Greenwood2
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Post by Greenwood2 on Aug 22, 2022 14:28:44 GMT
"You could make money and use it charitably"
Most of what is known as money, is debt. I could make as much as Musk, give it all away, it would not change the fact that it was created from debt, therefore has to be paid back by someone.
The only reason an infinite growth economy sorta works is there's always been more ppl entering the system (population growth) who start out life by taking on debt.
I'm not the best introduction to the idea, but desperation (and partial melting) this year got the better of me. I'm not even sure what I'm saying here is accurate.
"the innate selfishness of mankind"
How selfish would you consider the rural Amish community to be? Are they genetically different?
We learn our behaviour and how we interact with each other from the society around us.
I thought the idea was to spread the wealth (even if it's illusionary) around so that people were able to live more equal lives. The concept of it all being debt is fine for conversation over a laden dinner table, but irrelevant if it means getting bread on the table. The Amish are stuck in a time warp, is that a good idea? They also have elders who wield enormous power over their communities. The average Amish person's freedoms are very restricted and many live in fear of hell and damnation if they disobey even trivial rules. Religions communities are good at controlling people, the Catholic church did a good job of that for a long time, but I don't think they changed many (any) people's fundamental personality, but they caused many to supress their worst impulses, mostly the poor who had no other reference point. How much of behaviour is nature and how much nurture? You get nice and nasty people all over, not just in nice or nasty communities respectively. Even in a family children don't necessarily grow up with similar traits.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 22, 2022 14:32:25 GMT
The uncomfortable bit that needs getting over to think clearly about it is, would this affect my wealth? It may effect your current position of relative power to the rest of the human race, but the real cost of that position it that half of humanity is living in, or close to poverty through competetive markets. Those two statements are simply factually wrong. Perhaps not understanding that is somewhat biasing your outlook. On the first point, you appear to believe that competitive markets/capitalism are the root cause reason that big chunks of humanity live in poverty. This is just plain wrong. Time and time again, human progress and society demonstrates that the PRIMARY root cause of poverty at a country level is political, and very frequently due to a lack of proper free market economics / capitalism (which includes the land ownership rights and rule of law, in all senses including commercial). Time and time again. The list is so endless that it is pointless even starting. Capitalist / democratic / free market economies are far from faultless and wealth distribution is often not as it could be. But it takes an absence of that, often with a liberal sprinkling of dictatorship, to really bring out grinding poverty at the country level: Zimbabwe, North Korea, Romania under Ceaușescu, Albania under Hoxha, Cuba etc. etc. The same is historically pretty much true of famine. People refer to drought being the cause. Very rarely is, that is mostly just a trigger. The real issue is broken political and economic systems which turn a drama into a devastating crisis. yes some external factors can accentuate (cash crops rather than staples being grown) but again they originate mostly from a busted internal system. And the idea that the problem with debt is it has to be paid back by someone else is also flawed. The primary function of debt is to enable people to "invest" in doing things which are overall, balanced out, productive. They create wealth with in most cases the debt being paid back by the benificiary.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 22, 2022 15:28:30 GMT
Terry Pratchett invented the glooper, while Wilson had a glooper built. It is in the science museum if you want to see it. It tries to take the analogy of cash flow in an economy (water) to see what economics does. Some of problems with what you write is the confusion of the words you use.
Interestingly in some countries you can be born with debt.
I have no issue with there being more debt than cash on a planet. Why should cash be something special? Even Marx recognised the value of labour, assets, capital and cash as being different.
Why are the 30s important as a time to stop work?
Are we reaching a conclusion?
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Aug 22, 2022 16:16:56 GMT
Does it really matter if people can see your knickers or whatever ? It never bothered us much in the 1960's, going upstairs on buses . People are hysterical. Victorian ladies rarely wore bloomers so that they could straddle gutters and discreetly relieve themselves. Skirts without knickers are more hygenic and aerating so you don't get crotch rot (male or female) /or those shorts that lost us Singapore . Anyway I thought Scotchmen wore plaids so they could take then off and wrap them around their heads,while running through the heather and then rub dry afterwards.
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travolta
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Post by travolta on Aug 22, 2022 16:41:52 GMT
Capitalism is everywhere, there are 'free markets' and 'state controlled', but it's all capitalism using the same sytem of debt.
