Is the true world enemy the economy?

[R. U. Sirius]

Just throwing in my two cents here...

Has it occurred to anyone else that world population has been exploding at the same time that massive amounts of jobs have been replaced with automation?

I'm not coming down on either side of this debate, but I think it bears thinking about. Yes, new jobs have been opening up at the same time as the automated jobs have been lost, but not nearly as fast. I understand that "be fruitful and multiply" is hardwired into our DNA by evolution, but given the rate at which we're consuming resources and replacing paid jobs with automation, wouldn't it make sense to try cutting back on our population, both nationally and as a planet?

No, I'm not advocating for another Holocaust or rounds of forced sterilization or abortions. I have absolutely no idea how we would be able to implement such a program and get people to go along with it without resorting to tactics like China uses for its "one child" policy. But at the same time, the Chinese have a point...if our population continues exploding as it is, a worldwide collapse won't be far off.

One thing I do agree with Karnon on is the fact that economies are only considered healthy if they're growing, full stop. In nature, the only things that grow ceaselessly, with no concern for anything else, are cancers and invasive species introduced into a new environment. I think it might be worthwhile to study new ideas of economic health that don't rely on endless growth, especially since we're rapidly approaching the point that the environment won't be able to sustain our population.

[RavynousHunter]

Which is why interstellar travel and colonization will need to be a reality; otherwise, we'll face an Ender's Game situation.

[Saturn500]

Which is why interstellar travel and colonization will need to be a reality; otherwise, we'll face an Ender's Game situation.

You mean in the sense that everything around us will jump the shark so much, they'll be screaming "Look at me, I'm Mr. Jumpy-Sharko"?

[kefkaownsall]

Which is why interstellar travel and colonization will need to be a reality; otherwise, we'll face an Ender's Game situation.

You mean in the sense that everything around us will jump the shark so much, they'll be screaming "Look at me, I'm Mr. Jumpy-Sharko"?

Then we'll get to the 7th book where we forget we are in a political drama and not writing a pro life tract

[Alehksunos]

Which is why interstellar travel and colonization will need to be a reality; otherwise, we'll face an Ender's Game situation.

You mean in the sense that everything around us will jump the shark so much, they'll be screaming "Look at me, I'm Mr. Jumpy-Sharko"?

Then we'll get to the 7th book where we forget we are in a political drama and not writing a pro life tract

While we're on this subject about the writing and politics of Orson Scott Card:

[Kradorex Xeron]

So what would you propose? No minimum repayments and interest on loans? Then why would anyone loan money in the first place?

No, If the economy is to exist at all it needs to get back to basics and stop being about debt and start being about exchanging again. The economy has lost all focus of what it should be and has made everything about "paying your debts". We live in a culture of debt where everybody is in the red somehow, be it a loan from a friend/family, student loans, mortgages, being behind on bills, credit cards... These days the economy has made it impossible to live in the green and being still up with the times without being significantly above average on income or in debt.

If most everybody is in constant debt, there's a problem with how the economy works. Yes, I encourage debts to be repaid, but when debts are being used as a tool to extract significantly more money, that's usury and must not be a valid part of any economy as that's not exchange, that's a one way benefit. Exhibit A: Credit card treadmill.

Of course the bank wants you take out a mortgage. It's how they make money. However, if you're able and willing to pay it in full, I'm not sure how exactly that would effect you in the slightest, since unless you have a massive soft spot for banks or something, there's not a damn thing they can do about it.

This is true, however again, see: culture of debt.

Stock markets are largely controlled by short term traders rather than long term investors, so the ups and downs there are largely meaningless. Both in that they don't reflect the strength of the economy overall and that short term fluctuations don't matter to long term investors. As for analysts, well, their job is essentially to predict the future. That's never guaranteed thing by any means, no matter the field. Weatherman are often wrong in their forecasts, but that doesn't mean meteorology is a worthless field, or that we should do away with the weather entirely (assuming that was a possibility).

The difficulty here is that I doubt even if every human on the planet contributed to an effort to comprehend the economy itself, it would be an impossible feat, it has become complex beyond a healthy point and has become akin to a train without real controls, but only controls that can "suggest" things to happen. Stock markets are worthless without companies with goods and services but often fail to acknowledge that. The banks and other organizations involved in the organization and incorporation of stock markets often build them up that unless your company is on the stock market, that you and your company are worthless. This culture has led to a state where organizations that are not governmental beyond a certain size cannot sustain themselves without being on the stock market.

...
The problem with this particular recession is that the government did a piss poor job of handling it. Both Bush's administration for racking up stupid amounts of debt during a boom of all things and Obama's for not having the stones to spend big on massive public works.

Blaming one man for the state of the economy is flawed. Blaming one government for the state of  the economy is flawed. This is an international crisis that should be a wake-up call to the United States that it isn't the sum total of the world (If you're an American and see this fact, I commend you highly).

Obama can do nothing on his own.
Obama's administration can do nothing on its own.
The US Congress can do nothing on its own.
The US people cannot do anything on their own.
The Chinese government can do nothing on its own.
The Russian government can do nothing on its own.

Without a collective, global effort to resolve economical issues, nothing will improve and since everybody's in the red, and everybody else refuses to budge on permitting any resolution without repayments in full (which is a catch-22 now: How do you create jobs without the economical means to to repay the multi-billion to multi-trillion dollar national debts?) The economy is in a state of deadlock but nobody wants to admit it. It's only artificially being kept moving. Remove those supports and things will crash.

Too, one thing I'd like to strongly highlight:
I really really want people to stop dragging identities and names into this sort of subject. It will only fuel conflict from invariably someone from that "side" that feels put out by said dragging. Inserting any name or identity into this sort of problem always results in the real issues NOT getting resolved because people would be too busy complaining about irrelevant things like partisanship, who's at fault or the like.

True enough. Though for what it's worth, as long as there's enough competition, the end product/service tends to be reasonable enough quality and price.

The problem is the economy is driving consolidation and thus monopolies of various industries and elements. There's lots of brands, but few "parent companies". This is driving organizations to throw away their visions to acquire more money. As long as the economy creates an environment that encourages this it will continue. It's often cheaper to buy out competition or companies holding patents/copyrights than it is to compete or license.

