Assuming the title to be accurate, what is a good way for the working class (90%+ of all humans) to save and succeed in this current environment?
Just store infinite money tokens in a magic Orb. Lol. That’s quite easy
Disclaimer: I work in accountancy (Commercial Finance) but my advice should be taken with a pinch of salt.
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Diversify your investments. Have savings across multiple bank accounts so that the unlikely event where one bank fails doesn’t wipe out your financial wealth., and overall don’t put your eggs in one basket.
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Currently, the best ROI/passive income you’ll get is from corporate bonds. A cursory glance at the Hargreaves Lansdown website shows me quite a few corporate bonds and gilts that have a voucher rate (% return each year) of over 8 percent. Do bear in mind that a bond is a loan instrument where the ROI is based on both the maturity date (the date you get paid back plus interest) and the overall risk of the debt.
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Another good option is to invest in high dividend yield shares or ETFs. These can offer superior returns on investment to the interest you’d get from a savings account.
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Avoid day trading or swing trading unless you 100% absolutely know what the fuck you’re doing. Unlike what many YouTube ‘gurus’ claim, making a living off the stock market requires a high amount of starting capital to see any kind of tangible ROI, plus sophisticated stock trading software and knowledge on how to exploit trends.
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Same goes for penny stocks (i.e. the FTSE AIM All Share market.) You can make some rookie gains from it. Many of the companies listed on this index are oil/gas/mineral exploratory firms that are likely not going to see any kind of profit unless they strike it big, find a new oil well, lithium mine, etc and get the necessary contracts and investment to extract those resources. They’re penny stocks for a reason.
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Side hustles. For example, I have two friends that are karaoke DJs and they get gigs where bars pay them to host nights. Bookkeeping is another one, but you really are going to have a lot of competition in that respect, and you will probably need the right qualifications to do it.
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Screw crypto. At best cryptocurrencies are speculative assets that are scarce and expensive because the very nature of how their blockchains were designed make it take exponentially more effort to mine a new coin. At worst, they’re used to launder criminal proceeds (Monero is a good example of one where the blockchain is encrypted.) NFTs are even worse.
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Why would I assume the title is accurate? I’ve never heard this criticism of fiat currency before, since the whole point is that it doesn’t rely on on scarcity but on the stability of the issuing body. Can you explain, or is that outside the scope of this thread?
The issue is those closer to the money printer get the biggest rewards (according to the US Fed’s description of their stakeholders) so as they increase their supply of currency they can accumulate more goods, outpacing the rest of the classes which have to suffer through inflation, which debases their money, keeps wages low and goods prices increase
In an evenly distributed and fully observable currency supply which can rise and lower as needed, there is no inherent issue with fiat currencies as long as the issuing party is reputable and wages increase at the same pace (up or down) with all prices
Yes, that sounds better. I didn’t mean to imply there are no problems with fiat currency, only that scarcity wasn’t one I’d heard argued.
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The objection about a “finite planet” is about capitalism, not currency. A 100% communist system can still have fiat currency and function perfectly well, the two aren’t even related.
It’s capitalism you don’t like, not money.
It’s a question of the most stable thing to use to mediate value for exchange of goods and services, right? Fiat currency is just the choice of “the state” as a stabilizing force. Certainly it’s better than trusting the scarcity of rare metals, but eventually “just trust the state” will become a problem, and we’ll need to think about rebasing currencies. In theory, computational complexity isn’t a bad choice, but nobody has come up with a solution that actually functions well as a currency.
But I agree, the finite planet has nothing to do with any failings of fiat currencies, and only makes sense as a failing of the “number must go up” mentality endemic to capitalism.
Communism: A classless, moneyless society, based on the principle of “to each according to their needs, from each according to their ability”.
I think you’re conflating communism and socialism a bit.
Communism is a classless society where it is “from each according to their ability to each according to their needs”. Moneyless is often mentioned as well, but I don’t think it’s strictly necessary.
