If money does not make the world go around, it certainly moves it forward. Therefore, the greatest international threat over the next decade is the prolonged deflationary recession of debt laden developed nations. The threat comes from both the burden of debt itself, which subjects nations to undue influence by their creditors, as well as the potential for exploitation by every ilk of bottom feeder in existence wanting to seize upon the opportunity to advance their agenda during the economic maelstrom.
The susceptibility of nations to social volatility during a sustained period of economic downturn is perfectly illustrated by recent events in the United States. Social mood pushed the pendulum further left in 2007 than it had been since the late 1970s, then fully recaptured the period with an accelerated swing back to the right in less than two years. The speed of this mood swing is remarkable and accentuates the tumultuous double edged sword of pure capitalism during a prolonged economic downturn.
Additional capitalistic openness of US society puts us at risk in an economic downturn. Due to the lack of financial limits on total campaign funding and a free-for-all revolving door policy between regulatory agencies and industry, sponsorship bias exists for elected officials and industry favoritism for regulators. This is another example of the double edged sword of unadulterated capitalism since industry and special interests may not align with the Federal Republic in a prolonged economic downturn.
Exploitation of religiosity is of particular concern during periods of prolonged economic downturn. Religiosity in the United States is significantly greater than the vast majority of developed countries in the world, and when measured in "number of people" it is greater than or equal to all of them combined.
A severe economic depression combined with natural disasters of a cyclical nature, like earthquakes and powerful solar storms capable of disrupting computers and communications, and other natural disasters stemming from global warming, such as flooding and drought, all of which are predicted by scientists over the near term, could produce a formula for apocalyptic fervor.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Wingnut
Hi
Will you write about pyramid schemes?
Author, you DO see the pyramid scheme symbol on the back of the USA one dollar bill, right? You DO see the servitude infestation in capitalism, right? And do you see the "pay up or lose your wellbeing" Chicago mob-like felony extortion widespread within capitalism? Do you see the "join or starve" felony extortion done to the 18 year olds... by this ugly competer's church called capitalism? See how forcing competer's religions onto 18 year olds... kills membership in the cooperator's church (Christianity/socialism)?? Do you understand that AmWay (American Way) (New World Order) got "the exclusive" (legal tender) on the TYPE of survival coupons (money) accepted in supply depots (stores) and leverages 18 year olds into the organization via that felony activity as well? (It puts AmWay-coupon slaving requirements called price tags... on all the survival goods). Do you understand how farmyard pyramids work... from your childhood?? Remember?? Upper 1/3 are "heads in the clouds" while the kids on the bottom ALWAYS GET HURT from the weight of the world's knees in their backs? Still with me? Do you see anything illegal, immoral, or just plain sick... in any of this pyramid scheme's activities?
Us American Christian socialists are still patiently awaiting the natural fall of the pyramid-o-servitude, or the busting of the free marketeers felony... by the USA Dept of Justice. Us Christians are VERY CLOSE to issuing a cease and desist order until the servitude and inequality goes away... which means it turns into a commune. Commune is a word we LOVE when used in the word "community"... but its one the caps HATE when used in the term "commune-ism". Go fig. PROGRAMMED!!
Do a Google IMAGE SEARCH for 'pyramid of capitalist' to see a full color picture made way back in 1911, when capitalism was first discovered to be a con/sham instigated by the Free Masons/Illuminati. Folks sure bought into the thing... hook, line, and sinker just the same. The caps didn't even check if a string was attached! Now THAT'S easy fishing, eh?
Time to level the felony pyramid scheme called capitalism. Abolish economies and ownershipism worldwide, and hurry. Economies just cause rat-racing, and rat-racing causes felony pyramiding. BUST IT, America! Look to the USA military supply/survival system... (and the USA public library system) for socialism and morals done right. Equal, owner-less, money-less, bill-less, timecard-less, and concerned with growth of value-criteria OTHER THAN money-value. Quit doing monetary discrimination immediately, and make it illegal. There are MANY measurement criteria of "value"... not just dollars. Try morals, efficiency, discrimination-levels, repairability, etc etc. Economies are cancerous tumors, and to cheer for their growth... is just insane. Profiting causes inflation, so if caps LIKE inflation, and if they LIKE a terrible time in afterlife when they meet the planet's ORIGINAL OWNER before caps tried to squat it all with ownershipism, then keep it up with the felony pyramiding. I dare you. While us Christians are finally bulldozing that pyramid scheme back to level, lets make servitude and "join or starve" (get a job or die) illegal in the USA, and lets level the architecture seen in USA courtrooms, too. Right now, USA courtrooms are church simulators or "fear chambers", by special design. Sick.
