Should we go to war with Russia to save the economy?

[David Nelson]

Like the left, you identified the symptoms but not the cause.

Yes, we have more inequality then ever, but the solution isn't just to tax the rich and regulate everything, like the left thinks. That's why despite the record inequality, the left isn't getting elected in parliaments around the world much.

The solution is not to just continue with the current fiat monetary system, just injecting trillions into the economy without raising any output. Even taxing the rich 99% won't solve the issue.

The main conflict is between growth and technology. Technology is deflationary, prices tend to 0. We can meet over zoom without needing to commute, travel, meet in bars, spend money etc. But our economies are based on GDP (faulty measure) which requires constant growth of consumer spending. So how do you square the fact that due to technology, we are spending less, but our growth targets need more and more spending. You cannot. That's why governments around the world are trying to keep this zombie economy alive by injecting trillions into the system and rack up the prices of everything.

It's all about technology. We gotta embrace it. I recommend you read The Price of Tomorrow by Jeff Booth.

Inflation is direct consequence of inflationary money. Prices should be decreasing, because technology itself is deflationary. Us humans are always trying to do more with less. which is a definition of deflation. But fiat governments are trying to keep the zombie machine going. Imo at least 50% of jobs could be eliminated with technology. This is the reality we need to embrace. We don't need all of those bullshit jobs just to preserve the illusion of growth. You cannot have continuous growth on a planet with finite resources.

We need to embrace 3 things. Hard money with finite supply, technology and the fact that we don't need 80% of jobs. This will lead to massive deflation and better world for everyone.

I think I stated the cause; inequality. I never claimed the solution was to tax the rich more, but on that point many of the rich are tax evaders/avoiders. That’s the trouble with most attempts or arguments for solving inequality; they rarely talk about income inequality. That is the route of most of the current political problems in the west. As I type this, I can imagine what might be going through your mind. I don’t say that to offend or brag, but these arguments have been gone through time and time again.

Here’s one question I’m sure you can’t answer correctly. How do you explain all the current political instabilities and revolts? The usual answer is either Russian interference (no evidence) or that people are stupid and racist and thus being misled to nazism (if this is the case, why now? Why not over last 80 years has this not been an issue? What’s changed? Has stupidity and racism increased in recent years?)

The root is our societies are deeply divided. So divided that many who are in the overclass are blind to the reasons for recent protests. That’s why even top experts and intelligent celebs and intellectuals couldn’t see it coming or understand why. The blindness goes deep. I’ve worked for a blue chip company and now I do some work for 0 hours contract company Hermes. I’ve worked alongside PhDs and very ordinary working people. I’ve seen the divide. 2 very different worlds.

You see the trouble with the free market capitalist model is it is supposed to offer a solution to pay bargaining, along with a moral underpinning, because it assumes a meritocracy because it offers a simplistic model for how a society can best function. BUT the devil is in the detail. It’s in the gaps, where theory breaks down, that people exploit. So in practice it only works financially well for a minority and screws the rest. We are far from a democracy and far from a meritocracy but those things are assumed by many on the right. Our political systems have been hollowed out and lack effective support for working class. Hence Corbyn was booted out of Labour leadership (by disgusting lies) because he was too much for the people. The press is biased, they claimed his proposed tax regime would cripple the country, yet it was a similar percentage of GDP as Germany’s. This is why I said there is no left now in politics. Because no party is championing the plight of the poor properly, except populists but they don’t have the answers. As I keep saying a mixed economy is best. We still have this but too much capitalism. It’s unbalanced. Consider this. In U.K., Thatcher effectively broke the unions because she thought they were abusing their bargaining power. Well what stops the rich, professional, managerial overclass from abusing their power? Nothing. So the balance of power in society is unbalanced. Plus the not minor point that most wealth is created by the working poor. A fact most forget or ignore or don’t appreciate. The city of London generates no wealth; it merely moves money from one place to another. It is in reality a net cost. They are parasitic like most if not all financial jobs. Truth bomb there for you.

But when talking about poor and taxation we are attacking it and thinking about the problem in a Te way, and from the wrong direction. You have to work up in political logic like in science etc. Use some Ti, if jobs are shared between people, and those jobs pay fairly, then there is no poor or need for heavy taxes on rich. Why don’t politicians talk about creating useful jobs? Because they want/think the market has all the answers and everyone should just up their game and compete. It’s bollocks.

Your technology point is not the issue but it does have effects. Efficiency is always a good goal. We do still need many jobs in the service sector. They can’t easily be replaced by technology.

 

[philostam]

I'm very aware of the wealth inequality, I am not denying it. I had my left/Marxism period and I still agree with a lot of that narrative. But just like communist are saying we never tried "true communism", I would say we haven't been living in a "true" capitalism since 2008 and probably ever since 1971.

My point boils down to this: we need to fix the market for money. We need permission-less money that no individual can tamper with. There is no free market if the market for money isn't free.

