[lbo-talk] Anti-union corporate front group at it again

[James Heartfield]

Between Doug and Patrick, I agree with Doug about the specificity of crisis. You can't talk about a crisis that has been going on since the 1970s without making the word meaningless. There is no virtue in telling everyone that the crisis is upon us in 2002, no more than there would have been telling people in Tokyo to get into their bomb-shelters in 1937.

But I agree with Patrick that reflation - if that is a fair account of Doug's position - is obviously a bollocks of an answer. At best it is a stop-gap, that might buy one some time. But it can only perpetuate the problems that preceded, which is to say that, like my country, the US is consuming more than it produces, and needs to produce more (or consume less), and it has allowed services to displace manufacturing, putting it at a disadvantage. More of the same easy money is not really the answer, any more than a junkie needs more heroin.