Post: #1

I like the article by economic blogger Anthony Migchels so much, that I reblog it here http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2014...conomics/:

As someone who has studied economics and worked at the worlds' greatest banks and insurance companies in Switzerland and Europe, I never ever made intellectual contact with any of the real alternatives that would actually create prosperity for 100% and not only the 0,01% to 1%. Getting your economic info via the usual channels is like someone trying to learn about Game from Cosmo and Romcom-movies. You can study all you want and get multiple PhDs - you remain a Blue Pill expert at best.

The most basic aspects of economic theory are cons - entire positive monetery systems are simply glossed over and silenced by academia - even in those countries where those examples have been happening just a few decades ago (interest free money creation, demurrage, real price mechanics etc.).

What does it all matter to us? Not much. Stop voting and believing in any libertarian or socialist utopia - it will never come.

Make money, learn Game, be ready to move when the shit hits the fan or if you manage to join the ranks of the 0,1%, then you may stay and your money moves across the world instead of you. But please stop believing in any savior, party, politician, system that will come about - even one after a supposed collapse.

The collapse has already happened as Manosphere Blogger Blackdragon put it: http://www.blackdragonblog.com/2014/06/2...activism/. We lost, there is no turning back, society in the West has already collapsed, the collapse itself is created by design in a controlled fashion and the militarized police will mop up any future dissent, while most will be appeased by gluttonous food, cheap booze, drugs and constant entertainment.

I predict that most Americans and Europeans will be on 100% welfare in 2-3 decades - mostly because of simple lack of work than lack of discipline. That is the future - make the best of the current times - there are still plenty of opportunities left.

Quote:The Silly Pseudo Science That Is ‘Modern Economics’
by Anthony Migchels on July 4, 2014

All modern science has been utterly corrupted to the core through orthodoxy and political correctness, under the pressures of power and commerce. So why are people so surprised it’s the same with ‘economics’?

It’s all just complete baloney. And of the worst, most moronic kind. Their most fundamental propositions don’t add up at all and simply wither away under the gaze of critical thought.

The fact that critical thought is strictly off limits in today’s universities, where group think and the lowest common demoninator rule as ‘eminence’, is the only reason book after book is written exalting these absolutely specious beliefs.

Compare it to allopathy, the trade of the men and women in white. They explain to you newborns need mercury, formaldehyde, lethal viral matter and genetically modified remnants of human foetuses to ‘enhance immunity’. You’re ‘irresponsible’ and ‘irrational’ if you happen to disagree.

Next, when these vaccinations have done their job and have destroyed your immunity and you get cancer a few decades later, they explain to you, you need mustard gas (‘chemotherapy’ is derived from that stuff) and lethal doses (according to the WHO) of radiation to ‘survive’. As a result far more people die of treatment than cancer itself.

It’s all ‘science’, you know. Proven! Honest! With double blind peer reviewed studies! Cross my heart, hope to die!

Totally corrupted, by commercial interest and thought/herd control. Promoting those who uncritically work hard to pass their exams, keeping back those going their own way.

And this is just medicine. It’s money and the economy through which they rule! If they do this to medicine, what does one really expect from the ‘science’ behind Capitalism?

Their laughable nonsense
We have already extensively dissected their ‘time value of money’. The idea that money is worth more today than it is tomorrow. And that the creditor thus loses when lending. For which Usury is then the ‘compensation’.

Is it any wonder that this is considered the absolute foundation of ‘modern economics’? Of course their witty rationales serve only to hide this heinous plundering. Of course ‘modern economics” most cherished belief explains why we need banks!

And of course it’s just rubbish. Totally irrelevant. The bank creates the money when it is lent out and retires it when it is repaid. It didn’t exist before the loan and doesn’t exist after it. It’s a sterile operation, completely neutral. No ‘value’ is created for the lender, none is lost to him. He only does it because he can plunder his unwitting victim with Usury on the ‘debt’.

There is no risk, because there is collateral. ‘Losses’ to ‘inflation’ (which don’t exist with credit based money) are simply because they cause inflation willfully. It’s all a total mirage.

Even with already existing money (the situation most people mistakenly thinks exists and must exist), the ‘time value’ can easily be undone by having savers pool money together, in exchange for giving them interest-free credit from the collected savings.

