Comments by "Curious Crow" (@CuriousCrow-mp4cx) on "Understand the Economy Part 1: What is wealth?" video.

  1. Not really right now, because your loan is literally a drop in the ocean in the current global debt based economy. Gary is simplifying a massive, mostly hidden financial mechanism, which is the creation of credit by banks and non-bank financial institutions. The scale is such that it is bigger than any national economy, and it's not controlled by any government. It's controlled by the banks and non-bank financial institutions, and therefore controlled by those who own these, who in turn use their wealth to directly and indirectly influence national governments, and to buy assets everywhere. Assets are true wealth, and debt is the major asset class in every economy. Why? Debt is the major mechanism of creating money. Approximately, over 90% of all money created is credit from loans made by banks and non-bank financial institutions. This money creation goes on in every financial centre 24 hours a day, 365 days a week. And a lot of it is done in offshore financial centres that are not regulated by governments. The bit of the financial system that is regulated by government is the tip of the iceberg. Your loan comes from that tip, but the money created to provide you with your loan originated much further down below, and is very difficult to trace where it came. Your loan is the end of a chain of loans as Financial institutions borrow and lend to each other. Big systemically important investment banks/NBFIs to commercial ones to retail ones, etc. And billions are moved around, all out of sight of the public. They also lend to governments and multinational corporations too. That where most of our money comes into existence. And most of the largest owners use offshore banks and shell corporations and blind trusts in tax havens to hide their ownership. Yes, you can track shareholdings in the visible tip of the iceberg. Those are the financial institutions that interface with the public, but not the rest. As tax havens exist to hide ownership of assets held in them. (And a major driver of Brexit was the threat posed by the EU's Anti-tax evasion Directive to Britain's major share of the global tax haven business. (Watch Britain’s Second Empire here on YouTube for a still relevant explanation.) What Gary is proposing is to tax the visible bit of wealth. That is big enough already to make that affordable for the wealthy to pay that. It won't touch the rest, but at least living standards can be maintained for those who rely on a job for a living.
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