Rock Salted | Syd Fablo

Jessica Goldstein – The ‘Feel-Good’ Horror of Late-Stage Capitalism

Link to an article by Jessica Goldstein:

“The ‘Feel-Good’ Horror of Late-Stage Capitalism”

Bonus links: The Trouble With Diversity and “Democracy is the Enemy” and “The Joy of Inequality: The Libidinal Economy of Compassionate Consumerism”

Dick Bryan & Mike Rafferty – How Finance Exploits Us

Link to an interview with Dick Bryan & Mike Rafferty, conducted by Llewellyn Williams-Brooks:

“How Finance Exploits Us”

(Note: the first part of the interview is non-substantive background information about publishing this theory in book form, and the substantive discussion of the theory is toward the end).

Rob Urie – The Blob Fought the Squad, and the Squad Won

Link to an article by Rob Urie:

“The Blob Fought the Squad, and the Squad Won”

Russell Mokhiber – Kip Sullivan and Dr. Matthew Hahn on How Value Based Programs Are Undermining Medicare and Single Payer

Link to an interview (with transcript) conducted by Russell Mokhiber:

“Kip Sullivan and Dr. Matthew Hahn on How Value Based Programs Are Undermining Medicare and Single Payer”

Nicholas Freudenberg – The Capitalist Diet

Link to a review by Nicholas Freudenberg of Gerardo Otero’s book The Neoliberal Diet: Healthy Profits, Unhealthy People (2018):

“The Capitalist Diet: Energy-dense and Profitable”

Bonus link: “Nick Freudenberg on the Corporation the Individual and Public Health” – though his invocation of liberal pluralism along the lines of the FCC’s old “fairness doctrine” is subject to criticism and probably still isn’t sufficient.

Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler – Real GDP

Link to an article by Blair Fix, Jonathan Nitzan & Shimshon Bichler:

“Real GDP: The Flawed Metric at the Heart of Macroeconomics”

Real-World Economics Review, Issue 88, P. 51 (July 10, 2019)

Like everything in the Real-World Economics Review, this article really is an attack on the hegemony of neoclassical (i.e., anti-classical) economics. The main points this article makes therefore tacitly draw from classical economics, such as the distinction between use value and exchange value that was explained by Karl Marx in Das Kapital. Of course, these authors make no mention of Marx. They also suggest energy units as one alternative to GDP, similar to a concept promoted by R. Buckminster Fuller three or four decades ago but no such precedents are acknowledged in the article. They also normatively accept a “growth” model. There is a degree of self-promotion in this article, and it only briefly explains the ideological battle driving their critique. But the narrow technical points it makes are mostly sound.

Russiagate and Washington Meddling

With all the clamor over “Russiagate” (which is really just self-serving deflection of blame for Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election), it is worth noting a few examples of more extreme meddling by the USA in the affairs of other nations:

“Exposed: The Pentagon’s Cyberwar Against Russia”

“US Meddling in 1996 Russian Elections in Support of Boris Yeltsin”

Michael Hudson: I’m told that there was wholesale bribery. Officials in the Reagan administration told me that they just paid off foreign officials to support the U.S. position, not a New International Economic Order. U.S. agencies maneuvered within the party politics of European and Near Eastern countries to promote pro-American officials and sideline those who did not agree to act as U.S. satellites. A lot of money was involved in this meddling.

“De-Dollarizing the American Financial Empire”

and

Killing Hope