You’ve probably heard of the shock doctrine, named and explicated by Naomi Klein. If you’re not acquainted with it, here’s a short explanation.
I used the term “shock doctrine” to describe the brutal tactic of using the public’s disorientation following a collective shock – wars, coups, terrorist attacks, market crashes or natural disasters – to push through radical pro-corporate measures, often called “shock therapy”.
We’ve got a major shock right now. Rather than worry about what the bad guys will do to us, let’s seize the initiative and get some of the things we want done. It won’t happen all at once. The bill that Nancy Pelosi and Steve Mnuchin negotiated on Friday is a start, but only a start. Don’t complain that it isn’t enough (it isn’t), but look for opportunities to get more.
Greg Mankiw, a conservative economist, and Mitt Romney are both suggesting that the government send people money, a thousand dollar check for each adult. They have additional suggestions at the links.
We need wish lists ready to go. Here are some ideas off the top of my head:
- A period – maybe three months – in which mortgage and rent payments are not due
- Forgive student loans
- Healthcare for all
- Sick leave for all workers
- Higher minimum wage
- Homes for the homeless
What is on your wish list?
And open thread!
different-church-lady
So, like, a liberal shock doctrine?
germy
A vaccine.
And a cure.
NotMax
Lowering the amount above prime rate at which credit card interest may be charged.
MattF
A unified database of assholes and asshole-corporations that are trying to make panic profitable.
Citizen Alan
Don’t forget to (a) make sure that interest accrual is frozen along with mortgage payments and (b) make sure that forgiven student loans don’t get counted by the IRS as taxable income.
Punchy
What I read this morning it that it’s likely DOA. The Senate wants to take out the good parts and substitute dumb shit in its place (of course), and so these changes will be rejected by the House. Never let a nationwide emergency get in the way of Moscow Mitch’s need to fuck up everything just because and prevent the House from ever getting credit for helping the country.
Cheryl Rofer
@different-church-lady: Exactly!
Geo Wilcox
How about instead of every one getting a check only the people who truly need it (not me or Romney) get one.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady:
YEAH, BABY!
zhena gogolia
@Geo Wilcox:
Yes, that’s even better.
Cheryl Rofer
@Punchy: Call your senators!
Everyone: Call your senators!
cain
A thousand dollars? Yeah, right. That’s not going to do anything if it lasts longer than two weeks. Some places need more than that – eg NYC, bay area, while some 1k might be okay – eg LIncoln, Nebraska. Pay the going rate for a month’s rent and some food.
zhena gogolia
I’m planning to keep paying trainer, hairdresser, and cleaner even though I will probably not be using their services for a while. The problem is I don’t know how many of their other clients will do the same.
NotMax
Andrew Yang’s ears have pricked up now.
cain
@Geo Wilcox:
That’s just too hard to do. Just make it so that they can waive their portion so that others can get it instead.
WaterGirl
@Geo Wilcox: The overhead on determining who gets one and who doesn’t would delay everything. And probably costs more than it would save.
Major Major Major Major
I’ll believe Romney wants emergency UBI when he introduces legislation.
Mankiw, I believe, recently swore off the party and is probably sincere.
Punchy
@germy: I told the wife that shit will REALLY hit the fan next year when a vaccine is announced, and the anti-vaxxers demand to be excluded from getting it. I suspect the gov’t will play serious hardball with those who dont get it (fine them?) for non-medical reasons, trying desperately to acquire herd immunity numbers…either way, talk about a huge fight about to happen with the crazy anti-vax idiots.
cain
@Punchy:
You can bet that he’s probably want to throw in some abortion language or something. You can never get these people focused on the good stuff, they have to throw in some ideological bullshit even when trying to save people’s lives.
Kristine
Develop nationwide vote-by-mail system, says the ballot box judge who is calling folks to make sure they’re still showing up tomorrow and lost her roving site manager who got called to another site to be a voter services judge. Dammit Illinois. (I realize this may be beyond the scope of the question, but still. Dammit)
cain
@Punchy:
Give them a commune so they can all die together as a herd.
