The Capitalist Conspiracy: An Inside View of International Banking (video)

[garak]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=449294564876413449&q=capitalist+conspiracy&total=118&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=0

:sadbanana:

[PiccoloNamek]

Silly rabbit. Everyone knows that The Patriots are really the ones in control.

Who are the patriots? La Li Lu Le Lo...

[rek]

Having a dollar is like owning a single share of the United States. If you could value the US and divide it by the number of dollars in circulation, then you would know the true value of a dollar. The problem is there's no control over the number of "shares" which exist. Tomorrow they could double the money supply and everyone would be half as well off as they are today.

The entire concept of our money system clearly makes no sense. I feel bad for anyone who keeps money around. You have to have as little of your money around as possible or you are constantly getting poorer. The whole system gives the poor to average people in our country the shaft.

We sit around and argue about ways to help the poor, about all the things that supposedly make it harder for them, and we ignore inflation. Inflation is the invisible tax which truly keeps the gap between rich and poor growing. It's the main cause of our problems and it gets almost no attention because it takes too much to understand it. It is a constant transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich, and yet we all let it happen while we bitch about stupid little things.

/end rant (im still watching the video...)

[Dark Razor]

Interesting, this is a pretty good depiction of how the power structure in the world is actually composed.

We see here that the government is mostly a tool in the hands of the financial elite which serves the purpose of protecting their property and interests and enforce the measures necessary to preserve the current power structure.

So if we look for a solution we must realize that "small government" and "big government" is not really the deciding issue. It is the question on what or whom the government's power depends and in who's interest it acts, only after that issue is resolved one can discuss how much influence the government should actually have.

Presently the government's actions are largely determined by the conditions that are set by the financial elite, which means that the government is mostly a hostile force against the people it is supposed to represent, even if that is not always easily apparent.

However to simply remove the government would not do any good, since the elite can find another tool to replace it with, it is necessary to remove the financial elite and replace the way money is created, or even replace money altoghether with some other exchange mechanism that by design avoids the problems associated with the current monetary system.

That action will not come out of the government of course, because as we know it is only a tool of the entity that would be removed. So the question is, in which way could the power structure be changed and by whom?

Edit: I'm sceptical of the whole "Iluminaty" thing though, there are too many "coincidences" involved.

[Dark Razor]

Having a dollar is like owning a single share of the United States. If you could value the US and divide it by the number of dollars in circulation, then you would know the true value of a dollar. The problem is there's no control over the number of "shares" which exist. Tomorrow they could double the money supply and everyone would be half as well off as they are today.

The entire concept of our money system clearly makes no sense. I feel bad for anyone who keeps money around. You have to have as little of your money around as possible or you are constantly getting poorer. The whole system gives the poor to average people in our country the shaft.

We sit around and argue about ways to help the poor, about all the things that supposedly make it harder for them, and we ignore inflation. Inflation is the invisible tax which truly keeps the gap between rich and poor growing. It's the main cause of our problems and it gets almost no attention because it takes too much to understand it. It is a constant transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich, and yet we all let it happen while we bitch about stupid little things.

/end rant (im still watching the video...)


That's actually a very important point. What most people dont understand is that if money is handed to them then that money represents a certain amount of value that it can be exchanged for, however it represents that value only during that exact moment when it is issued, after that moment it's value is for all purposes completely random (with a certain short-term predictability of course).

That's also the reason why most "retirement-plans" are totall bullshit, because essentially what you're doing is giving your money to an insurrance company or bank to gamble with in exchange for the promise that you maybe perhaps will get benefits when you're 65 years old, provided the company doesn't gamble all it's money away and goes bankrupt, or some major inflation happens somewhere along the way and the value of your money is just destroyed.

So it seems to me that you better take your money to a casino than give it to a bank to "save" it for you, at least there you are in control of what you gamble with instead of the bank.

