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| Mar 19, 2010 8:30 pm |
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re: Economic Capture - Money Power in the World |
James Booth
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Perhaps a most relevant question at this point ...
Is any of this information of use to anyone ?
Since I am still not as clear as I would like to be regarding what, amongst what has been presented here, is propaganda or "other than true" I would like to touch upon a number of items.
I worked my way through this thread from top to bottom to provide the following.
For the benefit of collective understanding and communication, and further discussion, from what I have learned, to the best of my current knowledge, the following is true:
- It is *intentionally* "almost impossible to understand how the very biggest banks have developed a system to capture all the economic surplus" - or the majority of surplus.
If most of us - if "most people" - knew how it was done, we would have stopped it long ago
... or at least at some earlier point in time.
Much of what is done by Money Power is done in secret, or on the sly; an example being the "midnight session" which passed the Federal Reserve Act; another example being the PR campaign in which "big" bankers "opposed" the FR Act even though it was almost word-for-word the same as the Aldrich Bill which was quashed earlier.
If the "doings" of Money Power were actually beneficial to any population, would they not be aboveboard with all their plans and schemes, rather than posing "experts" who use language the public finds too difficult to understand to convey "what is happening" with the economy ?
- "Our economy is built on credit" - true, although some of us prefer to say it is built on "debt" because the word "credit" is used in this case to make it all sound "sweeter" than it is.
- Banks are corporations which we should expect to make a reasonable profit for their shareholders - true.
- Banks make "obscene" amounts of profit because of the "multiples" of interest receipts from fractional reserve banking - false, because most (not all) deposits require banks to pay OUT interest, though at lower rates than banks charge (some depositors receive no interest at all).
- Banks "lending money to more risky ventures" generally do so under duress, as result of legislation or regulation (or lack of regulation in some cases) generated by political forces, which in turn are put in place (or removed) by *big* (international) banks (Money Power) at the top of the banking hierarchy, which are very different from local "community" banks - the latter being "regulated" by the larger *banking system* at center (or top) of which is (are) the Federal Reserve Bank(s) with U. S. Treasury acting as "front" to give the *privately held* FRS "legitimacy" as a central bank; consequently, "community" banks (subscriber banks dependent on a larger bank in order to do business out of state) which "have tried to find new sources of money" often wind up with the short end of the stick as central banks schemes are crafted to benefit only "big" banks or central bank, and this system continues the destruction of small banks which are bought at "firesale" prices by larger banks, continuing the "consolidation" of the banking system as a whole.
- So-called "economic surplus" seems always (for 5,000 years or more) to have been a main focus of "central banks" (or Money Power) which drive out "good" money with "bad" money, and employ a variety of means to deprive any nation or population of "blood, sweat and tears" WEALTH.
- It may be more accurate to say "Modern banking has become a *super-predator* on the real economy" because there is actually a setup in which supercomputers belonging to "investment banks" have an actual set order of access to manipulating the markets - before any "public" has access to "buy and sell" activities - which means the entire market is more rigged than ever.
- That "human beings are inexorably tempted to do selfish, unethical things" may or may not be true, to some degree either way, and I suppose it is up to the "viewer" to have decided whether man is naturally *good* (predominant Nineteenth Century view, to which I adhere), or *evil* (predominant view particularly after the rise, and demise, of Adolph Hitler).
- There are always "greedy and unethical" members of any group one can describe - perhaps there always will be - which does NOT mean that any particular group is in ANY way "greedy and unethical" on the basis of its including some "bad apples".
- "Trust, but verify" is just plain common sense, is it not ? - "Buyer Beware"
- The perception that politicians use "their coercive powers over the banking system to drive the finance and banking system into catastrophe" I believe is an illusion, again, addressing the situation in the U. S. (if you live elsewhere, please do comment and inform the rest of us), because NO "politician" today in the U. S. sits for long in any "elected" (selected) office without "approval" of Money Power which can, and does, so easily BREAK ANY politician's "career" - in fact, to BE a "successful politician" in this climate REQUIRES an individual to be either *compromised* or *compromiseable* [is that a word?]; in other words, "malleable" or "easily blackmailed" or otherwise "relatively unprincipled" (to put it more kindly); and having said that, such required "malleability" has kept "politicians" (and presidents, prime ministers, kings and queens) living longer for many centuries.
