If not Capitalism... then What? And, How?

[sidd]

Very good article on the historical development of capitalism and why the USA may now, for the first time be at a disadvantage in attracting capital. I do not agree will everything in the article, but it is certainly thought provoking and I shall have to reread it carefully, perhaps more than once.

"capitalism in Europe, and eventually capitalism in the world today, the world of states that compete for power, influence, prestige and position relative to one another, is one in which states must compete with each other to have access to capital, to mobile capital."

"the US state negotiated from a position of relative strength compared with the states of Europe in relation to mobile international capital."

" the corporation is an organization to permit the capitalist class collectively to dominate the American economy."

" in response to the growing power of workers, and declining rates of profit, capitalists withdraw investment from production, and the Reagan Administration and the Federal Reserve lead a move toward an alliance with finance capital."

"The Debt Crisis allows the Reagan administration to use the International Monetary Fund, after Reagan’s chief economist there, Ann Kreuger, fires all of the Keynesian economists, to impose on the countries of the world the policies we today associate with neoliberalism. "

"If we see the world that enslavement to mobile capital is creating, if we see that nothing will be spared, nothing will have value in the eyes of shareholders, holders of mobile capital, except the enlargement of their capital ..."

" national pensions, like our Social Security are not just money, not just accounting tricks. Not just numbers. They are forms of solidarity between generations."

" a long historically pattern noted by Giovanni Arrighi, in which capital, searching for political protection by a strong state for its mobile capital and investments, supports a hegemonic, leading power – like Britain in the 19thcentury and the US in the 20th– but now which may be abandoning its longtime relationship to the United States. "

"The interests of the US as a country, and as a government, and those of finance and of mobile capital increasingly do not coincide anymore ..."

Read the whole thing:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/12/24/capitalism-in-the-united-states-and-in-europe/

sidd

[sidd]

In another thread, i noticed some confusion of the role of asset, debt, banking and money creation in modern economies. Here is a good primer.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy-long-run-data-annex.xls

sidd

[gerontocrat]

The Journal "The Anthropocene Review" want 36 bucks to view this article. They can get lost.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2053019618820350

Over the horizon: Exploring the conditions of a post-growth world

authors
Timothy Crownshaw, Caitlin Morgan, Alison Adams, ...
First Published December 25, 2018 Review Article 
https://doi.org/10.1177/2053019618820350
Article information
 Article has an altmetric score of 13   No Access
Abstract
Maintaining steady growth remains the central goal of economic policy in most nations. However, as evidenced by the advent of the Anthropocene, the global economy has expanded to a point where limits to growth are appearing. Facing the end of growth requires a careful re-examination of plausible future conditions. We draw on a diverse literature to present an interdisciplinary exploration of post-growth conditions in the areas of climate change, ecological impacts, governance, and education, finding that such conditions may invalidate many prevalent assumptions regarding the future. The post-growth world, while subject to significant uncertainty and heterogeneity, will be characterized by profound hazards and discontinuities for both human and natural systems. Furthermore, we argue that an economic paradigm change will be predicated on an involuntary and unplanned cessation of growth. This implies a necessary strategic expansion of the heterodox economic discourse to formulate appropriate responses in view of likely post-growth realities.

Keywords Anthropocene, degrowth, heterodox economics, limits to growth, post-growth conditions, sustainable societies

[johnm33]

In another thread, i noticed some confusion of the role of asset, debt, banking and money creation in modern economies. Here is a good primer.

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy.pdf

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/-/media/boe/files/quarterly-bulletin/2014/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy-long-run-data-annex.xls

sidd

The next step is to realise that there really is only one bank and that the debt you take on is the ammunition that it uses in the warfare it conducts against society/humanity/nations, all for the common good of course.

[sidd]

Meyer interviews Blyth on the crisis of globalized capitalism:

"you’ve got a very, very strange world that we haven’t experienced before. One in which you’re going to have [structurally] low interest rates because there’s no inflation to combat. Then you’ve got a world in which labour markets [can have] full employment but it does nothing for wages, which means sustaining and perhaps making worse the inequalities that are already there. Then in product markets you have a winner-takes-all dynamic, whereby quasi-monopolists get monopoly rents and everybody else [gets to return to perfect] competition."

"what we’ve run across the world during the globalisation era is a kind of meritocracy. A meritocracy is people like you and people like me, and people who are slightly different from us but nonetheless went to the same universities and studied the same courses. We get to run everything and we become the technocratic class. The technocratic class really has nothing to do with the rest of society. We send our kids to the same schools. We read the same newspapers. We have the same social habits. We’re a kind of transnational class. I was part of this. I saw it emerging."

