How jolly. Time to stock up on spam and toilet rolls then?

101% spot on. Thank you Craig.

Ain’t that the truth. Back to Page 1 of ‘Animal Farm’, then.

And anyone who tries to establish a different economic system will end up being stamped on in the desert.
.
I am minimising my economic footprint in the UK. I don’t want to finance these turds on sticks while they slowly melt into their suits. If I could I’d take a rifle and go into the desert to fight alongside the children of Ozymandias.

A social revolution requires a critical mass of protesters, and there are signs that the public is finally waking up. I encourage anyone within reach of London to get down to St Paul’s Cathedral, read the posters on the pillars, listen to the speakers and talk to the campers. It will prove that many other people are aware of the economic plundering that has happened since the deregulation of the banks. I observed a general meeting there a few days ago, and found it very peaceful and co-operative. It isn’t purely a socialist movement: there are people from all walks of life. There is almost a carnival atmosphere at times.
.
Critics have complained that the St. Paul’s protesters do not an agreed set of demands: that’s because they aren’t trying to get the government or the corporation to listen or obey (they never would). The aim instead is to increase public awareness. What the public then does about the situation is a different issue.

A bleak view of the future, Craig. I hope you’re wrong about the Reign of Terror aspect of revolution. But the system is in crisis, perhaps the terminal one, there’s no doubt about that.
If the mass of people are to be impoverished, who is going to buy all the shit? What will take the place of consumerism?
I suspect the answer is some kind of post-democratic autocracy forever fighting on the Malabar Front, at least in the first instance. What replaces that is up to us — the impoverished masses.

Thanks for that Craig. It is possible for the problem to be resolved without social upheaval. Iceland achieved this by allowing the banks to fail and refusing to pick up their debts. It devalued its currency and now has one of the highest growth rates in Europe. Not that we hear much about that in the MSN.
.
As a sovereign nation the UK could have done this. All you need is the political will. That we did not demonstrates that our political leaders are there to serve the interests of the bankers, not the people who voted for them.

Add to that the limitations of our ecological systems and you have a perfect storm. Thanks for that bang on economic outlook, but somwhere between then and now there will also be one, or a few, allmighty war’s.

The denigration and compression of human rights in the near future, to about the size of an orange, these fundamental principles of human relations choosen and adopted at humanities the zenith during the 1950′s/60′s, despite the cold war and many hot one’s, will mark the end of our civilisations as ordered states and countries with principial relations. bartering will be all the rage. you’ll get a sack of potatoes for a pair of fine shoes. Increase the price of oil by $100 and you have a world war situation in 24 hrs. Markets are controlling our destiny and hollow deals on futile futures, with ever greater chaos in our weather patterns, with ever greater shouts for democracy in papua New guineas copper mines, these blood copper dealers are utter mugs, to be put in the stock

The food chain will soon become a fight chain, for profits, market share’s, farmers, for land, land and more land, potable drinking water will become the most precious commodity on earth.

That said, thanks fcuk the sun is shining. Off to the doc for some tenderness….

I understand Belgium’s growth is now leading Europe’s at 0.7%. Belgium has had no government for 18 months.
.
There’s a moral there somewhere.
.
http://matisak.wordpress.com/2011/08/18/elgium-growth-and-austerity-measures/

You been on the sauce again, chinless one?

Revolution or war are the usual outcomes at this point in the impending shitstorm. It’s possible that ‘Them indoors’ (if I may borrow an expression) will decide that they’d rather have mayhem far away (eg Iran, Pakistan) than on their doorstep. From the 1%-ers point of view, war is preferable because there’s money to be made.

Belgium has NOT had no government. It has a caretaker government.

Agree completely except for the social revolution bit. The financial elites are so arrogant, greedy, evil and profoundly ignorant of concrete reality that they will see the whole world in flames rather than give up any of their ill gotten gains.
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Expect war. No, not just the military occupation of some severely out-gunned nation, a real war, probably threatening the economic or strategic military interests of the BRICS countries. Perhaps Syria first and then Iran or maybe both at once. Once they have a real war going on, then dissenters are of course traitors who are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

Libya asks Nato to stay until 2012

Surprise f***ing surprise. And please build a big military base. And please build a secret prison. And please help us continue with the killing and the raping and the torturing and the stealing.

Old Boy is nasty, very very nasty. I expect that he is one of those *ankers who have us over a barrel.

