The End of the American Dream and How Democratic Apologists are Creating It

Another brutally accurate piece. The only bone with which I would take a trifling pick is, “Obama could have been FDR. He was given the opportunity. He blew it.”

To say that he “blew it” would seem to imply that he tried and failed and, as you amply and loudly proclaim throughout, he did not try. It would be more precise to say that, “He rekected it.” He did not want the chance to be FDR.

Are we going to relitigate this all over again? OK, while my time is more limited this time around, I’ll play the goat. For the most part, Democratic legislators don’t respond to punishment from the left the way that Republican legislators respond to punishment from the right. There is a reason for this. That is the core of the problem, and it sets the upper limit of what can be done directly in electoral politics.

In the comments of another blog, a dispirited participant recounted that his friends were telling him that the Democrats lost because Obama was unwilling to “compromise” with the Republicans …

Yves Smith from Naked Capitalism says the repeal of Glass-Steagall has almost nothing to do with the crisis. She writes:

The formal repeal of Glass Steagall had NO, and I stress NO, role in causing the crisis. The NYSE rule change allowing corporations to be members, allowing money market funds to be largely unregulated, the Fed’s refusal to regulate derivatives, and the Fed ceasing to supervise primary dealers, all were more significant factors. I could list ten more that were more important in weakening bank/investment bank supervision without thinking hard.

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/11/nomi-prins-financial-political-system-failed-stability-matters.html#comment-2348868

It seems pretty unfair to compare Obama with FDR. FDR was independently wealthy, he was from one of those old east coast patrician families. Obama probably had a few millions before becoming president. But how was he to reach the Clinton level of wealthiness (2 orders of magnitude higher)? By playing FDR? LOL! Catering to the middle/poor classes dont pay. Neither Obama or Clinton will ever reach the blue blood level that FDR got just by being born.

Excellent and depressing post.

You many know of this, but if not: “If it’s a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don’t want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign.”

Harry S Truman, http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1296

I wrote this in August 2011. It pissed off a few die-hard believers. I regret that it, and your piece today, are all to accurate.
–xpara

I plead guilty to horribly misjudging Obama. I actually thought he was a tough, smart, and eloquent progressive, and not a slick, conniving, and eloquent corporate hack dominated by his Chicago-machine connections.
It was my fault that I believed him. I have covered politicians at all levels, and should have known better. But I still smart from what feels like a betrayal. The sad part is, he “coulda been a contender,” a contender for the top rank of presidents, like those who founded the nation, and like those who took office when the nation was in peril, such as Lincoln and FDR.
He could have hit the ground running in January1 2009, demanding that the Democratic Congress pass meaningful job, mortgage, infrastructure, and housing programs, soaking the rich to pay for it. He could have sneered at the GOP pols who tried to stop him, reveling in their hatred, and pointing out that they were odious toadies to the rich. He could have passed universal health care. He could have appointed decent judges and cabinet officers and forced them through the Senate with the wrath and mirth afforded the bully pulpit for those who choose to use it. He could have been a champion of civil liberties, not a scourge of whistle blowers and an out-sourcer of torture. He could have actually brought change to the sick and sorry substance and culture of Washington, primarily by reining in lobbyists and getting big money out of politics. He had the opportunity and the means. He might have failed, but so what? He obviously did not have the motive, since he didn’t really try in any meaningful way.
Does he not understand basic economics? Does he really think cutting taxes and spending creates jobs instead of destroying them? Does he not understand how a president must pressure legislators? Is he some naif who is over matched? Nope. Just another cog in the corporatization of America.
He seemed to be a last, best hope for America. But it turns out he wasn’t even interested in playing that role, except for dropping hints in campaign slogans. He is a typical trimmer of a politician, not a leader and no longer even pretending to be an inspiration. It is a wretched shame, and a tragedy for our country.

Do over. At the end of my comment I should have referred to the Big Four (not the big five) commercial banks.

I will be even more frank, the contempt I have for Democratic apologists and Obamabots is far greater than what I feel for Republicans.

Ian,

Yet it wasn’t more than a year or so ago that I was reading your twitter feed and read you exchanging pleasantries with one of the biggest … and vilest … democratic party apologists of all: tbogg. In fact you’ve done that several times on twitter and it just makes me shake my head.

No one is perfect and I agree with a lot of what you write … and I believe that you are a lot more principled person than most (though I don’t personally know you) … but to be completely honest with you: that’s pretty hypocritical.

