Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 31, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 31, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-27-21]

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‘Every Turn in This Case Has Been Another Brick Wall, and Behind It Is Chevron’ 

[FAIR, via Naked Capitalism 10-29-2021]

Strategic Political Economy

Putin’s Valdai Speech: RUSSIAN FEDERATION SITREP

Patrick Armstrong, October 28, 2021 [via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-28-21]

I would say that the principal theme – but read it yourself, it’s an important speech (I’m almost tempted to say valedictory) – is that the West is going down. Russia, thanks to its historical experience, has lived the experience from start to finish – twice. As Putin pointed out there was plenty of “human engineering” in the early Soviet days; the USSR failed at imposing its system. Russians know that exceptionalism doesn’t work; not because they’re wiser but because they’ve lived the failure. “These examples from our history allow us to say that revolutions are not a way to settle a crisis but a way to aggravate it. No revolution was worth the damage it did to the human potential.” 

Russia’s ‘Greens’ Revolution

Gilbert Doctorow, October 28, 2021 [via Patrick Armstrong]

In the question and answer session that followed President Putin’s speech to the annual Valdai Discussion Club meeting in Sochi last week, Vladimir Vladimirovich said he was thankful to the European Union for imposing sanctions on Russia in 2014, because Russia’s counter-sanctions, banning food imports from the EU, resulted in an enormous boost to its agricultural industry. Russian farming coped magnificently with the challenge. Putin mentioned the $25 billion in agricultural exports that Russia booked in the last year and he went on to thank Russia’s workers in the sector who made this possible.

These remarks would suggest to both laymen and experts in the West the emergence of Russia as the world’s number one exporter of wheat and its leading position as global exporter of other grains. 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 24, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 24, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

Brazilian senators recommend Bolsonaro be charged with crimes against humanity over pandemic 

[CNN, via Naked Capitalism 10-22-2021]

Brazilian Leader’s Pandemic Handling Draws Explosive Allegation: Homicide 

[New York Times, via Naked Capitalism 10-20-2021]

Why China’s Lead on EVs Has Been a Long Time Coming

[Bloomberg, via Mike Norman Economics 10-19-2021]

When it comes to green manufacturing, China is now a clean-energy powerhouse. Its market dominance from solar panels to electric vehicles took long-term planning and a level of financial investment only state-controlled banking systems can deliver. By 2030, China will have an outsized influence on this strategic industry, and it’s poised to seize a fair share of the jobs and wealth creation that come with it.

“Far-right Christians think they’re living in a Bible story, and that you are as well” [Flux, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-22-21]

“SHEFFIELD: And I think also that you could say that many moderate or liberal Christians, they’re not aware that this alternative tradition has developed, and really grown as big as it is. And they’re also not aware that that tradition is coming for them. And that it has a power that is very compelling to a lot of people because it’s totalizing. It’s a worldview that encompasses politics, that encompasses religion, that encompasses schooling, that encompasses family. It literally can run your life for you. It can make the decisions. It can make your identity. You can finally be a part of something bigger than yourself. DOUGLAS: They may also lack understanding about what this is because a lot of it is as a kind of craziness that’s outside of their specific church or cultural traditions, but some of it is shame. I think for lots of progressive and thoughtful and intellectual [01:00:00] Christians, to engage with fundamentalist theology and politics is to experience shame. Because it’s not like yours. It’s simplistic and binary and into this sort of Manichean binary of good and evil. It’s not as sophisticated as your own religious tradition. So I think that can oftentimes mean for the moderates and liberal/progressive Christians, there’s an experience of shame. And an attempt to, I think sometimes on the other hand argue that they’re not really Christian at all. Those people are not really Christian, they’re Christian nationalists, who aren’t really in the proper Christian tradition, like we’re practicing it. But that’s a different conversation.”

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 17, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 17, 2021

Strategic Political Economy

“You lost. Stop acting like you won”

[White Hot Harlots (lyman alpha blob), via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-14-21]

“The abortion issue has been lost. I cannot fathom any plausible near or medium-term scenario in which the actually existing American left mounts a successful counteroffensive to the Texas bill. Poor women in red states and rural areas effectively do not have access to reproductive healthcare any longer. If they ever regain this right, it will be decades from now. This represents an immense and damning failure of all of America’s liberal institutions. In spite of access to abortion being generally popular–including upwards of 77% of adults wanting Roe to remain more or less in place–the Democratic party, their media apparatuses, and their NGO allies have absolutely shit the bed. They have lost. They have failed. Instead of taking a step back and examining their own tactical and moral failures, instead of owning up to their undeniable cowardice and naivety, instead of realizing that their messaging is at best confusing and at worse supremely alienating, instead of realizing that the other side doesn’t regard this as kayfabe but as a real issue they want to win… the Dems have done nothing. They’ve doubled down on failed strategies. They’ve retreated into their caverns of recrimination and mockery, wallowing in the comfort of blamelessness even as they presently control the executive branch and both houses of congress.”

