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https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/Trump approval ratings compared to Presidents since FDR.
Trump is a minority President by election and popularity. The Electoral College is one of the political engineering mechanisms to give the South power. The racial discrimination built into U.S. is forever a challenge. Other cultures and nations have their own ways of enslaving others.
Thank you for “I’ve Got Some Things to Say” – by Romelu Lukaku. An inspirational story I wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Divine disorder manages to give us evolutionary progress so humanity can continue to survive its failures of intelligence.
“Journalism and news media must be a force to unite a nation” This is quite an overstatement. The roles of media are to inform and entertain. Common language; education and experience in the use of language; culture and knowledge of history all affect what information an individual seeks and how it is used in life.
We are born into a world where many games of power and domination are in play. Though those at the top of the game display images of wealth and power, always seeking more, the true state of the natural world is one of depletion. Debt is created to buy more of the future, but there’s no growth, for the future is barren. War is a poor means of allocating resources, destroying the investments of generations when it flattens cities.
Being rich is terribly important. Asymmetric information, “I’m lying and I know it, whereas, you think I’m telling the truth because I said its the truth” is the art of deception, not a crime when you make the rules.
That the world can’t have everybody be rich is a reality half the planet doesn’t want to recognize. The other half is working to have something, anything. The confusion plays out as an angry soap opera, all emotion, no substance, for the future is empty, already consumed and soon to be run by AI robots.
Meanwhile, drought, famine and war puts more people on the move, heading where the wealth appears to be and where the bombs and thieves came from. A greater community solution is needed, a spiritually based cease fire so life may be attended to, so human civilization survives.
When fights begin, truth goes out the window. The combatants on Easter Island exhausted everything, including themselves. The Whole Earth future as Easter Island?
In business is is said, “The meeting isn’t over until blame has been assigned”. Now that business runs the world, blame is the game. So the news reports. We tire of this. That is a strategy for the newscycle, a gift of behavioral economics and branding. Loyalty is rewarded within its own world.
Spirituality does not come to mind as a means of resolving existential challenges. Realistically, it may be the only way at current levels of necessity.
Not only housing is overvalued, but virtually all speculative land holdings, whether unbuilt subdivision lots; large parcels zoned for residential development – R-1 lots of 1/4 acre+ or large lawnmower/hobby farm lots of three to 20+ acres; and everything else, regardless of size. Forested lands may have a timber harvest every 20 years for pulp wood; old stands of hardwood may be able to selectively cut trees for export for veneer. No steady income. Too many Christmas tree forms for decades already. Ag lands with a productive value of $300 per acre of cropped, that is real work, are $1K to $10K per acre. Housing has been the final crop for forms for decades. Foreign inflow of money may uphold the speculative values, but build-out is unaffordable for the localities themselves, as well as the States. Every locality has some sort of land use plan with subdivision and zoning regulation. If built-out, the rural portion populations would go up tenfold. Cities and towns with water and sewer capacity are only limited by the size of pipes they can install. Town and City living is a far more efficient means of assisted living, but since fear of nuclear attack in the 1950s created the #FearOfDensity that ended historic City-building by 1970, flatland suburbs have led to lower and lower household size, larger lots, more vehicles per unit, more vehicle miles traveled and random and endless traffic congestion. The balance sheet may be net positive because of speculative values, but little is owned free and clear. What looks like wealth, McMansion landscapes, is really debt. We learned that in 2008. Well, just experienced it, didn’t learn, because it is back with no real way to reset. People are renting money to pretend they own their high maintenance homes. Most will never be able to pay off the debt.
Neo-x useful in the arts and tasty as ice cream. Considering that “The Art of the Deal” was ghost written and applied to real estate, no one should be surprised that it doesn’t really work in the real world. Alpha males do get away with a lot. Considering that translators are handicapped in conveying the true communication style of Mr. Trump, he does get a pass for this reason. Disruptive in not necessarily cunning. Big bets were placed on a few true statements. Will good money follow, or will there be movement to cut losses?
You had to be there. The U.S. invented #failureofintelligence.