Also Gold does not necessarily seem like a good investment, if a major crisis is to be expected, because gold does not have any actual use, it only has value in a barter economy because it fascilitates exchange of different goods because it provides a fixed currency(?) against which the myriads of goods can be meassured instead of having to be individually meassured against each other. This function however can be just as easilly fullfiled by any other commodity, though Gold might be the matter of choice because it does not have any use besides it's use as currency, so there is no conflict between the two different uses as currency and commodity, and also because there is only a fixed amount of it.

However it seems that if the money-economy collapses it would be better to have something that has an essential use, like food or water, so that people must trade with you, though that would probably also imply that you need to somehow be able to protect those goods.

For retirement it seems that Gold could be a reasonable choice, though it is by no means certain that Gold could be exchanged for, say, food or water under all circumstances.

Having some type of money multiplying scheme like stocks or insurances is probably the absolute worst option as you are not buying anything of actual value so that the success of it all is basically completely random and totally dependend on the success of the inherently volatile fiat money system.
The best option would probably be a piece of land that one can live of, or some type of production facility that produces a vital good, ideally in combination with some type of control over all the necessary raw material sources, so that production can be sustained even in a crisis situation.

[SomethingClever]

If any of you have access to Proquest, you should read this:

Adam Smith and the ethics of contemporary capitalism
G. R. Bassiry and Marc Jones

For those of you that don't, the essay basically outlines the inherent flaws of capitalism as articulated by the father of capitalism itself. It is quite amazing how accurate Smith was in his predictions and understanding of capitalist economics.

[sorabji_66]

If any of you have access to Proquest, you should read this:

Adam Smith and the ethics of contemporary capitalism
G. R. Bassiry and Marc Jones

For those of you that don't, the essay basically outlines the inherent flaws of capitalism as articulated by the father of capitalism itself. It is quite amazing how accurate Smith was in his predictions and understanding of capitalist economics.


you think? no defender of capitalism would make it pie-in-the-sky-someday-real-soon (unlike the so-called systems of Cap's enemies...)

maybe has something to do with Smith continuing all this time later as authoritative?

read PJ O'Rourke's summation if the original is too much to handle (understandable).

what conspiracy? the Rockefellers couldn't even control their own kids.

[rek]

Having some type of money multiplying scheme like stocks or insurances is probably the absolute worst option as you are not buying anything of actual value so that the success of it all is basically completely random and totally dependend on the success of the inherently volatile fiat money system.

I don't think that's necessarily true. Generally the reason inflation hurts the poor so bad is that they can't be invested in the same things which the rich are. Wall street guys cry about inflation because it's bad for the economy, but in general companies have value based on their assets and their productivity (sales, future sales, etc) and when there's inflation their costs go up as well as their assets and their revenues.

It can hurt business in the short term, but the underlying value of the companies which you invest in shouldn't be changed much by inflation long term. The stock price should inflate while the money system does since companies assets have nothing to do with the fiat system; companies are quick to pass extra costs on to consumers, it is a problem though if it's so bad no one can afford their products.

It's the rich minority who control the majority of the wealth in the stock market, I doubt they'd let things get out of control enough to devalue their own assets. Stocks go down on inflation fears mainly because the fed may raise rates in response, causing the economy to slow and the cost of business to go up.

I agree with everything else you said though, but I'm a stock guy myself so I had to defend them ;)

[Dark Razor]

A while back I found this (http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html) article, which explains how the inflation rate in the US is "calculated", I thought it might be interesting to some here.

[Lateralus]

A while back I found this (http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html) article, which explains how the inflation rate in the US is "calculated", I thought it might be interesting to some here.
I'll read the story when I have a chance later.

But I just want to say I've long suspected that inflation calculations are flawed. There is no way real estate prices can increase like they have in the past several years and inflation stay below 5%. It just doesn't add up. I think the real estate bubble screwed up the economy worse than most people realize. All those loans created so much new money, which inflated the money supply. I'm thinking that it's just taking some time for us to feel the full effect of those artificially low federal interest rates from earlier this decade.

