I’m not really big on conspiracy theories, but neither am I blind or totally rejecting of them either. People and organizations will act in their own actual or perceived interests with or without a conscious conspiracy. The system and culture have been set up and also devolved to where nearly any action can be thwarted or encouraged by the powerful whether they all stand around some vector analysis board and slaver while laughing evilly, or they truly believe, as Lord Blankfein said that they are “doing God’s work.”

The one thing the powerful actually do not have control over are ideas, paradigms and zeitgeists. And that is why it is so important to find the right and most ethically powerful idea, paradigm and zeitgeist in order to balance theirs and replace it as the primary one.

I’m completely against TPP as an attempt by already dominant conglomerates to make that dominance a fait acompli. It should be fought, but it should be fought intelligently…with ideas that can actually stop it and make it unnecessary.

Tariffs are an economic orthodoxy…that’s why they don’t work. They’re part of the control, encourage and/or thwart everyone three ways from the middle…so that either nothing happens or if some momentary battle is won the war is lost…and then everyone can go back to being cynical, “realistic” or apathetic. Obama is the perfect example of hope betrayed and extinguished. I remember hearing him say at his acceptance speech, after preaching hope and change the whole way through, that “we must be patient and there is a lot of work to do”. I knew right then that nothing significant would happen. It was mere reformist happy horseshit. Ideas. Paradigms. A zeitgeist. Only these and their aligned and reflective policies will actually change things.

Transformative ideas first! Rational and ethical regulation right along with it.

Jim:  Steve said: “I’m completely against TPP as an attempt by already dominant conglomerates to make that dominance a fait acompli.”  Isn’t this a perfect example of a conspiracy?  The fact that it is a secret agreement to achieve a goal makes it so.

Me:  Jim,  Yes it is. The question is whether or not it’s a conscious one or not. It’s probably a combination of both where there are those who actually don’t care and those who actually believe it is necessary in order to prevent the rise of nationalism blah, blah, blah. The real problem is no one believes there are alternatives and so no alternative is considered or conceived. It goes right back to the power of ideas to sway, direct and blind….or enlighten, renew and create freedom for the individual and free flowingness to the system.

Me:  Stuart,

I completely agree with the intention of reform, and environmental regulation is completely necessary, but reform of the money system is “looking through the wrong end of the telescope”. Given the digital nature of the money system policies can be pin pointed to address the underlying most basic problem and then crafted so that they could/would instantaneously resolve both its structural effects and balance and replace the paradigm it currently utilizes to dominate with.

Me:  Yes the Banks and regulators haven’t learned a thing from the 2008 crisis. They still believe the economy tends toward equilibrium instead of having an inherent accounting flaw as an integral aspect of the system itself which disequilibrates it. Hence they are free to “do God’s work” because he (the market) will sort it all out. Meanwhile they re-hypothecate collateral to the nth degree until everyone loses track of who has it and where it is, and asset prices inflate “to infinity and beyond”…the beyond being zero actual value.

Yes, the idiocies of monetary inflation are destructive, but if one never looks at the underlying cost inflationary nature of commerce itself which erodes savings and profits and so drives the desire to preserve them via wild speculations and ever more abstract and surreal hedging….that underlying problem sneaks up and bites nearly everyone in the back side.