All I knew of UBS was that it was a credit bubble bank (like so many others) so I was interested to find out that its senior economic adviser, George Magnus (Magnus? has he escaped from a role playing game, does he have dark cloak and so on?) is a Marxist.
At least in his letter in the (dear, sweet) “Financial Times” newspaper on Wednesday 31st of August he describes himself as someone who is part of the group of people who “think Marx matters” (I think Karl “matters” to - I think he was a nutcase whose crackbrained ideas inspired the murder of at least one hundred and fifty million human beings, but the Great Magnus means “matters” in another sense).
It appears (according to the Codex of Magnus) that the “analysis” of “capitalism” by Karl was wonderful and totally correct - apart from on one thing………
Yes you guessed it, Karl Marx did not see that “captialism” could be saved by the state producing even more credit money (and the handing over of this credit money to insitutions like UBS, of course).
Karl Marx understood that “capitalism” would not naturally recover from a crises “such as a credit bust” (by the way - what causes these credit money bubble “booms” in the first place….. SHUT UP - you are not supposed to ask questions, just undergo a “mental reboot” and obey the Great Magnus).
What about all the failed “monetary easing” (i.e. creating more funny money) of the last few years?
Shut up.
And the failed “fiscal easing” (i.e. the government spending orgy).
Did you not hear me? SHUT UP.
And what about all the credit money bubble busts which have been got out of without this government “easing” - such as 1921, where the Federal Reserve did not go on a money creating bender, and the government actually CUT its spending by some 25%?
SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP.
Just OBEY - do not ask questions. The Great Magnus (and the great Karl Marx and the great J.M. Keynes, oh yes the little Cambridge creature gets a mention) has spoken, who are you to question elite authority? Have you not had your “mental reboot” yet, like a good little robot.
Governments should get over their “fetish” for balanced budgets (even though they have no such “fetish” and have been engaged in vast deficit spending for years) and all will be well.
Of course, if “The Great Magnus” was an isolated case one could just have a laugh and forget about it (unless one was a shareholder in UBS - in which case one would be busy putting pressure on the management to fire this idiot, unless one valued a short term subsidy over the long term survival of the very economy that UBS is a part of), but it is not an isolated case.
On the facing page we have Martin Wolfe telling the world that governments must spend even more money - including the United States government (yes he has no shame what-so-ever).
And in Monday’s “FT” there was Clive Crook (Crook by name - and certainly crook by nature) demanding yet more creation of credit money and on a “vast scale”.
And on Friday there was Sam Britton (who I first met in the early 1990s when he was on his demented crusade for Britian to join the Euro) demanding the same thing - even that “money should be thrown from helecopters” (citeing some words of Milton Friedman - without mentioning that M.F. later repudiated the whole idea of monetary expansion).
The best that can be said for Samuel is that, if he really means that money should be printed and “thrown from helecopters” then he is NOT corrupt - as at least it would not be credit money pushed into the banks and other institutions that buy large numbers of copies of the Financial Times newspaper for their staff (and pay their paywall subs).
But Martin Wolfman and Clive Criminal?
No, they are right down there with The Great Magnus.
“But Paul surely Samuel B. had an argument - he was not just saying demented things at random”.
Of course he had an “argument” - the same one as The Great Magnus, Karl Marx was right about everything accept…..
The only difference is that I think Sam B. is so senile that he actually believes this rubbish. Whereas Clive Crook, Martin Wolfe and (of course) George Magus are so nauseatingly corrupt that they will say anything if it will lead to more subsidies for the banks and other financial industry institutions. Anything to create a short term “boom” (especially on the stock market), who cares about how it messes up the capital structure with malinvesments and causes economic collapse.
For, yes, (before Ian B. jumps in) I do know that these people are not really sincere Marxists (indeed they are not sincere anything) - they are, of course, just scumbags.
However, there is a “joke” here.
In the orgy of government spending and funny money production (sorry “fiscal and monetary easing”) that the above scumbags support (for their own corrupt reasons), they open the door for REAL Marxists.
For the economic chaos inevitably produced by a yet bigger credit money and government spending orgy (producing a yet bigger bust) is just what they want - indeed crave.
Such boom-bust credit money bubbles are not produced for the benefit of Marxists (they are produced for the benefit of corrupt bankers and hangers on in associated corporations - including the company that owns the Financial Times and the Economist magazine), but that will not stop real Marxists taking advantage of the chaos.
And real Marxists do exist - for example in recent years they have quietly (but effectively) largely taken over the American union movement (for the first time since the 1930s). And regulations are being passed (by the NLRB - against the expressed will of Congress) that give them more power all the time.
The Marxists also dominate education (both at school, via teacher training, and at university level) and much of the media.
