The Impending Death of Modern Capitalism

In any case what you guys “get” in terms of financial regulation you pay for anyway in terms of regulatory oversight. So we still have to balance the cost/benefit of the system in reference to taxes paid and potential loss of upside from lower risk banking strategies.

And if a Euro were to come to the US and try to treat it like Europe they would be fine but they wouldn’t be optimizing their finances, which again is all fine.

In any case it seems weird to want to pay money to spend your own money just for the sake of not wanting to overspend.

Cash can also keep the barter system going in times of disruption or sabotage of electronic services. Which is relevant in this day and age with a lot of state actors and others carrying out hybrid attacks on our services and utilities, or for those of us who live in countries where war is becoming increasingly likely.

Not to the extent it could have in the past as the vast majority of the financial system is on-grid, but it would buy you time to resume services.

Sweden and Norway are reversing attempts to get to a "cashless" society just these days because of hacking risks.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/o...

Sweden and Norway are backpedalling on plans for cashless societies over fears that fully digital payment systems would leave them vulnerable to Russian security threats, and concern for those unable to use them.

A combination of good high-speed internet coverage, high digital literacy rates, large rural populations and fast-growing fintech industries had put the Nordic neighbours on a fast track to a future without cash.

It is good that they came to their senses, as it was a daft idea long before the current world situation.

Other than security, which is a nice bonus, for me the obvious advantage of cash is privacy. A physical interaction takes a lot of logistics to track, and unlike electronically secured transactions it also becomes harder to track after it has occurred. Digital transaction records will be weak to future advances in decryption.

Privacy has almost been completely sacrificed on the altar of technological advance for the last 30 years. We need to start clawing it back. That the state is worried about criminals and terrorists is of secondary importance, as citizens in democracies we should have the right to presumption of innocence and privacy.

In theory you could have full privacy with digital cash the same, with prepaid anonymous cards (bought in physical cash).

But anyway at least in Italy the "obvious" reasons leftists go against cash a lot, while the right does far less, is tax evasion. We had a "maximum 1k payment in cash" law in place till recently. The left wanted to decrease it to 500. That's on top of several transactions where it's fully illegal to use cash (including paying rent).

Meloni increased it back to 5k.

Anyway in general when they tell you they don't like cash, they are either mastercard CEO (who then became recently president of the world bank lol), or they want the plumber to collect your 100 eur and give 50+ to the state (vat, payroll, income tax).

Wtf does the left has anything to do with this …

In italy? everything. The 2 coalitions talk about it during electoral campaigns, the left wants basically to make cash illegal or anyway extremely minor as a totality of transactions, the right thinks cash is privacy, autonomy, safety and so on

Ok .

TBH I usually love blaming leftists but that’s more traditionally associated in the US with liberals/globalists than with leftism. Not sure if it’s the same over there.

Explain to me how globalism should be define by the left ?
When NAFTA came to be in 1988 for example , it was the end of Reagan era with bush coming in and Mulroney in Canada being in the Conservative Party which obviously is on the right too .

Praising eliminating tariffs and make the economy as free as possible was the way to enrich people .

Many on the left said it would cost jobs , unions were against it , but they (republicans / libertarians ) told us it was great and those jobs lost would be replaced by better jobs .

Now globalism dying , USMCA (old NAFTA) is garbage despite being sign and praise by trump , and now I hear all this “new free economy “ dating back 40 years was all a left wing bad policy ?

And now the right used some policies like tariffs that should be consider anti freedom , kinda of a new tax , basically a socialist anti free market and the right praise it being all good and the left was the problem ??

Really ?

no the M5S, populist leftist pro Putin and pro china (only signatory to the silk and road initiative in the west), was on board with cash reduction/elimination and was in gvmnt (Conte prime minister was from their party) with the center left during COVID.

he set the limit for all cash transactions to 1k and pushed hard for digital transactions to the point of creating a state lottery you could only participate in with receipts from live buying with digital cash (online didn't apply because you are already paying digital anyway).

Fair enough .
But I just want to make it clear , the 1988 in power wasn’t leftish at all and they promote the hell out of it .
many knew at that time many job would disappear and they said no problem , other jobs will come .
And it did -> amazon, wallmart jobs ….

