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So basically the economy works by passing money through it, by working getting paid, paying your bills and using credit to get that which you need by leveraging your future work. Once you stop working, due to age, illness, or medical reasons, you no longer work and so do not make money, you only pay your bills with that which you have access to.That is if you are normal within this society. Now if you are rich you can make money in this same manner but there are more options. You can put money into places where it works for you. Where it is borrowed by others and interest is paid to you for being able to use it. You can also buy stocks, which are interests in a company giving you access to dividends the people of the company produce. You can buy bonds which are basically loans to a company that you get interest from. These last two methods use the fact that in a capitalist society money is used as a commodity and so can increase in both amount and worth. Now as long as the money is traveling from one person or company to another it increases the economy and supposedly the lifestyles of everyone. At least that is the theory. Every once in a while the economy has money taken about of it by the rich, this is done through taking profits out of a business, finding out that the investments one has made are not worth what they once were, or realizing that one is just paying to much for something that there is not a proper return on. This money is taken out of the economy and the amount of money flowing through the society shrinks. If it is just a small number of people taking money out then it is a downturn, if they take out a lot then it becomes a depression. The economy has over the past forty years been working so that more and more money can be taken out of the economy. This money has been held offshore and instead of making its way through the society it just stays in an offshore bank account so taxes do not have to be paid on it. During the last depression about fourteen trillion dollars was taken out of the economy. This is what caused the unemployment, the loss of homes, the forfeiture of property, the loss of jobs that will not come back, and the use of computerized machinery. I state this because there is another way this could operate. If we enabled the extra money that companies and individuals are just having sit there into a manner of bringing it back into the economy, we would not need the use of downturns in the economy to happen. If we allowed for jobs to actually pay what they are worth then everyone would have enough to pay their bills. I think the Constitution holds for how this could happen as it states that "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." I take this to mean that everyone owns the land and resources within the United States. We, the actual people of the US have through their representatives allowed companies and corporations to form that have as their purpose the development of the natural resources we all hold for our benefit. FOR OUR BENEFIT. How does this allow for the development of a society like wants where the "people" come to be defined by their wealth. Thus when Mitch says he is wanting to wait for the people to learn of something or come to the support of some cause he means those who are rich and have the ability to pay for service. Basically "We the People" have no say in the present working of the government and with the Orange Gas Bag in there as King, we have been handed our hats and the door has been opened for our passing. Thanks for the time and ability to put my rant into words. Thoughts?

dalefvictor 8 Sep 21
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Like Elvis, democracy has left the building.

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IMO basically the economy works by people creating things that are needed or wanted by others. People trade excess things they don’t need for things they do need. Money is just an accounting system for facilitating the trades. Without money we’d have to barter, that’s all.

If you want more stuff all you have to do is create more stuff or create stuff that is valued more, or you can also help someone else create stuff.

Basically “We the People” DO have a say in the workings of the government. Each person gets one vote.

That's the way it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, these days there are way too many people who make a good living by profiting off the hard work of others and contributing very little of their own labor.

@jerry99 ,
AKA parasites.

@jerry99 Labor is only one of the things valued by society, and labor isn’t valued very highly because there’s an oversupply, at least of common labor. So trading labor for other stuff is generally not going to fetch you very much in goods and services.

Market speculators, now those people provide an indispensable service to society, and in fact, without speculators markets wouldn’t work. There’s ways of contributing other than picking cotton or working in a store. You can use your head and some moxy.

Creating something like Microsoft or Amazon that greatly benefits people, now that kind of venture will fetch somewhat more than labor I’d think. There’s a lot of options.

@WilliamFleming Market speculators? Isn't that another word for leeches, along with hedge fund managers, payday lenders, lobbyists, PR staff, ... There are lots of legitimate ways to earn a living besides unskilled labor. I'd say that if your job can be eliminated by a change in the law to eliminate waste then you're probably not contributing much to society.

@jerry99 There are a lot of jobs that only indirectly help society but are still necessary, but I agree with you about payday lenders. Some people are working to harm society. We’ve got drug dealers and so on. (Politicians?)

I was thinking that without speculation markets couldn’t function. Speculators provide a service both when they buy and when they sell and they bear risk in the interim. Without them the markets would fluctuate wildly and production would be hampered. There’d be major shortages at times if speculators didn’t step in and sell, and there’d be large numbers of bankruptcies if they weren’t there to buy when the market was glutted.

Fund managers, PR folks, advertisers, they help keep the system going even if they don’t produce actual goods.

You are probably right that a good many jobs could be eliminated or consolidated without much loss.

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Edit and add paragraph breaks?

I was going to say the same thing.

Sorry I will do better next time.

@dalefvictor It’s OK. You got your message across.

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