On the money Craig…so to speak! My bet is on a war involving Iran and Syria – the elite would love it since it perpetuates the ‘war economy’ which is the only ‘money maker’ currently on offer AND it offers a certain amount of payback as those in the know are aware that the Lockerbie atrocity was ordered by Iran and operationalised by Syrian-based PFLP – GC terrorist group. How neat that would be for our heroes in NATO and the CFR/RSI/Tri-lateral commission; Kissinger will be in ‘heaven’ !

“Sky Exclusive: Labour demands investigation into relationship between Adam Werritty and Defence Minister Gerald Howarth”

Well mate if you can see it coming, so can the elites who are profiting from it. For years Alex Jones has been banging on about secret internment camps in the US, and other preparations for martial law. Was he right?

Martin Green – there is more to these wars than the perpetuation of a “war economy”. Just look at the facts:
(1) Global oil production is about to go into sharp decline;
(2) All the countries that America and NATO are either invading or threatening are rich in oil.
You will never find this quite obvious correlation even mentioned on British TV news.

The BBC are devoting a large amount of their resources to the EU ‘summit’. At lunchtime, they had Sopel in Brussels, someone else in Berlin with Mrs Merkel, an economics bod in the studio and another in France.
.
Their website leads with:
.
Clouds loom over EU debt summit
European leaders are set to meet in Brussels, amid growing doubts they can reach a comprehensive deal to tackle the eurozone debt crisis.
Analysis:
Deadline EU cannot miss
Q&A: Eurozone rescue proposals
Flanders: Eurozone plan B?
Peston: Will Germany insure Italy?
Mason: Armour plating the euro
What’s the matter with Italy?
.
Tripe. Buy silver bullion seems to be the watchword but what good is that. You can’t eat it and what could it be exchanged for when the crash comes?

Yves:

Well, ok. No permanent government, though. No majority of cronies who are assured of years in power. Nothing much going on. There’s still a moral in there, no?

Mary: “Old Boy is nasty, very very nasty. I expect that he is one of those *ankers who have us over a barrel.”

No, he’s just a dim troll who stuck to the flypaper. Ignore the buzzing.

“You can’t eat it and what could it be exchanged for when the crash comes?”
.
Food?

We tend to look upon this as a potential revolution of the 99%, but I suspect it may be a well-planned revolution of the 1% against the rest.
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There is no reason why the 1% cannot rule the whole world show for an extended period of time. Small numbers of people have ruled very large numbers of people for eons.
.
They have the resources, wealth and ability to buy as much force as they please, indeed it looks as if they own it already. What we used to think of as Western democratic institutions are already in the grip of these 1%, and even our idea of mass democracy is no more than a recent blip on the historical landscape. In most of the world outside the West they haven’t even any democratic tradition for the 1% to overcome.
.
The oligarchs of the world already control such institutions as exist, paying mere lip service to democratic ideals until they further impoverish the 99%.
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Once that project is completed they’re done. The 99% will finally have been emasculated. The 1% will agree their territories amongst themselves. They will be kings and we will be serfs.
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This is the neo-Feudalism of which Chris Hedges often speaks. Sure there’ll be some risings and rebellions etc, but these are easily put down, as we’ve seen.
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http://kasamaproject.org/2011/06/20/chris-hedges-neofeudalism-or-revolution/

“You will never find this quite obvious correlation even mentioned on British TV news”.

Indeed, Ludwig. Our masters today (or rather their spin doctors) could teach Goebbels a thing or two.

The particular ploy you highlight is, in a sense, the opposite or complement of the Big Lie. It is the Big Taboo – except that as time goes by, people gradually forget that there even is anything they are not allowed to mention. That is the ideal, perfection in mind control.

Non of it is real. Lets no forget that they are talking about money that doesnt actually exist in any real sense, its never been printed, its fictional money.
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Worst case senario.. the fictional money that they trade in, and that they really hope we will continue to buy real things with, becomes totally worthless. It doesnt matter how much you have.. its worthless.
.
So ill trade you instead…. ill fix your leaking pipe if youll fix my car…. or how about the creation of “local “currency.
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Money isnt real, and when its finally shown to be worthless we will find a different way. That the nature of things. Money as we know it will become obsolete, a new currency will be created.
.
Every system is flawed because it forgets one of the darkest traits of the human condition….. GREED. Until a system is created that over comes this then this cycle will repeat over and over. I dont know how you remove greed from the equation, maybe hang the greedy bastards ?

‘Capitalism in Crisis?’
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Not to be over pessimistic but the last time this has happened WWII has happened.

