US economic meltdown

[Dimentio]

If the Dollar is abolished as the reserve currency of the world, it could have severe effects on the US national debt, meaning a debt crisis of the kind which the US used to love engineering in third world countries.

What effects would such a crisis have for the United States?

[Rakhmetov]

More unemployment. More pain


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBMnDLQr7-M

[piet11111]

They could devalue the dollar to the point that the debt is manageable.
I would also expect a lot of foreign capitalists to come bargain hunting everything for sale.

[MarxistMan]

http://rense.com/general93/iso.htm <--READ THIS IMPORTANT ARTICLE. It's about the isolation, loneliness that americans feel in this debt-slavery culture. It's an isolation and lack of human contact and nobody to talk with and share our anger, because in America when you are broke and a debt-slave everybody turns their back on you, even leftists.

Remember that most people in the USA have been trained to judge people by what they own, not by what they are inside. There is a quote by a famous thinker, i forgot his name that says that America is the worst country of the world to be poor. And indeed the US economy is on the edge of a big critical collapse that will have a very bad effect on the lower working class and the poors of USA


.




If the Dollar is abolished as the reserve currency of the world, it could have severe effects on the US national debt, meaning a debt crisis of the kind which the US used to love engineering in third world countries.

What effects would such a crisis have for the United States?

[Dimentio]

The United States today is virtually having the same extreme right-wing, esoteric, antisemitic and racist underground culture as Austria and Germany had in the early 20th century. The only difference is that the Germans and the Austrians had a somewhat better taste.

Jeff Rense is nothing but a scaremonger and a hatemonger.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The United States today is virtually having the same extreme right-wing, esoteric, antisemitic and racist underground culture as Austria and Germany had in the early 20th century. The only difference is that the Germans and the Austrians had a somewhat better taste.

Dude, seriously? :blink:

Anyway, if you want to know what the United States would look like if such a thing were to happen, google "winter of discontent".

It's heading in that direction, although the USA still has a large amount of influence in the global arena. The USA is definitely not invincible, though, especially economically-speaking.

[Dimentio]

Dude, seriously? :blink:

Anyway, if you want to know what the United States would look like if such a thing were to happen, google "winter of discontent".

It's heading in that direction, although the USA still has a large amount of influence in the global arena. The USA is definitely not invincible, though, especially economically-speaking.

If that is happening in the USA, it would have much much more adverse effects than in Great Britain, because it's a larger country and somewhat different culture.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I don't know if exactly the same labor unrest would take place (although I hope that there would be a fightback), but I do believe that the same kind of economic turbulence that 70's Britain felt would be seen here: soaring prices for consumer goods, trash piled up in the streets, limited medical services, black-outs/brown-outs, etc. Part of what led to all this was the UK's policy of devaluation during the late 60's, which is basically what's happening now with the dollar.

[piet11111]

What i am currently curious about is how much Washington will use military adventurism to try to keep afloat.

[Dimentio]

What i am currently curious about is how much Washington will use military adventurism to try to keep afloat.

I don't think the Dems would do it, but the Reps maybe.

[S.Artesian]

Sure, it could happen. Look what happened to Britain. Yeah, look what happened to Britain, all it took was two world wars and a great depression, and presto, Britain was no longer first among equals.

So... I wouldn't be placing my eggs in any basket of special currencies, because the price of changing the linch-pin of capital is paid by the working class.

[piet11111]

I don't think the Dems would do it, but the Reps maybe.

The democrats seem eager enough to go into Libya.

[Dimentio]

Hardly. Under Clinton's time, they would be eager to do that, but those were different days and conditions. Clinton very much not only fought for US national interests, but for global capitalist interests, since the United States was at the height of it's power.

The Obama Administration seems reluctant.

[NoOneIsIllegal]

Hardly. Under Clinton's time, they would be eager to do that, but those were different days and conditions. Clinton very much not only fought for US national interests, but for global capitalist interests, since the United States was at the height of it's power.

The Obama Administration seems reluctant.
Both statements are true, but just because they're reluctant doesn't mean they won't eventually go in. They've learned from rushing as fast as possible into a foreign country. The Obama Administration is a lot of the Clinton Administration, so maybe they're just playing their cards slowly this time.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Sure, it could happen. Look what happened to Britain. Yeah, look what happened to Britain, all it took was two world wars and a great depression, and presto, Britain was no longer first among equals.

So... I wouldn't be placing my eggs in any basket of special currencies, because the price of changing the linch-pin of capital is paid by the working class.

Now look who's on the side of US imperialism. :rolleyes:

[S.Artesian]

Now look who's on the side of US imperialism. :rolleyes:

How the fuck do you accuse anybody of being "on the side" of US imperialism for simply pointing out that US imperialism is hardly the crumbling edifice, about to be replaced, by a "stronger" "younger" capitalism, and that the price that will be paid by the world working class for such inter-capitalist competitions is horrifying?

I challenge you to find a single word written by me in any post where I endorse any action taken by US imperialism, the US bourgeoisie, include entry into WW2.

If you can find any such thing, then post it.

If not withdraw your smear and shut your fucking yap.

You are nothing but an smear artist.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Someone here again doesn't know the difference between a politically revolutionary period and otherwise.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/republican-socialism-imperialism-t113465/index.html
http://www.revleft.com/vb/revolutionary-defeatism-revolutionary-t108090/index.html

Outside a revolutionary period, there's short-term pain and long-term gain in not being a nutty "revolutionary defeatist."

[TheUnconventionalist]

Economic meltdowns are inevitable. It is impossible to exactly determine how long the booms and busts will last, but the fact is, it is the fractional reserve system that creates the boom and bust. And the Federal Reserve extends these busts by creating fiat money out of thin air which it then loans to the banks as it did in the early 2000s which created an unsustainable pyramid of debt by creating a subprime debt market for various consumer goods, particularly in real estate. But fractional reserve banking inevitably leads to depression because the money system is debt based, and interest is always greater than principal, and the only way debt is paid back is through the creation of more debt. And when private debt levels become unsustainable, borrowers default and bank runs occur(they become "insolvent", void of capital), because they loaned out all the original depositors and can no longer make out loans, pay interest to their customers, or even guarantee their customers deposits.

[Jose Gracchus]

Revolutionary defensism in any meaningful First World conditions in the present day is nothing but apologism for aligning with your own imperialists - shame on you.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Revolutionary defensism in any meaningful First World conditions in the present day is nothing but apologism for aligning with your own imperialists - shame on you.

I was suggesting that about S. Artesian, actually. His statement could be taken as a cover for maintaining US imperialism globally, when in fact unlike the "labour aristocracy" of the old British Empire or contemporary imperialisms of other countries, US imperialism isn't a benefit for workers anywhere (just compare it to German foreign trade and policy, or even the Chinese counterparts).

At least comrade Iseul advocated class-strugglist defencism in the context of the US mainland itself being invaded (likening the alternative to post-Roman barbarism).

If he had said "because the price of changing the linch-pin of capital is paid by the American working class," then that's another story.

[MarxistMan]

the population of USA is slowly becoming less racist (albeit slow), but the USA of today is a lot less racist, than decades ago. The fact that US has a black president is a proof that USA is becoming less racist, and even though the US government is still a right-wing, capitalist, imperialist government by default, americans are becoming more open minded toward socialism.

Another thing, what is wrong with reading Jeff Rense? Dont take socialism like a religion, just because you wear a Sarah Palin T-shirt or you read a non-socialism website doesn't mean that you hate Marx and hate Socialism.


.


The United States today is virtually having the same extreme right-wing, esoteric, antisemitic and racist underground culture as Austria and Germany had in the early 20th century. The only difference is that the Germans and the Austrians had a somewhat better taste.

Jeff Rense is nothing but a scaremonger and a hatemonger.

[MarxistMan]

Take it easy my friends, do not fight against other leftists. We must be tolerant with the mistakes and errors of other leftists. We must unite forces for the revolution against the monopoly 5% oligarchic ruling class of USA. Love your enemies and do good to those that insult you

.



How the fuck do you accuse anybody of being "on the side" of US imperialism for simply pointing out that US imperialism is hardly the crumbling edifice, about to be replaced, by a "stronger" "younger" capitalism, and that the price that will be paid by the world working class for such inter-capitalist competitions is horrifying?

I challenge you to find a single word written by me in any post where I endorse any action taken by US imperialism, the US bourgeoisie, include entry into WW2.

If you can find any such thing, then post it.

If not withdraw your smear and shut your fucking yap.

You are nothing but an smear artist.

