This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
The Bank-State Bargain - Breaking The Basic Rules Of Capitalism
Submited by Graham Barnes via The Foundation of the Economics of Sustainability,
“I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, “I’m in favor of privatization,” or, “I’m deeply in favor of public ownership.” I’m in favor of whatever works in the particular case.” J K Galbraith
There’s no getting away from it. Banks create money out of nothing when they extend loans and then charge borrowers interest on this newly created capital. The result is an ongoing multi-billion pound/ dollar subsidy breaking the basic rules of capitalism. What is perhaps even more surprising is that there appears to be no explicit description of the ‘bargain’ underlying this important arrangement. What follows is an exploration of elements of a possible rationale for an unspoken agreement.
Until quite recently there was surprisingly fierce argument over the way in which money is created. Thanks largely to determined and repeated enquiry by monetary reformers and propogation of the issue via social media, there is now consensus over the role that private banks play in originating money in the form of loans, essentially ex-nihilo – out of thin air.
Recently the Bank of England somewhat belatedly broke their silence and joined this consensus via an in-house publication on the subject. So we have a little light shining in on the phenomenon of which J.K. Galbraith in 1975 wrote: “The process by which banks create money is so simple that the mind is repelled.”
The amount of money in circulation has increased rapidly since 1970. According to one source, in the UK alone more than £200 billion a year seigniorage (profit from money-issue) is achieved via interest on loans to banks. The money that is loaned out does not represent the fruits of the banks’ labour or innovation. It is created at a stroke of a pen. The extent to which banks are constrained by rules and regulations (reserve ratios, capital adequacy) can be debated to some extent, but it appears to be negligible. The extent to which this unearned £200 billion carries corresponding costs (e.g. reserve costs, operating costs) can also be debated, but it is minimal. What exactly do banks provide in return for this bounty?
The answer (although as we say, it does not appear to be articulated anywhere) may be that banks are seen to provide:
i) trustworthy, stable influence over the quantity of money-issue
ii) superior quality of capital allocation
iii) the provision of essential financial services
iv) the operation of payment and settlement systems
v) deniability – providing a buffer for politicians enabling denial of responsibility for unfavourable events
vi) an agency role in pacifying the population through the burden of debt
vii) front-line capability (and a quartermaster role) in international financial wars
We can look at these briefly in turn ….
The Quantity of Money, in orthodox economics, is moderated by the price of money – the interest rate. The base rate determines a floor to the price, and the private banks in turn ‘mark up’ the interest rate according to the risks they perceive on a particular loan and the demand for money. This ‘money market’ narrative has never adequately described the real world. Even neoliberal economists recognise ‘market failure’ in this area, and have been content to support state intervention in the form of Quantitative Easing. (A likely fruitless sidetrip is possible here, so we will content ourselves with the observation that QE is preferred to so-called helicopter money because – the argument is – it can be ‘unwound'[6]. In other words the troubled assets/ bonds bought, releasing money into circulation, can be sold at a later date removing that circulating money. Of course the price achieved is irrelevant.)
So if it is widely accepted that private money-issue left to its own devices causes crises that need periodic intervention, exactly what role in the private/ public mix does it play? Each round of regulatory measures aims to reduce the frequency and severity of crises but never does. It is as if the errant son is regularly forgiven and put back in charge of the shop after each bailout with minor changes to his groundrules. Such indulgent treatment makes him progressively cavalier about his behaviour. He knows whatever he does will be forgiven, and after a short period of public penitence resumes business (and bonuses) as normal.
The Quality of Capital Allocation is just as problematic. The assessment of risk is faulty – to the extent that interest rates achieved are more a measure of insider status than assessed risk. This preferenced access to capital reserved for friends of the casino has unfortunate side effects, including the taking out of innovative start-ups by less effective incumbents with better access to capital via leveraged buyouts. Worse still, there is no national (or planetary) strategic guidance over capital allocation. The banks are implicitly trusted to be the proxies of the market and to allocate funds ‘efficiently’. Unfortunately their idea of efficiency will likely result in a dead planet for our grandchildren. Maybe the ‘free market’ can be safely trusted to produce all the things we don’t need but for the stuff-of-life market failure is the norm – failure in terms of socially unacceptable outcomes.
The Quantity and Quality of capital allocation as credit can be (and is) articulated as part of the neoliberal narrative – the superiority of profit-motivated decision making, the inability of governments to ‘spot winners’, the highlighted failures of public procurement projects.
It is true of course that core financial services are vital. Producers need to insure against events and hedge risks. But most of our over-financialised economy is betting on other peoples’ risks rather than insuring our own. The resulting market in derivatives is so complex that no-one knows where the risks actually lie should the bets need to be unwound. This inherent uncertainty, which cannot be resolved except through a crash, results in a political inability to let businesses fold. The financial services industry is too interconnected to fail, and politicians dont want to take the risk of triggering a crash on their watch. It might be containable but it might not. No-one knows. Essential financial services should be provided via a stripped down version of the sector. We have, through sins of omission, allowed the real economy to be relegated to a corner of the casino.
There are many inter bank payment and settlement systems enabling national and international funds transfer, interlinking ATM networks and so on. They are run by a variety of bank consortia and co-operatives and enable a range of valuable personal and corporate services. These valuable services act as a sort of ‘human shield’ for the casino extremists. There is no reason that their function could not be provided by neutral ‘outsider’ or public service networks but it has to be accepted that this level of corporate re-engineering is not likely to be attempted. The complexity of interconnection, though, adds to the uncertainty surrounding any domino-collapse scenarios, and contributes to the general market failure of the banking sector. The uncertainty, which is often cultivated by the banks themselves when crisis threatens deprives the banks of that divine right of capitalism – the right to fail.
The importance of core financial services and payment systems is emphasised in the prevailing narrative, but these are presented as inseparable from banking per se. Arguably the dismantling of barriers to functional diversity (like Glass Steagall) have facilitated the ‘complexification’ and loss of resilience of modern banking, in the process creating the uncertainty that governments find it so hard to confront.
Of course, for politicians the idea of the free market is immensely attractive. The ‘invisible hand’ of the market works away, automatically allocating resources where they are best used and encouraging competition so that progress is guaranteed. That’s the theory. And none of it calls for any difficult value judgements. If things go wrong it was nothing to do with decisions they made because they didn’t make any. Unfortunately free markets don’t exist and the idea that if we tweak the regulations right we can get them to is to deceive ourselves. As Galbraith says in the quote at the beginning of this article we have to be more pragmatic about intervention. A good rubric would be ‘if it doesn’t really matter leave it to the market’. And money really matters.
In a previous article I argued that there are three fundamental problems with mainstream money – the misallocation of capital referred to earlier, the impact of interest-based debt and the monetisation of everything. Certainly the level of debt and the interest burden taken on by the current generation is grinding it down and acting as a drag on the economy. We can be forgiven for imagining that the resulting pacification is not entirely unwelcome to the 1%. To Orwell’s Prolefeed we can add debt burden debilitation. After earning enough to service our debts (and our childrens’) we may not want to do more than sit down on the sofa with a Big Mac and Eastenders. No energy for activism? Shame.
Finally, perhaps the most distasteful part of this unstated bargain is the role the banks play as the front line troops and quartermasters in financial wars. Alongside the use of drones, financial war is perhaps the favourite modern flavour of conflict. The bodies of victims are not so obviously visible. Wars may be national, like the measures being taken against Russia and Iran, or (shock-horror) class-based like the austerity wars of the European periphery. In either case banks act on the front line, taking measures which match the prevailing ideology and providing to some extent the ‘deniability layer’ for politicians. It’s nothing personal. James Rickards and others have written in some detail about this aspect of the financial system and the likely currency wars of the future. The amoral mindset required to be a diligent financial foot-soldier of the prevailing neoliberal truth is arguably a key factor in the degradation of modern banking. The moral vacuum gradually being uncovered represents a key element of the Deprecated Domain – a driving force for us to design better money-forms than the one currently imposed on us.
These last three aspects – deniability, debt-peonage-management and financial warmongering represent the real ‘value for money’ that justifies the multi-billion subsidy provided to the banking fraternity via debt-interest. Because these elements of the bargain are not publicly recognised, and for obvious reasons will not be, they cannot be easily attacked. It is for this reason that I believe policy change with respect to money-issue will not be achieved, no matter how compelling the case.
Conclusion
Galbraith was right. Governments should be more pragmatic. Politicians should stop hiding behind the skirts of ‘the market’ and make some judgement calls. Their decisions can be influenced by quantitative analyses including economic indicators expressed in money terms. But they must reflect the fact that many of the most important things in life cannot be easily quantified, and must recognise that reducing everything to numbers leads to faulty decision-making. There is more to people, natural resources and land than a ‘Natural Capital’ formulation expressed in money terms.
Some of the elements of the bank-state bargain are already under attack from ‘disruptive’ digital developments and we can expect banking and financial services to be progressively reinvented, over time. But the neoliberal hold over private money-issue policy and its inherent banking-subsidy is secure. Certainly, mainstream media buy-in to the neoliberal narrative supports this intransigence, but the main factor is the hidden services provided to pseudo-democratic government. Without the deniability cloak, governments would be less able to claim that they were at the mercy of ‘events dear boy’; a less debt-burdened population would have more time and energy to reflect and question; and the loss of a financial warmongering capability would strike at the heart of the fascist state-corporate nexus. None of these outcomes is desired by TPTB.
Progress in relieving the ‘externalities’ associated with the beloved free market, such as the premature demise of planet earth, must therefore come from disruptive alternative projects. Some of these will be profit-oriented – so be it; increasingly as understanding and practice develop side by side, they will be commons-based or co-operative. In that context money can be ‘design[ed] to serve desirable interests of cooperative users inhabiting a different monetary world’. And we may see, gradually, ‘the exodus from proprietary money’. As @ChrisCook and others have said, we need banking but we don’t need banks, at least not banks like this.
- 20090 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


Breaking The Basic Rules Of Capitalism
Works great when you kill millions of people in mass....like that's ever happened before.
Our basic rules of craps are, lady luck.
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master.
-George Washington
The Government-Corporate Complex Takes Complete Control Of The USA
The Real 800 Pound Gorilla That Controls The Realm
When deep space exploration ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything: the IBM Stellar Sphere, the Microsoft Galaxy, Planet Starbucks.
Government is all claws and teeth with no brain. It only does what it's told to do and its masters are almost all sociopaths who thrive on power and control.....
TeamDepends:
I used to love using that quote. However, I not sure is not apocryphal. The idea is surely correct. BUT, I have seen Internet sources which asserted that it was misattributed ...
'People will believe any old quote if they see it on the Interwebz'
-- Thomas Jefferson
The author keeps saying money where I think he means "currency."
Only gold is money; all else it credit.
JPM's 'only gold is money' is only really true if you have a gold standard, or some (usually bastard) derivation of it.
For most of history, silver and copper (and bronze & iron) were money too.
I'm trying to remember 19th century American history.... When and why did an industrial economy strart in the North (in contrats to the colonial south) ? What was all that fuss about credit economy defended by george Hamilton and, I believe, Lincoln ?
Correct me if I am wrong, but wasn't amercian industrial and economic might forged under George Hamilton principles ?
Yup. George Hamilton alright.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=george+hamilton&iax=1&ia=images&iai=http%3A%2F...
