David Roediger—author of The Wages of Whiteness and Towards the Abolition of Whiteness—comes from Rush Limbaugh’s neck of the woods in downstate Illinois river country, but looks at his skin color quite differently. In his 2002 book Colored White, the 52-year-old historian from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, notes that he hails from “that part of the Mississippi River which… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (38)Page 1 of 1 pagesI am a 45 year old africian-american
born in Chicago
High school in PeoriaThis is really how Amerika is.
We played The Pekin “Chinks” in my first HS football game.That was their “mascot” until the
late 80’s
Posted by R.B.Green on Sep 16, 2005 at 3:15 PM O.K so this is not your average article. It’s not easy to unerstand frankly. The issue I think is that race divides workers and keeps all of them down. By accepting the idea of race, and whiteness, many white workers see a greater affinity with the white borgeoisie that with non-white workers.
THat helps explain why white workers would act so much against their core economic interests. For example there was a switch in party loyalty among many white workers towards the Republican party in the 1980’s. By succumbing to the race baiting they screw themselves in the ass.
I think that’s what thie article is talking about but I’m not exactly sure.
I guess the article is meant to elicit some curiosity about the book by this Roediger fellow.
Posted by al-Dakari on Sep 16, 2005 at 11:51 PM Yeah but it’s good to stretch your brain sometimes-I think you’re mostly right. I think it was about more than just race though-I think it was maybe also about “sameness” and how that “sameness” harmed the people that were the most new in the Great American dream of prosperity. The most different always threatens the most-especially people like Rush. I think race does keep us apart thereby keeping us at a disadvantage when facing powerful forces, but I also think that race isn’t really the thing that keeps us apart-it’s the culture that race embues us with. What if we were all just human? What kind of culture would that be? What would divide us then? Humans are still so tribal we’d have to find something.
Posted by kaela on Sep 17, 2005 at 1:01 AM Scorp,
Rabbit has to hand it to you, you just go forward in leaps and bounds. Rabbit had to stop and think a minute too and even then has to agree with your comment, at least in the first round.Actually was going great guns for the first third, inspiring and all, but yes a bit on the weird there at the end.
Rabbit does however think the main idea was covered very early on, or at least the only one which did it for Rabbit.
The idea that to be normal, that to be in perfect sync with the world, we must be white.
Whiteness as it is being defined, includes those traits which go hand in hand. For example Christianity. Of course Christianity is nort a white man’s religion, but it has been co-opted by White men as their religion.
This is why the Iraqi and indeed all Muslims are less than us, they are not white men.
If they could act like us, then they would be more likely to be granted “whiteman” status than the “Negro’s” who have even got the most un-white skin.
The problem is not that you are black, it is that you are un-white.
Actually the idea is a tragic flaw if one ever was. The fact is it gives “failures” who are nonetheless born into “whiteness” and excuse to not admit there failures and to sail on regardless. Aka, Rush Limbaugh, who can at least not be worse than he is at least a whiteman.
Doers this help? Rabbit does get the point he thinks and understands since his best friends include Australian Aborigines who are very un-white.
In fact Rabbit is probably living on borrowed time as a whiteman. Expect my White status to be revoked any day now.
Come along Scorp, this one is not going to be do or die for either of us, let us establish communion, Rabbit has seen the man inside and wishes that you jon us, we need men who are capable of thinking for themselves, and it looks like you can yet. A bit of coaxing and Rabbit thinks you could yet be a powerful warrior. What have you got to lose? We have tested each other’s metal, let us seek the union which only the truth can allow.
Rabbit has no wish to watch his brothers be lost for lack of a final push for the sake of mercy, let us seek understanding here and then see if we cannot extend it to something more challenging when it arises.
We have both seen something on the China thread, have you been back? We both have one thing in common, we know the Chinese, and what result? We agreed even in the face of different informative backgrounds, and despite the fact that our views differed from most all others’.
What does that tell you Scorp? We are not only not lost to each other, we are yet meant to be allies. Of course the “Lefty” is going to be the first to suggest it, but does that mean that it is wrong for the “Righty”?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 17, 2005 at 8:16 AM al-Dakari -
>> ... many white workers see a greater affinity with the white borgeoisie that with non-white workers. THat helps explain why white workers would act so much against their core economic interests. <<
From your post, you probably believe that FDR and the Democrats are for the “economic interests” of all.
So, after FDR’s first eight years in office, the unemployment rate was still a miserable 17%. We now understand that raising taxes and restricting trade do not help the workers, or anybody else. Raising taxes deprive the economy of investment, from whence cometh ALL jobs: no factories, no workers, no jobs. Restricting trade only assures that workers (we were in the Great Depression, remember) do not produce for foreign markets, and that workers pay artificially high prices for items that foreigners could be producing more cheaply.
We actually came out of the Great Depression when war came, and deficit spending produced massive investment and massive employment (2% unemployment in 1943), setting the field for the post-war boom.
The economy continued along for many years until President Johnson sought a reprise of FDR’s New Deal, which he called the Great Society. But of the two largest Great Society programs, Medicare has constantly escalated in cost and controversy, and welfare was mercifully terminated (by President Clinton in a bi-partisan effort) after doing incalculable damage to poor mostly black families. (Johnson signed Medicare when he was told that the cost would be “only” $10 billion each year. The cost is now approaching $300 billion each year and rising fast.)
But an economic reprise of the New Deal amounts to zero; FDR’s economy improved due to wartime investment, not to the social and regulatory programs of the New Deal. After Johnson, the economy was utterly wasted under President Carter and seriously damaged by President Clinton’s tax increases and his allowing the dot.com bubble to get out of hand.
The American economy has performed magnificently since the mid-1980s, in spite of Carter’s obliviousness and Clinton’s dereliction of duty. Indeed, careful study of the economic policies of both Carter and Clinton reveal no economic policies what so ever, with the single exception of the harmful Clinton tax increases. So, if the last three Democratic Presidents have had zero or negative effect on the economy, why is the USA economy the strongest major economy in the world? Why is America’s unemployment rate half that of Old Europe? Why is America’s growth rate three or four times that of Old Europe and Japan? The reason, of course, is that two of the last three Republican Presidents (Reagan and Dubya)actually had excellent economic plans, and these economic plans have kept the American economy on a stable and rising track. If we can keep the Democrats from raising taxes, the American economy is in good hands.