In journalism one is taught to slant the writing to fit the audience. If writing a feature for a magazine or newspaper, the nature of the average reader is known, so you compose the story, feature details of the sort the audience likes.
Birds of a feather subscribe together.
Slant became spin in real time, as operatives or evangelists went out to promote interpretations of this or that. It became overt as internet connectivity speeded up the spread of words and images.
Earlier, the fax machines in corporate offices enabled a good joke to cross the country in a day.
Marshall McLuhan observed “The medium is the message” in 1964, which proved to be true, though students of communications today aren’t taught his work. I always ask, they don’t recognize the name.
The new media have speeded things up, but the first reports are often inaccurate because witnesses see a piece of an event, so can’t really know the full event. Warnings are valuable, but only a data point.
Inaccurate news may carry a slant or spin from any source.
Historians deliver olds news in depth, but can misinterpret the past as easily as we do the present.
I feel this is a normal challenge for an experimental planet. Communication is not that easy, for the minds of senders and receivers are always changing, learning and forgetting.
Irony can be humorous. Great emphasis is put on branding these days. A brand is really just a name that has garnered some positive attributes over time. Chevrolet Malibu was once an appealing car 1960s-70s. Then Malibu was a nameplate Chevy slapped on a variety of different models.
Republican and Democrat are labels now slapped on a variety of models that have no correlation to the past. As an Eisenhower Republican who cast my first vote in boot camp for Nixon in 1968. I did not support the war, but did my duty. For years I have had no home. Working in Virginia, everyone was a fiscal conservative.
There is no new money, only debt, so promises won’t be kept. The military-industrial-legislative-financial-health-educational complex have given us a future of pay more, get less.
The political tribes go to extremes to protect their high value members. Emotion is inadequate putty to fill in the underlying resource gaps. None of what debt built by consuming the future is sustainable. Entrophy is taking it down and we’re not smart enough to stick to a discipline of what is maintainable.
Core nations began their ascent with deep natural capital. The cedars of Lebanon are long gone. Italy’s environmental recovery from the Roman Empire took a thousand years. Spanish, French and English forests went to sea and never came back.
I live in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley. Reforestation began in the 1920s to protect the water supply of Washington, D.C. the Shenandoah River was a running sewer where it met the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, The Potomac Highlands ov WV polluted as well, including more mining waste. The rich soils found by settlers all went to the Chesapeake Bay, silting up the early harbors. Settlers depleted forests and soils State by State.
Without liquid nitrogen fertilizer, there would be little natural agricultural production. Real soil must be alive. Deer over graze in Bambi protected suburbs making home gardening quite expensive. The payback on a ten foot electrified fence is long. HOAs don’t allow them.
A lot of the early productivity of the U.S. was due to depletion of the natural capital built up prior to neolithic agriculture and settlements. Empires boomed and busted. The technosphere built-enviroment mass accumulated, now 30 trillion metric tonnes, over 4,000 metric tonnes per capita. Is it sustainable into the ever more technological future, where repair is not a big concern. Just throw it away; the new model will be better.
Depreciation is an accounting notion. It really doesn’t encompass depletion. Selling below the true cost of production is what busts empires. The cascade is in play. Will human civilization be able to wake up and save itself, or will its tribes fight to exhaustion, Earth a scaled up Easter Island?
Readers may be interested in learning about the existence of this group:
The Regional Studies Association Research Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo) “is to take a debate on “finance and regional studies” to the next level by building a global network of researchers in order to leadcutting-edge research on financial geographies, which are critical to regional studies and yet continue to be underexplored by the field”.Information will be found on the Fifth FINGEO Global Seminar – European Spaces of Financialization
28th May, 2018 – 29th May, 2018 – Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, BelgiumThe main site: Global Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo)
FinGeo notes many sessions related to financial geography will be at the 5th Global Conference on Economic Geography – “Dynamics in an Unequal World” July 24 – 28, 2018, University of Cologne
I’m curious as to where the notion might have come that the news media, any element of it print, broadcast, electronic, internet, can solve any problems. Reporting about issues accurately may lead to acknowledgement of some success or focus on the need for action by those with responsibility.
