Just caught the end of the news. Deficit, growth, recession, depression, debt.
It will never be sorted, the debt will never be repaid, ever.
To make a real profit, of national not personal scale, you have to exploit someone for raw materials and labour and then sell the proceeds at home and abroad.
Success means someone has to suffer, at least a little bit.
Not so easy to blatantly exploit other countries or your own people these days unless you’re China hoovering up all the remaining resources in Africa and you’re scared of no one.
Mind you, when we’re all penniless who’s going to be buying Made in China? No one, they’ll be buying cheap and cheerful Made in the UK. Made in UK workhouses or poorhouses probably.
Money doesn’t work. It did when the world was bigger and slower and no one could hear what was going on in the next town never mind the next country, but not now.
If we reset the meter to zero, had a debt amnesty would it mean we would do it different? Or would we just hope that we could get away with until it we were dead and someone else would have to fix the system later?
I say let’s do away with money, or at least let’s do away with the unachievable goal of eternal financial growth, at least until we find another planet to export stuff too to bring some money in.
Naive? Maybe, but the dicks who run the current system are shite at it so don’t knock my idea ’til you’ve tried it.
In next week’s episode I’ll be suggesting ways to fix the schism between incompatible religious doctrines.
PS, for a fun time, just try and spend that banknote above south of the border. Bastard retard shopkeepers “What’s this?” “It’s ten pounds Sterling, dick”.
Hahaha – every time we traveled south for a hols as a kid, we always had trouble with scottish notes.
What’s wrong with the status quo eh? Who needs growth? Not me that’s for sure but then I’m just a sad old anarchist so I’m told.
Legalised gambling as ‘the’ economic model of a country who’s wealth was founded on the expansion of the empire and we wonder why we’re slowly going under. Pah.
Happy new year!
Aye it’s simple enough, and you’re bang on, it doesn’t work unless someone is losing out. Doesn’t mean that it’s likely to change any time soon though, there’s too much panicking going on for people to consider alternatives.
On the banknote, as a mini-protest when I used to travel to London twice a month, I deliberately went to a Clydesdale bank before I left, just so I could generate an argument with taxi drivers and shop assistants. Hours of fun.
> PS, for a fun time, just try and spend that banknote above south of the border. Bastards.
You think it’s difficult now? Think what could happen after Scottish independence…
The Scottish notes are so much more interesting than our boring Bank of England ones.
Does that one feature the CEO of Clydesdale sporting the latest in Banking Executive Protective-wear… handy in case they ever have to walk down an ordinary street? ;O)
Now the boss is really annoyed at me .. trying to peel off that part of the screen.
I do like a challenge !!
Mind you, even as a Scot I wouldn’t like to meet young Robert with a scowl like that…
When we go independant, if we do get the Euro (Mmmmfffff….) it’ll be easier to spend our money down south as more places take the Euro than Scottish notes. That’s something I suppose.
I do remember fighting with a local stupid in a Paisley (that’s just across the river from me) outdoor shop who wouldn’t belive that a Northern Ireland bank note was “British” money.
So many folk don’t know shit outside their own sandbox.
Hmmm! So no growth and keeping the status quo means no increase in my pension contributions. Or increases in endowments to pay off mortgages. Or increases in people’s investments who actually save for the future rather than rely on the state to support them when they cannot work.
Or generate jobs for the unemployed when we develop ways of producing existing goods or services cheaper and more effectively.
While I think there should be a more equitable system no growth actually means going backwards as technology improves and the world develops ways of doing things better.
Sustainable growth means developing new ideas and creating new markets. After all how many people were employed by the mobile phone industry or software industry in 1985 . Not only are these some of the largest companies in the world now employing millions of people worldwide but the technologies generate employment for tens or even hundreds of millions people through spin off industries.
I’m finding that it doesn’t print too well. Not got a high definition pic have you :O)
Who needs money anyway. Well I do to try & keep up with my gear addiction. Still trying though to find a way to take it with me…..when I get terminal like !! Any suggestions?
My problem with the financial world is that relies on growth in a closed system, ie the world and all that’s in it and on it.
As an engineer I just see it’s wrong as a concept. You can’t constantly produce with a finite resource, you need a top-up from outside. We don’t have an outside.
As an employee and employer I’ve been happy with the way capitalism works, I just wonder now if I’ll outlive it.