[S.Artesian]

Take it easy my friends, do not fight against other leftists. We must be tolerant with the mistakes and errors of other leftists. We must unite forces for the revolution against the monopoly 5% oligarchic ruling class of USA. Love your enemies and do good to those that insult you

.


Sorry, there's nothing to take easy. This slob, and open admirer of slave labor during Stalin's reign, accuses me of "being on the side" of US imperialism, because I point out that the transition from one capitalist linch-pin to the other is a bloody affair with the blood being shed by the workers.

When you make such claims, you're identifying someone as a class enemy.

You don't "unite forces" with someone who slanders someone for being on the side of imperialism when he makes the charge only to confuse, obfuscate and distort what has been said and what he himself advocates.

He's dishonest, a deliberate liar.

[S.Artesian]

I was suggesting that about S. Artesian, actually. His statement could be taken as a cover for maintaining US imperialism globally, when in fact unlike the "labour aristocracy" of the old British Empire or contemporary imperialisms of other countries, US imperialism isn't a benefit for workers anywhere (just compare it to German foreign trade and policy, or even the Chinese counterparts).

At least comrade Iseul advocated class-strugglist defencism in the context of the US mainland itself being invaded (likening the alternative to post-Roman barbarism).

If he had said "because the price of changing the linch-pin of capital is paid by the American working class," then that's another story.


You're a fucking idiot. Because it isn't just paid by the "American working class," it's paid by the world working class, or perhaps you don't think that the world working class paid anything in the decline of British capital and its replacement by the US?

Anyone who thinks the replacement of US capitalism, the replacement of the dollar by China, or by the yuan is not going to be accompanied by tremendous disruptions and increased misery of the world working class doesn't know his or her ass from a whole in the ground, much less "politics" from "economics" much less "national" from "social." And hasn't been paying attention to what's been going on in the world economy for the last 10 years.

It doesn't mean it isn't going to happen. It does mean that only petit-bourgeois apologists for capitalism think such a replacement means an advance against capitalism-- but you wouldn't understand any of that, grounded as you are not in Marx's analysis of capitalism, but rather Lassalle's romance with Bismarck's state "socialism," and Kautsky's capitulation to capitalism.

You are a deliberate liar. And ignorant to boot.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You're a fucking idiot. Because it isn't just paid by the "American working class," it's paid by the world working class, or perhaps you don't think that the world working class paid anything in the decline of British capital and its replacement by the US?

I refer you to the revolutionary-centrist strategy of independent, permanent, working-class political organization transnationally and democratically. The price paid is not really that of one capital to another, but that for the non-execution of the aforementioned strategy.


Anyone who thinks the replacement of US capitalism, the replacement of the dollar by China, or by the yuan is not going to be accompanied by tremendous disruptions and increased misery of the world working class doesn't know his or her ass from a whole in the ground, much less "politics" from "economics" much less "national" from "social." And hasn't been paying attention to what's been going on in the world economy for the last 10 years.

Actually, I'm referring to the replacement of US capitalism by a multi-polar capitalism. It's not just China and rat races to the bottom. There's also a possible shift back to Europe, and Germany in particular.

Within the European camp, the shift from UK finance capitalism to German industrial capitalism hasn't "increased the misery of the European working class," although there is still US influence in the European austerity measures. Any temporary immiseration can be blamed on the maneuverings of the old power and not the new one.

And don't tell me that the rising Brazil has somehow immiserated the South American working class. :rolleyes:

Simply put, it is in an economically multi-polar or bi-polar world where worker struggles advance the greatest.

[Dimentio]

the population of USA is slowly becoming less racist (albeit slow), but the USA of today is a lot less racist, than decades ago. The fact that US has a black president is a proof that USA is becoming less racist, and even though the US government is still a right-wing, capitalist, imperialist government by default, americans are becoming more open minded toward socialism.

Another thing, what is wrong with reading Jeff Rense? Dont take socialism like a religion, just because you wear a Sarah Palin T-shirt or you read a non-socialism website doesn't mean that you hate Marx and hate Socialism.


.

Jeff Rense is an antisemite.

While the US overally is less racist, some groups are turning more racist.

[S.Artesian]

First, you have not provided a single bit of evidence to support your accusation that I am "on the side of US imperialism." I'd challenge you again to find a single statement where I endorse any action of the US bourgeoisie, or US imperialism after the abandonnent of Radical Reconstruction, or to withdraw the smear, but I'm sure that as the social-democrat we know you to be, you simply will move on to another deliberate distortion.

Makes you what you are.... a lying scumbag and on a good day.

Now for the rest of your pseudo-theorizing.


I refer you to the revolutionary-centrist strategy of independent, permanent, working-class political organization transnationally and democratically. The price paid is not really that of one capital to another, but that for the non-execution of the aforementioned strategy.

Except I never said anything about "the price pad is not really that of one capital to another..." I said the price is paid by the working class, internationally. You may not be aware of the subtle difference between working class and capital, but it does exist.




Actually, I'm referring to the replacement of US capitalism by a multi-polar capitalism. It's not just China and rat races to the bottom. There's also a possible shift back to Europe, and Germany in particular.

Within the European camp, the shift from UK finance capitalism to German industrial capitalism hasn't "increased the misery of the European working class," although there is still US influence in the European austerity measures. Any temporary immiseration can be blamed on the maneuverings of the old power and not the new one.Fantastic. Do they come any more ignorant than you? Probably, but I've yet to run into one more arrogant about his ignorance than you. Exactly what shift are you referring to when you are talking about the shift from UK finance capital to German industrial capital? Are we talking about the one that took place say between 1910 and 1939? That one, the one that included the depression WW 1 and created WW 2. That was a regular boom for the world working class wasn't it.

Or do you mean the "current" shift? Let's look at the current shift. So how's that been working out for the workers of Europe? How has that been working out for the workers of France, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, and the UK. Oh... what all the problems are because of the US? Really? The stronger German bourgeoisie would never impose austerity, would they?

No, the demands for austerity in Greece, where German finance capital has immense exposure, in Portugal, Spain, where German banks have tremendous exposure.. no that all comes from the US. Do you even bother to look at the financial interests, the exposures, the cross-border loans in Europe before you spout your very chauvinistic garbage? That's more than a rhetorical question.

You might just want to look at the exposure of German banks in the aforementioned countries. You might also want to look at German "assets" in the Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, the Ukrain-- countries that have recently experienced real contractions in GDP.

You might want to keep in mind that almost half-trillion [dollars] in non-performing real-estate, mortgage, commercial and consumer debt German banks are carrying on their books before you so glibly raise your right arm in a salute to the benefits of "German industrialism."

Actually you don't want to look at any of those things, those material things that don't conform to your mini-Kautskyism [the complement to Merkel's mini-Thatcherism]. You also don't want to look at the real changes imposed on the German working class prior to the 2008 period that set the stage for the German "recovery" from the doldrums of the 1990s and the 2001 recession.



And don't tell me that the rising Brazil has somehow immiserated the South American working class.It's great to see you out there endorsing capitalism after capitalism. "Rising Brazil," "Rising Germany," and can we throw in Rising China, Rising Russia, and Rising India.... because all that rising has done so much for the workers in those countries as well as workers internationally.

It's wonderful to see you flogging your version of "create 2, 3 many rising capitalisms," which is really only another spin on the old "competition benefits everyone, including the workers" adage of the free marketeers.

I made no claims about Brazil's impact on the workers of South American, but Brazilian capitalism's impact on workers is not a "plus" because the US impact is a "minus." Brazilian capitalism's impact can be a plus that must become a minus by the very nature of it being capitalism. I would point you to the support Brazil's capitalists have given to the reactionaries of the media-luna [Santa Cruz, Pando, Beni provinces] in Bolivia.

And you might also want to look at the rising tensions between the stars of your multi-polar personality disorder capitalism-- between Brazil and China over trade, currency, and farmland purchases; between India and China over textiles... you know all that stuff that exists in capitalism as capitalism.



Simply put, it is in an economically multi-polar or bi-polar world where worker struggles advance the greatest.Simple-mindedly put is how that should be phrased. The world is already a "bi-polar" world, in essence oscillating between the fear and greed, euphoria and dread, expansion and contraction, boom and bust of integrated/disintegrating capitalism.

But stay out front there, soft-shoeing your praise for "multi-polar" capitalism, your praise for rising Germany, your thoroughly Kautskyshite service on behalf of capital.

Don't let those little technicalities like the actual functioning of capitalism get in your way. You're a song and dance man, and the show, your burlesque show must go on.