The 24/7 news cycle which began with CNN in 1980 created a problem in that there just wasn’t that much real TV news. What we have is infotainment in many topics which has led to a churn that many profit from. Financial news is one area which feeds a great get rich world economy.
That Trump uses this contentless area so well is not worthy of any applause. MBA types love the idea of disruption, more as opportunist pick pockets, than contributors to the advance of civilization.
Spin is such a high art that virtually anything can be talked up as a positive, given the right future events.
Important issues have histories and complexities that require thought and long term study. To convey that in any media requires work on the part of the compilers and the students of the issues. History and math are often required, plus technical vocabularies.
Soap operas never quite solve the problems of the characters. As entertainment, fine, human civilization must do better than that. Simply pointing out which emperors have no clothes may be news, but that is not a solution.
While many craft new system models, the necessity for real cooperation has not been reached because of shallowness all around.
Name calling is not to my mind, a sign of knowledge or wisdom, though crowds respond.
Max Keiser ended up on RT and it was on his show after 2008 that I saw Michael Hudson and Steve Keen, economists who could explain what had happened. That may have been his I found TAE. It was in this period that Stephen Colbert gave us “truthiness”. Where the enemy of my enemy is my friend, is there a corollary that: truth about my enemy’s elite told to the people of my enemy is deemed propaganda by the elite of my enemy. It functions both directions. Not new, but at a greater scale.
Matthew 7:3-5King James Version (KJV)
3 And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
4 Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?
5 Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.
It wasn’t easier to pay bills in the 1950s and 1960s, but a ten cent raise was real money. Because the Cold War proxy wars were run on credit, not national sacrifice like WW-II and not-winning was part of the military-industial complex game, a false economy began to be built. Closing the gold window gave a boost to use of the petro-dollar as the world reserve currency. When inflation ensued and production in the U.S. began to get competition as other nations rebuilt from the WW-II ruble, credit had to expand to make up for stagnating income and industry moved away from their founding cities to get away from old technology and old labor relationships. First to the South and then overseas. Easy credit paved the way. Too bad there’s no easy repay. Turtles all the way down are remortgaged to their appreciating values, all because that is the game. An era of great emotional suffering lies ahead when the economy shrinks to what is sustainable.Ringmaster Donald entertains with an occasional truth, winking to vendors in the crowd as the fleecing proceeds.
Useful analysis. Odd that “Big Data” has not led to any improvement in economic theory or policy. The built-environment Technosphere is consuming, polluting and displacing the systems of Nature: Atmposphere, Hydrosphere, Lithosphere and Biosphere. Food production comes from sugar-carbohydrate farming at the industrial agriculture scale. Not sustainable in biological terms. The economy “story” is kept going by adding zeros to the spreadsheet, but Nature can not be played like that. If the technology collapses, the people will not know what to do. Zombie Apocalypse is perhaps the future. Restoring the Natural Capital that Humanity had at the advent of agriculture is not possible. Having left The Garden to create our own, Empire after Empire has taken too much and faced collapse. A more fragile environment struck by natural events is not resilient, so a lesser age, seemingly darker, follows. Communities have always survived. Activity shrinks to fit the real resource base. Big data does not appear to be informing the people today. The algorithms enable the butcher to put his thumb on the scale to get the price he wants. It is about “story”. Life is all for entertainment. Work is for slaves.
Yikes! Volkswagen cheating expanded to industry-wide Dieselgate. Now Kobe steel cheating for ten years. Will there be a Steelgate? What other industries have been faking quality? We are unwitting crash-test dummies at an even larger scale. Company value crashes, no funds to pay damages. Anyone see a problem with naked profit motive? Communities and individuals put at risk by spreadsheets that don’t care.
TAE – Uplifting fine art or historic photography and news, mostly disturbing. TAE is a “must review” in the Plan of the Day
Thanks Raúl.Why is that we need inflation? Debt repayment renews a line of credit. Economists say it destroys money. Failure to repay debt is destructive to the household or business. Amazon creating efficiency for Whole Foods faux scarcity inflation will not come close to what Aldi and other chains do.