"Governments should be ......... "
Yep, That's how you lose credibility in 3 words. Nice try though.
Exactly.
There is an excellent argument against our current banking system. Too bad the author didn't make it.
He would replace our current shitty system with a system run by whom?? Politicans? Maxine Waters? Elizabeth Warren? A public utility commission?
There are plenty of good ideas for reform: Gold standard; End the Fed; No deposit insurance subsidy ; Capital calls for shareholders of banks that get into trouble, etc. He advanced none of them.
Instead, he uses the code word "neo-liberal" over and over. This means he wants to socialize credit creation. He should have the balls to come out and say it. Why doesn't he? After all, the current shitty system socializes risk.
Your first reform should have been the default, then come up with the gold to implement your standard, if the Fed can't pony up any, end the Fed, then end the tbtf. If you have the tbtf ones hold their arms above their heads for a couple minutes, they don't have any fight left in them and usually capitulate.
You are spot-on. The author sounds like a Marxist who would simply have politicians and central planners take over for the Federal Reserve completely. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. He wasn't very clear, but his use of bullshit slogans was a clue
Do you boys read before you comment?
Cause he writes:
"Progress in relieving the ‘externalities’ associated with the beloved free market, such as the premature demise of planet earth, must therefore come from disruptive alternative projects."
The thing with such thinking is: these are slow processes. young people tend to search for quick solutions, throw over everything without a plan (and getting thankfully overtaken by the complex).
I've noticed that on ZH there are a lot of clearly bright people who stopped thinking once they learned a few good terms...like Marxist, Communist, Socialist and Facist. Oh...and government....and gold! City garbage collection is too socialist, street cleaning is fascist and all unions are communists not to be trusted....
What I appreciate about ZH is that there are these different articles and that clearly the Tylers see that there are multiple valid points to be gleaned from different viewpoints.
There is an amazing documentary on YouTube, I believe called "The Money lenders". It was made in the early '90s over what looks to be a number of years. It is incredibly well researched, esp. Given that there was no internet at the time. It is often quoted here and on other sites, and rightly so. One thing about it,though, is that often it is used to support the purchase of gold as the one true currency...noting how it has stood the test of time. True, but in the doc he notes how gold isn't really any different than fiat as it has to be given it's value by a....Government...like Spain or whomever is in power at the moment...or by the very bankers who manipulate the prices now.
My point is that we live in a world of trade,governments and people, and that is not going to change. If you own real estate, (in my view a currency) even that can be taken from you if your guard drops for a generation or maybe a minute... So if you are going to be a fuck all government type, the only way you can live it is by going nomad and begging your food. Government does (sometimes) has and can work if properly monitored and participated in. I agree with the article and its premise.
Now I'm ready to take shit from the regulars. :)
A challenge, so thoughtfully & artfully presented must be taken up by someone, so I suppose I will take it upon myself.
We do live in a world of trade, governments and people but there is nothing to say government trumps all in pricing or governace. As you rightly point out, governments set the price of gold in their currency and already they are behind the curve in its value, as its not 1:1 is it? Meaning, they recognize its value is more than the one unit of its own so they always seek control of it.
As well as the inference that a property's value in and of itself derives from the benevolence of the state, as if it (government) is something to be patronized and protected. But you competently describe how that could all change in the blink of an eye with a simple law, a diktat or decree, cancelling out any & all property rights...this can only be done through government force, so the opposite is true as well, it can only be held by force.
I have a simpler concept, governments are merely the largest street gangs in a given city or country, that doesn't exclude me from being a pirate as well and forming my own "gang", it just means I recognize it for what it is and make up my own rules as I go along, just like it does ;-)
Fair enough. Thank you for the consideration. The way I look at it is that at some point we have to choose how we are going to pursue the rest of our lives. If it is in the world of pure theory, than perhaps I am more with you, but I have to go through it based on my experiences and the application of them (life, education, love and disdains).
Just when I'm convinced things have shit the bed, I usually figure something out, or realize that somebody already has. Gold was figured out by the banks (figuratively) and land / food by trotters on the savannha. The older store is certainly the latter. I can't imagine that if things get so bad I need a million in gold that there is going g to be someone to receive and honor it. I'd rather have a roof and crops, a shop or a viable profession to get me and mine through the rough.
I guess when it boils down to it, I adhere to your simpler concept, more or less... Have a good night.
Well I think both of us have those things already (a roof over our heads, crops & animals, a shop & equipment, a profession-or two) now all we have to do is hold them against whatever may come.
And form a few select alliances and/or gangs of our own.
Have a good one ;-)
One thing about it,though, is that often it is used to support the purchase of gold as the one true currency...noting how it has stood the test of time. True, but in the doc he notes how gold isn't really any different than fiat as it has to be given it's value by a....Government...like Spain or whomever is in power at the moment...or by the very bankers who manipulate the prices now.
Wrong. An Austro-hungarian fiat note that would have been 'redeemable' for an ounce of gold is now worth nothing. A one-ounce Austro-hungarian gold coin is still worth pretty as much as any other one ounce gold coin.
See the difference? The former is fiat; the latter is money.
Abolished? Rejected? Eradicated?......Voluntary?
Governments should be regarded as what they actually ARE, namely the biggest form of organized crime, which necessarily rise and fall due to the competition between different forms of organized crime.
Governments were based on the history of military conflicts, which operate as organized crime on larger and larger scales, until the survivors are able to get away with asserting that they are "governments." The same principles repeat through fractal patterns, to result in the best organized gangs of criminals capturing control over governments.
It is NOT possible to "abolish, reject, or eradicate" governments. It is NOT possible for governments to be "voluntary." It is only possible to change the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
P.S.
See my comment below for more discussion of that point of view ...
Yes, even the most superficial examination of history shows this to be correct.
Even if people organise a government for protection against external (or domestic) predation, it's always just a matter of time before the 'guards' turn into predators as bad (or worse) than the people they were appointed to protect the citizenry from.
'Government' (ie, organised extortion) appears societally inevitable. It's hardly surprising that 'bad' government is inevitable also; it's baked into the cake. The only thing we can do is try to persuade our fellow citizens of the nature of this reality so they will do their utmost to help restrain 'their' government...
Or leave for a less oppressive polity... if you can find one.
I agree, Big Jim!
You have correctly restated the points I was trying to make. As far as I know, there are no final solutions to the political problems that nobody guards the guardians.
At the present time, it is NO longer possible to leave to find "a less oppressive polity," since one would have to be able to go to a new planet to be able to do that. We are stuck with our situation being:
"The only thing we can do is try to persuade our fellow citizens of the nature of this reality so they will do their utmost to help restrain 'their' government..."
However, I am completely convinced that more than 99% of our fellow citizens will continue to act like incompetent political idiots. Therefore, I am extremely discouraged, because I can find no reasonable grounds to believe that any better dynamic equilibria are practically, possible, while the runaway, exponentially accelerating deterioration of the established systems is the only plausible future ... which future has a tragic trajectory that it must eventually destroy itself, (while nothing else than philosophical consolations, or some sort of spiritual faith, appears to be available to cope with recognizing those basic facts.
Another example of what I am thinking:
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2015/04/06/ongoing-commodification-of-the-commons/
Commodification of the Commons.
... Indeed:
- the Primary sector (agriculture, forestry, fishing and mining) takes what is “given by Nature” (i.e. for free), and exchanges it for claims on whatever has been given a price (i.e. money).
- then the Secondary sector (manufacturing) turns it into refined or consumer goods or tools, and the Tertiary sector (services) helps dispatch the stuff and information.
The cost we take into account is only the amount of energy spent for the extraction, the transformation or the distribution(3). The “real” cost of a given product is therefore the total energy embodied in it. Apart from heating or cooling it, which obviously uses thermal energy, most of the embedded energy is mechanical energy (= Work) used to move it. Whether this work is hours of human labor or barrels of oil or kWh consumed by a machine only matters for the order of magnitude.
The material itself is counted zero. (!!)
Both material and energy are considered infinite. (!!!)
Each and every single operation is using energy and generating waste (entropy).
The waste isn’t taken into account and “the economy” considers that either Nature, or the Society as a whole, should take in charge the burden of recycling it or making it disappear no matter how.
The size of the dustbin must be infinite too!
Of course most of this waste doesn’t just disappear, as it cannot quickly reintegrate the natural cycles. It isn’t manually or mechanically recycled either, even when possible, because doing it requires energy (often more than the valuable output could buy) and therefore is accounted as a net cost nobody wants to take in charge (as an example, look how successful the carbon-tax is).
This process is transforming the Earth into a huge garbage dump.
Back to the main point, what we call “the economy” is thus a process of appropriation, which first step consists in taking hold of something that primarily doesn’t belong to anybody, for a private profit(4).
We’re stealing from our environment, and in return vomit rubbish that cannot be reused neither by humans nor by Nature, unless spending huge amounts of energy or waiting several years, if not millennia. Steve Ludlum says that what we proudly call “wealth-production” is in reality an organized destruction of our real capital, that cannot be recreated. There’s no substitute, and what is gone, … is gone forever(5).
The economy is a component of the natural environment, not the other way round.
Such a “steal & waste” system can work as long as sufficient resource is available for all, and requires only a reasonable effort (i.e. low energy cost) for its extraction. Not to mention the rate of waste-production that must remain low, and with high level of recyclability. In other words, the human population density and the technological level must both be very low, in order to achieve something in which equilibria are evolving slowly enough to resemble a “steady-state”(6).
As soon as a risk of scarcity appears, the rules of property prevail and there’s a fight over the resource (arable land, fresh water, mineral ores, fossil fuels as required in bigger quantities to compensate the depletion, etc..)
These property laws are being reinforced and are becoming overwhelmingly important as we’re approaching the limits. Once the resource is depleted in a given place, we must take over areas where it is still available.
It started with “this land is mine” (colonization), continued with “this subsoil is mine” (oil-wars), “this water is mine”, etc. … By the way, the ownership is progressively shifted from public to corporate (while debt flows in opposite direction), see e.g. landgrabbing(7). Big Corp is more flexible than Nations, thus better adapted to changing environmental & economic conditions.
Then, because of diminishing returns and finiteness of the planet, it becomes increasingly difficult to find new land to conquer, good seams to work, oil-fields to take over. Therefore, in an attempt to catch up with the loss of usual resource, Big Corp is currently expanding its property claims onto patents on the living, rights on species(8), intellectual property, information (big data), etc. …
All these examples of new resources, enlarging the pool of valuable ones (the reckless race for privatization of whatever-can-be), are aiming to compensate the decline of traditional ones, if not feed the mandatory growth.
Beyond the likely irreversible changes triggered and the increase in savage destruction caused by this process, the main problem here is that the laws of diminishing returns also apply to the energy, most of it being fossil fuels for which we don’t have any substitute nor expandable source.
So, in the end of the day, finding new “fields to mine” is pointless (not to mention dangerous), since we won’t have the sufficient energy to exploit them.
Capitalism is undeniably speeding up the whole process, especially when financialized, but I’m not sure that another system would have given a better result in the long run, unless it would have considered that a - the resource is finite (the only net input in our system is the energy from the sun, all the rest is -or should be- recycled), b - taken into account the waste management (entropy production), and c - deeply questioned the property rules (to promote cooperation and avoid wealth concentration).
