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Radical Concentration of Wealth is Destroying Both Capitalism and Democracy
Note: If you wish, feel free to substitute the word "republic" for "democracy".
As I wrote in 2008:
The
economy is like a poker game ... it is human nature to want to get all
of the chips, but noted that - if one person does get all of the chips
- the game ends.
In other words, the game of capitalism only
continues as long as everyone has some money to play with. If the
government and corporations take everyone's money, the game ends.
The fed and Treasury are not
giving more chips to those who need them: the American consumer.
Instead, they are giving chips to the 800-pound gorillas at the poker
table, such as Wall Street investment banks. Indeed, a good chunk of
the money used by surviving mammoth players to buy the failing
behemoths actually comes from the Fed.
No wonder billionaire George Soros says
that the way US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson was handling the
situation was "very reminiscent of the way the central bankers talked
in the 1930s", the time of the Great Depression.
And no wonder Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz stresses putting poker chips back in the hands of the little guy ...
This is not a
question of big government versus small government, or republican
versus democrat. It is not even a question of Keynes versus Friedman
(two influential, competing economic thinkers).It is a question of focusing any government funding which is made
to the majority of poker players - instead of the titans of finance -
so that the game can continue. If the hundreds of billions or trillions
spent on bailouts had instead been given to ease the burden of
consumers, we would have already recovered from the financial crisis.
As FDR’s Fed chairman Marriner S. Eccles explained:
As
in a poker game where the chips were concentrated in fewer and fewer
hands, the other fellows could stay in the game only by borrowing. When
their credit ran out, the game stopped.
As I pointed out last August, and again last month, fewer people have more of the chips than at any time since before the Great Depression. And see this.
When most people lose their poker chips - and the game is set up so that only those with the most chips get more - free market capitalism is destroyed, as the "too big to fails" crowd out everyone else.
And the economy as a whole is destroyed. Remember, consumer spending accounts for the lion's share of economic activity. If most consumers are out of chips, the economy slumps.
And our very democracy is destroyed.
Everyone knows that politicians are bought and paid for by the financial service giants. And the 800 pound gorillas just keep getting bigger and bigger.
Two leading IMF officials, the former Vice President of the Dallas Federal Reserve, and the the head of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City have all said that the United States is controlled by an oligarchy. And Moody's economist Mark Zandi has said "the oligopoly has tightened."
As Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis said:
We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
Dennis Kucinich said in January:
There's
nothing liberal about the bailouts. There's nothing liberal about
standing by and watching banks use public money to get their executive
bonuses. There's nothing liberal about giving insurance companies carte
blanche to charge anything they want for health care... Since when did
that become liberal?***
Every area of the economy is still about taking wealth from the great mass of people and putting it into the hands of a few. If you don’t have an economic democracy, you don’t have a political democracy.
Indeed, when wealth and power become too concentrated, capitalism becomes virtually indistinguishable from socialism or fascism.
Of course, antitrust laws were enacted
to protect the economy and democracy, but - like the Depression-era
laws separating depository banking from investment banking - are not being enforced.
And the government could use existing laws to force ill-gotten gains to be disgorged (see this and this), fraudulent transfers to be voided and - perhaps - even bonuses gained at the expense of taxpayers clawed back.
Such actions would make the 800 pound gorillas a little smaller,
helping to reduce concentration of wealth somewhat. But that would
assume that America is still a nation governed by the rule of law.
Currently, it's not. Only courageous prosecutors and brave judges can restore the rule of law to America.
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I don't buy the poker anology as having explanatory power as to what generally happened and is happening. Specifically, I find that what happened is more akin to well what actually happened than say a rigged game of poker. For me, the key is real wages not poker winnings.
From after WWII until around the early 1970s the middle class was making a real run of good at the poker table of wages (i.e., coincidently, during Brettan Woods I). Since after Nixon effectively established the current fiat currency regime (Brettan Woods officially ending in August 1971, but taking about until 1973 to be more formalized), the concentration of wealth waxed and wanned (but, of course, of late has sped up in the direction of the few), generally with at least two, maybe three, phenomenon: (1) the growth of government (direct and indirect involvement), (2) the relative level of total debt (i.e., government and private), and maybe (3) real interest rates. There are other apparent drivers but let us just focus on those two or three.
