Professor Reich: it's the same old story, isn't it? the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed. and no one cares about the environment in a global economy. so here we are, perched in the edge of the extinction of everything, including ourselves, to satisfy the greed of a tiny tiny minority of people.
GrrlScientist, you are correct but that does not mean we cannot envision a new system and implement it. One of the most effective tools for the rise of authoritarians and fascists is to discourage and threaten the opposition. Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation envision a virtually dystopian world, so we must be willing to envision a better system than capitalist dominated democracy and work to put it into action. The concept of “Apocalypse” came from the ancient Greeks and they defined it as “To uncover that which was hidden.” (often with a sense of redemption) Well now we see the greed and lust for power that has always been hidden and it is time to marshal our forces to overcome the darkness of the ultra wealthy with a better system. This is bigger than Trump verses Biden, much bigger.
I’m attending an economic democracy training in August near Asheville, North Carolina. Personally, I am convinced that the new economy and form of governance embedded in this new system will be the way out of our next economic, political and justice system crash while we are facing our potentially darkest days for democracy,then we must boy our spirits by understanding there is a better system.
New system not needed. Revise what we have. There are better ways of doing things but Project 2025 is not it. Read the BBC'S latest article. I was a Republican for 60 years but got a divorce after Jan 6th and divorced myself from Heritage Foundation around the same time. Their idea of conservatism is FACISM.
I think you may be right, only in that I can’t see how we can go backwards to repair this situation. We let it happen to such an extent that unfortunately, the jobs, at least as they existed before, aren’t coming back. Like the song from the old Genesis album, “you gotta get in to get out.”
The planet can sustain 1B to 2B humans. We cannot afford to produce anything but food and clean water now, and even if we converted to localized agrarian economies, it is unlikely that the planet can be restored to a degree which might allow for human life. Our marine species are dying out due to over-fishing and triple-digit water temperatures. Once the marine biosphere is destroyed, our species will become extinct, or possibly only nearly extinct.
I remember reading a copy of "Highlights" before a dentistry appointment in 1970. There was some mention of climate change in that children's magazine.
The game is over. Bezos wasn't playing when he began his rocketry experiments. Billionaires aren't building luxury bunkers because they believe that they will enjoy living in (ultimately probably connected) caves.
During the 15th Century, a tsunami devastated Kamakura, Japan, submersing the city and killing all of its inhabitants. The Dai-Butsu ("big Buddha"), golden or gold-plated statue (I believe that it is gold-plated bronze), sits at about 900 feet of elevation (a guess, but that is what it looked like to me), survived, but the structure which contained it, which was constructed of very thick timbers (I believe that I remember reading that the frame was constructed of 40 cm, or 16 inch square timbers, but that needs a fact check), was destroyed. It was approximately 40 feet tall.
There is also evidence of a Pacific Ocean tsunami which produced a wave which was 900 feet tall at some prehistoric time. I can't provide a citation, but I believe that I read this in a sailing publication.
All of this occurred before the Industrial Revolution. We cannot expect Earth to heal itself, except with the eradication of the "disease", which is homo sapiens. Perhaps some thousands or millions of species can be saved as a result of our collective industrial suicide. Sorry. There is no scenario which predicts the survival of 7 billion to 10 billion humans. Perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 will survive, somehow, and the species will regenerate over some millions of years, but even that seems optimistic to me.
Lastly, did we become the only dictatorship in the developed world last week?
SCOTUS is already “straightening" them out. Between SCOTUS, the wing-nuts in the House of Representatives, Trump and his sycophants, democracy, and old fashioned capitalism is in dire straits. Capitalism was created at the end of the middle ages but now it has become the instrument of greed and the ultra-wealthy. It is not working for the majority of us. We need a system that provides good jobs for all as well as incentive to be more productive. As of now, capitalism is a failed system and the “guardrails” are not only broken, but are rapidly being removed and sent to the scrapyard.
Capitalism belongs in the dust heap of history. Communism and socialism are also failed systems.We can come up with a better system and we should explore more advanced systems now. We are living on a dying planet. "We must act quickly and well for people are dying.”
Capitalism hasn't failed. In the US, capitalism is doing exactly what it's supposed to do - in a capitalistic system, the acquisition of capital is all that matters, and the end goal is to concentrate all the capital, and thus all the economic power, in as few hands as possible. That is how so-called "free market capitalism" has always worked. Strong government is needed to regulate the holders of the capital in order to force equability and fairness on to the capitalists. Unfortunately, we've had an entire half of our two party system (and more than a few of the other half) dedicated to gutting all of this regulation and allowing the capitalists to infect everything with their short-term thinking.
What we really need is to move away from any system that supports or encourages scarcity as a means of motivation. We have more than enough food to go around, but the perverse tax incentives means it's "worth" more to throw that food away than it is to move it where it is needed. We have more than enough housing for everyone, and the technology to enable employment to those houses, but it's "worth" more to the capitalists to keep the houses empty and the technology stunted. Artificial scarcity pervades the US economy in innumerable ways, from the small to the large. Failure to address these scarcities is why power is inevitably funneled to the few, because they are the ones that are able to control and enforce these "rules" on everyone else.
I don't think we want a virulent economy. Things work better in Europe and some other countries than here. We ought to learn from those countries. The ultra rich, private equity, and monopolistic corporations are making life exceptionally difficult for many people in the U.S., and damaging the environment at the same time. We need more regulations on them.
I think they meant to say "virile," without actually understanding either word. I think the use of "virulent" is quite apropos to describe American capitalism though.
Who? Us. How? Become activists for deep and lasting change. When will we get started? Some already have. There is no alternative but deep and lasting change of systems.
But to what end? Politics and policies in America, are tied to trying to woo far too many people. It is those people who vote. As long as we have such divisiveness in our American political system, we will continue to foster the status quo’s. And with extremist maniacs like Trump and all of those world wide who spend millions to put him in power, we the people still, so far, have the power to vote for more sane candidates. Politics worldwide has invited these same types to ‘lead’ them. To what end? How do we create a more modern system of government, business, employment, education, and even laws and those who adjudicate it, when everyone wants it their way?
I’m sure that I’m going to get tons of flack for what I’m about to write here, but so be it….
While I believe she currently has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected in 2024, I do believe that Marianne Williamson does have her finger on the pulse of what needs to shift - which is our consciousness. And it is what we on this Substack appear to be talking about. How she would implement her policies now, I have no idea. That she’s adding to the conversation that what we need is to wed our human spirit to our political policies… I have great respect for that, and I agree with her. And yes, Marc, you’re right: we need to be activists for deep and lasting change. And imho, not just political activists. Spiritual activists, too.
I have to admit that I've never heard of Marianne Williamson. Is she a Green Party candidate? I'm a Green, and I don't know who "our" candidate is, and certainly wouldn't vote for anyone but Biden now, despite the way he was nominated during the last cycle, after Bernie had already secured the nomination. I hope that I don't need to explain that.
Talking about alternatives at this late date is counterproductive, as it was in 1968 and 1980. Our backstop is Kamala Harris. Our candidate is Joe Biden.
I don't believe that we will. We might defeat the insane MAGAGA ideology (I don't regard MAGAGA to be an ideology, but rather a form of self-pleasuring, but I don't think that I can publish precisely what I would like here), and progress to addressing social and socio-economic issues, but the short and mid-term interests of Corporatism, which dominates the world, are diametrically opposed to the responsible stewardship of the planet. I hope that Canada has nice topsoil, as 20th C.-style farming in the U.S. will soon be limited to Big Ag and the wealthiest farmers, who own entire suites of air-conditioned field equipment.
I am concerned, however, with a potential 2nd term Illiterate Thing's ability to navigate disputes over trade routes and territories in and around the Sea of Japan. I expect him to just lie down and agree to any absurd demands which Xi might impose, after which Kim might attempt to use North Korea's military in a misguided effort to improve its economy.
Perhaps science will provide some answers, but over time, what we have learned only reinforces fatalist scenarios in which progressively more serious previously unknown variables emerge, and the timeline for catastrophe shortens.
In 2008, I predicted the end of the U.S. as we know it to be forty more years (2048), with 5-year contractions for serious socio-political errors such as GOP presidencies. My clock is now at 2033, but given what we've seen recently, especially Return of Son of Nixon III's vow to provide us with "a bloodbath" when he loses the election, or just "retribution" in the unlikely event that he becomes our president again, I believe that we could finish up during the next five years.
I'm here while the last two members of my family are living, but assuming that I outlive them, I will leave with the hope that I never see the U.S. again. Of course this assumes that the value of our currency hasn't collapsed by then, trapping us all like ants drowning at the bottom of a can of sweet tea.
Project 2025 has leapfrogged ahead of the liberals in terms of envisioning, long range planning and a roadmap for implementation. The Progressive Utilization Theory is the alternative vision for a sustainable planet. Just ask ChatGPT and you will get a cogent description of PROUT.
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
I cannot believe that you have read the 900 pages. Yes, we should be asking questions about how our government functions. This is not the same as declaring a Second American Revolution which will be bloodless , only if everyone just goes along with Project 2025.
You have a point. Yes I read it. It was more than 900.
The Project has been around since 2022 and I'm retired so I have plenty of time. Actually it doesn't take that long. I'll admit I had to go back and reread parts. I think taxing the wealthy, revising parts of our system would do the trick. One thing that has fouled things up is Citizens United. The wealthy have a voice. Middle America doesn't
You don’t see a concerted effort to favor corporations and the wealthy over labor and the common good. R’s are the primary reason that some 50+ trillion dollars from the bottom has been siphoned upwards to the top .01 %. This has mostly occurred since 1980, but its roots goes back further. This is complicated because the democrats of pre 1964 civil rights act are now republicans. Indeed the government need constant review and updating. Project 2025 as stated by the leader of the Heritage Foundation does not match what you see. Conservatives of today are not conservative at all project 2025 makes that abundantly clear. My reading sees much that is likely very scary. The whole truth about implementation of 2025 is not actually known.
We might have to evolve to a more benevolent state of our current primate level. I love the idea of creating a better (more equatable) economic system. The pressure of AI might exacerbate the problem, unless we can tell it what results we want.
Yes, we need to stop the weathy from controlling our Country. For the past year I have talked about this Plan. It was developed in 2022. I found most of it to be nonsense. It is a conservative nightmare. We don't need a new plan. Just refine what we have. And now Trump said he never heard of it. That's a lie. His aides and supporters like Bannon helped Heritage. What was once a good think tank IS NOW IN THE TOLIET TANK.
If you look at the makeup of all the members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and lobbyists, you will see the majority are from the middle class. These are men and women who vote for all those tax breaks for the rich people and corporations that do not need all that money. These are the same sycophants who will implement Project 2025. Let us blame them for our economic ills. Saludos, Rolando
Wrong they are not middle class. They are upper middle class white males. They get freebees and all sorts of perks from lobbyists. But your right they vote for tax breaks for the rich. And I just told why. Look at how the rich donors influence the Supreme Court. They protect us and constitution NOT.
