Comments by "coolmodelguy" (@coolmodelguy6304) on "AJ+"
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@joelgarcia5326 - Hi Joel. That comment was my attempt to distill our economic reality into two sentences. Here are the basics. In the USA alone, there is over $150 trillion in financial assets (2014 Wikipedia says over $190 trillion). Interest on those financial assets ranges from 1% to over 9% rate of return. Lets take and average of 5% interest on just $100 trillion of those financial assets, so $5 trillion in interest. How is a $22 trillion economy (2019- $21.427 trillion) growing at 3% annually supposed to pay $5 trillion in interest?
Investments, according to our lore (propaganda), are made to create businesses and jobs, thus the productivity involved produces profits, from which investors are paid dividends. Except, that is not how it goes. Wealth long ago passes that critical mass where, with compounded interest, the dividends paid outgrew the productive economy. This in turn lead to financialized capitalism, which is supposed to make money . . . from money. Basically, the productive economy cannot sustain the need for profit, so finance capitalism (the FIRE Sector of the economy) started simply extracting all of OUR wealth. That is why housing and health care, to name two of many things we need to live, go up in cost so dramatically every year. The wealthy are extracting, or stealing, all of our money. Hence the schoolyard bully.
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@leovolont - You are most likely correct. However it needs to start somewhere and the USA is the logical seed. After all, it was the USA who broke up the Bretton Woods Agreement, which had restricted capital flow across national boundaries. We can enforce a wealth cap on U.S. citizens which would prohibit the ownership of offshore non-domestic holdings of any type.
The entire reason Bretton Woods unraveled is because of the Vietnam War. United States dollars were being spent in South East Asia and ended up in French banks. The French collected these dollars and cashed them in for gold (we were on the gold standard then), which depleted the U.S. gold reserves to the point where the dollar could no longer be backed in gold.
So, in addition to the wealth cap, we must also pull back our military from abroad and confine the military activities to within our own borders. I don't see a problem with that, since the U.S. military is the biggest threat to other countries that exists today. I also don't buy into this "national security" scam, projecting force is not what it once was (it is now a means for the 1% to become wealthy off the U.S. Treasury). Today our military is used to coerce other countries to be exploited by the 1% and U.S. corporations.
Once we pull back our military, our costs will go down drastically and all countries will be able to represent [themselves] in the global market. There are issues to solve, like what if Denmark decides to go on a crusade of military and land expansion . . . . what can our response be if we cannot project military force? The answer is that we can, if needed, however a joint military agreement with allies would be more aligned with our best interests, and such an agreement can address overt national agression.
Bottom line, we must depose the oligarchy which has rooted itself in our country and government. We start with a rigidly enforced wealth cap, then move into changing our legal system so that it does not back the interests of wealth and power (as it does now). This will mean replacing the Supreme Court and the Federal Court system, perhaps just by cleaning house but possibly by amending the Constitution. Meanwhile, the Constitution does have the tools we need to make change, starting with Congress removing the practice of "Judicial Review" from the federal court system and reinstalling the Congress as the body of law making power.
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@leovolont - Well done, you started and ended in the nexus. Yes, the USA would be the "greatest and most virulent enemy to such an undertaking". Your conclusion that "The World will not be allowed any freedom of action until America falls out of the equation somehow", is also correct.
What you have concluded is exactly why this transformation needs to begin in the United States. The more I look into this problem of concentrated power, the more convinced I am that humanity needs a transformative change. I've studied our (the USA) economic and political history in depth starting in the present and going back to 1917. After that immersion, I had to shake myself like a wet dog and seek to distill what I had learned. Something was bothering me though, I recognized the behavior I was seeing in the history . . . had a pattern. Bits of history I had learned from earlier studies in astronomy and aviation started to click into place like a table top board puzzle. Other bits from my studies of ancient civilizations (astronomy related) and medieval histories (Vikings, Kings and Crusades) also started to click in place. We have a long history of concentrated power and wealth.