The actual history of how abortion became a major issue in USA points to the role entrenched wealth manipulated politics by lavishly funding and directing movement conservatism. The “common wisdom” today is that the anti-choice forces were spurred into action when Roe v. Wade was decided. But as a number of scholars have noted, elements of what would later become the religious right actually supported Roe v. Wade at first. Writing in Politico May 27, 2014, Randall Balmer of Dartmouth College notes:

"In 1968, for instance, a symposium sponsored by the Christian Medical Society and Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of evangelicalism, refused to characterize abortion as sinful, citing “individual health, family welfare, and social responsibility” as justifications for ending a pregnancy. In 1971, delegates to the Southern Baptist Convention in St. Louis, Missouri, passed a resolution encouraging “Southern Baptists to work for legislation that will allow the possibility of abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother.” The convention, hardly a redoubt of liberal values, reaffirmed that position in 1974, one year after Roe, and again in 1976…. Baptists, in particular, applauded the decision as an appropriate articulation of the division between church and state, between personal morality and state regulation of individual behavior. “Religious liberty, human equality and justice are advanced by the Supreme Court abortion decision,” wrote W. Barry Garrett of Baptist Press."

So, what happened? Balmer explains:

"….it wasn’t until 1979—a full six years after Roe—that evangelical leaders, at the behest of conservative activist Paul Weyrich, seized on abortion not for moral reasons, but as a rallying-cry to deny President Jimmy Carter a second term. Why? Because the anti-abortion crusade was more palatable than the religious right’s real motive: protecting segregated schools….
"Weyrich saw that he had the beginnings of a conservative political movement, which is why, several years into President Jimmy Carter’s term, he and other leaders of the nascent religious right blamed the Democratic president for the IRS actions against segregated schools—even though the policy was mandated by Nixon, and Bob Jones University had lost its tax exemption a year and a day before Carter was inaugurated as president. Falwell, Weyrich and others were undeterred by the niceties of facts. In their determination to elect a conservative, they would do anything to deny a Democrat, even a fellow evangelical like Carter, another term in the White House.
"But Falwell and Weyrich, having tapped into the ire of evangelical leaders, were also savvy enough to recognize that organizing grassroots evangelicals to defend racial discrimination would be a challenge. It had worked to rally the leaders, but they needed a different issue if they wanted to mobilize evangelical voters on a large scale.

Also see, for example, How AT&T fuels right-wing extremists , under The Dark Side below.

There Is Shadow Inflation Taking Place All Around Us

[Upshot, via The Big Picture 10-13-2021]

Some companies haven’t been raising prices. Instead, they’ve been cutting back customer services and conveniences, but how should that be measured?

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 10, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 10, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Google Is About To Turn On Two-Factor Authentication By Default For Millions of Users 

[The Verge, via Naked Capitalism 10-6-2021]

Strategic Political Economy 

China’s Central Bank Governor Vows More Fintech Crackdown

[Bloomberg News, via Mike Norman Economics 10-8-2021] 

Sounds like a plan, especially now with the implosion of RE speculation. The bottom line seems to be controlling systemic risk. Second is addressing sources of economic rent extraction, monopoly in particular. It appears they have thought this through and it is not a knee-jerk reaction.

“Economic war crimes.” 

Marshall Auerback and Patrick Lawrence [The Scrum, via Naked Capitalism 10-5-2021]

Kneecapping China seems the best Biden can do…. 

There are fundamental social values and philosophies reflected in these different economic models. Understood properly, all economic institutions and structures—tax regimes, stock markets, regulatory environments, labor laws, and so on—reflect the values of the societies in which they exist. This is a problem for the U.S. in our time. We find that free markets and a weak state sector put Americans at a critical disadvantage next to models such as China’s. The problem is compounded because our religious devotion to supposedly free markets prevents us from even recognizing our circumstance.

We cannot compete, in short—we with our radical individualism, our free-for-all economy, and our countless social and economic casualties. And now we come to Gina Raimondo’s home truth: Because we cannot compete, we will do our best to cripple the nation against which we cannot compete.

Economic Armageddon: The COVID Collapsed Economy

“Many cities and states have spent no American Rescue Plan funds: report”

[The Hill, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 10-5-21]

“As of this summer, a majority of large cities and states had yet to use any of the funding they received as part of the Biden administration’s American Rescue Plan, according to The Associated Press. More specifically, no initial spending was reported by over half of the states and two-thirds of the 90 largest cities, the AP said. After reviewing spending reports required by the law, the AP found that states had spent 2.5 percent of the funds they initially received, and large cities spent 8.5 percent of the money.”

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 3, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – October 3, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

Iran Cements Alliance With China, Russia In Clear Message To Washington

[oilprice.com, September 28, 2021, via Mike Norman Economics]

Iran’s approval last week for full membership to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is the surest sign yet that any U.S. efforts to keep it, or Iraq, or many key Shia Crescent Middle East states out of the China-Russia-Iran sphere of influence may now be entirely futile. The SCO is the world’s biggest regional organization both in terms of geographic scope and of population, covering 60 percent of the Eurasian continent (by far the biggest single landmass on Earth), 40 percent of the world’s population, and more than 20 percent of global GDP. Iran’s acceptance into the group’s full membership grouping, in which it held ‘observer status’ only for over 15 years, means, in effect: that the seismic, multi-generational Iran-China deal is set for full roll-out, with Russia firmly alongside both playing its role; and, that any new ‘nuclear deal’ done with Iran by the new U.S. administration will not be worth the paper it is written on.

