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Paul Krugman and the New Austerity: Get Used to It
“American voters are being given a choice between a representative of the public sector and a representative of the financial sector, when they want less of what both groups are doing.”
John Dizard
Financial Times
July 22, 2012
London – Traveling in the EU in these days of economic crisis is a surreal experience. The Summer Olympic Games in London are in full swing, with hundreds of private corporate sponsors seeking to achieve branding nirvana before the millions of people expected to watch the summer games between now and September. Belying claims in many quarters that the economic world is about to end, the UK seems ready to achieve yet another triumph when it comes to sales and marketing.
Politicians in the UK fret about austerity, but as in the US, the cost cutting is mostly falling on the public sector. Non-financial corporations in the EU and the US are in relatively good shape, suggesting that growth in 2013 and beyond may be better than is commonly expected. In the public sector in the UK and elsewhere, however, workers are facing a grim future as excessive salaries and headcount are being brought back into line with private industry and true need.
A growing number of cities in the US seeking protection in bankruptcy, for example, and are doing so in order to reduce wages to something like parity with similar levels in the private sector. When you recall that public sector workers in the US and EU alike make 2x the level of compensation paid to comparable workers in private industry, the task ahead to bring the global fiscal situation back into balance becomes clear.
“Six of the 17 countries that use the euro currency are in recession,” CBS News reports ominously. “The U.S. economy is struggling again. And the economic superstars of the developing world — China, India and Brazil — are in no position to come to the rescue. They're slowing, too.” And this is all true, but our friends in the Big Media rarely point out that it is in the public sector in the US and other nations where most of the pain is being felt.
In nations such as China, India and the EU where the state sector is predominant, the perceived economic pain is obviously worse – especially if you are a politician whose future livelihood is tied in some way to an endless increase in public spending and related economic activity. The bailouts in the US and EU alike are not so much for the holders of bad debt as for the politicians whose careers will end as and when the debt defaults.
Of course, nations like China and India still claim to be growing at rates that American politicians can only dream about – that is, if you believe the bogus economic statistics issued by these corrupt regimes. In a world where political fortunes are tied to perceived economic vitality, statistics regarding rates of growth in employment and output should be suspect. Yet for reasons that are all too obvious, institutional investors seem too willing to accept the self-serving economic nonsense as a good pretext for making asset allocation choices into nations that neither respect property rights nor international legal norms.
In the US, luminaries such as Paul Krugman complain about an economic “depression” and suggest massive new public spending programs to address it. Again, our esteemed Nobel laureate is correct, but somehow he fails to explain that most of the economic pain is being felt among the public sector constituencies that underpin the Democratic Party.
Since the Great Depression and subsequent New Deal, the liberal tendency in American politics has embedded itself in the public sector. The poor imitation of Euro-fascism created by FDR with the New Deal is all about creating mandates for bureaucracy and public sector workers and unions. But the “New Austerity” so fearful to Krugman and his liberal comrades is really about ridding America, at least, of the terrible legacy of FDR’s love affair with European models of political economy.
When you hear about a city or county rolling back excessive wages or retirement benefits for public sector workers, remember that this is the bedrock foundation of American liberalism. Or as I told my friend and diehard New Dealer Bill Janeway many years ago, being an American liberal is a coward’s route to socialism. Needless to say, Bill has stopped speaking to me.
As the US public sector is forced to realign its economic load from 25% of GDP down to something closer to the 18% actually covered by tax revenues, the political fortunes of American liberals will shrink accordingly. With the shrinkage of the public sector, so too the political fortunes of the Democratic Party will also evaporate.
Krugman and his fellow Democrats are haunted by the ghost of Al Smith, the hapless Democratic presidential candidate who unsuccessfully sought the White House three times prior to the ascension of FDR and the New Deal. And the saddest part of all is that it was Barack Obama, a supposed liberal Democrat from Illinois, who set in motion the end of the New Deal.
