The Free Market is never unfettered; it has very effective, self-regulating mechanisms, sans costly bureaucracies doing nothing more to police bad people. The FM is not the problem, the hamstringing of its self correcting mechanisms and statism are the hobbling effects.
Politics of fear and loathing could never have engendered the radical left. Oh, no, never. The left is all sunshine and love and looking after all those rights and entitlements. But who is going to foot the bill? How many are willing to cede his autonomy and freedoms, in exchange for an unrealizable socialist utopia?
Cornel West is worth listening to. If for no other reason, than to serve as an example of how an argument, founded upon false premises, can expand beyond reason, critical thinking, and experience, to create a fantasyland that can only exist on a college campus. Where were it not for this abomination called tenure, he would be on a soap box in a park, scaring the pigeons with his bizzare rantings.
Only in America. What a truely great nation this is.
He speaks from two typical paradigms: profits and business vs. workers, and white vs. black. The first is Marxism the second is cultural Marxism.
Both see not individual human beings but only "classes" -- a vague, never-defined term at the center Marxism. There is no solidaridy within any class. Everybody struggles to be the best employer, the best customer, the best worker. Look closely, and his paradigm falls apart.
@yuothineyesasian Right. Because people can't study outside of their job-expertise... it's wonderful to hear a youtuber, who we can't identify or place an honest job title to, throw out his one-liner. Bravo, and wonderful hatchet job, brah.
@yuothineyesasian You're the one bitching in a video I like, lol, and you've made no point with that one-liner. All you've done here is parrot talking points and rhetoric. There's nothing here to reply to other than your lousy "critique".
Naturally if one subscribes to a particular philosophy then one should no doubt be read on those principles. It is not "parroting" anyone's talking points to be able to discuss their persuasions with those who appropriate opposing positions anymore than it is "parroting" Stephen Hawkings "rhetoric" when discussing black holes.
I think you lack the courage of your convictions, Sir.
Intellectuals like this guy betrayed the poor by promoting economic planning controlled by government in which all the upward mobility poor people had in previous generations is eliminated by government imposed barrier to entry like expensive licensing.
@two0sixTay No, what is unsustainable is central planning. Central planners have no way of knowing whether they are creating things people want. They could be consuming resources and there would no way to tell. Of course, by "resources" I mean things that have value. All centrally planned economies become desperately poor to the point of starvation. This is because the central "planners" have no way of knowing what to do. Prices communicate to people what they should be doing.
Setting aside the folksiness of his message, he makes perfect sense, but people are so blind to the truth, they need to be shaken up before they will hear that our current system is broken. Having wealth is not a bad thing, putting it ahead of everything else in life is bad.
@TheRightThinker No actually were he got were he is, is by being a fraud,talking smooth and saying shit out of his ass . He claims in his writings to be a Marxist-Socialist but makes a six figure income as an Ivy-League Professor, Charges
$12,000 a speech at about 150 appearences a year, OWNS two houses(Property).yea he's a regular Vladimir Lenin......fuck you Cornel
I love the way he talks. He talks with such an almost rustic Southern accent that I grew up with and am very used to. I'm white but when I was little I always loved the more African Americans that talked with wisdom and had this tone in their voice with wisdom embedded in it.
@Justinisinthebuildin Most def. With all of the education I've had, I still feel like a little kid listening to people speak to me in such a manner. I don't know what it is, but it gives me a feeling like there's so much I don't know (which is true), and that there's so much I still cannot see.
If by democratically elected president, you mean appointed by the electoral college, then OK, he wasn't a tyrant. Because everyone knows he didn't win the election by ballet count, which was what I thought determined who won the "election." Obama seems to be ushing in facism under a liberal banner.
Yes, the banking families/cartels like the rockefellers and the Rothchilds that through the federal reserve have slowly taken control of our economy and our sovernty as a nation. As far as Marxism goes I know what it is and im sure you know wat it is 2. And its not the answer.our constitution is
It's spelled 'wall street'. It is a seperate entity from Wal-mart. Open a book or two and you might be able to figure this stuff out on your own someday.
@DeraJa His point is that with unfettered, unregulated markets wealth is going to go straight to the top. The rich will get richer, and thus gain power. Thus, these rich bankers can use their wealth to lobby and influence our government in their own interests (wall street in the drivers street.) The best example of how the rich influence and control our government is the current donations to presidential candidates. 200 rich men make up 90% of all campaign donations given to superpacs in 2012.
"point is that with unfettered, unregulated markets wealth is going to go straight to the top."
No, if businesses had more competition among themselves wealth would not be so centralized. "rich bankers can use their wealth to lobby and influence our government in their own interests"
Yeah, and take away the excessive amount of control that Gov't has and the businesses will have no interest in robbing you of your influence in the political sphere. It's not that complex, Cornel is wrong.
@yuothineyesasian On the contrary, Cornel is right on. When we see money taken out of politics, we will see politicians (and results) which match what the public wants. When money is taken out of politics, it puts the will of the people first. A government which mostly serves corporations is a failure and will die.
You are an idiot. Take money out of politics... How do you expect to do that? Let me guess, by creating laws against campaign donations and the like/etc.? If you do that then the money will go underground and then we won't even be able to know WHO is really running the country.
The real answer is to remove governments' regulatory power and massive control over the economy so that private institutions won't have an interest over influencing politics and controlling the system.
@yuothineyesasian If you're suggestion is that we can fix the political system and make it more responsive by removing regulatory power....well, then I think we've found our idiot, folks. I forgive you your name-calling, as I realize that you have reading comprehension issues which compound your intellectual handicap.
As long as government can influence business by control over competition through regulation you will never NEVER remove the coercive nature of monies in the political system, because you will not address the cause of moneys' introduction into the system.
As usual Cornel is damned wrong, somebody get Thomas Sowell in here to talk about the failures of intellectuals. A man who actually thinks rather than this line toting windbag pseudo-intellectual.
@Missteree87 I'm sorry, i don't know the definition of words. I love his 'blaccent,' whatever. His accent certainly isn't network televisiony midwestern 'standard' english like Brian Williams
@SwordOfTheRaven@Missteree87 I'm sorry, i don't know the definition of words. I love his 'blaccent,' whatever. His accent certainly isn't network televisiony midwestern 'standard' english like Brian Williams
@H3770mynameis I'm not trying to pick a fight, but how would your statement have been constructed if he were not black? Your statement seems to contrast his "ebonic" accent and intellect as if the two where somehow incongruent.
