LOST

Uncategorized 1 Minute

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……………………..LOST

Published by Rodger Malcolm Mitchell

MBA Northwestern, business turnaround expert, economist

Published

7 thoughts on “LOST”

  1. The election was lost before it began: A right wing Democrat vs. a Republican. What could possibly go wrong.

    Bill Black: Liberals Didn’t Listen – The Immense Cost of Ignoring Tom Frank’s Warnings
    Posted on November 9, 2016, by Yves Smith

    Beginning with his famous book, What’s the Matter with Kansas, first published in 2004, Tom Frank has been warning the Democratic Party of the increasing cost it was paying by abandoning and even attacking the working class, particularly the white working class.

    Frank returned to the theme just in time for this election with a new book – Listen, Liberal – that documents the New Democrats’ war on the New Deal, their disdain for organized labor, and their antipathy for what they viewed as retrograde white working class attitudes.

    Frank kept showing the enormous price the working class was paying as a result of the economic policies of the Republicans and the New Democrats, and the indifference to their plight by the leaders of the New Democrats.

    Senator Bernie Sanders consciously took up the cause of reducing surging inequality and became a hero to a broad coalition of voters, many of them fiercely opposed to the New Democrats’ embrace of Wall Street cash, policies, and arrogance.

    Sanders set records for small donor fundraising and generated enormous enthusiasm. Sanders knew he would face the opposition of the New Democrats, but he also found that progressive congressional Democrats would rarely support him publicly in the contest for the Party’s nomination and even union leaders sided overwhelmingly with Secretary Hillary Clinton, the New Democrats’ strongly preferred candidate.

    Hillary did not simply fail to reach out to working class voters;she infamously attacked them as “deplorables.”

    This was exactly the group of potential voters that was enraged because it believed, correctly as Tom Frank keeps showing us, that the New Democrats looked down on them and adopted policies that rigged the system against the working class.

    Hillary Clinton handled things so miserably that she allowed a plutocrat whose career is based on rigging the system against the working class to become the hero of the working class.

    Had she followed Tom Frank’s advice she would today be the President-elect. The real cost, however, will be enormous damage to our democracy, the safety of the world, and the damage that President Trump will do to the working class as he systematically betrays their interests.

    A period of enormous corruption and elite fraud is coming soon as the Trump administration brings its signature characteristic – crony capitalism – to bear to control all three branches of government.

    Trump promises to deregulate Wall Street, appoint top supervisors chosen for their unwillingness to supervise, and appoint judges who will allow CEOs to loot with impunity. Trump promises to outdo even the savage anti-media and anti-whistleblower policies of the Obama administration.

    The House and Senate committee chairs will intensify their blatantly partisan use of investigations while refusing to conduct real oversight hearings revealing the elite fraud and corruption.

    The progressive Senate Democrats will have to find ways to blow the whistle repeatedly on the mounting corruption. Their challenge will be to lead despite having no real institutional power.

    When the right wing rails against “liberals” it is railing against Democrats, but as we repeatedly have stated, there are almost no liberals in Congress. Elizabeth Warren is one. Bernie Sanders comes close. That’s about it.

    The Democratic Party has lost its way and now faces a gigantic rebuilding job. It must remember its base: The middle and lower income/wealth/power classes.

    The drift to the right has produced a Hillary Clinton and allowed for a Donald Trump.

    And under President Trump, the working class will suffer more than ever.

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  2. In other news, California voted down Proposition 61, which would have prevented Big Pharma from charging more for drugs than Big Pharma charges the VA. This is good news, since it will add fire to a movement that I have been carefully watching as it explodes in size.

    I refer to a mass realization that Big Pharma’s drugs are not just hideously expensive, but deadly, and that the way to optimize health is not through drugs and vaccines, but via exercise, proper nutrition, and healthy lifestyle choices. This sounds silly in a touchy-feely way, but the movement is real and it is growing.

    Big Pharma has forced it by pricing itself into extinction. And doctors forced it by insisting that every ailment can be cured with a pill or a shot.

    Meanwhile Colorado voted down ColoradoCare, which would have provided statewide single-payer health insurance. This too is good news, since the plan would have failed even if it had passed. Colorado’s government simply could not afford it, and would have had to impose severe austerity on everything else in the state.

    Only at the federal level can a single payer plan work (aka universal Medicare) since only at the federal level can the government create infinite dollars out of thin air that are not loans. If ColoradoCare had passed, it would have failed, and the private insurance industry would have rejoiced, saying, “SEE???!! Single payer CAN’T WORK, HA, HA, HA!!!”

    Yes it CAN work, but only at the federal level.

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  3. An important reason why I supported Trump was that the Democrats ratted on their constituency [and the Republicans didn’t] ever since the Clinton ascendancy. It’s happened all over the western world leaving behind these people who started neoliberal policies before the right took them on board.
    Also Trump won his election. The GOP didn’t win it. Trump can safely ignore GOP policies and he may well be the first president in ages who can do what he proposes. The GOP will go along with him. His acceptance speech was a good one. Lets hope he’s not just role playing this time.

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    1. I pray for America he succeeds.

      If he does, it will prove that being President of the United States is the world’s easiest job.

      After all, can anyone name a high-paying, massively powerful job supervising millions of employees, in which a person having zero experience, zero knowledge, zero desire to learn, and having an insulting, egocentric personality, can succeed?

      But, given that being a nominal Republican, he will be backed by a Republican Senate, a Republican House and a Republican Supreme Court, — luxuries Obama didn’t have — there is no reason he shouldn’t succeed. Is there?

      No excuse not to be the greatest President of the past hundred years.

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