Unfortunately, such a no-growth system is an utopia, because:
Life is a succession of unexpected shortages, and the winner is always the one who burns most energy, according to the MEP principle, Maximum Entropy Production, aka 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, according to F. Roddier & R. Dewar, or the simpler MPP, Maximum Power Principle, as described by Jay Hanson.
http://dieoff.org/
Thanks for the reply, RM.
I have an issue with
Steve Ludlum says that what we proudly call “wealth-production” is in reality an organized destruction of our real capital, that cannot be recreated. There’s no substitute, and what is gone, … is gone forever(5).
humanity were dirt poor for most of their existence while natural resources were left 'as is'. Like any capital, 'wealth' arises via consuming capital (or exchanging it for stuff that can be consumed).
But I agree my fellow libertarians don't seem to examine issues around The Commons enough; they believe in 'private property rights' and land is 'property', ergo, many feel they musy believe in the ownership of land.
But, even if we don't accept that virtually every inch of the planet has been stolen from anyone who had any homesteading claims - who had the 'right' to give title to chunks of the commons away, in perpetuity? The commons were created by no man; thus no man (or men) had the right to seize them. And even if the people at the time gave acquiescence to this seizure, how can they believe they had the right to do so on behalf of their descendants, in perpetuity? And this is ignoring the fact that most governments were originally instituted by groups that had just seized large chunks of the commons and wanted to cement their ownership through legal structures.
Having said that, if we expect people (farmers, miners, etc) to invest time, energy & capital into the commons to more efficiently produce goods and materials that we all consume, it is reasonable for them to expect a return on that capital.
So I'm a big fan of the notion that all land is commonly owned, but that people/groups can take longish leases out so they can improve/develop the land and make a return. There would be an annual rent based on the market value of the property also, so that any increase in the value of their holdings caused by infrastructural improvements (paid by general taxation) would ultimately be paid for by those who benefited from it. The State would largely fund itself from these leases and rents.
This doesn't get around the broader issues of overpopulation and resource depletion, of course, but at least fewer of us would be beholden to the scions and descendants of robber kings ;-)
"How can they believe they had the right to do so on behalf of their descendants, in perpetuity?"
I think that people only PRETEND to do so in perpetuity. All of us only have relatively "longish leases," in the sense of the motto on the Zero Hedge banner: "On a long enougy timeline the survival of everyone drops to zero."
PS...I like the new Fightclub 24/7 format.
When CNBC airs Monday morning.......they can start out with.....what the hell just happened?
Zero hedge talking bollox again.
Capitalism is state usury.
It's been that way in the British Isles since at least 1545......
Thanks goodness for Common Core.
Even as an anarchist who sees capitalism as a by-product of anarchism (chinese commies still sell their surplus food yaknow), I find it disconcerting that dork's comment has received so far 10 downvotes. That level of antipathy toward a sentiment even the Austrian School would surely agree with, strikes me as dogmatic.
Economic isms are a funny subject, historically convoluted by states to preserve the prevailing system of economic enslavement. Anyone who believes they have it all figured out, as the 10 downvoters must have, are woefully indoctrinated. That many of my fellow proponents of 'capitalism' are indoctrinated and intellectually incapable of taking on a counterpoint of view, or in this case simply a criticism of an ideology's real-world practicality - really makes me question my own beliefs in capitalism more than any left thinkers ever have.
For those who believes the current system of economic tyranny is anything other than more of the same, I have two great books to recommend:
A.L. Morton - A People's History of England
Howard Zinn - A People's History of the United States
Fair warning, catalysis of empathy ensured!
If Corky Dorky wants to avoid getting downvoted, he can qualify his statement that 'capitalism' is 'state usury'.
'Usury' just means lending money at interest, and was banned in the West by the idiotic Catholic Church for centuries.
'Capitalism' just means using deferred consumption - capital - to hire people to add value to inputs before selling that value on at a profit, in an attempt to increase that original stake of capital.
'Capitalism' has been completely eclipsed by the State-imposed capital-out-of-thin-air cartel of banks, whose lending - and, consequently, the economy - is largely determined by politically-appointed bureaucrats.
If that's what he meant, he should have said it. As it is, it sounded like some vague, lefty call for interest-free lending to cooperatives.
THE DORK OF CORK
Is absolutely and unequivocally right.
OK....but does he have any toilet paper?
I think it's great you've read books and feel ways about economics, I have and do too! Unfortunately the real world conforms to no ideology, as much as we ideologues might hope.
Fortunately however we can agree on something:
Exactly, the dork is right.
Everytime I hear "government should" I absolutely cringe. Government service is gone forever. There is a war raging and it's against the populace not represented by special interest groups, or true representative government has been replaced by special interests. If you're not connected you don't exist and a government for the people by the people is nothing but a sham perpetrated by media in order to keep it going. So sad what we have turned into. The irony of it is we have the ability to eliminate most of it by simply changing a law or to in favor of the person who spends his days working and is not affiliated with some sort of political special interest group. Ahh well long gone now.
Greece has a chance to start over with a new banking model and new currency... what the EU really fears is a prosperous Greece post-euro, ...and if the rest of the euro-slaves see a prosperous Greece, then poof-goes-the-euro, poof-goes-the-banks.
greece will go bric, which is another prison.
Don't think so. The Russians have been stringing the Greeks along to jab their thumbs in the eye of the European Parliament. It suits Russia to have a fragmented Europe.
They don't want shitty failed states in their bloc. Let's not act like Greece is anywhere close to one of the other BRICS nations in economic power.
Russia might give Greece a piecemeal loan and a hi-five on the way out of the Eurozone, and then promptly throw them under the bus, unless they had designs for other Euro states too.
Well, when you can get away with financial "murder" and plundering and theft are elevated to prime virtues with justice being relegated to nary a concern, where can there be any incentive to reform?
I'm trying to figure how to make money on this overwhelming demand for ghey wedding cakes.
I'm still stuck on who would have a pizzeria cater their wedding.
They can come in and I'll serve them.....but I'm not going to cater to them.
They have the freedom....to leave me the hell alone.
I would start with the media types who like to judge, they are always there first to hold you accountable later to their opinions.
Rednecks.
I'll take that over pompous c*cksuckers for a thousand Alex.
Yeah, I don't like those pushy me-first religious types who think having to be aware that not everyone is some fringe fundamentalist Protestant is some kind of violation of their rights, either. I don't call them vulgar names, though.
Yeah, I'm sure if it had been a muslim run bakery/pizzeria there wouldn't have been any issue at all...lol.
On a lighter note, Wellesley College is now admitting trannies, that is to say, men born as men. Men who now self-identify as women. No word yet on if tranny women (women who now self-identify as men) will be admitted, which seems a little discriminatory on its face to me.
Some seem to think this all womens college is now more conflicted than, oh never mind, its very complicated ;-)
Yeah, I'm sure if it had been a muslim run bakery/pizzeria there wouldn't have been any issue at all...lol.
Heh heh....just another headless reporter.
Ah, it's a great time to be in the field of HR, college admissions, diversity, counseling, etc. The complexity must be fascinating. That's the problem with labels and putting identity above all else; you keep needing more labels and identities so you can be a unique individual snowflake like everybody else.
Did you ever read the "Hitchhiker's Guide" series? Adams at one point revealed the original populators of Earth. Another planet had gotten to the point we have, where the world was over-run by people who did absolutely nothing worthwhile and were too dim to understand that. So everybody else cooked up a story that their world was about to be destroyed somehow, and built an interstellar spaceship to take them to a new planet. They took all the HR types, advertising creative directors; all the useless people, and told them to go find a suitable planet and make it all ready for everyone else, who would be coming along on the next set of space ships. Of course, there was no next set of space ships, there was no existential threat to the planet; they just got rid of all the morons. Who of course landed on Earth and we're their descendents.
It was pretty funny. And in my career as a corporate events consultant, I deal with an awful lot of "First Spaceship" people. I might even be on myself. Obviously, they're comfortably settled in and doing pretty well for themselves at Wellesley. Which has always been a fairly silly place.
I'm just waiting for the first chick already enrolled at Spaceship Wellesley to "become" a man...lol. I mean, what will this academic board of PC fools do about their "all girls school" then, kick her out, advise her to change back or grant her status on her prior gender, telling everyone to ignore the unnaturally large, always flacid roll of socks in her front pocket?...lol.
Oh what a tattered web but it is always comical ;-)
Can't wait for the Politically Correct Hunger Games to begin: "And we're off! The first-ever Least Offensive Mile-Relay has begun! Most lead off men/women/other have started off crawling, so as not to offend the lesser mobile of society...."
Did you hear about the guy who went around to several muslim bakeries in Dearborn acting all homo and requesting a homo wedding cake? Of course you didn't because he was denied each and every time.
P.S. If you are offended by "homo", it is merely short for "homosexual". "Gay" was a perfectly good word until the homos got ahold of it.
Apparently a few bigoted, redneck news reporters were offended by a business owners truthiness, maybe they're not used to hearing it or seeing it in person, that is to say, candor and resolve.
I suppose it would have been much better if one of the reporters had actually placed an order and plunked down some cash, stipulating to the owners what they wanted the nuptial cake to look like. That way, any & all doubt as to the propriety of creating it could have been removed.
No flannel, no dicks, no service ;-)
Score this....
Asshole reporter : 0
Everyday common girl : 842,000
I saw that...lol...they're well on their way to becoming millionaires. All thanks to some "progressive" reporter, reporting on essentially nothing.
Now all thats left in this insane bit of nonsense is for the prog reporter to find some huckster lawyer and try to claim if it wasn't for the reporters own bias the owners wouldn't be swimming in "dough" now, therefore the reporter(s) is/are entitled to half the charitable donations for having tried to put them out of business...lmao!
Progressivism, it's a helluva drug.
Its a bright red shiny thing thats bought and taken home with childish glee, its only when one opens it up that all the worms are discovered inside.
Then we get to watch them eat Soros worm meat and proclaim it as healthy! ;-)
Ewwww, gross! But degenerates such as Alix Bryan lap it up.
No doubt that $842,000 is taxable income.
No worries....we the people will get our cut.....which we'll squander aimlessly.
Well, if the American traditions of Freedom of Association, and "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone", makes me a bigger "redneck" than I already am in the eyes of vastly ignorant, smug regressives, than I'm ALL IN.
Please Leftist rodents call me a "hater" and "non-inclusive" so I'm assured of maintaining the proper compass heading.
Iron-on frosting?
Sorry, nmewn. I think that market is already pretty well covered. The media must have already found every single person who works in the weddings industry who isn't ghey. I mean, in a country of 310,000,000, there must be, maybe, 7 heterosexual wedding planners, decorators, bakers, florists, jewelers, etc. And the media has found every last one of them and made them celebrities (and wealthy panhandlers, like the pizza lady).
I am thinking that, in the States which are going to allow businesses to post "gay customers not welcome" signs, businesses which DO welcome gay customers will have more customers, and therefore more business and larger profits, and businesses which post the "not welcome" signs will have fewer customers, less business, and smaller profits. Simple math. 1) more customers; 2) customers with more money to spend.
Imagine what would happen to WalMart if they posted signs which said "non-Caucasian customers not welcome, and less-than-affluent Caucasian customers not welcome".
So I doubt the "gay customers not welcome" signs will last very long.