Or one slaps a demurrage on the money, when those holding money, instead of those borrowing it, pay a percentage per year. This proactively destroys the value of money and ends hoarding: people will sink money in assets, which is the way it should be anyway. Saving money is antithetical to its purpose as a means of exchange. The ancients worked with this money, when their money was based on receipts of warehouses for perishable produce. Because the goods backing the note perish, so does the money.

They built all the wonders of Antiquity with it, all the way up to the Cathedrals.

Price discovery

Here’s another example: price discovery. According to ‘modern economics’ price is a function of demand and supply. I think we can agree that this basic proposition rivals the ‘time value’ in importance for our crummy little pseudo science/mind job.

But, our banker friends have conveniently forgotten all about the third variable: money supply.

Without a money supply there cannot even be a price to begin with! Money’s secondary function is unit of account! Price is expressed in its monetary value!

Not only that, without the means of exchange, there is hardly any trade at all: demand and supply never meet, except the few trades that can be settled with direct barter!

So: price is a function of demand, supply and money supply. And this is really foundational in obscuring the second main issue with money: managing its volume properly.

Now, how relevant is this? Hugely. Because they ignore money in price discovery, they can have their maniacal Austrians/Neo-Liberals claim money is irrelevant, deflation fantastic and markets just don’t clear because they are not ‘free’. This is known as Say’s Law and is used to hide that the only reason we are in a depression is because of a deflating money supply.

Because price is supposed to be a function of demand and supply, only ‘structural adjustments’ (raping labor rights) to ‘correct’ ‘market inefficiencies’ blah, blah, blah.

This is how they sell austerity. Should we know about the simple truth of price discovery, we would always have the money supply in mind and this is not convenient for those who rule through money and manipulating its volume.

This is just how they sucker us with their word magic and Orwellian crap. Laughing all the way to the bank about the silly masses and their love of ‘the power of ideas’.

Conclusion
We are ruled by a Banking Cartel. About 40% of the disposable income of the common man is taken by Usury and related rents, another 20% by their Transnationals and their artificial scarcity through Monopoly. Yet another quarter by the State, which is another Monopoly they control. What remains is for the wife.

Who are we kidding? We are total slaves.

First we are interest-slaves through the artificial debt. Next we are relegated to wage slavery by scarce money, paying off the Usury by doing the jobs they want to have done. In effect digging our own graves in their Banks, Transnationals and Governments for sustenance.

Of course they own the ‘science’ behind it all. Of course they explain the rich must get richer through Usury for the benefit of all. Hell, even just studying ‘modern economics’ makes you a greedy bastard, it was recently shown!

Forget about their silly crap and read up on Margrit Kennedy, Bernard Lietaer, Arthur Kitson, David Astle and all the others in the know out there. I’ll even throw in my own interest-free economics page, it’s not a bad place to start.

We can do so much better.

P.S.: And please give me a break with any conspiracy-allegations. My knowledge is well-researched, I can easily hold my own in a scientific and rational debate. I am just putting out the info for all, who would like to take a different viewpoint on economics, since the conventional ways are well known - even the libertarian tea-party views are widely promoted. Take the info or leave it. In the end it will not matter what you believe in anyway, since there is no way to change it. It might be able to save your future wealth though.

Post: #2

I am highly interested in this. I never studied economics, but I would like to know more. Which sources do you use for you econ info?

Post: #3

(07-05-2014 01:15 PM)Kvothe Wrote:  I am highly interested in this. I never studied economics, but I would like to know more. Which sources do you use for you econ info?

As far as going through the alternative basics you can start with Anthony Migchels website realcurrencies. There are plenty of books recommended there. Also Prof. Steve Keen with "Debunking Economics" and Dennis Marker's book is quite good too: http://www.amazon.com/Fifteen-Steps-Corp...0084WSHKQ.

The basis itself is actually quite simple and can in fact be understood by most people very easily. Macro- and Micro-economics is willfully complicated and serves no purpose, but to validate studid theories. While of course accounting, marketing, logistics etc. are useful fields most macro-theories are just nuts, since they are based on fraudulent premises. Interest-free economics is ridiculously simple and would create prosperity for all, but it will never come about, since it would end the rule of the plutocracy sooner or later. If you see any politician talking about it in public, you see basically a dead man walking - it is that important to keep the topic off the mainstream.

