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News & ArtsFriday, December 5, 2008
Money Back to the Beginning
Posted by Charles Mudede on Fri, Dec 5, 2008 at 9:50 AM
The loss of 533,000 payroll jobs was much deeper than the 320,000 job cuts economists were forecasting. The rise in the unemployment rate, however, wasn't as steep as the 6.8 percent rate they were expecting. Taken together, though, the employment picture clearly darkening.The job reductions were the most since a whopping 602,000 positions were slashed in December 1974, when the country was in a severe recession.
A number of economists, Marxist economists, locate the birth of neoliberalism in the year of 1974. If this is the case, then we can see in the high number of jobs removed from the American economy last month the completion (or conclusion) of the dominant economic program of the past three decades. 1974 marked the birth of neoliberalism; 2008, is the year of its death.
Those who called Obama a socialist were in fact correct. He has to be socialist. Nothing is left for him or us but a return to socialism.
This is not bad news! This is a correction.
1
This is what I'm saying about socialized medicine. We can't afford to keep paying the insurance industry middleman, and we can't afford to pay for millions of people to get their primary care in the emergency room. Obama's going to have to scrap his original plan because single payer is the only thing left we can afford.
4
it's not bad news - if you aren't being laid off. our board of directors is meeting today to make the list of the next group to get the ax. the sword of damocles dangles...
5
Even if you accept 1974 as the birth of neoliberalism, then neoliberalism has had a pretty good run-- a lot longer than any socialist, or worse communist, regime. I agree that this is the death neoliberalism, and good riddance, but unfortunately for you, Charles, Marxism died a long time ago too. The implication is simply that it was not "defeated" by neoliberalism, but by the inevitable consignment of all ideology to the dustbin of history. I am hopeful that Obama represents not Socialism, but a new pragmatism that rejects the polarity of 20th century politics. The old way of thinking sees everything as a two-sided coin-- if it's not heads, it must be tails; if it's not liberal, it must be conservative; if it's not completely true, it must be completely false, if it's not good, it must be evil; if neoliberalism's not the answer, it's opposite must be. This is nonsense, of course, but it is the basis of a large amount of both thought and actual policy, especially in the last 50 or so years. In fact there are an infinite number of possible states and only one occurs at a time. History is not a coin. Viva the new pragmatism.
6
@5,
Longer than any socialist or communist regime? You might want to rethink that statement.
And those total numbers are annoying. We've lost 533,000 jobs compared to 602,000 in '74. Great. How does that compare to the total number of jobs today and in 1974?
Longer than any socialist or communist regime? You might want to rethink that statement.
And those total numbers are annoying. We've lost 533,000 jobs compared to 602,000 in '74. Great. How does that compare to the total number of jobs today and in 1974?
7
Actually, as much as it creeps me out that it's become associated with Ron Paul, Austrian school economics was thrown out the window for no good reason.
In the wake of the Great Depression, Keynes declared that the government could spend its way out of any recession, despite clear evidence that financial manipulation caused the Great Depression in the first place: i.e. that the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 sparked both the Roaring Twenties and the inevitable bubble-burst that followed. People listened to Keynes mostly because of the "do something" fallacy: (1) "We must do something!"; (2) "This is something!"; (3) "Therefore, we must do it!"
Anyways, for a less... um... Ronpaulian spin on Austrian economics, Human Action and most other works by Ludwig von Mises are pretty sharp. He was from the era before the libertarians started hobnobbing with Republicans, so he doesn't sound like an utter dickwad (unlike most people espousing libertarian ideas).
(Hayek's pretty cool too, and Rothbard can be OK but is a bit more hit-and-miss.)
In the wake of the Great Depression, Keynes declared that the government could spend its way out of any recession, despite clear evidence that financial manipulation caused the Great Depression in the first place: i.e. that the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913 sparked both the Roaring Twenties and the inevitable bubble-burst that followed. People listened to Keynes mostly because of the "do something" fallacy: (1) "We must do something!"; (2) "This is something!"; (3) "Therefore, we must do it!"
Anyways, for a less... um... Ronpaulian spin on Austrian economics, Human Action and most other works by Ludwig von Mises are pretty sharp. He was from the era before the libertarians started hobnobbing with Republicans, so he doesn't sound like an utter dickwad (unlike most people espousing libertarian ideas).
(Hayek's pretty cool too, and Rothbard can be OK but is a bit more hit-and-miss.)
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