In Bankers We Trust -or- Financial Socialism for Dummies

While you are all out there bad mouthing America, I am letting America work for me. These are some of the best trading times I have ever seen. It has never been this easy. First you ride them all the way down, then you ride whats left....back up.....at least up off the bottom. Seriously people. You are all missing some good trades here.

reply to post by traderonwallst

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You know, people made money during the great depression. Lots of it, but this is not the point of threads like this.

Wherever there is misery you will find bottom feeders taking advantage of the situation. Not that I think there is anything inherently wrong with making a little money, or taking advantage of a situation, as I explained in my other post.

Of course, back during those times people weren't as callous and shallow as you have been clearly demonstrating yourself to be. They had the good sense not to go around bragging and flaunting their good fortune in the faces of the downtrodden while calling them stupid and lazy for not making money themselves. They were intelligent enough to realise that they were in a lucky position to have money to make money, but more importantly, they knew what would happen to them if they got a little too "uppity". People back then weren't a bunch of pansy cowards like we have today.

You seem to have entirely missed the point of ATS.

Maybe you would be more comfortable finding a nice stock market website where you can brag to you heart's content with a bunch of people who give a crap about your proxy sexual prowess on wall street. Or have you been kicked off of all of those kinds of sites to end up here?

Seriously, your jingoistic posts are quite tiresome and really add nothing to the discussion.

This is not a stock market site it's a conspiracy website!

Adjust yourself accordingly.
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Excuse you and everything you said. I have been trying in post after post to get more people involved in trading and make some money of their own. I f you don;t like what I have to say, then don;t read the post anymore. I am just trying to let people know there are things to do than just complain, complain, complain.

Take some actions people!!!!!

I know what ATS is about and I am insulted by your comments.

A quick history of money

1) Once, gold and silver were considered the only ''real'' money, but it was heavy and risky to carry around...

2) So people paid goldsmiths to store the money, and got paper receipts for it...

3) After a while, people used the receipts like money, and left the gold in the bank most of the time. So the bankers got clever and came up with a scam...

4) The banks printed off receipts for more gold than they actually had, and ''loaned'' those receipts out to charge interest on it. They kept their fingers crossed, hoping that not more than a few people would come in asking to redeem receipts for real gold at the same time. This let them make a lot of money charging interest, because they could charge interest on MONEY THEY DIDN'T HAVE.



An analogy can be made using property and titles:

Step 1: Acquire a vacation home.
Step 2: Sell the title to the home to one person.
Step 3: Sell the title to the home to ANOTHER person.
Step 4: Hope both of them don't show up on the same weekend!



Fractional reserve banking lets a bank say to a depositor that all his money is safe and sound at the bank, while at the same time they get to loan most of it out to someone else and charge interest on it. So there are two people with a legitimate claim to the same pile of money. So whose is it, really? And where is it?

This profitable scam runs the risk of discovery when too many customers ask for what is theirs all at the same time. This is called a run on the bank, and the best the banks can do is call in their loans and see how much money they can cough up, which is invariably far less than what people believed they had deposited.


The story of the vacation home is a good analogy of how banking works today, except for one important thing: there is no home. Because our money is no longer backed by gold, we have all been trading titles to property which does not even exist! Paper backs paper, and all they represent are promises to pay. This is the reality of money, and is quite different from how most of us expect it to be.


What's the result?


1) Loaning money while claiming it is still on deposit increases the money supply, essentially creating more money (otherwise deposits would vanish). In essence, for the bank to have your cake and loan it too, it must create more cake. This increase in money supply is the cause of inflation.

2) Almost every dollar that exists is owed to a bank somewhere, because at some time in history, it was created when it was loaned out.

3) The amount of money owed to banks is more than all the money in existence! So we cannot possibly get out of debt under this system. The bulk of this debt is in the form interest, which is an arbitrary amount of money banks demand in return, but never gave.

