Politically Correct Famous Democratic Economist Admits To Treachery of Political Leaders After 2007. Good. Yet, Why Just 2007? To Laud Plutocratic Clintonism?


It seems obvious to me that the official economic doctrine is the theoretical justification of plutocracy. Roman emperor Constantine used what he called Catholicism, his invention, to justify his increasing plutocracy. Nowadays, plutocracy is haughtily brandishing the philosophy of “economic science”. Now a famous economist looks at that, and blames everybody else. Mr. Delong is a friend and colleague of Krugman, and their ilk. We are talking here of the mainstream ideology of the self-declared “left”… Which is just stealth plutocracy: a definition of plutocracy is inequality. Inequality increased under Obama, when it reached its highest level ever (as measured by looking at the top 1%, or top .1%, etc.) Right, it’s probably getting worse under Trump… But Trump never claimed to be “left”.

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Inequality augmented under Obama. Here is the slice 2013 until 2016. This was caused by the fact Obama helped most the bankers, hence the wealthiest…

Blame the Economists?

Nov 1, 2018 J. Bradford Delong

Ever since the 2008 financial crash and subsequent recession, economists have been pilloried for failing to foresee the crisis, and for not convincing policymakers of what needed to be done to address it. But the upheavals of the past decade were more a product of historical contingency than technocratic failure.

BERKELEY – Now that we are witnessing what looks like the historic decline of the West, it is worth asking what role economists might have played in the disasters of the past decade.”

Unsurprisingly, famous economists protect Clinton from any blame. When, in truth, Clinton demolished the New Deal most effectively. Learning from Goldman Sachs, even before he was elected president, that, if he wanted to be re-elected he would have to do as he was ordered to, by the wealthiest men, Clinton told Robert Rubin Goldman CEO:”You are telling me by reelection depends upon fuckin bnd traders?” (Nowadays, the once famous quote has disappeared from search engines: no accident.)

Brad Delong: “From the end of World War II until 2007, Western political leaders at least acted as if they were interested in achieving full employment, price stability, an acceptably fair distribution of income and wealth, and an open international order in which all countries would benefit from trade and finance”

Patrice Ayme: Not true: Clinton, a so-called “Democrat” ruined the separation of banking and speculation (installed by president Roosevelt and Congress in 1933). Instead of serving all, banks were reset to serve mostly the wealthiest. Moreover Clinton enabled so-called “financial derivatives” with total free rein. Even more serving of the wealthiest, enabling them to leverage themselves tremendously. That led to the 2008 crisis, when a bank dealing mostly in US Treasury Bonds and an insurer, AIG, got acutely bankrupt from derivatives… with nearly all other major banks, just as bad. Bush, in accord with Obama, and then Obama alone sent to the banks all the money they needed and some.

Brad De Long: “Then came 2008, when everything changed. The goal of full employment dropped off Western leaders’ radar, even though there was neither a threat of inflation nor additional benefits to be gained from increased openness. Likewise, the goal of creating an international order that serves everyone was summarily abandoned. Both objectives were sacrificed in the interest of restoring the fortunes of the super-rich, perhaps with a distant hope that the wealth would “trickle down” someday.”

PA: Right. So why do we still call individuals like Obama, “Democrat”, and act as if they were,  when all they did was to serve the wealthiest, the plutocrats (feeding them ever since)?

De Long: “Others, like me, understood that expansionary monetary policies would not be enough; but, because we had looked at global imbalances the wrong way, we missed the principal source of risk – US financial mis-regulation.”

PA: One reform is necessary: banks are there to serve We The People and the real economy serving We The People. Banks should not serve speculation to make the wealthiest wealthier. Plutocrats hate it, so so-called “economists” can’t understand its utility (to themselves!)

De Long: “Between the financial crisis of 2008 and the political crisis of 2016 came the presidency of Barack Obama. In 2004, when he was still a rising star in the Senate, Obama had warned that failing to build a “purple America” that supports the working and middle classes would lead to nativism and political breakdown.

Yet, after the crash, the Obama administration had little stomach for the medicine that former President Franklin D. Roosevelt had prescribed to address problems of such magnitude. “The country needs…bold persistent experimentation,” Roosevelt said in 1932, at the height of the Great Depression. “It is common sense to take a method and try it; if it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something.”

