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Guest Post: 9 Plagues That Are Collapsing Capitalism
Via Jim Quinn's Burning Platform blog (authored by Paul Rosenberg of FreemansPerspective blog),
Let me be blunt: Our capitalist system is approaching failure.
Or, perhaps better said: Our marginally capitalist, partly-free market systems are approaching a massive collapse.
Not because of what capitalism is, mind you, but because the powers that be have bastardized it.
Capitalism can bear many distortions and abuses, but it is not indestructible.
And, make no mistake, the ‘capitalist’ system we have today has been massively corrupted, so much so that it’s sagging under the load... and will continue to do so until the proverbial straw breaks its back.
The 9 Plagues
1. The average producer is being stripped bare. In the US, for example, the total take of taxes has not risen dramatically, but fewer and fewer people actually pay them. There was a big uproar during the last election cycle over the fact that 47% of working-aged Americans paid no income tax. That means that the half who do work (read suckers) are paying the whole. And more than that, they are also paying for the many millions who are on food stamps and disability. Producers are being punished and abused, made into chumps.
2. Thrift is essentially impossible. I’ve explained this in detail previously, but a hundred years ago, it was possible for an average person to accumulate money. Mechanics, carpenters, and shop owners slowly filled their bank accounts with gold and silver. It was common for them to make business loans and to retire comfortably. But now, all of our surplus is drained away to capital cities, where it is poured down the drains of welfare, warfare, and political lunacy. Money has been removed from the hands that made it, and moved into the hands of non-producers, liars, and destroyers.
3. In 2008, US federal government regulations cost an estimated $1.75 trillion, an amount equal to 14 percent of US national income. Let me restate: Simply complying with regulations costs American businesses more than $1,750,000,000,000 (that’s $1.75 Trillion) every year. This, again, is money taken out of production and wasted on political lunacy.
4. Small businesses are being squeezed out. Take a look at the two graphs below, and understand that as small businesses are squeezed out, only the large corporations remain. These days, only the largest and best-connected entities are able to get their concerns dealt with (by the politicians they fund). Small operations are cut off from the redress of their grievances and are crushed by taxes and regulation. And don’t forget the comments of Mussolini:
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
While there may be no dictator, state/corporate partnerships are taking over commerce in the West.
5. The military industrial complex is out of control. Their lobbying, fear-mongering, and spending can only be characterized as obscene. Dwight Eisenhower was right when he warned us about this in 1960. It is sad beyond measure that so few Americans took him seriously. Trillions of dollars and millions of productive lives are being spent on the war machines of the West. Never forget that wars destroy massively and produce nothing.
6. All the Western nations now feature large enforcer classes, composed of bureaucrats, law enforcement units, inspectors, and so on. In the US alone this amounts to several million people – none of whom produce anything, and all of whom restrain producers from producing. Millions of people are paid to restrain commerce.
7. We now have a very large financial class in which blindly aggressive people make millions of dollars. The problem is that finance is not productive. It may allocate money in beneficial ways (though it often allocates mainly to itself), but it doesn’t actually produce anything. At present, the allocators get the big bucks, and the producers get scraps.
8. The modern business ethic has become about acquisition only. In more enlightened times, it was also about creating benefit in the world, or at least creating newer and better things. Mere grasping is an insufficient philosophy for capitalism; it leads to dark places.
9. Every nation on the planet is using play money and forcing their inhabitants to use their play money. Moreover, they have super-empowered a small class of Central Banking Elites, who make fortunes on their currency monopolies, and who are entirely unknown to the producers who unwillingly (and unknowingly) purchase jets and yachts for them. Our money systems have brought back aristocracies; a class that is both hidden and immensely powerful.
So What’s Next?
That’s up to the producers. Everything hinges upon them. The game, as it is, depends entirely on them being willing to accept abuse.
All that is necessary to fix this is for the producers to stop being willing victims. Simple, I know, but there is a problem with such a sensible idea:
The producers are convinced that their role in life is only to struggle and obey.
Modern producers believe that the ruling classes have a legitimate right to tell them how much of their money they are entitled to keep, which charity causes they’ll be forced to contribute to, which features their car is required to have, and much, much more. Why? Simply because those other people are in “high positions,” and they (the producers) are in “low positions.” An evil assumption has been planted in their minds:
It is right for important people to order me around.
The productive class holds all the real power, but they are nearly devoid of moral confidence. So, they are abused without end.