No, China does not have the US over a barrel. China's economy is pretty much entirely fueled by exports, particularly to the US. The US crashes, as in properly crashes, China is going to have a very bad time. Without both markets in the US for their goods and manufacturing contracts from US companies, we'd see quite a few Chinese cities going the way of Detroit. That's not even considering what a US crash would do to, say, Europe and Japan, a couple of other rather vital markets for China.

As for "pulling out the carpet", how would they do that? I guess they could stop printing money themselves and selling it for foreign currency (it's how they keep the Yuan's exchange rates so low), but that'd ultimately hurt them a hell of a lot more than it'd hurt the US.

This is true enough, I cede here, however see my prior comment about the catch-22 deadlock.

Alright, fine. So far, all you've given me is reasons why you think the modern economy is bad, and yet no evidence whatsoever that your alternative of going back to the stone age would actually be better. Do tell me how it would improve job security (or how the vast majority of jobs would even be possible), lower corruption and generally increase happiness and quality of life for all (not to mention how exactly we could go back to it without starving 99.6% of the global population).

Again, it was merely a suggestion. I am but one man, I do not have all the answers however keep in mind, this current economy is so far from being the answer and/or only option. This current economy cannot sustain the current population. Every time the population grows, inflation also grows which devalues money which results in the cost of things going up.

I was mainly suggesting the barter system as a mechanism of removing things like stock markets and other things that frankly distract companies from their visions and more importantly: customers.

Has it occurred to anyone else that world population has been exploding at the same time that massive amounts of jobs have been replaced with automation?

I'm not coming down on either side of this debate, but I think it bears thinking about. Yes, new jobs have been opening up at the same time as the automated jobs have been lost, but not nearly as fast. I understand that "be fruitful and multiply" is hardwired into our DNA by evolution, but given the rate at which we're consuming resources and replacing paid jobs with automation, wouldn't it make sense to try cutting back on our population, both nationally and as a planet?

That's because primarily the current economy has a fascination in growth alone but doesn't acknowledge there's people involved, thus when jobs are "lost", often times it's VERY difficult to convince employers to create new ones. Why? Because employers point at economical uncertainty constantly. It's easy to lay people off, it means that there's more money that can be diverted from staffing to say, the investors/stock holders. To take money away from the investors/stock holders again and say "We need this to hire more people" — you get a lot of resistance as a CEO from the board.

No, I'm not advocating for another Holocaust or rounds of forced sterilization or abortions. I have absolutely no idea how we would be able to implement such a program and get people to go along with it without resorting to tactics like China uses for its "one child" policy. But at the same time, the Chinese have a point...if our population continues exploding as it is, a worldwide collapse won't be far off.

I think re-factoring the economy should be a focus first and foremost, discovering what isn't working with the current economy (society of debt comes to mind) and such is vital to remove those elements or build a new system, at that point we could then see with eyes from THAT economical perspective instead of the current one which doesn't actually factor people into itself, people are merely a means of increasing numbers, if a person or group is interfering in that increasing of numbers, the economy says to get rid of them.

One thing I do agree with Karnon on is the fact that economies are only considered healthy if they're growing, full stop. In nature, the only things that grow ceaselessly, with no concern for anything else, are cancers and invasive species introduced into a new environment. I think it might be worthwhile to study new ideas of economic health that don't rely on endless growth, especially since we're rapidly approaching the point that the environment won't be able to sustain our population.

Agreed. The problem however is that whenever one goes against that endless growth element, someone invariably always pipes up and says "Those who are successful must be allowed to be rewarded, opposition is oppression!".

Perhaps an element that may result in a healthier economy is to remove interest, it would discourage people from stockpiling money to simply get growth by having a pile of money sitting around for a long time, too it would prevent debts from growing just by existing. If a debt is refused to be paid within an agreed upon time, that's theft and should be met with a court room, not a percentage sign. A truly healthy economy is one where there are the most resources being exchanged (be it money for product or product for money or product for product) as possible. Stockpiling effectively removes elements from the economy, making everyone else suffer.

[Sylvana]

Perhaps an element that may result in a healthier economy is to remove interest, it would discourage people from stockpiling money to simply get growth by having a pile of money sitting around for a long time, too it would prevent debts from growing just by existing. If a debt is refused to be paid within an agreed upon time, that's theft and should be met with a court room, not a percentage sign. A truly healthy economy is one where there are the most resources being exchanged (be it money for product or product for money or product for product) as possible. Stockpiling effectively removes elements from the economy, making everyone else suffer.

As was mentioned without interest, no bank would ever have a reason to loan any money. The only possible solution to that that I can think of is to nationalize all bank and basically make is so that banks are effectively forced to provide loans. Of course banks still need to make money so this will undoubtedly require a significantly higher charges on bank fees.

I will admit that my knowledge about economies is abysmal, but all I can see is that the global economy right now is basically built upon the foundation that developing world labour is easily exploitable turning them into slaves basically and that the most effective way to make money is to generate it out of thin air through debt.

The whole situation is incredibly complex. All countries are dependent on imports / exports to a degree. However while such imports and exports are so easy, companies will most often choose to move their labour to a country where it is expendable like china. This harms jobs in the importing country which damages that countries economy and in turn leads to higher inflation which causes more job cuts and exploitation. The whole system is effectively coiling in on itself ever raising the problems more and more, and I honestly don't have a solution to it.

The only possible solution at this rate would be a world war. This would decimate so many countries economies and infrastructure as well as kill off so many people that it would effectively reset the global economy. The sad thing is that such a world war will happen because eventually we will have to kill each other over what little resources are available.

[Art Vandelay]

No, If the economy is to exist at all it needs to get back to basics and stop being about debt and start being about exchanging again. The economy has lost all focus of what it should be and has made everything about "paying your debts". We live in a culture of debt where everybody is in the red somehow, be it a loan from a friend/family, student loans, mortgages, being behind on bills, credit cards... These days the economy has made it impossible to live in the green and being still up with the times without being significantly above average on income or in debt.

If most everybody is in constant debt, there's a problem with how the economy works. Yes, I encourage debts to be repaid, but when debts are being used as a tool to extract significantly more money, that's usury and must not be a valid part of any economy as that's not exchange, that's a one way benefit. Exhibit A: Credit card treadmill.