Isn't that back-of-the-dollar pyramid... a Columbian freemason symbol? And WHERE is the USA gov located? District of Columbia? (Not even part of the USA!) How much more blatant can ya get? The "Fed" runs a pyramid scheme called the free marketeers. If you're using the "federal reserve note" certificates, or using no-other-living-thing-on-the-planet entitles of ownership, you're bought into a servitude/slavery con/sham... called capitalism. Pyramiding 101.
Larry "Wingnut" Wendlandt
MaStars - Mothers Against Stuff That Ain't Right
(anti-capitalism-ists)
Bessemer MI USA
2 - Baronius
Current scapegoats in the United States include Big Insurance, Diebold, Blackwater, Fox News, Ayn Rand followers, and every white person south of the Mason/Dixon line.
3 - Arch ConscienceStain
Current scapegoats in the United States include Big Insurance, Diebold, Blackwater, Fox News, Ayn Rand followers, and every white person south of the Mason/Dixon line.
You forgot the liberal media, illegal immigrants, democrats, and teacher's unions.
Oh, and "activist" judges.
4 - Doug Hunter
Has there ever been a society of any significant numbers that didn't naturally form into some sort of Pyramid type social structure?
5 - zingzing
"Big Insurance,"
deserve it.
"Diebold,"
deserve it.
"Blackwater,"
deserve it.
"Fox News,"
deserve it.
"Ayn Rand followers,"
eh? who cares?
"and every white person south of the Mason/Dixon line."
oh come on, that's ridiculous. i know plenty of white dems down there. so they're not all bad, obviously.
"the liberal media,"
if they are liberal, rather than just not conservative enough for the wingnuts, they should be more objective, and therefore deserve it. daily show doesn't count.
"illegal immigrants,"
they should have come over legally, but the real scapegoat here is the "mexican" of all nationalities and legal statuses, who don't deserve it.
"democrats,"
deserve it. sigh.
"and teacher's unions."
teachers? we don't need no stinking teachers! i am a bit rusty on my long division, but hell, if i don't never use it, my kids won't neither.
6 - zingzing
"Oh, and "activist" judges."
well...
7 - David Waggoner
Larry - This is a "drive the money lenders out of the temple" thing, right? I don't think I could write about it as eloquently as you do.
8 - Baronius
I should have mentioned the two scapegoats of this article, money and religion.
With regard to money, the article mentions campaign donations. Are they such a bad thing? We haven't had restrictions on campaign budgets for most of our history, and I don't see any sign that campaign finance reform has improved our country. The most recent Supreme Court decision on campaign finance didn't set any precedents, and we haven't had an election since it was written, but people on the left are making it out to be a game-changer. That's a scapegoat.
The article mentions the number of religious people in the US, then predicts doom. It doesn't base that prediction on any trends or evidence. Again, that's scapegoating.
9 - zingzing
well, baronius, your religion predicts doom as well, and doesn't base it on any trends or evidence, but on some strange hallucination some guy had. so does religion scapegoat existence?
10 - David Waggoner
Baronius:
The history of campaign reform is one of thrust and parry. BCRA was promising, but now support is wide open again with unlimited "free speech".
RE: Money
Money is not a scapegoat or even a problem. Conversely, the absence of money is our current problem.
Unfettered industry sponsorship of politicians in this country is a problem. Unchecked abuses by industry in the attainment of money is a problem.
Abuses of unchecked capitalism and tainted politicians facilitating a vicious boom and bust cycle is a problem.
RE: Religion
The article does not predict doom. It mentions natural disasters could cultivate religious beliefs to perceive doom. It also suggests religiosity will be exploited if the economy worsens.
David
11 - Baronius
I should have said that better. I was thinking of something like "a catastrophe of zeal", but that wasn't quite coherent. The article does, as you say, suggest a danger in religiosity, but it doesn't back it up with any reasons for alarm. I don't think we're seeing any signs that discontent is drifting toward religious violence in the US.
I'm sure you don't think that you're using campaign finance as a scapegoat, but where's the evidence that it's a source of corruption? There's a chicken-and-egg thing here. A congressman isn't going to vote for the environment because of Sierra Club money. He's going to get Sierra Club money because he votes for the environment.
12 - handyguy
Campaign money is used almost entirely for 30-second attack ads.
This is not a form of communication that actually makes the world a better place or provides anyone anywhere with genuinely useful information. Those ads [all parties, both sides] are just about entirely destructive vehicles designed to discourage people from actually thinking or forming meaningful, fact-based opinions.
Add to that the large number of anonymous donors [larger than ever this year], and you have a very unpalatable brew. I'm surprised anyone would defend this as a good thing.