So, since the economy is so strong under Republican stewardship, and so pitifully weak under Democratic malfeasance, misfeasance, and non-feasance, why do you say that “white workers would act so much against their core economic interests”? White workers have internalized the expectation of jobs and growth under Republican administrations. White workers act (and say) what is important to them; Liberal values (oxymoron) are anathema. All you have to do is to listen to what the citizens say and pay attention to how they vote and you would know that; and such knowledge would safeguard you from saying such stupid things.
Posted by scorp on Sep 17, 2005 at 9:15 AM (cont.)
The problem of black poverty is somewhat greater, and will take more time to solve. The total cost of President Johnson’s welfare program was $6.6 trillion, and we have absolutely nothing to show for it but broken families and poverty. Fortunately, with the Republicans in charge of the Judiciary, as well as the Legislature and the Executive, we can address this last shameful reminder of Democratic Party values from a previous era, and bring minorities into the mainstream of education, jobs, and productivity. The black families that have survived have always had strong values, so values won’t be a problem.
Posted by scorp on Sep 17, 2005 at 9:16 AM Scorp, while Rabbit acknowledges that this is not adressed to him, there is a question which springs to mind.
Rabbit has an opinion different from yours in this regard, because he frankly finds the statement by al-Dakari “… many white workers see a greater affinity with the white borgeoisie that with non-white workers. THat helps explain why white workers would act so much against their core economic interests.” to be credible with respecet to Rabbit’s own experience.
The core dissention may come of the fact that we may not yet agree on ideological grounds that “many white workers” act contrary to their own interests, by for example voting republican(conservative) Government. Always remembering that Rabbit has said he doubts that either faction in USA as OZ or Britain, all de-facto two party sytems, is better than the other. As such Rabbit fears that a vote for either side while they are both essentially owned by big business (generalisation , but adequate in meaning) is against the interests of workers.
Here lies the first real conflict of views in this case and it is maybe here one could begin a discussion which aimed at a resolution, rather than a competition.
If you would explain to Rabbit how the current economic situation in the USA could be construed as an “economy is so strong under Republican stewardship”?
A second question though they are related, how could Clintons Budget surplus of $523 billion be categorised as “so pitifully weak under Democratic malfeasance, misfeasance, and non-feasance”?
Now these are simple questions, which may have simple answers which impress the Rabbit so much that he shall say this, but they do not seem like questions which should be ignored if we are to attempt to understand why such similarly, honest and truthful souls like ourselves have such a radically different view of such fundamental issues.
Rabbit must admit that while he admits that Budget Surplus and Deficits are not necessarily the only factors which should determine a goverment’s economic performance, they are perhaps an indicator if.
The current administration has been able to spend that $523 Billion dollars, plus run up a new debt for the same figure and spiralling upwards. Rabbit does not live in the USA but reads enough to not get the picture that there is lots of good jobs with good wages and good working conditions or health insurance even, or environmental laws anymore or true civil defence or emergency preparedness or.....
Sorry Scorp Rabbit was getting a bit carried away there.
The whole thing boils down to these two questions for Rabbit, if you could help him understand it would be appreciated. Remember please that Rabbit is a fairly simple organism and requires a fairly simple answer that makes sense in a straight line so to speak.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 17, 2005 at 11:19 AM What made Clinton’s performance bad?
--------------What makes Bush’s good?
---------------
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 17, 2005 at 11:28 AM al-Dakari
>> ... many white workers see a greater affinity with the white borgeoisie that with non-white workers. THat helps explain why white workers would act so much against their core economic interests. <<
Thomas Frank wrote a book called “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”. Frank asserts in his book that Conservative Republicans vote against their own economic interests. I do not know if this idea was original with Frank, or if he borrowed it. You provide a racial twist to Frank’s basic observation. This idea has become a genuine Democrat talking point, as opposed to the many fake Democratic talking points and fake Republican talking points that are often cited in lieu of intelligent argument.
My question is this: have you ever heard an actual Conservative Republican say anything remotely like this?
·"Oh, yeah, I am going to vote Republican and I am perfectly willing to accept less pay.”
·"Oh, yeah, I am going to vote Republican because I think the white bourgeoisie are cool.”
·"Oh, yeah, I am going to vote Republican even if they do move my job to Pango-Pango.”
The whole idea is pretty stupid, isn’t it? But that is what passes for lying Liberal logic these days.
So here you have a very large number of Democrats, totally clueless, trying desperately to understand why they can’t win elections. And they make up silly reasons why the majority of voters don’t agree with them, when most voters think that Liberals are somewhere south of insane.
Since Bush has had such brilliant success minimizing the damage from the Clinton Bubble and bringing the economy back from the brink of the abyss to which Clinton consigned it, the argument that the Conservatives are voting against their own economic interest is absurd. Look at the metrics:
·Unemployment under 5%.
·Inflation low.
·Productivity high.
·Investment high.
·Per cap income 30-40% higher than Old Europe, and close to the highest in the world.
And look at what our closest allies/ competitors/ whatever are doing. After fifteen years of stagnation following the crash of the Japan Bubble, Koizumi has forced through meaningful reform, and the Japanese economy is going to become hot again, thank goodness; the USA has carried the economic load of the world alone for too long. Old Europe hasn’t done anything meaningful yet about their socialist inefficiency and corruption, but the citizenry is becoming unrestful, particularly in Germany and France. Who knows, they may bring back free market reform as well.
Posted by scorp on Sep 17, 2005 at 2:42 PM Scorp,
I’m not a liberal, I was just trying to understand a bizarre article. I don’t believe that workers vote in thier interests regardless of who they vote for. The choice isn’t between left and right, or between the European and American pholosophies. Workers get fucked either way. I’ll argue against leftists and rightists form a proletarian standpoint.
I’m for workers running the show themselves through thier own organisations. VOting is tatamount to electing your exploiter. However, the workers who vote for the left, at least vote for politicians that claim to represent thier economic interests. If they are fooled by this and vote for leftists that is understandable. What boggles my mind is workers voting for the openly Katrina policies. (Everyman for himself. If you’re too poor to save yourself then you deserve to die.) That I don’t get.