OGLiberal
I remember when Bush the Younger handed out $300 (individuals)/$600 (couples) checks at a time when there wasn’t really a significant crisis. Thought is was a gimmick – “wow, Dubya gave me a relatively small amount of cash…I’m going to vote for him, for sure” – and that a more permanent working/middle class cut would have been better. Plus, I think subsequent studies showed that most people saved the money so it didn’t provide much stimulus. But in a real crisis like this, I think a check for even more than $1,000 would be a very good idea.
I think a lot of utility companies are holding off on shutting down service if payments are missed but all of them should be doing that. I say this should also apply to wireless carriers and internet service providers – people are going to need both, especially with the massive increase in work-from-home and schools closing and moving to online instructions. And how about getting those kids with no home internet connection a free one while the schools are closed?
Also read that in some places, school districts are using their bus drivers to deliver school breakfast and lunch to the students who are now at home. A very good idea that should be adopted everywhere – keeps the drivers working (with relatively minimal contact with others – there won’t be kids on the bus) and makes sure the kids who need it get their meals.
NotMax
Wait until the first checks come back stamped NSF.
trollhattan
I’d like my WIN button, please.
Have the usual Republican hyperinflation hawks popped their heads up in the last week? Where’s Newt?
mrmoshpotato
Vaccine. Cure.
President Biden
American Nuremberg trials for all of these white supremacist Nazi fucks hopefully ending in convictions and hangings.
Major Major Major Major
@OGLiberal: The Futurama episode where Nixon gave everybody a $300 “Tricky Dick Fun Bill” was great.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
Mine was stamped NSFW.
MattF
@trollhattan: Whip Infection Now!
BobS
Better that this is (somehow) need based.
Alot of us are fortunate (along with Romney and Mankiw) in not needing $1000.
Give the people who need it 5 or 10 grand, instead.
Kirk Spencer
@NotMax: yes.
Pass a minimum guaranteed income. Make it untaxable income and tied to the regional poverty level. Then feel free to increase income tax rates on the rest.
Kill the capital gains difference so income is income. And the investor’s other loophole while we’re at it.
Yutsano
@trollhattan: I got a rock!
/Charlie Brown.
Also: what now that Yertle has basically spiked the bill?
As far as wishes:
Expand Medicaid to anyone uninsured regardless of income.
Eliminate the Social Security wage cap.
BobS
@Kirk Spencer: While you’re at it, would you mind waiving payroll taxes on the first $10K for people earning below the poverty level, and remove the cap at the other end?
Peale
Lots of nursing students need to complete their practical hours before they can graduate. Many nursing schools are cancelling those classes. Since those can’t be conducted online, they won’t be able to graduate or get a job as a nurse until they get in their hours. I would suspend student loan payments indefinitely for them and for each month they need to wait, the loan amount is reduced by 10%
mrmoshpotato
@Major Major Major Major: Ahrooooooooo!!!!!!
Shalimar
Rent is $1350 a month, so yes, a period of 3 months where I don’t have to pay it would be enough for me to make ends meet while work is closed. But my landlord is a nurse who owns this one condo in addition to the place she lives. What does it do to her not to get that money?
dmsilev
@Yutsano: Any links to Yertle’s action? Not that I don’t believe you; it’s totally in character for him and his caucus, but a quick trawl through some news sites didn’t come up with anything relevant.
kindness
I am not a fan of the Yang theory of just sending every citizen money. Sorry but that isn’t how I approach things.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Romney is a lot of things, but stupid isn’t one of them.
Deflation is coming – hard – and he’s the canary in the coal mine.
MattF
@Shalimar: She has to pay mortgage + condo fee + insurance + property taxes regardless.
RSA
@WaterGirl:
Also, as broad a base as possible makes it harder for Republicans to call it “charity” and eliminate it at the soonest possible moment. That’s one difference, so I’m told, between the politics of Medicare and of Medicaid/SNAP/etc.
catclub
really? not good.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@BobS:
Now that is an excellent idea.
Yutsano
@dmsilev: At work. Let me get back to you when I can.
