Chomsky, Blyth, Hedges are the top intellects to critique the American domestic and foreign affairs

I'll always come back to listen to Mark Blyth. He's been right on the nose for the last few years. Hope I see more of him.

Blythe is dead on about the Obama administration, never have I heard it being summed up so quickly and accurately.

Weir demonstrates the lack of self-examination that holds liberalism and Democrats back. Agrees there are problems, yet neglects examination of the sources.

Watching this was very deeply depressing. Time and time again Blyth was ignored and his points were passed by in favor of more of the same old talking points. The Democrats are in big trouble.

Blyth (here) is intellectually head & shoulders above Margaret Weir I'm afraid. Weir spends her time virtue signalling and telling us her feelings, why she's so sad. Blyth, however, repeatedly explains WHY (Trump happened) without being judgemental about the people who voted for him. Taleb Nassim's McDonalds meal analogy (42:00) is great.

A great conversation. I hope for more. Mark Blyth nails it every time. Although I do disagree with Margaret Weir, it is great to see these opposing views of the democratic party.

holy crap, i think mark may be the only person that understands the American people.... too bad he's not able to run for President

The word liberal has lost all meaning, thanks America

Margaret Weir : 0 Mark Blyth : 1 We don't just need the "happy face," Dr. Weir. We need the distribution of the "happy face" that Mr. Blyth is talking about.

Blyth is tremendous and provides a correct analysis of how we got here. He also rebuts the MSDNC talking points and seems to be one of the few voices out there who looks past Obama's oratory skills and correctly analyses his presidency and sees it for what it is: The unapologetic expansion of neo-liberal market rule.

"I think that the danger of promoting White Nationalism in a country like the United States, is a huge, huge danger" Margaret Weir, intellectual giant.

The only thing that Weir did was regurgitate retail talking points from the DNC in the most boring possible manner. She was a waste of air time. Blyth is insight personified.

One thing is very clear: Margaret weir is a politician, not an academic scholar. She talks like a demagogic speaker of the democratic party, not as an objective academic researcher who analyzing social trends without judging them according to her subjective inclinations. Now, the question is: What n the name of god is she doing as a professor in a prestigious university? Why is she making her living as an academic scholar? Who pays for this kind of cynical political activism masquerading as "social science"? This question should stand at the center of the education policy of the Trump administration. The American public should not allow this sort of extremist activism to penetrate its scientific institutions. Politicians' like Weir, should focus on politics and not pretend to be scientists.

The point about Le Pen is: - terrifying - completely on point Pleeeeaaaase run Hamon.

I can only say that they are in a sense of denial. If they fully take in what Blyth is saying they'll have a breakdown so instead they chose to ignore it.

I love Blyth but I think Hillary Clinton is "McDonald's" in his analogy not Trump. We all knew what to expect in selecting Clinton - voting Trump was a "hail Mary" move. Let's try this other restaurant - the food may be crap but, who knows, it might be better than McD.

Dr. Blyth you kicked butt!

How is Bernie Sanders not brought up in this discussion? My mind is a little blown right now. All this talk of solidarity not from a place of hate, populism and rejection of technocratic elite and Bernie Sanders is not seriously mentioned once? How?

I would love to see this trio come back together for an update!

Mark Blyth is a master!! The other two are bumblers. Listen up to Mark, he’s speaking the truth!

BIOGRAPHY Margaret Weir is Professor of Political Science and International and Public Affairs at Brown University. Before coming to Brown in 2016, she was the Avice M Saint Chair in Public Policy and Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research centers on social policy, poverty, and urban politics in the United States and Europe. She is the author and editor of several books, including Schooling for All: Race, Class and the Decline of the Democratic Ideal (coauthored with Ira Katznelson, Basic Books); and Politics and Jobs: The Boundaries of Employment Policy in the United States (Princeton University Press), The Politics of Social Policy in the United States (with Ann Shola Orloff and Theda Skocpol, Princeton University Press) and The Social Divide (Brookings and Russell Sage). She is currently working on a book about the politics of spatial inequality in American metropolitan areas.

I watched this thinking it was filmed mid 2020. Oh dear. Mark you've been calling everything as you see it and it's been one proven observation after another.

3 years later and Mark Blyth is 100% vindicated. Margaret Weir made me throw up. That other dude is just a weak sister.

