By Christian Marx
This week we have seen the murderous ways of the far-right. One woman is dead and many others injured as a result of a white supremacist who ploughed his car into a counter left-wing demonstration. This act of evil is the direct result of the proliferation of hate from corporate, mainstream media. This is a calculated attack on the very fabric of society. Why do the media propagate hatred and demonize minorities? The answer is simple. Their system of corporate exploitation is coming to an end and they need to distract and divide.
The wealthy 1% know that capitalism is in trouble. The majority are getting poorer, jobs have been offshored to India, China and other foreign countries for cheap labour. Intelligent people are questioning this rampant dislocation of economic and social systems in the West. However, many are fed a diet of anti-immigrant rhetoric, racial hatred, and attacks on the powerless and the weak.
Privatization has skyrocketed the price of utilities bills, been responsible for the deaths at the Grenville Tower tragedy (which was caused by corporate corner cutting on health and safety measures). Eighty people burned to death so a few thousand pounds could be saved by installing cheap fire insulation.
People are now blaming left-wing protesters for daring to counter protest the ugliness of Fascism. Apparently, according to many posts on the internet, this driver was justified to kill … because the left dared exercise their right to call out ugly racial hatred and Nazism. Apparently, this ‘good white boy’ just snapped due to left-wing harrassment. The world has f*cking gone mad! Several far-right posters on the very page that I run (Don`t look At this Page) have posted outrageous conspiracy theories and blame Obama, activists, the deep state … and a dozen other silly excuses. If this terrorist was a Muslim, they would have screamed for blood and confected fake outrage over the people who died. Let’s face it, the right are incredible hypocrites when it comes to terrorism. If the perpetrator is a white male, who has obvious Nazi views, it is the fault of everybody else. As one thug posted on DLATP, and I quote, “I have no sympathy for the protesters who were injured (and killed) – they deserve it and should not have been demonstrating.” How the hell does one deal with this level of psychosis?
These people are clearly lunatics, but this type of thinking does not emanate from a vacuum. Rather, it requires decades of careful programming via media and other vested right-wing interests. By far the biggest propaganda outlet is the Murdoch media. Pure evil just oozes from their disgusting rags and “news” services. Clear racial division and narratives are pushed, depending on the colour of the person’s skin, religious affiliation, political leaning, and/or socioeconomic background.
Anything remotely orientated towards social justice is labelled “communist” or leftist. Unions are constantly attacked and the poor and in particular minorities such as Aboriginals are continually attacked. This is all done for one reason: to protect corporate wealth and to distract and divide the majority who are being mercilessly exploited and attacked economically.
Despite this tactic repeated again and again throughout history, people never learn. Those who are poorly educated are particularly susceptible to this corporate brainwashing. They blame immigrants, blacks, the left, unions, George Soros etc, while their real enemy is in plain sight. The very people who they champion (rich capitalists) are the people destroying them via corporate terrorism.
The spotlight must be shone on war criminals and corrupt corporate mouthpieces who knowingly push this hatred and these conspiracy theories of the “white race being genocided.” What bullshit! We are all one race: the human race. Unfortunately, some are evil to the core and will inflict massive amounts of societal dislocation and war to satisfy their quest for wealth and power.
When you have Murdoch journalists such as Miranda Divine blaming the Greens for the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the press is horribly corrupted. She should be admonished for this level of disinformation. Worse still, the pundits on the US Fox News channel twist stories into complete fantasy, igniting the damaged psychs of people like the terrorist who drove his car into innocent protesters, who dared have a voice against the toxic ideology of Nazism.
Let us as human beings come together and directly expose this criminal cabal of psychopaths in the media. Recognize that these jackals seek to divide and tear society apart all in their quest for ratings and to protect the rampant theft by their 1% owners. Dick Smith has today voiced his disgust for the current system and quite accurately named the elephant in the room of economic greed. Unless the average person gets active and directly challenges these extremist right wing narratives and silly conspiracy theories, more innocent people will die at the hands of deranged Fox News viewers.
