Pathfinder

joined 5 months ago
[–] Pathfinder@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I hate how everyone buys into the myth of “the government budget should operate how a household budget operates”. It’s not the fact that it’s wrong that bothers me the most, what really bothers me is how it’s nearly impossible to explain why that analogy is bad. I read a whole book about MMT in part so I could explain why that analogy is wrong, and I still basically can’t do it well. When I try people just think I’m full of shit because the analogy is so easy to understand and the real explanation is not intuitive if you don’t have a solid grasp of economics (which is maybe 5% of the population at best, and most of those people, even liberals understand why the government isn’t like a company or a household).

(FWIW I’ve fallen back on the Keynesian “deficit in a recession and surplus in a boom” even though I don’t actually believe it. That seems to be something people can grasp better)

[–] Pathfinder@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, I would never say never (also wouldn’t bet on it happening).

The real job of the US president and the US government broadly is to manage the different factions of capital into a united front against the working class (both domestic and international). Finance capital, industrial capital, tech billionaires, etc. Get everyone on the same page and make sure every group is getting something out of it. It seems to me that Trump is just completely ignoring this part of the job and is favoring some bourgeois groups over others. Specifically, it seems to me that tech capital is running the show. Of course, there’s plenty of intersection between military contractors and tech billionaires. But the tech billionaires would be perfectly happy with a pared down military budget that still funneled even more money to the high tech sector i.e. Palantir, Boston Dynamics, et al. I also think that tech capital - in contrast to say finance or industrial capital - is perfectly happy to see US hegemony and maybe even the US state nearly evaporate as they believe they will still come out ahead in that scenario. Musk, Thiel, Andresson, and that group I believe want something like an AnCap USA; and in that world they will emerge on top. Those are the people Trump is listening to right now. They are ok gutting everything and funneling it back to billionaires because they think we’re in the “rip the copper wiring out and sell it” phase of capitalism. Entirely possible other members/groups of the bourgeoisie see it that way too - no way imperialist capitalism can be maintained given climate change, the rise of China, etc so just try to cash out now.

[–] Pathfinder@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 1 month ago (2 children)

The only hope Europe has of breaking its subservience to the US is to not just make nice with Russia, but to totally embrace it. That is not likely to happen anytime soon, so Europe is just going to be America’s punching bag until they get it.