This is a straight cut and paste from the site of Damon Vrabel’s organisation. This is the clearest explanation of the extremely slippery tyranny we have been arm-twisted into. And if you have the time and the means, I would hope you give Damon some assistance. This is the real deal.
To Renew Economics and free it from imperial control
Neoclassical economics has severe flaws. But since the field is captive to the monopolistic money and banking system, it is very difficult for economists who are aware of this to speak up. If they were to speak about the flaws, their careers would be severely limited. Only the most narrow economists who reinforce the status quo of the debt-based monetary system get rewarded. But they are building an insane system. They continue putting their faith in a false religion that passes for science—a religion that says globalism and infinite scale are “good” as the system continues conquering new territory and killing off the things discussed on CSPER.
The top 10 flaws of
neoclassical economics
1. Money monopoly = free market
Neoclassical economics calls our current system under a private monetary monopoly a free market. Of course nothing could be further from the truth. The monetary system is an overlay on top of the economic system. Economic systems create value through market activity, but the monetary system on top of them determine who captures that value. Neoclassical economics completely ignores the overlay and the fact that it is controlled by an entrenched private monopoly.
2. Ignores that money comes from nothing but debt
Economics does not address the fact that all money comes from debt. It assumes that base currency (M0, core money) is just a free-flowing medium of exchange that apparently comes from the US Treasury. It does not. It comes from the Federal Reserve backed by debt.
3. Ignores the artificial scarcity condition
Economics ignores how a debt-based monetary system imposes scarcity on countries and populations. There is never enough money to pay back all the debt, so everyone is forced to jump on the hamster wheel, scrambling to find more money to pay back debt. This dynamic is perpetual. It never stops until the system crashes. It need not be this way.
4. Equates net worth with value creation
Economics ignores how the financial class and others serving the upper end of the capital structure capture more money simply because they have entrenched power. They extract value. They do not create it. Economics is correct that participants in the economic system create value, but it misses the fact that the monetary system on top of the economic system determines who captures that value.
5. Assumes free, rational, economic actors by ignoring power differential of debt
The power differential caused by the monetary system is ignored by economics. This is the only reason the system is erroneously called a “free market.” The monetary system is entirely centripetal, sucking all power to the center, the top tiered financiers. People are in servitude in a very controlling market, not a free market.
6. Ignores the instability of having a pure debt-based monetary system
Economists ignore that the economic system is guaranteed to boom, bust, and eventually end because the monetary system on top of it is completely unstable and fundamentally flawed. It depends upon increasing debt. It cannot increase forever, and it can collapse to zero since people have no sovereign money.
7. Ignores the wealth illusion
By not addressing the issue of debt-based money, economics fools people into believing the digits in their bank accounts represent wealth. The fact is they represent a conditional liability, i.e. somebody else’s debt. This becomes obvious during deflation. The illusion is reinforced during inflationary periods.
8. Ignores perpetual exponential growth
Economists inconceivably ignore the most severe flaw of the monetary system that drives our economic system—it requires exponential growth. This guarantees eventual failure, but neoclassical economics conveniently assumes that problem away.
9. Ignores perpetual increasing scale
As a result of perpetual exponential growth, institutions in the system continually get bigger and bigger. We saw this as the economic system made towns, counties, and states irrelevant through the last century, and we are now seeing it as mega banks and corporations are now making national governments irrelevant. People are now living as tiny cogs in a machine of incomprehensible scale. Everything in life has been monetized, so things that don’t generate bank credit get devalued (spirituality, psychology, rest, joy, play, etc).
10. Ignores perpetual increasing velocity
Another problem from exponential growth is perpetually increasing velocity. The system has to chug faster and harder as it continues to grow. This means human life has to chug faster and harder. The most obvious manifestation of this is the endless, hectic commutes every morning to jobs we despise. We feel frustration, sometimes rage, toward our fellow commuters. That is just one small example of how systemic velocity affects the human spirit.
A Better World: Graeme Bird For High Office 
I think the above is quite brilliant. And right here and now, I have to confess to being a bit jealous of Damon, that in all this time, I haven’t developed such excellence in terms of clear and concise explanation of the problem.
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 8:11 am
JUST FIND OUT YOU SILLY CUNT. SCIENCE DEMANDS THAT YOU FIND OUT HOW THE WORLD WORKS AND NOT CONJURE A WORLD OUT OF YOUR MIND. ITS ONLY SCIENCE BUT I LIKE IT.
By: . on January 19, 2012
at 10:06 pm
Honest question
“To Renew Economics and free it from imperial control”
Who is the Imperial overlord and how do they control it?
By: . on January 24, 2012
at 6:49 am
The banking cartel of course.
By: graemebird on January 24, 2012
at 8:13 am
How exactly are the banking cartel our overlords?
By: . on January 24, 2012
at 10:25 am
Well an overlord is a controller right. Look up overlord in the dictionary. Think of other examples of overlords, like for example a dark ages king. And if you can understand what it means to be an overlord, then you will answer your own question. Toyota, can scam the occasional 40 million dollars of the Australian government. But the banking cartel scams trillions worldwide. If the car industry could scam as much value out of the public as the banking cartel can, well you would have to conclude that those who control the the car companies, must also control everything else. But the car companies subsidies are modest, and less than their tax contribution. The banking cartel is something else.
By: graemebird on January 24, 2012
at 11:18 am
Can someone else take time out to explain to Mark what “overlord” means. It all gets a bit tiresome, engaging with flat learning curves the entire time.
By: graemebird on January 24, 2012
at 11:20 am
The Australian banking industry is not subsidised. NOW YOU ARE JUST BEING SILLY. COME BACK TO ME WHEN YOU CAN GET ME LOANS AT THE OVERNIGHT RATE, GET ME GUARANTEES ON ANY MAKE-BELIEVE MONEY I CONJURE, AND SWAP ANY MAKE-BELIEVE MONEY FOR NEWLY MINTED NOTES, OR IRON-CLAD LEGAL OBLIGATIONS TO PROVIDE NOTES IN EXCHANGE FOR MY PONZI-MONEY.
By: Anonymous on January 24, 2012
at 11:02 pm
NO I CANNOT PUT UP WITH THAT QUEER STUFF HERE. KIDS COME AND READ THIS SITE.
By: Ron Pauline Hanson on January 24, 2012
at 11:16 pm
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 8:52 am
I’m surprised you haven’t blogged about this Bird. So what’s going on, does Obama have to prove his credentials…… (edited)?
(NO LYING ON THIS SITE. YOU IMPLIED OBAMA HAD AT SOME TIME PROVED HIS CREDENTIALS, WHICH IS OBVIOUSLY A LIE)
By: Ƀîᴙď ₣Įаρ§ on January 16, 2012
at 9:49 am
Well the normal way of things would be that he would have to prove his credentials, or be taken away in irons. But the overlords were caught out on 9/11, so the only way they could protect themselves against that scandal was to invent a smaller scandal, but yet a pretty damn big one …. to whit, a person who does not appear to be so much as eligible to run, becoming President.
No other serious explanation has surfaced. Only the lesser scandal protection method, can explain this bizarre and panicked behaviour of the overlords.
