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"Super-Welfare" Guaranteed Income For All Isn't a Solution - It's Just The New Serfdom

Tyler Durden's picture




 

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

To the degree that serfdom is political powerlessness and near-zero access to the processes of accumulating productive capital, super-welfare guaranteed income for all is simply serfdom institutionalized into a Hell devoid of purpose, pride, meaning, community and positive social roles.

Jean-Paul Sartre famously wrote that Hell is other people. While this is undoubtedly true in cocktail party and workplace settings, in socioeconomic terms, Hell is a scarcity of positive social roles--the sources of positive identity, pride, purpose, community and meaning.

Since meaningful work is the source of positive social roles, Hell is a lack of meaningful work.

Unfortunately for us, the Keynesian Cargo Cult economists that dominate our world have zero grasp of humanity's need for positive social roles and meaningful work. In the myopic view of the Keynesians, humans are nothing but consumer-bots, heartless beings who chew through the Earth's resources in their limitless quest for more of everything--what the Keynesian Cargo Cult worships as "demand."

Tragically, this blindness to humanity's need for meaning and the elevation of spiritually empty consumerism to a Secular Religion leaves the Keynesians incapable of understanding this timeless truth: the only possible result of robbing people of their livelihood is despair.

Chief Keynesian Cargo Cultist Paul Krugman seems sincerely mystified that more state welfare isn't eliminating this despair, when lack of positive social roles and dependence on the state is the source of this despair.

Why Middle-Aged White Americans Are Dying of Despair is obvious: their opportunities to secure positive social roles are diminishing.

Once meaningful work vanishes, so do positive social roles.

This is why "super welfare" guaranteed work for all is just a new version of Socioeconomic Hell. Being paid to do nothing does not provide meaningful work or positive social roles, which are the sources of positive identity, pride, purpose, community and meaning.

The petit-bourgeois fantasy of every individual flowering as an artist, musician and creator once freed of work is an abstraction, one born of the expansion of academic enclaves and private wealth-funded dilettantes fluttering from one salon to the next. (Ever notice how many trust-funders have therapists? Would they all need therapists if being freed from work automatically generated happiness and fulfillment?)

The irony of this particular abstraction is especially rich: the more beholden we become to central states for our incomes and wealth, the more heroic the artistic expressions of rebellion against these same centralized authorities.

But even these artistic rebellions are abstractions. Rather than generate meaning in a system stripped of meaning, these self-referential expressions of faux resistance and newness for the sake of something new to consume are parodies of rebellion and revolution. Artistic expression becomes an inside joke shared by self-referential elites--the very acme of inauthenticity.

Self-expression and consumerism are simply two aspects of the same empty abstraction. Once the emptiness of these abstractions is realized, all that’s left is the individual’s quest for solace in a world that strips away the very qualities needed for fulfillment, purpose, and meaning.

Humans draw meaning from producing, not consuming, and from belonging to a group that provides a larger goal than self-indulgence, which is the ultimate objective of spiritually impoverished consumerism.

These are precisely what super-welfare guaranteed income for all doesn't provide. To the degree that serfdom is political powerlessness and near-zero access to the processes of accumulating productive capital, super-welfare guaranteed income for all is simply serfdom institutionalized into a Hell devoid of purpose, pride, meaning, community and positive social roles.

This is why I say The Future Belongs to Work That Is Meaningful.

 

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Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:02 | 6777656 Hohum
Hohum's picture

Gotcha, CHS.  Problem is, industrial society--even expanding--isn't going to provide those jobs, either.  And more local business in an agrarian economy isn't palatable to the electorate.  What's the solution?  Close our eyes and a faith in gold?

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:09 | 6777681 Boris Alatovkrap
Boris Alatovkrap's picture

Astounding is psychological and cognitive detachment from reality for academic ecommunist who can dream up this brain salad conversation. Minimum wage, climate change, universal healthcare, welfare state, danger of deflation, quantitative easing... and then is make up ever change statistic to support hubris.

Please ZHer, read about Lysenko and you see is not just chatter, but is eventually kill every million people!

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:22 | 6777734 Mike in GA
Mike in GA's picture

Boris, I sometimes labor to understand what it is you say but I always enjoy the way you say it!

