When Is a Recovery Not a Recovery?
When it’s a jobless recovery, i.e., that fiction by which the Politicians and Fat-Cats pretend that everything is A-OK, in order to trick the rest of us into following their marching orders off the next goddamn cliff, next year or next decade. But it’s worse than “jobless”, which suggests job neutrality. In reality, jobs are disappearing. Last November it was big news when the FT reported[1] that the world’s economies lost 80,000 jobs. Now, we learn that the American economy shed 263,000 jobs in the month of September[2] alone, sending the national unemployment rate close to 10%. Adding insult to injury, people are remaining unemployed longer than ever: more than 50% of them have recently exhausted their public benefits. What happens to these people? Even though young college graduates with a few … Read entire article »
Filed under: Agora!, American Politics, Employment & Labor, Left Libertarian
Hang the Zombieconomy by its Own Rope
Lenin once said that capitalism would ultimately undo itself, because the entrepreneurs would gladly sell the rope with which they would later be hanged; they’d be too busy counting the profits to see the noose tightening around their necks. Well, somebody is choking right now, but it’s not the “capitalists”. Instead, like a torture victim, the little guy is being pressed to see just how much he can tolerate, how close they can bring him to the brink of asphyxia… Aside from the obvious swindle, the banks are using trillions of blackmailed dollars, stolen from the people, to strengthen the stranglehold. Several companies (e.g., Goldman Sachs and American Express) became “bank holding companies” only after the sh*t hit the proverbial fan, for the sole purpose of capitalizing on TARP funds, which they’re … Read entire article »
Filed under: Agora!, bailout, Left Libertarian, Monetary Policy
Leasing and Renting in a Free Economy: Dealing With Scarcity
As long as resource scarcity is a fact of reality, there will be some conflict between the limitless spectrum of human desires, and the limited resources at our disposal. Among these conflicts is that fact that not all resources will at all times be immediately available, especially within our own community, and that sometimes our desires conflict with others’. Exchanging, or offering to exchange by sale of goods with one another on these terms, is one manner by which market participants simultaneously mitigate conflict, and allocate scarce resources. To differentiate from an agreement to purchase an item permanently, we might consider agreements to lease or rent the item in question. One would purchase a car from another, if he believed he had a great and continued need for transportation. One might … Read entire article »
Filed under: Agora!, Anarchy!, Blog Reactions, Left Libertarian