The elite: Fools, how can you not have six months of savings?! Why should we help you?
Everyone: *tries frantically to save in pandemic, however impossible this may be*
The elite: HOW DARE YOU SAVE YOU NEED TO BE GIVING THAT MONEY TO MEEEEEEE https://twitter.com/clumsyghost_/status/1260233122374959105

In any event, corona has basically highlighted what I think has been pretty obvious for some time now: the last decades of economic ”growth” have been highly dependent on consumers borrowing money, a thing that has a clear upper bound, which we have been reaching.

The great thing about finance (if you are the 1%) is that it allows you to extract money from people not in exchange for goods and services, but in exchange for you having money and them not having any.

I will call myself a socialist mostly because I don’t think it’s worth the argument over what socialism is or isn’t with people who think that giving you a health care is socialism.

I don’t think that I’m a strict socialist.

But I certainly think there are elements of our current form of capitalism which are so destructive of everything—long-term prosperity, the environment, democracy, human rights, happiness—that they need to be carefully regulated.

Excess debt and underpayment for labor are inextricably linked, and they’re extremely bad for us—and we know this, because there are a million think pieces about how to avoid debt and make more money individually.

But it’s not an individual problem.