I’m glad you are well employed. I think everyone deserves the same opportunity. Yes, we might see a world in which all enjoy greater leisure, but for now, for the unemployed, the question is whether they have a regular job or not, and many in the West do not and cannot so long as they are forced into direct competition with Asian wage slaves working for pennies an hour. That is the problem that needs to be addressed immediately, and which can only be successfully resolved through the return of jobs that have been off-shored.

But I am not hopeful about that. We are no longer in a democratic world where nice people care for one another, or where we can consider constructing a better more Utopian world. We are in a world of plutocratic globalized feudalism in which the masses are deemed a blight on the planet and are mostly to be disposed of. That it seems to me has to be the starting point of any realistic debate about what is to be done.

I never said the political challenges necessary for changing the systems would be easy, but I HAVE advocated “hitting the street” with the appropriate indignation and a sane and practical program for like 5–6 years now which was prior to the GFC itself.

I teach High School and own a jet ski and boat rental business, but my passion has always been my other intellectual and psychological pursuits. Fortunately those are relatively cheap and can’t be taken away from me unless or until the internet goes down.

Sure, if allowed to. But why do you think they will be allowed to?

As far as the elite are concerned the masses are just a stinking heap of maggots to be disposed of as soon as conveniently possible. Hence the drive to destroy the nation state as a a racial, cultural or religious entity, combined with programs for global depopulation.

Incidentally, do you spend your days happily practicing your boomerang throw, or are you actually quite busily employed trying to climb some ladder of professional advancement while counseling less work for others?

Not trying to be rude, but the idea that folks should be glad to have little or no real work seems odd coming from an intelligent person who has been marginalized by unemployment.

Well, you DID quote me out of context. My actual statement was “We don’t actually need employment AS MUCH to maintain production in a technologically modern economy, and that need is continually lessening at an accelerating speed.”

“Without work, people lose self-respect and have no respect from others, which leads on the one hand to decadence, criminality or mental illness, and on the other hand to elite plans for the extermination of useless eaters.”

These are largely cultural biases actually. Humans are capable of finding positive and constructive purpose other than work. That plus I have absolutely nothing against work per se, or profit for that matter. I just think that they make poor primary purposes and values.

And so far as “elite plans for the extermination of useless eaters.”.…that results more from one eyed devotion to abstractions.…..and no actual contemplation or experiencing of basic human possibilities like confidence, hope, love and a sense of grace.

“We don’t actually need employment ”

Absolutely wrong!

Without work, people lose self-respect and have no respect from others, which leads on the one hand to decadence, criminality or mental illness, and on the other hand to elite plans for the extermination of useless eaters.

During the inter-war years, gas chambers were the thing. George Bernard Shaw repeatedly spoke in favor of them. Leonard Darwin, Charles’s fourth son, indicated in private his support for “lethal chambers”. And the idea was not just popular with dictators and cranks. Although Maynard Keynes may not be on record as favoring extermination policies, he was, for many years, president of the British Eugenics Association. (See Richard Overy’s excellent book, “The Twilight Years”).

Hitler gave gas chambers a bad name, so now we have more subtle extermination programs based on the teaching of non-reproductive sex, demoralization of the common people of Europe through multi-culturalism and political correctness aimed squarely at the suppression of working class revolt, and mass immigration of more vigorous and economically competitive third worlders to the west, i.e., a program of genocide of the European working class.

So yes, we need to create jobs and recover those that have been off-shored to boost the profits of international corporations such as Walmart (The wealth of the Walton/Walmart family now exceeds that of the poorest 42% of the America Population!)

The point, is first, to deny private institutions the right to print money ad lib.

This makes it impossible for the banks to create a Ponzi economy off their own bat. True the Central Bank could achieve the same result. But in that case I’d favor a return to mediaeval forms of punishment for those who commit treason.

Oh, and as you were too busy to note, it would also make money laundering, financial fraud, counterfeiting, tax evasion, the vending of illegal drugs, the trading in slaves, the payment of illegal political campaign contributions, payments to out of office pols like Tony Blair for services rendered, and the financing of terrorism essentially impossible since every unit of currency would have a unique identifier and its movement would be tracked at every instant.

‘Global rebalancing’ (the apparent successor to ‘Globalisation’) means a continuing and inexorable transfer of jobs and wealth from West to East. It is this reduction in home-grown manufacturing capacity in the US especially that caused the shift over the last 30 years from manufacturing to massive financial sector Ponzi schemes that have now collapsed.

US household’s real incomes remained static since the mid 1970’s but the populace were kept happy by one bubble after another that raised household wealth levels. With the collapse of the real estate market and stock/superannuation losses US household wealth has collapsed today to a median value of $78,000, the same as it was around 20 years ago.

The US has arrived at this place as a result of loss of competiveness in world markets. US corporations realised decades ago that they could maximise profits by setting up in cheaper parts of the world where wages were 10% of US wages. As a result, since 1980 the US has lost over ten million full time jobs.

A ‘Debt Jubilee’ can’t solve these massive underlying structural problems.

Could there be short to medium term benefits if Steve’s idea was adopted?
Let’s say each household is provided with $30,000 to primarily pay down debt. This would certainly reduce the interest load on families with debt and stimulate demand. For those with no debt spending the money would provide even more demand (I’m assuming that every household receives the money – if not this scheme would be unworkable – those with no debt would immediately create some debt in order to receive the benefit). There are of course many other issues in the actual mechanisms associated with this process. How do you prevent people from simply redrawing on their home equity loan back up to their previous debt level? (for those underwater not an issue but what of everyone else?). How do you stop people from running up their credit cards again? How do you control such spending? Can you?

If the ‘Jubilee’ money is spent then it will indeed provide some short to medium term relief for the US economy but the national debt will have risen several trillion dollars in the meantime. The ‘Jubilee’ idea seems predicated on the assumption that if we can fix this current depression then everything will revert to a properly functioning (perhaps new) economic model.

The real issue in the US is well paying full time jobs which are gradually disappearing. Who is going to make the investment in jobs in the US with all their associated expenses when you can employ similarly qualified people all over Asia at 10–20% of the cost?

These US (& also European) structural issues may not in fact be ‘solvable’…. they may simply reflect the world in the 21st century. It is what it is. A world population heading to 9 billion means more cheap labour, not less.

what a numero from one country is worth more or less than a numero from another country. then whats the point. we could just have the sovereign currency framework we have now.

re me missing the point. i think the issue is that the statement i was refering to , is not reflective of how the monetary system operates.

We don’t actually need employment as much to maintain production in a technologically modern economy, and that need is continually lessening at an accelerating speed. We DO need demand however. To hell with the “worker bee” society. And to hell with the enforced debt slavery society as wel. lOrthodox economic theory has got to “up its game” and recognize these fast approaching realities.

“That $75,000 is to reduce the huge debt overhang of the last however many years of build up”

Whether it’s seventy-five hundred or seventy-five thousand, we are debating a matter of degree. In principle, the idea makes sense. The question I raise is how much of a good thing would be too much.

It was the bankers and the dopier borrowers working together that balls everything up. While solving the problems they created, we should take care not punish the middle class, through massive inflationary expropriation of their savings.

And the key problem, is not the debt, but the unemployment that debt deleverage is causing. Aside from cancelling debt, at least in part, there should, therefore, be thought given to making those priced out of the workforce by third world competition, employable again.

Periodic across-the-board wage adjustments related to national or regional unemployment rates, could be part of the solution. The provision of publicly funded wage subsidies, sold to employers through public auction could be another part of the solution, which would allow those now unemployed to gain workforce skills, while cutting the costs of welfare and unemployment related crime and mental illness.