Re: On the subject of corporate speech preclusion...
 

Re China, I think every country has that issue today. One of the points of Bremmer's little book was that those benefiting in today's world, who are effectively in control of govts, are in a struggle to placate the increasingly angrier underclasses. There's a constant process of measuring the lowest number of crumbs the govts have to give to the proletariat to buy time and avoid serious change to the system that delivers so well for the "winners" in global trade.

The thinking among those in control has always been, conserve the crumbs, because there are only so many we can offer, which is obviously the best way to buy the most time.

2008 screwed the whole thing up. The 10% of society (globally) soaking up all the money were forced to nakedly bail themselves out. The subsequent asset value recovery/bubble didn't reach the proles, and their resentment grew and manifested itself in populism, xenophobia, and a vote-against-anything-perceived-as-elite reaction.* Thus Brexit, and then Trump.


_______
* I agree with your point that most of modern "conservatism" is reactive. I'd say the only political ideology more reactive is populism, which at least here has eaten conservatism.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Protectionism's essential aim is to lift all boats. Today's benefits to Trump's favored sectors are outweighed by some immediate and some longer term losses to many others. For instance, US steel got a boost from Trump. But this has now cost developers a 15% increase in project delivery costs. On the municipal and govt contracting side, this slams taxpayers, who'll see tax increases.

The only retort needed in response to "We can be like Sweden or Norway" is, "I can't even."

I do not understand where you are going here.

Inequality leads to populism/nationalism, which leads to scapegoating. People factionalize along political, ethnic, geographic, etc. lines. When the pie shrinks, people start squabbling among themselves.

We have a few cultural civil wars going on here and in Europe right now.

That's what Bremmer says. I don't recall reasons, exactly, but I believe it was generally, The weakest always get hurt the most when the economy craters. I recall he noted that most of the lesser developed nations are depending on lower skilled labor to create a middle class, to lift themselves to developed status. Automation is going to torpedo that plan at exactly the wrong time.

He relied on studies indicating 77% of Chinese labor would be eliminated by automation in the next 40 years. He thinks India is facing something similar. He does not buy the argument that automation will create more jobs than it eliminates over any relevant timeframe.

We're focusing on Trump's lurid behavior, who can use what bathroom, who's a dread "Muslim," building a wall to keep out phantom illegals, the "resistance," "Antifa," Russiagate... Our media is obsessed with social wedge issues that drive us into warring camps... And while all of this goes on, none of the serious issues (environment, infrastructure, planning for a world where many will not work, health care and education costs) are addressed.

Agreed.

The only difference between parties here, and in most developed democracies, is the number of crumbs they're willing to give. Progressives give a lot more crumbs, conservatives leave you near starving. But neither party has any plan to upend the facets of the system that deliver enormous gains to 10% of society, and very little to the rest. Here, neither party has any intention of leveling with the people about where we are. Status quo bias - a tyranny of tired ideas (such as, "tech will create more jobs than it eliminates") - persists. And the reason for that is simple: The 10% that's "winning" provides all of the money for, and therefore controls, our entire political system.

The 10% does not want the general public to be provided with clarity on where things stand and where they're likely heading. Because if you provide that clarity, you create an urgency to act. The problem the 10% faces, however, is the Internet has undone govt's ability to craft a rosy narrative to keep the underclasses believing in the system. (And I'm not talking about Trump's "fake news." That actually aids the status quo, as it will allow future govts to discredit online criticism the same way Trump currently discredits legacy media criticism.)

The system is not dysfunctional for the wealthy interests that control it. But it is, increasingly, a balsa wood skyscraper.

Re: We are all Slave now.
 

Was thinking one of the younger Ball brothers in a few years?

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Look, on this Bremmer stuff, I don't know whether I'm arguing with you because I'm not sure what you or Bremmer are saying. So maybe we agree on a lot of this.

I agree with about what Trump is doing and that it doesn't lift all boats. I don't think Trump and his people really think they are lifting all boats. They understand that they are helping the steel industry and farmers are getting screwed. They also understand that US consumers are paying a price, but they are OK with big gains to some industries (e.g., domestic steel) and small losses (each, big in the aggregate) to consumers. But they get that they can't say that. They have to pretend that everyone wins.