By supporting a “temporary” holiday for employer contributions to the bankrupt Social Security “trusts funds,” Obama has started the unraveling of the financial fraud foisted upon Americans 80 years ago by FDR. Indeed, you have to feel sorry for Krugman and his ilk. Far from achieving a second “New Deal” under Barack Obama, American liberals have instead faced something that looks like the blessed era of Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s, when the Money Trusts controlled American politics.
After winning the White House four years ago, the paragons of the “progressive” fascism we know as American liberalism have been forced to watch as the large banks have continued to call the shots. Obama is no “progressive,” Krugman whines, but instead the errand boy of the big bank financial cartel that controls much of the US economy. The truth about American liberals like Krugman is that they are really defenders of big banks and the corrupt corporate state.
The latest Krugman rant in the New York Review of Books, “Getting Away with It,” is notable because it documents the control of the too-big-to-fail banks over the US political process. In particular, Krugman and his sidekick Robin Wells nicely confirm our view that former Citigroup Chairman, Treasury Secretary and Goldman Sachs CEO Robert Rubin continues to call the political shots inside the White House.
In a perhaps too revealing review of Noam Scheiber’s new book, “The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery,” Krugman and Wells note:
“Scheiber starts with the influence Wall Street exerted over the assembly of that economic team. In its early stages, Scheiber tells us, Obama’s campaign relied for policy advice on “obscure academics, contrarian gadflies, and past-their-prime bureaucrats,” like Austan Goolsbee, a young economics professor from the University of Chicago, and Paul Volcker, the octogenarian though still vigorous former chairman of the Federal Reserve. But by September 2008, another economic group had formed and begun competing for influence, composed of “well-heeled insiders. Most [of them] had worked for former Clinton Treasury secretary Robert Rubin.” Rubin had been a partner at Goldman Sachs before joining the Clinton administration; after leaving, he became a director and counselor, and then chairman, of Citigroup.”
The reason political creatures like Rubin and his colleagues at Goldman Sachs care about exercising control over the White House is that politics has always been the mother’s milk of the Boys of Broad Street. Start to reduce the size and scope of government, both at the state and federal level, and the Goldman banksters will have to find a new game to play. End the ability of all the TBTF banks to obtain bailouts in Washington and second-rate investment banking firms like Goldman Sachs may cease to exist altogether.
Without a steady flow of bailouts and subsidies from Washington, all of the large New York banks are in serious trouble – but the smaller firms will die first. At the end of the day, Goldman Sacks is a customer of JPMorgan Chase just as Bear, Stearns was once upon a time. As the flow of largesse from Washington ebbs, look for JPMorgan to focus more and more attention on taking revenue and market share away from the Goldman bankers and other smaller firms.
The difference between, say, Barclays or UBS, and Goldman and its larger cousin Morgan Stanley, is that these latter investment banks are not really banks. They lack the secure deposit funding base and large balance sheet necessary to compete with the universal banks in the brave new work of Basel III. We should look for Morgan Stanley to eventually spin off Smith Barney and then sell the rest of itself to the Japanese. But like Lehman Brothers, who wants or needs to own Goldman Sachs?
As Jamie Dimon looks to rebuild his reputation and income statement, just watch the bankers at JPMorgan go after what remains of the Goldman franchise. Have you heard the joke about Goldman getting into “private banking?” This seems to be yet another indication that the visibility on revenue and liquidity at Goldman Sachs is growing worse with each passing day. And notice that Citigroup, which has recently been adding to its banking and trading staff, is right behind JPMorgan in terms of attacking the market share of Goldman and other relatively small non-bank financial firms.
So when you hear Paul Krugman and his analogs in Europe complain about the lack of a response to the New Austerity, remember that their pain is mostly political. Krugman worries that his fellow “progressives,” really fascists in sheep’s clothing, are most worried about their loss of political power rather than the economic standing of their fellow citizens. When you hear Krugman and the other New Dealers at the New York Review of Books whining about the lack of federal spending, there is a simple answer: “Get used to it.”
