Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Madelyn Murray O'Hair called the devil "a nice guy" on I believe it was Merv Griffin's show; and the whole multicultural left (who I assume are atheists) makes excuses for Muslim misogyny and homophobia at every turn.

If atheists - or at least those who speak publicly - observed a "Fairness Doctrine," I would be more favorably disposed to them.

Nobody cares about your opinion, and what I've called your mid-century Italian-American collectivism "yeah George Meany is just the greatest!" is quickly spiraling into the political fringe.

Originally Posted by B Butler

I think Reagan introduced a big change. Traditionally, economic conservatives would pay their bills, not run a deficit....From Reagan on, the "economic conservatives" seem to believe that if deficit spending stimulates the economy in bad times, it must be a fine thing in good times as well. They have been stimulating the economy with more and more debt come rain or come shine. This to me is not 'conservative'. It is reckless and stupid.

I address this in my first posts. No it is not conservative, but is a policy of the Right. Republicans have always been a party of the industrial capitalist elite, which since the Civil War have been part (and most of the time the dominant part) of the ruling class, which makes them a part of the Right. The Republican attitude towards deficits is based on fear of inflation. When real interest rates were maintained low levels in order to stimulate growth as they were before 1980, balanced budgets were need to prevent an outbreak of inflation. After 1980 interest rate policy (adjusting interest rates to crush jobs and squash wage gains so as to suppress inflationary forces) made deficits independent of inflation. It was now possible to have your cake (low inflation) and eat it too (slash taxes & run deficits). Republican goals did not change, they remained just as anti-inflation after 1980 as they were before, the facts on the ground changed. Given a choice between low inflation and low taxes and low inflation and high taxes.

Strong economic growth is inflationary because it leads to low unemployment, and pressure for wage gains. A strong hand for workers promotes union growth. Republicans oppose all this. Obviously they cannot say they are anti-growth, because that's not PC. So they call their low-growth policy "Pro-growth". Plenty of people buy it.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

I think that is pretty telling about him, assuming he actually was a real person and not a composite of about a half dozen Jewish Messiahs running around Palestine at the time.

It is pretty universally agreed among historians that he was a single person. The New Testament mentions two other "messiahs" at around the same time as Jesus, John the Baptist and "the Egyptian". Josephus mentions others a generation before and after Jesus along with Jesus.

...it was the very real fear of open class warfare...that caused the Lost-GI elite to behave the way they did

I don't think so. There WAS real fear of revolution in the years around 1920. Elites perceived the "troubles" as being stirred up as foreign-born agitators. In response, they practically shut down immigration over 1921-24. For 100 years rank-and-file Americans had been objecting, sometime violently to excessive immigration, and their elected officials ignored them, but when elites perceived immigration might be a threat to them, and not just working people, Bam! they shut the door. This is the thesis of Kitty Calavita whom unfortunately I haven't been able to read for myself because the university library doesn't have her book. Restricting immigration solved the internal violence problem and the revolutionary conditions faded away.

What cause the unusual behavior of elites in the 40's through 70's, was that capitalism entered a crisis phase after 1907. It first manifest when capitalists started to note that it was not enough to minimize cost while maximizing production. You have to sell what you make. In the 19th century it had been "field of dreams" economics, if you make they will buy it. By the 1920's marketing (the business discipline that deals with trying to promote sales of your product) and Madison Avenue had emerged. IN 1926 Henry Ford wrote a book in which he noted that high wages are part of good business for they will help insure that you can sell what you make. Your own workers should be your best customers. They did not quite understand the dimensions of the problem, but they were feeling around the edges. Then came 1929.

What happened after 1929 just blew their socks off. People like to think there was a huge bubble in 1929. The fact was the market was not nearly as high as it had been in 1901, 1906, and 1909, and none of those market corrections had done what 1929 did. If you look at the market level after adjusting for the effects of the capitalist crisis 1929 was way higher than anything seen before. But they didn't know that. So they were completely blindsided by what happened. The response of the Hoover administration used the best available mainstream economic thinking with a distinctively progressive flavor, and the result was initially promising, but ended up very bad, and a catastrophe for his party.

The Old Regime fell right there and then. And a new regime arose. An analogous historical example is the Battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. Richard III was killed and the House of Lancaster was defeated; the House of Tudor took over. The party of industrial capitalists was defeated and replaced by the party of Mandarins and dissident capitalists. It was an intra-elite split. The old ruling order had failed to address the problems and the result was economic collapse, that if not dealt with would eventually lead to a revolutionary situation (Marxists had a ready-made explanation for what had happened). But no revolutionary situation developed, the "new men" began trying anything they could think of (that wasn't too left) to address the crisis before one could emerge.

The mostly Lost managers of the New Deal institutions solved the capitalist crisis by (1) legalizing strikes (2) massively increasing government spending financed by very high taxes and (during the war) printing money, (3) preventing inflation with price controls and wage controls managed so as to flatten the wage structure. The controls went away after 1945, but the high taxes and strong unions remained.

Whether they knew it or not they had hit on the solution to the capitalist crisis (reduce economic inequality). Since elites occupy the top of the wealth structure, they do not like to think of themselves as the cause of their problems. But "over production of elites" is the principal cause of all state collapses that end secular cycles.

As long as the Lost remained in charge the solution held. Once they were gone, things fell apart, the center did not hold. Republican capitalist elites regained power. And that is where we are today. In the generations after the Lost, mandarins and industrial capitalists merged together to form our modern mandarin capitalist elites. It was natural, they attended the same elite schools, worked in the same institutions, and intermarried. So we are back in the 1920's with mandarin capitalists like Bill Clinton about as aware of our current problems as their industrial capitalists predecessors were.

