World’s Designated Shoppers Drop

How much lower can consumer spending go? The malls are like mausoleums, retail clerks are getting laid off, and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss – hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out.

It could go a lot lower of course. This guy could start saving the little morsels he flosses out and boil them up to augment the children’s breakfast gruel. Already, as the recession or whatever it is closes in, people have stopped buying homes and cars and cut way back on restaurant meals. They don’t have the money; they don’t have the credit; and increasingly they’re finding that no one wants their money anyway. NPR reported on February 28 that more and more Manhattan stores are accepting Euros and at least one has gone Euros-only.

The Sharper Image has declared bankruptcy and is closing 96 U.S. stores. (To think I missed my chance to buy those headphones that treat you to forest sounds while massaging your temples!) Victoria’s Secret is so desperate that it’s adding fabric to its undergarments. Starbucks had no sooner taken time off to teach its baristas how to make coffee than it started laying them off.

While Americans search for interview outfits in consignment stores and switch from Whole Foods to Wal-Mart for sustenance, the world watches tremulously. The Australian Courier-Mail, for example, warns of an economic “pandemic” if Americans cut back any further, since we are responsible for $9 trillion a year in spending, compared to a puny $1 trillion for the one billion-strong Chinese. Yes, we have been the world’s designated shoppers, and, if we fall down on the job, we take the global economy with us.

“Shop till you drop,” was our motto, by which we didn’t mean to say we were more compassion-worthy than a woman fainting at her work station in some Honduran sweatshop. It was just our proper role in the scheme of things. Some people make stuff; other people have to buy it. And when we gave up making stuff, starting in the 1980s, we were left with the unique role of buying. Remember Bush telling us, shortly after 9/11, to get out there and shop? It may have seemed ludicrous at the time, but what he meant was get back to work.

We took pride in our role in the global economy. No doubt it takes some skill to make things, but what about all the craft that goes into buying them – finding a convenient parking space at the mall, navigating our way through department stores laid out for maximum consumer confusion, determining which of our credit cards still has a smidgeon of credit in it? Not everyone could do this, especially not people whose only experience was stitching, assembling, wiring, and packaging the stuff that we bought.

But if we thought we were special, they thought we were marks. They could make anything, and we would dutifully buy it. I once found, in a party store, a baseball cap with a plastic turd affixed to its top and the words “shit head” on the visor. The label said “made in the Philippines” and the makers must have been convulsed as they made it. If those dumb Yanks will buy this…

There’s talk already of emergency measures, like making Christmas a weekly holiday, although this would require a level of deforestation that could leave Cheney with no quail to hunt.

More likely, there’ll be a move to outsource shopping, just as we’ve already outsourced manufacturing, customer service, X-ray reading, and R & D. But to whom? The Indians are clever enough, but right now they only account for $600 million in consumer spending a year. And could they really be trusted to put a flat screen TV in every child’s room, distinguish Guess jeans from a knock-off, and replace their kitchen counters on an annual basis?

And what happens to us, the world’s erstwhile shoppers? The president recently observed, in one of his more sentient moments, that unemployment is “painful.” But if a pink slip hurts, what about a letter from Citicard announcing that you’ve been laid off as a shopper? Will we fill our vacant hours twisting recycled dental floss onto spools or will we decide that, if we can’t shop, we’re going to have to shoplift?

Because we’ve shopped till we dropped alright, face down on the floor.

Comments

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Getting back to the Israelis and Palestinians...

Just kidding. Anyway, I like my big screen TV as much as the next guy. Looks like I bought it just in time.

[roger]

" I once found, in a party store, a baseball cap with a plastic turd affixed to its top and the words “shit head” on the visor. The label said “made in the Philippines” and the makers must have been convulsed as they made it. If those dumb Yanks will buy this… "

i once found online a research facility which utilized the finest brain scanning equipment in the world. this equipment is used to diagnose tramatic brain injury and anticipate alzheimer's disease. if those dumb yanks will buy that......

http://www.mclean.harvard.edu/research/neuroimaging/

the thing cannot always be diminished to the least common denominator irregardless of how much barabara would like to depict americans as foolish, shallow and farcical .

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Very nice, roger. Now, who will have access to this beautiful equipment when they can't even afford to buy those shit-head caps?

[roger]

how did you come under the impression that tax dollars will not pay the fees for people to have these procedures. what do you think senator clinton means when she insists on universal coverage, automatic enrollment and wage garnishment for reluctant individuals for the purpose of paying for universal health care.

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1709472,00.html

[Bobby Decker]

LOOKS LIKE ILL BE EXCHANGING MY TIN FOIL HAT FOR THE PAUL REVERE MODEL ANYDAY NOW!!!!

[Suebob]

I once met a woman, the wife of a powerful entertainment exec, who was having her granite countertops replaced with new granite countertops in a different color because the first set were "too dark and depressing." I wondered how long the average granite countertop would last under heavy use without replacement. 5000 years? 10,000? "Wow," I said. "You must love to cook." "Oh, no," she replied. "I never cook. But caterers always love this kitchen."

[tamar]

Expose, expose, expose. This is great. Beyond fans (such as me) and attackers (such as some commenters), do policy makers, presidential candidates, and other "leaders" able to address core issues get it and do something useful? How do your ideas become part of the platforms for change that we seek?

[Jacqueline Homan]

For the past 30 years, segments of displaced workers have been saying this would happen. For the past 30 years as poverty was created by design, the "haves" and "have-mores" have off-handedly told the "have-nots" to "stop comlaining". The formerly well-off told the poor to "stop whining" about things, and that if they were poor and couldn't afford basic needs - let alone any extras - it was all their own fault. It was their fault for not getting college educations, for not having the most up-to-date-skills, whatever.

Now the chickens have come home to roost...Those who had enjoyed having theirs while not caring that countless others were left out are finally feeling the pinch. And of course, I imagine they want sympathy instead of being told to "stop whining" as their investment accounts tank, and they must sell their Cadillac Escalades for a song in addition to their suburban homes.

But they brought this on themselves because they had their blinders on. They spent the last 30 years cruising through life on auto-pilot. As long as they were living comfortably and had theirs, they didn't care about those of us who never got ours: people who have done all the right things but who still got left out economically; people who are food insecure, who freeze in the winter, and who have had no access to health and dental care.

But pointing fingers and saying "I told you so" is not going to fix this mess. Everyone should wake up, smell the coffee, and form a united front to take a stand against those chiefly responsible for this economic quagmire of not enough jobs, gutted safety nets, unaffordable energy and fuel costs, and runaway prescription drugs/medical costs.

If I may be so bold as to make a suggestion, you might want to check out a book "Classism For Dimwits" at Amazon.com.

[roger]

" Everyone should wake up, smell the coffee, and form a united front to take a stand against those chiefly responsible for this economic quagmire of not enough jobs, gutted safety nets, unaffordable energy and fuel costs, and runaway prescription drugs/medical costs. "

i imagine that you will insist that the ones who created the jobs in the first place are those cruel and punitive patriarchs who now are making off with the loot.

who precisely is responsible for this mess.

[roger]

i read another blog by another socialist whose attitude toward common folk and specifically fellow americans is similar to the tone here:

" This bad news just in: Not only do you have to buy your way into the American middle class through forceful consumption of the lifestyle, but you have to buy your way out of it. I'm serious. Buy your right to live in poverty. Let's say you've managed to get your kids through college one way or another, usually via a second mortgage and loans, and you decide like I did to say: ---- ----. I've done right by my family. Now I've got high blood pressure, a bad back, and a million other stress ailments. I'm overweight and have terrible lungs. Now I want to escape the ever rising cost and stress of playing the game, the grinding chase after enough net worth to feel safe about such things as health care and a safe place to ----. Spend a few years in some warm place blinking at blue, unpolluted sky before I go tits up. "

i left out some profanity. why do socialists insist on seeing the working class in this degenerate and barren manner. what about the tremendous accomplishments by this same society of intelligent and industrious persons. it seems to be the same tone over and again: helplessness and doom.

http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2006/02/welcome_to_midd.html

[roger]

cited by joe bageant, barbara's fellow traveler:

"Take away America's Wal-Mart junk and cheap electronics and what you have left is a mindless primitive tribe and a gaggle of bullshit artists pretending to lead them."
-- James "Mad Dog" Howard

and you call me callous and cynical.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

roger: "how did you come under the impression that tax dollars will not pay the fees for people to have these procedures."

