As with everything concerning international law: it depends on the weapons and strategic alliances of each entity.
There are several reasons why China is ramping up ICBM production, the possibility of a country in debt “switching sides” in order to avoid payment, is likely one of them.
I’m no economist, but I’m pretty sure what we have now is 100% capitalism. It’s exactly how many people predicted capitalism would look like if given enough time.
Many years ago, a libertarian classmate asked me how I think the world would look like if corporations were unregulated. I told him (again, without being an economist) that corporations would probably become the new countries, that they would own everything like monarchs used to, as a few corporations monopolized everything. (I still find his answer funny: “And wouldn’t that be better?”. I just told him “Of course not!” thinking “WTF?”).
My point is that this idea that the current system is “worse than capitalism” and “capitalism is dead”, stems from some kind of idealization of what capitalism is supposed to be like, and not from the realities that many people have been pointing out throughout the XX and XXI centuries about how capitalism works and what its end-goal is. This is exactly what capitalism looks like. “Technofeudalism” seems like yet another way of not addressing the issue, like when people say “the problem is not capitalism! it’s crony capitalism!”. As if there is some form of capitalism that has ever put people over money.
Also:
It might look like a market, but Varoufakis says it’s anything but. Jeff (Bezos, the owner of Amazon) doesn’t produce capital, he argues. He charges rent. Which isn’t capitalism, it’s feudalism.
Again, I’m no economist, so someone correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure the capitalists (i.e. the owners of the means of production) have never produced capital. The workers do. The capitalist have always taken the profits of their worker’s labour in exchange for using those means of production. You could call that “charging rent”.
There is nothing new about what’s going on right now, except on the superficial level, the specific tech that’s being used to achieve the monopolistic goals of any corporation. Given enough time, the inevitable concentration of power that capitalism leads to, will always look like feudalism.
I still find his answer funny: “And wouldn’t that be better?”
libertarians man, I swear
feels like every other one I meet just repeats what the rest of them say without even thinking about it. Reminds me of the video I saw where a leading libertarian presidential candidate said he supported driver’s licenses and the entire room booed him.
Every libertarian I’ve ever met is convinced that actors will somehow be way more rational and benevolent when laissez-faire economics allows the market to act freely, as though ‘zero regulations’ is not already the goal of every major corporation, in order to more completely fuck over everyone they touch.
Either that, or they’re convinced they’re a good enough prepper to avoid being killed or captured by the inevitable PMC armies that arise from the libertarian apocalypse.
Every libertarian I’ve ever met is convinced that actors will somehow be way more rational and benevolent when laissez-faire economics allows the market to act freely
But then they’ll use the exact opposite reason as to why forms of socialism won’t work; that people are selfish, greedy and exploitive.
For everyone else, loans will be forgiven no matter what after a maximum of 25 years, and Pierce said all borrowers should expect even more changes to the student loan system coming next summer.
Am I correct in thinking that no matter what, after 25 years whatever you would owe would be discharged?
It’s like hailing the medical jubilee as some kind big policy step forward when medical debt is still a massive anchor on Americans. You’re not doing anything to fix the problem. This is just aesthetics (pr)
Gangs are running profitable businesses inside the correctional facilities, and even have the keys to their own units. Recent rioting showed the extent of their power, posing a difficult challenge for the government of Daniel Noboa.
These local ruinations are just a temporary blip versus China’s hard demographic facts like how over the last 10 years their birth rate has crashed harder than the birth rate of the Jews during the Holocaust.
“On 11 November 2023, it was alleged Tuta was being used as a honeypot for criminals with a backdoor from authorities. An ex-RCMP officer, Cameron Ortis, testified that the service was used as a storefront to lure criminals in and gain information on those who fell for it. He stated authorities were monitoring the whole service, feeding it to Five Eyes, which would disperse it back to the RCMP in order to gain more knowledge about the criminal underground. Though, no evidence is ever presented to back up this statement.”
theguardian.com
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