There Is Not Enough Money On Planet Earth
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Reverse Engineer post=2856 wrote: [quote=TheTrivium4TW post=2854]RE, I have to agree that humanity is doomed on its current course. When doom hits, the root cause probably doesn’t matter too much.
IMHO, even the oligarchs are being played for fools… their lust for “more” will destroy themselves as well. It has already made them bitter, angry, soulless people.
Understanding the Root Cause does matter, because if enough people understand how Money perverts Human Society, they may be able to reject it in time enough to prevent an Extinction Level Event. Time grows short though now, the Window is Closing here on Homo Sapiens.
IMHO, it is our JOB as Bloggers and Commenters to get the MESSAGE out NOW to as many people as we can, as fast as we can. I write at a furious pace to achieve that goal. I will NOT GIVE UP on Humanity. Not so long as these Keyboard fingers will cruise at 100WPM or even BETTER than that sometimes when I really get going. Not so long as the Internet remains up and running, and even after that if I am still walking the earth I will find another means to get the message out.
The Keyboard is MIGHTIER than the Sword. Keep WRITING Triv. Get the MESSAGE OUT.
SAVE AS MANY AS YOU CAN
RE
https://www.doomsteaddiner.org
I’m fighting side by side with you. Although our messages are slightly different.The difference don’t matter at as long as the current structure is in place, so I’m 100% with you we need to tear down the status quo before it kills us an society.
BTW, my message isn’t just to reform the monetary system. Even with a perfect monetary system and a free market, the system would fail because of selfish human action facilitated by money.
I also believe that humanity has to realize that big is bad, very bad, and we should all do the best we can to support those businesses that are small and local. Big businesses will SELFISHLY leverage their wealth and power to eliminate their competition so they can grow even bigger. They will then infiltrate the education system and dog train the students how this is most excellent.
The the average person could own a business again, IF we valued small and were properly terrified of BIG.
The issues are complex, brother… we live in interesting times.
Hold on tight!
@m111ark, Trivium,
I apologize for being confusing, it’s a bad habit. Let’s try another tack:
At issue is secured and unsecured lending. If you make a deposit of $10,000 you are making an unsecured loan to your bank. Mr. Bank can turn around and lend this money ten or more times. this is infamous ‘fractional lending’. From $10k your deposit becomes $90k of loans, only $10k or which is secured (by your deposit). In effect you have indirectly created $80k in new money or 8x your deposit you inflationist you!
And you blame Bernanke! Horrors!
A central bank cannot make unsecured loans and still remain a central bank. The two kinds of banks are assembled differently, for one thing CBs don’t have a conventional capital structure. Since they aren’t profit-making enterprises, capital in the conventional sense is not required. They have almost no capital: the ECB has €50bn in capital against a €4tn in liabilities. However, their assets and liabilities always match on paper, the books are always balanced.
New money is not the source of credit but its excess over collateral.
What matters is the face amounts not market worth which is simply an opinion. Even implied leverage would destroy a central bank because it lacks adequate capital, if this were to be an issue the Central Bank would be just another (large) commercial bank.
If CBs make unsecured loans they are instantly PERCEIVED as being insolvent. Quote from Bagehot:
Just so, an immense system of credit, founded on the Bank of England as its pivot and its basis, now exists. The English people, and foreigners too, trust it implicitly. Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.
Assets fly to the CBs when the market panics and are worthless on the markets. CBs exist to validate the worth of assets and to provide liquidity while doing so.
Assume for instance you are a bank and hold a $10m bond, you’ve lent to some industry such as real estate. For one reason or another real estate bonds are worth less with the passage of time. Bonds have lost enough so that other banks like yours have become insolvent. Capital and deposits are fleeing. You must jettison assets and shrink your balance sheet. You have a choice: the market prices your bond at fifty cents. The Fed will lend $10m against your bond. Quick: what will you do?
What the Fed won’t do is offer you $100m for your bond. It will offer $10m or a little less for a haircut. It will offer par and no more. Whether the market says the bond is worth fifty cents or not is irrelevant, the face amount is the limit of what the central bank will lend. It can create new money only if it lends above what the collateral is worth.
What this means is the central bank is collateral constrained. It cannot lend more than the face amount of collateral it takes in exchange for credit. If the Fed lends $3 trillion it has $3 trillion on its balance sheet. Instead of being a ‘bank’ it is more like a pawn shop.
The CB can issue credit but it must have collateral.
If the Fed says the collateral is worth fifty five cents there is no point to having a Fed.
If the Fed says the collateral is worth $100 billion the markets will know the Fed is lying and ignore it. If the Fed was to leverage your collateral the other banks dealing with the Fed would ask why they cannot leverage their collateral as well. The Fed would have to decide which collateral was marginable and which is not. Unlike commercial banks, there is no underwriting department at the Fed to determine whether prospects of this or that business venture are as advertised. It simply accepts instruments face worth in exchange for credit in the same amounts.
Commercial banks have underwriting departments, rating agencies, risk management sections and analysts. There are also thousands of banks who can make granular judgments about trillion$$ in unsecured loans. (Most of these judgments are bad, BTW.)
