DISQUS

April · 1 year ago

All societies are the same. They benefit a few and the people at the bottom get what is leftover. The masses are waking up because eggs have gone up 30% in that last year, but they were complacent when they could still pay the mortgage and eat out once a week.


I may be a bit pessimistic, but history bears out that sooner or later the masses will wise up and then it will get ugly. We have had moments like that during the Industrial Revolution. Factory workers were tired of the treatment they recieved and went on strike. Sometimes it got bloody. Black people got tired of getting the run around and it got bloody. The same thing has happened in South Africa or Rwanda or any country where one group is on top.



The real problem is that the ruling class got sloppy and lazy. Their brainwashing techniques are getting old. The propaganda is not tight and the holes are showing.



When you have to choose the one fruit you can afford to buy, gas or entertainment, drugs or food, then no amount of propaganda is going to convince you that everything is OK.



What it boils down to is that people do not want to know the truth about how their lives are run. It is too much to handle. We would rather believe the crap that we are fed everyday, until we become so uncomfortable the soothing words don't wash anymore.

Luke Lea · 9 months ago

A few brief comments: Real wages are determined by supply and demand. Three things increased the supply of labor relative to demand: 1. labor saving devices especially in the home; massive immigration; rapid expansion of trade with low-wage countries. The latter two of these were a result of decisions by policy elites, the other a consequence of technological advance. The answer to labor saving technology is a shorter workweek (cf. 19th century). The answer to immigration is a moratorium. The answer to trade is . . . no, not protectionism, but wage subsidies fincanced by a tax on the income of the wealthy. It can be done.

ilaroui · 9 months ago

"That is why the poll numbers for the President and Congress are so low."

Was this piece written during the waning days of the previous administration? Because the current polls for the president are above 60%. I'm not sure what they are for congress but I'm pretty sure they're not low.

Edward Harrison · 9 months ago

ilaroui.

that's right: this is a post from just about one-year ago. Obama has much higher approval ratings. However, he really needs to get out in front of issues like AIG aggressively -- not just with words but action -- if he is to keep those approval ratings at these levels.

This administration ha a limited window during which to effect change (the so-called first 100 days). Afterwards, scepticism will grow.

donny · 9 months ago

Something I keep coming back to when I think about this issue;
In Farley Mowats' People of the Deer he writes about the fur trade coming to the Barrens in the twenties. The eskimo people who lived there derived their sustenance almost solely from a great herd of caribou before this. The came to rely more and more on goods traded for the fur of the arctic fox. These people made contact with western civilization just in time to be hit by the great depression. Luxury goods were in very low demand.
The trading company didn't want to go out of business. They thought maybe they could switch to canning caribou meat. As an incentive to get the locals to bring it to them, they offered a premium on the tongues. As a result, there was a massive slaughter of the herd. One man with a rifle could slaughter large numbers of caribou, and all he had to cart back to the trading company was the tongues. So people ended up starving.
When I think about fair trade today, I think of this. There are farmers in the third world who switched from growing locally consumed food crops to coffee--the premiums offered were just too tempting.
I tend to roll my eyes when I hit websites that talk about the Gini index. If some guy wants to drive around in a Ferarri, what do I care? Big screen tv; who cares? I probably don't enjoy watching my small screen any less. I enjoy stewed beef as much as I enjoy rib-eye steak.
That's not the point; the point is that if I've leveraged my life to this guys' appetite for Ferarris, and he gets in trouble, then I'm in trouble. Probably in more trouble than him.

dada · 9 months ago

Jim Cramer did what he was supposed to. He supported the financial establishment as was expected of him. He revealed to us that he was invited to the offices of CEO's and they personally attempted to assauge his fears about what was happening. That's OK. At least he's is enough of a loose cannon to admit this.
There is a person who will not submit to this kind of Mea Culpa and continues to drive the idea that the financial industry was as much a victim as everyone else. ERIN BURNETT. She defends this industry relentlessly. Last week she was on Bill Maher's show and Bill defined her as a 'moderate' or a 'centrist'!!! Erin has done all she can to defend the financial industry as victims of our current circumstances as much as the people moving into tent cities all over America. Lets call her out. I accept that she needs to keep her job and remain important and valuable but some of the things this woman has said....she tried to make the point that it was bad loans to undeserving borrowers that have created this deeply red balance sheet that we have to recover. Bill Maher was unable or uninformed enough to challenge her assertion.
I thought that the bad loans were sliced into securities which were bet on (derivatives) so many times over. She then curiously asserted that said that 90% of good decent homeowners were still paying their mortgages! Is she then saying that 10% of these deadbeat mortgage holders are bringing down the world economy? This is bullshit. But, here's the thing, on national TV, she said this and no one challenged her!!!! I think most of us understand that the shaky mortgages were bet on over and over again. Each bet being insured through a complex derivatives system so that now money is owed to everyone who placed the right bet since they knew that these corrupted transactions would fail. WHY DOESNT SOMEONE ON CNBC JUST SAY THAT!!?? They knew that these things were toxic and they bought them because there was a twisted insurance system that would guarantee their bets (they hoped). In the end, they all knew that the US government would pay up or else watch their economy crumble. I'm am as ignorant of these issues as any guy on the street. At least people like you help us understand what has destroyed or way of life. Can't do anything about it but at least we get it. Erin Burnett should be brought to task in the same way Jim Cramer was.
Thanks.

Edward Harrison · 9 months ago

dada,

thanks for your input. Personally, I haven't decided where I fall on the whole Jim Cramer thing. There have been a lot of comments all over the Internet about it.

Some think it's about time that we got some real journalism and are mortified that it took a comedian to really get to the heat of things. It is shameful on some level.

However, I am left feeling a bit empty by the spectacle. Ultimately, the problems with AIG and Bear and Lehman should have been recognized much sooner, and not necessarily by the media, but rather by regulators. In my view, the media were mere enablers, whereas lax regulation created the pre-conditions.

The question one has to ask is: would it be different elsewhere, in another time in another country under similar circumstances? I end up thinking no. These waves of euphoria and depression are endemic to the capitalist system and it is still very much unclear how to keep them in check.