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Christian Marx is a political and social activist interested in making the world a fairer place. He has a Bachelor of Social Science and has a keen interest in sociology, politics and history. He was one of the organizers of the March in March rallies in Melbourne and is the founder of the progressive news and information page, “Don`t Look At This Page”, and is also a co-founder of “The Global Revolution” website.
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Thanks for this article Christian. You make some very good points. With the state of capitalism becoming more parlous as each day passes, it is hard to be optimistic for the future. I see an almighty struggle ahead.
Murdoch is only one of the “media barons” that are in charge of one small part in the fascist and extreme right movement, in Brazil we have the Globo that controls more than 90% of the media and so on in other countries.
The racist fascists are also in some countries supported by the government in the case of Hungarian movement.
The Hungarian PM Viktor Orban’s frequently touted ideal of an illiberal state, he said in reference to refugees Arabs, Africans and Gypsies :
“We declare war on liberalism. They are our main enemy and we will do everything to destroy their ideals in our public… These people lose their nationality, their race awareness and soon their sexual identity. Such people must be forced out of our living space.”
Agree, came across this murky movement when doing research as after sometime clear patterns emerged suggesting it was well organised and coordinated, while masquerading as grass roots, but good enough for mainstream media and MPs to take the bait…..
However it is difficult to enlighten society nowadays when media is either constricted or intimidated into a straitjacket that precludes transparency, central tendencies and empowers extremism or nativism; plus dumbing down of education and nobbling of any political centre, with a whole smorgasbord of techniques, wedge issues, topics etc.
Article title is resonant too, in addition to Chomsky’s utterances round ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Curtis in ‘Century of the Self’ (how political marketing and media manipulate behaviour) has episode titled ‘Engineering Consent’, which also fits with Mayer’s (New Yorker) Freedom Works ‘media assembly line’. Inspired by the Kochs acting as a conduit for other oligarchs, but publicity shy; leveraging academia, think tanks, politics and media for the right messages to emerge and be taken on board by society, politicians and the electorate over the long term.
It’s a long game that cannot be understood in the moment or by discreet symptoms or manifestations, more an ideological movement that has different public and private profiles thanks to ‘astro-turfing’; precludes or makes investigative journalism difficult while people and politicians fall into line (autocracy is also popular).
However, there is a pattern in the background if the old fossil fuel, auto and related industrial oligarchs are observed from a century ago, and is quite logical. Economically it’s advancing their global monopoly or oligopoly interests (aka Daly’s Steady-State Economy which has re-emerged) and opposing actual and potential competition via influencing govt. policy and masquerading as left or liberal by demonising ‘globalisation’ (old anti-Semitic trope); along with what JK Galbraith suggested (‘Age of Uncertainty’) was their obsession with ‘human biology’ (wink, wink).
The latter, according to John Tanton (colleague of Paul Ehrlich at ZPG Zero Population Growth and founder of the modern US white nativist movement supported by same oligarchs), ‘passive eugenics’ presented as ‘liberal and environmental’ through expressing issues of immigrants, fertility and population growth as neither ‘environmentally sustainable’ nor good for the economy/nation. According to early ’70s The Club of Rome ‘theories’ cooked up with support of fossil fuel/auto oligarchs (who continued to trade and do business with Nazi Germany throughout WWII); big global oligarchs’ do nothing while citizens ‘tighten their belts’ and hopefully shout at immigrants or minorities…
Basically it’s new lipstick on an old ‘socio-Darwinist’ or ‘white nativist’ pig that has never gone away; rebranded through culturally specific PR and mainstream media.
UK Brexit was no coincidence and related when in fact that ‘science of eugenics’ founded by Darwin’s cousin Galton first emerged via UCL (publicly acknowledged and documented). After WWII there was a hiatus but fascism or proto Nazism re-emerged in 70s under a more media friendly ‘liberal and environmental’ guise, promoted by scientists and academics (outside their area of expertise) through MSM once there was enough time and distance from embarrassment of the Nazis and WWII, to allow freedom of speech on ‘national socialism’ for the top people.
Brexit was described as a long game and right wing (nativist) coup by former Downing Street advisor Sir Craig Oliver stating that anti-immigration and anti-EU sentiment had been promoted for over three decades, plenty of time for the (ageing nostalgic) nation to be conditioned and then vote the right way, even if it means chaos.
