Damn it, You Commies Might Be Right After All

[Bud Struggle]

It's time for you to get that Revolution of yours going...it seems your chance has come.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/W/WALL_STREET?SITE=CASRP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 10, 1:45 PM EDT


US stocks extend huge losses over credit concerns
By TIM PARADIS
AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) -- Wall Street extended its devastating decline Friday as investors, still seeing no resolution to the credit crisis, sold frantically and propelled the Dow Jones industrials to their eighth straight day of losses and worst week ever. Stocks gyrated in the opening minutes as a burst of buying in financial stocks spread to other sectors, but all the major indexes were down more than 4 percent by midafternoon.
The Dow was down nearly 700 points in very early trading and recovered to an advance of more than 100 before turning sharply lower again. Investors were nervously awaiting the last hour of trading, which has tended to see the heaviest selling over the past week of tremendous losses...

[Incendiarism]

We need a vanguard.

[Sentinel]

Marx said that crises happen on a regular basis in capitalism, that they are a necessary part of the system much like unemployment is. So yeah, 'we were right'..

Hopefully this current crisis will, for all the evil it brings, at least make people conscious of this fact. There is no such thing as 'eternal economic growth' within capitalism -- it's a chaotic rollercoaster.

[Bud Struggle]

Further comment from the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/09/AR2008100903425.html?hpid=topnews

The End of American Capitalism

Friday, October 10, 2008; Page A01

The worst financial crisis since the Great Depression is claiming another casualty: American-style capitalism.
Since the 1930s, U.S. banks were the flagships of American economic might, and emulation by other nations of the fiercely free-market financial system in the United States was expected and encouraged. But the market turmoil that is draining the nation's wealth and has upended Wall Street now threatens to put the banks at the heart of the U.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.
The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.
Yet the administration may feel it has no choice. Credit, the lifeblood of capitalism, ceased to flow. An economy based on the free market cannot function that way.
The government's about-face goes beyond the banking industry. It is reasserting itself in the lives of citizens in ways that were unthinkable in the era of market-knows-best thinking. With the recent takeovers of major lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and the bailout of AIG, the U.S. government is now effectively responsible for providing home mortgages and life insurance to tens of millions of Americans. Many economists are asking whether it remains a free market if the government is so deeply enmeshed in the financial system.
Given that the United States has held itself up as a global economic model, the change could shift the balance of how governments around the globe conduct free enterprise. Over the past three decades, the United States led the crusade to persuade much of the world, especially developing countries, to lift the heavy hand of government from finance and industry...

[bcbm]

Told ya so.

[Trystan]

Capitalism doesn't work. I mean it looks good on paper but it fails in practice.

[GPDP]

Capitalism doesn't work. I mean it looks good on paper but it fails in practice.

No. Stop that. That phrase is stupid. If it fails in practice, then either you did not follow the theory correctly, or the theory was no good to begin with.

[RGacky3]

The thing is, for a large large segmant of the population, the economy has always been in crisis.

That being said, Catpitalism as a whole has gone up and down, BUT the polarization has always gotten bigger, which means, even when markets are doing well, wealth distribution was getting worse. Capitalism cannot sustain itself, like Marx said, this is another example of it collapsing and the government desperately trying to save it, but the government can only save it for so long.

[Trystan]

No. Stop that. That phrase is stupid. If it fails in practice, then either you did not follow the theory correctly, or the theory was no good to begin with.

It's not really the theory but the outlandish promises the capitalists make.

[Bud Struggle]

It's not really the theory but the outlandish promises the capitalists make.

But the promise is kept for some, not in the third world of course, but for Americans--you really do have the opportunity to succeed. I worked for me so I can't say anything bad about it.

So what's the next step? To the barracades?

[PRC-UTE]

here's another one for you, comrade TomK, it's good as it highlights that this crisis is actually not a typical crisis in the cycle of boom and bust (under consumption and over production that causes contraction) but a crisis in finance capital that threatens to pull the rest down with it.



