Welcome to the new Goldfrapp forum. Enjoy your new home! X
  • Foundation Series by Isaac Asimov
    Post edited by Whickwithy at 2022-06-28 17:05:34
  • 5 Comments sorted by
  • "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"  Love that quote.
  • ‘The Deficit Myth’ by Stephanie Kelton which is all about Modern Money Theory & the fact that taxes do not pay for Govt spending if your Govt is a sovereign fiat issuer of it’s own currency (like the UK, US, Canada, Japan but NOT the countries using the Euro, although the EU as a block is a Sovereign issuer) & how they are unrestrained in their ability to fund anything they require as long as it is paid for in their own currency & does not exceed the limits of supply (such as material or labour).
    Heavy going but fascinating. It could change everything we know about how our societies could be truly egalitarian if enough of us understand and challenge the view peddled by our Governments that our economies work like household budgets & we must keep within our means, which they trot out to control our, the voters, aspirations to achieve their NeoLiberal agendas, keeping the rich rich & the rest of us in our place.
    Phew!
    The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ.
    Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit.
    Shall lure it back to cancal half a line,
    Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
  • I started wondering about that when the (U.S.) Fed Bank, during the 2009 downturn started issuing bonds like crazy and, then, paying them off as they pleased by making money.  Ha!  Don't take that as accurate - it was a long time ago - but it was something like that.

    I'm not sure how that affects anything, though.  I mean the rich would be even less affected if there were no taxes, for instance.  Their obsessions about hoarding money wouldn't change.  Their desire to pay workers as little as they can get away with doesn't change.  Their bloated egos wouldn't change.

    I still love the quote, which I'm sure I will misquote but the point remains.  Authoritarian governments are people taking advantage of people.  Democracy is just the opposite.

    It's all a shell game because we aren't human yet.
  • Modern Money Theory doesn’t advocate not taking taxes. In fact, it identifies that taxes are critical to taking money out of the system & it’s important in the redistribution of wealth & preventing the incredibly rich monopolising resources. It advocates that Sovereign issuers of their own fiat currency do not need the income from taxes to enable them to spend, as they like to tell us, but that all money spent by such governments in ‘new’ money, keyed into existence at their point of issue (US Fed, UK Bank of England) and they then tax it back, but the money coming back is not reused, it just negates on the balance sheet what they have spent, the financial deficit being the difference between money they spend out & what they tax back in a year, with the National Debt being the aggregate of all those year on National Debts. What it does show is that allowing the ultra rich & massive corporations to NOT pay their taxes, is exacerbating the problem of the deficit & the national debt.
    They use the size of the national debt to scare us into accepting austerity measures & as an excuse as to why important social measures like homelessness, hunger &, most importantly at the moment, climate change, cannot be tackled as ‘we cannot afford to’ , when in reality, we cannot afford NOT to. MMT shows that the level of National Debt is not the scary thing (in the short term) as they like to tell us it is.Japan, for instance, runs a much higher level of ND (per capita) than the US or UK does and is still one of the worlds leading economies.
    The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ.
    Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit.
    Shall lure it back to cancal half a line,
    Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.
  • Nice.

    As far as their lying to us, yeah, probably so.   They are obsessed with money and power because their lives are so worthless, otherwise.  But, also, keep in mind that they don't use their brains very well.  They can't think very well because of all of the clutter.  Perfect example of our prehuman state.

    It's funny how they like to say no one would work so hard if they didn't get paid insane amounts of money, also.  I call bullshit on that.  Sweden's proven that not to be the case and that's a rather rational version of prehuman.  They tax the shit out of corporations and the wealthy.  Besides, that suggestion implies that the workers don't work very hard.  Bullshit on that, also.

Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!