[quote]dnlcdstn wrote:
So, what happens when every nation basically collapses b/c of debt? Do we clear the monopoly board and start over? I mean eventually somethings gotta give right?[/quote]
This probably sounds fucked up, but I think that’s what bankers are trying to achieve, but then again, they keep getting money for nothing, so I don’t think they’ll want to do that either, maybe they’ll try to look like saviors, by ‘letting’ us off the hook, even tho they never deserved a single cent.
You should really check out the videos Money as Debt, and the Secret of Oz, if you haven’t.
It would be the rough equivalent of an individual declaring bankruptcy. All debt is cleared but his reputation from a lending stand point is ruined. If he can borrow at all it will be at extremely high rates. Societies would continue on likely by simply choosing a different money type like gold barring the governments make such things illegal and even then it would likely just go on in a shadow economy. Governments would then have to restrict all over their spending to what they bring in from taxes rather than what they can leverage against or by what people are willing to accept their money for.
[quote]koffea wrote:
this is really interesting. It appears on first glance to be a good example as why top down rule by fiat does not really work in economics. [/quote]
It may take years but they are headed for a big crash.[/quote]
Its probably not going to take years. China has been very creative about its debt issues but it has WAY more debt than it has reserves.[/quote]
It is my understanding that contractors just don’t pay their bills in China. Can’t keep going like that.
[quote]dnlcdstn wrote:
So, what happens when every nation basically collapses b/c of debt? Do we clear the monopoly board and start over? I mean eventually somethings gotta give right?[/quote]
This probably sounds fucked up, but I think that’s what bankers are trying to achieve, but then again, they keep getting money for nothing, so I don’t think they’ll want to do that either, maybe they’ll try to look like saviors, by ‘letting’ us off the hook, even tho they never deserved a single cent.
You should really check out the videos Money as Debt, and the Secret of Oz, if you haven’t.
As well as this short ‘comic’ about banking.
[/quote]
I’ve seen a lot of these types of viewpoints including “The Money Masters” which did a good job of explaining things.
My question is: Why would the uber rich steal all the wealth when they know if a nation or two collapses their money also collapses? We all saw the articles about the wealthiest people in the world and how their wealth shrank during the recession. Do they just wanna ruin markets, buy everything dirt cheap, and hope the economy bounces back making them even more wealthy?
From watching those links I gave, it’s my understanding, that they increase the money supply, which increases the interest owed to them, then they take the interest that’s owed to them out of the money supply. This decreases the amount of money in circulation, and then there isn’t enough money for people to pay off their debts, then they default, and the bank(er)s benefit.
I may be wrong but thats how I understand it to be. I keep an open mind on this subject. But it doesn’t make sense to me to have $100 printed then ask for $105, it’s impossible to pay off.
Another thing to keep in mind, is that our standard of living has improved, but when you compare the amount of wealth between the upper elite and everyone else, it’s really no different than Kings and peasants. It’s just now we have stuff(material things, homes, cars, computers, ipods, etc), so that’s enough to keep most people happy.
[quote]MattyG35 wrote:
Another thing to keep in mind, is that our standard of living has improved, but when you compare the amount of wealth between the upper elite and everyone else, it’s really no different than Kings and peasants. It’s just now we have stuff(material things, homes, cars, computers, ipods, etc), so that’s enough to keep most people happy.[/quote]
I share the same view. I think there’s just more kings nowadays. Also, you can become a king if you invent something (facebook) or just make your way. That wasn’t possible way back then. So, things are basically the same, but we live better and have a better chance of escaping the rat race.
Guys, not to be an ass but there are so many things wrong with the comic you posted to even begin going into here, but a couple of points.
First off, money pre-existed government and does not require one to exist. It does not require anyone particular commodity or item, simply whatever people generally except as being a good medium of exchange. Gold became the most universally excepted medium of exchange for a number of reasons historically, but not least of which is that it is extremely difficult to counterfeit. It never tarnishes and its weight is very difficult to “cut”. The supply of gold was also always pretty stable so you couldn’t just grow it or generally stumble upon loads of the stuff. This is why gold became the universal currency. These reasons among many others are why it is becoming the defacto international currency again despite what the many governments of the world want.
Second, generally speaking under most systems the individual NOT the bank owns the money. This is why most banks pay YOU an interest rate when you keep your savings with them. What the comic depicts is when someone takes a loan from the bank which is only one half of the equation. Understand that the banks can only lend when they have the available funds (or they can only do this if they want to survive long term). This is why you receive an interest rate to keep your money with them, so they can lend it out to others.
Similarly this comic ignores the fact that as the society becomes more productive the PURCHASING POWER of each of their dollars goes up, so they do not have to spend as much of their money. The more efficient the economy becomes, the lower the cost of goods, the less money each person has to spend to achieve the same level of material wealth. This leaves excess funds to pay debt, save or invest.
