Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
More Annotations
A complete backup of mostlywind.co.uk
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of dererummundi.blogspot.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of dailynewshungary.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of bernersennenhund.de
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of imhookedonaswan.tumblr.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Favourite Annotations
A complete backup of conducteurdelouange.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of oneteamstore.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
A complete backup of joyeriazimbaue.blogspot.com
Are you over 18 and want to see adult content?
Text
all
AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. CDC DECIDES TO JUST NOT COUNT ALL COVID CASES If you're vaccinated, you can still get Covid, but (courtesy of my favorite Dalek.) Now, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die. Now, this may seem reasonable, but people with breakthrough Covid can give it to other people, and they can get BIDEN DEFIES PHARMA PLAN TO NEVER WIPE OUT COVID SO THEY So, this is a good thing. As is often the case with monopoly-related issues, the best explanation comes from Matt Stoller, and let's start with why Pfizer and Moderna don't want this to happen. On an investor call last month, the CEO of Pfizer, Frank D’Amelio, discussed what would happen to revenue from his vaccine product as the Covid pandemicends,
APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
“THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT,” SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KING It’s a kind of drum major instinct–a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead theparade.
IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED by Ian Welsh. One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others,all
AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. CDC DECIDES TO JUST NOT COUNT ALL COVID CASES If you're vaccinated, you can still get Covid, but (courtesy of my favorite Dalek.) Now, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die. Now, this may seem reasonable, but people with breakthrough Covid can give it to other people, and they can get BIDEN DEFIES PHARMA PLAN TO NEVER WIPE OUT COVID SO THEY So, this is a good thing. As is often the case with monopoly-related issues, the best explanation comes from Matt Stoller, and let's start with why Pfizer and Moderna don't want this to happen. On an investor call last month, the CEO of Pfizer, Frank D’Amelio, discussed what would happen to revenue from his vaccine product as the Covid pandemicends,
APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
“THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT,” SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KING It’s a kind of drum major instinct–a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead theparade.
THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn't want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together. This was a vast, albeit UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN ELITES MEANS Understanding American Elites Means Understanding Predators. American elites are not incompetent at what matters to them. People constantly make ridiculous statements like, “The American government has been incompetent in its handling of Covid-19.”. Anyone who makes such a statement reveals that they do not understand how the US operates. WAY PAST TIME TO LEAVE AMERICA Way Past Time To Leave America. 2021 June 10. by Ian Welsh. I wrote this article in January of 2010. I’m re-posting it because, alas, it is STILL important. I had some hope Biden could at least put through a good economic package; I was wrong. My errors are far more often on the side of “hope” and optimism than pessimism, which is BASIC PUPPY MEDITATION I've written about a variety of meditation types over the years. Here's one of the best. Imagine that you are hugging a puppy. (Kitten if you prefer.) Imagine your arms holding it against your chest, it's warmth, it licking your face, and its tail wagging. Now, just keep imagining holding the puppy, and intend to notice when you are doingsomething else:
ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
WEEK-END WRAP
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 6, 2021 by Tony Wikrent Strategic Political Economy The Particular Psychology of Destroying a Planet” What kind of thinking goes into engaging in planetary sabotage? Bill McKibben .in a new book from the British psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe. “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis” states its argument in its subtitle CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY Religions are ideologies. They are little different from something like capitalism, or Marxism, or the divine right of kings, or humanism. That is to say ideologies are sets of statements about how the world and people are, and how they should be. Christianity takes humans as fallen. We are innately bad, and we must be reformed by good education, including punishment. UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEATH, HARM In the law there is a crime known as criminal negligence. Criminal negligence is the failure on the part of a person on whom a duty is placed to take reasonable steps to prevent a certain bad outcome from happening. Duties may or may not be specifically known to you. For instance, as a driver, you have a duty not toHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
THERE ARE NO GOOD BILLIONAIRES (BILL GATES EDITION) The richest American ever was John D. Rockefeller, who died in 1937 with $1.7 billion, worth about $24 billion today. In 1957, the richest man in America was J. Paul Getty, with a fortune around $1 billion, worth about $9 billion today (let’s hear it for anti-trust and progressive income tax). IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED by Ian Welsh. One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others,all
AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN ELITES MEANS Understanding American Elites Means Understanding Predators. American elites are not incompetent at what matters to them. People constantly make ridiculous statements like, “The American government has been incompetent in its handling of Covid-19.”. Anyone who makes such a statement reveals that they do not understand how the US operates. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM The Transition to Capitalism. One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn’t want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, aHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
THE DISPOSABLE ECONOMY The Disposable Economy. 2014 February 3. by Ian Welsh. The most important fact about modern economies is rarely remarked on: they are job societies. The vast majority of the population works for someone else. For those without jobs, poverty, homelessness, and in some cases death, is a real prospect. Members of modern societies cannot support ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED by Ian Welsh. One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others,all
AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN ELITES MEANS Understanding American Elites Means Understanding Predators. American elites are not incompetent at what matters to them. People constantly make ridiculous statements like, “The American government has been incompetent in its handling of Covid-19.”. Anyone who makes such a statement reveals that they do not understand how the US operates. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM The Transition to Capitalism. One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn’t want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together. WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, aHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
