- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- usa@lemmy.ml
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When your money leaves the bank account, the bank cannot lend it out anymore.
The myth that just won’t die. I blame James Steward.
May I ask what you mean by this?
Banks don’t really create it out of thin air.
They really do.
- The Myth of the Money Multiplier - How Banking Really Works (3 mins)
- How Commercial Banks Really Create Money (the Money Multiplier is a Myth). (13 mins)
- The Myth of the Money Multiplier (29 mins)
Paying back the principal on your loan doesn’t make the money disappear
It really does. You know what else makes money disappear? Paying federal taxes.
Davel every time I see you post I think “damn, this dude knows what’s up” and then I see it’s you lol
That’s very kind. It’s mostly due to excessive spare time, curiosity, and being old af.
You were downvoted for being right on that other thread lol. Its a shame more people don’t know this.
I need to rewatch the video but I don’t think the specific mechanics necessarily matter that much right? The general threat of some dystopian coup like this is quite possible. Its unsurprising the youtuber didnt do much research. Nothing but the best from youtube “finance” guys /s.
I found YouTube links in your comment. Here are links to the same videos on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Link 1:
Link 2:
Link 3:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I went from “ha wow, sure buddy, to … huh… yeah but that… ehh… to… well fuck i hope not but it could happen…”
Right, my first reaction was the same and then he lays it all out and it’s like yeah there’s a clear motive here, and all the machinery is in place to this.
Although definitely a well made case, my question remains, “how can this be fought against?” And what must the left in the US, be they the actual revolutionary left which is a miniscule proportion of it, or the reformist institutionalists, do on order to subvert this future?
There’s hoping that the worst doesn’t come to pass, and then there’s actually preparing for it, or recognizing that there isn’t a way to fight it given our current conditions. I’ve thrown around the idea of leaving for China before since I have the capacity to potentially do so, but things like this continue to influence me to just up and leave the US. For those who think I’m ludicrous for not doing everything to do so already, I would like to preface and say that leaving begind my community, my family, and my partner, are not exactly things I wish to do.
So I ask, is there any plausible hope to defeat this hellscape and at the very least delay it till the US empire is unquestionably a corpse? Comrades may say, “organize” but with you? If the US populace is not receptive to revolutionary organization due to imperialism, how exactly do we circumvent this issue?
So often it feels like some comrades display an idealist notion of the US left not struggling hard enough for revolution, or that they are ignoring prior revolutionary movements out of a collective choice, rather than the fact that our soceity is structured against such a expansion in class consciousness.
In times like these I would be very interested in what the Bolsheviks were doing before the February revolution. What was the praxis of the Bolsheviks, and particularly, Lenin (I know we shouldn’t fall to great man theory, but as the leader kf the Bolsheviks, I think it prudent to analyze his leadership) during the period of exile?
The major oppressed nations of the US are, the Black Proletariat, the undocumented laborers, and the indigenous population. Their organization, can’t be done by someone like myself, who though coming from the Shia Muslim community, is still positioned to eventually become a labor aristocrat. They must be organized internally, and in those arenas I see some progress, but not with the broader US population beyond some trends among the younger generation.
I look at this situation and I find myself hard pressed to not assume the best course of action for myself as a traitor to the labor aristrocy is to move to China and help a socialist nation advance technologically.
Apologies if this turned into a ramble, I don’t mean to doom spiral, but I find it helpful to write out my thoughts. Partially for personal clarity, and partially to catch the attention of a comrade more well equipped to answer my question.
While I’m optimistic about overall geopolitical developments and the collapse of the western hegemony that we’re seeing, I feel equally bleak about the prospects for those of us in the imperial core. The left is still incredibly disorganized, and it’s largely bickering about irrelevant things.
The key problem is that people simply reject proven ideas out of hand, and retreat into reactionary tendencies instead. We have to get past this whole AES states are scary and authoritarian nonsense to even begin organizing in a meaningful way. Yet, so much discourse on the left is poisoned by anarchists running around screeching about hierarchies and evils of authority. Not to mention all the libs pretending to be on the left and peddling reformism.
