I think you get all that right Lonnie. I've been trying to find out what financial sector debt in the UK really is for over two years. In numbers its anything from 230 - 510% of our GDP - a pretty discouraging lack of accuracy - but I want to know its 'quality'. The debt may be a good thing - a set of good performing loans - or it may put the UK in a dire condition because its really Ponzi money relying on asset valuations that are now mostly fictional. If the latter is true the questions are about who will take the haircuts and whether the UK taxpayer/bank account holder/bond holder etc. is on the hook. Otherwise our government/household/corporate debt is comparable with the US. As a scientist I'd want to take a sample of the debt and try to sell it in an open market. Its all currently valued by people with a vested interest in making out everything is profitable - techniques we know are bollox. Frankly I believe all financial services (beyond utility banking) and most economics are uselessly parasitic on genuine work and production. I want to be able to ground this so we can move on to a different way of living. I can barely describe what a putrid swamp the mainstream is. Two Harvard arses, Reinhart & Rogoff have just been exposed cheating as surely as any of my students through spreadsheet manipulation. Their work had been widely used in support of austerity programmes, but now we know they fiddled the figures and the real case on their numbers was against austerity. I can't trust allegedly peer reviewed papers, let alone stuff in which several Enrons are considered as viable and even thriving through bent auditing. In some ways I'm not sure why any of us are still working.
On Apr 13, 4:16 pm, Lonnie Clay <claylon...@comcast.net> wrote: > Worldwide economies are foundering upon the rocks of modern entertainments. > I'll make the case for that. The rational response of a person to a > stimulus is to do more of those things which bring pleasure rather than > punishment or boredom. With the rise of fiction in all of its forms, a > person can gain pleasure from imagined world-scapes outside of the "real" > world's boundaries of experience. The pleasure of working life achievement > is limited to those who are both talented and trained to exercise their > talents. So which one do people choose when given the alternatives? They > increasingly choose entertainment, escaping from their fruitless humdrum > day to day existences into imaginary worlds of achievement. One reason for > that is the lack of opportunities in the modern economy resulting from the > failure of the educational systems to prepare people for productive working > careers. Another is the cultural shift towards self-gratification rather > than service to society. A third is the diminished rewards from working > resulting from the marginal reduction of income increase resulting from > government's taxation of wages economic activity. Why work harder to gain > more income when the government takes away more and more as your income > rises? Yet another is the diminished cost of life's necessities and modest > luxuries due to increased efficiency of production from product mass > manufacturing. Why work harder when you have everything which you need? > > These factors result in diminished work force participation, the rise of > the welfare class, fewer employees working hard, market dislocations, and > diminished work ethics. > > Lonnie Courtney Clay > > > > > > > > On Friday, April 12, 2013 7:48:51 AM UTC-7, nominal9 wrote: > > > Because it is so screwed up throughout the world that not fixing it is > > bound to lead to great social upheaval?????..... I think so. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Epistemology" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to epistemology+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to epistemology@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/epistemology?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
