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Forum Post: What It's Really All About!

Posted 7 years ago on July 1, 2016, 5:06 p.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Imagine you have a small family farm. You grow your own fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, livestock and enough surplus to trade for the things you want and need to make life sustainable and tolerable. Along with others in your community, who do likewise or make some other useful desirable thing to trade, you form an economy that is sufficient for simple survival. It works because individuals both work for their own wants and needs and cooperate. There's trade amongst the producers and all contribute to building and maintaining the things they need in common. Roads and other infrastructure or first responders and military if the community is large and complex enough are things all reasonable, responsible people will support.

No matter how large or complex a community and its economy become, the basic production, distribution and infrastructure that facilitates activity will be at the heart of it. That hasn't changed since Adam and Eve hunted and gathered in the Garden of Eden. That's what it's really all about. But is that what capitalism is really all about?

Capitalism is about controlling the economic system and profiting by its ownership or its, and our, indebtedness to those who own or hold the paper on the economy. The economy is, in the first place, our works, our homes, our food supply, our medicine ... our livlihood. Capitalism is not the heart of our economy.

Capitalism is about power and control. We are utilized or discarded for the profit of or at the whim of owners who may never come closer to us than halfway round the world. Today, they tell us that's human nature. If that's what we've devolved to since the beginning of civilization, I say: "To hell with this civilization!!!"

We're payed to work in the material industries we built in the employ of the industrialist who evolved into or were supplanted by the capitalists of the FIRE sector. With one or another control mechanism, this is what's been happening since the beginnings of agricultural civilization about ten thousand years ago.

Some of us, the lucky ones, are paid more to manage the debt and wage slaves - or actual slaves since that's still happening, though extra-legally, in the global economy. The masters ever reduce salaries and the number of decent jobs - or any jobs at all - while forcing us ever deeper in debt or the near starvation of welfare. The law, the basis of civilization and its defining characteristic, won't protect us from capitalist parasites. The law/government is on the side of those who've bought and paid for it.

The government won't tax the parasites to save us or itself. Instead, like us, it goes into debt to them for the money to support their greed with sham contracts and debt service. Like our cell phones or cable, we and our government pay much more than anything is worth. They take and take some more. And then there's the bailouts that are negative tax to the FIRE sector. That's where your tax money goes but many of you think it's the poor who have wrecked the economy. (Seriously?! Where are the poor stashing all those trillions? If you find where their sheltered offshore accounts are we can tax them.) The money borrowed from the real ruling elite is the money they skim off the real economy that we built with our own hard work, generations ago.

The real economy falters and fails to produce and distribute the goods to the populations that need them, while the masters gain ever more property, money, control and power. They tell the government and everyone else what to do and even force privatization [sell assets to pay debts then lease it back and pay forever] of once common infrastructures that become rental streams to enrich them further.

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8 Comments


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[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

The Clinton Foundation - is The Real Scandal .. by Paul Jay and Dr.Michael Hudson:

fiat lux ...

[-] 2 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

It's possible that President Trump will stick to the wing-nut constituency he's courting and make things so bad there will be a real revolt.

It's also possible that he'll abandon the outright fascist line and be just a little worse than Hillary but make things a lot worse than she would for the 90%.

No one knows for sure. But there's no way I'll vote for Trump, even if I believe he'll be bad enough to foment real rebellion.

I can't be concerned with absolute good and evil. Evil is the harm it does, regardless of intentions. The only course for me is to try to decide who will do the least damage to the prospect of human survival. Then I hold my nose and vote for it.

[-] 2 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

"do the least damage to the prospect of human survival"

Vote Green Party ticket. Jill Stein 2016!

There's no need to hold your nose. Smell the fragrance from Lexington.

Historical lessons say that we need to pit Tera eRex against Mx. Cheese in a nearly equal match for the Green Party to emerge significantly. Tera eRex is behind Mx. Cheese in the polls so building him up or tearing Mx. Cheese down makes sense now.

