Comments by "Nattygsbord" (@nattygsbord) on "The Real News Network"
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@indulgencerofindulgence5970
Thanks for taking your time to comment.
"And you shouldn't elevate any form of government this way, you shouldn't have to believe in democracy or any other form of government"
I think it is important that we don't kill political opponents for only having a different opinion. And no political leader should be able to take away fundamental human rights, whether it be freedom of speech, equality for the law, or whatever.
Brazil have had a long period of problems long before Bolsonaro. A few years ago it for example made the incredibly silly decision to make political satire illegal - which is a decision worthy of Erdogans dictatorship more than a western style democracy. No one should stand above mockery and criticism.
But I understand that political leaders in Brazil are both dumb, thin-skinned and corrupt.
Things are not perfect where I live either. Democracy is on decline in Europe as well. The government here in Sweden wants to make fake news illegal, and make it forbidden to say negative things about the Swedish nation. In Austria its illegal to mock or criticise religion. Germany wants to ban fake news. Britain wants to forbid porn and "hate speech".
We are with other words building a hell looking like Orwells 1984 where you are not free to speak or to think. And this is not a society in which I want to live in.
I want everyone to have their freedoms, so that I can be free, even if it would mean that stupid people can spread their stupid information and mislead others.
Democracy is certainly not a perfect system, but I prefer it over an Orwellian dictatorship any day of the year.
And there is nothing that guarantees that a country gets competent leaders with dictatorship or monarchy.
So what I want is a system with a large degree of free flow of information so there can exist enlightened citizens that make informed decisions.
And if a rich elite just wants to take over the government and steal money from the people to enrich themselves, then this behaviour can be countered with direct-democracy, where the people can just demand a referendum and smash the will of the corrupt ruling class.
And if you share the burdens and benifits of being a citizen in your country, then everyone would have an self-interest in making your economy and country to work well for everyone - instead of just having one group of people trying to get rich at the expense of another group.
So I want a society where everyone pays taxes, everyone serves in the military, everyone follow the same laws, everyone gets free healthcare and education and so on. It should be a society where everyone is equal and no privilegies exist.
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@qinby1182 "WHAT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND EU IS NOT AN ORGANISM WITH A WILL OF ITS OWN IT IS A UNION REFLECTING THE WILL OF THE MEMBER COUNTRIES"
The will of the ruling elite in those countries. Not the will of the people.
But I guess this difference doesn't matter to middle class champagne socialists.
"what is with you and the fish fixation??"
I like cods. Both on the plate and in the ocean.
And I hope future generations also will get the chance to taste its delicious low fat white meat.
*"Should also add … that Sweden did not have a war for 182 years is a very stupid comment…
all the neighbors are smaller and who wants to conquer Sweden???"*
Nope it is your comment here that is stupid and display ignorance of history. Sweden had Russia as its neighbour until Finland became independent in late 1917. Sweden was also much targeted for its iron and Britain planned an invasion of Norway and Sweden in 1940 to take control over that vital resource, but their plans had to be abolished when Hitlers troops attacked Norway in April.
And during the cold war was the Soviet union a serious threat to all countries in its proximity.
"Anyway EU is a peace project"
It is a project for European imperialism now when the old colonial empires are dead, and the big countries sees this as a chance for revenge and to retake the global influence they have lost since France and Britain failed to retake the Suez canal in 1956.
Why else would it want its own army? Why else would it have its warmongering rethoric towards America?
Why else would it want a small rapid response force that can be deployed anyware in the world with a short notice, when a large conscription army is a better option if the goal is to defend Europe from a foreign invasion?
I have no interest in having my country being part of a military pact. Especially not with warmongering imperialist countries like France that only invaded Libya in 2011 so that their oil company Total could steal their oil.
Why do the richer countries in EU give money (GIVE, not borrow) to the poorer"
Because Eurocrats wants their own power and prestige to grow, and bribing the people Eastern Europe is a cheap way to get public support there for the EU project.
And as the economist Guglielmo Meardi says so have the EU only made the poor worse off in those eastern countries.