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 10:20 am
NO ITS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY. ITS A PRIVATE BANK, AND IT REPRESENTS A PUBLIC PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP. I CANNOT STAND FUCKING LIARS YOU STUPID LITTLE CUNT. JUST STOP LYING. OUR BANK IS BASICALLY A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT. BUT NOT THEIRS. SO GET IT RIGHT YOU CUNT.
By: . on January 17, 2012
at 5:07 am
What is it about you that you have to lie the whole time you cunt? If you want to know about the Fed, don’t fucking make it up, go find some history on it.
By: Graeme Bird on January 17, 2012
at 6:22 am
JUST FIND OUT THE TRUTH FOR YOURSELF IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME. I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO BE LECTURING GRADUATES ON THE IMPORTANCE OF FINDING THINGS OUT, RATHER THAN CONJURING SHIT OUT OF THE RECESSES OF THEIR LITTLE MINDS. THIS IS WHAT GIVES ME THE DRIZZLING SHITS ABOUT YOU NEOCLASSICALS. YOUR LACK OF COMMITMENT AS SCIENTISTS.
By: . on January 17, 2012
at 9:23 pm
DON’T MAKE IT UP. DO YOUR HOMEWORK. ACTUALLY THE FEDERAL RESERVE ISN’T JUST A SINGLE PRIVATE ENTITY. ITS A COLLECTION OF PRIVATE BANKS.
By: . on January 18, 2012
at 4:52 am
THE PRESIDENT FORMALLY APPOINTS A FED CHAIRMAN, BUT FOR THE MOST PART
ITS THE BANKING NEXUS THAT APPOINT THE PRESIDENT.
THE PRESIDENT GOES THROUGH THE MOTIONS OF
APPOINTING A FED CHAIRMAN, BUT RECENTLY THE
REALITY IS THAT HE APPOINTS PRECISELY WHO HE IS
TOLD TO. OR ELSE WHO WERE THE OTHER COMPETITORS
TO THE IDIOT THAT IS THERE NOW?
SO ON THE FORMAL LEVEL THE PRESIDENT APPOINTS A
SEAT-WARMER TO THE OFFICIAL CHAIRMAN POSITION.
BUT ON AN UNOFFICIAL LEVEL THE BANKERS ALL BUT CHOOSE
WHO WILL BE PRESIDENT, OR AT LEAST THEY NARROW THE
FIELD DOWN TO CANDIDATES WHO ARE SOMEWHAT ACCEPTABLE TO
THEM.
NOW AS I SAY, THERE IS NO LYING ON THIS SITE.
I DIDN’T DISAGREE WITH A WORD YOU WROTE, BUT
THE LIE WAS IN THE FACT THAT YOU TRIED TO MAKE OUT
THAT I HAD DISAGREED.
THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS A GROUP OF PRIVATE BANKS,
AND IS ITSELF A PRIVATE OUTFIT, WITH SOME GOVERNMENT
ROLES. SO ITS A PRIVATE OUTFIT, ENGAGED IN A PUBLIC
PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP. BUT THAT REALITY DOESN’T
GO AGAINST ANYTHING YOU JUST SAID. THE LIE OF
YOUR LAST POST WAS TO IMPLY I HAD SAID SOMETHING DIFFERENT.
DEVELOPING A CAPACITY TO TELL YOUR STORY STRAIGHT, WITHOUT DISHONESTY,
IS A PRE-REQUISITE TO PLUGGING UP YOUR GLARING LOGIC AND
ANALYTICAL DEFICITS.
By: . on January 18, 2012
at 10:53 pm
The Fed is NOT a Government owned entity. THAT IS CORRECT. THAT IS WHAT I CLAIMED ALL ALONG. ITS A GROUP OF PRIVATE OUTFITS. A FORMAL RETRACTION WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER MARK. ITS ONLY SCIENCE BUT I LIKE IT. IN SCIENCE WE FIND STUFF OUT, WE DON’T MAKE STUFF UP.
By: . on January 30, 2012
at 1:43 am
SCIENCE REQUIRES US TO FIND STUFF OUT, AND NEVER SIMPLY TO MAKE STUFF UP. FIND OUT ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THE FED. THAT WILL TELL YOU HOW IT IS CONSTITUTED.
By: . on January 30, 2012
at 5:40 am
the US Fed Board isn’t privately owned YEAH SADLY IT IS. LEARN THE MATERIAL.
By: . on January 16, 2012
at 10:30 am
ITS A PRIVATE BANK. THIS IS JUST A FACT. GET USED TO IT.
By: . on January 16, 2012
at 11:08 am
JUST GET USED TO IT YOU LUNATIC. THE FEDERAL RESERVE IS A PRIVATE ORGANISATION. THIS IS A FACT. ITS NOT A GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT.
By: . on January 16, 2012
at 11:40 am
THEY ARE PRIVATE. THAT IS JUST A FACT. BUT THEY ACT AS A QUASI-GOVERNMENT INSTITUTION, SINCE THIS HELPS THEM RIP THE POPULATION OFF WITH GREATER EASE.
By: . on January 16, 2012
at 10:29 pm
NO ITS A PRIVATE OUTFIT. DON’T MAKE THESE THINGS UP OUT OF YOUR OWN HEAD. YOU’D HAVE TO CALL IT A PUBLIC-PRIVATE-PARTNERSHIP. ITS IMPORTANT THAT YOU GET USED TO FINDING OUT ABOUT REALITY, RATHER THAN CONJURING UNREALITY OUT OF YOUR PUNY LITTLE MIND.
By: . on January 17, 2012
at 2:56 am
NO, NO MAKING THINGS UP. KNOWLEDGE IS NOT TO BE CONJURED SPONTANEOUSLY FROM YOUR LITTLE MIND, BUT IT HAS TO BE DISCOVERED. WHAT HISTORY OF THE FED HAVE YOU BEEN READING? NONE RIGHT? SO YOU ARE MAKING IT UP.
By: . on February 2, 2012
at 10:39 pm
Hey Bird, The Fed recently reported a year on year profit of around $70 billion. It promptly credited the Treasury’s account with the same amount.
If it’s a private institution how came that profit/dividend was sent to the Federal government?
VERY EASILY. SINCE ITS PURPOSE IS TO ENRICH CERTAIN ALREADY RICH OLIGARCHICAL NETWORKS, AND IT NEVER GETS AUDITED, IT CAN QUITE EASILY CONJURE ANY PROFIT FIGURE IT WANTS.
ITS THE ONLY OUTFIT OF ITS KIND THAT NEVER GETS AUDITED. ITS RUN A FEW SELF-AUDITS LATELY, UNDER EXTREME DURESS. BUT THESE ARE REALLY JUST DOG AND PONY SHOWS.
NOW CONSIDER ITS PROFIT. WHY OUGHT IT BE MAKING ANY SORT OF PROFIT IN THE FIRST PLACE? HOW LARGE WERE ITS REVENUES? AND HOW ABOUT ITS COSTS? SUSSING OUT
HOW MUCH CASH YOU ARE GOING TO ADD IS A PART-TIME GIG. BUT ENRICHING OLIGARCHS IS A BIGGER OPERATION.