@JosephRobert82 oh stfu, you are just looking for a fight, gtfo. Stop trying to make something out of nothing. He like his accent and he likes how intellect is. Leave it at that
@JosephRobert82 Sigh, I should just downvote my comment. I looked it up but I think the correct term is AAVE, not ebonics, which is pejorative akin to 'slave talk' But come on man, errbody know black people talk diff'rent. they got them aints and them izzles, its diffrent. You look at obama, he talks like a white boy. You look at Cornel West; he talks like a brotha. Im just gettin shit cause I said ebonics when the other guy said rustic Southern accent, but we all know what it is
@JosephRobert82 ADDENDUM: What I find most touching about Dr. West's 'speaking style,' if you will, is that he is someone who clearly embraces his blackness. There is, still, a cultural force which puts whiteness as the ideal and other races as inferior. We can see this in that AAVE is often discouraged in professional settings and with black women pulverizing their hair to look straighter to 'remove the kink.' He makes AAVE sound really smart, despite what Bill Cosby says!
First of all we've never had anything close to unfettered markets. West admits that while many were opening their eyes to government failures and the economic arguments of Milton Friedman, West was sticking his fingers in his ears and sticking with Marxist "class struggle" theories.
The younger generation is finally starting to realize that what we were calling "capitalism" and "free markets" was sheer fascist corporatism, and the smartest among us want REAL Capitalism, NOT SOCIALISM!
I understand why you think think the way you do, But white people are not tribal. maybe the black people who have overcome would be willing to give the poor there money. the white people are only going ti give enough to keep the poor from steeling from them.
@catbuffalo First I did not make any argument for or against fascism, I dont know whos post youre reading. Next I insulted this fraud professor because I know his work and I am entitled to my opinion
@LiberationAnimation I've always been impressed by the balls of that argument. You get decades of free market obsessed policies and when it all fails, what was the problem 'it wasn't free enough'. If it weren't for the govt, your 'unfettered market' would have gone bust.
@LiberationAnimation well in Britain they: privatised the railways,water,gas,electricity,industry. they changed the tax system in a way that left multinationals paying less than small to medium sized businesses. they systematically deregulated the finance sector. As we speak, they are opening up the NHS to private firms.
Government typically privatizes services when it needs more money. It transfers it's own coercive monopoly to someone else with government connections in return for lots of money, and continues to prevent others from entering the market to compete with the new coercive monopoly it set up. Are the railways, water, gas, electricity, etc. run by monopolies?
The fact that you have taxes and a NHS prove that you don't live in a free market environment.
@TheClockworkPenguin Unfortunately you're not apt enough to make the distinction between the political rhetoric and lip service regarding free market policies, and what free markets actually are. In case you hadn't noticed, our legislative and executive branches operate hand-in-hand with corporate special interests and lobbyists, particularly financial magnates. That is not a free market, that is fascism. Wilson and FDR were fascists who destroyed capitalism in the USA. It's on Wikipedia, read.
@publicanimal I think you are making excuses for a failed ideology. The comparison to fascism is facile and practically falls under Godwins Law. We've never had 'proper' communism either, but the real world experiment failed, just as the free market experiment has failed.
Also, 'apt' is not a synonym for intelligent. "Apt" means 'appropriate'
@TheClockworkPenguin The free market is what brought us to where we are. The only reason it is failing is injection of socialism. You can't have a free market, if you regulate the market.
Intellectuals only exist because people cannot think for themselves. its a harsh opinion but its the truth. Society creates these people, not the rational of freedom of thought.
@leodegario1 Golly gee! You didn't get the memo? Um, yeah the " you don't know what socialism/Marxism/ communism argument is kind of a pussy way to go about arguing. That's soooo 2008.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
This guy has NO clue How a Free market economy works...The true core problem is The Federal Reserve's Central Banking System that has Given Control of our economy to Private Bankers.All he is, is a Marxist
@Mastroff0wupa0nigga, While you started with the Fed, you instead finished by stating that the Private Bankers are the problem. What do you plan to do about them? Define Marxism for me please.
@Mastroff0wupa0nigga you are an idiot. The true core problem is greed on all levels. Most Poverty stricken people as well as the middle class can be blamed just as much for the fact that they feed into the system hoping and believing that they too can and will one day be apart of or close to the top 1%
@fede2 It's not a problem with my reading, you haven't articulated how your claims about markets and institutions are anything other than conjecture. Whether you're a socialist or a free market capitalist, either way you're making claims about a market works that has never existed.
@aluisious your accusations of obscurantism on my behalf are little more than a cop out. i've given my explination. if it's nothing more than a "conjecture" the burden of proof is on you.
you can't insist that what i say has no actual baring on reality without even hinting as to what standard you're basing yourself on, let alone offering a counter-argument. there's no substance behind your criticisms.
@saintoccasionally Riiiiight, the old "no true Scotsman", bring up what happened in CA vis à vis Enron and there's sure to be useful idiot liber-tard pipe up "it only happened because the utilities weren't deregulated ENOUGH!".
@XavierNinnis I especially like the part where you didn't bother to actually show how I was wrong, but just called me names like a fourth grader would.
Ah, there it is. The argument is not about whether more or less people would be here, but whether we would be here. It was used as a counter-argument to demonstrate that it's fallacious to say that something must be all good or the best option if it resulted in us being here. (cont..)
1.) A lot of bad things have happened that resulted in us being here. And 2.) We can't presume to know that things wouldn't have been better off, had a different method been implemented, unless we can use reason to demonstrate what other methods are and how they are inefficient.
2. Remove subsidies and intricacies of corporate tax law.
3. RON PAUL 2012
4. ???????????
5. Profit.
We never experienced unfettered markets. Even Milton Friedman talked about times of lesser regulation being more prosperous in our nation's history, and we haven't experienced regulation reduction by any means. I choose Liberty before Equality. The moral hazard of social engineering by government is too great.
the problem with capitalism is not the market aspect. that's not what breeds inequality. the problem is the the structural aspect of it's institutions.
@fede2 It irritates me that free marketers (or whatever you want to call yourself) make theses nebulous statements out of nowhere and expect everyone to simply accept them as true. It's very similar to the kinds of claims religious people make. You're making a claim about free markets and institutions that you could not possibly know to be accurate, so I'm pointing that out.