THE IRISH TIMES Friday, October 10, 2008

Anti-democratic nature of US capitalism is being exposed

Bretton Woods was the system
of global financial management set up at the end of the second World War to ensure
the interests of capital did not smother wider social concerns in post-war
democracies. It was hated by the US neoliberals - the very people who created the
banking crisis writes Noam Chomsky

THE SIMULTANEOUS unfolding of the US presidential
campaign and unravelling of the financial markets presents one of those occasions
where the political and economic systems starkly reveal their nature.Passion about
the campaign may not be universally shared but almost everybody can feel the anxiety
from the foreclosure of a million homes, and concerns about jobs, savings and
healthcare at risk.The initial Bush proposals to deal with the crisis so reeked of
totalitarianism that they were quickly modified. Under intense lobbyist pressure,
they were reshaped as 'a clear win for the largest institutions in the system . . .
a way of dumping assets without having to fail or close', as described by James
Rickards, who negotiated the federal bailout for the hedge fund Long Term Capital
Management in 1998, reminding us that we are treading familiar turf. The immediate
origins of the current meltdown lie in the collapse of the housing bubble supervised
by Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, which sustained the struggling economy
through the Bush years by debt-based consumer spending along with borrowing from
abroad. But the roots are deeper. In part they lie in the triumph of financial
liberalisation in the past 30 years - that is, freeing the markets as much as
possible from government regulation.These steps predictably increased the frequency
and depth of severe reversals, which now threaten to bring about the worst crisis
since the Great Depression.Also predictably, the narrow sectors that reaped enormous
profits from liberalisation are calling for massive state intervention to rescue
collapsing financial institutions.Such interventionism is a regular feature of state
capitalism, though the scale today is unusual. A study by international economists
Winfried Ruigrok and Rob van Tulder 15 years ago found that at least 20 companies in
the Fortune 100 would not have survived if they had not been saved by their
respective governments, and that many of the rest gained substantially by demanding
that governments 'socialise their losses,' as in today's taxpayer-financed bailout.
Such government intervention 'has been the rule rather than the exception over the
past two centuries', they conclude.In a functioning democratic society, a political
campaign would address such fundamental issues, looking into root causes and cures,
and proposing the means by which people suffering the consequences can take
effective control.The financial market 'underprices risk' and is 'systematically
inefficient', as economists John Eatwell and Lance Taylor wrote a decade ago,
warning of the extreme dangers of financial liberalisation and reviewing the
substantial costs already incurred - and proposing solutions, which have been
ignored. One factor is failure to calculate the costs to those who do not
participate in transactions. These 'externalities' can be huge. Ignoring systemic
risk leads to more risk-taking than would take place in an efficient economy, even
by the narrowest measures.The task of financial institutions is to take risks and,
if well-managed, to ensure that potential losses to themselves will be covered. The
emphasis is on 'to themselves'. Under state capitalist rules, it is not their
business to consider the cost to others - the 'externalities' of decent survival -
if their practices lead to financial crisis, as they regularly do.Financial
liberalisation has effects well beyond the economy. It has long been understood that
it is a powerful weapon against democracy. Free capital movement creates what some
have called a 'virtual parliament' of investors and lenders, who closely monitor
government programmes and 'vote' against them if they are considered irrational: for
the benefit of people, rather than concentrated private power.Investors and lenders
can 'vote' by capital flight, attacks on currencies and other devices offered by
financial liberalisation. That is one reason why the Bretton Woods system
established by the United States and Britain after the second World War instituted
capital controls and regulated currencies.*The Great Depression and the war had
aroused powerful radical democratic currents, ranging from the anti-fascist
resistance to working class organisation. These pressures made it necessary to
permit social democratic policies. The Bretton Woods system was designed in part to
create a space for government action responding to public will - for some measure of
democracy.John Maynard Keynes, the British negotiator, considered the most important
achievement of Bretton Woods to be the establishment of the right of governments to
restrict capital movement.In dramatic contrast, in the neoliberal phase after the
breakdown of the Bretton Woods system in the 1970s, the US treasury now regards free
capital mobility as a 'fundamental right', unlike such alleged 'rights' as those
guaranteed by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: health, education, decent
employment, security and other rights that the Reagan and Bush administrations have
dismissed as 'letters to Santa Claus', 'preposterous', mere 'myths'.In earlier
years, the public had not been much of a problem. The reasons are reviewed by Barry
Eichengreen in his standard scholarly history of the international monetary system.
He explains that in the 19th century, governments had not yet been 'politicised by
universal male suffrage and the rise of trade unionism and parliamentary labour
parties'. Therefore, the severe costs imposed by the virtual parliament could be
transferred to the general population.But with the radicalisation of the general
public during the Great Depression and the anti-fascist war, that luxury was no
longer available to private power and wealth. Hence in the Bretton Woods system,
'limits on capital mobility substituted for limits on democracy as a source of
insulation from market pressures'.The obvious corollary is that after the
dismantling of the postwar system, democracy is restricted. It has therefore become
necessary to control and marginalise the public in some fashion, processes
particularly evident in the more business-run societies like the United States. The
management of electoral extravaganzas by the public relations industry is one
illustration.'Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business,' concluded
America's leading 20th century social philosopher John Dewey, and will remain so as
long as power resides in 'business for private profit through private control of
banking, land, industry, reinforced by command of the press, press agents and other
means of publicity and propaganda'.The United States effectively has a one-party
system, the business party, with two factions, Republicans and Democrats. There are
differences between them. In his study Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of
the New Gilded Age, Larry Bartels shows that during the past six decades 'real
incomes of middle-class families have grown twice as fast under Democrats as they
have under Republicans, while the real incomes of working-poor families have grown
six times as fast under Democrats as they have under Republicans'.Differences can be
detected in the current election as well. Voters should consider them, but without
illusions about the political parties, and with the recognition that consistently
over the centuries, progressive legislation and social welfare have been won by
popular struggles, not gifts from above.Those struggles follow a cycle of success
and setback. They must be waged every day, not just once every four years, always
with the goal of creating a genuinely responsive democratic society, from the voting
booth to the workplace.* The Bretton Woods system of global financial management was
created by 730 delegates from all 44 Allied second World War nations who attended a
UN-hosted Monetary and Financial Conference at the Mount Washington Hotel in Bretton
Woods in New Hampshire in 1944.Bretton Woods, which collapsed in 1971, was the
system of rules, institutions, and procedures that regulated the international
monetary system, under which were set up the International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD) (now one of five institutions in the World Bank Group) and
the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which came into effect in 1945.The chief
feature of Bretton Woods was an obligation for each country to adopt a monetary
policy that maintained the exchange rate of its currency within a fixed value.The
system collapsed when the US suspended convertibility from dollars to gold. This
created the unique situation whereby the US dollar became the 'reserve currency' for
the other countries within Bretton Woods.Noam Chomsky is professor emeritus of
linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His writings on
linguistics and politics have just been collected in The Essential Chomsky , edited
by Anthony Arnove, from the New Press.