Socialism is a transitional stage on the way to communism, where the working class controls the state (having taken it from the capitalist class’ control), and it is usually described as “from each according to their ability to each according to their labor,” though when they say that I don’t think they really mean that those who can’t perform labor should simply starve.
I don’t understand why you think that guy was conflating communism and socialism. He claimed communism is moneyless, and in your response you said “neither is moneyless.” What’s being conflated?
And it’s worth noting that most definitions include, if not expressly the word “moneyless,” clauses about all property being held in common. And if there is no property, then there is equally no money, by definition (as money is simply a system for the valuation and exchange of property).
Yeah you’re right. Sorry, @[email protected]!
I didn’t say that neither is moneyless, only that I don’t think it’s strictly necessary for a society to be moneyless in order to be considered communist.
Then where is the communism and what’s the point of money? Seems like a capitalist society with a bit of socialism… see any European nation, really
You seem to think that money and capital are one and the same; they are not.
Do European nations have “a bit of socialism”? Has the working class wrested control of the state from the capitalist class? Have they abolished private ownership of the means of production? No, in fact they’re becoming more and more neoliberal, where the working class has less and less influence on the state.
Well the issue here is we’d need full observability of the fiat currency, since how I’ve seen it, no issuing party ever states “there are XYZ units of currency in rotation”. Maybe a not capitalist issuing party would be so transparent?
The working class cannot win without overthrowing the owner class. The owner class is the ruling class and functions, under capitalism, to extract from the working class and make capital into more capital. It cannot escape this role so long as capitalism exists and the owner class is in charge. The fundamental mechanisms by which that system works is coercive on both classes. “Nice” members of the owner class are hammered into complacency through failure and exit (becoming working class again) or abandonment of their principals. Or they luck out and are minor and largely irrelevant, facing no competitors or predators. Real solutions require that we organize and spread class consciousness.
On an individual level, you can try to protect yourself from some of the most extreme economic violences, but they are inherently limited. Fiat currency only has value because the issuer is “good for it” and you can use it as capital and for personal purchases of commodities. Crypto is not money at all, it is an unlicensed security. If your interest is in money-like things, I would recommend inflation hedge-alikes gold and real estate. But these require you to already have significant savings. And they are something to hawk in order to leave the country and cannot replace a functional economic base or allow you to weather a true crisis staying in the country. Having a backup shelf-stable food supply and means to boil water is also a good idea.
Our fates are all tied together under this economic system. We will quickly starve and die of preventable disease in a real, sustained crisis, as it will disrupt agriculture and utilities. Only a stable productive base, a real economy that produces what humans need, can provide when borders close or trade halts. And, realistically, everything you can do as an inflation hedge is much better when done at the community level. Mutual aid is more effective than a personal bean stash (do both!). A network of like-minded people can secure travel and estimate when to leave vs. fight. You can buy real estate with less capital if you go in together. Etc etc.
Fiat doesn’t work on a finite planet.
Citations needed.
Very true, I’ll do some research and if I remember I’ll give you some papers
I’m unsure of what a finite planet is referencing? Is op suggesting that economic limits are constrained to finite resources? This doesn’t take into account renewables, human creativity and a whole list of other things. If we create a matrix like environment where the limits can be expanded and create new products in that new environment we can still use fiat.
I think we need more restrictions on finances, so our human creativity can effect. What I see is that most advanced civilizations’ largest export is literal trash due to excess and waste, so I figured why not have a discussion about it
Also, every fiat currency has failed in the two ways it can: hyperinflation or clout loss due to no trust in the issuing party (which tends to lead to hyperinflation). Innovation has stalled or at least hit the top of the S curve over the last 50 years, with mostly remixes of old ideas that tend to expedite the finite resources we have, so I don’t think technology will outpace inflation
Technically, Planet Earth is huge for us because we cannot use it efficiently or in a reasonable time, and we don’t even have to talk about the sun.
I don’t know why they’re conflating infinite money with finite resources. The two have no relationship to each other.
