So basically you're not to blame if you contractually agree to a shitty service and then forget to maintain the conditions? There's a good reason I do my credit business through reputable establishments with reasonable T&C and interest rates rather than Bruce the leg breaker at the local fucking pub... Because Bruce is a cunt and his T&C are ass rape...

I have 55 days interest free on my platinum card and I've not spent a single cent in interest in about 16 years. Mostly cos my wife would kick my ass harder than the bank, but it's a matter of discipline rather than the bank being a pack of pricks. I agreed to the terms, I need to meet them.

There's probably a fair point to be made somewhere in there about usuary rates re: credit cards, but the airline bit is a fucking silly...

Budget airlines offer everything as a pay for after the ticket price service because people want cheap fairs. In some cases, it's actually cheaper to fly today than it was 30 years ago in the 80's... (http://www.smh.com.au/business/aviation/international-air-fares-at-30year-low-20160422-gocr1r.html)

Well, funny that, people don't want to pay for a premium product and they get a shitty one that nickel and dimes them to death to try and keep the margins up (aka "staying in business").

You can look at plenty of markets where cheap, shit products are now the standard because people either won't or can't pay for quality ones. It's the entire reason why many industries outsource to foreign wage slaves and why cheap Chinese shit shows up everywhere as well known and reliable brands go out of business.

Yes, the US certainly has a problem with a lack of oversight on various industries which allows them to get away with a lot, but the customer/end user has to take some responsibility as well.

@RedSky

First, if it were up to me, you could take over as Minister of Finance in this country tomorrow. Our differences seem miniscule compared to what horrendous policies our last three MoF have pushed. The one prior, ironically, was dubbed the most dangerous man in Europe by The Sun.

We're in agreement on almost everything you mentioned in your last comment, so I'll focus on what I perceive differently.

First, I'd differentiate between fiscal stimulus and fiscal spending, the former being a situational application of the latter. As you said, fiscal stimulus during an economic crisis tends to be inadequate with regards to our macroeconomic objectives. You can neither whip out plans for major investments at a whim nor can you mobilize the neccessary resources quickly enough to make a difference and still be reasonable efficient. Not to mention that it only affects certain parts of the economy (construction, mostly), leaving others completely in the wind. So I'm with you on that one, it's a terribly inefficient and ineffective approach.

Automatic stabilizers work magnificently in this regard, but they barely take any pressure from the lower wage groups, especially if unemployment benefits come with a metric ton of strings attached, as is the case in Germany. A basic income guarantee might work, but that's an entirely different discussion.

The problem I see with merely relying on reasonable automatic stabilizers in the form of payments is that they do put a floor into demand, but do very little to tackle the problem of persistent unemployment due to a lack of jobs. As useful as training and education are, the mere number of highly educated people forced to work mundane jobs tells me that, at best, it doesn't work, and at worst pushes a systemic problem onto the individual, leading to immense pressure. Not to mention the psychological effects of being unemployed when employment is tauted as a defining attribute of a proper person -- aka the demonization of the unemployed.

It's still somewhat decent in Australia, but in Europe... it's quite a horrible experience.

Anyway, my point is that I'd rather see a lot more fiscal spending (permanent!) in the shape of public sector jobs. A lot of work cannot be valued properly by the market; should be done without the expectation of a return of investment (hospitals, anyone?); occurs in sectors of natural monopolies -- all of that should be publicly run. A job guarantee, like your fellow countryman Bill Mitchell advocates quite clearly, might be an approach worth trying out. Economy in the shit? More people on the public payroll, at rather low (but living wage!) wages. Do it at the county/city level and you can create almost any kind of job. If the private sector wants those people instead, they'd have to offer better working conditions. No more blackmail through the fear of unemployment -- you can always take a public job, even if it is at a meagre pay.