Being collateral constrained the CB cannot create new money it is impossible as what goes out is equal to what comes in. Only commercial banks offering unsecured loans create new money.
What confuses is the offhand use of the term ‘central bank buying’. If you sell your car to me for $1000 then buy it back in a year for the same $1000 it is the same as you borrowing $1000 and offering the car as collateral.
I have been annoyed by the Fed’s open ended lending against collateral such as during QE 1. However, there were good policy reasons for doing so (retrieving bad mortgage paper from the Chinese). The Fed will hold the collateral to maturity whence the loans will be retired and credit extinguished. But there was indeed collateral accepted in this and all other cases including all open market operations and QE.
The point is not the mechanics of the process but that Central Banks do not create anything new. When their balance sheets expand it is because private sector balance sheets contract an equal or greater amount. (This is always left off those ZeroHedge charts, btw!)
Think of the Fed and other central banks as pawn shops. They will lend you the five hundred dollars, but you have to let them hold onto your $2,000 Rolex watch. And they won’t lend you the $50,000 against that watch.
Long argument there Steve, most of which is true, but the fact that CBs only can create money based on Collateral does not address the fact the collateral they will accept is so impaired.
For instance, a given Bank can issue Bonds it writes on itself and then use said bonds as “collateral” upon which to borrow more from the CB. There is no constraint on the CB creating money for so long as the CB will accept Baseball Cards as “worthy collateral at par value”. The ECB is accepting complete JUNK as collateral now. Spanish Bonds are worthles toilet paper, they will NEVER be paid back, yet the ECB will buy them at Par or close to it.
CBs are only collateral costrained insofar as they will accept a given aset as its Mark to Make Believe value. Soon as anyone actually tries to SELL said asset on the open market, the REAL value is exposed. Pretty close to ZERO in the case of a lot of the garbage Fannie and Freddie have on the books, that is for sure.
CBs are not creating any new money here, I do agree with that. What they are doing is validating the worth of asets that clearly are not worth the paper they are printed on.You cannot make something Valuable by diktat, and that is what they are trying to do.
McMansions are basically WORTHLESS. CARZ are basically WORTHLESS. Factories which PRODUCE carz are worthless. Yet the CBs continue to GIVE them worth and loan money on a a truly WORTHLESS asset. That is money creation by the back door.
RE
TheTrivium4TW post=2857 wrote:
I’m fighting side by side with you. Although our messages are slightly different.
Agreed, we fight on the same side, as indeed I think Ashvin and Ilargi also fight on this side of the line. We have differences in how we interpret the spin down and how the mechanics of it work, and hashing that out is worthwhile IMHO.
Never though must we lose sight of the TRUE ENEMY here in the Battle, those who CLAIM ownershp over that which NO MAN can own himself, the resources of the earth. They belong to ALL MANKIND, but only as Stewards for all the rest of the creatures living on this planet who make our own survival possible.
Those who CLAIM OWNERSHIP are OBVIOUS. They are the people who use the monetary system to centralize wealth into their own hands. It matters not if you believe they are Zionists or Reptilian Aliens even, it remains TRUE that a very small percentage of the population CLAIMS ownership over the resources of the earth. That CLAIM comes in the form of how much MONEY they are worth right now. Long as they continue to claim this as their OWN, they must be EXTERMINATED. Nobody owns the earth or its resources. All Mankind does, and only as Stewards of the Earth and all life that lives upon it. All who do not believe this to be so must be EXTERMINATED. Repent thee Sinners, or face the WRATH OF THE INQUISITION.
You cannot have a healthy society without a Clean Kitchen. The cockroaches must be EXTERMINATED. Bring in the Orkin Man.
NOBODY expects a Spanish Inquisition.
RE
RE
Reverse Engineer post=2856 wrote: [IMHO, it is our JOB as Bloggers and Commenters to get the MESSAGE out NOW to as many people as we can, as fast as we can. I write at a furious pace to achieve that goal. I will NOT GIVE UP on Humanity. Not so long as these Keyboard fingers will cruise at 100WPM or even BETTER than that sometimes when I really get going. Not so long as the Internet remains up and running, and even after that if I am still walking the earth I will find another means to get the message out.
SAVE AS MANY AS YOU CANI admire your commitment to getting the word out, RE. Once one begins to understand how serious things could get, it’s difficult not to think about it and try to impress upon others that they should at the very least take minimal precautions. But even getting friends and family to listen isn’t always easy.
ashvin post=2844 wrote: But that does not mean the oil trade is the ONLY function the debt-dollar serves, or the financial system in general. Imperialism and wealth extraction come in many forms – the oil trade just makes it really easy.
True, Ash. The problem is that the world reserve dollar is being asked to do too many things. Since it is no longer tied to gold, the USA can (and does) run perpetual trade deficits. The cumulative total is so great that we can no longer afford the interest payments.
As our debt is rolled over, our trading partners find themselves, increasingly, in a vendor financing scheme where they don’t even get much interest on the outstanding balance. This is part of their cost structure, and it is inflationary, from the perspective of the customer of goods. China (for example) receives revenue from sales, but also interest payments on the outstanding balance of vendor financed goods in the past. As this latter source of revenue shrinks, the other revenue stream, the wholesale price, must rise in order to maintain the same total revenue stream.
