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Forum Post: Rentier Parasitism

Posted 5 years ago on July 20, 2018, 9:41 a.m. EST by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX
This content is user submitted and not an official statement

"With the Dow over 25,000 the idiot class of parasites say the economy is booming. Nowadays there's very little investment in the production of useful goods and services happening on Wall St. Speculators, short term stock trades, real estate transactions, lending at interest and most financial activity invest in nothing. They skim profit from the system, while making money from money and growing nothing but inflation of the prices we pay for goods and services.

"Such 'rentier' activities are parasitic, technically. They weaken the host economy and threaten the culture they afflict. This parasitic disease is a threat to our existence. And the fools still say high stock prices are a sign of vitality."

recycled from Rentier-Parasitism-Destroys-Free-Market-1-3-18

"... No one knows where the tipping point for any crisis will come from. I am not claiming I do. But the charade that current stock market valuations represent will be seen through some time soon. Those values are being maintained by Ponzi schemes. And such schemes always end in tears."

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2018/07/richard-murphy-stock-markets-look-ever-like-ponzi-schemes.html

31 Comments

31 Comments


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[-] 4 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 5 years ago

Wall St. traders weaken the host economy and threaten the culture they afflict. This parasitic disease is a threat to our existence.

[-] 2 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

$29 Trillion is the real size of the 2008 Bank Bailouts from one estimation ...

As QE (Quantitative Easing = Queasing = Sickening) is all but forgotten about, the truth is Parasitic High Finance / Low Ethics Crapitalism is the the new norm! For example, compare and contrast the following:

Americans have long been and are still being Mind Managed, in order to forget and ignore the egregious and fanatical Kaputalism that they are being subjected to. However, it is a very good sign now that many woke Americans are now getting over their self-defeating, deep programming against Socialism ...

The stone cold truth is that Bernie Sanders would have beaten tRUMP ... all day & everyday & twice on Sunday! DJT ran with a bunch of Bernie plans & proposals such as Healthcare For All & Less Empire & Troops Home From Abroad & Use The Money On Infrastructure etc.& the US 99%, when faced with the prospect of a known Neoliberalism At Home and Neocon Imperialism Abroad, espousing Hellary Rotten Clinton - went with The Devil They Didn't Know!! Bernie'd beat tRUMP again - but HRC'd lose, imo. The People need a Real Choice & U$A needs a 3rd Party that is NOT Corporate Co-opted & CON-Troll-ed!!!

respice, adspice, prospice ...

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

I can't fathomably understand how anyone could reason that executives should now be entitled to worker tips. They have billions of dollars, but they can't resist knocking down a grandmother for the dollar on the sidewalk? Obviously the reason those jars are filling up is because Americans KNOW without our help those workers can't possibly pay bills. Because we are far more charitable than their own employers. So realizing their own workers can't afford rent cars or food, wallstreet looks at their sad little donation jar and goes...that should be ours? May I remind them without workers, they have no business. We haven't yet invented robots to replace servers...you know some big busted androids wearing titty t shirts and orange shorts so until then perhaps ws needs to start realizing who it is that butters their bread . Obviously workers need to organize more WALKOUTS and STRIKES as well as customers need to start boycotting companies who mistreat workers. And truck driver is the number one male job in this country. It can't be outsourced. So of course wallstreet needs to find ways to subserviate and cut their pay by smashing up trucker unions and attempting to turn it into yet another minimum wage or subcontracted job as well as going after DOT regulations that keep our roads safe and subsequently keep truckers pay higher than other jobs. They want to cut overtime pay...work them past their bedtime and on and on. UPS drivers don't just drive those guys are hauling around heavy stuff all day with ever increasing demands of online delivery wallstreet doesn't want to pay truckers their fair share of profits...to the men ( and women) who do the hard work of actually doing the work...but want to retaliate on them for having the nerve of being paid a fair percent. This is disgusting. And WS is busilly paying off union leader fat cats to comply with this insanity and the DOJ and DOL turns a blind eye to the corruption. The enforcement that once protected workers from such abuses is gone. Workers are citizens as well as consumers. We are the key ingredient to WS functioning...yet the CEO gets all the credit and pay for what? Constructing the illusion of innovation while cutting back on the wages and dignity of "The Help" Perhaps that is how mummy and daddy treated treated their nanny, maid, and pool boy. But American worker are not the pool boy ...we are this economy. We are your wealth...so pay up buttercups...because we can also DESTROY you. Our tolerance goes so far and the pushback is coming. Watch and see.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