What would happen to Sam B., Clive Crook, the Wolfman, and (even) The Great Magnus, if the real Marxists took over - which they actually might (thanks to the absurd policies these members of the “intellectual elite” have been pushing for so many years).
They would all be horribly murdered of course - perhaps even by (real) Marxists who work rather close to them right now. Or perhaps by “Community Activist” thugs (after all there are “community organizers” all over the West).
It is impossible to warn these people - they are blinded by greed, establishment “group think” and, in Sam B.s case, most likely by senility as well.
But one can warn people against taking establishment (create more money and spend it) advice.
Although, alas, that is exactly what the governments of the West have been doing - for years, indeed decades.
It may well already be too late.
For, yes, (before Ian B. jumps in) I do know that these people are not really sincere Marxists (indeed they are not sincere anything) - they are, of course, just scumbags.
Well actually, Paul…
I agree with your article of course, and in this context I would happily call such a person a Marxist; that is, if somebody allies themself with Marx as an authority, or quotes Marxist theory. I guess there is more than one way to define a Marxist. The other way would be the one I disagree with, in tha they are not people who want a “dictatorship of the proleriat”. But as quoters of Marx, I would agree with you.
By coincidence I’ve been arguing again with one of Carson’s creatures and in that context too frequently describe Carson and the entryists of the C4SS as “marxists” since his economic analysis; labour theory of value/exploitation/expropriation of surplus value/overproduction crises is as pure Marx as you can get, identical to the Commie Manifesto and Das Kapital.
Likewise it seems the pinhead you’re talking about here is ascribing the economic bust to a Marxian overproduction crisis, and in that way I stand very much with you in pointing a finger and shouting, “Marxist!”.
What the fuck is an “over-production crisis”? I mean if Mr Faberge is producing too many eggs then the price goes down and I stick on on my mantelpiece.
Sorry Paul, at the risk of hijacking the thread-
I just want to calorify the disagreements we’ve had over Marxism. I think I wuld state my position as that I’m not trying to argue with your (or anyone else’s) important insights into marxist penetration of society. Rather my argument is about whether our enemy are attempting to achieve a classically marxist outcome under a cover of cultural tactics- that is, Communism smuggled in under a banner of rights, political correctness, etc.
My view is that they are syncretic; the “Left” cult in the modern West, particularly the Anglosphere is a syncretism of marxism, puritan evangelism, romanticism, and even stuff like eastern mysticism. Rather than a marxist orthodoxy, it is a “magpie ideology” that (for example) seeks a moral outcome (some sexual ideology perhaps) as an end in itself, but implemented by a marxist, or post-marxist i.e. gramscian methodology. So I see us all as different crew members on the same ship with different duties; you focussing on the marxist aspect for instance and me focussing on the post-religious aspects and other people focussing on other parts of the puzzle.
I’ve felt rather disappointed when this has led us to fall out on occasion, since we’re pulling in the same direction, at least I feel that way, and thus our efforts should be complementary rather than oppositional.
What the fuck is an “over-production crisis”? I mean if Mr Faberge is producing too many eggs then the price goes down and I stick on on my mantelpiece.
Tsk tsk Nick, haven’t you read Das Kapital? Shame on you! Haha.
The Marxists see the economy as sort of linear, with value being produced at one end by Labour and being sucked up at the other end by Capital. So, the customers who buy the products of the capitalists’ factories, are also the workers in the factories (this part is of course true). But since the Capitalists are taking all their money away and piling it in bank vaults, the workers have no money to buy the products they are making. Hence, there is a crisis of overproduction.
To avoid this, the Capitalists continually expand capitalism to new world markets, but eventually run out of places to expand into, triggering the final collapse. From this inevitably rises the next stage of human social evolution, which is Communism.
Well seeing as Governments are shoveling out funny money by the truckload, wouldn’t it be alright if I just cut out the middleman please?
I mean I have a nice shiny new £50 note here, and a wizzy printer, couldn’t I just knock off a few thousand copies and pop down the shops?
No? What you mean when I do it, it’s called Counterfeiting and gets me five to ten, for debaseing the money supply, but when they do it it’s called Quantitative Easing and they are up for a Nobel prize for saving the planet? Funny old world, innit.
Ian B. you nasty man!
How dare you write comments I can not argue with (because they are true).
How can I have a temper tantrum now?
RAB - well (perhaps because of his senilty) Sam B. would indeed give you exactly what you want (at least if you could catch the money being dropped from the helecopters). But even he might well have a problem with you just printing the money yourself - for reasons that he would be unable to clearly explain (and would have been unable to to clearly explain even when he was younger).
Turning back to the scumbags…..
This mixing of Marxism and Keynesianism is an old thing - P. Straffa (the Italian Marxist) did it back in the 1940s, and he found lots of admirers at Cambridge.