There is far more debt in the world than actual money,which means the numbers in your bank account are distributed debt obligations. Someone somewhere took out a loan for those numbers to exist.
The rhetoric is that 'everyone can succeed'. Not true, there are limited places. The wealthy are wealthy, because the poor have debt.
Not really. 1. Most poor have debt because they are ignorant and spend beyond their means. 2. Others are poor because they have too many children before they can afford them 3. Some people are content to work less and have less. 4. People can be born poor, work hard,be frugal and end up with quite a lot. (Like me). 5. Then there are safety nets for ill health and disasters. 6. Families are the best working co-ops and can make a terrific difference in raising their standard of living. 7. Ergo : Family breakdown is usually the root cause. Irresponsible parenting,feckless lifestyle and dare I say it, lack of 'moral guidance' Eu! Wealth is just a concept.
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Post by pepperpot on Aug 22, 2022 18:08:46 GMT
The uncomfortable bit that needs getting over to think clearly about it is, would this affect my wealth? It may effect your current position of relative power to the rest of the human race, but the real cost of that position it that half of humanity is living in, or close to poverty through competetive markets. Those two statements are simply factually wrong. Perhaps not understanding that is somewhat biasing your outlook. On the first point, you appear to believe that competitive markets/capitalism are the root cause reason that big chunks of humanity live in poverty. This is just plain wrong. Time and time again, human progress and society demonstrates that the PRIMARY root cause of poverty at a country level is political, and very frequently due to a lack of proper free market economics / capitalism (which includes the land ownership rights and rule of law, in all senses including commercial). Time and time again. The list is so endless that it is pointless even starting. Capitalist / democratic / free market economies are far from faultless and wealth distribution is often not as it could be. But it takes an absence of that, often with a liberal sprinkling of dictatorship, to really bring out grinding poverty at the country level: Zimbabwe, North Korea, Romania under Ceaușescu, Albania under Hoxha, Cuba etc. etc. The same is historically pretty much true of famine. People refer to drought being the cause. Very rarely is, that is mostly just a trigger. The real issue is broken political and economic systems which turn a drama into a devastating crisis. yes some external factors can accentuate (cash crops rather than staples being grown) but again they originate mostly from a busted internal system. And the idea that the problem with debt is it has to be paid back by someone else is also flawed. The primary function of debt is to enable people to "invest" in doing things which are overall, balanced out, productive. They create wealth with in most cases the debt being paid back by the benificiary.
The second is fact. Well, 80% fact if you want to get technical.
There is more money in circulation than (pick a date), what I'm interested in the the source of creation of that money. Not the transactions that happen once it's in existance. Whatever the transaction was that credited your account, if you trace it back through all the transactions of that money to it's source. Roughly 80% of the time you will find someone took out a loan.
Private banks create money out of thin air.
The £100 in that account is debt.
If you then sell this example person something for £100. You put the £100 in your account and the example person has an item and £100 of debt.
Debts need repaying.
Therefore, the more money that is in existance, the more debt has been issued. The more of it you 'collect' in your account, the more distributed debt obligations you are responsible for.