[Die Neue Zeit]

First, you have not provided a single bit of evidence to support your accusation that I am "on the side of US imperialism." I'd challenge you again to find a single statement where I endorse any action of the US bourgeoisie, or US imperialism after the abandonnent of Radical Reconstruction, or to withdraw the smear, but I'm sure that as the social-democrat we know you to be, you simply will move on to another deliberate distortion.

Makes you what you are.... a lying scumbag and on a good day.

Now for the rest of your pseudo-theorizing.

Except I never said anything about "the price pad is not really that of one capital to another..." I said the price is paid by the working class, internationally. You may not be aware of the subtle difference between working class and capital, but it does exist.

And that's where I challenged your assertion. The price for these shifts is paid not by the working class as a whole, but by the working class in the declining power(s).

Your attempt to generalize a sectional immiseration can be construed as cover for maintaining the status quo.


Fantastic. Do they come any more ignorant than you? Probably, but I've yet to run into one more arrogant about his ignorance than you. Exactly what shift are you referring to when you are talking about the shift from UK finance capital to German industrial capital? Are we talking about the one that took place say between 1910 and 1939? That one, the one that included the depression WW 1 and created WW 2. That was a regular boom for the world working class wasn't it.

There was no shift from UK finance capital to German industrial capital back then. It was to US industrial capital.


Or do you mean the "current" shift? Let's look at the current shift. So how's that been working out for the workers of Europe? How has that been working out for the workers of France, Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Italy, Spain, France, and the UK. Oh... what all the problems are because of the US? Really? The stronger German bourgeoisie would never impose austerity, would they?

No, the demands for austerity in Greece, where German finance capital has immense exposure, in Portugal, Spain, where German banks have tremendous exposure.. no that all comes from the US. Do you even bother to look at the financial interests, the exposures, the cross-border loans in Europe before you spout your very chauvinistic garbage? That's more than a rhetorical question.

Who's staffing the IMF and World Bank? Who's calling the shots in the WTO? :rolleyes:

Who was the first to call for austerity? The UK, the US proxy in the EU.

According to Boris Kagarlitsky, there's industrial capital, trade capital, and finance capital (http://www.revleft.com/vb/global-crisis-russian-t148236/index.html).


You might want to keep in mind that almost half-trillion [dollars] in non-performing real-estate, mortgage, commercial and consumer debt German banks are carrying on their books before you so glibly raise your right arm in a salute to the benefits of "German industrialism."

Actually you don't want to look at any of those things, those material things that don't conform to your mini-Kautskyism [the complement to Merkel's mini-Thatcherism].

Thatcherism was all about increased financialization, "de-industrialization," etc. The German bourgeoisie knows what has happened to the UK and what is happening to China.


You also don't want to look at the real changes imposed on the German working class prior to the 2008 period that set the stage for the German "recovery" from the doldrums of the 1990s and the 2001 recession.

I know about those changes. Otherwise, I wouldn't be paying so close attention to the political dynamics of Die Linke.


It's great to see you out there endorsing capitalism after capitalism. "Rising Brazil," "Rising Germany," and can we throw in Rising China, Rising Russia, and Rising India.... because all that rising has done so much for the workers in those countries as well as workers internationally.

It's wonderful to see you flogging your version of "create 2, 3 many rising capitalisms," which is really only another spin on the old "competition benefits everyone, including the workers" adage of the free marketeers.

Depends on the type of competition. The BRIC have capital controls, while the Europeans and Americans don't. Capital controls are a crucial component for improving living standards, and even classical economists incorporate them and historical insights into protectionist development into their neo-mercantilist development models.


But stay out front there, soft-shoeing your praise for "multi-polar" capitalism, your praise for rising Germany, your thoroughly Kautskyshite service on behalf of capital.

Don't let those little technicalities like the actual functioning of capitalism get in your way. You're a song and dance man, and the show, your burlesque show must go on.

Bi-polar or multi-polar capitalism gives workers a window of opportunity to organize more concretely, just like the period before WWI, and just like the early years of the Cold War.

Again, you just don't recognize the distinction between a politically revolutionary period and a politically non-revolutionary period, especially for the working class.

[S.Artesian]

And that's where I challenged your assertion. The price for these shifts is paid not by the working class as a whole, but by the working class in the declining power(s).

Your attempt to generalize a sectional immiseration can be construed as cover for maintaining the status quo.

I know I'm repeating myself, but you are truly an idiot. Where has there ever been a "shift" where the the immiseration was confined to the working class of one country?

And two, I know I'm repeating myself, but you are a lying scumbag, since stating that the immiseration gets spread throughout the international capitalist system, as such shifts involve violent upheavals in capitalism, cannot be construed as cover for maintaining the status quo, or rather it can be construed as such only by lying scumbags like yourself.

You on the other hand, babbling on about the "best of all possible worlds" in your multi-polar personality disorder capitalism are the one truly endorsing the status quo, which is a status quo of capital against labor.




There was no shift from UK finance capital to German industrial capital back then. It was to US industrial capital.

Really, and what was the source of the conflict between Germany and the UK? Was that not the "multi-polar" world that you think is the best of all possible worlds for the workers?

And even if it was a shift from UK finance to US industrial capital [which is just ignorant, given the role of US finance in the world markets prior to and during WW 2], wasn't that shift accompanied by exactly such immiseration spread throughout the world? Or do you consider WW2 to have been a fortunate circumstance for the world working class?




Who's staffing the IMF and World Bank? Who's calling the shots in the WTO?

The bourgeoisie. The staffing of the IMF and the World Bank is done collectively by the bourgeoisie, with the US being first among equals. So what? The IMF didn't call the shots on the EU bailout, you moron. Your beloved fucking German bourgeoisie, your adored German capitalism did, as a matter of fact, including on IMF participation and "super-vision." But that only matters to those who actually pay attention to what goes on in the real world, the world outside the fanciful constructions and deliberate distortions that you peddle around here.


Who was the first to call for austerity? The UK, the US proxy in the EU.

Actually not, you clown. If you look at it, the ECB called for austerity before anyone. Mere technicality I'm sure to a genius like you, but it was the ECB calling for it at the time when the IMF was praising the "bold, innovative" actions of Bernanke, and Gordon Brown, and while the IMF was cautioning against too rapid or too early tightening of stimulus plans. Again, that only matters to people who live in the real world.




Thatcherism was all about increased financialization, "de-industrialization," etc. The German bourgeoisie knows what has happened to the UK and what is happening to China.


And because the bourgeoisie know about it.... what, because they're Germand somehow they're different? What is Merkel if not a mini-Thatcher?



Depends on the type of competition. The BRIC have capital controls, while the Europeans and Americans don't. Capital controls are a crucial component for improving living standards, and even classical economists incorporate them and historical insights into protectionist development into their neo-mercantilist development models.


Classical economists work for the classical bourgeoisie, not to put too fine a point on it, you ridiculous bucket of guts. Russia has capital controls? And the Russians have made out so well in the past 3 years, haven't they? India? Sure, those Indian textile workers are making out like bandits.

And Brazil? Well you know what they have besides capital controls? Right now they have instituted controls on land purchases specifically to prevent China from purchasing agricultural land. Right now, Brazil is complaining about China manipulating its currency exchange rates. But again, that's only for those of us who actually pay attention to something other than the fantasy role-playing game called SDP.



Bi-polar or multi-polar capitalism gives workers a window of opportunity to organize, just like the period before WWI, and just like the early years of the Cold War.

Unbelievable. Provide us some detail of the advances made by the world proletariat in the early years of the cold war, in the advanced countries, will you?


Again, you just don't recognize the distinction between a politically revolutionary period and a politically non-revolutionary period.

No? What I do recognize is a fraud, a phony, and a clown when I encounter one. You. What I do recognize is somebody who makes assertions and when challenged to back them up can do nothing other than dissemble, obscure, and evade.

That's you. You are a capitalist-supporting enemy of the workers.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I know I'm repeating myself, but you are truly an idiot. Where has there ever been a "shift" where the the immiseration was confined to the working class of one country?

And two, I know I'm repeating myself, but you are a lying scumbag, since stating that the immiseration gets spread throughout the international capitalist system, as such shifts involve violent upheavals in capitalism, cannot be construed as cover for maintaining the status quo, or rather it can be construed as such only by lying scumbags like yourself.

You on the other hand, babbling on about the "best of all possible worlds" in your multi-polar personality disorder capitalism are the one truly endorsing the status quo, which is a status quo of capital against labor.

The "best of all possible worlds" in a pre-revolutionary period for the global proletariat is Caesarean Socialism and class-strugglist defencism for such in much of the Third World and a frightened First World bourgeoisie falling back step by step vs. the proletariat in the First World.