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 9-26-2021]

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Modern party leaders are actively seeking to avoid the fate of the USSR. However, many outside observers assume PRC leaders view political liberalization as the primary cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

When Xi came to power in 2012/2013, he initiated his “anti-corruption drive” to resolve three primary constraints:

- Reduce corruption

- Soften the power-base of entrenched interests

- Uproot the most acute sources of factionalism

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In hindsight, the past eight years of Xi’s reign as a continuous effort to mitigate the long-term impact of state capture and factionalism. The fact that we’re eight years in and these problems still exist likely means these are permanent features of the system. 8/

Concerning US-China relations, China is drawing lessons from the post-2008 US in the same way it draws lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union. 18/

Many in China believe the US is deeply constrained (even incapacitated) by a combination of its private sector, entrenched state interests, and populist ultra-nationalism. 19/

"Institutional advantage" reflects a belief that the Chinese system can self-correct internally and adapt to externalities in ways the US simply cannot. 22/

China believes either sides’ ability to shed the weight of entrenched interests and conduct deep self-correction in real-time is what will define US-China relations in the 21st century. 23/

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 26, 2021

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 26, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

“Rich People Are Leading the Anti-Vaccine Movement — and Experts Have a Theory Why”

[Money, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 9-20-21]

From 2019, still germane: “Disease experts say the parents least likely to vaccinate their kids live in some of the most affluent neighborhoods in the country. They’re well-educated, and have exceptional access to healthcare. And while some pockets of low-income communities of color are ‘under vaccinated’ for religious or financial reasons, studies published in places like the American Journal of Public Health show that the parents opting out for ‘philosophical reasons’ are mostly white and mostly wealthy…. Parents who opt out of vaccines tend to “believe, simply, that they can make the scientific determinations about the efficacy and dangers of vaccines for themselves,” she says. They have more free time on their hands than lower income parents — time that can be spent poring over anti-vaccine forums and websites, and applying for state-specific exemptions required to bypass school immunization laws…. When an outbreak does happen, rich families aren’t the only ones affected, of course. Usually, they aren’t even the hardest hit. This underscores a more sinister theory about why rich Americans are opting out of vaccines. A string of research referenced in the Washington Post last year suggests that wealthy people simply have less empathy than everybody else. They’re more likely to cheat on their taxes, and their spouses. And they give lower proportions of their income to charity. ‘Wealth is basically a mechanism for power, and power has a freeing effect on people,’ the social psychologist Adam Galinsky told the Post.’“It takes away the constraints of society and frees people to act according to their dominant desires.’ If you’re rich, the consequences of ‘opting out’ aren’t particularly dire. After all, it’s easier to rationalize the risks of bypassing immunization if you can afford a lengthy hospital stay, or to pull your kid out of daycare if her classmate gets sick. And while the U.S. has a long history of stigmatizing poor parents—’free range parenting,’ versus neglect, ‘welfare moms‘ versus stay at home mothers—if you’re a wealthy anti-vaxxer, you probably won’t face any social ramifications either.” 

‘I need help’: Michigan county health director pleads for help after almost being run off the road

Aysha Qamar, September 21, 2021 [DailyKos]

As people resort to violence across the country, health officials are pleading for help. In one horrific incident, a Michigan County health director pleaded with county commissioners for help after almost being run off the road following the issuance of a mask mandate for preschool through sixth-grade school buildings, Michigan Advance reported.

“I need help. My team and I are broken. I’m about done. I’ve done my job to the best of my ability. I’ve given just about everything to Kent County, and now I’ve given some more of my safety,”  Kent County Health Department director Dr. Adam London said in a letter to county commissioners. The letter outlined his reasons for issuing the public health mandate requiring students to wear masks this fall….

“There is nothing to be gained by entertaining such people with dialog. In many cases, these are the same people who dismiss the plot against the governor as ‘just guys joking around’ and the January 6th insurrection as a peaceful patriotic protest. I think it is a grave mistake to unnecessarily give them targets and platforms. There is a sickness in America far more insidious than COVID. You are more empowered to fight this disease than I am.”

London told commissioners he would not “needlessly expose” himself to “the brute mob hatred” from a “vocal and energized minority.” In his letter, he noted that people called him terms like “child-abusing monster” and even threatened him with abusive language directed at his children.

“I will not participate in witch trials in which the science I’ve presented, and the opinions of legitimate experts is reduced to the same stage as people living in echo chambers of junk science, salespeople, and YouTube videos. For the leaders of these misinformation campaigns, it’s never really been about our data, it’s been about their dogma,” London said.

