The economy and our future: what happened, what IS happening, and what will happen next.

[dixiegrrrrl]

Brilliantly written one page article, very much a keeper, something I will save for my grandchildren so they can understand.

Covers how the IMF, the Fed, and international leaders developed the destructive processes that is impoverishing the entire world. It is a deliberate scheme.

I especially like this section, showing we are indeed just like Egypt, and why social unrest is probably inevitable:

"fiscal austerity’ is a state-implemented program of social destruction, or ‘social genocide’.
Such austerity measures include cutting social spending, which means no more health care, education, social services, welfare, pensions, etc.
This directly implies a massive wave of layoffs from the public sector, as those who worked in health care, education, social services, etc., have their jobs eliminated. This, naturally, creates a massive growth in poverty rates, with the jobless and homeless rates climbing dramatically. Simultaneously, of course, taxes are raised drastically, so that in a social situation in which the middle and lower classes are increasingly impoverished, they are then over-taxed. This creates a further drain of wealth, and consumption levels go down, further driving production levels downward, and (local) private businesses cannot compete with foreign multinational conglomerates, and so businesses close and more lay-offs take place. After all, without a market for consumption, there is no demand for production. In a country such as Greece, where the percentage of people in the employ of the state is roughly 25%, these measures are particularly devastating."

Highly recommend.

http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/2011/07/15/167/

[Possumpoint]

1. You Read The Article

and you'll see the parallel progression of indebtedness among countries and the resultant failure of countries to deal with the underlaying problems and their continuing efforts to cover up the end result. Politicians are very good at kicking the can down the road to prevent anything bad happening on their watch.

In all cases, debt is the problem and failure to stem and control it results in eventual social breakdown. Failure to reduce spending and/or raise taxes to balance spending results in additional debt. That calls for even higher levels of control and more backlash from the haves in any economy. We are being lied to and misled and we like it.

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. "We are being lied to and misled and we like it".

Sad but true.

[Warpy]

7. I said more than 10 years ago our system is unsustainable.

Everything Washington has done has been to apply tape to a falling house of cards. There is a limit to the time this can be done, as Hoover found out 80 years ago and that they're likely to find out in Europe just before we find out here.

Whenever laws and taxes are skewed to try to force an economy to work from the top down, it crashes. Whenever people think they can study the origins of poverty by looking at the poor, they fail. Whenever the rich resort to accounting tricks and phony money like derivatives to give them the illusion of increasing wealth in a troubled economy, they hasten its total collapse. And whenever a government thinks it can starve its population into fiscal solvency, it topples.

I'm afraid things are about to become much more interesting. Nothing has been done to prevent them from becoming so.

[Tippy]

3. K&R.....

[lib2DaBone]

4. It all goes back to 1913.. the creation of The Fed and Income Tax....

Maybe a little off topic.. but I ran into an interesting article about Col Edward House.... the close adviser to Pres Woodrow Wilson.

House... created the Council on Foreign Relations, the Federal Income Tax and told Wilson to hand over all money to the Federal Reserve Banksters.

The more I read about Col House.. the deeper the rabbit hole goes and I can see why our "economy" is a disaster.

Basically, we are all debt/wage slaves... and have been since 1913.


http://thecounterpunch.hubpages.com/hub/Colonel_House

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. So, it was the Colonel, eh?

I had heard that, some time back, don't remember where.
Thanks for the link.

[BeHereNow]

6. Wow! Excellent read Dixie! Wish more Duers would visit this forum.

Maybe you should post this in GD where it might get more exposure.
It really need to be read by as many people as possible.
BHN:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :kick: and recc'd

[dixiegrrrrl]

8. I hear ya. My concern was how fast threads fall in GD.

Whereas this forum tends to hold onto them longer, esp. if kicked.

I thought the article was such a PERFECT summary of the ENTIRE house of cards, from the beginning.
Lots of people have spent the last 5 or more years trying to figure out the big picture, and this guy's clear, concise, eminently readable article pulls it all together.

I was not kidding about keeping a copy, I made a pdf file of it for future reference and of course emailed it off to the sadly low number of people I know who actually follow the economy.

[evilDonkey]

9. Good article... however...

That's a good article however I have to quibble a little about the word austerity.

A) Austerity (cutting government programs) to pay off bankers is ridiculous. Countries like Greece should default on their debt and let the big banks go under.

B) Austerity to live within your means isn't really austerity at all. Balancing your national accounts is a long term, economic necessity.

The USA and much of the 1st world has been binging on debt since the 1980s. This gave us a grossly inflated view of how rich we were. We have no choice but to cut back on all levels.

This chart shows all the debt in the USA (government and private sector).


We are twice as broke as we were at the start of the Great Depression. Without all the consumption based debt pumping into the economy we weren't that rich to begin with. When the dust finally settles we probably won't be as wealthy as countries like Norway or Germany.

Here is the article that the chart came from
Credit Writedowns: http://www.creditwritedowns.com/2011/08/private-debt-deflation.html">Debt is the Problem and Private Debt is Even More of a Problem

[tama]

11. Excellent reminder

1) "Austerity" to keep on bailing banks and the whole ponzi scheme of global financial system is just plain robbery from poor to rich.

2) Austerity of living with means, means sustainable way of life that does not consume and destroy the carrying capacity of this planet of which we depend from and are part of.

This said, "austerity" of, by and for the robber banksters seems to be just one phase of larger process of moving towards inevitable non-consumerist austerity of sustainability. Accepting world as is.

[Kaleko]

10. A truly impressive overview of our collective situation.

Can't recommend this enough. Thanks for posting!

For those who won't scroll to the bottom of the article, here's a summarizing quote:

Indeed, we are entering perhaps the most important historic era in the human story thus far. The notion that there will not be new ideas, philosophies, ideologies and beliefs runs counter to the historical fact that times of social upheaval and rapid political transformation often give rise to new ideas and philosophies. This time around, the world is globalizing, not only in terms of power structures, but also in terms of ideational structures. In this sense, while the elite have never had such an opportunity to impose control over all of humanity, all of humanity has never had such an opportunity to effect an exchange of ideas and information among each other, and thus, solidify a common philosophical solidarity, and ultimately, re-take control of the world, itself.