Banks or their equivalent can’t be allowed to make a profit at the expense of the rest of the community. This has been recognised for thousands of years. Old-time religions are recorded as being against it. I suspect there was wisdom behind this thinking, it was better understood then that within a community you cannot have one small section effectively running the rest because then you have two societies, the morlocks and the elois, effectively. We’ve grown up in a culture where that awareness has not so much been lost sight of but comprehensively buried. We’re taught nothing of this in our so-called education but it influences every facet of our lives. Everything we buy is loaded with a huge premium that consists of nothing but profits for the banks, profits on loans consisting of money not garnered by prudence and thrift but made up out of thin air. We’ve been had, and we continue to be had.
Unfair Bank Charges
Much in the news lately about unfair bank charges. Plenty about overdraft charges – but what about interest?
Let’s examine why we have interest on loans. If you borrow 500K from your mate, while you have it, he doesn’t have use of it. He can’t use it to further his own interest and so it isn’t in his interest to loan it to you. In order to make it in his interest, you have to offer him compensation. You not only agree to return his money after a set time, then, but with extra money on top as compensation. That extra money is, quite literally, his interest in doing the deal.
All fair enough.
When you get money from a commercial bank, though, none of this applies as you aren’t loaned anything. Instead the banks create new money in your account. This isn’t the same thing as lending you what’s theirs and so being deprived of the use of it. They aren’t deprived of this money in any way; they never had it in the first place. Why should they have any compensation then? They didn’t lose out in any way. There is no actual or potential loss.
I’m aware that it is recorded in their accounts as a debit, (or whatever), but that’s just the way banks choose to do their accounting. They can just as easily decide not to. That’s the way things developed because it suited the banks, not because it was fair or appropriate.
So where’s all the complaining about that?
BB
Plan B From Outer Space
Look at this look; “The MPC needs to have a Plan B up its sleeve, just in case its expected strong recovery doesn’t materialise next year,” said Colin Ellis, economist at Daiwa Securities SMBC.” quoted in the FT today.
Hmmm. Perhaps an over-optimistic assessment of the situation. The MPC, in my view, haven’t shown any evidence of a plan A yet, let alone a plan B. The whole output of the QE exercise has vanished into the black holes the banks have where their reserves ought to be, as I suspect will any more monies they’re given. If we want to get money into the broad, real-life economy, we need a distribution network independent of the existing private banks. I’m still waiting for someone to tell me whether the CDFA banks are properly licensed, ie can operate fractional reserve banking, as if they can’t they’ll be worth FA in terms of CD.
Also, from the same source, “Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank, has said that he would like to see the money supply growing at a similar pace to the 6-9 per cent rate it was before the financial crisis”.
I bet he would – why doesn’t he just wish for world peace while he’s at it?
BB
Banking Uber Alles
The rotting corpses of the banks are being preserved at the expense of the rest of society. More evidence here;
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/1673-They-Arent-Really-This-Stupid,-Are-They.html
It speaks of the banks going bankrupt. Given they’re clearly already insolvent this seems inevitable. We should do a remake movie called Banking System In London, in which our banking systems, already dead, physically deteriorate every time we see them through the movie. Actually, it’s more like we’re already in this remake, and the fact that where before we had lively institutions we now have animated corpses is getting harder and harder for Darling to conceal. Oh it’s worse than we thought, he reluctantly concedes. That’s nonsense, the government knows how bad it is, it’s OVER is how bad it is, and they have no clue whatsoever how to handle the situation. They bluff, they bluster. Like frightened hamsters will seek the familiarity of running in their wheels even though it gets them nowhere they simply repeat the same useless and irrelevant actions over and over.
I bought a water purifier, gravity-driven. You should too.
BB
Clegg pulls ahead…
I’m watching the speeches from the CBI gathering this fine morning… Brown has pulled out reams of the same old claptrap, unbelieveable that he’s still pulling the same stunts… he praised the business community for having more apprentices at the moment then ever before while what they should be congratulated upon of course is surviving at all the mess he’s stwearded them into… but Corporal Clegg has come up with some interesting ideas and observations on banking and specificall reform and competition. Long overdue. These are subjects usually conspicuous by their absence from political discussion – one wonders where young Clegg imagines his future funding will be coming from!
BB
Load Of Cockermouth And Balls
Here’s Gordon Brown, the Man Who Hates Showbiz, popping up in front of the world’s collective lenses in the dreadfully flooded Cockermouth.
Where will he be in the weeks and months ahead, one wonders, as the cry for money, more money and still more money comes wailing up from the abandoned Cockermouth inhabitants trying to live unaided in the ruins of their lives and their town? It’ll be back to being McCavity’s Cat for Gordon, he’ll be nowhere to be seen and unreachable on the subject.
BB
Visions Of China
China’s having to buddy-up with Brazil to get enough soybeans planted there to feed the hungry Chinese. They can’t do this locally because they just don’t have enough water in China. Here’s a clue or three as to why;
http://www.chinahush.com/2009/10/21/amazing-pictures-pollution-in-china/
BB
You Can Be Predator Or Prey
When the going gets down and dirty you either get down and dirtier (predator) or you get to be prey. In a twon already laid low by predatory banking, Detroit, we’re seeing more predatory behaviour. This time it’s from the local police, who are raiding entirely innocent people and claiming their property to be involved in crimes. If that sounds like a broad definition I suspect that’s because it’s intended to be. The reality is that someone, anyone, in any way conected to property seems to be excuse enough for it to be seized and then auctioned off, proceeds to go to the local police dept for equipment and so forth
Times are very hard in Detroit, the city is disentegrating and resources are scarce. Those picked on are sometimes eventually understood to be entirely innocent – but they mat still have to pay to get their property back, at what looks like hefty profit for the police department?
Think it couldn’t happen here? It already is. The Proceeeds Of Crime Act (POCA), introdiced just recently, is along the same lines. You have to ask now, is anyone safe from either robbers or police? Are you safe from these predators, or will you be their prey?
BB
Still No Inflation, Still Not Surprising
The only economic indicators suggesting we’re out of recession are ones that work in the shadow economy, not the real one. when all these things were initially determined as indicators of anything much, there wasn’t any such thing as a shadow economy. We’re being measured against outdated criterion. All the QE has been going straight into the shadow economy and staying there, that’s why there’s been no inflation in the one we use. In real-world terms, we’re worse off than we were at the start of the crisis, we face the same problems and we’re far more in debt. This is the National Debt ‘owed’ to bankers who’re demanding we pay them back billions they never had in the first place. We all work for the banks, there’s no two ways about it.
BB
Financial Services Bill – Same Old, Same Old
The new bill is supposedly going to “lay out plans to improve financial education in schools” says the Daily Mail.
Hmmmm. By how much exactly, one wonders? Will it educate schoolchildren to understand they’re being prepared for financial milking all their lives by a monopolistic banking system? Will they be helped to grasp the consequences of a fractional reserve banking system entirely owned by private interests who are separate from the community compelled to bank with them?
Doubt it!
BB