Is this all politicians pandering to "fundamentalists" (WHO APPARENTLY VOTE!) creating a tempest in a teacup, acting like bugs floating down the river on leaves screaming for someone to raise the bridges for them?
All kidding aside, at the heart of it is a business owner being able to refuse service to anyone for any reason. It doesn't matter what the reason is, its their business and their decision. We used to have something called freedom of association in this country and if a ghey business owner refused to engage in commerce with me because of their bias of me being the "hated hetero" I am, I would understand and just go elsewhere, not making a big production out of it.
In this case no one was refused service as far as I can tell anyways. One of these perpetually peeved "social change" reporters asked a question of a known Christian business owner knowing what the answer would likely be, creating the tempest in the teacup for personal notoriety and/or fame.
Legitimate reporting and advocacy are two very different things and are supposed to be separate, so the reporters in question shouldn't be too surprised when they're fired for giving up their neutrality in combining the two into their own biases ;-)
If the currency is not free, the marketplace cannot be free, by definition
Galbraith sucks .... equating free market with government .... classic straw dog .... free market always .... government is the referee .... how much do they pay referees at prize fights .... less than 10% of the gate .... right .... yeah, fucking right .... much less than 10% .... I rest my case ! Gaulbreath stinks edit: Gallbreath is bitter and stinky .... French girls are very kissable !
Not a fan of Galbraith, but IMHO he was right about one thing. He said, "cars aren't sexy; people are sexy".
That's another one of his false dichotomies .... cars AND women .... are both sexy !
Not surprising that you'd think cars are sexy. Your avatar indicates a fondness for fucking tailpipes.
Never for money. Always for love.
There are only 3 types of monetary systems (and of course mixtures and hybrids - no system is pure). You can have debt-based fiat (the system described in the article), direct-issue fiat (or MMT), and commodity based. The current debt-based fiat system evolved over time from the commodity-based systems of old. Banks could lend money they didn't have because they knew everyone wouldn't withdraw their funds at the same time. Then when the commodity base was eliminated, banks could simply create money from nothing by creating an offsetting debt of equal magnitude. The institutionalization of central banks gave the system some stability, so that banks were not brought down by runs of depositors demanding payment.
A direct-issue fiat system would work differently. The top level of government would simply issue currency to cover any shortfall in revenue - it would in essence spend money into existence. In a direct-issue system, the value of money is not regulated by interest rates, instead it is regulated by tax rates. Taxes provide the return path so that limitless amounts of money do not build up in the system and hyperinflate, as they did when the Continental Congress printed up piles of money. In a direct-issue system there would be no Federal Debt, as the Federal Government would never need to borrow anything. The Treasury would just spend as much money into existence as needed to meet appropriations. Direct-issue systems usually fail quickly, as there is a political temptation to buy off more and more voters by spending money on them and reducing or eliminating their taxes. Any system that depends on politicians acting responsibly is usually doomed in the present age.
Banksters destroy their banks. You just have to wait. They'll get the job done.
They were at it in 2008 and look where we are now.
This monetary system destroys capital. Since banks use their advantage in money creation, eventually they will own everything.
However, it will only be nominal as the value of their assets, the capital will be destroyed so the whole economy goes down with it.
Additionally, due to the moral hazard this process creates society will be destroyed.
Capitalism creates capital, thus its name. This sytem destroys it.
Why the double speak? This is fascism, pure and simple.
If you prefer starting from scratch then you can wait otherwise you have to act, decisively, now!.
Theories and "should be's" are nice, but the problem is that government, bankers and politicians are the same people. It's not new; Andrew Mellon was Secretary of the Treasury for Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover. We all know his legacy.
Institutional government, the finance sector and politicians are supposed to be antagonistic to each other to at least some degree. Every time they are all the same team, finance takes dominance over anything real in the economy, and things collapse. That's because, and apparently a lot of powerful people don't realize this; Finance isn't real.
Finance creates nothing. Finance can be used to create something real, but finance for the sake of finance only drains real wealth from a system. This process has become so engrained that we now have a system that used debt itself as currency. The prime economic activity now is the creation of debt. Well, when smart people put their minds and efforts to something, they will achieve it, and we do have a lot of debt.
But, and here's the other thing smart people don't seem to realize, finance is only a tool. It isn't the purpose of human activity. The economy is not finance, but the sum total of human activity. Confusing the tool for the purpose is fairly common; consider the IT nerd who values his beloved IT system so much he doesn't allow anyone to actually use their computers and connectivity to get anything done.
We only seem to learn the truth of these notions after a devastating collapse. Such collapses used to be fairly regular. After the collapse that started in late 1929, the government / bankers / politicians installed a framework that did a remarkably good job preventing collapse. For about a lifetime it worked more or less well. By the '90s, we had gone so long without a collapse that people convinced themselves that things were different now; we didn't need safeguards, and besides, those safeguards prevented the elites from grabbing as much as they possibly could. So they removed the safeguards, and convinced the rest of us that we were one lucky shot away from being just as fabulously wealthy as they wanted to be.
Since then, we've had at least 2 epic collapses and are well on our way to a third; or, if you take the longer view, we're onto the third convulsion of a single ongoing super-collapse of a degree that might demolish our entire economic system.
Economic systems and "laws" are supposed to serve the needs of the general public. Sure, some people will become insanely rich, but as long as everyone else who does what they're supposed to do does pretty well, that's good enough. Nothing is perfect. Our economic system is a man-made abstract construct. It can be changed, and it is changed all the time. It's a shared hallucination that only works right when everyone is on the same "wavelength." When people start to diverge, the system doesn't work as well. When the system becomes more important than the real activity it is supposed to augment, collapse is inevitable.
Panics and collapses are good .... it at least indicates .... there was enough economic activity to collapse .... let the panics happen .... the losers butt out .... new, younger players with better ideas (the winners) .... take over .... it is the essential dialectic of Capitalism and life .... like wild fires .... and seed frost .... pity the poor Socialist dumps .... who never achieve orbit velocity !
It's pointless to talk about what should be or what's imminent (for 5 yrs now) when 90% of the people don't find any value whatsoever in the conversation.
They couldn't care less about topics like commodity price suppression, absurd banking/monetary practices, Western Imperialism, etc.
The 90% will continue to inadvertently authorize the status quo until other world leaders put a stop to it. All we can do is prepare for what's inevitable with beans/bullets/bullion/boy scout handbook, and practical plans for survival.
If we were more faithful .... to freedom .... panics wouldn't be necessary .... inefficient producers would be weaned .... continuously .... avoiding pressure build up and log jams .... a 1000 mini-panics a day .... keeps depression away !
The world as envisioned by M.A. Rothschild was a predatory network of house of the red shield [the symbol for revolutionary khazars in europe at the time] banks which control the wealth distribution, and the states [politico] being their sycophatic mules entirely dependent on their loans and favors.
"Give me control of a nations money and I care not who makes the laws". - M. A. Rothschild
He would be very proud of the end result today.
The USA Constitution says, "CONGRESS shall COIN the money."
Who?
El Congresso debe cunir las monedas !
do you mean Cundir; to spread??
Last I heard coin is an asset on the feds balance sheet and paper is a liability.
Yes, FRN & Fiat are IOUs, Debt when in the hands of the public.
So is coin purchasing power the govt (treasury) owes and frn is pp the fed owes?
I heard some angles from some Economist conversation
Debt = Money, Credit = Debt = MOney
Bank Accounts that you own are Debt for the Bank, the bank owes you. You get an IOU for your Deposit.
The FED Operates the same way with two sides of Accounts like Treasuries and US Bonds issued are Debts, those they hold are Assets. The toxic assets appear as assets till marked differently. So the imbalance on the FED Balance Sheet might have some kind of Debt on the other side as a Liability making it not an imbalance. That is why they say growth of the FED Balance sheet when they talk about it usually.
Sounds like Double Posting Accounting.
So my guess is you are right. I think Coin that has Metal Value is an Asset. But normal coin today cost more that it is worth to mint since has little PM Value.
The requirement to Mint coins is a Liability really.
But if we had a currency collapse the story might be different. Like in WW II the USA Collected Door to door all metals and other items to recycle for the War Effort. Metal US Coins could have a Value in Deflation even if made of Nickle & Copper.
If I remember Money is always an IOU for Goods. Goods are the real currency. Today's Coins are Debt/IOUs unless they are Gold or Silver.
The govt forces us to use its fiat money by refusing to provide any means of enforcing obligations with any other kind of money. Allow people to use whatever they choose as money, and most of these problems would disappear. As a practical matter, people would almost certainly use gold.
If you don't like fractional reserve banking, don't accept money from a fractional reserve bank.
I expect that in a completely free system gold would be money, and there would be fractional reserve banking with
a lot of digital money backed by gold.
BUT each bank would issue its own money, and if a bank began issuing too much, people would simply refuse to accept it and would always have the option of demanding gold.
The market would then determine the size of the money supply.
In a world of 7,000,000,000 people, it wouldn't take much gold to be quite wealthy indeed. Even rich people would only have a little silver. Copper would be for the middle class, and maybe steel or even certain types of stone for the vast multitude.
Stomped beer cans .... is money !
lol thats good..steel and stone for the serfs!
Until WW III when the USA will go back on rationing, Recycling Shoes, all Metal, Cardboard & Packing material.
It is amazing the number of idiot liberal economists that do not understand a key component of capitalism is regeneration of capital. In my first small business in the late 70s the $20K my partner and I borrowed and plowed into our business paid back in the end with millions in sales and $190K in wages per year for 7 people ( for quite a number of years).
This is the multiplier effect we miss today. There is no small business regeneration of capital today because banks have no incentive to lend. All banks borrow from the fed at near zero percent and buy investments to collect the spread. This is far less risky than lending to business because it is guaranteed. Because there is no lending to smaller business there is no capital regeneration to create the flood of jobs that normally follow a bust.
Then we have the idiot liberal politicians who are obsessed with creating powerful big government bureaucracy in the form of socialist welfare states. They believe that government must fulfill the role of job creator (formerly by small business) through borrowing (debt) to build a welfare entitlement state. This welfare entitlement state serves the purpose of creating power in government while subjugating millions to a total dependency to the state. This subjugation causes these sheeple millions to elect and reelect those who promise even more.
While this welfare entitlement state is being built capitalism is being destroyed. The state will no longer allow a competitor. The only businesses that are allowed to stay afloat are those that mimic the rules of the welfare entitlement state. These crony-capitalist businesses pay homage to the state politicians with large donations to their campaigns.
The net result socialist welfare states can be seen all over the world. Job creation is minimal. Huge percentages of the working age populations are on welfare. People demand more and more from government as business dies. And governments are debt ridden, inefficient, corrupt and bloated from trying to expand the socialist welfare state.
And as all social experiments and monetary bubbles do… this will someday end badly…
You've described the scenario pretty well. But the bankers, politicians, and corporate oligarchs are all the same people. They've put this system in place to benefit themselves. Nobody loves the welfare state more than the corporate oligarchs; that's why we have it. And nobody hates small business or the creative/destructive cycle of capitalism more than bankers and oligarchs. Government control is an arm of corporate power now. It's all the same people, wielding power all in the same direction. The proper word for it is "Fascism," and yes, all our politicians are fascists. They sometimes have minor disagreements about which one of their constituents should take priority of another, but the overall mindset is uniform across them all.
