[Non-Doomsday Economics] Democrats end expanded entitlements, bailout Silicon Valley

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > C-SPAM > [Non-Doomsday Economics] Democrats end expanded entitlements, bailout Silicon Valley

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anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

doomsday economics

https://i.imgur.com/BtgZ6Ce.mp4 (sound on)
https://i.imgur.com/kRrGiRv.mp4

old thread:
https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3826121&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=1

good content:
michael roberts: https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/blog/
naked capitalism: https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/RichardDWolff

good random poo poo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GI7sBsBHdCk

GAMESTONK:

IF YOU WANT TO GAMBLE ON REDDIT MEME STONKS DO NOT PUT IN MORE MONEY THAN YOU CAN AFFORD TO LOSE!!!!

Gio posted:

someone explained this to me earlier today and im gonna give you an even dumber explanation than the one i was given

its basically a collective pump and dump. around social media people have collectively decided to but and subsequently pump up the stock price of gamestop. this screw over vampiric hedge funds that bet against gamestop. from the sounds of it one hedge fund is gonna go bankrupt.

now people are moving on to stocks like AMC and Nokia with the same plan.

soup. posted:

It's exactly like a pump and dump, except you're pulling the car over and, kidnapping the worst loving people in the world off the street, and forcing them to pay your gas money as you drive around randomly at insane speeds before gunning it off a cliff, either walking away after bailing in time and lighting a cigarette without even looking back or going over the loving thing and exploding along with your kidnapped passengers.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU DO SOMETHING loving STUPID WITH YOUR MONEY, IDIOTS

cumshitter posted:

like seriously anyone getting into this you have multiple financial professionals in this thread who you can ask questions of. to reiterate some stuff:

-youre gambling right now. this is not a regular buy and hold stock investment.

-do not let hindsight influence your decisions. you didnt lose anything by not placing a larger bet. its no different from thinking, "i would have bet more last hand if id known id be dealt a blackjack"

-dont be afraid to realize gains. nobody ever lost money realizing gians. they lost money by thinking there were further gains to be had. you dont have to sell all your shares at once

-you will never know the peak price until its all over. do not kick yourself if you sold $30 below peak price. with a sizable position theres not even a guarantee that every share would sell for that much

-dont gently caress with options unless you 100% absolutely know what youre doing. reading the investopedia article will not help you understand your brokerage's option trading interface

gradenko_2000 posted:

right after I finished Norfield, I went straight into Cedric Durand's "Fictitious Capital: How Finance is Appropriating our Future", which is also quite good:

right after I finished Norfield, I went straight into Cedric Durand's "Fictitious Capital: How Finance is Appropriating our Future", which is also quite good:

quote:
Marx�s judgement on the credit system was very different to Hayek�s. For him, far from running up against the limits of the available resources, credit could overcome the barriers constituted by self-financing and the production of precious metals. It thus �accelerates the material development of the productive forces and the creation of the world market�.17 The idea of resource constraints was not completely missing here, but it was limited to those situations where the credit system �appears as the principal lever of overproduction and excessive speculation in commerce� because here it forces �the reproduction process, which is elastic by nature � to its most extreme limit�.18

The credit system has a dual character immanent in it: �. it develops the motive of capitalist production � and restricts ever more the already small number of the exploiters of social wealth � On the other hand however it constitutes the form of transition towards a new mode of production. It is this dual character that gives the principal spokesmen for credit �. Their nicely mixed character of swindler and prophet.

Consistent with what was commonly accepted in the nineteenth century, for Marx fictitious capital does indeed result from the development of the credit system.20 The exchange of loan-capitals is a means of valorisation de-correlated from the productive activity that gives rise to fictitious capital. Its constituent parts are the making available of loanable funds, repayment deadlines, and the corresponding interest. Nonetheless, fictitious capital is not reducible to the credit system alone. Marx�s main original intuition was that the creation of fictitious capital proceeds from a more general logic of anticipating the capital valorisation process. Fictitious capital thus appears as a claim and a projection made by capital-holders; its failure leads to financial crises and social and political battles over the distribution of the resulting fallout.

