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Forum Post: Free Market Apocalypse

Posted 4 years ago on July 10, 2019, 9:08 a.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

It should be obvious by now how "free market capitalism" is self destructing. It should also be obvious that free market capitalism is an oxymoron. I once said the market couldn't be free if capitalism was banned and wouldn't be free if it wasn't. The freedom to be a capitalist is like the freedom to own slaves: It's beyond mere irony. It's an abomination.

Why? Because it's simply wrong for a few members of our national, state, local or neighborhood communities to take most [quickly escalating to all] of the product of our labors for their personal use. Worse we're increasingly forced into debt to the parasitic owners because of their high prices and low wages.

Capitalism is even more obviously an abomination, because it's self destructing. As it concentrates wealth through inexorable mechanisms like compound interest, it robs the consumers, most of us, of the ability to continue to support it. Can you see this happening yet? If not, you will. [Caveat: unless you're a brain dead conservative.]

The profits keep rolling in from our debt - money created on the ledgers of the banks. Most fools can't seem to grasp that this process of making something from nothing only applies to money, a representation and token of wealth, and will never apply to the real things we need to survive. The only thing that's growing here is the money supply.

And then there's the oldest child of the capitalist pyramid scam: the real estate Ponzi. How do you think that will end? Will we all be homeless because we can't afford the rent on our foreclosed homes? Think about: we couldn't afford to keep up the payments as the market increases home prices and we borrow against the equity to keep going and ...

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44 Comments


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[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

So, ''If You Look Behind Neoliberal Economists ... You Will Discover The Rich: How Economic Theories Serve Big Business":

radix omnia malorum est cupiditas!

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

I also see John C. Calhoun lurking behind the neo-liberal/Libertarian resurgence of the Confederacy starting shortly after Brown v. Board.

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

It all goes hand in hand. Racism, imprisonment, the environment, the economy, social norms, political power structures etc. Never does thing or idea or policy happen in a vacuum, all are related.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''From Chile to Lebanon, mass mobilizations are calling for a political and economic revolution against the neoliberal consensus.'' - from …

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

Is America the leader of the "free world?"

https://twitter.com/NaomiAKlein/status/1193146393424207872

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Alas "... the US has just moved blatantly to destroy the democratic processes in Bolivia, to terrorize a nation and blackmail its president to resign. Yet Western media dutifully turn off that narrative to keep chasing their fantasies about Russia. Another illustration of why Corporate Western Media - are more accurately defined as propaganda channels, not news outlets." - from …

So, with direct reference to the question "Is America the leader of the "free world"?" - In a word "NO"! However, hubris & Manufactured National Consent, will continue to pander to the notion of America's might being its 'de facto right' to treat The World as its imperial playground to exercise its hegemony!

et veritas vos liberabit ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

America probably has the silver carps which jump aboard boats to give away for free so yeah, America is the lead[-]er of the "free world." On Victory Day ( a May Day after the May Day,) we may be able to celebrate in Red Square with the new troops of Greater America ( after their valiant but failed effort to defend Moscow against the National Socallist ) pledging allegiance to our triumphant Supreme Score "the [¿soot?] is in the air, blowing everywhere" Leader Shittoad-in-Cheatose who deserves to receive a Congressional medal of honor for throwing his own body on top of a hand grenade in an act of unparalleled heroism to save himself.

I wonder how the very white Chamber pot ( I was so proud that I'd uncovered these KGB-spying devices hiding in plain sight { the KGB could get into everything!} in the meeting of Nixon with Mao; it was a bit difficult to explain the global significance of those mystical Unidentified Grounding Objects { UGOs } to my inquisitive and curious friend because he apparently lacked that refined culture in his upbringing but I'm bottom-oriented -- Jesus said that 'the last shall be first' so outputs should be thought about first; if you cannot come up with any destination address such as that of a very white UGO for the output shit, call off the effort because it'll be wasted or worse yet spewed onto your face ) likes the effluent triggered by the Shittoad-in-Cheatose (SiC) pulling out the turkey's butt plug. Two secretaries in SiC's Cabinet opposed this crazy action ( one was fired and the other resigned.)

There's another turkey's butt plug near this Russian city "closer to Australia than Moscow."

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Also ''Meet The Economist Behind the One Percent’s Stealth Takeover of America'' (J.Buchanan)

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

this whole economic system will eventually tumble.