Regardless of where they sit in the middle class, they are middle class. As the “upper middle class,” they became almost sole servants to the interests of the upper class and were never left to forget. Sending jobs abroad hurt our labor class and nearly killed the unions. Take Thomas and his “gifts.” Whose interests did he serve? The same goes for Alito—the same middle-class votes for tax gifts to corporations and the wealthy in the House and Senate. It is not much of a stretch to call those actions the betrayal of the middle class.
And they don't provide ANY job training or assistance to the Blue Collar workers who got screwed by the trade deals. No wonder they feel that that the Democratic Party abandoned them
You beat me to it. If a country decides to implement environmental regulations that in any way impinge on the perceived profit of a corporation, the country can be subject to swingeing fines.
How things change--As a child I witnessed a way of life that has all but left us, and greed was the culprit. Let's look at GE light bulbs. My dad would pack up a bunch of old defunct light bulbs and cart me and the refuge to a now extinct outlet of GE and that company would issue a brand-new bulb for every bad one you gave them, for "free," an endless supply of lamination at no cost to the consumer. Not anymore. Another perk that has gone by the wayside is coffee. As a child, I hated the drink, but the aroma was mesmerizing. No matter where you went, everyone interested in pleasing the consumer gave away coffee for free. It was just a way of life. Not anymore. Ma Bell got into the act by giving away free phones. All you needed to do was get in touch with the lady in question and tell her what you wanted and bang, a new phone was delivered to your home at again no cost. Not anymore. Gas stations would lend a helping hand and supply anyone in need with free air for the tires. Not anymore. However, one thing that rates at the top of the consumer being gouged is paying for our television reception. As a kid after you paid for the set and the electricity to run it, basically you're watching pleasure was a free experience. There was the added expense of the tin-foil. Not anymore. Next to my mortgage, my cable bill is the most expensive monthly obligation, blood money. These are just a few of the things big business has taken from us. I feel Trump, if elected, will find a way to send us a bill for the very air we breathe.
Bear in mind that that Hyper-Rich are a tiny minority that consider themselves Hyper-Entitled, and Citizens of the World... As long as they can stay among themselves in their secluded Enclaves, their Hyper-Yachts , and Private Jets, they don't care as the majority of Us burn, or drown due to Climate-Change... They will just migrate because they feel that they are better... A.I. will just concentrate their Power... It is conceivable that it will become the largest power consumer as it expands into more & more spheres...
we voted for an unknown political newcomer Donald Trumpet 🎺 and that’s how that clown became president of the United States. Hillary was Gobsmacked that she had lost because she was held in contempt because of bills willingness to export out jobs and break our unions…
And if Hillary runs again for president it’s almost a certainty that her opponent will win … If the Democrats were to nominate her as the candidate for president against Donald trumpet ; it would guaranteed trumpet 🎺 would win again…
Vote all the bum’s out Elect ancient Joe Biden for how much time he has left on this earth ….
Enough! Secretary Clinton isn’t running again; Joe Biden is. She lost to tfg, even though more people voted for her, because the Republican Party spent 30 years dragging her down. Remember Benghazi? Remember “buttery males?” Secretary Clinton is the most experienced and prepared person ever to run for president. It is tragic that she lost to a narcissistic fascist. Maybe we should have nominated Bernie. His bumper sticker campaign might have appealed to some of the maga crowd.
Thanks Susan, I appreciate folks with memories and who can think. R’s jumped on Hillary long before she ran for president, IMO anyone who shows promise is attacked, lied about, and demonized in case they might seek office. It’s a damn shame she was not elected but, many many folks buy into almost anything negative and care nothing about the truth. If we learned from Hillary the tactics of republicans it would have been a valuable lesson learned but, alas we buy into the negative.
You are correct. They saw her promise snd started on her when she was First Lady of Arkansas then jumped on her when, as FLOTUS, she tried to do health care for children of the whole country that she had done for children of AR. She tried to warn people about tfg, but nobody listened to “the email lady.”
The Slavers have struck again and again enabling the southern strategy and other Republican victories…
We need to rewrite the constitution to eliminate Electorial college, rein in the Supreme Court s for sale practices, and mandatory voting… then ranked voting we might be able to take back our government. Oh yea end corporations being considered citizens or having rights. Campaign contributions limited to 100. Tops all sources. No pac contributions…
The most telling thing when it comes to the Electoral College is the fact that we are the *only* country with a system anything like it. We have helped quite a few other countries in setting up their democracies, but we have never exported the Electoral College. Most other advanced democracies have also long since done away with first-past-the-post for systems that are more equitable to the whole of that country, not just the tiny handful that live in so-called "swing states."
What political isn’t beholden to the mighty dollar? She couldn’t have been worse than the Orange Menace, and at least knew what governing meant. I think she really blew it with that “Deplorables “ comment. Missed the point and the chance to include all or most of those people.
"We" didn't vote for Rump. A bunch of clueless, angry people voted for him. I most definitely was not among them.
I do agree about Hillary, however. The DNC looked at her Wall Street connections and figured she was a shoe-in. They didn't count on the fact that she was a thoroughly off-putting, disdainful person to so many voters.
The only thing that lets me sleep at night is the simple fact that my vote did not matter. Because of the EC, my vote for POTUS is pretty much irrelevant, because of how strongly ruled by the GQP the state I live in is. I still won't make that mistake again however. I wasn't able to hold my nose in 2016, and the result was enough stench that I now have a lifetime supply of clothespins.
How much time do you have on this earth. PRAY TELL!!!@ OR ALL SPEAKING ABOUT PRESIDENT BIDEN'S AGE. READ THE REAL BIBLE.NOT TRUMP'S AND SEE HOW GOD PROMISED ABRAHAM TO MAKE HIM THE FATHER OF ALL NATIONS.
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Excellent analysis, Robert Reich . I totally agree and hope we can elect a president in 2024 who can get laws passed to support the needs of our working class segment of the population. You know what that means: Vote Blue
Trump whined that other countries aren't spending enough on defense compared to NATO goals; yes, other countries should try to meet their goals but perhaps looking after their own citizens takes priority. If the US reduced its amount of spending to the 2% goal, it would have billions to contribute toward health care. Treating medical care as a commodity is evil, in my opinion.
Having graduated with an economics degree, taken classes in international trade, and being influenced by the supply side argument ( trickle down) when I was in high school, and being at the mercy of a cruel labor market for the working poor, I can say from hard experience, the losers really dont get compensated, we get thrown aside like so much refuse. " comparative advantage" May have some " utility" to use an economics term, but not taking into account all the " externalities" of trade agreements, especially involving China, who uses exports like a weapon, with lax environmental standards and frequent human rights abuses, really creates a situation that is overall very negative, especially for the U.S., given all the bad side effects of U.S. deindustrialization. It is very much time to " reshore" manufacturing jobs in the U.S. with environmental and living wage protections. Stop trying to make everyone an info tech worker which isn't viable, and instead ensure a string productive manufacturing sector, which is necessary for national security reasons as well. There should also be tax penalties for offshoring jobs. It's not protectionism it's about having a stable, more equally prosperous country. Put another way, what good does it do to have 5000 U S. billionaires ( if that were to happen), and 5 million U.S. homeless folks? In that situation, most U.S. citizens are far worse off...
Prof. Reich is misrepresenting the theory of Comparative Advantage. Nations gain from engaging in free trade by specializing in producing and selling goods and services in which they have a comparative (not absolute) advantage. This does by no means mean that there are no winners or losers unless the losers are compensated by the winners. Under Clinton- Reich this did not happen.
A second and even more important issue was that corporations were allowed to relocate in Mexico to produce labor intensive products and to bring these products duty free into the US. This was huge. The Theory of Comparative Advantage is silent on this hugely important issue.
Thank you for this informative post. Until Congress gets back to legislating and the Supreme Court gets back to the integrity of unbiased rulings and Republicans forego their foray into fascism, how can we implement these changes is the next big challenge.
There are other downstream effects not mentioned here. 35+ years ago, manufacturing jobs paid a truly livable wage, as well as provided company health insurance and pensions that nourished families and communities. Employees made enough money and post-secondary education was more affordable such that their children could be sent to college, if desired, join the same company, or have other options in more vibrant communities. As manufacturing went abroad, these same communities became sacrifice zones in which locally owned businesses were gutted by the infiltration of speciality and general box stores with cheap, imported goods. Add in the unchecked corporate greed of an opiate epidemic and some Americans have been left to watch their communities decimated, while their adult children are left to choose between box store retail employment (and due to low wages government healthcare and food stamps) or joining the military. For these citizens the American Dream became a nightmare. Trump acknowledges their pain, even if his actions during his presidency didn’t (and won’t again) actually help them. Like most of our country’s challenges, extreme black and white thinking will not resolve what requires systemic analysis and creative collaboration between 50 states in a global marketplace.
Deborah, wonderfully said. Profits over people is destroying this country. We need drastic change and those that believe in profits over people must be seen for who they are, voted out of office and laws made to stop hedge fund takeovers, CEO immoral salaries, stock buybacks that do not help workers and customers, and shareholder needs over the needs of the companies employees and customers. If Project 2025 is allowed to continue we won’t have a democracy, there will be no collaboration just domination.
Now those workers need 2 or 3 jobs just to eat let alone have a life!! You cannot be a responsible parent or spouse and meet your financial obligations on a job at Walmart
I suggest reading "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank to understand how the 1964 Presidential election gave rise to the GOP "Southern Strategy", and how the 1968 and 1972 Presidential elections destroyed the Democrats/Liberals relationship with America's Labor Movement. The accumulation of wealth in the top 1% of Americans has led to a "New Gilded Age" where American workers and the bottom 50% of Americans, in general, have experienced a dramatic decline in economic resources and and lifestyle. The United States is one of the most economically unequal countries in world, completely caused by greed and lies from conservatives and incompetence from liberals.
You don't need to be rich to figure out pretty quickly that you've been lied to...you just need the will. And as Trump's poll numbers prove, they love being lied to. Reality....eh, not so much.
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Project 2025 is not "a different view" it's a hellscape and anyone not smart enough to figure that out needs a scan to see if they have any brain cells left.
When NAFTA was being created I thought it would be good, in part because it would give us leverage to convince other countries to enact environmental reforms, but it was used to justify weakening our own environmental policies. This is how we become jaded.
NAFTA also weakened our local economies. Every region in the country has the potential to grow its own food to support its own population but now most of our produce comes from other countries and our rich fertile land is utilized to grow grains that are then exported to other countries for profit or feed for cattle which in itself is an environmental disaster. Tremendous amounts of fossil fuels are utilized to ship food and goods back and forth from country to country furthering our environmental crisis. Globalization just enriches middlemen and impoverishes local populations. Why should South America be producing bananas for North America when they could be producing food for their own underfed populations?
Furrther, Marc, pesticides the US has banned now come back to us in this foreign food. Seems an ironic but legit circle. Then, there is the US ,seeking to FORCE Mexico to use GMO corn, when Mexico has the cleanest and most varieties of corn used daily by its people. GMO corn, like therapeutics now being called vaccines ( definition changed to accommodate mRNA) are being documented to cause cascading health problems in people and devastation in nature.
