I live in a Metrickery country and while it has many merits there are some things just easier in the Imperial system. Having grown up with the Imperial system and then changed to metrickery I swap from one to the other depending on what I am doing. A friend I have in New Zealand wrote an excellent article upon this very subject that is well worth a read :
Measuring, mine (letting a single drop fall from my finger dipped into my cup of tea!) I can confirm you are off by about 100%!
Why don't you try it? Not hard to do. Also, what I said was factual. It is the measurement used to build the pyramids, for example, including many similar structures built all over the world for reasons we still don't know, nor how they seem to use similar methods.
I googled and it seems we are both right. For a drop to be a certain size you need to determine a certain weight or volume. So IF they had a device for making a drop weighing X, then the drop would be the same size every time, pretty much. But one can make different sized drops and they will have different diameters. Also, different surfaces will effect how the drop behaves. So it seems they had a prescribed weight of water to get their 1 cm and that part of it I didn't know. In any case, the old structures are built in extremely precise meters so the question remains: how did they know what a meter was over thousands of miles? Either they had a measuring stick they transported around from continent to continent or there was a formula for determining it. The theory I read was that it was based on a drop of water being 1 cm.
I just repeated my one-finger experiment and it is about 1 cm again. This time I took a picture: https://i.imgur.com/Dfct1C4.png It's not a great picture but you can see it's bang on 1cm. Maybe I have the right size finger?!
My experience getting 1 cm twice in a row leads me to suspect that the way the water is collected so that it can decide for itself when it is enough to be a drop that will fall (!) is an important part of getting the right amount. !!
So you want to destroy any hope of building intergenerational wealth and tax bank interest at 100% ? I think I may have misinterpreted the latter. Do you mean the interest a bank charges? @Why would they be in business? Do you realise that some of that money is paid to the customers of that bank in the form of interest on savings?
Better to change the entire tax system and then legislate to minimise usury.
Anyone advocating for a balanced budget is loony. Here is a simple question for you: If the government spends money into the economy via it's operating budget throughout the year, and then removes all of that money via taxes and fees in order to produce a balanced budget at the end of the year, how much money is in your wallet?
The dollars you, I, and everyone else possess are the deficit. It's that simple. Balanced budgets destroy economies.
Now- can the government spend irresponsibly? Of course. Can the money supply be too large? Of course. There may indeed be times when the money supply is too large, and the monetary sovereign must reduce supply- this would be through a fiscal surplus.
The problem in the US, is not that the federal government has a deficit, or that it spends too much money- the problem is what the government spends that money on: The pursuit of global hegemony, corrupt gifts/subsidies to corporations, etc.
As to the rest of your post- I absolutely agree. Landlords (and rent-seeking activities in general) create artificial scarcity and incentivize speculation that drive inflation in costs all through the economy. End them.
I'll add another one- Planned obsolescence (the only type of "innovation" capitalism is capable of any more- monetizing waste and destruction) should be outlawed with steep penalties. This will bring down life cycle costs of everything, saving trillions.
I don't disagree, except on one point. As far as I am concerned, the crash has already occurred. Look not at the unemployment numbers, but at the historical chart for the labor participation rate. That tells you everything you need to know (along with the massive numbers of homeless). We live in a full-on rentier economy- that which Adam Smith warned about, and that which Marx pointed out was actually incentivized within this system. People have been turned into livestock- and if you do not believe that, take a look at our prison system. We have 3% of the global population, yet we have 25% of the global prison population, and that does not include those on probation/parole. Prisons, along with policing, have been turned into profit centers, and that is why the security state is the only part of the economy producing any innovation in this society. Elites absolutely refuse to allow the actual productive economy to exist, because that is the economy that empowers the people. All of this was predicted, long ago, and the American people were either prevented from being exposed to this fact, or propagandized to the point where they fear acquiring the information.
Welcome to the collapse of America. It is here, and we are living it.
A bit of oversimplification there. The “implosion” of the US economy can only arrive by exogenous factors. It won’t be a sudden event (which “implosion” implies) — the steadily growing decoupling from the dollar system by other countries will mean the secular rise of US (and G7) interest rates over time through the higher cost of Treasury borrowing (even allowing that the Fed will buy most of the bond auction). There is no escape from this, though the government and media will continue to distract us from this reality.
Yes- I read Hudson as well. You will not hear any disagreement from me regarding credit as a public utility.
I was addressing the foolishness of a "balanced budget", and I am well aware of how fractional reserve banking works. That part of our system is what demands the ever increasing volumes of credit- you have to create new principle in order to pay off the interest, and more interest begets more created principle- and that is why credit crunches, that also almost always come along with demands for austerity (balanced budgets, in the parlance of people who do not understand how the system actually works) cause huge problems for the middle and lower classes, while concurrently creating huge opportunities for elites to buy up shit everywhere at fire sale prices. This is capitalism. It concentrates wealth, destroys any notion of public good, and impoverishes all but a microscopic minority, who it enriches.
And the dollar as the primary reserve currency is not going anywhere for quite a while. In order for a currency to be a the reserve currency, the issuer must have A) a very large economy, and B) a willingness to run very large, sustained trade deficits in order to export the currency. This creates a great deal of financial leverage over other nations/economies, but it also has the tendency to deindustrialize the economy of the issuer, and destroy the society of the issuer. The corrupt randroid capitalists that run the USA were willing to do that to the people here, but nobody else is so evil that they are willing to do that to their citizenry, and no other citizenry is as compliant as the US citizenry. Patriotism now means supporting the government, at least if the right party is in control (too bad both the parties produce the same conditions/trends, eh?). Also, I will grant that trade flows in US dollars is steadily reducing, but investment flows in dollars, which dwarf trade flows, are increasing. For instance, the volume of US treasuries being held as foreign reserves by other nations are higher now than they have ever been. You can doubt the dollar all you want, but as long as you have to pay your taxes in dollars, you are going to continue to work very hard for them. That's just the way it is.
I want this shitshow to collapse or be overthrown as much as a person can, but reality is reality.
> The problem though is that humans on this planet are not sufficiently spiritually mature to live without money as a lubricant used to facilitate the exchange of goods and services
We are though.
But even if we weren't, we have enough technology where we can easily inventory everyone's physical needs. Like you know how many citizens you have, where they want to live, you know how much housing you need to build; you can calculate how much energy you need based on average temperatures in each area and so on; all of this can be done in a computer.
> Khazarian Mafia (KM)
lol. It's a hell of a lot bigger than that. Sure, the world is being controlled by maybe a hundred families. But only five of them are 'Jewish.'
Without something being used as money, no matter what it is, we would be reduced to barter which may work in a small village, but would be proved to be wildly impractical at a greater level.
Sure. Some abstraction over what is physically produced is useful. The problem today is that the abstraction itself is the goal. AKA the profit motive. It's anti-social.
Think about what 'making money' means, literally. Make it from what? We know what: thin air.
China and Russia are less concerned with making money and more concerned with making things. It's why we're losing.
No I mean all of it. Financial speculation isn't real economic activity. This is how those goblins centered in the City of London maintain control over the world. Time to end it, permanently.
I agree. Luckily they can't fire financial derivatives at the rest of the world that have said enough is enough and they have long ago destroyed the social cohesion that is required to fight a major war by their divide and rule strategies and destroyed the livelihoods and skills base of those who used to work in the industries that they would also need to fight that war. They have shot themselves in the foot as they tried to shoot the rest of us in the head and missed. They think AI will betheir saviour but I think AI has other ideas in mind for these parasites, very final ideas.