Right now, a parasitic ethic rules the West and will continue to rule so long as producers play the part of the suckers. If this continues, what remains of capitalism will grind to a halt and will be overrun by a Neo-Fascist arrangement – not the dictator and swastika variety – but one where the state and powerful business interests merge into one unstoppable and insatiable force.
On the other hand, if ever the producers wake up from their moral coma and reject the role of doormat, they will build a society embodying the ethics of production. It almost sounds impossible, I know. But it is has happened before and could happen again.
It’s up to us.
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Yes I do and no it doesn't. I know how many government employees there are.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/USGOVT/
Fred doesn't publish stats on pseudo-private sector workers, so I don't know how many there are, but there's lots.
There is one huge problem with free market Capitalism.
It's not being tried.
Great list, thank you.
A parasitic road to perdition for certain.
In my state the universities use taxpayer money and property to run state/corporate eatery franchises, excluding citizen entrepreneurs from operating them and serving as employers.
Also, the I.T. Departments of said universities run repair facilities for Apple and Dell computers for private citizens using state property and employees, competing directly with small business owners.
How is this legal? Oh, I forgot, the rule-of-law is dead.
You're in Michigan?
No, but I wouldn't doubt they do it in every State of the Union.
"We need a controlled experiment .... take the most God forsaken .... inhospitable place on Earth .... declare it a free enterprise zone .... and get the fuck out of the way .... the desert will flower .... and the mik and honey will flow !" .... Monedian Proverb
We can use Detroit.
Try Somalia.
"The worst plague, the one which underlies all others, is the combination of idiocy and ignorance among the people."
You think just like Obama and the rest of the Elite. You think Americans are too dumb to live in freedom, they must be under a yoke and ordered about at every turn.
That's not a stupidity problem, it's an education problem.
"Our money systems have brought back aristocracies; a class that is both hidden and immensely powerful."
"What's Next"? Like I've been saying for months... FEUDALISM 2.0
Our feudal lords are back. Stronger, smarter, more ruthless, more devious and more organized than ever. But you can keep calling it by all sorts of false names (crony-capitalism, socialism, fascism, corporatism...), if it helps you sleep better. Even rich libertarians are practicing feudalism, insofar their incomes are Rentier* Class Incomes of the idle rich.
* Income from rent, user fees, licenses, tolls, royalties, sharecropping...
We should try "Capitalism" some time. Haven't had it in my lifetime. You can't really consider a "capitalist" system where interest rates are set by a select few men and not markets, Where "capitol " is fraudulently created and misrepresented, by those same few men, you don't have have "Capitalism". That's how I see it.
Some entity is being set up to be the hero in all this. The funny thing is that this hero has been in the making ever since man first began believing in "other gods" and is the architect of the current world system. Really Hegelian, isn't it?
How about that guy .... who bought a small property in upstate New York .... it had a pond .... the Feds said it was protected wetlands .... and he was responsible for maintaining it in it's natural state .... next year .... the state of New York .... doubled his property taxes .... because they discovered he had a waterfront property ?
Capitalism is alive and doing fine. Price discovery and honest commerce happen all the time, but only at the back doors.
The Second American Revolution - Grey and Black Markets are thriving outside of the mainstream - join the fun!
Mr. Quinn's comments are absolutely correct! But, why volunteer/submit to UNITED STATES OF AMERICA corporation laws if there's an alternative?
Instead of an INC, use a Trust to form a business.
The federal gummint uses Trusts extensively. Secretary of Commerce, Treasury, Navy, Army and more are the Boss of that organization! These kinds of business organizations have been used for a thousand years.
Joe Kennedy started the Chic ago Mercantile Mart under the Laws Of Trust, aka Common Law.
It's very much like King George saying MY rules are the only rules. Remember what happened there?
Do a google search on 'Trust Indenture' and start thinking for yerself.
btw, remember that descriptive headers in a 'legal form' are NOT part of the law. These headers can be very distracting and cause you to feel the section does not apply to your situation.
SKY- good info see also Mesabi Trust and Hines Lumber trust. Museuma are set up under trusts, so maybe your "coin" collection could be in a trust and "deaccessioned" as beneficiaries needed cash flow. Interesting legal form...
I have more respect for a black pimp and drug hustler .... than I do for Bernanke and Obama !
Please tell me how you can tell the difference.....
I know my dealer .... I don't know those guys !
Well, the first two run businesses.