"Now, you’ve got everybody else who lives a very different life, where wages aren’t rising. The real-term costs are going up. The politicians are telling them ‘There’s no inflation’ but it seems that the cost of everything nonetheless is going up for them in real terms. And there’s a disconnect between the two."

"The first thing neoliberalism did, in a sense, was to globalise labour markets and thereby render labour’s ability to command its share of national income obsolete."

"you’ve destroyed the labour-market cartels. You’ve destroyed the product-market cartels. You’ve globalised everything. What’s the point of the existing parties? They don’t really have one. They were there to stabilise structures that no longer exist. Which is why they’re strangely clueless about what’s going on."

"what people are crying out for is a vision, a reason to believe in something."

"What they actually want is someone to explain to them why, if global warming is so important, they have to pay through their wallets, through a diesel tax, when people that own yachts seem to get off scot-free. What they need is somebody to explain to them why it is that inequality has got so out of whack and our politics is run by the very people who are sitting at the top of the pile pulling the strings of the politicians. They’re not stupid. We think they’re reading ‘fake news’. They’re not. They’re just looking for an alternative account, because they don’t believe a word that comes out of our mouths anymore."

"what populism has going for it is the notion of sovereignty."

"The populists come to power in Italy ... So you’ve now got people in charge who said: ‘Screw them all. We will change everything.’ And they’re not going to change anything. What does that do to democracy and people’s faith in democracy?"

"You will have more populism. More collapse of the centre-left going on, because it won’t be able to reconfigure itself in any important way."

"More of these people will get into power and they will fail. And I really worry about that, because when they fail we could say: ‘Well, good, because they’re all idiots and they’ve got stupid policies.’ Yes, but what does that do to the public’s faith in democracy? Because they’re basically saying: ‘You can vote for the radical alternatives and you still don’t get to change anything.’ "

"if you’re waiting for a bunch of superannuated, septuagenarian social democrats to save your arse start looking elsewhere."

Read the whole thing:

https://www.socialeurope.eu/crisis-of-globalisation-mark-blyth

sidd

[etienne]

The link is very interesting, it’s a good analysis, but doesn’t bring any solution. In Italy, there was a new party (5 stars) that is seen as populist, and in France it is « La Republique en Marche », but it is somehow new people doing always the same thing, it really is what he says, populist won’t be able to change anything, but I believe that new parties also won’t change anything.

I believe that the only solution is a boycott of unfair products, because I believe that the way we spend our money is the only power we have left, and it is what ended apartheid. I like saying that we can’t buy tax free products, but we can buy income tax free products (many international companies use tax heavens to avoid income taxes), and we should try to avoid it because it means that we support people cheating with our countries.

[sidd]

Re: the way we spend our money is the only power we have left

That is a powerful action, but it is framed in the context of markets and capitalism. What we see is a rejection of markets and capitalism as unquestioned gods. And that is even more powerful.

sidd

[sidd]

MMT expounded by Lesnick: Money is no object

"Today, after four hours of effort, a typical worker has produced enough value to cover her own salary. The rest of the day the worker produces wealth that he or she never sees. The capitalists keep this surplus and call it profit."

"Ever since humans could produce more in a day than they could consume, our history can be understood as little more than the struggle over who controls the monumental surplus wealth produced by the 99%."

"Government spending has to precede any tax collection"

"This is exactly how our military is funded. Though it benefits primarily the military-industrial complex and the top 1%, the military budget is increased every year without raising any new taxes to cover it. They just print more money. "

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt understood all of this. When his administration passed the original Social Security legislation, it included a new payroll tax – a paycheck deduction working people are all too familiar with today."

FDR: "We put those pay roll contributions there so as to give the contributors a legal, moral, and political right to collect their pensions and their unemployment benefits. With those taxes in there, no damn politician can ever scrap my social security program. Those taxes aren’t a matter of economics, they’re straight politics."

Ruml (NYFRB): " The public purpose which is served should never be obscured in a tax program under the mask of raising revenue."

"The real limiting factors are labor and natural resources. "

"unemployment is  completely unnecessary. "

"What if too many dollars are added to the economy despite the best oversight and policy intentions? Simple. Extract some money from the economy with taxes. But not just any taxes. As we have seen, the only just taxes are those that reinforce worthy political policy, such as taxing the wealthiest to reduce income inequality."

"Elaborate means are used today to make it appear that the government must rely on funding from outside sources rather than simply printing its own money. Our government has outsourced this crucial function to the Federal Reserve. Created in 1913, ostensibly to rationalize currency nationally, the Federal Reserve is a gift to the big banks and the richest of the rich. While the U.S. government could generate interest-free money whenever it wants, the oligarchs controlling our government have instead privatized this function, handing it off to a consortium of for-profit banks. These banks add money to the economy by issuing loans, and then charge fees and interest to the government. It’s a classic sinecure and wealth transfer scheme. The effortless task of adding numbers to a ledger to create money has been handed off to powerbrokers in the private sector. This enriches the powerful at the expense of the public, with no benefit to the public for the expense incurred. "

Read the whole thing:

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/11/money-is-no-object/

sidd

[Sigmetnow]

... then Sharing.  And Kindness.

