Economist Nouriel Roubini is predicting unemployment will stay high for another decade. His analysis is based on traditional ways economists have viewed the American economy, and not very helpful looking forward. He declares that GDP growth — a worthless measurement to predict employment — will be low, perhaps between 0 and 1 percent annually going forward. He also points out that banks are sitting on a $TRILLION of excess reserves and not lending it. As a result, the Federal Reserve has no policy options. For example, it won’t help to give the banks another $TRILLION for them to put on their balance sheets when they are not lending the money they already have.
Talking about GDP makes no sense if the goal is sustainability of ordinary people. People need income and even positive GDP does not cause job creation. Employers are paying lower wages because of the labor glut as well. Even the employed in today’s America are suffering. GDP might be helpful for Wall Street stock prices but, this is a rich people casino. The traditional view is that 2% GDP is required to create enough jobs just to keep pace with increasing employment. Anything less than that will increase unemployment. So, the traditionalists were stunned with the latest 1.6% annualized GDP for Q2. This was on the back of massive traditional stimulus in 2009. It was the traditional view that caused Obama to declare things would get better — they didn’t. As a result, one article after another about a double dip recession. Economists will keep riding the dead horse of capitalism. And Americans may elect another crop of Republicans which will make things even worse. But economists like Roubini never mention that traditional labor is an outdated concept in the age of robotics, cheap foreign workers, and technology. Until somebody wants to declare technology illegal — a silly view — the traditional economics has to also be replaced.
Meanwhile, the Becks and Palins of the world have some silly god rally in Washington, proclaiming that America has to double down on the god crap. In the midst of massive unemployment, these idiots claim it is god that is the problem. Yet, there is more god crap in America than there ever has been. There is so much of this bullshit that it has subverted the political system and rational discourse is impossible. God crap only produces employment in the form of corporate begging that pays no taxes. Of course, to Becks and Palins. god is the hedge fund, special interest, corporatist, and capitalist. God is anything that lets them make more money while selling bullshit to everybody else. It looks far more likely that people who proclaims capitalism as the answer — disguised as god — are the problem.
So, between the god crowd and the traditional economist crowd, there is no solution; instead, it actually delays that obvious and ultimate solution. People can pretend that America will come zooming back because it always has or they can bloody their knees praying to some mythical god. These are not solutions for the future and never will be. What today, is a decade of unemployment will be two decades of unemployment, then three. It will get worse and worse and only when people reject the traditional view and the god view will a solution be possible.
The solution to the problem is taking the resources of America and the ordinary people and developing an entirely new economic system. The system would provide income for everybody. People would be put to work building houses, repairing infrastructure and producing food. It would be available to everybody. The basic minimums would be satisfied. America has plenty of resources, education, and desire to provide everybody with a minimum. It won’t matter if these things are profitable because there will be no shareholders, modern day slave owners, taking their take off the top and destroying the people who don’t comply. For most of the population this new system would be a better standard of living than they have today without jobs, housing, and health care. For the top one percent of Americas — the rich — their standard of living will be slashed, because they have been hoarding prosperity at the expense of the 99%. There is plenty of resources to go around in America, it just has to be distributed equally. Equal distribution — that’s right — it’s called socialism and it will be clear to more and more that it is the only solution to the economic problems of America. Once the majority gets tired of working for the slave owners, there will be a new day.
Sadly, many in America think economic prosperity will return if it follows traditional economics and prays harder. As long as the bozos who believe this nonsense are in charge, there is no hope for America.
America is Doomed.
The co-mingling of god and the rise of social injustice by corporate interests is far more insidious than can be imagined. Beck and Palin are just the tip of the iceberg in a brainwashing of America that has gone far beyond the tipping point. Barbara Ehrenreich documents well the pop psychology and how corporations leverage such lunacy in her book, Bright-sided. The book outlines how the entire self-help industry, the mega churches and corporate philosophies are geared toward justifying greed and blaming the victims. She talks about how there is an incessant message being sent across America: If you are poor, underemployed, or unemployed, it is your fault…you are lazy, dumb and a sinner. If you are rich, you are smart, worthy, and righteous…god has blessed you.
BULLSHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Let me make it absolutely clear to those kind enough to listen, the problem is systemic. It goes beyond the abilites of individuals and goes to the core of the way our society has been structured by corporate interests. The message is clear (the same message that was sent to Obama): drink the kool-aid or die.