No article about Charlottesville, Virgina events and the Trump response. As a candidate, I gave Trump a chance because he did speak some truths. Didn’t vote for him in the Virginia Republican primary, went for Kasich. Didn’t vote for him in the election. When he became President, I extended my giving him a chance. As a 71 year old Eisenhower Republican born in Wisconsin, I’ve had to become independent. In Virginia of 1969, when I first move here, everyone was a fiscal conservative – both parties. Like many, I voted for the best person in any election. As the Republican southern strategy took over, not being a Dixiecrat, independent was the only place for me. I’m taking back the chance I gave to Donald Trump. In the course of my career, I’ve worked with many politicians. They worked very hard for the citizens they served. Good things were accomplished and more is in the pipeline. Divided we fall. We may do best at the Pareto ratio, 80/20. We are united and in agreement on 80% of thing, being law abiding the most important for civilization. The 20% may be clothing, food, religion, study, recreation, etc. Freedom of choice, a responsible freedom, that doesn’t intrude on that if others too much. I think the alt-right may have made a mistake picking Charlottesville as their public debut. It is a small City, 46,000 or so, but very articulate, as is the multi-county Thomas Jeffersom Planning District organized in 1968. Local Governments in Virginia have been encouraged to work regionally since the 1930s and to plan so they could develop their economies and benefit from shared growth. Virginia Senator Tim Kaine is a good representative of the community building process that got a kick-start from his father-in-law, Governor Linwood Holton. When the leaders fail, the people organize. The modern Republicans will be the last to recognize that giving Trump a chance was a mistake. There are things only our government can do, which is why the Founders cobbled together this method for a republic. The strong executive model building since Nixon is showing its flaws.
You give far too much credit to the people who gather under the Republican brand today. As an Eisenhower Republican, now 70, I’ve had no home for decades. Instead of being fiscally responsible in the 1980s, both parties concluded debt was not a problem – we just owe it to ourselves. Just add it to Korean, Vietnam & other Cold War debt. No end of history benefit with collapse of Soviet Union or recognition that it would have been smarter to promote democracy, even if it led to social programs, rather than fight communism. Communism did not allow religion, democracy is freedom of religion. Not much of a contest for a thinking person.
9-11 was attributed to “failure of intelligence”. On reflection, that is a widespread circumstance in this modern information age. Thoughtfulness which renders wisdom from information and experience has very little space in the world where brand is the simple heuristic one is taught to use to make effortless decisions. Brand’s are herds. Safety in numbers taking a evolutionary modification in the laboratory of mental environment manipulation.
There is safety in the brand because mistakes are always survivable because loyalty to the brand means, like the 1970s book & movie “Love Story”, “Never having to say you are sorry”. The Brand Herd is always together, someone proving the perspective to make any event right, including dispensations.”
While the military strategy is divide and conquer, the banal reality is that the divided are already conquered.
As a long time reader of TAE, I consider it a daily necessity – a dose of fine art or historic photography, plus bad news.
I’m amazed at how many new media pundits who still expect The Apprentice to grow into his job when it is clear that his claims of having a smart brain in the interview process have turned out to be without substance in reality, since the experience in business is being shown to be not transferable. Businesses are not democratic. Votes are not equal, but based on shares and wealth. Boss always right.
In the beginning of the Trump candidacy I felt the disruption would be good. Brand mentality is the real challenge I now see. The debt sins it obscures, decades of it, keep arguments going as soundbites in the news cycle, while the real problem of no new resources and the high maintenance costs of bad investments, military as opposed to citizen services, goes unrecognized.
While the wise prepare for the precipitous end of the Golden Age of Debt, the future of its repayment is clear. It just can’t be done. Consumed too much of the future with little to show for it other than a high maintenance built-enviroment within a damaged and depleted natural environment.
The Brands battle is a spectacle. I don’t know what the solutions will be, but am certain it will come from communities seeking to perpetuate themselves, operating from the community motive.