 

This is a 2-pronged approach to the AI  world of automation we are entering.  While it reads like the sci-fi it is, it provides a very interesting jumping-off point for thinking about our future.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:58 | 6778203 cheka
cheka's picture

peak work has arrived

need to rotate the ass time.  not have multi generational parasites

work one year, take one off

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:06 | 6778541 SweetDoug
SweetDoug's picture

'
'
Boris, The NoamChomskybot of ZeroHedge.

http://rubberducky.org/cgi-bin/chomsky.pl

•?•
V-V

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 00:16 | 6780592 Jack's Raging B...
Jack's Raging Bile Duct's picture

Very interesting read. There are innumberable technical problems for this to happen in any forseeable future, but it did provide worthwhile perspective. Thank you for sharing that link. It was an enjoyable read.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:02 | 6777658 Dr. Engali
Dr. Engali's picture

Super-welfare is to keep the masses from stampeding while corporations and the elites steal everything that's left.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:39 | 6777816 dchang0
dchang0's picture

Ironically, by conditioning the masses to expect free stuff, the oligarchs/plutarchs are guaranteeing that the masses will eventually stampede when most everything has been stolen and there's clearly not enough to go around...

That day isn't far off, if the race mobs' behavior is any clue. When our supposedly most intelligent and most educated professors talk about "using [mob] muscle" to force their self-righteous opinions down others' throats in the name of their right to free speech and without understanding the hyporcrisy of doing so, it's not a far leap to mobs of looters rampaging through business districts stealing everything in sight and burning the rest.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:03 | 6777662 rsnoble
rsnoble's picture

I doubt people sitting around with for sale signs in the front yard and their babies rib cage showing won't turn it down. 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:31 | 6778334 Bob
Bob's picture

Isn't this from the same author who has repeatedly argued that machines are making labor obsolete?  WTF does he propose as a "meaningful" definition of "work" when the majority of people have no "job" roles to fill? 

I'd argue for getting paid to keep busy within the law.  I'd seriously consider that job myself, depending on what it pays. 

It ain't easy being me.  Hell, some money might finally fulfill my "spiritual need" for others to show appreciation for what an accomplishment it really is.  Money would definitely help me out with that. 

Spiritually even. 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:06 | 6777676 NoWayJose
NoWayJose's picture

The only way to get people off welfare is to take away their free Obama phones. Otherwise there are enough Angry Birds and Candy Crush games, plus tons of social media, to fill a lifetime of happily sitting in one place and doing nothing else.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:07 | 6777680 SweetDougisaTwat
SweetDougisaTwat's picture

Our apex has been met.  So too, our slippery slope has been joined.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:11 | 6777693 George Soros
George Soros's picture

As usual ZH is completely missing the point here. Money always had a "price" which was measured in borrowing costs. In a NIRP world money has no longer a value, ergo it can and must be handed out for free. It does not matter at all if we all turn to happy artists or lazy alcoholics. We live in a post industrial society that is more and more automated. There is just no more demand for labor but demand for consumers will remain.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:04 | 6777912 AE911Truth
AE911Truth's picture

The bankers must return what they stole, back to whom they stole it from. They stole more than hundreds of $trillions (actually quadrillions) from everyone. What is the cost to humanity of supressing the unlimited clean energy sources described in SIRIUS Disclosure?

For this offense alone, the damages amount to at least $3K/month for every person on the planet for life, in perpetuity.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 19:38 | 6779418 MEAN BUSINESS
MEAN BUSINESS's picture

Imagine what the counter-claim for damages looks like! But yeah, I believe there is a good settlement possible.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:13 | 6777702 cpnscarlet
cpnscarlet's picture

Two criticisms -

1) Well, duh.

2) Tell the cheap entertainment industry (cheap video games, DVDs, etc.) that. Why work when you can GTA/Netflix all day?

To be completely honest, some welfare time playing my cheap microcontrollers and I2C components sounds like a great idea - some time to finally get to all those toys and models that have been sitting in my closet since the 1990s that I bought when I was one of the "producers".

How's that for a sociological quandry??? 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:23 | 6777744 Puchica
Puchica's picture

But "art" will flourish!

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:50 | 6778438 Bob
Bob's picture

It is hard to imagine, though, what a world that no longer requires the art of constant ass kissing--for one's literal survival--would look like . . .

Wonder how that would affect people.  I'm guessing it would make for a far more honest and sane world. 