Likely Assassination of UN Chief by US, British and South African Intelligence Happened 60 Years Ago Today 

[Consortium News, via Naked Capitalism 9-19-2021]

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 19, 2021

 In memorium, Ronald Anthony Wikrent

August 8, 1963 - September 16, 2021

Please excuse me for putting this at the top, but I want to remember my “little” brother, Ronald Anthony Wikrent, who finally succumbed after a two year battle with a frighteningly aggressive cancer. He was seven years younger than me, and supported me throughout my life, both materially and spiritually. A few years after I graduated university, Ronnie agreed that he would stay home in Chicago, and support and look after ma, freeing me up to pursue my passion of “trying to save the world.” He built up and ran his own frozen food distribution business, and there were many times when I could have (and perhaps should have) joined him. I certainly would be facing a much more comfortable “retirement” right now, but Ronnie always made sure I was never in real material need of anything. He was constantly thinking of new ways to do business, for me to be financially secure, or to attack political problems. He literally helped feed millions of people in the Chicago area. He delighted in discussing politics and economics with me, and I spent many days each summer staying at his house while in between the special events at which I peddled books on agricultural, industrial and transportation history.

Ronnie, thank you for your love and support over the years. You were the best brother there could be, and I will miss you terribly. 

Jonathan here

...only met Ronnie a few times but he was hard to forget. One time Tony and he caught me driving through Chicago and we met near a downtown exit ramp. After a Greektown dinner we walked out into a late-summer dusk and straight ahead was the incredible 108 story Sears Tower illuminated by the setting sun. Ronnie smiled at me and made sure I hadn't missed the crown jewel of Chicago architecture. And no, we don't have anything like that in Minnesota.

That moment explained a lot about Ronnie to me. He had chosen the restaurant precisely so I could get a spectacular view of his hometown. He had Chicago in his bloodstream. I have thought about that evening quite a bit since then and since I cannot exactly explain the Chicago vibe, I rely on Carl Sandburg's description.

Chicago

By Carl Sandburg

 

Hog Butcher for the World,

   Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

   Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler;

   Stormy, husky, brawling,

   City of the Big Shoulders:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I have seen your painted women under the gas lamps luring the farm boys.

And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to kill again.

And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the faces of women and children I have seen the marks of wanton hunger.

And having answered so I turn once more to those who sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer and say to them:

Come and show me another city with lifted head singing so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Flinging magnetic curses amid the toil of piling job on job, here is a tall bold slugger set vivid against the little soft cities;

Fierce as a dog with tongue lapping for action, cunning as a savage pitted against the wilderness, Bareheaded, Shoveling, Wrecking, Planning, Building, breaking, rebuilding,

Under the smoke, dust all over his mouth, laughing with white teeth,

Under the terrible burden of destiny laughing as a young man laughs,

Laughing even as an ignorant fighter laughs who has never lost a battle,

Bragging and laughing that under his wrist is the pulse, and under his ribs the heart of the people,

                   Laughing!

Laughing the stormy, husky, brawling laughter of Youth, half-naked, sweating, proud to be Hog Butcher, Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat, Player with Railroads and Freight Handler to the Nation.

Yes indeed, Ronald Anthony Wikrent was a remarkable example of why Sandburg called Chicago the City of the Big Shoulders.

 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 12, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 12, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Injustice

Natalie Edwards Was Imprisoned this Month by the U.S. for Blowing the Whistle on Wall Street Banks’ Laundering of Dirty Money
Pam Martens and Russ Martens, September 8, 2021 [Wall Street On Parade]

Edwards is the heroic former Treasury official who tried in vain to get her superiors in the federal government to act on her concerns. Left with no other options to get action, she turned over documents to a BuzzFeed News reporter that became the core of the FinCEN Files, a collaborative investigation involving BuzzFeed News, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and 108 other news organizations.

In effect, Edwards spawned an international news bureau focused on exposing the flow of dirty money around the globe by big name banks such as JPMorgan Chase, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, Standard Chartered, and Bank of New York Mellon. One in-depth report at the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) captures the magnitude of Edwards’ service to the public interest with this headline: “Global banks defy U.S. crackdowns by serving oligarchs, criminals and terrorists: The FinCEN Files show trillions in tainted dollars flow freely through major banks, swamping a broken enforcement system.”

….Edwards deserves a pardon from President Biden, not to be sitting in a Federal Prison Camp where she cannot have visitors because COVID-19 is skyrocketing in the state of West Virginia.

Please consider signing the Pardon Petition for Edwards and forwarding it to your email contact list with a note asking your friends and family to do the same.

Strategic Political Economy

Justice Dept. sues Texas over state’s new abortion law 

[Fort Worth Star-Telegram, via Naked Capitalism 9-10-2021]

Will the federal government defend Americans’ constitutional rights against local vigilantes?

Heather Cox Richardson, September 9, 2021 [Letters from an American]

Today, the United States of America sued the state of Texas for acting “in open defiance of the Constitution” when it passed S. B. 8 and deprived “individuals of their constitutional rights.” The United States has a “profound sovereign interest” in making sure that individuals’ constitutional rights can be protected by the federal government, the lawsuit declares. "The act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

What is at stake in this case is the ability of the federal government to defend Americans’ constitutional rights against local vigilantes, a power Americans gave to the federal government in 1868 by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution after white former Confederates in southern states refused to accept the idea that their Black neighbors should have rights.