Posted by al-Dakari on Sep 17, 2005 at 6:27 PM Scorp ignoring questions so simple suggests you have no answer which works for yourself even.
Most European countries enjoy free health care, excellent social security and their living stadards are high and fairly stable.
America is not a beacon of a successful state anywhere except in the imaginations of people like yourself.
You are whistling in the dark if you think the US economy is on the up and up. You don’t have to accept this, just stick around a liitle longer and watch it going down.
A Budget Deficit of $550 Billions dollars and growing is not generally seen as good economic mangement. It’s borrowed money, there is no safety net and even though people who think like you believe money is only numbers on the page, debt’s have a habit of needing to be paid sooner or later.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 18, 2005 at 12:39 AM You are right Rabbit, we have a budget deficit that is worrisome, to be sure. However, I don’t think the picture you present of Europe is quite so rosy as you imagine. They are plagued with budget deficits themselves, and their guareenteed existence by the state is going to come to a rough end in the coming decades, primarily for demographic reasons.
Btw, we do have a safety net, in the form of social security, unemployment compensation, and welfare. It isn’t anywhere near as extensive as Europe’s to be sure, but it is still large enough so that we are facing the same rough landing that Europe is headed for.
Posted by chopper on Sep 18, 2005 at 2:19 AM Eidolon Lagomorph –
I have long since ceased trying to decipher your egocentric and disorderly posts, on the grounds that I was wasting my time and that, at any rate, you had nothing to contribute to the discussion.
But then, voila! Not one, but two coherent statement! I will be glad to talk in plain Oz, mate, but if you wander off again, you will be talking to yourself again. So, apologize for your September 18, 2005 at 1:39 AM post, and let’s get to work.
>> What made Clinton’s performance bad? What makes Bush’s good? <<
The Presidency of the United States is the single most powerful and consequential position in the world. The word of the President can move markets and armies and electorates.
Clinton inherited the strongest economy in the world, at a time that it was on a sharp rise from the Carter Catastrophe; said rise was a result of Reagan’s economic and tax reforms. Is the economy of the United States worthy of the consideration of the President of the United States? One might think so, but is there any evidence that Clinton had an economic philosophy or program? No, there is not. Neither, for that matter, did Carter. Clinton was winging it, carried high on Reagan’s excellent economic foresight and results. Clinton did pass a Democratic knee-jerk tax increase (quite high), and that should have resulted in the loss of investment > loss of jobs > loss of tax receipts. But the dot.com bubble came along at just that point.
Do you understand what a bubble economy is, and the euphoria it creates, and the damage it can do? If not, read up on the subject: Dutch Tulip, Mississippi, South Seas, Roaring Twenties, Japanese. Each of these bubbles got out of hand and caused severe damage to economies for years.
In 1996, the Dow was at 6000 and Chairman Greenspan warned about “irrational exuberance” in the markets. Chairmen of the Fed are not given to idle comments about the health of markets. It’s not that nobody noticed Greenspan’s words; everybody noticed, and commented, and did nothing. Particularly President Clinton, who was the only person in the world who made any difference in a situation like this. And the Dow peaked in the last months of the Clinton administration at about 12.000.
So, the tax cuts were depriving the economy of needed investment, just as the dot.com bubble was racing off to oblivion. Millions of people paid billions of dollars for stocks that had never earned a cent and would never earn a cent. Is that the mark of a healthy economy? You think so, because all you see is that economic activity was cutting the national debt. But, in reality, this was a slow motion train wreck.
Now, do you understand the concept of lag time? Actions now may have results later; this is particularly true of a behemoth like the USA economy, which changes direction but slowly. And continuing actions over time may not show any effect until a tipping point is reached; après moi, le deluge. For example, sharp turndowns in the market may indicate the onset of a recession; unemployment is a trailing indicator during a recession. Frequently, sharp market drops are followed 6-12 months later by declines in employment. This is the situation we saw in the last year of the Clinton Presidency, when the NASDAQ, the hottest segment in the markets, dropped from over 5000 to under 2000 while Clinton was still in office. Sure enough, within months unemployment began to rise.
Posted by scorp on Sep 18, 2005 at 2:40 PM (Cont.)
People who think that the falling debt was a good thing, without considering or understanding the parlous state of the economy, are the same people who think that rising unemployment under President Bush was the result of something that Bush did. But in reality, the markets had been irrationally exuberant for over four years, and the tipping point was upon us. It is a credit to the increasing sophistication of the American people that they elected (and re-elected) President Bush, following the high but unstable economy of the Clinton years.
Economic cycles follow a pattern; the most basic pattern is boom, bust, boom, bust. We have long had the ability to modify this cycle, but our observations have been mostly empirical; it is only recently that we have established a USABLE theoretical framework to affect and control the economy:
·After the Great Depression began, the economy went nowhere for the first eight years of the FDR administration. The economy took off like a rocket with the start of WWII. WWII was marked on the home front by massive investment, paid for with massive deficits; debt in WWII was about 140% of GDP. All that investment built all those factories and lots and lots of jobs; unemployment was down to 2% in 1943, after being at 15% in 1940. Isn’t that curious? Eight years of concentrated struggle to alleviate the Depression had almost no effect, and deficit spending and investment solved the problem almost immediately, relatively speaking. In defense of FDR, there was very little understanding of the dynamics of the economy at that time.
·President Kennedy was the first president who acted to alleviate a sluggish economy by applying the rising theoretical base of modern economic philosophy; the theorists said that cutting taxes would increase investment and jobs, and the deficit from the tax cut would be more than offset by rising tax receipts. This was an extremely controversial idea at the time, but it worked like a charm.
·When President Johnson piled the cost of the Great Society on top of the cost of the Vietnam War, he did not take any steps to pay the massive costs; this led to economic instability. This instability continued through the Carter Presidency, when it got way, WAY out of hand. President Reagan applied what President Kennedy had pioneered, cutting taxes, raising deficits and thereby stimulating investment, growth, and tax receipts. Worked like a charm, and it laid the basis for the economic growth and stability of the last two decades, interrupted only by the Clinton tax increases and the Bubba Bubble.
