Saturday, February 10, 2018

Renegade Inc. & What to expect in 2018

A group of leading alternative economists make predictions for 2008. Thorium nuclear reactors are now viable, but the US industrial-complex has been trying to stop its progress because they can't manufacturer nuclear weapons from them.  And, disturbingly, the rise of the hard right in Latin America.

David Graeber says how the only thing nice thing Trump has done is try to make peace with Russia, but the liberal press attack him on that. Ann Pettifore seems to be a Corbyn supporter, superb!

Everyone here has no problem appearing on RT. They say it is one of the only places where you can get real news. Why? Because, they say, Russia embraced capitalism in the 1990's and it went badly wrong for them so now they are skeptical of neoliberalism. 

David Graeber says how he would go to parties and ask people what job they did, but many said, nothing, really. When he pressed them they said if their company took their job away it wouldn't make any difference. David Graeber researched this and found out that 37% of jobs are 'non jobs' in Europe. David Graemer has written a book on it. If we all had productive jobs, we could be on a 15 hour week.

David Graemer says how the left and right agree that we need more jobs, but the right's answer is to give more money to the rich, who create some new jobs, but giving the money to consumers would really create more jobs.

They also cover climate change and much more. 



 As it’s the beginning of the year, we invited some friends of the show into the studio to discuss the mega trends that will affect the world over the next 12 months. To find out what will be hot and what will flop in 2018, host Ross Ashcroft is joined by economist Steve Keen, political economists Ann Pettifor and Robert Wade, and writer and anthropologist David Graeber.

6 comments:

NeilW said...

Except we can't all be on 15 hour weeks, because we need specialist farmers in the field for longer than that.

If you give land to people that can't farm, we get Zimbabwe. What Graeber fails to grasp is the effect of the Division of Labour.

Or rather he gets the division of labour but genuinely believes that enough people will work 40 hour weeks for nothing of value extra so others can do only 15.

Kaivey said...

I think it just was a figure of speech, he was just making a point. Of course, the logistics would be complicated.

NeilW said...

"I think it just was a figure of speech, he was just making a point."

It's a bit more than that with David.

Kaivey said...

I agree, he should be more careful, but we all do it, we beef things to do make a point.

But you have a good point too about sharing the work out fairly.

Matt Franko said...

You can’t solely rely on figures of speech at some point you have to explain yourself in the actual terminology of the discipline...

Neil: “people will work 40 hour weeks for nothing of value extra so others can do only 15. ”

The people working the 40 will be the materially competent.... probably should be too... they should just make more munnie

Noah Way said...

Elimination of the financial class would provide a great deal of unskilled labor perfect for picking fruit, sweeping streets, collecting and sorting trash ...