“A writer’s notebook is not a diary. Writers react. Writers need a place to record these reactions. That’s what a writer’s notebook is for. It gives you a place to write down what makes you angry or sad or amazed, to write down what you noticed and don’t want to forget. A writer’s notebook gives you a place to live like a writer.” - Ralph Fletcher
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
Obama Preaches Stimulus to Europe and Practices Austerity at Home
By ‘class’ he meant one particular economic process within any and all societies in which some members of the society—the workers—perform ‘surplus labor.’ Marx defined this as labor beyond that needed to produce those goods and services that the workers themselves consumed. In both feudalism and capitalism, Marx believed, surplus labor’s product—the surplus—automatically and immediately became the property of persons other than the workers who had produced that surplus. Marx defined this situation as ‘exploitation’: production of surplus by one group and its receipt by another. When Marx spoke about classes, he mostly meant the two opposing groups defined in and by the class process: surplus producers versus
surplus appropriators.
Richard D Wolff & Stephen A. Resnick, Contending Economic Theories: Neoclassical, Keynesian, and Marxian (Page 27). MIT Press.
(Source: rdwolff.com)
History Notes of an Adjunct Professor
I’m in the university cafeteria. Obama is on the flat screen, speaking about the sequester. I’m reading the subtitles, because the TV sound is muted.
Suddenly, a student in the next booth—oblivious of the press conference—asks her group of friends:
“Have you ever heard of the ‘Trickle Down’ theory?”
None of them had, and she wasn’t clear on it, either, so they moved on to talking about sports.
Quoted in a USA Today article on the changing expectations of young adults, author Morley Winograd, who writes extensively about the Millennials, said their economic situation is “completely analogous” to the depression-era generation. “They were raised in relative affluence, and just as they are about to start in that affluent world, it all comes crashing down.”
They are forced to assume that “everything that came before them was a mirage — that it was built on unsafe foundations.”
This prolonged downturn will end. They always do. People will find their way back to confidence. But especially for those growing up under the weight of its fearsome uncertainties, it will be with us for generations to come.
Dr. Peggy Drexler
(Source: The Huffington Post)
The economy needs to add 95,000 jobs each month to keep up with natural population growth and it’s just not doing that. We’re averaging 75,000 new jobs each month in the second quarter, compared to 226,000 in the first.
The people who do best at basic survival tasks (we know this experimentally, as well as intuitively) are cooperative, good at teamwork, often altruistic, mindful of the common good. In drastic emergencies like hurricanes or earthquakes, people surprise us by their sacrifices — of food, of shelter, even sometimes of life itself. Those who survive social or economic collapse, or wars, or pandemics, or starvation, will be those who manage scarce resources fairly; hoarders and dominators win only in the short run, and end up dead, exiled, or friendless. So, in every way we can we need to help each other, and our children, learn to be cooperative rather than competitive; to be helpful rather than hurtful; to look out for the communities of which we are a part, and on which we ultimately depend.
Americans are working their rear ends off, and the rest of the world—the industrial world—isn’t. They have time for those languorous meals. We invented fast food.
Richard Wolff
(Source: capitalismhitsthefan.com)
We live in a system that can not get the people who want work together with the stuff that’s available for them to work with to produce what everybody knows we need.
Professor Richard D. Wolff
(Source: rdwolff.com)
According to Real Capital Analytics, a New York real estate research firm, more than $160 billion of commercial properties in the U.S. are now in default, foreclosure or bankruptcy.
(Source: Wikipedia)
The American middle class, concludes a new study from the ad industry’s top trade journal, has essentially become irrelevant. In a deeply unequal America, if you don’t make $200,000, you don’t matter.
Madison Ave. Declares ‘Mass Affluence’ Over
(Source: toomuchonline.org)