Lack of local food, which some of us have promoted through organic, now regenerative and regional ties for decades, has diminished US farming, caused landscapes to be lost and economic stability of farms to fall again and again. I keep asking myself, 'where do they think they are going to get the milk, the eggs, the clean chickens, the clean, local pork, beef, veggies that still have nutritional value?"... MY grandfather had a good life farming diversely on 100 acres, milking a few cows, sending cream in cream cans to the city... What do you plan to eat? Bill Gates, while buying US farmland and water rights across the Midwest, has a lab made fungus he wants to sell you....
I still recall over and over, NPR asking the question day after day in the 1990s, (when they were still a great news source), 'what will happen to all the people whose jobs are lost to NAFTA?" I never heard a corresponding answer.
You make such good points. I attended a class in 1977 at what was then, Denver Free University. Jim (can’t pull last name out of the memory bank), environmentalist, said that the food we eat now (1977) has only 30% of the micronutrients contained in food in the 1940s. Shudder to think what’s in the food we ingest today. And we sell farmland to Saudi Arabia and other foreign nations, and let mega food producers sell us cardboard.
Covid causes cascading health problems in people, not 'vaccines'. Covid/flu are the third leading cause of death in this country, especially for those of us who are older.
My spouse and I have had 7 Moderna shots. In June she want to visit relatives, picked up the COVID virus in the airport, brought it home. It's been a rough 1st week of July, slept through the first day, but neither of us have had respiratory problems. We have been taking Paxlovid, telemedicine visit with the doctor.
And I am 85, diabetic and in remission from stage 4 lung and brain cancer
She is 71, we are both doing fairly well, I'm thinking of mowing the property today, 2 1/2 acres a two to three hour job, Toro Zero turn mower.
When you have to re-define what vaccines are ,which is what the US did, when MRNA vaccines, tested under EMERGENCY Regulations with complete lack of accountability to the vaccine companies was allowed, one does not even begin to know the consequences until years post. Many between the ages of 25-50 have died according to life insurance payouts, who never should have post these vaccines. There are many other questions and instead of asking them, we are rushing to make mRNA vaccines for bird flu. Mrna shots were THERAPEUTICS untill the CDC during Covid changed the definition of vaccine to include them.
Since you actually have no knowledge about this, aside from the propaganda, you should stop asserting your partial truths. There have been vaccine problems I have known about since the 1970s, and I bet you know nothing about it... It has been buried. Finally, all imploded in the past decades as the sheer numbers of vaccines given to babies, infants with absolutely minimal immune systems seems to have been an overwhelming experience for some. I am not anti vax. YOU are pro propaganda.
Wow, Vicki, sounds to me like you have drunk from the RFK well.
Here is one sentence that did you in: "one does not even begin to know the consequences until years post.". so based on nothing, no evidence, no data, no studies, you oppose using vaxxines until years hence when data is in.
You adamantly claim that I have no knowledge other than my "partial truths" I shouldn't say anything.
For one thing there are no such things as partial truths, something is either true or it is not true. Not maybe true
What you said I did was lie.
I know this that millions of lives were lost because of COVID, and millions of lives were saved because of the Vaccines. It does seem that some vaccines are more efficacious than others, such as Moderna vs Johnson and Johnson.
However, while other people have had COVID have died, especially elderly people with immuno compromised conditions, like myself. I have had the vaccines, got COVID and lived, with only mild inconveniences and am on the way to recovery.
Don't give me that shit about being pro propaganda, first there is no such thing except the people like Goebbels or the media who create propaganda.
Yours is a lame attempt to take yourself off the hook for being gullible enought to fall for RFK Jr's, shtick.
I live..thanks to MODERNA and it's COVID19 vaccines. I would be dead , likeall the other elderly immune compomised people whose corpses filled refrigerator vans.if I had listened to people like you,
Your white man brillance outshines the stars! No one knows anything but YOU! Very Trumpty! Go Moderna yourself as much as you like. You are obviously someone who does not have a compromised response. That does not mean others do not.
Pro Propoganda. Yes, sadly, the US does propagandize.
Do you not recall your huge knowledge base regarding US Corporate Capture of US Regulatory Agencies for decades now?Do you not recall the huge emptying out of institutional knowledge from the agencies when Trumpty was president!? Now, with Chevron, Socialized Corporations can ride right over 'we the people' and Mother Earth.
Do you not understand how checks and balances in our institutions as well as standards have been weakened for 50 years? We don't need those. Donny and the Corporations and Richy Rich will take care of you! Slaves all!
Stirred your hackles, did I? Nothing but a red cloak here, just waiting for pregnancy!
Vicki, you may like the site ewg.org, they have tested a lot of food, home use products for cleaning, laundry, makeup etc, ,and water and work for better laws, You may also like the site https://www.cornucopia.org/about-us/
Agree. It's even worse: I've noticed that in summer, I can only buy sweet (green) peppers grown in the US, and I've been told that our own grown in Canada are being sent to the US. How stupid is that?
The US always undervalued human labor, especially physical labor....we still want and operate as a slave owning economy. We need to add a component representing the value of human labor to every economic equation we use. Better that we quantify humans as capital, like machines, than just ignore their worth and impact in the economic equation.
It always astounded me how quickly my econ profs went from "there are always winners and losers" to "there are only winners" when referring to prefered policies. Sorry ladies and gents, that doesn't even math! My other favorite - "Unemployment Insurance creates disincentives to work" - I still see red with that one. Like, clearly none of you have ever experienced how debilitating and humilliating depending on the punative EI system is. I can guarentee you, the only disincentive to working is the depression you'll experience as your self-worth is stripped away!
Let me be clear: Biden is mediocre, Trump is the absolute worst. I don’t think Biden has done enough to help the economy for working-class people or resolve pressing issues such as inequality or monopolies.
Not a king, he did more in both categories than any president since the 1960s. The child tax credit, not extended by the Republicans, did more in both categories than any president in history. Most labor oriented president since FDR.
Please see my response above. No one can work miracles, and as long as we have Citizens United and the stranglehold of wealthy donors, powerful corporations, and R's in charge of the House (and/or Senate) there is a limit to what anyone can do to address such longstanding issues as wealth inequality. Believe me, I am on your side! I'm just trying to explain why it is practically miraculous that Biden was able to do as much as he has done. We are a country so entrenched in rule by wealth, it's going to take a long time to put things right.
What he’s done has been with a Congress that openly says whatever you do, we oppose. One man can’t wave a wand & do it all at once. (Contrary to what the Orange Menace would have people believe!)
Yeh Ben, the conclusion drawn from your statement, in context of the thread, is vote Putin, err third party, presumably RFK, thus help Putin, I mean Trump to a win.
Nope. Biden is the best candidate compared to all the others. However, I don't think he's radical or mentally apt enough to counter the aggressive Republican opposition. Not to mention his toleration of what Israel has done is disgusting.
I agree with you to the point that you drag "toleration of Israel" into the discussion
First this is who I was, who I am now.
I was a right wing antiemite. I am no longer an antisemite (I grew in knowledge) but am no semitophile either.
Ido see latent antisemitism surfacing under the guise of "the poor Palestinians", when in truth the very same people who are wringing their hands, could care less about the greater tragedy unfolding in the world, Somalia, Sudan, other African Countries, even the Uighuers in China and the Rohingyan Muslims in Myanmar, now that is areal genoicide, but unfortunately they aren't being backed by Iran, who has declared Satan America and Satan Israel as the no 1 enemy.
Nor do this same bleeding hearts give a shit about the real Genocide that has been going on Ukraine for 2 years. Because Ukrainians aren't brown people and aren't Muslim.
I consider all plaints about the "poor Palestinians" to be Arab/Iranian financed and induced propaganda, and insincere because it ignored the other more serious cases of man's inhumanity towards men.
Let me say it this, When I hear it spoken of as you have I hear opportunism and/or self willed ignorance.
Now if you want to talk about Bibi the criminal (National and International) and the gang of Criminals known as (Orthodox Jewish settlers) then I am with you,but not condemning the state of Israel as you have just done.
Here is the situation.
There are 57 Muslim ethno states in the UN, which has 193 members, most all of whom are oil producing states and have their fingers on the throat of UN members.
The American continent can be considered a Christian ethno continent.
Europe, save for France, as wll. Russia an Orhodox Ethnostate, along with Serbia.
The Jews have just one tiny little ethnostate, and the Muslims want to drive them off what they consider sacred Muslim land
There are three holy sites in Islam, Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and the Jews "occupy" Jerualem , a blasphemy, they they have tried to undo in 1948,1956,1967,1972, 2006 and 2023.
In a sense, globalization was an inevitable experiment whose time would have come irrespective of political considerations, vaguely parallel to Communism, which was an inevitable product of the Industrial Revolution, in which many believed that a nation’s whole economy could be run along the lines of a factory.
That experiment ran its course over a period of seventy years; even those nations that remain officially Communist really aren’t, even if they still draw their political legitimacy in the eyes of their populaces from the rhetoric of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Finding consensus and mutual benefit among nations is difficult enough within an economic alliance like the European Union, which share a common currency and trade rules set down by the EU’s Parliament in Brussels; the rest of the world is more fractious, still.
In the end, world trade is like a corpse of a man who died sitting up: after rigor mortis has set in, every time you push down the head into the coffin, the feet pop up, and every time you push down the feet, the heads pops up. So it’s messy, unequal with perfect equity probably eternally unresolvable.
I agree, it was an experiment that was doomed from the beginning. But it was done because of blind belief in the idea that liberal democracy will automatically follow when liberal free trade proves to be beneficial to (nearly) all parties. It was a wrong premise and we can only blame greedy people for trying to hide the reality for as long as they could. https://hanschristensen.substack.com/p/the-age-of-post-globalism
Thanks; I’ve used the corpse analogy for years (I can’t say if it originated with me, but I don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere else), applying it to all sorts of things. As a screenwriter, I look for vivid imagery, and I think this qualifies. Just as life on earth couldn’t exist if ice didn’t float and water froze from the bottom-up, I don’t know how humor could survive without rigor mortis.
Avie, globalization, neo liberal, free trade are as old as man, hardly modern, but thanks for bring up Marx. Marx was a globalist free trader, a 19th century proto neo liberal, for one he opposed Britains Corn Laws (import tariffs), 2. he tried to convincesouthern planters to free the slaves and hire them back at market wages.
Because slavery is expensive, southern cotton was too expensive for Frederick Engels to makeaprofit. Fred had inherited his fathers textile mills, and struggled to stay afloat, to make profit he had to import the inferior and cheaper Egyptian cotton.
Marx argumed Free the slaves and hire them back at market wages, .
Besides the capital investment in buying slaves, ranging from$300 to $3,000 , they required food, housing, clothing, medical treatment, even entertainment, and of course the services of sock puppets to preach on Sundays, how slaves should be happy and obey their masters
Writing in 1972, German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt reminded us that we are not consigned to live with things as they are: “We are free to change the world and start something new in it.” The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 certainly feel they are not consigned to live with things as they are. We the people are also free to change the way we see and deal with Global Trade.
The opposite of global trade is Economic Democracy where insomuch as possible, products are produced locally that are then consumed locally keeping the profits in the local community and giving its citizens say and benefits from their local economic activity. Project 2025 definitely is feeling they are free to change the united States so what is stopping us from making plans to “change the world” we live in.
Sounds like we’ve started. We Democrats have been slow to see the train coming at us in the long dark tunnel. We have to throw the switch soon to keep us on a better track.
