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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…

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.youtube.com/v/ucZxQCBavxA" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

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.

I came across this article in the New York times talking about recipients currently on welfare who are suing the state to raise the amount of money they receive from assistance.  According to the article the payment that people receive from welfare has not risen since 1989.  This has caused many to have to struggle to get by on a daily basis.  “It’s an absolute abomination that this grant hasn’t been raised in so many years,” said Assemblyman Wright, of Harlem. “That these folks on public assistance are able to live at all on less than $200 or $300 a month is a true testament to their survival skills.”

The lawyers representing these welfare recipients filed the class-action lawsuit, accusing the state of violating a Depression-era constitutional provision that requires it to provide adequate financial assistance for its neediest residents.

I am curious to see if this lawsuit will actually be able to make a change in the amount of assistance these recipients will receive. Take a look at the article:

CallenderC

After hearing about the welfare programs in other countries it made me wonder about the welfare services that are offered in Guyana, South America, which is where my family originated from. I did some brief research and it made me realize that to even have a program that provides aid in a country when you are down in the dumps, is a luxury.

Now the government says that you can receive pension, but how many people actually have a good job in this country. When you take away the 15% that are unemployed and then take away those who work for next to nothing, you are not left with many who can find a good government job that has a pension plan.“In 1990, about 40 percent of the country’s workers were in minimum-wage jobs, earning the equivalent of US$0.5 per day (at December 1990 exchange rates). These low wages, often not enough to even cover the costs of commuting to work, helped explain the high rate of emigration.” Even though this information is outdated, I have seen how hard it is out there. My cousin is a police officer and she makes $30,000 a month in Guyana which is an equivalent of US$150.

I hear Americans complain about taxes but in this poor nation they charge they recently (2007) enforced a new tax of 16% on everything you buy, including food. I was there this past Christmas and it just made me really angry because they were definitely not seeing that money back.
Americans might say over and over again that they oppose increasing government spending on welfare programs, in reality, they support the majority of programs defined as “welfare.” The majority of social welfare spending is on education, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. In fact, only 17% of government social spending is directed toward means-tested programs that target the poor.

Guyana is a poor country that lacks a lot of the bare necessities that we take for granted each day. Of course you will never see this in the tourist area but take a walk to the country. Imagine not having a mailbox and just making routine trips to the post office just to check. If my mom wants to send money down, she has to call and let my family know in advance so they can go to the post office to collect it.

I have included a link to read about the welfare services in Guyana (don’t wry it’s not long : )) for all of u who won’t read it at least read the quote.” Statistics for 1988 showed 164 physicians in Guyana, which made for a physician-to-patient ratio of one to 5,000. About 90 percent of the physicians were in public service. Guyana’s 789 nurses made for a nurse-to-patient ratio of one to 1,014 in 1988” Makes u wonder…

http://www.photius.com/countries/guyana/society/guyana_society_health_and_welfare_s~310.html