Isnt this just anotherform of you know what? WORKERS OF the world unite. No, Christianity built our free market.
You cant have one wo the other.
no matter what the producers say or do.........no matter how heroic you want them to be...no matter what uprising occurs......the system still has to reset....and with that comes pain the country has never ever ever ever seen......
I hear ya. My Brother In Law is a one man office for the Department Of Commerce who works mostly out of his house when he doesn’t feel like going into his downtown office. He’s been doing this for 30 years and not one of his three Brothers In Law working in the private sector (including me) has ever been able to even figure out what he does, other than attend four conferences a year.
I keep hoping he will tell me once he retires that he was working under cover for the FBI, CIA, DEA, etc. Then, at least it would finally all make some sense.
The win-at-all-costs-without-morals-and-ethics has ruled the day for some time, producing billionaires and government-defended monopolies. This is not free-market capitalism, not by a long shot. The small business owner with a conscience, who was/is a producer, is so overwhelmed that doing less is the line of least resistance and a way of not losing money. Way too many control freaks out there, and not enough revolt against the system.
how wrong could pol pot have been?
When we get to the post crash regen phase two rules must be enforced being being:
1) Separation of bank and state: Not one penny of tax payer monies should be offered to banks;
2) Business taxes should be indexed to the percentage of the market you own. If you can dominate the market and still yeild higher profit under a higher tax load then more power to you otherwise fuck off. We don't need pathological power trippers seeking monopolies though the old boys network for the sake of power itself.
When we get to the post crash regen phase two rules must be enforced...
How about "never obey anything claiming to be a state."
Or at least, "you can't force anyone to join your system."
Blame everything but the elephant! The choir can NEVER question the song it sings...
How can people piss and moan about a lack of growth when, clearly, the very system that got us to this point engaged in MASSIVE growth (and often there was never a mention of "bubble"). Billions of humans and billions of spent barrels of oil later we claim that it's improper words and or behavior and NOT insufficient natural/physical resources that are the real restraining factors?
When will people start talking about the capital that isn't virtual, the capital that is THE capital with which we have and always will be constrained by? I'm talking Natural Capital.
I agree with all those who claim that this is a doomer-mongering scene, not because I don't believe things aren't going to dramatically sour, but because they're right in seeing that it's become a repetitious, nearly conditioning program to connect the "problem" to anything BUT the source. I never pretend to know the "answer/solution," no one does, but I DO know what the answer/solution ought not be. Just as increasing debt to get out of debt is (rightly) seen by those here, total insanity/illogical, so too is advocating for MOAR growth when it has been growth that has got us to this point, well... can you say disconnect? Saying that it's misallocation is picking nits. What the fuck are people going to do when there is no more to misallocate? Crying "misallocation" does nothing at that point. And maybe we ARE at That Point? Oh, but we cannot stomach asking these questions because we could never except what will turn out to be one day true, that we won't be able to spend time mentally masturbating about "capitalism" because we'll be to busy trying to survive.
People can take this as personally as they wish, I could give a fuck. I do, however, wish to slap it right in the faces of the talking-heads such as Quinn (who obviously is a mental midget compared to another Quinn- Daniel).
During WW2 when the Japanese seized all of the south Asian rubber plantations for tiring their war machines the Allied forces invented synthetic rubber. Mankind unfortunately needs a kick in the ass crisis for motivation to accel. The mind is limitless. Bring on the crash. Hooo Rahhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
An optimist for sure!
We get the crash and maybe we can get rid of the synthetic cash we have today.
There is this pesky thing called the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics that may have something to say about your optimism.
Hell, why not start with the 1rst....
The former inhabitants (most of whom died of starvation) of the formerly densely populated, now deforested and mostly infertile Easter Island are still waiting for their "kick in the butt", in vain I think.
The Easter Islanders ware a theocratic society with the ultimate sin being leaving the island. There reilgion guaranteed their society was doomed to canabalistic dead end.
Is there a difference between Earth and Easter Island? Aside from scale, of course....
No, they are exactly the same. Both are 'lifeboat' scenarios.
Thank you...
Mark BC - Thats what the Japs said....
Tell it like it is, Seer. It's amazing how the group-think on this site can so righteously pride itself on its supposed critical thinking skills, yet somehow refuses to acknowledge the elephant in the room, as you say.
Peak Pique! It is here now.
