Another interesting aspect, at least to me. It’s chicken and egg, perhaps. But the reality is that under the sway of Keynes and others of his ilk, government regulation of business was at an all-time high, and the number of lobbyists pushing government on behalf of business was at an all-time low. This changed radically and dramatically in the early 1970s. Waves of lobbyists showed up in DC and, little by little, they basically took over the writing of legislation, and the rest is history.

When it comes to regulating business, the two parties still diverge, though not as much as they once did. The Dems still retain vestiges of the Keynesian vision, while the GOP never really accepted it and believed the neoclassical was more accurate and much better for business.

I suspect FDR’s long presidency was a huge factor in getting rid of the previous wave of business dominance over government. Just a theory. Not that he was against business. He just sought enough of a middle ground between the establishment right and those to his left to allow for this. FDR was, in a sense, a “centrist” and the New Deal a centrist compromise between the right and an actually strong and vibrant left at the time.

zn wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

If the question is:

Is neoliberalism one of the worst forms of capitalism ever?

If we narrow the time frame down to the last 80 years or so, yes. It’s safe to say it’s the worst. But things were even worse during the first Gilded Age, and probably all the way up until FDR.

It’s odious, regardless. But I think capitalism is odious, in all its forms.

I think it would help this discussion if someone explained the key differences between keynsian and neoliberal economic policies.

YOu game?

It would be a very good way to further the discussion.

I can take a stab at a few things, but would have to review some of my past readings to do it justice. I have Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian, by Richard D. Wolff and Stephen A. Resnick, in front of me now, for instance. But, again, I’d need to review that and other sources.

But, quickly, neoliberalism was largely a reaction to, and a successful overthrow of, the Keynesian consensus that basically lasted, with back and forths, from FDR through most of Nixon. And our one and only middle class boom (1947-1973) was largely a result of that consensus.

Keynes was a “liberal” economist, who likely was further left than liberal politically. But he wasn’t a Marxian economist. He was not opposed to capitalism and didn’t seek its replacement. He taught that the government should be proactive and speedy when the economy faltered. Countercyclical spending was key. But not just any kind of spending. It should be directed toward “demand” and not “supply.” And he also taught that we should pay down debts once the economy was solidly back on its feet.

Regulation of business to prevent it from going off the rails was key, as were high taxes on the wealthy, in order to fund spending and better allocate demand-side forces. The more money the wealthy have, the worse the economy, and Keynes knew this. He knew that they don’t spend as much as the poor, the working poor, and the middle, as a percentage of what they do make . . . which means, in a consumer-driven economy, the rich are the worst possible holders of capital. They sit on the vast majority of what they make, so the “velocity of money” is greatly reduced in their hands.

Anyway, to make a long story short — I’ll pop back in with some more of this tomorrow — when Keynesianism seemed to falter in the early 1970s, the Empire Struck Back (hard), took advantage of that to deregulate, slash taxes and privatize everything in sight — with the theoretical support of people like Hayek, Friedman and the Chicago School (fresh water).

In a way, this was the first case of “Disaster Capitalism” in the 20th century — it strikes me. It got much worse under Reagan, and kept getting worse right up through Obama, though the Dems and the GOP (can) have different versions of the neoliberal version of capitalism.

____

Folks, enjoy your Saturday night.

wv wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

;>)

If I understand you correctly, WV — and I probably don’t — you’re saying that CIA, NSA and MIC support and “defense” of our economic system is integral to the “neoliberal” project, and that this is unique to its particular form.

————
Yes, I’m saying all that stuff supports/defends the neoliberal-project in the real-world. I dont think GLOBALneoliberalism could survive without that stuff.

But no, i am not saying that stuff is ‘uniquely integral’ to neoliberalism. I dont know enough about history to have an opinion on that one way or the other.

w
v

We agree that those things fit together and that the neoliberal project would fall apart without the big guns protecting it and bailing it out, etc. But from my study of the history, that’s true of capitalism itself, in every form we’ve seen to date.

As in, as soon as the CIA, NSA, etc. were formed, they and our military protected and advanced the capitalist system worldwide. That’s basically right after WWII, and roughly thirty years before neoliberalism took off. And before that, it was some other intel nexus here, with another name, working with the military, etc. etc.