Post: #4

I was going to recommend Steve Keen's Debunking Economics myself.

What I really like about that book is it doesn't pull any punches or come from an overtly ideological bent. Steve Keen takes the razor's edge to Marxism every bit as much as he does with mainstream economics, so you can't just dismiss him as some leftist ideologue.

And at the end he actually offers a solution to reinvigorate the field.

Post: #5

Yup - been there - done that. Fad city living.

The whole point of the 'getting of wisdom' is moving beyond simply following a fad. Find a game that's worthwhile - become the best you can at it and share the skills and wisdom that follows in time.

Not all 'games' are worth one's time. From hopscotch to tic-tac-toe to checker to chess, they're still just games. And even among the greats of chess, how many have lived lives people can envy? Very few.

To the strong streak of distopia in the post above, that the mission-focused Western exceptionalism that the US best exemplified - is it allover? All welfare states lacking work for the foreseeable future?
Yes.

YES - I agree. The vision of the future 200 years hence, once contained in the 1960s classic Star Trek, of space exploration, will not come to pass.

But for dispats, liberty hath been chased round the world, and there are still new beachheads and frontiers of opportunity - more than there ever were in the last century.


Will any take root and flower and grow with wild optimism like in the 19th century? Doubtful. The past doesn't repeat, but it often rhymes.
And like the Ancient Mariner, it takes an opportunist to make it so.

Post: #6

(07-05-2014 04:28 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  

(07-05-2014 01:15 PM)Kvothe Wrote:  I am highly interested in this. I never studied economics, but I would like to know more. Which sources do you use for you econ info?

As far as going through the alternative basics you can start with Anthony Migchels website realcurrencies. There are plenty of books recommended there. Also Prof. Steve Keen with "Debunking Economics" and Dennis Marker's book is quite good too: http://www.amazon.com/Fifteen-Steps-Corp...0084WSHKQ.

The basis itself is actually quite simple and can in fact be understood by most people very easily. Macro- and Micro-economics is willfully complicated and serves no purpose, but to validate studid theories. While of course accounting, marketing, logistics etc. are useful fields most macro-theories are just nuts, since they are based on fraudulent premises. Interest-free economics is ridiculously simple and would create prosperity for all, but it will never come about, since it would end the rule of the plutocracy sooner or later. If you see any politician talking about it in public, you see basically a dead man walking - it is that important to keep the topic off the mainstream.

Chart COMPARING DIFFERENT SCHOOLS OF ECONOMICS
by Ha-Joon Chang - his ultimate pocket guide to the differences (and similarities) between all the economic schools of thought.

Quote:Despite what the experts want you to believe, there is more than one way of ‘doing’ economics

People have been led to believe that, like physics or chemistry, economics is a ‘science’, in which there is only one correct answer to everything; thus non-experts should simply accept the ‘professional consensus’ and stop thinking about it.

Contrary to what most economists would have you believe, there isn’t just one kind of economics – Neoclassical economics. In fact there are no less than nine different kinds, or schools, as they are often known. And none of these schools can claim superiority over others and still less monopoly over truth.

I accept that being suddenly asked to taste nine different flavours of ice cream when you had thought that there was only one plain vanilla can be quite overwhelming. In order to help, the simple table below should help you overcome your initial fear.

Of course, this is the meta-economics perspective. All conceptual tools carry their assumptions. Learn them and use wisely - correct and dispatch ignorance accordingly.
"Economics: The Users Guide"
by Ha-Joon Chang, comes out this August.

Post: #7

(07-05-2014 06:25 PM)Orson Wrote:  Of course, this is the meta-economics perspective. All conceptual tools carry their assumptions. Learn them and use wisely - correct and dispatch ignorance accordingly.
"Economics: The Users Guide"
by Ha-Joon Chang, comes out this August.

Nice graph, but ultimately useless. The behavioral view is likely the most truthful, but even behavioral economists avoid interest-free money creation or demurrage like taking shots of ebola-virus-vials.

Without money reform first, anything else will end up in the same hands regardless of the system.

Knowing about it is frankly not of much use except for an increased bullshit detector and better individual financial planning.