Restaurants across the country are feeding furloughed government workers for free

This isn't the first time Richard Skorman and his wife, Patricia Seator, are offering free food during a government shutdown.

The couple have co-owned Poor Richard's restaurant in downtown Colorado Springs since the early 1990s and have done their part to help struggling workers each time the federal government has come to a halt.
...
"It's something we like to do because people are really struggling financially, working paycheck to paycheck. Government workers are often not making huge amounts of money and they really appreciate it," Skorman said.

He said customers have included federal employees from all kinds of positions -- airport security agents, employees from the forest service, homeland security and food stamp office. So far, he said the restaurant has served more than four dozen families and they've all expressed great appreciation. ...

https://www.wbaltv.com/article/hundreds-of-government-employees-aren-t-getting-paid-so-restaurants-across-the-country-are-feeding-them-for-free/25828155

[johnm33]

Catherine Austin Fitts addresses whats going on behind the smokescreen.

[SteveMDFP]

Catherine Austin Fitts addresses whats going on behind the smokescreen.

Of course, she didn't actually explain anything.  All I could discern was a lot of acronyms, scary-sounding figures, dire predictions -- and a clear message that she was selling subscriptions to her newsletter.

[sidd]

What Fitts is worked up about is guidance published by Federal Accounting Standards Advisory Board (FASAB) titled "Statement of Federal Financial Accounting Standards 56, Classified Activities"

http://files.fasab.gov/pdffiles/sffas_56_nr.pdf

This allows the feds to conceal classified spending by keeping two sets of books. The fake ones are for public disclosure. Taibbi has a writeup:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/secret-government-spending-779959/

Guess too many people were following the money and asking awkward questions.

sidd

[sidd]

Interview at intercept with Zuboff on surveillance capitalism:  "your private experience as raw material"

“Digital connection is now a means to others’ commercial ends,”

"They don’t want to sell raw material, they want to collect all of the raw material on earth and have it as proprietary. They sell the value added on the raw material."

"bald-faced interventions in the exercise of human autonomy ... the “right to the future tense.” . the very material essence of the idea of free will ... "

" “Shoshana, do you really want to get in the way of organizing and making accessible the world’s information?” It took me a few minutes to realize she was reciting the Google mission statement. "

"derive from a fundamental premise that’s illegitimate: that our private experience is free for the taking as raw material."

" If we’re gonna fix this, no matter how much we feel like we need this stuff, we’ve got to get to a place where we are willing to say no."

Read the whole thing:

https://theintercept.com/2019/02/02/shoshana-zuboff-age-of-surveillance-capitalism/

sidd

[sidd]

Two articles about GM from wsws: 11.8 billion in profits, screws the workers

"These giant profits were announced as GM accelerates it plans to shut five factories in the US and Canada and destroy more than 14,000 jobs."

"Since 2015, GM squandered $10.6 billion on stock buybacks to boost the value of the company’s shares, more than doubleFar from fighting the plant closings, the UAW and the Unifor union in Canada have actively supported the decimation of autoworkers’ jobs and living standards.  the $4.5 billion GM is expected to save next year from the job cuts."

"Far from fighting the plant closings, the UAW and the Unifor union in Canada have actively supported the decimation of autoworkers’ jobs and living standards. "

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/07/pers-f07.html

Meanwhile, Lordstown stares at destitution:

 “We gave all the concessions, and the company got all this money, and now they are closing the plants. Everybody knows the union is working with the company. They don’t fight for us.”

"One in every six people in the three-county Mahoning Valley area faces hunger"

"If you don’t have jobs, you get drugs and guns. "

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/02/07/lord-f07.html

sidd

[sidd]

Barker at n+1 on Volcker and the great bloodletting:

"In Akron, the commercial blood bank reduced the prices it would pay by 20 percent due to the glut of laid-off tireworkers lining up to bleed."

"a price index doesn’t have a spine or a seam; the broken bodies and rent garments of the early 1980s belonged to people. Reagan economic adviser Michael Mussa was nearer the truth when he said that “to establish its credibility, the Federal Reserve had to demonstrate its willingness to spill blood, lots of blood, other people’s blood.”  "

" This was the practical embodiment of Milton Friedman’s idea that there was a natural rate of unemployment, and attempts to go below it would always cause inflation ... there need to be millions of unemployed workers for the economy to work as it should."

