anotherlife

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Nov 17, 2012
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Do you know the old Tenessee Ford song of I owe my soul to the company store?

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store…
Full lyrics on Google Play Music

In those days, miners and steel workers were forced to spend all their wages before they earned it because the only shop at their camps was the company shop and it set prices such that they never had to actually pay a wage to the workers.

Today, the government and the central banks define you with credit files that are designed to do this same thing and push every price out of your reach by underwriting every loan until you owe all your money away before you earn it.

Why am I the only student who ever thought of this blatant precedence?
 
Can you elaborate?
There are many ways to illustrate this, I guess here is one of them. Government underwrites everything blindly in exchange for removing bank secrecy. With this agreement, everything can be financed, including all things that didn't need to be financed before. Surely people will not want to buy things that they can only afford on credit, but there will always be some that do, and this sets it in motion. Slowly pushing all prices high enough out of reach. And since there will be nowhere to go, these new centrally dictated prices determine where your money goes even before you earn it. In the olden company stores on the era of the 16 ton song, the same frozen mobility applied, and the companies set the prices in their stores with knowing how much each customer will get in wages next week or any time in the future. Complete control by the single power entity and zero defense for the customer/worker.
 
Can you elaborate?
There are many ways to illustrate this, I guess here is one of them. Government underwrites everything blindly in exchange for removing bank secrecy. With this agreement, everything can be financed, including all things that didn't need to be financed before. Surely people will not want to buy things that they can only afford on credit, but there will always be some that do, and this sets it in motion. Slowly pushing all prices high enough out of reach. And since there will be nowhere to go, these new centrally dictated prices determine where your money goes even before you earn it. In the olden company stores on the era of the 16 ton song, the same frozen mobility applied, and the companies set the prices in their stores with knowing how much each customer will get in wages next week or any time in the future. Complete control by the single power entity and zero defense for the customer/worker.
Then you learn how to make more money to keep above the debt waters....so to speak...
 
Can you elaborate?
There are many ways to illustrate this, I guess here is one of them. Government underwrites everything blindly in exchange for removing bank secrecy. With this agreement, everything can be financed, including all things that didn't need to be financed before. Surely people will not want to buy things that they can only afford on credit, but there will always be some that do, and this sets it in motion. Slowly pushing all prices high enough out of reach. And since there will be nowhere to go, these new centrally dictated prices determine where your money goes even before you earn it. In the olden company stores on the era of the 16 ton song, the same frozen mobility applied, and the companies set the prices in their stores with knowing how much each customer will get in wages next week or any time in the future. Complete control by the single power entity and zero defense for the customer/worker.

I don't think the analogy works, the economy of the country is vast and diversified with millions in varying income levels. It is hard for the poor to get credit. The middle class has an easier time but they are certainly priced out of the market on many items. Your idea is that everyone makes about the same amount of money? I'm having trouble seeing how this equates to the economy at large.
 
Can you elaborate?
There are many ways to illustrate this, I guess here is one of them. Government underwrites everything blindly in exchange for removing bank secrecy. With this agreement, everything can be financed, including all things that didn't need to be financed before. Surely people will not want to buy things that they can only afford on credit, but there will always be some that do, and this sets it in motion. Slowly pushing all prices high enough out of reach. And since there will be nowhere to go, these new centrally dictated prices determine where your money goes even before you earn it. In the olden company stores on the era of the 16 ton song, the same frozen mobility applied, and the companies set the prices in their stores with knowing how much each customer will get in wages next week or any time in the future. Complete control by the single power entity and zero defense for the customer/worker.

I don't think the analogy works, the economy of the country is vast and diversified with millions in varying income levels. It is hard for the poor to get credit. The middle class has an easier time but they are certainly priced out of the market on many items. Your idea is that everyone makes about the same amount of money? I'm having trouble seeing how this equates to the economy at large.
At this time the analogy doesn't yet fully work. But the credit to earning gap is fast increasing, so the variance of earnings will be negligible compared to credit policies.
 
Can you elaborate?
There are many ways to illustrate this, I guess here is one of them. Government underwrites everything blindly in exchange for removing bank secrecy. With this agreement, everything can be financed, including all things that didn't need to be financed before. Surely people will not want to buy things that they can only afford on credit, but there will always be some that do, and this sets it in motion. Slowly pushing all prices high enough out of reach. And since there will be nowhere to go, these new centrally dictated prices determine where your money goes even before you earn it. In the olden company stores on the era of the 16 ton song, the same frozen mobility applied, and the companies set the prices in their stores with knowing how much each customer will get in wages next week or any time in the future. Complete control by the single power entity and zero defense for the customer/worker.
Then you learn how to make more money to keep above the debt waters....so to speak...
That would require an accessible market, I think. But it is currently defined by 3rd party payers in most sectors, so negotiating it has diminishing latitude.
 
