Lakshmi Rhone : cb, I am going to back off my necessity of crisis position. DeLong may have this right. What we are seeing here are the socio-political effects of the inequality explosion. The right wing critics know that there is a very good chance that a bigger fiscal stimulus would substantially bring down unemployment with little inflationary side effect and even little need for more progressive taxation in the long term. Interest rates are low; there is every possibility of an easy Keynesian way out of this crisis. But the right wingers so don't give a darn about the lives which are outside the gated communities and which have been caricatured and stereotyped and impugned over the last thirty years (I am talking about the cultural counter-offensive that took off in Philadelphia, MS thirty years ago) that they are not willing to countenance any even small possibility of steeply progressive taxes in the future or of inflation eating into their bond portfolios even if would save millions of poor families from catastrophe.
^^^^ Lakshmi, That seems accurate to me. I also have this idea that the ruling class not only doesn't give a darn about the lives outside of their community, but affirmatively wants masses to be in a bad way, because a healthy, educated, "together" whole working class would see the whole game, and make the revolution. The reform upsurge of the 60's and 70's was based in the relative mass prosperity of the post WWII Golden Age. ^^^^^ And maybe the contempt for these blacks and Latinos of uncertain citizenship is so consuming that the ruling class which would benefit from a full scale Keynesian stimulus (it could create the conditions to work down excess capacity after all) is opposed to it nonetheless, cutting off its nose to spite its face. Well the small class of nasty people who see it that way have inordinate influence, via thinktanks and editorials and of course contributions, over politicians of both parties in Congress. Racism is the fuel for this fire, and you should be careful not to underestimate it. Christina Romer is relatively free from such narrow and ugly partisan interests and calculates that it would serve the overall common good to try more stimulus packages, but this only shows that the President is relatively more objective than many Congressional Democrats, especially the blue dogs/ ^^^^^ CB: I agree substantially. You can rest assured I won't underestimate racism (smile). Right now it is especially concentrated and vigorous in the anti-immigrant stuff, Arizona law, etc. ------------------------------ _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