" Events like these helped deliver the coup de grâce to the ambitious third world politics of the 1970s, exemplified by the call for a New International Economic Order "

“Volcker was selected because he was the candidate of Wall Street. This was their price, in effect.”

"Volcker says “the most important single action of the [Reagan] administration in helping the anti-inflation fight” was defeating the air traffic controllers’ (PATCO) strike in 1981, when Reagan fired and permanently replaced ten thousand government workers and arrested their leaders. The show of force had “a psychological effect on the strength of the union bargaining position on other issues—whatever the issues were.” He was right: in 1979, twenty-one million Americans belonged to a union; in 2003, despite substantial growth in the workforce, the number was down to just under sixteen million. After the crushing of PATCO, those unions became less restive ..."

 “The result [of the Volcker regime] was to transfer inflation from the nonfinancial to the financial economy ..."

"Obsession with central bank independence has roots, like most things in America, in the class war. To raise interest rates in response to low unemployment rates, even when inflation is low, is to make sure that the ratio of surplus going to workers does not change. That the vigilant central bank, whatever else it may be, is an instrument of class rule should not surprise anyone ..."

" The best way to discover what was possible in the 1970s would be to test the limits of what is possible today. "

Read the whole thing:

https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/other-peoples-blood/

sidd

[sidd]

Well, well, well: US Supremes rule against World Bank

"The 7-1 ruling could also open other American-based international organizations to the threat of lawsuits over financing overseas development."

"For the World Bank, it means that it now faces having to defend against a suit by members of a fishing community in Mundra, India, who contend that their homes and livelihoods were damaged by pollution from a coal power plant that was financed by the bank’s private sector lending arm, the Washington, D.C.-based International Finance Corporation."

"The Feb. 27 ruling does not reportedly affect either the United Nations or the International Monetary Fund, as they have complete immunity under their charters."

https://www.icij.org/investigations/world-bank/world-banks-legal-immunity-stripped-opening-door-for-lawsuits/

sidd

[sidd]

An unabashed capitalist begin to wake up: " a Smash & Grab system of ill-gotten rewards for the well-connected few."

Of course, Ritholz cannot bring himself to condemn capitalism. So he pulls the "No true Scotsman" argument, capitalism cannot fail, it can only be failed.

"The peril gravely putting our nation at risk of failure is Crony Capitalism."

In short, capitalism isn't the problem, it is distortion of capitalism that is the problem. Whereas I lean to the point of view that such distortion is inevitable in capitalism, that capitalists will always eventually buy the government.

But read the whole thing:

https://ritholtz.com/2019/03/its-not-capitalism-its-crony-capitalism/

sidd

[Sigmetnow]

After the eruption of Vesuvius:

“Tuck found records of rulers visiting to survey the damage and earmarking funds for construction, including a quote from The Life of Titus explicitly mentioning taking the estates of those who died in the blast without heirs and redirecting the wealth to communities where the refugees were settling. (The earthquake and aftershocks after the eruption also damaged many of the surrounding towns.)

There’s fresh evidence for what happened to people who survived Vesuvius
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/03/last-days-of-pompeii-survivors-likely-fled-north-to-escape-a-fiery-fate/

[sidd]

Lordstown: sacrifice zone of late stage capitalism

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-gm-outlook/gm-set-to-end-production-at-ohio-plant-wednesday-idUSKCN1QL1ZL

Theres worse sacrifice zones, but I happen to know the area for decades and this one hits close to the bone.

sidd

[sidd]

Late stage capitalism at it's finest: Morgan Stanley comes out in favour of kidnapping and torture

"Gorman, CEO and chairman of the major investment bank, said businesses should not be dissuaded from engaging with Saudi Arabia ..."

" When probed about the detentions in the Ritz-Carlton, where more than 200 of the kingdom’s elite were held until they agreed to hand over a proportion of their assets to the government ... Some of those detained were members of a branch of the Saudi royal family deemed a rival ... was tortured and beaten  ... tortured to death ...  "That is certainly one of the most creative. You could argue one of the most efficient,” Gorman said, to laughter from the audience. "

"Morgan Stanley demanded the WEF remove his name from the list of speakers  ... His name was then removed, however later in the day it reappeared."

Read:

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-ritz-carlton-purge-creative-and-efficient-says-morgan-stanley-boss

sidd

[Sigmetnow]

Young people in France are calling for a global “Citizen’s Boycott” for the climate this weekend, asking people to not buy or consume anything - including watching television - on March 15 and 16.
https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/French-young-people-call-for-buying-boycott-in-climate-change-protest-Boycott-Citoyen

[Shared Humanity]

The path out of this crisis...

