Four Signs Neoliberalism is (Almost) Dead » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Posted: 25 April 2013 Filed under: Fiscal Policy, Political Theory, Society | Tags: Economic Theories, Neo-Liberalism, Political Philosophy 2 Comments »Personally, I want to believe that it is dying……and logically, it should…….an interesting piece…..
Four Signs Neoliberalism is (Almost) Dead » Counterpunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names.
What Is This “Mythical” Beast?
Posted: 4 January 2013 Filed under: Business, Economics, Observations | Tags: Economic Theories, Free Markets, Postaday 2012 Leave a comment »College of Political Knowledge
Subject: Economics/Political Theory
The beast I speak of this that beast that rears it’s ugly head during and just after any election…….(pause here for thought)……..Free Markets! A cute slogan that is hammered into the mind of potential voters…..hour after hour….and yet few have any idea what is meant…..
I realize that this is economics and everyone’s eyes will glaze over…….it is so much easier just to go about throwing one slogan after another without ever knowing what the f*ck you are talking about…….oh so much easier. Back in the day my grandfather gave me great advice and when it comes to economics it is the best advice…..”Never write a novel when a paragraph will do”………K.I.S.S.
One point I would like to make is………government CANNOT be run like a business! It is a Government NOT a business. Got that? And please stop using states as how the federal government should be run…..it cannot be run in the same manner…..it is a country not a state…another point you need to grasp whenever possible……
Back to the mythical beast……….
What does free markets refer to in these times? In today’s world this is not the idea of laissez faire of the Adam Smith strain……okay……Smith believed that selfish and unrestrained pursuit of self-interest will improve the general welfare….other words greed good…..and he foresaw that there is a natural order in which government has a minimal role……..
But in today’s world……the slogan “free markets” has been moved to the forefront by good old Milton Friedman……that would be the Chicago School of Economics……good old Milty was an economic adviser to Thatcher and Reagan (go figure)…….and he became famous for his free market ideology…….say that again, professor……his free market ideology.
And his ideology consisted of opposition to taxes, dislike for “big” government. Regulations, according to Uncle Milty, were an insufficient imposition on markets….he saw government only needed for defense, justice and basic legislation. He also wanted the allocation of resources left up to business and not the government……does any of this sound the least bit familiar?
These are the basic planks of every GOP presidential platform in the last 25+ years…..free markets are a slogan for a political ideology……it is not about the economy so much as about the running of the country….slogans aside…it is a political ideology and should be treated as such and not some magic pill for the reviving of the economy.
What Is This “Economic Freedom”?
Posted: 22 March 2012 Filed under: Economics, Elections, Fiscal Policy, Observations, Politics | Tags: Capitalism, Economic Theories, Postaday 2012 7 Comments »This is continuation of my post yesterday, “Where Is This “Free Market”?
I have heard the term, economic freedom used for many elections and this one is No different….Mitt has started using it as his latest bumper sticker to impress voters. But what is this “Economic Freedom” he speaks of in Illinois? Did the slogan help him win in the prairie state?
I have studied economics in the past and I do not have a handy definition I can offer up….and let me interject here that academics are paid big bucks for the knowledge and their brilliance to obfuscate……so like any good techie I went to the internet, especially answers.com….
Economic freedom is a term used in economic and policy debates. As with freedom generally, there are various definitions, but no universally accepted concept of economic freedom. One major approach to economic freedom comes from classical liberal and libertarian traditions emphasizing free markets and private property, while another extends the welfare economics study of individual choice, with greater economic freedom coming from a “larger” (in some technical sense) set of possible choices. Another more philosophical perspective emphasizes its context in distributive justice and basic freedoms of all individuals. Other conceptions of economic freedom include freedom from want and the freedom to engage in collective bargaining.
The free market viewpoint understands economic liberty as the freedom to produce, trade and consume any goods and services acquired without the use of force, fraud or theft. This is embodied in the rule of law, property rights and freedom of contract, and characterized by external and internal openness of the markets, the protection of property rights and freedom of economic initiative. There are several indices of economic freedom that attempt to measure free market economic freedom. Empirical studies based on these rankings have found higher living standards, economic growth, income equality, less corruption and less political violence to be correlated with free market.
Mitt’s ranting about the subject….what does he really mean? Well first of all, it is election time and No one but him knows what he means……because it is election time he is lying….why? His lips are moving. But since Mitt is so strong for economic freedom what does he mean of all the different definitions?