However, I believe that Straf and the Cambrige gang did not really believe that lots more money creation and spending would “save capitalism” (why would a bunch of dedicated socialists wish to that?) on the contrary they wished to destroy “capitalism” and believed (quite correctly) that a policy of vast money creation and spending was a good way to do it.
The difference with the Financial Times crowd (i.e. the corrupt lackies of “Finance Capital” as orthodox Marxists would put it - with quite a lot of truth) is that they really do what this policy, not to create the conditions for the Revolution, but to line the pockets of the interests they are connected with.
“But in the longer term…”
Longer term? “In the long run we are all dead”.
Well everyone will be if we follow the advice of these Keynesian scumbags - and, sadly, that is exactly what Western governments have been doing.
That is the “joke” - Sam B. Clive Crook, the Wolfman, George Magus….. (and on and on) are demanding polcies that are ALREADY BEING FOLLOWED.
But they pretend that some low government spending “balanced budget fetish” policy is being followed - so when their orgy of wild money creation and spending fails (as it always does) they can turn round and say……
“If only you had followed our advice - instead of sticking to your doctrinaire support for small government, free market polices”.
With regard to the fact that the Government has been spraying money at the banks like a pissed up Fireman, I would further add to RAB’s comment.
Cut out the middle-man.
If the Guvment just gave every adult in the UK, say £250-500k each, what would happen?
Sure, some would die a happy death (savings to the NHS!) but others would spend a little or a lot on the High Street, some would pay off morgages and have more ready income, and some would just put it straight into the bank, thus ensuring some recapitalisation.
Any downsides?
Paul,
Thanks for pointing this out. This guy was all over Bloomberg yesterday under the title “Was Marx right?” or some other nonsense. They even interviewed him in the studio. I pointed out to my (financial type) colleagues what bullshit this was and how mental it is to have someone from UBS on Bloomberg talking about Was Marx Right?
They all shrugged their shoulders and wondered why I’m such a crazy conspiracy theorist.
That would be the same UBS who handed over thousands of confidential customer records to the US IRS merely because they asked for them? Now it all makes sense. Fuck UBS, I went with Credit Suisse.
“The Marxists see the economy as sort of linear, with value being produced at one end by Labour and being sucked up at the other end by Capital. So, the customers who buy the products of the capitalists’ factories, are also the workers in the factories (this part is of course true). But since the Capitalists are taking all their money away and piling it in bank vaults, the workers have no money to buy the products they are making. Hence, there is a crisis of overproduction.
To avoid this, the Capitalists continually expand capitalism to new world markets, but eventually run out of places to expand into, triggering the final collapse. From this inevitably rises the next stage of human social evolution, which is Communism.”
And people take this pish seriously?
Of course, as my old dad always says, how could anyone take the pronouncements of a man whose personal life and business affairs were such spectacular failures seriously in the first place? He was perhaps, in that light, the prototype for all today’s “democratic” politicians, sagely directing the world on stuff they don’t know shit about themselves.
JayBee,
CNBC has its faults (a lot of them) and I wish FoxBusiness (or something like it) was in Britain. But Bloomberg is worse - so it does not astonish me that this creature was treated with respect. The fact that Karl Marx was utterly wrong was not presented.
Glenn Beck (no apology for mentioning this “evil” man’s name) predicted (almost three years ago) that the time was comming when the “masks would come off” when the respectable establishment types (including the business establishment types) would start openly praseing Karl Marx. After all Marxist ideas (with or without the actual word “Marxist”) are taught basically unchallenged in the education system - even in English Literature. So the more intelligent, but NOT critically minded, students (the sort that end up senior economic advisers….. and what not) would find out that the ideas they are taught (that crises in “capitalism” is “natural” and so on) are Marxist - and would start openly praising Marx.
Recently (this morning - in a repeat from Friday) I heard a philosopher on the BBC praseing Karl Marx to the skies - saying that Karl Marx was a “great economist” (as well as a “great philospher”) that he understood that “capitalism” produced crises and…. (basically al lthe “pish” was presented as total truth) and how we now lived in the world “Karl Marx predicted” (and so on).
However, (to reply to Sam’s point) I suspect that this philosopher actually knows that Karl was talking out of his arse - but Dr John G. can smell which way the wind of POWER is going.
As for lying (which I suspect J.G. is doing) he would have a problem with that - being opposed to the concept of objective truth is part of his “anti enlightenment philosophy” so he can talk of (for example) ” what is left of the post war Welfare State” (as if the Welfare State had been slashed and hardly anything of them was left) whilst knowing perfectly well that the Welfare State has vastly EXPANDED and now (in almost all countries) dominates health, education, old age, income support…. (virtually everything) with civil society being in radical (perhaps terminal) decline.
The ability to say one thing (in all seriousness) whilst knowing the exact opposite is the truth, is an ability that some of the enemy have.
Still I had better do a short post on the scumbag.