With the exception of Barney Frank, I don't hear any Democrats pointing out how the current problems are a direct result of the supply-side laissez-faire voodoo economics the Republicans have been peddling for the past 4 decades.

The national media pundits' ignorance (to which they admit) makes them allergic to covering economics and unless and until the Dems make a forceful case explaining exactly what went wrong and how, the Repubs will escape blame for the current mess.

Considering Hillary's economic guru Robert Rubin sat atop Citicorp (heckuva job, Bobbie), Obama appears equally in thrall to Wall Street, and since both sides of Capitol Hill are more focused on working with the White House to deliver something, anything they can call a stimulus package, rather than drawing a sharp contrast with Republican economics, you're smart no to hold your breath.

Posted at January 22, 2008 12:33 PM in response to The Economy Just Keeps Going “Bump!”

Getting past racial politics is not going "beyond King" - it IS King.

Read his Riverside Church speech - King is talking about going beyond militarism, beyond endless overseas wars, beyond economic inequality and exploitation, beyond mindless materialism.

Note that in his last days, King was organizing the Poor Peoples Campaign. It was not the black people's campaign or the black poor peoples campaign.

King had moved beyond racial politics himself.

(And that's what earned him the mortal enmity of J.Edgar Hoover and others.)

So when we talk about moving beyond racial politics, we are not talking about going beyond King, but going beyond the superficial caricature of King that the power structure has drawn for the masses to render King "safe" and acceptable to the powers that be that would like nothing greater than to divide the slaves (one of the phrases King used in his last speech) along race lines.

We need to go beyond the cartoon King - and on to the real King.

Posted at January 21, 2008 11:38 AM in response to Beyond King

Posted at January 3, 2006 8:31 PM in response to Straight Talk Ex-Bushie Style

Posted at January 1, 2006 6:40 AM in response to Roving

Gawd I wish it were possible to let all the protectionists go to one half of the country and let them actually try it for themselves for a decade or so to see how they like it.

Funny you should say that - it's not only possible, it's been tried.

It was called the Civil War.

The Union and Lincoln - The Great Protectionist (he was elected by swing state Pennsylvanians to whom he had promised support for the tariff) - supported tariffs to aid domestic industries.  

The Confederate plantation slave holders were free traders who preferred to import cheaper foreign manufactured goods tax-free.  

We see how that one turned out. The protectionists won -and built a transcontinental railroad, a domestic steel industry (the land grant railroads were required to buy American steel) and a globe straddling industrial power based on the so-called American system which stood in diametric opposition to free trade theory.

Posted at November 13, 2005 10:42 AM in response to Confessions of an Accused Reactionary: A Final Word on Trade

Gawd I wish it were possible to let all the protectionists go to one half of the country and let them actually try it for themselves for a decade or so to see how they like it.

Funny you should say that - it's not only possible, it's been tried.

It was called the Civil War.

The Union and Lincoln - The Great Protectionist (he was elected by swing state Pennsylvanians to whom he had promised support for the tariff) - supported tariffs to aid domestic industries.  

The Confederate plantation slave holders were free traders who preferred to import cheaper foreign manufactured goods tax-free.  

We see how that one turned out. The protectionists won -and built a transcontinental railroad, a domestic steel industry (the land grant railroads were required to buy American steel) and a globe straddling industrial power based on the so-called American system which stood in diametric opposition to free trade theory.

Posted at November 13, 2005 10:41 AM in response to Confessions of an Accused Reactionary: A Final Word on Trade

The beneficiaries of trade restrictions are entrenched interests.

This may be true,  but I don't find it particularly revealing or useful.  

America used trade restrictions to develop its steel industry (as well as other industries) in the 1800s and entrenched interests including Americans employed in the steel industry did in fact benefit.

China is using trade restrictions (along with an industrial policy) right now to develop its economy. (Those restrictions, btw, include domestic procurement requirements for Chinese government entities, mandatory technology transfer and domestic R&D and investment requirements for foreign MNCs.)

You could say the beneficiaries are the entrenched interests of the Chinese Communist Party & its princelings, or the MNCs who gain from a cheap labor platform from which to export into the US consumer market.

Or you could say the beneficiaries are the workers solidy entrenched in China about whom we are supposed to be pleased to hear are being lifted out of poverty.

All could be true - and irrelevant to the facts on the ground - American workers who have been replaced by Chnese counterparts are not benefiting from the current setup. 

But I guess in an ideal theoretical world there would be no trade restrictions in China so none of this would be happening anyway.  But such a utopian world of perfectly free trade and free markets has never existed.  
   

Posted at November 8, 2005 3:08 PM in response to Do Free Traders Think the American Public is Stupid?

The most fervent lobbyist for tariffs and protection against imports are corporate interests.  Free trade doesn't benefit large corporations; they battle against it. 

Tell that to the US Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers and their ilk who have promised retribution against those who voted against CAFTA.

In theory what you say, Jay, may be true. In reality, corporate interests is too broad a term. Multinational corporations, particularly giant Fortune 500 MNCs, are precisely those who do benefit from current trade policies.

If I read you right, though, and I'm not trying to be snarky here, you don't think current trade policies are free trade. (This is the basis for (libertarian) Rep. Ron Paul's opposition to NAFTA & CAFTA.) Perhaps you also believe MNCs like GE who lobby for things like CAFTA and PNTR with China aren't corporations.

I would add, borrowing from Warren BUffett, that what America is engaged in now is not trade, that is the exchange of goods (or services) for goods (or services). Rather, we are selling assets to purchase imports (& services), not unlike a trust fund baby who sells stock to buy coke, or a farmer selling the acreage to buy butter.
 
I suspect we may agree that this America we live in is not one of free markets.    

Posted at November 8, 2005 2:38 PM in response to Do Free Traders Think the American Public is Stupid?

Posted at November 8, 2005 1:45 PM in response to Do Free Traders Think the American Public is Stupid?

...which trained economists lack. 

 Every product made in the US includes the cost of thousands of regulations (health, safety, labor, enviro) and taxes.

Imported goods produced in Red China, for example, include no such costs.

There is no reason  these goods should be allowed onto our sales floors tax (tariff) free to compete with goods made in the USA -

unless we want an irresistible drive to eliminate all the regulations and worker protections built up since the progressive era - which is exactly what we're seeing from Bush and Co under the guise of tax reform, regulatory reform, tort reform etc.

BTW, IMHO the idea of a 'free market' solution via buy American is simplistic unless one is a utopian Randian libertarian with unlimited faith in a mythical free market.

Posted at November 8, 2005 1:07 PM in response to Do Free Traders Think the American Public is Stupid?