Since the 1950s, the Supreme Court has used federal power to protect the rights of minorities and women when state laws discriminated against them. S. B. 8 would strip the government of that power, leaving individuals at the mercy of their neighbors’ prejudices. The government has asked the U.S. district court for the western district of Texas to declare the law “invalid, null, and void,” and to stop the state from enforcing it.

This issue of federal supremacy is not limited to Texas. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times today called out that in June, Missouri governor Mike Parson signed the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which declares federal laws—including taxes—that govern the use of firearms “invalid in this state.” Like the Texas abortion law, the Second Amendment Preservation Act allows individuals to sue state officials who work with federal officials to deprive Missourians of what they consider to be their Second Amendment rights. “Obviously, it’s about far more than simply gun rights,” one of the chief proponents of the bill, far-right activist Aaron Dorr, said to Thrush about his involvement.

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 5, 2021

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – September 5, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

The Writing On The Wall 

[Heisenberg Report, via Naked Capitalism 9-1-2021] 

Beijing’s regulatory crackdown is no flash in the pan and it’s not “limited” or “targeted” either. It’s an across-the-board effort to rein in the influence of capital, scrub society of perceived Western excess, reestablish discipline (broadly construed) and codify Xi’s “thought.” It is, apparently, a “profound revolution.”

The reality of this has yet to set in for Western investors and, frankly, I doubt it ever will. We live in a world where people don’t confront reality. Rather, they suspend disbelief indefinitely in order to avoid coming to terms with their own follies.

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[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism 8-29-21]

Lambert Strether: “Fascinating to watch a government that wants, and is able, to govern. Thread:”

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[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 8-30-21]

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The Great American Science Heist 

[The Intercept, via Naked Capitalism 8-31-21]

How the Bayh-Dole Act Wrested Public Science From the People’s Hands….

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 29, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 29, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy
Chamathe Palihapitiya - Everyone is WRONG About China 

[Youtube, via Mike Norman Economics, August 23, 2021]

This is extremely informative on two levels. First, former Facebook executive provides his assessment of the short term and long term in China. Short term, the CCP has unambiguously demonstrated that it is firmly in control and that “we will decide how money is made, and who makes it.” Long term, China’s current population of 1.4 billion people is expected to fall by half to 700 million people by 2200. Palihapitiya says that the CC’P’s response to this demographic “time bomb” is to reinforce socialism — which is similar to the argument I make that increasing automation, robotics, and AI in USA and other countries will require more and more “social spending” to support people who simply do not, and cannot, have the means to earn a decent income. Secondly, is to contrast the composure and temperament of Palihapitiya, who clearly sees that the CCP is exerting control over “markets” in a way not thinkable in USA and the West, with that of Palihapitiya’s interlocutor, who is so enmeshed in “free market” theology that he is flipping out over what the CCP is doing. 

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Who Has the Cure for America’s Declining Birthrate? Canada.

[New York Times, via The Big Picture 8-24-2021]

Over the last century, two moments that transformed America and positioned it as the global economic leader were the post-World War II economic boom and the I.T. revolution of the 1990s. In both cases, America tore down many forms of discrimination and other barriers to harness the talents of marginalized groups in the country and to welcome new ones, injecting demographic vitality into the economy. To continue America’s upward trajectory in the 21st century, the country must reverse its current demographic decline.

That last sentence especially shows that the writer is locked into the mainstream economic idea that declining population necessarily means a loss of national wealth. This thinking is based on the ideas of feudal mercantilism, which Alexander Hamilton overthrew by his design of the USA economy: “To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted;” and, “the intrinsic wealth of a nation is to be measured, not by the abundance of the precious metals, contained in it, but by the quantity of the productions of its labor and industry….” Mercantalism is zero-sum. What one nation gained in trade, another lost. But Hamilton’s emphasis on machinery and the inventive genius of the human mind meant that the real wealth of a society is based on its technology, and the application of that technology to the processes of production, transportation, and communication.

The U.S. could be on the verge of a productivity boom, a game-changer for the economy 

[Washington Post, via The Big Picture 8-23-2021]

Rapid adoption of robots and artificial intelligence during the pandemic combined with a rebound in government investment is making some economists optimistic about a return of a 1990s economy with widespread benefits.

Neither WaPo writer or Ritholtz asks what should be an obvious question: If we can produce so much more with so many less workers, why do people need to work? In a republic, the ability of society to provide for human needs must be distributed in such a way that all citizens are guaranteed to decent life, with the material conditions needed for each to make their own, unique contributions. 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 22, 2021

 Afghanistan

Who Lost Afghanistan? — Nick Turse

[The Intercept, via Mike Norman Economics 8-17-2021]

Journalist Craig Whitlock’s new book, “The Afghanistan Papers: A Secret History of the War,” will help ensure that no one forgets the harm America’s civilian and military leaders did, the lies they told, and the war they lost.