Roger Moore
No questions asked vote by mail.
trollhattan
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Versus a decade ago there isn’t really a real estate bubble. Our CA high home prices are predicated on a housing shortage and we don’t have millions holding subprime mortgages @125% of their market value.
Not to say we won’t get our noses bloodied.
PenAndKey
I vote for these, and basically in that order. As for means testing Romney’s idea for $1k payments? That never works. As someone who grew up in Wisconsin I can safely say the only thing means testing support systems does is ensure that the GOP can screw with it and spend more money making sure you’re “deserving” than helping people. Better to just give everyone the $1k and be done with it.
But, first and foremost, a freeze on debt payments for the duration of the pandemic (plus some extra if needed) would go a long way to giving people incentive to stay home.
trollhattan
@MattF:
Excellent! If I though more folks would get the joke, I’d have some made up.
Folks would wear their WIN buttons upside down for No Immediate Miracles.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Booger
@trollhattan: …or our hair mussed.
Mai naem mobile
I do t think this is the question you’re asking but I would like Biden to announce Warren sas his Veep and have Warren be the point person on the democratic side in the senate kind of like what happened with Obama and McCain in O8. Also and for Bernie to drop out. This country can’t survive another 4 years of Trumpov.
WV Blondie
End the (stupid, vicious) tax penalty on withdrawal of 401(k) funds.
Boost Social Security payments.
A Ghost to Most
Don’t forget, the fascists are also dreaming up ways to take advantage of this situation.
1. State of Emergency
2. Cancel elections
3. ???
4. Profit.
trollhattan
@Booger:
Sure wish I had a War Room.
Cheryl Rofer
Here’s another good one:
Nationalize the airlines!
Major Major Major Major
I kind of think postponing tomorrow’s elections would be good. A nonzero number of voters will get sick and die otherwise. (Postpone until when? I dunno. Maybe we can couple it with Sanders dropping out, I know it’s a pony…)
Duane
@MattF: That database is readily available. It’s called the Chamber of Commerce. They are asking for a three month exemption from paying Social Security, Medicare, and UI taxes.
trollhattan
@Cheryl Rofer:
Uhh, wut?
Incitatus for Senate
Limit credit card interest to some low rate for the duration.
Poe Larity
They’ll probably spend it all on ammo
sdhays
@dmsilev: Since Dump has tweeted his support and lots of House Republicans voted for the deal already, it would be crazy for Moscow Mitch to play hardball, particularly since the stock market doesn’t seem to have taken kindly to his slow-walking it so far. I do think there’s a better than average chance that the bill fails to get unanimous consent and doesn’t get through the Senate for a few days. Rand’s got to Rand.
Just One More Canuck
@NotMax: it will be gift cards to Trump hotels
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Shalimar:
“She’s an evil landlord and deserves to suffer”. /berner
Peale
@Cheryl Rofer: When this is over, AmeriFedSWunited will be an airline.
dm
There’s a partisan divide on how seriously people are taking this — Mitch’s base still thinks it’s just the flu.
Democrats are ants. Republicans are fiddling grasshoppers.
My wish list is for Cheryl’s liberal shock doctrine, then for people to ask why we can’t keep all the good stuff we did to get through the emergency, when the emergency is over.
Mai naem mobile
@Dorothy A. Winsor: but of course Trumpov did because the fucker has no idea what to do. Failed presidency. Failed life. Failed kids. He’s just a total fuck up. Every fucking asshole who voted for him should have to pay an extra twenty percent in taxes for the next 8 years. And the fuckers who pay nothing should pay even more.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@PenAndKey:
a freeze on debt payments for the duration of the pandemic
There’s a constitutional issue at play there, though.
trollhattan
@Just One More Canuck:
Twenty Quatloos to the first governor using eminent domain on a Trump property to house homeless and/or virus patients.
HumboldtBlue
Keep an eye on the EARNIT Act (Eliminating Abusive and Rampant Neglect of Interactive Technologies), a bill that would end encryption and hold a website operator liable for their users ad any illegal content they post.
