Thank you so much for this episode. My grandfather Cleon was a CCC man. He died before I was born but I have many stories of his CCC days. I think about him often as I hike a trail here in the PNW.
I really love this connection you have to this program. I actually tried to find letters or testimonials from the workers, but all I could find were books about it--nothing easily accessible for the podcast. But thank you for sharing that history.
Unfortunately most of that generation has passed now. There was and still is a stigma attached to poverty. My grandma never talked about it. I will ask my dad & my aunt if they have anything. It’s history that deserves to be remembered.
Thank you. I was afraid people might find it was too much, with historic detail. But I really did want to show how much they did, in such a short span of time. It was huge, and successful, and it worked so well, they had to promise to not wipe out the for-profit competition before they could get it passed. That quote from Roosevelt--where he promises not to interfere with the regular nation's business. What they're admitting is that if we do it through the government, we'll be /too competitive/. I mean, really think about that. Private enterprise afraid the government will compete. But if the narrative is that we can't really do things well if we do them through the government--then how would we be competitive? Maybe cheaper, but if our product is that bad, then who will want it? They'll pay more for better quality, so long as they can afford it. So the capitalist knows the government /can/ do it well enough to keep people as customers--basically "good enough" at the very worst. And they admit we can do it cheaper. So, we can get what we want cheaper and up to quality, without the capital overhead--and even the capitalist admits it with his fears. So what's the point of capitalism, except to create an unnecessary layer that's just profits for the capitalist who does none of the labor, and has created an unnecessary niche for himself. And he has the brute force power at his disposal to keep it going. He'd rather we just swallow the system without thinking too much about it. But if push comes to shove, he'll use actual firepower to enforce this system.
@@athomeinmyhead Yup. That's literally the reason they gave for killing the public option - namely that private healthcare wouldn't be able to compete! Private capital is scared to death of the power of people. That's why they spend so much money indoctrinating everyone that Government is bad/wasteful, and private capital is good/efficient. Up here in Maine I have to sit through commercials where they call the state's attempt to run the power grid a "government takeover of our power grid". So if a private company controls the power grid, it's "ours". And if the government controls it, it won't be "ours". Can you hear Orwell spinning in his grave? (Sorry to poach on someone else's comment stream. I'll stop. lol)
@@athomeinmyhead The personal connection and the historical content was necessary to support your point. The GOP wants government to fail so they don't have to admit their failures and give even more money to the businesses and the rich.
Great episode! This especially demonstrates how we can be motivated by social good, not profit, to successfully take care of each other. Your point about profit motive being unnecessary was eloquently made (22:00-23:30)😊
here in Mexico they made a type of house that is supposed to be cheap(the goverment), for people that Can not buy a big house, but the truth is that people cannot pay them, even when they supposed to be for people "low class". Today there are hundreds of abandon houses with lots of people without a home. Great video.
Thank you so much for the feedback and input on what you're observing in Mexico. It's a problem with an easy solution, except that profit gets in the way and clouds our minds.
The first silly objection people are going to raise is "how ya going to pay for it?" One way to answer this is to point out that no one ever asks that question when we throw trillions of dollars down the drain on useless forever-wars. Nor does anyone ask that question when we spend trillions to bail out banks or whatever other industry needs to be bailed out. But recently I've also heard of a group called MMT (Modern Money Theory). I'm not an economist, so I don't know if they are right. But I can't see a flaw in their argument. They argue that, rather than the government needing to tax in order to get the money to spend, the reality is the other way around. The money comes from the government. They literally create it from nothing. The way it actually works is that the government levies a tax payable only in its paper bills (dollars or whatever you want to call them). Since we have to pay that tax, we have to ask the government what we need to do to get those paper bills. The tax creates the demand that gives those paper bills value. This shows that the government can never run out of money, and it can afford whatever it wants. The money is not the issue. It's what we do with the money. More importantly, however, look into the idea of a JOB GUARANTEE, advocated by MMT. It's entirely possible to have a Job Guarantee that would be very similar to the CCC. It would control inflation, as well as get rid of unemployment entirely. Oh, and bonus, we would have the greatest society humanity has ever seen. Wonderful video btw. Keep up the great work!
And the fact is--we DO pay for it, even when it's not the CCC. Where I live, in Texas, for example, we hire private companies to build the roads. So, we /pay/ to build the road, AND pay extra to create the profit. If we used our own citizens and weren't doing it for profit, it would just come to the cost to build the road. Also, check the links in the description. There is one near the bottom I believe is a video. In it, they discuss all the government subsidies we pay into companies with tax dollars to billionaires and companies that are raking profits--at our expense.
@@athomeinmyhead Ok, I'll check it out. The difficulty is that we have a donor class that has so much disposable income, they have captured our government. Our elected officials do what their donors want, not what the voter wants. I keep going back to the idea that nothing will change until we fix our democracy. At the very least, we need to get rid of the gerrymandering and the influence of money on our politicians.
Thank you so much for this episode. My grandfather Cleon was a CCC man. He died before I was born but I have many stories of his CCC days. I think about him often as I hike a trail here in the PNW.