Govt is the source of money in your wallet? Surely, that is not correct. Money is generated by productive activities. Govt does not have to be in it at all. To take a simple, albeit primitive example just to understand the principle: If Joe cuts timber, builds a house for Jack, and Jack pays him in either food / drink / clothing, or a bit more modern say in gold, that is wealth in Joe's wallet without any govt involvement. Extrapolate this to the modern era, the lesson is to get the govt out of as many activities as possible. Wealth / money is generated by the public performing productive actions. That is the source of money, not the govt. Govt takes part of this money from the public in the form of tax and then spends it back in govt services. The govt should only tax the public as much as is required for defence, law and order, and a justice system. All other conveniences for society should be self-funding. eg infrastructure, education, etc.
The rest of the world sends us physical products necessary for modern life and we give them pieces of paper in return. Then we complain that they are not playing fair. Too few see the humor in the situation.
“If the government spends money into the economy via it's operating budget throughout the year, and then removes all of that money via taxes and fees in order to produce a balanced budget at the end of the year, how much money is in your wallet?”
How is this description a balanced budget? Maybe I miss something, but is not the government spending in a balanced budget based on what has already been collected in the prior year rather than the next year?
Admittedly it’s not like a household budget, but what we have now is ludicrous, don’t you agree? Could it EVER be repaid?
Do not confuse physical wealth with currency. Currency is a form of wealth (or you can consider it a debt owed to the holder of the currency, if you like, but it is still an asset and a form of wealth), but not all wealth is currency. The citizenry can create wealth by digging up resources, or adding value to those resources, but it cannot create currency. Only the monetary sovereign creates currency. So by spending into the economy, via purchasing goods, services, or paying employees, the fed gov injects the currency into the economy. Currency is created by the currency issuer, and then injected into the economy for the use by the citizenry, state and municipal governments. Currency is basically a commodity that the citizenry trades goods, services, and labor to acquire. Currency is not raised by taxes (in the case of the federal government- states, counties, and municipalities are a different matter, as they are not the monetary sovereign). The taxes did not come first, and the government does not need taxes to fund it's activities (no matter how much some people wish you to believe otherwise). Taxes DO serve several functions however, the most important of which is driving demand for the currency. The fact that we all must pay our taxes with dollars created by the government means that we must all work to acquire those dollars, or not to put too fine a point on it- we go to jail. The so-called confidence fairy is not what makes us seek dollars- it is the requirement to pay taxes in dollars that forces us to acquire dollars.
So again- before the federal government can tax the dollars in your account, it must first create those dollars and spend them into the economy, so that you can then acquire them.
A balanced budget is simply a balance between what the federal government first spends and what it then taxes in a fiscal year (or the following fiscal year to be more precise). So if the federal government were to tax away everything it spent, then after collecting those taxes, there would be no money circulating. Balanced budgets are deflationary. Now before you assume deflation to be a positive. Imagine buying raw materials and then adding value to them during manufacturing, and selling the finished good for the same or less than the cost of the raw materials, or buying a calf, raising it to a full grown cow, and selling it for less than what you paid for the calf- these things actually occurred in early America. Inflation is problematic, but deflation is even more problematic.
Again, the myth is that the government acquires dollars via taxation, but that is not so, because the citizenry cannot create dollars, the federal government has the monopoly on that right (even if it licenses it to the federal reserve).
Now- a note about treasury bonds, because I am sure someone will bring that up. Those bonds are a convenience for those who wish to buy them. They get to collect interest with absolutely zero risk. The government does not NEED to borrow money. Case in point- whenever congress approves spending, this triggers a series of bond auctions by the fed. The fed then transfers the proceeds to the treasury for the government to spend, but understand that at every bond auction there is always a huge shortfall in bids-the majority of the bonds are simply not purchased by anyone. So where does the money come from to purchase those bonds? The federal reserve creates it via keystrokes- Poof! The created cash then goes to the treasury for use. The currency used to purchase those bonds (not purchased at the bond auction) is created from thin air. People can get as mad as they want about this, but this is how the system actually works. This is not some theory. All of this information is freely available, but there are interests that want you to believe that the system works differently, because they do not want you to exercise democratic control over it (and undermining democratic control was one of the motivations for the federal reserve act).
I will not deny that what we have is ludicrous- but to me the ludicrous aspect is what the government (or more accurately, what the corporate oligarchy that has corrupted and controls the government) chooses to do with the federal budget. Instead of providing for the general welfare, the federal budget is used to enrich a small minority, and enslave the rest of us.
Could the debt be repaid? Absolutely- Congress simply has to pass the legislation. All congress has to do is order the treasury to create and deposit the funds at the fed to pay it off, or order the fed to do so in place of the treasury. Again- there are powers that wish you to believe this is not possible, but that is the mechanism.
I see your point Ron about the wealthy pop groups.
Sometimes though, despite the quality or worthiness of the 'messengers', the quality of the message itself may sometimes be expressed in 'pop culture'.
Setting that aside for a moment, it's your last sentence that I feel the closest connection to, although I'm not sure what that particular political solution would look like? Perhaps some form of 'holding all things in common' that wasn't at the same time the 'Godless Communism'' that has been the only variety that we have seen in a long time?
The problem, however is that those monetary and the political systems necessary to make the positive changes you recommend have already been hijacked by those who have only their own interests in mind.
And, as you have mentioned, these same people have been very actively and intentionally brainwashing the masses for a very long time and have become quite proficient at it.
The chances of any sort of critical mass of people recognizing this fact and being able to free themselves from the mental shackles that have been subtly imposed upon them in time to make any real difference, in my opinion, are slim.
This of course, goes much deeper than the merely economic and political level and has even more significant consequences as regards our understanding of ourselves as Human Beings and the nature of reality itself.
If you are familiar with 'The Matrix', it can be a useful analogy of our present situation - the world that we have become familiar with is essentially a mirage whose only real function is to reflect back to us our inner state so that, within this temporary and extremely limited framework , we have the opportunity to make whatever adjustments to our inner state that we deem necessary, before either 'stepping into' or being ushered into the unlimited, Timeless/Spaceless place which is our True Home and will be our permanent place of residence.
This world is a temporary description that we begin to learn at our conception and which ends at death. We are meant to grow beyond this description, preferably long before the moment of our death. All of our troubles come from taking the description as the Be-All and End-All of life and trying to live accordingly.
To believe entirely in the mirage and only for the mirage can't help but give us the blues...
"We are luminous beings. We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime."
(Tales of Power)
The world that we have become familiar with is essentially a mirage interpreted by our brain as something 'solid'.
The first act of a teacher is to introduce the idea that the world we think we see is only a view, a description of the world.
Accepting that seems to be one of the hardest things one can do; we are complacently caught in our particular view of the world, which compels us to feel and act as if we know everything about the world.
The secret of all this is one's attention. All of this exists only because of our attention.
The world that we have become familiar with only exists because we have been conditioned to give our attention to it in the form of the world as we have come to know it.
This limited framework with its very strict laws makes our passage through life recognizable but becomes a trap for our attention turning what is merely a useful description into a prison.
Had we been properly educated we would have learned by now that this description of the world is much more fluid and flexible than what we have been led to believe; that this world is meant to be a 'stepping off place'into another kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously.
I realize that this is pushing out way too far into edge city for most of you to hear but, this world is meant to be a 'stepping off place' into another kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously.
Until we recognize this everything will just continue on to it's inevitable conclusion - a Totalitarian One World Government, a Microchipped Population and an Electronic Central Banking System .
The 'process' need not take 'veryyy' long, necessarily...
Evolution takes a long time, but for those who have the eyes to see it, 'the eternal reality of no time' is ever present and always available.
I have a lot more confidence in the Australian Aboriginies 'Dream Time ' then I ever will in the possibility that, "Trump, Putin, Xi and their many supporters including the Global Military Alliance", have got 'this' or much of anything else!
The three of them would stab each other in the back at the slightest perceived provocation and the 'Global Military Alliance '?
I think I'll stick to the pop groups before I'd trust that crowd!
Not convinced the Fed has as much power as many think.
