Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Adam Davidson, the 1%’s Lord Haw-Haw, Fellates Wall Street

Although I endeavor to treat high dudgeon as an art form, it is difficult to find words adequate to convey the level of ridicule and opprobrium that Adam Davidson’s latest New York Times piece, “What Does Wall Street Do for You?” deserves. I had the vast misfortune to come across it late last week, and have gotten an unusually large volume of incredulous reader e-mails about it. Ms. G’s e-mail headline “NYT – Not a Parody” was typical:

This one is so bad, even for NYT, I’m wondering if the paper wasn’t secretly sold to Murdoch, Bloomberg & the Fed Reserve sometime in the past few days.

Philip Pilkington: Fear and Loathing in the Financial Markets – What Happens to the Economy When the Oil Bubble Bursts?

By Philip Pilkington, a journalist and writer living in Dublin, Ireland

In 2008 profits in the US economy crashed out. But they soon bounced back. This bounce was largely due to the profits being reaped in the financial sector – which sickened many given that 2008 was in large measure caused by the financial sector. This always struck me as odd – not to mention unsustainable. If the ‘real’ economy is in the doldrums you can be sure that, in the medium to long run, the business class will go down with it.

In what follows I will draw on Chris Cook’s post on this site the other day to argue that, if he is correct (and I think he may be), judgment day is just around the corner for the profiteers.

American Exceptionalism and Euro-Bashing, Adam Davidson Style

Adam Davidson has an article in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, “The Other Reason Europe is Going Broke,” that manages the impressive feat of making you stupider than before you read it. It misrepresents most of the few facts it contains in appealing to American prejudices about our cultural, or in this case, economics superiority, to sell worker bashing.

Davidson uses the spectacle of Europe going into an economic nosedive to claim that one of the big things wrong with Europe is its spoiled workers. The piece is anchored in a glaring, fundamental misrepresentation. It argues that Americans are much better off than Europeans because we have a higher GDP per capita (more on that in due course) and asserts that that is because Europeans are not able to compete in world markets:

Public Money for Public Purpose: Toward the End of Plutocracy and the Triumph of Democracy – Part VI

By Dan Kervick, a PhD in Philosophy and an active independent scholar specializing in the philosophy of David Hume who also does research in decision theory and analytic metaphysics. Cross posted from New Economics Perspectives.

I will conclude by proposing six social tasks for the rising generation – six challenging tasks whose successful pursuit will help us achieve a more just, equal and democratic society. It is my view that the resulting society will not only be fairer and more decent. It will also be more economically productive, and will better promote human happiness and flourishing by more effectively distributing the goods and services we produce. Most of us will be happier in such a society as well, because the practices of democratic equality do a better job satisfying the human desires for cooperation, solidarity, trust, stability and fellowship that are the foundation of the social life for which human beings are naturally framed.

Extreme laissez faire capitalism of the kind extolled off and on over the past two centuries, and increasingly preached by economists, financiers and conservative thinkers over the past four decades, is a perverse distortion of human nature, foisted upon us by cold and demented thinkers captivated by inhuman notions of efficiency and domination. In the end, it is a system that reduces each human being to an object whose value is nothing beyond what it is worth in the market. We need to restore a social balance, in which private property, entrepreneurialism and commercial activity do not dominate our lives and set all the rules for our existence, but function within a democratic social order framed by a politically coherent and effective commitment to the public good. In a democratic social order there exists an activist public sector controlling a substantial store of social goods, and channeling democratic energies and intelligence into the ambitious perfection of such goods.

The six proposed tasks are not intended to be in any way exhaustive. They all pertain to the economic sphere of life alone. But the realization of a genuinely democratic society will require efforts that transcend the economic sphere. We need to rejuvenate the democratic spirit in America, educate ourselves and our fellow citizens on the unfulfilled potentialities of democratic existence, recapture the salvageable institutions of our threatened but still existing democracy, and further expand the institutions and habits of democratic practice. There is much to be done, but the prospect of doing it is exciting.

Why Is The Term “Financial Repression” Being Sold?

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. You can follow him on twitter at http://www.twitter.com/matthewstoller.

Over the past few months, the concept of “Financial Repression” has come into the lexicon and is increasingly used to describe a possible set of government strategies that constrains the financial sector. It has far more political significance than its users would have you believe.

Public Money for Public Purpose: Toward the End of Plutocracy and the Triumph of Democracy

By Dan Kervick. Cross posted from New Economic Perspectives

A new year is upon us. And even before its first hour has been rung in, 2012 is already taking shape before us as a pivotal year in global politics. We can all feel the awakening under way. A revived longing for equality, shared prosperity and democratic solidarity is inspiring a vibrant new politics around the world. This new activist spirit is quickened by the keen apprehension of young people on every continent that something is very, very wrong with the present economic and political order. The rising generation, heirs to sick and damaged societies that have been unbalanced by decades of plutocratic rule and antisocial cupidity, have now begun to rouse themselves – and in the process they have rallied the moral outrage of their fellow citizens.

From Bad to Worse for the IMF

By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness.

For some time now I have been pointing out poor economic policy implementations within the European economy and how those policies are likely to effect the real economies of European nations. As I re-stated on Monday, my major concern with the current thinking from European economic leaders is their misguided belief that implementing austerity before credit write-downs/offs is a credible policy for a highly indebted, non-export competitive nation with a non-deflatable currency.

Hallelujah Corporations

Some holiday black humor. I have to point out that doing a choral piece with only four voices is pretty impressive. Hat tip reader Helaine.