A waiter in Rome explained where the 100 Euros our meal for two went - there were three tiers of owners before he talked about tax! Very little of our money is invested in productive organisation rigsy - as low as 15%. The rest is in a bloat system to do with speculation on very ordinary stuff like our houses and property - even this would be OK if the financiers weren't dipping this aspect of our collective wallet. My guess is the real cause of current problems is the detachment of work from wealth and some general problems similar to the waiter's complaint on the number of rents to pay. Current thinking has most of the bloat system as a Ponzi scheme based on inflation replacing new investor money in the traditional scheme or pyramid. The Japanese went into it long before we did because of land restrictions. It was the mid-eighties when I was there and people were buying options on as yet and never to be built golf courses and mortgages were often three generations long.
The big economics term is 'rent' - but this really means 'accumulated rip-off privilege' (or idlers) as in the waiter's complaint. Some companies I worked for were so dumb they didn't even do overnight banking - though one notes the banks were smart enough not to offer it and take the profit themselves. Economics is like trying to do biology from Aristotle - stuck in the non-modern. It would be interesting to take Don's (say) views I mostly agree with apart - our system is not based on such sound sense - it just pretends to be. We all lack the facts that would make for really practical discussion. We could have banking without rich bankers - you could soon manipulate the spreadsheets I use - the problem is you/we can't get the data that matters because it's already over-theorised to somewhere south of Hell. I have never found the work as complex as my role in getting a bit of a ship built. In the end, my suspicion is economics really is war by other means and we are too scared to form a system that is honest. We cope with phlogiston theory instead. Unless I find some new work in the next couple of months I'll be working with Saudis - 99% of that will be wasted! On 26 Oct, 14:28, rigsy03 <[email protected]> wrote: > What about radical spending/debt? What about the non-reward for > saving? > > Lawns should be outlawed and probably will be when clean water is > precious and rare. I refuse to make coffee from recycled urine or > other recycled waste water but...the spirit is willing but the flesh > is weak. > > On Oct 23, 7:13 pm, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Banking is estimated to contribute between 8 and 14% of UK GDP. It > > will be smaller in most other countries, but is still held to be > > vital. I doubt the figures but this doesn't really matter At 14% > > banking matches manufacturing contribution in the UK. > > > In a business account we always want to reduce bank charges to a > > minimum. Financial services are a cost to be reduced to minimum. I > > can never see why we have fallen for the idea that moving money around > > has anything to do with a productive economy. We would hardly > > organise hard work like clearing farm land by matching the number of > > us breaking our backs with a similar number of bankers sitting in > > armchairs. > > > I tend to think banking is just a front for organised thieving. We > > cut out all kinds of management and jobs in manufacturing and it's > > hard to see how piling bank buildings high with staff makes any > > sense. In science we generally try to reduce resources going into > > control to a minimum. We need some radical ideas on how Al Capone is > > getting away with all the banking going on. My guess is banking is > > really just a tax mechanism we don't get to vote for. --