With healthcare passing, we are now over 50% of government involvement (again, all forms of 'redistribution' and direct taxation & spending, federal, state & local). Milton Friedman may have had some questionable macroeconomic theories, but he was generally correct in that government involvement in the 'markets' doesn't make them free or fair. For example, TARP etc. massively sped up this effect (especially here the rigged poker game seems apt). As a rule in America, the greater government involvement, the less free and fair the economic system and the more concentrated the wealth, ceteris paribus.
Regarding the level of debt, people with capital/money don't generally need to borrow to consume, if they do borrow, they do so generally to invest. This is not true of people who lack capital. For the lower half of the economic ladder, debt is often used to consume. The best insulation against using debt to consume is generally to have a high wage. High wages tend to help those who rely on wages to consume and build up some capital (i.e., the middle to lower rungs of the economic ladder). Unemployment is worse for a person with no capital than one with capital. The private debt explosion of the last decade or so was impacted in large part by the exportion of American jobs abroad and reducing wages domestically by simultaneously importing people to compete with those on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder and exporting their jobs. Therefore, increasing debt tends to be more of an effect than the cause of inequality, but it is positively correlated and has causal components. Our fair government on behalf of large multinational (foreign and domestic), the Chamber of Commerce, etc., negotiated and passed such things as NAFTA, allowed China into the WTO even though it wasn't qualified (i.e., due to stealing technology, ignoring patent laws, human rights, etc.), etc.; and when these didn't bring the desired outcomes (e.g., wages in Mexico are relatively lower now than before NAFTA, and more people immigrated from there than before) or it was clear, for example, China manipulated its currency relative to the U.S. dollar, etc., choose to ignore negative effects or blatant violations in favor of the multinational or foreign country. Therefore, ceteris paribus, debt and government negoitated trade deals (which were neither free nor fair) have tended to cause income inequality in America.
A possible third factor was sustained low interest rates (also government induced via the Federal Reserve Bank). This increased the cost of such consumables as residential real estate (and it should not be viewed as an investment, but as a depreciating consumable asset). Regardless of what people at the Fed say, low interest rates were a primary cause of the housing bubble in America (arguably the greatest in our history). Therefore, one of the worst things you could do to the middle class and below was to jack up the price of the average person's/family's largest consumption item (again, largely the government's fault), export millions of jobs abroad (as well as 'outsource' other service sector jobs), and bring in low wage competitors (because the government decided not to enforce even its own pathetic immigration and related border laws). Again, ceteris paribus, f_king with interst rates screws the middle and bottom rungs of the economic ladder, as well as messing with trade that was never free or fair before the deal or after (and directly harming the average person's wage in the process).
Question: What do these things all have in common? Answer: Government involvement either directly or indirectly impoverishing one group relative to those with large gobs of capital. Strictly speaking, lowering wages and/or jacking up the price of their consumables up and above what the free market would have allowed. Yes, its the system, but the common thread here is mo govmint, mo problems.
"Power corrupts" is not a cliche.
THE DAY BANKERS INVADED EARTH:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_wkgIzuqJM0w/S8FTBIzheVI/AAAAAAAADsc/S11S76f_Ft...
U.S has a both a republican form, the Congress, and an elected monarch, the Prez. These two complementary systems are supposed to be a check on each other. What we have going on now is a real doomsday scenario: progress has long been dictated by trade routes and technology. Any significant changes in these has resulted in a geo-political re-balancing. The problem here specifically, is best described by New York - the global capital of finance: since NewYork is essentially the biggest player in any sort of finance, they have de-facto control over the books of the world's economics. As such the majorbanks effectively dictate the policies of industrial economies. This makesamockeryof so-called government, but is largely unnoticed as long as the banks have a comfortably inflationary environment. Because, if you think about it, inflation isn't at all what is good for the consumers, deflation, where your dollars buy more goods is. Better still are alternating periods of minor inflation and deflation. Whatever the case,there's been a sudden collapsein trade- my basic assumption (and I could be wrong) is that the aim was to offer China a non-choice - incorporate themselves into the debt structure or suffer as their export model became invalidated. Naturally, there are benefits to joining, see India's recent rolling-over; but there are massive demographic problemswithIndia tyhatjustaren't present at all in China.
