tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post5202794875844204446..comments2024-01-08T04:16:25.601-08:00Comments on Ché (What You Call Your) Pasa: Envisioning That Better Future -- Two: Debt CrisisChé Pasahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-39626493175187464982012-01-11T06:42:04.704-08:002012-01-11T06:42:04.704-08:00If there is a good side to the current situation i...If there is a good side to the current situation it is this: more and more people are weaning themselves, slowly and somewhat painfully, from the unsustainable consumption economy of the past. <br /><br />We must, as a species, for survival's sake, transition from consumption to sustenance. <br /><br />An ideal sustenance economy would be much like your egalitarian -- and cash-less -- democratic vision. The notion that it can't be done is a crock; it can most definitely be accomplished, but not with the weight of the Overclass burden on top. <br /><br />That has to end. <br /><br />And that's why there is Revolution. <br /><br />The Overclass, it seems to me, could have saved itself had it had the insight and the human decency to spread rather than concentrate the wealth. Had they been driven by human decency rather than obdurate cruelty, we would already be in a much better world. <br /><br />But no.<br /><br />One way or another, the burden of the parasitical Overclass will be lifted...Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-41600796654779072022012-01-10T12:32:02.316-08:002012-01-10T12:32:02.316-08:00Your last paragraph wraps it up nicely, concisely....Your last paragraph wraps it up nicely, concisely. <br /><br />Again, I'd rather go full out real participatory, egalitarian democracy. No money, no profit, the entire nation as "the Commons" . . . outside one's home. But if we're stuck with capitalism, then let's at least apply common sense. <br /><br />Struggling for an analogy or metaphor here. But it's basically like this. We have a choice to distribute money to a few already rich people who will hoard it under their gold-plated beds, or, distribute it to people who will spend the vast majority of it in this economy. Here and now. America, being overly dependent on domestic consumption for 70% of its total economic output, should choose the latter. <br /><br />The above doesn't even include the higher rationale of human rights, dignity, fairness, etc. etc. But even in a purely cold-eyed view, it makes sense to pay reparations to those in need, to the working poor, the working and middle classes. <br /><br />They will spend the majority of it and set their own lives right side up, while kicking the entire economy into high gear. <br /><br />It's logical and rational and sensible, which means it will never happen.Cuchulainnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-56190573477003579732012-01-10T05:25:02.376-08:002012-01-10T05:25:02.376-08:00You're exactly right.
The breathtaking amount...You're exactly right.<br /><br />The breathtaking amounts that have been made available to -- or been outright given -- to the financial sector without strings boggle the mind. If equivalent -- or even much smaller -- amounts had been provided to households instead, there would have been an immediate economic recovery on the one hand, and there would have been the wherewithal to actually start a transition away from many of the perils that are strangling the masses -- and eventually will consume the elites as well.<br /><br />Instead, in an eerie recapitulation to the Hoover economic plan, money by the boxcarload was given away at the top, which covered the fincancial sector's gambling debts and left plenty more to hoard and... gamble with some more. <br /><br />So we're stuck now in an endless economic loop going round and round getting nowhere -- except that, of course, those on top are still making mountains of money.<br /><br />But even they in their more lucid moments are coming to recognize that their game is based on fictions, and all their money is ultimately worthless. <br /><br />They'll try to keep their merry-go-round going as long as they can but as it spins faster and faster, centrifugal force takes hold, and we know what the result is. That's the ride we're on.<br /><br />Moving out of our predicament takes bold action. Our Rulers simply cannot fathom the nature of what needs to be done, as they keep repeating the same mistakes over and over, with the same result: things are fine (getting better!) for them, deteriorating for everyone else, and the explosion is inevitable.<br /><br />It's almost as if they want their own demise.<br /><br />What could have been won't be. We have to come up with something else. <br /><br />But understanding the fictional nature of "all that money" is, I think, a key. Ultimately, for the greater good, it doesn't matter at all if "debts are paid" -- government or private sector... but it matters a great deal if peoples lives are destroyed in pursuit of payment.Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-73495082250450719792012-01-09T21:58:07.565-08:002012-01-09T21:58:07.565-08:00Not sure what the right income level would be for ...Not sure what the right income level would be for reparations, but I think the Fed should send out checks to every American making under X amount. <br /><br />Say, a check for 75K. <br /><br />We know the Fed gave out in the neighborhood of 16 trillion recently, but since it was handed over to banksters and the richest of the rich around the world, it had virtually no impact on the world economy where it really lives. In the trenches. <br /><br />(And, contra the Austrians, there was no increase in inflation.)<br /><br />They sat on it, from on high, and made more money for themselves on all of it, investing next to nothing in jobs, production, better pay and so on. <br /><br />If the Fed were to send about a quarter as much (total) to every American making, say, 60K or less (?), the economy would go gang busters, and the Treasury would receive so much in new tax revenues, we'd balance the budget in a couple of years.<br /><br />It would have enough impact to pull the entire world out of its endless funk, in fact. <br /><br />Seed the bottom, and trees will sprout in the billions. Seed the highest white capped mountains, and they'll die of greed and cold-heartedness. <br /><br />And it's really not as crazy as it might sound. Capitalism has long reached the stage of pure fiction, anyway. Any world with a 600 trillion dollar derivatives market has long since entered Murakami territory. So why not use that fiction to help real people live a better life, along with the macroeconomy? <br /><br />Of course, I'd much prefer to go even further, as I've mentioned before. No money, no profit, no private ownership of the means of production. Private ownership of your home. But the space between would then be the Commons. <br /><br />In lieu of that . . . we should utilize the current surreality of our capitalist system to benefit real human beings. <br /><br />End household debt, as you mentioned. The Fed could do it. And stoke the economy at the same time to make it rage against the dying of the light.Cuchulainnoreply@blogger.com