@aluisious i'm not a free-marketer or anything similar. what i was saying was that the problematic aspect of capitalism is not the market but rather it's institutional structure. i can elaborate if you want but the reason i didn't "prove" anything is because prima facie it should be pretty easy to understand.
@fede2 Then elaborate. Explain how a free market in itself avoids abuses. Pollution, long term product safety, corruption...how does a free market correct that.
I've heard the "people will stop buying the product" but that's simply a moronic argument. By that point the damage is done.
@aluisious your complaint is missdirected. those abuses occur because legal personhood is granted to bussinesses run by centrlized capital in few hands resting on mountains of labour. and as a legal "person" it is treated as a concrete individual despite the fact that it can be more destructive in the excercize of it's "rights".
the market obviously can't "correct" this, but the market is not to blame in the first place. the problem is the internal structure of private bussinesses.
@aluisious do you by any chance bother to read the comments you respond to? i wasn't describing the market.
get it in your head: i'm not endorsing the market. i'm a socialist. my point, which you never bothered to get, is that of the two constitutive aspects of capitalism : the market and the hierarchical bussiness model, the former is contingent upon the latter.
if you respond with more snide and bullshit i'll just take you to be a troll and leave you to shout in space alone.
@aluisious There are TONS of ideas for handing pollution, long term safety, and corruption. I suggest for corruption and safety for starters, how about we start by no longer putting all the nukes in the hands of the sociopaths. If you really wanted a detailed model of a possible solution there's an entire book called Practical Anarchy which proposes a very in depth solution to solving just about every major issue without the existence of government.
@aluisious However, do note that what matters most is accepting and implementing something moral as soon as humanly possible, rather than waiting until someone hands us a nice tidy alternative. The first people to realize that slavery was immoral came centuries before it was finally abolished, but heck, it happened eventually. I think anarchy will too, but not likely within our lifetime, nor should it, as we'd need either a massive war, or a long transitional period of reducing government.
@aluisious The state is the last bastion of slave plantations that exist in the world.
Imagine you are a black slave on a plantation a few hundred years ago. He will provide sufficient food, shelter, health, and safety because without it, you cannot be productive. He profits from your labor. You have whatever freedom he grants you; he might even accept a bit of feedback if you're lucky. All land belongs to the rich white guy. He MAY allow you some personal property. But it's still slavery.
@aluisious Your slave owner might even allow you to move to another slave plantation where there are a different set of rules and you have a different level of sway over them. Your new owner may SEEM very nice, he may even educate you so as to make you feel more fulfilled if it might help your productivity and save him money and effort. He may even pick a few representatives among your peers to give you and them the illusion of free will. But he calls the shots. If you break his rules, you die.
@aluisious If he can convince you that he is your benevolent caretaker, convince you that it is only because of the decisions made by your peer representatives and a few groups of your other peers around who have influenced those representatives, that any problems exist today, then he has won. While you and your peers fight amongst yourselves, he heads off to the local bank/federal reserve/IMF.
I don't know how anyone of any real intelligence can think that unfettered markets are universally wonderful. It takes a few seconds to come up with one counterexample after another of how "free market innovators" simply take wealth from others.
The whole free market thing is a simple ideology held by simple people who want to deny that the real world is messy and requires you to stay vigilant and possibly make wrong decisions.
This guy is talking about the crony capitalist system. If workers want higher wages, they need to freaking fight for them. Greed is the only viable economic system. Forcing the "haves" to give to the "have not's" takes from those who are smarter to give to the un motivated. They are un motivated since, if they were, they would work for their money. Society will ALWAYS have rich and poor, even in the heaviest socialist system.
And all this wire tapping stuff is big govt. Fight for your rights!
I figured out Obama was a fraud long before this "academic" brother did. I am really bored by this charismatic academic brother's words....time for radical talk...seek out marxists and anarchists....they already know this shit and are talking about living non-first world, consumeristic lives.
Dr. West is a very brillant man. I love the way he uses his hands to express what he is saying. You have to listen very closely to what he is saying. This man is very good with words. A professor of many things. Not many of the intellectual class will admit their faults and then put everything aside to protest with the people and get arrested. Strong Man Indeed
Dr West is an example of someone very very knowledgeable of a line of thinking that is subtlely but ultimately flawed. The irony of this video post is that HE is a member of the intellectual class which has become in many cases, his included because I think he means well, the unwitting intellectual priests of the State and betrayers of the poor.
My brother Dr. West is a wise man with many good ideas, but his fundamental notion that unfettered markets led to this disaster is not true. We simply do not have unfettered markets but massive corporatist protectionism in this country, barely anything resembling true capitalism or "free markets" as both the left but especially the right establishment love to claim as part of their solutions. Even a cursory look reveals this. Oh and pausing at 1:20 is awesome.
"I'm sure I've had my phone tapped for years, I don't think they're committing a crime against humanity, I just think they aught to stop doing it, goddamn"
Empowered Wall Street has nothing to do with an unfettered market. Also governments in the West are spending almost half of entire GDP of their respective countries nowadays. It's over 50% in Sweden, closer to 40% in USA... but still the State takes by force almost half of all product. How can this be called unfettered? Banksters and crooks that preach "free markets" actually advocate and implement corporationism, not capitalism.
This guy seems like a preacher to me... Unfettered markets? We haven't seen unfettered markets because of state corporatism and the federal reserve, the problems always go back to the way the state was interfering with the free market, at least that's what I've gathered anyway
@newguy33X Clearly not true? So people who live off other people, with the corporate government handouts, who spends another person's money they did not agree to give. These people are in the same boat as people who risked their own capital, and made more of it for providing goods and services to people who demand it? You clearly are an idiot right? And to say we have virgin free markets, is like saying sewer water is potable.
@BurenVanMartin Clearly not true? So people who live off other people, with the corporate government handouts, who spends another person's money they did not agree to give. These people are in the same boat as people who risked their own capital, and made more of it for providing goods and services to people who demand it? You clearly are an idiot right? That you're mentally ill, or you're an evil mother fucker.
@criminaldrugevasion If you need (for some reason) people below you in wealth who live in the same country as you to be anything more than healthy and mobile enough to work for you, you might have a point. The super rich of any country aren't necessarily rich because of the poor in that country...their companies and investments can be anywhere in the world. The U.S., for example, has many wealthy who don't need the poor in the U.S. for much at all.