Now maybe people realize , maybe I have a better life if I have a good job instead of just aiming at lower consumption prices …

Sure, but also people really like Amazon because it’s streamlined and convenient. Just like they enjoy walmart because the prices are low. Now normatively you may say they are wrong for enjoying those conveniences because they come at a societal cost, but we do have to deal with the fact that it’s hard to put the cat back in the bag. So it’s really more of a question of how we structure our economy and social systems around these businesses rather than a matter of railing against them as such.

At least that’s how I approach these questions.

It's always funny to read these things from here. We basically never give our card to anyone anymore since some years ago. They either come to the table with mobile POS or you go to the cashier to pay after they presented you the bill at the table.

There is , at least in continental europe. Especially on economics. It starts from considering inequality inherently immoral and to be fixed with the state, and thus being in favor of heavily taxing people with high income / the wealthy (not necessarily the same), and redistributing it to the masses. That's the core of it on the economics. Everything else is additional layers to make the former "crucial task" more doable according to their ideas of society.

Immigration itself in continental europe is sold primarily as a way to pay existing and future pensions. Regulation is often sold as a way to keep the rich in check inherently.

The USA are different because you don't have as many leftists as we do at all, by far, so "the left" is our center/center right which is not radical on the economy at all, but in order to build a tent that can win election getting the votes of actual leftists as well, felt necessary to overcompensate what they don't do on the economy, with "rights" and culture war battles.

For sure .

17) If family owned restaurants are gone with teh families sent to jail, where is the line drawn with privately owned food services? Mexi restaurants are gone I assume but what about, food trucks, pizza parlors, lemonade stands?

18) Since cash is being discussed, what is your opinion on cash. I'd imagine that it would be challenging to control all private sales, including food, if cash was being heavily used?

19) Can people still own and drive their muscle cars? Is Formula 1 racing out? They race in like 30 different countries.

Please, cmon with these softballs.

19) Family-owned restaurants are in. As are all independently-owned food places. Evidently my sense of humour is butting up against Poe's Law. Big chains and franchises are right out. No more maccy ds, I'm afraid, that's one liberty sandwich you'll have to hope someone locally does better. May as well take over all those venues as food distribution hubs for the socially-provided alternative to the local businesses.

20) I'm totally fine with cash, but I'll accept a check too. Why are you envisaging a need to control all private sales in a way we don't do already, i.e. largely by the honour system? What part of my changeover to socialism has you thinking this would need adapting somehow?

21) I dunno, man, this is almost a personal ethical question at this point. Do I enjoy motorsports? Used to like F1, love rally, but got a little bored and don't much enjoy watching all that oil be used to cause all those emissions driving in circles faster and faster. Does that mean I think it should be done away with? Probably, but neither because I dislike it nor because of the direct impact it has on the environment, but more for the symbolism. For example, I'm a huge football fan, but there's absolutely no need for man united to fly to arsenal for a league game.

The symbolism has limited impact. There is still horse races, but extremely few people look at a horse race and thinks it is a great idea to bring back the times when large cities were being choked by millions of pounds of horse manure, far more than they could remove.

To focus on motorsports as some kind of environmentalism issue is misguided. It is also a big political mistake. You're adding opposition for no gain, as the environmental impact you are targeting is negligible. What would be a much superior approach is to focus on how the technology of motorsports overlaps with green technology (thermal efficiency, fuel-saving, energy conservation). Now you are making environmentalism and green tech intriguing, instead of a buzz-kill.

My particular questions are questions that I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on. I do find modern day communists a bit interesting so when I ask about formula 1 racing or casinos or truck driving, it isn't for gotcha reasons. I appreciate you answering them which is why I am asking.

I honestly don't know if you're joking or not. Banning private restaurants seems well within the ball park of banning personal vehicles and still better than some of the other ideas posited up thread.

I kind of agree with your particular outlooks here, tbh, but probably not with your approach to a solution.

Because it's like this for me,

Bitcoin is basically the internet's cash, I don't want to ban it for environmental reasons but instead direct it towards creating a scenario where it's more environmentally friendly. You say you're on board with cash, but cash is pretty ****ing dirty too so if cash were to end up having a higher carbon footprint than bitcoin a couple years, would you still want to ban bitcoin? Or cash now?

Driving a big block chevy around in a circle 500 times serves limited purposes but I don't want to ban it because we could eventually progress ourselves to watching evs fly around the track.

