Soros made a BILLION selling short the pound. He and his fellow plotting plutocrats assembled an army of rumors to get Britain out of the EMU and the British government caved it. Then they tried the same with France. But that failed.

As I said the entire era of the reign of financial plutocrats was in 1973. The USA got out of Bretton Woods, while the French BANKER (& president!) Pompidou and his finance minister VGE plotted the 1973 law, ostensibly anti-inflationary, but really pro-plutocratic. This is the root of the presently flawed EMU. Amusingly the USA is a socialist republic, relatively speaking.

The Fed loaned dollars to the ECB, but I don’t think it did to the Suisses. No need.
PA

You wrote
“…Soros kicked Britain out of the EMU….” Not sure what you refer to here.
Are you referring to the profit he made by betting the Pound Sterling would be devalued when he sold about 10 billion Pounds because he was aware the British had reserves that were limited?
In general, if you were to assert that this was at the beginning of the era (we’re in today) when private investors began to wield influence and power that Central Banks could no longer ignore this is correct. I’m not putting a positive or negative value on it, just saying it happened. Today Central Banks must act together to be successful at turning back trends they don’t like. i.e. when they acted together last year and halted the rise of gold, the U.S. Fed loaned the ECB lots of dollars so that the ECB in turn could give unlimited amount dollar loans to European banks for 3 years to provide the dollar liquidity they needed, and lastly the Fed (may also have) loaned Switzerland money it used (is using) to keep the Franc from appreciating further once it pegged the Franc to the Euro and then set a barrier at 1.20 Francs per Euro. These are only a couple of examples.

I agree with those who think the primary risk is of banks and other institutions doing foolish things because they believe they will get bailed out. No question that both businesses and government institutions will do foolish things when there do not appear to be any consequences, particularly for managers who will get their bonuses or golden parachutes and can leave town before the roof caves in.

My counter to that is that we are all so screwed at the moment that we just need to pile a ton of resources on research on technology we know for sure has a potential to help and hope we can achieve the same rapid development of new technology as we saw in WWII.

Jens

Justice is a very fuzzy concept. More important in my mind is the consequences. And therefore my long answer is that it depends on how it is done. Redistributing wealth more equally is definitely the way to go, but simply seizing it brings a whole new set of problems because everyone is dependent on the current system, and the wealth siezed wouldn’t be worth anything if the wheels of the economy stopped turning. If you found some way to determine which assets are ‘the wealth of the 1%’ and put it all in a big wealth fund owned by all you would keep the wheels turning, but you would simply have much more of a command economy which brings its own problems.

The second question is also difficult. The discussion here and in the comments below illuminate somewhat: http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2012/04/economist-meets-physicist/#comment-5804

Economic growth in the system we have now is clearly bad, but that is beause the system is flawed and economic growth in itself is not the enemy. Rather the enemy is the tragedy of the commons. Taxing land (land in economic theory is not only land but “all naturally occurring resources whose supply is inherently fixed”) is a great place to start in my mind. The geolibertarians propose to solve many of the typical problems of libertarianism like very unequal distribution of wealth as seen in medieval Iceland, where Norwegian tax and authority refugees created an early anarcho-capitalist/libertarian society (http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Iceland/Iceland.html) and the overconsumption of common resources…it might even be a way to charge for ecosystem services so that the true cost is brought into the economic system.

Economic growth does not necessarily have to consume natural resources and can in theory continue indefinitely. Our current monetary system is not sustainable without growth in world GDP because it is debt-based money. Money is issued as debt by a central bank and the interest on that debt can only be financed by new debt which requires growth to finance. Debt-free money is an interesting proposal that does not require growth. But even if it doesn’t require growth, it doesnt mean that we won’t use up all the limited resources anyway.

So my solution to both question is to put a price on all those finite resources we have on earth and use that tax to maintain a healthy earth and redistribute it to people (which are a part of that ecosystem).

Jens

On question two, once energy restrictions starts, growth is going to be history. Already is, as far as the commons are concerned. The only way out is a massive effort in new tech (thorium reactors!). Scrambling on PV and electricity storage could help considerably.
PA

The other thing on my mind is whether capitalism as we know it can function or even survive in a flat or contracting economy. This again is not retorical. For the past 250 years, the world economy has grown – more people, more manufacturing, more services. What if that growth were to stop? How can capitalism continue to return 5% to the holders of the money when there is no increase in world GDP?

Those who are paid enormously are the tip of an obsession society has, wants to encourage, and thrives by. As the soccer machine, and those who feed it demonstrate their wealth, our society demonstrates a misallocation of resources, and moral failure.

I watch sports on TV rarely. Last time I remember was the finale France Brazil in 98. It was clearly going to be extraordinary, a jump in another universe, where France crushed Brazil. i have never paid a ticket to a sport event (although once I was invited to watch intensely boring American football at Stanford).
As far as I am concerned, sport is to be practiced, and only mental retards believe it’s to be watched… with only the likes of me around, most TV sports would go the way of corrida in Catalunya… Nobody to watch it, and, ultimately outlawed.

Why outlawed? Because, and it’s blatant in the USA, these big TV sports get crucial PUBLIC subsidies (diverting money from universities, too!)
PA

What did Obama do that was courageous? Before he became president? Basketball is not exactly a risky sport… Let alone the fact he is greedy, of course. Among plutocrats, he is a tiny fish larva, a form of plancton, with his measly ten million dollar fortune.
PA