I agree that both parties are responsible. I was also there in the 1980s. But, at present, the ordinary member Democrats are the only hope to restore a fair sharing of the economy with the middle and working classes. So I focus on that party.
That's been tried in US politics again and again, and again - the corporate genocide religious scoundrels of the PMC org known as "Democrats" wave the shredded banner of the dead 30's New Deal as they kill any and all progressive movements before they get a chance to breathe, and the fourth party Greens say the same delusional nonsense about challenging in a Citizens United world of totalitarian corporate ownership.
This year should have killed off the last hopes of the reformers in US electoral politics, but some people can't give up childish fantasies, and will go listen to an old man from a tiny bantustan say the same speech over and over.
Movements that arise from lack of hope are the only place where "resistance" will meet the road, and those will only come, sadly, from collapse.
Oh fuck off, you lame-ass Trotsky wanna be. The Great Depression was much worse than where we are now, and we got out of it with REFORM-RADICAL reform- not these pathetic stoned college freshman fantasies of “collapse”. Your blood-thirst is grotesque, narcissistic, and just plain dumb. Grow up, Comrade Strelkov.
In 2000, Bill Clinton was responsible for giving the People's Republic of China 'most favored nation' status (regarding international trade). He said China had promised lots of good things. Pro-trade people agreed. But immediately afterward, US manufacturing jobs cratered. Why did Clinton agree to cut tariffs on imports of PRC goods?
It should be noted — in fact, I think its very important to do so — that most of the New Deal banking/finance policies were just a continuation of what the USA had since the 1830s and in come cases since the beginning of the country, it was constant it ebbed and flowed, the New Deal was just a new “flow” period, I think its very important to note this because its shows just how radical the advent of the Neoliberal Era was, it wasnt another “ebb” period, it outright dismantled them.
Also, it should be noted that while the New Deal did introduce several social programs, most what people think of when they think of the welfare state came later. And regards to the operation of the governmental structures and the real economy itself, the New Deal 1930’s USA remained a politically, economically, governmentally, and scientifically decentralized system with democratic governance structures….
not a bad effort but BOTH parties are complicit and the real deregulation and destruction of the middle classes began during the 1980s. I was there. The democrats whored themselves out to corporations during the 1990s.
"Inequality" waters down the enormity of the crime. It's not just mere semantics.
With that out of the way, as I see it, and I watched as it was happening in real time for my entire life, the GOP had a lock on big campaign donations from Big Pollution (AKA fossil fuels, especially oil), Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Insurance.
All that remained for the Democrats was Wall Street and Madison Avenue.
Rather than "economic theories", they relied on their big donors for "advice". Clinton's and Obama's treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Timothy Geitner, both Wall Street Big Wigs. Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan continued to be in a position to commit more economic crimes as Fed Chair.
Thanks to the successful propaganda of the "Reagan Revolution", the Democratic party, along with the rest of the country, lurched to the right (or more accurately, to the wrong).
"A key term that has deceived many members of the Democratic Party is the claim by its leaders to be ‘centrists’."
"Centrists tend to be liberal on social policies but, as I will demonstrate, are Reagan level conservative on financial policies, in particular low taxes on the rich and deregulation of the banks."
Yes! Thank you! This has been grating on my nerves for decades now. Thank you for identifying it so concisely.
I have to take contention with the notion that "trickle down" was ever considered a legitimate "theory". It wasn't. Ever. It was, is, and always will be, a blatant lie, and its purveyors knew it, and I for one feel totally "trickled on". While corpulent corporate executives got their golden parachutes, the rest of us got the golden showers.
"The best way to keep the salaried classes from winning the class war, is to make sure they never realize there is a class war."
And then accuse the salaried classes of "class war" if we complain about it.
The architects of "Project 2025" understood that by instituting a dizzying array of "policy", be it executive order or bureaucratic fiat, it would keep everyone sufficiently off balance to take any meaningful action to stop this coup d'état.
I really got a lot from reading this. Thanks for making it understandable for someone who is a non-economist. I will definitely subscribe. We are in a class war…the tech bros, Trump and his minions, and folks like Koch, et al are trying to frame it as a culture war, but it is definitely a class war. As I’ve commented on other posts, A US or Global version of the Russian Revolution could very well be in our future.
No question the aristocrat class is framing their class war as a culture war, but if we're to be really honest, the Democratic politicians being paid off by Wall St. are obliging by waging culture war themselves. To the detriment of us all.