I don't wanna rely on politicians to handle our monetary policy. They are trying to centrally plan the market for money and that never works. It's not that they are stupid or evil, it's just that the task is too complex and with too many variables. It's ridiculous to have bunch of people with PhDs in economics deciding how much broad money supply the world should have.

I guess you're looking it more from the social/political perspective, while I don't think the issue can be solved at that level. We cannot solve our issues just be organizing unions and taxing the rich more.

Basically I think we need less politicians and more code/software that no one can tamper with.

 

[David Nelson]

My point boils down to this: we need to fix the market for money. We need permission-less money that no individual can tamper with. There is no free market if the market for money isn't free.
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I don’t know what you mean by this ^
I don’t know much about financial matter because it bores me and I think it is intrinsically linked with exploitation of other.

Sorting income inequality is a major issue best sorted by sorting employment and fair pay. The overclass refuse to acknowledge this because of their greed. Only power restrains power, so if this isn’t done by political means people will find other ways as we have seen, and will probably continue to see. Tinkering with financial matters is like rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic.

 

[Jexocuha]

I feel like this may be revelant to the discussion: "Ukrainian central bank suspends electronic cash transfers, bolstering the use case for crypto"

 

[philostam]

I don’t know what you mean by this ^
I don’t know much about financial matter because it bores me and I think it is intrinsically linked with exploitation of other.

Sorting income inequality is a major issue best sorted by sorting employment and fair pay. The overclass refuse to acknowledge this because of their greed. Only power restrains power, so if this isn’t done by political means people will find other ways as we have seen, and will probably continue to see. Tinkering with financial matters is like rearranging the deckchairs on the titanic.

This is not 19th century, the "overclass" is not getting richer by paying workers 18 instead of 20 dollars per hour.

It's not about the labor, most big businesses are very capital intensive instead of labor intensive, meaning they don't have many workers, only a few coders, who are payed very well. That's why this narrative of bosses exploiting workers is a bit old school and not adapted to the modern world.

They are getting richer because we print trillions to keep up the silly GDP numbers. This trillions eventually flow into financial assets - that's how the rich get richer. If they don't flow into financial assets, then they go into hands of normal people and we have general consumer price inflation (instead of financial assets inflation). This is what we have now. Both scenarios are bad.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

 

[Krypton]

This is not 19th century, the "overclass" is not getting richer by paying workers 18 instead of 20 dollars per hour.

It's not about the labor, most big businesses are very capital intensive instead of labor intensive, meaning they don't have many workers, only a few coders, who are payed very well. That's why this narrative of bosses exploiting workers is a bit old school and not adapted to the modern world.

They are getting richer because we print trillions to keep up the silly GDP numbers. This trillions eventually flow into financial assets - that's how the rich get richer. If they don't flow into financial assets, then they go into hands of normal people and we have general consumer price inflation (instead of financial assets inflation). This is what we have now. Both scenarios are bad.

I mean just because it's Foxconn doing it instead of Apple proper doesn't make it less bad.

That said with any luck working conditions will improve in the rest of the world the same way they've improved in America and Europe.

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With regards to the original point, if all you need to improve the economy is to pay more people to build and do things, why even bother with war? Fix the roads, that'll get money flowing.

 

[David Nelson]

This is not 19th century, the "overclass" is not getting richer by paying workers 18 instead of 20 dollars per hour.

It's not about the labor, most big businesses are very capital intensive instead of labor intensive, meaning they don't have many workers, only a few coders, who are payed very well. That's why this narrative of bosses exploiting workers is a bit old school and not adapted to the modern world.

They are getting richer because we print trillions to keep up the silly GDP numbers. This trillions eventually flow into financial assets - that's how the rich get richer. If they don't flow into financial assets, then they go into hands of normal people and we have general consumer price inflation (instead of financial assets inflation). This is what we have now. Both scenarios are bad.

The rich absolutely rely on keeping working class people’s wages down. If they didn’t they would lose wealth. It’s basic logic. The pie is only so big. More money gives you a bigger slice at the expense of others. Given the working class are very much a majority, this is a big deal for the overclass. The fact is that the western world has got a lot wealthier over the last few decades but that wealth has been very poorly distributed. If everyone was middle class in terms of wealth, the rich would have a lot less than they do. Btw the overclass includes college-educated professionals and managers and is I think about 10-15% of society. They hold most of the power through their jobs and affiliations. Their needs and aspirations are represented by majorly political parties and the media is biased towards them.

Silicon Valley jobs are like how you describe but they are a very small fraction of the jobs in a country. Amazon are a very streamlined company like Hermes to minimise Labour but they still keep the wages and conditions as low as possible. A majority of working class jobs these days are not in production but service sector, which pays poorly. That’s why elites in economic hubs like immigrants as it gives them a cheap source of Labour. I thinks it’s incredibly naive of you to think the struggle for pay has somehow disappeared because we are advanced Democracies. All politicians care about is votes, they give as little as possible. I know small businesses with a few employees can struggle to give good pay to workers, this partly because salaries in production can be justified due to economies of scale.
Sometime in the 90s GPS and consultants were given massive pay hikes of something like 40%. Why was that? I know they often work long hours but they earn handsomely.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

 

[David Nelson]

Brave people. It could be long drawn out conflict. I wish them all the best.

