2016

Erik Loomis, Adam Serwer. There's starting to punch Left, attacking Chapo Trap House and Tom Frank as sexist and racist.

What prompted this?

Gil Scott-Heron's America in Winter

saw him on a "Night Flight" rerun showed on IFC. He was also mentioned on Henwood's podcast interview with Alex Gourevitch. Never heard of him before.

serendipity and kizmet?

Khanna's job bill

REP. RO KHANNA TO INTRODUCE COMPROMISE “JOBS FOR ALL” BILL by Kate Aronoff

Ro Khanna Has an Ambitious Plan to Put the Unemployed to Work. Just Don’t Call It a Job Guarantee. By JORDAN WEISSMANN

Obama's 2011 job bills "American Jobs Act"

Joy Behar, hero

conservative media has been better on the rise of socialism than liberal MSNBC and CNN

only Fox has the video of Joy Behar vs Megan McCain

then Stephen Colbert last night said "God is socialist" after taking about the Fox news person who want to a Sander/Ocasio-Cortez rally in Kansas. The woman almost had a breakthrough about how enticing the socialist message was.

Obama's Mandela speech

Transcript: Obama's Speech At The 2018 Nelson Mandela Annual Lecture

I disagree with Zach Beauchamp

Chicago, Obama and universal basic income

Obama signals support for a universal basic income

CHICAGO MAY BECOME LARGEST CITY IN U.S. TO TRY UNIVERSAL BASIC INCOME by Zaid Jilani

Chicago Could Soon Become the Largest American City to Give Universal Basic Income a Try  By NATASHA BACH

Angry Bear and Fair vote don't see Blue Wave

86% of the 2018 Congressional Election Already Determined

Renationalize Ally Financial by Matt Bruenig

Create a Public Bank by Renationalizing Ally Financial by Matt Bruenig

JW Mason on MMT

A Response to Tom Palley by JW Mason

socialist economy and a JG

A JG could be a small part of a successful socialist state.

Say a socialist movement was successful 20 years from now and somehow had a program which agreed with what I think would be successful.

Run the economy hot via monetary policy and Kalecki-Lerner-Vickrey fiscal macro. Wages are negotiated by sectors and unions are strong with strong labor protections.

A sovereign wealth fund would be heavily invested in the economy and provide a social dividend/UBI to everyone regardless of income.

Free healthcare, free housing, mass transit and large investment program in infrastructure and green conversion.

There would still be the hard cases who could apply to a JG where they could get trained and work on projects for their community as they wait for employers to hire them.

There would be a demand for workers given that the economy was run hot with the emphasis on full employment.

Bruenig's podcast and social mobility

Listened to the powercouple Elizabeth and Matt Bruenig's podcast on social mobility, and they made a good point about social mobility being alienating as the successful family member becomes alien to the ones she left behind.

I wonder if this is a dynamic with the red/blue divide in America, with upwardly mobile people becoming meritocratic Democrats and alienating themselves from their more red-state lower income families. Obviously many upwardly mobile low-income Republicans stay conservative even as they become successful. Maybe culturally they stay more attuned to lower-class uneducated red-staters.

The more educated upwardly mobile become liberal while the less educated or more mercenary, less empathetic upwardly mobile remain conservative.

The Socialist Network

The Socialist Network by Gilad Edelman

central bank and return on investments

Doesn't the central bank control the rate of return within limits? For instance Keynes wanted to euthanize the rentiers with zero percent returns. The CB could adjust the rate of return for UBI check investments so it was livable without runaway inflation.

Bruenig on 5% rate of return.

Richard Branson comes out for UBI; Sandwichman on Three-day workweek

Three-day Workweeks and Four-day Weekends by Sandwichman

Dred Scot

On July 4, a consideration of Dred Scot by New Deal Democrat

Noah Smith on Ocasio-Cortez and socialism

Worried about socialism coming to America? by Noah Smith

Krugman on the "radical left" then & now

Radical Democrats are Pretty Reasonable by Krugman (July 3, 2018)

Sanders Over the Edge by Krugman (April 8, 2016)

Kevin Drum: we're all social democrats now

I really don't like Drum.

We Are All Social Democrats Now by Kevin Drum

"It's like Republicans promise economic growth and job creation and so do Democrats. What's the difference? They both promise to be fiscally responsible and pro-business. What's the difference, really, when you think about it?"

Socialism, quesque ç'est?

This is a response to Mike The Mad Biologist on the nature of socialism and the Democratic Party. I pretty much agree with Matt Bruenig on socialism.

Mike:

But on a more serious note, I’m geniunely puzzled as to how this is any different from what used to be called liberal Democrats (before and during the 1990s–and who were mostly purged from power by the Clinton era New Democrats) would propose... So it’s really hard to see how what is currently referred to as socialism would differ from Hubert Humphrey’s economic proposals.

It would be nice to discuss this with a historian of post-war liberalism.

Kennedy did an income tax cut. What else? LBJ did the war on poverty but it was incomplete. They made improvements on Social Security. Medicare and Medicaid. Minimum wage increases. Incrementalism until the 1970s and Reagan. LBJ privatized Fannie and Freddie. FDR had the Second Bill of Rights but it was only minor incrementalism after he was gone. Taxes on the rich came down, yes Medicare and Medicaid were good but socialists were demanded single-payer Medicare-for-All. Better anti-poverty programs. Better housing programs. Better labor laws.

How did liberal Democrats collapse so easily into neoliberalism? From equal outcomes where everyone has a minimum level of dignity (see FDR's second bill of rights) to equal opportunity and education.

Socialism focuses on the necessity of government involvement in the economy and the centrality of the labor movement. It recognizes the hostility of corporations and the rich to economic democracy. Socialists push free public college.

What did Jimmy Carter do? Beef up the EPA? There wasn't a sense of fighting for working people after LBJ.

Bruenig on Medicare for All:

Medicare for All nationalizes the US health insurance industry, bringing it under social ownership and control. It also combines this nationalization with a universal public benefit program that should be very popular and appealing to socialists and non-socialists alike. Thus it is a fairly straightforward democratic socialist strategy as it moves the ball on social ownership through incremental reforms that could win popular democratic support.

Ocasio-Cortez sounds a lot like Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders.

TEH SOCIALISMZ!!! AAAIIIEEE!!!! by Mike the Mad Biologist

TEH SOCIALISMZ!!! AAAIIIEEE!!!! by Mike the Mad Biologist