Post: #8

Modern economics isn't garbage, the only reason it's perceived as such is that so many economists have found a profitable side niche in becoming sideshow political campaigners. This means that every economist with a name also has an agenda to push for which they are getting well compensated for beyond the public eye.

I wouldn't be so quick to throw the baby out with the bathwater though...

The problem is it's hard to separate "good" economics with "bad" economics because you'll find various groups pushing and pulling for various economic policies that claim to be for the greater good but are really only in it for themselves. A good example of this is Reaganomics and Reagan's politicization of the U of Chicago in order to hijack an entire dept to support his trickle down policies.

But for every abject failure you have successes.

For example, Friedrich List's turn of the century theories behind land reform have been proven to be a builder of nations from the ground up.

Whereas, economists like Adam Smith are certainly held in high esteem but his theories of free market only benefit well established developed nations. The unfettered free capitalism theories have been proven to acutally be damaging to infant industries in developing countires.

Keynesian economics was apt for its era but has since been misapplied and misappropriated by politicians from both left and right as a spending free for all.

The problem isn't with the theories but with the practical application.

Application is directed and executed through political will.

Post: #9

Thanks for the books and info. I am going to read them over the summer.


But I have to ask: What is the right thing to do here? The advice is to think and care about yourself. How do I do that? I assume this is a stupid question, but I am just looking for guidance.

And another question, even I do not understand it all, how can we be sure it "works"? Even if we have an alternative, who says it will work? Its just theory, isnt it? People can see through and will conclude its all a scam? Prove me wrong that people do not understand in how much a mess we are. I cant believe that. They should connect the dots sonner or later.

Post: #10

(07-06-2014 08:16 AM)Kvothe Wrote:  Thanks for the books and info. I am going to read them over the summer.


But I have to ask: What is the right thing to do here? The advice is to think and care about yourself. How do I do that? I assume this is a stupid question, but I am just looking for guidance.

And another question, even I do not understand it all, how can we be sure it "works"? Even if we have an alternative, who says it will work? Its just theory, isnt it? People can see through and will conclude its all a scam? Prove me wrong that people do not understand in how much a mess we are. I cant believe that. They should connect the dots sonner or later.

The point is that the alternatives have been around already - the most powerful one:

http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012...henomenon/

Woergl 1932 - a city in the middle of European wide depression (produced by the banks by sucking dry the money supply) started printing it's own money and paying it's creditors with it. The specialty is that they also put a devaluing entity on the money - you had to pay a tax every month if you kept the money - thus it was worth less every month and people were motivated to spend it. Within 2 years unemployment fell from over 20% to 0%, the whole city was reconstructed, renovated and all businesses flourished. 500 other cities both in Austria and Germany wanted to do the same - it took the threat of military force by the government to stop any further "experiments".

Demurrage is a tool by which the turnover of money is greatly increased - like real money supply - it is almost completely ignored by modern economists.

Other positive examples have been:

- Canada up until the 1970s: one of the reasons that there was no depression there is because Canada simply wrote cheques to farmers and small businesses - money was issued debt free there
- Hitler: though it is an incomplete example - they printed securities and instantly paid big corporations with those securities thus enormously increasing money supply debt-free
- JFK and Lincoln: JFK issued US Notes and Lincoln Greenbacks - though both were backed by debt notes to a degree - continued practice might have emancipated the money creation at least for the state
- JAK banks: http://realcurrencies.wordpress.com/2012...e-banking/ they offer interest free real estate credit for everyone since decades. How? Simple - you save for at least 6 month, let's say - you are able to save 1000$/month. Then after a given time and credit check you can take a mortgage to the amount of your monthly savings - 1000$. Instead of receiving interest rates you get the mortage almost interest free. Also you repay the principal from day one decreasing your net exposure instantly.





There are some more examples in the documentary by Bill Still here.

So in short:
- States need zero debt issuing, they can issue money debt-free, since the citizens and their productivity are collateral anyway (forget gold and silver backing - those who own commodities are going to lend it at interest to the State - guess who that will be.)
- real estate credit should be debt free for every living and breathing person (what you can save, you can get in a mortgage for free - no more repaying of 500.000$ for a 200.000$ house)
- money could have demurrage on it thus it would increase the turnover of money so much, that the rich would be highly motivated to invest non-stop. Currently hardly anyone invests in the US.