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 15:34 | 6783325 fallout11
fallout11's picture

One solution that has already been tried is the creation of what David Graeber and Stuart Jeffries correctly call "bullshit jobs".
Quite honestly, many "jobs" today really don't even need to be done, they exist solely to fill a square and keep unemployment down to a non-revolutionary level. Boring, tedious, unfulfilling, epitomized and satirized by the likes of "Dilbert" and "Brazil", rendered pointless by modern technology.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/08/the-rise-of-bullshit-jobs.html
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/21/books-interview-david-graeb...
http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/08/labour-markets-0

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:16 | 6777713 buzzsaw99
buzzsaw99's picture

super welfare is what buffett, gates, and sam's kids get.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:23 | 6777750 Wigglesworth
Wigglesworth's picture

Ben Carson: "Janet Yellen is a wonderful person."  No wonder that SuperPAC dark money is rolling in for the 'outsider'.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:55 | 6777895 Polymarkos
Polymarkos's picture

Carson as been assimilated. He is one of THEM now.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:53 | 6778458 daveO
daveO's picture

Also, remember that Herman Cain worked for the Federal Reserve. You can rest assured Carson is being set up the same way. He's being used to discourage voters and drain energy from the Republicans. Same story, different election.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herman_Cain

If the poll numbers are to be believed (big if, prolly inflated), there are still too baby boomers who feel a need to prove their non-racism. This tactic has been used by the Rep. establishment since 2000 w/ Colin Powell.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:24 | 6777753 Intelligence_In...
Intelligence_Insulter's picture

We need more prisons to get rid of these people who can't hack it in the new economy.  Welfare should only be given to non productive citizens and the disabled/retarded. 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:31 | 6777786 Dr. Venkman
Dr. Venkman's picture

I always like to take a minute and watch your avatar.

 

Sadly, these days, I have to actively wish/hope that it is a woman.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:31 | 6777782 Batman11
Batman11's picture

The UK has always had a Leisure Class at the top and they seem very happy in their idleness.

Most societies throughout history have had a Leisure Class at the top.

Idleness is the pinnacle of human success.

 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:38 | 6777812 Hohum
Hohum's picture

Not advocating Lysenkoism just pointing out, Boris, that you, I, and everyone else has no clue really how to create lots of good jobs at good wages.  But you do talk a good game, Boris.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:39 | 6777823 Kantbelieveit
Kantbelieveit's picture

The common currency on these comment threads is blind hatred of THEM. But the stressful changes sweeping the world are not the result of black-hatted villains conspiring. They are the consequences of the collision of rapid technological advance with the cussedness of human nature. People hate to change and adapt, although that ability is what has kept us alive as a species.

The hatred of change is manifested in racism, xenophobia, religious fanaticism, and neo-anarchism. Everywhere igorant people are pursuing destructive simplifications of their predicament that have scapegoating and focussed hatred as their common mechanism.

Constructive change comes from reasoned adaptation to new circumstances. We have strayed a long way from that path.

 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:59 | 6777913 Polymarkos
Polymarkos's picture

Are there black hatted villains because circumstances generate them, or are the black hats working to create circumstances that favor their wicked ways, or some combination of these two things?

 

It isn't just hatred of change that moves us to remark upon villains, but the existence of the villains themselves. You remark upon the ignorance of people and their simplifications. What are you doing, but simplifying in extremis?

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:56 | 6778476 daveO
daveO's picture

-100

No mention of fraudulent fiat facilitating job exportation and corrupt communist within our borders.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:43 | 6777847 yellowsub
yellowsub's picture

We should have mandatory "volunteer" work they need to do a week to continue to receive it.  Let them pick up the parks, work in the soup kitchens or something else...

Make them work for it instead of sitting at home getting fat coming down with health issues.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:15 | 6778585 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

Great idea!! They are doing this in Europe, mandatory service for young white girls to serve the needs of the Muslims and African invaders. Sure, there are gang rapes here and there but that's a price we gladly pay to expose young white girls to diversity and fight racism.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:44 | 6777850 bbq on whitehou...
bbq on whitehouse lawn's picture

Minimum income would do some people good, other people it would destroy and other people would just drift.
The thing is not every job can pay, think of game mod developers. Mods are free products they cannot ever pay (gates, motes and other copyright rules, laws and code gate this industry), yet createing mods can be challanging as well as rewarding. It just cant pay.
There are other value-added industries that also can never pay but serve a needed and useful service or product.
Point is without a way to develop these industries without removing copyright protection or other gates to intellectual industries, professions will never properly develop nor will the benifits on socity be realised.
Some tasks in every civilization need large money sponsors who know going in its a money loseing venture. Individuals are no longer willing to do what they can off-load on a government.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:06 | 6777954 Polymarkos
Polymarkos's picture

You can pay the Mincome for those whom it will not destroy. I'll pass on the whole socialist slavery gambit.