True, a lot of people tend to wrack up bad debt, that's a serious problem. That doesn't mean all forms of debt are a bad thing. On the contrary, not only is it sometimes necessary, but as long as its used correctly, it's hugely beneficial to all parties. If lending money was never a thing, nobody but the rich would have the means to ever start even a small business, or purchase property. That of course would result in both oligarchy and land barons. Or perhaps combine the two and we can go back to serfdom. Wouldn't that be fun? Not to mention, lower class people would have a very difficult time buying certain big ticket items. Just imagine if your fridge suddenly breaks, and you didn't have a few hundred dollars handy to replace it. Or perhaps you live somewhere with little to no public transport, and your car breaks down, leaving you unable to get to and from work. You'd be fucked. Then of course, there's the benefit to someone with savings. For all the anti-consumer shit that banks pull, as consumers we'd be a lot worse off without them. They not only keep your money under extremely tight security and insured should that fail, while still providing instant access via EFTPOS/debit and maintaining a nation wide network of ATMs, but they actually pay us for the privilege in the form of interest. If debt wasn't a thing, that wouldn't be possible. You'd have to either pay through the nose to keep your savings in a high security depository or keep it in your house and hope nothing bad happens to it.

What's needed is better regulation on lending as well as consumers having a basic understanding of how to budget. Like pretty much anything in existence, debt has the potential to be abused. If and when it is, the solution is to simply put a stop to that abuse. Nothing as extreme as doing away with debt entirely. That would have even worse consequences.

This is true, however again, see: culture of debt.

Not a valid excuse. If you have the means to avoid getting into debt, yet get into it anyway, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The difficulty here is that I doubt even if every human on the planet contributed to an effort to comprehend the economy itself, it would be an impossible feat, it has become complex beyond a healthy point and has become akin to a train without real controls, but only controls that can "suggest" things to happen. Stock markets are worthless without companies with goods and services but often fail to acknowledge that. The banks and other organizations involved in the organization and incorporation of stock markets often build them up that unless your company is on the stock market, that you and your company are worthless. This culture has led to a state where organizations that are not governmental beyond a certain size cannot sustain themselves without being on the stock market.

Stock markets are quite a vital part of the economy. Here's the thing, growing a company is very expensive. Even if it is highly profitable, unless the owner is a billionaire, it will be extremely slow to grow without bringing in outside funds, and often times going the more traditional route and getting a loan is not feasible, simply because lending such a massive chunk of money to a newly growing business is a huge risk, and as such the interest rate will be astronomical. As such, selling equity is the best option. Normally, that could still happen, provided the business owner know enough rich people who'd be willing to buy into the company, but for obvious reasons that's hardly a reliable method. Instead, the stock market allows a company to sell a huge amount of equity to anyone who's able and willing to spend even a relatively tiny amount. Effectively, this means that everyone outside of the upper classes are able to invest and companies have access to a much much bigger pool of potential investors. That's why pretty much every company over a certain size is publicly traded. It's by far the lowest risk and most reliable way to raise money.

Blaming one man for the state of the economy is flawed. Blaming one government for the state of  the economy is flawed. This is an international crisis that should be a wake-up call to the United States that it isn't the sum total of the world (If you're an American and see this fact, I commend you highly).

It's certainly hit the rest of the world rather hard, it is still an American crisis. You remember the sub prime mortgage crisis? Basically, banks were giving huge numbers of loans with very high interest rates to people who ultimately couldn't afford to pay them, and then selling parts of these loans to other financial institutions around the world (basically, the buyer would take on part of the debt and be entitled to some of the interest). The result was that when this went completely tits up, pretty much every financial institution in the US (not just the banks that initially took out the loans) had at least a finger in that particular pie, and so it all but destroyed the entire financial sector, which then caused the overall economy to crash.

As for the rest of the world, how badly they were hit was pretty much directly dependent on how much they invested in American sub prime loans. For example, Iceland's major banks were so heavily invested that their entire financial sector was completely shattered, which pretty much ruined the entirely economy so badly that it almost needed the IMF to bail it out. Conversely, Australia's banks for the most part didn't touch the US sub prime loans, and while unemployment went up and growth did go negative for a few years, it was not even close to the devastating crashes in the US and Iceland, simply due to not being tied to the sub prime loans.

So yes, this recession was largely triggered (if not outright caused) by a rather nasty bubble in the US. That's exactly what the US government is responsible for preventing, so yes, it's perfectly fair to point the finger at them and expect them to implement any future solutions.

Without a collective, global effort to resolve economical issues, nothing will improve and since everybody's in the red, and everybody else refuses to budge on permitting any resolution without repayments in full (which is a catch-22 now: How do you create jobs without the economical means to to repay the multi-billion to multi-trillion dollar national debts?) The economy is in a state of deadlock but nobody wants to admit it. It's only artificially being kept moving. Remove those supports and things will crash.

The point is that as long as there's a recession, you don't worry about debt. Borrow as much as you need and simply focus on stimulating the economy. Once it recovers and you actually have the funds coming in to start paying it off, then worry about the debt. Austerity just makes things a hell of a lot worse in the long run. Now of course, some countries are at the point where they simply cannot get any more credit (such as Greece and Italy), however, the US is nowhere near that point yet.

Too, one thing I'd like to strongly highlight:
I really really want people to stop dragging identities and names into this sort of subject. It will only fuel conflict from invariably someone from that "side" that feels put out by said dragging. Inserting any name or identity into this sort of problem always results in the real issues NOT getting resolved because people would be too busy complaining about irrelevant things like partisanship, who's at fault or the like.

Well, no. As I've said already, one of the government's most important tasks is regulating the economy. When the economy crashes so badly and because of such things as stimulatory spending during a boom and an unchecked housing bubble, then the government or more specifically the administration in power at the time has failed spectacularly at its job and it needs to be discussed. Not so we can say "the democrats are better than the republicans" or vice versa, but to see what exactly they did wrong, what they could've done to prevent it and what they should do now to fix the damage and prevent this from happening again, regardless of which political party is in power.

The problem is the economy is driving consolidation and thus monopolies of various industries and elements. There's lots of brands, but few "parent companies". This is driving organizations to throw away their visions to acquire more money. As long as the economy creates an environment that encourages this it will continue. It's often cheaper to buy out competition or companies holding patents/copyrights than it is to compete or license.

Indeed, and this is another failing courtesy of the government. They have the authority to prevent mergers and even forcibly split existing companies apart (as they did to Standard Oil way back when). They need to make use of that tool a little more often whenever competition is a little lacking.

