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roachboy · 01-14-2006, 09:13 AM

so we have yet another effect of contemporary politics---no agreement over what criteria one would use to evaluate the economy. it is hard not to link this to the right's media efforts to blur out the possibilities of informed judgement about matters like the economy, the environment, etc., as a form of defense of corporate interests.

it seems to me that no-one who gets analyses of the american economy published in popular form has taken the processes of globalizing capitalism into account at all. to what extent is the idea of a coherent geographical unit called "the american economy" even coherent? for example, most larger-scale production processes that are trmed "american" involves fabrication/assembly points not located in the states....stock, currency speculation, financial instruments--all have been trading internationally for year, and for the past decade or so more or less in real time. seems to me that the notion of a national economy is mostly obsolete, and that it is invoked primarily for ideological reasons--a kind of nostalgia on the one hand, and in order to maintain the illusion that the various factions that jockey for power within the horrifying political uniformity of the american scene are presenting coherent arguments about a definite object---mostly, though, it seems yet another example of the lag that seperates the mutation of capitalism from its ideological correlates.

i do not know what the significance would be in this context of the types of buying up of debt noted with some consternation in the op. what i do know is that the right press, in all its forms, would be the absolute last place i would look for anything interesting on the matter simply because the whole of right ideology is predicated on denying that the nation-state as a whole is even a problem, much less in trouble, much less increasingly obsolete.

think about the information presented in this thread as a problem rather than as a pretext for dueling sources. try it, ustwo: maybe you'll get a chance to take a timeout from your usual modus operandi and think a little bit.

01-14-2006, 09:13 AM	#21 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so we have yet another effect of contemporary politics---no agreement over what criteria one would use to evaluate the economy. it is hard not to link this to the right's media efforts to blur out the possibilities of informed judgement about matters like the economy, the environment, etc., as a form of defense of corporate interests. it seems to me that no-one who gets analyses of the american economy published in popular form has taken the processes of globalizing capitalism into account at all. to what extent is the idea of a coherent geographical unit called "the american economy" even coherent? for example, most larger-scale production processes that are trmed "american" involves fabrication/assembly points not located in the states....stock, currency speculation, financial instruments--all have been trading internationally for year, and for the past decade or so more or less in real time. seems to me that the notion of a national economy is mostly obsolete, and that it is invoked primarily for ideological reasons--a kind of nostalgia on the one hand, and in order to maintain the illusion that the various factions that jockey for power within the horrifying political uniformity of the american scene are presenting coherent arguments about a definite object---mostly, though, it seems yet another example of the lag that seperates the mutation of capitalism from its ideological correlates. i do not know what the significance would be in this context of the types of buying up of debt noted with some consternation in the op. what i do know is that the right press, in all its forms, would be the absolute last place i would look for anything interesting on the matter simply because the whole of right ideology is predicated on denying that the nation-state as a whole is even a problem, much less in trouble, much less increasingly obsolete. think about the information presented in this thread as a problem rather than as a pretext for dueling sources. try it, ustwo: maybe you'll get a chance to take a timeout from your usual modus operandi and think a little bit. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 01-14-2006 at 09:18 AM..