Well, for one thing, McCain might get elected.

"what do you think senator clinton means when she insists on universal coverage, automatic enrollment and wage garnishment for reluctant individuals for the purpose of paying for universal health care."

Kinda sounds like you don't want John Q. Public to have access to those machines if Hillary has anything to do with it!

Actually, my fear about Hillary's plan is that John Q. public will get the mandates, but the for-profit health-care business will fuck him over all the worse when he's forced to buy their "coverage."

Those sure are beautiful machines, though.

[roger]

medicaid and medicare process medical claims with or without mccain and with or without wage garnishment as promoted by senator clinton to pay for universal health care.

[Anarcissie]

roger: '... why do socialists insist on seeing the working class in this degenerate and barren manner. what about the tremendous accomplishments by this same society of intelligent and industrious persons. it seems to be the same tone over and again: helplessness and doom. ...'

Seems to me hating the working class and the currently popular apprehension of doom are two different feelings about two different things.

I think the first thing is just a defective subset of the more general view: "I'm not prejudiced, I hate everybody." The mentioned haters just need to broaden their perspective. "Odi profanum vulgus" is itself vulgar -- in fact, it's a pop song these days.

The apprehension of doom comes about because our elites have functioned poorly. They have created huge amounts of imaginary wealth which is not in fact based on anything real. As a result, credit, upon which our economy and its financial system are based, is vanishing and the superstructure is collapsing. The disappearing consumer is merely the canary in the coal mine. It is hard to know which way to jump when our lords and masters are confused, irrational, maybe even moronic.

[bpb]

Hey Roger - there's no such word as "irregardless."

[roger]

hey its chickenshit's job to tell me what is a word and what is not a word.....

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Only if you challenge a word I use, or if you use a word with an unclear meaning. "Irregardless" is a word that dictionary.com labels "nonstandard," but few people fail to understand it.

[Anarcissie]

"Irregardless" is good. It gives you a chance to grind the first _r_ before you spit it out, which is usually appropriate for the kind of conversation you're having when you use the word.

[Jacqueline Homan]

Roger said: "i imagine that you will insist that the ones who created the jobs in the first place are those cruel and punitive patriarchs who now are making off with the loot.

who precisely is responsible for this mess."

So Roger, how's the Kool-Aid?

Those "cruel punitive patriarchs" did NOT create those jobs or their wealth by their own single-handed efforts. If it were not for the supporting classes, and masses of exploited working poor, they would not have what they have. If you need a history lesson which supports this, I suggest you read "Classism For Dimwits", particularly chapters 7-8. That clarifies it in a nutshell.

As to who precisely is responsible for this mess:

First, the ruling elite whose greed is going to become their own undoing - while leaving untold misery and suffering in their wake. I cite glaring examples of only some of their misdeeds in chapters 7 and 8.

Second, those who voted for politicians that supported the policies of greed of the ultra rich (at the expense of hurting the working class and the poor) over these last 20-30 years and therefore selling the "little guy" down the river - they're also responsible. They voted for congresspeople and presidents who enacted (for the lasst 3 decades) policies entailing "voo-doo economics". The middle class voters thought (mistakingly) that there was something in it for them, and as long as they were living comfortably they didn't care about those who have been left out. Unfortunately, this is now coming back to bite them in the backside as more middle class people fall into poverty.

Multinational corporations have never, and I repeat NEVER, been loyal to this nation or its masses of people who enabled them to get their wealth. They did not singlehandedly create the railroads, the oil wells, etc.

Now Roger, since you seem to think that socialists, progressives in particular, are the bad bogeymen under your bed and that we're the enemy to "free trade", let me enlighten you:

We do not have, nor have we had, "free trade". What we have is a rigged market of socialized wealth for the elite and of privatized risk for the masses. I prove that point very clearly in the middle of chapter 6 (pages 307-318).

I would suggest that you read my book and I would also suggest that you read Barbara's book "Bait & Switch" if you haven't already done so, in addition to "See Poverty - Be The Difference" by Dr. Donna M. Beegle.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

"...since you seem to think that socialists, progressives in particular..."

Tell me, which socialists aren't progressives? Are all progressives socialists? You seem to have your categories a bit muddled.

Also, although I don't agree with roger about much, he's not a dimwit. I think the imperious way you tell him to read "Classism for Dimwits" is gratuitously insulting.

[lc2]

I for one have seen the silver lining in some of this belt-tightening this winter. I now see what an utter waste of money and sodium it is to eat out. Of course I realize this will put some low-paid restaurant workers out of work (since I only ate at low-end diners anyway) and I feel bad about that, but I have to feed my own family first. I'm dusting off my natural food cookbooks and revising some stick-to-the-ribs rice and beans recipes. Frozen kale is really good if you roast it in a 350 degree oven, and costs half as much as fresh, 1/3 as much as fresh/organic. Am also planning a giant garden this summer for the first in many and will preserve some of it. These are all good developments.

Keeping the house at 60 degrees during the day, 58 at night, sucked at first, but now I realize that it doesn't have to feel like I'm walking into a blast furnace, coming in from the snow. The trick is to put your slippers and sweater or jacket on (and a hat, on the coldest days) when you first enter the house.

Clothes? Toys? Hah! Those greedy retailers can kiss my JC Penney clearance-clad ass. Sorry to say, but I'm not really thinking about the working conditions in the Maldives right now. Got my partner a bunch of neckties for $2.97 apiece a few weeks back. I'm sure they were irresponsibly produced by women in the Maldives, but I need to clothe my own family first.

As for that impending stimulus payment? (Giving the IRS the finger). Going straight to my overdue bills, the consistently two months behind utility payments mainly.

The prob I see is, college students everywhere, in the space of a decade or two, have lost touch w/what a "starving student" actually is. I see these idiots walking around droning mindlessly on their cell phones (it wasn't the least bit unheard of to lack a personal phone of any kind when I was in school), ensconced in North Face (just in case you miss the logo on the front, there's one on the back shoulder, too), whining to their cell-phone buddies about how Mom and Dad are giving them grief over the SUV gas bills that get sent directly home to be paid. If these kidlets don't wise up and eat Ramen and wear thrift-store chic the way the rest of us did in college, we're all in trouble. Where have all the hippies gone?

[Chickensh*tEagle]

"...Frozen kale is really good if you roast it in a 350 degree oven, and costs half as much as fresh, 1/3 as much as fresh/organic. Am also planning a giant garden this summer..."

Don't forget to plant some kale and Brussels sprouts. We were picking pre-frozen kale from under the snow in December and Brussels sprouts in January.

"Keeping the house at 60 degrees during the day, 58 at night, sucked at first, but now I realize that it doesn't have to feel like I'm walking into a blast furnace, coming in from the snow."

Would wood heat be practical for you? We have a wood stove in the living room and a wood-burning cook stove with an oversize firebox in the kitchen, either one of which will heat the whole house. We're always toasty while a lot of others are scrimping on oil and electricity and shivering.

[lc2]

Well now that you mention it, we do have ready access to firewood (have a sizeable woodlot on our property) ... but no money at the moment for a stove, or what I've heard is truly efficient, a wood furnace. That will be our next investment for sure, along w/solar panels for hot water. Our house is also quite small (800 sq. ft) and well-insulated, so that helps. Doesn't take much to keep it heated at 60. We used 125 gal. of oil in the first 9 weeks after we'd turned the thermostat to the "on" position, so not too bad.

Agree on the brassicas ... so easy to grow, and far sweeter and tastier if they've weathered a few frosts.

I've just really tried to get out of the "treat myself" mindset, know what I mean? I don't "deserve" a cup of coffee just because I'm driving somewhere, I don't "need" a new pair of pants just because I'm tired of the old, or they have a few mend-able rips.

Granted, this comes from a firmly middle-class perspective; I don't claim to have insight into the lives of people for whom ecomomic security is an unattainable dream. But I'm really glad we've kept our lifestyle so relatively low-key over the years .... it will smart a lot less when the credit faucet gets turned off for real. But I really do fear for a generation of people who think cell phones and laptops are as necessary as food and shelter.

If the middle class in the U.S. ends up becoming politicized after having its McMansions and technological toys taken away, I wonder: will it be as sweet to witness as it would if such a movement was born of true class consciousness? Hmmmm.

