1 - The
“market” conditions life
2 - The
partner finance state
3 - GDP
and covid
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1 - The
“market” conditions life
Recently,
the OECD offered to the "market", a very comprehensive picture of the
economy for the near future, through the much talked - as little strict, GDP.
(see chart at the end).
In
particular, the market is the place where normal people, sellers and, buyers of
goods meet for subsistence and trade.
In
economics, the “ market ” is a tendency to a infinite and particularly nebulous
extrapolation from a market. In economic terminology, it is called
"market" the ethereal space where they intersect, businessess and very
different powers - normal people, harmful pestilences, such as capitalists
(individual or collective) and political classes; goods, everything that
transacts in the “market” even if it has only a virtual existence; and money,
lots of money (overwhelmingly in the form of a record somewhere, in the
accounts of the institutions of the financial system) and money, of course, it
too, a commodity, the main and most widespread of the goods, leaving... covid-19
far behind.
The
functioning of the “market” has not people as the beneficiaries or, as the
objective of its existence. The “market” takes the 7000 M of people that
inhabit the planet as instruments for the functioning of the “market” itself,
as a large mine from which the human capacity for transforming nature into
goods and providers of services, more or less necessary, is extracted; it also
includes, goods and other elements, coisificados, amortized
till to be considered as rubbish. As this drive is always scarce for the ambitions of
capital, the limitations of the planet need to be overcome; so
what if a well-known top capitalist (Elon Musk) takes colonization and the
guaranteed fuss of Mars very seriously!
The
operation of the "market" takes place, not because of the
availability of goods and services essential to life and the reproduction of
nature (including human beings) but the consumer products or services,
electronic impulses necessary to thicken the already accumulated capital. If
this mechanism changes or destroy the environment, local or global; if it
promotes suffering and enormous lacks to a significant part of mankind; if it
poisons or destroys fields and cities, these are collateral damages, certainly
surmountable by a rise in securities on the NYSE or NASDAQ, making happy its
holders. Those are the artisans that define, in essence, the contents of the
media and the creativity of their plumitivos, by duty
craft, little aware of the growing margin in the uncontrolled own overall
system management; devoting more to gossip, the fait-divers of politics and football - Their master’s voices.
The
S&P 500 (Standard & Poors) is a finished example of capitalism in this
21st century. It includes the shares of the most relevant USA 500 companies,
listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ and they have the importance of defining the trends
of the "market"; it is based on very unrealistic ideas about the
evolution and efficiency of investments based on ethereal elements that may be
separated into two groups;
·
those, related to
transactions of land, natural resources, real estate, stocks, currency or
goods; elements with intrinsic materiality;
·
or, immaterial, virtual
elements, such as patents, the values assigned to trademarks, the assessment
that makes the customer value of a company or, their software.
|
1975
|
1985
|
1995
|
2005
|
2018
|
$ Billions *
|
0.122
|
0.428
|
3.12
|
9.28
|
21.03
|
% of intangibles in total S & P- 500
|
17%
|
32%
|
68%
|
80%
|
90% **
|
* 1 B = 10 ^ 12 (Europe )
* * 2020
Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-soaring-value-of-intangible-assets-in-the-sp-500/
However,
the value attributed to intangibles has shown itself to be more and more
determinant in the creation of the value attributed by the “market” (and a
broken bag, called PIB), making it ethereal, fragile and, in reality, unrelated
with the lives of human beings in general. Since the transactions based on
purely conceptual elements, riding electrical impulses, their variations, set
in the financial voluptuousness, do not will leave to affect heavily, millions
of human beings, through the actions of governments and political classes in
general, when something escapes to capital accumulation designs. More than
ever, the "market" is a game, a casino, which artificiality has the
particularity to produce its harmful effects on thousands of millions of human
beings, while fattening the elite that Manuel Castells, the beginning of the
century, estimated at 1% of the world population.
