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Forum Post: Austerity 2016 v The Social Fabric

Posted 8 years ago on Dec. 25, 2015, 2 p.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

Politician: We must have austerity, to save the economy. You will have to tighten your belt. No more government handouts. Cuts to education, medicare, social security etc. Wage cuts in government and private sector will be necessary to assure recovery.

Skeptic: What recovery is that? The recovery of investor profits that suffer due to low [broke] consumer demand?

Politician: If investors don't make money they won't invest and the economy can't grow!

Skeptic: I see. The great OZ has spoken and said. "I will have all that's my due. That's all! There will be debt for you from me and thus you may continue to live, for so long as my terms are met. You're welcome!"

Good Citizen: Oh dear! No, no no! Markets are sacred and you may not pretend that the winners are responsible for your poverty and debt!

Randy Wray: "... Markets work to bid up the prices of scarce goods and services. Then only those with enough money can afford them. Polarizing gentrification and unequal public schools result from scarce land in preferred neighborhoods going to the wealthiest. Markets distribute much of the best output to the richest. Is that distribution consistent with community or 'family values'? During World War II, the United States rejected markets as means to distribute meat, coffee, sugar, gasoline and other products. Such goods were scarce because war production had diverted resources away from making them. Letting markets operate to distribute those scarce goods only to the rich risked undermining the social solidarity needed for war. ..."

from "Debunking the Magnitude of Markets: A Holiday Story" at Naked Capitalism http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/12/debunking-the-magnitude-of-markets-a-holiday-story.html

28 Comments

28 Comments


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[-] 3 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

Ever try selling a house lately? Money is so tight; the banks are loaning nothing out. Nobody is buying 'cause nobody can buy. What is going on? Maybe the big money running the banks are gearing up for a sweep up buy in which they'll pick up all these houses on the market which are not being sold way below real market prices. Then they'll turn around and rent them all out to the folks who otherwise would have bought them (if they could have gotten the loans.) Looks like folks need to get ready for a mega' screwing.

[-] 2 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

That's been happening in markets like San Francisco, Atlanta and most big cities for a couple of years.

See: "Invitation Homes, a subsidiary of investment giant The Blackstone Group."

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/wall-street-buyers-snap-up-thousands-of-local-homes-for-rentals/

FED ZIRP money is for their big bank customers, who want to loan it out as high profit credit card debt, not mortgages. Big investors get in on that by buying derivatives. Nobody uses 0% interest FED funds to help anyone but their greedy evil selves. The billionaires, banksters and their CEO ministers and wholly owned political class are the greatest enemy and threat the human race has ever faced.

It's them or us!

[-] 1 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

"Blackstone Group" sounds familiar. Sounds like the crime gang that is in with Lehman Brothers, et. al., and is bankrolling Clinton for election next November.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

Blackstone is growing in infamy. I don't care much for the Clinton brand but energy they keep away from the cons like Cruz, Rubio, Carson, Bush et al is positive. While Clinton is much too libertarian to be a good choice, she's not the worst case scenario by far.

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

Sounds like having to choose between Freddie Krugger, or Son of Sam. Geez. Looking more like we ordinary folks are certainly in for a mega-screwing.

[-] 0 points by turbocharger (1756) 8 years ago

Libertarian? I think you mean corporatist...

[-] 4 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

libertarian, corporatist, fascist: they're all pretentious ass-holes who believe it's ok to pillage lowly human beings because their superiority gives them the right. Ayn Rand was a man hating pseudo feminist moron and Milton Friedman sucked up to Wall St royalty. All of them are worse than the Clintons, who are somewhat ambivalent about the righteousness of capitalism and see the need for limits to the predations of the rich.

And if you think you can tell me what I mean, I think you only think you think.

[-] 0 points by turbocharger (1756) 8 years ago

"libertarian, corporatist, fascist: they're all pretentious ass-holes who believe it's ok to pillage lowly human beings because their superiority gives them the right. "

You could probably add capitalist and socialist in that opinion as well then I guess.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

capitalist is the heading under which the three are subsumed. Socialism is designed to take back what the rich have pillaged and thereby to make life better for we the victims - of capitalist billionaires and their minion banksters, CEOs and politicians.