Synthesizing more than 1,000 interviews and 10,000 pages of documents, Whitlock provides a stunning study of failure and mendacity, an irrefutable account of the U.S.’s ignoble defeat in the words of those who — from the battlefield to NATO headquarters in Kabul and from the Pentagon to the White House — got it so wrong for so long, papered their failures over with falsehoods, and sought to avoid even an ounce of accountability.

GOP Scrubs Webpage Touting Trump’s ‘Historic’ Taliban Deal 

Gizmodo, via Naked Capitalism 8-17-2021]

We Failed Afghanistan, Not the Other Way Around 

Matt Taibbi, via Naked Capitalism 8-19-2021] 

Per corruption on the US side, Taibbi is correct and then some. This has been endemic in US operations in the Middle East since at least the Gulf War. For instance, see this 2007 story in Vanity Fair about how Alan Grayson, before he ran for Congress, in his capacity as a lawyer and US contracting expert, filed a qui tam suit on the horrific grifting by US contractors in Iraq. What was most remarkable is the DoJ, in stark contrast with just about any other big ticket, well documented suit alleging theft in government contracting, refused to join the action. We also regularly mention the US inability to account for Pentagon spending, see this Cynthia McKinney clip to illustrate how long this has been going on. McKinney being ousted for showing too much ‘tude (such as towards the Capitol Police and AIPAC) always looked like trumped up charges, that it was her poking at the Pentagon was the real proximate cause. And generally, looks like the looting was a feature, not a bug.

Inside US Afghanistan pullout, CIA opium ratline, pipeline conflict, new cold war

[YouTube, via Jon Larson]

Moderate Rebels live: Max Blumenthal and Ben Norton discuss the US military pullout from Afghanistan with journalist Pepe Escobar, who has extensive experience reporting in the country and was even arrested by the Taliban.

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 15, 2021

 Strategic Political Economy

What China Wants and Why

[Bill Totten's Weblog, via Mike Norman Economics, August 14, 2021]

One of the most concise summaries of the  geographic, economic, and demographic determinants of a country’s history and strategic interests I have ever read. 

Of China’s 1.4 billion people, 94% are Han, and their distribution follows nearly perfectly the Hu/15-in isohyet/NSGL line. This is surprising, especially if you compare it to India {4}, and its diverse ethnicities {5}. Why is China’s population so uniform?

To understand that, we need to look at history.

Brace For "Nasty" Debt Ceiling Fight As GOP Goes Full "Scorched Earth Mode" On Democrats

[ZeroHedge, August 11, 2021]

House Members’ Letter to Pelosi Mostly Barking Up the Wrong Tree 

Stephanie Kelton [The Lens, via Naked Capitalism 8-8-2021]

Are they worried about running out of money? It sounds an awful lot like what former Treasury Secretaries Jack Lew and Larry Summers said in the run-up to passage of the Trump tax cuts back in 2017. Back then, both men warned that if the Republicans were successful in passing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), then Congress would be left without the capacity to boost spending in the event of an emergency.

Here’s Lew:

If we had a crisis right now whether a financial crisis or a business cycle recession, we don’t have the fiscal policy to respond or the monetary policy. It’s quite scary. … We now don’t have a fiscal arsenal because we spent it on the tax cut and on the spending agreement. We’ve kind of spent the fiscal resources.

And here’s Summers:

Our country will be living on a shoestring for decades because of the increases in the deficits that will result. This is a serious threat to our national security because of what it will mean over time for our ability to fund national defense.

Obviously, both men were wrong…. Congress has the Power of the Purse. It can’t run out of financial resources. If the votes are there, the money will go out. 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 8, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 8, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

This is the best time all year to see the ringed magnificence of Saturn 

[Syfy Wire, via The Big Picture 8-5-2021]

Saturn takes 29 years to orbit the Sun once. Earth is closer to the Sun and moves much more rapidly, completing an orbit in one year. If Saturn didn’t move then opposition would occur once every Earth year. But Saturn does orbit around the Sun, in the same direction as Earth does, so we have to spend a little bit of extra time catching up to it.

The pandemic

Vaccine Mandates Are as American as Apple Pie 

[Portside, via Naked Capitalism 8-1-2021]

Opinion: Require the vaccine. It’s time to stop coddling the reckless. 

Ruth Marcus, WaPo, via Naked Capitalism 8-2-2021]

“The C.D.C. Needs to Stop Confusing the Public”

Zeynep Tufecki [New York Times, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 8-4-2021]

GRAPH: Who’s vaccinated and who’s not

[The Big Picture 8-1-2021]

[Twitter, via DailyPoster 8-4-2021]

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 1, 2021

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – August 1, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

U.S. Population Growth, an Economic Driver, Grinds to a Halt 

[Wall Street Journal, via Naked Capitalism 7-26-2021]

America’s weak population growth, already held back by a decadelong fertility slump, is dropping closer to zero because of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In half of all states last year, more people died than were born, up from five states in 2019. Early estimates show the total U.S. population grew 0.35% for the year ended July 1, 2020, the lowest ever documented, and growth is expected to remain near flat this year.