The entry into scene of coronavirus came to show the
inability of capital institutions (multinational companies and institutions,
such as WHO, captured by private interests), without forgetting the enormous
responsibilities of governments, always agile in the impoverishment or the
withdrawal rights and, in evident bewilderment to overcome the consequences of
the viral invasion. As a result, the number of infected people continues to
grow (more than 93 M of people, including 2 M (jan 14th) of fatal victims, when
the end of the one-year period that has elapsed since the emergence of covid-19
is approaching. Only one Copernician change, creating democracy, annuls
nationalisms, state powers, political classes and, turns economy an instrument
of a harmonious encounter between Humanity and the planet.
Before
protests and rebellions, there is always available, by political powers, one
takes care of the array of repressive or destructive resources ranging from
various strains of police and military, hierarchized based on bestiality, the
bombing of cities, with the generation of millions of refugees, in addition to
the use of electronic warfare tools, "clean", able to settle specific
people or, raze cities. Saddam Hussein, even though he had several look -
alikes - whom even his guards did not recognize as such - ended up not escaping
the execution ordered by the occupier; and General Suleimani was shot down
without an ancient protocolized declaration of war or invasion. Trump is a
greater symbol of post-fascist modernity.
What in
the eighteenth century came to be called economy, consisted of the adaptation
of human effort to the satisfaction of needs. Capitalism has to be associated
with the accumulation of capital in the context of a deranged compulsion by
looking for an infinite growth of GDP, even though it only has a name since
1932. Despite this drive towards the infinite, the satisfaction of real human
needs - food, housing, health, peace and, education - is systematically
impaired to the detriment of capital accumulation, today, mostly in the form of
electronic records that multiply incessantly, without generating a bread crumb;
but, stealing many crumbs from those who do not live in the lust of financial
speculation.
2 - The
partner finance state
This
madness developed by the financial system, to create a constant and accelerated
creation of money, has as counterpart credit creation, debt, from companies,
families and, states, a creation that does not correspond to concomitant use of
savings; it corresponds to an anticipation of the future, especially of future
earnings that, within a current practice (economic and political) may not
exist. On the contrary, the formation of credit cascades by the financial
system proceeds without having any significant volume of savings in the
balance. So, the savings or simple deposits placed by people, as a form of
annuity that gives them some security in the future, are in no way
guaranteed...even if the States ensure (... gravely...) € 100,000/person in the
case of banking laugh!
It is known that the financial system will never be
able to return the amounts deposited by its customers, just as it is known that
public debts have an impossible repayment; although some Portuguese economists,
out of ignorance or reactionarism, pointed, some years ago, to a restructuring
of the Portuguese public debt, which in due time, we considered (as today) as
priceless as illegitimate [1] .
Thus,
GDP intends to represent everything, representing, in reality, little. When
someone prepares a meal for you, it doesn't count towards GDP, but if you go to
a restaurant you'll join the “market” and then contribute to GDP! Aid for a
young person in schoolwork only enters GDP, if produced in an explanatory
company, on a commercial basis. GDP only considers what is traded in the
"market", knowing that the transactions carried out in the market
are, to a large extent, external and, therefore, impossible to integrate the
sanctified GDP. A major element of integration in GDP is the value-added tax
(VAT) which is levied on almost all purchases of goods or services [2]; a
whistleblower at the service of the State, the collective capitalist. Relating to work, work effort, this integration is
assured by the with holding tax on the remuneration of labor (IRS). Finally,
there is an interconnection between goods registered (and paid) by companies as
necessary for their activity (especially automobiles), but whose use is allowed
to capitalists and senior staff for their use in their private life, thus
avoiding taxation of income from work.
The
purchase of war material counts as … investment in national accounts! Whether
an investment is a money application into something that allows the
satisfaction of an individual or collective need, it is clear that the military
equipment is useless and is artificial to count to GDP (see EU, the chart of
accounts 2010, the SEC10). It should be noted that military spending comprises
a strong import to most countries since production is very concentrated in a
few number which, due to its sophistication, makes buyers (the vast majority of
countries) dependent on components or the load coming from abroad; a weakness
inherent in the respective geopolitics but which, as a rule, result in the
inability to engage in wars, unless the major producing powers or the smuggling
networks feed the logistics.
