Reset The Economy: Delete The Debt.

reply to post by Aazadan


What's the alternative through Aazadan, considering the current financial meltdown we are experiencing?

I think it's plain for the eye to see that any and all currencies backed by debt are doomed to failure from the word go because it's completely unsustainable!

Its a house of cards/pyramid scheme scenario and they know this i'm afraid!

reply to post by MysterX


What makes you think the idiots in government wouldnt get nations back into debt the day after this little fairy tale reset was done?

The problem is government.

hey you watch
while no one was looking the us became ABLE TO BE a net exporter of oil

a reset would vanish the inflato bucks world wide and leave the USD asset backet at the price of a gallon of gas
world hegemony indeed

Or just keep ignoring it forever. Just keep printing more. Sure we will see dollar worth less but that's it's history anyway. Just increase wages to keep up and print more.

It is pretty clear the current financial system can only be held together by using more and more stop-gap methods which fly in the face of the ideals of system itself. As such, it is definitely time for a completely new system. Below are my ideas on how it should be structured.

1. On day one every country prints up new currency. How many units they are allowed to print would depend upon their population, productivity, resources and potential. The same is the only real backing of each currency. Underdeveloped countries would get additional funds to help modernize their countries. Fractional reserve banking would be abolished as would debt based government money creation. Government debt would be paid with new currency and savings and investment accounts would automatically replace current cash with the new currency at a ratio that preserved buying power.

2. Income tax would be eliminated. Countries would simply fund themselves by printing additional units of currency. The amount they would be allowed to print would be limited to a set % of GDP each year. I think with a solid financial system the majority of government spending could be eliminated thus this would be doable by expanding the money supply by only 3-4% a year. If more spending was needed then the printing required, wealth would be minimally taxed and corporations would be minimally taxed 9perhaps a flat tax based on revenues). Countries that make bad decisions would be forced to limit spending...no way out. The currency pegs would still remain equal giving them a chance to recover from their errors.

3. Along with the new financial system we would also need a new work paradigm. With the advent of technology, there simply are not enough profitable jobs available for the majority to earn a living income. Thus for all to be included in the economy we would have to look at shorter hours and jobs that aren't profitable but still benefit society. Desalination, alternative energy, beautification, social work, infrastructure, etc. are all areas where people are needed but since profit is hard to come by, the jobs don't exist. As time moves forward, the needs for labor will likely continue to decline at a furious pace. If we moved to a system of full employment at livable wages, eventually most families would be able to build wealth that would lessen the need for employment in the future. We could continue to live on our past spoils while letting machines do the majority of the work for us. So basically we need to design the system with forced savings which would soak up the excess funds which would otherwise cause inflation.

4. Such a system would still leave room for personal achievement and reward. The best would still make more. Those with the best ideas would be bestowed with large wealth. However, draining money through financial instruments would no longer be an option to accumulate wealth. For the system to be sustainable, some limits would have to be placed on the accumulation of this wealth. Monopolies on the money supply simply cannot be allowed or we come back to where we are now.

Gotta go, but hope to expound further when i have more time.

reply to post by sligtlyskeptical


Somehow we need to build a society with an economy that does not depend on currency in its present form to function and flourish.

Kind of like the way the Federation operates in the Star Trek fiction. But then again they have a bigger playground.

IMO - Do you realize that if that happened that human beings here would immediately experience what it is to actually WORK to survive in a way that we have not experienced for a long time? I'm not talking the tax payers that put in their 9 to 5 five to six days a week and gripe about everyone sucking their pay-stub dry - I'm talking about real WORK not a JOB probably for the first time in most peoples entire lives (young and old). It would be a COMPLETELY different paradigm being introduced too fast for people to process (I think many that want this because they hate insert this or that really just don't care or are not aware of the consequences). Real back breaking work or you DIE sooner than you will already - no McDonald's no Publix no Welfare no unemployment benefits or job services, no pensions no SS, no one building or providing anything unless it's for personal survival or out of the good of their hearts. Dare I say - at least in a sub conscious manner - the people would actually rather things continue as is.

It would be the end of an Age - and all Age transitions do not go smoothly (that's a serious understatement I think). People (in a collective sense) generally find paradigm change UNPLEASANT - and that makes people crazier than they already are.

In a perfect would I'd say do it and see everyone helping each other out. But it's not a perfect world. We are absurdly divided for (arguably) absurd reasons - and the arguing doesn't stop. It would be a friggin nightmare long before it would be a dream come true like many seem to think (Again - IMO).

