Paul Craig Roberts On The Biggest Bubble, Globalization, Left and Right,

Broadcast 3/27/2013 at 11:30 PM EDT (1214 Listens, 743 Downloads, 3696 Itunes)
The Rob Kall Bottom Up Radio Show Podcast

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Paul Craig Roberts

Former Editor at Wall Street Journal, POlicy director at the Treasury

New Book

The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West 

paulcraigroberts.org

Very rough interview notes

mostly my questions

Rob: You wrote, in your new book, "The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the rise of the high speed Internet have proved to be the economic and political undoing of the West." I thought the end of the Soviet Union was a good thing" 

Rob:You also attributed the collapse to the high speed internet"  How did it play a role. 

 in your article, When Truth is Suppressed, Countries Die.

discussion of how outsourcing of production kills innovation. 

20 MIT professors issued a report that we're in the process of losing the ability to innovate. 

Labor arbitrage-- 

Can you define arbitrage?

Rob: You write in your book, "Globalism and financial concentration have destroyed the justifications of market capitalism. Corporations that have become "too big to fail" are sustained by public subsidies, thus destroying capitalism's claim to be an efficient allocator of resources. Profits no longer are a measure of social welfare when they are obtained by creating unemployment and declining living standards in the home country."

Rob: When you talk of globalism,  you really mean corporate globalism, which is the only kind of globalization that exists now. In a sense globalism has created a system that transcends nations and democracy. 

Article: It Has Happened Here  

Rob: You wrote: 

While Left And Right Fight, Power Wins

My experience with the American left and right leads to the conclusion that the left sees private power as the source of oppression and government as the countervailing and rectifying power, while the right sees government as the source of oppression and a free and unregulated private sector as the countervailing and rectifying power. Both are concerned with restraining the power to oppress, but they take opposite positions on the source of the oppressive power and remedy.

The right is correct that government power is the problem, and the left is correct that private power is the problem. Therefore, whether power is located within the government or private sectors cannot reduce, constrain, or minimize power.

Our Founding Fathers' solution was to minimize the power of government and to rely on contending factions among private interests to prevent the rise of an oligarchy. In the event that contending private interests failed, the oligarchy that seized the government would not have much public power to exercise.

The Founding Fathers' design more or less worked except for interludes of civil war and economic crisis until the cold war built up the power of government and the deregulation of the Clinton and Bush presidencies built up the power of private interests. It all came together with the accumulation of new, dictatorial powers in the executive branch in the name of protecting us from terrorists and with deregulation's creation of powerful corporations "too big to fail."

Rob: Do you see a way that left and right can find common ground?

Rob: It seems that we have two political parties that are both on the corporate side. 

Rob: Could a leader, a strong president end our participation in the global trade agreements?

Rob: Are we in the middle of a dollar bubble right now, a money bubble?

Paul Craig Roberts: "When the dollar bubble pops we will have the biggest economic disaster in history."

Rob: What do you think of a no-billionaires policy?

PCR "They have financialized the economy."

Debt peonage

Rob: What would a collapse of the banking system look like. 

Rob: This (deregulation) is what Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics  advocated for. 

Rob: what the Democrats don't understand is that the Democrats are to the right of Reagan

Rob: We're grateful that you send your articles to us (opednews) to publish.

Rob: How do you respond to critics who say you were with Reagan, that you created supply side economics.

Rob: Would you say that re-instating Glass Steagal would be a good step now?

Rob: transition from Top-down to bottom up-- do you see positive ways that bottom transition is helping?

Rob: Those are sites that you trust?

New Pope, 

Senate passes First budget in four years

Social Security

America's response to 911-- homeland security

Rob: YOu wrote, in your article, When Truth is Suppressed, Countries Die.

"If those who speak truth cannot be bought off or shut up, they are ignored or demonized. Almost everything Americans need to know is off limits in public discussion. Anyone who broaches the truth becomes an "anti-American," a "terrorist sympathizer," a "commie-socialist," a "conspiracy theorist," an "anti-semite," a "kook," or some other name designed to scare Americans away from the message of truth.

But you also talked about the problem of quackery on the web. How do you sort them out. 

Rob: Wouldn't you agree that that the role and responsibility of an internet site to provide forms of moderation and curation. 

Rob: What are some of the issues that are not permitted that need to be discussed?

PCR: 911, war crimes of the Bush and Obama administrations, policies of Israel, pointing out that offshoring is not free trade, 

Rob:What do you think of the state of capitalism now?

Rob: What's your impression on the Catholic church the vatican and the new Pope

Rob: What's your take on the current state of the middle east. Obama just went there" 

American invasions don't bring freedom and democracy-- they bring breakup and chaos"

Rob: a few months ago, I interviewed Noam Chomsky and he pretty much said the same thing. 

rob: Where does Israel get so much power in the US?

rob: What about Christian Zionists? What's their role?

Hagee

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