Yes, well. I think to understand this more clearly one should look at it from this point.
.
Decades if not centuries ago there have been a capitalism that was based on ruthless exploitation of colonies. Raw materials from Asia, Africa and South America were brought to Europe and goods were produced enriching tiny elite and also by the rule of invisible hand creating so called middle class.
.
Times changed since and colonies infected by nationalism have gained independence. But have they become really independent? Nowadays there is no need to even bring raw materials to Europe. Why not make these Chinese/Indians/Bangladeshi to produce goods themselves and sell them to us for our paper (that as well pointed by Murray worth nothing). And why not to make these Chinese/Indians/Bangladeshi to store excess of this paper with us to that we can produce even more paper and make them work hard to get some of this paper back.
.
What a wonderful system, is not it?

It’s not even paper, is it. It’s just figures on a computer screen.

Capitalism IS in crisis – indeed. I’d recommend the blog http://www.golemxiv.co.uk/ for keeping updated on the aspects of the financial cris that they don’t tell you in the MSM.

Note also the not-oft mentioned protests in the USA, eg. Oakland
see youtube.com/watch?v=QngE6kKk8Lg

“I expect before I die I will see a genuine social revolution. I expect that, as always happens, middle class liberals like me will start by being elated by it, and end up being shot by those who seize on the change, to take their turn to use the power of the state to corner resources for themselves.”

And in that you have encapsulated the history of civilisation. It’s not ‘them’ that are like that it’s all of us we just keep deluding ourselves we are different! There is a grand conspiracy in the world – the one of greed which works on/at all levels and was always thus.

Don’t worry, Craig. We won’t shoot you (!)
.
Great post – wham bam! says it all.
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‘Oldboy’: Let us catch a glimpse of your own chin, before you start to pass comments on the chins of others. I would suggest that Craig Murray is a veritable duke when it comes to chins. Does yours measure up…?

@ Craig,

This is the crux of the matter:-

” As the system started to reach inevitable collapse, the state moved in with bank bailouts and quantitive easing, both of which simply moved yet more money from ordinary people to the super-rich. In fact the last three years have seen the biggest transfer of resources from poor to rich in human history.”

If the US did not have the world’s reserve currency, the whole house of cards would have long since fallen. To my mind, the US Federal Reserve is doing a sort of Zimbabwe economic solution – simply printing more money in great bundles. Again, if the US did not have the world’s reserve currency, the whole scheme would have already collapsed.

The war in Libya, is a direct reaction to the Gadaffi/AU plan to have launched an all Africa Gold Dinar – gold backed currency. Whiter the US dollar had this happened? Likewise when Saddam signaled that he would henceforth be selling Iraqi oil in Euros and not dollars, once sanctions ended, that too signed his death warrant.

The whole global ponzi scheme cannot last forever. One cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand; fiat money not backed by tangible production and bolstered by valuable mineral such as gold or silver as a benchmark of tangible value, is like a man having climbed to the 100th story of a building, then stepping off into thin air, with the expectation that the altitude he has reached provides an assurance that he is too high to fall and will be able to be sustained in thin air without solid and tangible support. First, the US economy and then its related interlink to the Euro and European markets, will from a great altitude witness a calamitous fall. Then – hopefully the people will revolt and take power in direct response to the greed and barbarism which brought the entire economic system to the point of collapse.
PS – I believe that this one will be worse than 1929. But, how at this stage can the collapse be avoided?

In the correct order
1: Climate change
2: Global Resources running out
3: Global financial armageddon

Prophesying doom, eh? But why not be imaginative about it? You could demonstrate outside some building whose inhabitants you disapprove of, with a sandwich board, crying “Fallen, fallen is Babylon!”

I couldn’t agree more with your analysis but surely there is still the opportunity to turn the tables and win this one, especially as people in many parts of the world finally seem to have woken up a bit. It’s not even that’s what happening to us is particularly new – the rich elite has been exploiting the developing world for years by getting them into debt before crushing them with ‘austerity’ programmes and buying up their national assets. We need to stand up for social justice and press for some real economic alternatives that can save us from an ever deepening depression. But we have to take a collective stance before the opportunity passes us by.

PS. On second thoughts, better not to make a joke with sandwich boards in this way. After all, some of them might be genuine. Just think, there might have been sandwich board prophets in Atlantis, who did save the souls of a few repentant sinners before the Flood destroyed that world.

“We’re aw doomed… doomed… doomed!” John Laurie.

@Courtenay. You’re in good company. In autumn 2008 I heard Paul Mason, economics editor of BBC Newsnight, tell an audience, ‘This is worse than 1929.’ Around about same time, Paxman in passing—only in passing, mind—called it ‘the cataclysm of capitalism.’

