Forum Post: Uber Precariat and The Gig Economy

"Economists predict disaster where none occurs. They deny the possibility of events that then happen. They oppose the most basic, decent, and sensible reforms, while offering placebos instead. They are always surprised when something untoward (like a recession) actually occurs. And when finally they sense that some position cannot be sustained, they do not re-examine their ideas. Instead, they simply change the subject." - James K. Galbraith

A subject they ignore is the growing population of zero or negative net worth households in America and around the world, as the wealth of the ruling elite class of owners and lenders continues to expand exponentially. Moses and other Mesopotamian priests and kings knew that usury would destroy the community. That's way they precluded the ravages of compound interest by banning it and declaring regular Jubilees of debt forgiveness and property redistribution.

Most see the current economic regime as immutable. Evidence in support of that pseudo scientific [economic] law: the flow of wealth from the bottom to the top hasn't changed substantially for thousands of years. We are powerless, under traditional law and our position in hierarchies, to effect meaningful change. But the FIRE sector dominators will, in the end, self destruct. Of course it's always possible our brain dead masters will reset the economy and end debt deflation by cleaning the slate. But the chance those morons will see the necessity of debt cancellation so they can begin again to ruin the economy [with their greed] is less than the chance the general population will catch on and eliminate the free-loading rich masters once and for all. Rich or poor, no one has enough sense to stop the parasitic disease that threatens us all.

Since Friedman, they've claimed the FIRE is growth rather than ravaging [unnecessary] cost and liability. But the interest and other economic rents we pay do add cost to the real goods and material services we consume. Ultimately FIRE sector parasites "kill the host,"(1) by increasing the price of the goods, while simultaneously diverting money to bankster, billionaire and service or monopoly profits that could have been used to consume real economic products. Dead weight debt service and other predations ultimately doom the real economy and our material existence. We have no power over our economic overlords. Their power includes the inevitable self destruction that will take us - the fools who do the real work of producing and distributing the real goods we need to survive - with them.

(1)*see "Killing the Host..." by Michael Hudson

Our economists will never figure out what's going on. They've been programmed stupid and have the academic credentials to prove it. http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/12/the-econocracy-an-interview-with-cahal-mora.html

Their politician minions will continue to follow the orders of the banksters and billionaires, while the general population continues to wither and die from low pay and the scourge of debt peonage. We are the precariat.(2) If you're lucky enough to still have middle class income and a little net worth, worry now! Soon you'll be the only hosts with anything to feed the voracious parasites that own US.

(2) Precariat From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "In sociology and economics, the precariat is a social class formed by people suffering from precarity, which is a condition of existence without predictability or security, affecting material or psychological welfare. Unlike the proletariat class of industrial workers in the 20th century who lacked their own means of production and hence sold their labour to live, members of the precariat are only partially involved in labour ..."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNLXqvPk2tU