4) There is no money, in the real sense. Just checks, data stored on computers, and promises. It is all created by typing on a keyboard, and signing signatures. The only tangible assets in regard to money anymore is the collateral we pledge when we ask for a loan. The money they loan you comes from nowhere, but the assets you lose in foreclosure are real!

5) Because the US government borrows from the Federal Reserve, bankers have the power to influence our society and government by controlling finance. They decide to create (or not create) money depending on who's asking, and for what. They choose what projects get funded, and let other needs wither on the vine by starving them of working capital. This subtle yet immense power is more than enough to undermine democracy, and guide the course of a nation's history.



So what's the solution?

Simple. The public must demand that money must not be created by loaning it into existence. It must be something that is openly and publicly controllable, issuable, accountable, and interest-free. Otherwise, a class of parasites will rise to power in society by cleverly disguising the fact that the money they are creating, spending, and controlling us with is MONEY THAT ISN'T EVEN REAL.

What I find amazing is that here, there, and everywhere people are saying this bank is insolvent, that business is bankrupt... when in reality all the "money" they have or owe isn't real money anyway.

All these crises are not a threat to any person, only a threat to the system. We as a people can simply discard all this mess and start over with money that represents value instead of debt.

They make everything sound so frightening; they themselves are worried that they need more ability to lie, cheat, steal, and coerce to keep their defective house of cards holding together. It will never happen... this system was doomed to fail, and no amount of glue is going to stop that from happening.

The debts Americans have accrued are simply arbitrary amounts of profit the banks demand in return for printing the money we use to buy and sell. There are problems with this:

1. Since money comes into existence by being PRINTED or typed into computers, where do they get off calling it a loan? They never worked for it, they never had it before you borrowed it, and its supply is as unlimited as the willingness to "borrow"... therefore they suffer no risk of loss of ANYTHING they can't replace if you don't "pay" them back.

What they DO risk losing, however, is the ability to decide what we can or cannot do. Using their ability to determine what gets financed, they have in essence the ability to dictate to the public what projects they support and what needs will get neglected and starved of funding. When they decide to “finance” your endeavor, essentially what they are doing is giving you permission. The permission they give you is as scarce and valuable as the paper it is printed on.

The last thing they fear losing is the power to foreclose. When they loan you money, it is created from thin air. But the assets you risk losing in foreclosure are real!

2. The amount of debt owed is more than the total amount of money in existence. How can we be forced into fulfilling any kind of contractual obligation which is by its very nature, IMPOSSIBLE? This bizarre fact comes from the nature of fractional reserve banking and compound interest... eventually there is nothing left but debt in the world, and all the real assets are owned by the bank.

We must understand that WE DON'T NEED THEIR PERMISSION TO PROSPER. Their money is more of a HINDRANCE than an asset. We can create our own!

We must also understand that the banks and government are not the savior to our situation... they are the problem. THEY will never give us what we ask for. We must demand it of ourselves, and DENY them authority to do it anymore.

We MUST:

Make money a thing that the public can create, not private banks. Either way money has to be created somewhere, better that it be a publicly accountable, controllable, and issuable place rather than a secretive, scarce, easily manipulated, and interest-bearing debt as the banks are doing right now.

We MUST:

Deprive the current system of its authority to force a corrupt and destructive system upon us.

We MUST:

Realize that the responsibility lies with US to make the changes, because so long as we trust someone else to do it, they will always abuse the privilege.

Uhhh... no.

Let's try this a different way.

What I'm trying to get you to understand is that these kinds of posts:





















Are NOT what ATS is about.

You want to find a nice trading or stock market site to dispense that kind of advice or do that kind of bragging.

Do you understand?

I'm asking you as a senior staff member to knock off the "shop talk".

