Lessons learned from 2020
30/12/20 21:24![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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talkpoliticsThe Seven Secrets of 2020 by Yanis Varoufakis
In short:
1. Governments retain inexorable power.
2. The money-tree is real.
3. Solvency is a political decision, at least in the rich West.
4. The mountains of concentrated private wealth we observe have very little to do with entrepreneurship.
5. Science depends on state aid, and its effectiveness is oblivious to its public standing.
6. Capitalists can do much better with less competition.
7. Because things are the way they are, things will not remain the way they are.
The big sad public "secret" that everyone knows but prefers to not pay attention is that the model that's being applied as of now, is one based on pulling money out of thin air. This model has created a system that swallows entire human fates, chews them up and spits them in the dumpster. Ordinary people are just both tools and victims of this gargantuan monster.
The Covid pandemic was a catalyst for this realization. It created more damage than was reasonably acceptable, given the circumstances. The initial response was convoluted, confused, chaotic. Now that we already know what we're dealing with, we've started pulling money out of thin air again, and pumping it into the giant sinkhole that the crisis has created.
Do not expect 2021 to be any better than 2020. We may start turning the tide against the pandemic in the medical sense, but the economic and social consequences are yet to be fully manifested.
In short:
1. Governments retain inexorable power.
2. The money-tree is real.
3. Solvency is a political decision, at least in the rich West.
4. The mountains of concentrated private wealth we observe have very little to do with entrepreneurship.
5. Science depends on state aid, and its effectiveness is oblivious to its public standing.
6. Capitalists can do much better with less competition.
7. Because things are the way they are, things will not remain the way they are.
The big sad public "secret" that everyone knows but prefers to not pay attention is that the model that's being applied as of now, is one based on pulling money out of thin air. This model has created a system that swallows entire human fates, chews them up and spits them in the dumpster. Ordinary people are just both tools and victims of this gargantuan monster.
The Covid pandemic was a catalyst for this realization. It created more damage than was reasonably acceptable, given the circumstances. The initial response was convoluted, confused, chaotic. Now that we already know what we're dealing with, we've started pulling money out of thin air again, and pumping it into the giant sinkhole that the crisis has created.
Do not expect 2021 to be any better than 2020. We may start turning the tide against the pandemic in the medical sense, but the economic and social consequences are yet to be fully manifested.
(no subject)
Date: 31/12/20 18:51 (UTC)Add to this that fascism has taken a blow but is hardly likely to roll over and accept the verdict of elections when it didn't reconcile itself to losing the war it started and well....