Stupidity and hate are a dangerous combination and can afflict the majority of a population if not actively countered. George Orwell’s ‘1984’ comes to mind.
I suspect that if reasonable people ever get close to dislodging the corporate oligarchy from their current control of our governments and institutions, even if done peacefully and democratically in a system that is rigged against them, then the extreme right wing racist thugs will become the state/corporate sponsored ‘brown shirts’ that attempt to intimidate the populace to remain fearful or passive. They certainly will not be short of funds, media access, legal immunity, guns and foreign support. I also have no doubt that the main purpose of the militarisation of our police forces, the tremendous increase in security resources supposedly to tackle terrorism and asylum seekers, the endless demonisation of minorities, the monitoring by the state of all communications and all internet traffic, the exponential growth of the private security industry, our two tier system of justice and the privatisation of the prison system; is to counter a possible shift in power from the corporate oligarchy to genuinely democratic control. Nearly all of the major formerly democratic countries have gone down this path.
If Bernie Sanders won the US Presidency at the last election we would probably have witnessed the corporate oligarchy reasserting its power over the populace, perhaps initially by relatively non violent means but if needed then by whatever means necessary.
Great article!
In 47 BCE, the Ancient Roman statesman and orator Cicero mused that no fortress existed capable of withstanding the captivating lure of money. It is tempting to compare these words of Cicero to our modern day fascist Corporatocracy where riches and wealth more often than not equate to great political influence and power, and human life itself has been seemingly reduced to scarcely more than a chip used as collateral by greedily corrupted governments and international banking conglomerates.
Shades of Cicero’s Rome are startlingly visible when one looks into modern day Australian politics. The slaying of Caesar by Brutus is regularly re-enacted by a volatile Federal Parliament and voraciously lapped up as Bread and Circus entertainment by an otherwise apathetic public, seemingly bereft of concern for anything except celebrity gossip and football scores.
The sole purpose of the sycophantically subservient Australian government aided and abetted by a corrupt, debauched and nefarious media, is to ensure that the system receives whatever fuel it needs to flourish and survive, regardless of the incalculable cost to the social welfare of people.
In the following fourteen signs of fascism, I see a distinct thirteen occurring in this country right now.
Powerful and Continuing Nationalism – Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights – Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause – The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
Supremacy of the Military – Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
Rampant Sexism – The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
Controlled Mass Media – Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
Obsession with National Security – Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
Religion and Government are Intertwined – Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.
Corporate Power is Protected – The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
Labor Power is Suppressed – Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts – Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
Obsession with Crime and Punishment – Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
Rampant Cronyism and Corruption – Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
Fraudulent Elections – Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
those who are confused about fascism should read all they can about the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party. WW2 and the Holocaust were the end of it – the beginning in the early 30s is EXACTLY where we in the West are now. And WW3 and holocausts of many kinds are only a short few years away.
Be very afraid
Looking at The USA and the UK, it seems as though, Australia could be slightly ahead of Britain but behind USA in the march to facism.
It is clear however that we are ahead of both the USA and the UK as an almost fully formed Oligarchy..
We are in my view merely months from recession, and well on the way to facism disguised as Authoritarian democracy.
What then?
S G B
Really? Given that I’ve been an investor (of sorts) for decades and (most importantly) I’ve been hearing about an impending recession for … I suspect you’re right. I think it’s called the Law of Averages.
Nevertheless I am thankful for your advice and that I didn’t follow same for the last 20 plus years.
Thus I am now prepared. (I hope).
A power grab, as the hard right tries consolidates its power with the nod and wink president. 1930’s European history gives us the model.
The motivating greed at the core of capitalism was always going to be it’s downfall, it’s not if but when and what form that downfall will take and how innocents suffer in the process
Good luck motivating the masses. Someone already named has beaten us to it.
“”Endless growth will destroy Australia as we know it today,” Mr Smith said of his motive for the campaign.”