The bill, of course, is aimed at “protecting the children” — ostensibly to address sex trafficking — and Feinstein is again right in the middle of it because when it comes to tech she’s all about ensuring corporations get their fucking money and the government gets more control.
Perhaps the computer experts here have something more substantive to offer than my weak protestations.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Peale:
“We combine the safety standards of Aeroflot with the customer service reputation of TSA/CBP…”
Ken
@Cheryl Rofer: @Peale: I remember hearing about a study once that said that, over the whole span of commercial air travel, the net industry profit was zero. That is, the small profit most manage to get each year was offset by the occasional huge loss when a carrier goes bankrupt.
If true, that certainly sounds to me like an industry suitable for nationalization (as of course is the case in many countries).
PenAndKey
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: More than likely, which is why I defer to lawyers and economists. But if we’re spit-balling ideas I’d legitimately appreciate knowing why that’s off the table.
Cheryl Rofer
schrodingers_cat
Naomi Klein and her so called shock doctrine are pretty hokey. And her grasp of economics is pretty shaky. A quick perusal of her Twitter account tells me that she is a Berner. Enough said.
PenAndKey
@Cheryl Rofer: Can I just take a nap and pretend she won the nomination and it’s already February 2021 with her enjoying a Democratic trifecta? This week is already exhausting.
Duane
Repeal Trumpov’s tax cuts. Take that money and use it to pay for this National Emergency.
schrodingers_cat
@Duane: Great idea.
mrmoshpotato
OT – Robyn at Wonkette has a good write-up about what’s been happening to the Douchecanoe Hand Sanitizer Bros.
Capri
I’d also go for increasing the minimum wage
schrodingers_cat
@Capri: Another good suggestion.
Brachiator
I think one thing I would like to see is getting rid of focusing either on business or the mystical subset of “families, workers and the most vulnerable.” Everyone is affected by this thing.
Some of the actions taken in Los Angeles:
In addition to sending out $1,000 payments to most taxpayers (not sure yet how to establish a threshold), I would increase the standard deduction to 25,000 for singles and 50,000 for married couples and instruct the IRS to automatically adjust withholding tables.
I would make unemployment compensation exempt from taxation.
I would implement most of the Democrats’ proposals and a few of the Trump Administration’s business proposals.
sdhays
@schrodingers_cat: Wasn’t she a Naderite?
Major Major Major Major
@HumboldtBlue: here we go again… lol
piratedan
well if we’re making a list…
In The Immediancy
90 day moratorium on all interest garnering bills, from CC’s to mortgages.
free water, electricity, basic necessity (internet too, since people have to stay in touch, even if we’re distancing)
special advocacy to those having to work for the common good: call it an equivalent for people having to provide services in the public sector, from health professionals to delivery drivers and cashiers and food prep personnel. Compensated day care, monetary compensation, discounted loan rates…
In the agenda setting for the future
shut down predatory loan shark companies once and for all
make all of the phone companies adhere to strict regulations about blocked numbers and spam calls
vote by mail for everyone
tax the churches
free vocational school to those wanting to learn a trade
clean energy protocol to make the grid more efficient and integrate green power sources better
legalize the sex trade professionals
nationalize weed possession
labor law that protects labor as its own resource
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Mai naem mobile:
I don’t expect him to make respirators appear from thin air, but his govt could at least inventory what’s out there, maybe not in use.
schrodingers_cat
@sdhays: Possibly. She is a crank. Always has been. Surprised to see her so called doctrine highlighted by the resident scientist here.
dm
@schrodingers_cat: I would be more persuaded if you presented more than just an ad hominem fallacy to support your argument. What’s hokey about it?
I’m only a little way into the book, so I’m withholding judgment. A look at the reactions section of the wikipedia page for the book (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine) makes me think I should approach the book more as metaphor than as history. But it’s a useful metaphor.
(That wikipedia page could provide a decent amount of ammunition in support of your “hokey” claim, I’ll admit.)