Most people on the left fail to even to spend the time to learn the substance of what socialism is, or the historical and material conditions we find ourselves in. And that’s a prerequisite to having any meaningful discussion on the subject. As Mao put it, no investigation, no right to speak.
So, in my view, we’re not even at a point where we can actually organize or build any kind of movement. For that to happen, people have to start learning and understanding both the historical context and the theory to build a common understanding of the problems and the necessary solutions. It means building a shared mental model for how capitalism works, and what can be done about it. Unfortunately, I just don’t see how that happens before the west descends into open fascism.
While I’m optimistic about overall geopolitical developments and the collapse of the western hegemony that we’re seeing, I feel equally bleak about the prospects for those of us in the imperial core.
It really is a strange feeling isn’t it? Feeling giddy at the death of empire, while dreading it’s effects on you and your community…
The left is still incredibly disorganized, and it’s largely bickering about irrelevant things.
I think this issue stems from the wider disorganization of the working class as a whole. How can the tip of the spear be anyway effective, if the stick it’s placed on is but a bundle of straw loosely wrapper together.
The key problem is that people simply reject proven ideas out of hand, and retreat into reactionary tendencies instead. We have to get past this whole AES states are scary and authoritarian nonsense to even begin organizing in a meaningful way.
Although I agree, my question follows, how do you get people to understand this? We can complain about capitalist propaganda and the nature of how capitlism blunts potential revolutionaries, yet how do we grapple with it? If it’s against the labor aristocrat/petty bourgeois blunted reformist’s interest to question these things, how do we overcome this reality and directly dismantle this narrative to the masses?
Again, we can complain about this tendency all we like, but it exists due to material factors. It’s something we have to contend with regardless of how illogical we make it out to be.
Yet, so much discourse on the left is poisoned by anarchists running around screeching about hierarchies and evils of authority.
I’m going to be honest, I see anarchist as bringing little to nothing when it comes to this struggle, beyond perhaps local mutual aid networks. Their agitprop is, imo, less effective towards the masses, and honestly I believe the ML agitprop has largely superceded them outside niche internet leftist circles. I say this not to discredit their potential conflict with revolutionaries, but to provide my experience with public perceptions of anarchism.
Not to mention all the libs pretending to be on the left and peddling reformism.
I choose to include them in the “left” of the US. Not because they are revolutionary, or even really because they have any revolutionary potential, but because, against our vexing agitation, they are perceived as the left within western societies. We can be upset with this, but it does not change the fact that they occupy the supermajority of political “space” of what is considered left.
Again, I posit, regardless of our dislike of the reformists, we must admit that they are a result of the Western worlds position in global class relations. Their existence is the rational result of imperialist superprofits creating a labor aristrocy, as well as the imperialist world system advantages western workers through the dollar system. With this understanding, what is the solution to carving out a space for revolutionaries in the political landscape in such conditions.
We can be furious about to the hand dealt, at the fact that reformism dominating the mainstream left is the logical outcome of our conditions, but that doesn’t provide a tactical guide on how to wrest control of the narritive.
Most people on the left fail to even to spend the time to learn the substance of what socialism is, or the historical and material conditions we find ourselves in. And that’s a prerequisite to having any meaningful discussion on the subject. As Mao put it, no investigation, no right to speak.
Why are they not learning is the question I want to ask here? Is it because they are materially biased against the implementation of socialism due to imperialism or is it because we revolutionaries are failing to educate properly?
In the former case that’s, once again, not a battle we can will our way to victory to, as it’s the logical outcome of our conditions that produces the mental block. It’s not feasible to try and trick those benifetimh from imperialism to break with it, as they are acting in a materially rational manner.
If it’s the latter case, then what is it we are doing wrong? What’s the best course of action to amending out flaws in this regard? Who must we target to produce a revolutionary consciousness and are the conditions such that there are enough of those people to awaken that consciousness in, so that a revolution can be seized upon?
For case 1, you can’t convince someone whose paid to be ignorant, and in case 2, there’s obviously so kind of discussion that needs to be happen rapidly.
