Potholes...

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chlamor
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Potholes...

Post by chlamor » Fri Nov 17, 2017 4:02 pm

Originally posted on 11/16/2008

Potholes...

I am not kidding...

Unemployment, by the old method of calculation, has already topped 10%. By early next year, it will be above 15%. 60 million people are now estimated to be without health-care coverage of any type, and upwards of 5 million people will start to run out of unemployment benefits around Christmas. Mortgage defaults are accelerating and are now joined by defaults in other kinds of consumer debt while real estate prices continue to fall, credit remains frozen and interest rates refuse to fall despite a 1% prime rate. Meanwhile, retirement accounts have been nearly halved by the current crisis and upwards of 12 million people have no way to retire at all under the current conditions.

In response, one of the most amazing resurrections in modern history is taking place. Keynes is back. Shot, stabbed, burned, choked, hung, electrified and drawn and quartered... finely diced into a thousand pieces and buried at a thousand different grave plots... exorcised more thoroughly than old Rasputin himself... yet, the old carcass RISES, little worse for the wear... and this overnight, literally at the first hint of trouble in the freedom-loving-freedom-giving-free-as-heck markets.

"We are all Keynesians now...", said Richard Nixon famously at the beginning of his presidency and at the first brush with real crisis, they are all Keynesians once again. Bernanke, Paulson, the Grey beards of Wall Street, even Bush himself (apologizing that "unusual times call for unusual methods") openly adopt the old creed. "I was wrong", says Alan Greenspan, who now openly admits to "shocked disbelief" at the progression of the crisis. The oxymoron of Libertarian economics is as quickly abandoned as is the silliness of supply side doctrine. Deregulation and laissez-faire are forgotten. Keynesian monetary policy plus 2 trillion dollars of bank bailouts are the result.

Is that it?

Not to worry. In the interim, the new government of "Hope" is being assembled. The realities of politics require that it govern from the “center” (just as those same realities required that it talk from the “center”, and primary from the “center”, and run for election from the “center”). Nevertheless, the “economics” of the University of Chicago are left behind, along with Reverend Wright. The new government will be “center” Keynesian: competent regulation of the Bush bailouts, the extension of the bailouts to the auto industry (and, perhaps others), a new “stimulus” package, extended unemployment benefits, and jaw-boning the Europeans.

Is that all?

Well, it is a “living” program and… The transition team nervously eyes the “real” Keynesians and the radical left.

Finally, finally, finally… the “real” Keynesians are heard from. The “Nobel” economist and neo-Keynesian, Joseph Stiglitz, writes a feature article for the November, 2008 issue of Vanity Fair, hardly an academic journal. The piece begins, “When the American economy enters a downturn, you often hear the experts debating whether it is likely to be V-shaped (short and sharp) or U-shaped (longer but milder). Today, the American economy may be entering a downturn that is best described as L-shaped. It is in a very low place indeed, and likely to remain there for some time to come. Virtually all the indicators look grim.”

Stiglitz then goes on to explain, in excruciating detail, the depth of the crisis and the indictment of the usual suspects responsible for it. By the time he gets to his prescription, the reader is expecting John Maynard himself to materialize. In a finale entitled, “What Is To Be Done”, the echoes, not just of Keynes, but of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy and Cherneshevsky and even Lenin could be invoked.

Instead: “… there are ways of thoughtfully shaping policy that can walk a fine line and help us get out of our current predicament. Spending money on needed investments—infrastructure, education, technology—will yield double dividends. It will increase incomes today while laying the foundations for future employment and economic growth. Investments in energy efficiency will pay triple dividends—yielding environmental benefits in addition to the short- and long-run economic benefits.

The federal government needs to give a hand to states and localities—their tax revenues are plummeting, and without help they will face costly cutbacks in investment and in basic human services. The poor will suffer today, and growth will suffer tomorrow. The big advantage of a program to make up for the shortfall in the revenues of states and localities is that it would provide money in the amounts needed: if the economy recovers quickly, the shortfall will be small; if the downturn is long, as I fear will be the case, the shortfall will be large.”

