@ vk, Aug 19 2019 18:15 utc | 7

It's revealing how some Anglo American socialist/communist parties (like WSWS) not only are cheerleading the Hong Kong protests but also deny the hand of the American Empire and Trump regime in this political agitation.

Just like the mainstream corporate media, these US communists/socialists have thus censored or at least minimized the role of US "regime change" outfits like the National Endowment for Democracy in the protests; American bankrolling of supposed "pro-democracy" groups like the Hong Kong Human Rights Movement, the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the Civic Party, Labor Party, Democratic Party or the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions; or how HK protest leaders like media tycoon Jimmy Lai, Martin Lee, or Anson Chan are openly playing footsie with US regime leaders like Mike Pence, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, Nancy Pelosi, or former VP Joe Biden.

Hell, even the US Alt. Right has gotten into the act with Patriot Prayer honcho Joey Gibson actually participating in the anti-extradition protests.

Flip the script, and you can imagine what a hissy fit America would throw if China (or Russia) had intervened in the same manner with the Black Lives Matter protests, ANTIFA, or the Hawaiian Independence movement.

But when America does it on a massive scale around the world (and not just in China)?!

Crickets.

Behind a Made-for-TV Hong Kong Protest Narrative, Washington is Backing Nativism and Mob Violence
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/august/19/behind-a-made-for-tv-hong-kong-protest-narrative-washington-is-backing-nativism-and-mob-violence/

Follow the Money Trail Behind the Hong Kong Protests
https://www.globalresearch.ca/money-behind-hong-kong-protests/5686679

Despite all their overheated revolutionary rhetoric, on this issue, these American socialist/communist parties are effectively on the same side as frigging John BOLTON and Mike POMPEO--not to mention the same capitalistic American Empire and regime that these parties claim to oppose!

This includes Trotskyite organizations like WSWS but also self-styled "Maoists" like the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, a quasi-political cult led by Bob Avakian.

It brings new meaning to the phrase State Department Socialists. Indeed, WSWS loves to accuse rival left parties of being a Phony Left. But this moniker also applies to WSWS, as well.

And what does it say about these Anglo-American socialists that some anti-interventionist Libertarians like those affiliated with the Ron Paul Institute/Lew Rockwell or Tom Luongo below have a more critical perspective on these protests than WSWS, the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, or Democratic Socialists of America?

American Govt., NGOS Fuel and Fund Hong Kong Anti-Extradition Protests
http://ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2019/june/14/american-govt-ngos-fuel-and-fund-hong-kong-anti-extradition-protests/

Forget Iran, Maximum Pressure Has Shifted to China
https://tomluongo.me/2019/08/06/forget-iran-china-maxiumum-pressure/

It suggests that some of the Anglo-American Left is really just the left wing of the Anglo-American Empire.

American Interventionists of the Left and Right Unite--All You Have to Lose is Your Empire! ;-)

America’s “Hybrid War” against China has Entered a New Phase
https://www.globalresearch.ca/americas-hybrid-war-against-china-has-entered-a-new-phase/5686429?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles

Hong Kong in the Crosshairs of Global Power and Ideological Struggles
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2019/08/20/hong-kong-in-the-crosshairs-of-global-power-and-ideological-struggles/

Posted by: AK74 | Aug 21 2019 3:47 utc | 101

When we talk about FF, what's the first UsualSuspects
that cross the mind ?
That's right ...fukus.
fukus FF exploits are legendary and well documented.

Exhibit A
INdon genocide.

In case you forget...
IN the 1965 INdon gencide on ethnic Chinese,
MI6 planted disinfo in HK paper, accusing the Chinese 5th columns in Indon would be staging a coup with Beijing supplied arms,
CIA planted 'evidence' of 'Chinese arms' , complete with Chinese insignia, which's conveniently 'found' by Indon police.
sobs have a large cache of foreign arms , used for
precisely this kind of FF op.

The rest is history....
-----------------
From the horse mouth,..
The Indonesian covert action of 1965,

reported by Ralph McGehee, who was in that area division, and had documents on his desk, in his custody about that operation. He said that one of the documents concluded that this was a model operation that should be copied elsewhere in the world. Not only did it eliminate the effective communist party (Indonesian communist party), it also eliminated the entire segment of the population that tended to support the communist party - the ethnic Chinese, Indonesian Chinese. And the CIA's report put the number of dead at 800,000 killed. And that was one covert action. We're talking about 1 to 3 million people killed in these things.