FYI, telling me to ignore it is not the smart move
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[edit on 4/3/2008 by Gools]

Gools,

for one... kudos on your op; it was a great read.

however, I do think you are being a little hard on trader. "don't judge what you don't understand" comes to mind. His language preaches of survivalism and a sense of overcoming the financial beast with prudent investment as my own involvement here does preach overcoming the beast through alternative energy and growing your own food. His is a different perspective, and it is a "proxy" digital career... but so is being a writer at ATS. His anecdotes apply metaphorically to many subjects. I do feel there is truth to be learned form trader's perspective, and to place your thumb over his words as a super moderator... well

we're supposed to dance in the rain...
not worry about the storm.

Be open to new ideas.
Everything of the corporate world, the financial world, the digital world... it is all an illusion; a fantasy of mind.
Why should we not reign in this fantasy?

That said... I have a degree, I am very intelligent... I could very well trade stocks, and I am sure I could make good money...

I choose to drive nails and cut boards as a labourer.

A "right livelihood" from the buddhist perspective is one of clear conscience, in service of a higher good. Perhaps trader holds accounts for an organic blueberry cooperative in Georgia. Covering shorts to protect their hard earned blueberry money.

Though, from a radical funtamental islamic perspective... trader might want cash in his chair on wall street for a claw hammer and hand saw to avoid the occasional bombing.

Did I just say that?

Well, it is what it is.

I am,

Sri Oracle

reply to post by Gools

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I have not not traded down on wall street in years, but now manage a risk management department for an International company. If you can't find anything positive in my postings, do me a favor and don't read them. In all honesty a lot of what you say to me wreaks of jealousy, although I am not sure what you are jealous of. I want people to succeed at trading and am willing to help them. I have answered quite a few U2U's from other people on here and have given my e-mail address to 2 people. As for posting on financial blogs, been there done that and actually guest write on one.

Believe it or not, those boards get a helluva lot more rowdy than these do, as they are not monitored.

As a "super" moderator answer me 1 question. Have I ever posted anything that would violate the rules? If so, please point it out and I will apologize.

To those of you who have U2U'd me I hope I have answered your questions. And as you people know...I will never recommend stocks in those messages, although I might try to talk you out of a few.

I haven't posted in a while since financial topics got kicked off of the breaking news. Honestly I've kinda quit coming to ATS as often since then. Apparently trillions in toxic derivatives exposures, leverage at 30-1 (think that's what i heard about Bear Sterns) and banks holding it all in off balance sheet SIV's isn't conspiratorial enough.

I've always respected gools as both a moderator and a poster, and his perspectives, though not always agreable to me, are always thoughtfull and thought provoking. There are a few events that have happened this week I'd like to bring into the discussion.

First, that joint hearing in Congress with Bernake, a Tres Deputy, and the CEO's of Bear Sterns and JPMorgan was a sight to see. Never have I seen a hearing of such importance that was such theatre. Only one of the the Congressmen asked any tough questions (Ron Paul was there he's on the comittee but I wasn't at all impressed with him). It was a self-congratulatory near mutually masterbatory affair. Watching that hearing it was obvious that the people asking the questions were reluctant to ask any tough questions to the assembled CEOs and Fed/Treasury people.I highly encourage anyone to look it up, watch it, and pay particular attention to Bernake's and Jamie Dimon's (JPMorgan Ceo) testimony. Bernake was asked basically why they had to get involved and he said to avoid systemic risk. basically financial armaggeddon. Later in the same hearing Jamie Dimon was asked how JPMorgan would have fared had Bear been forced to liquidate. Dimon's answer was it by itself would have zero affect on JP but they would have lost some money due to the confusion caused in the market. I'm no lawyer but it seems to me that one of these people committed perjury before congress. The fact that Jamie Dimon has a seat on the NY Fed and most likely new about upcoming changes in who the Fed would lend to, also seems quite "fishy" to me with the offer of a 28 day loan to keep Bear going and then withdrawing it and offering $2 a share for the company.

The $6Billion homebuilder bailout is another load of BS. Ya know the homebuilders as an industry cut off all political donations when they were left out of the stimulus package, and this is what they get now. Having new homes being built by bailed out homebuilders will only exacerbate the current housing debacle. With more supply coming on board that will only further depress prices on existing homes.