Plus as Prof. Keen stated in his books very well - every economic power needs equal counter-power - business-owners need strong unions, in order to give the have-nots some bargaining power. There is so much misunderstanding on that point especially in the US - an economic system can even survive having extremely high minimum wages - at one time in the 1960s the US had them too - just as Switzerland and Norway have them now.

Taxes could be close to zero since the State could issue money debt-free, protective tariffs would be enough to shield part of the economy, the whole spiel of having to compete with every goddamn dirt-hole is a scam that serves only the plutocracy. How is it possible to compete with Bangladeshi shoeless steel-workers or seamstresses? Give me a break. Besides - technical unemployment will make most work obsolete sooner or later. We have to think about a different system.

But none of it will come about. It is not a theory - it makes sense not only on paper, but has been tried again and again.

My recommendation for everyone is either or all of the following:

- become one of the 0,1% via business
- create independent income and save a lot
- get an excellent high-level job at a corporation
- get a recession proof job at government agency - FEMA, prison industry, police, social services - those are to stay in a nanny-police-state
- forget money market investing unless you are a professional trader or investor - you may invest in something you know in an industry that grows - pawn shops etc.

Post: #11

Great thread. I am in full agreement that modern economics is essentially a vast pile of bullshit designed to obscure the fact that the monetary system is the underlying foundation of modern form of slavery. Usury and compound interest are simply tools for extracting the productive labor (wealth) of every person on the planet. The most amazing thing is that this is able to be done without either the knowledge or the consent of the vast, vast majority of people.

I have tried explaining how this works to a number of intelligent people, and of the few who actually did understand the implications of what I was saying, none of them could bear to discuss it any further because it was simply too depressing. It's literally like learning that you're living in the Matrix. Your freedom is an illusion and is entirely conditional on your ability to stockpile money and stay ahead of the taxes and inflation which constantly erode away at it.

It's just extremely sad that most people can't even comprehend a world without interest-money and debt slavery. There isn't even a recognition that things could and should be different. Modern economics is bullshit because it's built on the foundational lie that interest-based money is necessary for economic prosperity. And it's not. It's just a total fucking lie, and so everything built on that lie is necessarily a lie as well. It's a hulking edifice of bullshit.

Once you understand how this system works it's like seeing the world anew for the first time. And it truly is very depressing, because there is no escaping the monetary system. You can't even own land anymore, you must rent it from the government in the form of taxes. So you are forced to play their game one way or another, you are forced to participate in the slave system. You are forced to engage in productive labor for the benefit of those who extract interest on the money in your pocket.

The only way to get ahead in this system is to become wealthy enough that your passive investment income can pay for all your wants and needs, which requires years of hard work and saving or a great deal of luck. The vast majority of people will be consigned to a lifetime of drudgery and wage slavery, never able to get ahead. This is why I personally advocate a lifestyle that is high-earning and low-spending. Save and invest as much as possible into income-generating assets. Refuse the temptation to engage in consumerism and other wasteful spending. The shackles that enslave you are made of money, but paradoxically the key that unlocks them is made of money as well.

Basically, there are winners and losers with the current system, and the difference between the two is thus:

Losers = people who work for their money
Winners = people whose money works for them

Do everything you can to get yourself into the second category. Even then you can't fully escape the slave system of interest-based money, but you can at least make it work somewhat toward your advantage.

The modern economic and monetary system is basically a huge stampede of buffalo running behind the great mass of people, constantly forcing them to flee or get run over. The normal person has no reaction but to run as fast as he can. The smart man carefully prepares himself and bides his time for the perfect opportunity to jump astride one of the buffalo and saddle it. Then he's riding along with the stampede rather than being chased by it.

Post: #12

At worst it is in European countries, Scandinavia in particular, although these people think they are free and everything is nearly the best it could be. If only the gay people could marry, the world would be perfect.

Here, at some point, I tried to find the many reasonable ways for financial independence and the upper class rich, and due to my inconvenience I was got very depressed how damn difficult it will be. It is doable, but only for the elite. The average will remain poor slaves for the rest of their life.