The Creative/Destructive Cycle of Capitalism .... Capitalism creates .... Socialist mobs destroy ! Hands up .... don't loot !
The socialists aren't in charge. The oligarchs are. And they aren't socialists.
I think you've got your Garanimals mixed up. Never wear a hippo shirt with tiger pants.
I just want to integrate what you two just said above about Socialism, Corporate Socialism, & Fascism with a few other ideas.
- Obviously there is no place in the Declaration of Independence or US Constitution that calls for a Strong Central Government in order to have a Strong Foreign Policy, Big Military, Big Standing Army, Super Power Status all over the Globe. Or maybe I missed it.
But also there is this huge Trade Agenda. TPTB have this huge Pathos for getting Richer and having Slave Trade to Leverage their Investments. Well... and War, Military Confrontations, Bombing, Droning, firing missiles also Leverage their Investments. Debt slaves and prisons have also been used to leverage Investments as well as Piracy on the seas.
- Let see what war ideas we have
1947 - Official War on Communism, to support Greece & Turkey
1964 - War on Poverty (L.B. Johnson)
1964 - War on Vietnam (L.B. Johnson)
1965 - War on Crime (L.B. Johnson)
1968 - War on Civil Rights, Poverty (L.B. Johnson)
1970 - War on Crime (R.D. Nixon)
1970 - War on Pollution (R.D. Nixon)
1980 - War on Communism (R. Reagan)
1982 - War on Drugs (R. Reagan)
1984 - War on Crime, Sentencing Reform Act (R. Reagan)
1986 - War on Organized Crime (R. Reagan)
1989 - War on Panama (H.W. Bush)
1991 - War on Bank Bankruptcy, Born, Keating Five (H.W. Bush)
1995 - War on Poor Not Having Subprime Home Mortgages (W. Clinton)
1999 - War on Kosovo (W. Clinton)
1998 - War on Poor Banks Having Structured Finance, Derivatives (W. Clinton)
2001 - War on Afghanistan (G.W. Bush)
2003 - War on Iraq (G.W. Bush)
2005 - War on Bankruptcy, Bankruptcy Reform Act (G.W. Bush)
2009 - War on Bank Bankruptcy, TARP, FED Loans(B. Obama)
2009 - War on Email, Counter Intelligence War on US Citizens (B. Obama, H. Clinton)
2009 - War on Health Care Patients (B. Obama)
2011 - War on Libya, Syria (B. Obama)
2014 - War on Russian Federation (B. Obama)
Well women got rights, worker rights were passed, Welfare programs are now seen as permanent for 25% of US Population which means VICHY DC is no longer pretending to deal with Domestic Jobs issues in a trade with "Free (Slave) Trade". So there must have been a War on Jobs
- War on Jobs
1980 - Most favored Nation Status for China (J. Carter)
1984 - Caribbean Basin Initiative, Free Imports to USA (R. Reagan)
1994 - WTO Formed, Marrakech Agreement (W. Clinton)
1994 - War on Jobs, NAFTA, Deregulation of Trade, 3 Nations (W. Clinton)
1994 - Most Favored Nation Status for China Reinstated after Tianamen Square (W. Clinton)
1996 - Most Favored Nation Status for China Reinstated after Test (W. Clinton)
2000 - Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China and WTO Membership for China (W. Clinton)
2005 - CAFTA-DR Ratified, 2006 El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Guatemala
Looking beyond the cynical names (there's a Masters Thesis for someone so inclined), what's the purpose of every one of those inititatives? Window dressing for the transfer upward of yet more wealth created by the work of the lower orders. Calling it "War" always gets support, per Goering's famous observation.
The encouraging detail is that the lower orders must be incredibly productive if they create so much wealth to be siphoned upward over so many "wars" and such a long timeframe.
You got it I continue to get more out of my lists like this. I have one of Social Programs that is a little too short since you have to go at least back to Teddy Roosevelt's Anti-Trust Legislation and there are lots of little tweaks to the Social Programs we have.
- These Acts are Propaganda
- Are Hijacked by Lobbyists and Elites
- Any Reform will be hijacked as well
- It is a Dire Situation
- And info is still not out there yet for enough people to see
Nothing will happen because everyone collectively does not give a shit as they are slowly enslaved.
One day things will get so bad thet people are forced to give a shit or they die in large numbers.
Hey is this org important(Scale of 1-10)?
- Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE), London Gherkin, 30 St Mary Axe
Intercontinental Exchange, Inc. (ICE) is an American network of exchanges and clearing houses for financial and commodity markets. ICE owns and operates 23 regulated exchanges and marketplaces; ICE futures exchanges in the US, Canada and Europe, Liffe futures exchanges in the US and Europe, New York Stock Exchange, Equity options exchanges, OTC energy, credit and equity markets. ICE also owns and operates 5 central clearing houses; ICE Clear Europe, ICE Clear U.S., ICE Clear Canada, ICE Clear Credit, and The Clearing Corporation.[2] Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, ICE has offices in New York, London, Chicago, Houston, Winnipeg, Amsterdam, Calgary, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Singapore.
- LCH.Clearnet
LCH.Clearnet is a European based independent clearing house that serves major international exchanges, as well as a range of OTC markets. Based on 2012 figures LCH.Clearnet cleared approximately 50% of the global interest rate swap market,[1] and is the second largest clearer of bonds and repos in the world, providing services across 13 government debt markets. In addition, LCH.Clearnet clears a broad range of asset classes including: commodities, securities, exchange traded derivatives, credit default swaps, energy contracts, freight derivatives, interest rate swaps, foreign exchange and Euro and Sterling denominated bonds and repos.
- Euronext
Euronext[8][9] is a pan-European exchange based in Amsterdam, Brussels, London, Lisbon and Paris.[20] In addition to cash and derivatives markets, the Euronext group provides listing market data, market solutions, custody and settlement services.[21] Its total product offering includes equities, exchange-traded funds, warrants &certificates, bonds, derivatives, commodities and indices.
As of the first quarter of 2014, Euronext was number one in continental Europe with 1.300 issuers representing a €2.6tn market cap.[22]
OR how about this one:
- Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC)
The Depository Trust & Clearing Corporation (DTCC) is a U.S. post-trade financial services company providing clearing and settlement services to the financial markets. It provides a way for buyers and sellers of securities to make their exchange in a safe and efficient way. It also provides central custody of securities.
In 2011, DTCC settled the vast majority of securities transactions in the United States and close to $1.7 quadrillion in value worldwide. DTCC operates facilities in the New York metropolitan area, and at multiple locations in and outside the United States.
- Euroclear, JP Morgan Euroclear
Euroclear is a Belgium based financial services company that specializes in the settlement of securities transactions as well as the safekeeping and asset servicing of these securities. It was founded in 1968 as part of J.P. Morgan & Co. to settle trades on the then developing eurobond market.
Euroclear settles domestic and international securities transactions, covering bonds, equities, derivatives and investment funds. Euroclear provides securities services to financial institutions located in more than 90 countries.
In addition to its role as an International Central Securities Depository (ICSD), Euroclear also acts as the Central Securities Depository (CSD) for Belgian, Dutch, Finnish, French, Irish, Swedish and UK securities. Euroclear also owns EMXCo, the UK's leading provider of investment-fund order routing.
Euroclear is the largest international central securities depository in the world.
-------------
- Cede and Company
Cede and Company, also known as "Cede and Co." or "Cede & Co.", is an organization formed for the purpose of efficiently processing transfers of stock certificates on behalf of Depository Trust Company, the central securities depositary used by the United States National Market System, which system includes the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq, and other exchanges together with associated clearinghouses such as NSCC, FICC, DTCC, etc. The company is based in New York City.
DTCC has several subsidiaries:
- Depository Trust Company (DTC) – The original securities depository
- National Securities Clearing Corporation (NSCC) - The original clearing corporation, it provides clearing and serves as the central counterparty for trades in the U.S. securities markets.[32]
- Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC) – Provides clearing for fixed income securities, including treasury securities and mortgage backed securities[33][34]
- EuroCCP – European Central Counterparty Limited (EuroCCP) is the European subsidiary of DTCC that provides equities clearing services on a pan-European basis. Headquartered in London
- Omgeo – Omgeo is a central information management and processing hub for broker-dealers, investment managers, and custodian banks. It provides post-trade, pre-settlement institutional trade management solutions for the securities clearance and settlement industry, processes over one million trades per day
I feel there are too many hidden players and the system is too complex and Occult (Yes, Opaque). Secret Governments like the US Federal Government must fail and their currency must fail since they are choosing winners over others chosen to be losers.
Way off banks were suppose to lend depositors money not create it. even if a bank borrows it from the government at 0 do not they have to pay it back?
Deep topic related news today, MIC Spending hides its waste:
- PAPER: Secret missile shield a flop...
- 'Most powerful radar of its kind'...
- The Pentagon’s $10-billion bet gone bad
- Leaders of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency were effusive about the new technology
Also reposted from something I wrote this morning:
Yeah the system gets more and more complicated by charlatans and other smart people instead of getting more streamlined and simple by smarter people.
Hell capitalism depends on complex systems that charge fees and create jobs through complexity and Usury.
Maybe this is part of Chaos theory or Capitalism theory.
Anyone?
According to one source, in the UK alone more than £200 billion a year seigniorage (profit from money-issue) is achieved via interest on loans to banks.
Profit? No big deal ... Imagine how this kind of value hits the economy saved or spent. It puts all those assets you see now spiralling upwards and you only get to earn a tiny fraction to build a life for yourself.
Understanding what has been happening, how it affects detrimentally lives of families etc. all for what purpose? The system is designed to ensure the top is always top it can never collapse and all those with everything keep everything. In the end no matter how you look at it is a con job for the pooreset who wonder wtf there life keeps on getting trashed whilst those who pretend they are more worthy never seem to put a foot wrong with TBTF.
Exterminate all the politicians and bankers alike, go on eradicate their families because then the suffering and torment mixed with the joy and happiness is balanced equal and not just the dregs kept for the poorest.
An even better reason than hatred though , is all those children born today and will do so for all time as long as this system remains are destined to endure torment and suffering.
If you say so what to the last point then as I now see it no future crime in terrorism for those that wish to fight for a position in this world and that is the destiny for those not yet born into it.
People deal by trade or by force. An economic system in which people are allowed to deal only by trade is called laissez faire capitalism. All alternatives are people exploiting one another with force.
Simple as that.
Trading may emerge out of the dynamic equilibria of forces, especially within the context of some dominant force, at least while that dominance lasts.
Richard Werner created the term quantitative easing. It has a specific application and meaning, which is creating money to lend to individuals and small business to stimulate economic growth. The intent is through a public banking system where the pay back of interest and principal goes back into deposits and draws money out of the exonomy to prevent inflation and to serve as a profit to the government. What the Federal Reserve is doing and apparently every other eonomist is applying a new definition to the term, whcih is not the orignial intended use. The Fed hijacked the term quantative easing to provide free funds to insolvent banks where the money never makes its way to small businesses and there is no feed back loop to draw the money out of the economy and to the profit of the lender.
The Fed uses the term to play off the ignorance of politicians, economists and the general public. THe Fed's quantitative easing was never the purpose of the original definition and implementation.
QE is a central bank euphemism for their opening the flood gates of fraud, in order to attempt to compensate for lesser banks no longer being able to find enough "borrowers" to enable to those lesser banks to continue to make enough new "money" out of nothing as "loans," in order to keep the public "money" supply growing.