Interesting that insolvent big banks are making great profits. I think the unpayable debt reflects our over consumption. Debt brings forward future consumption. Ultimately the real economy will shrink to what the natural environment can support. The built environment/Technosphere has taken too much and polluted too much. Technosphere is over 4,000 metric tons per human on the planet. Quite a maintenance and waste burden. ,
Michael Hudson, Economic Historian, says debt slavery is where we are headed. David Graeber in “Debt: The First 5,000 Years” said this is the first time in history that debtors have virtually no advocates from the religions. They’ve been co-opted. The “Profit Motive” religion says the spreadsheet made me do it, its just business. In this respect, it is not a failure of capitalism, because power and domination can become the currency in any economic system. The Soviet socialism proved that, as well as a variety of undemocratic states.
As for slavery, What is modern slavery? Information about the 20.9 million in slavery from Anti-slavery International in the UK
For a far out perspective consider the Urantia Book history of Earth where slavery was an improvement over the initial practice of killing all members of the conquered enemy.
Aggressive war and slavery are gross methods of “stealing the fire of others”. Fire is energy. Since it became possible to put the energy of coal to work via steam engines and later petroleum, that energy has enabled more mechanical and electronic slaves so more of the population can be kings and queens, princes and princesses. The dungeons aren’t completely empty as more wants arise out of addiction to products of the built environment, toys that become necessities.
Happy 9th Birthday. Old is 106, we must pace ourselves.
The Woman’s March was quite impressive. The patriarchs will be in great trouble if they don’t make a woman’s dollar equal to a man’s, as Alicia Keys called for.
It was a surprising show of power to pussy-grabers everywhere. The key to peaceful presence seemed to be, leave the men out. It looked a bit like Julius Caesar’s bridge across the Rhine, letting the German tribes know he had power to go anywhere. Then he took it down, because he could always build another.
President Trump has decided not to argue about the size of the turnouts. We’ll have to see how far cheer leading can go as a motivator into the headwinds of a more depleted planetary ecosystem. Envionmental debts can’t be solved by a jubilee year.
Compared to the Iraqi War protests held during the run up period, where various issue groups fumbled in front of the microphones, attempting to look united, the Woman’s March was able bring everything together and make rainbow of issues.
This is the Obama (Family) Effect. One male speaker representing a union said Donald Trump was a hell of a good organizer. The Organizer-in-Chief and family have moved on, but the empowerment remains.
President Trump’s noble rhetorical goal is to serve everyone. Constituent feedback has begun. Many of the marchers spoke of seeking political office. Hope is the vision. Change is evolutionary. Hope and change is in the house.
The recent lead image shift to uplifting works of art gives a bump up before plunging into the endlessly dour news. Thank you.
Trump won promising to protect and improve benefits and returning the American economy to manufacturing job growth. Obamacare would be improved and cost less. Trouble is, he ran for the austerity party and that is what they are implementing. All will, however, get a free TU degree, which should improve their life long earning power. Note: past results are not a guarantee of future performance.
Nice pun in the headline. Journalism with a slant is a feature, not a bug. Determining the voice or slant of a publication is important to getting work if you are freelance or seek employment.
The “Obama/Merkel model” that “has so dramatically failed” has deep roots, as we have been learning since the 2008 financial crisis. Earlier failures were covered over by creative distraction at many levels by “experts”.
To support the status quo of whatever viewpoint one prefers enables “True Lies”.
The Donald’s campaign did begin with statement of some clear truths: illegal immigration was allowed because it served employers; the Iraq war and others were bad because they were un-winnable; and bad trade deals had led to a loss of jobs. None of the other candidates had any notion of how to deal with these problems; solutions of the last 30 years only made things worse. Further, it made no sense to make Russia an enemy.
Will the global economic ponzi scheme crash? Will Trump Faulty Towers be the new Hoover-villes? If the global connections fail, will city-regions be able to get along and sustain themselves as a lightly connected network? Michel Bauwens and the P2P (Peer to Peer) foundation are working on a commons based economy. Elsewhere, new models for economic organization are being tested, but true necessity has not yet appeared.
Yesterday’s article: “China Bank Calls Documents ‘Fake’ After Bond Default Linked To Alibaba” caused my mind to go to the Bob Dylan song Highlands from the album Time Out Of Mind which includes the lines: “I don’t want nothing from anyone, ain’t that much to take; Wouldn’t know the difference between a real blonde and a fake”.