I am sure that forms of this discussion have happened in the past and has been reduced to simple saying of wisdom. You can find them in all the “holy books” from around the world.
The messages have been forgotten, basterdized, and twisted and ignored.
You will not need to re-invent the wheel.
The problem isn’t that there is not enough money. Rather, there’s too much money: more than a quadrillion dollars, much of it consisting of unregulated derivatives.
The problem, then, is far larger than Bernanke and the Fed. It is a global capitalist economy run by a few powerful global banks.
Total money supply is more than a quadrillion dollars, and much of it consists of “shadow” derivatives and future government liabilities.
Most of that money isn’t created by central banks but by commercial banks, and comes in the form of numbers in accounts.
Almost all of money supply has no value. As for gold and other precious metals, there may be only around 150,000 metric tons of such, or less than one troy oz. per capita. What makes matters worse is that gold and silver have little practical value.
Given that, there is no relationship between money and energy and resources worldwide. There is too much money but not enough resources and energy to maintain global economic growth. There is no money system that is not “fraudulent” as money is nothing more than debt or something durable and pretty to look at, such as gold. And something like a “gold standard” won’t help either, as the issue works both ways (i.e., you have assurance that your paper currency is backed by gold, but at any point, you should be able to redeem your paper currency, which the one who has gold won’t like!).
Ultimately, what we face is a debt-ridden global capitalist economy that requires increasing credit to support increasing production and consumption of resources, with some making more profits from financial speculation. What we are seeing now is the effect of increasing financial speculation masking a resource crunch.
And that resource crunch coupled with the long-term effects of environmental damage (including climate change) will make a global financial crisis look like a walk in the park.
skipbreakfast said “I admire your commitment to getting the word out, RE. Once one begins to understand how serious things could get, it’s difficult not to think about it and try to impress upon others that they should at the very least take minimal precautions. But even getting friends and family to listen isn’t always easy.”
2nd that.
I have found that most of all people that I know are not receptive at all to the coming ‘doom and gloom’. Until they open their own eyes and ears, it truly is most difficult to spread the word.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote: @m111ark, Trivium,
I apologize for being confusing, it’s a bad habit. Let’s try another tack:
At issue is secured and unsecured lending. If you make a deposit of $10,000 you are making an unsecured loan to your bank. Mr. Bank can turn around and lend this money ten or more times. this is infamous ‘fractional lending’. From $10k your deposit becomes $90k of loans, only $10k or which is secured (by your deposit). In effect you have indirectly created $80k in new money or 8x your deposit you inflationist you!
And you blame Bernanke! Horrors!
I’m not sure who you are talking to, but I don’t blame Bernanke for being anything other than a lying, fraudulent front man for a fraudulent system being controlled by a bunch of con men.
The Fed is ultimately controlled by the people who finance the BODs of the Federal Reserve. Bernanke is an employee. He was put into position because he does what he’s told.
Big Finance Capital controls the Fed such that THEIR AGENDA is worked out in the markets. More for them, less for everyone else.
Also, the Federal Reserve System is the system that mandates fractional reserve lending be legal. Of course the Federal Reserve System is at fault – and especially THE ARCHITECTS and CONTROLLERS of that system.
It’s bizarre that you’d mock an attack on these criminals, even one wrongly levelled primarily at this fraud’s front man.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
A central bank cannot make unsecured loans and still remain a central bank.Oh yes they can – they lie and keep the public away from the books. Come on, stop being so naive – these people are lying criminals. They lie about the trivial like their mandate. Look it up – it isn’t a dual mandate (low unemployment, stable prices), it is a singular mandate to keep credit and monetary aggregates “commensurate with” the long term productive capacity of the nation.
What did these criminals do? They broke their mandate and took monetary and credit aggregates PARABOLIC TO the long term productive capacity of the nation! That PARABOLIC MOVE is a ROOT CAUSE of the ongoing collapse, but everyone lies about that, too, and blames something else.
Weapons of Mass Debt
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3324744/wmdebt-graph-3-79k?tr=77(Keep and Share is a PDF hosting site – nothing nefarious)
Stop being so gullible and trusting the book propaganda, steve. They aren’t playing “by the book” any more. In fact, they burned it up and buried the ashes as evidenced by their actions, NOT their lying words.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
The two kinds of banks are assembled differently, for one thing CBs don’t have a conventional capital structure. Since they aren’t profit-making enterprises,Maybe not for the Central Bank itself, but they ABSOLUTELY are profit making mechanisms for THOSE WHO CREATED IT AND THOSE WHO CONTROL IT!
The flow chart of the fraud is in this PDF:
Debt Money Tyranny:
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3325954/debt-dollar-tyranny-2-54k?tr=77
Again, stop with the book reading, it was propaganda to deceive the masses while this Trojan Horse worked over time to collapse the nation state system.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
capital in the conventional sense is not required. They have almost no capital: the ECB has €50bn in capital against a €4tn in liabilities. However, their assets and liabilities always match on paper, the books are always balanced.New money is not the source of credit but its excess over collateral.
