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American Liberalism: The Infantile Disorder
“The approach of a great storm was sensed everywhere. All classes were in a state of ferment and preparation. Abroad, the press of the political exiles discussed the theoretical aspects of all the fundamental problems of the revolution. Representatives of the three main classes, of the three principal political trends -- the liberal-bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois-democratic (concealed behind "social-democratic" and "social-revolutionary" labels), and the proletarian-revolutionary -- anticipated and prepared the impending open class struggle by waging a most bitter struggle on issues of programme and tactics. All the issues on which the masses waged an armed struggle in 1905-07 and 1917-20 can (and should) be studied, in their embryonic form, in the press of the period. Among these three main trends there were, of course, a host of intermediate, transitional or half-hearted forms. It would be more correct to say that those political and ideological trends which were genuinely of a class nature crystallised in the struggle of press organs, parties, factions and groups; the classes were forging the requisite political and ideological weapons for the impending battles.”
The years of preparation for revolution (1903-05)
Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile
Disorder
V.I. Lenin
April-May, 1920
Grand Lake Stream, ME: Had good fishing yesterday even as temperatures rose steadily as the group converged on Leens Lodge for evening activities. Dinner last night featured a brief presentation by ME Governor Paul LePage and also a discussion of Weimar Germany by Madeline Schnapp of Trim Tabs. The two discussions were good complements for the larger evening discussion. But sad to say for Persian Economists, there were no Power Point presentations.
Governor LePage started his discussion with a very frank appraisal of the state’s fiscal situation, namely that the Democrats spent and stole the state broke. Voters in ME recently gave control over the governor’s office and both houses of the state legislature to the Republican Party. Suffice to say that the main theme of Governor LePage’s comments to the audience at Leens Lodge, which included a number of advisers who own the state’s debt, is that the State of Maine is going to pay its bills and keep its promises.
One interesting part of the Governor’s remarks involved how ME is clearing up the many years of arrears of Medicare payments to hospitals around the state. He noted thatthe Democrats in the legislature wanted to “negotiate” a settlement for the arrears of 50 cents on the dollar with the state’s hospitals, which would doom many of them to failure. The consistent objective of American liberals is to destroy the free enterprise system and make the US a monolithic socialist state a la France. That battle is underway in ME right now.
Contrary to the Fabian scenario, Governor LePage has insisted on paying the hospitals in full. “Then we can spend money on other things,” he told the audience. But more to the point, LePage’s promise to pay the hospitals will thwart Democratic designs to decimate private health care institutions and drive more and more Mainiacs into the arms of the state. But don’t look for Governor Le Page or anyone in the northern part of ME to go along quietly.
The evening discussion was set up by Madeline Schnapp, who provided a brief but entirely chilling review of the financial stairway to hell of hyper-inflation in Weimar Germany. In an extraordinary and succinct discussion, Madeline talked about the timing and duration of the appearance of different denominations of paper money used in the Weimar period. Suffice to say that as the paper lost value, the printing became less and less attractive.
From the start of WWI in 1914 through until 1923, the cost of a loaf of bread went from 0.10 Deutsche marks to 1 trillion marks in December 1923. The hyperinflation in Weimar Germany, Schnapp noted, wiped out all of the accumulated wealth and savings of the German middle class and left most of the population in poverty. Attendees at the dinner received examples of Weimar money and a brief presentation showing the rate of inflation during the Weimar inflation.
The juxtaposition of Paul LePage and his battle against the downstate, apartment dwelling socialists over spending and debt, and then Schnapp’s reminder about the death of money in Weimar Germany is a powerful pairing. At the start of 1924, let us recall, Germany wiped out all existing financial assets and introduced a new currency back with real estate and other tangible assets. When Paul Krugman and his ilk talk about the need for more deficit spending, more fiscal stimuli, they are taking you down the road to Weimar America. There is nothing at the end of Paul Krugman’s road to borrow and spend save national destruction and personal disaster.