The Chinese couldn’t tell the difference between a “real BOND and a fake”. Discernment gets more and more difficult as the world’s information society is more and more filled with the spin of professional liars. Who is the troll in any given discussion? “Fake it til you make it”. Pop psych as opposed to Boy/Girl Scout Laws where being Trustworthy and Honest are the highest values.
Modern problems appear to be questions of the right political/economic policy, innovation/STEM education, etc., rather than the historic challenge of morality. That correction is a spiritual challenge rather than the tweak of a formulas is not easily accepted, yet it is the only solution with historic legs.
“This is the most dangerous time for our planet” – Stephen Hawking
“We can’t go on ignoring inequality, because we have the means to destroy our world but not to escape it”How is it that Stephen Hawking can be so clear about the challenges humanity faces? This opinion piece puts economists, political scientists, management experts and other assorted professional problem solvers to shame.
Good analysis. Trump demonstrated that the politically-correct policies of both Republican and Democrat parties had not worked for most Americans. Why should the people expect more of the same to work? I did not expect him to win, but am not disappointed. Perhaps a real estate developer is more alert to the damage war does to public infrastructure and private property. Would a Trump condo turnaround/save East Allepo? Might it be better to build golf courses than military bases? Instead of a “green zone” approach to security, how about City-regions where local production and consumption operates without need of worldwide supply chains enabled by cheap fuel, labor and border-free capital? All stuck in their particular idealism will not understand that this is part of the winning formula the Trump voters and non-voters. Those who stayed home, voted as well.
Thanks Raul. You did a good job of providing perspective. As a former regional planner, I have seen local and state government work for the people. General Federal policy was another matter, though working with the Senators and Congressman was very important for our region. That was in the 1990s.
The inherent falsity of the policies then seemed to hide the errors of the 1950s Cold War policies which we’d learn about. Neoliberals and neocons have given us this world, one that recently figured out that sustainability would be a good idea, though it is so depleted that, at best, strong mitigation can break the fall due to global pollution, manifest in part by climate disruption.
I felt Clinton was safer, even though an Eisenhower Republican. I did appreciate President-Elect Trump demonstrating that the other candidates and the Republican Party had nothing. Being from the Midwest, I’d watched the decline from Virginia where I stayed after doing my Navy enlistment, experiencing another version of it here.
You say: “This transition is the one away from economic growth and globalization -centralization in general- and towards smaller, less centered and grandiose, politics and markets.”
The challenge for the world will be downsizing “great”. It has been underway for longer than most suspect. That is a source of anger for the people that did everything right and after all these years have little to show for it. If their children went to college to move up, they may be highly in debt and not moving at all.
I don’t think “flyover country” is the problem, but “Metropolitan Obsession” is. This is where national economic policy has been failing non-metro people for decades. The metros, on the other hand have many on the economic margin due to high housing cost, long commutes and wage stagnation.
I think your proposition is correct: “The question then becomes: would America be a better, or a safer, place if the entire angry part of its population had again, and still, been ignored by everyone? Or is it better to have them gathered under the umbrella of Donald Trump? Take your pick. Don’t be shy.”
I pick “better”. America has many elites. They all have their own ideals; ideals that blind them.
President Trump is not likely to change the Republican Party elites which do not share his values, but if his supporters stick with him, and perhaps grow, because many who did not vote, in effect voted for him, he might be able to pull back from the New Cold War, diversify the economy away from the Military-Industrial-Congressional complex and establish secure borders, so illegal immigrants can no longer be used to undercut wages – as has been done for the last 30+ years,
Odds are he won’t be able to be a one-man revolution and that he’ll be co-opted or otherwise constrained. Non-cooperation of the corporate elites is powerful. Still, the ultimate outcome can not be avoided. There are a lot of hills/mountains from which there must be ‘come down’ moments.
