Throwing insults instead of engaging with the arguments is a sign either of cowardice, ideological bankruptcy or intellectual limitations. It could be all three.

http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/37321

QUESTION: ...I as 23 year old student worrying about my future. Classmates and friends experience hard times to find jobs and start a family. In these times it is almost impossible to find a job paying a non slavery salary. Let alone the recent requirements to get a mortgage.
My question to you: how to deal with these developments in these turbulent times? What can i, as student with minimal savings, do to ‘survive’ the coming sovereign debt crisis and to life a fulfilling live?...



And that's not to mention all the unpaid job placements (called job training) they do for years. The easy answer would be START A REVOLUTION.


"ANSWER: I have met with students in Paris and throughout Europe. The politicians cannot understand that they are destroying your future. All they can see is their need to retain power, but the high levels of taxes are so burdensome that they are preventing the creation of new jobs."

High levels of taxes is only a problem if they fall on the poor and weak. Whereas if they fall on the rich (which they no longer do as politicians act as agents for the wealthy and have been since Thatcher and Reagan) then we've got wealth redistribution and social justice. Today's politicians collaborate with the money lobbies and get their payoffs later in sinecure jobs in management and banking.


"We are reaching the end of this noose around our neck that was placed there by Marx..".


Poor old Karl. All he ever wanted to do was to free the masses from the slavery of capitalism and poverty. And for that he regularly gets aggressive  comments like this one that reflect over a century of accumulated bile. He should be revered instead of his ghost being constantly slagged off as some kind of incarnation of evil in assertions that have no arguments to prop them up. Without Marx we would all be mental serfs (as many of us still are). He's the drug that expanded the oppressed's minds into shaking off their chains, or at least trying to. Yet, he's automatically seen as a bad guy delighting in unspeakable deeds of equality. Lay off the propaganda tablets, man. By criticising sources of hope you're playing the capitalists' game. You're part of the problem although I'm sure you don't mean to be.


"...It is interesting how in the USA they call me a “conservative”, yet in France, they call me a “liberal” because I am against authoritative socialism. The labels change, but the message remains the same

Why did Marxism collapse? Because government cannot create anything new, for that requires the freedom to act and imagine which is exclusively an individual trait..."


Where is the proof of these overarching assertions? Why can't things be created collectively? MA is just sloganeering. I hope no one's listening. Slagging off Marxism just leads to the dead end of cynicism and despair.



"...Government creates nothing. They are the great destroyer..."



Under the tsars the mass of Russians lived in the sort of poverty we cannot even start to imagine and after the 1917 revolution they had housing, jobs, education and health care. But for those that today already have these essentials  of life, that the poor and downtrodden should get it by government action is seemingly pure anathema.



"...Companies grow and become bureaucratic. In the process, they terminate the creative genius upon which all companies are found...."



That's what you call the will to exploit others and live off their backs?



"...A creative person is a NON-CONFORMIST...."



Creative doesn't just mean setting up a business, thankfully. Artists are indeed exceptional people and don't need constraints. Business people are dangerous psychopaths and need all the constraints we can lay on them. Their selfishness is leading to the destruction of the world. They've already enslaved the whole of humanity with globalisation.



...Consequently, they do not suffer regulation and bureaucratic systems. So in come the lawyers and the accountants who then eject the creativity from the board, exactly as Apple got rid of Steve Jobs. Once the creative person is gone, the company begins its slow death...



Yippee!The sooner these parasites disappear the better for the rest of us. Is Armstrong seriously asking us to shed a tear for the poor businessman and woman?



"At first, they buy startups and pay huge money to gain creativity. In the end, bureaucracy kills the corporation for the very same reason government destroys the economy and shrinks it, no matter what they pretend."



That's how the USSR moved in a generation and despite two world wars and a deadly civil war (and with no outside help) from a backwards agrarian economy to a modern industrial one rivalling the usa in technology and production. First into space. Sorry yanks. Clearly the Soviet government destroyed the Russian economy! Why do you ignore great swathes of history?



"The is just one aspect that Marx could not see for there is no difference between a corrupt bureaucratic CEO running a company and a corrupt bureaucratic politician. Hence, socialism can Readnot survive for it lowers the living standard of the whole."



I've just shown the contrary.



"It is nice that we have social programs, but that came at a huge cost."



You can call them "nice" if you're a rich, well-meaning person but for those that receive (or no longer do with the conservatives in the UK for example) they're ESSENTIAL.


"Families were once tight groups for your children were your retirement since they took care of their parents in old age."



In rich families that was the case but for the rest of the population many old people went to the poor houses. Isn't that nice? Sorry about my tone but we're talking about people's lives here.



"Today, children no longer save to take care of their parents — that’s government’s job. Consequently, Eastern Europe and Asia (excluding Japan) are far better situated to cope with the future for they do not rely upon government."


Does it have to be one or the other? Can't it be both? MA is saying get rid of pensions then?



"The distrust of government in former communist areas is many times as much of what you will find in Europe or North America, ..."



What sociological tool has Armstrong used to measure the levels of distrust?



"...and indeed the majority rather than a minority. This will greatly insulate those regions from the worst decline compared to Europe and North America.

What you need to do is take back government. You cannot create a solution with the same line of thinking that created the current mess. The future belongs to the youth. Understand the devil you are dancing with. It is time to become politically active and challenge the establishment for that is the only way to save the future."


I say we must challenge government because it walks hand in hand with the rich. The state is the capitalist's tool for maintaining its hegemony. It makes the laws that further the rich's interests and helps them portion off ever greater quantities of wealth created by the workers (that's us). That's why we're in crisis. Their greed knows no limits. We are robbed of the profits of our work by parasitic capitalists who control the state to make their laws and the media to propagate their ideas and values.