''Constructing the illusion of innovation while cutting back on the wages and dignity'' of workers is a brilliant sentence! Thanx & consider:

Also fyi, ''The fact that paying people enough to live is considered a “radical, far-left” position says more about the current state of our nation’s politics than it does mine.'' from:

fiat justitia ...

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Thanks, but I think it is just the truth. I think Einstein was on to something there in your link. I would go slightly further to say there is a real sickness under at heart of this which has created a ripple spreading the idea that we are all responsible for our own predation.

This says a lot about those in power. Let's say there is a spectrum in each of us at the far right is self protection at the far left is empathy. When we have become afraid or traumatized the spectrum shifts right. The worse the trauma, the further to the right we go. Empathy becomes harder the more self protective we become. Nature has given us a built in defense system which balances our social needs with our individual needs ( which Einstein discusses the balance between society and ego me but doesnt hit on where psychologically this exists in us) i think it it is this sort of shifting fluctuating spectrum between empathy and self protection we all have built into our brains. And I think this is especially interesting because we have constructed society to reflect the very way are brains are also set up. We have recreated the left right empathy system based on how much self protection vs how much societal responsibility and empathy we feel. And it makes me really think we have physically mapped out our psychic brain system within our greater societal system.

So we are able to feel empathy when we aren't in a state of danger or fear. For a child who has suffered the worst types of predation sexual abuse, torture, they not only are taught they are responsible ( in a country preaching about winners and losers and especially toughness and manliness) they now are locked on the side of self protection reinforced with the idea that it is their responsibility to subserviate others in order to prevent further predation as well as to "win" and take something back which they lost.

I really believe the individuals capable of eating the steak dinner in front of the starving man can be cured. But we who are capable of less self protection and therefore more empathy must begin to unwind and intervene and to have enough empathy to understand the very sickness eating our nation. It is a crisis but one still buried deep beneath the surface. Children are being victimized, we are not doing enough to prevent this or intervene and heal them in the aftermath.

We look at all the shootings, we look at the state of things, and these hurt men in charge and we somehow can't make sense of it. The answers are there, if we choose to see. It is a viscious cycle. I truly believe if you look at evil throughout history those men who became monsters didn't spring from evolution or from some genetic fuck up. Deep in their psyches was a monsterous wound which damaged their self protection system and destroyed their capacity for empathy. We don't like to think of this...it is easier to think these monsters spring from some evil ether...than to realize there is something society and good people are failing to prevent.

If you begin to make this equation...the larger picture starts to make sense. For instance racism: if a child's then adult's self protection system is on overdrive all the time...their intuition can't work properly...when everyone is a threat how do you decide who to fear vs who is safe? They can't rely on gut feelings since thse are stuck in fear and sensing everyone as threat...so they begin to attempt some formula by which to categorize threat. (And of course culture and nurture also mold). Inside they are flailing in chaos and fear, grasping at straws to aid their broken operating systems. If this is true, it means there is a solution. But first must come the recognition of the root problem beneath it all: These men were victims of predators as helpless children attempting to survive doing the best they were able to do with few resources, with no help, in a society that is turning a blind eye to the problem. Some of them don't make it, they take a gun and shoot children in schools ( the very symbol of their own vulnerable failed self/ as they see it). Others become a symbol of success and source of guidance to those like them and lead the world into genocide.