[roger]

" Now Roger, since you seem to think that socialists, progressives in particular, are the bad bogeymen under your bed and that we're the enemy to "free trade", let me enlighten you: "

there is nothing in the world i would prefer than to be enlightened by you. i clicked on your name expecting to find a philosophical or doctrinal defense of your positions and i found a paperback book.

my perspective surrounding socialism is indexed against the show trials of the 30s, the gold mines in kolyma under stalin's administration (i am being too charitable to use this word in reference to stalin), and the experiment in building socialism in the german democratic republic. i have read scores of first hand accounts of prisoners and apologists of socialism and communism of the russian and german varieties. i would anticipate from you therefore some manner of defense or apology for this tyranny.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow_trials

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolyma

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Fechter

[Anarcissie]

"Socialism", at least as defined by the original socialists, is the ownership or control of the means of production by the workers, or the people generally. Any producers' cooperative or partnership of equals is socialist in this sense.

The idea seems to appeal strongly to a lot of people. Hence, many political organizers have used it for marketing purposes without much concern for actually enacting it. Thus we had the National Socialist Workers' Party (Nazis) in Germany, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Neither of these outfits was remotely socialist in actuality.

However, rightists, who hate the idea of personal freedom and the equality freedom necessitates, picked up on the usage eagerly. They have made the word "socialism" equal "government control", while "democracy" has been made to mean "capitalism" -- the sort of abuse of language Orwell warned about in _1984_. "Socialism" does not mean "government control" and traditional capitalism is not at all democratic, unless we turn all language into meaningless propaganda.

I am sorry to see this abuse, this obstruction of meaning and understanding, carried on here, especially when we could be discussing something important to all of us like the collapse of the present economy and its financial system. But there it is.

[lc2]

Anarcissie,

Agreed! So anyway ... how bad do you feel for people who are poised to lose their houses? A little bit, or none?

[roger]

" Socialism", at least as defined by the original socialists, is the ownership or control of the means of production by the workers, or the people generally. Any producers' cooperative or partnership of equals is socialist in this sense. "

yes. we see this principle resulting in apparent success in the kibuttzim in isreal and to disastrous and horrifying results in russia. the principle itself may well be beneficial. the application thereof however is the source of concern.

" They have made the word "socialism" equal "government control", while "democracy" has been made to mean "capitalism" -- the sort of abuse of language Orwell warned about in _1984_. "

ok but it is common for persons to confuse government models and economic models. that does not take away from the demonstrated results of socialism in the east to include russia, china, and north korea.

[chris]

Critics here have bashed every economies of every type. Oh the "socialist economies" were never "true" socialist economies. Just some perversion of the state we might perfect if we give it one more try.

Oh, the capitalist model is yet another abuse.... Yak, yak, yak.

One remarkable point is the fact that people who claim to believe that capitalists exploit the working class are simply liars.

Nothing less than liars. The union workers at General Motors have complained and bitched about management for decades. But one step these cowards never took was buying the company. Or buying enough stock to influence the board of directors.

General Motors happens to have a capital structure that makes it an easy target for anyone interested in buying the business. There's only 500 million shares of GM stock and its selling for about $20 a share. The union would obtain a huge amount of control by acquiring 10% of the stock. Today that would cost about $2 billion. Well within reach of all the people with employment links to the company.

But here's the news. They won't take the risk. They are scared. If they own it, or control it, or exercise a measurable degree of control over it, they are then responsible for the outcomes of their decisions.

A lot of knowledge workers have chosen stock -- equity ownership -- when possible. Microsoft and Google are two well known examples. But there are thousands more.

But workers toiling for major manufacturers like GM and our once healthy steel companies never touched the stock. For all the complaints from workers about the ineptness of management, the workers were never willing to assume the risk that defines decisionmaking. But nothing is stopping them except their own fear.

[chris]

barbara writes:

"The malls are like mausoleums..."

Not in New York City. But so what?

And:

"...retail clerks are getting laid off..."

Yes. Becasue it's now cheaper to let customers perform their own check out. Gas stations made the switch years ago. It's happening in every venue. The customer scans, bags, and pays for his goods all by himself. No help from an insanely bored cashier.

And this whopper:

"...and AOL recently featured on its welcome page the story of man so cheap that he recycles his dental floss – hanging it from a nail in his garage until it dries out."

Will someone run this through the Snopes Urban Myth bullshit detector? Obviously this story will be repeared ad nauseum until it is perceived as incontestable fact. But, it's fiction. Or, if rhere is some truth to it, Mr. Floss is an insufficiently medicated nut case perhaps living near the former home of the Unabomer in Montana.

Presumably he also believes in cloth bathroom wipes and does not descend to the spendthrift practice of using yards of toilet paper every trip to the can. If he reuses floss, he can clean his bathroom cloth as though it were an old cloth diaper. Has he claimed he's doing this? No.

However, if he's thinking like a tightwad, he might want to consider alternatives to dental floss. A light monofilament fishing line would substitute nicely for floss at far less expense.

As for Sharper Image? Well, who cares about one high-end store that sold amusing knick-knacks to people with an urge to overspend?

The store pulled in revenue of about $400 million in 2006. Revenue probably dropped to $300 million in 2007. In both years the bottom line was deep in the red. Stores come and go. This one lasted about 25 years.

Bradlees, Caldors, Ames, and many more operated for 25 or more years, then fell to the competition. But the bottom line on the industry is this: It is growing. The names of the players may change, but the industry goes forward.

WalMart, Costco, Target, Nordstron's, Macy's.

What causes the need for the existence of never-changing institutions of every type? Why are retail stores some form of touchstone?

Of course we could reverse a lot of trends that bother people by creating a guest-worker visa program and eliminating the minimum wage. That would change many situations for the better.

[lc2]

Um, I re-use dental floss over and over ... I buy those handled flosser things, which I feel bad about b'c they're so wasteful but which really work well, then I just use and rinse the floss part over and over in hot water till it shreds. Didn't realize that was so unusual or thrifty ... is this gross to the rest of you?

[Anarcissie]

chris: '... The union workers at General Motors have complained and bitched about management for decades. But one step these cowards never took was buying the company. Or buying enough stock to influence the board of directors. ...'

Yes, socialism would require the workers to be willing to manage their own business, and most don't seem to be interested. Odd and seemingly contrary to reason, but true in my experience. So there is not much point in talking about it, unless someone has an idea about how to change the situation.

[chris]

The line between bounty and disaster must be paper thin if Barb's claim that "malls are mausoleums" is true. Here's the latest on retail sales from Wall Street:

NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

March 13, 2008

"U.S. retail sales took an unexpected tumble during February, the Commerce Department reported, falling 0.6% and aggravating recession fears...

"High prices for gasoline, the credit crunch, falling home values and drops in other asset prices are seen as factors depressing spending..."

A decline of Six-Tenths of ONE PERCENT? Not good. But not much, either.

[Anarcissie]

lc2: '... how bad do you feel for people who are poised to lose their houses? A little bit, or none?'

You're talking about a very wide variety of people there. I have trouble visualizing them. Most of the people I know are just sort of scrabbling by, as always, and almost all of them rent. This is not to say their lives are hard -- far from it. They just don't have a lot of money and what they do have is not involved in real estate.

Anyway, we don't know how things are going to turn out. There may be less house-losing than is presently anticipated, because there is no point in foreclosing a mortgage when you can't sell the property. It makes more sense to keep the poor buyer on the hook at reduced rates for perhaps a greatly extended sentence, I mean, term.

[chris]

anarcissie, you wrote:

"Yes, socialism would require the workers to be willing to manage their own business, and most don't seem to be interested. Odd and seemingly contrary to reason, but true in my experience."

In other words, workers want the rewards without the risks. But no matter what foolishness passes through the minds of workers, the risks remain. They can't be wished away. Expecially today, when it's possible to find highly productive labor in more and more places around the globe.

You made the insane claim:

"So there is not much point in talking about it, unless someone has an idea about how to change the situation."

Face facts. No economiic entity can mandate its own success in today's world. However, you clearly advocate sticking the head of the labor collective as far into the ground as the neck will reach. That's great. You want the mass suicide of labor.

It's happening. Machines can perform more and more simple human actions. Motivated highly productive work-forces in advancing countries crave more opportunities. But lefty, liberal thinking in the US continues to disconnect more and more domestic workers from employment.

