscience we would have
better policy. The executive functions could be carried out by a cabinet also elected from
those members. But not going to happen - too many vested interests in the parties and their
corporate sponsors.
With the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil (even though nearly 30% of electors refused to vote)
it may be a little presumptuous to dissect the dead corpse of neoliberalism, as Richard
Denniss' hopes that we can.
What is absolutely gob-smacking is that Brazilians voted for him; a man that Glenn Greenwald
describes as "far more dangerous than Trump" , that Bolsonaro envisages military
dictatorships as "being a far more superior form of government" advocating a civil war
in order to dispose of the left.
Furthermore, the election of this far-right neoliberal extremist also threatens the Amazon
forest and its indigenous people; with a global impact that will render combatting climate
change even more difficult.
Locally, recent Liberal Party battles over leadership have included the neolib factor, as the
lunatic right in that party - who I suspect would all love to be a Bolsonaro themselves -
aggressively activate their grumblings and dissension.
Oh, Richard how I wish you were right; but in the Victorian election campaign - currently
underway - I have seen Socialist candidates behaving in a manner that doesn't garner hope in
a different way of doing politics.
The fact that 'our' democracy is based on an adversarial, partisan system leaves me with
little hope.
Alain Badiou wrote that "ours is not a world of democracy but a world of imperial
conservatism using democratic phraseology" ; and until that imposition is discarded 'our'
democracy will remain whatever we are told it is, and neolibs will continue to shove their
bullshit down our throats as much as they can.
We find a shift away from democratic processes and the rise of the "all new
adulation of the so-called tough leader" factor, aka Nazism/Fascism. From Trump to
Turkey, Netanyahu to Putin, Brazil to China, the rise of the "right" in Europe, the South
Americas, where the leader is "our great and "good" Teacher", knows best, and thus
infantalises the knowledge and awareness of the rest of the population. Who needs scientists,
when the "leader" knows everything?
Have the people of the world abrogated their democratic responsibility?
Or is it the gerrymandering chicanery of US Republican backers/politicians( so long as you
control the voting machines ) that have sent the ugly message to the world, Power is yours
for the making and taking by any means that ignores the public's rights in the decision
making process. Has the "neo-liberal" world delivered a corrupted system of democracy that
has deliberately alienated the world's population from actively participating fully in the
full awareness that their vote counts and will be counted?
Do we need to take back the controls of democracy to ensure that it is the will of the
people and not a manipulation by vested interest groups/individuals? You're darn
tootin'!!!
A thoughtful piece. Thanks. There are indeed alternatives to neoliberalism, most of which
have been shown to lead back to neoliberalism. Appeals for fiscal and monetary
relief/stimulus can only ever paper over the worst aspects of it's relentless 'progress',
between wars, it seems.
Neoliberalism seems vastly, catastrophically misunderstood. Widely perceived as the
latest abomination to spring from the eternal battle 'twixt Labour and Capital, it's actual
origins are somewhat more recent. Neoliberalism really, really is not just "Capitalism gone
wrong". It goes much deeper, to a fundamental flaw buried( more accurately 'planted')
deep in the heart of economics.
Instead of trying to understand Neo-Classical Economics it is perhaps more instructive to
understand what it was built, layer by layer, to obscure. First the Land system, then the
Wealth system, and finally the Money system (hived off into a compartment - 'macroeconomics').
Importantly, three entirely different categories of "thing" .
In 1879 an obscure journalist from then-remote San Francisco, Henry George, took the world
by storm with his extraordinary bestseller Progress and Poverty . Still the only
published work to outsell the Bible in a single year, it did so for over twenty years, yet
few social justice advocates have heard of it.
George set out to discover why the worst poverty always seemed to accompany the most
progress. By chasing down the production process to its ends, and tracing where the proceeds
were going, he succeeded spectacularly. From Progress and Poverty , Chapter 17 - "The Problem Explained"
:
Three things unite in production: land, labor, and capital. Three parties divide the
output: landowner, laborer, and capitalist. If the laborer and capitalist get no more as
production increases, it is a necessary inference that the landowner takes the gain.
George
gravely threatened privileged global power-elites , so they erased him from academic
history. A mind compared, in his time with Plato, Copernicus and Adam Smith wiped from living
memory, by the modern aristocracy.
In the process of doing so, they emasculated the discipline of economics, stripped dignity
from labour, and set in motion a world-destroying doctrine. Neo-Classical
Economics(aka neoliberalism) was born , to the detriment of the working-citizen and the
living world on which s/he depends.
Einstein was a fan of George, and used his methods of thought-experiment and powerful
inductive reasoning to discover Relativity, twenty years later. Henry Georges brilliant
insights into Land (aka nature), Wealth (what you want, need), and Money
(sharing mechanism) are as relevant as ever, and until they are rediscovered, we are likely
to re-run the 1900's over and over, with fewer and fewer resources.
After Democratic party was co-opted by neoliberals there is no way back. And since Obama the trend of Democratic Party is
toward strengthening the wing of CIA-democratic notthe wing of the party friendly to workers. Bought by Wall Street leadership is
uncable of intruting any change that undermine thier current neoliberal platform. that's why they criminally derailed Sanders.
Notable quotes:
"... When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism, would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism. ..."
"... To quote Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!" ..."
"... "Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad." ..."
"... "It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent upon the Democratic Party." ..."
"... "And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting the Democrats ..."
"... It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of their class. ..."
"... First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious! ..."
"... from Greenwald: The Democratic Party's deceitful game https://www.salon.com/2010/... ..."
they literally ripped this out of the 2016 Green Party platform. Jill Stein spoke repeatedly
about the same exact kind of Green New Deal, a full-employment, transition-to-100%-renewables
program that would supposedly solve all the world's problems.
When you think about the issue of how exactly a clean-energy jobs program would address
the elephant in the room of private accumulation and how such a program, under capitalism,
would be able to pay living wages to the people put to work under it, it exposes how non
threatening these Green New Deals actually are to capitalism.
In 2016, when the Greens made
this their central economic policy proposal, the Democrats responded by calling that platform
irresponsible and dangerous ("even if it's a good idea, you can't actually vote for a
non-two-party candidate!"). Why would they suddenly find a green new deal appealing now
except for its true purpose: left cover for the very system destroying the planet.
To quote
Trotsky, "These people are capable of and ready for anything!"
"Any serious measures to stop global warming, let alone assure a job and livable wage to
everyone, would require a massive redistribution of wealth and the reallocation of trillions
currently spent on US imperialism's neo-colonial wars abroad."
Their political position not only lacks seriousness, unserious is their political
position.
"It includes various left-sounding rhetoric, but is entirely directed to and dependent
upon the Democratic Party."
For subjective-idealists, what you want to believe, think and feel is just so much more
convincing than objective reality. Especially when it covers over single-minded class
interests at play.
"And again and again, in the name of "practicality," the most unrealistic and impractical
policy is promoted -- supporting a party that represents the class that is oppressing and
exploiting you! The result is precisely the disastrous situation working people and youth
face today -- falling wages, no job security, growing repression and the mounting threat of
world war." - New York Times tries to shame "disillusioned young voters" into supporting
the Democrats
It is an illusion that technical innovation within the capitalist system will magically
fundamentally resolve the material problems produced by capitalism. But the inconvenient
facts are entirely ignored by the corporate shills in the DSA and the whole lot of
establishment politicians, who prefer to indulge their addiction to wealth and power with
delusions of grandeur, technological utopianism, and other figments that serve the needs of
their class.
First it was Obama with his phoney "hope and change" that lured young voters to the
Dumbicrats and now it's Ocacia Cortez promising a "green deal" in order to herd them back
into the Democratic party--a total fraud of course--totally obvious!
Only an International Socialist program led by Workers can truly lead a "green revolution" by
expropriating the billionaire oil barons of their capital and redirecting that wealth into
the socialist reconstruction of the entire economy.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's "Green New Deal" is a nice laugh. Really, it sure is funny hearing
these lies given any credence at all. This showmanship belongs in a fantasy book, not in real
life. The Democratic Party as a force for good social change Now that's a laugh!
Lies, empty promises, meaningless tautologies and morality plays, qualified and conditional
declarations to be backpedalled pending appropriate political expediencies, devoid any
practical content that is what AOC, card carrying member of DSA, and in fact young energetic
political apparatchik of calcified political body of Dems establishment, duty engulfs. And
working for socialist revolution is no one of them.
What kind of socialist would reject socialist revolution, class struggle and class
emancipation and choose, as a suppose socialist path, accommodation with oligarchic ruling
elite via political, not revolutionary process that would have necessarily overthrown ruling
elite.
What socialist would acquiesce to legalized exploitation of people for profit, legalized
greed and inequality and would negotiate away fundamental principle of egalitarianism and
working people self rule?
Only National Socialist would; and that is exactly what AOC campaign turned out to be all
about.
National Socialism with imperial flavor is her affiliation and what her praises for
Pelosi, wife of a billionaire and dead warmonger McCain proved.
Now she is peddling magical thinking about global change and plunge herself into falacy of
entrepreneurship, Market solution to the very problem that the market solutions were designed
to create and aggravate namely horrific inequality that is robbing people from their own
opportunities to mitigate devastating effects of global change.
The insidiousness of phony socialists expresses itself in the fact that they lie that any
social problem can be fixed by current of future technical means, namely via so called
technological revolution instead by socialist revolution they deem unnecessary or
detrimental.
The technical means for achieving socialism has existed since the late 19th century, with the
telegraph, the coal-powered factory, and modern fertilizer. The improvements since then have
only made socialism even more streamlined and efficient, if such technologies could only be
liberated from capital! The idea that "we need a new technological revolution just to achieve
socialism" reflects the indoctrination in capitalism by many "socialist" theorists because it
is only in capitalism where "technological growth" is essential simply to maintain the
system. It is only in capitalism (especially America, the most advanced capitalist nation,
and thus, the one where capitalism is actually closest towards total crisis) where the dogma
of a technological savior is most entrenched because America cannot offer any other kind of
palliative to the more literate and productive sections of its population. Religion will not
convince most and any attempt at a sociological or economic understanding would inevitably
prove the truth of socialism.
"... The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects, was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution ..."
"... Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services. ..."
"... To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction." ..."
"The original "New Deal," which included massive public works infrastructure projects,
was introduced by Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt in the 1930s amid the Great
Depression. Its purpose was to stave off a socialist revolution in America. It was a response
to a militant upsurge of strikes and violent class battles, led by socialists who were
inspired by the 1917 Russian Revolution that had occurred less than two decades before.
American capitalism could afford to make such concessions because of its economic
dominance. The past forty years have been characterized by the continued decline of American
capitalism on a world stage relative to its major rivals. The ruling class has responded to
this crisis with a social counterrevolution to claw back all gains won by workers. This has
been carried out under both Democratic and Republican administrations and with the assistance
of the trade unions.
Since the 2008 crash, first under Bush and Obama, and now Trump, the ruling elites have
pursued a single-minded policy of enriching the wealthy, through free credit, corporate
bailouts and tax cuts, while slashing spending on social services.
To claim as does Ocasio-Cortez that American capitalism can provide a new "New Deal," of a
green or any other variety, is to pfile:///F:/Private_html/Skeptics/Political_skeptic/Neoliberalism/Historyromote an obvious political fiction."
In my own words then. According to Cook the power elites goal is to change its
appearance to look like something new and innovative to stay ahead of an electorate who are
increasingly skeptical of the neoliberalism and globalism that enrich the elite at their
expense.
Since they do not actually want change they find actors who pretend to represent change
, which is in essence fake change. These then are their insurgent candidates
Trump serves the power elite , because while he appears as an insurgent against the
power elite he does little to change anything
Trump promotes his fake insurgency on Twitter stage knowing the power elite will counter
any of his promises that might threaten them
As an insurgent candidate Trump was indifferent to Israel and wanted the US out of
Syria. He wanted good relations with Russia. He wanted to fix the health care system,
rebuild infrastructure, scrap NAFTA and TTIPS, bring back good paying jobs, fight the
establishment and Wall Street executives and drain the swamp. America First he said.
Trump the insurgent president , has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and has launched
US missiles at Syria, relations with Russia are at Cold War lows, infrastructure is still
failing, the percentage of people working is now at an all time low in the post housewife
era, he has passed tax cuts for the rich that will endanger medicare, medicaid and social
security and prohibit infrastructure spending, relaxed regulations on Wall Street, enhanced
NAFTA to include TTIPS provisions and make US automobiles more expensive, and the swamp has
been refilled with the rich, neocons , Koch associates, and Goldman Sachs that make up the
power elites and Deep State Americas rich and Israel First
@34 pft... regarding the 2 cook articles.. i found they overly wordy myself...
however, for anyone paying attention - corbyn seems like the person to vote for given how
relentless he is being attacked in the media... i am not so sure about trump, but felt cook
summed it up well with these 2 lines.. "Trump the candidate was indifferent to Israel and
wanted the US out of Syria. Trump the president has become Israel's biggest cheerleader and
has launched US missiles at Syria." i get the impression corbyn is legit which is why the
anti-semitism keeps on being mentioned... craig murrary is a good source for staying on top
of uk dynamics..
(a) talk coherently
(b) have some kind of movement consisting of people that agree with what is says -- that
necessitates (a)
Then he could staff his Administration with his supporters rather than a gamut of
conventional plutocrats, neocons, and hacks from the Deep State (intelligence, FBI and
crazies culled from Pentagon). As it is easy to see, I am describing an alternate reality.
Who is a Trumpian member of the Administration? His son-in-law?
The swamps been filled with all kinds of vile creatures since the Carter administration.
This is when the US/UK went full steam ahead with neoliberal globalism with Israel directing
the war on terror for the Trilateral Empire (following Bibis Jerusalem conference so as to
fulfill the Yinon plan). 40 years of terror and financial mayhem following the coup that took
place from 1963-1974. After Nixons ouster they were ready to go once TLC Carter/Zbig kicked
off the Trilateral era. Reagan then ran promising to oust the TLC swamp but broke his
promise, as every President has done since .
"... But to an extent hardly imaginable in 2008, all the world's leading economies are locked in a perpetually escalating cycle of economic warfare. This global trade war is spearheaded by the Trump White House, which sees trade sanctions and tariffs, such as the onslaught it launched against Turkey, as an integral component of its drive to secure the United States' geopolitical and economic interests at the expense of friend and foe alike. ..."
"... But while they are deeply divided as to their economic and geo-political objectives, the capitalist ruling classes are united on one essential question. However the next stage of the ongoing breakdown of world capitalism proceeds, they will all strive by whatever means considered necessary to make the working class the world over pay for it. ..."
"... In 2008, capitalist governments around the world, above all in the US, derived enormous benefit from the decades-long suppression of the class struggle by the trade unions and the parties of the political establishment. The rescue operation they carried out on behalf of parasitic and criminal finance capital would not have been possible without it ..."
"But to an extent hardly imaginable in 2008, all the world's leading economies are locked
in a perpetually escalating cycle of economic warfare. This global trade war is spearheaded
by the Trump White House, which sees trade sanctions and tariffs, such as the onslaught it
launched against Turkey, as an integral component of its drive to secure the United States'
geopolitical and economic interests at the expense of friend and foe alike.
The character of world economy has undergone a major transformation in the past decade in
which economic growth, to the extent it that it occurs, is not driven by the development of
production and new investments but by the flow of money from one source of speculative and
parasitic activity to the next."
"But while they are deeply divided as to their economic and geo-political objectives, the
capitalist ruling classes are united on one essential question. However the next stage of the
ongoing breakdown of world capitalism proceeds, they will all strive by whatever means
considered necessary to make the working class the world over pay for it.
This is the lesson from the past decade which, in every country, has seen a deepening
attack on wages, social conditions and living standards as wealth is redistributed up the
income scale, raising social inequality to unprecedented heights.
In 2008, capitalist governments around the world, above all in the US, derived enormous
benefit from the decades-long suppression of the class struggle by the trade unions and the
parties of the political establishment. The rescue operation they carried out on behalf of
parasitic and criminal finance capital would not have been possible without it."
There is still no countervailing force to oppose neoliberalism. Instead we observe internal development of neoliberalism toward
national neoliberalism and the rejection of neoliberal globalization.
Notable quotes:
"... Neoliberalism is the intensification of the influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode
of production, into an ethic, a set of political imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore,
or, in some cases, constitute anew the power of economic elites. ..."
"... It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse , Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all
of the other dimensions of modern economic, political, social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals,
and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state
imperatives until they are in harmony with its own. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics. ..."
"... Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency of
market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3) ..."
"... Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal state',
which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. ..."
"... 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' ..."
"... 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites ..."
"... another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal
aspects of the polity are decreased ..."
"... that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would be restricted
in favour of the freedoms of the few ..."
"... The focus on individual rights, the centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based
populism, all served as means by which the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past
two decades – were able to gain widespread support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic
liberalism. ..."
"... The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised
on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.' ..."
"... accumulation under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms
of ownership and economic power. ..."
"... Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities. ..."
"... Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various opposition
movements that currently exist. ..."
"... While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to
be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities
of capitalism. ..."
...Marx, after all, according to Harvey, had shown that – unlike the liberal paradigm that was, and still is, predominant in the
social sciences – the split between fact and value had been overcome. No longerwas it sufficient to talk about social phenomena without
invoking political even practical evaluations of them.
Harvey's most recent book, A Brief History of Neoliberalism , dissects the inner workings of what has come to be one of
the most salient features of late 20thand early 21st century economic and social life: the gradual shift, throughout the nations
of the global economy, toward economic and social policies that have given an increased liberality and centrality to markets, market
processes, and to the interests of capital. If Harvey's enduring perspective – and one which admittedly| echoes orthodox Marxism
– has been to put the mechanics of the capitalist mode of production at the center of every aspect of modernity (and of postmodernity
as well), then his most recent contribution deviates little from that course.
<p>Harvey's contention is that we are witnessing, through this process of neoliberalisation, the deepening penetration of capitalism
into political and social institutions as well as cultural consciousness itself. Neoliberalism is the intensification of the
influence and dominance of capital; it is the elevation of capitalism, as a mode of production, into an ethic, a set of political
imperatives, and a cultural logic. It is also a project: a project to strengthen, restore, or, in some cases, constitute anew the
power of economic elites. The essence of neoliberalism, for Harvey, can be characterised as a rightward shift in Marxian class
struggle.
This analysis stems from Marx's insight about the nature of capital itself. Capitalis not simply money, property, or one economic
variable among others. Rather,capital is the organising principle of modern society. It should be recalled that, in his Grundrisse
, Marx explicitly argued that capital is a process that puts into motion all of the other dimensions of modern economic, political,
social, and cultural life. It creates the wage system, influences values, goals, and the ethics of individuals, transforms our relation
to nature, to ourselves, and to our community, and constantly seeks to mold state imperatives until they are in harmony with its
own.
Neoliberalism is therefore not a new turn in the history of capitalism. It is more simply, and more perniciously, its intensification,
and its resurgence after decades of opposition from the Keynesian welfare state and from experiments with social democratic and welfare
state politics.
Neoliberalism, as Harvey tells us, quoting Paul Treanor in the process, 'valuesmarket exchange as "an ethic in itself, capable
of acting as a guide to all human action, and substituting for all previously held ethical beliefs," it emphasises the significance
of contractual relations in the marketplace. It holds that the social goodwill be maximised by maximising the reach and frequency
of market transactions, and it seeks to bring all human action into the domain of the market.' (p. 3)
Neoliberalism is not simply an ethic in abstract, however. Rather, the locus for its influence has become the 'neoliberal
state', which collapses the notion of freedom into freedom for economic elites. 'The freedoms it embodies reflect the interests
of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations and financial capital.' (p. 7) The neoliberal state defends the
new reach and depth ofcapital's interests and is defined against the 'embedded liberalism' of the several decades following World
War II when 'market processes and entrepreneurial andcorporate activities were surrounded by a web of social and political constraints
and a regulatory environment that sometimes restrained but in other instances led the way in economic and industrial strategy.' (p.
11)
Neoliberalism and the neoliberal state have been able to reverse the various political and economic gains made under welfare state
policies and institutions. This transformation of the state is an effect of the interests of capital and its reaction to the embedded
liberalism of the post war decades. Taking the empirical analysis – and the hypothesis – from the French economists Gérard Duménil
and Dominique Lévy, and their important book Capital Resurgent, Harvey argues that 'neoliberalisation was from the very beginning
a project to achieve the restoration of class power,' (p. 16) 'a political project to re-establish the conditions for capital
accumulation and to restore the power of economic elites .' (p. 19)
This notion of a revolution from above to restore class power is the basso ostinato of Harvey'sa nalysis, the bass line continuously
repeated throughout the book that grounds the argument.
He sees the first historical instance of this revolution from above in Pinochet's Chile. The violent coup against Salvador Allende,
which installed Pinochet to power, was followed by a massive neoliberalisation of the state. The move toward privatisation and the
stripping away of all forms of regulation on capital was one of the key aspects of the Pinochet regime. While the real grounding
of a neoliberal theory began much earlier with thinkers such as Friedrich von Hayek and Milton Friedman, among others, its first
real empirical manifestation was Pinochet's Chile.
Of course, this also allows Harvey to illustrate another crucial dimension of his argument, namely that neoliberalism is a
liberalism for economic elites only; that liberal aspects of the polity are decreased . It is Harvey's fear – along with Karl
Polanyi– that neoliberal regimes will slowly erode institutions of political democracy since 'the freedom of the masses would
be restricted in favour of the freedoms of the few .'(p. 70)
Insulating economic institutions such as central banks from majority rule is central, especially since neoliberalism – particularly
in developed economies –revolves around financial institutions. 'A strong preference,' Harvey argues, 'exists for government by executive
order and by judicial decision rather than democraticand parliamentary decision-making.' (p. 66)
America and England constitute Harvey's next two cases for his thesis. Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the United States were
both pivotal figures, not so much because of their economic policies, but, more importantly, because of their success in the 'construction
of consent.' The political culture of both countries began to accept neoliberal policies. The focus on individual rights, the
centrality of property rights, a culture of individualism, consumption, and a market-based populism, all served as means by which
the policies of neoliberalism – and the massive inequalities that have emerged over the past two decades – were able to gain widespread
support. Political liberalism becomes eroded by the much more powerful forces of economic liberalism.
Another theme that Harvey explores – understandably, given his background inhuman geography – is the phenomenon of uneven spatial
development. In China, Harvey's fourth case, we see the rapid expansion of a neoliberal ethos. Markets were significantly liberalised
and an economic elite was reconstituted virtually overnight, in early 1980s, amid Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms. The result has
been extreme inequality between regions.
Coastal urban areas, where industry and finance are concentrated, have become massive epicenters of economic power and activity,
sucking in surplus labor from agrarian hinterlands which, as a result of the economic growth of these metro regions, have begun sinking
into poverty. Harvey sees this reality in China being mirrored throughout the globe, and the results are common: a pattern of rising
economic and social inequality which increases the marginalisation of large sectors of national populations and concentrates ever
more sectors of capital within certain regions and among certain groups.
Neoliberalisation, therefore, effects a return to some of the most entrenched forms of social inequality and injustice that characterised
the industrial expansion during the late 19th century in the West. The story of capitalism, for Harvey, always seems to play
the same dire tune. But the global expansion of capital is premised on what he terms 'accumulation by dispossession.'
This concept – developed more fully in Harvey's previous book, The New Imperialism (2003) – argues that accumulation
under globalisation continues to expand by dispossessing people of their economic rights and of various forms of ownership and economic
power.
Harvey defines it best:
By [accumulation by dispossession] I mean the continuation and proliferation of accumulation practices which Marx had treated
of as 'primitive' or 'original' during the rise of capitalism. These include the commodification and privatization of land and
the forceful expulsion of peasant populations ; conversion of various forms of property rights (common, collective, state, |etc.)
into exclusive private property rights (most spectacularly represented by China); suppression of rights to the commons; commodification
of labor power and the suppression of alternative (indigenous) forms of production and consumption; colonial, neocolonial, and
imperial processes of appropriation of assets (including natural resources); monetization of exchange and taxation, particularly
of land; the slave trade (which continues particularly in the sex industry); and usury, the national debt and, most devastating
of all the use of the credit system as a radical means of accumulation by dispossession. (p. 159)But it also includes – for working
people in developed nations – the 'extraction of rents from patents and intellectual property rights and the diminution or erasure
of various forms of common property rights (such as state pensions, paid vacations, and access to education and health care).'
(p. 160)
Neoliberalism, therefore, can only continue its process of accumulation by dispossessing people of what they own, or to what they
have always had rights. In the end, Harvey tells us, the way out of this situation – not surprisingly – is are connection of theory
and practice. But his analysis is, once again, subtle and takes stock of present political realities.
The plethora of social movements need to forma 'broad-based oppositional programme', which sees the activities of the economic
elites as fundamentally impinging on traditionally held beliefs about egalitarianism and fairness. Crisis, for Harvey as with any
orthodox Marxist, is always looming.
Neoliberalism's rhetoric of individual freedom, and equality, and its promise of prosperity and growth, are slowly being revealed
as falsities.
Soon, Harvey believes, it will become evident that all of economic life and institutions are solely for the benefit of a single,
small social class. Therefore, theoretical insight – such as Harvey has proffered here – needs to constantly nourish the various
opposition movements that currently exist. The dialogue between theory and practice is the only sure wayt o take advantage of
the moment when a new crisis – financial or otherwise –bursts forth onto the scene. The deepest hope is that such a moment will foster
a basis 'for a resurgence of mass movements voicing egalitarian political demandsand seeking economic justice, fair trade, and greater
economic security.' (p. 204)
Harvey's position is explicitly anti-capitalist, and his hope is that the rhetoric of neoliberalism will be unmasked by the various
realities – most specifically, massive economic inequalities – that it spawns. Only then will social movements be able to gain political
traction, and move society toward some form of social, economic and political transformation.
Harvey's logic is seductive, and his ruminations on 'freedom's prospect' are compelling. But political and cultural realities
cannot be simply reduced to the mechanisms of capital and accumulation. While we can use Harvey's brilliant and deeply insightful
analysis of the structural mechanisms of neoliberalism, it has to be admitted that there are only rumblings of discontent in the
United States or China, and no hint of a mass movement against the realities of capitalism.
There is too little attention paid – and here the deficits of the orthodox Marxist approach can be sensed – to the way that the
culture of consent has found a deep affinity with American liberalism. Louis Hartz, in his classic, The Liberal Tradition in America
, was perhaps most correct when he predicted that the contours of American liberalism would lead to the acceptance of quasi-authoritarian
political and social norms.
China – lacking any democratic tradition – has not seen a mass movement arise to combat the inequality that has swollen over the
last two decades, either.
But the question of social movements remains open. There is no guarantee what you get with a mass movement of the disaffected
– one can think of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, in this regard. Harvey does not look into such issues, but they need to be considered
since history – even the history of capitalism – cannot be viewed as cyclical and politics does not spring mechanistically from economic
conditions.
But despite this, Harvey's book is deeply insightful, rewarding and stimulating. His ability to thematise the imperatives of the
most recent manifestation of capitalist accumulation – most specifically the recent trends in economic inequality, the shifts in
urban cultural and political life, and the economic logic that currently drives the process of globalization – is nothing short of
virtuosic and his ideas should become a central part of the current discourse on globalisation, economic inequality, and the erosion
of democratic politics throughout the globe. His history of neoliberalism may indeed be brief, but the richness and profundity of
this volume is without question.
Michael J. Thompson is an advisory editor of Democratiya and is also the founder and editor of Logos: A Journal of Modern
Society & Culture (www.logosjournal. com). He is Assistant Professor of Political Science at William Paterson University. His next
book, Confronting Neoconservatism: The Rise of the New Right in America, is forthcoming from NYU Press. a journal of politics and
ideas
Decimation of anti-war forces and flourishing of Russophobia are two immanent features of the US neoliberalism. As long as
the maintinace fo the US global neoliberal empire depends of weakening and, possibly, dismembering Russia it is naive to expect any
change. Russian version of soft "national neoliberalism" is not that different, in principle form Trump version of hard
"netional neoliberalism" so those leaders might have something to talk about. In other words as soon as the USA denounce
neoliberal globalization that might be some openings.
Ten ways the new US-Russian Cold War is increasingly becoming more dangerous than the one we survived.
The political epicenter of the new Cold War is not in far-away Berlin, as it was from the late 1940s on, but directly on
Russia's borders, from the Baltic states and Ukraine to the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Each of these new Cold War fronts
is, or has recently been, fraught with the possibly of hot war. US-Russian military relations are especially tense today in the Baltic
region, where a large-scale NATO buildup is under way, and in Ukraine, where a US-Russian proxy war is intensifying. The "Soviet
Bloc" that once served as a buffer between NATO and Russia no longer exists. And many imaginable incidents on the West's new Eastern
Front, intentional or unintentional, could easily trigger actual war between the United States and Russia. What brought about this
unprecedented situation on Russia's borders -- at least since the Nazi German invasion in 1941 -- was, of course, the exceedingly
unwise decision, in the late 1990s, to expand NATO eastward. Done in the name of "security," it has made all the states involved
only more insecure.
Proxy wars were a feature of the old Cold War, but usually small ones in what was called the "Third World" -- in Africa,
for example -- and they rarely involved many, if any, Soviet or American personnel, mostly only money and weapons. Today's US-Russian
proxy wars are different, located in the center of geopolitics and accompanied by too many American and Russian trainers, minders,
and possibly fighters. Two have already erupted: in Georgia in 2008, where Russian forces fought a Georgian army financed, trained,
and minded by American funds and personnel; and in Syria, where in February
scores
of Russians were killed by US-backed anti-Assad forces . Moscow did not retaliate, but it has pledged to do so if there is "a
next time," as there very well may be. If so, this would in effect be war directly between Russia and America. Meanwhile, the risk
of such a direct conflict continues to grow in Ukraine, where the country's US-backed but politically failing President Petro Poroshenko
seems increasingly tempted to launch another all-out military assault on rebel-controlled Donbass, backed by Moscow. If he does so,
and the assault does not quickly fail as previous ones have, Russia will certainly intervene in eastern Ukraine with a truly tangible
"invasion." Washington will then have to make a fateful war-or-peace decision. Having already reneged on its commitments to the Minsk
Accords, which are the best hope for ending the four-year Ukrainian crisis peacefully, Kiev seems to have an unrelenting impulse
to be a tail wagging the dog of war. Certainly, its capacity for provocations and disinformation are second to none, as evidenced
again last week by the faked "assassination and resurrection" of the journalist Arkady Babchenko.
The Western, but especially American, years-long demonization of the Kremlin leader, Putin, is also unprecedented. Too
obvious to reiterate here, no Soviet leader, at least since Stalin, was ever subjected to such prolonged, baseless, crudely derogatory
personal vilification. Whereas Soviet leaders were generally regarded as acceptable negotiating partners for American presidents,
including at major summits, Putin has been made to seem to be an illegitimate national leader -- at best "a KGB thug," at worst a
murderous "mafia boss."
Still more, demonizing Putin has generated a
widespread Russophobic vilification
of Russia itself , or what The New York Times and other mainstream-media outlets have taken to calling "
Vladimir Putin's Russia ." Yesterday's enemy was Soviet Communism. Today it is increasingly Russia, thereby also delegitimizing
Russia as a great power with legitimate national interests. "The Parity Principle," as Cohen termed it during the preceding Cold
War -- the principle that both sides had legitimate interests at home and abroad, which was the basis for diplomacy and negotiations,
and symbolized by leadership summits -- no longer exists, at least on the American side. Nor does the acknowledgment that both sides
were to blame, at least to some extent, for that Cold War. Among influential American observers
who at least
recognize the reality of the new Cold War , "Putin's Russia" alone is to blame. When there is no recognized parity and shared
responsibility, there is little space for diplomacy -- only for increasingly militarized relations, as we are witnessing today.
Meanwhile, most of the Cold War safeguards -- cooperative mechanisms and mutually observed rules of conduct that evolved
over decades in order to prevent superpower hot war -- have been vaporized or badly frayed since the Ukrainian crisis in 2014,
as the
UN General Secretary António Guterres, almost alone, has recognized : "The Cold War is back -- with a vengeance but with a difference.
The mechanisms and the safeguards to manage the risks of escalation that existed in the past no longer seem to be present." Trump's
recent missile strike on Syria carefully avoided killing any Russians there, but here too Moscow has vowed to retaliate against US
launchers or other forces involved if there is a "next time," as, again, there may be. Even the decades-long process of arms control
may, we are told by an
expert , be coming to an "end." If so, it will mean an unfettered new nuclear-arms race but also the termination of an ongoing
diplomatic process that buffered US-Soviet relations during very bad political times. In short, if there are any new Cold War rules
of conduct, they are yet to be formulated and mutually accepted. Nor does this semi-anarchy take into account the new warfare technology
of cyber-attacks. What are its implications for the secure functioning of existential Russian and American nuclear command-and-control
and early-warning systems that guard against an accidental launching of missiles still on high alert?
Russiagate allegations that the American president has been compromised by -- or is even an agent of -- the Kremlin are
also without precedent. These allegations have had profoundly dangerous consequences, among them the nonsensical but mantra-like
warfare declaration that "Russia attacked America" during the 2016 presidential election; crippling assaults on President Trump every
time he speaks with Putin in person or by phone; and making both Trump and Putin so toxic that even most politicians, journalists,
and professors who understand the present-day dangers are reluctant to speak out against US contributions to the new Cold War.
Mainstream-media outlets have, of course, played a woeful role in all of this. Unlike in the past, when pro-détente
advocates had roughly equal access to mainstream media, today's new Cold War media enforce their orthodox narrative that Russia is
solely to blame. They practice not diversity of opinion and reporting but "confirmation bias." Alternative voices (with, yes, alternative
or opposing facts) rarely appear any longer in the most influential mainstream newspapers or on television or radio broadcasts. One
alarming result is that "disinformation" generated by or pleasing to Washington and its allies has consequences before it can be
corrected. The fake Babchenko assassination (allegedly ordered by Putin, of course) was quickly exposed, but not the alleged Skripal
assassination attempt in the UK, which led to the largest US expulsion of Russian diplomats in history before London's official version
of the story began to fall apart. This too is unprecedented: Cold War without debate, which in turn precludes the frequent rethinking
and revising of US policy that characterized the preceding 40-year Cold War -- in effect, an enforced dogmatization of US policy
that is both exceedingly dangerous and undemocratic.
Equally unsurprising, and also very much unlike during the 40-year Cold War, there is virtually no significant opposition
in the American mainstream to the US role in the new Cold War -- not in the media, not in Congress, not in the two major political
parties, not in the universities, not at grassroots levels. This too is unprecedented, dangerous, and contrary to real democracy.
Consider only the thunderous silence of scores of large US corporations that have been doing profitable business in post-Soviet Russia
for years, from fast-food chains and automobile manufacturers to pharmaceutical and energy giants. And contrast their behavior to
that of CEOs of PepsiCo, Control Data, IBM, and other major American corporations seeking entry to the Soviet market in the 1970s
and 1980s, when they publicly supported and even funded pro-détente organizations and politicians. How to explain the silence of
their counterparts today, who are usually so profit-motivated? Are they too fearful of being labeled "pro-Putin" or possibly "pro-Trump"?
If so, will this Cold War continue to unfold with only very rare profiles of courage in any high places? 9. And then there is the
widespread escalatory myth that today's Russia, unlike the Soviet Union, is too weak -- its economy too small and fragile, its leader
too "isolated in international affairs" -- to wage a sustained Cold War, and that eventually Putin, who is "punching above his weight,"
as the cliché has it, will capitulate. This too is a dangerous delusion.
As Cohen has shown previously ,
"Putin's Russia" is hardly isolated in world affairs, and is becoming even less so, even in Europe, where at least five governments
are tilting away from Washington and Brussels and perhaps from their economic sanctions on Russia. Indeed, despite the sanctions,
Russia's energy industry and agricultural exports are flourishing. Geopolitically, Moscow has many military and related advantages
in regions where the new Cold War has unfolded. And no state with Russia's modern nuclear and other weapons is "punching above its
weight." Above all, the great majority of Russian people have rallied behind Putin because t
hey believe
their country is under attack by the US-led West . Anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of Russia's history understands it is
highly unlikely to capitulate under any circumstances.
Finally (at least as of now), there is the growing war-like "hysteria" often commented on in both Washington and Moscow. It
is driven by various factors, but television talk/"news" broadcasts, which are as common in Russia as in the United States, play
a major role. Perhaps only an extensive quantitative study could discern which plays a more lamentable role in promoting this frenzy
-- MSNBC and CNN or their Russian counterparts. For Cohen, the Russian dark witticism seems apt: "Both are worst" ( Oba khuzhe
). Again, some of this American broadcast extremism existed during the preceding Cold War, but almost always balanced, even
offset, by truly informed, wiser opinions, which are now largely excluded.
Is this analysis of the dangers inherent in the new Cold War itself extremist or alarmist? Even SOME usually reticent specialists
would seem to agree with Cohen's general assessment. Experts gathered by a centrist Washington think tank
thought that on a scale of 1 to 10,
there is a 5 to 7 chance of actual war with Russia. A former head of British M16 is
reported as saying
that "for the first time in living memory, there's a realistic chance of a superpower conflict." And a respected retired Russian
general tells
the same think tank that any military confrontation "will end up with the use of nuclear weapons between the United States and
Russia."
In today's dire circumstances, one Trump-Putin summit cannot eliminate the new Cold War dangers. But US-Soviet summits traditionally
served three corollary purposes. They created a kind of security partnership -- not a conspiracy -- that involved each leader's limited
political capital at home, which the other should recognize and not heedlessly jeopardize. They sent a clear message to the two leaders'
respective national-security bureaucracies, which often did not favor détente-like cooperation, that the "boss" was determined and
that they must end their foot-dragging, even sabotage. And summits, with their exalted rituals and intense coverage, usually improved
the media-political environment needed to enhance cooperation amid Cold War conflicts. If a Trump-Putin summit achieves even some
of those purposes, it might result in a turning away from the precipice that now looms
The term "national neoliberalism" should probably be adopted as the most succinct term for Trump economic policy
Notable quotes:
"... To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education and deregulate finance. ..."
"... But let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans. ..."
"... In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to one, said Bonaparte. The neoliberal world order according the Bretton Woods and Washington cannot raise and apply enough material [bombings, drones, aircraft carrier intimidation THAAD in Korea are the ante] without destroying itself and in its throes the world. ..."
"... The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods. It imported $2.361 trillion. The USA imports more than they export to: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Mexico. USA top 5 Trade deficits: China $375 billion, Mexico $71, Japan $69, Germany $65, and Canada 18 billion. ..."
Trump behavior at Canadian G7 meeting was boorish, but it is logical and is consistent which his previous stance on globalization:
he rejects neoliberal globalization.
Sasha Breger Bush proposed the term "national neoliberalism" to depict the transition from "classic neoliberalism" which has
been started with the election of Trump.
I think the term really catches the essence of the election of Trump. and should probably be adopted as a succinct description
of Trump economic policy.
The nationalism, xenophobia, isolationism, and paranoia of Donald Trump are about to replace the significantly more cosmopolitan
outlook of his post-WWII predecessors. While Trump is decidedly pro-business and pro-market, he most certainly does not see
himself as a global citizen.
Nor does he intend to maintain the United States' extensive global footprint or its relatively open trading network. In
other words, while neoliberalism is not dead, it is being transformed into a geographically more fragmented and localized system
(this is not only about the US election, but also about rising levels of global protectionism and Brexit, among other anti-globalization
trends around the world).
I expect that the geographic extent of the US economy in the coming years will coincide with the new landscape of U.S. allies
and enemies, as defined by Donald Trump and his administration.
But if we take seriously the idea that Trump is a consequence of the disintegration of American democracy rather than the
cause of it, this "blame game" becomes especially problematic.
Partisan bickering, with one party constantly pointing to the other as responsible for the country's ills, covers up the
fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have presided over the consolidation of corporate power in the United States.
To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican
Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate
tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education
and deregulate finance.
But let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching
big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans.
JackD, June 10, 2018 9:58 am
@Likbez: "Sure, President Trump, etc" is your important sentence. It is the immediate need. First things, first.
ilsm, June 10, 2018 3:12 pm
In war the moral is to the material as 3 is to one, said Bonaparte. The neoliberal world order according the Bretton Woods
and Washington cannot raise and apply enough material [bombings, drones, aircraft carrier intimidation THAAD in Korea are the
ante] without destroying itself and in its throes the world.
Trump is not tearing apart NATO anyone not earning money is a PNAC think tanks knows NATO has become an aggression against
Russia with similar intent as Hitler.
Grabbing Sevastopol and aiding Russians in territory occupied by Kyiv are [bold] defensive moves. The threat of Chinese islands
in the South China Sea is the US Navy super carriers intimidations has no career raiding Hainan.
rps, June 10, 2018 7:42 pm
I was curious if Yglesias is a Canadian since his editorial sided with the G7 leaders stance against Trump's fair-trade often
labelled as 'protectionism' of USA industries. He's a New Yorker as I pondered what's his stake in this political tirade against
Trump's pro-America versus anti-globalist policies?
It appears that the media has glided over the fact Trump had suggested to the other G7 leaders that all trade barriers, including
tariffs and subsidies, be eliminated, ""You go tariff-free, you go barrier-free, you go subsidy free." Protectionist Canadian
PM Trudeau howled at a press conference after Trump had left on his way to Singapore. Why? Is it because Trudeau is committed
to the welfare of Canadians and their industries? How dare the president of the USA- in turn, advocate for citizenry and country
as does his G7 counterparts for their countries.
The U.S. trade deficit in goods, without services, was $810 billion. The United States exported $1.551 trillion in goods.
It imported $2.361 trillion. The USA imports more than they export to: China, Japan, Canada, Germany and Mexico. USA top 5 Trade
deficits: China $375 billion, Mexico $71, Japan $69, Germany $65, and Canada 18 billion.
US citizens and their jobs were swindled with cheaper foreign goods flooding American businesses and stores as good manufacturing
jobs headed overseas. Jobs that created the middle class and all their earned benefits and standard of living decreased/disappeared
quickly with NAFTA and the WTO.
Concisely, trade deficits destroyed the middle class, the working class, blue collar, and in turn, increased poverty and homelessness.
Destroyed small town anywhere in the USA with manufacturing and jobs fleeing overseas in search of cheap labor. Go travel across
the USA and see the boarded up towns, walk the streets of Flint Michigan, Detroit, Martinsville Virginia, Gary Indiana, Freeport
Il, etc. Throw a dart at a USA map and you'll hit a town devastated by 'free' to lose your job trade. In 2014, 2.3 million job
losses due to trade with China. Job losses in the millions have been slowly replaced with 'service' jobs and/or $8.00 an hour
part-time no benefits workers as the new norm.
Remember when Walmart's original slogan was "Buy American"? Sam Walton before he died, was big on "Buy American," and it appeared
in signs in the stores and on TV ads. His heirs quickly changed it to "Buy Chinese" destroying the american dream and small town
USA.
Yet Yglesias' preference is all for the unbalanced trade with our G7 frenemies and punishing a president who chooses fair trade
practices to ensure US jobs for American citizens. Makes me wonder who or what Yglesias truly advocates for, the NWO or the country
of origin on his passport?
"What we must do is this: revise our tariff on the basis of a reciprocal exchange of goods, allowing other Nations to buy and
to pay for our goods by sending us such of their goods as will not seriously throw any of our industries out of balance Such objectives
as these three, restoring farmers' buying power, relief to the small banks and home-owners and a reconstructed tariff policy,
are only a part of ten or a dozen vital factors. But they seem to be beyond the concern of a national administration which can
think in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the top down rather than
permanent relief from the bottom up. It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way. It has waited until something
has cracked and then at the last moment has sought to prevent total collapse.
It is high time to get back to fundamentals. It is high time to admit with courage that we are in the midst of an emergency
at least equal to that of war. Let us mobilize to meet it." "The Forgotten Man" speech, 1937. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Since Clinton signed NAFTA in 1994 and the WTO, American jobs and industry left our shores seeking the lowest common denominator-
cheap slave labor. To paraphrase FDR into the late 20th and early 21st century, "Clinton and his successors concern of their national
administrations thought in terms only of the top of the social and economic structure. It has sought temporary relief from the
top down rather than permanent relief from the bottom up.It has totally failed to plan ahead in a comprehensive way."
Bruce Webb, June 10, 2018 9:16 pm
Nothing personally Rps, but you do not get Triffin Dilemma and global reserve currency. Please no more NAFTA obsession when
no jobs left with that deal and exports excelerated. The global reserve currency and booming financial markets create a surplus
in services over goods. It also creates the need for a goods deficit to stabilize the financial system. You cannot wave a wand
and cure something that cannot be cured. You need a major depression to rebalance and drive capital from america.
Bruce Webb, June 10, 2018 9:19 pm
Likbez, Neoliberalism IS American. Trump is pro-East Asia
"... But if we take seriously the idea that Trump is a consequence of the disintegration of American democracy rather than the cause of it, this "blame game" becomes especially problematic. Partisan bickering, with one party constantly pointing to the other as responsible for the country's ills, covers up the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have presided over the consolidation of corporate power in the United States. To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican Party are currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality, introducing pro-corporate tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex, defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education and deregulate finance. But let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of empowering and enriching big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary Americans. ..."
"... All of this is to say that I'm considerably less excited about 2018 and 2020 than many others -- on what counts as the U.S. left -- appear to be. Democratic Party victories at the ballot box would certainly reduce some of the pressures on a variety of marginalized groups who are suffering mightily under President Trump. This is, of course, a good thing. But, Democratic victories will not "fix" the structural problems that underpin our current political crisis nor will they ensure a freer and more just future. ..."
This article is from Dollars & Sense : Real World Economics, available at
http://www.dollarsandsense.org
Last winter, in the wake of the 2016 Presidential election, I wrote an article for
Dollars & Sense in which I argued that Trump's election represented a transition
toward "national neoliberalism" in the United States ("Trump and National Neoliberalism:
Trump's ascendance means the end of globalism -- but not of neoliberalism," January/February
2017).
I argued that this emergent state of affairs would be marked by a completion of the takeover
of the U.S. government by corporate interests. I saw the election of Trump -- a top
one-percenter and real estate tycoon firmly rooted in the culture and logic of big business,
who has somehow convinced many Americans that he is an anti-establishment "outsider" -- as an
"unmasking" of the corporate state, a revelation of the ongoing merger between state and market
that has arguably been ongoing since the 1970s. In short, I envisioned a movement away from
"global neoliberalism," a state of affairs characterized by the increasing preeminence of
transnational corporate capital in a relatively open global political-economic system, and
towards "national neoliberalism," a state of affairs in which transnational corporate dominance
is cemented in the context of an ever more fragmented and dangerous global system.
About ten years ago, political theorist Sheldon Wolin published Democracy
Incorporated , diagnosing American democracy with a potentially fatal corporate disease.
Referring to the specter of "inverted totalitarianism," Wolin writes in his preface:
Primarily it represents the political coming of age of corporate power and the political
demobilization of the citizenry. Unlike the classic forms of totalitarianism [e.g. Germany,
Italy], which openly boasted of their intentions to force their societies into preconceived
totality, inverted totalitarianism is not expressly conceptualized as an ideology or
objectified in public policy. Typically it is furthered by power-holders and citizens who often
seem unaware of the deeper consequences of their actions or inactions. There is a certain
heedlessness, an inability to take seriously the extent to which a pattern of consequences may
take shape without having been preconceived. Wolin paints a picture of a gradual process of
change in which many different actors, some wealthy and powerful and others not, unwittingly
push the country's politics, bit by bit in piecemeal fashion, towards an undemocratic,
corporate-controlled end. Many of these actors may have good intentions. Many of them may see
themselves as champions of the people. Many of them may actually speak out against the very
interests that they in other ways empower.
This framework for thinking about the plight of the United States, which has for me been
legitimated over and over again during Trump's first year in office, conditions how I think
about President Trump and the Republican Party, and how I think about our opportunities for
nonviolent social transformation, freedom, and social justice. It's hard not to point to
President Trump and blame him for our problems. He is a bigot who has struck out at immigrants,
Muslims, Arabs, African-Americans, Mexicans, women, LGBT people, and disabled people. He lacks
the basic knowledge of politics and foreign policy that are a necessary condition for competent
leadership. He picked up a congratulatory call from the President of Taiwan in December 2016,
disrupting relations with China, and called North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un "short" and
"fat." He is a paranoid and narcissistic demagogue who has scorned and marginalized
journalists, and made the terms "fake news" and "alternative facts" household words. He is a
corrupt businessman who is using the levers of power that he controls to enrich Big Business,
as well as his cronies, his friends, and himself. I could go on.
It's also hard not to point to Republicans in Congress. After the election, there was hope
that the "never Trump" Republicans would win out and that Trump's agenda would be blocked. This
has not happened. While some in Congress, like Senators McCain (R-Ariz.), Corker (R-Tenn.),
Collins (R-Maine), Flake (R-Ariz.) and Murkowski (R-Alaska) have defied Trump in certain
contexts (e.g. on foreign policy), on many issues congressional Republicans have simply fallen
in line (e.g. with tax reform). Today, the Republican Party is often discussed by liberals in
the same breath as Trump, with everyone hoping for good news in 2018 and 2020.
But if we take seriously the idea that Trump is a consequence of the disintegration of
American democracy rather than the cause of it, this "blame game" becomes especially
problematic. Partisan bickering, with one party constantly pointing to the other as responsible
for the country's ills, covers up the fact that Democrats and Republicans alike have presided
over the consolidation of corporate power in the United States. To paraphrase Ralph Nader, the
U.S. corporate state is a two-headed beast. Sure, President Trump and the Republican Party are
currently handing over public lands to oil and gas companies, eliminating net neutrality,
introducing pro-corporate tax legislation, kowtowing to the military industrial complex,
defunding the welfare state, and attempting to privatize education and deregulate finance. But
let's not forget our recent Democratic presidents, for example, who are also guilty of
empowering and enriching big business and disempowering and impoverishing ordinary
Americans.
President Obama presided over the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, a process that
President Trump is continuing. As William Hartung recently reported in Mother Jones ,
"There is, in fact, a dirty little secret behind the massive U.S. arsenal: It has more to do
with the power and profits of weapons makers than it does with any imaginable strategic
considerations." President Obama also helped corporations get richer and more powerful in other
ways. He negotiated the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a multilateral trade deal that, if Trump had
not withdrawn us, would have expanded U.S. corporate access to overseas markets and given
multinational corporates new policy leverage over governments (via investor-state dispute
settlement mechanisms). (See Robin Brand, "Remembering the 'Tokyo No'," Dollars &
Sense , January/February 2015.) In 2012, as he was running for his second term, Obama
proposed a reduction in the corporate tax rate to 28%, not much different from the bill just
passed by Congress. He also lobbied Congress for the $700 billion Wall Street bailouts after
the Great Recession, continuing on the policy path set by his Republican predecessor, President
Bush. (Obama received huge campaign contributions from finance, insurance, and real estate.) In
terms of income inequality, CNBC had to reluctantly conclude that the gap widened under Obama,
in spite of all his powerful rhetoric about equity and equality.
President Clinton negotiated and signed NAFTA into law, a trade agreement that created
hardship for millions of American manufacturing workers and farmers, and generated large
profits for multinational industrial and agricultural corporations. Clinton also pushed for
welfare reform, signing into law a "workfare" system that required recipients to meet strict
job and employment related conditions. Millions of people became ineligible for payments under
the new system, and poverty increased especially among households in which members were
long-term unemployed. Clinton's 1997 tax proposal advocated cutting estate taxes and capital
gains taxes, and did not favor lower-income Americans. The Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities noted, "Analyses by the Treasury Department indicate that when fully in effect, the
Clinton plan would give the 20 percent of Americans with the highest incomes about the same
amount in tax cuts as the bottom 60 percent combined. This is an unusual characteristic for a
tax plan proposed by a Democratic President."
All of this is to say that I'm considerably less excited about 2018 and 2020 than many
others -- on what counts as the U.S. left -- appear to be. Democratic Party victories at the
ballot box would certainly reduce some of the pressures on a variety of marginalized groups who
are suffering mightily under President Trump. This is, of course, a good thing. But, Democratic
victories will not "fix" the structural problems that underpin our current political crisis nor
will they ensure a freer and more just future.
I plan to support third-party candidates at the ballot box in coming years, in the hopes of
contributing to the creation of a new kind of political infrastructure that can help us to
unmake the corporate state.
SASHA BREGER-BUSH is an assistant professor of political science at the University of
Colorado–Denver.
"... By Christine Berry. Originally published at openDemocracy ..."
"... The really fascinating battles in intellectual history tend to occur when some group or movement goes on the offensive and asserts that Something Big really doesn't actually exist." ..."
"... "a new ideology must give high priority to real and efficient limitation of the state's ability to, in detail, intervene in the activities of the individual. At the same time, it is absolutely clear that there are positive functions allotted to the state. The doctrine that, one and off, has been called neoliberalism and that has developed, more or less simultaneously in many parts of the world is precisely such a doctrine But instead of the 19 th century understanding that laissez-faire is the means to achieve this goal, neoliberalism proposes that competition will lead the way". ..."
"... Wealth of Nations ..."
"... Neoliberalism is like a Caddis Fly larvae, that sticks random objects outside its cocoon to blend in. ..."
"... Neoliberalism did not just adopt neoclassical economics, nor did it simply infest political parties of the right. Neoliberalism re-invented neoclassical economics in ways that defined not just the "right" of academic economics, but also defined the "left". Keynesian economics was absorbed and transmogrified by first one neoclassical synthesis and then a second, leaving a New Keynesian macroeconomics to occupy the position of a nominal left within mainstream economics. If you are waiting for a Krugman or even a Stiglitz to oppose neoliberalism, you will be waiting a very long time, because they are effectively locked into the neoliberal dialectic. ..."
"... If neoliberalism can be broken down to "Because markets" perhaps it could also be referred to as "Market Darwinism". ..."
"... A fundamental difference between neoliberalism and classic economists like Ricardo & Smith is the latter's adamant opposition to rent seeking and insistence on fighting it by taxation. Neoliberalism on the other hand not only accepts rent-seeking, but actively encourages it. Thus we see not only the ascendancy of of the FIRE sector, but the effective destruction of markets as mechanisms of price discovery. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is just another damn thing that externalizes and socializes costs. It is a very costly thing. ..."
"... Much as I regard your past comments, I must disagree with your assertion "Neoliberalism is just another damn thing that externalizes and socializes costs". Neoliberalism does indeed externalize and socialize costs but it is more than just another damn thing. Just the scale and scope of the think tank network assembled and well funded to promote the concepts of the Neoliberal thought collective should be adequate to convince you that it is much more than "just another damn thing". ..."
"... Consider just the visible portion of the think tanks which are part of the Neoliberal thought collective. "Today, Atlas Network connects more than 450 think tanks in nearly 100 countries. Each is writing its own story of how principled work to affect public opinion, on behalf of the ideas of a free society, can better individuals' lives." ..."
"... Next consider the state of the economics profession. Neoliberalism has taken over many major schools of economics and a large number of the economics journals. In a publish or perish world there are few alternatives to an adherence to some flavor of Neoliberal ideology. This is not "just another damn thing." Consider how many national politicians are spouting things like there is 'no such thing as society'. This is not "just another damn thing" -- it is something much much more scary. ..."
"... "I am not well qualified to criticize those theories, because as a market participant, I considered them so unrealistic that I never bothered to study them" ..."
"... "Those, like Ed Conway, who persist in claiming neoliberalism doesn't even exist, may soon find themselves left behind by history." ..."
"... "One of the great achievements of neoliberalism has been to induce such a level of collective amnesia that it's now once again possible to claim that these tenets are simply "fundamental economic rules" handed down directly from Adam Smith on tablets of stone, unchallenged and unchallengeable in the history of economic thought." ..."
"... "The labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the use of his money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers." ..."
"... "The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens." ..."
"... "The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it." ..."
"... "All for ourselves, and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind." ..."
"... "But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin." ..."
"... A reading of Smith's 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' written before, but revised after, WoN is also worthwhile. As is, as ever, Karl Polyani's opening salvo against Smith's take on 'human market nature' (my term). Everyone should read 'The Great Transformation' at least once. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is the refinement of this basic human tendency for domination. It is a camouflaged form of oppression that is revealed through its ultimate effect, not what it does at the moment. A neoliberal is a disguised raider or conquerer. ..."
"... Neoliberals prefer a strong state that promotes their ends, not one that opposes them, or has the ability to oppose the means and methods of private capital . That leaves the playing field with a single team. ..."
"... Homo economicus ..."
"... Neoliberals argue that since members of H. economicus ..."
"... "Stocks have reached what looks like a permanently high plateau." ..."
"... "Doing the same thing again and again and expecting to get a different result" ..."
"... "[ ] Well, this one at least is half-true. Like literally every concept that has ever mattered, the concept of 'neoliberalism' is messy, it's deeply contested [ ]" ..."
"... Although it serves the purposes of the rich-and-powerful rather well, I think "neoliberalism" as a rhetorical engine and set of ideas is the ideology of the 9.9%, the chattering classes of professionals and bureaucrats who need a cover story for their own participation in running the world for the benefit of the 0.1% These are the people who need to rationalize what they do and cooperate and coordinate among themselves and that's a challenge because of their sheer numbers. ..."
"... Neoliberalism says it aims at freedom and social welfare and innovation and other good things. If neoliberalism said it aimed to make the richest 0.1% richer at the expense of everyone else, it would provoke political opposition from the 99% for obvious reasons. Including opposition from the 9.9% whom they need to run things, to run the state, run the corporations. ..."
"... The genius of neoliberalism is such that it is able to achieve a high degree of coordination in detail across large numbers of people, institutions, even countries while still professing [fake] aims and values to which few object. A high degree of coordination on implementing a political policy agenda that is variously parasitical or predatory on the 90%. ..."
"... You can say this is just hypocrisy of a type the rich have always engaged in, and that would be true. The predatory rich have always had to disguise their predatory or parasitical activity, and have often done so by embracing, for example, shows of piety or philanthropy. So, neoliberalism falls into a familiar albeit broad category. ..."
"... What distinguishes neoliberalism is how good it is at coordinating the activities of the 9.9% in delivering the goods for the 0.1%. For a post-industrial economy, neoliberalism is better for the mega-rich than Catholicism was for the feudalism of the High Middle Ages. I do not think most practicing neoliberals among the 9.9% even think of themselves as hypocrites. ..."
"... "Free markets" has been the key move, the fulcrum where anodyne aims and values to which no one can object meet the actual detailed policy implementation by the state. Creating a "market" removes power and authority from the state and transfers it to private actors able to apply financial wealth to managing things, and then, because an actual market cannot really do the job that's been assigned, a state bureaucracy has to be created to manage the administrative details and financial flows -- work for the 9.9% ..."
"... As a special bonus, the insistence on treating a political economy organized in fact by large public and private bureaucracies as if it is organized by and around "markets" introduces a high degree of economic agnatology into the conventional political rhetoric. ..."
"... Pierre Bourdieu, the great French sociologist, would say neoliberalism, like the devil, is one of those things that makes a priority of pretending it does not exist. (Bourdieu cited many others.) It makes it much harder for those whose interests it does not serve to fight it, like forcing someone to eat Jello with a single chopstick. ..."
By Christine Berry. Originally published at
openDemocracy
The really fascinating battles in intellectual history tend to occur when some group
or movement goes on the offensive and asserts that Something Big really doesn't actually
exist."
So says Philip Morowski in his book 'Never Let a Serious Crisis Go To Waste: How
Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown' . As Mirowski argues, neoliberalism is
a particularly fascinating case in point. Just as Thatcher asserted there was 'no such thing as
society', it's common to find economics commentators asserting that there is 'no such thing as
neoliberalism' – that it's simply a meaningless insult bandied about by the left, devoid
of analytical content.
But on the list of 'ten tell-tale signs you're a neoliberal', insisting that Neoliberalism
Is Not A Thing must surely be number one. The latest commentator to add his voice to the chorus
is Sky
Economics Editor Ed Conway . On the Sky blog, he gives four reasons why Neoliberalism Is
Not A Thing. Let's look at each of them in turn:
1. It's only used by its detractors, not by its supporters
This one is pretty easy to deal with, because it's flat-out not true. As Mirowski documents,
"the people associated with the doctrine did call themselves 'neo-liberals' for a
brief period lasting from the 1930s to the early 1950s, but then they abruptly stopped the
practice" – deciding it would serve their political project better if they claimed to be
the heirs of Adam Smith than if they consciously distanced themselves from classical
liberalism. Here's just one example, from Milton Friedman in 1951:
"a new ideology must give high priority to real and efficient limitation of the
state's ability to, in detail, intervene in the activities of the individual. At the same
time, it is absolutely clear that there are positive functions allotted to the state. The
doctrine that, one and off, has been called neoliberalism and that has developed, more or
less simultaneously in many parts of the world is precisely such a doctrine But instead of
the 19 th century understanding that laissez-faire is the means to achieve this
goal, neoliberalism proposes that competition will lead the way".
You might notice that as well as the word 'neoliberalism', this also includes the word
'ideology'. Remember that one for later.
It's true that the word 'neoliberalism' did go underground for a long time, with its
proponents preferring to position their politics simply as sound economics than to admit it was
a radical ideological programme. But that didn't stop them from knowing what they stood for, or
from acting collectively – through a well-funded network of think tanks and research
institutes – to spread those ideas.
It's worth noting that one of those think tanks, the Adam Smith Institute, has in the last
couple of years consciously reclaimed the mantle .
Affiliated intellectuals like Madsen Pirie and Sam
Bowman have explicitly sought to define and defend neoliberalism. It's no accident that
this happened around the time that neoliberalism began to be seriously challenged in the UK,
with the rise of Corbyn and the shock of the Brexit vote, after a post-crisis period where the
status quo seemed untouchable.
2. Nobody can agree on what it means
Well, this one at least is half-true. Like literally every concept that has ever mattered,
the concept of 'neoliberalism' is messy, it's deeply contested, it has evolved over time and it
differs in theory and practice. From the start, there has been debate within the neoliberal
movement itself about how it should define itself and what its programme should be. And, yes,
it's often used lazily on the left as a generic term for anything vaguely establishment. None
of this means that it is Not A Thing. This is something sociologists and historians
instinctively understand, but which many economists seem to have trouble with.
Having said this, it is possible to define some generally accepted core features of
neoliberalism. Essentially, it privileges markets as the best way to organise the economy and
society, but unlike classical liberalism, it sees a strong role for the state in creating and
maintaining these markets. Outside of this role, the state should do as little as possible, and
above all it must not interfere with the 'natural' operation of the market. But it has always
been part of the neoliberal project to take over the state and transform it for its own ends,
rather than to dismantle or disable it.
Of course, there's clearly a tension between neoliberals' professed ideals of freedom and
their need for a strong state to push through policies that often don't have democratic
consent. We see this in the actions of the Bretton Woods institutions in the era of 'structural
adjustment', or the Troika's behaviour towards Greece during the Eurozone crisis. We see it
most starkly in Pinochet's Chile, the original neoliberal experiment. This perhaps helps to
explain the fact that neoliberalism is sometimes equated with libertarianism and the 'small
state', while others reject this characterisation. I'll say it again: none of this means that
neoliberalism doesn't exist.
3. Neoliberalism is just good economics
Neoliberalism may not exist, says Conway, but what do exist are "conventional economic
models – the ones established by Adam Smith all those centuries ago", and the principles
they entail. That they may have been "overzealously implemented and sometimes misapplied" since
the end of the Cold War is "unfortunate", but "hardly equals an ideology". I'm sure he'll hate
me for saying this, but Ed – this is the oldest neoliberal trick in the book.
The way Conway defines these principles (fiscal conservatism, property rights and leaving
businesses to make their own decisions) is hardly a model of analytical rigour, but we'll let
that slide. Instead, let's note that the entire reason neoliberal ideology developed was that
the older classical "economic models" manifestly failed during the Great Depression of the
1930s, leading them to be replaced by Keynesian demand-management models as the dominant
framework for understanding the economy.
Neoliberals had to update these models in order to restore their credibility: this is why
they poured so much effort into the development of neoclassical economics and the capture of
academic economics by the Chicago School. One of the great achievements of neoliberalism has
been to induce such a level of collective amnesia that it's now once again possible to claim
that these tenets are simply "fundamental economic rules" handed down directly from Adam Smith
on tablets of stone, unchallenged and unchallengeable in the history of economic thought.
In any case, even some people that ascribe to neoclassical economics – like Joseph
Stiglitz – are well enough able to distinguish this intellectual framework from the
political application of it by neoliberals. It is perfectly possible to agree with the former
but not the latter.
4. Yes, 'neoliberal' policies have been implemented in recent decades, but this has been
largely a matter of accident rather than design
Privatisation, bank deregulation, the dismantling of capital and currency controls:
according to Conway, these are all developments that came about by happenstance. "Anyone who
has studied economic history" will tell you they are "hardly the result of a guiding ideology."
This will no doubt be news to the large number of eminent economic historians who have
documented the shift from Keynesianism to neoliberalism, from Mirowski and Daniel Stedman-Jones
to Robert Skidelsky and Robert Van Horn (for a good reading list, see this
bibliographic review by Will Davies .)
It would also be news to Margaret Thatcher, the woman who reportedly slammed down Hayek's
'Constitution of Liberty' on the table at one of her first cabinet meetings and declared
"Gentlemen, this is our programme"; and who famously said "Economics is the method; the object
is to change the soul". And it would be news to those around her who strategized for a
Conservative government with carefully laid-out battleplans for dismantling the key
institutions of the post-war settlement, such as the Ridley Report on privatising state-run
entities.
What Conway appears to be denying here is the whole idea that policymaking takes place
within a shared set of assumptions (or paradigm), that dominant paradigms tend to shift over
time, and that these shifts are usually accompanied by political crises and resulting transfers
of political power – making them at least partly a matter of ideology rather than simply
facts.
Whether it's even meaningful to claim that ideology-free facts exist on matters so
inherently political as how to run the economy is a whole debate in the sociology of knowledge
which we don't have time to go into here, and which Ed Conway doesn't seem to have much
awareness of.
But he shows his hand when he says that utilities were privatised because "governments
realised they were mostly a bit rubbish at running them". This is a strong – and highly
contentious – political claim disguised as a statement of fact – again, a classic
neoliberal gambit. It's a particularly bizarre one for an economist to make at a time when
70% of UK rail
routes are owned by foreign states who won the franchises through competitive tender. Just
this week, we learned that
the East Coast main line is to be temporarily renationalised because Virgin and Stagecoach
turned out to be, erm, a bit rubbish at running it.
* * *
It may be a terrible cliché, but the old adage "First they ignore you, then they
laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" seems appropriate here. Neoliberalism
successfully hid in plain sight for decades, with highly ideological agendas being implemented
amidst claims we lived in a post-ideological world. Now that it is coming under ideological
challenge, it is all of a sudden stood naked in the middle of the room, having to explain why
it's there (to borrow a phrase from a very brilliant colleague).
There are a number of strategies neoliberals can adopt in response to this. The Adam Smith
Institute response is to go on the offensive and defend it. The Theresa May response is to pay
lip service to the need for systemic change whilst quietly continuing with the same old
policies. Those, like Ed Conway, who persist in claiming neoliberalism doesn't even exist, may
soon find themselves left behind by history. 95 comments
Neoliberalism may not exist, says Conway, but what do exist are "conventional economic
models – the ones established by Adam Smith all those centuries ago",
Um please name one "conventional economic model" established by Adam Smith. I mean,
really, who would actually write such nonsense?
In fairness, I expect Conway is referring to the "invisible hand" of market competition,
wherein the competitive market qua an institution supposedly transforms the private pursuit
of self-interest into a public benefit. From the OP, Milton Friedman saying, "instead of . .
. laissez-faire . . . neoliberalism proposes . . . competition".
A pedant can rightly claim that the actual Adam Smith had a more nuanced and realistic
view, but that does not help to understand, let alone defeat, the intellectual smoke and
mirrors of neoliberalism. And, in spirit, the neoliberals are more right than wrong in
claiming Adam Smith: on the economics, he was a champion of market competition against the
then degenerate corporate state and an advocate of a modified laissez faire against
mercantilism, not to mention feudalism.
My personal view is that you have lost the argument if you agree to the key element of
neoclassical economics: that the economy is organized around and by (metaphoric) markets and
policy is justified (sic!) by remedying market failure. If you concede "the market economy"
even as a mere convention of political speech, you are lost, because you have entered into
the Alice-in-Wonderland neoliberal model, and you can no longer base your arguments on
socially-constructed references to the real, institutional world.
Adam Smith was systematically interpreting his observed world, he kept himself honest by
being descriptively accurate. It was Ricardo who re-invented classical economics as an
abstract theory deductible from first principles and still later thinkers, who re-invented
that abstract, deductive theory as a neoclassical economics in open defiance of observed
reality. And, still later thinkers, many of them critics (Hayek being a prime example) of
neoclassical economics as it existed circa 1930, who founded neoliberalism as we know it. We
really should not blame Adam Smith.
You comment is confusing to me -- not quite sure what you are arguing. You close asserting
"We really should not blame Adam Smith." Was he blamed in this post?
I think it's the very selective reading, and quoting, of Adam Smith's writings to give
neoliberal economics more legitimacy; the parts where he mentions the supremacy of the common
good and the need to prevent too much accumulation of money in too few hands is ignored.