In short, it’s not really “neoliberalism” per se that generates the need for Deep State protections. It’s the capitalist system itself, in whatever form. We know this because the Deep State, in one form or another, has been doing this for more than a century . . . and America’s project, for more than a century, has been the defense, expansion and projection of capitalism globally.

zn wrote:

i have a
more broad idea in mind than just ‘domestic econ policy’.

Again, it’s economic policy.

Not domestic per se.

And, different foreign policies can be attached to neoliberal economics.

One does not dictate the other in any kind of necessary way. And you choosing to use the word a certain way is just you. But it is leading to a lot of analytic confusion.

If you want to look at the combination of foreign policy and neoliberal economics, it’s a case of one from menu A, then the only thing (neoliberal) on menu B.

So it could be A1 and B, or A2 and B, or A3 and B, and so on.

..

ZN,

Another way to say that: Prior to the neoliberal era, which began roughly in the early 1970s, the same Deep State actors pushed the dominant version of capitalist economics at the time, which was, for all intents and purposes, “Keynesian” — though they tended to go for its “vulgar” form. And before the Keynesian era, they pushed the dominant version in that moment as well. And before that. And before that.

We also have to factor in the rise and fall of various Deep State actors, but America has been the evangel for capitalism’s dominant form, whatever it is at that moment, going back to the 19th century. We became the primary evangel, taking over for Britain, after WWI, and then the unrivaled hegemon after WWII.

Capitalism itself wasn’t dominant in America until after the Civil War, so our status as main pusher came later. But it’s more than safe to say that none of that began with the neoliberal era, and once it ends, if capitalism still survives, our Deep State actors will likely push the new dominant form.

Also, WV, you mentioned you were going to look up neoliberalism. The article I posted by David Harvey is a really good one. He literally wrote the book on the subject.

wv wrote:

zn wrote:

Where is this idea coming from that Trump’s policies are NOT neo-liberal?

Look at his appointments. Combined with a republican congress if anything he’s the most extreme version of that we have seen yet.

Anyone who exonerates Trump in any way at any level automatically loses my interest. It’s just a form of blindness and it’s irritating as such. It is invariably based on bad analysis.

————
I dont think Hedges is saying Trumps policies are ‘not-neoliberal’ — i think he is saying they are ‘neoliberal mixed with fascism’ which is different than just ‘neoliberal’.

Though there is this odd anti-nafta strain in Trumps rhetoric. Its not neoliberal rhetoric on that one subject, but we dont know if trump is serious about that or what he might do about that, etc. I agree with Hedges that Trump is not an intellectual with principled-ideas about policies. He’s more malleable than that.

Plus trump has this thread of pat buchanon isolationism at times. Thats not neoliberal. Then again Trump says things that are the opposite of isolationism sometimes. So we dunno. But he is not
your garden variety neoliberal.

w
v

I get what you’re saying, WV. But “neoliberalism” means domestic policy too. So, at least theoretically, a person can be an Pat Buchanon isolationist and still want neoliberal policies implemented at home.

Again, like deep tax cuts for the rich, severe deregulation of business, and accelerated privatization.

Buchanon favored all of those things on the domestic front. As does Trump. Trump has called directly for the three main aspects of neoliberal doctrine.

Being kinda, sorta against “free trade,” from one degree to another, doesn’t conflict with that.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

zn wrote:

Where is this idea coming from that Trump’s policies are NOT neo-liberal?

Look at his appointments. Combined with a republican congress if anything he’s the most extreme version of that we have seen yet.

Anyone who exonerates Trump in any way at any level automatically loses my interest. It’s just a form of blindness and it’s irritating as such. It is invariably based on bad analysis.

ZN, I mentioned that in the Greenwald thread. And, apologies to the entire board for my anger last night.

Neoliberalism is pushed big time by both parties, and tragically dominates the world. It has, roughly speaking, since the early 1970s. It’s not a Democratic thing or a GOP thing. And, as you mentioned, it looks like Trump and his team will ramp it up to another level.