I want to chime in and say this. Karl Marx, besides being a proto libertarian, was a neo liberal. a Free trader. He opposed Britains import tariifs called the Corn Laws.
We all have the google machine, google Karl Marx free trader or Karl Marx Corn laws.
There is a bigger problem lurking. Its called the 4th industrial revolution - that basically replaces workers with AI... and its happening now. There are millions of jobs at risk due to AI. Please read up on it... We are being replaced by machines.. and this is only the beginning...
Lorna, this is the same argument when the printing press, the cotton gin, electricity, and cars came into being, Yes AI will replace some jobs, but new jobs and skills will be needed, As AI helps to develop better more personalized drugs, helps to find solutions to global warming, proves the need to pay attention to and nurture the microbiome of soil and our own microbiomes, and helps solve many other problems that yes humans have created, it will need new jobs. Workers,,and that now includes scientists and Doctors, need unions so that planning on how to retrain workers happens during this next “industrial revolution”. Hopefully we will learn from past mistakes and have better protections in place, but that won’t happen if we allow Project 2025 and the people who believe in white supremacy to win, The Democrats must win or we will all be “inferiors” at their mercy, Biden stepping down due to health now and giving the reigns over to Harris now could be the best bet.
Those new skills will not lead to equivalent jobs - because many fewer workers with those skills will be needed. A shop floor of 20 workers in many industries was replaced by 20 robots...and only one engineer needed to monitor them.
Constance, what data are you basing these statements on. 9ften what seems to be a logical explanation really misses the mark. Again you are not looking at the jobs that will be created, ID jobs in chips factories, jobs in factories that make the machines that make chips, jobs in companies that are making the items needed for wind and solar energy, When the printing press was invented, all those people who reprinted books lost their jobs, but that did. not mean that they did not go on to have jobs in factories printing books, or in book sales, .this is a false equivalency and it just spreads fear instead of finding helpful solutions to protect workers transitions to new jobs.
Yep buggy whip manufacturers saw Armageddon with the invention of the automobile.
Then they learned how to make auto parts.
Stage coach manufacturers, like Studebaker, reinvented themselves.
The sedan (e.g. four door sedan) was named for a town in France where it was manufactured first, and i was a conveyance carried by four men grabbing ends of a pole, that transported nobility hither and yon, so they didn't get their feet fouled by horseshit and mud. Which is the original purpose of high heels, originally worn by male gentry.
Biden shows a better chance of winning than Harris does. Also (sorry for the tangent) I still fear Project 2025s plan is to cause/claim election count issues and force the default of 1 state 1 vote to force a Trump win.
I heard on PBS News last night that the new U.K. government will demand a larger share of the profits from their oil companies. Was BP formerly owned by the U.K. government? Norway kept its oil profits to create its state investment fund, now worth $1T. How does the U.S. policy toward oil companies who extract our oil compare? Should the U.S. government charge more for oil property leases and eliminate the oil depletion allowance of our tax policy ? How does this work and would you offer comments?
The Norwegians got it right. That oil belongs to the citizens. It's ours, just like our national parks. Of course, then there's the danger of having an inefficient oil industry. Like Russia. Those Texans lead the world in oil drilling technology. Personally, That is why I am a fan of REGULATED Capitalism. Of course, MAGA wants no regulation on business. They just want to regulate women's bodies and religion.
I agree completely. Character and integrity must be the key parameters to choose our next POTUS. MAGAns want to crown Trump as King. If elected, thanks to the SCOTUS he will become King. B. Franklin, Printer warned us in 1787 it may be difficult for us to keep our democratic republic. Now we face the test he predicted. Biden should step aside in favor of a younger candidate who will defeat Trump- the man who would be King.
Why isn't Biden's family urging him NOT to run? I think Joe would quit if his family asked him to quit. If they truly love him and are concerned for his health and well being, you would think this is what they would be doing! Instead, they are reported to be the strongest voices urging him to continue in the race! I like Joe, but think his family sucks!
That’s the $64k question. Blind loyalty? Denialism? It’s hard to move from what was to what is, but this is the nation we’re talking about, not the gut wrenching decision families make for aging loved ones.
After seeing the intetview last night, I 100% agree with you. Watching Robert's Coffee Klatch this morning sums it up- he's in denial, intransigent, and hunkered in a bunker. The corker for me was, when asked how he'd feel if Trump wins, he said he'd know he did the goodest he could... YIKES. He also said he's running the world do he doesn't need a cognitive test!
Biden should decline to run again, not resign. He is doing a fine job, but his cognition will continue to decline over the next 4 1/2 years. We will be better served by a POTUS from the next generation. I suspect, without evidence, (1) those who support President Biden will support the new candidate when endorsed by Biden; and (2) independent voters will be more comfortable to vote against the man who would be king (empowered by the SCOTUS).
That didn't work for LBJ since Nixon won. Harris needs to be seen as President and run as the incumbent. We must defeat Trump and the 2025 Project. Harris can do that.
I agree Gloria. Americans must defeat the man who would be King and the 2025 Project. I do not know whether the best strategy to achieve this goal is for Biden to resign from office, v. decline to run for second term.
Oil companies are the same as other companies,profits ebb and flow.Read their annual reports.Everything is expensive to build and they have depreciation schedules to help with this cost. Just at the moment a consortium of companies are building a gas plant ( one of many ) in the north of Western Australia The cost is $56 billion to build it..
Shell tried to reduce this cost by building a ship ( Prelude) that would process and liquefy this gas .That cost ~ $10 billion to build,the technology does not seem to work so they will have to make their minds up trying to fix it ,or scrap it and write it off.
Govts make the profit from oil.Australia has low taxes on fuel and it costs slightly more than the US.The govt gets ~ 52 cents per litre in tax.
I have shares in a company that refines,distributes,and sells petrol,diesel and LPG.From $21 billion in revenue $14 billion is to buy more oil to refine. $5 billion goes to the govt in tax,the rest pays costs They make a net profit of ~ $500 million..You can google that .Ampol Australia annual report. They were called Caltex and were 51% owned by Chevron,along with most oil companies they ran into trouble in 2016 and had to sell their shareholding.Around $4 billion if I remember correctly to help Chevron out of trouble.
Along with most companies the major shareholders are pension funds. From memory Ampol is 80% owned by pension funds. HSBC ( UK/Chinese bank) and J P Morgan probably own 40% of it through their pension funds .My memory could be wrong,just google Ampol major shareholders.Googke any company and the largest shareholders are pension funds ,Vanguard,Blackrock and State Street.
People have infinite ability to deny reality.They keep fooling themselves the delusions they want to see are real.
Norges investment bank is the Norwegian pension fund ( a 401 K for Norway). Their web site will tell you what they own,around 1% of most world companies and govt/ corporate bonds. The world does the same thing,they have been doing it since ~ 1980 when they realised birth rates were falling rapidly and their would be a shortage of young people to pay taxes and social security taxes to fund pensions,health care etc for the baby boomers .
The companies they want to destroy are the companies they are depending on to fund their retirement and health care.If they lived to be 1000 years old they would continue to deny it every day of those 1,000 years
Thanks Aussie. Good post. On a side note, American roads and Interstate Highways are funded through gasoline taxes. The yearly maintenance of all of our local and national highways are mainly funded by the taxes we all pay when we fill our gasoline tanks.
So.... Tell me what will happen when we all plug in our electric vehicles. How do we fill our potholes.
As I always say- "It's complicated. And Life is not easy. "
One more thing, if each country is doing what it does best, that exposes the entire system to monoculture and if that happens in the ag sector it risks extinction of a species because of disease. At present, the bananas we buy are at risk of extinction.
Professor Reich: it's the same old story, isn't it? the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed. and no one cares about the environment in a global economy. so here we are, perched in the edge of the extinction of everything, including ourselves, to satisfy the greed of a tiny tiny minority of people.
GrrlScientist, you are correct but that does not mean we cannot envision a new system and implement it. One of the most effective tools for the rise of authoritarians and fascists is to discourage and threaten the opposition. Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation envision a virtually dystopian world, so we must be willing to envision a better system than capitalist dominated democracy and work to put it into action. The concept of “Apocalypse” came from the ancient Greeks and they defined it as “To uncover that which was hidden.” (often with a sense of redemption) Well now we see the greed and lust for power that has always been hidden and it is time to marshal our forces to overcome the darkness of the ultra wealthy with a better system. This is bigger than Trump verses Biden, much bigger.
I’m attending an economic democracy training in August near Asheville, North Carolina. Personally, I am convinced that the new economy and form of governance embedded in this new system will be the way out of our next economic, political and justice system crash while we are facing our potentially darkest days for democracy,then we must boy our spirits by understanding there is a better system.
New system not needed. Revise what we have. There are better ways of doing things but Project 2025 is not it. Read the BBC'S latest article. I was a Republican for 60 years but got a divorce after Jan 6th and divorced myself from Heritage Foundation around the same time. Their idea of conservatism is FACISM.
I think you may be right, only in that I can’t see how we can go backwards to repair this situation. We let it happen to such an extent that unfortunately, the jobs, at least as they existed before, aren’t coming back. Like the song from the old Genesis album, “you gotta get in to get out.”
The planet can sustain 1B to 2B humans. We cannot afford to produce anything but food and clean water now, and even if we converted to localized agrarian economies, it is unlikely that the planet can be restored to a degree which might allow for human life. Our marine species are dying out due to over-fishing and triple-digit water temperatures. Once the marine biosphere is destroyed, our species will become extinct, or possibly only nearly extinct.
I remember reading a copy of "Highlights" before a dentistry appointment in 1970. There was some mention of climate change in that children's magazine.
The game is over. Bezos wasn't playing when he began his rocketry experiments. Billionaires aren't building luxury bunkers because they believe that they will enjoy living in (ultimately probably connected) caves.
During the 15th Century, a tsunami devastated Kamakura, Japan, submersing the city and killing all of its inhabitants. The Dai-Butsu ("big Buddha"), golden or gold-plated statue (I believe that it is gold-plated bronze), sits at about 900 feet of elevation (a guess, but that is what it looked like to me), survived, but the structure which contained it, which was constructed of very thick timbers (I believe that I remember reading that the frame was constructed of 40 cm, or 16 inch square timbers, but that needs a fact check), was destroyed. It was approximately 40 feet tall.
There is also evidence of a Pacific Ocean tsunami which produced a wave which was 900 feet tall at some prehistoric time. I can't provide a citation, but I believe that I read this in a sailing publication.
All of this occurred before the Industrial Revolution. We cannot expect Earth to heal itself, except with the eradication of the "disease", which is homo sapiens. Perhaps some thousands or millions of species can be saved as a result of our collective industrial suicide. Sorry. There is no scenario which predicts the survival of 7 billion to 10 billion humans. Perhaps 30,000 to 40,000 will survive, somehow, and the species will regenerate over some millions of years, but even that seems optimistic to me.
Lastly, did we become the only dictatorship in the developed world last week?
When I post a long reply, it is usually truncated for at least a few hours, and then when I log on again the missing paragraph/s have been restored.
Am I exceeding the field limit, or is this a normal function of the site??? If so, then what purpose could it possibly serve?