Which is EXACTLY what the central banks are creating by taking on toxic trash assets valued at top value. The typical mistake, though, is to think that this new money will not require repayment with interest ONCE THE CENTRAL BANKS STOP THE LYING, and they can’t lie forever.
It, too, will be debt based money once the VERY REAL LOSSES are finally admitted.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
What matters is the face amounts not market worth which is simply an opinion.An opinion of the counter party that will buy it! -lol-
You seem to be spitting Fed propaganda like there is no tomorrow. So you think that worthless 2nd mortgage or that home that is 60% below the mortgage value and falling are just “opinions” and that their prices will snap back under our debt based monetary system when society and government are saturated with debt?
Get real. Those are assets are impaired. Big Finance Capital wanted to offload them to the public and they need a way to do so – and they use the Fed as the conduit.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Even implied leverage would destroy a central bank because it lacks adequate capital, if this were to be an issue the Central Bank would be just another (large) commercial bank.If CBs make unsecured loans they are instantly PERCEIVED as being insolvent. Quote from Bagehot:
Just so, an immense system of credit, founded on the Bank of England as its pivot and its basis, now exists. The English people, and foreigners too, trust it implicitly. Every banker knows that if he has to prove that he is worthy of credit, however good may be his arguments, in fact his credit is gone.
That’s exactly how I perceive them. I also perceive the mega banks who had to legalize securities fraud in order to pretend not to be insolvent as insolvent. Maybe they’ve had time to switch their toxic assets to one or two banks by now – so maybe a couple of the winners aren’t insolvent any more… it is impossible to tell when they all can lie through their teeth.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Assets fly to the CBs when the market panicsCreated by CBs that break their own law – you forgot to mention that part steve. Did you not know it? If not, now you do… Again…
Weapons of Mass Debt
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3324744/wmdebt-graph-3-79k?tr=77
Its all there – the mandate and the reality of what the Fed did… About $30 trillion in law breaking societal debt was created, bare minimum.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
and are worthless on the markets. CBs exist to validate the worth of assets and to provide liquidity while doing so.CBs don’t “validate” the worth, they just lie and accept the worth at 100%. If I recall, the Fed broke the law when it it accepted non government guaranteed paper as assets. There is so much fraud and law breaking it is tough to keep it all straight.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Assume for instance you are a bank and hold a $10m bond, you’ve lent to some industry such as real estate. For one reason or another real estate bonds are worth less with the passage of time.“[O]ne reason or another?” Are you kidding me steve? The Fed criminally, CRIMINALLY, broke Section 2A of the Federal Reserve Act and CRIMINALLY spent 25 years blowing the world’s largest credit bubble that eventually busted, as all bubbles must, and you sum it up as “one reason or another?”
Why do you hide the obvious criminal nature of the Fed and the fraudulent nature of the Federal Reserve System (by blaming customers and mocking the blaming of their front man)?
Is it that you can’t quite grasp reality through the social engineer conditioning?
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Bonds have lost enough so that other banks like yours have become insolvent. Capital and deposits are fleeing. You must jettison assets and shrink your balance sheet. You have a choice: the market prices your bond at fifty cents. The Fed will lend $10m against your bond. Quick: what will you do?File bankruptcy unless you have your criminal hooks so deep into government that you have captured it and control it. Reality, once again, slips right through your grasp – and you seem to rather enjoy the state of suspended disbelief.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
What the Fed won’t do is offer you $100m for your bond. It will offer $10m or a little less for a haircut. It will offer par and no more.Oh, they are so tough at the Fed. Funny you chose bonds instead of MBS where the REAL problem lays. How about those mortgages, steve? Accepted at par (don’t look at the books, prole!), down 60% with no hope of recovery. Par, baby, par.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Whether the market says the bond is worth fifty cents or not is irrelevant, the face amount is the limit of what the central bank will lend. It can create new money only if it lends above what the collateral is worth.MBS are where the real problem is (in America), steve, and I think you know it. Is that why you avoided discussing MBSes? As RE has pointed out, the Greek bonds were valued at par and some won’t be paid because they can’t be paid. BTW, they knew this BEFORE they bought them AND MADE THE PRIVATE BANKS WHO ORIGINALLY LENT WHOLE FOR THOSE BONDS.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
What this means is the central bank is collateral constrained. It cannot lend more than the face amount of collateral it takes in exchange for credit. If the Fed lends $3 trillion it has $3 trillion on its balance sheet. Instead of being a ‘bank’ it is more like a pawn shop.Still burning down the straw man, steve. Nobody I know claimed the Fed let $10 on #3 in collateral. NOBODY. What they have said is the Fed takes $10 in face value MBSes that are worth $5 and lends $10 against this.
