Seems like a long time ago now that blow-me Bill was able to sell his line -- "play by the rules and our party will do you for the rest."
That DLC joyride hit a big deep dark pothole, rounding the bend into the new century. Lotta geeps suddenly had a "this is all total bullshit" moment, and the Clinton line needs a makeover.
But the tower trolls' smiling hopeful apologists at Third Way offer -- what? The promise of a fresh deck? A new dealer?
Nope. Third Way has some new rules of the game for us.
TW proves to their own satisfaction that this old deck of ours ain't really stacked... well at least not so bad... at least, errr... nothing like so bad as these right out of Nowheresville, barefoot, ringwormed, new populists are trying to make out. But still, the junior woodchucks generously allow, we as "progressive realists" know there's always room for improvement. Excelsior, cries the pious monk.
If we can't change God's and freedom's deck, we can try changing, or rather mending err mending our own habits, can't we? So without any further delay, let's give a warm rube welcome to Third Way's tablets from the mountaintop, a new covenant with the Yahweh of international capital. Working title: from lunchpail, to laptop, to scrap heap in one continuous kaizen motion.
Step one: face it, it's not enough to work hard anymore. Now you gotta work smart too. In particular, forget a raise if you ain't got no 4-year college degree. You are headed straight downmarket, pal to Tiajuana wages. And oh, keep this in mind -- even after you aquire that 4-year sheepskin, better convert that student loan into a 401K as fast as possible. You're gonna need it, 'cause retirements are getting longer and the dance of death way way costlier.
And don't, whatever you do, look back, and don't look ahead. Because the old and infirm are growing faster and faster than the young and firm.
So, Third Way tells us, I got your job site strategy right here. Think portablity, disposability, scrapability. That's you, your job, and your benefits. Under the new "you're on your own, asshole" rules, from day one to night zero. And oh, you'll need to prefigure a dry-gulch retirement and health plan.
Well, what can we say? Brace for whitewater, gang. And don't blame the corporations, please. They're endangered species, the sperm whales of profit, and they have come under a new set of brutal market-inflicted rules, too, just like you -- poor babies.
In a nutshell: because the pirate gun is at their head, and the wolf is at their executive bathroom door, there can be no more Mister Nice Guy.
If you thought Mister Burns was a bummer, try 21st century market reality, as seen from behind the corner office desk. Can you spell merciless? This is not Madison Avenue hype here. Competition these days is really, really merciless. No more fat dumb and happy lifetime leapfrogging, no more generous pay envelopes at Santa time. There are too many lean and hungry Asian corporations, TW warns us, out there on the global prowl, ready to eat my lunch, your lunch, and your coffee break too, also your spouse's job and happy hour and.... In fact, you, all of you, can expect to get downsized and innovated out the back door, and sent off on a jaunt of ever less opportune job opportunities. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick -- and I mean 24/7, or Jack be sleepin' on a heating grate, cause Mister Moto bit off his balls.
To generalize the Third Way vision: we are now in a sea to shining sea, totally integrated earthwide economy, where its not enough to make something. Not at all. Production is for starvers. Today, only corporations that make themselves perpetual creators of neat new stuff can expect to meet the same payroll tomorrow they met just yesterday. So the Third Way rule of effective survival play: plan on hoppin' in and out of Strip Mall Tech, uppin' your skill bank, just to keep even.
You'll need new skeeeelz more often than a new car,to land on your feet at your new outfit. Oh, and by the way -- the outfit-to-outfit hop looks to be getting only faster and faster, and the skill set strips will be leaving you nakeder and nakeder.
Fuck Third Way and the horses' rules they rode in on. Come that inevitable next job whack, just shoot your boss on the way out and let the Clintonian effective-death-penalty state take care of you. At least you'll get three squares and central heat until you've exhausted. your appeals. And when the end comes, it'll be the most competent and effective medical treatment you'll ever get.
Comments (2)
with a certain alarm i received this e mail
shortly..all too shortly
after the fearless father
post the above bit of shallow
'fooling and pretending '
about
offing the nearest chief honcho
--------------------------------
attention mr o paine
we here at TNS inc
(trans national security)
have a category
for the likes of you
" enemy combatant "
and well worked out ways
to irreversibly change
your category too.....
consider this full notice:
mr paine
your pending rendition
is in process
that is all....