Z

Wossup with the weird capitalization? I am trying to read it as emphasis, and it does not sound natural. Some kind of secret acronym code?

The caps are an effort to make certain syllables read as emphasised and sounding louder the way I would hear it being spoken inside my head. If people find that confusing or jangling I will stop doing it. I thought it would make my thoughts clearer rythm and cadence-wise.

it is wonderful to see such truths about the Democrats exposed. for years now the “Lesser Of Two Evils” has been bandied about to pretend the Democrats were out to help the “American Public.” such nonsense has been carefully spread so the willfully ignorant could pretend only the Republicans were EVIL. lol

it takes two to tango in Congress. and the Democrats have always sold the American Public down the river of Hell, always to follow the Republican way, since the St. Reagan Revolution promised its’ followers a fortune in wealth and power. When did the Democrats filibuster anything the Republicans did. I’m not aware of one piece of legislation/or right wing judge that Democrats filibustered since Judge Bork was nominated. Bork was the last judge/last time/ the Democrat stood up for anything. After Bork, the Democrats gave up the pretense of “caring about Americans” and joined the Republican in this tyranny. such an evil group of people, who pretended for so long to “care” about Americans. The Democrats only cared about how much wealth and power they could get while the Republicans were fleecing us all.

the Republicans at least had the balls to be honest about how they wanted to enslave us all, to turn the world back in Feudalism. The Democrats just kept quiet and muttered nonsensical mumbo jumbo and then proceeded to help the Republicans sell us out.

maybe Americans will wake up now. to see the reality of the world the Democrats helped the Republicans turn America into. A Neo Feudal Fascist/Corporate Run State. For the Rich By the Rich and Of The Rich.

The Republicans promised this years ago. just read the Powell Memo, for a clue of how this Neo Feudalistic Corporate America began. The Republicans have been working hard at this for years. and the Democrats helped, gladly and willingly, every inch of the way. every single inch. Thank the Clintons, Obama, Pelosi, Reid, to name but a few, and every other Democratic Politician/Power Broker who sold out to the Republican for their share. Obama was/is the Manchurian Candidate, who did as he was programmed to. Obama even praised St. Reagan on his victory speech in Chicago!! the Republicans rule. Democrats follow.

as St. Ronnie said, those in the Middle of the Road become roadkill.

While Clinton did preside over “the only real median wage gain” since 1973, that essentially is focusing on one notable tree, and missing the whole effing forest. The argument that Glass Steagal had nothing to do with the financial crash also is missing the the whole effing forest – and the whole effing forest is aflame, thousands of acres burning, and smoke rising miles into the air visible from a few counties over.

Glass Steagal first: the issue is FINANCIALIZATION. The fundamental problem with the US economy is cultural: the over-weening dominance of the neo-liberal belief that a dollar in profit made from producing steel or tractors or cars, has the same value as a dollar in profit made from trading currency swaps, futures on the yen or the Euro, or some other piece of paper. They don’t, they just don’t, and you can never understand that they don’t by studying mainstream economics. Only when you approach the issue with the understanding that economics is about how a society organizes itself to create, procure, produce, and distribute the goods and services needed to sustain and reproduce a human population will you begin to understand why speculation and usury are akin to a Biblical plague upon the societies that allow them. Barry Ritholtz’s view on the culpability of Gramm-Leach-Bliley is therefore closer to the truth than Yves Smith’s, but does not go far enough in identifying the irredeemably destructive nature of financialization.

The proper critique of Clinton, then, is made by Tom Palley – and Palley also identifies why the median wage gains under the Clinton economy were ephemeral, without substance, and unsustainable.

The debt delusion, by Thomas Palley, February 8, 2008
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/thomas_palley/2008/02/the_debt_delusion.html

America’s economic contradictions are part of a new business cycle that has emerged since 1980. The business cycles of presidents Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr, Bill Clinton, and George Bush share strong similarities and are different from pre-1980 cycles. The similarities are large trade deficits, manufacturing job loss, asset price inflation, rising debt-to-income ratios, and detachment of wages from productivity growth.

The new cycle rests on financial booms and cheap imports. Financial booms provide collateral that supports debt-financed spending. Borrowing is also supported by an easing of credit standards and new financial products that increase leverage and widen the range of assets that can be borrowed against. Cheap imports ameliorate the effects of wage stagnation.

This structure contrasts with the pre-1980 business cycle, which rested on wage growth tied to productivity growth and full employment. Wage growth, rather than borrowing and financial booms, fueled demand growth. That encouraged investment spending, which in turn drove productivity gains and output growth.

