prole

I, like the rest of America, was really looking forward to watching Trig grow up. Now in 20 years we'll be finding out what happened in a VH-1 "where are they now" program. I've got a feeling it's more likely that Track and Bristol will end up on E! True Hollywood Stories.

Being fully confident in your law-abidingness, you should've kept driving. Turning your car around to ask if he was flagging you down was, in his mind, an unconscious admission of guilt...for something, anything. You will be duly punished.

Some version of this has already been going on for quite a while.

From India’s Urban War: Through the Smoke.

Have you seen Courtney Love lately? Ewww.

From a percentage of overall human population standpoint, the record is hardly 'replete'. Nearly all societies, even very small populations, fought with each other. In any case, I hardly think Homo Erectus was 'capitalistic', yet this creature was responsible for driving large populations of large game to extinction in a relatively short period of time. Similarly, the plains indians hunted buffalo by driving large numbers over a cliff and picking the best few from the top of the heap. Not exactly living in balance. I'm not saying that other human societies didn't/don't fight with each other or that past human populations didn't exploit their environment (sometimes unsustainably), only that catastrophic convulsions in the environment and the kind of "total war" we're seeing are greater in scale, scope and rapidity than any we've seen in human history. And this period coincides with an historically specific kind of political economy. It's not evolutionary. That would simply beg the question "what species would develop such an obviously destructive strategy?" I always find it odd that those who place a premium on "higher thought" and science are so quick to revert to a crude biological determinism. The complexity and diversity of human societies resists this kind of reduction. Nope, not saying that at all. Only that capitalist society is unique and that its features (in particular, reward for greedy and avaristic behavior) shouldn't be abstracted to the level of "human nature". The horrors perpetrated in the 20th century alone should make one pause to take another look at this statement.

The anthropological record is replete with historical examples of human societies living is some sort of balance with each other and with their environment often lasting for hundreds of years. There is a substantial amount of controversy surrounding these topics, but there seems little doubt that the acceleration of ecological destruction, population crises, the unleashing of selfish desire and the rewards offered for such behavior only reaches its peak in capitalist market society. That greed and avarice are part of human experience is beyond doubt, but reading what is historically unique to capitalism into all of human history and elevating them to the fundamental characteristic of human nature requires a level of abstraction and an ideological leap provided only in the quasi-religious teachings "human nature" and the "state of nature" found in Hobbes and Locke. For more recent iterations, check out The Trap.

Natural human tendency? This statement borders on a kind of religious faith (especially in this country), something I wouldn't really expect from you.

So, large concentrations of homes in the hands of real estate investors managed by (I'm assuming) rental companies renting to people who used to be homeowners. Those people who are looking for somewhere "safe to put their money" are now absentee landlords? Sounds rather feudal doesn't it?

I think I get it, maybe not. I guess my question in this scenario is where is that demand going to come from? In real life...you know like, not from a diagram.

I'm posting this to my libtard hate collage.

It's time to party like it's 1929!

"I'm not here This isn't happening."

The decline in home prices will probably bring at least as many people into the market for homes as foreclosures eject from them, so I don't expect net home-ownership percentages to drop substantially over the long term. Yeah Jay, let us know when the Martians land to purchase the homes whose only reason for existing was the home construction boom based on consumer access to junk credit! These vast tracts for the moment are serving as unintentional wildlife refuges.

Now-now Buckaroo, those of us that have been around for a while know that a real true-believer with their head in theory's clouds would never advocate for the trampling of "free-market" principles as the people with real stakes in the game (Wall St. and Washington) are now doing. These jesuits are willing to ride the unfettered dragon they've cheerleaded for all the way to a 21st century Great Depression, slitting the throats of middle and working classes on the altar of equilibrium and sending the players they've enabled into an early albeit very comfortable retirement. "Are You Ready For The Great Reset?"

His net worth is estimated at $700 million.

Guess McCain's not going to be able to take credit for winning the war either.

Duh, that's easy. We hate America. We are hard at work trying to stabilize the economy while you guys bitch about it online Jack the Ripper as both serial slasher and emergency response!

In other words, waiting to figure out how the right-wing can spin this to their advantage.

They're working on their superior zingers and one-liners.

Whose administration do you think was the primary ideological architect of this house-of-cards?

This is exactly the same language employed to explain the need for DE-regulation circa late-80's/early 90's!

This points to an interesting question. Given that most of the wealth creation in this country has been related to illusory financial acrobatics, debt, and speculative bubbles at the same time real production has either been in decline or off-shored, what are the foundations for future American economic growth?

For a longer term historical perspective on the relation between state and markets that speaks to the current crisis, you couldn't do any better than Polanyi's The Great Transformation

It's pretty breathtaking how well the state and capital have so thoroughly pulled the wool over our eyes in two respects. First, that there is really a deep separation between states and markets. Episodes like these fully expose the relationship between states and markets that are submerged in periods of prosperity and obfuscated in pro-business literature. As is pretty obvious from the postmortem being done on the financial system, the state in the post-New Deal era has enabled and profited from the Ponzi economy that developed with deregulation of the industry and the neoliberal restructuring of the country. Why is the state so heavily involved in rescuing capitalist firms in crisis after decades of persuading you that the market could take care of itself? In the first case it never could or did take care of itself and secondly it's simply too politically risky to allow another Great Depression just to prove a point or to see if the theory really works. For a nation whose majority hasn't known true desperation or deprivation in decades raised to believe the USA was too great to fail, the political and social damage caused by such an event would be suicidal for the system as a whole. For anybody that values their American lifestyle, they should be thanking God that the state has intervened! Secondly, that there is such confusion as to the nature of this crisis and the "sudden" intervention of the state to manage it represents a profound misunderstanding of the system which we all live under and a breathtaking lack of historical perspective. The "But, wha...dis iz soshulizm!" response borders on the absurd in light of state interventions that have been occuring as a result of these crises in other parts of the world in the last decade. Much less the rule and institutions that were set up in the 30's to prevent another Depression that people like McCain have been tearing down for the last thirty years. Read a fucking book!