The lefty, liberal unwillilngness to acknowledge the risks of the marketplace is a huge part of the problem. But it's easy for the lefty liberal sissies to overcome their deep fear of what it means to "make a difference."

GM workers could buy the company. They could toss out CEO Rick Waggoner, replace the designers, raise wages, increase health coverage and cut car prices.

But they won't because then the company would collapse due to their foolish assumptions about the workings of the world and their bungling would prove the bankruptcy of their ideas. And they all know it.

So if lefty liberals would rather not openly admit they know nothing and they fear they would prove their incompetence if they ran the show, that's okay. But so far, this practice is a major cause of the changing nature of opportunity in the US.

[Anarcissie]

chris -- "I only know that I know nothing" was one of Socrates's favorite wisecracks. Don't know whether you regard him as a "lefty liberal" or not, but it seems like a good starting point. You might consider adopting it yourself.

[chris]

anarcissie, we should all know as little as Socrates.

If we all knew as little as Socrates and worked to overcome that shortcoming according to his methods, most of today's domestic economic problems would not exist.

[Anarcissie]

The cell phone ruined the opportunity for living the economics of the Socratic life. Formerly, you had to choose between gabbling and shopping, but now you can gabble and shop at the same time, as you unfortunately cannot avoid observing several times a day.

Actually, I think Socrates lived off slavery or serfdom, which has gone out of fashion. However, we could emulate Diogenes; that might do some good.

[chris]

Things keep getting better from the land of labor and management:

NEWS ALERT
from The Wall Street Journal

March 13, 2008

"Chrysler plans to shut down the entire company for two weeks this summer as a cost-saving move to "accelerate Chrysler's recovery and transformation," Chief Executive Robert Nardelli told employees in a memo distributed today. The auto maker, which was taken private last year, has seen its sales slump as high gas prices and a slowing economy have damped consumer demand."

The Germans gave up on Chrysler. The Germans! Even they couldn't kick this company back into shape. But they have their foolish labor practices too.

Instead, the guy who did force some changes on Home Depot is planning to force some changes on Chrysler.

Chrysler was practically given away by the Germans. The surrendered. Chrysler workers could have bought the company for a song.

But what would they do after that? Of course they would have no idea. Chrysler is approaching a point of no return. Either labor will realize that the company is looking at liquidation -- not just bankruptcy, but liquidation -- or it will continue along its path to the automakers graveyard, where there are many tombstones.

Autoworkers are perfecting the experience of the Pyrrhic Loss. But Chrysler has a chance to change that. Maybe. A slight chance.

[The Eternal Squire]

I wanted to let you all know... after nearly 3 years after being laid off, I HAVE A JOB!

It is doing contracting work for the most powerful software company in the world, with time and a half for overtime, and full health benefits.

The job will last only a year before I have to take a mandatory 100 day break before repeating it, but at least it gets me and mine out of the desert where there are NO jobs to speak of except my wife's teaching job.

Lesson learned: A 401K is a not just a good way to save for retirement, it is a great way to save up for the lean times.

The Eternal Squire

[chris]

Eternal Squire, good luck to you.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Glad things worked out for you, but I'd toss in a caveat about 401Ks:

Unless laws have changed drastically since I had mine, your money might be tied up for a long time if your employer decides to move its 401Ks from one fund manager to another.

Mine got moved twice, and each time it took a lot longer than the nominal six-month freeze period before I could have gotten my hands on it if I'd needed it. The first time also involved litigation.

If I had a do-over I'd go for an IRA, especially since my company's contribution to the plan wasn't that big and took 10 years to get fully vested in.

[gaby]

Good for you, Eternal Squire! Same here, my 401K kept me going during the year I was unemployed. Unfortunately it was depleted entirely so now I am starting all over again with saving for retirement, or for the next bout of unemployment, whichever comes first.

[roger]

the fruits of communism:

http://www.hooverpress.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=1287

[Chickensh*tEagle]

So, roger, you think progressive blogs are riddled with Communist cells? Or what?

[Anarcissie]

roger is fond of atrocity stories and it looks like here's a whole bookful of them.

[roger]

i dont know that the archives of the soviet union could be dismissed so readily as simple atrocity stories or that there is no relevance here. i would say that an excellent question is how does barbara evaluate capitalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Ehrenreich

" Ehrenreich is currently an honorary co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America "

the answer to the question speaks to the issue of relevance.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Okay, then -- how 'bout the fruits of public-private partnership:

http://www.gregpalast.com/elliot-spitzer-gets-nailed/

[roger]

" So, roger, you think progressive blogs are riddled with Communist cells? Or what? "

communist cells? no i dont think anything quite so sinister. on the other hand is it fair to say that there is a tendency toward socialist policy and politics in the united states in this time and is this healthy for the population. what is the relevance and comparison between the soviet union of the 30s through 1953 at the death of stalin and the present american model.

[roger]

" The deluge of public loot was an eye-popping windfall to the very banking predators who have brought two million families to the brink of foreclosure.

Up until Wednesday, there was one single, lonely politician who stood in the way of this creepy little assignation at the bankers’ bordello: Eliot Spitzer. "

so air america thinks that spitzer was targeted by the bush administration because spitzer stood between the predator banks and money meant to rescue the banks after the banks fleeced the helpless population.

even if true this pales in comparison to the events in the forests of katyn on march 5, 1940.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

roger: "...this pales in comparison to the events in the forests of katyn on march 5, 1940."

Maybe, but I think it's more directly relevant to the world's designated shoppers dropping in 2008.

[Anarcissie]

roger: 'i dont know that the archives of the soviet union could be dismissed so readily as simple atrocity stories or that there is no relevance here. i would say that an excellent question is how does barbara evaluate capitalism.'

You mean if the ruling class of the Soviet Union criticized capitalism, and Barbara Ehrenreich criticizes capitalism, there must be some meaningful link between the two? Shall we analyze that logically? Or do you just want to skip all that evidence and reason stuff, so tedious, and place her, in a Soviet uniform and carrying a submachine gun, at Katyn?

[roger]

ok.

are you concerned that barbara insists on universal health care a clearly socialist principle to be administered by an incompetent federal government.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

Excuse me for butting in, Anarcissie, but --

roger: "are you concerned that barbara insists on universal health care a clearly socialist principle to be administered by an incompetent federal government."

Can you show us where she says she wants it administered by an "incompetent" federal government? Apart from that, does your only argument against universal health care consist of sticking the label "clearly socialist" on it?

[roger]

" Or do you just want to skip all that evidence and reason stuff, so tedious, and place her, in a Soviet uniform and carrying a submachine gun, at Katyn? "

now thats amusing.

i see the question as follows: is the socialist doctrine which drives the former soviet union and the former german democratic republic and the peoples republic of china, the same doctrine which barbara apparently supports healthy for the united states. the overriding tone is that wealth is evil and racist thus if wealth is eliminated and the united states become a classless society the problem goes away.

[roger]

" Can you show us where she says she wants it administered by an "incompetent" federal government? Apart from that, does your only argument against universal health care consist of sticking the label "clearly socialist" on it? "

there is no other type of federal government thus the government that barbara wants to administer universal health care will be corrupt and incompetent.

as for my argument against universal health care taxpayers cannot afford it. i work in medicaid eligibility and the waste of taxpayer money is enormous and criminal. medicare fraud would multiply exponentially if all were required to submit to government coverage. the answer is to decrease health care costs not impose unsustainable tax burden on an already burden middle class. the prescription drug benefit previously passes is too expensive as it is.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

roger: "as for my argument against universal health care taxpayers cannot afford it."

But have no problem affording a 3 trillion dollar war of empire for the benefit of our ruling class. You needn't bother telling me anything more about "affordability" until we're out of that war.

"i work in medicaid eligibility..."

Oh no, no, no! roger, roger, roger! Working for the corrupt, incompetent government socialized medicine bureaucracy!

Wouldn't it be truer to your principles to work in that for-profit slaughter house in your town? Or is it pleasanter, less dangerous and better rewarded to work for the socialist bureaucracy?

Or...maybe you're trying to hold the line for the poor beleaguered American taxpayer by denying eligibility to as many mooching welfare queens as possible?

Anyway, my own experience with Social Security and Medicare don't give me any reason buy that "incompetent government" pitch. I've had nothing (knock on wood) but trouble-free service so far.

"the prescription drug benefit previously passes is too expensive as it is."