"BUT AT LEAST THERE IS A FORUM TO DEAL WITH IT"
As I said earlier, there have been international cooperation before the EU. And unlike the EU have they also been able to function. While the EU only have produced failures in immigration, in economics, in research (like the outdate galileo project), in fighting crime, in enviromental policies, in democracy, and in fighting corruption.
So if some countries want a military pact, then fine they cant create their own alliance while Sweden keeps its long tradition of neutrality instead. And if European countries wanna help each other fight crime or sharing firemen, planes and helicopters to fight wildfires then there is nothing that prevents them from doing so even if an EU doesn't exist.
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Overall do I think this global "one size fits all" suits the world badly.
What we need is more national democracy and solutions more suited for the situation for a specific country.
Another important reason why I reject globalism, is that poor countries almost always needs protectionism to industrialize so they can get out of poverty.
In todays world order all countries are forced to have free trade regardless if they like it or not. And that might not be much of a problem for advanced economies like USA, but for uncompetative less developed countries like in Africa this is devestating.
And most of this "Washington consensus" ideology also have close ties to fascism - as we have seen in Chile under Pinotchet, in Iraq under George W Bush and Russia under Yeltsin. And TTIP, TPP and CETA are also globalist institutions that are highly anti-democratic in their nature.
The track record of international institutions like the World Bank, IMF and WTO during the 1980s and 1990s is not pretty, unless one likes genocide of ordinary people in 2nd and 3rd world countries.
And todays unnecessarily harsh copyright and patent laws only serve to enrich an elite, while innovation is slowed down, internet is censored, people in poor countries die when they don't get access to cheap copies of medicines, and developing countries get it harder to aquire foreign modern technologies - which are needed for poor countries to be able to increase their productivity in their economy so they can get out of poverty.
Todays globalist world order sucks and needs to be destroyed.
The WTO should throw all modern treaties into the trash and go back to the 1960s GATT agreements, which offered poor countries more policy freedoms to implement protectionist policies. And the banking sector was better regulated.
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I want to end the wars, and get my democracy back. I want to end NSA spying on its people when they are not suspected of any crime. And I want freedom of speech back. Copyright laws should be weakened.
And the fascist trade deals should be scrapped, and poor countries should be freed from the shackels of IMF and WTO rules.
I want the left to deal with inequality, and rebuilding the safety net, and let the government involve itself in the economy again to make industrial policy. Full employment should be a national priority again.
There should be a strong government that can bring the financial sector in order. And some areas of public life should not be runned for the sake of profit - like the military, the police, prisons, schools, and basic healthcare.
And the government should look at other succesful models of managing housing so it can benifit all of society instead of just the rich - like South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Germany.
Those are some of the issues that I care about. Your hobby horses can you keep for yourself.
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This guy is shitty and cannot even make good criticism of clowns like free-stuff-Cortez.
Printing money is not a problem as long as you use it for productive investments instead of spending the money on useless consumption. If you borrow the money to start a buisness or getting a good education that allows you to make more money in the future, then there is no problem with borrowing money. And the same thing is true for the government - you can create money (aka "borrowing money") and use the money to improve the economy by more money for research, education, job training programs for workers, infrastructure etc.
When you use your money for good things, then creating money is substainable.
But if you spend your borrowed money on things that doesn't improve the economy, like the upkeep of the useless EU parliament in Strassbourg, or money for printing up EU propaganda, or wasting billions of money on airport nobody uses... then of course will get the value of your currency destroyed in the long run.
And the system becomes unsubstainable.
And here is my problem with MMT. It cannot work when politicians lie and rebrand 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁𝘀 as 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀.
That will harm the credibility of MMT in the long run just like Epstein says. And todays left is simply too immature for having a reason to exist. When immigration of millions of low educated, highly criminal, not-easily-assimilated groups of people come in to your country you have to realize that it is a problem. It is a 𝗰𝗼𝘀𝘁 and NOT an 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀.
And as long as the political establishment refuse to tell the truth, then the idea of MMT will be doomed to never succeed.
You cannot make a clownish wishlist of open borders, closing down all nuclear plants today, and then demand an univeral basic income of 30.000 dollars a month for everyone. This shit will not work. And as long as my leftwing party is allied with clowns that propose this, then I will continue to vote for other parties.
