In the early 1970s many economists began to find they no longer understood how money behaved … Prices and unemployment began to rise together: people called it stagflation. ibid.
Monetarism offered an attractive technical explanation for the problem of inflation but from it would come in less than ten years another scheme for Britain’s salvation: a set of scientific rules which if the politicians followed them correctly would create the right conditions for economic growth … The time was right for the monetarists. ibid.
Then in March 1976 Britain fell into the abyss. Foreign investors led by American bankers panicked. The Pound began to slide against the Dollar and nothing would stop it. Britain faced bankruptcy. In desperation Labour turned to the International Monetary Fund for a loan. An IMF team came to London. ibid.
The supply of money was to be reduced by increasing interest rates and cutting public spending. Inflation would fall and enterprise flourish. ibid.
But the economy did not behave in the way the monetarists had predicted … Even more mystifying was the behaviour of the money supply. ibid.
In the budget of 1981 public borrowing was cut by a fifth; 364 leading economists wrote to The Times and the prime minister accusing her of virtually destroying the economy. That summer there were riots in English cities. ibid.
A scientific model of ourselves as simplified robots, rational calculated beings whose behaviour and even feelings could be analysed and managed by numbers. But what resulted was the very opposite of freedom: the numbers took on a power of their own which began to create new forms of control, greater inequalities and a return to a rigid class structure based on the power of money. Adam Curtis, The Trap II: The Lonely Robot, BBC 2007
Once public servants were set performance targets they could achieve them in any way they wanted; the old bureaucratic rules could be thrown away and they would become heroic entrepreneurs. ibid.
James Buchanan, economist: He argued that politicians just like civil servants were hypocrites; the idea they promoted that they were serving the public was a fiction. In reality they too followed their self-interests. ibid.
The plague of money. The disease of money. The plague of buying and selling that’s their handiwork. I hate this system … It’s Me, Eddie … People think they are free. But really they are becoming like simplified robots following the rules of money. Adam Curtis, Can’t Get You Out of My Head III: Money Changes Everything, BBC 2021
More and more people are realising that capitalism and communism under printed money are the same thing. Jeff Rooth
Paper money is a ticking time bomb that will eventually implode. Max Keiser
August 15th 1971: ‘I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators … to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold …’ End of the Road: How Money Became Worthless, Nixon, Youtube 55.44, Endevr 2012
And soon it was back to business as usual. And yet something still isn’t quite right. A growing sense of unease fills the population. ibid.
What if the crisis isn’t the cause of the angst so many of us feel but rather the symptom of a much deeper problem? ibid.
1944: The Allied nations met at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, too create a new financial system that would stabilise the world once the war had ended. ibid.
Is investing in a US government bond simply one small part in a giant Ponzi scheme? ibid.
Governments could borrow and print as much currency as they wanted.
‘Everyone has tethered their ship to the Titanic of currencies.’ ibid.
What does the money machine eat? It eats youth, spontaneity, life, beauty, and, above all, it eats creativity. It eats quality and shits quantity. William S Burroughs
They printed $8 trillion, gave you $1,400, sent the rest to their friends, and left you with inflation. Classicalliberty tweet 5th April 2022
Since the 1970s speculation, inflation and unemployment grew unchecked … inside trading and what appears to be an increasingly rigged game. The Paradigm of Money, 2021
In December 2020 video game retailer Gamestop reported an operating loss … ibid.
10 Biggest Hedge Fund Failures: Madoff Investment Scandal; SAC Capital; The Galleon Group; Long-Term Capital Management; Pequot Capital; Amaranth Advisors; Tiger Funds; Aman Capital; Marin Capital; Bailey Coates Cromwell Fund. ibid.
Global Billionaire Wealth Surges $4 Trillion Over Pandemic. ibid. online headline
‘This is a neo-feudal model and it’s being brought into place through these manufactured crashes … to legitimise massive money printing.’ ibid. Max Keiser
Fed balance up $4.4 trillion in 23 months. ibid. RT news
The market crash in 2008: subprime mortgages. ibid.
‘The day they let Lehman go was the day they decided to save AIG.’ ibid. woman
‘Goldman Sachs are scum. That’s basically the bottom line.’ ibid. Max Keiser, early TV debate
‘They’re all Goldman Sachs scum … This coup-d’etat to take place, a silent coup-d’etat, Goldman Sachs and their friends now control the US government.’ ibid. Max