Because of continental distances between the Caesarean Socialist pan-national spheres of influence, there would be no pressure for the First World bourgeoisie to unite like they did under the American umbrella during the Cold War (they never even united during the "Red Scare" of the 1920s).

In any event, it's not about a "proletarian revolution" by a proletarian demographic minority in a really destitute Third World country sparking political action elsewhere.

Now if you want to deride this as a "status quo of state capital against labour" and express more contempt for the Communitarian Populist non-worker classes (most notably the "national/pan-national petit-bourgeoisie") in the Third World, that's your prerogative.


The bourgeoisie. The staffing of the IMF and the World Bank is done collectively by the bourgeoisie, with the US being first among equals.

You underestimate the influence of the US bourgeoisie.


w, Brazil is complaining about China manipulating its currency exchange rates. But again, that's only for those of us who actually pay attention to something other than the fantasy role-playing game called SDP.

SDP? :confused:


Unbelievable. Provide us some detail of the advances made by the world proletariat in the early years of the cold war, in the advanced countries, will you?

Even I'm more critical of the welfare state than your newspaper group is, simply because my programmatic analysis and conclusions are more radical than yours, but for the time the institutionalization of the welfare state was a gain.

[S.Artesian]

I direct everybody's attention to DNZ's above post where he evades providing any shred of evidence for any of his assertions and claims regarding the world capitalist economy.

He is nothing but a new 2nd Internationalist, attempting to triangulate his way into the shirt pocket of the bourgeoisie-- his preference being the shirt and the pocket of the German bourgeoisie, where like a hamster, he can imagine he is striding across the world in ten league boots, rather than being a rodent with a short tail.

Ignorant, dishonest, and a coward to boot.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The only part of your post above where you are correct is that I am a "new Second Internationalist." :)

I stand for transnational, politico-ideologically independent working-class permanent organization (nay, not just "organization," but institutionalism via alternative culture, "state within a state," etc.). That means dumping mere "internationalism," having a mature approach to bureaucratic processes, and emphasizing majority political support from the workers (the key words being "majority" not plural or substantial, "political" not electoral, and "workers" not population).

[The latter two are united in something called Party-Movement Citizenship.]

I stand against get-rich-quick, legalistic, socialist-by-ethical-and-emotional-commitment-only coalitions and similar minoritarian cooperation with all segments of the bourgeoisie, all petit-bourgeoisie segments outside the narrow strata of "Third World national/pan-national petit-bourgeoisie," coordinator segments against politico-ideological independence for the working class, and all reformist segments not for the Demarchic Commonwealth / Proletocracy / Dictatorship of the Proletariat (implying that the Paris Communards were in fact social-democrats but whose political setup was conducive for a DOTP). This goes against Popular Frontism, most concepts of United Frontism, etc.

Equally I stand against ultra-left amateurism, glorifying "direct action," general strikes, mass strikes, and council fetishes, illusions in growing political awareness let alone struggles from mere labour disputes, violence fetishes, etc. ultimately conning the workers to taking power without tackling properly bureaucratic processes and societal problems as a whole.

Neither the rightist strategy nor the ultra-left strategy stresses majority political support from the working class.

[ckaihatsu]

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/13/3469182/monetary-fix-for-california-lets.html


This story is taken from Sacbee / Opinion / Viewpoints


Viewpoints: Monetary fix for California: Let's ditch the U.S. dollar

By Steven Hill
Special to The Bee
Published: Sunday, Mar. 13, 2011 - 2:00 am | Page 5E


Many solutions have been proposed to the political and economic crises of our Golden State, with Gov. Jerry Brown calling for a June election to deal with the state budget. But the sheer intractability of the challenges leads to an inevitable conclusion: Piecemeal approaches no longer will suffice. California needs bolder interventions.

Here's one solution for the economy: California should abandon use of the dollar and exit the American monetary union. The arguments for doing so are fairly straightforward, and already have been articulated by Paul Krugman and other economists. Krugman has argued that leaving a monetary union and adopting one's own currency allows the option of devaluing your new currency. While this has the effect of lowering wages and increasing prices in the short term, it also makes your products less expensive to global consumers, which gives a boost to exports and eventually to job creation. This economic boost becomes the foundation for growth.

Okay, Krugman didn't actually say that about California, but he did say it about Greece, Ireland and Portugal. If it's good for them, why not California? Indeed, the arguments for California exiting the dollar zone are stronger than those for Greece and Ireland to exit the eurozone. First, California is doing worse than either Greece or Ireland. While everyone in those countries still has health care and access to the many safety nets that European countries provide, in California a recent report found that 25 percent of Californians do not have any health insurance.

Many communities in the Golden State have been hard hit with waves of foreclosures and, due to the collapse in housing prices, in eight California counties 50 percent to 60 percent of all mortgages are "underwater" (meaning the mortgage amount is greater than the value of the home). California's unemployment rate is one of the nation's highest at 12.5 percent, about the same as Greece's and a bit lower than Ireland's. And the once-prized university system is decaying and becoming unaffordable for the middle class.

But one advantage Krugman sees in the dollar zone is that the U.S. has more of a "transfer union" where troubled states can receive a federal bailout if necessary. Yet one person's ceiling is another's floor; when it comes to transfer unions, some states give while others take. For California, this transfer union has been a bum deal for a long time. According to the Tax Foundation, California taxpayers have been subsidizing most other states for decades. For every dollar in federal taxes California sends to Washington, D.C., we receive back only about 78 cents. Where do the other 22 cents go? To other states, which have received billions of relief money from California taxpayers.

California sure could use that money right now. Indeed, California's dilapidated condition caused former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to go hat in hand to the federal government in 2009 and ask for a bailout. Despite the Golden State's decades-long generosity, the Obama administration spurned California's "Brother, can you spare a dime" appeal, forcing California to issue IOUs to keep from defaulting and becoming a national laughingstock in the process.

Clearly when it comes to receiving help from this transfer union, California's congressional delegation has been impotent to help the largest state in the union, which has been called "too big to fail." That's because California and its 38 million people are allowed only two U.S. senators, the same as Wyoming and its half a million people, to fight for its residents' priorities.

The result is that California punches far below its weight nationally. Consider that its economy is as proportionate to the U.S. economy as Germany's is to the European economy, yet Germany exercises far more influence in Europe than California does in the U.S.

Meanwhile, low population states like Alaska, the Dakotas, Alaska, Mississippi and Alabama all hugely benefit from this transfer union, receiving anywhere from $1.50 to $2 for every dollar in federal taxes they send to Washington, D.C. Their senators can outvote California's senators and shovel California taxpayer dollars into their own state coffers. But for California, and other high population states like Illinois and New York that are subsidizing them, and are having difficulties at least as bad as the recipient states, this transfer union is all give and no take.

Enough is enough. With its own currency, California would have approximately the eighth largest economy in the world, and its fairly low debt-to-GDP ratio – about 3 percent – would make it one of the least indebted major industrialized countries.

California's credit rating would almost certainly be AAA.

Who knows, maybe the European Union might try to recruit California as a member state, and like free agent LeBron James we could play the U.S. off the EU to see which one offers the best deal to return California to its golden status.


© Copyright The Sacramento Bee. All rights reserved.

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Steven Hill is a political writer based in San Francisco. His latest book is "Europe's Promise: Why the European Way is the Best Hope in an Insecure Age" (www.EuropesPromise.org).

[S.Artesian]

You stand for shit. You think slave labor is a plus. You try and justify it as "primitive socialist accumulation" a la Preobrazhensky when he never advocated any such thing.

In "3rd world" countries you run after the Maoists, "new democracy," the "nationalist petit-bourgeois" and every and any alternative to proletarian revolution that can be found.

You make dishonest accusations.

You make assertions about the capitalist economy that are just blatantly ignorant and/or false [see for example all your idiotic posts above about "German industrial capital," capital controls, austerity, etc. etc.

You're a fucking fraud and a liar who makes things up and then believes them. That's called being pathological, which describes you to a T. You're a fucking disease.

I've refuted every single claim you've made about the relationship of US capitalism to capitalism as a whole; about the role of the IMF; about austerity. You're a waste of time and space.

[Blackscare]

You're a fucking idiot.

Since nobody else has done this yet, have a verbal warning for flaming.


You're doing this a lot lately, in this thread and elsewhere. Cool it.

[S.Artesian]

You're doing this a lot lately, in this thread and elsewhere. Cool it.


Maybe you ought to go back to the page 1, post 15 where DNZ asserts that I "am on the side of US imperialism."