Treasury calls the shots and Fed another instrument of maintaining US dollar over-valuation along with WB and IMF etc.
My view: Fed will be used to create higher inflation as US monetizes debt for the next few years and will then take the blame and the "End the Fed" people will get their wish. After the fact.
As long as USG fights to defend international role of USD, the Fed is crucial, and will only end with by political decree.
I think that the decision is already made. The ONLY reason the Petrodollar still exists is because BRICS+ are maintaining it in order to allow some financially smaller countries the chance to redeem their now worthless Yankee securities and hopefully get their gold back. The latter is a forlorn hope in many cases as Yankeeland just arbitrary seizes a countries gold as it sees fit. There is also the fact that BRICS+ does not want a global financial meltdown.
Yankeeland is backed into a corner right now as are most of its NATO puppets. BRICS+ WILL pull the plug on the Petrodollar soon and when they do the Yankee Dollar will collapse.
The hope is it will be before Yankeeland starts WW III as a panacea for its woes.
The “petrodollar” is just the most visible part of the dollar financial system, like the part of the iceberg above water. The ROW outside the G7 will simply avoid unnecessary long positions in the USD by trading directly in their own currencies through peer to peer central bank swaps or an mBridge-like mechanism. Slow and steady, and then at some point the frog begins to feel uncomfortable.
We would not need a constitutional amendment if we had done our job. We the people were supposed to be the term limits. There never was supposed to such a thing as a career politician. Now that we have created the monster they aren't going to give up their careers, they never go away. It is an addiction. If they die off someone in their family will step up in some shape or form.
I think we have to start smaller. By now, everyone should understand nobody in power really cares about the will of the people. The reason why is simple -- any threat must be backed with an "or else". As of yet, we have not supplied the "or else". This is why BLM won and covid protests failed.
To this end, I suggest radical individualism and radical self-sufficiency. The entire political machine depends on people needing the government in some way. If we take personal control of our health, food supply, data, and intellectual pursuits, the State and all of its minions will quickly be rendered obsolete. We must starve the beast.
Put a cap on wealth, ie how much one individual may own. If personal wealth is limitless, it will eventually capture everything, the economy, politics, culture, to consume human souls and the environment in the fastest and most efficient possible way, exponentially.
Why? If one single person owned everything and the entire world told them to go fornicate themselves what are they going to do?
Building wealth is a good thing, it is what you do with that wealth is the issue. I know a few multimillionaires and the amount of money they donate to charities, public works, support for things like orchestras, scholarships, conservation of many kinds etc. is phenomenal.
Yes they live well but at the end of the day they have their houses and possessions and a nice lifestyle but they give away more than they keep.
There are bad actors but the majority of the extremely rich are good for society at large.
I'm curious, how much of that wealth do you think is in cash? Most of their wealth is in their possessions, whether their houses or productive investments. Look at Musk? He spends to make stuff.
Capitalism is the best system out there but unless regulated, it will eat the children. Unfettered Capitalism is a Deadly sin. It will eventually kill the host.
1. As a practical matter, the result of sortition would be to increase the power of the government bureaucracies.
2. Also as a practical matter, I suspect that the process of corrupting government officials until the reformers are as rotten as the people they were elected to get rid of involves less bribery and more "Yes, Minister".
3. As an aside, the median age of the U.S. Congress today is greater than that of the Brezhnev-era Politburo.
All of our systems are just people, and people are flawed. That's the heart of the issue. The best way to mitigate those flaws is by decentralization and limitations on power. The America (USA) that exists today, is in NO way similar to the America that was founded in 1776.
Athenians had very sophisticated ways to oversee the executive powers/bureaucracies.
Present merit and ethics commissioners are toothless and not truly independent, and legislation is enacted to provide loopholes. There were some articles in the past on NC on how in fact one cannot "legally" proove bribery in US federal system.
What I know about how governments opperate, is that on my own, with all the information I had available to me, I forced the parliament of my province to fire the merit commissioner and replece her with somebody else. There are ways to reduce the deprofesionalization, corruption, and ethical misbehaviour of bureaucracy.
I agree with all of these. The problem however, is that the American system today is completely and totally corrupted. Corporations have bought our politicians and federal agencies. And, if they can't buy them, then they'll blackmail them. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where enough Representatives, Senators, and Judges are elected to impose real change on the system. In fact, our systems is designed to prevent too many new people from getting elected at any one time. I think change, for better or worse, will only come with some massive economic calamity that kills corporate financial power. Or, if enough Americans see that the game is rigged and decide to jail (or worse) all the corrupt politicians and CEOs responsible.
One other thing that's been on my mind lately, which I've been sharing all over substack. The America and Federal Government/Bureaucracy that exists today is literally nothing like the Founding Institutions, and is, in reality, the complete and total opposite of what the Founders established. We, Americans, have to let go of this fantasy that the Federal and State Governments today are in any way similar to the Founding. They're not. The America that was founded in 1776 ended after the Civil War. The America that existed after the Civil War ended with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Income tax in 1913 followed by WW1. The America that existed after WW2 ended with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the Implementation of No Fault Divorce. The USA today is nothing, NOTHING even close to the 13 States that existed at the Founding. Also, the Founding that we all LOVE to talk was created via Revolution. Americans picked up arms and fought and died.
You also now live in the NAU, North American Union, which is why you have no borders except for White people and the Kalergi Plan is in full swing in Yankeeland :
As an outsider I remain gobsmacked at just how ignorant Yanks in general are, how they venerate Israel, are either red or blue with ZERO actual thought given to policies and practices. 100% agree that a two party system is practically a guarantee of corruption and age and term limits are a must.
Say three terms and not allowed ANY government position for another two terms, this would include panels and consultancies.
ALL political candidates and their families finances need to be public knowledge.
Agree with most of this. I would say age limits is enough, there's no need for term limits. And all elected officials AND all bureaucrats should be barred from working for any private sector entity that has contact with the govt / administration after retirement, or for at least 5 years if they leave the govt early.
The best idea for cutting off business from govt is to ban all forms of political lobbying. No lobbyists allowed at all, for any topic. Representatives should do their own due diligence and make up their own minds, not by defering to lobbyists.
End the nepotism. End the family dynasty crap. One family member per family serves once and that is it, no more family gets to work in the gummint.
I am pretty tired of all the married people not having the same last name so they do not have to identify w/each other until someone digs around finds out they are married. Then you go "wow, so that explains it". Greenspan and his gnarly media wife come to mind. My State Senator just happened to get his college grad daughter a very cushy job w/a Federal Senator. She would have never landed that job if it weren't for Dad, and guess what? She wants to go into politics. That kind of stuff irritates me. Everyone is tied to someone else.
You will never get your country back unless you totally eliminate lobbying. It is the first thing that needs to be done. Any of our representatives should not be able to receive so much as a cheeseburger from anyone. They get paid enough. Not only do the lobbyists but off our representatives, they do it so cheaply. What we now have is a system of bribery that benefits the wealthy at the expense of the People
Certain eliminations are mere replacements. For you to think that the US can be cleansed of its current élites and restored to earlier times is a wonderful dream to which you are entitled. Others of us are realists.
Any number of your suggestions would create a fascist state. Much lesser suggestions may work, such as preventing lobbying, preventing dark money in elections, instituting an age limit on Congressional and Presidential candidates.
"The whole point of this list is to be as un-ideological as possible, in terms of political systems; rather than propounding the various communisms, monarchisms, and the like, we’ll stick to low-scale practical changes which can be adopted as amendments or equivalent."
You don't like isms, or in other words, historically worked out analysis and solutions for capitalism.. which, sorry, is another one of those dreaded isms which the entire world has lived within for say 500 years, but it came after...hold on... fuedalism. Sorry. Don't kill the messenger.