·Fortunately, President Bush understood the economic lessons of the last eighty years, and he cut the taxes Clinton had raised; consequently the recession Bush inherited from Clinton was minimized and employment and growth are back on track. Worked like a charm. The USA avoided the devastating effects of the Bubba Bubble, unlike Japan, which is only now coming out of the collapse of the Japanese Bubble in 1991.
·Two dangers: first, 09/11 and Katrina were damaging but not fatally so; regardless, the Democrats are calling for tax increases. What IS their problem? Are they that stupid? (Answer: Yes, the elite Liberals are stupid, but they also like to keep control of the money the citizens earn.) Second, there is a more serious danger of overspending. Going into debt to win WWII is one thing. Going into debt to salvage the economy after the Democrats screw it up is a different, but still necessary, thing. Overspending for the purpose of political favor (the pork barrel) is not smart in an uncertain world. But large pork barrel spending on top of Iraq, Katrina, and 09/11 are risking economic instability again. We are at a point where more fiscal conservatism is needed.
Posted by scorp on Sep 18, 2005 at 2:44 PM (Cont.)
The thing we have learned in economics in the last eight decades is that economic activity is not random. To a large extent, economies can be controlled. Trying to run an economy, particularly a large economy, without a plan is absurd, but it happened in the USA recently. Some of the correct controls are counterintuitive; it is not intuitively obvious that the way to raise tax receipts is to lower taxes. But it works like a charm within the current range of tax rates.
Twenty years ago, such diverse countries as Ireland, Estonia, and Chile were in terrible shape, both politically and economically, but they are each making remarkable progress after democratic and free-market reforms. There appears to be no limits on the growth of economies within countries that practice free-market democracy.
What is less clear is why some nations voluntarily impose limits on their own freedoms and economies. Old Europe is locked in socialist stagnation, with low productivity and high unemployment. The Europes are not sure what to do about their increasingly untenable position, but they are sure that they do not want the les Anglo solution, even if it does work.
Posted by scorp on Sep 18, 2005 at 2:47 PM Scorp, can you expound upon the issue of poverty, the disparity between rich and poor, and the middle class?
Posted by marge on Sep 18, 2005 at 8:30 PM Scorp to offer a worthy challenge to your post will require something at least as long.
Rabbit can easily follow most of what you say but you honestly don’t prove that Bush has managed the economy well.
Lag time is what Rabbit expected you to offer, to explain Surplus and Deficit. The graph of these figures shows that during both Bush 1 and Bush 2 governments the budget went sharply into deficit. It rose consistently and dramatically under Clinton into record Surplus.
Of course unemployement and many other factors are important indicators of economic strength and stability. Since derivatives trading took off stability has become an impossible dream.
Many factors including wars and other world events can make huge differences to these other things but the budget is solely the responsibilty of government.
GDP is not a good indicator of a country’s economy. Every time an accident injures someone and an ambulance is dispatched etc, the GDP rises.
National disasters also can raise the GDP enormously and yet this does not mean the economy is doing well.
It is not enough to say that Reagan was responsible for Clinton’s economy and that Bush is inheriting Clinton’s.
As you said the POTUS has the power to alter world economy, fast, it does not take years for his acts to have an effect, they are pretty much instantaneous. Of course changes to tax laws and trade and re-structuring of industries etc can take years for all effects to emerge.
You refer to Bubbles and Rabbit wonders where the current critical Real Estae Bubble which is huge and ready to pop, fits in here.
Rabbit is not sure what he said for which he should apologise, you have said some very foolish things before and Rabbit bit you somewhat, but will check the thing you say need an apology and will get back.
As for saying that Rabbit is “egocentric and disorderly” in his posts, this is not a commonly held view and Rabbit does not feel you have correctly identified Rabbit traits.
The third person is actually a means to allow Rabbit to avoid the egoistic I and ME which can seem so egoistic especially when engaged in conflicted debate. It is opposite to ego. Disorderly in one sense maybe, but the meanings are clear. Allegories are accepted means of telling a truth, and are used to simplify as a rule.
Discussion threads are such that perfect spelling and puntuation etc are not critical, as a rule, lazy maybe, Rabbit is lazy.
Rabbit shall just post something over from anothre thread, since it is more at home here.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 18, 2005 at 11:42 PM The following is an excerpt which deals a bit with economics between Europe and the USA and it does not seem to draw any long bows from what are established facts.
By Patrick Meloy
Sept 11, 2005“After WWII, Europe lay in ruins. The United States instituted the Marshall Plan where the US loaned massive amounts of money to European nations with the condition that goods and services be purchased from the United States. It was a great success; Europe was quickly able to rebuild its infrastructure and industry while US companies made fortunes supplying Europe’s needs. Because so many countries had so many US dollars, they ended up using them to purchase goods and services from other countries as well - including oil from the Middle East. In fact, two energy exchanges, the International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London, and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) emerged as the only places to trade energy products and everything was priced in US dollars. In the 1970s, after the US made deal with Saudi Arabia, virtually the only currency you could use to purchase oil was the US dollar. This made the Greenback the dominant currency in the world, used for most (Western) trade and all energy purchases. This was a great deal for the United States - the value of the US dollar gained strength rapidly and they could afford to print huge sums of money without risk of devaluing their currency. Most of the newly printed money ended up offshore, in the vaults of central banks around the world that needed it for trade and energy.
Due to Free Trade, Globalization, and Reaganomics, American manufacturing fled to low-wage countries in search of higher profits. American output fell; unemployment rose, and the Federal government started borrowing madly to maintain spending levels; at the same time, their ability to pay shrank. America is now in a worse economic position than that of either Brazil or Korea when those countries’ economies melted down. The United States has an advantage that neither of those countries had though, massive amounts of their own currency sitting in other countries’ central banks collecting dust. America was able to borrow back its own currency from a multitude of countries that were happy to have their reserves earning interest instead of just laying around. This process of printing money for use outside the country and then having it come back as investments is known as “Recycling the Petro Dollar”.