“”It is simply endless growth and endless greed – meaning the finite wealth has to be divided between more people, and that means less for most,” Mr Smith said.”
http://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/dick-smith-throws-dollar1m-behind-call-for-reduced-immigration/
“the financial sector in the last decade has accomplished what official censorship and political repression could not: totalitarian control of social media, and the mobilization of progressives in support of neoliberal fascism.”
“the fact that privatized mass communication now dominates public opinion to such a degree that all public discussion of vital issues is choreographed by PR firms.”
“the donor elites that set the civil society agenda benefit from Wall Street’s vertical integration of controlling consciousness, allowing them to fabricate news, as well as to integrate advertising with government propaganda.”
“Privacy is the first thing that a totalitarian state attempts to destroy.”
“We must stop giving away our privacy. We must start thinking about personal “data” as the commodity that it already is, and even as a weapon that can be used against us.
If we don’t stop and reconsider what we’re giving away, not only will there be nothing to hide, but nowhere to hide.”
In 1926 Benito Mussolini coined the phrase Lo Stato Corporato – the corporate state, the fusing of state and corporate capitalism which is the prime philosophy and modus operandi of fascism. Attacks on worker organisations, judicial watchdogs, and public ownership of infrastructure, and the creation of scapegoats, are all part of the divide and conquer strategy. Dutton’s super ministry now controls the police, surveillance and armed forces – the Abbott faction doesn’t need to be head of state to control Oz, they are in power by default.
“As far as I can determine there is delusional thinking right across the American political spectrum. Fingers are pointed in every which direction except where they should be pointed. This leads to a specter of the pulling in of the last of the rational actors on both the left and right across the spectrum into the camps of the irrational on both the left and right as a matter of opposing the other. As economic deterioration continues this factionalism will only get worse as the manipulations of these groupings by you know who only becomes more pronounced. In the end a offer of a return to sanity will be offered in the form of a closed down of society in which all forms of dissent will be banned as anti societal as leading to the growing chaos we see being instigated today by you know who. Americans are all being played across a wide range of emotionally driven scenarios by those able to construct such scenarios. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized [or intentionally disorganized] habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country…We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested largely by men we have never heard of…We are dominated by a relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
Edward Bernays
We have this golden opportunity to protect the ABC, preserve it and other independent media ensure fairness and balance by supporting them financially, at the polls, by organising, to counter the RWNJ in the Rupert rags. The net is also the greatest access tool society has never had before, so public mass protest and groups like Get Up lobby, unite, highlight and confront the corrupt, rich and powerful on issues of concern to protect democracy.. no wonder the Oz attacked Get Up for daring to attack their racism, bias and propagandra. The battle is full on. As Laurie Oakes said he’s never buying a newspaper again so online is the future and the opportunity to defeat the cartels and media barons if enterprising journos and entrepreneurs leap into action.
Thank you all for saying it as it is
The USA is collapsing.
The US is in debt, is conducting multiple wars, is a police state, is flooded by illegal immigrants, and has become immoral.
Americans are either ignoring the decay or think that nothing can be done to stop the decline. Almost no one thinks the US can be saved.
No one appears to be worried about tyranny because liberals think the police state only applies to conservatives and conservatives think the police state only affects liberals.
The truth seems to be that the elites want to wipe out the strong white men and plan to send the weak liberals to the gulags where they will be starved and killed. The 1% will then divide the wealth and land of the US among themselves.
How else can you explain the destruction of the USA? Economics isn’t rocket science. If you want a strong economy, don’t punish hard work with taxes and regulations while rewarding laziness with welfare and allowing millions of 3rd world immigrants to flood the country.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2014/12/psychopathy_and_politics.html
Those fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.
Sadly Americans won’t realize what is happening until it is too late.
Never underestimate the inhumanity of man towards man. Greed has no bounds.
Wake up.
Think.
Pass the word.
Free market capitalism is responsible for the plunging standard of living.
Globalization offshores all the jobs to poorer countries for exploitation
and decimates developed countries. This plus the constant wars for resources (again
a product of capitalism) displaces millions of people. This is not a race war… that is garbage.
That is what the elites want you to think in order to divide the populace, while they destroy
the planet with end stage capitalism.
Not sure why Dick Smith gets a mention at the end of the article which opposes crony capitalism, oligarchy etc.?
