"Freedom" thread or something

My original point was just the role of capital and capital owners seems to have become pre great depression levels but in a way worse since, at the risk of sounding conservative, various "stability" policies just keep wealth afloat and not turning over. Thus the whole QE thing being really one massive bailout imho and I think that is something that is never spoken about, (maybe not even realized). It and it's impacts have had near 0 benefit for most of us, but a boon for the top and I do question how much of it is sincere or just more of the same. I mean OWS became so huge, Piketty and this talk of inequality and capital but no one realizes/speaks how wealth has rebounded and then some thanks to QE or the "Greespan Put" of never letting anything go wrong ever, and never letting asset prices fall. Ideology or boon for the capital class and its benefactors? 

Really, I don't (and no one can) deny the global benefit...I just look at it through a US lens. Not being of the capitalist class,  I say it's not unjustified to view it via country benefit and not global 

Yeah that is all fair. It's why I more or less endorse very pro labor policies and let the cards fall where they do in regards to the rest. Only so much can be done anyway, especially today where a MNC can have its factories in Vietnam but run its profits through a shell company in Ireland and stash the money in a Luxembourg bank Unless truly global rules and standards are adopted, and I dont see this happening, I guess it is what it is. There will be collusion and countries will compete or bend rules to attract companies. Be it exchange rate manipulation, lax enviro standards/working conditions, low wages, or basically paying the company to move there. 

Probably easier to simply let it all happen and counter these measures. Or as you say, pursue whatever policy you want, (like environmental) and devise programs to offshoot whatever job/income loss comes. Does seem to me the free market crowd is trying to win an impossible battle, I just don't see the US, Western/Central Europe etc "winning" the competition over let's say Bangladesh so why keep lowering various standards? I know I'm spoiled...$2/hr, 12 hours a day for 6 days a week is often the best opportunity in some places and they will accept toxic dumping, pollution, poor work standards to get it but I'd rather not see the US devolve into that

And not that labor isn't fee to move, in itself, but ya know I can't exactly just up and move to Vietnam. And I'm young and single, imagine if I had a family! 

I know very well the arguments in support of free trade, globalization, all of it and I know there are some advantages but even I find it hard to totally swallow the results. Here in the states "Outsourcing" has become a word that causes left and right to both spit in anger, and the perpetual lack of job security in so many positions doesnt help. The intl competition I think has brought some negative results and pressures, that need to be countered in some way (prob by gov spending) So I think that could very well be a reason for increasing disengagement. 

And we've discussed the various way this feeling is manifesting in the US and Europe, extreme libertarian/anti gov shifts or dis-integration and xenophobia fueled nationalism

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Maybe it's just too 'harsh' but I can't believe progressives like Krugman or Stiglitz, or even Piketty, made note of how wealth has rebounded instantly. Call me a free marketer but I thought financial crisis and failure was the ultimate key to wealth turnover and prevent an aristocracy from forming. More than tax changes and etc I just think the rise of finance and Fed behavior of never letting anything bad happen, is largely to blame.

That's a great point, the global response does indeed show just that: leftism is dead. Even the UK didn't pursue a gov solution, just more modern ideas like QE. Heck even the US response was quite mild. 

Indeed, as discussed here before I don't think current Keynesian thought is necessarily the best way to go. 

The painful but perhaps better way is to prevent the crises...restrain and regulate, or some have even mentioned capital controls again. I still am interested in the idea of jobs programs though of course it should be well thought out at the local level

But yeah, even a mild liberal response is better than austerity, and Europe should prove this. 

I think Keynes did very meaningful work in defining an economic role for the state.  I am not really well versed in the history of economics so I cannot say if it was done before.  But it is certainly far removed from neo classical theory.  He tackled the question of how the state might mobilise savings to raise public investment which in turn would create jobs and thereby more demand, leading to more production and more jobs, etc.  The best application of Keynesianism was probably observed in East Asian economies.  I don't support their repression of household savings as well as taking away several civil liberties  as a means to the end.  But they have been far more successful than say India in propelling economic development through investment.  It took far too long for India's economic think tanks to appreciate the importance of high savings to push investment.  And even thereafter, nothing much has been done to deepen the reach of its financial sector to tap into savings locked in hard assets like gold and landholdings.  It would appear that, especially since the 60s, Keynesian theory was used to fund welfare in the Western economies and welfare can stimulate demand by putting money in the hands of customers but does not by itself create productive assets. The East Asian economies created both productive assets as well as physical and social infrastructure.  I am not saying their strategy did not have its own set of adverse consequences, but if the ultimate aim of government is the alleviation of poverty and providing a reasonable level of prosperity to many of its citizens, they were far more successful at that than India.