We cannot proceed in this manner, even if those holding wealth and power still wish it to be so. Like everything else, there is a time for change. Human impact on our one planet is slapping us in the face and shouting to us: WAKE UP! Our species faces extinction in the very near future without a course correction.
What you stated about the USA being "greatest and most virulent enemy to such an undertaking", is entirely correct. The only way we can make change is to simultaneously dismantle and rebuild our society, the road block to which is the Gordian Knot of "legal precedence". The United States legal system has its roots in the British legal tradition. So the key to making change this significant is finding the one thread that when pulled, unwinds the Gordian Knot . . . and I think I found it.
You see, from the 13th to the 17th century, the wealthy Lords of England enclosed the land, cutting it off from the peasants who used to freely use the land to support themselves. Legal battles were fought, with the peasants losing those battles. These legal battles established precedent which was the foundation of law going forward.
There is a generally overlooked aspect to these legal battles which it vitally important today, if we are to make the changes we need and unwind the Gordian Knot of concentrated wealth and power. Those peasants who lost the legal battles against the Land Enclosures were uneducated, they lacked standing and they lacked legal representation. Few if any poor folk sent their children to universities to become lawyers. The winners in the enclosure legal fights were the Lords . . . and who do you think were the judges and the lawyers on their side? It was the second and third relations to the Lords, those who could not hold the land (because with power, enough land is never enough) yet were highly educated and thus "earned" their positions as judges and lawyers.
That dynamic has now changed. In modern society, even the poor, are highly educated (and indoctrinated, another battle to fight). All of "legal precedence" and even our own "judicial review" was built on the decisions of an elite few . . . and still is. All of that can be and has to be unraveled. The elites making decisions has had its time in our history and has allowed us to progress this far . . . but for mankind to survive precedent must give way. The poor now have an abundance of lawyers and the poor have standing . . . our standing is that we have a right to live and for our progeny to live. Our technology has advanced so far that concentrated wealth/power wielding that technology leads only to one path . . . to extinction. Death Squads and killer robots . . . repression of the population cannot stop our inevitable extinction if the sociopaths continue to hold power. These people who now control our fates, what they really are is "ordinary", they simply have not faced that fact. Extinction does not discriminate. We must, and will, reshape our society . . . starting right here in the United States.
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@leovolont - You have, quite correctly, identified the core issue. The wealthy became that way through the use of force. This is why the only way we will being down the wealthy elite and make them ordinary, is through the use of force. Those with the big arms, barrel chests and the brawn, are rarely the thinkers and doers who advance humanity. They are the ones during the Neolithic Era who rode up on nascent farmers and took the land those farmers were tending, using their superior might to enslave the farmers and kill those who stood up against them. Now the thinkers and doers must learn to band together and forcefully topple the oligarchy.
The same thing happened in the nascent United States as happened when the Normans took England. The indigenous people were killed or forced off the land. The legal system adapted "precedent" to fit the needs of the conqueror's, since the indigenous people obviously had prior and superseding claim to the land, the legal standard here and in Australia evolved to find in favor of those "improving" the land rather than the "precedent" of who was there first. Your mention of the Franks and the Normans highlights the hypocrisy of the "we were here first" legal argument the Lords used against he peasants during the Enclosure era in England. All of it was the use of force, bringing up the use of force after my last comment was a brilliant segue.
My concern is about educating the public in the requirement to use force. The "Fight for 15" over the minimum wage highlights that this is a "use of force" issue. What most people do not realize is this, Medicare for All, $15/hr minimum wage, the Green New Deal . . . none of these reforms can last if we do not also take the wealth from the elites. As the OP stated: "Minimum wage wouldn't matter so much if we had a maximum wage". I would adapt that as a political slogan to read "Minimum Livable Wage requires Maximum Wealth Limit". The reason a maximum wealth limit is required for those other reforms to succeed is this, the elites will always use their wealth to dismantle all reforms. Why even attempt to get a living wage or Medicare for all if both will be gone in twenty years? Leaving the tools to dismantle reforms in the hands of the elites has already been proven to be folly. Look at what happened to FDR's New Deal, the only surviving aspect is Social Security . . . and the elites are hell bent of privatizing and eliminating Social Security.