You decide! I think he is just campaigning and has no idea what he means when his speech writers throw the concept into his latest stump.
Where Is This “Free Market”?
Posted: 21 March 2012 Filed under: Economics, Fiscal Policy, Government, Observations, Trade | Tags: Capitalism, Economic Theories, Free Markets, Postaday 2012 2 Comments »It is election time and all the candidates have a talking about the “free markets”……but what is the free market they speak of endlessly? Everybody on the campaign trial has some policy that mention the obscure policy of free markets.
First of all, contrary to popular belief there is NO field of study in economics called free markets…..a definition from Investopedia……In simple terms, a free market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is a voluntary agreement between two parties who trade in the form of goods and services. In reality, this is the extent to which a free market exists since there will always be government intervention in the form of taxes, price controls and restrictions that prevent new competitors from entering a market. Just like supply-side economics, free market is a term used to describe a political or ideological viewpoint on policy and is not a field within economics.
If this is a catch all phrase and a bumper sticker in waiting, why is it so important?
Basically, what the politicians, both flavors, are talking about is really multinational corporations. In today’s economy there is no local players it is all global and in as such more and more not a free market. And today’s world offers no real free markets because of the imperfections withing the capitalist theory. the main players in this new global economy, the multinationals, have extinguished the dream of a truly free market.
For instance, price fixing flies in the face of the old theory of supply and demand by controlling the prices…the oil industry is a good example of this,……in a world where the corporation controls both ends of the chain, the supply and the demand, the idea of market mechanisms does not apply.
There are a couple of things that multinationals have done that has turned them into the conquerors of the colonialism days……there is very little marketplace, it is give as little as possible while extracting as much as possible, they many times export more capital from developing countries than they bring in, they have intensified poverty instead of helping eliminate it, they effectively edge out the native entrepreneurs and finally, use the military to insure their continuing oligarchy.
Thus the multinationals have made a mockery of the idea of free markets…..and turns the very idea into so much nonsense.
So please keep all this in mind while you listen to your candidates go on and on about some obscure policy such as the “free market”!
Plutonomy?
Posted: 8 February 2012 Filed under: Business, Economics, Government, Observations, Professor's Classroom | Tags: Economic Theories, Postaday 2012 4 Comments »College of Political Knowledge
What the Hell is plutonomy?
In recent months we have all been exposed to the OWS movement….the 99% vs the 1%…..we all have strong opinions on the nature of the beast…….but there is a word that describes this happening……and that word is plutonomy.
Now that we know what to call it…..what is it specifically?
A plutonomy is a form of capitalism that is designed to make the rich who control a nation’s government and its economy—aka, the plutocrats—even richer. Cornerstone policies of plutonomies include government deregulation and reduced taxes on the rich. In order to sell the idea of plutonomy to the citizens of a democracy, the plutocrats must convince average citizens that trickle down economics will not only work, but ultimately make it possible for them to get rich, too.
Economic growth that is powered and consumed by the wealthiest upper class of society. Plutonomy refers to a society where the majority of the wealth is controlled by an ever-shrinking minority; as such, the economic growth of that society becomes dependent on the fortunes of that same wealthy minority.
Does the ideas of deregulation and tax cuts sound vaguely familiar? (Think Reagan and the GOP)….. Or when Mitt said “I m not very worried about the very poor”? I know there was more to the quote than that…but let us be real….that is all you will ever hear from the speech…….but does any of this sound familiar?
Trickle Up Economics
Posted: 24 June 2011 Filed under: Business, Economics, Fiscal Policy, Observations | Tags: Conservatives, Economic Plans, Economic Solutions, Economic Theories, Postaday2011 9 Comments »For those of us that are OLD….we can remember the theory that Reagan was so fond of….the promises of trickle down economics….a theory put forward by one Laffer (a name well said to describe the BS)…basically it is an economic theory that says if the top 10% of the population gets tax cuts, tax breaks and other benefits that the good stuff will trickle down to the rest of us……sorry to say but it has been proven to be a crock of crap……
Now that you have a small amount of info on the down side how about “trickle up economics”? Is there really such a thing? You bet your butt there is…..,just look at the economic happenings of today….but you would like a simple definition….something not too hard and easy to remember……. the flow of wealth from the poor to the affluent.
This video can help explain trickle up better than me…..and it will be more easily retained by those that care to learn…….http://on.msnbc.com/j6I92G
All income and benefits are flowing up and yet those on the bottom are asked to sacrifice time and time again….when does it become a “Shared Sacrifice”?
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