tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post6426511684630099163..comments2024-01-08T04:16:25.601-08:00Comments on Ché (What You Call Your) Pasa: Dean Baker Explains It All For You -- And Tells You What To Do About It, TooChé Pasahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-58733313146518926222011-09-18T17:53:46.657-07:002011-09-18T17:53:46.657-07:00Yep, that's basically it.
Here's an RSA a...Yep, that's basically it.<br /><br />Here's an <a href="http://youtu.be/1bqMY82xzWo" rel="nofollow">RSA animation</a> that gets into the vexing problem of "choice."<br /><br />We are shifting out of a consumption-driven economy and ultimately it will require the kinds of public works and community service that have long been neglected in pursuit of more material possessions or wealth regardless of their social costs.<br /><br />Even the most reactionary <i>thinkers</i> -- as opposed to howlers -- seem to understand that. The nation cannot be sustained on high debt, low employment, wars, and shredded safety nets and absent community services.<br /><br />Even the most reactionary understand that is an explosive recipe.<br /><br />I think we've gone just about as far down that terminal road as we can.<br /><br />The pendulum is nearing the stationary point before swinging back the other way.<br /><br />The upshot might be surprising...Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-69949237642999524002011-09-17T10:00:29.729-07:002011-09-17T10:00:29.729-07:00To me, the obvious thing is that all economic tran...To me, the obvious thing is that all economic transactions involve redistribution. Recycling. Flow. Exchange. It makes zero difference if we're sending tax dollars to DC, or sending consumer dollars to a CEO -- as far as the fundamental exchange goes. It's all flow. It's all redistribution. It's all cycling of money and activity. <br /><br />We should know this and then ask, What, exactly, do we <i>want</i> for our money? <br /><br />Do we really want one hundred different kinds of deodorant, sugary cereals, pesticides, fast food -- or do we want great public resources like schools, museums, concert venues, national parks, libraries, transportation systems, roads, bridges, EMT, etc. etc.???<br /><br />Do we want to pay for things with true anchors here, or with no ties? Do we want to spend our limited, precious, finite resources on things that last, that all Americans can use generation after generation, or on stuff that vanishes, breaks down, needs endless replacement, and depends upon incredibly low wages for workers overseas? <br /><br />Priorities, morality and percentages. What percentage of our limited resources should we devote to private and public outcomes? Where do we get the biggest bang for the buck? How can we guarantee good paying jobs here, now, if we leave that all in the hands of a private sector that doesn't care if we have jobs? Because of globalization, it won't be too long before they won't care if we can buy their products, either. <br /><br />Solution: shift the balance dramatically toward public works. That guarantees jobs here, now. Good paying jobs as well. At the very least, we should be like the Scandinavian countries. Instead, we're headed for Rand-Hayekistan.Cuchulainnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-83891194474140384692011-09-16T19:45:44.501-07:002011-09-16T19:45:44.501-07:00Indeed. Baker has got his eye on the long game, an...Indeed. Baker has got his eye on the long game, and he's no slouch when it comes to asserting the correctness of his assessment and remedy, and pointing out the massive and multiplying errors of the conventional (Chicago School) economists.<br /><br />And he does seem to have had an impact. Austerity, for example, is at least now being acknowledged to have some... erm... "negatives." Questions about its utility in the midst of a recession are at least permissible.<br /><br />But it's a long and rocky road back. <br /><br />The aggravating thing is that as you say, the solutions are not that complicated, they're well-known, they work, and no one in a position of authority or power wants to use them.<br /><br />Isn't that something?Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-38312225587502531122011-09-16T10:50:02.943-07:002011-09-16T10:50:02.943-07:00It really isn't complicated. Marx was right. C...It really isn't complicated. Marx was right. Capitalism has profound contradictions in play that render it unsustainable. Since Marx left the scene, we've been able to observe even more striking contradictions than he could not have foreseen, especially along the environmental front. <br /><br />Basically, the whole idea of "accumulating wealth" means that it is concentrated in few hands and kept out of the hands of the majority -- taken from them, in fact. Duh, as the young kids used to say. Aside from the moral, ethical and humanitarian issues involved with that, it's simply the worst possible way to generate economic activity itself. <br /><br />No one is more inefficient in generating economic activity than a rich person. Give him or her more money and they don't need to spend it, and likely won't. Give the masses more money and they definitely will. They'll always spend virtually their entire paycheck in this economy, now, thus generating economic activity, which means more jobs. <br /><br />All economic activity is "redistributive." Conservatives have been able to turn that word into a slur, even though that's exactly what capitalism does, by nature, by definition. It redistributes <i>upwards</i>. It's the most successful engine for economic apartheid ever created, in fact. <br /><br />But, again, nothing could be less efficient in a macro sense. Conservatives just hate the idea that the redistributive arrows might point in a different direction. Downward, spread amongst the masses would be the most efficient (by far), ironically, helping those at the top as well. <br /><br />But they'll have none of that. And since both parties were captured by the freshwater school, we're not going to see those arrows shift from up to down any time soon. <br /><br />I give Dean Baker props for at least attempting to change the arrows of the conversation.Cuchulainnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-29171532233078133192011-09-16T06:43:03.614-07:002011-09-16T06:43:03.614-07:00Hudson is good, yes.
The only thing I'd add a...Hudson is good, yes.<br /><br />The only thing I'd add about Baker is that he has a tendency to overcomplicate things. Like most economists, he relies too much on abstractions when it comes to dealing with the plight of "real people." His solutions in this book -- which is a fairly easy read, praise be -- while sound, would largely be unseen in the short term, though they would be profound over the longer term. <br /><br />Really very few want to deal with -- and ceaselessly advocate -- what needs to be done in the short term, though Baker describes it in the book. He points out that the Depression only ended with the advent of WWII and the massive amounts of public spending that occurred. What he doesn't say is that the spending involved putting literally everyone to work -- either in the military or serving the military -- paying them relatively well, and paying for the ceaseless manufacturing of war materiel, which of course would then be destroyed and built again.<br /><br />Meanwhile, consumer product availability was strictly limited both at home and on the front lines so that the masses were forced to save the money they were (finally) earning. Profits were restricted, profiteering was punished. <br /><br />Baker points out that the spending could have occurred at any time between 1931 and 1941, and had it happened earlier, the Depression would have ended earlier. True enough, but (even leaving aside the War itself, something not so easy to do) there was more to it than just government spending.Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-55794374370576905772011-09-15T10:31:58.772-07:002011-09-15T10:31:58.772-07:00Thanks for the link to the book, I've download...Thanks for the link to the book, I've downloaded the Nook version. Something to read over the weekend perhaps, if I have time. Another economist I like is Michael Hudson:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/15/latvia-s-road-to-serfdom/" rel="nofollow">Michael Hudson:Latvia’s Road to Serfdom</a><br /><br />One of the things I like about him is that he's willing to use intemperate language about the Chicago School.vampyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14660319794133128873noreply@blogger.com