I want mickey Ds and especailly walmart not to have the stranglehold on the industry, because I think it would be nice to have local communities have a higher chance of creating a successful restaurant that is tailored to the particular people in that area while meeting environmental standards better. Also, it just makes people happier to have a choice. But I don't want to ban mcdonlads or close up walmart becusae A lot of people rely on them so I'd rather create restrictions preventing them from monopolizing and kicking out competition amongst about 15 other things. Same goes with Amazon. But thats a different discussion.

We are accomplishing some of these now, successfully as well. You could argue that it's been done too slowly for your tastes but its being done in a way that make its actually possible. Closing up or even nationalizing some of the largest companies out there would send the world into a unnecessary tailspin - which id argue won't accomplish some of the environmental goals or really any goals that are being discussed. Same with taking away everyone's vehicles or peoples homes, or just randomizing the removal of wasteful people from the planet. The **** just needs to be thought out a bit more.

I feel like I've been pretty clear that there is a distinction to be made, across multiple sectors, that prioritizes huge multinationals and not to worry about the small businessman, i.e. let them do their thing. My answers are all pointing to 'what are things we could do now that would have a huge yield'. And my answer is that we've got bigger fish to fry than formula 1, casinos, private vehicles, or crypto.

I also believe that while crypto does output a lot of emissions, it was the subject of a hit job from mainstream banking who have long been wise to the climate pretense game. Almost all the comparisons I saw between crytpo and fiat in terms of per transaction were wildly unfair, making no account whatsoever for the gigantic infrastructure that the banking system employs, directly and indirectly, that are necessary for each transaction. I don't think I ever saw a full, like for like comparison. It's clear now that whatever left wing potential crypto ever may or may not have had, it's just a libertarian tech bro's wet dream, but it's still an alternative to a highly unethical mainstream banking system. If we get to a future relative utopia where we've reformed or abolished or nationalised all the banks and the system is under control, then we can look at whether we still need bitcoin. Priorities. Avoid being thought police, and fun police too where possible. But corporate liberty to pay the lowest wages, charge the highest prices and put the lowest quality product out there must not trump our collective liberty nor the individual liberties that capitalists seem so eager to ignore - that of the working class.

So Amazon stores. Walmart, Macdonalds, these companies all get liquidated, their infrastructure nationalised, their locations maintained, no one but the guys on 9 figures get hurt, everyone gets well fed, less food gets thrown away, no liberty lost whatsoever, climate change slowed down. These are really low-hanging fruit, their low-hangingness brought about by the sheer iniquity and stupidity of american economics to date.

The reality though is millions of people work for these companies around the world and even if some govt took over, it wouldn't be practical.

You'd likely have legal battles lasting for years...

It would cost taxpayers literally trillions of dollars and very likely cause a massive attempt of printing leading to hyperinflation - which tends to happen in these instances..

The takeover would require new laws and lobbying efforts which would probably take decades all while having the most severe suuply chain crises in world history...

And even when the dust settles, you'd still never get the govt to effecientyl run all aspects of a company like that is if it were private. Why not just enforce stronger antitrust laws, proper wages, laws affecting environmental impact and penalize accordingly while incentivizing smaller community based businesses? Because if you think the latter, while requiring a lot of work, is a pipe dream, it's still insanely easier to implement than the former.

All the people employed by maccy ds will at least be guaranteed the services they need to live, and a lot of employment will be created by the socialised food services as an alternative to these fast food outlets.

The way I envision this is a political process rather than a legal one, but once we're at the point of 'but this will be difficult to achieve' we've reached the part where, as I stated, the solutions are available, but they're not palatable to the ruling class. If there were enough of an appetite for social change, we should just nationalise those fast food outlets, legal processes be damned.

Explain how.

The govt is going is to be nakedly taking over the role of providing the service. Regardless of w/e bureaucratic inefficiencies that it will get swamped with, brush that aside for convenience, the competition from other companies that aren't nationalized are going easily outperform this new US, govt run, global business - I can assure you of this. Do we just nationalize everything now because those workers will be leaving those businesses, while they still can, to work at a more successful one because the former one isnt going to be able to compete. If you disagree with that, explain that and ill listen.

You're making an argument for the success of a society that admits to going around legal processes to create it.

How can you honestly "guarantee" that those services will be met for these people when we are likely creating a failed economic strategy on paper + eliminating all legal authority for it?

Like, how do you guarantee anything when you no longer have the legal procedures.