WV,

Hope you know my angry rant wasn’t directed at you. Just very frustrated at the stuff I’ve been reading and seeing by some left-leaning public figures.

And thanks for the Hedges video. I agree with a lot of what he says, and usually do . . . . though he does have a dangerous blindspot when it comes to black-bloc anarchists. David Graeber, one of the founders of OWS, called him out on that and begged him to stop putting their lives in danger.

Anyway, Hedges also talks about the Deep State pretty much as I conceive it too. It encompasses both parties, not just one. He also mentioned Exxon. As you know, Trump picked its CEO to replace Clinton at State.

Too many other known facts about Trump and the people on his team for anyone to see him as a victim, in my view. And some of these pundits are painting him that way.

To boil that down a bit:

If this were a matter of Trump truly being a hero for the common man, a person who wasn’t a billionaire with Mob ties, and one who routinely fucked over his workers, went bankrupt seven times, stiffed countless small businesses, paid no taxes for twenty years and is PROUD of it, went after a union leader on Twitter and almost got him killed, said he would ban all Muslims from entering the country, wants to deport every undocumented worker, and is BELOVED by white supremacists . . . . etc. etc. etc. And one who constantly egged on his followers to beat the shit out of LONE BLM protesters . . . If Trump really were a progressive, workingman’s hero, and a decent, working class stiff himself . . . . well, maybe I would see this as some concerted effort to protect the status quo ante.

But that’s NOT what we have. We have a vile, racist, despicable human being who flaunts his wealth in front of everyone, bullies women who have the nerve to say he sexually assaulted them, bullies reporters who dare ask him questions, mocks the disabled, all the while telling us he’s the greatest fucking thing the world has ever seen . . . .

As the young kids used to say, OMG!!! THIS is the piece of shit some on the left choose to defend and turn into a victim!! Are you fucking kidding me?

America has completely lost its mind, at that includes a good bit of the left.

wv wrote:

Zooey wrote:

Where are the pictures of the mermaids?

I have to add, it looks like a lot of those pictures were photoshopped. Besides, one of them has a rainbow in it, and God didn’t invent the rainbow until after Noah’s flood as a covenant that he wouldn’t drown everything again. But I don’t think dinosaurs survived the flood, anyway, so that picture can’t be real.

———-
More fake-news, zooey. Its everywhere.

w
v

So many “mysteries” regarding the bible, and so little time. Good annotation of those here:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm

And if you click on the categories over to the right, it’s easier to narrow that down.

And you get something like this:

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/gen/5.html#32

5:32 And Noah was five hundred years old: and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

But I think a really cool part is the Nephilim, whom Alex Jones believes still walk the earth. The Rams need some of those guys for both lines. But how did they survive the flood?

wv wrote:

Yeah, ok, i will think about that.

I guess i think of the ‘deep-state’ as more of the Dem-Neoliberal-media-Machine. …but it seems like the CIA has chosen sides and is now part of the Dem-neoliberal-media-machine. And that, as far as i know, is NEW. And a bit odd. And i dont know where to plug that into my brain.

‘Deep state’ is probly not the word to use for the new Dem-Neoliberal = CIA alliance.

I will give it more thot.

w
v

Thanks for that, WV.

I’m no expert on the subject. Far from it. But I did use the term (Deep State) in my most recently finished novel. From what I’ve read, it’s very similar to the idea of The Power Elite, perhaps best conceptualized by C. Wright Mills in his (1956) book of the same name.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Elite

___

If you’ve just been saying that Clinton was the pet of the Democratic Party and its power structure, no question. That IS obvious. But I thought you were talking about the whole enchilada, including the Military Industrial Complex, which is generally thought to be at the center of the Deep State nexus.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_the_United_States

Writers, journalists, political scientists and political activists in the United States have for decades expressed concerns about the existence of a deep state or state within a state, which they suspect secretly controls public policy, regardless of which political party controls the country’s democratic institutions.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

According to Philip Giraldi, the nexus of power is centered on the military–industrial complex, intelligence community, and Wall Street,[11] while Bill Moyers points to plutocrats and oligarchs.[12] Professor Peter Dale Scott also mentions “big oil” as a key player,[13] while David Talbot focuses on national security officials, especially Allen Dulles.[14] Mike Lofgren, an ex-Washington staffer who has written a book on the issue, includes Silicon Valley, along with “key elements of government” and Wall Street, but emphasizes the non-conspiratorial nature of the “state”.[15][16]

Political scientist Michael J. Glennon believes that this trend is the result of policy being made by government bureaucracies instead of by elected officials.[6]

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

Oh, and wouldn’t the Deep State prefer someone like Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon, who has close ties to Putin, with a lust to drill oil on its 63 million acres there?