When challenged to provide a single sentence of mine endorsing the actions of the US anywhere anytime since the abandonment of Radical Reconstruction, DNZ does everything except answer the challenge.

I don't know where you come from, but where I come from when somebody says you're on the side of imperialism, it means you are the mortal enemy of the working class and should be dealt with accordingly. It's not a charge one makes simply to irritate somebody, or to be ironic.

Now you can give all the warnings you like, but you have a guy who explicitly endorses slave labor accusing others of being on the side of US imperialism.

The charge is false, and deliberately so. That makes DNZ a liar.

So go back a take a look, and you'll see how this lying jerk kicked off this shit fest.

[Blackscare]

So go back a take a look, and you'll see how this lying jerk kicked off this shit fest.

And I can just point you to the thread that I just had to split off in worker's struggles because you were having another childish tit-for-tat spat with hindsight, or the long string of petty bullshit arguments you've been getting into with DNZ lately. It certainly seems like you're tailing each other around in a continuation of one long, horribly uninteresting personal feud.


Anyway, like I said, that is a verbal warning, and if there's any more disruption because of this I'll make a thread about it in the mod forum. I don't care what the problem is this particular instance, because the pattern is clear. I indulge in such vitriolic crap too, but then I stop.

[S.Artesian]

And I can just point you to the thread that I just had to split off in worker's struggles because you were having another childish tit-for-tat spat with hindsight, or the long string of petty bullshit arguments you've been getting into with DNZ lately. It certainly seems like you're tailing each other around in a continuation of one long, horribly uninteresting personal feud.


Anyway, like I said, that is a verbal warning, and if there's any more disruption because of this I'll make a thread about it in the mod forum. I don't care what the problem is this particular instance, because the pattern is clear. I indulge in such vitriolic crap too, but then I stop.

That's funny, a bit, because you were warning Mari3L and others in that thread, claiming they were fucking it up... and while Hindsight and I certainly got into it, it was over the substantial issues, and you never issued either of us a warning.

Here you have a guy who accuses somebody of being on the side of imperialism, and then avoids the challenge to that accusation.

Had he either supported or withdrawn the accusation, then it would have stopped. He did neither.

I take it seriously when someone calls me a supporter of imperialism. If he does it again, my response will be the same.

As for splitting the thread-- you presented the thread as if I had initiated it, and you gave it your own bullshit title, without as far as I can tell, providing any explanation that these actions are in fact yours.

Plus, you decided to split the thread about a week after Hindsight and I had stopped even posting there.

All of which indicates that you're using your "power" to manifest personal displeasure.

Doesn't speak very well for your grasp of the responsibility of being a moderator.

[Die Neue Zeit]

You stand for shit. You think slave labor is a plus. You try and justify it as "primitive socialist accumulation" a la Preobrazhensky when he never advocated any such thing.

Why don't you actually dedicate your attention to the Theory thread (http://www.revleft.com/vb/prisons-community-service-t150308/index.html) on this very specific subject? :rolleyes:

There's no mention of Preobrazhensky or primitive socialist accumulation in that thread whatsoever.


In "3rd world" countries you run after the Maoists, "new democracy," the "nationalist petit-bourgeois" and every and any alternative to proletarian revolution that can be found.

That's because of the proletarian demographic minority and only because the Maoists are in the best position to fine-tune their Third World strategy: completely dump the "national" bourgeoisie on the one hand and the "working-class leadership" rhetoric on the other.

You just really hate the fact that I'm rehabilitating a person who's a warmongering strongman in gentlemen's ancient history as a "heroic" icon for what I'm advocating.


You're a fucking fraud and a liar who makes things up and then believes them. That's called being pathological, which describes you to a T. You're a fucking disease.

Wait a minute? Last time around you called me "a troll, even worse than Rosa L!" Now you're calling me a zealot. Make up your mind. :lol:


I've refuted every single claim you've made about the relationship of US capitalism to capitalism as a whole; about the role of the IMF; about austerity.

No you haven't.

[S.Artesian]

Let's go back and look at the OP. The issue posed there that the replacement of the US dollar will have negative impact on the US.

Indeed it will. However, the US dollar is not only a national currency, it is the currency of global exchange, and all fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding, no other country wants the responsibility of providing the globe with the currency for international trade.

Over 2/3 of hard currency reserves around the world are in dollars or dollar denominated instruments, and despite posturings to the opposite, the Chinese have continued to increase their holdings of dollar denominated instruments.

Replacement of the dollar cannot happen before a severe depreciation of the currency, one that makes the 40% swing in the dollar-euro exchange rate over ten years look like a walk in the park, a slo-mo walk in the park.

What do we think the impact will be on Japan, with its $700 billion or so in US Treasury holdings? China? If all those arguing that China's holdings of US debt instruments measures its ascending power, what do you think the sudden devaluation of those instruments means to China's power? Even greater ascent? With what currency supporting exports and imports? The yuan? With half the population tethered to agricultural production with average plot sizes of 1-1.5 acres?

And what happens when the yuan assumes that role and becomes fully convertible with other currencies? Don't you think currency traders will launch an assault on the yuan like they did on the baht, the rupiah, the won, etc etc during the Asian crisis of 1997-1998?

The US bourgeoisie have followed a policy of malign neglect of the dollar for ten years now, ever since the last sustained uptick in profitability ended in 1998 and was replaced by the Enron/Adelphi/WorldCom/Internet bubble that blew apart slightly before the NYC World Trade Center did.

However, when push came to shove in 2008, it was the US Fed that quite literally saved Brazil's, Europe's, Japan's bacon(s) by establishing open-ended unlimited currency swap lines to keep global exchanges, and in particular, international trade from seizing up.

Does anyone see another country or group of countries capable of doing that? willing to take over that responsibility? I don't.

We have to look beyond the eruptions of the current predicament of capital and their manifestations in currency and financial crises. We have to look into the source of that current predicament. And that is oveproduction-- the overproduction of the means of production as capital beyond the ability of capital to exploit labor at an intensity sufficient to offset a decline in the rate of profit.

That overproduction affects, despite or through its unevenness, Russia, Germany, China, Japan, Brazil, India, Italy, UK etc etc.

The predicament is not one of "overfinancialization," speculation, securitization etc etc. Those are manifestations of real declines in profitability. The financialization etc. manifestations are derivative, literally and functionally, of that decline and represent attempts to offset same.

So there is no doubt that the US can decline as the "leader" among capitalist nations-- it has already done so, outsourcing its industrial production, so that its share of global industrial production conducted on its home soil has declined by 1/3 in just over a decade, but you know what? Capitalism, and the US bourgeoisie don't just function on their "home soil."

Capitalism functions globally, and the replacement of the dollar will be accompanied by tremendous bloodletting; tremendous attempts at off-setting that global overproduction through destruction of the means of production, both the living means of production-- the workers-- and the accumulated.

Anyone who thinks the replacement of US capitalism by some "multi-polar" competing capitalisms is going to be a positive thing for workers, is not going to be bloodier than bloody; is going to be possible without attacking that underlying overproduction doesn't know what he or she is talking about and is just blowing smoke.

The alternative to cheerleading for the German bourgeoisie or that of Brazil or China is international class struggle against the bourgeoisie where ever they are. The main enemy is always at home, and the globe is the home.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Micheal Hudson talked about how the US controls the world though debt in "Superimpperialism" an interesting if not really Marxist history of US economic diplomacy.

Anyway in light of the relative decline in US hegemony could the world be in a "pre WWI" situation 20 or 30 years from now? Obviously this will be a nightmare for working people everywhere.The conventional wisdom sees a collision between the US and the PRC but I don't see how the rise of China can continue as it is. People like Samir Amin see the Shanghai Coorperation Council group contesting US hegemony but I don't think this really makes sense.

Also, what could be the economic effects of the recent tragedies in Japan? Would Japan sell off some of its foreign currency holdings to rebuild?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Anyway in light of the relative decline in US hegemony could the world be in a "pre WWI" situation 20 or 30 years from now? Obviously this will be a nightmare for working people everywhere.

How was the proliferation of mass worker-class parties in the multi-polar world before WWI a nightmare? :confused:

[Lenina Rosenweg]

In one wat of looking at it the period of 1914-1945 was a war between the US and Germany over who would inherit the British Empire. This was a period of devastating wars, counter revolutions and depressions, all "necessary" to create a new basis for global capital accumulation under US hegemony.The decline of British hegemony literally unleashed the "dogs of war". The world cannot afford another such period.

I wouldn't be optimistic about formations such as the SCC or Chavez's Fourth International. State power anywhere canot be a substitute for working class power.

