George Soros: “we are on the edge of collapse”

[emordnilap]

One sound idea is that ECB should inject new money into the real economy, preferably by way of citizen credits, everyone getting equal amounts each quarter.

This should then be redeemed against debt or, where the citizen is not in debt, invested in ultra-low carbon projects.

Tax it back out of existence on what is known as 'stratospheric' money, the unreal economy.

[DominicJ]

That should have happened in 2007, but no government wants a financialy secure populace, how could they then be controlled with welfare and taxation.

Germany wont stand for it anyway

[Ludwig]

That should have happened in 2007, but no government wants a financialy secure populace, how could they then be controlled with welfare and taxation.

You're bonkers, Dominic.

[RenewableCandy]

That should have happened in 2007, but no government wants a financialy secure populace, how could they then be controlled with welfare and taxation.

You're bonkers, Dominic.

I think he's got a point (though probably not the one he was actually making ) .

Imagine being one of the millions of people in this country with a crappy job. If you felt financially secure, you could pack it in and go and do something you liked doing instead. But small numbers of individuals (let's not call them "people") make huge amounts of money out of armies of people doing crappy jobs. The income stream of these individuals, who incidentally wield enormous influence with HMG and whose wealth is used as a bellweather of the state of the Economy, would come under threat. So, financially-secure people are a liability for the Economy. People with no debts are a particular hazard.

[emordnilap]

People with no debts are a particular hazard.

Which is just one of the reasons I said it was a sound idea.

[Lord Beria3]

Dom - not sure what point you are making here? Are you saying the governments bailed out the banks to keep people in debt?

I'm confused.

And what has Germany got to do with it?

[Ludwig]

That should have happened in 2007, but no government wants a financialy secure populace, how could they then be controlled with welfare and taxation.

You're bonkers, Dominic.

I think he's got a point (though probably not the one he was actually making ) .

Imagine being one of the millions of people in this country with a crappy job. If you felt financially secure, you could pack it in and go and do something you liked doing instead. But small numbers of individuals (let's not call them "people") make huge amounts of money out of armies of people doing crappy jobs. The income stream of these individuals, who incidentally wield enormous influence with HMG and whose wealth is used as a bellweather of the state of the Economy, would come under threat. So, financially-secure people are a liability for the Economy. People with no debts are a particular hazard.

Only in the short term. When the chickens come home to roost, all those people with debts are going to be hung out to dry and will no longer have any income to spend on the crap that keeps most of us in jobs.

Exactly what point Dominic was making about people being "controlled with welfare" I can't see. Without denying that benefit scroungers exist, I can't think why a government would want any more than the minimum of them.

A neighbour of my parents was, until recently, constantly ranting about benefit scroungers, just like Dominic. This stopped recently: his son was made redundant, and he suddenly shut up.

I guess Dominic is confident enough in his indispensability to society that he doesn't anticipate ever being in a situation where he might have to reflect more deeply on his prejudices.

[eatyourveg]

"I guess Dominic is confident enough in his indispensability to society that he doesn't anticipate ever being in a situation where he might have to reflect more deeply on his prejudices."

I think anyone who spends as much time posting whilst at work as Dom needs to think hard about how an employer might view this, they do know what goes on and they have long memories. He said, speaking as a former employer of quite a few people.

[biffvernon]

You'd think, after all these years of research, teaching, writing, reading, discussing and Nobel Prize winning, folks would have got the hang of economics by now. I mean, it's not like astronomy, where you can always go and find out more about things that are ever further away.

[RenewableCandy]

You could say that today's study of economics is at about the same stage that medicine was in Mediaeval times: an orthodox view existed which, though completely self-consistent, bore little relation to real life because it was never really put to the test (or was constantly put to the test and found wanting, but the results were continually ignored). Manwhile on the fringes were the battle surgeons who (say some skeletons from the Roses wars) did excellent work but fell completely outside the orthodox. Battle surgeons didn't blether on about humours and phlogeston, they dealt in real stuff like muscles and bones.

[nexus]

+1 to what RC wrote

[Ludwig]

You could say that today's study of economics is at about the same stage that medicine was in Mediaeval times: an orthodox view existed which, though completely self-consistent, bore little relation to real life because it was never really put to the test (or was constantly put to the test and found wanting, but the results were continually ignored). Manwhile on the fringes were the battle surgeons who (say some skeletons from the Roses wars) did excellent work but fell completely outside the orthodox. Battle surgeons didn't blether on about humours and phlogeston, they dealt in real stuff like muscles and bones.

I don't think the analogy is exact. Economics, by its nature, attracts not seekers after truth, but seekers after justifications for greed.

[RenewableCandy]

Dom - not sure what point you are making here? Are you saying the governments bailed out the banks to keep people in debt?

Given that there was in theory an alternative, namely "bailing out" all those with a mortgage!

Meanwhile I think medicine attracted some pretty unsavoury types in the middle ages...after all they were making a living out of people's suffering, and had the same (bad) motivation as private medicine everywhere: a recovered patient no longer pays, whereas a "managed" illness can go on for some time.

[Lord Beria3]

The only place in Europe during the Middle Ages with any kind of enlightened medicine was in the Muslim Moore south of Spain...

[DominicJ]

LB3
Instead of bailing out the Banks, the various governments who did so could have handed every man, woman and child in the country huge wads of money.
Like, £50,000.

Germany controls the ECB, only the ECB could undertake that action for the Eurozone.

EYV
I started on a one year contract, which was increased for a year, I was then made permanant, a year later, I was warned my job was going to be made redundant. That was, 2 years ago. They still cant figure out how they're going to do what I do for less than I do it.
But they're really sure they'll have figured it out for march next year.
I hope they do, I'll get a 5 month redundancy pay off....

Biff/RC
The difference is of course, People change, Mars and Hearts are fairly predictable.
Economics is fairly sorted, it just doesnt give the wanted answers, so people want new theories

RC
Oh gods.
But that doesnt work if another medical company turns up with a cure....