The message below, which I've deleted, was the latest example.
I think collectivism is a demotivator to a creative and virulent economy. We just have to straighten out the policies and laws that have been created.
SCOTUS is already “straightening" them out. Between SCOTUS, the wing-nuts in the House of Representatives, Trump and his sycophants, democracy, and old fashioned capitalism is in dire straits. Capitalism was created at the end of the middle ages but now it has become the instrument of greed and the ultra-wealthy. It is not working for the majority of us. We need a system that provides good jobs for all as well as incentive to be more productive. As of now, capitalism is a failed system and the “guardrails” are not only broken, but are rapidly being removed and sent to the scrapyard.
Capitalism belongs in the dust heap of history. Communism and socialism are also failed systems.We can come up with a better system and we should explore more advanced systems now. We are living on a dying planet. "We must act quickly and well for people are dying.”
Capitalism hasn't failed. In the US, capitalism is doing exactly what it's supposed to do - in a capitalistic system, the acquisition of capital is all that matters, and the end goal is to concentrate all the capital, and thus all the economic power, in as few hands as possible. That is how so-called "free market capitalism" has always worked. Strong government is needed to regulate the holders of the capital in order to force equability and fairness on to the capitalists. Unfortunately, we've had an entire half of our two party system (and more than a few of the other half) dedicated to gutting all of this regulation and allowing the capitalists to infect everything with their short-term thinking.
What we really need is to move away from any system that supports or encourages scarcity as a means of motivation. We have more than enough food to go around, but the perverse tax incentives means it's "worth" more to throw that food away than it is to move it where it is needed. We have more than enough housing for everyone, and the technology to enable employment to those houses, but it's "worth" more to the capitalists to keep the houses empty and the technology stunted. Artificial scarcity pervades the US economy in innumerable ways, from the small to the large. Failure to address these scarcities is why power is inevitably funneled to the few, because they are the ones that are able to control and enforce these "rules" on everyone else.
I don't think we want a virulent economy. Things work better in Europe and some other countries than here. We ought to learn from those countries. The ultra rich, private equity, and monopolistic corporations are making life exceptionally difficult for many people in the U.S., and damaging the environment at the same time. We need more regulations on them.
I think they meant to say "virile," without actually understanding either word. I think the use of "virulent" is quite apropos to describe American capitalism though.
Right on
My bad. Wrong word. Virulent - I meant vibrant! :)
Who and how and when will we get started?
Who? Us. How? Become activists for deep and lasting change. When will we get started? Some already have. There is no alternative but deep and lasting change of systems.
But the 2025 project is NOT IT.
So very true. Daunting, but one step at a rime
But to what end? Politics and policies in America, are tied to trying to woo far too many people. It is those people who vote. As long as we have such divisiveness in our American political system, we will continue to foster the status quo’s. And with extremist maniacs like Trump and all of those world wide who spend millions to put him in power, we the people still, so far, have the power to vote for more sane candidates. Politics worldwide has invited these same types to ‘lead’ them. To what end? How do we create a more modern system of government, business, employment, education, and even laws and those who adjudicate it, when everyone wants it their way?
I’m sure that I’m going to get tons of flack for what I’m about to write here, but so be it….
While I believe she currently has a snowball’s chance in hell of getting elected in 2024, I do believe that Marianne Williamson does have her finger on the pulse of what needs to shift - which is our consciousness. And it is what we on this Substack appear to be talking about. How she would implement her policies now, I have no idea. That she’s adding to the conversation that what we need is to wed our human spirit to our political policies… I have great respect for that, and I agree with her. And yes, Marc, you’re right: we need to be activists for deep and lasting change. And imho, not just political activists. Spiritual activists, too.
I have to admit that I've never heard of Marianne Williamson. Is she a Green Party candidate? I'm a Green, and I don't know who "our" candidate is, and certainly wouldn't vote for anyone but Biden now, despite the way he was nominated during the last cycle, after Bernie had already secured the nomination. I hope that I don't need to explain that.
Talking about alternatives at this late date is counterproductive, as it was in 1968 and 1980. Our backstop is Kamala Harris. Our candidate is Joe Biden.
I don't believe that we will. We might defeat the insane MAGAGA ideology (I don't regard MAGAGA to be an ideology, but rather a form of self-pleasuring, but I don't think that I can publish precisely what I would like here), and progress to addressing social and socio-economic issues, but the short and mid-term interests of Corporatism, which dominates the world, are diametrically opposed to the responsible stewardship of the planet. I hope that Canada has nice topsoil, as 20th C.-style farming in the U.S. will soon be limited to Big Ag and the wealthiest farmers, who own entire suites of air-conditioned field equipment.
I am concerned, however, with a potential 2nd term Illiterate Thing's ability to navigate disputes over trade routes and territories in and around the Sea of Japan. I expect him to just lie down and agree to any absurd demands which Xi might impose, after which Kim might attempt to use North Korea's military in a misguided effort to improve its economy.
Perhaps science will provide some answers, but over time, what we have learned only reinforces fatalist scenarios in which progressively more serious previously unknown variables emerge, and the timeline for catastrophe shortens.
In 2008, I predicted the end of the U.S. as we know it to be forty more years (2048), with 5-year contractions for serious socio-political errors such as GOP presidencies. My clock is now at 2033, but given what we've seen recently, especially Return of Son of Nixon III's vow to provide us with "a bloodbath" when he loses the election, or just "retribution" in the unlikely event that he becomes our president again, I believe that we could finish up during the next five years.
I'm here while the last two members of my family are living, but assuming that I outlive them, I will leave with the hope that I never see the U.S. again. Of course this assumes that the value of our currency hasn't collapsed by then, trapping us all like ants drowning at the bottom of a can of sweet tea.
Marc, is there a way that those of us who don’t live/can’t get to Asheville can be plugged in virtually? Or something..?
I don't think people realize the seriousness of Project 2025. Downright SCARY.
Project 2025 has leapfrogged ahead of the liberals in terms of envisioning, long range planning and a roadmap for implementation. The Progressive Utilization Theory is the alternative vision for a sustainable planet. Just ask ChatGPT and you will get a cogent description of PROUT.
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
I cannot believe that you have read the 900 pages. Yes, we should be asking questions about how our government functions. This is not the same as declaring a Second American Revolution which will be bloodless , only if everyone just goes along with Project 2025.
You have a point. Yes I read it. It was more than 900.
The Project has been around since 2022 and I'm retired so I have plenty of time. Actually it doesn't take that long. I'll admit I had to go back and reread parts. I think taxing the wealthy, revising parts of our system would do the trick. One thing that has fouled things up is Citizens United. The wealthy have a voice. Middle America doesn't
You don’t see a concerted effort to favor corporations and the wealthy over labor and the common good. R’s are the primary reason that some 50+ trillion dollars from the bottom has been siphoned upwards to the top .01 %. This has mostly occurred since 1980, but its roots goes back further. This is complicated because the democrats of pre 1964 civil rights act are now republicans. Indeed the government need constant review and updating. Project 2025 as stated by the leader of the Heritage Foundation does not match what you see. Conservatives of today are not conservative at all project 2025 makes that abundantly clear. My reading sees much that is likely very scary. The whole truth about implementation of 2025 is not actually known.
We might have to evolve to a more benevolent state of our current primate level. I love the idea of creating a better (more equatable) economic system. The pressure of AI might exacerbate the problem, unless we can tell it what results we want.
Very interesting
Here is a link to a description of “Economic Democracy “.
https://www.proutinstitute.org/policy-solutions/economic-democracy-the-alternative-to-corporate-rule
Yes, we need to stop the weathy from controlling our Country. For the past year I have talked about this Plan. It was developed in 2022. I found most of it to be nonsense. It is a conservative nightmare. We don't need a new plan. Just refine what we have. And now Trump said he never heard of it. That's a lie. His aides and supporters like Bannon helped Heritage. What was once a good think tank IS NOW IN THE TOLIET TANK.
Correct
Hi GrrlScientist,
If you look at the makeup of all the members of Congress, the Supreme Court, and lobbyists, you will see the majority are from the middle class. These are men and women who vote for all those tax breaks for the rich people and corporations that do not need all that money. These are the same sycophants who will implement Project 2025. Let us blame them for our economic ills. Saludos, Rolando
All paid off by big rich donors
Absolutely
Wrong they are not middle class. They are upper middle class white males. They get freebees and all sorts of perks from lobbyists. But your right they vote for tax breaks for the rich. And I just told why. Look at how the rich donors influence the Supreme Court. They protect us and constitution NOT.
Regardless of where they sit in the middle class, they are middle class. As the “upper middle class,” they became almost sole servants to the interests of the upper class and were never left to forget. Sending jobs abroad hurt our labor class and nearly killed the unions. Take Thomas and his “gifts.” Whose interests did he serve? The same goes for Alito—the same middle-class votes for tax gifts to corporations and the wealthy in the House and Senate. It is not much of a stretch to call those actions the betrayal of the middle class.
Oh boy, I so agree with you.
And they don't provide ANY job training or assistance to the Blue Collar workers who got screwed by the trade deals. No wonder they feel that that the Democratic Party abandoned them
The SCOTUS is working to upend regulations as we speak.
You beat me to it. If a country decides to implement environmental regulations that in any way impinge on the perceived profit of a corporation, the country can be subject to swingeing fines.
How things change--As a child I witnessed a way of life that has all but left us, and greed was the culprit. Let's look at GE light bulbs. My dad would pack up a bunch of old defunct light bulbs and cart me and the refuge to a now extinct outlet of GE and that company would issue a brand-new bulb for every bad one you gave them, for "free," an endless supply of lamination at no cost to the consumer. Not anymore. Another perk that has gone by the wayside is coffee. As a child, I hated the drink, but the aroma was mesmerizing. No matter where you went, everyone interested in pleasing the consumer gave away coffee for free. It was just a way of life. Not anymore. Ma Bell got into the act by giving away free phones. All you needed to do was get in touch with the lady in question and tell her what you wanted and bang, a new phone was delivered to your home at again no cost. Not anymore. Gas stations would lend a helping hand and supply anyone in need with free air for the tires. Not anymore. However, one thing that rates at the top of the consumer being gouged is paying for our television reception. As a kid after you paid for the set and the electricity to run it, basically you're watching pleasure was a free experience. There was the added expense of the tin-foil. Not anymore. Next to my mortgage, my cable bill is the most expensive monthly obligation, blood money. These are just a few of the things big business has taken from us. I feel Trump, if elected, will find a way to send us a bill for the very air we breathe.
The same tiny tiny minority of people will be in charge of Artificial Intelligence.
Not necessarily. AI is a tool that can be used for good as well as bad. It is here so we should utilize it to our advantage.,
Would be nice but you're dreaming. Those developing are GREEDY AND LACK INTEGRITY.
Scary, but so true!
You nailed it!
Definition of "Trickle Down Economics": 98% of the generated wealth goes to 2% of the population who then piss on the rest of us!
Bear in mind that that Hyper-Rich are a tiny minority that consider themselves Hyper-Entitled, and Citizens of the World... As long as they can stay among themselves in their secluded Enclaves, their Hyper-Yachts , and Private Jets, they don't care as the majority of Us burn, or drown due to Climate-Change... They will just migrate because they feel that they are better... A.I. will just concentrate their Power... It is conceivable that it will become the largest power consumer as it expands into more & more spheres...
