A Perfect Storm is Brewing

[eighthobstruction]

I've emailed several of the current affairs prog's ref "How is the COOP coming out of this"....no cheque in the post so far....

[eighthobstruction]

the reason we don't do these things you already know....the people at the top don't want them to happen, and the current system maintains the status quo very nicely.
Seriously, why do we still have tiny elites controlling land, banks, administration, politics etc? why do we still have a monarchy?
how many judges or top bankers went to comprehensive schools?

WHY ??....because otherwise there wouldn't be any top class call-girls....

[greenilex]

Try the Coops uk website, the Co-op Group website etc. etc.

You will find that ethical behaviour is its own reward, as Gran used to tell us.

Triodos is good too.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

well fred the shed did not use call girls; it was the 'Human Resources Director' over the desk eh .....

[aeolium]

Can anyone see a conclusion to this economic crisis that is not catastrophic? It does seem as though all we have is a choice of which of the Apocalyptic horsemen to hitch a lift with.

This is Paul Mason's summary, comparing this crisis with that in 1931.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

er no i can not aeolium ... as i said in another thread politicians do not deal with this kind of problem in advance, the solution comes after the crash when the interest groups stop clinging to the entrenched positions ... [don't wait start the revolution now]

start transaction taxes now .... not just on forex, but on all share and bond transactions of less than 72 hours [millions of share swaps going on in milliseconds] ... this will raise £$£$£$£$£ etc but also SLOW the panic as the algorithms kick in at the speed of light .... as somebody said it is actually the markets that are the problem ..... [eg Soros's feedback model]

second enforce a clearing house accounting of all CDF obligations [bet no one knows who owes what to whom etc] and freeze their issuance unless capital is a positive ratio of 3 to CDF and other obligations

switch QE from buying bonds into clearing all PFI, begin investing in energy conservation, brown field and stock renewal housing [employs more tradesmen and not popular with the robber barons of the big builders]

start a land tax regime

regulate derivative markets

merge the 'owned banks' [N Rock RBS etc] and the Post Office .... mutualise this body and pay every government cheque into/through it

Mason's thought that major finance is effectively nationalised and taken away from the market is an idea whose time has come ..

regulate food utility and transport prices tightly for five years [watch out for food]

cap council tax [and local parking charges]

scrap all charges for public education and reintroduce support grants


in a phrase make life for the squeezed middle as cheap as possible and as expensive as possible for big finance until it pays it all back ...

raise the thresholds for corporation tax for small enterprises etc ... form business credit unions [best track record of lending to small business is small business run credit coops]

continue to savagely prune public spending on idiocy [major IT, big Defence, Blair thought police legacies etc]

regionalising health, education, justice and condensing existing unitary authorities into eight or so regional governments would offer a lot of savings, increase accountability and destroy the madness that is Whitehall ...

and pigs might fly


your survivalist bunker or the street take yer pick ...

[Serial_Apologist]

Can anyone see a conclusion to this economic crisis that is not catastrophic? It does seem as though all we have is a choice of which of the Apocalyptic horsemen to hitch a lift with.

This is Paul Mason's summary, comparing this crisis with that in 1931.

2 other things I believe worthy of mention:

1) In the 1930s working class communities had not yet "bought into" the false idea of the consumerist paradise, which has turned out to be a trap.

2) The Tories under Thatcher foresaw all this as the longterm consequence of ideological capitulation to globalised liberal economics, which is why they made sure to emasculate the working class's main means of collective self-protection (with all their inadequacies and imperfections), namely the trade unions, while at the same time ensuring to featherbed the own class's protection for when the time came, which is now.

S-A

[Serial_Apologist]

Calum

Can you provide a quick simple definition of CDF obligations and QE for dunderheads like me, Please?

[aeolium]

S_A, as a fellow dunderhead, I have found animated explanations like this one quite useful, at least re concepts like collateralised debt obligations and credit default swaps. The sequel to that short film is that then governments have got into trouble taking over the potentially huge debts of the financial institutions (and the weaker ones finding it difficult to borrow in the current credit squeeze). Growth has ground to a halt over much of the world, which further imperils the debtor countries, and the UK has now attempted twice to jump-start the economy with QE (quantitative easing or printing money so that businesses and people can borrow and spend more).

Calum, lots of good things there, but I'm not sure how we could regulate the prices of food, utilities and transport as most of those are out of the government's control (without massive subsidies which might bankrupt us).

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks A - that useful clip explains it, (Quantity Deficit Financing - Quantative Easing) though I'll need a second take on it.

In 1976, in response to a run on the Escudo, Portuguese bank workers physically prevented bank managers from taking currency out of the country. With the automated investment systems now running, never mind the quick click of a mouse, it's hard to see that being an option today. I'm just wondering how slowing bond transactions of less than 72 hours (calum's suggestion) can be forestalled.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

... well a lot of Kings of England had no difficulty controlling prices and usury! ... difficult i know but the level of purely speculative interest in energy and tradeable commodities in the future markets is a real driver of prices as recent famines have borne out and we could easily face marked inflation in food prices in the UK ...... excuse me quoting the same quote here as on the spare a £5 thread ...

SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS

This is information that I think our friends on Wall Street did not want to come out. It is supposed to be top secret information. And in fact, many of the folks on Wall Street were very disturbed that we made it public.

The reason that we made it public is we wanted to end this debate about whether or not excessive oil speculation is driving up gas and oil prices.