‘OccupyLondon’ – needs you Craig; well said, I mean fcuking brilliant.

“cataclysm of capitalism”
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I think (and it is only my opinion) that the above will turn out to be…cataclysm of humanity.

“This is the neo-Feudalism of which Chris Hedges often speaks. Sure there’ll be some risings and rebellions etc, but these are easily put down, as we’ve seen.”
.
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why should we doubt this .. after all we’ve had plenty of experience in supporting and directing despotic regimes and their dictators. and of course if we can kill one innocent woman, child or man. we can kill a million ..

“‘OccupyLondon’ – needs you Craig; ”
.
.
where are those fat-cat celebrities .. why arent they down there too .. in reality too obvious to ask i suppose.

james Boswell, I would love to agree with you, because there is still time to change our lifestyles and become more sustainable in our habits and exchanges, but this would significantly undermine the capitalist profiteering and greed, the growth ueber alles merchants who can’t get a hard one without earning a million in under an hour.
A sustainable economy cannot exist in isolation, it takes socially responsible attitudes to long term financing, a financial system that is based on renewable assets, cycles of usage within industries, a financial system that in itself is based on sustainable values that are within the realm of the here and now.

This global financial crisis is down the reluctance to change the system as it had developed, sticking plasters will not bring back the good times, nothing will.

What is sad about this crisis is that not one single Government is willing to prepare its people for the free fall, like the dark forces they represent, we know first when our noses hit the ground. They would not know how to write social responsibility, never mind know what it means and if it hit them on the head, letter by letter.

This blog may be bad, but it does not amount to a capital offense.
*
As you say, the problem is not with competitive market capitalism undertaken within an appropriate framework of laws, i.e., laws that prevent monopolies, cartels, enterprises that are “too big to fail” (which is to say always entitled to a bailout at public expense), and laws that enforce compensation for external cost of business including environmental impacts, injury to health, etc.
*
Such a competitive free market capitalism has been recognized as the most productive and benign economic arrangement yet devised by all astute commentators from Jesus of Nazareth to that canny Scotchman, Adam Smith.
*
Sadly, today’s self-proclaimed liberals rarely argue for capitalism but for bloody useless publicly funded windmills, state-funded abortion, the transformation of education into political correctness training — i.e., the Union of European Socialist Republics, where no one gets to vote on anything serious and what the public are serious about, e.g., getting out of the EU, ending mass immigration to Europe, etc. is blithely ignored.
*
(Moderator, this is a modified duplicate of a post just submitted by, which has not as yet appeared. Please delete the earlier remarks if they are still in line for posting. Thank you.)

Follow the money a little further here:
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/10/26/lobbyists-reap-huge-financial-rewards-for-top

Craig, your post is spot on. The people that propagated this crisis made sure laws were changed first, such as the repeal of Glass-Steagall here in the US in 1999. This in large part ensured there would be an eventual meltdown, all it needed was the greedy players – no shortage – and their chums on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The Wall Street “Titans” would become “Titanics” if their parasitic symbiosis with the state/Fed was legislatively finished. This is why I support a full Fed audit and even disbandment. We do not have capitalism, we have crony crapitalism – corporatism. Aided and abetted by the corporate media. (The comment by “David” is spot on, too. I see this happening here in Appalachia.)

Suhayl

You forgot the whole quote from the fondly remembered Private Frazer/John Laurie.
It was more like ‘We’re all doomed! Doomed! I tell ye”.
I think it is possible now to now see how the political battle lines are starting to form, both nationally and internationally.
One senses something very serious afoot. The subject of the blog in itself is an indicator. I can’t think of a government that would have been so determinedly offensive and bare faced in their treatment of the Malyshevs. I don’t doubt previous governments capacity to do something similar but at least they would have blushed when questioned. I suspect there is not the slightest humanitarian impulse within this government.

not sure capitalism is the right choice of words here…..

what we have is cartels, to big to fail, monopolies, and just plain illegal activities, and whilst i think a more suitable name is corporatism, im sure someone could come up with a better one?

capitalism, socialism, comunism all have their role to play in an elightend society.

Aint it amazing that the capitalists have been pofiteering from capitlism in its current ugly form (Wall Street), whilst the risks for their actions are being socialised….. god bless the bankers….

I’m still unsure why playing the stock market in deriatives is not considered gambling?

i know a lady who swallowed a fly. I don’t know why she swallowed the fly. Perhaps she’ll die. Followed by spider, bird,cat,dog etc.
I don’t know why Mrs T swallowed the myth about the banking industry, but the Tory wets who followed, Blair, Brown and Cameron have all been prescribing larger and larger doses of the same medicine. I don’t know why. Perhaps we’ll die.

