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🧵 THREAD about probably one of the BEST discussions about social value of work, economic wealth and fairness in a while.

40 mins with @amolrajan, @PJTheEconomist @elerianm @KGerlich777 Louise Casey

@davidgraeber 🗣️ "The more your job helps others, the less you get paid"

Lots of requests for a "step-by-step" guide to where we are with the EU-UK negotiations.

So here you go - short thread summarising the essential context & key points / issues:

1) UK formally left EU in January 2020 but entered a "transition period" during which nothing very much changed: meant to give time for negotiations over future EU-UK relationship in fields like trade and security; based on "Political Declaration" as agreed by Johnson Government

2) Political Declaration envisaged only distant EU-UK relationship: partly logical consequence of Theresa May's longstanding "red lines" on free movement etc; but also result of renewed political preference, by Johnson Government, for even more extreme "clean break Brexit"

3) But almost immediately after UK withdrawal, Johnson Government changed the goalposts in ways that can only be described as cynical, untrustworthy and reckless. Started by tearing up large parts of Political Declaration: even its distant ties were no longer distant enough...

4) ... & continued with new red lines / fresh demands reflecting Johnson's (frankly tedious) belief that UK should "have its cake and eat it". So: back to square one - yet UK refused extension to transition period, to give more time for negotiations - even after onset of pandemic

Window dressing: : the act or an instance of making something appear deceptively attractive or favorable

Tens of thousands of of businesses shut down, economy in shambles, windows showing abandoned stores and restaurant are staring at you ugly when you are passing by. Now the same leftists responsible for this disaster think they found a solution to fix the ugliness they created.

This is the solution our Dem leaders have chosen to remedy the scars they created and the livelihoods they destroyed: apply some make-up. Make art installations in the windows of the abandoned stores and restaurants. Apply propaganda lipstick on the leftist pig and call it "art"

God forbid our leftist betters who run our cities would have thought of stopping this closure madness and helping people go back to work, re-opening stores and restaurants. That's not what they want. They want you to stay at home, afraid and dependent on their hand-outs.

In Socialist Romania during the years of the Ceausescu regime they did pretty much the same thing, only they didn't call it "art". The grocery stores and butcher shops were always empty, there was no food anywhere other that on the black market.

1/ Since "liquidity" has been the buzzword these days, here's an anecdote and a powerful lesson from history about printing unlimited amounts of money. Story time. #fintwit

2/ Our story begins with Mansa Musa or Musa I of Mali, an African king who consistently figures in the list of richest people in the world (Inflation-adjusted). One of his given names was 'Lord of the (Gold) Mines of Wangara'. Lest we forget, Gold was the 'Money' in those days.

3/ One fine day in 1324, Musa decided to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. Of course, it was easier said than done. Mecca was ~8,500 Kms away from Timbuktu, Mali. Ultimately he did make that journey and it has been recorded in the script "The Chronicles of the Seeker" by Mahmud Kati.

4/ Famously, he took a ton of 'money' (Gold) with him to aid in his journey (Well in his defense, it was ~8,500 Kms). About 60,000 laborers and soldiers carried 2 Kgs each and their camels carried 13 Kgs each, bringing the tally to an estimated ~1,30,000 Kgs of Gold.

5/ Being a generous King, he donated Gold left and right to every poor person he saw on the way. Regions of Cairo, Medina and Mecca became instantly 'rich'. The estimated donation is ~32,000 Kgs of Gold or ~$2 Billion in today's estimate.

1. Been excited about @JoeNBC's sustained convo today about @KBAndersen's new book Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America which explains how the Republican Party radicalized OVER ECONOMICS over the past 30 years. It was launched w the radical tax cuts in Reagan's presidency, but

2. as the GOP evolved through the 90s & 2000s they became dogmatic about their economic philosophy- until it became a radical litmus test/position the party followed even when conditions screamed for different policy. It was a MIRACLE the party acted to stabilize the economy at

3. at the end of 2008 when it was crashing down around us (though they just barely did & some didn't and that's bc it was before the Great Purges of 2010,2012, & 2014). America doesn't know the hit job the GOP did on the American economy as they dogmatically pursued tax cuts to

4. the exclusion of everything else while denying any policy that could grow wages or improve the economic lives of the bottom 80% aside from the 2 or 3 times Ds managed to squeeze through policy while in charge (minimum wage increase in 2007-which was the 1st time in a decade

5. and now, of course, its been another decade. It's actually a miracle wages (all wages bc when the min wage is artificially low it affects all the wages above it, that's how you end up w $10 per hr EMTs & teachers) aren't even more out of wack w inflation. As @JoeNBC points out

"if you demand more pay, we will replace you with robots" is not a reason to pay people less than it costs them to work for you, it is a reason to have your corporation taken over by the state, or dismantle an unwilling state and rebuild one that does.

corporations and governments are out here accelerating your deaths so they can monetize your remains while some of you assholes go "well $15 is too much"

$15 was insufficient 20 years ago, and it's insufficient now. pay people enough to feed their babies or they will kill you.

if people have nothing left to lose they will act like people with nothing left to lose

i cannot make it clearer than this

capitalism only "works" if you have enough police per so many thousand desperately poor individuals.

capitalism only "works" if you employ enough human beings to be the face of your blatant exploitation.

go ahead and automate and watch how fast people sabotage your shit.

if your government does not keep you fed, healthy, and safe, it has no reason to exist.

government - leadership of any kind, tbh - only exists to centralise the management of common needs, so we don't all have to individually scrabble to survive every day, on our own.