And as the flow of subsidies from Washington slowly ebbs, the TBTF banks will begin to feed upon one another to win the remaining private business on Wall Street. Look for the largest universal banks such as JPMorgan and Citi to eventually win that contest, with Morgan Stanley likely getting sold and Goldman Sachs, like Bear and Lehman before them, being fed to the proverbial wolves.
In the event, we can take some small comfort that most of the folks at Goldman Sachs are really no different that the Krugmanite socialists who populate the world of American economics. They want something for nothing, this something stolen from the pockets of working Americans via the coercive power of the state. The New Austerity, far from being a disaster, is really about restoring American values and ending the liberal political choke hold of Washington over all facets of American life. Despite the very real pain that the coming adjustment entails, individuals who believe in personal and economic freedom should rejoice at the New Austerity.
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Foreign Policy: Who do you think is the smartest, most penetrating thinker you know (maybe other than your own family)? Are there people who should be on our list?
Bill Clinton: Paul Krugman -- I don't always agree with him, but he is unfailingly good. David Brooks has been very good. Tom Friedman is our most gifted journalist at actually looking at what is happening in the world and figuring out its relevance to tomorrow and figuring out a clever way to say it that sticks in your mind-like "real men raise the gas tax." You know what I mean?
more gems including "terror -- meaning killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority"
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2009/11/19/bill_clintons_world?pag...l
And that's all I can say about that.
I love FP Mag even more than the Onion.
Somehow, it's funnier when you know it's not satire. Blasting people to hell was really wrong in Iraq and Afghanistan, but doing the same in Libya and Syria is okey dokey if it's done by Team Blue.
I'm pretty sure the Muslim countries can find their own little slice of hell on earth without our help.
Freedom, democracy and rule of law is highly overrated.
Look at how fine the US is doing without it.
How about the corporations, especially big banks taking loans on huge risky bets, stop going into debt? Why doesn't the media ever talk about that one?
Let the bodies hit the floor...
The sound you are hearing from Krugman and his ilk is the sound of cranky complaining that they can't live off the sweat of others the way that they've been accustomed to. Expect more and more as the education bubble pops and entire useless academic departments are closed down to prevent university administrators from being let go instead.
I have absolutely no pity for them. They've been corporate shills when it suits them - Krugman and Enron, oh my! - and more than happy to make excuses for corruption, fraud, crony capitalism and outright thievery as long as it serves their political preferences. The only serious reason anyone listens to Krugman is that he received the Nobel for something he worked out 20 years ago. It most certainly isn't for his shrill self-righteous liberalism - sorry, I repeat myself - and call for the eternal return of the same in government spending to further finance his party friends and not create the jobs he claims it does.
The party's over. The government has spent all of its money - all of our money - and we're all waking up to the long hangover of a discouraged decade. Gonna be fun for the kids coming out of college with a self-indulgent degree, massive debt and no way out except to return to actually working for their living and learning how to do without all the fun stuff they thought they'd have. Maybe - but just maybe - they'll learn how to be adults and live with the consequences of their (in)actions without reverting to type and whining about it to politicians who cluck their tongues and say "oh how terrible, you poor thing, vote for me and I'll set you free".
No problem.
We can take all those Gender/ GLBT studies majors and put them to work building solar powered stealth nuclear weapon delivery systems.
Think of it as a green 21st. century highway program.
Nice! Very respectable, whether I agree with it entirely or not.
Clearly Krugman is a pathetic tool. Many so-called "liberals" suffer the deficits you so rightly cite.
It's critically important for them to be checked. No single constituency should be given free reign or bad things are guaranteed to happen. Like "liberals" becoming cheerleaders for government expansion per se, which as a foundation position has no virtue whatsoever--so much wasted money and trouble spring from that kind of madness.
But, again, that seems to be inherent in unchecked influence. That being the case, however, be careful what you wish for. Without viable opposition, there is nobody that won't come to personify their own worst fears, however differently they're dressed.