 

What gets left out of socialist arguments is the inherently parasitical nature of socialism. As Venezuela demonstrates, socialism in a near vacuum is an utter failure. As Sweden demonstrates, it can appear 'successful,' if totalitarian slavery can ever appear successful, only when it is supported indirectly through powerful non-socialist neighbors via trade, R and D, innovation, investment, etc. Canada is a good example: their socialist health care is an utter failure, but does not appear so because it relies upon the research and development done by the United States, and by a low population of more or less responsible people. Sweden has a similar relationship to Germany; let the Germans to hard stuff, latch on or imitate them, and claim success.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:02 | 6778515 daveO
daveO's picture

Right. Venezuela was once the most productive. Now, it has no rich neighbors to leech off of like Sweden and Canada. The same thing happened to Cuba when the USSR collapsed.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:04 | 6778536 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

On this income you say you will provide I will just play games all day forever and give nothing back to society whatsoever. I currently net over $10k USD a month working but with $2k passive income I'd be "retired."

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:13 | 6778575 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

Yea, the dudes behind counter strike made nothing or very little while valve and other professional studios have made huge sums. Who even knows who was behind the original team fortress mods for quake 1? I think the dude that took over DOTA development made some pretty good money (a few million) in the end based on his work with Valve on DOTA2 and other developers of MOBA games.

For 99.9% of modders it is just a labor of love. Evil game studios like Blizzard have ensured that any mods for their games belong to Blizzard. They are still kicking themselves over DOTA.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:45 | 6777851 Vlad the Inhaler
Vlad the Inhaler's picture

Socialism vs. Fascism.  The only two ways the herd can now imagine making a living.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:00 | 6777923 Polymarkos
Polymarkos's picture

One can have fascistic socialism, or socialized fascism too. They are NOT diametrically opposed.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 13:46 | 6777860 arrowrod
arrowrod's picture

Come on!  I'm sitting here doing nothing.  Retired for the last 12 years.  I go out every day and do something.  Softball, shootin', even golf sometimes.

Worked hard, saved, invested.  Two of three children have been out of work for years.  I don't think I can create enough wealth to provide for them for the rest of their lives.  They seem to be happy.  The child with a "career", ain't.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:01 | 6778514 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

The most "successful" people tend to have fewer children, friends, and weaker over all social and family lives. Naturally the out of work "losers" are often happier.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:01 | 6777929 magnificent_dolphin
magnificent_dolphin's picture

Eh. My dolphin friends don't need welfare to survive. 

Makes no sense to provide universal "income." Instead, everyone should be given a chance to produce enough to survive. 

A plot of land.  A sound shelter with modern amenities (meaning a stove/shower/toilet/heat/fridge).  Aquaponic greenhouse and access to fish feed.  Solar panels/wind turbins, and extremely durable means of storing power.  Water distillation machines.  Self contained waste processing. 3D printer and regular refills.  Robots to come out and service these things on demand.

People would have a set amount of resources annually.  Raw materials like lumber and medical supplies.  And all of this is distributed by a computerized system that would be monitored kind of like bitcoin where everything is transparent and you can see where the resources are going.

That shit should keep them pretty busy.  And I imagine that providing for your family and yourself is quite rewarding, especially with no boss whose cock you have to massage, no office politics, no heating disgusting pseudo fast-food, no back breaking work in the fields for pennies a pound etc. 

Even with current tech this could be achieved on a pretty massive scale.  If you take into account potential game changers like LENR, then things start looking much more feasible.

The ultimate consequence of all of this, the leaders all get to go eat shit and die.  No one needs the elite anymore, no one needs congress or the supreme court or the deep state or any form of centralized power. 

