Life Support Ruminations

 Grazing Ruminants,

  I keep ruminating upon the next step in the decline and fall of Globo-Cap. The Hudson/Escobar interview is very long, but this starts "part-2" in my mind.
http://thesaker.is/in-quest-of-a-multipolar-economic-world-order-with-michael-hudson-and-pepe-escobar/

Michael Hudson: [01:11:30] 

  I can’t give you hope. I am all in favor of public banking and I’m on Ellen Brown’s board of directors for her group. However, supposing you had a public bank in Baltimore and the public bank said, we want to provide credit for Baltimore people to be able to afford homes. They would still have to out create enough credit and enough debt to outbid what commercial banks are lending other people that want to buy houses there. So, you can’t have an Island of efficiency and public banking in a system that basically is still financialized. The problem is systemic.

It goes to the courts. You talk about seceding. Then of course it’s possible. And people in Texas were talking about seceding in the 1840s when it was largely a German population. There were more publishers publishing German language books in Texas than there were English language books. But now, I think the way Texans think, if they were to succeed it is not going to be along the lines of public banking that you want . It would be a private bank owned by the oil companies that calls itself, a public bank. We’re in a world of Orwellian rhetoric.

What can the Americans do? They already have voted. We have democracy, they’ve voted for what they wanted to do. What did they vote for? They want shorter lifespans, lower wages, less education and less public services. Their choice is to get these things by a Democrat or by a Republican. But that’s the only choice they have. Other countries have a choice to emigrate, as the Ukrainians and the Greeks and Latvians have done. But I have no idea where Americans can emigrate to.

John again: I personally think Hudson is drawing a bleak, no-way-out picture to avoid drawing attention to what he may see as possible paths out. The military-industrial-financial complex DID use "Super Imperialism" as their cookbook, after all...

  There is (as yet) no way out of the financialized, extractive vampire capitalist bleeding box that encloses America. 

Hudson talks of "revolution" as the only way, and in broad terms. He goes into the current regime being incapable of keeping any contractual obligation, which includes domestic social-contracts with Americans. 

Social Security has been gutted already. It is still paying out claims, but it is bled dry. It is no longer a cash cow for globo-cap. It keeps Americans placated. 

As long as American "consent" is needed by globo-cap, Social Security entitlements need to keep going out every month.

  The extractive system has to extract from somewhere to keep paying maintenance expenses like S.S.
The rest of the world has been accepting $US, backed by US credit, for stuff they make, and shipping that stuff to Americans, which supports Americans every day. It's not so much "trade" as extraction, since the US does send some grain, and licensed intellectual property, but mostly military enforcers.
  The rest of the world knows it is paying to be enslaved, supporting the system which enslaves and bleeds it. Russia, China, Iran, Turkey and India and Pakistan all know the score.
  So do Germany and Japan, but they are regional intermediaries of the imperial system. The intermediaries are important bellwethers. They need to maintain a favorable position in global economy as the hegemony of Western Global Capitalism under the Petrodollar regime is replaced. This transition needs to be "peaceful", at least not WW-3.

 
  Monetary transition needs a parallel trade and finance system. There is always gold.
"Digital gold" is gold. Physical gold has done more ocean travel in recent years, but it mostly travels conceptually via the internet.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is a working parallel trade organization, which Hudson and Escobar discuss.  
"The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an intergovernmental organization founded in Shanghai on 15 June 2001. The SCO currently comprises eight Member States (China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan), four Observer States interested in acceding to full membership (Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran, and Mongolia) and six “Dialogue Partners” (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Turkey)."
​https://dppa.un.org/en/shanghai-cooperation-organization#:~:text=The%20SCO%20currently%20comprises%20eight,Cambodia%2C%20Nepal%2C%20Sri%20Lanka%20and

  Within those nations, trade is increasing in various non-dollar accounting instruments.  The use of the $US as both a means of extraction and a means of bullying-exclusion from global trade has thrust the imperative upon China, Russia, pariah-states and tribute-states alike to build a parallel global trade and finance system. Trust is shot these days, so I think gold-backed cryptocurrency will have to be the fallback.
  The Fed can't print gold, so the Fed loses out. The rest of the world can't be bled, so "TROW" gets a better trade position going forward. 

There will be massive disruption of trade and accounting, but maybe that will come first. 

Maybe disruption of global financial accounting will happen, and the world will be forced into some degree of debt jubilee and financial reset. 

The technology exists.

  A non-extractive global financial regime would not really need central bankers, but maybe just trade accounting at a national level. The rationale for such an arrangement has existed longer than any living human, and was broadly seen as inevitable before the 1980s, as Hudson lays out. Keynes understood trade balances well. So does Hudson.

  In the best case scenario the American people will get less consumer-stuff, and more agency and autonomy. 

Less cheap stuff will come into the Port of Los Angeles, but we will again be able to devise and create, not merely "comply". 

We will work out local economies efficiently, as we, and all of our ancestors have always done. 

We will need to focus a lot more locally. 

The $US has also kept Americans divided and conquered at the local and regional levels. 

At least Americans, some Americans, can still vote with their feet. (I see lots of out-of-state-plates in Austin.)

That stands to really hurt the people who cannot move away from places like Chicago and Detroit.

 
  American cities and states will need broad debt-forgiveness, but those trapped people still need food, water, shelter, fuel, community and medical care. 

Debt payments fund "retirements". How will retired-people be supported and cared for? They need physical protection, too.

  Parasitic gangs need productive-economy options, decent jobs. Parasitic-gang members have the same needs as everybody else, and need a better job-offer. A national infrastructure and public works project has been the historical answer. 

Some people will be abrasive, lazy, scheming and will do crap work. They still need to be rehabilitated from outright criminality. 

Grow vegetables together.

  I think that local money, community banking can come in at this point. A gold-backed $US will be forced upon the current seat of empire. 

No more free-printing.

There could be national reserve currency, backed by gold and silver, and local credit money, through community banking. 

 The local credit money should  stay local. Distant extraction of rents should really be eliminated, since it "kills the host".

Local communities would create local credit for local projects, as Ellen Brown sees in the Bank of North Dakota, and Hudson mentions.

Land/housing rents and natural monopolies , like utilities should be community property, not modes of capital extraction to distant power centers.

Bank mortgages are rent extraction to distant financial power centers.

There is a lot in the interview and transcript which is worthy of careful consideration. 

Pepe Escobar brings a lot of focus to Brazil, to the Amazon. 

Globo-cap really wants to chew up and burn and extract the Amazon.

Little Guy