Recent comments
ADHD: Hunter in a Farmer's World
Thom Hartmann has written a dozen books covering ADD / ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder.
Join Thom for his new twice-weekly email newsletters on ADHD, whether it affects you or a member of your family.
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Mainstream media...FOX, CNN and MSNBC including print media such as the NY Times, not only ignored the candidacy of Bernie Sanders, when they did mention him, it was always a negative word or connotation. In particular, Chris Matthews from MSNBC totally disparaged Bernie Sanders every chance he had and continues to do so currently. Check out his show from earlier 2015 when he had Debbie Wasserman Shultz on as guest. The both of them tried to malign Bernie Sanders...their bias was so evident to be disgusting. I also understand that Chris Matthews wife is running for a democratic district seat and her donors are the same as Hillary Clinton. The whole democratic primary process is a complete farce and so is the DNC. It is long overdue to get rid of the corporate Democrats such as the Clintons and many D party elites that have dominated the D Party for more than 25 years....nothing will change as long the corporate Democrats are in charge.
The Democratic party at least has a chance to clean itself out, blue dogs, etc. Whereas there is no hope for the Republican party. There are a lot of good Democratic party members, your broad brushing of the Democratic party is a little off the mark.
http://www.fec.gov/press/press2013/presidential_form2nm.shtml
Fat chance, Thom. The Democratic Party belongs to the corporate elite. The politicians in it serve the interests of the plutocrats. Poll and after poll has shown majority support for progressive policies that the Democratic leadership ignores. Reforming the Democratic Party is a pipe dream.
Nice analysis, Thom. (Watching developments from Australia with horror!)
A guy showed up at our Whittier for Bernie debate watch party. I suspect he was a Hillary surrogate. He made an announcement that we should remember that Hillary won the popular vote against Obama in the 2008 primary but Obama won by Super Delegates. I thought he was sent to spread that meme so we wouldn't protest if Bernie won the popular vote but she takes it with Super Delegates. I looked it up to see if his story was accurate. Wikipedia showed that what he said was true BUT remember what Thom says about Wikipidia... it's HIGHLY REDACTED.
Wray doesn't necessarily know what he's talking about. The wage-price spiral was a great issue long before oil price shock. Nixon tried the freeze in 1970.
Labor costs, it's true, weren't the only cause but none of them should have been confronted directly. Quite simply, unions' purpose is to get employers to give up a fairer portion of the profits to the employees. That is apparently just what employers do NOT want to do.
The "per unit cost of production" was getting very high in the '70s relative to previous decades and it was because of all the factors of costs of complying with new regulations, higher taxes, higher wages due to collective bargaining and then, finally, the price of oil. Also, those costs were being passed on to consumers.
The solution of Paul Volcker was to slow the economy by lowering interest rates.
These points aren't controvertable, I think.
We already have the perfect retirement plan in place. If only our "Public Servants" would leave it alone. They rob from it to balance their budgets and then condemn it for being a burden. Well, it is a burden for them because they're suppose to pay it back. Whenever you help anyone in need, it's a burden. One we take on because it's right. There's big money in Social Security and many, other than the entitled, have their eye on it. They want to fix it by handing out 50 cents on the dollar. Thanks for that! I'm in your debt, or rather, just in debt. Glad I could help you with your budget.
@Mark #33
I do get a bit confused at the complexity and number of factors and interactions. Yet I ask myself if wage-price spiral causes or is the result of inflation (as busines and workers look for more money than usual anticipating higher prices), or likely some combination.
Prof. L Randall Wray talks about some of the factors involved with the 70s in the last part of the 6-part video interview (with some guy named Hartmann) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtjG0FtAqr8&index=6&list=PLwNpQQv79seHz1...
Other parts are good to hear too. Wray does mention that the wrong response -- slowing the economy -- was done.
No, public pension funds in the US are underfunded by $1T, Bank Bailouts have reached $16T, as well as trashing the world economy by $200T.
City, state & federal governments are too eager to give away big fat public pensions, that are very rare in the private sector, and leave them for future administrations to pay for. A national pension plan, everyone contributes to is far superior to private pension plans that are usually just a rip-off. Private sector employees can no longer expect to work long enough at a company to get a pension so those plans are just a sick joke.
Beyond the basic national plan, people can contribute to their own RRSP or 401K, and that is all that should exist for pension plans.
Other than that a basic income will be needed, which can easily be funded by public money creation. As automation replaces human workers it is common sense to create money - that is medium of exchange - to facilitate the distribution of goods to the population. And widespread taxation to prevent the excessive accumulation of wealth in the hands of the politically connected elites.
This is all very simple-minded and easy to implement except for the age-old problem of corruption. Our political systems have so badly compromised by vested interests that common sense solutions are invariably buried.
Also alarming is about 70 % of all pension funds are under funded. Chances are even if you have a pension you are not going to receive what you think or the one you are getting now will be reduced. Not even government pensions are save. Look at Detroit. With states racking up debt at a unprecedented rate it won't be long interest rates go up the not just cities but whole states will be going bankrupt. If you have a pension plan I suggest you get more involved and see where it's invested and how well it's managed. The bank scandal is nothing compared to what's coming with the pension funds.
There was a wage-price spiral that caused the CPI to double in ten years and it plagued Carter and contibuted to his defeat and, somehow, it ended not too far into the Reagan Era. It might have something with Paul Volcker (a Carter appointee) juggling the interest rates, I don't know.
Being a white working class heterosexual male over 55, and considering my current retirement plan consists of either a massive heart attack at age 65 or a prison sentence to provide adequate food, shelter, and health care, I am having a hard time relating to the statistical racial inequality.
