dagblog - Comments for "Double-Dip or Great Contraction?"

I was going to write a reply

Dan Kervick — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 03:15:29 +0000

In reply to Dan, your initial comment was

I was going to write a reply about this acanuck, but I think it probably requires a whole blog. I have 5 or 6 ideas about this. But the central idea is we need to build a large coalition of people who recognize they will all benefit. If you are mainly redistributing from the top 5% to the bottom 95%, surely you can get a majority of people to support you?

It's also necessary to stir up some outrage about exploitation and slick dealing. As long as people are hung up on the idea that the rich are just successful and industrious meritocrats who create all the jobs and deserve everything they have, it's hard to get traction.

Good point about lords and

Oxy Mora — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:59:47 +0000

In reply to Those who have plenty of

Good point about lords and ladies. They are truly insulated from the travails of the lower classes. I don't think we're going to have a double dip recession in the traditional sense--ie, a downturn in sales, inventory overhang, manufacturing slowdown, etc.

I think the Republican party in large part wanted to destroy confidence and keep the economy struggling so Obama would fail. But what's happening now is outside the model, will hurt large corporations if it continues, and I think the Republicans in Congress will be made to behave by their masters. At this point if the market continues to tank the rich will lose far more in equity investments than they would ever have lost via a tax increase. At some point sanity will come into play.

Dan, your initial comment was

acanuck — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 01:19:34 +0000

In reply to I agree that we shouldn't

Dan, your initial comment was your best evah. And your second was damn good, too.

Your solution sounds a bit like socialism, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Just one question: given the lock the very rich have on the entire political process and every lever of power, how do ordinary people bring about the redistribution of wealth that you so rightly point out is the only solution to this nightmare? I mean, short of getting out our pitchforks, gardening shears, kitchen knives and Glocks and taking to the streets?

Yeah, that's what I thought. See you on the barricades, comrade! Za Rossiya!

And what percent of that 39%

AmericanDreamer — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:33:07 +0000

In reply to Here's a depressing thought:

And what percent of that 39% will, hearing Obama's proposals on jobs and the economy, think there's not much hope there and figure what the hell, at least the Republican presidential candidate will cut my taxes a little (and I'd be a bad person to take exception to rich people getting far bigger tax cuts than me, that would be un-Christian of me to be jealous like that)? Or, similarly, what percentage of that 39% will be given some positive reason to vote Democratic next year?

My depressing thought for the day was this, from Krugman's blog entry today "Dismal Thoughts":

Robert Reich, talking to people in the administration, says that there has been a deliberate decision to focus on the wrong issues, knowing that they’re the wrong issues:

So rather than fight for a bold jobs plan, the White House has apparently decided it’s politically wiser to continue fighting about the deficit. The idea is to keep the public focused on the deficit drama – to convince them their current economic woes have something to do with it, decry Washington’s paralysis over fixing it, and then claim victory over whatever outcome emerges from the process recently negotiated to fix it. They hope all this will distract the public’s attention from the President’s failure to do anything about continuing high unemployment and economic anemia.

That's a good question. To

Dan Kervick — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:30:38 +0000

In reply to Here's a depressing thought:

That's a good question. To go back to the question that was raised the other day about the stories people hear that enable them to explain what is happening to them, what stories are people presented with to help them make sense of their feeling that their way of life is slipping away, and something very important is being taken from them?

One story they hear from many Republicans is, "You are falling behind and losing ground because a bunch of lazy, entitled poor people, and improvident sick people, are stealing your hard earned money to give themselves undeserved entitlement payments."

What countervailing story are they hearing from Democrats? Frankly, the dominant theme from the White House has been something like, "You have all been bad little greedy piggies. Now it's time to sit up straight, eat your peas, tighten your belts and go to your rooms. I'm cutting your allowance. No extra government programs for you!" This story does nothing to fight the Republican story, and actually seems to buttress it.

If they are paying attention to stories being told around the periphery, they might be hearing all sorts of things about Wall Street fraud; investment bankers betting against and stealing from their own clients; mortgage mills run by reputedly respectable companies churning out liars loans and flim-flam; repossession shakedown operations; massively wealthy people and companies paying no taxes and hiding their money outside of the country; a Treasury Department that is run as a franchise of the largest of the shady investment banks; bought-off regulators turning the economy over to predators who then wrecked it, etc.

But that story is not validated by the national leader many of them trust most. So it isn't able to get the same political traction as the Republican story.

Here's a depressing thought:

Verified Atheist — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:49:51 +0000

In reply to Well said, Dan. I came across

Here's a depressing thought: what percentage of that 39% do you think will still vote for Republicans?

Well said, Dan. I came across

AmericanDreamer — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:47:16 +0000

In reply to I agree that we shouldn't

Well said, Dan.

I came across a statistic in the course of reading David Coates' excellent Making the Progressive Case: Towards a Stronger U.S. Economy (page 25). Between November 2008 and April 2010 about 39 of households had either been unemployed, had negative equity in their house, or had been in arrears on their house payments.

If that statistic were, say, 59 percent, what do you think the politics in our country would look like now? Would our dominant national ideology of hatred for our government in the abstract and extensive reliance on it in fact preclude a federal government response possibly adequate to the magnitude of the problems? Would the typical person among the 59 percent daydream about striking it rich some day soon, or at least being among the 41 percent, and look down their noses at all the losers in the 59 percent of which they were a part, and any politician or political party deigning to advocate for some version of the national interest that enabled them to survive?

Turn us into Brazil? if

jollyroger — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:16:31 +0000

In reply to Those who have plenty of

Turn us into Brazil? if only...

Bill Gross likes Brazilian currency.

Is there a box to check next

jollyroger — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 23:14:08 +0000

In reply to Double-Dip or Great Contraction?

Is there a box to check next to :

The Royal Flush? (and no, that's not meant as a poker reference...)

Those who have plenty of

Donal — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 21:20:22 +0000

In reply to I agree that we shouldn't

Those who have plenty of money see the problem as a frustrating reluctance on the part of ordinary Americans to borrow the money of the affluent, and indenture themselves to the affluent.

I owe my soul to the company store .... I really think you've nailed it in your comment, and I've always wondered why the affluent want to turn America into Brazil. I suspect they watch too much Masterpiece Theatre and think they will be the lords and ladies of the manors no matter how bad it gets for everyone else.