Restated, the free market with its invisible hand is best so long as the whole community
benefits. However, wealth and the power it brings tends to become monopolized into a very few
hands. That needs to be prevented and if needed by government.
I think I need to go back over the Wealth of Nations to be sure I am not being
too selective myself. That said, what the neoliberals are doing is like some people's very
selective reading of the New Testament to support their interests. (Like the vile
Prosperity Gospel)
There is so much claptrap in this article, on all sides of what is supposedly being
debated. Yet, the one underlying historical fact that is being completely overlooked is pure
Keynesian demand driven economics.
An economics that not only has a basis in fact, but also has an actual history of
success.
Keynesian economics did not fail. It was undermined by a movement back toward neo-liberal
Adam Smith "invisible hand of the free market" nonsense that has done nothing throughout
history except proven itself to be greed disguised as an economic theory to give the powerful
an opportunity to fleece the poor and the government treasury.
"Free markets" is incoherent, yet it is a very well accepted and unquestioned notion, to
the degree it is regularly depicted as virtuous and achieving it, a worthy policy goal.
I have written about how the East Germans were absorbed by Germany as neoliberalism was
ascendant in 1990, with such shibboleths as TINA and The End of History taken as cosmological
verities by the West German government. Now I'm doing research on Detroit, where
neoliberalism remains powerful and the source of a meretricious "renaissance" taking place
there even as it is increasingly found to be a generator of and rationalization for all
manner of class-based exploitation. Mirowski's checklist of the attributes of neoliberalism
is on display in state and local government there as they serve corporations, such as the
city "selling" the Little Ceasar's empire 39 acres of downtown land for $1 upon which was
built the new hockey arena. Detroit is a bellwether city, and despite the depredations of
corporations and government there is much organized opposition to neoliberal rule in the
city.
I believe there was an article here recently by Mirowski – The something or other
that dare not speak it's name ? I have spent quite a few hours in the past listening to his
podcasts & videos, which tend to repeat themselves, although something new slips in from
time to time, especially from Q & A's.
His assertion that economics is merely one part of a whole in the Neoliberal assault woke
me up, & indeed then appeared very obvious.
I believe I have seen an example of the Detroit devastation used as film sets in two
films: " Only Lovers Left alive " & " Don't Breathe ", which suit the darkness of them
very well.
Good to know that there is resistance & I wish you the very best outcome for your
& or their endeavours.
I too have watched many hours of Phillip Mirowski's videos, several of them more than
once. I have a little trouble with your assertion they "tend to repeat themselves, although
something new slips in from time to time". He does repeatedly emphasize points which are hard
to believe on first hearing but grow evident upon further reflection. For example his
emphasis on the concept of the Market as the Neoliberal epistemology -- an ultimate tool for
discovering Truth. A little recall of some recent and surprisingly commonplace constructs
like a "market of ideas", or various ways of suggesting we are each a commodity we need to
package, promote, and sell as exemplified by Facebook "likes" and "networking" as a way to
get ahead. Looking at the whole of the videos, and excluding obvious repetitions like
multiple versions of book promotion interviews at different venues I think the range of ideas
Mirowski explores is remarkable -- from the Neoliberal thought collective to climate change
to the Market applied to direct the truth science can discover.
[Where do you find podcasts of Mirowski? I recall collecting a few but most of what I find
are videos. He has numerous of his papers posted at academia.edu which can be downloaded for
free by signing up for the website.]
There are just a few. You may already have heard some of these: Search for Symptomatic
Redness, and search for This Is Hell. Search for [PPE Polanyi Hayek]. He talked to Doug
Henwood. He talked to Will Davies and that is audio only I believe. There's the Science Mart
talk that he gave in Australia. If you look in archive.org and soundcloud as well as youtube
and vimeo, you will find most of them. I think all four of those sites have a few recordings
that are exclusive from the others. Archive.org has a couple of his appearances on community
radio. A few are also linked from the media page for a given book on the publishers' sites,
like go to the links on the book page for Science Mart, for an appearance on I think Boston
radio.
I'm a nerd. Heh. But if you've come this far and listened to the videos (the one with
Homer's brain and markomata, the Boundary2 conference talk, the Leukana one, Prof Nik-Khah at
the Whitlam center, Sam Seder, the one on climate, talking about Cowles in Brazil), you will
enjoy the others. Hope these notes help you find a few.
I wrote a web page back in April of
2016 about the neoliberal forces in Detroit. Let me know at my twitter page what you think. Feel
free to use whatever you find helpful
I found then that the City of Detroit and the State of Michigan had been hornswaggled by
private enterprises nesting their own feathers.
Utilitarianism, expressed as the greatest aggregate well-being to humanity
(economic production and growth) and preference for economic efficiency (monopolies,
duopolies, cartels, etc.) over market competition, are two additional hallmarks of
neoliberalism.
Recognizing these two important values helps explain the growing economic and social
inequality we're witnessing around the western world.
I will checkout your recommendation and I hope that it will discuss, for instance, the
assumption that *economic* production and growth and preference for economic efficiency is
and should be the proper goal of human life.
The book is descriptive and critical, but not particularly prescriptive. But yes, one of
the real strengths of Davies' work is his documentation of the many economic, social, and
political assumptions that provide the foundations of neoliberal thought. I was impressed by
the many logical inconsistencies that advocates of neoliberalism are comfortable in
accepting. I don't believe that the bulk of neoliberal ideas could exist for long outside the
philosophical context of postmodernism as the cognitive dissonance they (should) generate
would find them quickly abandoned.
The intersection of postmodernism, neoliberalism , and neoconservatism defines our current
Western civilization, and I wish somebody would come up with a name for it. Whatever we have
now is the successor to Modernism, in its broadest sense.
I saw one of those political compass memes recently that had at the "center", "Everything
is rent seeking, except for literal rent seeking, which is okay."
Well, there is at least some labeling issue, as one of the first people to use term
"neoliberalism" (for his proposed policy) was Germany's Alexander Rustow, who hardlty anyone
knows about these days, so they don't know either that Rustow would likely sign off most of
Corbyn's proposed policies
IIRC Rustow was one of the more 'moderate' founder members of the Mont Pelerin Society.
His views did not prevail, though they initially adopted his term for their project. I wonder
if, when he saw which way the wind was blowing, he demanded it back.
The term was sometimes applied to the New Deal but didn't really catch on.
It was also used in the early '80s for a movement trying to resurrect the New Deal in the
face of Reagan but that didn't catch on either.
Hey, I just remembered something. When I was a kid growing up everybody knew all about the
mafia but all those in the know denied that there was any such thing when questioned in a
court of law. It got to be a running joke how these gang bosses and members were always
denying that the mafia was an actual thing. Could it be that the neoliberals took a page out
of their book and adopted the same tactic of denying the existence of neoliberalism while
actively pushing it at every opportunity?
And like the line from 'fight club', the first rule of neoliberalism is that you don't
talk about it.
To extend your analogy, much like the mafia, there's a handful of shadowy law breakers who
benefit from neoliberalism and a whole lot of people that suffer violence so that those
benefits can flow up to that few.
this is why I keep Mario Puzo next to Adam and Karl on the econ shelf in my library.
It's not so much Omerta, as gobbdeygook and wafer thin platitudes.
Like the concurrent and related "Conservative revolution"(1973-), they stole the Cell
Structure from the Comintern, and bought out the competition.
I am inclined to believe that the Libertarian Party was a vehicle for this counterrevolution,
too.
and finally, with the DLC, they were able to buy the "opposition party" outright and here we
are.
"Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! He's only here to direct you to a very
robust curtain marketplace to suit all your needs, including our newest offering for
consumers without a desire to invest in (or a steady home for) full curtain infrastructure:
Curtains-as-a-Service! Ultimate mobility! Low(ish) monthly payments forever!"
"Neoliberalism" is indeed a thing, but it is not in any way an economic model.
"Neoliberalism" is simply the ethos of Sit Back and Let the Big Dog Eat, and it wraps itself
in whatever words or models is most effective at distracting and camouflaging its rotten
core. Neoliberalism is like a Caddis Fly larvae, that sticks random objects outside its
cocoon to blend in.
So the Neoliberals talk about free markets when it suits them – and when their
wealthy patrons want to be bailed out with public funds, they talk about government
responsibility. They harp about freedom – but demand that large corporations get to use
de-jure slave labor to peel shrimp. They talk about how wonderful free trade is – and
demand that private citizens not be able to import legal pharmaceuticals because this would
destroy the freedom of big pharma to maximize profits by restricting trade and without this
new drug development would stop and anyone who believes in free trade wants a free lunch. I
could go on. It's pointless to try and refute them, because there is nothing to refute, and
they have no shame. Only brute power, but this they have in abundance.
So of course they reject the label, because co-opting and corrupting and hiding behind
legitimate philosophies is part of their modus operandi. Using the terminology of the enemy
is always a mistake. Long may the vile practitioners of 'neoliberalism' be forced to be
referred to by an accurate label!
It is. I wish he had gone on. Might we build on it? I think such examples clarify
brilliantly exactly of whom we speak:
"Neoliberals want minimal government regulation because such regulation makes the market
inefficient. Except when making dubious student loans; then they want the government to
guarantee those loans and serve as their muscle in collecting."
Excellent comment.
"It's pointless to try and refute them, because there is nothing to refute, and they have no
shame. Only brute power, but this they have in abundance."
Absolutely.
Neoliberalism: an old fashioned expression of the seemingly eternal "all for me, none for
thee".
A million tonnes of economic speciousness, the thickness of a piece of plastic wrap, covering
the bloated & putrifying zombie body of a small "elite".
"Now that it is coming under ideological challenge, it is all of a sudden stood naked in
the middle of the room, having to explain why it's there (to borrow a phrase from a very
brilliant colleague)."
One gambit in denying neoliberalism is to pretend it must be a specific doctrine and then
dispute about which that doctrine that is. Or that neoliberalism must be a specific programme
and dispute whether that programme has been consistent thru time. But, the intellectual cum
ideological history cum policy history here is that neoliberalism has been a dialectic.
There's Thatcher and then there's Blair.
It is the back-and-forth of that dialectic that has locked in "the shared set of
assumptions" and paradigm of policy inventiveness that has given neoliberalism its remarkable
ability to survive its own manifest policy-induced crises.
Neoliberalism did not just adopt neoclassical economics, nor did it simply infest
political parties of the right. Neoliberalism re-invented neoclassical economics in ways that
defined not just the "right" of academic economics, but also defined the "left". Keynesian
economics was absorbed and transmogrified by first one neoclassical synthesis and then a
second, leaving a New Keynesian macroeconomics to occupy the position of a nominal left
within mainstream economics. If you are waiting for a Krugman or even a Stiglitz to oppose
neoliberalism, you will be waiting a very long time, because they are effectively locked into
the neoliberal dialectic.
Something almost analogous happened with the political parties of the centre-left, as in
the iconic cases of Blair vs Thatcher or Clinton vs Reagan (and then, of course, Obama vs
Reagan/Bush II). In western Europe, grand coalitions figured in the process of eliminating
the ability of centre-left parties to think outside the neoliberal policy frames or to
represent their electoral bases rather than their donor bases.
Sitting here nodding my head. All the same criticisms could be made of, oh, say,
Christianity. Wars have been fought, hundreds of thousands of Christians have been persecuted
by other Christians, over the definition, but that certainly does not make it Not A
Thing.
Neoliberal thought is very deliberately projected as a many-headed Hydra. The Neoliberal
thought collective presents manifold statements and refinements of its principles. The value
of agnotology is a belief of held in sufficient regard to be deemed a principle of belief.
Just try dealing with an opponent that shifts and evaporates but never loses substance in
working toward its goals.
A fundamental difference between neoliberalism and classic economists like Ricardo &
Smith is the latter's adamant opposition to rent seeking and insistence on fighting it by
taxation. Neoliberalism on the other hand not only accepts rent-seeking, but actively
encourages it. Thus we see not only the ascendancy of of the FIRE sector, but the effective
destruction of markets as mechanisms of price discovery.
Also, Yves, thanks a million for these enlightening neoliberalism articles. I've had quite
a bit of trouble in the past putting my political beliefs in the appropriate context; a
general feeling of malaise and overall mistrust of free-trade agreements and big corporations
without anything to really back it up is usually a one-way ticket to losing an argument and
being labelled an old crank. Being able to put a name on something you know doesn't smell
right, and finding a framework that allows others to spot it, is a hell of a leg up.
It always reminds me of the index (or aside, or supplementary reading, whatever it was)
that accompanied my copy of 1984. It basically said that controlling the common language and
not allowing for terminology to define certain things (in this case, pulling the 'first two
rules of Fight Club' thing – thanks, johnnygl!) was key to keeping those things
essentially invisible, and those afflicted by the maladies off-balance and unable to organize
against them. That bit of Orwell made sense then, but it has really been hitting home after
reading some of these articles.
For anyone who missed it, this
one was also particularly great.
Neoliberalism is just another damn thing that externalizes and socializes costs. It is a
very costly thing. But I'm more inclined to think that no isms exist anywhere in the real
world in any constructive way – they are all just mental reflexes useful for
rationalizing irresponsibility and procrastination. And self interest. We might as well just
say economicism.
Interesting comment by the author about the sociology of knowledge. No doubt
there is a sensible mantra somewhere chanting: Do what works. Because if evolution had been
evolutionism we'd all be extinct. The only thing sticking in my dottering old head these days
is Ann Pettifor's last question: Please, please can you just tell us how the economy actually
works?
Much as I regard your past comments, I must disagree with your assertion "Neoliberalism is
just another damn thing that externalizes and socializes costs". Neoliberalism does indeed
externalize and socialize costs but it is more than just another damn thing. Just the scale
and scope of the think tank network assembled and well funded to promote the concepts of the
Neoliberal thought collective should be adequate to convince you that it is much more than
"just another damn thing".
Consider just the visible portion of the think tanks which are part of the Neoliberal
thought collective. "Today, Atlas Network connects more than 450 think tanks in nearly 100
countries. Each is writing its own story of how principled work to affect public opinion, on
behalf of the ideas of a free society, can better individuals' lives."
Members of the network
include: AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE, AMERICAN LEGISLATIVE EXCHANGE COUNCIL (ALEC), AYN
RAND INSTITUTE, CATO INSTITUTE, GOLDWATER INSTITUTE, HEARTLAND INSTITUTE, HERITAGE FOUNDATION
selected members from the 177 think tanks in the U.S. which are a part of the 475 partners in
92 countries around the globe. [https://www.atlasnetwork.org/partners/global-directory]. This
is not "just another damn thing."
Next consider the state of the economics profession. Neoliberalism has taken over many
major schools of economics and a large number of the economics journals. In a publish or
perish world there are few alternatives to an adherence to some flavor of Neoliberal
ideology. This is not "just another damn thing." Consider how many national politicians are
spouting things like there is 'no such thing as society'. This is not "just another damn
thing" -- it is something much much more scary.
Thank you for this post. It is the methodical destruction of any possible alternatives to
this totalizing and dehumanizing system that is most frightening to me.
Basically the rich dismantled the New Deal and desperately are trying to hide it. The issue is that the decline in living standards for the middle class are so big that
they can no longer hide what they are. This was linked in NC a while ago:
Neoliberalism is quite fuzzy and difficult to attack. Neoliberalism intellectual framework comes from the underlying neoclassical economics that
can easily be attacked. Here's George Soros. George Soros realised the economics was wrong due to his experience with the markets. What the neoclassical economists said about markets and his experience just didn't
compare, and he knew it was so wrong he never even bothered to look into what the economics
said.
George Soros "I am not well qualified to criticize those theories, because as a market
participant, I considered them so unrealistic that I never bothered to study them"
Here is George Soros on the bad economics we have used for globalisation.
He had been complaining for years and at last in 2008 the bankruptcy of the economics
proved itself. With more widespread support, he set up INET (The Institute for New Economic
Thinking) to try and put things right. Globalisation's technocrats, trained in bad economics, never stood a chance.
"Those, like Ed Conway, who persist in claiming neoliberalism doesn't even exist, may
soon find themselves left behind by history."
During the last election, when leftist types were criticizing Hillary Clinton for her
neoliberal tendencies, the Ed Conway approach was favored by the online Dem Party shills as
the go-to response at mainstream liberal websites. In the comments sections of these
places, I read quite a lot of out-and-out bullsh*t about neoliberalism not being real, and
how charges of it had as much substance as similarly empty schoolyard taunts. If you said
someone was a neoliberal, it had no more meaning than if you'd called them "poopy pants" or
'booger breath." And all this delivered with the usual blistering abuse thrown at anyone not
willing to get down on all fours & kiss St. Hillary's blessed pants suit. It got to the
point where I finally had to stop visiting places like Lawyers, Guns and Money altogether.
They had become unbelievably nasty and unpleasant to progressives.
"One of the great achievements of neoliberalism has been to induce such a level of
collective amnesia that it's now once again possible to claim that these tenets are simply
"fundamental economic rules" handed down directly from Adam Smith on tablets of stone,
unchallenged and unchallengeable in the history of economic thought."
To prove this wrong read Adam Smith. Adam Smith observed the reality of small state, unregulated capitalism in the world around
him. Adam Smith on rent seeking:
"The labour and time of the poor is in civilised countries sacrificed to the
maintaining of the rich in ease and luxury. The Landlord is maintained in idleness and luxury
by the labour of his tenants. The moneyed man is supported by his extractions from the
industrious merchant and the needy who are obliged to support him in ease by a return for the
use of his money. But every savage has the full fruits of his own labours; there are no
landlords, no usurers and no tax gatherers."
So, landlords, usurers and taxes all raise the cost of living and minimum wage. They suck
purchasing power out of the real economy. Western housing booms have raised the cost of living and priced Western labour out of
international markets leading to the rise of the populists. Trickledown, no it trickles up.
Adam Smith on price gouging:
"The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or
manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the
public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the
dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the
public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable
the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their
own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow-citizens."
So this is why hedge funds look for monopoly suppliers of drugs. Big is not beautiful in capitalism, it needs competition and lots of it. The interests of business and the public are not aligned.
Adam Smith on lobbyists:
"The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order
ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till
after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with
the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly
the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to
oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and
oppressed it."
Not surprising TTIP and TPP didn't go down well with the public.
The interests of business and the public are not aligned.
Adam Smith on the 1%:
"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people seems, in every age of the world, to
have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
2017 – Richest 8 people as wealthy as half of world's population
They haven't changed a bit.
Adam Smith on Profit:
"But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity and
fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich and
high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to
ruin."
Exactly the opposite of today's thinking, what does he mean?
When rates of profit are high, capitalism is cannibalising itself by:
1) Not engaging in long term investment for the future
2) Paying insufficient wages to maintain demand for its products and services
Today's problems with growth and demand.
Amazon didn't suck its profits out as dividends and look how big it's grown (not so good
on the wages).
The problem with Adam Smith is the same as for Keynes: people quote what they imagine he
said, or what they want him to have said, rather than what he actually did say.
Adam Smith at least wrote more clearly than Keynes did, which makes claims like that
easier to refute.
Yet the problem with Smith is contextualizing the time and space he wrote of vs. that of
Keynes. Keynes was not addressing a burgeoning industrialist – agrarian economy that
had yet to employ oil to its potential with huge amounts of untapped natural resources still
waiting in the wings and nary any counter prevailing force to this periods philosophical
views.
Even if the whole anglophone experience had a touch of the Council of Nicea tinge to it
e.g. making nice between troublesome tribes within the fold.
Keynes at least looked at the data and attempted to reflect what he discern "at the time"
against the prevailing winds of doctrinaires contrary to all the sycophants.
This is was the lesson he attempted to forward, howls from the sycophants is a tell.
A reading of Smith's 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments' written before, but revised after,
WoN is also worthwhile. As is, as ever, Karl Polyani's opening salvo against Smith's take on 'human market nature'
(my term). Everyone should read 'The Great Transformation' at least once.
The 18th century was an interesting time. My take, only partially thought out, is that
Smith's later work was part of that move away from grand theorizing towards practical
improvement of the human condition seen in so many thinkers of the mid-century period. (With
the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 acting as something of a catalyst)
Mr. Conway must be a fan of Mr. Fukuyama and his exercises for brain stunting.
IMO, Fukuyama's success depended very much on neoliberalism becoming dominant.
In a way, this comment sums up the modern condition very well. Life is always about the
struggle between the have and the have nots. "Civilization" is the human attempt to curb, or
put a respectable face on the raw power struggle between the weak and the powerful. It is
something worth fighting for if justice, equality under the law, and relief from human
suffering is the goal. If greed and self-interest is the only goal, one can be considered a
barbarian and resisted. In such a case, might makes right and the world is full of darkness
and destruction.
Short form- The elite are failing in their duty to humanity- and the rest of life on this
planet. As a scapegoat, they call out anyone not with their agenda deplorables and double
down on their barbarous ways. Greed, exploitation, and subjugation.
Neoliberalism is the refinement of this basic human tendency for domination. It is a
camouflaged form of oppression that is revealed through its ultimate effect, not what it does
at the moment. A neoliberal is a disguised raider or conquerer.
This is an amateur take, but as I see it classical liberalism was pretty much wrecked by
the combination of WWI, great depression, and WWII. The "everything laissez faire" ideology
had simply taken too much damage from the reality of political economy. So it evolved, as it
were, into three new ideologies: libertarianism, which faulted classical liberalism for not
going far enough in reducing the state, which goes a long ways towards explaining why it's
not very popular; the liberal-left/FDR liberalism/SocDem position, which faulted classical
liberalism for ignoring the social element, where there's a heavy welfare state, enterprises
are highly regulated, labor protections, but still private ownership and a capitalist class;
and neoliberalism, which faulted classical liberalism for being ideologically unwilling to
engage in the technocratic tinkering to right the ship, but still sees TIHOTFM as the center
of the economy. The first is the religious orthodoxy response, the second is to put the
market in the sandbox, and the third puts the state in the sandbox.
My take, influenced by Polanyi, is that classical Liberalism collapsed with WWI. In Europe
it was replaced with Socialism (of a sort), Social Democracy or Fascism. Sometimes switching
around and taking a while to settle.
In the US classical Liberalism had a glorious swansong in the 1920s but it finally died in
1929, giving way to Social Democracy in the New Deal.
The Neoliberal project did not properly start until after WWII and did not take over until
around 1980.
Neoliberals prefer a strong state that promotes their ends, not one that opposes them,
or has the ability to oppose the means and methods of private capital . That leaves
the playing field with a single team.
Neoliberals would have the state oppose the goals of others in society. To nurture that
environment, neoliberals seek to redefine society and citizenship as consumerism. Woman's
only role is as one of the species Homo economicus . Neoliberals argue that since
members of H. economicus exist in isolation, they have no need for the extensive
mutual aid and support networks that neoliberals rely on to survive and prosper. Again, that
leaves a single team on the playing field.
I would add tha neoliberalism is inherently about classism. That the wealthy, because of
their education, know more than poor people because of the lack of education. So when voters
complain about the lack of jobs or the poor state of healthcare, the Clintionites wave it
away because, well what do those poor people know anyway?
One of the topics that pops up regulary, is the question "why can't poor people tell how
great the economy is doing?" -face palm- A question that took on fresh important when
Clintion lost the election.
Ironically, the conversation is now, why can't poor people tell how shitty the economy is
with Trump in charge. -dabble face palm-.
You only have to walk around San Francisco or Los Angeles to see that something is wrong
with the current economic environment. This in the wealthy parts of California. There can be
plenty of disagreement over the what, the why, and the solutions, but to demand that I ignore
my lying eyes and believe their words' truthiness is either insulting or insanity and maybe
both.
Mirowski addressed this very issue in this paper –
"The Political Movement that Dared not Speak its own Name: The Neoliberal Thought
Collective Under Erasure" – In this paper I examine the disinclination to treat the
Neoliberal political project as a serious intellectual project motivating a series of
successes in the public sphere. Economists seem especially remiss in this regard.
I disagree that neoliberalism is a thing. There are still only the conservative and
liberal view points. My interpretation of them is as follows:
-Conservative ideology stems from maintaining status quo, tradition, hierarchy and individual
growth ( even at the cost of society). Religion dovetails this ideology as it is something
passed on through generations.
-Liberal ideology stems from growing the society( even at the cost of individual),
challenging the status quo and breaking away from tradition.
Neoliberalism to me is just a part of conservatism
Here is the dictionary definition of conservatism;
" the holding of political views that favour free enterprise, private ownership, and socially
conservative ideas."
A crude example would be to say that Libertarians are closet Republicans.
If I understand neoliberalism correctly it boils down to this: Whoever has money and power gets to make the rules within certain limits which are defined
by:
Whether they get caught
Whether people understand what they are doing
How they market what they do
How much political power they have
Success of the model is defined as success of the richest, most powerful actors. Anyone
who does not succeed is labeled as having been inadequate, lazy, or
socialist/communist/etc. Have I missed anything?
The claim that neoliberalism does not exist reminds me of Baudelaire's "la plus belle des
ruses du Diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas!" ("the cleverest ruse of the Devil is to persuade you he does not exist!")
We frogs have been in the pot for so long now we've forgotten that there ever was a
pond
A priori, what motivated Hayek's, Mises' and their associates' programme from its
conception in the '30's was that it was a *reaction* against the threat to freedom (as they
defined it) which they considered to be posed by the onward march of what they termed
"collectivism", embodied not only by avowedly socialist governments (as in Austria) but also
in that ostensible bulwark of capitalism the USA (whence Mises had emigrated), in the shape
of the New Deal.
Given that genesis, it baffles me that any historian can seriously question what was the
true nature of the project which (led by Hayek) was conceived in response, which later became
known as neoliberalism. It was conceived as a counter-offensive to what they identified as an
insidious mortal threat to all the values they subscribed to – as in Hayek's phrase
"the road to serfdom". How could any such counter-offensive be implemented other than through
devising and putting into effect a plan of action? How could it ever *not* have been "a
thing" (ie not possess objective reality) yet still achieve its specified objective –
namely to defeat the chosen enemy? To assert that it was not is to fly in the face of logic
and common sense.
Doesn't any serious historian need to deploy both of those faculties in good measure?
I agree that Hayek and others were engaged in a political movement that promoted intense
opposition to social democratic experiments sweeping the West after WWII.
Their chosen enemy seems to have been collective responses generally – governmental
and social – except those that they approved of. Coincidentally, those seem to be
approved of by their wealthy patrons. I don't recall their vocal opposition to the trade
associations, for example, that cooperated to promote the interests of the companies their
patrons controlled.
Hayek and others seem to have overreacted in their opposition to collective action, even
while making exceptions for the social networking and persistent patron funding that promoted
their own endeavours.
"[ ] Well, this one at least is half-true. Like literally every concept that has ever
mattered, the concept of 'neoliberalism' is messy, it's deeply contested [ ]"
Way I see it, it happens to be extremely simple:
Classical liberalism: "The state should leave us elites alone such that we may do what we must, it's our
plantations/factories/banks anyway!"
And, when the former didn't work (the conservative/aristocratic state didn't leave them
alone), came the neo-liberalism: " We should take control of the state and insure that we are not molested by its
services and that it disciplines the lower classes in our name!"
Neo-liberalism is extremely old and the only exceptions to this "new" development were the
so called "totalitarian" states (feared, by neo-libs, most of all things), which mainly
disciplined the elites, with great success, I might add.
In reply to several commenters, who have questioned why "neoliberalism" is not simply
another name for the political expression/ambitions of the greed of the rich-and-powerful,
aka conservatism.
Although it serves the purposes of the rich-and-powerful rather well, I think
"neoliberalism" as a rhetorical engine and set of ideas is the ideology of the 9.9%, the
chattering classes of professionals and bureaucrats who need a cover story for their own
participation in running the world for the benefit of the 0.1% These are the people who need
to rationalize what they do and cooperate and coordinate among themselves and that's a
challenge because of their sheer numbers.
If you try to examine neoliberalism as a set of aims or values or interests, I think you
miss the great accomplishment of neoliberalism as a mechanism of social cooperation.
Neoliberalism says it aims at freedom and social welfare and innovation and other good
things. If neoliberalism said it aimed to make the richest 0.1% richer at the expense of
everyone else, it would provoke political opposition from the 99% for obvious reasons.
Including opposition from the 9.9% whom they need to run things, to run the state, run the
corporations.
Not being clear on what your true objectives are tends to be an obstacle to organizing
large groups to accomplish those objectives. Being clear on the mission objective is a
prerequisite for organizational effectiveness in most circumstances. The genius of
neoliberalism is such that it is able to achieve a high degree of coordination in detail
across large numbers of people, institutions, even countries while still professing [fake] aims and
values to which few object. A high degree of coordination on implementing a political policy
agenda that is variously parasitical or predatory on the 90%.
You can say this is just hypocrisy of a type the rich have always engaged in, and that
would be true. The predatory rich have always had to disguise their predatory or parasitical
activity, and have often done so by embracing, for example, shows of piety or philanthropy.
So, neoliberalism falls into a familiar albeit broad category.
What distinguishes neoliberalism is how good it is at coordinating the activities of the
9.9% in delivering the goods for the 0.1%. For a post-industrial economy, neoliberalism is
better for the mega-rich than Catholicism was for the feudalism of the High Middle Ages. I do
not think most practicing neoliberals among the 9.9% even think of themselves as
hypocrites.
"Free markets" has been the key move, the fulcrum where anodyne aims and values to which
no one can object meet the actual detailed policy implementation by the state. Creating a
"market" removes power and authority from the state and transfers it to private actors able
to apply financial wealth to managing things, and then, because an actual market cannot
really do the job that's been assigned, a state bureaucracy has to be created to manage the
administrative details and financial flows -- work for the 9.9%
As a special bonus, the insistence on treating a political economy organized in fact by
large public and private bureaucracies as if it is organized by and around "markets"
introduces a high degree of economic agnatology into the conventional political rhetoric.
[This comment sounded much clearer when I conceived of it in the shower this morning. I am
sorry if the actual comment is too abstract or tone deaf. I will probably have to try again
at a later date.]
Pierre Bourdieu, the great French sociologist, would say neoliberalism, like the devil, is
one of those things that makes a priority of pretending it does not exist. (Bourdieu cited
many others.) It makes it much harder for those whose interests it does not serve to fight
it, like forcing someone to eat Jello with a single chopstick.
Amazingly BBC newsnight just started preparing viewers for the possibility that there was no
sarin attack, and the missile strikes might just have been for show, i plying Trump did it
for political reasons. Narrative changing a bit.
#Germany's state media senior correspondent (who is in Damascus right now & also visited
Douma) on primetime evening news on German television: "#Douma chemical attack is most likely
staged. A great many people here seem very convinced."
I too hope he will return soon, he seems to be one of the last sane voices of the msm.
Hopefully high viewer rates help to bring him back, but he wouldn't be the first one to
vanish from the screen, despite high ratings.
"... It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as much despicable behavior and murder as the next. ..."
"... Tucker Carlson of Fox News has it nailed down.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M28aYkLRlm0 ..."
"... This "civil war" has been nothing but a war for Syrian resources waged by western proxies. ..."
"... So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention. ..."
Why is the prime minister of the United Kinkdom on the phone discussing whether or not to bomb a Sovereign country with the highly
unstable, Donald Trump?
Can she not make up her own mind? Either she thinks it's the right thing to do or it isn't. Hopefully,
the person on the other end of the phone was not Trump but someone with at least half a brain.
Proof, let's have some proof. Is that too much to ask? Apparently so. Russia is saying it's all a put up job, show us your
facts. We are saying, don't be silly, we're British and besides, you may have done this sort of thing before.
It is perfectly possible that the British government manufactured the whole Salisbury thing. We are capable of just as
much despicable behavior and murder as the next.
Part of the Great British act's of bravery and heroism in the second world war is the part played by women agents who were
parachuted into France and helped organize local resistance groups. Odette Hallowes, Noor Inayat Khan and Violette Szabo are just
a few of the many names but they are the best known. What is not generally know is that many agents when undergoing their training
in the UK, were given information about the 'D' day landings, the approx time and place. They were then dropped into France into
the hands of the waiting German army who captured and tortured and often executed them.
The double agent, who Winston Churchill met and fully approved of the plan was Henri Dericourt, an officer in the German army
and our man on the ground in France. Dericourt organized the time and place for the drop off of the incoming agents, then told
the Germans. The information about the 'D' day invasion time and place was false. The British fed the agents (only a small number)
into German hands knowing they would be captured and the false information tortured out of them.
Source :- 'A Quiet Courage' Liane Jones.
It's a tough old world and we are certainly capable of a Salisbury set-up and god knows what else in Syria.
From The Guardian articles today that I have read on Syria, it makes absolutely clear that if you in any way question the narrative
forwarded here, that you are a stupid conspiracy theorist in line with Richard Spencer and other far-right, American nutcases.
A more traditional form of argument to incline people to their way of thinking would be facts. But social pressure to conform
and not be a conspiratorial idiot in line with the far-right obviously work better for most of their readers. My only surprise
it that position hasn't been linked with Brexit.
Did anyone see the massive canister that was shown on TV repeatedly that was supposed to have been air-dropped and smashed through
the window of a house, landed on a bed and failed to go off.
The bed was in remarkable condition with just a few ruffled bedclothes considering it had been hit with a metal object weighing
god knows what and dropped from a great height.
"More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate"
The Defoliant Agent Orange was used to kill jungles, resulting in light getting through to the dark jungle floors & a massive
amount of low bush regrowing, making the finding of Vietcong fighters even harder!
It was sprayed even on American troops, it is a horrible stuff. Still compared to Chlorine poison gas, let alone nerve gases,
it is much less terrible. Though the long term effects are pretty horrible.
Who needs facts when you've got opinions? Non more hypocritical than the British. Its what you get when you lie and distort though
a willing press, you get found out and then nobody believes anything you say.anymore. The white helmets are a western funded and
founded organisation, they are NOT independent they are NOT volunteers, The UK the US and the Dutch fund them to the tune of over
$40 million. They are a propaganda dispensing outlet. The press shouldn't report anything they release because it is utterly unable
to substantiate ANY of it, there hasn't been a western journalist in these areas for over 4 years so why do the press expect us
to believe anything they print? Combine this with the worst and most incompetent Govt this country has seen for decades and all
you have is a massive distraction from massive domestic troubles which the same govt has no answers too.
""I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes," [Winston Churchill] declared in one secret memorandum."
The current condemnation by the international community and international law is good and needs enforcement. But no virtue
signalling where there is none.
But we're still awaiting evidence that a chemical attack has been carried out in Douma, aren't we? And if an attack was carried
out, by whom. But before these essential points are verified, you feel that a targeted military response is justified. Are you
equally keen for some targeted military response for the use of chemical weapons, namely white phosphorus, in Palestine by the
Israaeli military? Unlike Douma, the use of these chemical weapons in the occupied territories by the IDF's personnel is well
documented. But we haven't attacked them yet. Funny that.
Instead of "chemicals" why not just firebomb them - you know like we did to entire cities full of women and children in WW2?
Hamburg 27 July 1943 - 46,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Kassel 22 October 1943 - 9,000 civilians killed 24,000 houses destroyed in a firestorm
Darmstadt 11 September 1944 - 8,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Dresden 13/14th February - 25,000 civilians killed in a firestorm
Obviously we were fighting Nazism and hadn't actually been invaded - and he is fighting Wahhabism and has had major cities
overrun...
Maybe if Assad burnt people to death rather than gassing them we would make a statue of him outside Westminster like the one
of Bomber Harris?
Remember the tearful Kuwaiti nurse with her heartrending story of Iraqi troops tipping premature babies out of their incubators
after the invasion in 1990? The story was published in pretty much every major Western newspaper, massively increased public support
for military intervention............................and turned out to be total bullshit.
Is it too much too ask that we try a bit of collective critical thinking and wait for hard evidence before blundering into
a military conflict with Assad; and potentially Putin?
Well, this is the sort of stuff that the Israelis would be gagging for. They want Assad neutralised and they are assisting ISIS
terrorists on the Golan Heights. They tend to their wounded and send them back across the border to fight Assad. What better than
to drag the Americans, Brits and French into the ring to finish him off. Job done eh?
Are you sure you are not promoting an Israeli agenda here Jonathan?
Incidentantally what did we in the west do when the Iraqis were gassing the Iranians with nerve agents in the marshes of southern
Iraq during the Iran Iraq War? Did we intervene then? No, we didn't we allowed it to happen.
Come on frip, you have to admit there was absolutely no motive for Assad's forces to carry out this attack. Why do you think the
Guardian and other main stream media outlets are not even considering the possibility the Jihadi rebels staged it to trigger western
intervention? I know, I know.. it's all evil Assad killing his own people for no other reason than he likes butchering people...
blah blah. The regime change agenda against Syria has been derailed, no amount of false flag attacks can change the facts on the
ground.
More than 40 years after the US sprayed millions of litres of chemical agents to defoliate vast swathes of Vietnam and in the
full knowledge it would be have a catastrophic effect on the health of the inhabitants of those area, Vietnam has by far the highest
incidence of liver cancer on the planet.
Then more recently we have the deadly depleted uranium from US shells that innocent Iraqis are inhaling as shrill voices denounce
Assad.
The Syrian people are heroically resisting and defeating western imperialism. This "civil war" has been nothing but a war
for Syrian resources waged by western proxies.
So now, In desperation borne out of their impending defeat, the imperialists have staged a chemical attack in a last throw
of the dice to gain popular support for an escalation in military intervention. Like military interventions of the past, it is
being justified in the name of humanitarian intervention.
But if we have a brief browse of history we can see that US & UK governments have brought only death, misery and destruction
on the populations it was supposedly helping. Hands off Syria.
"... People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government and its European vassals toward Russia. ..."
"... In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0 Published on Apr 13, 2018 ..."
A normal person would answer "yes" to the three questions. So what does this tell us about
Trump's government as these insane actions are the principle practice of Trump's
government?
Does anyone doubt that Nikki Haley is insane?
Does anyone doubt that John Bolton is insane?
Does anyone doubt that Mike Pompeo is insane?
Does this mean that Trump is insane for appointing to the top positions insane people who
foment war with a nuclear power?
Does this mean that Congress is insane for approving these appointments?
These are honest questions. Assuming we avoid the Trump-promised Syrian showdown, how long
before the insane Trump regime orchestrates another crisis?
The entire world should understand that because of the existence of the insane Trump regime,
the continued existence of life on earth is very much in question.
People such as Stephen Cohen and myself, who were actively involved throughout the entirety
of the Cold War, are astonished at the reckless and irresponsible behavior of the US government
and its European vassals toward Russia. Nothing as irresponsible as what we have witnessed
since the Clinton regime and which has worsened dramatically under the Obama and Trump regimes
would have been imaginable during the Cold War. In this brief video, Stephen Cohen describes to
Tucker Carlson the extreme danger of the present situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvK1Eu01Lz0
Published on Apr 13, 2018
The failure of political leadership throughout the Western world is total. Such total
failure is likely to prove deadly to life on earth.
"... And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped." ..."
"... Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev, who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. ..."
"... Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding ..."
"... Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. ..."
"... america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon. ..."
"... The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators. ..."
"... However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front. ..."
"... So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control. ..."
Haass writes: " Liberalism is in retreat. Democracies are feeling the effects of growing populism. Parties of the political extremes
have gained ground in Europe. The vote in the United Kingdom in favor of leaving the EU attested to the loss of elite influence.
Even the US is experiencing unprecedented attacks from its own president on the country's media, courts, and law-enforcement institutions.
Authoritarian systems, including China, Russia, and Turkey, have become even more top-heavy. Countries such as Hungary and Poland
seem uninterested in the fate of their young democracies
"We are seeing the emergence of regional orders. Attempts to build global frameworks are failing."
Haass has previously made alarmist statements , but this
time he is employing his rhetoric to point to the global nature of this phenomenon. Although between the lines one can easily read,
first of all, a certain degree of arrogance -- the idea that only we liberals and globalists really know how to administer foreign
policy -- and second, the motifs of conspiracy.
"Today's other major powers, including the EU, Russia, China, India, and Japan, could be criticized for what they are doing,
not doing, or both."
Probably this list could be expanded by adding a number of Latin American countries, plus Egypt, which signs arms deals with North
Korea while denying any violation of UN sanctions, and the burgeoning Shiite axis of Iran-Iraq-Syria-Lebanon.
But Haass is crestfallen over the fact that it is Washington itself that is changing the rules of the game and seems completely
uninterested in what its allies, partners, and clients in various corners of the world will do.
" America's decision to abandon the role it has played for more than seven decades thus marks a turning point. The liberal
world order cannot survive on its own, because others lack either the interest or the means to sustain it. The result will be
a world that is less free, less prosperous, and less peaceful, for Americans and others alike."
Richard Haass's colleague at the CFR, Stewart Patrick, quite agrees with the claim that it is
the US itself that is burying the liberal world order . However, it's not doing it on its own, but alongside China. If the US
had previously been hoping that the process of globalization would gradually transform China (and possibly destroy it, as happened
to the Soviet Union earlier), then the Americans must have been quite surprised by how it has actually played out. That country modernized
without being Westernized, an idea that had once been endorsed by the leader of the Islamic revolution in Iran, Ayatollah Khomeini.
Now China is expanding its influence in Eurasia in its own way, and this is for the most part welcomed by its partner countries.
But this has been a painful process for the US, as it is steadily and irrevocably undermining its hegemony.
"Its long-term ambition is to dismantle the U.S. alliance system in Asia, replacing it with a more benign (from Beijing's perspective)
regional security order in which it enjoys pride of place, and ideally a sphere of influence commensurate with its power.
China's Belt and Road initiative is part and parcel of this effort, offering not only (much-needed) infrastructure investments
in neighboring countries but also the promise of greater political influence in Southeast, South, and Central Asia. More aggressively,
China continues to advance outrageous jurisdictional claims over almost the entirety of the South China Sea , where it continues
its island-building activities, as well as engaging in provocative actions against Japan in the East China Sea," writes Patrick.
And as for the US:
"The United States, for its part, is a weary titan, no longer willing to bear the burdens of global leadership, either economically
or geopolitically.
Trump treats alliances as a protection racket, and the world economy as an arena of zero-sum competition. The result is a fraying
liberal international order without a champion willing to invest in the system itself. "
One can agree with both authors' assessments of the changed behavior of one sector of the US establishment, but this is about
more than just Donald Trump (who is so unpredictable that he has
staffed his own team with a member of the very swamp he was preparing to drain) and North American populism. One needs to look
much deeper.
"Today, American democratic exceptionalism is defined by a system that is dysfunctional in all the conditions that are needed
for settlement and loyalty...
Capitalism has collapsed into crisis in an orgy of deregulation. Money is transgressing into politics and undermining democracy
itself ."
And, quoting his colleague Archon Fung from the Harvard Kennedy School, " American politics is no longer characterized by
the rule of the median voter, if it ever was. Instead, in contemporary America the median capitalist rules as both the Democratic
and Republican parties adjust their policies to attract monied interests." And finally Mr. Ringen adds, "American politicians are
aware of having sunk into a murky bog of moral corruption but are trapped."
Trump merely reflects the dysfunctionality and internal contradictions of American politics. He is the American Gorbachev,
who kicked off perestroika at the wrong time. Although it must be conceded that if Hillary Clinton had become president, the
US collapse would have been far more painful, particularly for the citizens of that country. We would have seen yet more calamitous
reforms, a swelling influx of migrants, a further decline in the nation's manufacturing base, and the incitement of new conflicts.
Trump is trying to keep the body of US national policy somewhat alive through hospice care, but what's really needed is a major restructuring,
including far-reaching political reforms that would allow the country's citizens to feel that they can actually play a role in its
destiny.
These developments have spread to many countries in Europe, a continent that, due to its transatlantic involvement, was already
vulnerable and susceptible to the current geopolitical turbulence. The emergence of which, by the way, was largely a consequence
of that very policy of neoliberalism.
Stein Ringen continues on that score:
"Global financial services exercise monopolistic power over national policies, unchecked by any semblance of global political
power. Trust is haemorrhaging. The European Union, the greatest ever experiment in super-national democracy, is imploding
"
It is interesting that panic has seized Western Europe and the US -- the home of transatlanticism, although different versions
of this recipe for liberalism have been employed in other regions -- suffice it to recall the experience of Singapore or Brazil.
But they don't seem as panicked there as in the West.
Probably this is because the Western model of neoliberalism does not provide any real freedom of commerce, speech, or political
activity, but rather imposes a regime of submission within a clearly defined framework. Therefore, the destruction of the current
system entails the loss of all those dividends previously enjoyed by the liberal political elites of the West that were obtained
by speculating in the stock market, from the mechanisms of international foreign-exchange payments (the dollar system), and through
the instruments of supranational organizations (the UN, WTO, and World Bank). And, of course, there are the fundamental differences
in the cultural varieties of societies.
In his book The Hidden God, Lucien Goldmann draws some interesting conclusions, suggesting that the foundations of Western culture
have rationalistic and tragic origins, and that a society immersed in these concepts that have "abolish[ed] both God and the community
[soon sees] the disappearance of any external norm which might guide the individual in his life and actions." And because by its
very nature liberalism must carry on, in its mechanical fashion, "liberating" the individual from any form of structure (social classes,
the Church, family, society, and gender, ultimately liberating man from his very self), in the absence of any standards of deterrence,
it is quite logical that the Western world was destined to eventually find itself in crisis. And the surge of populist movements,
protectionist measures, and conservative policies of which Haass and other liberal globalists speak are nothing more than examples
of those nations' instinct for self-preservation. One need not concoct conspiracy theories about Russia or Putin interfering in the
US election (which Donald Trump has also denied, noting only that support was seen for Hillary Clinton, and it is entirely true that
a portion of her financial backing did come from Russia). The baseline political decisions being made in the West are in step with
the current crisis that is evident on so many levels. It's just that, like always, the Western elites need their ritual whipping
boy(although it would be more accurate to call it a human sacrifice). This geopolitical shake-up began in the West as a result of
the implicit nature of the very project of the West itself.
But since alternative development scenarios exist, the current system is eroding away. And other political projects are starting
to fill the resultant ideological void -- in both form as well as content.
Thus it's fairly likely that the current crisis of liberalism will definitively bury the unipolar Western system of hegemony.
And the budding movements of populism and regional protectionism can serve as the basis for a new, multipolar world order.
Oh, Wicked Witch of the West Wing, the cleansing fire awaits thy demise! Those meds can only keep you standing for so long.
Keep tripping. Keep stumbling. Satan calls you to him. The day approacheth. Tick tock tick tock. 👹😂
Democracy ultimately melts down into chaos. We have a perfectly good US Constitution, why don't we go back to using it as written?
That said, I am for anything that makes the elites become common.
Democracy is a form of government. Populism is a movement. Populist movements come about when the current form of government
is failing ... historically it seems they seldom choose wisely.
Ridiculous cunt Hillary thinks after getting REJECTED by the voters in the USA that somehow being asked to "go the fuck away
and shut the fuck up" makes her a women's leader. The cocksucker Soros and some of these other non-elected globalist should keep
in mind that while everybody has a right to an opinion: it took the Clinton Crime Family and lots of corruption to create the
scandals that sets a Clinton Crime Family member aside, and why Soros was given a free pass on election meddling and not others
requires congressional investigation and a special prosecutor. And then there is that special kind of legal and ignorant opinion
like David Hogg who I just disagree with, making him in my opinion and many fellow NRA members a cocksucker and a cunt. I'd wish
shingles on David Hogg, Hillary Clinton, and Soros.
america is going through withdraw from 30 years of trickledown crap. the young are realizing that the shithole they inherit
does not have to be a shithole, and the old pathetic white old men who run the show will be dead soon.
all i see is a bunch of fleeting old people who found facebook 10 years late are temporarily empowered since they can now connect
with other equally impotent old people.
The usual self-serving swill from the Best and the Brightest of the Predator Class out of the CFR via Haas.
The liberal order aka the New British Empire, was born 70 years ago by firebombing and nuking undefended civilian targets.
It proceeded to launch serial genocidal rampages in the Koreas, SE Asia, Latin America until finally burning down a large portion
of the Middle East.
The fact that there has not been a catastrophic nuclear war is pure dumb luck. The Deep State came within seconds of engineering
a nuclear cataclysm off the waters of Cuba in 1962. When JFK started dismantling the CIA Deep State and ending the Cold War with
the USSR, Dulles dispatched a CIA hit-squad to gun down the President. (RFK and Nixon immediately understood the assassination
was a CIA-led wet-works operation since they chaired the assassination committees themselves in the past).
The liberal order is dying because it is led by criminally depraved Predators who have pauperized the labor force and created
political strife, though the populists don't pose much threat to the liberal-order Predators.
However by shipping the productive Western economies overseas to Asia, the US in particular cannot finance and physically
support a military empire or the required R&D to stay competitive on the commercial and military front.
So the US Imperialists are being eclipsed by the Sino-Russo Alliance and wants us to believe this is a great tragedy. Meanwhile
the same crew of Liberal -neoCon Deep Staters presses on with wars and tensions that are slipping out of control.
Liberalism is anything but liberal... and I suppose that is the problem with it. It aims to do to the western world what Mao
did to China and Stalin did to Russia. Many people were murdered or imprisoned and people had no rights, just obligations to dictators
and their cronies.
I think this world is past the point where any benefit is gained from having "owners of the people", benevolent or otherwise.
And we certainly do not benefit from perverted demonic entities even if they come bearing technology. The price is too high.
Populism goes along with essential freedoms for the human race.-
As I told the idiotic retards who argued with me on Prodigy fucking 27 years ago, China will not change because of increased
trading and the West making them wealthier. In fact, just the opposite. I wonder if they have caught on yet?
Like many high demand cults neoliberalism is a trap, from which it is very difficult to escape...
Notable quotes:
"... A large, open-border global free market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism. ..."
"... Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant in nations where interventions are staged. ..."
"... The enduring lie is that there is no democracy without economic democracy. ..."
This 'Washington Consensus' is the false promise promoted by the West. The reality is quite
different. The crux of neoliberalism is to eliminate democratic government by downsizing,
privatizing, and deregulating it. Proponents of neoliberalism recognize that the state is the
last bulwark of protection for the common people against the predations of capital. Remove the
state and they'll be left defenseless .
Think about it. Deregulation eliminates the laws. Downsizing eliminates departments and their
funding. Privatizing eliminates the very purpose of the state by having the private sector take
over its traditional responsibilities.
Ultimately, nation-states would dissolve except perhaps for armies and tax systems. A large, open-border global free
market would be left, not subject to popular control but managed by a globally dispersed, transnational one percent. And the
whole process of making this happen would be camouflaged beneath the altruistic stylings of a benign humanitarianism.
Globalists, as neoliberal capitalists are often called, also understood that democracy, defined
by a smattering of individual rights and a voting booth, was the ideal vehicle to usher
neoliberalism into the emerging world. Namely because democracy, as commonly practiced, makes
no demands in the economic sphere. Socialism does. Communism does. These models directly
address ownership of the means of production. Not so democratic capitalism. This permits the
globalists to continue to own the means of production while proclaiming human rights triumphant
in nations where interventions are staged.
The enduring lie is that there is no democracy
without economic democracy.
What matters to the one percent and the media conglomerates that disseminate their worldview is
that the official definitions are accepted by the masses. The real effects need never be known.
The neoliberal ideology (theory) thus conceals the neoliberal reality (practice). And for the
masses to accept it, it must be mass produced. Then it becomes more or less invisible by virtue
of its universality.
The crisis of neoliberalism is at the core of current anti-Russian campaign.
Notable quotes:
"... So, as long as Russia remained open to the West's political maneuvering and wholesale thievery, every thing was hunky-dory. But as soon as Vladimir Putin got his bearings (during his second term as President) and started reassembling the broken state, then western elites became very concerned and denounced Putin as an "autocrat" and a "KGB thug." ..."
"... As the Western countries' elites were implementing a policy of political and economic containment of Russia, old threats were growing and new ones were emerging in the world, and the efforts to do away with them have failed. I think that the main reason for that is that the model of "West-centric" globalization, which developed following the dismantling of the bipolar architecture and was aimed at ensuring the prosperity of one-seventh of the world's population at the expense of the rest, proved ineffective. It is becoming more and more obvious that a narrow group of "chosen ones" is unable to ensure the sustainable growth of the global economy on their own and solve such major challenges as poverty, climate change, shortage of food and other vital resources . ..."
"... The American people need to look beyond the propaganda and try to grasp what's really going on. Russia is not Washington's enemy, it's a friend that's trying to nudge the US in adirection that will increase its opportunities for peace and prosperity in the future. Lavrov is simply pointing out that a multipolar world is inevitable as economic power becomes more widespread. This emerging reality means the US will have to modify its behavior, cooperate with other sovereign nations, comply with international law, and seek a peaceful settlement to disputes. It means greater parity between the states, fairer representation in global decision-making, and a narrower gap between the world's winners and losers. ..."
"... Admit it: The imperial model has failed. It's time to move on. ..."
The United States has launched a three-pronged offensive on Russia. First, it's attacking Russia's economy via sanctions and oil-price
manipulation. Second, it's increasing the threats to Russia's national security by arming and training militant proxies in Syria
and Ukraine, and by encircling Russia with NATO forces and missile systems. And, third, it's conducting a massive disinformation
campaign aimed at convincing the public that Russia is a 'meddling aggressor' that wants to destroy the foundation of American democracy.
(Elections)
In response to Washington's hostility, Moscow has made every effort to extend the olive branch. Russia does not want to fight
the world's biggest superpower any more than it wants to get bogged down in a bloody and protracted conflict in Syria. What Russia
wants is normal, peaceful relations based on respect for each others interests and for international law. What Russia will not tolerate,
however, is another Iraq-type scenario where the sovereign rights of a strategically-located state are shunted off so the US can
arbitrarily topple the government, decimate the society and plunge the region deeper into chaos. Russia won't allow that, which is
why it has put its Airforce at risk in Syria, to defend the foundational principle of state sovereignty upon which the entire edifice
of global security rests.
The majority of Americans believe that Russia is the perpetrator of hostilities against the United States, mainly because the
media and the political class have faithfully disseminated the spurious claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 elections. But the
allegations are ridiculous and without merit. Russia-gate is merely the propaganda component of Washington's Full Spectrum Dominance
theory, that is, disinformation is being used to make it appear as though the US is the victim when, in fact, it is the perpetrator
of hostilities against Russia. Simply put, the media has turned reality on its head. Washington wants to inflict as much pain as
possible on Russia because Russia has frustrated its plan to control critical resources and pipeline corridors in Central Asia and
the Middle East. The Trump administration's new National Defense Strategy is quite clear on this point. Russia's opposition to Washington's
destabilizing interventions has earned it the top spot on the Pentagon's "emerging rivals" list. Moscow is now Public Enemy#1.
Washington's war on Russia has a long history dating back at least 100 years to the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Despite the
fact that the US was engaged in a war with Germany at the time (WW1), Washington and its allies sent 150,000 men from 15 nations
to intervene on behalf of the "Whites" hoping to staunch the spread of communism into Europe. In the words of British Prime Minister
Winston Churchill, the goal was "to strangle the Bolshevik baby in its crib."
According to Vasilis Vourkoutiotis from the University of Ottawa:
" the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War.. was a failed attempt to eradicate Bolshevism while it was still weak .As
early as February 1918 Britain supported intervention in the civil war on behalf of the Whites, and in March it landed troops
in Murmansk. They were soon joined by forces from France, Italy, Japan, the United States, and ten other nations. Eventually,
more than 150,000 Allied soldiers served in Russia
The scale of the war between the Russian Reds and Whites, however, was such that the Allies soon realized they would have little,
if any, direct impact on the course of the Civil War unless they were prepared to intervene on a far grander scale. By the end
of April 1919 the French had withdrawn their soldiers .British and American troops saw some action in November 1918 on the Northern
Front but this campaign was of limited significance in the outcome of the Civil War. The last British and American soldiers were
withdrawn in 1920. The main Allied contributions to the White cause thereafter were supplies and money, mostly from Britain .
The chief purpose of Allied intervention in Soviet Russia was to help the Whites defeat the Reds and destroy Bolshevism." (Allied
Intervention in the Russian Revolution", portalus.ru)
The reason we bring up this relatively unknown bit of history is because it helps to put current events into perspective. First,
it helps readers to see that Washington has been sticking its nose in Russia's business more than a century. Second, it shows that–
while Washington's war on Russia has ebbed and flowed depending on the political situation in Moscow– it has never completely ended.
The US has always treated Russia with suspicion, contempt and brutality. During the Cold War, when Russia's global activities put
a damper on Washington's depredations around the world, relations remained stretched to the breaking point. But after the Soviet
Union collapsed in December, 1991, relations gradually thawed, mainly because the buffoonish Boris Yeltsin opened the country up
to a democratization program that allowed the state's most valuable strategic assets to be transferred to voracious oligarchs for
pennies on the dollar. The plundering of Russia pleased Washington which is why it sent a number of prominent US economists to Moscow
to assist in the transition from communism to a free-market system. These neoliberal miscreants subjected the Russian economy to
"shock therapy" which required the auctioning off of state-owned resources and industries even while hyperinflation continued to
rage and the minuscule life savings of ordinary working people were wiped out almost over night. The upshot of this Washington-approved
looting-spree was a dramatic uptick in extreme poverty which intensified the immiseration of tens of millions of people. Economist
Joseph Stiglitz followed events closely in Russia at the time and summed it up like this:
"In Russia, the people were told that capitalism was going to bring new, unprecedented prosperity. In fact, it brought unprecedented
poverty, indicated not only by a fall in living standards, not only by falling GDP, but by decreasing life spans and enormous
other social indicators showing a deterioration in the quality of life ..
(Due to) the tight monetary policies that were pursued firms didn't have the money to even pay their employees . they didn't
have enough money to pay their pensioners, to pay their workers .Then, with the government not having enough revenue, other aspects
of life started to deteriorate. They didn't have enough money for hospitals, schools. Russia used to have one of the good school
systems in the world; the technical level of education was very high. (But they no longer had) enough money for that. So it just
began to affect people in every dimension of their lives .
The number of people in poverty in Russia, for instance, increased from 2 percent to somewhere between 40 and 50 percent, with
more than one out of two children living in families below poverty. The market economy was a worse enemy for most of these people
than the Communists had said it would be. It brought Gucci bags, Mercedes, the fruits of capitalism to a few .But you had a shrinking
(economy). The GDP in Russia fell by 40 percent. In some (parts) of the former Soviet Union, the GDP, the national income, fell
by over 70 percent. And with that smaller pie it was more and more unequally divided, so a few people got bigger and bigger slices,
and the majority of people wound up with less and less and less . (PBS interview with Joseph Stiglitz, Commanding Heights)
So, as long as Russia remained open to the West's political maneuvering and wholesale thievery, every thing was hunky-dory.
But as soon as Vladimir Putin got his bearings (during his second term as President) and started reassembling the broken state, then
western elites became very concerned and denounced Putin as an "autocrat" and a "KGB thug." At the same time, Washington continued
its maniacal push eastward using its military catspaw, NATO, to achieve its geopolitical ambitions to control vital resources and
industries in the most populous and prosperous region of the coming century, Eurasia. After promising Russian President Gorbachev
that NATO would never "expand one inch to the east", the US-led military alliance added 13 new countries to its membership, all of
them straddling Russia's western flank, all of them located, like Hitler, on Russia's doorstep, all of them posing an existential
threat to Russia's survival. NATO forces now routinely conduct provocative military drills just miles from the Russian border while
state-of-the-art missile systems surround Russia on all sides. (Imagine Russia conducting similar drills in the Gulf of Mexico or
on the Canadian border. How would Washington respond?)
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave an excellent summary of post Cold War history at a gathering of the Korber Foundation
in Berlin in 2017. Brainwashed Americans who foolishly blame Russia for meddling in the 2016 elections, should pay attention to what
he said.
LAVROV– "Ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall we have shown our cards, trying to do our best to assert the values of equal
partnership in international affairs .Back in the early 1990s, we withdrew our troops from Eastern and Central Europe and the
Baltic states and dramatically downsized our military capacity near our western borders
When the cold war era came to an end, Russia was hoping that this would become our common victory – the victory of both the
former Communist bloc countries and the West. The dreams of ushering in shared peace and cooperation seemed near to fruition.
However, the United States and its allies decided to declare themselves the sole winners, refusing to work together to create
the architecture of equal and indivisible security. They made their choice in favor of shifting the dividing lines to our borders
– through expanding NATO and then through the implementation of the EU's Eastern Partnership program
As the Western countries' elites were implementing a policy of political and economic containment of Russia, old threats
were growing and new ones were emerging in the world, and the efforts to do away with them have failed. I think that the main
reason for that is that the model of "West-centric" globalization, which developed following the dismantling of the bipolar architecture
and was aimed at ensuring the prosperity of one-seventh of the world's population at the expense of the rest, proved ineffective.
It is becoming more and more obvious that a narrow group of "chosen ones" is unable to ensure the sustainable growth of the global
economy on their own and solve such major challenges as poverty, climate change, shortage of food and other vital resources .
The latest events are clear evidence that the persistent attempts to form a unipolar world order have failed .The new centers
of economic growth and concomitant political influence are assuming responsibility for the state of affairs in their regions.
Let me reiterate that the emergence of multipolar world order is a fact and a reality. Seeking to hold back this process and keep
the unfairly gained privileged positions is going to lead nowhere. We see increasing examples of nations raising their voice in
defense of their right to decide their own destiny ." (Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister)
The American people need to look beyond the propaganda and try to grasp what's really going on. Russia is not Washington's
enemy, it's a friend that's trying to nudge the US in adirection that will increase its opportunities for peace and prosperity in
the future. Lavrov is simply pointing out that a multipolar world is inevitable as economic power becomes more widespread. This emerging
reality means the US will have to modify its behavior, cooperate with other sovereign nations, comply with international law, and
seek a peaceful settlement to disputes. It means greater parity between the states, fairer representation in global decision-making,
and a narrower gap between the world's winners and losers.
Who doesn't want this? Who doesn't want to see an end of the bloody US-led invasions, the countless drone assassinations, the
vast destruction of ancient civilizations, and the senseless slaughter of innocent men, women and children? Who doesn't want to see
Washington's wings clipped so the bloodletting stops and the millions of refugees and internally displaced can return to their homes?
Lavrov offers a vision of the future that all peace-loving people should welcome with open arms.
Admit it: The imperial model has failed. It's time to move on.
Are powerful intelligence agencies compatible even with limited neoliberal democracy, or
democracy for top 10 or 1%?
Notable quotes:
"... I recall during the George II administration someone in congress advocating for he return of debtor's prisons during the 'debat' over ending access to bankruptcy ..."
"... Soros, like the Koch brothers, heads an organization. He has lots of "people" who do what he demands of them. ..."
"... Let's give these guys (and gals, too, let's not forget the Pritzkers and DeVoses and the Walton Family, just among us Norte Americanos) full credit for all the hard work they are putting in, and money too, of course, to buy a world the way they want it -- one which us mopes have only slave roles to play... ..."
You have a good point, but I often think that, a the machinery of surveillance and repression
becomes so well oiled and refined, the ruling oligarchs will soon stop even paying lip
service to 'American workers', or the "American middle class" and go full authoritarian. Karl
Rove's dream to return the economy to the late 19th Century standard.
The Clintonoid project seems set on taking it to the late 16th century. Probably with a
return of chattel slavery. I recall during the George II administration someone in congress
advocating for he return of debtor's prisons during the 'debat' over ending access to
bankruptcy
Soros, like the Koch brothers, heads an organization. He has lots of "people" who do what he
demands of them.
Do you really contend that Soros and the Koch brothers, and people like Adelson, aren't busily "undermining American democracy," whatever that is, via their
organizations (like ALEC and such) in favor of their oligarchic kleptocratic interests, and
going at it 24/7?
The phrase "reductio ad absurdam" comes to mind, for some reason...
Let's give these guys (and gals, too, let's not forget the Pritzkers and DeVoses and the
Walton Family, just among us Norte Americanos) full credit for all the hard work they are
putting in, and money too, of course, to buy a world the way they want it -- one which us
mopes have only slave roles to play...
At the core of Trumpism is the rejection of neoliberalism
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands: " Consider
this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one of whom ever built
a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since Bush I. Our cities have
been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence Hamilton sought and Republican
presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
Notable quotes:
"... Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and Divided America Forever." ..."
"I walk through this world with greater courage and hope when I find myself in a relation of friendship and intimacy with this
great man, whose fame has gone out not only over all Russia, but the world. We regard Marshal Stalin's life as most precious to the
hopes and hearts of all of us."
Returning home, Churchill assured a skeptical Parliament, "I know of no Government which stands to its obligations, even in its
own despite, more solidly than the Russian Soviet Government."
George W. Bush, with the U.S. establishment united behind him, invaded Iraq with the goal of creating a Vermont in the Middle
East that would be a beacon of democracy to the Arab and Islamic world.
Ex-Director of the NSA Gen. William Odom correctly called the U.S. invasion the greatest strategic blunder in American history.
But Bush, un-chastened, went on to preach a crusade for democracy with the goal of "ending tyranny in our world."
... ... ...
After our victory in the Cold War, we not only plunged into the Middle East to remake it in our image, we issued war guarantees
to every ex-member state of the Warsaw Pact, and threatened Russia with war if she ever intervened again in the Baltic Republics.
No Cold War president would have dreamed of issuing such an in-your-face challenge to a great nuclear power like Russia. If Putin's
Russia does not become the pacifist nation it has never been, these guarantees will one day be called. And America will either back
down -- or face a nuclear confrontation. Why would we risk something like this?
Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants, not one
of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits since
Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic independence
Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history.
But the greatest risk we are taking, based on utopianism, is the annual importation of well over a million legal and illegal immigrants,
many from the failed states of the Third World, in the belief we can create a united, peaceful and harmonious land of 400 million,
composed of every race, religion, ethnicity, tribe, creed, culture and language on earth.
Where is the historic evidence for the success of this experiment, the failure of which could mean the end of America as one nation
and one people?
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of a new book, "Nixon's White House Wars: The Battles That Made and Broke a President and
Divided America Forever."
Pat Buchanan does not understand neoliberalism well and mixes apples with oranges, but the key idea expressed here stands:
" Consider this crazed ideology of free trade globalism with its roots in the scribblings of 19th-century idiot savants,
not one of whom ever built a great nation. Adhering religiously to free trade dogma, we have run up $12 trillion in trade deficits
since Bush I. Our cities have been gutted by the loss of plants and factories. Workers' wages have stagnated. The economic
independence Hamilton sought and Republican presidents from Lincoln to McKinley achieved is history."
The truth is that now Trump does not represent "Trumpism" -- the movement that he created which includes the following:
– rejection of neoliberal globalization;
– rejection of unrestricted immigration;
– fight against suppression of wages by multinationals via cheap imported labor;
– fight against the elimination of meaningful, well-paying jobs via outsourcing and offshoring of manufacturing;
– rejection of wars for enlargement and sustaining of neoliberal empire, especially NATO role as global policemen and wars for
Washington client Israel in the Middle East;
– détente with Russia;
– more pragmatic relations with Israel and suppression of Israeli agents of influence;
– revision of relations with China and addressing the problem of trade deficit.
– rejection of total surveillance on all citizens;
– the cut of military expenses to one third or less of the current level and concentrating on revival on national infrastructure,
education, and science.
– abandonment of maintenance of the "sole superpower" status and global neoliberal empire for more practical and less costly "semi-isolationist"
foreign policy; closing of unnecessary foreign military bases and cutting aid to the current clients.
Of course, the notion of "Trumpism" is fuzzy and different people might include some additional issues and disagree with some
listed here, but the core probably remains.
Of course, Trump is under relentless attack (coup d'état or, more precisely, a color revolution) of neoliberal fifth column,
which includes Clinton gang, fifth column elements within his administration (Rosenstein, etc) as well from remnants of Obama
administration (Brennan, Comey, Clapper) and associated elements within corresponding intelligence agencies. He probably was forced
into some compromises just to survive. He also has members of the neoliberal fifth column within his family (Ivanka and Kushner).
So the movement now is in deep need of a new leader.
That's a good summary of what the public voted for and didn't get.
And whether Trump has sold out, or was blackmailed or was a cynical manipulative liar for the beginning is really irrelevant.
The fact is that he is not doing it – so he is just blocking the way.
At some point the US public are going to have to forget about their "representatives" (Trump and Congress and the rest of
them) and get out onto the street to make themselves heard. The population of the US is 323 million people and if just 1/2
of 1% (1,6 million) of them decided to visit Congress directly the US administration might get the message.
pyrrhus, March 3, 2018 at 2:15 am GMT
@anon
Finally, Pat understands that the American [Neoliberal] Empire and habit of intervention all over the world is a disaster.
Very weak analysis The authors completely missed the point. Susceptibility to rumors (now
called "fake new" which more correctly should be called "improvised news") and high level of
distrust to "official MSM" (of which popularity of alternative news site is only tip of the
iceberg) is a sign of the crisis and tearing down of the the social fabric that hold the so
social groups together. This first of all demonstrated with the de-legitimization of the
neoliberal elite.
As such attempt to patch this discord and unite the US society of fake premises of Russiagate
and anti-Russian hysteria look very problematic. The effect might be quite opposite as the story
with Steele dossier, which really undermined credibility of Justice Department and destroyed the
credibility o FBI can teach us.
