Does Management Exploit Capital? Not Really, Because Labor Creates Wealth

Does Management Exploit Capital?: "If it's true that the CEO community has created a cartel of interlocking insider-dominated boards that conspire to pay executives above their prevailing wage, the people being victimized are not the firm's low level employees but the firm's owners. You'd be looking primarily at a redistribution of wealth from one set of rich people to another set of rich people. "
'via Blog this'

I am sure there are plenty of better and more sophisticated Marxist critiques of Yglesias/ view,  but its good to remember,  it is labor that creates value, and thus is the exploited  party.

Quotable from Paul at Café of the Cosmic Dance

Café of the Cosmic Dance: "I am a strong believer in the notion that, although everyone has a right to his or her opinions, not all opinions are created equal. Some opinions are forged of sound logic and a weight of evidence. Some other opinions are forged of logical fallacies and bullshit. Many people believe that differences of opinion never reflect differences of intellect. I disagree. Some opinions are so stupid their owners, if not merely ignorant, must be stupid."

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Things Could Be Different, But Won't Be--David Harvey

The Best Kind of Soldier-A Disobedient One

In honor of Veteran's Day, the trailer for one of my most favorite documentaries. Sir, No Sir!

Obama's Anti-War Promises Kept?

Glenn Greenwald - Salon.com: "Second, the Obama administration has been working for months to persuade, pressure and cajole Iraq to allow U.S. troops to remain in that country beyond the deadline. The reason they’re being withdrawn isn’t because Obama insisted on this, but because he tried — but failed — to get out of this obligation. Again, listen to the White House itself:"

The Status of Forces Agreement between the United States and Iraq expires at the end of the year. Officials had been discussing the possibility of maintaining several thousand U.S. troops to train Iraqi security forces, and the Iraqis wanted troops to stay but would not give them immunity, a key demand of the administration. . . .

“The Iraqis wanted additional troops to stay,” an administration official said. “We said here are the conditions, including immunities. But the Iraqis because of a variety of reasons wanted the troops and didn’t want to give immunity.”

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The Increasingly Radicalized Paul Krugman

Lately I have become more and more impressed with the extent that Krugman has become not just a mainstream liberal, but more of a voice for a genuine left. And then he come out with this, Economics and Politics by Paul Krugman - The Conscience of a Liberal - NYTimes.com:

This isn’t the only case where news organizations consistently report as truth something that didn’t happen, while failing to report what did. Another one that comes to mind is the California electricity crisis of 2001-2002. As some readers may recall, that crisis was caused by market manipulation — and that’s not a hypothesis, Enron traders were caught on tape telling plants to shut down to create artificial shortages. Yet “news analyses” published after the whole thing was revealed would often tell readers that excessive environmental regulation and Nimbyism caused the crisis, with nary a mention of the deliberate creation of shortages.

And as you’ll notice, in both cases the imaginary history just happened to be one more comfortable to status quo interests.

I don’t want to go all Chomsky here, but this sort of thing really can radicalize you.

'via Blog this'

The Regulation Impedes Job Growth Story Has No Evidence

The Regulation Impedes Job Growth Story Has No Evidence

From the Conclusion:

In short, the "regulation is impeding job growth" story has no evidence to support it. This story is a pure invention of the right wing. Presidential candidates who repeat it should be ridiculed by the media – just as if they were talking about space aliens.