Headline says it all, really. I’m not claiming to have all the answers, but this is one option we should all be talking about a lot in my opinion.
This whole debate about either (A) returning to normal and killing millions of people or (B) consenting to draconian authoritarian measures which may never be fully rolled back once the pandemic is over is a false dichotomy, since our governments have the option of simply giving everyone a paid holiday.
At a time of far less material abundance, governments all around the world managed to fund two years-long planetwide wars which killed tens of millions of human beings. When they say it’s impossible to pay people a living wage to stay home, they are lying. Instead of the citizenry funnelling their money toward the war machine, money can be funnelled away from the war machine and toward the citizenry for a few months.
Money is a made-up concept the rules of which are constantly bent for the benefit of plutocrats, imperialists and war profiteers. Bend it for the benefit of ordinary people instead. To the extent that we still want to pretend money is an actual thing with hard and fast rules, we can redistribute it away from the very wealthy and away from the obscene and unnecessary war machine.
Governments are supposed to take care of their citizenry in situations like this. That is the primary argument for their continued existence. A government which cannot take good care of its citizenry at a time like this does not deserve to exist. If we’re going to consent to the existence of governments, at bare minimum we should be able to expect them to protect our quality of life as much as possible without consenting to full-blown authoritarianism.
Suspend as many bills for citizens as possible for a few months, and create millions of government jobs with the job description reading something like “Employee will stay inside place of residence during employment, with the following exceptions X, Y and Z.” Just like any other job one’s employment is not mandatory, but you’ve got to do what your job description says or you don’t get paid. Rather than consent to smartphone surveillance or carrying a monitor, compliance can simply be monitored by police; being found out risking infection after signing up for the job means you’ve violated the conditions of employment and lose a certain amount of pay. Not a fine, but docked pay from your employer.
Keep critical infrastructure jobs like hospital staff, farm staff, grocery store staff etc open during this time, and pay those employees extra, maybe their normal wage plus the living wage going to everyone else. Also add more jobs producing PPE and medical equipment and building houses. Anyone who wants to work at these jobs is free to do so, anyone who wants a free paid vacation is free to do so. No crushing authoritarianism, the important stuff stays operational, people catch up on their reading lists, and grandma gets to live.
I know this is going to come as an absolute shock to the ruling class but rich people might have to lose some money during this particular moment in history.
— Existential Comics (find me on bluesky) (@existentialcoms) March 24, 2020
This would be a good opportunity to redistribute wealth to create a more equitable world than the one where a plutocratic class can just buy up entire governments and media organizations, and to expose just how much abundance has been cut off from ordinary people while they scrape and slave to make ends meet. It would also be an opportunity for the working poor to get a paid vacation in places like America where such things often don’t otherwise happen.
Everyone needs a break anyway. The world is getting crazier and crazier and many people would benefit from a good long breather to get their psychological legs underneath them. We all need a nap.
This is totally doable, but instead we’re hearing groups like the Republican Party saying it would be better for a few million older Americans to die than for the economy to take a hit by people not showing up for work. Instead of playing the beggar and trying to negotiate a compromise with that insane position (“Maybe we can at least find a way for fewer people to die?”), citizens can demand an actual non-psychopathic solution to our dilemma that actually makes sense.
I don’t know everything and there are no perfect solutions to the mess that we have found ourselves in, but to me this looks like the best one that’s out there right now. My main goal is to start a conversation, so please contribute any extra ideas you can think of and if you don’t like what I’m suggesting please share what solution you would like to see. Let’s get our hive mind chewing on this.
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79 responses to “Pay People A Living Wage To Stay Home”
This truly is disturbing. I find it hard to believe that normal people really think like this. This will not work, it never has and never will.
Like a few people pointed out above, you clearly have little undestanding of how money actually works or why at this point it is not worth the paper it is printed on. It is backed by nothing. All it is now is paper with peoples faces printed on it.
It only still works because people still believe it is worth something.
Huge economic mayhem is going to happen once all these trillions of dollars hit the system. Brace yourself in the coming years for a 50000 dollar carton of eggs.
Just put everybody on welfare and control them all. That is what your purposing here.
Good lord
WATCH for “Kryptos” being presented as “Wallets”…Walmart’s already planning on it (Laugh!!!)
Stay the Hell away from those so-called “Automated check-out stations”…They are gong to put Millions PEOPLE out of work!
GET AWAY FROM THE “HERD” MENTALITY!
Caitlin – what are your thoughts regarding the idea that being paid a passive wage is what the whole point is. Its the step into full global authority. It seems like a good idea at the start, but once we get used to it and settle in (and it doesn’t get rolled back) We find it comes with strings… Fall in line or you’ll get cut off.
YOU, just asked a Extremely important quest Jodie…One that is VERY important…I will be watching IF she responds to it.
Clue: IT will likely have Forged STEEL chains “Attached” to.
It will be called “Krypto-Currency”.
Thanks for that – I’m very keen to hear the response also. I am a new Caitlin fan and patron
See Truthstream Media´s latest video which elaborates on this point, within a larger analysis. Yes, the welfare burger has a fishhook in it…
The understanding rolled over me like a breaking wave on the shore of a surging sea.
If you were in a risk group and you heard your advisor telling you that an infection would rage until herd immunity was produced you would want everyone to get sick but you provided you were an sociopathic, narcissistic, asshole. Trump wants everyone to get COVID so he does not have to get it and die. Trump would prefer you die. Everyone around him is tested and certified so to not infect the Elite Trump ass.