In this case claims that "The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan
" are just s a sign of rejection of neoliberalism by voters. Nothing more nothing less.
Notable quotes:
"... It has infected the American political system, weakening the body politic and leaving it vulnerable to manipulation. Russian misinformation seems to have exacerbated the symptoms, but laced throughout the indictment are reminders that the underlying disease, arguably far more damaging, is all American-made. ..."
"... A recent study found that the people most likely to consume fake news were already hyperpartisan and close followers of politics, and that false stories were only a small fraction of their media consumption. ..."
That these efforts might have actually made a difference, or at least were intended to,
highlights a force that was already destabilizing American democracy far more than any
Russian-made fake news post: partisan polarization.
"Partisanship can even alter memory, implicit evaluation, and even perceptual judgment," the
political scientists Jay J. Van Bavel and Andrea Pereira wrote in a recent paper . "The human attraction to fake and
untrustworthy news" -- a danger cited by political scientists far more frequently than
orchestrated meddling -- "poses a serious problem for healthy democratic functioning."
It has infected the American political system, weakening the body politic and leaving it
vulnerable to manipulation. Russian misinformation seems to have exacerbated the symptoms, but
laced throughout the indictment are reminders that the underlying disease, arguably far more
damaging, is all American-made.
... ... ...
A recent study found
that the people most likely to consume fake news were already hyperpartisan and close followers
of politics, and that false stories were only a small fraction of their media
consumption.
Americans, it said, sought out stories that reflected their already-formed partisan view of
reality. This suggests that these Russians efforts are indicators -- not drivers -- of how
widely Americans had polarized.
That distinction matters for how the indictment is read: Though Americans have seen it as
highlighting a foreign threat, it also illustrates the perhaps graver threats from
within.
An Especially Toxic Form of Partisanship
... ... ...
"Compromise is the core of democracy," she said. "It's the only way we can govern." But, she
said, "when you make people feel threatened, nobody compromises with evil."
The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan is in many ways just a
faint echo of the partisan anger and fear already dominating American politics.
Those emotions undermine a key norm that all sides are served by honoring democratic
processes; instead, they justify, or even seem to mandate, extreme steps against the other
side.
In taking this approach, the Russians were merely riding a trend that has been building for
decades.
Since the 1980s , surveys have found that Republicans and Democrats' feelings toward the
opposing party have been growing more and more negative. Voters are animated more by distrust
of the other side than support for their own.
This highlights a problem that Lilliana Mason, a University of Maryland political scientist,
said had left American democracy dangerously vulnerable. But it's a problem driven primarily by
American politicians and media outlets, which have far louder megaphones than any Russian-made
Facebook posts.
"Compromise is the core of democracy," she said. "It's the only way we can govern." But, she
said, "when you make people feel threatened, nobody compromises with evil."
The claim that, for example, Mrs. Clinton's victory might aid Satan is in many ways just a
faint echo of the partisan anger and fear already dominating American politics.
Those emotions undermine a key norm that all sides are served by honoring democratic
processes; instead, they justify, or even seem to mandate, extreme steps against the other
side.
Money quote: "And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries
or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them
hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World War
3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative than real.
And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or no leverage,
to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating their cooperation."
Notable quotes:
"... And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World War 3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative than real. And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or no leverage, to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating their cooperation. ..."
"... Cohen-Watnick is thirty years old and has little relevant experience for the position he holds, senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council. But his inexperience counts for little as he is good friend of son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has told the New York Times ..."
"... Both Cohen-Watnick and Harvey share the neoconservative belief that the Iranians and their proxies in Syria and Iraq need to be confronted by force, an opportunity described by Foreign Policy ..."
"... What danger to the U.S. or its actual treaty allies an Iranian influenced land corridor would constitute remains a mystery but there is no shortage of Iran haters in the White House. Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar sees "unrelenting hostility from the Trump administration" towards Iran and notes "cherry-picking" of the intelligence to make a case for war, similar to what occurred with Iraq in 2002-3. And even though Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster have pushed back against the impulsive Cohen-Watnick and Harvey, their objections are tactical as they do not wish to make U.S. forces in the region vulnerable to attacks coming from a new direction. Otherwise they too consider Iran as America's number one active enemy and believe that war is inevitable. Donald Trump has unfortunately also jumped directly into the argument on the side of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of which would like to see Washington go to war with Tehran on their behalf. ..."
"... You forgot the third significant potential threat from a friendly nation, i.e. Israel. Israel will sabotage any effort to normallize relations with Russia or even Iran. They will resort to false flag operations to start a war with Iran. ..."
"... The problem with this White House, as well as the previous ones, is that none of the so-called experts really understand the Middle East. The US is not interested in having friendly relations with all nations. All her efforts are towards one goal, the world domination. Even if President Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia, the MSM, the democrats, as well as, his republican opponents will not let him. ..."
"... That is why the constan drumbeat of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election despite the fact that no proof has been given so far. Similarly, the "Iran has nuclear weapons" narrative is constantly repeated, the reports by IAEA and the 17 Intelligence Agencies to the contrary not withstanding. ..."
"... The elevation of Muhammad bin Salman to the Crown Prince position will only make the Middle East situation worse. Israel will be able to manipulate him much more easily than the old guard. ..."
"... The titanic elephant in the room -- that US foreign policy is not governed by "rationality" but by "special interests" seems .missing ..."
"... Trump has no control of most government functions, particularly foreign affairs. The Deep State takes care of that for him. The Deep State has been calling the shots for decades and all Presidents who weren't assassinated have complied. Democracies never work and ours quit long ago. ..."
"... I fully agree that attacking Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy', the 'real' one, no less, in alt-media circles like this. I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security. Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US? ..."
"... The BIGGEST threat to the USA is from within, as we are nothing more than an occupied colony of Apartheid Israel, paying that bastard state tributes each year in the form of free money and weapons, political backing at the UN, and never tire of fighting her wars of conquest. ..."
"... The also have a choke-hold on Congress, which is always eager to wag their tail and hope their Yid Overlord gives them a treat and not a dressing-down in the Jew MSM, which is a career killer. ..."
"... Israel's current "agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others to do their "dirty work" for them. ..."
"... There's no alternative to Saudi royal family rule of the peninsula. Who's there to replace them? Any other group, assuming there might be one somewhere waiting in the wings, would probably be anti-American and not as compliant as the Saudis. They've spent gigantic sums in the endless billions buying military equipment from the US, weapons they can't even fully use, as a way of making themselves indispensable customers. Many other billions of petrodollars find their way westward into our financial systems. They collaborate with the US in various schemes throughout the Muslim world using their intelligence services and money in furtherance of US goals. ..."
"... Mattis still seems stuck with his Iran obsession. Shame I thought he had the intellectual curiosity to adapt. Trump has good instincts, I hope Tillerson comes to the fore, and Bannon stays influential. ..."
"... Iran is US enemy #1 not only because it is against that country smaller than New Jersey with less people (Israel) but also because Iran has been a model for other countries to follow because of its intransigence to US oppression and attacks, financial political and cyber. As the world becomes multi-polar, Iran's repeated wise reactions to the world hegemon have been an inspiration to China and others to go their own way. The US can't stand that. ..."
"... Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority Shia population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves. USA fully understands this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The operation was by and large very successful btw. It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across the Muslim world. Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran became the first country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became the new resistance. ..."
"... And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher so much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA already owns that country. ..."
"... The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud. Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it wise to use blacks to control the criminal tendencies of Mexicans. ..."
It is one of the great ironies that the United States, a land mass protected by two broad oceans while also benefitting from the
world's largest economy and most powerful military, persists in viewing itself as a potential victim, vulnerable and surrounded by
enemies. In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and the
second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
And even given that, I would have to qualify the nature of the threats. Russia and China are best described as adversaries
or competitors rather than enemies as they have compelling interests to avoid war, even if Washington is doing its best to turn them
hostile. Neither has anything to gain and much to lose by escalating a minor conflict into something that might well start World
War 3. Indeed, both have strong incentives to avoid doing so, which makes the actual threat that they represent more speculative
than real. And, on the plus side, both can be extremely useful in dealing with international issues where Washington has little or
no leverage, to include resolving the North Korea problem and Syria, so the US has considerable benefits to be gained by cultivating
their cooperation.
Also, I would characterize international terrorism as a faux threat at a national level, though one that has been exaggerated
through the media and fearmongering to such an extent that it appears much more dangerous than it actually is. It has been observed
that more Americans are killed by falling furniture than by terrorists in a year but terrorism has a particularly potency due to
its unpredictability and the fear that it creates. Due to that fear, American governments and businesses at all levels have been
willing to spend a trillion dollars per annum to defeat what might rationally be regarded as a relatively minor problem.
So if the United States were serious about dealing with or deflecting the actual threats against the American people it could
first of all reduce its defense expenditures to make them commensurate with the actual threat before concentrating on three things.
First, would be to establish a solid modus vivendi with Russia and China to avoid conflicts of interest that could develop
into actual tit-for-tat escalation. That would require an acceptance by Washington of the fact that both Moscow and Beijing have
regional spheres of influence that are defined by their interests. You don't have to like the governance of either country, but their
national interests have to be appreciated and respected just as the United States has legitimate interests within its own hemisphere
that must be respected by Russia and China.
Second, Washington must, unfortunately, continue to spend on the Missile Defense Agency, which supports anti-missile defenses
if the search for a modus vivendi for some reason fails. Mutual assured destruction is not a desirable strategic doctrine
but being able to intercept incoming missiles while also having some capability to strike back if attacked is a realistic deterrent
given the proliferation of nations that have both ballistic missiles and nukes.
Third and finally, there would be a coordinated program aimed at international terrorism based equally on where the terror comes
from and on physically preventing the terrorist attacks from taking place. This is the element in national defense that is least
clear cut. Dealing with Russia and China involves working with mature regimes that have established diplomatic and military channels.
Dealing with terrorist non-state players is completely different as there are generally speaking no such channels.
It should in theory be pretty simple to match threats and interests with actions since there are only a handful that really matter,
but apparently it is not so in practice. What is Washington doing? First of all, the White House is deliberately turning its back
on restoring a good working relationship with Russia by insisting that Crimea be returned to Kiev, by blaming Moscow for the continued
unrest in Donbas, and by attacking Syrian military targets in spite of the fact that Russia is an ally of the legitimate government
in Damascus and the United States is an interloper in the conflict. Meanwhile congress and the media are poisoning the waters through
their dogged pursuit of Russiagate for political reasons even though nearly a year of investigation has produced no actual evidence
of malfeasance on the part of U.S. officials and precious little in terms of Moscow's alleged interference.
Playing tough to the international audience has unfortunately become part of the American Exceptionalism DNA. Upon his arrival
in Warsaw last week, Donald Trump doubled down on the
Russia-bashing, calling on Moscow to "cease its destabilizing activities in Ukraine and elsewhere and its support for hostile regimes
including Syria and Iran." He then recommended that Russia should "join the community of responsible nations in our fight against
common enemies and in defense of civilization itself."
The comments in Warsaw were unnecessary, even if the Poles wanted to hear them, and were both highly insulting and ignorant. It
was not a good start for Donald's second overseas trip, even though the speech has otherwise been interpreted as a welcome defense
of Western civilization and European values. Trump also followed up with a two hour plus discussion with President Vladimir Putin
in which the two apparently agreed to differ on the alleged Russian hacking of the American election. The Trump-Putin meeting indicated
that restoring some kind of working relationship with Russia is still possible, as it is in everyone's interest to do so.
Fighting terrorism is quite another matter and the United States approach is the reverse of what a rational player would be seeking
to accomplish. The U.S. is rightly assisting in the bid to eradicate ISIS in Syria and Iraq but it is simultaneously attacking the
most effective fighters against that group, namely the Syrian government armed forces and the Shiite militias being provided by Iran
and Hezbollah. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that at least some in the Trump Administration are seeking to use the Syrian
engagement as a stepping stone to war with Iran.
As was the case in the months preceding the ill-fated invasion of Iraq in 2003, all buttons are being pushed to vilify Iran. Recent
reports suggest that two individuals in the White House in particular have been pressuring the Trump administration's generals to
escalate U.S. involvement in Syria to bring about a war with Tehran sooner rather than later. They are Ezra Cohen-Watnick and Derek
Harvey, reported to be holdovers from the team brought into the White House by the virulently anti-Iranian former National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn.
Cohen-Watnick is thirty years old and
has little relevant experience for the position he holds, senior director for intelligence on the National Security Council.
But his inexperience counts for little as he is good friend of son-in-law Jared Kushner. He has told the New York Times
that "wants to use American spies to help oust the Iranian government," a comment that reflects complete ignorance, both regarding
Iran and also concerning spy agency capabilities. His partner in crime Harvey, a former military officer who advised General David
Petraeus when he was in Iraq, is the NSC advisor on the Middle East.
Both Cohen-Watnick and Harvey share the neoconservative belief that the Iranians and their proxies in Syria and Iraq need
to be confronted by force,
an opportunity described by Foreign Policy magazine as having developed into "a pivotal moment that will determine whether
Iran or the United States exerts influence over Iraq and Syria." Other neocon promoters of conflict with Iran have described their
horror at a possible Shiite "bridge" or "land corridor" through the Arab heartland, running from Iran itself through Iraq and Syria
and connecting on the Mediterranean with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
What danger to the U.S. or its actual treaty allies an Iranian influenced land corridor would constitute remains a mystery
but there is no shortage of Iran haters in the White House. Former senior CIA analyst Paul Pillar
sees "unrelenting hostility from the Trump administration" towards Iran and notes "cherry-picking" of the intelligence to make
a case for war, similar to what occurred with Iraq in 2002-3. And even though Secretary of Defense James Mattis and National Security
Advisor H.R. McMaster have pushed back against the impulsive Cohen-Watnick and Harvey, their objections are tactical as they do not
wish to make U.S. forces in the region vulnerable to attacks coming from a new direction. Otherwise they too consider Iran as America's
number one active enemy and believe that war is inevitable. Donald Trump has unfortunately also jumped directly into the argument
on the side of Saudi Arabia and Israel, both of which would like to see Washington go to war with Tehran on their behalf.
The problem with the Trump analysis is that he has his friends and enemies confused. He is actually supporting Saudi Arabia, the
source of most of the terrorism that has convulsed Western Europe and the United States while also killing hundreds of thousands
of fellow Muslims. Random terrorism to kill as many "infidels and heretics" as possible to create fear is a Sunni Muslim phenomenon,
supported financially and doctrinally by the Saudis. To be sure, Iran has used terror tactics to eliminate opponents and select targets
overseas, to include several multiple-victim bombings, but it has never engaged in anything like the recent series of attacks in
France and Britain. So the United States is moving seemingly inexorably towards war with a country that itself constitutes no actual
terrorist threat, unless it is attacked, in support of a country that very much is part of the threat and also on behalf of Israel,
which for its part would prefer to see Americans die in a war against Iran rather that sacrificing its own sons and daughters.
Realizing who the real enemy actually is and addressing the actual terrorism problem would not only involve coming down very hard
on Saudi Arabia rather than Iran, it would also require some serious thinking in the White House about the extent to which America's
armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap on a suicide vest and have a go. Saudi
financing and Washington's propensity to go to war and thereby create a deep well of hatred just might be the principal causative
elements in the rise of global terrorism. Do I think that Donald Trump's White House has the courage to take such a step and change
direction? Unfortunately, no.
Saudi Arabia is THE worst nation in the Middle East.
Why does the US follow along blindly? Well, it is a WASP thing. We are the new Brit Empire. By the height of the Victorian
era, virtually all English Elites were philoSemitic. Roughly half of the UK WASP Elite philoSemitism was pro-Jewish and half was
pro-Arabic/Islamic. And by the time of WW1, the English Elite pro-Arabic/Islamic faction came to adore the house of Saud. So,
our foreign policy is merely WASP culture continuing to ruin most of the rest of the world, including all the whites ruled by
WASP Elites.
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
No, the only threats are the following three:
Too many Meso-Americans invading from the border. These people have totally changed the SW and may drastically alter parts
of US as well. This is an invasion. Meso-Americans are lackluster, but Too Many translates into real power, especially in elections.
The other threat is Hindu-Indian. Indians are just itching to unload 100s of millions of their kind to Anglo nations. Unlike
Chinese population that is plummeting, Indian population is still growing.
The other threat, biggest of all, is the Negro. It's not Russian missiles or Chinese troops that turned Detroit into a hellhole.
It is Negroes. And look at Baltimore, New Orleans, Selma, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, South Side Chicago, etc.
Afromic Bomb is more hellish than atomic bomb. Compare Detroit and Hiroshima.
Also, even though nukes are deadly, they will likely never be used. They are for defensive purposes only. The real missiles
that will destroy the West is the Afro penis. US has nukes to destroy the world, but they haven't been used even during peak of
cold war. But millions of Negro puds have impregnanted and colonized white wombs to kill white-babies-that-could-have-been and
replaced them with mulatto Negro kids who will turn out like Colin Kapernick.
The real missile gap is the threat posed by negro dong on white dong. The negro dong is so potent that even Japanese women
are going Negroid and having kids with Negro men and raising these kids as 'Japanese' to beat up real Japanese. So, if Japan with
few blacks is turning like this, imagine the threat posed by Negroes on whites in the West.
Look at YouTube of street life and club life in Paris and London. Negro missiles are conquering the white race and spreading
the savage genes.
Look how Polish women welcomed the Negro missile cuz they are infected with jungle fever. ACOWW will be the real undoing of
the West.
Besides what Priss Factor said above the following is to be reinforced with every real American man, woman and child.
Israel , which for its part would prefer to see Americans die in a war against Iran rather that sacrificing its
own sons and daughters.
Israel, the REAL enemy! ,
@K India is looking to unload hindus to U.S? Quite the opposite. India is 'losing' its best brains to the U.S so its
trying to attract them back to their country. For eg: The chief- architect of IBM's Watson is a Hindu Indian and so is the
head of IBM's neuro-morphic computing. These people are advancing western technology.... civilian and also defense (IBM
is collaborating with the American defense organization DARPA) instead of helping India achieve technological competence.
And most of other super intelligent Indians also India is losing them to the west.
(i dont hate the west for doing that. Any country in amercia's place would have done the same. It is india's job to keep
its best brains working for it and not for others. And india is trying its best to do that albeit unsuccessfully.)
100 Words #UNRIG adds AMERICA FIRST, NOT ISRAEL to Agenda.
."A.I.P.A.C.. you're outta business!"
Due to slanderous attacks by a Mossad internet psy-op, Steele now prioritizes Israeli malign influence on US. Also, check out
Cynthia McKinney's twitter.
#UNRIG – Robert David Steele Weekly Update
@Durruti Nice action approach
to cure ills of society.
Enclosing copy of flier we have distributed - with a similar approach at a cure.
*Flier distributed is adjusted & a bit more attractive (1 sheet - both sides).
The key is to Restore the Republic, which was definitively destroyed on November 22, 1963.
Feel free to contact.
Use this, or send me a note by way of a response.
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed
the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963 , when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a
wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965, the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala .
In the 1970s, the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry
and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs
cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working
citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation,
the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion. This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations.
Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate
has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with
the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently
conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much
on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget
is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United
States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever
is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely
tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican
factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled, and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated
and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned
and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only
a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International
Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations,
including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional
regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with
a clean slate.
As American Founder , Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation
receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with
a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure
President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom
from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants
" and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government,
hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage
of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
You forgot the third significant potential threat from a friendly nation, i.e. Israel. Israel will sabotage any effort
to normallize relations with Russia or even Iran. They will resort to false flag operations to start a war with Iran.
The problem with this White House, as well as the previous ones, is that none of the so-called experts really understand
the Middle East. The US is not interested in having friendly relations with all nations. All her efforts are towards one goal,
the world domination. Even if President Trump wanted to normalize relations with Russia, the MSM, the democrats, as well as, his
republican opponents will not let him.
That is why the constan drumbeat of Russia's meddling in the 2016 election despite the fact that no proof has been given
so far. Similarly, the "Iran has nuclear weapons" narrative is constantly repeated, the reports by IAEA and the 17 Intelligence
Agencies to the contrary not withstanding.
The elevation of Muhammad bin Salman to the Crown Prince position will only make the Middle East situation worse. Israel
will be able to manipulate him much more easily than the old guard.
The western world is dependent on oil, especially ME oil. Saudi Arabia was made the USA's main oil supplier at the end of 1944.
The Saud dynasty depends on the USA. That the Saudis would sponsor terrorism, why would they ? And which terrorism is Muslim terrorism
?
Sept 11 not, Boston not, Madrid and London very questionably. We then are left with minor issues, the Paris shooting the biggest.
That Saudi Arabia is waging war in Yemen certainly is with USA support. The Saudi army does what the USA wants them to do.
Mr. Giraldi, you forgot to mention Israel as one of America's biggest liabilities besides Saudi Arabia. But with such amateur
dramatics in the White House and on the Security Council, the US is destined for war but only against the wrong enemy such as
Iran. If the Saudis and the right-wing Netanyahu regime want to get after Iran they should do it alone. They surely will get a
bloody nose. Americans have shed enough blood for these rascal regimes. President Trump should continue with his rapprochement
towards Russia because both nation states have more in common than expected.
I'm a little disappointed in this article. Not that it's a bad article per se: perfectly rational, reasonable, academic even.
But unfortunately, it's simply naive.
"Realizing who the real enemy actually is and addressing the actual terrorism problem would not only involve coming down very
hard on Saudi Arabia rather than Iran, it would also require some serious thinking in the White House about the extent to which
America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap on a suicide vest and have
a go."
Realize who the real enemy is ? Come down hard on the Saud's ? No -- really ?
The titanic elephant in the room -- that US foreign policy is not governed by "rationality" but by "special interests" seems
.missing. Israel, the Saudi's themselves, the MIC & so on & so forth ARE the special interests who literally "realise" US Policy.
Well, the real enemy of the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag.
Those who sent the Anthrax letters to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle
east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.)
I am beginning to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies.
So may I try my opening question on you. How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report? ,
"The White House is targeting Iran but should instead focus on Saudi Arabia"
Trump has no control of most government functions, particularly foreign affairs. The Deep State takes care of that for
him. The Deep State has been calling the shots for decades and all Presidents who weren't assassinated have complied. Democracies
never work and ours quit long ago.
I fully agree that attacking Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy',
the 'real' one, no less, in alt-media circles like this.
I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established
established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security. Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US?
Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority Shia
population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves.
USA fully understands this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The
operation was by and large very successful btw.
It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across the Muslim world.
Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran became the first
country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became the new resistance.
And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher so
much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA
already owns that country.
So what's the answer? Well, props to Phillip as he understood – "it would also require some serious thinking in the White House
about the extent to which America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap
on a suicide vest and have a go."
Your analysis starts too late. The US supports Wahhabism and the House of Saud because the pro-Arabic/Islamic English
Elites of 1910 and 1920 and 1935 supported Wahhabism and the House of Saud.
The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud,
Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it wise to use blacks to control the criminal
tendencies of Mexicans.
In reality, there are only two significant potential threats to the U.S. The first consists of the only two non-friendly
countries – Russia and China – that have nuclear weapons and delivery systems that could hit the North American continent and
the second is the somewhat more amorphous danger represented by international terrorism.
No, the only threats are the following three:
Too many Meso-Americans invading from the border. These people have totally changed the SW and may drastically alter parts
of US as well. This is an invasion. Meso-Americans are lackluster, but Too Many translates into real power, especially in elections.
The other threat is Hindu-Indian. Indians are just itching to unload 100s of millions of their kind to Anglo nations. Unlike
Chinese population that is plummeting, Indian population is still growing.
The other threat, biggest of all, is the Negro. It's not Russian missiles or Chinese troops that turned Detroit into a hellhole.
It is Negroes. And look at Baltimore, New Orleans, Selma, Memphis, Oakland, St. Louis, South Side Chicago, etc.
Afromic Bomb is more hellish than atomic bomb. Compare Detroit and Hiroshima.
Also, even though nukes are deadly, they will likely never be used. They are for defensive purposes only. The real missiles
that will destroy the West is the Afro penis. US has nukes to destroy the world, but they haven't been used even during peak of
cold war. But millions of Negro puds have impregnanted and colonized white wombs to kill white-babies-that-could-have-been and
replaced them with mulatto Negro kids who will turn out like Colin Kapernick.
The real missile gap is the threat posed by negro dong on white dong. The negro dong is so potent that even Japanese women
are going Negroid and having kids with Negro men and raising these kids as 'Japanese' to beat up real Japanese. So, if Japan with
few blacks is turning like this, imagine the threat posed by Negroes on whites in the West.
Look at youtube of street life and club life in Paris and London. Negro missiles are conquering the white race and spreading
the savage genes.
Look how Polish women welcomed the Negro missile cuz they are infected with jungle fever. ACOWW will be the real undoing of
the West.
Replies: @Sowhat And what grudge
is that? The only two I can find are connected. The deposing of our puppets, the Assads and the nationalization of their natural
resources. I have the impression that it removes around future hegemon and the rich gas reserves off their coast and the decades
long desire to run a pipeline west to the Mediterranean.
The BIGGEST threat to the USA is from within, as we are nothing more than an occupied colony of Apartheid Israel, paying that
bastard state tributes each year in the form of free money and weapons, political backing at the UN, and never tire of fighting
her wars of conquest.
You won't see Israeli troops in the streets, since their confederates control the economy thru their control of the FED and
US Treasury and most of those TBTF banks, which we always bail out, no matter the cost.
The also have a choke-hold on Congress, which is always eager to wag their tail and hope their Yid Overlord gives them
a treat and not a dressing-down in the Jew MSM, which is a career killer.
The WH is also Israeli territory, especially now with a Jew NYC slumlord now Trump's top adviser and his fashion model faux
Jew daughter egging Daddy on to kill more Arab babies, since she can't stand the sight of dead babies
@Paul Well, the real enemy of
the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters
to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.) I am beginning to get interested in why some
people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening question on you. How much, if
any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report?
@eah The WH should focus on
the USA. And what grudge is that? The only two I can find are connected. The deposing of our puppets, the Assads and the nationalization
of their natural resources. I have the impression that it removes around future hegemon and the rich gas reserves off their coast
and the decades long desire to run a pipeline west to the Mediterranean.
Israel's current "agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others
to do their "dirty work" for them.
The point that everybody seems to miss is the fact that Judaism and Islam are inextricably linked. In fact, one could safely
argue that Islam is an arabicized form of Judaism.
1. Both Judaism and Islam promote their own forms of supremacy, relegating non-adherents as "lesser human beings", or in Judaism's
take "no better than livestock, albeit with souls, to be used for the advantage of the jew".
2. Both systems proscribe lesser (or no) punishment for those of each respective "tribe" who transgress against "outsiders"
-- goyim
or infidels. Both systems proscribe much harsher punishments against "outsiders" who transgress against those of each respective
"tribe".
3. When it comes to "equality under law", Israel is no better than Saudi Arabia, as a jew who has a disagreement with an "outsider"
will always have the advantage of a judicial system which almost always rules for the jew.
4. Both Judaism and Islam have taken it upon themselves to be arbiters of what the rest of the world should follow, demanding
that "outsiders" conform to what THEY believe, thinking that they know what is best (for the rest of us). Just look at the demands
moslems (who are guests in western Europe) make of local non-moslem populations.
Read the jewish Talmud and islamic Koran you will find virtually identical passages that demonize and marginalize those of
us who are "goyim" or "infidels".
A pox on both their houses
Now before I say what I'm going to say I want to say that Israel has the right to define and defend her interests just
as China, Russia and USA do, as Geraldi says above. No nation or people can be denied this (without force).
Having said that, I am grateful to you, anarchyst, for having pointed out the familial similarities between Islam and
Judaism. In addition to what you say there is the fact that the Jewish genome is virtually identical to that of the Palestinians--except
for that of Ashkenazi Jews who are more than half European.
As far as I can see, Ashkenazi Jews have an existential choice. They can identify with their European half whereby they
acknowledge that the Greeks and not Moses made the greatest contributions to humanity (and more particularly, their humanity)
or they can go with their atavistic Semitic side and regress to barbarism. Science, Logic, Math, History, Architecture,
Drama and Music or blowing up Buddhas and shrouding your women. Take your pick.
Of course, this is sorta unfair in as much as they were kicked out of Europe and now dwell in the ME where if they try
to act like Europeans they will be persecuted by their neighbors as apostates. The Jews do indeed have a tough row to hoe.
, @bjondo Jews/Judaism
bring death, destruction, misery.
Muslims/Islam (minus Western creation of "Muslim"terrorists) brought golden ages to many areas.
Christianity and Islam elevate the human spirit. Judaism degrades.
June 7, 2017 We Have Met the Evil Empire and It Is Us
Life in America was pure injustice, the lash and the iron boot, despite the version of history we have been given by the Ford
and Rockefeller Foundations who "re-invented" America and its history through taking control of public education in the late 1940s.
You see, the multi-generational ignorance we bask in today is not unplanned. The threat represented by advances in communications
and other technology was recognized and dealt with, utterly quashed at birth.
@anarchyst Israel's current
"agreements" and its "kowtowing" to Saudi Arabia speaks VOLUMES. Once again, Israel is about to get others to do their "dirty
work" for them.
The point that everybody seems to miss is the fact that Judaism and Islam are inextricably linked. In fact, one could safely argue
that Islam is an arabicized form of Judaism.
1. Both Judaism and Islam promote their own forms of supremacy, relegating non-adherents as "lesser human beings", or in Judaism's
take "no better than livestock, albeit with souls, to be used for the advantage of the jew".
2. Both systems proscribe lesser (or no) punishment for those of each respective "tribe" who transgress against "outsiders"--goyim
or infidels. Both systems proscribe much harsher punishments against "outsiders" who transgress against those of each respective
"tribe".
3. When it comes to "equality under law", Israel is no better than Saudi Arabia, as a jew who has a disagreement with an "outsider"
will always have the advantage of a judicial system which almost always rules for the jew.
4. Both Judaism and Islam have taken it upon themselves to be arbiters of what the rest of the world should follow, demanding
that "outsiders" conform to what THEY believe, thinking that they know what is best (for the rest of us). Just look at the demands
moslems (who are guests in western Europe) make of local non-moslem populations.
Read the jewish Talmud and islamic Koran...you will find virtually identical passages that demonize and marginalize those of
us who are "goyim" or "infidels".
A pox on both their houses... Now before I say what I'm going to say I want to say that Israel has the right to define and defend
her interests just as China, Russia and USA do, as Geraldi says above. No nation or people can be denied this (without force).
Having said that, I am grateful to you, anarchyst, for having pointed out the familial similarities between Islam and Judaism.
In addition to what you say there is the fact that the Jewish genome is virtually identical to that of the Palestinians–except
for that of Ashkenazi Jews who are more than half European.
As far as I can see, Ashkenazi Jews have an existential choice. They can identify with their European half whereby they acknowledge
that the Greeks and not Moses made the greatest contributions to humanity (and more particularly, their humanity) or they can
go with their atavistic Semitic side and regress to barbarism. Science, Logic, Math, History, Architecture, Drama and Music or
blowing up Buddhas and shrouding your women. Take your pick.
Of course, this is sorta unfair in as much as they were kicked out of Europe and now dwell in the ME where if they try to act
like Europeans they will be persecuted by their neighbors as apostates. The Jews do indeed have a tough row to hoe.
Trump is torn between Israel's permanent need to weaken its powerful neighbors (Iraq, Iran) and the necessity to protect the USA
from terrorists attacks.
Iran is an hypothetical threat to Israel, Saudi Arabia has proven to be a threat to the world.
In Tehran and other Iranian cities including Iran's holiest, that is, most conservative cities like Mashad. there are taxi
companies owned and run by women.
Tehran traffic makes NYC look like Mayberry RFD; many Iranians use small motorcycles to commute and take care of daily chores.
It's not at all uncommon to see an Iranian woman in full chador driving a motorcycle with a child and parcels in tow.
Iranian women could offer to teach the women of Saudi Arabia to drive.
@Wizard of Oz I am beginning
to get interested in why some people are sure 9/11 was a false flag affair covered up by a lot of lies. So may I try my opening
question on you. How much, if any of it, have you read of the official 9/11 commission report? A better question: Have YOU read
The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation by Phillip Shenon?
There's no alternative to Saudi royal family rule of the peninsula. Who's there to replace them? Any other group, assuming
there might be one somewhere waiting in the wings, would probably be anti-American and not as compliant as the Saudis. They've
spent gigantic sums in the endless billions buying military equipment from the US, weapons they can't even fully use, as a way
of making themselves indispensable customers. Many other billions of petrodollars find their way westward into our financial systems.
They collaborate with the US in various schemes throughout the Muslim world using their intelligence services and money in furtherance
of US goals.
They live the royal life thanks to being able to use the money from their nation's resource wealth as their own personal kitty,
living in palaces, buying obscene amounts of jewelry and other luxury goods, and so on. They'll never give that up and being a
close ally of the US affords them protection which of course they pay for. They may be seen as an enemy by the average person
but not at the elite level with whom they all consort and roll around in the money with.
Mattis still seems stuck with his Iran obsession. Shame I thought he had the intellectual curiosity to adapt. Trump has
good instincts, I hope Tillerson comes to the fore, and Bannon stays influential.
Iran is US enemy #1 not only because it is against that country smaller than New Jersey with less people (Israel) but also
because Iran has been a model for other countries to follow because of its intransigence to US oppression and attacks, financial
political and cyber. As the world becomes multi-polar, Iran's repeated wise reactions to the world hegemon have been an inspiration
to China and others to go their own way. The US can't stand that.
@Paul Well, the real enemy of
the people are the real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag. Those who sent the Anthrax letters
to resisting congress members. Those who pre-planned the wars of aggression in the whole middle east.
So any appeal to the "White House" is almost pointless since the White House is one element of the power structure captured
by the war-criminal lunatics.
To change something people in the US should at first stop buying their war criminal lying mass media.
Then they should stop supporting ANY foreign intervention by the US and should stop believing any of the preposterous lies
released by the media, the state dept., or any other neocon outlet.
Actually Trump was probably elected because he said he was anti-intervention and anti-media. But did it help?
The US needs mass resistance (demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, non-participation, sit-ins, grass-root information, or whatever)
against their neocon/zionist/mafia/cia power groups or nothing will change.
We need demonstrations against NATO, against war, against false flag terrorism, against using terrorists as secret armies,
against war propaganda!
B.t.w. Iran has always been one of the main goals. Think of it: Why did the US attack Afghanistan and Iraq? What have those
two countries in common? (Hint: a look on the map helps to answer this question.) "Well, the real enemy of the people are the
real terrorists behind the scenes. Those who planned the 9/11 false flag."
Saudi Arabia is THE worst nation in the Middle East.
Why does the US follow along blindly? Well, it is a WASP thing. We are the new Brit Empire. By the height of the Victorian
era, virtually all English Elites were philoSemitic. Roughly half of the UK WASP Elite philoSemitism was pro-Jewish and half was
pro-Arabic/Islamic.
And by the time of WW1, the English Elite pro-Arabic/Islamic faction came to adore the house of Saud.
So, our foreign policy is merely WASP culture continuing to ruin most of the rest of the world, including all the whites ruled
by WASP Elites. SECOND worst,my friend.
@Chad I fully agree that attacking
Iran would be yet another disaster but I don't understand why Saudi Arabia is portrayed as an 'enemy', the 'real' one, no less,
in alt-media circles like this.
I mean let's be honest with ourselves. KSA is the definition of a vassal state. Has been so since the state established
established relations with the USA in the 1940s and the status was confirmed during the 1960s under King Faisal. Oil for security.
Why pretend that they have any operational clearance from the US?
Contrary to the popular view, Wahabism is necessary to keep the local population under control. Particularly the minority
Shia population who live along the eastern coast, an area, which incidentally also has the all the oil reserves. USA fully understands
this. Which is why they not only tolerated Wahabism, but strongly promoted it during Afghan jihad. The operation was by and large
very successful btw. It was only during the '90s when religion became the new ideology for the resistance against the empire across
the Muslim world. Zero surprise there because the preceding ideology, radical left wing politics was completely defeated. Iran
became the first country in this pattern. The Iranian left was decimated by the Shah, another vassal. So the religious right became
the new resistance.
And as far as the KSA is considered, Wahabi preachers aren't allowed to attack the USA anyway. If any individual preacher
so much as makes a squeak, he will be bent over a barrel. There won't be any "coming down very hard on Saudi Arabia" because USA
already owns that country.
So what's the answer? Well, props to Phillip as he understood - "it would also require some serious thinking in the White House
about the extent to which America's armed interventions all over Asia and Africa have made many people hate us enough to strap
on a suicide vest and have a go."
Bingo. Your analysis starts too late. The US supports Wahhabism and the House of Saud because the pro-Arabic/Islamic English
Elites of 1910 and 1920 and 1935 supported Wahhabism and the House of Saud.
The British Empire 'made' the House of Saud. Thinking it wise to use Wahhabism to control Shia Islam is like thinking it
wise to use blacks to control the criminal tendencies of Mexicans.
1,000 Words @RobinG#UNRIG
adds AMERICA FIRST, NOT ISRAEL to Agenda.
..................."A.I.P.A.C.. you're outta business!"
Due to slanderous attacks by a Mossad internet psy-op, Steele now prioritizes Israeli malign influence on US. Also, check out
Cynthia McKinney's twitter.
#UNRIG - Robert David Steele Weekly Update Nice action approach to cure ills of society.
Enclosing copy of flier we have distributed – with a similar approach at a cure.
*Flier distributed is adjusted & a bit more attractive (1 sheet – both sides).
The key is to Restore the Republic, which was definitively destroyed on November 22, 1963.
Feel free to contact.
Use this, or send me a note by way of a response.
For THE RESTORATION OF THE REPUBLIC
"We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal governments are instituted among men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles "
The above is a portion of the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson.
We submit the following facts to the citizens of the United States.
The government of the United States has been a Totalitarian Oligarchy since the military financial aristocracy destroyed
the Democratic Republic on November 22, 1963 , when they assassinated the last democratically elected president, John Fitzgerald
Kennedy , and overthrew his government. All following governments have been unconstitutional frauds. Attempts by Robert
Kennedy and Martin Luther King to restore the Republic were interrupted by their murder.
A subsequent 12 year colonial war against Vietnam , conducted by the murderers of Kennedy, left 2 million dead in a
wake of napalm and burning villages.
In 1965, the U.S. government orchestrated the slaughter of 1 million unarmed Indonesian civilians.
In the decade that followed the CIA murdered 100,000 Native Americans in Guatemala .
In the 1970s, the Oligarchy began the destruction and looting of America's middle class, by encouraging the export of industry
and jobs to parts of the world where workers were paid bare subsistence wages. The 2008, Bailout of the Nation's Oligarchs
cost American taxpayers $13trillion. The long decline of the local economy has led to the political decline of our hard working
citizens, as well as the decay of cities, towns, and infrastructure, such as education.
The impoverishment of America's middle class has undermined the nation's financial stability. Without a productive foundation,
the government has accumulated a huge debt in excess of $19trillion. This debt will have to be paid, or suffered by future generations.
Concurrently, the top 1% of the nation's population has benefited enormously from the discomfiture of the rest. The interest rate
has been reduced to 0, thereby slowly robbing millions of depositors of their savings, as their savings cannot stay even with
the inflation rate.
The government spends the declining national wealth on bloody and never ending military adventures, and is or has recently
conducted unconstitutional wars against 9 nations. The Oligarchs maintain 700 military bases in 131 countries; they spend as much
on military weapons of terror as the rest of the nations of the world combined. Tellingly, more than half the government budget
is spent on the military and 16 associated secret agencies.
The nightmare of a powerful centralized government crushing the rights of the people, so feared by the Founders of the United
States, has become a reality. The government of Obama/Biden, as with previous administrations such as Bush/Cheney, and whoever
is chosen in November 2016, operates a Gulag of dozens of concentration camps, where prisoners are denied trials, and routinely
tortured. The Patriot Act and The National Defense Authorizations Act , enacted by both Democratic and Republican
factions of the oligarchy, serve to establish a legal cover for their terror.
The nation's media is controlled, and, with the school systems, serve to brainwash the population; the people are intimidated
and treated with contempt.
The United States is No longer Sovereign
The United States is no longer a sovereign nation. Its government, The Executive, and Congress, is bought, utterly owned
and controlled by foreign and domestic wealthy Oligarchs, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and Duponts , to name only
a few of the best known.
The 2016 Electoral Circus will anoint new actors to occupy the same Unconstitutional Government, with its controlling International
Oligarchs. Clinton, Trump, whomever, are willing accomplices for imperialist international murder, and destruction of nations,
including ours.
For Love of Country
The Restoration of the Republic will be a Revolutionary Act, that will cancel all previous debts owed to that unconstitutional
regime and its business supporters. All debts, including Student Debts, will be canceled. Our citizens will begin, anew, with
a clean slate.
As American Founder , Thomas Jefferson wrote, in a letter to James Madison:
"I set out on this ground, which I suppose to be self evident, 'that the earth belongs in usufruct to the living':"
"Then I say the earth belongs to each of these generations, during it's course, fully, and in their own right. The 2d. Generation
receives it clear of the debts and incumberances of the 1st. The 3d of the 2d. and so on. For if the 1st. Could charge it with
a debt, then the earth would belong to the dead and not the living generation."
Our Citizens must restore the centrality of the constitution, establishing a less powerful government which will ensure
President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms , freedom of speech and expression, freedom to worship God in ones own way, freedom
from want "which means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peace time life for its inhabitants
" and freedom from fear "which means a world-wide reduction of armaments "
Once restored: The Constitution will become, once again, the law of the land and of a free people. We will establish a government,
hold elections, begin to direct traffic, arrest criminal politicians of the tyrannical oligarchy, and, in short, repair the damage
of the previous totalitarian governments.
For the Democratic Republic!
Sons and Daughters of Liberty [email protected]
are studying US states and ranking them according to financial stability measures. The states with biggest problems -- Illinois,
California, New Jersey, Connecticut -- are in the mess they are in largely because of pension liability issues: some pensions
are unfunded or underfunded.
I recall that ten years ago about a dozen Jewish organizations formed the "Iran Task Force," ** whose primary activity was
to persuade managers of State pension funds to divest from Iran-connected companies; that is, corporations & banks, etc. that
did business with Iran. I recall very clearly that Arnold Schwartznegger was the poster child for California's vanguard role in
divesting from such nasty nasty companies, in accord with the wishes of Jewish Israel-firsters.
Perhaps the Mercatus scholars could prepare an exercise in alternative financial history: What shape would the US economy,
and the various States's economies, be in if the US were NOT so overwhelmingly influenced by Israel firsters, and were NOT persuaded,
Against Our Better Judgment, to entangle themselves in Israel's nefarious activities?
____
** The 2007 Iran Task Force is NOT the same as the group formed in 2015 or so, embedded in US House/Senate, with Joe Lieberman
and Michael Hayden playing prominent roles in attempting to influence the Iran Deal.
The 2007 initiative was sponsored by groups such as ZOA, RJC, AIPAC, etc., and / or spun off groups such as Foundation for
Defense of Democracy, United Against Nuclear Iran.
"... My predecessor Benedict XVI likewise proposed "eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable of ensuring respect for the environment". [10] He observed that the world cannot be analyzed by isolating only one of its aspects, since "the book of nature is one and indivisible", and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that "the deterioration of nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence" ..."
"... Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet, for "inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage", we are called to acknowledge "our contribution, smaller or greater, to the disfigurement and destruction of creation". [14] He has repeatedly stated this firmly and persuasively, challenging us to acknowledge our sins against creation: "For human beings to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins". [15] For "to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God". [16] ..."
"... He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism which "entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what God's world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion". ..."
"... It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the challenges now before us. "The risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should"; in effect, "power is never considered in terms of the responsibility of choice which is inherent in freedom" since its "only norms are taken from alleged necessity, from either utility or security". [85] But human beings are not completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious, of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics, a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint. ..."
"... Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that "an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed". ..."
"... We have to accept that technological products are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about the kind of society we want to build. ..."
"... Technology tends to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology "know full well that it moves forward in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race", that "in the most radical sense of the term power is its motive – a lordship over all". [87] As a result, "man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature". [88] Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one's alternative creativity are diminished. ..."
"... At the same time, we have "a sort of 'superdevelopment' of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation", [90] while we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic resources. We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social implications of technological and economic growth. ..."
"... The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant. ..."
"... It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything. Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness. ..."
"... All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes. Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained delusions of grandeur. ..."
"... Modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since "the technological mind sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere 'given', as an object of utility, as raw material to be hammered into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere 'space' into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference" ..."
"... Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble ..."
"... This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity ..."
"... Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations. If the present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. ..."
"... The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. ..."
"... We are convinced that "man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life". [100] Nonetheless, once our human capacity for contemplation and reverence is impaired, it becomes easy for the meaning of work to be misunderstood. [101] We need to remember that men and women have "the capacity to improve their lot, to further their moral growth and to develop their spiritual endowments". [102] Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others ..."
"... it is essential that "we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone", [103] no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning. ..."
"... We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. ..."
"... The loss of jobs also has a negative impact on the economy "through the progressive erosion of social capital: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence". [104] In other words, "human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs". [105] To stop investing in people, in order to gain greater short-term financial gain, is bad business for society. ..."
"... In order to continue providing employment, it is imperative to promote an economy which favours productive diversity and business creativity. For example, there is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part of the world's peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing. Economies of scale, especially in the agricultural sector, end up forcing smallholders to sell their land or to abandon their traditional crops. ..."
"... To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit, restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while real conditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to practise a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs as an essential part of its service to the common good. ..."
6. My predecessor Benedict XVI likewise proposed
"eliminating the structural causes of the dysfunctions of the world economy and correcting models of growth which have proved incapable
of ensuring respect for the environment".[10]
He observed that the world cannot be analyzed by isolating only one of its aspects, since "the book of nature is one and indivisible",
and includes the environment, life, sexuality, the family, social relations, and so forth. It follows that "the deterioration of
nature is closely connected to the culture which shapes human coexistence".[11]
Pope Benedict asked us to recognize that the natural environment has been gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour. The social
environment has also suffered damage. Both are ultimately due to the same evil: the notion that there are no indisputable truths
to guide our lives, and hence human freedom is limitless. We have forgotten that "man is not only a freedom which he creates for
himself. Man does not create himself. He is spirit and will, but also nature".[12]
With paternal concern, Benedict urged us to realize that creation is harmed "where we ourselves have the final word, where everything
is simply our property and we use it for ourselves alone. The misuse of creation begins when we no longer recognize any higher instance
than ourselves, when we see nothing else but ourselves".[13]
United by the same concern
7. These statements of the Popes echo the reflections of numerous scientists, philosophers, theologians and civic groups, all
of which have enriched the Church's thinking on these questions. Outside the Catholic Church, other Churches and Christian communities
– and other religions as well – have expressed deep concern and offered valuable reflections on issues which all of us find disturbing.
To give just one striking example, I would mention the statements made by the beloved Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, with whom
we share the hope of full ecclesial communion.
8. Patriarch Bartholomew has spoken in particular of the need for each of us to repent of the ways we have harmed the planet,
for "inasmuch as we all generate small ecological damage", we are called to acknowledge "our contribution, smaller or greater, to
the disfigurement and destruction of creation".[14]
He has repeatedly stated this firmly and persuasively, challenging us to acknowledge our sins against creation: "For human beings
to destroy the biological diversity of God's creation; for human beings to degrade the integrity of the earth by causing changes
in its climate, by stripping the earth of its natural forests or destroying its wetlands; for human beings to contaminate the earth's
waters, its land, its air, and its life – these are sins".[15]
For "to commit a crime against the natural world is a sin against ourselves and a sin against God".[16]
9. At the same time, Bartholomew has drawn attention to the ethical and spiritual roots of environmental problems, which require
that we look for solutions not only in technology but in a change of humanity; otherwise we would be dealing merely with symptoms.
He asks us to replace consumption with sacrifice, greed with generosity, wastefulness with a spirit of sharing, an asceticism
which "entails learning to give, and not simply to give up. It is a way of loving, of moving gradually away from what I want to what
God's world needs. It is liberation from fear, greed and compulsion".[17]
As Christians, we are also called "to accept the world as a sacrament of communion, as a way of sharing with God and our neighbours
on a global scale. It is our humble conviction that the divine and the human meet in the slightest detail in the seamless garment
of God's creation, in the last speck of dust of our planet".[18]
... ... ...
I. TECHNOLOGY: CREATIVITY AND POWER
... ... ...
105. There is a tendency to believe that every increase in power means "an increase of 'progress' itself", an advance in "security,
usefulness, welfare and vigour; an assimilation of new values into the stream of culture",[83]
as if reality, goodness and truth automatically flow from technological and economic power as such. The fact is that "contemporary
man has not been trained to use power well",[84]
because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience.
Each age tends to have only a meagre awareness of its own limitations. It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the
challenges now before us. "The risk is growing day by day that man will not use his power as he should"; in effect, "power is never
considered in terms of the responsibility of choice which is inherent in freedom" since its "only norms are taken from alleged necessity,
from either utility or security".[85]
But human beings are not completely autonomous. Our freedom fades when it is handed over to the blind forces of the unconscious,
of immediate needs, of self-interest, and of violence. In this sense, we stand naked and exposed in the face of our ever-increasing
power, lacking the wherewithal to control it. We have certain superficial mechanisms, but we cannot claim to have a sound ethics,
a culture and spirituality genuinely capable of setting limits and teaching clear-minded self-restraint.
II. THE GLOBALIZATION OF THE TECHNOCRATIC PARADIGM
106. The basic problem goes even deeper: it is the way that humanity has taken up technology and its development according
to an undifferentiated and one-dimensional paradigm. This paradigm exalts the concept of a subject who, using logical and rational
procedures, progressively approaches and gains control over an external object. This subject makes every effort to establish the
scientific and experimental method, which in itself is already a technique of possession, mastery and transformation. It is as if
the subject were to find itself in the presence of something formless, completely open to manipulation. Men and women have constantly
intervened in nature, but for a long time this meant being in tune with and respecting the possibilities offered by the things themselves.
It was a matter of receiving what nature itself allowed, as if from its own hand. Now, by contrast, we are the ones to lay our hands
on things, attempting to extract everything possible from them while frequently ignoring or forgetting the reality in front of us.
Human beings and material objects no longer extend a friendly hand to one another; the relationship has become confrontational. This
has made it easy to accept the idea of infinite or unlimited growth, which proves so attractive to economists, financiers and experts
in technology. It is based on the lie that there is an infinite supply of the earth's goods, and this leads to the planet being squeezed
dry beyond every limit. It is the false notion that "an infinite quantity of energy and resources are available, that it is possible
to renew them quickly, and that the negative effects of the exploitation of the natural order can be easily absorbed".[86]
107. It can be said that many problems of today's world stem from the tendency, at times unconscious, to make the method and aims
of science and technology an epistemological paradigm which shapes the lives of individuals and the workings of society. The effects
of imposing this model on reality as a whole, human and social, are seen in the deterioration of the environment, but this is just
one sign of a reductionism which affects every aspect of human and social life. We have to accept that technological products
are not neutral, for they create a framework which ends up conditioning lifestyles and shaping social possibilities along the lines
dictated by the interests of certain powerful groups. Decisions which may seem purely instrumental are in reality decisions about
the kind of society we want to build.
108. The idea of promoting a different cultural paradigm and employing technology as a mere instrument is nowadays inconceivable.
The technological paradigm has become so dominant that it would be difficult to do without its resources and even more difficult
to utilize them without being dominated by their internal logic. It has become countercultural to choose a lifestyle whose goals
are even partly independent of technology, of its costs and its power to globalize and make us all the same. Technology tends
to absorb everything into its ironclad logic, and those who are surrounded with technology "know full well that it moves forward
in the final analysis neither for profit nor for the well-being of the human race", that "in the most radical sense of the term power
is its motive – a lordship over all".[87]
As a result, "man seizes hold of the naked elements of both nature and human nature".[88]
Our capacity to make decisions, a more genuine freedom and the space for each one's alternative creativity are diminished.
109. The technocratic paradigm also tends to dominate economic and political life. The economy accepts every advance in technology
with a view to profit, without concern for its potentially negative impact on human beings. Finance overwhelms the real economy.
The lessons of the global financial crisis have not been assimilated, and we are learning all too slowly the lessons of environmental
deterioration. Some circles maintain that current economics and technology will solve all environmental problems, and argue, in popular
and non-technical terms, that the problems of global hunger and poverty will be resolved simply by market growth. They are less concerned
with certain economic theories which today scarcely anybody dares defend, than with their actual operation in the functioning of
the economy. They may not affirm such theories with words, but nonetheless support them with their deeds by showing no interest in
more balanced levels of production, a better distribution of wealth, concern for the environment and the rights of future generations.
Their behaviour shows that for them maximizing profits is enough. Yet by itself the market cannot guarantee integral human development
and social inclusion.[89]At the same time, we have "a sort of 'superdevelopment' of a wasteful and consumerist kind which forms an unacceptable contrast
with the ongoing situations of dehumanizing deprivation",[90]
while we are all too slow in developing economic institutions and social initiatives which can give the poor regular access to basic
resources. We fail to see the deepest roots of our present failures, which have to do with the direction, goals, meaning and social
implications of technological and economic growth.
110. The specialization which belongs to technology makes it difficult to see the larger picture. The fragmentation of knowledge
proves helpful for concrete applications, and yet it often leads to a loss of appreciation for the whole, for the relationships between
things, and for the broader horizon, which then becomes irrelevant. This very fact makes it hard to find adequate ways of solving
the more complex problems of today's world, particularly those regarding the environment and the poor; these problems cannot be dealt
with from a single perspective or from a single set of interests. A science which would offer solutions to the great issues would
necessarily have to take into account the data generated by other fields of knowledge, including philosophy and social ethics; but
this is a difficult habit to acquire today. Nor are there genuine ethical horizons to which one can appeal. Life gradually becomes
a surrender to situations conditioned by technology, itself viewed as the principal key to the meaning of existence. In the concrete
situation confronting us, there are a number of symptoms which point to what is wrong, such as environmental degradation, anxiety,
a loss of the purpose of life and of community living. Once more we see that "realities are more important than ideas".[91]
111. Ecological culture cannot be reduced to a series of urgent and partial responses to the immediate problems of pollution,
environmental decay and the depletion of natural resources. There needs to be a distinctive way of looking at things, a way of thinking,
policies, an educational programme, a lifestyle and a spirituality which together generate resistance to the assault of the technocratic
paradigm. Otherwise, even the best ecological initiatives can find themselves caught up in the same globalized logic. To seek only
a technical remedy to each environmental problem which comes up is to separate what is in reality interconnected and to mask the
true and deepest problems of the global system.
112. Yet we can once more broaden our vision. We have the freedom needed to limit and direct technology; we can put it at the
service of another type of progress, one which is healthier, more human, more social, more integral. Liberation from the dominant
technocratic paradigm does in fact happen sometimes, for example, when cooperatives of small producers adopt less polluting means
of production, and opt for a non-consumerist model of life, recreation and community. Or when technology is directed primarily to
resolving people's concrete problems, truly helping them live with more dignity and less suffering. Or indeed when the desire to
create and contemplate beauty manages to overcome reductionism through a kind of salvation which occurs in beauty and in those who
behold it. An authentic humanity, calling for a new synthesis, seems to dwell in the midst of our technological culture, almost unnoticed,
like a mist seeping gently beneath a closed door. Will the promise last, in spite of everything, with all that is authentic rising
up in stubborn resistance?
113. There is also the fact that people no longer seem to believe in a happy future; they no longer have blind trust in a better
tomorrow based on the present state of the world and our technical abilities. There is a growing awareness that scientific and technological
progress cannot be equated with the progress of humanity and history, a growing sense that the way to a better future lies elsewhere.
This is not to reject the possibilities which technology continues to offer us. But humanity has changed profoundly, and the accumulation
of constant novelties exalts a superficiality which pulls us in one direction. It becomes difficult to pause and recover depth
in life. If architecture reflects the spirit of an age, our megastructures and drab apartment blocks express the spirit of globalized
technology, where a constant flood of new products coexists with a tedious monotony. Let us refuse to resign ourselves to this, and
continue to wonder about the purpose and meaning of everything. Otherwise we would simply legitimate the present situation and need
new forms of escapism to help us endure the emptiness.
114. All of this shows the urgent need for us to move forward in a bold cultural revolution. Science and technology are not
neutral; from the beginning to the end of a process, various intentions and possibilities are in play and can take on distinct shapes.
Nobody is suggesting a return to the Stone Age, but we do need to slow down and look at reality in a different way, to appropriate
the positive and sustainable progress which has been made, but also to recover the values and the great goals swept away by our unrestrained
delusions of grandeur.
III. THE CRISIS AND EFFECTS OF MODERN ANTHROPOCENTRISM
115. Modern anthropocentrism has paradoxically ended up prizing technical thought over reality, since "the technological mind
sees nature as an insensate order, as a cold body of facts, as a mere 'given', as an object of utility, as raw material to be hammered
into useful shape; it views the cosmos similarly as a mere 'space' into which objects can be thrown with complete indifference".[92]
The intrinsic dignity of the world is thus compromised. When human beings fail to find their true place in this world, they misunderstand
themselves and end up acting against themselves: "Not only has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for the original
good purpose for which it was given, but, man too is God's gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and moral structure
with which he has been endowed".[93]
116. Modernity has been marked by an excessive anthropocentrism which today, under another guise, continues to stand in the way
of shared understanding and of any effort to strengthen social bonds. The time has come to pay renewed attention to reality and the
limits it imposes; this in turn is the condition for a more sound and fruitful development of individuals and society. An inadequate
presentation of Christian anthropology gave rise to a wrong understanding of the relationship between human beings and the world.
Often, what was handed on was a Promethean vision of mastery over the world, which gave the impression that the protection of nature
was something that only the faint-hearted cared about. Instead, our "dominion" over the universe should be understood more properly
in the sense of responsible stewardship.[94]
117. Neglecting to monitor the harm done to nature and the environmental impact of our decisions is only the most striking sign
of a disregard for the message contained in the structures of nature itself. When we fail to acknowledge as part of reality the worth
of a poor person, a human embryo, a person with disabilities – to offer just a few examples – it becomes difficult to hear the cry
of nature itself; everything is connected. Once the human being declares independence from reality and behaves with absolute
dominion, the very foundations of our life begin to crumble, for "instead of carrying out his role as a cooperator with God
in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature".[95]
118. This situation has led to a constant schizophrenia, wherein a technocracy which sees no intrinsic value in lesser beings
coexists with the other extreme, which sees no special value in human beings. But one cannot prescind from humanity. There can
be no renewal of our relationship with nature without a renewal of humanity itself. There can be no ecology without an adequate anthropology.
When the human person is considered as simply one being among others, the product of chance or physical determinism, then "our overall
sense of responsibility wanes".[96]
A misguided anthropocentrism need not necessarily yield to "biocentrism", for that would entail adding yet another imbalance, failing
to solve present problems and adding new ones. Human beings cannot be expected to feel responsibility for the world unless, at the
same time, their unique capacities of knowledge, will, freedom and responsibility are recognized and valued.
119. Nor must the critique of a misguided anthropocentrism underestimate the importance of interpersonal relations. If the
present ecological crisis is one small sign of the ethical, cultural and spiritual crisis of modernity, we cannot presume to heal
our relationship with nature and the environment without healing all fundamental human relationships. Christian thought sees
human beings as possessing a particular dignity above other creatures; it thus inculcates esteem for each person and respect for
others. Our openness to others, each of whom is a "thou" capable of knowing, loving and entering into dialogue, remains the source
of our nobility as human persons. A correct relationship with the created world demands that we not weaken this social dimension
of openness to others, much less the transcendent dimension of our openness to the "Thou" of God. Our relationship with the environment
can never be isolated from our relationship with others and with God. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than romantic individualism
dressed up in ecological garb, locking us into a stifling immanence.
120. Since everything is interrelated, concern for the protection of nature is also incompatible with the justification of abortion.
How can we genuinely teach the importance of concern for other vulnerable beings, however troublesome or inconvenient they may be,
if we fail to protect a human embryo, even when its presence is uncomfortable and creates difficulties? "If personal and social sensitivity
towards the acceptance of the new life is lost, then other forms of acceptance that are valuable for society also wither away".[97]
121. We need to develop a new synthesis capable of overcoming the false arguments of recent centuries. Christianity, in fidelity
to its own identity and the rich deposit of truth which it has received from Jesus Christ, continues to reflect on these issues in
fruitful dialogue with changing historical situations. In doing so, it reveals its eternal newness.[98]
Practical relativism
122. A misguided anthropocentrism leads to a misguided lifestyle. In the Apostolic Exhortation
Evangelii Gaudium, I noted that the practical relativism typical of our age is "even more dangerous than doctrinal relativism".[99]
When human beings place themselves at the centre, they give absolute priority to immediate convenience and all else becomes relative.
Hence we should not be surprised to find, in conjunction with the omnipresent technocratic paradigm and the cult of unlimited human
power, the rise of a relativism which sees everything as irrelevant unless it serves one's own immediate interests. There is a logic
in all this whereby different attitudes can feed on one another, leading to environmental degradation and social decay.
123. The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others
as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual
exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who
say: Let us allow the invisible forces of the market to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature as
collateral damage. In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate
needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of
endangered species? Is it not the same relativistic logic which justifies buying the organs of the poor for resale or use in experimentation,
or eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted? This same "use and throw away" logic generates so much waste,
because of the disordered desire to consume more than what is really necessary. We should not think that political efforts or the
force of law will be sufficient to prevent actions which affect the environment because, when the culture itself is corrupt and objective
truth and universally valid principles are no longer upheld, then laws can only be seen as arbitrary impositions or obstacles to
be avoided.
The need to protect employment
124. Any approach to an integral ecology, which by definition does not exclude human beings, needs to take account of the value
of labour, as Saint John Paul II wisely noted in his Encyclical
Laborem Exercens. According to the biblical account of creation, God placed man and woman in the garden he had created (cf.
Gen 2:15) not only to preserve it ("keep") but also to make it fruitful ("till"). Labourers and craftsmen thus "maintain the
fabric of the world" (Sir 38:34). Developing the created world in a prudent way is the best way of caring for it, as this
means that we ourselves become the instrument used by God to bring out the potential which he himself inscribed in things: "The Lord
created medicines out of the earth, and a sensible man will not despise them" (Sir 38:4).
125. If we reflect on the proper relationship between human beings and the world around us, we see the need for a correct understanding
of work; if we talk about the relationship between human beings and things, the question arises as to the meaning and purpose of
all human activity. This has to do not only with manual or agricultural labour but with any activity involving a modification of
existing reality, from producing a social report to the design of a technological development. Underlying every form of work is a
concept of the relationship which we can and must have with what is other than ourselves. Together with the awe-filled contemplation
of creation which we find in Saint Francis of Assisi, the Christian spiritual tradition has also developed a rich and balanced understanding
of the meaning of work, as, for example, in the life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld and his followers.
126. We can also look to the great tradition of monasticism. Originally, it was a kind of flight from the world, an escape from
the decadence of the cities. The monks sought the desert, convinced that it was the best place for encountering the presence of God.
Later, Saint Benedict of Norcia proposed that his monks live in community, combining prayer and spiritual reading with manual labour
(ora et labora). Seeing manual labour as spiritually meaningful proved revolutionary. Personal growth and sanctification came
to be sought in the interplay of recollection and work. This way of experiencing work makes us more protective and respectful of
the environment; it imbues our relationship to the world with a healthy sobriety.
127. We are convinced that "man is the source, the focus and the aim of all economic and social life".[100]
Nonetheless, once our human capacity for contemplation and reverence is impaired, it becomes easy for the meaning of work to be misunderstood.[101]
We need to remember that men and women have "the capacity to improve their lot, to further their moral growth and to develop their
spiritual endowments".[102]
Work should be the setting for this rich personal growth, where many aspects of life enter into play: creativity, planning for the
future, developing our talents, living out our values, relating to others, giving glory to God. It follows that, in the reality
of today's global society, it is essential that "we continue to prioritize the goal of access to steady employment for everyone",[103]
no matter the limited interests of business and dubious economic reasoning.
128. We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress increasingly replace human
work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth,
human development and personal fulfilment. Helping the poor financially must always be a provisional solution in the face of pressing
needs. The broader objective should always be to allow them a dignified life through work. Yet the orientation of the economy
has favoured a kind of technological progress in which the costs of production are reduced by laying off workers and replacing them
with machines. This is yet another way in which we can end up working against ourselves. The loss of jobs also has a negative
impact on the economy "through the progressive erosion of social capital: the network of relationships of trust, dependability, and
respect for rules, all of which are indispensable for any form of civil coexistence".[104]
In other words, "human costs always include economic costs, and economic dysfunctions always involve human costs".[105]
To stop investing in people, in order to gain greater short-term financial gain, is bad business for society.
129. In order to continue providing employment, it is imperative to promote an economy which favours productive diversity
and business creativity. For example, there is a great variety of small-scale food production systems which feed the greater part
of the world's peoples, using a modest amount of land and producing less waste, be it in small agricultural parcels, in orchards
and gardens, hunting and wild harvesting or local fishing. Economies of scale, especially in the agricultural sector, end up forcing
smallholders to sell their land or to abandon their traditional crops. Their attempts to move to other, more diversified, means
of production prove fruitless because of the difficulty of linkage with regional and global markets, or because the infrastructure
for sales and transport is geared to larger businesses. Civil authorities have the right and duty to adopt clear and firm measures
in support of small producers and differentiated production. To ensure economic freedom from which all can effectively benefit,
restraints occasionally have to be imposed on those possessing greater resources and financial power. To claim economic freedom while
realconditions bar many people from actual access to it, and while possibilities for employment continue to shrink, is to
practise a doublespeak which brings politics into disrepute. Business is a noble vocation, directed to producing wealth and improving
our world. It can be a fruitful source of prosperity for the areas in which it operates, especially if it sees the creation of jobs
as an essential part of its service to the common good.
New biological technologies
130. In the philosophical and theological vision of the human being and of creation which I have presented, it is clear that the
human person, endowed with reason and knowledge, is not an external factor to be excluded. While human intervention on plants and
animals is permissible when it pertains to the necessities of human life, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that
experimentation on animals is morally acceptable only "if it remains within reasonable limits [and] contributes to caring for or
saving human lives".[106]
The Catechism firmly states that human power has limits and that "it is contrary to human dignity to cause animals to suffer
or die needlessly".[107]
All such use and experimentation "requires a religious respect for the integrity of creation".[108]
Petras did not mention that it was Carter who started neoliberalization of the USA. The subsequent election of Reagan signified
the victory of neoliberalism in this country or "quite coup". The death of New Deal from this point was just a matter
of time. Labor relations drastically changes and war on union and atomization of workforce are a norm.
Welfare state still exists but only for corporation and MIC. Otherwise the New Deal society is almost completely dismanted.
It is true that "The ' New Deal' was, at best, a de facto ' historical compromise' between the capitalist class
and the labor unions, mediated by the Democratic Party elite. It was a temporary pact in which the unions secured legal recognition
while the capitalists retained their executive prerogatives." But the key factor in this compromise was the existence of the USSR as
a threat to the power of capitalists in the USA. when the USSR disappeared cannibalistic instincts of the US elite prevailed over caution.
Notable quotes:
"... The earlier welfare 'reforms' and the current anti-welfare legislation and austerity practices have been accompanied by a series of endless imperial wars, especially in the Middle East. ..."
"... In the 1940's through the 1960's, world and regional wars (Korea and Indo-China) were combined with significant welfare program – a form of ' social imperialism' , which 'buy off' the working class while expanding the empire. However, recent decades are characterized by multiple regional wars and the reduction or elimination of welfare programs – and a massive growth in poverty, domestic insecurity and poor health. ..."
"... modern welfare state' ..."
"... Labor unions were organized as working class strikes and progressive legislation facilitated trade union organization, elections, collective bargaining rights and a steady increase in union membership. Improved work conditions, rising wages, pension plans and benefits, employer or union-provided health care and protective legislation improved the standard of living for the working class and provided for 2 generations of upward mobility. ..."
"... Social Security legislation was approved along with workers' compensation and the forty-hour workweek. Jobs were created through federal programs (WPA, CCC, etc.). Protectionist legislation facilitated the growth of domestic markets for US manufacturers. Workplace shop steward councils organized 'on the spot' job action to protect safe working conditions. ..."
"... World War II led to full employment and increases in union membership, as well as legislation restricting workers' collective bargaining rights and enforcing wage freezes. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found jobs in the war economy but a huge number were also killed or wounded in the war. ..."
"... So-called ' right to work' ..."
"... Trade union officials signed pacts with capital: higher pay for the workers and greater control of the workplace for the bosses. Trade union officials joined management in repressing rank and file movements seeking to control technological changes by reducing hours (" thirty hours work for forty hours pay ..."
"... Trade union activists, community organizers for rent control and other grassroots movements lost both the capacity and the will to advance toward large-scale structural changes of US capitalism. Living standards improved for a few decades but the capitalist class consolidated strategic control over labor relations. While unionized workers' incomes, increased, inequalities, especially in the non-union sectors began to grow. With the end of the GI bill, veterans' access to high-quality subsidized education declined ..."