Yes it is consuming itself. Concentration of wealth means the workers and most consumers eventually don't have enough to live and the system collapses due to the output hoarded by the rich and the inability of the rest of us to continue the input. The "very stable geniuses" - the clowns running this circus - haven't a clue that they are doing exactly what Marx predicted or that it's self destructive.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

"Do you feel trapped in a broken economic model that excludes billions of people while making a handful unimaginably rich? That sorts us into winners and losers, and then blames the losers for their misfortune? Welcome to Neoliberalism." ...

e tenebris, lux ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

4 million in UK in deep poverty. Not just poverty, deep poverty and some in "destitution." These are Dickensian conditions and Boris Johnson and his far right wing cabinet are looking to make it worse with a No Deal Brexit that will impoverish Brits even more. Why does he do this? Because he and his economic class will become wealthier.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/jul/29/uk-deep-poverty-study-austerity

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Poverty & Austerity in UK, the world's 5th/6th richest nation is a RW Neoliberal Tory scandal & CHOICE!

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Labour Manifesto for a better, fairer Britain, is being updated for 2019. But here is the 2017 manifesto.

https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/

General Election possibly looming in UK, could be announced this week.

A Labour government would end the Tory austerity that has harmed and killed many people through poverty, lack of policing, debt and cuts to the NHS. 5th biggest economy on earth with 3.7 million children in absolute poverty, 72% of which come from working families! Shameful legacy of the Tories.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/child-poverty-absolute-uk-housing-crisis-costs-austerity-conservatives-a8843381.html

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

The https://labour.org.uk/manifesto/ of 2017 was a work of real genius;

Bernie's https://berniesanders.com/issues/ is too but MSM won't say it!

multum in parvo ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Happy September 17th, OWS & Shadz!

8 years on and we're not that far away from Prime Minister Jeremy Corbyn and President Bernie Sanders! Who would have ever thought?

Thanks for all you've done here these past 8 years. Amazing work! Never give up!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Eight years ago on a Saturday morning in September, a few hundred New Yorkers marched to Manhattan’s financial district and set up a defiant encampment on Wall Street’s doorstep.

''Three years earlier, millions of Americans had lost their savings, their pensions, their jobs, or their homes in the 2008 financial meltdown. Yet no major Wall Street executives went to prison for their role in the debacle. Indeed, the loudest proponents of market liberalization and financial deregulation—the very policies that led to the crash—used the catastrophe to consolidate their own wealth and power.

''Despite this institutional failure to hold anyone accountable for the 2008 financial meltdown or address the causes of one of the worst recessions of all time, no one in the professional political class saw Occupy Wall Street coming. The movement’s unlikely explosion shocked the political establishment. GOP strategist Frank Luntz said he was “frightened to death” of the effort. House majority leader Eric Cantor decried the “growing mob” of Wall Street protesters.

''Meanwhile, Democratic Party leaders scrambled to figure out how to relate to a movement that was picking a popular fight with corporate power that party elites had been avoiding for decades.

''For 30 years, Democrats parroted Republican talking points about “free trade” and “welfare reform.” They failed to muster a coherent counterstrategy to the GOP’s dog-whistle racism and culture war, passed devastating trade deals like NAFTA, and marched in line on the disastrous Iraq War. They turned a blind eye as big money corrupted the American political system and finance capital rewrote the rules of the economy. For decades, the party’s leaders neglected to fight visibly and vocally for everyday working people—urban and rural, white, black, and brown—who had once been the party’s core base.'' -excerpted from ...

Thanx for your kind words bw and my regards and best wishes to U and yours in all of your endeavors.

Solidarity!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Elizabeth Warren is "capitalist to her bones" according to Bernie Sanders.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/bernie-sanders-draws-contrast-elizabeth-warren-capitalist-bones/story?id=66217140

"In 2018, Warren was quoted as saying "I am a capitalist to my bones" during an event hosted by the New England Council, a non-partisan regional business organization."

Sanders says "I am, I believe, the only candidate who's going to say to the ruling class of this country, the corporate elite: Enough, enough with your greed and with your corruption," Sanders said. "We need real change in this country."

This is a very important distinction between these two candidates because as George Monbiot says "Capitalism is destroying the Earth."