Most of the world now realizes that the main reason for the USA to invade Iraq was to take its oil. What most governments, but few citizens, know, is that the rush to war was due to Saddam Hussain’s committing the high crime of accepting Euro dollars for oil under the “Oil for Food” program. While oil sales from Iraq were minimal due to UN sanctions, the act of defiance did not go unnoticed. Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea all started to dump portions of their US dollar reserves, and OPEC itself received European Union representatives who gave a presentation on the advantages of using the Euro currency for oil sales. The EU today is actually a larger market than the USA. It has more people and more money, and uses more oil than the United States. As OPECs largest single customer, it makes sense to use their currency. With Europe posing a major threat to the hegemony of the US Greenback, the USA decided it had to do something drastic to show OPEC that it would not allow a switch to the Euro. This is why; shortly after Iraq’s conversion to the Euro in late 2000, the USA used the excuse of 9/11 to invade Iraq”
............^^..............
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php/20050916054129788
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 18, 2005 at 11:50 PM Because of time this is only a start and Rabbit knows it is not a full answer to your post. The trouble with giving a full answer is that we could easily become lost in all the details of economy and economic theory, history and it’s interpretation.
There must be a more direct way that we can look at whether or not the country is on good economic ground. It does not seem from an overall persective to be so. Rabbit knows that economics can be made to say anything one wants.
Rabbit’s Father is an accountant and Mrs Rabbit is too. They can make anything look good or bad, how do you want it?
What about the Meloy message?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 18, 2005 at 11:51 PM This is the last bit of Meloy’s article and it seems relevant, to the big picture, so Rabbit will beg indulgence for such cut and pasting, but it is relevant to the direction of the discussion.
--------------"In 2003, Iran began selling oil for Euros to a large number of Euro-dominated countries. The Euro was already making inroads as a replacement trade currency and this switch to the Euro for oil has played a large part in the US dollar’s declining value. As if this crime against the USA wasn’t enough, Iran also announced its intention to open its own Oil Bourse (exchange) in late 2005 (now delayed until spring 2006), competing with the two American owned exchanges, NYMEX and IPE. The last technical hurdle to the Euro taking over as both world trade and energy currency would be eliminated; the US dollar would likely go into freefall as central banks dumped their Greenbacks and bought Euros. The US has been working hard overtly, with its weapons of mass destruction smear campaign, as well as covertly, using its own cadre of terrorists, the M.E.K, to destabilize the Iranian government. The USA lacks the troops to invade and Dick Cheney has asked the Pentagon to draft a plan to use nuclear weapons against Iran. Assuming that Russia and China do not retaliate with a missile attack against the USA and its assets, using nuclear weapons against Iran could push the rest of the world to use its only real defense against the USA, dumping the Greenback and destroying the US economy. If the US does not attack, the oil bourse will open and the ultimate result will likely be the same: the end of the USA as a world power and the start of a new “Great Depression”.
Rabbit knows that this will be a red flag for some, but too bad Lyndon LaRouche was not taken more seriously a decade ago.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 19, 2005 at 3:34 AM Other economists with similar views.
...................
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16416680^28737,00. .html
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 19, 2005 at 8:20 AM scorp,
Say What?--of course,that’s just what we expect.
There’s a bigger issue here being ignored,that of class.Having grown up in a town in the area talked about by Mr. Stamets,may I say that snobby whites will ALWAYS pick a group,for ANY reason,as one to sneer at.What? there’s no immediate blacks or asians and the only Mexican nearby is the menu at Taco Bell?Well...how about Irish?No Irish?Not enough to be feasible because they’re both honest factory workers?Well,we’ve gotta hate someone.How else are we to keep the lines drawn in the wrong direction?
Let’s see...who to hate...surely we can hate someone...hmmm...now,don’t rush me...let’s see...give me a minute...who to hate...no racial minorities...darn!make it so difficult!...I Know! Let’s hate poor whites in the town!Yeah!Let’s hate them!Didn’t Orwell say in a book of his that he was taught that poor people smelled bad?Hey,an British author said it,so it must be true!
Meanwhile,the rich keep their power.
The middle-class keep their position that they’re afraid to lose and have a group on which to blame societal vices.
The working classes keep their jobs and their solemn pride in not being the ones dumped on.
And the bottom-dwellers?Well,they didn’t matter to begin with,now did they?That’s why we have to have them--a societal oubliette.
By the way,my snobby right-wingers,if you want to find out just how white you are,try marrying a Pierrepont or a Morgan.i’m sure they’ll find your shadowbox collection of...whatever really interesting,right before the courtship is cancelled.
Posted by wwoods on Sep 22, 2005 at 6:38 AM By the way,Mr Roediger,
I grew up in an Illinois town of 40,000 in which we were unofficially taught to hate the blacks that lived there...all five of them.Did we hate them because they were black?Nope,because they weren’t our definition of WASP...which I’m sure is MUCH different in Boston,bet it doesn’t include Poles there!
Posted by wwoods on Sep 22, 2005 at 6:48 AM wwoods
That’s exactly how it is.
Couple your posts with the fact that people seem to have a sense of entitlement as to what their status is and what they deserve and you have understood the present mindset.
Our tribal exclusion of others who are different is the basis of the social constructs of “ race “ which we perpetuate willingly daily.
As for the facts
Several economists have said the unemployment rate only a measure of those people who are considered “in” the work force. Other stats show clearly that people just stopped looking above the radar. Before Katrina, New Orleans had 30% of it’s homes below the poverty line.
I wonder where they worked.One CEO making 5 million and 50 homeless people
with no income average $100,000 which is a pretty good per capita income.Inflation is low because spending is high..
Regan also cut important funding for things like mental health and after school programs and prison reform. Crime went up, partialy because of these cuts, but not so much in the more civilzed “ white “ neighborhoods.
Corruption in the US is just as bad as anywhere on earth and there are too many examples to cite here (or anywhere else )
Scorp seems to use the same “republican talking points “ he chastizes.
Posted by R.B.Green on Sep 22, 2005 at 9:55 AM Marge -
Ref: Post dated September 18, 2005 at 9:30 PM
Sorry for the delay, I have been busy with a hurricane.
“ … poverty, the disparity between rich and poor, and the middle class?”
I do not do essays on demand, but I do have a few observations.
