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Sounds better than 50 million people starving to death.

But he did recently kill millions of people by incubating a deadly virus, so there's that. Do you think these "market interventions" might distract the Chinese public from the millions of people he helped kill?

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Have the Chinese stopped infanticide? I think the practice was largely curtailed in the west during the Roman era.

Dnarever wrote on Aug 27^th, 2022 at 1:24pm:



To most Africans YOU are the rich, duckwit.

Frank wrote on Sep 2^nd, 2022 at 2:27pm:


Wrong again, though your typical black and white view of the world makes you difficult to educate (free market conservative ideologues promote MINIMAL intervention).

Liberal Economics in the West more or less developed in a sraight line from Smith in the 18th century up to the GD  in 1929. (Marx's 19th century theories were not realized in the West).

It took FDR's 'New Deal' intervention (resisted by Conservatives), to deal with the unemployment of the GD; Keynes had much to say at this time,  and indeed  successful Keynesian 'welfare state' policies were widely established after WW2.

But giobal geopolitics  in the 70's - Arab oil shock and low-wage competition from Asia - resulted in loss of industry in the 1st world, so Keynesian fiscal spendng seemed no longer to work, as the West faced a truly global economy for the first time. 

Hence the wrong-headed move to NEO-liberalism - a backward step, whose consequences we are all facing now (wage stagnation/cost of living pressures, unaffordable housing and homelessness, persistent long-term unemployment).

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True, but the West's  reaction to the 70s stagflation as outlined above, is real history which is still playing out today,  under neoliberal dogma (privatization, 'small government' and Friedman's supply-side economics, cf Keynes'  'demand side' theory).

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Keynes wasn't considered to be 'socialist', though he did prescribe deficit spending to maintain full employment - and Menzies proved to be a very successful facilitator of Keynesian  policy.

[Today, it's absurd that fiat currency-issuing  government should be forced to borrow money from private financiers who "must be repaid" with interest; taxation*** alone should clearly fund government, to deliver full employment and wages growth -  to supplement private sector employment as eequired.

***MMT reverses the function of taxation, but that is another story. Richard Denniss rejects MMT;  he wants  taxation alone to fund  the public services desired by the community. 

But Biden is struggling with that in the US, with Trump's low-tax republicans theatening violence against the Dem government, which  is attempting to improve the incomes and public services  for the poorer half of the community ]   

3 decades of privatisation have indeed created this "sh1tshow":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqFPhsO-2W0


...priceless...

The major reason governments privatize previously owned businesses is to create more investment sinks to soak up excess liquidity.

The profit from the sale is just a sweetener.

If there were not a constant stream of new businesses being created the property price bubble would be even bigger.

Government businesses that are "privatized" are usually monopolies with captive customers that are then subjected to rising prices every year to keep the new owners happy with growth and dividends in their investments.

Unfortunately, as with power and gas, the government then loses control over the provision of these goods which can then hold the users to ransom because competition cannot immediately be created if the service provision is unsatisfactory. Strategic planning then becomes impossible unless the government provides free money or other benefits to encourage strategic growth to service industry and retail consumers.

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thegreatdivide wrote on Jul 11^th, 2023 at 11:45pm:


3 decades of privatization following the triumph of Thatcherite 'small government' ("low taxes") neoliberalism have indeed created the "sh1tshow" as revealed in the video.

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