- My "view" (according to John) that the Federal Reserve (Bank) "vacuums up all the economic surplus" [we could, perhaps should, devote an entire thread to this] is based on the fact that the Federal Reserve is NOT *federal* - is not "government" - though it uses The People's Mints, and printing presses, (ownership of Fed computers is in question, although it is unimaginable the "taxpayers" did not "fund" their purchase) for "legitimacy" to mask the fact the Federal Reserve is a private corporation, outside of, beyond, "above" government, which must pay interest TO the Federal Reserve as "rent" for use of the money supply which is "created and emitted" (and withdrawn) by the Fed; debt-money, distinctly different from "real" or "good" money - The People's money - as was the situation when U. S. citizens could take their own (mined in the U. S.) silver, or gold, to the mint to be pressed into coin; also distinctly different from the Greenback issued by President Lincoln to finance the Civil War (instead of borrowing Money Power money at twenty-something percent), or Colonial Scrip, which worked extremely well but prohibition of which (by King George) was the *actual* cause of the Revolutionary War - NOT the Tea Tax [read Benjamin Franklin].
- Who, in the U. S. presently, after all, CREATES the "general economic theory" but the "ministers" or "priests" of the Federal Reserve System themselves ?
- "Too many of us think real wealth is money" - true, and what IS money ?
... a "store of wealth" or a "medium of exchange" ... or both, and more ? and what IS wealth ?
- A primary "justification" for establishing the Federal Reserve System was to end the "boom and bust" cycle of U. S. banks - runs on small banks (which went bust for not having sufficient cash on hand, a fractional reserve deficiency); however, evidence indicates the Fed knowingly created too much money following the First World War during the "irrational exuberance" of the 20s, and then began calling in loans - too fast - when the economy was "overheated" - apparently an intentional move, in part to further consolidate "banking" (cull smaller banks which survived imposition of Federal Reserve Notes) among those "big" banks which were behind the Federal Reserve Act (and the accompanying income tax scheme, without which the Fed would not have been viable).
- "De-schooling ourselves" is a solution, and I believe that we are attempting to do that here.
- Posing "a barter economy" in contrast to "a money economy" as an "either / or" is unnecessary: a vibrant economy can include both, and more, "means of exchange" - but more important is that human beings be free to transact with each other, in whatever form on which they mutually agree.
- Making "a monetary economy work" is not limited to a *debt-based* economy such as the U. S. "enjoys" today: twice in U. S. history the U. S. government "created and emitted" its own money, and some of that was real money, backed by metal - even if the "paper" was sometimes just an IOU at least there was something there more than an empty promise as we have today.
- If it is true "the combined assets of our six biggest banks [now] stands at 63 percent" and you ask, "So what?"
... perhaps you have nothing to lose.
- Murray Rothbard's "History of Money and Banking in the U.S." I have yet to read, but I am convinced Rothbard is capable of instilling encouragement.
- Nor have I read Chesterton's "The Outline of Sanity" but apparently he was aware that "monopolism" can, and does, buy "political control" and thus take that control away from The People who authorize *legitimate* government, so that "monopolism" becomes a cancer on society.
- That "money is the currency created by banks as debt under an arrangement between the banks and the government, whereby this "currency" is recognized as legal tender" describes what is known as "fiat money" or, "any money declared by a government to be legal tender[1]" [or] "state-issued money which is neither legally convertible to any other thing, nor fixed in value in terms of any objective standard.[2]" - "unrelated to any physical quantity [of "specie" - coin, metal, which has real value, even if minimal]"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_money], but does not describe all money.
- "There is a sound reason ... for government borrowing from banks and paying interest on the money borrowed" ONLY when money is not created BY *government* which CAN and (according to the Constitution of the United States of America, in the case of the U. S. government) legally should be creating its own money.
- The relationship between Money Power, Bank of England, the Queen (or King) of England, and the Crown, is not something on which I will offer "opinion" here except to say the role of the Queen in our "financial woe" is overrated.
- The role or "true character" of the "City of London" relative to British, United Kingdom, or other, world, finances or "economies" is not clear enough to me to comment on at this time.
JBPrivate Reply to James Booth (new win) |
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