So, Keen says: “What they ignore is that banks create money and demand when they lend, and both money and demand fall when debt is repaid.” I’ve otherwise heard it expressed that “debt repayment destroys money”. Is not debt repayment a renewal of credit? I get a loan based on my ability to repay. I repay and live to borrow again. My repayment record and income come to demonstrate I am responsible and am provided more credit/debt which I will repay, the loan still hedged by the lender.
Demand for some products will fall when that need is met, but the individual/household/company will have other needs as a consequence of new products or entering a new phase of life. If there are not the savings to buy with cash, then credit is used. With aging, some needs decline or disappear.
Having used credit to bring consumption forward from the future without and ability to repay the debt, interest and admin fees – well unless it is due to unforeseen events that cut one’s income – individual/household/company – is living beyond one’s means and the vendor/lender should not have extended credit.
Although Steve Keen is working to improve economic modelling, this comment makes we wonder about even the better economists.
How Teens In The Balkans Are Duping Trump Supporters With Fake News
BuzzFeed News identified more than 100 pro-Trump websites being run from a single town in the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.Noted in: “Tech is disrupting all before it – even democracy is in its sights” Carole Cadwalladr
Who would enter into a deal with “It’s just business Donald?” This to me is reflective of the moral problem of the business world. It is one economists don’t, won’t or just can’t deal with. A fool and his money are soon parted. Behavioral economics knows exactly how you can be played and then be self condemning for your foolish losses. One problem is believing what you’ve been told. Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, church going faithful people who were raised to value telling the truth, obeying the law and working hard, and have tried to teach their families the same, are not well suited for “It’s just business morality” because it is stealthy. “No risk, no gain” has been sold as the path to wealth, which is used to take money from the fools. Meanwhile, lawyers make sure the wealthy never have other than a paper loss that works for them. It isn’t a game everyone can play, the Financial Warlord. It is abetted by imperfect information. Entertainment is information? Perhaps a problem there. Too much green screen.
There is agreement that change is needed, but change to what? TAE posits shrinkage of the global economy to the true level of assets, which is significantly less than the outstanding debt. We will all be very unhappy with this result. The Ann Pettifor article was interesting in that it said the notion of unlimited growth is a recent invention of economics – or perhaps political-economy or whatever group wants to claim authorship. Financialization of economies, making money with money is the game that increases asset values with no change to the asset. This inflation that economists want Jim Rickards has said is necessary for government taxation to work. They can tax inflation, but not deflation.
The use of war to steal growth from others somehow, even though both sides experience destruction, is another game we should be wise to, but haven’t quite figured out that part. With a limited earth and growing population, there are logically some sort of limits to the ability of having something to distribute in the first place. Should we spend scare resources on military weapons which destroy treasure of others and puts our own at risk? Wave the flag.
Around the world we are reaching the limits of economic expansion. Debt brings consumption forward from the future. A lot of money can be created to build things in the present that really don’t add enough value to repay that debt. Infrastructure is one of those things. Every bridge doesn’t generate the economic value to pay for itself. We have a lot of surpluses around the world now, because people are busy paying off debt and there’s less and less effective demand.
So, in this election we have the choice of The Donald, who has told some truth about the economic situation of the world, in direct opposition to the Republican Party where he got the nomination. The Party does not have the philosophy to implement the policies that would correct the problems: tariffs, control immigration and stop foreign entanglements. The latter could have the impact of improving the military and cutting defense spending. The Republican Party itself would not do this. He’d possibly find allies on the Democratic side. He’s a crowd pleaser, but not shown a coalition building side. Pence is likely to be doing the day to day governing, so The Donald alone won’t be effective.
Hillary on the other hand, in getting the Democratic nomination, did have to deal with the same issues in the candidacy of Bernie and the potential from Elizabeth Warren. The Democratic platform did have to move toward their issues. In my view, the neoliberal and neocon elements of the establishment need to be neutered, but that will take lots of work.
If Hillary is elected, but there are Republican majorities in the House and Senate, we can look forward to more deadlock. The only agreement might be on the neocon side for more wars of distraction. Within the Democratic party, there are Sanders and Warren to lead in damping down that, as well as more favors for Wall Street. I assume there are more Democrats on that wagon. No sure if there are any Republicans.