It is not about saving the economy. It is about getting the herd immunity up high enough so old rich boomers can buy isolation until the infection can’t be maintained in the population and naturally dies out. When COVID dies out and a vaccine is developed the rich boomer will have triumphed.
I liked the Hill video but above I take issue with this:
“Rather than consent to smartphone surveillance or carrying a monitor, compliance can simply be monitored by police”
While that is true smart phone monitoring is already ubiquitous. The exact software needed to author quarantine lists and monitor compliance is already in wide use to track dissidents of many kinds. The police state is already here and it does not behoove progressive causes not to be aware of that fact.
I recommend you watch Del Bigtree´s investigation on the Highwire, on youtube. He is a reputable medical journalist who does a revealing investigation into the medical data, and economic consequences. He has done a better job than any of the mainstream `journalists´ I have read.
When you look at the data, covid19 is no worse than other flu viruses. It is easily treatable. However, the medical consequences of a shutdown will be catastrophic.
Check it out. The truth will set you free. We are being played right now. Albania is under martial law and quarantine for 8 cases! The legislation just passed include 2 bills pushing the installation and security of 5G across the country. They are using the school shutdown to surreptitiously install this military technology in your local school.
Del Bigtree is an anti-vaccer. An ignorant waste of a brain. There is nothing reputable about being opposed to science. Ignorance is ugly and I hope I never cross paths with this man.
Take the above as evidence we disagree.
If you are indeed scientifically minded, you should be open to information. Vaccines do not work for viruses, in fact one must look at each one individually to see if they are effective at all, or under what circumstances. No vaccine has ever been tested with the scientific standard, which is the double blind test. They are classed as `biologicals´ in order to bypass any rigorous testing. Neither have they been tested in aggregate, as often 3 to 6 or even 8 are given at one time.
Del Bigtree, the Children’s Health Defense Fund, myself and many others are not anti vaccine. We are pro safety. The CDC has been caught shredding data which showed that young black boys are 4 times more likely to get autism when given vaccinations according to schedule. See William Thompson, the whistleblower who is being prevented from testifying before Congress. The CDC is about as corrupt as an organization can be. Ask Julie Gerberding.
Alas, Caitlin, you know nothing of economics. Passing out money does no good if there are no goods being produced for that money to purchase.
Unless and until you figure out that socialism is completely unworkable, you will be clueless. Being able to write a good rant against the criminals of the world is worth nothing by itself.
Does “D” stand for dick?
I agree with you JDL, a good place for anyone to start to learn about economics is at http://www.mises.org. Until we end the Federal Reserve, they will continue to create money out of thin air, to pay for their never ending wars, and continue with slimy corporatism. Socialism has never worked. Taking from some to give to others is theft. Taking a buck out of your own wallet and giving to others is kindness and charity.
It ALL narrows down to WE Don’t Need TWO things to be truly FREE .
1: Government (Govern-MIND…Who needs to be instructed HOW to live…WE are BORN with that ability.
VERY Ancient Civilizations live live like FAMILIES.
2: Religion (MIND-Control) Doesn’t Anyone Remember WHO They ARE??? Hu-mans (God-Man/Woman)
The ONE thing that is actually correct recorded in the bible:
WE WERE CREATED IN A “GODLY IMAGE and LIKENESS…WE ARE DIVINE BEINGS…Therefore NEVER NEEDED A RELIGION.
Those VERY Ancient people Practiced SPIRITUALITY…NOT RELIGION.
That is WHY they had such Incredible TALENT for building things…That could NOT be duplicated by contracters TODAY .
There is nothing spiritual in existence of Universal Mind… that is why , no Bible or Koran never mentioned it… Universal Mind was never in possession of biblical or Islamic Heavens… it always belonged to real humans like Krishna, Buddha, Christ, Muhammad and some more… all humans without any exceptions, have a karmic bodies and that could be suppressed soon for the next 1008 years…. the inner choice is yours…
Of course its never mentioned in ALL the so-called “Holy Writings” because those are all Man-man too.
When you speak of HUMANS, are you referring to the ORIGINAL MELANIN Beings, created by the Cosmos???
Are you aware of the “Written in Stone” records existing in Cambodia (Angkor)
The so-called “Christ-like” creations are suspect, especially the one called Jesus or Muhammad…actually spawn off the VERY Ancient African Astrological system they lived by.
EVERY Human has a connection to the “Divine”…It was just “Dis-connected” for SOME of US.
OUR Ancestors NEVER left US without the records to LIVE by.
This is WHY WE live in FEAR of Anything…WE KNOW WHO WE ARE.
So should You.
CORRECTION:
WE DO NOT LIVE IN FEAR OF ANYTHING
The Vedic AUM , the Creation Point means Absolute-Universal-Mind, A-U-M… the single point floating on Eternal Ocean of Absolute… and bursting “sometimes” into visible Big Bang…
Your showing your ignorance economics. While this can be done sort of, you would be surprised how many industries are “essential”.
What can be done is have affected employers submit payrolls, issue a special bond to cover 8 weeks of it. Shutting down the Country for longer then that would have a grave cascading effect. Much easier if the Country controls it’s monetary policy, it could then forgive the bond.
Oh, Caitlin;
since you have this tagged with UBI, and it is partly about giving people money for not working, this may be the right time to draw to you and your myriad wise and prudent followers attention my own blog and in particular, the short story I have recently written as my humble contribution to the discussion of basic incomes. You can find it at https://blog.burble.ca/2019/12/25/the-basic-outcome-story/ I am trying to figure out how to give it the widest possible circulation. Of people who have read it so far, all have given it good reviews.