Your understanding of the liberal basis of economics over history seems at odds with historian Michael Hudson's perspective, one that makes better sense to me:
http://www.iadb.org/intal/intalcdi/PE/2012/09985.pdf
I'm hoping for some substantive feedback from somebody on this.
Krugman understands that the public sector is of the real engine of the economy and that the private sector that still engages in an anachronistic business model of providing goods and services for profit are rapaciously depriving Govt. of much needed capital to fund 'real growth' in Govt.
Oddly enough, this is where Keynesians would agree on Mises mis-allocation of capital theory.
We simply need to blow a larger Govt. bubble to cure this mis-allocation of capital from the private sector and return it to the public sector where sustainable growth can be achieved.
We need 2 mailmen to deliver that bill (and votes) instead of one.
Friendly bankers will help to finance the renaissance of this American Dream with debt until we can move Congress to address these monetary mis-allocation issues.
100% employment via Govt. can be done with proper re-education of the masses away from failed capitalist paradigms.
We need to Hope harder. Yes we can.
Now you're onto something! And when the shovel ready jobs are all filled and still there are warm bodies laying about, we'll switch to spoons and dig the names of all the States so large that we can see them all from space so we never again have to use typeface on a weather map. With this furious level of public "community building" we'll explode in an orgy of growth.
"Since the Great Depression and subsequent New Deal, the liberal tendency in American politics has embedded itself in the public sector. The poor imitation of Euro-fascism created by FDR with the New Deal is all about creating mandates for bureaucracy and public sector workers and unions. But the “New Austerity” so fearful to Krugman and his liberal comrades is really about ridding America, at least, of the terrible legacy of FDR’s love affair with European models of political economy."
R.C. Whalen, like Tyler and most of the "Libertarians" out there are all spouting the same theme, that "SOCIALISM IS BAD." Actually, classically "socialist" Sweden is doing better economically than many countries in Europe, because the problem is FINANCIAL FRAUD; not making sure that your rank & file citizens have some minimum standards for sharing in a nation's economic output.
Paul Krugman is NO LONGER "LIBERAL" because he is AN APOLOGIST FOR THE FED. He may have been "liberal" back when he opposed the Bush tax cuts for rich (in time of war!), but since the Citi-bank and GS gangsters have taken over the Obama White House, http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/obamajews.html Krugman is as much an APOLOGIST for their rank "REVOLVING DOOR and BAILOUTS FOR FAILED BANKERS CORRUPTION" http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/12/10/peter-orszag-former-obama-budget...
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jul/28/omb-nominee-got-900000-a...
as Bloomberg, the Wall St. Journal, or any other right-wing rags are.
When "conservatives" (and "Libertarians") look at the great boom years of the post-WWII "American century" they spout the talking points that this was the era of "private enterprise" as if Big Government Spending had nothing to do with America's great financial success story. Actually, there were two (2) MASSIVE "big government spending programs" that were the real foundation of the American public's upwardly mobile financial lives and post-WWII economy - you may have heard of them? The INTERSTATE HIGHWAY SYSTEM and the "COLD WAR."
The former was THE BIGGEST CONSTRUCTION PROJECT IN HUMAN HISTORY, and, in addition to creating THOUSANDS of good paying jobs (and making some property values skyrocket) became the backbone, foundation, and circulatory system for the entire American economy: the PURE SOCIALISM highways system was THE FOUNDATION of private farmers, factories, and producers transporting their products to distant markets, and receiving supplies and contracts from distant markets.
Similarily, a simple number marks how many well-paying "BIG GOVERNMENT SPENDING" jobs were created in the 1950s U.S. economy: the 15,000 nuclear warheads, and bombers, missiles, ships, and subs to deliver them; and bases, plants, and infrastructure to build and house them, that were created in the 15 years after 2 U.S. A-bombs were used to end WWII (1945). These were thousands upon thousands upon thousands of top paying engineering, science, administrative, and financial jobs created directly by tax-and-spend government spending - jobs and economic expansion whitewashed out of financial history by today's Wall St. 'conservative' propagandists.