In our Revolutionary War, pitting France against Britain risked us becoming francophone but without France's help, we would have had absolutely no chance to emerge as an independent nation. We hated King George III vehemently but it was French King Louis XVI who helped us. That went for Napoleon I, too. Yes, not all kings/emperors are bad although I must say that we had really bad and long-lasting taste of kingship that bordered on being a phobia.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

I voted green against Bush when I lived in AZ when there was no chance for Kerry there. Maybe I'll do the same now in Texas for the same reason. But in blue or swing states, a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump. Don't be a naive fool or take me for one.

[-] 1 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken"

Let's see. If in red state, vote green. If in blue or swing state, vote blue. Red states + blue states together guarantee purple(for-anger) result. Been there, done that, for decades, and aren't we all sick of being just purple with anger? Alright so far, bw, DK, INM, you, and I have all agreed on Jill Stein 2016.

Nieuw Nederland where I am is really Jurassic Park with all kinds, equipped with the exclusive amenity of an outhouse behind bamboo walls reserved for Mx. Cheese. One who can make it here in New York will be "king of the hill(T. Rex skeleton), top of the heap(Staten Island landfill) and make it anywhere," such as filtering the tidal Cesspool on the Potamkin. Wall street is here and so is OccupyWallStreet. Mx. Cheese, Slick commando dragon, and Tera eRex all call this place home. It's time to transcend red and blue and vote our conscience without holding our noses.

Matthew 7:8 "For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened." We've probably been knocking on the wrong door with Bernie.

Hoser, what does the fragrance from Lexington Green smell like? Gunpowder, fireworks, cordite, or else, eh?

National polls say that the whole U.S. is now a swing state with the highest disgusts ever against both Red and Blue. Vote Green for a better future. Welcome to all Reds and Blues to join (no registration required) with the Greens.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 7 years ago

''Donald Trump's Anti-Establishment Scam: The Insider Posing as an Outsider'', by Nomi Prins:

The cold reality is that ... USA's 0.01% Oligarchy does NOT really care which of Hellary Rotten Clinton OR tRUMP becomes PotUS, tho' Bernie would have been their nemesis! There is Very Little difference between HRC and DT's economic policies & in actuality The War Machine prefers her to him!! Lessons have to be learned for 2020 now,as The 99% start to Educate, Agitate & Organise + Vote Dr.Jill Stein!!!

dum spiro, spero ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 7 years ago

see what Michael Hudson has to say about debt deflation sucking our economy dry:

"... lower wages, lower living standards, and more money siphoned off to creditors at the top of the pyramid. When there’s deflation, it means that although most markets are shrinking and people have less to spend, the 1% that hold the 99% in debt are getting all the growth in wealth and income. Deflation means that income is being transferred to the 1%, that is, to the creditors and property owners...."

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/06/michael-hudson-socrates-on-debt.html

[-] 0 points by grapes (5232) 7 years ago

Bear in mind that there are many different kinds of deflation, some good and some bad.

In my lifetime, the most deflationary price trend was set by the transistor, microchip, personal computer, internet, cellular phone, and smart phone revolution. Prices were dropping so fast that vendor inventories bought on volume discounts often cost more than items bought new only when the real need arises. Most other people did not complain about the price deflation at all. Some deflations are great.

Excessive debt is always a Major drag on society's well being. There are debts contracted for different purposes. The myriad purposes determine whether their associated debts are good or bad. Bankruptcies with debt forgiveness take out the 'garbage' loans to allow new beginnings.

Economists are often obsessively concerned with the shrinkage of aggregate numbers such as Gross Domestic Product. They see the forest canopy without seeing the trees. For example, if one's newly college-graduated child who lives at home working a so-so job has found a highly paid job far away and decided to move away from home, there will be a drop in the household GDP. As long as the remaining members of the household can afford to take care of the homebase, there is NO calamity. In fact, it is a joyous occasion when the child fledges. Household income deflation is actually a happy event.