Trickle down Economics, Disaster Capitalism = Insanity January 22, 2008
Posted by proudprogressive in Disaster Capitalism, Politics, politcal economy, progressive values, socialism.Tags: Bush is a Murderous fuckwit, capitalism, Disaster Capitalism, free market, greed
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What is the definition of insanity ? Some say its doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Hmm. Well during the last 35 yrs 400 years, America has meddled aggressively in the economies of developing nations. Our government has sent teams of people, trained in the radical free market theories of Milton Friedman to assist multiple puppet dictators in divesting their own economies for the benefit of marauding Free Marketeers, investment banks, the infamous money changers (the International Monetary Fund IMF, and the World Bank). Without exception each time this was done, as Naomi Klein documents in her book , The Shock Doctrine, the people of these nations, experienced extreme pain. Well dear readers, the chickens are coming home to roost.What goes around comes around, Karma is a bitch, The delusion of “American exceptional-ism” is about to get shocked out of its fixed false beliefs.
*Today multiple sources including the New York Times and Truth Out, Michael Grynbaum and John Holusha report, that despite the Feds making a 0.75 rate cut, the Market is still plummeting. The “shocks” are now being felt around the global markets in statistics not seen since Sept 11th 2001. Paul Krugman’s latest piece Debunks Reaganomics. While these policies are not new, its time we understand the history of disaster capitalism, (which is really all capitalism) it’s effects on other countries and now on ours, connect the dots. It seems now, other nations are taking advantage of our very weak dollar, and buying up our resources at “firesale rates”. Who will suffer most ? Not the CEOs, nor the economic elite, nor some investors. No it will be the workers, labor, anyone with a 401K, mom and pop, recent HS or college grads, and all our social service and safety net programs. In short, WE the people, US PEASANTS, will bear the brunt of what is upon us.
*The Middle Class of the 20th Century now awaits the history books, how it disappeared, and volumes will be written on “why?”. What we see before us, is a hologram,sustained by precarious debt. (indeed history does repeat itself)
Will, we the people, labor, taxpayers, ever get the lesson ? Can we focus on the oppressive economic system, not the ( shiney object) wedge issues ?
[...] Trickle down Economics, Disaster Capitalism = Insanity What is the definition of insanity ? Some say its doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Hmm. Well during the last 35 yrs 400 years, America has meddled aggressively in the economies of developing nations. Our government has sent teams of people, trained in the radical free market theories of Milton Friedman to assist multiple puppet dictators in divesting their own economies for the benefit of marauding Free Marketeers, investment banks, the infamous money c [...]
The last round of major US economic reforms took place during the Great Depression. Perhaps the current recession will provide an impetus for people to wake up.
well its timely, got an email petition from moveon.org about the “stimulus package” Congress is mulling over, and i knew just what i wanted em to do. AND TOLD EM SO : Fund worker owned factories,and businesses, with low cost loans, fill every empty mill and factory, etc..legalize industrial hemp ,start on sustainable energy products, create a strong public service sector again. Yeppers ..enough is enough. Its time to get a taste of the bitter medicine we bestowed on others, and look to the democratic socialists for some answers..Free unfettered markets work for NO ONE but the Robber Barons. (and what escapes most people is that our very government in the way it currently functions is quite SOCIALIST only its the CORPORATIONS that get all the goodies and bail outs)
Bush and his too little too late economic package, will do nothing to stop our downward economy. The Fed has been putting a band aid on Bush problem for years and now there are no band aids big enough for the hemorrhage.
Lack of economic understanding, without greed, seems to be a Bush family issue. Bush 41 had his S&L family scam and 43 has his sub prime scam. I’m sure there’s a family connection somewhere in there.
BTW: Glad you finally made it to WordPress.
This is just another veiled step in the march to give the world the coming Bush Depression.
In disaster Capitalism, they intend to have devistating depressions , hyper inflation..its quite maniacal really, its all in the Doctrine of the Chicago School of Economics. And the winners of the so called “stimulus package” will be the venture capitalists. Thats the way it is done, that is what they are doing..All of Chimpy’s pretty talk is just that – something to prevent mass hysteria. But he can talk all he wants. Math is a pretty precise science. The numbers can only be manipulated so far. Anyone who ever had to balance income with “out go” knows that.
re earlier thread you were looking for Parachute Club MP3.
I haven’t found that, but i did find 3 videos of them
http://www.spike.com/artist/488496?cmpnid=800&lkdes=VID_2791404
oh wow thank you Adam !!!! i will check it out immediately..its that song Rise Up my ears are craving. Viva la Raza …! Bless your heart thank you so much. And hey don’t be a stranger..pull up a chair , in the “new house” and did i say THANK YOU !!!!!!?
There’s a whole raft of things wrong with modern economic theory, and it’s this which has led to the current crash.
However, it can all be summed-up by examining it’s basic premise, which says that man is essentially selfish, and greedy, but that this is moderated by rational mental process which inform the individual that co-operation yields better results.
