How To Fix The Economy
Here is a real bank in North Dakota that is close to what the founding fathers of our nation wanted to set up according to the Constitution. They do have to borrow some money from the Feds but the interest collected is paid back to the state(preventing taxes from being raised!!!)...not to some corrupt illegal private banking company. If they had the power to print and coin money like the constitution grants them (natinal guvmint) they would not have to charge any interest at all and we would never have a recession again!!!!!!. Read and Remember when you hear the politicians talk on TV. Like I have said before the Economic crisis can be fixed tomorrow morning...if we have the Political will to do it.
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2009...vy-wall-street
Echoes far away?
Slap,
The UK financial mess has led to some local authorities mooting the re-creation of municipal / city region banks and calls for building societies (not sure if an American equivalent) to return to their safer, traditional practices, notably no commercial property loans and borrowing from the market.
davidbfpo
I think a building society in the US is a Savings and Loan.Originally Posted by davidbfpo
He cloaked himself in a veil of impenetrable terminology.
Building & Loan Associations
Precisely. These building and loan associations (later S&Ls) became popular at the start of the last century, as very local institutions.from Stevely
I think a building society in the US is a Savings and Loan.
E.g., my grandfather in 1917, among his other functions for the Winona Copper Co. (Chief Clerk for the company and Justice of the Peace for the township), was the manager of the Winona branch office of the Detroit & Northern Michigan Building & Loan Assn. The idea was small savings accounts, which then would be lent for residential housing - not unlike a credit union.
As the 1900s moved on, many S&Ls merged and eventually morphed into full-fledged commercial banks. So, by the end of the century, they added investment and insurance functions. In the era of mergers, some were absorbed by larger giants, who then used the old-fashioned S&L regulators for their own benefit. E.g., AIG was and is "regulated" as an S&L !
House Rep. Dennis Kucinich wants to introduce bill to nationalize the Federal Reserve. This is getting a lot of play latley. I bet the New York TalliBanksters are getting nervous.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-r_-QRKyu6g
Last edited by slapout9; 04-06-2009 at 07:13 PM. Reason: Cain't spell that boys name to good.
You can't revoke the business cycle by reforming banks. And this particular downturn has been led down by an insurance company (AIG), not a bank, that was employing obscene amounts of leverage with insufficient capital ratios. Focusing simply on banks is missing the larger problem, which is leveraged bets big enough to sink the whole economy if they go the wrong direction.
What we need is to understand the implied social contract between moneyed institutions that employ fractional reserve lending and/or financial leverage and the consumer. When times are good, they profit off of financial leverage and provide liquidity that makes the economy expand and provides the 'rising tide' that lifts everyone up. But in order to prevent catastrophe when the leveraged bets turn against them the government needs to regulate their capital ratios and make sure they don't get drunk making leveraged bets that the good times will always continue. If we taught high school kids about the business cycle, about money, banks, leverage, etc we might not get into messes as bad as this.
All we have to do is recognize that when people with money are making enormous bets that the good times will always continue perpetually, that inevitably the bad times that are are sure to come will be really bad and we're going to all get stuck covering their tab. Prevent it up front, and not after the fact, and don't get suckered in by "free market" complaints about regulation during the boom times -- the people making money off of the boom who are whining about free markets will immediately turn to socialized losses when the tide turns, every single time -- stop falling for that.
Hi lamont, you just brought up the proof that you can abolish the business cycle. Rich people. Ever see a rich person suffer from a down turn,recession ,etc.? they keep right on doing what ever they want, good times or bad...why? Because they control the money supply.
Under Americanism (the Constitution) the government controls the money supply and can spend whatever it needs to maintain the economic viability of the whole country. This is a responsibility of the Government Not the Talli-Banksters who are responsible to no one.
Or, perhaps they live within their means. My father is truck driver and my mother works on a GE assembly line. That's what they've done all their lives. They never altered their lifestyle in any recession OR bull market. They lived within their means. They buy the same food, wear the same clothes, drive the same cars, and go about the same daily routines today as when the market was booming in 2000 and 2006 and when the economy was thriving in the 80's, mid-90's, and early this decade and when the market was down in the early 80s, early 90's, and now.