[Architectonic]

There is no way real estate prices can increase like they have in the past several years and inflation stay below 5%.

In Australia, rents only comprise about 5% of the CPI (and rents are undervalued due to taxation laws which encourage negative gearing). Land values are not included at all.


6.24 An additional factor that arises with housing is that houses, as well as providing shelter services to the owners, also include an investment element as houses typically appreciate over time. For the purposes of the CPI, the costs of housing should reflect only the service (or consumption) component. A common approach is to regard the cost of the land as representing the investment component and the cost of the structure as representing the consumption component. For the purposes of the CPI, the land component needs to be excluded from expenditure on housing.


4.24 An important aspect of an inflation measure is that it should only include 'actual', or market-determined prices. Thus an inflation measure would not include imputed rent on owner-occupied dwellings.


http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/66f306f503e529a5ca25697e0017661f/2864f03a2e565f84ca25705f001ecaa1!OpenDocument

The Reserve Bank of Australia's figures are based on undisclosed methodology (which worries me), but is meant to be similar to the CPI.

You can actually look at the housing price index statistics on the Australian Bureau of Statistics website and guess exactly when land values were removed from the CPI.

The fact that they use a clearly fudged method of calculating inflation for their monetary policy worries me...

[Star Cannon]

*sigh*
I've been telling people for AGES that the way we do money is fucked up but does anyone listen?
Here's an idea: why not get away from capitalism? I'm not talking about communism, I'm talking about a concious effort to get away from economics all together.

[Lateralus]

...
I'm a commercial real estate appraiser. If I appraised using that sort of flawed methodology, I would be looking for a new job.

[Ferrus]

But I just want to say I've long suspected that inflation calculations are flawed. There is no way real estate prices can increase like they have in the past several years and inflation stay below 5%.
I don't know the precise nature of the US system of calculating inflation, but the way inflation is reckoned is that several common items have their prices monitored by the government. Here it is known as the RPI - retail price index -and since the mid-90s houses have specifically been excluded from inflation calculations for the very reasons you mention. It is largely a cop-out, true. In another sense though the housing market, taking up such a large percentage of most people's income what with mortgages and so on is rather different to the rest of the market, and doesn't affect wages in quite the same manner as do common goods.

[Lateralus]

To be honest, I've been too lazy to read up on the CPI enough to make an accurate judgment. It's just my intuition telling me that things don't add up.

[booyalab]

I'm talking about a concious effort to get away from economics all together.
The only way to get away from economics is to kill off the human race.

[Dark Razor]

I don't know the precise nature of the US system of calculating inflation, but the way inflation is reckoned is that several common items have their prices monitored by the government. Here it is known as the RPI - retail price index -and since the mid-90s houses have specifically been excluded from inflation calculations for the very reasons you mention. It is largely a cop-out, true. In another sense though the housing market, taking up such a large percentage of most people's income what with mortgages and so on is rather different to the rest of the market, and doesn't affect wages in quite the same manner as do common goods.


To be honest, I've been too lazy to read up on the CPI enough to make an accurate judgment. It's just my intuition telling me that things don't add up.

Now if you actually read the article I posted then you will see that the CPI is basically a completely fictional number that can be adjusted to any given number by creative statistics, so it does not reflect real rises in cost of living at all. Consider that food and fuel is what takes up the largest part of the budget from most people, and that is excluded from the CPI, except when the prices go down of course, and all other prices are adjusted in random ways.

The goal of the CPI obviously is not to represent the rise of living cost and adjust the factors corresponding with those costs, like rents, pensions, wages, and benefits in general, but to distort the inflation rate in such a way that all those corresponding things can be kept artificially low. So the next time they tell you prices are going up 2% per year you know that they are flat out lying to you and that your living standard is probably dropping overall because most of what you receive/earn is based on the fictionally low inflation rate, while everything you buy is based on the real, much higher one.