As the admin suggested there are real solutions, and there are, but band-aids aren’t going to be enough. We’ve been using Miltonian Reagan-era band-aids since the stagflation of the 1970′s. If America is to rebuild itself it has to do so fundamentally and it has to redefine the role of capitalism in our society. And damn the idiots who think socialism is communism…IT IS NOT! It is, as the admin well states, privileging the best interests of civil society over individuals. Jefferson himself knew the dangers of privileged capitalism when he argued against Hamilton about the role of a central bank. It much the same way, we have to redefine the role of capitalism in our society and dismantle the boot that currently holds down the neck of so many.
Admin and neosomething above, America has been practicing socialism for the past 80 years as Democrats have controlled both houses of Congress most of the time since 1933. America just pretends to be capitalistic. Socialism has totally destroyed America. Compare this to China and India. They pretend to be socialistic, but really practice strong capitalism. While America is floundering, China and India are flourishing. Just wake up from your comas and understand this basic fact.
The most ABSURD real estate bubbles have been going on in India and China for the past 20-30 years, where homes have appreciated about a THOUSAND times. A one thousand US dollar investment in India’s metro real estate in the 1970s is now worth more than a million US dollars. Home owners in India and China are unbelievably rich and are far more wealthy than their Western counterparts. Despite the ABSURD appreciation in the past 30 years, the mentality in India and China is that real estate is the easiest and best form of investment, with values doubling every 2-3 years. Note that these so called homes in India and China are small, with little features, very low quality, have no good infrastructure and so filthy that no sensible person would spend even a 100 bucks on, yet are being sold and bought for millions of dollars each in the greatest PONZI game ever played. Note also that the median income in these places is still just a few thousand dollars per year, yet the median home prices are about a million dollars. Very few of the local population can afford to buy homes and so live in makeshift huts. This PONZI game has created inflation, which then fuels the PONZI game even more and you get the idea. Compare all of this to the United States. Homes have hardly even tripled in value in the last 30 years, and yet, we are quick to point this out as a bubble. We are playing the reverse PONZI here, where we want to destroy absolutely fabulous homes to complete worthlessness. A regular 2000 sqft 4-BR American home would cost several million dollars everywhere in the world except in the USA, where it costs a measly USD 200000. Yep, Americans want everything for free. If it is not free, it has to be a bubble.
The socialistic belief that everything should be almost free for everyone to enjoy has been practiced in America for the past 80 years under majority Democratic controlled Congress. Look where it has gotten this country. Everyone, including the middle class, has had no wage growth, no ways to invest in America. Bank interest, stock returns, home price appreciation are all non-existent in the USA under this socialistic regime. Economic growth is choked in the USA with a lot of regulations. Emerging countries like India and China practice unbridled capitalism with vast gaps between the rich and the poor, with the rich getting vastly richer while their poor have nothing to eat. These countries have low corporate and personal income taxes, no regulations that give a free hand to their companies. The middle class in these countries has been piggy backing on the boom enjoyed by their upper class. Russia has been doing vastly better since its socialistic regime collapsed two decades ago. Wake up and realize the truth.
Rob — Nonsense — if socialism has been practiced in America as you say, why are there so many poor, unemployed, homeless, and disenfranchised?
Admin, You already confessed in an earlier thread that you knew little of the world outside the United States. Poverty or being poor is a very relative term. I have lived in many countries and have an international perspective. The poor in Africa and Asia are extremely poor, and even their basic food needs are not met on a daily basis. They earn less than a dollar a day, and encounter severe hardship. The poor in America in most cases own homes, drive cars, are entitled to many of America’s social programs – free food coupons, low income assistance, housing assistance, free schools, you name it. See this non-political link : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_the_United_States
The Wiki link above notes that the poor in the USA are actually better off than the typical European family, which itself is vastly better off than the typical developing world family. It is a tendency for socialists like you to whine that people do not have enough no matter how much they already have and take for granted. It is this same tendency that has self-destructed the American housing market, as the truth is that homes in the USA are the cheapest in the world compared to median incomes, the size, quality and infrastructure of the homes. Citizens of every other country in the world yearn for such ridiculously cheap and affordable similar homes in their own countries. However, American socialists have convinced the masses with their whining that homes need to be even cheaper, almost free, so that even the lowest income earners can afford a palace made of gold. It never stops with you socialists with your “give me more for free” attitude.
Socialism does not prevent social inequaly, but vastly reduces it. The USA has vastly reduced inequality through socialistic policies in the past 80 years, and the lowest income earners are having a very good quality of life, without working much for it. If the USA had not practiced these socialistic policies, the plight of the American poor would have been the same as that of the poor in many developing countries, which is absolutely terrible.