Two of these things have led us directly into bloody wars. There was a covert action against China, destabilizing China, for many, many years, with a propaganda campaign to work up a mood, a feeling in this country, of the evils of communist China, and attacking them, as we're doing in Nicaragua today, with an army that was being launched against them to parachute in and boat in and destabilize the country. And this led us directly into the Korean war.
----------------

Both pft and assO insinuate about 'China's FF' .... with zero evidence of course.

This is the best they could offer...
'FF/agent provocateurs aint limited to the west you know ' !

How pathetic.
May be its just 'coincidence' that pft and assO both push the same meme here, sp are all rheotorics, no substance. ;-)

Posted by: denk | Aug 21 2019 3:56 utc | 102

ak741 101
*Forget Iran, Maximum Pressure Has Shifted to China
https://tomluongo.me/2019/08/06/forget-iran-china-maxiumum-pressure/*

Iran is just a mean , China is the end.
Sanctioning Iran would disrupt China's oil supply and a way to sow discord bet Iran./China,

New boss, same as old boss...
-------------
.'Anti-war activists are still fixated on Iran, but not Brzezinski is not - his target is China, TWENTY times bigger than Iran, with ICBMs ready to launch, followed by Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power. Such confused activists need to focus on stopping the next war - the final global showdown with Pakistan, China, and Russia. That means rejecting Brzezinski's puppet candidate Obama.'

https://rense.com/general81/abig.htm

Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump...
WTF's the difference ?
Same script, different actors

Posted by: denk | Aug 21 2019 4:16 utc | 103

...
Lam to establish platform for talks with protesters
Well, opening this lines helps China tactically in two ways:
...
Posted by: vk | Aug 21 2019 0:27 utc | 94

Except...
The protesters can (and will, imo) thwart Lam's offer by accusing her of "setting pre-conditions." The beauty of that ploy is that even "fair & reasonable" conditions can be rejected as pre-conditions.
The protesters aren't pursuing Freedom. They're pursuing Victimhood.

Posted by: Hoarsewhisperer | Aug 21 2019 5:00 utc | 104

Talking about FF, whom do you think of first ?
that's right, fukus, its practically synonymous with skullduggery.

ONly perverts like pft and assO could even suggest the ludicrous idea of a 'Chinese FF',..
'FF aint limited to the west you know !' [sic]
Yet they cant produce even a single example. !

While every five year old knows about CIA./MI6 due to its legendary exploits, how many here know who's the Chinese intel outfit ?
Its so 'notorious' that I bet not even one here can tell us the name of Chinese intel , LOL !

ON FUKUS FF, one of the most notorious case must be that Iraq caper.
Brit SAS agents in Arab garbs were caught red handed with their vehicle packed full of explosives.
They were thrown into jail pending charges, lo and behold, the Brits brazenly sent a couple of tanks to break the jail and extract their men .

forchrissake !
fukus were supposedly there to help the Iraqis fight terrorists !

Turns out those SAS guys came from the same death squads fighting the IRA in Ireland, where they committed lots of FF to justify Brit presence.

Now get this...London sent the leader of these death'squads to China as 'military attache' !

'Nelson’s handler was a man named Gordon Kerr, of the Forces Research Unit, established under Thatcher essentially to professionalise collusion. His subsequent career demolishes the ‘bad apple’ theory even further:

“He actually left the north under the cloud of being a mass murderer and involved in all these killings
– but then went on to become British military attaché in China!
Stevens put in a request to interview Kerr, and was told he had moved from China and was now on operational duties. He was actually based in Basra, in Iraq. Do you understand the significance? See all the covert killings that were going on in Iraq? There was an incident in Basra where two British operatives were dressed up in Arab dress at a checkpoint, and the local police tried to stop them but they killed them.

Then they were arrested and brought into the police station but a British tank came in and smashed down the walls to take them away. That was Kerr’s unit. So this is not only Belfast or the six counties that we’re talking about, this is transporting terror around the world and this is where they perfected their techniques.”