We are in the early stages of a new capitalist crisis, same as the old one, that showed up a few years after 2000. So far it has had no impact on elites. Like in the 1920's they dimly perceive a problem which is manifested as an acceleration in the importance of marketing (isn't that kinda the main focus of the internet these days?) We haven't had our 1929 moment yet. But the stock market is now reaching 1929-like levels* (when adjusted for the effect of the capitalist crisis). In ordinary terms the market does not look all that high.

Based on this thesis I am predicting a 10,000 point drop in the Dow. We will see what happens. I would also predict that of this drop happens, and it is accompanied by another financial panic, there will be head scratching amongst our current batch of elites. And after a bit of time, maybe some fear. And then maybe there will be a motivation towards doing something. Fixing these crises ain't rocket science.

*We were at this level in 2000 and nothing bad happened afterward. Bubbles are necessarily, but not sufficient for problems. And we had a panic in 2008, but nothing bad (wrt elites) happened afterward, panics are also necessary but not sufficient for problems.

My predictions on this are well-known - but in case anyone needs a refresher course: With or without a Republican victory in 2016 - but even more likely with one - we will go on one last laissez-faire binge, which will come to a grinding screeching, halt, for symmetry's sake, in October of 2019; but this time around, armed with the knowledge of how well "military Keynesianism" works, a pretext for war will be conveniently found, at a guess within six to nine months. Exactly how extensive that war will be does depend on who is in power: If it's Hillary, look for a general-mobilization scenario, with its egalitarian draft and "war socialism." If it's the Republicans, it will be a "have our cake and eat it too" approach to war - and that could very well set off a "collaborationist revolution," with the revolutionaries openly collaborating with the enemy, the destigmatization of treason from the Boomer Awakening having come full circle.

The only thing that can go "wrong" - that is, make me take this set of predictions back - is if Hillary is defeated in the Democratic primary, and whoever will have defeated her then goes on to win the general election.

Originally Posted by B Butler

I'm not confident I understand what you are saying here. I know I was already disappointed with Obama when he started appointing Wall Street insiders to all the important financial posts. This to me said the "Change" propaganda was talk, there would be no action. I sort of understood when he avoided picking fights he wasn't going to win. I understood, but wasn't pleased. The Democrats win the presidency promising things like "Hope" and "Change." If they want a critical mass of The People behind them, they have to at least try to deliver.

These expectations come from what I will call the Brian Rush model, that change percolates up from the bottom, as opposed to the Dave Kaiser model, that change requires elite leadership and so individuals matter too. It's an ancient debate, historical forces versus "Great Man" theories of history.

In my view historical forces provide the background, the terrain on which history is acted upon (so this is Rushian). From Chas I took Shakespeare's idea that all the world's a stage and started looking at turnings as acts in a drama in which different individuals, all elites, play roles that are affected by their stages in life (i.e. generation). From Dave I got the idea that generations (of elites) create history. Elites need manpower to effect change. In warlord times, warrior would flock to a charismatic and competent lord. Money is the "sinews of war" and so elites had to be rich. As the warlord society became organized in the Feudal state, lords became official figures with retainers. Power now depended in wealth, which came from land. Elites were landowners. With the invention of capitalists, capitalism provide an alternate route to elite status outside of warfare or political patronage. With the development of modern democracy, manpower in the form of fighters was (usually) replaced with voters in elections.

4Ts are showdowns between elite factions. Some 4T, are "mega 4Ts". These are those that end secular cycles (the Wars of the Roses, the Glorious Revolution in Britain) and the Revolution and the Depression-WW II in the US. (The Civil War may be one too, but I have not made the case for that yet. One of the ideas I am toying with is that the secular cycle collapsed into the saeculum after industrialization/rise of democracy and that what we call the civil war anomaly is a manifestation of this, but this is speculative).

Secular cycles are also cycles in inequality. What stops the rising part of inequality cycles is a mega 4T. Mega 4Ts happen when the space inhabited by elites becomes too crowded and they duke it out, each side enlist support from non-elites. Today that support is electoral. Obama disappointed you because the 4T that began with his election has so far not been a mega 4T. The reason why is simply. Elites do not yet feel crowded. They are still doing fine (have you seen the stock market). What are the prospects of elite millennials today. Do not graduates of Ivy League school pretty much have it made? Is they any opposition by non-elite millennials who are being exploited mercilessly by their elite peers in the so-called "sharing economy"? Seems to me that "elite space" is still pretty roomy. Of course a market crash and 15% unemployment might make things fell a bit more crowded.

On the turning theory side, there ought to be a difference between 4T leadership and 1T leadership. 4T leaders are desperately trying to find stuff that works. They go all out until the problems are fixed.

Exactly, but leaders need a motive. A "problem" is not a problem until elites perceive it to be a threat to their status.

Obama feels more 3T.

Or he could be a non-mega 4T figure (e.g. Armada or Plague Crisis).

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

If it's the Republicans, it will be a "have our cake and eat it too" approach to war.

A have our cake and eat it to approach won't solve the problem. This is what Hoover tried. War doesn't work. They tried that in WW I, it had zero effect. They had their war, they ended the threat of revolution it spawned and the economy still collapsed. Sure, for the few years the war is ongoing, we will have an inflationary false prosperity. Profits will go up, wages too, but so will prices. Then after the Chinese pull the plug on war finance, assets tank and we have full-scale depression. Then what?