And what is worse is this damaged goods stigma we have attached to molestation. Yes they did suffer damages, but which are curable with the proper treatment and help, and their symptoms nor victimization are not in any way their faultand while they do have a responsibility as adults to address and heal themselves, we as a society have an equal responsibility to make that easy for them to do. ( currently it is the opposite) Their suffering doesn't have to be permanent and if it doesn't get healed that suffering could spread in the form of shootings, and terribly flawed leaders we see today. At one point Bill Maher made the equation that none of these shooters could get laid and appear to hate women. Yet it is common for victims of sexual predation to resent their mothers or other female figures for failing to see or help, as well as of course to not want or seek out relations. Others develop sexual addictions, or confusion, and hyper focus attempting to feel something they cant. Junot Dias describes this reaction in his article The Silence regarding his sexual abuse and as well has been accussed of mysoginizing women. Because they are survivors they are strong and many have great stamina to succeed as well as thrive. But we also misdiagnose the more obvious negative symptoms and problems for ADD, Oppositional Defiance Disorder (which ODD is just plain the most ridiculous invention period, any child exhibiting such symptoms was in the wrong place with the wrong person and it is time to find out who and seriously investigate and get to the awful truth to prevent their life from spiraling down before it is too late) and anything else under the sun because parents and maybe even psychologists really dont want to believe the awful truth...this is also known as Safe World Syndrome when we can't envision that the world can be such an unsafe place or such things can and do frequently occur. We often would rather blame the victim as stupid or careless than to recognize such dangers exist. Yet the numbers are 1 in 6 men will suffer sexual abuse as children ( this is also just the ones being reported). So that is a huge chunk of society. ( 1 in 4 for women...though it may be slightly easier for them to get help and a bit less stigma). So...

If I look at Trump and others in this light...to me their wounds are visible and on plain display. The question is, what do we do about this? And for the left we need to look at our own wounds do we need to have a bit more self protection and set down some empathy? Is more empathy always best? How do we balance empathy with enough self-care?

Two great resources:

The Gift of Fear

The Human Magnet Syndrome

[-] 1 points by gsw (3406) from Woodbridge Township, NJ 5 years ago

I must say we could learn from other Cultures such as China, where although it is a diffrerent system, I have not encountered fear of crime, or the diseased overabundance of weapons of mass destruction, vis a vis guns, and the profit driven media, haven’t missed much of the insanity of Trumperica. I advise get out of Kansas, and smell the tulips, and we should join with other humanities to solve our problems, such as the crime of Central America. How can we not call this, a national threat, and also downloadable untraceable guns? WTFus? We need a coalition of thinking real humanists to help us out of our deeply heaped shirt piles of negative existence we have perpetuated on ourselves for someone’s profit.

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 5 years ago

This says a lot about those in power

Since the hunter gatherer culture, which was successful for hundreds of thousands of years, devolved to civilization starting about ten thousand years ago, our leaders have consistently betrayed us. It doesn't have to be that way. But the warriors won the wars and decent human beings have been pushed aside.

Thus we live in perpetual original sin!

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 5 years ago

The Medieval Droit de Seigneur. By Tony Perrottet

"As if it wasn’t bad enough being born a feudal peasant. Not only did you have to put up with a lifetime of squalor, toil, and gruel, but your landlord would elbow in on your wedding night. Before any peasant marriage could be consummated — so legend holds — the blushing bride had to be delivered up to the castle, where she would be forced to sacrifice her virginity to the brutish master. Often referred to as the droit de seigneur, or seigneurial right (although more properly called the ius prima noctae — the “right to the first night”),..."

https://thesmartset.com/tag/feudal-privilege/

[-] -3 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

I wish you knew paragraphs.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

And "I wish U knew" the difference between your (..x..) & your e|_bow. Better to consider..

verum ex absurdo!