“The deep adaptation agenda of resilience, relinquishment and restoration can be a useful framework for community dialogue in the face of climate change. Resilience asks us “how do we keep what we really want to keep?” Relinquishment asks us “what do we need to let go of in order to not make matters worse?” Restoration asks us “what can we bring back to help us with the coming difficulties and tragedies?”


https://www.lifeworth.com/deepadaptation.pdf

This entire approach renders moot whether capitalism can continue.

[Sigmetnow]

Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?

We will simply have to throw the kitchen sink at this. Policy tweaks such as a carbon tax won’t do it. We need to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship to ownership, work and capital. The impact of a dramatic reconfiguration of the industrial economy require similarly large changes to the welfare state. Basic incomes, large-scale public works programmes, everything has to be on the table to ensure that the oncoming system shocks do not leave vast swathes of the global population starving and destitute. Perhaps even more fundamentally, we cannot continue to treat the welfare system as a tool for disciplining the supposedly idle underclasses. Our system must be reformed with a more humane view of worklessness, poverty and migration than we have now.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism

[etienne]

Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?

We will simply have to throw the kitchen sink at this. Policy tweaks such as a carbon tax won’t do it. We need to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship to ownership, work and capital. The impact of a dramatic reconfiguration of the industrial economy require similarly large changes to the welfare state. Basic incomes, large-scale public works programmes, everything has to be on the table to ensure that the oncoming system shocks do not leave vast swathes of the global population starving and destitute. Perhaps even more fundamentally, we cannot continue to treat the welfare system as a tool for disciplining the supposedly idle underclasses. Our system must be reformed with a more humane view of worklessness, poverty and migration than we have now.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism

It would be cool if it would be so easy. Growth and consumption are the issues, but can capitalism be without both ? Which system can ?. The problem is that the only systems I heard of that were not based on growth and consumption are like middle age Europe or the US before Columbus. I think that systems like the Roman empire might have required growth to survive.

Technology also has that growth requirement, you can't just produce pans at the same rate for years without getting bankrupt. When the market goes down, like for some streets light bulbs, suppliers just stop the production because of some unknown constrain, who cares if we still need them, needed investments are too high for a decreasing market.

[Sigmetnow]

Ending climate change requires the end of capitalism. Have we got the stomach for it?

We will simply have to throw the kitchen sink at this. Policy tweaks such as a carbon tax won’t do it. We need to fundamentally re-evaluate our relationship to ownership, work and capital. The impact of a dramatic reconfiguration of the industrial economy require similarly large changes to the welfare state. Basic incomes, large-scale public works programmes, everything has to be on the table to ensure that the oncoming system shocks do not leave vast swathes of the global population starving and destitute. Perhaps even more fundamentally, we cannot continue to treat the welfare system as a tool for disciplining the supposedly idle underclasses. Our system must be reformed with a more humane view of worklessness, poverty and migration than we have now.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/18/ending-climate-change-end-capitalism

It would be cool if it would be so easy. Growth and consumption are the issues, but can capitalism be without both ? Which system can ?. The problem is that the only systems I heard of that were not based on growth and consumption are like middle age Europe or the US before Columbus. I think that systems like the Roman empire might have required growth to survive.

Technology also has that growth requirement, you can't just produce pans at the same rate for years without getting bankrupt. When the market goes down, like for some streets light bulbs, suppliers just stop the production because of some unknown constrain, who cares if we still need them, needed investments are too high for a decreasing market.

Yes, manufacturing and distribution must evolve (via 3-D printing and such) so that an item is only made when needed, and designs/products can be seamlessly upgraded, without wasting lots of unused production.  And, first-world folks in particular need to evolve to a “less is more” mindset.

That won’t happen overnight.  But there’s no reason why it couldn’t happen over a decade or two.

[Sigmetnow]

Candidate for US president Andrew Yang makes a strong case for Universal Basic Income, noting for example that about half of U.S. jobs are of a type that will soon be replaced by A.I. and automation, and that suggestions that truck drivers (average age, 49) with a high school education will successfully retrain to be coders or website designers does not make sense.

Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) 3/29/19, 4:18 PM
Giving every American adult $1,000 a month is so obvious a fix to our rampant income inequality that it will happen very quickly - it just needs more of us to wake up to our own power.

https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1111724390561906689

Andrew Yang (@AndrewYang) 3/28/19, 8:46 PM
A fun montage from my talk with @joerogan where I discuss the numbers behind automation and make the case for Universal Basic Income.

https://twitter.com/andrewyang/status/1111429346806239235
Video at the link.

[sidd]

Lordstown blues: GM gets 118 million, workers get the shaft

"Union workers are livid that they agreed to make $118 million a year in annual concessions to save the plant in mid-2017, only to have GM effectively threaten to close it down a year and a half later."