Keynesian stimulus won't work anymore. The only way out for the existing ruling class is going old-school like Putin. The alternative is new people like the New Dealers (if we are lucky) or Lenin/Hitler (if we are less lucky) or ISIS (if we are SOL). So you have to ask yourself, non-elite person, do you feel lucky?

Originally Posted by Mikebert

It is pretty universally agreed among historians that he was a single person. The New Testament mentions two other "messiahs" at around the same time as Jesus, John the Baptist and "the Egyptian". Josephus mentions others a generation before and after Jesus along with Jesus.

I am agnostic on the Jesus was a real person theory and the Jesus is a composite messiah theory. Mostly because I don't care, but also because it is so ancient that it is likely unknowable, the sands have time have buried the evidence.

As to much of the rest of the post I would say that it contained good scolarship but fails to discount the power of fear in the minds of elites (they remain humans after all). The marxists provided a ready made solution to the crisis in capitalism should it not be solved. That solution is of course a socialist revolution.

In the current context though, I don't think a similar situation will get us out of trouble this time. Automation has reduced the need for human labor in production (and this will hold as long as energy and machines are cheaper than paying a man to do the job). Add to this that the US had the great advantage of not being devastated by the last world war--that isn't true now--and well I'm not seeing a solution other than heads on pikes.

Assuming your predictions are true, and they seem sound, I would say that should the GOP get the white house in 2016 we are likely to see the rejection of Reaganism. What comes after it is anyone's guess though. The fact remains that capitalism no matter how it is reformed though always seeks to reset to the default setting. Engels' Gravedigger Theory of Capitalism remains true.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

A have our cake and eat it to approach won't solve the problem. This is what Hoover tried. War doesn't work. They tried that in WW I, it had zero effect. They had their war, they ended the threat of revolution it spawned and the economy still collapsed. Sure, for the few years the war is ongoing, we will have an inflationary false prosperity. Profits will go up, wages too, but so will prices. Then after the Chinese pull the plug on war finance, assets tank and we have full-scale depression. Then what?

That's actually not what I meant; what I did mean is that the Republicans would treat the conflict as just another episode of international pest control, so as to avoid general mobilization and its inherent "redistributive" effects. And "zero effect" during World War I? Unemployment plummeted as far during World War I as it did during World War II - to less than 2 per cent, and also set the Great Black Migration from the rural South to the urban North in motion.

Keynesian stimulus won't work anymore. The only way out for the existing ruling class is going old-school like Putin. The alternative is new people like the New Dealers (if we are lucky) or Lenin/Hitler (if we are less lucky) or ISIS (if we are SOL). So you have to ask yourself, non-elite person, do you feel lucky?

But even if you're right, Hillary - unlike Obama - could justify an anti-Muslim war on the grounds of the Islamic extremists' misogyny and homophobia, and justify a full-bore U.S.-Israeli alliance on the grounds of the Jews' centuries of contribution to contemporary progressive thought.

With this in mind, a Hillary vs. Rand Paul matchup in 2016 will directly lead to the emergence of a new national liberalism - in that it would forge an alliance of the neoconservatives with the economic progressives, and maybe even an alliance of the neoconservatives with the social-issues progressives as well (if the Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage, the Culture Wars could effectively be over).

Originally Posted by Einzige

Nobody cares about your opinion, and what I've called your mid-century Italian-American collectivism "yeah George Meany is just the greatest!" is quickly spiraling into the political fringe.

That's not true. I enjoy reading what '58 Flat has to say and I'm sorry about his accident last winter. That said, I don't agree with many of his perspectives. I do find them interesting...

Originally Posted by Kinser79

I am agnostic on the Jesus was a real person theory and the Jesus is a composite messiah theory. Mostly because I don't care, but also because it is so ancient that it is likely unknowable, the sands have time have buried the evidence.

As to much of the rest of the post I would say that it contained good scholarship but fails to discount the power of fear in the minds of elites (they remain humans after all). The marxists provided a ready made solution to the crisis in capitalism should it not be solved. That solution is of course a socialist revolution.

In the current context though, I don't think a similar situation will get us out of trouble this time. Automation has reduced the need for human labor in production (and this will hold as long as energy and machines are cheaper than paying a man to do the job). Add to this that the US had the great advantage of not being devastated by the last world war--that isn't true now--and well I'm not seeing a solution other than heads on pikes.

Assuming your predictions are true, and they seem sound, I would say that should the GOP get the white house in 2016 we are likely to see the rejection of Reaganism. What comes after it is anyone's guess though. The fact remains that capitalism no matter how it is reformed though always seeks to reset to the default setting. Engels' Gravedigger Theory of Capitalism remains true.

The thing about laissez-faire, supply-side, Social Darwinism etc. is that it can always be made to at least appear to be working, for a time - and Rand Paul's tax-reform proposal has the public-relations "spoonful of sugar" of cutting taxes on the poor to help the "medicine" of a huge tax cut on the rich go down, going for it.

18,000? By the summer of 2019 you might see 60,000 on the DJIA - but then ...

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

That's not true. I enjoy reading what '58 Flat has to say and I'm sorry about his accident last winter. That said, I don't agree with many of his perspectives. I do find them interesting...

Thanks, you're so sweet!

But two very prominent public figures have all of a sudden given my "vision," such as it is, a realistic shot of becoming reality once again:

Hillary Rodham Clinton - and Pope Francis.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

The thing about laissez-faire, supply-side, Social Darwinism etc. is that it can always be made to at least appear to be working, for a time - and Rand Paul's tax-reform proposal has the public-relations "spoonful of sugar" of cutting taxes on the poor to help the "medicine" of a huge tax cut on the rich go down, going for it.