The Free Market is never unfettered; it has very effective, self-regulating mechanisms, sans costly bureaucracies doing nothing more to police bad people. The FM is not the problem, the hamstringing of its self correcting mechanisms and statism are the hobbling effects.
whiff1962 6 minutes ago
Politics of fear and loathing could never have engendered the radical left. Oh, no, never. The left is all sunshine and love and looking after all those rights and entitlements. But who is going to foot the bill? How many are willing to cede his autonomy and freedoms, in exchange for an unrealizable socialist utopia?
whiff1962 11 minutes ago
I guess this guy is commenting on intellectuals like a dog watches television.....he might as well be a chick......a young one....
sixtiksix 2 hours ago
Cornel West is worth listening to. If for no other reason, than to serve as an example of how an argument, founded upon false premises, can expand beyond reason, critical thinking, and experience, to create a fantasyland that can only exist on a college campus. Where were it not for this abomination called tenure, he would be on a soap box in a park, scaring the pigeons with his bizzare rantings.
Only in America. What a truely great nation this is.
ravenslaves 2 hours ago
@ravenslaves lol
yuothineyesasian 1 hour ago
You sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. Can we get this guy in office?
MassivexPanda 2 hours ago
This has been flagged as spam show
/watch?v=ERj3QeGw9Ok
Here you go, a video by someone who actually knows what they are talking about.
yuothineyesasian 3 hours ago
He speaks from two typical paradigms: profits and business vs. workers, and white vs. black. The first is Marxism the second is cultural Marxism.
Both see not individual human beings but only "classes" -- a vague, never-defined term at the center Marxism. There is no solidaridy within any class. Everybody struggles to be the best employer, the best customer, the best worker. Look closely, and his paradigm falls apart.
RomansBookReport 7 hours ago
Comment removed
yuothineyesasian 7 hours ago
Agreed, Marxism often ignores the human condition in sacrifice to Utopian-ism.
yuothineyesasian 7 hours ago
@RomansBookReport You just copied this from lostrepublic .us. You just removed " which, as a Ukrainian, I’m largely immune to :).", lol.
Do you Paulbots have anything to say outside of the Rand, Mises, and CATO Institutes? You either lie, parrot, or plagiarize.... Jesus Christ.
fartymcpeak04 6 hours ago
@fartymcpeak04 Lol yourself. I RUN lostrepublic.
RomansBookReport 2 hours ago
@RomansBookReport lol, well that makes sense.
fartymcpeak04 2 hours ago
This is what you get when a man who holds only degrees for philosophy and religion starts talking economics.
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
@yuothineyesasian Right. Because people can't study outside of their job-expertise... it's wonderful to hear a youtuber, who we can't identify or place an honest job title to, throw out his one-liner. Bravo, and wonderful hatchet job, brah.
fartymcpeak04 6 hours ago
@fartymcpeak04
Why don't you quit bitching and make a counter-point?
yuothineyesasian 3 hours ago
@yuothineyesasian You're the one bitching in a video I like, lol, and you've made no point with that one-liner. All you've done here is parrot talking points and rhetoric. There's nothing here to reply to other than your lousy "critique".
fartymcpeak04 3 hours ago
" parrot talking points and rhetoric."
Naturally if one subscribes to a particular philosophy then one should no doubt be read on those principles. It is not "parroting" anyone's talking points to be able to discuss their persuasions with those who appropriate opposing positions anymore than it is "parroting" Stephen Hawkings "rhetoric" when discussing black holes.
I think you lack the courage of your convictions, Sir.
yuothineyesasian 2 hours ago
@yuothineyesasian There's nothing to respond to here. Keep preaching, I guess.
fartymcpeak04 2 hours ago
we dont have free markets and havent had anything close to them in a very long time. this commentary makes no sense
jumboshrimp09 12 hours ago
Intellectuals like this guy betrayed the poor by promoting economic planning controlled by government in which all the upward mobility poor people had in previous generations is eliminated by government imposed barrier to entry like expensive licensing.
dubified89 13 hours ago
@dubified89 Next time, in English please (punctuation helps).
BridgeportIPA 12 hours ago
someone has to get the innocent children away from us.
returnoftheramble 1 day ago
ie damaged.
returnoftheramble 1 day ago
This guy criticizes Hayek, but of course he fails to understand the Austrian theory of the business cycle.
ArmednSafe 1 day ago
@ArmednSafe let me guess...Your a Paulbot? Austrian economics,like capitalism, is unsustainable in a world of finite resources.
two0sixTay 12 hours ago
Wrong.
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
@two0sixTay No, what is unsustainable is central planning. Central planners have no way of knowing whether they are creating things people want. They could be consuming resources and there would no way to tell. Of course, by "resources" I mean things that have value. All centrally planned economies become desperately poor to the point of starvation. This is because the central "planners" have no way of knowing what to do. Prices communicate to people what they should be doing.
ArmednSafe 12 hours ago
this guy is exceptionally clever. glad to witness
ensile 2 days ago
Setting aside the folksiness of his message, he makes perfect sense, but people are so blind to the truth, they need to be shaken up before they will hear that our current system is broken. Having wealth is not a bad thing, putting it ahead of everything else in life is bad.
Imedinajr 2 days ago
@TheRightThinker No actually were he got were he is, is by being a fraud,talking smooth and saying shit out of his ass . He claims in his writings to be a Marxist-Socialist but makes a six figure income as an Ivy-League Professor, Charges
$12,000 a speech at about 150 appearences a year, OWNS two houses(Property).yea he's a regular Vladimir Lenin......fuck you Cornel
daJman54 2 days ago
I love the way he talks. He talks with such an almost rustic Southern accent that I grew up with and am very used to. I'm white but when I was little I always loved the more African Americans that talked with wisdom and had this tone in their voice with wisdom embedded in it.
Justinisinthebuildin 3 days ago 7
@Justinisinthebuildin Totally agree, you'll hear this from older people here in Detroit, too.
PhilWithCoffee 2 days ago
@PhilWithCoffee I know. His voice is just very commonplace in that respect and I like it.
Justinisinthebuildin 2 days ago
@Justinisinthebuildin Most def. With all of the education I've had, I still feel like a little kid listening to people speak to me in such a manner. I don't know what it is, but it gives me a feeling like there's so much I don't know (which is true), and that there's so much I still cannot see.