Good to know, but that wasn't my point. My point was that it's not globalism that causes the problem, see the Nordics -- it's something else about what's going on.

The idea between international trade regimes is that it's a non-zero-sum game. With the right sets of rules, both countries benefits. But the benefits don't accrue evenly in each country. People buying cars benefit when they can buy foreign makes; people making cars lose. We all understand this. So part of the implied deal in this country has been that the winners would help take care of the losers. That's essentially a zero-sum game, a transfer. As I'm sure you agree, job-training programs don't really create a lot of value.

As a causal chain that follows logically, but if you think about history you don't see a lot of actual correlation there.

At the risk of stating the obvious, old jobs are always disappearing and new jobs are always appearing. There's a sort intellectual endowment effect going on where people worry more about what's lost than what's gained, because it seems more real.

I would say that the GOP's obsession with cutting taxes (redistribution from everyone else to the rich) is a zero-sum game that prevents solving other problems. No one really thinks the tax cuts are going to solve other problems, but Republicans pretend it. The GOP hostility to most spending prevents the government from doing anything about the problems you list. Basically, the government is being held hostage to rich conservatives, who care more about enriching themselves through tax cuts than anything else.

I'm sorry, but all of that is bullshit. When the Democrats were in power, they passed the ACA and Dodd-Frank, among other things. If you want to talk about why they didn't go farther, we can have that oonversation, but you'll have to admit that there are a lot of Democrats -- most of them -- who want to do more, and you'll have to reckon with what it takes to get social change. If it takes 60 Senators to pass legislation, you only get legislation that the 60th least progressive Senator wants to pass. (And that can survive the Supreme Court, etc.)

If you want to say that centrist Democrats have run out of ideas, you also have to acknowledge that a lot of Democrats agree and are not done yet.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Agreed. Trump can't even get protectionism right.

Side note on steel: It's not even helping that industry very much because that industry contracted to such a small size, and cannot expand quickly because of cost (steel plants are like refineries... can't just be built, expanded, taken out of mothballs), that all it's done is make it hard to get steel here and made domestic steel crazy expensive. (China and Japan will also simply sell their steel to us through other nations to get around the tariffs.)

Redistribution is a the simple answer. Winners give to losers via taxes. But I'm not sure that's a cure anymore. We can do that, of course, but there's a deeper question: How does one satisfy a nation of people who are effectively told they are superfluous?

The Saudis are a giant welfare state. Everybody gets a check. And it works economically as long as oil remains a valuable commodity. But the Saudis also are a hotbed of religious fanaticism because most of their youth only work in busywork state jobs, or don't work at all. Idle hands, devil's playthings...

You can draw a straight line between economic inequality and nationalism. Russia is an excellent current example. Germany remains an excellent historical example. And the rise of far right parties through Europe I think demonstrates correlation.

That the human mind focuses more on loss than gain is inarguable. Similarly inarguable, I'd say, is the observation that tech does not create more jobs than it destroys. And new industries, tech and non-tech, are not appearing to pick up the slack labor. What is occurring in the job market, if you dig into the types of jobs created, is an increase in new forms of service work. These are not typically high paying jobs.

Anecdotally, have you noticed how many dinners you attend now which are catered? A simple dinner, at someone's house. I've gone to quite informal dinners at the homes of friends over the past decade and seen an increase in "staffing." One could argue that this is a good thing -- people are starting businesses. One could also argue this is a desperate thing -- people who'd otherwise work a middle class gig are now serving the affluent.

I don't like being served by a waiter at a party where I'm wearing flip flops and surf shorts, to which I was casually invited by text. That seems decadent to me.

I see dog walkers in the neighborhood, and though all labor has some dignity, I can't help but feel this is capitalism run into the ditch. I don't want to live in an upstairs/downstairs quasi-Downton Abbey world. And I don't think the people on the short end of the stick in that situation are going to tolerate it for much longer.

Absolutely.

I won't disagree with any of that. And the low approval for the tax cuts shows that Joe Sixpack is on to the scam.

But the solution has to be more than simply redistributing. It has to involve, and Bremmer emphasizes this, giving people purpose, dignity, and something to do which provides value they can trade for money. In this regard, while I support UBI, I admit UBI is not a complete fix.