Just One More Canuck
@trollhattan:
your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter
Calouste
@Brachiator:
Something like no evictions is crucial. What we should be looking to achieve as a nation is to put everything on pause for (hopefully) six weeks or so, and then pick up where we left off. Of course there are going to be complications, for example schools can’t catch up on six weeks in the rest of school year, but it is important not to break up stuff that was working before. The government has to borrow from our future selves to support this, and the economy will slow down for a few years, but we could make it crash if we start breaking things up for a temporary, although serious, disruption.
Calouste
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s what happened with the car industry bail out in 2009, was it? And the government ended up making money on it IIRC.
Brachiator
@Calouste:
I think this is a great way of putting it. We will get through this, and we should look at solutions as ensuring our future.
schrodingers_cat
@dm: She is not an economist. I would take her broad and sweeping generalizations about economics with a grain of salt.
WereBear
If we’d had the good stuff before this emergency, it wouldn’t be so much of an emergency.
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: But that doesn’t prevent us from taking the idea and using it for our own purposes!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Peale: That’s true for a BSN, however you can become a RN without a BSN, you just need to pass the boards. The kid is a RN with a BSN, but her bff from high school is also a RN, but without a BSN.
Cheryl Rofer
Keep those bills coming! And tell the public about them so as to put pressure on the Republicans!
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: Calling it shock doctrine gives an impression that agree with her premise and give credence to her theory. At least that’s the inference I drew.
But I agree that we should use this crisis to further our policy goals that would help mitigate the crisis. If that’s what you meant.
ellenr
@cain: Donate to a food pantry or something similar!
Cheryl Rofer
@schrodingers_cat: You could have read my post
dm
@schrodingers_cat: Does she claim to be one? Even if she does, “Shock doctrine” is political analysis, not economics. It is a framework for understanding what happens (politically) after disaster (sometimes man-made) strikes and disrupts society.
Her “case studies” of Pinochet Chile, post-Katrina New Orleans (not sure if that one’s in the book — an article by her on that is why I first bought the book), and post-2003 Iraq make for a pretty plausible argument that it is a good lens to see what is happening.
Pretty much as Cheryl used it in the blog post above. The right wing uses post-crisis chaos to push their solutions to problems, maybe, as Cheryl says, it’s our turn.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Brachiator:
Eliminate the penalty on early 401K withdrawals, maybe even make them completely tax-free for the next 24 months.
FelonyGovt
@Brachiator: Garcetti has really stepped up in this situation and I have not previously been a fan.
Brachiator
@Cheryl Rofer:
Hmmm. A lot of kids are just being sent home, and child care facilities may not be the best place for bunches of kids.
We don’t know if schools really need much of an assist with remote learning.
And there is nothing here for small business.
These are not bad ideas, but the Democrats and Republicans need to stop just thinking about their “traditional” constituencies and trying to repackage their pet proposals as responses to the current crisis.
I see some state and local governments paying better attention to what might be needed. These ideas need to bubble up to the federal level.
ETA: I have an improbable fancy of a President Biden putting Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren and Andrew Yang and even Mayor Pete into a room and saying, “OK, solve this shit.”
schrodingers_cat
@Cheryl Rofer: I did
Ohio Mom
Schrödinger’s cat:
I think it possible not to agree with Naomi Klein’s prescriptions (e.g., Vote for Bernie) but at the same time, appreciate her description of the pattern of governments sometimes using disasters, etc., to push through otherwise unpopular policies. Yes, she is shrill but there is a kernel of insight there.
Cheryl Rofer
@Brachiator:
I agree. Our list here is a start on that.
LeftCoastYankee
dm
Very low interest (0%, even) loans to help people get through the next four or five months (about how long the Spanish flu paralyzed the country). That means: help small businesses get through months with few to no customers but payrolls to meet (and sick-leave to cover), help anyone with a mortgage that needs to be paid, help anyone that needs to take sick-leave.
Romney’s UBI for a couple of months is a pretty good idea too.
Tell hospitals to send the covid-19 test and treatment bills to the federal government (but prepare to be audited).
