mbs: This depends on what you think are "the real social consequences you're after." I'm not after the wholesale nationalization of the commanding heights of industry. So what could I be shrinking from. Jamie is a Fed critic, but I'm not sure he's a populist.
I don't see how democratic money discourse neglects context any more than a marxist would if he/she was talking to ordinary people about politics and trying to start from where his/her audience was.
Corporate power (where corporate is a euphemism for capital, since the point that much business is legally unincorporated is arcane to most people) and the rich are big points of populist discussion. Capital is a little arcane as terminology, but I wouldn't shrink from using it.
> The "near" modifier is interesting. Why not inflationary? Does the
> inflation, or the proximity to inflation, have anything to do with
> the altered balance of class forces?
'Inflationary' leaves too much to the imagination. In more detailed discussions, we usually affirm the sustainability of limited levels of inflation (i.e. up to 5-6%). Presently we have very tight labor markets with much lower inflation. So there's little present need to celebrate the virtues of higher inflation.
DH:
> The problems with "under-served areas" are that public investment is
> too low and with "underserved populations," that their market incomes
> are too low. Lending becomes a substitute for what should be a
> strategy of expropriation.
>
> >* The critique of free trade leads to international labor solidarity
> > on behalf of green & labor standards and national governments'
> > commitment to defend sectors with higher labor standards within
> > their jurisdictions against scab import policies.
>
> What populists are pursuing "international labor solidarity"?
mbs: The AFL-CIO and many folks in Seattle. EPI is organizing with its counterparts in other countries around alternatives to "free trade."