Money Matters - at the moment seem hopeless
or, why politicians lurch from crisis to crisis
I have not said here lately - mainly because I struggle with the hopelessness, as well as a lot of personal family reasons.
However I thought I might share this article from Matthew Slater which has been guest posted on Jem Bendell’s site
https://jembendell.com/2025/04/21/what-did-you-do-in-the-genocide-daddy/
I met Mat (and Jem) online about ten years ago now when I took their MOOC course on money and was impressed by both (humans with flaws etc… but keep paying attention) and have since followed each of them as they go their separate ways of looking at collapse. (Jem continues to write about the monetary system e.g here while Mat works at ways of putting alternative systems into action. As he says “we are gonna need lifeboats”.
Having difficulty getting my brain into gear, and knowing that like me folk often do not want to become economists, nor obsess about money even though we are all swimming in the pond created by the monetary system (note system is not the money we spend or hope sitd in our ccounts/ cards / wallets etc.) I just quote the following money news sent to me by Mat in a recent email. Mat says:
Here is some monetary news.
Saudi Arabia ends (vid explains petrodollar) commitment to sell oil in dollars (10 months ago). Moscow stock exchange stops trading in dollars and euros. China now has SWIFT alternative. Europe needs Swift alternative. Biden Adminstration freaking out about BRICS and other alternatives to SWIFT.
DOGE discovers discovers magic money computers. Musk says it is the biggest scam of all time but economists largely interpret Musk’s claims as provocative rhetoric highlighting which doesn't expose a novel monetary mechanism. (according to Perplexity AI, which is trained on new web content daily.)
Whitney Webb understands the many links between US government is organised crime. Here she's talking about stable coins making their way into US monetary policy which almost nobody else is talking about. However Michael Hudson says something similar describing US Cryptocurrency as an Offshore Banking Center. Update on Trump and stablecoins.
IMF didn't consider El Salvador creditworthy with Bitcoin as legal tender, so it is no longer legal tender there.
From last September, EU talking about government debt issuance to revive the flagging economy, note the emphasis on war (Military Keynesianism) and the role of bankers in long-term policy formation.
Loving indica's blog. Here he reflects on the Triangle of power, a form that maps very well onto monetary theory.
China issues dollar bonds. Indica appreciates.
Trump launched Trumpcoin saying "Have fun". Preston Byrne, a cryptocurrency lawyer, said "Trump himself will also have to contend with the fact that his political fortunes will be tied to an asset that the market, and not the man, controls,"
Nice twitter thread on history of Rothschilds.
Will Ruddick from Grassroots Economics doing great work gamifying the 'commitment pool' economy.
Vienna professor of accounting Franz Hoermann outlines the problematic present, and a possible future of money by reimagining it as a sort of user interface between individuals and society (from 2012)
Michael Hudson summarises his life's work on international debt and balances of payments going back to antiquity.
We're gonna need lifeboats, my friends!
My own thoughts about what I can do … there is a list in the article referred to at the beginning of the post … are something like:
We all know there is a need for change, all want … note US and its present president is very likely supported by this need … There it is clear enough that the change offered is all about you (or me me me) it is therefore protective, exclusionary and breeds competition. the sort of growth and change that brings ever greater inequality, glut and scarcity.
There is another sort of change, based on inclusion and co-operation. So I am trying to keep this in mind whatever I happen to be doing: Does doing this this way look like the inclusion, co-operative direction? Or is it protective, just about me?
The irony is that there is plenty of evidence that is every area of philosophy, psychology, sociology etc. inclusionary bring far better results to ME! More decency, less fear, threat etc.
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Some more info about Matthew Slater’s work:
I've been putting the finishing touches to my Community Accounting module for Drupal v6. This walkthough shows you what it can do!
I'm helping to organise the 3rd Collaborative Finance gathering in Austria in June. It is quite focused on tech but there will be many humans and real-world projects present too.