Admin, since you are not happy with the results of what is really socialism over the past 80 years, you should start preaching communism. That is the only way you will stop your whining, as then everybody gets the same share of everything, regardless of whether they work for it or not.
Quick points. (1) I have traveled extensively throughout the world. (2)Your conclusion suggest you have no experience with real poverty in America. (3) I have seen poverty first hand in America. (4) I have never said that poverty is not generally worse in many other parts of the world. (4) My focus is the poverty in America and it is getting worse.
Conclusion: It is nonsense to claim things are ok in America because they are better than somewhere else.
Rob, Your facts are a bit goofed up.You stated that Russia has been doing vastly better since it’s socialistic regime collapsed two decades ago???
Well I believe your are a bit off on this.
From 1922 thru 1991 during which the government,culture,relgion,ecnomics, and everything else in the country was covered by the COMMUNIST ideals in Russia.
Russia’s leaders such as Stalin,Khrushchev provided a strong backbone for the communist government,implementing plans to industrialize the rural country,as well as change the system of commerce that imperial Russians had lived under.Religion was forbidden,capitalism was gone and the average citizen had no say in the way their country was run.
This got better in the 80′s with Gorbachev.He removed heavy restrictions from free speech.Allowing citizens to criticize their government.
Then Yeltsin.This marked the true end of comminism.Russia was now seen as Democratic.Since this time Russia has been struggling with the creation of a democratic government and capitalist econmy.Todays Russia is faced with poverty,and has yet become strong enough to support all who need to make a living there.The government is still questioned over items such as human rights. So wake up Rob and go live and understand communism like I have.It is nothing like socialism.!
ROTFLOL !!! Admin has seen real poverty first hand in America…BWAHAHAHAHA….poor admin, he saw poverty first hand when he was 5 years old when his Momma told him that he cannot gulp down more than 10 gallons of ice cream per day since their food coupons would cover no more….when he was 10, poor admin had to share his room with his sibling in the free housing unit that the government provided…tsk…tsk…what a sad story…To top this, when poor admin was a teenager, he was not able to buy a brand new sports car to get to his dates….wait, it gets worse…..America fails to celebrate the existence of this great but poor admin and America refuses to give him the several hundred thousand dollars that he deserves for running this pathetic whiny blog….oooooooh…I cannot take this story of suffering anymore…..
Here’s the deal. I’ve been responding to these blog posts for quite a while now. I can’t go back and reference each response, but I know that I have said over and over again, ad nauseum, that neither system works. Neither Capitalism nor Socialism.
I remember “aksking” Admin in one of my rants when the Socialistic shit was going to work, because the Capitalistic shit surely hasn’t. We have socialized public HI! Skrools, nobody can read at the 8th grade level and their level of comprehension is about at the 6th grade, Catholic School comparison. We have a socialized interstate highway system. Ever drive through Pennsylvania? Georgia has the best roads in the country, year after year, according to the American Truckers’ Association. Pennsylvania has the worst. Pennsylvania is way closer to Communism than is Georgia. Is weather involved? Sure. Is unionism, graft, and corruption involved in this horrendous outcome? Of course. Georgia is Red, Pennsylvania is Blue. I’d rather ride on our roads any day of the week than ride on those donkey paths in Pa. Hell, rebar is sticking up out of the pavement!! You blow tires in that craphole. Georgia uses engineering students from Beorgia Tech to design, supervise, and build their roads. Pennsylvania uses Union Thugs, corrupt politicians, affirmative action employees, and the beat goes on. I’m not saying that everyone in a union is a thug. But the old Marxist political machinery in Pa makes it certain that they are. The croney system is alive and well. What is the States solution to the problem? You need to get your vehicle inspected twice/year rather than once, to correct all of our fuck ups. We don’t have inspection in Goergia. Don’t need it and don’t want it. No lick ‘um/stick ‘um for us.
What’s the answer? I don’t know. We need to try something new. A new type of economy that addresses the future, not the past nor the present. What will it look like? I don’t know. But we are sinking fast and restoring what sank us, or any hybrid form of it is futile. Might as well play pocket pool with yourself.
Socialism — not communism — requires that people seek the greater good — it has to be part of the culture. America capitalism undermines this effort as people only seek their greed. Greed needs to be removed before healing can begin. Schools are complicated but there is a teacher part, family part, and a student part. All three parts are required in order to achieve quality education. The solution isn’t just money but the pursuit of money can poison the system. Comments about socialism doesn’t work are always about the money part. Socialism — the collective of all of us — is more than just redistribution of money. It is the recognition we are all in this together and need to work on common goals.