18,000? By the summer of 2019 you might see 60,000 on the DJIA - but then ...

Ultimately I think the DJIA is not that important really until and unless a drop in that makes the Elites feel pain. You are right about laissezfaire, supply side economics and Social Darwinism though. Rand Paul has the right idea about simplifying the tax code but I don't think he's going about it the right way. Flat taxes are pretty much dumb, the rich need to be taxed more on income to force them to "hide" their money in capital and in businesses.

I think we're in agreement on that issue though.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

My predictions on this are well-known - but in case anyone needs a refresher course: With or without a Republican victory in 2016 - but even more likely with one - we will go on one last laissez-faire binge, which will come to a grinding screeching, halt, for symmetry's sake, in October of 2019; but this time around, armed with the knowledge of how well "military Keynesianism" works, a pretext for war will be conveniently found, at a guess within six to nine months. Exactly how extensive that war will be does depend on who is in power: If it's Hillary, look for a general-mobilization scenario, with its egalitarian draft and "war socialism." If it's the Republicans, it will be a "have our cake and eat it too" approach to war - and that could very well set off a "collaborationist revolution," with the revolutionaries openly collaborating with the enemy, the destigmatization of treason from the Boomer Awakening having come full circle.

The only thing that can go "wrong" - that is, make me take this set of predictions back - is if Hillary is defeated in the Democratic primary, and whoever will have defeated her then goes on to win the general election.

Not far off. The stars predict war in Dec. 2020 or Jan.2021. Hillary's last month of a first term.

A Republican victory is possible in Nov.2016, if it's Bush or even Rubio against Hillary Clinton, but I still think a Hillary victory is more-likely.

If we go to war, an anti-war collaboration is possible; however, it's hard to see that if the opponent turns out to be Islamic State militants. Remember though, even if a war starts in 2020, the American War cycle is highly reliable. This indicates US involvement only by 2025.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

One of the ideas I am toying with is that the secular cycle collapsed into the saeculum after industrialization/rise of democracy and that what we call the civil war anomaly is a manifestation of this, but this is speculative).

Which was my idea, more or less.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

No far off. The stars predict war in Dec. 2020 or Jan.2021. Hillary's last month of a first term.

A Republican victory is possible in Nov.2016, if it's Bush or even Rubio against Hillary Clinton, but I still think a Hillary victory is more-likely.

If we go to war, an anti-war collaboration is possible; however, it's hard to see that if the opponent turns out to be Islamic State militants. Remember though, even if a war starts in 2020, the American War cycle is highly reliable. This indicates US involvement only by 2025.

But how could the revolutionaries possibly win without foreign help? If not necessarily directly from ISIS, then certainly from the oil-rich Arab sheikhdoms, etc., some of which may even have gotten overthrown by ISIS or similar Islamists.

And 2025 figures to be the end date of the Crisis era - and it could prove to be the "end date" of a lot more than that, as in America's great-power status, or even post-medieval "modernity," which would then need to be renamed.

Originally Posted by Kinser79

As to much of the rest of the post I would say that it contained good scolarship

Thank you

but fails to discount the power of fear in the minds of elites (they remain humans after all).

I haven't found evidence of this. To have a revolution you need a revolutionary situation. One indicator of this is internal instability. Using a database that contains over 1500 events of political instability in America over 1780-2010, I find an average of 6.6 events and 14 fatalities annually over 1930-45 compared to 20.2 events 132 fatalities over 1908-23. This difference is statistically significant at the 0.004 level.

Another piece of evidence is the revolutionary mood in other countries. Around WW I there were revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary. All were leftist in nature. After this period, the revolutionary spirit of the coups in Italy (Fascist), Germany (Nazi) Spain (Falangist) was on the right. THe only one of these three in place in 1932 was the Fascists in Italy, were were widely admired by right and center-right American intellectuals.

There was a real challenge to the New Deal from Huey Long, who polling in 1933 suggested could play a spoiler role similar to that played by T Roosevelt against the Republicans. The consequence of this would be a Republican victory. Long was no threat to the capitalist elite.

In conclusion I see no immediate threat of revolution at the time of the New Deal. Granted if the Depression had persisted for a couple of decades this could change, but it did not.

The marxists provided a ready made solution to the crisis in capitalism should it not be solved.

I noted that.

Automation has reduced the need for human labor in production (and this will hold as long as energy and machines are cheaper than paying a man to do the job).

From the early 1800's to the 1930's the number of hours worked fell from around 70 to 40. Had the trend continued it would be in the in the mid 20's now. So lets imagine a 24 hr worker week (you have to pay overtime for more than that) with a minimum wage of $17 (this is the $11.50 level established by the NWLB in 1944 adjusted for the shorter workweek). Since working folks are already used to working multiple 10-25 hour jobs paying about half of this $17, this is bound to increase weekly incomes of workers at the bottom. Also it will shrink the amount of work that can be supplied by the existing low-wage workforce. But most of the jobs low-wage workers do are not easy to automate. Waitstaff at bars and restaurants are expensive to replace with robots. The closet thing I can up with for the economic value of a robot would be the value of a slave in 1860--about $160,000 today. You are a restaurant manager. Assume you have choice between buying human help at $17/hour ($26.50 if worked more than 24 hours) or buying robots at $160K a pop (with a $16K annual charge for maintenance). Figure your robots will be down about 10% of the time. What do you chose?