The fact that Obama failed to take aggressive action… With policymaking having been subjected to the malign influence of a rising plutocracy, economists calling for “bold persistent experimentation” were swimming against the tide – even though well-founded economic theories justified precisely that course of action.”

PA: Need one say more? Delong congratulates himself with the present state of affairs. But actually US society became much more unequal under Obama. Rising inequality brings the collapse of civilization: such is the lesson of history. One can’t get a worse result than collapse. Time to redefine “left” in light of increasing potential collapse..

That collapse didn’t happen yet is why we can still talk about it.

But never, in the history of humanity, has collapse seemed more likely, long-term. In no small measure, because of the cecity of official economy, which is more focused in increasing inequality than in realizing that this is another name for rising plutocracy.

Economists, like most of those working in the media, are just employees of the world’s wealthiest men. Directly, or indirectly through plutocratic universities. Plutocratic universities are not universal.

PLUTOCRATIC UNIVERSITIES Are NOT UNIVERSAL

Nor is the present economic theory resting on a universal foundation: it rests only on pleasing plutocracy. Economy will become universal when it rests on energy itself, more exactly, Absolute Worth Energy.

AWE: ENERGY IS THE FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF ECONOMICS.

Meanwhile, let those who managed the increase of inequality under Clinton, Bush and Obama blame others: that’s what they do best.

Patrice Ayme

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14 Responses to “Politically Correct Famous Democratic Economist Admits To Treachery of Political Leaders After 2007. Good. Yet, Why Just 2007? To Laud Plutocratic Clintonism?”

  1. Paul Handover Says:

    I have been absent for a while due to a number of personal issues, some as yet ‘work in progress’, but now able to read your blog again.

    Like

    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Thanks Paul… Essays, essays, not a “blog”, or blob.. I work on some of these essays for months sometimes… Like the 5,500 words one blasting Montaigne for extreme nihilism, last Sunday… Anyway your commonsense much appreciated…

      I even have a sailing essay incoming soon, about Route du Rhum….

      Like

  2. SDM Says:

    It was apparent all along that Goldman Sachs took control of policy when Clinton let Glass Steagall fall. Banks have got what they wanted ever since. Obama was just as bad when he failed the people while showering the banks with welfare. Even Dodd Frank has been whittled back so here we go again towards another meltdown.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Well, I think they think they can balance next time, but why bother? They made lots of money from the last crash, in the fullness of time, and their power has never been greater…

      Like

  3. Irade Alexi Helligar Says:

    I went on at length about the serious flaws of Obama. And in other places the catastrophic Clinton presidency. We are often our own worst enemies. No halo for Obama or the Clintons, however, we have the best shot by practising realpolitics that bring us closer to what we need not further away. So shame on you for giving up on your country. I am disappointed in you, Patrice. And I have been feeling that disappointment since you made noises supporting Trumpism.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Name calling, personal insults… Learn: My first point is that this is not about individuals, but ideas. Insult ideas, not people (except for public figures). I’m still friends with Obama, although I have explained fiercely what was wrong with his main ideas. I don’t see me as giving up on any country, But you need a devil, so you made up one (that makes you like public Trump, except I am not a public figure, but e are supposed to be “friends”).

      I don’t know what “Trumpism” is, and probably Trump doesn’t know either. I am a philosopher, and I have never met an author I didn’t approve of in some way, sometimes, on some aspects. But if Hitler said something right at some point (like his analysis of Catholicism and power, or of the human psyche’s acceptance of the Big Lie), that doesn’t mean I approve his view on multiracial (as my closest and chosen family is). So the noises you hear, aren’t in my head…

      Anyway I write something about a major Democrat economist recognizing that his own camp he was part of, betrayed, and you react by telling me you are disappointed in me? Where is the emotional logic?

