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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-46096626
In the fiscal year 2016/7 up to March, 250 children from elementary to high school age were recorded as having taken their own lives. The number is five more than last year, and the highest it has been since 1986.
Concerns the children had reported included family problems, worrying about their futures and bullying. But schools said the reasons behind about 140 of the deaths are unknown as the students did not leave a note. Most of those who took their lives were of high school age, where Japanese students typically study until they are aged 18.
[...] Overall suicides across Japan fell to about 21,000 in 2017, police say, down from a peak of about 34,500 in 2003.
[...] "The number of suicides of students have stayed high, and that is an alarming issue which should be tackled," education ministry official Noriaki Kitazaki said as the latest figures were released.
(Score: 5, Informative) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @12:09AM (7 children)
Growth is necessary because the banking system as constructed continually feeds a percentage of the society's wealth to the bankers. This percentage is roughly equal to the money supply times the interest rate minus the defaults on debt.
In a steady state economy this ends up with all the wealth in a small group and everyone else in abject poverty.
There are a few possible results.
1/ Attempt continual growth to feed the bankers. This is their preferred outcome, and why sustainability movements fail.
2/ Tax the banking class as much as they are leeching. The bankers do not want this. They bribe politicians to prevent it, and there is significant group overlap anyway.
3/ Nationalize the banks. The bankers really do not want this, it's why they shot JFK.
4/ Violent revolution. Happens occasionally and the bankers deflect the blame to some other group, usually the visibly wealthy, and then set up the same system under the new regime.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 08 2018, @09:37AM (6 children)
I think you give the so called bankers too much credit. It is true that there is accrual of wealth in a small subset of the population (co called 1%ers). This can be measured by the Gini index which is on the rise in most countries. However, the Gini index will stabilize eventually because a Gini index of 1 is impossible (Gini of 1 means a single person own everything, 0: everyone owns the same). So your assertion that the "bankers" have to be fed continuously is not true. Also even if the Gini index is on the rise, growth is not required. If productivity increases, that leaves new wealth to be redistributed without an absolute change. IMO this is what makes societies stable at the moment are the moment (the rich become richer but still everyone can buy the new cell phone every other year).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:18PM (2 children)
It's not a secret cabal wearing hoods and robes meeting in secret and chanting 'Yog Sothoth Neblod Zin'. It's a natural and inevitable outcome of the way the money supply is set up.
The US government borrows money from the Fed to operate. This money has to be paid back with interest. The only way to get that interest is to either expand the economy or to borrow it from the bankers. It is a vicious cycle, and the only ways out are to nationalize the banks, default on government debt, or introduce a wealth tax.
Inflation mitigates the debt to a degree, but not completely as the new money that is both created by, and creates, inflation is owned by the Fed.
At this point a balanced government budget is not sustainable, and probably not desirable. Balancing the budget just means that they are handing some more real wealth to the bankers, which puts a damper on the economy.
A Gini of 1 may be impossible but we as a species appear to be trying. Currently the eight richest individuals in the world have as much as the combined wealth of the poorest half of the world population.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by shrewdsheep on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:31PM (1 child)
The Fed is a governmental body that can simply print money, which they did big time recently. With this money they buy the bonds of the government, job done, no banker gets a dime. The US can get away with this scheme as the dollar is the de-facto currency of international trade. Money expansion is absorbed by foreign countries to a great extend. Money expansion does not necessarily lead to wealth distribution. In practice it does, as the rich are more influential in getting hand-outs from the just printed money. What I can agree on is that printing money is not a sustainable strategy. Either a country defaults or sustains a long period of high inflation. It has nothing to do with the private banks or the "bankers" though.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:42PM
The Federal Reserve, despite the name, is a privately owned bank that has some rather complex relationships with the US government. Those bonds are part of the debt the government owes. Where do you think they get the money from to pay them when they fall due?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday November 08 2018, @02:42PM (1 child)
It's bounded; but that does not prove that it must stabilize. sin(x) cannot exceed 1, but the value still won't ever stabilize. And even if it does stabilize, that doesn't mean that the point where at which is stabilizes will be sustainable for humanity. A nuclear war that wiped out all of humanity would certainly be one way to force it to stabilize...but that's probably not a preferred solution by anyone.
Never heard of an asymptotic function?
Not everything gains productivity at the same rate though. Look at our own society today -- sure, basic smartphones and laptops keep getting cheaper, but the real cost of healthcare or education are rapidly increasing. Rising productivity means that manufactured goods get cheaper, but it can also make human labor more expensive (if a man-hour is more productive, then it's more valuable), which increases costs in labor-intensive industries. Being able to afford a new iPhone every month doesn't necessarily make your life better if you can't afford to see a doctor anymore...
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 08 2018, @03:33PM
No, it would actually make it undefined (division by zero).
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday November 09 2018, @12:12AM
Was reading a bit, and found I was wrong on the amount fed to the bankers. It is not what I said above, it is a statutory fixed 6%, which is worse.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.