World News (Tue 30th. Aug ‘ 11)

  By Mystic | August 29, 2011 - 11:57 | ,

Money is based on government power.
Government power is based on money.
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Written by: Mystic on August 29, 2011.
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  • Stevo

    The only plausible reason for choosing austerity over further expenditure must be because it impresses their political base.  In the UK almost everyone over the age of 25 is moaning about the money wasted on the public sector, the inefficiences, the excessive borrowing, needless war expenditure, foreign aid etc.  I suppose if the man at the bottom is having to tighten his belt he expects everyone else to tighten theirs i.e. the rules should be based the rules that operate his life.  His view is that any expenditure will not be coming his way.  He wants to see cuts.  Cuts above him and cuts below him.  He sees trickle up, not trickle down because his wages have not improved in 10 years but his basic costs have.  He thinks everyone is on a gravy train apart from himself. He wants to see other people beaten with a big stick and will vote for anyone who wields a big stick.  He thinks that he will see it through the tough times and is encouraged by all those 50% discounts in shop windows.  He wants to see the utility companies, city big dicks and tax dodgers punished for raising prices if he is not getting a pay rise.  And he knows he will eventually inherit the old dears house which according to Rightmove is worth £250k.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      “The only plausible reason for choosing austerity over further expenditure must be because it impresses their political base.”………..and then you go on to say that the political base, because they are in pain, want everyone else to be in pain.
      Sooper dooper………..Happy Christmas…..Haari Krishna…..Hari Kari~!

      Hong Kong is probably the biggest housing boom in the world right now.  They are buying there, at magnificently silly prices because they are losing faith in the money (which is pegged to the US dollar).

      • Stevo

        Same would be would true about any property v fiat currency choice, wouldn’t it?

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

          No, of course not~!
          Sometimes we have to make sweeping statements, but you are over-simplifying to the point of absurdity
          (or is this one of your little cryptic games again~?)

  • Stevo

    Money is based on government power. – Probably about right.

    Government power is based on money. – Unlikely.  I’d go for pain inflicted by the power holders.  Don’t need money to run a slave based economy, just a sharp stick.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      ……….the sharp stick wielder, must be paid~!

      • CSArichardo

        Government power is based upon taxation (what in MMT land gives value to money) OR the ability to put laws in place, which we the people are required to follow, taxation being a key law. 

      • Stevo

        Not really, the stick prodder has a choice of being a stick prodder or being prodded with a stick.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

          That proves it.
          You just go through silly periods and write complete garbage (just for the sake of something….I know not what~!)

          • http://abellia.myopenid.com/ Andrew

            Why is this silly?  Isn’t this what dictators do?  They use the threat of death, injury or the like to maintain control.

            • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

              Follow along -
              M.  Money is Gov / Gov is Money
              S.  Money is Gov / Not Gov is Money (only need sharp stick)
              M.  Need to pay stick wielder
              S.  Not really, the stick prodder has a choice of being a stick prodder or being prodded with a stick.
              M.  ~??~

              Please note that the choice of being a stick prodder or not does not come in to it. 
              The thing was all about Gov needing money to pay the prodder.

              Do you understand ~?

              • http://abellia.myopenid.com/ Andrew

                No.  Sorry, I don’t.

                Steve’s initial point was that the government didn’t necessarily need money, since they could use intimidation as a tool of government power.  But that doesn’t make your assertion that many governments control actions through their power through money incorrect either.

                Maybe I’m just being dense – wouldn’t be the first time.

                • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

                  How is a government going to intimidate anyone if they don’t have any money~?
                  They need to pay people, to intimidate other people.
                  (that is all I meant~!)
                  (In fact, I’ll throw a `Sheeesh~!` in here (I have never used one before (and always thought they looked good))).

  • Ray

    Well Mystic, a year or two ago you didn’t mind what your leaders did to “stabilize” things. Why complain now?

    You people in Europe have given these manipulative bastards more than any other, a bit here, a bit there, on and on for decades. How has that worked out? Now they want everything that’s left, and they’ll get it too, one bit at a time.

  • Bigcollapso

    Money is not a thing. Money is a numeric quantification system that many people assume has some basis in the actual physical world. It does not. To make it worse, the word or concept of money is used interchangeable with hundreds of different real physical things that are actually unrelated.
    No one fully understands what money is, because among other things the concept of money incorporates the lies and manipulations of politicians, hidden creation and destruction, assumptions, etc.
    You are correct that austerity will accelerate the collapse, but so will increasing spending, and the waiting for the natural failure of this monetary system is getting politically difficult for the politicians.
    When Richard Nixon was asked why he implemented price controls even though everyone knew he didn’t believe in them, he said. “We were desperate, we had to do something”.
    Austerity is the next something on the road to the endgame, and yes it will accelerate the collapse.

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      I think I can go along with most all of that.

      Hello Collapso.
      I think you may be right about the `desperate` (I am not sure)……The fact that they are all doing it suggests that they are all desperate and are taking cover in the herd.
      I don’t think the little experiment is going to last very long~!

      • Bigcollapso

        I have seen this situation with airline management for example. When no one has the answers, management still “manages”. Ie, they send you out to do something, even if it is wrong.
        In this case, they are trying “The next thing” and the one that people are crying for.
        I think that most if the final leg will be spent on “Austerity”, especially when the rich realize how desperate their situation really is. They will want “their” money spared.
        But as you say at this point, government spending is so central to the daily operation of the economy, cutting spending will accelerate the collapse rate. Their are no good options at this point, as the point of instability was reached years ago.
        In my own life, I am very torn. Some days my business is so constrained due to deflationary pressures that I want the spending to increase. Then I go to the store and look at prices, and want them to stop. My emotion is running 71% inflate, vs 29% austerity. Because I work 5 days a week and spend 2 days buying stuff. Although lately the inflation is getting to the point that I spend my evenings getting ready.
        In the end, I guess that is all that any of us can do.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

          I can only repeat that I don’t think the austerity experiment will / can last very long.
          Going back to boring old `stimulus` would also be politically too embarrassing, so………..~??