Posted by owen paine | February 24, 2007 9:27 AM
Posted on February 24, 2007 09:27
the Galbraith project
jamie model :
"In a debate over the Democratic future,
no one should confuse
the Hamilton Project with the Republican past"
oh jamie me lad.....
" Robert Rubin and his associates have invited a broad dialogue
on economic inequality and strategic investment,
and on many specific policy questions
--including education, health, taxes and wages-
-
they will define the high-profile,
wholly respectable neo-Clintonian position
in the season ahead."
" There's nothing wrong with that"
why not ????
since you write:
"one purpose of the Hamilton Project
... is to propose just enough creative social advances
--such as wage insurance,
better teacher pay and healthcare reform--
so as to divert discussion
from the bedrock commitments
to free trade and a balanced budget"
did cainhimself
have a blacker mark jamie ???
"Progressives shouldn't let this happen"
" We need to be talking trade and budgets,
not simply ... to contest Rubin's worldview, but to build one of our own
that is realistic,
compelling and also serves larger purposes, including environmental survival and social justice"
pea pea polly anna
"On trade, the Hamiltonians favored the North American Free Trade Agreement, while most populists and progressives opposed it. This fight has been replayed endlessly, and it continues to color the arguments over ... free-trade agreements now under negotiation. But ... it's time to get over it."
" Whether NAFTA created or cost jobs initially, the economies of Mexico and the United States are now about as integrated as they are going to get,
and the effect is basically finished. ... "
oh lord what total horse feathers ....
"Almost all discussion of outsourcing now focuses on China and India..."
and it could revert to mexico in the second JG
but hold on jamie has a hard straight left on him still..
" US finance, insurance and the "intellectual property" trades want "free-trade agreements" ... because they want access to other markets and stiff enforcement of trademarks, copyrights and patents."
pow that's rubin to the chin
and now
" agribusiness--another sector at the forefront of current trade talks--wants every wheat, corn, rice and cooking-oil consumer it can find. ..."
one to the bread basket
------------------------
but here we go again the roller coaster of cheers and boos
"On China the ... Hamiltonians endorse the idea that China is a challenge.
It is a challenge, they say,
to be dealt with not via tariffs or quotas
but by a massive revaluation of the Chinese currency"
first its a threat to levwer into the above listed asset and IP markets over there
not rebalance a trade flow that has led to huge us tran nat profits
but herewe go over the water fall..
"Would a big RMB revaluation solve America's China-trade "problem"?"
" Well, it might hit China's exporters
(and also, inevitably, its workers) hard. Multinationals might migrate
to other low-wage countries ... "
maybe....mexico jim ???
"But this much is sure: Not a single low-wage job would return to the United States"
but jimbo
the idea is to keep the high profits flowing if yer a hamilton projector
" So, American consumers could be harmed, while American workers wouldn't be helped"
true
unless its a general dollar decline we make happen not a solitary rmb rise...
very simple diff here my friend
a diff that knocks out the basis of your line
back to good shit...
"Who really benefits from the pressure that our Treasury Secretary from Goldman Sachs, Henry Paulson, has been putting on Beijing? Well, speculators have flooded Chinese property markets ..., contributing to a massive bubble in Shanghai and elsewhere. ... If Paulson succeeds, they clearly would make out nicely. It may be that some of those speculators live in New York. That may explain Paulson's call--and Schumer's support--for an RMB revaluation. But it's not a reason for the rest of us to jump on board."
no that's not
but there's plenty of good reasons
to dive the dollar generally
not cave to this nonsense kismet shit
"The facts are clear: NAFTA is a done deal, and China is a success story we have to live with"
.
Progressives need a trade narrative that moves past these two issues. Broadly, this means accepting manufactured imports and dropping the idea that we can control--or that it matters much--who assembles television sets or stitches shirts. Standards to guard against flagrant abuses such as child and prison labor are fine, but it's an illusion to think they will, or should, dent the flow of goods from China.
" A progressive trade agenda should focus, instead, on building stronger world markets for our exports, and in ways that do not trample on the needs and rights of poor people in poor countries."
fusion power availible in massive amounts would be nice too jg
"At home, we have better things to do. We should specifically focus on creating new jobs, in sectors (including high tech, education, healthcare and energy conservation) that meet national needs and build world markets for our goods."