Ok. But what could be more practical than just cutting out the middle man and making all profit from production into public property to be used for the good of all? And even more practical you can simply take all the ill gotten gains of finance capital and make that public property for the benefit of all. Oh, and you forgot ending all wars except defensive or those to dislodge the billionaire oligarchs from vampiracly taking all the wealth and product of human labor from the actual laborers.
We'd all like it to be as simple as low-scale practical changes, but that's not where we are at. The problems are radical and thus radical corrections are required.
All the stuff you mentioned is great, except for maybe states rights, which we already fought a bloody war over when some of the states wanted to keep other humans as slaves. Imagine that.
But you just try a single one of those initiatives without a social revolution. Try it in this system we now inhabit. It will fail and if it has too much success it's leaders will be bought off or intimidated into silence. It's a hard thing to accept but there is no democracy in the west. Only a civil war of the mass of wage slaves to end wage slavery can make any of the minimum program you mention here possible.
The system, capitalism, works for the oligarchs. They won't brook even the most minor alteration to it. For the rest of the world's population, it doesn't work and so much so now that people cannot go on the way they used too.
I do agree on vindman though. Classic fifth columnist scum. I would sentence him to the front line in Ukraine. The most fitting punishment for such a militarist worm.
Well, since you mentioned it, choosing a username I intended to introduce myself properly and typed in "old German woodworker". Too lengthy as it turned out, so I scrapped the age-ist adjective.
A somewhat more thorough self description would read:
An elderly German woodworker, a living fossile from the era of "communism" in germania orientalis. Thanks again!
"But what could be more practical than just cutting out the middle man and making all profit from production into public property to be used for the good of all?"
OK, what IS this "good of all". How do you define it it? Much more importantly, who gets to decide what this good is and how to distribute it?
The US actually had a quasi-workable system called a limited government free market. I suspect our major problem is the bureaucracy, actually. We created a self-sustaining unaccountable government within a government. The trouble is no government can actually function without some sort of bureaucracy.
Put a limit on how many years as a bureaucrat you can work or rotate them out to other positions. The bureaucrats run everything, and it is a problem, they are worse than the career politicians.
Yeah, at this point they run everything; but the main trouble is their number. The bulk of any bureaucracy is just an average Joe/Jane doing somewhat repetitive work. Think the court clerk and the like. I mean, Putin was a back office lawyer in Berlin at one time; if what I've read is correct.
I think what needs to be limited is the range of authority, as well as the sheer number of departments, which is one of the main suggestions by Simplicious. The way it works now, Congress sets up a department with a broad mission and lets the bureau heads determine the rules. Then the bureau will try and expand its authority so those at the top get more pay. Pay is based on the number of employees under you to a large extent. Congress, meanwhile, will pay no attention to said bureaucracy, except to fill the top with like minded people and patronage hires. This isn't a problem limited to the Federal government or the modern day, either.
There used to be an old newspaper comic strip called "There Ought To Be A Law". Our constant search for perfection is both our strength and our curse. Your suggestion is similar to the problem inherent to term limits. I have no solution to either, sadly. I would personally support the wholesale eradication of most of the bureaucracy. You would need the court system, the Treasury, and the military (sadly). What about the police?
What, exactly, do we make illegal? I'm in NY City. A friend upstate says his local cops are bullies, but the State Troopers are OK. Me, I've never had a problem with the local cops here.
Some States are still "dry" (no alcohol) by default; go back to before Prohibition and you could buy opium in a drug store. I can remember when cops here wouldn't hassle a kid with a joint too much (aside from taking it away), but don't get caught in Texas. What is the right balance?
The real problem is that you need a mostly ethical populous for a free market system to operate properly. Now define your ethics. :-)
It is complicated for sure. Balance and compromise. Thing is you give an inch and someone takes the mile and next thing you know it is all ruined.
I can't remember which Trump hack was complaining about bureaucrats in his Dept, I think maybe it was Pompeo? Or Barr? Anyway, he said they refused to change, listen, or do anything other than what they have done for years. As the new Dept. Head they simply told him to Bugger Off. As politicians come and go to their new positions they turn to the bureaucrats for help and it goes down hill from there.
And yes, they keep creating new departments so they can keep getting the dollars for the "budgets". It is a problem. I would love to see all the alphabet departments shut down. They have plenty of money, they just want more, so they make up a new dept w/in the department, and put their friends in there to do it for the big salaries. Buttplugg has zero clue about transportation, those kind of appointments have got to stop. They all should have to take a test on the Constitution before getting a job, as well as their mental health. The Gov in NM is out of control, and should be fired immediately. She is bat shit crazy.
Ethics? I am no Saint, but I believe in doing what is right. If you don't have some kind of ethics and morals you are a loser POS. Personally I think taking down the 10 Commandments was a bad thing to do. 18 years of sitting in school looking at the wall reading them sinks in. Sadly the Commandments have been replaced w/rainbow flags, purple hair, and pants down to your knees, so that is what is sinking in the brains of our youth. And I won't get started w/the parents. All sad to witness.
And while it is fun to dream about all this stuff, the truly bad part is the good guys are letting the bad guys get away w/it to destroy what was once a decent society. It would be lovely to find that perfect place where you could live and let live, people liked each other and got along. Even if you find it eventually outsiders would come in wanting it and take it. Always the nature of humans.
The fact that no one here understands the interrelationship between government and financial power shows how limited understanding of the inner workings is. Probably reading more widely would uncover more of the reality.
Implement term limits by not voting to re elect anyone currently in office. One term is enough.
Make ineligible for Congress anyone with an Ivy League degree and/or a law degree. End lifetime appointments to the Federal court and a mandatory age retirement. Eliminate the Federal Reserve and go back to the gold standard. Eliminate the Dept. of Education completely. and reduce the number of Cabinet departments. No special laws or rules for members of Congress, they should have the same standards as all the citizens that they represent. Federal law should not usurp State law except in very limited cases. Definitely go back to vote in person on a specific voting day and not allow extensions into the night and early morning hours. Too many more to list. All hopium in any case. Sigh.
God is my savior. He is omnipotent and loving. Read Emmet Fox Sermon on the Mount and the Lord’s Prayer
Totally agree. Some kids don't do well in school but in a trade they might find some delight.
I live in a Metrickery country and while it has many merits there are some things just easier in the Imperial system. Having grown up with the Imperial system and then changed to metrickery I swap from one to the other depending on what I am doing. A friend I have in New Zealand wrote an excellent article upon this very subject that is well worth a read :
https://www.celticnz.co.nz/Weights_Measures_Volumes/Weights_Measures.htm
I never liked metric until I found out it was invented millenia ago as a universal measurement system based on the diameter of a drop of water (1 cm).
Offhand, I'd say a drop of water is about four millimeters.
Measuring, mine (letting a single drop fall from my finger dipped into my cup of tea!) I can confirm you are off by about 100%!
Why don't you try it? Not hard to do. Also, what I said was factual. It is the measurement used to build the pyramids, for example, including many similar structures built all over the world for reasons we still don't know, nor how they seem to use similar methods.
Well, I just did and it still seems a drop is about 5 mm, tops.
An inch is about 2 1/2 centimeters, so that is like saying a drip of water is about 2/5ths of an inch.
I googled and it seems we are both right. For a drop to be a certain size you need to determine a certain weight or volume. So IF they had a device for making a drop weighing X, then the drop would be the same size every time, pretty much. But one can make different sized drops and they will have different diameters. Also, different surfaces will effect how the drop behaves. So it seems they had a prescribed weight of water to get their 1 cm and that part of it I didn't know. In any case, the old structures are built in extremely precise meters so the question remains: how did they know what a meter was over thousands of miles? Either they had a measuring stick they transported around from continent to continent or there was a formula for determining it. The theory I read was that it was based on a drop of water being 1 cm.