So, in my view, we’re not even at a point where we can actually organize or build any kind of movement. For that to happen, people have to start learning and understanding both the historical context and the theory to build a common understanding of the problems and the necessary solutions. It means building a shared mental model for how capitalism works, and what can be done about it. Unfortunately, I just don’t see how that happens before the west descends into open fascism.
This is the thing that churns my gut the most. If the conditions don’t yet exist to allow us to save ourselves, what are the lives lost in the struggle to establish socialism in the West?
Are they simply martyrs? Sacrifices upon the alter of history for the sake of societal progress? Fated to die struggling against a world that did not care for them when it mattered?
Am I cowardly for wanting to avoid that fate, choosing to try and flee to the socialist haven across the sea? Most don’t have that luxury, but what is being called a coward compared to actually getting to live. That’s where it gets personal for me.
I guess I’ve grown up in a world dominated by the US, where in which my community has been demonized for my entire life in one way or the other. And from that circumstance, I have not a single ounce of loyalty to the US and it’s global order by any metric. I would simply rather hide from it somewhere else if fighting it means certain pointless death for me, my community, and those I love.
I guess that really shows the true USian in me.
A selfishness that persists regardless of circumstance…
Ultimately what it all comes down to is that revolutionary conditions don’t exist in the west. And being materialists we know that you can’t just manifest things into existence the way libs or anarchists imagine. So, the current period has to be accepted for what it is, and communists have to prepare for the likely outcome. which will be naked fascism as best we can.
In terms of libs being treated as the left in the west, I see that as a major problem because they managed to hijack the term and divert it away from the class struggle. In my opinion, this has to be denounced at every possible opportunity in the strongest terms. There is also no point trying to reason with people who are still in the liberal mainstream, the target audience has to be people who become disillusioned with liberalism and start falling out of it. These are the people who have not yet formed strong opinions, and who are starting to realize that the status quo is not working. They are the most receptive audience.
And the question of why people aren’t learning isn’t actually difficult to answer. What it comes down to is whether holding a particular view has a tangible perceived impact on the person. Situations where people see direct cause and effect are easy for people to reason about. However, when the connection is not clear then it’s much harder for people to tell whether one set of beliefs is more correct than another. In these scenarios people will default to ideas that fit closer with their overall world view.
There’s a thermodynamics aspect to this too. Each idea that a person holds is part of an intricate web of other ideas and concepts that they’ve internalized. Invalidating an idea means reworking the whole graph of ideas associated with it. That takes a lot more energy than simply discarding the idea that doesn’t fit. In absence of some external pressure forcing the person to do this work, the existing beliefs will be generally preferred.
So, unless there is a clear and direct pressure forcing the person to reconsider their world view, they will continue to cling to it. This goes back to material conditions having to be right for people to start thinking in a different way from one they’ve been conditioned to.
Personally, I don’t see it as cowardice to want to escape all this if you have the means. Especially by moving to a socialist state where you can put your skills toward good use.
But then there are heavily disabled people who are highly vulnerable and whose ability to contribute to revolution or socialist development are limited.
That’s the whole from each according to their ability part of communism though. Everyone contributes at the level they are able to do.
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I go through the same train of thought probably most days of the week
-empire is crumbling
-how tf does no one care or see this
-it will get very bad, and potentially on the turn of a heel
-I need a contigency plan
-wait but is that selfish?
-fuck it, I don’t owe my (lack of) community anything -one less white person in North america if I leave
-wait I’m abandoning the inevitable victims to fend for themselves then
-I need to read more
-no I need to buy beans and medicine ect
*gives up
The only thing else I’ll add is to not undermine the propaganda value of leaving (specifically to China for your case). Although personally I want to go to Russia. Part of my family comes from Russia (doukhobor) so it just feel less… Idk, passport bro like.
Anyhow there is great value in being the communist person who went to China and is now living a much more desirable life. As opposed to getting arrested by palantir. But that’s probably cope. Idk
Anarchists are so remarkably uninterested in history and operate entirely off vibes its painful. A sibling of mine who was ““radicalized”” (by western academics like Angela davis ect) hasn’t meaningfully touched any historical accounts of revolutionaries, or projects ever. Theyre an avid reader unlike myself, but I asked to borrow Che: A memoir which I found in their house.
