[lbo-talk] Current Crisis

[Carrol Cox]

Doug writes: Also, profits are very high and investment isn't. I had it out
with Roberts over this issue, but he pulls that old Marxist trick of
adjusting profits until they say what you want them to. Corporate America
has been bathing in a rich free cash flow for the last three years (free
cash flow = profits less capital expenditures), and shipping out a lot of it
to shareholders via dividends, takeovers, and buybacks.

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Then would it be fair to say that from the perspective of capital there is
no recession or crisis? Especially if you add in Marx's political point that
low wages dampen the political power of workers. (Ch. 14 of Wages, Price and
Profit). The recently invented term "Precariat" would seem to echo Marx's
claim. High profits on one side; fear and trembling on the other. Isn't that
capitalist heaven?

Carrol