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If you started talking about deaths of despair, you'd have to start talking about de-industrialization and how the Fed lied about it to give Congress political

If you started talking about deaths of despair, you'd have to start talking about de-industrialization and how the Fed lied about it to give Congress political cover [1]. Can't go there. [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-12/shares-of-real-gdp-don-t-give-the-real-story-of-manufacturing https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-03-12/shares...

eli_gottlieb 6y ago
Well in 2016, to talk about de-industrialization would have helped the designated "outsider" candidates, despite the fact that one of those, Bernie Sanders, was not Donald Trump.
- rmrfstar 6y ago
  Aren't both political parties equally culpable for the destruction? A frank discussion about industrial policy would not inure to the benefit of any established political actor. It's a story of breathtaking incompetence, callousness, greed, and self-deception.
  - eli_gottlieb 6y ago
    > Aren't both political parties equally culpable for the destruction? Yes, they are, and in 2016, both political parties faced outsider candidates running surprisingly strong campaigns in their Presidential primaries on explicitly repudiating different aspects of neoliberalism, including deindustrialization. But one of those candidates was Donald Trump, and it was much more important to point out what a rude, crude bastard he was, 24/7, than to discuss the issues of political economy raised by the outsider populists. The point was to crush them, to avoid anyone in the political sphere questioning deindustrialization and financialization. Four years later, we know that trying to silence populism while also giving Trump, a populist, 24/7 earned-media coverage did not work. At the time, though, people expected it to work.
    - rmrfstar 6y ago
      Saying that a nation ought to manage its industrial capacity in a deliberate way isn't necessarily a populist position.

eli_gottlieb 6y ago

Well in 2016, to talk about de-industrialization would have helped the designated "outsider" candidates, despite the fact that one of those, Bernie Sanders, was not Donald Trump.

rmrfstar 6y ago
Aren't both political parties equally culpable for the destruction? A frank discussion about industrial policy would not inure to the benefit of any established political actor. It's a story of breathtaking incompetence, callousness, greed, and self-deception.
- eli_gottlieb 6y ago
  > Aren't both political parties equally culpable for the destruction? Yes, they are, and in 2016, both political parties faced outsider candidates running surprisingly strong campaigns in their Presidential primaries on explicitly repudiating different aspects of neoliberalism, including deindustrialization. But one of those candidates was Donald Trump, and it was much more important to point out what a rude, crude bastard he was, 24/7, than to discuss the issues of political economy raised by the outsider populists. The point was to crush them, to avoid anyone in the political sphere questioning deindustrialization and financialization. Four years later, we know that trying to silence populism while also giving Trump, a populist, 24/7 earned-media coverage did not work. At the time, though, people expected it to work.
  - rmrfstar 6y ago
    Saying that a nation ought to manage its industrial capacity in a deliberate way isn't necessarily a populist position.