"... With the election of President Carter, social welfare in the US began its long decline. The next series of regional wars were accompanied by even greater attacks on welfare via the " Volker Plan " – freezing workers' wages as a means to combat inflation. ..."
"... Guns without butter' became the legislative policy of the Carter and Reagan Administrations. The welfare programs were based on politically fragile foundations. ..."
"... The anti-labor offensive from the ' Oval Office' intensified under President Reagan with his direct intervention firing tens of thousands of striking air controllers and arresting union leaders. Under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush and William Clinton cost of living adjustments failed to keep up with prices of vital goods and services. Health care inflation was astronomical. Financial deregulation led to the subordination of American industry to finance and the Wall Street banks. De-industrialization, capital flight and massive tax evasion reduced labor's share of national income. ..."
"... The capitalist class followed a trajectory of decline, recovery and ascendance. Moreover, during the earlier world depression, at the height of labor mobilization and organization, the capitalist class never faced any significant political threat over its control of the commanding heights of the economy ..."
"... Hand in bloody glove' with the US Empire, the American trade unions planted the seeds of their own destruction at home. The local capitalists in newly emerging independent nations established industries and supply chains in cooperation with US manufacturers. Attracted to these sources of low-wage, violently repressed workers, US capitalists subsequently relocated their factories overseas and turned their backs on labor at home. ..."
"... President 'Bill' Clinton ravaged Russia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia and liberated Wall Street. His regime gave birth to the prototype billionaire swindlers: Michael Milken and Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff. ..."
"... Clinton converted welfare into cheap labor 'workfare', exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable and condemning the next generations to grinding poverty. Under Clinton the prison population of mostly African Americans expanded and the breakup of families ravaged the urban communities. ..."
"... President Obama transferred 2 trillion dollars to the ten biggest bankers and swindlers on Wall Street, and another trillion to the Pentagon to pursue the Democrats version of foreign policy: from Bush's two overseas wars to Obama's seven. ..."
"... Obama was elected to two terms. His liberal Democratic Party supporters swooned over his peace and justice rhetoric while swallowing his militarist escalation into seven overseas wars as well as the foreclosure of two million American householders. Obama completely failed to honor his campaign promise to reduce wage inequality between black and white wage earners while he continued to moralize to black families about ' values' . ..."
"... Obama's war against Libya led to the killing and displacement of millions of black Libyans and workers from Sub-Saharan Africa. The smiling Nobel Peace Prize President created more desperate refugees than any previous US head of state – including millions of Africans flooding Europe. ..."
"... Forty-years of anti welfare legislation and pro-business regimes paved the golden road for the election of Donald Trump ..."
"... Trump and the Republicans are focusing on the tattered remnants of the social welfare system: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. The remains of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society -- are on the chopping block. ..."
"... The moribund (but well-paid) labor leadership has been notable by its absence in the ensuing collapse of the social welfare state. The liberal left Democrats embraced the platitudinous Obama/Clinton team as the 'Great Society's' gravediggers, while wailing at Trump's allies for shoving the corpse of welfare state into its grave. ..."
"... Over the past forty years the working class and the rump of what was once referred to as the ' labor movement' has contributed to the dismantling of the social welfare state, voting for ' strike-breaker' Reagan, ' workfare' Clinton, ' Wall Street crash' Bush, ' Wall Street savior' Obama and ' Trickle-down' Trump. ..."
"... Gone are the days when social welfare and profitable wars raised US living standards and transformed American trade unions into an appendage of the Democratic Party and a handmaiden of Empire. The Democratic Party rescued capitalism from its collapse in the Great Depression, incorporated labor into the war economy and the post- colonial global empire, and resurrected Wall Street from the 'Great Financial Meltdown' of the 21 st century. ..."
"... The war economy no longer fuels social welfare. The military-industrial complex has found new partners on Wall Street and among the globalized multi-national corporations. Profits rise while wages fall. Low paying compulsive labor (workfare) lopped off state transfers to the poor. Technology – IT, robotics, artificial intelligence and electronic gadgets – has created the most class polarized social system in history ..."
"... "The collaboration of liberals and unions in promoting endless wars opened the door to Trump's mirage of a stateless, tax-less, ruling class." ..."
"... Corporations [now] are welfare recipients and the bigger they are, the more handouts they suck up ..."
"... Corporations not only continuously seek monopolies (with the aid and sanction of the state) but they steadily fine tune the welfare state for their benefit. In fact, in reality, welfare for prols and peasants wouldn't exist if it didn't act as a money conduit and ultimate profit center for the big money grubbers. ..."
"... The article is dismal reading, and evidence of the failings of the "unregulated" society, where the anything goes as long as you are wealthy. ..."
"... Like the Pentagon. Americans still don't readily call this welfare, but they will eventually. Defense profiteers are unions in a sense, you're either in their club Or you're in the service industry that surrounds it. ..."
The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period, the
capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.
Between the mid 1970's to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies for
affordable housing have been gutted. ' Workfare' (under President 'Bill' Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced
workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits to an
astronomical degree.
What started as incremental reversals during the 1990's under Clinton has snowballed over the last two decades decimating welfare
legislation and institutions.
The earlier welfare 'reforms' and the current anti-welfare legislation and austerity practices have been accompanied by a
series of endless imperial wars, especially in the Middle East.
In the 1940's through the 1960's, world and regional wars (Korea and Indo-China) were combined with significant welfare program
– a form of ' social imperialism' , which 'buy off' the working class while expanding the empire. However, recent decades are characterized
by multiple regional wars and the reduction or elimination of welfare programs – and a massive growth in poverty, domestic insecurity
and poor health.
New Deals and Big Wars
The 1930's witnessed the advent of social legislation and action, which laid the foundations of what is called the ' modern
welfare state' .
Labor unions were organized as working class strikes and progressive legislation facilitated trade union organization, elections,
collective bargaining rights and a steady increase in union membership. Improved work conditions, rising wages, pension plans and
benefits, employer or union-provided health care and protective legislation improved the standard of living for the working class
and provided for 2 generations of upward mobility.
Social Security legislation was approved along with workers' compensation and the forty-hour workweek. Jobs were created through
federal programs (WPA, CCC, etc.). Protectionist legislation facilitated the growth of domestic markets for US manufacturers. Workplace
shop steward councils organized 'on the spot' job action to protect safe working conditions.
World War II led to full employment and increases in union membership, as well as legislation restricting workers' collective
bargaining rights and enforcing wage freezes. Hundreds of thousands of Americans found jobs in the war economy but a huge number
were also killed or wounded in the war.
The post-war period witnessed a contradictory process: wages and salaries increased while legislation curtailed union rights via
the Taft Hartley Act and the McCarthyist purge of leftwing trade union activists. So-called ' right to work' laws effectively
outlawed unionization mostly in southern states, which drove industries to relocate to the anti-union states.
Welfare reforms, in the form of the GI bill, provided educational opportunities for working class and rural veterans, while federal-subsidized
low interest mortgages encourage home-ownership, especially for veterans.
The New Deal created concrete improvements but did not consolidate labor influence at any level. Capitalists and management still
retained control over capital, the workplace and plant location of production.
Trade union officials signed pacts with capital: higher pay for the workers and greater control of the workplace for the bosses.
Trade union officials joined management in repressing rank and file movements seeking to control technological changes by reducing
hours (" thirty hours work for forty hours pay "). Dissident local unions were seized and gutted by the trade union bosses
– sometimes through violence.
Trade union activists, community organizers for rent control and other grassroots movements lost both the capacity and the
will to advance toward large-scale structural changes of US capitalism. Living standards improved for a few decades but the capitalist
class consolidated strategic control over labor relations. While unionized workers' incomes, increased, inequalities, especially
in the non-union sectors began to grow. With the end of the GI bill, veterans' access to high-quality subsidized education declined.
While a new wave of social welfare legislation and programs began in the 1960's and early 1970's it was no longer a result of
a mass trade union or workers' "class struggle". Moreover, trade union collaboration with the capitalist regional war policies led
to the killing and maiming of hundreds of thousands of workers in two wars – the Korean and Vietnamese wars.
Much of social legislation resulted from the civil and welfare rights movements. While specific programs were helpful, none of
them addressed structural racism and poverty.
The Last Wave of Social Welfarism
The 1960'a witnessed the greatest racial war in modern US history: Mass movements in the South and North rocked state and federal
governments, while advancing the cause of civil, social and political rights. Millions of black citizens, joined by white activists
and, in many cases, led by African American Viet Nam War veterans, confronted the state. At the same time, millions of students and
young workers, threatened by military conscription, challenged the military and social order.
Energized by mass movements, a new wave of social welfare legislation was launched by the federal government to pacify mass opposition
among blacks, students, community organizers and middle class Americans. Despite this mass popular movement, the union bosses at
the AFL-CIO openly supported the war, police repression and the military, or at best, were passive impotent spectators of the drama
unfolding in the nation's streets. Dissident union members and activists were the exception, as many had multiple identities to represent:
African American, Hispanic, draft resisters, etc.
Under Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, Medicare, Medicaid, OSHA, the EPA and multiple poverty programs were implemented.
A national health program, expanding Medicare for all Americans, was introduced by President Nixon and sabotaged by the Kennedy Democrats
and the AFL-CIO. Overall, social and economic inequalities diminished during this period.
The Vietnam War ended in defeat for the American militarist empire. This coincided with the beginning of the end of social welfare
as we knew it – as the bill for militarism placed even greater demands on the public treasury.
With the election of President Carter, social welfare in the US began its long decline. The next series of regional wars were
accompanied by even greater attacks on welfare via the " Volker Plan " – freezing workers' wages as a means to combat inflation.
Guns without butter' became the legislative policy of the Carter and Reagan Administrations. The welfare programs were based
on politically fragile foundations.
The Debacle of Welfarism
Private sector trade union membership declined from a post-world war peak of 30% falling to 12% in the 1990's. Today it has sunk
to 7%. Capitalists embarked on a massive program of closing thousands of factories in the unionized North which were then relocated
to the non-unionized low wage southern states and then overseas to Mexico and Asia. Millions of stable jobs disappeared.
Following the election of 'Jimmy Carter', neither Democratic nor Republican Presidents felt any need to support labor organizations.
On the contrary, they facilitated contracts dictated by management, which reduced wages, job security, benefits and social welfare.
The anti-labor offensive from the ' Oval Office' intensified under President Reagan with his direct intervention
firing tens of thousands of striking air controllers and arresting union leaders. Under Presidents Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush
and William Clinton cost of living adjustments failed to keep up with prices of vital goods and services. Health care inflation was
astronomical. Financial deregulation led to the subordination of American industry to finance and the Wall Street banks. De-industrialization,
capital flight and massive tax evasion reduced labor's share of national income.
The capitalist class followed a trajectory of decline, recovery and ascendance. Moreover, during the earlier world depression,
at the height of labor mobilization and organization, the capitalist class never faced any significant political threat over its
control of the commanding heights of the economy.
The ' New Deal' was, at best, a de facto ' historical compromise' between the capitalist class and the labor
unions, mediated by the Democratic Party elite. It was a temporary pact in which the unions secured legal recognition while the capitalists
retained their executive prerogatives.
The Second World War secured the economic recovery for capital and subordinated labor through a federally mandated no strike
production agreement. There were a few notable exceptions: The coal miners' union organized strikes in strategic sectors and some
leftist leaders and organizers encouraged slow-downs, work to rule and other in-plant actions when employers ran roughshod with special
brutality over the workers. The recovery of capital was the prelude to a post-war offensive against independent labor-based political
organizations. The quality of labor organization declined even as the quantity of trade union membership increased.
Labor union officials consolidated internal control in collaboration with the capitalist elite. Capitalist class-labor official
collaboration was extended overseas with strategic consequences.
The post-war corporate alliance between the state and capital led to a global offensive – the replacement of European-Japanese
colonial control and exploitation by US business and bankers. Imperialism was later 're-branded' as ' globalization' . It
pried open markets, secured cheap docile labor and pillaged resources for US manufacturers and importers.
US labor unions played a major role by sabotaging militant unions abroad in cooperation with the US security apparatus: They worked
to coopt and bribe nationalist and leftist labor leaders and supported police-state regime repression and assassination of recalcitrant
militants.
' Hand in bloody glove' with the US Empire, the American trade unions planted the seeds of their own destruction at home.
The local capitalists in newly emerging independent nations established industries and supply chains in cooperation with US manufacturers.
Attracted to these sources of low-wage, violently repressed workers, US capitalists subsequently relocated their factories overseas
and turned their backs on labor at home.
Labor union officials had laid the groundwork for the demise of stable jobs and social benefits for American workers. Their collaboration
increased the rate of capitalist profit and overall power in the political system. Their complicity in the brutal purges of militants,
activists and leftist union members and leaders at home and abroad put an end to labor's capacity to sustain and expand the welfare
state.
Trade unions in the US did not use their collaboration with empire in its bloody regional wars to win social benefits for the
rank and file workers. The time of social-imperialism, where workers within the empire benefited from imperialism's pillage, was
over. Gains in social welfare henceforth could result only from mass struggles led by the urban poor, especially Afro-Americans,
community-based working poor and militant youth organizers.
The last significant social welfare reforms were implemented in the early 1970's – coinciding with the end of the Vietnam War
(and victory for the Vietnamese people) and ended with the absorption of the urban and anti-war movements into the Democratic Party.
Henceforward the US corporate state advanced through the overseas expansion of the multi-national corporations and via large-scale,
non-unionized production at home.
The technological changes of this period did not benefit labor. The belief, common in the 1950's, that science and technology
would increase leisure, decrease work and improve living standards for the working class, was shattered. Instead technological changes
displaced well-paid industrial labor while increasing the number of mind-numbing, poorly paid, and politically impotent jobs in the
so-called 'service sector' – a rapidly growing section of unorganized and vulnerable workers – especially including women and minorities.
Labor union membership declined precipitously. The demise of the USSR and China's turn to capitalism had a dual effect: It eliminated
collectivist (socialist) pressure for social welfare and opened their labor markets with cheap, disciplined workers for foreign manufacturers.
Labor as a political force disappeared on every count. The US Federal Reserve and President 'Bill' Clinton deregulated financial
capital leading to a frenzy of speculation. Congress wrote laws, which permitted overseas tax evasion – especially in Caribbean tax
havens. Regional free-trade agreements, like NAFTA, spurred the relocation of jobs abroad. De-industrialization accompanied the decline
of wages, living standards and social benefits for millions of American workers.
The New Abolitionists: Trillionaires
The New Deal, the Great Society, trade unions, and the anti-war and urban movements were in retreat and primed for abolition.
Wars without welfare (or guns without butter) replaced earlier 'social imperialism' with a huge growth of poverty and homelessness.
Domestic labor was now exploited to finance overseas wars not vice versa. The fruits of imperial plunder were not shared.
As the working and middle classes drifted downward, they were used up, abandoned and deceived on all sides – especially by the
Democratic Party. They elected militarists and demagogues as their new presidents.
President 'Bill' Clinton ravaged Russia, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Somalia and liberated Wall Street. His regime gave birth to the
prototype billionaire swindlers: Michael Milken and Bernard 'Bernie' Madoff.
Clinton converted welfare into cheap labor 'workfare', exploiting the poorest and most vulnerable and condemning the next
generations to grinding poverty. Under Clinton the prison population of mostly African Americans expanded and the breakup of families
ravaged the urban communities.
Provoked by an act of terrorism (9/11) President G.W. Bush Jr. launched the 'endless' wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and deepened
the police state (Patriot Act). Wages for American workers and profits for American capitalist moved in opposite directions.
The Great Financial Crash of 2008-2011 shook the paper economy to its roots and led to the greatest shakedown of any national
treasury in history directed by the First Black American President. Trillions of public wealth were funneled into the criminal banks
on Wall Street – which were ' just too big to fail .' Millions of American workers and homeowners, however, were '
just
too small to matter' .
The Age of Demagogues
President Obama transferred 2 trillion dollars to the ten biggest bankers and swindlers on Wall Street, and another trillion
to the Pentagon to pursue the Democrats version of foreign policy: from Bush's two overseas wars to Obama's seven.
Obama's electoral 'donor-owners' stashed away two trillion dollars in overseas tax havens and looked forward to global free trade
pacts – pushed by the eloquent African American President.
Obama was elected to two terms. His liberal Democratic Party supporters swooned over his peace and justice rhetoric while
swallowing his militarist escalation into seven overseas wars as well as the foreclosure of two million American householders. Obama
completely failed to honor his campaign promise to reduce wage inequality between black and white wage earners while he continued
to moralize to black families about ' values' .
Obama's war against Libya led to the killing and displacement of millions of black Libyans and workers from Sub-Saharan Africa.
The smiling Nobel Peace Prize President created more desperate refugees than any previous US head of state – including millions of
Africans flooding Europe.
'Obamacare' , his imitation of an earlier Republican governor's health plan, was formulated by the private corporate
health industry (private insurance, Big Pharma and the for-profit hospitals), to mandate enrollment and ensure triple digit profits
with double digit increases in premiums. By the 2016 Presidential elections, ' Obama-care' was opposed by a 45%-43% margin
of the American people. Obama's propagandists could not show any improvement of life expectancy or decrease in infant and maternal
mortality as a result of his 'health care reform'. Indeed the opposite occurred among the marginalized working class in the old 'rust
belt' and in the rural areas. This failure to show any significant health improvement for the masses of Americans is in stark contrast
to LBJ's Medicare program of the 1960's, which continues to receive massive popular support.
Forty-years of anti welfare legislation and pro-business regimes paved the golden road for the election of Donald Trump
Trump and the Republicans are focusing on the tattered remnants of the social welfare system: Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
The remains of FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society -- are on the chopping block.
The moribund (but well-paid) labor leadership has been notable by its absence in the ensuing collapse of the social welfare
state. The liberal left Democrats embraced the platitudinous Obama/Clinton team as the 'Great Society's' gravediggers, while wailing
at Trump's allies for shoving the corpse of welfare state into its grave.
Conclusion
Over the past forty years the working class and the rump of what was once referred to as the ' labor movement' has contributed
to the dismantling of the social welfare state, voting for ' strike-breaker' Reagan, ' workfare' Clinton, ' Wall Street crash' Bush,
' Wall Street savior' Obama and ' Trickle-down' Trump.
Gone are the days when social welfare and profitable wars raised US living standards and transformed American trade unions
into an appendage of the Democratic Party and a handmaiden of Empire. The Democratic Party rescued capitalism from its collapse in
the Great Depression, incorporated labor into the war economy and the post- colonial global empire, and resurrected Wall Street from
the 'Great Financial Meltdown' of the 21 st century.
The war economy no longer fuels social welfare. The military-industrial complex has found new partners on Wall Street and
among the globalized multi-national corporations. Profits rise while wages fall. Low paying compulsive labor (workfare) lopped off
state transfers to the poor. Technology – IT, robotics, artificial intelligence and electronic gadgets – has created the most class
polarized social system in history. The first trillionaire and multi-billionaire tax evaders rose on the backs of a miserable
standing army of tens of millions of low-wage workers, stripped of rights and representation. State subsidies eliminate virtually
all risk to capital. The end of social welfare coerced labor (including young mother with children) to seek insecure low-income employment
while slashing education and health – cementing the feet of generations into poverty. Regional wars abroad have depleted the Treasury
and robbed the country of productive investment. Economic imperialism exports profits, reversing the historic relation of the past.
Labor is left without compass or direction; it flails in all directions and falls deeper in the web of deception and demagogy.
To escape from Reagan and the strike breakers, labor embraced the cheap-labor predator Clinton; black and white workers united to
elect Obama who expelled millions of immigrant workers, pursued 7 wars, abandoned black workers and enriched the already filthy rich.
Deception and demagogy of the labor-
If the welfare state in America was abolished, major American cities would burn to the ground. Anarchy would ensue, it would be
magnitudes bigger than anything that happened in Ferguson or Baltimore. It would likely be simultaneous.
I think that's one of the only situations where preppers would actually live out what they've been prepping for (except for
a natural disaster).
I've been thinking about this a little over the past few years after seeing the race riots. What exactly is the line between
our society being civilized and breaking out into chaos. It's probably a lot thinner than most people think.
I don't know who said it but someone long ago said something along the lines of, "Democracy can only work until the people
figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public treasury." We are definitely in this situation today.
I wonder how long it can last.
While I agree with Petras's intent (notwithstanding several exaggerations and unnecessary conflations with, for example, racism),
I don't agree so much with the method he proposes. I don't mind welfare and unions to a certain extent, but they are not going
to save us unless there is full employment and large corporations that can afford to pay an all-union workforce. That happened
during WW2, as only wartime demand and those pesky wage freezes solved the Depression, regardless of all the public works programs;
while the postwar era benefited from the US becoming the world's creditor, meaning that capital could expand while labor participation
did as well.
From then on, it is quite hard to achieve the same success after outsourcing and mechanization have happened all over the world.
Both of these phenomena not only create displaced workers, but also displaced industries, meaning that it makes more sense to
develop individual workfare (and even then, do it well, not the shoddy way it is done now) rather than giving away checks that
probably will not be cashed for entrepreneurial purposes, and rather than giving away money to corrupt unions who depend on trusts
to be able to pay for their benefits, while raising the cost of hiring that only encourages more outsourcing.
The amount of welfare given is not necessarily the main problem, the problem is doing it right for the people who truly need
it, and efficiently – that is, with the least amount of waste lost between the chain of distribution, which should reach intended
targets and not moochers.
Which inevitably means a sound tax system that targets unearned wealth and (to a lesser degree) foreign competition instead
of national production, coupled with strict, yet devolved and simple government processes that benefit both business and individuals
tired of bureaucracy, while keeping budgets balanced. Best of both worlds, and no military-industrial complex needed to drive
up demand.
The American welfare state was created in 1935 and continued to develop through 1973. Since then, over a prolonged period,
the capitalist class has been steadily dismantling the entire welfare state.
Wrong wrong wrong.
Corporations [now] are welfare recipients and the bigger they are, the more handouts they suck up, and welfare for
them started before 1935. In fact, it started in America before there was a USA. I do not have time to elaborate, but what were
the various companies such as the British East India Company and the Dutch West India Companies but state pampered, welfare based
entities? ~200 years ago, Herbert Spencer, if memory serves, pointed out that the British East India Company couldn't make a profit
even with all the special, government granted favors showered upon it.
Corporations not only continuously seek monopolies (with the aid and sanction of the state) but they steadily fine tune
the welfare state for their benefit. In fact, in reality, welfare for prols and peasants wouldn't exist if it didn't act as a
money conduit and ultimate profit center for the big money grubbers.
Well, the author kind of nails it. I remember from my childhood in the 50-60 ties in Scandinavia that the US was the ultimate
goal in welfare. The country where you could make a good living with your two hands, get you kids to UNI, have a house, a telly
ECT. It was not consumerism, it was the American dream, a chicken in every pot; we chewed imported American gum and dreamed.
In the 70-80 ties Scandinavia had a tremendous social and economic growth, EQUALLY distributed, an immense leap forward. In the
middle of the 80 ties we were equal to the US in standards of living.
Since we have not looked at the US, unless in pity, as we have seen the decline of the general income, social wealth fall way
behind our own.
The average US workers income has not increased since 90 figures adjusted for inflation. The Scandinavian workers income in the
same period has almost quadrupled. And so has our societies.
The article is dismal reading, and evidence of the failings of the "unregulated" society, where the anything goes as long
as you are wealthy.
Between the mid 1970's to the present (2017) labor laws, welfare rights and benefits and the construction of and subsidies
for affordable housing have been gutted. 'Workfare' (under President 'Bill' Clinton) ended welfare for the poor and displaced
workers. Meanwhile the shift to regressive taxation and the steadily declining real wages have increased corporate profits
to an astronomical degree.
What does Hollywood "elite" JAP and wannabe hack-stand-up-comic Sarah Silverman think about the class struggle and problems
facing destitute Americans? "Qu'ils mangent de la bagels!", source:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake
Like the Pentagon. Americans still don't readily call this welfare, but they will eventually. Defense profiteers are unions
in a sense, you're either in their club Or you're in the service industry that surrounds it.
As other commenters have pointed out, it's Petras curious choice of words that sometimes don't make too much sense. We can probably
blame the maleable English language for that, but here it's too obvious. If you don't define a union, people might assume you're
only talking about a bunch of meat cutters at Safeway.
The welfare state is alive and well for corporate America. Unions are still here – but they are defined by access and secrecy,
you're either in the club or not.
The war on unions was successful first by co-option but mostly by the media. But what kind of analysis leaves out the role
of the media in the American transformation? The success is mind blowing.
America has barely literate (white) middle aged males trained to spout incoherent Calvinistic weirdness: unabased hatred for
the poor (or whoever they're told to hate) and a glorification of hedge fund managers as they get laid off, fired and foreclosed
on, with a side of opiates.
There is hardly anything more tragic then seeing a web filled with progressives (management consultants) dedicated to disempowering,
disabling and deligitimizing victims by claiming they are victims of biology, disease or a lack of an education rather than a
system that issues violence while portending (with the best media money can buy) that they claim the higher ground.
""Democracy can only work until the people figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public
treasury." We are definitely in this situation today."
Quite right: the 0.01% have worked it out & US democracy is a Theatre for the masses.
I don't know who said it but someone long ago said something along the lines of, "Democracy can only work until the people
figure out they can vote for themselves generous benefits from the public treasury."
Some French aristocrat put it as, once the gates to the treasury have been breached, they can only be closed again with gunpowder.
Anyone recognize the author?
The author doesn't get it. What we have now IS the welfare state in an intensely diverse society. We have more transfer spending
than ever before and Obamacare represents another huge entitlement.
Intellectuals continue to fantasize about the US becoming a Big Sweden, but Sweden has only been successful insofar as it has
been a modest nation-state populated by ethnic Swedes. Intense diversity in a huge country with only the remnants of federalism
results in massive non-consensual decision-making, fragmentation, increased inequality, and corruption.
The welfare state is alive and well for corporate America. Unions are still here – but they are defined by access and
secrecy, you're either in the club or not.
They are largely defined as Doctors, Lawyers, and University Professors who teach the first two. Of course they are not called
unions. Access is via credentialing and licensing. Good Day
Bernie Sanders, speaking on behalf of the MIC's welfare bird: "It is the airplane of the United States Air Force, Navy, and
of NATO."
Elizabeth Warren, referring to Mossad's Estes Rockets: "The Israeli military has the right to attack Palestinian hospitals
and schools in self defense"
Barack Obama, yukking it up with pop stars: "Two words for you: predator drones. You will never see it coming."
It's not the agitprop that confuses the sheep, it's whose blowhole it's coming out of (labled D or R for convenience) that
gets them to bare their teeth and speak of poo.
What came first, the credentialing or the idea that it is a necessary part of education? It certainly isn't an accurate indication
of what people know or their general intelligence – although that myth has flourished. Good afternoon.
For an interesting projection of what might happen in total civilizational collapse, I recommend the Dies the Fire series of
novels by SM Stirling.
It has a science-fictiony setup in that all high-energy system (gunpowder, electricity, explosives, internal combustion, even
high-energy steam engines) suddenly stop working. But I think it does a good job of extrapolating what would happen if suddenly
the cities did not have food, water, power, etc.
Spoiler alert: It ain't pretty. Those who dream of a world without guns have not really thought it through.
It has been pointed out repeatedly that Sweden does very well relative to the USA. It has also been noted that people of Swedish
ancestry in the USA do pretty well also. In fact considerably better than Swedes in Sweden
This is three years old article. What changed ? The USA is still the center of the global neoliberal empire.
Slavoj iek develops a false premise but with real mastery of the language. he is definitely talanted writer, but not so much a
thinker. He completely missed the gorth of nationalism as a reaction to neoliberalism. So comments are more
interesting then that article and some of them proved to be prophetic.
"... The stabilisation of society under the Putin reign is largely because of the newly established transparency of these unwritten rules. ..."
"... the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism. ..."
"... This is why our times are potentially more dangerous than they may appear. ..."
"... the next stage of a geopolitical struggle for control in a nonregulated, multicentred world. ..."
"... the impossibility of creating a global political order that would correspond to the global capitalist economy. ..."
"... In politics, age-old fixations, and particular, substantial ethnic, religious and cultural identities, have returned with a vengeance ..."
"... Capitalism is a system engineered to ensure that the psychopaths get to the top. Ruthlessness, selfishness, blind pursuit of profit, manipulation and coercion of others, believing your own lies - these are the necessary qualities for success, which have been elevated into desirable qualities. If you don't have them, you're a loser. ..."
"... To get to the top, you have to be a psychopath. If you're at the top, you're a psychopath. ..."
"... The oligarchs, of course. ..."
"... The current Ukrainian problem may have more in common with Georgia, than Syria, Libya and Iraq, but they all have the US squaring off against Russia. ..."
"... What might be more worrying is when the current FRB resuscitation of the US economy fails to show the promise anticipated and the debt to China becomes a political problem. What then? Does Washington send warships to Beijing? ..."
"... Most likely Ukraine would be a quasi-independent, bankrupt state heavily indebted to the West, with NATO bases, folklore instead of real politics, large emigration (mostly illegal), and desperate population ..."
"... The rest of the population would be slowly dropping to substance level, no jobs, no money, no futures. ..."
"... So having Russia - as a savior, boogeyman or a distraction - immensely help all Ukrainians. It makes them important enough to have to be bought out. It forces a competition for their affection and thus bids up any rewards. ..."
"... This is an end-of-days party for those who seem to have no place in the neo-liberal world, either EU or the Russian version. ..."
"... Most power gets dissipated with over-reach, so I am not sure capitalizing faster would have been better for US. Most power is also always local, and the world is a big place. ..."
"... US neo-con dreamers tend to see the world as a map. It is not a "map". It is a much more complex environment with local dynamics, histories, and lots and lots of people. Who want stuff. Moving in, or "capitalizing" as you call it, creates heightened expectations and inevitable disappointments. My advise is to chill and keep it small. Over-reach and too much ambition never work in the long run. ..."
"... and kill left and right for 'freedoms'. ..."
"... Therein is another contradiction. Globalists cannot focus on their national economy. ..."
"... Our predicament TOMORROW will be defined by an intensifying scarcity of finite resources, with the additional whammy of climate change. ..."
"... My own gut-feeling is that globalisation is already beginning to decline and disintegrate due to economic, political, resource and environmental constraints. ..."
"... My guess is Bankers and big corporations will control the post capitalist world. ..."
"... the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism ..."
"... First and foremost; perturbations we are witnessing are processes of reversing the globalisation-effect that in its core value destroys centralised global-powers control. ..."
"... There's no such thing as your fantasy version of Capitalism; where all the markets are "free" and there are no assholes and sociopaths trying to manipulate and screw people. ..."
"... ALL the ISM words are worthless labels used by people with economic morality OCD. ..."
"... Zizek's analysis is once again spot on and would be accepted as self-evident (Ukraine a proxy war between superpowers) were it not for our twisted corporate controlled media. ..."
"... Seems very obvious here in the USA we are controlled (owned) by the multi-national corporations. ..."
"... Governments now exist to funnel wealth to the .01% who own the corporations. ..."
"... or the corporate elite more likely !! ..."
"... will involve the nation state recapturing its power and the diminishing authority of the corporate elite who of course are hell bent on taking over everything affecting our lives ..."
"... The 'corporate elite' already OWN our governments. The nation state is disappearing at the same rate as democratic representation. ..."
"... Something I find interesting is the transnational nature of modern capital, and labour. This is making geo control difficult for modern superpowers, not impossible, but increasingly difficult. As revenue is increasingly tied to transnational enterprises, the paradox is that state interests are tied to cross border peace and stability. Not a goal helped by upsetting regional stability. ..."
"... Our predicament today is defined by this tension: the global free circulation of commodities is accompanied by growing separations in the social sphere. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the global market, new walls have begun emerging everywhere, separating peoples and their cultures. Perhaps the very survival of humanity depends on resolving this tension. ..."
"... Consider that there may be an elite group of power-mongers who, through the control of global mega-institutions, wield the power to mobilize e.g the military might of the U.S. and of Britain and of other puppet nations ..."
"... Actually, even Obama himself, could be a proxy! ..."
"... Global corporations appear to be the new weapon of war, ..."
"... most power and influence in any country comes from its wealth holders and in many cases these are faceless suits in big business and high finance all protected by a blag legal system set up to protect companies and 'their' assets. ..."
"... The transnational entity called the United Nations has long passed its use-by date. The US government is in thrall to Wall Street, corporations and their lobby groups and is over-extended in numerous wars and conflicts across the planet. Americans are tired of fighting, they are sinking into Third World poverty, their jobs are disappearing and more of them are ending up in prisons operated by private firms for profit. ..."
"... It is definitely time to teach the superpowers, old and new, some manners, but who will do it? ..."
"... All gringos have done in their century of greatness ("the land of 'the' 'free' and 'the' 'brave'") is abusing people who can't defend themselves on an equal basis, mess with the environment and (very successfully I would admit) brainwash many, many people by selling them very stupid and unsustainable illusions ..."
"... Monied interests will control the 'post-superpower capitalist world order.' During the past few years, they quietly used their power to force governments austerity policies in both the US and Europe and hack away at their social safety nets. ..."
"... Communism at least gave social liberalism in the West a chance, as an alternative to deprive the Soviets of sympathizers. Once communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, the monied interests felt they could dispense with liberalism and pursue more extreme aims. ..."
"... We exist in a world where might makes right. ..."
"... These few percent, consciously or not, create, enforce, and change all the rules; it is for the rest of us to find some way to survive under them. Good luck all. ..."
"... Otherwise, the US was pretty much entirely indifferent to Russia's national interests and preferences ..."
"... Far more accurate to say that the US simply treated Russia as the loser of the Cold War ..."
"... and as such should simply roll over and accept all edicts from Washington. ..."
"... Gangs are the most primitive form of government and within neo-liberalism all governments are merely gangs. ..."
"... neo-liberalism's excessive division is dehumanising hence the institutional collapse. ..."
"... Super-rich people and large corporations, are a luxury we can no longer afford. ..."
"... 'Survival in numbers' is a prime survival mechanism in our species. Cooperation trumps competition most of the time. Neo-liberalism has made far too much division for our species to survive it. Cooperating with neo-liberalism is the biggest mistake. ..."
"... What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or a representative world government? ..."
"... since Consumerism is nothing more than a superstitious belief in Perpetual Motion ..."
"... Here Zizek encourages a kind of liberal naiveté, astonishing for a guy who pretends to be comfortable with Lenin's no-nonsense revolutionary analytic approach. ..."
"... Global capital doesn't want world democracy. They want the TransPacific Partnership G8, etc. They want elite enrichment and militarized police. ..."
"... Slavoj iek develops a false premise with great ease. ..."
"... The USA is subconsciously aware of this problem and its inevitable endpoint. It is thus armed to the teeth and will remain so. ..."
"... Only an economic collapse can disarm the USA. ..."
"... The problem could be tempered by the citizenry, but the public is cowed by fears of terrorism, real and imagined. ..."
In a divided and dangerous world, we need to teach the new powers some manners
To know a society is not only to know its explicit rules. One must also know how to apply them: when to use them, when to violate
them, when to turn down a choice that is offered, and when we are effectively obliged to do something but have to pretend we are
doing it as a free choice. Consider the paradox, for instance, of offers-meant-to-be-refused. When I am invited to a restaurant by
a rich uncle, we both know he will cover the bill, but I nonetheless have to lightly insist we share it – imagine my surprise if
my uncle were simply to say: "OK, then, you pay it!"
There was a similar problem during the chaotic post-Soviet years of Yeltsin's rule in Russia. Although the legal rules were known,
and were largely the same as under the Soviet Union, the complex network of implicit, unwritten rules, which sustained the entire
social edifice, disintegrated. -[ It's he is completely detached from reality; that was a neoliberal revolution,
nothing more nothing less -- NNB] In the Soviet Union, if you wanted better hospital treatment, say, or a new apartment, if you
had a complaint against the authorities, were summoned to court or wanted your child to be accepted at a top school, you knew the
implicit rules. You understood whom to address or bribe, and what you could or couldn't do.
After the collapse of Soviet power, one
of the most frustrating aspects of daily life for ordinary people was that these unwritten rules became seriously blurred. People
simply did not know how to react, how to relate to explicit legal regulations, what could be ignored, and where bribery worked. (One
of the functions of organized crime was to provide a kind of ersatz legality. If you owned a small business and a customer owed you
money, you turned to your mafia protector, who dealt with the problem, since the state legal system was inefficient.)
The stabilisation
of society under the Putin reign is largely because of the newly established transparency of these unwritten rules. Now, once
again, people mostly understand the complex cobweb of social interactions.
In international politics, we have not yet reached this stage. Back in the 1990s, a silent pact regulated the relationship between
the great western powers and Russia. Western states treated Russia as a great power on the condition that Russia didn't act as one.--[
That' beyong naive -- the USA treated Yeltisn Russia as a vassal, it actually was a time --NNB] But what if the person
to whom the offer-to-be-rejected is made actually accepts it? What if Russia starts to act as a great power? A situation like this
is properly catastrophic, threatening the entire existing fabric of relations – as happened
five years ago in Georgia. Tired of only being
treated as a superpower, Russia actually acted as one.
How did it come to this? The "American
century" is over, and we have entered a period in which
multiple
centres of global capitalism have been forming. In the US, Europe, China and maybe Latin America, too, capitalist systems have
developed with specific twists: the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China
for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism.
After the attempt by the US to impose itself as the sole
superpower – the universal policeman – failed, there is now the need to establish the rules of interaction between these local centres
as regards their conflicting interests.
This is why our times are potentially more dangerous than they may appear. During the cold war, the rules of international
behaviour were clear, guaranteed by the Mad-ness – mutually assured destruction
– of the superpowers. When the Soviet Union violated these unwritten rules by invading Afghanistan, it paid dearly for this infringement.
The war in Afghanistan was the beginning of its end. Today, the old and new superpowers are testing each other, trying to impose
their own version of global rules, experimenting with them through proxies – which are, of course, other, small nations and states.
Karl Popper once praised the scientific testing of hypotheses,
saying that, in this way, we allow our hypotheses to die instead of us. In today's testing, small nations get hurt and wounded instead
of the big ones – first Georgia, now Ukraine. Although the official arguments are highly moral, revolving around human rights and
freedoms, the nature of the game is clear. The events in Ukraine
seem something
like the crisis in Georgia, part two – the next stage of a geopolitical struggle for control in a nonregulated, multicentred
world.
It is definitely time to teach the superpowers, old and new, some manners, but who will do it? Obviously, only a transnational
entity can manage it – more than 200 years ago, Immanuel Kant saw the need for a transnational legal order grounded in the rise of
the global society. In his project for perpetual peace, he wrote: "Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth
has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the world, the idea of a law of world citizenship
is no high-flown or exaggerated notion."
This, however, brings us to what is arguably the "principal contradiction" of the new world order (if we may use this old Maoist
term): the impossibility of creating a global political order that would correspond to the global capitalist economy.
What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or a representative
world government? What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?
Today, in our era of globalisation, we are paying the price for this "principal contradiction." In politics, age-old fixations,
and particular, substantial ethnic, religious and cultural identities, have returned with a vengeance. Our predicament today
is defined by this tension: the global free circulation of commodities is accompanied by growing separations in the social sphere.
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the global market, new walls have begun emerging everywhere, separating peoples
and their cultures. Perhaps the very survival of humanity depends on resolving this tension.
GreeneGrasshopper -> Strummered, 06 May 2014 10:05pm
Capitalism is a system engineered to ensure that the psychopaths get to the top. Ruthlessness, selfishness, blind
pursuit of profit, manipulation and coercion of others, believing your own lies - these are the necessary qualities for success,
which have been elevated into desirable qualities. If you don't have them, you're a loser.
To get to the top, you have to be a psychopath. If you're at the top, you're a psychopath.
Whitt, 06 May 2014 9:22pm
"Who can control the post-superpower capitalist world order?"
*
Is this a trick question?
The oligarchs, of course.
Silvertown Swedinburgh, 06 May 2014 11:24pm
For the 1948 Italian General Election the US fleet was in Italian ports with the US Marines on board just so the electorate
would get the message and as one CIA agent said "We had bags of money that we delivered to selected politicians, to defray their
political expenses, their campaign expenses, for posters, for pamphlets," according to CIA operative F. Mark Wyatt. and they kept
interfering in Italian elections into the 1970s
MsrOboulot Malkatrinho, 07 May 2014 1:19pm
Northern Cyprus was annexed by Turkey. Many commentators would also argue that Croatia and Slovenia were effectively annexed
by the EU, if not Austria and Germany. Commentators such as Pilger would argue that 80% of Latin America was annexed by the US
a long time ago, but let's not go there. Of course, we can also talk about the Occupied Territories, how would you describe them?
As I said, it's a matter of political views we disagree on, not one of terminology.
StephenStafford, 06 May 2014 9:39pm
Though the article deals with countries and geographic areas, much might be equivalently true of companies which may be likened
to countries especially when some have larger revenues than many countries which they may tend to be able. individually or as
a group, to dominate.
The Obama regime is calling fo sanctions on the Putin regime, whilst ExxonMobil seems unfazed and is busily investing with a Russian
oil company Rosneft.
After Yeltsin, Putin very obviously searched for ways to reclaim State assets sold off on the cheap and whereas he could manage
to deal with one (Yukos), his Government was obviously too impaired to go after many other Oligarchs, so for the moment they and
their ill-gotten assets are 'safe' .
The current Ukrainian problem may have more in common with Georgia, than Syria, Libya and Iraq, but they all have the US
squaring off against Russia. In Ukraine, Russia acted decisively over Crimea and left the US in a quandary as to what their
next move could be, other than backing their puppet regime.
The US has shown little wish to be directly involved after Iraq in many of these local skirmishes apart from 'drones'. Russia
has not turned up in any war zone using drones so far, though Iran and Hezbollah seem to see in their next conflicts, the use
of drones will be very important.
What might be more worrying is when the current FRB resuscitation of the US economy fails to show the promise anticipated
and the debt to China becomes a political problem. What then? Does Washington send warships to Beijing?
Putin told Bush a long while ago that Russia appreciated the US interest in its natural resources, but no thank you.
Beckow -> StephenStafford, 06 May 2014 11:50pm
"Ukrainian problem may have more in common with Georgia, than Syria, Libya and Iraq, but they all have the US squaring off
against Russia."
I agree that Georgia was a mini-version of this, but because of its size the Ukraine problem is in a class of its own. In other
words, this is truly new and almost anything can happen.
When trying to understand the reality around us it helps to do a few logical games, and Zizek does that, just not fully. For example,
let's say there was no Russia, or only an absolutely powerless Russia (like Yeltsin in the 90's). What would happen?
Most likely Ukraine would be a quasi-independent, bankrupt state heavily indebted to the West, with NATO bases, folklore instead
of real politics, large emigration (mostly illegal), and desperate population. It would be run by Western approved oligarchs
who would share all local resources with Western "investors". It would not be in EU, although a small layer of Kiev intelligentsia
would be heavily subsidized by the West, given do-nothing cushy NGO positions, offered frequent trips and humored as needed. The
nationalists would be changing public holidays, tearing down and putting up statues, and occasionally venting their anger at minorities
and at football games. The rest of the population would be slowly dropping to substance level, no jobs, no money, no futures.
In other words just like some of the poorer EU countries, except without the accumulated wealth, euro currency and access
to EU as an escape valve.
So having Russia - as a savior, boogeyman or a distraction - immensely help all Ukrainians. It makes them important enough
to have to be bought out. It forces a competition for their affection and thus bids up any rewards. All Ukrainians do better
(except the killed ones): the NGO crowd in Kiev gets more grants, oligarchs get more deals, nationalists get more respect, Russians
in the south-east will get a veto power, so they will also have to be compensated. This is a win-win and on the ground the people
engaged sense it: so they will keep it going, they will escalate. What are the alternatives? Greece without the Aegean islands?
Or a dumpy provincial life?
This is locally driven and not any longer by super-powers, indispensable one, aspiring one, or any other kind. It will go on and
will be quite entertaining. That's what Zizek missed, he is too globally focused. This is about a unique place, strange and desperate
people, and no resources to pay for the entertainment. This is an end-of-days party for those who seem to have no place in
the neo-liberal world, either EU or the Russian version.
StephenStafford -> Beckow, 07 May 2014 2:12pm
Good synopsis of the problem in Ukraine.
re
What would happen?
The weakness of Russia wasn't immediately capitalised upon by the USA, though the Clinton foreign policy increasingly reflected
this, particularly with the interference in the Balkans. The PNAC on the other hand did see the advantage that the USA could take
and that was obvious in the Afghanistan attack and more especially with Iraq.
Arguably in this post 1990 period, the USA acted relatively slowly to capitalise on the dissolution of the USSR.
Beckow StephenStafford, 07 May 2014 7:54pm
Most power gets dissipated with over-reach, so I am not sure capitalizing faster would have been better for US. Most power
is also always local, and the world is a big place.
US neo-con dreamers tend to see the world as a map. It is not a "map". It is a much more complex environment with local dynamics,
histories, and lots and lots of people. Who want stuff. Moving in, or "capitalizing" as you call it, creates heightened expectations
and inevitable disappointments. My advise is to chill and keep it small. Over-reach and too much ambition never work in the long
run.
WhatIsWhat -> StephenStafford
The US has shown little wish to be directly involved after Iraq in many of these local skirmishes apart from 'drones'.
For the sake of the truth, little correction:
The US has shown little wish to be openly and visibly involved after Iraq in many of these local skirmishes apart from 'drones'.
They prefer to be invisible and remotely control 'human drones' who 'peacefully protest' and kill left and right for 'freedoms'.
Rialbynot, 06 May 2014 9:47pm
What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?
Today, in our era of globalisation, we are paying the price for this "principal contradiction."
Some are paying the price; others are benefitting. That's the first thing we need to recognise.
Having done so, we can then start "solving" the contradiction by re-focussing attention on our national economies, while also
seeking to make the global market economy a little more people-friendly (the aim being a global social market economy).
Perhaps the EU's principle (or concept) of subsidiarity, which, unfortunately, the EU itself so often fails to apply, could be
used to identify at which level decisions should be taken.
Brigitte Bernadotte -> Rialbynot, 07 May 2014 12:43pm
A "global democracy" is a nightmare per se, because it's a global government. The US is a democracy, and Germany was a democracy
in the 20's, too. However, it turned into one of the most terrible dictatorships ever. Hell-bent on removing borders actually.
Any kind of global government, as friendly and benevolent it might be, could turn into a global dictaorship, like in Star Wars
the Republic was turned into the Empire. Which country would fight the golbal dictorship? To which country wold whistleblowers
and refugees go? Ivory tower left-wing populist academics like Zizek, who conveniently blames "capitalism" (the right to own property)
as the root of all evil - as if the Soviet Union and Mao's China had been bastions of liberty - fail to deal with this aspect.
I am not surprised, the EU welfare state is the reason for the euro debt mountain (in the US it's military overstretch), which
is the reason for the EU's misery, and he failed to even mention that, too.
That's also why the EU is dangerous, it reduces political diversity, which helped Europe to overcome dictatorships in the past.
Several EU countries grounding Morales' plane on American orders was a taste of that. As for subsidiarity, the EU is based on
"ever closer union", which is an euphemism for centralist power grab.
Brian o'Cualain -> Brigitte Bernadotte, 07 May 2014 1:51pm
When looking at the EU welfare debt mountain it's worth looking who exactly benefits from the welfare, not only in terms of the
generally recognized view of welfare but also the whole notion of corporate welfare, subsidies, tax-breaks etc. I think you'll
find the scales will tend to tip where they tip for everything else.
Avi Unobtaniumstein -> Rialbynot, 08 May 2014 11:36am
Therein is another contradiction. Globalists cannot focus on their national economy.
michaelmichael, 06 May 2014 9:58pm
"Our predicament today is defined by this tension: the global free circulation of commodities is accompanied by growing separations
in the social sphere. "
The tension lies primarily between those who have and those who haven't. As far as the corporations are concerned, its business
as usual.
Our predicament TOMORROW will be defined by an intensifying scarcity of finite resources, with the additional whammy of climate
change.
Luismdv, 06 May 2014 10:25pm
"What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?"
There seems to be some plausibility in that hypothesis. If this was true, both the left and the right will have to check their
political premises because the "democratic consensus" is shared across the whole political specter (except, both political extremes,
largely irrelevant).
But unlike classic Marxism, which made the (socio-cultural) superstructure dependent on the (economic) structure, there is no
evidence that this is true now. The implication could be that the economic structure remains in place (supported by basic human
needs) while the democratic superstructure falls apart. This is not what I want, but is a possibility.
What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or a representative
world government? What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide
elections?
Today, in our era of globalisation, we are paying the price for this "principal contradiction.
A rather strange and unsatisfying article from Zizek. I partly agree with him but feel he needs to spell out what these 'structural
reasons' to which he alludes. Why it's dissatisfying is that he appears to lament the impossibility of a world government or liberal
democratic order. I consider that a blessing though, whatever shape or form it takes - not least liberal democratic - structurally
it could only be oppressive.
I also find it strange that Zizek appears to accept 'this era of (economic) globalisation' as something natural and permanent
rather than as contingent and transient - only a manifestation of a certain stage in the development of capitalism. My own
gut-feeling is that globalisation is already beginning to decline and disintegrate due to economic, political, resource and environmental
constraints.
While I'd certainly agree that this is a very dangerous time, in the long-run there's no point in lamenting the absence of
a global order/government - it's in fact our last, best hope of freedom and equality. If the oligarchs and plutocrats across the
globe were ever able to overcome their differences and unite behind a single global order or government it would inherently have
to be highly authoritarian and undemocratic to maintain control.
NOTaREALmerican -> TransReformation, 06 May 2014 10:37pm
Re: If the oligarchs and plutocrats across the globe were ever able to overcome their differences and unite behind a single
global order or government it would inherently have to be highly authoritarian and undemocratic to maintain control.
Well, not if it was run by the nice guys in Brussels. Didn't the people of the EU vote to consolidate power in Brussels because
of their hope that a United States of Europe would be as democratic and freedom-loving as the United States of Merica?
DailyMailHatesMe, 06 May 2014 10:38pm
In the discipline of international relations, constructivism is the claim that significant aspects of international relations
are historically and socially constructed, rather than inevitable consequences of human nature or other essential characteristics
of world politics.
Philosophish, 06 May 2014 10:42pm
Though geopolitics qua content change all the time in history the age old dictum stands strong as ever: he with the money makes
the rules!
The question is not who can control the 'superpowers', the question is who controls the money suppy.
sadhu, 06 May 2014 10:47pm
My guess is Bankers and big corporations will control the post capitalist world. Forget the political and moral arguments.
The top layer will do everything in their power to control. But the dilemma is if 'they' have the power and 'free will' to control
the 'we' the underdog should have the 'free will' as well to counter their control. However, as interesting as this article is,
it still argues in political, economic and super power terms, where as a more realistic approach would be to look at this in biological
and natural terms.
For example in plate tectonics, what controls what. Or does the matter of control even come into plate. In the past they attributed
volcanoes to the power of Gods and Devils, where as through scientific analysis (as apposed to social and particularly religious
ones) we have come to view volcanoes and plate tectonics as intricate natural processes.
Therefore, instead of speaking of controls how long will it take us to speak in terms of natural processes. How does it come about
that one strata of society much like some particular genes, hormones and possibly bacteria and viruses take over the processes
of a particular life form. It happens through natural processes and not political and moral arguments.
Bucky Fuller used to say that in order to have true democracy we should learn/discover its true principles just as we discovered
the principles of gravity and electricity.
Here is a good place to mention John McMurtry and his 'Cancer Stage of Capitalism', downloadable from his info in Wikipedia.
I am so grateful to the Guardian and Cif for it was in such discussions where a kind soul introduced me to McMurtry.
EarlyVictoria, 06 May 2014 10:53pm
the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare state, China for authoritarian capitalism,
Latin America for populist capitalism
Liking this neat formulation.
Laserlurk, 06 May 2014 10:56pm
First and foremost; perturbations we are witnessing are processes of reversing the globalisation-effect that in its core
value destroys centralised global-powers control.
Second; humans as a race have lost momentum of the discovery and are pretty much bound to the known territories, continents
and practices.
Without drive we are lost in a consumption and quite retarded innovation of the things and technologies that cause auto-dumb effect.
As understanding all of which is written above eases consequences of a post-Lacan society, we are generally unhappy about everything,
but we lost the crying shoulder.
So, one might say we also live post- mutually assured destruction, as everyone is inflicting it slowly on themselves.
Then again, one can be rather nihilistic and write as well: Who cares?
NOTaREALmerican -> Laserlurk , 06 May 2014 11:01pm
Re: Then again
Or, one can be pathologically optimist and keep consolidating power in the hope that - eventually - the nice people WILL eventually
run things.
taxhaven, 06 May 2014 11:08pm
...multiple centres of global capitalism have been forming. In the US, Europe, China and maybe Latin America, too, capitalist
systems have developed with specific twists: the US stands for neoliberal capitalism, Europe for what remains of the welfare
state, China for authoritarian capitalism, Latin America for populist capitalism...
Funny...everywhere I look I see authoritarian socialism, not "capitalism". I see manipulated markets, manipulated prices, crony
favourites, insolvent public sectors, rigged wages and prices and zillions of regulations.
NOTaREALmerican -> taxhaven, 06 May 2014 11:19pm
There's no such thing as your fantasy version of Capitalism; where all the markets are "free" and there are no assholes
and sociopaths trying to manipulate and screw people.
You live in the same fantasyland the Socialists and Libertarians do. None of the economic ISM's work according to moral rules
when you've got lots of smart-n-savvy assholes and sociopaths.
The morals are for the children, and the adults are out trying to figure out how to screw the children (which - it turns out
- is pretty easy).
taxhaven -> NOTaREALmerican, 06 May 2014 11:45pm
There's no such thing as your fantasy version of Capitalism (?)
So what IS there? It sure isn't anything close to "capitalism", is it...
NOTaREALmerican -> taxhaven, 06 May 2014 11:52pm
Re: So what IS there?
ALL the ISM words are worthless labels used by people with economic morality OCD. The assholes and sociopaths could care
less what "the systems" is, because from an asshole and sociopath's perspective there is only one system: how much can I take
NOW and how can I screw people to take more later.
What ELSE exists or has EVER existed? These dumbasses ISM's are worthless to even talk about; they exists only in a fantasyland
of no assholes and manipulative sociopaths who confidently take what they want and have no morals.
GiulioSica, 06 May 2014 11:13pm
Zizek's analysis is once again spot on and would be accepted as self-evident (Ukraine a proxy war between superpowers)
were it not for our twisted corporate controlled media.
But, unfortunately, he offers no solutions, only questions. As a result, it can be summed up in a short sentence: "Things are
bad. What is to be done?"
ID1812901, 06 May 2014 11:16pm
Big banks rule the world, don't they?
NOTaREALmerican ID1812901, 06 May 2014 11:22pm
When ya think about, a bank creates money from nothing and is protected by the state. How could they NOT rule the world.
WillShirley, 06 May 2014 11:24pm
Seems very obvious here in the USA we are controlled (owned) by the multi-national corporations. They control our
government, therefor they control our military and that makes them extremely dangerous.
They do not see killing tens of thousands of people as troubling in the slightest. Look at our invasion of Iraq. Look at the
other little wars we started to protect the corporations. They own most of the so-called civilized world and plan to retain that
control. They can't control the sunlight so we have almost NO solar power plants. They know clean water is going to be a problem...
it is now... so they sell us bottles of what they say is clean water.... and we buy it happily.
Governments now exist to funnel wealth to the .01% who own the corporations. We exist for the same reason cattle are
found at a dairy farm. Until the herd decides to act like adult men and women instead of domesticated animals we will continue
to allow the corporate takeover of our world. Until we stop worshiping the dollar and acting as if only money can make us happy
we will be in thrall to the capitalists/fascists who currently run the whole show.
North10, 06 May 2014 11:29pm
Sorry Zizek .far too sloppy .first Georgia, now Ukraine, well no, the US has interfered militarily with 75 countries since
WW2 and currently has military bases in 135 sovereign nations ..so hardly first Georgia and now Ukraine .just watch four star
US General Wesley Clark discussing in 2007 the US plans to topple seven countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria,
coincidence with real events, hardly. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAWzvtVJA5A
So, hardly first Georgia and now Ukraine...
Vatslav Rente, 06 May 2014 11:30pm
Strange, abstract thinking Mr. Zizek.
What is this nonsense about Georgia and Ukraine. In Georgia, Russia prevented the genocide against Ossetians. In Eastern Ukraine
supported ethnic Russians. What is the problem?
The rules never change. Money and Power are everything. Democracy, dictatorship, the international community - fiction for outsiders,
words which superpower cover their interests. Of course Russia is holding its geopolitics. It's not like the state Department.
Is this news? Maybe Mr. Zizek doubts in competence of the American President? Don't worry, the U.S. can't win all the time, this
is normal. Moreover, to be "the world's policeman" ungrateful and dangerous activity, constantly crazy fundamentalist trying to
burn the flag of your country)
HumbleDawes, 06 May 2014 11:39pm
To know a society is not only to know its explicit rules. One must also know how to apply them: when to use them, when to
violate them, when to turn down a choice that is offered, and when we are effectively obliged to do something but have to pretend
we are doing it as a free choice. Consider the paradox, for instance, of offers-meant-to-be-refused. When I am invited to a
restaurant by a rich uncle, we both know he will cover the bill, but I nonetheless have to lightly insist we share it – imagine
my surprise if my uncle were simply to say: "OK, then, you pay it!"
This uninspired paragraph, including its misuse of the word 'paradox', could have just been written: 'to know a society is
not only to know its laws, one must also be aware of its social norms' without any real loss of meaning. 'Offers-meant-to-be-refused.'
Endless verbiage. Sort-it-out-Slavoj.
ronaldadair, 06 May 2014 11:43pm
You have it all wrong my friend - that is to say you are barking up the wrong tree when you talk about a world controlled by
who ? - one nation ? - or the corporate elite more likely !!
What so many people are missing is that we are heading at a fair rate of knots " back to the future " which will involve
the nation state recapturing its power and the diminishing authority of the corporate elite who of course are hell bent on taking
over everything affecting our lives not because they have any particular crusade in this direction, but simply because in
order to continue to enlarge their empires - to increase their economies of scale , their future, as they see it, lies in a world
where the corporation govern
This will not happen and one only has to move into a space where the correction occurs to see that the nation state will once
again govern us as part of a world connected by bi-lateral trade agreements.
GordonGecko -> ronaldadair, 07 May 2014 8:43am
The 'corporate elite' already OWN our governments. The nation state is disappearing at the same rate as democratic representation.
JacobJonker -> ronaldadair, 07 May 2014 11:20am
Obvious and uncommon common sense.It may,however,not eventuate due to the propensity of the majority to be blind to their fate.There
is also the usual apathy,though the coming generations will see a division into slaves,stooges,slave-masters,dissenters,freedom
fighters and the usual coterie of the power pyramid from the top to the bottom layer of slaves to a system.Nation-states whose
citizens wish to survive have a challenge ahead of them.Typically,only a minority is growing in awareness.
Robbli, 06 May 2014 11:45pm
"All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that
it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly
addicted.". - Frank Herbert, Dune.
Nice people are too busy doing nice things and have no desires to rule and exploit, hence we will always be ruled by a-holes as
long as we keep on voting for them and no, I don't know what the answer is unless we are prepared to make sacrifices, become self
sufficient and live off the grid.
ThomasPaine2 -> Robbli, 07 May 2014 9:18am
A very well made point. I have a suggestion about how it could possibly be fixed.
In order to prevent the scum rising to the top, for want of a better cliché, we should look to re-structure our local and central
law-making bodies. Rather than elections, which necessarily attract the vainglorious and selfish, a system of conscription should
be implemented. Government (local and central) should have an upper-house composed of people from the community selected randomly,
much like jury service.
Their job is to hear the legislative proposals and counter arguments and decide based upon evidence presented whether to approve
a proposal. That will instantly remove the capacity for political corruption, as all legislation will need the approval of citizen's
juries. Couple this with state funding of political parties for the lower house and corporate influence will be dramatically reduced.
When I am invited to a restaurant by a rich uncle, we both know he will cover the bill, but I nonetheless have to lightly insist
we share it – imagine my surprise if my uncle were simply to say: "OK, then, you pay it!"
I gave up those social contracts
a long time ago and I've never looked back. Your uncle knows damn well he is expected to pay, since you would never go to that
restaurant if it weren't for his invite. If both parties know what that you aren't being genuine, then why bother at all? This
is something that's always bothered me. Keep it real folks!
I´ll try an example: Slavoj´s uncle represents the banks, and Slavoj represent us. Slavoj is invited to dinner, he eats -not much.
This Slavoj´s meal were the cheap and easy-to-get credits to buy homes, that became the famous "junk bonds" through a complicated
financial engineering.
The end differs from Slavoj´s article:
I can´t pay, you know -Uncle says
So I´ll have to pay? -Slavoj, sweating, answers
I´m afraid you´ll have to -Uncle insists
Slavoj he asks the waiter to bring the bill, and thinks he´ll have to sell his car, no holidays, less clothes...
travellersjoy, 06 May 2014 11:58pm
Since US governments willingly colluded with its corporate class, and bullied and coerced Europe and the Anglosphere to transfer
the wealth of the West, to the Middle East and then China, I have no confidence that there is a class of people with the skills,
abilities, and INTELLIGENCE to see beyond the immediate profit horizon - except perhaps in China - and they are only thinking
about their own interests.
If the people of the western world are incapable of electing good governments in the public/national interest, I doubt the
possibility of any supra-power being more responsible. The fact is, all our governments can be, and often are, bought and sold
by the great multinationals that demand free rein to do what they will - and who brought us the GFC, as well as the shift of economic
power from West to East.
Asking for a benign dictator is just asking for trouble as any citizen of a fascist state can attest.
nj61nj, 07 May 2014 12:28am
what a depressing article which really doesn't tell us anything much at all. So kant -> almost pointless and sometimes damaging
UN, Popper - an exposure of the problem of positivism. To say there is a contradiction or tension here is a misnomer, in fact
it is just an increasingly unilateral domination of capitalism. It is increasingly difficult to find a dialectic within which
to understand struggles and tensions which result from this situation. What of the state in Syria, or South Sudan, or Ukraine?
Marxist philosophy needs to catch up quick.
Stevo0012345, 07 May 2014 12:32am
Something I find interesting is the transnational nature of modern capital, and labour. This is making geo control difficult
for modern superpowers, not impossible, but increasingly difficult.
As revenue is increasingly tied to transnational enterprises, the paradox is that state interests are tied to cross border peace
and stability. Not a goal helped by upsetting regional stability.
In the good old days when the world was divided into 2 spheres of influence stability was reasonably easy to enforce.
It is definitely time to teach the superpowers, old and new, some manners, but who will do it? Obviously, only a transnational
entity can manage it
Does iek really mean that only a transnational entity / a law of world citizenship / a global political order can keep the
PTB in check?
Presumably not, as he questions it:
What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or a representative
world government? What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide
elections?
The notion of a worldwide democracy is obviously absurd.
However, iek is right. We do need legal and politcal mechanisms that, as I see it, will stand up for individuals, communities
and cultures in the face of the global economic order.
I think the solutions will have to be culturally pluralistic and local.
We need to recognise that superpowers, politicians and governments are still stuck in the 19th-Century of competitng nation
states, the fight economic wars to be the top dogs.
World economy is now a fact:
We only have one global economy and what we think of as the US economy or the Russian economy does not have any reality outside
of world economy. Governments try to impose their own rules on how they interact with global economic reality, but these rules
are merely reactive. World economy is fact. The problem is that governments continue to view nation states as separate controllable
economic entities -- which they are not.
They are not even interdependent entities (as was the case during colonial times). Goods
and services can come for anywhere and are financed from multiple global locations, produced in multiple locations and consumed
worldwide in different locations. This is even more the case when you consider global financial markets. Global financial actors
and multinational corporations know this, whereas governments are still stuck in 19th Century thinking. It is this outmoded way
of thinking that has led to economic wars in the past, continues to fuel current wars and will lead to future economic war if
politicians don't wake up to the fact of world economy.
2bapilgrim, 07 May 2014 8:52am
So many comments on the headline, but the real problem to be solved is stated in the last paragraph:
Our predicament today is defined by this tension: the global free circulation of commodities is accompanied by growing
separations in the social sphere. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rise of the global market, new walls have begun emerging
everywhere, separating peoples and their cultures. Perhaps the very survival of humanity depends on resolving this tension.
MysticFish, 07 May 2014 8:53am
We now have a deeply serious moral crisis in politics not just a capitalist one. In the past right wing political crimes used
to be reported. This time, what we get instead is worrying silence and one-sidedness from the media. Why would our governments
go to such trouble to brush aside the gratuitous massacre of innocent unarmed Ukrainians?
" Today the old and new superpowers are...trying to impose their own version of global rules, experimenting with them through
proxies - which are, of course,...small nations and states. (...small nations get hurt and wounded instead of the big ones)."
Consider that there may be an elite group of power-mongers who, through the control of global mega-institutions, wield the
power to mobilize e.g the military might of the U.S. and of Britain and of other puppet nations. The anger resulting from
their atrocities would in effect be directed at the U.S or British footsoldier, NOT the hidden MANIPULATORS! Actually, even
Obama himself, could be a proxy!
MysticFish -> Kosmicfriend, 07 May 2014 10:25am
Your argument is plausible, since all kinds of entities are now able to disguise themselves behind global corporations, who
in turn, strangely exercise undue persuasion over our elected politicians. It's very difficult to see just what is going on.
Global corporations appear to be the new weapon of war, when, for example, you look at the carpet bombing effect fracking
has on vital agricultural land and water resources. The far right seem to think this technology serves their countries' interests,
but then they are not particularly bright when they also act as paid mercenaries for Chinese ambitions.
imight, 07 May 2014 9:02am
the only way to stop the big powers fighting is to stop the reasons they fight at source.....greed
most power and influence in any country comes from its wealth holders and in many cases these are faceless suits in big business
and high finance all protected by a blag legal system set up to protect companies and 'their' assets. i highlight 'their'
as companies have more rights than individuals in modern law and this allows a disconnect between the people running the company
and the consequences of decisions made.....
if companies and their executives and shareholders wish to continue receiving this rights of limited liability the law should
be changed to force them to to behave ethically and pay fairly (the difference between highest and lowest paid workers should
be low) and be responsible to the environment, if they cant do that ... why should they have limited public liabilities .... ????
If proof were needed that Slavoj iek has little understanding of the current crisis in Ukraine, who the responsible agents
are and what they seek to gain from plunging the country into chaos and war, this execrable post is it.
The transnational entity called the United Nations has long passed its use-by date. The US government is in thrall to Wall
Street, corporations and their lobby groups and is over-extended in numerous wars and conflicts across the planet. Americans are
tired of fighting, they are sinking into Third World poverty, their jobs are disappearing and more of them are ending up in prisons
operated by private firms for profit.
It seems iek prefers the old order of one country dominating the world and that country being the United States. Russia on the
other hand should meekly accept allowing Ukraine to fall under fascist rule and then itself being plundered by US corporations
and divided up into small squabbling statelets while Siberian mineral wealth and Caspian Sea oil and gas enrich a small parasitic
class that flits from one country to the next.
Martyn -> Blackburn, 07 May 2014 9:47am
The banks control the money supply, and so hold the nations to ransom. Some influential groups, some of them very wealthy,
are interested in controlling and manipulating public opinion both at local and international level. One might be tempted to think
that the people in power are those who have been democratically elected, but this is perhaps a deception. Whose democracy is it?
The leaders? Or does it belong to those who do things behind the scenes? Control the money supply and public opinion and you already
have a monopoly on rule.
Writeangle, 07 May 2014 10:22am
There are far too many different cultures and religions for there ever to be work agreement in many areas.Its only the political
elite that dream their dogmas will take over the world. The welfare state ridden EU has dreams of getting bigger and more important,
dreams that are extremely unlikely to be met.
Most Likely China will be the next world's superpower with the narcissistic welfare state EU sinking slowly in the west.
We will have to wait and see how China plays its new hand and how the others respond to it.
My guess is that the west will not be able to match China and will fall behind even in the US.
NinthLegion, 07 May 2014 10:34am
The Roman Caesars knew that thy could command respect, achieve unity, and lead efficiently and with deep authority if they
had an enemy - any credible enemy. Its what holds nations together with what passes for a common mindset. The psychology has not
changed. After the demise of the Soviet Union, Al Quieda stepped into the breach. Such a scenario also keeps a powerful and wholly
influental industrial military complex happy - as Eisenhower warned. It keeps macho politicians with huge nuclear arsenals in
power, clothed with their baubles at the conference tabe, and it also serves to impress wayward regimes. The threat to most governments
today, I believe, comes more from within, rather than from without, and a perceived need for security against a potential enemy
is beneficial (for them) in promoting a steady erosion of liberty.
Nations need an enemy that must be credible, sufficiently powerful, and able to provide a relatively malignant threat.
FrJack NinthLegion, 07 May 2014 11:24am
Nations need an enemy that must be credible, sufficiently powerful, and able to provide a relatively malignant threat.
Do you mean that there must actually be such a threat or that for a nation to hold together, it's population must believe (be
made to believe, constantly told) there is such a threat?
