Jayati Ghosh speaks about the growing debt crisis in the global south, the IMF’s never-ending affinity for austerity and the need to confront the power of financial capital.
Jayati Ghosh has already teamed up with Michael Hudson on this. Financial capitalism interfaces with neoliberalism, neo-imperialism, and neocolonialism by gaining control using investment and debt, enforced by the "rules-based order" to the advantage of financial capital, which the Global North/West uses to dominate the Global South/East. The Global South/East is waking up to this. Decolonization is in the air. Russia and China have teamed up to provide the power needed for resistance. The battle for control is on as the West, dominant for 500 years, faces a challenge to its continued dominance.
MR Online
Debtors of the world, unite!
Liam Kennedy interviews Jayati Ghosh, Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi
Originally published: Red Pepper on June 25, 2023 by Liam Kennedy
See also at MR Online
Europe is waking up to the fact that it is not a partner of the "Anglo-Saxons" but a vassal. The British fancy themselves as partners but that is wishful thinking owing to the "special relationship." But the UK has been vassalized too after losing the empire to the US post-WWII.
See also
Interesting not so much for Ukraine as for the requirements for a cashless society. Ukraine is nowhere near meeting them. In contrast, Sweden is mostly a cashless society de facto, but not de jure.
The concept of "cashless" is also interesting in that many if not most people think of "money" as the money-thing, or token, which is cash (bills and coin) in their thinking. For example, Article 1, section 8 of the US Constitution gives the federal government the power to "coin money."
Will War-Torn, Power-Starved Ukraine Be World’s First Cashless Economy? (Serious Question)
Nick Corbishley
Cash is being equated with anonymity and freedom - which it isn't.
ReplyDelete“ Decolonization is in the air.”
ReplyDeleteYo… it’s July 4th… 1776 was 250 years ago…
Attempting to go commie ≠ Decolonization
ReplyDelete“Many if not most people think of ‘money’ as the money-thing, or token, which is cash (bills and coin) in their thinking.”
ReplyDeleteCorrect. Money is a mental concept, like the number “3,” or like points on a scoreboard. Money has no physical form or existence. No one has ever seen the number “3,” or seen points, or seen a dollar, or seen an idea. People only see symbols, tokens, and objects that represent these mental entities.
Tokens (e.g. coins and currency notes) can be traded, spent, and stored like money, but they are not actually money. They represent money.
A child can understand this, but most adults refuse to understand it. Therefore most adults enslave themselves to the lie that money is physical and limited, and to the lie that gold is “true” money. (Gold is a commodity, not money.)
If federal politicians want to spend limitless money on something, they order limitless money created out of thin air. However if federal politicians do not want to spend money on something, they falsely claim that the U.S. government is “broke” and must “borrow” money from someone.
Before 1971, politicians used the “gold standard” gimmick when they wanted to claim that there was “no money” for something. However politicians ignored the “gold standard” when they wanted a war, for example. Politicians simply created the money for it. The resulting increase in the money supply, combined with shortages of consumer goods caused by rationing, made inflation a danger. Therefore, during WW II, the U.S. government imposed a federal withholding tax, and sold “war bonds” in order to get dollars out of the economy. The U.S. government falsely told American peasants that tax revenue and “war bonds” were necessary to “fund the war.” And the peasants believed this lie.
Today some politicians falsely claim that the US government has a “debt crisis,” and that Medicare and Social Security are “broke.” Meanwhile politicians create infinite money for Ukraine, and for the Military Industrial Complex and so on.
QUESTION: If gold is not actual money, then why are countries like China and Russia stockpiling gold?
ANSWER: Because the West cannot sanction or steal gold unless the gold is stored in Western vaults like Venezuela’s gold was. Gold is a sanction-proof means of storing national financial assets.
“Article 1, section 8 of the US Constitution gives the federal government the power to ‘coin money’.”
This refers not to physical coins, but to the other definition of “coin,” which is to invent or devise.
“He coined a new phrase.” “He coined a new technique.”
“Europe is waking up to the fact that it is not a partner of the ‘Anglo-Saxons’ but a vassal.”
Europeans know this, but European politicians profit from it, and therefore crush anyone who speaks the truth. European politicians sold out their nations to the U.S. Empire for their own personal gain. The war on Russia is about enslaving Europe. Ukraine is an excuse for this, a pretext, camouflage.
“The British fancy themselves as partners, but that is wishful thinking owing to the ‘special relationship.’ But the UK has been vassalized too after losing the empire to the US post-WWII.”
U.K. adults understand this, but woke U.K. liberals do not. The U.K. is Washington’s little bitch; a slave; a pipsqueak island nation that (like France) has no business being on the U.N. Security Council.