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/15/capitalism-destroying-earth-human-right-climate-strike-children

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Like HRC, EW was & I argue deep down, still is - A Republican! Anybody who does not see that has lost sight of just how far to The Right US/UK politics has gotten over the last 40 years! I'm fkn sick of it, tbh!! WakeTFup U$A & UK, especially with epochal elections now in the offing!!! Also fyi consider:

fiat justitia ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

For profit companies cut costs in order to make more profit. That puts the quality of what they produce at risk to all of us.

In the case of utilities, private utilities charge people huge amounts of money for things like electric, television, cable, internet, heating fuel, etc. and then cut costs and damage to the environment. Everyone loses except the stockholders.

From truthout:

"But even in the best cases, for-profit utilities with state-sanctioned monopolies are not functioning in a competitive marketplace. And unlike public utilities, which simply have to cover the costs of operating, privatized utilities must generate something else: profits.

How do they do this? By cutting costs — including employee salaries and benefits, customer services, and equipment upgrades. In the case of PG&E, it’s meant failing to upgrade and maintain their aging infrastructure."

When profit is the only goal, morality and doing the right thing goes out the window

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Indeed: "When profit is the only goal, morality and doing the right thing goes out the window" because the 0.01% & their 1% lackeys & the duped 10%'s GREED - is NOT any kind of basis for a healthy and a sustainable economy! + Fyi, consider:

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas!

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Bankers got rich from foreclosures.

"Following the foreclosure crisis after the 2008 housing bust, Wall Street speculators bought up foreclosed properties, seeing an opportunity to make big profits off the suffering of others. Private equity firms like the Blackstone Group and Barrack’s Colony Capital purchased tens of thousands of foreclosed properties that had been previously owned and lived in by families. What were once opportunities for people to own homes and build wealth, have become rental empires for the wealthy to squeeze profits from working families."

There are people who actually benefited greatly from the displacement of people from their homes during the foreclosure crisis. Not only is this disgusting greed but it threw people from their homes, their memories, their families, their towns. It up-ended lives.

There are consequences to greed that go beyond simply stealing money, lives are affected in deep and profound ways. We need a government that will put an end to greed and that will create an economy that works for all people.

We need leaders like Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corybn who put priorities with the masses of people rather than the few at the top.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Anti-Corbyn conspiracy worked in UK but that need not be the case for Bernie and The 99% in USA but only IF lessons can be learned and applied. Ergo, FYI ... please try to consider the following link:

respice; adspice; prospice ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

"We must be pro-Palestinian as well." Bernie Sanders declares we can't just be pro-Israel. A brilliant moment from the PBS Politico debate December 19, 2019. Watch it here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zipwwG--R6Y

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

When profit ( the $$$-is-god value ) is the only goal, morality and doing the right thing goes out the window.

Dem Farterland Heil! Tod für shitterlandischen Schweine.

After England's land has been mostly privatized, all landowners eventually realized that anyone had to be given a right of peaceful passage, including themselves!

It's an application of the principle of moderation in order to avoid the disastrous results of the extremes. There are many idiots who crave permanence, eternity, constancy, supremacy, etc. From my Bible study, I came to the conclusion that God was much better off not to have engaged in the creative act of cleavage. What can a permanent, eternal, constant Supreme Fascist gain by forging the Creation? Yeah, the image of God Himself in Adam who craved the same cleavage in order to be like the animals which had both male and female.

The only solution God had come up with after the Fall of Woman ( most Christians had it as "the Fall of Man" but it's not so in the Bible unless "Man" includes "Woman" because Eve was the first one who was so-called "deceived;" if Adam was to be blamed for Eve's weakness, why shouldn't God be blamed for Adam's weakness, too, for God had made the cleavage? Who created the serpent? Wasn't it God, too? ) to the problem of cleavage was to cycle eternally through life and death until the enlightenment that they're akin to phase changes. The water is still there even if it has changed into ice although liquid water seems to have disappeared and solid water, ice, appeared. Among the molecules of water jiggling, waltzing, or at times shooting at near-supersonic speeds with the heat of life itself, there is an invisible energy "left written between the lines." Although spirit is physical as all are, it's not subservient to matter but important in its own right. Materialists ( so-called "scientific" { purportedly in "Communist" states,} or otherwise ) tend to miss this point and fail at the pitfall.

