Elites, Right Wing ones especially, want unemployment

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Basically you can be a marxist and not neccersarily advocate any form of communism.

Remember that I said "elites, Right wing ones especially" - I'm not talking the run of the mill Republican voter, I'm talking about the elites here. NAIRU is not the sort of thing that the run of the mill Republican voter is supposed to know about. In fact, if many of them were to find out that governments deliberately engineer unemployment, then some might direct some of their hostility away from the unemployed themselves and that will never do.

Actually, you are just trying to smear Conservatives in general. I'm saying this based on your track record.

In a very loose sense, "small-m marxism" can refer to any sort of institutional analysis highly influenced by Karl Marx's sociology. So I guess you can be a "marxist" and advocate no polcies whatsoever. But in the stronger sense, Marxists (be they Lenninists, Trotskyists, Council Communists, etc) believe in centralizing economy activity on behalf of the worker (coordinationism or state socialism), abolishing private property, and then watching as the state magically withers away. Real-world Marxist revolutionaires usually fail due to the infessibility of state-socialism (in the sense of coordinationism, which excludes social democratic "social market economies").

While, in general, xenon13 has too many violent sympathies and is strongly ideologically influenced by FLQ-type thinking, he's right here. Rightwing elites - the Sophisticated Right (as opposed to the Wide-Eyed Utopian Capitalists of the base) - does very much support relatively high-unemployment rates. The High Dollar policy many on the rightside of both political parties (be they DLC Democrats or Republicans) supported (which ensured the US suffered a trade deficit) are a clear indicator of this, as are various decisions made by the neoliberal Finance Department of Paul Martin in Canada.

Problem with the entire argument is that an extremely wealthy person is more likely to be a liberal supporting the Democrats than the Republicans... Or are you saying they aren't evil cause they support the Left?

Xenon13's arguments were that ELITES -especially rightwing ones - supported high unemployment. And what do you mean by "wealthy liberals"? Are you including upper-middle class professionals like professors, physicians, lawyers, etc. as "wealthy" or are you talking about the legacy portfolio class? I'll admit that the professional class is very politically divided between more conservative members and more liberal members and in the "wealthy because of our own wealth" class there is some political division as well. Labour-intensive, heavy industry ("industrial capital") tends to be conservative and less labour-intensive industries like high-tech or finance (financial capital) in particular tend to be more liberal (explaining the large donoations various financial lobbyists gave Obama in 2008).

I would include lawyers and some professors. I would not include doctors, whom btw suffer under frivolous lawsuits.

Fact is the right doesn't like high unemployment, because who is going to buy the products if everyone is unemployed?

Doctors also gain from protection from foreign competition and very high salaries.



People on burrowed credit - at least, that's been the (stupid, feckless, incompetent, morally depraved) solution offered thus far by the elite agenda-setters.

The grassroots Right may not like high unemployment, but the Elite Right certainly does.

That makes a lot of sense. I have the book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us" by Daniel Pink and he was saying that the carrot and stick approach for algorithmic jobs good enough, whereas heuristic jobs require intrinsic motivation. According to him, intrinsic motivation is autonomy, mastery, and purpose.

A lot of doctors are planning to quit practicing medicine if Obamacare is not repealed. Doctors may make a lot of money, but they also have a lot of expenses like liability insurance. They have to pay so much for that insurance because of junk lawsuits.



Uh they don't like that either, because they know they wouldn't get their money back...



Why? Seriously, why would they want that? If people are all poor, how are they going to sell stuff and make more money? Furthermore, actions contradict your statement. Look up the "Wounded Warriors Project," which is supported by Bill O'Reilly (whom you would call Elite Rich).

Just to be clear, I was more speaking about the owners and high-ranking officials in those industries than the rank-and-file.

I know that. I'm saying people who are high up in blue collar jobs will tend to be conservative cuz the carrot and stick method works out for them, whereas people high up in the white collar jobs will tend to be liberal cuz the intrinsic motivation approach works out for them. Neither of em are wrong, but it's wrong to apply either types of motivation to everything. And they can definitely overlap since there are repetitive and creative aspects to everything. Like say you like boxing. Even though you're intrinsically motivated towards it, you still need to grind through drills which are a big part of your success.

People bluff a lot. The fact of the matter is that doctors take advantage of a lot of protective measures thanks to Congress. As a matter of fact, malpractice is only a very small part of the problem of physicians' high salaries.



http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&- ... lpractice/



That was still the approach, holes or not. After each financial downturn, credit restrictions were loosened (starting in the 1980s).



The solution is simple: loosen credit. While I'm sure if markeeters, producers, and financial industrialists got together they'd realize this was a pretty fragile relationship, they didn't. There is a certain intellectual myopia present in people who persue one activity, a narrow-minded, sort-term self-interestedness. This is what allowed this unholy system to go on for so long (Americans stopped saving and started borrowing - a similar catastrophe awaits Canada).

As for why elite-grade owners would like unemployment, simple: it gives you an excuse to demand more of your worker and pay them less (increased productivity) and it gives you a lot of bargaining power when facing workers ("there's twelve other people who'd love this job").



Where the hell did I say particular ultraconservative on-air tabloid journalists wouldn't donate to charity? I was making a claim about what a lot of policy-setters and large industrialists support in America (unemployment), not whether they personally give money to "help the troops" charities.

You're assuming ALL big shots are unethical. They can't just do whatever they want. People would start flocking to the more ethical big shots. Higher unemployment isn't gonna turn all businesses into monopolies.

I honestly don't understand the rampant antagonism towards the rich. A sense of entitlement that comes from victim mentality? Envy? I'm not trying to ridicule anyone, I honestly can't see any reason to hate the rich and only hold the bosses accountable rather than the workers as well.

Very few businessmen are actually ridiculously rich and they sacrifice job security for autonomy, so it's not like they're having their cakes and eating it too. Even if they are ridiculously rich, they still face the risk of losing money. Entrepreneurship is not as secure as people think. Matter of fact, that's the catch to being in that position of power. With greater power comes greater responsibility.

Wrong. I'm assuming most of the top 1% are

1) Self-interested.
2) Unaware of the problems poorer people face.

#1 seems to be a usual assumption in economic discourse, even if it has excpetions. #2 describes most cases, as it's really unlikely someone with little aquaintance with the lives of the less well to do will know what they face.



Control (partial or primary) over industries or firms with immense market power and immense (earned or legacy) wealth enables you a good degree of control over public relations. Ownership or sponsership (through advertisements) of newspapers can strengthen your ability to frame debates.



Two wrong assumptions here are:

1) People have access or know about the questionable access.
2) The firm doesn't control an integral part of the economy or there's a lot of competition.

These conditions are not always the case.



Who said anything about all businesses? We're talking about the most powerful ones here.



Some of it may be that. It may also have something to do with the fact the rich are getter rich and this is straining the social fabric of Anglo-American countries. Or that many of the rich seem to benefit from upward redistribution of the wealth while the poorer suffer the brunt of the downturn.



Because workers, in general, have less control over the operations of a firm (especially in some of the more regressive industrial organization models). But, as a matter of fact, the working poor has born much of the brunt in this reccession.



You starting talking about the rich and then changed it to small players. Lets stick to the big players.