Again, it was merely a suggestion. I am but one man, I do not have all the answers however keep in mind, this current economy is so far from being the answer and/or only option. This current economy cannot sustain the current population. Every time the population grows, inflation also grows which devalues money which results in the cost of things going up.

I was mainly suggesting the barter system as a mechanism of removing things like stock markets and other things that frankly distract companies from their visions and more importantly: customers.

I'm not saying you should have all the answers, just a solid understanding of why you're actually suggesting what you're suggesting. How would customers be better off? How exactly would corruption be lowered? I don't mean a vague "removing stock markets", talk me through the mechanics of how wealth and power would shift from the rich to the poor. Also, I explained in detail how a barter system could not even come close to sustaining even 1% of the current global population. Give me a logically sound rebuttal to my arguments there. If you can't do at least that, then there's really no reason for anyone to take your suggestion seriously.

[Jack Mann]

I think a lot of the problem is that people aren't taught to be financially responsible, which makes it much more difficult to avoid bad debt, or to get out of the cycle of poverty.  There are a lot of people who could be doing, if not well, then at least better than they are, if they learned to budget better, to avoid buying things on credit they don't need, and to use their money wisely.  They don't learn it from their parents (who likely lacked those tools themselves), they aren't taught it, and they may be surrounded by friends who have fallen into the same traps because they were never taught to avoid them.

The problem is that schools often don't teach a lot on the subject, and when they do, the students often don't pay attention.

[Sylvana]

I think a lot of the problem is that people aren't taught to be financially responsible, which makes it much more difficult to avoid bad debt, or to get out of the cycle of poverty.

Debt is a tricky thing. It is not just bad debt. Even if everyone could successfully pay off all their debts responsibly debt is still acting like a giant wealth sink. Many stores offer their own credit card options, allowing people to buy something and then pay it off in installments, allowing the store to make even more money than originally asked. Now add to that the fact that wages have stagnated for decades while inflation has been keeping the cost of living up and people are forced more and more to make ends meet by buying things on credit. Sure they can pay it all off, but it greatly devalues their personal buying power as their effective goods per dollar are noticeably less.

I do agree that people need to know how to be financially responsible and that getting credit is far too easy leading people into huge debt holes. Unfortunately though we have an economy that seems to be primarily driven by debt instead of services because to be blunt, debt is more profitable.

[Kradorex Xeron]

True, a lot of people tend to wrack up bad debt, that's a serious problem. That doesn't mean all forms of debt are a bad thing. On the contrary, not only is it sometimes necessary, but as long as its used correctly, it's hugely beneficial to all parties. If lending money was never a thing, nobody but the rich would have the means to ever start even a small business, or purchase property. That of course would result in both oligarchy and land barons. Or perhaps combine the two and we can go back to serfdom. Wouldn't that be fun? Not to mention, lower class people would have a very difficult time buying certain big ticket items. Just imagine if your fridge suddenly breaks, and you didn't have a few hundred dollars handy to replace it. Or perhaps you live somewhere with little to no public transport, and your car breaks down, leaving you unable to get to and from work. You'd be fucked. Then of course, there's the benefit to someone with savings. For all the anti-consumer shit that banks pull, as consumers we'd be a lot worse off without them. They not only keep your money under extremely tight security and insured should that fail, while still providing instant access via EFTPOS/debit and maintaining a nation wide network of ATMs, but they actually pay us for the privilege in the form of interest. If debt wasn't a thing, that wouldn't be possible. You'd have to either pay through the nose to keep your savings in a high security depository or keep it in your house and hope nothing bad happens to it.

What's needed is better regulation on lending as well as consumers having a basic understanding of how to budget. Like pretty much anything in existence, debt has the potential to be abused. If and when it is, the solution is to simply put a stop to that abuse. Nothing as extreme as doing away with debt entirely. That would have even worse consequences.

Debt in itself isn't bad, but how the current economy encourages it is not beneficial. Consider: In order to get a good credit rating, you need to get into debt. In order for a bank, or a landlord, or a store to touch you for certain services, you need to get into debt and repay it to build a credit rating. If you avoid debt and never build a credit rating because  you always pay within your means (somehow), you can't make certain purchases or gain access to certain services — even if you can prove you are a billionaire.

Not a valid excuse. If you have the means to avoid getting into debt, yet get into it anyway, you have no one to blame but yourself.

The problem however is that the minimum wage in most countries is far below a living wage. How can an average person who is below a living wage hope to live in a society that demands them pay certain minimums for certain things. This results in people constantly on the red line of their budget. Economists say "Oooh you should set aside a little every month" when they fail to realize that that little doesn't exist and that if something unexpected happens. All it takes is ONE event to stick you on the debt treadmill, e.g. medical treatment not covered by insurance being required or needing to help pay for a funeral in the family.

If everybody in the economy is in debt or living month-to-month, perhaps that is a symptom that the economy is limiting progress.

Consider:

• If progress states that people must be at a certain point to be considered existing in society (cost of training for skills to work, tools to gain work, living arrangements that are in cities, having communications tools available — can't get a job without a phone) AND;
• The economy has its thresholds set that obtaining the status quo of that progress requires getting into debt;
• THEREFORE: The economy can be seen at fault of not keeping up with progress and it is up to the market to keep up with consumers, not the other way around.

Stock markets are quite a vital part of the economy. Here's the thing, growing a company is very expensive. Even if it is highly profitable, unless the owner is a billionaire, it will be extremely slow to grow without bringing in outside funds, and often times going the more traditional route and getting a loan is not feasible, simply because lending such a massive chunk of money to a newly growing business is a huge risk, and as such the interest rate will be astronomical. As such, selling equity is the best option. Normally, that could still happen, provided the business owner know enough rich people who'd be willing to buy into the company, but for obvious reasons that's hardly a reliable method. Instead, the stock market allows a company to sell a huge amount of equity to anyone who's able and willing to spend even a relatively tiny amount. Effectively, this means that everyone outside of the upper classes are able to invest and companies have access to a much much bigger pool of potential investors. That's why pretty much every company over a certain size is publicly traded. It's by far the lowest risk and most reliable way to raise money.

However often times when a company goes public, the customers are almost always left out in the cold as effectively when a company goes public, the customers are no longer the customers, the investors are the customers and the company the product. The importance of stock markets and such is grossly overblown.