On Monday this scribe will be taking the Bat mobile to Chautauqua, NY, to give a talk on Tuesday evening regarding the morality of regulation in America -- or perhaps the lack thereof. In an age when the entire framework of left wing liberalism, “the infantile disorder” to paraphrase V.I. Lenin, lies in tatters, maybe it is time to ask why we all don’t do the right thing. Or if the future of economics is merely a free-for-all for an existing pie of resources, perhaps we should just dispense with the civilities?
Whether you are a Krugmanite progressive-socialist or a classical liberal lost in the 21st Century, in both cases we rely upon a consensus called the rule of law. But is that assumption still valid? Many conservatives believe that the left has lost its collective mind and embraced hyperinflation a la Weimar Germany, not to help people in any meaningful way but to simply preserve Democratic political power.
If the political tsunami underway in Maine is any indicator, the November 2012 election will be fascinating and unpredictable. But while there may be conservative uprisings at the local level, in Washington at the Fed a decidedly orthodox form of state socialism continues to reign supreme.
“If you consider that John Law’s main intellectual error was thinking that shares of stock were just as good as money,” AIER scholar Walker Todd noted recently. “Ben Bernanke’s error is thinking that derivatives and math models are as good as a scarce commodity in restraining the quantity and promoting the value of money.”
But the beliefs of mere Fed economists are a sublime concern compared to the naked inflationism of Paul Krugman and his fellow travelers in American liberalism. The battle now is between people like ME Governor Le Page, who want to restore fiscal sanity to American life, and those who merely wish to destroy the private economy and monetary system. By ensuring that as many people as possible are dependent upon government for their livelihoods, liberals in states like ME are treading the path blazed a century ago. by V.I. Lenin. What a shame most of them do not appreciate this irony of repeating the same mistakes over and over again.
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The author is a fucking banker. http://www.rcwhalen.com/pdf/whalen_bio_short.pdf. He's just talking his book and self-interest. And it's so much fun to think in black and white absolutes.
Truth and lies are indeed black and white.
The boundary between them is well-defined, but fractal. So at any scale, some region always appears to be gray. But if you pick a point and zoom in far enough -- you can always discover whether that point is black or white.
One kind of intellectual laziness is to not bother zooming in far enough, and satisfying yourself by saying "it's in a gray area."
Manicheism
Good analogy. Well said
You do realize that the Fed is monetizing our national debt? That is in all of our self interest.
What? They wouldn't ... casino bernanke - goldpricemodel
Madeline doesn't know too much about the Weimar Republic and hyper inflation, so I guess you don't either. Suffice to say, it has no point with regard to the current situation. However, if you would really like to address the problem in both Maine and the entire United States of America, if you would please go to www.electanewcongress.com. It's all here, a one stop shop. This is the constitutional mechanism that establishes and maintains Liberty. With it (i.e. Liberty) in application, it serves as a catalyst that sweeps all other issues before and transforms the entire political, economic, and social structure to stability, sanity, and sustainability. Serfs Up America! www.electanewcongress.com
Nein, meine liebchen, New American Re...
"Madeline doesn't know too much about the Weimar Republic and hyper inflation, so I guess you don't either. Suffice to say, it has no point with regard to the current situation."
Germany was saddled with unpayable debts thanks to the Treaty of Versaille and so reverted to printing money to repay the debts.
The United States is saddled with unpayable debts thanks to self-inflicted financialization of everything. The Fed has been printing money in exchange for dead financial carcasses from the self-appointed TooBigTooFail and promises-to-repay loans from (trust-me) politicians.
Gosh... I can't see a parallel to the Weimar Republic either....
Those debts were not nearly as onerous as the Germans and others made them out to be. They never amounted to more than 5% of German GNP, and under the US-brokered Dawes plan, were suspended for 1922 entirely and greatly reduced for the following years. (cf. Jens O Parsson, "The Dying of Money"; Bresciani-Turoni's masterwork cited by others is also invaluable) With the assassination of Walter Rathenau in June 1922 (one of the few ministers who advocated paying German debts), it was obvious to the rest of the world what Germany intended to do.