THE DISPOSABLE ECONOMY The Disposable Economy. 2014 February 3. by Ian Welsh. The most important fact about modern economies is rarely remarked on: they are job societies. The vast majority of the population works for someone else. For those without jobs, poverty, homelessness, and in some cases death, is a real prospect. Members of modern societies cannot support ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN ELITES MEANS Understanding American Elites Means Understanding Predators. American elites are not incompetent at what matters to them. People constantly make ridiculous statements like, “The American government has been incompetent in its handling of Covid-19.”. Anyone who makes such a statement reveals that they do not understand how the US operates. AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: WAY PAST TIME TO LEAVE AMERICA Way Past Time To Leave America. 2021 June 10. by Ian Welsh. I wrote this article in January of 2010. I’m re-posting it because, alas, it is STILL important. I had some hope Biden could at least put through a good economic package; I was wrong. My errors are far more often on the side of “hope” and optimism than pessimism, which isWEEK-END WRAP
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 6, 2021 by Tony Wikrent Strategic Political Economy The Particular Psychology of Destroying a Planet” What kind of thinking goes into engaging in planetary sabotage? Bill McKibben .in a new book from the British psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe. “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis” states its argument in its subtitle BASIC PUPPY MEDITATION I've written about a variety of meditation types over the years. Here's one of the best. Imagine that you are hugging a puppy. (Kitten if you prefer.) Imagine your arms holding it against your chest, it's warmth, it licking your face, and its tail wagging. Now, just keep imagining holding the puppy, and intend to notice when you are doingsomething else:
HUMAN NATURE FOR IDEOLOGY Human Nature for Ideology. 2014 May 7. by Ian Welsh. All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag. If you believe that humans are innately selfish and greedy, for example, you will believe that monetary incentives are the best way to allocate resources and HOW TO CREATE A VIABLE IDEOLOGY How to Create a Viable Ideology. 2013 October 23. by Ian Welsh. The most important question about any ideology or social structure are: “Does it win?” and “Can it defend itself?”. Hunter-gathering, if the land-capacity isn’t close to carrying capacity, is usually a pretty good way to live. What we see in the archaeological record is UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEATH, HARM In the law there is a crime known as criminal negligence. Criminal negligence is the failure on the part of a person on whom a duty is placed to take reasonable steps to prevent a certain bad outcome from happening. Duties may or may not be specifically known to you. For instance, as a driver, you have a duty not to “THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT,” SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KING It’s a kind of drum major instinct–a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead theparade.
PURE UTILITARIANISM AND CAPITALISM Pure Utilitarianism and Capitalism. 2016 March 5. by Ian Welsh. Hilary Clinton recently tweeted the following. Companies have to start treating workers like assets to be invested in, not costs to be cut. — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 4, 2016. On the face thisis unexceptional.
IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED by Ian Welsh. One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others,all
CDC DECIDES TO JUST NOT COUNT ALL COVID CASES If you're vaccinated, you can still get Covid, but (courtesy of my favorite Dalek.) Now, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die. Now, this may seem reasonable, but people with breakthrough Covid can give it to other people, and they can get AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE CORE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGIES Every ideology has a few core principles: guiding lights, or pole-stars, which believers should use to guide themselves. The fundamental proposition; the IDEAL, of Confucian government, is that the rulers should govern as if they are benevolent parents. If they do not do so, they are not legitimate, but tyrants. The fundamental proposition of feudalism and related ideologies is that some BIDEN DEFIES PHARMA PLAN TO NEVER WIPE OUT COVID SO THEY So, this is a good thing. As is often the case with monopoly-related issues, the best explanation comes from Matt Stoller, and let's start with why Pfizer and Moderna don't want this to happen. On an investor call last month, the CEO of Pfizer, Frank D’Amelio, discussed what would happen to revenue from his vaccine product as the Covid pandemicends,
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED by Ian Welsh. One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others,all
CDC DECIDES TO JUST NOT COUNT ALL COVID CASES If you're vaccinated, you can still get Covid, but (courtesy of my favorite Dalek.) Now, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped investigating breakthrough infections among fully vaccinated people unless they become so sick that they are hospitalized or die. Now, this may seem reasonable, but people with breakthrough Covid can give it to other people, and they can get AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE CORE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGIES Every ideology has a few core principles: guiding lights, or pole-stars, which believers should use to guide themselves. The fundamental proposition; the IDEAL, of Confucian government, is that the rulers should govern as if they are benevolent parents. If they do not do so, they are not legitimate, but tyrants. The fundamental proposition of feudalism and related ideologies is that some BIDEN DEFIES PHARMA PLAN TO NEVER WIPE OUT COVID SO THEY So, this is a good thing. As is often the case with monopoly-related issues, the best explanation comes from Matt Stoller, and let's start with why Pfizer and Moderna don't want this to happen. On an investor call last month, the CEO of Pfizer, Frank D’Amelio, discussed what would happen to revenue from his vaccine product as the Covid pandemicends,
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a ONE REASON WHY SOME MEN TREAT WOMEN SO BADLY One my friends has been wondering why some men treat women so badly, including battery, rape and murder and seem to feel that their actions are totally justified and natural.. There’s no simple answer, I suspect, but I think one part of it is hinted at by this:. Young children think about gender in the same way they think about speciesof animals.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn't want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together. This was a vast, albeitWEEK-END WRAP
Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – June 6, 2021 by Tony Wikrent Strategic Political Economy The Particular Psychology of Destroying a Planet” What kind of thinking goes into engaging in planetary sabotage? Bill McKibben .in a new book from the British psychoanalyst Sally Weintrobe. “Psychological Roots of the Climate Crisis” states its argument in its subtitle THE ARGUMENT FOR CAPITALISM The Argument for Capitalism. It is often worth stating an ideology’s argument in pure form. Let’s do that for capitalism, not because we necessarily agree, but because understanding why people believe in an ideology is important. If someone buys something, it is because they want or need it. Giving people what they want or need is a good thing.WHY DO WE DO THAT?
