EU referendum, brexit and the aftermath

Yeah, I'm not suggesting that a return to serfdom should be considered.

Fucking socialists...

It doesn't matter what form wealth takes - if the people in power decide that they and their mates should have it all, they will. Because they're in power.

That seems to be the case, but I still don't like it, and don't like that it's getting worse.

Fucking socialists

An idea we can all get behind.

That seems to be the case, but I still don't like it, and don't like that it's getting worse.

Me neither. The trouble is that the people who are getting shafted by current economic policies tended to vote Tory at the last election Because Brexit. I voted for a party which would make me, personally, poorer due to taxation. The Wall formerly known as the Red Wall voted for a party which would, inevitably, make them poorer due to being a bunch of old Etonian crony-loving wankstains. Once again, go figure...

It's interesting to note that inequality in wealth distribution does not necessarily arise just because powerful people decide to amass wealth.

It is an emergent property of taxation structures, that doesn't obey "common sense" rules or predictions.

If you are of a mathematical bent, this paper from the London Mathematical Laboratory is very interesting:

https://rss.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1740-9713.2016.00918.x

Euro and kms would be a lovely result (of this catastrophic fuck up).

Globalization with offshore tax havens (some proper dodgy see that spiders web docu I mentioned) and inequal tax policies between countries (hello Ireland Netherlands Luxembourg and many others) leading to companies gaming taxation don't help.

Still no excuse not to fix local tax laws. Going to read your link see how they break it down :)

Debt & credit would exist anyway - what we have now is a de facto formalisation of that, with central banks adding stability & guarantee (to a greater or lesser extent).

The whole system arose because you have people that want to borrow money, and those people that have money to lend.

I don't think it's an inherently flawed system, nor that it's anything but a facilitator of inequality - I think you need to look across the whole gamut of tax, corporate law / workers' rights & finance for a way to explain that.

We cannot create money and banks can, there is a huge power and wealth concentration in international finance atm.

HSBC laundering drug money in the USA. Proven in court. They didn't want to crack down hard on them because it could destabilize the USA economy. That means you have a problem.

But it is more the imbalance/lack of democratic control (we cannot even have the bits of control we'd have in pension funds where we can vote oversight and pick investments) I think that is the issue.

It depends on what you consider money / creating money to be, I guess - Banks extending credit & lending is increasing money by certain measures, but that's something that individuals can do too - the difference is scale. Both are regulated & restricted by how the market view their ability to lend.

Only a central bank can create money from nothing - and even then they are regulated internally (inflation targets, for example) & externally (trade deficits and the like).

There is a huge, increasing, imbalance. There are slaps on the wrist for criminal actions. There are plenty of problems. I don't think they are caused by having a fiat monetary system. I think they are caused by poorly regulated markets and corporate-centric social and taxation policy.

Debt & credit would exist anyway

Of course, they did before, but the run away proliferation of them has come about since banks are able to just magic debt and credit out of their arses without any real regulation, it lead to the financial crash and bail outs, which just ended up loading more of that debt onto most regular people and further concentrating wealth to those who hoard it. I'm aware that there are many other factors that cause wealth inequality, I just don't think the extreme hoarding would be able to exist in such a way without the madness that is banks just shitting out debt. Tax and workers rights are great for making someone on £100k pay their fair share and help out those on £5k, and definitely need strengthening, but it's a different issue to Bezos etc, who have unimaginable amounts of wealth, much of which would've started life as some regular persons place to live. The amount of billionaires and how much wealth they have accrued has skyrocketed since deregulation of the financial sector meant that banks care less about loaning out, and creating money, propping up property prices way above inflation and siphoning wealth towards to already extremely wealthy.
Sorry, bit busy at work and generally just angry about this sort of thing to make too much coherent sense. Eat the rich.

I don't think they are caused by having a fiat monetary system. I think they are caused by poorly regulated markets and corporate-centric social and taxation policy.

Yeah, I think this is mostly true, but the two play off each other

We cannot create money and banks can, there is a huge power and wealth concentration in international finance atm.

Whilst true, we always have the option of quantitive easing, which is in essence the government selling bonds in the country, basically like releasing equity in a house, this does not have the risk of inflation as there is no new money. I do know I am slightly ignorant on these matters so happy to be corrected but as I understand it, this is a low(ish) risk way of the gov raising funds.

That was interesting, thanks

True but Quantative Easing tends to help big firms / drive up capital costs. It's definitely a useful mechanism though.

I am not sure what other side effects it has...I can't imagine you can keep doing it all the time either.

Like all cool things I think it was invented in Japan to boost inflation, although hasn't really come to much and I think they have had it on and off since the late 90's. I don't know enough about economics, but couldn't QE be used in any number of ways, and really it's the Gov that decides how it's used?

Project Fear, they said.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/24/trial-of-brexit-border-checks-causes-five-mile-lorry-queues-in-kent

For a change it's not the UK but France trying to be prepared and not being there.

Unfortunately that's only part of the checks that will need done and UK systems are nowhere there.

I think some of you might want to ask yourself whether your concern isn't perhaps inequality of capital rather than inequality of dosh. That some people have more cash in their bank account than others is mostly symptomatic of there being unequal access to the means of earning that dosh. Changing a fiat currency to something else wouldn't do anything to rectify that problem as far as I can see.
I'd even argue that a fiat currency is a pretty decent tool to compensate for that inequality. Redistributing wealth with a currency based on gold would prompt the obvious question "well, so who owns all the gold then?" And as for Bitcoin, it's not as if that has been fairly distributed either.

The funny thing is that property rights are pretty much a fiat system as well. Maybe one day tens of thousands of Amazon workers will tell Bezos that "Nah mate, you don't own this shop. We do and start re-structuring the company to pay out all earnings as evenly distributed wages."

Yeah was gonna say 'collective delusion' is basically 'social construct', upon which a lot of civilization rests and they've always been unstable

isn't perhaps inequality of capital rather than inequality of dosh.

“Wages theft”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/nov/25/von-der-leyen-eu-willing-to-be-creative-to-seal-brexit-deal?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Now Barnier is saying he will walk out if UK won't move.

And don't think he does empty / non strategic threats.

don't think he does empty / non strategic threats.

At least not transparently obvious ones.

Behold, the sunlit uplands;

https://www.kentonline.co.uk/dover/news/amp/brexit-will-spark-rise-in-dogging-213622/

It looks like a subject he spends far too much time thinking about.