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Post by captainconfident on Aug 22, 2022 19:15:49 GMT
I guess the current government, more obsessed by appealing to its "core voters" by playing on culture war fears, will not insulate a single thing, busy as they have been in inventing new laws to bang up Insulate Britain protestors. The problem with human beings is that we only live about 80 years, so a lot of people who are old and have the power just don't give a because they know they will die before they see the worst, where if their lifespan was 200 years, they would be seriously concerned and taking action. For the record I have two skirts, one short and one long (the 'Woman 100", it says on the label), for use in hot weather. But I am too scared to wear either while walking the dog, which is a shame as I really like them & think they look quite elegant. It's an interesting taboo - it's more between my ears than the actual likelyhood that anyone would be offended. Also this is the countryside, and things you could wear in a city are not so accptable here.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 22, 2022 20:46:33 GMT
Those two statements are simply factually wrong. Perhaps not understanding that is somewhat biasing your outlook. On the first point, you appear to believe that competitive markets/capitalism are the root cause reason that big chunks of humanity live in poverty. This is just plain wrong. Time and time again, human progress and society demonstrates that the PRIMARY root cause of poverty at a country level is political, and very frequently due to a lack of proper free market economics / capitalism (which includes the land ownership rights and rule of law, in all senses including commercial). Time and time again. The list is so endless that it is pointless even starting. Capitalist / democratic / free market economies are far from faultless and wealth distribution is often not as it could be. But it takes an absence of that, often with a liberal sprinkling of dictatorship, to really bring out grinding poverty at the country level: Zimbabwe, North Korea, Romania under Ceaușescu, Albania under Hoxha, Cuba etc. etc. The same is historically pretty much true of famine. People refer to drought being the cause. Very rarely is, that is mostly just a trigger. The real issue is broken political and economic systems which turn a drama into a devastating crisis. yes some external factors can accentuate (cash crops rather than staples being grown) but again they originate mostly from a busted internal system. And the idea that the problem with debt is it has to be paid back by someone else is also flawed. The primary function of debt is to enable people to "invest" in doing things which are overall, balanced out, productive. They create wealth with in most cases the debt being paid back by the benificiary.
The second is fact. Well, 80% fact if you want to get technical.
There is more money in circulation than (pick a date), what I'm interested in the the source of creation of that money. Not the transactions that happen once it's in existance. Whatever the transaction was that credited your account, if you trace it back through all the transactions of that money to it's source. Roughly 80% of the time you will find someone took out a loan.
Private banks create money out of thin air.
The £100 in that account is debt.
If you then sell this example person something for £100. You put the £100 in your account and the example person has an item and £100 of debt.
Debts need repaying.
Therefore, the more money that is in existance, the more debt has been issued. The more of it you 'collect' in your account, the more distributed debt obligations you are responsible for.
we have been round this loop before when (I am sure it was) you raised similar points before. You are not saying anything new or incisive. We all know that banks create money, and do so by issuing debt. So what ? That is not what the point you were attempting to make (at least not based on your own words). The point you were trying to make was, in the round, the consequence is 'this creates poverty elsewhere because someone else has to pay it off'. That is just fundamentally wrong. For certain specific instances, yes that happens. Company A borrows money and goes bust, leaving creditors i.e. companies or individuals they owed money to. In effect those creditors are 'taking on the debt' of the company that was unable to pay it off. But taken at the macro level, money is borrowed resulting in capital being deployed to create greater 'wealth' i.e. the debt paid down and a net increase the overall value of economic benefit achieved. The "Limited liability. Company" is often described as the greatest invention of capitalism. It frees people up to take risk, take on debt, be innovative, create economic value, knowing that if things go t***s up they have the refuge of ltd liability to go to. Of course when economic conditions turn sour, the number of companies and individuals that are unable to pay back their debt and go bust increases. This creates problems, but in general the system self corrects. What is your rationale for saying that this debt is left to be paid down
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Post by pepperpot on Aug 22, 2022 22:40:14 GMT
We may have to agree to disagree BB as to the merits of debtors and creditors and whether one has some influence or say in what the other may or may not do. I could describe it as maybe a civilised form of arms length slavery but I won’t push the point. I don’t want to get too bogged down in a confrontation. If you’ll bear with me to paint a pic of a street, quite simplified. 10 houses either side, north side is operating the market economy we know and were bought new builds from Wimpey with mortgages. All fairly average, 2.4 kids, a shed in the back garden with lawnmower and rake etc. They’re even eco conscious, so there’s various diff EV’s, one on each drive and a solar setup. All go to work/school at usual times. They all like Britains got ballroom X factor and a penchant for a barbecue on Sunday's where they invite some friends from across town. There’s only one real diff, the Dad at No.4 got made redundant last month, borrowed £500 off the guys at next door to get his car serviced so he can keep looking for work. The 10 on the south side, operate a resource based economy (RBE), similar profile, solar etc but they all helped build and maintain each others houses, there’s 1 lawnmower ‘tween them, maybe 2 rakes, they’ve just swapped the second ev car that the RBE guys in the next village had last week and with about 15 ppl across the country on a heads up zoom display the dad in no.3 is trying to get the kids interested joining in with trying to hash out a more efficient design for the wheels. Just the 1 main car coz no-one goes ‘to’ work except mum at no.17 on Thursdays as she's a skilled welder and they home school from open source curriculum. There’s also a cable ‘tween each house so if one solar array goes down it’s no biggy for loss of power, there’s a community heat battery ‘tween no’s 9 an 11 that 13 and 15 got together to install for storing excess solar for the winter…. So, might it be beneficial to do away with sources of tension and lower our emissions just through being nice and cooperative instead of competing, maybe all work together to see what a better future might be. If that was the environment I grew up in I’d be less stressed than I feel currently.