So today I stopped by the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO) and picked up a small bottle of sake. The teller seemed unhappy, so we chatted for a bit. I told him I'd worked at the LCBO for a couple months about 25 years ago (for the Christmas season), and he opened upa bit.
WEEK-END WRAP
by Tony Wikrent Strategic Political Economy Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications “1 big thing: The state of the world, according to me” Dion Rabouin I find this very interesting because Rabouin implies that he is conveying the elite consensus he has gathered from his AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY Religions are ideologies. They are little different from something like capitalism, or Marxism, or the divine right of kings, or humanism. That is to say ideologies are sets of statements about how the world and people are, and how they should be. Christianity takes humans as fallen. We are innately bad, and we must be reformed by good education, including punishment. THE DISPOSABLE ECONOMY The Disposable Economy. 2014 February 3. by Ian Welsh. The most important fact about modern economies is rarely remarked on: they are job societies. The vast majority of the population works for someone else. For those without jobs, poverty, homelessness, and in some cases death, is a real prospect. Members of modern societies cannot supportHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
IS VIOLENCE EVER JUSTIFIED? DOES VIOLENCE EVER SOLVE Relatedly, violence often does solve problems. The Native Americans cleansed from North America were “problems” to the settlers, and violence dealt with that problem just fine. Fascist Germany was a problem to most non-German countries, Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, Gays, and many others and violence solved that problem. IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE CORE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGIES Every ideology has a few core principles: guiding lights, or pole-stars, which believers should use to guide themselves. The fundamental proposition; the IDEAL, of Confucian government, is that the rulers should govern as if they are benevolent parents. If they do not do so, they are not legitimate, but tyrants. The fundamental proposition of feudalism and related ideologies is that some AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM The Transition to Capitalism. One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn’t want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together.HOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: PURE UTILITARIANISM AND CAPITALISM This is what happens when you think of people as assets. Some people don’t deserve $15/hour because they don’t “add enough value.”. But they are still people, and they still need to eat, sleep in a warm place, and have the occasional bit of entertainment. They have value that cannot be reduced to their economic utility. MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a THE CORE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGIES Every ideology has a few core principles: guiding lights, or pole-stars, which believers should use to guide themselves. The fundamental proposition; the IDEAL, of Confucian government, is that the rulers should govern as if they are benevolent parents. If they do not do so, they are not legitimate, but tyrants. The fundamental proposition of feudalism and related ideologies is that some AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM The Transition to Capitalism. One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn’t want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together.HOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, a AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: PURE UTILITARIANISM AND CAPITALISM This is what happens when you think of people as assets. Some people don’t deserve $15/hour because they don’t “add enough value.”. But they are still people, and they still need to eat, sleep in a warm place, and have the occasional bit of entertainment. They have value that cannot be reduced to their economic utility. MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. BASIC PUPPY MEDITATION I've written about a variety of meditation types over the years. Here's one of the best. Imagine that you are hugging a puppy. (Kitten if you prefer.) Imagine your arms holding it against your chest, it's warmth, it licking your face, and its tail wagging. Now, just keep imagining holding the puppy, and intend to notice when you are doingsomething else:
UNDERSTANDING AMERICAN ELITES MEANS Understanding American Elites Means Understanding Predators. American elites are not incompetent at what matters to them. People constantly make ridiculous statements like, “The American government has been incompetent in its handling of Covid-19.”. Anyone who makes such a statement reveals that they do not understand how the US operates. HUMAN NATURE FOR IDEOLOGY Human Nature for Ideology. 2014 May 7. by Ian Welsh. All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag. If you believe that humans are innately selfish and greedy, for example, you will believe that monetary incentives are the best way to allocate resources and AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILL A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: PURE UTILITARIANISM AND CAPITALISM This is what happens when you think of people as assets. Some people don’t deserve $15/hour because they don’t “add enough value.”. But they are still people, and they still need to eat, sleep in a warm place, and have the occasional bit of entertainment. They have value that cannot be reduced to their economic utility. UNDERSTANDING LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEATH, HARM In the law there is a crime known as criminal negligence. Criminal negligence is the failure on the part of a person on whom a duty is placed to take reasonable steps to prevent a certain bad outcome from happening. Duties may or may not be specifically known to you. For instance, as a driver, you have a duty not to HOW TO CREATE A VIABLE IDEOLOGY How to Create a Viable Ideology. 2013 October 23. by Ian Welsh. The most important question about any ideology or social structure are: “Does it win?” and “Can it defend itself?”. Hunter-gathering, if the land-capacity isn’t close to carrying capacity, is usually a pretty good way to live. What we see in the archaeological record is SO YOU WANT TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD? A READING LIST This book is really about information and the failings of both central planning and market economies. There is an extended discussion of why the USSR both worked and then didn’t. This explanation is easy to apply to late capitalism if you have a bit of imagination. Folks go on about oil prices and so on, but if the USSR’s economy had been THE DISPOSABLE ECONOMY The Disposable Economy. 