By: Achmed, the first dead terrorist. on January 16, 2012
at 3:19 pm
Government departments don’t make profits.
By: Graeme Bird on January 17, 2012
at 3:37 am
A deft update by the delectable Damon of Marxist Economic Theory.
By: Philomena on January 16, 2012
at 6:52 pm
But its just fractional reserve, and the way they have taken control of policy. For example with the low inflation target norm. They guarantee that the banks liabilities are going down in real value, and that their assets are always increasing in real value. Whereas under free enterprise their liabilities would be increasing in real terms and they would have to work real hard, and choose with great deliberation, to have their assets improve in real terms.
Marx was a crap economist. His entire system is proven wrong in strictly economic terms. If he had something useful to say, it has to be to do with where the big shots interfere in government to get everything their own way. But that isn’t how he framed things. Damon is saying that targeting the government alone is an old hat idea, because these ass-clowns effectively control the government. So right now the government is our only hope to beat this filth.
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 7:56 pm
If you targeted inflation to equal zero this arbitrage wouldn’t exist….. STOP RIGHT THERE. YOU HAVE A POINT UP TO HERE. BUT THE REAL POINT IS THAT THE BANKERS CONTROL WHAT THE POLICY IS, SO THEY GO FOR THE POSITIVE CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION TO ENRICH THEMSELVES. THEY AREN’T EVER GOING TO HAVE ZERO PRICE INFLATION. BUT THE REST OF WHAT YOU SAID WAS JUST AN EXPRESSION OF YOUR FLAT LEARNING CURVES. I’VE POINTED OUT TO YOU MANY TIMES THE IRRATIONALITY OF TARGETING CONSUMER PRICES TO ZERO. AND NO A FREE MARKET WOULD NOT HAVE CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION AT ZERO. UNDER CAPITALISM CONSUMER PRICES FALL, AND ON-CALL NOMINAL INTEREST IS ROUGHLY ZERO.
By: . on January 19, 2012
at 10:08 pm
CPI would average to zero but real wages would rise over time. YES BUT SO WHAT? ZERO COSUMER PRICE INFLATION TARGETING IS STILL FUNDAMENTALLY ARBITRARY AND IRRATIONAL. NO TALKING AROUND THE SUBJECT CAN POSSIBLY CHANGE THIS FACT. DOESN’T MATTER WHO ADVOCATED IT IN THE PAST. IT IS BY ITS NATURE IRRATIONAL AND ARBITRARY. CONSUMER PRICES SHOULD FALL WITH EXPANDING CAPACITY.
By: . on January 22, 2012
at 11:24 pm
Real consumer prices will fall with expanding capacity.
FUCKING IDIOT. “REAL CONSUMER PRICES” IS A CONTRADICTION IN TERMS. UNDER CAPITALISM NOMINAL CONSUMER PRICES WOULD BE EXPECTED TO FALL ALL THE TIME. NOT STAY AT ZERO CONSUMER PRICE INFLATION. WHICH IS A MYSTICAL, ARBITRARY, AND IRRATIONAL GOAL.
By: . on January 23, 2012
at 5:26 am
But it is still wrong to see the problems of capitalism like the polarisation of rich and poor and the system’s vulnerability to periodic crises as primarily financial in origin.
Corporations make money by paying workers less than the value of what they produce. They’re constantly maneuvering to cut costs, which means cutting pay, speeding up the line, dumping toxic waste in rivers, etc. Like financiers, they’re in business to make money, and they’ll do nothing that doesn’t make money unless they’re forced to. Yes, they often provide useful products in the course of their pursuit of money. But it’s wrong to get carried away in painting them as the Good Guys, by contrast with the moneychanging Bad Guys. The two are inseparable.
The monetary surpluses generated in production, the profits of capitalist businesses, accumulate over time and demand some sort of outlet: bank deposits, bonds, stocks, whatever. It’s going to be that way until we replace capitalism with something radically different.
And we have a consumer debt problem not because of some sinister conspiracy of bankers, but because our managerial class has kept wages down for the last 35 years. In order to maintain some semblance of a middle-class lifestyle, people have borrowed from the rich who’ve claimed most of the gains of an expanding economy.
In other words, you can’t easily separate finance from the so-called real economy.
By: Philomena on January 16, 2012
at 7:13 pm
“And we have a consumer debt problem not because of some sinister conspiracy of bankers, but because our managerial class has kept wages down for the last 35 years. ”
Its definitely the sinister conspiracy of bankers we have to blame here. Because any banker, under free enterprise conditions, who loaned money for wealth destruction, rather than wealth creation, would be out of business pretty quickly. Further to that there isn’t funds except that others are saving, so there simply wouldn’t be the funds for wealth destroying behaviour.
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 7:58 pm
“But it is still wrong to see the problems of capitalism like the polarisation of rich and poor and the system’s vulnerability to periodic crises as primarily financial in origin.”
Its all financial. We are taught this ludicrous, mystical, unscientific Keynesian nonsense, simply to cover up the real scandal. The real scandal being that the instability in the system, is purely, or almost purely, financial. Originating out of the outrage of debt-based money, and fractional reserve.
If there are two other contributing factors, or factors that multiply the inherent instability of the fractional reserve ponzi-scheme it would be:
1. The tendency to gravitate towards a gold only standard. But this is in itself part of what the banking cartel does. As soon as these clowns get strong enough they invariably launch various conspiracies against silver. Because silver is the most convenient medium of exchange. That way they have possession of all the gold and can control the financial system completely, therefore traumatising the population with frequent money-droughts, wherein the inner circle get to buy up all the assets at bargain basement prices. But there is no such instability if you can have copper, chromium, silver, palladium, platinum, tungsten, titanium, copper and nickel all as digital monies. Yet again, it is the very smell, the very possibility of fractional reserve, that narrows the money down to gold and silver. Because gold and silver are the only ones you can quickly pull out of the banks and take home, if you smell a rat. So none of the other monies can get off the ground but gold and silver, with some fat copper coins. But the banks will steadily move to make it gold-alone money. Which winds up nearly all in the banks vaults, and we carry the paper. That way the cartel ends up with total control of the money supply, hence instability.
With a range of metallic monies, and government tax voucher money as well (we would begin a reformed system with probably 95% government paper money. Otherwise we would be copping too much cost, to get the metals in storage all at once), there need never be instability. People have to get used to the idea that Keynesianism, is just a ridiculous and ignorant lie. I know the tendency is to fall in with this crowd, because the neoclassical reps are so obnoxious, and one tends to go with ones tribe. But they are just a cult. No scientific basis at all.
2. Our attitude towards land. Failure to take into account some of the sort of things that Henry George and others have pointed out. One doesn’t necessarily need to go overboard with this, but where efforts to boost land prices, are twinned up with fractional reserve, there lies the potential for horrendous economic instability.
By: Graeme Bird on January 16, 2012
at 10:37 pm
You can get any number of histories on the US Federal Reserve. So there is no need to be ignorant. But you cannot get good and timely information on their activities, since they are a more secretive outfit than even the CIA.