Of course the elite would rather exterminate 99% of the population than give people a chance to lead a life of dignity and self sufficiency, and to share in the basic bounty of the earth.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:08 | 6777972 Polymarkos
Polymarkos's picture

Take your fantasy bubble to the ghettos of Chicago and watch it get popped.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:58 | 6778489 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

No leaders and no hard working white people to support the free shit army niggers? Yea, that would last less than a year. The entire existing social order is based on whites working far harder than they need to produce a huge surplus that the leaders/political class take and distribute some to prevent the 75 IQ chimps from all dying of starvation. Who is gonna build the robots? Ghetto negroes that can't even bike a job at McDonalds?

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:13 | 6778005 bob resurrected
bob resurrected's picture

Hogwash. I stopped working 27 years ago, I was 30. Love it! Plenty of meaningful endeavors besides work.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:21 | 6778044 Batman11
Batman11's picture

A Leisure Class has always existed at the top of society.

You obviously appreciate the finer things in life - idleness.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:53 | 6778462 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

Sounds great, what's the secret? Be rich?

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 09:00 | 6781293 bob resurrected
bob resurrected's picture

Self made. No life but school and work,15-30. Be passionate at work. Get lucky at work. Then develop multiple streams of partners to grow the successes. Don't be greedy with partners. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Parlay profits buying stuff in bust. Don't forget to sell in boom.

But that is not the point. The point is there are many meaningful endeavors besides work.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:20 | 6778034 Batman11
Batman11's picture

Where the despair comes from  ........

You get where you are in life through your own effort, drive and ambition.

If you fail, it’s your fault.

What is hidden – atrocious social mobility on a par with the class ridden UK and its privately educated elite (2nd worst in Europe after Portugal).

http://www.oecd.org/centrodemexico/medios/44582910.pdf

People are made to feel like they have failed when the odds were always stacked against them.

Private schools and Universities help the rich succeed and the poor fail.

We have had a privately educated elite in the UK for Centuries.

What private University did the US elite go to?

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:09 | 6778556 daveO
daveO's picture

Of course, the UK is centuries ahead of the USA. Bank of England founded 1694. US Federal Reserve founded 1913. 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:25 | 6778058 directaction
directaction's picture

#Free Stuff Army Lives Matter

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:27 | 6778069 bankonzhongguo
bankonzhongguo's picture

There is a lot of propaganda filtered through Reddit on what is called Universal Basic Income.

It is interesting to follow the arguments and "economics" of all of this, but what is universally never discussed is how all the 'free money" given to the serfs in exchange for not starting a revolution goes directly to landlords, the sick-care industry and ever increasing food prices.

There is NEVER a discussion about debt, the role of banks or Fed policies and international labor markets.

And of course to pay for enough hits of cannabis each month to make you feel lucky and loved.

Consider that the national debt doubled over eights years of Obama, it will surely double again under eight years of Clinton the Wicked.

You really have to ask yourself as a form of national strategy WHEN will all those China manufacturers be ordered to settle Walmart's accounts yuan and gold and not dollars.

When the unemployed Basic Income Class waddles up to Walmart to find all their goods are priced 50% more in the matter of a year you will see the early trappings of hyperinflation and panic.

Never mind money. If the majority of Amerikans can't get high, watch porn and movies and eat Fritos cheaply then you have a lot of sober people with too much spare time on their hands in a cold winter and a hot summer.

That's a recipe for political disaster.

 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:30 | 6778096 Batman11
Batman11's picture

More money needs to be fed in at the bottom to trickle up to the top where they hoard it in tax havens.

Fingers crossed those at the top don't notice they are just getting the same money back again.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 14:41 | 6778146 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

Hysteria. 

Forget the fact that, to add insult to injury, most white men don't qualify for free shit, and have to find other ways of getting the money even to drink themselves to death.

A national dividend that came close to denting anybody's willingness of work would cause runaway inflation, making the "dividend" worthless anyway. 

I'll use Canadian numbers just for fun, but you can look for your own for your country. I doubt they would tell a different story.

Canada's money supply right now is about CAD 1.2 trillion.

There are 36 million Canadians. So there's maybe CAD33,000 per Canadian.

Suppose the right to issue money was restored to Canadians and the Bank of Canada did helicopter drops of cash to every Canadian to keep inflation at zero.

Assuming the economy grew 2.3 percent a year, growing the money supply at 2.3 percent a year to keep prices stable would yield maybe CAD730 per person or CAD2920 for a family of four. Let's round up and say CAD750 per head, just over 60 bucks a month.