He makes conflicting statements and seems to misinterpret immigration and population data, whereby non Australians are presented in a negative light and blamed for supposed environmental damage, wink wink stop immigration.
Related, Smith was the patron of the Australian Skeptics decades ago promoting science, not sure if they are impressed with his data literacy nowadays to show ‘immigrants’ as proponents of a supposed economic Ponzi scheme.
Further, recently presenting as ‘liberal and environmental’ as patron of Sustainable Australia, while cosying up to Pauline Hanson on immigration?
That’s hardly a great advertisement for a public career of supposedly fighting greed?
Smith’s views, like Hanson’s, would seem to fit quite neatly with the editorial and content of the US white nativist-right journal ‘The Social Contract Press’ established by one of the founders of Zero Population Growth ZPG John Tanton an admirer of the white Australia, includes Australian contributions (some with redacted names) and think he coined the expression ‘passive eugenics’ (visa/immigration restrictions).
The latter are linked to Bannon et al., very whiffy and they do not like democracy and socialism or anything that helps broader society.
Libertarian Forum – really libertarianism as a solution when it is the cause of the problems, when it is just elitism and supremicist thinking rewrapped and rebranded – devoid of any conceptual social framework whasoever
Libertarianism is the ideology of Reagan, Thatcher, Pinochet, Howard, Blair and the rest of the political servants of the rapacious corporate oligarchy.
On the issue of debt, if you make the effort to learn how macroeconomics actually works you will realise that national government debt is of little consequence for any nation with its own sovereign currency as long as that debt is denominated in that currency, as the central bank can issue more of that currency at no cost or without borrowing by simply creating more. The national government debt in this situation is not even debt as we understand it but a record of additional money spent into the economy which is essential for economic growth and does not need to be repaid. Government bonds do not pay for national government deficits, deficits are funded with created money and it has been this way since fiat currencies were adopted internationally in the early 1970’s. Deficits that are too large can lead to inflation but the current Australian, US or Japanese national government deficits, for example, are well below the point where resources in the economy such as labour are in short supply and could cause inflationary pressures.
It is not national government deficits or debt that should concern us but the record levels of personal debt in the form of mortgages, car loans, personal loans and credit card debt and the fact that much wealth is based on speculative bubbles in real estate and shares. Similarly many businesses are also vulnerable to any economic downturns due to substantial debts, most of our mineral/energy resources industry is in this category.
For the best understanding of macroeconomics make the effort to learn about Modern Monetary Theory economics.
When the world economy has its next recession personal bankruptcies will be very high, consumption and sales will collapse, many businesses will fail and unemployment and hardship will skyrocket. The governments of this world will still be able to bailout the rapacious banks and other well connected businesses (those governments with their own sovereign currency will be able to but smaller Eurozone countries will be stuffed) and the economies of this world will slowly recover. I’m sorry to spoil many of your dreams but capitalism will not fail but be saved by the state, or socialism, yet again so the next round of scams can begin, provided we don’t descend into complete anarchy or one of the flavours of totalitarianism.
The global warming crises and general environmental destruction are going to destroy us if we passively stand by and let ourselves be the victims of events.
For the sake of our futures in the economic, social and environmental spheres, democracy must be made to work and the current control over us by the corporate oligarchy MUST BE REMOVED – or await the economic, social, political or environmental holocaust. Libertarianism and totalitarianism are not the answer.
Andreas, IMO that ideology which we can say is a macroeconomic theory have the roots on the teaching of economy in the majority of the Universities of the world and implemented in South America well before Reagan, Thatcher, Pinochet,and others.
I guess that South America was the “lab” to test that theory and reinforced by Felipe Cavallo, an Argentinean minister of economy.
His policies were regarded as the best in the world and even admired by Paul Keating.
The worse case of neoliberalisms and libertarianism is the present case in Brazil that unfortunately is not well covered by the media.
It is also a “new way” to put a dictatorship in place instead of using the army.
Andreas Bimba
I have no respect for economists. MMT is an absurdity.
