I live in the UK now. !!! I love my allotment.
I was a Senior Fellow at Campaign for America's Future, doing a lot of writing, radio & some TV.
In Silicon Valley I was in various positions at various companies. And before that I was a videogame designer at Atari & Imagic.
I was an AFSCME Chief Steward in Ann Arbor.
I am @dcjohnson@mastodon.cloud at Twitter.
#ClimateChange #USPolitics #SocialJustice #MMT #HealthcareForAll #democracy #corruption #Toriesout #EndFossilFuel
"Cut taxes for the wealthy and their corporations. They will use the extra money to provide jobs and increase pay and benefits."
The US & UK fell for that. The UK even privatized water, energy, transportation, mail etc.
Now we have massive inequality and political unrest.
The reason Republicans go after trans people, CRT, etc is they have professionals who have done polling & focus groups & examined the psychology telling them there are effective targets.
As with everything they do, the goal is to get the public to move power to them so they can use that power to benefit their benefactors.
Tax cuts, get kill regulations that protect the public but impede profits, privatize public goods, etc.
This is why they do it.
"Market solutions: (neoliberalism) is the ideology that society should be ruled by "markets," not democracy.
But markets are by definition controlled by the wealthy. OF COURSE it pushed all the wealth up to a few. OF COURSE it brought austerity - cuts in govt - for the rest.
Here is why budget deficits in the US are bad:
Because Republicans understand money. They create money to help their constituents - the rich.
When Democrats are in office Republicans drive deficit fear to convince Democrats not to help their constituents - the public - which hurts them in elections.
PS Same for the UK.
The JOB of govt in a democracy is to:
Regulate to protect the public from exploitation by wealthy and powerful interests, and
Spend what is needed to make people's lives better.
It's that simple.
The JOB of government in a democracy is to spend & manage to make people's lives better. It is also to redistribute when excesses occur and that means taxing the wealthiest and their corporations.
Spend for the public good. They do not need to round up gold to do that. They need to manage.
Modern Monetary Theory (#MMT) explains money is created by govt, not tax "revenue" or "borrowing." Govts do not round up gold before they can spend.
Inflation is controlled by managing economies and directing resources at bottlenecks that are raising prices, not superstitiously spending too little or raising rates to harm the economy and "cut demand."
I just checked in on news of what's happening in the US.
The latest Republican hero is a guy who strangled a homeless guy in a subway car, for being annoying.
And, of course, another school shooting.
But I live in the UK now, so...
Why does "the news" tell the stories of the freed Israeli hostages, but not the freed Palestinian hostages?
What happened to BOTH was terrible.
PS Why were there so many more Palestinian hostages?
US & UK
If you keep telling people your "system" - decisionmaking of, by & for the wealthy - is a democracy, then of course people are going to conclude democracy sucks and turn toward authoritarians who promise a better life.
Enshittification - David Roberts & Cory Doctorow. I want to recommend this excellent podcast episode as the BEST explanation of the corporate power crisis in the US. Absolutely great!!
Inequality is rising with most income gains going to the already-wealthy.
If govt continues to insist spending can only come from tax "revenue" then the choice is obvious. Govt has to increase taxes on the wealthy to "pay for" NHS, pub services, infrastructure, etc.
(That also fights inequality.)
UK austerity shows that eating the seed corn kills long-term prospects.
It makes it seem like politicians are solving problems. But eventually the seed corn runs out - infrastructure breaks down, healthcare system collapses, etc.
And then the costs of fixing things are enormous. NHS destroyed. Infrastructure crumbling. Economy stalled.
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is an explanation of how money works.
It doesn't have associated "policies" but it does free people up to imagine what governments could do if they'd just drop the scarcity-of-money superstition ideology belief that they have to round up gold to "pay for" things.
