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What Will History Say

Dan Crawford | June 25, 2020 7:26 am

Politics

Taxes/regulation

US/Global Economics

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The Past Now The Future

What Will History Say

Ken Melvin

When the new US History books come out in 2040, what will they have to say about 2020? What will they say about: Globalization? The Trump Presidency? Global Warming? The 2020 Pandemic? China’s Rise? America’s Decline? Capitalism and Free markets? Mitch McConnell?

to run where the brave dare not go.

Globalization: From a US perspective, globalization began in the 1970s with the first large-scale offshoring of semi-conductor, clothing, shoe, electronic, … manufacturing, and the large-scale importation of automobiles, and accelerated during the 1980s. Capitalists and 401Ks were the most significant forces driving globalization. As a result of globalization, the DJI soared to new heights.

By 2020, most all of our critical medicines were being manufactured in China and India; hampering our ability to respond to the Covid-19 Pandemic, causing tens of thousands of Americans to die unnecessarily. The US was no longer self-sufficient, hadn’t been for more than twenty years.

Significant unintended consequences of Globalization include: Millions of well-paying jobs were sent overseas. A Globalization related Opioid Epidemic that began in the 1990s. The American landscape was littered with dead and dying communities. By 2020, 40% of US Workers were living from paycheck to paycheck; working at jobs that did not pay a living wage. America suffered a soaring homeless population. Due to offshored critical manufacturing, the nation was unable to respond to a worldwide pandemic.

The Trump Presidency: The Trump administration, Trump would not have been elected but for help from Russia. The most incompetent administration in US History, was the culmination of a long string of events, including: The failure of our political system to respond to the negative consequences of Globalization and Automation. The failure of Democratic politicians, in particular, to react to the needs and concerns of their traditional base, working-class Americans. The continued dumbing down of America. Latent Racism willfully stirred up by a long string of Republican office-seekers.

Global Warming: The failure of the World to take sufficient action earlier resulted in the loss of an estimated 100 million lives to date, and another estimated 200 million over the next decade. The failure of the US to take action was due in the main to the corruption that had taken over politics, especially the Republican party. The fossil fuel industry controlled the US Senate at a time when action desperately needed be taken. Concern for the short-term interests and wealth of the few, led to the deaths of millions.

The 2020 Pandemic: The US Government was incapable of leading the efforts to limit the ravages of the Pandemic. The US Government’s response was a failure in almost every way. There was inadequate preparedness; funding to those agencies charged with meeting the challenge had been cut as part of spending reduction measures. The $billions saved wound up costing $trillions. Political considerations were given precedence over the facts, over science. The US Government was incapable of performing the functions of Government.

China’s rise to Predominance: Beginning in the 1980s, China modeled her economy so as to take advantage of the hokus pokus inherent Capitalism and Free markets. China’s growth was fueled by the investment of US Capital; a lot of which came from the money in 401Ks. The worldwide collapse of consumption resultant the 2020 recession that was itself a result of the 2020 Pandemic was the most proximate cause of China’s collapse.

America’s Decline: Donald Trump was a significant milestone in the decline of America that began with Richard Nixon, was accelerated by Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush; and abetted along the way by Fox News and right-wing ideologues appointed Justices to the US Supreme Court. America’s decline created a leadership void that was laid claim to by Nations with long histories of inept and corrupt governance and adversarial behavior. The World became a greatly more dangerous place.

Capitalism and Free Markets: The failure of Capitalism and Free Markets to respond to income disparity, Global Warming, homelessness, healthcare, … was becoming obvious to more and more Americans. Many now saw that Global Warming was a direct consequence of Capitalism and Free Markets. America’s economic decline was in large part a consequence of its devotion to these failed economic deities; it’s denial of reality.

Mitch McConnell: Sen. McConnell was most notable for having accomplished nothing of value during his time in the Senate. Over his long career, he became the poster boy for bent politicians and the corruption of the Republican party. Sen. McConnell leveraged the ignorance and backwardness of his small home state into a long and destructive career in the US Senate. Sen. McConnell was best known for doggedly blocking popular progressive legislation and for facilitating the appointment of right-wing ideologues to the federal courts and for his refusal to hold the Trump Administration accountable for its numerous violations of the Constitution and other criminal acts.

4 Comments

likbez says:

June 25, 2020 at 9:38 am

Good analysis, thank you !
Money quote:

Significant unintended consequences of Globalization include: Millions of well-paying jobs were sent overseas. A Globalization related Opioid Epidemic that began in the 1990s. The American landscape was littered with dead and dying communities.

By 2020, 40% of US Workers were living from paycheck to paycheck; working at jobs that did not pay a living wage. America suffered a soaring homeless population.

Due to offshored critical manufacturing, the nation was unable to respond to a worldwide pandemic.

It is important to understand that the current situation is the result of the crisis of neoliberalism. And the key idea of neoliberalism is the use of colonial methods against the USA population (“internal colonialism”).. Even current “blacks against whites” divide and conquer strategy is taken fully from British colonialism.

Of course, slogans are different, but the reality is really brutal neocolonialism.

And it penetrates culture too. Black ghetto culture and rap are just two (superficial) demonstrations of this sad fact.