I researched into Bushido which Teddy Roosevelt revered ( the annual blooming of the Japan-gifted cherry blossoms in Washington D.C. reminds us of the pre-world-wars' friendship between Japan and the U.S.A. Note that the status of war between Japan and the Soviet Union has not been concluded ( disputed territorial claims persist ) but currently held off by the U.S. security guarantees to Japan under the nuclear umbrella. Upon the DPRK's idiotic idea { still being traumatized by the horrendous effluent in Syria unleashed by having the turkey's butt plug there pulled away, I wonder about the quality of many countries' military advisors: I read that some general thought that sinking two U.S. aircraft carriers would quickly make the U.S. seek a peace-treaty settlement 《 hmm, wasn't this the same argument the Empire of Japan had used before launching Tora! Tora! Tora! ending up with Boom! Boom! But no Soviet? There was indeed the signing of "the instrument of surrender" aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay; There was also the 911 Boom! Boom! Has any country lined up to become Afghanistan Tora Bora 2.0 yet? "Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel" 》because of the high value the U.S. places on the lives of U.S. nationals but this is absurd as anyone who has delved into recent U.S. history should know } of getting the U.S. out of its neighborhood actually having been carried out, a resurgent Japan would likely go to war with Russia so it must regain material support from its neighboring soon-to-be-again colonies { Korea and Manchuria will undoubtedly be "needed" again for comforting the man.} Right now, the U.S. sustains the livelihood of Japan by functioning as its colonies because of the de facto Pax Americana over the Great West American Salty Lake between the U.S. West Coast and Japan. Having colonies is a life-or-death issue for Japan.) It was apparently influenced by Chinese culture, unsurprisingly, since China had the dominant culture in East Asia for many centuries. Taiwan preserved more of this culture than the ¿formerly? materialist Pretender. Similarly as the Soviet Union had lost the crewed ( this obstacle still bedevils targeting Mars ) race to the Moon to the U.S. ( ISS - International Space Station's languages of choice are [American] English and Russian, and definitely not Mandarin { ISS is most likely a money sink, thus being incompatible with the $$$-is-god value, besides blatantly military research on space weapons and ¿shielding? countermeasures against the spaceside IEDs screening any attempt to escape from Earth being disallowed,} not that much different from the most dominant languages used on the internet, ) over-politicizing plagues (serpentZA:)

China's attitude towards foreigners has drastically changed recently and state 
condoned attacks, doxxing and harassment have led to Chinese 50 cent nationalists 
attacking my wife and trying to get her fired and arrested (just because she's my wife) 
attacks against my parents and even random cousins, doxxing my parents, swatting 
attempts, all sorts of nonsense simply because I have an opinion that doesn't gel with 
their force fed one. I realized just how sick certain parts of Chinese society are as a 
result of these relentless attacks and so will now discuss and explain why these 
happen. I hope to enlighten people through my experiences and help them understand 
why it is that Modern China is closing up and behaving the way it is.

I suppose that Helium-3 miners on the other side of the Moon will probably be speaking Mandarin due to the $$$-is-god value, just like the fishing-boat PLA-affiliated fishers in the West American Warm Lake.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Stop Blaming America’s Poor for Their Poverty''! by Noah Smith:

''In Japan, people work hard, few abuse drugs, crime is minimal and any single mothers are rare. Yet the country still has lots of poverty.''

ad iudicium ...

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

Many Japanese work too hard so they stay poor. Rest and leisure are needed for innovations and creativity. Japan's culture of hammering down the nail which sticks out detracts from innovations because by definition, new things are the nails that stick out. Japan lacks the "traitorous" culture which recycles talents fast and effectively into new ventures. Silicon Valley had many many failed companies and even more laid-off or fired people but they recombined in new companies fast. People there seemed to tolerate company failures and valued individuals' talents. I saw some resumés of the people from Silicon Valley. They networked with each other -- there were lots of failures but it only took a few successes to "make it big" financially. Working hard wasn't the reason why I earned vastly more after college graduation than before that. The externalities were extremely important. Frankly speaking, I worked a lot harder while in college than at my first job after college. Technology, capital equipment, and the end market made huge differences. Chairman Mao got the people to work hard for decades but the economy didn't take off until after he had died. "Mao had to die, for China to rise," was verboten but it was indeed a truism as we can all see. The most important end market for China was the U.S. which contributed greatly to the rise of China's economy.