After reading some of it I joked about not wanting to read it in public because of how performative it feels. I asked them about the book, and what they thought of che (assuming they had read it). “I know its cliche but what do you actually think of Che himself”. I was worried that they would give some weird Anarchist " muhhh hierarchies and violence" answer or something.
To my dismay they said “oh idk I haven’t read that and idk much about che” 😫. Psychoanalyzing here but they’re my sibling so its valid here…I think they’ve intentionally stayed ignorant of “mainstream” and “cliche” figures or projects like Che, Cuba, USSR ect solely because it’s not cool, or esoteric enough.
What’s worse is that they are completely unaware of their hubris. I avoid talking directly about anarchism with them because I can’t imagine it going well because of their arrogance. They probably underestimate my level of education on such matters…
For awhile I held out and tried to reject the stereotypes about anarchists. But it got to a point. The stereotypes are honestly conservative. I am interested to see how they progress but I’m not optimistic.
And note how anarchism is fairly actively promoted in western media as well. Communists are always demonized, but standing up to authority and being a rebel is very much encouraged. I’m personally convinced that anarchism has become a perfect tool for the ruling class to keep people divided and prevent any meaningful organizing from happening.
I’m way too sleep deprived and off my ADHD meds today to write anything coherent, but I just wanted to mention that your posts in this thread are essentially identical to my own analysis and I relate a lot to some of the points you make here. Been thinking a lot recently that anarchists really insist on proving themselves among the child murdering billionaires’ strongest soldiers.
It’s really hard to escape this conclusion when you really think about it. The whole focus on idpol, flat structures, rejection of history, materialism, or authority. If you wanted to design an ideology that’s custom tailored to keep the working class fractured I really don’t know what you’d be doing differently.
The good news, in way, is that both anarchism and communism are incredibly fringe in the west. The main body of people are in the liberal mainstream, and they don’t really hold any strong opinions on these topics because they haven’t had much reason to think about this stuff. And my view is that communists need to have coherent messaging for people who become disillusioned with the system and start trying to understand why things are the way they are. That’s a far bigger demographic than all the left combined.
And my view is that communists need to have coherent messaging for people who become disillusioned with the system and start trying to understand why things are the way they are. That’s a far bigger demographic than all the left combined.
And that demographic of disillusioned people for whom the liberal narrative is collapsing and are looking for answers is growing. I know people who were generic liberals in 2022 and this year they started telling me that wtf they lowkey not hate Russia and Iran now. I can casually discuss topics that would have probably gotten myself labeled as a conspiracy-brained weirdo in the same category with flat earthers a few years ago. We can see in real time how previously entrenched worldviews are faltering under the pressure of a changing material reality and leaving behind fertile ground for radicalization. It’s providing great motivation for me to get off my ass and read more so I can sharpen my messaging.
For sure, I’ve noticed the same thing. Stuff you just couldn’t bring up previously is now a lot more palatable to people because the existing framework is now proving inadequate in terms of its explanatory power. And we shouldn’t ever underestimate our reach, every single person we manage to educate matters and might go on to educate many more.
I am typing this quickly and might expand later. But I wonder how much we can owe it to the novelty of an idea. Much of the working class of the imperial core is materially conditioned towards rejecting socialism, because they are heavily influenced from birth with scaremongering. This was not the case when the Bolsheviks and Lenin organized the revolution in 1917.
Before the bolshevik revolution Lenin and was exiled to Western Europe and many communist leaders were in labor camps in Siberia (Lenin named himself after the Lena River in icy Siberia).
This is possible, but I don’t see how they could get away with this “solution”. Wouldn’t the most obvious solution to AI wiping everyone’s savings out be just to restore the savings one-to-one as normal dollars, so that that would be the first proposal by everyone? Done correctly, it should be nothing but a blip with no inflationary effects, because the amount of money from the US economy before and after is exactly the same.
Doing this would basically ruin the U.S. financial system’s reliability on the world stage forever. What would any of the U.S.'s allies think to see that all money in the U.S. can get wiped by a single unhappy AI?