The differences between the new and old cycle are starkly revealed in attitudes toward the trade deficit. Previously, trade deficits were viewed as a serious problem, being a leakage of demand that undermined employment and output. Since 1980, trade deficits have been dismissed as the outcome of free-market choices. Moreover, the Federal Reserve has viewed trade deficits as a helpful brake on inflation, while politicians now view them as a way to buy off consumers afflicted by wage stagnation.

The new business cycle also embeds a monetary policy that replaces concern with real wages with a focus on asset prices. Whereas pre-1980 monetary policy tacitly aimed at putting a floor under labour markets to preserve employment and wages, it now tacitly puts a floor under asset prices. This is not a matter of the Fed bailing out investors. Rather, the economy has become so vulnerable to declines in asset prices that the Fed is obliged to intervene to prevent them from inflicting broad damage.

The Republican vision is that 20 white male billionaires will own everything and rule the world with an iron whip. The Democratic vision is however completely different, in that not all the billionaires will be white men.

Hi Ian and all,

I used to think that red vs blue or right vs left were important, too.

Now, I find it fundamentally naive to think that a system owned, literally, and run literally by money would have any other outcome in the short term than the one we are living: the propagation of more money by money for money.

These red vs blue games are faux battles concocted and promoted by male minds — and the masculine of all sexes contribute as well, of course –for their own amusement — guys love to fight. That trap has sprung here as well.

The ultimate failure of this 1% economic machine on its own terms will put the cat amongst the pigeons and force or allow something different to emerge. It may be the medium term burn of climate change or it may be a more immediate failure of the system itself — say, for example the whole big fossil fuel economy of the past century+ collapses (the Rockefeller heirs bailed recently — and they know something about fossil fuels).

We might even be seeing that already — oil prices not reacting to ‘crises’, solar at par or cheaper than fossil fuels in 79 countries on the planet, Naomi Klein’s exposure of the ‘real’ climate crisis (although it’s too bad she didn’t tell why or how capitalism works — she never addressed the details of the capitalism she skewers), the end of the fracking revolution already becoming evident… As oil prices fall, all the tar sands silliness evaporates because the economics don’t work– we may even see that before Harper runs again if he waits ’til next fall..

What emerges next is anyone’s guess, perhaps. But the system in crisis can do unexpected things out of desperation. One candidate is the feminine — the female mind which lives by cooperation rather than conflict — tend and befriend rather than fight or flight. Big biz at the cutting edge has figured out that the feminine mind does it better than the masculine: makes more money, is more ethical, attends to details, is cool in crisis because it doesn’t have the fight or flight motivation that the masculine does. It tends and befriends, remember?. What if the bigbiz cognoscenti actually applied that knowledge out in the world beyond their own companies? Maybe it’s already happening…

A new book a couple of months ago has shown by the use of controlled experiments how to get the ♀ mind engaged in making decisions in small groups (where everything starts). It will prove to be the biggest contribution of social science to humankind’s evolution in a v long time (perhaps ever).

They show that there are two critical elements in fair and equitable and transparent decision-making in small groups: 1) the sex/gender ratio within the group and 2) the decision rules the group uses (e.g. consensus vs majority rule have majorly different outcomes). They test their thesis by controlled experiments in an upper (Princeton) vs a lower (Utah) class setting and find their principles apply universally.

These claim to be fundamental truths about how to make democratic decisions that, once applied, will change the world — from the bottom up, one decision at a time… and that, too, may already be happening.

The book is:

The Silent Sex:
Gender, Deliberation, and Institutions
Christopher F. Karpowitz & Tali Mendelberg
Princeton U Press

You heard it here first. You’re welcome.

Now: stop fighting and start cooperating …. hahahaha

Cheers,

L.

PS For more on the science of sex and violence in human groups, check out Curating Sex, Briefly at your Amazon (Kindle Select) e-book place. And enjoy it … the best evening’s entertainment you can get for just US$ 2.99

That’s true now, but for a moment, from ’03 to ’08, things were quite different. I think too, that had Clinton gotten the nomination, instead of Obama, the accountability would have kept on going.

I mostly disagree. I was watching you and Markos back then and had a bit more optimism then, but I don’t think that a Clinton victory would have been a *huge* difference. I think that American progressives carry within them the seeds of their own destruction, and I don’t just mean the “Democratic apologists” against whom Ian inveighs, but the anti-Obama ones who frequent places like this. In fact, without exempting the former, I would say more so the latter.