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I never said all guns should be banned. I think hunters can have their guns, and those guns should not be automatic. And bump fire stocks should be illegal. And magazine capacity should be restricted. And background checks should be harsh. The government should also make a rifle-by-back program so people can sell their guns to the government for a market price in order to reduce the fire arms in circulation in society.
With all those measures we can limit the harm a shooter can do. And the police can quickly outgun a normal criminal. Which in turn makes society safer and the police doesn't need armoured vechiles like in America.
Its true that the market price goes up, and I cannot see why that would be a bad thing. In the past (say the 1950-1990s) when Sweden was a closed economy there was hand grenades or military guns in circulation. And the only deaths by fire arms was caused by non-automatic rifles for hunting.
But since Sweden joined the EU and opened up its borders to other European countries weapons have been flooding into the country, and especially from surplus ex-Yugoslavian army depots by criminals who have bribed Generals to sell their stocks of arms.
So now the price of weapons in western Europe has fallen like a rock. And a hand grenade can now be bought cheaper than a milk package. And now most gun violance is done by drunken persons with imported Yugoslavian arms.
And as weapons get cheaper more thugs can get their hands on them. And the Swedish police is fighting an uphill battle against heavier and heavier armed opponents, which are getting bolder and more aggressive.
I can have some symphaty for the American position though that closing the borders between each state is not a desireable solution. So doing as I wish to do with Sweden is not possible. And too many guns are already around in American society to get things under control.
So I guess things has to go stepwise when America is slowly de-arming.
I would also just trying to close the border with Mexico since I'm not a believer in legalization. Neighter in guns, drugs or anything else. If money is the problem, then the solution would be to provide people with other ways to earn an income, like for example selling food crops instead of weed.
Most large criminal gangs now also makes their income from a broad range of activities - smuggling mexicans, prostitution, selling drugs, blackmail, kidnapping etc, so just legalizing everything would do nothing to get rid of any criminal gangs.
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@krisinmcirvin782 I've read the book. And I think Mitchell's reflections are useful and extremely important and some of the best designs for a post-EU policy for a country.
And I would add "Reviving British Manufacturing" and other such books to the most read list for to the post EU project.
I do however think that Mitchell takes things a little bit too far in his book. I think small countries needs to be careful about their money printing and national debt, even if I am far from a debt-hawk but rather the opposite. I think debts are mostly just a tool to scare people into submission, and that countries can pile up more and more debts without a problem if the economy is strong - as Mitchell himself mentioned with Australia case.
But a country like Sweden is not USA. And with the shitty state of our economy right now I would try to be careful even if we already have our own currency.
We cannot just print up money and expect foreigners to accept our money as they were US dollars.
A 2nd problem with Mitchells theories is that of the green new deal. I love his job guarantee programme. And I am sympathic towards the idea of building railroads and creating new green jobs - as in for example the biotech industry to create enviromentally friendly substitutes for different materials we use.
But on the other hand do I not think this green new deal ever will become a hugely profitable buisness. And I think we lie to ourselves if we claim it would be.
Planting trees might be good for the enviroment, and it might be necessary, but it is not creating any growth in our economy but I rather look at it as boring maintance.
Its just boring shit we have to do.
Taking a shower and washing our clothes might be good things to do, but it is not really making us excited and enriching our lives and feel like we have gained any extra in our lives.
And this is also why I think people are so reluctant to pay for this. There is no economic growth to be had.
And same goes with green energy. No energy source will ever be able to replace oil. Uranium is a limited resource which would only last a few years if it was used to replace all fossile fuels consumption in the world at the current rate.
We don't have enough rare earth metals for highly effiecent solar panels, and we don't have neodynium for magnets for windturbines. Hydroelectric power cannot be built unless you have rivers, and geothermal energy is not very effiecent if you have to dig too much far into the ground... which means that it is only practical in vulcano countries like Iceland and Indonesia.
And biofuels demands large areals of land and they have a too low EROEI to even replace a fraction of a country's oil demand - not even Brazil's military dictatorship with its ethanol cars or Hitlers regime of evil scientists could bring their country's out of oil dependency... so I highly doubt anyone can find a good replacement for oil this day either. And this will not change no matter how much money you throw at throw at the problem.