In its various institutional incarnations, finance is essentially reducible to the advance of a certain monetary value in exchange for a promise of reimbursement or, indeed, a property title over activities that will create values as they play out. Finance thus establishes a mode of capital valorisation that seems to give money magical faculties. What Marx says about interest-bearing capital is also true of finance in general: �it becomes as completely the property of money to create value, to yield interest, as it is the property of pear-trees to bear pears.�21 The comforting idea that it is possible to separate the valorisation process from the production process and the exploitation of labour is a chimera, but it sustains what are for capital powerful mechanisms of domination.

How does the creation of fictitious capital work? �The formation of fictitious capital is known as capitalization�:22 that is, it produces debts or securities whose value results from the capitalisation of the anticipated revenues.23 As such, the central problem fictitious capital poses is not � as the Austrian school approach has it � the existence of prior savings sufficient to allow the creation of supplementary capital. The problem is that fictitious capital pre-empts the future valorisation process even as it makes it invisible. If, according to the Austrian approach, fictitious capital is synonymous with failure and wastage, in the Marxist analysis its fictitious character is not synonymous with the success or failure of the future valorisation process, even though it does indicate its fragility. In short, it poses the present valorisation of money-capital as a stake in future economic and political processes.

Marx identifies three forms of fictitious capital: credit money, government bonds and shares. On this point as with others � think, for example, of the Manifesto�s prophetic pages on globalisation � Marx displayed staggering capacities of foresight. For while credit money and financial markets occupied only a limited place in his era, today they are at the very heart of the functioning of economies.

Credit money may seem the form most difficult to identify as a species of fictitious capital. Is it not interest-bearing capital, rather than fictitious capital? A matter of idle funds whose owners want to lend them in exchange for interest? The correct answer is that credit money shares characteristics with both these types of finance capital.24 It begins with a bank loan, which, having been a simple monetary sign, becomes money through circulation. But this circulation itself largely results from an ex nihilo creation, in that it is an advance on a future revenue and essentially does not come from previously saved funds. The generalisation of credit money since the mid-twentieth century implies �the a-priori canonisation of private labour as social labour�.25 Firms� production and the labour of worker-borrowers is pre-validated by money before commodities are actually sold or wages actually paid. The generalisation of this type of credit, which has long sustained economic growth, is made possible by a certain regularity of economic activities. Indeed, deposits rely on the promise that it will be possible to withdraw them in the form of notes issued by the central bank; yet no bank is able to keep to this promise if a large number of depositors want to withdraw their money simultaneously (a bank run). After all, except for reserve funds, all deposits are nothing but numbers, without any immediately available counterpart. If there is a lack of confidence in a particular bank, and even more so when there is a lack of confidence in the banking system in general, only the central bank � which has the supreme monetary power of issuing the money that serves as the banks� reserve fund � is able to prevent or contain the financial panic. This evidences both the hierarchical nature of money as an institution and the political regulation associated with fictitious capital.26 Credit money�s fictitious dimension and its political anchoring are both accentuated by the fact that the government bonds that commercial banks sell to central banks under repurchase agreements constitute a sizeable part of the raw materials serving private banks� creation of credit money. In 2010�12, the banking/public-debt-crisis spiral in the countries of the European periphery forcefully illustrated the destructive power of such an imbrication. Here, the important question was the European Central Bank�s refusal to commit to any unconditional automatic repurchase of the various countries� public debts. This not only cut off the peripheral countries� access to financial markets but simultaneously led to a rapid devalorisation of government bonds. This in turn massively weakened the banks who held large volumes of these titles. The lack of any such guarantee brutally demonstrated the single currency�s fundamental policy shortfalls. Politics is credit money�s guarantor of last resort. It alone can allow the controlled expansion of credit money and prevent it from abruptly contracting in turbulent periods.

The fictitious character of public debt is more immediately apparent. Indeed, it does not have any counterpart in capital valorised through production processes. Even if the expenses financed by debt do relate to investment in infrastructure or the education system, they have no direct monetary return to which the repayments correspond. Certainly, the state holds financial assets (debts, shares) and a physical estate, but essentially the latter is not supposed to be ceded. Ultimately, even though the financial management of state assets is becoming increasingly important in the current context � in particular through the selling off of the family jewels in the context of austerity plans � it is claims on the amount of future taxation that dominate public debt. Moreover, the principal on the debt is never repaid, because new issuing is constantly used to compensate the payment of securities reaching maturity. The fact that government bonds are tradeable further perfects their fetish character. For the individual bondholder, the fiction becomes a reality when he finds a buyer for his bonds. But these bonds do not in themselves have any direct counterpart in the valorisation process: they are advances on tax receipts.