Yet you avoid the real issue like the plague.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
The CB can issue credit but it must have collateral.But that collateral can be fictional as long as people suspend disbelief. Right now, people are suspending disbelief. Nicole’s and Ilargi’s message is that this will, at some point, reverse and there will be new rules that turn the current game upside down.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
If the Fed says the collateral is worth fifty five cents there is no point to having a Fed.The whole point of the Fed is to do this…
Debt Dollar Tyranny
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3325954/debt-dollar-tyranny-2-54k?tr=77
Everything else is designed to confuse people that rather enjoy a state of permanent suspended disbelief, for whatever reason.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
If the Fed says the collateral is worth $100 billion the markets will know the Fed is lying and ignore it. If the Fed was to leverage your collateral the other banks dealing with the Fed would ask why they cannot leverage their collateral as well. The Fed would have to decide which collateral was marginable and which is not. Unlike commercial banks, there is no underwriting department at the Fed to determine whether prospects of this or that business venture are as advertised. It simply accepts instruments face worth in exchange for credit in the same amounts.That’s the propaganda, steve. You’ve been conditioned well. “The Man” pats you on the back. But here in reality, that’s a straw an argument. You built up an argument which nobody made, you limited it in scope and then you burnt it down.
The Fed’s MBSes, steve – do you believe they are worth par?
Yes or no. If not, WHY DID YOU AVOID THE REAL ISSUE AND POST THIS WORTHLESS STRAW MAN TRIPE INSTEAD?
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Commercial banks have underwriting departments, rating agencies, risk management sections and analysts. There are also thousands of banks who can make granular judgments about trillion$$ in unsecured loans. (Most of these judgments are bad, BTW.)Thank goodness for ratings agencies, RIGHT STEVE? -lol-
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
Being collateral constrained the CB cannot create new money it is impossible as what goes out is equal to what comes in. Only commercial banks offering unsecured loans create new money.That false idea burns up when your straw man burns, steve. If I give the Fed a $1,000,000 paper mortgage that will only sell for, at most, $500k for the foreseeable future, and the Fed loans $1,000,000 against it, THE FED HAS CREATED NON INTEREST BEARING DEBT UNTIL SUCH TIME AS THE FED FESSES UP TO ITS LIE AND RECOGNIZES THE TRUE VALUE OF THAT PAPER. At which point, the Fed will demand that the tax payers repay the Fed for the difference between the $1,000,000 and the price the MBS actually sold for, MINUS $10KS OF FEES PAID TO THE BANKSTER, NO DOUBT.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
What confuses is the offhand use of the term ‘central bank buying’. If you sell your car to me for $1000 then buy it back in a year for the same $1000 it is the same as you borrowing $1000 and offering the car as collateral.The Straw Man is Ash. Here in reality, which you craftily avoided, the example is selling the Fed a $500 market value care that was bought 5 years earlier for $1,000. The Fed pays out $1,000 and then eventually sells the vehicle for $400. The Fed will eventually demand the $600 from the tax payers.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
I have been annoyed by the Fed’s open ended lending against collateral such as during QE 1.QUITE PROVIDING COVER FOR THE FED’S **CRIMINAL** ACTIVITY, STEVE!
https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/3324744/wmdebt-graph-3-79k?tr=77
They are crooks BEYOND ALL DOUBT! They lie about their mandate BEYOND ALL DOUBT! They CRIMINALLY blew the world’s largest credit bubble BEYOND ALL DOUBT!
Yet you are annoyed at lending in Q1. Man, you are a tough guy! BTW, those weren’t bonds they borrowed in Q1, were they? How is that real estate market since they bought those MBSes AT PAR?
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
However, there were good policy reasons for doing so (retrieving bad mortgage paper from the Chinese). The Fed will hold the collateral to maturity whence the loans will be retired and credit extinguished. But there was indeed collateral accepted in this and all other cases including all open market operations and QE.Yes, and if you are a gullible sucker, you will conclude that NOBODY WILL DEFAULT ON THE MOST TOXIC MBSES SOLD TO THE FED SO THEY CAN HOLD 100% OF THOSE TOXIC TRASH MORTGAGES TO MATURITY WITHOUT BEING FORCED TO SELL ANY INTO THE COLLAPSING MARKET.
The holes in your Straw Man, steve, are so wide that the mice have lost interest.
steve from virginia post=2858 wrote:
The point is not the mechanics of the process but that Central Banks do not create anything new. When their balance sheets expand it is because private sector balance sheets contract an equal or greater amount. (This is always left off those ZeroHedge charts, btw!)Think of the Fed and other central banks as pawn shops. They will lend you the five hundred dollars, but you have to let them hold onto your $2,000 Rolex watch. And they won’t lend you the $50,000 against that watch.
Try going into a pawn shop and borrowing your purchase price for a hot beanie baby at their peak interest.
They will laugh in your face.
Yet that is exactly what the Fed does – especially for the corporate banking interests that roll up under Big Finance Capital, the people who control the Federal Reserve to systematically asset strip society and protect their corporate fronts while indebting nation states with unpayable debt.
steve, Stockholm Syndrome is reversible if you would consider suspending your suspension of disbelief.
BTW, the way to refute anything I say is to provide the data and logic that support refutation and provide examples, just like I’ve done. If you can’t, then the honest thing to do is admit to it.
ralfy post=2865 wrote: The problem isn’t that there is not enough money. Rather, there’s too much money: more than a quadrillion dollars, much of it consisting of unregulated derivatives.
The problem, then, is far larger than Bernanke and the Fed. It is a global capitalist economy run by a few powerful global banks.