QE is the "lenders" of last resort making enough "money" out of nothing to try to make up for the inability of other "lenders" to be able to continue to make enough "money" out of nothing.
So if our government owned its own currency, the interest payments would go to the country and it's citizens. Instead it goes... where?
Since the war for profits fractional reserve banking (money from nothing) central banking system is so successful for its owners and investors people are right to wonder who will survive it.
If you aren't gay what the fuck difference should it make to you. You ain't all that and a bag of fries either. Everybody got to bitch about the other guy you don't even know.
The unholy alliance of greed: Banksters' entitlement to billionaire-hood and politicians' profligacy.
And it works! With Zirp and Nirp the national debt and $.5 trillion federal deficits aren't even on the radar screen as an issue, and probably won't be in the 2016 election - which is why the fed will tread very lightly thru 2016.
"What exactly do banks provide in return for this bounty?"
Why is there LEGALIZED COUNTERFEITING?
The supreme achievement of organized crime,
persistently applied through political processes!
"... exactly what role in the private/ public mix does it play?"
The FRAUDS of privately controlled banks are ENFORCED by governments due to the long history of the applications of the principles and methods of organized crime to make and maintain the social pyramid systems.
"... there is now consensus over the role that private banks play in originating money in the form of loans, essentially ex-nihilo – out of thin air."
"Consensus?" Hah! While there is slightly more public awareness of the central fact that the public "money" supply is being creating out of nothing by privately controlled banks, there is NO consensus regarding what to do about that! Below I will outline the series of intellectual scientific revolutions which I think would be necessary in order to develop better monetary and taxation systems.
Meanwhile, the established systems are almost inconceivably corrupt and crazy. One could use metaphors such as that the international bankers were the biggest gangsters, the banksters, that were able to operate as the top predators in the political economy, who have gradually degenerated into become parasites who are killing their host. However, another appropriate metaphor is that the monetary system has become like a totally metastasized cancer, which has spread everywhere, to the point where there is no treatment would not also kill the patient, because a society so totally dominated by ENFORCED FRAUDS for so long has become too terminally sick and insane to recover.
The article above grossly understated that situation:
"The financial services industry is too interconnected to fail, and politicians don't want to take the risk of triggering a crash on their watch."
I AGREE that:
"... financial war is perhaps the favourite modern flavour of conflict. The bodies of victims are not so obviously visible."
I REPEAT the most important point,
which most people want to ignore:
MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER.
Since it is politically impossible to establish a consensus about THAT, it is impossible to resolve the basic problems any better, through any practically possible political process, within the establisehed systems, by "reforming" them sufficiently. Therefore, I also AGREED with the statements that: "deniability, debt-peonage-management and financial warmongering represent the real ‘value for money’ ... policy change with respect to money-issue will not be achieved, no matter how compelling the case ..."
Money exists because measurement and murder exist. The current monetary and taxation systems are ENFORCED FRAUDS, which are manifestations of the central social facts that governments are the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. However, I would NOT then follow that up with suggesting impossible solutions which would stop that from being basically the case.
When one examines human beings and human civilizations as general energy systems, it becomes clear how and why those necessarily operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which act according to the principles and methods of organized crime. Warfare was organized crime on larger and larger scales. The War Kings that survive through that created the sovereign states, whose powers were captured by the Fraud Kings, the private banks that were able to apply the methods of organized crime through the political processes to achieve the current forms of LEGALIZED COUNTERFEITING.
Social pyramid systems were always based on being able to back up lies with violence, which was done by relatively small minorities in order to keep much larger majorities ignorant and afraid, so that they could be controlled and exploited. Those systems of human slavery were the "human farming" that was the foundation of Neolithic Civilizations. Those social pyramid systems have developed at an exponential rate to become the current systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, which have become globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs, inside of MAD Money As Debt systems, backed up by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction.
It would take what appears to be a series of political miracles to develop an improved monetary system which was possible to reconcile with reality, since the established systems are the manifestation of the extreme paradoxes that governments are the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which are currently the banksters, and the corporations that have grown up around those banks that control the public "money" supply. The current political situation is due to the prolonged history of the funding of the political processes, enabling the profits from frauds to be reinvested in more frauds, so that all of the successful politicians are the banksters' puppets, who are voted for by the masses of muppets, who were misinformed about the most important issues, mostly LIED TO BY OMISSIONS, by the schools and the mass media for generation after generation.
I have been working on those kinds of political problems for several decades, only to always discover that the more I learned the worse it got! We would require enough people to go through profound paradigm shifts in the ways that they perceive their political problems in order to perhaps resolve those problems better. Ideally, that would require understanding human beings and human civilizations as entropic pumps of energy flows, in ways which could be rationally reconciled with how energy flows from the environment through human beings and back to the environment. HOWEVER, at the present time, the biggest bullies' bullshit world view almost totally dominates our natural languages and philosophy of science. One way that happened was that an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations of thermodynamics and information theory, so that the concept of entropy is generally understood backwards by almost everyone. On a lesser scale, in more minor ways, one can also observe how the meanings of such words as "money" or "dollar" or "pound" were gradually inverted and perverted, so that the meaning of "money" now is generally understood to be the opposite to what "money" used to mean.
The basic concepts that we should begin with in order to comprehend how and why money is necessarily measurement backed by murder are SUBTRACTION and the ROBBERY that follows from that SUBTRACTION. Those concepts then would enable the kinds of intellectual scientific revolutions which would allow the profound paradigm shifts in physical sciences to be surpassed by even greater paradigm shifts in political science, which would then apply to the combined money/murder systems, or the ways that the debt controls are backed by the death controls.
BUT, BUT, BUT, at the present time, the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, get to promote their bullshit language, in which everything is presented in ways which have become more and more inverted and perverted. Therefore, we are living inside of a Bizarro Mirror World, or Wonderland Matrix, where everything is appears to be proportionately backwards and absurd, including the "bullshit" solutions to our problems presented by the biggest bullies, such as the banksters, as well as their controlled opposition groups too.
The "Rules of Capitalism" should be developed and understood in ways which are consistent with the concepts of general energy systems and their entropic pumping. HOWEVER, the currently established systems are based on deliberately misrepresenting those phenomena to the maximum degree possible, due to the history of successful warfare based on deceits becoming the basis for successful finance based on frauds. Therefore, we living inside of a civilization whose every aspect is dominated by the best professional liars and immaculate hypocrites.
Human realities are always organized lies operating robberies. There is no such thing as "private property" outside of some system of public violence. Private property is based on backing up claims with coercions. The most abstract manifestation of which is that money is measurement backed by murder. The currently established systems of privately controlled banks creating the public "money" supply ex nihilo, is a FRAUD ENFORCED by governments. Human beings must necessarily live through some systems of organized lies operating robberies, however, the established systems have developed that to become based on the maximum possible frauds and deceits, whereby the grand paradoxes manifest that the banksters are the best organized gangs of criminals, which control governments, whose degree of social success enables them to present themselves as being the opposite of what they actually are, while their controlled opposition somewhat reveals what the banksters actually are doing, but then collapse back to the same old-fashioned bullshit "solutions" based on various ideologies or religions, which tend to be hundred or thousands of years old, and therefore, even more out of touch with the progress in the physical sciences, that has actually happened, and so, enabled the development of technologies which have become many orders of magnitude more powerful and capable than anything which previously existed in human history.
I REPEAT, around that core of the banksters' organized crimes there are the surrounding layers of controlled opposition groups. To the degree that the established monetary system controls people, they are being controlled by frauds, in which that monetary system has become like an absurd state religion, which is faith-based "money," which "faith" is based on its history of being enforced. While more of those controlled opposition groups are becoming able and willing to face the central social facts regarding central banks, due to the problems being created becoming bigger and BIGGER, and thus, more blatantly absurd, and also the bogus "solutions" more obviously backwards, there is NO consensus regarding resolutions of those problems, because almost all of those controlled opposition groups continue to operate inside of the biggest bullies' bullshit frame of reference, by also promoting false fundamental dichotomies and the related impossible ideals, as the basis for their various bullshit "solutions" that actually make the opposite happen in the real world, because the controlled opposition groups tend to still think and communicate through the bullies' bullshit language, and still believe in that basically bullshit world view, which is based on DUALITIES that perceive pretty well everything backwards.
On the contrary, I promote UNITARY MECHANISMS, which are more consistent with understanding human beings and human civilizations as general energy systems, albeit, after correcting the ways that the concept of entropy was inverted due to how the philosophy of science was historically driven to develop in ways which would still be consistent with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. To express that in terms of the article above, to say that "we need banking but we don’t need banks, at least not banks like this," MEANS we need organized crime, but not the currently dominant gangs of organized criminals.
It was a good article:
Here as an addition:
As Thomas Edison once noticed, If the Nation can issue a dollar bond it can issue a dollar bill. “The element that makes the bond good makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is that the bond lets the money broker collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%.”
And from the article:
QE is preferred to so-called helicopter money because – the argument is – it can be ‘unwound'[6]. In other words the troubled assets/ bonds bought, releasing money into circulation, can be sold at a later date removing that circulating money. Of course the price achieved is irrelevant.)
My answer: QE is directed at financial assets e.g. debt instruments, mortgage backed securities, and the like. This then channels Fed keyboard money into those debt/asset holders. Often those holders are those who create credit money, i.e. the banks – therefore they are rewarded as the swap magick holds prices high, in their favor.
A Bill can also be issued and channeled into means of production, to then be later removed from circulation. MEFOBILLS were re-discounted, and thus when they traded for cash, they could be withdrawn from circulation. While residing on Company ledgers, MEFOBILLS acted as savings so companies could trade with each other. Rentenmarks (debt free type of money), MefoBills and other vehicles can be used as tools. QE is simpleminded cash swapping for trash, but benefiting Oligarchy due to where it channels. A money supply should have different types of money, and they should be non-usurious. A government can issue money to the benefit of the people, this has been demonstrated many times. Usually when it is private money, the government becomes usurped.
I’m saying this: the FED, nor the government, nor most economists are very astute when it comes to money. Economists are taught falsehoods in school; they also don’t study monetary history. Modern economists actually believe money is a neutral veil.
M0 or M1 type money is a bearer instrument that says pay to the bearer on demand. This type of wallet money may enter into unwanted channels, causing inflation in that sector. When the whole economy is in debt deflation (like today and due to housing bubble) then it is appropriate. Helicopter money will become wallet money.
In a balance sheet recession like today (debt depression), where debt instruments are demanding excessively (due to fraud), said debts need to be legally canceled, or worked down. The right kind of money can vector into debt instruments to work them down. Working debts down would reward the fraud of course, but at least would give labor a fighting chance.
In response to Captain Willard
This means he wants to socialize credit creation (refering to author):
First of all, there is a difference between credit and money. Credit is something extended, and when returned the contract vanishes. Money makes up the difference in transactions, then cycles out again to another transaction. Floating money can cycle in money supply forever.
Credit type of money is recalled to its ledger for destruction, the same as if your borrowed a good and returned it.
Socializing credit happens anyway. When you take out a loan at the bank, it is on your signature authority. When you spend it, you spend it into the money supply WHERE OTHERS USE IT. Therefore you are a socialist.
Ha.