PhilWithCoffee 1 day ago
@Justinisinthebuildin Cornel West is the truth
kashifv 7 hours ago
Actually he's the furthest thing from it.
yuothineyesasian 7 hours ago
Teeth.
ForceCrystal 3 days ago
If by democratically elected president, you mean appointed by the electoral college, then OK, he wasn't a tyrant. Because everyone knows he didn't win the election by ballet count, which was what I thought determined who won the "election." Obama seems to be ushing in facism under a liberal banner.
lessermystery 3 days ago
@leodegario1
Yes, the banking families/cartels like the rockefellers and the Rothchilds that through the federal reserve have slowly taken control of our economy and our sovernty as a nation. As far as Marxism goes I know what it is and im sure you know wat it is 2. And its not the answer.our constitution is
Mastroff0wupa0nigga 3 days ago
@DeraJa
It's spelled 'wall street'. It is a seperate entity from Wal-mart. Open a book or two and you might be able to figure this stuff out on your own someday.
jpak78 3 days ago
im having hard time understanding him, ah, i wish i could ....
jahng0 4 days ago
how can you have "unfettered markets" when you have "walstreet in the driver seat". Just another stupid leftist.
DeraJa 4 days ago
@DeraJa His point is that with unfettered, unregulated markets wealth is going to go straight to the top. The rich will get richer, and thus gain power. Thus, these rich bankers can use their wealth to lobby and influence our government in their own interests (wall street in the drivers street.) The best example of how the rich influence and control our government is the current donations to presidential candidates. 200 rich men make up 90% of all campaign donations given to superpacs in 2012.
Nerdbil 3 days ago
So, this is why the super rich hate free markets?
DeraJa 2 days ago
@DeraJa They love propagating the illusion that we have free markets...but what we really have is unequal competition on nearly every level.
BridgeportIPA 12 hours ago
@BridgeportIPA
You are correct sir!
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
"point is that with unfettered, unregulated markets wealth is going to go straight to the top."
No, if businesses had more competition among themselves wealth would not be so centralized. "rich bankers can use their wealth to lobby and influence our government in their own interests"
Yeah, and take away the excessive amount of control that Gov't has and the businesses will have no interest in robbing you of your influence in the political sphere. It's not that complex, Cornel is wrong.
yuothineyesasian 2 days ago
@yuothineyesasian On the contrary, Cornel is right on. When we see money taken out of politics, we will see politicians (and results) which match what the public wants. When money is taken out of politics, it puts the will of the people first. A government which mostly serves corporations is a failure and will die.
BridgeportIPA 12 hours ago
You are an idiot. Take money out of politics... How do you expect to do that? Let me guess, by creating laws against campaign donations and the like/etc.? If you do that then the money will go underground and then we won't even be able to know WHO is really running the country.
The real answer is to remove governments' regulatory power and massive control over the economy so that private institutions won't have an interest over influencing politics and controlling the system.
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
@yuothineyesasian If you're suggestion is that we can fix the political system and make it more responsive by removing regulatory power....well, then I think we've found our idiot, folks. I forgive you your name-calling, as I realize that you have reading comprehension issues which compound your intellectual handicap.
BridgeportIPA 12 hours ago
As long as government can influence business by control over competition through regulation you will never NEVER remove the coercive nature of monies in the political system, because you will not address the cause of moneys' introduction into the system.
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
As usual Cornel is damned wrong, somebody get Thomas Sowell in here to talk about the failures of intellectuals. A man who actually thinks rather than this line toting windbag pseudo-intellectual.
yuothineyesasian 12 hours ago
CAN A NIGGA GET A HAIR CUT? YO MAN WE DONT WEAR OUR HAIR LIKE DAT NO MO
oiyabastard 4 days ago
@oiyabastard We?
ekovv 4 days ago
4:30 lol cornel west is the man
ienjoyapples 4 days ago
Comment removed
ClaudiusJovianus 4 days ago
I love this man's ebonic accent in combination with the obvious gushing of intellect behind the brain
H3770mynameis 4 days ago 3
@H3770mynameis Why are only African American accents called "ebonics"?
Ebonics is speaking in a broken, twisted form of English. He has an ACCENT, not some form of speech impediment.
Missteree87 2 days ago
@Missteree87 I'm sorry, i don't know the definition of words. I love his 'blaccent,' whatever. His accent certainly isn't network televisiony midwestern 'standard' english like Brian Williams
H3770mynameis 2 days ago
@H3770mynameisthats not ebonics you fool
SwordOfTheRaven 2 days ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@SwordOfTheRaven @Missteree87 I'm sorry, i don't know the definition of words. I love his 'blaccent,' whatever. His accent certainly isn't network televisiony midwestern 'standard' english like Brian Williams
H3770mynameis 2 days ago
@H3770mynameis I'm not trying to pick a fight, but how would your statement have been constructed if he were not black? Your statement seems to contrast his "ebonic" accent and intellect as if the two where somehow incongruent.
JosephRobert82 10 hours ago
@JosephRobert82 oh stfu, you are just looking for a fight, gtfo. Stop trying to make something out of nothing. He like his accent and he likes how intellect is. Leave it at that
Tea42formenyou 7 hours ago
@JosephRobert82 Sigh, I should just downvote my comment. I looked it up but I think the correct term is AAVE, not ebonics, which is pejorative akin to 'slave talk' But come on man, errbody know black people talk diff'rent. they got them aints and them izzles, its diffrent. You look at obama, he talks like a white boy. You look at Cornel West; he talks like a brotha. Im just gettin shit cause I said ebonics when the other guy said rustic Southern accent, but we all know what it is
H3770mynameis 4 hours ago
@JosephRobert82 ADDENDUM: What I find most touching about Dr. West's 'speaking style,' if you will, is that he is someone who clearly embraces his blackness. There is, still, a cultural force which puts whiteness as the ideal and other races as inferior. We can see this in that AAVE is often discouraged in professional settings and with black women pulverizing their hair to look straighter to 'remove the kink.' He makes AAVE sound really smart, despite what Bill Cosby says!
H3770mynameis 4 hours ago
First of all we've never had anything close to unfettered markets. West admits that while many were opening their eyes to government failures and the economic arguments of Milton Friedman, West was sticking his fingers in his ears and sticking with Marxist "class struggle" theories.