I really love this connection you have to this program. I actually tried to find letters or testimonials from the workers, but all I could find were books about it--nothing easily accessible for the podcast. But thank you for sharing that history.
Unfortunately most of that generation has passed now. There was and still is a stigma attached to poverty. My grandma never talked about it. I will ask my dad & my aunt if they have anything. It’s history that deserves to be remembered.
I was wondering where you going. Now I know the rest of the story. Well received again.
Thank you. I was afraid people might find it was too much, with historic detail. But I really did want to show how much they did, in such a short span of time. It was huge, and successful, and it worked so well, they had to promise to not wipe out the for-profit competition before they could get it passed. That quote from Roosevelt--where he promises not to interfere with the regular nation's business. What they're admitting is that if we do it through the government, we'll be /too competitive/. I mean, really think about that. Private enterprise afraid the government will compete. But if the narrative is that we can't really do things well if we do them through the government--then how would we be competitive? Maybe cheaper, but if our product is that bad, then who will want it? They'll pay more for better quality, so long as they can afford it. So the capitalist knows the government /can/ do it well enough to keep people as customers--basically "good enough" at the very worst. And they admit we can do it cheaper. So, we can get what we want cheaper and up to quality, without the capital overhead--and even the capitalist admits it with his fears. So what's the point of capitalism, except to create an unnecessary layer that's just profits for the capitalist who does none of the labor, and has created an unnecessary niche for himself. And he has the brute force power at his disposal to keep it going. He'd rather we just swallow the system without thinking too much about it. But if push comes to shove, he'll use actual firepower to enforce this system.
@@athomeinmyhead Yup. That's literally the reason they gave for killing the public option - namely that private healthcare wouldn't be able to compete! Private capital is scared to death of the power of people. That's why they spend so much money indoctrinating everyone that Government is bad/wasteful, and private capital is good/efficient.
Up here in Maine I have to sit through commercials where they call the state's attempt to run the power grid a "government takeover of our power grid". So if a private company controls the power grid, it's "ours". And if the government controls it, it won't be "ours". Can you hear Orwell spinning in his grave? (Sorry to poach on someone else's comment stream. I'll stop. lol)
@@athomeinmyhead The personal connection and the historical content was necessary to support your point. The GOP wants government to fail so they don't have to admit their failures and give even more money to the businesses and the rich.
Great episode! This especially demonstrates how we can be motivated by social good, not profit, to successfully take care of each other. Your point about profit motive being unnecessary was eloquently made (22:00-23:30)😊
Glad you liked it. And yes, we're being sold a lot of capitalist PR in the US.
here in Mexico they made a type of house that is supposed to be cheap(the goverment), for people that Can not buy a big house, but the truth is that people cannot pay them, even when they supposed to be for people "low class". Today there are hundreds of abandon houses with lots of people without a home. Great video.
Thank you so much for the feedback and input on what you're observing in Mexico. It's a problem with an easy solution, except that profit gets in the way and clouds our minds.
The first silly objection people are going to raise is "how ya going to pay for it?" One way to answer this is to point out that no one ever asks that question when we throw trillions of dollars down the drain on useless forever-wars. Nor does anyone ask that question when we spend trillions to bail out banks or whatever other industry needs to be bailed out.
But recently I've also heard of a group called MMT (Modern Money Theory). I'm not an economist, so I don't know if they are right. But I can't see a flaw in their argument.
They argue that, rather than the government needing to tax in order to get the money to spend, the reality is the other way around. The money comes from the government. They literally create it from nothing. The way it actually works is that the government levies a tax payable only in its paper bills (dollars or whatever you want to call them). Since we have to pay that tax, we have to ask the government what we need to do to get those paper bills. The tax creates the demand that gives those paper bills value. This shows that the government can never run out of money, and it can afford whatever it wants. The money is not the issue. It's what we do with the money.
More importantly, however, look into the idea of a JOB GUARANTEE, advocated by MMT.
It's entirely possible to have a Job Guarantee that would be very similar to the CCC. It would control inflation, as well as get rid of unemployment entirely. Oh, and bonus, we would have the greatest society humanity has ever seen.
Wonderful video btw. Keep up the great work!
And the fact is--we DO pay for it, even when it's not the CCC. Where I live, in Texas, for example, we hire private companies to build the roads. So, we /pay/ to build the road, AND pay extra to create the profit. If we used our own citizens and weren't doing it for profit, it would just come to the cost to build the road.
Also, check the links in the description. There is one near the bottom I believe is a video. In it, they discuss all the government subsidies we pay into companies with tax dollars to billionaires and companies that are raking profits--at our expense.
@@athomeinmyhead Ok, I'll check it out. The difficulty is that we have a donor class that has so much disposable income, they have captured our government. Our elected officials do what their donors want, not what the voter wants. I keep going back to the idea that nothing will change until we fix our democracy. At the very least, we need to get rid of the gerrymandering and the influence of money on our politicians.
I used to work for the 3c at zelesky in MacArthur Ohio..best of times