How many Japanese companies have gone bankrupt? Not too many. I'm not saying that bankruptcy is good but it's a sure sign of "striving" which is required for success once hope has sprouted. Japan is suffering from an aging population with a segment surviving in quiet desperation or shall we say "genteel comfort" instead to conform to Red China's "standard?"

It seemed that the Brits by sipping tea and betting on the horses in Hong Kong were doing a better job at ruling in "genteel comfort" than the new owner who is all sweaty and worked up in "exercises." Different time, different breed. 无为治。

Actually, ruling without sweating is an art which takes practice to improve: Take a deep breath and count to ten. Slowly exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat a few times.

The calming perspective for Red China is that all the Hong Kongers who seek and receive asylum protection in Taiwan are voluntarily joining one of Red China's provinces because Taiwan is "not an independent country," "just a province!" Red China is winning more Hong Kongers in its province of Taiwan. Win, win, win Bigly!

In fact, if ALL Hong Kongers were to move to Taiwan, Red China wouldn't need to work at all to reunify Hong Kong. It'd be Done.

It's a great idea to learn from Taiwan which knows a thing or two about defense for sure. An urban pitched battle fought in a mountainous terrain with many nooks and crannies is not a flat TianAnMen Square so easily mowed over by tanks. There would be lots of casualties and it would take a lot of time due to a rebellious population of millions, numerically larger than just about any country's armed forces. Shenzhen is just across the border like a hibernating cicada sucking tree sap quietly for decades (it won't be quiet anymore if Hong Kong has a war going on.) I guess Tank Man after the TianAnMen Square Massacre (天安门广场大屠杀/天安門廣場大屠殺) had happened was probably outraged and saying something like, "Get out of Beijing, my neighborhood!"

Stay positive, everyone. Homer of epic Illiad fame is cute in otiations. Three Cheers for Chairman WoW: U.S.A! U.S.A! U.S.A!

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Capitalist downturns also provoke thoughtful victims and observers to ask two questions ... Why does it happen and what might be done to stop it from happening? Will those questions extend to asking ... why this system reproduces such downturns so recurringly throughout its history everywhere? Will a process of answering include a discussion of the systemic nature and causes of downturns? Will capitalism itself then become a target for criticism? Might that also lead to a really big question lurking in such criticism .. Can we do better than capitalism with a system that does not have or need recurring downturns?'' from..

fiat lux ...

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Your Slavery is their Freedom!'' by George Monbiot:

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Neoliberalism promised freedom – instead it delivers stifling control

Freedom is more than just political freedom, which by the way is suspect in the USA when corporations are people too, and our elections are funded by the wealthy and said corporations.

Freedom is also economic freedom because no matter how "free" you are told you are, if you can't live your life with dignity, if you can't spend time with your children or even afford HAVE children, you are not free.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/10/neoliberalism-freedom-control-privatisation-state

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

''Truth is many Democratic Party ‘moderates’ prefer Trump to Sanders in a White House race'':

Thanx for a strong link & very personal piece by Monbiot "Freedom'' 'to do' X, Y, Z OR 'from' A, B, C?

veritas vos liberabit ...

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

"What is going on here is something that all the partisans of Culture Wars and identity politics considered impossible: anti-racists, feminists, and ecologists joining forces with what was considered the “moral majority” of ordinary working people. Bernie Sanders, not the alt Right, is the true voice of the moral majority, if this term has any positive meaning.

So no, the eventual rise of the democratic socialists will not guarantee Trump’s re-election. It was Hickenlooper and other moderates who were actually fedexing a message to Trump from the debate. Their message was: “we may be your enemies, but we all want Bernie Sanders to lose. So don’t worry, if Bernie or someone like him will be the Democratic Party candidate, we will not stand behind him – we secretly prefer you to win.”

BUT Bernie can win:

"But what is even more important is that they are not only the voice of the radicalized young generation. Already their public faces –four young women and an old white man– tell a different story. Yes, they clearly demonstrate that the majority of the younger generation in the US is tired of the establishment in all its versions. Also that they are skeptical about the ability of capitalism as we know it to deal with the problems we are facing, and that the word socialism is for them no longer a taboo." From Zizek article.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52025.htm

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

So consider ... ''Has Neoliberalism Met Its Match in China?'' ... by Ellen Brown:

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

"What is mainly devalued when a currency is devalued, Hudson says, is the price of the country’s labor and the working conditions of its laborers. The reason American workers cannot compete with foreign workers is not that the dollar is overvalued. It is due to their higher costs of housing, education, medical services and transportation. In competitor countries, these costs are typically subsidized by the government."