Does anyone believe the Deep State would choose to continue to block access to that, rather than lift sanctions, if they could call the shots? That 63 million acres is more than four times Exxon’s holdings even here.

On policy after policy, on ideology, on cabinet choices, on control of Congress, I honestly can’t see the powers that be wanting the Dems over the Republicans.

Yes, they love both their bought and paid for servants. But one is more aggressive in its shilling than the other.

But cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies to unilaterally subvert the U.S. election and impose its own policy dictates on the elected president is both warped and self-destructive.

Again, who’s cheering for the CIA and its shadowy allies? And if anyone tried to subvert the election, it was Russian intelligence, not the CIA.

The CIA tends to stick with trying to subvert foreign elections, not our own. With exceptions. And I see no evidence that the CIA did side with Clinton in this one, and the evidence that Comey tried to hand the election to Trump is pretty self-evident.

Is GG able to provide evidence for his assertions about the CIA in this particular case? I haven’t read him do that. Well, isn’t that just as bad as claiming Russia helped Trump, if it didn’t happen? Or worse, cuz we actually have a ton of evidence for that.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

Greenwald tends toward hyperbole. A lot. And it’s misplaced.

All of these toxic ingredients were on full display yesterday as the Deep State unleashed its tawdriest and most aggressive assault yet on Trump: vesting credibility in and then causing the public disclosure of a completely unvetted and unverified document, compiled by a paid, anonymous operative while he was working for both GOP and Democratic opponents of Trump, accusing Trump of a wide range of crimes, corrupt acts and salacious private conduct. The reaction to all of this illustrates that while the Trump presidency poses grave dangers, so, too, do those who are increasingly unhinged in their flailing, slapdash, and destructive attempts to undermine it.

What I read and saw was that the Intel agencies warned Trump that this Kompromat was out there. They did him a huge favor. And in exchange for that huge favor, Trump put on a bit of performance art, blasted the media, blasted the intel agencies who had warned him (in private), and went after CNN especially for doing nothing more than report that a meeting had occurred — which really did occur.

He and his crew of baby fascists later said the CNN reporter should be fired for trying to ask a question, and Trump, yet again, managed to make himself look like the victim.

He isn’t. He’s never the victim of anything more than his own making, and it surprises me that Greenwald would defend such an obvious snake.

He’s also making the huge mistake of thinking that criticism of Trump means support for the Deep State. That’s kind of like saying criticism of Israel’s government is the same as supporting anti-Semitism.

GG does this from time to time. He did it frequently when he defended Ron Paul. He tried to make any criticism of Paul an indictment on the critic and a sign that he or she supported war and the Deep State, blah blah blah.

Sheeebus, but America has lost its mind.

• This reply was modified 7 years, 10 months ago by Billy_T.

Agamemnon wrote:

Upon further review, it could be something in the software for this BB. RM would know more than I. We do the best we can.

WP has improved a lot over the years, especially in handling links and media. It used to require all kinds of plugins, and those plugins would often not play nice with each other or the CMS. Little by little, however, the CMS itself has taken over what those plugins used to do, and that’s been much better overall. But this has come at the price of some bloat, and WP’s own software plugins, like Jetpack, can sometimes be glitchy.

They’ve also moved from a totally free and open-source movement to trying to make a buck or two — while still being essentially free. Once they make the full transition, however, millions will have to find another platform. Until that new CMS does the same thing, etc. etc.

My prediction is that we won’t be able to even recognize “open source” stuff in ten years, based upon what we’re used to now. The number of free offerings will be extremely small, and likely won’t last long in that form. People better enjoy this stuff while they can.