Here is someone talking about their status and background:
By: Graeme Bird on January 17, 2012
at 6:27 am
WELL YOU ARE ONE OF THEM. A YELLOW HOUSE NIGGER HAPPIER FOR THIS COUNTRY TO BE RUINED, RATHER THAN GIVE UP YOUR FEALTY TO CRONY-TOWN. THAT IS WHAT NEOCLASSICAL ECONOMICS IS. ITS A LOBBY GROUP FOR CRONY, AND MOST PARTICULARLY BANKER IMPERIALISM. ITS NOT LIKE YOU PEOPLE ARE REALLY THAT CONCERNED ABOUT ECONOMIC SCIENCE. ONLY FUNNY MONEY MAKES YOUR GIRLY HEARTS BEAT FASTER.
By: jtfsoon on January 17, 2012
at 9:08 am
Just stop lying Mark. Its a private outfit. Its activities represent a public-private partnership. Its role is as a conspiracy to defraud the public on behalf of the financial system. These matters could not be more clear.
Now in our case, I would say that our Reserve Bank is basically a publicly chartered outfit. I haven’t looked into it, so I don’t know, but I’m just supposing you are getting mixed up between our reserve bank, and the Federal reserve bank, and are assuming they are similarly constituted.
However our Reserve Bank is still a conspiracy to rip off the public. And this is clear in all their norms and standards of operation.
If you have government currency, you are going to need some sort of currency board. But thats just a few honest blokes deciding how much new cash to allow the treasury to have. Its a part-time gig with a bit of outsourcing to the department of statistics. Nothing like this giant conspirational waste-of-space that is our Reserve Bank.
By: Graeme Bird on January 17, 2012
at 9:12 am
Short of a nuclear bomb going off in our area, the most powerful forces in our lives are the small insipid forces that work around the clock. If these are forces that push matters in a single direction, then the system can evolve to be almost cartoonish in its starkness and clarity. Out of the public private partnership that the central bank conspiracy represents come two groups of economists. One to represent the public side of the conspiracy, and the other to represent the banker-enrichment wing of this racket. The first group are called Keynesian, the second Neoclassical. Twenty years ago it would be hard to see the clear lines of this dog and pony show. I thought I could reason with one or other of these groups but its impossible. Now the matter is clear like crystal. Anyone wanting to do any good has to set his heart against both crony-town and the public service, and look to enrich employees by way of excess capital goods going into small and medium-sized business.
By: Graeme Bird on January 17, 2012
at 9:27 am
So you think that what is wrong with capitalism is not its mode of production for profit but the particular form it has taken with the dominance of the banking sector. You reckon the bankers have become pirates or profiteers stealing from the decent capitalists.
Btw this is the usual argument of Keynesians, that it is the finance sector that is the problem, not capitalism.
Now the idea of robber barons has been taken up opportunistically in the US by Republican rivals to Mitt Romney. And yet what Bain Capital et al did is nothing more than capitalism at work: the strong win and the weak fail.
It is an illusion perpetuated by Keynes and now sections of the Right that there is a capitalism that can operate without speculation and without “profiteering” and thus deliver economic growth, jobs and incomes without inequality or slumps.
Dream on.
By: Philomena on January 17, 2012
at 9:39 am
Its not the usual argument of Keynesians. Keynesians are soft on the banking conspiracy, for the most part (although Keane is particularly good and Quiggin has not been silent on the problem either). They tend to talk about general businessmen responding to “animal spirits.” Its no illusion Philomena. The reality is that we have a clear ponzi problem with fractional reserve. All this Marxist crap is only promoted as a way of covering up for this very obvious destabilisation. Its not profits per se that destabilises. Profits used to be almost the entirety of national income, prior to the destabilisation of fractional reserve. So how can it even possibly be the destabiliser?
By: graemebird on January 17, 2012
at 2:14 pm
I COMPLETELY WIPED THE FLOOR WITH THESE MORONS. AS EACH MONTH PASSES ITS EASIER FOR PEOPLE TO SEE THAT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT EVERYTHING AND THE STUPIDEST MAN ON THE INTERNET IS MORE EASILY SEEN AS BEING WRONG ON ALL POINTS.
By: Ƀirď Flаp§ on January 17, 2012
at 9:49 am
Graeme, you are absolutely correct about the Federal Reserve. It is a public–private hybrid, Maoists of the Right will always be strangers to dialectics. They are too dumb to understand such phenomena.
By: Philomena on January 17, 2012
at 10:01 am
There is a problem in that there is an affinity between financially oriented critiques such as the ones you favour and classical anti-Semitism. The two often go together nicely.
Writers such as Slavoj Zizek have noted that a lot of the imagery of classic anti-Semitism, greed, deviousness, the hunger for money, etc separates out some of the bad features of capitalism and pins them all on to the mythical demonised figure of “the Jew”.
Best leave the paranoid group oversimplifications to the nutty far right – such as Catallaxy – where they belong.
By: Philomena on January 17, 2012
at 10:09 am
“There is a problem in that there is an affinity between financially oriented critiques such as the ones you favour and classical anti-Semitism. The two often go together nicely.”
Yes very true. And this held me back for a long time, which is why I had to look this problem full in the face, at some cost to my standing, and to the dismay of many. My working (or dummy) hypothesis has to be that the Jews are being ruthlessly used here, as more cover for the banking overlordship. The more people the big-shots can put in front of themselves to get bashed, the more they can keep the racket going, and keep themselves out of harms way.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 4:32 am
Well then that is all the more reason not to fall for the “bad, money-grubbing Jewish cabal” bizo, like the anti-semitic trolls from Catallaxy who post here do as an inane and transparent diversionary tactic.
Keep on message.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 6:08 am
Yeah well its an evil money-grubbing cabal. But I have no way of knowing who the long-legged mac-daddy is, and whether he attends some church or other.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 6:21 am
Other than that, I am pleased to note that you left conversion is coming along nicely.
We’re so much more attractive, interesting, and well read after all,
Most political folks of all persuasions secretly hanker after us, lust after us, talk about us obsessively and want to be us.
Who can blame them?.
By: Philomena on January 17, 2012
at 10:36 am
Sorry for the odd punctuation. I’m trying out something, as an experiment, and it’s spacey.
A bit like this.
By: Philomena on January 17, 2012
at 10:39 am
Graeme, a couple of points.
Debt is a form of profit. The banks and corporations grow profits from the indebtedness of the average Joesphina who has to borrow and live on credit to service mortgages, etc.
Money *is” mystical. Shakespeare said this long before Marx. And money is the ultimate power.
But why?
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 5:47 am
With money you can bring other people into power. You can get powerful people under your obligation. And if you have the power to create ponzi-money, you can also let it collapse, so causing a crisis for those in power, leaving them on wobbly legs.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 6:23 am
Right-wing faith-based economists may hope, believe, pray that things especially the debt problem will improve with adjustments and restructuring, as people and companies “work off debt”, but insofar as this occurs – and there isn’t much evidence that the total debt levels are dropping a lot, except that Blow Joesephina is able or compelled to reduce her debt levels – it occurs very unevenly and unequally.