I think there is not enough fiction written about basic income. This is often the best method of elucidating political ideas. They can be worth hundreds of dry essays and silly rants. Especially if it is very witty and exciting, like mine is.
The basic idea of the basic outcome story is that a future society splits into two over what kind of UBI model to implement. After twenty years, it is clear what the economic and social consequences of the two decisions were.
If I can get enough people to read it, I will come up with a chapter two. It might have something to do with an epidemic and how it effects the two polities, how they are able to respond. tr
The Idea of “Basic Income” is a Bad Joke simply because It only make the receivers DEPENDENT on CREDIT to survive.
In REAL Truth the Entire “Money System” WANTS Everyone dependent on CREDIT…Even if one doesn’t really need it.
THAT is the whole idea on creating a “Krypto-Currency”…to have EVERYONE buying to what they will call a “System of CREDITS” instead of the old tried and true PM’s currency.
HAS ANYONE HERE EVER WATCH THE MOVIE: “AMERICA, FREEDOM TO FASCISM”??? …Its still available on line.
You are absolutlely right. There is no reason whatsoever that non essential services cannot be closed, and that salaries cannot be paid during the closures. None whatsoever. Keeping essential services running is also entirely possible. All the government has to do is cover payrolls, which they manipulate and print out all of the money for anyway, and ensure that critical operations continue safely. If our alleged government were staffed by genuine human beings that is precisely what would be happening, instead of seeing our panhandler in chief (and his little friends) trying to hold us all (and bizarrely enough all of our toilet paper) hostage for 2 trazillion dollars (insert Dr. Evil laugh here).
The best person to comment on the current world crisis is… Groucho Marx. Groucho was questioned in heaven (he was busy insulting a duck) and he had the following things to say about the plan to flood the world with newly made-up dollars with ever-decreasing-purchasing power…
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.”
“He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”
“All people are born alike… except Republicans and Democrats.”
“This isn’t a particularly novel observation, but the world is full of people who think they can manipulate the lives of others merely by getting a law passed.”
“There’s one way to find out if a man is honest – ask him. If he says “yes” you know he is a crook.”
“I have nothing but respect for you — and not much of that.”
“A hospital bed is a parked taxi with the meter running.”
“I worked my way up from nothing to a state of extreme poverty.”
“The only real laughter comes from despair.”
“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.”
(The Bailout-ee): “What kind of (person) do you think I am?”
(The Bailout-or): “We’ve already established that. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”
Never Trust Anyone Under Thirty!
🙂
I keep hearing oligarch-owned politicians say that”we must save these corporations.”
Why?
Really, Why?
They’ve failed. That’s supposed to be the law of the free market. If a company fails, it goes away.
What is happening today is a completely predictable event in the modern world. People have talked about this for most of my lifetime. We’ve had multiple warnings in dangerous outbreaks that killed people but which were largely contained to their region. Ebola, SARS, MERS, Swine Flu, and that’s just in the early part of this century.
This is like a California earthquake. Everyone knew it would happen. Nobody knew when.
Corporation management is supposed to be about managing risk. If corporations didn’t see this widely forecasted risk occurring, then bad on them. Why should we pay to save them? If they designed their businesses and the whole system such that it can fail so badly, then let it collapse on top of them.
The way free enterprise is supposed to work is that companies fail, and then new companies come in and do better. That’s how the system advances and learns. The problem we have today is that we have socialism for the rich and corporations. They have so bought the political system that they are no longer allowed to fail for their mistakes. Thus, we’ll see corporations like Citibank getting massive multi-billion dollar bailouts for the second time in only a little over a decade. Citibank didn’t fail the last time it collapsed. Citibank didn’t learn from the last collapse. Well, they probably learned to keep their bribes to government office holders and officials up to date.
The lesson is that when we don’t let these mismanaged corporations fail, we simply have to keep bailing them out over and over and over and over. This is the future that everyone is working towards, because all their hard work is not even enough to pay off the bills from the last bailouts.
Human society will have to go to something like this sooner or later. So, why not sooner?
We have already seen a wave go around the world where the factories and jobs were moved away from the consumer to countries with slave labor or near slave-labor and rules that make it easy to pollute.
This has already gone a long way towards breaking the traditional link between wage-slavery and survival. It used to be the way to survive was to get a good job. Now, that at best leads to a couple of years of barely surviving before the job goes away and you are too old to be employable compared to silly 20-somethings.
Now, we are already seeing the approaching wave or AIs and Robots being used to eliminate jobs for human beings. This will sever that link that is already hanging by a string.
As such, human civilization must reorganize itself such that being able to survive depends on ‘having a job’. Jobs have already been attacked, moved and destroyed. The rest will go away within a decade, if we stay on the present trajectory. Even today, if you call a corporation, you talk to a robot.
This can be good. The key is who controls and decides what the universal payment must be. If there is a revolution and it is done such that everyone’s needs are met, then that’s one thing. If psychopathic oligarchs get to decide, then we are all doomed to slow starvation and despair.
But one way or another, the link between ‘having a job’ and surviving must be broken. Either that, or robots must be banned. But I kinda like the science fiction idea of letting robots do all the work while we get to live our lives, raise our family, and practice whatever arts the muse directs us towards. If we eliminate wage-slavery, this can happen.
Should have read … “As such, human civilization must reorganize itself such that being able to survive no longer depends on ‘having a job’. “
If you don’t suspend evictions and force landlords to live rent free for the duration of the crisis, without incurring back rent, millions of people will be evicted.
This will have the effect of massively increasing the homelessness crisis. With so many people outdoors, the virus will spread exponentially.
