On Jan 30, 2015, at 9:54 AM, Doug Henwood wrote:
> The economy is structurally troubled? That's the whole point of
> getting the state involved in investment
and just who owns the state? It ain't you or me.
> especially since big corporations have on their balance sheets that
> they're not investing.
And where did all that cash come from? Every penny--and more--was
given them by THEIR state via THEIR central bank.
> It's not like profits are hard to come by, FROPers to the contrary.
Profits ain't hard to come by? Keynes, whose name is so easily taken
in vain, talked about a little matter called the "Marginal Efficiency
of Investment." The idea is that profit-seekers (aka capitalists)
determine their investment policies by comparing the expected amount
of profit from an additional unit of investment to the interest-cost
of borrowing. They then invest up to the point where the expected rate
of profit on the money invested no longer exceeds the rate of interest
on the money borrowed. So why ain't they investing those "vast amounts
of cash" at the zero (and negative) interest rates imposed through
financial repression by their central-banker pals? Seems like they
think that the FROP (under whatever name you want to call it) is
squeezing them so badly that, at what everyone agrees is a grossly
insufficient level of investment, the expected return on more
investment is at best zero, and probably quite negative. Marx spoke of
a Falling Tendency of the Rate of Profit (FTROP) but what we have now
is better called a FROP (Fallen Rate of Profit).
> A Green New Deal may be uninspiring...
Oh, it's plenty inspiring enough for an election slogan--given gross
public ignorance about the actual Lily White New Deal. But it carries
with it just a few grains of poison--in its suggestion that FDR was,
and his present-day successors are, anything but diehard and violent
defenders of the capitalist social order who will do anything but
destroy any populist movement they can work their ways into.
Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures.
Herakleitos of Ephesos