One wonders ,did Kerr engaged in some 'extra curricular activities' while in China, ,,,,like liaising with UIghurs 'freedom fighters', smuggling arms, that sort of stuff ?

https://www.countercurrents.org/glazebrook180810.htm

Posted by: denk | Aug 21 2019 8:58 utc | 105

Twitter continue its censorship, this time they attack "China":

Twitter Shuts down 200.000 accounts that counter the HK protests.
https://sputniknews.com/world/201908211076598671-twitter-bans-alleged-hong-kong-protests/

Posted by: Zanon | Aug 21 2019 10:18 utc | 106

@ Posted by: GV | Aug 21 2019 3:34 utc | 100

The protest was openly scheduled to happen at Victoria Park. We know that the concentrated mass never extrapolated the park itself, so the square number is the definite number.

Unless you want to spiritually designate every person who was walking on the streets that day a "protester", there's simply no reason to call the number of protesters "unknown". I mean, you don't believe those protesters are leaderless, do you?

Posted by: vk | Aug 21 2019 11:49 utc | 107

@ Posted by: assistanttolamcarrie | Aug 21 2019 1:27 utc | 97

What time were you there?

The protesters were not authorized to leave Victoria Park, in order to induce police violence, they left it and begun to walk on the streets either way. If you only caught the protests at that stage, you may have had the illusion it extrapolated the park and bled to the streets (when it wasn't the case).

I doubt the numbers reached much beyond 190,000 at the same time, as I told at my first comment on the issue (if the protests happened the whole evening, then you could sum the number of passerbies at inflate the number, as many protesters in the whole world do).

The only thing I'm pretty certain is that they don't have anything close to 1.7 million. If they had 1.7 million on their side (more than one fifth of the city's population), ready to protest, we would've been seeing general strikes and Carrie Lam would've already be gone.

This protest is essentially a student protest with some classes of sympathizers (mainly young people, born around and after 1997). They are probably mainly middle/upper middle class in its core (we can assume that because the demands are not economics-related and because they can protest all day, 24/7, therefore they don't need to work for a living). They definitely have USA material support.

Posted by: vk | Aug 21 2019 12:07 utc | 108

More news about HK:

China’s Soft-Power Failure: Condemning Hong Kong’s Protests

The whole empirical basis for the article? Twitter and Facebook's banning of 200,000 alleged "pro-China" trolls (bots/paid people).

So, I'm old enough to remember that the same NYT once published an editorial and many op-eds clamoring for Facebook and Twitter regulation and even a break up of Facebook. This was because Trump won the elections.

Now, all of a sudden, they are the guardians of democracy and freedom of speech; the perfect arbiters of neutrality and fairness. They are "evidence" China's "soft power move" was a "failure".

This is a typical case of projection. The NYT is actually talking about the West, not China. Twitter and Facebook probably banned 200,000 legitimate accounts, of legitimate Chinese users. Those Chinese users must've been using VPN to trespass the Mainland's firewall, or are westernized Chinese who live in the USA, Canada, UK or Australia. They are the fraction of the Chinese population who still believed the West has freedom of speech (as in opposition to the Mainland, who doesn't). Those are the Chinese the West should (because the chance is greater) try coopt. Now those Chinese know the firewall is to protect, not harm, the Chinese population; now they know the West has a more absurd and rampant propaganda machine than China.

This is a bad propaganda move by Facebook and Twitter.

For the same reason Russiagate failed: the American liberals tried to sell the idea Russia manipulated millions of Americans to vote for Trump in 2016. But the people who voted for Trump know they weren't influenced by Russian propaganda. This resulted in an even more stark polarization of the USA, and actually increased his chances of being reelected.

Posted by: vk | Aug 21 2019 12:23 utc | 109

" glaring social inequality and the lack of welfare services, affordable housing and job opportunities":
Does this remind you of anywhere?

Posted by: Johny Conspiranoid | Aug 21 2019 12:50 utc | 110

@VK 107.108

of course they make you assume that workers/shops/condo units were also joining the protesters. might as well add in the security apparatus. since they are coming and going, we can count them double or triple every two hours from 1300 - 1930 hrs. because they couldn't possibly locals who happened to choose a black shirt as an outfit for the day.

if EVERY person who is wearing an all black shirt within the 5km distace is counted, whether they are really protesting or not, the number couldn't be over 400k, including curious students, hardcore morons, and people who happened to wear an all black shirt.