2014 February 3. by Ian Welsh. The most important fact about modern economies is rarely remarked on: they are job societies. The vast majority of the population works for someone else. For those without jobs, poverty, homelessness, and in some cases death, is a real prospect. Members of modern societies cannot support IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, aHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY Religions are ideologies. They are little different from something like capitalism, or Marxism, or the divine right of kings, or humanism. That is to say ideologies are sets of statements about how the world and people are, and how they should be. Christianity takes humans as fallen. We are innately bad, and we must be reformed by good education, including punishment. HUMAN NATURE FOR IDEOLOGY Human Nature for Ideology. 2014 May 7. by Ian Welsh. All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag. If you believe that humans are innately selfish and greedy, for example, you will believe that monetary incentives are the best way to allocate resources and AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILLAMERICAN COLLAPSE 2020AMERICAN COLLAPSE 2020AMERICAN COLLAPSE REDDITAMERICAN COLLAPSEYOUTUBE
A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: “THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT,” SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KINGMLK DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT SPEECHMLK DRUM MAJOR INSTINCTMLK DRUM MAJOR SPEECHMLK DRUM MAJOR QUOTEDRUM MAJOR FOR JUSTICE MLKMLK SPEECH TEXT It’s a kind of drum major instinct–a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead theparade.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: what IAN WELSHABOUTBOOKDONATERESOURCESCORBYN'S BIGGEST FAILUREUNCATEGORIZED One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and AMERICA IS ABOUT TO FEEL LIKE A THIRD WORLD NATION America Is About to Feel Like a Third World Nation. 2020 August 7. by Ian Welsh. I spent a good chunk of my childhood in third world countries. Most of that chunk was spent in Bangladesh, which was then arguably the poorest country in the world, but I visited or lived in Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Nepal and India, among others. APRIL 21ST US COVID DATA Our benefactor notes that the mortality rate has flattened at 5.4 percent. Because of limited US testing, this isn't the real percentage; subtract a little bit and you still get a sense of mortality rates for those severe enough to get tested and, in many cases, to wind up in hospitals. Deaths per day is meaningful because this is effectively a WHY IS THERE SO MUCH GUN VIOLENCE IN THE US? Gun violence, in fact, is declining. It rose with the boomer cohort, both because young people commit more crime, and because American society went off the rails starting in the late 60s, but it’s declined since a peak in the early 90s, despite Millenials, aHOPE IS BULLSHIT
Hope is bullshit. Luck is real, but you don’t count on luck other than in the sense that the harder you work, and the more things you do, the more likely you are to “get lucky.”. But luck is usually the odds coming in, and bad luck is as real as good. In term of climate change, there is no reason for hope. It’s going to be badand, in
CHRISTIANITY AS A RELIGIOUS IDEOLOGY Religions are ideologies. They are little different from something like capitalism, or Marxism, or the divine right of kings, or humanism. That is to say ideologies are sets of statements about how the world and people are, and how they should be. Christianity takes humans as fallen. We are innately bad, and we must be reformed by good education, including punishment. HUMAN NATURE FOR IDEOLOGY Human Nature for Ideology. 2014 May 7. by Ian Welsh. All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag. If you believe that humans are innately selfish and greedy, for example, you will believe that monetary incentives are the best way to allocate resources and AMERICAN SOCIAL COLLAPSE IS FAR CLOSER THAN MOST WILLAMERICAN COLLAPSE 2020AMERICAN COLLAPSE 2020AMERICAN COLLAPSE REDDITAMERICAN COLLAPSEYOUTUBE
A rather lovely article on US social collapse by Susan Zakin includes this summary of the stages of failing states. In State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Harvard’s Robert Rotberg writes that while every country is different, the signposts tend to be the same. It is worth attending to the characteristics he describes. They should sound familiar: “THE DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT,” SPEECH BY MARTIN LUTHER KINGMLK DRUM MAJOR INSTINCT SPEECHMLK DRUM MAJOR INSTINCTMLK DRUM MAJOR SPEECHMLK DRUM MAJOR QUOTEDRUM MAJOR FOR JUSTICE MLKMLK SPEECH TEXT It’s a kind of drum major instinct–a desire to be out front, a desire to lead the parade, a desire to be first. And it is something that runs the whole gamut of life. And so before we condemn them, let us see that we all have the drum major instinct. We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead theparade.
MANDELA WAS A TERRORIST That's just a fact. He was also the father of his country, and I believe he was a great man and a good man. In 1985 he was offered release from jail if he would unconditionally renounce violence, he refused. One might want to think about the fact that a great man and a good man was a terrorist. Today, Emptywheel asked: whatBOOK | IAN WELSH
There are two versions of the book. The PDF version of “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way: The collected Essays of Ian Welsh” is the preferred version. An EPUB version of “It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way: The collected essays Of Ian Welsh” is also available. The formatting isn’t quite as good (and looks awful in any browser, you’ll need a dedicated EPUB reader.)ABOUT | IAN WELSH
Ian Welsh has been blogging since 2003. He was the Managing Editor of FireDogLake and the Agonist. His work has also appeared at Huffington Post, Alternet, and Truthout, as well as the now defunct Blogging of the President (BOPNews). In Canada his work has appeared in Pogge.ca and BlogsCanada. He is an editor, writer and social media consultantwho currently
THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALISM One of the most important things to understand about industrial capitalism is that the lower classes didn't want it. Peasants did not leave the land voluntarily. They were forced off, often violently, in a series of enclosures, through which their millennia-old rights to use the land were taken together. This was a vast, albeit HUMAN NATURE FOR IDEOLOGY All ideologies, including all economic ideologies like the modern discipline of economics, are theories of human nature in drag. If you believe that humans are innately selfish and greedy, for example, you will believe that monetary incentives are the best way to allocate resources and permission to do things in an economy. If you want more of something, you'll arrange THE CORE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES OF IDEOLOGIES Every ideology has a few core principles: guiding lights, or pole-stars, which believers should use to guide themselves. The fundamental proposition; the IDEAL, of Confucian government, is that the rulers should govern as if they are benevolent parents. If they do not do so, they are not legitimate, but tyrants. The fundamental proposition of feudalism and related ideologies is that some BOOKS VS. THE INTERNET One of the major changes in my life this last year has been that I'm reading a lot of books. When I was young, I read a lot. For much of my childhood and most of my teen years I was reading about two books a day. During holidays I often read three a day or even four. Even intomy
IT IS BETTER TO BE FEARED THAN LOVED, IF YOU This Marcotte person is the exact type of feral Clintonite they need to lead them into oblivion. Strip off those nice liberal smiles and reveal the sneers and snarls that have always been there on more of these Clintonites than could be imagined before this election. THERE ARE NO GOOD BILLIONAIRES (BILL GATES EDITION) The richest American ever was John D. Rockefeller, who died in 1937 with $1.7 billion, worth about $24 billion today. In 1957, the richest man in America was J. Paul Getty, with a fortune around $1 billion, worth about $9 billion today (let’s hear it for anti-trust and progressive income tax). IS VIOLENCE EVER JUSTIFIED? DOES VIOLENCE EVER SOLVE Relatedly, violence often does solve problems. The Native Americans cleansed from North America were “problems” to the settlers, and violence dealt with that problem just fine. Fascist Germany was a problem to most non-German countries, Jews, Gypsies, Socialists, Gays, and many others and violence solved that problem. HOW TO BAIL OUT ORDINARY MORTGAGE HOLDERS AND NOT JUST The problem is that the Trust company will simply bail out banks at taxpayer expense without helping mortgage holders much. The mortgages it sells will still be underwater, or too expensive for many people to service, especially as their houses lose value. The other proposal, just giving money to people to pay for their mortgages, is bad also.Skip to content
IAN WELSH
THE HORIZON IS NOT SO FAR AS WE CAN SEE, BUT AS FAR AS WE CAN IMAGINE* Home
* About
* Book
* Donate
* Resources
OPEN THREAD
2021 June 5
4 Comments
by Ian Welsh
Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → Administrative PREPARING FOR BAD TIMES THREAD2021 June 5
202 Comments
by Ian Welsh
This is a thread for comments on how to prepare for bad times. All off-topic comments will be deleted. The thread will be re-upped every Saturday so that resources can build over time. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → Administrative HOW TO DO SINGLE-PAYER MEDICARE-FOR-ALL PROPERLY IN AMERICA2021 June 4
16 Comments
tags: Medicare for all, single payer
by Ian Welsh
One of the issues often pointed out about single-payer Medicare for all is that the US system has an extreme problem with prices and processes. Surgeries, hospital stays, ambulance visits, medical appliances and drugs are all vastly over-priced. The actors on this: hospitals, drug makers and appliance makers among some others, all have a lot of reason for high prices to continue. Just switching to “The Federal government pays” doesn’t fix all the fucked up prices, incentives and wrong things that are being done. One thing to understand about single payer is that it can be used to fix hospital and other prices. You make the government a monopoly buyer of health care. The government sets the prices, period. “We will pay X. This is a take it or leave it price. No one else can pay you, it’s not even legal for anything that we pay for.” Now this doesn’t entirely work if you aren’t a hegemonic or at least Great Power, because too much stuff comes from outside and externally applied laws, especially IP laws, impose limits. It is worth it for providers to just stop selling to you if you won’t pay something over-inflated. But if America does it and is serious (meaning it will change other laws if required), it can set almost all prices. > “We’re going to give you cost +5% profit over inflation. And> that’s it.”
To do this properly the next thing you do is have some hospitals run entirely by the federal government so they know the actual price structure. You also have the government do some drug and device design+ manufacturing. This is so you can’t be snowed aboutcost/price.
This isn’t just on-shoring production; it is having the government do the work itself. This also includes research: some is done in-house and not at universities or private firms, again so you can directly observe what the actual cost is and what the processes are. (Universities are terrible actors when it comes to research, often taking 80-90% of the money that supposedly goes to researchers as “fees and rent.”) It does not matter if public druga or hospitals or appliances or research cost a little more or less, the function isn’t to be the “cheapest” the function is to make sure government knows how things work and can’t be cheated by private providers. You also must break up all oligopolies, monopolies and cartels, so that no private outfit can control price and try to challenge you with a “we’ll walk.” There should always be the government + at least 5 providers in any reasonably large industry related to health care and if the country is large enough, even the government should have more than group doing it. (In America, the Veterans Admin + HHS or something + various others.) Nothing that is truly important (vaccines, as the most current example) can be just imported unless you truly cannot make it or learn how to make it. Create a domestic industry. Let other countries do so. IP Laws MUST be amended/broken to allow this and yes, the US has sufficient power to more or less “just” do this. (The EU will be a stumbling block, but they don’t have a veto on the US.) If you need things that must be bought, in effect, in a currency you can’t print, you are not free and you cannot control prices or outcomes. Pure autarky is not possible right now, but you want as much as you can reasonably get on anything essential. I see no reason why all hospitals shouldn’t be independent, by the way. No groups, no cartels, etc… This will allow for actualinnovation.