Some demographers cite an outside chance the population could shrink for the first time on record. Population growth is an important influence on the size of the labor market and a country’s fiscal and economic strength.

I placed this under “Strategic Political Economy” because it exemplifies everything that is wrong with how almost everyone thinks of political economy. “How many people you have” is a holdover from feudalistic mercantile zero-sum economics. The real important measure of the health of a country is the productive power of human labor to sustainably transform nature into needed goods and services. This is Hamiltonian political economy in its essence. Science and technology. 

1791 Report to Congress on the Subject of Manufactures, most especially “Section II: As to an extension of the use of Machinery…” viz.:
“The employment of Machinery forms an item of great importance in the general mass of national industry. ‘Tis an artificial force brought in aid of the natural force of man; and, to all the purposes of labour, is an increase of hands…”

Hamilton is explicit on this issue: “To cherish and stimulate the activity of the human mind, by multiplying the objects of enterprise, is not among the least considerable of the expedients by which the wealth of a nation may be promoted.” And in his December 1790 Second Report on the Public Credit, Hamilton wrote, “the intrinsic wealth of a nation is to be measured, not by the abundance of the precious metals, contained in it, but by the quantity of the productions of its labor and industry….”

The more productive power, the better. If there is economic activity that is not productive — i.e, private equity, Wall Street and the City of London — then as the climate crisis worsens, it becomes ever more crucial to discourage, curtail, and even punish that useless economic activity. 

Having one person in the active labor force support three or four or more people is exactly where we want to go. With technology in hand, an entire factory producing a few hundred thousand light bulbs each day can be operated by a tea, of just a few dozen people. The real danger is allowing the rentiers and financier seize such a huge chunk of economic rewards, and convince us they deserve it because of their “hard work.” By such myths and means are we killing our own civilization. 

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 25, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 25, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

The Pandemic

US sees COVID-19 cases surge by 224% in last three weeks as CDC director says the Indian ‘Delta’ variant now makes up 83% of all new infections 

[Daily Mail, via Naked Capitalism 7-21-2021]

‘I’m sorry, but it’s too late’: Alabama doctor on treating unvaccinated, dying COVID patients 

[AL.com, via Naked Capitalism 7-22-2021]

In the United States, COVID is now a pandemic of the unvaccinated, according to the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In Alabama, state officials report 94% of COVID hospital patients and 96% of Alabamians who have died of COVID since April were not fully vaccinated….

“I try to be very non-judgmental when I’m getting a new COVID patient that’s unvaccinated, but I really just started asking them, ‘Why haven’t you gotten the vaccine?’ And I’ll just ask it point blank, in the least judgmental way possible,” she said. “And most of them, they’re very honest, they give me answers. ‘I talked to this person, I saw this thing on Facebook, I got this email, I saw this on the news,’ you know, these are all the reasons that I didn’t get vaccinated.

“And the one question that I always ask them is, did you make an appointment with your primary care doctor and ask them for their opinion on whether or not you should receive the vaccine? And so far, nobody has answered yes to that question.”

Republicans freak out because the delta variant they fostered is killing ... Republicans

Dartagnan, July 21, 2021 [DailyKos]

Let’s be clear on something: Variants to the COVID-19 virus are caused by allowing the virus to continue spreading among the unvaccinated, giving it more time and opportunity to mutate. The more unvaccinated people there are, the better the chance of a variant developing and spreading. That’s what led to this delta variant that’s now ravaging the vaccine-refusing Republican population in this country. In simpler terms, Republican intransigence and political pandering created and abetted the conditions that led to the spread of the delta variant and encouraged an environment that allowed it to flourish. And now that it’s disproportionately killing “their” people, in red-leaning states, Republican elected officials are desperately seeking—once again—to avoid the blame.

[Twitter, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 7-23-21]

You have to click through to see the math and the assumptions behind 80,000 Republican voters dying of COVID in Florida over the coming year.

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“In-person voting really did accelerate covid-19’s spread in America”

[Economist, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 7-20-21]

GRAPH

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 18, 2021

 Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 18, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

The Epidemic

NEW From CDC: “Community Profile Report July 8 2021” (PDF), “Rapid Riser” counties

[CDC, via Naked Capitalism Water Cooler 7-16-21]

Five undervaccinated clusters put the entire United States at risk 

[CNN, via The Big Picture 7-12-2021]

Clusters of unvaccinated people, most of them in the southern United States, are vulnerable to surges in Covid-19 cases and could become breeding grounds for even more deadly Covid-19 variants: Starting in Georgia and stretching west to Texas and north to Missouri + include parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Tennessee. 

There’s A Stark Red-Blue Divide When It Comes To States’ Vaccination Rates 

[NPR, via The Big Picture 7-13-2021]

But surveys have shown Trump supporters are the least likely to say they have been vaccinated or plan to be. Remember, Trump got vaccinated before leaving the White House, but that was reported months later. Unlike other public officials who were trying to encourage people to get the shot, Trump did it in private. 