Posted by: jason | Aug 21 2019 16:38 utc | 111

@89

A 'non-existent industrial base' overstates the predicament, Karlof. The US remains #3 in the world in industrial output, albeit as a significantly smaller % of GDP than #1 China (EU is barely ahead at #2). When you consider this status has held despite the massive global (and essentially 'reserve currency handicapping') demand for USDs, surely that says something about US manufacturing prowess? A re-patriated USD would lessen the headwinds for American industry.

Peter Navarro has been blunt, paraphrasing: "a nation without a domestic steel industry isn't a nation." The linkage of trade with national security is a marked recognition not seen in prior administrations that were essentially arbitraging American prosperity away in a globalist-inspired Managed Decline Arc. Again, $ reserve status (a Wall Street priority) cannot survive this epochal change if it's undertaken with the required comprehensiveness. The People vs The Banks. When the parasite exceeds the size of the host, the symbiosis has been overstayed and violated. Both organisms are obliged to die. The US economy has to be re-weighted towards productive output.

Industrial processes are iterative and evolutionary. A nation's experience curve can't suddenly resume at a later episode. Made in China 2025 has to be met with a US response. What's the alternative? Whether or not HK 'goes Tiananmen', China's capital/country risk profile has already upticked. Sure, NED and CIA are up to their eyeballs in the unrest. The provenance of the conflict is not a concern of capital which is quantitatively agnostic.

Trump is on record to get community banks out from under onerous Dodd-Frank regulations and/or reinstate in some limited measure Glass-Steagall. (See Presidential Executive Order on Core Principles for Regulating the United States Financial System, 2/7/17). Glass-Steagall repeal subjugated commercial lending (Main Street) to investment lending (Wall Street).

Economic populism is at odds with 'neoliberal orthodoxy'. There's simply been no evidence of Chinese tariffs fueling stateside inflation. On the contrary, China has been eating price increases, sacrificing profits(and burning dollars) to maintain market position.

Redirected trade flows via tariffs will spur product substitutions and afford domestic industry the headroom for stateside plant. Longer term, an educated work force will need to be spurred along. But we're talking about a multi-business cycle process that requires a second Trump term. Recessionary fears are overstated. I see a fighting chance. At least the battle has been taken up.

Posted by: FSD | Aug 21 2019 18:10 utc | 112

FSD @112 said: "At least the battle has been taken up."

Far too little and much too late. A "a multi-business cycle process" indeed! Perhaps 2100 will kick off the New American Century that the neolibcons fantasize about, but nobody here will see that in their lifetimes. To depend upon "The Market™" (hallowed be Its name) to re-industrialize the US Trump's tariffs will need to be much steeper and directed at all manufacturing nations.

Though there is one possible thing that could in short order turn America around while maintaining capitalism, but it isn't a turnaround that would be recognized as such by common Americans. On the contrary, Joe Sixpack would see it as an economic disaster the likes of which no American has ever experienced before. Here we're talking about the "re-patriated USD" that FSD claims "would lessen the headwinds for American industry."

That's one way to describe instant hyperinflation that would render American labor as cheap as dirt. But that labor is people and their labor being as cheap as dirt means their wages are dirt. People with dirt for wages don't buy very much, so America's domestic consumer economy will disappear. Perhaps at this point China could become the global center of consumption while America rebuilds its productive capacity?

I wouldn't count on it. China isn't playing "fair", and by "fair" I mean they are not relying upon the fickle vagaries of "The Market™" (hallowed be Its name) for their future. Rather than rolling dice in the marketplace, China's economic planners are placing the dice on the table with faces up that best suit the needs of the moment. America cannot do that without forsaking its capitalist identity.

This repatriation of US dollars scenario would mark the final end of the US as industrial/technological powerhouse. Maybe America could quickly transition to a pastoral/agrarian society with three hundred million subsistence farmers, but that would be a best case scenario, and that transition would likely be long and painful.

What does this have to do with Hong Kong? How about the fact that they have 0% chance of following America to that pastoral/agrarian "paradise". They would be better off thinking about how they can patch things up with the mainland.

Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 21 2019 20:21 utc | 113

William Gruff @113--

Dinner table political-economics saw us discussing the drive for $15/hr minimum wage and why such a wage's required--the insanely high cost of living driven by lack of public services paid for collectively by competing nations--specifically the 3 big electoral hot buttons of health care, education and infrastructure/public transportation. Trillions of public/private overhead could be lopped from the cost side of the equation--then--recapitalizing industrial production could be contemplated because it would be competitive and thus able to find markets. At the same time, the structure of taxation and finance would need to be radically reorganized to deprive the free lunch from the freeloaders and begin to diminish the massive debt overhead plaguing both the public and its government, with the goal to reach a point where MMT would work and neoliberalism be declared dead.

None of the above will be easy as a massive Political Fight will ensue as the free lunch Neoliberals will do their utmost to defend the gains they've made over the past 100+ years. Nor will it be instantaneous as much of the current Congress consists of Neoliberals and free lunch advocates who must be removed as a result of the Political Fight. Only then--perhaps--by 2025 will the USA have the political capacity to reform its political-economy so it can once again become competitive, but even more importantly--resilient.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 21 2019 21:12 utc | 114

@ karlof1 | Aug 21 2019 21:12 utc | 114

Reestablishing lost industrial capacity is likely impossible. The working skills for any industry have basically disappeared within five years of the closing of that industry and are not recoverable after a decade. It is doubtful working skills can be taught by a middle management that has never actually worked. Those industries such as iron and steel production, hard rock and coal mining, etc. are gone and the price for relearning them will be rivers of blood and mountains of bodies to regain the knowledge lost. In adition there are no economic or political institutions that would support such an effort or pay those costs. The rust belt will only get rustier.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 21 2019 21:25 utc | 115

I'll leave it at this. The ultimate repatriation of the USD back to its nation-of-origin post-reserve status promises to be a very very ugly and socially destabilizing process. This ugliness can be mitigated somewhat however if it returns within a climate of resumed domestic productive capacity. There's little point bemoaning a harrowing inevitability. Best case, things will mightily suck not as bad as they might otherwise. Another more dire scenario is that the MIC will not shrink without a whimper. Faced with using it or losing it, WW3 may look relatively palatable by comparison.

Posted by: FSD | Aug 21 2019 22:09 utc | 116

Formerly T-Bear @115 & FSD @116--

Alas, that's likely correct. I wrote a reply toward the root of the initial problem that took the politics out of economic study, which is what this 20-year-old essay details, that must be resolved; but, that still doesn't address the problem of how to transform the US political-economy into one resilient enough to provide for the masses while withstanding the upcoming rigors generated by the Climate Crisis--a process that China has already gone through and has plans for as was discussed 5-6 weeks ago. Aside from government intrusion into private lives and dealings of other nations, what comparative advantage does the USA actually possess that isn't subsidized? Sadly, I draw a blank.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 21 2019 23:20 utc | 117

117 Cont'd--

Was reminded about something fundamental I once pointed out to students--with GNP/GDP, all activities are held to be productive and thus adding to the total. But in reality, not all activities qualify as such--like all the monies wasted on weapons and maintenance of Empire and annual interest paid on debt that totals @$3 Trillion. Subtract that sum from GDP--once from the asset side and again from the liabilities side--and Real US GDP become about the same as China's and falling as assets decrease while liabilities increase. The situation's even worse when all other factors are combined into the calculation. Shadowstats SGS Alternative GDP "growth" tells the sad tale: actual GDP is much less than it was in 2000, never having recovered from the dotcom bubble's bursting. Perhaps the best depiction of Junk Economics that could be produced.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 0:11 utc | 118

Posted by: what did I just read | Aug 20 2019 22:00 utc | 90

"Trump stands at the sea shore and orders the tides to turn back."

Look at it this way though: if he pulls a Xerxes-at-the-Hellespont, it'll just prove what many have thought about him thus far...

Posted by: Anacharsis | Aug 22 2019 2:12 utc | 119

Yes, I can imagine Trumpkin throwing a tantrum. Maybe whip Greenland for not wanting to be the new land of the fee and home of the deprave.

Posted by: what did I just read | Aug 22 2019 2:36 utc | 120

That is a great mental cartoon. Thank you.

Posted by: Anacharsis | Aug 22 2019 3:05 utc | 121

@ karlof1 114, 117, 118

Caution: OT
My Bad. @ 115 should have been addressed to: William Gruff | Aug 21 2019 20:21 utc | 113 because late in the day, but interesting reply nonetheless. The study of economics not only must encompass politics and power but social information, psychological grounding as well as a firm grounding in the inherent complexities of human nature(s) (just to name a few).