Let's add the top 91% tax rates over 1952-63, which apply to incomes above $4.5 million today. The 71% bracket begins at 900K. The current top rate of 39% begins at 210K. (Today its at 250 K). The "middle class" rate of 25% begins at $48.6K in 1963 it was 60K.Assume we can keep the exiisting structure below 250K and above that use the rates and brackets from 1963.

All of this is tried and true, conservative even, policy--and yet it sounds radical. Here's the kicker, return on capital over 1910-1929 was 5.4% compared to 9.4% for 1945-1965. The New Dealer indeed "saved" capitalism and Lost capitalists were award of the fact that when THEY had tried to fix problem they fucked it up royally, whereas the New Dealers, "class traitors" that they were, pulled the capitalist's ass out of the sling into which they had inserted themselves.

Over the past 20 years return on capital has been about 7.7%, about the same as the 7.4% between 1870 and 1910. But these figures were before the capitalist crisis took effect (which hasn't happened yet). When it does, returns will fall like they did last time, and capitalists will be looking for a solution like last time. The Republican party offers nothing but the capitalist propaganda for consumption by the masses. None of that shit will work. They will have a choice. Resist and let the economy fall into a two-decade depression that will (eventually) bring about the revolutionary situation you envision or grudgingly accept that they will have to accept whater the "neo-New Dealers" come up with (that is, not assassinate or gulag their leaders).

Add to this that the US had the great advantage of not being devastated by the last world war--that isn't true now--and well I'm not seeing a solution other than heads on pikes.

I see you have also been drinking the capitalist Kool-aid on this. Amazing that capitalist propaganda will work even on a Marxist. They ARE good. I was fully in the tank with this for decades.

Assuming your predictions are true, and they seem sound, I would say that should the GOP get the white house in 2016 we are likely to see the rejection of Reaganism.

How would that work. Reagan is a deity to them. The GOP is full of politicians who can sing the God, guns, and Law n' Order anthem and keep getting elected no matter how bad the economy gets. They hate the Wall Streeters and don't need the capitalist money.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

I meant that the Republicans would treat the conflict as just another episode of international pest control, so as to avoid general mobilization and its inherent "redistributive" effects.

I understood that.

And "zero effect" during World War I? Unemployment plummeted as far during World War I as it did during World War II - to less than 2 per cent, and also set the Great Black Migration from the rural South to the urban North in motion.

yes, but what did it do about the capital crisis? Haven't you noticed the shitty economic performance in recent decades? Same thing then, and WW I didn't do bupkis about that, and the result of that failure was was happened after 1929.

But even if you're right, Hillary - unlike Obama - could justify an anti-Muslim war on the grounds of the Islamic extremists' misogyny and homophobia, and justify a full-bore U.S.-Israeli alliance on the grounds of the Jews' centuries of contribution to contemporary progressive thought.

Which would do NOTHING to solve the economy problem. Wars are not magic economy-fixers. They can give carte blanche to economy fixers to act, but you still need fixers. Republicans have none. They had all the opportunity to fix the problem last time and they did not. They have had the same opportunity to fix the problem this time and have even fought tooth and nail to make sure that no solution is implemented. So when things fall apart they will again be gob-smacked.

With this in mind, a Hillary vs. Rand Paul matchup in 2016 will directly lead to the emergence of a new national liberalism .

First of all Rand Paul is as likely to win the Republican nomination as Donald Trump. Even so, I don't see how this will lead to National liberalism. Clinton would win by a large margin, and it would be status quo.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

Thank you

Sound scholarship does not mean I necessarily agree with you. Personally I don't think that the stock market matters that much in the grand scheme of things.

I haven't found evidence of this. To have a revolution you need a revolutionary situation. One indicator of this is internal instability. Using a database that contains over 1500 events of political instability in America over 1780-2010, I find an average of 6.6 events and 14 fatalities annually over 1930-45 compared to 20.2 events 132 fatalities over 1908-23. This difference is statistically significant at the 0.004 level.

Another piece of evidence is the revolutionary mood in other countries. Around WW I there were revolutions in Russia, Germany and Hungary. All were leftist in nature. After this period, the revolutionary spirit of the coups in Italy (Fascist), Germany (Nazi) Spain (Falangist) was on the right. THe only one of these three in place in 1932 was the Fascists in Italy, were were widely admired by right and center-right American intellectuals.

There was a real challenge to the New Deal from Huey Long, who polling in 1933 suggested could play a spoiler role similar to that played by T Roosevelt against the Republicans. The consequence of this would be a Republican victory. Long was no threat to the capitalist elite.

In conclusion I see no immediate threat of revolution at the time of the New Deal. Granted if the Depression had persisted for a couple of decades this could change, but it did not.

I agree that to have a revolution you need a revolutionary situation--and such did not exist in the US during the 1930s. However, the fear of a revolution and having a revolutionary situation leading to revolution do not need to meet the same criteria. My point was that the Lost-GI elite had good reason to fear a revolution even if no such revolutionary situation would arise (and of course how could they know one wouldn't?). What I'm getting at is that they feared one because they saw the USSR rapidly industrializing with full employment and so on...it was how shall we say attractive to the proletarian masses.

I noted that.

Indeed and the solution remains the same in essence.

