US Politics: A Tale of two Joes.

[DMC]

15 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I hope you’re right. 

Even if I'm wrong, you really think a McConnell-led GOP is any less dangerous than a Trump-led GOP?  They're still the same repressive assholes, just more polite about it and - importantly - relatively far more competent at both suppressing the vote and ensuring policy outcomes fuck everyone over.

[mcbigski]

5 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Because Trump and Trumpanistas are that bad.

It's probably a comfort for you to be that certain.  

Sure food and fuel prices are up dramatically, but that's Trumps fault.  Plus bottom two quintile's employment and wage growth have gone negative, but that's just the logical conclusion of Trump's obviously racist policies taken to their fifth year, and at least we've got an ethical, uncorruptable leader using his keen intellect to stop covid in it's track now, and the emptier shelves are just because everyone is doing so well it is causing a demand side crisis.  Large cap corporate media says so.  Their incentives are pure.

The current decision makers are obviously making calls based on electoral popularity, so there's no question our system is sound, fundamentally.  So I can sleep well there at least.

It no longer shocks me that people who rail against corporatism are unquestioningly behind a combination of government, corporate media, and mega cap bio tech companies.  Not because it makes logical sense, just because I've seen that too often.  

<not that I'm a fan of corporatism per se, but used corporatism instead capitalism there because I believe that corporatism gets more and more negative as the scale increases, and in fact starts to crowd out capitalism.>

[ThinkerX]

3 hours ago, mcbigski said:

Sure food and fuel prices are up dramatically, but that's Trumps fault.  Plus bottom two quintile's employment and wage growth have gone negative, but that's just the logical conclusion of Trump's obviously racist policies taken to their fifth year, and at least we've got an ethical, uncorruptable leader using his keen intellect to stop covid in it's track now, and the emptier shelves are just because everyone is doing so well it is causing a demand side crisis.  Large cap corporate media says so.  Their incentives are pure.

no, not from where I am standing. Food and fuel prices are set by markets, not presidents - though in this case Trump gets *some* blame owing to his tariffs and trade wars. Those both contributed to inflation and cost quite a few US farmers their livelihood. 

Negative job growth? I see this as a manifestation of a trend that has been building for ages - people deciding there is more to life than wage slavery. I also note that for the first time in well over a decade, pay for ordinary folks is actually increasing. Minimum wage initiatives and hikes in multiple states taking effect this year.

As a former USPS contractor, well, the 'demand side crises' is more of an 'overwhelmed supply chain.'  That situation has been building for a while, the parcels I handled the last two or three years *tripled* in number, a situation that held true across USPS (according to my former bosses, anyhow).

Biden? I'll be clear hear. To me, Biden is nothing more than a bench warmer, a stopgap measure, an effort to keep things 'as is' for a little while longer. I do not see a Biden 2024, a Harris 2024, a Trump 2024, or an Abbot 2024. Santis is possible, though not likely.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

DMC 2024 it is then.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'm thinking of just getting it over with and voting for the comet.

[Larry of the Lawn]

8 hours ago, mcbigski said:

It's probably a comfort for you to be that certain.  

Sure food and fuel prices are up dramatically, but that's Trumps fault.  Plus bottom two quintile's employment and wage growth have gone negative, but that's just the logical conclusion of Trump's obviously racist policies taken to their fifth year, and at least we've got an ethical, uncorruptable leader using his keen intellect to stop covid in it's track now, and the emptier shelves are just because everyone is doing so well it is causing a demand side crisis.  Large cap corporate media says so.  Their incentives are pure.

The current decision makers are obviously making calls based on electoral popularity, so there's no question our system is sound, fundamentally.  So I can sleep well there at least.

It no longer shocks me that people who rail against corporatism are unquestioningly behind a combination of government, corporate media, and mega cap bio tech companies.  Not because it makes logical sense, just because I've seen that too often.  

<not that I'm a fan of corporatism per se, but used corporatism instead capitalism there because I believe that corporatism gets more and more negative as the scale increases, and in fact starts to crowd out capitalism.>

Ignoring all the flame bait here, what's the distinction between corporatism and capitalism?

[Ormond]

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

DMC 2024 it is then.

I hugely appreciate DMC's contributions to this thread. 

But to ask a semi-serious question regarding this quip, has there ever been someone with a graduate degree in Political Science who has run for President or Congress in the USA? Or does being an expert on this turn people off from actually running for elective office?