The proliferation of working class parties was not as effective as they could have been in preventing this.To large extent in some cases such as the German SPD and the British Labour Party they served to anchor capitalism and put a break on the revolutionary process.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Let's go back and look at the OP. The issue posed there that the replacement of the US dollar will have negative impact on the US.

Indeed it will. However, the US dollar is not only a national currency, it is the currency of global exchange, and all fantasies to the contrary notwithstanding, no other country wants the responsibility of providing the globe with the currency for international trade.

Over 2/3 of hard currency reserves around the world are in dollars or dollar denominated instruments, and despite posturings to the opposite, the Chinese have continued to increase their holdings of dollar denominated instruments.

Replacement of the dollar cannot happen before a severe depreciation of the currency, one that makes the 40% swing in the dollar-euro exchange rate over ten years look like a walk in the park, a slo-mo walk in the park.

The Chinese have emphasized the replacement of the dollar with some pre-determined basket of currencies. :confused:


What do we think the impact will be on Japan, with its $700 billion or so in US Treasury holdings? China? If all those arguing that China's holdings of US debt instruments measures its ascending power, what do you think the sudden devaluation of those instruments means to China's power? Even greater ascent? With what currency supporting exports and imports? The yuan? With half the population tethered to agricultural production with average plot sizes of 1-1.5 acres?

And what happens when the yuan assumes that role and becomes fully convertible with other currencies? Don't you think currency traders will launch an assault on the yuan like they did on the baht, the rupiah, the won, etc etc during the Asian crisis of 1997-1998?

The yuan would devaluate, but it's still pegged in a certain range to the US dollar. With the collapse of the US dollar, the Chinese will simply peg the currency to the euro or something.


The predicament is not one of "overfinancialization," speculation, securitization etc etc. Those are manifestations of real declines in profitability. The financialization etc. manifestations are derivative, literally and functionally, of that decline and represent attempts to offset same.

You contradicted yourself.

In another thread I wrote of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, of financialization masking this, and yet you asserted that somehow corporate profits went skyrocketing.

Also, you forgot about the possibility of finance capital being subordinate to another form of capital not discussed until recently (per my earlier post): trade capital.


Capitalism functions globally, and the replacement of the dollar will be accompanied by tremendous bloodletting; tremendous attempts at off-setting that global overproduction through destruction of the means of production, both the living means of production-- the workers-- and the accumulated.

The more nuclear proliferation, the less likely the war. That doesn't take into account electromagnetic warfare and the like, but the proliferation of WMDs in general reduces the likelihood and impact of bloodletting.


Anyone who thinks the replacement of US capitalism by some "multi-polar" competing capitalisms is going to be a positive thing for workers, is not going to be bloodier than bloody; is going to be possible without attacking that underlying overproduction doesn't know what he or she is talking about and is just blowing smoke.

The alternative to cheerleading for the German bourgeoisie or that of Brazil or China is international class struggle against the bourgeoisie where ever they are. The main enemy is always at home, and the globe is the home.

You're being too economistic, not political enough.


In one wat of looking at it the period of 1914-1945 was a war between the US and Germany over who would inherit the British Empire. This was a period of devastating wars, counter revolutions and depressions, all "necessary" to create a new basis for global capital accumulation under US hegemony.The decline of British hegemony literally unleashed the "dogs of war". The world cannot afford another such period.

I wouldn't be optimistic about formations such as the SCC or Chavez's Fourth International. State power anywhere canot be a substitute for working class power.

What's the SCC? Also, it's "Fifth Socialist International," not Fourth International unless Chavez has decided to dump Trotsky and go "tankie."

Re. "dogs of war": please refer to my statement earlier in this post on the proliferation of WMDs.


The proliferation of working class parties was not as effective as they could have been in preventing this.To large extent in some cases such as the German SPD and the British Labour Party they served to anchor capitalism and put a break on the revolutionary process.

True that the original Socialist International should have been more centralized, but it's better than nothing.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

The SCC is the Shanghai Cooperation Council. Samir Amin and some people at the Monthly Review have been enthusiastic about this as an alternative to US hegemony. It is basically a modern version of the Bandung movement of the 1950s and has the same pitfalls as that movement. Relying on state power, even if a Third Worldist version, isn't the way forward.

I meant to say Chavez's Fifth International. For some reason I have Trotsky on the brain.

I also meant to say that the decline of British hegemony signalled the beginning of a huge period of global turbulence. This isn't to say of course that I would support British hegemony or US hegemony.

[S.Artesian]

The Chinese have emphasized the replacement of the dollar with some pre-determined basket of currencies.

The Chinese have "speculated" about such a basket. They have taken exactly ZERO steps concretely in that direction. The Chinese haven't emphasized anything except by, through, and with their continued purchase of US Treasury instruments, and their continued peg to the dollar. Why is that? Well regarding the US Treasury instruments, it is the only market broad enough, liquid enough, and yes... safe enough for the Peoples Bank to hold the dollars on deposit that accumulate through its international trade.

In the second case, if and as the dollar depreciates and the yuan maintains its peg, export prices remain competitive. Most Chinese medium sized exporting companies operate on very thin profit margins. Appreciation of the currency would severely damage those margins and transmit economic distress throughout the production network.




The yuan would devaluate, but it's still pegged in a certain range to the US dollar. With the collapse of the US dollar, the Chinese will simply peg the currency to the euro or something.


"or something"??? That's brilliant. Sure, that's how it will be done-- the euro or something. Yeah they'll throw darts at a fucking dartboard listing currencies and use the euro, or the yen, or the won, or the real, or rupiahs, or fuck it all, "some special basket of currencies."

I wouldn't want to disturb your water-pipe dream state, but it's not going to be that easy. You might want to look at the trillion or so dollars in US Treasury instruments China holds, and holds as, essentially demand deposits, belonging to exporters domestic and international. No, they won't "simply peg the currency to the euro or something." What you don't know about the accumulation of capital would fill volumes.



You contradicted yourself.

In another thread I wrote of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, of financialization masking this, and yet you asserted that somehow corporate profits went skyrocketing.


You're not very good with details are you? Why don't you go back and review the details of that previous thread?

In that other thread, you were denying the possibility for any recovery in the rate of profit, claiming that violated the tendency of the rate of profit to decline. Well the tendency is just that, the tendency and over the long term that is exactly what happens, and what has happened worldwide, and particularly in the US since 1970-1971.

However the tendency is not a lock-step, rigid, linear decline. It has its own cyclicality, so that in the US we see a recovery in the rate of profit in the period 1992-2000, a rate that exceeds the rate of profit in the 1981-1992 period.

And after the recession of 2001-2003, the rate of profit in industry in the US also recovers, only to peak again in 2006 and lead us to the present conditions, where in fact in 2009-2010, the rate of profit again turned up due to the tremendous lay-offs in manufacturing which drove the rate of surplus value high enough to produce and increase in the rate of profit.

Speaking of the volumes you don't know, you might want to look at Vol 3 of Capital where Marx reviews the offsetting tendencies produced by the decline of the rate of profit itself.


Also, you forgot about the possibility of finance capital being subordinate to another form of capital not discussed until recently (per my earlier post): trade capital.


No, I didn't forget about that. Merchant capital [which is what trade capital is] dominating finance capital? Sure, that's going to happen. That's why when in 2008 and 2009, Brazil's banks refused to extend letters of credit to Brazil's exporters [as the banks were furiously trying to hold onto dollar reserves] the central bank had to step in and make direct loans to exporters. And that's why the Fed had to establish open-ended currency swaps with the central bank of Brazil-- because after all, finance capital was subordinate to trade capital.

See previous comments about the volumes you do not know.


The more nuclear proliferation, the less likely the war. That doesn't take into account electromagnetic warfare and the like, but the proliferation of WMDs in general reduces the likelihood and impact of bloodletting.




Oh yes, of course, the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario writ large. And those strategies have worked so well in the past.... like WW 1, when all those naval armaments in the arsenals of England, Germany, the US, Russia all helped make that war so less likely. Likewise WW2.

Yet another example of your slavish ignorance, and your super, but inverted, Kautskyism . Where Kautsky imagined an ultra-imperialism, homogenizing all interests of capital and reducing the prospects for war [the peace dividend, I guess, he saw coming from the 2nd Intl supporting their bourgeoisies in WW1], you have flipped it around to where proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is now our best hope for peace.

Here's how that goes: 1 psychotic has a machine gun, and he kills lots of people. All psychotics have machine guns and.... they don't kill anyone because they realize.... realize what? They might get killed by the other psychotics? Or what, because every psychotic has a machine gun, having a machine gun and killing people is no longer crazy, or crazy enough?