          G7/G8/G20….UN, IMF, …. the pope, Bono, Ronald McDonald……..all get together and come up with a monster New Plan (which involves spending gazillions of new money………..)….etc. blah. cough….splutter….

          • Bigcollapso

            Yup. This has been either the likely or the only endgame. History is quite clear on this.

  • schrodingerseconomy

    Your last point certainly seems to mesh with my worldview as it has evolved to this point, basically we are being lead not by super-elite-banksters as sheep to the slaughter, but by scared stupid people who can’t grasp the overview of our Earth-Human-Finance systems.
    There are countless conspiracy theories out there explaining in great detail how a cabal of elite-bankster-oligarchs whose roots lie in saturnalian-zionist-satanist-certainly jewish-possibly lizard-death cults are controlling every major corporation and government in the world via fiat-currency manipulation with aims to own everyone and everything then kill off 90 percent and burn it to the ground blah blah flibbidy dibbity so-on and so-forth.
    I have come to see this as desperate response to try to make sense out of our complex world. It is a similar repulsion people have to evolution – it is so complex there MUST be a driving force and an ENDGAME! There simply must be, because I am so very special!
    Well we’re not special, and as Niall Ferguson’s summations show, our financial systems are a product of evolution and continue to evolve and the end result is that people who happen to have lots of tokens with dead presidents/royalty on them will typically try to get more and keep the ones they have.  You want to know the real problem with money? The real poison that is seemingly is leading us to financial Armageddon? It’s us, and the fact that we control money. Some of us are very clever, but put us all together and we’re terribly stupid. By ascribing all the bad stuff a group headed by Dr. Evil it actually can make some of us feel better in some weird way.  Of course how could I be so blind! The bankster-elites are doing incredibly stupid self-destructive things to throw us off there track! Clever bastards…

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      “I’m so very special.”   Oh yeah.  This is at the heart of most things~!

      It is all too complicated to understand……let alone manage, but we can’t admit that can we……Oh no~!

      • Bigcollapso

         We have created the complexity. The question is why, and what should be done about it. Much of the complexity was created to hide theft.

        • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

          No.  I am quite sure that you are wrong with – “Much of the complexity was created to hide theft.”
          I would say that 90% was done with good intentions.

          What can be done about the complexity…………Absolutely nothing, because no one can possibly know what would be the thing to do.
          There could be some `Super Call` to start to slim it down, but that would only lead to the same problem that no one would know where to start.

          Not even knowing that it is too dangerously complex to survive does anyone any good.

          Prepare for life after it goes bloop~!?

          That is something……..but no one can possibly know what the bloop will look like
          (only that there will be a bloop)~!

          • Bigcollapso

            Actually here in the USA we have a Constitution. It is an amazing document, and had we followed it most of these problems would either not exist, or would be much easier to solve.
            Unnecessary complexity is seems to be a flaw in the human animal. I am going to do a video about this when I get time.
            One of the things that is coming out of that Air France A330 accident, is that the airplane is so complicated that the pilots don’t know what to do when the autopilot quits.
            I think our financial system is in the same state.

            • http://abellia.myopenid.com/ Andrew

              The bit about the Constitution is a too much.  If the Constitution were clear on all points, we wouldn’t need the Supreme Court.  But of course, we do need the Supreme Court — and it changes it’s mind!  The Constitution provides a foundation, nothing more.  If it were more specific, it would end up being as exception-filled and non-responsive as many of our laws.  In other words, it wouldn’t serve the valuable purpose that it does.

              • Bigcollapso

                For instance the Constitution says that currency shall be gold and silver. We wouldn’t be facing the end of this large fiat bubble if we followed that.
                We have lost faith in the basic intelligence of our founding documents. And they are based on the founders knowledge of many of the problems that we are now facing. People love to build leverage against others work, for instance. Basic human stuff repeated over and over at the cost of great suffering.

                • http://abellia.myopenid.com/ Andrew

                  Go read section 10 again.  It does not say what you think it says.

    • Bigcollapso

      Exponential functions do have an “endgame”. People may use this term to mean different things but when the hope based integrals can’t be fed by the reality based derivatives, the “game” is over.
      I call this “Endgame” because prevention of collapse requires one type of behavior and we are seeing another. Ie instead of investing in things that can help the long term operation of the physical economy, we are still focusing on fiat tokens.
      It is what George Soros recently said is “Letting things get out of hand”. Ie, his lifetime of behavior is “normal” and collapse is “getting out of hand”.

  • Anonymous

    So I read through the posts, and I wonder, What actually is austerity?  I thought  as consumers when we stop spending and pay down our debts we call it tightening our belts.  We start saving our extra cash.  As a government, when we so eloquently slash the shit out of Grandma’s Social security, we call it austerity.  

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      `Tightening belts`, `austerity`…..it doesn’t matter what it is called.
      Both ways (same ways) you don’t get what you might have wanted.
      (and it affects economic stuff)

  • http://abellia.myopenid.com/ Andrew

    Your commentary at the end is excellent, Nick.  I transcribed it in case I want to read it again in the future.  It captures the essence of the misunderstanding of macro-econ and governments.

    Thanks!

    • http://overthepeak.com/wordpress/ Mystic

      Sometimes I roughly know what I am going to finish with……..but most often not………and I get quite exited during the reading through the charts wondering what I am going to say in the end.

      Thank you.