Finally, as a general rule you mandate outcomes not processes (except your payment processes) so that various providers, including your own government ones, can innovate. Mandate process and innovation dies. To summarize: single payer is used to force all the other necessary changes. “You are paid by us, and only us. If you wish to stay in business you will do what we want done.” To do this correctly you must truly understand what is wrong and what is currently possible and you must remove any actor with sufficient power to distort information or try and enforce any type of veto or force a compromise on you “everyone else has to make cost+5%, but us.” Every other country but the US has big problems when doing this because of how the currently world order is set up in terms of trade and IP Laws, and even the US will have trouble even though the current trade regime was its creation more than any other. But the US retains, for now, more freedom to act than any other country in the world. Only China and the EU, if you consider the EU a country, come close. Now, understand that this is not a “what I think will happen” post. This is an article setting out what would happen if government and the American people were serious about doing Single-Payer Medicare-For-All properly. It is an “ideal type” which allows you to judge proposals and anything that happens. It can, of course, be used to judge doing things properly in other countries too, with the understanding that other countries suffer constraints the US does not, often constraints enforced primarily by the US and the EU. May we come to a world where posts like this are well understood because they are being done, and where everyone gets the health care they need at a reasonable price and those who create the future of health care are concentrated on cures and good health throughout everyone’s life, not palliatives, high profit and just keeping unhealthy people stumbling along as they suffer. ------------------------- (THE MORE PEOPLE SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE THE MORE I WRITE AND THE HAPPIER I AM. SO PLEASE CONSIDER DOING SO IF YOU LIKE MY WRITING.) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → health care THE SQUAD AND KABUKI VOTES2021 June 1
31 Comments
tags: Congress , The Squadby Ian Welsh
Back on May 20th a bill passed to increase funding of the Capitolpolice
.
The idea is that January 6th means they need more funding. They’re already VERY well funded, and the failure was not due to lack of funding, but lack of preparation for a forseeable event (since it was announced an organized on social media), and failure to call in help. The capitol will become even more locked down, and access of ordinary citizens to it and to their representatives and Senators will be morerestricted.
This bill passed by ONE vote. Whenever you see this, you should suspect absolute and completebullshit.
> The progressive defectors have all called to “defund” the police > in the past: Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jamaal Bowman > (D-N.Y.) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) voted present, while Reps. Cori > Bush (D-Mo.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) > voted against the bill, which includes funds for the Capitol Police. This is an arranged vote. House members who need to be seen to oppose the bill were given “walks.” Since they needed the Squad to note vote against it, 3 didn’t, and the 3 who wanted/needed to keep their cred were allowed to vote against. I am thinking back, and I can’t remember a time that the Squad, when they had the margin of victory, has ever cast the deciding vote against a bill that Democratic House leadership wanted past. It may be that they have, and that I missed it, I don’t follow legislative matters super-closely. But this vote was Kabuki, and unfortunately (I really did want to believe) I’m coming around to the view that the Squad is now basically onside. At a guess, I’d say a combination of co-option and punishment/threats have made clear to them their position, as when AOC didn’t get the committee assignment she wanted. This is a genuinely hard problem. People who go to Congress and want to play spoiler; to actually use their power when they have a veto have to be willing to withstand both gestures of kindness and real punishment, along with the genuine hatred of their colleagues. If you’re not a “team player”, if you don’t do what leadership wants, there are prices to be paid. It appears that those prices are too high for the Squad. Again, I may be wrong, but this isn’t a conclusion I come to anything but reluctantly. Nor, of course, does it not mean they aren’t “better” in some ways than other members. But there appears to be a fundamental dishonesty here that is disturbing, and a lack of willingness to use power when they have it. ------------------------- (THE MORE PEOPLE SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE THE MORE I WRITE AND THE HAPPIER I AM. SO PLEASE CONSIDER DOING SO IF YOU LIKE MY WRITING.) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → Democratic Party, Power
HOW WE’RE MAKING SURE COVID GOES CHRONIC2021 May 30
38 Comments
by Ian Welsh
So, you may all recall, for much of the first 8 months or so of the pandemic people would natter on about how “viruses always become less deadly.” I never bought that. You may have noticed that Covid variants are not less deadly, butmore.
I was wondering about this the other day, and got my answer, courtesy of a specialist in mass murder.
> In a vacuum, sure, viruses evolve towards a situation where they > reproduce more, which tends toward lower lethatlity and more chronic > infection. What they want, like most lifeforms, is more offspring. > But this isn’t a vacuum, they’re evolving against public health> measures
>
> The first big breakout variant, the UK strain, was specifically > adapted against masks. It was much more contagious, so minor mask > lapses were more easily exploited. It spread more evenly, relying > less on super-spreader events, and was more infectious to children, > who mask poorly.>
> The next big breakout was the South African strain, which was part > of the family of Covid strains that contain a mutation colorfully > labeled “Eek” which evades antibodies, especially from natural > infection or weaker vaccines, because that was/is becoming a bigger > impediment than masks.>
> Now that MRNA vaccines are becoming the tool of choice, if the virus > is allowed to continue to circulate in a partially vaccinated > western population, it is only a matter of time before THAT becomes > the biggest impediment to Covid’s success, and viruses are > selected for resistance to it. I feel a little silly not realizing this myself, since it’s naturalselection 101.
What this means is that half-assing a measure that works only allows the virus to adapt to defeat it. If you don’t mask/shutdown/quarantine/track and trace properly. If vaccines aren’t quickly spread to virtually everyone, Covid adapts. By leaving large chunks of the population effectively un-protected, we ensure Covid’s continued evolution into forms optimized against our half-assed measures. This means everyone has to be protected and quickly, and that includes people in other countries. Just protecting your own population is not enough, especially if you half-ass it and don’t insist on compliance. This suggests a rather bleak future for us v.s. Covid: a chronic but still fairly deadly disease which also gives some people long-Covid: impairment long after the initial infection. This will allow pharma to sell booster shots every year. Pfizer wants to sell them for $150 a shot. Small and medium businesses will continue to shut and large businesses will continue to expand their market share since they can use the internet and delivery to cut around retail distribution. Those retail businesses which pretty much have to remain will continue to put workers at risk, and the same will be true of production and distribution centers, where low paid workers must come together in large groups. Countries which wish to opt-out of this future will have to go to hard borders with mandatory quarantine (jail sentence for skippers; track and trace and quick shutdowns against any break-outs. Although the main transmission vector is airborne, such countries will probably want both robots to offload freight, and then temporary isolation of shipped goods (especially anything by air.) I do hope this is all wrong and that vaccines can get Covid under control by main force, but I fear my desire for a decent future is overcoming my analytical sense when I wish for such. In some ways Covid has been a perfect test of humanity, which most of the “West” has failed abysmally and we’ll discuss that more in afuture article.