Countrywide bank (the S&L not the mortgage lender) was downgraded to D credit rating on thursday by moodys. That's default folks might see some FDIC action there in the near future.

On the bright side the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) is making some changes to their rules in how Qualifying Special Purpose Entitys (the SIV's where they are hiding the toxic paper) are handled in the future. It's preliminary and i don't have the exact info, but looks like they have to beef up their balance sheets sometime in the next 6-9 months. Maybe the accountants don't want their firms to be the next Arthur Anderson.

The jobs report was horrible. I only watch CNBC for comic relief and the ticker nowadays. I've heard a bottom called about 50 times over the past couple of weeks. Events of this past week leave me 100% conviced of gools thesis. The PTB believe in socialism for the rich and capitalism for the rest of us. I've mailed and e-mailed my congresscritters ( not like i expect it to do much good) to tell them exactly how I feel about that farce of a hearing the other day. Seems to me the street is pumping hard looking for bagholders before it lets go. I agree with trader that this is a great time to trade (short and long), but it's a horrible time to invest. In a Bear market return of Capital is more important than return on capital. If I hear the words "to big to fail" one more time i'm gonna puke.

reply to post by traderonwallst

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*snip*. I'm a full fledged Libertarian AnarchoCapitalist,and even I can see our money supply being tampered with for the worst. Get off of your 'America can do anything' horse. I don't even think I complained about my 'situation' even once, I do ok (would be much better without the IRS stealing from me). o before you paint people with an "american hating liberal complainer" with your brush, do some studying.

We're headed for a second depression, and Woodrow Wilson would be proud.

[edit on 4/5/2008 by Arcane Demesne]

Staff Edit - Removed Personal Remarks



ATS Terms and Conditions

[edit on 4/5/08 by niteboy82]

Can someone please explain to me why I received a warning for something I wrote on this thread? I do not see any editing of my posts by moderators, I do not see any rules being broken. Someone, anyone please explain why I received this warning. Unless it comes down to the first amendment does not carry over to ATS???????

As a matter of fact, it doesn't:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Now, are you going to stick to the topic and stop derailing this thread?

I went off the topic? Financial Socialism for Dummies? How do you go off topic in a thread like that?

my first response:

[Why is everyone complaining, I am making tons of good trades out there. Not flipping stocks, but shorting and holding and buying and holding. Do you homework people. It is easy to make money from BOTH sides of any market.]

Was in response to what I honestly felt was someone complaining about the system being rigged against the little guy.


My second response:

[Chris. hope you have been buying financials. I got long LEH at $23.89. How insane is that????? Of course I protected my self through options, as it was a risky trade then. Gotta love America!!!!!]

was in response to someone actually taking about trading.

My third response was:
[See...people like you who complain and complain about the way things never get ahead in life. I guess thats why you complain so much.

I have tried on many posts to educate people about investing and all I get is people screaming at me.... Maybe everyone else should get their heads out of the sand and start doing something about it and not just writing about it on blogs.]

was in response to an attack brought by someone else.

My next response was again in response to what seems like people complaining that the system is rigged
[While you are all out there bad mouthing America, I am letting America work for me. These are some of the best trading times I have ever seen. It has never been this easy. First you ride them all the way down, then you ride whats left....back up.....at least up off the bottom. Seriously people. You are all missing some good trades here.]

My next response was again a response to an attack or insult, as I view it.

[Excuse you and everything you said. I have been trying in post after post to get more people involved in trading and make some money of their own. I f you don;t like what I have to say, then don;t read the post anymore. I am just trying to let people know there are things to do than just complain, complain, complain.

Take some actions people!!!!!

I know what ATS is about and I am insulted by your comments.]