A very obvious reason why debt levels don’t drop much is because debt makes profit. There would never have been such an escalation of debt unless it was profitable – to some people – the one percent if you like, to use the OWS terminology which has struck such a chord in America, such as it has killed off the Tea Party Movement and won the majority to its basic, irrefutable contentions about massive social inequality and exploitation.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 5:59 am
If the money supply is all made up of debt, then attempts to pay off those debts bring on a monetary crunch, and therefore apparent hardship. So under these circumstances, the debts cannot be paid back. For this reason debt-based money, rather than debt itself, ought qualify as a full-blown attempt to enslave a society. Even if there is no-one in that society fully enslaved. Nonetheless the principal is similar, in that its a debt that can never go away. An eternal obligation.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 6:26 am
The truth is the world hasn’t been out of recession for at least three years.
More prosaically, you’ve got corporate/bank shills like Soon and JC issuing the mantra, all will be good, things are on the mend.
What lying, religious scum.
Because of course everything has once again been masked – not so well this time, the people are awakening from their slumber – by ongoing massive debt and increased debt ceiling.
But OUR debt is others’ profit. This is a very important point.
Yes, you have hit the nail centre hard. It is a deliberate strategy of enslavement, and worse. That is definitely the minority exploiters’ agenda.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 6:36 am
Things definitely are not on the mend in the US. There is simply no basis for them to get out of recession. If inflation is calculated in traditional fashion, and fed back into GDP growth, then the US has been in recession since before the GFC, and without any positive growth quarters, at all.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 6:46 am
The ongoing erosion of superannuation is a timebomb I reckon. I mean so many people have literally banked on this compulsory investment to finance a decent retirement. But given the erosion and possible abolition down the track of the old age pension, given lengthened life expectancy combined with a growing lack of jobs that an elderly person could do or be employed for, well, the fallout ain’t gonna be pretty, let us say.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 6:49 am
Right. And because the economists either believe nonsense (Keynesian) or vigorously block out huge chunks of reality (neoclassical) they don’t see it as significant, that they have put us in a bad position with regards to future financial problems, by way of not correcting a situation, that saw to it, that we were selling off all our assets to maintain the illusion, that we were doing okay. Yeah we have a hell of a problem on our hands with this ageing population.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 6:54 am
I was in the US recently and met someone who had been a middle level career US State Department diplomat. He left early for health reasons and had a pension plus health coverage which wasn’t enough to provide for himself and his estranged wife and children, who didn’t/couldn’t work.
He’d bought a house which was foreclosed due to resignation and his inability to keep up the repayments. He was living in a one bedroom bedsitter, with his wife and kids living in a similar flat nearby. He got precarious, low-paid work as a maths tertiary teacher with not enough hours or pay to keep himself or his wife and kids combined with the government pension he received above the just getting by line.
Though he was irrevocably estranged from his wife he would not divorce her, principally as that would mean consigning her, and perhaps more importantly his very ill teenage child, to a bad, unsupported or unaffordable health fate.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 7:03 am
There will be so many people in this sort of trouble in the US, and with policy the way it is it will only get worse, no hope in sight whatsoever.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 7:07 am
The guy was very smart. He’d worked in lots of countries on all the continents. And he was/is a writer but hasn’t been published, yet. When I met him was getting around in a bomb of a car whose front windows were shattered. He had calculated that he couldn’t afford to spend the $ to fix them, given his double accommodation, schooling, fatherhood-related and other expenditures. And he didn’t give a sh*t about impressing other people.
I liked him for that.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 7:22 am
Yeah. You’d think he’d be snapped up by some employer or other wouldn’t you? But generally speaking you aren’t going to need to hire new smart people into your business, until and unless, you’ve got funds, that you want to spend, in order to improve that business.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 7:26 am
Why would you think that? No. He hasn’t been “snapped up” and neither have you or most people who fall through the cracks or be stymied for a host of reasons but yet have so much to contribute.
Don’t tell me you have fallen for that “creative destruction” horseshit.
If you want to talk about that let’s talk about the demolition of the lives of the workers who are really doing the creating.
The myth is that capital is creative. No. People, real workers, are creative. The economic crises deal a blow to the ability of people to be creative against which they have very little individual defence.
It is all very well to argue that economic crises force people to be creative and productive in new ways. But that may not be something they are ever rewarded for at all, even if it were possible. Creativity doesn’t exactly flourish, when people lack a basic security of existence, and wonder where their livelihood is going to come from. Then their “creativity” is probably mainly focused only on their own survival.
Coercion is not really the best method to get people to be creative. People are at their creative best when they are autonomous and secure, not when they are slaves to money-making.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 8:18 am
Right. Well capital sure aint creative right now. But we had a glimpse of how things might work circa mid-80’s. Steve Jobs hired an English major to head up one of his divisions, just for example. There was a sort of interregnum period, where banker distortion was diminished.
Also if we look back to the late 19th century when Edison and Tesla were around, this was a pretty high water market of creativity, and money coming together.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 9:12 am
Graeme, what do you know, if anything about Mark Steyn? I don’t know him from a bar of soap myself, but I someone I know thinks he’s worth listening to.
By: Philomena on January 18, 2012
at 7:44 am
Yeah he is excellent to listen to. But the problem is that he hasn’t figured out that 911 was a false flag. Which of course changes everything. So back when I didn’t realise this, I sounded a bit like him, whereas now I don’t sound as much like him.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 9:01 am
Here is a great rap by Mark Steyn, and it might be that your thinking he’s glorifying the British Empire but that isn’t the point of what he’s on about. He’s running down the cluelessness of the multi-cultural (as distinct from the multi-racial) agenda.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 9:15 am
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 9:48 am
You see its not important to get most of our money as commodity money in any sort of hurry. The most important thing is to end the tyranny of money-as-debt. End it. Kill it. Leave it on the scrap-heap of history for all time. Because fiat money, can still function, and gain its value, as taxation vouchers. There need be no further force applied to it, past the force inherent in making people pay their taxes. And taxation vouchers are fine for money, in the first instance, save only that there is a slow substitution towards commodity money set up and on the fly, from the start. So Damon and Bill Still have the right idea here. Except that my friendly amendment would be that we would want to set up a slow substitution towards commodity money, to see to it, that the people are okay if the government abuses its power to print tax vouchers.
By: Graeme Bird on January 18, 2012
at 9:52 am
Well, on the positive side, neoliberalism is toast. Say hello to protectionism as a state policy.
Of course a nasty byproduct will be the coming oil wars which will make those we’ve seen to date look like a pillow fight.
By: Philomena on January 19, 2012
at 5:42 am
Yeah the “neoclassical economists” ………
(((((((now now Philomena. Neoliberalism as a philosophy has still many live and vital ideas to offer us. But the neoclassical economists are people who steadfastly ignore important realities.))))))))))
…….. have done such a crap job, of defending free trade that we look like we are going to go backwards. Just unbelievable how useless these people are. They are so clueless, they do not even so much appear to see a problem has developed in their free trade agenda. I would say its wholly on the financial, investment, and crony big shot side of the equation, and that the fundamental arguments in favour of the free movement of goods (particularly physical producer goods) are as sound as ever.