And the landlords themselves will ultimately suffer the consequences themselves of their foolish evictions. Who is going to rent their vacant apartments or buy their vacant homes if the prospective buyers and renters are homeless and destroyed?
While we’re hunkering down, why not spend an enjoyable hour or so learning to understand how Caitlin’s suggestions are totally feasible?
http://www.johndayblog.com/2020/03/forced-contract.html
The social contract in the US was worked out during Franklin Roosevelt’s administration, spanning the Great Depression and WW-2.
This social contract has been amended and corrupted many times, but generally assumes protections of freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution and a social safety net of some sort, so children don’t starve and die in the world’s richest country.
Roosevelt had enemies in the elites of his epoch, and there was a failed coup. He may have been poisoned.
Power elites do not willingly share. The role of power elites is to profit from the herd and cull the herd when it gets so big that it exhausts the resources upon which it relies for sustenance.
We are now in the reset of the economy, and necessarily, the reset of the social contract in the US. I don’t directly address other nations. Russia has a healthy social contract. China has a social contract which probably needs more work, but it is functional. India will have a hard time really creating a new social contract, as it has since the Brits left it internally divided.
The risks and benefits to the world from a renegotiated American social contract are great. Everybody’s watching.
It’s not all decided within the US at this point. Global wealth and powerful transnationals have a lot of say, and they speak powerfully, yet in hidden riddles, which the herd is not allowed to know.
We Americans still have The Patriot Act, which has eroded our constitutional rights. It did not time-out as promised.
The power to indefinitely detain without trial is now being requested by the “justice” department.
Freedom of speech is conditioned upon political correctness, which is defined by Zuckerberg’s Facebook.
This morning in Austin, one must be prepared to show a letter to a police officer, stating the social criticality of one’s travel to home and work. I did not print mine, but I have “good facts” to support me on my bike ride.
Freedom of association is now “virtual”, and subject to Zuckerberg, NSA, CIA, etc.
The new social contract is being imposed by power and financial elites through enforcement of public health measures, which have been amazingly effective in Austin on a voluntary basis, through the shared efforts of a community which has not been noticeably touched yet by the contagion. I support the voluntary public health measures, and have been very proud of Austin.
This is a grab to lock in absolute power by the overlords, who see that this is finally the big reset.
I’m a member of the herd. I see what this is. I don’t have sharp teeth, but I have my horns and my good health.
Thanks to Anthony for the story that contained this link:
WUHAN’S OUTBREAK: CHINA DEMANDS AN HONEST ACCOUNTING
The following content is circulating in Chinese cyberspace.
Looks like China is finally in counterattack mode against relentless US efforts to blame it for the global COVID epidemic.
Key points:
• It is now virtually certain that COVID-19 was brought to Wuhan by American troops taking part in the city’s World Military Games last Oct. 18-27.
• The 300-strong US contingent stayed at the Wuhan Oriental Hotel. It is located a mere 300 meters from the Huanan Seafood Market, where China’s outbreak began (see map below).
• Five of the US troopers developed a fever on Oct. 25 and were taken to an infectious-diseases hospital for treatment.
• 42 employees of the Oriental Hotel were diagnosed with COVID-19, becoming the first cluster in Wuhan. At the time only 7 people from the market were thus diagnosed, though they were treated first. All 7 had contact with the 42 from the hotel. From this source, the virus spread to the rest of China.
• Back in the US, the American team had trained at a location near Fort Detrick, the military’s viral lab closed down in July for various deficiencies.
The big question now is whether the transmission was planned, or accidental. Chinese authorities are awaiting an explanation from US authorities.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/947867908642430/permalink/2855048134591055/
My ” gut feeling ” is that the ” owners and the masters ” will use this virus to acquire more wealth and acquire much more power. The common people will get ” crumbs ” if anything at all. The owners and the masters have never let any emergency go to waste to get more for themselves; this crisis will not be any different. Just follow the money trail and you will see just what I mean.
I am not alone; there are many others that feel this ” crisis ” will be used for tyranny.
Suspending the Constitution: Police State Uses Crises to Expand Its Lockdown Powers By John W. Whitehead!
https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/suspending_the_constitution_police_state_uses_crises_to_expand_its_lockdown_powers
Capitalism was designed this way and it works perfectly well, albeit not for humanity at large; only for its designers (i.e. beneficiaries). So, humanity at large would agree that it should be abandoned. However, there is much confusion about what it should be replaced with. My take to that: nothing. I’m not going to get too brainy here because I already wrote a lengthy rant for anyone interested: https://medium.com/@iprento/money-or-life-e6032050281
“Paying people a living wage to stay home” entails the existence of an “authority” (i.e. “government”) that will do the paying. With YOUR money. No “government” has money of its own, it was all taken from you by way of taxation. Aren’t you already fed up with “authorities” – whether at work or public life – mandating how you should live your life? Use this slowdown in the privacy of your home to ponder this question. I mean, why do “authorities” even exist in the first place? Why do you need a job at all, so that you get a wage to keep doing stuff you don’t want to?
“Uh, but how am I going to pay for stuff?” – You’re not. The only reason why you need to pay is because everyone around you is asking the same question. Everyone is anxious about their own future, hence they require payment. Everyone wants to profit at the expense of someone else; they forget that the bosses profit at the expense of everyone. Cut off the middlemen – you don’t need them, they need you.
So, how do you do that, how do you break out of the vicious circle? By stop venturing into “What can I get?” – whether by way of business, politics, or otherwise – and start asking “What can I give?” Forget money, gratitude is the currency of the future. When enough people realize that and put it into practice, it will change the world.