On a Clinton win, I do think that there would have been less scope for attempts at “making Congress work” and all, which would have been a blessing, but the same incentive structure holds. And not just the post-hoc corruption of speaking fees, etc, but for a large number of other reasons about which everyone here knows I can go on at length, heh. But to sample one of them: in a country as large as the USA, any major political party will still have an establishment. And progressives seem only to know how to relate to the establishment in a negative way. The party establishment will fight if it cannot figure out its place in the Glorious Progressive Future, and it is the establishment for reasons, only one of which is money.

One last of my patented esprit de l’escalier serial posts: an understanding of spoils is one reason why until the introduction of the Euro, the European left was more effective than the American one. The Euro came with an attempt to impose German Ordnungspolitik on non-German countries and broken the division of spoils, leading to the rise of the far right. The Ordnungspolitik attitude is in theory (haha) very opposed to the idea of social and political buyoffs, but it could only even partly work because of the very unique political reset that Germans gave themselves via baptism in an ocean of blood. It’s easy to say, “no establishment buyoffs” when one part of your establishment spent a lot of time killing the other part (among other victims), and then were tried and hung afterwards.

“While Clinton did preside over “the only real median wage gain” since 1973, that essentially is focusing on one notable tree, and missing the whole effing forest … the issue is FINANCIALIZATION.”

I don’t entirely disagree with you. But again, most of the appalling financialization on steroids errors came in the dreadful last 18 months of the administration. They were incredibly bad decisions, but to his credit, Clinton has since admitted error on several of them.

And to continue the apologia, it’s worth noting that they came in the wake of the only veto Clinton had overridden in his entire administration: the execrable Chris Dodd led effort to keep the SEC off the back of stock market players. At that point, between the overridden veto, and the impeachment, the administration stopped doing its job properly in regards to financialization and economic regulation.

But that “one notable tree” of real median wage gain is really notable. The Clinton administration is the only one since goddamn lyndon johnson’s to make a concerted policymaking effort to convert GDP growth into gains all across the income ladder. Errors aside, that should be the core economic focus of Democratic governance. It’s good policy, and it’s good politics.

Like I said, Clintonomics is something to build upon. Lessons should be learned from mistakes, as Clinton himself seems to have at least partially done, and an even better economic policy should be built from what worked. Financialization needs to be reined in, industrial policy needs to be developed, and more robust efforts need to be taken to build and enhance universal social-welfare state policies from all the GDP gains, (cuz it’s the universal policies that develop strong political support.)

The Avocado Declaration, written by Peter Camejo in 2004, details how the Democratic Party functions to co-opt real protest and render it harmless, the Dems being soft cop to the Repubs hard cop.

“History shows that the Democrats and Republicans are not two counterpoised forces, but rather complementary halves of a single two-party system: “one animal with two heads that feed from the same trough,” as Chicano leader Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzalez explained. ”

http://polizeros.com/avocado-declaration/

I’ve never agreed with “Lesser Of Two Evils” argument. Rather see someone coming at me with a knife, than have them stab me in back.

It’s super self-absorbed to imagine that the anti-gun movement comes originally from a prissy cultural dislike of rural people and their mysterious obsession with guns. I mean, the prissy cultural dislike may exist in some people, but it’s not the reason for wanting tighter gun control. In the current situation in the USA, a regime that may-or-may-not be appropriate for rural areas is nevertheless applied to urban areas where it may not be appropriate.

” anti-ruralitic urban supremacism ”

I am officially saying WTF? So, you are saying liberals think that most gun toting rednecks living in the boondocks are idiots with guns? oh wait………….

LB, that comment is gold. What makes it worse IMO is that there are over 1500 billionaires around the world. It’s a Zion-like club offering equal opportunity parasitism.

“Yves Smith’s distaste for guns and gun-owning comes from the same anti-ruralitic urban supremacism that the anti-gun movement in general comes from”

I grew up in the sticks and I honestly fail to see how a handgun under every pillow is going to bring the American dream back/is at all relevant to Ian’s post. If you’re into hunting, cool, otherwise nut elsewhere.

@ Lisa FOS
November 9, 2014
…yes your brother in the US Army will kill you..and your mother..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Yes, you nailed it 100%.
Americans; fools all…

A strongman (or woman) is coming, and it won’t be the reincarnation of FDR.

I agree with the FDR / strongman thesis.