But you cannot reach these people when it comes to explaining what is going wrong, on the financial side. Since after all the distinguishing feature of neoclassical economics is that the practitioners are banksters-Gimps.
Speaking of Gimps:
By: Graeme Bird on January 19, 2012
at 5:54 am
Another extraordinarily powerful argument from the dumb wop Joseph Cambria (scientist).
“Not another Bird hates the Fed bit of drivel.”
By: Graeme Bird on January 19, 2012
at 6:14 am
This single article contains an immense amount of evidence that the long expected increase in US inflation is now more or less imminent. Unofficial estimates of inflation are around the 11% level. If everything in the article is true, and significant on a quantitative level, we would have to expect a large increase in US inflation. The article however doesn’t deal in numbers.
Another alternative is that international investors will once again show themselves to be incompetent wealth-destroyers, and instead of a large acceleration in inflation, in the near term, there will instead be a new round of massive buying of US debt. If there is another bubble in US bond-buying, US exporters will be further damaged, but its at least a potential way of these guys kicking the (galloping-inflation) CAN-DOWN-THE-ROAD just a little bit longer. But aside from that possibility Suzanne Kapner’s article points to a strong pickup in inflation, whereas she misunderstands what is going on and thinks that the trends she sites imply a positive outlook for economic progress in the US. In reality no such positive outlook exists. The US economy has essentially been collapsing slowly since the year 2000, and that trend will continue. But now with higher inflation rates.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204555904577166523861298962.html
By: Graeme Bird on January 19, 2012
at 6:24 am
“Neoliberalism as a philosophy has still many live and vital ideas to offer us.
Now now Graeme, Like what?
By: Philomena on January 19, 2012
at 8:51 am
If you get the property titles really “down”, for clarity and justice, and you make sure you avoid cronyism, particularly in banking, then the neo-liberal school is where its at.
In practice more and more I’m seeing that the neo-liberal philosophy is a sort of “LOOK OVER THERE!!!!!” ploy for crony-town. Nonetheless, neo-liberalism, in its essence, is the only anti-crony philosophy out there, that isn’t anti-property, and pro-stealing, at its core.
Always remember, that attempts to bring pure communism, will lead, and MUST lead to breakdown and famine, quick-smart. So what has happened is that the crony’s have warped the only viable anti-crony school of thought in existence ……. AND THEY HAD TO DO IT AND IT HAD TO BE THAT WAY.
Nowhere in this story is there any excuse to ignore basic economic science. But it must be admitted, that over the longer run, we would have been better off, without any fractional reserve, without any traded debt, and without any “artificial persons.”
You’ve got to give away your Marxist fantasies. We need to take these big shot and bankster villains down yes. But we need a price and property system, no matter how badly THIS CURRENT alleged price and property system has gone astray.
By: Graeme Bird on January 19, 2012
at 9:00 am
Look we really need to think about getting rid of these artificial persons. I can certainly think of a great many examples where they would be useful. But people are not really interested in limiting the corps. They just yawn at you when you talk about putting them in their proper standing. We would be better off without them. Really we would. You take the bad with the good, and forgoing some of the benefits of limited liability, would be a small price to pay to get rid of the nastiness that a system, dominated by artificial persons, brings.
This is not my favoured position. I’d rather limit companies, to the buyback of shares (no dividends), and to 100% equity finance. With shares as votes, and no board of directors separate from those casting their votes on the basis of their shares. But I don’t think politically we can get to where we are limiting artificial persons, without a full-scale effort to get rid of them, in their entirety.
The thing is that British-Classical and Austrian economics represent excellent bodies of knowledge. Skewed with a touch of Georgism they would be still better. But nowhere in this body of knowledge is there a theoretical proof that we cannot have an excellent economy without artificial persons.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 4:59 am
This is very similar to the pessimism I’ve been having over private infrastructure. My preference was that we sorted our act out, when it came to infrastructural property titles. So that we had a real capitalist, rather than cronyist, system for developing infrastructure. I swear I couldn’t get any cunt to understand what I was talking about. Actually Bob Ellis seemed to understand what I was driving at but no way would he be interested in private infrastructure.
So in the end because no cunt was interested in a free market for infrastructure, I got pessimistic and gave up and figured we need to revive the department of public works. So thats the deal with artificial persons. Since no cunt is interested in debating how to limit artificial persons, it seems that we need to start pushing for their demise.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 5:06 am
A dose of realism for you. And I’m a realist.
“Hedge funds have been known to use hardball tactics to make money. Now they have come up with a new one: suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments.
“The novel approach would have the funds arguing in the European Court of Human Rights that Greece had violated bondholder rights, though that could be a multiyear project with no guarantee of a payoff. And it would not be likely to produce sympathy for these funds, which many blame for the lack of progress so far in the negotiations over restructuring Greece’s debts.
“The tactic has emerged in conversations with lawyers and hedge funds as it became clear that Greece was considering passing legislation to force all private bondholders to take losses, while exempting the European Central Bank, which is the largest institutional holder of Greek bonds with 50 billion euros or so.
“Legal experts suggest that the investors may have a case because if Greece changes the terms of its bonds so that investors receive less than they are owed, that could be viewed as a property rights violation — and in Europe, property rights are human rights.”
Full articles: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/business/global/hedge-funds-may-sue-greece-if-it-tries-to-force-loss.html
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 5:27 am
In essence the pro-capitalist argument is thus:
What we need is beautiful or pleasant (not ugly or unpleasant) capitalism; or moral (not immoral) capitalism; or godly (not ungodly) capitalism; fair (not predatory or crony) capitalism; and now responsible (not irresponsible) capitalism.
But apparently, we still need capitalism.
Convincing? Ah no. Increasingly not.
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 5:34 am
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/jan/19/david-cameron-pledges-popular-capitalism
Haha. Are they worried what.
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 5:42 am
You must see how depressing things are for some of us who have come out of the conservative camp. Once upon of time we had Margaret Thatcher. A real woman and a serious leader. Now we have David Cameron……. I shall not elaborate further.
Its just so very very depressing. If I didn’t have such wonderful female in-laws to be happy about, I could get so down, that I might sleep in the cemetery and cash in all my dole money for 4 litre casks of wine.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 5:52 am
Ms Thatcher is a woman and was a leader. I shall not elaborate further.
As to casks of wines in cemetries, I seemed to remember something like that at Toowong in my younger days. It was fun. Nice place Toowong Cemetery, it even has creeks and waterfalls coming down from Mt Cootha.
Seriously, there is work and politics and then there is glorious LIFE.
I am so happy it is Friday and as a gift a wicked witch has just been slain. Of course another one has stepped into her place. But still. This will have both good and bad repercussions.
I am doing a lil celebratory tapdance at this very minute.
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 6:02 am
It may not be convincing. But it is reality. Do see how this works? Capitalism, or some moderated version thereof, is the most effective system, therefore the shadow-ultra-rich network has to corrupt it. Democracy, held out the hope for self-government, of for and by the people, so that crony town had to control it. The only viable anti-crony philosophy in existence was the various versions of 19th century liberalism, so that therefore the banking-covert-ops shadow government had to pervert it.