This article appeared first in the New York Times

[Led Zeppelin]

All I can say is: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH you got PWND. :D

[Trystan]

But the promise is kept for some, not in the third world of course, but for Americans--you really do have the opportunity to succeed. I worked for me so I can't say anything bad about it.


Sometimes. But that's not the only promise. With how some of these ultra-capitalists speak, they seem to really believe that the free market will solve everything if it all restrictions are removed. Kinda silly when they say communism will never work because of "human nature" (greed). Unbridled capitalism is getting fucked even harder.


So what's the next step? To the barracades?Selling papers first. :ninja:

[Bud Struggle]

Sometimes. But that's not the only promise. With how some of these ultra-capitalists speak, they seem to really believe that the free market will solve everything if it all restrictions are removed. Kinda silly when they say communism will never work because of "human nature" (greed). Unbridled capitalism is getting fucked even harder. I'm starting to think it's more like the lottery. Just enough people win so people keep on buying the damn tickets over and over.


Selling papers first. :ninja:

Communists need an INFOMERCIAL. People watch them.

[Dr Mindbender]

Communists need an INFOMERCIAL. People watch them.

great idea but how much does television airtime cost?

[Random Precision]

This will certainly make people around the world see what's up. As for the revolution, probably not this time around.

[Dr Mindbender]

This will certainly make people around the world see what's up. As for the revolution, probably not this time around.

you never know i heard lenin was sitting in a cafe somewhere being depressed about the revolution-less situation when it kicked off.

thats just it you never know when or where the red mole of history will resurface. Who would have predicted Nepal at the start of the 00's?

[Bud Struggle]

great idea but how much does television airtime cost?

It costs:

Production: $100,000 minimum, $200,000 average. That is what successful infomercial ad agencies charge to write the script, hire talent, and tape your show.
Inbound telemarketing: $2,000 to $5,000. That's how much it costs to retain a telemarketing agency and to prepare its operators to handle your calls. What you're selling had better be worth the $2.50 to $30 you'll pay for each qualified lead or order.
Testing: $10,000 minimum, $25,000 average. You'll need to test lots of time slots and markets to confirm sales projections, the effectiveness of your message, price points, and premiums. Allot two weeks. That will give you enough time to gauge direct sales and gather sales leads.
Media: $50,000/month minimum, $500,000/ month average. If your infomercial tests well, the most profitable times to run it are late nights, mornings, and Saturday and Sunday daytimes.