This singular characteristic of liquidity, mentioned at the beginning of the chapter, is just as essential to market-listed stocks and corporate bonds exchanged on the financial markets. Unlike public debt, these latter do indeed represent a real capital � that is, capital invested by firms or used in their operations. Here, it is the duplication implicit in the financial mode of valorisation that is at the origin of the fiction:

But the capital does not exist twice over, once as the capital-value of ownership titles, the shares, and then again as the actual capital invested or to be invested in the enterprises in question. It exists only in the latter form, and the share is nothing but an ownership title, pro rata, to the surplus-value which this capital is to realize.27

The same is true of company bonds, albeit with the difference that here it is a matter of credits and not property titles, and the capitalised revenues are thus interest, not dividends or really accumulated capital.

Table 1 offers a simple presentation of the basic forms of fictitious capital. It underlines the various bases of this fiction and the different modalities through which it is constituted as an economic object. In the case of bank credit, and more precisely the credit issued by banks beyond their reserve funds, the fiction rests on the fact that no revenue has been received in advance and on the anticipation of a future accumulation process. Nonetheless, this fiction is regulated in so far as the foreseen repayments are meant to be compatible with what is considered the normal development of business. With traditional bank credit, the banks hold onto the debts so they are not subject to a re-evaluation process.28 This broad category of bank credit also includes commercial credits that banks acquire from companies in transactions discounting inter-company debts.

In the case of public debt, the fiction derives from the fact that bonds do not correspond to any real capital accumulation process, but simply to advances on future tax receipts � receipts that themselves depend on the revenues that economic agents will draw from future economic activity. However, the tradability of these debt titles, like the tradability of shares and bonds, introduces a new dimension that gives fictitious capital its full power: its liquidity. A tradable equity simultaneously represents both access to earnings flows and a wealth that can at any instant be converted into real money at prices corresponding to the financial community�s self-referential estimation of expected future returns.

The fictitious character of capital in the form of tradable equities brings us back to the paradox of liquidity. While banking crises correspond to a lack of a posteriori validation of credit money and manifest themselves in bank runs, financial crises translate into the stock-market collapses that occur when too many agents try to offload their securities simultaneously.

In sum, fictitious capital is an incarnation of that capital which tends to free itself from the process of valorisation-through-production. According to the Marxist approach, capital is fictitious to the extent that it circulates without production yet having been realised, representing a claim on a future real valorisation process. Today this fictitious capital can rely on public authorities� support, in particular the support of central banks. As they take action in favour of financial stability, these latter effect a social pre-validation of the accumulation process by way of fictitious capital. As Marx understood, fictitious capital plays a profoundly ambivalent role. On the one hand, it is a factor favouring capitalist development, to the extent that this anticipation operation allows the acceleration of the rhythm of capital accumulation. Here, we have the spirit of the nineteenth-century �banking school�, for whom the creation of money should respond to agents� needs, as well as the spirit of the Keynesian approach, which considers that the full employment of economic resources does not happen all by itself. On the other hand, fictitious capital�s anticipation of future accumulation implies a radical form of fetishism liable to mutate into unsustainable phantasmagoria. The mass of accumulated fictitious capital can, then, assume proportions incompatible with the real production potential of economies. This reasoning is closer to that of the first theorists of fictitious capital, and indeed to Hayek. If this is indeed the case, then the over-accumulation of fictitious capital will inexorably lead to crisis.

gradenko_2000 posted:

Doomsday economics / climate change thread crossover:

Doomsday economics / climate change thread crossover:

quote:
Figure 10 concerns a third type of fictitious capital: the stock-market capitalisation of listed domestic companies, whose value reflects the market valorisation of anticipated profits. The graph presents the pattern of stock-market capitalisation relative to GDP since 1975 for the main rich economies and since 1979 for our eleven-country average. Japan once again shows an atypical trajectory. After hitting a record level of 130 per cent in 1989, this ratio plunged to 53 per cent in 2002, after the bursting of the dotcom bubble. Conversely, the respective profiles of the other countries are relatively similar. The 1980s and 1990s saw a two-stage rise in the ratio, which reached its maximum in 2001, before falling in two further stages following the 2001 crunch and the crisis of 2008�9. Despite this partial reflux, the long-term rise is considerable. The mean ratio passed from 24 per cent in 1979 to 85 per cent in 2015, peaking at 111 per cent in 1999. This development was most impressive in the US and the UK, rising from 40 per cent and 35 per cent respectively in 1975 to 146 per cent for the US in 2014 and 112 per cent for the UK in 2012, after having peaked at 146 per cent and 171 per cent respectively in 2001. There was the same tendency in Germany, albeit at a much lower level: having stood at 10 per cent of GDP in 1975, stock-market capitalisation reached a level of 64 per cent by the millennium, before settling down at 47 per cent in 2014.