The only candidate in 2016, and for 2020, who has a message of solidarity is Bernie Sanders. "Not me, us!" I hope Mr Steinfeld is supporting him now.

Well, Weir certainly explained something to me, the source of the "rot" I've been hearing about at Colleges today. Blyth is worth listening to, Weir on the other hand offered little more than a endless stream of banalities that I have read on the signs of hysterical protestors burning and breaking things.

This discussion is as timely now as when it was recorded.

Blyth is the only one who talks like he lives in the real words. he has concepts and knows theory while he also knows how to speak for any person with a moderate IQ

Mark Blythe always be droppin' them quotes

Canadians have been subsidising big business (including political parties) for years without knowing it, whats that called? How can we say "people support" when they are not part of the decision process. The people used to tell government what they wanted, and now government tells what we want?

Superb.

Most of capital resides in bonds, not in stock markets, which it dwarves on a scale of 9 to 1. This era will be defined by capital preservation, and when government starts to get into trouble, and in turn the bond markets, capital will flee from bonds to stocks (and other asset classes) for wealth preservation.

This discussion is one the most remarkable respectful dialogues ive ever seen. Its like a blueprint of how to communicate as people with people. Regardless of political compass. Wonderful :3

Wow, Blyth is a whole-picture guy. His command of political/economic history and their ripple effects are mesmerizing to me.

She’s got her Democrat glasses on and Blythe is the voice of reason

Blyth is the man!

LOL Democracy. Right. We don't live in a Democracy, dear Moderator

it,s not the speach but the reaction to thes speach that should be in question

I could listen to that marvelous Scottish accent all day!

Boomers just cannot taking enough for themselves.

I liked the finger wagging... Blyth was pretty much on the ball with the French election of 2017..

All societies lash out at change, like packing up and moving your home its disruptive and easier to be angry rather than trying to understand and taking a side. Theres a lot of changes coming as our value for one another and the earth becomes front and center and for me? its about bloody time.

Liberalism, conservatism, social democrats, economically there is no difference between them now. They,ve bought into the so called neo liberalism and even though it is apparant that this theory is not working, especially for the working class, the polticians are doubling down on this idiotic economic plan

48:40 onward: Mark Blyth hits the nail on the head here. What is the point in democracy, in voting, if all elections are is a way for lobby groups to effect the system leaving everyone else high and dry That's why the right, both hard and centre, are winning, because the left has collapsed or been destroyed leaving the voter with the stark choice of voting for the lesser of two evils or not voting at all.

whaou, he got the french case right 100%. This guy is just too intelligent.

(love Mark Blyth) BUT they just do not get IT.....do they.

The answer is Sanders

A good quality discussion with three participations, each of whom see things differently AND have some truth to speak about recent trends and contemporary challenges. Unlike too many political "conversations," this is one worth listening to. As in medicine, no intervention or remedy is ever better than the diagnosis that precedes it...

Elephants in the room: 1. International Trade Agreements were promoted by multinational corporations and their bought and paid for politicians. Multinationals moved their factories out of the US and escaped US taxation, labor laws, environmental laws, the plaintiffs' bar and class action suits, and higher costs for wages and benefits. The working class in the US was the big loser as they lost high-paying jobs and employer-provided benefits, and their standard of living was maintained only by taking on debt; 2. The American economy moved from the leading manufacturing economy at the end of WW2 to a leading consumption economy in which one of the biggest economic sectors became financialization. The excessive power and influence of the financial sector and their recklessness led to the 2008 financial crisis from which the World financial system has not recovered. Since 2008, the majority of income improvement has gone to the top 1% of the rich, while income disparity has increased badly; 3. The military and intelligence budgets are unsustainable, and the military-industrial complex enjoys very great influence and money from governments; 4. Obama's Hope and Change mantra became more and more a blatant fraud over his two terms. Federal debt almost doubled during his terms, and the government fudged unemployment figures outrageously to hide high unemployment rates; 5. The social benefit programs that were brought in since WW2 are not fully funded and when their future funding costs are taken into account, they have been estimated to put the US federal government as much as $220 Trillion underwater. The US federal government says their debt is only $20 Trillion, but that does not take into account future costs for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, Veterans' benefits, government employee pensions and benefits, etc.; 6. Obamacare was sold as making medical care available to all, and as ending insurance company abuses such as cancelling coverage as soon as the insured became ill. But Obamacare turned out to be a gift to the insurance companies and for-profit medical industry, with deductibles, co-pays, and ever-increasing premiums. Only those with extreme medical problems benefited, as they would have been refused insurance before. The funding model for Obamacare depended upon forcing young and healthy persons to buy insurance and thus subsidizing the medical costs of the unhealthy, but the young and healthy have largely refused to play along, electing to pay the cheaper penalty for not buying insurance; 7. Another bad effect of Obamacare was the reduction in working hours of "full time" employees. Workers who formerly worked 40 hours or more per week had their work week cut to below 35 hours, so the employer escaped the Obamacare mandate for employer-provided medical coverage; 8. To keep the tottering finances of the US and Europe afloat, the Federal Reserve and Central Banks elsewhere pushed interest rates to near or below zero, making it possible for governments and businesses to survive on cheap credit, but making it impossible for savers, banks, pension funds, and insurance companies to get a reasonable rate of return on their funds except by engaging in risky financial strategies that may well lead to significant losses; 9. Academics tend to view the weakening of social protections as purely the result of lack of political will and cohesiveness, while ignoring how these social protections are to be paid for.

