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—– look inside —– $5.94 / $20.00
—– look inside —– $4.90 / $8.00
—– look inside —– $15.99
—– look inside —– $5.99 / 12.99
—– look inside —– $5.93 / $12.99
—– look inside —– $4.97 / $9.90
—— Ugarteche, Puyana and Madi ——
Gerson Lima / Maria Alejandra Madi
Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan
————— Michael Hudson ————–
Maria Alejandra Madi / Jack Reardon
————- Edward Fullbrook ————-
—————— Steve Keen —————–
————— Richard Smith —————
————– Gustavo Marques————
– Victor Beker and Beniamino Moro –
————– Lars Pålsson Syll ————-
—————– Stuart Birks —————-
Edward Fullbrook and Jamie Morgan
———— Armando Ochangco ———-
Shimshon Bichler / Jonathan Nitzan
————— Mauro Gallegati ————–
————— Herman Daly —————-
————— Asad Zaman —————
—————– C. T. Kurien —————
————— Robert Locke —————-
Real-World Economics Review Blog 
Thank you for this, nothing unexpected as I am sure you and everyone with a conscious is more than aware.
“Globalisation” was always anti talent, anti education, anti knowledge. Super Globalisation is the same, based, naturally, on Super exploitation, debt, and misery, anxiety, and associated problems, only “resolvable” by Super drugs, and the cycle goes on.
The UK/European version started with the slogan “Education, Education, Education”, and has ended up in exactly the same place. Free education, given as a small bribe by the first Labour government after the WW1 to a nation in desperate need of some assurance following so much bloodshed and sacrifice, vanished from the face of the earth by the first Labour government after the Steal-hearted (not even, steel or Iron) Lady Thatcher, who singlehandedly starved not only the Welsh miners and their families, but the nurses, the doctors, and now the poorer, decent members of ordinary police men and women. Look up the latest news on these poor souls in one Global City, and multiply by the Globe.
Helen, here in Germany even a PHD is normally free of tuition, although some disciplines expect lab & class work. The standard response is that America needs to lower taxes to motivate its struggling new businesses & of course to “protect” the world by starting wars in the Middle East.
The rise in student debt is a despicable indicator of the negative effects of the current monetary paradigm of Debt Only.
Hi, Craig, doesn’t the paradigm also allow for about 20% to have lots of assets, far more than debt obligations. That’s what Mr T & some Brits seem to be all about, right?
James,
I’m not sure I understand your question. Please elaborate.
Hi, Craig, in Adam Smith’s day as through all history there have been big winners & also losers: in love, war & obviously with economics. I think of the Newport in R.I. as well as the place of the same name in California, near where I used to live. My obvious main point is that at any given time the big winners & those who support them defend the system. A secondary point is that these winners change over generations/decades, while some at the bottom improve their economic lot greatly. The changes come from many sources: the competence/ interest of second/third generations, as well as the vicissitudes of life including inheritance tax & size of next generation who split the pot. I taught in San Bernardino, CA where an itinerant milk shake salesman encountered McDonald’s #1 after WWII. He bought the firm & his widow became a billionaire in today’s terms. Joan Kroc lived an affluent period for decades. Similarly with Elvis Presley’s daughter who was a neighbor above San Bernardino in the local mountains.
Our economic models are anything but dynamic, & special events like natural resource/tech discoveries, celebrity & natural events (wars, storms, etc) all play a role in the economic ups/downs of individuals/firms/nations. The famous empires of global history all were gone within a few hundred years, or far less. People accept this generally, especially if they have left home & worked/fought elsewhere. I have never met many people who wanted to share the shirt off their back. They were oddballs. A generic response, my friend.
James, Thanks for the reply. Your historical perspective is accurate…because it depicts aspects of the zeitgeist of the current economic paradigm like burden, effort, indirectness of reward, domination, submission, enforced instead of rational hierarchy etc. Cultures follow and reflect their ideational/philosophical foundations.
The policies I advocate will be largely responsible for ushering in a new philosophical foundation upon which the populace will express its various aspects in every sphere of human endeavor like graciousness, gifting, cooperation, integration, flow, free flowingness, newness and nowness of consciousness etc.
Change is a thought away, and huge change is a new, basic, paradigm changing idea away.