I should probably have mentioned that I don't buy into the notion of a stable market. From where I am standing, it's inherently unstable, be it through monopolies/oligopolies, dodging of laws and regulations (Uber), impossibility to price-in externalities (environmental damage most of all) or plain, old cost-cutting leading to a system-wide depression of demand. I'm fine with interfering in the market wherever it fails to deliver on our macroeconomic objectives -- which at this point in time is almost everywhere, basically.

Healthcare is all the rage these days, thanks to the primaries. I'd take the publicly-run NHS over the privately-run abomination in the US any day of the week. And that's after all the cuts and privatizations of the last two decades that did a horrible number on the NHS. Fuck ATOS, while we're at it.

Same for the railroad: the pre-privatization Bundesbahn in Germany was something to be proud of and an immeasurable boost of both the economy and the general standard of living.

In the mid/long run, the effects of automation and climate change-induced migration will put an end to the idea of full employment, but for the time being, there's still plenty of work to be done, plenty of idle resources to be employed, and just nobody to finance it. So why not finance it through the printing press until capacity is reached?

As for the Venezuela comparison: I don't think it fits in this case. Neither does Weimar Germany, which is paraded around quite regularly. Both Venezuela and Weimar Germany had massive supply-side problems. They didn't have the production capacity nor the resources to meet the demand they created by spending money into circulation. If an economy runs at or above its capacity, any additional spending, wherever it comes from, will cause inflation. But both Europe and the US are operating faaar below capacity in any measurable metric. You mentioned LRAS yourself. I think most estimates of it, as well as most estimates of NAIRU, are off quite significantly so as to not take the pressure off the wage slaves in the lowest income sector. You need mass unemployment to keep them in line.

As you said, the participation rate is woefully low, so there's ample space. And I'd rather overshoot and cause a short spike in inflation than remain below potential and leave millions to unneccessary misery.

Given the high level of private debt, there will be no increase in spending on that front. Corporations don't feel the need to invest, since demand is down and their own vaults are filled to the brim with cash. So if the private sector intends to net save, you either have to run a current account surplus (aka leech demand from other countries) or a fiscal deficit. Doesn't work any other way, sectoral balances always sum up to zero, by definition. If we want to reduce the dangerous levels of private debt, the government needs to run a deficit. If we don't want to further increase the federal debt, the central bank has to hand the cash over directly, without the issuance of debt through the treasury.

As for the independant central bank: you can only be independant from either the government or the private sector, not both. Actually, you can't even be truly independant from either, given that people are still involved, and people have ideologies and financial ties.

Still, if an "independant" central bank is what you prefer, Adair Turner's new book "Between Debt and the Devil" might be worth a read. He's a proponent of 100% reserve banking, and argues for the occasional use of the printing press -- though controlled by an inflation-targeting central bank. According to him, QE is pointless and in order to bring nominal demand up to the level we want, we should have a fiscal stimulus financed by central bank money. The central bank controls the amount, the government decides on what to spend it on.

Not how I would do it, but given his expertise as head of the Financial Services Authority, it's quite refreshing to hear these things from someone like him.

there many forms of enslavement,to wit most people are wholly unaware,either unwittingly or unwillingly.

"none are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free" van goethe.

consider this my friends:
if you accept currency for your labors,where you toil for anothers financial gain.you are literally renting yourself.trading your time,creativity and labors for coin.you are a wage slave and a hundred years ago our ancestors were very aware of this and found it detestable.they literally saw it as a form of slavery.

now as @Lawdeedaw pointed out,there are some protections put forth by our government,along with other governments,but those were not just handed out.they had to be fought for,and many died for those protections.by whom? wage slaves,but in those days they KNEW thats what they were,and proceeded from that premise.

the philosophy of the matrix even addressed this very idea of slavery (yep,i went there).that the majority of the people had become so entrenched and immersed in the system,that to even question the system would illicit a violent and defensive response.they would fight to remain in the system.

just look at our friend @Barbar 's reaction.
even the term "slave" was enough for a visceral reaction.

i am reminded of a doug stanhope routine in where he states " at least i KNOW i am a slave,YOU,however..remain clueless".

so let us take the term "slave" off the table and instead use the dynamic of "power vs powerlessness".

the current systems of power have the majority of people running on hamster wheel of desperation.may it be "pay check to paycheck" or "mortgage and credit cards" or the subtle doctrine of "conform and obey".this could also be "all of the above".

the real question is this:
do you consider yourself free?
because a comfortable slave.....is still a slave.
the term may be dramatic,but it is accurate.