As if... as if the capitalist economy is somehow rational in its irrationality; as if there is not an economic necessity that requires destruction of the means of production?

You forget what the core condition is driving these events-- and that is overproduction; the conflict between the means and relations of production where the means of production have accumulated to the point where they cannot sustain capital's need for expanded value by exploiting labor at a requisite intensity. When that occurs, and it emergence is cyclical, is punctuated by periods of apparent recovery, the bourgeoisie are driven to the destruction of the means of production.

[MarxistMan]

JChUO4TLjnY
George Carlin said that the game in USA is rigged, and the majority people are not in it. Wealth spreading in USA is a myth. The USA system might pay you 50,000 a year, but those 50,000 are quickly trickled up to the upper-classes thru bills and taxes. The USA casino game is rigged !!


Hello, i would like to talk about why many people in the USA out there in grocery stores, in public areas are so well damn happy. And i think that the real real reason of why many folks in the USA feel like if they are living in the beautiful part of The Matrix disconnected from their own reality, which is a very low living standard and real economic poverty is because most americans are not very educated. Low levels of education in a person or in a society leads to high levels of conformism, and of living in a fake-reality

Low levels of intelligence and knowledge in the general population of America leads people to think with their stomachs, just like many very poor nations. Many people in America think that if they are allowed to eat a lot of food, they are free.

They dont care if they are tasered by TSA agents at airports, if they are being observed all the time by cops, if NSA and CIA listens to their conversations on phone or if NSA and CIA reads their proivate e-mails, as long as they can eat a whole pizza.

And another reason is because if you take a look at the lifestyle and daily routines of most americans, they don't really need much freedom at all. The lives of americans is very insipid and repetitive. It's a life of work, chores, food TV and then dying, and basic activities like these ones do not require an environment of liberty.

Most americans are not into politics, into art, traveling, and into tourism (Activities that do require freedom). So that's why americans feel like USA is a paradise of liberty because for them liberty is driving their cars, pizza, binge-eating, TV and a very low living standard.


WHAT A NATION OF CONFORMISTS, THEY ARE ANTI-GEORGE CARLIN !!

.




In one wat of looking at it the period of 1914-1945 was a war between the US and Germany over who would inherit the British Empire. This was a period of devastating wars, counter revolutions and depressions, all "necessary" to create a new basis for global capital accumulation under US hegemony.The decline of British hegemony literally unleashed the "dogs of war". The world cannot afford another such period.

I wouldn't be optimistic about formations such as the SCC or Chavez's Fourth International. State power anywhere canot be a substitute for working class power.

The proliferation of working class parties was not as effective as they could have been in preventing this.To large extent in some cases such as the German SPD and the British Labour Party they served to anchor capitalism and put a break on the revolutionary process.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The SCC is the Shanghai Cooperation Council. Samir Amin and some people at the Monthly Review have been enthusiastic about this as an alternative to US hegemony. It is basically a modern version of the Bandung movement of the 1950s and has the same pitfalls as that movement. Relying on state power, even if a Third Worldist version, isn't the way forward.

I meant to say Chavez's Fifth International. For some reason I have Trotsky on the brain.

Slight correction as FYI for you: It's the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, not Council. ;)

Naturally I'm not putting bets on the SCO.

[Die Neue Zeit]

The Chinese have "speculated" about such a basket. They have taken exactly ZERO steps concretely in that direction. The Chinese haven't emphasized anything except by, through, and with their continued purchase of US Treasury instruments, and their continued peg to the dollar. Why is that? Well regarding the US Treasury instruments, it is the only market broad enough, liquid enough, and yes... safe enough for the Peoples Bank to hold the dollars on deposit that accumulate through its international trade.

Have you heard about Special Drawing Rights at all?

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-03-15/news/28691614_1_wen-jiabao-growth-rate-exchange-rate

"Our reforms have aimed to adopt a market-based, managed floating exchange rate regime, which is tied to a basket of foreign currencies, instead of pegging to the US dollar," Wen said.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23489


In the second case, if and as the dollar depreciates and the yuan maintains its peg, export prices remain competitive. Most Chinese medium sized exporting companies operate on very thin profit margins. Appreciation of the currency would severely damage those margins and transmit economic distress throughout the production network.

"or something"??? That's brilliant. Sure, that's how it will be done-- the euro or something. Yeah they'll throw darts at a fucking dartboard listing currencies and use the euro, or the yen, or the won, or the real, or rupiahs, or fuck it all, "some special basket of currencies."

I wouldn't want to disturb your water-pipe dream state, but it's not going to be that easy. You might want to look at the trillion or so dollars in US Treasury instruments China holds, and holds as, essentially demand deposits, belonging to exporters domestic and international. No, they won't "simply peg the currency to the euro or something." What you don't know about the accumulation of capital would fill volumes.

The simply answer to counter your argument is that the Chinese don't want runaway inflation due to uncontrolled currency devaluation. The euro, hence, is an alternative pegging option.


However the tendency is not a lock-step, rigid, linear decline. It has its own cyclicality, so that in the US we see a recovery in the rate of profit in the period 1992-2000, a rate that exceeds the rate of profit in the 1981-1992 period.

Rate of overall profit, or rate of real profit?

The government chain-weighting fudging of the CPI in the 1990s not only masks the eating away at workers' wages, it also masks declines in real profit as defined in finance parlance (adjusted for inflation).

I needn't explain the other, more Marxist aspect of "real" with respect to industrial profits vs. financialization.


No, I didn't forget about that. Merchant capital [which is what trade capital is] dominating finance capital? Sure, that's going to happen. That's why when in 2008 and 2009, Brazil's banks refused to extend letters of credit to Brazil's exporters [as the banks were furiously trying to hold onto dollar reserves] the central bank had to step in and make direct loans to exporters. And that's why the Fed had to establish open-ended currency swaps with the central bank of Brazil-- because after all, finance capital was subordinate to trade capital.

Why don't you check out that Economics thread? I merely cited Boris Kagarlitsky who cited someone else, so this take on trade/merchant capital is rather new.


Oh yes, of course, the Mutually Assured Destruction scenario writ large. And those strategies have worked so well in the past.... like WW 1, when all those naval armaments in the arsenals of England, Germany, the US, Russia all helped make that war so less likely. Likewise WW2.

Those weren't real weapons of mass destruction. Battleships were good only for coastal bombardment.


Yet another example of your slavish ignorance, and your super, but inverted, Kautskyism. Where Kautsky imagined an ultra-imperialism, homogenizing all interests of capital and reducing the prospects for war [the peace dividend, I guess, he saw coming from the 2nd Intl supporting their bourgeoisies in WW1], you have flipped it around to where proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is now our best hope for peace.

Kautsky's ultra-imperialism, notwithstanding its defects, was partially realized during the Cold War period and early "globalization."

I emphasize mass destruction for a reason.

[S.Artesian]

Have you heard about Special Drawing Rights at all?

http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-03-15/news/28691614_1_wen-jiabao-growth-rate-exchange-rate

"Our reforms have aimed to adopt a market-based, managed floating exchange rate regime, which is tied to a basket of foreign currencies, instead of pegging to the US dollar," Wen said.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=23489

Yeah, that's exactly as far as it has gone.... speeches by Wen, and not very many of those as a matter of fact. Concretely, there is no movemetn toward establishing a basket of foreign currencies, because such basket would not be usable in global trading. How would you settle trades, real trades, among private producers with "baskets of currencies"? And how would you know , in the markets, what to hedge, which currencies to hedge in the basket?

I know so much about special drawing rights that I remember the first time the notion gained currency and was actually tried out-- after the OPEC 1 price spike, 2 years after Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar for gold. OPEC tried going for payment in baskets of currencies, or in SDRs on that basket. Guess what? It was unworkable. SDRs have a function as "placeholders" in accounting, and in institutional credits-- like amounts held by the IMF for dispersal to countries seeking loans.

They have no practical applicability to international trade because the SDRs have to relate back to the values of the particular currencies in the basket, complicating settlement.

Pay attention DNZ, there's going to be a quiz at the end of class.



The simply answer to counter your argument is that the Chinese don't want runaway inflation due to uncontrolled currency devaluation. The euro, hence, is an alternative pegging option.
No that's the simple-minded answer which is simply an unsupported reiteration of your previous simple-minded assertion-- "euro or something." The reason that China won't peg to the euro, besides the fact that the Eurozone is, shall we say a little shaky in the currency union department, is that the Euro has appreciated against the dollar, and consequently export prices will rise.