Following Mervyn’s link in the “fuzzy” discussion, here’s Bill Mitchell in 2016 [http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=32743]
“Marx, in the – Introduction, A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right – published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (February 1844) was proposing that humans have the capacity for self-deceit and create religions for that purpose. The important point he was making is that there is human agency involved.
“He wrote that:
‘Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people’.
[In context, this is an atheist Jew reacting to a protestant interpretation of Christian gratitude, forgiveness and cooperative care for creation as an opiate created self-deceptively for others – i.e. to quieten their own consciences – by the heartless capitalists who had stolen creation].
Mitchell adds: “Mass consumption became the opiate in the Post Second World War period”.
Commenting on this, ‘Steve’ said [on Thursday, January 7, 2016 at 16:40]
“Yes capitalism and religion have psychologies that encourage infantilism, puritanism, authoritarianism, consumerism, and increasingly shallowness and distraction. I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I’m for Distributism and Wisdom, and Wisdom’s pinnacle concept and natural value Grace/graciousness which requires a rational and ethical mental rigor plus contemplation in order to avoid falling into the above flawed “hang ups” which inhibit mental as well as economic and monetary flow. There’s a duality to the trinity-unity of the dialectic that goes: thesis, antithesis and synthesis….and thesis, antithesis and ascension of knowledge/knowingness”.
Has Steve now changed his pen-name to Craig, I wonder? I agree with Craig here, anyway: huge change is just a new, basic, paradigm changing idea away.
Regardless of who says it the many aspects of the natural philosophical concept of grace are imminently relevant and resolving of any and all problems/conflicts…in any area of human endeavor. That’s why contemplation of the natural philosophical concept of grace is so utterly important. In fact, historically, an aspect of grace and its temporal universe effects has always been the operant factor in every true progression and/or paradigm change that humanity has discovered/re-discovered. The concept of grace is the deepest, broadest….and most relevant concept in the cosmos.That is precisely why it is the concept behind what I refer to as the cosmic code.
The massive growth of student indebtedness is a clear sign of the basic contradictions between current “economic” models and the actual needs for civilizations (not individual humans) to survive. The models emphasize distribution of wealth by competition, which is, of course rigged by those who control how this competition is created and used. This model allows for, really expects high indebtedness by most members of society, as the competitive winners take increasingly more of everything. Civilizations are, on the other hand based on cooperation and coordination, primarily. Although selective and regulated competition can be beneficial. Large differences in wealth and power create inequalities that bend and often break the Esprit de Corp of society. Thereby threatening not only the good functioning of day-to-day life, but eventually the destruction of the entire civilization. In other words, student debt is just one more sign of civilizational suicide.
Ken, student loans in the US involve two values as best I can see: legislators are not interested in most of the students but are in the lobbying by lenders. Here in Germany most education is free & students can usually receive grants for their living. This is seen as an investment in the work force.
Jane Addams put this in perspective a hundred years ago. “The good we secure for ourselves is precarious and uncertain until it is secured for all of us and incorporated into our common life.” A community, any community cannot thrive or even survive half free and half slave, half (or more) poor and half (or less) rich, half educated and involved voters and half ignorant and indifferent voters. Forcing students to take on massive debt to attend university threatens not just the students but the community of which they are part. Perhaps even more the community than the individual student. In the words of Barack Obama, “If poverty is a disease that infects the entire community in the form of unemployment and violence, failing schools and broken homes, then we can’t just treat those symptoms in isolation. We have to heal that entire community.”
Hi, Ken, the nature of the political right is seen clearly in an article by Lynn Parramore at INET on James Buchanan, the political choice guy. If you accept only a part of what she says, Buchanan went far beyond saying that people should be responsible for the decisions they make. Given appalling social & educational conditions in too much of the US, there are two strikes against many of America’s youth. It is the politics of government which gave us this.
In fact, for America’s nearly born-to-lose citizens, due to their general educational/social environment, it must be shocking how immigrantxs come & due to their adaptability & energy rise upward in society, as indeed Mr Trump’s family exemplifies. So if the foreigners can do it, what can’t too many locals? The answer is a long, painful tale with many themes, I think.