I don't know about you, but most people in Canada couldn't live even modestly on CAD750 a year or raise a family on CAD3,000.

If you're worried about white men losing the will to live, you might start by cutting out the whole thing about blackballing them from the labour force. Stop coming up with excuses to stiff them on their fair share of the national dividend.

On the contrary---they're owed a far bigger one than the Girl Fridays and the FSA are.

 

 

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:11 | 6778265 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

 This guy never once mentioned the national dividend which is totally different from the basic income proposal which involves redistribution of taxation only.

The national dividend only gives away the free shit that is otherwise destroyed by the money monopolists.

If for some reason there is no surplus then there is no free shit.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:14 | 6778287 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

Real Social credit would mean the end for middle class consumerism,  they would become free of Alice rabbits time constraints.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:14 | 6778288 THE DORK OF CORK
THE DORK OF CORK's picture

Real Social credit would mean the end for middle class consumerism,  they would become free of Alice rabbits time constraints.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:33 | 6778356 windcatcher
windcatcher's picture

Guaranteed income is not a solution but guaranteed employment is a viable solution, unfortunately, the fascist in Washington refuse to do anything that they can’t make a profit at: that is why the hate any social programs for the people.

Global warming action is for profit and power for the fascist (merger of monopoly corporations with government) or if you prefer; you can call it “monopoly corporatism”.

The USA should, and could, rehabilitate our national forest lands that the monopoly corporations clear-cut and abandoned which has resulted in uncontrollable wild fires that is threating to destroy the entire forest. The science of forestry and sustainable yield has been abandoned because it would take money to repair and foster our national forest and thereby alleviate global warming.

Yes, the USA could use sound forestry science and employ thousands of Americans to bring our national forest up too heath standards and provide for timber harvesting under the sustained yield science principle in management of forest.

Our national forest and the health of America will deteriorate because the Washington Fascist refuse to spend money on something that they can’t make a profit from.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:45 | 6778418 Thick Willy
Thick Willy's picture

You can't take the words of someone like krugman or other elite commuist party members at face value. They will pay white people to not breed, as they do in Sweden, but they won't pay white people to not work. That is the true purpose of cradle to grave nanny state socialism, to prevent white boys from becoming independent white men that can start white families. So they can keep whites in perpetual adolescence and replace them with simple minded blacks and Muslims. That is the real purpose of these social welfare states, to keep white boys in a state if perpetual childhood playing video games rather than becoming men that stand in their own two feet that can find a white woman and start a family.

White genocide is the most powerful movement in the world today and it has many aspects. Virtually anything you hear from someone like Krugman is either going to promote or celebrate white genocide.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 15:56 | 6778454 SweetDoug
SweetDoug's picture




What meaningful work will there be in 10 years when robots, AI and 3D printing have rendered virtually every job decimated to the extent that there is at least so much unemployment, that nobody is making any money?

Humans Need Not Apply
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

What will the equilibrium that is created because of this deflation, look like?

And those that have the jobs, will only secure them through blatt.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blat_%28favors%29

http://fee.org/freeman/blat-corruption-in-eastern-europe/

http://www.weirdir.com/weird-ir/got-blat-how-to-succeed-in-business-in-r...

•?•
V-V

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:18 | 6778596 daveO
daveO's picture

Equilibrium (reset) will not be allowed. That's why US debt has doubled. It's a hostile takeover of the economy, by the gov., via debt issuance. Until the point of dollar/gov. collapse.

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:20 | 6778601 Bob
Bob's picture

Exactly.  Has Charles painted himself into a corner here?

Wed, 11/11/2015 - 16:43 | 6778670 falak pema
falak pema's picture

Its a solution in a neo-feudal world. We are now there; like in 1929.

If the world changes and you apply the rules of the past; aka "democracy is alive" mantra; more fool you! The world is on fire because of FIRE capitalism's free for all!

The New Statists feel; if Private sector Oligarchy loses its past grip just to serve its own interests (the TBTF cabal)-- as all political power constructs ALWAYS have a plan B to save their own skins--;  they, the Democratic party elected of the Obama administration,  can save status quo by having the global CB monetary stranglehold reinforce its hold on the "capitalism gone mad" private Oligarchy markets; which will OBLIGE those who feel they can go their own way (like the rogue HFs) to shut down their "free wheeling" contrarian plays.