Theprobelms inthecomingmonth are Europe's attitude to NewYork. Despite close ties, there is a real tug-of-war between which camp Europe will ultimately choose to go with. Notonlyis civilunrest more likely, but even in those United States, various echelons of the government are becoming aware that, with collapsing budgets, the banks really don't have the influence over day-to-day operations anymore. The backlash is starting and if the government doesn't dance to the populist theme, when the crap hits the fan the US will degenerate into something like Escape from L.A. - as always, the devil is in the details. Something banks can get wrong generally because they do office-work. That leaves, as the supremely key players, the Prez. and the US Treasury. Should it ever become painfully obvious that the Country would be better off without New York Finance, the world is already pretty much of that opinion, it is not unfeasible that the prez. would issue a request to Congress for the annullment of Banking licenses and for the setting up of State Banks, corporate accounts to be transferred there.
The essential problem is the government (the Fed) creates money out of thin air, transfers wealth from politically less favored groups to more favored groups. Depending on your point of view, the following occurs: SNAFU, CLUSTERF**K, or good times.
Nothing will change until the majority becomes hungry and destitute.
It's the empire effect.
Call it democracy or republic, the idea is the state should serve the interest of the many instead of the few. Roman history demonstrates that idea can not survive in an empire.
I'm afraid Americans are facing the same dilemma: patriotism (to the empire) directly undermines freedom and self-interest of the plebian.
"It's the empire effect.
"Call it democracy or republic, the idea is the state should serve the interest of the many instead of the few. Roman history demonstrates that idea can not survive in an empire."
Even as a city-state, the Republic was always an aristocratic oligarchy, who were in competition to exploit the state for maximum benefit. It was mostly progress to go to absolute monarchy. An emperor takes a longer term view in governance.
"I'm afraid Americans are facing the same dilemma: patriotism (to the empire) directly undermines freedom and self-interest of the plebian."
The empire has become too big to fail. It isn't reversible like in Congressman McFadden's 1930, or (maybe) JFK's 1960s. Sprott and Macquire aren't really my heroes when they are playing with the end of the world.
Methinks some of us delve into semantics while arguing over Republicanism vs. democracy in the US political system. To simplify and understand George's thesis, I like to assigns to our American rights and freedoms, as described by Mercury above "The Bill of Rights, private property, enforceable contracts, non-inheritable debts, a reasonably effective judicial system and the rule of law" the name democracy in this article. You could well have called them Republicanism and other names. The important point is that our American freedoms can not and will not survive where the state mandates a destruction of free enterprise by arrogantly subsidising and creating de novo money only for a corrupt petit oligarchy.
Agreed free enterprise is the key. In a comment on another one of George's recent articles I tried to point out that "capitalism" was vaguely and variously defined whereas "free enterprise" is not even an "-ism" but a completely natural human activity understandable to all and should be given as much free reign as possible. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/guy-who-stole-all-our-money-now-wants-s...
Yes, exactly! Thank you.
Alice in Wonderland comes to mind if one discusses wealth. With the new fangled financial instruments, some being off the books and off limits to transparent viewing by you and me----- the question becomes what is wealth and who indeed owns it. Is there a reality here, or are we overrun by ponzi schemes. It seems like quantum mechanics economics imbedded in our “financial system”. It is not well understood and does not functional like normal thinking. Voodoo and black magic with sophisticated choreography and sung in Sanskrit might be on over simplification.
I have not seen the expansive problem well defined, nor am I sure that it could be understood if it were defined.
Dick Cheney said the iraqnam war would pay for itself so i am waiting for iraqnam to write america a check !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Dick Cheney said the iraqnam war would pay for itself so i am waiting for iraqnam to write america a check !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The trading of oil in Euros could have brought everything crashing down. Everyone here has benefited from the additional time to acquire real assets, before SHTF. I'm not one of those who think things are going to peacefully reset internationally, and a limited republic doing the will of the people will be restored here at home.
Halliburton got paid.
One problem with this, George. Capitalism, by its very nature, prevents wealth concentration. Monopolies don't happen in free markets, they happen wherever the game is rigged. What we have today is neither free-market nor capitalism. It's socialism without the genocide, where the non-elites are slowly bled into submission instead of hauled off to the gulag.