Given the need to gainfully employ a large population far in excess of actual production requirements, only so many can be engaged at public expense without necessitating the need of increasing substantially, onerously public taxes. Maybe the answer is looking at us in the eye. Could be a benign form of 'slavery' might be the solution to employ excess labour supply. Certainly not the lifelong, industrial kind that history provides a malignant example of but rather a form where the wellbeing of those serving reflect positively on the character and quality of their 'master' employer giving higher social status for the level of benefice provided. This process may provide not only educational experience missing to those unemployed or unemployable in conducting themselves in the productive processes but also enhance an image of self worth so necessary for healthy psychological growth and matriculation to maturity (in addition to an income). Having served what would equate to an apprenticeship in some productive capacity, exiting this status would provide a public grant towards acquiring housing and establishing a family. Those using their income to employ others might be given tax shelter for their incomes while those not engages have their incomes severely taxed. Those employed in such a scheme must have full protection of and access to law, preventing or discouraging abusive conditions or relationships with employers, the courts required to provide an equitable forum for dispute settlement. What passes as capitalism has no capacity to provide a resolution to the problems it creates and mist eventually be replaced with a functioning economic structure. Until that time, great upheavals will continue that threaten to render what remains of the social fabric binding all together.

As for the end of USD reserve status. Those dollars used as international currency (replacing the gold standard as international currency equating money) are accounting artefacts, the balance being what is (erroneously) known as the U.S. national debt. When one disappears so does the other. Aggregate money allocated by government budget less aggregate taxes collected provides for currency in circulation. Great confusion ensues when confounding debit with debt; different animals in the economic vocabulary zoo, different economic ecologies, united by a vocabulary misunderstanding. Debt results from contract producing credit. Debit is an accounting device to balance an accounting credit in double entry bookkeeping and has no relationship with debt whatsoever, contrary to what ignorance may believe.

Posted by: Formerly T-Bear | Aug 22 2019 9:12 utc | 122

karlof1 @ 118 says:

actual GDP is much less than it was in 2000, never having recovered from the dotcom bubble's bursting

in fact, there's a good possibility that positive GDP doesn't exist at all, but, you know, just that most economists tend to be real dreamers, i.e., full of shit.

It is entirely possible that GDP growth is simply an artifact of not counting all of the costs of production(PCR)

without much background in economics, this has been obvious to me for many years. it's just a game of numbers, manipulated by theories, all totally detached from meatspace reality. talk of bubbles, currency wars, negative interest rates, debt accrued in the trillions, etc., is meaningless incantation. superstition.

the only meaningful side of all this is in the external costs that are never considered…

a ravaged, wheezing planet.

Posted by: john | Aug 22 2019 11:09 utc | 123

john @123--

I think you'll learn quite a lot from this 20 year-old paper Hudson produced as a contribution to an anthology, "The Use and Abuse of Mathematical Economics", which exposes the root causes of how political-economics was deprived of its more important political component leaving us with mathematical gobbledygook. What follows is a portion of Hudson's Introduction then his thesis:

"The education of modern economists consists largely of higher mathematics whose use remains more metaphysical than empirically measuring the most important underlying trends. It is now over a century since John Shield Nicholson (1893:122) remarked that 'The traditional method of English political economy was more recently attacked, or rather warped,' by pushing the hypothetical or deductive side . . . to an extreme by the adoption of mathematical devices. . . . less able mathematicians have had less restraint and less insight; they have mistaken form for substance, and the expansion of a series of hypotheses for the linking together of a series of facts. This appears to me to be especially true of the mathematical theory of utility. I venture to think that a large part of it will have to be abandoned. It savors too much of the domestic hearth and the desert island.

"If today’s economics has become less relevant to the social problems that formed the subject matter of classical political economy a century ago, its scope has narrowed in large part because of the technocratic role played by mathematics. This paper asks whether this has been an inherent and inevitable development. Has the narrowing of scope of economics since the anti-classical reaction of the 1870s – the so-called neoclassical revolution of William Stanley Jevons, Carl Menger, and later of Alfred Marshall and his followers, culminating in today’s Chicago School – been inherent in the mathematization of economics? Or, does it follow from the particular way in which mathematics has been applied?