Investors are important to any organization, yes, but when an organization leaves its mandate and true customers behind, that organization has failed in the open market. Economical benefit should not preclude an organization from holding up its values. The trouble is in a recession, companies have to take whatever they can get even if it means the CEOs selling their souls.

It's certainly hit the rest of the world rather hard, it is still an American crisis. You remember the sub prime mortgage crisis? Basically, banks were giving huge numbers of loans with very high interest rates to people who ultimately couldn't afford to pay them, and then selling parts of these loans to other financial institutions around the world (basically, the buyer would take on part of the debt and be entitled to some of the interest). The result was that when this went completely tits up, pretty much every financial institution in the US (not just the banks that initially took out the loans) had at least a finger in that particular pie, and so it all but destroyed the entire financial sector, which then caused the overall economy to crash.

As for the rest of the world, how badly they were hit was pretty much directly dependent on how much they invested in American sub prime loans. For example, Iceland's major banks were so heavily invested that their entire financial sector was completely shattered, which pretty much ruined the entirely economy so badly that it almost needed the IMF to bail it out. Conversely, Australia's banks for the most part didn't touch the US sub prime loans, and while unemployment went up and growth did go negative for a few years, it was not even close to the devastating crashes in the US and Iceland, simply due to not being tied to the sub prime loans.

So yes, this recession was largely triggered (if not outright caused) by a rather nasty bubble in the US. That's exactly what the US government is responsible for preventing, so yes, it's perfectly fair to point the finger at them and expect them to implement any future solutions.

The sub-prime loan issue is another symptom, it's a symptom of a desperate market based almost solely on debt where debt is more important that service/product based markets. The United States just happened to be a significant theatre where the symptom displayed quite prominently in a spectacular way. There are bubbles all over the world waiting to bust in many other countries.

The point is that as long as there's a recession, you don't worry about debt. Borrow as much as you need and simply focus on stimulating the economy. Once it recovers and you actually have the funds coming in to start paying it off, then worry about the debt. Austerity just makes things a hell of a lot worse in the long run. Now of course, some countries are at the point where they simply cannot get any more credit (such as Greece and Italy), however, the US is nowhere near that point yet.

The United States is artificially being propped up in this economy. If the government pulled out the supports for the party and let the "free market" to its own devices, surely its economy would crash. An economy that is constantly being propped up like that isn't an economy, it's welfare.

Well, no. As I've said already, one of the government's most important tasks is regulating the economy. When the economy crashes so badly and because of such things as stimulatory spending during a boom and an unchecked housing bubble, then the government or more specifically the administration in power at the time has failed spectacularly at its job and it needs to be discussed. Not so we can say "the democrats are better than the republicans" or vice versa, but to see what exactly they did wrong, what they could've done to prevent it and what they should do now to fix the damage and prevent this from happening again, regardless of which political party is in power.

The stock market and many of these bubbles are no longer able to be regulated because governments have lost their power over the economy. They know if they try regulating that it will "scare away" stimulation. Effectively governments know their economies are being held hostage and that they are blackmailed into permitting "free markets".

The economy controls the government's decisions, not the other way around. The most governments can do is call out fraud cases these days. In fact in some cases, government officials themselves (largely driven by the economy's structure of infinite growth is the only way to live) are reaping the benefits of such ongoing parties like stock markets, free markets and bubbles.

Indeed, and this is another failing courtesy of the government. They have the authority to prevent mergers and even forcibly split existing companies apart (as they did to Standard Oil way back when). They need to make use of that tool a little more often whenever competition is a little lacking.

Authority yes, but if they exercise that authority they're deemed to be stepping on the "free market" and  thus an enemy of the economy by big business. Given the global nature of the economy, a company can come into a country, buy out operations in a country and shut them down, then move back out and the regulators of the betrayed country can't touch them and have to attempt a lawsuit in the country the company really operates in. This happens in Canada all the time with companies from the United States.

Too, a company can say "Ooh, if you regulate or split us up, we'll need to do away with 10,000 jobs, we can't operate under such regulation." In fact, that's what happens with most labour regulations, a "Western" company sees western labour law as too restrictive, closes manufacturing down, outsources it to a country with less regulation citing "We can't keep up".

I'm not saying you should have all the answers, just a solid understanding of why you're actually suggesting what you're suggesting. How would customers be better off? How exactly would corruption be lowered? I don't mean a vague "removing stock markets", talk me through the mechanics of how wealth and power would shift from the rich to the poor. Also, I explained in detail how a barter system could not even come close to sustaining even 1% of the current global population. Give me a logically sound rebuttal to my arguments there. If you can't do at least that, then there's really no reason for anyone to take your suggestion seriously.

Under a barter system, companies would be forced  to deal with products and services (instead of only things in the abstract), and too, it would create a reality where infinite growth isn't possible where the current economy lacks that realization and constantly pushes for it.

Too, it would permit a structure where companies would be unable to grow to be monopolies without violating social norms obviously. At the moment it's easy to become a monopoly due to the fact hoarding economical resources only takes shifting numbers around and then buying up massive amounts of something.

Finally, debts would be more than just numbers, it would be a matter of "You have my ...", and then be solid, tangible property. Traceability could be performed by means of item serial numbers and it'd be more difficult for massive amounts of something to go missing without it becoming a public fiasco. Consider: a 10 tonne bridge going missing is more obvious than $10,000 going missing from a stock exchange.

[Art Vandelay]

Debt in itself isn't bad, but how the current economy encourages it is not beneficial. Consider: In order to get a good credit rating, you need to get into debt. In order for a bank, or a landlord, or a store to touch you for certain services, you need to get into debt and repay it to build a credit rating. If you avoid debt and never build a credit rating because  you always pay within your means (somehow), you can't make certain purchases or gain access to certain services — even if you can prove you are a billionaire.

Simply means that needs to change. Credit ratings should instead be based on income levels and current expenses rather than how much interest you've proven yourself able and willing/stupid enough to pay.

The problem however is that the minimum wage in most countries is far below a living wage. How can an average person who is below a living wage hope to live in a society that demands them pay certain minimums for certain things. This results in people constantly on the red line of their budget. Economists say "Oooh you should set aside a little every month" when they fail to realize that that little doesn't exist and that if something unexpected happens. All it takes is ONE event to stick you on the debt treadmill, e.g. medical treatment not covered by insurance being required or needing to help pay for a funeral in the family.