 

[David Nelson]

That said with any luck working conditions will improve in the rest of the world the same way they've improved in America and Europe.
.

Do you live in an alternate world? When did this happen lol? You mean since slavery?? Even that still exists in some forms.
That’s another trick the rich do, they widen the comparison so they can always say “we are not cavemen anymore, what are you complaining about?”

Also the west relies on cheap Labour abroad to create corporate profits, so how are their wages going to increase?


I agree with the writer Danny Dorling and Robert Schiller (2013 Nobel Prize in Economics), who believe rising inequality is the greatest single threat we face today. Most people can’t see it because they are used to framing the arguments around individuals, and are brainwashed by bullshit media including mainstream ones like the BBC in Britain.

I honestly expected better from INFJs.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

 

[philostam]

Do you live in an alternate world? When did this happen lol? You mean since slavery?? Even that still exists in some forms.
That’s another trick the rich do, they widen the comparison so they can always say “we are not cavemen anymore, what are you complaining about?”

Also the west relies on cheap Labour abroad to create corporate profits, so how are their wages going to increase?


I agree with the writer Danny Dorling and Robert Schiller (2013 Nobel Prize in Economics), who believe rising inequality is the greatest single threat we face today. Most people can’t see it because they are used to framing the arguments around individuals, and are brainwashed by bullshit media including mainstream ones like the BBC in Britain.

I honestly expected better from INFJs.

Sorry but your view is very simplistic.

A lot of businesses are unprofitable or barely profitable. It's not the low wages that are the problem, it's the prices of desirable and scarce goods which are rising at higher rates (houses, education, healthcare etc.). So we are again at the point of inflation and constantly increasing money supply.

People are getting poorer in real terms because of inflation, not because of greedy businessmen. You should look at the causes of inflation if you wanna understand why we have such inequality.

Also your whole worldview is too defeatist for my liking.

 

[David Nelson]

I did say that small businesses with a few employees are different. They can struggle even to pay minimum wage, which I understand. But the professionals and managers usually have protected and insulated salaries. That’s the difference. Where I live our council hired ‘management consultants’ (fuck knows what they do, don’t managers know?!. They’re paid shitloads but need external people to retrain them?!) a few years ago and they charged up to £1000 per day. One example of overclass greed and insulation.

Inflation is of course a factor. I don’t think my view is simplistic at all. I could explain more but it would turn into a book lol

 

[Krypton]

Do you live in an alternate world? When did this happen lol? You mean since slavery?? Even that still exists in some forms.
That’s another trick the rich do, they widen the comparison so they can always say “we are not cavemen anymore, what are you complaining about?”

Since the gilded age, which I think is a good comparison to where the third world is now.

Also the west relies on cheap Labour abroad to create corporate profits, so how are their wages going to increase?

If productivity and consumption increase, which will happen with better technology. Granted the environmental effects of all that are a totally different conversation.

I agree with the writer Danny Dorling and Robert Schiller (2013 Nobel Prize in Economics), who believe rising inequality is the greatest single threat we face today. Most people can’t see it because they are used to framing the arguments around individuals, and are brainwashed by bullshit media including mainstream ones like the BBC in Britain.

I honestly expected better from INFJs.

Rising inequality causes a whole bunch of problems, and you could probably tax the rich to raise wages in third-world countries, but it's not like you can't see improvement or like you'll see the kind of inequality that was a problem in the late 19th and early 20th centuries re-emerge or stay where it still is forever.

 

[David Nelson]

Big takeaway should be that working people create most of the wealth, yet earn the least. Think on that. It’s true, always has been. A meritocracy would be great.

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]

 

[AJ_]

Thanks for sharing those, @Roses In The Vineyard - nice to see people show their support like that. I've heard that even some Russian cities are having gatherings like that to show their opposition to what's going on. It will be nice to see more people (and leaders) at some point invest more into an attitude of "how can I help" vs. how can I profit from this.

Om Shanti Shanti Shanti

 

[aeon]

A meritocracy would be great.

When I was a child, necessarily ignorant, and constantly encouraged by adults eager to see me achieve, I believed the world was this way. In part, because it made sense to me—not in the sense of reward—but from the perspective of pragmatic utility, the best use of ability and resources (even though I would not have used those words then).

Now I know that’s not the case, but the lip service to merit is rampant.

If we woke up with the world a meritocracy, it would quickly shift to merit + beauty, merit + right family, merit + wealth, and eventually merit would be as it is today, because that’s what human beings do. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Cheers,
Ian

 

[Roses In The Vineyard]