Saturday, November 27, 2010

Unhealthy Interest: why you, me, your kids are likely condemned to indentured servitude to debt

This blog is about well being and quality of life. It's focused mainly on the four things i've learned are important for health: nutrition, fitness, recovery and social interaction. What i've missed is the implicit assumption that one can afford these assets, and that also one will have  afforded the intellectual tools to seek them out and operationalise them. Right now, that access is predicated on a monetary system.  And right now, it seems that monetary system is simply designed to keep everyone indebted to money - and of course those who control the money.

Gosh that sounds conspiracy nut nut,  doesn't it? I would have thought so, too. Until i saw this elegant explanation of how money is not about what most of us think it is - value - but about debt.  And that's really what i'd like to share: what a surprise this is. Did you know this? What shall we do with this knowledge? Here's part 1. The other parts are on youtube, too. It's called Money as Debt (canadian, too, way to go)

(full Money As Debt video)

Money as Debt. This elegant vid clearly demonstrates the simple facts of our monetary system as, well folks, fundamentally corrupt. Money is created by banks out of nothing. That is the first key point. The second is that in our system, when money is created out of nothing it is created as a loan, as a debt. The third thing is that that debt is not just for the money itself but ALWAYS in our system as debt + interest. From where does the money - can the money - ever come to pay off the interest? In this system, it takes debt to pay off debt which creates more debt. IT's impossible to get ahead - and that's what we're seeing isn't it?

If we model this algorithm of P=P+1 we get an impossible exponential curve, guaranteed to crash because the curve of P =P+1 is an abstraction based on an infinite supply of numbers - and it's applied to a system of finite resources. That's you, me, our kids and the planet.

Cui Bono? Cicero asked centuries ago, cui bono? in whose interest is it for a situation to be what it is? This is where some folks say "conspiracy nut nut" if one answers "the banks and corporations" - that sounds so vague and monstrous.

Then we see something like the third act of Zeitgeist from 2007 (i'd suggest watching Money as Debt and even Money as Debt II first) and we get names, policies and laws rather vagueries like "banks." Example: woodrow wilson in 1913, after generations of opposition to a central bank and a cb controlling the money supply, while most in the congress were away on holiday, rushed through the federal reserve act (which despite folk lore to the contrary, he never did regret creating). The documented role of banks in civil conflict is a bit staggering, too. But i digress.

Though, today, at least around here where Ireland is only the latest casualty in melt down and the british govn't is cutting resources and services as if it actually needs to do so as if there actually will be no tomorrow, and yet the rescued banks are still paying out awesome bonuses, maybe it feels less like a conspiracy.

Anyway this post is really only to ask "did you know this about money? that it's entirely fake? that it's about debt? and that as such it is always only going to cause exactly the debt we see governments trying to get out of - supposedly?"  It would seem - and i could be wrong - that the ONLY way to get out of such a catastrophic collapse based on this model is to change the model. Fundamentally.

One of the things about Star Trek is that by the 23rd century it seems that we've arrived in a cashless economy that's wonderful - no disease, no biggotry; lots of technology. Rather like the Venus Project featured in zeitgeist the adendum. I wonder if there's any way to get to that place without hitting the crash and social catastrophe inevitable in the monetary system? Especially when combined with the post peak-oil resource dependencies described by Michael Ruppert in Collapse? In the UK right now, you can see the whole vid on the BBC 5 iplayer. License fees at work.

What all these strategies come down to is that effectively to get away from financial greed is to get rid of interest. Usery. Hard to imagine, but maybe not impossible? I don't think it's socialism or communism because that's got a monetary system too that uses interest. The folks who did Money as Debt have an intesesting idea for a Digital Coin that doesn't need banks. Gotta think about this further. The retrun of the early 90's interest in anonymous, digital cash. Wouldn't that be something. No interst, and anonymous cash. It may be a step towards getting rid of needing money at all. Sounds ideal. 

an exponential growth curve of an abstraction
I'm just riffing now, and there's are many "ya buts" i'm sure. So i'll leave it at - knowing this about the monetary system - that it is indentured servitude to banks since money is alway money = debt - is quality of life only ever at best going to be a compromise of qualities? is that what we want? And once we know this to be so - that P =the imposible P+I where I can never be erased, then how do we see the doom and gloom (lies) of "we're all in this together; we mush tighten our belts to pay down our debt" - when debt is always already A PRIORI a perpetual effect of this system?

The mind reels at the scale and timmerity of this bilk, does it not? Others perpetrate pyramid schemes, what happens to them? Only the govn't backed corps i guess have the monopoly on ponzi'ing with impunity? well dear readers, i don't know whether to cry or throw forks, but surely people of good will, who are also buff, have the wherewithall to do something about it? And i don't mean going back t the gold standard.

I leave that for another post, but let's have a wee think, shall we? Thanks for reading.


It's Not about Going back to Gold.

Next Installment: b2d Addenda on the Gold Standard and why going back to gold really won't do anything as long as there's money as debt.

Likewise, some may argue that interest isn't always evil - in an ideal world, where all interest is recirculated back into the populace for spending, maybe. But that means 100% recirculated, not leveraged for more profit. And 100% recycling of interest doesn't happen. Quite the opposite. That's in the next part as well. 

2 comments:

Joe Pavel said...

Wow! What an eye opener. Thanks MC.

dr. m.c. said...

thanks Joe - agreed - i begin to understand the term "gob smacked" after going through this material.

thanks for dropping by.

ShareThis

Related Posts with Thumbnails