In the meantime political decisions have changed our world.
To expand the EU, to export manufacturing to the Far East,
to join the War on Terror and now to help the Arab spring in Africa. These changes are sold to us as exporting our values to the rest of the world even if it is at great cost to ourselves.
At the same time we have imported hard workers, superb technology, Islam and the inspiration for revolutionary change.

The creativity of these political decisions is undeniable.
At a personal level, as a native Englishman I can imagine myself moving to Muslim Kurdistan and running my business there with solar products from the Far East. Can you imagine phoning Saddam and asking permission to come over and marry a Kurdish wife?

The West has sacrificed its monopoly on trade, manufacture, democracy, and freedom of speech, admittedly at huge financial cost but also at some reward. I think this is what Mark Golding means by having to lose some of our worst Xenophobic traits.
Mrs Thatcher’s era of sexual liberation also liberates me to pray in a UK mosque. The de-regulation of the banking system, however ghastly, is accompanied by an opportunity for me to flee the tyranny of UK over-regulation of work and business, abroad.
My parents lived in the grey 40′ and 50′s. I do not see that greyness in today’s world, and the sacrifices to remove them have been, and will continue to be, great.

If we’re on the subject of Dad’s Army:

“Don’t oanic, don’t panic!” (Lance-Corporal Jack Jones)

Here’s documentary proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6wok7g7do

“…why should we doubt this .. after all we’ve had plenty of experience in supporting and directing despotic regimes and their dictators. and of course if we can kill one innocent woman, child or man. we can kill a million.”

The formbook shows that they are not very efficient. They have been repressing the population of Latin America for generations: death squads, torture, every combination of violence and corruption known to man. And the result has been a steady rejection of the US Empre and all that it stands for (and all who stand for it). There has been some ebbing, as in Honduras, for example where sheer evil currently, but obviously only temporarily, prevails; on the whole though, the movement against imperialism is undeniable. Nothing they can do works. And everything that used to work is now thoroughly discredited.

But the real reason for optimism is that the greedy “elites’ are incredibly stupid. So stupid that they have hacked away the very legs that they have been standing on. The very forces that made them: the middle classes of the imperial metropoles and the labour aristocrats, with their patriotic unions, moderate requests for patronage and flattery, healthcare and education. And their longing to be loved by their betters. And, occasionaly, invited into the club.

Now it is quite clear that the ruling class feels no allegiance to the nations into which its members were born. As Tony Blair put it “We are all Americans now.” By “we” meaning, such as himself, parvenus on the make, looking for cash and unconcerned where it comes from. And by “Americans” meaning the imperial establishment straddling Washington and Wall Street, and contemptuous of idiots who put up with them.

There was never less reason to fear democracy: the masses of people have never been more in agreement and less enthralled by fanatics and obscurantists than they are now. The only vicious elements in society, as the recent riots showed, are at the top of it. Were any churches, mosques, temples or community centres targetted by the rioters? I suspect not. Were there any outbreaks of communal violence? Very few, is my guess. Were there any lynchings? A couple of muggings but nothing like the riots of days past.

Paris in 1792, London in 1780 were very different places. The only reigns of terror that we have seen for many years have been those waged by the 1% and their forces, including the reactionary bigots dredged up by oil royalty, against the people. Criminals enabled by imperialists, faux prophets auditioning for ideological/court jesting positions.

Fascism is not an alternative to capitalism but a form it takes at certain phases in its development. The current crisis is entirely different from that of the 1930s when much, even of the industrialised world, was beyond the peripheries of the imperial system. Today things are changed utterly: capitalism cannot even pretend that it has answers for any of the urgent questions facing humanity. It has run out of bullshit. And that is what the idiotic conferring in the Eurozone signifies. The game is over but the mess left to be cleaned up is atrocious. It will keep humanity busy for the foreseeable future. The trick is to make sure everyone shares in the work, the rewards are fair and nobody is left behind.

Marx was right over century and a half ago but few took any notice. They’re taking notice now. His insights are as relevant as ever. Capitaism creates its own gravediggers and those graves are almost dug.