"At stake in Lordstown are the livelihoods of more than 1,400 plant workers and thousands more indirect jobs in the surrounding area of northeast Ohio, a key swing state in presidential elections. "

"UAW merged Locals 1112 and 1714, which saved the company $3 million a year in administrative costs. Then the union agreed to outsource non-assembly jobs such as handling of parts and materials to lower-wage workers employed by a subsidiary called GM Subsystems, according to a document reviewed by Bloomberg.

Next, the union allowed GM to cut the number of skilled tradesmen including electricians, pipe fitters, mechanics and diemakers in half, to 130, by letting the company contract out for overtime skilled-trade work and by changing job classifications, said Scott Brubaker, who was chairman of Local 1714.

The union allowed outside firms to send in contractors to repair supplier parts and assembled vehicles at the plant. It also agreed to drop the number of extra workers employed to cover absentee workers to 60, from 150.

Morgan and other union negotiators signed the deal to make all of the concessions GM wanted in late July 2017 and agreed to implement it in January 2018. “All of these things were very unpopular,” Morgan said."

“We did everything they want,” she said. “This is their payback.”

https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-hy-general-motors-lordstown-ohio-union-20190329-story.html

sidd

[sidd]

Siman and Hudson on forgotten history: Debt, jubilee and oligarchy

This is a long four part series,  a tour de force on history of debt and debt forgiveness in the ancient world, and the takeover by oligarchs of the Greek and Roman powers. I will not excerpt, since i think one should read the pieces in full.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-about-his-forthcoming-book-the-collapse-of-antiquity-part-1.html

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-mixed-economies-today-compared-to-those-of-antiquity-part-2.html

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-the-inherent-financial-instability-in-western-civilizations-dna-part-3.html

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2019/04/the-delphic-oracle-was-their-davos-a-four-part-interview-with-michael-hudson-a-new-reality-economics-curriculum-is-needed-part-4.html

sidd

[Neven]

Thanks for this, sidd. It's really interesting to read how far back our vicious cycle goes.

[sidd]

Hudson has a book out on this subject, which, alas, i have not yet had the time to track down and read.

I also highly recommend Graeber, "Debt: the first 5000 years" for a look at "non western" societies and much more.

sidd

[Sleepy]

George Monbiot on BBC last night.

[Shared Humanity]

George Monbiot on BBC last night.

Thank you...as simple and direct as anything I have ever listened to. Our 21st century religion is Capitalism. It's adherents argue that it is simply the crowning achievement of humanity and the perfect way for human civilization to organize itself. They accept these points as articles of Faith, even in the presence of overwhelming evidence to the contrary which can be found across the planet. The challenge facing humanity is that we must break free from these religious fanatics and organize human civilization in a manner that preserves this tiny planet floating in the vast inhospitable space that surrounds it.

[sidd]

Now here's an impressive rap sheet: banks on crime spree

“In fact, they have engaged in—and continue to engage in—a crime spree that spans the violation of almost every law and rule imaginable. Taking the breadth and depth of their illegal conduct as a whole, the six biggest banks in the country look like criminal enterprises with RAP sheets that would make most career criminals green with envy. That was the case not just before the 2008 crash, but also during and after the crash and their lifesaving bailouts…In fact, the number of cases against the banks has actually increased relative to the pre-crash era.”

http://wallstreetonparade.com/2019/04/heres-why-wall-street-bank-ceos-started-to-sweat-yesterday-about-todays-house-hearing/

https://bettermarkets.com/sites/default/files/Better%20Markets%20-%20Wall%20Street%27s%20Six%20Biggest%20Bailed-Out%20Banks%20FINAL.pdf

sidd

[silkman]

"In an article published in the Guardian on Wednesday aimed at the international financial community, Mark Carney, the Bank’s governor, and Villeroy de Galhau, the governor of the Banque de France, said financial regulators, banks and insurers around the world had to “raise the bar” to avoid catastrophe.

They said: “As financial policymakers and prudential supervisors we cannot ignore the obvious physical risks before our eyes. Climate change is a global problem, which requires global solutions, in which the whole financial sector has a central role to play.”


The warning comes as concern over the impact of climate change and the lack of urgent action is increasing, reflected in the Extinction Rebellion protests and schoolchildren’s strikes across the world.

The heads of two of the world’s most influential central banks urged other financial regulators around the world to carry out climate change stress tests to spot any risks in the system, while also calling for more collaboration between nations on the issue. They warned that a “massive reallocation of capital” was necessary to prevent global warming above the 2°C maximum target set by the Paris climate agreement, with the banking system required to play a pivotal role.

“If some companies and industries fail to adjust to this new world, they will fail to exist,” Carney and De Galhau said."