The same pattern has emerged in the uk and germany: people used to be able to support a family and own a home in one income but now find it difficult to afford rent.
I recommend the trading game by gary mckinnon and his youtube channel.
Basically his thesis is that if you tax passive income less than earned income, over a long period of time the rich small majority end up owning everything and reshaping the economy to suit them. Everyone else gets to suck it up.
In the uk this means house ownership gets less possible and access to good education/ dentistry etc for the non wealthy slowly reduces. This is happening.
They once did that and were successful. Will they do it in the future, the odds are against it. I see barriers, the first is the wealthy who influence the Democratic Party, such as Michael Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon to mention just a few, then those who want to be rich. Among those I include Clinton and Obama. They surrounded themselves with super rich advisors and were rewarded. When they entered the presidency they had an average net worth. Shortly after exiting, they were worth some 40 million. But the other barrier is among the rank-and-file who still believe the Democratic Party and Obama/Biden types are concerned about the working class. I'm starting to deal with these on my next series. But, also, the odds against reform always seem impossible. Isn't that what every reformer faced? What did it look like to Stanton and Mott who decided that women should get the vote?
Then, after making comments that certainly sound like you believe that they can once again become the party of the working class ("they once did that"), you criticize "the rank-and-file who still believe the Democratic Party ... are concerned about the working class."
I see at least for the purpose of discussion the Democratic Party divided into two parts, an elite who took control of the Democratic Party starting in 1970 and were influenced by neoliberalism and the ordinary members who have concern for the working class. But these ordinary members wrongly believe the Democratic Party is still focussed on helping the working class. So I think the hope is showing them how the Democratic Party changed beginning in the 1970s.
And both the Democrats and Republicans supported policies that helped a fairer distribution of the GDP to the working classes from the second term of FDR until Jimmy Carter let in the ideas of neo liberalism. That was just the thin edge of the wedge. Taxes were still high on the rich, over 70% until Reagan and neoliberalism got its full implementation.
You may be right about the difference between the elite of the Democratic Party and the ordinary members. I haven't been in the Democratic Party for decades and I'm not familiar with its inner working any more.
However, how is it possible that everyone else in the country sees what a plague ship the Democratic Party has become but yet these "ordinary members" can't see it?
I'm going to start sounding like those people who ask why the battered wife doesn't just leave.
I agree with your assessment 100%. I have one long time friend who's been involved in the social justice movement all her life and taught courses in that area in California. She's my test case. I am astounded that she has complete faith in Clinton, Obama and Biden, and rejects the progressives saying she doesn't like Bernie Sanders because he's always so angry.
From my perspective in Canada, the progressives are 100 years behind most G7 countries. We've had complete Medicare for all for that long and our students have very manageable student debt, if any. When I was teaching, my student said they could pay their debt off within three years. And America can't do it!
I agree that both parties are responsible. I was also there in the 1980s. But, at present, the ordinary member Democrats are the only hope to restore a fair sharing of the economy with the middle and working classes. So I focus on that party.
That's been tried in US politics again and again, and again - the corporate genocide religious scoundrels of the PMC org known as "Democrats" wave the shredded banner of the dead 30's New Deal as they kill any and all progressive movements before they get a chance to breathe, and the fourth party Greens say the same delusional nonsense about challenging in a Citizens United world of totalitarian corporate ownership.
This year should have killed off the last hopes of the reformers in US electoral politics, but some people can't give up childish fantasies, and will go listen to an old man from a tiny bantustan say the same speech over and over.
Movements that arise from lack of hope are the only place where "resistance" will meet the road, and those will only come, sadly, from collapse.
Oh fuck off, you lame-ass Trotsky wanna be. The Great Depression was much worse than where we are now, and we got out of it with REFORM-RADICAL reform- not these pathetic stoned college freshman fantasies of “collapse”. Your blood-thirst is grotesque, narcissistic, and just plain dumb. Grow up, Comrade Strelkov.
Your comment would be worth a look, but the immature way that you express yourself makes it unworthy of being interesting.
Both parties are responsible, but the MAGA Republicans said no mas. The Democrats are demanding a return to the status quo!
Now that is some funny shit. Way to smack those keys. Keep Hope Alive!
Here are my thoughts on the causes of unaffordable housing in earlier draft chapters with workable solutions. They will be updated.
1. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/this-is-all-part-of-a-long-standing-trend-as-inequality-in-the-united-states-increases-the-5edb1eb48f29
2. https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/the-single-family-residence-now-an-instrument-of-inequality-e4b0ea40df81
Right off the bat, you said what I've been thinking for a long time:
"The GDP gives a false assessment of the state of a nation’s economy."
I think this is true of all aggregate measures, GDP being the most egregious.
I agree but I am focusing on aspects of domestic issues for which I can propose solutions and on which few, if any, are writing about.
Not true. MMT economists are addressing it, but you know nothing about MMT.
I think you're on to something.
Very insightful! I have a post about Rubin's role in preserving executive pay https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/ceo-pay-explodes-again-why-all-attempts-to-stop-it-have-failed-e3d43cdfbb22 and Geithner's role in defeating help to the home owners (HAMP): https://janweirlaw.medium.com/who-did-it-in-2008-94a3fac01667 Both are being substantially rewritten and will be reposted. That influence you describe extends to most government departments, especially the DOJ. See my posts on Boeing.
And what about Obama bailing out the banks in 2008 (the banks that caused the 2007-2008 housing crisis) and not the homeowners?
That is exactly my next series starting here: https://janweirlaw.medium.com/how-wall-street-sabotaged-the-democratic-party-989f08b9c3ca
In 2000, Bill Clinton was responsible for giving the People's Republic of China 'most favored nation' status (regarding international trade). He said China had promised lots of good things. Pro-trade people agreed. But immediately afterward, US manufacturing jobs cratered. Why did Clinton agree to cut tariffs on imports of PRC goods?
Because the "people" (according to Citizens United) who greased his palm with big campaign donations "advised" him to.
It should be noted — in fact, I think its very important to do so — that most of the New Deal banking/finance policies were just a continuation of what the USA had since the 1830s and in come cases since the beginning of the country, it was constant it ebbed and flowed, the New Deal was just a new “flow” period, I think its very important to note this because its shows just how radical the advent of the Neoliberal Era was, it wasnt another “ebb” period, it outright dismantled them.
Also, it should be noted that while the New Deal did introduce several social programs, most what people think of when they think of the welfare state came later. And regards to the operation of the governmental structures and the real economy itself, the New Deal 1930’s USA remained a politically, economically, governmentally, and scientifically decentralized system with democratic governance structures….
Surely the postwar period of growth was at least partly a result of the "exorbitant privilege" of the dollar.
not a bad effort but BOTH parties are complicit and the real deregulation and destruction of the middle classes began during the 1980s. I was there. The democrats whored themselves out to corporations during the 1990s.
First, thank you for important work you're doing. It's imperative that the methods and tactics of the oligarchy be exposed.
Second, I prefer to use "iniquity" rather than "inequality" (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/iniquity).
"Inequality" waters down the enormity of the crime. It's not just mere semantics.
With that out of the way, as I see it, and I watched as it was happening in real time for my entire life, the GOP had a lock on big campaign donations from Big Pollution (AKA fossil fuels, especially oil), Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Insurance.
All that remained for the Democrats was Wall Street and Madison Avenue.
Rather than "economic theories", they relied on their big donors for "advice". Clinton's and Obama's treasury secretaries Robert Rubin and Timothy Geitner, both Wall Street Big Wigs. Meanwhile, Alan Greenspan continued to be in a position to commit more economic crimes as Fed Chair.
Thanks to the successful propaganda of the "Reagan Revolution", the Democratic party, along with the rest of the country, lurched to the right (or more accurately, to the wrong).
"A key term that has deceived many members of the Democratic Party is the claim by its leaders to be ‘centrists’."
"Centrists tend to be liberal on social policies but, as I will demonstrate, are Reagan level conservative on financial policies, in particular low taxes on the rich and deregulation of the banks."
Yes! Thank you! This has been grating on my nerves for decades now. Thank you for identifying it so concisely.
I have to take contention with the notion that "trickle down" was ever considered a legitimate "theory". It wasn't. Ever. It was, is, and always will be, a blatant lie, and its purveyors knew it, and I for one feel totally "trickled on". While corpulent corporate executives got their golden parachutes, the rest of us got the golden showers.
"The best way to keep the salaried classes from winning the class war, is to make sure they never realize there is a class war."
And then accuse the salaried classes of "class war" if we complain about it.