To maintain control, they need not spend a lot of time, fucking up impractical and impotent dreams. To maintain control they have to infect everything powerful, workable, practical and moral, and produce goblin versions of these things. Just as Sauron bread a race of Orks for the purpose of mocking the dwarves.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 5:46 am
““Hedge funds have been known to use hardball tactics to make money. Now they have come up with a new one: suing Greece in a human rights court to make good on its bond payments.”
Well we just have to beat these assholes. It ought to be thought of as immoral for anyone with any serious amount of funds to loan money on government bonds. Tradable debt itself ought never be given legal cover. And people who made their fortune in the corrupt finance industry ought to be relieved of their gear, down to their last million.
The financial system, to be workable, has to be governed from the point of view, that paper is there to serve as a proxy for real individualised physical stuff and nothing else, save only government taxation vouchers. And in the longer run the government taxation vouchers ought to become less and less of the money supply.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 5:56 am
I had to look up Sauron. I’ve never read Lord of the Rings. Or seen the films.
Do you like Tolkien? You’ve never mentioned him before.
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 6:06 am
Yeah but I tend to think of the hobbit as the better novel. Tolkein managed to take the Hobbit, which was basically a kids book, and then build on that to much bigger themes, in the Lord Of The Rings. But though the themes got more universal, the entirety of the novel became more of a flawed masterpiece. The characters of Strider, and Gandalf, suddenly become two-dimensional halfway through the story. Whereas all through the hobbit, and the first half of Lord…. the character of Gandalf could seem more real to you, then cousins that you haven’t seen in a few years.
People don’t talk of the Hobbit as a great novel. Because its a kids novel, and a fantasy novel. But they do talk of Huckleberry Finn as a great novel. And I think rightly so. I just think the Hobbit is a bit better than Huck Finn. And there is many good things in the Lord of the Rings, but its an imperfect story, whereas the Hobbit is all of a piece.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 6:29 am
I have the most magnificient fat exquisitely illustrated and bound edition of Lord of the Rings. A gift. Maybe I am now old enough to read it. I do admire its pantheism.
I love Tolkien on the basis of this poem alone.
Man in the Moon
There is an inn, a merry old inn
beneath an old grey hill,
And there they brew a beer so brown
That the Man in the Moon himself came down
one night to drink his fill.
The ostler has a tipsy cat
that plays a five-stringed fiddle;
And up and down he saws his bow
Now squeaking high, now purring low,
now sawing in the middle.
The landlord keeps a little dog
that is mighty fond of jokes;
When there’s good cheer among the guests,
He cocks an ear at all the jests
and laughs until he chokes.
They also keep a hornéd cow
as proud as any queen;
But music turns her head like ale,
And makes her wave her tufted tail
and dance upon the green.
And O! the rows of silver dishes
And O! the rows of silver dishes
and the store of silver spoons!
For Sunday there’s a special pair,
And these they polish up with care
on Saturday afternoons.
The Man in the Moon was drinking deep,
and the cat began to wail;
A dish and a spoon on the table danced,
The cow in the garden madly pranced
and the little dog chased his tail.
The Man in the Moon took another mug,
and then rolled beneath his chair;
And there he dozed and dreamed of ale,
Till in the sky the stars were pale,
and dawn was in the air.
Then the ostler said to his tipsy cat:
‘The white horses of the Moon,
They neigh and champ their silver bits;
But their master’s been and drowned his wits,
and the Sun’ll be rising soon!’
So the cat on the fiddle played hey-diddle-diddle,
a jig that would wake the dead:
He squeaked and sawed and quickened the tune,
While the landlord shook the Man in the Moon:
‘It’s after three!’ he said.
They rolled the Man slowly up the hill
and bundled him into the Moon,
While his horses galloped up in rear,
And the cow came capering like a deer,
and a dish ran up with the spoon.
Now quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle;
the dog began to roar,
The cow and the horses stood on their heads;
The guests all bounded from their beds
and danced upon the floor.
With a ping and a pang the fiddle-strings broke!
the cow jumped over the Moon,
And the little dog laughed to see such fun,
And the Saturday dish went off at a run
with the silver Sunday spoon.
The round Moon rolled behind the hill,
as the Sun raised up her head.
She* hardly believed her fiery eyes;
For though it was day, to her surprise
they all went back to bed!
J. R. R. Tolkien
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 6:31 am
Ok. I always felt like I was too old for LOTR. And I walked out of the first film version of it within 30mins. Yawn.
Funny you mention Mark Twain. I only read Huck Finn a couple of years ago and it blew me away. Not the book girls read when young when you usually read such books, unless as school texts. One of the best bios ever is Ron Powers of Mark Twain. His writing and Twain’s story are swoon-worthy.
I could happily spend precious reading time on all the rest of Mark Twain well before Tolkien. Truly, Huckleberry Finn is AWESOME and so clever, so subversive.
Nathaniel Hawthorne is another American writer I want to read. Especially the Scarlet Letter, And after having read and adored all of Willa Cather I’m just now reading – finally – her (critical) masterpiece, Death Comes for the Archbishop, though my favourite still is ‘My Antonia’.
By: Philomena on January 20, 2012
at 6:50 am
The thing is with Huck Finn is you can read it once and wonder what all the fuss is about, and you can read it five years later, and its almost like its a different book. Everytime you read it you can get more out of it, because there is a great deal of depth, behind the un-pretensious, yet very well thought out, prose.
But I think that the Hobbit and perhaps the first parts of Lord Of The Rings are even better than that.
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 7:44 am
The ludicrous idea that taxpayers have to pay back loans that fractional-reservists, have sorted out with big shots, and tax eaters:
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 9:26 am
Philomena, if ever you hear one of these crony-loving international-banker loving filth, advocating “free banking” take them out the back and shoot them. Because that advocacy, is the most loathsome, mean spirited, insincere, lying bit of “LOOK OVER THERE’ that you are every going be oppressed by. Its such a lie. There are lies, damned lies, statistics and “free banking.”
By: Graeme Bird on January 20, 2012
at 9:32 am
Thought you’d like this news Graeme
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286025/20120123/ron-paul-2012-gets-endorsement-nassim-taleb.htm
When asked his opinion on Ron Paul, Taleb, on his Facebook page, wrote “the only candidate I trust is Ron Paul.” Taleb, however, seems to be more interested in philosophy than politics.
“I do not wish to be dragged into politics beyond my statement of trusting one, and only one candidate in this primary. Conversation ended,” he later added.
By: jtfsoon on January 30, 2012
at 5:14 am
Right. Thanks for that. Well this is all a fact. The rest of them are Washington stooges. The election is less meaningful then a Soviet election, unless Ron Paul wins. He will then likely be assassinated. But I’m sure he is ready for that.
By: graemebird on January 30, 2012
at 5:27 am
“10. Ignores perpetual increasing velocity
Another problem from exponential growth is perpetually increasing velocity. The system has to chug faster and harder as it continues to grow. This means human life has to chug faster and harder. The most obvious manifestation of this is the endless, hectic commutes every morning to jobs we despise. We feel frustration, sometimes rage, toward our fellow commuters. That is just one small example of how systemic velocity affects the human spirit.”
