Class Warfare

we are seeing an ever shrinking number of people paying an ever greater portion of the taxes. Though they also are the ever shrinking number of people acquiring an ever greater portion of the wealth. There is little that matches the artfulness in waving off criticism of the widening income gap as “class warfare”. And there is little that matches the gullibility of those who follow along

Government’s role in the subprime crisis

Could a new paper published by researchers from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis finally answer the question of whether affordable housing laws caused the subprime crisis? Yes

Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter on the Bifurcation of Society

On the issue of the bifurcation of society and the widening income gap in the U.S., and the strains appearing from the factory system in China that have recently been highlighted, there is useful commentary that comes from a surprising quarter, or perhaps not surprising in itself, but in the view taken on the subject: Both Adam Smith and Joseph Schumpeter, defenders of capitalism as the source of “universal opulence”, see a road leading from capitalism to the disenfranchisement of the worker and the vaulting of the elite

The Twilight of the Leisure Class

Taken to its end, industrialization class distinctions are revealed by conspicuous consumption. This points to the objective of industrial production: goods in the realm of common consumption become removed from social distinction. This is what Mumford meant when he stated that the machine is a communist. Products bear the same impersonal imprint. They either function or do not. There is no difference between the light bulb – or phone, or computer, or Kindle – of the common and the wealthy to signal a difference in status. The consummation of the industrial revolution, and insofar as we link the industrial revolution to capitalism, of capitalism as well, will occur when the same can be said in all areas of production

Occupy Wall Street, Social Unrest and Income Inequality

We are seeing the specter of instability in the growing protests of income inequality, economic distress of the middle class, and economic and political power of the very wealthy. There is Occupy Wall Street in the U.S., and similar protests ranging across the globe. In parts of Europe there is rioting in the streets, in parts of China protests have turned deadly

Crisis and Instability – Searching for Terra Firma

It was not immediately clear to many when the current crisis began that it was going to be this kind of event. The G7 and IMF understand how the cash register works and have vast experience in tweaking the cash register from time to time. What is required now is a new cash register. It will mark as large of a change as Reagan-Thatcher represented at that time. Yet just as it was impossible to anticipate the Reagan-Thatcher cash register when Nixon introduced wage and price controls in 1971, so too is it impossible to anticipate the next cash register now

Quote of the Day: Desmond Tutu

He is a remarkable man, full of energy and optimism. He said something about himself that I found wonderfully humble

Pension and Ponzi Schemes

In the US, there is a heated debate about America’s government pension scheme Social Security. The Republican frontrunner for President Rick Perry has called it a ‘Ponzi scheme’, for which he was derided by the previous Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney. Here’s the question: is Rick Perry right. Is social security a Ponzi scheme?

Here’s my take

Russia’s Economic Interests (Part 1)

The neoliberal idea is to dismantle the government’s ability to regulate markets to steer growth and economic advance in the national interest. They claim that this is an alternative to centralized planning. But the reality is that it simply centralizes planning in the hands of bankers – primarily those of Wall Street and the City of London, followed by financial interests in satellite economies and other subordinate partners in this policy

The Internet’s Filter: Condemned to be Free?

Rick Bookstaber opines about a future world in which the flood of information being produced will be filtered by third parties like Facebook and Google with as yet unpredictable consequences for society. Perhaps these filters are just computationally more powerful versions of our own cognitive filters. But the filters are not under our control. We won’t understand how they are deciding what to allow through the filter for our consideration

Does LinkedIn take advantage of weak links?

Rick Bookstaber asks whether LinkedIn anything more than a resume warehouse? Is it simply a web-based Rolodex to make it easier to stay up with your business contacts? He doesn’t know the business model for the company, and doesn’t have any basis to comment on its long-term prospects, but in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness mode, he hears the “linked” in LinkedIn, and it starts him thinking about network theory, and the place LinkedIn most naturally fills in that space, which is to establish weak links

Ron Paul on Liberty

Here’s Ron Paul on Chris Matthews’ show talking about giving people greater liberty and freedom on a number of different issues. I agree with much of what he says. But here’s the part I want to focus in on: property rights. I am all for property rights. See my post “Three eminent domain cases show corporatism in action” for example. But this conversation pitted business property rights against individual liberty – and I say individual liberty wins