In Scandinavia, the taxes are absolutely horrendous(the tax rates of US makes me drool), they are literally beyond all levels of sanity and everything is made far more complicated and difficult through laws and regulations. It is a system where it is almost impossible 'get ahead' and it is perfectly designed to keep everyone working till they hit their retirement age. You cannot keep money in the bank because the inflation is eating every little penny you got there(the food prices increased 18 % in the last 4 years in Finland) which drives the average people to endless consumerism. You can try to invest but the capital gains will be hard to come by because the tax rates are so high and the processes are made too difficult for average people to understand.

It is not the elite or the rich here who want this, but the stupid average poor people assholes who are the exact manifestation of the crabs in the bucket effect. The only acceptable way of becoming financially independent or rich is to win lottery...

Post: #13

^^ Yeah but they also have one of the highest standards of living in the world, their health and education indicators are top notch, and satisfaction rates are higher than the norm.

So this sounds more about your situation than anything else.

Post: #14

(07-08-2014 12:44 PM)Americas Wrote:  ^^ Yeah but they also have one of the highest standards of living in the world, their health and education indicators are top notch, and satisfaction rates are higher than the norm.

So this sounds more about your situation than anything else.

People earn a lot here compared to many other places, but the salaries are just relative to the price levels. While our countries get richer, the taxes and prices(inflation) just increase along with it, which means we are going nowhere.

The technology was invented to save time, but the time we save is not going to the people, but rather going to the worthless crap so we can still keep on working 8 hours a day. Technological process has been INSANE for the last 50 years, yet, the prices have grown(when logically the deflation should be the inevitable outcome -> unfortunately the deflation is destroyed with artificial inflation where the growth goes to the machine and banks) and people still need to work as hard as they did in the past. The growth goes to the machine, where majority of the growth is wasted on useless bullshit. The rest of the money goes to elite.

Norway is the richest of all, where statistically everyone is a millionaire but nobody is actually wealthy.

In exchange everyone is offering every little bit of freedom and self-respect they have, in order to get a bigger GDP(where the money is for the growth of the machine) and the joke called equality where people rather let the machine get richer and the poor poorer than the fellow citizen to get richer.


RoK had a good article related to this subject http://www.returnofkings.com/38006/is-ci...or-slavery

Post: #15

(07-09-2014 05:02 AM)strengthstudent Wrote:  People earn a lot here compared to many other places, but the salaries are just relative to the price levels. While our countries get richer, the taxes and prices(inflation) just increase along with it, which means we are going nowhere.

The technology was invented to save time, but the time we save is not going to the people, but rather going to the worthless crap so we can still keep on working 8 hours a day. Technological process has been INSANE for the last 50 years, yet, the prices have grown(when logically the deflation should be the inevitable outcome -> unfortunately the deflation is destroyed with artificial inflation where the growth goes to the machine and banks) and people still need to work as hard as they did in the past. The growth goes to the machine, where majority of the growth is wasted on useless bullshit. The rest of the money goes to elite.

Norway is the richest of all, where statistically everyone is a millionaire but nobody is actually wealthy.

for-slavery

Look - things are getting worse for all of the working class in the West.

There is no doubt about it - even in countries like Norway or Switzerland - inflation is eating away at everything, while wages are not going up sufficiently. But still - looking at social mobility, you have 400% the chance of making it in Norway than in the US. That is just a fact - you still need your wits about it and learn/study the right thing, but at least you have access to good schools and universities even when not being one of the 1%. Simple work-ethic makes you succeed.

It is no consolation that it is easier to start a business in the US, when everything is going down and real unemployment is above 20%.

So yes - everything is relative and Scandinavia and Switzerland still surpass most Western countries, while those countries offer way more opportunities than most countries in South America, Africa or Asia.

If you think working a minimum level job in Finland is tough, then try working 2 jobs for 75+ hours to attain the same living standard in the US.
And please go ahead and try to work your way up having been born in a developing country in one of the lower classes.

Post: #16

Yeah, it's tough being born in Scandinavia these days. You get free university education (in Norway, free Master's degrees) and free food and housing if you don't want to work. So DIFFICULT!

I recently told this to a local in Asia. Their jaw nearly hit the floor.

Post: #17

(01-09-2015 07:16 PM)RichieP Wrote:  Yeah, it's tough being born in Scandinavia these days. You get free university education (in Norway, free Master's degrees) and free food and housing if you don't want to work. So DIFFICULT!