Only because big pharma (in partnership with the rest of corporate America) owns our Congress. If Congress had the spine to hang the pharma CEOs up by their heels and whack them with a rug beater -- or at least require them to negotiate prices -- the benefit could be a lot better for a lot less.

[roger]

i establish "overpayments" for poverty programs: food stamps, medicaid, financial assistance, child care. overpayment is an instance in which a client receives a benefit for which the client is ineligible. my responsibility is to recoup misspent tax dollars. i do it for money and retirement benefits. besides i have seen the kill floor at the slaughterhouse and want no part of it.

[roger]

" But have no problem affording a 3 trillion dollar war of empire for the benefit of our ruling class. "

i oppose the war.

[lc2]

So roger, how many ducats do you pull down every year, recouping all that $$ for us taxpayers?

Actually I'm interested in the incomes of every particpant in this blog. I think it's high time we demystified money in this society.

My household pulled in almost $70K last year. Hard to believe we make that much and still struggle and end up eating Ramen noodles at the end of a pay period. I just got a $384 paycheck and then opened up a $381 electric bill. Guess it'll be frozen pizza tonight for our Friday treat, not fresh from the corner family-run pizzeria.

[Trice Johnson]

Thanks Barbara,
I plan to throw a further "kink" in the "shop dropping" problem by not spending my $600 tax stimulus (rebate) from the Feds at all. Maybe I will donate the money instead to my favorite economic justice charity or send it overseas to the sweatshop workers. Time to call yourself or Naomi Klein for suggestions I suppose. I don't want the current Republican regime to be able to take even one day's credit for a resurgence in spending on anything.

[lc2]

Trice,

How much $$ do you make?You must be pretty comfortable to rebel that way.

[roger]

friday afternoon unrelated, nonagenda, random, posting:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120545277093135111.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

[chris]

chickenshit, your end-user experience with Social Security and Medicare have NO connection to any frauds or abuses that occur along the path of delivering benefits to you.

Social Security itself, is a rather simple system. A beginner actuary could model the whole syste. We know how many people collect SSI, and we know the amount they receive. We also know -- with great accuracy -- how many people will collect benefits next year, the year after, and for years after that. We also know the amount of increase in easy yearly expenditure.

Medicare is a different ballgame. The numbers are spiraling because there is no way to control medical costs. Period. We are victimized by our success. Medical technology advances, which means more and more people will receive more and more treatment and live longer. While they continue to live, their medical needs will continue to increase. They will increase until the Medicare recipient finally dies, which will occur at later and later ages.

Medical care can bankrupt the nation. We will defeat ourselves with medical costs even sooner if we maintain citizenship laws that allow large numbers of people who arrive here illegally to obtain services. It happens.

That aside, both Medicare and Medicaid are loaded with fraud. One of the most common frauds is billing the government for more service than was delivered. Upgrading the service. Instead of billing for a basic procedure or service, billing for a more expensive service.

Medicare expenditures are $8,500 per person. Medicaid expenditures are $5,000 per person. It is universally acknowledged that both programs need more money.

Lastly, the government you believe is capable of managing a universal healthcare program has had little luck running education systems on a statewide basis. If you are willing to accept healthcare of the same quality as the educational output from our government schools, then you will probably feel good about a government plan. But a government plan will undoubtedly fall much further from the ideal than our school system. The complexity guarantees chaos.

[Anarcissie]

It's going to be worse than that, according to roger. Adopt socialist medicine and we're going to go straight to massacring Polish army officers and intellectuals.

[Anarcissie]

Trice -- according to what I've read recently, about two trillion dollars in "value" has disappeared in the last few months. The government's $150 billion or whatever it is is a drop in the bucket. It will do little for Bush's repute, although the prospect of his departure from office may help the economy a little. In any case, your $600 will be pulled out of thin air and to thin air it will return. Enjoy it while it flutters by.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

chris: If "Old Europe" can do it, we can do it. Period.

[chris]

chickenshit,

European nations have a few distinct advantages when it comes to providing healthcare to their citizens.

First, they do NOT invite the world to partake. Every European nation has strict citizenship laws that restrict and limit the number of eligible participants. France, for example, aggressively deports freeloaders.

Second, the nations of Europe are much smaller than the US. Managing programs for countries with populations of 80 million and less is much easier than running a program for 300 million. Moreover, each European nation is more homogeneous than the US. That helps.

There is a third issue: Taxes. If people believe they can't afford mortgages now, wait till they see their new income tax bills after Universal Healthcare costs are added in.

Lastly, patients cannot sue for huge sums in Europe. If your doctor goofs during surgery, you are entitled to almost nothing. That might work in Europe, but malpractice lawsuits are protected by the Constitution here.

If the US adopts universal healthcare, personal injury attorneys will become richer than Bill Gates. The pot of gold at the end of the malpractice rainbow would be the biggest pot of all -- the pockets of every US taxpayer.

Let me know when you get the illegal alien problem repaired, the complexity problem solved, and the vast lawsuit wealth transferance problem settled.

New York City, alone, pays out $500 million a year to settle liability lawsuits. Most of it goes for medical malpractice awards. In other words, those Medicaid doctors botch a lot of cases.

If you expand those programs, the number of mistakes will increase as will the number and amount of the awards. You can wish for things to be different. But this is how they are, and nothing discussed today will result in affordable government healthcare.

[chris]

chickenshit, your favorite killers, muslims, gave some perverse hope to five or six families yesterday. Five or six private American citizens had been kidnapped by muslim fundamentalists in Iraq about two years ago.

After hearing nothing over the last two years, their families began to believe they were dead. But maybe not. Yesterday the families received some mail that gave them hope. Each received a finger from their missing persons. A finger!

At least they didn't get hatboxes with heads inside. Those muslims are so merciful.

[roger]

saturday afternoon unrelated, nonagenda, random posting (with video):

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/03/13/video-jeremiah-wright-and-god-damn-america/

[Jacqueline Homan]

Roger said: "there is nothing in the world i would prefer than to be enlightened by you. i clicked on your name expecting to find a philosophical or doctrinal defense of your positions and i found a paperback book.

my perspective surrounding socialism is indexed against the show trials of the 30s, the gold mines in kolyma under stalin's administration (i am being too charitable to use this word in reference to stalin), and the experiment in building socialism in the german democratic republic. i have read scores of first hand accounts of prisoners and apologists of socialism and communism of the russian and german varieties. i would anticipate from you therefore some manner of defense or apology for this tyranny."

First, the reason I do not have a PhD (as also cited in "Dimwits") is that as someone from the "underclass", I could not get enough financial aid to pay for gad school. Short of winning the Powerball jackpot, I have NO way of scraping together $130,000 for grad school. Furthermore, I was penalized for the conditions of poverty to which I was consigned and thus, could not aspire to a fellowship to pay for grad school.

Second, the fascism you describe (followed by your unreasonable demand for an apology) has more in common with the current policies amounting to one big "bash-the-poor-fest" that our conservative government here has implemented.

Fascism, which you confuse with socialism, was eloquently defined by Benito Mussolini as the merger of state and corporate power. When government allows big utility companies to be deregulated, and raise rates by 41% within a mere few months while enacting laws that allow them to shut off life sustaining utilities for America's most vulnerable and poor even in the dead of winter - THAT is fascism, my friend.

When The iron hand of government protects the interests of gas and oil oligarchies and "Big Pharma" at the expense of everybody else, especially hurting those least able to fend for themselves - THAT is fascism.

What we have, Roger, is socialism for the rich and a rigged market of privatized risk for everybody else - THAT is closer to fascism than progressive politics. You confuse socialism and fascism and communism. They are three different animals.

The suffering under Stalin's Soviet Russia as well as under Hitler's Germany fell hardest on the poor. A point I make perfectly clear in my book illustrating the oppression of classism – even in “classless” utopias. Those with money and connections were able to get the hell out of Dodge before the "Final Solution" - if they were open to reading the proverbial writing on the wall, so to speak. Those who didn't have money or know the “right” people were stuck: they were the ones rounded up and herded into sealed ghettos and then onto the death trains.

Furthermore, multinational rich and powerful corporations and banks lobbied Congress against our interfering with and stopping these atrocities - until Pearl Harbor got bombed. Only then did America enter the war and shut down the Nazi war machine. Afterwards, some of the vilest Nazi war criminals (like Klaus Barbie and Alois Brunner) were given aid, protection and high level jobs in our CIA by our own government - to combat Communism (not for any altruistic reasons, either!)