If the Chinese decide to peg to the euro, the US bourgeoisie will be laughing all the way to the bank, while the EU bourgeoisie will be crying in their bieres.



The government chain-weighting fudging of the CPI in the 1990s not only masks the eating away at workers' wages, it also masks declines in real profit as defined in finance parlance (adjusted for inflation).Wow.. that sounds impressive. Until of course somebody asks you concretely what that means. Until of course somebody says, show us how in fact chain weighting the CPI masked real declines in the rate of profit in the United States in the period 1992-2000.

Why don't you show us that?

And show us, while you're at it, why or how, if workers wages in the US eroded during that period, that should mean the ROP declined also, when in fact pushing wages down is precisely one of the ways capital offsets the tendency of the rate of profit to decline?

So my next question, which is somewhat, but not completely rhetorical, is: Do you have the slightest idea what you're talking about, because all evidence points to the conclusion that you do not.



Why don't you check out that Economics thread? I merely cited Boris Kagarlitsky who cited someone else, so this take on trade/merchant capital is rather new.

Ah yes.... number 27 in the DNZ arsenal of stupid tricks, channeling Shaggy: "It wasn't me." Right you only cited Kagarlitsky who cited someone else. Meaning 1) you haven't done a shred of independent investigation before spouting off about something you do not know 2) you were content to cite without citing, without giving credit until you were challenged to defend the position.

Kind of says everything anyone needs to know about your acumen and expertise when it comes to the analysis of actual circuits of capital.

And that BTW is why I wouldn't ever participate in your coattailing economics thread-- you have nothing to contribute.




Those weren't real weapons of mass destruction. Battleships were good only for coastal bombardment.
Right. That was the problem. Not murderous enough... see WW1 wasn't lethal enough, so we had to have WW 2. And WW 2 wasn't lethal enough [just ask the Malthusians and the ZPGers]... was it?

But if everybody has weapons of mass destruction then of course nobody will use them and the world will be so much a better place.

Do you make this shit up all on your own, or are you citing someone again but not citing him/her?


Kautsky's ultra-imperialism, notwithstanding its defects, was partially realized during the Cold War period and early "globalization."
Really... evidence please? Early globalization? What period was that?

Here's the quiz:

1. During the period 1993-1997, the rate of profit for US industry:

a: rose
b: fell
c: both

2. [Fill in the blank by choosing one from the list below] During the period 1993-2000, real capital investment in US industry

a: ____ at a rate

-- rose, fell, waffled--

b: ______________ the rates for the periods 1974-1981 and 1983-1990.

--higher than , lower than, the same as

[Amphictyonis]

JChUO4TLjnY
George Carlin said that the game in USA is rigged, and the majority people are not in it. Wealth spreading in USA is a myth. The USA system might pay you 50,000 a year, but those 50,000 are quickly trickled up to the upper-classes thru bills and taxes. The USA casino game is rigged !!


Hello, i would like to talk about why many people in the USA out there in grocery stores, in public areas are so well damn happy. And i think that the real real reason of why many folks in the USA feel like if they are living in the beautiful part of The Matrix disconnected from their own reality, which is a very low living standard and real economic poverty is because most americans are not very educated. Low levels of education in a person or in a society leads to high levels of conformism, and of living in a fake-reality

Low levels of intelligence and knowledge in the general population of America leads people to think with their stomachs, just like many very poor nations. Many people in America think that if they are allowed to eat a lot of food, they are free.

They dont care if they are tasered by TSA agents at airports, if they are being observed all the time by cops, if NSA and CIA listens to their conversations on phone or if NSA and CIA reads their proivate e-mails, as long as they can eat a whole pizza.

And another reason is because if you take a look at the lifestyle and daily routines of most americans, they don't really need much freedom at all. The lives of americans is very insipid and repetitive. It's a life of work, chores, food TV and then dying, and basic activities like these ones do not require an environment of liberty.

Most americans are not into politics, into art, traveling, and into tourism (Activities that do require freedom). So that's why americans feel like USA is a paradise of liberty because for them liberty is driving their cars, pizza, binge-eating, TV and a very low living standard.


WHAT A NATION OF CONFORMISTS, THEY ARE ANTI-GEORGE CARLIN !!

.

It bothers me that you post above the post you're quoting. If you could conform to the rest of our posting style it would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yeah, that's exactly as far as it has gone.... speeches by Wen, and not very many of those as a matter of fact. Concretely, there is no movement toward establishing a basket of foreign currencies, because such basket would not be usable in global trading. How would you settle trades, real trades, among private producers with "baskets of currencies"? And how would you know , in the markets, what to hedge, which currencies to hedge in the basket?

I know so much about special drawing rights that I remember the first time the notion gained currency and was actually tried out-- after the OPEC 1 price spike, 2 years after Nixon suspended the convertibility of the dollar for gold. OPEC tried going for payment in baskets of currencies, or in SDRs on that basket. Guess what? It was unworkable. SDRs have a function as "placeholders" in accounting, and in institutional credits-- like amounts held by the IMF for dispersal to countries seeking loans.

They have no practical applicability to international trade because the SDRs have to relate back to the values of the particular currencies in the basket, complicating settlement.

I cited my sources. You didn't.


And show us, while you're at it, why or how, if workers wages in the US eroded during that period, that should mean the ROP declined also, when in fact pushing wages down is precisely one of the ways capital offsets the tendency of the rate of profit to decline?

I didn't say that declining wages necessarily mean declining profits. Here's some stuff on declining real profits in the US economy:

http://www.isj.org.uk/?id=340
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj98/hardy.htm
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3780/is_199904/ai_n8835963/


Ah yes.... number 27 in the DNZ arsenal of stupid tricks, channeling Shaggy: "It wasn't me." Right you only cited Kagarlitsky who cited someone else. Meaning 1) you haven't done a shred of independent investigation before spouting off about something you do not know 2) you were content to cite without citing, without giving credit until you were challenged to defend the position.

Kind of says everything anyone needs to know about your acumen and expertise when it comes to the analysis of actual circuits of capital.

And that BTW is why I wouldn't ever participate in your coattailing economics thread-- you have nothing to contribute.

I cited Boris Kagarlitsky who cited Michael Pokrovsky. :confused:


Right. That was the problem. Not murderous enough... see WW1 wasn't lethal enough, so we had to have WW 2. And WW 2 wasn't lethal enough [just ask the Malthusians and the ZPGers]... was it?

But if everybody has weapons of mass destruction then of course nobody will use them and the world will be so much a better place.

Do you make this shit up all on your own, or are you citing someone again but not citing him/her?

I don't have to cite anybody for the common sense of mutually assured [mass] destruction.

[S.Artesian]

I cited my sources. You didn't.

And I cited the fact that there has been no movement in the international economy to establish a basket of currencies. And that China has maintained, if not accelerated its purchase of US Treasury securities.

The US Treasury [as reported on March 1, 2011] revised its figures on holdings of its securities by China upwards by about 25% to $1.16 trillion after reviewing the purchases that had been made through brokers outside the US-- in particular in London, and revised downward its figures on UK holdings as it seems China placed a substantial amount of orders through London firms.

Does that sound like repegging to the Euro to you...or movement to a basket of currencies?

Since you like speeches by Wen Jiabao, you might refer to the one reported by the Financial Times on October 7, 2010 in which he said revaluing the reminbi would "be a disaster for the world" as it would cause "social unrest in China" due to the fact that many Chinese exporting companies have very small margins which would be wiped out. Not too put to fine a point on it.

So with the euro having appreciated considerably against the dollar over the past decade, and with the US giving every sign of welcoming further devaluation, you think Wen is going to repeg?




I didn't say that declining wages necessarily mean declining profits. Here's some stuff on declining real profits in the US economy:

And you know what those graphs show? They show a secular decline, interrupted by periods of recovery, like the 1993-1997 recovery [which was of course marked by the Asian crisis, which was followed by another recovery, but not exceeding the ROP of 1997, until 2000 when the bubble burst].

If you look at the numbers published by the US Dept of Commerce's QFR on industry, you'll discover a rate of return for 1993-2000 that exceeds the ratio for the period 1983-1990.

You can make a similar calculation based on data provide by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, utilizing corporate profits before tax, inventory valuation, and capital consumption in comparison to fixed asset values.

And you know what else? There's a recovery after the 2001-2003 recession. We call this cyclicality within structural tendency.



I don't have to cite anybody for the common sense of mutually assured [mass] destruction.

Oh.. so that's the bit of nonsense you make up all by yourself. That's good to know.