I recently told this to someone in SE Asia. Their jaw nearly hit the floor.

I remember travelling South America meeting young Scandanavian people who had been traveling for god knows how long.

"What do you do for money?"

"I'm a student, I take classes online"

"Ok but what do you do for money?"

"My government pays me to take classes online"

Gotta admit, I got jealous.

Post: #18

I worked in the usa for 10 years and got a gubmint pension.
Now I live in Phils.

The fact I'm reading about economics on a laptop that couldn't have existed 15 years ago without even thinking abut the availability of
--parasite free hot water
--sanitary tasty food
--medical care unmatched in all of history
--aircon apartments
--10 kinds of protein powder
-- hundreds of millions of cute girls ready to breed
makes me think things haven't exactly collapsed, but maybe I'm missing something.

Post: #19

My sense is that modern economics tries to take the credit for modern technology.

As if we would all be walking round with brick sized mobile phones if it were not for these eggheads in their ivory towers.

It is a bait and switch maneuver.

Post: #20

(07-09-2014 06:01 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  If you think working a minimum level job in Finland is tough, then try working 2 jobs for 75+ hours to attain the same living standard in the US.
And please go ahead and try to work your way up having been born in a developing country in one of the lower classes.

Try working 60 hours a day in Scandinavia, then having 60% of it taken in income tax, then pay 150+% in car tax, 90% on electricity tax, 25% VAT, have to pay a bricklayer $100+ an hour because of same taxes. Your pension taxed at 50%, capital gains taxed at 40-60%.

Tell me again how you're supposed to amass any wealth unless you strike it big with a company, at which point you will have left, as do most entrepreneurs well ahead of that day.

The truth is that the middle class in lots of American cities have a higher standard of living than the middle class in Scandinavia and it is infinitely easier to become 'rich' in the US.

Post: #21

(01-12-2015 07:24 AM)berserk Wrote:  

(07-09-2014 06:01 AM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  If you think working a minimum level job in Finland is tough, then try working 2 jobs for 75+ hours to attain the same living standard in the US.
And please go ahead and try to work your way up having been born in a developing country in one of the lower classes.

Try working 60 hours a day in Scandinavia, then having 60% of it taken in income tax, then pay 150+% in car tax, 90% on electricity tax, 25% VAT, have to pay a bricklayer $100+ an hour because of same taxes. Your pension taxed at 50%, capital gains taxed at 40-60%.

Tell me again how you're supposed to amass any wealth unless you strike it big with a company, at which point you will have left, as do most entrepreneurs well ahead of that day.

The truth is that the middle class in lots of American cities have a higher standard of living than the middle class in Scandinavia and it is infinitely easier to become 'rich' in the US.

A lot of guys as well as mainstream economics have swallowed libertarian doctrines to the hilt.

The US during it's absolute hayday in the 1950s-60s had extremely high taxes for the wealthy, it also had an inordinate amount of very strong unions that kept wages very high.

I do not agree with the Scandinavian model of taxation, but the US corporate-dictated plutocracy is even worse. One leading metric you have is the social mobility stats - and in all Scandinavian countries social mobility is easier by 300-500% vs. the US.

Yes - if you strike it out, then you make 100 mio. $ instead of 3 mio. $ in Sweden, but a big part of it based on the sheer size of the unified economy since your business is quickly selling to 350 mio. people while in the EU you are at first limited to your country.

Also technological advancement has little to do with affluence of the people - REAL unemployment numbers, average disposable income, home-ownership rates, social mobility numbers - those are the metrics that have more to say about the wealth of a people. And not even GDP per capita is meaningful, since one Hedge Fund Manager sometimes makes as much as ALL the teachers in NYC.

The unemployment numbers - currently at 23% if calculated as in 1993:

http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/01/...ment-rate/

The personal saving rates in % of disposable income show more the real picture, as poorer countries simply save less:



Again homeownership rate is now meaningless as the average property costs 10 times a year's average wage while in the 70s it was 3x the average yearly wage. Also household debt was relatively low up until the 80s - this number is more meaningful:





And I am no socialist, no libertarian, no laissez-faire economist, no neoliberal economist, no "moderate" half-socialist-half-neo-liberal economists that prevail in the EU currently.