The younger generation is finally starting to realize that what we were calling "capitalism" and "free markets" was sheer fascist corporatism, and the smartest among us want REAL Capitalism, NOT SOCIALISM!
publicanimal 4 days ago
Somebody get Thomas Sowell in here.
yuothineyesasian 4 days ago
@yuothineyesasian agreed.
DeraJa 2 days ago
OH GREAT HE'S ONE OF THOSE SMART NIGGERS
shamelessfootfucker 4 days ago
This guy talks the way of the streets,( poet from the street corner ) I've herd them before and 20yrs later they are still on the corner
braxtonhuff 5 days ago
I understand why you think think the way you do, But white people are not tribal. maybe the black people who have overcome would be willing to give the poor there money. the white people are only going ti give enough to keep the poor from steeling from them.
randyfreeland1 5 days ago
He got where he is by playing the race card and showing his rotten teeth.
TheRightThinker 6 days ago
@TheRightThinker
Great job! You've once again resorted to bullshit and can't make any rational argument for fascism.
catbuffalo 6 days ago
@catbuffalo First I did not make any argument for or against fascism, I dont know whos post youre reading. Next I insulted this fraud professor because I know his work and I am entitled to my opinion
TheRightThinker 6 days ago
We have never had an unfettered market in the U.S.
The only way to achieve an unfettered market is to completely remove the government.
LiberationAnimation 6 days ago
@LiberationAnimation I've always been impressed by the balls of that argument. You get decades of free market obsessed policies and when it all fails, what was the problem 'it wasn't free enough'. If it weren't for the govt, your 'unfettered market' would have gone bust.
TheClockworkPenguin 6 days ago
@TheClockworkPenguin,
I'm glad you're impressed ;)
Can you please provide an example of these "free market obsessed policies?"
LiberationAnimation 6 days ago
@LiberationAnimation well in Britain they: privatised the railways,water,gas,electricity,industry. they changed the tax system in a way that left multinationals paying less than small to medium sized businesses. they systematically deregulated the finance sector. As we speak, they are opening up the NHS to private firms.
TheClockworkPenguin 6 days ago
@TheClockworkPenguin,
Government typically privatizes services when it needs more money. It transfers it's own coercive monopoly to someone else with government connections in return for lots of money, and continues to prevent others from entering the market to compete with the new coercive monopoly it set up. Are the railways, water, gas, electricity, etc. run by monopolies?
The fact that you have taxes and a NHS prove that you don't live in a free market environment.
LiberationAnimation 6 days ago
@TheClockworkPenguin Unfortunately you're not apt enough to make the distinction between the political rhetoric and lip service regarding free market policies, and what free markets actually are. In case you hadn't noticed, our legislative and executive branches operate hand-in-hand with corporate special interests and lobbyists, particularly financial magnates. That is not a free market, that is fascism. Wilson and FDR were fascists who destroyed capitalism in the USA. It's on Wikipedia, read.
publicanimal 4 days ago
@publicanimal I think you are making excuses for a failed ideology. The comparison to fascism is facile and practically falls under Godwins Law. We've never had 'proper' communism either, but the real world experiment failed, just as the free market experiment has failed.
Also, 'apt' is not a synonym for intelligent. "Apt" means 'appropriate'
TheClockworkPenguin 4 days ago
@TheClockworkPenguin The free market is what brought us to where we are. The only reason it is failing is injection of socialism. You can't have a free market, if you regulate the market.
BDBK666 3 days ago
Can't stand this man.. marxist!
kwazykilla87 6 days ago
@kwazykilla87
By simply naming him falsely, it just proves you cannot argue properly.
SFSylvester 6 days ago
Intellectuals only exist because people cannot think for themselves. its a harsh opinion but its the truth. Society creates these people, not the rational of freedom of thought.
Reido2828 1 week ago
@leodegario1 Golly gee! You didn't get the memo? Um, yeah the " you don't know what socialism/Marxism/ communism argument is kind of a pussy way to go about arguing. That's soooo 2008.
hatfisc 1 week ago
blame the last 40 years on free market capitalism
but everything is better now than it was 40 years ago?
???
theteckman 1 week ago
dam i wish he would live 4 ever
adsummer70 1 week ago
So, then, why is this video not banned for his racist "lily white" comment?
MrBillTroop73 1 week ago
This comment has received too many negative votes show
This guy has NO clue How a Free market economy works...The true core problem is The Federal Reserve's Central Banking System that has Given Control of our economy to Private Bankers.All he is, is a Marxist
FUCK YOU Cornell...
Mastroff0wupa0nigga 1 week ago
@Mastroff0wupa0nigga is your account for jokes/trolling? Or are you really as racist as you appear?
soundslave 1 week ago
@Mastroff0wupa0nigga, While you started with the Fed, you instead finished by stating that the Private Bankers are the problem. What do you plan to do about them? Define Marxism for me please.
leodegario1 1 week ago
@Mastroff0wupa0nigga you are an idiot. The true core problem is greed on all levels. Most Poverty stricken people as well as the middle class can be blamed just as much for the fact that they feed into the system hoping and believing that they too can and will one day be apart of or close to the top 1%
tar2185 1 week ago
seems more like an economic genius...
zippyman28 1 week ago
WHAT IS THE POINT OF HIM CUSSING ON 4:35
what8098 1 week ago
@what8098
why not?
WorthlessLoser8 1 week ago
@fede2 It's not a problem with my reading, you haven't articulated how your claims about markets and institutions are anything other than conjecture. Whether you're a socialist or a free market capitalist, either way you're making claims about a market works that has never existed.
aluisious 1 week ago
@aluisious your accusations of obscurantism on my behalf are little more than a cop out. i've given my explination. if it's nothing more than a "conjecture" the burden of proof is on you.
you can't insist that what i say has no actual baring on reality without even hinting as to what standard you're basing yourself on, let alone offering a counter-argument. there's no substance behind your criticisms.
fede2 1 week ago
Our markets have not been unfettered.
saintoccasionally 1 week ago
@saintoccasionally Riiiiight, the old "no true Scotsman", bring up what happened in CA vis à vis Enron and there's sure to be useful idiot liber-tard pipe up "it only happened because the utilities weren't deregulated ENOUGH!".
Fuck you & fuck off jackass.