"What is the proper role for mathematics to play? Is there such a thing as bad mathematical economics? What kinds of problems do its formulations tend to exclude?"

Yes, the essay's lengthy as it's serving as the rehearsal for what would later become Hudson's important J is for Junk Economics. But if we want to know how we arrived at the current state of affairs regarding economics, it's a paper that must be read.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 16:01 utc | 124

karlof1

thanks for that. might be a little like drinking dark beer, but i'll read it, though i suspect you've already provided the takeaway quote:

I venture to think that a large part of it will have to be abandoned

Posted by: john | Aug 22 2019 16:33 utc | 125

FSD112
*The linkage of trade with national security is a marked recognition not seen in prior administrations*

Pray tell,

How does a Huawei network in Nepal, Solomon Island,ETC etc...
pose a 'national security risk' to the [[[five liars]]] ?

' the American embassy had strongly opposed installation of the computer networking software developed by Chinese company, Huawei Telecom in the war room at the PMO and computer networking in the cabinet ministers’ secretariat. Later, the government was compelled to cancel the agreement with the Huawei company and rewarding the company recommended by the Americans.'

https://www.peoplesreview.com.np/2019/03/20/olis-foreign-policy-under-the-us-trap/

Posted by: denk | Aug 22 2019 17:00 utc | 126

John @123

"there's a good possibility that positive GDP doesn't exist at all...It is entirely possible that GDP growth is simply an artifact of not counting all of the costs of production"

The fact you have to pay borrowers for the pleasure of accepting your loanable funds doesn't exactly inspire confidence that vast avenues to growth exist out there in the world. Capitalism enriches a tight enclave of shareholders while ravaging off-balance sheet (public) assets such as the environment with hidden costs (a violation of Accounting's matching principle). Phalanxes of corporate lawyers keep true cost reconciliations at bay. Occasionally, a class-action battle ensues.

Posted by: FSD | Aug 22 2019 17:03 utc | 127

Must read for every Chinese.....especially if you'r one of the Hk 'freedom fighters', know the true face of your 'friends' in high place....

A martian reading the western MSM would be forgiven if he get the impression that the [[[five liars]]] are all 'panda huggers', the way they keep bleating on and on about their 'concern about freedom fighters
in HK'.

Lately,
The [[[five hypocrites]]] led ENA even has the audacity to demand 'the immediate release of democracy protestors, with all charges dropped' !

Somebody must be missing the good ole days, when China, pumped full of opium, was calved up into eight pieces by the barbarians,.

Which begs the question...
Where'r these 'panda huggers' during the 1965 CIA/MI6 orchestrated genocide of Chinese Indonesians. ?

Where'r they during the 1998 CIA/MI6 orchestrated pogrom of Chinese Indonesians. ?
In Three weeks of organised orgy, many Chinese were murdered and hundreds, if not thousands of their women, many who'r barely legal, were gang raped by drug crazed mobs.
Some of the victims were so mutilated , they had to seek treatment in Singapore's hospitals, some nurses and doctors who attended to the victims were shocked by their hideous condition and broke down.

I'd spare readers from the gory details and horrid images, here's one of the more tebid account...
http://www.colorq.org/HumanRights/article.aspx?d=Indonesia&x=Jakarta

Not a peep from the 'international commnities' aka [[[five hypocrites]]], no appeal to stop the crimes,no hissing threat from fukus , asking Jakarta to reign in the mobs or else....

MInd you,
Clinton could stop the carnage in five min, all it take is a call to Suharto, who'd answer 'how high my lord'whenever uncle sham bark, 'jump'.
Yes, fukus didnt lift a finger, literally, to help those defenseless Chinese in Indonesia 1965,1998 and Malaysia 1963.

YOu think [[[they]]] give a rat ass about 'freedom fighters'in HK ?

Moral of the story...
Not all Chinese are born equal,
Who you'r depends on where you squat,

Hence
Chinese in HK are 'freedom fighters', aka useful assets.
Chinese in Indon are useless eaters, [Suharto's the useful asset there !]

or for that matter,
Not all muslim are born equal,

Hence...
MUslim militants in Xinjiang are 'freedom fighters',
Muslim militants in Kashmir are 'terrorists'

I cant help repeating myself,
but there's a sucker born every min who needs to be reminded.