The answer is, when you have companies like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley owning and buying and selling hundreds of millions of barrels of oil, dominating the oil futures market, there is no more debate. Excessive speculation is one of the reasons the price of oil is where it is today.

We have got to do what Congress passed legislation to do, and that is mandate that the Commodities Futures Trading Commission end excessive speculation, and have limits on how much these companies can own.

and another from the same source

Without government deficit spending, the private economy would be generating growth right down there with house prices and unemployment rates. Without government deficits, the corporate earnings that floated Wall Street would be negative, even with the brutal downsizing they have undergone to keep their bonuses up on the top floor. Government deficits have saved this economy. Those who work on Wall Street or in corporate America and play holier than thou with regard to government spending don’t know what they are talking about, or are being cynically malicious.

as far as Tobin taxes on forex and stocks trading .... these are now totally computerised transactions with extensive archives to enable clearing and present a highly operable tax base .... period of ownership of the stock is clear and i am proposing to pretty much take any gain out of trading for periods of less than 72 hours by tax, millions of trades scarcely manage 72 seconds .... the casino is the problem ....


Monbiot in today's Graun describes the work of Steve Keane who argues that the idea that is the basis for most analyses of the Great Slump are wrong it was not the availability of base money [what the banks have to start with]

He proposes an entirely different explanation for the Great Depression and the current crisis. Both events, he says, were triggered by a collapse in debt-financed demand. Aggregate demand in an economy like ours is composed of GDP plus the change in the level of debt. It is the sudden and extreme change in debt levels that makes demand so volatile and triggers recessions. The higher the level of private debt, relative to GDP, the more unstable the system becomes. And the more of this debt that takes the form of Ponzi finance – borrowing money to fund financial speculation – the worse the impact will be.

Keen shows how, from the late 1960s onwards, private sector debt in the US began to exceed GDP. It built up to wildly unstable levels from the late 1990s, peaking in 2008. The inevitable collapse in this rate of lending pulled down aggregate demand by 14%, triggering recession.

i take this as another way of arriving at the conclusion above that rebuilding working class wealth is one of the key moves to make, not financing the casino - which is all that the big banks really want to do with our dosh


btw it becomes somewhat clearer that the German Govt does not give a whit about the Greek Government Debt or default, they do not want to spend their Euros propping up the exposed Anglo American banks ...[nor French banks] this suggest they feel their banks are either ok or supportable .... underneath the moralising hausfrau approach to debt is a viciously calculated self interest ... remind you of any one? it is going to get very interesting as the wraps come off ....

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

more on Keen

... and a Marxist prioritises profit in the debt/credit debate

[Serial_Apologist]

more on Keen

... and a Marxist prioritises profit in the debt/credit debate

There seems to be some confusion going on. Value - the accumulated individual and social input of labour power embedded in produce from the beginnings of making things - is not automatically synonymous with profit. Profit only comes in from what's left over after realising exchange value through sale: coinage being monetarised value; value including its own socially averaged labour hours plus a bit over (surplus value) to keep the unproductive provider of jobs + family in being. Exchange value hinges on earning power, earned power, in turn dependent on the pecking order. The value would not be there without the labour expended in producing in the first place - turning that into profit was once (in theory at least) a function of competitiveness and competitiveness of regulating the one variable in the hands of the capitalist - how much surplus value s/he's prepared or forced to pay in wages to refuel that indispensable essential to their elevated status, the workforce. However, monopolisation outdated the "classic model" (Adam Smith, Ricardo et al) as soon as some businesses became powerful enough to fix prices and outbid small businesses in the all-round need to access credit. Through this same controlling hand, monopoly, credit effectively transcends this in-the-first-place inequitably evening out process of production and distribution according to profitable criteria, itself susceptible to periodic overproduction, price collapse and resulting unemployment due to unplannable cyclicity, by virtue of its detachment from any monetarisability of value.

There have been several threads on here over the months dealing with the way expanding or contracting the money supply proceeds disregardful of monetariseability relative to solid production and sale, to become the main (and now sole) means of regulating inflation. As I understand it, inflation reflects the underlying truth of money in circulation exceeding the labour-value inhering in products, before this value is even realised. Behind it thus lies this growing mismatch between value, realiseable value (sale), and how money no longer reflects either, but has become a bargaining chip between federal reserves, competing banks, and creditors of every kind able to profit from short term gains by investing in it.

I don't think the situation will be solved until a new system of money is devised reflecting more authentically and equitably the value of human labour, as invested in environmentally sustainable product as use values in socially monetarised and agreed exchangeable form. The stuff is there to be made, we all know what needs to be prioritised before trinkets, let's sweep away the parasites and get on with it; money in the guise it has assumed stands in the way.

[teamsaint]

S A...I think I agree with you absolutely..trouble is I have literally just finished work after 14 hours and 450 miles....and you post is just too long to read after that !!

Still, doing my bit to keep the old economy spinning....god knows why..to keep the bosses in their 6 figure package jobs I suppose.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks Teamsaint! As for myself, I'm now retired, and able to expend socially useless hours in pontification, trying here to write my understanding of Marx's theory of value and the difficulties of applying it to capitalism as it is in today's particularly wasteful form. In so doing I now feel I have inflicted a harmless, badly expressed load of verbiage onto the readership, who might better be advised to ignore it, as I now realise, a few beers later.

Best of luck with the job!