People ? governments ? companies ? who hate themselves end up selling themselves… short, don’t they ?
No need to talk about superstition and irrationality when a good dose of psychology will do the trick…
But then again, turning reason into a religion hasn’t really worked very well for us, either.
That’s what the faith in economy and the numbers is built upon : the premise that we ARE rational, reasonable animals because we should be…
Since I am a rather… scholastic person ? I posit that the current bottoming out of our symbolic systems (money/numbers is one, but language is another..) has a lot to do with the way we have managed to EXCLUDE God as an outside guarantee for the system. For example… take a look at those American coins, and that paper money…they still have “In God we TRUST” printed on them, but… do you think we trust anything or anyone these days ?
Can’t DO BUSINESS if you don’t trust anybody.
And your society goes down the toilet too, while we’re at it.
When “God” is not in his proper place, “he” invades all the other places.. and then nothing gets done anymore.

Mike Hall

You don’t understand money and you don’t understand govt or the law.

“Five out of six
judges appointed
have connections
to Fine Gael or
Labour
PAUL CULLEN, Political Staff
JUDICIARY: THE GOVERNMENT
has nominated six judges to
date – and five have a personal,
family or funding link to Fine
Gael or Labour. ”

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2011/1114/1224307527505.html

You are pushing a dangerous agenda.

“…the govt court…” ???

There’s astonishing mental contortions & cognitive dissonance that people with your ideological blindness can come out with Gary, but hat’s off for this one 🙂

What we hear ad nauseam from ‘get rid of gubmint’ types like yourself is that, hey, we don’t need no gubmint, just the ‘law’.

Not worked out too well there eh. Gary? And pullease don’t give me some laughable nonsense that the gov control the legal profession in Ireland – I live there. Everybody here knows that the lawyers here are a law unto themselves. And by the way, recourse to law here is purely for the rich. I have many stories I could recount where civil & contract law here isn’t worth a bean if you can’t throw 6 figures at a lawyer.

Of course, in a democracy, there really isn’t much bar general oversight (& writing good laws in the first place) that an elected government can do. No one has yet come up with any solution to ensure integrity in applying the law other than having the judiciary as independent as possible & hoping for the best. (Tho’ greater legal aid would improve things a lot.)

But we can & should do our best to get democratic governments to look after the interests of the majority of ordinary citizens. Because, simply, there is no better or more legitimate structure. Hollowing it out is not reform or improvement – it’s full capitulation to the corruption that has already stormed the ramparts & is busy screwing your wife.

We are in a class war, the top few percent vs the rest, and losing just now, but that’s no excuse to offer full surrender.

Michael Hudson explains why the monetary system is designed to serve bankers rather than citizens:

“Prior to the Federal Reserve’s founding in 1913, U.S. monetary policy was conducted by the Treasury. Like the Fed, it had district sub-treasuries that performed nearly all the financial functions that the Fed later took over: providing credit to move the crops in autumn, managing government debt, and so forth.

But after the severe 1907 financial crisis, a National Monetary Commission was reformed. Under the then-Republican administration, it recognized a need for more active government intervention to prevent future financial crises. It also recognized the desirability of moving away from the Anglo-Dutch-American system of “merchant banking” based on short-term lending against collateral in place, or for shipping of goods already produced. The National Monetary Commission’s longest volumes were on the great German industrial banks, and Republican policy aimed at bringing banking into the industrial era, to provide long-term funding after the model of German and other Central European banks.

However, the leading bankers sought to use the crisis as an opportunity to grab power for Wall Street, away from the Treasury. In this sense, the Fed was founded in large part to take monetary control away from Washington’s elected officials and appointees, and privatize the supply of money and credit.

So its place in the U.S. financial and economic structure is to allocate credit, primarily to serve Wall Street financial interests. That explains the insistence on the financial class here and abroad in insisting on an “independent” central bank. It means that instead of serving the public interest, it serves the interests of the banking class. The hoped-for transformation of commercial banking into long-term industrial banking was not achieved.
…
The Federal Reserve is private in name only. Its heads are appointed by Washington, but Wall Street has veto power over it (as it has over the appointment of major Treasury and other regulatory agency officials). So the problem is not that the Fed is technically owned by its stockholders, but that Wall Street has gained overpowering control over government itself.

The financial sector has sought to dismantle checks and balances, making it protect Wall Street even as financial interests diverge from the promoting of economic growth and rising living standards.

Under Mr. Greenspan’s tenure and that of his successor, Ben Bernanke, the Fed has overseen the greatest shift of wealth n American history since the Robber Barons.

Finally, the Fed has taken over the functions of government by threatening to close down the economy if the government does not bail out the banks at taxpayer expense, and protect the wealthy 1% against losing money.”
http://goo.gl/iu5jT

Same thing happened at Bretton Woods, where Keynes’ and Dexter White’s plans were scuppered to ensure $ role as reserve currency and put Wall St. back in the driving seat.

http://www.housepricecrash.co.uk/forum/index.php?showtopic=177130

Apologies for the double post. Posting here from a mobile phone is challenging, to say the least

I repeat:

Money creation without the govt or the bankers involvement.

” In effect, the bill has a
limited and temporary
monetary role. It plays the
role of cash money, serving
as a means of exchange, but
only if there was a real
consumer good that had a
bill drawn against it. When
the bill comes due, it is paid
off and disappears… the
opposite of printed money.
As consumer demand waxes
and wanes, so the supply of
bills grows and shrinks with
it. The monetary effect of
the real bill is driven by
consumer demand, not by a
greedy banker’s or a corrupt
politician’s decision!”

http://www.goldstandardinstitute.net/2010/06/what-is-a-real-bill/

I repeat :

” In effect, the bill has a
limited and temporary
monetary role. It plays the
role of cash money, serving
as a means of exchange, but
only if there was a real
consumer good that had a
bill drawn against it. When
the bill comes due, it is paid
off and disappears… the
opposite of printed money.
As consumer demand waxes
and wanes, so the supply of
bills grows and shrinks with
it. The monetary effect of
the real bill is driven by
consumer demand, not by a
greedy banker’s or a corrupt
politician’s decision!”

http://www.goldstandardinstitute.net/2010/06/what-is-a-real-bill/

They are both wrong imo.

Keen , instead of shrinking the debt by defaults back in line with the economy, wants to increase the money supply up to the level of the debt, of which there is not enough economic activity to back it for probably the next 50 years. Krugman says debt is not a problem because there is a bookkeeping debit for every credit and it all balances out ie. The debt problem is a mirage !