Saturday, May 20, 2017

David Beer — The power of money: how the rich took hold of our monetary systems to make themselves richer


On Ann Pettifor’s The Production of Money: How to Break the Power of Bankers
Open Democracy
The power of money: how the rich took hold of our monetary systems to make themselves richer
David Beer | Reader in Sociology at the University of York

13 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Can't say I'm too interested in the views of a sociologist on a book on banking...:-)

Matt Franko said...

"Back in 2015 ‘the deficit’ was a powerful concept used to promote the case for austerity..... economist Simon Wren-Lewis beautifully unpicked the concept of ‘the deficit’ and its advancement...."

More arguments over concepts.... this is childish... "I know you are but what am I?"

Material systems competent people do not use concepts... they will continue to get nowhere....

Penguin pop said...

Matt, it's a large reason why economics as a profession is a joke. It's the ultimate source of alternative facts. Idiots who can't even read a Daily Treasury Statement or be able to understand the nuances of how the Federal Reseve operates trying to yammer on about nonsense. Assclowns can just make shit up and try to disguise it as academic by randomly citing Keynes or Friedman or take your pick of dead economist of yesteryear.

It's like when I clearly explained some Green Party guy on YouTube who kept telling me the Fed is private and I backed up what I was saying with audits that are already out in the public. He was calling for the Fedtl be audited but didn't understand OIG already audits it several times a year. Even after my detailed explanation, he STILL kept calling the Fed private. No understanding of public-private partnerships either and how they work or how by law, Fed has to give back its earnings to the US Treasury. I've come to the conclusion a lot of lefties were former libertarians and Ron Paul fans if they still hold onto such nonsense.



Matt Franko said...

Peng,

It looks like their cognitive processes just dont work like ours... this whole misunderstandings could be just a conflict between cognitive methodologies used by the different groups...

It may be that with people, the cognitive methodology is actually more important than what is attempting to be taught...

Matt Franko said...

same thing with the new Afghan schools issue down thread... someone may want to look at the teaching methodology used in the schools that are being set up...

Medical systems are STEM based so the people there are not conceptual and are instead employing active methods (exhibition of direct care/concern for the natives...) maybe not the same in the education institutions being set up...

Hate to say it, but imo the western academe is pretty f-ed up currently and imo all they are trying to do is F the students over all the time... not necessarily actually educating...

Penguin pop said...

Sometimes I feel like I'm arguing with Flat Earthers when they keep denying obvious, basic facts right in front of them which was what happened there. Is it also a case of learned helplessness? Do people want to feel like they can't do anything so they'd rather imagine all these conspiracies to distract themselves from not wanting to admit they don't know something? I want to understand the cognitive thought process here as well.

I agree the current education system in the US sucks, relying on really outdated teaching techniques and not taking into account all the things that have changed since the 1950s

Matt Franko said...

People just seem to not want to talk about the methodology as part of all of this...

Teachers just jump right in to whatever method suits them best and think theirs is the superior method or maybe they think students will just have to deal with their method or flunk out... must be nice how do I get that job?!?!

Matt Franko said...

"Do people want to feel like they can't do anything so they'd rather imagine"

Well maybe they actually can't... so they are in truth just acting out of frustration...

Matt Franko said...

"Even after my detailed explanation, he STILL kept calling the Fed private. "

This "private!" thing is really just a glorified version of the same thing as the whole "bankster!" meme... which you can see even a leading MMT guy Bill Black (trained jurist) going all around spewing that concept... getting nowhere...

NeilW said...

"This "private!" thing is really just a glorified version of the same thing as the whole "bankster!" meme"

The Banksters are the problem and they need trimming down to size. That frees up loads of space for public tax cuts or spending and the only people that lose out are Banksters.

The private Fed routine is just a bunch of people who don't understand what a trust is and the difference between a beneficial owner and a trustee. They have no idea about the nebulous concept of ownership of corporations and how that works in practice (that all corporations are essentially a form of trust).

The way to deal with it is to ask what the control point is. Which one of these private 'owners' or any of their actions actually controls what Congress can instruct the Fed to do. They draw a blank at that point or drift of into full conspiracy theory territory.

Tom Hickey said...

Can't say I'm too interested in the views of a sociologist on a book on banking...:-)

He making the point that economists only look at economic factors while social and political factors are also highly relevant. The result that economists expect don't happen and they are scratching their heads as to why the real world doesn't conform to the models.

It's another instance of economists arrogance and stupidity.

Tom Hickey said...

Material systems competent people do not use concepts... they will continue to get nowhere....

The symbols for variables in an equation stand for concepts. So do the symbols for the constants.

Concepts are sets, sets of sets, etc.

It's all reducible to set theory. That includes math, which is built on set theory.

Logicians figured this out long ago.

mike norman said...

"Belief" is a powerful thing. Just look at religion. How long that has lasted. Humans should have abandoned it by now.