My next response was in response to a very long post by the moderator who chose to attack many of the posts I have made. Posts where I tell people there are options to complaining. I do not make stock recommendations, I am not a stock broker. What I have done is let pople know what I am doing. As far as I am concerned just talking about the market is one thing, but letting people know the inner working fo it and what I am doing is key to back up my theories about trading. I still fail to see where I broke a rule of ATS.

Which would be wonderful if it was the topic, it isn't.

5b) Cooperation: You will, if asked by myself or a moderator, cease posting any content, and/or links to content, deemed offensive, objectionable, or in poor taste by the representatives of the message board.

You have been asked numerous times to stop jacking this thread. NOW, will you sick to the topic. Further derailment will be actionable.

The post you are referring to was because the moderator took the time to go through just about every post I ever made on ATS. He then re-posted some of them to criticize me. I then responded to him. If you chose to warn me, fine. so be it. I guess The PTB really do control things. So I guess i will get another warning for this too. So I might as well deserve it. It seems that you just should not rail against the "Super" moderators in their posts.

Here are a couple of links to the thing I referenced in my earlier post.

Link to joint finance hearing

(the link is in middle of page)

Countrywide Link

Don't have a link to the exact wording of the FASB rule change but this is an op-ed in Wall Street Journal referencing the need for it. Here is a good overview of the rule change.

I'm unabashedly bearish in all thing financial (even gold due to increased margin requirements and margin calls) right now. The powers that be are scared you can see it in Paulson every time he speaks (if he's not stuttering he's lying). We've been on the precipice of collapse for a while now, but so far FED has been able to keep it afloat. They are almost out of room to cut rates more, inflation is NOT contained, and I don't know how many more new facillities, Super SIV's, rule changes,23A letters (which alllow banks to operate under required reserves requirements which BTW ALL major banks are currently operating under including JPMorgan who just got a second one to deal with the Bear liabilities), or whatever new and original programs they come up with to keep things bubbly. I personally believe that they are trying postpone reconing day till after the election and preferably until a new admin.

[edit on 5-4-2008 by jefwane]

[edit on 5-4-2008 by jefwane]

Found this on another site. It's how much money Sen. Dodd ( D, Chaiman of Senate Banking Committee) has taken from the industries he is in charge of overseeing.

1 SAC Capital Partners $319,800

2 Citigroup Inc $318,394

3 United Technologies $268,800

4 Bear Stearns $205,100

5 American International Group $204,678

6 Royal Bank of Scotland $186,150

7 Goldman Sachs $176,600

8 Morgan Stanley $155,000

9 Credit Suisse Group $154,050

10 Merrill Lynch $141,650

11 St Paul Travelers Companies $117,100

12 General Electric $115,650

13 Lehman Brothers $115,000

14 National Westminster Bank $114,800

15 KPMG LLP $114,300

16 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu $108,000

17 Hartford Financial Services $103,500

18 Travelers Companies $101,900

19 The Hartford $99,750

20 JPMorgan Chase & Co $98,550

[edit on 5-4-2008 by jefwane]

Is this supposed to be some kind of suggestion to ignore reality on the grounds of patriotism? What does bad mouthing America have to do with anything? sick

How?

reply to post by JoeTheThird

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I would reply, but I am afraid to speak now. So I will keep my mouth closed for now.

Not a 1 liner.

[edit on 5-4-2008 by traderonwallst]

UPDATE:

In my OP I linked to a story about how Fannie Mae and Freddi Mac were given clearance to make more loans and some restrictions were lifted.

After taking on a whole pile of bad debts in this latest economic crisis, after being suspect of being essentially bankrupt (rumours to such effect have been circulating for several years now) there are plans for a government (that's you dear taxpayer) bailout:

U.S. Considers Takeover of Two Mortgage Giants

This is a perfect example of how the principle I described works and they get away with it every time because people just don't understand or refuse to see anything other than a rosy "don't worry everything will be fine" picture. On the other hand, what are we going to do about it?

Nothing.

We enjoy servitude and economic serfdom apparently.
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[edit on 7/11/2008 by Gools]