If everybody in the economy is in debt or living month-to-month, perhaps that is a symptom that the economy is limiting progress.

Consider:

• If progress states that people must be at a certain point to be considered existing in society (cost of training for skills to work, tools to gain work, living arrangements that are in cities, having communications tools available — can't get a job without a phone) AND;
• The economy has its thresholds set that obtaining the status quo of that progress requires getting into debt;
• THEREFORE: The economy can be seen at fault of not keeping up with progress and it is up to the market to keep up with consumers, not the other way around.

I did specifically say "have the means to avoid getting into debt" for a good reason. In any case, wouldn't you agree that raising minimum wages would be a more obvious and effective solution?

However often times when a company goes public, the customers are almost always left out in the cold as effectively when a company goes public, the customers are no longer the customers, the investors are the customers and the company the product. The importance of stock markets and such is grossly overblown.

Investors are important to any organization, yes, but when an organization leaves its mandate and true customers behind, that organization has failed in the open market. Economical benefit should not preclude an organization from holding up its values. The trouble is in a recession, companies have to take whatever they can get even if it means the CEOs selling their souls.

Actually, the only way a company can "fail in the open market", as you say, is to go under. Also, any company's #1 concern, be it publicly traded or not, is to make a profit. That's it. Whether the CEO is the owner or answers to a board of investors, the bottom line is still the most important concern, and the only influence customers have is voting with their wallets, so to speak.

The sub-prime loan issue is another symptom, it's a symptom of a desperate market based almost solely on debt where debt is more important that service/product based markets. The United States just happened to be a significant theatre where the symptom displayed quite prominently in a spectacular way. There are bubbles all over the world waiting to bust in many other countries.

...Such as?

The United States is artificially being propped up in this economy. If the government pulled out the supports for the party and let the "free market" to its own devices, surely its economy would crash. An economy that is constantly being propped up like that isn't an economy, it's welfare.

That's exactly what you're supposed to do in a recession. I just explained this to you. You spend more than you bring in during a recession to prop up the economy, and to compensate you tax more than you spend when times are good to slow things down. It smooths out the ups and downs you get in any economy.

The stock market and many of these bubbles are no longer able to be regulated because governments have lost their power over the economy. They know if they try regulating that it will "scare away" stimulation. Effectively governments know their economies are being held hostage and that they are blackmailed into permitting "free markets".

The economy controls the government's decisions, not the other way around. The most governments can do is call out fraud cases these days. In fact in some cases, government officials themselves (largely driven by the economy's structure of infinite growth is the only way to live) are reaping the benefits of such ongoing parties like stock markets, free markets and bubbles.

As I said already, the government is doing it wrong. That needs to be fixed, not take all of society back to the stone age.

Under a barter system, companies would be forced  to deal with products and services (instead of only things in the abstract), and too, it would create a reality where infinite growth isn't possible where the current economy lacks that realization and constantly pushes for it.

Constant growth is always needed because the population is constantly growing. If it stayed constant, goods and services would be spread thinner and thinner as people breed more and more, which would eventually lead to mass shortages and even famine. Until you can stop the entire world from having too many babies, constant growth will always need to be a thing.

Too, it would permit a structure where companies would be unable to grow to be monopolies without violating social norms obviously. At the moment it's easy to become a monopoly due to the fact hoarding economical resources only takes shifting numbers around and then buying up massive amounts of something.

Actually the opposite would happen. We'd end up with "micro-monopolies", for want of a better term. Without currency, people working on the logistical side of things will need to be paid in I would imagine whatever is being transported (say, a guy driving a truck full of fruit would be given a few boxes for himself as payment). Meaning the further something has to travel, especially if it has to go through warehouses and distribution centers, the less of it will reach its destination. And since currency is no longer a thing, the same applies for whatever the customer uses to pay for that good. The implication here is that any company will have total dominance over their local market, but will find it nearly impossible to compete anywhere outside of that market.

In fact, how would large cities ensure an adequate supply of food under such a system? As we all know, cities are net consumers of goods such as food and producers of services. How would they make it worth the farmer's while to send them food? Especially for those living thousands of kilometers from any major city, considering rather immense logistical problems I just mentioned.

Finally, debts would be more than just numbers, it would be a matter of "You have my ...", and then be solid, tangible property. Traceability could be performed by means of item serial numbers and it'd be more difficult for massive amounts of something to go missing without it becoming a public fiasco. Consider: a 10 tonne bridge going missing is more obvious than $10,000 going missing from a stock exchange.

How would the 10 tonne bridge be able to exist in the first place? How would the workers, architects, engineers and building inspectors be paid for their services? What exactly would the builder trade for the materials needed? How would the logistics work? How would the vehicles be paid for? How would the vehicle operators be paid? Not to mention, as I many others pointed out multiple times, such a system could never sustain the global population.

As for serial numbers, you realise that it's basically a proto-currency, right? An intangible, tradeable concept that can be redeemed for tangible goods. Is that starting to sound familiar?

[Kradorex Xeron]

Simply means that needs to change. Credit ratings should instead be based on income levels and current expenses rather than how much interest you've proven yourself able and willing/stupid enough to pay.

I agree.

I did specifically say "have the means to avoid getting into debt" for a good reason. In any case, wouldn't you agree that raising minimum wages would be a more obvious and effective solution?

It would be but economically in the short term, doing such is very unappealing and will "scare away" job creation because unless it is a global, world-wide effort where every country has the same level of pay, businesses who can will just close down local jobs and outsource them more.

The state of the economy currently is that it is very short-sighted: It only enforces the "How much can I make NOW", so even if increasing minimum wages happened, businesses wouldn't see it as beneficial, they'd in fact see it as infringing on their business models and not see that it could in the long-term get the economy going again in a less cancerous state.

Actually, the only way a company can "fail in the open market", as you say, is to go under. Also, any company's #1 concern, be it publicly traded or not, is to make a profit. That's it. Whether the CEO is the owner or answers to a board of investors, the bottom line is still the most important concern, and the only influence customers have is voting with their wallets, so to speak.

Economically, that'd be correct, but it is also possible for a company to go under as far as their moral obligation to the public; look at the big telecom companies, they betray the public trust again and again but if government steps in these days to make sure the public need is served — not just  that of the boards or investors —  it will step on big corporate "free market" and scare away stimulation.

...Such as?