" We should rebuild our cities and transport systems, ... and ... get on with meeting the challenge of climate change."
please jim
where are the numbers here
you think we can close the 800 billion dollar trade gap with green exports
and oil purchase cuts ???
i see no curbs on import purchasing power here
let alone substitution effecting relative
cost changes
tyhat a dollar low against the yen
could increase domestic car production over nite
there's nothing in youyr list
like a dollar deval would assuredly create
but jamie has more
on the other deficit the fiscal deficit
the twin giants are a standing complement to the power of the mass media to miss inform miss direct and cause the electorate
to miss the boat
in short we need to balance our trade pronto
and our fed budget prolly never
but the press in"spontaneous mode"
makes the opposite seem to be the case ...
back to jimbo...
"Today, many Democrats are converts to balanced budgets and pay-as-you-go budget procedures, and many accept that ... deficits must be cut before anything else is done"
and that is total chicken shit
jamie proceeds to flog his uncle sam
to do list
full of green and beautiful and soul lifting things for our people...
his father's son he is after all
.
", even if running budget deficits has important economic costs, we ought to pay them "
but deficits don't have costs jg
unless we are at employment max
and we aren't we're far from that
nationally and globally
and that is a bigger point
then what we need to
have uncle borrow
and spend money on
or tax
the little peoples pay check deductions
to spend on either and far more pointedly
any progressive policy should involve a huge payroll ssi tax rate cut immediately
combined with a cap blow off and a restored wealth tax
btw
i'd rather we weebles got to keep more frankly
i'm a gubmint sector min man baby
collective goods are usually served with
diet and
exercise
nanny medicine and wholesome tastefully tasteless shit
but ....
read this
"running moderate fiscal deficits has no discernible costs. In particular, the claim that current deficits are raising interest rates can't be backed up..."
see he can say it
but why bury your point
when no one else is even making it ....
back to hamilton rubin clinton
"the Hamilton Project strategy document is extremely reticent--it barely mentions Social Security by name. But it is riddled with code words about the long-term "entitlement problem," which, it avers, can be solved only by a "bipartisan commission" acting on well-known options, behind closed doors. This is not reassuring. "
to say the least
"In fact, Social Security is in better financial shape than ever... In private discussion Hamilton leaders let on that they understand this. But they are prepared, nevertheless, to include Social Security cuts ... in some sort of grand deficit bargain. Progressives must be absolutely categorical in rejecting any such deal"
bravojaimie bravo .
...
finally comes this is he taking dead aim
here??
"Finally, progressives should turn their energies to a challenge that the Hamiltonians never discuss and seem determined to ignore, and that is to devise effective new rules for the global financial system"
". For the world is changing in ways that will not permit a return to the go-go Wild West of international finance of the 1990s, even if Robert Rubin and his colleagues do return to power in 2009"
"The 1997 Asian crisis and the 1998 Russian crisis marked--it is now clear--the last days of an illusion: that unfettered global credit markets can govern themselves. ... "
bravo
"The chaos of a financial system run by bankers alone is ... gradually yielding to new systems of control. We should welcome this development."
"'gradually yielding
to new systems of control" ???
what systems ???
enigma here
must be the increased role of emerging central bankers
" We should oppose efforts to introduce new instabilities... The challenge before us is not to restore the global dominance of American banks..."
ie not let the trans nats friends
the big private banks dictate cb policy
on capital and currency rates and flows
but instead of more precision we get gas clouds and scary might be horizons
"Although a collapse of the dollar reserve system probably isn't imminent, this issue will not disappear, even if Bush's policies are decisively rejected in 2008. Left unattended, it could lead to a repeat of the 1970s, when progressive hopes were knee-capped by international financial instability, a declining dollar and ... inflation. "
"This problem defies easy solutions"
not for economic reasons but political class reasons
as jim knows..
" This is not a job that private banks want to turn over to us."
" It is therefore not going to be found on the agenda of the Hamilton Project. "
"That is a powerful reason that it should be on ours "
righto jimbo
Posted by owen paine | February 24, 2007 2:09 PM
Posted on February 24, 2007 14:09