      Liked by 1 person

  4. Irade Alexi Helligar Says:

    You are right about the plutocratic tendency of the Democratic Party. American politics needs new faces and new ideas. That is more likely with the Democratic Party than with Republicans of any kind. The Republican Party has no ideas and express no values that I can endorse. Indeed Republicans and their enablers are political vandals of the worst kind.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      The Democratic Party, as it is, is part of the Plutocratic Party, and the Republican Party is another wing of it. When Obama proposed my MEDICARE FOR ALL idea to his cabinet in 2009, ALL & ANY significant “Democrat” from his cabinet to Pelosi and company. Pelosi, initially a very wealthy lobbyist whose father was a professional politician (mayor of Philadelphia), is not back at the head of Congress. I like her, a lot, as a person, but I long viewed her as part of the PP, not someone for universal health coverage… So that way she is identical to official Trump, except when she was in power for MFA, Pelosi sank it, but Trump has never found himself in such a situation.

      I do not think elected politicians can have the answers. Calling them vandals, is besides the point. Calling FOR Direct Democracy, should be the point.

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  5. ianmillerblog Says:

    Without any external constraints, those trying to grow grow exponentially (growth proportional to what the base is), which means the inequality must increase, unless some external constraint hurts the wealthy, and/or government decides to be that constraint.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Arguably, the growth of the Roman REPUBLIC was exponential… But then it fell into plutocracy. I believe plutocracy tends to be exponential, but doesn’t have to be. Not much plutocracy in the first 3 centuries of the RR, the Roman Republic…

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  6. Len Charlap Says:

    Let’s stop flogging the idea that Bill Clinton deregulated the financial market. 1. Bill Clinton did NOT repeal Glass-Steagall. The name of the bill that DID repeal it was The Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act, good Republicans all. On Nov 4 1999 that bill was passed by the Senate 90–8, and by the House 362–57. A veto would have been fruitless. 2. Phil Gramm’s Commodities Futures Modernization Act which prevented regulation of derivatives was passed by adding a footnote in the dead of night to a conference report on an 11,000 page appropriations bill AFTER the conference had been completed. The bill was never sent to committee, never voted on in committee, never brought to the floor, and nobody knew it was there when they voted on the necessary appropriation bill. I guess you blame that on Bill, too.

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Dear Len Charlap: thank you for commenting and instructing me. I didn’t know all these details, or didn’t remember them. Let’s notice the following though: Clinton didn’t veto the Bill rejecting FDR financial reform. Even if the veto had been overturned, as you say would have happened, he would have firmly express his disagreement. He didn’t.
      Moreover, ever since, reinstalling FDR’s BANKING ACT, was never a priority of the so-called “left” in the USA… And the Clintons get paid up to 220K per hour by the ilk of Goldman Sachs…

      This is still a clear and present danger: I didn’t see banking reform as a priority to Pelosi and company….In 2018…. Nor do pseudo “liberal” economists a la Krugman, seem worried by the subject.

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  7. LEN CHARLAP Says:

    Nov 10, 2018
    Well, Patrice, Glass – Steagall was originally passed to prevent banks from buying insurance companies. By the time it was repealed, so many exemptions had been granted, it was a dead letter. But let’s see if it would have helped in 2008:

    95% of subprime mortgages were not sold by the banks to which Glass – Steagall applied. These bad mortgages were bundled into dodgy derivative securities and sold by investment banks again to which Glass – Steagall did not apply. Then credit default swaps (bets on these securities) were sold by reinsurance companies (like AIG) to which again Glass – Steagall did not apply.

    Hillary recognized that what was important was to regulate the world of what she called “shadow banking”–derivatives, the shadow exchanges in Atlanta and London, Hedge Funds, etc. If you read her fact sheet on Wall Street, you will see she planned to do what was necessary regardless of what she may or may not have told Goldman – Sachs which unless you believe the info provided by the Russians to WikiLeaks, we still do not know.

    https://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/

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    • Patrice Ayme Says:

      Looks like I should love Hillary more…
      Technicalities aside, the spirit of the BANKING ACT OF 1933 (Official Title) was to separate banking-for-the-economy and speculative banking of the wealthy…

      Derivatives ran out of control in the 1990s, under Clinton (OK, the Reps, etc.) However they existed since the 1600s (in Japan, at least…)

      I didn’t know Hillary was such a genius she invented the expression “Shadow Banking”…
      In any case the spirit of the Bank Act of 1933 should be revived…. By Democrats… That and cutting down on derivatives, to make them just balance/insure commercial operators….

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