tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260529726656118434.post6981070323085612318..comments2023-10-06T00:52:04.371-07:00Comments on news from the zona: the rare ava socialistusRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260529726656118434.post-16105410883491523982009-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:002009-03-02T09:15:00.000-08:00Amie, I didn't see your comments!Nice moustaaki.In...Amie, I didn't see your comments!<BR/>Nice moustaaki.<BR/><BR/>In James Galbraith’s book, the Predator State, he quotes a Hungarian economist from the 80s writing about soft budget constraints in the Communist economies. Many manufacturers were horribly inefficient and could not compete on the international market, and yet so central to the provision of social services that they could not be allowed to fail. Galbraith says that the same thing is true in the West. It is true on two levels. On the level of the oligarchs, the speculative economy is the heart of their power. They have long put our “representatives” in a cage, and before the state can take a step, it must consult and placate the oligarchy. But the provision of social services has long been tied in, ever more closely, with the speculative economy. From Pinochet onward, the one central success of left social movements – social insurance – has been attacked, since it was seen as a very great treasure. It was. Since the eighties, various forms of inkind benefit – 401 ks in the U.S., pension plans, etc. – have all flooded into the speculative sphere. It is this which we are now facing. In a way, the Zona is a Brechtian stage play. If you bet a thousand dollars on your being docked a certain amount of pay, and the amount you were docked was less than the thousand dollars, you win. It is a bet that you will lose, essentially. Make those bets spring up millionfold. And then, one day, someone demands money upfront to make the bet. Since you don’t have the thousand dollars (having had your pay docked) and since you can’t borrow the thousand dollars, what happens? Your bet that you will lose also loses. Even the devil wasn’t this clever in Job.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260529726656118434.post-50556823318078953022009-02-28T21:22:00.000-08:002009-02-28T21:22:00.000-08:00Oops, sorry, I linked to the Tetes Raides twice, T...Oops, sorry, I linked to the Tetes Raides twice, The Second one was supposed to be this<BR/><BR/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouaytC9njFU<BR/><BR/>AmieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260529726656118434.post-77992590238831502732009-02-28T20:46:00.000-08:002009-02-28T20:46:00.000-08:00I have a number of reservations or questions regar...I have a number of reservations or questions regarding Ségolène, but I'll be damned if at times she doesn't make me stand up and cheer. And be disgusted by the backlash. So she's being incendiary, for denouncing neo-colonialism, acknowledging suffering, or hearkening to the revolution. Oh, she's just shooting for a photo-op. Which of course only goes to show that for such viewpoints, politics is nothing but a photo-op. In which one can conveniently forget that this has something to do with a union strike and a union leader having a bullet put through his head. I suppose he wanted the ultimate photo op.<BR/>The CGT in Guadeloupe is asking for a wage increase of 200 euros. Goddam greedy of them! The MEDEF bosses think so. The MEDEF in France denounced Obama's proposing that there should be a limit on CEO salaries. Bad for enterprise and economy, you know. That such stuff can still be said, accepted, believed and repeated like a mantra - today - is supreme delusion.<BR/>I was barely thirteen in 91 when the Soviet Union fell apart. Since which I've had to listen to the mantra of how neo-liberal capitalism is the only way to go. Well, this particular "model" has lasted less than the Soviet Union. It is crumbling, right before our disbelieving eyes. And the managers and experts and pundits have no real grasp on what is happening. For instance, in the US a 3.8% becomes 6.2%. In Japan, their exports, the mainstay of their economy, falls by almost half.<BR/>France where Sarkozy & Co kept saying that everything was just fine, had some unemployment numbers that would indicate otherwise. I listened during the last french elections - but also before that - of how socialism and the goddam french who still held to it were stupid, silly, backward, nostalgic, out of touch with the times and reality. Well, even during the past few years, when Sarkozy had this brilliant idea of being the next Thatcher or Blair, with free market reforms to modernize and reform public and social services ( liquidate them) the unions and socialists tried to hold their ground, didn't give up the ghost. Kids from the lycees went out and made the State back down. <BR/>It is time to not just be defensive but to be offensive. <BR/><BR/><BR/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3iY7kgZqQ<BR/><BR/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ3iY7kgZqQ<BR/><BR/>AmieAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com