So believing that a green new deal would ever be a hugely profitable affair that manage to replace fossile fuels is nonsense in my opinion.
The goals are just as unrealisticly optimistic as Mao's great leap forward which ended in a disaster. I like the idea of MMT, and that is also the reason why the last thing I want to is to let this idea fall into the hands of unicorn fairydust clowns like Occasio Cortez that says everything is for free.
You can get rid of oil dependency, open the borders, give everyone UBI, a job guarantee program, free healthcare and education and a new green deal all at the same time.
Sorry I cannot support that. This will make me and all other MMT supporters looklike idiots. Because these proposals are idiotic and overly ambitious and not thought-through.
It sounds like the great leap forward 2019.
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@krisinmcirvin782 To a large part do I agree with you and Mitchell. But even Mitchell himself said in the book you refer to that France could not defend its ambitious economic programme even with capital controls.
So the government is not almighty. And especially not shortly after a Brexit, Grexit or Swexit.
Putting a new industrial policy and central bank policy in place will take time, if we are going to be realistic.
So the tools of controlling our own economies will be limited at first so it is important to not create too much capital flight and crashing the value of ones own currency and making imports more expensive and thereby destroying many domestic industries.
So even money can have an impact in the real world. But once a country gets its souvereign policy tools in place and have a stubbord support for its own national key industries, then the country can play much more aggressively and print money and spend. And economic growth will make the debt-to-GDP ratio to fall and the spending increases will kill off unemployment, and the rapid increase in production will make the amount of stuff grow faster than the amount of money chasing it so inflation will not be a problem.
On the contrary, deflation will instead grow, and that problem can easily be fixed by more inflation from more money printing. And then can the government create even more money, and it will not result in higher prices since people will use it to instead build up their own household savings instead of using the money in the economy to bid up prices at the shelves of grocery stores.
Standard of living will be maximized and inequality will dissapear. And with high wages and a strong consumer base will there be strong incentives for technological development.
A million things can also be done about the fiscal policy, but I am already too longwinded to go into that.
Suffiecent to say that MMT is a great tool in the tool box, but I think weak countries needs to be realistic about the dangers of capital flight and currency crashes.
And capital controls cannot fix this overnight. Because capital controls works best in a preventionary role rather than in the role of curing an already sick and infected economy. Introducing capital controls would only make foreign investors more nervous about more government restrictions or get them even more suspicious that the economy would crash - which could lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy as foreign investors desperatly tries to flee the country.
And when every foreign investor runs towards the exit and tries to sell their stocks and currency they have, then the currency will fall like a rock and the stock market crashes. And the country will be in a big economic mess with crashed companies and mass unemployment, and the interest rates for borrowing money on the international markets would go up as few people have any trust in the ability of the country to pay.
And then the IMF can come in a buttrape the country, when it have a knife pressed against its neck and can blackmail it into any harsh loan conditionalities.
So it is no big surprise that small countries do not like to pile up much debt and invite foreign direct investors so they can cause financial panics like this. The benifits of borrowing money and getting foreign money does not compensate for all damage done afterwards.
It is simply better to play safe and don't pile up debt, and try to limit risky foreign investments into your country.
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Protectionism is a good thing when it comes to protecting infant industries. But it is simply idiotic when it comes to protecting old outdated industries that needs to die the death of "creative destruction".
The EU protectionism is only of the useless variant. The Chinease can buy up the next generation of European high tech firms without politicians lifting a finger to save their crownjewels from getting stolen.
The only protectionism the EU does is to protect farmers that are overproducing expensive food so that European consumers have to pay an overprice for food, and african farmers get thrown into poverty when European subsidized food gets dumped on African markets and dump prices so much that Africans go out of buisness.
The EU trade policies is wasteful, immoral and destructive to the planet since the overproduction of food waste limited resources like fresh water, topsoil, phosphorus, and fossile fuels for tractors, planes, waterpumps, creation of fertilizer and pesticide.
And when too much food is produced and can't be sold for profit, then food are burned despite all resources that have been wasted on producing that food. Millions are starving, but the EU rather destroys food than changing course.
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