For proper framework see Ganesh Sitaraman

https://newrepublic.com/article/155970/collapse-neoliberalism

Some quotes:

“… In study after study, political scientists have shown that the U.S. government is highly responsive to the policy preferences of the wealthiest people, corporations, and trade associations — and that it is largely unresponsive to the views of ordinary people. The wealthiest people, corporations, and their interest groups participate more in politics, spend more on politics, and lobby governments more. Leading political scientists have declared that the U.S. is no longer best characterized as a democracy or a republic but as an oligarchy — a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich. …”

“… Neoliberalism’s war on “society,” by pushing toward the privatization and marketization of everything, indirectly facilitates a retreat into tribalism. …”

“… neoliberalism’s radical individualism has increasingly raised two interlocking problems. First, when taken to an extreme, social fracturing into identity groups can be used to divide people and prevent the creation of a shared civic identity. …”

“… Demagogues rely on this fracturing to inflame racial, nationalist, and religious antagonism, which only further fuels the divisions within society. …”
“… neoliberals on right and left sometimes use identity as a shield to protect neoliberal policies. As one commentator has argued, “Without the bedrock of class politics, identity politics has become an agenda of inclusionary neoliberalism in which individuals can be accommodated but addressing structural inequalities cannot.” What this means is that some neoliberals hold high the banner of inclusiveness on gender and race and thus claim to be progressive reformers, but they then turn a blind eye to systemic changes in politics and the economy. …”

“… They thought globalization was inevitable and that ever-expanding trade liberalization was desirable even if the political system never corrected for trade’s winners and losers. They were wrong. These aren’t minor mistakes. …”

“… In spite of these failures, most policymakers did not have a new ideology or different worldview through which to comprehend the problems of this time. So, by and large, the collective response was not to abandon neoliberalism. After the Great Crash of 2008, neoliberals chafed at attempts to push forward aggressive Keynesian spending programs to spark demand. President Barack Obama’s advisers shrank the size of the post-crash stimulus package for fear it would seem too large to the neoliberal consensus of the era — and on top of that, they compromised on its content. …”

“… Although neoliberalism had little to offer, in the absence of a new ideological framework, it hung over the Obama presidency — but now in a new form. Many on the center-left adopted what we might call the “technocratic ideology,” a rebranded version of the policy minimalism of the 1990s that replaced minimalism’s tactical and pragmatic foundations with scientific ones. The term itself is somewhat oxymoronic, as technocrats seem like the opposite of ideologues. …”

“… The technocratic ideology preserves the status quo with a variety of tactics. We might call the first the “complexity canard.” …”

“… The most frequent uses of this tactic are in sectors that economists have come to dominate — international trade, antitrust, and financial regulation, for example. The result of this mind-set is that bold, structural reforms are pushed aside and highly technical changes adopted instead. Financial regulation provides a particularly good case, given the 2008 crash and the Great Recession. When it came time to establish a new regulatory regime for the financial sector, there wasn’t a massive restructuring, despite the biggest crash in 70 years. …”

“… Instead, for the most part, the Dodd-Frank Act was classically technocratic. It kept the sector basically the same, with a few tweaks here and there. There was no attempt to restructure the financial sector completely. …”

“… The Volcker Rule, for example, sought to ban banks from proprietary trading. But instead of doing that through a simple, clean breakup rule (like the one enacted under the old Glass-Steagall regime), the Volcker Rule was subject to a multitude of exceptions and carve-outs — measures that federal regulators were then required to explain and implement with hundreds of pages of technical regulations …”

“… Dodd-Frank also illustrates a second tenet of the technocratic ideology: The failures of technocracy can be solved by more technocracy. …”
Denis Drew says:

June 25, 2020 at 10:53 am

Carbon capture technology: practicably end global warming – even reverse it — for 5% of GDP with a reasonably lo-tech process – once the price to gets down to $100 a ton.

According to a Businessweek article, worldwide we add 34 billion tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year. Said article says Squamish Engineering, in B.C., Canada expects to launch a plant that will remove a million tons a year, located somewhere in the Permian Basin in Texas. Squamish says it can do this for $200 a ton.

My back-of-the-envelope calculates that, when the price reaches $100 a ton, then, worldwide we can keep cool for $3.4 trillion a year – less than 5% of world GDP. US kick-in about one trillion – out of $20 trillion GDP. That figure would grow as US economy grows – but: for every trillion of growth only additional $50 billion would go for removal, leaving us $950 billion ahead: set for the life of the planet. (closest link I could find) https://www.magzter.com/article/Business/Bloomberg-Businessweek/A-Big-Step-for-the-Sky-Vacuums

Snag: where to put all the carbon we capture. 15 trillion tons of dry ice may be contained in a space 100 feet high, 40 miles wide and 3,000 miles long — perhaps at the bottom of the ocean where the pressures can keep it contained.

For fuller details click on:
https://ontodayspage.blogspot.com/2020/04/indisputable-proof-of-global-warming-in.html

Now that we have global warming out of the way — at least as threatening any ultimate disaster — can we get back to the most gigantic story of 2020-2040: America’s finally, at long last, thought-it-would-take-forever adoption of regularly scheduled labor union cert/recert/decert elections at every private (non gov) workplace — leaving in our rear view mirror a deeeeply pathological 94% deunionized workplace and retaking our place among modern, civilized economies.

For fuller details click on link:

Why Not Hold Union Representation Elections on a Regular Schedule?
Bernard says:

June 25, 2020 at 8:19 pm

Yes, indeed. Us vs. Them. Republicanism/Greed is Good vs. the Society at large. 40 years of Manufacturing Consent.
i remember Noam Chomsky calling the Republican Party the most dangerous group since the…

anyway, can we recover our sense of society? probably not with Republicanism still being accepted as okay.
Roger Fox says:

June 30, 2020 at 7:57 am

Yes, it is always interesting how certain events will be interpreted in 10 or more years. The future interpretation may radically differ from what we see now …