From the early 1800's to the 1930's the number of hours worked fell from around 70 to 40. Had the trend continued it would be in the in the mid 20's now. So lets imagine a 24 hr worker week (you have to pay overtime for more than that) with a minimum wage of $17 (this is the $11.50 level established by the NWLB in 1944 adjusted for the shorter workweek). Since working folks are already used to working multiple 10-25 hour jobs paying about half of this $17, this is bound to increase weekly incomes of workers at the bottom. Also it will shrink the amount of work that can be supplied by the existing low-wage workforce. But most of the jobs low-wage workers do are not easy to automate. Waitstaff at bars and restaurants are expensive to replace with robots. The closet thing I can up with for the economic value of a robot would be the value of a slave in 1860--about $160,000 today. You are a restaurant manager. Assume you have choice between buying human help at $17/hour ($26.50 if worked more than 24 hours) or buying robots at $160K a pop (with a $16K annual charge for maintenance). Figure your robots will be down about 10% of the time. What do you chose?

1st, in most of the lower paying jobs you'll find that most people max out at about 30 hours a week already (mostly this is due to the definition of full time by the ACA--and a good thing in my book).

2nd. I'd love a $17/hour minimum wage. Of course I'm a living wage proponent. I would also like to point out that if it were up to me I would end the practice of tipping as well. I've always felt that shibboleth was stupid.

3rd. If the choice is to hire a robot (assuming such technology exists at some point--it doesn't currently) we're looking at some maths here.

A waitress at $17/hour for 24 hours/week would run $408 gross pay/week. Times 52 weeks comes to $21,216/per year or 13.26% of the cost of a robot (assuming the capital value would be similar to a slave in 1860). As such only a fool would automate in that case, however, that leaves open the possibility that the capital cost of said robots could be reduced at some point.

Let's add the top 91% tax rates over 1952-63, which apply to incomes above $4.5 million today. The 71% bracket begins at 900K. The current top rate of 39% begins at 210K. (Today its at 250 K). The "middle class" rate of 25% begins at $48.6K in 1963 it was 60K.Assume we can keep the exiisting structure below 250K and above that use the rates and brackets from 1963.

All of this is tried and true, conservative even, policy--and yet it sounds radical. Here's the kicker, return on capital over 1910-1929 was 5.4% compared to 9.4% for 1945-1965. The New Dealer indeed "saved" capitalism and Lost capitalists were award of the fact that when THEY had tried to fix problem they fucked it up royally, whereas the New Dealers, "class traitors" that they were, pulled the capitalist's ass out of the sling into which they had inserted themselves.

I think we are in agreement on these radical policies. I have often said that the one of the best ways to reform the tax code without doing something radical is to repeal all the Bush, and Reagan tax breaks on the rich. I'd include the Kennedy ones too. High taxes on personal incomes for the rich force them to hide their money in investments which end up hiring people and driving up aggregate demand.

Over the past 20 years return on capital has been about 7.7%, about the same as the 7.4% between 1870 and 1910. But these figures were before the capitalist crisis took effect (which hasn't happened yet). When it does, returns will fall like they did last time, and capitalists will be looking for a solution like last time. The Republican party offers nothing but the capitalist propaganda for consumption by the masses. None of that shit will work. They will have a choice. Resist and let the economy fall into a two-decade depression that will (eventually) bring about the revolutionary situation you envision or grudgingly accept that they will have to accept whater the "neo-New Dealers" come up with (that is, not assassinate or gulag their leaders).

1st, this assumes that there will be neo-new dealers to come up with a solution. I'm not saying that they aren't around, perhaps they are hiding in plain sight (MMT for example sounds vaguely familiar as something quite New Dealish--print money, hire people, business profit, tax to prevent inflation).

I see you have also been drinking the capitalist Kool-aid on this. Amazing that capitalist propaganda will work even on a Marxist. They ARE good. I was fully in the tank with this for decades.

Uh...I don't think it is Kool-aid, besides Kool-aid is gross anyway I prefer Purple Drank. (Sugar, Water, and of course Purple)

Anyway all jokes aside, the US had most of its industry intact, Germany didn't, Italy didn't, France didn't, Japan didn't, the UK may have about half of their industrial capacity still standing but they were exhausted. The USSR still had a good deal of its industry and it reindustrialized quickly after the war too. But otherwise the US was untouched by the war.

How would that work. Reagan is a deity to them. The GOP is full of politicians who can sing the God, guns, and Law n' Order anthem and keep getting elected no matter how bad the economy gets. They hate the Wall Streeters and don't need the capitalist money.

Actually I wasn't thinking of the GOPs politicians, I was thinking of the final rejection of Reaganism amongst the population. RT had an interesting poll on the other day which seems to indicate that Millies are scewing further left and are dragging the Yers with them (not a surprise). The rest of X is questionable, I've said before that my generation is too "whatever" to formulate solid opinions, and boomers are already ossified into their positions.

If there is a GOP prez in the white house and the crisis of capitalism hits between 2017 and 2021 then that party will end up being blamed and perhaps the Democrats will get a 20 year rule again like last time. That said if neither party offers solutions (and they really can't they don't have any) then it is likely that a revolutionary situation will occur. Remember well what the call Lenin put out in 1917 wasn't "Liberal issue 1, Liberal Issue 2 and Liberal issue 3" it was "Peace, Land, Bread". Perhaps this time round it would be more like "Jobs, Healthcare and Education, Bread".

Originally Posted by Kinser79

Personally I don't think that the stock market matters that much in the grand scheme of things.

I think it matters to capitalists because it is the market for capital (what they own)

I agree that to have a revolution you need a revolutionary situation--and such did not exist in the US during the 1930s.

Agreed

My point was that the Lost-GI elite had good reason to fear a revolution even if no such revolutionary situation would arise (and of course how could they know one wouldn't?).