Pro-wealthy arguments ignore the Godzilla in the room: inheritance. Capitalism may be the law of the jungle but lion cubs aren't born with a private army to do their hunting for them. You want real capitalism? Ban trust funds and impose a 90% estate tax. Otherwise capitalism accrues into a money aristocracy.
Monopolies do not happen in free market?
Where do you get that?
On what is this grounded?
Stop deluding yourself.
First, name for me a free market, capitalist society that actually exists now or has existed in the past 100 years.
No? Okay, moving on.
Perhaps I should rephrase it. Monopolies are only sustainable when governments interfere in the market or otherwise do not allow natural market forces to flow. They may exist for a short time outside government influence but will eventually attract competitors or drive consumers to alternatives, effectively ending the monopoly.
Name a free market that actually existed in the past 300 years.
Hope you dont refer to the 19th century US, you know when the US was busy carrying out the largest land grabbing in human history, allowing them to shift up the median wealth of their population without bothering about wealth distribution. Everyone grew richer, courtesy to generous indian sponsors.
Government is not a variable in monopolies. This is an argument by pro goverment people who want to maintain the idea that governments can curb monopolies and by anti government people who want to make believe that governments have a hand in monopolies.
The story of attracting competition is so stupid.
See, the pool of resources to start and maintain competition is limited.
Once a project has eaten up 70 pc of the available resources, it is so stupid to claim that with the 30pc remaining, a new concurrent project (better at that!) will kick in.
+1000 indeed. In pure capitalism, monopolies are a result of either "economics of scale" or "barriers to entry". For the latter, read "government".
Folks scream about the costs of medication, and contemplate schemes to reimport from Canada -- when the FDA requires millions of dollars of "studies" for drugs before approval -- even if they might only benefit a handful of people. Better to let those people die than to weaken the Federal drug bureaucracy a whit.
Copyright seems driven to preserve the rights to the original Mickey Mouse, extending every time his image threatens to fall into public domain.
We'd be able to utilize our own oil resources if only the government would set the price and let people decide to drill or not.....rather than recalculating the price (in time, dollars, or hassle) depending on whether favored groups disapproved of the sight of oil rigs.
"Barriers to entry", indeed. Or in the case of auto manufacturers and commercial airlines, "barriers to exit". Without government running protection, these union-infested money sinks would have long ago collapsed under the weight of unsustainable benefits and pensions, and efficiently cannibalized by entrepreneurs wise enough to keep the unions out and free of the idea that anyone but the individual should be responsible for his retirement and medical care. Assuming, of course, that such new business could truly be profitable with the litany of regulations and taxes imposed on those industries.
One objection though...government price fixing? How about we let the market decide that, and the government can go back to figuring out how to run a mail service monopoly that doesn't lose money.
I totally agree. I am not saying anything different.
+1000....we have a system of corporate welfarism and cronyism that is destroying the fabric of our society. A bunch of arrogant assholes on Wall Street and corporate America are raping the financial system, getting obscene paychecks and bonuses despite the fact that their companies are not performing. The game is rigged but the masses are finally waking up and protesting. Let's hope these dickheads finally get the message.
Ahh!! For once I get to agree with Leo!!
The problem has nothing to do with capitalism. The problem is the extreme imbalance in the economy between producers and rent seekers. Once our financial intermediaries become as large a percentage of the economy as they are (40% of the S&P 500 on a cap weighted basis at the peak) the economy starts to unravel. The rent seeking financial sector captures the government and is not allowed to receive lower rents.
Capitalism is merely private ownership and private decisions over allocation of resources. It does not depend on ever increasing debt. It thrived for centuries on a gold standard which strictly limits debt growth and money growth. Ideologues who throw all kinds of evils into "Capitalism" that are not inherent to the concept of private ownership merely want to replace the current crop of rent seekers and con artists and apply much more direct forms of theft and coercion.
Concentration and spread are will-o'-wisps, beloved of philosophers and not much use to anyone else. If a society at year X has a wealth distribution that looks like a normal curve, centered at 50,000 Florian ducats, and ranging from 0-100,000 FD....then at year X+10 has a wealth distribution, normal curve, centered at 60,000 and ranging from 1-120,000, then nothing has changed except (a) the society got wealthier, and/or (b) the ducat's been inflated.