[-] 3 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

The billionairs and banksters will never go for that socialism stuff. Neither would the CEOs, and the politicians who do would be shot.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 8 years ago

billionairs and banksters and politicians caring for the public:

Michigan governor apologizes for state's handling of Flint's water

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

no shit?!

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 8 years ago

Which is why Bernie's life is in real danger if he gets the DNC nomination and establishment HRC is told to sit down.

[-] 0 points by turbocharger (1756) 8 years ago

Lol they'll just put the Republican in there instead.

You guys and your false belief that the votes actually count are hysterical.

[-] 0 points by turbocharger (1756) 8 years ago

The CEOs that get to partner with the government will.

CEOs of companies that get their products approved and ran through medicare and medicaid, for instance, love the shit. Massive distribution after you lobby your way in and the tax payer foots all of it.

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

Corporatist? I think you mean creep.....psycho-creep...

[-] 1 points by turbocharger (1756) 8 years ago

Lol thats probably closer yes.

[-] 0 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

''Exposing BlackRock: Who's Afraid of Laurence Fink and His Overpowering Institution?''

radix omnium malorum est cupiditas ....

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

I note Larry Fink has an MBA with focus on Real Estate. Added info helping confirm my worst fears; that Fink and gang are indeed plotting a corporate takeover of the U.S. housing market, and quite possibly the end of family homeownership as we know it.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Re. Fink etc. please do consider - {further to my reply above!} ''How America Became an Oligarchy'':

The thing is ''homeownership'' for The 99% is desired by The 0.01% Parasite/Oligarch Class! BUT ONLY ON THEIR TERMS!! Which actually means - with Indentured Debt Bondage/Servitude at Usurious Rates of Compound Interest whereby a house is the lenders' property, until it's been paid for many times over!!!

et veritas vos liberabit ...

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

Larry Fink, the man behind the curtain? Certainly more powerful than any U.S. President or any other public politian on the globe. Is it maybe he who is the leader of the evil oligarchy out to bring the world under its repression? Now that he controls so much, he is no longer afraid to show himself?

[-] 0 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Seems like Lawrence D. Fink gets about a bit .. especially as wealth buys such privilege these days!

Welcome to the rarefied, secret world of American Oligarchy!! Consider: What Chance Democracy?!!!

''We must make our choice. We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.''[Justice Louis D.Brandeis,1941] and fyi:

multum in parvo ...

[-] 1 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

I suppose the next step is for the government to save some money by dropping elections.

[-] 0 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Sadly, that ''next step'' has already been taken I'd argue - although

I will let Mr. Greg Palast makes a much better case, than I could:

So they didn't ''save money'' but spent it so as to rig the outcome!

Usually it made li'l difference whoTF won BUT not in 2000 & again

I would argue in 2016!! Ergo, https://berniesanders.com/issues/ !!!

fiat lux et fiat justitia ...

[-] 2 points by Shule (2638) 8 years ago

But of course. Just think all this stuff like rigging elections, illegal campaign contributions, gerrymandering, etc. etc. can be eliminated simply by acknowledging the empire that is already in place, and letting the big boys who rule over us simply install the "Prez" they are going to put in place anyway. They can then take the money "saved" from the expenses of having fake elections, and use it to buy bigger yachts, and have more war orgies. We'll benefit too in that we can then drool so much more when in sight of those yachts, and have more opportunity to feel patriotic in knowing more bombs are being dropped and more people are being droned in the name of our great empire, err country. And maybe the Prez will get a few extra cents so that he can toss a few extra biscuts at, err to, the homeless.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 8 years ago

........err corp(se)oRATion......................

[-] 0 points by ImNotMe (1488) 8 years ago

Right & sigh :-( This is why USA needs a new broom to wipe away all the shit!!! There's no B-S in Bernie Sanders!! But IF there was - he would have to excise it & be .. Ernie Anders or become Bernice Anders!!

spero meliora ...

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 8 years ago

And so it goes . . .