I love how they really have a constructive discussion - as opposed to politicians having a debate.

Man, anyone can pretend to be an egg head nowadays, too bad they are completely empty. Mark Blyth shouldn't have kept the gloves on

If someone at Watson who uploads these, could give each of the speakers, a pat on the back or a hug, and tell them to at least try acting like they aren't at a funeral? :P This is one of the greatest opportunity moments for societal change, and entering mourning will mean its not you directing that change.

Interview man felt something, like he was part of a thing and for him that is evidence for disagreeing with these 2 economists who were stuff like facts, actual events and real thing happening.... This interviewer is a dope

Of all the economist or economic pundits on the internet these days Mark Blythe makes the most sense to me. it's sad to think that the policies he suggested had the chance to be acted out by world leaders (in the last decade) but they didn't. and maybe that chance is over now.

(The 7) Issue, solution, approach, schedule, costs, risk and mitigation, alternatives including variation on the approach toward the solution. It is good that everyone on the panel continue to explain what is wrong, how we got here, and how (beneath the top few) we wallow. The lesson must sink in deeply across the voting public. Across the doing public however, The 7, has become a bag of bones pit pulls growl about, at each other and at the fawning media. Where is the (The 3) Public/Private/Government consensus on The 7? Will it come from the top-down (of The 3)? I doubt it. The top-Down has continued to make matters worse. Will it come from the bottom-up? I fear not, as by some (or someone's design) the bottom chooses to take sides against one another rather than recognizing their disunity ensures their continued subjugation and decline. So where out of The 3 will we begin to elucidate The 7? It will not be done by party, but by people.

"Inclusion" did not provide the social progress we experienced as Weir suggests. The civil rights movement and invasive technological development provided the engine of progress.

I have not heard a thing about labor Law (and minimum wage) from either party nor in this discussion and fully 50% of our population lives paycheck-to-paycheck and only commands a total of slightly less then 1% of the family wealth Assets of this country...(CBO/Aug/2016) meanwhile the top 10% went from owning about 24% of all assets in 1989 to almost 80% of all assets today. The bottom is basically a straight line across that last 25 years. This is the number #1 issue of our time and it's how DeBlasio in NYC got elected twice with over 50% of the vote. The bottom 50% is looking like a 3rd world in America.

This guy has a much better handle on our politics, he is an immigrant who understands to a. Greater extent than this woman who has been in, what, the academic bubble?

We allowed or help co-create the place we are at, lets drop our mental guns become once again naked and vulnerable and write a new script for the future of the earth and our children.

Marget is wrong about the problem being Republicans thwarting Obama's good intentions. How good could his intentions have been when, as Mark points out, he brought Summers, Geithner, and Rubin in to be his economic team? At the end of Dubya's second term we were fighting 2 wars. Now we're fighting 7 wars! Thomas Frank makes the case that since Obama was a beneficiary and proponent of the Democratic Neoliberal Meritocracy, what happened during his terms was pretty much exactly what he wanted to have happen.

Flawed paradigm. Blind men and an elephant. They want the other guy to buy their lunch.

The problem: The people who benefit from tax money don't realize it and it isn't the helpful tax-funded program's job to communicate how many people they help and why. Also, Red states have no concept of how much of their rural life is subsidized by the money making cities they resent.