[helium]

The only way to get away from economics is to kill off the human race.

I trust then that we can leave this problem in your capable hands.

[Karl]

The stuff about the national debt interest is freaking me out.

What'd he say, the national debt was 400 million and the interest 20 million per year? That would be 5 percent interest, sounds right, it's about what we have now... but now we're up to a little under 9 trillion, meaning about 450 billion in interest at five percent...

No wonder things have been so screwed up recently. All the tax money is going to paying the debt! The US census bureau says that the state and local government collected 2,523,005,780. This is including things like state alcohol stores. I THINK this is the money that goes to the state, and that the IRS collected 2,518,680,230 to go to the federal. So maybe 5 billion total.

Assuming none of this goes to schools, roads, and that sort of thing, we only have 445 billion to go?

Did I mess up somewhere? Where are we even getting this kind of money?

[Karl]

Okay, getting closer to the end. Some of this is ridiculous.

There isn't anything dialectical in it's depiction of history and it's hardly a reasonable historical analysis. Even if there were some kind of masterminds or whatever, having a weak government, money based on gold and silver, etc, wouldn't fix it.

What would fix it would be a system less reliant on money, as well as a truly democratic government. It's essentially the government, as well as society, being so reliant on money, and extreme wealth being so uncommon, that makes any of this seem possible. The increasingly one way exchange of information is another problem, which is why the internet is so important. Make information go both ways and the people won't be quite so prone to being brainwashed.

However drawing attention to the federal reserve and CFR is a good idea. Actually, it's quite obvious it's incredibly biased even though the CFR claims to be nonpartisan.

Look at its articles:

As the North Pole’s ice cap gives way to global warming, countries bordering the formerly inaccessible Arctic are now vying to claim its untapped resources.


Labor disputes threaten to undermine a decades-long effort to make the Deutsche Bahn, Europe’s largest railroad, more efficient and less dependent on the state.

Interestingly enough, it's spin is different than what I'm used to getting from state propaganda.

The video has a lot of good points and about as many bad ones.

[euterpenc]

The only way to get away from economics is to kill off the human race.

It'll be good though, it's a sacrifice for the greater good, kinda like christ's crucifixion.

[omnirook]

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the people who benefit from any given status quo work together to maintain and foster that status quo. The exact nature of the status quo as far as human society goes has remained constant since before mankind became self-conscious and began to keep records: it's the same status quo that characterizes all animals who hunt in packs, a top/down status quo w/the best and most of the available resources going to the top. Simple as that. No amount of window dressing - for instance, the US Constitution - has changed this - or will change it. Nature is not "fair," not in any sense that humans dictate, anyway, and man's best intentions have done little more than kick up dust and confusion, causing many to delude themselves into thinking that humanity can escape its nature and become something other than - human. We did not create the system that dictates the behavior of all that exists w/in the system - and we cannot change the system, no matter how much we might wish to change it. In the end, so long as we need air and water and food and shelter, there will be NO fundamental change in the dynamics of human interaction. No matter the system that we set up, some of us will inevitably try to get more than our share. Why? Because we are aware of the precarious nature of life and because we understand that control of surplus means power - and the drive for power is hardwired into the human psyche. This becomes truly apparent only when there is lack. So long as there is surplus, people can delude themselves that the Bottom Line does not dictate their every move. But - get pushed up against the wall, get to where it's live or die, and the delusions evaporate faster than steam on a cold day. Thus far, the support of the American System - the delusion that the people have a say in how things are done - has been maintained by making sure that the masses are well fed and constantly diverted by cheap and easy luxury and entertainment. Now that the ruling elite have gone global and have clearly abandoned local concerns in favor of expanding control over the whole of the world, it's a race to see if the world-wide gap in standard of living can be closed before the American people rise up and revolt. My advice is to keep an eye on the fuel prices. That more than anything is the indicator. Thus far, Americans have remained quiescent, despite the fact that they are now paying triple for their fuel. The bet is that Americans will remain quiescent, so long as they can go on getting access to their cheap luxuries. Once those are beyond their reach, then there might be some trouble. So, what? By then, the race will have been won, and nearly the whole world will be living at the current standard for the low end of the American working class - a McDonald's life-style for the masses and a king's life-style for the few. The means for complaining about it and even the means of seeing that things were ever any different will be - gone.

