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Matt Taibbi: Tracking Orwellian Change: New Meanings of "Deep State" and "Working Class"(racket.news)

23 points22 points25 points submitted by penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable

penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 9 months ago

Excellent compilation of data and graphs.

A conformance of financial events, do you know of a timeline anywhere? Going off the gold standard (1972?), the financialization of the economy, not sure when the de-industrialization and outsourcing took off, what were the other factors?

ageingrockstar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun 9 months ago

Even though I don't think it's mentioned anywhere, I'm pretty sure that the site title is meant to directly reference the U.S. going off the gold standard in August 1971 (you were just slightly out). I don't think the site is pretending everything stems from that one big change, just that it's a significant marker and makes for a very interesting point to look at for trends before and after. Going off the gold standard made financialisation / hypothecation much easier of course.

penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 9 months ago

Great, that answered my question.

ageingrockstar 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun 9 months ago

At the risk of over answering your question, 1944 is another significant date in the timeline, as that's when the US Dollar became the world's global reserve currency (through the Bretton Woods agreement), and deindustrialisation became 'baked in' for the U.S. economy, due to the Triffin Dilemma (not a great article but an ok overview). But the 'exorbitant privilege' of being the world's global currency probably benefited the working class in the U.S. and the western countries close to it for those first 3 decades, before financialisation enabled the banking class to retain most of that privilege for themselves.

penelopepnortneyBecome ungovernable[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun 9 months ago

Thanks for these links. I had heard about the bancor proposal but forgotten it, and have read analyses that basically say the rest of the world subsidizes US debt, which is what the "exorbitant privilege" sounds like from a cursory reading of that page. It's all so complex it's hard to wrap my head around, especially hearing from analysts (who aren't economists but follow all this closely) that the eurodollar is the real engine of the entire global system and where it could all go sideways. The problem is that there isn't consensus, or where there is consensus it's around the orthodox thinking that led us to where we are.