How Might a Painter Portray Me?
{… a rhyme …}
How might a painter my face portray
when I’m contemplating the blight of the Right? -
- Derision, yet also I writhe in dismay,
yet also I’m stunned in breath-halting fright.
======================================
Employer retirement plans ? For some time now American workers have been told that a new labor paradigm is evolving and they will likely have a number of jobs working for different companies throughout their working years. The day of a lifetime career with one company has been evaporating for the last half century. Social Security remains the only true transferrable retirement plan for American Workers, a system that even Politically Right leaning American workers understand is the only hope for their senior years. Social Security does require that the future retiree build and maintain a personal financial base over the years, a fact that the SSA does not emphasize adequately and a goal that is becoming increasingly more difficult to achieve given the rapid rise of low end minimum wage service sector jobs that are rapidly taking the place of former living wage jobs that have increasingly been exported to foreign low wage economies ! A growing set of challenges for future retirees and any centralized government retirement program !
These are the kind of games in diplomacy that keep Americans "hyped" for war. The only way the U.S., will ever be able to help destroy our "enemy" in Korea, is by having good relations with them. Anytime a sanction to be met before civilized talks can resume is just another way of telling Americans that we hold some kind of authority or "morality" over an advisary. Another lie, so we can always have someone to potentially go to war with and thus keep our very expensive guard up. Thank you military industrial complex! War proffeteers.
@ Mark #30
I'm rather weary now so I can't respond properly, but I note that Bill Mitchell http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=13035
and Dale Pierce http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/modern-monetary-theory-overvi...
talks about the 1970s inflation or stagflation (and keep in mind the end of the gold statndard in 1971 -- not sure how that affected it). It is a difficult subject, but it's not caused simply by 'too much money', although one might say too much demand for supply available -- with the two having to be linked, or too much money spent in a market in which production does not expand.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/modern-monetary-theory-overvi...
says
"What actually happened in America, after the real but relatively mild inflation of the late 1960s was that the Nixon administration decided to wage an economic war on the rest of the world. It was a war with many fronts – trade terms, exchange rates, and the “gold window”, to name some major ones. There was even a geo-political decision to engage in massive economic co-operation with the communist world – both Russia and China – in large part for the purpose of preserving American leverage over its ostensible allies in non-communist Europe and Asia. Nixon’s trade war, and the rest of America’s economic imperialism since then, has been depicted through yet another thoroughly fictitious narrative as “the adventures of Uncle Sucker”, in which the U.S. was repeatedly bamboozled in trade and currency deals by smaller, weaker nations. In truth, the Nixon administration relentlessly devalued the dollar, imposed arbitrary trade quotas that other countries were coerced into calling “voluntary”. Nixon also proceeded to simply default on America’s tacit gold pledge and let exchange-rate chaos reign. (For a comprehensive account of these events, see Michael Hudson’s “Super-Imperialism“)."
By http://www.federalreservehistory.org/Period/Essay/13 and http://inflationdata.com/Inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx the figure you give for 1967 to 1977 does not seem to capture the situation, and includes the 1970 oil shortage.
I think you are likely correct that it was not only the price of oil. This will take me a while to sort it all out -- it's a bit complicated, and I'm not an expert or economist.
Ok, easy one's first. Clinton will get a lot, but not all, Dem support. Trump will get a lot, but not all, Rep support. So let's look at Independents:
Let's divide them into three catagories: Libertarian, Centrist, and Green/Socialist.
Libertarians will, without Bernie in the race overwhelmingly vote Trump.
Centrists will tend to vote in larger numbers for Trump, mostly because a lot of them just hate Clinton and because if you run a Republican against a Republican-lite candidate, the Republican wins. Interesting to note that Bernie would probably pick up most of this group simply because he's not as nuckin' futz as Trump!
Greens/Socialist will most likely write-in Sanders, vote for Jill Stein, or not vote. Of course, they would vote for Sanders in overwhelming numbers.
So, if you can't get people to realize just how unelectable Clinton is, say "Heil" to Commandant Trump!
I agree many people will stay home. Clinton will not excite the voters enough to vote! The voters are discouraged by the political hypocrisy of the wealthy and not being represented and cared for by the political system. Clinton's are part of mediocrity of business as usual.
http://theweek.com/articles/583986/bernie-sanders-doesnt-need-pay-social...
Bernie Sanders doesn't need to pay for his socialist utopia
Jeff Spross
October 20,2015
[...]
Taxes, under this logic, aren't really about bringing in revenue — rather, they're just another dial for managing this flow. And it's conceivable that they would never need to balance with spending.
What's funny is that Sanders might be gearing up to make this very argument. His chief economic adviser, University of Missouri-Kansas City economist Stephanie Kelton, is a fan of something called modern monetary theory: a batch of ideas that sketches out a very similar case to the one above.
[...]
Bluepilgrim, the inflation of the '70s wasn't caused by the price of oil until 1973 when the embargo was effected. There was runaway inflation before that because of higher taxes, the cost of complying with new regulations and collective bargaining agreements were raising the "per unit cost of production" and that increased cost was being passed on to consumers.
From 1967 to 1977 consumer prices doubled across the board. Thus Nixon implemented the "wage-price freeze" in 1970.
The oil embargo was the final push to move manufacturing, first out of the cities, and then out of the United States entirely.
I think that it would be close but Hilary might win.
Mark, I went looking and found Stephanie Kelton talking about infaltion, and Shiff's myths, on Sam Seder's show
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xmm23vJeu0A
Revolt Against Plutocracy volunteers are posting ads across SC media telling Democrats it's going to be Bernie or bust. Tomorrow, we find out how many black Americans saw the ads.