We must organize our people. However, our people do not study history, so they need simple tools and slogans in order to force the elites to their knees. That is what I am focusing my energy on. Meanwhile, just like those on the right, we must form our own "think tanks" for the purpose of thinking out the permutations required to initiate and stabilize a global society/economy which does not burn down rain forests and seize lands from indigenous peoples. You input would be appreciated.
Finally, no I have not read Arnold Toynbee. My initiation into the global calamity we are facing came late in life, the time before that was spent pursuing my hobby interests and wondering why the economy that worked so well for my father . . . failed me and my children. The history that I learned was incidental and a byproduct of other interests. I had just turned 55 when Trump was selected to be president by an outmoded feature of our Constitution, then I decided enough was enough and I started an earnest research project into our economy. Now I am 58 and have come to understand that the government and economy will never work for me unless I force it to work for me. Therefor I am focused on the work ahead of us, which is to change human society and topple the malignant oligarchy before they kill us all.
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@leovolont - Ok, lets take on the "so easy just to kill us all" line of reasoning.
In our recent history, the Germans and the Japanese tried to do exactly that. As I remind people all the time, look at what the result was at the end of that conflict. Germany's cities and infrastructure were in complete ruin, so were the Japanese. Neither country was able to kill their way to victory, and they learned what happens to nations who tried to "kill them all".
In your more modernistic scenarios, lets explore the likely outcomes. In the "killer drone" scenario, let us assume for the sake of discussion that a cabal of oligarchs was able to successfully design, test and then simultaneously release a half billion killer drones upon the population, all logistically deployed to maximize casualties.
The most likely outcome would be mass casualties at first. Everyone would be surprised, even the police (cannot tell anyone, leaks of information undermine secrecy). However, even in the first wave of attacks many drones would be shot down by civilians and police alike. Shortly thereafter, the drones would need to be recharged and rearmed. Drones would be followed to their deployment zones and shortly after that, the greater portion of the surviving population would realize war had been declared . . . even if they did not know by whom or what for. There would be some confusion, but the tactically savvy would soon learn how to counter the drones and even turn the drones own weapon systems to their favor. Shortly after that, the real source of the attack would be exposed or discerned . . . with the inevitable result of the oligarchy being hunted down and eliminated.
The very same thing will happen if the police and white supremacists try to start a "cleansing kill", mass casualties at first and then the retaliation would be overwhelming, ending with the death of every policeman in the land, most white people and the oligarchy. Do you think our black population is just going to let the police mass kill them outright? Hell would be a paradise compared to what our black brothers and sisters would do under that threat, no one should want to witness that.
Also, can you imagine what the military rank and file would do, even if they were deployed overseas . . . out of the way? Killing their mothers, fathers, brother and sisters . . . oh they would hear about it very fast and their response would be devastating to those responsible.
The oligarchy has already mounted this assault, it is slow moving and instead of killer drones, they are using the ravishment of the earth and the economy to kill. Look at the equally slow moving response to this action . . . the population knows they are under attack and are mobilizing against the oligarchy. Not very effectively yet, but it is an undeniable mobilization.
My outlook is not based on optimism, it is a strategic and tactical response to being under attack. My attitude is called "pragmatism". It took me decades to figure out, that first . . . I was not the cause of my own "Failures" and two . . . I and everyone else was under systematic and sustained attack, actual attack by force. The whole thing as been fogged over and deliberately hidden through elaborate propaganda deception for decades, however the fog is blowing away and we are clearly under attack. The logical thing to to is form a resistance with a strategic and tactical plan to defeat and disarm our attackers. That is not optimism, it is pragmatism. If we are going to be truly pragmatic, then our goal must be to remove or destroy the weapons our enemy is using to attack us.