Our world is becoming more dysfunctional and cruel by the moment. And much of that is the result of two things. And Buchanan is neither of them. But Parramore is correct about Nancy MacLean’s book on Buchanan’s kill-or-be-killed property is all there is to measure the importance of human life philosophy. Buchanan is mostly just an ignorant racist from the South who helped wealthy Southerners (mostly Virginias) protect their property (e.g., slaves) and wealth from greedy government that wanted to rob them of it, levy always illegitimate taxes on it, or both. There were literally dozens of such “intellectuals” who wanted this gig. Buchanan was more devious about doing the job in the most underhanded and hateful way possible. This gave him the inside edge. And when desegregation of Virginia schools was ordered – something the Virginia government swore to fight in every way possible – Buchanan got his platform at George Mason University (Virginia) to spew his philosophy. Later came the change that took his vomitus musings to the national and international arena, infecting entire companies, media sites, academics, and political parties. He was given millions in funding from the Koch Foundation and other wealthy radicals whose beliefs aligned with late 19th and early 20th century Virginians. Voila, were we are today. Fighting for the life of not just democracy but the very idea of civil society. Trump and others spread a new barbarism as frightening if not more frightening as anything from the Tartar invasions, the Crusades, or the worst of WWII and WWI. The message is spreading, and the fight is on to save world civilizations.
Pointed out multiple times in the last few years is the situation of American health care. “America has the most expensive healthcare in the advanced world.” As we baby boomers grow older this reality becomes ever more frightening. Jeffrey Sachs, called the world’s leading expert on economic development says this in his new book. President Donald Trump is a delusional, psychopathic “threat to the nation and the world.” Trump might be a “Manchurian Candidate” who is working as a “stooge” for some foreign power (who could that be?) to destroy the U.S., Sachs wrote on CCN’s website Friday, June 1, referring to the spy movie thriller.” Much more likely, per Sachs, “Trump is just mentally unstable and narcissistic.” Sachs called the new announcement of tariffs on exports from Canada, Mexico, and the European Union part of a “psychopath’s trade war.” Finally, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein spoke at a Philadelphia high school commencement recently. Rosenstein, who is responsible for overseeing special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation, mentioned “the rule of law” 17 times in 20 minutes during his speech. “The rule of law is our most important principle. Patriots should always defend the rule of law, even when it is not in their immediate self-interest.” “If you like the rule of law, you need to keep it.” The address included several not-very-subtle allusions to the intense pressure Rosenstein finds himself under from President Trump and his Republican loyalists in Congress. “Presidential appointees in the Department of Justice bear unique responsibilities. We are accountable for pursuing the president’s priorities, and we are obligated to do so while complying with laws, regulations and ethical principles that prohibit us from taking partisan political considerations into account when deciding what to do in individual cases. If we consider partisan factors, then judges can dismiss our cases, revoke our law licenses and order us to reimburse the defendant.” Finally, there is anger, rebellion, and strong opposition to the Buchananist world Trump wants us to live in. But we need to keep in mind Michael Gerson’s recent opinion piece on the Republican Party and mindless sycophants.
As usual, Ken, thanks. I didn’t know about the sculduggery in the South, but should have surmised that it was far worse than covered by, say, the NTTimes.
James, the US is a young nation, and a nation strewn with religious sects, cults, etc. of every sort. Like Australia a large portion of its population was shipped in against their will (e.g., slaves and criminals) but unlike Australia the US has a large population (325,000,000 vs. Australia’s 25,000,000). A unique form of “cowboy” capitalism emerged in the US that created both vast inequality and economic prejudice, and the most unstable economy in the world. On top of this, the US became the wealthiest nation in the world with little effort due to its geographic position in the world and its massive base of extractable natural resources. America had no national culture till the rigors of WWI forced a move toward one, which WWII completed. But even today 12 regions distinguish 12 separate cultures in the US. Leading to the US becoming home to more sociopaths, cults, separatist movements, hate groups, love groups, and generally strange ways of life than any other nation on earth. The US continues to possess massive political, military, and economic power, with everyone speaking at once telling us how to use these. More than many Americans would like to admit the US in many ways remains a spoiled adolescent, of which people like Trump are typical. Since it became a world power in 1900, the US has been fortunate that its leaders have been drawn from the more mature parts of American society. Our luck had to run out eventually.