People want payment because they don’t want to give up labor or goods and not get anything in return. As an activist, I’ve found that for every person who is willing to give, there are ten who are not. I’ve tried to improve that ratio by example, but it’s been very slow going. Some people try to fix the problem by having communal arrangements with others who have similar desires, but they are few in number and don’t look like they’re going to become the predominant form of human organization above family or gang level any time soon. We are going to be stuck with capitalism until people decide they want something different. Meanwhile if I want Ahmed or José to bring me my rice and beans, I”ll have to give him something to convince him it’s a good idea.
@Anarcissie: Yes, I know, I’m not a stranger to this world. That’s what I mean by “being anxious about their own future”. I fully agree that we are going to be stuck with capitalism until people decide they want something different. That time is already upon us – people DO want something different, but don’t know how to achieve it. It will come to them eventually when the cost of change becomes larger than the cost of status quo. The 9/10 are not willing to give because of perceived lack, which comes from a lifetime of being accustomed to using money. When everything is subject to money, than the scarcity of money makes everything scarce. Due to this perception, people keep loads of junk in their homes (which they will probably never use), out of fear that they would need to spend more if they ever need it again. However, it is not the propensity to consume that bears no limit – there’s only so much food you can stuff in your mouth, only so much shirts you can wear, or cars you can drive.
While I agree with your sentiments, the state (govt) is the source of all money in a modern fiat currency system. The state generally authorizes a central bank to create it for them, who in turn authorize private banks to do most of it on a normal basis.
When not in “normal” times, central banks may create money directly, as for example the US Federal Reserve has so far created several trillion US $ during the COVID-19 panic.
Here’s a relatively short, straightforward explanation of how private banks create money.
It’s in pdf form:
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-in-the-modern-economy-an-introduction
Don’t forget that when private banks lend the [imaginary] money (authorised and received by the government), they issue it with interest. Because this interest money is never created the only possible result is that society as a whole sinks into a quagmire of exponentially increasing and never ending debt. Consider the information contained herein: https://commodity.com/debt-clock/
John Thomas et al:
Money in the usual sense is a convenient social fiction, used to quantify exchange and accumulation of wealth (ownership of goods & services) Money is created by credit, thus they are interchangeable, or if you prefer, money is credit. Look up the Credit Theory of Money (CTM) if you want some academic background. The Wikipedia article is not very good, but provides the basics.
Financal interest is simply a mechanism of wealth exchange/transfer, part of profit generation. It is intrinsic to monetized capitalism, though not (at least in theory) of markets. The same is true of debt generally.
Capitalism cannot operate without temporary debt, it’s inherent to the system. It’s just delayed wealth exchange/transfer, necessary to allow the debtor time to amass the needed amount. Long term accumulated debt is a problem of unbalanced wealth distribution.
Michael Hudson´s most recent book details a history of debt and debt forgiveness, going all the way back to the Tigris Euphrates valley. The system will get overwhelmed by debt, its built in. The answer was a jubilee every 50 years, slaves freed, land restored to those who lost it. Kind of like when one person owns all of the properties on the monopoly board, if you want to play, you flip the board, redistribute the assets, and start over.
This bailout will not work. Time to create a new system, with liberty and justice for all…..
“Financal interest is simply a mechanism of wealth exchange/transfer, part of profit generation. It is intrinsic to monetized capitalism, though not (at least in theory) of markets. The same is true of debt generally.”
You’re right to say that financial interest is intrinsic to monetized [sic] capitalism. It is this that is precisely the cause of virtually all of the world’s current misfortunes.
Let’s get one thing perfectly clear, Eric. Money is NOT a commodity to be bought, sold or rented. It is a system of wealth distribution using tokens or ledger entries that are worthless in themselves, i.e., bits of paper, discs of scrap metal, electromagnetic pulses, ink, tally sticks, and so on. Money has zero fecundity. It properly acts as a measure of worth. What, however, has been slowly been accepted as normal over centuries and cemented into the establishment’s masonry ever since 1694* is the extraordinarily vile practice of usury which is simply the charging of any interest on a principal sum that is loaned. Money, which is by its nature a fiction, is conjured up from thin air. Then it is loaned to us at interest. The sum required to settle the exponentially increasing interest side of the honest original debt is never ever created. This interest-debt has been designed as a preposterous and quite unredeemable debt leading inexorably to a society of indentured slaves. The unravelling of this is when one sees that the essence of an interest-bearing loan is exposed as a fraud. Only banks can create bank money and by the application of interest they always are demanding more to be repaid than there is or ever can possibly be in existence. As Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, has pointed out, “Fraud unravels everything”, Lazarus Estates Ltd v. Beasley 1956.
Living on borrowed money is a game invented for creating more slaves than you can shake a stick at while plastering misery upon misery upon the population of planet Earth.
A final question for you to ponder, Eric, if you’re still unclear, “Can you borrow your way out of debt?”.
Capitalism was not “designed”. It’s the default position of ALL human exchange. I trade you an apple for an orange. I profited because to me the apple was worth less then your orange, you profited because to you the apple was worth more then the orange. Capitalism
I donate time at a soup kitchen, I profit from the feelings it gives me. Capitalism
Your talking about Crony Capitalism, which is enabled by Government.
Adam Smith did NOT come up with nor “invent” Capitalism, he just gave a name to the natural exchange of goods/services that Humans have been participating in since the beginning.