FrJack, 07 May 2014 10:39am
Perhaps the very survival of humanity depends on resolving this tension.
Perhaps the opposite is true. The success of humans as a species, humanity, has and is in large part driven by the soiciobiologically
evolved propensity to continually have the tensions/dynamic of competitive groups going on. We live in an age where it is now
easier than ever to see/make analysis and judgment on the minutiae of how these tensions constantly ebb and flow and morph, how
the players jockey for position and we are on the look out to see where that leaves us. But there is nothing new here, it is a
never ending process without resolution. The idea of resolution is a quasi religious dream of return to the garden of eden where
all the nuisance things that we have to worry about and deal with simply for being alive are 'solved' for us. 'Re'-solution is
a dream of something that never existed except for when we were babies. It is an infantile memory.
tiojo, 07 May 2014 12:05pm
The USA just now is comparable with Britain and its empire at the time prime minister MacMillan made his famous 'Winds of Change'
speech in South Africa. He was a politician who realised that the game was up. Britain was no longer the world power it had been.
Although he knew that to be the case he didn't have a coherent plan for the future. The empire was dismantled. Britain dithered,
and still does, about whether its future lies with Europe or not. Slow decline continued.
The USA post-Iraq is in slow decline as a world power. The bipolar world of the Cold War was replaced by an all too brief unipolar
world of US hegemony. But now with the EU, China, India, Russia, Brazil and others providing alternatives we are, as Mr Zizek
says, entering a multi-polar world where the dance moves have not been rehearsed. Such a shame that this fracturing of power does
not lead to a reaffirmation of faith in internationalism and a willingness to compromise and collaborate through the UN and its
agencies.
lioninthemeadow, 07 May 2014 12:06pm
iek touches on a fundamental truth that all reasonable human beings recognise: humanity must jettison its tribal attachments
to nations etc. and vest greater powers in supranational bodies like the UN.
I believe it is inevitable that the world will increasingly fuse together in the decades and centuries ahead - it is logical,
it is pragmatic and it is the only means of ensuring our mutual survival as a species.
As long as humans are divided by tribalism and reactionary loyalties then the world will be host to all manner of social catastrophes.
FrJack -> Danny Bird, 07 May 2014 12:49pm
As long as humans are divided by tribalism and reactionary loyalties then the world will be host to all manner of social
catastrophes.
The biggest catastrophy we are all facing is environmental. This is due in large part to the seemingly unending proliferation
of human beings. Now, evolution wise, it can be said that as a species, our proliferation is a big success. I have not seen anyone
argue that the behavioural propensity of tribalism and loyalty has or is having an effect that is hindering our evolutionary success.
Indeed, it seems more credible that they are positive attributes in that sense. But if faced with a scenario that population growth
must be curtailed or even reduced if we are to stand any hope of mitigating environmental ills, then I'd say it is better that
some other tribe than mine bear the cost of that. I have no doubt they feel they same way. Now, plenty of people seem to be hoping
for some other way out of this problem. I think they are dreaming.
Well, as you yourself say, in those old times of "mad"-ness (mutually assured destruction) at least we entertained more secure
and stable illusions even if based on very dangerous and unsustainable premises
It is definitely time to teach the superpowers, old and new, some manners, but who will do it?
No one ever has taught anything to the powerful. The best we can do is exactly what those so-called pro-Russia "terrorists"
are doing in Eastern Ukraine
There is not such a thing as "rationality" or Karl Popper's falsifiability and "scientific testing of hypotheses" among many
other things, because you can only have such a thing in the physical sciences. What on earth would be a baseline understanding
of truth in politics, when it is all based on lying and manipulating people?!?
Immanuel Kant saw the need for a transnational legal order grounded in the rise of the global society
Yeah, and the closest we have gotten to it is the UN which is an odd joke. They are just a proxy to the USG. Even its secretary
compulsively criticizes Snowden even if he doesn't have to, as a way to show "respect" his masters
"Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has developed so far that a violation of rights in one place
is felt throughout the world, the idea of a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated notion."
Yes, and this is happening. People are widely opening their eyes to the "freedom-loving" b#llsh!t of the USG
All gringos have done in their century of greatness ("the land of 'the' 'free' and 'the' 'brave'") is abusing people who can't
defend themselves on an equal basis, mess with the environment and (very successfully I would admit) brainwash many, many people
by selling them very stupid and unsustainable illusions
... or a representative world government
You are kidding us, right?
What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?
Well, I think definitely are. I don't think that market forces will help our "global" problems. We should stop ferally playing
into market forces hoping for those illusions to solve our problems.
We have advanced our technologies and market a bit since the stone age, but morally we are still pretentious animals (monkeys
wearing ties and thumbing our cell phones).
What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal democracy with worldwide elections?
And some muddle about walls separating people and cultures. While delighted to read (at last) a reasonable article in the Guardian,
I find iek's take wanting.
Monied interests will control the 'post-superpower capitalist world order.' During the past few years, they quietly used their
power to force governments austerity policies in both the US and Europe and hack away at their social safety nets.
Communism at least gave social liberalism in the West a chance, as an alternative to deprive the Soviets of sympathizers.
Once communism collapsed in Eastern Europe, the monied interests felt they could dispense with liberalism and pursue more extreme
aims.
America is the first effective 'post-democratic' western nation, that is an oligarchy of business-people. Over the coming decades,
the machinery of democracy there will break down to be replaced by a shadow government of old money, CEOs, and financiers. It
will then quietly work to induce the same in the other western nations. John Calvin's Switzerland will be the model of this new
order.
Over the coming decades, the machinery of democracy there will break down to be replaced by a shadow government of old money,
CEOs, and financiers. It will then quietly work to induce the same in the other western nations
It didn't work before...remember WWII! True, the dimensions of globalized markets and imperialistic interests were not the
same those days, now they got internet and other means of cultural turning.
But national, religious, and ethnic identities remain strong in the Old World, from Portugal to Japan, you won't get people
to speak American English and hail an identity-lacking world order. I am not totally sure whether that is good or bad, though.
Cousin2, 07 May 2014 4:17pm
The sad reality is that nothing has changed. We exist in a world where might makes right. In some countries, the brief
period roughly between the end of WW2 and the beginning of the Reagan/Thatcher regimes will be remembered as a time when workers'
wages kept pace with increased productivity.
Today, we are some 35 years back into business as usual, when increases in prosperity flow largely to the top few percent as
they have been doing since the beginning and probably will "to the last syllable of recorded time."
These few percent, consciously or not, create, enforce, and change all the rules; it is for the rest of us to find some
way to survive under them. Good luck all.
akarlin, 07 May 2014 9:31pm
Back in the 1990s, a silent pact regulated the relationship between the great western powers and Russia. Western states
treated Russia as a great power on the condition that Russia didn't act as one. But what if the person to whom the offer-to-be-rejected
is made actually accepts it? What if Russia starts to act as a great power?
With all due respect to Zizek, this is only half-true at best.
This "acknowledgement" of Russia as a great power only extended to pretty insignificant measures such as including it in the G8
(and only in its political, not financial, component). Otherwise, the US was pretty much entirely indifferent to Russia's
national interests and preferences (often after having promised otherwise). NATO expansion is the big one, of course, but
there are plenty of others (creeping missile defense, Libya, etc).
Far more accurate to say that the US simply treated Russia as the loser of the Cold War (despite Gorbachev's piteous
assertions that it was ended by the USSR's own free choice and hence such attitudes are unfair) and as such should simply
roll over and accept all edicts from Washington.
yourmiddleclassfarce, 08 May 2014 8:34am
Gangs are the most primitive form of government and within neo-liberalism all governments are merely gangs.
neo-liberalism = raising importance of the invention called money over that of people which is a dehumanising
process which cultivates (culture being the inclusive process)
All institutions (specialism within and due to the divisive process called civilization) are collapsing (because the dehumanising
process is collapsing culture which is the inclusive process). Even the world's gangs (of all type and power) are in that same
precarious process.
neo-liberalism's excessive division is dehumanising hence the institutional collapse.
Rich people are a luxury WE can no longer afford.
MysticFish -> yourmiddleclassfarce, 08 May 2014 8:45am
Super-rich people and large corporations, are a luxury we can no longer afford. People will always need to hoard to
a certain extent, though, to get them through winter and, if you are a farmer, lean years. It's not good to have everyone totally
dependent on the tender mercies of a mafia run state, or they will become abject slaves.
We need to encourage benign human-scale enterprises that are responsive to local needs and don't cause harm on an industrial
scale.
yourmiddleclassfarce -> MysticFish, 08 May 2014 11:48pm
I agree however if enough of us get together to make, for instance, a decision regarding a transport system for everyone (inclusive)
that is not exclusive then benign state scale or even interstate scale agreements that are inclusive and not divisive will generate
more social cohesion, interaction and economy precisely because the most efficient use of the invention called money rides on
the back of social currency and not social exclusion. Social currency is destroyed by excessive division.
[Notice how the neo-liberals have removed the term 'mass transit' from the lexicon of social discourse?]
'Survival in numbers' is a prime survival mechanism in our species. Cooperation trumps competition most of the time. Neo-liberalism
has made far too much division for our species to survive it. Cooperating with neo-liberalism is the biggest mistake.
LittleRichardjohn, 08 May 2014 9:45am
What if, for structural reasons, and not only due to empirical limitations, there cannot be a worldwide democracy or
a representative world government? What if the global market economy cannot be directly organised as a global liberal
democracy with worldwide elections?
... ... ....
The prospect of global solidarity is almost certainly dependent on the absurdity of Consumerism hitting the buffers, which,
since Consumerism is nothing more than a superstitious belief in Perpetual Motion...
Here Zizek encourages a kind of liberal naiveté, astonishing for a guy who pretends to be comfortable with Lenin's no-nonsense
revolutionary analytic approach.
Yes, a global world democracy would be nice. But it's hardly the case that in not having it we have only chaos. Global
capital doesn't want world democracy. They want the TransPacific Partnership G8, etc. They want elite enrichment and militarized
police.They've got it, or are in the process of getting it.. Instead of the pap he wrote, Zizek should be talking
about the creation of a world-wide opposition to those political structures.
Slavoj iek develops a false premise with great ease. He hints that some sort of reference point for unwritten social
codes should exist when it's always been an experiment that is never resolved except by wars when the all sides are stretched
too thin with endless tolerance.
The USA is subconsciously aware of this problem and its inevitable endpoint. It is thus
armed to the teeth and will remain so.
In this situation it is impossible not to be a bully. Everyone else has to tolerate the bully and will continue to do so for
a very long time. Only an economic collapse can disarm the USA. A collapse of the magnitude necessary does not seem likely.
The problem could be tempered by the citizenry, but the public is cowed by fears of terrorism, real and imagined.
Everyone is monitored by the NSA to keep them in line. None of this will be resolved by any sort of world government as iek
and other idealists imagine. The world is stuck in limbo.
Much of this is discussed on the No Agenda Show. Google it.
Guardian in Russia coverage acts as MI6 outlet. Magnitsky probably was MI6 operation, anyway.
Notable quotes:
"... The Observer fabricated a direct quote from the Russian president for their propaganda purposes without any regard to basic journalistic standards. They wanted to blame Putin personally for the suspicions of some Russian investigators, so they just invented an imaginary statement from him so they could conveniently do so. ..."
"... What is really going on here is the classic trope of demonisation propaganda in which the demonised leader is conflated with all officials of their government and with the targeted country itself, so as to simplify and personalise the narrative of the subsequent Two Minutes Hate to be unleashed against them. ..."
"... In the same article, the documents from Russian investigators naming Browder as a suspect in certain crimes are first "seen as" a frame-up (by the sympathetic chorus of completely anonymous observers yellow journalism can always call on when an unsupported claim needs a spurious bolstering) and then outright labelled as such (see quote above) as if this alleged frame-up is a proven fact. Which it isn't. ..."
"... No evidence is required down there in the Guardian/Observer journalistic gutter before unsupported claims against Russian officials can be treated as unquestionable pseudo-facts, just as opponents of Putin can commit no crime for the outlet's hate-befuddled hacks. ..."
The decline of the falsely self-described "quality" media outlet The Guardian/Observer into a deranged fake news site pushing
anti-Russian hate propaganda continues apace. Take a look at
this gem :
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has accused prominent British businessman Bill Browder of being a "serial killer" –
the latest extraordinary attempt by the Kremlin to frame one of its most high-profile public enemies.
But Putin has not been reported anywhere else as making any recent statement about Browder whatever, and the Observer article
makes no further mention of Putin's supposed utterance or the circumstances in which it was supposedly made.
As the rest of the article makes clear, the suspicions against Browder were actually voiced by Russian police investigators and
not by Putin at all.
The Observer fabricated a direct quote from the Russian president for their propaganda purposes without any regard to basic
journalistic standards. They wanted to blame Putin personally for the suspicions of some Russian investigators, so they just invented
an imaginary statement from him so they could conveniently do so.
What is really going on here is the classic trope of demonisation propaganda in which the demonised leader is conflated with
all officials of their government and with the targeted country itself, so as to simplify and personalise the narrative of the subsequent
Two Minutes Hate to be unleashed against them.
When, as in this case, the required substitution of the demonised leader for their country can't be wrung out of the facts even
through the most vigorous twisting, a disreputable fake news site like The Guardian/Observer is free to simply make up new, alternative
facts that better fit their disinformative agenda. Because facts aren't at all sacred when the official propaganda line demands lies.
In the same article, the documents from Russian investigators naming Browder as a suspect in certain crimes are first "seen as"
a frame-up (by the sympathetic chorus of completely anonymous observers yellow journalism can always call on when an unsupported
claim needs a spurious bolstering) and then outright labelled as such (see quote above) as if this alleged frame-up is a proven fact.
Which it isn't.
No evidence is required down there in the Guardian/Observer journalistic gutter before unsupported claims against Russian officials
can be treated as unquestionable pseudo-facts, just as opponents of Putin can commit no crime for the outlet's hate-befuddled hacks.
The above falsifications were brought to the attention of the Observer's so-called Readers Editor – the official at the Guardian/Observer
responsible for "independently" defending the outlet's misdeeds against outraged readers – who did nothing. By now the article has
rolled off the site's front page, rendering any possible future correction nugatory in any case.
Later in the same article Magnitsky is described as having been Browder's "tax lawyer" a standard trope of the Western propaganda
narrative about the case. Magnitsky
was actually an accountant .
A trifecta of fakery in one article! That makes crystal clear what the Guardian meant in
this article , published at precisely the same moment as the disinformation cited above, when it said:
"We know what you are doing," Theresa May said of Russia. It's not enough to know. We need to do something about it.
By "doing something about it" they mean they're going to tell one hostile lie about Russia after another.
From the 'liberal' Guardian/Observer wing of the rightwing bourgeois press, spot the differences with the article in the Mail
on Sunday by Nick Robinson?
This thing seems to have been cobbled together by a guy called Nick Robinson. The same BBC Nick Robinson that hosts the Today
Programme? I dunno, one feels really rather depressed at how low our media has sunk.
I think huge swathes of the media, in the eyes of many people, have never really recovered from the ghastly debacle that was
their dreadful coverage of the reasons for the illegal attack on Iraq.
The journalists want us to forget and move on, but many, many, people still remember. Nothing happened afterwards. There
was no tribunal to examine the media's role in that massive international crime against humanity and things actually got worse
post Iraq, which the attack on Libya and Syria illustrates.
Exactly: in my opinion there should be life sentences banning scribblers who printed lies and bloodthirsty kill, kill, kill
articles from ever working again in the media.
Better still, make them go fight right now in Yemen. Amazing how quickly truth will spread if journalists know they have
a good chance of dying if they print lies and falsehoods ..
At a time when the ruling elite, across virtually the entire western world, is losing it; it being, political legitimacy and
the breakdown of any semblance of a social contract between the ruled and the rulers the Guardian lurches even further to the
political right . amazing, though not really surprising. The Guardian's role appears to be to 'coral' radical and leftist ideas
and opinions and 'groom' the educated middle class into accepting their own subjugation.
The Guardian's writers get so much, so wrong, so often it's staggering and nobody gets the boot, except for the people who
allude to the incompetence at the heart of the Guardian. They fail dismally on Trump, Brexit and Corbyn and yet carry on as if
everything is fine and dandy. Nothing to complain about here, mover along now.
I suppose it's because they are actually media aristocrats living in a world of privilege, and they, as members of the ruling
elite, look after one another regardless of how poorly they actually perform. This is typical of an elite that's on the ropes
and doomed. They choose to retreat from grubby reality into a parallel world where their own dogmas aren't challenged and they
begin to believe their propaganda is real and not an artificial contruct. This is incredibly dangerous for a ruling elite because
society becomes brittle and weaker by the day as the ruling dogmas become hollow and ritualized, but without traction in reality
and real purpose.
The Guardian is a bit like the Tory government, lost and without any real ideas or ideals. The slow strangulation of the CIF
symbolizes the crisis of confidence at the Guardian. A strong and confident ruling class welcomes criticism and is ready to brush
it all off with a smile and a shrug. When they start running scared and pretending there is no dissent or opposition, well, this
is a sign of decadence and profound weakness. They are losing the battle of ideas and the battle of solutions to our problems.
All that really stands between them and a social revolution is a thin veneer of 'authority' and status, and that's really not
enough anymore.
All our problems are pathetically and conviniently blamed on the Russians and their Demon King and his vast army of evil Trolls.
It's like a political version of the Lord of the Rings.
Don't expect the Guardian to cover the biggest military build-up (NATO) on Russia's borders since Hitler's 1941 invasion.
John Pilger has described the "respectable" liberal press (Guardian, NYT etc) as the most effective component of the propaganda
system, precisely BECAUSE it is respectable and trusted. As to why the Guardian is so insistent in demonising Russia, I would
propose that is integrates them further with a Brexit-ridden Tory government. Its Blairite columnists prefer May over Corbyn any
day.
The Guardian is trying to rescue citizens from 'dreadful dangers that we cannot see, or do not understand' – in other words they
play a central role in 'the power of nightmares'
https://www.youtube.com/embed/LlA8KutU2to
So Russians cannot do business in America but Americans must be protected to do business in Russia?
If you look at Ukraine and how US corporations are benefitting from the US-funded coup, you ask what the US did in Russia
in the 1990s and the effect it had on US business and ordinary Russian people. Were the two consistent with a common US template
of economic imperialism?
In particular, you ask what Bill Browder was doing, his links to US spying organisations etc etc. You ask if he supported
the rape of Russian State assets, turned a blind eye to the millions of Russians dying in the 1990s courtesy of catastrophic economic
conditions. If he was killing people to stay alive, he would not have been the only one. More important is whether him making
$100m+ in Russia needed conditions where tens of millions of Russians were starving .and whether he saw that as acceptable collateral
damage ..he made a proactive choice, after all, to go live in Moscow. It is not like he was born there and had no chance to leave
..
I do not know the trurh about Bill Browder, but one thing I do know: very powerful Americans are capable of organising mass
genocide to become rich, so there is no possible basis for painting all American businessmen as philanthropists and all Russians
as murdering savages ..
It's perfectly possible, in fact the norm historically, for people to believe passionately in the existence of invisible threats
to their well-being, which, when examined calmly from another era, resemble a form of mass-hysteria or collective madness. For
example; the religious faith/dogma that Satan, demons and witches were all around us. An invisible, parallel, world, by the side
of our own that really existed and we were 'at war with.' Satan was our adversary, the great trickster and disseminator of 'fake
news' opposed to the 'good news' provided by the Gospels.
What's remarkable, disturbing and frightening is how closely our media resemble a religious cult or the Catholic Church in
the Middle Ages. The journalists have taken on a role that's close to that of a priesthood. They function as a 'filtering' layer
between us and the world around us. They are, supposedly, uniquely qualified to understand the difference between truth and lies,
or what's right and wrong, real news and propaganda. The Guardian actually likes this role. They our the guardians of the truth
in a chaotic world.
This reminds one of the role of the clergy. Their role was to stand between ordinary people and the 'complexities' of the
Bible and separate the Truths it contained from wild and 'fake' interpretations, which could easily become dangerous and undermine
the social order and fundamental power relationships.
The big challenge to the role of the Church happened when the printing press allowed the ordinary people to access the information
themselves and worst still when the texts were translated into the common language and not just Latin. Suddenly people could access
the texts, read and begin to interpret and understand for themselves. It's hard to imagine that people were actually burned alive
in England for smuggling the Bible in English translation a few centuries ago. That's how dangerous the State regarded such a
'crime.'
One can compare the translation of the Bible and the challenge to the authority of the Church and the clergy as 'guardians
of the truth' to what's happeing today with the rise of the Internet and something like Wikileaks, where texts and infromation
are made available uncensored and raw and the role of the traditional 'media church' and the journalist priesthood is challenged.
We're seeing a kind of media counter-reformation. That's why the Guardian turned on Assange so disgracefully and what Wikileaks
represented.
A brilliant historical comparison. They're now on the legal offensive in censoring the internet of course, because in truth
the filter system is wholly vulnerable. Alternative media has been operating freely, yet the majority have continued to rely on
MSM as if it's their only source of (dis)information, utilizing our vast internet age to the pettiness of social media and prank
videos. Marx was right: capitalist society alienates people from their own humanity. We're now aliens, deprived of our original
being and floating in a vacuum of Darwinist competition and barbarism. And we wonder why climate change is happening?
Apparently we are "living in disorientating times" according to Viner, she goes on to say that "championing the public interest
is at the heart of the Guardian's mission".
Really? How is it possible for her to say that when many of the controversial articles which appear in the Guardian are not
open for comment any more. They have adopted now a view that THEIR "opinion" should not be challenged, how is that in the public
interest?
In the Observer on Sunday a piece also appeared smearing RT entitled: "MPs defend fees of up to £1,000 an hour to appear
on 'Kremlin propaganda' channel." However they allowed comments which make interesting reading. Many commenter's saw through their
ruse and although the most vociferous critics of the Graun have been banished, but even the mild mannered ones which remain appear
not the buy into the idea that RT is any different than other media outlets. With many expressing support for the news and op-ed
outlet for giving voice to those who the MSM ignore – including former Guardian writers from time to time.
Why Viner's words are so poisonous is that the Graun under her stewardship has become a agitprop outlet offering no balance.
In the below linked cringe worthy article there is no mention of RT being under attack in the US and having to register itself
and staff as foreign agents. NO DEFENCE OF ATTACKS ON FREEDOM OF THE PRESS by the US state is mentioned.
Surely this issue is at the heart of championing public interest?
For the political/media/business elites (I suppose you could call them 'the Establishment') in the US and UK, the main problem
with RT seems to be that a lot of people are watching it. I wonder how long it will be before access is cut. RT is launching a
French-language channel next month. We are already being warned by the French MSM about how RT makes up fake news to further Putin's
evil propaganda aims (unlike said MSM, we are told). Basically, elites just don't trust the people (this is certainly a constant
in French political life).
It's not just that they don't allow comments on many of their articles, but even on the articles where CiF is enabled, they ban
any accounts that disagree with their narrative. The end result is that Guardianistas get the false impression everyone shares
their view and that they are in the majority. The Guardian moderators are like Scientology leaders who banish any outsiders
for fear of influencing their cult members.
Everyone knows that Russia-gate is a feat of mass hypnosis, mesmerized from DNC financed lies. The Trump collusion myth is
baseless and becoming dangerously hysterical: but conversely, the Clinton collusion scandal is not so easy to allay. Whilst
it may turn out to be the greatest story never told: it looks substantive enough to me. HRC colluded with Russian oligarchy
to the tune of $145m of "donations" into her slush fund. In return, Rosatom gained control of Uranium One.
A curious adjunct to this corruption: HRC opposed the Magnitsky Act in 2012. Given her subsequent rabid Russophobia: you'd
have thought that if the Russians (as it has been spun) arrested a brave whistleblowing tax lawyer and murdered him in prison
– she would have been quite vocal in her condemnation. No, she wanted to make Russia
great again. It's amazing how $145m can focus ones
attention away from ones natural instinct.
[Browder and Magnitsky were as corrupt as each other: the story that the Russians took over Browder's hedge fund and implicated
them both in a $230m tax fraud and corruption scandal is as fantastical as the "Golden Shower" dossier. However, it seems to me
Magnitsky's death was preventable (he died from complications of pancreatitis, for which it seems he was initially refused treatment
) ]
So if we turn the clock back to 2010-2013, it sure looks to me as though we have a Russian collusion scandal: only it's not
one the Guardian will ever want to tell. Will it come out when the FBI 's "secret" informant (William D Cambell) testifies to
Congress sometime this week? Not in the Guardian, because their precious Hillary Clinton is the real scandal here.
This "tactic" – a bold or outrageous claim made in the headline or in the first few sentences of a piece that is proven false
in the very same article – is becoming depressingly common in the legacy media.
In other words, the so-called respectable media knowingly prints outright lies for propaganda and clickbait purposes.
I dropped a line to a friend yesterday saying "only in a parallel universe would a businessman/shady dealer/tax evader such as
Browder be described as an "anti-corruption campaigner."" Those not familiar with the history of Browder's grandfather, after
whom a whole new "deviation" in leftist thinking was named, should look it up.
Some months ago you saw tweets saying Russophobia had hit ridiculous levels. They hadn't seen anything yet. It's scary how easily
people can be brainwashed.
The US are the masters of molesting other nations. It's not even a secret what they've been up to. Look at their budgets or
the size of the intelligence buildings. Most journalists know full well of their programs, including those on social media, which
they even reported on a few years back. The Guardian run stories by the CIA created and US state funded RFE/RL & then tell
us with a straight face that RT is state propaganda which is destroying our democracy.
The madness spreads: today The Canary has/had an article 'proving' that the 'Russians' were responsible for Brexit, Trump, etc
etc.
Then there is the neo-liberal 'President' of the EU charging that the extreme right wing and Russophobic warmongers in the
Polish government are in fact, like the President of the USA, in Putin's pocket..
This outbreak is reaching the dimensions of the sort of mass hysteria that gave us St Vitus' dance. Oh and the 'sonic' terrorism
practised against US diplomats in Havana, in which crickets working for the evil one (who he?) appear to have been responsible
for a breach in diplomatic relations. It couldn't have happened to a nicer empire.
"... Google is algorithmically burying leftist news and opinion sources such as Alternet, Counterpunch, Global Research, Consortium News, and Truthout, among others. ..."
"... my political essays are often reposted by right-wing and, yes, even pro-Russia blogs. I get mail from former Sanders supporters, Trump supporters, anarchists, socialists, former 1960s radicals, anti-Semites, and other human beings, some of whom I passionately agree with, others of whom I passionately disagree with. As far as I can tell from the emails, none of these readers voted for Clinton, or Macron, or supported the TPP, or the debt-enslavement and looting of Greece, or the ongoing restructuring of the Greater Middle East (and all the lovely knock-on effects that has brought us), or believe that Trump is a Russian operative, or that Obama is Martin Luther Jesus-on-a-stick. ..."
"... What they share, despite their opposing views, is a general awareness that the locus of power in our post-Cold War age is primarily corporate, or global capitalist, and neoliberal in nature. They also recognize that they are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to lump them all together (again, despite their opposing views) into an intentionally vague and undefinable category comprising anyone and everyone, everywhere, opposing the hegemony of global capitalism, and its non-ideological ideology (the nature of which I'll get into in a moment). ..."
"... Although the term has been around since the Fifth Century BC, the concept of "extremism" as we know it today developed in the late Twentieth Century and has come into vogue in the last three decades. During the Cold War, the preferred exonymics were "subversive," "radical," or just plain old "communist," all of which terms referred to an actual ideological adversary. ..."
"... Which is why, despite the "Russiagate" hysteria the media have been barraging us with, the West is not going to war with Russia. Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony (which I like to prefer "the Corporatocracy," as it sounds more poetic and less post-structural). ..."
"... Global capitalism, since the end of the Cold War (i.e, immediately after the end of the Cold War), has been conducting a global clean-up operation, eliminating actual and potential insurgencies, mostly in the Middle East, but also in its Western markets. Having won the last ideological war, like any other victorious force, it has been "clear-and-holding" the conquered territory, which in this case happens to be the whole planet. Just for fun, get out a map, and look at the history of invasions, bombings, and other "interventions" conducted by the West and its assorted client states since 1990. Also, once you're done with that, consider how, over the last fifteen years, most Western societies have been militarized, their citizens placed under constant surveillance, and an overall atmosphere of "emergency" fostered, and paranoia about "the threat of extremism" propagated by the corporate media. ..."
"... Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know, violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless interests. The world will become increasingly "normal." The scourge of "extremism" and "terrorism" will persist, as will the general atmosphere of "emergency." There will be no more Trumps, Brexit referendums, revolts against the banks, and so on. Identity politics will continue to flourish, providing a forum for leftist activist types (and others with an unhealthy interest in politics), who otherwise might become a nuisance, but any and all forms of actual dissent from global capitalist ideology will be systematically marginalized and pathologized. ..."
"... C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org . ..."
"... That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting proles. They've painted themselves into a corner with non-white identity politics combined with mass immigration. The logical conclusion of where they're going is pogroms and none of the kleptocracy seem bold enough to try and stop this from happening. ..."
"... Germany is the last EU member state where an anti EU party entered parliament. In the last French elections four out of every ten voters voted on anti EU parties. In Austria the anti EU parties now have a majority. So if I were leading a big corporation, thriving by globalism, what also the EU is, I would be worried. ..."
"... This is a great article. The author's identification of "normality" & "extremism" as Capitalism's go-to concepts for social control is spot on accurate. That these terms can mean anything or nothing & are infinitely flexible is central to their power. ..."
Back in October of 2016, I wrote
a somewhat divisive essay in which I suggested that political dissent is being systematically
pathologized. In fact, this process has been ongoing for decades, but it has been significantly accelerated
since the Brexit referendum and the Rise of Trump (or, rather, the Fall of Hillary Clinton, as it
was Americans' lack of enthusiasm for eight more years of corporatocracy with a sugar coating of
identity politics, and not their enthusiasm for Trump, that mostly put the clown in office.)
In the twelve months since I wrote that piece, we have been subjected to a concerted campaign
of corporate media propaganda for which there is no historical precedent. Virtually every major organ
of the Western media apparatus (the most powerful propaganda machine in the annals of powerful propaganda
machines) has been relentlessly churning out variations on a new official ideological narrative designed
to generate and enforce conformity. The gist of this propaganda campaign is that "Western democracy"
is under attack by a confederacy of Russians and white supremacists, as well as "the terrorists"
and other "extremists" it's been under attack by for the last sixteen years.
I've been writing about this campaign for a year now, so I'm not going to rehash all the details.
Suffice to say we've gone from
Russian operatives hacking the American elections to "Russia-linked" persons "apparently" setting
up "illegitimate" Facebook accounts, "likely operated out of Russia," and publishing ads that are
"indistinguishable from legitimate political speech" on the Internet. This is what the corporate
media is presenting as evidence of
"an unprecedented foreign invasion of American democracy," a handful of political ads on Facebook.
In addition to the Russian hacker propaganda, since August, we have also been treated to relentless
white supremacist hysteria and daily reminders from the corporate media that
"white nationalism is destroying the West." The negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been
blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably slouching its way towards the White House to officially
launch the Trumpian Reich.
At the same time, government and corporate entities have been aggressively restricting (and in
many cases eliminating) fundamental civil liberties such as freedom of expression, freedom of the
press, the right of assembly, the right to privacy, and the right to due process under the law. The
justification for this curtailment of rights (which started in earnest in 2001, following the September
11 attacks) is protecting the public from the threat of "terrorism," which apparently shows no signs
of abating. As of now, the United States has been in
a State of Emergency for over sixteen years. The UK is in
a virtual State of Emergency . France is now in the process of enshrining
its permanent State of Emergency into law. Draconian counter-terrorism measures have been
implemented throughout the EU . Not just
the notorious American police but
police
throughout the West have been militarized . Every other day we learn of some
new emergency security measure designed to keep us safe from "the terrorists," the "lone wolf
shooters," and other "extremists."
Conveniently, since the Brexit referendum and unexpected election of Trump (which is when the
capitalist ruling classes first recognized that they had a widespread nationalist backlash on their
hands), the definition of "terrorism" (or, more broadly, "extremism") has been expanded to include
not just Al Qaeda, or ISIS, or whoever we're calling "the terrorists" these days, but anyone else
the ruling classes decide they need to label "extremists." The FBI has designated Black Lives Matter
"Black Identity Extremists." The FBI and the DHS have designated Antifa
"domestic terrorists."
Whatever your opinion of these organizations and "extremist" persons is beside the point. I'm
not a big fan of neo-Nazis, personally, but neither am I a fan of Antifa. I don't have much use for
conspiracy theories, or a lot of the nonsense one finds on the Internet, but I consume a fair amount
of alternative media, and I publish in CounterPunch, The Unz Review, ColdType, and other non-corporate
journals.
I consider myself a leftist, basically, but my political essays are often reposted by right-wing
and, yes, even pro-Russia blogs. I get mail from former Sanders supporters, Trump supporters, anarchists,
socialists, former 1960s radicals, anti-Semites, and other human beings, some of whom I passionately
agree with, others of whom I passionately disagree with. As far as I can tell from the emails, none
of these readers voted for Clinton, or Macron, or supported the TPP, or the debt-enslavement and
looting of Greece, or the ongoing restructuring of the Greater Middle East (and all the lovely knock-on
effects that has brought us), or believe that Trump is a Russian operative, or that Obama is Martin
Luther Jesus-on-a-stick.
What they share, despite their opposing views, is a general awareness that the locus of power
in our post-Cold War age is primarily corporate, or global capitalist, and neoliberal in nature.
They also recognize that they are being subjected to a massive propaganda campaign designed to lump
them all together (again, despite their opposing views) into an intentionally vague and undefinable
category comprising anyone and everyone, everywhere, opposing the hegemony of global capitalism,
and its non-ideological ideology (the nature of which I'll get into in a moment).
As I wrote in that essay a year ago, "a line is being drawn in the ideological sand." This line
cuts across both Left and Right, dividing what the capitalist ruling classes designate "normal" from
what they label "extremist." The traditional ideological paradigm, Left versus Right, is disappearing
(except as a kind of minstrel show), and is being replaced, or overwritten, by a pathological
paradigm based upon the concept of "extremism."
* * *
Although the term has been around since the Fifth Century BC, the concept of "extremism" as
we know it today developed in the late Twentieth Century and has come into vogue in the last three
decades. During the Cold War, the preferred exonymics were "subversive," "radical," or just plain
old "communist," all of which terms referred to an actual ideological adversary.
In the early 1990s, as the U.S.S.R. disintegrated, and globalized Western capitalism became the
unrivaled global-hegemonic ideological system that it is today, a new concept was needed to represent
the official enemy and its ideology. The concept of "extremism" does that perfectly, as it connotes,
not an external enemy with a definable ideological goal, but rather, a deviation from the norm. The
nature of the deviation (e.g., right-wing, left-wing, faith-based, and so on) is secondary, almost
incidental. The deviation itself is the point. The "terrorist," the "extremist," the "white supremacist,"
the "religious fanatic," the "violent anarchist" these figures are not rational actors whose ideas
we need to intellectually engage with in order to debate or debunk. They are pathological deviations,
mutant cells within the body of "normality," which we need to identify and eliminate, not for ideological
reasons, but purely in order to maintain "security."
A truly global-hegemonic system like contemporary global capitalism (the first of this kind in
human history), technically, has no ideology. "Normality" is its ideology an ideology which erases
itself and substitutes the concept of what's "normal," or, in other words, "just the way it is."
The specific characteristics of "normality," although not quite arbitrary, are ever-changing. In
the West, for example, thirty years ago, smoking was normal. Now, it's abnormal. Being gay was abnormal.
Now, it's normal. Being transgender is becoming normal, although we're still in the early stages
of the process. Racism has become abnormal. Body hair is currently abnormal. Walking down the street
in a semi-fugue state robotically thumbing the screen of a smartphone that you just finished thumbing
a minute ago is "normal." Capitalism has no qualms with these constant revisions to what is considered
normal, because none of them are threats to capitalism. On the contrary, as far as values are concerned,
the more flexible and commodifiable the better.
See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny,
homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these
values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we
have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't
much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture
or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every
object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will
bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
Yes, we all want there to be other values, and we pretend there are, but there aren't, not really.
Although we're free to enjoy parochial subcultures based on alternative values (i.e., religious bodies,
the arts, and so on), these subcultures operate within capitalist society, and ultimately conform
to its rules. In the arts, for example, works are either commercial products, like any other commodity,
or they are subsidized by what could be called "the simulated aristocracy," the ivy league-educated
leisure classes (and lower class artists aspiring thereto) who need to pretend that they still have
"culture" in order to feel superior to the masses. In the latter case, this feeling of superiority
is the upscale product being sold. In the former, it is entertainment, distraction from the depressing
realities of living, not in a society at all, but in a marketplace with no real human values. (In
the absence of any real cultural values, there is no qualitative difference between Gerhard
Richter and Adam Sandler, for example. They're both successful capitalist artists. They're just selling
their products in different markets.)
The fact that it has no human values is the evil genius of global capitalist society. Unlike the
despotic societies it replaced, it has no allegiance to any cultural identities, or traditions, or
anything other than money. It can accommodate any form of government, as long as it plays ball with
global capitalism. Thus, the window dressing of "normality" is markedly different from country to
country, but the essence of "normality" remains the same. Even in countries with state religions
(like Iran) or state ideologies (like China), the governments play by the rules of global capitalism
like everyone else. If they don't, they can expect to receive a visit from global capitalism's Regime
Change Department (i.e., the US military and its assorted partners).
Which is why, despite the "Russiagate" hysteria the media have been barraging us with, the
West is not going to war with Russia. Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed
countries, whose economies are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies.
The economies of every developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature
of the global hegemony I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global
capitalist hegemony. Systemic, supranational hegemony (which I like to prefer "the Corporatocracy,"
as it sounds more poetic and less post-structural).
We haven't really got our minds around it yet, because we're still in the early stages of it,
but we have entered an epoch in which historical events are primarily being driven, and societies
reshaped, not by sovereign nation states acting in their national interests but by supranational
corporations acting in their corporate interests. Paramount among these corporate interests is the
maintenance and expansion of global capitalism, and the elimination of any impediments thereto. Forget
about the United States (i.e., the actual nation state) for a moment, and look at what's been happening
since the early 1990s. The US military's "disastrous misadventures" in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan,
Syria, and the former Yugoslavia, among other exotic places (which have obviously had nothing to
do with the welfare or security of any actual Americans), begin to make a lot more sense.
Global capitalism, since the end of the Cold War (i.e, immediately after the end of the Cold
War), has been conducting a global clean-up operation, eliminating actual and potential insurgencies,
mostly in the Middle East, but also in its Western markets. Having won the last ideological war,
like any other victorious force, it has been
"clear-and-holding" the
conquered territory, which in this case happens to be the whole planet. Just for fun, get out a map,
and look at the history of invasions, bombings, and other "interventions" conducted by the West and
its assorted client states since 1990. Also, once you're done with that, consider how, over the last
fifteen years, most Western societies have been militarized, their citizens placed under constant
surveillance, and an overall atmosphere of "emergency" fostered, and paranoia about "the threat of
extremism" propagated by the corporate media.
I'm not suggesting there's a bunch of capitalists sitting around in a room somewhere in their
shiny black top hats planning all of this. I'm talking about systemic development, which is a little
more complex than that, and much more difficult to intelligently discuss because we're used to perceiving
historico-political events in the context of competing nation states, rather than competing ideological
systems or non-competing ideological systems, for capitalism has no competition . What it
has, instead, is a variety of insurgencies, the faith-based Islamic fundamentalist insurgency and
the neo-nationalist insurgency chief among them. There will certainly be others throughout the near
future as global capitalism consolidates control and restructures societies according to its values.
None of these insurgencies will be successful.
Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know,
violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its ruthless
interests. The world will become increasingly "normal." The scourge of "extremism" and "terrorism"
will persist, as will the general atmosphere of "emergency." There will be no more Trumps, Brexit
referendums, revolts against the banks, and so on. Identity politics will continue to flourish, providing
a forum for leftist activist types (and others with an unhealthy interest in politics), who otherwise
might become a nuisance, but any and all forms of actual dissent from global capitalist ideology
will be systematically marginalized and pathologized.
This won't happen right away, of course. Things are liable to get ugly first (as if they weren't
ugly enough already), but probably not in the way we're expecting, or being trained to expect by
the corporate media. Look, I'll give you a dollar if it turns out I'm wrong, and the Russians, terrorists,
white supremacists, and other "extremists" do bring down "democracy" and launch their Islamic, white
supremacist, Russo-Nazi Reich, or whatever, but from where I sit it looks pretty clear tomorrow belongs
to the Corporatocracy.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in Berlin.
His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing (USA). His debut
novel,
ZONE
23 , is published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at
cjhopkins.com or
consentfactory.org .
Brilliant Article. But this has been going on for nearly a century or more. New York Jewish bankers
fund the Bolshevik revolution which gets rid of the Romanov dynasty and many of the revolutionaries
are not even Russian. What many people do not know is that many Western companies invested money
in Bolshevik Russia as the Bolsheviks were speeding up the modernising of the country. What many
do not know is that Feminism, destruction of families and traditional societies, homoerotic art
etc . was forced on the new Soviet population in a shock therapy sort of way. The same process
has been implemented in the West by the elites using a much slower 'boiling the frog' method using
Cultural Marxism. The aim of the Soviet Union was to spread Communism around the World and hence
bring about the One World Government as wished by the globalists. Their national anthem was the
'Internationale'. The globalists were funding revolutionary movements throughout Europe and other
parts of the world. One such attempt went extremely wrong and that was in Germany where instead
of the Communists coming in power, the National Socialists come in power which was the most dangerous
challenge faced by the Zio/globalists/elite gang. The Globalists force a war using false flag
events like Pearl Harbour etc and crushed the powers which challenged their rule i.e. Germany,
Japan and Italy. That is why Capitalist USA funded Communist Soviet Union using the land lease
program, which on the surface never makes any sense.
However in Soviet Russia, a power struggle leads to Stalin destroying the old Communist order
of Lenin Trotsky. Trotsky and his supporters leave the Soviet Union. Many of the present Neo Cons
are ex Trotskyites and hence the crazy hatred for Russia even today in American politics. These
Neocons do not have any principles, they will use any ideology such as Communism, Islam, twisted
Western Conservatism anything to attain their global goals.
Now with Stalin coming to power, things actually improved and the war with Hitler's Third Reich
gave Stalin the chance to purge many old school globalist commies and then the Soviet Union went
towards a more nationalist road. Jews slowly started losing their hold on power with Russians
and eventually other Soviets gaining more powerful positions. These folks found the ugly modern
art culture of the early Soviet period revolting and started a new movement where the messages
of Socialism can be delivered with more healthy beautiful art and culture. This process was called
'Social Realism'. So strangely what happened was that the Capitalist Christian West was becoming
more and more less traditional with time (Cultural Marxism/Fabien Socialism via media, education,
Hollywood) while the Eastern block was slowly moving in an opposite direction. The CIA (which
is basically the intelligence agency arm of Wall Street Bankers) was working to stop this 'Social
Realism' movement.
These same globalists also funded Mao and pulled the rug under Chiang Kai Shek who they were
supporting earlier. Yes, Mao was funded by the Rockerfeller/ Rothschild Cabal. Now, even if the
Globalists were not happy with Stalin gaining power in the Soviet Union (they preferred the internationalist
Trotskyites), they still found that they could work out with the Soviet Union. That is why during
the 2nd World war, the USA supports the USSR with money and material, Stalin gets a facelift as
'friendly Uncle Joe' for the Western audience. Many Cossack families who had escaped the Soviet
Union to the West were sent to their deaths after the War to the Soviet Union. Why? Mr. Eden of
Britain who could not stand Hitler wanted a New World Order where they could work with the more
murderous Soviet Union.
Now we have the cold war. What is not known is that behind the scenes at a higher level, the
Americans and the Soviets cooperated with each other exchanging technology, basically the cold
war was quite fake. But the Cold war gave the American government (basically the Globalists) to
take American Tax payers hard earned money to fund many projects such as Star Wars programme etc
All this was not needed, as a gentleman named Keenan had shown in his book that all the Americans
needed to do was to make sure Japan, Germany and Britain did not fall to the Soviets, that's it.
Thus trillions of American tax payer money would be saved. But obviously the Military Industrial
Complex did not like that idea. Both the Soviet and the American governments got the excuse spend
their people's hard money on weapons research as well as exchanging some of that technology in
the back ground. It is during this period that the precursor to the Internet was already developed.
Many of the technology we use today was already invented much earlier by government agencies but
released to the people later.
Then we have the Vietnam war. Now you must realise that the Globalist government of America
uses wars not only to change enemy societies but also the domestic society in the West. So during
the Vietnam War, the US government using the alphabet agencies such as the CIA kick start the
fake opposition hippie movements. The CIA not only drugged the Vietnamese population using drugs
from the Golden Triangle but later released them on the home population in the USA and the West.
This was all part of the Cultural Marxist plan to change or social engineer American/ Western
society. Many institutes like the Travestock Institute were part of this process. For example
one of the main hochos of the Cultural Marxism, a Mr. Aderno was closely related to the Beatles
movement.
Several experiments was done on mind control such as MK Ultra, monarch programming, Edward
Bernay's works etc Their aim was to destroy traditional Western society and the long term goal
is a New World Order. Blacks for example were used as weapons against Whites at the same time
the black social order was destroyed further via the media etc
Now, Nixon going to China was to start a long term (long planned) process to bring about Corporate
Communism. Yes that is going to be economic system in the coming New World Order. China is the
test tube, where the Worst of Communism and the Worst of Crony Capitalism be brought together
as an experiment. As the Soviet Union was going in a direction, the globalist was not happy about
(it was becoming more nationalist), they worked to bring the Soviet Union down and thus the Soviet
experiment ended only to be continued in China.
NATO today is the core military arm of the globalists, a precursor to a One World Military
Force. That explains why after the Warsaw pact was dismantled, NATO was not or why NATO would
interfere in the Middle East which is far away from the Atlantic Ocean.
The coming Cashless society will finally lead to a moneyless or distribution society, in other
words Communism, that is the long term plan.
My point is, many of the geo political events as well as social movements of the last century
(feminism for example) were all planned for a long time and are not accidents. The coming technologies
like the internet of things, 5G technology, Cashless society, biometric identification everywhere
etc are all designed to help bring about the final aim of the globalists. The final aim is a one
world government with Corporate ruled Communism where we, the worker bees will be living in our
shitty inner city like ghetto homes eating GM plastic foods and listening to crappy music. That
is the future they have planned for us. A inner city ghetto like place under Communism ruled by
greedy evil corporates.
"Short some sort of cataclysm, like an asteroid strike or the zombie apocalypse, or, you know,
violent revolution, global capitalism will continue to restructure the planet to conform to its
ruthless interests."
That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical
of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting
proles. They've painted themselves into a corner with non-white identity politics combined with
mass immigration. The logical conclusion of where they're going is pogroms and none of the kleptocracy
seem bold enough to try and stop this from happening.
That is certainly what the geopolitical establishment is hoping for, but I remain skeptical
of their ability to contain what forces they've used to balance the various camps of dissenting
proles.
There must be some evidence for your assertions about the long term plans and aims of globalists
and others if there is truth in them. The sort of people you are referring to would often have
kept private diaries and certainly written many hundreds or thousands of letters. Can you give
any references to such evidence of say 80 to 130 years ago?
.. puzzling that the writer feels the need to virtue-signal by saying he "doesn't have much
time for conspiracy theories" while condemning an absolutely massive conspiracy to present establishment
lies as truth.
That is one of the most depressing demonstrations of the success of the ruling creeps that
I have yet come across.
Germany is the last EU member state where an anti EU party entered parliament. In the last
French elections four out of every ten voters voted on anti EU parties. In Austria the anti EU
parties now have a majority. So if I were leading a big corporation, thriving by globalism, what
also the EU is, I would be worried.
"See, despite what intersectionalists will tell you, capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny,
homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic values (though it has no problem working with these
values when they serve its broader strategic purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which
we have elevated to a social system. It only has one fundamental value, exchange value, which
isn't much of a value, at least not in terms of organizing society or maintaining any sort of
human culture or reverence for the natural world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything,
everyone, every object and sentient being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what
the market will bear no more, no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value."
This is a great article. The author's identification of "normality" & "extremism" as Capitalism's
go-to concepts for social control is spot on accurate. That these terms can mean anything or nothing
& are infinitely flexible is central to their power.
Mr Hopkins is also correct when he points out that Capitalism has essentially NO values (exchange
value is a value, but also a mechanism). Again, Capitalism stands for nothing: any form of government
is acceptable as long as it bows to neoliberal markets.
However, the author probably goes to far:
"Nor are we going to war with China. Russia and China are developed countries, whose economies
are entirely dependent on global capitalism, as are Western economies. The economies of every
developed nation on the planet are inextricably linked. This is the nature of the global hegemony
I've been referring to throughout this essay. Not American hegemony, but global capitalist hegemony.
Systemic, supranational hegemony".
Capitalism has no values: however the Masters of the capitalist system most certainly do: Capitalism
is a means, the most thorough, profound means yet invented, for the attainment of that value which
has NO exchange value: POWER.
Capitalism is a supranational hegemony – yet the Elites which control it, who will act as one
when presented with any external threats to Capitalism itself, are not unified internally. Indeed,
they will engage in cut throat competition, whether considered as individuals or nations or as
particular industries.
US Imperialism is not imaginary, it is not a mere appearance or mirage of Capitalism, supranational
or not. US Imperialism in essence empowers certain sets of Capitalists over other sets. No, they
may not purposely endanger the System as a whole, however, that still leaves plenty of space for
aggressive competition, up to & including war.
Imperialism is the political corollary to the ultimate economic goal of the individual Capitalist:
Monopoly.
Psychologically daring (being no minstrel to corporatocracy nor irrelevant activism and other
"religions" that endorse the current world global system as the overhead), rationally correct,
relevant, core definition of the larger geo-world and deeper "ideological" grounding( in the case
of capitalism the quite shallow brute forcing of greed as an incentive, as sterile a society as
possible), and adhering to longer timelines of reality of planet earth. Perfectly captures the
"essence" of the dynamics of our times.
The few come to the authors' through-sites by many venue-ways, that's where some of the corporocratic
world, by sheer statistics wind up also. Why do they not get the overhand into molding the shallow
into anything better in the long haul. No world leader, no intellectual within power circles,
even within confined quarters, speaks to the absurdity of the ongoing slugging and maltering of
global human?
The elites of now are too dumb to consider the planet exo-human as a limited resource. Immigration,
migration, is the de facto path to "normalization" in the terms of the author. Reducing the world
population is not "in" the capitalist ideology. A major weakness, or if one prefers the stake
that pinches the concept of capitalism: more instead of quality principles.
The game changers, the possible game changers: eugenics and how they play out as to the elites
( understanding the genome and manipulating it), artificial intelligence ( defining it first,
not the "Elon Musk" definition), and as a far outlier exo-planetary arguments.
Confront the above with the "unexpected", the not-human engineered possible events (astroids
and the like, secondary effects of human induced toxicity, others), and the chances to get to
the author's "dollar" and what it by then might mean is indeed tiny.
As to the content, one of the utmost relevant articles, it is "art" to condense such broad
a world view into a few words, it requires a deep understanding foremost, left to wonder what
can be grasped by most reading above. Some-one try the numbers?, "big data" anyone, they might
turn out in favor of what the author undoubtedly absorbed as the nucleus of twenty-first thinking,
strategy and engineering.
This kind of thinking and "Harvard" conventionality, what a distance.
Great article, spot on. Indeed we are all at the mercy now of a relatively small clique of ruthless
criminals who are served by armies of desensitized, stupid mercenaries: MBAs, politicians, thugs,
college professors, "whorenalists", etc. I am afraid that the best answer to the current and future
dystopia is what the Germans call "innere Emigration," to psychologically detach oneself
from the contemporary world.
Thus, the only way out of this hellhole is through reading and thinking, which every self-respecting
individual should engage in. Shun most contemporary "literature" and instead turn to the classics
of European culture: there you will find all you need.
For an earlier and ever so pertinent analysis of the contemporary desert, I can heartily recommend
Umberto Galimberti's I vizi capitali e i nuovi vizi (Milan, 2003).
And yes, another verbally strong expression of the in your face truth, though for so few to
grasp. The author again has a deep understanding, if one prefers, it points to the venueway of
coming to terms, the empirical pathway as to the understanding.
"Plasticky" society is my preferred term for designating the aberrance that most (within the
elites), the rest who cares (as an historical truth), do not seem to identify as proper cluelessness
in the light of longer timelines. The current global ideology, religion of capitalism-democracy
is the equivalent of opportunistic naval staring of the elites. They are not aware that suffocation
will irreversibly affect oneself. Not enough air is the equivalent of no air in the end.
The negligible American neo-Nazi subculture has been blown up into a biblical Behemoth inexorably
slouching its way towards the White House to officially launch the Trumpian Reich.
While the above is true, I hope most folks understand that the basic concept of controlling
people through fear is nothing new. The much vaunted constitution was crammed down our collective
throats by the rich scoundrels of the time in the words of more than one anti-federalist through
the conjuring of quite a set of threats, all bogus.
I address my most fervent prayer to prevent our adopting a system destructive to liberty
We are told there are dangers, but those dangers are ideal; they cannot be demonstrated.
- Patrick Henry, Foreign Wars, Civil Wars, and Indian Wars -- Three Bugbears, June 5, 7,
and 9, 1788
Bottom line: Concentrated wealth and power suck.The USA was ruled by a plutoligarchy from its
inception, and the material benefits we still enjoy have occurred not because of it but
despite it.
For today's goofy "right wing" big business "conservatives" who think the US won WW2, I got news
for you. Monopoly capitalism, complete with increasing centralization of the economy and political
forces were given boosts by both world wars.
It was precisely in reaction to their impending defeat at the hands of the competitive storms
of the market tha t business turned, increasingly after the 1900′s, to the federal government
for aid and protection. In short, the intervention by the federal government was designed,
not to curb big business monopoly for the sake of the public weal, but to create monopolies
that big business (as well as trade associations smaller business) had not been able
to establish amidst the competitive gales of the free market. Both Left and Right have been
persistently misled by the notion that intervention by the government is ipso facto leftish
and anti-business. Hence the mythology of the New-Fair Deal-as-Red that is endemic on the Right.
Both the big businessmen, led by the Morgan interests, and Professor Kolko almost uniquely
in the academic world, have realized that monopoly privilege can only be created by the
State and not as a result of free market operations.
-Murray N. Rothbard, Rothbard Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty, [Originally appeared
in Left and Right, Spring 1965, pp. 4-22.]
It was all about connecting the dots really. Connecting the dots of too many books I have gobe
through and videos I have seen. Too many to list here.
You can get a lot of info from the book 'Tragedy and Hope' by Carroll Quigley though he avoids
mantioning Jews and calls it the Anglo American establishment, Anthony Sutton however I completely
disagree about funding of the Third Reich but he does talk a lot about the secret relationship
between the USA and the USSR, Revilo Oliver etc.. etc Well you could read the Protocols. Now if
you think that the protocols was a forgery, you gotta see this, especially the last part.
Also check this out
Also check out what this Wall Street guy realised in his career.
Also this 911 firefighter, what he found out after some research
Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system. It only
has one fundamental value, exchange value, which isn't much of a value, at least not in terms
of organizing society or maintaining any sort of human culture or reverence for the natural
world it exists in. In capitalist society, everything, everyone, every object and sentient
being, every concept and human emotion, is worth exactly what the market will bear no more,
no less, than its market price. There is no other measure of value.
This looks like the "financialization" of society with Citizens morphing into Consumers.
And it's worth saying that Citizenship and Consumership are completely different concepts:
Citizenship – Dictionary.com
1. – the state of being vested with the rights, privileges, and duties of a citizen.
2. – the character of an individual viewed as a member of society;behavior in terms of the
duties, obligations, and functions of a citizen:
an award for good citizenship.
The Consumer – Dictionary.com
1. a person or thing that consumes.
2. Economics. a person or organization that uses a commodity or service.
A good citizen can then define themselves in a rather non-selfish, non-financial way as for
example, someone who respects others, contributes to local decisions (politically active), gains
respect through work and ethical standards etc.
A good consumer on the other hand, seems to be more a self-idea, essentially someone who buys
and consumes a lot (financial idea), has little political interest – and probably defines themselves
(and others) by how they spend money and what they own.
It's clear that US, and global capitalism, prefers active consumers over active citizens, and
maybe it explains why the US has such a worthless and dysfunctional political process.
Some folks are completely unable to connect the dots even when spoon fed the evidence. You'll
note that some, in risible displays of quasi-intellectual arrogance, make virtually impossible
demands for proof, none of which they'll ever accept. Rather, they flock to self aggrandizing
mythology like flies to fresh sewage which the plutoligarchy produces nearly infinitely.
Your observations appear pretty accurate and self justifying I'd say.
Look up the film director Aaron Russo (recently deceased), discussing how David Rockefeller
tried to bring him over to the dark side. Rockefeller discussed for example the women's movement,
its engineering. Also, there's Aldous Huxley's speech The Ultimate Revolution, on how drugs are
the final solution to rabble troubles–we will think we're happy even in the most appalling societal
conditions.
I can only say Beware of Zinn, best friend of Chomsky, endlessly tauted by shysters like Amy
Goodman and Counterpunch. Like all liberal gatekeepers, he wouldn't touch 911. I saw him speak
not long before he died, and when questioned on this he said, 'That was a long time ago, let's
talk about now.'
This from a professed historian, and it was only 7 years after 911. He seemed to have the same
old Jewish agenda, make Europeans look really bad at all times. He was always on message, like
the shyster Chomsky. Sincerely probing for the truth was not part of his agenda; his truths were
highly selective, and such a colossal event as 911 concerned him not at all, with the ensuing
wars, Patriot Acts, bullshit war on Terror, etc etc
" capitalism has no interest in racism, misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, or any other despotic
values (though it has no problem working with these values when they serve its broader strategic
purposes). Capitalism is an economic system, which we have elevated to a social system."
This is a typical Left Lie. Capitalism in its present internationalist phase absolutely requires
Anti-Racism to lubricate sales uh, internationally and domestically. We are all Equal.
Then, the ticking-off of the rest of the bad isms, and labeling them 'despotic' is another
Leftwing and poetic attack on more or less all of us white folks, who have largely invented Capitalism,
from a racialist point of view.
"Poetic" because it is an emotional appeal, not a rational argument. The other 'despotisms'
are not despotic, unless you claim, like I do that racial personalities are more, or less despotic,
with Whites being the least despotic. The Left totalitarian thinks emotional despotism's source
is political or statist. It are not. However, Capitalism has been far less despotic than communism,
etc.
Emotional Despotism is part of who Homo Sapiens is, and this emotional despotism is not racially
equal. Whites are the least despotic, and have organized law and rules to contain such despotism.
Systems arise naturally from the Human Condition, like it or not. The attempt here is to sully
the Capitalist system, and that is all it is. This article itself is despotic propaganda.
Arguably, human nature is despotic, and White civilization has attempted to limit our despotic
nature.
This is another story.
As for elevating capitalism into a 'social system' .this is somewhat true. However, that is
not totally bad, as capitalism delivers the goods, which is the first thing, after getting out
of bed.
The second thing, is having a conformable social environment, and that is where racial accord
enters.
People want familiar and trustworthy people around them and that is just the way human nature
is genetic similarity, etc.
Beyond that, the various Leftie complaints-without-end, are also just the way it is. And yes
they can be addressed and ameliorated to some degree, but human nature is not a System to be manipulated,
even thought the current crop of scientistic lefties talk a good storyline about epigenetics and
other Hopes, false of course, like communist planning which makes its first priority, Social Change
which is always despotic. Society takes care of itself, especially racial society.
As Senator Vail said about the 1924 Immigration Act which held the line against Immigration,
"if there is going to be any changing being done, we will do it and nobody else." That 'we' was
a White we.
Capitalism must be national. International capital is tyranny.
US oil companies make about five cents off a single gallon of gasoline, on the other hand US
Big Government taxes on a single gallon are around seventy-one cents for US states & rising, the
tax is now $1.00 per gallon for CA.
IOW, greedy US governments make fourteen to twenty times what oil companies make, and it is
the oil companies who make & deliver the vital product to the marketplace.
And that is just in the US. Have a look at Europe's taxes. My, my.
Some agendas require the "state sponsored" part to be hidden.
That is part of the reason why the constitutional convention was held in secret as well.
The cunning connivers who ram government down our throats don't like their designs exposed,
and it's an old trick which nearly always works.
Here's Aristophanes on the subject. His play is worth a read. Short and great satire on the
politicians of the day.
SAUSAGE-SELLER
No, Cleon, little you care for his reigning in Arcadia, it's to pillage and impose on the
allies at will that you reckon; y ou wish the war to conceal your rogueries as in a mist,
that Demos may see nothing of them, and harassed by cares, may only depend on yourself for
his bread. But if ever peace is restored to him, if ever he returns to his lands to comfort
himself once more with good cakes, to greet his cherished olives, he will know the blessings
you have kept him out of, even though paying him a salary; and, filled with hatred and rage,
he will rise, burning with desire to vote against you. You know this only too well; it is
for this you rock him to sleep with your lies.
The first loyalty of jews is supposed to be to jews.
Norman Finkelstein is called a traitor by jews, the Dutch jew Hamburger is called a traitor
by Dutch jews, he's the chairman of 'Een ander joodse geluid', best translated by 'another jewish
opinion', the organisation criticises Israel.
Jewish involvement in Sept 11 seems probable, the 'dancing Israelis', the assertion that most
jews working in the Twin Towers at the time were either sick or took a day off, the fact that
the Towers were jewish property, ready for a costly demolition, much abestos in the buildings,
thus the 'terrorist' act brought a great profit.
Can one expect a jew to expose things like this ?
On his book, I did not find inconsistencies with literature I already knew.
The merit of the book is listing many events that affected common people in the USA, and destroying
the myth that 'in the USA who is poor has only himself to blame'.
This nonsense becomes clear even from the diaries of Harold L Ickes, or from Jonathan Raban
Bad Land, 1997.
As for Zinn's criticism of the adored USA constitution, I read that Charles A Beard already
in 1919 resigned because he also criticised this constitution.
Indeed, in our countries about half the national income goes to the governments by taxes, this
is the reason a country like Denmark is the best country to live in.
"... Faced with this mess, the obituarists for neoliberalism are out again. Some I recognise from 2008 - the definition of a left-wing economist being one who has spotted ten out of the last two crises of capitalism. Others have joined them, perhaps spurred on by the Brexit vote, or the rise of Donald Trump or the nice-sounding promises made by Theresa May. ..."
"... This is where, I think, we need to pay close attention to a key dimension of neoliberalism, which I focus on at length in this book, namely competition. One of my central arguments here is that neoliberalism is not simply reducible to 'market fundamentalism', even if there are areas (such as financial markets) where markets have manifestly attained greater reach and power since the mid1970s. Instead, the neoliberal state takes the principle of competition and the ethos of competitiveness (which historically have been found in and around markets), and seeks to reorganise society around them. Quite how competition and competitiveness are defined and politically instituted is a matter for historical and theoretical exploration, which is partly what The Limits of Neoliberalism seeks to do. But at the bare minimum, organising social relations in terms of competition' means that individuals, organisations, cities, regions and nations are to be tested in terms of their capacity to out-do each other. Not only that, but the tests must be considered fair in some way, if the resulting inequalities are to be recognised as legitimate. When applied to individuals, this ideology is often known as 'meritocracy'. ..."
"... Under these neoliberal conditions, remorse becomes directed inwards, producing the depressive psychological effect (or what Freud termed 'melancholia') whereby people search inside themselves for the source of their own unhappiness and imperfect lives (Davies, 2015). Viewed from within the cultural logic of neoliberalism, uncompetitive regions, individuals or communities are not just 'left behind by globalisation', but are discovered to be inferior in comparison to their rivals, just like the contestants ejected from a talent show. Rising household indebtedness compounds this process for those living in financial precarity, by forcing individuals to pay for their own past errors, illness or sheer bad luck ..."
"... Hardship itself doesn't necessarily lead to the hopelessness and fury of which Donald Trump seemingly speaks. But when hardship feels both permanent and undeserved, the psychological appeal of demagogues promising to divert blame elsewhere, be it towards Muslims, 'experts', immigrants, the Chinese, Brussels or wherever, becomes irresistible. Seemingly irrational or even nihilistic popular upheavals make some sense, if understood in terms of the relief they offer for those who have felt trapped by their own impotence for too long, with nobody available to blame but themselves. ..."
"... Statistical studies have shown how societies such as Britain and the United States have become afflicted by often inexplicable rising mortality rates amongst the white working class, connected partly to rising suicide rates, alcohol and drug abuse (Dorling, 2016). The Washington Post identified close geographic correlations between this trend and support for Donald Trump (Guo, 2016). In sum, a moral-economic system aimed at identifying and empowering the most competitive people, institutions and places has become targeted, rationally or otherwise, by the vast number of people, institutions and places that have suffered not only the pain of defeat but the punishment of defeat for far too long. ..."
"... The re-emergence of national borders as obstacles to the flow r of goods, finance, services and above all people, represents at least an interruption in the vision of globalisation that accompanied the heyday of neoliberal policy making between 1989-2008. If events such as Brexit signal the first step towards greater national mercantilism and protectionism, then we may be witnessing far more profound transformations in our model of political economy, the consequences of which could become very ugly. ..."
"... Once governments (and publics) no longer view economics as the best test of optimal policies, then opportunities for post-liberal experimentation expand rapidly, with unpredictable and potentially frightening consequences. It was telling that, when the British Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, suggested in October 2016 that companies be compelled to publicly list their foreign workers, she defended this policy as a 'nudge'. ..."
"... The Limits of Neolibcralism is a piece of interpretive sociology. It starts from the recognition that neoliberalism rests on claims to legitimacy, which it is possible to imagine as valid, even for critics of this system. Inspired by Luc Boltanski, the book assumes that political-economic systems typically need to offer certain limited forms of hope, excitement and fairness in order to survive, and cannot operate via domination and exploitation alone. ..."
"... The attempt to reduce all of human life to economic calculation runs up against limits. A political rationality that fails to recognise politics as a distinctive sphere of human existence was always going to be dumbfounded, once that sphere took on its own extra-economic life. As Bob Dylan sang to Mr Jones, so one might now say to neoliberal intellectuals or technocrats: 'something is happening here, but you don't know what it is'. ..."
The crash has sharpened the central contradiction in neoliberal economics: it has become
purely a system that rewards dead money even while it fails to create new money. No ideology
can survive unless it has something to offer the young and the almost young. You cant keep
winning elections if you cant promise reasonable jobs, wage rises, affordable groceries and
housing. Put another way, you can have neoliberalism but you cant have democratic validity.
This is the contradiction over which mainstream politicians wedded to neoliberalism - both
left and Right - keep stumbling. Where they can, they rely on the old tricks to get by:
operating party machinery, access to big money funders, consulting the manual of TV
presentability. But the formula isn't reliable, as the New Labour generation can tell you. And
where it can deliver majorities it doesn't confer legitimacy, as David Cameron and Hilary
Clinton now know.
Faced with this mess, the obituarists for neoliberalism are out again. Some I recognise
from 2008 - the definition of a left-wing economist being one who has spotted ten out of the
last two crises of capitalism. Others have joined them, perhaps spurred on by the Brexit vote,
or the rise of Donald Trump or the nice-sounding promises made by Theresa May.
I understand the thinking and I certainly get the thinking. But to imagine that an ideology
that has ruled Britain for longer than Yugoslavia was communist will now just fall apart is
sheer fantasy. It is to mistake word for deed, symbolism for policy. In Brexit Britain, not
much has changed yet except for rhetoric. The Treasury continues with its austerity programme;
the government presses on with its privatisations of whatever is left in public hands, from
social housing to the Green Investment Bank; the establishment still hankers after those grand
free-trade deals such as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). True, there
is more talk now about those 'left behind' by globalization, but the very phrasing gives away
how shallow the concern is - this is your fault for not keeping up.
Besides, politics is never a simple test of logic. Winning or exercising power is not a
chess game. As Will Davies points out in this book, neoliberalism began as, and largely
remains, an elite project. What four decades of neoliberalism in practice have achieved is the
bulldozing of many sites of dissent. To see what I mean, visit any of the places in Britain
that have done worst out of it - from the North East to South Wales. The regional business
elites have nearly all died or fled to London. The trade unions are a shadow of their former
selves, as are the fierce tenants' associations. The universities are now largely anodyne. The
local newspapers are typically mere repositories of agency copy and local advertisements, while
the regional BBC studios have either shrunk or consolidated elsewhere. Without such civic
institutions there is no hope of building an alternative.
The answer to neoliberalism isn't another ideology. It certainly isn't a Mont Pelerin
Society of the Left, which would surely be as ghastly as it sounds. No, the answer is
democracy. Without that, we will continue with the same bankrupt ideology -- expecting failure,
and not being surprised or even angry' any more when it comes.
Adilya Chakrabortty
Senior Economics Commentator, The Guardian
Introduction
When exploring paradigm shifts in political economy, maybe it makes more sense to identify
how protracted crises were book-ended historically than to seek specific turning points.