I just repeated my one-finger experiment and it is about 1 cm again. This time I took a picture: https://i.imgur.com/Dfct1C4.png It's not a great picture but you can see it's bang on 1cm. Maybe I have the right size finger?!
My experience getting 1 cm twice in a row leads me to suspect that the way the water is collected so that it can decide for itself when it is enough to be a drop that will fall (!) is an important part of getting the right amount. !!
So you want to destroy any hope of building intergenerational wealth and tax bank interest at 100% ? I think I may have misinterpreted the latter. Do you mean the interest a bank charges? @Why would they be in business? Do you realise that some of that money is paid to the customers of that bank in the form of interest on savings?
Better to change the entire tax system and then legislate to minimise usury.
Anyone advocating for a balanced budget is loony. Here is a simple question for you: If the government spends money into the economy via it's operating budget throughout the year, and then removes all of that money via taxes and fees in order to produce a balanced budget at the end of the year, how much money is in your wallet?
The dollars you, I, and everyone else possess are the deficit. It's that simple. Balanced budgets destroy economies.
Now- can the government spend irresponsibly? Of course. Can the money supply be too large? Of course. There may indeed be times when the money supply is too large, and the monetary sovereign must reduce supply- this would be through a fiscal surplus.
The problem in the US, is not that the federal government has a deficit, or that it spends too much money- the problem is what the government spends that money on: The pursuit of global hegemony, corrupt gifts/subsidies to corporations, etc.
As to the rest of your post- I absolutely agree. Landlords (and rent-seeking activities in general) create artificial scarcity and incentivize speculation that drive inflation in costs all through the economy. End them.
I'll add another one- Planned obsolescence (the only type of "innovation" capitalism is capable of any more- monetizing waste and destruction) should be outlawed with steep penalties. This will bring down life cycle costs of everything, saving trillions.
I don't disagree, except on one point. As far as I am concerned, the crash has already occurred. Look not at the unemployment numbers, but at the historical chart for the labor participation rate. That tells you everything you need to know (along with the massive numbers of homeless). We live in a full-on rentier economy- that which Adam Smith warned about, and that which Marx pointed out was actually incentivized within this system. People have been turned into livestock- and if you do not believe that, take a look at our prison system. We have 3% of the global population, yet we have 25% of the global prison population, and that does not include those on probation/parole. Prisons, along with policing, have been turned into profit centers, and that is why the security state is the only part of the economy producing any innovation in this society. Elites absolutely refuse to allow the actual productive economy to exist, because that is the economy that empowers the people. All of this was predicted, long ago, and the American people were either prevented from being exposed to this fact, or propagandized to the point where they fear acquiring the information.
Welcome to the collapse of America. It is here, and we are living it.
A bit of oversimplification there. The “implosion” of the US economy can only arrive by exogenous factors. It won’t be a sudden event (which “implosion” implies) — the steadily growing decoupling from the dollar system by other countries will mean the secular rise of US (and G7) interest rates over time through the higher cost of Treasury borrowing (even allowing that the Fed will buy most of the bond auction). There is no escape from this, though the government and media will continue to distract us from this reality.
Yes- I read Hudson as well. You will not hear any disagreement from me regarding credit as a public utility.
I was addressing the foolishness of a "balanced budget", and I am well aware of how fractional reserve banking works. That part of our system is what demands the ever increasing volumes of credit- you have to create new principle in order to pay off the interest, and more interest begets more created principle- and that is why credit crunches, that also almost always come along with demands for austerity (balanced budgets, in the parlance of people who do not understand how the system actually works) cause huge problems for the middle and lower classes, while concurrently creating huge opportunities for elites to buy up shit everywhere at fire sale prices. This is capitalism. It concentrates wealth, destroys any notion of public good, and impoverishes all but a microscopic minority, who it enriches.
And the dollar as the primary reserve currency is not going anywhere for quite a while. In order for a currency to be a the reserve currency, the issuer must have A) a very large economy, and B) a willingness to run very large, sustained trade deficits in order to export the currency. This creates a great deal of financial leverage over other nations/economies, but it also has the tendency to deindustrialize the economy of the issuer, and destroy the society of the issuer. The corrupt randroid capitalists that run the USA were willing to do that to the people here, but nobody else is so evil that they are willing to do that to their citizenry, and no other citizenry is as compliant as the US citizenry. Patriotism now means supporting the government, at least if the right party is in control (too bad both the parties produce the same conditions/trends, eh?). Also, I will grant that trade flows in US dollars is steadily reducing, but investment flows in dollars, which dwarf trade flows, are increasing. For instance, the volume of US treasuries being held as foreign reserves by other nations are higher now than they have ever been. You can doubt the dollar all you want, but as long as you have to pay your taxes in dollars, you are going to continue to work very hard for them. That's just the way it is.
I want this shitshow to collapse or be overthrown as much as a person can, but reality is reality.
Again another imbecile
Just get rid of 'money' and this whole problem goes away. Or have a money where speculation is impossible / illegal
> The problem though is that humans on this planet are not sufficiently spiritually mature to live without money as a lubricant used to facilitate the exchange of goods and services
We are though.
But even if we weren't, we have enough technology where we can easily inventory everyone's physical needs. Like you know how many citizens you have, where they want to live, you know how much housing you need to build; you can calculate how much energy you need based on average temperatures in each area and so on; all of this can be done in a computer.
> Khazarian Mafia (KM)
lol. It's a hell of a lot bigger than that. Sure, the world is being controlled by maybe a hundred families. But only five of them are 'Jewish.'
They are distracting you with this nonsense.
Ok and? Is any of that essential?
I'm going to tell you straight up, I'm a tankie. This JQ shit doesn't interest me. I'm willing to discuss any other subject but this one bores me.
5 out of 100 rich families are “Khazarian” — facts suggest otherwise.
Without something being used as money, no matter what it is, we would be reduced to barter which may work in a small village, but would be proved to be wildly impractical at a greater level.
Sure. Some abstraction over what is physically produced is useful. The problem today is that the abstraction itself is the goal. AKA the profit motive. It's anti-social.
Think about what 'making money' means, literally. Make it from what? We know what: thin air.
China and Russia are less concerned with making money and more concerned with making things. It's why we're losing.
Get rid of fiat currency I think you mean and I agree.
No I mean all of it. Financial speculation isn't real economic activity. This is how those goblins centered in the City of London maintain control over the world. Time to end it, permanently.
I agree. Luckily they can't fire financial derivatives at the rest of the world that have said enough is enough and they have long ago destroyed the social cohesion that is required to fight a major war by their divide and rule strategies and destroyed the livelihoods and skills base of those who used to work in the industries that they would also need to fight that war. They have shot themselves in the foot as they tried to shoot the rest of us in the head and missed. They think AI will betheir saviour but I think AI has other ideas in mind for these parasites, very final ideas.
Agreed. All money is fake, a mass fiction. It is sustained only by collective belief, which could evaporate in an instant.
We need to bring back the big 2 meter stone doughnut things forgot what they were called
The Spartans used iron as money to make the accumulation of wealth burdensome.
Govt is the source of money in your wallet? Surely, that is not correct. Money is generated by productive activities. Govt does not have to be in it at all. To take a simple, albeit primitive example just to understand the principle: If Joe cuts timber, builds a house for Jack, and Jack pays him in either food / drink / clothing, or a bit more modern say in gold, that is wealth in Joe's wallet without any govt involvement. Extrapolate this to the modern era, the lesson is to get the govt out of as many activities as possible. Wealth / money is generated by the public performing productive actions. That is the source of money, not the govt. Govt takes part of this money from the public in the form of tax and then spends it back in govt services. The govt should only tax the public as much as is required for defence, law and order, and a justice system. All other conveniences for society should be self-funding. eg infrastructure, education, etc.
The rest of the world sends us physical products necessary for modern life and we give them pieces of paper in return. Then we complain that they are not playing fair. Too few see the humor in the situation.