The devil is in the details, isn't it?

For instance, what kind of guaranteed minimum income are we talking about?

The context they used (automatisation, labour supply) suggests to me something along the lines of an unconditional basic income. If that's the case, it cannot be compared to a minimum wage at all, since it has effects that go far beyond the labour market and the income situation. It's a massive reshaping of how we organise society. And it becomes a pain in the ass to even conceptualise properly once you talk about how to finance it...

A minimum wage, no matter how decent it is, doesn't even put a dent into the disparity between income from labour and income from capital. It makes life less horrible for those it applies to and it somewhat curtails the welfare queens among corporations who like their wage slaves being paid for by society. Yes, I'm looking at you, Walmart! Still, on its own, it does very little about income inequality, and nothing at all about wealth inequality.

How would I address income inequality?

In German, the words for taxes and steering are the same: "Steuern". If you want to steer the income towards a more equal distribution, taxation might be the easiest way to go about it. Treat all forms of income equally in terms of taxation. Or go one step further and treat wages preferentially to support employment.

However, redistribution will only get you so far. So why not address it at an earlier stage: distribution. Mondragon serves as a successful example of how a cooperative structure puts democratic checks and balances on the wage structure within a corporation. One person, one vote puts the lid on any attempts by higher-ups to rake in 300 times as much as the peasants on the factory floor.

Yet it doesn't do anything about the inequality between wages and capital income. Even a combination of progressive taxation and fixed income-ratios doesn't do much about it. Especially since non-wage income can evade taxation in a million different ways and most politicians in every country in the world seem more than eager to protect what loopholes they created over the decades.

So what's my suggestion? Well, progressive taxation of both income and wealth, living wage plus job guarantee, support of democratic structures at the workplace, international pressure on tax havens (which includes my own fecking country). Realistic? No. But neither was our welfare system until it was implemented.

Hear, hear...A lonely voice of sanity, crying-out in a wilderness of the self-deluded...

I'd offer...Who gives a fiddler's fuck whose missile hit whose fight club incubator? Missiles found stacked neatly at two United Nations Relief and Works Agency school buildings to-date, and as far as that shit goes who is to say it wasn't the UN who brokered the bomb deal and sent the blue-helmet fucks to deliver 'em?

I have a suggestion: Israels' a big boy now (the 'dybbuk' have come a long way since 1947)... How about the rest of the world back the way back from The Never Ending Storyline of Real-Jew/Fake-Jew vs Persians (2700+ years and counting??) and let all interested parties duke it the fuck out? Oh and by all means, think of the children, consume more news-corp spin, and go out and get yourselves some solar-powered Vitamin D maybe??

I know...Let's identify and list 24/7-365 the names and addresses on news-tickers worldwide of the DAMAGED WHITE PEOPLE who manufactured the ordinance and continue to bank Hanover Phist on regional conflicts worldwide (while stealing $$ from the planet's wage-slaves) and eliminate ALL THOSE motherfuckers??


...'and the world, will be a better place'

You know why he got flagged as an enemy of the State, right? The reason being is that the 'state' in the United States of Unconsciousness has effectively cornered the market on cradle-to-grave programming of yet another generation's children.

Obedience
Conformity
Control
Marketing
Career Assignment
Instruction (how to be a dutiful wage-slave)

Check a local public school library and required textbooks in the U.S. for the latest version of history re-written, remedial English, science, maths texts-The majority of texts in school libraries???.....Fucking picture-books. Pathetic, and glaringly obvious the agenda and purpose.