“The hubris in economics came not from a moral failing among economists, but from a false conviction: the belief that theirs was a science. It neither is nor can be one, and has always operated more like a church. You just have to look at its history to realise that.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/jul/11/how-economics-became-a-religion
“In essence, Nixon’s decision ended gold redemption and placed the U.S. and the rest of the world on a purely fiat paper standard for the first time in recorded time. By doing so, the U.S., in effect, became a deadbeat nation which no longer honored its obligations and was set on the road to its current banana republic status.”
“Despite what is taught in social science courses, a true gold standard is a greater protector of individuals’ economic well being and, ultimately, their political liberty than any legislation or “rights” document ever penned. Hard money limits state power!”
“An object widely considered as worthless would never become money in a free market.
However, today, we all use irredeemable paper money. How did essentially worthless objects come to be widely accepted as money?”
“Rome’s monetary history shows, governments have engaged in theft from the citizenry via monetary debasement from the very dawn of Western civilization.”
“If the government had to actually raise taxes instead of borrowing the staggering sums of money it uses to keep its welfare/warfare programs running and keeping the vote buying mechanism well oiled, it would have to raise taxes by so much that it would face a rebellion. Instead government resorts to inflation. From the government’s perspective, money supply inflation is nothing but a cleverly disguised hidden tax.”
“Few people stop to consider that this policy means ruin in the long run. Over time, the middle and lower classes will see their real incomes and living standards shrink ever more, while the true beneficiaries of inflation – those who get first dibs on newly created fiat money – amass more and more wealth in a kind of reverse redistribution from later receivers.”
“Government mandated fiat currency simply does not work in the long run. We have empirical evidence galore – every fiat currency system in history has failed, except the current one, which has not failed yet.”
http://www.acting-man.com/?p=35965
“The government steals trillions directly, but still resorts to financial sub-grifts—debt, fiat money, and central banking—to feed its insatiable money-lust. Like the government’s debt, stupidity compounds exponentially and rational people wonder how long unsustainable rackets can persist. The racketeers, if they realize their rackets can’t last, don’t care; they’re going to milk them as long as they can.”
“Anyone with a modicum of analytic ability and intellectual integrity realizes that the “solution” to that last financial crisis—more government and central bank debt—was another instance of stupidity compounding itself.”
“Nowadays, money is based on nothing tangible. Money is now created with debt, and they need more debt to pay the interest on the bonds that created this debt/credit/money in the first place. We’ve reached a point where there isn’t even enough money in existence to pay the interest let alone touch the principle. Consequently, everything is slowly turning to shit.”
“The oldsters want to retire, but can’t and the youngsters can’t find decent jobs. Welcome to the Stealth Depression.”
“Resource-rich trading partners like Canada & Australia won’t be spared from the next down-turn by Chinese demand like they were during the ’08 – ’09 recession.”
https://www.theburningplatform.com/2017/07/23/the-economic-collapse-began-long-ago/
“The Chinese and Russians proactively set up alternative financial systems for countries looking to distance themselves from the Federal Reserve. After the IMF accepted the yuan into its basket of reserve currencies in October of last year, investors and economists finally started to pay attention.”
“The United States’ reputation has been tarnished by decades of undeclared wars, mass surveillance, and catastrophic foreign policy.”
“China, Russia, and India are all ahead of the curve and started stockpiling gold years ago. They recognize that hard assets will be the measure of true wealth in the near future — not fiat money.”
“The impact on the average person could be devastating if they are not properly educated and prepared for the fallout.”
The Anti-Media
Interesting comment Freetasman. Macroeconomics is too important to be left to extremists like Hayek, Friedman, Rand and others and like all forms of extremism that fail to give due weight to humanist principles, compassion, reason, evidence and balance, they are doomed to deliver mediocre or even cataclysmic outcomes even ultimately for their proponents. Hayek apparently formulated his ultra free market ideas in 1936 but the much smarter and more humanist John Maynard Keynes was popular then and was to be till the mid 1970’s when the corporate oligarchy decided to reassert it’s domination in the major nominally democratic nations of the world. Interesting that South America was the first proving ground of Monetarism and the ultra free market. Clearly the Chicago School and the CIA were involved in the international fight against Communism and even mixed economy Democratic Socialism. The corporate oligarchy also has a fondness for dictatorship or sham democracy.
