Category Archives: Economics

Is the AI Doomer Wave a Genuine Alarm, or a Scheme for Control?

Article by Paul Dragu.

Conclusion:

What may be true is that AI is the most transformative technology since the Industrial Revolution. And like every tool, it can be wielded for good or bad. It can benefit the common man as much as those with bigger — and more malevolent — ambitions. But not if it’s centralized. At that point, it becomes a weapon for those who control it and another means of disadvantage for those on the other end.

Laws for safety’s sake are not always a bad thing. But we must be careful not to allow regulation that disadvantages regular people while further empowering the state and oligarch class. Neither has a good track record of looking out for our interests.

The City Is Not London—How Babylon’s Temple Banks Built the Financial System

Long article, but very good. By Wendy Williamson.

Quotes: 

“And the language of finance still carries the vocabulary of salvation. Credit comes from credere, “to believe” or “to trust.” Redemption comes from redimere, “to buy back.” Mortgage is Old French mort gage—literally “dead pledge.” Interest comes from interesse, “to be between.” The language of finance is haunted by the language of salvation. Deeper than economics, it penetrates the soul.”

[BTW, there is a strong linguistic relationship in German between ‘guilt’ (‘Schuld’) and ‘debt’ (‘Schulden’).]

“The choice is not between having money and not having money. It is between serving the living God of relationship and serving the invisible god of the ledger. It does not demand worship through rituals or temples. It demands our attention—through organization, accumulation, and ceaseless activity. It keeps us busy, distracted, and fragmented, making it harder to see the whole. Mammon is not merely the god of debt—it is also the god of war. The same system that turns debt into wealth turns death into profit. Human suffering fuels the machine.”

Lockdowns: Point Was to Delay Natural Immunity, Not To Protect the Vulnerable

Article by John Leake.

Excerpt:

If you study the criminal mind for as long as I have (since 2003) you become adept at recognizing when individuals and groups are committing acts of fraud. And no one is more given to committing spectacular acts of fraud than virtue-signaling people who feign concern for the welfare of humanity.

1694: The Year the World Changed

Longish, but hugely instructive article. 

Here are two quotes: 

“This is where the neuropsychiatrist Iain McGilchrist enters. He argues that Western civilization has suffered a catastrophic imbalance—a dominance of the left hemisphere’s mode of attention. The left brain fragments, abstracts, and re-presents the world as a static, manipulable system. It mistakes its own symbols for reality. The right brain perceives the whole—the living, the embodied, the sacred. But when the left brain dominates, it builds a machine that cannot see what it is destroying.”

“The irony was almost biblical. William III had taken the throne to preserve Protestant Christendom. But the financial architecture he signed into existence would eventually hollow out that Christendom from within. The king who fought to keep the old faith in power had inadvertently signed its death warrant. The system he built did not care whether its debtors were Catholic or Protestant—it cared only about yield, security, and return. In doing so, it replaced the cross with the balance sheet.”

In other words: When (not if) our current banking system collapses, the path will be open for a world-wide revival. 

Afterthought: 

William III’s relying on merchants who pressured him into doing something deeply dishonest – instead of relying on God, reminds me of the prophets’ warnings towards Israel (or Judah) against relying on support from Egypt against Assyria, instead of relying on God. Similar outcome, too, in the long term.