The Left Right Paradigm is Over: Its You vs. Corporations | The Big Picture

[DearAbby]

I like Charlie Gasparino. I really do. He used to be a sharp elbowed, hard nosed WSJ reporter that dug for stories. Blood on the Street: The Sensational Inside Story of How Wall Street Analysts Duped a Generation of Investors remains a great read.

But like many pundits on the right, he simply has a hard time imagining that companies could blow themselves up. Its an anathema, a violation of deeply held beliefs that companies do not any need rules or regulations, and that markets somehow can self-regualte.

Here’s Charlie:

“In reality, his work as AG was profoundly uneven. He brought a few good cases, but (as I wrote in Tuesday’s Post) never won in court — not a single one against a major player, Grasso included. He went after headlines, not substance, which is why his record in court was so lousy. He cut deals, allowing big banks to pay fines and escape real reform. Does anyone really believe he “reformed” Wall Street research?

And he might have actually abetted the crisis. He drove out Hank Greenberg as CEO of AIG over accounting irregularities; it was new management put in place to appease Spitzer that let one unit take insane risks, digging the hole that led to AIG’s downfall — a key ingredient in the broader financial collapse.”

That is simply a false and misleading statement. AIG had been in the business of writing risky derivatives for a long time. Hank Greenberg’s hand picked Joseph Cassano, the executive that ran AIG FP (immortalized as The Man Who Crashed the World). And keep in mind that in 2003, the big credit mania that drove the housing boom and bust was still in its early innings.

More: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/

[mwb970]

1. It's Profit vs. the People.

Profit has the top 1% super-rich and the big corporations. The People have 99% of the population. Profit is winning. Big time.

[blindpig]

2. Left-Right is the 'paradigm'.

The Right is the capitalists camp, the Left is the anti-capitalists camp, the people.It all comes down to that, you're on one side or the other, there is no middle way, that's for 'possums & armadillos.

[ItNerd4life]

3. I disagree. Capitalism is good, if the government acts as the counterbalance.

Capitalism created the huge middle class we owned. Government stopped 'Promoting the general welfare' and is now promoting the business welfare.
If government went back to promoting the general welfare, we would see executive pay stop skyrocketing and start seeing lower income peoples pay raise start to rise instead.

[blindpig]

5. That doesn't work....

when the capitalists own the government, as they necessarily will, it's part of the cost of doing business.

The American Middle Class, as it is popularly conceived, is an artifact of history, not an inevitable product of capitalism. The US was the only major industrial power left standing at the end of WWII and that is a large part of the story. The other part is the Cold War, it was necessary to 'keep up appearances' in the face of a rival system, and so the capitalists allow the masses to keep a bit more of the product of their labor. Those conditions no longer exist and thus the New Deal and the artificial American Middle Class are back numbers, no longer considered necessary for the interests of the capitalists and so we have 'austerity'.

[whathehell]

7. The "artificial" middle class you speak of

was not "artificial" at all: My family and millions of other families rose out of the working class and lived it.

I agree that a middle class is not "an inevitable product of capitalism". It has ALWAYS had to be fought for, but in attributing it

to nothing more than the state of the industrial world at the end of WWII and the cold war, you do a great disservice to people

(like my parents) who organized labor, fought and died for the right to collective bargaining which

in itself played a huge role in the emergence of this country's middle class.

[blindpig]

8. You didn't 'rise'...

All that 'middle class' talk was just feel good bullshit. People were better paid and of course none of it could have happened without the unions. In truth the capitalists push back against the New Deal began in 1948 with the passage of Taft-Hartley, an insidious piece of legislation which it should be noted no Democratic Congress or administration has tried to repeal. T-H gutted the unions capability to mount wide spread, sustained strikes, removed the foreman from the union ranks and forced the most dynamic people from leadership positions. It was from that point that union power began to ebb, though the residual benefits lasted for decades, but ever shrinking until we get to where we are.

The real middle class are the professionals and managers who manage society and provide specialist services, and that is what the middle class is being returned to.

We are all working class, it was a great coup for the capitalists to convince us otherwise, divide and conquer.

[whathehell]

9. We didn't "rise", huh?...Sorry if you dislike the wording, but please lose the arrogance

inherent in "telling" me and my family how we lived our lives...No one here need adhere to your definitions or ideology and yes, we all know about Taft-Hartley and of course there was "push back"...That hardly equates to the whole deal being "off".

Unless someone suddently put you in charge of Language, I'm afraid you will have to accept that definitions of "middle class" vary...What you are describing
is generally accepted as "upper middle class", at least in this country.

Now, go back to reading the Communist Manifesto...If you even live in this country, I doubt you're old enough to remember a president before Reagan.

[blindpig]

21. Enjoy your ever diminishing half loaf.

If you wish to let the ruling class define your life they will never have a problem from you.

And btw, I was a member of AFSCME when Nixon got run out of town.

[whathehell]

24. And you enjoy yours as well...I have a feeling yours might be closer to a quarter..

only someone as absurdly arrogant as yourself would tell

a union organizer's daughter that she'll "never have a problem"

with the ruling class", lol.

The only one who seems to be trying to "define" my life, btw, is YOU.

[blindpig]

27. So rest on your parent's laurels...

even as they are being trampled into the dust.

Fact is, we need to do it all over again, and next time no half measures.

[whathehell]

30. You are so "off the mark" and since my parents are both dead

I'd thank you to stop making offensive references to them.

You're problem is, you "assume" a lot, and that gets you into trouble.