Now they will argue that that is essentially an old assumption based on an earlier ecominic theory which proved to be false, but in fact it is the same but with a bit of tinkering.
According to this theory markets will regulate themselves (in the long run) becuase failure to regulate will lead to serious instability which harms everyone. It also concludes that instability will be the inevitable result of goverment interference in the markets for various reasons.
You should not need to be a genius to spot the obvious flaws in the basic assumption.
The most obvious flaw is that human beings will behave rationally. In fact rational behaviour is as rare in human beings as any other creature that inhabits this planet. The simple fact is that human behavior is governed primarily by instinctive drives, not by reasoned thought. These insticts often exhibit themselves as emotions, but they are instincts just the same.
Human beings co-operate not because they realise intelectually that his is a good thing to do, but because it is a natural behaviour for a social animal. If human beings do not co-operate in families or tribes they simply die of hunger, or predation. Wolves co-ordintate their hunting behaviour, and live in organised packs without having to sit down and consider whether it is better to cooperate than to compete.
In extreme cirunstances where food for example is scarce then it pays to be alpha male of female in the pack, as you get priority of resources, which makes competition within the group for that position important, but it is not a guiding principle. Wolves are not continually out to do each other in, and once the pecking order is established they cooperate as a whole.
Wolves are one example. Cooperation is seen in may species, and none can be said to be thinking it through.
So the notion that the primary human drive is greed cannot be correct. Cooperation does not arise out of rational moderation of greed.
But we do see greed. Why? Well for the same reason wolves have pack leaders. It’s beneficial when times are tough, so we all have a degree of self-interest. We should not forget of course that within any selection of people (or animals) the various characteristics we exhibit will vary form one individual to the next. One will be more altruistic, another more greedy and so-on.
Also it is related to ‘distance’. One is more likely to cooperate with a family member for example than a total stranger. This explaind the tendency for the extremely rich to isolate themselves from the general polulace. It helps them maintain their greed! It is a method of cheating their altruistic instinct, in effect a justification for their greed.
There is another serious flaw. That is that it is impossible for any individual or even group of individuals to perform the sort of mental calculation rquired to determine their best choice in a given situation. There are too many variables, and too many ways of combining them, too many possible outcomes, and besides you do not have all the information required. The best you can do is make an educated guess. So it is not possible to make the rational descisions required. Certianly not on an individual basis.
All we can go on is our instinctive gut reaction. Again instinct makes the descision.
So what about economics?
Well base any theory on a false premise it is bound to be wrong. So modern economic theory is wrong. No two ways about it.
In fact the theory says that the way human beings behave (and therefore businesses) is so divorced form reality, that if we ever meet a human being who behaves that way in reality we consider them menatlly ill. In many cases dangerously so. And we are right to do so, because that person is a phycopath with schizophrenic tendencies. You really would not want to turn your back on such a person.
But that’s the way we expect businesses to be run, and that’s the way govenments’ think they should be run.
Why is this the case?
There’s a phrase in science to describe a thoery so badly founded they are described as ‘Not Even Wrong’. This reflect the idea that a theory can be so bad as to be eqaully impossible to disprove as prove. Beyond that is the obvious absurdity of the original premise!
But it’s not the impossibility of disproof that makes this economics so attractive, it is a combintion of two things.
First it is possible to create mathemetical models from this theory. Ones which say how an ecomomy should behave given a particular situation. That’s because we ‘know’ how the components of the system each individaully behave. Greedily but rationally!
This is of course a very attractive thing. Now if it goes wrong you can prove you wee doing the right thing. The math told you that’s the right way to handle the situation. Perfect for politicians.
Second, it justifies greed. Of course the very greedy, love this theory. It makes what they do not only acceptable, but desirable. Of course individuals who are already partway phsycopath (and it’s more common than you think) are already somewhere near the top of the pile. Who, let’s face it, would want to be in a position of such responsibility that the wrong descision has th epotential for great harm to a large number of your fellow humans? Well someone who cared less about that, than the prestige of such a position. A phsycopath fits the bill nicely!
Take a look at the history of royal politics in europe for example. The behaviour of the kings etc was trully appalling by ordinary standards. Henry VIII was not atypical, and he had wives heads cut off for no greater crime than failing to give birth to a son! Others would quite happily do away with a brother, or cousin if they got in their way. Think mafia.
That tells you something about the sort of person who will rise to power given the chance. Ruthless, greedy, sef-interested, and cunning. Such a theory is obvioulsy hugely attractive to such a person.
Third, it ducks responsibility. It makes govenrment for example an easy job. In fact it makes a lot of difficult probelms easy. For exampe, how to manage the ecmomy? Answer: Don’t. The ecomony will take care of itself.
In effect it says a goverment which does nothing does the right thing.
(Now that rings a bell somewhere. Something about how for evil to triumph, all that is necesary is for the good to do nothing. In other words good needs to be nurtured, while evil takes care of itself.)
If that’t the case why on earth do we have goverment at all. Why don’t we simply allow everything to take care of itself? Because we know that does not work!