Socialism. The problem here isn’t with currency, it’s with capitalism.
why have money when you could have a moneyless classless societyHaven’t you seen how every time this has been done it leads to dictators and coups and massive starvation?!
Yeah, it could be a faulty system or we just keep trying it in states that have enemies that don’t want it to succeed. I’ll have to do more research from more modern thinkers, because yeah capitalism isn’t sustainable without heavy regulation since humans are human…
I have socialism at home and fiat is still an issue
Do you have socialism at home? Because if you’re in Europe, no, you don’t. Social safety nets under capitalism is not the same thing as abolishing private ownership of the means of production.
Do you have fiat money at home? Because if you’re in the Eurozone, no, you really don’t, because you don’t have monetary sovereignty. What you have is a cartel of European private banks running the show, as Yanis Varoufakis and Michael Hudson will tell you. Europe’s Transition From Social Democracy to Oligarchy
How is a lack of national monetary sovereignty relevant to whether or not a currency is a fiat currency? The euro isn’t backed by anything, it’s as much a fiat currency as any other.
It is fiat money, it’s just that it’s not theirs, meaning their country’s government. It’s the unelected, undemocratic private bank cartel that has control of it.
Most central banks are run by unelected civil servants appointed by the head of government or a similar position/body. By this logic, the US dollar, Japanese yen, Chinese renminbi, and British pound equally do not belong to those countries. The ECB is just subject to the heads of 27 governments instead of one.
In the case of the US, the Federal Reserve is our “central bank,” and it too is largely the cartel of US private banks. But it doesn’t create new money—bank loan-created money notwithstanding—the Treasury does. And the system is intentionally made more complicated & opaque than necessary so that almost no one understands how it all works. So in practical terms you’re somewhat correct. But the US government isn’t as under the neoliberal thumb of the private banks as Europe is, at least when it comes to printing money for the military-industrial complex. Why the [US] Government Has Infinite Money
Looking at their post history, they’re
. Not even close to socialism lmaodeleted by creator
Without any sort of specifics, this is just a meaningless non sequitur. The equivalent of “nuh-uh!”
Fiat can work fine on a finite planet, most money doesn’t even take up physical space anymore, just bits in an account ledger database. Ideally in the future governments will make sure their currency is backed or based on labor time, and nothing is technologically preventing that, nor is crypto-currency required for it.
The issue here is according to the Fed, the stakeholders get a 6% return, which is supposed to outpace inflation. So if the ones closest to the money printer get more every year, while the rest lose money due to inflation eating it, it doesn’t matter if it could theoretically work, it leads to an accumulation to the class system at the top while the lower classes must continually work forever since their savings are worth less every year
Gold and silver.
Social revolution is the best retirement plan.
Buy jewelry, gold and silver coins, gemstones, rolls of silk, fine pelts, expensive spices like vanilla beans (avoid saffron though, its perishable), fine porcelains and maybe a rare painting or two. Put it all in a big wooden chest with a big iron padlock on it, and bury it in your backyard. Then draw some sort of cryptic map to it in case you die unexpectedly, or forget where your backyard is or something.
Also traps, lots of traps - something fancy like blowpipes shooting darts when an intruder steps on the wrong stone of a floor puzzle, maybe even a large an perfectly spherical stone that rolls towards intruders if the weight of your chest is altered.
There’s a series of documentaries about such things were a professor of Archeology - a Dr. Jones, if I’m not mistaken - illustrates their workings.
Good advice, thank you for sharing
Good advice, thank you for sharing
I’m too lazy for this just read Superimperialism
Good advice, thank you for sharing
it’s a really good book also the author’s podcasts with radhika desai begin with a good primer on it
Cool, I’ll check it out
The only way for a working class person to have any financial security is to join or build a strong union with other working class people. The rich/powerful/elites will always be able to crush us if we don’t work together
Barter. Learn a tradable skill. Build a group of friends.
But also save money.
Good advice, thank you for sharing