[-] -3 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

Well, he replied using paragraphs, so elf3 is learning.

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Yeah...I need a better keyboard, but im open to change and accommodation. Also I'm a woman.

[-] -2 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

That's pretty awesome. Most here are stuck in their ways.

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Thanks being a woman is awesome Ha. I think they are passionate and have already done a ton of thinking.

[-] -1 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

Sure, being a woman has many advantages.

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Perhaps you should try it although... unfortunately ws disagrees...I really can't get over the disgusting hardees ads of women simulating bj's on a cheeseburger and horrible objectification involved. I like to think woman are not just a walking pair of breasts and sex hole but sadly our president seems to and later appointed their ceo as labor secretary. That really sends a message to all other men that this is the norm and acceptable to regard women as porn objects built for male pleasure. And actually that mindset is dangerous to our safety in America. If we can we walk alone at night be taken seriously at work etc. So yeah has its ups and downs. I think porn has been highly damaging to women...worst thing to happen in this world.

[-] -2 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

I am a lady.

Your views are quite conservative. I'm surprised you aren't a lover of the GOP.

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Trump ran pageants. Um his robot wife ( man that disgusting jacket stunt). The GOP ( otherwise known as the Old Boys Club OBC) do women no favors. They don't want to regulate porn to help women...they just want a piece of the profits and I suspect it is another chance to loudly point out and compare us to whores. Eve comparison/ corrupting innocent men and such nonsense we have to hear from all those icky Evangelical preachers (who usually we find out have sexual addictions and hate for themselves as they tearfully confess but still find a way to insinuate and blame women for their lack of self control). Any chance for that whore comparison...they just salivate.

They also have environmental policies which pollute our environment and bodies...ovaries, our eggs, our breast milk, our children, developing hormones are quite vulnerable. They won't even regulate products nor especially tampon ingredients. Currently they could add toxic waste and no law says they can't even though we basically ingest whatever is in them month after month (yeah what the fuck is Infinicel? Oh it is a trade secret which requires no studies to test for safety so woman and teenage daughters are the lab rats for it I guess) meanwhile they can't seem to stop regulating the Pill which helps balance hormones and simply pauses egg release. (So how come they dont legislate shower drain meters to measure men's release of life creating sperm?) Anyway skin absorbs chemicals from water, shampoos, cleaners, makeup, not even mentioning gmo preservative laden foods etc which all interferes with our hormones (and i doubt those unhealthy fat ass/ out of shape/ cigar smoking/ viagra taking schlubs- care/ nor make the association - but the entire functioning of the human body depends on hormones to operate). Autoimmune diseases and miscarriages in women have been exploding. Autism and allergies in our kids. Not to mention our lack of time, lack of pay, being stretched in every direction and STRESS of this economy. So forget about global warming...we are being slowly killed off in the now.

We see the future (actually the present) wallstreet is creating and it isn't good. WS and GOP ( have mergered / Dems not far behind which is why we rejected Hills in favor of the Bern). Women are also socialists...we want upward mobility for our children and we are innately aware of the social conditions we inhabit...the more chaos and destruction and downtrodden the less safe the world we and our children must walk through...as well as we are geared to empathize with our fellow humanity. Slave and child labor especially enrages our "delicate senses". Is it any wonder the GOP/WS seeks to marginalize us - woman stand in opposition to their every agenda.

Women are the highest voting population. No matter what your aim is here. Trump will never see a second office if he doesn't get impeached first. I'm not worried. Our female brains naturally make associations and have strong intuition. Awareness is the mother of intelligence and they can't hide the truth from us (despite how stupid they portray us) we have keen awareness. You are too late for him or the GOP or WS. It's a Woman's world now. This was their last look ...FIN.