Now, if you or anyone else is going to give up before we have even started . . . then we have a problem because the oligarchs will have already won. They are counting on us to look at history and decide to give up . . . because how can we possibly beat the historical odds?
I'm not buying the "so easy just to kill us all" line of reasoning. I will disregard that kind of self defeating talk, let them try it and see what happens. Everyone like me will fight and kill til none of the old power structure remains . . . they will lose everything. Nothing changes unless we make it change. I spent too much of my life believing propaganda, all the while looking at WW2 German propaganda and thinking "good thing that cannot happen here!". Well it is happening now, it was happening in 16th century England, it happened in the Gilded Age, it happened after WW1 and it happened again when Nixon and Reagan dismantled our economy so the oligarchs could take control.
History means nothing if we don't heed the warning. History shows the attempted coup against FDR because the oligarchy threw a fit about the necessity for high taxes to help the masses. History shows that during FDR's time in office, he should have killed capitalism instead of saving it. No, my "optimism" is based on pragmatism. We must, once and for all eliminate wealth as a tool of power and the way we do that is to put limits on wealth. Lets work on that . . . before any real bloodshed starts. To wait is folly.
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@leovolont - I suppose that WW2 could be considered a Global Civil War between fascists. I've come to terms with it being a capitalist induced conflict, however I still have internal difficulties rendering an opinion due to the overwhelming patriotism propaganda I've ingested. World War 2 aircraft were my obsession for many decades, and I recently completed a World War Two 1/12 scale Douglas A-20-G-10 Havoc bomber which I also designed as a radio controlled flying model built from Balsa wood. As a result I ingested a great deal of WW2 history, but it was not until I finally studied the Russian end of the conflict that I realized that the Russians did as much if not more to win the European conflict that all other allies combined. I don't think the Russians can be counted as fascist.
Moving on to the U.S. military bases around the world, I've come to understand that the military has been used as a tool of coercion, if not outright conquest for U.S. capitalism and corporate interests.
Three questions:
1) Are you familiar with Smedley Butler?
2) Are you familiar with John Perkins?
3) Are you a fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Your scenario concerning Facebook giving up all American leftists, to be formulated into a hit list . . . really reminds me of Captain America-The Winter Soldier, and the Hydra Algorithm for targeting those who must be eliminated via heli-carrier firepower.
Having seen many science fiction and action movies, I've become very aware that Hollywood has been thinking about these scenarios and introducing these concepts to people via cinematic stories. Since I really doubt that Hydra mega gun platforms with targeting satellite uplinks really exist, I have a difficult time reckoning how suck an elaborate and extensive set of assassinations could be pulled off before the word got out. Even now with our bought out corporate media, there is still some semblance of conscience in the broadcast hosts . . . because every once in a while they will let something slip by that the bosses might not like getting out. The latest example was on MSNBC, The Last Word, when Lawrence put out the word that Trump has Russian co-signers on his loans . . . Lawrence apologized for, but did not retract his statement. I think this was a purposeful act, to accidentally/on purpose let the word out. If mass killings started up, the word would get out and the plans of the killers would go fubar . . . too much risk. Better to use propaganda and misinformation, that is a lot less messy and quite productive for the bad guys.
Ok, I'm done for the day here. I have painting to finish up and then bedtime. Looking forward to reading your responses and answers to my three questions when I get up.
