Nothing New Under the Sun (Updated).

 

 
Maybe things are different elsewhere, but in Australia you can hardly read the news or watch TV news reports without hearing about how hard it is for local businesses to recruit staff. And you hear those tales of woe whether unemployment is high or low, in good or in bad times.

After a while, if one pays attention, one realises that kind of story seems to follow a template or a script.

Unfrequently Asked Questions: Is China Really Communist?

Courtesy of the ABC.

On a recent Q&A session on China and the 100th anniversary of the CCP, Bill Birtles (formerly ABC’s China correspondent), Bang Xiao (ABC’s bilingual journalist specialising in China), Stan Grant (ABC’s foreign affairs analyst) and Yun Jiang (Australian National University) answered questions from the public.

Clinton asked: “China’s system of governance seems totally at odds with any definition of communism. Or am I alone thinking this?”

Bill Mitchell’s Uphill Battle (Updated).

 

(source)

It’s a good thing that Prof. Bill Mitchell – one of MMT founders – is as tenacious as he has a sense of humour, for he is fighting an uphill battle.

The passage you see above comes from a recent chat he had with Steven D. Grumbine, host of the Macro & Cheese podcast (audio and transcript). By itself, the fact Grumbine decided to make a meme suggests how much commentary that bit must have caused among Leftists.

Unfrequently Asked Questions: Expropriation of Capital?

(source)

 

I must admit that I wrote this post with hesitancy. There are at least two reasons for that.

Firstly, because I was not elected Great Inquisitor and Defender of the Faith by my fellow orthodox Marxists. As readers should know, we members of the All-Powerful Secret Orthodox Marxist Monolith of Fanatical Intransigence are obsessed with repressing a rag tag band of enlightened commentators bravely fighting for the good of humankind against our evil ways. So my self-appointed position is not specially strong: I lack the legitimacy that one such election (particularly a unanimous one, as you would expect from orthodox Marxists) conveys.