Do you know the old Tenessee Ford song of I owe my soul to the company store?

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store…
Full lyrics on Google Play Music

In those days, miners and steel workers were forced to spend all their wages before they earned it because the only shop at their camps was the company shop and it set prices such that they never had to actually pay a wage to the workers.

Today, the government and the central banks define you with credit files that are designed to do this same thing and push every price out of your reach by underwriting every loan until you owe all your money away before you earn it.

Why am I the only student who ever thought of this blatant precedence?

Sounds like the Epipen theme song
 
Do you know the old Tenessee Ford song of I owe my soul to the company store?

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt
Saint Peter don't you call me 'cause I can't go
I owe my soul to the company store…
Full lyrics on Google Play Music

In those days, miners and steel workers were forced to spend all their wages before they earned it because the only shop at their camps was the company shop and it set prices such that they never had to actually pay a wage to the workers.

Today, the government and the central banks define you with credit files that are designed to do this same thing and push every price out of your reach by underwriting every loan until you owe all your money away before you earn it.

Why am I the only student who ever thought of this blatant precedence?

I certainly believe that the way that corporations have the working class by the nape of his neck is a pretty sad state of affairs. You're certainly not the only person who has noticed the way the world is going in this regard. To truly understand how we find ourselves in our current predicament, I think a working understanding of the way most money is created is in order. My favourite documentary on that subject is Money as Debt, the trailer of which can be seen here:
 
I'm half Irish and half Italian. That means that my ancestors on the Irish side have been part of the Western economic system for about 600 years. On my Italian side, probably about 2000 years. If a generation is about 25 years, that means that on my Irish side there have been about 24 generations and on the Italian side, about 80 generations. All these people worked for most of their lives, some were probably manual laborers, some skilled laborers, some educated professionals. It's doubtful that any lived extravagant lifestyles.

Yet the sum total wealth of all these generations of workers is very near zero. Each died without leaving any significant inheritance to their heirs - no accumulation of wealth over their lifetimes. All the wealth that they produced through their lifetimes of work went into the pockets of the wealthiest. And it is not just my ancestry - pretty much 99% of all people who have lived in Western Society and worked there whole lives have had all the wealth that they created through their hard work funneled up to the wealthiest 1%.

The credit based economy that we now have is just the latest and most sophisticated system of insuring that all wealth is funneled up to the wealthiest 1%.

Worker make enough to stay alive at best - living pay check to paycheck, but the system is carefully tuned to insure that they accumulate no wealth over the course of their lives.

We'll all be in debt most of our working lives, just saving enough to have an nearly impoverished retirement, then the medical system will make sure that any wealth we have left is taken from us just before we die.

The only way to get ahead is to die suddenly - before they can get their hands on our money.
 
I'm half Irish and half Italian. That means that my ancestors on the Irish side have been part of the Western economic system for about 600 years. On my Italian side, probably about 2000 years. If a generation is about 25 years, that means that on my Irish side there have been about 24 generations and on the Italian side, about 80 generations. All these people worked for most of their lives, some were probably manual laborers, some skilled laborers, some educated professionals. It's doubtful that any lived extravagant lifestyles.

Yet the sum total wealth of all these generations of workers is very near zero. Each died without leaving any significant inheritance to their heirs - no accumulation of wealth over their lifetimes. All the wealth that they produced through their lifetimes of work went into the pockets of the wealthiest. And it is not just my ancestry - pretty much 99% of all people who have lived in Western Society and worked there whole lives have had all the wealth that they created through their hard work funneled up to the wealthiest 1%.

The credit based economy that we now have is just the latest and most sophisticated system of insuring that all wealth is funneled up to the wealthiest 1%.

Worker make enough to stay alive at best - living pay check to paycheck, but the system is carefully tuned to insure that they accumulate no wealth over the course of their lives.

We'll all be in debt most of our working lives, just saving enough to have an nearly impoverished retirement, then the medical system will make sure that any wealth we have left is taken from us just before we die.

The only way to get ahead is to die suddenly - before they can get their hands on our money.

actually the Chinese make about 6 times less than we do but save 40% of what they earn. What does that teach you??
 

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