Of all of it, only “infrastructure” and state and local “investment” have any immediate impact at all, and that by way of a “trickle down” more obscure than Reagan could ever have dared. The Keynesian New New Deal is filling potholes?

What the fuck?

What about CCC and NRA and FERA and RFC and AAA and PWA and TVA and an Economic Bill of Rights? Come to think of it, forget all that. What about jobs, debt forgiveness, an end to evictions, nationalization of strategic industries, prosecution of economic criminals, guaranteed retirement accounts and the immediate elimination of two thirds of the defense budget?

Potholes?

The newly “Nobel” economist and neo-Keynesian, Paul Krugman, travels the circuit of all of the major news shows last week. The implicit criticism of the coming Obama administration is already apparent. What is needed is not just an immediate stimulus but a “massive” one, as much as another $600 billion. Where should it go? “Infrastructure”, channeled primarily through Public Works projects stalled for lack of funding.

Pork plus potholes…

Naomi Klein spoke at the Miami Book Fair today. Economic reality filled the hall and shaped the conversation of shocking economic crisis. After the most radical criticism of the current powers that be, Klein turned to her proposals, to be achieved by pressuring the Obama administration. She stated categorically that every crisis was also an “opportunity”. She reported approvingly of the Gordon Brown Labor government who, through negotiating “pressure”, forced the bailout-needy British banks to pay a 10% dividend, versus the 5% that the corrupt U.S. treasury got from its petitioners. Anything else? “Infrastructure.”

Pressure plus potholes…

Bernie Sanders, Teddy Kennedy, Tom Hartmann, John Kerry, Rachel Maddow, Russ Feingold, Henry Waxman, Warren Buffet, Randi Rhodes, Bill Richardson, John Conyers, Ralph Nader, Cynthia McKinney, Dennis Kucinich…

Fucking potholes.

And that is it… all of it.

Original thread here:

http://www.thebellforum.net/Bell2/www.t ... ml?t=48524

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blindpig
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Re: Potholes...

Post by blindpig » Sat Nov 18, 2017 3:06 pm

for emphasis, post #32
I agree with Mike on this but let me take a stab at a practical answer. There isn't any magic here, and it is always the same, no matter what you are doing. The basic principle is, "talk, talk, study, study, fight, fight, repeat" (hah... sounds like a "little red book" chant, doesn't it?). To break it down:

"talk, talk" - find a friend, maybe three, and talk about the shit that is going on right now. The web won't do it - it is good for other things. Meet in person regularly - once a week, maybe twice - and don't confuse it with a sociable purpose (Bowling Night or whatever). As you get comfortable talking, grow... grow to ten or twelve people - whatever makes sense and then split and make two groups. Do it again and don't worry at all about "national affiliation" or the rest of that silliness.

"study, study" - "Study" don't mean readin' arcane, "Marxist" material or anything like that (which you will do on your own anyway if you have a taste for it). Sometimes "Marxist" material is terrific but not as a forced fit. The purpose is to develop an angle of attack on the shit you have been talking about. Read out loud, and talk about it. Read newspapers, read PopIndy, read anything... you will get better focused later.

"fight, fight" - You talked in order to study the situation, and you studied in order to fight... nothing more. The fight will come to you. The present circumstances dictate that. If you live in Chicago, it's not hard to know what to do. If on the other hand, you are in South Slipshod, Alabama and absolutely, positively nothing is goin' on, then it is time to form the "South Slipshod League to Stop Foreclosures" or whatever. It will come to you...

Consider if this thing in Chicago went on for a while, which it probably won't do but it could. You form the "South Slipshod Support Committee for Republic Workers". You call up the UE Local in Chicago and ask them how they want you to raise money and support. You then make a list of every Union Local in your town and you ask each of them to speak at their next union meeting about "aid". Churches next... You get the idea. You will suck the first time out but the questions make you better and now you know every Union Local and every real progressive organization in your town. Now you can escalate from "support" to local shit. "The fight" doesn't mean go directly to jail... but... that's not so bad either, especially after the first time.