The difference was, during the desperate WWII years and (slightly less desperate) Cold War years, there was very much a sense of "WE'RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER," and Americans DID NOT TOLERATE RANK FRAUD at the top of the financial establishments. I believe the top tax rate during WWII was _90%_, but this 'great burden" did not seem to impede America creating and expanding war production factories like so many mushrooms, in just 4 years flat. (1941-1945).
And, finally, "Libertarianism" is a bastard ideology. It is based on the "RIGHTS" (including property rights) that came out of the AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT, AGE OF REASON, and Age of Humanism - any restraints on a ruler's power are "liberal" especially against a "Divine Right of Kings" ideology that was prevalent as late as 1776.
"Libertarians," like financiers, want to have their cake & eat it too: ANYTHING which protects a person's rights is "LIBERALISM" even as they try to claim they are "conservative," just as financiers and the wealthy bitch about "big government," even as they are the first to stand in line, hands outstretched, for Big Government Contracts, or (worse) PURE SOCIAL WELFARE for the rich, aka "BAILOUTS."
Whatever levarage yu might have gained from successfully poking holes in the soft underbelly of 'libertarian' economic ideology yu just as quickly lost by trying to invert logic as it applies to politics...
Krugman is 'no longer a liberal because he became an apologist for the FED' -that's as logical as claiming that cats catch and torture mice before eating them because they have been poorly socialized! Liberals, like socialists, are raised into their stations by those who buy their services.
As Whalen has patiently(if not so successfully it seems)pointed out, the liberal is and has always been the infiltrator used by the moneypower to incorporate it's agents into positions of power...in the world of publishing, politics, and even religion...and then, to use them to make the hidden agenda of Kapitalist Kleptocracy kreep forward....to its'' end goal of Socialism! - the system of wealth redistribution from the many to the privileged few...packaged up as it's opposite.
please reply how the interstate highway system is NOT pure, "owned by the many, for use by all" unfettered "socialism." When you 'Libertarians' say, "Socialism," what you MEAN is "tribal conflict."
I completely agree that the "Kapitalist Kleptocrats" HIDE behind so-called classic liberalism... which is exactly my point, when so-called 'liberals' DEFEND Golddamn-Sachs, the Greenspan/Bernanke financial rape machine, and gross incompetence/corruption at the Halder DoJ, Schapiro SEC, Gensler CFTC, the Nancy Pelosi insider-trading con-gress, the "in bed with staff of companies we regulate" Dept. of Interior, and judges in the courts who PRETEND NOT TO NOTICE corporate officers of the banks perpetrating SERIAL PERJURY (in an epidemic of mortgage fraud).... THEN THEY ARE NO LONGER "liberal" - they have become PARTY APPARTCHIKS.
Idiots who write articles like these are playing the game exactly the way TPTB want us to play it. Blame the Liberals!!! Blame the Conservatives!!!! But don't pay attention to what the actual people in command are doing. As long as the citizens are distracted by fighting amongst themselves, TPTB win. And besides, this article is a poorly written hodge podge of utter bullshit anyway.
He starts out with a good quote, then goes on to pretend that there is a difference between the Demorats and the Republicrooks. None of this will change until we somehow manage to shed the neoliberal duopoly.
If you do a global "search and replace" for the word liberal with conservative and the same with Obama and Bush, this article would still make the same points whether they are valid or not.
Bad day at the Whiskey for Spain. Euro falls too.
http://confoundedinterest.wordpress.com/2012/07/23/monday-morning-blues-spain-gdp-falls-again-euro-plunges/
Well done Chris ... Well done.
I might add without prosecutions of the bank's malfeasance there will be little to no recovery. The loss of confidence by the retail investor in the system is at stake.
American conservatism is a coward's way to feudalism.
Did he hit a nerve bitch?
"The private sector is coming along fine. The private sector is doing fine. The private sector is doing fine."
Have every govt dept fire the most useless 10% every year for a couple of years with no new hiring.
