The most obscene state of the world

[AmazonQueen]

We need to learn how to fix this right? Globally right?

They keep laughing they are going to get eaten. It was tenuous last down turn if we have another serious one there is no telling where it ends.

But how?
Obama was a reasonable, talk to me and I'll meet you halfway, trying to make the system work sort of guy. Look how they treated him.
I prefer reform to revolution, most revolutions have ended up leading to reactionary governments and any gains they do make are no more irreversible than those of reformists anyway. but does reason work with people like Gingrich, Trump or Farage?

 

[innonimatu]

We need to learn how to fix this right? Globally right?

They keep laughing they are going to get eaten. It was tenuous last down turn if we have another serious one there is no telling where it ends.

Last downturn they owned Obama and that as enough to save their skin. The Federal Reserve had the duty to "rescue" the US financial system (though it should have broken down the banks and didn't). But it had no duty to save the others abroad. It did anyway. European banks would have gone under without american support, the whole edifice of global tax evasion would have collapsed, the infrastructure would disappear and all those criminal funds with it.

The lesson they took out from this is that so long as they have protection. That is why they are laughing. They control political power, and political power will keep protecting them. That won't change with small steps, and it won't change with "reforms". Any small step, any reform in one country, can be argued against with the argument that the wealthy will "take their money elsewhere". And the plebs fall for it. Hell, Trump started some small trade wars and you immediately got people regurgitating the talking points on how that would be bad for workers. People who believe themselves to be "left". It's not just Trump derangement syndrome, they'd have done the same if Sanders had been allowed to run and won and done something similar.

This will only change if the global infrastructure takes a serious hit. Either a world war (nukes, i know...) or a serious wave of "populists" bringing major countries out of the web of international treaties that props up this system. You think that will happen (they'll get eaten) but they won't unless that web is torn to shreds first.

 

[innonimatu]

But how?
Obama was a reasonable, talk to me and I'll meet you halfway, trying to make the system work sort of guy. Look how they treated him.

Obama was the man whom circumstances delivered the power to change things: the GFC, he had the power to kill the eurodollar market. To put an end to the international order that supposedly prevents even the US government from disciplining their wealthy (they'll take their money abroad). Instead he saved it. He was bought and paid for: prestige, status, a career under this order where being wealthy is good. And he'll be wealthy, member of the good club.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Last downturn they owned Obama and that as enough to save their skin. The Federal Reserve had the duty to "rescue" the US financial system (though it should have broken down the banks and didn't). But it had no duty to save the others abroad. It did anyway. European banks would have gone under without american support, the whole edifice of global tax evasion would have collapsed, the infrastructure would disappear and all those criminal funds with it.

The lesson they took out from this is that so long as they have protection. That is why they are laughing. They control political power, and political power will keep protecting them. That won't change with small steps, and it won't change with "reforms". Any small step, any reform in one country, can be argued against with the argument that the wealthy will "take their money elsewhere". And the plebs fall for it. Hell, Trump started some small trade wars and you immediately got people regurgitating the talking points on how that would be bad for workers. People who believe themselves to be "left". It's not just Trump derangement syndrome, they'd have done the same if Sanders had been allowed to run and won and done something similar.

This will only change if the global infrastructure takes a serious hit. Either a world war (nukes, i know...) or a serious wave of "populists" bringing major countries out of the web of international treaties that props up this system. You think that will happen (they'll get eaten) but they won't unless that web is torn to shreds first.

A serious wave of populists bringing countries out of the web of international treaties that prop up this system, sounds like the 30's all over again. That ended well.

 

[Estebonrober]

This will only change if the global infrastructure takes a serious hit. Either a world war (nukes, i know...) or a serious wave of "populists" bringing major countries out of the web of international treaties that props up this system. You think that will happen (they'll get eaten) but they won't unless that web is torn to shreds first.

Yea getting eaten means its all been burned down. That's what I mean by that phrase. I have a family and a good job. I do not want to see that.

 

[innonimatu]

A serious wave of populists bringing countries out of the web of international treaties that prop up this system, sounds like the 30's all over again. That ended well.

It did. It ended (when things stabilized) with the 50s and 60s.

 

[AmazonQueen]

It did. It ended (when things stabilized) with the 50s and 60s.

Which set up the current cycle you hate so much, and also involved going through the Holocaust and Stalinism. Your solution ended up in a new set of international agreements which worked for 20-30 years but certainly no longterm solution and at a horrendous cost.

 

[innonimatu]

My solution? Pulling out of the web of international treaties is not going to lead inevitably to a world war. Why are you so convinced it would? You seem to be the one arguing that would be an inevitable of necessary phase. Whereas I see it as an alternative to the other solution (war).

 

[AmazonQueen]

My solution? Pulling out of the web of international treaties is not going to lead inevitably to a world war. Why are you so convinced it would?

I don't think it would necessarily make a world war inevitable, although it would make wars (in general, not just world wars) more likely.
Unlike the 30s thats not our worst problem, global warming is, and any meaningful action on that will require international action

 

[Zardnaar]

You are basically taking the position nothing can be done. If that is the case then we are doomed to repeat (well rhyme with) the social upheaval of the first half of last century. I was hoping the international class had learned that lesson last century. Well many of them have hence the debate going on at high levels around the world.

You can do something but incrementally. Revolution will likely fail and lead to an even worse situation. Putting the taxes up on the rich, regulating the finance market and breaking up some corporations for example.

 

[Zardnaar]

It did. It ended (when things stabilized) with the 50s and 60s.

The 50's and 60's were an aberration in the grand schme of things. The only reason it worked (briefly) was.

1. Wages doubled in the US in the war years
2. The defeated countries were in recovery, once they recovered and made consumer goods instead of weapons (cars for example), US started to struggle.
3. Certain countries were mostly excluded form the world economy (China, USSR), or were still developing (India).
4. The population was smaller, oil was easier to get (600 million benefited the most).
5. The elite made a social contract as they needed bodies for the war. A generation later the new elite/economic philosophy went in a more neo liberal direction after 1973.

What usually happens is the extreme left or right go to far left or right and the other side takes over for a generation or so. Here the old unions lost massive public support as they got paid more than most and kept going on strike with rolling strikes during times such as holiday season which annoyed everyone else who voted in neo liberal MPs who then smashed the unions power. A rolling strike is when the rail road workers might go on strike but then are joined by teachers or port workers "in support" etc and everything grinds to a halt. Part of this was also unions focused on various other causes that also did not put money in their members pockets so why pay union fees when financially you are better off not in said union. The union I was in struggled to get a 3.75% pay rise (it was technically 5% but no back pay), I left said union and got 10% and didn't have to pay union fees.

This is also why the left is getting nailed on identity politics. Its not that some people who voted for Trump are raving racist lunatics but the lefts focus on all these special interests groups (minorities) comes across as "you don't care about us and we're struggling as well". Basically if you are to rich to get government help/handouts and don't qualify for the riches tax cuts and/or tax avoidance the left comes across as annoying (BTW I voted for the left).

Most of the time left vs right boils down to who can bribe the middle class the best. If they lurch to far left/right to fast they get voted out (I suspect this is the GoPs fate in 2020).

Note that everything else we have tried since we stopped being hunter gatherers you always end up with an elite at the top regardless of social structure. Even in Communism the rich get replaced by party bureaucrats (who then become rich).

 

[Estebonrober]

You can do something but incrementally. Revolution will likely fail and lead to an even worse situation. Putting the taxes up on the rich, regulating the finance market and breaking up some corporations for example.

Yea I'm not talking about revolution. We are discussing raising top marginal rates and making essentially a national property tax on the very wealthy.