There are two primary active political/ economic models extant in the world: democratic socialism and free-market democracy. Totalitarian socialism went south when the Soviet Union went south, and is no longer primary, or hardly alive for that matter. China is in transition and China’s wagon is hitched to a south-bound totalitarian cow and a north-bound free-economy horse. Utterly fascinating experiment, but it won’t attract many copycat political systems. And as a system, China is currently very unstable.
So, how do the primary systems compare? After all, consumption presupposes production; poverty, rich, poor, and middle class are terms primarily defined by consumption. Silas Marner was good fiction, but fiction; no one locks himself or herself in a vault and plays with their gold in real life. Such assets we have are put to use in consumption or in additional production.
Well, the socialist model is not doing so hot:
>> Since the 1970s, America has created some 57 million new jobs, compared to just 4 million in Europe (with most of those in government). <<
(http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.18720/article_detail.asp)
Old Europe enjoys an unemployment rate that is over twice that of the USA.
In the Lisbon Accords of 2000, Europe set a target of matching USA productivity by 2010; over half way through the effort, Europe has made zero progress in meeting their goal of improving productivity.
Job creation, unemployment, and productivity define the ability of a nation or an area to produce and consume, and Europe is significantly poorer than the USA in absolute terms. But political socialism seeks a balance based on equal outcomes. So, socialism produces poorly, but everyone partakes more or less equally, considering the massive drain of the socialist safety net. In other words, everyone in Europe is relatively poor.
As an engine for creating wealth, free-market democracy cannot be beaten. It is not just the USA; Chile and Ireland were economic and political basket cases twenty years ago, and now they are booming. The same is true of Estonia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In fact, the recently freed states of Eastern Europe are significantly better off since the adoption of free-market democratic principles. France and Germany have much to learn from Estonia if they want to improve their economies.
Posted by scorp on Sep 25, 2005 at 6:34 PM (Cont.)
This leaves the question of inequality in the USA. The USA provides incentives for those who can produce. Bill Gates is the most productive person around, but he as also markedly increased the productivity of almost everyone else, and has thereby created vast wealth, shared by most.
But those in poverty are not productive in an economic sense, or have limited productivity at best. Poverty in the USA is associated directly with haphazard schooling, illegitimacy, and absence of marriage. President Johnson created the welfare system as a part of the Great Society, and for only $6.6 trillion, welfare produced an unbroken string of broken families and dependency. Hell of a deal. And the major pockets of poverty, Watts, Detroit, and New Orleans, are Democratic Party strongholds. It’s not true that Democrats have no values; they just have values that make people poor, dependent, and incapable. Daniel Patrick Moynihan identified this problem years ago, but it conflicted with the Democratic Party socialist ethos, and was ignored by Democrats.
Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and George Bush have gotten an excellent handle on the economy, and can now make it sit up and do tricks. Now with all three branches of the government under Conservative control, we can meaningfully address other problems.
Schooling, poverty, and the negative values associated with them are high on the list of problems to be corrected, after we eliminate the negative influences of the so-called Liberals.
Posted by scorp on Sep 25, 2005 at 6:35 PM Eidolon Lagomorph –
Lagomorph, Lagomorph, Lagomorph! Where do you come up with crap like the Meloy article?
>> Due to Free Trade, Globalization, and Reaganomics, American manufacturing fled to low-wage countries in search of higher profits. <<
American manufacturing did not “flee”, it aggressively sought lower cost production. That is the object of the game.
>> American output fell; unemployment rose, and the Federal government started borrowing madly to maintain spending levels; at the same time, their ability to pay shrank. <<
American output has never been higher, unemployment has seldom been lower, and there have been precisely three periods in the last seventy-five years when the Federal government borrowed money, madly or otherwise:
·WWII. The alternatives were to go into debt to pay for the war, or surrender to the German terrorists and the Japanese terrorists. I would be interested in which alternative you prefer, given the benefit of hindsight.
·Carter’s Malaise. Interest rates were 12% and headed up and inflation peaked at over 13% in the last year of Carter’s Presidency. This was a disaster in the making if something was not done. President Reagan cut taxes to stimulate growth, because there was no investment under Carter. Meanwhile the Fed held interest rates high to kill inflation. Reagan’s reforms provided growth and stability, and laid the foundation for the superb economic performance of the late 1980s and the 1990s, until the Bubba Bubble. If President Reagan had not cut taxes and used deficit spending to stimulate the economy, the economy would have stumbled and bumbled along indefinitely, with the very real probability of a depression or worse. I would be interested to know if you have a better idea on how to deal with the Carter Catastrophe.
·The Bubba Bubble. We have already talked about economic bubbles and the long-term damage they can do. I hope you are up to speed on the subject. In 1993, Clinton raised taxes quite substantially, possibly to pay for Hillarycare that never materialized. Clinton totally ignored the rise of the dot.com bubble, which popped in year 2000, his last year in office. The tax increase and the Nasdaq crash were sure danger signs to which Clinton was totally oblivious. The Bubba Recession followed quickly behind the Bubba Bubble, and the economy was under very serious threat. President Bush and Chairman Greenspan masterfully handled the monetary and fiscal policies, and the recession was much milder than it could have been. Employment is up, inflation is nominal, and the economy is growing.
In summary, we now have the tools to manage the economy; Republicans understand and use these tools, Democrats do not, even though President Kennedy was the first President who understood and acted on the idea that deficit spending would promote growth and pay for itself.
All this claptrap Meloy and you put out is irrelevant to any serious economic discussion. For any given point in the condition of the economy, there is an optimum response. We had twice as much debt at the end of WWII than we do now, and the economy grew sufficiently to pay off that debt; we could do it again if necessary. We have the most powerful economic engine in the world, and it will serve us well if we understand it and maintain it. Just don’t let a Democrat get his hands on the controls, because he will not know how to drive, as graphically illustrated by Presidents Johnson, Carter, and Clinton.
Posted by scorp on Sep 25, 2005 at 8:35 PM The Euro versus American Dollar for Oil trading has no bearing on any of this I suppose?
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 26, 2005 at 4:55 AM One more thing Scorp, please tell Rabbit you are not the original Scorp I suggested was Karl Rove.
This is serious, you are messing with Rabbit’s mind and while he is going to have to look at your posts in detail, promise, and will give it due consideration, you must let Rabbit off the hook. You are not the Slogan carrying Scorp, from the start, are you?
