Home Finance The Hollowing Out and Cannibalization of Economies

The Hollowing Out and Cannibalization of Economies

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I interviewed Greg Buck on Sunday about about how “bad” (free) money hollows out economies, and how giant companies, as a result, are able to cannibalize their industries (e.g. Amazon, Netflix etc). “Bad” money is killing the real economy, and any means of “price signalling” — resulting in artificial economies.   

This link is to a talk by Yanis Varoufakis — author of “And the Weak Suffer What They Must?: Europe’s Crisis and America’s Economic Future”. (Recorded April 24, 2016 in Seattle.)

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21 COMMENTS

  1. Thank you, Dee and Greg. That story answers a lot of questions that had been in my head, regarding the real effects of very low interest rates and how certain companies continue to operate without making a profit. And of course how share prices keep rising in a “down spiralling” economic cycle.

    • Yes, Greg did a good job of explaining the present system. Once you understand it, you also understand that it can’t end well.

  2. Debt creating more debt.
    Simple really . the more punters the bigger the profits for the connected few .
    ” Free trade ” is really slave trade that is bringing in the poor world workers (and their production) to survive here in the dog eat dog broken world of artificial order by the few .
    One world order is a communist gulag for all of us .

    Wages have been stagnant for decades since the expansion of credit /debt cards .

    Minimum cost for maximum profit is the law for the few over the many … and taxation to finance
    the overseas wars that keep the false nightmare kicking along and creating more punters in this exponential mess we’re in .

    …. ” and the gas leaks , the oil spills . Sex sells everything sex kills .” – Joni Mitchell

  3. Simple.

    Bring back sound money,(Hey, maybe even back it with gold or some other hard asset like it used to be prior to 1971) by nationalising central banks,(anyone remember the good old Commonwealth Bank??), outlaw derivatives, and initiate Glass-Steagall banking separation.

    Then to stop the banksters again getting control of the nations currency printing and charging us interest on what they create from nothing, bring in strict term limits for politicians. 2 terms max.so we have a regular turnover of fresh faces. Returning favours for voting “the right way” (e.g. the recent APRA “Bail in” law passed with only 7 out of 70 senators present in the chamber on 14th Feb, 2018?) would become more difficult. Maybe even introduce voter identification to stop voter fraud. Works OK if you want to borrow a book from a library. Drivers license seems easy.

    And to stop the revolving door between politics and big corporate interests, ban politicians from taking jobs with banks or other corporates for 10 years after they leave office.

    And finally, how about actually enforcing the law….a bit.

    Probably there are dozens of other suggestions,but as Greg aptly points out, the rot starts with bad money.

    So fix the money system first. Remove the incentives for fraud.

    • Bob Katter is about to introduce a Glass-Steagall private members bill to parliament, backed by Andrew Wilkie. Here’s hoping it gets up!

      • A practical response! One step in the right direction!

        “Confucius say: the longest journey begins with a single step”.

  4. Debt money.

    Greg Buck gets close to the principal issue but he misses the fundamental issues of the ultimate perversity of money issued as debt to the economy. (Standard “banking practice”).
    This link bears an uncanny resemblance to something I wrote up about 40 years ago and sent to many pollies and university “economists” that was typically either ignored or dismissed by backroom lackeys.
    http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/?p=196

    What I wrote up went into a fair bit more detail of how “debt money” destroys real economy.

    I rather hope that Greg will dig a bit deeper into the relationship of money and economy.

    • Greg’s just trying to convey a few basic concepts to the lay-person in a few minutes. I’m sure he’ll be happy to dig deeper. If I didn’t switch off the camera, he’d be happy to talk for 3 to 4 hours.

      • I suggest that Greg’s “basic concepts” are very agreeable to some “economists” as piffle to be fed to the gullible sacrificial goats.

        In amost 40 years I have never discovered any sort of politics that can tolerate detachment from the “banking elite” and the maxim that “if I control the money I don’t care who makes the laws”.

          • I don’t need to “invent” anything. All that has been done over 100 years ago and it was partially implemented in Australia and Canada back in the ’20’s and ’30’s with great benefits.

            But the bankers got their swamp full of snakes and lackeys busy with an intensive campaign of slander, bribery and blackmail until the system was brought back to their dominance and control.

            It’s only got worse since then. Nothing good will happen until the swamp is well stocked with well supported brave men of integrity.

          • “In amost 40 years I have never discovered any sort of politics that can tolerate detachment from the “banking elite”… Oldavid, I think most people I have spoken to would like to see the banking elite behind bars — and detach the system from the banking elite.

            But a VERY different problem is extracting ourselves from what has already been created (over the last century and more) by these elite. You can lock ’em up… but how do you extricate the system from the edge of the cliff — and correct the damage that has already been done.

            Or do you let it implode by itself?

          • It goes without saying that in a genuinely “rights” based society goods produced by slave labour would be deemed contraband: the nature of the US & Aus is also known by places such as Guantanamo Bay and Manus Island.

            As the entire banking system was founded on the very same principle(applying one set of rules to a chosen few and another to the rest of humanity)the idea of a clean-up strikes me as being nothing short of ludicrous.

          • I’ve not seen a copy of that item for about 30 years. I suspect the missus ditched it as being irrelevant to her interests and ambitions.

            I could knock up another version in a few days but you won’t publish it because it wouldn’t be complimentary to fashionable opinions either.

  5. Complaints against OPTUS. “How can I unlock my cell phone?”

    (I wrote that question so google will carry it. Gumshoe comments are now google-able)

    I had never owned a cell phone, but at the March 2017 Fringe my actors wanted to know how to ring me from backstage. So I bought a phone at Optus and paid for it outright.

    In May, 2017 I took it to Alabama but Verizon said I had to buy THEIR phone, as Optus had locked mine. I bought Verizon’s and that company tortured me throughout my senate campaign (with faux billing).

    In September 2017 in New Hampshire I went to AT&T. Of course they made me purchase THEIR phone. In February I came back to Oz and asked Optus to reconnect my old one. “Sure, you elderly sucker” (unspoken). They have now tortured me for 4 months, at a price of $1,000.

    Today Dee told me to go to Vodaphone. (Dee knows everything.) So I walks in and said I want phone service and data but no new instrument. “Sure, honey” (or the Chinese equivalent). But after they put the new sim card in, they said “You can’t use it, as Optus locked your phone.”

    Went to the Optus shop and they said it would cost $80 to unlock. I said “Optus didn’t tell me that when I made the purchase.” He said “It was written on the box.”

    I said “Would you please lend me your phone, just for a minute, so I can call the police?”

    Minutes later the manager unlocked my phone, and needless to say, no money changed hands.

    One giant leap for mankind. One teeny weeny step backward for the cannibalizer.

    • I gave Optus the sack back in 2002 re a range of shenanigins(attempting to hold a minor to a verbal contract/lying about the nature of a corresponding internet service). But is it really any worse than any other Company ?

      • Verizon is way worse. As I was walking out the shop door at Verizon in Tuscaloosa I saw 4 old men in the queue and the words came straight to mind: “Ah, four more senior citizens waiting to be tortured.”

        Cuz that’s what they do.

    • Should become a standard line for anything: “Would you please lend me your phone, just for a minute, so I can call the police?”

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