Least Vaccinated U.S. Counties Have Something in Common: Trump Voters 

[New York Times, via The Big Picture 7-13-2021]

The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. For nearly every U.S. county, both the willingness to receive a vaccine and actual vaccination rates to date were lower, on average, in counties where a majority of residents voted to re-elect former President Donald J. Trump in 2020. 

Strategic Political Economy

Newsmax anchor goes full death cult, suggests vaccines go against evolution and nature

[Twitter, via, Aldous J Pennyfarthing, July 12, 2021, Dailykos]

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Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 11, 2021

Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – July 11, 2021

by Tony Wikrent

Strategic Political Economy

Inside Operation Warp Speed: A New Model for Industrial Policy 

[American Affairs Journal, via The Big Picture 7-5-2021]

Operation Warp Speed was a triumph of public health policy. But it was also a triumph and validation of industrial policy. OWS shows what the U.S. government can still accomplish when it comes to tackling a seemingly unsolvable technological challenge. It demonstrates the strength of the U.S. developmental state, despite forty years of ideological assault.

A nice, timely historical review of one of the apocalyptic horsemen of that forty years of ideological assault. Note the shape-shifting use of political terminology by the horsie set. 

The End of Friedmanomics

The New Republic, June 17, 2021, via Avedon's Sideshow 6-30-2021]

….All of which makes a contemporary reading of Friedman’s Cape Town lectures a harrowing experience. His first speech was an unremitting diatribe against political democracy—an explicit rejection of, in Friedman’s words, “one person, one vote,” delivered to a nation in which more than half of the population was disenfranchised by race. Voting, Friedman declared, was inescapably corrupt, a distorted “market” in which “special interests” inevitably dictated the course of public life. Most voters were “ill-informed.” Voting was a “highly weighted” process that created the illusion of social cooperation that whitewashed a reality of “coercion and force.” True democracy, Friedman insisted, was to be found not through the franchise, but the free market, where consumers could express their preferences with their unencumbered wallets. South Africa, he warned, should avoid the example of the United States, which since 1929 had allowed political democracy to steadily encroach on the domain of the “economic market,” resulting in “a drastic restriction in economic, personal, and political freedom.”

….That this prescription found political purchase with the American right in the 1960s is not a surprise. Friedman’s opposition to state power during an era of liberal reform offered conservatives an intellectual justification to defend the old order. What remains remarkable is the extent to which the Democratic Party—Friedman’s lifelong political adversary—came to embrace core tenets of Friedmanism. When Friedman passed away in 2006, Larry Summers, who had advised Bill Clinton and would soon do the same for Barack Obama, acknowledged the success of Friedman’s attack on the very legitimacy of public power within his own party. “Any honest Democrat will admit that we are now all Friedmanites,” he declared in The New York Times….

Friedman responded to Brown in 1955 with “The Role of Government in Education,” an essay that called for the ostensibly race-neutral program of privatizing the school system by providing families with education vouchers that could be spent where parents wished. As in his essay on housing nine years before, Friedman appealed to the simple nineteenth-century logic of market competition and equilibrium to make his case. Public schools were a “monopoly” that put private schools at an unfair “disadvantage.” By transitioning from public schools to vouchers, families would enjoy a diversity of education options, and market competition over the quality of education would in time enhance the lot of students everywhere.

It was every bit as neat and tidy as Friedman’s case against rent regulations. But as Leo Casey has detailed for Dissent magazine, Friedman gave away the political game in a lengthy footnote. Though he insisted, “I deplore segregation and racial prejudice,” Friedman nevertheless believed in the right of the private market to develop “exclusively white schools, exclusively colored schools, and mixed schools.”

….“The Role of Government in Education” marks the earliest appearance of what remains Friedman’s most damaging belief—the idea that bigotry and violence could be forced out of public life by the magic of the market. Friedman would insist on this basic proposition again and again throughout his career. In 1972, he would go so far as to suggest that the free market could have put a stop to the war in Vietnam if people had really wanted it to end. Enough chemists would have refused to make napalm that the cost of producing the explosive would have become prohibitively high. This was the appropriate way to stop a war—not the crude “voting mechanism” of “the political system.”

….The financial crisis of 2008 should have demolished this thinking. Markets, the crash made clear, often simply don’t serve the public interest. But the Democratic leaders who ascended to power in the Obama administration had been educated at the height of Friedman’s intellectual hegemony. There simply weren’t many New Deal–style thinkers in the top echelons of the Democratic Party anymore. Obama was as intellectually serious as American presidents get, but his coterie of intellectuals had been working under Friedmanesque assumptions for so long that they could not adapt to the reality that events had discredited those assumptions. Obama ultimately devoted more political energy to reducing the long-term federal budget deficit than to combating economic inequality. A unique historical moment to reclaim political democracy became, instead, the era of bending the cost curve.

It’s the economic ideology, stupid. And, racism. So, it’s the racist economic ideology, stupid.