[Ferrus]

The only way to get away from economics is to kill off the human race.
The term 'economics' however encompasses more, I daresay, than you would admit.
Nature is not "fair," not in any sense that humans dictate, anyway, and man's best intentions have done little more than kick up dust and confusion, causing many to delude themselves into thinking that humanity can escape its nature and become something other than - human.
True - it reminds me of a book by John Gray called 'Straw Dogs' in which he attacks the Enlightenment notion that progress in anything other than science is impossible because of the inherent animal in humans - any victories of 'progess' are Phyrric.

[booyalab]

The term 'economics' however encompasses more, I daresay, than you would admit. I subscribe to the "if a tree falls in the forest and everyone's dead, it didn't happen" school of thought.

[Ferrus]

I subscribe to the "if a tree falls in the forest and everyone's dead, it didn't happen" school of thought.
Ah the needlessly provocative rightist ideology. Helpful reading: http://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037

[ryan_m_parr]

I haven't watched the video due to dial-up, though I found a good link:
http://www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/2005/0624.html

Though it is a bit old

[Autumn]

This thread is a bit hypocrite. We blame those above us, the ones "in power" while we don't even considere those under us. Do any of us really care that millions of people are literally starving? I don't think so (I don't, that's for sure. Of course I'd rather it weren't be that way but I don't give half of my fortune away to better the situation.) Do we know that their starving is a necessary condition for us to live life on a level we live? Of course we do. And we calm ourselves: there really isn't much I could do against it.


The increasingly one way exchange of information is another problem, which is why the internet is so important.

The internet has key importance. There is an incomprehensible power distributed amongst all the billions of people. In order to utilize this power one needs to synchronise them. If you have a one-way flow of information that task is easy for one end (the emitter) and nearly impossible for the other end (receiver). When you have a two-way information flow things are more equal. Both ends may try to synchronise people and both ends can try to counter this.


delude themselves into thinking that humanity can escape its nature and become something other than - human. We did not create the system that dictates the behavior of all that exists w/in the system - and we cannot change the system, no matter how much we might wish to change it.

This is so true and so sad at the same time. I have a hard time facing that I may not step over my shadow. Self-development is severely limited. I could not change considerably the person I am no matter how hard I'd try. Many things I'd actually change is printed write-only in my genes....

[Ferrus]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/

Interesting.

[Hermione]

Ah the needlessly provocative rightist ideology. Helpful reading: http://www.amazon.com/Mein-Kampf-Adolf-Hitler/dp/0395925037

Well of course. At least the consistency of thawt, much like Stalin, Lenin, Hitler, is consistent. It's all fun and games until they heat up the ovens, isn't it??

So anyway, the banking op technicalities. I have the par usual -N, very strong N , understanding of it. Could never explain it or write on it, which means I rahly don't indeed get it. CAn't you or Mack just send me the tutorial or something, via post owl I think.

You know I don't believe money and banking are real at all, right? Wizardry, witchcraft, that's all that is real. And the damned Nargles, obviously. They live on, always.

[Ferrus]

You know I don't believe money and banking are real at all, right?
Haha, in a sense they're not.

[fripping]

i can't wait for that distant day in the future when our robotic bodies can digest rock or dirt and synthesize luxury items, leading to the universal adoption of Just-Be-Coolism.

[V Profane]

I can’t believe they left out the lesbian periodontist cartel. It’s in Revelations people!