The ACA was a good bill. Dodd-Frank was well intentioned, but I think it prolonged economic malaise. I'd have created a "bad bank" for the crap loans instead, and given the bailout to Main Street. I'd have placed the health of the banks last, shoring up Main Street first.

I very much want to talk about that because I think that was the tragedy of 2016. Bernie was pie in the sky. Totally unrealistic. Hillary was status quo. There was a space between them that was not filled -- a place where a candidate could have taken Bernie's message, smoothed it to realistic plans, and sold it to enough of the Trump voters to get elected. But instead, the party ignored the Trump voters. I understand why it did so. It's hard to placate those people. Hillary didn't have it in her to lie to them as Trump did. She knew a trade war would be a mess, and that their jobs are not coming back. So she did what I'd probably have done in her shoes - pretend they weren't there and hope they didn't provide some strange path to a Trump victory. That doesn't work anymore, apparently.

I agree. I think they will find the candidate who channels the positives of Bernie and Hillary, and that person will succeed. But it will be an uphill battle, as that person is going to face full opposition of almost all corporate interests on both the D and R side. That's a lot of money, a lot of lobbyists, and a lot of bought and paid for Senators and Congressmen to overcome.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

That's ridiculous.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Aside from all of human history, you mean. Which is why there are so many fewer people employed today than 100 years ago. Or pick whatever time interval you want.

There's lot of room to come up with other, better ways of stabilizing the financial system but if you're going to play that game, you need to grapple with the facts that (1) what they did "worked" (i.e., it ended the bank run), (2) ultimately "cost" very little in government expenditure that didn't get paid back (you may not care, but the people making the decisions did), and (3) the thing Ty just said about needing to get it past 60 senators.

Also, I do not think Dodd-Frank was the bailout bill.

Re: And we won't even get into all the "unintended" but totally foreseeable results..
 

What are you on?

Protectionism by its very nature is intended to kill exports and anyone who produces for the export sector. If you raise soybeans in a country that will never eat all the soy raised, protectionism is designed to hurt you.

Aren't you embarrassed when you say stuff this moronic?

Re: Pro-Tip
 

If you're going to post long-ass post, don't say something utterly absurd and unsupportable at the beginning, it will just ensure no one gets any farther. Save your most absurd, unsupportable statements for the end.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Using my Sebby-whispering skillz, I believe he was talking about the goals of protectionism as espoused by those who push it to the electorate. That message is certainly what my family in The Ancestral Homeland thinks protectionism is all about.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

I trust your ancestral homeland doesn't have farms.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Although dairy farming country surrounds The Ancestral Homeland, my people gave up on farming when they left The Old Sod in 1911 or so. In fact, although my great-grandfather was a farmer, my grandfather was a stone cutter before emigrating.

For a fictional comparison, think Billy Phelan, not Johnny Appleseed.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

In other words, they won't feel the bite until the farmers who hire them are all broke as harvest time hits.

Re: Ian Bremmer
 

Unless the farmers own breweries, factories, and police/fire departments, that (job loss) won’t happen right away.

Note that I am Not Defending their views on this; just noting (a) their views on protectionism, and (2) that because it won’t impact them as quickly as global free trade did, they prefer protectionism.

Re: And we won't even get into all the "unintended" but totally foreseeable results..
 

Over the longer term, protectionism is supposed to bring broader prosperity to all. But as with Adder’s moronic argument that tech will create more jobs than it displaces (which it will, 100 years from now), the temporary pain of tariffs on the export sector sucks during the interim. The theory is pain now for some, better terms for all over the long term. Do I agree? No. But that’s the theory.

Adder, stop citing that old argument re tech and jobs. Tell me what’s going to happen in the next 30 years. I don’t give a fuck, and no one else alive right now gives a fuck, about what happens over a multi-century timeline. I’ll tell you what’s going to happen over the next 30 years... Tech is going to savage wages and replace many multiples of the jobs it creates. We all know that’s coming... Because it’s been fucking happening! What exactly do you think the “gig” economy is?

Do you know how many people work in the gig economy? 70 million, I believe. Ya think that’s by choice? All just soccer moms looking for extra grocery money?

How dense are you?