As for many other Americans... I blame their self-destructive behavior.
How does controlling the money supply (competently or otherwise) "maintain the economic viability of the whole country"? I would think it just ensures a strong and stable currency from which the country can succeed or fail, according to the choices of the people. From what I've seen, the people chose very, very poorly, repeatedly, for a very, very long time.
Where did all of these chickens come from? I hope that they're not here to roost! Oh crap, I think they are.
Agreed. Far too many people in this country are unable to tell the difference between what they want and what they are entitled to.
Amen.
Though I'd suggest 'THINK' they are entitled to...
For every crooked rich person we have there are five or six not so rich persons who wants to rip off the system in any way they can. If you want to take a pitchfork to the really rich, go for it -- but you better get those less than rich rippers off of the system as well because they hurt far more than the really rich do. They have done this country more damage than all the Banks and wealthy people have.
Anybody over 62 who takes in over, say $40-50K a year and also draws Social; Security is ripping off the system (Yes, that includes me. I'll gladly send my check back as soon as all those who have more money than i do send theirs back). Try to talk about means testing SS and listen to the screaming...
Even better, try it with Medicare...
Those are two middle class destroying vote buying schemes, pure and simple. I have watched a vibrant, leading edge nation go to a run of the mill country on its way downhill in the three generations I've been alive, most all due to increasing and excessive dependence on the government and to a series of venal, crooked Congresses. Yes, that's redundant.
The rich aren't the only problem by a long shot -- but Congress is the real problem in both cases cited here (and several others). Direct your ire at them. The US economy will not get straight all long as we keep electing people who put their interests and their political parties fortunes ahead of the nation. That said, I've heard all this gloom and doom before -- and I, like everyone else I know, no matter how slightly, live better today then we have before and that was then and is now better than in most other nations in the world, all things considered. In spite of Congress...
By controlling the money supply the Government can pay for the programs that will benefit the country(population) by following the greatest Strategic Plan ever written.
The 6 core missions of the government....Americanismare listed in the Preamble to our Strategic Plan...Uh I mean Constitution.
1-Form a more perfect Union
2-Establish Justice
3-Insure Domestic Tranquility
4-Provide for the Common Defense
5-Promote the General Welfare
6-Secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and Future Generations
There will always be people who will try to game the system for their own benefit and to the detriment of everyone else. Punishing, tar-and-feathering or whatever after the fact doesn't fix that problem and it never will. To fix that problem, one needs to change the incentive system. To do that requires good, marginally fair and transparent rules and regulations and fair referees who understand the rulebook and enforce it consistently. We've had neither.
So Amen to what Ken says about Congress.
Nassim Taleb (Black Swans) has some ideas.
Here are his 10 ideas. You don't have to agree but he has the cred on what works and doesn't.
- What is fragile should break early while it is still small. Nothing should ever become too big to fail. Evolution in economic life helps those with the maximum amount of hidden risks – and hence the most fragile – become the biggest.
- No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
- People who were driving a school bus blindfolded (and crashed it) should never be given a new bus. The economics establishment (universities, regulators, central bankers, government officials, various organisations staffed with economists) lost its legitimacy with the failure of the system. It is irresponsible and foolish to put our trust in the ability of such experts to get us out of this mess. Instead, find the smart people whose hands are clean.
- Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
- Counter-balance complexity with simplicity. Complexity from globalisation and highly networked economic life needs to be countered by simplicity in financial products. The complex economy is already a form of leverage: the leverage of efficiency. Such systems survive thanks to slack and redundancy; adding debt produces wild and dangerous gyrations and leaves no room for error. Capitalism cannot avoid fads and bubbles: equity bubbles (as in 2000) have proved to be mild; debt bubbles are vicious.
- Do not give children sticks of dynamite, even if they come with a warning . Complex derivatives need to be banned because nobody understands them and few are rational enough to know it. Citizens must be protected from themselves, from bankers selling them “hedging” products, and from gullible regulators who listen to economic theorists.
- Only Ponzi schemes should depend on confidence. Governments should never need to “restore confidence”. Cascading rumours are a product of complex systems. Governments cannot stop the rumours. Simply, we need to be in a position to shrug off rumours, be robust in the face of them.