"We cannot win a currency war through the use of competitive currency devaluations that trigger a “race to the bottom,” and we cannot win a trade war by installing competitive trade barriers that simply cut us off from the benefits of cooperative trade. More favorable to our interests and values than warring with our trading partners would be to cooperate in sharing solutions, including banking and credit solutions. The Chinese have proven the effectiveness of their public banking system in supporting their industries and their workers. Rather than seeing it as an existential threat, we could thank them for test-driving the model and take a spin in it ourselves."

Interesting, from the Truth Dig article.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 4 years ago

Is "The Key to a Sustainable Economy .. 5,000 Years Old'' ?!

From which, I excerpt ... ''We are again reaching the point in the business cycle known as “peak debt,” when debts have compounded to the point that their cumulative total cannot be paid. Student debt, credit card debt, auto loans, business debt and sovereign debt are all higher than they have ever been. As economist Michael Hudson writes in his provocative 2018 book, “…and forgive them their debts,” debts that can’t be paid won’t be paid. The question, he says, is how they won’t be paid.

''Mainstream economic models leave this problem to “the invisible hand of the market,” assuming trends will self-correct over time. But while the market may indeed correct, it does so at the expense of the debtors, who become progressively poorer as the rich become richer. Borrowers go bankrupt and banks foreclose on the collateral, dispossessing the debtors of their homes and their livelihoods. The houses are bought by the rich at distress prices and are rented back at inflated prices to the debtors, who are then forced into wage peonage to survive.

''When the banks themselves go bankrupt, the government bails them out. Thus the market corrects, but not without government intervention. That intervention just comes at the end of the cycle to rescue the creditors, whose ability to buy politicians gives them the upper hand. According to free-market apologists, this is a natural cycle akin to the weather, which dates all the way back to the birth of modern economics in ancient Greece and Rome.

''Hudson counters that those classical societies are not actually where our financial system began, and that capitalism did not evolve from bartering, as its ideologues assert. Rather, it devolved from a more functional, sophisticated, egalitarian credit system that was sustained for two millennia in ancient Mesopotamia (now parts of Iraq, Turkey, Kuwait and Iran). Money, banking, accounting and modern business enterprise originated not with gold and private trade, but in the public sector of Sumer’s palaces and temples in the third millennium B.C. Because it involved credit issued by the local government rather than private loans of gold, bad debts could be periodically forgiven rather than compounding until they took the whole system down, a critical feature that allowed for its remarkable longevity.''


This excellent article is full of interesting insights and I can't recommend it to readers enough. Read it!

et respice; adspice; prospice!

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 4 years ago

On the bright side (this is snark) employers will soon be able to say that they are doing good works by hiring the homeless (because more and more full time workers are being priced out of their homes) - never-mind the fact that their slave wages made those workers homeless to begin with.

& they are still scratching their asses (close as they can get to scratching their heads) wondering why their market is shrinking.

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 4 years ago

We all need lots of stable geniuses during our horsing around. The bigger the stable is, the merrier it is. I don't own any horse so this must suffice. Of course, being a "genius" of the "stable" is flattering to anyone. Why do some wealthy people buy and own ranches? They love horses.

Horses are beautiful and magnificent creatures. All Indo-Europeans or speakers of Indo-European languages should revere how horses had made the Indo-European linguistic family the greatest and most widespread of all linguistic families. Horses can be warm and gentle, give milk as mares, dearest mates in warfare, and as fast as the wind. What other animals are brave and trustworthy enough that we bring them with us into the heat of a battle? Or let them walk us right up to the edge of a cliff?

From Mars<-Mare->Marco Polo<->馬->马->うま, the horse spreads both west and east around Eurasia from the mother horse which gave milk but horse had originated from North America. Yellowstone supervolcano's eruptions probably killed a number of them but the adventurous ones that had wandered far and wide and crossed over Beringia to Eurasia survived and eventually traversed the globe and returned to the ancestral home by sea with the Conquistadors. U.S.A. U.S.A. U.S.A!