Crucially, the contemporary accumulation of fictitious capital on the stock markets is closely connected to the addiction to fossil fuels. Current market trends show capital�s projections for a future still based on carbon. Indeed, the hydrocarbon reserves claimed by the major oil companies very largely determine their valorisation, because they constitute the basis for forecasting future profits. However, according to IPCC estimates, if we are to keep the temperature rise beneath the 2�C limit, then we will have to leave somewhere between two-thirds and four-fifths of these reserves unused. Companies in the energy sector, together with those in the directly affected industrial sectors, represent close to one-third of worldwide stock-market capitalisation. Taking the political measures necessary to halt fossil fuel extraction would immediately result in a knock-on destabilisation of the financial markets. Bank of England governor Mark Carney warned as much in autumn 2015, when he evoked the �tragedy of the horizon�. He was referring to a �tragedy� resulting from the fact that the likely effects of these changes lie beyond decision-makers� own temporal horizons:

A wholesale reassessment of prospects, especially if it were to occur suddenly, could potentially destabilise markets, spark a pro-cyclical crystallisation of losses and a persistent tightening of financial conditions. In other words, an abrupt resolution of the tragedy of horizons is in itself a financial stability risk.5

Here, the preservation of fictitious capital on the stock market directly impedes the fight against global warming.

anime was right has issued a correction as of 06:25 on Aug 31, 2022

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 16, 2024 19:16

Epic High Five: Jun 5, 2004

first

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:17

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

like gokus power level number always goes up

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:17

Grace Baiting: Jul 20, 2012; Audi famam illius;
Cucurrit quaeque
Tetigit destruens.

doomsday bleakonomics

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:17

Declan MacManus: Sep 1, 2011; damn i'm really in this bitch

wolff faang kill them all

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:18

Giga Gaia: May 2, 2006; 360 kickflip to... Meteo?!

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:18

biceps crimes: Apr 12, 2008

1 Bitcoin equals
33,422.10 United States Dollar

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:18

thalweg: Aug 26, 2019

Buying in at the bottom of this thread so i can reap those gains as the page number goes up. Remember, time in the thread beats timing the thread

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:19

StrugglingHoneybun: Jan 2, 2005; Aint no thing like me, 'cept me.

Number will be bad this year
Calling it now

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:19

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

ground floor

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:19

Brain Candy: May 18, 2006

hi thread

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:19

Admiral Ray: May 17, 2014; Proud Musk and Dogecoin fanboy

an important thing to remember about economics is that it is quantitative sociology.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:20

Raskolnikov38: Mar 3, 2007; We were somewhere around Manila when the drugs began to take hold

posting on page 1 so as to more easily find my posts later

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:20

punished milkman: Dec 5, 2018; would have won

the age of bitcoin is upon us

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:21

thats not candy: Mar 10, 2010; Hell Gem

buyin the dip, double down, no balls, get that 10 bagger

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:21

Crazycryodude: Aug 15, 2015; Lets get our X tons of Duranium back!

....Is that still a valid thing to jingoistically blow out of proportion?

where's my loving money

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:22

Flunky: Jan 2, 2014

future posters quote this post when dow hits 50k or 5k

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:22

Horseshoe theory: Mar 7, 2005

StrugglingHoneybun posted:

Number will be bad this year
Calling it now

You going to :toxx:

this?

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:23

Egg Moron: Jul 21, 2003; the dreams of the delighting void

drat thing never goes over does it?

https://i.imgur.com/WHdWgcS.mp4

Egg Moron has issued a correction as of 01:09 on Jan 4, 2021

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:24

err: Apr 11, 2005; I carry my own weight no matter how heavy this shit gets...

Ethereum up 28% in 24 hours

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:24

FlapYoJacks: Feb 12, 2009

posting on page 1/day 1

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:25

Ardennes: May 12, 2002

Egg Moron posted:

drat thing never tips over does it?