Hi Ralfy, you in appropriately limit the Fed’s sphere is influence.
The Fed is the Trojan Horse for the Architects and Controllers of the Federal Reserve and the structure of the monetary system.
Those derivatives only exist because the Fed (actually the Controllers of the Fed) wanted them to exist.
The Fed is much more than its individual policy decisions – THE ENTIRE SYSTEM exists at the behest of the Fed and its Architects and Controllers.
It was the Fed that pushed for the end of Glass-Steagall and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.
Ultimately, it is the Architects and Controllers of the Fed who are to blame, so just evicting the Fed won’t do a lot so long as those con people stay in charge with all their fraudulent, ill gotten, crime syndicate wealth still in place.
The game I see in play is…
Steps:
1. Blow a massive credit bubble (~25 years)
2. Loot as much cash and bank credit as possible under the excuse of “saving the system” (this is where we are now)
3. Execute a wicked deflationary bust to roll up society’s assets under Big Finance Capital corporate fronts.
4. Let the American subjects wallow in abject poverty for a while.
5. Promise some goodies to the American people but, alas, there has to be some strings attached, “for your safety.” Oh, and you have to roll up under this cool world currency system run by the same Big Finance Capital criminals who created our current fraudulent systems.Of course, they need to concurrently set up police states, destroy freedoms like the Bill of Rights and set up re-education camps for political activists.
bluebird post=2867 wrote: skipbreakfast said “I admire your commitment to getting the word out, RE. Once one begins to understand how serious things could get, it’s difficult not to think about it and try to impress upon others that they should at the very least take minimal precautions. But even getting friends and family to listen isn’t always easy.”
2nd that.
I have found that most of all people that I know are not receptive at all to the coming ‘doom and gloom’. Until they open their own eyes and ears, it truly is most difficult to spread the word.
Although it can be difficult to spread the Word, it is not impossible. Over on the Diner we began in February with 14 Members and page hits of 80/day. It was a big deal to me when we hit 5000 Page views. Yesterday, we nearly hit 5000 page views in ONE DAY on the Diner. We are creeping up on triple digit membership now also.
In addition to that, today we had join the Party the Brit Slogger John Ward. I read his Blog on a recommendation from Steve and invited him to cross post on the Diner. He is hilarious and he gives great detail about what is occuring over in Eurotrashland.
So if you want to get the Word out, then PLUG THE LIVING SHIT OUT OF THE DOOMSTEAD DINER (and TAE also of course) 🙂
Reverse Engineer post=2849 wrote: Again, I do not think any of these economists directly confronted the issue of limitations to the energy reserves of the world. The assumptions they make sometimes hold true in a world of surplus energy, but for the most part I do not think any of these economic theories are holding up too well as the energy inputs become scarce and expensive.
Seeing as how the theories of Marx, Fisher and Minsky dealt with the breakdown of financial/industrial capitalism through wealth extraction, over-production, excessive leverage and euphoric speculation, I’d say they are holding up quite well right now (even though they did not focus on peak oil).
Marx foresaw a crisis in Capitalism based on economic principles, and he was largely correct far as I understand Marx anyhow. The analysis is not complete though, because Avaialble per capita Energy puts even more stress on the system and undermines the Finance economy further. Basically, this just produces a Bigger and Better Collapse than Marx ever foresaw.
Yes, that is definitely true. Any theory that ignores energy/resource abundance or scarcity is an incomplete one, and will fail to make precise predictions long-term. The point is that these theories are still useful when applied to our economic/financial/monetary system, just like Einstein’s relativity is still useful when applied to macro-scales, even though they are all incomplete (the latter much less so).
TheTrivium4TW post=2851 wrote: As for Marx, did I miss it or did he also predict Stalin and Mao?
Just askin’.
Using Marx’s predictions about Communist utopia to discredit his predictions about capitalist meltdown. That has to be some sort of logical fallacy!
The Straw Man is Ash.
So now I have actually become “The Straw Man”?? I think you maybe meant Ilargi here, because he wrote this article.
@Reverse Engineer – When people have opened their eyes and ears, they are receptive to reading and hearing about the crumbling of the U.S. empire, financial ponzi, worldwide bubble, poor infrastructure, etc, etc., in order to do some preparations.
But the people that I know have other priorities, and unfortunately it is not reading blogs. None. I have tried many many times, and I have yet to get back any comment that anyone has read anything. When I mention that the stock market goes up and down, to be ready for the next downturn, people roll their eyes.
My sister told me that she would never get out of the markets, because she would miss the gains when it goes back up. She is so busy taking exotic vacations that she has a professional financial planner to manage her portfolio. I’m the nutty sister who reads blogs.
While I do keep trying to enlighten others, they will be totally shocked when the collapse comes. It will be epic.
As for Marx, did I miss it or did he also predict Stalin and Mao?
Isn’t that like holding Einstein (E-mc^2) responsible for the A-bomb?
einhverfr post=2895 wrote:
As for Marx, did I miss it or did he also predict Stalin and Mao?
Isn’t that like holding Einstein (E-mc^2) responsible for the A-bomb?