Yet there are those that would decry the unfairness of it all.*
The actual issue is that the distribution curve is no longer a normal bell curve, or any approximation thereof -- and the reason for this is that there is a relatively small group of people that have isolated themselves from the "real" economy -- instead playing with funny money and unbridled political power. They can be union leaders, politicians, members of think-tanks, media, bankers....the titles don't matter. They can be recognized by their disdain for "the little people", their belief (often accurate) that common rules do not apply to them, and their practice of manipulating institutions to their own benefit. A bright neon, flashing, arrow is if they have received a government bailout when any reasonable person would have sent them packing.
This nomenklatura may not have "wealth" in any measurable form -- or they may have it in abundance.....but it is this group, and not the simple spread of wealth throughout a population, that is dangerous to a Republic.
*In large part, this is similar to those who find it unreasonable for healthcare to consume a greater portion of GDP for a country with an aging population. Of course it does!
The main problem with railing against wealth being concentrated in just a few hands is: this is sometimes an excuse for a demagogue politician to argue for a government-run redistribution of wealth scheme; for example, raising the income/capital gains/dividends tax, or means-testing social security.
Social Security is NOT and entitlement. It's our money on which we've already paid taxes.
How would you means test anyway? Think about it. You'd have the government know every detail of your personal finances? Sounds unconstitutional to me.
Beware of the fallacy that wealth concentration destroys democracy. Read the fine print.
I don't think Congress is going to have a problem inserting a unconstitutional means-testing clause into an unconstitutional program.
“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
H.L. Mencken
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
H.L. Mencken
The concentration of wealth results from those without wealth being encouraged to stay that way. The people who have it did not become wealthy by winning the lottery. They got in the game and contributed. You have to do a little research, but you will find that the current redistribution system has a break point of about $50,000 or more in income before having a job is better than not having a job. If you have no job, never had a job, no education, and are encouraged to remain that way, you will be left behind when the wealth train leaves the station. I can give you a vacination against smallpox. There is not one against sloth and indolence and those seem to have become pre-existing conditions.
I don't have the data but I suspect that the spending power in the Soviet Union was pretty well concentrated at the very top. Wealth or actual ownership would have been harder to measure or determine. Whatever wealth those at the top have is only income generating because they employ others to operate the equipment for them. Your analysis fits more closely to evaluating the Masi and measuring who has the largest cattle herd.
We will soon have a system that confiscates about 60% of income above the magic number of $250,000. If there is not anyone making more than that number, who will earn the entitlement of being robbed next?
A possibly interesting blog post with some ideas on redistribution and politicians:
http://theburningplatform.com/blog/2010/04/04/sunday-bloody-sunday/#more-436
60% of all over 250k - Lets see now , can you say hyperinflation - or devaluation - when most of working class makes 250k and lives less large than granddad . All paying 60% tax . Another great future scam . By Gosh the fraudsters are starting to plan ahead like China . How many years to the 60% for all ? 10-12. Enjoy you young rascals !!
Unfortunately it is the other way around, the concentration of power is destroying wealth.
The concentration of power is destroying the path to wealth... not the already wealthy.
I think the powerful and the wealthy formed a mutual admiration society... each telling the other "you deserve every bit of it!"... and they've joined forces to neuter the whole rest of society.
Not to rain on your conspiratorial parade, since I value all considered thought, I think you may have created a cabal that does not exist. If you have enough people looking out for #1 you get what seems to be a conscious effort on their part. Not really. The bulk of wealthy and influential people are simply doing what they do. If they are able to rationalize and justify what they do (Doing "God's work") then you get what seems to be the joining of forces. They are just a herd going in the same direction. They are going to drive themselves off a cliff, but the run will be glorious! Unfortunately, we get trampled in the stampede.
"Democracy" -all by itself at least- is overemphasised and overrated. It's not what has made The United States special. The Bill of Rights, private property, enforceable contracts, non-inheritable debts, a reasonably effective judicial system and the rule of law in general are far more important. You would rather live in a monarchy that has these things than a democracy that doesn't.
Democracy can work and make all of the above work that much better but the obvious downside is that you can have 51% of the people vote to piss in the corn flakes of the other 49% which is never a good thing, even if "we voted on it." This is sometimes the unpleasant but not really surprising result after the democracy promoting US has midwifed some election in the Middle East.