There is nothing wrong with Capitalism but with the ways is delivered… Capitalism is the best system for human ego-minds… which explain clearly, why so called Communism collapsed worldwide…
Tyrson:
I think you are at least technically referring to market operation rather than capitalism per se, though I certainly agree with your point.
Perhaps I’m being overly particular, but anyway capitalism is the leveraging of existing wealth with intention to accumulate more, thereby creating additional new wealth as a side product. The usual mechanism is market operation.
To my knowledge there are no examples of a substantial market structure that did not either collapse or incorporate some version of capitalism, at least eventually.
Meanwhile, back in the real world, after the planned bankruptcies and the stock markets crash out the few rich bastards will just buy it all up dirt cheap forcing small businesses out, and the major corporations will take over even more. And in the wake of this scam or disaster (and it is a disaster for the majority) it will become even harder to survive trying to run a small business or a small farm or get a decent job. And we’ll all have less freedoms than we had before, and it brings them closer to their goal. So what’s that? If you believe in the Book of Revelation chapter and verse, and even if not, you can interpret it in a different way and still see what direction it’s going and it’s pretty much the same: handing it all over to Satan, the alien lizards, or just plain greedy evil MFs. And they did it without any resistance whatsoever.
There is a third option.
1. Everyone who is not high risk go on with their lives. The rest stay home.
2. Stop scaring everyone and spending a fortune on drive thru testing center. Most of us who test positive will have no symptoms and most of us will eventually test positive.
3. Get a grip and realize that we have a mini pandemic each flu season as over 600K people die from flu.
4. Stop listening to governments, politicians and even the doctors. All are on the government tit. Many well knowm virologists say this is just sheer panic with common sense set aside.
5. You complain about the nasty government but quickly start running when they start a media driven panic.
6. Have you bothered to ask yourself why all the politicians liquidated their stock holdings right before this started.
That’s Trump’s plan. Let the old die (except for those who are rich). And die they will, unless they are completely isolated. All for the good of the economy, that is, the ruling class and other rich folks.
To those for whom power and profit are everything, the end always justifies the means. ~ Mr. John W. Whitehead
There is recurring symbol worldwide of the snake swallowing its tail… that represents the human ego-minds… particularly now… in year 20/20 of spiritual vision for all…
All economies are capitalist. The difference being who controls the capital. Free market economy has delivered a higher standard of living to more people than any other system. Socialism, on the other hand, has murdered more people than any other form of government. Unfortunately for us, we have neither. What we have is oligarchy, government in collusion with banks and corporations.
Considering all governments are largely composed of sociopathic parasites with extremely exaggerated egos, any notion that they COULD be concerned about the welfare of their tax slaves is fantasy. Their only concern for our welfare is encompassed by how much of our welfare need be maintained to keep us productive, and themselves fat and happy. Chains are more effective in doing so than liberty. The expectation that socialism would somehow transform said sociopaths into caring sane human beings is delusional. Such caring sane human beings posses no desire to hold a gun to their neighbor’s head and force them to do anything. Most of us, being at least somewhat sane, cannot comprehend that the sociopath has no conscience, remorse, empathy, sympathy or regret. Their only consideration of other people at all is how we can be of service to them. We can govern ourselves, or be governed by monsters.
The present Coronavirus gives all of us the “Nietzsche solution”… of reconsidering of all existing values…
“Governments are supposed to take care of their citizenry in situations like this”… and at all time.
I remember legendary French Canadien union leader Michel Chartrand asking for a universal income for everybody to at last be free people.
But even with the current situation, I doubt governments will adopt it because we are in the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because I do have seen enough bs.
Capital is squirming!
https://youtu.be/bXd-wtZpLQg
Hallelujah
As an old man I just have to adapt to this ” pandemic situation ” that now exists. Many stores are closed and only doing business ” on line “. The supermarkets are open but many items are not available. I do not have any suggestions to offer. The ” idea ” that no aid should be given to old people; we should just let them die: is not comfortable to hear. It may be that this pandemic is just what humanity needed to straighten itself out.
https://www.brasscheck.com/video/real-pandemic-media-manufactured-hysteria/?omhide=true
We’re being taken for a ride again.
To comment with question ?… Does the present Covid-19 , have something in common with density of gold , as 19.32 and as visible introduction to New Golden Age ?…. all the best.
Actually All Governments would have do to at least, is ENFORCE the Already in existence NESARA Laws that were scheduled to be announced on the morning of 9/11 (Its already a LAW) its just Not being Enforced)
THINK of How Different life would be on this planet IF those Laws were executed back then…One can READ the Entire form of them at a website” Alciun Bramerton.com; under Nesara.
The BS crap the current system controlled by Vatican supported “Corporate Interest” is attempting to sell the ‘Dumbed-Down Sheeple’ is BAD JOKE!
Don’t even “Hold Your Breath” it will be past Folks, because as this system uses “Funny-Money” and “Credit” to attempt to STAY Alive…IF, One hasn’t “Caught-On” to HOW that system is about “Perpetual DEBT Slavery”..I guess ya-All must be “masochistic”…Love living in PAIN..Duh???
Remember their reasoning WHY they LOVE to Screw-You-Over???
If a Fool doesn’t know how to Keep his money…They deserve to LOOSE It (Talking REAL Asset Money…NOT “Paper…WORSE “Electronical” Funny Money (Kyrto-Currencies) Laugh!!!
GET-REAL folks…Their “Stock-Market” runs Exactly the WAY the Bankers do…CAUGHT- YET???
Oooh! I almost forgot to add That Idea of “Living at Home Wage” wage is about “Something entirely Different…Witch you will SOON find out….ONLY if you Live Your Life “Outside-The-Box”…Those who are THERE already are Aware of this fact.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NESARA
In the FIRST place the Title is Incorrect!
