[p2p-research] absense of structural reactions to meltdown, Fwd: ZNet Daily Commentary: What Are They Waiting for? By Danny Schechter

Wed Mar 10 14:35:03 CET 2010

hi ryan,

you write: The states doing the right things will look like the following:
Tight austerity plans.  Smaller government.  Less social welfare.  More
infrastructure spending with enough social spending to keep people alive and
basically out of despair.  Big emphases on enhanced productivity and reduced
costs without outsourcing.

any evidence that policies that slash demand and social welfare actually
work? The evidence would rather point to the contrary ... countries that
have followed these IMF imposed policies have done very poorly, and
countries that went for social innovation and productivity did better ...;
I'm surprise that you still favour supply push policies that led to the
meltdown in the first place ..

Michel

On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 8:24 PM, Ryan Lanham <rlanham1963 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not that I am any expert, but I would say we are already in the 2nd dip
> based on my local data.  Absent intensive Keynesian stimulus by the US,
> Europe and China, I don't see how we avoid significant contraction globally
> by late summer...probably 2-5% globally.  The closer it is to 5%...the
> greater the risk of major political instability in marginal states (e.g.
> Greece, Iran, Venezueala, Philippines, etc.)  I think it will be much closer
> to 2%--much depending on China and India consumption patterns.  That will
> still be stunningly painful.
>
> Shipping rates are down.  Currency flows are down.  Housing is slipping
> again.
>
> There is also some evidence consumption in China is slowing...savings rates
> are up.  If that happens, if China starts to become "Japan-like," there
> isn't enough government spending feasible that could return the world to a
> place that avoids significant contraction.  If global contraction reaches a
> multi-year double digit level, we will see major world system changes.
>
> People will be looking for short/easy fixes of which there are none.
> Consequently, they will make major errors...rapid nationalizations, huge
> social wealth transfers, etc.  That will accelerate the problem in those
> states and will disrupt productivity even more.  The outcome will be that
> the wealthy relocate and the poor become much poorer in the medium term
> after a short bump.
>
> The states doing the right things will look like the following: Tight
> austerity plans.  Smaller government.  Less social welfare.  More
> infrastructure spending with enough social spending to keep people alive and
> basically out of despair.  Big emphases on enhanced productivity and reduced
> costs without outsourcing.
>
> Education will get cut.  It is a too long term solution and radical change
> is even more on the horizon than ever before.  Healthcare will get cut.  In
> short, people will be allowed to die.  Green industries will get investment,
> but it won't be enough to radically drive jobs.  The rich will hunker down
> and stop spending.  When global tourism radically slows again, you'll know
> we are in the peak of the problem.
>
> I personally doubt that can be avoided now.
>
> Ryan
>
>   On Wed, Mar 10, 2010 at 4:34 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>    What Are They Waiting for?
>>
>> March 10, 2010 By *Danny Schechter*
>>
>> Danny Schechter's ZSpace Page<http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/dannyschechter>/
>> ZSpace <http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/>
>>
>> What will it take?  What are they waiting for? What part of the reality of
>> a systemic crisis that will get worse don't they get?
>>
>> How is it possible that after near three years of economic turmoil, with
>> possibly hundreds of TRILLIONs down the rabbit hole-not that anyone is
>> counting or apparently can count-that the geniuses who run our economy still
>> don't "get" that the sh*t has already hit the fan? How many more jobs and
>> homes have to be lost?
>>
>> Michael Moore is not the only one predicting a second crash. Paul Krugman
>> is all out words excoriating the Administration for its tepidness. Nouriel
>> Roubini, who forecast the first meltdown, now says we are in serious danger
>> of a "double-dip," a lethal combo of rising inflation and deeper recession.
>>
>> Woe to us if we can't see the handwriting on so many walls.
>>
>> The people in the know know that nothing has been fixed, know that all the
>> stimuli have barely stimulated, that the new jobs bill will never generate
>> the number of jobs that are needed, and that the banks have obscenely been
>> raking in oodles of money thanks to all the financing taxpayers pumped into
>> their coffers.
>>
>> Even as the Obamaites finally get around to proposing a measure to break
>> up the big banks and erode the notion of financial institutions being too
>> big to fail, we have the New York Times telling us that Congress does not
>> have the "appetite"-that's the word they use-to tackle even modest financial
>> reforms.
>>
>> The "appetite" is missing. In the real world of appetites, food companies
>> are recalling unsafe products every day because the food we eat is subjected
>> to federal inspections. Not so for financial products.
>>
>> The reason? Politics of course, but also the jillions that the financial
>> services industry  has "invested" in bill killing, compromise-making, and
>> just plain corrupting the legislative process.
>>
>> This past week, the Roosevelt Institute sponsored a conference over at the