Well, Einstein WAS responsible for the A-Bomb, since without the Theory the Bomb could never have been built to begin with.
Similarly, the Soviet Union or Communist China could not have been built without the Theories of Karl Marx. They provided a philosphical underpinning for Revolutionaries to hang their hats on, but of course it all gets corrupted quite rapidly by the Evil of Money.
The end result of course of the Theory is an A-Bomb which levels everything. The Revolutionaries who hung their Hats on Karl Marx’s Theories could not follow through with them, any more than the Theories in the Constitution the Founding Fathers created were ever really followed through with. They always get Corrupted by the Evil of Money and the Control of the Iluminati.
No mater HOW good a system is (and I do not here promote any of these systems as really “good”), they do not function as designed in the Real World for innumerable reasons. A-Bombs and i fact H-Bombs do function pretty well though to do what they do, which is to DESTROY.
In the words of J. Robert Oppenheimer,leader of the Manhattan Project, quoting the Bhagavit Gita:
I am Become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds”
So it has been with Capitalism and Communism both. Plagues on Humanity and Mother Earth, all subservient to the Evil of Money.
RE
ashvin post=2879 wrote:
Using Marx’s predictions about Communist utopia to discredit his predictions about capitalist meltdown. That has to be some sort of logical fallacy!The Straw Man is Ash.
So now I have actually become “The Straw Man”?? I think you maybe meant Ilargi here, because he wrote this article.
No, you aren’t a straw man, Ash, but you did use one and, based on your Straw Man fallacy, you accused me of using a fallacy when I did not. I didn’t use his lack of predicting Mao and Stalin to discredit his views on a capitalist meltdown.
What did I write that gave you that idea?
I didn’t say that at all. You just made that up out of whole cloth. What was the motivation that led to this false conclusion?
In fact, I think he was correct that the “Capitalist system” (true capitalism, like true communism, is a myth – both are different forms of oligarchical dictatorships) would eventually melt down (technically, the oligarchs would rig the monetary, criminally blow a credit bubble, loot people under the con that they are trying to save the economy and then collapse everything to take control of it an dproclaim themselves rulers). In fact, I constantly explain exactly what methods are used to by the oligarchs to systematically rob people under the fallacy of “capitalism.”
Even if we had a true capitalist society, my hypothesis is that it would go bad as the selfish people would then rig such a system to their advantage and everyone else’s disadvantage – ending in an oligarchical dictatorship.
I didn’t argue against my own belief system, Ash, so what caused the “rush to judgement” on your part?
But I also think the data shows Marx’s failures cost over 100 million lives. Lest you then accuse me of thinking that this makes oligarchical dictatorship capitalism better (when I didn’t say that)…
…I think the “Capitalist” oligarchical dictatorship model has cost far more human lives than Mao and Stalin in the “Communist” oligarchical dictatorship model… just for the record. The oligarchs trick the people into thinking they are “free,” when they pretty much repeat the oligarch funded “consensus,” and then they set up systems that kill people by the 10s of millions every year. About 25 million die of starvation and malnutrition… millions more through corporate societal asset stripping wars and who knows how many with the toxic diet they promote.
The real issue is that humanity is between a rock and hard place when human selfishness rules the day.
Legitimately criticizing Marx in one area doesn’t mean that Marx didn’t have incredible insight in others. It just means he had a blind spot – a very big one at that – and since you didn’t point it out, I did.
The lesson is that we all need to be very careful of potential blind spots – even if those who have a special genius in a particular area.
ashvin post=2879 wrote:
The Straw Man is Ash.
Hi Ash,
You may have just pointed out the most bizarre thing I’ve ever written.
I went back to read it in context and it makes no sense and you were completely unrelated to the topic at hand.
I was trying to point out steve’s use of a straw man to describe a scenario different than what almost assuredly occurred.
I would explain the specific term if I could, but I can’t.
My bad for the Bizarre with a capital “B”.
The capitalists, communists, socialists, fascists, et al. have all made a total mess of things and have failed. Whether evil or well intentioned is irrelevant… they failed.
No system will ever be successful until the human mind, and the spiritual being that utilized it, have been isolated and fully understood. Psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, et al. have failed in this area as well. Very too bad because THIS is the key to man’s future survival.
Find the source of evil and destructive intentions; the need to dominate; the need to destroy what another creates; man’s inhumanity to man; man’s illogic; man’s low level of morality; man’s “animalistic” tendencies; man’s inability to predict consequences; etc. and you will save mankind.
RE:
As I read it, Marx was largely advocating worker’s revolutions to build some sort of communistic system on top of existing Capitalist systems. This is the inescapable conclusion that arises from the total sum of his writings. Capitalism is a necessary stage (missing in the Soviet and Chinese experiments) and it serves as a foundation for what comes next via the Historical Dialectic theory. It seems to me that the case studies of Marxian thought really should be focusing on Scandinavia rather than Russia.
I don’t think you can easily hold people responsible for how people abuse their works. Marxist thought did help shape the Russian and Chinese systems but their systems were certainly nowhere near what Marx generally talked about. These systems were built on a feudal (in the taxonomy of Marx) rather than a capitalist foundation and consequently they never stopped resembling that system.