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/17/mark-carney-tells-global-banks-they-cannot-ignore-climate-change-dangers

Are the Central Banks finally waking up to the existential threat that climate change represents and the impact it will have on their world?

Congratulations Extinction Rebellion!

[Tom_Mazanec]

Socialism, yes or no, to fight AGW:
YES: http://inthesetimes.com/article/21837/socialism-anti-capitalism-economic-reform
NO: http://inthesetimes.com/article/21830/capitalism-economic-debates-alternatives-capitalism-green-growth-investment
YES: http://inthesetimes.com/article/21823/ecosocialism-ecoapartheid-climate-change-democratic-socialism-justice

Financial sector must be behind the fight against AGW:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/17/the-financial-sector-must-be-at-the-heart-of-tackling-climate-change?fbclid=IwAR3k6zyLHHRB__YEKeiDVvunE1TKReAY3LSF5dN0UY_sXxnqpc2Tel81er4
 
A Market driven Green New Deal:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/18/opinion/green-new-deal-climate.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

[sidd]

Right on time for palm sunday, good friday, and passover,  here is hudson and other biblical scholars in a far ranging interview about his new book on assyriology, biblical studies, debt, sabbath, jubilee, and a whole lot more. Two hours. Watch the whole thing. I kid you not, best biblical studies course i ever saw.

Dont get me wrong, i am a godless heathen, but i like the king james version, read it frequently.



And here is a bonus

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2017/02/michael-hudson-why-failing-to-solve-personal-debt-and-polarization-will-usher-in-a-new-dark-age.html

oh, what the hell, just go to

http://michael-hudson.com/

sidd

[sidd]

All the good capitalists are back in bed with bonesaw:

"HSBC CEO John Flint and Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, who had stayed away from last year’s event, joined panels at the two-day financial forum that began on Wednesday, as did co-president of JPMorgan Chase & Co, Daniel Pinto. "

" “This is an economy that we have a lot of confidence in, I think the future is bright,” Flint told the gathering. “We are excited about the role that we can continue to play here.”  "

"The CEO of the London Stock Exchange, who had pulled out of last year’s event, is also scheduled to speak at the financial conference. Also slated to attend is the chairman of Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc, whose CEO decided to abstain from the October summit. "

Read:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-finance-khashoggi-idUSKCN1S01DX

sidd

[Tom_Mazanec]

Declare Capitalism itself dead before it kills us all:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/25/capitalism-economic-system-survival-earth

[kassy]

Well science just did that. 

Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.

Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments. Contrary to the way policymakers usually think about these problems, the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all.

Rather, these crises are part of the same fundamental transition to a new era characterized by inefficient fossil fuel production and the escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict, or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age, the paper says.

...

For the “first time in human history,” the paper says, capitalist economies are “shifting to energy sources that are less energy efficient.” This applies to all forms of energy. Producing usable energy (“exergy”) to keep powering “both basic and non-basic human activities” in industrial civilisation “will require more, not less, effort.”

The amount of energy we can extract, compared to the energy we are using to extract it, is decreasing “across the spectrum — unconventional oils, nuclear and renewables return less energy in generation than conventional oils, whose production has peaked — and societies need to abandon fossil fuels because of their impact on the climate,” the paper states.

...

In the meantime, our hunger for energy is driving what the paper refers to as “sink costs.” The greater our energy and material use, the more waste we generate, and so the greater the environmental costs. Though they can be ignored for a while, eventually those environmental costs translate directly into economic costs as it becomes more difficult to ignore their impacts on our societies.

And the biggest “sink cost,” of course, is climate change:

...

Conventional economic models, the Finnish scientists note, “almost completely disregard the energetic and material dimensions of the economy.”


for further details see:
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-05-02/scientists-warn-the-un-of-capitalisms-imminent-demise/

[sidd]

From 2014: Chomsky on Adam Smith, laissez-faire, Friedmanian capitalism, free markets and democracy. And the incompatibilities therein.

17 minutes and odd seconds.



sidd

[Shared Humanity]

The earliest fossils of anatomically modern humans are from the Middle Paleolithic, about 200,000 years ago such as the Omo remains of Ethiopia and the fossils of Herto sometimes classified as Homo sapiens idaltu.

During our first 199,750 years, humans spread across the planet and, while we did have significant and not always favorable effects on our environment, human civilization was in relative harmony with our planet. All of that began to change around 1800 at the beginning of the industrial age. We harnessed fossil fuels and created the modern system of capitalism with all of its magnificent discoveries. We have also in this 250 years, brought ourselves to the brink of our own destruction.

Modern capitalism can at best be described as a failed experiment. Our very future depends on us fashioning a new way to organize human civilization.

