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By Torus34
#15158051
Professor Paul Krugman, in his articles dealing with economics, uses the term 'Zombies' for certain beliefs in that field. Zombies are those beliefs/myths that have been thoroughly discredited and debunked but still manage to surface time and again, raggedly clad and lurching along. It's a useful mental picture.

Zombies also exist in political talking points. Again and again on talk radio, talking head TV shows, 'analysis' in the news media writ large and 'net political forums, the same untrue phrases pop up. I've pretty much given up on attempting to rebut them. It's like trying to hold back the tide with a teaspoon. [Ed.: Sisyphus, anyone?]

One that particularly irks this old observer of the passing parade staggers into view whenever a change in the minimum wage is mentioned. 'It will cost jobs!' follows, with almost the certainty of night following day. I'll not bother to dissect it for the readership here.

Do you have a 'zombie' that sets your teeth on edge?

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
By Torus34
#15158058
late wrote:The Republican party..


Hi!

Thanks for taking time to read my OP and post a comment. To be honest, I was looking for responses that would, how do you say, narrow things down a tad.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.
By late
#15158063
Torus34 wrote:
Hi!

Thanks for taking time to read my OP and post a comment. To be honest, I was looking for responses that would, how do you say, narrow things down a tad.

Regards, stay safe 'n well.



When Nixon had the break in done at Watergate, what was broken into was the office of the Democratic party. He was trying to undermine democracy.

When Newt pressed impeachment charges he knew were false, he was trying to overturn an election, which would undermine democracy.

Over the years, they have just gotten worse, but the nature of what they are is unchanged.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007V65OLG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1
By Torus34
#15158078
late wrote:When Nixon had the break in done at Watergate, what was broken into was the office of the Democratic party. He was trying to undermine democracy.

When Newt pressed impeachment charges he knew were false, he was trying to overturn an election, which would undermine democracy.

Over the years, they have just gotten worse, but the nature of what they are is unchanged.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007V65OLG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1



Hi!

From what you posted, I can't winkle out any little talking point that's A). A zombie, as defined and, B). Sets your teeth on edge when you encounter it.

Regards.
By late
#15158083
Torus34 wrote:
Hi!

From what you posted, I can't winkle out any little talking point that's A). A zombie, as defined and, B). Sets your teeth on edge when you encounter it.

Regards.



Ever watch a zombie movie? You never see just one...

They've been setting my teeth on edge a lot longer than you've been alive.

Let me give you just one example. Reagan didn't know how to manage people, so you had a bunch of cliques running around doing what they wanted. The religious kooks thought AIDS was a punishment from their deity, for gays. So they wanted it to spread. They fired the top Doc, and were interfering with the medical response. Fortunately, the replacement, Dr Koop, looked like a kook, but turned out to be superb.

But can you even imagine that, wanting a pandemic to spread. Even in the Dark Ages they didn't want that.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15158154

Zombie company

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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In political economy, a zombie company is a company that needs bailouts in order to operate, or an indebted company that is able to repay the interest on its debts but not repay the principal.


Contents
1 Description
2 History
3 See also
4 References
5 External links


Description

Zombie companies are indebted businesses that, although generating cash, after covering running costs, fixed costs (wages, rates, rent) they only have enough funds to service the interest on their loans, but not the debt itself.[1] As such, they generally depend on banks (creditors) for their continued existence, effectively putting them on never-ending life support.

History

The term "zombie company" was applied to Japanese firms supported by Japanese banks during the period known as the "Lost Decade" after the collapse of the Japanese asset price bubble in c.1990. Japanese banks continued to support weak or failing firms.[2] The retailer Daiei is an example of a large company that expanded greatly during the period leading to the 1990 crash, and under different circumstances would have been expected to have entered receivership or bankruptcy. The finance minister, Takeo Hiranuma, was reported as describing the 96,000 employee firm as being 'too big to fail'.[2][3]

The term regained popularity in the media during 2008 for companies receiving bailouts from the U.S. Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).[citation needed]

By 2016, following economic downturn in China (see also 2015–16 Chinese stock market crash), Chinese industrial companies (steel, aluminium, paper, etc.) had developed gross overproduction capacity problems, with overcapacity rising from 0% in 2007 to an average of 13% by 2015, with figures higher than 30% in some industries (cement, steel in 2014).[4] At the 2016 National People's Congress, the country's government recognised the issue of the 'Zombie Enterprises' and announced that it was to close or reorganise many state owned (public) industrial companies by 2020.[5][6] In coal and steel industries, resultant loss of work was expected to result in 1.8 million redundancies (15% of workforce), with total redundancies estimated to be up to 6 million workers.[7]

Zombie companies are those that remain in business but are so deeply in debt that they’ll never catch up. In an age where U.S. monetary policy seems to ease by the day, enterprises of all sizes are tapping time and again into debt markets — potentially creating a corporate landscape littered with zombie firms.[8]

See also

Zombie bank, related term referring to bank businesses with similar financial issues
Lemon socialism, term referring to state support of weak or failing businesses
Crony capitalism
Too big to fail
Vulture fund
Corporate debt bubble



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zombie_company
By SueDeNîmes
#15158266
- The govt has, or is about to, run out of its own currency

- Borrowing costs will explode because of govt debt default risk

- Hyperinflation any day now.. any day now.. any day now..
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15158301
SueDeNîmes wrote:
- The govt has, or is about to, run out of its own currency

- Borrowing costs will explode because of govt debt default risk

- Hyperinflation any day now.. any day now.. any day now..



Any mention of "hyperinflation" these days is sheer right-wing alarmism.

This isn't the 1970s-era cratering-industrial U.S. anymore, except that blue-collar industrial jobs are *long*-gone without anything to replace that postwar prosperity.

Instead, the U.S. economy now runs on hyper-exploited labor in China, its militarist garrison state, and from holding the world's reserve currency, the U.S. dollar.

International debt-to-GDP ratios are all *relative* to each other, and it's *deflation* that currently prevails.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... ublic_debt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt-to-GDP_ratio
User avatar
By Drlee
#15158312
The Social Security Fund is about to be broke.

Good guys with guns.

We can't afford universal health care.
User avatar
By redcarpet
#15159035
Most right-wing and socially conservative soundbites. Like 'Tax cuts to the rich will mean more tax revenues and will trickle down to higher wages and more jobs' to 'the private sector is more efficient than the state sector' to 'privatisation will result in lower prices and higher quality' to 'social disorder' or 'chaos' or 'immoral' 'offend our sincerely held beliefs' - against any anti-discrimination laws for equality on any social issue.

Then when it comes to war, especially WW2 like "The US won the war' 'D-Day was the turning point of the war' or 'The Battle of Britain was won by the RAF and the sheer bravery of the pilots' or the 'bombing of German cities was necessary/just'. - Most rhetoric or claims about WW2 particularly regarding the US & Britain in the Battle of Britain are FALSE. They are false myths that have built up after 1945.
User avatar
By ckaihatsu
#15159075
redcarpet wrote:
'the private sector is more efficient than the state sector' to 'privatisation will result in lower prices and higher quality'



I keep reminding people that profit is a tacked-on *cost*, to funding.
User avatar
By QatzelOk
#15159214
Drlee wrote:The Social Security Fund is about to be broke.

Good guys with guns.

We can't afford universal health care.

In the earliest days of the American experiment, "You" couldn't afford universal human rights. It just wasn't profitable for the capitalist exploitation class.

Neither is universal health care or universal post-secondary education.

So if your entire society is sacrificing its own children's future well-being to make a handfull of people really, really rich, perhaps the entire society has entered zombiehood, and not just the corporations that eat through the earth's crust.

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