Various manufacturing operations, how often the operations are these days so concentrated in say, countries like China, sooner or later those people are going to get replaced with machines and the people numbering in the millions will no longer there have jobs, thus money there will slow/stop flowing in many respects thus damaging the economy further by means of a million pin-pricks.

The national debts, where everyone owes everyone else, and eventually it will get to a point where the strain will no longer be able to be handled. It has already happened in a couple countries, the current prop-ups by government is a means of avoiding admitting defeat — everybody's waiting for everybody else to blink.

That's exactly what you're supposed to do in a recession. I just explained this to you. You spend more than you bring in during a recession to prop up the economy, and to compensate you tax more than you spend when times are good to slow things down. It smooths out the ups and downs you get in any economy.

Though, it seems like it has been going on since the greater recession in 2008, we have been 5 years and markets have not demonstrated the ability to operate without tax dollars. If anything markets do not want that money flow to end because it is free money, money being granted without having to exchange a thing. I believe the current wanton greed of the market to be a breach of the public trust.

As I said already, the government is doing it wrong. That needs to be fixed, not take all of society back to the stone age.

Again: I never claimed my solution to be the only one. Too, I never claimed that "back to the stone age" was completely necessary.

Constant growth is always needed because the population is constantly growing. If it stayed constant, goods and services would be spread thinner and thinner as people breed more and more, which would eventually lead to mass shortages and even famine. Until you can stop the entire world from having too many babies, constant growth will always need to be a thing.

Though, the current economy is based on infinite growth, where individual success is contingent on if one has infinite financial growth. Look at billionaires: If they aren't making money, they are deemed failing and "falling behind" despite accumulation of considerable wealth. Keep in mind I said "individual success" — the economy has made an environment where money gets stockpiled and never used, never to see another hand, never to move through the economy. This has the affect of removing that money from the economy, causing it to become more scarce while the population is constantly increasing, thus increasing inflation.

The current economy via mechanisms like interest makes for an environment that does not encourage trade, but rather hoarding in hopes the hoard will grow and make one more "successful"

Actually the opposite would happen. We'd end up with "micro-monopolies", for want of a better term. Without currency, people working on the logistical side of things will need to be paid in I would imagine whatever is being transported (say, a guy driving a truck full of fruit would be given a few boxes for himself as payment). Meaning the further something has to travel, especially if it has to go through warehouses and distribution centers, the less of it will reach its destination. And since currency is no longer a thing, the same applies for whatever the customer uses to pay for that good. The implication here is that any company will have total dominance over their local market, but will find it nearly impossible to compete anywhere outside of that market.

I cede there that while it would limit international trade, it would limit the ability to "take these 500,000 jobs here, re-assign them there because it's cheaper" approach that business is taking since the recession.

In fact, how would large cities ensure an adequate supply of food under such a system? As we all know, cities are net consumers of goods such as food and producers of services. How would they make it worth the farmer's while to send them food? Especially for those living thousands of kilometers from any major city, considering rather immense logistical problems I just mentioned.

Have locations along the outskirts of every city where farming is performed, and offer to come to pick it up while providing them services within the city. This would bring value back to being a farmer as well as limit the ability of corporate farming to occur.

How would the 10 tonne bridge be able to exist in the first place? How would the workers, architects, engineers and building inspectors be paid for their services? What exactly would the builder trade for the materials needed? How would the logistics work? How would the vehicles be paid for? How would the vehicle operators be paid? Not to mention, as I many others pointed out multiple times, such a system could never sustain the global population.

As for serial numbers, you realise that it's basically a proto-currency, right? An intangible, tradeable concept that can be redeemed for tangible goods. Is that starting to sound familiar?

Products aren't the only trade-able elements, services can be traded for products and so forth, but as far as serial number elements, everything valued over $5 these days that isn't food has a serial number stamped on it.

[Art Vandelay]

It would be but economically in the short term, doing such is very unappealing and will "scare away" job creation because unless it is a global, world-wide effort where every country has the same level of pay, businesses who can will just close down local jobs and outsource them more.

Actually it would boost job creation in the long term. Businesses need demand for their products in order to turn enough of a profit to be able to hire and pay their employees. When more wealth goes to the lower classes, this drives up demand for all manner of goods and services. It's why there's far wealthier markets to be had in the US rather than China, even though China has four times the population.

The state of the economy currently is that it is very short-sighted: It only enforces the "How much can I make NOW", so even if increasing minimum wages happened, businesses wouldn't see it as beneficial, they'd in fact see it as infringing on their business models and not see that it could in the long-term get the economy going again in a less cancerous state.
-
Economically, that'd be correct, but it is also possible for a company to go under as far as their moral obligation to the public; look at the big telecom companies, they betray the public trust again and again but if government steps in these days to make sure the public need is served — not just  that of the boards or investors —  it will step on big corporate "free market" and scare away stimulation.

And when they have such petty and small minded grievances, the government is supposed to just ignore them and do what's best for society overall. If they don't, it's their own failure, not that of businesses.

Various manufacturing operations, how often the operations are these days so concentrated in say, countries like China, sooner or later those people are going to get replaced with machines and the people numbering in the millions will no longer there have jobs, thus money there will slow/stop flowing in many respects thus damaging the economy further by means of a million pin-pricks.

The national debts, where everyone owes everyone else, and eventually it will get to a point where the strain will no longer be able to be handled. It has already happened in a couple countries, the current prop-ups by government is a means of avoiding admitting defeat — everybody's waiting for everybody else to blink.

That's not what a bubble is. A bubble is when prices/returns on an investment of any kind grows faster than is sustainable. The sub-prime loans, for example, were a thing because their perceived high returns was largely a sort of feedback loop among investors. More people wanted in on it, so prices went up and up, and investors saw these rapid price increase and decided that they want to get in on it. Since demand were not only rapidly outpacing returns (and the fact that the actual risk was a lot higher than people seemed to think it was didn't help matters), eventually it all had to come crashing down. A simple trend towards automation does not constitute a bubble by any means (and that in itself seems highly unlikely, as there's no way a fully automated factory will be cheaper than just using Chinese labour. Robots are expensive to buy and need highly skilled technicians and programmers to keep everything running smoothly. Chinese workers, on the other hand, need twenty cents an hour each and you're golden.