A bunch of stimulus checks/media coverage is generally prime time for bitcoin.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:25

Finicums Wake: Mar 13, 2017; Can't post for 8 years!

the doomsday economics thread is one of the very, very few threads in cspam where there is a good ratio of signal to noise. it's been good for as long as i've read it, which has been many years, so that thread has a lot of good poo poo buried in it. i've regularly stumbled upon cool poo poo by clicking the '?' button on a good poster's post and scrolling for links that come up. i don't really see a reason to restart it. but if you're going to restart it, pls archive some of the good poo poo from the old thread and put it in the op, or something

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:26

sat on my keys!: Oct 2, 2014

mind on my money and my money on my mind

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:26

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

Finicums Wake posted:

the doomsday economics thread is one of the very, very few threads in cspam where there is a good ratio of signal to noise. and it's been around for 4 years. so that thread has a lot of good posts in it. i've regularly stumbled upon cool poo poo by clicking the '?' button on a good poster's post and scrolling for links that come up. i don't really see a reason to restart it. but if you're going to restart it, pls archive some of the good poo poo from the old thread and put it in the op, or something

twoday made me do this so tell twoday to do this!!!

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:26

StashAugustine: Mar 24, 2013; Do not trust in hope- it will betray you! Only faith and hatred sustain.

Finicums Wake posted:

the doomsday economics thread is one of the very, very few threads in cspam where there is a good ratio of signal to noise. and it's been around for 4 years. so that thread has a lot of good posts in it. i've regularly stumbled upon cool poo poo by clicking the '?' button on a good poster's post and scrolling for links that come up. i don't really see a reason to restart it. but if you're going to restart it, pls archive some of the good poo poo from the old thread and put it in the op, or something

Link old thread in OP is a good stopgap imo

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:26

anime was right: Jun 27, 2008; death is certain
keep yr cool

please goldmine the old thread........

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:27

Lawman 0: Aug 17, 2010

Stonks lol

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:27

punished milkman: Dec 5, 2018; would have won

err posted:

Ethereum up 28% in 24 hours

i mined some ethereum (0.0826 eth) in 2016 for one straight month using the electricity included in my apartment rent with my gtx 1070. you better believe it�s worth a whopper $100 right now. i�ll be an ethereum millionaire in no time.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:28

mila kunis: Jun 10, 2011

#content from the last thread

https://www.negationmag.com/articles/michael-roberts-interview/

quote:

There is one key principle of Marxist economics: the law of value. This is basically saying that our societies are run on the basis of exploitation, and, in particular, in a capitalist society, it�s run on a certain form of exploitation. You go to work, and you get a salary or a wage, you get some money for however many hours that you work. But actually, you produce more in terms of value that the owner of your work, your employer, gets when they set it on the market either as a service or as a physical product. So there is an unequal exchange taking place between what you as a worker earn in wages and what the owner of the means of production � the factories, the office, the intellectual patent, whatever it is that they control and own � can sell for, which is more than what they pay you in wages. Although it seems to be an equal exchange, it�s an unequal one. That fundamental point is the law of value. What goes on under capitalism is production for profit, to make a profit out of you, rather than production for people�s social needs. And there�s a fundamental contradiction between social needs and individual workers� needs and the profit going to the capitalist. That contradiction � the fundamental law of value � is the most important thing to understand as differentiating Marxist economics from other economic theories or approaches to the understanding of human society.

quote:

Mainstream economics, which is basically what we call �neoclassical� economics, is based on the idea that prices are really determined by how much enthusiasm there is on the part of the individual to buy a particular product. This is called the �utility� or the satisfaction they get out of that product, and the price will vary according to the level of that satisfaction. For example, you might want to buy one automobile for $10,000, but if you don�t need another automobile, you�d be reluctant to spend another $10,000 on it, so the value of that automobile falls depending on the demand the individual has for it � how many units they�d want of this particular thing. If you look at it from the production side, the producers of the automobiles keep producing until the point is reached where there is no profit to be gained by producing another vehicle. In mainstream economics, there is no �profit� � if we�re in an equilibrium, the consumer gets their product and their satisfaction, and the producer gets the sale of their product, and at the margin there�s no real �profit� taking place. �Profit� becomes something which exists either due to an imperfection in the market, maybe the producer can control the market or control the price because they�re a monopoly or so on, or maybe the consumer or retailer can depress the price because they�re a monopsony. So you can gain a �profit� that way, but if everything�s flowing freely, people are buying and selling freely, then there will be no profit at the margins, supply will equal demand, and that will be the end of the process.