-------------------

Published: March 20, 1999

U.S. KEEPS SILENT ABOUT PERSECUTION OF

ETHNIC CHINESE IN INDONESIA

EDITOR'S NOTE: The U.S. government has spoken freely about human rights violations in Asia, especially in China and Burma (Myanmar). Yet extremely serious violations in Indonesia have gone un-remarked, notes PNS commentator Peter Dale Scott, despite the fact that the U.S. plays a significant role in that region.
Scott, a former Canadian diplomat is a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

By Peter Dale Scott
PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

----snip---

Posted by: denk | Aug 22 2019 17:23 utc | 128

john @125--

Thanks for your reply! Funny, I enjoy dark beer--porters and stouts--and history, too. Here's another excerpt:

"Marx (Capital, I:14) defined political economy’s task as being “to lay bare the economic laws of motion of modern society.” By contrast, equilibrium theory describes how market relations might settle at a stable resting point if only the world were something other than it is. An economic universe is envisioned that is not in political motion and that is not polarizing. This hypothetical world is characterized by automatic self-adjusting mechanisms, so that active government policies appear unnecessary. It is a world free of the financial dynamics of debt growing at compound rates of interest.

"One must suspect a political reason for the aversion felt by economic model-builders to the real world’s financial dynamics. To acknowledge their tendency to create structural problems would imply just what it did in Sumerian and Babylonian times: The desired economic balance must be restored by fiat, that is, from outside the economic system. Neglect of the debt overhead therefore is a prerequisite for economic models to generate laissez faire conclusions. A 'what if' universe is postulated – the kind of world that might exist if finance capital were not a problem. After all, what is not quantified is less likely to be perceived and regulated."

In fact, using a Ctrl-f word search for marx allows for a decent skimming of the essay, for Marx provided the most concise analyses of political-economy and was thus the most important person to attack and airbrush from the practice of economics. But if you do that, you'll miss out on this gem:

"The moral of all this is that there are different kinds of mathematical economics. What the Cornell philosopher E. A. Burtt referred to the metaphysical foundation of modern physical science has become a politically tinged metaphysics in the hands of monetarists and neoclassical economists. Just how far their non-quantitative spirit diverges from the origins of economics is reflected in the closing words of David Hume’s Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding:

"'When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make? If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.'"

That sums up the Chicago School's Monetarists and their allies, and they're the ones running the USA and those associated with it into the ground despite--or because of--the umbrella of global empire from which to extract their free lunch.

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2019 17:40 utc | 129

17 number inflation

By the same, or the mirror-image, token, massive protests against the Iraq War and sizable protests in DC were majorly undercounted.

And photos (in the WaPo) showed freaky-looking march participants with pierced noses and blue hair and no families pushing a pram or with Granny there as well.

Posted by: Really?? | Aug 22 2019 19:27 utc | 130

Obviously your calculations are wrong. The F'ing Nazis were gassing 1,000 Jews at a time in the space of a 2 car garage. That's way more than 2/metre.

Posted by: Curmudgeon | Aug 23 2019 0:25 utc | 131

FSD112
*Peter Navarro has been blunt*

Pete [all our ills are belong to China] Navarro is a nut case that make BOlton looks lame.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/02/peter-navarro-trump-trade-china-214772

Peter Navarro has been blunt

Posted by: denk | Aug 23 2019 3:24 utc | 132

I've agreed with many articles Moon of Alabama has written, but s/he is off on this one.

I say this while also believing that the 1.7 million estimate was an exaggeration.

But the turnout was definitely more than 128,000.

Moon apparently only paid attention to those assembled on or near the football pitches at Victoria Park and ignored the many who tried to join the march after it began.

So many tried to march on the main route, which was not officially closed for the march, that it couldn't accommodate them all, forcing marchers to take to parallel roads into and out of the park. (In this case, the New York Times was pretty much on target.)

Even if we accept the police estimate as true, the size of this crowd was still bigger than the police estimate of the previous day's pro-police rally (108,000), which was the biggest pro-government demonstration since these protests began.

What surprised me was that so many people came out for the march given the rain and what had happened at the airport the previous week.

Posted by: Guest | Aug 24 2019 9:06 utc | 133

Your blog is filled with unique good articles! I was impressed how well you express your thoughts.

Posted by: Games without WiFi I | Sep 3 2019 8:48 utc | 134