So many confused people here at Zero Hedge. Ignorance is ok, it just means you don't know things. It is important to learn though.
Having floating money, i.e. debt free money, can only be recalled with taxes. That type of money, while socialized, actually gives you more freedom than "credit." Credit has a time periodicity, and comes into existence with usury.
According to one source, in the UK alone more than £200 billion a year seigniorage (profit from money-issue) is achieved via interest on loans to banks.
Actually, the number is much higher. When usury returns to the ledger, it passes through debtors double entry and on to bankers. From there it can be spent as banker chooses.
Banker gets first use of this money, before inflation. Only on backside of loan, does the principle start to be paid down.
This banker usury has no need for velocity as it is under no compunction to be spent, other than for banker expenses. It then retreats from an exchange medium and become savings. It act like gold in that it demand more from producers, whose wares are transient and rotting, going bad.
Also, the interest on money is buried in prices. When business borrows, they try to recover their costs in prices. This alone is a hidden cost, some estimate as upward of 40% when compounded through supply chain.
So, the number is actually much much higher. The 200 billion pounds is just the top of the pyramid.
Response to Teeth Villages
Yes, FRN & Fiat are IOUs, Debt when in the hands of the public.
What kind of Fiat? Not all fiat are IOUs. From 790BC to around 200BC Romes money was fiat, but not IOUs. Greenbacks were Fiat but not IOUS.
Rentenmarks were fiat, but not IOUs. These were floating units, made of ink ledger numbers or cheap paper or inexpensive metal.
Yes, today's private banker credit money is an IOUs, which in effect is what "credit" is.
Debt, is the mirror of its credit. Debt instruments are created at moment of hypothecation, where both the credit as money, and debt instrument are created as a duality.
Usury makes these dualitiies become something other than a 1:1 relation, especially over time. This is a monetary error related to this type of FIAT.
Gold when monetized is floating money, but in the past, Gold vectored into the banks during depressions, especially to swap out for debts.
Please be descriptive when mentioning FIAT, explain its nature.
Thanks.
To PGR88
You are spot-on. The author sounds like a Marxist who would simply have politicians and central planners take over for the Federal Reserve completely. Out of the frying pan, and into the fire. He wasn't very clear, but his use of bullshit slogans was a clue
You are not spot on. Author was pretty clear. Neo-Liberal and Neo –conservative are code for “jew.”
The Federal Reserve currently is an agent to profit banks. Banks in turn have parasitized government.
Communism is where the government owns the money power, and ALL production power.
Communism is super Capitalism and they are part of the dialectic, cycling humans into one pole or another, like a mouse between cat’s paws.
Government being constrained to In-elastic sectors is part of Galbraiths “where they are effective.”
Government issuing money into the commons, to then benefit everybody, and then to have that money float without an IOU, would definitely benefit the private economy.
It would be a simple matter to have monetary authority issue floating money into the economy in relation to the needs of exchange and the people. Once issued, the politicians have no control over it, other than to tax it out of the economy. Since it is issued in advance, and not privately – for profit, it can have morality encoded.
We can call it the FED or Jed or TED, who cares. If the mission and law has morphed, so has the institution.
Before some astute observer may quibble with my 790BC term for Rome's beginning...that is accurate. Numa of the King's period, issued money based on Sparta's model, which was fiat. This is the money type that made people want to join up with Rome. Contracts were much more legal and fair under Rome than what came before. Money settles difference in contracts and transactions.
This article falls under a train of thought by those who we can call Greenbackers. It's the Ellen Brown, Bill Still, perhaps Icelandic? approach. Government issues credit money. Currently we have private banks doing that.
End the Fed folk.... where is your detailed plan of action. What do you envision after the Fed?
Yes,yes,yes, the Gold is money group shout their mantra. What does that mean in real life? You're paying at the supermarket so you pull a piece of the precious out of your pocket, bite off a chunk, plop that on the counter and both you and the cashier agree that is good enough? Even with Gold backing of currencies there is still the issue of whether it requires 100% backing or not. Should the dollar be pegged to a certain amount of Gold? Should silver be used as money. If so how do we arrange the ratio, should the Gold/Silver ratio be fixed or floating? Should the paper dollar be redeemable for physical?
And who exactly oversees all this. Government? Banks? Oh yeah, while we're rearranging the world, should we also address the question of interest on loans/usury?
Perhaps some think the Treasury should issue money. What? the same dept that had as its heads Hank Paulson, Little Timmy and now Jack Jew ... excuse me Jack Lew. Yeah right.
And by the way, and certainly not inconsequentially, how do we manage the transistion of winding down the Fed and the shift from Federal Reserve Notes, Bills & Bonds to something else?
Where's the plan man
Ellen Brown is for State Banks.
This would be a credit issuing bank modeled after BND (bank of north dakota). A state bank issues credit money. Credit money has a debt instrument. This means that the money supply is still credit, only it is issued by a state authority.
Underneath BND are still private, for profit banking corporations. BND will issue credit based on state capital stored at said bank. It also serves as a guarantor of the private banks similar to the FED.
Greenbacks are NOT STATE BANKS. Greenbacks are floating money issued by the Treasury. They were lawful money used to pay the troops during the Civil war. Greenbacks were treasury instruments, and at one time actually appreciated relative to gold. Greenbacks did not have a debt instrument on the other side, waiting to recall them.
There are serious fundamental differences between greenbackers and those for state banks.
Bill Still is a researcher who has changed his position over time, especially as he learns more about money.
What is the plan man:
Read up:
www.sovereignmoney.eu
also see american monetary institute AMI, which is the American Equivalent
Iceland appears to be going down the sovereign money path, so it will be a large scale experiment.
Keep going, flesh it out.
So what happens at the Federal level. Abolish the Fed? Yes or no, And then, just state banks?
How about paper money? Does it exist still? Issued by whom?
And internationally, how does someone in another country, using another currency deal with someone in the U.S.?
Fifty different state banks to deal with?
And the transistion from the Fed to state banks, Handled how?
Keep going, details count. And don't just post a link, if you can't articulate it in a few pithy paragraphs then chances are you really don't understand it. Remember, peoples lives depend on this. Wiping out a seniors savings in a transistion gone bad, disrupting an economy where a oh so fragile supply chain keeps everything going. Again, details are of the utmost importance.
Users of the System would be those that work in Banking, work at the FED, and Academics. So if we are looking for detailed Plans, Procedures, Processes... would you want to listen to Bankers, those that worked at the FED, and University people??
Sort of a Catch-22.
Some how we have to listen to people in the Industry and maybe even some Economists.
Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Personally I would tend to accept the risk from Academic procedures over FED Guys or Wall Street people.
essence, you probably already know the essential answer to your question "Where's the plan man?"
http://www.theforbiddenknowledge.com/hardtruth/silentweaponsforquietwars...
Silent Weapons for a Quiet War
A lot of the rest of the plan was laid out there, as well as in many other documents, that one could read, IF one cared to do so. The established systems of debt slavery backed by wars based on deceits ARE generating numbers which have become debt insanities. Those have no mathematically possible ways to be resolved within the established systems, and therefore, the plan is to drive those debt insanities through to provoking death insanities. Thus, the plan is to start more genocidal wars, as well as to impose democidal martial law.
Given that too many people have already become incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple that have been fleeced to exhaustion while they were being set up to be slaughtered, the plan that IS being implemented in the criminally insane plan of the ruling classes to mass murder the majority of the human population during the next Century or so.
All other possible alternative plans could only actually be based on alternative ways to change the death control systems, that have backed up the debt control systems. However, none of those alternative plans have any practical possibilities to be implemented, because of the degree to which the majority of people ARE Zombie Sheeple.
The article above was very probably correct when it stated that: "I believe policy change with respect to money-issue will not be achieved, no matter how compelling the case."
That IS the plan, man.
Yeah RadGrass, I agree the "plan" is to consolidate control and pare down the "useless eaters" to a manageable 500 million or so. By the time they manage that the Robots should be viable as a replacement.
However, just as in my first post where I categorized folk as either Greenbackers (i.e. gov issues money) or "Hard Money" advocates, I should state that there is a third category. That's the .... we see that Money-is-a-form-of-social control group.
Mayer Rothschilds was 100% correct. Issuing "Money" is the ultimate high ground to gain control (although we see the NSA pushing hard for 2nd place).
I usually don't push this in peoples face. This article for instance didn't seen the appropriate time to broach that viewpoint and my response to the guy with the stuffy avatar didn't seem the appropriate venue either (and anyway, the truth would probably blow his mind).
Yeah, essence, I WISH that "money" was primarily a symbol of human cooperation, which is what most of the idealized theories of what "money" should be promote. However, "money" has ended up primarily being a symbol of human coercion. I tend to prefer the idea that "We the People" control the public "money" supply. I see no problem with fiat money (Greenbacks), IF that was operated as a public utility, in the longer term public interest. However, we ACTUALLY have the worst possible system, of the public "money" supply being fiat, made ex nihilo by privately controlled banks, which fraud is enforced by governments.
Overall, the runaway, increasing levels of social insanity that demonstrates are EXTREMELY DISCOURAGING!
The ability to make "money" out of nothing as debts can be regarding through the longer historical, anthropological perspective:
"If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt — above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong."
-- David Graeber
A Lunatic once pointed out in a Zero Hedge reply:
"... it's always the same; your money or your life. How civilized it is to have a monetary system that ultimately relies on death threats as collateral ..."
Keep going, details count.
It is pretty hard to distill thousands of years of history into a paragraph.
Basically 2500 years of coin history are where the king issued coins and enjoyed the seigniorage. That coin issuing privledge would be codified in a monetary authority as electronic digits. Those digits would be available to government by law. Government in turn would only be able to spend what it taxes, and any new money would come from MA by law. Therefore monetary policy and fiscal policy are separate by law.
So, sovereign money is similar to 2500 years of coin history, where the coins circulate - only today we don't really use tangible money.
To modify current money supply from credit is subject of many white papers, especially one done recently by the FED. But, to reduce it to something "pithy", basically it is a one time swap. Think of it this way, the debt instruments are transferred to the MA, and as they are paid down with existing credit money, debts are retired. (Not exactly but analagous.) New sovereign money is then injected in relation to an economies needs. Private bankers can only match up new creditors and debtors, they are forbidden from creating new credit. Creditors are savers, and debtors are those wanting a new loan.
With a State Bank Model, debt instruments come under better control. Also, the state bank sits on their private bank underlings, thus preventing bad loans. Bank of Canada did this for many years - 38 to 74.
State Banks can also issue debt free money, only they won't advertise it as such. Bank of Canada did this, and so does the State Banks of China. A state bank still gets between creditor and debtor, so it is not man to man relations. A state bank will hold debt instruments on the people, a sovereign money system, creditors are your neighbors who saved their money.
The cleanest money system to my mind, is Sovereign money. And yes, I've studied more than most people, but am still learning.
David Graeber in Debt: The First 5,000 Years wrote (while admitting that his description is “a bit of a cartoon version”):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs
David Graeber, DEBT: The First 5,000 Years
My stuffy avatar is Schacht, who was the mastermind that got Germany going after the hyperinflation, and managed the Nazi economy. He also introduced MEFOBILLS.
I've been waiting for somebody to ask, but nobody ever does.
In the upper middle ages, especially during the Talley Stick Era of England, and Hanseatic League in Germany, a family only had to work a fraction of what we do today.
