This is an excellent thread!

If you like looking at the big picture, this is the closest I've found so far:

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

If this doesn't make you P.O.'d, you're probably one of those that belongs in prison!

There are more excellent informative animations on other issues here:

http://www.freerangestudios.com/

treasury printing more money would in fact collapse the economy faster. It would drive inflation and make the dollar worth less than it is already (which is about what, 55cents right now?)

Convicted banker meets new cell mate.

definitely feels like 5 cents worth!! Three bags of groceries for 89. really hits hard.(and their bags are not very large)

We have several church based organisations in Australia that help the poor and struggling with food/clothing parcels.  These organisations are reporting a quadrupling of people coming in for assistance since September/October 08.  Sadly, it's going to get a lot worse before it gets any better... if it ever does,  The problem here lies in the fact that Woolworths and Coles (Australia's largest grocery retailers) hike prices up to accomodate market swings, supply and demand, but rarely (if ever) lower them when market trends, supply and demand return to normal.  For example; a 100 gram jar of Nescafe instant coffee rose from 79c to $4.99c during the 70's Brazilian coffee blight, yet they did not return to pre-blight prices when the market/supply returned to normal.

The issue here comes back to greed and gouging as much from the consumer as possible.  However, when prices rise beyond reasonable/what average people can afford, many products will stay on the shelf and either rot and/or go out of date.  There are several products mrs starkers and I used to buy regularly - for example. a 1kg Hans Strasbourg sausage was $6.45 in April 08, now $11.95 - but we now leave them on the shelf and do without/but just the essentials.  The supermarkets answer to this en-masse customer rejection is to jack prices up even higher to maintain profits, meaning only the wealthy and less discerning customers will/can buy these products.  So what happens when the wealthy decide the prices have become too high... or are suddenly not so wealthy anymore?

One would think a Government could step in with a Department dedicated only to tracking prices on major items which determine the pricing of other goods and given the 'policing' power. There might even be one which is as dysfunctional as the rest of government.

Unfortunately people can be bought overtly or covertly and it will break down. I don't know what the solution to this is apart from mass boycotting of goods and services or establishing large collectives to do the buying and marketing.

Actually, they have to vote to STOP the AUTOMATIC pay raises every year. How's that?

Meh...probably make them look better.

Yeah. It is part of the problem. You'll also notice I said:

Before deregulation, a NG and Electric companies could not own each other.  Where I live the electric co. bought the NG company.  The electric co. buys their NG from the NG company they own.  So the go to the state and say we have to raise prices because its costing us more money to buy NG.  HEHE  What a RIP.

Thanks for the tip on the angelfood ministries. I only just recently found it (on the "hillbillyhousewife.com " website) Unfortunately I haven't been able to make my order on time for the next delivery yet... brain keeps forgetting till the day after cutoff lol. gotta get a  calendar implanted in my head.

Yeah, our electricity has increased dramatically over the last 12 - 18 months, around 30% and/or more. The latest government imposed increase of $30 - $35 per quarter supposedly is to pay for a 'trade emissions' scheme... supposedly to enable suppliers to cut emmisions/pollution.  The truth of the matter is that the power and gas companies will have more cash put in their pockets for doing little or nothing differently, while consumers pay through the nose for a scheme that exists only on paper..  These corporations will continue to act as they have always done... put profits first and f**k the rest.  If they had given a stuff about the environment in the first place there'd never have been a need for US to pay them more to employ better practices.

The sooner governments realise that corporations care only for profits today, not the environment, the future or consumers, the better for everyone.  Instead of giving them money not to pollute, governments should be tightening up environmental laws and fining companies big-time for breaches.

The problem with this is that too many politicians have vested interests in big business, and therefore will vote against restrictions and pricing policies that cut into their 'on the side' incomes.

The bottom line here is that when 10% of the World's population is screwing the remaing 90% for everything they can get, what you get is a consumer base without the propensity to pay, which in turn will naturally reduce overall profits.  Sadly, the companies, in their greed, hike up prices to maximise immediate profits, thus forcing more and more people out of the buyers markets.  So yeah, putting billions into the hands of corporations while neglecting the consumer base is pure folly.  As you say, putting money in the hands of the consumer will generate sales, thus employment and increased production... meaning increased profits through the natural chain of supply and demand.

And this won't change until we the people start fighting back.  I mean, just think what it would do to companies if the people demanded better and pulled rolling boycotts on their goods and services for a day or three here and there to enforce the need for change.  It wouldn't work if only a few people did it once or twice, but if everybody boycotted goods and services of the main offenders on a regular basis, those companies would lose billions in lost revenues. They'd soon have to think about consumers and what they want need... but more to the point, they'd have to think seriously about the huge salaries, bonuses and fringe benefits they pay their executives.

This also has to stop, and the way to do this is for the people to refuse to pay council/government levies and taxes en-masse until they exercise wage restraint and roll back council/gov't exec salaries to what is reasonable for what they /actually do'.  I mean, what re they gonna do, throw everyone in jail for non-payment??

What will happen then???  The powers that be will impose martial law and use the military to move people on by force.

Here is a well written article that gives us some insight into why the World is in an economic mess... link

And another article here detailing the attempts of a few to exacerbate matters even further... of particular interest here are the comments below the story.

The one thing pertinent to both these articles is corporate/banker developer greed and political stupidity that allows/encourages it.  When oh when will they learn?  That when the majority of the wealth is in the hands of just a few, and the largest consumer base, the lower and middle classes are struggling to put food on the table, endless development, building and production will not get them out of economic trouble.

I mean, how can there be less money/real wealth in the World today, as compared to 6 months a year ago?  Somebody has to have it, right?  Or is it that we've been living above our means in artificially created and false economies, where gambling and hedge betting against non-existent funds became too often the norm, and now the consumer spending bubble has burst, the big banks/businesses are refusing to guarantee loans/deals/tradie against weakened demand.

Seems to me, the banks and corporate world are in a financial mess of their own making... and not just through the obscene bonuses they award themselves at the drop of a hat.  Much of it comes from building/developing at ANY cost,  and hedge betting against non-existent funds to a severely weakened consumer base, whose propensity to pay was gobbled up by corporate/bank greed... denying the average worker a fair day's pay for a fair day's work while the executives lavish themselves in luxury with unearned bonuses and grossly obscene salaries.  Yup, ignoring/neglecting the backbone of industry really works, don't it.!