I am not going to apologize for the title I chose for my book. Nor am I going to apologize for not having a PhD when, as one of the "have-nots", grad school was put well beyond my reach financially. The ability to afford grad school, or having certain unearned social class privileges that make grad school attainable is not, and I repeat, is NOT an accurate measure of one's intellectual worth.

Who knows more about the social injustices of poverty and the effects of oppression due to classism - the rich kid whose parents are alumni who could go to Harvard and get a PhD, who only read about poverty but never ventured out of his sheltered gated community to see it, and who never lived it; or someone reasonably sentient who has had lifelong experience from an "insider" perspective?

If you are poor, white, and don't know the "right" people - you don't get into grad school on a fellowship - regardless of how smart you are.

I resent you criticizing something when you have not read it, know nothing about it other than it is 484 pages, comes in both hardcover and paperback, and that Amazon has not yet loaded the image and the "Search Inside option". Since you dismiss it without reading it, you cannot really engage in any honest debate about it or the validity of its content.

[Chickensh*tEagle]

chris: "Each received a finger from their missing persons. A finger!"

And for that you condemn all the world's Muslims. For that, with all due respect, YOU get a finger.

[Brian]

Eliot Spitzer, former governour of New York and Federal regional prosecutor is a good example of someone who shopped till he dropped by his own resignation. But I would like to turn this entire issue on its head and say why should we all make such a drama of this age-old political drama, part self-imposed, part society imposed. We are, in theory, in modern times where you might think we as a society would be a bit more tolerant of sex outside of marriage as its really none of our business, though its wonderful gossip. Why do couples automatically get divorced over some extra-marital sex and put themselves through emotional, financial, and societal breaking pain when less than fourty years ago it wasn't so guilted, and in fact even encouraged among the more adventurous. Why you say? Well simply put, the 60's scared the hell out of the estabilishments business model. One key face of the movement was the concept of "free" sex, not that it didn't have its own unique strings attached. But where sex is used to sell everything from toothpaste to cars to vacations to you name it, free sex means why even bother to buy the product when you can go right to the source? Biblical protestations and judments were born in part of fear of disease and fragmentation of the vital family unit, the key building block of greater society, the kernal cornerstone from which a strong social foundation could be built. Religion used that as a way to build a fanaticism, a code, a rule of law to further control people by controlling their sexual behavior. I am not saying it isn't fraught with its own peril's and disappointments, but why destroy people's lives or self destruct over it, as its much over-rated once you get it. That is the sad truth and it debunks all the magical promises of the advertisers of some special achievement. Its actually threatening to the entire power structures mental web of societal control to have sex readily available to people. Thus it punishes severely people who do it with one set of rules or another. It is also criminalizing more and more of it to where its now prosecuting teenagers and imprisoning them, labeling them for life, and encouraging more parents to turn to the courts over perennial conflicts that use to be settled by other means, whether a shotgun marriage or a reconcilliation. This is an ongoing campaing by the powers that control so much of our waking lifetime, to further harness our energies along their own productive lines that maximizes their profits at the expense of simply existing in the human frame. The shop to you drop is a good metaphor for what they want you to do. God forbid, but what if you weren't shopping and doing something else? Worse what if it wasn't anyting to further feed the production machine, but was to simply enjoy your time without spending money you don't have?(thankyou charge card #1,2,3....x) If we are a modern society its truely pathetic to use the "I gotcha" hook such as the one Mr. Spitzer got tangled up with to remove him from the office the voters elected him too. To think anybody doesn't have a dark side in some department is being in total denial. A dark side is in part to counter balance one who is overly doing something else. Type A hard driven, win at all cost, do-gooders with a societal welfare concience, may well gamble or dabble in various vices to some degree. For some this means simply cheating at golf or putting a ringer on a team. For others it may mean sampling that "dark" magic by some other means. Whether the government stalks the restrooms or escort services doesn't matter really. Its much the same tawdry seedy thing, where the government gets involved in peoples most personal affairs over pecadillos. Frankly there is no victim here other than the naive if personal funds were not used. Sex is so overused to sell everything switch-hitting with narcissim, I wonder why they don't make self absorption a crime---yet. So great society destroys a man of experience and rewards the new kid on the block with a big photospread in a men's magazine. Its way to mind boggling how it works. We live in one crazy society as now the powers that be will sell us the work hard to buy the things in the magazine concept so that we can get what the man they ruined had?

[Anarcissie]

Jacqueline -- there is no use getting excited about what roger writes. He is not capable of normal logic; he seems to operate through verbal associations -- for instance, connecting Single Payer medical insurance with the Katyń massacre through the words "socialist" and "socialism". This sort of thing may be derided -- or pitied; but it cannot be argued with because it makes no sense, and there is no point in resenting it.

[Anarcissie]

Brian -- most people do not get all that excited about sexual pecadillos. Spitzer's case was different because he was the very prominent, very combative governor of New York and had portrayed himself as Mr. Clean. The exposure of his habit of consorting with overpriced prostitutes rendered him an object of derision and made it impossible for him to carry out his supposed program of reform. You will notice that no one was very excited about Giuliani's meanderings in search of greener romantic grass, nor would people care about most politicians without the elements of humor and hypocrisy present in the Spitzer case.

[Jacqueline Homan]

Anarcissie said:"Jacqueline -- there is no use getting excited about what roger writes. He is not capable of normal logic; he seems to operate through verbal associations -- for instance, connecting Single Payer medical insurance with the Katyń massacre through the words "socialist" and "socialism". This sort of thing may be derided -- or pitied; but it cannot be argued with because it makes no sense, and there is no point in resenting it."

Very true, Anarcissie - it is hard to have an honest, meaningful debate with Roger under such circumstances.

[The Eternal Squire]

Jacqueline said: "If you are poor, white, and don't know the "right" people - you don't get into grad school on a fellowship - regardless of how smart you are."

That may be true for the humanities. But Ph.D programs in the STEM fields (engineering, computer science, mathematics) routinely offer at least half time assistantships plus tuition waiver to all those admitted to Ph.D programs.

The Eternal Squire

[chris]

The Eternal Squire made an important point regarding Jacqueline Homan's claim about paying for a Ph.D.

In sum, the Squire said Supply and Demand affects education like any other aspect of life.

Since the US is well supplied with critics, naysayers and denigraters, there's no need to increase their numbers by offering free advanced training in the game of misinformation and misdirection.

On the other hand, anyone who wants to reach the higher levels of fields aimed at building our economy will find plenty of financial support.

Lots of free or low-cost programs in many areas of engineering and science.

[Brian]

followup to Anarcisse: See you are following the conventional programming that sex=crime, so Spitzers "pecadillos"=crimesof hypocrisy. As prosecutor He went after the financial industry and not the sex industry as far as I know. And as far as I know he was one of the very few spokesmen for the little people who have been getting taken advantage by the predators running the financial industry and not the predators of the sex industry. That is my whole point. We as a nation have been programmed to equate anything to do with sex as crimes. Its automatic, a part of the running logic, even in sentence structure. The fact that he was shifting his own money in his own accounts to purchase a way- overpriced product says to me he was a victim of an industry he obviously didn't understand very well. If you shift your own funds to maintain some sembalance of personal privacy while part of a family might be a good thing as everyone deserves and needs their own space. Spouses that understand this of each other tend to get along much better in the long term. I just don't agree that his "hobby" rises to some big criminal undertaking when he is simply being taken advantage of. Unless theft of other people's money was involved its still just a personal and family matter, or should be. I still don't get equating what he did with the absolute criminality of what is going on in the nation's financial markets even as Bush starts bailing them out with taxpayer money. Now that is an eyebrow raising shifting of funds from the public account to private accounts that will generate profit and loss statements and bonuses for the very same predators who got us into this financial mess in the first place. And no I don't excuse the homebuyers as innocents who lied on their applications for mortgages they could never afford to buy. Yes you buy a mortgage, you are buying a loan there, just on a consumer pay as you go plan. How on earth does this equate with someones private pecadillos? Its just good old boy politics in its finest hour of making a public pillory for all the disaffected masses. Spitzer actually used his intelligence at work to try and put some sembalance of law on a completely gone cowboy finanical industry at a time the federal government was doing nothing(again). He was it. Now the media is only printing the stories given out by the finanical media industry that his personality was this, and he was that, etc etc. repudiating all his good deeds that did benifit the public. Recently in hearings he put the buy at a price rating agencies feet to the fire to fess up their true balance sheets to stop all the panic when they were stonewalling. No one else did. Yet because he fell into the sex-gotcha-net they give him the hook and now he is off the playing board as a contravailing power to unbridled corporate and financial interests. He was the people's only advocate with teeth in the game.