>> Time Warner Center called Make Markets Be Markets (Makemarketsbemarkets.org)
>> , published a book of essays and heard from a who's who in the world of
>> influential economists and analysts who gave high powered presentations, one
>> after another, each more lucid than the next.
>> There was enough brainpower in the room to save the economy but, alas, no
>> one seems to be listening. Some business media was there collecting sound
>> bites but the urgency of the warnings did not transcend  the limits of the
>> bubble of financial journalism.
>>
>> For a long time, I wined about being ignored in not getting heard on the
>> economic collapse, which of course, I am, but here were people with Nobel
>> Prizes and PhDs and track records of making millions also being dissed and
>> pissed.
>> Setting the stage was Joe Stiglitz who won a Nobel Prize for his work, and
>> who left the World Bank with disgust over what they do. Stiglitz should be
>> in Obama's cabinet. Instead he is one of its critics.
>>
>> The presentations started off with Simon Johnson, the former chief
>> economist the IMF taking about the DOOM CYCLE-how we are just going around
>> in cycles without really addressing the system nature of the crisis. He
>> writes in the NY Times and on BaselineScenario.com which you should read
>> every day. He calls the cycle "unsustainable and crazy" and says that "the
>> destructive power of the down-cycle will overwhelm the restorative ability
>> of government like  it did in 1929-31."
>>
>> Translation: Here we go again.
>>
>> And then there was the super-articulate Raj Date who says we have to get
>> rid of Frannie Mae and Freddy Mac before they get rid of our housing market.
>> His analysis was detailed and textured. His conclusion simple: "they must be
>> eliminated." What is the Obama Administration doing about this? Nada.
>>
>> It got better when the only woman on the panel, Harvard's Elizabeth Warren
>> mesmerized the room. She has become a TV fixture because of how charming,
>> honest and forthright she has been in defending consumers from the rip offs
>> that we are all menaced by. She is the chairperson of the House oversight
>> committee on TARP and a leading advocate of an independent consumer
>> protection agency. She is now watching as Senator Dodd and some of his GOP
>> cronies try to bury it in the Federal Reserve Bank, a move that many of the
>> conference criticized in light of the Fed's history of doing so little to
>> protect the rights of consumers.
>>
>> After all the speakers presented their arguments, there were comments by
>> George Soros, who also criticized the economics profession for missing the
>> crisis, and businessman Jim Chanos who finally brought the discussion around
>> to the presence of massive fraud and criminality in our financial markets. I
>> spoke to that issue which I have just written a book on and made a film
>> about when I got a chance to ask a question.
>>
>> All too quietly, Wall Street firms are being sued for their many
>> transgressions. A study by Gary Null found that over $430 billion has been
>> paid to victimized parties by Wall Street firms in over 1500 cases.
>>
>> Some examples:
>>
>> *  Bank of America has spent $14.9 billion to settle 15 cases alleging
>> various charges such as securities violations and mismanagement;
>>
>> * Citigroup has spent over $13.9 billion to settle 12 cases alleging
>> various charges including abusive lending practices and involvement in
>> fraudulent activities;
>>
>> * Merrill Lynch has spent $12.2 billion to settle cases involving various
>> allegations including negligence and mismanagement of funds;
>>
>> * Morgan Stanley has spent over $5 billion to settle 11 cases involving
>> various allegations including failure to disclose material information to
>> customers;
>>
>> * Wachovia has spent over $9.5 billion to resolve allegations including
>> misleading investors and conflicts of interest;
>>
>> UBS has spent $19.5 billion to settle 6 cases with various charges
>> including misleading investors.
>>
>> So much information is now out there but to what effect? What more do we
>> need to know?
>>
>> There is a time for research and a time for advocacy, a time to try to
>> lobby in the suites and a time for marching in the streets. Students on US
>> campuses and workers in Greece have been battling the effects of the crisis.
>>  It is now time to go after the causes.
>> The public is open to acting. The most recent Zogby poll reports:
>>
>> # 32% of U.S. adults say they have "considered moving some or all of
>> (their) banking from a large national bank to a community bank or credit
>> union because (they) are unhappy with the policies or behavior of large
>> national banks."
>>
>> # 14% have moved some of their banking in the past year from a large
>> national bank to a community bank or credit union.
>>
>> # 9% of all U.S. adults have moved some of their business from large
>> national banks as a protest.
>>
>> People are pissed, far angrier than the media lets on. The lines are being
>> drawn. That hard rain is going to fall.
>>
>>
>> News Dissector Danny Schechter is a blogger, author and filmmaker. His
>> latest work is Plunder The Crime of Our Time on the financial crisis as a
>> crime story (Punderthecrimeofourtime.com) Comments to
>> dissector at mediachannel.org
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> *From:* Z Net - The Spirit Of Resistance Lives<http://www.zcommunications.org/>
>> *URL:*
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>
>
> --
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> rlanham1963 at gmail.com
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