There is incredible superficiality about the argument that “money” is imaginary or unnecessary. Thanks for cutting to the chase.
“If the government spends money into the economy via it's operating budget throughout the year, and then removes all of that money via taxes and fees in order to produce a balanced budget at the end of the year, how much money is in your wallet?”
How is this description a balanced budget? Maybe I miss something, but is not the government spending in a balanced budget based on what has already been collected in the prior year rather than the next year?
Admittedly it’s not like a household budget, but what we have now is ludicrous, don’t you agree? Could it EVER be repaid?
Do not confuse physical wealth with currency. Currency is a form of wealth (or you can consider it a debt owed to the holder of the currency, if you like, but it is still an asset and a form of wealth), but not all wealth is currency. The citizenry can create wealth by digging up resources, or adding value to those resources, but it cannot create currency. Only the monetary sovereign creates currency. So by spending into the economy, via purchasing goods, services, or paying employees, the fed gov injects the currency into the economy. Currency is created by the currency issuer, and then injected into the economy for the use by the citizenry, state and municipal governments. Currency is basically a commodity that the citizenry trades goods, services, and labor to acquire. Currency is not raised by taxes (in the case of the federal government- states, counties, and municipalities are a different matter, as they are not the monetary sovereign). The taxes did not come first, and the government does not need taxes to fund it's activities (no matter how much some people wish you to believe otherwise). Taxes DO serve several functions however, the most important of which is driving demand for the currency. The fact that we all must pay our taxes with dollars created by the government means that we must all work to acquire those dollars, or not to put too fine a point on it- we go to jail. The so-called confidence fairy is not what makes us seek dollars- it is the requirement to pay taxes in dollars that forces us to acquire dollars.
So again- before the federal government can tax the dollars in your account, it must first create those dollars and spend them into the economy, so that you can then acquire them.
A balanced budget is simply a balance between what the federal government first spends and what it then taxes in a fiscal year (or the following fiscal year to be more precise). So if the federal government were to tax away everything it spent, then after collecting those taxes, there would be no money circulating. Balanced budgets are deflationary. Now before you assume deflation to be a positive. Imagine buying raw materials and then adding value to them during manufacturing, and selling the finished good for the same or less than the cost of the raw materials, or buying a calf, raising it to a full grown cow, and selling it for less than what you paid for the calf- these things actually occurred in early America. Inflation is problematic, but deflation is even more problematic.
Again, the myth is that the government acquires dollars via taxation, but that is not so, because the citizenry cannot create dollars, the federal government has the monopoly on that right (even if it licenses it to the federal reserve).
Now- a note about treasury bonds, because I am sure someone will bring that up. Those bonds are a convenience for those who wish to buy them. They get to collect interest with absolutely zero risk. The government does not NEED to borrow money. Case in point- whenever congress approves spending, this triggers a series of bond auctions by the fed. The fed then transfers the proceeds to the treasury for the government to spend, but understand that at every bond auction there is always a huge shortfall in bids-the majority of the bonds are simply not purchased by anyone. So where does the money come from to purchase those bonds? The federal reserve creates it via keystrokes- Poof! The created cash then goes to the treasury for use. The currency used to purchase those bonds (not purchased at the bond auction) is created from thin air. People can get as mad as they want about this, but this is how the system actually works. This is not some theory. All of this information is freely available, but there are interests that want you to believe that the system works differently, because they do not want you to exercise democratic control over it (and undermining democratic control was one of the motivations for the federal reserve act).
I will not deny that what we have is ludicrous- but to me the ludicrous aspect is what the government (or more accurately, what the corporate oligarchy that has corrupted and controls the government) chooses to do with the federal budget. Instead of providing for the general welfare, the federal budget is used to enrich a small minority, and enslave the rest of us.
Could the debt be repaid? Absolutely- Congress simply has to pass the legislation. All congress has to do is order the treasury to create and deposit the funds at the fed to pay it off, or order the fed to do so in place of the treasury. Again- there are powers that wish you to believe this is not possible, but that is the mechanism.
Total bullshit
There is no political solution
https://youtu.be/BHOevX4DlGk?feature=shared
I see your point Ron about the wealthy pop groups.
Sometimes though, despite the quality or worthiness of the 'messengers', the quality of the message itself may sometimes be expressed in 'pop culture'.
Setting that aside for a moment, it's your last sentence that I feel the closest connection to, although I'm not sure what that particular political solution would look like? Perhaps some form of 'holding all things in common' that wasn't at the same time the 'Godless Communism'' that has been the only variety that we have seen in a long time?
Those are all good points, Ron.
The problem, however is that those monetary and the political systems necessary to make the positive changes you recommend have already been hijacked by those who have only their own interests in mind.
And, as you have mentioned, these same people have been very actively and intentionally brainwashing the masses for a very long time and have become quite proficient at it.
The chances of any sort of critical mass of people recognizing this fact and being able to free themselves from the mental shackles that have been subtly imposed upon them in time to make any real difference, in my opinion, are slim.
This of course, goes much deeper than the merely economic and political level and has even more significant consequences as regards our understanding of ourselves as Human Beings and the nature of reality itself.
If you are familiar with 'The Matrix', it can be a useful analogy of our present situation - the world that we have become familiar with is essentially a mirage whose only real function is to reflect back to us our inner state so that, within this temporary and extremely limited framework , we have the opportunity to make whatever adjustments to our inner state that we deem necessary, before either 'stepping into' or being ushered into the unlimited, Timeless/Spaceless place which is our True Home and will be our permanent place of residence.
This world is a temporary description that we begin to learn at our conception and which ends at death. We are meant to grow beyond this description, preferably long before the moment of our death. All of our troubles come from taking the description as the Be-All and End-All of life and trying to live accordingly.
To believe entirely in the mirage and only for the mirage can't help but give us the blues...
https://youtu.be/VKsWDyvWaL4?feature=shared
Are there no chapters in the Urantia book a detailing an 'express route ' to 5D?
If not, we may need to revise it and add an addendum...
"We are luminous beings. We are perceivers. We are an awareness; we are not objects; we have no solidity. We are boundless. The world of objects and solidity is a way of making our passage on earth convenient. It is only a description that was created to help us. We, or rather our reason, forget that the description is only a description and thus we entrap the totality of ourselves in a vicious circle from which we rarely emerge in our lifetime."
(Tales of Power)
The world that we have become familiar with is essentially a mirage interpreted by our brain as something 'solid'.
The first act of a teacher is to introduce the idea that the world we think we see is only a view, a description of the world.
Accepting that seems to be one of the hardest things one can do; we are complacently caught in our particular view of the world, which compels us to feel and act as if we know everything about the world.
The secret of all this is one's attention. All of this exists only because of our attention.
The world that we have become familiar with only exists because we have been conditioned to give our attention to it in the form of the world as we have come to know it.
This limited framework with its very strict laws makes our passage through life recognizable but becomes a trap for our attention turning what is merely a useful description into a prison.
Had we been properly educated we would have learned by now that this description of the world is much more fluid and flexible than what we have been led to believe; that this world is meant to be a 'stepping off place'into another kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously.
Shall we go? You and I while we can - through the transitive nightfall of diamonds....
https://youtu.be/eOMcpjQuppk?feature=shared
You gotta make the journey - out and in...
https://youtu.be/_PY2ciintOo?feature=shared
I realize that this is pushing out way too far into edge city for most of you to hear but, this world is meant to be a 'stepping off place' into another kind of reality altogether where whatever we Intend comes into being instantaneously.
Until we recognize this everything will just continue on to it's inevitable conclusion - a Totalitarian One World Government, a Microchipped Population and an Electronic Central Banking System .
For those who have ears let them hear:
https://youtu.be/VcvMJHc6pgw?feature=shared
The 'process' need not take 'veryyy' long, necessarily...