@Suhayl
.
‘Don’t worry, Craig. We won’t shoot you (!)’
.
Ha ha! You speak for yourself.


cataclysm of humanity ( what does it mean?)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_x04Gn3-2g

And after watching this form of “diplomatic” response from one who is a ruler of the world – then one can better understand the phrase:-
“cataclysm of humanity”

Courtenay Barnett, When I wrote “cataclysm of humanity”, I was thinking more about what goes on inside the minds of evil. I have always thought that the greatest insight was given by something attributed to Benito Mussolini…”It is better to live one day as a lion than a lifetime as a sheep”…That I think tells us much as how they regard themselves and how little life/existence means to them. Something to do with a malformed Id.
http://wilderdom.com/personality/L8-4StructureMindIdEgoSuperego.html
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It is only my opinion.

Mr. Sunshine, I see. God, now I am really depressed.

I learned in history that revolutions only happen when there is a tiny bit of hope. Craig – I don’t think you are going to be shot by a revolution as it consumes itself. I suspect that you will die of some relatively treatable condition because proper medical care is no longer available. We (collectively) probably have a hundred years of serfdom before those with two pigs get shot by those with only one. Cheer up man.

Clintn reminds me of a fat, eighteen year old dietetics major (I know -I used to teach them basic english). Same undeveloped mentality and with little or no control over words or actions. The calibre of the woman is very disturbing. Some of Bill’s (ahem) actions now make more sense.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/oct/23/cristina-kirchner-argentina

Moneylenders 1 Caring Humanitarian 0
.
St Paul’s chancellor Canon Dr Giles Fraser ‘to resign’
Canon Dr Giles Fraser was appointed St Paul’s canon chancellor in May 2009
.
Related Stories
St Paul’s ‘hopeful’ of reopening
Mayor calls on protesters ‘to go’
St Paul’s camp ‘helping business’
.
The chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral is to step down from his post, the BBC understands.
.
Canon Dr Giles Fraser, who has been sympathetic to the protest camp outside the London landmark, is expected to announce his resignation within days.
.
Differences over the handling of the protest are thought to have prompted his decision, says the BBC’s religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott.
,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-15472362

Read Max Keiser pages 8 and 9 – Occupied Times of London
.
MONEY TALKS
The Occupied Times gets the low down on the meltdown with
former wall street broker, financial analyst and broadcaster,
MAX KEISER of maxkeiser.com
.
http://theoccupiedtimes.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/the-occupied-times-of-london_small.pdf

OT Max Keiser is given 24hrs to
fix the global financial system,
what’s the first thing he does?
MK Raise the ‘margin rate’
charged to speculators to borrow
and speculate with until the
global derivatives outstanding is
reduced by 90%. This is actually
the only thing you have to do to
fix the system. The speculators
would have to reduce their
speculative positions and the
threat of collapse and bailouts
goes away. The Bank of England
and the Federal Reserve both have
the power to do this, they don’t
because they are at the service of
the speculators.

What with all the police action against the protesters in American, you gotta wonder when NATO/UN will invade Uncle Sams country to protect the rights it citizens to protest under the constitution?

2008 recap of the market crash, with explanation.
.
http://dearscience.org/2008/09/21/margin-call-leveraged-failure-taxpayer-bailout/
.
Think Keiser has a point.

I am in agreement with Craig’s post, except for the last paragraph.
.
The amount of money invested in derivatives, which are basically gambles about other financial products, is approximately ten times the entire global product.
.
The deregulation of capital is the biggest problem we have, bigger than climate change, because it concentrates all power in the hands of those only interested in money, and thereby prevents the solution of other problems.
.
Marx’s analysis of the evils of capitalism was spot on. However his projected solution wasn’t.
.
Marx wrote at a time when the economic sector was undergoing a gigantic revolution, prompted by the industrial revolution. This swept away the hegemony of the old spiritual/ethical world view in which God was in his heaven and all was right with the world, which was only a sexist derivative of world views which had pertained all over the world for thousands of years.
.
In its place was the rule of capital.
.
Max Keiser is of course right, it should be so simple to put things right. But to implement such a policy and to sustain any improvements we need a fundamental reorientation.
.
The answer is not to boot out capitalism but to reform it. Capitalists ought to be allowed to store up capital, as long as it used for general benefit. They should not be allowed to gamble with values people’s well-being depends on and the state should ensure measures of equality of rights.
.
It is interesting that Craig’s other post today is about Canon Fraser, who is a hero, and it is interesting that a Christian hero should be in the news.
.
I do not think of myself as a Christian, but the two thinkers who I think have much to contribute to a new understanding of economic life were both Christians, and they are Rudolf Steiner and Martin Luther King, who agreed on many points.
.
They both accepted the analysis of Marx, but not the solutions. Steiner argued the importance of preventing the economic sphere from interfering with people’s rights, and preventing the state from interfering with education and religion.