Roads do no build themselves. Ok roads can be build and owned privatley, but who is going to pay for them? Does this gurantee roads where they are needed, or just where somone makes a profit?
In the UK we used to have publicly organised bus services. They weren’t owned in many cases by the local town corportaion, but in many case they were. In all cases the local town councils licenced the operation, and thi sdepended on certian routes being run and a mimimum leve of service. So that was not always profitable financially. So the services were subsidised. But you could get where you wanted with relative ease, and low expense at the point of use. In other words it worked.
Modern ecomomics says that is wrong. It says that the bus company that makes no profit is inefficient. It does not maximise profit. Now we have privately run bus companies. Some work after a fashion, but with greatly reduced services, and more expensive to use.
Why?
Well it’s easy to make more money out of a bus company. Close the less profitable routes, and put up the fares. People have to use the bus so they will pay. More efficient, right. Until people who are no longer getting a service they need buy a used car. Then fewer people use that route and less profit is made. You stop that service, or charge so much that buying a car is cheaper. Then you stop the service. And so on.
In some towns the situation is ridiculous. For example Manchester has dozens of small bus compamies, owning one of two buses, all competing for the same passengers on the profitable city centre routes. The result is ten or more buses standing on the street waiting to fill up, and clogging trafic flow in the town centre.
Of course the capital city has publicly owned buses still, and an underground railway system. Why, becuase it needs it, and because the alternatives do not work.
So when put to the test even just with public transport services, desite trotting out the ‘private good public bad’ mantra, they won’t let it get in the way of the effective running of the capital. If it applies to the capital why not any other large city?
Sheer bloody minded slavery to this insane dogma of modern ‘free market economics’ works no better for other important services. Such as banking.
First we need to ditch the false economics which assumes we are all insane, and insists that all econimic activity is, and should be governed by an unatural doctrine. One which mother nature herself rejected as inneficient. Very few species behave that way, even those that apparently do have instincive linitations to sheer greed. (Such as establishing territorial boundaries. Even agressive solitary predators such as the tiger.)
Second we need to recognise that some thongs are too important to allow to run themseves completely. Especially we should guard against allowing them to be run by the greed principle. For example bankers salaries in the top positions should be very carefully monitorerd. Capped if necesary.
Very strict rules regarding trading practices and information are also very important. Why for example were sub-prime mortgages considered a good investment? Who knows, but the big problem was a false assumtion about property values. One that said they will always go up. That breaks all rules of common sense, but the economists said it was OK, so that’s all right then. Of course the economists were saying that based on a badly flawed theory!
In this case the solution would be simple. Reduce house price increases. You can do that several ways. Increase interst rates. (Not really a good idea. It’s a blunt tool at best.) Better still, build houses out of tax money. OK more taxes, at leas in the firs instance, but houses last a long time. And earn rent. In the long term zero cost.
Won’t that make house prices fall? Yes, but only if the prices were artifically high in the first place. You’ve all heard about negative equity? (Or at least we have over here.) The house is not worth the price you agreed to pay for it, so selling it will never recoup the money spent buying it. So what? It never would. You won’t ever see the interest payments back, not unless the price increases faster than the interest rates, and that’s a sign that something is seriously wrong somewhere. And guess what….
Of course though the really insane bit is this.
In order to fix the problem guess what they are doing? That’s right, more of the same, only that now they let goverment intervene to prop-up a way of doing things which does not work!
Indeed and thank you for your very thoughtful comment.
There are alturnative economic structures vs. Chicago School free market run wild capitalism. However what we must come to grips with is that the power elite the Uber rich sell us all a bill of false premises and conflations particularly in the usa
they want to conflate Capitalism with freedom and freedom with democracy and upon closer inspection – one can have freedom without Capitalism, and freedom in fact more civil liberties under systems that are considered socialist by some. Its time to re envision esp here in the usa what socialism is and can be – we are a huge country and the permenent underclass created by capitalism , is growing larger – this is not healthy for our country at all.
and yes they are doing more of the same – it doesn’t work and repeating it is insane – but who benefits ? why the uber wealthy of course who run our politicians.
There are many simple common sense solutions but our politicians make money off of “controversial issues” for example if we simply legalized Industrial Hemp – every factory would be unshuttered – the job creation would be quantum. But those in power insist on being regressive – who benefits ? why those in power of course, who loses, labor , the working people of this country whose real wages have not gone up in decades while CEOs make obscene amounts of money.
again thank you for your thoughtful comment. If one looks at our history , the jingoism , the idea that the usa is exceptional in some way , when in fact its NOT, it is no different from any other over extended empire through out time – we can see the end results as social chaos is purposefully induced through the Shock Doctrine our culture will become more and more regressive and a very unpleasant place to live in –
i call us a fascist Oligarchy – people delude themselves if they think we are truly free and truly democratic – it is simply not the case upon closer inspection – but like the buddhist saying goes – give an Ox a big enough pasture and it thinks its free. In america too many imagine we are free , its a illusion , if not a delusion.