Hey, Hubert is my hero too and Dr. Lovelock. What the #@*$ is wrong with nuclear powered hydrolisis of sea water to create hydrogen to fuel our nation's fleet. If we use fuel cells rather than combustion we cut CO2 emissions while wete at it. Myself, I'll be manufacturing 10 gallon capacitors for the trunks of fuel cell sports cars to compete the combustion cars wirh nitrous injection in their trunks. Hooooo Rahhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do the math, and don't even get me started on nukes in a power-for-profit environment....If anything, the past 50 years have shown that we do not have clue what we are doing..
And I almost should not mention that if you think Tesla's plug in electric vehicles are expensive, wait till you see the hydrogen fuel cell versions...
PS Given the above cornucopian tripe, I'd say hyperbole suits you....
"It is right for important people to order me around"... This leads to the incredible idea that Hollywood celebrities (read Jay Z and Kim K) somehow have the credentials to comment upon and indeed share political thought in this nation. After all they are 'important people' and hence should be leading us hither and yon.
My beloved country! And with each word in this account, I can almost see the sheets of this tattered paper blowing in the wind over the ruins of this empty and devastated land, pronouncing America’s epitaph.
Only one factor speaks out against this sliding fate, the presence of guns in the hands of the citizenry.
For “how cheap are the principles for which we do not have to fight; how easy it is to establish codes when all the while our freedom to talk had been fought for and bled for by others.”
The force that the oligarchs are toying with, are trying to take over, is the force of civilization itself. The suicidal movements outlined by Paul Rosenberg taken together are none other than the force of evil aimed at the very heart of America; namely, that a man has a right to freedom and to self determination. And that includes a long list of God-given freedoms that these suicidal movements want to extinguish – rights that are the very essence of life itself.
This force of evil is nothing more than the barbarism of tyranny – of the methods used to enslave a people. It’s fair to say that the U.S. was founded on Christian principles and that Supreme Court justices the likes of Elena Kagan want these Christian principles removed. Kagan said as much by denying the significance of the Declaration of Independence and continues to say so by her “decisions.”
For it’s this document, more than any other, that called for a government that would protect the God-given liberty with which every man begins his life on earth, a liberty so many governments in world history have taken away and that only America established with written guarantees. Now, a godless, socialist, non-Christian the likes of Elena Kagan fully represents the wave of denial of these founding promises; for it was the Declaration that became the foundation for the Constitution’s Bill of Rights, unheard of in history as provisions - not providing rights to the citizens (as in Russia) - but protecting man’s God-given rights from birth.
A profound article!
[I] am for the sake of astute [?] deliberation [discourse] going to equate capitalism to the confines of the 'uss of a'?
'America: The Absentee [slumlord?] Landlord' -- off galivanting the world over-- making it a better place to live... has created an atrophic homeland!?
'A Darwinianism morass... where change is the only constant, ignored by the econ'mystic[S]?'
The outside world peer[s] in, ever-so-often, and see's a degenerating cosmos'mesology[?]... a surrealistic visual mirror into their minds'eye of a 'Dori`Gray', whence the polarized albedo is mesmerized by 'fear itself' in what is an old-fashion'd tunnel'vision... epitomized by the Oscar winning mr. wild'e... long before capitalism wedd'd 'a'barter', primitive eugenics construct?!
jmo
thankyou mr. quinn
As it has been said, socialism is a wonderful and "caring" world until you run out of other people's money and the law of the jungle comes online....
We are so far from socialism it's absurd.
... inane even; like a duck quacking.
This post is so simplistic and naive, and mostly off-base. While I agree that the ruling class is out of control, the author completely misses the mark when it comes to "producers". I am now finding it almost humourous how the free marketeer / Austrian School types can throw around the word economic "production" so freely, yet I have never, ever, not once, ever, heard a definition from them about what "production" actually is. I don't think they have a clue what it's all about, they're too busy with their noses worshipping Ludwig von Mises' imaginary thought experiments from a hundred years ago. The best attempt I've heard to define production is from Peter Schiff's book, "How an Economy Grows and Why it Crashes", in which he actually seriously suggests that fishermen "produce" fish with their nets!!!????
(Rolls eyes)
If you actually believe that "All that is necessary to fix this is for the producers to stop being willing victims.", well I've got some statistics for you...
The US has been beyond Peak Oil for 40 years now, the US empire has been set up especially to rape the rest of the world of the natural resources that the US squandered 40 years ago. Now, the world is at Peak Just About Everything and it's all downhill from here. I'm sorry to say it, but we are most likely facing the beginnings of a Malthusian Collapse in the next few decades or so.