Tell employers that (a major fraction of?) covid-19 sick-leave expenses can be billed to the government (I’m not too sure about this one, because I can see Trump Hotels grifting).
burnspbesq
@Citizen Alan:
That will require legislation. Everybody who advocates for it should also be required to sign something recognizing that it’s bad tax policy, but they’re in favor of it because they like the group of people who benefit from it.
jonas
1. A national program to begin a transition away from the fossil fuel economy.
The economies of too many states are still dependent on fossil fuel extraction and vulnerable to the boom-bust cycle of oil prices, or to a deliberate oil price war being waged by two other countries against us, and this has contributed, almost as much as the pandemic, to the market crash of the past week. We need to not just become “energy independent” (which is often code for “pump more oil/gas”), but renewable energy independent. Also, after a certain date tbd, most cars and trucks produced in this country should be electric. Russia and Saudi Arabia can fuck with global commodity prices, but it can’t fuck with wind or solar energy produced in our own country.
burnspbesq
@Geo Wilcox:
Define “need” in a way that won’t take six months to measure and result in a torrent of litigation. Precision is the enemy of speed, and stimulus needs to happen right the fuck now.
I don’t need it either, but if I get it I will take it straight to Guitar Center when I get it, because I understand what it’s about.
Brachiator
I always get a bit wary when I read stuff like this:
People like Klein and GG always fall back on the usual suspects. And I can agree with her descriptions of the failures of the Trump administration in Syria. But Klein writes as though Turkey, Russia and Iran, currently the primary larger powers involved in Syria, do not exist and have no designs to increase their power or to assert their will.
She does have some good insights, but is blinded by her ideological biases.
Feathers
As to the “but she’s a Berner.” Valid point. Also, tools of analysis are not revealers of truth. Someone’s ability to see patterns, anomalies, and useful insights that aren’t readily apparent has absolutely no bearing on their ability to draw a correct inference from them. (See Plato, Marx, Caitlin Flanagan, etc..) Klein looked at recent modern history in the ways that we tend to look at wars of the past and the realignments of power that took place afterwards (and during). She saw these things because of her political stance. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t real.
The Moar You Know
Make it both. If my renters don’t pay rent, I can’t make the mortgage payment.
Then I have to sell my home at a loss, and evict my renters and move back into that house.
Do this sort of thing smartly.
burnspbesq
@Yutsano:
A-fucking-men! And while you’re at it, reinstate 65 as the age at which you can get full benefits.
Feathers
@dm: This is a very good idea, because there can be a decision on what loans get forgiven later on. You could forgive all loans for independent contractors up to 90% of their same quarter earnings for last year, for example.
Put Liz in charge!
The Moar You Know
Couple of comments on making cash grants need based. You can’t do that. If you give everyone money, that will be done with an eye towards making it easy to spend for the few millionaires that get it.
If you “means test” it and give it only to the poor, it will be dealt with as is everything for the poor, i.e. not at all or extremely poorly.
Brachiator
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Yeah, throw this in the hopper as a potential response to the crisis.
PenAndKey
Hardly. A jubilee freeing up that large a fraction of the nation’s spendably currency is no different than discharging debt during bankruptcy, another situation that does not require tax be paid on the discharge in most circumstances.
The only reason this is even an issue is because student loans can’t be discharged via bankruptcy. In a sane world that wouldn’t be the case.
burnspbesq
Klein lost me when she asserted that the underlying cause of the Falklands war was Thatcher’s desire to bust unions.
“Implausible” seems like it doesn’t go far enough to describe that bullshit.
Feathers
Also, all those nursing students who are now missing hours should get credit for working in private doctor’s offices or other low risk but necessary situations. MDs should be allowed to apply.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
There are many credits which are not just for the poor.
And you could give it to many people, and have upper income people pay it back when they file their tax returns.
burnspbesq
@PenAndKey:
So wait. You’re trying to tell me that COD doesn’t increase the net worth of the person whose debt is cancelled?
That’s really innumerate. It’s also completely at odds with a century of Supreme Court case law. But do go on.
Brachiator
@burnspbesq:
RE: make sure that forgiven student loans don’t get counted by the IRS as taxable income.