The architects of "Project 2025" understood that by instituting a dizzying array of "policy", be it executive order or bureaucratic fiat, it would keep everyone sufficiently off balance to take any meaningful action to stop this coup d'état.
Ok, my babbling diatribe is done.
I really got a lot from reading this. Thanks for making it understandable for someone who is a non-economist. I will definitely subscribe. We are in a class war…the tech bros, Trump and his minions, and folks like Koch, et al are trying to frame it as a culture war, but it is definitely a class war. As I’ve commented on other posts, A US or Global version of the Russian Revolution could very well be in our future.
No question the aristocrat class is framing their class war as a culture war, but if we're to be really honest, the Democratic politicians being paid off by Wall St. are obliging by waging culture war themselves. To the detriment of us all.
Please read From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr Gene Sharp
Glad to have found you! Will share this to next week’s roundup.
The same pattern has emerged in the uk and germany: people used to be able to support a family and own a home in one income but now find it difficult to afford rent.
I recommend the trading game by gary mckinnon and his youtube channel.
Basically his thesis is that if you tax passive income less than earned income, over a long period of time the rich small majority end up owning everything and reshaping the economy to suit them. Everyone else gets to suck it up.
In the uk this means house ownership gets less possible and access to good education/ dentistry etc for the non wealthy slowly reduces. This is happening.
I agree and have a section on tax coming.
Spot on
"Every previous civilization has been destroyed by the unequal distribution of wealth and power."
-- Henry George, "Progress and Poverty"
If only the modern left listened to him instead of Karl Marx. You don't have to destroy religion, the nation, and the family to obtain equality.
Have you ever read Karl Marx?
I read the Communist Manifesto. I hated it.
By "reading Karl Marx," I meant reading Das Kapital, in translation of course.
I should have made myself clear from the beginning.
Including this in my This Week in Income Inequality round-up.
We are in agreement on this point ,"The path forward for the Democrats is to advocate for anything and everything that benefits the working class".
You really think that the Democrats are going to do that? How much are you willing to bet?
They once did that and were successful. Will they do it in the future, the odds are against it. I see barriers, the first is the wealthy who influence the Democratic Party, such as Michael Bloomberg and Jamie Dimon to mention just a few, then those who want to be rich. Among those I include Clinton and Obama. They surrounded themselves with super rich advisors and were rewarded. When they entered the presidency they had an average net worth. Shortly after exiting, they were worth some 40 million. But the other barrier is among the rank-and-file who still believe the Democratic Party and Obama/Biden types are concerned about the working class. I'm starting to deal with these on my next series. But, also, the odds against reform always seem impossible. Isn't that what every reformer faced? What did it look like to Stanton and Mott who decided that women should get the vote?
"They once did that" When was that? 1929?
They haven't done it in the last 50 years.
Then, after making comments that certainly sound like you believe that they can once again become the party of the working class ("they once did that"), you criticize "the rank-and-file who still believe the Democratic Party ... are concerned about the working class."
Which is it?
You're not consistent.
I see at least for the purpose of discussion the Democratic Party divided into two parts, an elite who took control of the Democratic Party starting in 1970 and were influenced by neoliberalism and the ordinary members who have concern for the working class. But these ordinary members wrongly believe the Democratic Party is still focussed on helping the working class. So I think the hope is showing them how the Democratic Party changed beginning in the 1970s.
And both the Democrats and Republicans supported policies that helped a fairer distribution of the GDP to the working classes from the second term of FDR until Jimmy Carter let in the ideas of neo liberalism. That was just the thin edge of the wedge. Taxes were still high on the rich, over 70% until Reagan and neoliberalism got its full implementation.
You may be right about the difference between the elite of the Democratic Party and the ordinary members. I haven't been in the Democratic Party for decades and I'm not familiar with its inner working any more.
However, how is it possible that everyone else in the country sees what a plague ship the Democratic Party has become but yet these "ordinary members" can't see it?
I'm going to start sounding like those people who ask why the battered wife doesn't just leave.
I agree with your assessment 100%. I have one long time friend who's been involved in the social justice movement all her life and taught courses in that area in California. She's my test case. I am astounded that she has complete faith in Clinton, Obama and Biden, and rejects the progressives saying she doesn't like Bernie Sanders because he's always so angry.
From my perspective in Canada, the progressives are 100 years behind most G7 countries. We've had complete Medicare for all for that long and our students have very manageable student debt, if any. When I was teaching, my student said they could pay their debt off within three years. And America can't do it!