FDR was hardly a one-man New Deal. He got out in front of some pretty sizeable crowds. Many of the problems of poverty, the business cycle, industrial unionism, agriculture, economic development, electrification, education had been recognized and critiqued in a sophisticated way, beginning in the Progressive Era at the beginning of the century. There were a lot of activists and movements, that FDR could draw upon — people like Harold Ickes, Henry Wallace, Frances Perkins had staked out some interesting territory prior to entering his cabinet. There was an elaborate critique of capitalism and a sophisticated economics of institutions to draw expertise from.

Some of the most dramatic and effective things FDR did had deep expert support. Irving Fisher, the most important American economist of his day, had outlined the problem of getting off the gold standard for a Congressional committee, providing a blueprint for some of what FDR did. The Glass of Glass-Steagall was the author of the Federal Reserve System, a long-serving Senator with deep knowledge of banking (and unquestionable credentials, one might add, as a reactionary conservative).

My point is that I’m not sure that such expertise exists today, either to devise effective policy or to prepare the public mind to understand policy change. Nor do many people feel themselves to be members of mass-membership organizations, like labor unions or professional associations, that might educate them or provide political support from below.

We don’t know what we are doing, and I don’t think we even realize how intellectually impoverished our understanding of politics, economics and institutions has become. Even people, who recognize neoliberalism as a pernicious set of doctrines do not always recognize that they are pernicious in proportion to how stupid those doctrines make their advocates. The academic economics behind neoliberalism is an economics, which has been drained of genuine expertise and subject knowledge. The way mainstream economics has approached climate change and the limits to growth is simply appalling — not simply because it opposes effective action, but because it prevents people from even conceiving of effective action, by substituting as approved conventional approaches and analysis, politically impossible solutions and delusional optimism about costs and difficulties.

In our own time, the emergence of a strong man from the Right seems likely to me for several reasons. One reason is the loss of legitimacy that the whole system of American institutions is suffering. The very ineffectiveness of the center-left, corrupt centrist Democrats, and their compulsive lying about every thing, contributes to this, of course.

The other major reason for a strong man from the Right is the economic structure that is being built by extend-and-pretend economic structures. “Wealth” is less and less about productive assets and more and more about extractive rents. The predominance of such fictional claims on income, and the accompanying absence of corresponding productive apparatus makes it very tempting to employ fiat as a means to solve problems and relieve burdens. If a claim on great wealth, which is burdening people quite visibly, is nothing more than a piece of paper, that it can be burned, without disturbing any actual capacity to produce goods, well, that’s an attractive option for a demagogue or dictator. If a dictator can seem to “solve” important problems by burning pieces of paper, or transferring those pieces of paper to his cronies, as opportunities arise, then a dictator will emerge to do just that. In an economy of lies, a liar will do well.

Or, to put it another way:

Democrats of the early 1930s were a collection of marginalized (nationally, not locally) groups and people, who had a small taste of national power and responsibility during the Wilson Administration and WWI, and some local experience of power, but who, otherwise — going back to the previous Great Depression of the 1890s had been excluded from national power by the Establishment, represented by the Republican Party. As a somewhat motley group of outsiders, the Democratic Party had elements of change, even radical change at hand, and FDR’s genius was to see that a program of eclectic responses and experiment to the crisis of the Great Depression could be used to mobilize the country, through this motley Democratic Party.

In 1932, the Democratic Party was a disorganized, self-contradictory mess, but its many parts had a common theme useful for the times: populist anger at the policies of centralized power.

The Democratic Party today is, in its collection of politicians and, especially, its cadre of staffers and professionals, as much a part of the Establishment as the Republicans, with whom they live in symbiosis. The whole neoliberal, third-way theme that the Democrats adopted in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and brought to flower in the Clinton Administration was about becoming an establishment party, and jettisoning their traditional role as advocates of the underdog and of the common man.

American politics has become a war of the 1% against everyone else, in which maybe 15-25% nearest the top are enlisted as allies and useful idiots of the 1%. And, consequently, there’s pretty much no one available to lead the 70%, who are being screwed.

This 1% does not feel its dependence on the 70% — they are just so much surplus population, readily replaced by out-sourcing and robots. The most distressing thing is if the decline in purchasing power undermines the Wal-Mart’s.

And, the 1% does not have the imagination to see that their out-sized claims on national income are based on dis-investing on a massive scale, and that this implies that the apparatus of production is being taken apart. They think they are globalized now, and will float safely in a digital virtual reality above the corroding Iron Age of nation-states below them. Their frauds in this Matrix realm can be committed in a spirit of “I’ll be gone, you’ll gone” without consequence to themselves.

