Neoliberals are killing us: The TED talk, techno-utopian, Thomas Friedman-economy is a lie

[marmar]

from Salon.com:



Neoliberals are killing us: The TED talk, techno-utopian, Thomas Friedman-economy is a lie
Neoliberal fantasy world is filled with daring entrepreneurs competing in a meritocracy. Do you recognize that?

BILL CURRY


Last week, 295,000 Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Economists called it good news, as the number was less than 300,000; that’s the line they say separates good news from bad. But it isn’t much less, and other news seems very bad. In February, housing starts plunged 17 percent. Inventories are high. Demand is low. Job growth is anemic. Still, economists say things are going so well we can raise interest rates. They call that good news — though they don’t say for whom.

There’ll be more news this week: home prices, consumer confidence, new growth figures. In our casino economy we hang on these reports like blackjack players waiting for a dealer to turn the next card. Republicans and Democrats alike believe growth will cure all our ills. President Obama and Hillary Clinton call it their No. 1 economic priority. Despite all evidence to the contrary, they still believe a rising tide lifts all boats.

Some call Obama’s and Clinton’s economic worldview ‘neoliberal.’ Like ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative,’ it’s an imprecise word meant to signify a cluster of opinions; among them that globalization is inevitable and benign and that the revolution in information technology is fast democratizing commerce and politics. Neoliberals love fiscal austerity and free trade and are suckers for privatization, deregulation and ‘education reform,’ which they say will keep us competitive.

Like the neoconservatives with whom they often ally on military matters, neoliberals seem to regard our present political and economic arrangements as civilization’s final flowering, as close to perfect as one can get in a fallen world. It’s the faith that made Bush think Iraqis would greet us as liberators–who wouldn’t want to be us– and why Obama bet his presidency on economic recovery rather than reform. It’s our establishment orthodoxy, the ‘bipartisan consensus’ we’re forever chasing. It’s killing us. .................(more)

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/29/neoliberals_are_killing_us_the_ted_talk_techno_utopian_thomas_friedman_economy_is_a_lie/

[KG]

1. c'mon, mr curry. obama's policies saved the world, and HRC's will save it even more better!

[Katashi_itto]

2. K&R!

[woo me with science]

3. K&R Finally, the truth.

[Enthusiast]

6. Finally!

[rogerashton]

4. Some good news

Scroll down for some green shoots.

Right now, before our eyes, a new economy struggles to be born. It’s more democratic than the one we have. It prizes smallness, permanence and community. It favors cooperatives and other collaborative forms of ownership and production.

http://www.east.usworker.coop/

http://www.east.usworker.coop/2015-conference/sponsors/us-federation-worker-cooperatives

A familiar tool is the employee stock ownership plan (ESOP). Often underestimated, today 11,000 ESOPs now employ nearly 11 million workers. Benefits range from higher job satisfaction and wages to improved productivity and in hard times, fewer layoffs.

https://www.nceo.org/articles/esops-improve-performance-employee-benefits

It makes me sad that some of the leaders of my profession, including at least one Nobel Laureate for economics, "know perfectly well" (without bothering to read the evidence) that ESOPS and coops are unproductive. Anti-science ideology again, I guess, but other professions don't get Nobel Prizes for it.

[Enthusiast]

5. K&R! This post deserves hundreds of recommendations!

Watch this video of Joseph Stiglitz on Tavis Smiley.

[cantbeserious]

7. What Some Have Been Saying For Years - Bill, Hillary And Obama Are The Past

eom

[KoKo]

8. Recommend!

[zeemike]

9. A good read K&R,

A new way of doing things is the only way out of this mess...the system must be made obsolete because it cannot be changed.

[Javaman]

10. Price of attendance to the ted talks...

TED Women 2015
Momentum
May 27 - 29, 2015
Monterey, CA

Price of attendance: US$1,250


TED 2016
Dream.
February 15-19, 2016
Vancouver, BC, Canada

Price of attendance: US$8,500



that's all I have to say.

[marmar]

13. Good grief.

[LuvNewcastle]

11. K&R

[hibbing]

12. Friedman Unit..haha..not really funny though n/t

[raouldukelives]

14. K&R Not just us. The commons themselves are being killed. Some are part of it,some are apart from it

The delicate balance which brought us life is being heavily weighted towards oblivion.
All in the name of growth. Of higher dividends. Of comfortable retirements.
Funded from the death of what could have been. Built on the remains of what once was.

[marmar]

15. truth