As far as the revolution goes it's YOU GUYS that should be starting something. You are the Lenins sitting around in the cafe.

Get going.

[Schrödinger's Cat]

Monetarism has been pretty successful, I must say. Since the New Deal, we haven't experienced one depression. Stagflation, yes, but that had just as much to do with a collapsing energy market as it did a crises in capitalism. The best thing for us would to be to elect Ron Paul and get 19th century banking up and running.

Of course I'm not that cynical to want widescale unemployment.

[Bud Struggle]

Monetarism has been pretty successful, I must say. Since the New Deal, we haven't experienced one depression. Stagflation, yes, but that had just as much to do with a collapsing energy market as it did a crises in capitalism. The best thing for us would to be to elect Ron Paul and get 19th century banking up and running.

Of course I'm not that cynical to want widescale unemployment.


Now it was true--a Depression and then a Revolution (though there wasn't any Revolution during the last Depression:rolleyes:) There would probably a billion or more people starve to death in the meanterm. The Revolution will come at a high price.

[danyboy27]

i dont think the revolution is coming, but i do thing this is a perfect time to promote left wing idea, political social and economic right inside the united state! For the first time in decade, capitalist and free market idea are weak, this is the perfect time to strike, both the taxpayer and the buisness, beccause small and medium buisness started to notice how cronyisim can fuck up their jobs. We can has indivuduals in our communities right now do something that will make people notices, i mean seriously, look at the fucking newspaper, you wont find a better argument to influcence everyones in ages, and stuff must got going fast, beccause the buzz might not last long.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

I dont think we will have a revolutiuon this time. But damn it we can instail a fuckload of class consiousness and get communism on the table.

Also to let you lads know iv joined afed and am gonna join the IWW soon so we can grab the moment by the balls.

[Dr Mindbender]

tomk has a point the common denominator between revolutions of yore is that they seem to have happened in times of crisis. I mean real crisis, not having to pay a dollar more for a loaf of bread.

Why should we expect to suffer less for our revolution?

[Comrade Stern]

Now it was true--a Depression and then a Revolution (though there wasn't any Revolution during the last Depression:rolleyes:) There would probably a billion or more people starve to death in the meanterm. The Revolution will come at a high price.

indeed revolutions are costly sometimes... but then again most the world pretty much is starving already... or just a LARGE portion of it due to a bad monetary system where 10% of people in the world hold most of the capital

[Comrade Stern]

yea i doubt revolution will come now but i believe it will be in my time or my childrens time...

[spice756]

And you know what libertarian groups are going to say bad businesses should go under and government should stay out and not reward bad businesses practis.

And when the government does bailouts ,subsidise ,state run , nationalization , money to rich or businesses it is not 100 capitalism.And just reward bad practis.:rolleyes:



.S. financial system at least partly in the hands of the government.

The Bush administration is considering a partial nationalization of some banks, buying up a portion of their shares to shore them up and restore confidence as part of the $700 billion government bailout. The notion of government ownership in the financial sector, even as a minority stakeholder, goes against what market purists say they see as the foundation of the American system.

What do they meen by minority stakeholder?

[spice756]

i dont think the revolution is coming, but i do thing this is a perfect time to promote left wing idea, political social and economic right inside the united state! For the first time in decade, capitalist and free market idea are weak, this is the perfect time to strike, both the taxpayer and the buisness, beccause small and medium buisness started to notice how cronyisim can fuck up their jobs. We can has indivuduals in our communities right now do something that will make people notices, i mean seriously, look at the fucking newspaper, you wont find a better argument to influcence everyones in ages, and stuff must got going fast, beccause the buzz might not last long.

The problem was people could not pay the loans off on their house and there was too many loans and people could not pay it off and the banks are not doing well now.

The IT bubble is gone ,the housing bubble is gone and what is next credit card bubble .Yap people go to store charge this and charge that that is going come to end next.

The US economy is going from a manufactoring sector to a service sector .

The American dream coming to a end!! In the old days if you had no money you could not buy it and now you don't need money we got credit card and loans.People are debt for life.

Wake up people it was false American dream everyone going have house and drive a SUV.That time is over we are in so much debt and loans do to are greed and false American dream that everyone is going have house and drive SUV.