"Many people do not appreciate what Thomas Jefferson..."



Wasn't he a slave-owner? Armstrong approves of the words of slave owners?



"...defined as part of the entire No Taxation Without Representation issue."




Good job there's no virtual tea around here or those poor merchants might just chuck into the digital sea!



"True, this began by the fact that taxes were not a right of the king and could only be authorized with the CONSENT of the people, which was given by their REPRESENTATIVES in Parliament."



Obviously.



"The “representation” was originally by the people for these representatives were NOT career politicians. We have lost ALL representation for politicians have become the career bureaucrats and thus exempt themselves from most of the laws they inflict upon the rest of us..."



Totally agree except for Cuba and Venezuala and some other states in South America.



"So once again the system has evolved into career politicians whereby we have lost all real representation transforming us into the property of the state to be herded like cattle and taxed to sustain the bureaucrats..."



We sustain bureaucrats AND capitalists. No wonder we can't make ends meet.



"While we may not yet be at that stage in the game since money is intangible for now, thanks to Marx, we are targeting the rich. Of course There was Maximinus I (235-238AD)whose reign lasted about 3.14 years. He simply declared ALL wealth within the Roman Empire belonged to the state (him) and paid rewards for anyone who gave information about someone hiding wealth precisely as governments do today – Germany & France paying bribes to Swiss Bankers to destroy their own country, US International Revenue Service paying rewards for reporting anyone not paying their taxes to such informants all precisely as Maximinis I operated."



I really get the feeling I'm being manipulated by spurious arguments that range over centuries and from one type of society to another. All this is very flimsy. Armstrong makes dangerous comparisons and draws toxic conclusions. Yes, the whole system is corrupt and needs destroying. I don't need to be told about some obscure Roman to know that. Marx will do nicely!



"Today, we once again have taxation without representation for those in office never represent the people but only government interest. But Jefferson added another dimension. Jefferson saw a national debt as two evils. First there was the fiscal problem of debt and interest. However, there was also a philosophical problem that everyone seems to overlook and this is the origin of the crisis faced by the Youth."



Maybe that idea came to him when he was whipping one of his slaves.



"Jefferson explained in a lettered dated September 6th, 1789 he wrote to James Madison stating that “the earth belongs ,,, to the living” and therefore “the dead have neither powers nor rights over it” whereby one’s parents had no authority to impose decisions upon their children and posterity who had no part in making them and that “every constitution,” “every law,” and every public debt should expire within a generation of its enactment. “If it be enforced longer,” he argued, “it is an act of force, and of right.” (PTJm 15:392, 396)"




I hate unjust force, too. But for me force has to be used to control capitalist criminals otherwise we'll end up under a mafia regime that's even worse than what we've got now.




"Therefore, I fully agree with Jefferson. You are burdened and your future has been predetermined for you are being taxed without any choice in the matter."



That's true because democracy works only for the rich.



"...You have been stripped of all your rights and your future has been stolen by socialists..."



I burst out laughing here. What a caricaturist you are, Armstrong! Why should socialists want to live well by robbing people of their freedom? They just have to become capitalists to do that. Socialists want happiness for everybody. They have ideals that guide their actions. They're not just in it for themselves. They're in it for others because they cannot stand to see injustice, poverty and suffering all over the world.



"...who wanted to live well by robbing you of your freedom and capacity to determine your own future...."



Why has MA got this pathological hatred of socialists, collective action and equality?



"For this, you must become politically active. Taxation is evil, and we no longer need taxation since money is no longer a commodity. Money is purely representational dependent upon faith and confidence. Government should not be allowed to borrow, for money should be created for its expense limited to a percent of GDP that cannot be increased except in time of war if ATTACKED – not like a 100 years war to justify taxation."



Taxation is the means by which gaping social injustices are slightly levelled out. Without taxes, there'd be no schools, no health care, no police, no roads - no public services. It'd truly be every man for himself. The jungle at our front door. The war of everyone against everyone else. Is that what Armstrong is proposing? Aren't we stronger as a species when we collaborate with one another instead of ripping one another off all the time?

Being a fan of American musical extremists, I'm not that likely to defend the Brits apart maybe AMM, PIL, Spacemen 3 and Floyd, especially early (and others I can't think of for now like King Crimson and Joy Division). I obviously like loads of UK bands but few seem to take it to the edge like the yanks -Beefheart, MC5, Stooges, No Wave, Sonic Youth, Père Ubu, Patti Smith, Magick Markers, Ramones, Red Crayola ...... Lester Bangs had little time for us limeys in music - I think they think we spend our time poncing around in beautifully studied and staid poses, that we're fey and fairy-minded, that we are masters of melody and pop but lacking in vital energy. Maybe living in a monarchy and being basically "nice" people (though much less now than before it seems) makes us like harmony, balance and being reasonable in life and art. It could seem to the yanks that we're too peevish and ashamed to put our balls on the table. But since Oscar Wilde has become part of what we are and that involves stepping back from the fire of art and creation and observing it at a distance, impersonally and without passion and involvement and that might well rile Americans - anyway, it does me. At times I want to shake my fellow countrymen into life! We're being stifled by politeness and ideas of the "correct" thing to do in all circumstances. We're very self-conscious and have constantly in our minds the big eyes of society staring at us and influencing our decisions in art and life. I don't think the yanks are like that so much - this means they're freer to create and they get to places we never dream of.