Very patronizing how Margaret kept minimizing Blythe because he wasn't born in the States. You don't need to be born in the U.S. to understand U.S. political economy. Very impressed with his patience with this.

"Fascism will come to the States under the guise of liberalism"

Regardless of the strength or not ,of your argument, finger pointing is the same as stamping your foot.

we just got rid of first class professionally trained demagog and international war criminal , omg thats so sad.

"keep heroine out of the country" lol Oxy=synthetic heroine the problem is the Oxy from the pharmaceutical companies in America .

I agree with Byth but it might because of his contrariness. Canada doesn't get a mention but Liberals do seem to have been successful. The secret is: deficits can be OK.

47:11 Says it all really

"Russia." BINGO! How can Mark keep his cool?

Blyth has a perfect analysis for this situation. He stated in other videos that the only solution is Bernie Sanders policies. But unfortunately it's structurally impossible for Bernie to win. This is baby boomers vs the young electorally. Sanders to win needs the young millennials to turn up in equal numbers and that seems to be a structural impossibility at this point

She sounds like prim and proper Cokie the Washington insider.

Brexit was not anti liberal.

I hate that 'african american' label for decendents of slaves. They are humans like everybody else. Nobody gets called,'catholic american' or 'irish american' 'german american' etc.

Well... Time has proven her wrong...

i guess i'm a simple man. there is democracy, a society in which every citizen has an equal vote, not for a choice of who shall be his master, but for choosing 'what shall we do?' this last is realized by initiative and referendum, supported by open administration of public affairs so that the electorate has the facts to decide. or, there is oligarchy. this is rule by a few. the few come in a variety of groups: the rich, the generals, the bureaucrats, the priests, and usually all of them support one another in the enjoyment of the labor of the many. every oligarchy is unstable, since there is no limit to greed and arrogance, and society collapses when no more blood can be had from the many. and that's all i know about politics and economics. just a few simple principles. you can talk about 'bad men' all you want, whether it be lenin or reagan, but if you don't look at the system that produced them, you are wasting your time.

ProTip: Mark sounds normal at 1.25x speed, the other two at 1.5x

Mark Blyth this day and age Alexis De Tocqueville of the US......

I might disagree with some of Mrs Weir arguments, if you see polls on Obama's Policy popularity its worst then Obama's popularity. Even ACA as a whole is unpopular, just some of its elements are popular

the hell with this 1% crap, lets talk about the .001%.

Yeah Hillary Clinton's "orange man bad" was her whole campaign strategy.

Mark Blyth is a really impressive talker if not a good dresser

I wonder if Ms Weir actually lives in a wonderfully diverse and vibrant neighborhood? 10 g's says 'no' .

"LIBERALISM" has always primarily meant Enlightenment values of science, class mobility, open to evidence induced changes, thirst for facts!

49:43 This is a job for... Justice Democrats. Search - "Progressives launch ‘Justice Democrats’ to counter party’s ‘corporate’ legislators".

ok these guys are very good at explaining what's wrong, but explain very little of the solution

technocrats were correct: neoliberalism has led to the greatest good for the greatest amount of people, just that few of them were the people the policies were being sold to, and most were previously poor workers in underdeveloped and undeveloped nations, now newly developed (see: China, Vietnam, etc.). The people were correct in this case to vote for populists like Trump and solutions like Brexit, but even closing off nations from competition, either from outsourced jobs or insourced people will not bring about the solution that the people want, because the ultimate source of their misery, as it has been for centuries if not the entirety of human existence since we stopped roaming the grasslands and created fixed societies, is the moneyed elites pitting them against themselves, and creating capitalistic competition for the peons while embracing a socialized welfare club for themselves.