XavierNinnis 1 week ago
@XavierNinnis I especially like the part where you didn't bother to actually show how I was wrong, but just called me names like a fourth grader would.
saintoccasionally 1 week ago
actually if it wasnt for hitler more people would be here so that's a total fallacy.
ajgolfer1 1 week ago
@ajgolfer1
Ah, there it is. The argument is not about whether more or less people would be here, but whether we would be here. It was used as a counter-argument to demonstrate that it's fallacious to say that something must be all good or the best option if it resulted in us being here. (cont..)
arknihil 1 week ago
@ajgolfer1
1.) A lot of bad things have happened that resulted in us being here. And 2.) We can't presume to know that things wouldn't have been better off, had a different method been implemented, unless we can use reason to demonstrate what other methods are and how they are inefficient.
arknihil 1 week ago
1. End the Fed
2. Remove subsidies and intricacies of corporate tax law.
3. RON PAUL 2012
4. ???????????
5. Profit.
We never experienced unfettered markets. Even Milton Friedman talked about times of lesser regulation being more prosperous in our nation's history, and we haven't experienced regulation reduction by any means. I choose Liberty before Equality. The moral hazard of social engineering by government is too great.
Swinginmonkiez 1 week ago
the problem with capitalism is not the market aspect. that's not what breeds inequality. the problem is the the structural aspect of it's institutions.
fede2 1 week ago
@fede2 Nonsense. You couldn't prove that in a million years, it's just more pseudo religious faith.
aluisious 1 week ago
@aluisious care to elaborate on your criticism? what exactly do you expect me to "prove"?
fede2 1 week ago
@fede2 It irritates me that free marketers (or whatever you want to call yourself) make theses nebulous statements out of nowhere and expect everyone to simply accept them as true. It's very similar to the kinds of claims religious people make. You're making a claim about free markets and institutions that you could not possibly know to be accurate, so I'm pointing that out.
aluisious 1 week ago
@aluisious i'm not a free-marketer or anything similar. what i was saying was that the problematic aspect of capitalism is not the market but rather it's institutional structure. i can elaborate if you want but the reason i didn't "prove" anything is because prima facie it should be pretty easy to understand.
fede2 1 week ago
@fede2 Then elaborate. Explain how a free market in itself avoids abuses. Pollution, long term product safety, corruption...how does a free market correct that.
I've heard the "people will stop buying the product" but that's simply a moronic argument. By that point the damage is done.
aluisious 1 week ago
@aluisious your complaint is missdirected. those abuses occur because legal personhood is granted to bussinesses run by centrlized capital in few hands resting on mountains of labour. and as a legal "person" it is treated as a concrete individual despite the fact that it can be more destructive in the excercize of it's "rights".
the market obviously can't "correct" this, but the market is not to blame in the first place. the problem is the internal structure of private bussinesses.
fede2 1 week ago
@fede2 So what fantasy market are you referring to? I don't much care for discussions of things that don't exist and never will.
aluisious 1 week ago
@aluisious do you by any chance bother to read the comments you respond to? i wasn't describing the market.
get it in your head: i'm not endorsing the market. i'm a socialist. my point, which you never bothered to get, is that of the two constitutive aspects of capitalism : the market and the hierarchical bussiness model, the former is contingent upon the latter.
if you respond with more snide and bullshit i'll just take you to be a troll and leave you to shout in space alone.
fede2 1 week ago
@aluisious There are TONS of ideas for handing pollution, long term safety, and corruption. I suggest for corruption and safety for starters, how about we start by no longer putting all the nukes in the hands of the sociopaths. If you really wanted a detailed model of a possible solution there's an entire book called Practical Anarchy which proposes a very in depth solution to solving just about every major issue without the existence of government.
theredscourge 1 week ago
@aluisious However, do note that what matters most is accepting and implementing something moral as soon as humanly possible, rather than waiting until someone hands us a nice tidy alternative. The first people to realize that slavery was immoral came centuries before it was finally abolished, but heck, it happened eventually. I think anarchy will too, but not likely within our lifetime, nor should it, as we'd need either a massive war, or a long transitional period of reducing government.
theredscourge 1 week ago
@aluisious The state is the last bastion of slave plantations that exist in the world.
Imagine you are a black slave on a plantation a few hundred years ago. He will provide sufficient food, shelter, health, and safety because without it, you cannot be productive. He profits from your labor. You have whatever freedom he grants you; he might even accept a bit of feedback if you're lucky. All land belongs to the rich white guy. He MAY allow you some personal property. But it's still slavery.
theredscourge 1 week ago
@aluisious Your slave owner might even allow you to move to another slave plantation where there are a different set of rules and you have a different level of sway over them. Your new owner may SEEM very nice, he may even educate you so as to make you feel more fulfilled if it might help your productivity and save him money and effort. He may even pick a few representatives among your peers to give you and them the illusion of free will. But he calls the shots. If you break his rules, you die.
theredscourge 1 week ago
@aluisious If he can convince you that he is your benevolent caretaker, convince you that it is only because of the decisions made by your peer representatives and a few groups of your other peers around who have influenced those representatives, that any problems exist today, then he has won. While you and your peers fight amongst yourselves, he heads off to the local bank/federal reserve/IMF.
theredscourge 1 week ago
I don't know how anyone of any real intelligence can think that unfettered markets are universally wonderful. It takes a few seconds to come up with one counterexample after another of how "free market innovators" simply take wealth from others.
The whole free market thing is a simple ideology held by simple people who want to deny that the real world is messy and requires you to stay vigilant and possibly make wrong decisions.
aluisious 1 week ago
I'm white and I grew up in a new York ghetto....who should I blame? There's racism on so many levels yet we only touch on one form constantly.
brklynsown 1 week ago
Comment removed
SuperRightShoe 1 week ago
"age of obama"?!.....smh
ll2nycell 1 week ago
@ll2nycell its been 4 whole years!
ll2nycell 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
Some people want young white females to mix with non-white males.
I made a one-minute video highlighting a very small sample of race-mixing advertisements.
I love white people, and I am opposed to race-mixing. But I do not hate non-whites.
If you click on my name “awhitesoul2012” highlighted in blue below this comment, you can watch my video.
Thanks.
awhitesoul2012 1 week ago
........
stephfan3 1 week ago
This guy is talking about the crony capitalist system. If workers want higher wages, they need to freaking fight for them. Greed is the only viable economic system. Forcing the "haves" to give to the "have not's" takes from those who are smarter to give to the un motivated. They are un motivated since, if they were, they would work for their money. Society will ALWAYS have rich and poor, even in the heaviest socialist system.