Also, if they do this, everyone at OpenAI and Anthropic is going to get lynched. There will be congressional hearings and loads of regulations on AI, which is exactly what the videomaker said capitalists were trying to avoid from 2008. These regulations would significantly delay capitalists’ ultimate goal of full automation of all human labor to replace the working class entirely.
On the consolidation after 2008, that stuff happened because the big banks were in the right place at the right time to snap up the floundering smaller ones. No grand plan is needed, only basic capital accumulation. I don’t see how it correlates to some AI monetary crisis.
The problem they have now is that global markets already don’t trust the US, and everybody is dumping US treasuries. On top of that, the yen carry trade is unwinding and inflation is going up. So, there is basically no faith in the system at this point anyways.
And the justification here would be simple. They’ll say the existing system is not secure enough in the age of AI, and that if this happened once then it could happen again. Then they’ll say that Blockchain ledger would ensure this sort of thing can’t happen, and that’s the reason they have to move to it now.
I don’t really think the US government cares about Anthropic or OpenAI getting lynched either. Some other corp like Google or MS will just buy up their assets when they crash. In fact, they can be the human scapegoat everybody is going to demand for all this.
Agree on consolidation, there’s no conspiracy needed there. It just happens naturally during every crisis. It’s basically what I expect to happen with the whole AI ecosystem where there’s going to be a mass extinction event when the bubble pops.
Good points, though IDK if European financial institutions are as puppeted by the USA as European politicians. For now the EU is still buying US treasuries, but if they stopped things would be bad for the US, and this AI switcheroo would definitely make them stop if they have any sovereignty.
As long as the war in Ukraine keeps going, Europeans have no choice here. They have no military industry of their own to speak of, and they’re now entirely dependent on the US for energy. When the Americans say jump, the only thing Europeans can do is ask how high?
So Russia just needs to wrap the war up by 2028 then.
Seems like they are on track for that, but the other thing could be that the liberal center in Europe collapses as we’re already seeing starting to happen in France and Germany.
I could believe that some people want to do this, but I’m skeptical as to the efficacy of it as a plan. I would argue the main counterweight to it is that the perception of the US financial system as stable and legitimate is a central pillar of the house of cards. And subverting the entire system with a shoddy fingerpoint toward AI is not going to change the fact that people are going to look at it and go, “So this whole system is bullshit, huh?” Not to mention, the hatred toward Trump is high already and people tend to blame the sitting president for things that happen under them, regardless of whether it was directly their fault/orchestration.
So though I can see it being possible they might attempt this, I think it’s also very plausible that it would be the beginning of the end of internal stability for the US. That it would trigger ongoing unrest that they are not actually prepared to handle because the empire is more grifting than logistics at this stage and their cons are starting to run into each other. As it is, the “theory” in question as explained by the video maker is primarily focused on the US itself. There are other consequences of actions on their way, like what is happening with Iran and the prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
To put it one way, I just don’t think the US’s position at this stage is stable enough to “cleanly” carry out such a grift. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it and other potential threats seriously, or assume outcomes will be inevitable and mechanical, but I would also not overestimate the planning involved. Crises in one form or another are likely on their way, but the grifters are not a wholly unified group who is purely interested in grifting the local working class.
As to what Malkhodr asked, “How can this be fought against?” I would say in general, people should be ready to mobilize if such attempted exploitation of a manufactured crisis occurs. They should be proactive in preparing US people for the possibility of any of a number of crises and attempts to use them to make grifter political plays. They should repeat often and in detail that the stability of the US system is far from guaranteed, not as a form of panic or dooming, but turn it on its head and make it a message of hope that change for the better can happen as the old system fails. But that people have to study and practice hard on logistics and planning because that is going to be what is needed far more than ideological fervor. Escaping the grifter model requires liberation groups who can outmaneuver the grifters, not “last stand martyrs”.