How did you imagine that I disagreed about "doing it all over again".?

Is your arrogance in inverse proportion to your I.Q..or am I forgetting how

stupid people can get after getting slapped down for their blind over reaches?

[leftstreet]

11. If the working class had better conditions, would anyone want to 'rise' out of it?

:shrug:

[whathehell]

12. As I've just told our friend, the definition of "middle class" varies

and no, I'm not saying it's as elastic as some in this country have made it, but her definition is "off" in my opinion.

One can have, for instance, a "middle class" job via education, but a working class salary...One can have a "middle class"

salary, but a working class job, etc.

[leftstreet]

16. Like beauty, it's in the eye of the beholder

I'd rather have someone ask me if their outfit makes them look fat than explain class distinctions in the US

[readmoreoften]

14. An "artifact" of history and "artificial" are too different things.

[whathehell]

17. I know that, and she uses both words.

[TheKentuckian]

6. Which it was able to do less than one generation. The track record of maintaining balance is minimal

as compared to the decades and decades and decades of running amok, strident marches toward monopolies, and devastating wealth disparities.

Your good old days can as easily be attributed to a destroyed economic base in the western world post WWII. By the 70's we had begun to swing back toward capitalism's native state and the journey has moved on with out a hitch since.

[whathehell]

15. Those "good old days"...when we had a large middle class

were not strictly a matter of the end of WWII or the cold war...They were also a product of years

of work by Labor which made it's first real gains before World War II in 1935 when Franklin Roosevelt

made the right to collective bargaining law.

The Labor Movement along with FDR were KEY to the middle class in this country.

[leftstreet]

18. Was it a large middle class, or a better environment for the working class?

:shrug:

[whathehell]

19. It was hardly just a "better environment"

unless increased income is your idea of "environment".

[leftstreet]

20. How would you describe it then?

If not a 'better environment?'

[Avant Guardian]

22. oops

oops

[whathehell]

26. No need for an "oops"

Try reading post #23 which is my response, lol.

My family are all professionals now

and we are all progressives who are fiercely loyal

to Organized Labor.:hi:

[Avant Guardian]

29. The 'oops' was because I posted a reply in the wrong place

...

[whathehell]

31. Okay. n/t

[Avant Guardian]

33. Oops

Gotcha!

[whathehell]

23. I would put it as "increased access".

My family's story is remarkably similar to Thom Hartmann's, as he

describes it in the book "Screwed".

Let's just put it this way...My father was the oldest child in a large, poor, depression era family.

He was a good student, but had to leave school at age fourteen to work in a hat factory.

In the early forties, before he went into the navy, he helped organize a union at his workplace

After he returned from the Pacific, He learned a trade, via the G.I. Bill, and entered a unionized workplace

where he remained, for the rest of his working life, retiring comfortably at age 62.

Both of his kids now have advanced degrees and his oldest became a lawyer

and is now a superior court judge in the state of Connecticut.

I don't know about you, but for a single generation, I'd call it a "rise".:shrug:

[SOS]

32. Capital hated the New Deal

And has been working to dismantle it, piece by piece, since it's implementation.
Unfortunately for the average American, for the past 30 years capital is winning and labor is getting shafted.

[whathehell]

35. I know...They called FDR, a president historians have rated 3rd best American president ever,

a "Traitor to his class".


What you say is true...We simply have to continue the struggle.

[leftstreet]

37. FDR wasn't a 'traitor to his class' - he saved his class

The New Deal wasn't a benevolent gift to the working classes !!

It was a strategic move to keep the ruling class from getting drug out of its homes and beaten to death

[socialist_n_TN]

38. Accurate........

nm

[whathehell]

40. An opinion..

and one apparently not shared by the big industrialists (Prescott Bush being one)

who plotted to overthrow him but were "turned in" by one Smedley Butler.

[whathehell]

39. Tell that to those remaining in his class, like the Bushes, because they still hate him

In any case, the "strategic move" theory is one interpretation, but only one.

Something that challenges it might be his plan for universal healthcare..

something, to my knowledge, that was barely heard of then,


let alone engendering of "barbarians at the gate", if you will.

[readmoreoften]

13. The State exists to reconcile the owning class with the working class.

It is not a "counterbalance" to capital. It is a mediator between capital and those who work for capital. Capital, as predicted, would eventually purchase the mechanism of mediation. "Government" is owned by capital. It will not hinder capital. It did so in the past because the capitalists were afraid of the people. In the US, the capitalists are not afraid of the people.

Capitalism did not produce the "huge middle class". The hard work of the unions, who struggled to make sure we got at least a small percentage of what we manufactured, made the middle class. The capitalists made concessions in the past because they were afraid of communists. They are no longer afraid of communists and now they, and their government, do whatever they want.

[socialist_n_TN]

36. +1 especially your last paragraph..........

AND most especially your last 2 sentences. I don't care what you call me as long as you're scared of what I might do if you try to screw me over. Since they're NOT scared, we're doing something wrong.

[readmoreoften]

10. +1

[Poboy]

4. Recommend

[Bucky]

25. Sadly, you're still relying on facts and understanding in a post-reality reality

Facts don't matter. Emotions do. The left right paradigm will continue to dominate as long as there's a profit to be made in scaring people into tribalistic social conservatism.

[stevenleser]

28. The paradigm of trying to fight against the left-right paradigm is a tired one.

Its silly and unnecessary.

[sarcasmo]

34. Corporate Greed destroying the people. The sleeping giant has been awoke by Mr. Walker.

We are close to the nothing left to loose point.