Consider the crisis of Keynesianism, which provided the opening for the neoliberal take-over
and overhaul of economic policy, including those Thatcher and Reagan victories. 1968 was a
critical year, not only for the civic unrest that swept the world, but also for the early signs
that the US economy would be unable to sustain its role in the global financial system on which
Keynesian domestic policies depended. A slow-down in US productivity growth that year, combined
with the fiscal costs of an escalation of the Vietnam war, meant that the dollar started to
come under increased strain. The 'Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, with the dollar
(convertible to gold) at its centre, struggled on for another five years, before being
abandoned under Richard Nixon.
It was a further three years before the final death-knell of Keynesianism was sounded, most
loudly in Britain. In 1976, Britain's Labour government had to turn to the IMF for a loan, and
agreed to adopt a new monetarist, neoliberal strategy for restoring the public finances. That
September, Jim Callaghan, the leader of the Labour Party, famously addressed his party
conference with the words:
... ... ...
In one sense, the 'book-ends' of this recent crisis are the inverse of the ones that killed
Keynesianism. 1968 was a year of political and civic uprisings, under circumstances of rising
prosperity and a still relatively coherent paradigm for economic policy making, albeit one that
was showing early signs of deterioration. It was a public and political crisis, which posed a
threat to a society of rising prosperity and falling inequality. The technical failings of
Keynesianism only really emerged subsequently, before snowballing to the point where the
macroeconomic paradigm could simply not be sustained any longer.
The crisis of neoliberalism has reversed this ordering. 2008 was an implosion of technical
capabilities on the part of banks and financial regulators, which was largely unaccompanied by
any major political or civic eruption, at least until the consequences were felt in terms of
public sector cuts that accelerated after 2010, especially in Southern Europe. The economic
crisis was spookily isolated from any accompanying political crisis, at least in the beginning.
The eruptions of 2016 therefore represented the long-awaited politicisation and publicisation
of a crisis that, until then, had been largely dealt with by the same cadre of experts whose
errors had caused it in the first place.
Faced with these largely unexpected events and the threat of more, politicians and media
pundits have declared that we now need to listen to those people 'left behind by globalisation.
Following the Brexit referendum, in her first speech as Prime Minister, Theresa May made a vow
to the less prosperous members of society, 'we will do everything we can to give you more
control over your lives. When we take the big calls, we'll think not of the powerful, but you.'
This awakening to the demands and voices of marginalised demographics may represent a new
recognition that economic policy cannot be wholly geared around the pursuit of 'national
competitiveness' in the global race', a pursuit that in practice meant seeking to prioritise
the interests of financial services and mobile capital. It signals mainstream political
acceptance that inequality cannot keep rising forever. But it is still rooted in a somewhat
economistic vision of politics, as if those people 'left behind by globalisation' simply want
more material wealth and 'opportunity', plus fewer immigrants competing for jobs. What this
doesn't do is engage with the distinctive political and cultural sociology of events such as
Brexit and Trump, which are fuelled by a spirit of rage, punishment and self-punishment, and
not simply by a desire to get a slightly larger slice of the pie.
This is where, I think, we need to pay close attention to a key dimension of
neoliberalism, which I focus on at length in this book, namely competition. One of my central
arguments here is that neoliberalism is not simply reducible to 'market fundamentalism', even
if there are areas (such as financial markets) where markets have manifestly attained greater
reach and power since the mid1970s. Instead, the neoliberal state takes the principle of
competition and the ethos of competitiveness (which historically have been found in and around
markets), and seeks to reorganise society around them. Quite how competition and
competitiveness are defined and politically instituted is a matter for historical and
theoretical exploration, which is partly what The Limits of Neoliberalism seeks to do. But at
the bare minimum, organising social relations in terms of competition' means that individuals,
organisations, cities, regions and nations are to be tested in terms of their capacity to
out-do each other. Not only that, but the tests must be considered fair in some way, if the
resulting inequalities are to be recognised as legitimate. When applied to individuals, this
ideology is often known as 'meritocracy'.
The appeal of this as a political template for society is that, according to its advocates,
it involves the discovery of brilliant ideas, more efficient business models, naturally
talented individuals, new urban visions, successful national strategies, potent entrepreneurs
and so on. Even if this is correct (and the work of Thomas Piketty on how wealth begets wealth
is enough to cast considerable doubt on it) there is a major defect: it consigns the majority
of people, places, businesses and institutions to the status of'losers'. The normative and
existential conventions of a neoliberal society stipulate that success and prowess are things
that are earned through desire, effort and innate ability, so long as social and economic
institutions are designed in such a way as to facilitate this. But the corollary of this is
that failure and weakness are also earned: when individuals and communities fail to succeed,
this is a reflection of inadequate talent or energy on their part.
This has been critically noted in how 'dependency' and 'welfare' have become matters of
shame since the conservative political ascendency of the 1980s. But this is just one example of
how a culture of obligatory competitiveness exerts a damaging moral psychology, not only in how
people look down on others, but in how they look down on themselves. A culture which valorises
'winning' and 'competitiveness' above all else provides few sources of security or comfort,
even to those doing reasonably well. Everyone could be doing better, and if they're not, they
have themselves to blame. The vision of society as a competitive game also suggests that anyone
could very quickly be doing worse.
Under these neoliberal conditions, remorse becomes directed inwards, producing the
depressive psychological effect (or what Freud termed 'melancholia') whereby people search
inside themselves for the source of their own unhappiness and imperfect lives (Davies, 2015).
Viewed from within the cultural logic of neoliberalism, uncompetitive regions, individuals or
communities are not just 'left behind by globalisation', but are discovered to be inferior in
comparison to their rivals, just like the contestants ejected from a talent show. Rising
household indebtedness compounds this process for those living in financial precarity, by
forcing individuals to pay for their own past errors, illness or sheer bad luck (Davies,
Montgomerie 8t Wallin, 2015).
In order to understand political upheavals such as Brexit, we need to perform some
sociological interpretation. We need to consider that our socio-economic pathologies do not
simply consist in the fact that opportunity and wealth are hoarded by certain industries (such
as finance) or locales (such as London) or individuals (such as the children of the wealthy),
although all of these things are true. We need also to reflect on the cultural and
psychological implications of how this hoarding has been represented and justified over the
past four decades, namely that it reflects something about the underlying moral worth of
different populations and individuals.
Hardship itself doesn't necessarily lead to the hopelessness and fury of which Donald
Trump seemingly speaks. But when hardship feels both permanent and undeserved, the
psychological appeal of demagogues promising to divert blame elsewhere, be it towards Muslims,
'experts', immigrants, the Chinese, Brussels or wherever, becomes irresistible. Seemingly
irrational or even nihilistic popular upheavals make some sense, if understood in terms of the
relief they offer for those who have felt trapped by their own impotence for too long, with
nobody available to blame but themselves.
One psychological effect of this is authoritarian attitudes towards social deviance: Brexit
and Trump supporters both have an above-average tendency to support the death penalty, combined
with a belief that political authorities are too weak to enforce justice (Kaufman, 2016).
However, it is also clear that psychological and physical pain have become far more widespread
in neoliberal societies than has been noticed by most people. Statistical studies have
shown how societies such as Britain and the United States have become afflicted by often
inexplicable rising mortality rates amongst the white working class, connected partly to rising
suicide rates, alcohol and drug abuse (Dorling, 2016). The Washington Post identified close
geographic correlations between this trend and support for Donald Trump (Guo, 2016). In sum, a
moral-economic system aimed at identifying and empowering the most competitive people,
institutions and places has become targeted, rationally or otherwise, by the vast number of
people, institutions and places that have suffered not only the pain of defeat but the
punishment of defeat for far too long.
The question inevitably arises, is this thing called 'neoliberalism' now over? And if not,
when might it be and how would w r e know? In the UK, the prospect of Brexit
combined with the political priority of reducing immigration means that the efficient movement
of capital (together with that of labour) is being consciously impeded in a w r ay
that would have been unthinkable during the 1990s and early 2000s. The re-emergence of
national borders as obstacles to the flow r of goods, finance, services and above
all people, represents at least an interruption in the vision of globalisation that accompanied
the heyday of neoliberal policy making between 1989-2008. If events such as Brexit signal the
first step towards greater national mercantilism and protectionism, then we may be witnessing
far more profound transformations in our model of political economy, the consequences of which
could become very ugly.
Before we reach that point, it is already possible to identify a reorientation of national
economic policy making away from some core tenets of neoliberal doctrine. One of the main case
studies of this book is antitrust law and policy, which has been a preoccupation for neoliberal
intellectuals, reformers and lawyers ever since the 1930s. The rise of the Chicago School view
of competition (which effectively granted far greater legal rights to monopolists, while also
being tougher on cartels) in the American legal establishment from the 1970s onwards, later
repeated in the European Commission, meant that market regulation became a more expert,
esoteric and ostensibly non-political means of power. One of the ideals of neoliberal scholars,
both in the Austrian tradition of Friedrich Hayek and the Chicago School of Milton Friedman,
was that the economic 'rules of the game' be established beyond the reach of democratic
politics, where they might be manipulated to suit particular short-sighted intellectual, social
or political agendas. Independent central banks are one of the more prominent examples of this,
but the establishment of rational, apolitical and European-wide antitrust and state aid rules
would be another.
As I explore in Chapter 5, the banking crisis caused some immediate damage to this vision of
apolitical, permanent rules of competitive economic activity. The need to rescue the financial
system at all costs saw EU state aid rules being overlooked, at least for a few months,
suggesting that neoliberalism entered a state of'exception where the state took rapid executive
decisions, wherever they were deemed necessary. Takeover rules were suspended to allow banks to
buy failing competitors, again on the basis that this was necessary to secure the existential
viability of the economy as such. But as is common in the state of 'exception, this was all
done to preserve the status quo on the basis that an emergency had struck. It wasn't done with
the aim of transforming the economic paradigm.
While anti-trust and state aid are only one small area of European Commission powers, they
are symbolically very important. Competition regulations represent the normative ideal of the
marketplace, which - in the case of post-war Europe - is imagined as an international, even
post-national space of freedom, transcending cultural, linguistic and political differences.
The liberal vision of cosmopolitan Europe becomes realised in economic institutions such as the
single currency, but also the rules that govern market competitors. For these reasons,
Britain's post-Brexit opportunity to withdraw from European anti-trust and state-aid
regulations is symbolic of the new post-liberal or post-neoliberal era that is emerging.
Already, Theresa May has used her first few speeches as UK Prime Minister to push for a more
interventionist state, that seeks to shape economic outcomes around national, political and
social priorities (a reduction of immigration above all else) no doubt mindful of the fact that
the British state will soon have far more discretion to do this, once it is no longer bound by
state aid rules.
At the time of writing, the odds are against Trump becoming President of the United States,
though one lesson of 2016 is not to be too confident regarding political odds. This means that
the prospect of the United States abandoning its
... ... ...
The rise of behavioural economics, for example, represents an attempt to preserve a form of
market rationality in the face of crisis, by incorporating expertise provided by psychologists
and neuroscientists. A form of 'neo-communitarianism' emerges, which takes seriously the role
of relationships, environmental conditioning and empathy in the construction of independent,
responsible subjects. This remains an economists logic, inasmuch as it prepares people to live
efficient, productive, competitive lives. But by bringing culture, community and contingency
within the bounds of neoliberal rationality, one might see things like behavioural economics or
'social neuroscience and so on as early symptoms of a genuinely post-liberal politics. Once
governments (and publics) no longer view economics as the best test of optimal policies, then
opportunities for post-liberal experimentation expand rapidly, with unpredictable and
potentially frightening consequences. It was telling that, when the British Home Secretary,
Amber Rudd, suggested in October 2016 that companies be compelled to publicly list their
foreign workers, she defended this policy as a 'nudge'.
The Limits of Neolibcralism is a piece of interpretive sociology. It starts from the
recognition that neoliberalism rests on claims to legitimacy, which it is possible to imagine
as valid, even for critics of this system. Inspired by Luc Boltanski, the book assumes that
political-economic systems typically need to offer certain limited forms of hope, excitement
and fairness in order to survive, and cannot operate via domination and exploitation
alone.
For similar reasons, we might soon find that we miss some of the normative and political
dimensions of neoliberalism, for example the internationalism that the EU was founded to
promote and the cosmopolitanism that competitive markets sometimes inculcate. There may be some
elements of neoliberalism that critics and activists need to grasp, refashion and defend,
rather than to simply denounce: this books Afterword offers some ideas of what this might mean.
But if the book is to be read in a truly post-neoliberal world, I hope that in its interpretive
aspirations, it helps to explain what was internally and normatively coherent about the
political economy known as 'neoliberalism', but also why the system really had no account of
its own preconditions or how to preserve them adequately.
The attempt to reduce all of human life to economic calculation runs up against limits.
A political rationality that fails to recognise politics as a distinctive sphere of human
existence was always going to be dumbfounded, once that sphere took on its own extra-economic
life. As Bob Dylan sang to Mr Jones, so one might now say to neoliberal intellectuals or
technocrats: 'something is happening here, but you don't know what it is'.
"... Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything, or the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and replaced with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which is merely a simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because exchange value is its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their eviscerated cultural values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer brands as they hunch together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on Facebook. ..."
"... No, this discontent with the political establishment, corporate elites, and the mainstream media has nothing to do with any of that. It's not like global Capitalism, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (its last external ideological adversary), has been restructuring the entire planet in accordance with its geopolitical interests, or doing away with national sovereignty, and other nationalistic concepts that no longer serve a useful purpose in a world where a single ideological system (one backed by the most fearsome military in history) reigns completely unopposed. If that were the case, well, it might behoove us to question whether this outbreak of Nazism, racism, and other forms of "hate," was somehow connected to that historical development and maybe even try to articulate some sort of leftist analysis of that. ..."
"... a world where a single ideology rules the planet unopposed from without ..."
"... Brexit is about Britons who want their country back, a movement indeed getting stronger and stronger in EU member states, but ignored by the ruling 'elites'. ..."
"... A lot of these so called "revolutions" are fomented by the elite only to be subverted and perverted by them in the end. They've had a lot of practice co-opting revolutions and independence movements. ..."
"... "Independence" is now so fashionable (as was Communism among the "elite" back in the '30s), that they are even teaching and fostering independence to kids in kindergarten here in the US. That strikes me as most amusing. Imagine "learning" independence in state run brainwashing factories. ..."
Well all right, let's review what happened, or at least the official version of what
happened. Not Hillary Clinton's version of what happened, which Jeffrey St. Clair so
incisively skewered , but the Corporatocracy's version of what happened, which overlaps
with but is even more ridiculous than Clinton's ridiculous version. To do that, we need to
harken back to the peaceful Summer of 2016, (a/k/a the
"Summer of Fear" ), when the United States of America was still a shiny city upon a hill
whose beacon light guided freedom-loving people, the Nazis were still just a bunch of ass
clowns meeting in each other's mother's garages, and Russia was, well Russia was Russia.
Back then, as I'm sure you'll recall, Western democracy, was still primarily being menaced
by the lone
wolf terrorists, for absolutely no conceivable reason, apart from the terrorists' fanatical
desire to brutally murder all non-believers. The global Russo-Nazi Axis had not yet reared its
ugly head. President Obama, who, during his tenure, had single-handedly restored America to the
peaceful, prosperous, progressive paradise it had been before George W. Bush screwed it up, was
on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon slow
jamming home the TPP . The Wall Street banks had risen from the ashes of the 2008 financial
crisis, and were buying back all the foreclosed homes of the people they had fleeced with
subprime mortgages. American workers were enjoying the freedom and flexibility of the new gig
economy. Electioneering in the United States was underway, but it was early days. It was
already clear that Donald Trump was literally
the Second Coming of Hitler , but no one was terribly worried about him yet. The Republican
Party was in a shambles. Neither Trump nor any of the other contenders had any chance of
winning in November. Nor did Sanders, who had been defeated, fair and square, in the Democratic
primaries, mostly because of
his racist statements and crazy, quasi-Communist ideas. Basically, everything was hunky
dory. Yes, it was going to be terribly sad to have to bid farewell to Obama, who had bailed out
all those bankrupt Americans the Wall Street banks had taken to the cleaners, ended all of Bush
and Cheney's wars, closed down Guantanamo, and just generally served as a multicultural messiah
figure to affluent consumers throughout the free world, but Hope-and-Change was going to
continue. The talking heads were all in agreement Hillary Clinton was going to be President,
and there was nothing anyone could do about it.
Little did we know at the time that an epidemic of Russo-Nazism had been festering just
beneath the surface of freedom-loving Western societies like some neo-fascist sebaceous cyst.
Apparently, millions of theretofore more or less normal citizens throughout the West had been
infected with a virulent strain of Russo-Nazi-engineered virus, because they simultaneously
began exhibiting the hallmark symptoms of what we now know as White Supremacist Behavioral
Disorder, or Fascist Oppositional Disorder (the folks who update the DSM are still arguing over
the official name). It started with the Brexit referendum, spread to America with the election
of Trump, and there have been a rash of outbreaks in Europe, like
the one we're currently experiencing in Germany . These fascistic symptoms have mostly
manifest as people refusing to vote as instructed, and expressing oppressive views on the
Internet, but there have also been more serious crimes, including several assaults and murders
perpetrated by white supremacists (which, of course, never happened when Obama was President,
because the Nazis hadn't been "emboldened" yet).
Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of
fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with
neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire
with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with
supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by
corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything, or
the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and replaced
with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which is merely a
simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because exchange value is
its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their eviscerated cultural
values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer brands as they hunch
together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on Facebook.
No, this discontent with the political establishment, corporate elites, and the
mainstream media has nothing to do with any of that. It's not like global Capitalism, following
the collapse of the U.S.S.R. (its last external ideological adversary), has been restructuring
the entire planet in accordance with its geopolitical interests, or doing away with national
sovereignty, and other nationalistic concepts that no longer serve a useful purpose in a world
where a single ideological system (one backed by the most fearsome military in history) reigns
completely unopposed. If that were the case, well, it might behoove us to question whether this
outbreak of Nazism, racism, and other forms of "hate," was somehow connected to that historical
development and maybe even try to articulate some sort of leftist analysis of that.
This hypothetical leftist analysis might want to focus on how Capitalism is fundamentally
opposed to Despotism, and is essentially a value-decoding machine which renders everything and
everyone it touches essentially valueless interchangeable commodities whose worth is determined
by market forces, rather than by societies and cultures, or religions, or other despotic
systems (wherein values are established and enforced arbitrarily, by the despot, the church, or
the ruling party, or by a group of people who share an affinity and decide they want to live a
certain way). This is where it would get sort of tricky, because it (i.e., this hypothetical
analysis) would have to delve into the history of Capitalism, and how it evolved out of
medieval Despotism, and how it has been decoding despotic values for something like five
hundred years. This historical delving (which would probably be too long for people to read on
their phones) would demonstrate how Capitalism has been an essentially progressive force in
terms of getting us out of Despotism (which, for most folks, wasn't very much fun) by fomenting
bourgeois revolutions and imposing some semblance of democracy on societies. It would follow
Capitalism's inexorable advance all the way up to the Twentieth Century, in which its final
external ideological adversary, fake Communism, suddenly imploded, delivering us to the world
we now live in a world where a single ideology rules the planet unopposed from without
, and where any opposition to that global ideology can only be internal, or insurgent, in
nature (e.g, terrorism, extremism, and so on). Being a hypothetical leftist analysis,
it would, at this point, need to stress that, despite the fact that Capitalism helped deliver
us from Despotism, and improved the state of society generally (compared to most societies that
preceded it), we nonetheless would like to transcend it, or evolve out of it toward some type
of society where people, and everything else, including the biosphere we live in, are not
interchangeable, valueless commodities exchanged by members of a global corporatocracy who have
no essential values, or beliefs, or principles, other than the worship of money. After having
covered all that, we might want to offer more a nuanced view of the current neo-nationalist
reaction to the Corporatocracy's ongoing efforts to restructure and privatize the rest of the
planet. Not that we would support this reaction, or in any way refrain from calling
neo-nationalism what it is (i.e., reactionary, despotic, and doomed), but this nuanced view
we'd hypothetically offer, by analyzing the larger sociopolitical and historical forces at
play, might help us to see the way forward more clearly, and who knows, maybe eventually
propose some kind of credible leftist alternative to the "global neoliberalism vs.
neo-nationalism" double bind we appear to be hopelessly stuck in at the moment.
Luckily, we don't have to do that (i.e., articulate such a leftist analysis of any such
larger historical forces). Because there is no corporatocracy not really. That's just a fake
word the Russians made up and are spreading around on the Internet to distract us while the
Nazis take over. No, the logical explanation for Trump, Brexit, and anything else that
threatens the expansion of global Capitalism, and the freedom, democracy, and prosperity it
offers, is that millions of people across the world, all at once, for no apparent reason, woke
up one day full-blown fascists and started looking around for repulsive demagogues to swear
fanatical allegiance to. Yes, that makes a lot more sense than all that complicated stuff about
history and hegemonic ideological systems, which is probably just Russian propaganda anyway, in
which case there is absolutely no reason to read any boring year-old pieces, like this one in TheEuropeanFinancialReview , or this report by
Corporate Watch , from way back in the year 2000, about the rise of global corporate
power.
So, apologies for wasting your time with all that pseudo-Marxian gobbledygook. Let's just
pretend this never happened, and get back to more important matters, like statistically proving
that Donald Trump got elected President because of racism, misogyny, transphobia, xenophobia,
or some other type of behavioral disorder, and pulling down Confederate statues, or kneeling
during the National Anthem, or whatever happens to be trending this week. Oh, yeah, and
debating punching Nazis, or people wearing MAGA hats. We definitely need to sort all that out
before we can move ahead with helping the Corporatocracy remove Trump from office, or at least
ensure he remains surrounded by their loyal generals, CEOs, and Goldman Sachs guys until the
next election. Whatever we do, let's not get distracted by that stuff I just distracted you
with. I know, it's tempting, but, given what's at stake, we need to maintain our laser focus on
issues related to identity politics, or else well, you know, the Nazis win.
C. J. Hopkins is an award-winning American playwright, novelist and satirist based in
Berlin. His plays are published by Bloomsbury Publishing (UK) and Broadway Play Publishing
(USA). His debut novel, ZONE 23 , is
published by Snoggsworthy, Swaine & Cormorant. He can reached at cjhopkins.com or consentfactory.org .
Yesterday evening on RT a USA lady, as usual forgot the name, spoke about the USA. In a
matter of fact tone she said things like 'they (Deep State) have got him (Trump) in the
box'.
They, Deep State again, are now wondering if they will continue to try to control the
world, or if they should stop the attempt, and retreat into the USA.
Also as matter of fact she said 'the CIA has always been the instrument of Deep State, from
Kenndy to Nine Eleven'.
Another statement was 'no president ever was in control'.
How USA citizens continue to believe they live in a democracy, I cannot understand.
Yesterday the intentions of the new Dutch government were made public, alas most Dutch
also dot not see that the Netherlands since 2005 no longer is a democracy, just a province of
Brussels.
Brexit is about Britons who want their country back, a movement indeed getting
stronger and stronger in EU member states, but ignored by the ruling 'elites'.
No doubt many do want their country back, but what concerns me is that all of a sudden we
have the concept of "independence" plastered all over the place. Such concepts don't get
promoted unless the ruling elites see ways to turn those sentiments to their favor.
A lot of these so called "revolutions" are fomented by the elite only to be subverted
and perverted by them in the end. They've had a lot of practice co-opting revolutions and
independence movements. (And everything else.)
"Independence" is now so fashionable (as was Communism among the "elite" back in the '30s),
that they are even teaching and fostering independence to kids in kindergarten here in the
US. That strikes me as most amusing. Imagine "learning" independence in state run
brainwashing factories.
"Now, despite what the Russian propagandists will tell you, this recent outbreak of
fascistic behavior has nothing whatsoever to do with these people's frustration with
neoliberalism or the supranational Corporatocracy that has been expanding its global empire
with total impunity for twenty-five years. And it definitely has nothing at all to do with
supranational political unions, or the supersession of national sovereignty by
corporate-concocted "free trade" agreements, or the relentless privatization of everything,
or the fear that a lot of people have that their cultures are being gradually erased and
replaced with a globalized, corporate-friendly, multicultural, market-based culture, which
is merely a simulation of culture, and which contains no actual cultural values (because
exchange value is its only operative value), but which sells the empty signifiers of their
eviscerated cultural values back to them so they can wear their "identities" like designer
brands as they hunch together in silence at Starbucks posting pictures of themselves on
Facebook."
Very impressed with this article, never really paid attention to CJ's articles but that is
now changing!
Chris Hedges, who is doubtless a courageous journalist and an intelligent commentator, suggests
that if we are to discuss the anti-Russia campaign realistically, as baseless in fact, and as
contrived for an effect and to further/protect some particular interests, we can hardly avoid the
question: Who or what interest is served by the anti-Russia campaign?
An interesting observation "The Democratic Party doesn't actually function as a political
party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations arm, all paid
for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or the policies of
the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out."
The other relevant observation is that there is no American left. It was destroyed as a
political movement. The USA is a right wing country.
Notable quotes:
"... This obsession with Russia is a tactic used by the ruling elite, and in particular the Democratic Party, to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality: that their unpopularity is the outcome of their policies of deindustrialization and the assault against working men and women and poor people of color. ..."
"... It is the result of the slashing of basic government services, including, of course, welfare, that Clinton gutted; deregulation, a decaying infrastructure, including public schools, and the de facto tax boycott by corporations. It is the result of the transformation of the country into an oligarchy. The nativist revolt on the right, and the aborted insurgency within the Democratic Party, makes sense when you see what they have done to the country. ..."
"... The Democratic Party, in particular, is driving this whole Russia witch-hunt. It cannot face its complicity in the destruction of our civil liberties -- and remember, Barack Obama's assault on civil liberties was worse than those carried out by George W. Bush -- and the destruction of our economy and our democratic institutions. ..."
"... Politicians like the Clintons, Pelosi and Schumer are creations of Wall Street. That is why they are so virulent about pushing back against the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. ..."
"... The Democratic Party doesn't actually function as a political party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations arm, all paid for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or the policies of the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out. They are props in the sterile political theater. ..."
"... These party elites, consumed by greed, myopia and a deep cynicism, have a death grip on the political process. They're not going to let it go, even if it all implodes. ..."
"... The whole exercise was farcical. The White House would leak some bogus story to Judy Miller or Michael Gordon, and then go on the talk shows to say, 'as the Times reported .' It gave these lies the veneer of independence and reputable journalism. This was a massive institutional failing, and one the paper has never faced. ..."
"... The media's anti-Russia narrative has been embraced by large portions of what presents itself as the "left." ..."
"... Well, don't get me started on the American left. First of all, there is no American left -- not a left that has any kind of seriousness, that understands political or revolutionary theories, that's steeped in economic study, that understands how systems of power work, especially corporate and imperial power. The left is caught up in the same kind of cults of personality that plague the rest of society. It focuses on Trump, as if Trump is the central problem. Trump is a product, a symptom of a failed system and dysfunctional democracy, not the disease. ..."
"... For good measure, they purged the liberal class -- look at what they did to Henry Wallace -- so that Cold War "liberals" equated capitalism with democracy, and imperialism with freedom and liberty. I lived in Switzerland and France. There are still residues of a militant left in Europe, which gives Europeans something to build upon. But here we almost have to begin from scratch. ..."
"... The corporate elites we have to overthrow already hold power. And unless we build a broad, popular resistance movement, which takes a lot of patient organizing among working men and women, we are going to be steadily ground down. ..."
"... The corporate state has made it very hard to make a living if you hold fast to this radical critique. You will never get tenure. You probably won't get academic appointments. You won't win prizes. You won't get grants. ..."
"... The elite schools, and I have taught as a visiting professor at a few of them, such as Princeton and Columbia, replicate the structure and goals of corporations. If you want to even get through a doctoral committee, much less a tenure committee, you must play it really, really safe. You must not challenge the corporate-friendly stance that permeates the institution and is imposed through corporate donations and the dictates of wealthy alumni. Half of the members of most of these trustee boards should be in prison! ..."
"... Speculation in the 17th century in Britain was a crime. Speculators were hanged. And today they run the economy and the country. They have used the capturing of wealth to destroy the intellectual, cultural and artistic life in the country and snuff out our democracy. There is a word for these people: traitors. ..."
But the whole idea that the Russians swung the election to Trump is absurd. It's really premised
on the unproven claim that Russia gave the Podesta emails to WikiLeaks, and the release of these
emails turned tens, or hundreds of thousands, of Clinton supporters towards Trump. This doesn't make
any sense. Either that, or, according to the director of national intelligence, RT America, where
I have a show, got everyone to vote for the Green Party.
This obsession with Russia is a tactic used by the ruling elite, and in particular the Democratic
Party, to avoid facing a very unpleasant reality: that their unpopularity is the outcome of their
policies of deindustrialization and the assault against working men and women and poor people of
color. It is the result of disastrous trade agreements like NAFTA that abolished good-paying union
jobs and shipped them to places like Mexico, where workers without benefits are paid $3.00 an hour.
It is the result of the explosion of a system of mass incarceration, begun by Bill Clinton with the
1994 omnibus crime bill, and the tripling and quadrupling of prison sentences. It is the result of
the slashing of basic government services, including, of course, welfare, that Clinton gutted; deregulation,
a decaying infrastructure, including public schools, and the de facto tax boycott by corporations.
It is the result of the transformation of the country into an oligarchy. The nativist revolt on the
right, and the aborted insurgency within the Democratic Party, makes sense when you see what they
have done to the country.
Police forces have been turned into quasi-military entities that terrorize marginal communities,
where people have been stripped of all of their rights and can be shot with impunity; in fact over
three are killed a day. The state shoots and locks up poor people of color as a form of social control.
They are quite willing to employ the same form of social control on any other segment of the population
that becomes restive.
The Democratic Party, in particular, is driving this whole Russia witch-hunt. It cannot face
its complicity in the destruction of our civil liberties -- and remember, Barack Obama's assault
on civil liberties was worse than those carried out by George W. Bush -- and the destruction of our
economy and our democratic institutions.
Politicians like the Clintons, Pelosi and Schumer are creations of Wall Street. That is why
they are so virulent about pushing back against the Sanders wing of the Democratic Party. Without
Wall Street money, they would not hold political power. The Democratic Party doesn't actually function
as a political party. It's about perpetual mass mobilization and a hyperventilating public relations
arm, all paid for by corporate donors. The base of the party has no real say in the leadership or
the policies of the party, as Bernie Sanders and his followers found out. They are props in the sterile
political theater.
These party elites, consumed by greed, myopia and a deep cynicism, have a death grip on the political
process. They're not going to let it go, even if it all implodes.
... ... ...
DN: Let's come back to this question of the Russian hacking news story. You raised the ability
to generate a story, which has absolutely no factual foundation, nothing but assertions by various
intelligence agencies, presented as an assessment that is beyond question. What is your evaluation
of this?
CH: The commercial broadcast networks, and that includes CNN and MSNBC, are not in the business
of journalism. They hardly do any. Their celebrity correspondents are courtiers to the elite. They
speculate about and amplify court gossip, which is all the accusations about Russia, and they repeat
what they are told to repeat. They sacrifice journalism and truth for ratings and profit. These cable
news shows are one of many revenue streams in a corporate structure. They compete against other revenue
streams. The head of CNN, Jeff Zucker, who helped create the fictional persona of Donald Trump on
"Celebrity Apprentice," has turned politics on CNN into a 24-hour reality show. All nuance, ambiguity,
meaning and depth, along with verifiable fact, are sacrificed for salacious entertainment. Lying,
racism, bigotry and conspiracy theories are given platforms and considered newsworthy, often espoused
by people whose sole quality is that they are unhinged. It is news as burlesque.
I was on the investigative team at the New York Times during the lead-up to the Iraq
War. I was based in Paris and covered Al Qaeda in Europe and the Middle East. Lewis Scooter Libby,
Dick Cheney, Richard Perle and maybe somebody in an intelligence agency, would confirm whatever story
the administration was attempting to pitch. Journalistic rules at the Times say you can't
go with a one-source story. But if you have three or four supposedly independent sources confirming
the same narrative, then you can go with it, which is how they did it. The paper did not break any
rules taught at Columbia journalism school, but everything they wrote was a lie.
The whole exercise was farcical. The White House would leak some bogus story to Judy Miller or
Michael Gordon, and then go on the talk shows to say, 'as the Times reported .' It gave these lies
the veneer of independence and reputable journalism. This was a massive institutional failing, and
one the paper has never faced.
DN: The CIA pitches the story, and then the Times gets the verification from those who
pitch it to them.
CH: It's not always pitched. And not much of this came from the CIA The CIA wasn't buying the
"weapons of mass destruction" hysteria.
DN: It goes the other way too?
CH: Sure. Because if you're trying to have access to a senior official, you'll constantly be putting
in requests, and those officials will decide when they want to see you. And when they want to see
you, it's usually because they have something to sell you.
DN: The media's anti-Russia narrative has been embraced by large portions of what presents itself
as the "left."
CH: Well, don't get me started on the American left. First of all, there is no American left --
not a left that has any kind of seriousness, that understands political or revolutionary theories,
that's steeped in economic study, that understands how systems of power work, especially corporate
and imperial power. The left is caught up in the same kind of cults of personality that plague the
rest of society. It focuses on Trump, as if Trump is the central problem. Trump is a product, a symptom
of a failed system and dysfunctional democracy, not the disease.
If you attempt to debate most of those on the supposedly left, they reduce discussion to this
cartoonish vision of politics.
The serious left in this country was decimated. It started with the suppression of radical movements
under Woodrow Wilson, then the "Red Scares" in the 1920s, when they virtually destroyed our labor
movement and our radical press, and then all of the purges in the 1950s. For good measure, they purged
the liberal class -- look at what they did to Henry Wallace -- so that Cold War "liberals" equated
capitalism with democracy, and imperialism with freedom and liberty. I lived in Switzerland and France.
There are still residues of a militant left in Europe, which gives Europeans something to build upon.
But here we almost have to begin from scratch.
I've battled continuously with Antifa and the Black Bloc. I think they're kind of poster children
for what I would consider phenomenal political immaturity. Resistance is not a form of personal catharsis.
We are not fighting the rise of fascism in the 1930s. The corporate elites we have to overthrow already
hold power. And unless we build a broad, popular resistance movement, which takes a lot of patient
organizing among working men and women, we are going to be steadily ground down.
So Trump's not the problem. But just that sentence alone is going to kill most discussions with
people who consider themselves part of the left.
The corporate state has made it very hard to make a living if you hold fast to this radical critique.
You will never get tenure. You probably won't get academic appointments. You won't win prizes. You
won't get grants. The New York Times , if they review your book, will turn it over to a
dutiful mandarin like George Packer to trash it -- as he did with my last book. The elite schools,
and I have taught as a visiting professor at a few of them, such as Princeton and Columbia, replicate
the structure and goals of corporations. If you want to even get through a doctoral committee, much
less a tenure committee, you must play it really, really safe. You must not challenge the corporate-friendly
stance that permeates the institution and is imposed through corporate donations and the dictates
of wealthy alumni. Half of the members of most of these trustee boards should be in prison!
Speculation in the 17th century in Britain was a crime. Speculators were hanged. And today they
run the economy and the country. They have used the capturing of wealth to destroy the intellectual,
cultural and artistic life in the country and snuff out our democracy. There is a word for these
people: traitors.
"... Mirowski identifies three basic aspects of neoliberalism that the Left has failed to understand: the movement's intellectual history, the way it has transformed everyday life, and what constitutes opposition to it. Until we come to terms with them, Mirowski suggests, right-wing movements such as the Tea Party (a prominent player in the book) will continue to reign triumphant. ..."
"... Joining a long line of thinkers, most famously Karl Polanyi, Mirowski insists that a key error of the Left has been its failure to see that markets are always embedded in other social institutions. Neoliberals, by contrast, grasp this point with both hands -- and therefore seek to reshape all of the institutions of society, including and especially the state, to promote markets. Neoliberal ascendancy has meant not the retreat of the state so much as its remaking. ..."
"... he also recognizes that the neoliberals themselves have been canny about keeping the real nature of their project hidden through a variety of means. Neoliberal institutions tend to have what he calls a "Russian doll" structure, with the most central ones well hidden from public eyes. Mirowski coins an ironic expression, "the Neoliberal Thought Collective," for the innermost entities that formulate the movement's doctrine. The venerable Mont Pelerin Society is an NTC institution. Its ideas are frequently disseminated through venues which, formally at least, are unconnected to the center, such as academic economics departments. Thus, neoclassical economists spread the gospel of the free market while the grand project of remaking the state falls to others. ..."
"... At the same time as neoliberal commonsense trickles down from above, Mirowski argues that it also wells up from below, reinforced by our daily patterns of life. Social networking sites like Facebook encourage people to view themselves as perpetual cultural entrepreneurs, striving to offer a newer and better version of themselves to the world. Sites like LinkedIn prod their users to present themselves as a fungible basket of skills, adjustable to the needs of any employer, without any essential characteristics beyond a requisite subservience. Classical liberalism always assumes the coherent individual self as its basic unit. Neoliberalism, by contrast, sees people as little more than variable bundles of human capital, with no permanent interests or even attributes that cannot be remade through the market. For Mirowski, the proliferation of these forms of everyday neoliberalism constitute a "major reason the neoliberals have emerged from the crisis triumphant." ..."
"... Finally, Mirowski argues that the Left has too often been sucked in by neoliberalism's loyal opposition. Figures like Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman, while critical of austerity and supportive of the welfare state, accept the fundamental neoclassical economic precepts at the heart of neoliberal policy. Mirowski argues that we must ditch this tradition in its entirety. Even attempts to render its assumptions more realistic -- as in the case of behavioral economics, for example, which takes account of the ways real people diverge from the hyperrationality of homo economicus -- provide little succor for those seeking to overturn the neoliberals. ..."
"... Mirowski's insistence on the centrality of the state to the neoliberal project helps correct the unfortunate tendency of many leftists over the past decade to assent to neoliberal nostrums about the obsolescence of the state. Indeed, Mirowski goes further than many other critics who have challenged the supposed retreat of the state under neoliberalism. ..."
"... Loïc Wacquant, for instance, has described the "centaur state" of neoliberalism, in which a humanist liberalism reigns for the upper classes, while the lower classes face the punitive state apparatus in all its bestiality. ..."
"... Mirowski shows us that the world of the rich under neoliberalism in no way corresponds to the laissez-faire of classical liberalism. The state does not so much leave the rich alone as actively work to reshape the world in their interests, helping to create markets for the derivatives and securities that made (and then destroyed) so many of the fortunes of the recent past. The neoliberal state is an eminently interventionist one, and those mistaking it for the austere nightwatchman of libertarian utopianism have little hope of combating it. ..."
"... Mirowski's concern to disabuse his readers of the notion that the wing of neoliberal doctrine disseminated by neoclassical economists could ever be reformed produces some of the best sections of the book. His portrait of an economics profession in haggard disarray in the aftermath of the crisis is both comic and tragic, as the amusement value of the buffoonery on display diminishes quickly when one realizes the prestige still accorded to these figures. Reading his comprehensive examination of the discipline's response to the crisis, one is reminded of Freud's famous broken kettle. The professional economists' account of their role in the crisis went something like (a) there was no bubble and (b) bubbles are impossible to predict but (c) we knew it was a bubble all along. ..."
"... Though Krugman and Stiglitz have attacked concepts like the efficient markets hypothesis (which holds that prices in a competitive financial market reflect all relevant economic information), Mirowski argues that their attempt to do so while retaining the basic theoretical architecture of neoclassicism has rendered them doubly ineffective. ..."
"... First, their adoption of the battery of assumptions that accompany most neoclassical theorizing -- about representative agents, treating information like any other commodity, and so on -- make it nearly impossible to conclusively rebut arguments like the efficient markets hypothesis. ..."
To understand how a body of thought became an era of capitalism requires more than intellectual
history.
"What is going to come after neoliberalism?" It was the question on many radicals' lips, present
writer included, after the financial crisis hit in 2008. Though few were so sanguine about our prospects
as to repeat the suicidal optimism of previous radical movements ("After Hitler, Our Turn!"), the
feeling of the day was that the era of unfettered marketization was coming to a close. A new period
of what was loosely referred to as Keynesianism would be the inevitable result of a crisis caused
by markets run amok.
Five years later, little has changed. What comes after neoliberalism? More neoliberalism, apparently.
The prospects for a revived Left capable of confronting it appear grim.
Enter Philip Mirowski's Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived
the Financial Meltdown . Mirowski maintains that the true nature of neoliberalism has gone
unrecognized by its would-be critics, allowing the doctrine to flourish even in conditions, such
as a massive financial crisis, that would seem to be inimical to its survival. Leftists keep busy
tilting at the windmill of deregulation as the giants of neoliberalism go on pillaging unmolested.
Mirowski identifies three basic aspects of neoliberalism that the Left has failed to understand:
the movement's intellectual history, the way it has transformed everyday life, and what constitutes
opposition to it. Until we come to terms with them, Mirowski suggests, right-wing movements such
as the Tea Party (a prominent player in the book) will continue to reign triumphant.
The book begins with the war of ideas -- a conflict in which, Mirowski argues, the Left has been
far too generous in taking neoliberals at their word, or at least their best-publicized word. We
have, in effect, been suckered by kindly old Milton Friedman telling us how much better off we'd
all be if the government simply left us "free to choose." But neoliberals have at times been forthright
about their appreciation for the uses of state power. Markets, after all, do not simply create themselves.
Joining a long line of thinkers, most famously Karl Polanyi, Mirowski insists that a key error
of the Left has been its failure to see that markets are always embedded in other social institutions.
Neoliberals, by contrast, grasp this point with both hands -- and therefore seek to reshape all of
the institutions of society, including and especially the state, to promote markets. Neoliberal ascendancy
has meant not the retreat of the state so much as its remaking.
If Mirowski is often acidic about the Left's failure to understand this point, he also recognizes
that the neoliberals themselves have been canny about keeping the real nature of their project hidden
through a variety of means. Neoliberal institutions tend to have what he calls a "Russian doll" structure,
with the most central ones well hidden from public eyes. Mirowski coins an ironic expression, "the
Neoliberal Thought Collective," for the innermost entities that formulate the movement's doctrine.
The venerable Mont Pelerin Society is an NTC institution. Its ideas are frequently disseminated through
venues which, formally at least, are unconnected to the center, such as academic economics departments.
Thus, neoclassical economists spread the gospel of the free market while the grand project of remaking
the state falls to others.
At the same time as neoliberal commonsense trickles down from above, Mirowski argues that
it also wells up from below, reinforced by our daily patterns of life. Social networking sites like
Facebook encourage people to view themselves as perpetual cultural entrepreneurs, striving to offer
a newer and better version of themselves to the world. Sites like LinkedIn prod their users to present
themselves as a fungible basket of skills, adjustable to the needs of any employer, without any essential
characteristics beyond a requisite subservience. Classical liberalism always assumes the coherent
individual self as its basic unit. Neoliberalism, by contrast, sees people as little more than variable
bundles of human capital, with no permanent interests or even attributes that cannot be remade through
the market. For Mirowski, the proliferation of these forms of everyday neoliberalism constitute a
"major reason the neoliberals have emerged from the crisis triumphant."
Finally, Mirowski argues that the Left has too often been sucked in by neoliberalism's loyal
opposition. Figures like Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman, while critical of austerity and supportive
of the welfare state, accept the fundamental neoclassical economic precepts at the heart of neoliberal
policy. Mirowski argues that we must ditch this tradition in its entirety. Even attempts to render
its assumptions more realistic -- as in the case of behavioral economics, for example, which takes
account of the ways real people diverge from the hyperrationality of homo economicus -- provide
little succor for those seeking to overturn the neoliberals.
For Mirowski, these three failures of the Left go a long way toward explaining how neoliberals
have largely escaped blame for a crisis they created. The Left persistently goes after phantoms like
deregulation or smaller government, which neoliberals easily parry by pointing out that the regulatory
apparatus has never been bigger. At the same time, we ignore the deep roots of neoliberal ideology
in everyday life, deceiving ourselves as to the scale of the task in front of us.
Whatever criticisms of Mirowski's analysis are in order, much of it is compelling, particularly
in regard to the intellectual history of the NTC. Mirowski's insistence on the centrality of
the state to the neoliberal project helps correct the unfortunate tendency of many leftists over
the past decade to assent to neoliberal nostrums about the obsolescence of the state. Indeed, Mirowski
goes further than many other critics who have challenged the supposed retreat of the state under
neoliberalism.
Loïc Wacquant, for instance, has described the "centaur state" of neoliberalism, in which
a humanist liberalism reigns for the upper classes, while the lower classes face the punitive state
apparatus in all its bestiality. But Mirowski shows us that the world of the rich under
neoliberalism in no way corresponds to the laissez-faire of classical liberalism. The state does
not so much leave the rich alone as actively work to reshape the world in their interests, helping
to create markets for the derivatives and securities that made (and then destroyed) so many of the
fortunes of the recent past. The neoliberal state is an eminently interventionist one, and those
mistaking it for the austere nightwatchman of libertarian utopianism have little hope of combating
it.
It's here that we begin to see the strategic genius of neoliberal infrastructure, with its teams
of college economics professors teaching the wondrous efficacy of supply and demand on the one hand,
and the think tanks and policy shops engaged in the relentless pursuit of state power on the other.
The Left too often sees inconsistency where in fact there is a division of labor.
Mirowski's concern to disabuse his readers of the notion that the wing of neoliberal doctrine
disseminated by neoclassical economists could ever be reformed produces some of the best sections
of the book. His portrait of an economics profession in haggard disarray in the aftermath of the
crisis is both comic and tragic, as the amusement value of the buffoonery on display diminishes quickly
when one realizes the prestige still accorded to these figures. Reading his comprehensive examination
of the discipline's response to the crisis, one is reminded of Freud's famous broken kettle. The
professional economists' account of their role in the crisis went something like (a) there was no
bubble and (b) bubbles are impossible to predict but (c) we knew it was a bubble all along.
Incoherence notwithstanding, however, little in the discipline has changed in the wake of the
crisis. Mirowski thinks that this is at least in part a result of the impotence of the loyal opposition
-- those economists such as Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman who attempt to oppose the more viciously
neoliberal articulations of economic theory from within the camp of neoclassical economics. Though
Krugman and Stiglitz have attacked concepts like the efficient markets hypothesis (which holds that
prices in a competitive financial market reflect all relevant economic information), Mirowski argues
that their attempt to do so while retaining the basic theoretical architecture of neoclassicism has
rendered them doubly ineffective.
First, their adoption of the battery of assumptions that accompany most neoclassical theorizing
-- about representative agents, treating information like any other commodity, and so on -- make
it nearly impossible to conclusively rebut arguments like the efficient markets hypothesis.
Instead, they end up tinkering with it, introducing a nuance here or a qualification there. This
tinkering causes their arguments to be more or less ignored in neoclassical pedagogy, as economists
more favorably inclined toward hard neoliberal arguments can easily ignore such revisions and hold
that the basic thrust of the theory is still correct. Stiglitz's and Krugman's arguments, while receiving
circulation through the popular press, utterly fail to transform the discipline.
Mirowski also heaps scorn on the suggestion, sometimes made in leftist circles, that the problem
at the heart of neoclassical economics is its assumption of a hyperrational homo economicus
, relentlessly comparing equilibrium states and maximizing utility. Though such a revision may
be appealing to a certain radical romanticism, Mirowski shows that a good deal of work going on under
the label of behavioral economics has performed just this revision, and has come up with results
that don't differ substantively from those of the mainstream. The main problem with neoclassicism
isn't its theory of the human agent but rather its the theory of the market -- which is precisely
what behavioral economics isn't interested in contesting.
In all, Mirowski's indictment of the state of economic theory and its imbrication with the neoliberal
project is devastating. Unfortunately, he proves much less successful in explaining why
things have turned out as they have. The book ascribes tremendous power to the Neoliberal Thought
Collective, which somehow manages to do everything from controlling the economics profession to reshaping
the state to forging a new sense of the human self. The reader is left wondering how the NTC came
to acquire such power. This leads to the book's central flaw: a lack of any theory of the structure
of modern capitalism. Indeed, the NTC seems to operate in something of a vacuum, without ever confronting
other institutions or groups, such as the state or popular movements, with interests and agendas
of their own.
To be fair, Mirowski does offer an explanation for the failure of popular movements to challenge
neoliberalism, largely through his account of "everyday" neoliberalism. At its strongest, the book
identifies important strategic failures, such as Occupy's embrace of "a mimicry of media technologies
as opposed to concerted political mobilization." However, Mirowski extends the argument well beyond
a specific failure of the Occupy movement to propose a general thesis that developments like Facebook
and reality TV have transmitted neoliberal ideology to people who have never read Friedman and Hayek.
In claiming that this embodied or embedded ideology plays an important role in the failure of the
Left, he places far more explanatory weight on the concept of everyday neoliberalism than it is capable
of bearing.
At the simplest level, it's just not clear that everyday neoliberalism constitutes the kind of
block to political action that Mirowski thinks it does. No doubt, many people reading this article
right now simultaneously have another browser tab open to monster.com or LinkedIn, where they are
striving to present themselves as a fungible basket of skills to any employer that will have them.
In this economy, everyone has to hustle, and that means using all available means. That many of these
same readers have probably also done things like organize against foreclosures should give pause
to any blurring of the distinction between using various media technologies and embracing the ideology
Mirowski sees embodied in them.
Indeed, the ubiquity of participation in such technologies by people who support, oppose, or are
apathetic about neoliberalism points to a larger phenomenon on which Mirowski is silent: the labor
market. Put bluntly, it is difficult to imagine anyone engaging in the painfully strained self-advertisement
facilitated by LinkedIn in a labor market with, say, 2-percent unemployment. In such a market, in
which employers were competing for comparatively scarce workers, there would be very little need
for those workers to go through the self-abasing ritual of converting themselves into fungible baskets
of skills. In our current situation, by contrast, where secure and remunerative employment is comparatively
scarce, it is no surprise that people turn to whatever technologies are available to attempt to sell
themselves. As Joan Robinson put it, the only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not
being exploited by it.
In evaluating the role of everyday neoliberalism, it is also helpful to move, for the moment,
beyond the perspective of the United States, where the NTC has clearly had great success, and adopt
that of countries where resistance is significantly more developed, such as Venezuela or South Africa.
Especially in the former, popular movements have been notably successful in combating neoliberal
efforts to take over the state and reshape the economy, and have instead pushed the country in the
opposite direction. Is it really plausible that a main reason for this difference is that everyday
neoliberalism is more intense in the United States? I doubt it. For one thing, the strength of Venezuela's
radical movements, in comparison with the US, clearly antedates the developments (social media,
Here Comes Honey Boo Boo , and so on) that Mirowski discusses.
Moreover, it is just as plausible that the entrepreneurial culture he describes is even more extensive
in the slums of the global South, where neoliberal devastation has forced many poor households to
rely on at least one family member engaging in semi-legal arbitrage in goods salvaged from garbage
or made at home. Surely such activities provide a firmer foundation for commercial subjectivity than
having a 401(k). That resistance has grown in such circumstances suggests that looking to malignant
subjectivities to explain popular passivity is an analytic dead-end.
If everyday neoliberalism doesn't explain the comparative weakness of the US left, what does?
This is, of course, the key question, and I can do no more than gesture at an answer here. But I
would suggest that the specific histories of the institutions of the American left, from the Communist
Party to Students for a Democratic Society to labor unions, and the histories of the situations they
confronted, provide us with a more solid foundation for understanding our current weakness than the
hegemony of neoliberal culture does. Moreover, with a theory of capitalism that emphasizes the way
the structure of the system makes it both necessary and very difficult for most people to organize
to advance their interests, it becomes very easy to explain the persistence of a low level of popular
mobilization against neoliberalism in the context of a weakened left.
If Mirowski's account doesn't give us a good basis for explaining why popular resistance has been
so lacking in the US, it nonetheless suggests why he is so concerned with explaining the supposed
dominance of neoliberal ideology among the general population. From the beginning, he raises the
specter of right-wing resurgence, whether in the form of Scott Walker surviving the recall campaign
in Wisconsin, the Tea Party mania of 2010, or the success of right-wing parties in Europe. However,
much of this seems overstated, especially from a contemporary perspective. The Tea Party has, for
all intents and purposes, disappeared from the front lines of American politics, and the Republican
Party, while capable of enacting all kinds of sadistic policies on the state level, has remained
in a state of disarray on the national level since the 2006 congressional elections.
More fundamentally, the argument that the voting public embraces neoliberalism doesn't square
well with recent research by political scientists like Larry Bartels and Martin Gilens emphasizing
the profound disconnect between the policy preferences of the poor and what transpires in Washington.
What appears to be happening is less the general populace's incorporation into neoliberalism than
their exclusion from any institutions that would allow them to change it. Importantly, this alternative
explanation does not rely on the Left conceit that rebellion lurks perpetually just below the placid
social surface, ready to explode into radical insurgency at any moment. It simply contends that the
political passivity of neoliberalism's victims reflects a real diminution of their political options.
Mirowski's failure to address these larger institutional and structural dynamics vitiates much
of the explanatory power of his book. On a purely descriptive level, the sections on the intellectual
history of neoliberalism and the non-crisis of neoclassical economics illuminate many of the hidden
corners of neoliberal ideology. However, if Mirowski is right to suggest that we need to understand
neoliberalism better to be successful in fighting it -- and he surely is -- then much more is needed
to explain neoliberal success and Left failure.
To understand how a body of thought became an era of capitalism requires more than intellectual
history. It demands an account of how capitalism actually works in the period in question, and how
the ideas of a small group of intellectuals came to be the policy preferences of the rich. Mirowski
has given us an excellent foundation for understanding the doctrine, but it will remain for others
to explain its actual development.
"... Following Frances Fox Piven, "neoliberal economic policies" refers to the set of policies carried out, in the name of individualism and unfettered markets, for "the deregulation of corporations, and particularly of financial institutions; the rollback of public services and benefit programs; curbing labor unions; 'free trade' policies that would pry open foreign markets; and wherever possible the replacement of public programs with private markets" (Piven, 2007: 13). ..."
"... The case of the United States is particularly useful to examine because its elites have projected themselves as "first among equals" of the globalization project ( Bello , 2006), and it is the place of the Global North where the neoliberal project has been pursued most resolutely and has advanced the farthest. In other words, the experiences of American workers illuminate the affects of the neoliberal project in the Global North to the greatest extent, and suggest what will happen to working people in other northern countries should they accept their respective government's adoption of such policies. ..."
"... However, it is believed that the implementation of these neoliberal economic policies and the cultural wars to divert public attention are part of a larger, conscious political program by the elites within this country that is intended to prevent re-emergence of the collective solidarity among the American people that we saw during the late 1960s-early 1970s (see Piven, 2004, 2007) -- of which the internal breakdown of discipline within the US military, in Vietnam and around the world, was arguably the most crucial (see Moser, 1996; Zeiger, 2006) -- that ultimately challenged, however inchoately, the very structure of the established social order, both internationally and in the United States itself. ..."
Most contemporary discussions of globalization, and especially of the impact of neoliberal economic
policies, focus on the countries of the Global South (see, for example, Bond, 2005; Ellner and Hellinger,
eds., 2003; a number of articles in Harris, ed., 2006; Klein, 2007; Monthly Review, 2007;
and, among others, see Scipes, 1999, 2006b). Recent articles arguing that the globalization project
has receded and might be taking different approaches (Bello, 2006; Thornton, 2007) have also focused
on the Global South. What has been somewhat discussed (see Giroux, 2004; Piven, 2004; Aronowitz,
2005) but not systematically addressed, however, is what has been the impact of globalization and
especially related neoliberal economic policies on working people in a northern country?
[i]
This paper specifically addresses this question by looking at the impact of neoliberal economic
policies on working people in the United States . Following Frances Fox Piven, "neoliberal economic
policies" refers to the set of policies carried out, in the name of individualism and unfettered
markets, for "the deregulation of corporations, and particularly of financial institutions; the rollback
of public services and benefit programs; curbing labor unions; 'free trade' policies that would pry
open foreign markets; and wherever possible the replacement of public programs with private markets"
(Piven, 2007: 13).
The case of the United States is particularly useful to examine because its elites have projected
themselves as "first among equals" of the globalization project ( Bello , 2006), and it is the place
of the Global North where the neoliberal project has been pursued most resolutely and has advanced
the farthest. In other words, the experiences of American workers illuminate the affects of the neoliberal
project in the Global North to the greatest extent, and suggest what will happen to working people
in other northern countries should they accept their respective government's adoption of such policies.
However, care must be taken as to how this is understood. While sociologically-focused textbooks
(e.g., Aguirre and Baker, eds., 2008; Hurst, 2007) have joined together some of the most recent thinking
on social inequality -- and have demonstrated that inequality not only exists but is increasing --
this has been generally presented in a national context; in this case, within the United States.
And if they recognize that globalization is part of the reason for increasing inequality, it is generally
included as one of a set of reasons.
This paper argues that we simply cannot understand what is happening unless we put developments
within a global context: the United States effects, and is affected by, global processes.
Thus, while some of the impacts can be understood on a national level, we cannot ask related questions
as to causes -- or future consequences -- by confining our examination to a national level: we absolutely
must approach this from a global perspective (see Nederveen Pieterse, 2004, 2008).
This also must be put in historical perspective as well, although the focus in this piece will
be limited to the post-World War II world. Inequality within what is now the United States today
did not -- obviously -- arise overnight. Unquestionably, it began at least 400 years ago in Jamestown
-- with the terribly unequal and socially stratified society of England's colonial Virginia before
Africans were brought to North America (see Fischer, 1989), much less after their arrival in
1619, before the Pilgrims. Yet, to understand the roots of development of contemporary social
inequality in the US , we must understand the rise of " Europe " in relation to the rest of the world
(see, among others, Rodney, 1972; Nederveen Pieterse, 1989). In short, again, we have to understand
that the development of the United States has been and will always be a global project and, without
recognizing that, we simply cannot begin to understand developments within the United States .
We also have to understand the multiple and changing forms of social stratification and resulting
inequalities in this country. This paper prioritizes economic stratification, although is not limited
to just the resulting inequalities. Nonetheless, it does not focus on racial, gender or any other
type of social stratification. However, this paper is not written from the perspective that economic
stratification is always the most important form of stratification, nor from the perspective
that we can only understand other forms of stratification by understanding economic stratification:
all that is being claimed herein is that economic stratification is one type of social stratification,
arguably one of the most important types yet only one of several, and investigates the issue of economic
stratification in the context of contemporary globalization and the neoliberal economic policies
that have developed to address this phenomenon as it affects the United States.
Once this global-historical perspective is understood and after quickly suggesting in the "prologue"
why the connection between neoliberal economic policies and the affects on working people
in the United States has not been made usually, this paper focuses on several interrelated issues:
(1) it reports the current economic situation for workers in the United States; (2) it provides a
historical overview of US society since World War II; (3) it analyzes the results of US Government
economic policies; and (4) it ties these issues together. From that, it comes to a conclusion about
the affects of neoliberal economic policies on working people in the United States .
Prologue: Origins of neoliberal economic policies in the United States
As stated above, most of the attention directed toward understanding the impact of neoliberal
economic policies on various countries has been confined to the countries of the Global South. However,
these policies have been implemented in the United States as well. This arguably began in 1982, when
the Chairman of the US Federal Reserve, Paul Volcker, launched a vicious attack on inflation -- and
caused the deepest US recession since the Great Depression of the late 1920s-1930s.
However, these neoliberal policies have been implemented in the US perhaps more subtly than in
the Global South. This is said because, when trying to understand changes that continue to take place
in the United States, these economic policies are hidden "under" the various and sundry "cultural
wars" (around issues such as drugs, premarital sex, gun control, abortion, marriages for gays and
lesbians) that have been taking place in this country and, thus, not made obvious: most Americans,
and especially working people, are not aware of the changes detailed below.
[ii]
However, it is believed that the implementation of these neoliberal economic policies and
the cultural wars to divert public attention are part of a larger, conscious political program
by the elites within this country that is intended to prevent re-emergence of the collective solidarity
among the American people that we saw during the late 1960s-early 1970s (see Piven, 2004, 2007) --
of which the internal breakdown of discipline within the US military, in Vietnam and around
the world, was arguably the most crucial (see Moser, 1996; Zeiger, 2006) -- that ultimately challenged,
however inchoately, the very structure of the established social order, both internationally and
in the United States itself. Thus, we see both Democratic and Republican Parties in agreement
to maintain and expand the US Empire (in more neutral political science-ese, a "uni-polar world"),
but the differences that emerge within each party and between each party are generally confined to
how this can best be accomplished. While this paper focuses on the economic and social changes going
on, it should be kept in mind that these changes did not "just happen": conscious political decisions
have been made that produced social results (see Piven, 2004) that make the US experience -- at the
center of a global social order based on an "advanced" capitalist economy -- qualitatively different
from experiences in other more economically-developed countries.
So, what has been the impact of these policies on workers in the US?
1) The current situation for workers and growing economic inequality
Steven Greenhouse of The New York Times published a piece on September 4, 2006, writing
about entry-level workers, young people who were just entering the job market. Mr. Greenhouse noted
changes in the US economy; in fact, there have been substantial changes since early 2000, when the
economy last created many jobs.
Median incomes for families with one parent age 25-34 fell 5.9 per cent between 2000-2005.
It had jumped 12 per cent during the late '90s. (The median annual income for these families today
is $48,405.)
Between 2000-2005, entry-level wages for male college graduates fell by 7.3 per cent (to $19.72/hr)
Entry-level wages for female college graduates fell by 3.5 per cent (to $17.08)
Entry-level wages for male high school graduates fell by 3.3 per cent (to $10.93)
Entry-level wages for female high school graduates fell by 4.9 per cent (to $9.08)
Yet, the percentage drop in wages hides the growing gap between college and high school graduates.
Today, on average, college grads earn 45 per cent more than high school graduates, where the gap
had "only" been 23 per cent in 1979: the gap has doubled in 26 years (Greenhouse, 2006b).
A 2004 story in Business Week found that 24 per cent of all working Americans received
wages below the poverty line ( Business Week , 2004).
[iii] In January 2004, 23.5 million
Americans received free food from food pantries. "The surge for food demand is fueled by several
forces -- job losses, expired unemployment benefits, soaring health-care and housing costs, and the
inability of many people to find jobs that match the income and benefits of the jobs they had." And
43 million people were living in low-income families with children (Jones, 2004).
A 2006 story in Business Week found that US job growth between 2001-2006 was really based
on one industry: health care. Over this five-year period, the health-care sector has added 1.7 million
jobs, while the rest of the private sector has been stagnant. Michael Mandel, the economics editor
of the magazine, writes:
information technology, the great electronic promise of the 1990s, has turned into one of
the greatest job-growth disappointments of all time. Despite the splashy success of companies
such as Google and Yahoo!, businesses at the core of the information economy -- software, semi-conductors,
telecom, and the whole range of Web companies -- have lost more than 1.1 million jobs in the past
five years. These businesses employ fewer Americans today than they did in 1998, when the Internet
frenzy kicked into high gear (Mandel, 2006: 56) .
In fact, "take away health-care hiring in the US, and quicker than you can say cardiac bypass,
the US unemployment rate would be 1 to 2 percentage points higher" (Mandel, 2006: 57).
There has been extensive job loss in manufacturing. Over 3.4 million manufacturing jobs have been
lost since 1998, and 2.9 million of them have been lost since 2001. Additionally, over 40,000 manufacturing
firms have closed since 1999, and 90 per cent have been medium and large shops. In labor-import intensive
industries, 25 per cent of laid-off workers remain unemployed after six months, two-thirds of them
who do find new jobs earn less than on their old job, and one-quarter of those who find new jobs
"suffer wage losses of more than 30 percent" (AFL-CIO, 2006a: 2).
The AFL-CIO details the US job loss by manufacturing sector in the 2001-05 period:
Computer and electronics: 543,000 workers or 29.2 per cent
Semiconductor and electronic components: 260,100 or 36.7 per cent
Electrical equipment and appliances: 152,500 or 26 per cent
Vehicle parts: 153,400 or 18.6 per cent
Machinery: 289,400 or 19.9 per cent
Fabricated metal products: 235,200 or 13.3 per cent
Primary metals: 144,800 or 23.5 per cent
Transportation equipment: 246,300 or 12.1 per cent
Furniture products: 58,500 or 13.4 per cent
Textile mills: 158,500 or 43.1 per cent
Apparel 220,000 or 46.6 per cent
Leather products: 24,700 or 38.3 per cent
Printing: 159,300 or 19.9 per cent
Paper products: 122,600 or 20.4 per cent
Plastics and rubber products: 141,400 or 15 per cent
Chemicals: 94,900 or 9.7 per cent
Aerospace: 46,900 or 9.1 per cent
Textiles and apparel declined by 870,000 jobs 1994-2006, a decline of 65.4 per cent (AFL-CIO,
2006a: 2).
As of the end of 2005, only 10.7 per cent of all US employment was in manufacturing -- down from
21.6 per cent at its height in 1979 -- in raw numbers, manufacturing employment totaled 19.426 million
in 1979, 17.263 million in 2000, and 14.232 million in 2005.
[iv] The number of production workers
in this country at the end of 2005 was 9.378 million.
[v] This was only slightly above
the 9.306 million production workers in 1983, and was considerably below the 11.463 million as recently
as 2000 (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2006b). As one writer puts it, this is "the biggest long-term
trend in the economy: the decline of manufacturing." He notes that employment in the durable goods
(e.g., cars and cable TV boxes) category of manufacturing has declined from 19 per cent of all employment
in 1965 to 8 per cent in 2005 (Altman, 2006). And at the end of 2006, only 11.7 per cent of all manufacturing
workers were in unions (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2007).
In addition, in 2004 and 2005, "the real hourly and weekly wages of US manufacturing workers have
fallen 3 per cent and 2.2 per cent respectively" (AFL-CIO, 2006a: 2).
The minimum wage level went unchanged for nine years: until recently when there was a small increase
-- to $5.85 an hour on July 24, 2007 -- US minimum wage had remained at $5.15 an hour since September
1, 1997 . During that time, the cost of living rose 26 percent. After adjusting for inflation, this
was the lowest level of the minimum wage since 1955. At the same time, the minimum wage was only
31 per cent of the average pay of non-supervisory workers in the private sector, which is the lowest
share since World War II (Bernstein and Shapiro, 2006).
In addition to the drop in wages at all levels, fewer new workers get health care benefits with
their jobs: [vi] in 2005, 64 per
cent of all college grads got health coverage in entry-level jobs, where 71 per cent had gotten it
in 2000 -- a 7 per cent drop in just five years. Over a longer term, we can see what has happened
to high school grads: in 1979, two-thirds of all high school graduates got health care coverage in
entry-level jobs, while only one-third do today (Greenhouse, 2006b). It must be kept in mind that
only about 28 per cent of the US workforce are college graduates -- most of the work force only has
a high school degree, although a growing percentage of them have some college, but not college degrees.
Because things have gotten so bad, many young adults have gotten discouraged and given up. The
unemployment rate is 4.4 per cent for ages 25-34, but 8.2 per cent for workers 20-24. (Greenhouse,
2006b).
Yet things are actually worse than that. In the US , unemployment rates are artificially low.
If a person gets laid off and gets unemployment benefits -- which fewer and fewer workers even get
-- they get a check for six months. If they have not gotten a job by the end of six months -- and
it is taking longer and longer to get a job -- and they have given up searching for work, then not
only do they loose their unemployment benefits, but they are no longer counted as unemployed: one
doesn't even count in the statistics!
A report from April 2004 provides details. According to the then-head of the US Federal Reserve
System, Alan Greenspan, "the average duration of unemployment increased from twelve weeks in September
2000 to twenty weeks in March [2004]" (quoted in Shapiro, 2004: 4). In March 2004, 354,000 jobs workers
had exhausted their unemployment benefits, and were unable to get any additional federal unemployment
assistance: Shapiro (2004: 1) notes, "In no other month on record, with data available back to 1971,
have there been so many 'exhaustees'."
Additionally, although it's rarely reported, unemployment rates vary by racial grouping. No matter
what the unemployment rate is, it really only reflects the rate of whites who are unemployed because
about 78 per cent of the workforce is white. However, since 1954, the unemployment rate of African-Americans
has always been more than twice that of whites, and Latinos are about 1 1/2 times that of whites.
So, for example, if the overall rate is five percent, then it's at least ten per cent for African-Americans
and 7.5 per cent for Latinos.
However, most of the developments presented above -- other than the racial affects of unemployment
-- have been relatively recent. What about longer term? Paul Krugman, a Nobel Prize-winning Princeton
University economist who writes for The New York Times, pointed out these longer term affects:
non-supervisory workers make less in real wages today (2006) than they made in 1973! So, after inflation
is taken out, non-supervisory workers are making less today in real terms that their contemporaries
made 33 years ago (Krugman, 2006b). Figures provided by Stephen Franklin -- obtained from the US
Bureau of Statistics, and presented in 1982 dollars -- show that a production worker in January 1973
earned $9.08 an hour -- and $8.19 an hour in December 2005 (Franklin, 2006). Workers in 2005 also
had less long-term job security, fewer benefits, less stable pensions (when they have them), and
rising health care costs. [vii]
In short, the economic situation for "average Americans" is getting worse. A front-page story
in the Chicago Tribune tells about a worker who six years ago was making $29 an hour, working
at a nuclear power plant. He got laid off, and now makes $12.24 an hour, working on the bottom tier
of a two-tiered unionized factory owned by Caterpillar, the multinational earth moving equipment
producer, which is less than half of his old wages. The article pointed out, "Glued to a bare bones
budget, he saved for weeks to buy a five-pack of $7 T-shirts" ( Franklin , 2006).