The police state wants children as smart/ignorant as the cunts running the show need them to be....to be conveniently mind-fucked on-demand.

Is it working?? One has but to check the world-view of the 'millennials' to gauge the effectiveness of the mindfuck.

Climate change-The hot-topic for a new age of ineffectuals...something for the insects to rally-around and discuss which produces nay but fodder for the same passive-aggressive types who are being seduced by their desire to trade practical action (whatever that could be) for polemic intercourse with themselves and others like them on the internet....

....people who are passionate to a fault and use forums like this to espouse their anger and frustration with tomes of keystrokes AT and not WITH others they deem unworthy, those ignorant and simpering few with opinions or observations dissimilar to theirs (and lower than 130 I.Q.'s....*cough), who know they are helpless to act to stop the high-speed train of planet-fucking (wage-slave-required and dutifully induced through the programming by adepts of semantic mind-fucking).This delusional empowerment, with all the invisible superpowers of new 'information' gives them the license and ability to do absolutely nothing to correct or marginally disrupt the pace of the so-labeled change while becomming better dicks in doing-so.

This fan-driven subject of climate change they use not only to deride those with any dissenting opinion and doubt regarding the mechanics and unfolding of what our big, blue marble is handing the creatures onnit, but also and most evidently obvious, to bolster their own superiority and self-satisfaction in their ability to process the distraction of disinformation/information/datum-ad-nauseum, and then condense it into how clever they can be in being complete assholes without breaking rules of accepted decorum so they can hear themselves bark, howl, and foment.

Smug, helpless, and irritatingly predictable in their helplessness to do anything more effectual than to add more used motor oil to the bonfire of their own vanity.

I would ask these irritating bugs what ARE you prepared to do to alter the course of the 'changes' in the 'terminal climate' described above? Recycle and drive a hybrid? Sacrifice anything but another trip to a polling-station? Oh I know, sit at your computer keyboard and grow more incensed while going-on with your business of spouting and shouting from a mountain of trash that you add-to daily by converting oxygen to more life-giving C02 and buying shit you don't need with paper you are forced to trade for 'bads and disservices??'

Thought so.

Fuck global warming in it's ass and let the planet shake and quiver with change as humans and/or their own slave-like actions continue to feed the earth-furnace. The bigger fish to fry and serve head-on have you by the short and curlies and we're all bio-fuel for future generations

Let's see debt history with this.

Free (to pay your debts) and Honest (that we'll fuck you over if you don't).

Get back to work wage slaves.

...Yeah, I don't think that "enjoy it now, because when I get older I'm totally going to make your life as a wage slave a living hell" is exactly the best response to bullying.

"It Gets Better" PSAs have a much better approach and more uplifting message.

Alas, hope still for my own state of sequester which has told the Common Core to suck a dick.

Yeah, this common core bullshit is nothing but agenda-oriented think-tank implants/appointees working in tandem with politicians and their pals to guide the populous headfirst and forward into how to think like automatons and wage slaves without the capacity or will to fight the powers that bees.

OH, OH! I know, I know!! (raises hand as a diversion) -The context in which a question like that could be considered sensible is asking it simply to make someone who thinks that this type of waste-of-time back-and-forth media shit-box battle of liberals vs. conservatives is real, just to get a rise out of and distract someone who cares to watch it!!

ALL this, with a view to distracting you from what is actually going on, which is powerful insidious cunts turning the planet's citizens into an insane roundtable of mindless, cackling wage-slave-bots.

What he's really saying is something like..."women I know, who are douchebags like me, are smart, intelligent, and capable of doing anything any man like me can do..etc. etc., you other people are simply idiot wage-slaves and cattle.