- Do not give an addict more drugs if he has withdrawal pains. Using leverage to cure the problems of too much leverage is not homeopathy, it is denial. The debt crisis is not a temporary problem, it is a structural one. We need rehab.
- Citizens should not depend on financial assets or fallible “expert” advice for their retirement. Economic life should be definancialised. We should learn not to use markets as storehouses of value: they do not harbour the certainties that normal citizens require. Citizens should experience anxiety about their own businesses (which they control), not their investments (which they do not control).
- Make an omelette with the broken eggs. Finally, this crisis cannot be fixed with makeshift repairs, no more than a boat with a rotten hull can be fixed with ad-hoc patches. We need to rebuild the hull with new (stronger) materials; we will have to remake the system before it does so itself. Let us move voluntarily into Capitalism 2.0 by helping what needs to be broken break on its own, converting debt into equity, marginalising the economics and business school establishments, shutting down the “Nobel” in economics, banning leveraged buyouts, putting bankers where they belong, clawing back the bonuses of those who got us here, and teaching people to navigate a world with fewer certainties. Then we will see an economic life closer to our biological environment: smaller companies, richer ecology, no leverage.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Okay, I read all that. There's a lot of it. What he says is
don't park your common sense and don't test academic theories outside a laboratory or closed environment where there is great potential for public harm.
Most of us do that. He offers no way to insure we elect Congroids that exercise any common sense so I'm not sure he's much help.
I would argue that those 6 core missions have been accomplished. Our country functions on a rule of law, it is safe from internal and external threats, we've got a high standard of living - even our underclass - and we're free. Returning to my earlier point - what the people have chosen to do with these blessings is squander them with a long series of bad choices. This economic nutroll wasn't caused by mishandling of the money supply. It was caused by widespread unethical conduct. How one handles the money supply has nothing to do with whether people will behave ethically and responsibly in their pursuit of that money.By controlling the money supply the Government can pay for the programs that will benefit the country(population) by following the greatest Strategic Plan ever written.
The 6 core missions of the government....Americanism
1-Form a more perfect Union
2-Establish Justice
3-Insure Domestic Tranquility
4-Provide for the Common Defense
5-Promote the General Welfare
6-Secure the blessings of Liberty for ourselves and Future Generations
If I can tack on, I'll note that number
fives says 'promote' -- not 'provide' -- and that liberty includes the right to be stupid. Thus, even Congress and all the Politicians get a bye...
Hmm ...
Liberty includes the right to be stupid, so long as that stupidity does not hurt anyone else. So, "Congress and all the Politicians" do not get a free pass in all cases - nor do judges, lawyers and retired CSMs.
PS: I'm glad someone is citing the Constitution as our basic plan - good job.
Perhaps this will help explain about banks and money.
http://www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net/index.html
I just don't see how you can say that.....have you read what has been happening along the border with Mexico.
Didn't realize there was that constraint
Based on daily observation over the years, it appears more ignored than heeded by numbers of our fellow citizens and certainly by the majority of our Politicians.No one ever gets a free pass IMO -- a 'bye' OTOH, I believe, means that one gets to advance to the next or another round / attempt with outplaying or being penalized....So, "Congress and all the Politicians" do not get a free pass in all cases - nor do judges, lawyers and retired CSMs.
Thus IMO everyone, even the Lawyers, gets the proverbial three strikes...
Minor nit-noid correction; not a CSM, there seemed to be some silly concern over early Courts Martial -- yes, that is the plural -- that precluded my attaining that august rank. Still, I did get to do the job sans the title in two Battalions and Two Brigades, one each in both peacetime and combat. Leading me to conclude that Bde CSMs (much less those in the upper echelons) were probably not totally necessary. So just plain old vanilla SGM -- with much time in grade...
Me too. I particularly enjoy that when it is also correctly used. Not that Slapout misused it but others sure do...PS: I'm glad someone is citing the Constitution as our basic plan - good job.
Congress, for example, does not even seem to be aware of it's existence...
P.S.
Thanks again for all your posts and particularly the legal updates. They're more appreciated than you may know.
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