Christ this is a load of shit. Labour saving devices show this is a steaming load. I can’t believe you’ve fallen for this amateurish, schmaltzy horseshit.
Blaming poor planning decisions and red tape on capitalism? You communist buffoon.
By: . on January 31, 2012
at 11:19 pm
No thats not right you ignorant, and logic-deficient idiot. Obviously if you have all your money supply as debt, that is so much more debt then the society really needs, and therefore you have that rat race built into society. Debt is akin to obligation is akin to slavery. And so if you set it up, that money (totally needed) is debt, you are setting up a slave society and obviously so. If you set it up that survival was a credit system based on numbers in your arm, as in a recent movie, that would be a slave society, since you would need the debt, merely to survive, so that would be an obligation, and therefore an aspect of slavery. But when you have money that is not debt, then debt is only needed, for capital generating activities. And if you have debt for only capital generating activities, this is not an attempt to have a debt-based slave society.
If you aren’t capable of understanding the simplest thing, don’t be commenting like you are some sort of authority.
By: Graeme Bird on February 1, 2012
at 12:17 am
For those too stupid to understand the principle involved here there is a pretty good movie, with the star, of all people, Justin Timberlake. He’s not a bad actor at all. The movie is called “In Time”, and it depicts a world is which the money supply is a credit system, that parcels out days, minutes and seconds of available life.
So in this movie, the money supply is credit, that more directly represents available time (or life) itself. But in our world, our money supply is based on debt. Money is the medium of exchange and is necessary for our survival. As soon as the price and property system break down, we are mobilised, and famine breaks out. Now this movie further emphasises the slavery inherent in bad monetary systems, because in this movie everyone is genetically 25 years old. They get to 25, and then they are given credits, which are based around the concept of time. How long you have to live. If the credits run out they die right away. But they have to use their credits in order to buy everything. So they have to choose between what they buy, and how much time they have left to live. So what happens is that the people who are issuing this money supply are running a slave society.
But our society is a slave society also. Since instead of mediums of exchange that have purchasing power free and clear, all our mediums of exchange are based on debt. If they weren’t based on debt, that would be that much debt we wouldn’t need. And if from there we got used to falling prices, we would some day wind up with more money then debt, and we would be quits with this form of slavery, only using debt for wealth creation.
By: Graeme Bird on February 1, 2012
at 12:29 am
Um yes Graeme but your problem is the banksters create too much money.
WHAT? I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. EXPLAIN YOURSELF.
WE HAVE ESTABLISHED, THAT IT WOULD BE A BETTER WORLD IF THAT BANKS
CREATED NO MONEY WHATSOEVER. THAT WAY WE COULD HAVE A PROPER MARKET
FOR LOANABLE FUNDS, CAPITAL MARKETS THAT STRIVED FOR EXCELLENCE IN
ASSET PRICING, AND THEREFORE RESOURCE ALLOCATION, AND ON TOP OF THAT
WE COULD STRIVE FOR EXCELLENCE IN LOANABLE FUNDS DIRECTION, AND BANKING
BEHAVIOUR.
JUST EXPLAIN WHAT YOU ARE ON ABOUT MARK.
By: . on February 2, 2012
at 3:13 am
Hopefully even for the dullest mind, this trailer will help understand the slavery inherent in getting the monetary system wrong:
By: Graeme Bird on February 1, 2012
at 12:33 am
The point is that the money supply can only be physical objects of inherent value, or taxation vouchers of a fairly minimalist, or at least a prudent government. These two options are not attempts to enslave, although a reliance on gold alone will be exploited to enslave if we let that happen.
But there is no doubt about it, that having a money supply that is made out of debt is a full-blown attempt to enslave. An attempt that has been successful.
By: Graeme Bird on February 1, 2012
at 12:36 am
Ha ha. Keiser is hanging shit on some Jews trying to shake down Mel Gibson for some cash. Last Keiser Report was very interesting. Because he explained why low interest rate policy was starving society of REAL CAPITAL RESOURCES. Which is true. Low interest rate policy is killing real durable capital goods formation, and he had some very good things to say about this, yet some of his explanation was a little confused.
I see this as the best show on TV, and better for the fact that Max isn’t perfect, or attempting to be 100% correct the whole time. But he certainly has his finger on the pulse for the most part. Here is the shakedown. The low interest rate policy talk is on the prior report.
By: Graeme Bird on February 2, 2012
at 6:05 am
“This is the sort of crap that lew Rockwell (Ron Paul’s former staffer BTW) puts up nowadays. A blight on libertarians
http://lewrockwell.com/rep3/facebook-us-intel-op.html”
So said Jason Soon. But this is a serious epistemology problem. Since when has Jason Soon been an historian of facebook. What does Jason Soon know about facebook. Does Jason Soon have a different understanding of the history of facebook, then does Lew Rockwell. Has Jason Soon done even a fucking scintilla of investigation into the facebook phenomenon.
Briefly: no, no, no , no and no.
This is a serious epistemological deficit. Jason knows nothing about the subject Lew Rockwell is talking about. Yet somehow Jason feels he knows EVERYTHING about that same subject.
By: Graeme Bird on February 2, 2012
at 6:39 am
Here is what Lew Rockwell said. To me it all seems fair and balanced. But I ready myself to be corrected by facebook historian, Jason Soon:
“The media is full of breathless adulation regarding Facebook and Zuckerberg.
We’re supposed to accept this narrative unquestioningly. We don’t.
There is a group of impossibly wealthy families, in our view – a power elite initially based in the City of London – that controls central banking around the world. This handful of families uses trillions in cash flow to aid in the construction of what is popularly known as the New World Order.
This NWO is not erected without a good deal of effort, and what we call the Internet Reformation has proven to be a stumbling block. The information revealed on the Internet has generated extreme opposition to what the NWO families are trying to do, along with their enablers and associates.
In order to overcome this opposition, the power elite has launched a series of false flags that are intended to make the Internet more confusing to the opposition and more supportive of its efforts.
Facebook, from what we can tell, is a kind of false flag intended to gather huge numbers of users in an environment that will be – at least gently – pro-globalist. Or at least useful to the globalist agenda.
We note a “big” movie has been made about his life. This, too, is a kind of red flag. When the elites are involved in a sizable promotion, one tool seems to be a Hollywood movie. Supposedly, Julian Assange – who also may function as a kind of false flag, in our view – is also getting a movie. He already has a book.
What’s even less debatable than the evident hype surrounding Zuckerberg and Facebook is the reality of the facility’s initial funding. There is almost no doubt – so far as we can tell, anyway – that the initial funding Facebook received was in part organized by US Intel.”
By: Graeme Bird on February 2, 2012
at 6:42 am
Here is a bit of a quiz to neoclassical economists at Catallaxy:
Why is it that low interest rate policy starves the economy of capital?
That is a bit counter-intuitive isn’t it? Well its a bit of a stumbling block for catallaxy. That is for sure.
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at 8:22 am
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at 9:42 am
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at 9:18 am