And all this wire tapping stuff is big govt. Fight for your rights!
playmaka2007 1 week ago
This is a republic, not a democracy.
greelanter 1 week ago
Obama is the best President in a loooOOOOOoooong time.
TheKirger 1 week ago
"Wire tapping not a crime against humanity" it is when the ones tapping are claiming to be infallible.
mmarieden 1 week ago
Unfettered markets? Has that ever existed in America? If so, it certainly hasn't existed since 1913. I think Cornel gets that wrong.
dustinseth1 1 week ago
I figured out Obama was a fraud long before this "academic" brother did. I am really bored by this charismatic academic brother's words....time for radical talk...seek out marxists and anarchists....they already know this shit and are talking about living non-first world, consumeristic lives.
sandyssanders 1 week ago
Dr. West is a very brillant man. I love the way he uses his hands to express what he is saying. You have to listen very closely to what he is saying. This man is very good with words. A professor of many things. Not many of the intellectual class will admit their faults and then put everything aside to protest with the people and get arrested. Strong Man Indeed
jacquepegram 1 week ago in playlist Liked videos
Dr West is an example of someone very very knowledgeable of a line of thinking that is subtlely but ultimately flawed. The irony of this video post is that HE is a member of the intellectual class which has become in many cases, his included because I think he means well, the unwitting intellectual priests of the State and betrayers of the poor.
MattQB1990 1 week ago
Is he seriously saying that we had, or were even working towards unfettered markets for the last 40 years? Really?
chipk77 1 week ago
My brother Dr. West is a wise man with many good ideas, but his fundamental notion that unfettered markets led to this disaster is not true. We simply do not have unfettered markets but massive corporatist protectionism in this country, barely anything resembling true capitalism or "free markets" as both the left but especially the right establishment love to claim as part of their solutions. Even a cursory look reveals this. Oh and pausing at 1:20 is awesome.
SmoothJazz98 1 week ago
Lot of big words. Not much substance.
52000rightwing 1 week ago
@52000rightwing you're a fucking loser. Get a life.
IHateDCS 1 week ago
Comment removed
52000rightwing 1 week ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@IHateDCS "you're a fucking loser. Get a life."
I'm only 24, but I guarantee that I have done more with my life than you ever will.
52000rightwing 1 week ago
Oh youtube comments... where humanity shows its progress.
BurenVanMartin 1 week ago
@BurenVanMartin heres one for u....rp2012!!
88chicha 1 week ago
@88chicha lol
BurenVanMartin 1 week ago
"I'm sure I've had my phone tapped for years, I don't think they're committing a crime against humanity, I just think they aught to stop doing it, goddamn"
Love this guy.
RMac777 2 weeks ago 18
many cretins in this socially poor country
77musica 2 weeks ago
Cornel West gives up the truth in a intellectually superb manner.
GODSTARMEL7 2 weeks ago
No top comment......
Boobies
12345678900emiry 2 weeks ago 10
Empowered Wall Street has nothing to do with an unfettered market. Also governments in the West are spending almost half of entire GDP of their respective countries nowadays. It's over 50% in Sweden, closer to 40% in USA... but still the State takes by force almost half of all product. How can this be called unfettered? Banksters and crooks that preach "free markets" actually advocate and implement corporationism, not capitalism.
Peteruspl 2 weeks ago
This man is a fool.
Zahav007 2 weeks ago
lmao, 4:34 his inner hood came out for a bit, like the famous reporter and the fly.
Good video, though, man talks a lot of sense.
WindmillStalker 2 weeks ago
Very good ideas.
Nhordmyr 2 weeks ago
How did I go from watching Michio Kaku and Tyson, to THIS racist idiot?
TheFourthOfTheSeven 2 weeks ago
@TheFourthOfTheSeven
Racist? Explain, please.
Candyliz2003 2 weeks ago
@TheFourthOfTheSeven What did he say that was racist?
BDotBoom 2 weeks ago
@BDotBoom He raped me with his eyes.
BlazedBastar666 2 weeks ago
Minimum wage destroyed employment among blacks and other minorities.
themostdismal 2 weeks ago
This guy seems like a preacher to me... Unfettered markets? We haven't seen unfettered markets because of state corporatism and the federal reserve, the problems always go back to the way the state was interfering with the free market, at least that's what I've gathered anyway
GorillaJesus 2 weeks ago
There is no poor or rich, just the ones who live involuntarily off others!
SarionFetecuse 2 weeks ago
@SarionFetecuse I don't understand why you say "involuntarily".
newguy33X 2 weeks ago
@newguy33X Clearly not true? So people who live off other people, with the corporate government handouts, who spends another person's money they did not agree to give. These people are in the same boat as people who risked their own capital, and made more of it for providing goods and services to people who demand it? You clearly are an idiot right? And to say we have virgin free markets, is like saying sewer water is potable.
SarionFetecuse 2 weeks ago
@SarionFetecuse You meant to send that to the OTHER commentor. Mine was about how I didn't understand how that stuff was "INvoluntary".
newguy33X 2 weeks ago
@SarionFetecuse clearly untrue.
BurenVanMartin 2 weeks ago
@BurenVanMartin Clearly not true? So people who live off other people, with the corporate government handouts, who spends another person's money they did not agree to give. These people are in the same boat as people who risked their own capital, and made more of it for providing goods and services to people who demand it? You clearly are an idiot right? That you're mentally ill, or you're an evil mother fucker.
SarionFetecuse 2 weeks ago
As long as theres a fiat currency theres no way anyone can make the conclusion that we have a free market.
TheDetoX 2 weeks ago
@TheDetoX As long as we have a system of involuntary force, we will not have a free market.
SarionFetecuse 2 weeks ago
the lower class is the base of society.
how stronger the base how richer society.
this was the case in our country.
result; richest country on earth.
now we make the same mistake, the netherlands.
...and losing 3 trillion dollar pension fund
criminaldrugevasion 2 weeks ago
@criminaldrugevasion If you need (for some reason) people below you in wealth who live in the same country as you to be anything more than healthy and mobile enough to work for you, you might have a point. The super rich of any country aren't necessarily rich because of the poor in that country...their companies and investments can be anywhere in the world. The U.S., for example, has many wealthy who don't need the poor in the U.S. for much at all.
newguy33X 2 weeks ago