I am just stating that the current system is badly designed and will lead to the impoverishment of the lower 90% of the population - it is a system designed to create a new modern feudal system.



I put down my own views on a different economic system somewhere else, but my proposal is based on interest-free money creation, interest free sound real estate credit, social credit and mutual credit for money creation, embedded demurrage into the currency to increase turnover, zero taxes on labor and capital, sensible high tariffs and some VAT taxes should be enough for taxes - no further taxes or administration needed. That system would create full employment and high standard of living within 2 years, but it is about as realistic as me wanting to have pink flying ponies delivered to my door. It simply won't happen despite the fact that some of the changes like interest free money with demurrage have been tried with great success in some countries and it took the threat of the military to shut down those "experiments". The financial power rules everything in our system and it has brainwashed and influenced academia for a long time.

Thus when it comes to economics I have adopted a saying: "Economic discussions are about as useful as discussing religion - none of us will be able to change our economic system as it is now. Let everyone believe what he or she wants - it won't change jack shit."

Post: #22

Social mobility comparisons means nothing unless you can isolate the effect of the tax system/inequality which is close to impossible.

The US has so many different ethnicities and cultures, that comparisons can't be made. The social mobility in Scandinavia for children of ME and North African immigrants is very low, very few get a secondary education, despite everything being 'free'. How does that match the idea of social mobility due to 'free' education?

Scandinavian countries, with the exception of Norway (oil), were richer comparitively in the 50s well before the welfare states came to be. They've been declining in wealth since then, each year getting poorer, Denmark is now out of the 20 richest pr. capita, when they were 3rd in the 50s. Back then, Denmark had lower tax rates than the US. Besides, those tax rates you quote from the 50s were before tax deductions of which there were many.

Unemployment is massive in Scandinavia, it is simply siphoned away through disability, maternity leave, government programs and the like and then you pay a lot of people to do bogus pretend jobs in the public sector.

Danish citizens have the most personal debt in the entire world.

You need to get the full picture here.

If you want a model society to emulate then look at Switzerland.

I agree with the rest though, but good luck getting the Central Bank system shut down. That won't happen absent cataclysmic war and 'our' side wins.

Post: #23

(01-12-2015 04:36 PM)berserk Wrote:  Social mobility comparisons means nothing unless you can isolate the effect of the tax system/inequality which is close to impossible.

The US has so many different ethnicities and cultures, that comparisons can't be made. The social mobility in Scandinavia for children of ME and North African immigrants is very low, very few get a secondary education, despite everything being 'free'. How does that match the idea of social mobility due to 'free' education?

...
I agree with the rest though, but good luck getting the Central Bank system shut down. That won't happen absent cataclysmic war and 'our' side wins.

Nothing we propose here will come to fruition - you are right on that one.

Social mobility among some immigrants is low - the reasons however are not lack of options since Eastern European immigrants do well. Even African Christians in the EU rise socially as most study and advance in the second generation - heck even secular Muslims do well - Iranians I know.

It is well known that the Turkish immigrants for example in Germany did not advance socially even in the 3rd generation despite ample opportunity. It will probably be similar with most North African Muslim immigrants or Somalis in Sweden. I dated some black Christian chicks and they were usually doing very well in Europe.

Social mobility is still higher in Europe, but we will see for how long.

Post: #24

(07-05-2014 06:59 PM)Zelcorpion Wrote:  [quote='Orson' pid='772495' dateline='1404602700']


shit is broke oh well

You sound like Max Keiser (in a good way)

I think in the back of people's minds everyone does kind of know that the party's been over since the 2008 crash, imo it was like Enron on a global scale, with he main parties still cheating societies out of their money etc etc.

This push to Neo feudalism has been going on for a while now, shocking to see that some people actually know whats going on.


I also read the BlackDragon blog post and I totally agree, there is no going back to traditional gender roles, unless you want to join the muslim diaspora into Europe, but that will stop eventually as well.

Thing is, the people see this and blame the victims!

I saw an article about how one London company basically charge people for internships to get a good recommendation or whatever. Most companies ALREADY have unpaid internships and usually just use that as free labor(as they usually never hire the interns) its illegal, but no one enforces it, and it just runs rampant. thats just only ONE example.

Post: #25

If there were one single book that covers the topic discussed in this thread in detail, which one would it be?