Looks like it's time to shake off those republicans and get us some Democratic goodness. It may not help with heating oil prices this winter, but you can bet we won't be going backward to the republican policies of slash and burn the American middle class.

I tell ya, I'm cynical but one of the most optimistic (or "hopeful") guys around. Not so much these days.

things will get worse before they get better. A lot worse. McCain will do nothing to help and will actually hurt. Obama with his University of Chicago Econ Advisors will do half-assed watered down stuff. I guess all-in-all, it's probably better to do the half-assed stuff to at least cushion the blow (not that I believe tax cuts are going to be much of a cushion). The downside is there's a possibility Obama's half-assed stuff will do enough to cause a small recovery without fixing the broken fundamentals of the system, delaying the repairs that we desperately need and stringing out the suffering.

On the economy, I kind of figure we're fucked either way. You can't do all the stupid shit we did for the last eight years and not be. Given the Democrats' enabling role, I'm perfectly happy for them to end up holding the bag. Nothing would probably bring a purge of the bipartisan bullshit artists currently leading the party faster than a deep recession or depression (which is coming regardless of who wins, IMO). It's easy to write off those blue collar voters when they aren't calling for your head.

So I guess I favor Obama on the economy, not because I think he'll fix it, but because when he fucks it up, he'll be much more likely to pay a price. Democrats are always much more willing to hold Democrats accountable than Republicans.

make sure the repubs get left holding the bag.

I love this job!

Heh.

The author's future suggestions on re-inventing public and private institutions should be a real barrel of laughs. I can't wait.

...for the rest of us

From Chris Floyd, several articles on the failing economic system. An excerpt:

MW: The housing market is freefalling, setting new records every day for foreclosures, inventory, and declining prices. The banking system is in even worse shape; undercapitalized and buried under a mountain of downgraded assets. There seems to be growing consensus that these problems are not just part of a normal economic downturn, but the direct result of the Fed's monetary policies. Are we seeing the collapse of the Central banking model as a way of regulating the markets? Do you think the present crisis will strengthen the existing system or make it easier for the American people to assert greater control over monetary policy?

Michael Hudson: What do you mean “failure”? Your perspective is from the bottom looking up. But the financial model has been a great success from the vantage point of the top of the economic pyramid looking down? The economy has polarized to the point where the wealthiest 10% now own 85% of the nation’s wealth. Never before have the bottom 90% been so highly indebted, so dependent on the wealthy. From their point of view, their power has exceeded that of any time in which economic statistics have been kept.

You have to realize that what they’re trying to do is to roll back the Enlightenment, roll back the moral philosophy and social values of classical political economy and its culmination in Progressive Era legislation, as well as the New Deal institutions. They’re not trying to make the economy more equal, and they’re not trying to share power. Their greed is (as Aristotle noted) infinite. So what you find to be a violation of traditional values is a re-assertion of pre-industrial, feudal values. The economy is being set back on the road to debt peonage. The Road to Serfdom is not government sponsorship of economic progress and rising living standards; it’s the dismantling of government, the dissolution of regulatory agencies, to create a new feudal-type elite.

The former Soviet Union provides a model of what the neoliberals would like to create. Not only in Russia but also in the Baltic States and other former Soviet republics, they created local kleptocracies, Pinochet-style. In Russia, the kleptocrats founded an explicitly Pinochetista party, the Party of Right Forces (“Right” as in right-wing).

In order for the American people or any other people to assert greater control over monetary policy, they need to have a doctrine of just what a good monetary policy would be. Early in the 19th century the followers of St. Simon in France began to develop such a policy. By the end of that century, Central Europe implemented this policy, mobilizing the banking and financial system to promote industrialization, in consultation with the government (and catalyzed by military and naval spending, to be sure). But all this has disappeared from the history of economic thought, which no longer is even taught to economics students. The Chicago Boys have succeeded in censoring any alternative to their free-market rationalization of asset stripping and economic polarization.

My own model would be to make central banks part of the Treasury, not simply the board of directors of the rapacious commercial banking system. You mentioned Henry Liu’s writings earlier, and I think he has come to the same conclusion in his Asia Times articles.

In the meantime, our media keep us distracted with stupid story after stupid story about everything except what's important. How's that song from Timbuk 3 go?

Presidential elections are planned distractions
To divert attention from the action behind the scenes

Like a game of chess when the house is a mess
Or a petty money squabble when your marriage is in trouble
Or a football game when there's rioting in the streets

It's just another movie, another song and dance
Another poor sucker who never had a chance
It's just another captain going down with his ship
Just another jerk, taking pride in his work

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...

"... The huge increases in corn ethanol production are affecting food prices. At least 10 studies have found that US corn ethanol production is affecting prices at the supermarket. An April 8 internal report from the World Bank said that the price surge "was caused by a confluence of factors but the most important was the large increase in biofuels production in the US and EU." In mid-July, Consumer Price Index data showed that over the previous three months, US food prices increased at an annualized rate if 8% - one of the biggest increases in recent history.

..."