antagon
The Man
- Dec 6, 2009
- 3,572
- 295
- 48
It's probably worthwhile to look at what else has changed during the last 35 years. Manufacturing was 18% of GDP, and now it's 11%.What if that age of "pander-conservatism" received a new lease on life last January with the Citizens United case? Based on corporate and union donations in this month's Minnesota primary players like Target and Best Buy aren't too concerned with alienating customers by blatantly taking sides in elections.
Corporate donations often go overwhelmingly to candidates who've never doubted Reaganomics or the virtue of "starving the beast."
Since Big Labor pulls many of the same strings in the Democratic party as the US Chamber of Commerce pulls among Republican puppets, maybe it's time to recognize any meaningful change won't happen by "choosing" between the two major parties.
the big labor/big biz cliche is 35 years old. i contend that the battlefield has changed. democrats have realized that unions dont have the control that they used to have over the voting habits of their members. union workers fit the demography of republican voters, and have merged closer to neutral. campaign reforms have made politics decidedly more populist.
big businesses aren't sure if the prefer a svelte tax suite or a fat corporate welfare suite. big retailers graze off demand-side economics and already have ways of not paying taxes.
brave new world.
"The decline of 39% is due to jobs offshoring."
"Think about that. Wall Street and shareholders and executives of transnational corporations have made billions by moving 39% of US manufacturing offshore to boost the GDP and employment of foreign countries, such as China, while impoverishing their former American work force."
More from Paul Craig Roberts:
"We now have an all-time high of Americans on food stamps, 40.8 million people, about 14% of the population. By next year the government estimates that food stamp dependency will rise to 43 million Americans.
"So last week Congress cut food stamp benefits.
Let them eat cake"
Brave Dead World?
the shrinkage in manufacture is proportional. manufacturing has grown quantitatively, while other sectors have grown faster. is this guy's hypothesis really BASED on this flawed presumption that manufacturing in the US has shrunken by 40%?