How about if we kick out 5 of every 10 and hire 1 new person, warning everyone that half the people are going to get the axe again next year. See if the porn-watching SEC doesn't get more efficient in a hurry. And the CFTC. Or the executive branch. Apply the same to the Supreme Court as a matter of fact.
Having worked for 10 years in the public sector I would agree but the problem is the most useless people in these bureaucracies are the top 10%. The guiding principle seems to be that if you don't know what you are doing then you should supervise those who do.
All the way up to Obama.
STOP SPENDING
REPEAL REGULATIONS
USE GOVERNMENT AT ALL LEVELS TO PROSECUTE, CONVICT AND EXECUTE;
BANKERS, CAREAR POLITITIONS, LOBBYIST'S, CORPORATE ENABLERS (CEO, BOARD OF DIRECTORS)
CLAW BACK EVERTHING OF THE CONVICTED
TAX CORPORATIONS OUT OF EXISTANCE - NO MORE LIMITED LIABILITY
RESTORE PERSONAL RESPOSIBILITY
RESTORE THE INDIVIDUALS RIGHT TO HIS OWN LABOR
RESTORE GOLD AND SILVER TO THE DOLLAR
END THE FED
BRING THE TROOPS HOME
RESTORE STATES RIGHTS
OCCUPYTHEPARTIES – BECOME A PRECINCT DELEGATE
That Resaci would come to pass via a "Revolution" by the peeps.Sorry to say,im not hearing that.Im hearing cont bullshit about sports,the weather,olymic bullshit,some crack pot shootin up the place.Won't be long,Dancin with shit,America's Got Shit,I gotta take a shit,fuckin bullshit.
The revolution of 1776 was a determined 3% or so men with conviction. Precinct Delegates can control the 2 party system in time. The number of people it takes to OCCUPY both political parties by Precinct Delegates is less than 3% of men and women that are determined to reclaim Liberty for the Republic and the Constitution. Get off your ass and become a precinct delegate. Become a write-in candidate in your local precinct for the August primaries. OCCUPYTHEPARTIES
Shit or get off the pot!
Wake me when TBTF is gone, along with the bastardization of money by "finance." Change the rules and fuck America.
i sure hope whalen is right. getting the state off our backs and restoring freedom is a step in the right direction in an otherwise dismal economic backdrop.
What spaceship did the author just land in and from what planet, the only problem we have are the corporations and the 1% raping and pillaging the american people. The bankers should be hung financially and castrated, they are the problem and the lobbyists are the problem, the Post Office provides a good service for the people ass blood! The bankers and the fractional reserve system is a curse, and a recent zero hedge read suggests the gold standard in a modified form is returning, now lets get back to occupy wallstreet, and stop picking on the american people. Even at 2 x's the private worker, of which I am a private sector non financial, but some governmental help (transportation maritime industry), the scum bankers with their 90,000 square foot houses and nine bathrooms can go to hell!!
I agree with alot there, but "the only problem we have are the corporations and the 1% raping and pillaging the american people"?
Maybe the biggest problem, but government maintaining and policing the road for them is certainly not to be ignored (at the very least.) Too bad so much energy is spent in vehement "tastes great--less filling!" warring that those willing to view both sides of the problem find themselves strangers in a strange land . . . horrified that only one or the other problem is at all likely to be meaningfully addressed, while the dichotomous factions make it tragically unlikely that either will be as they collectively suck all the air from the room.
They get paid well for operating what should be treated as a utility. Imagine if the water or electric companies treated their product and monopoly control the same way the bankers do.
Makes one wonder how much, how many "jobs", how much spending is REAL and derived from SAVINGS and how much is simply pulled-forward from the future... My guess is that 40%+ of the "jobs" out there would vanish like a puff of smoke if interest rates were MARKET-SET.
I believe it would be around 75 percent of jobs vanishing.