It would bring a great amount of suffering here to an already suffering peoples - and I'm not one to say survival of the fittest (because that really means survival of the most brutal more often that not). I don't know what the answer is - I'd like to not have debt - but abolishing all of it at a national level? It would bring chaos. Is that what we need? Chaos?

reply to post by Floydshayvious


Out of chaos, comes order. A major paradigm shift is exactly what's required to kick start humanity.

Only thing is we need to do so in such a way that we don't lose our technological prowess. How we achieve said paradigm shift without destroying ourselves is the process in the real question?

reply to post by andy06shake


A new paradigm might be what's needed but I think you'd find it difficult to parrot Nietzsche chaos/order quotes and wink when someone is trying to eat you or kill you for something you have in such a horrible situation unless you can kill them first while somehow trying to find the order in that IMO.

reply to post by MysterX


Couldn't agree more!

If I'm not mistaken, this concept of periodically forgiving all obligations, (including debt obligations) was originally taught in the Old Testament book of Deuteronomy. I think it was called "the year of jubilee." Not to mention the part prescribing for a "sabbath year" where everyone takes every seventh year off from work.

Maybe that was part of the reason for the re-write. Kinda hard to justify capitalism, unfettered greed and slavery under those terms.

F&S for the OP!

poet1b
reply to post by iRoyalty

 

Did you know that "Fight Club" was released only to a very limited number of theaters, and had very little advertisement.

Warren Buffet hated the movie, and by that time the ICBs had gotten their claws into Hollywood, after Newt changed the laws so that ICBs could buy our nations media, and so the movie that had been created before the industry had gotten completely bought out, barely managed to escape, and Buffet actually has a degree of humanity.

"Fight club was a mule, not allowed to breed. This is why Hollywood stopped putting out movies with any real depth anymore. The same with music, literature, art, all mediocrities, because the truth must be repressed.

The dark figure behind the curtain desperately wants to keep this whole scam going, and is doing everything in its power to prevent the reset.

Did you know that everything you just said is a load of nonsense easily debunked by Fight Club's wikipedia article?

Fight Club - Theatrical Run

The studio held Fight Club's world premiere at the 56th Venice International Film Festival in September 1999.[50] For the American theatrical release, the studio hired the National Research Group to test screen the film; the group predicted the film would gross between $13 million and $15 million in its opening weekend.[51] Fight Club opened commercially in the United States and Canada on October 15, 1999 and earned $11,035,485 in 1,963 theaters over the opening weekend.[1] The film ranked first at the weekend box office, defeating Double Jeopardy and The Story of Us, a fellow weekend opener.[52] The gender mix of audiences for Fight Club, argued to be "the ultimate anti-date flick", was 61% male and 39% female; 58% of audiences were below the age of 21. Despite the film's top placement, its opening gross fell short of the studio's expectations.[53] Over the second weekend, Fight Club dropped 42.6% in revenue, earning $6,335,870.[54] The film, whose production budget was $63 million, grossed $37 million from its theatrical run in the United States and Canada and earned $100.9 million in theaters worldwide.[1] The underwhelming North American performance of Fight Club soured the relationship between 20th Century Fox's studio head Bill Mechanic and media executive Rupert Murdoch, which contributed to Mechanic's resignation in June 2000.[55]

The British Board of Film Classification reviewed Fight Club for its November 12, 1999 release in the United Kingdom and removed two scenes involving "an indulgence in the excitement of beating a (defenseless) man's face into a pulp". The board assigned the film an 18 certificate, limiting the release to adult-only audiences in the UK. The BBFC did not censor any further, considering and dismissing claims that Fight Club contained "dangerously instructive information" and could "encourage anti-social (behavior)". The board decided, "The film as a whole is—quite clearly—critical and sharply parodic of the amateur fascism which in part it portrays. Its central theme of male machismo (and the anti-social behaviour that flows from it) is emphatically rejected by the central character in the concluding reels."[56] The scenes were restored in a two-disc DVD edition released in the UK in March 2007.[57]

@OP: resetting the debt will bring the total number of dollars in the system to $0. So if we reset the debt, how are we going to pay for future expenses?

reply to post by Floydshayvious


This is also true all through i'm more lightly to be doing the killing and eating.

Chances are if we do indeed fall so far nobody will care to remember who people like Nietzsche was anyway so what does it matter what i'm quoting while killing and eating?

But hey human nature sucks, always has, probably always will unless we change it somehow for the better!

reply to post by Krazysh0t

@OP: resetting the debt will bring the total number of dollars in the system to $0. So if we reset the debt, how are we going to pay for future expenses?