I generally agree with the analysis, but a couple of things worth noting are that the US elites love pulling off insane schemes like this even if they rarely work as intended. Just look at the whole Iran fiasco as an example. The other thing is that the financial system is already starting to come apart, other countries are dumping the dollar, Japan carry trade is unwinding, and there’s a whole new financial system forming completely outside western control. So, the US isn’t going to be a pillar of the global finance for too much longer one way or the other.
They might see this as a way to restructure on their own terms, and this might be what Trump meant with the military being the final say in economic matters. They will use naked force and coercion to try and keep at least some vassals under their thumb going forward.
And of course, as you note, the grifters in charge ultimately don’t care about the US economy or even as a country. As long as they see an opportunity to personally benefit, they don’t have a problem sowing chaos. Hell, if the US broke up, Musk would probably angle to become the king of Texas.
Fair points. I keep going back in my mind to what Indi wrote about the state of things; his view is something to the effect that the US is doing a mafia style / vulture capitalist style thing with the US government itself, where they run up debt on it, cash in on what’s there, and let it die when it becomes unsustainable because they have no particular loyalty to it as an institution.
But then, that’s not necessarily incompatible with the theory in question. If the top grifters are going “what if there’s a way we can make the grift last even longer here.”
So I don’t know. It may be there is some vacillating / infighting on what the priority actually is. To grift and run, or to extend the empire’s life as long as possible. Possible, if not probable, that some who act like they are interested in the 2nd one are part of the 1st group and see it as a win-win for them, like you say about personal benefit; whether the US collapses and they run away with their loot, or the US stays stable and they continue to grift through it, they still get loot.
Yup, and also important to keep in mind that these people aren’t omniscient either. They have their own biases and blind spots like everyone else, and it’s entirely possible that their view of the world is sufficiently divorced from the material reality to cause them to make significant blunders.
True, true. And correctly identifying and taking into account those biases and blind spots can be a part of strategy. For example, Trump is clearly lead in part by his narcissism. But he also is led by a mob boss style approach to business, which he carried over into governance. I would say he’s neither a secret genius nor a total imbecile; rather, his forward-facing performance is so caricatured that it makes it hard to take him seriously at times. But this can be to his advantage, like when Hillary Clinton’s campaign tried to do the “pied piper” strategy to win the 2016 election and possibly helped him win instead, when he might otherwise have struggled more. On the other hand, I think he sincerely is a ridiculous person (like he’s not faking being one, at least not by this point in his career).
And because of how much power he has, the world has to take him seriously to a degree. And Yankees in particular have to contend with the fact that he has a base of support who doesn’t think he is a ridiculous person. Whose worldview somehow looks at him and goes, “He’s amazing.” And that suggests some differences going on in how those people see the world.
Completely agree with all that, Trump has this crazy persona that he leans into heavily, and he’s basically acting like a mobster. But, Trump is just a front man at the end of the day. It’s not like he can rule by decree, so the real decision making is happening in the deep state, and it’s not like anything we see is spontaneous. As Brian Berletic loves to point out, there are decades of policy papers written advocating for all these moves that we’re seeing the empire make.
I think the thing I found most contentious was in regards to “marshal law”. Granted, many of the ways this would control people in the US wouldn’t require military coercion, but to some degree, an implementation of some kind of marshal law seems at least a little necessary, like with regard to maintaining the seat of president.
It’s not that I don’t think the US military would do so, but how would they logistically do so while maintaining the empire at current recruitment rates? They could use ICE, but we saw the limits of that tactic in Minisoda, and a sustained period of occupation would just worsen the results.
Yeah, it’d be hard for them to sustain in any way, I agree. If Trump tried to extend his term, they’d probably try to recruit from volunteer fash to crack down, but that only goes so far. The US is already highly divided and it’s hard for me to imagine a successful transition to a more openly Nazi Germany style setup; I’m inclined to think civil war would be more likely (between true believers in the constitution and Trumpian fash). I can believe some of the true believer white supremacists would like a Nazi Germany type of setup, but I’m in doubt that a guy like Trump is willing to take the risks involved in a major power grab if he can instead grift the US like it’s a business and skedaddle when things get too hot. Which, granted, the grifting part does fit with the financial manipulation theory, but less so the “extending his term” part, I would say.
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