From Parson: (see if you can find the parallels...BTW, I believe he is mistaken about the inflexion point not being timed to any one particular event. If you look at the RM's chart, the inflexion point occurs precisely in june/july 1922 at Rathenau's assassination. Other than that, it's still quite an eerie description)
As for the speculators, the most extraordinary feature of the Reichmark’s joyride (the boom of 1921) was not any attack against it, but quite the opposite, an incredible (’pathological’ it was later called) willingness on the part of investors at home and abroad to take and hold the torrents of marks and give real value for them. Until 1922 and the very brink of collapse, Germans and especially foreign investors were absorbing marks in huge quantities. Only the international reputation of the Reichmark, the faith that an ecomic giant like Germany could not fail, made this possible. The storage factor caused by the investors’ willingness to save marks kept the marks from being dumped immediately into the markets, and thereby for a while held prices in check. The precise moment when the inflation turned sharply upward, toward its vertical climb was undoubtedly timed by no event, but by the dawning psychological awareness of the German and foreign investor that Germany was not going to back its money. With that, the rush to get out of the mark was on. Like a dam bursting, the seas of marks flooded into the markets and drove prices beyond all bounds. The German government strove mightily to out flood the sea. The sea of marks which had been stored up by Germans and especially by trusting foreigners flooded forth and fought to buy into other investments, foreign currencies, tangible goods, almost anything but marks.”
Don't forget the French occupation of the Rheinland, which was an attempt to collect Weimar debts by expropriating the profits of German industry... kind of like off-shoring industry and corporate profits.
Thanks Aurorus, there is even more to the story. While France did occupy the Rhur and parts of the Rhine to try and get Germany to pay its war reparations. Germany, on the other hand had 6 million Germans in the area, go out on a general strike so France could not take coal as payment. The German government began printing and extending massive amounts of credit so the general strikers could feed themselves and their families. And we know what happens next.
I'm all for terminating the debt-financed welfare-illfare state. But let's not forget the bloated warfare state: Germany debt-financed WW I from the onset, and that also figured in the postwar inflation.
If you are feeling Madeline may be deficient in her knowledge of the subject, and might even want to educate yourself a bit more, here is the most detailed piece out there on the subject..
http://tinyurl.com/cujztne
Or / and / When Money Dies:
http://www.amazon.com/When-money-dies-nightmare-collapse/dp/0718302141
Interesting site but I am suspicious by nature. I believe that to elect a new congress one citizen would have to go within the state where that one citizen is registered to vote for their representatives and vote for the new ones. If everyone did that, regardless of the party affiliation of the candidate, there would be a new congress. The new reps would likely not have the ties to big business or K-street lobby-ists and so would be less beholden to earlier back-room deals.
Even if the mix of right/left remained the same, if the emphasis was on constitutional governance rather than cronyism that change, along with sunlight, could do wonders.**
Plus, your link is very slow...
**the sunlight would have to be supplied by the voter's insistance and pressure on the media to investigate and display the crimes of government - as the media used to do before it was consolidated and placed under control of the power brokers. So we might want to throw those bums out too.
Money is the only thing that flows uphill, remember that whenever some one wants to "Save" you from some "Ideological" mistake. Why is Paul Krugman feted as an oracle of economics? Because he can use the pages of the NY Times, so who does he represent? the people who own the NY Times! Who does Gov. Le Page represent? Ultimately the same people I assure you, if he didn't he wouldn't be Governor!!
GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
wait for engineertheeconomy's thoughts. He will tell what is appropriate.
Someone has to do it. Now go away Vic you stupid Troll
I actually gave you a thumbs up. You deserved it that time. And if you did go fishing. I'd like to hear about it too.
I want to hear more about your fishing trip!
Sea Bass?
Chris, I am amazed that you are focused on the "party" dialectic construction at all. Those labels appear to be forms of distraction - although the players themselves may be unaware of the use of themselves. Either way we are headed over the stalemate cliff. I believe that, as Jim Sinclair insists, we will print because we have to or default, which is the final choice. We will spend because the people demand relief from their government's self-inflicted pain. The defense-industrial-corpgov system is as responsible as the educational-medical-social system. They are guns and butter and we have too much of both.
This political season of Obamnys was best expressed by williambanzai7's piece on Vote for Nobody, imho. Or Ron Paul, of course...
http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/2012-08-02/election-2012-nobody-gives-flying
really. like the republicans are better than the democrats. or vice versa.