Oddbean new post about login | logout I went to a major retailer today to do some grocery shopping. I always get sad seeing the older people (pensioners) shopping; browsing - with so few items in their baskets. I see how they look at the prices and look at the products, unable to afford things anymore. How the desire for a simple hake fillet is now out of their affordable range, when just two years ago they could have had a nice meal. The inflation in the past two years has killed so many, silently too. How many old people are going to bed hungry because their retirement savings is just not enough and they have to choose between a loaf of bread or cheese. utterly soul crushing to witness, everytime.
It's very sad that we've come this far.
time for a new system; where retirement funds aren't eaten away by rampant inflation caused by poor monetary policies. It's not even pensioners that are suffering, ordinary working class are struggling too. Pensioners just don't have any means to work, especially 70+.
Reading recommendation. https://i.nostr.build/kZLaz.jpg nostr:nevent1qqs2tyhjxyefzrlxuannh3hxa0632gxpmyku8f89n8hr526y5f5p6jcppemhxue69uhkummn9ekx7mp0qgsvmmxrr3kegphf5lttqpn5z24xv8vax8yqxhpl6ewqvvqarjkrhysrqsqqqqqpdfn5n2
It is sad but it also makes me mad… The generation that inherited so much abundance provided by capitalism then kept saying yes to every politician’s or government’s program, many of which were CLEARLY unsustainable from the start (self-delusion, can-kicking). Now, we all have to deal with consequences of them ignoring the reality that the capitalist system got replaced with socialism - a system that is unable to bring the abundance they now seek
I am really, really, curious. What makes you think that capitalism has been replaced by socialism and what do you think we have to do to return to capitalism?
I’m not using strict political definitions so my word choice maybe could have been better. We’re choking on the size of the bureaucracy in government but also in the corporate bureaucracy that exists due to the government bureaucracy that constantly creates new rules without fixing old ones. The choking is the reduction of abundance (wealth) caused by bureaucratic make-work which reduces actual productivity. The choking results in more rules that ultimately defend the wealth streams of the wealthy at the expense of those at the bottom of the economic ladder whose rungs are removed by the new rules.
Aha! Very good answer, thank you. To me what what you described is corporatism, thus the result of having oligarchs defended by rules of so called free economy that keep them wealthy to the expense of others and of public resources. But that's pure capitalism... Anyway thank you... You andwered a lot of questions i had.
do you really believe we have free markets?
That's a good question. There is a big effort to have free markets, that's for sure and to a big extend the way to the "free" markets has been covered. But right now there are some restrictions also. Another question is "do we know what free markets are?" Also "do free markets have something to do with freedom?"
I’d posit that we don’t have free markets. Banks get to loan money into existence. Why can’t we do that? Because we are not on the list of winners as picked by the (gov) regulators, who themselves are influenced (by those winners already on the list) to not let more people onto the winners list.
I agree with you, but officially when they say free markets, they mean free of regulations and mercantilism was the opposite, to give you a clue. So free markets are nothing more than the jungle law. They have nothing to do with freedom (except if you are an oligarch, similar to what you said)
I still don’t see a difference between Corporatism and Fascism. The bottom line is that all forms of government are really just named for where they BEGIN on the continuum of authoritarianism (vs libertarianism / anarchism) since they all suffer from the bureaucratic lifecycle, they all grow in size and authority until collapse or overthrown. We need to be able to constantly make new New Worlds where individuals and ideas can be freely exercised and demonstrated without permission from anyone else. Nostr and BTC hopefully provide the next New World we need!
Biggest fuck up was a) USD moving off the gold standard At that point all countries should have said "nah" and not used the US dollar as the base currency for oil, commodities etc. It just ain't it anymore and the inflation they caused got exported because of baseline input dollar prices.