In
Portugal, it is estimated that an income corresponding to about 25 to 29% of
GDP does not count within the latter. And that disgusts all governments, always
ready and eager to reduce social costs and increase the revenue from taxes,
fees, fines... as economists dislike, with a real fixation on the infinite
growth of GDP...
There
is a constant struggle of the binomial States/political classes to frame, under
their knowledge and their enormous capacity for predation, the entire
production of goods and services, without exceptions, as if all transactions
between humans have or should integrate a commercial logic. Among the few
situations where the States and political classes are tolerant facing to a non
- accounting in GDP, the main is, corruption; and, for obvious reasons, since
they strive for an open and happy life, achieved through lies and theft, with
the distracted connivance of the judiciary.
For all
this oppressive and kleptocratic machinery to work, governments are needed
where there is a presence of mandarins embedded in the influence trade, young
technocrats eager for promotion and, plenty of imbeciles that history will not
mention and that seek financial glory as a result of favors to businessmen.
So, it
is no wonder that the governmental caste grows, and grows substantially. In
Portugal, the first constitutional government, in 1976, had 18 ministers and 37
secretaries of state; the current one has 27 ministers and 68 secretaries of
state, not to mention tons of secretaries and advisers, all paid for by the
public purse.
3 - GDP
and covid
According
to the OECD, the outlook for GDP growth looks very promising for the next two
years. It is possible that after this annus horribilis (2020) the economic
situation will prove to be less disastrous, although this should not have
repercussions on the unemployed waiting for better days and, even less, on
those who moved from old people's deposits (cynically referred to as homes) to
the cemetery. The production and sale of vaccines will certainly have effects
on GDP growth.
The
balance between the savings available and the investment financed by them no
longer has any meaning, once the financial system runs on its track, separated
from the real world; central banks issue electronic circuits that will inflate
the banks' availabilities, having, on the other hand, credit rights over those,
whose return will probably never happen.
So, by
the end of 2020, the US FED made available to the big banks a billion (in the
US it is a trillion) dollars, as very short-term credits, in a concerted action
with the other central banks (ECB, and banks in Canada, Japan and, Switzerland)
so that there is no shortage of dollars in the market, at a time when funds
will be distributed to the population to compensate for damage resulting from
the virus and the disastrous way in which it has been combated by the Trump
administration.
The US
public debt remained stable between 1994 and 2008, between 5 4 and 63% of GDP;
in 2009 , with the crisis of subprime came to 74 %, with 84% the
following year and to 92% in 2011; growth, albeit slower, reached 107% in 2020
and 122% in April. In dollar terms this means the passage of 4.5 trillion (billion
in Europe) in 1994 to 9.2 in 2008, 14 in 2011 and 23.7 in last April. A rain of
money, a success...which left out the large range of poor people.
In
Portugal, in the first ten months of the year , the impact of the measures adopted within the scope
of Covid-19 reproduced a value of € 7692.5 M, divided between revenue breaks
and expenditure increases (an amount equivalent to 3.6% of 2019 GDP) . The most
relevant contributions to these breaks are as follows:
· Measures with an impact on revenue - € 1508.3 M (893.9
M and 611.1 M, respectively within the scope of Central Administration and
Social Security [3] and, essentially, consist of a suspension of IRC payments
(€ 791 M) and exemption from TSU [4] payments (€ 477 M); and also, suspensions
of tax (€ 68.5 M) or contributory (€ 71.8 M) foreclosures, certainly benefiting
a good portion of typically relapsed and fraudulent entrepreneurs.
· Measures impacting on spending - € 2356.2 M,
highlighting € 819 M for the layoff, € 201.3 M to support the self - employed,
€ 368.4 M for health equipment and € 248.4 M of various allowances.
And, of
course, they are not included, the purchase of vaccines and correlated spending...