Disclaimer: I have an undergraduate degree and MBA from the University of Chicago and have had a highly successful career in manufacturing just in case you think I might be a wild eyed socialist or part of the "Extinction Rebellion" movement.

[sidd]

Ruddiman argues that anthro effects on climate began long before the industrial age. Perhaps even before widespread agriculture.

sidd

[Shared Humanity]

Ruddiman argues that anthro effects on climate began long before the industrial age. Perhaps even before widespread agriculture.

sidd

I agree.

[Shared Humanity]

Is it not a scientific informed "fact" the average length of time for a Species existence is ~200,000 years?

Please provide links to the research you have on this. Would love to read up on it but I'm thinking you may have just pulled this out of your ass.

Of course, the real flaw in this statement is the idea that a species, any species, has a beginning point and an end point as opposed to viewing evolution as the continuum that it is.

[gerontocrat]

Is it not a scientific informed "fact" the average length of time for a Species existence is ~200,000 years?

No, not a " scientific informed "fact" " at all. More like disinformation.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/03/2/l_032_04.html

The typical rate of extinction differs for different groups of organisms. Mammals, for instance, have an average species "lifespan" from origination to extinction of about 1 million years, although some species persist for as long as 10 million years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_extinction_rate

[Neven]

Is it not a scientific informed "fact" the average length of time for a Species existence is ~200,000 years?

This statement may be true or false, but how does it automatically become 'disinformation' that is 'pulled out of someone's ass'? It doesn't seem like a very controversial statement, even if wrong.

[Sleepy]

Is it not a scientific informed "fact" the average length of time for a Species existence is ~200,000 years?

This statement may be true or false, but how does it automatically become 'disinformation' that is 'pulled out of someone's ass'? It doesn't seem like a very controversial statement, even if wrong.

As a non native English speaker I read it as a question, maybe the real (and nonrhetorical) question is: Why do British people use so many more tag questions than Americans?

Edit; Re: 'then What' below. Might be a reason for why gc didn't read it as a question?

[johnm33]

'then What' This looks like a pretty fair template to me, http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2014/04/want-to-fix-incomewealth-inequality.html?m=1
Except instead of 'free' money just change the system to one where everyone gets access to a specific amount of credit at the same %rate as the Fed now charges the banks and corporations $30,000 annually sounds about right, recoup it with a transaction tax at 2.5% for every years worth of debt anyone carries. Have an asset tax of 2.5% on every layer of ownership*. Drop all other taxes[and welfare benefits] and introduce a simple broad based transaction tax, like http://www.apttax.com/index.htm
This would rapidly reduce the 40% of upstream interest charges on all current transactions as old debts at high% were paid off.
*with everyone entitled to the same tax free allowance say $300,000

[sidd]

Gaming medical insurance: An insurance shill recants, deconstructs industry arguments.

"The propaganda I used to churn out — and that my former colleagues still churn out — was intended to mislead, deceive and obscure the truth about the health care system in the United States."

"FUD:We can’t afford Medicare for All."

"Truth: We can’t afford the status quo. "

https://tarbell.org/2019/04/i-used-to-be-a-propagandist-for-insurance-companies-learn-the-four-truths-the-insurance-industry-doesnt-want-americans-to-see/

sidd

[sidd]

Want to know the law of the land ? it will cost you

" States have struck deals with legal publishers, the article said, that have effectively privatized the law."

"the question is whether annotations commissioned and approved by the state may be copyrighted."

"judicial opinions cannot be copyrighted."

"The annotations include descriptions of judicial decisions interpreting the statutes. Only a very bad lawyer would fail to consult them in determining the meaning of a statute."

" Georgia has a law on the books making sodomy a crime. An annotation tells the reader that the law has been held unconstitutional ..."

“You go to the annotations, which leads you to the court decisions, where the judges actually tell you what the words mean.”

“The annotations clearly have authoritative weight in explicating and establishing the meaning and effect of Georgia’s laws,”

"The annotations were prepared by lawyers working for LexisNexis as part of a financial arrangement with the state. Georgia holds the copyright to the annotations, but the company has the right to sell them while paying the state a royalty."

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/us/politics/georgia-official-code-copyright.html

The best justice money can buy, right ?

Meanwhile, the cops dont have to know the law to bust you.

" the Supreme Court ruled a “police officer’s reasonable mistake of law gives rise to reasonable suspicion that justifies a traffic stop under the Fourth Amendment.” "

"the court in Barnes felt otherwise, saying such errors of law — as pertain to affidavits like search warrants — can be excused for non-lawyers, like administrators and other officials, who draft such items."

https://www.mintpressnews.com/court-rules-police-dont-need-know-laws-enforce/217236/

Rule of law, did someone say ? Call me when you find it.

sidd