Evolution takes a long time, but for those who have the eyes to see it, 'the eternal reality of no time' is ever present and always available.
I have a lot more confidence in the Australian Aboriginies 'Dream Time ' then I ever will in the possibility that, "Trump, Putin, Xi and their many supporters including the Global Military Alliance", have got 'this' or much of anything else!
The three of them would stab each other in the back at the slightest perceived provocation and the 'Global Military Alliance '?
I think I'll stick to the pop groups before I'd trust that crowd!
https://youtu.be/9TfUo2Pg0Sg?feature=shared
Re: "End the Fed"
Not convinced the Fed has as much power as many think.
Treasury calls the shots and Fed another instrument of maintaining US dollar over-valuation along with WB and IMF etc.
My view: Fed will be used to create higher inflation as US monetizes debt for the next few years and will then take the blame and the "End the Fed" people will get their wish. After the fact.
As long as USG fights to defend international role of USD, the Fed is crucial, and will only end with by political decree.
Amen.
I think that the decision is already made. The ONLY reason the Petrodollar still exists is because BRICS+ are maintaining it in order to allow some financially smaller countries the chance to redeem their now worthless Yankee securities and hopefully get their gold back. The latter is a forlorn hope in many cases as Yankeeland just arbitrary seizes a countries gold as it sees fit. There is also the fact that BRICS+ does not want a global financial meltdown.
Yankeeland is backed into a corner right now as are most of its NATO puppets. BRICS+ WILL pull the plug on the Petrodollar soon and when they do the Yankee Dollar will collapse.
The hope is it will be before Yankeeland starts WW III as a panacea for its woes.
The “petrodollar” is just the most visible part of the dollar financial system, like the part of the iceberg above water. The ROW outside the G7 will simply avoid unnecessary long positions in the USD by trading directly in their own currencies through peer to peer central bank swaps or an mBridge-like mechanism. Slow and steady, and then at some point the frog begins to feel uncomfortable.
Term limits require a constitutional amendment. makes it pretty hard.
We would not need a constitutional amendment if we had done our job. We the people were supposed to be the term limits. There never was supposed to such a thing as a career politician. Now that we have created the monster they aren't going to give up their careers, they never go away. It is an addiction. If they die off someone in their family will step up in some shape or form.
I think we have to start smaller. By now, everyone should understand nobody in power really cares about the will of the people. The reason why is simple -- any threat must be backed with an "or else". As of yet, we have not supplied the "or else". This is why BLM won and covid protests failed.
To this end, I suggest radical individualism and radical self-sufficiency. The entire political machine depends on people needing the government in some way. If we take personal control of our health, food supply, data, and intellectual pursuits, the State and all of its minions will quickly be rendered obsolete. We must starve the beast.
I.R.T.C. - I Refuse To Comply needs to be a mindset and a lifestyle.
Imagine how easy it will be to cancel your life with a universal digital I.D?
ANYONE who gets a digital I.D. https://id2020.org/ is a traitor to humanity.
Our duty in the face of tyranny is to become ungovernable.
Put a cap on wealth, ie how much one individual may own. If personal wealth is limitless, it will eventually capture everything, the economy, politics, culture, to consume human souls and the environment in the fastest and most efficient possible way, exponentially.
Why? If one single person owned everything and the entire world told them to go fornicate themselves what are they going to do?
Building wealth is a good thing, it is what you do with that wealth is the issue. I know a few multimillionaires and the amount of money they donate to charities, public works, support for things like orchestras, scholarships, conservation of many kinds etc. is phenomenal.
Yes they live well but at the end of the day they have their houses and possessions and a nice lifestyle but they give away more than they keep.
There are bad actors but the majority of the extremely rich are good for society at large.
When you looks at their donations by percentage of their wealth, it's not so phenomenal.
I'm curious, how much of that wealth do you think is in cash? Most of their wealth is in their possessions, whether their houses or productive investments. Look at Musk? He spends to make stuff.
“Give away more than they keep” — a truly ridiculous assertion. I wouldn’t descend to honoring you with facts.
Capitalism is the best system out there but unless regulated, it will eat the children. Unfettered Capitalism is a Deadly sin. It will eventually kill the host.
1. As a practical matter, the result of sortition would be to increase the power of the government bureaucracies.
2. Also as a practical matter, I suspect that the process of corrupting government officials until the reformers are as rotten as the people they were elected to get rid of involves less bribery and more "Yes, Minister".
3. As an aside, the median age of the U.S. Congress today is greater than that of the Brezhnev-era Politburo.
All of our systems are just people, and people are flawed. That's the heart of the issue. The best way to mitigate those flaws is by decentralization and limitations on power. The America (USA) that exists today, is in NO way similar to the America that was founded in 1776.
Athenians had very sophisticated ways to oversee the executive powers/bureaucracies.
Present merit and ethics commissioners are toothless and not truly independent, and legislation is enacted to provide loopholes. There were some articles in the past on NC on how in fact one cannot "legally" proove bribery in US federal system.
You don't know what you don't know.
The Athenians didn't have a permanent professional administrative apparatus.
What I know about how governments opperate, is that on my own, with all the information I had available to me, I forced the parliament of my province to fire the merit commissioner and replece her with somebody else. There are ways to reduce the deprofesionalization, corruption, and ethical misbehaviour of bureaucracy.
I agree with all of these. The problem however, is that the American system today is completely and totally corrupted. Corporations have bought our politicians and federal agencies. And, if they can't buy them, then they'll blackmail them. It's difficult to imagine a scenario where enough Representatives, Senators, and Judges are elected to impose real change on the system. In fact, our systems is designed to prevent too many new people from getting elected at any one time. I think change, for better or worse, will only come with some massive economic calamity that kills corporate financial power. Or, if enough Americans see that the game is rigged and decide to jail (or worse) all the corrupt politicians and CEOs responsible.
One other thing that's been on my mind lately, which I've been sharing all over substack. The America and Federal Government/Bureaucracy that exists today is literally nothing like the Founding Institutions, and is, in reality, the complete and total opposite of what the Founders established. We, Americans, have to let go of this fantasy that the Federal and State Governments today are in any way similar to the Founding. They're not. The America that was founded in 1776 ended after the Civil War. The America that existed after the Civil War ended with the creation of the Federal Reserve and the Federal Income tax in 1913 followed by WW1. The America that existed after WW2 ended with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 and the Implementation of No Fault Divorce. The USA today is nothing, NOTHING even close to the 13 States that existed at the Founding. Also, the Founding that we all LOVE to talk was created via Revolution. Americans picked up arms and fought and died.
And the Constitution was finally put to rest in November 2020. May it RIP!
Nailed it!
You also now live in the NAU, North American Union, which is why you have no borders except for White people and the Kalergi Plan is in full swing in Yankeeland :
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2023/01/10/declaration-of-north-america-dna/
As an outsider I remain gobsmacked at just how ignorant Yanks in general are, how they venerate Israel, are either red or blue with ZERO actual thought given to policies and practices. 100% agree that a two party system is practically a guarantee of corruption and age and term limits are a must.
Say three terms and not allowed ANY government position for another two terms, this would include panels and consultancies.
ALL political candidates and their families finances need to be public knowledge.
Agree with most of this. I would say age limits is enough, there's no need for term limits. And all elected officials AND all bureaucrats should be barred from working for any private sector entity that has contact with the govt / administration after retirement, or for at least 5 years if they leave the govt early.
The best idea for cutting off business from govt is to ban all forms of political lobbying. No lobbyists allowed at all, for any topic. Representatives should do their own due diligence and make up their own minds, not by defering to lobbyists.
End the nepotism. End the family dynasty crap. One family member per family serves once and that is it, no more family gets to work in the gummint.