Excellent
Absolutely right
As you said, You can trace a direct line from these trade deals and the subsequent job or wage losses to the rise of Donald Trump in 2016.
A warning from way back! Written In the Declaration of independence:
“A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.”
we voted for an unknown political newcomer Donald Trumpet 🎺 and that’s how that clown became president of the United States. Hillary was Gobsmacked that she had lost because she was held in contempt because of bills willingness to export out jobs and break our unions…
And if Hillary runs again for president it’s almost a certainty that her opponent will win … If the Democrats were to nominate her as the candidate for president against Donald trumpet ; it would guaranteed trumpet 🎺 would win again…
Vote all the bum’s out Elect ancient Joe Biden for how much time he has left on this earth ….
Enough! Secretary Clinton isn’t running again; Joe Biden is. She lost to tfg, even though more people voted for her, because the Republican Party spent 30 years dragging her down. Remember Benghazi? Remember “buttery males?” Secretary Clinton is the most experienced and prepared person ever to run for president. It is tragic that she lost to a narcissistic fascist. Maybe we should have nominated Bernie. His bumper sticker campaign might have appealed to some of the maga crowd.
Thanks Susan, I appreciate folks with memories and who can think. R’s jumped on Hillary long before she ran for president, IMO anyone who shows promise is attacked, lied about, and demonized in case they might seek office. It’s a damn shame she was not elected but, many many folks buy into almost anything negative and care nothing about the truth. If we learned from Hillary the tactics of republicans it would have been a valuable lesson learned but, alas we buy into the negative.
You are correct. They saw her promise snd started on her when she was First Lady of Arkansas then jumped on her when, as FLOTUS, she tried to do health care for children of the whole country that she had done for children of AR. She tried to warn people about tfg, but nobody listened to “the email lady.”
Plus the timing of Hillary's opposition in pushing the email lies. Still, she won the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes.
Forgot about the popular vote…
The Slavers have struck again and again enabling the southern strategy and other Republican victories…
We need to rewrite the constitution to eliminate Electorial college, rein in the Supreme Court s for sale practices, and mandatory voting… then ranked voting we might be able to take back our government. Oh yea end corporations being considered citizens or having rights. Campaign contributions limited to 100. Tops all sources. No pac contributions…
That would fit perfectly, to do when defining a new economic system.
The most telling thing when it comes to the Electoral College is the fact that we are the *only* country with a system anything like it. We have helped quite a few other countries in setting up their democracies, but we have never exported the Electoral College. Most other advanced democracies have also long since done away with first-past-the-post for systems that are more equitable to the whole of that country, not just the tiny handful that live in so-called "swing states."
Right on, right on!
I still think that email “revelation” was a political move timed to tank her election. Russia? Republicans? Pick your conspirator(s).
Hillary was in the pockets of Wall-street. She had contemplated for the deplorable losers.
So you say, now prove it. And even if so, was she worse than Trump?
All national level politicians are in the pockets of Wall Street, That is how campaigns are funded.
Go to opensecrets.org and check out the name of your favorite politician.
What political isn’t beholden to the mighty dollar? She couldn’t have been worse than the Orange Menace, and at least knew what governing meant. I think she really blew it with that “Deplorables “ comment. Missed the point and the chance to include all or most of those people.
Maybe her campaign should’ve taken into account the electoral college more.
"We" didn't vote for Rump. A bunch of clueless, angry people voted for him. I most definitely was not among them.
I do agree about Hillary, however. The DNC looked at her Wall Street connections and figured she was a shoe-in. They didn't count on the fact that she was a thoroughly off-putting, disdainful person to so many voters.
The only thing that lets me sleep at night is the simple fact that my vote did not matter. Because of the EC, my vote for POTUS is pretty much irrelevant, because of how strongly ruled by the GQP the state I live in is. I still won't make that mistake again however. I wasn't able to hold my nose in 2016, and the result was enough stench that I now have a lifetime supply of clothespins.
Couldn't agree with you more, Cypher. It's the same in my state. And the stench is equally bad.
Oh so Trump isn't disdainful and off-putting to many voters???
1. Non sequitur reply to my comment.
2. Who said he isn't? I didn't.
3. Hillary was the person under discussion, so my comment related to her.
4. If I said Putin is a bad guy, would you cone back with, "So Kim Jong-Un isn't a bad guy?"
5. Two things can be true at the same time.
6. Single-minded Dems who think ANY criticism whatsoever of ANY Dem equates to support of Rump are tiresome.
HOW MUCH TIME DO YOU HAVE LEFT ON THIS EARTH? PRAY TELL⁉️
How much time do you have on this earth. PRAY TELL!!!@ OR ALL SPEAKING ABOUT PRESIDENT BIDEN'S AGE. READ THE REAL BIBLE.NOT TRUMP'S AND SEE HOW GOD PROMISED ABRAHAM TO MAKE HIM THE FATHER OF ALL NATIONS.
If you put a clown in the palace, the clown does not transform into a leader but the palace will transform into a circus.
What about NAFTA? Jobs exported to Mexico on Bill Clintons watch. It was starting years earlier.
Yup, Bill, our imposter Democrat!
How my late husband lost his job
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Excellent analysis, Robert Reich . I totally agree and hope we can elect a president in 2024 who can get laws passed to support the needs of our working class segment of the population. You know what that means: Vote Blue
Up and down the ticket to dogcatcher.
Amen
We have the capacity to sweep. Register more Democrats to empower those votes.
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/ft62024
Right on Daniel!
Letters, Postcards, Text banking, phone banking, canvassing. All save the last one can be done from your home.
A Blue Wave Raises ALL boats
We could never compete with countries that had universal healthcare because the cost of our products had the cost of our healthcare built in.
I do not think they have the same costs for Defense.
Trump whined that other countries aren't spending enough on defense compared to NATO goals; yes, other countries should try to meet their goals but perhaps looking after their own citizens takes priority. If the US reduced its amount of spending to the 2% goal, it would have billions to contribute toward health care. Treating medical care as a commodity is evil, in my opinion.
Yes.
They dont
Professor Reich,
Having graduated with an economics degree, taken classes in international trade, and being influenced by the supply side argument ( trickle down) when I was in high school, and being at the mercy of a cruel labor market for the working poor, I can say from hard experience, the losers really dont get compensated, we get thrown aside like so much refuse. " comparative advantage" May have some " utility" to use an economics term, but not taking into account all the " externalities" of trade agreements, especially involving China, who uses exports like a weapon, with lax environmental standards and frequent human rights abuses, really creates a situation that is overall very negative, especially for the U.S., given all the bad side effects of U.S. deindustrialization. It is very much time to " reshore" manufacturing jobs in the U.S. with environmental and living wage protections. Stop trying to make everyone an info tech worker which isn't viable, and instead ensure a string productive manufacturing sector, which is necessary for national security reasons as well. There should also be tax penalties for offshoring jobs. It's not protectionism it's about having a stable, more equally prosperous country. Put another way, what good does it do to have 5000 U S. billionaires ( if that were to happen), and 5 million U.S. homeless folks? In that situation, most U.S. citizens are far worse off...
Prof. Reich is misrepresenting the theory of Comparative Advantage. Nations gain from engaging in free trade by specializing in producing and selling goods and services in which they have a comparative (not absolute) advantage. This does by no means mean that there are no winners or losers unless the losers are compensated by the winners. Under Clinton- Reich this did not happen.
A second and even more important issue was that corporations were allowed to relocate in Mexico to produce labor intensive products and to bring these products duty free into the US. This was huge. The Theory of Comparative Advantage is silent on this hugely important issue.
The third Reich
Thank you for this informative post. Until Congress gets back to legislating and the Supreme Court gets back to the integrity of unbiased rulings and Republicans forego their foray into fascism, how can we implement these changes is the next big challenge.
The billionaires have not cared and will not in the future as long as they own Congress, the White House, and the Supreme Court.
Gracias Senor Reich,
Who is your ai manager? Is it that lady that shares your talks an AI? And all this time I was sure she was a real person...wow!
There are other downstream effects not mentioned here. 35+ years ago, manufacturing jobs paid a truly livable wage, as well as provided company health insurance and pensions that nourished families and communities. Employees made enough money and post-secondary education was more affordable such that their children could be sent to college, if desired, join the same company, or have other options in more vibrant communities. As manufacturing went abroad, these same communities became sacrifice zones in which locally owned businesses were gutted by the infiltration of speciality and general box stores with cheap, imported goods. Add in the unchecked corporate greed of an opiate epidemic and some Americans have been left to watch their communities decimated, while their adult children are left to choose between box store retail employment (and due to low wages government healthcare and food stamps) or joining the military. For these citizens the American Dream became a nightmare. Trump acknowledges their pain, even if his actions during his presidency didn’t (and won’t again) actually help them. Like most of our country’s challenges, extreme black and white thinking will not resolve what requires systemic analysis and creative collaboration between 50 states in a global marketplace.
Deborah, wonderfully said. Profits over people is destroying this country. We need drastic change and those that believe in profits over people must be seen for who they are, voted out of office and laws made to stop hedge fund takeovers, CEO immoral salaries, stock buybacks that do not help workers and customers, and shareholder needs over the needs of the companies employees and customers. If Project 2025 is allowed to continue we won’t have a democracy, there will be no collaboration just domination.
Thanks, Linda. And yes, many layers contributing to the same forms of systemic harm.
Now those workers need 2 or 3 jobs just to eat let alone have a life!! You cannot be a responsible parent or spouse and meet your financial obligations on a job at Walmart
Well said!
I suggest reading "Listen, Liberal" by Thomas Frank to understand how the 1964 Presidential election gave rise to the GOP "Southern Strategy", and how the 1968 and 1972 Presidential elections destroyed the Democrats/Liberals relationship with America's Labor Movement. The accumulation of wealth in the top 1% of Americans has led to a "New Gilded Age" where American workers and the bottom 50% of Americans, in general, have experienced a dramatic decline in economic resources and and lifestyle. The United States is one of the most economically unequal countries in world, completely caused by greed and lies from conservatives and incompetence from liberals.
The poor have been lied to so much they don’t know what party they are in
You don't need to be rich to figure out pretty quickly that you've been lied to...you just need the will. And as Trump's poll numbers prove, they love being lied to. Reality....eh, not so much.
Have you read the 900 pages? Nothing scary, just questions we should all be asking ourselves about how our government functions. What is scary is that the DNC controlled both houses of Congress all but 4years of the 60 years from 1933-1995 and the presidency for well over half of those years and since that run, the general public seeks to slow down the left moving government which sadly has made for very divided country as the DNC losses control. Simply a different view
Project 2025 is not "a different view" it's a hellscape and anyone not smart enough to figure that out needs a scan to see if they have any brain cells left.
When NAFTA was being created I thought it would be good, in part because it would give us leverage to convince other countries to enact environmental reforms, but it was used to justify weakening our own environmental policies. This is how we become jaded.