He's a politician in America ergo, concomitantly, vis-a-vis, a complete piece of shit, his particular party alignment having no bearing whatsoever on this fact.-The Architect

Sorry lurgee, Charlotte Iserbyt has not been popular with sifters American or otherwise due primarily to collective denial of her message-That message being that it is by design to create a large majority of dysfunctional cretins incapable of critical thinking who feed on a steady diet of bullshit like media news outlets for their "news of the world' in order for them to be herded more effectively by the state and her systems of control.

Think North Korea with coca-cola and Gucci, rap music and video games as primmers for the next generation of wage-slaves with a cult of personality of excess cash to spend on campain (misspelling intended) fleece and bullets, and you have the finished product ready for coffins and pharmaceutical oblivion.

Oh, and fuck this stupid bitch on TV Grimm, and fuck your leading title for your paltry embed. The few Americans left without their head up their own asses may be few, and we detest the same tools used as those of the television.

Let's be clear, $15/hr is gonna make a difference. If current minimum wage is $7.25 it's more than doubling the wage. That means doubling the salary costs for every business employing people for minimum wage. It seems the left is all excited about moving twice as much money from Walmart and McDonalds back to it's employees. The thing is, it doesn't just hurt corporate employers, it hurts ALL employers. In particular the mom and pop shops that open up to provide alternatives to Walmart and McDs. Raising the cost of entry to new business owners seriously hurts and undermines the little guy.

My point is the idea of striking a balance in minimum wage is very important, because shifting it too much in EITHER direction makes the 'wage-slave' problem worse. Either buy worse conditions for the lowest end of the working class, or by making it even more difficult to start out working for yourself.

@Shepppard
ah...my young friend.
come over by the fire,your buddy enoch has some things to speak to you about.
are you comfy?
need a drink? beer? coffee?

then let us begin.

1.why do YOU care what another makes an hour?is it YOUR business?

but i understand the basic gist of your point:unskilled labor.

ok.thats a fair point.
but why is 15$ an hr too high?
what arbitrary scale are you comparing their hourly worth to?
walmart workers?

here is a facts that may give you some perspective:
a.if we take the minimum wage from 1978 and factor in inflation and worker productivity todays minimum should average 22$ an hour (yes...you read that right).
b.the workers in these unskilled jobs are in the high percentages in goverment subsidies.to the tune of 7 BILLION a year.so basically we ALL are subsidizing mcdonalds and walmart to pay their workers like shit.

so are you still against them getting a living wage? when you and i are subsidizing their income. the companies they work for get to pocket those profits,you and i get to help pay for their housing and food stamps.

walmart even helps ttheir employees sign up for food stamps! now isnt that adorable.

dont you think it a better idea that these companies pay their help at least enough where they dont need government susbizies? you know.like actually PAY them and not force us to?

2.if these corporations paid a minimum of 15$ an hr the projected hike in product prices will be......./drum roll.....
...........15 cents per item.........

3.how come it appears to be taboo to point to a CEO of a company who is making billions in bonuses while his/her workers are having to receive food stamps?
when did obscene gluttony and greed become something cool? even praiseworthy? while ridiculing those trying to survive and demanding a little bit of dignity as something to be chastised and cajoled for even having the impertinence to ask for a living wage.

the cognitive dissonance on display is on an epic scale.

who do YOU think you have more in common with?
the dude working at your local burger king?
or jamie dimon?

and dont even get me started on that condescending argument "get an education to get a better job".

i have been seeing many posts of late that reflect the very same flavor of yours @Shepppard and the one thing they all have in common is this judgemental value system that they just pulled out of their ass but in reality was given to them by the very people fucking them,and their children in the ass.

there will come a day when these people will realize they are slaves.
debt slaves.
wage slaves.
and while they were bickering the banksters and the corporate elite cleaned their clock.....
and they didnt notice until it was too late.

those elite fuckers.
they have a small club and you aint in it.
they dont like you.
they will never like you.
me?
im on your side man.