[Anarcissie]

I don't think employing a prostitute is immoral in itself, and I am opposed to laws forbidding it; my use of "pecadillo" was somewhat ironic. On the other hand, Spitzer probably did violate an implicit contract with his wife, his children and his friends and supporters not to make a public fool out of himself. He was supposed to be a reformer, not a sexual revolutionary.

[Brian]

About a month ago I blogged that the financial meltdown was only beginning and would only get worse as they drip, drip, drip it out. And that you could not believe anything anyone in the financial industry was saying about their continuing good solvency. Early last week the head of Bear Stearns said they were perfectly solvent and today they sold themselves to JPMorgan for approx. 3 cents on the dollar. As a banking concern they leveraged up to the hundreds of billions of dollars on a base of just a few percent of that. That is the whole problem, a small number of what at first sounds like big banks and brokerages is really a small number of players hold monstrous leverage over the entire financial market when their own capitalizations(if you even want to believe their books) ends up being not even 100 billion dollars. Yet they control a nest of interlinked assets in the "many" trillions of dollars, impossible to figure. So if one or two of them go bankrupt and they cannot honor their swaps and repo agreements that builds the insurance risk web all the big players participate and speculate in, there isn't enough real capital in the bank of these companies to honor all the bills that would come due at once. So yes the entire financial system can go down with global repercussions unseen since the great depression. The bush administration has been slow to recognize the problem, slower to act, and cheap and shortsighted when they do. Only now are they waking up and smelling the terrible coffee and Bush is starting to listen to some very experienced people who all the same have never ever operated in this environment. You could hear the fear in Paulson's careful choice of words on the sunday news programs. Some pundits speculated they take an Ayan Randian view on economic matters and simple stand back and let the "free market" fend for itself. But now have decided that isn't working out either. Well they have debased the dollar to half its oil purchasing ability of a year and a half ago. Gold is over 1000 dollars an once and forien investors have decreased by half their purchase of US equities and bonds. All of this as we stand on the precipice of an unknowable recessions. There has been no sign of capitulation in the stock market as of yet. Rather the continued sell off is in part a freeing up of appreciated stocks for money to meet margin calls and redeploy assets in speculative markets as oil, gold and commodities(Ag is the new hot thing). During this time social security, medicare, medicaid, horribly aging infrastructure, and increasingly pressured state and municipal budetary needs have not been addressed at all. States are having a hard time finding buyers for even their municipal bonds. DRip, drip, drip, one shoe after another falls, a perfect storm(overused term, yes) but all the same it is. Its hard to expain, if anyone can, how such a small handful of institutions were able to parlay less than a 100 billion dollars and end up with a controlling interest a web some have said is as big as 750 trillion dollars worldwide. By making little percentage profits on tiny movements within the global web they have managed to wring out huge corporate profits relative to their capital base and have thusly paid huge bonuses to the clever boys and girls who thought up this game. Its only so honerous in that the money really comes from our own stagnant real wage base, lost pensions, declining health plans, aging infrastructure, perennial wars, and governmental constipation. None of the candidates understand a modicum of economics worth a damn, yet they are the three the "system" has chosen for us to vote on. The fact that financial experts cannot get their head around the magnitude of the modern financial train wreak that is unfolding should say a lot about modern leadership as even a sarcastic endevour. We are in deep trouble and I have never seen anything like this. Sadly savvy short investors that still have leverage and hedge funds can profit once again from all of this and this christmas pay out huge bonuses once again.

[roger]

roger: " i would anticipate from you therefore some manner of defense or apology for this tyranny."

a·pol·o·gy - Show Spelled Pronunciation[uh-pol-uh-jee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun, plural -gies.
1. a written or spoken expression of one's regret, remorse, or sorrow for having insulted, failed, injured, or wronged another: He demanded an apology from me for calling him a crook.
2. a defense, excuse, or justification in speech or writing, as for a cause or doctrine.

jacqueline: "I am not going to apologize for the title I chose for my book. Nor am I going to apologize for not having a PhD when, as one of the "have-nots", grad school was put well beyond my reach financially. "

i was talking about an defense or interpretation of the tyranny of socialism given your previous comments about socialists and progressives in particular. i was using definition number two above.

[Anarcissie]

A few get to run things, including business and the economic system, because the many cede power over their own lives to them. Apparently this is voluntary, so I don't know what can be done about it.

The present financial crisis has been cooking for a long time. The Federal Reserve Bank was created to stabilize the currency and the banking system, but at least by the 1980s it had changed its function to one of giving the rich and the ruling class whatever they wanted. A way was found to inflate the money of the rich while keeping the money of the poor constant, by using credit available to the former but not the latter. Prices of stocks, real estate and collectibles climbed; prices of potatoes and nails and ordinary labor (wages) remained about the same. Apparently the rich liked that, but now the game has run out.

Just as none of our great leaders and candidates for office will engage the question of imperialism, none of them will engage the question of the banking system and currency, and in general the people won't demand that they do so -- it's too hard to think about, I guess. So the most aggressive, most deluded, most sociopathic people continue to direct the system. Dissastified with the current set of socoipaths, the folk seek new ones. Business as usual.

[roger]

" First, the reason I do not have a PhD (as also cited in "Dimwits") is that as someone from the "underclass", I could not get enough financial aid to pay for gad school. Short of winning the Powerball jackpot, I have NO way of scraping together $130,000 for grad school. Furthermore, I was penalized for the conditions of poverty to which I was consigned and thus, could not aspire to a fellowship to pay for grad school. "

surely you are not intimating that poverty is defined by incapacity to pay tuition for a doctoral program.

poverty: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3558527.stm

take a hard look at a few of those pictures.

[roger]

anarcissie" Or do you just want to skip all that evidence and reason stuff, so tedious, and place her, in a Soviet uniform and carrying a submachine gun, at Katyn?

Adopt socialist medicine and we're going to go straight to massacring Polish army officers and intellectuals.

He is not capable of normal logic; he seems to operate through verbal associations -- for instance, connecting Single Payer medical insurance with the Katyń massacre through the words "socialist" and "socialism". "

the word here is obtuse. as in you are being intentionally obtuse.

i have a book of essays edited by solzhenitsyn. one essay is written by igor shafarevich in which he describes the history of socialism.

when we speak of universal health care we are speaking of the economic articulation of socialism when in fact socialism is a full and mature ideology. the ideology would include allowing for the murder of members of the aristocracy to include polish intellectuals. a smaller portion of the ideology to include the economic articulation would call for universal health care.

http://www.sobran.com/hive/hive.shtml

My Hive metaphor was enriched by an essay by Igor Shafarevich, “Socialism in Our Past and Future,” in Solzhenitsyn’s collection of dissident writings, From under the Rubble. Shafarevich argues that socialism is not just a modern phenomenon, but a perennial problem of decadent societies. In the name of equality, it tries to destroy the family, private property, and religion — institutions that prevent the state from monopolizing loyalty, wealth, and authority. Since ancient times, socialists (under whatever labels) have favored sexual license — “the community of wives,” “free love,” “sexual freedom,” et cetera. By breaking down bonds of kinship, sexual anarchy reduces the individual to a mere unit of the state.

I saw immediately what Shafarevich meant. His words applied not only to doctrinaire socialists and overt Communists, but to all those liberals whose efforts constantly (though implicitly) tend toward a socialist order. Liberalism, I saw, was the retail version of the society of which Communism was the wholesale version. Liberals don’t speak (or think, as a rule) of outright revolution; they move one step at a time, always edging toward the socialist model of an egalitarian centralized state, always nibbling at the family (in the name of sexual freedom), property rights (in the name of social justice), and religion (in the name of the separation of church and state). Like bees, they swarm against enemies of (or perceived threats to) their Hive.

while i dont have any use for the words liberal and conservative these being shorthand utilized by a lazy media i think that the author summarizes well the essay. my argument is that this ideology is not healthy for the united states.