NAFTA also weakened our local economies. Every region in the country has the potential to grow its own food to support its own population but now most of our produce comes from other countries and our rich fertile land is utilized to grow grains that are then exported to other countries for profit or feed for cattle which in itself is an environmental disaster. Tremendous amounts of fossil fuels are utilized to ship food and goods back and forth from country to country furthering our environmental crisis. Globalization just enriches middlemen and impoverishes local populations. Why should South America be producing bananas for North America when they could be producing food for their own underfed populations?
Furrther, Marc, pesticides the US has banned now come back to us in this foreign food. Seems an ironic but legit circle. Then, there is the US ,seeking to FORCE Mexico to use GMO corn, when Mexico has the cleanest and most varieties of corn used daily by its people. GMO corn, like therapeutics now being called vaccines ( definition changed to accommodate mRNA) are being documented to cause cascading health problems in people and devastation in nature.
Lack of local food, which some of us have promoted through organic, now regenerative and regional ties for decades, has diminished US farming, caused landscapes to be lost and economic stability of farms to fall again and again. I keep asking myself, 'where do they think they are going to get the milk, the eggs, the clean chickens, the clean, local pork, beef, veggies that still have nutritional value?"... MY grandfather had a good life farming diversely on 100 acres, milking a few cows, sending cream in cream cans to the city... What do you plan to eat? Bill Gates, while buying US farmland and water rights across the Midwest, has a lab made fungus he wants to sell you....
I still recall over and over, NPR asking the question day after day in the 1990s, (when they were still a great news source), 'what will happen to all the people whose jobs are lost to NAFTA?" I never heard a corresponding answer.
You make such good points. I attended a class in 1977 at what was then, Denver Free University. Jim (can’t pull last name out of the memory bank), environmentalist, said that the food we eat now (1977) has only 30% of the micronutrients contained in food in the 1940s. Shudder to think what’s in the food we ingest today. And we sell farmland to Saudi Arabia and other foreign nations, and let mega food producers sell us cardboard.
Covid causes cascading health problems in people, not 'vaccines'. Covid/flu are the third leading cause of death in this country, especially for those of us who are older.
My spouse and I have had 7 Moderna shots. In June she want to visit relatives, picked up the COVID virus in the airport, brought it home. It's been a rough 1st week of July, slept through the first day, but neither of us have had respiratory problems. We have been taking Paxlovid, telemedicine visit with the doctor.
And I am 85, diabetic and in remission from stage 4 lung and brain cancer
She is 71, we are both doing fairly well, I'm thinking of mowing the property today, 2 1/2 acres a two to three hour job, Toro Zero turn mower.
Vaccines pay off. Sucker antivaxxers are losers.
Absolutely. Kennedy’s brain worm was fed by Orange Menace’s stupidity and attacks on science, including Dr Fauci (a hero).
This is same black and white thinking one finds in your 'hated ,drank the koolaid, trumptites"..
CLS and William,
When you have to re-define what vaccines are ,which is what the US did, when MRNA vaccines, tested under EMERGENCY Regulations with complete lack of accountability to the vaccine companies was allowed, one does not even begin to know the consequences until years post. Many between the ages of 25-50 have died according to life insurance payouts, who never should have post these vaccines. There are many other questions and instead of asking them, we are rushing to make mRNA vaccines for bird flu. Mrna shots were THERAPEUTICS untill the CDC during Covid changed the definition of vaccine to include them.
Since you actually have no knowledge about this, aside from the propaganda, you should stop asserting your partial truths. There have been vaccine problems I have known about since the 1970s, and I bet you know nothing about it... It has been buried. Finally, all imploded in the past decades as the sheer numbers of vaccines given to babies, infants with absolutely minimal immune systems seems to have been an overwhelming experience for some. I am not anti vax. YOU are pro propaganda.
Wow, Vicki, sounds to me like you have drunk from the RFK well.
Here is one sentence that did you in: "one does not even begin to know the consequences until years post.". so based on nothing, no evidence, no data, no studies, you oppose using vaxxines until years hence when data is in.
You adamantly claim that I have no knowledge other than my "partial truths" I shouldn't say anything.
For one thing there are no such things as partial truths, something is either true or it is not true. Not maybe true
What you said I did was lie.
I know this that millions of lives were lost because of COVID, and millions of lives were saved because of the Vaccines. It does seem that some vaccines are more efficacious than others, such as Moderna vs Johnson and Johnson.
However, while other people have had COVID have died, especially elderly people with immuno compromised conditions, like myself. I have had the vaccines, got COVID and lived, with only mild inconveniences and am on the way to recovery.
Don't give me that shit about being pro propaganda, first there is no such thing except the people like Goebbels or the media who create propaganda.
Yours is a lame attempt to take yourself off the hook for being gullible enought to fall for RFK Jr's, shtick.
I live..thanks to MODERNA and it's COVID19 vaccines. I would be dead , likeall the other elderly immune compomised people whose corpses filled refrigerator vans.if I had listened to people like you,
William,
Your white man brillance outshines the stars! No one knows anything but YOU! Very Trumpty! Go Moderna yourself as much as you like. You are obviously someone who does not have a compromised response. That does not mean others do not.
Pro Propoganda. Yes, sadly, the US does propagandize.
Do you not recall your huge knowledge base regarding US Corporate Capture of US Regulatory Agencies for decades now?Do you not recall the huge emptying out of institutional knowledge from the agencies when Trumpty was president!? Now, with Chevron, Socialized Corporations can ride right over 'we the people' and Mother Earth.
Do you not understand how checks and balances in our institutions as well as standards have been weakened for 50 years? We don't need those. Donny and the Corporations and Richy Rich will take care of you! Slaves all!
Stirred your hackles, did I? Nothing but a red cloak here, just waiting for pregnancy!
Vicki, you may like the site ewg.org, they have tested a lot of food, home use products for cleaning, laundry, makeup etc, ,and water and work for better laws, You may also like the site https://www.cornucopia.org/about-us/
T
Agree. It's even worse: I've noticed that in summer, I can only buy sweet (green) peppers grown in the US, and I've been told that our own grown in Canada are being sent to the US. How stupid is that?
The US always undervalued human labor, especially physical labor....we still want and operate as a slave owning economy. We need to add a component representing the value of human labor to every economic equation we use. Better that we quantify humans as capital, like machines, than just ignore their worth and impact in the economic equation.
And, value the environmental costs... What a radical thought!!! The REpugnants will destroy it all.
Can not upvote enough.
It always astounded me how quickly my econ profs went from "there are always winners and losers" to "there are only winners" when referring to prefered policies. Sorry ladies and gents, that doesn't even math! My other favorite - "Unemployment Insurance creates disincentives to work" - I still see red with that one. Like, clearly none of you have ever experienced how debilitating and humilliating depending on the punative EI system is. I can guarentee you, the only disincentive to working is the depression you'll experience as your self-worth is stripped away!
You are still teaching, professor, albeit not in a formal class setting, and we are the beneficiaries of this.
It shows how Dems. have played a big role in the victories of the GOP. Love this article series.
Biden has done more to correct it than any president since LBJ.
For sure, but « more » does not mean enough.
'more' might mean, as much as he could do given the GOP-run House, opposition in the Senate from Manchin and Sinema, and the current Supreme Court.
The orange antichrist wants oppressive tariffs. Whose side are you on?
Let me be clear: Biden is mediocre, Trump is the absolute worst. I don’t think Biden has done enough to help the economy for working-class people or resolve pressing issues such as inequality or monopolies.
Not a king, he did more in both categories than any president since the 1960s. The child tax credit, not extended by the Republicans, did more in both categories than any president in history. Most labor oriented president since FDR.
Please see my response above. No one can work miracles, and as long as we have Citizens United and the stranglehold of wealthy donors, powerful corporations, and R's in charge of the House (and/or Senate) there is a limit to what anyone can do to address such longstanding issues as wealth inequality. Believe me, I am on your side! I'm just trying to explain why it is practically miraculous that Biden was able to do as much as he has done. We are a country so entrenched in rule by wealth, it's going to take a long time to put things right.
True, True. I remember doing some research on Citizens United and being APPALLED at how reactionary it was.
Ifnot Biden, then who. Who Ben, what is your alternative, who do you champion, who is your white knight in shiny armor.
So vote third party because Biden hasn't done enough, Is that it?
There are two ways to promote a cause. Go in the front door or sneak around and go in the back door.
I am not saying yours is intentional, but it is the back door approach never the less.
What he’s done has been with a Congress that openly says whatever you do, we oppose. One man can’t wave a wand & do it all at once. (Contrary to what the Orange Menace would have people believe!)
Yeh Ben, the conclusion drawn from your statement, in context of the thread, is vote Putin, err third party, presumably RFK, thus help Putin, I mean Trump to a win.
Nope. Biden is the best candidate compared to all the others. However, I don't think he's radical or mentally apt enough to counter the aggressive Republican opposition. Not to mention his toleration of what Israel has done is disgusting.
I agree with you to the point that you drag "toleration of Israel" into the discussion
First this is who I was, who I am now.
I was a right wing antiemite. I am no longer an antisemite (I grew in knowledge) but am no semitophile either.
Ido see latent antisemitism surfacing under the guise of "the poor Palestinians", when in truth the very same people who are wringing their hands, could care less about the greater tragedy unfolding in the world, Somalia, Sudan, other African Countries, even the Uighuers in China and the Rohingyan Muslims in Myanmar, now that is areal genoicide, but unfortunately they aren't being backed by Iran, who has declared Satan America and Satan Israel as the no 1 enemy.
Nor do this same bleeding hearts give a shit about the real Genocide that has been going on Ukraine for 2 years. Because Ukrainians aren't brown people and aren't Muslim.
I consider all plaints about the "poor Palestinians" to be Arab/Iranian financed and induced propaganda, and insincere because it ignored the other more serious cases of man's inhumanity towards men.
Let me say it this, When I hear it spoken of as you have I hear opportunism and/or self willed ignorance.
Now if you want to talk about Bibi the criminal (National and International) and the gang of Criminals known as (Orthodox Jewish settlers) then I am with you,but not condemning the state of Israel as you have just done.
Here is the situation.
There are 57 Muslim ethno states in the UN, which has 193 members, most all of whom are oil producing states and have their fingers on the throat of UN members.
The American continent can be considered a Christian ethno continent.
Europe, save for France, as wll. Russia an Orhodox Ethnostate, along with Serbia.
The Jews have just one tiny little ethnostate, and the Muslims want to drive them off what they consider sacred Muslim land
There are three holy sites in Islam, Mecca, Medina and Jerusalem, and the Jews "occupy" Jerualem , a blasphemy, they they have tried to undo in 1948,1956,1967,1972, 2006 and 2023.
I don't know how to take that comment Mr Reich.
In a sense, globalization was an inevitable experiment whose time would have come irrespective of political considerations, vaguely parallel to Communism, which was an inevitable product of the Industrial Revolution, in which many believed that a nation’s whole economy could be run along the lines of a factory.
That experiment ran its course over a period of seventy years; even those nations that remain officially Communist really aren’t, even if they still draw their political legitimacy in the eyes of their populaces from the rhetoric of Marx, Engels and Lenin.
Finding consensus and mutual benefit among nations is difficult enough within an economic alliance like the European Union, which share a common currency and trade rules set down by the EU’s Parliament in Brussels; the rest of the world is more fractious, still.