Because the revolutionary situation wasn't there. The database I used to show the level of instability events was obtained from newspaper archive. This stuff was reported daiily at the time. The capitalists knew about it. Look how many people have been killed in the last year from racially-based unrest. Less than ten? In 1919 it was about a thousand. That's tow orders of magnitude. Elites notice these things.

What I'm getting at is that they feared one because they saw the USSR rapidly industrializing with full employment and so on.

You are projecting your own hopeful interpretation as a Marxist onto capitalist elites. They don't think that way.

If the choice is to hire a robot (assuming such technology exists at some point--it doesn't currently) we're looking at some maths here. A waitress at $17/hour for 24 hours/week would run $408 gross pay/week. Times 52 weeks comes to $21,216/per year or 13.26% of the cost of a robot

Yes, but the robot can work all day everyday, with a 10% downtime. So if your business is open 12 hours a day, 360 days a year this works out to $66K annually. Subtract the $16K for maintenance you get a gross profit of 50K annually. Assume straigt-line depreciation over 7 years and you clear 27K, about 16% ROC. Superficially it could work. But there are other considerations. Its a marginal thing.

..assuming the capital value would be similar to a slave in 1860...only a fool would automate in that case, however, that leaves open the possibility that the capital cost of said robots could be reduced at some point.

What I gave was a best-case assumption. Real robots almost certainly would be more expensive unless they became dirt cheap to produce. In that case they would fall to the price the market would bear. Slaves represent the best model for all-purpose robots we have. Slaves were priced what they were because that was the value the market would pay for their services. Robot makers are going to charge the maximum price the market will bear, and 160K is about as low as it could ever go.

this assumes that there will be neo-new dealers to come up with a solution. I'm not saying that they aren't around, perhaps they are hiding in plain sight

Well the original New Dealers did not make their appearance until March 1933, when they began New Dealin'. During the election FDR ran on a completley conventional, even banal message. No sign of the transformation that was to come, which I suspect took him as much by surprise as his opponents.

[quote]Anyway all jokes aside, the US had most of its industry intact, Germany didn't, Italy didn't, France didn't, Japan didn't, the UK may have about half of their industrial capacity still standing but they were exhausted. The USSR still had a good deal of its industry and it reindustrialized quickly after the war too. But otherwise the US was untouched by the war.[/quote[
Yes, and how does that matter? Those other countries had to rebuild. Rebuilding means stimulus. Germany and Japan were most devastated, and they became the #2 and #3 economic powers before China displaced them.

Actually I wasn't thinking of the GOPs politicians, I was thinking of the final rejection of Reaganism amongst the population.

How's that going to happen? White folks going to start voting for the minority party? That seems about as fanciful as Rand Paul's crusade to win black votes for Republicans. Again, I don't think people think that way.

If there is a GOP prez in the white house and the crisis of capitalism hits between 2017 and 2021 then that party will end up being blamed and perhaps the Democrats will get a 20 year rule again like last time.

Don't you suppose the capitalists know this? Have you seen the Republican clown car?

That said if neither party offers solutions

Parties never "offer solutions" when they are serious. They implement them after voters have given them the power to do so. You are a Marxist. Surely you see the government as superstructure. I see the state as more independent, but I don't buy the mythology that voters "select" amongst choices of policy. Basically they either endorse it or not, after the fact. When Cheney said Reagan proved that deficits don't matter he meant that Reagan busted the budget in violation of a century of GOP tradition and rather than being drummed out of office in disgrace like Carter was for the same offense, he became deified.

Originally Posted by Mikebert

I think it matters to capitalists because it is the market for capital (what they own)

Indeed, which is why I said the grand scheme of things. Ultimately the stock market has little bearing on the economy, though it could be argued that it has more bearing now than it did 40 years ago.

Because the revolutionary situation wasn't there. The database I used to show the level of instability events was obtained from newspaper archive. This stuff was reported daiily at the time. The capitalists knew about it. Look how many people have been killed in the last year from racially-based unrest. Less than ten? In 1919 it was about a thousand. That's tow orders of magnitude. Elites notice these things.


You are projecting your own hopeful interpretation as a Marxist onto capitalist elites. They don't think that way.

Even so, there was good reason to fear the Soviet propaganda coming out at that time too. The capitalist class has to keep in mind that the proletariat can and will over throw them if presented with a viable alternative (and of course a revolutionary situation). I do not think that at a given time a revolutionary situation can be plucked out of the noise of said given time. After all we are still arguing on this forum when the 4T began, what was the catylist, and what form it will take (and all of this in real time).

Yes, but the robot can work all day everyday, with a 10% downtime. So if your business is open 12 hours a day, 360 days a year this works out to $66K annually. Subtract the $16K for maintenance you get a gross profit of 50K annually. Assume straigt-line depreciation over 7 years and you clear 27K, about 16% ROC. Superficially it could work. But there are other considerations. Its a marginal thing.

I would argue that there is one major flaw with this thought experiment. Namely that we don't have robots and we don't know if they would provide superior or inferior service to a human. If the latter is the case, one would find most high end restaurants using said robots as wait staff with the costs associated with them, the lower end would still go for a human waitstaff because the 21+changeK waiter would provide a cheaper alternative to usually capital strapped businesses. Remember I'm in this particular field, most restaurants go under due to under-capitalization (hence why I've often complained to my BF and mother that unless we could get 5 Million somewhere it is unlikely for me to ever own a restaurant--that is twice what most restaurants start with as capital).

