Comments by "Kim O\x27Brien" (@kimobrien.) on "Then & Now" channel.

  1.  @tj-co9go  No its not its capitalist greed and the inability to shore up profit rates which go into decline after the capitalist build giant industries.
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  2.  @lavpreet5916  Of course it's not a "free market" no boss wants to give up his business to a new competitor and the corruption of a Democratic Republic by a small group of very wealthy citizens is the inevitable result. Capitalism is racked by economic crisis caused by the very way it works each industry and sector of the economy affect each other. Everyone is competing to make the biggest profit rates. Which translates into the highest level of exploitation. If roads aren't built cars can't be sold. Ford wanted to build cars but you need roads to drive them on so he wanted the government to build them. You need oil to fuel cars and railroads to move massive amounts of freight. When the ruling capitalist decide they need something big they head straight to the government. They had built a few toll roads as the first interstate highways. This was the cold war as so if it was a matter of national defense almost anything could pass Congress despite the cost. So Eisenhower pushed though the National Defense and Interstate highway act. Same with the Federal Reserve bank. A national bank had been a project of Hamilton. But the first and second national banks had been shut down. Now an economic crisis had hit and financier Morgan i believe had to bail the rest of them out. So they pushed through the federal reserve act as a way to save the private banking industry. They have to constantly bail themselves out of crisis every ten or so years or go to war to destroy their world market competition. It was true in Europe when England and Germany were the leading capitalist nations. The destroyed themselves in two world wars. Out of which the victors of the second Imperialist War the US France UK and Soviet Union set up the current world system of global trade and production originally excluding China and the the Soviet Bloc countries except at the UN but China didn't even get a seat at the UN until the end of the Vietnam war. The very thing that drives the profits in the direction of capital is new technology that saves labor time and ends up making more production possible also ends up flooding markets that can't buy back what can be produced. Over time the rate of profits for giant industries go into decline because the value of the capitol keeps rising while living labor the source of profits goes down. Milton Friedman advised them that they have no social responsibility. So this is the world you get where they ride roughshod over everyone else in a scramble for bigger profits from the latest idea no matter how foolish. If the capitalist invest in driving up fictitious capital value it inevitable collapses. You can explain to me how the whole thing isn't a rigged game when you are a billionaire who has politicians of both parties in their pockets and can go for a bailout because he's too big to fail. Unless your one of the in crowd from an elite University your getting nowhere fast in the big businessman's circles.
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  3.  @ScotttheCyborg  We are interested in how good the bosses are at crying poverty. When the cost of labor goes up workers have more money to spend on things we need so production shifts away from luxury goods towards things working people need. The bosses lose out on the profits which they would waste in driving up the value of fictitious capital anyway instead the find themselves employing more workers producing things workers need. Of course they will try and counter that which is why it's called a class struggle.
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  4.  @ScotttheCyborg  Inflation happens because the bosses control the central bank and money printing for themselves. That's why we advocate COLA escalator clauses in contracts and social benefits. We propose workers control of industry and raising the cultural level of the working class in place of the bosses regulatory agencies. We don't need some government regulator who works for the bosses government and is beholden to them. All they do is rotate from regulator agencies to corporate posts anyway. Nor do we expect the Swiss bankers government to be leading any kind of revolution. Next time you bankers break into sweat it's probably because your profit system has generated another economic crisis by driving up the speculative value of capital until it collapses.
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  5.  @lavpreet5916  Seems to me the capitalist state needs to be disbanded in a revolution like the early Soviet Union and today's Cuba. You need to get rid of capital markets along with markets for healthcare and education than you can work on getting rid of other markets for human needs as production permits. In Cuba they told the government officials and private administrators that they were going to be able to use their positions to exploit others anymore. They never had a problem educating enough people despite the ability of those who wanted to leave for the United States being allowed to go. The industries need to be under workers control then you are going to have train wrecks like in East Palestine, Ohio. The railroads, auto companies and pubic roads are obvious cases of capitalist neglect and the use of education and healthcare to drain everyone dry who gets sick or wants to learn. When I went to school teachers didn't buy our paper, crayons or pencils. The were afraid of the Soviet Unions success in space and implemented the national defense education act. They built suburban high schools with labs that rivaled those of undergraduates at MIT. The idea that you need to limit government expense but not the role of government as something separate and standing as arbiter above is the problem.
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  6.  @secrets.295  It's not always cheaper to set up in a third world country besides they face the same problems from workers in those countries they do here. You set up elsewhere you may not have the infrastructure or shipping distance for finished product or raw materials problems or language problems without enough skilled workers. You build a factory in the desert what do you expect? Nor do I control what Biden or the US Gov't does.
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  7. Actualy just like the 1776 revolution the civil war delt blows to racism especially in the New Reconstruction governments. Black men served in Congress and as governors in the South. The first public schools for all races were built in the South. Andrew Johnson had been a Democrat who was put on the ticket ax a compromise to get Lincoln reelected.
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