As Foster and Magdoff point out:
Except for a small rise in the late 1990s, real wages have been sluggish for decades. The
typical (median-income) family has sought to compensate for this by increasing the number of jobs
and working hours per household. Nevertheless, the real (inflation-adjusted) income of the typical
household fell for five years in a row through 2004 (Foster and Magdoff, 2009: 28).
A report by Workers Independent News (WIN) stated that while a majority of metropolitan
areas have regained the 2.6 million jobs lost during the first two years of the Bush Administration,
"the new jobs on average pay $9,000 less than the jobs replaced," a 21 per cent decline from $43,629
to $34,378. However, WIN says that "99 out of the 361 metro areas will not recover jobs before 2007
and could be waiting until 2015 before they reach full recovery" (Russell, 2006).
At the same time, Americans are going deeper and deeper into debt. At the end of 2000, total US
household debt was $7.008 trillion, with home mortgage debt being $4.811 trillion and non-mortgage
debt $1.749 trillion; at the end of 2006, comparable numbers were a total of $12.817 trillion; $9.705
trillion (doubling since 2000); and $2.431 trillion (US Federal Reserve, 2007-rounding by author).
Foster and Magdoff (2009: 29) show that this debt is not only increasing, but based on figures from
the Federal Reserve, that debt as a percentage of disposable income has increased overall from 62%
in 1975 to 96.8% in 2000, and to 127.2% in 2005.
Three polls from mid-2006 found "deep pessimism among American workers, with most saying that
wages were not keeping pace with inflation, and that workers were worse off in many ways than a generation
ago" (Greenhouse, 2006a). And, one might notice, nothing has been said about increasing gas prices,
lower home values, etc. The economic situation for most working people is not looking pretty.
In fact, bankruptcy filings totaled 2.043 million in 2005, up 31.6 per cent from 2004 (Associated
Press, 2006), before gas prices went through the ceiling and housing prices began falling in mid-2006.
Yet in 1998, writers for the Chicago Tribune had written, " the number of personal bankruptcy
filings skyrocketed 19.5 per cent last year, to an all-time high of 1,335,053, compared with 1,117,470
in 1996" (Schmeltzer and Gruber, 1998).
And at the same time, there were 37 million Americans in poverty in 2005, one of out every eight.
Again, the rates vary by racial grouping: while 12.6 per cent of all Americans were in poverty, the
poverty rate for whites was 8.3 percent; for African Americans, 24.9 per cent were in poverty, as
were 21.8 per cent of all Latinos. (What is rarely acknowledged, however, is that 65 per cent of
all people in poverty in the US are white.) And 17.6 per cent of all children were in poverty (US
Census Bureau, 2005).
What about the "other half"? This time, Paul Krugman gives details from a report by two Northwestern
University professors, Ian Dew-Becker and Robert Gordon, titled "Where Did the Productivity Growth
Go?" Krugman writes:
Between 1973 and 2001, the wage and salary income of Americans at the 90th percentile
of the income distribution rose only 34 percent, or about 1 per cent per year. But income at the
99th percentile rose 87 percent; income at the 99.9th percentile rose 181 percent; and income
at the 99.99th percentile rose 497 percent. No, that's not a misprint. Just to give you a sense
of who we're talking about: the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that this year, the 99th
percentile will correspond to an income of $402,306, and the 99.9th percentile to an income of
$1,672,726. The Center doesn't give a number for the 99.99th percentile, but it's probably well
over $6 million a year (Krugman, 2006a) .
But how can we understand what is going on? We need to put take a historical approach to understand
the significance of the changes reported above.
(2) A historical look at the US social order since World War II
When considering the US situation, it makes most sense to look at "recent" US developments, those
since World War II. Just after the War, in 1947, the US population was about six per cent of the
world's total. Nonetheless, this six per cent produced about 48 per cent of all goods and services
in the world! [viii] With Europe
and Japan devastated, the US was the only industrialized economy that had not been laid waste. Everybody
needed what the US produced -- and this country produced the goods, and sent them around the world.
At the same time, the US economy was not only the most productive, but the rise of the industrial
union movement in the 1930s and '40s -- the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) -- meant that
workers had some power to demand a share of the wealth produced. In 1946, just after the war, the
US had the largest strike wave in its history: 116,000,000 production days were lost in early 1946,
as industry-wide strikes in auto, steel, meat packing, and the electrical industry took place across
the United States and Canada , along with smaller strikes in individual firms. Not only that, but
there were general strikes that year in Oakland , California and Stamford , Connecticut . Workers
had been held back during the war, but they demonstrated their power immediately thereafter (Lipsitz,
1994; Murolo and Chitty, 2001). Industry knew that if it wanted the production it could sell, it
had to include unionized workers in on the deal.
It was this combination -- devastated economic markets around the world and great demand for goods
and services, the world's most developed industrial economy, and a militant union movement -- that
combined to create what is now known as the "great American middle class."
[ix]
To understand the economic impact of these factors, changes in income distribution in US society
must be examined. The best way to illuminate this is to assemble family data on income or wealth
[x] -- income data is more available,
so that will be used; arrange it from the smallest amount to the largest; and then to divide the
population into fifths, or quintiles. In other words, arrange every family's annual income from the
lowest to the highest, and divide the total number of family incomes into quintiles or by 20 percents
(i.e., fifths). Then compare changes in the top incomes for each quintile. By doing so, one can then
observe changes in income distribution over specified time periods.
The years between 1947 and 1973 are considered the "golden years" of the US society.
[xi] The values are presented
in 2005 dollars, so that means that inflation has been taken out: these are real dollar values,
and that means these are valid comparisons.
Figure 1: US family income, in US dollars, growth and istribution, by quintile, 1947-1973 compared
to 1973-2001, in 2005 dollars
Source: US Commerce Department, Bureau of the Census (hereafter, US Census Bureau) at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01ar.html
. All dollar values converted to 2005 dollars by US Census Bureau, removing inflation and comparing
real values. Differences and percentages calculated by author. Percentages shown in both rows labeled
"Difference" show the dollar difference as a percentage of the first year of the comparison.
Data for the first period, 1947-1973 -- the data above the grey line -- shows there was
considerable real economic growth for each quintile . Over the 26-year period, there was approximately
100 per cent real economic growth for the incomes at the top of each quintile, which meant incomes
doubled after inflation was removed; thus, there was significant economic growth in the society.
And importantly, this real economic growth was distributed fairly evenly . The data in
the fourth line (in parentheses) is the percentage relationship between the difference between 1947-1973
real income when compared to the 1947 real income, with 100 per cent representing a doubling of real
income: i.e., the difference for the bottom quintile between 1947 and 1973 was an increase
of $11,386, which is 97 per cent more than $11,758 that the top of the quintile had in 1947. As can
be seen, other quintiles also saw increases of roughly comparable amounts: in ascending order, 100
percent, 107 percent, 101 percent, and 91 percent. In other words, the rate of growth by quintile
was very similar across all five quintiles of the population.
When looking at the figures for 1973-2001, something vastly different can be observed. This is
the section below the grey line. What can be seen? First, economic growth has slowed considerably:
the highest rate of growth for any quintile was that of 58 per cent for those who topped the
fifth quintile, and this was far below the "lagger" of 91 per cent of the earlier period.
Second, of what growth there was, it was distributed extremely unequally . And the growth
rates for those in lower quintiles were generally lower than for those above them: for the bottom
quintile, their real income grew only 14 per cent over the 1973-2001 period; for the second quintile,
19 percent; for the third, 29 percent; for the fourth, 42 percent; and for the 80-95 percent, 58
percent: loosely speaking, the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer.
Why the change? I think two things in particular. First, as industrialized countries recovered
from World War II, corporations based in these countries could again compete with those from the
US -- first in their own home countries, and then through importing into the US , and then ultimately
when they invested in the United States . Think of Toyota : they began importing into the US in the
early 1970s, and with their investments here in the early '80s and forward, they now are the largest
domestic US auto producer.
Second cause for the change has been the deterioration of the American labor movement: from 35.3
per cent of the non-agricultural workforce in unions in 1954, to only 12.0 per cent of all American
workers in unions in 2006 -- and only 7.4 per cent of all private industry workers are unionized,
which is less than in 1930!
This decline in unionization has a number of reasons. Part of this deterioration has been the
result of government policies -- everything from the crushing of the air traffic controllers when
they went on strike by the Reagan Administration in 1981, to reform of labor law, to reactionary
appointments to the National Labor Relations Board, which oversees administration of labor law. Certainly
a key government policy, signed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, has been the North American
Free Trade Act or NAFTA. One analyst came straight to the point:
Since [NAFTA] was signed in 1993, the rise in the US trade deficit with Canada and Mexico
through 2002 has caused the displacement of production that supported 879,280 US jobs. Most of
these lost jobs were high-wage positions in manufacturing industries. The loss of these jobs is
just the most visible tip of NAFTA's impact on the US economy. In fact, NAFTA has also contributed
to rising income inequality, suppressed real wages for production workers, weakened workers' collective
bargaining powers and ability to organize unions, and reduced fringe benefits (Scott, 2003:
1).
These attacks by elected officials have been joined by the affects due to the restructuring of
the economy. There has been a shift from manufacturing to services. However, within manufacturing,
which has long been a union stronghold, there has been significant job loss: between July 2000 and
January 2004, the US lost three million manufacturing jobs, or 17.5 percent, and 5.2 million since
the historical peak in 1979, so that "Employment in manufacturing [in January 2004] was its lowest
since July 1950" (CBO, 2004). This is due to both outsourcing labor-intensive production overseas
and, more importantly, technological displacement as new technology has enabled greater production
at higher quality with fewer workers in capital-intensive production (see Fisher, 2004). Others have
blamed burgeoning trade deficits for the rise: " an increasing share of domestic demand for manufacturing
output is satisfied by foreign rather than domestic producers" (Bivens, 2005).
[xiii] Others have even attributed
it to changes in consumer preferences (Schweitzer and Zaman, 2006). Whatever the reason, of the 50
states, only five (Nevada, North Dakota, Oregon, Utah, and Wyoming) did not see any job loss in manufacturing
between 1993-2003, yet 37 lost between 5.6 and 35.9 per cent of their manufacturing jobs during this
period (Public Policy Institute, 2004).
However, part of the credit for deterioration of the labor movement must be given to the labor
movement itself: the leadership has been simply unable to confront these changes and, at the same
time, they have consistently worked against any independent action by rank-and-file members.
[xiv]
However, it must be asked: are the changes in the economy presented herein merely statistical
manipulations, or is this indicating something real?
This point can be illustrated another way: by using CAGR, the Compound Annual Growth Rate. This
is a single number that is computed, based on compounded amounts, across a range of years, to come
up with an average number to represent the rate of increase or decrease each year across the entire
period. This looks pretty complex, but it is based on the same idea as compound interest used in
our savings accounts: you put in $10 today and (this is obviously not a real example) because you
get ten per cent interest, so you have $11 the next year. Well, the following year, interest is not
computed off the original $10, but is computed on the $11. So, by the third year, from your $10,
you now have $12.10. Etc. And this is what is meant by the Compound Annual Growth Rate: this is average
compound growth by year across a designated period.
Based on the numbers presented above in Figure 1, the author calculated the Compound Annual Growth
Rate by quintiles (Figure 2). The annual growth rate has been calculated for the first period, 1947-1973,
the years known as the "golden years" of US society. What has happened since then? Compare results
from the 1947-73 period to the annual growth rate across the second period, 1973-2001, again calculated
by the author.
Figure 2: Annual percentage of family income growth, by quintile, 1947-1973 compared to 1973-2001
What we can see here is that while everyone's income was growing at about the same rate in the
first period -- between 2.51 and 2.84 per cent annually -- by the second period, not only had growth
slowed down across the board, but it grew by very different rates: what we see here, again,
is that the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer.
If these figures are correct, a change over time in the percentage of income received by each
quintile should be observable. Ideally, if the society were egalitarian, each 20 per cent of the
population would get 20 per cent of the income in any one year. In reality, it differs. To understand
Figure 3, below, one must not only look at the percentage of income held by a quintile across the
chart, comparing selected year by selected year, but one needs to look to see whether a quintile's
share of income is moving toward or away from the ideal 20 percent.
Figure 3: Percentage of family income distribution by quintile, 1947, 1973, 2001.
Population by quintiles
1947
1973
2001
Top fifth (lower limit of top 5percent, or 95th Percentile)-- $184,500
[xv]
Unfortunately, much of the data available publicly ended in 2001. However, in the summer of 2007,
after years of not releasing data any later than 2001, the Census Bureau released income data up
to 2005. It allows us to examine what has taken place regarding family income inequality during the
first four years of the Bush Administration.
Figure 4: US family income, in US dollars, growth and distribution, by quintile,
2001-2005, 2005 US dollars
Lowest 20%
Second 20%
Middle 20%
Fourth 20%
Lowest level of top 5%
2001
$26,467
$45,855
$68,925
$103,828
$180,973
2005
$25,616
$45,021
$68,304
$103,100
$184,500
Difference
(4 years)
-$851
(-3.2%)
-$834
(-1.8%)
-$621
(-.01%)
-$728
(-.007%)
$3,527
(1.94%)
Source: US Census Bureau at
www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f01ar.html
. (Over time, the Census Bureau refigures these amounts, so they have subsequently converted
amounts to 2006 dollar values. These values are from their 2005 dollar values, and were calculated
by the Census Bureau.) Differences and percentages calculated by author.
Thus, what we've seen under the first four years of the Bush Administration is that for at most
Americans, their economic situation has worsened: not only has over all economic growth for any quintile
slowed to a minuscule 1.94 per cent at the most, but that the bottom 80 per cent actually lost income;
losing money (an absolute loss), rather than growing a little but falling further behind the top
quintile (a relative loss). Further, the decrease across the bottom four quintiles has been suffered
disproportionately by those in the lowest 40 per cent of the society.
This can perhaps be seen more clearly by examining CAGR rates by period.
We can now add the results of the 2001-2005 period share of income by quintile to our earlier
chart:
Figure 5: Percentage of income growth per year by percentile, 1947-2005
As can be seen, the percentage of family income at each of the four bottom quintiles is less in
2005 than in 1947; the only place there has been improvement over this 58-year period is at the 95th
percentile (and above).
Figure 6: Percentage of family income distribution by quintile, 1947, 1973, 2001, 2005.
Population by quintiles
1947
1973
2001
2005
Top fifth (lower limit of top 5percent, or 95th Percentile)-- $184,500
What has been presented so far, regarding changes in income distribution, has been at the group
level; in this case, quintile by quintile. It is time now to see how this has affected the society
overall.
Sociologists and economists use a number called the Gini index to measure inequality. Family income
data has been used so far, and we will continue using it. A Gini index is fairly simple to use. It
measures inequality in a society. A Gini index is generally reported in a range between 0.000 and
1.000, and is written in thousandths, just like a winning percentage mark: three digits after the
decimal. And the higher the Gini score, the greater the inequality.
Looking at the Gini index, we can see two periods since 1947, when the US Government began computing
the Gini index for the country. From 1947-1968, with yearly change greater or smaller, the trend
is downward, indicating reduced inequality: from .376 in 1947 to .378 in 1950, but then downward
to .348 in 1968. So, again, over the first period, the trend is downward.
What has happened since then? From the low point in 1968 of .348, the trend has been upward. In
1982, the Gini index hit .380, which was higher than any single year between 1947-1968, and the US
has never gone below .380 since then. By 1992, it hit .403, and we've never gone back below .400.
In 2001, the US hit .435. But the score for 2005 has only recently been published: .440 (source:
http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/histinc/f04.html
). So, the trend is getting worse, and with the policies established under George W. Bush, I
see them only continuing to increase in the forthcoming period. [And by the way, this increasing
trend has continued under both the Republicans and the Democrats, but since the Republicans have
controlled the presidency for 18 of the last 26 years (since 1981), they get most of the credit --
but let's not forget that the Democrats have controlled Congress across many of those years, so they,
too, have been an equal opportunity destroyer!]
However, one more question must be asked: how does this income inequality in the US, compare to
other countries around the world? Is the level of income inequality comparable to other "developed"
societies, or is it comparable to "developing" countries?
We must turn to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for our data. The CIA computes Gini scores
for family income on most of the countries around the world, and the last time checked in 2007 (August
1), they had data on 122 countries on their web page and these numbers had last been updated on July
19, 2007 (US Central Intelligence Agency, 2007). With each country listed, there is a Gini score
provided. Now, the CIA doesn't compute Gini scores yearly, but they give the last year it was computed,
so these are not exactly equivalent but they are suggestive enough to use. However, when they do
assemble these Gini scores in one place, they list them alphabetically, which is not of much comparative
use (US Central Intelligence Agency, 2007).
However, the World Bank categorizes countries, which means they can be compared within category
and across categories. The World Bank, which does not provide Gini scores, puts 208 countries into
one of four categories based on Gross National Income per capita -- that's total value of goods and
services sold in the market in a year, divided by population size. This is a useful statistic, because
it allows us to compare societies with economies of vastly different size: per capita income removes
the size differences between countries.
The World Bank locates each country into one of four categories: lower income, lower middle income,
upper middle income, and high income (World Bank, 2007a). Basically, those in the lower three categories
are "developing" or what we used to call "third world" countries, while the high income countries
are all of the so-called developed countries.
The countries listed by the CIA with their respective Gini scores were placed into the specific
World Bank categories in which the World Bank had previously located them (World Bank, 2007b). Once
grouped in their categories, median Gini scores were computed for each group. When trying to get
one number to represent a group of numbers, median is considered more accurate than an average, so
the median was used, which means half of the scores are higher, half are lower -- in other words,
the data is at the 50th percentile for each category.
The Gini score for countries, by Gross National Income per capita, categorized by the World Bank:
Figure 7: Median Gini Scores by World Bank income categories (countries selected by US Central
Intelligence Agency were placed in categories developed by the World Bank) and compared to 2004 US
Gini score as calculated by US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
Income category
Median Gini score
Gini score, US (2004)
Low income countries (less than $875/person/year)
.406
.450
Lower-middle income countries (between $876-3,465/person/year)
.414
.450
Upper-middle income countries (between $3,466-10,725/person/year
.370
.450
Upper-income countries (over $10,726/person/year
.316
.450
As can be seen, with the (CIA-calculated) Gini score of .450, the US family income is more
unequal than the medians for each category, and is more unequal than some of the poorest countries
on earth, such as Bangladesh (.318 -- calculated in 2000), Cambodia (.400, 2004 est.), Laos (.370-1997),
Mozambique (.396, 1996-97), Uganda (.430-1999) and Vietnam (.361, 1998). This same finding also holds
true using the more conservative Census Bureau-calculated Gini score of .440.
Thus, the US has not only become more unequal over the 35 years, as has been demonstrated above,
but has attained a level of inequality that is much more comparable to those of developing countries
in general and, in fact, is more unequal today than some of the poorest countries on Earth. There
is nothing suggesting that this increasing inequality will lessen anytime soon. And since this increasing
income inequality has taken place under the leadership of both major political parties, there is
nothing on the horizon that suggests either will resolutely address this issue in the foreseeable
future regardless of campaign promises made.
However, to move beyond discussion of whether President Obama is likely to address these and related
issues, some consideration of governmental economic policies is required. Thus, he will be constrained
by decisions made by previous administrations, as well as by the ideological blinders worn by those
he has chosen to serve at the top levels of his administration.
3) Governmental economic policies
There are two key points that are especially important for our consideration: the US Budget and
the US National Debt. They are similar, but different -- and consideration of each of them enhances
understanding.
A) US budget. Every year, the US Government passes a budget, whereby governmental officials
estimate beforehand how much money needs to be taken in to cover all expenses. If the government
actually takes in more money than it spends, the budget is said to have a surplus; if it takes in
less than it spends, the budget is said to be in deficit.
Since 1970, when Richard Nixon was President, the US budget has been in deficit every year
except for the last four years under Clinton (1998-2001), where there was a surplus. But this
surplus began declining under Clinton -- it was $236.2 billion in 2000, and only $128.2 billion in
2001, Clinton 's last budget. Under Bush, the US has gone drastically into deficit: -$157.8 billion
in 2002; -$377.6 billion in 2003; -$412.7 billion in 2004; -$318.3 billion in 2005; and "only"-$248.2
billion in 2006 (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-78).
Now, that is just yearly surpluses and deficits. They get combined with all the other surpluses
and deficits since the US became a country in 1789 to create to create a cumulative amount, what
is called the National Debt.
B) US national debt. Between 1789 and1980 -- from Presidents Washington through
Carter -- the accumulated US National Debt was $909 billion or, to put it another way, $.909 trillion.
During Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-89), the National Debt tripled, from $.9 trillion to $2.868
trillion. It has continued to rise. As of the end of 2006, 17 years later and after a four-year period
of surpluses where the debt was somewhat reduced, National Debt (or Gross Federal Debt) was $8.451
trillion (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-78).
To put it into context: the US economy, the most productive in the world, had a Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) of $13.061 trillion in 2006, but the National Debt was $8.451 trillion -- 64.7 per
cent of GDP -- and growing (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-1).
In April 2006, one investor reported that "the US Treasury has a hair under $8.4 trillion in outstanding
debt. How much is that? He put it into this context: " if you deposited one million dollars into
a bank account every day, starting 2006 years ago, that you would not even have ONE trillion dollars
in that account" (Van Eeden, 2006).
Let's return to the budget deficit: like a family budget, when one spends more than one brings
in, they can do basically one of three things: (a) they can cut spending; (b) they can increase taxes
(or obviously a combination of the two); or (c) they can take what I call the "Wimpy" approach.
For those who might not know this, Wimpy was a cartoon character, a partner of "Popeye the Sailor,"
a Saturday morning cartoon that was played for over 30 years in the United States . Wimpy had a great
love for hamburgers. And his approach to life was summed up in his rap: "I'll gladly give you two
hamburgers on Tuesday, for a hamburger today."
What is argued is that the US Government has been taking what I call the Wimpy approach to its
budgetary problems: it does not reduce spending, it does not raise taxes to pay for the increased
expenditures -- in fact, President Bush has cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans
[xvi] -- but instead it sells
US Government securities, often known as Treasuries, to rich investors, private corporations or,
increasingly, to other countries to cover the budget deficit. In a set number of years, the US Government
agrees to pay off each bond -- and the difference between what the purchaser bought them for and
the increased amount the US Government pays to redeem them is the cost of financing the Treasuries,
a certain percentage of the total value. By buying US Treasuries, other countries have helped keep
US interest rates low, helping to keep the US economy in as good of shape as it has been (thus, keeping
the US market flourishing for them), while allowing the US Government not to have to confront its
annual deficits. At the end of 2006, the total value of outstanding Treasuries -- to all investors,
not just other countries -- was $8.507 trillion (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table B-87).
It turns out that at in December 2004, foreigners owned approximately 61 per cent of all outstanding
US Treasuries. Of that, seven per cent was held by China ; these were valued at $223 billion (Gundzik,
2005).
The percentage of foreign and international investors' purchases of the total US public debt since
1996 has never been less than 17.7 percent, and it has reached a high of 25.08 per cent in September
2006. In September 2006, foreigners purchased $2.134 trillion of Treasuries; these were 25.08 per
cent of all purchases, and 52.4 per cent of all privately-owned purchases (Economic Report of the
President, 2007: Table B-89). [xvii]
Altogether, "the world now holds financial claims amounting to $3.5 trillion against the United
States , or 26 per cent of our GDP" (Humpage and Shenk, 2007: 4).
Since the US Government continues to run deficits, because the Bush Administration has refused
to address this problem, the United States has become dependent on other countries buying Treasuries.
Like a junky on heroin, the US must get other investors (increasingly countries) to finance
its budgetary deficits.
To keep the money flowing in, the US must keep interest rates high -- basically, interest rates
are the price that must be paid to borrow money. Over the past year or so, the Federal Reserve has
not raised interest rates, but prior to that, for 15 straight quarterly meetings, they did. And,
as known, the higher the interest rate, the mostly costly it is to borrow money domestically, which
means increasingly likelihood of recession -- if not worse. In other words, dependence on foreigners
to finance the substantial US budget deficits means that the US must be prepared to raise interests
rates which, at some point, will choke off domestic borrowing and consumption, throwing the US economy
into recession. [xviii]
Yet this threat is not just to the United States -- according to the International Monetary Fund
(IMF), it is a threat to the global economy. A story about a then-recently issued report by the IMF
begins, "With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running
up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of
the global economy ." The report suggested that net financial obligations of the US to the rest of
the world could equal 40 per cent of its total economy if nothing was done about it in a few years,
"an unprecedented level of external debt for a larger industrial country" according to the report.
What was perhaps even more shocking than what the report said was which institution said it: "The
IMF has often been accused of being an adjunct of the United States , its largest shareholder" (Becker
and Andrews, 2004).
Other analysts go further. After discussing the increasingly risky nature of global investing,
and noting that "The investor managers of private equity funds and major banks have displaced national
banks and international bodies such as the IMF," Gabriel Kolko (2007) quotes Stephen Roach, Morgan
Stanley's chief economist, on April 24, 2007: "a major financial crisis seemed imminent and that
the global institutions that could forestall it, including the IMF, the World Bank and other mechanisms
of the international financial architecture, were utterly inadequate." Kolko recognizes that things
may not collapse immediately, and that analysts could be wrong, but still concludes, "the transformation
of the global financial system will sooner or later lead to dire results" (Kolko, 2007: 5).
What might happen if investors decided to take their money out of US Treasuries and, say, invest
in Euro-based bonds? The US would be in big trouble, would be forced to raise its interest
rates even higher than it wants -- leading to possibly a severe recession -- and if investors really
shifted their money, the US could be observably bankrupt; the curtain hiding the "little man" would
be opened, and he would be observable to all.
Why would investors rather shift their investment money into Euro-bonds instead of US Treasuries?
Well, obviously, one measure is the perceived strength of the US economy. To get a good idea of how
solid a country's economy is, one looks at things such as budget deficits, but perhaps even more
importantly balance of trade: how well is this economy doing in comparison with other countries?
The US international balance of trade is in the red and is worsening: -$717 billion in
2005. In 1991, it was -$31 billion. Since 1998, the US trade balance has set a new record for being
in the hole every year, except during 2001, and then breaking the all time high the very next
year! -$165 B in 1998; -$263 B in 1999; -$378 B in 2000; only -$362 B in 2001; -$421 B in 2002;
-$494 B in 2003; -$617 B in 2004; and - $717 B in 2005 (Economic Report of the President, 2007: Table
B-103). According to the Census Department, the balance of trade in 2006 was -$759 billion (US Census
Bureau, 2007).
And the US current account balance, the broadest measure of a country's international financial
situation -- which includes investment inside and outside the US in addition to balance of trade
-- is even worse: it was -$805 B in 2005, or 6.4 per cent of national income. "The bottom line is
that a current account deficit of this unparalleled magnitude is unsustainable and there is no hope
of it being painlessly resolved through higher exports alone," according to one analyst (quoted in
Swann, 2006). Scott notes that the current account deficit in 2006 was -$857 billion (Scott, 2007a:
8, fn. 1). "In effect, the United States is living beyond its means and selling off national assets
to pay its bills" (Scott, 2007b: 1).
[xix]
In addition, during mid-2007, there was a bursting of a domestic "housing bubble," which has threatened
domestic economic well-being but that ultimately threatens the well-being of global financial markets.
There had been a tremendous run-up in US housing values since 1995 -- with an increase of more than
70 per cent after adjusting for the rate of inflation -- and this had created "more than $8 trillion
in housing wealth compared with a scenario in which house prices had continued to rise at the same
rate of inflation," which they had done for over 100 years, between 1890 and 1995 (Baker, 2007: 8).
This led to a massive oversupply of housing, accompanied with falling house prices: according
to Dean Baker, "the peak inventory of unsold new homes of 573,000 in July 2006 was more than 50 per
cent higher than the previous peak of 377,000 in May of 1989" (Baker, 2007: 12-13). This caused massive
problems in the sub-prime housing market -- estimates are that almost $2 trillion in sub-prime loans
were made during 2005-06, and that about $325 billion of these loans will default, with more than
1 million people losing their homes (Liedtke, 2007) -- but these problems are not confined to the
sub-prime loan category: because sub-prime and "Alt-A" mortgages (the category immediately above
sub-prime) financed 40 per cent of the housing market in 2006, "it is almost inevitable that the
problems will spill over into the rest of the market" (Baker, 2007: 15). And Business Week
agrees: "Subprime woes have moved far beyond the mortgage industry." It notes that at least five
hedge funds have gone out of business, corporate loans and junk bonds have been hurt, and the leveraged
buyout market has been hurt (Goldstein and Henry, 2007).
David Leonhardt (2007) agrees with the continuing threat to the financial industry. Discussing
"adjustable rate mortgages" -- where interest rates start out low, but reset to higher rates, resulting
in higher mortgage payments to the borrower -- he points out that about $50 billion of mortgages
will reset during October 2007, and that this amount of resetting will remain over $30 billion monthly
through September 2008. "In all," he writes," the interest rates on about $1 trillion worth of mortgages
or 12 per cent of the nation's total, will reset for the first time this year or next."
Why all of this is so important is because bankers have gotten incredibly "creative" in creating
new mortgages, which they sell to home buyers. Then they bundle these obligations and sell to other
financial institutions and which, in turn, create new securities (called derivatives) based on these
questionable new mortgages. Yes, it is basically a legal ponzi scheme, but it requires the continuous
selling and buying of these derivatives to keep working: in early August 2007, however, liquidity
-- especially "financial instruments backed by home mortgages" -- dried up, as no one wanted to buy
these instruments (Krugman, 2007). The US Federal Research and the European Central Bank felt it
necessary to pump over $100 billion into the financial markets in mid-August 2007 to keep the international
economy solvent (Norris, 2007).
So, economically, this country is in terrible shape -- with no solution in sight.
On top of this -- as if all of this is not bad enough -- the Bush Administration is asking for
another $481.4 billion for the Pentagon's base budget, which it notes is "a 62 per cent increase
over 2001." Further, the Administration seeks an additional $93.4 billion in supplemental funds for
2007 and another $141.7 billion for 2008 to help fund the "Global War on Terror" and US operations
in Iraq and Afghanistan (US Government, 2007). According to Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute (SIPRI), in 2006, the US "defense" spending was equivalent to 46 per cent of all military
spending in the world, meaning that almost more money is provided for the US military in one year
than is spent by the militaries of all the other countries in the world combined (SIPRI, 2007).
And SIPRI's accounting doesn't include the $500 billion spent so far, approximately, on wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq .
In short, not only have things gotten worse for American working people since 1973 -- and especially
after 1982, with the imposition of neoliberal economic policies by institutions of the US Government
-- but on-going Federal budget deficits, the escalating National Debt, the need to attract foreign
money into US Treasuries, the financial market "meltdown" as well as the massive amounts of money
being channeled to continue the Empire, all suggest that not only will intensifying social problems
not be addressed, but will get worse for the foreseeable future.
4) Synopsis
This analysis provides an extensive look at the impact of neoliberal economic policies enacted
in the United States on American working people. These neoliberal economic policies have been enacted
as a conscious strategy by US corporate leaders and their governmental allies in both major political
parties as a way to address intensifying globalization while seeking to maintain US dominance over
the global political economy.
While it will be a while before anyone can determine success or failure overall of this elite
strategy but, because of is global-historical perspective, sufficient evidence is already available
to evaluate the affects of these policies on American working people. For the non-elites of this
country, these policies have had a deleterious impact and they are getting worse. Employment data
in manufacturing, worsening since 1979 but especially since 2000 (see Aronowitz, 2005), has been
horrific -- and since this has been the traditional path for non-college educated workers to be able
to support themselves and their families, and provide for their children, this data suggests social
catastrophe for many -- see Rubin (1995), Barnes (2005), and Bageant (2007), and accounts in Finnegan
(1998) and Lipper (2004) that support this -- because comparable jobs available to these workers
are not being created. Thus, the problem is not just that people are losing previously stable, good-paying
jobs -- as bad as that is -- but that there is nothing being created to replace these lost jobs,
and there is not even a social safety net in many cases that can generally cushion the blow (see
Wilson, 1996; Appelbaum, Bernhardt, and Murnane, eds., 2003).
Yet the impact of these social changes has not been limited to only blue-collar workers, although
the impact has been arguably greatest upon them. The overall economic growth of the society has been
so limited since 1973, and the results increasingly being unequally distributed since then, that
the entire society is becoming more and more unequal: each of the four bottom quintiles -- the bottom
80 per cent of families -- has seen a decrease in the amount of family income available to each quintile
between 2001-05. This not only increases inequality and resulting resentments -- including criminal
behaviors -- but it also produces deleterious affects on individual and social health (Kawachi, Kennedy
and Wilkinson, eds., 1999; Eitzen and Eitzen Smith, 2003). And, as shown above, this level of inequality
is much more comparable internationally to "developing" countries rather than "developed" ones.
When this material is joined with material on the US budget, and especially the US National Debt,
it is clear that these "problems" are not the product of individual failure, but of a social order
that is increasingly unsustainable. While we have no idea of what it will take before the US economy
will implode, all indications are that US elites are speeding up a run-away train of debt combined
with job-destroying technology and off-shoring production, creating a worsening balance of trade
with the rest of the world and a worsening current account, with an unstable housing market and intensifying
militarism and an increasingly antagonistic foreign policy: it is like they are building a bridge
over an abyss, with a train increasingly speeding up as it travels toward the bridge, and crucial
indicators suggest that the bridge cannot be completed in time.
Whether the American public will notice and demand a radical change in time is not certain --
it will not be enough to simply slow the train down, but it must turn down an alternative track (see
Albert, 2003; Woodin and Lucas, 2004; Starr, 2005) -- but it is almost certain that foreign investors
will. Should they not be able to get the interest rates here available elsewhere in the "developed"
parts of the world, investors will shift their investments, causing more damage to working people
in the United States .
And when this economic-focused analysis is joined with an environmental one -- George Monbiot
(2007) reports that the best science available argues that industrialized countries have to reduce
their carbon dioxide emissions by 90 per cent by the year 2030 if we are to have a chance to stop
global warming -- then it is clear that US society is facing a period of serious social instability.
5) Conclusion
This article has argued that the situation for working people in the United States, propelled
by the general governmental adoption of neoliberal economic policies, is getting worse -- and there
is no end in sight. The current situation and historical change have been presented and discussed.
Further, an examination and analysis of directly relevant US economic policies have been presented,
and there has been nothing in this analysis that suggests a radical, but necessary, change by US
elected officials is in sight. In other words, working people in this country are in bad shape generally
-- and it is worse for workers of color than for white workers -- and there is nothing within the
established social order that suggests needed changes will be effected.
The neoliberal economic policies enacted by US corporate and government leaders has been a social
disaster for increasing numbers of families in the United States .
Globalization for profit -- or what could be better claimed to be "globalization from above" --
and its resulting neoliberal economic policies have long-been recognized as being a disaster for
most countries in the Global South. This study argues that this top-down globalization and the accompanying
neoliberal economic policies has been a disaster for working people in northern countries as well,
and most particularly in the United States .
The political implications from these findings remains to be seen. Surely, one argument is not
only that another world is possible, but that it is essential.
[Kim Scipes is assistant professor of sociology , Purdue University, North Central, Westville
, IN 46391. The author's web site is at
http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes .This paper was given at the 2009 Annual Conference of the United
Association for Labor Education at the National Labor College in Silver Spring , MD. It has been
posted at Links International Journal of Socialist
Renewal with Kim Scipes' permission.]
* * *
Note to labor educators: This is a very different approach than you usually take. While
presenting a "big picture," this does not suggest what you are doing is "wrong" or "bad." What it
suggests, however, is that the traditional labor education approach is too limited: this suggests
that your work is valuable but that you need to put it into a much larger context than is generally
done, and that it is in the interaction between your work and this that we each can think out the
ways to go forward. This is presented in the spirit of respect for the important work that each of
you do on a daily basis.
I think the key to collapse of Soviet society and its satellites was the victory of
neoliberal ideology over communism. It was pure luck for neoliberalism was that its triumphal
march over the globe coincide with deep crisis of both communist ideology and the Soviet elite
(nomenklatura) in the USSR. Hapless, mediocre Gorbachov, a third rate politician who became the
leader of the USSR is a telling example here. Propaganda, especially "big troika" (BBC,
Deutsche Welle and
Voice of America), also played a very important role in this. Especially in Baltic countries and
Ukraine.
Domestic fake new industry always has huge advantage over foreign one in the USA and other
Western countries, because of general cultural dominance of the West.
The loss of effectiveness of neoliberal propaganda now is the same as the reason for loss of
effectiveness of communist propaganda since 60th. In the first case it was the crisis of
communist ideology, in the second is the crisis of neoliberal ideology. Everybody now understands
that the neoliberal promises were fake, and "bait and switch" manuver that enriched the tiny
percentage of population (top 1% and even more 0.01%).
When the society experience the crisis of ideology it became inoculated toward official
propaganda -- it simply loses its bite.
Notable quotes:
"... As the The Economist notes, a 2015 survey of the top 94 cable channels in America by the research firm Nielsen found that RT did not even make it into the rankings, capturing only 0.04 percent of viewers, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Board. ..."
"... RT has claimed dominance on YouTube, an assertion that apparently caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community, which noted that RT videos get 1 million views a day, far surpassing other outlets. ..."
"... Or as media-effects theorists explain the communication process, the intentions of the producer (Soviet Union) and the conventions of the content (communist propaganda) were interwoven in a strategy aimed at influencing the receiver (the American audience). But the majority of Americans, with the exception of a few hard-core ideologues, interpreted the content of the message as pitiful Soviet propaganda, assuming they even paid attention to it. ..."
"... There is no doubt that Moscow, which regarded President Harry Truman as its leading American political nemesis, was hoping that Progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace would win the 1948 election -- and had tailored its propaganda effort in accordance with that goal. That pro-Wallace campaign took place at a time when the American Communist Party still maintained some influence in the United States, where many Americans still sympathized with the former World War II ally and a large number of Soviet spies were operating in the country. But then Wallace's Progressives ended up winning 2.5 percent of the vote, less than Strom Thurmond's Southern segregationist ticket. ..."
"... Yet we are supposed to believe that by employing RT, Sputnik, Facebook, Twitter, and a bunch of hackers, the Russians could help their American candidate "steal" the 2016 presidential election. Is there any evidence that those white blue-collar workers and rural voters in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan -- the people who provided Trump with his margin of victory -- were even exposed to the reports distributed by RT and Sputnik, or by the memes constructed by Russian trolls or their posts on Facebook? ("Hey, did you watch RT last night?") ..."
"... Yet the assertion that a "silver bullet shot from a media gun" in the form of Russian propaganda was able "to penetrate a hapless audience" in the United States has been gaining more adherents in Washington and elsewhere. This conspiracy seems to correlate the intent of the Russian government and the content of their messages with the voting behavior of Americans. ..."
"... In a strange irony, those who are promoting this fallacious assertion may -- unlike their Russian scapegoat -- actually succeed in penetrating a hapless American audience. ..."
The Russians can dish it out, but don't expect Americans to swallow everything.
During the Cold War, it became an article of faith among Western policymakers and
journalists: One of the most effective ways to discredit the leaders of Communist countries
would be to provide their citizens with information from the West. It was a view that was
shared by Soviet Bloc regimes who were worried that listening to the Voice of America (VOA) or
watching Western television shows would induce their people to take political action against
the rulers.
So it was not surprising that government officials in East Germany, anxious that many TV
stations from West Germany could be viewed by their citizens, employed numerous means!such as
jamming the airwaves and even damaging TV antennas that were pointing west!in order to prevent
the so-called "subversive" western broadcasts from reaching audiences over the wall.
After the Berlin Wall collapsed in 1989, communication researchers studying public attitudes
in former East German areas assumed that they would discover that those who had access to West
German television!and were therefore exposed to the West's political freedom and economic
prosperity!were more politically energized and willing to challenge the communist regime than
those who couldn't watch Western television.
But as Evgeny Morozov recalled in his Net Delusion: The
Dark Side of Internet Freedom , a study conducted between 1966 and 1990 about incipient
protests in the so-called "Valley of the Clueless"!an area in East Germany where the government
successfully blocked Western television signals!raised questions about this conventional
wisdom.
As it turns out, having access to West German television actually made life in East Germany
more endurable. Far from radicalizing its citizens, it seemed to have made them more
politically compliant. As one East German dissident quoted by Morozov lamented, "The whole
people could leave the country and move to the West as a man at 8pm, via television."
Meanwhile, East German citizens who did not have access to Western German television were
actually more critical of their regime, and more politically restless.
The study concluded that "in an ironic twist for Marxism, capitalist television seems to
have performed the same narcotizing function in communist East Germany that Karl Marx had
attributed to religious beliefs in capitalist society when he condemned religion as the 'opium
of the people.'"
Morozov refers to the results of these and other studies to raise an interesting idea:
Western politicians and pundits have predicted that the rise of the Internet, which provides
free access to information to residents of the global village, would galvanize citizens in
Russia and other countries to challenge their authoritarian regimes. In reality, Morozov
contends that exposure to the Internet may have distracted Russian users from their political
problems. The young men who should be leading the revolution are instead staying at home and
watching online pornography. Trotsky, as we know, didn't tweet.
Yet the assumption that the content of the message is a "silver bullet shot from a media gun
to penetrate a hapless audience," as communication theorists James Arthur Anderson and Timothy
P. Meyer put it, remains popular among politicians and pundits today, despite ample evidence to
the contrary.
Hence the common assertion that a presidential candidate who has raised a lots of money and
can spend it on buying a lots of television commercials, has a clear advantage over rivals who
cannot afford to dominate the media environment. But the loser in the 2016 presidential race
spent about $141.7 million on ads, compared with $58.8 million for winner's campaign, according
to NBC News . Candidate Trump also spent a fraction of what his Republican rivals had
during the Republican primaries that he won.
Communication researchers like Anderson and Meyers are not suggesting that media messages
don't have any effect on target audiences, but that it is quite difficult to sell ice to
Eskimos. To put it in simple terms, media audiences are not hapless and passive. Although you
can flood them with messages that are in line with your views and interests, audiences actively
participate in the communication process. They will construct their own meaning from the
content they consume, and in some cases they might actually disregard your message.
Imagine a multi-billionaire who decides to produce thousands of commercials celebrating the
legacy of ISIS, runs them on primetime American television, and floods social media with
messages praising the murderous terrorist group. If that happened, would Americans be rallying
behind the flag of ISIS? One can imagine that the response from audiences would range from
anger to dismissal to laughter.
In 2013 Al Jazeera Media Network
purchased Current
TV , which was once partially owned by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, and launched
an American news channel. Critics expressed concerns that the network, which is owned by the
government of Qatar and has been critical of U.S. policies in the Middle East, would try to
manipulate American audiences with their anti-Washington message.
Three years later, after hiring many star journalists and producing mostly straight news
shows, Al Jazeera America CEO Al Anstey announced that the network would cease
operations. Anstey cited the "economic landscape" which was another way of saying that its
ratings were distressingly low. The relatively small number of viewers who watched Al
Jazeera America 's programs considered them not anti-American but just, well, boring.
You don't have to be a marketing genius to figure out that in the age of the 24/7 media
environment, foreign networks face prohibitive competition from American cable news networks
like CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, social media, not to mention Netflix and yes, those online porno
sites. Thus the chances that a foreign news organization would be able to attract large
American audiences, and have any serious impact on their political views, remain very low.
That, indeed, has been the experience of not only the defunct Al Jazeera America ,
but also of other foreign news outlets that have tried to imitate the Qatar-based network by
launching operations targeting American audiences. These networks have included CGTN (China
Global Television Network), the English-language news channel run by Chinese state broadcaster
China Central
Television ; PressTV, a 24-hour English language news and documentary network affiliated
with Islamic Republic of Iran
Broadcasting ; or RT (formerly Russia Today), a Russian international television network funded by the
Russian
government that operates cable and satellitetelevision channels directed to
audiences outside of Russia.
After all, unless you are getting to paid to watch CTGN, PressTV, or RT -- or you are a news
junkie with a lot of time on your hands -- why in the world would you be spending even one hour of
the day watching these foreign networks?
Yet if you have been following the coverage and public debate over the alleged Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election, you get the impression that RT and another
Russian media outlet, Sputnik (a news agency and radio broadcast service established by the
Russian
government-controlled news agency Rossiya Segodnya ), were central players
in a conspiracy between the Trump presidential campaign and the Kremlin to deny the presidency
to Hillary Clinton.
In fact, more than half of the much-cited January report on the Russian electoral
interference released by U.S. intelligence agencies was devoted to warning of RT's growing
influence in the United States and across the world, referring to the "rapid expansion" of the
network's operations and budget to about $300 million a year, and citing the supposedly
impressive audience numbers listed on the RT website.
According to America's spooks, the coordinated activities of RT and the online-media
properties and social-media accounts that made up "Russia's state-run propaganda machine" have
been employed by the Russian government to "undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic
order."
And in a long cover story in TheNew York Times Magazine this month, with the
headline, "
RT, Sputnik and Russia's New Theory of War, " Jim Rutenberg suggested that the Kremlin has
"built one of the most powerful information weapons of the 21st century" and that it "may be
impossible to stop."
But as the British Economist magazine reported early this year, while RT claims to
reach 550 million people worldwide, with America and Britain supposedly being its most
successful markets, its "audience" of 550 million refers to "the number of people who can
access its channel, not those who actually watch it."
As the The Economist notes, a 2015 survey of the top 94 cable channels in America by
the research firm Nielsen found that RT did not even make it into the rankings, capturing only
0.04 percent of viewers, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Board.
The Times' s Rutenberg argues that the RT's ratings "are almost beside the point." RT
might not have amassed an audience that remotely rivals CNN's in conventional terms, "but in
the new, 'democratized' media landscape, it doesn't need to" since "the network has come to
form the hub of a new kind of state media operation: one that travels through the same diffuse
online channels, chasing the same viral hits and memes, as the rest of the
Twitter-and-Facebook-age media."
Traveling "through the same diffuse online channels" and "chasing the same viral hits and
memes" sounds quite impressive. Indeed, RT has claimed dominance on YouTube, an assertion that
apparently caught the attention of the U.S. intelligence community, which noted that RT videos
get 1 million views a day, far surpassing other outlets.
But as The Economist points out, when it comes to Twitter and Facebook, RT's reach is
narrower than that of other news networks. Its claim of YouTube success is mostly down to the
network's practice of buying the rights to sensational footage -- for instance, Japan's 2011
tsunami -- and repackaging it with the company logo. It's not clear, however, how the
dissemination of a footage of a natural disaster or of a dog playing the piano helps efforts to
"undermine the U.S.-led liberal democratic order."
It is obvious that the Russian leaders have been investing a lot of resources in RT,
Sputnik, and other media outlets, and that they employ them as propaganda tools aimed at
promoting their government's viewpoints and interests around the world. From that perspective,
these Russian media executives are heirs to the communist officials who had been in charge of
the propaganda empire of the Soviet Union and its satellites during much of the 20th
Century.
The worldwide communist propaganda machine did prove to be quite effective during the Great
Depression and World War II, when it succeeded in tapping into the economic and social
anxieties and anti-Nazi sentiments in the West and helped strengthen the power of the communist
parties in Europe and, to some extent, in the United States.
But in the same way that Western German television programs failed to politically energize
East Germans during the Cold War, much of the Soviet propaganda distributed by the Soviet Union
at that time had very little impact on the American public and its political attitudes, as
symbolized by the shrinking membership of the American Communist Party.
Or as media-effects theorists explain the communication process, the intentions of the
producer (Soviet Union) and the conventions of the content (communist propaganda) were
interwoven in a strategy aimed at influencing the receiver (the American audience). But the
majority of Americans, with the exception of a few hard-core ideologues, interpreted the
content of the message as pitiful Soviet propaganda, assuming they even paid attention to
it.
Soviet propaganda may have scored limited success during the Cold War when it came to
members of the large communist parties in France, Italy, and Japan, as well as exploited
anti-American sentiments in some third-world countries. In these cases, the intentions of the
producer and the convention of the message seemed to be in line with the interpretations of the
receivers.
There is no doubt that Moscow, which regarded President Harry Truman as its leading American
political nemesis, was hoping that Progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace would win
the 1948 election -- and had tailored its propaganda effort in accordance with that goal. That
pro-Wallace campaign took place at a time when the American Communist Party still maintained
some influence in the United States, where many Americans still sympathized with the former
World War II ally and a large number of Soviet spies were operating in the country. But then
Wallace's Progressives ended up winning 2.5 percent of the vote, less than Strom Thurmond's
Southern segregationist ticket.
Yet we are supposed to believe that by employing RT, Sputnik, Facebook, Twitter, and a bunch
of hackers, the Russians could help their American candidate "steal" the 2016 presidential
election. Is there any evidence that those white blue-collar workers and rural voters in
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan -- the people who provided Trump with his margin of victory -- were
even exposed to the reports distributed by RT and Sputnik, or by the memes constructed by
Russian trolls or their posts on Facebook? ("Hey, did you watch RT last night?")
Yet the assertion that a "silver bullet shot from a media gun" in the form of Russian
propaganda was able "to penetrate a hapless audience" in the United States has been gaining
more adherents in Washington and elsewhere. This conspiracy seems to correlate the intent of
the Russian government and the content of their messages with the voting behavior of
Americans.
In a strange irony, those who are promoting this fallacious assertion may -- unlike their
Russian scapegoat -- actually succeed in penetrating a hapless American audience.
Leon Hadar is a writer and author of the books Quagmire: America in the Middle East and
Sandstorm: Policy Failure in the Middle East. His articles have appeared in the New York Times,
The Washington Post, Washington Times, The Los Angeles Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy,
and the National Interest.
For an example of the success of propaganda, look at Breitbart. The messages online during
the 2016 election were pervasive and insidious. I think this post underestimates the threat
by focusing on traditional media instead of social interaction.
RT covered Assange during the election better than other outlets.
It's easy to see everything from a personal perspective and forget that we are very
diverse. We don't live in an ABC, CBS, and NBC world anymore, with information controlled.
Changes in thought and belief happen online now, in many, many different venues.
A government that has confidence in its own support doesn't need to fight foreign
information. In the '30s and '40s the US government encouraged shortwave listening, and
manufacturers made money by adding SW bands to their radios. We were going through a
depression and then a war, but our government was CONFIDENT enough to encourage us to
understand the world.
Since 1950 the government has been narrowing the focus of external input because it knows
that it no longer has the natural consent of the governed. TV and the Web are intentional
forms of jamming, filling our eyes and ears with internally produced nonsense to crowd out
the external info.
The ones you have to worry about are those much closer to home – "inside the tent".
Friends in the UK, Canada, and Europe are appalled at the distorting effect Israeli
propaganda has on American news sources, and how unaware of it typical Americans seem to
be.
Indeed, it is odd and more than a little worrying that all the concern about "foreign
meddling" has so far failed to engage with Israel, which is hands down the best funded, most
sophisticated and successful foreign meddler.
The FBI annually reports that Israel spies on us at the same level as Russia and China.
But we have yet to fully register that Israeli spying includes systematic efforts to
influence American elections and policies, efforts that dwarf those of Putin's Russia both in
scale and impact.
I think that the corporate masters of propaganda media and politics in these United States,
have, in the words of Edward G. Robinson's Rico in Little Caesar, "gotten to where you can
dish it out, but you can't take it anymore."
It's counterfactual to conflate Soviet propaganda with the perspective of Russians today,
unless Communism never really was the real point. In fact, it's our own leaders in media and
politics who now increasingly issue dogmatic and insulting derogatory language, sounding more
and more like late Soviet propagandists themselves.
So what? What's wrong with people being exposed to a broad array of points of view, trying
to better understand the world and constantly challenging, refining, and reshaping their
worldview in the process?
You're coming perilously close to suggesting that Americans who are critical of their
government are dupes of hostile foreign powers ! an unfair, unhelpful, and undemocratic
assertion.
The problem with Russian trolls is that people don't know they are Russian trolls. They think
they are their fellow Americans and neighbors on Facebook. The influence of foreign
propaganda on Americans is not due to transparent media like Al Jazeera. It's due to
propaganda disguised as your neighbor's opinion.
this conversation cant be taken serious without a serious discussion on Israel, who by the
way provides the perfect case and point of how effective foreign propaganda can be. They work
through our media, school systems and even our churches. Just look at what happened to McGraw
Hill for daring to show before and after maps of the Palestine over the years.
Garrett 's book
The People's Pottage The Revolution Was-Ex America-Rise of Empire i ncludes a timeless quote on U.S. foreign policy. "You are imperialistic
all the same, whether you realize it or not... You are trying to make the kind of world you want. You are trying to impose the American
way of life on other people, whether they want it or not." The "Rise of Empire" opens with the sentence "We have crossed the boundary
between Republic and Empire." It contains a critical view of President Truman's usurpation of Congress' power to declare war. Some of
the "distinguishing marks" of an empire taken from history were "Domestic policy becomes subordinate to foreign policy" and " A system
of satellite nations". I think most of us are would be familiar with those two in modern context. His labeling of this policy as the
"Empire of the Bottomless Purse" was historically accurate.
The book was printed in 1953. What's amazing is how little some political ideology has changed since then. Take this quote; "And
the mere thought of 'America First', associated as that term is with 'isolationism', has become a liability so extreme that politicians
feel obliged to deny ever having entertained it." Think back to Ron Paul's 2008 campaign and how he was labeled an "isolationist" for
similar views of nationalism.
Notable quotes:
"... These are not sequential stages of Empire but occur in conjunction with one another and reinforce each other. That means that an attempt to reverse Empire in the direction of a Republic can begin with weakening any of the five characteristics in any order. ..."
"... Deconstructing these executive props, one by one, weakens the Empire. When all five components are deconstructing, the process presents a possible path to dissolving Empire itself. ..."
"... That was why Garrett does not deal with how to reverse the process of Empire. Once an empire is established, he argues, it becomes a "prisoner of history" in a trap of its own making. He writes, "A Republic may change its course, or reverse it, and that will be its own business. But the history of Empire is a world history and belongs to many people. A Republic is not obliged to act upon the world, either to change it or instruct it. Empire, on the other hand, must put forth its power." ..."
"... Collective security and fear are intimately connected concepts. It is no coincidence that the sixth component of Empire -- imprisonment -- comes directly after the two components of "a system of satellite nations" and, "a complex of vaunting and fear." ..."
"... An empire thinks that satellites are necessary for its collective security. Satellites think the empire is necessary for territorial and economic survival; but they are willing to defect if an empire with a better deal beckons. America knows this and scrambles to satisfy satellites that could become fickle. Garrett quotes Harry Truman, who created America's modern system of satellites. "We must make sure that our friends and allies overseas continue to get the help they need to make their full contribution to security and progress for the whole free world. This means not only military aid -- though that is vital -- it also means real programs of economic and technical assistance." ..."
"... Garrett also emphasizes how domestic pressure imprisons Empire. One of the most powerful domestic pressures is fear. An atmosphere of fear -- real or created -- drives public support of foreign policy and makes it more difficult for Empire to retreat from those policies. ..."
"... Empire has "'less control over its own fate than a republic,' he [Garrett] commented because it was a 'prisoner of history', ruled by fear. Fear of what? 'Fear of the barbarian.'" ..."
"... It does not matter whether the enemy is actually a barbarian. What matters is that citizens of Empire believe in the enemy's savagery and support a military posture toward him. Domestic fear drives the constant politics of satellite nations, protective treaties, police actions, and war. Foreign entanglements lead to increased global involvement and deeper commitments. The two reinforce each other. ..."
"... The fifth characteristic of Empire is not merely fear but also "vaunting." Vaunting means boasting about or praising something excessively -- for example, to laud and exaggerate America's role in the world. Fear provides the emotional impetus for conquest; vaunting provides the moral justification for acting upon the fear. The moral duty is variously phrased: leadership, a balance of power, peace, democracy, the preservation of civilization, humanitarianism. From this point, it is a small leap to conclude that the ends sanctify the means. Garrett observes that "there is soon a point from which there is no turning back .The argument for going on is well known. As Woodrow Wilson once asked, 'Shall we break the heart of the world?' So now many are saying, 'We cannot let the free world down'. Moral leadership of the world is not a role you step into and out of as you like." ..."
The Roman Empire never doubted that it was the defender of civilization. Its good intentions were peace, law and order. The Spanish
Empire added salvation. The British Empire added the noble myth of the white man's burden. We have added freedom and democracy.
-- Garet Garrett, Rise of Empire
The first step in creating Empire is to morally justify the invasion and occupation of another nation even if it poses no credible
or substantial threat. But if that's the entering strategy, what is the exit one?
One approach to answering is to explore how Empire has arisen through history and whether the process can be reversed. Another
is to conclude that no exit is possible; an Empire inevitably self-destructs under the increasing weight of what it is -- a nation
exercising ultimate authority over an array of satellite states. Empires are vulnerable to overreach, rebellion, war, domestic turmoil,
financial exhaustion, and competition for dominance.
In his monograph Rise of Empire, the libertarian journalist Garet Garrett (1878–1954), lays out a blueprint for how Empire could
possibly be reversed as well as the reason he believes reversal would not occur. Garrett was in a unique position to comment insightfully
on the American empire because he'd had a front-row seat to events that cemented its status: World War II and the Cold War. World
War II America already had a history of conquest and occupation, of course, but, during the mid to late 20th century, the nation
became a self-consciously and unapologetic empire with a self-granted mandate to spread its ideology around the world.
A path to reversing Empire
Garrett identifies the first five components of Empire:
The dominance of executive power: the White House reigns over Congress and the judiciary.
The subordination of domestic concerns to foreign policy: civil and economic liberties give way to military needs.
The rise of a military mentality: aggressive patriotism and obedience are exalted.
A system of satellite nations (vassals) in the name of collective security ;
A zeitgeist of both zealous patriotism and fear : bellicosity is mixed with and sustained by panic.
These are not sequential stages of Empire but occur in conjunction with one another and reinforce each other. That means that
an attempt to reverse Empire in the direction of a Republic can begin with weakening any of the five characteristics in any order.
Garrett did not directly address the strategy of undoing Empire, but his description of its creation can be used to good advantage.
The first step is to break down each component of Empire into more manageable chunks. For example, the executive branch accumulates
power in various ways. They include:
By delegation -- Congress transfers its constitutional powers to the president.
By reinterpretation of the Constitution by a sympathetic Supreme Court.
Through innovation by which the president assumes powers that are not constitutionally forbidden because the Framers never
considered them.
By administrative agencies that issue regulations with the force of law.
Through usurpation -- the president confronts Congress with a fait accompli that cannot easily be repudiated.Entanglement
in foreign affairs makes presidential power swell because, both by tradition and the Constitution, foreign affairs are his
authority.
Deconstructing these executive props, one by one, weakens the Empire. When all five components are deconstructing, the process
presents a possible path to dissolving Empire itself.
A sixth component of Empire
But in Rise of Empire, Garet Garrett offers a chilling assessment based on his sixth component of Empire. There is no path out.
A judgment that renders prevention all the more essential.
That was why Garrett does not deal with how to reverse the process of Empire. Once an empire is established, he argues, it
becomes a "prisoner of history" in a trap of its own making. He writes, "A Republic may change its course, or reverse it, and that
will be its own business. But the history of Empire is a world history and belongs to many people. A Republic is not obliged to act
upon the world, either to change it or instruct it. Empire, on the other hand, must put forth its power."
In his book For A New Liberty, Murray Rothbard expands on Garrett's point: "[The] United States, like previous empires, feel[s]
itself to be 'a prisoner of history.' For beyond fear lies 'collective security,' and the playing of the supposedly destined American
role upon the world stage."
Collective security and fear are intimately connected concepts. It is no coincidence that the sixth component of Empire --
imprisonment -- comes directly after the two components of "a system of satellite nations" and, "a complex of vaunting and fear."
Satellite nations
"We speak of our own satellites as allies and friends or as freedom loving nations," Garrett wrote. "Nevertheless, satellite is
the right word. The meaning of it is the hired guard." Why hired? Although men of Empire speak of losing China [or] Europe [how]
could we lose China or Europe, since they never belonged to us? What they mean is that we may lose a following of dependent people
who act as an outer guard."
An empire thinks that satellites are necessary for its collective security. Satellites think the empire is necessary for territorial
and economic survival; but they are willing to defect if an empire with a better deal beckons. America knows this and scrambles to
satisfy satellites that could become fickle. Garrett quotes Harry Truman, who created America's modern system of satellites. "We
must make sure that our friends and allies overseas continue to get the help they need to make their full contribution to security
and progress for the whole free world. This means not only military aid -- though that is vital -- it also means real programs of
economic and technical assistance."
In contrast to a Republic, Empire is both a master and a servant because foreign pressure cements it into the military and economic
support of satellite nations around the globe, all of which have their own agendas.
Garrett also emphasizes how domestic pressure imprisons Empire. One of the most powerful domestic pressures is fear. An atmosphere
of fear -- real or created -- drives public support of foreign policy and makes it more difficult for Empire to retreat from those
policies. In his introduction to Garrett's book Ex America, Bruce Ramsey addresses Garrett's point. Ramsey writes, Empire
has "'less control over its own fate than a republic,' he [Garrett] commented because it was a 'prisoner of history', ruled by fear.
Fear of what? 'Fear of the barbarian.'"
It does not matter whether the enemy is actually a barbarian. What matters is that citizens of Empire believe in the enemy's
savagery and support a military posture toward him. Domestic fear drives the constant politics of satellite nations, protective treaties,
police actions, and war. Foreign entanglements lead to increased global involvement and deeper commitments. The two reinforce each
other.
The fifth characteristic of Empire is not merely fear but also "vaunting." Vaunting means boasting about or praising something
excessively -- for example, to laud and exaggerate America's role in the world. Fear provides the emotional impetus for conquest;
vaunting provides the moral justification for acting upon the fear. The moral duty is variously phrased: leadership, a balance of
power, peace, democracy, the preservation of civilization, humanitarianism. From this point, it is a small leap to conclude that
the ends sanctify the means. Garrett observes that "there is soon a point from which there is no turning back .The argument for going
on is well known. As Woodrow Wilson once asked, 'Shall we break the heart of the world?' So now many are saying, 'We cannot let the
free world down'. Moral leadership of the world is not a role you step into and out of as you like."
Conclusion
In this manner, Garrett believed, Empire imprisons itself in the trap of a perpetual war for peace and stability, which are always
stated goals. Yet, as Garrett concluded, the reality is war and instability.
It is not clear whether he was correct that Empire could not be reversed. Whether or not he was, it is at its creation that Empire
is best opposed.
It looks like Trump initially has a four point platform that was anti-neoliberal in its essence:
Non-interventionism. End the wars for the expansion of American neoliberal empire.
Détente was Russia. Abolishing NATO and saving money on this. Let European defend themselves.
Etc.
No to neoliberal globalization. Abolishing of transnational treaties that favor large
multinationals such as TPP, NAFTA, etc. Tariffs and other means of punishing corporations who
move production overseas. Repatriation of foreign profits to the USA and closing of tax holes
which allow to keep profits in tax heavens without paying a dime to the US government.
No to neoliberal "transnational job market" -- free movement of labor. Criminal prosecution
and deportation of illegal immigrants. Cutting intake of refugees. Curtailing legal immigration,
especially fake and abused programs like H1B. Making it more difficult for people from countries
with substantial terrorist risk to enter the USA including temporary prohibition of issuing visas
from certain (pretty populous) Muslim countries.
No to the multiculturalism. Stress on "Christian past" and "white heritage" of American
society and the role of whites in building the country. Rejection of advertising "special rights"
of minorities such as black population, LGBT, etc. Promotion them as "identity wedges" in elections
was the trick so dear to DemoRats and, especially Hillary and Obama.
That means that Trump election platform on an intuitive level has caught several important problem
that were created in the US society by dismantling of the "New Deal" and rampant neoliberalism practiced
since Reagan ("Greed is good" mantra).
Of cause, after election he decided to practice the same "bait and switch" maneuver as Obama.
Generally he folded in less then 100 days. Not without help from DemoRats (Neoliberal Democrats)
which created a witch hunt over "Russian ties" with their dreams of the second Watergate.
But in any case, this platform still provides a path to election victory in any forthcoming election,
as problems listed are real , are not solved, and are extremely important for lower 90% of Americans.
Tulsi Gabbard so far is that only democratic politician that IMHO qualifies. Sanders is way too old
and somewhat inconsistent on No.1.
Frank was the first to note this "revolutionary" part of Tramp platform:
Last week, I decided to watch several hours of Trump speeches for myself. I saw the man ramble
and boast and threaten and even seem to gloat when protesters were ejected from the arenas in
which he spoke. I was disgusted by these things, as I have been disgusted by Trump for 20 years.
But I also noticed something surprising. In each of the speeches I watched, Trump spent a good
part of his time talking about an entirely legitimate issue, one that could even be called left-wing.
Yes, Donald Trump talked about trade. In fact, to judge by how much time he spent talking about
it, trade may be his single biggest concern – not white supremacy. Not even his plan to build
a wall along the Mexican border, the issue that first won him political fame.
He did it again during the debate on 3 March: asked about his political excommunication by
Mitt Romney, he chose to pivot and talk about trade.
It seems to obsess him: the destructive free-trade deals our leaders have made, the many companies
that have moved their production facilities to other lands, the phone calls he will make to those
companies' CEOs in order to threaten them with steep tariffs unless they move back to the US.
"... Now however that very same technological advancement is hollowing out blue collar jobs and even white collar jobs. ..."
"... I suspect the rich will depend more and more on robots plus a few servants to serve their needs, hence the masses of workers and consumers will no longer be needed. ..."
"... The coup that transformed the relationship between British politics and journalism began at a quiet Sunday lunch at Chequers, the official country retreat of the prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. She was trailing in the polls, caught in a recession she had inherited, eager for an assured cheerleader at a difficult time. Her guest had an agenda too. He was Rupert Murdoch, eager to secure her help in acquiring control of nearly 40% of the British press. ..."
"... the unregulated nature of neo liberalism and unrestrained greed bordering on psychopathy that rules the corporate world inexorably led to a system that is rigged and corrupt to the core. ..."
"... Politicians and the media are owned by the same corporations that set the narrative and bend the rules. How else would it be possible, in the era of ultimate access to information, in two of the most advanced countries in the world, to have election results that favor the exact parties who had no arguments and no facts on their side? ..."
"... There is no center left in the US and the UK, as far as I can tell. There hasn't been for decades. You cannot give all the tools of power (politicians that make the legislation, and media to promote the narrative) to a very tiny minority and be anything other than center right at least. Take Obama, for example, which is painted as center left, or liberal, by the US mainstream media, which is just laughable. Even if he promoted his "socialist" Obamacare (which is way less progressive than what Nixon had in mind), he's been actively promoting the same rigged system where lobbyists and corporations for big pharma can force the politicians, through the legal bribery that is the current electoral process, to ignore the will of the majority of people and abolish the ACA, as if it were never in place. Same with gun control - 90% of Americans are in favour of some sort of background checks? Eff them, the NRA lobbyists, their money and propaganda tools are easily making sure that whatever the will of the majority is, it will never get into any piece of legislation. ..."
"... Hayek was woefully ignorant to human nature. He didn't account for inherited wealth or class systems. Until these things are dismantled, it's impossible to have a genuinely free market with a natural hierarchy of winners and losers. ..."
"... Neoliberalism is the ideology of children who didn't get their needs met or suffered abuse or neglect. The more adverse child experiences one suffers, the greater the danger they pose to everyone else, and they seem to gravitate to warped belief systems where compassion or relying on others is deemed deeply shameful ..."
"... For a long time, people on the (real?) left who were denouncing the effects of ultra liberalism were seen as dangerous idealists, plain commies or immature kids. The tide seems to be slowly shifting but it will probably get worse before it gets better. ..."
"... An interesting point of view but probably too late. Trump will never dismantle neoliberalism. His rhetoric is hot air and he has no answers to the complex problems of the 21st century. ..."
"... No Trump does not have the answers that are needed to address neoliberalism. A sharp short economic collapse will not change the pathway we are all on. If we look back to the Great Depression, Hoover followed by Roosevelt shows us what is likely to transpire, there would have to be something else in the mix to bring about real change. ..."
"... In anycase Hayek's philosophies are really just an extension of what was going on during the Great Depression, the pathway to neoliberalism had it's seeds going back before this period. ..."
"... neoliberal innovation generally its also about disempowerment and ultimately rent capitalism based neo-feudal enslavement. ..."
"... Those of is who've been warning of the failure of neoliberalism in both economic and civic terms don't need convincing, and it's increasingly obvious that by defensively ignoring dissenting voices the political consensus was sowing the seeds of its own demise. Now, instead of having to work with social democrats to reinvest, to responsibly regulate, to strengthen social bonds, they have to pander to a brew breed of fascists, who they have created. ..."