The third industrial revolution is already underway with decentralising some power gen etc and the sharing economy (proto RBE) is being adopted by mill/Z age group. It may turn out that the arguments about money and money itself just fade away in time as being obsolete and vulgar. Be interesting to see if the ruskies have any interesting ideas about wheels too. “When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.” - Chinmoy Kumar Ghose
Wishing everyone health and happiness.
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 23, 2022 1:33:29 GMT
The 10 on the south side, operate a resource based economy (RBE), similar profile, solar etc but they all helped build and maintain each others houses, there’s 1 lawnmower ‘tween them, maybe 2 rakes, they’ve just swapped the second ev car that the RBE guys in the next village had last week and with about 15 ppl across the country on a heads up zoom display the dad in no.3 is trying to get the kids interested joining in with trying to hash out a more efficient design for the wheels. Just the 1 main car coz no-one goes ‘to’ work except mum at no.17 on Thursdays as she's a skilled welder and they home school from open source curriculum. There’s also a cable ‘tween each house so if one solar array goes down it’s no biggy for loss of power, there’s a community heat battery ‘tween no’s 9 an 11 that 13 and 15 got together to install for storing excess solar for the winter….
What a strange and unrealistic scenario though, unless we're still talking an Amish community/kibbutz/hippy commune. Let's inject some reality into the situation... This week, someone has a sick relative they need to visit, so they desperately need the car on Wednesday and Thursday. Working mum is chief welder on a critical contract and could lose her company that massive contract if she doesn't turn up this week of all weeks. Now you have an immediate source of conflict. Your utopian vision starts to break down... BTW do you know any welders (or any other workers for that matter) who only work on a Thursday? With the greatest respect, your world (retired before 30, people working one day a week) sounds very different to the reality I had to contend with, having to meet a heavy mortgage and other bills for decades, just to keep the dogs at bay and a roof over our heads. Whilst some have daddy's trust fund, or a massive inheritance to look forward to, the reality for most people is work till you drop, just about making ends meet, and esoteric questions of distributed debt/how money is created won't feature too highly.
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Post by bernythedolt on Aug 23, 2022 1:54:11 GMT
I guess the current government, more obsessed by appealing to its "core voters" by playing on culture war fears, will not insulate a single thing, busy as they have been in inventing new laws to bang up Insulate Britain protestors. The problem with human beings is that we only live about 80 years, so a lot of people who are old and have the power just don't give a because they know they will die before they see the worst, where if their lifespan was 200 years, they would be seriously concerned and taking action. For the record I have two skirts, one short and one long (the 'Woman 100", it says on the label), for use in hot weather. But I am too scared to wear either while walking the dog, which is a shame as I really like them & think they look quite elegant. It's an interesting taboo - it's more between my ears than the actual likelyhood that anyone would be offended. Also this is the countryside, and things you could wear in a city are not so accptable here. I think you may be judging the oldies a little harshly there . Don't underestimate the innate love within families - I would lay down my life for my little grandson. Most of us have descendants following along behind and we do care about the future they will face.
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Post by bracknellboy on Aug 23, 2022 6:19:39 GMT
We may have to agree to disagree BB as to the merits of debtors and creditors and whether one has some influence or say in what the other may or may not do. I could describe it as maybe a civilised form of arms length slavery but I won’t push the point. I don’t want to get too bogged down in a confrontation. If you’ll bear with me to paint a pic of a street, quite simplified. .