It is interesting that the greatest revolutionary of the last two thousand years, or at least a candidate for the title, Oliver Cromwell, did everything he could along with Milton to promote freedom of religion, but the overwhelming majority of his supporters had no interest in such an idea.

Yes but Guest, as Nicole Foss keeps pointing out:

In the matter of closeness in time, they hit in this order:

1) Global financial armageddon
2) Global Resources running out
3) Climate change

And as Nicole says, people always deal with the immediate catastrophe to the neglect of the much bigger but slightly less immediate ones.

`fiat money` is only worth a politicians promise, no literal value. there is another business worth $1-2 trillion per year that is based on a physical commodity, drugs. have a read of http://www.lobster-magazine.co.uk/articles/global-drug.htm
quite disturbing. we have a visible layer of government and an invisible layer, same for corporations and the same for the illegal drug industry. when violence breaks out people will look to the state for protection, as evidenced by the nationwide street parties in august – beholden to them once again. i dont think the people have a chance, in fact it is grossly naive to think otherwise, against the triad of government, corporation and organised crime. i suspect the people, myself included will be reduced to surviving literally from day to day. real revolution unfortunately involves violence and i dont have a gun. maybe i should get hold of one before prices go through the roof. last i heard a mach 10 was £3000 and bullets were not included. ahh nostalgia for the days of the ira selling ak47`s for £500. with this kind of chaos looming on the horizon the people will be grateful for the fascist state.

Capitalism has swept the world, especially in places that previously embraced socialism. It works in conjunction with human nature, and is in harmony with it. It has always struck me as strange that people who are prepared to assert their own greed in a ruthless fashion are so unusual. But they exist, and they are currently running the world. Craig’s analysis is compelling, but it is likely shared by the extrovertedly greedy One Per Cent elite. I would not bet on that elite being shot come the revolution, but it is at least possible that they are at the controls of a juggernaut they no longer control. What is happening in Brussels as I write is a massive exercise to protect the banks. It has nothing to do with nation states and it certainly has nothing to do with Greece. The people have not loaned money to people who could not repay. Banks have. The bail-out is in the name of the people, but the crisis has had nothing to do with the people. And the conflab in Brussels has had everything to do with Spain and Italy, and in particular keeping Euros in Spanish and Italian banks. The elite, no more than the rest of us, could not survive a pan-continental banking crash. But it seems probable that the current deal is going to last a few months only. It will be interesting to see how much longer Germany is going to be happy to be bailing out the banks of other countries. The day that it stops is the day the elite are swept away, along with the rest of us. There may well be a middle-class and quite polite revolution. We might all suddenly vote Green.

The plans to leverage the euro backstop fund are clearly insane, and use pretty much the same ‘derivative instruments’ that created the 2007-08 crunch in the first place.

These ‘instruments’ require impressive GROWTH to work, hence a Europe with no/low growth will bust the model, and then we’ll require deleveraging [again] at which point the new EFSF debt guarantees will blow the whole stinking chamberpot to pieces…..

When you hear Ms. Lagarde talking, Wiz, how she is speaking of having values for everything in this compelling four parter by Al Jazeera and CBC, then we are not far off of adopting a more greener agenda. I just watched part 4 and thought that it rather fits with Craigs points. It also has a comment by DSK on a very uncertain European future
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/meltdown/

Someone at the end made a point of the next bubbles bursting, apparently China has 65 million unoccupied apartments, the tip of a real estate bubble of unknown proportions. who exactly is regulating Asian markets? who is to say that these criminal mistakes done to our economies, will not be replicated in another more volatile and active economic zone?

Gary Smith, thanks for the link. I haven’t yet read every word, but it makes a lot more sense than most other conspiracy theories.

@ Conjunction

You wrote:

“Marx’s analysis of the evils of capitalism was spot on. However his projected solution wasn’t.”

Marx didn’t offer a projected solution rather a philosophical template or a guide to action at the centre of which is democratic workers control of the means of production.: “The emancipation of the working class is conquered by the working class themselves”. This idea of the self-emancipation of the working class is at the heart of Marx’s thought.

The old-style Stalinist interpretations of Marx – ie vertical impositions of the centre – are not a feasible alternatives to capitalism. However, decentralized, horizontal relationships among producers and consumers, are.

Pat Devine has developed a “model of democratic planning entirely consistent with Marx…..in which planning takes the form of a political process of negotiated coordination, with decisions being made, directly or indirectly, by those who are affected by them.”

