Debt Rattle Boxing Day 2015
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Andreas Feininger Production B-17 heavy bomber at Boeing plant, Seattle Dec 1942 • Christmas 2015 – Why There Is No Peace On Earth (Stockman) • China
[See the full post at: Debt Rattle Boxing Day 2015]No, really, LOL. Commerzbank got suckered into buying an “investment” called Millstone? Millstone? Good god, how did they not get the joke? Idiots.
“And Steve’s Modern Debt Jubilee is still the most sensible thing out there.”
“Steve’s”, eh? 🙂
Very long timers here may (perhaps) recall I suggested exactly that; here, multiple years ago. Didn’t get much traction- but was Steve reading TAE then? As I said at the time- sensible; historic (Biblical) precedent; and would actually solve some problems. Also; not going to happen in any future foreseeable then. Slightly more likely now- when so many alternatives have moved into the “never, and useless anyway” category.
Regarding historicity – do we have any surviving non-Biblical records to indicate the prescribed Jubilee years were actually a broad practice, with some force of law? Any ancient Semitic history scholars out there?
Greenpa,
I was once told that the Israelites never did follow the jubilee laws. It wouldn’t surprise me, since the Israelites had a tendency to break many of God’s laws and to backslide.
Not unlike us .
Agreed Greenpa. Steve’s plan tries to address the issue of debt by, essentially, drowning it in credit. The last version I saw called for everyone to be given the same amount of money so that those who had acted prudently would not feel left out. Then those who had debts would have to use their new cash to pay off their debts before they could keep any of it while those, like me, who have no debts, would keep the lot.
One problem includes the strike rate for the payment. Would it be $100K? Not enough to make a sufficient dent, $200K, a million? What is the effect measure for such a plan? Another is how to retrieve all that free cash from the system so that those of us who don’t have debt wont use it to bid up the cost of everything else for those who lose it all to debt repayment. And lets not forget that those who borrowed extravagantly would then get to keep their mansions while those who saved would be cash rich but probably stuck in their much more modest homes. What would be the process for sorting out the envy/schadenfreude factor?
Those without debt could afford to have their savings no longer earn interest because their capital would have been massively increased and having to spend it down in retirement, for example, should be no great hardship as long as the unretired don’t bid up the prices as above.
And what to do about all the debt that has no asset backing? And, of course, the funds would flow immediately into the banks’ hands but they would no longer be able to lend it out and how does the system deal with the vast flows of money where some of it extinguished in the bank’s ledger system but a big chink of it doesn’t?
Then there is the whole bank business thing. Without being able to arbitrage the lending and borrowing rates, their business model vanishes so close them down and simply have a single national central bank responsible to money creation and destruction? Good luck with that, and if successful, good luck keeping it out of political hands.
What he needs is a model much closer to the social credit idea that has a process for creation and destruction of money to meet ongoing social and, by extension, business needs. Which would demand an electorate and political class some orders of magnitude smarter and more honest than anything currently available.
Stockman’s article is spot on. Describes the US to a tee.
As I see things, also as one with no debt; there is no viable solution to the US’s militaristic, corporate hubris. By many definitions the US is fascist. The governments broken, the society is broken, the military is broken, voting is rigged, the Constitution is broken, racism is rampant and increasing (just look at the attitude towards immigrants), health care is broken, and the police are one step away from being the Gestapo (maybe 1/2 a step). As a society we have lost our humanity/compassion. Fortunately some individuals are still in possession of their sense of humanity/compassion. But that’s not enough to counter the prevailing collapse.Well, no sooner did I post the above; I found this gem;
I strongly suggest this is a must see (21 minute video), as it fits this thread exactly.V. Arnold is right.
A random aside: I am in Japan at the moment. Don’t believe all the anti-Japanese propaganda you hear in the US financial press. This country is doing just fine. Two decades of crippling deflation? No signs here that macroeconomics have turned the citizens into growth zombies. The infrastructure is great, everything is clean, and people preserve a sense of balanced aesthetics even in parts of the city that are not wealthy. A demographic time bomb? The Japanese will get by just fine. There is still a sense in this country of making things by hand, as opposed to the center of the Empire where everything is mass-produced crap manufactured somewhere else. If deflation is the future, the Japan model is one to embrace.
@ Boogaloo
I’m in Asia as well (S.E.) and for well more than a decade I’ve witnessed the propaganda machine (deep state U.S.) touting democracy with bullets, bombs and lies about the world at large.
USAsian’s are so provincial and brainwashed by their educational system; they know nothing of the world. That’s a fatally dangerous position to be in, because it makes one vulnerable to the government generated lies regarding the world at large. If one’s view of the world is CCM generated news; then, that one knows nothing factual what-so-ever about the greater world at large; as Boogaloo already knows.
CheersI was in Japan until recently for 15 years and when I returned a few months ago, it struck me that the Japanese people have rejected the endless, crushing working hours in pursuit of impossibly constant 2-5% GDP growth and have decided to simply relax and take a more Mediterranean view on life. So I see them sitting by the roadside with their OneCup sake, blissfully smoking a cigarette and chatting. Not spending much, not earning much, but enjoying their time.
This, of course, infuriates the out-of-touch, old guard who run the government and old family corporations. They see the common Japanese as betrayers of the Japanese system and shovel shedloads of stimulus cash into an open bonfire in an attempt to respark the economy. All to no avail but it does have the nice side effect of enriching those close to, and in power.
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