Their expert economists look at climate change, peak oil, ocean ecology collapse and the other indications of an impending collapse of civilization, place a straight-edge on graph paper, and confidently predict that our descendants will be 3x as rich 100 years from now, and will easily afford to meet the challenges. Wot me worry?

As collapse ensues — and collapse will ensue, in a series of step-downs, as the economy is forced to adapt to its diminishing productive potential — a strong man will be the preferred political means to the end of preventing complete collapse, keeping things together for a bit longer, forcing those who must be thrown out of the sinking ship to lighten the load to drown quietly, until the next step-down is required. (Sorry for the mixed metaphor; it was the best I could do.)

The deep cultural divisions are as much a product of manipulation as the economy.

On manipulation: I watched the rise of right-wing media over the last few decades absolutely poison public discourse, turning people against each other, and push conventional media rightward – to the point where blogs like this one, and many others, appeared simply because conventional media was no longer doing its job. In the absence of a strong countervailing narrative, politicians followed suit.

I’ll never forget a Thanksgiving dinner some years ago, at the home of some not particularly educated relatives. Their little boy, about five years old, in response to some snag in the way the dinner was going, starting blaming government. I couldn’t believe it. That is powerful manipulation, when you can reach into the mind of a five year old, no doubt via his parents.

IMO the lack of a countervailing narrative is the more salient factor. You’re right in that this kind of manipulation works on tribal fears, common to all humans. However, a generation or two ago, this same population (at least their parents) were staunch supporters of FDR and the New Deal. Chris Hedges nails it in Death of the Liberal Class.

Apologies for misspelling Alyosha’s name.

S. Brennan

For all intents and purposes, we don’t have elections anymore. We have coronations. The elections are just a side show.

I’ve been meaning to comment on this for awhile now. This is real indicator of how bad the US has become … and this behaviour, in particular, will get a heck of lot worse over time.

“Police Use Department Wish List When Deciding Which Assets to Seize ”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/10/us/police-use-department-wish-list-when-deciding-which-assets-to-seize.html?_r=4

This is a logical extension of the ‘National Security State’. With unlimited powers, those NS people will naturally use them to their personal gain. Corruption then expands exponentially (Gresham’s Rule “bad pushes out good”)

We’ve seen the NSA senior staff stuff (and that is just the tip of the iceberg), who knows how many in the CIA/Military/etc are getting kickbacks from the Afghani (etc) drug trade.

With the elites so openly corrupt these days, those a bit lower down the pecking order will then look for their cut.

Now we see the militarised police morphing into predatory gangs, stealing from ordinary people.

Expect this to expand exponentially too.

By and large the US elites will be happy with this, because
(A) Keeps the proles down even more.
(B) Means they can cut spending on the police, who then make up the difference by stealing more.
(C) Gives the police a direct incentive to keep the current system going.

At some point (D) will happen, where the elites will want their cut of the proceeds and organise this on a far larger scale (this is the ‘Mafia’ model).

I always thought the last area of extracting wealth from ordinary people was stealing from their pensions and bank accounts.

I was wrong, should have been more cynical, their TV goes too….

I do not think it is accurate to label DailyKos as being mindlessly for Obama. I have repeatedly posted material there highly critical of Obama, as have many, many others. Right now, there is a very interesting contest between two recommended diaries on DailyKos. One reports on an editorial in Canada that professes being mystified as to why people voted against Obama when his economic record is so positive. The other, in reply, is simply titled “You Make Me Sick,” and it is a very useful collection of dozens of links underscoring each of the diarist’s points, from the terrible economy, to Obama’s extension of the police state,

My own candidate for root cause is that the shift from an economy driven primarily by machinery+infrastructure/capital to one driven by knowledge has taken place within a monopoly capitalist set of rules. As a result, the oligarchs and other elites no longer have a positive role to play and the newly emergent knowledge work class is tasked primarily with creating opportunities for rent extraction and with hiding the historical obsolescence of the current system.

I think the primary effect of this has been a de facto shift back towards a sort of pre-industrial commercial regime where government sees its primary role as being to prevent price competition by handing out grants of monopoly. This shift has occurred “under the table” as it were, so nearly all of public discourse now involves a rather tortured rhetorical double-bookkeeping.

It’s Orszag, not Orzsag.

While full of details I did not know, the overall narrative of this article matches what wrote ~10 comments above…and is worth a read for the details.

https://medium.com/@matthewstoller/its-al-froms-democratic-party-we-just-live-here-5d0de7f89c3e