Perhaps they'll come up with a new version of a third way; push for trade still, but be sure to tax those sherkers of taxation we now know so well. And they may well get some new taxes, but seriously, just how much will their own corporate backing allow them to do? Enough to look good certainly for one budget cycle at least, but to actually accomplish the large scale reforms that would tackle the full institutionalization of the "inequality of outcomes" that has put so many people in a position of "just barely getting by," "paycheck to paycheck?" Anything is possible, but that would be a pretty tall order for them even if there weren't other, countervailing forces, at work here.
And then you also have to wonder about "Big Money" in general's ability to just pull as much of their investment money, out of as many investment markets, as they can here, and even take an earnings hit in the process, just to create the possibility of brutalizing the economy from within, so to speak, so as to punish, and then set the Liberals up for the fall that would allow a Paul Ryan, or someone of similar ilk (a scenario I first heard proposed by Joe Scarborough on one of his recent broadcast segments), to come back and punch down the authoritarian final solution the monied few have always dreamed of.
And if that seems far fetched just consider. Occurring along side of these possible machinations will be the ever pervasive, "fire for effect," pounding that a planet that is fed up with us will deliver; both because we've poisoned it, and because there are just too many of us; and we're always making more. So it's not going to take much from the monied right, either from their puppets in public office, or from their own possible actions, to punish everybody on the left with specific, almost weaponized, economic decisions, to make the dire results, of the whole mess combined, a really bad economic event. Like another "Great XXX" where "XXX" is the new euphemism for depression they come up with, kind of event.
And in all of this it may well be the new active Progressives, that have now come into being after listening to Bernie, when he lets himself talk a real Socialist line for equitable social policy, that will suffer the most because they are really going to be left out in the literal, and figurative, cold; which is, of course, pretty much where the money elites of the Right would want them to be.
Not so obvious, though, is what will also happen to not only true Libertarians, who cannot possibly hope to think that any overly authoritarian social system is going to respect the right of the individual, unless, certainly, they are filthy rich; but in addition to the Libertarians, the fiscally conservative Republicans of the Right who also understand the need for basic human rights. Where will they go with the demise of the old Republican party. Will they make common cause with the old Liberal Democrats? It's certainly possible. They would have to call it something new to make it viable at all. And certainly hammering out what would have to be their shared platform wouldn't be particularly easy either.
My bias, and I suppose my naivete as well, make me want to believe that all of these left outs (the Progressives, the Libertarians, and the part of Republicanism that still has a soul), which is what they will become; if these "left outs" don't do something bold on their own; as in that they will have to realize that a Libertarian Socialist, new party for the left, and right both, is in all likelihood, their best bet to achieve anything that resembles a better way to keep America Federated as a cooperating union (as well as solve some huge survival problems). A "Grand Compromise" party that will balance practicality, and the rights of the individual, with empathy and the needs of the many, And I can only say that we will all be in big trouble if these "Left Outs" don't share my vision, or optimism for it. We will all be in very big trouble indeed.
California’s housing crunch has turned liberals against one another
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[Post Note: The following link here is to serve to remind you just how much Mother Nature can do that "pounding" I mentioned previously, in the sense of "fire for effect:" J.V.]
Nor’easter set to slam East Coast with severe winds, rain and flooding
[Post Note: Progressives should also never forget where it is that they come from, and that coming to full terms with how there is now a very real "inequality of outcomes," that is being institutionalized into the current, toxic, and destructive, economic operating system. And that this is something that any "Grand Compromise" must address. I think that redefining work will go a very long way in doing just that.J.V.]
How Lenders Are Turning Low-Level Courts Into Dickensian 'Debt Collection Mills'
A new ACLU report on modern-day debt imprisonment finds that courts issue tens of thousands of arrest warrants yearly for debtors owing as little as $30.
[Post Note: The following link here is most illuminating for a couple of things related to what the Left should still keep in mind, but also of what the Left should not get too carried away with. And all of that, certainly, wrapped around the notion of money.
What this article really shows us is, on the one hand, a big part of the illusory nature of money now that it has been absorbed into the realm of electronic, and photonic, circuits; but that it also indicates how useful that very thing could be when we will need to work a translation from one social, economic system, to the better alternative.
Remember that it is this kind of thinking that prompted many of their proponents to issue the platinum coin idea; the coin we could just declare is worth, say, a trillion dollars. And then presto changeo, we have a trillion dollars to spend.
In my suggestion to do a transition government, where the point was to translate from what we have now to the alternative I have laid out, I have indicated that we could issue a blockbuster bond; something to make that trillion dollar coin look pathetic indeed.
This would be a bond for us, issued by us, to buy all of the productive capability, as well as the physical property (save everybody's existing home, and their other, personal property) of the entire United States. We would then use that bond to pay off not only all other external debt, but buyout all of the holders of all this productive property; or at least all of them who decided that their monetized holdings mean more to them than their continued participation in being citizens of this nation; citizens who are still willing to remain and participate in running their respective communities; because it would be that participation that would give them the right to be a part of the now collectivized ownership of the entire complex mess.
The really interesting thing about doing this, as opposed to doing the coin idea, is that it layers in, the at least the conceivable notion, that the bond would have a mechanism for which that new debt would be serviced. And it would do that by the action of then paying everybody: As in not only a living wage (as an add on to whatever wage they were already receiving in whatever job they might already have), but also by providing universal health care, and guaranteed education. That payment, from the now ultimate single payer source, would be our payment to ourselves, from ourselves, to service the debt, with the ongoing economy of, controlled profit, prices, and managed supply; a reforming thing, then, being the engine of credibility to allow the rest of the world to have assurance that there was still credible meaning to the idea of us as a capably productive entity; one that they could see was working to maintain the idea that we represent a store of value. One that we could literally take to a new bank, or exchange entity, for new loans.
In my opinion, this would be quite workable. And I think others will come to see that. As such, if one were one of these new "thinkers about money" one might also be tempted to believe that this approach could be the way to save Capitalism, but I would hasten to caution them that this would not be so. All this sort of thing can do is buy us some time. Buy us the time to work out how we do all of the things we will need to do to figure out what it means to not only redefine work the way it should be redefined (because work must be redefined), but also how we go about it. And I say this not only because the electrification of Capitalism has rendered it truly a non option, but also because a totally managed economy cannot survive indefinitely in a hypercompetitive, economic world. The world where anything can be made anywhere, and the new scales of transportation make distance a manageable variable, no matter how big it might be. Even if all of the other impossible issues facing Capitalism were removed, that inability to compete within this new hyper competition world would doom it in the long run. J.V.]
[Post Note: Just in case you needed a reminder of how fast this fast talker can change facades just as quickly. J.V.]
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