Observing
the evolution of the public debt in the periods January / October in 2019 and
2020, it is easily noted that the increase in debt in 2020 is about ten times
greater than that recorded in the previous year (in € million). Far beyond,
therefore, the sum of increases in expenditure and reduction in revenues.
2019 ( Jan / Oct)
|
+ 1225 M
|
2020 ( Jan / Oct)
|
+ 12896 M
|
The
increase in debt is not always easy, given the very low level of interest rates
(even negative) and especially because the financial system needs to raise debt
of states, to deliver to the ECB as collateral for the funds that the central
bank issues, with the objective, to be applied to the lust of financial
capital. The enrichment of this has little or nothing to do with peoples'
lives, increases inequalities but...it is positively reflected in the
well-known GDP!
The EU
has faced the pandemic through its usual narrow economistic way, recalling that
in the beginning, it was just a "common market"; and, thus,
everything plans to solve with a focus on the mobilization of money, of a Multiannual
Financial Framework (MFF) in force until 2027, to be distributed among the
member states, with Portugal having € 30000 M, to be contemplated in the
budgets and yet, € 15 300 M grants, without prejudice to the use of more loans.
Bureaucrats,
of economistic or mere mandarins bias, experts in the trafficking of influences,
practicing brinkmanship paltry, just based its pressure on people, reducing
their well-being, with isolation, in the narrowing of distances and the
frequencies in their movements, in the use of masks and frequent use of
alcohol-gel, which, as it turns out, have been of little use. They discovered
the wide range of vaccines to stick in the population, with variable prices [5]
but excluding those created by geopolitical, Chinese and, Russian challengers.
And they look with culpable indifference on the main victims of the virus, the
elderly, especially if confined to homes, defenseless before the plague that
enters by the door or through family members; and, that make up the
overwhelming majority of cases of death by covid-19.
The
graph below reflects the growth prospects advanced by the OECD for the next two
years. Perhaps it is, above all, the formulation of something that will comfort
the peoples subjected to fear of the covid-19 and its recent variant; and that,
frightened, restricted and confined, dismissed or placed in layoffs, they
watch, frightened or rocked by the hype of the political classes, to fatten
financial capital.
Source: OECD - https://stats.oecd.org/viewhtml.aspx? Datasetcode = EO108_INTERNET
& lang = en # )
- - - - - -
[1] How the
financial system captures humanity through debt
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/12/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2017/01/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/12/como-o-sistema-financeiro-captura.html
Restructuring public debt solves nothing in our lives
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/11/reestruturar-divida-publica-nada.html
Public debt - Public debt - Cancer is not treated with
paracetamol
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2016/05/divida-publica-divida-publica-cancro.html
Europe - debtors of unpaid debt
https://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/2019/06/europa-os-devedores-de-uma-divida-nao.html
[2] In
addition to other taxes with a specific impact on certain consumptions (beer,
tobacco, fuels); inherent to property ( I S Veículos, IUC or IMI) or
acquisitions (cars, pleasure boats ...) and others, always in the sights of the
government shift gang, with a more general impact, such as stamp duty.
[3] Portuguese
Social Security has been stolen by governments and companies for decades, in
view of the conniving silence of the parties on the right or less on the right;
but also by the press. On the subject, consult:
https://www2.slideshare.net/durgarrai/segurana-social-vtima-de-uma-burla-com-dcadas
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.pt/2012/07/a-divida-seguranca-social-o-longo.html
http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/segurana-social-processos-de-descapitalizao-1
http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/estratgia-para-um-sistema-de-segurana-social-favorvel-multido-de-trabalhadores-e-ex-trabalhadores
[4] TSU is the contribution of the firms to the Social
Security of workers
[5 ]Oxford / AstraZeneca - € 1.78; Johnson & Johnson -
€ 6.9; Sanofi / GlaxoSmithKline - € 7.56
Pfizer/BioNTech - € 12; CureVac - € 10; Moderna - €
14.70, per serving
This and other texts here, in Portuguese and English:
http://grazia-tanta.blogspot.com/
http://www.slideshare.net/durgarrai/documents
https://en.scribd.com/uploads