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@leovolont - Hey Leo . . . excellent conjecture and quite entertaining. Truth be told, even Skynet "mice" do not concern me. First, if such a thing would happen, I would be dead or I would be fighting . . . either alternative would take up all my time. Second, not all EMP devices are nuclear, there is the ability to create small and portable EMP devices to stop electronic killing machines. Third, families everywhere have diverse political beliefs. When such killing scenarios start to play out, people are not going to align by political outlook . . . all of that would be meaningless in such a situation. We would be looking at the collapse of civilization and families would band together for mutual protection or to be "mass exterminated". Fourth . . . and this one is really important, I am very familiar with flying drones. The "Amazon" delivery drones have some range, but even they cannot fly for more than 30 minutes. We simply do not have light enough or powerful enough batteries for light weight autonomous drones of the type you are imagining.
Killing everyone who does not agree with you . . . that is a massive undertaking which cannot be kept secret. The logistics alone, of any single element whether it be development, manufacture, distribution, field support, deployment, recharging and rearming . . . every single element of this idea has the potential to be exposed and no billionaire would take that chance . . . because it would inevitably lead to his/her own execution and it would lead to the collapse of the very system of control they were seeking to dominate. You must take into account the "law of unintended consequences", something that is playing out across the globe at this very moment. Never in his widest nightmares did Milton Friedman ever dream that his vaunted "neo-classical theory of economics" would lead to global instability in the manner which it is manifesting today. That is the theory of unintended consequences playing out, the same thing would plague any billionaire plot to mass execute people.
One . . . more . . . thing (favorite saying of Uncle, Jacki Chan Adventures), Billionaires are not going to voluntarily give up on being billionaires, which is exactly what would happen upon the deployment of mass killing mice. The economic system would collapse and more than likely those killer mice would be captured in mass numbers by the resistance and turned upon their former controllers. Too many smart and tech savvy people are out there and the billionaires cannot control them all. When family members, wives, girlfriends and daughters start being killed, no billionaire would be safe. Revenge is a powerful motivator.
Now, please, let us put the killer mice and mass extermination to bed for awhile. There is real work to do before the billionaires turn into "Killer Clowns for Outer Space" or some diabolical version of "Skynet" (FYI, I have watched every Terminator movie and all the Sarah Connor Chronicles).
There are six arenas of political and monetary reform we must enact before our civilization collapses or humanity goes extinct. These are the arenas that I wish to discuss in detail, mainly to develop the political strategy for a accomplishing these goals. The bottom line is this, until there is a Central Global Government, we must re-nationalize our economies in order to take care of our homeland populations. This mean putting in capital controls and literally "executing" global capitalism.
We need six major reforms in the USA, 1) disband the Federal Reserve and put currency control back into the hands of Congress, 2) put the U.S. Treasury under the control of Congress, 3) eliminate fiat currency by once again tying U.S. currency to a gold standard or a combination of precious metals, 4) put a hard cap on accumulated wealth at $10 million per adult and strictly enforce inheritance and family wealth distribution laws to keep the cap in place 5) put a hard cap on how much cash or accumulated profit any corporation can hold, and finally . . . 6) eliminate overseas holdings and non-domestic ownership holdings for U.S. citizen individuals and U.S. registered corporations alike , all holdings must be inside the USA. This means the elimination of multi-national corporations.
You want to improve the situation for all citizens, once and for all eliminate billionaires and stop all of the nonsense we have had to go through over the last five decades? That list is how we do it and it applies in general principle to every country, not just the USA. Global trade is necessary and will carry on, with the appropriate currency exchange regulations which would not allow for exportation of national currencies.
There is a ton of work to do to flesh out each one of these arenas, plus the development of tangential, secondary and tertiary law to support and enforce conformity in each arena. The ultimate goal is to develop a Central Global Government which will have the best elements of capitalism, socialism and a stabilized global economy which does not rely on "growth" to sustain itself and will not cause mass extinction on our planet. Are you game?
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@leovolont - No, you did not "come on a little too strong with my objections about metal based currencies". You just spent far too little effort dialoging on currencies, far to little effort answering my other questions or addressing the points that I had raised . . . . and an extremely high volume of time and writing effort expounding upon your theory of billionaires death drone plans. I do enjoy the speculation, up to a point . . . and that point has definitely been surpassed. It got to where I could no longer discern if you just toying with me or if you had a grand obsession dealing with a theory which is quite out of range of us being able to deal with, at this time.
