Until we meet again. Capitalism is fraud.

DW

My point in calling it a “game”, is that like any and all games, the rules can be changed, as we both agree that they must be changed.

It becomes deadly, as you properly suggest, when bereft of principle and humanity, and as I suggest, when the deliberately deadly and dead-making “game” of war is engaged to protect “access” to the perceived resources.

Need it be that way?

Of course not.

The question is, can “enough” of us realize the truth of that and imagine something better, more just, more humane, and more sustainable?

And then may we find the courage to insist upon that “something better” becoming manifest … rather than “manifest destiny” or other excuse for hegemony, for genocide, for plunder, for fraud, for manipulation and for the destruction of the planet’s capacity (or even its “willingness”) to continue to support human life?

You are absolutely correct in your contempt for deceit, Ludwig, but let us not bandy semantic evasions about, let us find words and concepts upon which we might agree.

What we seek cannot be achieved by force, but only through reason and recognition of common plight, recognition of common purpose, and recognition of a shared, common home, a wee, small planet in the immensity of universe of which our knowledge, grand as we might consider it, is like a mud puddle … compared to the vast ocean of our ignorance, our collective ignorance, our learned prejudice and far too ready willingness to make war, whether class war or bloody, endless war.

Too many imagine that the purpose of life is to “make” money, to make war, or to make “ends” meet …

It is not merely bread we need, but roses, too …

DW

[1] are we in such a huge hole because real money has gone chasing fantasies via fantastically leveraged bets and offshoring profits and all those kinds of 1% dodges?

and

[2] Does trillion dollar coin just restock some of what has been lost/offshore/stolen, actually just enabling further loser gambling/offshoring/theft?

The silence of these priests to the purpose of fraud #1 surely hints at the fraud of #2. The crisis has obviously passed beyond corruption. It has passed beyond “control fraud”. The capitalist fraud has corroded the belief system of its priests and their dreams only live in mockery and denial. They are prisoners of fraud and unable to confess.

They are entombed in deceit.

The system cannot happen upon self-correction — it is dedicated to perpetuation of fraud. One cannot stop this while denying to its victims its true aim.

Economics is a game.

Yes, you speak from that conservative understanding. You have left something out. Economics is a deadly game. The current situation is not the result of corruption. It is the end of a deadly game.

Moreover, the defrauded are arrayed before you and their ongoing delusion an execution in the deadly game.

The report and delineation of that ongoing fraud is essential.

And I am more and more troubled by the answer that was given to thatvisionthing @149.

I was more troubled by his answer to me @109.

Weren’t we all shouting in our messages to Congress before the 2008 banker bailout — DON’T DO IT!!! — and they went ahead and did it, “to save the economy”? And now we’re trying to save the economy some more, funny how we’re always in this same spot. How in the world can you guarantee a trillion dollar coin will be spent on wealth creation (jobs) and not more wealth corruption this time? Even if you could, it’s Congress, tweedledumb, get real.

Being circular here, @109 was reply to my @104, where I said the same thing. And if MMT’s trillion dollar coin is an ice-breaking concept to expand policy option thoughts, MY trillion dollar coin is an ice-breaking conceptualization on getting real. As in, can we?

And I am more and more troubled by the answer that was given to thatvisionthing @149.

As an alternative to gigantic moneyside inflationary moves, what would happen should the enormous student loan debt simply be forgiven? Debt has been forgiven before. Maybe the same problem for international investors. Yet, could it not be traded into services instead of entirely forgiven? Say, let those with this debt pay it off by going out and planting trees in the mountains, seeding the prairies, developing sustainable agricultural practices by rotating herbivores and mobile chickencoops on pastureland(labor intensive but it works!), building windfarms and solar arrays etc. etc. This would simply be an extension of the idea of teacher training programs, a little different from the CCC but serving a dual purpose of ‘paying down’ debt while improving infrastructure. (I think the author was suggesting programs something like this in some of his earlier comments.)

Again, excellent discussion, Bev. You don’t supply a comment thread (at least I didn’t see one) on your request for input so far. But I would say the salon is so good always, just keep on keeping on!

“Money” is simply a means, fraught with all you mention, of exchange based upon “trust” of “something” real and tangible behind it … and you are correct, it is the act of labor, the process of making useful things which it, ultimately, should and MUST come to reflect.

“Money” could simply be “trinkets of exchange”, like shells or beads, whose purpose is good will and the building of what might be hoped to be the construction of trust among those who “exchange”.

Economics is a game.

The “rules”, the conceptions and understandings behind that game determine how the game is “played”. Is it played with the understanding, for example, that the current players are merely borrowing the earth from distant descendants, say seven generations hence, or is it perceived as “evident proof” of God’s good graces, a cushy life, and a guarantee of entry to “heaven” by those who have amassed such huge amounts of “wealth” as to shown their “piety” and “goodness”? (In such a “view”, human kind is understood to hold dominion over the planet with no obligation of taking care of it … or each other.)

Simplistic, yes, I know, but I hope that we might understand that the fault does not lie in our stars, but in the poverty of our collective imagination, and lack of informed “conscience” at the center of our social mythology.

Remember, “we”, we citizens of the USA, are not “exceptional” by accident, it is what we “believe” beyond conviction, beyond doubt, and well beyond reason. We have been taught to “believe” … and that “belief” is what is used to manipulate and control both opinion and behavior, to the extent that we go to “war”, which is another “game”, in the “defense”, not of ourselves, but of the greater game of capitalism, to ensure the “freedom” of “free enterprise”.

Who may doubt, by this time, that capitalism is inimical to democracy?

What does that suggest?

Beyond the Shadow, who knows …?

DW