other than as a futile ideal. We seem to have forgotten about habros
- the polluting quality of luxury. The term arises in a Greek play
celebrating the victory of the Athenian Democracy over the Persians.
The warning to the Greeks was that they must never become sissies
wallowing in emotions and luxury like the defeated Persians. Most of
us are barely aware of history and have no real clue what the Soviets
and Chinese were up to. Even in relation to what's going on in China
now, I find few who know they have built ghost cities and are fueling
GDP growth with a property bubble.
The broad brush of western economics is that the ignorant rabble have
no place in real decision-making and that they must both know this (in
order not to forget their place) and to deny it in fantasies to
encourage virtual self-aggrandizement. Thus we are to live in virtual
meritocracy whilst actually just part of a pack that will not
challenge the alphas. In a very real way, we do not argue with facts,
but the stories of literature which bounds our expectations. Video
games are a warning of what we are, even if we don't play them.
The debts that are everywhere like a nightmare are not to do with
money as a means of simple exchange, taken on to be worked off in some
equation of labour value. They have been manipulated as surely as any
in past empires. Just as Chinese GDP is floating on 64 million empty
buildings no one can afford to live in (terms are often half up front,
the balance over 3 years), our currencies float on deals between
governments and favoured banks. We have suppressed wages and banks
hardly even provide working capital for business, instead engaging in
speculation in giant Ponzi schemes hedged in ever increasing prices
for assets that no one would eventually be able to buy from a wage,
and securitised to the tax payer. Wages were collapsed over 30 years
by exporting manufacturing - but GDP kept rising as we borrowed
against the asset pile to buy more and more crap and pay welfare to
those deprived of jobs.
The rich grew vastly richer in this period. If there are 64 million
Chinese apartments empty, how many across the world are now holiday
homes and the rest. None of this is communist or capitalist economics
- it's more fundamental, possibly the economics of the city in which
absentee landlords gamble the labour of poor tenants and then replace
them with more economic sheep. The money that was always making money
in high finance was never making anything other than the debt. You
need to understand mark to model and mark to market. The money was
never being made - banks were allowed to value their own assets to
models kept secret for reasons of commercial security. Now, if they
have to really sell any 'assets' they are worth what the market will
pay. And given the way banks count loans as assets, they are all
probably bankrupt because most of the loans will be real liabilities.
None of us borrowed this 'money'. It was pumped in by the Fed, BoE,
EU Central and so on and stole your hard-earned from underneath you.
This was done to bring inflation, and as yet it hasn't worked (though
notice how much more food costs) because we can already see our wages
and jobs are under threat and won't sell our homes at knockdown.
What we should get away from is homily about needing to tighten belts
after 'our excesses'. GDP all over has been massively inflated pretty
much as Enron inflated its books. The problem is we can't direct
capital to the work that needs doing. The hot money is already in
Swiss vaults or buying up land and evicting the tenant farmers (as in
the Enclosures). It also wants to buy up our public sectors - with
the very money we have given to support the bent system.
The question has long been how we might direct capital into the work
that needs doing and fairly distribute in a way that doesn't kill of
innovation or focus power into an elite that operates like a Politburo
we can't vote out. The news is that we already have this situation,
and may even have another massive debtor nation about to hit hyper-
inflation whilst more armed to the teeth than Nazi Germany. Imagine
Palin in charge of that!
We have all had trouble breaking the ancien regimes. Even the USA is
a Republik, rather than participative democracy - and democracy itself
has vile origins. Greece is run by a few rich-bastard families, the
US by banking interest, the UK is still basically a privateer island
(though privateers were strictly French) and the EU is still an
aggrandizement of ideas of stopping war with Germans and maintaining
coal and steel industries.
There is another way if we give up and homilies that barely work for
individual households let alone economic groups. Much of the debt
within the EU could be cancelled between countries in a Jubilee.
Beyond this we could ensure individuals get more control in economics
through wages and make investment an ethical business.
On Jun 27, 8:30 pm, paradox <eadohe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> But communism (in theory) is about every man contributing to the
> communal pot, to be distributed by dint of a principle of "equity".
>
> Free markets (or Capitalism, or whatever resonates) is about man
> pursuing his own ends, for which an emergent, enabling by-product is
> the economy (as we know it); of course, great disparities of wealth
> (and power) are an unavoidable (some might argue desirable) feature,
> as man has an unequal capacity to create value (and we can get into
> the ethics of the "why's" and the "wherefore's"). (Re)distribution is
> a political initiative to manage these disparities through taxation.
> And yes, you're right, wealth will perpetuate "at the top", but really
> as a consequence of an enhanced capacity to create even greater value;
> i think that this is what tends to appear as the great "visible hand".
>
> Thing about "growth", rigsy / contemplative, is it's one of the very
> few mega non-zero sums around; thats what makes it so beguiling and
> difficult to manage; so we swing from boom to bust to boom to...:)
>
> On Jun 27, 2:49 pm, rigsy03 <rigs...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > I don't agree- unless you are talking about Communism- which flopped.
> > Man serves the economy and whichever power happens to be in charge who
> > may then decide to redistribute wealth/products but this is not a
> > voluntary agreement. But generally, wealth remains at the top for the
> > prime reason of maintaining power.
>
> > On Jun 25, 3:26 am, paradox <eadohe...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > Hmm...fine points all!
>
> > > Lets not forget though, that the economy serves man, not the other way
> > > round? Just an observation regarding your suspicion of the "growth"
> > > imperative in contemporary economics.
>
> > > On Jun 24, 9:54 pm, Contemplative <wjwiel...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > > The key phrase for me is "relative homeostasis". I agree that the
> > > > encouragement you refer to
> > > > is desirable. I am unsure of it's possibility. Our belief that growth is
> > > > mandatory for our economy
> > > > encourages activities and behaviors that, I think, out-pace the ability of
> > > > the natural system to
> > > > balance itself at its natural rate. I am not convinced that we have a solid
> > > > enough understanding
> > > > of our own system to allow us to recognize true key indicators of systemic
> > > > health, rationally process
> > > > that input, and subsequently make good decisions about the which conditions
> > > > we should encourage.
>
> > > > To state it bluntly, I think our desire for growth is malignant...
>
> > > > I don't mean to be doom and gloom about this, and actually I think there is
> > > > reason to be optimistic.
> > > > But economics seems to me to have that stereotypical characteristic of
> > > > having 20/20 vision through
> > > > the rear view mirror. Economic policy decisions that are both long term and
> > > > aggressive(such as increased
> > > > home ownership) which use 'tweaks' to the system to achieve the aims are
> > > > likely destructive and very
> > > > unpredictable. In a relatively isolated or buffered system, they may be
> > > > more predictable, but we are not
> > > > in an economy which is either buffered or isolated. We are comparatively
> > > > wide open(global), and playing
> > > > in a much bigger sandbox than we have been, say 25 years ago. ...and from
> > > > my perspective, we don't
> > > > know the playing field well enough to be aggressive, though we should be
> > > > looking long term. ...and by
> > > > long term, I mean more than two quarters out!
>
> > > > Thanks for the opportunity to think this through a bit...! :-)- Hide quoted text -
>
> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> > - Show quoted text -
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