I watched They Live again today, and it’s as relevant now as it was in the eighties — more so, probably.
I think it’s “funny” that we think that the economy can be bailed out… As I understand it, new money is created out of debt, and that debt is paid off (and later amplified) by increases in productivity and consumption. Essentially a global bubble slash pyramid slash Ponzi scheme. However, we’re hitting a point where birth rates are flattening out and the scheme isn’t growing fast enough to support itself any more, so the system is starting to malfunction. It’s so deeply integrated into everything though that I don’t know how we can extract ourselves from the system.
The level of CHANGE needed seems way beyond what people will tolerate… I feel like the bailout is built around this idea that “everything is going to be just fine” if we just plug our ears. You can’t inject money into a flawed system to save its users any more than you can pick yourself up by your shoelaces.
But still, we have more wealth than we know what to do with… We make more food, shelter, and luxury than the people of Earth can use. I read recently that Sacramento, which has a huge homeless population and is thinking about “making permanent” its tent city simultaneously has a huge rental vacancy rate — so the problem isn’t that we can’t provide for people, the problem is that our system chooses not to. But we are technically able to do it.
So I don’t know…
4 Comments
Hopefully, after things start to look like they’re going to stabilize a bit, the tax code will be fixed. Cutting taxes for a million dollar a year person paying $10,000 in mortgage interest by $3800 while cutting it by only $1000 for someone making $20,000, but paying the exact same $10,000 in mortgage interest seems a bit flawed to me.
Did you catch the news reports about pitchfork protests last week? The peasants are on the edge of revolt. Productivity is level or, in lots of places, falling. I don’t endorse eating the rich (very high in saturated fat), but maybe if they feel threated with that, things can start getting better. If not, pitchforks and torches are cheap.
They Live! is a great movie. OBEY!,
it’s been kind of a long day, but let me see if i can add anything…
you are correct as near as i can tell in the statement that all new money is created on debt. you know my background and my areas of interest and as much research as i have done all central banking systems these days are based upon “fractional reserve systems” which essentially means that a bank can leverage its deposits into massive loans; which can be called virtually at any time. therefore if a small percentage of these loans get called and cannot come up with the money it creates a domino effect in the economy. it is an incredibly silly way to run finance, but if you are 45 years old and dont give a shit about your kids futures or are of the opinion that things will “just sort themselves out” it isnt a bad way to make money. that being said, i spend alot of time with finance type folks; and they literally all are of the opinion that things will work themselves out. i believe this is due to their misunderstandings of the systems they work in and can only hope that they start to realize (en masse) that the models dont work and we need to fundamentally change the way the system works.
just my .02
Awesome animation of Obama! I didn’t know people still even remembered They live. I first saw it as a kid the didn’t realize how relevant it was until something like 2003.
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