How has our version of neoliberalism worked out?

[MorkandMindy]

Elements of both parties have to bear the shame of this, or was that share the blame?

The liberalism term comes from laissez-faire economic liberalism and free market capitalism rather than from classical liberalism.

The result of applying neoliberalism in the US has been to open low income jobs to competition from low income countries while not opening middle class jobs to competition.

The result in daily life has been low income people with a pay rate in some way linked to Chinese pay living in a country where a lot of costs are at First World rates.

 

[MorkandMindy]

to follow the reasoning through a bit

I was told in a discussion that our manufacturing workers to remain competitive would have to come down to the same pay rates as the Chinese around 75 cents an hour at that time.

His own pension was 60,000 dollars a year, equivalent to 30 dollars an hour in a 2,000 hour working year. Needless to say he had no idea what he was talking about.

My rate of pay was raised from 10 dollars an hour to 11, against my wishes, so I lost my Medicaid. When I was ill to be certified and be allowed off work, I needed to pay at a reduced sliding-scale clinic a whole day's pay for 5 minutes of a middle class person's time.

My neighbor took his dog to the vet and asked if the dog had cateracts and the vet confirmed it and charged a hundred dollars. This time over a day's pay for two minutes work.

 

[MorkandMindy]

To fix the medical system, and every other middle class system, we need free competition from overseas.

 

[MorkandMindy]

A close relative needed a tricky and expensive operation and wasn't happy with what surgeons and hospitals were doing here, so she paid for the operation privately in England.

It was half the price, she got a world renowned surgeon, the hospital was a thing of beauty and she was treated like a human being, none of these could she find in New Mexico.

I have a zillion anecdotes like that, living here in New Mexico a lot of people go to Mexico, there's a lot of travel for dental work which for some very expensive dentures in some cases is a tenth the cost it would be here.

 

[MorkandMindy]

The overall money flows resulting from neoliberalism is:

manufacturing labor lost a lot of money, increasing competition for all low paid jobs,

the middle class got cheaper manufactured items but otherwise were unaffected

the very rich who owned some of the factories in China and gained from cheaper imports and only somewhat cheaper retail prices, got really rich.

and the money which was basically transferred from the low income people to the high income people, was partly made up for to the low income people by the government, so the National Debt grew.

I think that might sum it up, I hope not because I really don't like it

 

[MorkandMindy]

My answer to the question would be:

'the poor got poorer, the rich got richer and the middle class corrected for inflation, stayed about the same.'

 

[MorkandMindy]

Neoliberalism summarized would be: competition for the poor, no competition for the middle class, and a big harvest for company owners