By taking back control of our currency out of the privately run Fed Reserve and putting it back into the governments hands like it should be. We can print our own debt free money we just need to control how much is in circulation. It worked when Rome did it just like it worked when Franklin and Lincoln did it.

reply to post by buster2010


Hey, I never said I was against the idea. I was just pointing consequences of what would happen if what the OP was suggesting were to be implemented.

reply to post by Floydshayvious


Yes, it certainly would be a whole new world - the third world. Life would be nasty, brutish and short. There would only be enough time in the day to provide a subsistence level of existence for you and your family, and your family would perforce have to be very large again both to provide extra hands to help bring in the harvest and to guard against the inevitable many deaths on the way from infant to adulthood. Women would once again become only domestic servants and breeding partners to provide those many children.

Ghandi tried to do this in India. It was a massive failure and India is just now starting to climb out of that funk.

So, yes, you can be all over the noble simple life, but I think in the end, you really prefer modern life, we all do. Somehow, I think that health care, and a few modern luxuries are better than eking out a subsistence existence like you propose.

The part of that which is unfair though is to those who lived within their means, who bought only the house they could afford (or we renting to save up).

There is no great solution here and I understand that.

reply to post by Marid Audran


Here's the thing, in order to fix many (if not all) of the major problems affecting society, SOMEONE will suffer, SOMEONE will be left with the short stick. More than likely it will be someone who doesn't deserve it either. It is inevitable, we cannot please everyone all the time. The biggest problem with all of government's "solutions" is that they try to please everyone. Can't leave a demographic under the bus, they may not vote for you next election.

reply to post by Krazysh0t


You know what?

eff that! I'm done doing everything right if all I get to do is take it in the shorts. If there is no solution to be had here where I can avoid being made to suffer, then forget it. I don't want a solution. All I've been doing is being told I have to suffer more and more for the greater good, and I'm done with that.

ketsuko
reply to post by Krazysh0t

 

You know what?

eff that! I'm done doing everything right if all I get to do is take it in the shorts. If there is no solution to be had here where I can avoid being made to suffer, then forget it. I don't want a solution. All I've been doing is being told I have to suffer more and more for the greater good, and I'm done with that.

Sorry to hear that, but if it's not you suffering then it is someone else suffering. There aren't enough of the 1% to make them suffer for all of us to fix these problems, so SOME demographic that doesn't deserve it will take the brunt of it. For fairness though, it should be every demographic.

andy06shake
reply to post by Aazadan

 

What's the alternative through Aazadan, considering the current financial meltdown we are experiencing?

I think it's plain for the eye to see that any and all currencies backed by debt are doomed to failure from the word go because it's completely unsustainable!

Its a house of cards/pyramid scheme scenario and they know this i'm afraid!

Well, here's the first problem. There's not enough gold, silver, and gemstones in the world to back the USD as the worlds currency. There's just about enough oil but there's a practical problem there in that we use oil and the reserves decline daily. And a backed currency needs the commodity in reserve. We also don't control those oil fields so that's another problem. The petrocurrency only works for one nation as a result. When you have one nation with a stable currency and everyone else with an unstable one, wars erupt. The type of war that doesn't end until one side is wiped out. So, that's not really a solution either. You also can't simply eliminate the dollar and make a new dollar distributed half as much but worth twice as much purchasing power (the real measurement of the money supply) doesn't change.

My solution would be a dual currency system. Dollars and something else. I wrote a thread on it before and called them credits. It's a long thread so the summary is basically that instead of running with just one currency to purchase each item, we instead charge two. The first currency which is dollars remains unchanged from now. Stores charge what they want, people work for them, and so on. The second currency however would involve government price fixing. They would set the cost for every item, and it would only apply to non used goods. Additionally people would get a fixed amount of this currency every month, and fractional reserve banking with it would not be allowed and only people could own it (when charged at a store it ceases to exist, it doesn't go to the store). You could start it at say $500/person, and then everyone gets an amount per month equal to the amount spent. If there were 5 trillion total in the system and 4 trillion were spent one month, then that 4 trillion is evenly distributed among everyone the following month. If only 1 trillion were spent, then 1 trillion is evenly distributed. The amount of money in this system would expand/contract according to the population. Additionally exchanges would exist where people could buy/sell this currency for dollars.

I would also couple this with a reduction in the workweek to 25 hours.

The result of such a system would be the end of welfare, the end of planned obsolescence, a severe reduction in waste, a reduction in future debt increases, very low unemployment, the end of homelessness, better medications, and so on. Basically it gives everyone a worthwhile commodity to sell for basic needs or luxuries if they already meet those while at the same time eliminating the model of making many repeat purchases and goes back to the idea of making one good purchase that lasts a long time. And in doing so, solves the issues you're noticing.