If you can step back a few meters, my idea of a wealth cap would deal with the billionaire death drone problem quite nicely.
I spent my morning dealing with dentistry and reading up on the gold standard. This means I'm not my usual positive self and now that this part of a horrible day is over, I have a lot of work to do with the remainder of the day and not much time for thinking or writing. However I am willing to say that I'm not so sure the gold standard is appropriate now. Tying currency to a basket of commodities seems to be another dead end. I have looked at Peter Joseph's ideas on a resource based economy, but that was a few years ago and I need to brush up on that again before I feel comfortable to discuss it.
One thing that keeps coming to the forefront of my thoughts is that in all of economic history, I cannot find any reference to placing limits on wealth accumulation . . . that seems to be a HUGE oversight by all who deal with economic theory. I was intrigued by Alan Greenspan's 1966 assertion that "deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth." It seems that he might have been on to something substantial there, given what has happened in the U.S. since the "Nixon Shock" of 1971.
With that as my conclusion for today, I must retire to attend to other duties.
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@leovolont - I'm still under the weather after my dental procedures yesterday, so I am going to keep this short. Your wrote that I still want to make private wealth work. Allow me to clarify. There is no instantaneous jump from capitalism to socialism. As with the evolution of cities or even the evolution of the human brain, they old systems must stay operational while the new systems are being built. Indeed, new systems and old systems continue to operate simultaneously, which is why humans today still blindly follow irrational leaders and act out in tribal mannerisms.
Capitalism and private wealth will continue to be operational features of our economic systems, even while we are attempting to build new systems. This is why I continue to harp on limiting accumulated wealth, not on eliminating accumulated wealth. This is a stepping stone, not a solution and certainly is not me trying to protect private wealth or to make private wealth work. Placing limits on accumulated wealth is a pragmatic step which we can accomplish in our present day society, whereas the complete conversion to a socialist society is NOT something we can accomplish in our present day society. However, unless placing limits on accumulated wealth gains popular support, socialism in any form WILL NOT HAPPEN.
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@ryanarchuleta3754 - Limited government is exactly the tool used by the billionaires to loot our economy. You have no idea really what you are talking about, you have been corrupted by the billionaire propaganda playbook. We need big government to keep thses bastards in check, and taxing them to death is the least we should do. Let me spell it out for you:
According to The Federal Reserve statistics released in August of 2019, the top 10% will hold 100% of the wealth within 33 years. This was the goal of so-called "Reaganomics", when the entire way our economy was run was changed. You can see it right now, the bottom 50% has lost $900 billion in wealth over the past 30 years, while the top 1% has increased their wealth by $21 trillion (which very coincidentally, matches our federal deficit in scale and timing).
No one seems to note one particular fact, that the 1% has over $30 trillion in accumulated wealth (some reports say $34 trillion, but lets be conservative and use $30 trillion in our little math problem). They don't need most of that to live on, so they "invest" most of it to get a rate of return. So, $30 trillion at 5% interest gets $1.5 trillion as its rate of return. Now consider that the USA has an annual economy (GDP) of just under $20 trillion per year. GDP growth for 2018 was $560 billion, far short of the amount of interest (free money) that the 1% is getting on their "investment".
So lets do the math. $1.5 trillion minus $560 billion equals $940 billion.
The 1% consumed all of 2018's economic growth . . . . plus they consumed almost 1/20th of the total U.S. economy in 2018 . . . . just to satisfy their need for "growth". The bite out of 2019 will be greater, all of the economic growth plus up to 7.5% of the economic output will go to the 1%. Every year after that the bite will be bigger and bigger.
This is more than just legitimately earning your money, this is about the cannibalization of our entire country.
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