Understanding "Financialization" and How to Defeat It | Hacker News Reader

Understanding "Financialization" and How to Defeat It

apwu.org

22 pointsqp1113 comments

This article has a lot of opinions (it’s from a union organization) without a lot of citations. In the 1970s, a lot of things changed (e.g. see this discussion[0]). Seems this article wants to focus on its narrative of what happened in the 1970s.

0. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25188457

> How to Defeat It

Apparently this is by creating unions and a postal bank. I have no idea how we get from here to there, I wish they had concentrated on that.

Click the "Campaign for Postal Banking" tag at the bottom

Thanks for the share. I took a look but it still seems to be pretty light on details.

https://apwu.org/news/new-research-shows-potential-postal-ba...

This seems to be the main thing I could find in a quick search.

I am trying to understand, but I don't know how increasing access to funds among the poorest segments of society can help defeat fictionalization as they have defined it. It really feels to be more of a spitball against an entire cultural dynamic that revolves around extracting guaranteed money through money.

Its like a door opener.

The Fed already offers banking services to banks. That infra can be reused by everyone not just the banks. But why isn't it?

Its an old question that the banks get very jittery about. But it came back to the fore when a couple banks collapsed last year and the Fed had to step in and save everyone's deposits. The entire amount. Even though its not even obligated too. Everytime this happens, people start asking more and more loudly, with the tech infra we have today, why can't those of us who want to, just bank directly with the Fed?

Big banks will oppose furiously so attempts will be made to do it in ways that don't appear to be a threat to them. Hey man we just interested in the banking unbanked poor people. But obviously once postal infra can be reused to open a bank account with fed then Anyone can start using it...

This article is more about politics than something interesting to hackers. It's a difficult line, but in this case the way the article appeals to emotion instead of basing on fact and example is why, IMO, it's flagged.

IMO, if this topic is important to you, I'd find a source that doesn't have a political agenda, and doesn't appeal to emotion. Unions, (love or hate them,) are political organizations, and often work by appealing to emotions.

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon.

Edit: Remember that most people on Hacker News are either entrepreneurs, who do not want their employees to unionize, or professionals, who can negotiate independently and don't need a union to protect their income and work environment.

For example, this article is considered on-topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40492515

Even though it's loosely about Taylor Swift, it's really about hacking some technology used in her concerts.

> If that focus on immediate shareholder value means the quality of products suffers, the environment is damaged, that workers are treated poorly, or even if it comes at the expense of the long-term sustainability of the business, that's too bad! Today’s profits are the only thing that matter in a world of financialization.

... is this trying to argue that corporations cared about all of that stuff before financialization? Because that is what it seems like it's trying to argue. And as anyone who's done even a cursory glance at the history of the 19th century well knows, corporations were far more rapacious than they are today.

...is that the entire article? This reads like the thesis statement for a much longer article or book.

Click the "Campaign for Postal Banking" tag at the bottom for more.

What a dumb article

oh do elaborate

You can't financialize away to GDP growth.

At the end of the day, the nation has to produce Goods and Services. In every measure, US makes far more Goods and Services than ever before and financialization actually helped that.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com