The Unions are hurting because the Govenment $$ is being sucked up by people who do jack squat. That is: those on welfare, disability, unemployment, food stamps, and fradulent tax credits for illegals. I'm certainly no fan of unions, but (at least) you get some marginal value out of union workers for your tax dollar. With the entitlement class, you get zilch. Actually you get less than zero--only more clients to drain the pond. And, all the while, idiots like Nancy Pelosi think that giving people unemployment benefits is the best way to stimulate the Economy. You just can't make this shit up.
Why not give everyone food stamps if it is so good for the economy? Then food prices can really inflate like tuition and healthcare. Face it - there is no economy without endless debt or substantial starvation... Funny part is that as a whole, we would become healthier if the whole healthcare / pharma beast was slain
Admittedly there is a massive misallocation of resources. And, I would agree that if there are people who do nothing "productive" it is hard to justify other people working to support them. Holistically though it looks as if the money system itself is a far larger parasite. It taxes the entire asset base of the world while adding nothing of tangible value (creating, distributing and taking money adds no value ... labor is the only thing in the entire world that adds value to something else).
I think you might have a mischaracterization bias against people who do not have money. The vast majority of them want the same thing as those who have money. They just do not know how to achieve it ... and in many cases are prevented from achieving it because they are both discriminated against and there is global excess capacity (of people ... for the management capability of TPTB). Ultimately TPTB say: "well, lets kill off 5 billion people and they everything will be right again" ... because they think they are capable of managing 2 billion people or so. But I think they are fooling themselves. The real reason they are having so much trouble is because their assumptions are flawed (number 1 being that they are worthy of leadership)
It is times like this that bring rise to people such as Marx, who try to use the masses of people as billions of weapons against TPTB so that power can be transferred to some other ruling elite.
IMHO - an important thing to understand is that solving the world's financial problems does virtually nothing toward creating a better future for the world. And blaming poor people contributes nothing.
Well said. Also, remember that the nation's poor can be supported through the fiat system that can allow easy living and prevent the future uprising of the masses. When money is free, it can be distributed accordingly. America's poor still enjoy a high standard of living.
Unions are as dirty as politicians. They only look like they serve their people. They need to be routed out (hats off to Andrew Jackson) and burnt at the stake along with the bankers and politicians - then they can reform for their original purpose without high paid bosses and in the case of politicans corporate interests.
I support unions, but these are not unions, they are nasty cartels. I do not support them nor do I support the welfare losers.
Cartels? No they are simply organized crime.
The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.
Fascism promotes political violence and war as forms of direct action that promote national rejuvenation, spirit and vitality----wikipedia, Joseph. Ethics and Political Theory (Lanham, Maryland: University of America, Inc, 2000) p. 120.
I say let´s turn them into guano while fertilizer prices are high to recover some value.
I agree that public spending is out of control. I also agree bailing out failing banks is a bad idea. The prioblem is it isn't a public vs private employment issue. The problem is our politicians are corrupted by campaign contributions. Whether the contributions come from banks or public sector unions, the end results are the same corrupt status quo remaining in place.
Your belief that politicians are by nature wise, good-hearted souls who only get corrupted after others donate to their campaigns is touching.
Poor Kidhorn, can't see the forest for the trees. He sees the problem as being the evil donors who foist money upon goodhearted govt bureaucrats who then feel compelled to help the nice donor.
Really the problem is that government has grabbed far more power in the US than it is legally granted by the people. Without this usurped power the donations would not come because they would not generate a positive ROI. No returrn, no donation.
Limited government is the answer. It is when Govt has power to sell that money comes.
good article, but instead of lingering around while the Krugmans of the world waste precious oxygen that someone else could be using, why not physically terminate the WHOLE FUCKING HERD! ie.,walled street to pennsylvannia ave. and beyond.
I agree, as long as we can throw the evangelical christians into the hopper, too. Different scum, but scum nonetheless...
"To (your) knowledge" MMP? What rock are you living under? We are approaching a million public sector firings since the Great Recession started - oh, sorry, I forgot. Like so many other Austrians, austerians, and right wing fascist nut-cases you don't care about the truth, only what you "know."