I am pretty tired of all the married people not having the same last name so they do not have to identify w/each other until someone digs around finds out they are married. Then you go "wow, so that explains it". Greenspan and his gnarly media wife come to mind. My State Senator just happened to get his college grad daughter a very cushy job w/a Federal Senator. She would have never landed that job if it weren't for Dad, and guess what? She wants to go into politics. That kind of stuff irritates me. Everyone is tied to someone else.
And why would élites who rely on nepotism agree to that?
You will never get your country back unless you totally eliminate lobbying. It is the first thing that needs to be done. Any of our representatives should not be able to receive so much as a cheeseburger from anyone. They get paid enough. Not only do the lobbyists but off our representatives, they do it so cheaply. What we now have is a system of bribery that benefits the wealthy at the expense of the People
And why would élites who rely on lobbying to protect their interests agree to that?
Certain eliminations are mere replacements. For you to think that the US can be cleansed of its current élites and restored to earlier times is a wonderful dream to which you are entitled. Others of us are realists.
Any number of your suggestions would create a fascist state. Much lesser suggestions may work, such as preventing lobbying, preventing dark money in elections, instituting an age limit on Congressional and Presidential candidates.
All good points to consider.
"The whole point of this list is to be as un-ideological as possible, in terms of political systems; rather than propounding the various communisms, monarchisms, and the like, we’ll stick to low-scale practical changes which can be adopted as amendments or equivalent."
You don't like isms, or in other words, historically worked out analysis and solutions for capitalism.. which, sorry, is another one of those dreaded isms which the entire world has lived within for say 500 years, but it came after...hold on... fuedalism. Sorry. Don't kill the messenger.
Ok. But what could be more practical than just cutting out the middle man and making all profit from production into public property to be used for the good of all? And even more practical you can simply take all the ill gotten gains of finance capital and make that public property for the benefit of all. Oh, and you forgot ending all wars except defensive or those to dislodge the billionaire oligarchs from vampiracly taking all the wealth and product of human labor from the actual laborers.
We'd all like it to be as simple as low-scale practical changes, but that's not where we are at. The problems are radical and thus radical corrections are required.
All the stuff you mentioned is great, except for maybe states rights, which we already fought a bloody war over when some of the states wanted to keep other humans as slaves. Imagine that.
But you just try a single one of those initiatives without a social revolution. Try it in this system we now inhabit. It will fail and if it has too much success it's leaders will be bought off or intimidated into silence. It's a hard thing to accept but there is no democracy in the west. Only a civil war of the mass of wage slaves to end wage slavery can make any of the minimum program you mention here possible.
The system, capitalism, works for the oligarchs. They won't brook even the most minor alteration to it. For the rest of the world's population, it doesn't work and so much so now that people cannot go on the way they used too.
I do agree on vindman though. Classic fifth columnist scum. I would sentence him to the front line in Ukraine. The most fitting punishment for such a militarist worm.
Thank you, that's the comment I'd have written if you hadn't already- and if my English was fluent enough.
Thanks, German woodworker. I love that name!
Well, since you mentioned it, choosing a username I intended to introduce myself properly and typed in "old German woodworker". Too lengthy as it turned out, so I scrapped the age-ist adjective.
A somewhat more thorough self description would read:
An elderly German woodworker, a living fossile from the era of "communism" in germania orientalis. Thanks again!
"But what could be more practical than just cutting out the middle man and making all profit from production into public property to be used for the good of all?"
OK, what IS this "good of all". How do you define it it? Much more importantly, who gets to decide what this good is and how to distribute it?
The US actually had a quasi-workable system called a limited government free market. I suspect our major problem is the bureaucracy, actually. We created a self-sustaining unaccountable government within a government. The trouble is no government can actually function without some sort of bureaucracy.
Put a limit on how many years as a bureaucrat you can work or rotate them out to other positions. The bureaucrats run everything, and it is a problem, they are worse than the career politicians.
Yeah, at this point they run everything; but the main trouble is their number. The bulk of any bureaucracy is just an average Joe/Jane doing somewhat repetitive work. Think the court clerk and the like. I mean, Putin was a back office lawyer in Berlin at one time; if what I've read is correct.
I think what needs to be limited is the range of authority, as well as the sheer number of departments, which is one of the main suggestions by Simplicious. The way it works now, Congress sets up a department with a broad mission and lets the bureau heads determine the rules. Then the bureau will try and expand its authority so those at the top get more pay. Pay is based on the number of employees under you to a large extent. Congress, meanwhile, will pay no attention to said bureaucracy, except to fill the top with like minded people and patronage hires. This isn't a problem limited to the Federal government or the modern day, either.
There used to be an old newspaper comic strip called "There Ought To Be A Law". Our constant search for perfection is both our strength and our curse. Your suggestion is similar to the problem inherent to term limits. I have no solution to either, sadly. I would personally support the wholesale eradication of most of the bureaucracy. You would need the court system, the Treasury, and the military (sadly). What about the police?
What, exactly, do we make illegal? I'm in NY City. A friend upstate says his local cops are bullies, but the State Troopers are OK. Me, I've never had a problem with the local cops here.
Some States are still "dry" (no alcohol) by default; go back to before Prohibition and you could buy opium in a drug store. I can remember when cops here wouldn't hassle a kid with a joint too much (aside from taking it away), but don't get caught in Texas. What is the right balance?
The real problem is that you need a mostly ethical populous for a free market system to operate properly. Now define your ethics. :-)
I'm no help at all, am I.
It is complicated for sure. Balance and compromise. Thing is you give an inch and someone takes the mile and next thing you know it is all ruined.
I can't remember which Trump hack was complaining about bureaucrats in his Dept, I think maybe it was Pompeo? Or Barr? Anyway, he said they refused to change, listen, or do anything other than what they have done for years. As the new Dept. Head they simply told him to Bugger Off. As politicians come and go to their new positions they turn to the bureaucrats for help and it goes down hill from there.
And yes, they keep creating new departments so they can keep getting the dollars for the "budgets". It is a problem. I would love to see all the alphabet departments shut down. They have plenty of money, they just want more, so they make up a new dept w/in the department, and put their friends in there to do it for the big salaries. Buttplugg has zero clue about transportation, those kind of appointments have got to stop. They all should have to take a test on the Constitution before getting a job, as well as their mental health. The Gov in NM is out of control, and should be fired immediately. She is bat shit crazy.
Ethics? I am no Saint, but I believe in doing what is right. If you don't have some kind of ethics and morals you are a loser POS. Personally I think taking down the 10 Commandments was a bad thing to do. 18 years of sitting in school looking at the wall reading them sinks in. Sadly the Commandments have been replaced w/rainbow flags, purple hair, and pants down to your knees, so that is what is sinking in the brains of our youth. And I won't get started w/the parents. All sad to witness.
And while it is fun to dream about all this stuff, the truly bad part is the good guys are letting the bad guys get away w/it to destroy what was once a decent society. It would be lovely to find that perfect place where you could live and let live, people liked each other and got along. Even if you find it eventually outsiders would come in wanting it and take it. Always the nature of humans.
The fact that no one here understands the interrelationship between government and financial power shows how limited understanding of the inner workings is. Probably reading more widely would uncover more of the reality.
One can read all day long and not be able to do a damn thing about any of it, and then there is dreaming.
Implement term limits by not voting to re elect anyone currently in office. One term is enough.
Make ineligible for Congress anyone with an Ivy League degree and/or a law degree. End lifetime appointments to the Federal court and a mandatory age retirement. Eliminate the Federal Reserve and go back to the gold standard. Eliminate the Dept. of Education completely. and reduce the number of Cabinet departments. No special laws or rules for members of Congress, they should have the same standards as all the citizens that they represent. Federal law should not usurp State law except in very limited cases. Definitely go back to vote in person on a specific voting day and not allow extensions into the night and early morning hours. Too many more to list. All hopium in any case. Sigh.
And why would the élites agree to that?