Quote and Post of Note From: Pink Scare

pink scare: "Neither of the two pro-business parties, Republican or Democrat, will allow the US to default. They are playing a game of chicken. But, from the sounds of it, they are close to arriving at some sort of 'deal'. The present 'deal' includes a punishing, cruel $3 trillion cut (of historic proportions) to the living standard of the majority of Americans. That means cuts to education, cuts to scholarships, cuts to health care, cuts to pensions, massive cuts to public transportation, cuts to unemployment insurance, cuts to the arts, cuts to cutting edge scientific research. It will mean worse infrastructure, cancelingdesperately needed maintenance on our country's bridges and roads, massive layoffs and severe pay-cuts for public sector workers, worse sanitation services, worse libraries, worse public parks. It means that Obama and the Democrats will sign off on all of this as their own. (The beauty of it for Obama and friends, of course, is that they can push through austerity while externalizing culpability by claiming that "Republicans made us do it", thus pacifying liberal discontent with the slashing and burning of the very policies and programs for which the Democrats have any "progressive" credentials at all). "

Quote and Post of Note from LENIN'S TOMB

LENIN'S TOMB: "Providers' in this statement, as the newspapers have noticed, is synonymous with public sector workers. Essentially, the idea is, through marketisation and competition, to introduce the usual discipline of the market - fear of losing one's livelihood - to drive up productivity and force down labour costs. People will be working harder and receiving less for it. In marxist terms, that's an absolute increase in the rate of exploitation. That's their growth strategy for British capitalism."

And American Capitalism to!

Quote and Post of Note from LBO News from Doug Henwood

LBO News from Doug Henwood: "A jobs program and other New Deal-ish stuff would mess with labor and product markets and the class structure, and so it’s mostly verboten to talk that way. From an elite point of view, the primary problem with a jobs program—and with employment-boosting infrastructure projects—is that they would put a floor under employment, making workers more confident and less likely to do what the boss says, and less dependent on private employers for a paycheck. It would increase the power of labor relative to capital. I’m not sure that Yglesias understands that explicitly, but it’s undoubtedly part of his unexamined “common sense” as a semi-mainstream pundit."