The ORIGINAL (NESARA) was: National Security And REFORMATION Act!
Big Difference folks!
That one defined at WICKED-Peddia is a FRAUD copy cat Version…NOT the Original one. Understand???
By the way Folks DO NOT BUY INTO THAT “STAY AT HOME” BS EITHER…OR YOU WILL BECOME THE “SLAVE” THEY WANT TO BE.
ITS LIKE BUYING TO BECOMING A PAID PRISONER!
PRISONERS ARE NOT FREE FOLKS…THEY ARE “CONFINED”…Remember???
DO NOT ACCEPT “ANYTHING” VIA “KRYPTO-CURRENCY”…ITS A TRAP!
Simple solution to this covfefe19 pandemic is: Don’t borrow any money from any financial institutions. Do not return to work. This whole pyramid scheme needs a solid base of willing debt slaves to support the apex.
At least James Corbett knows what’s going on… https://youtu.be/OrKzCQdgixs
I should add here that Denmark has done EXACTLY that – they’ve put their entire economy “on freeze” and are paying everyone to stay home.
Whereas here in neighboring Sweden it’s business as usual. This is now the only EU member state that have adopted, and is sticking to, the “herd immunity” concept, which allows the government to blame the failure of its health care system on the virus, rather than bad governance. Sweden has only 4.8 critical care beds for every 100.000 people. In other words the Swedish government is conducting biological violence against its most vulnerable and precarious citizens, the elderly, the sick, the handicapped, the poor and the homeless. They want as many healthy people as possible to catch the virus and thereby develop immunity, so they can continue to work and support the economy. Which means no one will know how many here are infected, as nobody is tested, unless they are critically ill in hospital. Which means covid-19 will spread like wildfire through the entire population,and as our gutless PM recently announced: “Many of you will have to die.” Why, because we’re a burden on society? Sounds eerily like population control, to me – a neoliberal version of Hitler’s “final solution” Hard to believe this was once a country famed for its social democracy.
Addendum to comment re: rent-seeking, (immediately below):
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So obvious I left it out. Rent-seekers include the literal kind called landlords. What we need includes a sorting out of who can and who cannot afford to continue paying rent and who can and who cannot afford to not receive rent payments–and why. Lots of landlords are stretched thin by debt service just like their tenants are, so stop the rent-seekers who are hunting your landlord, too.
It’s a lot simpler. There’s an equation made famous by Thomas Piketty, r > g, which means the rentier, or rent-seeking, class of the world who own nearly everything and rent parts of it out to the rest of us for a fee, are gaining in wealth considerably faster than all forms of productive human activity combined, which is characterized as growth: r[ent] > g[rowth].
It means corporations who don’t act like investment banks get destroyed by those who do because acting like a rent-seeker is more profitable, even for a productive corporation with a massive market cap.
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The already fantastically wealthy have so much wealth they can control society to perpetually reward themselves by torturing and robbing everyone else structurally and transactionally. Rentier class costs are a phenomenal drag on our economy and our individual lives. They now dominate politics totally. For example, Trump’s largest campaign contributor was Shelly Adelson, casino magnate, who donated $26 million. The most powerful lobby in Washington is the pharmaceutical lobby, which operates a patent monopoly scam equivalent to life and death rent-seeking diffused across all of US society. Margins on drug prices of 1000% to 10,000% are not uncommon and they are usurious rents against human life waged against the absolute most desperate people possible, and it could be any of us at any moment.
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Another horrifying example is the now $6 trillion Covid-19 bailout package to inject capital while aggregate demand has dropped by maybe 20% and capital is the last thing we need. Rent-seeking creditors controlling political decisions are demanding infusions of capital because their investments in monopoly industries have been wiped out and they refuse to pay the cost of taking risk. They only want the upside of risk and use political bribery to fob it off onto us.
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Capital is the last thing the airline industry needs because it has to declare bankruptcy because it is bankrupt. We don’t owe their damn creditors a freaking dime. The fracking industry was already bankrupt and we don’t owe them or their creditors a damn penny either. Boeing needs to file for bankruptcy because it also is bankrupt. It borrowed $25 billion over the last 10 years to buy back it’s own goddamn stock and has run itself into the ground to increase executive compensation and dividends at any cost to customers. The market is supposed to beat that kind of company in the head and bury it in a shallow grave, not reanimate its zombie corpse with baby’s blood and bribes.
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What we need is for rent-seekers to have their power stripped from our economy and political processes by a movement to identify and shame them as blood-soaked profiteers during national crisis. We need nationization of health care, free college, and the entire Green New Deal, as written. The solution has already been crafted and refined and approved by the public through popular acclaim.
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We need personal debt jubilee across the board for everyone. Every single stock and hedge fund investor needs to be directly exposed to the concept of risk taking for profit making–they need to lose every last penny of what they invested, while retaining their own personal right to debt jubilee just like everyone else. They need to rejoin humanity and think and feel with us instead of scheming to harvest our ignorance with contempt.
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If we fail to reverse r > g we will not be able to achieve any other goals. It is the entire reason why the government is talking about injecting $6 trillion into an economy that needs broadly distributed debt relief not public cash for its private rent-seeking creditors. We’re being more deeply enslaved, just like 2007/8 with Dodd-Frank’s automatic “feed the rich” mechanisms sidestepping congressional oversight, with every economic shock, just as Naomi Klein admonished.