Even then we run into the problem of the system itself. If the system is built on people working to get a wage to spend on restaurant dinners further automation actually destroys the economic in the long run.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

But how could the revolutionaries possibly win without foreign help? If not necessarily directly from ISIS, then certainly from the oil-rich Arab sheikhdoms, etc., some of which may even have gotten overthrown by ISIS or similar Islamists.

It is always hard to win a revolution. If a Left/collaborator coalition stages a revolution against the American right-wing and/or militarist government waging war, it will be tough to win. It's possible if the people are behind it and they get support from among the US military.

And 2025 figures to be the end date of the Crisis era - and it could prove to be the "end date" of a lot more than that, as in America's great-power status, or even post-medieval "modernity," which would then need to be renamed.

No, 2025 has never figured to be the end date of the crisis, except among people who don't get the starting date right.

From my cosmic view, the late Crisis appears to have a much-more favorable outlook than people here think. The following era could be renamed, but it will be a positive name. That does not mean though that America's status won't decline; it probably will. But, it's time. And that's OK. We need to move toward a true world coalition and federation.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

It is always hard to win a revolution. If a Left/collaborator coalition stages a revolution against the American right-wing and/or militarist government waging war, it will be tough to win. It's possible if the people are behind it and they get support from among the US military.


No, 2025 has never figured to be the end date of the crisis, except among people who don't get the starting date right.

From my cosmic view, the late Crisis appears to have a much-more favorable outlook than people here think. The following era could be renamed, but it will be a positive name. That does not mean though that America's status won't decline; it probably will. But, it's time. And that's OK. We need to move toward a true world coalition and federation.

Any revolution whether fomented by Lefties or Righties, will be put down with extreme violence by the CiC and his forces.

The White House said Friday that President Barack Obama thinks the Confederate flag that currently flies outside the South Carolina statehouse belongs in a museum, according to Reuters.

Debate over the flag was reignited after nine people were shot and killed in a historically black church in Charleston, South Carolina, on Wednesday.

The flag, which flies next to the statehouse at the Confederate Soldier's Monument, is not only protected by law, but also protected by a padlock that keeps it in place. The flag is not on a pulley system, so it can't be lowered to half-staff.

On Friday, NAACP President Cornell Brooks called for the flag to come down. Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.) disagreed, saying removing the flag “should not be the immediate solution."

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R) said she thinks "the state will start talking about that again" but declined to say if she thought it should come down. She's previously said she doesn't think the flag needs to be removed, but noted it's a "sensitive issue."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/0...n_7624034.html

I concur -- but I would put it in the company of some other flags -- those of the Soviet Union, the German Democratic Republic, "Socialist" Romania, Apartheid-era South Africa, the racist Rhodesia, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, Nazi Germany, and Mussolini's fascist puppet state known as the "Social" Republic-- disgraced, discredited, defunct, damnable regimes.

One thing is certain -- robot-driven productivity needs to be taxed heavily if income is to be shared reasonably well.

Originally Posted by The Wonkette

That's not true. I enjoy reading what '58 Flat has to say and I'm sorry about his accident last winter. That said, I don't agree with many of his perspectives. I do find them interesting...

'58 Flat is a moron who routinely baited Obama supporters in 2007 on his "Muslim religion", e.g.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Perhaps Obama will name a kindred spirit - in more ways than one - as his running mate: Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minnesota), if you get my drift.

Or:

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Meanwhile, out here in San Francisco and environs, a kind of "March Madness" is on display this weekend that has nothing to do with the NCAA basketball tournament: B. Hussein Obama was in Oakland on Saturday getting his Neville Chamberlain message out to the faithful, while a huge pro-al Qaida lovefest is planned for downtown San Francisco on Sunday.

No doubt the right wing will get better footage from the latter than they've ever gotten out of the Gay Pride parade.

And championed the Bush strategy for Iraq.

His vision of America will be to the next First Turning what the isolationist Republican Old Right was to the Millennial Saeculum - the lunatic fringe (they, meanwhile, are coming back with a vengeance, as embodiments of one half of the last Awakening's core values).

Francis is regarded with sympathy - not as a leader, but as a surgeon trying desperately, desperately to staunch his bleeding organization.

Even Rick Santorum doesn't give a shit about Francis' views:

Seeing that it is expected by many that Pope Francis will release an encyclical on climate change, Santorum says he disagrees with what he expects to hear in it.

“The Church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we’re probably better off leaving science to the scientists and focus on what we’re really good on, which is theology and morality. When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, then I think the church is probably not as forceful and credible.”

That's pol-speak for "mind your fucking business and keep giving us culture war rhetoric to campaign on". One feels pity on Frank for leading an institution filled with child-rapists and lunatics; one certainly isn't lead by him. Frances Perkins and Al Smith are dead and gone.

One quarter of Americans under thirty-five do not identify with a religion. The next First Turning will not remotely resemble the last. We will be heard, we will be visible, and our views will be taken into consideration. '58s ultramontaine Polish construction workers are too busy dying of diabetes to assert control over the nation.

And even if Clinton is elected in 2016, she, inevitably, will be a one-term wonder, because the business cycle waits for no wo(man). The next term of office is a poisoned chalice.

Quite frankly, I'd be happy to throw the rising libertarians a bone and eliminate the Social Security programme for these Joneser "hard hats". This entire thread is an exercise in "why won't Millies go gag-bashing with meeeee?" whining, and it's typical of the attitude of the decaying elderly.

Fuck 'em. And fuck their ethno-political Old Urban blue collar homes with portraits of Jack Kennedy, John Lewis and the Virgin Mary above the television. It's an unreality, a phantasm of a dead age.