I don't think its a matter of 'agree to disagree'. You made statements that are incorrect, replaced it with a different point, and when bought back on your original track have veered off again. You either believe that the borrowing of debt by person A pushes de facto put person B into poverty to pay it off, or you don't. But those are essentially the words you used. I'm out of this conversation because the constant theme here is to shift the ground when given counter arguments are given and suggest you meant something else.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 23, 2022 6:55:36 GMT
Finally we get to a point Working together and minimising waste is a great way to live. It allows one to develop some great ideas, from freegle, to families, to sharing clubs, to the stock company, to the state. You've worked very hard to discover all this. I don't belong to all of these now but I have in the past but all use concepts you have just developed Boarding school London gentlemen's club car sharing, and car sharing clubs
Yacht club Solar power on house "Warm showers" a cycle bedroom sharing scheme Airbnb "Maker Space" a club for making things Library Local recycling group Local in-bloom group A family A swapping clothes group A wine tasting club NHS UK Language exchange Skills exchange Surely we all do this and probably share stories of excessive meetings, organisation rules and difficult other members.
Are any of these things "hippy", well I don't think so, but maybe my ideas of hippy and others are different. The sharing of costs and benefits has a long history and strangely is a core to the founding of the Royal Navy. Sam Pepys organised the privatisation of the Royal Navy and even bought shares in it with the hope of commercial gain as well as defence of the country. Not really a hippy thing. Gentlemen's clubs are hardly seen as main stream hippy, but they do offer a low cost way of staying in Central London.
Are they better than having a buying selling relationship. Well in a number of ways yes, as they are often hard to tax. But they come with their own overheads.
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adrianc
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Post by adrianc on Aug 23, 2022 7:48:03 GMT
If you’ll bear with me to paint a pic of a street, quite simplified. 10 houses either side, north side is operating the market economy we know and were bought new builds from Wimpey with mortgages. All fairly average, 2.4 kids, a shed in the back garden with lawnmower and rake etc. They’re even eco conscious, so there’s various diff EV’s, one on each drive and a solar setup. All go to work/school at usual times. They all like Britains got ballroom X factor and a penchant for a barbecue on Sunday's where they invite some friends from across town. There’s only one real diff, the Dad at No.4 got made redundant last month, borrowed £500 off the guys at next door to get his car serviced so he can keep looking for work. Is all debt an inherently bad thing? Those houses are mortgaged. That's debt. Without debt, none of them would be homeowners, none of them would have built up substantial equity in their properties. They'd be renting - not debt. Some of those solar panels will be financed. Debt. Others will have been "free", under a rent-a-roof lease in return for the feed-in tariff. Not debt. Many of those cars will be bought with finance, rather than buying a 10yo car for cash. Debt. The depreciation and finance cost are more easily budgeted than repairs. Two of them stop off at the petrol station on the way to work. One pays with a debit card. Not debt. The other pays with a credit card. Debt. But he just finds that an easy way to budget - or perhaps there's cashback - and he pays it off in full at the end of the month. Debt is how our economic system works. Debt is not an inherently bad thing. Debt that becomes unmanageable is a bad thing. You can't live without eating - but develop an eating disorder, that's a bad thing, whether it be over-eating (too much debt) or anorexia (refusal to even consider debt).
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Post by captainconfident on Aug 23, 2022 8:49:30 GMT
I guess the current government, more obsessed by appealing to its "core voters" by playing on culture war fears, will not insulate a single thing, busy as they have been in inventing new laws to bang up Insulate Britain protestors. The problem with human beings is that we only live about 80 years, so a lot of people who are old and have the power just don't give a because they know they will die before they see the worst, where if their lifespan was 200 years, they would be seriously concerned and taking action. For the record I have two skirts, one short and one long (the 'Woman 100", it says on the label), for use in hot weather. But I am too scared to wear either while walking the dog, which is a shame as I really like them & think they look quite elegant. It's an interesting taboo - it's more between my ears than the actual likelyhood that anyone would be offended. Also this is the countryside, and things you could wear in a city are not so accptable here. I think you may be judging the oldies a little harshly there . Don't underestimate the innate love within families - I would lay down my life for my little grandson. Most of us have descendants following along behind and we do care about the future they will face. Whether he knows it or not, what your grandson wants you to do is to hand in the keys of your fossil fuel car and stop eating animal products. Then go on to try to pursuade others to do the same immediately. He wants you to lay down your lifestyle, not your life.
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