This  means now the political construct will oblige the libertarian "assholes" who don't understand what the global plan is to shed their profits parked in tax havens. Somebody has to bleed so the Political global construct can survive. And this INCLUDES the Apples of this world (at least provisionally they must pay more taxes). As the Leopard said : It all has to change so that nothing changes !

And it has to be those who have profited by SHORTING THE MARKET SINCE 2008, AND WHO PARK THEIR MONEY IN PLACES WHERE THE  statist control is marginal, to cough up the Most. You can only make the state richer if the private sector who has the gravy coughs up; simple as that.

Its now payback time for the MAVERICKS... And ZH better understand that.

The Statists now have to TRY and set the TITANIC oF West on an even keel.

As Putin/China/Iran (and even Saud shale plays) represent a huge menace for Western status quo of Dear Kissinger's concoction.

"We can't win on BOTH sides of the Casino" guys, we have to choose."

Bottome line.

And today, the Libertarians and the GOP are acting like the "last of the Mohicans" and the Dinosaurs respectively.

I cannot be more blunt than that! In trying to understand the conundrum facing TWO HEADED Pax Americana (now at loggerheads). Its the Mohicans who have to die.

If the statists now put their boot on the heads of the market mavericks in the name of The Great political Game...the big freeze will begin.

Of course for this to work the DCNP has to sell this mantra to the young generation who is politically correct and against the Casino market and the TBTF Investment HFT drugged capitalist market giants.

If they do the GOP will be marginalized for 8 moar years...Superserfdom then becomes the PREMISE for the capitalist reset in Central planned mode towards a new paradigm !

FDR lives again. He was reelected three times...

Thu, 11/12/2015 - 12:06 | 6782196 modest_proposal
modest_proposal's picture

Mmm.. ZH comments seem to have come a bit incoherent today.

CH denegrates Universal Basic Income (UBI) as socially corrosive. Not a bad point. He recommends instead Universal Basic Employment. OK.

ZH'ers have pointed out that Universal Basic Employment is increasingly unrealistic/impractical, largely because automation is making many jobs obsolete.

So the core question is.... what do we do with surplus population whose labor isn't competitive with automation? And what do we do with them as their ranks grow? In a certain sense, there's a stark choice between allowing them to starve, or providing some UBI that will provide food and shelter. In many ways, it turns out that providing UBI to everyone, without qualification or review, is a lot more efficient - and even overall less expensive - than the byzantine nightmare of paperwork and bureaucracy we currently deploy as a 'safety net'. With the downside that a whole bunch of social work majors suddenly discover their gov't job is over, and their labor is now entirely unmarketable.

In separate forums, I've seen folks recommend that the 'dispairing middle-aged white men' go volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, or at the local soup kitchen, or something. Which is fabulous advice, as long as they're not customers of the local soup kitchen. With some sort of UBI in place, this advice becomes tenable (though the local soup kitchen may now be a low-cost soup coop restaurant...).

Given relief from suicidal-despair levels of pressure to provide for self and loved ones, I believe folks will find ways to be meaningfully employed - and not necessarily as dilettante artists. I'm certain there would be folks that will dedicate themselves to music, or painting, or writing the great american novel (shout out NaNoWriMo) - and most of them will be terrible. Other folks will dedicate themselves to XBox, or Fantasy Football, or ganja - and they will contribute nothing. Still others will, I'm sure, volunteer at the local school or nursing home (or start a program merging the two), or support Habitat, or get a bunch of good 'ol boys and fix up their local bridges, or... do other useful things. Some of those useful things provided by the uncompensated-but-willing will push other folks out of work on the margins. It's hard to be competitive with free. Some equilibrium will result.

The bigger question - and the one ZH usually concerns itself with - is whether such a thing will implode. For those whose labor is still economically viable, and adding in the output of robots and volunteers - will enough wealth be created in the system to support the freeloaders, and provide a satisfactory reward/incentive for the productive, after all of the bills have been paid? Intuitively, the answer depends on the numbers of the freeloaders. So at the very least, such a proposal should include incentives (or at least exhortations) to volunteer, and specific dis-incentives to breeding more freeloaders.

Given some basic (very basic) incentives and controls, I don't see a reason for this to be infeasible. But it sure wouldn't look like today's hella grind for the middle class.

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