The Mortgage Relief Act already does this for cancellation of debt related to home mortgages on a personal residence lost through foreclosure and for certain other rental real estate and business property.
PenAndKey
@burnspbesq: See Brachiator’s post. You’re acting like the same law that grants student loan debt relief can’t possibly handle the scenario you’ve outlined. It’s been done before, and we’re spitballing anyway so I’m not really seeing the insurmountable barrier you claim exists.
dm
@burnspbesq: Shrug. When you have a hammer in your hand, everything looks like a nail. Klein was writing about her hammer.
DId Klein actually claim that, or did she say that Thatcher took advantage of the Falklands war mobilization to also continue trouncing unions? The Wikipedia summary implies the latter, though the quote from Tyler Cowan’s review suggests the former. I haven’t gotten that far in the book yet.
Ned F.
@OGLiberal: I believe he did it twice? I remember because I had some delinquent taxes at the timeandt they applied the amounts to them.
sgrAstar
@schrodingers_cat: re Naomi Klein, you obviously have not read her book. Fail.
?
Bex
@trollhattan: Newt’s in Rome locked down tweeting stupid stuff.
artem1s
@Bex:
I saw that. It’s got to be driving him nuts that he’s stuck in Europe and can’t use this as an excuse to take over the GOP and pass another Contract on America again. What an asshole
Bmaccnm
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No matter the degree, an RN needs to have graduated from an accredited nursing school, which you can’t do without requisite clinical hours. From an RN, BSN, MSN
Chris Johnson
@sgrAstar: This. I’m like, suddenly you’re an economist? I have a great deal of patience for people spitting venom over Sanders’ limitations, but now we’ve got people flatly contradicting heavily documented and researched problems on apparently ideological grounds. That book is so harrowing I can barely read it: the end asserts a sort of ‘sunlight doctrine’, in that awareness and cultural/institutional memory of such abuses serve as a kind of safeguard.
cat seems to be cosigning truly horrific abuses and demanding they be ‘unhappened’ or that other, made-up innocuous motivations be ascribed to the most hideous negative externalities of ‘bad capitalism’, all while demanding we have every sympathy for abuses going on in India (if I remember correctly).
How about don’t exempt massive soulless corporations from the right to be unthinkably evil? I think most people who read Shock Doctrine find its (heavily, heavily documented and footnoted) conclusions plausible. Does that make Bernie the cure? Fuck no, and Klein is misguided if she’s falling for it… but given that her lifework has been digging into this specific horror-show, I am still grateful she had the guts to follow through with it, even if it drove her mad to face the realities she found, and caused her to look for glib and easy answers.
tl;dr: I stan for Naomi Klein’s work even if she and I don’t have exactly the same proposals for a solution, and anybody throwing around words like ‘crank’ needs to be able to back that up with some very serious documentation.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
That is a great idea.
I’m not holding my breath.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
If you are going to give money to everyone you could use the IRS as an identifier for say $1500, 1000, 500, zero. Last year’s income would do. Anyone with less than say less than $40,000 gets $1500, $40,000-60,000 gets $1000, and so on. I of course pulled those numbers out of my ass but I will say that I’m not in the bottom group, just for the record.
Ruckus
@mrmoshpotato:
Site seems to be down.
Ruckus
@Ruckus:
Or maybe it’s just unsecure and my browser won’t open it.
Another Scott
@Brachiator:
Dead thread, but…
ICYMI, we have a new Chief Neoliberal Shill.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@Punchy:
If you are not vaccinated, you can’t go out in public for any reason. Not to go to work, not to shop for groceries, nothing. Just nail the front door shut, board up the windows, set it on fire.
Fuck those malicious idiots.
Seriously, I’m done with that nonsense. If they don’t want their kids vaccinated, take the kids away, move them a couple of thousand miles away and place them with a family that cares that they don’t die from measles or coronavirus.
Actually, my fear is that like most coronaviruses, the common cold, it will be difficult or impossible to provide a vaccine for this plague. Am I angry? Hell yes, can’t you tell?!?!!!