Generally I don't have much of a problem with wide, even very wide wealth dispersion. But I believe it can create it's own set of problems if it gets to extreems commonly associated with South America. Bear in mind too that if a country is constantly bringing in near destitute immigarnts then even if the economic system is raising everyone else's wealth at the same rate - the rich/poor gap will continue to ever widen: if everyone in America is 3% richer than the year before, one immigrant walking over the border with one dollar to his name will make the wealth gap wider than it was the year before.
If the size and power of government were more restrained it wouldn't such an obvious, attractive and easy partner for private and corporate interests. That government tends to be a (ok, person) of easy virtue with little care for the future just makes things all the worse. Then the real suckers at the table are the ones who are neither getting easy handouts nor sanctioned market advantages but are paying for both.
Or as my grandfather said, "Don't pile up manure in one place then be surprised when the flies show up."
Yep. The best solution to the problem of government corruption is to make it not worth corrupting.
off topic, but has anyone seen the value line index lately - it has broken out to all time highs..... wtf is going on?
And this, from Ed Steer, is enough to curl your hair if you have any left:
Novice Question: What does he mean by:
"this rally is not going unopposed! "
The bullion banks are shorting gold to suppress the price?
So as a side consequence that helps keep the dollar from devaluing?
But a devaluing dollar helps the phony market rally and that is why Bennie Bernank-ster devalues?
You have it right there in the proverbial nut shell. They short, sell into the rallies, to suppress the price. Can't have that pesky precious metal market demonstrating the real value of the dollar. Tain't in the cards.
does the market sniff inflation big time .
bail out galore,, more printing press, more stick saves
more more more ,// the crack "up" boom
I still don't get why inflation will prop the stock market. Is it not mostly the PE ratios that determine the stock value?
What if the S&P goes to $8000 when the profits stay the same?
I bet that they prop the market to get as many of us in as possible and when the game can longer be played, the first ones that run for the exits win all the chips. They know when the music will stop. When we find out it will be too late.
All these systems are corrupt and fail by design. There might not be another opportunity to renew the failed American Experiment for many centuries.
Deficits are part of the problem, Who do you think gets all of the lovely interest... poor people? Nah... the rich, foreign governments, and a few pension funds.
The aid to the financial behemoths includes not only the direct and obvious (e.g. TARP, borrow at zero and lend -- if at all -- at zero plus X), but "gifts" of regulatory omission for everything from naked shorting, to "selective" enforcement by the SEC of insider trading restrictions, to oversized fund fees for sub-index performance, to probable market intervention by the Fed and Treasury, and on and on. Basically a transfer of wealth from the dwindling middle class to a loosely organized confederation of RICO entities. I wonder if the US has always been this corrupt but we didn't know it before the internet brought us all together with information. Hmmm.....
I cannot, but perhaps you can. Ask your father, grandfather or father in law those questions. Please let me know what they say.
Capitalism ultimate goal is to eliminate competition. It is either done fairly or by force.
Game over. Now live the rest of your life.
how bout no taxes ... levy fees and duties,
fire education dept.
fire dept of oversite
fire depts of most things
bring home 0f the 800 army bases over seas 789.
fire federal reserve /
become a functioning republic , the moment a democracy comes into play then 6 votes trumps 5 votes ,, and the minority loses its place .
always those at the trough will vote for more pig slop ,
thus the 6 .. while the 5 pay the price with a gun at their head
for starters ..
by dumpster
"fire federal reserve /
"become a functioning republic , the moment a democracy comes into play then 6 votes trumps 5 votes ,, and the minority loses its place"
Universal male suffrage (read: any idiot) lead to the creation of the Federal Reserve. Once you have the Fed, might as well give the obsolete vote to women and minorities, it increases consent by making them complicit in the system. and divides everyone into smaller and smaller interest groups fighting for scraps from the Fed's table. You don't need slavery when you have fiat currency and centralized banking.
It will soon be 100 years under the Fed, that's almost half the entire length of the history of the USA.
It is enough to make one a believer in autocratic monarchy.
+ $1160 dumpster.
+ $1,165 :-))
Sometimes the best way to get your point across is to tell a good story or to use a metaphor. I love the poker-game analogy! Too bad that most of us can't get at the newly printed chips.