Back to old days or revolution!!

[Die Neue Zeit]

you never know i heard lenin was sitting in a cafe somewhere being depressed about the revolution-less situation when it kicked off.

thats just it you never know when or where the red mole of history will resurface. Who would have predicted Nepal at the start of the 00's?

It won't come until mid-century, when the inter-imperialist tensions WILL be worse than they are now. Nobody wants to nuke anybody, but then there's electronic warfare, electromagnetic bombs, etc.

"The road to power" traverses through inter-imperialist conflict.

[Kwisatz Haderach]

But the promise is kept for some, not in the third world of course, but for Americans--you really do have the opportunity to succeed. I worked for me so I can't say anything bad about it.
The fact that the promise is kept for some isn't really saying much... even the worst economic system will be good for some people.

[Drace]

Well considering Americans still think the definition of communism is "An evil nations in which the government controls everything"...and also that the state still has control of the media and can always bring about this kind of propaganda...

then were screwed.

[EvigLidelse]

This didn't happen because of the capitalistic system, and there are as always other ways to solve this than to overthrow capitalism.

[Plagueround]

This didn't happen because of the capitalistic system,

A financial crash caused by bad investment and fictional capital wasn't caused by the capitalistic system? What caused it then? Dragons?

[F9]

hey TomK you sound like you are encouraging us!What would you do if first thing in the morning tomorrow all your workers revolt take guns and take over "your" company?
You would encourage them?:ohmy:Give it to them from now!No wo/man has to hurt! :)
Really now,i dont see any revolution coming this time around, though i see it as a HUGE opportunity of starting building class-consciousness inside proletarians!

Fuserg9:star:

[Bilan]

A financial crash caused by bad investment and fictional capital wasn't caused by the capitalistic system? What caused it then? Dragons?

Yes.

-------

Also, I find it interesting how everyone is saying "not this time around".
Why? There's is no certainty, only opportunity. Seize it.

[Bud Struggle]

hey TomK you sound like you are encouraging us!What would you do if first thing in the morning tomorrow all your workers revolt take guns and take over "your" company?
You would encourage them?:ohmy:Give it to them from now!No wo/man has to hurt! :)

Of course I'm encouraging you! I want to be minister of propaganda after the Revolution.:lol: As far as "giving" people things right now--I'm against that. People should EARN what they have.


Really now,i dont see any revolution coming this time around, though i see it as a HUGE opportunity of starting building class-consciousness inside proletarians!
Fuserg9:star:

In the blinkered world of American politics--a vote for Obama is a vote for class consciousness.

[RGacky3]

Well considering Americans still think the definition of communism is "An evil nations in which the government controls everything"...and also that the state still has control of the media and can always bring about this kind of propaganda...

then were screwed.

Then don't call it Communism.

[Trystan]

A financial crash caused by bad investment and fictional capital wasn't caused by the capitalistic system? What caused it then? Dragons?

According to the libertarian right it was the government, which is responsible for all our other problems, too.

[Bud Struggle]

The Dow's up 600+ today.

Call off the Revolution. :(:lol:

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ You of all people should know that the stock markets are by no means an indicator of economic health, given that they, as markets for trading minority shareholdings, pale in comparison to the bond markets.

[Plagueround]

As far as "giving" people things right now--I'm against that. People should EARN what they have.


Agreed. Time to cut loose the bosses and shareholders! :lol:

[Mindtoaster]

^^^ You of all people should know that the stock markets are by no means an indicator of economic health, given that they, as markets for trading minority shareholdings, pale in comparison to the bond markets.

They're rally only an indication of the mood of investors. The rise is an indication that investors are hopeful due to the g7 meeting over the weekend to solve the economic crisis.... It'll probably plummet again.

[Mindtoaster]

heh.... And two days later it plummets again. Down closed at -733 points today

[Bud Struggle]

heh.... And two days later it plummets again. Down closed at -733 points today

My guess it will go down to 7000. On the other hand these losses today are from "profit" takers.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

These crises have been going on now for well over 200 years; why have the cappies only now woken up?

[Bud Struggle]

These crises have been going on now for well over 200 years; why have the cappies only now woken up?

Excellent point...this IS Capitalism. Crisis after crisis. Or in a less hysterical mode--problem after problem. Always solved, then always moving on to new challenges.

It could go on like this forever, you know...maybe that why you Commies need a Revolution.

But how to spark it...I don't have a clue.