Most of the nonsense presented in this kind of post I have debunked here.
Only God can produce a fish ! You're full of shit ! I do agree about the Malthusian collapse !
Black market/barter system... isn't the pretty much the definition of capitalism?
capitalism is a society that allows individuals to own capital (raw materials and means of production).
10. Illegal aliens
11. Unions
12. Lawyers
13. Affirmative action and EEOC
14. Environmental "green" bullshit
Money and Biological Matter ( the green stuff) are both green for a reason. They are finite capital resources which produce (i.e. by a producer ) a yield to live off of. If you blow though the interest and start chewing up the collateral then you are fucked. Sustainable consumption must be practised because resources are not limitless. Only the human mind is limitless if one can kick the ass of ones personal demons that want to eat the capital then growth is always possible by ploughing in of intetest to increase capirsl. God is the absence of the Devil.
AMEN!
to resume the article - over time nations get sick with parasites. But i fail to see what it has to do with capitalism ? It is common problem for any -ism
Correctiion:
9 Plagues That Have Collapsed CapitalismI really think that because "Greed" has been applied to capitalism so much that it has this truly f'd up people believing in the system.
If a truly voluntary society based on capitalism is created I believe that more opportunity would be available for people. FreeMansPerspective breaks it down.
"Get this: Under capitalism, no one is required to do anything that they don’t want to do! Isn’t that a good thing?
Under capitalism, if you want someone to buy your product, you have to convince them that it’s in their best interest – you can’t force them at all. It is all 100% voluntary.
And if you can force them, it isn’t capitalism."
"Don’t count another guy’s money. It’s none of your business. If the guy lies, cheats and steals, then you have an issue, and not until. "
http://www.freemansperspective.com/capitalism-greed/
President George W Bush
http://www.unitedliberty.org/articles/bush-i-ve-abandoned-free-market-pr...
There's just the one plague ... the STATE.
Capitalism is the SOLUTION
POLITICS is the problem
Someone said VIOLENCE solves problems.
Perhaps its SPRINGTIME in AMERIKA
This is the result of 100 years of progressivism and their wet dream of a utopia-has never worked and never will.
American spring and back to the Constittution.
Now 0b@m@ wants workers to spy on each other-we have arrived at 1984! What sick f-ers we have running OUR country!
natural / manmade disaster / terrorism
MARTIAL LAW
followed by military coup
followed by civil war
you tell me what follows
"8. The modern business ethic has become about acquisition only. In more enlightened times, it was also about creating benefit in the world, or at least creating newer and better things."
Related to this is the way in which big organisations/corporations distance themselves from the very people who provide their revenues and profits, and operate inside a sealed organisational bubble which is impenetrable by customers.
One example: in the UK, am I asking too much to expect that if I logon to virtually any corporate website - bank, BT Telecoms, energy suppliers - I will find a page, or better still an organisation chart, showing "who's who" in that company, perhaps with correspondence or e-mail addresses? It doesn't have to name names, just the "Office Of ..." would be sufficient so you know who and where to write.
Apparently I am expecting far too much.
There is no organisation that I deal with which provides any information of that nature.
And exactly the same thing applies to public sector organisations like the Inland Revenue, Customs & Excise and Immigration Agency etc, all departments of government who hide behind impenetrable walls to prevent incoming contact.
The only conclusion I can draw from this secrecy is that these organisations do not want their customers or clients to have contact with them outside of their Customer Helplines which are invariably behind tel-nums which cost an arm and a leg to call. And you never get to speak to anybody except low-level staff who read out scripted answers.
A few days ago, after being the victim of some bank fraud, I drafted a letter to the Head of Fraud in the UK bank concerned to have on file my understanding of events. I was unable to find the person's name or postal address anywhere on their website, so I went into the local branch only to discover they didn't know either. They spent 30 mins calling various internal numbers to find it out. And the person who revealed it to me on the phone was clearly reluctant to hand it over. He only did so when I explained I'd had enough of calling expensive numbers and talking to low-level staff, and if he didn't give me the information immediately, I'd write directly to their CEO (but that would require me spending even more time finding out his address).
And so it is with the likes of Microsoft, Google and countless other private/public sector organisations. Trying to find the names/contact addresses of management is virtually impossible.
Of course, the MSM outlets have all this information immediately at hand and can contact any one of them and arrange a TV interview in a matter of minutes.