Neoliberalism defined

Definition.  Neoliberalism.

In addition to an economic policy, neoliberalism is also a political project .

 Important components of neo liberalism are the consideration of the market as a pre eminent process of decision making. Markets are privileged and regulations or rules on trade and commerce are opposed.  Advocates of neoliberalism promote cutting public expenditures such as schooling and health care and social services. The promote deregulation of markets such as eliminating the Glass Steagal’s limits on banking and deregulation of any practice that produces profits for some.

In many places they promote privatization of of state owned enterprises through private investment, including energy companies, utilities, and similar companies. 

1.   The Rule of the Market which liberates “free” enterprise from any bonds (regulations) imposed by the government no matter how much social damage this causes.

2.   Cutting Public Expenditures for social services such as education and health care.

Dodd- Frank

Going Abroad With Dodd-Frank

DAVID DAYEN

JULY 11, 2013

The American Prospect. 

Come Friday, the hope reformers once had that risky trades made overseas by American banks might be regulated is likely to be crushed. Democrats cozy with Wall Street are just fine with that. 

AP Images/Harry Hamburg

One of the biggest catastrophes of the 2008 financial crisis came out of the AIG Financial Products division, whose disastrous trades eventually led to a $182 billion bailout of the insurance company. One of the largest financial market blowups since the crisis came from the Chief Investment Office of JPMorgan Chase, where similar trades backfired and cost the company at least $6.2 billion. The common thread? Both of these offices, despite being subsidiaries of American corporations, were based in London, and they enjoyed a degree of autonomy, both from their management teams and from federal regulators, who were unable to recognize the outsized risk until it was too late.

The Secret Goldman Sachs tapes

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-09-26/the-secret-goldman-sachs-tapes

Portside Date: 

September 26, 2014

Author: 

Michael Lewis

Date of Source: 

Friday, September 26, 2014

Bloomberg View

Probably most people would agree that the people paid by the U.S. government to regulate Wall Street have had their difficulties. Most people would probably also agree on two reasons those difficulties seem only to be growing: an ever-more complex financial system that regulators must have explained to them by the financiers who create it, and the ever-more common practice among regulators of leaving their government jobs for much higher paying jobs at the very banks they were once meant to regulate. Wall Street's regulators are people who are paid by Wall Street to accept Wall Street's explanations of itself, and who have little ability to defend themselves from those explanations.
Our financial regulatory system is obviously dysfunctional. But because the subject is so tedious, and the details so complicated, the public doesn't pay it much attention.
That may very well change today, for today -- Friday, Sept. 26 --- the radio program "This American Life [1]" will air a jaw-dropping story [2] about Wall Street regulation, and the public will have no trouble at all understanding it.
The reporter, Jake Bernstein [3], has obtained 46 hours of tape recordings [4], made secretly by a Federal Reserve employee, of conversations within the Fed, and between the Fed and Goldman Sachs. The Ray Rice video for the financial sector has arrived.
First, a bit of background -- which you might get equally well from today's broadcast as well as from this article [5] by ProPublica. After the 2008 financial crisis, the New York Fed, now the chief U.S. bank regulator, commissioned a study of itself. This study, which the Fed also intended to keep to itself, set out to understand why the Fed hadn't spotted the insane and destructive behavior inside the big banks, and stopped it before it got out of control. The "discussion draft" of the Fed's internal study, led by a Columbia Business School professor and former banker named David Beim, was sent to the Fed on Aug. 18, 2009.
It's an extraordinary document. There is not space here to do it justice, but the gist is this: The Fed failed to regulate the banks because it did not encourage its employees to ask questions, to speak their minds or to point out problems.

SWA-Income | Figure 2C | Average family income growth, by income group, 1947–2013 | State of Working America

SWA-Income | Figure 2C | Average family income growth, by income group, 1947–2013 | State of Working America

Average family income growth, by income group, 1947-79 and 1979-2011 | State of Working America

Average family income growth, by income group, 1947-79 and 1979-2011 | State of Working America

Only 26 % of unemployed receive benefits - that is austerity

Paul Krugman, NYT. 

Last week John Boehner, the speaker of the House, explained to an audience at the American Enterprise Institute what’s holding back employment in America: laziness. People, he said, have “this idea” that “I really don’t have to work. I don’t really want to do this. I think I’d rather just sit around.” Holy 47 percent, Batman!

It’s hardly the first time a prominent conservative has said something along these lines. Ever since a financial crisis plunged us into recession it has been a nonstop refrain on the right that the unemployed aren’t trying hard enough, that they are taking it easy thanks to generous unemployment benefits, which are constantly characterized as “paying people not to work.” And the urge to blame the victims of a depressed economy has proved impervious to logic and evidence.

But it’s still amazing — and revealing — to hear this line being repeated now. For the blame-the-victim crowd has gotten everything it wanted: Benefits, especially for the long-term unemployed, have been slashed or eliminated. So now we have rants against the bums on welfare when they aren’t bums — they never were — and there’s no welfare. Why?

What’s the Matter With Kansas? Nothing a Renewed War on Poverty Can't Fix | Activism, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com

What’s the Matter With Kansas? Nothing a Renewed War on Poverty Can't Fix | Activism, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com



This is how austerity works in many states.