Now you "repeat". No "fight" is worth a damn unless you get to "talk" about it before, during, and after... and especially after. That includes the most ruthless "self-criticism", more "study" to fill in the gaps and basic understanding, and then back at it again.

It's a snap... and it becomes second nature.

Stick to class shit - Proletarian Issues. There is a depression on and anything too far afield is a major diversion. Don't get stuck, don't get blue, don't hit your head against a wall... just start.
that is how the work gets done
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

Allen17
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Re: Potholes...

Post by Allen17 » Wed Nov 22, 2017 10:24 pm

If any of y'all have any contacts with any SF Bay Area radicals (or radical groups) worth a shit, lemme know.

(Obviously there are a lot of "radicals" here (and by here I mean the Oakland/Berkeley area - not where I am) but most of them aren't what I'd call...useful or helpful people.)

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blindpig
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Re: Potholes...

Post by blindpig » Mon Mar 19, 2018 1:00 pm

blindpig wrote:
Sat Nov 18, 2017 3:06 pm
for emphasis, post #32
I agree with Mike on this but let me take a stab at a practical answer. There isn't any magic here, and it is always the same, no matter what you are doing. The basic principle is, "talk, talk, study, study, fight, fight, repeat" (hah... sounds like a "little red book" chant, doesn't it?). To break it down:

"talk, talk" - find a friend, maybe three, and talk about the shit that is going on right now. The web won't do it - it is good for other things. Meet in person regularly - once a week, maybe twice - and don't confuse it with a sociable purpose (Bowling Night or whatever). As you get comfortable talking, grow... grow to ten or twelve people - whatever makes sense and then split and make two groups. Do it again and don't worry at all about "national affiliation" or the rest of that silliness.

"study, study" - "Study" don't mean readin' arcane, "Marxist" material or anything like that (which you will do on your own anyway if you have a taste for it). Sometimes "Marxist" material is terrific but not as a forced fit. The purpose is to develop an angle of attack on the shit you have been talking about. Read out loud, and talk about it. Read newspapers, read PopIndy, read anything... you will get better focused later.

"fight, fight" - You talked in order to study the situation, and you studied in order to fight... nothing more. The fight will come to you. The present circumstances dictate that. If you live in Chicago, it's not hard to know what to do. If on the other hand, you are in South Slipshod, Alabama and absolutely, positively nothing is goin' on, then it is time to form the "South Slipshod League to Stop Foreclosures" or whatever. It will come to you...

Consider if this thing in Chicago went on for a while, which it probably won't do but it could. You form the "South Slipshod Support Committee for Republic Workers". You call up the UE Local in Chicago and ask them how they want you to raise money and support. You then make a list of every Union Local in your town and you ask each of them to speak at their next union meeting about "aid". Churches next... You get the idea. You will suck the first time out but the questions make you better and now you know every Union Local and every real progressive organization in your town. Now you can escalate from "support" to local shit. "The fight" doesn't mean go directly to jail... but... that's not so bad either, especially after the first time.

Now you "repeat". No "fight" is worth a damn unless you get to "talk" about it before, during, and after... and especially after. That includes the most ruthless "self-criticism", more "study" to fill in the gaps and basic understanding, and then back at it again.

It's a snap... and it becomes second nature.

Stick to class shit - Proletarian Issues. There is a depression on and anything too far afield is a major diversion. Don't get stuck, don't get blue, don't hit your head against a wall... just start.
that is how the work gets done
Shamelessly bumping my own post but at least it ain't my content. This oughta be inscribed somewhere.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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blindpig
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Re: Potholes...

Post by blindpig » Tue May 05, 2020 4:47 pm

And here we go again. Even as I type the liberal press is filling with calls to Keynesian schemes, programs, outlook, morality...but I think, dear friends, that we have seen this movie before and it really will be worse this time.
"There is great chaos under heaven; the situation is excellent."

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