Author Archives: jgoldstein

I am reading an interesting article from CounterPunch newsletter on the America history of restoring a crisis.

In this article, the author explains how our economic system manages to remain afloat even when it seems like there are more “assets” (debt) for the government to buy up than there are actual profits turning.  She explains that these huge failing financial institutions are saved by simple redistribution.  In the authors words:

today we hear about the federal government buying up “assets” of the failing banks and other financial institutions.  These “assets” are, of course, also debts, and very bad debts that can’t be repaid.

Essentially, the president acts as Robin Hood, but instead of taking money from the rich and dispersing it to the poor, he takes the money of the labor workers and tax payers and fills the deep pockets of corporations.  You may be wondering how exactly the president does this.  It is more complex than simply raising taxes and then creating a budget that only funds bailouts.  One way is to create inflation:

Significant injection of government spending into industrial production, rather than into the production of “consumer goods,” results in inflation.  The price of daily necessities goes up due to shortages or rationing, and the real value of workers’ wages goes down.

Inflation is basically the same thing as cutting a workers wage without actually doing so.  The price of goods go up because of the change of government funding. The worker is now able to afford less goods.  This way he is still putting in the same labor, sometimes even more, but using less of the production, basically consuming less.  This leaves more resources and more of his income for expanding industry.  War is another good way to boost the economy.

“911” resulted in an enormous increase in presidential powers, and that both private military contractors and the oil industry profited tremendously from the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, cuts in wages, lay-offs, unemployment, increases in hours and worker productivity without increases in pay or jobs, have continued to insure that working peoples’ real incomes decline.

During a war, Marxism critique of Capitalism goes into full throttle.  With the powers of the bourgeoisie or president expanding, he takes full advantage of the proletariat, exploiting him fully for his labor all in the name of industry (PR for making CEOs, his fellow bourgeoisie members, richer instead of holding them accountable for their failed business decisions).  Sometimes exploiting the workers is not enough to salvage  failing industry.  At this point outsourcing becomes the redistribution of choice.

When this usual method of economic competition is not sufficient to turn around a deep economic crisis, taking the resources of another country by military force, while reducing its population to beggars willing to work for starvation wages, is another way to reallocate or “redistribute” economic wealth and resources.

The article wraps up with a question:

how long will working people, consumers and taxpayers stand for paying the costs of larger, deeper, more wide-spread economic busts that lower our standard of living, destroy social programs, and bankrupt our pubic institutions and infrastructure…We need to decide for ourselves which road we want to take in creating a system of production and distribution that truly provides for us all.

I’m personally not sure what the real answer is.  It is clear that our system is flawed, but it is unclear if there is another system that is ideal.  Is her Utopia possible in our American reality?

this is the content of my post

I am reading an article from the brooklyn rail

here is is a general summary of what i thought was interesting about reading this article. maybe a main point or two and even my oiwn perspective if I had one.  then I’m going to walk the reader through this article with my blog post.  so, I’ll start with a quote:

In response to the weakened economy, the Fed cut interest rates between 2001 and 2003 from 6.5% to 1%. This led, as intended, to a massive increase of debt, personal and corporate. In particular mortgage lending took off, from $385 billion in 2000 to $963 billion in 2005. This, together with the refinancing of homes, was the basis for the post-2002 expansion of the American—and so, to some extent—of the world economy, along with the massive inflow of foreign funds in exchange for U.S. Treasury securities.

so now that I’ve quoted I wwill explain why i chose that quote, what it tells us, and then lead into another quote….

How did fictional investment come to have so dominant a place in economic reality? And how far is the depressionary wolf from the door? My next article, in the November Rail, will explore the roots of the current crisis in the development of the world economy since World War II; a third, in December, will examine that development in relation to the cycle of prosperity and depression that has characterized the capitalist economy since the early nineteenth century.

and then I saw more, etc. etc. conclusion

(Click on the image to see it full size & read it.)

Maria Bartiromo in 1998…

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And on a daytime talk show…

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And then objectified on youtube, along with Erin Burnett:

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If Financialization really does creep into the everyday, than it must creep into what (and who) we consider to be sexy.  I wonder, has there been a financialization of sexuality? What would that even mean? Maybe online dating services are one dimension of this…  and just yesterday a friend was telling me about a website where men rate the escorts that they’ve paid for…  but the question still remains – what makes these things related to the logic of financialization specifically?

The following are links to a blog called “Financial Armageddon” and I thought they were relevant for us.  This might be another good blog to keep track of…  and it should help us come up with some really interesting paper ideas….

Marx talks about the adulteration of food, and apparently the practice still happens today

One effect of the crisis seems to be lower birth rates

Governors ask state employees to take pay cuts and to work more hours – a good example of absolute surplus value extraction

If any of you are into fashion, there is a really good paper to be written about the financialisation of brand names, retail spaces, and clothing…  this post would be a nice to place to start..

In Heather Rogers’ book we will talk about cultures of thrift turning into cultures of disposability…  now when times are tough, will there be a return to thrift?  What will that mean for the economy?

this is a test

I found this that directly relates to the subject, it’s pretty interesting.

From US News & World Report, via The Week:  When Timothy Stewart’s insurer paid only $2,600 of a $13,000 hospital bill, he brought in a hired gun.  Medical billing advocates, armed with insider information on billing practices and insurance policies, can help consumers uncover errors and settle disputes with healthcare providers and insurers.  You can find such an advocate – as well as information on disputing medical charges on your own – at the Medical Bill Advocates of America website, billadvocates.com.  These experts have various arrangements for payment – some charge by the hour, some base their fee on how much they save their clients.  For Stewart, it was well worth the cost.  After some professional prodding, his insurer agreed to pay the bill in full.

So this is an article I found on NYTimes. It argues how the Washington Post recently had a front page article about rising hunger and how the number of Americans on food Stamps is reaching a “record high” but fails to take into account the fact that the population is growing. Basically, false and exaggerated info is being used to make food stamps appear as an even bigger problem than it may actually seem, all this according to the Nytimes. They argue that it may be true that the number of Americans on welfare is rising but the U.S. population is also reaching its highest level ever. I find it interesting that this particular article is used to critique the Washington Post for the way it presented its article rather than focusing on the issue of food stamps. I think it’s becoming pretty clear that the use of food stamps is on the rise especially with the state of the current economy, so there shouldn’t be such emphasis on the way this issue is presented. I guess that’s just the media at work. Your thoughts?

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This story had even more great perspective than I remember.  You’ll be very interested to read the story of the college student who can’t keep up because of the lousy prep she got in high school.

wall in hallway of DC school.

http://www.oprah.com/slideshow/oprahshow/oprahshow1_ss_20060411/1