Beyond that Rabbit admires the pefunctory way in which you have now tackled the issues and expects that others more qualified will take on the issues with you in more detail.
The main interest to Rabbit was always that you aplied reason and committed your mind to the debate. The earlier, ‘Bush Speak’ which was so noticeable is so absent Rabbit may not otherwise have ever dared engage such an articulate and considered person.
Frankly Rabbits opinions on Economy are based on broad generalisations and obseravtions.
Have long since considered Mr LaRouche to be eminently competant in Economic matters and if he says it it will do Rabbit.
This is why Rabbit is of the opinion that things are not actually on the up and up for the US economy at the moment and that things in the short to medium future are sort of bad.
Not much on the detail, Scorp but along the way the arguments did not involve particlular theories and assumptions so much as, as historical comparisons and observations.
If Rabbit and those he has hithertoo trusted in such matters is wrong, the that is good because their will still be a fairly stable and recognisable American Economy in tweve months from now.
It is thus a certainty that one of us is wrong.
Rabbit is perfectly amenable that it be himself. We should not have long to wait is Rabbit’s feeling. This is not an opinion based on so much obvious economic cleverness of the Considered Scorp. This is true and Rabbit will admit it. Missus Rabbit would understand it all better she is an accountant.
This humble and worthless Rabbit does in all truth bow to Scorps apparent knowledge of certain details of economic theory.
It is thus only a Rabbit feeling based on his own limited understanding of how to make and spend money and keep everybody fed and clothed and housed and happy. Such a “Faith based” opinion is indeed worthy only of your scorn, Scorp.
Posted by GhostRabbit on Sep 26, 2005 at 5:11 AM Eidolon Lagomorph -
>> The Euro versus American Dollar for Oil trading has no bearing on any of this I suppose? <<
Well, it certainly does not have any of the fantastic connotations that the conspiracy theorists assign to it. Historically, a stable, prosperous economy resulted in a strong currency. High interest rates tend to drive up currency values. Mercantilists want to buy cheaply and sell dearly, which provides room for currency manipulation.
The US dollar remains strong because people all over the world have confidence in it. If you want a measure of the strength of the dollar, look at the front page of the Money and Investing section of WSJ; down at the bottom there is a daily graph of Bonds and Interest. Fed interest rates have increased from 1% to 3-1/2% in the last year, and ten-year notes have barely seen a ripple. Those ten-year notes are a major component of the American debt that everyone frets about so much. Regardless of who says what, as long as USA bond interest rates stay stable, the world has confidence in the dollar. 09/11 did not shake the confidence people had in the dollar. Nor did Afghanistan. Nor Iraq. Nor Katrina. Nor Rita. Nor the Feds raising interest rates to control inflation. That was what was so terrible about the inflation triggered by President Johnson that peaked with President Carter; USA growth and prosperity were stopped cold by these two clowns, but President Reagan (non-elite, non-Liberal, non-Ivy League) knew what needed to be done and did it. (I do not recall if the Asian (Oz) WSJ is formatted the same as the USA addition, but the info should be available.)
Both Old Europe and Japan have been through a rough time during the last fifteen years, and both of them practice a sort of mercantilism. The German and Japanese industrial powerhouses are superb, but both are geared to export markets. Domestic markets in both countries are sclerotic and inefficient, as befits socialist economies. Koizumi just pulled off a masterstroke in reforming the Japanese economy, and we welcome the strengthened Japanese economy that will ensue. The USA has carried the world economy alone for too long. Now if we could just persuade the Europes to give up their corrupt and inefficient socialist practices, we could then make the world economy perform for the benefit of all people.
Federal spending after 09/11, Iraq, and Katrina is becoming somewhat excessive, similar to what President Johnson did on Vietnam and the Great Society, but so far on a smaller scale. Unchecked, the current overspending could disrupt the economy. The most interesting thing I see is a grass roots effort driven by Conservatives and the Conservative Blogs to correct the overspending. The American people are becoming very sophisticated in their understanding of political and economic matters, and they are developing tools to control the politicians and limit the influence of the Old Media on matters that rightfully belong to the people.
>> Original Scorp <<
The only grounds you could possibly have for raising such a question would be that I contradicted myself between then and now. Please point out the contradictions you perceive, and then we can discuss your problem.
On a previous thread you stated you had no economic background and that has been painfully obvious. But no one listens to Lyndon LaRouche’s La-La Land economics. I enjoy discussing these subjects, but I am not going to waste time debating LaRouche’s position on anything. Learn to think for yourself, or resign yourself to talking to the nut cases.
Posted by scorp on Sep 26, 2005 at 9:03 AM Eidolon Lagomorph -
My post at 10:03 AM above, bottom of third paragraph -
“USA addition” should be “USA edition”. S’BT.
Posted by scorp on Sep 26, 2005 at 12:00 PM Whiteness appears, in this case, to be simply that acquired feeling of superiority that one gets when associating with a particular group of like minded people. I feel it’s a bit of a broad category in this author’s usage.
Posted by luckyrc on Sep 28, 2005 at 12:01 PM Scorp - Economy doing well under Republicans??
Democrats “malfeasance”?
Maybe you’d just better check the respective records of Gee Dub (and his dad) and Bill Clinton. (And I’m not even a FAN of the latter!) OH, and Ronald Reagan didn’t do too well either, at least not in his second term.
The only thing that pulled the money out of the pockets of the stingy and greedy elite in the Depression was a World War (plenty of pork there!!)
All this Republican/Libertarian talk about “free trade” is a NONSENSE nowadays in the days of globalization; and since America’s manufacturing base has been so severely eroded.... there’s not much free trade to be had for it right now! (Government investment might be able to change that; as would a bit of protectionism of some kind or another - but there would have to be taxes, laws, restrictions on the rich - everything Repukes don’t like!)
MAYBE you’d just better check out the articles of an ex-Reagan conservative such as Paul Craig Roberts. They are to be found at www.counterpunch.org.
Posted by Liz on Sep 30, 2005 at 8:14 AM Scorp, you really are priceless. They should put you in a zoo - (the insect house??) NO, make that a museum, for when progressives and lefties take over....
WELFARE HURTS YOUNG BLACK MOTHERS???