------------------------- (THE MORE PEOPLE SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE THE MORE I WRITE AND THE HAPPIER I AM. SO PLEASE CONSIDER DOING SO IF YOU LIKE MY WRITING.) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedInfrom → Covid--19
WEEK-END WRAP – POLITICAL ECONOMY – MAY 30, 20212021 May 30
7 Comments
by Tony Wikrent
BY TONY WIKRENT
STRATEGIC POLITICAL ECONOMY Long Slide Looms for World Population, With Sweeping Ramifications “1 big thing: The state of the world, according to me”Dion Rabouin
_I find this very interesting because Rabouin implies that he is conveying the elite consensus he has gathered from his contacts and sources over the past years. The elites are well aware of the socio-economic problems afflicting average people:_ “Because consumers don’t have cash to spend, many companies struggle to generate real profits.” _Then the bottom line:_ “But it doesn’t seem like there’s much interest in finding an actual solution, just printing more money, adding more debt and putting more Band-Aids onthe problem.”
As Ian Welsh explains in CDC Decides To Just Not Count All Covid Cases,
> The people making decisions not only don’t care if you die, if you > dying will make them richer or more powerful, they’ll go with the > decision path that leads to you or mum or your best friend dying or > winding up homeless. You aren’t nothing to them, you’re meat. A> prey animal.
>
> Welcome to late capitalism.Rabouin:
> This being my last Axios Markets newsletter, I figured I’d break > from tradition and tell you what I really think. I’m not anyone > important, but I read a lot of reports and I talk to a lot of smart > people, so I’ve learned a thing or two.>
> I believe our country is in trouble. And it’s not about a loss of > morality or religion or liberals or conservatives or the current > president or the last president. It’s about a fundamental problem > we have as a nation — a reckless imbalance of wealth. The people > at the top have too much and the people at the bottom don’t have> enough.
>
> This is not a philosophical matter of doing what’s “right.” > It’s a practical matter of doing what’s necessary to uphold and > maintain a consumption-based economy…. We’re living in a world > now where the wealthy have so much money they literally don’t know > what to do with it…. Those who aren’t asset holders haven’t > even benefited from the risk-asset inflation that’s accompanied > housing, medical and education price inflation for the past decade > because wage inflation hasn’t even come close….>
> THIS PROBLEM ISN’T NEW. We’ve been lurching toward this > imbalance for years as corporations busted unions, moved jobs > offshore and muscled out independent small businesses, aided by > politicians who rewarded them with tax breaks and no-bid contracts> for
> doing it….
>
> * Retailers can’t raise prices, so it is almost entirely a race > to the bottom — nearly half of all new retail store > openings announced so far this year> are
> from Dollar General, Dollar Tree and Family Dollar. > * The obvious exception being luxury brands, which are selling > products to the wealthy who have more money than they know what to> do with.
>
> NEW COMPANIES today almost universally either lose money, free-ride > by offering a service that makes some other service cheaper, or sell > something to large corporations or the government.>
> #BIGFACTS: Because consumers don’t have cash to spend, many > companies struggle to generate real profits.>
> * However, because interest rates are so low, if a company is big > enough it can just keep issuing bonds to keep itself afloat. > * That’s why nearly a quarter of the largest public U.S.> companies today
> are
> zombies — firms that don’t even make enough money to pay the > interest on their debt.>
> ….But it doesn’t seem like there’s much interest in finding an > actual solution, just printing more money, adding more debt and > putting more Band-Aids on the problem. “U.S. aluminum tariffs have led to investment, jobs -think tankstudy”
> “U.S. tariffs on aluminum imports imposed by former president > Donald Trump and continued by President Joe Biden have led to > increased output, employment and capital investment by domestic > producers, a new study from a left-leaning think tank showed on > Tuesday. The Economic Policy Institute said the 10% aluminum > tariffs, imposed in March 2018 under the “Section 232″ national > security section of a Cold War-era trade law, have led to $6 billion > in 57 downstream aluminum product manufacturing projects that will > employ over 4,500 additional workers.” _Of course, the “free trade” ideologues are promoting the ReasonFoundation paper
that argues only eight percent of the “extra” cost of tariffs are being paid by the Chinese exporters, and the remaining 92 percent are being imposed on American consumers. Any simple review of actualeconomic history
shows that tariffs and preferences for domestic manufacturing have been the only means for a country to industrialize. Which is why mainstream neoliberal economists are not taught actual economichistory. _
Austerity’s Hidden PurposeYanis Varoufakis
> But if austerity is such a bad idea, sapping our economies of > energy, why is it so popular among the powerful? …. But suppose > for a moment, and for argument’s sake, that everyone agreed that > printing another trillion dollars to finance a basic income for the > poor would boost neither inflation nor interest rates. The rich and > powerful would still oppose it, owing to the debilitating fear that > they would end up like Peel in Australia: monied but bereft of the > power to compel the less monied…. their most important interest is > not to conserve economic potential. It is to preserve the power of > the few to compel the many. _Signs of economic immiseration_: read more… Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → UncategorizedOPEN THREAD