How one infers the words “redefining the role of capitalism” to mean replacing capitalism with socialism is beyond me. The word “socialism” has been demonized, misused and ill-defined while the word “capitalism” has been misrepresented to be synonymous with virtue for so long, the semantics really have lost all reasonable meaning.
To think capitalism and socialism are mutually exclusive is erroneous. They both need to be considered fairly hand-in-hand in order to avoid tyranny and mob-rule. We have all seen how one without the other leads to abuses and tragic consequences. To think one is better than the other is propaganda nonsense that has been going on for far too long.
While the terms we use and the ideas we share may not always be cogent, may not always be enlightened, and may not always be “right”, I think we can all agree the system is broke, has been for some time now, and we are now suffering the dire consequences or soon will be.
My thanks to ductile, lester and admin for defending the forum. While we may not alway agree, there is much to be said for respecting each others’ opinions and that does give one reason to hope.
God is God, and man is man. God is as real as the false Christians like Beck and Palin are false. Jobs have taken flight to India and China, two very old world powers who are starting to reclaim their glory at our expense.
Bush/Cheney/Repub sycophants have single handedly, via the trillion dollar useless wars (both of them), allowing bank crooks to paper the world with funny money, and by giving greedy CEOs tax incentives to outsource millions of jobs and our entire manufacturing base, doomed the American empire.
After studying science (degree in Chemistry), quantum mechanics, and other sciences that explain how our physical universe operates, I realized that no one knows exactly how the physical universe came into existence. Oh, there are the random chance / big bang theories, but when I realized that there must be a higher intelligence that created it, I began my spiritual search.
Man as a whole is stupid, selfish and doesn’t have a clue about why he has been placed in this temporal time slot in this physical dimension, I looked at Buddhism, Yogis, Islam, various other venues, and the closest thing I have found to the ‘Truth’ has been in the words of Jesus Christ.
Basicly Jesus said to repent, give your life to God, love others as yourself, feed the poor, not lie or murder, refrain from greed.
It isn’t an easy task to give up your own life to Him, but I am appreciative of the opportunity to do so. My entire life is based upon my faith – that which is hoped for but cannot be proved according to the laws of physics. I would never judge or condemn another person for choosing to be an atheist, or some other religion, and i would never shove my beliefs down another’s throat. We all make our own choices in this life.
Matthew 16:27:
For the Son of Man will return in the glory of His Father, with His angels, and will then recompense every man according to his deeds.
See admin, Kramercat is intelligent and believes in Gosh and Golly. I know alot of highly intelligent people who believe in both of them. The last allopathic quack physician that I went to over 25 years ago believed deeply in the existance of Gosh. Come to think of it, maybe that quack doctor wasn’t very intelligent. Maybe that’s why I never went back. That quack doctor believer in Gosh told me that I would have gout for the rest of my life and have to take allopurinol everyday until death do we part. I went out, threw away my pills, and began a quest for natural health knowledge that has earned me the title (locally and on certain internet sights) as Dr Lester. I am healthier than at any other time in my life. Have beaten cancer (which is not a disease) at least 3 and probably 4 times.
And Kramer. Keep on with your beliefs. Don’t be disuaded by molotov throwers. But Please learn to be judgemental. I judge on a daily basis and am very comfortable with it. I judged the 3rd generation welfare parasite who lives behind me and regurlarly burgles and steals my property to be a worthless piece of DumbaKrap shit. A wothless feeder. A space waster. Potential compost. Most everyone else who I know say it is a “good call”. I’m an excellent judge. If somebody wants me to hire them, I judge them first through a series of probing questions. If they don’t pass my rigorous oral exam, I tell them NO!!! I made that decision by being judgemental. Judge away until your heart is content.
We all make choices in life. But in the land of “victimhood” we also make endless excuses for the worthless inhabitors that surround us. We love to parole violent felons so that they can rape and murder again. After all, “society made them do it”. Poverty makes you rape. It feeds you and your family. When you are hungry, rape is always on your mind. Didn’t you know that?
America has gone through the stages of an empire, albeit in a turbocharged fashion due to use of oil.
If america wants to stand any chance of not imploding like cantarell oil production, it needs to grow hemp everywhere, fast. Use it for fuel and food and all the rest.
Yeah – Obama could make all cars run on hemp – but does he?….No.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_Jf9s23uF0