They had meat every day, homes that were warm, wollen clothing. Basically all of their needs were met. A family of four required about 4 months of work, by one worker, to supply the needs of one year.
All of those Cathedrals and Paintings and productivity of that period was done with volunteer labor. They had lots of free time and a non usurious money system.
People here at ZeroHedge are caught in a whirlpool of rentier machinations, and see no way out. There are ways out.
It is an interesting idea. I suppose people didn't have gold or silver in general. People would have been serfs in England. In Germany less so.
Maybe people joined others as they grew up. Some time in the forest, some at the mill, some sawing wood or building, some laying stone or shaping stone, some repairing thatch roofs, some in the fields... unless you were apprenticed or had a craftsman as a father or in the family.
England had Manors with commons, the Manor system I guess. This would have been after Oliver Cromwell I think.
Maybe the first pilgrims to the USA would have been the same people as you talk about. Certainly they must have spent more time with family than our Corporate System today.
Today we have a kind of Hyper Financial Culture or Environment.
Still we don't need that many workers in the USA now. We are getting poorer. But there are no Jobs like we used to have. Post Industrial USA might be the term. An age of Off Shore Labor and Automation with Hyper Neocons & Others pushing war and Hyper Financialization of Everything.
Maybe more will learn crafts and skills to use at home in the USA.
Yawn.
Just another guy whose argument boils down to: "if voluntary interaction works, I am in favor of that. If it doesn't, I'm in favor of violence and coercion."
Of course, what is always missing from such statements is "works, according to whom?"
And the unstated answer is always "works according to ME, or people like me."
Since we already have one state sponsored oligopoly (the fractional reserve banking system+central banking) uniquely empowered to counterfeit money making a mess of things, it seems unlikely that creating a new, even more centralized, state sponsored monopoly/oligopoly to do the same thing will yield better results.
Better to move towards a system in which there is (yike) a free market in money, although I realize that no closet authoritarian like this fellow is ever likely to endorse that solution.
Yikes, "a free market in money" could not exist in the real world, unless that "free market" was developed in ways which were made more consistent with the basic laws of nature!
http://www.doomsteaddiner.net/blog/2015/04/06/ongoing-commodification-of-the-commons/
"Each and every single operation is using energy and generating waste (entropy). Life is a succession of unexpected shortages, and the winner is always the one who burns most energy, according to the MEP principle, Maximum Entropy Production, aka 3rd Law of Thermodynamics, according to F. Roddier & R. Dewar, or the simpler MPP, Maximum Power Principle, as described by Jay Hanson."
Money is measurement backed by murder. The existing systems are due to the history of warfare effectively being a "free market in murder." Since the debt controls are backed by the death controls, the only genuine solutions must be based upon better death controls.
To resolve the real problems would require perceiving human beings and human civilizations as already being entropic pumps of energy flows. To understand that better would require understanding the ways that the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has tended to invert and pervert everything, including the basic concept of entropy.
Human developments are special cases of evolutionary ecologies, which are based upon how general energy systems operate. The only things that actually exist are the dynamic equilibria of different systems of organized lies operating robberies. Only that which actually exists can actually evolve. Human energy systems are going to be transformed by the ways those exist in their environment. However, that is going to happen in the worst possible ways due to the history of successful warfare based on deceits, and then successful finance based on frauds.
If and only IF enough people could sufficiently correct the ways that they perceive, think and communicate about political problems, to change those in radically different ways, primarily by appreciating the degree to which the current triumphs of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view has dominated all of that, so much, for so, long ... THEN, maybe, then, human beings and human civilizations could become systems that made greater use of information, which enabled higher consciousness.
However, the established systems are based on the social successfulness of ENFORCING FRAUDS, while the ruling classes wage war on the consciousness of those they rule over, so that almost everything is understood BACKWARDS, and that includes that almost all of the "solutions" that both the banksters and their controlled opposition promote are deliberately maintained bullshit, which deliberately ignores the basic laws of nature as much as possible, in order to covertly continue to be socially successful on the basis of backing up deceits with destruction and enforcing frauds.
Those phenomena are consistent with the laws of nature:
Natural evolutions, through natural selections, are the expressions of energy laws. Human evolutions, which have developed systems of artificial selection, are also expressions of energy laws. Human laws are connected to natural laws by the ability to back up lies with violence, and hence, the current political economy is based on integrated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence. HOWEVER, those are deliberately misunderstood in ways which are as backwards as possible by the biggest bullies, which currently happen to be the banksters, that dominated the funding of the political processes, in order that the banksters' frauds would be enforced by those governments.
It was not accidental that the history of the philosophy of science developed in ways which would stay consistent with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view! Therefore, an arbitrary minus sign was inserted into the entropy equations of thermodynamics and information theory. Hence, almost everything is being deliberately misunderstood as much as possible, in order to enable the banksters' ENFORCED FRAUDS to not be perceived as FRAUDS by the vast majority of people, which is necessary for the governments that (some) of those people elect to continue to ENFORCE THOSE FRAUDS.
The degree to which people misunderstand everything in the maximum possible backward ways necessarily includes that all of the bogus, bullshit "solutions" promoted by the banksters, and the controlled opposition groups that surround those banksters, are also backwards. Of course, that also includes the ways that most people misunderstand the concept of "freedom," and therefore "free markets." It takes much more profound paradigm shifts in order to reconcile the traditional notions of "freedom" with the principle of the conservation of energy. By and large, most people who like to promote "freedom" (which would include a "free market in money") do so in ways that use those words as magical phrases, as a kind of transcendental poetry.
We need to develop more realistic ideals, which would include understanding "freedom" and "free markets" in ways which are consistent with general energy systems. However, in order to do that would take a series of intellectual scientific revolutions, which would correct the enormous errors which are now standard features of the dominant philosophy of science, due to the history of that philosophy being dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which resulted in the meaning of almost everything being inverted and perverted.
Demanding politics without violence is like demanding physics without force. Since there have been developed globalized systems of electronic monkey money frauds, which are backed by the threat of force from apes with atomic bombs (in the current systems of MAD Money As Debt backed by MAD Mutual Assured Destruction), one should hope that political science would be transformed as much as physical science has been transformed, by profound paradigm shifts, which already have enabled technologies like electronics and atomic energy.
However, in fact, politics continues to be dominated by old-fashioned ideologies and religions that are hundreds or thousands of years old, which tend to deliberately ignore the theoretical progress in physical science, while still adopting the resulting technologies to do the same old things that social pyramid systems always were doing for thousands of years, namely, back up lies with violence. It is the basics of BACKING UP LIES WITH VIOLENCE which should be better understood as the manifestation of the ways that general energy systems work, because the current monetary systems are manifestations of ENFORCED FRAUDS, whose history has always developed in ways which were consistent with the ways that general energy systems operate, although paradoxically consistent, because successful finance was successful fraud.
IF we were going to develop genuinely better monetary systems, THEN those must continue to be consistent with how general energy systems actually work. However, doing so requires that enough people would comprehend enough of the degree to which the basic concepts of energy systems, and everything else, have been inverted and perverted by the triumphs of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which is currently the reasons for how and why the established monetary systems are based on ENFORCED FRAUDS, which are headed towards psychotic breakdowns, and driving through severe social storms, due to the BASIC PROBLEMS that being able to back up lies with violence can be socially successful in the short-term, but becomes worse and worse forms of social insanities in the longer term, since ENFORCING FRAUDS never stops those FRAUDS BEING FALSE.
However, while that is the case, it does NO good to then propose magical phrases such as "a free market in money" unless those ideas are developed in ways which become consistent with the world operating through general energy laws, as energy systems. In my view, that is only possible if we go through sufficient intellectual scientific revolutions. Anybody who believes that we could return to "solutions" based on old-fashioned ideologies or religions is indulging in nostalgic nonsense, given that the problems ARE now globalized electronic frauds, backed by the force of atomic bombs. The only theoretically possible viable solutions have to be developed in ways which are consistent with the physical sciences that made those technologies become our current realities.
HOWEVER, developing a political science that becomes more consistent with physical science requires much deeper paradigm shifts, because that requires correcting the enormous errors that have been developed in the dominant philosophy of science, due to the historical compromises that the philosophy of science made to become consistent with the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, which now is primarily expressed through society compromising with the banksters' bullshit world view, that their ENFORCED FRAUDS are somehow NOT THAT.
Of course, from the perspective of practically possible politics, the world continues to be almost totally dominated by old-fashioned ideologies and religions, including old-fashioned ideas about "freedom" in general, or "free markets" in particular. While there is considerable merit in those ideals, they could NOT actually be implemented unless they were designed to be more realistically consistent with how general energy systems actually operate.
Overall, what we are watching happen is the growing Grand Canyon Chasm opening up wider and wider between relative progress in physical science, versus nothing comparable to that happening in political science. That Chasm is particularly getting wider and wider due to the established monetary and taxation systems being ENFORCED FRAUDS, which are getting away with lying about themselves almost totally, due to the long history of social successes based on being able to back up lies with violence, which have made and maintained all of the dominant psychological and political habits which are the most frequent today.
At the present time, those social habits have become automated electronic frauds, backed the the threat of force from weapons of mass destruction! In that context, it is not good enough to promote old-fashioned notions of a "free market in money" that does not revolutionize the concept of "freedom" in ways which are consistent with general energy laws. Primarily, that intellectual revolution requires that enough people understood enough that the concept of entropy was inverted, and thereby perverted, which reverberated throughout everything else, such as how the concept of "money" was also inverted, and thereby perverted.
IF and ONLY IF the concept of "freedom" was transformed to become consistent with general energy systems would it become possible to develop a more realistic approach to a better "free market in money." Doing that requires radically different understanding of the concepts of time and space, like those that have been developed in areas such as quantum mechanics and the special theory of relativity, which enabled the existence of the current systems of globalized electronic frauds, backed by the threat of force from atomic bombs. Developing a political science whose understanding of time and space goes through profound paradigm shifts is necessary, because that political science must cope with the existence of electronic frauds, backed by the force of atomic bombs.
Of course, right now, almost everyone continues to base their political opinions upon various old-fashioned ideologies and religions. Therefore, the established systems of ENFORCED FRAUDS continue to be triumphant, since there is almost nothing but the banksters' core of organized crimes, surrounded by various controlled opposition groups, all of whom promote basically similar bullshit "solutions" that stay within the biggest bullies' frame of reference.
Indeed, as far as I can tell, most people who promote the ideals of "freedom" or "a free market in money" do so ONLY as their favourite magical phrases, which they use in a kind of transcendental poetry that makes no effort to reconcile those ideals with the basic laws of nature, such as the conservation of energy. More realistic ideals are theoretically possible, but only by going through more radical critiques of the dominant philosophy of science, so that one can better understand how and why MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACKED BY MURDER, which is the real situation inside of which any better monetary system would have to be developed, due to the fundamental concept being SUBTRACTION, from which follows ROBBERY, due to taking energy across the boundaries of any being defined by SUBTRACTING that part from the Whole.
The corporatist government is by far the easiest to corrupt. The only thing that need be done is make payments of money from nothing to Unprincipled betraying politicians to get any agenda codified.
In the meeantime kick People out of their homes and make their whole world a toxic dump. This certainly makes it near impossible to raise your broken family. Whose dream is this anyway? It is a hellacious nightmare.