In my career as a planner I’ve worked with elected officials at all levels over a long period of time. Political communication is an art and skill. Good leaders also are good followers. No one starts out at the top. They work their way up, building relationships all the way. After the election, constituents all have to be treated equally, as their votes will be needed in the future and performance is based on delivery on promises. Not an easy thing to do.
The United States is intended to last in perpetuity. The Constitution has no expiration date. It is said that the Founders decided to use the ambition of the politically oriented as a check, making them compete. The ambition of staying in office that leads to gerrymandered safe seats has meant that within that safe party, competition appears in the primary. Too bad, that pushes toward the pole of that party, rather than a center ground if both parties were involved.
As for flyover country, as the oceans rise, the smart people/money will be moving inland. The July 4, 2276 Quincentennial (500 years) celebration will be quite interesting.
The neocons and neoliberals of the U.S, share responsibility for the broken countries and broken economies. While The Donald revealed the truth of this about the Republican-Democratic majority more effectively than Bernie did, he is in no position to change that as he has no appreciation of its policy roots. The Republican mode is for the V.P. to run things with the President as an entertainer. To de-neo the Congress and establishment is necessary, but it won’t be done by a cold shower.
Agreeing with Stephen. Anyone involved in a service organization, or other non-profit do-good group, knows that civic extortion is involved. You must buy tickets for this event, contribute to this or that, because it is part of the cost for demonstrating civic-mindedness. To get access and try to sell your notions or get positive do-gooder exposure, you give money – maybe money you’d not rather give, just for the access. The non-profit has to generate results in the world to keep that worthiness bar which gets money to do good things that people would not otherwise fund. Some are better at it than others. Compare the Trump Foundation to the Clinton Foundation. You have the data to do so. Economists can’t quantify such status economics or their benefits to society. Also, might the FBI have a problem with a woman president, one who says “Black lives matter.” The old white boy network is very unhappy. The military has been in the lead on providing equal opportunity since Truman’s days. For the FBI, Efrem Zibalest, Jr. is no doubt still their ideal. Yes there are many angry because of the economic policies followed since the Nixon administration. Who is to fault? The economists, politicians, Wall Street brokers? The Ann Pettifor piece today notes: “The concept of growth was subsequently adopted as the goal of all economy policy by the newly-founded OECD in 1961.” A 1948 boomer, I was a freshman in high school at this time. Now 70, I still live in a world created by a near dead generation of thinkers. Bill Clinton was the first boomer president, but the old guys foisted some short term crappy economics on him as they did with Obama. Which is better for change, a seasoned insider – like Pope Francis, or an angry outsider who doesn’t know the first thing about the game – like everything in politics is always, always, always a compromise – unless you are the dictator. The world will figure out it is flat broke. A Trump incited crash is not a way to get there as far as I’m concerned. If, as Ann suggests, economists could find a way to say they got it wrong, that growth can not continue forever, maybe the ratchet down will be a bit calmer than say dropping out of the sky. The pictures that accompany TAE should not be our future. In the new movie Trumpland by Michael Moore, he gives a good account of how Trump supporters feel, which has been shown here and there, but it is necessary to watch the full movie. Seems Moore was never deceived by Bill, but has always found Hillary to be genuine. He notes Pope Francis represented the Catholic Church in Argentina during a series of repressive regimes. As Pope, the Church might have expected a conservative, but he stayed true to his roots and has worked to make the Church a greater force for good. He thinks Hillary will stick to her roots. The Donald will too. Not much there.
I come here daily for a dose of bad news. Today’s batch is exceptionally bad. All of the problems are, at the root, made by man. Failure of intelligence, we can see, is quite common in human history. We have been: “Blind to God.” For our debts to be forgiven, we will have to seek forgiveness. Having taken too much from the natural-environment to make the built-environment, we are all at risk. The profit motive has failed us in all economic systems. Let us prey? A path of self-inflicted doom.
Jim Rickards talks about the use of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights to function as a global central bank, issuing debt to buy up the bad assets of the Central Banks. That would keep the game going longer. It isn’t part of this scenario, so does that mean you reject it?