[Brian]

Roger, you don't need a PhD to think. In the old days a PhD meant you had a more comprehensive education than the narrow PhD's of today. Just compare the University standards for earning one from the 1960's to today. Many PhD's aren't even "programs" anymore, just a hodgepod of self selected courses for your Matriculation as a candidate(which is in part political and how you work the faculty) rather than evidence of any well read analytic intellect. What good Universities are supposed to do is to help facilitate a focused research thesis project that adds something new to a field that is substantial. And this is supposed to be vetted by faculty who you have to submit to for their support all along the way and then should be challenged in various exams concluding with oral exams. Unfortunately big Universities are notorious for allowing a sizable pool of PhD candidates start and wash out in the Matriculation phase with little faculty guidance or direction. So a number of would be PhD candidates as well as ones already well into the matriculation phase wash out and if they didn't have a stipend, scholarship, or fellowship they are much poorer for their effort and the University just washes its hands of them. Then the unevenness in PhD "programs"(they usally are nothing like real programs) is another problem. Is a doctorate in nursing as rigorous as a doctorate in medical physiology. Is a doctorate in education as rigorous as a doctorate in english literature? There are so many "minted" PhD's walking around america its akin to calling every sous chef a master chef when in fact many are just mediocre sous chefs with one signature dish. It use to be PhD's were awarded to students with a broader, deeper background in the general aspects of their subject. This in part answers the question whey their are so many applied PhD's offered today as the ScD, DrPH, EdD, ClinPsy, etc. So you could have done a PhD and it might not really be a very good one or worth much. Higher education credentials are dropped from trees like falling apricots in the silly season, but very few really are earned by exceptionally talented people. Rather its the persistent plodders that earn them by plowing through the various hoops and playing the political game well enough that the U finally mints them a placard saying they are a PhD, but are they really?

[roger]

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/03/boeing-or-eads-dont-give-a-damn/

" According to an article on Political Affairs Magazine website (”Did John McCain’s Lobbyist Ties Help Scuttle Boeing Tanker Deal?” March 12, 2008), International Association of Machinists’ General Vice President, “Rich Michalski blasted the Bush administration, saying, ‘President Bush and his administration have denied real economic stimulus to the American people and chosen instead to create jobs in Toulouse, France.’”

Let us not overlook the fact that, by implication, the same union vice president would have no problems with an imperialistic economic setup that would provide his fellow machinists, and all their future offspring, endless employment; as long as the jobs stayed here.

If you are one of those laid off workers, pray that your livelihood will never again depend on destroyed lives. I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but as a machinist you clearly have a lot of practical intelligence and creativity. Surely there are needs in you community that can benefit from the creativity that you (as well as your fellow machinists, with whom you can form cooperatives) possess. "

the collective rescues the downtrodden american worker.

this question is for chickenshit. how should we see this dilemma. is this an additional crime of militarism.

[Anarcissie]

Well, roger, if you're going to play poli-sci and not use "liberal" as in talk radio, then the first thing you're going to have to recall is that liberalism and socialism are highly antagonistic. The economic system of liberalism is capitalism, and it relies on, rather than attempts to avoid, the alienation of the fruits of production from the working class. That's where the capital comes from.

Of course there is a certain amount of paradox and contradiction in liberalism. Whereas liberalism makes much of the individual, capitalism is a collectivizing system. As is the "socialism" of your favorite demons, but perhaps that's not relevant yet.

[Chickensh*Eagle]

roger: "the collective rescues the downtrodden american worker."

No, it's individuals organizing themselves in different, perhaps unaccustomed ways.

"is this an additional crime of militarism."

If you were on the receiving end, how much much would you appreciate the good employment opportunities for the workers in that other country?

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174906/philip_k_dick_meet_george_w_bush

Anarcissie: "Whereas liberalism makes much of the individual, capitalism is a collectivizing system. "

The word "hive" comes to mind, at least for large corporations. :-)

[Anarcissie]

roger's on about "socialist" massacres; however, if he runs true to form, massacres perpetrated by liberal capitalist states didn't happen or were an aberration. I guess we'll find out.

[lc2]

Yawn. These responses are always the same, no matter the essay topic.

Who's not afraid of the big $$ question? Spill it!

[Anarcissie]

I haven't really experienced The Fear yet. Maybe the circuits are burned out, or something. In any case, Greenspan's bubbles had to burst sometime; you could see it coming a long time ago. Probably, the sooner the better, in that the shock would be even greater if they had gone on inflating for another year or two.

Today I was thinking of how our lords and masters started dismantling the New Deal after the election of Ronald Reagan. I thought at the time, well, it worked for forty or fifty years; now we'll see what will happen. And we will.

[chris]

With respect to Obama, he's affiliated with a US-hating preacher, he's got a wife who says she only recently had her first moment of pride in her country and he's been photographed with his arm around Al Sharpton and a big smile on his face.

There's a pattern here, and if Obama is nominated, this pattern will contribute to his landslide loss.

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[allallusa]

front yard suggested a pair planted scissors crown. well Forest. the vast

[roger]

" If you were on the receiving end, how much much would you appreciate the good employment opportunities for the workers in that other country?
"

i would shake my fist at the sky and curse the russians. the last thing on my mind is the financial gain made by those manufactured the missile.

the question raised by the dissident voice article is how much responsibility does the machinist or the plumber or the electrician have in relation to the product produced by their employer. if the employer is identified as an imperialist pig what options would the machinist still have. is is appropriate to designate those who have the audacity to work for a living as war profiteers and contributors to imperialism.

[roger]

" roger's on about "socialist" massacres; however, if he runs true to form, massacres perpetrated by liberal capitalist states didn't happen or were an aberration. "

so lets take a few days and tally up the western imperialist bloodshed and the eastern communist bloodshed and pretty soon we have long lists of dead folks on both sides. this of course being a tawdry and crude business would leave open the question of whether socialism as an ideology is healthy for the united states.

[roger]

when i read ann kimmage's memoir about attempting to organize the czech working class and obama's memoir about trying to organize the working class poor in south chicago and about attempts in the german democratic republic my victor grossman to organize east german workers and all of these efforts come up short as workers are more interested in short term goals rather that ideology where does that leave us. if the model is there to put bread on the table which model works best to that end. the question is readily legitimate since it is all too apparent that the worker at the meat processing plant is more interested in bread than ideology.

[roger]

barbara december 2007: " All right, some gated communities are doing better than others, and not all of their residents are racists. "

when barbara begins from the platform of socialist ideology this is precisely the formula which emerges: wealth is vile and racist and the wealthy must be punished for their ill gotten gains and are presumed guilty of theft of value from the worker regardless of the amount of effort, time, sacrifice which was committed by the owner in the process of accumulating wealth. i find this formula to be defective and barren. heaven forbid that some slob makes some money and jobs are then created.

[chris]

Robert Mugabe, A Man Obama's Reverend Wright Can Love!

It was hard to see what more Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe could do to ruin his country, but the relentlessly incompetent strongman still had one more trick up his sleeve, one of the few sleeves in that forlorn country that isn't tattered and threadbare.

Unemployment is 80 percent. Inflation is over 100,500 percent. The Zimbabwean dollar has been trading at a rate of 25 million for one U.S. dollar.

Returning to the capital of Harare where he was once based, Toronto Globe and Mail correspondent Michael Valpy wrote, "The former gem of Africa, once prissy in its orderly efficiency, is now sinking into a rank detritus of uncollected garbage, potholes, broken traffic lights and collapsing public services."

He reports that the country's largest hospital has quit doing surgery for lack of anesthetics, not that it matters because the staff, like workers at most of Zimbabwe's public institutions, don't come to work anyway because there's no gas available at any price for their cars and the ever-rising bus fares are more than their salaries.

Zimbabwe's descent from prosperity began in 2000 when Mugabe ordered the seizure of white-owned commercial farms, the economic backbone of the country. The farms went largely to Mugabe's cronies rather than to black farmers who might have made a go of them.

The farms fell into ruin and now Zimbabwe, once a major exporter of food, is dependent on international charity for its staple, corn meal. Fully one-third of its 12 million people are wholly dependent on international food aid.

And his latest trick to ensure even deeper poverty and ruin? He has signed a law requiring ALL foreign- and white-owned businesses to hand over ownership to black Zimbabweans.

This will quicken the exodus of desperately needed managerial talent and ensure that there will be little or none of the foreign investment Zimbabwe needs to resurrect its economy from the dead.