In the end, world trade is like a corpse of a man who died sitting up: after rigor mortis has set in, every time you push down the head into the coffin, the feet pop up, and every time you push down the feet, the heads pops up. So it’s messy, unequal with perfect equity probably eternally unresolvable.
I agree, it was an experiment that was doomed from the beginning. But it was done because of blind belief in the idea that liberal democracy will automatically follow when liberal free trade proves to be beneficial to (nearly) all parties. It was a wrong premise and we can only blame greedy people for trying to hide the reality for as long as they could. https://hanschristensen.substack.com/p/the-age-of-post-globalism
Write him what?
Avie, thanks for the insight and the humor. It is going to take a while to get the corpse image out of my head. I’m still laughting.
Thanks; I’ve used the corpse analogy for years (I can’t say if it originated with me, but I don’t recall ever seeing it anywhere else), applying it to all sorts of things. As a screenwriter, I look for vivid imagery, and I think this qualifies. Just as life on earth couldn’t exist if ice didn’t float and water froze from the bottom-up, I don’t know how humor could survive without rigor mortis.
Avie, globalization, neo liberal, free trade are as old as man, hardly modern, but thanks for bring up Marx. Marx was a globalist free trader, a 19th century proto neo liberal, for one he opposed Britains Corn Laws (import tariffs), 2. he tried to convincesouthern planters to free the slaves and hire them back at market wages.
Because slavery is expensive, southern cotton was too expensive for Frederick Engels to makeaprofit. Fred had inherited his fathers textile mills, and struggled to stay afloat, to make profit he had to import the inferior and cheaper Egyptian cotton.
Marx argumed Free the slaves and hire them back at market wages, .
Besides the capital investment in buying slaves, ranging from$300 to $3,000 , they required food, housing, clothing, medical treatment, even entertainment, and of course the services of sock puppets to preach on Sundays, how slaves should be happy and obey their masters
Well said!
Writing in 1972, German historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt reminded us that we are not consigned to live with things as they are: “We are free to change the world and start something new in it.” The Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 certainly feel they are not consigned to live with things as they are. We the people are also free to change the way we see and deal with Global Trade.
The opposite of global trade is Economic Democracy where insomuch as possible, products are produced locally that are then consumed locally keeping the profits in the local community and giving its citizens say and benefits from their local economic activity. Project 2025 definitely is feeling they are free to change the united States so what is stopping us from making plans to “change the world” we live in.
Sounds like we’ve started. We Democrats have been slow to see the train coming at us in the long dark tunnel. We have to throw the switch soon to keep us on a better track.
I want to chime in and say this. Karl Marx, besides being a proto libertarian, was a neo liberal. a Free trader. He opposed Britains import tariifs called the Corn Laws.
We all have the google machine, google Karl Marx free trader or Karl Marx Corn laws.
lack of money and power?
To you she may have been "German": but not to the Heilagedeutsch..
There is a bigger problem lurking. Its called the 4th industrial revolution - that basically replaces workers with AI... and its happening now. There are millions of jobs at risk due to AI. Please read up on it... We are being replaced by machines.. and this is only the beginning...
Lorna, this is the same argument when the printing press, the cotton gin, electricity, and cars came into being, Yes AI will replace some jobs, but new jobs and skills will be needed, As AI helps to develop better more personalized drugs, helps to find solutions to global warming, proves the need to pay attention to and nurture the microbiome of soil and our own microbiomes, and helps solve many other problems that yes humans have created, it will need new jobs. Workers,,and that now includes scientists and Doctors, need unions so that planning on how to retrain workers happens during this next “industrial revolution”. Hopefully we will learn from past mistakes and have better protections in place, but that won’t happen if we allow Project 2025 and the people who believe in white supremacy to win, The Democrats must win or we will all be “inferiors” at their mercy, Biden stepping down due to health now and giving the reigns over to Harris now could be the best bet.
Those new skills will not lead to equivalent jobs - because many fewer workers with those skills will be needed. A shop floor of 20 workers in many industries was replaced by 20 robots...and only one engineer needed to monitor them.
Constance, I wish you would also look at all the amazing things AI can offer especially to science, Wouldn’t you be happy if it could bring vision back to a blind person? https://www.newscientist.com/article/2438107-mind-reading-ai-recreates-what-youre-looking-at-with-amazing-accuracy/?utm_source=nsday&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nsday_050724&utm_term=Newsletter%20NSDAY_Daily
Constance, what data are you basing these statements on. 9ften what seems to be a logical explanation really misses the mark. Again you are not looking at the jobs that will be created, ID jobs in chips factories, jobs in factories that make the machines that make chips, jobs in companies that are making the items needed for wind and solar energy, When the printing press was invented, all those people who reprinted books lost their jobs, but that did. not mean that they did not go on to have jobs in factories printing books, or in book sales, .this is a false equivalency and it just spreads fear instead of finding helpful solutions to protect workers transitions to new jobs.
Yep buggy whip manufacturers saw Armageddon with the invention of the automobile.
Then they learned how to make auto parts.
Stage coach manufacturers, like Studebaker, reinvented themselves.
The sedan (e.g. four door sedan) was named for a town in France where it was manufactured first, and i was a conveyance carried by four men grabbing ends of a pole, that transported nobility hither and yon, so they didn't get their feet fouled by horseshit and mud. Which is the original purpose of high heels, originally worn by male gentry.
Biden shows a better chance of winning than Harris does. Also (sorry for the tangent) I still fear Project 2025s plan is to cause/claim election count issues and force the default of 1 state 1 vote to force a Trump win.
I heard on PBS News last night that the new U.K. government will demand a larger share of the profits from their oil companies. Was BP formerly owned by the U.K. government? Norway kept its oil profits to create its state investment fund, now worth $1T. How does the U.S. policy toward oil companies who extract our oil compare? Should the U.S. government charge more for oil property leases and eliminate the oil depletion allowance of our tax policy ? How does this work and would you offer comments?
The Norwegians got it right. That oil belongs to the citizens. It's ours, just like our national parks. Of course, then there's the danger of having an inefficient oil industry. Like Russia. Those Texans lead the world in oil drilling technology. Personally, That is why I am a fan of REGULATED Capitalism. Of course, MAGA wants no regulation on business. They just want to regulate women's bodies and religion.
I agree completely. Character and integrity must be the key parameters to choose our next POTUS. MAGAns want to crown Trump as King. If elected, thanks to the SCOTUS he will become King. B. Franklin, Printer warned us in 1787 it may be difficult for us to keep our democratic republic. Now we face the test he predicted. Biden should step aside in favor of a younger candidate who will defeat Trump- the man who would be King.
Biden should resign now and allow Harris to run as an incumbent against Trump. Please readicnarl Moore's Rumble substack from yesterday.
Why isn't Biden's family urging him NOT to run? I think Joe would quit if his family asked him to quit. If they truly love him and are concerned for his health and well being, you would think this is what they would be doing! Instead, they are reported to be the strongest voices urging him to continue in the race! I like Joe, but think his family sucks!
That’s the $64k question. Blind loyalty? Denialism? It’s hard to move from what was to what is, but this is the nation we’re talking about, not the gut wrenching decision families make for aging loved ones.
Tim, it looks like elder abuse from here,
Hunter is obviously looking out for #1 ( Hunter )
Hunter is afraid of his upcoming court case of the Chinese Money and IRS. God only knows why Jill is silent. I sure don't.
After seeing the intetview last night, I 100% agree with you. Watching Robert's Coffee Klatch this morning sums it up- he's in denial, intransigent, and hunkered in a bunker. The corker for me was, when asked how he'd feel if Trump wins, he said he'd know he did the goodest he could... YIKES. He also said he's running the world do he doesn't need a cognitive test!
Biden should decline to run again, not resign. He is doing a fine job, but his cognition will continue to decline over the next 4 1/2 years. We will be better served by a POTUS from the next generation. I suspect, without evidence, (1) those who support President Biden will support the new candidate when endorsed by Biden; and (2) independent voters will be more comfortable to vote against the man who would be king (empowered by the SCOTUS).
That didn't work for LBJ since Nixon won. Harris needs to be seen as President and run as the incumbent. We must defeat Trump and the 2025 Project. Harris can do that.
HARRIS WILL/ WOULD absolutely slaughter Donald Trump.
I agree Gloria. Americans must defeat the man who would be King and the 2025 Project. I do not know whether the best strategy to achieve this goal is for Biden to resign from office, v. decline to run for second term.
According to an article I found on the internet, Norway taxes its oil produces at a permanent rate of 56 per cent.
Our big oil companies have run the show for too long. Keep fighting, Democrats,
Oil companies are the same as other companies,profits ebb and flow.Read their annual reports.Everything is expensive to build and they have depreciation schedules to help with this cost. Just at the moment a consortium of companies are building a gas plant ( one of many ) in the north of Western Australia The cost is $56 billion to build it..
Shell tried to reduce this cost by building a ship ( Prelude) that would process and liquefy this gas .That cost ~ $10 billion to build,the technology does not seem to work so they will have to make their minds up trying to fix it ,or scrap it and write it off.
Govts make the profit from oil.Australia has low taxes on fuel and it costs slightly more than the US.The govt gets ~ 52 cents per litre in tax.
I have shares in a company that refines,distributes,and sells petrol,diesel and LPG.From $21 billion in revenue $14 billion is to buy more oil to refine. $5 billion goes to the govt in tax,the rest pays costs They make a net profit of ~ $500 million..You can google that .Ampol Australia annual report. They were called Caltex and were 51% owned by Chevron,along with most oil companies they ran into trouble in 2016 and had to sell their shareholding.Around $4 billion if I remember correctly to help Chevron out of trouble.
Along with most companies the major shareholders are pension funds. From memory Ampol is 80% owned by pension funds. HSBC ( UK/Chinese bank) and J P Morgan probably own 40% of it through their pension funds .My memory could be wrong,just google Ampol major shareholders.Googke any company and the largest shareholders are pension funds ,Vanguard,Blackrock and State Street.
People have infinite ability to deny reality.They keep fooling themselves the delusions they want to see are real.
Norges investment bank is the Norwegian pension fund ( a 401 K for Norway). Their web site will tell you what they own,around 1% of most world companies and govt/ corporate bonds. The world does the same thing,they have been doing it since ~ 1980 when they realised birth rates were falling rapidly and their would be a shortage of young people to pay taxes and social security taxes to fund pensions,health care etc for the baby boomers .
The companies they want to destroy are the companies they are depending on to fund their retirement and health care.If they lived to be 1000 years old they would continue to deny it every day of those 1,000 years
Thanks Aussie. Good post. On a side note, American roads and Interstate Highways are funded through gasoline taxes. The yearly maintenance of all of our local and national highways are mainly funded by the taxes we all pay when we fill our gasoline tanks.
So.... Tell me what will happen when we all plug in our electric vehicles. How do we fill our potholes.
As I always say- "It's complicated. And Life is not easy. "
Interesting. Thanks for facts Aussie. Brings readers to reality instead of fantasy.
One more thing, if each country is doing what it does best, that exposes the entire system to monoculture and if that happens in the ag sector it risks extinction of a species because of disease. At present, the bananas we buy are at risk of extinction.