[Rippounet]

36 minutes ago, Ormond said:

But to ask a semi-serious question regarding this quip, has there ever been someone with a graduate degree in Political Science who has run for President or Congress in the USA?

Woodrow Wilson immediately comes to mind.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

37 minutes ago, Ormond said:

I hugely appreciate DMC's contributions to this thread. 

But to ask a semi-serious question regarding this quip, has there ever been someone with a graduate degree in Political Science who has run for President or Congress in the USA? Or does being an expert on this turn people off from actually running for elective office?

Ever heard of Woodrow Wilson? 

ETA: Damn you Ripp. 'd me by five seconds.

[Ormond]

22 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Woodrow Wilson immediately comes to mind.

Thanks, but it's now been a century since he left office. Anyone more recent than that?

[DMC]

Daniel Patrick Moynihan's PhD was in history, but in practice he was a social scientist.  Stacey Abrams has a MPA in public policy.  Other than Wilson those are the only two off the top of my head.

[Week]

2 hours ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Ignoring all the flame bait here, what's the distinction between corporatism and capitalism?

He's three sheets to the winds and letting that freich flag fly!

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Here's a list of current and former officials with PhDs:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_politicians_with_doctorates

[DMC]

Oh, and of course Pete Buttigieg's Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford is pretty close.  For that matter, so is Bill Clinton's.

[DMC]

11 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Here's a list of current and former officials with PhDs:

Interesting that Gary Hart got a PhD at Oxford in 2001, didn't know that.  Should've gotten Paul Wellstone.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Woodrow Wilson immediately comes to mind.

A horrible person.

[Wilbur]

4 hours ago, Lermo T.I. Krrrammpus said:

Ignoring all the flame bait here, what's the distinction between corporatism and capitalism?

For me, once a corporation grows to a certain size, it has an interest in removing competition.

The public's bugaboo image of Microsoft circa 2000 is a good example, where a corporation used its size and market presence to drive out competition in the browser marketplace.

Or an even better example was Intel's use of its superior access to capital and marketing development funds to require its customers to refuse to buy any products from AMD, its only, and much smaller, competitor in the x86 marketplace.

Capitalism requires competition to be a useful market force, but large corporate actors eventually seek to remove competition or create public policy that allocates resources to them uniquely rather than to the marketplace at large.

And thus capitalism's great success stories often seek to eliminate capitalism's own key mechanism.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

11 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

For me, once a corporation grows to a certain size, it has an interest in removing competition.

The public's bugaboo image of Microsoft circa 2000 is a good example, where a corporation used its size and market presence to drive out competition in the browser marketplace.

Or an even better example was Intel's use of its superior access to capital and marketing development funds to require its customers to refuse to buy any products from AMD, its only, and much smaller, competitor in the x86 marketplace.

Capitalism requires competition to be a useful market force, but large corporate actors eventually seek to remove competition or create public policy that allocates resources to them uniquely rather than to the marketplace at large.

And thus capitalism's great success stories often seek to eliminate capitalism's own key mechanism.

Considering a recent thread that popped up, it's interesting to look at sports leagues through this lens.

[Larry of the Lawn]

44 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

For me, once a corporation grows to a certain size, it has an interest in removing competition.

The public's bugaboo image of. Microsoft circa 2000 is a good example, where a corporation used its size and market presence to drive out competition in the browser marketplace.

Or an even better example was Intel's use of its superior access to capital and marketing development funds to require its customers to refuse to buy any products from AMD, its only, and much smaller, competitor in the x86 marketplace.

Capitalism requires competition to be a useful market force, but large corporate actors eventually seek to remove competition or create public policy that allocates resources to them uniquely rather than to the marketplace at large.

And thus capitalism's great success stories often seek to eliminate capitalism's own key mechanism.

I'm not seeing how how that's different from capitalism. It seems to be a feature rather than a bug, not some separate thing.  

Calling it corporatism when we really mean "a very common and reoccurring phenomenon of capitalism" and pretending it's something distinct is confusing at best and more likely deliberately obfuscating.

[Durckad]

Corporatism is a logical step of capitalism. There is nothing in capitalism that is anti-corporatism. 

That said capitalism is such a fuzzy term in today's politics that it often means whatever the person invoking it wants it to mean.

Same with socialism, communism, neoliberalism, any political buzzword.