I am not a Marxist or a socialist btw. I just think it is important to break out of the way we think about some aspects of the past. There are Marxist thinkers who I respect (Wilhelm Reich for example, and his idea of work democracy), and I think Marxist criticism of capitalism is interesting and important. However, I don’t see Marx as offering solutions that achieve what is needed in the future.
@ alfbell
“No system will ever be successful until the human mind, and the spiritual being that utilized it, have been isolated and fully understood. Psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, et al. have failed in this area as well. Very too bad because THIS is the key to man’s future survival.Find the source of evil and destructive intentions; the need to dominate; the need to destroy what another creates; man’s inhumanity to man; man’s illogic; man’s low level of morality; man’s “animalistic” tendencies; man’s inability to predict consequences; etc. and you will save mankind.”
So if human kind is dependent on figuring out the mysteries of our souls and then acting rationally on our understanding, we are in a lot of trouble. I think we’ve been working on that longer than we’ve been hunting and gathering or farming combined.
Getting us all to agree to a rational response to our human predicament seems out of reach too. If we agreed that human beings will never be consistently rational, that as individuals and groups we act at times on the better and worse angels of our nature could we even agree on a “ring-fencing” technique to keep us from killing off our habitat? For instance, can we even get all humans to agree to not use or develop things that create radioactive waste? As Nicloe Foss and others point out, we have to be responsible for and maintain infrastructure that will keep that toxic waste from contaminating huge areas, and yet we usually can’t keep anything going for extended periods of time.
What I’m trying to figure out is if we all fail to be our best selves at least some of the time, are there any structures we can impose on ourselves that will at least keep us from causing massive damage to ourselves and the planet?
@ Bluebird
“My sister told me that she would never get out of the markets, because she would miss the gains when it goes back up. She is so busy taking exotic vacations that she has a professional financial planner to manage her portfolio. I’m the nutty sister who reads blogs.
While I do keep trying to enlighten others, they will be totally shocked when the collapse comes. It will be epic.”
I think the herd mentality is really hard for people to buck. My sisters at least partially “get it”. But at the same time still stay with the status quo on things like taking on debt to send my niece and nephew to college or keeping their retirement in the stock market.
For instance, my sister thinks it is a really bad idea for my niece and nephew to take on debt to go to college and yet because of our culture and the sense that my niece and nephew will be labelled “failures” (by themselves as well as others if they don’t go to college) they go along with taking on what looks to me as unrepayable debt. At present sitting on the sidelines isn’t seen as getting out of the way of the crash, it’s seen as someone who gave up on him/her self.
So I find myself giving into the lesser angels of my nature wanting a “crash” to come down good and hard so I can be vindicated in my superlative foresight:).
But then I remind myself that I’d be screwed because I live low, but what I live on is still very dependent on the current system.
alfbell post=2904 wrote: The capitalists, communists, socialists, fascists, et al. have all made a total mess of things and have failed. Whether evil or well intentioned is irrelevant… they failed.
No system will ever be successful until the human mind, and the spiritual being that utilized it, have been isolated and fully understood. Psychiatry, psychology, psychoanalysis, et al. have failed in this area as well. Very too bad because THIS is the key to man’s future survival.
Find the source of evil and destructive intentions; the need to dominate; the need to destroy what another creates; man’s inhumanity to man; man’s illogic; man’s low level of morality; man’s “animalistic” tendencies; man’s inability to predict consequences; etc. and you will save mankind.
All these systems failed because they all use MONEY. Money is the source of all the Evils you mentioned. It is the ROOT of all Evil. Eliminate MONEY, and you will Save Mankind.
RE
alfbel,
That psyco-spiritual is actually known albeit spread out thin across multiple disciplines. At an individual level it is also knowable, but takes a lifetimes full effort for the ordinary person to even approximate. Even though we pretty much conquered our physical environment 50 years ago we can’t get out of that “survival is a terrible and cruel struggle” motivation. Our tragic flaw.
Thing is WE, the human collective, is a bit of an abstraction, humans are actually individuated autonomous souls mostly asleep, collective action is predominately accidental or enforced by the bullies. We don’t do murmuration.
A good hard reset may just provide an opportunity to change course toward some fabled Golden Age, Age of the Sixth Sun or Age of Aquarius type thingy.
One of those terribly painful life changers like surviving canver and chemotherapy to find you’ve come out the other side with a much healthier and happier perspective, which is what my wife reports.
That is me attempting optimism and that date with December 21 is looking on schedule.
RE,
Sorry to quibble but money has no conscience or awareness or motivation and therefore not capable of manifesting evil. It is the Religion of Money which is practiced by us who-mans, our conceptualsations and lusts in regard to it where the problems arise. We all know what fundamentalist and extremist religions create.
Glennjeff post=2920 wrote: RE,
Sorry to quibble but money has no conscience or awareness or motivation and therefore not capable of manifesting evil. It is the Religion of Money which is practiced by us who-mans, our conceptualsations and lusts in regard to it where the problems arise. We all know what fundamentalist and extremist religions create.
Disagreed. It doesn’t need conscience or awareness or motivation, it is an emergent property of the system.
RE
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