This recent article on neoliberalism and Hayek is worth a look:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/18/neoliberalism-the-idea-that-changed-the-world?CMP=fb_gu
I think we will need to agree to disagree on MMT Harquebus.
I do however agree that economics is not a science and nearly all economists, apart from the MMT ones, are subpar.
Gold is a very pretty but it is not the saviour of the world’s currencies. Money has nearly always been a token, worthless unless it is accepted for commerce and guess what our fiat money is accepted for commerce. You can send yours to me if you think it is valueless.
Our currency is devalued by inflation but inflation is low and yet national government deficits throughout the world are not insignificant. Even with inflation currency can still be used to buy and sell things.
The best way to avoid the worst of any global recessions or depressions is for each nation to become more self sufficient and luckily Australia could be self sufficient for nearly all of our essential needs if it was planned for and implemented. Political incompetence and excessive control over government by big business is our biggest weakness so we will likely remain too exposed to any international calamities and our own time bombs like the Sydney and Melbourne real estate speculation bubbles. Australia does however have ample mineral and agricultural resources so can easily pay for any essential imports and this trade is with FIAT MONEY.
Andreas, this article can be of interest to you: Why is neoliberalism back in Latin America? http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2017/07/neoliberalism-latin-america-170711085354385.html
What I have to add is that in the Brazilian case, Temer and his government only have 5% approval so it is not that the people like the neoliberalism. In Argentina the new conservative government also is losing popularity.
Thanks Freetasman, so neoliberalism is back in most of South America but is generally unpopular and neoliberalism was imposed in Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela and Peru about 25 years ago but those governments were booted from office after 10 years or so.
So we must be even crazier than them as we have had about 40 years of neoliberalism without a break. Labor at least were not quite as awful as the Conservatives.
I saw our now quite mad PM on the idiot box accusing Shorten of being “the most dangerous left wing leader in generations”. Presumably that means since Whitlam. That’s some good free publicity for Shorten and will increase his popularity.
Andreas, globalization and neoliberalism is a combination of policies that benefit the rich and the corporations and increase poverty.
The governments that support neoliberalisms are those that are controlled by the extreme right or the elite class. They are not crazier or idiots. The idiots are the electorate that fail to learn from lesson of the past.
Gough was removed because his policies were against the interest of the right and the controlled media will do all that they can to stop the ALP to gain office.
On the topic of neoliberalism and Latin America there is a very good book that perhaps you can get your hand on it.
Kurtz, Markus J. (2004). The Dilemmas of Democracy in the Open Economy: Lessons from Latin America.
Andreas Bimba
I can’t see foreign sovereigns accepting Australian currency as tax payments. What use is foreign currencies to us?
A fiat currency only has value so long as people have faith in it which, they currently still do. Only a matter of time before that changes. A bank bail in will do it.
“agree to disagree on MMT” Okay.
Really? Here’s a recent example. Off to Sri Lanka. Needed to pay Sri Lanka Government US $35 for electronic travel authorisation (ETA) visa. (Note not Sri Lanka Rupees but US $35.) Sri Lankan authorities debited my account Australian $44.44 (plus $1.33 conversion fee imposed by bank).
In Sri Lankan Rupees that equates to 5402.79 LKR in my calculations. Almost an instant transfer and an ETA via Email within 30 minutes. QED.
Cheers Freetasman and Harquebus.
Manufacturing Social Dislocation
http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/census-2016-reveals-that-sydney-suburbs-with-no-one-born-overseas-are-nonexistent–almost-20170830-gy7czy.html
And they wonder why people are getting antsy about identity ! No wonder i feel dislocated.
Where I work – 73.6% born OS
Where I live – 50.8% born OS
Politicians of all 3 major parties (LMP. ALP and Greens) can just get f#cked. Not that I will ever vote for Hanson, but I will vote again and again for the Sustainable Australia Party.
These stats are a sign that big business completely runs gov. ie Cheaper labour, which we pay for in ridiculous housing costs …yet another boon for those with money.