Category Archives: The destruction of the middle class

Mark Ames: Why Finance is Too Important to Leave to Larry Summers

Welcome to the world of running a small website. The estimable Mark Ames, who is as much a litterateur as journalist, promised, promised, promised us a fundraising post, but told us he just can’t deliver the piece. I know Mark didn’t do this casually; he was a publisher himself, at The eXile in Russia and then with its US incarnation, The eXiled.

But Mark did give us a hard-to-beat post three years ago, and it deserves being reprised. So enjoy!

Americans Work Too Long and at Strange Times

Is inequality the reason Americans have such weird work habits?

Don Quijones: “Slimlandia,” The Land of Mexican Oligarchs

Yves here. As Don Quijones explains, “In many ways, Mexico is the poster child of neoliberalism.” So take this as a cautionary tale of what rule by our modern oligarchs will look like.

Media Giving Corporate Executives a Free Pass on Their Value Extraction

Executive rentiers and their media lackeys are invoking the canard that they can’t find decent investment opportunities. The truth is that they’ve exhausted the first and second lines of value extraction, that of labor-squeezing and disinvestment, and aren’t prepared to accept the lower but still attractive returns of taking real economy risks.

And Then Gerard’s Car Caught on Fire

“I’m ready to get back to work. I just doesn’t have much to work with.”

Bill Black: The New York Times’ Coverage of EU Austerity Remains Pathetic

Yves here. Bill Black shellacks a New York Times article that gives a big dose of unadulterated neoliberal propaganda supporting austerity. To give you a sense of the intellectual integrity of this piece, it including citing a Peterson Institute staffer without cluing readers in to the fact that the Institute has what is left of the middle class in its crosshairs.

Black stresses that one of the major lies behind the continuing for more, better hairshirts for long-suffereing Europeans is that the explosion in debt levels in Europe was the result of overly-generous social safety nets. In fact, as in the US, the tremendous rise in government debt levels was the direct result of the crisis. Tax revenues collapsed due to GDP whackage (and the costs continue as GDP is well below potential). And any economist worth their salt will also say that social safety nets ameliorated the severity of the damage, that those automatic stabilizers increased government spending when it was needed most, at the depth of the implosion, and prevented a spiral into a much deeper downturn.

Are Advanced Economies Mature Enough to Handle No Growth?

Economists occasionally point out that societies generally move to the right during periods of sustained low growth and economic stress. Yet left-leaning advocates of low or even no growth policies rarely acknowledge the conflict between their antipathy towards growth and the sort of social values they like to see prevail. While some “the end of growth is nigh” types are simply expressing doubt that 20th century rates of increase can be attained in an era of resource scarcity, others see a low-growth future as attractive, even virtuous, with smaller, more autonomous, more cohesive communities.

Low Wage Growth, High Long-Term Unemployment Recognized as International Problem

High unemployment and low wage growth are solvable problems. But powerful and well placed people believe it is in their interest to keep them unsolved

New Yorkers: Take a Stand Against Cronyism and Corruption – Vote for Teachout and Wu Today

A quixotic run for New York governor by the pro-worker, anti-fracking, anti big bank law professor Zephyr Teachout and her running mate, the net neutrality activist Tim Wu has gotten enough traction to lead governor Andrew Cuomo to browbeat likely supporters of the challengers into line.