[Removed]

[-] 1 points by agkaiser (2516) from Fredericksburg, TX 5 years ago

Sadly, I believe most Americans are complicit in their "mind management." They don't want to know the truth. They want to continue to benefit from the big lie, if they're in the top 10%. If not, they want to believe they have opportunity and real hope or they think it's hopeless, have given up and fear it could be worse, should they rock the boat.

In other words: Trump's not the moron. He's a cynical and totally unscrupulous con artist that plays the morons.

[-] 1 points by ImNotMe (1488) 5 years ago

It's only after decades of RW Mind Management that most Americans are deeply complicit in their own enslavement. When U say that ... ''They don't want to know the truth" ... U are implicitly referencing the phenomena of COGNITIVE DISSONANCE and CONFIRMATION BIAS but the former is now the most significant for sure.People don't want to wake up to the fact that they have been conned and so stick to the fiction that all is OK & U$A is, "the greatest country on Earth"! U are almost right about tRUMP imo, he IS ''cynical and totally unscrupulous con artist that plays the morons'' but, he is a fkn moron too! Fyi:

e tenebris, lux?

[-] -3 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

People are simple. They fight when they don't have what they want, then they stop caring about others when they do have what they want. Look at Jart. She was highly invested in OWS at the beginning. When she got a job at Google she stopped caring about the movement and became happy drinking fancy wine and earning a 6 figure salaray. Human nature.

I'm betting if you had a great job you'd do the same.

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

That may be true...but money doesn't fix the emptiness of American life. The ugly paved plazas, the emptiness of our meaningless jobs, the ennui of our hollow competative culture while we drag off to the drudge so we can eat polluted poisonous food and sleep in our third world slave made sheets. Is a good paying job the answer, or is it just more of a pain in the ass and more exhausting to maintain? People don't connect anymore, they don't have time to think anymore, critical thought is going extinct, conversation is small and superficial, and stuff gets old quick or falls apart and breaks or the novelty wears off. People are too busy trying to survive, trying to be or get free in a world that is becoming less and now a fish bowl and social experiment of the one percent elite...as we get smaller and smaller rations and get squished into the corners of the tank being lead and controlled by those who have the entire idea of life wrong. We must be more, more, more, productive for the sake of one man's profits. People barely have time to sit on toilets as you enjoy pointing out...or to read their kids a goodnight story before they hit bed get a few hours of restless sleep and wake to the buzz of the cold alarm of groundhog day. If we do find freedom that doesn't include winning the lottery let's hope that it means there is a pathway for all of us to that open sea. I think that is what Occupy was trying to find...it was never about money, it was always about our quality of life and our time, and trying to find meaning in a world that WS has driven upside down. I think few of us really look around at what America has become and go "Wow...another beautiful bank. Another gawdy fast food chain! My look at all those enourmous billboards blocking that stretch of wilderness up yonder. Look honey another apartment complex replacing a forest! That's just what humanity really needs...another Starbucks! Yay dear war futures are peaking again! About time for another mass economic downsizing they sure read my mind I felt like some people were getting too close to catching up to us!" America needs a revolution to replace those in power who just can't see a better way than letting psychopathic constructs devoid of humanity siphen off and rule and RUIN and commercialize everyone and everything. Wallstreet is a cancer on society...Occupy is the cure.

And I would add socialism is the panacea to commercialism gone wild...America is long overdue.

[-] 1 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 5 years ago

"With the Dow over 25,000 the idiot class of parasites say the economy is booming.

PARASITES = ABSOLUTELY

The stock exchange does not help the AVERAGE person or even business - it INSTEAD feeds off of the AVERAGE persons input to make PERSONAL PROFIT for those who have been entrusted with the AVERAGE persons funds, regardless that those trades are increasingly all about the Investment GROUP's (not an individual's in the group or even any business) profits and they could give a damn if the AVERAGE investor in THEIR group goes bankrupt or not!