2021 May 29
16 Comments
by Ian Welsh
Use the comments to discuss topics unrelated to recent posts. Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedIn from → Administrative HOW FINANCE SHARKS DESTROY INDUSTRIES: CHICAGO TRIBUNE EDITION2021 May 27
19 Comments
by Ian Welsh
This isn’t going to be a long one. The way private-equity and other takeover artists today work is simple. They buy a company up and then load it up with debt to pay for having bought it. They generally take healthy companies (ToysRUs was running a profit), then once taken over slash and cut. The business will often go bankrupt, if it doesn’t it is a shadow of its former self; its products are worse, it has few employees and so on. This is now being done to the Chicago Tribune Newspaper. I don’t think a lot of commentary is necessary. This should be illegal. You should not be able to stiff the company you bought with a huge loan to pay off your expenses buying it out (and also pay yourself bonuses in the tens of millions.) Just make it illegal. It has destroyed innumerable companies, and the overall affect is to reduce employment and reduce economic activity. It’s nothing but damage to the economy at this point. Private Equity doesn’t take over badly run companies and make them better now (if it ever did, which is questionable), it just damages or destroys companies so that the people who take them over can have a third super-yacht and a tenth vacation home, and in many cases, be invited to the island run by whoever has replaced Epstein. These people literally act as parasites. Make what they do illegal, and find a way to take back their stolen wealth. ------------------------- (THE MORE PEOPLE SUBSCRIBE OR DONATE THE MORE I WRITE AND THE HAPPIER I AM. SO PLEASE CONSIDER DOING SO IF YOU LIKE MY WRITING.) Facebook Twitter WhatsApp LinkedInfrom → Economics
Older Entries
SUBSCRIBE
Get new posts delivered to your RSS reader or email inbox: RSS Feed Email Updates*
RECENT ARTICLES
* Open Thread
* Preparing for Bad Times Thread * How To Do Single-Payer Medicare-For-All Properly In America * The Squad and Kabuki Votes * How We’re Making Sure Covid Goes Chronic * Week-end Wrap – Political Economy – May 30, 2021* Open Thread
* How Finance Sharks Destroy Industries: Chicago Tribune Edition * CDC Decides To Just Not Count All Covid Cases * Types of Enlightenment #1: World As Self*
ADMINISTRATIVE
* Log in
* Entries feed
* Comments feed
* WordPress.org
*
BLOGROLL
* alicublog
* Americablog
* Anglachel
* Angry Bear
* Archdruid Report
* Asymptosis
* Avedon Carol
* Badtux
* Barry Ritholtz
* Bonddad
* But I Did Everything Right* Calculated Risk
* Corrente
* Crooks and Liars
* David E
* Deconstructing Yourself* Digby
* Dissident Voice
* Eric Margolis
* FireDoglake
* Jesus’ General
* Lance Mannion
* Lawyers, Guns and Money* Mahablog
* Marcy Wheeler
* Naked Capitalism
* New Economic Perspectives* Newshoggers
* Orcinus
* Pat Lang
* POGGE
* Scholars and Rogues* Seeing the Forest
* Skippy!
* Steve Clemons
* Stirling Newberry
* The Baseline Scenario* The Confluence
* Tony Wikrent's Real Economics* Whisky Fire
*
SEARCH
*
OLD POSTS
* June 2021
* May 2021
* April 2021
* March 2021
* February 2021
* January 2021
* December 2020
* November 2020
* October 2020
* September 2020
* August 2020
* July 2020
* June 2020
* May 2020
* April 2020
* March 2020
* February 2020
* January 2020
* December 2019
* November 2019
* October 2019
* September 2019
* August 2019
* July 2019
* June 2019
* May 2019
* April 2019
* March 2019
* February 2019
* January 2019
* December 2018
* November 2018
* October 2018
* September 2018
* August 2018
* July 2018
* June 2018
* May 2018
* April 2018
* March 2018
* February 2018
* January 2018
* December 2017
* November 2017
* October 2017
* September 2017
* August 2017
* July 2017
* June 2017
* May 2017
* April 2017
* March 2017
* February 2017
* January 2017
* December 2016
* November 2016
* October 2016
* September 2016
* August 2016
* July 2016
* June 2016
* May 2016
* April 2016
* March 2016
* February 2016
* January 2016
* December 2015
* November 2015
* October 2015
* September 2015
* August 2015
* July 2015
* June 2015
* May 2015
* April 2015
* March 2015
* February 2015
* January 2015
* December 2014
* November 2014
* October 2014
* September 2014
* August 2014
* July 2014
* June 2014
* May 2014
* April 2014
* March 2014
* February 2014
* January 2014
* December 2013
* November 2013
* October 2013
* September 2013
* August 2013
* July 2013
* June 2013
* May 2013
* April 2013
* March 2013
* February 2013
* January 2013
* December 2012
* November 2012
* October 2012
* September 2012
* August 2012
* July 2012
* June 2012
* May 2012
* April 2012
* March 2012
* February 2012
* January 2012
* December 2011
* November 2011
* October 2011
* September 2011
* August 2011
* July 2011
* June 2011
* May 2011
* April 2011
* March 2011
* February 2011
* January 2011
* December 2010
* November 2010
* October 2010
* September 2010
* August 2010
* July 2010
* June 2010
* May 2010
* April 2010
* March 2010
* February 2010
* January 2010
* December 2009
* November 2009
* October 2009
* September 2009
* August 2009
* July 2009
* June 2009
* May 2009
* April 2009
* March 2009
Copyright 2021 Ian Welsh Vigilance Theme by The ThemeFoundry
Details
Copyright © 2024 ArchiveBay.com. All rights reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | DMCA | 2021 | Feedback | Advertising | RSS 2.0