13 - David Waggoner
RE: Religion
The article does not say we were drifting toward religious violence, it talks of exploitation of religion. It does say an escalation to armed conflict is possible.
Religious exploitation is already rampant in current politics: "Obama is Muslim"; "Man was created in God's image, homosexuality is a societal induced personality disorder"; "Dearborn Michigan is under Sharia law" etc., etc., ad nauseam.
I do believe that If the economy worsens so will scope of exploitation.
Campaign contributions:
I will stick with my analogy of a double edged sword over a "chicken-and-egg thing".
David
David
14 - Baronius
A good thing, Handy? I don't know if I'd go quite that far. The right to political speech is a good thing. The relative goodness of a particular ad or campaign depends on whether or not it's true. I don't believe that money ruins the process.
Anyway, political advertising on TV is doomed to be as irrelevant as any other TV advertising. If campaigns want to pour money into 30-second spots that everyone fast-forwards past (if they watch TV at all), that just shows how out of touch they are. In another twenty years, when all communication takes place through neural implants, this won't even be an issue.
15 - handyguy
You're being completely disingenuous. 30 second attack ads work. That's why campaigns use them, and that really is what most of the money will be used for.
"Political speech" has to mean more than that -- it's such a degraded form. And with the rampant lying and exaggerations on the web and on cable news, there's precious little undegraded political speech left.
I hope you at least agree that donors shouldn't be allowed to be anonymous.
This is separate from the other problem of campaign fundraising: from the time a politician is elected, he must immediately begin begging for money for the next cycle. When that money is readily available from lobbyists and 'special interests,' distortion if not corruption results. "Freedom" and "democracy" that are dependent on that pernicious cycle are bound to be damaged if not destroyed.
16 - handyguy
One more thing: attack ads are often as not circulated on the web now. And in a high-spending, nasty race like the Connecticut Senate campaign going on now, TV viewers are simply bombarded: 5 or 10 times in a 1-hour prime time show.
17 - Baronius
I'm being completely ingenuous. I believe what I wrote, and I'm not crazy about you saying I don't.
Why should a campaign contributor be required to disclose his identity? We're allowed to speak in public or in private on a candidate's behalf without giving our names. This country has a tradition of political speech under pseudonyms. I'm guessing that your parents didn't name you Handyguy, and my (first) name is more common than Baronius.
Anonymous political contributions are analagous to secret ballots. Surely you don't oppose the privacy of the voting booth.
On a practical note, we've seen the harassment of supporters of Proposition 8 in California. Disclosure of their names has affected their livelihoods in some cases. How does that serve free speech or the election process?
18 - roger nowosielski
Baronius's principle of protecting the privacy of the individual via the concept of secret ballot and all such might make sense in a perfect world, a world in which the electoral process is not stained with big money. In the real world, his principle needs to be offset by another principle, the public right to know.
Besides, his argument is flawed by what is called a "category mistake," in this instance, the mistake of conflating the privacy of the individual with the privacy of a group, a clique, or a faction. In effect, therefore, his argument is an argument on behalf of secret societies - not exactly in keeping with the spirit of a democratic form of government.
19 - Cindy
Baronius: Mega-corps playing the system to divert billions into paying politicians for favors is exactly the same as an individual voting in a private booth. Besides, all the billions that are funneling in are being used for stuff that doesn't work.
Give me a break.
That Baronius (and by extension, others) can be so absurd makes me wish for neural implant.
20 - Dan(Miller)
Obviously, the unions better start making some contributions and airing some ads. Alas, they are above that sort of thing. Purity is the curse of the working class!
Oh? They already do? Well I stick to my analysis.
Dan(Miller)
21 - Mother
But mom!!! The unions do it too!
I want you both to keep your hands to yourselves.
(grow up! or better yet, step aside time for a new paradigm...)
22 - Dan(Miller)
Cindy, posting under another name! Must be fun!
Dan(Miller)
23 - Cindy
More fun than a barrel of lawyers!
Ah, but then again, what isn't? ;-)
24 - handyguy
Individual donors to campaigns do have to disclose their identity.
Corporations [and wealthy individuals] can contribute unlimited amounts to certain types of 'nonprofit' 'issue-oriented' groups and remain anonymous.
As Rachel Maddow has pointed out, there is another term for pouring money through an anonymizing front group to hide its source:
Money laundering.
25 - handyguy
Almost any sensible person, left or right, would support the same rules applying to 'issue groups' and to labor unions.
Maddow cited a Bloomberg poll last night that found 84% agreeing that campaign donations should not be allowed to be anonymous.