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PERSONAL DEBT JUBILEE. Ask for it no matter how weird the looks you get. First recorded application was in Babylonian times roughly 3,500 BCE, applied about once every 50 years or so, whenever debt threatened to freeze up the entire society or a new ruler assumed power. Michael Hudson says they even had detailed mathematics to explain how debt destroys all life and how long that would take if not for Jubilee.
Considering how much the oligarchs want us here in the US to go back to work even before the pandemic peaks, speaks volumes of how successful we would be if we all just refused to ever work again until we get everything we demand. Housing and health care for all, progressive taxation, free legal counsel for all, peace, etcetera. If we don’t work the wealthy don’t just not make money on our labor, but also because they over extended themselves on derivatives, etcetera, force the oligarchs into bankruptcy like the rest of us.
People over Profits!
Profits over People is killing us. Literally. In great numbers.
We have reached the point of no return, where we now have to say People Over Profits ….. or die. To borrow Margaret Thatcher’s phrase, There Is No Alternative!
People Over Profits!
The present Coronavirus is all about killing the human profit mentality and coming back to basic services … it looks like socialism approach … a compulsory one…
Antibody testing should be initiated ASAP to determine who has had COVID-19 and these people should be allowed to go out and do work. They still need to avoid contacting those who have not been exposed because they can still inadvertently carry the virus on items or clothing but they certainly should be allowed to party like there is no tomorrow among themselves.
Money is not a made-up concept. Real money is a commodity, like many other things in an economy. It is a good, not a cipher or pieces of paper.
It is only when a money is somehow, through artifice and/or force, brought under the domain of State control does it become a tool of the rulers and those closely connected to them. The money commodity knows no class or status.
Lastly, governments are NOT supposed to take care of their citizens. They shouldn’t oppress them, certainly, but their primary job is to enforce contracts, enforce laws and punish crimes, as the people give them responsibility (or not), and generally stay out of their citizens’ way. That’s all!
Seeing that I disagree with your major premises, I can’t say much for your prescriptions on how to make people better off in this crisis, except to say that the government caused this crisis, by their heavy-handed shelter-in-place orders. We shouldn’t make things worse by trying to paper over (literally) the problem with more money that will become worthless very quickly.
No, you’re wrong, very wrong. In a supposed democracy governments’ job is to do what the voters and taxpayers want them to do and give them delegated authority to do. That includes law and order.
Since, in Australia, that also includes social security, then by definition, it is their job to take care of the citizens.
Money is made up because it replaces the old bartering system, using a medium of exchange to replace non-monetary goods and services. If you’ve studied economics, you should know this, and also know that the value of money can & does vary enormously with government, banks and industries controlling its value at any given time. Most of the time the average individual has little control over the value of goods & services he/she buys/sells.
You can’t delegate powers you don’t have. The reason you can delegate law and order to a government is because inherently you have the right or power to delegate.
You don’t have the right or power to compel anyone else to take care of your country’s citizens. Therefore you can’t delegate that function to a government. You have lost the argument.
Democracy is mob rule – exactly what the American founders warned us against. Being Australian, you probably didn’t know that.
Ms. Johnstone, I have to respectfully disagree.
As an anarcho-capitalist who can’t stand governments having power, it slays me to watch not COVID-19, but governments at all levels contribute to a death tally which history will remind us was not at all necessary.
It is important in life to have a healthy robust immune system. It was, is, and always will be. Never will this change.
President Trump’s administration, with approval (without a peep, except for some who say “do more”) from everyone in both parties and the mass media entities they extort and control, will rack up a tally which we will never be able to compare to the COVID-19 death toll which would have been, because we will never know it. (WTF just happened?! Remember how the Don shouldn’t be trusted with a lollipop? Really, people?)
Just another opportunity for governments to claim that they helped when they are hindering GREATLY American lives and humanity.
Just my two cents as the tragedy unfolds.
For the record, mega-dosing Vitamin C neutralizes all viruses. You won’t hear that from government.
What’s your net worth, bro? I doubt you are a capitalist, sorry.
And what makes you an anarchist? Just because you want to do whatever the fuck you like?
Anarcho-capitalist? That’s very stale bullshit, BBM53.
Have you read Bakunin? Gaetano Bresci? John Zerzan? If you have, give it another go instead of reading Ayn Rand for the nth time.
Anarcho-capitalist, indeed. Where I come from that’s just a polite way of saying “mother effer”.
I have a couple of ideas.
1) Make it illegal for lobbyists to communicate with anyone in government or former government for 6 months. Detention in a non government facility if caught.
2) Audit the CDC immediately (by impartial citizens) to ensure their coronavirus reports are accurate.
Listen to the scientists and the medical doctors. Implement national legislation to incentivize, or force, industry to manufacture the medical equipment needed — masks, gowns, ventilators. Pay people to stay home. Set up temporary hospitals to deal with the surge in patients. Support the health care workers in every way possible. Adapt to self-isolating. Wash hands. Sanitize hard surfaces. Get the greed out of the government aid packages, that must focus on people’s immediate needs, rather than keeping businesses afloat. Stop government lying! More and more social and psychological support for the quarantined population, from everyone to everyone. Build on the literally observable characteristic of the communicable and serious disease to emphasize that we humans do know how to look after each other, and that we are all together in the predicament together, adapting.
Can we pay people a living wage to grow vegetable gardens?
http://www.johndayblog.com/2016/07/liberty-garden-central-texas-climate.html
Wonderful idea. I think most people would prefer to do something useful with their time.
Everyone needs to be tested to find out who is positive. Then, isolate them until they test negative. This is not rocket science folks. Or brain surgery.