I wasn't planning a post tonight, but seen this little piece by @badbitch titled You'll have nothing and you must be happy, Bank Of England Chief Economist on why people need to accept being poor and about lost it. Not on badbitch, but on the source material. (Loved the article, girl)
First, let's get one thing straight, Capitalism is not bad and is highly succesful. It's been corrupted, though, and turned against the very engine that makes it great to begin with... "The People". Capitalism stems from the word Capital, which is an accumulation of positive value. You go out and do some labor, or build something, and exchange it for some medium of exchange (fiat, gold, silver, HBD, pick your medium) and you have yourself some capital. Welcome to capitalism.
It used to be, you wanted a house or a car or whatever, you would work, save up your capital and when you had enough, you would take your capital and go trade it across the board and bam, you OWNED it, lock stock and barrel. Now you want a house or a car, why wait?! Just go out and get a loan or a mortgage and you can move in today. You will own in in about 10-30 years, just before you die and after you have worked off 2-3 times the worth of the original product. So, now you own your own home or car... it's only worth about 1/3-1/2 what you paid for it, so when you sell it, you take a huge loss of the capital invested into it.
Banks introduced the idea of loans and mortages as a means to comb capital off the people. Why do you think that Jesus' one recorded act of violence against humanity was to whip the lenders and call them a den of thieves?
Governments followed suit and created ways to operate above and beyond the taxes collected, endorsed education by loan methodology and created taxation favoritism to allow those 'making the biggest contribution to society' (not to mention making the most money from them) to pay lower taxes for the contributions.
And this brings us to the biggest elephant in the room. Corporations. Economies existed for thousands of years before corporations came around and gobbled them all up spitting out cheap products and services and sucking up monies like a cocaine addict. It's these types of idiots that are telling "The People" that they should just get used to being poor and be happy about it. Well, there is a hard solution for "The People".
Let me start by asking you a question. If Exports minus Imports equals the prosperity of a community, then how much do you earn off your exports and how much do you spend buying imports? Would you say that you spend more money on things coming into your community than you make on things being shipped out of your community. All imports represent value leaving the community. If governments and corporations stopped today, how long could your community last without those inputs?
So what's the hard solution? Wean your community off the corporate nipples. Let them become the ones that are poor and get used to their station. Corporations centralize everythin under one banner. They funnel everything upward. Take whatever it is they centralize and decentralize it, one product at a time, if neccessary. I remember when buying a table was chosing between a dozen different local carpenters and 2 dozen different styles. Now everybody in the world chooses between five styles of tables at Walmart built in China. Sure the carpenters might have cost more, but not one penny left the community.
I'm tired and I feel like I'm beginning to ramble. I hope I have given you something to think about. First and formost... not one more red cent in debt. Pay off anything you still owe and borrow no more. Have some patience and save up for what you want. Do what my grandparents did and pay a piggybank like it was a monthly bill till you have what you need. You will work less and pay less. Second, figure out your contribution to your community. Grow something, make something or perform a service that does NOT result in money leaving your community and may even result in money being brought into your community. Third, figure out one thing that you can start getting from a local source instead of getting it from a corporate source.
...And if you are really smart... figure out how to do it all on HBD trades. XD Good night.