In time of austerity, rich are wealthier than ever.

[Goddard]

(...) The top 1% wealthy people 41% of the wealth on planet earth; bottom half own 1%.
After the 2008 breakdown, and in midst of austerity, the top 1% are wealthier than ever (...)

"The things you own end up owning you."

[Goddard]

(...) The top 1% wealthy people 41% of the wealth on planet earth; bottom half own 1%.
After the 2008 breakdown, and in midst of austerity, the top 1% are wealthier than ever (...)

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

[re:dream]

(...) The top 1% wealthy people 41% of the wealth on planet earth; bottom half own 1%.
After the 2008 breakdown, and in midst of austerity, the top 1% are wealthier than ever (...)

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

Is that Osama talking?

[glenn303]

(...) The top 1% wealthy people 41% of the wealth on planet earth; bottom half own 1%.
After the 2008 breakdown, and in midst of austerity, the top 1% are wealthier than ever (...)

"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything."

Is that Osama talking?

Tyler Durden.

[Steve Ballmer]

The root cause of all recessions is the so-called 'business cycle'.

So you're saying that the business cycle is caused by manipulations of interest rates by a centralised bank (which is what I was saying also, had you read my post). Find you not it curious that tea-partiers call for the abolition of the Fed, while Marx welcomed such an institution?:

"5. Centralization of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly."

This is so fucking moronic I can't even begin to think of a reply. You have the political IQ of a snail.

This is because you have no reply. Every Marxist is eventually faced with the untenability of his position. It is usually around this time that he'll start to attack logic itself by saying something delicious, such as A=!A. You're a wonderful stereotype. Bless you.

[Steve Ballmer]

Ok, sorry about pasting so much, but it's time to get serious. I can't have you posting garbage one liners with quotes from Marx every five minutes like you have a clue.

The central banks are tools of capitalism. Their mandate is to try to smooth things out. But there are other factors at work too. And in any case, central banks simply react to the swings of the capitalist system.

Of course there is always going to be some clown on the right saying 'let things take their course', but that was the policy adopted in 1929 and it didn't work out particularly well did it?

So... we have you on record saying that central banks are tools of capitalism, and we have Marx on record calling for central banks.

Because A=!A.

[Steve Ballmer]

The current central banks are there to smooth out the turbulences of the capitalist economy. In a socialist economy they would have a different role, and they would be operated by a different class, in a different way, in a different economic system.

To suggest that having central banks in capitalist economies is in any way 'Marxist' is beyond absurd.

The minute you have a centralised bank that has a monopoly on credit creation, as per Marx's manifesto, boom-busts will inevitably ensue. A 3 week old Marxist foetus could understand this. Marx is either an advocate of the current credit system, or didn't understand what he was writing. I suspect the later, given his poor track-record in all things economic.

[Steve Ballmer]

Mentioned, but didn't explain. Thank you for confirming what I said.

[Goddard]

Your discussion here proves that our global society suffers of the overload of overeducated morons...
You are pasting cascades of quotes here, mostly disconnected from the context, just to prove the bulshitness of your bullshit.
With your mindset there's no way to change anything.
Everything we feel so comfortable with has to go to begin with.
You can not rescue that system - we have to get rid of it.
There's no chance to carry on with monetarism. If we get rid of the money all banks will be redundant.
And because we are overpopulated there will be no smooth transition from one order to another.
The global revolution that will bleed us to the extinction level is inevitable.
I don't fancy that, but this is our future.
Sooner or later...
Amen.

[Steve Ballmer]

Mentioned, but didn't explain. Thank you for confirming what I said.

Didn't explain what?

Anything.

[re:dream]

Your discussion here proves that our global society suffers of the overload of overeducated morons...
You are pasting cascades of quotes here, mostly disconnected from the context, just to prove the bulshitness of your bullshit.
With your mindset there's no way to change anything.
Everything we feel so comfortable with has to go to begin with.
You can not rescue that system - we have to get rid of it.
There's no chance to carry on with monetarism. If we get rid of the money all banks will be redundant.
And because we are overpopulated there will be no smooth transition from one order to another.
The global revolution that will bleed us to the extinction level is inevitable.
I don't fancy that, but this is our future.
Sooner or later...
Amen.

Yup, we are in a situation where the rational, short-term and self interested plans of powerful elites are pushing global systems further and further towards crisis. Overconsumption by the top half a billion is destroying the resource and ecological base for everyone else. Underlying ecological systems are under increasing stress.

But I don't think anyone has the ability to predict what is going to happen. There's a number of ready-made stories (one lot says, technological progress is gonna save us all; another say, global revolution, cataclysm, extinction). The plausibility of those stories are linked (I think) more to the mental templates they address than to their actual likelihood. I don't think there's going to be a happy managed outcome; but I am as skeptical about the fantasies of armageddon

My prediction? That things just keep on lurching on, and on and on, without any decisive resolution.

There's still oodles of damage to be done.

'The worst is not so long as we can say, “This is the worst.” (That's from King Lear.)

So hang on tight

[Steve Ballmer]

I'm not gonna play your childish mind reading games. Post properly. Otherwise people might think you are some kind of idiot, and we wouldn't want that would we?

I have no idea what you are referring to. Make you posts more self explanatory.

You can't understand a few brief exchanges, yet we're supposed to trust your enlightened view that creating a central bank is the only solution to the problems created by central banks.

Meanwhile the Front National just crushed the Parti Socialiste in a recent by-election in France, which was seen as a "a significant barometer of the national mood." (http://www.france24.com/en/20131013-fre ... t-fn-lopez)

Given that a future national FN win would effectively kill the Eurozone, there is hope for capitalism after all. Santé!

[Steve Ballmer]

My prediction? That things just keep on lurching on, and on and on, without any decisive resolution.

For how long? Nothing stays the same. Capitalism has only been going 350 years.

Before then, property didn't exist.

[Steve Ballmer]

Mentioned, but didn't explain. Thank you for confirming what I said.

There was no exchange. This is your post.I assume it's referring to Marx's use of the word 'mention'. However I don't see why you can't just answer a straightforward question. I like posts to be self explanatory when I quote them later in the process of destroying them.

Of course Marx explained recessions.

Not in any of the quotes you blasted us with.

[Steve Ballmer]

I have explained to you what caused the crash in my own words, and in the pastes you can see what Marxists were saying in 2007. The pastes talked about excess liquidity, which was described in detail by Marx, who called it fictitious capital.

Marxism explains economic crises as 'crises of overproduction' and Marx and Engels do say that in that quote from the Communist Manifesto. They say that the capitalists' response is to destroy the means of production, and that is what we see now, with companies closing down.

'Overproduction' means that the capitalists cannot sell the goods that they have for sale. This is why they turn to credit, ie low interest rates - to get the masses spending. That was why the interest rates were low at the start of this century.

Marx analysed the real world in detail. When he was business and financial correspondent for the New York Tribune, world's largest newspaper at the time, he was appalled that Crédit Mobilier, the first investment bank, was allowed to borrow 10 times it's assets. This was in the first recorded global recession, and Lehmans repeated this in 2008.

Just one more thing Marx got wrong.