[-] 3 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Stress Management techniques up productivity and eventually pushes employees to attrition. The way ws booms is by:

Abusing workers

Downsizing, freezing pay, or cutting benefits

Upping prices to consumers

Upping bank fees and slippery practices (see subprime car loans)

Upping rent

So basically throttling and sucking dry our citizenry to feed their one percent gluttony

While wallstreet booms we nosedive.

[-] 1 points by beautifulworld (23767) 5 years ago

Burberry burned $38 million of goods to protect the value of their products.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/burberry-burned-millions-of-dollars-worth-of-unsold-stock_us_5b50c2abe4b0b15aba8ca9a7

This is a very harmful practice for the environment, yet it appears to be common.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/95179/luxury-brands-including-burberry-burn-stock-worth-hundreds-of-millions-each-year

"Mike Childs, from Friends of the Earth, told Sky News: “Burning clothes is a shocking waste of resources, showing no regard for people in the UK who have to scour charity shops to put a shirt on their back, nor to the millions overseas living in poverty.”

Parasites who think the world revolves around the wealthy few have no regard for other human beings or Mother Earth, only that their stock price goes up.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 5 years ago

(EDIT) Another category that should be added to the crimes against Humanity list (imo) - should be Pharmaceutical Drugs that are a last chance (at this very point in time) drugs that could POSSIBLY save or extend the life of a terminally ill individual - drugs that are passed by the FDA for that very purpose that are then released to the general population, even though the GENERAL population does not need them and the side-effects of these drugs (still under development) can in themselves be life threatening!

EDIT ->

Just one example of abuse of the unnecessary release of a life threatening drug to the general public to treat a "SYMPTOM" (not offer a cure) of a chronic (widespread through the body) illness, Which has not been determined to be fatal in and of itself, THOUGH at the same time can be severely disabling. Removing the pain of an illness that affects (attacks) the central nervous system - IS IN NO WAY SHAPE OR FORM = A CURE, in fact, masking the incredible amount of pain, is NOT a GOOD thing - BUT ACTUALLY AIDS THE ILLNESS by making someone less cognizant of the pain ( a single symptom - of an illness that affects the proper functioning of the WHOLE Body) - thereby allowing people suffering from fibromyalgia - to go beyond the physical limitations of the illness/disease and do more than they should be doing (physically) and so suffering more intense side effects of doing more than they should. Managing Fibromyalgia (with out a cure) - IS - learning to do things a little at a time (never to do to much at any ONE time) - as IT IS TOTALLY AT THIS POINT IN TIME OF LEARNING HOW TO MANAGE - if it hasn't gone away (by some miracle) in several months (on it's own) - it is NEVER at this point in time going to go away (there is NO CURE at this point in time) - so releasing a drug to mask a symptom = pain, while offering no chance at a cure, while threatening a sufferers life due to side effects of the drug = IS CRIMINAL !!!!

[-] 2 points by beautifulworld (23767) 5 years ago

Yes, this is done over and over again in the name of profit. Gross human rights violations.

We often forget that we have basic human rights through a social contract that our government has totally failed on for we the people.

[-] 2 points by DKAtoday (33802) from Coon Rapids, MN 5 years ago

Burberry burned $38 million of goods to protect the value of their products.

Another Category that should be added to the lists of committing crimes against humanity!

[-] 1 points by elf3 (4203) 5 years ago

Personally I am embarrassed to wear clothing with a label. It is so shallow base and1980's...and why would I wear swag and signage to advertise some company's overpriced over worn product? Do I look like a billboard? Do I wanna be a clone dressed like everyone else? It reminds me of the guy in a movie who pulls up in his manchild mobile with Stroke Me Stroke Me playing on is radio and doesn't realize he isn't cool but an asshole. And I'm not so much into sweatshop chique...but please keep wearing your Burberry trenches ws...it warns the opposite sex you're a shallow material dush. Saves a lot of time.

[-] -3 points by DavidJameson (-186) 5 years ago

Just live naked like DKAToday. Start your nude colony. Why wear clothes and support slave labour?