I’ve printed that £20 out on A4, I reckon that makes it at least a £1000 note.
Now there’s a solution, make all the bank notes bigger so they’re worth more. That’s real growth.
I think you’re looking at it too simplistically.
We find ways to do things more efficiently thereby using less materials and energy. We now recycle large amounts of materials with the same outcome.
We can add value without consuming more. A handmade mechanical swiss watch may have value added but consume less of the earth’s resources than a cheap digital watch.
A Kindle uses less resources than a library of books.
Google never made anything physical in their life and consume a relatively small amount of resources compared to say GM, (and almost uniquely give everything away free) yet make bucket loads of money and have made themselves almost indispensable to the modern world.
Simplistically is probably the way we should be looking at it, we’re just pouring the same water from one bucket into another while telling ourselves that the bucket is getting fuller every time.
The google thing is a good one, they produce nothing physical but because they make information instantly available and join people and things up it contributes to the speeding up the pace of life which means in turn that resources are burned faster and the pressure on us all increases to match the new pace. We are now in a culture where anything longer than 24hrs to get something done is a disaster, that’s neither healthy, reasonable or natural.
There are lots of great innovations, new ideas and products out there and with the cost of simply living rising folk’s credit cards will be maxing out so they can own every one of them. Every one of them with it’s inbuilt obselesence.
We’re going to hell in a handbasket and we’re speeding up.
It’s all Thatcher’s fault. Bastard.
I have printed out the A4 note and now see a gap in the market. PTC has invented the A4 £1000 note! I will now go and invent the bigger wallet to carry it in. Oh crap! Now i need to invent bigger pockets in trousers and suits to carry my new wallet. Double crap! Now my car seat is not big enough to take me and my new big trouser pockets with my new bigger wallet, I will need to invent a bigger car. This is now out of control, bigger banknotes has now increased my carbon footprint to the point where I will cover the world with one carbon step. Maybe we should just get out on a hill and watch the crazy world spin by overhead. HILL = CHILL (Unless properly clothed) Ah the weekend is upon us!!
Have a good one…
You’re spot on about pouring water from one bucket to another. Yet each time someone adds something to the water that someone wants, are employed to do the pouring and therefore adds value and puts food on the table for their family and pays taxes to pay for the NHS etc.
That’s the way it’s always been. Ever since someone chiselled a spear head out of a rock and traded it. Less can be more.
As for Google, well if nobody used them they would go bust but people obviously find them very useful. And the ultimate commodity is information. Which is why education is the most important thing that any society does.
It’s what we do with the money that counts. Do we follow the Scandinavian modelor do we follow the American model.
As for Thatcher, she corrupted a whole generation of people. I’ve told my employers that I’m taking several days holiday to celebrate when she finally kicks the bucket.
This is all reminding me of Gregory Peck in The Million Pound Note. Which now I think of it might have been the inspiration for Brewsters Millions?
The biggest hurdle we have to overcome in all this is human nature. No matter what we know is right or sensible we’ve always got a caveman ready to take a hold of the controls when we’re not concentrating.
The next generation will sort it all out, for them rebelling against us will meaning doing things right.
someone on radio 4 start the week program made exactly the same point, saying paper money always leads to hyper-inflation or some other consequence (cant remember now)…might be worth a listen before iplayer removes it. heres the link:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b019f8b5/Start_the_Week_Financial_Crisis_Philip_Coggan_Angela_Knight_Maurice_Glasman_and_Detlev_Schlichter/
“south of the border. Bastards”
Well, that’s me signing-off. All the best and cheerio the now.
00264167 – Inflation is the thing isn’t it. Everybody gets enough, all the money gets evenly distributed and then what? No one has the power or the wealth, that’s kind of my point above, the current system needa a victim, someone to be poor, for it to work.
Still able to Gable – I really hope you’re kidding at taking offence at my dig at the shopkeepers down south who I’ve had run ins with over the years, especially with my comment on my own local shop above.
But, I am quite happy to admit that the bastard comment was nowhere near concise enough to fire my abuse at the right target without some slipping over into innocent areas.
My vague writing might just need that sharper editing eye at times.
I’m amending the post as soon as I’ve finished this comment to make it more offensive and right on target.
Sorry if anybody thought anything other that how I intended it to be read.
But hey, you should know me and my banter by now :o)