"... It's not one or the other. Both globalisation and automation have taken jobs away. We exported a large amount of our manufacturing to where labour was cheaper ( far east , china etc). ..."
"... To describe Clinton as liberal, in the American tradition, is realistic, but to describe her as 'left', apart from as an opposite to far-right, makes as much sense as calling John Major or Ted Heath Marxists. ..."
Neo-liberalism has had the advantage that technological advancements have lifted the standard
of living for all up to this point. They can claim that as their win since capitalism and competition
have driven at least the retail products, distribution and take up.
Now however that very same technological advancement is hollowing out blue collar jobs
and even white collar jobs.
What to do with all those people who aren't PhD material and don't have employment and a resulting
claim of the wealth? What will be the result if there is no social democratic solution to the
dilemma?
I suspect the rich will depend more and more on robots plus a few servants to serve their
needs, hence the masses of workers and consumers will no longer be needed. Wars and famines
will be useful in reducing the population but the ruling class may have to resort to death camps
to eliminate the surplus. Violent revolution could be a response.
"We found out last Tuesday." A result more like chopping off one's collective nose to spite your
face? The difference is between looking into a sewer and out of rage jumping into it.
The coup that transformed the relationship between British politics and journalism began
at a quiet Sunday lunch at Chequers, the official country retreat of the prime minister, Margaret
Thatcher. She was trailing in the polls, caught in a recession she had inherited, eager for an
assured cheerleader at a difficult time. Her guest had an agenda too. He was Rupert Murdoch, eager
to secure her help in acquiring control of nearly 40% of the British press.
The usual tiresome drivel where anyone you disagree with is a neoliberal. Just with monbiot it's
dressed up better because he's a good writer. Just a couple of the obvious flaws:
Hayek is summarised briefly and painted as bad, so clearly everything he believed in must be
bad. There's no attempt to justify why say, free trade is bad. It's just taken as a given
Despite this, the us election was the most protectionist since the war. Clinton is owing to
populism when she knows trade is good, but trump was just a straightforward appeal to populist
anger. What this has to do with neoliberalism is anyone's guess
The climate change bit is just hilarious. Having painted the entire Clinton and Blair legacy
as neo liberal, he then claims it is neo liberals who will assault all that is decent starting
with climate change. The fact that they have constantly accepted climate change and supported
all the efforts to curb it (including Paris) is just ignored
In summary, this is the same kind of boring assault on anyone who disagrees with the article
self appointed progressive left that led to 'red tories' and other lazy labels. Trump and brexit
are populist in nature, propelled by ignorance. It doesn't make the centre left neo liberal just
because they accept the basic premise of a free market
"Hayek is summarised briefly and painted as bad, so clearly everything he believed in must
be bad. "
Must've missed that in the article. Anyway, I agree with Monbiot in what I think is the core
of the article: the unregulated nature of neo liberalism and unrestrained greed bordering
on psychopathy that rules the corporate world inexorably led to a system that is rigged and corrupt
to the core.
Politicians and the media are owned by the same corporations that set the narrative and
bend the rules. How else would it be possible, in the era of ultimate access to information, in
two of the most advanced countries in the world, to have election results that favor the exact
parties who had no arguments and no facts on their side?
How is it possible that a lot, if not a majority of Americans, think that universal healthcare
and education are bad things? How on Earth can people living in countries where the system is
so skewed that the people responsible for the 2008 depression never spent a day in jail, think
that the root of all their ills are a Mexican and a Polish chaps? How can one complain about poor
people or immigrants taking advantage of the public funding, their "hard earned money", and being
proud to support someone who admits publicly of not paying taxes for years?
How can so many people be capable of this type of mental gymnastics if the winners of this
greed contest wouldn't have twisted the system and imposed the narrative for many years?
"It doesn't make the centre left neo liberal just because they accept the basic premise of
a free market"
There is no center left in the US and the UK, as far as I can tell. There hasn't been for
decades. You cannot give all the tools of power (politicians that make the legislation, and media
to promote the narrative) to a very tiny minority and be anything other than center right at least.
Take Obama, for example, which is painted as center left, or liberal, by the US mainstream media,
which is just laughable. Even if he promoted his "socialist" Obamacare (which is way less progressive
than what Nixon had in mind), he's been actively promoting the same rigged system where lobbyists
and corporations for big pharma can force the politicians, through the legal bribery that is the
current electoral process, to ignore the will of the majority of people and abolish the ACA, as
if it were never in place. Same with gun control - 90% of Americans are in favour of some sort
of background checks? Eff them, the NRA lobbyists, their money and propaganda tools are easily
making sure that whatever the will of the majority is, it will never get into any piece of legislation.
In a summary of my own: yes, if you put in place the tools that allow a bunch of plutocrats
to corrupt a system so it always works in their favour, and most of the times against the popular
will, you ARE a red tory or a DINO.
George, Margaret Thatcher was one of your lot, wasn't she? She was one of the world's first national
leaders to stress the need for action on climate change and fight the war on coal. Here are some
extracts from her speech to the UN delivered in November 1989. It reads a lot like some of your
articles. You didn't ghost write it, did you? If not, clearly, you and Maggie drew your inspiration
from some of the same sources.
We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide reaching the atmosphere.
The annual increase is three billion tonnes: and half the carbon emitted since the Industrial
Revolution still remains in the atmosphere.
At the same time as this is happening, we are seeing the destruction on a vast scale
of tropical forests which are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air.
Every year an area of forest equal to the whole surface of the United Kingdom is destroyed.
At present rates of clearance we shall, by the year 2000, have removed 65 per cent of forests
in the humid tropical zones.[fo 3]
The consequences of this become clearer when one remembers that tropical forests fix
more than ten times as much carbon as do forests in the temperate zones.
We now know, too, that great damage is being done to the Ozone Layer by the production
of halons and chlorofluorocarbons. But at least we have recognised that reducing and eventually
stopping the emission of CFCs is one positive thing we can do about the menacing accumulation
of greenhouse gases.
It is of course true that none of us would be here but for the greenhouse effect. It
gives us the moist atmosphere which sustains life on earth. We need the greenhouse effect!but
only in the right proportions.
More than anything, our environment is threatened by the sheer numbers of people and
the plants and animals which go with them. When I was born the world's population was some
2 billion people. My [ Michael Thatcher] grandson will grow up in a world of more than 6 billion
people.
Put in its bluntest form: the main threat to our environment is more and more people,
and their activities: The land they cultivate ever more intensively; The forests they cut down
and burn; The mountain sides they lay bare; The fossil fuels they burn; The rivers and the
seas they pollute.....
Let me quote from a letter I received only two weeks ago, from a British scientist on
board a ship in the Antarctic Ocean: he wrote, "In the Polar Regions today, we are seeing what
may be early signs of man-induced climatic change. Data coming in from Halley Bay and from
instruments aboard the ship on which I am sailing show that we are entering a Spring Ozone
depletion which is as deep as, if not deeper, than the depletion in the worst year to date.
It completely reverses the recovery observed in 1988. The lowest recording aboard this ship
is only 150 Dobson units for Ozone total content during September, compared with 300 for the
same season in a normal year." That of course is a very severe depletion.
He also reports on a significant thinning of the sea ice, and he writes that, in the
Antarctic, "Our data confirm that the first-year ice, which forms the bulk of sea ice cover,
is remarkably thin and so is probably unable to sustain significant atmospheric warming without
melting. Sea ice, separates the ocean from the atmosphere over an area of more than 30 million
square kilometres. It reflects most of the solar radiation falling on it, helping to cool the
earth's surface. If this area were reduced, the warming of earth would be accelerated due to
the extra absorption of radiation by the ocean."
"The lesson of these Polar processes," he goes on, "is that an environmental or climatic
change produced by man may take on a self-sustaining or 'runaway' quality ... and may be irreversible."
That is from the scientists who are doing work on the ship that is presently considering these
matters.
These are sobering indications of what may happen and they led my correspondent to put
forward the interesting idea of a World Polar Watch, amongst other initiatives, which will
observe the world's climate system and allow us to understand how it works.
Brilliant comment Tamlin thanks for posting. I didn't realise the 'blonde beast' had such solid
environmental insights. You only have to peep over the channel to France to see Hayek and Thatcher
were on the mark, whilst Mitterrand and other statist socialists were so horribly wrong. If only
there were more politicians today that were as committed, hard working and wise as Thatcher.
Current ideas put human self-interest at dead centre but neglected to take into account how all
systems are rigged to benefit those that put them in place.
Loading the dice:
1) Capitalism. The Aristocracy were there during the transition from Feudalism
to Capitalism and barely noticed the difference as their life of luxury and leisure continued
as before. Capitalism contains a welfare state for the idle rich.
2) The monetary system. Banks create money out of nothing for loans and collect interest
on this money they magic out of thin air. Governments borrow money off private banks and taxation
has to be used to pay back the interest. The monetary system is a levy on all taxpayers.
3) The legal system. Expensive barristers provide the mechanism for the rich to increase
their chance of winning the case.
4) The education system. A two tier, private and state, education system ensures the
wealthy can give their children a better start in life.
The system is fully loaded. If we tell them it's a meritocracy and it is the best that get
to the top hopefully they will believe it. What would a meritocracy really look like?
1) In a meritocracy everyone succeeds on their own merit. This is obvious, but to succeed
on your own merit, we need to do away the traditional mechanisms that socially stratify society
due to wealth flowing down the generations. Anything that comes from your parents has nothing
to do with your own effort.
2) There is no un-earned wealth or power, e.g inheritance, trust funds, hereditary titles
In a meritocracy we need equal opportunity for all. We can't have the current two tier education
system with its fast track of private schools for people with wealthy parents.
3) There is a uniform schools system for everyone with no private schools. As
the children of the wealthy wouldn't be able to succeed on a level playing field we can't have
one.
Even when the system was fully loaded already the wealthy work tirelessly and relentlessly
to bias the system even more, they couldn't believe their luck when the ideas of neoliberalism
appeared.
The system is now so biased the IMF is worried about global aggregate demand as the global
consumer has been impoverished. The debt that papered over the cracks is maxing out and the system
is collapsing.
Any system will be biased by those that put it in place.
Left to their own devices they will carry on biasing the system until it eventually fails.
"The Marxian capitalist has infinite shrewdness and cunning on everything except matters
pertaining to his own ultimate survival. On these, he is not subject to education. He continues
wilfully and reliably down the path to his own destruction"
Seconded as a good post But I don't like the, "in a meritocracy we need equal opportunity for
all" as it too strongly suggests direct assistance and so implies idleness or entitlement. I would
prefer that: in a meritocracy no one is actively suppressed, that is everyone is given the opportunity
to try to succeed without discrimination, prejudice, funny handshakes, unmerited (not means tested)
backhanders/benefits.
Hayek was woefully ignorant to human nature. He didn't account for inherited wealth or class
systems. Until these things are dismantled, it's impossible to have a genuinely free market with
a natural hierarchy of winners and losers.
"The key task now is to tell a new story of what it is to be a human in the 21st century."
People's despair has been hijacked by demagogues and they elected the gravedigger to get them
out of a pit. As it happened so often in history. Both here and in the US, and the picture of
the unelected, private, political non-entity Farage to stage a grin-fest with Trump is unbearable.
We need to learn that we are part of something bigger which is worth preserving and we have
to come together to do this. We have to establish a circular economy where ideologies such as
captalism have no place. This goes past politics and left-right. Otherwise we have to learn this
the hard way. Our planet will force us. When the last drop of oil is pumped out of the ground,
when all the water has been polluted, when the number of wild species is reduced to rats, cockroaches,
ants and humans, when the heat is unbearable and the oceans are full of acid: Then we will learn
how to work together to preserve our species.
If we haven't blown each other up in the meantime in a fight for resources .
I worry for our children.
My sister is a generous donor to the Catholic Church. She prays for me constantly, not least because
of my libertarian leanings -- and because I am as gay as a goose, queer as an ... um, er ... Canadian
goose. Now my sister is very defensive about the Jesuit pope, who shuns Trump but embraces Castro
and Maduro. Because of culture, the words of the Ave Maria and the Credo come to me in Latin.
Hayek makes sense, but mostly because of his interplay with Keynes.
Hayek obviously made sense to Margaret Thatcher too, daughter of a shop keeper and raised a Methodist.
She was once interviewed for a job as a chemist with the company I used to work for but was rejected,
rumour had it for not being assertive enough. A talented girl with a good upbringing who became
a prisoner and ultimately victim of the establishment.
Simple dichotomies never make sense.. The oversimplification of complex issues is typical of the
self-interested media manipulation resulting from a neoliberal and uncontrolled gutter press.
Hence "Brexonomics" - a creed fueled by irrationality.
Really sorry but disagree that humans are remarkably unselfish. There are many decent , caring,
striving to help individuals. But they are vastly out numbered by those who are otherwise. Every
time somebody buys a motor vehicle they are being selfish. Almost nowhere do they need it. They
want for convenience, laziness, self- grandisemnet, something to spend their money on. But they
do not need and yet its existence and use despoils and degrades.
Every time they buy cheap fashion with clothers made essentially to be thrown away they are
selfish. Every time they copulate, without using contraception and without wanting the resulting
baby they are selfsih. Even if they want the baby, after the first two, why? They are being selfish.
Every time they invade somewhere, for oil or to impose an ideology whether capitalism or religion,
they are selfish.
That is not to say that Hayek, and acolytes Reagan, Thatcher and the endlessly greedy "people"
who propagate variations of their ideas should not have been burned at the stake. The problem
is those who are greedy and selfish are almost always more ruthless than those who are not.
I see your point and agree with it. Why should one person drastically reduce their enjoyment of
life to try to reduce global warming when their actions will have, essentially, no impact on total
CO2 emissions. But here's what can be done. Collective action where everyone agrees to limit
fossil fuel emissions. That's what national governments are for and that is what the UN was created
for - to find solutions for world wide problems.
Neoliberalism is the ideology of children who didn't get their needs met or suffered abuse
or neglect. The more adverse child experiences one suffers, the greater the danger they pose to
everyone else, and they seem to gravitate to warped belief systems where compassion or relying
on others is deemed deeply shameful
I am no psychologist, but it must be evident to most that, at the micro level, childhood trauma
and mental, physical and sexual abuse experienced at a young age within the family unit can lead
to the child intending to rebalance and repay the power imbalance in adult life, with invariably
adverse consequences for their environment and those around them.
Looking at the world today it is not hard to see the culmination of the sins of the father
over the centuries in the form of decent, hard-working people with no power struggles to redress
being subjected to endless and downright cruel, even vindictive actions and policies enshrined
into law and played out across the world stage by those who have abused power to make it to the
top.
And it is the socially disadvantaged and most vulnerable in society who have invariably suffered
the most, hence the vast inequality in wealth distribution which has gathered momentum in recent
years.
Brexit and Trump are a symptom, a reaction and a backlash to the traumatized child reclaiming
and abusing their power on a macro level.
Dogs are very social animals........and there are examples of unselfish behaviour in the dog world
with the likes of Greyfriars Bobby, Lassie etc etc....my little dog would defend me to the death
!.....rats of course are very different !!...
Kind of counter to sort of arguments I'd want to make on the subject but Grey Friars Bobby kept
visiting that graveyard because they didn't bury the paupers all that deep and the hungry wee
dog could get hold of a lot of juicy bones. Which I suppose is neo-liberalism summed up: the poorest
left so hungry they'll end up competing over the bones of the dead. Hopefully that last sentence
is metaphorical.
For a long time, people on the (real?) left who were denouncing the effects of ultra liberalism
were seen as dangerous idealists, plain commies or immature kids. The tide seems to be slowly
shifting but it will probably get worse before it gets better.
An interesting point of view but probably too late. Trump will never dismantle neoliberalism.
His rhetoric is hot air and he has no answers to the complex problems of the 21st century.
The only thing that will save us will be a short sharp economic collapse. It was narrowly
avoided in 2008 but all the seeds for another are there. If it happens on Trump or Mays watch
new voices can be heard and social democracy can regain the ascendency it had after 1945. There
needs to be pain before that and it wont be long before it arrives.
I suspect you're right. People are talking about Trump as thought this is endgame, we've hit the
bottom of the barrel and it can't get much worse. I think there's still a ways to go though before
people stop accepting that a change of management isn't enough anymore, and an economic crisis
worse than anything in living memory will most likely be the catalyst for change.
Sadly history tells us that as the political class gets more desperate, they'll start pointing
fingers of blame at just about everyone before they accept any responsibility, which means a lot
of unhappiness misdirected at a handful of tiny groups of people who are totally unconnected to
anything that they're being accused of.
No Trump does not have the answers that are needed to address neoliberalism. A sharp short
economic collapse will not change the pathway we are all on. If we look back to the Great Depression,
Hoover followed by Roosevelt shows us what is likely to transpire, there would have to be something
else in the mix to bring about real change.
In anycase Hayek's philosophies are really just an extension of what was going on during
the Great Depression, the pathway to neoliberalism had it's seeds going back before this period.
The most likely game changer at present is more than likely global warming, I see nothing else
on the horizon.
If you want to see a nefarious extension of neoliberal rentier debt economics George can I suggest
you have a close look at a new emerging threat in sheets clothing - the Circular Economy. This
isnt just about cuddly saving the planet. Like neoliberal innovation generally its also about
disempowerment and ultimately rent capitalism based neo-feudal enslavement.
The issue is how the political class which is currently being unseated can respond to this new
reality, how they are able to change or if they are able to. And subsequent to that, whether the
public will allow them to play any part. This is a non trivial issue: most politicians have grown
up with a dogmatic belief in this failed system, and our electorate are not in a forgiving mood.
Those of is who've been warning of the failure of neoliberalism in both economic and civic
terms don't need convincing, and it's increasingly obvious that by defensively ignoring dissenting
voices the political consensus was sowing the seeds of its own demise. Now, instead of having
to work with social democrats to reinvest, to responsibly regulate, to strengthen social bonds,
they have to pander to a brew breed of fascists, who they have created.
The political class is not being unseated though, is it? Its becoming more entrenched and with
a lot more power. There will be no checks and balances on "the God Emperor" Trump (as the American
Nazis are calling him).
Trump is not from the political class. He is from something much worse - the class of extreme
narcissist, hugely wealthy populists - but has minimal connections with the machinery of government.
For me the core problem, as ever, is that the messengers (the corporate owned media) tell the
majority that neoliberalism is just fine and the problem is with anyone who challenges this narrative.
This is why the anger gets twisted around with the masses voting for Brexit or Trump.
Globalisation resulted in the loss of jobs for many of the 99% and today May promises that
as a result of Brexit we will be going even more for globilisation. Things can only get worse
as the minority who understand the issue will be too few to overturn a Tory majority in a FPTP
system with opposition divided.
It is not globalisation that takes away the jobs but automation. Many of the jobs lost from America's
rust belt moved to other more highly automated factories in other States.
It's not one or the other. Both globalisation and automation have taken jobs away. We exported
a large amount of our manufacturing to where labour was cheaper ( far east , china etc).
Honestly, we are a few more elections away before the punters realize that no peaceful political
solutions are possible; expect armed insurrection in the USA by 2030 at most......
Trump insulted his opponents into defeat and humiliation. This is him from day one and his TV
series. At 70 dont expect this dog to learn new tricks. In fact he's proved time and again his
inability to learn.
No, fancy theories about neo-liberalism will not help us understand or predict his behaviour...
all we need to know is the pattern of the psychology of bullying and intimidation. One can only
hope he will drown in his own virulence
I think you are focusing on the wrong candidate. Clinton lost because we are fed up with the patronising
liberal left, who do not actually care about the people they purport to represent.
Granted, but the alternative we got is not the solution... its only a wild gamble with the Tarot
cards of Armageddon. Oh well, ours is not to reason why.. etc
To describe Clinton as liberal, in the American tradition, is realistic, but to describe her
as 'left', apart from as an opposite to far-right, makes as much sense as calling John Major or
Ted Heath Marxists.
Good article, and goes some way to explaining the economics but it doesn't quite explain the huge
ideological shift of the traditional working classes away from the political Left. I'm afraid
Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens as well as mainstream media, particularly Ch 4 and the BBC, suppressed
any criticism of multi-culturalism and immigration while blatantly ignoring, disregarding and,
far worse, actually disparaging the "white working classes." If you went into any school in this
country, the walls were/ are covered with positive images of black, Asian and ethnic minorities
and lessons encourage "sharing" and positive imagery of those cultures' faiths, food, celebrations,
all good stuff!!
Except that white working class culture has been too often excluded or portrayed
super negatively and stereotypically as fish and chip eating, white van driving, boxing, football,
racist epsilons... is it a surprise that white working class kids are now performing worse than
any other? And look at any Ch 4 programme about this cohort of society: "Benefits Street"... or
news items about Brexit supporters full of imagery of toothless people, many with obvious addiction
problems and/ or special needs and mobility scooters... I remember black people used to be horrifically
subjected to the same stereotypes. So here we have the root of the problem, which is a complete
imbalance in terms of who is officially approved and encouraged in this country and who is excluded
and degraded. The "divisiveness" is owned by the Left. The lid is now off the pot but the Left
can only blame themselves!!
The thing is that the so called "white working class" is as diverse, if not more diverse ethnically
and culturally, than any other!!
It is however, portrayed as an homogenous lump (my mum is white
working class and my dad Punjabi Muslim and most where I come from highly diverse and mixed communities)
by the political class and media to feed and agenda, which is about blaming. The "white working
class" is blamed for every perceived threat ideologically and economically - they are branded
on the one hand as inherently racist, intolerant and blaming immigrants for everything; on the
other, for being inherently lazy, uneducated and low skilled and so this narrative justifies importing
300, 000 annually from overseas... people held up against the latter "highly educated and skilled"
and "hardworking"!!
Both perspectives are in fact highly propagandist and play to stereotypes- the heroic immigrant
labourer upholding our NHS and economy vs. the lazy, stupid Brit (always white and working class)
who would prevent our country and economy progressing.
max Book is just anothe "Yascha about Russia" type, that Masha Gessen represents so vividly.
The problem with him is that time of neocon prominance is solidly in the past and now unpleasant
question about the cost from the US people of their reckless foreign policies get into some
newspapers and managines. They cost the USA tremedous anount of money (as in trillions) and those
money consititute a large portion of the national debt. Critiques so far were very weak and
partially suppressed voices, but defeat of neocon warmonger Hillary signify some break with
the past.
Notable quotes:
"... National Interest ..."
"... Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump. This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird our policies." ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. . . . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject. ..."
"... New York Observer ..."
"... National Interest ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Weekly Standard ..."
"... Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . . . Nobody is paying attention to it, " ..."
This week's primetime knife fights with Max Boot and Ralph Peters are emblematic of the
battle for the soul of the American Right.
To be sure, Carlson rejects the term
"neoconservatism,"
and implicitly, its corollary on the Democratic side, liberal internationalism. In 2016, "the reigning
Republican foreign-policy view, you can call it neoconservatism, or interventionism, or whatever you
want to call it" was rejected, he explained in a wide-ranging interview with the National Interest
Friday.
"But I don't like the term 'neoconservatism,'" he says, "because I don't even know what it means.
I think it describes the people rather than their ideas, which is what I'm interested in. And to
be perfectly honest . . . I have a lot of friends who have been described as neocons, people I really
love, sincerely. And they are offended by it. So I don't use it," Carlson said.
But Carlson's recent segments on foreign policy conducted with Lt. Col.
Ralph Peters and the prominent neoconservative journalist and author
Max Boot were acrimonious even by Carlsonian standards. In a discussion on Syria, Russia and
Iran, a visibly upset Boot accused Carlson of being "immoral" and taking foreign-policy positions
to curry favor with the White House, keep up his
ratings , and by proxy, benefit financially. Boot says that Carlson "basically parrots whatever
the pro-Trump line is that Fox viewers want to see. If Trump came out strongly against Putin tomorrow,
I imagine Tucker would echo this as faithfully as the pro-Russia arguments he echoes today." But
is this assessment fair?
Carlson's record suggests that he has been in the camp skeptical of U.S. foreign-policy intervention
for some time now and, indeed, that it predates Donald Trump's rise to power. (Carlson has commented
publicly that he was humiliated by his own public support for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.) According
to Carlson, "This is not about Trump. This is not about Trump. It's the one thing in American life
that has nothing to do with Trump. My views on this are totally unrelated to my views on Donald Trump.
This has been going since September 11, 2001. And it's a debate that we've never really had. And
we need to have it." He adds, "I don't think the public has ever been for the ideas that undergird
our policies."
Even if Carlson doesn't want to use the label neocon to describe some of those ideas, Boot is
not so bashful. In 2005, Boot wrote an essay called
"Neocons May Get
the Last Laugh." Carlson "has become a Trump acolyte in pursuit of ratings," says Boot, also
interviewed by the National Interest . "I bet if it were President Clinton accused of colluding
with the Russians, Tucker would be outraged and calling for impeachment if not execution. But since
it's Trump, then it's all a big joke to him," Boot says. Carlson vociferously dissents from such
assessments: "This is what dumb people do. They can't assess the merits of an argument. . . . I'm
not talking about Syria, and Russia, and Iran because of ratings. That's absurd. I can't imagine
those were anywhere near the most highly-rated segments that night. That's not why I wanted to do
it."
But Carlson insists, "I have been saying the same thing for fifteen years. Now I have a T.V. show
that people watch, so my views are better known. But it shouldn't be a surprise. I supported Trump
to the extent he articulated beliefs that I agree with. . . . And I don't support Trump to the extent
that his actions deviate from those beliefs," Carlson said. Boot on Fox said that Carlson is "too
smart" for this kind of argument. But Carlson has bucked the Trump line, notably on Trump's April
7 strikes in Syria. "When the Trump administration threw a bunch of cruise missiles into Syria for
no obvious reason, on the basis of a pretext that I
question . . . I questioned [the decision] immediately. On T.V. I was on the air when that happened.
I think, maybe seven minutes into my show. . . . I thought this was reckless."
But the fight also seems to have a personal edge. Carlson says, "Max Boot is not impressive. .
. . Max is a totally mediocre person." Carlson added that he felt guilty about not having, in his
assessment, a superior guest to Boot on the show to defend hawkishness. "I wish I had had someone
clear-thinking and smart on to represent their views. And there are a lot of them. I would love to
have that debate," Carlson told me, periodically emphasizing that he is raring to go on this subject.
Boot objects to what he sees as a cavalier attitude on the part of Carlson and others toward allegations
of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and also toward the deaths of citizens of other countries.
"You are laughing about the fact that Russia is interfering in our election process. That to me is
immoral," Boot told Carlson on his show. "This is the level of dumbness and McCarthyism in Washington
right now," says Carlson. "I think it has the virtue of making Max Boot feel like a good person.
Like he's on God's team, or something like that. But how does that serve the interest of the country?
It doesn't." Carlson says that Donald Trump, Jr.'s emails aren't nearly as important as who is going
to lead Syria, which he says Boot and others have no plan for successfully occupying. Boot, by contrast,
sees the U.S. administration as dangerously flirting with working with Russia, Iran and Syrian president
Bashar al-Assad. "For whatever reason, Trump is pro-Putin, no one knows why, and he's taken a good
chunk of the GOP along with him," Boot says.
On Fox last Wednesday, Boot reminded Carlson that he originally supported the 2003 Iraq decision.
"You supported the invasion of Iraq," Boot said, before repeating, "You supported the invasion of
Iraq." Carlson conceded that, but it seems the invasion was a bona fide turning point. It's most
important to parse whether Carlson has a long record of anti-interventionism, or if he's merely
sniffing the throne of the president (who, dubiously, may have opposed the 2003 invasion). "I
think it's a total nightmare and disaster, and I'm ashamed that I went against my own instincts in
supporting it," Carlson told the New York Observer in early 2004. "It's something I'll never
do again. Never. I got convinced by a friend of mine who's smarter than I am, and I shouldn't have
done that. . . . I'm enraged by it, actually." Carlson told the National Interest that he's
felt this way since seeing Iraq for himself in December 2003.
The evidence points heavily toward a sincere conversion on Carlson's part, or preexisting conviction
that was briefly overcome by the beat of the war drums. Carlson did work for the Weekly Standard
, perhaps the most prominent neoconservative magazine, in the 1990s and early 2000s. Carlson today
speaks respectfully of William Kristol, its founding editor, but has concluded that he is all wet.
On foreign policy, the people Carlson speaks most warmly about are genuine hard left-wingers: Glenn
Greenwald, a vociferous critic of both economic neoliberalism and neoconservatism; the anti-establishment
journalist Michael Tracey; Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor of the Nation ; and her husband,
Stephen Cohen, the Russia expert and critic of U.S. foreign policy.
"The only people in American public life who are raising these questions are on the traditional
left: not lifestyle liberals, not the Williamsburg (Brooklyn) group, not liberals in D.C., not Nancy
Pelosi." He calls the expertise of establishment sources on matters like Syria "more shallow than
I even imagined." On his MSNBC show, which was canceled for poor ratings, he cavorted with noninterventionist
stalwarts such as
Ron Paul , the 2008 and 2012 antiwar GOP candidate, and Patrick J. Buchanan. "No one is smarter
than Pat Buchanan," he said
last year of the man whose ideas many say laid the groundwork for Trump's political success.
Carlson has risen to the pinnacle of cable news, succeeding Bill O'Reilly. It wasn't always clear
an antiwar take would vault someone to such prominence. Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney could
be president (Boot has advised the latter two). But here he is, and it's likely no coincidence that
Carlson got a show after Trump's election, starting at the 7 p.m. slot, before swiftly moving to
the 9 p.m. slot to replace Trump antagonist Megyn Kelly, and just as quickly replacing O'Reilly at
the top slot, 8 p.m. Boot, on the other hand, declared in 2016 that the Republican Party was
dead , before it went on to hold Congress and most state houses, and of course take the presidency.
He's still at the Council on Foreign Relations and writes for the New York Times (this seems
to clearly annoy Carlson: "It tells you everything about the low standards of the American foreign-policy
establishment").
Boot wrote in 2003 in the Weekly Standard that the fall of Saddam Hussein's government
"may turn out to be one of those hinge moments in history" comparable to "events like the storming
of the Bastille or the fall of the Berlin Wall, after which everything is different." He continued,
"If the occupation goes well (admittedly a big if ), it may mark the moment when the powerful
antibiotic known as democracy was introduced into the diseased environment of the Middle East, and
began to transform the region for the better."
Though he eschews labels, Carlson sounds like a foreign-policy realist on steroids: "You can debate
what's in [the United States'] interest. That's a subjective category. But what you can't debate
is that ought to be the basic question, the first, second and third question. Does it represent our
interest? . . . I don't think that enters into the calculations of a lot of the people who make these
decisions." Carlson's interests extend beyond foreign policy, and he says "there's a massive realignment
going on ideologically that everybody is missing. It's dramatic. And everyone is missing it. . .
. Nobody is paying attention to it, "
Carlson seems intent on pressing the issue. The previous night, in his debate with Peters, the
retired lieutenant colonel said that Carlson sounded like Charles Lindbergh, who opposed U.S. intervention
against Nazi Germany before 1941. "This particular strain of Republican foreign policy has almost
no constituency. Nobody agrees with it. I mean there's not actually a large group of people outside
of New York, Washington or L.A. who think any of this is a good idea," Carlson says. "All I am is
an asker of obvious questions. And that's enough to reveal these people have no idea what they're
talking about. None."
Curt Mills is a foreign-affairs reporter at the National Interest . Follow him on Twitter:
@CurtMills .
"... Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better. ..."
"... Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'. ..."
"... It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia. ..."
"... "The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in this bashing of Trump and Putin. ..."
"... Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring - 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch. ..."
Cohen's appearance on Carlson's show last night demonstrated again at what a blistering pace public opinion in the West about
Putin and Russia is shifting, for the better.
Cohen is always good, but last night he nailed it, calling the media's coverage of Hamburg 'pornography'.
Ahh, the power of the apt phrase.
It was just a year ago, pre-Trump, that professor Cohen was banned from all the networks, from any major media outlet, and
being relentlessly pilloried by the neocon media for being a naive fool for defending Putin and Russia.
Last night he was the featured guest on the most watched news show in the country, being cheered on by the host, who has him on
as a regular. And Cohen isn't remotely a conservative. He is a contributing editor at the arch-liberal Nation magazine, of which
his wife is the editor. It doesn't really get pinker than that.
Some choice quotes here, but the whole thing is worth a listen:
"The first thing you notice is just how much the press is rooting for this meeting between our president and the Russian
President to fail. It's a kind of pornography. Just as there's no love in pornography, there's no American national interest in
this bashing of Trump and Putin.
As a historian let me tell you the headline I would write instead:
"What we witnessed today in Hamburg was a potentially historic new detente. an anti-cold-war partnership begun by Trump and
Putin but meanwhile attempts to sabotage it escalate." I've seen a lot of summits between American and Russian presidents, ...
and I think what we saw today was potentially the most fateful meeting ... since the Cold War.
The reason is, is that the relationship with Russia is so dangerous and we have a president who might have been crippled or
cowed by these Russiagate attacks ... yet he was not. He was politically courageous. It went well. They got important things done.
I think maybe today we witnessed president Trump emerging as an American statesman."
Cohen goes on to say that the US should ally with Assad, Iran, and Russia to crush ISIS, with Carlson bobbing his head up and
down in emphatic agreement.
Carlson tried to draw Cohen out about who exactly in Washington is so against Assad, and why, and Cohen deflected, demurring
- 'I don't know - I'm not an expert'. Of course he knows, as does Carlson - it is an unholy alliance of Israel, Saudi Arabia and
their neocon friends in Washington and the media who are pushing this criminal policy, who support ISIS, deliberately. But they can't
say so, because, ... well, because. Ask Rupert Murdoch.
Things are getting better in the US media, but we aren't quite able to call a spade a spade in the land of the free and the home
of the brave.
"... Until elites stand down and stop the brutal squeeze , expect more after painful more of this. It's what happens when societies come apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for "profit before people," policies that dominate the whole of the Neoliberal Era , there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently militarized "order" to entirely suppress it. ..."
"... Mes petits sous, mon petit cri de coeur. ..."
"... But the elite aren't going to stand down, whatever that might mean. The elite aren't really the "elite", they are owners and controllers of certain flows of economic activity. We need to call it what it is and actively organize against it. Publius's essay seems too passive at points, too passive voice. (Yes, it's a cry from the heart in a prophetic mode, and on that level, I'm with it.) ..."
"... American Psycho ..."
"... The college students I deal with have internalized a lot of this. In their minds, TINA is reality. Everything balances for the individual on a razor's edge of failure of will or knowledge or hacktivity. It's all personal, almost never collective - it's a failure toward parents or peers or, even more grandly, what success means in America. ..."
"... unions don't matter in our TINA. Corporations do. ..."
"... our system promotes specialists and disregards generalists this leads to a population of individualists who can't see the big picture. ..."
"... That social contract is hard to pin down and define – probably has different meanings to all of us, but you are right, it is breaking down. We no longer feel that our governments are working for us. ..."
"... Increasing population, decreasing resources, increasingly expensive remaining resources on a per unit basis, unresolved trashing of the environment and an political economy that forces people to do more with less all the time (productivity improvement is mandatory, not optional, to handle the exponential function) much pain will happen even if everyone is equal. ..."
"... "Social contract:" nice Enlightment construct, out of University by City. Not a real thing, just a very incomplete shorthand to attempt to fiddle the masses and give a name to meta-livability. ..."
"... Always with the "contract" meme, as if there are no more durable and substantive notions of how humans in small and large groups might organize and interact Or maybe the notion is the best that can be achieved? ..."
"... JTMcFee, you have provided the most important aspect to this mirage of 'social contract'. The "remedies" clearly available to lawless legislation rest outside the realm of a contract which has never existed. ..."
"... Unconscionable clauses are now separately initialed in an "I dare you to sue me" shaming gambit. Meanwhile the mythical Social Contract has been atomized into 7 1/2 billion personal contracts with unstated, shifting remedies wholly tied to the depths of pockets. ..."
"... Here in oh-so-individualistic Chicago, I have been noting the fraying for some time: It isn't just the massacres in the highly segregated black neighborhoods, some of which are now in terminal decline as the inhabitants, justifiably, flee. The typical Chicagoan wanders the streets connected to a phone, so as to avoid eye contact, all the while dressed in what look like castoffs. Meanwhile, Midwesterners, who tend to be heavy, are advertisements for the obesity epidemic: Yet obesity has a metaphorical meaning as the coat of lipids that a person wears to keep the world away. ..."
"... My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. ..."
"... The class war continues, and the upper class has won. As commenter relstprof notes, any kind of concerted action is now nearly impossible. Instead of the term "social contract," I might substitute "solidarity." Is there solidarity? No, solidarity was destroyed as a policy of the Reagan administration, as well as by fantasies that Americans are individualistic, and here we are, 40 years later, dealing with the rubble of the Obama administration and the Trump administration. ..."
"... The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good. Thus, streets, parks and public space might be soiled by litter that nobody cares to put away in trash bins properly, while simultaneously the interior of houses/apartments, and attached gardens if any, are kept meticulously clean. ..."
"... The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the public space/environment as a shared, common good. ..."
"... There *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game for commercial exploitation. ..."
"... The importance of the end of solidarity – that is, of the almost-murderous impulses by the upper classes to destroy any kind of solidarity. ..."
"... "Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief." ..."
"... "Four Futures" ..."
"... Reminds me of that one quip I saw from a guy who, why he always had to have two pigs to eat up his garbage, said that if he had only one pig, it will eat only when it wants to, but if there were two pigs, each one would eat so the other pig won't get to it first. Our current economic system in a nutshell – pigs eating crap so deny it to others first. "Greed is good". ..."
"... Don't know that the two avenues Gaius mentioned are the only two roads our society can travel. In support of this view, I recall a visit to a secondary city in Russia for a few weeks in the early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Those were difficult times economically and psychologically for ordinary citizens of that country. Alcoholism was rampant, emotional illness and suicide rates among men of working age were high, mortality rates generally were rising sharply, and birth rates were falling. Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class, and the related emergence of organized criminal networks. There was also adequate food, and critical public infrastructure was maintained, keeping in mind this was shortly after the Chernobyl disaster. ..."
Yves here. I have been saying for some years that I did not think we would see a revolution, but
more and more individuals acting out violently. That's partly the result of how community and social
bonds have weakened as a result of neoliberalism but also because the officialdom has effective ways
of blocking protests. With the overwhelming majority of people using smartphones, they are constantly
surveilled. And the coordinated 17-city paramilitary crackdown on Occupy Wall Street shows how the
officialdom moved against non-violent protests. Police have gotten only more military surplus toys
since then, and crowd-dispersion technology like sound cannons only continues to advance. The only
way a rebellion could succeed would be for it to be truly mass scale (as in over a million people
in a single city) or by targeting crucial infrastructure.
By Gaius Publius
, a professional writer living on the West Coast of the United States and frequent contributor to
DownWithTyranny, digby, Truthout, and Naked Capitalism. Follow him on Twitter
@Gaius_Publius ,
Tumblr and
Facebook . GP article archive
here . Originally published at
DownWithTyranny
"[T]he super-rich are absconding with our wealth, and the plague of inequality continues
to grow. An
analysis of
2016 data found that the poorest five deciles of the world population own about $410 billion
in total wealth. As of
June 8,
2017 , the world's richest five men owned over $400 billion in wealth. Thus, on average,
each man owns nearly as much as 750 million people."
-Paul Buchheit,
Alternet
"Congressman Steve Scalise, Three Others Shot at Alexandria, Virginia, Baseball Field"
-NBC News,
June 14, 2017
"4 killed, including gunman, in shooting at UPS facility in San Francisco"
-ABC7News,
June 14, 2017
"Seriously? Another multiple shooting? So many guns. So many nut-bars. So many angry
nut-bars with guns."
-MarianneW via
Twitter
"We live in a world where "multiple dead" in San Francisco shooting can't cut through
the news of another shooting in the same day."
-SamT via
Twitter
"If the rich are determined to extract the last drop of blood, expect the victims to
put up a fuss. And don't expect that fuss to be pretty. I'm not arguing for social war; I'm
arguing for justice and peace."
-
Yours truly
When the social contract breaks from above, it breaks from below as well.
Until elites stand down and stop the
brutal squeeze , expect more after painful more of this. It's what happens when societies come
apart. Unless elites (of both parties) stop the push for "profit before people," policies that dominate
the whole of the
Neoliberal
Era , there are only two outcomes for a nation on this track, each worse than the other. There
are only two directions for an increasingly chaotic state to go, chaotic collapse or sufficiently
militarized "order" to entirely suppress it.
As with the climate, I'm concerned about the short term for sure - the storm that kills this year,
the hurricane that kills the next - but I'm also concerned about the longer term as well. If the
beatings
from "our betters" won't stop until our acceptance of their "serve the rich" policies improves,
the beatings will never stop, and both sides will take up the cudgel.
Then where will we be?
America's Most Abundant Manufactured Product May Be Pain
I look out the window and see more and more homeless people, noticeably more than last year and
the year before. And they're noticeably scruffier, less "kemp," if that makes sense to you (it does
if you live, as I do, in a community that includes a number of them as neighbors).
The squeeze hasn't let up, and those getting squeezed out of society have nowhere to drain to
but down - physically, economically, emotionally. The
Case-Deaton study speaks volumes to this point. The less fortunate economically are already dying
of drugs and despair. If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just
remotely maybe possible they'll also aim their anger out as well?
The pot isn't boiling yet - these shootings are random, individualized - but they seem to be piling
on top of each other. A hard-boiling, over-flowing pot may not be far behind. That's concerning as
well, much moreso than even the random horrid events we recoil at today.
Many More Ways Than One to Be a Denier
My comparison above to the climate problem was deliberate. It's not just the occasional storms
we see that matter. It's also that, seen over time, those storms are increasing, marking a trend
that matters even more. As with climate, the whole can indeed be greater than its parts. There's
more than one way in which to be a denier of change.
These are not just metaphors. The country is already in a
pre-revolutionary state ; that's one huge reason people chose Trump over Clinton, and would have
chosen Sanders over Trump. The Big Squeeze has to stop, or this will be just the beginning of a long
and painful path. We're on a track that nations we have watched - tightly "ordered" states, highly
chaotic ones - have trod already. While we look at them in pity, their example stares back at us.
But the elite aren't going to stand down, whatever that might mean. The elite aren't really
the "elite", they are owners and controllers of certain flows of economic activity. We need to
call it what it is and actively organize against it. Publius's essay seems too passive at points,
too passive voice. (Yes, it's a cry from the heart in a prophetic mode, and on that level, I'm
with it.)
"If people are killing themselves in increasing numbers, isn't it just remotely maybe possible
they'll also aim their anger out as well?"
Not necessarily. What Lacan called the "Big Other" is quite powerful. We internalize a lot
of socio-economic junk from our cultural inheritance, especially as it's been configured over
the last 40 years - our values, our body images, our criteria for judgment, our sense of what
material well-being consists, etc. Ellis's American Psycho is the great satire of our
time, and this time is not quite over yet. Dismemberment reigns.
The college students I deal with have internalized a lot of this. In their minds, TINA
is reality. Everything balances for the individual on a razor's edge of failure of will or knowledge
or hacktivity. It's all personal, almost never collective - it's a failure toward parents or peers
or, even more grandly, what success means in America.
The idea that agency could be a collective action of a union for a strike isn't even on the
horizon. And at the same time, these same students don't bat an eye at socialism. They're willing
to listen.
But unions don't matter in our TINA. Corporations do.
Most of the elite do not understand the money system. They do not understand how different
sectors have benefitted from policies and/or subsidies that increased the money flows into these.
So they think they deserve their money more than those who toiled in sectors with less support.
Furthermore, our system promotes specialists and disregards generalists this leads to a population
of individualists who can't see the big picture.
Thank you Gaius, a thoughtful post. That social contract is hard to pin down and define – probably
has different meanings to all of us, but you are right, it is breaking down. We no longer feel
that our governments are working for us.
Of tangential interest, Turnbull has just announced another gun amnesty targeting guns that
people no longer need and a tightening of some of the ownership laws.
One problem is the use of the term "social contract", implying that there is some kind of agreement
( = consensus) on what that is. I don't remember signing any "contract".
I fear for my friends, I fear for my family.
They do not know how ravenous the hounds behind nor ahead are. For myself? I imagine myself the same in a Mad Max world. It will be more clear, and perception shattering, to most whose lives allow the ignoring of
gradual chokeholds, be them political or economic, but those of us who struggle daily, yearly,
decadely with both, will only say Welcome to the party, pals.
Increasing population, decreasing resources, increasingly expensive remaining resources on
a per unit basis, unresolved trashing of the environment and an political economy that forces
people to do more with less all the time (productivity improvement is mandatory, not optional,
to handle the exponential function) much pain will happen even if everyone is equal.
Each person
does what is right in their own eyes, but the net effect is impoverishment and destruction. Life
is unfair, indeed. A social contract is a mutual suicide pact, whether you renegotiate it or not.
This is Fight Club. The first rule of Fight Club, is we don't speak of Fight Club. Go to the gym,
toughen up, while you still can.
"Social contract:" nice Enlightment construct, out of University by City. Not a real thing,
just a very incomplete shorthand to attempt to fiddle the masses and give a name to meta-livability.
Always with the "contract" meme, as if there are no more durable and substantive notions of
how humans in small and large groups might organize and interact Or maybe the notion is the best
that can be achieved? Recalling that as my Contracts professor in law school emphasized over and
over, in "contracts" there are no rights in the absence of effective remedies. It being a Boston
law school, the notion was echoed in Torts, and in Commercial Paper and Sales and, tellingly,
in Constitutional Law and Federal Jurisdiction, and even in Criminal Law and Criminal Procedure.
No remedy, no right. What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social
contract," the "have-naught" halves?
When honest "remedies under law" become nugatory, there's always the recourse to direct action
of course with zero guarantee of redress
"What remedies are there in "the system," for the "other halves" of the "social contract,"
the "have-naught" halves?"
Ah yes the ultimate remedy is outright rebellion against the highest authorities .with as you
say, " zero guarantee of redress."
But, history teaches us that that path will be taken ..the streets. It doesn't (didn't) take a
genius to see what was coming back in the late 1960's on .regarding the beginnings of the revolt(s)
by big money against organized labor. Having been very involved in observing, studying and actually
active in certain groups back then, the US was acting out in other countries particularly in the
Southern Hemisphere, against any social progression, repressing, arresting (thru its surrogates)
torturing, killing any individuals or groups that opposed that infamous theory of "free market
capitalism". It had a very definite "creep" effect, northwards to the mainstream US because so
many of our major corporations were deeply involved with our covert intelligence operatives and
objectives (along with USAID and NED). I used to tell my friends about what was happening and
they would look at me as if I was a lunatic. The agency for change would be "organized labor",
but now, today that agency has been trashed enough where so many of the young have no clue as
to what it all means. The ultimate agenda along with "globalization" is the complete repression
of any opposition to the " spread of money markets" around the world". The US intends to lead;
whether the US citizenry does is another matter. Hence the streets.
JTMcFee, you have provided the most important aspect to this mirage of 'social contract'. The
"remedies" clearly available to lawless legislation rest outside the realm of a contract which
has never existed.
The Social Contract, ephemeral, reflects perfectly what contracts have become. Older rulings
frequently labeled clauses unconscionable - a tacit recognition that so few of the darn things
are actually agreed upon. Rather, a party with resources, options and security imposes the agreement
on a party in some form of crisis (nowadays the ever present crisis of paycheck to paycheck living
– or worse). Never mind informational asymmetries, necessity drives us into crappy rental agreements
and debt promises with eyes wide open. And suddenly we're all agents of the state.
Unconscionable clauses are now separately initialed in an "I dare you to sue me" shaming gambit.
Meanwhile the mythical Social Contract has been atomized into 7 1/2 billion personal contracts
with unstated, shifting remedies wholly tied to the depths of pockets.
Solidarity, of course. Hard when Identity politics lubricate a labor market that insists on
specialization, and talented children of privilege somehow manage to navigate the new entrepreneurism
while talented others look on in frustration. The resistance insists on being leaderless (fueled
in part IMHO by the uncomfortable fact that effective leaders are regularly killed or co-opted).
And the overriding message of resistance is negative: "Stop it!"
But that's where we are. Again, just my opinion: but the pivotal step away from the jackpot
is to convince or coerce our wealthiest not to cash in. Stop making and saving so much stinking
money, y'all.
and there's the Karma bec. even now we see a private banking system synthesizing an economy
to maintain asset values and profits and they have the nerve to blame it on social spending.
I think Giaus's term 'Denier' is perfect for all those vested practitioners of profit-capitalism
at any cost. They've already failed miserably. For the most part they're just too proud to admit
it and, naturally, they wanna hang on to "their" money. I don't think it will take a revolution
– in fact it would be better if no chaos ensued – just let these arrogant goofballs stew in their
own juice a while longer. They are killing themselves.
When I hear so much impatient and irritable complaint, so much readiness to replace what we
have by guardians for us all, those supermen, evoked somewhere from the clouds, whom none have
seen and none are ready to name, I lapse into a dream, as it were. I see children playing on the
grass; their voices are shrill and discordant as children's are; they are restive and quarrelsome;
they cannot agree to any common plan; their play annoys them; it goes poorly. And one says, let
us make Jack the master; Jack knows all about it; Jack will tell us what each is to do and we
shall all agree. But Jack is like all the rest; Helen is discontented with her part and Henry
with his, and soon they fall again into their old state. No, the children must learn to play by
themselves; there is no Jack the master. And in the end slowly and with infinite disappointment
they do learn a little; they learn to forbear, to reckon with another, accept a little where they
wanted much, to live and let live, to yield when they must yield; perhaps, we may hope, not to
take all they can. But the condition is that they shall be willing at least to listen to one another,
to get the habit of pooling their wishes. Somehow or other they must do this, if the play is to
go on; maybe it will not, but there is no Jack, in or out of the box, who can come to straighten
the game. -Learned Hand
Here in oh-so-individualistic Chicago, I have been noting the fraying for some time: It isn't
just the massacres in the highly segregated black neighborhoods, some of which are now in terminal
decline as the inhabitants, justifiably, flee. The typical Chicagoan wanders the streets connected
to a phone, so as to avoid eye contact, all the while dressed in what look like castoffs. Meanwhile,
Midwesterners, who tend to be heavy, are advertisements for the obesity epidemic: Yet obesity
has a metaphorical meaning as the coat of lipids that a person wears to keep the world away.
My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash: Think
Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest environmentalists.
Meanwhile, I just got a message from my car-share service: They are cutting back on the number
of cars on offer. Too much vandalism.
Are these things caused by pressure from above? Yes, in part: The class war continues, and
the upper class has won. As commenter relstprof notes, any kind of concerted action is now nearly
impossible. Instead of the term "social contract," I might substitute "solidarity." Is there solidarity?
No, solidarity was destroyed as a policy of the Reagan administration, as well as by fantasies
that Americans are individualistic, and here we are, 40 years later, dealing with the rubble of
the Obama administration and the Trump administration.
DJG: My middle / upper-middle neighborhood is covered with a layer of upper-middle trash:
Think Starbucks cups and artisanal beer bottles. Some trash is carefully posed: Cups with straws
on windsills, awaiting the Paris Agreement Pixie, who will clean up after these oh-so-earnest
environmentalists.
Yes, the trash bit is hard to understand. What does it stand for? Does it mean, We can infinitely
disregard our surroundings by throwing away plastic, cardboard, metal and paper and nothing will
happen? Does it mean, There is more where that came from! Does it mean, I don't care a fig for
the earth? Does it mean, Human beings are stupid and, unlike pigs, mess up their immediate environment
and move on? Does it mean, Nothing–that we are just nihilists waiting to die? I am so fed up with
the garbage strewn on the roads and in the woods where I live; I used to pick it up and could
collect as much as 9 garbage bags of junk in 9 days during a 4 kilometer walk. I don't pick up
any more because I am 77 and cannot keep doing it.
However, I am certain that strewn garbage will surely be the last national flag waving in the
breeze as the anthem plays junk music and we all succumb to our terrible future.
Related to this, I thought one day of who probably NEVER gets any appreciation but strives
to make things nicer, anyone planning or planting the highway strips (government workers maybe
although it could be convicts also unfortunately, I'm not sure). Yes highways are ugly, yes they
will destroy the world, but some of the planting strips are sometimes genuinely nice. So they
add some niceness to the ugly and people still litter of course.
The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population views the
public space/environment as a shared, common good. Thus, streets, parks and public space might be soiled by litter that nobody cares to put away
in trash bins properly, while simultaneously the interior of houses/apartments, and attached gardens
if any, are kept meticulously clean.
Basically, the world people care about stops outside their dwellings, because they do not feel
it is "theirs" or that they participate in its possession in a genuine way. It belongs to the
"town administration", or to a "private corporation", or to the "government" - and if they feel
they have no say in the ownership, management, regulation and benefits thereof, why should they
care? Let the town administration/government/corporation do the clean-up - we already pay enough
taxes/fees/tolls, and "they" are always putting up more restrictions on how to use everything,
so
In conclusion: the phenomenon of litter/trash is another manifestation of a fraying social
contract.
The trash bit has been linked in other countries to how much the general population
views the public space/environment as a shared, common good.
There *is* no public space anymore. Every public good, every public space is now fair game
for commercial exploitation.
I live in NYC, and just yesterday as I attempted to refill my MetroCard, the machine told me
it was expired and I had to replace it. The replacement card doesn't look at all like a MetroCard
with the familiar yellow and black graphic saying "MetroCard". Instead? It's an ad. For a fucking
insurance company. And so now, every single time that I go somewhere on the subway, I have to
see an ad from Empire Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
The importance of the end of solidarity – that is, of the almost-murderous impulses by the upper
classes to destroy any kind of solidarity. From Yves's posting of Yanis Varoufakis's analysis
of the newest terms of the continuing destruction of Greece:
With regard to labour market reforms, the Eurogroup welcomes the adopted legislation safeguarding
previous reforms on collective bargaining and bringing collective dismissals in line with best
EU practices.
I see! "Safeguarding previous reforms on collective bargaining" refers, of course, to the 2012
removal of the right to collective bargaining and the end to trades union representation for each
and every Greek worker. Our government was elected in January 2015 with an express mandate to
restore these workers' and trades unions' rights. Prime Minister Tsipras has repeatedly pledged
to do so, even after our falling out and my resignation in July 2015. Now, yesterday, his government
consented to this piece of Eurogroup triumphalism that celebrates the 'safeguarding' of the 2012
'reforms'. In short, the SYRIZA government has capitulated on this issue too: Workers' and trades'
unions' rights will not be restored. And, as if that were not bad enough, "collective dismissals"
will be brought "in line with best EU practices". What this means is that the last remaining constraints
on corporations, i.e. a restriction on what percentage of workers can be fired each month, is
relaxed. Make no mistake: The Eurogroup is telling us that, now that employers are guaranteed
the absence of trades unions, and the right to fire more workers, growth enhancement will follow
suit! Let's not hold our breath!
The so-called "Elites"? Stand down? Right.
Every year I look up the cardinal topics discussed at the larger economic forums and conferences
(mainly Davos and G8), and some variation of "The consequences of rising inequality" is a recurring
one. Despite this, nothing ever comes out if them. I imagine they go something like this:
"-Oh hi Mark. Racism is bad.
-Definitely. So is inequality, right, Tim?
-Sure, wish we could do something about it. HEY GUYS, HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT MY NEW SCHEME TO BUY
OUT NEW AND UPCOMING COMPANIES TO MAKE MORE MONEY?"
A wet dream come true, both for an AnCap and a communist conspiracy theorist. I'm by no means
either. However, I think capitalism has already failed and can't go on for much longer. Conditions
will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement or relief.
"Conditions will only deteriorate for anyone not in the "1%", with no sight of improvement
or relief." Frase's Quadrant Four. Hierarchy + Scarcity = Exterminism (From "Four Futures" )
Reminds me of that one quip I saw from a guy who, why he always had to have two pigs to eat
up his garbage, said that if he had only one pig, it will eat only when it wants to, but if there
were two pigs, each one would eat so the other pig won't get to it first. Our current economic system in a nutshell – pigs eating crap so deny it to others first.
"Greed is good".
Don't know that the two avenues Gaius mentioned are the only two roads our society can travel.
In support of this view, I recall a visit to a secondary city in Russia for a few weeks in the
early 1990s after the collapse of the USSR. Those were difficult times economically and psychologically
for ordinary citizens of that country. Alcoholism was rampant, emotional illness and suicide rates
among men of working age were high, mortality rates generally were rising sharply, and birth rates
were falling. Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful
and educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class,
and the related emergence of organized criminal networks. There was also adequate food, and critical
public infrastructure was maintained, keeping in mind this was shortly after the Chernobyl disaster.
Here in the US the New Deal and other legislation helped preserve social order in the 1930s.
Yves also raises an important point in her preface that can provide support for the center by
those who are able to do so under the current economic framework. That glue is to participate
in one's community; whether it is volunteering at a school, the local food bank, community-oriented
social clubs, or in a multitude of other ways; regardless of whether your community is a small
town or a large city.
" Yet the glue of common culture, sovereign currency, language, community, and thoughtful and
educated citizens held despite corrupt political leadership, the rise of an oligarchic class,
and the related emergence of organized criminal networks."
None of which applies to the Imperium, of course. There's glue, all right, but it's the kind
that is used for flooring in Roach Motels (TM), and those horrific rat and mouse traps that stick
the rodent to a large rectangle of plastic, where they die eventually of exhaustion and dehydration
and starvation The rat can gnaw off a leg that's glued down, but then it tips over and gets glued
down by the chest or face or butt
I have to note that several people I know are fastidious about picking up trash other people
"throw away." I do it, when I'm up to bending over. I used to be rude about it - one young attractive
woman dumped a McDonald's bag and her ashtray out the window of her car at one of our very long
Florida traffic lights. I got out of my car, used the mouth of the McDonald's bag to scoop up
most of the lipsticked butts, and threw them back into her car. Speaking of mouths, that woman
with the artfully painted lips sure had one on her
"... [Neo]liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies. It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die. ..."
"... Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump's supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working class, the refusal is unimpeachable. ..."
"... Such a [neo]liberalism becomes dependent on the very thing it opposes, with a tepid mix of neoliberal markets and multicultural morals getting much-needed spice from a terrifying right. Hillary Clinton ran hard on the threat of Trump, as if his presence were enough to authorize her presidency. ..."
"... Clinton waged this campaign on the belief that her neoliberalism of fear could defeat the ethnonationalism of the right. ..."
"... In the novel, what begins as a struggle against inherited privilege results in the consolidation of a new ruling class that derives its legitimacy from superior merit. This class becomes, within a few generations, a hereditary aristocracy in its own right. Sequestered within elite institutions, people of high intelligence marry among themselves, passing along their high social position and superior genes to their progeny. Terminal inequality is the result. The gradual shift from inheritance to merit, Young writes, made "nonsense of all their loose talk of the equality of man": ..."
"... Losing every young person of promise to the meritocracy had deprived the working class of its prospective leaders, rendering it unable to coordinate a movement to manifest its political will. ..."
"... A policy of benign neglect of immigration laws invites into our country a casualized workforce without any leverage, one that competes with the native-born and destroys whatever leverage the latter have to negotiate better terms for themselves. The policy is a subsidy to American agribusiness, meatpacking plants, restaurants, bars, and construction companies, and to American families who would not otherwise be able to afford the outsourcing of childcare and domestic labor that the postfeminist, dual-income family requires. At the same time, a policy of free trade pits native-born workers against foreign ones content to earn pennies on the dollar of their American counterparts. ..."
"... Four decades of neoliberal globalization have cleaved our country into two hostile classes, and the line cuts across the race divide. On one side, college students credential themselves for meritocratic success. On the other, the white working class increasingly comes to resemble the black underclass in indices of social disorganization. On one side of the divide, much energy is expended on the eradication of subtler inequalities; on the other side, an equality of immiseration increasingly obtains. ..."
[Neo]liberalism that needs monsters to destroy can never politically engage with its enemies.
It can never understand those enemies as political actors, making calculations, taking advantage
of opportunities, and responding to constraints. It can never see in those enemies anything other
than a black hole of motivation, a cesspool where reason goes to die.
Hence the refusal of empathy for Trump's supporters. Insofar as it marks a demand that we
not abandon antiracist principle and practice for the sake of winning over a mythicized white working
class, the refusal is unimpeachable. But like the know-nothing disavowal of knowledge after
9/11, when explanations of terrorism were construed as exonerations of terrorism, the refusal of
empathy since 11/9 is a will to ignorance. Far simpler to imagine Trump voters as possessed by a
kind of demonic intelligence, or anti-intelligence, transcending all the rules of the established
order. Rather than treat Trump as the outgrowth of normal politics and traditional institutions -
it is the Electoral College, after all, not some beating heart of darkness, that sent Trump to the
White House - there is a disabling insistence that he and his forces are like no political formation
we've seen. By encouraging us to see only novelty in his monstrosity, analyses of this kind may prove
as crippling as the neocons' assessment of Saddam's regime. That, too, was held to be like no tyranny
we'd seen, a despotism where the ordinary rules of politics didn't apply and knowledge of the subject
was therefore useless.
Such a [neo]liberalism becomes dependent on the very thing it opposes, with a tepid mix of
neoliberal markets and multicultural morals getting much-needed spice from a terrifying right. Hillary
Clinton ran hard on the threat of Trump, as if his presence were enough to authorize her presidency.
Where Sanders promised to change the conversation, to make the battlefield a contest between a
multicultural neoliberalism and a multiracial social democracy, Clinton sought to keep the battlefield
as it has been for the past quarter-century. In this single respect, she can claim a substantial
victory. It's no accident that one of the most spectacular confrontations since the election pitted
the actors of Hamilton against the tweets of Trump. These fixed, frozen positions - high
on rhetoric, low on action - offer an almost perfect tableau of our ongoing gridlock of recrimination.
Clinton waged this campaign on the belief that her neoliberalism of fear could defeat the
ethnonationalism of the right. Let us not make the same mistake twice. Let us not be addicted
to "the drug of danger," as Athena says in the Oresteia, to "the dream of the enemy that
has to be crushed, like a herb, before [we] can smell freedom."
The term "meritocracy" became shorthand for a desirable societal ideal soon after it was coined
by the British socialist Sir Michael Young. But Young had originally used it to describe a dystopian
future. His 1958 satirical novel, The Rise of the Meritocracy, imagines the creation and growth of
a national system of intelligence testing, which identifies talented young people from every stratum
of society in order to install them in special schools, where they are groomed to make the best use
possible of their innate advantages.
In the novel, what begins as a struggle against inherited privilege results in the consolidation
of a new ruling class that derives its legitimacy from superior merit. This class becomes, within
a few generations, a hereditary aristocracy in its own right. Sequestered within elite institutions,
people of high intelligence marry among themselves, passing along their high social position and
superior genes to their progeny. Terminal inequality is the result. The gradual shift from inheritance
to merit, Young writes, made "nonsense of all their loose talk of the equality of man":
Men, after all, are notable not for the equality, but for the inequality, of their endowment.
Once all the geniuses are amongst the elite, and all the morons are amongst the workers, what meaning
can equality have? What ideal can be upheld except the principle of equal status for equal intelligence?
What is the purpose of abolishing inequalities in nurture except to reveal and make more pronounced
the inescapable inequalities of Nature?
I thought about this book often in the years before the crack-up of November 2016. In early 2015,
the Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam published a book that seemed to tell as history the same story
that Young had written as prophecy. Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis opens with an evocation
of the small town of Port Clinton, Ohio, where Putnam grew up in the 1950s - a "passable embodiment
of the American Dream, a place that offered decent opportunity for all the kids in town, whatever
their background." Port Clinton was, as Putnam is quick to concede, a nearly all-white town in a
pre-feminist and pre-civil-rights America, and it was marked by the unequal distribution of power
that spurred those movements into being. Yet it was also a place of high employment, strong unions,
widespread homeownership, relative class equality, and generally intact two-parent families. Everyone
knew one another by their first names and almost everyone was headed toward a better future; nearly
three quarters of all the classmates Putnam surveyed fifty years later had surpassed their parents
in both educational attainment and wealth.
When he revisited it in 2013, the town had become a kind of American nightmare. In the 1970s,
the industrial base entered a terminal decline, and the town's economy declined with it. Downtown
shops closed. Crime, delinquency, and drug use skyrocketed. In 1993, the factory that had offered
high-wage blue-collar employment finally shuttered for good. By 2010, the rate of births to unwed
mothers had risen to 40 percent. Two years later, the average worker in the county "was paid roughly
16 percent less in inflation-adjusted dollars than his or her grandfather in the early 1970s."
Young's novel ends with an editorial note informing readers that the fictional author of the text
had been killed in a riot that was part of a violent populist insurrection against the meritocracy,
an insurrection that the author had been insisting would pose no lasting threat to the social order.
Losing every young person of promise to the meritocracy had deprived the working class of its
prospective leaders, rendering it unable to coordinate a movement to manifest its political will.
"Without intelligence in their heads," he wrote, "the lower classes are never more menacing
than a rabble."
We are in the midst of a global insurrection against ruling elites. In the wake of the most destructive
of the blows recently delivered, a furious debate arose over whether those who supported Donald Trump
deserve empathy or scorn. The answer, of course, is that they deserve scorn for resorting to so depraved
and false a solution to their predicament - and empathy for the predicament itself. (And not just
because advances in technology are likely to make their predicament far more widely shared.) What
is owed to them is not the lachrymose pity reserved for victims (though they have suffered greatly)
but rather a practical appreciation of how their antagonism to the policies that determined the course
of this campaign - mass immigration and free trade - was a fully political antagonism that was disregarded
for decades, to our collective detriment.
A policy of benign neglect of immigration laws invites into our country a casualized workforce
without any leverage, one that competes with the native-born and destroys whatever leverage the latter
have to negotiate better terms for themselves. The policy is a subsidy to American agribusiness,
meatpacking plants, restaurants, bars, and construction companies, and to American families who would
not otherwise be able to afford the outsourcing of childcare and domestic labor that the postfeminist,
dual-income family requires. At the same time, a policy of free trade pits native-born workers against
foreign ones content to earn pennies on the dollar of their American counterparts.
In lieu of the social-democratic provision of childcare and other services of domestic support,
we have built a privatized, ad hoc system of subsidies based on loose border enforcement - in effect,
the nation cutting a deal with itself at the expense of the life chances of its native-born working
class. In lieu of an industrial policy that would preserve intact the economic foundation of their
lives, we rapidly dismantled our industrial base in pursuit of maximal aggregate economic growth,
with no concern for the uneven distribution of the harms and the benefits. Some were enriched hugely
by these policies: the college-educated bankers, accountants, consultants, technologists, lawyers,
economists, and corporate executives who built a supply chain that reached to the countries where
we shipped the jobs. Eventually, of course, many of these workers learned that both political parties
regarded them as fungible factors of production, readily discarded in favor of a machine or a migrant
willing to bunk eight to a room.
Four decades of neoliberal globalization have cleaved our country into two hostile classes,
and the line cuts across the race divide. On one side, college students credential themselves for
meritocratic success. On the other, the white working class increasingly comes to resemble the black
underclass in indices of social disorganization. On one side of the divide, much energy is expended
on the eradication of subtler inequalities; on the other side, an equality of immiseration increasingly
obtains.
Even before the ruling elite sent the proletariat off to fight a misbegotten war, even before
it wrecked the world economy through heedless lending, even before its politicians rescued those
responsible for the crisis while allowing working-class victims of all colors to sink, the working
class knew that it had been sacrificed to the interests of those sitting atop the meritocratic ladder.
The hostility was never just about differing patterns in taste and consumption. It was also about
one class prospering off the suffering of another. We learned this year that political interests
that go neglected for decades invariably summon up demagogues who exploit them for their own gain.
The demagogues will go on to betray their supporters and do enormous harm to others.
If we are to arrest the global descent into barbarism, we will have to understand the political
antagonism at the heart of the meritocratic project and seek a new kind of politics. If we choose
to neglect the valid interests of the working class, Trump will prove in retrospect to have been
a pale harbinger of even darker nightmares to come.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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<img alt="Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us" src="//cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/191121180252-20191121-fractured-states-religious-leaders-large-169.jpg"> Faith could bring us together. But too often it divides us Younger evangelicals, those under 45, have been slowly but steadily moving away from Trump during the past two years or so, unhappy about his example. A key topic that has driven them away is immigration. Loving your neighbor as yourself has always been a bedrock Christian value. And Trump's stance on immigrants (especially those of color) has upset the younger generation of evangelicals, with two-thirds of them saying in surveys that immigrants strengthen our country, bringing their work ethic and talents with them from Mexico or Central America or Syria. Climate change is another issue that has caught the imagination of younger evangelicals. "I can't love my neighbor if I'm not protecting the earth that sustains them and defending their rights to clean water, clean air, and a stable climate," Kyle Meyaard-Schaap, a national organizer for Young Evangelicals for Climate Action, told Grist . Needless to say, Trump's contempt on this subject grates badly on these young Christians. Perhaps naively, Americans have always looked to the presidency for exemplary moral behavior, and when there are obvious personal or moral failures, as with Nixon and Clinton, there is disappointment, even anger. But if you're a Christian -- and I lay claim to this for myself -- you understand that it's human to fail at perfect behavior. There is always forgiveness. And, as T.S. Eliot wrote, "Humility is endless."
By Jeffrey D Sachs November 8, 2019
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