Penalty shoot-out score of 1-0 for our women (who have learned competence) is good enough for me to call it quit and being victorious as it's getting very dark and no one can see well. Mom told me that I should come home for lunch when I hear the cannon being fired. When my stomach rumbles like thunders after the 22-0 game victory, I know that it's equivalent to hearing a cannon shot so I'll eat dinner and rest a bit while building connections before another skirmish later on.

In case of a violent conflict, communication links, fuel and munition depots, and transportation hubs must be seized and controlled. Tanks are immobile if they run out of fuel. A less-used-by-commercial-lifeline airport can allow the foreign deliveries of auxiliary equipment. Figure out how every system interacts with its environment via inputs, outputs, and controls. How are the barracks resupplied? Who know how to fire the weapons? Where are the weapons stored? Where are the supply lines for food, fuel, water, munitions, communication? What is the command structure? How are friends or foes identified? Aerial drones can provide intelligence. Never fight a war unprepared for. Study the Chinese Classic: "the Art of War" by Sun Tzu. Know your enemies, where they live, where their children go to school, what surveillance systems they use for restraining the people, where they keep the big data about everybody, who can access the data, how they can be destroyed, where the electricity comes from, where the water needed for cooling to generate the electricity comes from, how the enemies communicate with each other, what equipment (without a physical Nazi Enigma machine having become available to the Allies, Germany might have won WWII; decoding requires intensity and duration of listening so it needs to be started early; the U.S. had broken Imperial Japan's diplomatic codes prior to the Pearl Harbor Attack but the U.S. command structure had flaws transmitting, correlating, and corroborating multiple sources of intelligence) and protocols they use, etc.

All systems can be destroyed by someone knowledgeable about its workings. That's why our Winner-in-Chief has won bigly by having an S-400 air defense system delivered to Turkey, the sentry of NATO, from Russia with Love. It's as if Nazi Germany had sold an Enigma machine to the U.S. prior to WWII. It's hilarious how his love for and coddling of dictators had turned out and how he's struggling with the big data which had originally been collected to restrain and oppress the peoples.

Some "sbenders" actually weave nets with which to bind themselves. The Feral Burro of Incontinence is not supposed to piss in "that direction" but being what it is, like my little kiddie sprayer under the urgent pressure of the liquid gold which I had to deliver to God quickly, it can't help it.

Even all the king's men cannot find all of the damaging data recorded somewhere, somehow, and sometime about the king's shenanigans. The king learns the "genius" of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution in an agonizingly slow fashion, in a death by a thousand paper cuts. Unreasonable searches and protection of privacy were needed to shield the king himself but of course, no one had anticipated that the king would be so ignorant about what he had sworn to uphold and behaved as if he were above the law (yeah, he is above jury trial but I don't see at all how that's better for him!) so he gets fried and tortured in a mostly unexpected political way only reserved for the king. He uttered, "So help me, God." Could my kiddie, "Holy Shit!" have trumped his if I only had the swear-word vocabulary at the time to effect trumpery?

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

Thank you for your input. We'll call, if we need more help.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 4 years ago

Thank you for your input. We'll call, if we need more help.

Did you forget to add = but don't hold your breath

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

no. I reject politely.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 4 years ago

Well OK - but - if He (?) does hold his breath till He (it) passes out - - -

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 4 years ago

Consider: the parasitic disease that afflicts the economy and will inevitably kill US is Rentier capitalism.

"Rentier capitalism is a Marxist term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any (physical, financial, intellectual, etc.) kind of property, and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rentier_capitalism

Let's be clear. "Without contribution to society," means: they produce no material goods or services, are purely parasitic and whatever usefulness their activity may have is offset by the parasitic nature of their business and profits. That is: it takes so much that the only safe way to do it is on a non-profit basis, of, by, and for the people.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 4 years ago

Unless the gov't makes it law that corporations give employees some percentage of profits so that they can live decently, I'm afraid this whole economic system will eventually tumble.

In the rural town I live in, there is a movement to create "affordable" housing so I looked into it and the cheapest rent is $1600 per month for a one bedroom. Are you kidding me? Jobs around here maybe bring in net $2000/month if you're lucky. Not only can people not afford to live themselves as an individual, they have no chance of supporting a family. Hence, people go into debt and live off debt. It's so gross and it must end.