And I suppose being forced off it, to the tune of no money (what then? Drugs? Prostitution? Looks like it to me!!)
Or this “welfare-to-work” shenanigan… EVERYBODY knows that’s just a way to drive down the price of labor - and to push proper, qualified workers out of their jobs - as it did with Giuliani and the New York parks department and transport department, to name but a few.
Yeah, right, “welfare is bad for black single moms”. ASK Tamarla Owens, of Buell/Flint, Michigan, how BAD it is… Ask her whether she doesn’t think being forced to leave your kids all with relatives who can’t cope with or aren’t interested in caring for them, is a GOOD thing… After all, it did nearly lose her her son, and embroil her in the most terrible of controversies, when her six-year-old kid shot another six-year-old kid (a white girl) when he brought an unsupervised gun to school, no doubt thinking it was a toy… It’s a very well known story by now, covered by Michael Moore among others. (Oh, and in his documentary (Bowling for Columbine) the district sheriff distinctly says that welfare to work is a BAD idea!! It’s run by the defence companies as well… funny, that!!)
YUP… welfare for single mothers is VERY bad. SO bad, it actually allows them to do what mothers have done from cave days onwards - ie, stay at home and look after the children when they are little.
(I’m not an American resident, so I just don’t know… WHAT are poor single mothers, who DON’T have any relatives, supposed to do WITH their children these days, to give them SOME kind of day care while they are at work… what do THEY do?? Give them to the dog pound?? Tie them to the kitchen table and pray the house doesn’t burn down?? (Some working mothers did just that in Victorian England.) Let them wander on the streets at six or seven years of age??
Tell me, WHAT do they do with them?? I would really like to know, if anyone knows the answer to this. (I mean, from their own experience or knowledge of what happens in their home states.)
What if their only family is a senile or otherwise frail old mother (or grandmother), who can hardly manage to look after herself?? What then??
Somebody American, tell me!! This is a serious question. I don’t know - do you??)
Posted by Liz on Sep 30, 2005 at 8:29 AM Oh, and Scorp - I’ve got something for you!!
The only “reason” why welfare MIGHT be said to “keep people in poverty”, is because it provides a TINY vestige of security, which, as rational beings (as all economists seem to believe we are!), we humans who are on it (those who are, I mean!) are loath to give up. BECAUSE… they don’t know who will pay that medical bill or those food stamps if they take on the “entry-level” (turn, cough), minimum-wage crap job.
ANSWER - HAVE A MINIMUM INCOME GUARANTEE - a “dole” to every family, made up out of taxes or a share of the value of a national/state resource, such as oil.
ALASKA CURRENTLY DOES THIS, RIGHT NOW!!! Paid out of oil revenues. $2000 per person per year, no less - not great, but NOT BAD!!! It’s certainly not advertised much, in the so-called “liberal media”, I can tell you THAT much!!! I found the reference to it, just by chance on a left-wing site last month, I think it was… I’m pretty SURE I’ve already referenced it on another post here - I must go and look for it!! (It was in the holiday season so I didn’t get much response.)
Anyway, Ireland is currently considering the introduction of something similar: as are a few third world countries such as Brazil, I think.
If poor people didn’t think that their last tiny vestige of money that they could rely on was being taken away, they would go and take on jobs like there was no tomorrow!! (And they’d be richer for it: and they would have more confidence to demand better wages from McDonalds, etc, too - which is probably why most of America doesn’t even want to consider the plan - its wealthy middle class like to keep its poor downtrodden.)
Posted by Liz on Sep 30, 2005 at 8:40 AM Scorp talks rubbish - I have just finished all his long and boring posts and he says that “Chairman Greenspan” (sounds like Chairman Mao!) and George Dubya “masterfully” managed the economy.
1) No they didn’t; they left it with the most massive deficit in history.
2) Gee Dub can’t “masterfully” manage anything; he needs Karl Rove to be his brain and stage managers to move him around, every step of the way - like in those faked “aid” posts he was filmed with during Katrina. He needs to ask Condi for permission to go to the little boys’ room!!
He has a low IQ and is probably dyslexic to boot. He has no INTEREST, even, in current affairs. He spends most of his time on holiday, like some old-time French king. A Disraeli, he is not!!! Not even a Teddy Roosevelt.
Ergo - Scorp is full of it!! And he can pack in his “Eidolon Lagomorph” too - what the fvck is a lagomorph?? Nothing; pig-latin.
Rabbit is cute as ever; loved his Meloy article and its refreshing bit of insight about Saddam turning to European investment. No wonder he no longer remained “our demon”, eh??
But LaRouche sucks, he honestly does: if nothing else because he’s a cult leader.
Posted by Liz on Sep 30, 2005 at 9:08 AM Rabbit does think for himself Scorp which is why it does seem to be incredibly naive of you to underestimate the disaster overhanging the US economy.
.
Venezuala has just pulled it’s US reserves and converted to Euros. That is one. Next there will be two, then three, then ten, then a rush on selling up US dollars and bonds. Don’t argue with Rabbit, as you say he knows nothing. Go instead and watch what will now happen.
.
As for any history of economics you have been extrapolating up til now, you can forget it. The end of the line has just about been reached I’d say and all the denials in the world will not change that.
.
Hope you are right Scorp, but you are not, mate if you cannot understand the significancer of what was posted here on the Dollars and Euros, you are not anything but an economic spin master. The OIL burse and currencies are not hard to understand. Hard to swallow though if you don’t like lots of fibrer with your diet. Goes down pretty rough I guess.....Oh well.................
.
.
By the way Liz, partly agree on the cult thing, but have seen a lot of it and it’s members over the years. CEC once courted Rabbit’s favor.(Important Rabbit) Agree there is something of the cult, more so the followers than the man is my take.
.
Actually Lagomorph is the Latin for Rabbits (Genus I think) but Rabbit can cope with such barbs. He has been called far worse. Jay Cline called Rabbit,.......... BUNNY FACE.............(Rabbit replied with Poobum)
Posted by GhostRabbit on Oct 4, 2005 at 9:46 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Also by Bill Stamets
- Anthropologists At War
New military program that embeds anthropologists with soldiers has academics up in arms - The History of a Bad Idea
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1972 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
426 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2005 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