(P. Devine, ‘Democracy and Economic Planning, Cambridge, 1988, p.189)

@ Wiz: You wrote:

“Capitalism has swept the world, especially in places that previously embraced socialism. It works in conjunction with human nature, and is in harmony with it.”

This is absolute nonsense. Whilst it’s true capitalism has swept the vast majority of the world, there still remain pockets of the world where capitalism has not reached. You are on even flimsier ground with your assertion that capitalism is somehow consistent to human nature. For approximately 145,000 years human beings lived in what Marx called ‘primitive communist’ hunter gatherer societies. Class society only emerged 5,000 years ago and capitalism as a form of class society some 250 years ago.

Daniel
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You say that Marx offered
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‘A philosophical template or a guide to action at the centre of which is democratic workers control of the means of production.’
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That is my understanding too. He wanted workers to take control of the means of production, and believed that initially this would involve a ‘dictatorship’ of the proletariat’, which is what Lenin introduced in Russia.
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What Steiner and others believed is that for the workers to take over the state doesn’t solve the problem, the problem being that the economic sphere of life is dominant.
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Prior to the industrial revolution this was not the case. Religion and education had their own influence and government was by the monarch or in the case of the UK monarch and parliament.
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The industrial revolution led to the domination of capital, and Marxism substitutes a dictatorship of the workers. Here the Marxian dialectic breaks down as Sartre noted, a kind of stasis intervenes as occurred in Russia.
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What is needed is the retention of the capitalist system subject to a system of checks from the state which are based on a theory of human rights which have their own sovereignty which cannot be touched by economic influences.

“Living Well on Practically Nothing”
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Living-Practically-Nothing-Edward-Romney/dp/0873646940/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319581916&sr=1-2

Conjunction, I disagree with your prognosis. The patient is terminally ill and is beyond reform. I also disagree with Satre. Neither capitalism or socialism are illustrative of the end of history.

‘Dictatorship of the proletariat’ is widely misunderstood. Marx saw the D of the P as “temporary”, the “necessary transit point” between capitalism and a classless communist society. Moreover, Marx and Engels believed that the state was first and foremost an instrument of coercion, “special bodies of armed men” as Lenin succinctly put it.

In this respect, the D of the P would be no different from any previous form of state, since all were based on coercion, and would not necessarily be any more arbitary or repressive than its predecessors.

The main distinguishing feature of the D of the P was that it was precisely “the proletariat organised as the ruling class.”

“And as Nicole says, people always deal with the immediate catastrophe to the neglect of the much bigger but slightly less immediate ones.”
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Rhisiart Gwilym, I would put to you that “Climate change” may well have gone beyond “immediate”, it is by far more important then “Global financial armageddon”. Soon, we may be calling “Climate change”…Global armageddon.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/8853761/FTSE-100-directors-pay-jumps-49pc.html

I don’t think Marxist dialectic is going to help us here without the necessary precondition of a bloody revolution.

1. Too many people.
2. Too many greedy people.

Address those, and the other issues fall into place.

“Capitalism in Crisis?”
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Glad you put a question mark at the end of that.
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“Crisis?”, what “Crisis?”, capitalism is in a state of total utopian euphoria, it is doing what it set out to do, what it was designed to do, make the rich richer and the poor poorer.
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It has and will remain the only system mankind will live by, regardless of the death, mayhem and total misery it brings to the whole of humanity. What right does anyone have to in anyway criticise a system that so many keep on voting for, and will keep on voting for.

This is a discussion about Craig’s piece.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1319768166.html

Like you Criag I have worked in many countries. They have all been corrupt. Some hide it better than others. In Uzbekistan they just dont bother to try to conceal it. In the UK it is largely blurred by a flawed political system and skillful supression of free speach. The system in the UK is very good at discrediting people who raise taboo issues. I am not sure the UK will see a revolution. People are too compliant here. Yes they complain but they give up quickly. I remember reading Capital, not because I am a communist, but it was a good critique of capitalism. Marx said he never got the impression that the British had the heart to take on the elite. Perhaps there is not the solidarity. I agree with you capitalism is broken. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Now, a book rather worth reading on the subject of the fraud by the likes of Goldman Sachs etc, is

Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi

@ Guest: “It [capitalism] has and will remain the only system mankind will live by.”

Nonsense. Capitalism emerged from fuedalism and there is no reason to think that it will be around for eternity. Actually such a notion is daft.

“Nonsense”
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Daniel, speak as you see, whats makes you think mankind will be “around for eternity”. We were more socially/community based and caring when we were tree dwellers, we are going backwards not forwards. Is there really such a word as “evolution” ?, hmmm, I think there is, but to where does it go ?.