46:16 dude its divide and conquer ... sun tzu wrote about it

50:03 ahem.. sit down son and let me tell you about a man... a man named Bernie :)

We are seeing the Weimarization of fragmentation of political parties in the West, the political binary is realigning and recomposing itself, the political left and right is a game of dosey do, aspects of the left are now the right, and vice versa. People who don't fit into those two poles are going to opt out and not vote, if there is only a choice between two. The problems with the Democrats is that they are all things to all people and end up failing to get enough people to turnout because those people were not buying what they were selling. To keep things in perspective as time goes on, most Western countries do not have the money to pay for pensions and healthcare because of the aging of the population. The only way to solve this problem is to have more taxpayers which means more immigrants, and/or robots. Yes, with Prop 13, I live in Cali, everything is bias towards the preferences of the old, politicians are going to bend over backwards for those people, not the young. The main question should there be a property tax, is it a good tax to fund schools, why even bother having one, why is the house and the land taxed, why not just tax the land. One would also think that with driverless cars coming into the next 10 to 20 years, we will see land used for parking garages be freed up for affordable housing. Why do colleges jack up tutition midstream when a student is going to college, they could the same price for the said student until they gradudate, but make it contingent that they do in a timely matter. The young don't have the barganing power and influence to change things. The U.S is not like Europe in terms of race, but much more like other settler colonies Australia, NZ, Canada, and Latin America. Perhaps the problem with democracy is with democracy itself, elections that force people into binaries, might be better to randomly pick citizens out of a lottery, bring back the Greek sortition, because the ancient Greeks believe that Democracy lead to oligarchy and ordinary people are cut off from the opportunity of politics because of the heavy cost and huge time expense. Making it like market research where citizens study an issue and put it to the people in a referendum might be the way to go. There may be problem with this, but a good mathematical formula to pick people might work. For the UK, turning the House of Lords into a random house might be better than having an elected Senate.

So which state will exit the union first ? who's going to say bye bye whashington DC hallo the independent state of ?

Disagree with the McDonalds analogy - I think it's exactly backwards. The rust belt has been eating McDonalds for decades, and now they've decided to go with that flashy new burger joint called "Carl Juniors'!", which you've heard so much about and don't you remember that Paris Hilton commercial that was banned (But wasn't it called Carl's Jr?) that might sell you the best burger you've ever had. So do you choose McDonalds again, or go with that new burger joint - it's still going to be a burger, right? Right? Trump isn't McDonalds. Trump isn't the same thing you've had all over the nation (the world!) only with slight regional flavours (wow, McLobster on the East coast! Tomato sandwich in Japan! No beef in India! Etc.) - that's the DNC and GOP. We KNOW what the DNC is going to give us, and what the GOP is going to give us. We know their menu. We know their prices. We know if we have $13, we're going to be able to get two basic meals (or a "good" meal and a Happy Meal). With Trump we are assuming we're getting a burger and fries, but until we open that door and get the food on our plates, we simply don't know. That's why Trump can't be McDonalds. Other than that, love almost everything Blyth is saying. I just hope more people listen to him than to Weir, who scares me more than Trump does. She's essentially saying "This is the Republicans fault! This is the fault of the (racist, xenophobic, misogynistic, etc.) GOP voter! We're the victims of their bigotry and greed! It's not our fault at all!" that I see in the DNC and other Liberal talking heads - the ones who think they're going to "fix" the DNC and beat Trump. They're going to fail and they refuse to learn why.

Steinfeld looks like a caricature drawn by walt disney.

Politics is the problem.

Margaret talked a lot of nonsense, it actually surprised me the gulf between her and Mark

wonder what they have to say about the staggering third world slavery. which is the most unliberal of all humanity. example the nike jacket worn by one of the speakers is made in bangladesh and vietnam for pittance. the liberal order seems to work very well only inside a room full of yes yes yes

It seems to me that one of the problems the democrats is facing is that there is money to be made in politics. The republicans have known this for a long time, of course, but that was mostly about keeping the money they already had. The rise of the professional politician is a serious problem since it completely eradicated ideology in favour of winning elections, and squeezing their position of all capital it could generate, political as well as financial. Political capital can then generate actual capital when the tenure is over and a well salaried position opens up, ready for plucking by the well informed ex-politician cum CEO. Then, of course, the democrat, turns into a republican, because now he has all this money which he would like to keep. Only he won't call himself a republican because that won't get him elected, since the people without money would like some too and republicans are only good to the select few who can afford the price of admission, and that price just keeps rising.

Ms. Weir needs to get her vision prescription checked. She doesn't see reality very well.

and still no one has said, usa is not, never has been, was never meant to be, a democracy. prof blyth is an amusing speaker, and a smart man, studies and teaches political economy, and never ever connects current affairs to the fact that the people do not rule. aristotle, he ain't. not even an honest man.

My brother voted for Obama twice. he voted for Trump. if Trump had not won Republican nomination, he would have voted for Bernie. This woman needs to get out of her bubble