This is demonstrably rubbish. Quite clearly, profits are being made. Every day we read in the newspapers that Amazon�s made a billion, Tesla�s made a billion more, everybody�s making billions. Companies are racking up profits and presenting their earnings and results on a quarterly basis so the banks and other institutions can invest in their stocks.

The fundamental point of Marxist economics is that this is an economy which produces things for profit � profit clearly exists, we can measure it, and we can also learn, depending on the level of that profit, just how healthy this capitalist economy is. Because if profitability begins to fall, that�s bad news for capitalist entities and production. That�s the key thing that they worry about � whether they�re making more profit, sustaining their existing profit, or it�s falling

quote:

And now we have, generally, I�ll say the majority of Marxist economists have an �eclectic� view of crises. They would say: �well, yes, profit is part of the process, inequality is part of the process, lack of demand is part of the process, financial fragility is part of the process, they�re all part of it. Sometimes a crisis is caused by a property slump, sometimes it�s caused by an oil price boom, sometimes it�s caused by inequalities and a stock market crash.� My reply to that is, well, on the surface that�s true. But is there no underlying, fundamental cause which produces recurring and regular crises in capitalism? If we don�t have a theory of an underlying cause, we don�t have a Marxist theory of crisis. If every crisis is different and has a different cause, then there is no fundamental cause which can explain crises that are regular and recurring. And when they�re regular and recurring, that implies that there is some sort of underlying cause.

Marx�s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, I think, provides us with the basis of understanding that as capitalism expands and accumulates (and as capitals compete with each other), it tends to invest more and more in machinery and technology relative to what it invests in labor. If, as we�ve just discussed, labor is the only source of value, then the value being created is less and less relative to the amount of investment that the capitalists are making as they compete with each other. So there�s a tendency for the rate of profit to fall; it doesn�t always apply. Those who read my blog can see the figures and they can see it�s not always a straight line down, it goes up and down and all over the place in line with counter-tendencies, which Marx talked about, but when we do get into a position where there�s a sustained fall in profitability, and then there�s a fall in the total mass of profits, there�s always a slump.

quote:

It�s very important with regard to alternative theories � think about the Keynesian theories that workers don�t get enough wages or consumption is down, and they say: �Okay, let�s pay workers wages! Much, much more! Let the government spend money and boost consumption!� and that should end crises forever, shouldn�t it? Well, that was the view in the 60s, with the Keynesian theory, but it did not � crises came back with a vengeance, and of course there�s a very good reason why paying workers more won�t solve the problem, because that means less profits for the capitalists. And if we have a capitalist system which only works on the basis of profits, that will only squeeze the situation even worse. As Marx said, one of the key indicators sometimes that you�re going to have a crisis is when wages go

up, because it means that profits of the capitalists are being squeezed further, and that will force them to act in a way which will try to reduce those wages and that employment.

quote:

But that�s the argument that takes place in the political movement all the time. I think the answer to that is that in crises, often these social democrats come into power. Not recently, as we seem to have populist reactionaries, but you can have social democrats come to power. Yet they�re immediately in crisis, because capitalism must be in crisis, so capitalists apply tremendous pressure on them to meet the demands of capitalism rather than the demands of the followers from which they�ve been elected. That�s a tremendous pressure, which historically we�ve seen over the last 100 years or more, leading to the collapse of these governments, and either a situation which leads to revolution, occasionally, but more often leads to the return of reactionary governments

quote:

I think the reason why the social democrats got thrown out and lost power to neoliberal governments from the 80s onwards, was because the crisis of capitalism was so serious, with falling profitability particularly in the 1970s, that the social democrat program of a mixed economy, of consensus between workers and capitalists, no longer worked. Capitalists couldn�t accept it � they couldn�t afford it! They had to get rid of that. So we�ve seen, for the last 30 years, a gradual removal of all the gains made in the 50s and 60s in the welfare state � not just particularly in Europe, but also insofar as you have it in the US, the same thing.

quote:

What has happened is two things from the central bank monetary injections. First of all, it saved a load of small companies that otherwise would have gone bust. These companies aren�t making any profit, they�re barely surviving, they�ve got a lot of debt. But if to borrow is virtually 1 percent or less � very low levels of cost to borrow � they can borrow more money to pay for the debt they've got now and keep their workers on, more or less, without really growing or expanding. So you�ve got these companies called �zombie companies� � they�re the economic undead. These companies haven�t died, but on the other hand they�re not living or expanding. They�re just in a zombie state. And according to the latest figures, there�s something like 20 percent of companies in the advanced economies who are in this position; mostly small ones, but not all small ones.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:29

Loucks: May 21, 2007; It's incwedibwe easy to suck my own dick.

gay_crimes posted:

1 Bitcoin equals
33,422.10 United States Dollar

Wow wed be crazy not to get in on this phenomenon

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:30

Smythe: Oct 12, 2003

tesla printing, forever. :dukedoge:

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:31

RadiRoot: Feb 3, 2007

first page! a new era! may number go up forever.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:31

Xaris: Jul 25, 2006; Lucky there's a family guy
Lucky there's a man who positively can do
All the things that make us
Laugh and cry

This economic data looks grim, I think to myself. This is the right move. I look to the cracked screen of my iPhone 5s. A single 6/19 SPY 200p. I take a deep breath, and swipe up to submit the order. As RobinHood's little animation shows the order completing, I suddenly black out.

I come to in a gray room, fluorescent lights humming above. I'm upright in a metal chair, restrained, with my arms and legs zip-tied. The only feature in the room is what I assume to be a Bloomberg Terminal in front of me (I've never seen one in real life). There's so many screens. It looks so professional. A dizzying array of charts, numbers and symbols light up its dozen monitors. In the center, the S&P 500. 2700. Out of its bear market.

I hear several sets of heavy footsteps approaching behind me. I try to look, but can't move much. I sense several burly men standing over my shoulders. To my surprise, Jerome Powell steps in front of me. I try to speak up but he cuts me off. "What am I-"

"Why did you short the domestic market?" he asks.

"Huh?" I respond, confused.

"Why did you short the domestic market?" he demands, louder this time.

"I, uh... the coronavirus is a global pandemic. It's going to cause-" WHAM! One of the thugs behind me slams my head with something heavy. It's a bundle of $100 bills. They're still warm from the printing press, and the fresh smell of ink fills my nose. It must be a million or more.

"It's priced in," he says coolly. "So why did you short the domestic market?"

Dizzy from the blow, I notice the screen behind the Chairman. The S&P has climbed back to 2850. Impossible, I think to myself. "Be-be-because unemployment is approaching 20 percent!" I manage to answer. WHAM! Another blow strikes me. This time, a heavy bag filled with paper. It explodes on impact, raining bond certificates like confetti all over the small room. I catch a glimpse of some as they float to the ground. Investment grade bonds from Ford. Loans to cruise ship companies. Loans to a taco truck.

"Repeat after me: stocks only go up," Powell demands.

I say nothing. On the terminal behind him, the S&P has climbed well over 3000. An involuntary guh escapes my mouth as it falls agape.

Powell frowns and continues, "I'll ask you one more time: why did you short the domestic market?"

I feel like I'm going to pass out again, but with all the strength I can muster I shout, "GDP declines are going to dwarf the Great Depression! The outbreak is far from over! Stimulating demand won't work if there's no supply! Social unrest is a real possibility! We're in uncharted ter-" the hardest slam yet hits the back of my skull. It's a massive stack of printer paper. It falls to the floor with a thud. Some sort of Excel spreadsheet is on it. It's the Fed's balance sheet. It must be tens of thousands of pages long. I can't even count how many digits are in their asset balance.

"Stocks only go up," Powell repeats. Behind him, the chart shows the S&P has continued its rise at a blistering pace. It leaves 3300 in the dust, making new all time highs.

The first two blows to my head left me feeling woozy. The third one, though, brought sudden clarity. Tears well up in my eyes, but they are not tears of sadness as my puts become worthless - oh no. They are tears of joy. Suddenly, I see it. Suddenly, the truth rings out as clearly as if a chorus of angels has descended from Heaven to sing it into my ears. How could I have been so wrong all these years? In this moment, I am enlightened. The pieces fall into place.

"Stocks only go up," I say.

# ? Jan 4, 2021 00:33