It's early days yet. I'd keep my powder dry until things shake out a bit more and we see how much of this stimulus actually gets enacted, what offsetting cuts get made made (eg to Social Security), whether significant cuts are made to the defense budget and what sort of (expensive) national riot policing and "antiterrorist" initiatives go forward. Saying he wants to do these "Keneysian" things may be the last we hear from a "liberal" Biden--tipping his hat to the "left" that voted for him-then it's on to rescuing the health insurance companies yet again and building the world's strongest military yet again &C &c--and more of the usual BS about a "rainbow" of entrepreneurs and all the rest of the neoliberal hogwash.
I do think there's a chance that the pandemic will be brought under control, but how decisively and how permanently are now questions. Debt IS a problem, and the only allowable response is to cut social programs and so-called entitlements. If a COVID recovery doesn't manifest, it isn't clear how long this "Keynesian" bubble can last. Everything military is so off-the-table that even credible audits are out of the question. Initiatives like the Cuban organoponico movement as the standard of living sinks are inconceivable. And of course nothing can be nationalized--for example, internet services via the Post Office as opposed to the predatory ISP patchwork we have today. There will be no postal savings accounts--and initiatives like providing decent government annuities to supplement Social Security, are not even possible to discuss. Long-term the economic outlook is bad, the political outlook remains dangerously volatile, and there is no likely access to a "wartime" level of economic planning and mobilization. Some people read the Arizona "censure" kerfuffle as a Patriot Party splitting the GOP, but it looks to me like Trumpies asserting control of the Arizona GOP and leaving schism in the laps of what few dissenters remain. Far from disabling the GOP, this could energize them to do what they do best--close ranks and obstruct with all their might, consequences be damned. It's a dead cert that Trump will be "exonerated" at his second trial, probably along strict party lines. After Arizona, how many GOPers will dare to vote to convict? This will give us a confrontational and obstructionist GOP almost exactly like what we had pre-riots. I don't think now is a time to lie back and let Joe and Kamala do their thing. How you deal with the Portland "antifa" counterrevolutionaries (if one may so term them) is a good question. Leaving it up to the Border Patrol and the FBI seems like a bad idea. The "antifa" in Portland are chiming in in exactly the wrong way at the wrong time. This will do harm. ' -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#5787): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/5787 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/79921817/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