It should also be pointed out that money put into a savings account or investment is NOT being hoarded as many Keynesians and socialist economist purport. When you put money into a savings account, it increases the amount of available money to be loaned out, which makes borrowing money cheaper for business. Lower borrowing costs lower the costs of production for businesses and thus lowers the costs of goods to consumers. This further increases purchasing power. This improves everyone materially. Savings in a bank are very much still active in the economy. The only way to take money out of the money supply would be to literally bury it in the ground or stick it under a mattress. While some people may do this it is a extremely tiny minority not even worth mentioning.
Those are just a couple of the basic issues this comic glosses over. Different economic schools have different takes on certain systems, but few well thought out ideologies would deny that this view of money is deeply flawed.
Guys, not to be an ass but there are so many things wrong with the comic you posted to even begin going into here, but a couple of points.
First off, money pre-existed government and does not require one to exist. It does not require anyone particular commodity or item, simply whatever people generally except as being a good medium of exchange. Gold became the most universally excepted medium of exchange for a number of reasons historically, but not least of which is that it is extremely difficult to counterfeit. It never tarnishes and its weight is very difficult to “cut”. The supply of gold was also always pretty stable so you couldn’t just grow it or generally stumble upon loads of the stuff. This is why gold became the universal currency. These reasons among many others are why it is becoming the defacto international currency again despite what the many governments of the world want.
Second, generally speaking under most systems the individual NOT the bank owns the money. This is why most banks pay YOU an interest rate when you keep your savings with them. What the comic depicts is when someone takes a loan from the bank which is only one half of the equation. Understand that the banks can only lend when they have the available funds (or they can only do this if they want to survive long term). This is why you receive an interest rate to keep your money with them, so they can lend it out to others.
Similarly this comic ignores the fact that as the society becomes more productive the PURCHASING POWER of each of their dollars goes up, so they do not have to spend as much of their money. The more efficient the economy becomes, the lower the cost of goods, the less money each person has to spend to achieve the same level of material wealth. This leaves excess funds to pay debt, save or invest.
It should also be pointed out that money put into a savings account or investment is NOT being hoarded as many Keynesians and socialist economist purport. When you put money into a savings account, it increases the amount of available money to be loaned out, which makes borrowing money cheaper for business. Lower borrowing costs lower the costs of production for businesses and thus lowers the costs of goods to consumers. This further increases purchasing power. This improves everyone materially. Savings in a bank are very much still active in the economy. The only way to take money out of the money supply would be to literally bury it in the ground or stick it under a mattress. While some people may do this it is a extremely tiny minority not even worth mentioning.
Those are just a couple of the basic issues this comic glosses over. Different economic schools have different takes on certain systems, but few well thought out ideologies would deny that this view of money is deeply flawed.
kilpaba, I wasn’t talking about the non-currency printing banks, to me, those are just a business, and help fund various other businesses by investing clients money.
I don’t have any issue with the use of some form of currency. The issue which I’ve been led to believe exists, is that, the Bank of Canada, or Bank of England, or the Federal Reserve(whichever bank has the responsibility of printing that country’s money) are privately own, and generate interest for themselves by putting countries into unpayable debt.
If any of what I said is false, I’m always open to truth. However in this case I think we’ve had a misunderstanding of what kind of ‘bank’ we were each talking about. My understanding is that banks like BMO, TD, Royal Bank, don’t issue a country’s currency, and are simply businesses.
I would absolutely concur with you on the bad idea that a pseudo-private Federal Reserve system pretty much always leads to problems especially when they can demand one currency be the only acceptable currency in a country and then control that money supply and printing press. This is not an inevitability of banking or even central banking if competing currencies are not made illegal or defacto inferior via taxation.
I just wanted to be clear that money does not need a government or any type of bank to “invent” it (as the comic suggested). Money has pre-existed all of those structures in areas all over the world. I also wanted to defend the essence of banking in general. Financiers serve an extremely important function in highly developed economies but are often demonized as parasites that do not create real value. This would be the equivalent of saying an efficiency expert does not create real value just by reorganizing the exact same physical capital in a building. Clearly false.
That looks super cool, thanks.
Not nearly on the same scale or as nice looking, but I know some company or the gov’t in Canada here was designing self-sufficient homes to be used on certain remote First Nation reserves.
WTF? A bunch of Chinese politicians got together, came up with this and thought it was a GOOD idea? At least the U.S. government attempts to reallocate funding to areas with increased demand. This looks like they just thought “well, fuck… People need homes right? Lets just build a buncha’ those!”
And some are worried they’ll take over the world… =/