Quote of the day

Bob Urie describes the politics of economic predation thusly:

For forty years the rich and connected, the ruling class, have used their representatives in government to take exactly what they wanted. Tax cuts, executive payouts and stock dividends were paid instead of promised pension contributions. Social institutions such as schools have been turned into cash cows for connected capitalists who have no intention of educating our children. Environmental standards have been gutted in return for promised jobs that never materialized. And while the ruling class has taken what it wanted without apology, the chattering class — liberals and progressives, has acted as if it’s at a debate club meeting.

Ironically, bond “king’ Bill Gross of PIMCO makes a (Keynesian) point that many clever economists looking at the issue have not grasped — the West’s bet that financial returns leveraged on the ‘real’ economy — actual goods and services, could rise forever, are coming unwound. With finance capitalism having impoverished the customers needed to keep itself going, available rates of return on investment in the real economy don’t justify making that investment. This is why corporations that have taken an increasing proportion of GDP in recent decades are sitting on piles of cash. In the aggregate, they’ve taken it from their customers who can no longer afford to buy their products. It’s also why the Fed’s QE (quantitative easing) remains a pathetic scam—keeping interest rates low when there is no loan demand (because borrowers have no faith in earning a return in the real economy) only drives financial speculation.

Paging Michał Kalecki!