Though, it seems like it has been going on since the greater recession in 2008, we have been 5 years and markets have not demonstrated the ability to operate without tax dollars. If anything markets do not want that money flow to end because it is free money, money being granted without having to exchange a thing. I believe the current wanton greed of the market to be a breach of the public trust.

It was a big fucking recession. Five years would be a pretty typical recovery time for even a routine recession. Something like this big fuckoff global crash is going to take a lot longer. This sort of thing is normal and the solution is to simply ride it out, not abolish something as fundamental as currency.

Again: I never claimed my solution to be the only one. Too, I never claimed that "back to the stone age" was completely necessary.

But you claimed that it was still a viable one.

Though, the current economy is based on infinite growth, where individual success is contingent on if one has infinite financial growth. Look at billionaires: If they aren't making money, they are deemed failing and "falling behind" despite accumulation of considerable wealth. Keep in mind I said "individual success" — the economy has made an environment where money gets stockpiled and never used, never to see another hand, never to move through the economy. This has the affect of removing that money from the economy, causing it to become more scarce while the population is constantly increasing, thus increasing inflation.

The current economy via mechanisms like interest makes for an environment that does not encourage trade, but rather hoarding in hopes the hoard will grow and make one more "successful"

Interest does not encourage hoarding, I already explained it to you. Where do you think the interest comes from in the first place? It's a return on an investment. That's the only way interest can be earned. Money doesn't get frisky and make lots of little money babies when we leave it alone to do nothing.

I cede there that while it would limit international trade, it would limit the ability to "take these 500,000 jobs here, re-assign them there because it's cheaper" approach that business is taking since the recession.

It would limit the kinds of jobs that could exist in the first place, as I explained already.

Have locations along the outskirts of every city where farming is performed, and offer to come to pick it up while providing them services within the city. This would bring value back to being a farmer as well as limit the ability of corporate farming to occur.

Which wouldn't produce nearly enough food. There's a reason farmland extends thousands of kilometers outside of each city. Even with modern farming methods, you need a lot of land to feed a few million people.

Products aren't the only trade-able elements, services can be traded for products and so forth, but as far as serial number elements, everything valued over $5 these days that isn't food has a serial number stamped on it.

How? In what service would these people be paid? I already said I want details. What exactly would be the service in question? How would the payee then trade said service for necessities like food, housing, power and the like? Where would the builders get said service from in the first place? This is stuff you need to address if you want your ideas to be taken seriously.

[Kradorex Xeron]

Actually it would boost job creation in the long term. Businesses need demand for their products in order to turn enough of a profit to be able to hire and pay their employees. When more wealth goes to the lower classes, this drives up demand for all manner of goods and services. It's why there's far wealthier markets to be had in the US rather than China, even though China has four times the population.

You're looking past the first step. Increasing minimum wages dramatically would change the fabric of business and make investors feel they are being gypped by the government because the workers would be getting more money instead of them.

And when they have such petty and small minded grievances, the government is supposed to just ignore them and do what's best for society overall. If they don't, it's their own failure, not that of businesses.

Big business has the governments around the world by the balls, such businesses know that they can destroy a country or its government financially who does too much to limit them and their investors.

There's a quote here: "Merchants have no country. The mere spot they stand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains." ~Thomas Jefferson

In short: If a country does something a business hates, they'll just move elsewhere, out of the reach of the country that wants to regulate them, then operate from afar. Again, this needs to be a global effort, not that of just one or two governments but global society as a whole.

That's not what a bubble is. A bubble is when prices/returns on an investment of any kind grows faster than is sustainable. The sub-prime loans, for example, were a thing because their perceived high returns was largely a sort of feedback loop among investors. More people wanted in on it, so prices went up and up, and investors saw these rapid price increase and decided that they want to get in on it. Since demand were not only rapidly outpacing returns (and the fact that the actual risk was a lot higher than people seemed to think it was didn't help matters), eventually it all had to come crashing down. A simple trend towards automation does not constitute a bubble by any means (and that in itself seems highly unlikely, as there's no way a fully automated factory will be cheaper than just using Chinese labour. Robots are expensive to buy and need highly skilled technicians and programmers to keep everything running smoothly. Chinese workers, on the other hand, need twenty cents an hour each and you're golden.

They are bubbles, bubbles in that soon that the growth of such practices will move money away from the common worker to the point the common worker would not be able to make luxury purchases that benefit the economy. Instead they'll be making merely month-to-month payments in keeping up their bills and thus the economy will slow down and perhaps experience another crash as worker value is deprecated by companies. Such practices are happening now.

It was a big fucking recession. Five years would be a pretty typical recovery time for even a routine recession. Something like this big fuckoff global crash is going to take a lot longer. This sort of thing is normal and the solution is to simply ride it out, not abolish something as fundamental as currency.

I must respectfully ask that you forego regarding my position as static. As I said, I am a pragmatist, perhaps abolishing the economy wouldn't be practical, but the economy's current state is far from practical. Considering this, I acknowledge that perhaps a barter system may not be fully practical either — however again — neither is the current economy.

If we want to be exactly where we are now in 100 years, the current economy would work fine If we want progress however, some drastic changes are in order.

The markets need to realize that they in themselves are a significant element in holding back humanity as a whole. They are forcing old, outdated and static business models upon a society that wants to evolve but cannot. It's like a car chained to a pole that is driven 20 feet into the ground, the car will lurch from side to side as the accelerator is applied — the chain is the outdated and old business practices implemented by old men who believe their way to be the only way. The pole is the timeframe or reference in which those practices were created. The economy and in extension, business and law as a result has been living largely in the past and not in the present and has been influencing creation of law as such.

One potent example of how we are being held back by markets is copyright and how there are "regional releases" of content in a day and age where society is pressing for more global economies and markets, but the old business model of "We must license it special in every country in light of their copyright law" comes into play. I know of people who resort to piracy but would fully pay for content but cannot get it because a foreign publisher will not ship it to them no matter how much the individual would pay because it's not "licensed". Look at Netflix or Youtube in how "This video/content is not available in your country" (yet they could be making money off of that content). This is all due to business operating an outdated business model.

Another potent example is how markets forbid import of certain parts and components or discourage it, this is extremely prevalent in the automotive industry where individual countries have "editions" of cars and small tweaks among parts may make premium parts in one country incompatible with an edition in another, with the costs in one of the countries artificially inflated, as to discourage you from getting cheaper parts.