The Fallacy of Collectivism - Ludwig von Mises

Pejeu
Why is ATS eating your posts, people?

greencmp, the quote tags seem to be ROFLSTOMPING you.

She is saying banking the way we know it should be outlawed.

She is concurring with me, basically.

Enjoy your cognitive dissonance.

edit on 2013/10/16 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

So, what are you saying?

reply to post by greencmp

crimvelvet
reply to post by Pejeu



On the contrary, navydoc.

It's you and greencmp who are simply too bloody thick to understand how all banks issue money, not just the central bank....

Thanks for engaging our friendly neighborhood communist, it is nice to take a break. I think centralized state (or near state) banking is the problem. I think there should be a gold standard, lots of independent banks and very little regulation....

At this point I am having no problem following Pejeu thoughts.

Basically he agrees with at least part of what Mises is saying, the part I quoted. When Pejeu uses the word 'Bank' he means Fractional Reserve Banking.

The key factor is as Mises said:

No bank must be permitted to expand the total amount of its deposits subject to check or the balance of such deposits of any individual customer, be he a private citizen or the U.S. Treasury, otherwise than by receiving cash deposits in legal-tender banknotes from the public or by receiving a check payable by another domestic bank subject to the same limitations. This means a rigid 100 percent reserve for all future deposits; that is, all deposits not already in existence on the first day of the reform (p. 448).

In short NO FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING. NO making money out of thin air.

As far as regulations go Mises is saying bankers should be forced to adhere to contracts just as the rest of us do.

In Human Action, Mises said that the government's task is to enforce contracts. Among these contracts are contracts for redeeming money-certificates for money metals on demand. He defined a money-certificate a receipt for a money metal that has 100% of the promised metal in reserve. He said that banks should not be favored by the government. They should not be allowed the right to break contracts, which is what a refusal to redeem money-certificates on demand is.

"What is needed to prevent any further credit expansion is to place the banking business under the general rules of commercial and civil laws compelling every individual to fulfill all obligations in full compliance with the terms of the contract"

Source: Mises on Money

Although I would prefer a gold standard, again I have to agree with Pejeu that it is too late. Most of the world's gold has been scarfed up by bankers and governments so that leaves the little guy out in the cold.

Basically Mises suggestion, freeze the amount of US dollars and do not print any more makes the best sense. Pejeu and I were just brainstorming to see if there is a better option.

As far as lots of money warehouses and venture capitalists, Pejeu and I said nothing about regulating them past what Mises has already suggested. No printing more money and abide by contract law. Although I do like Madame guillotine as punishment....

As far as Pejeu being a socialist, or communist, it does not mean he doesn't have a brain. If us little folk do not start mending fences and figuring out what we DO AGREE ON we are all going to find ourselves wearing serfs collars.

crimvelvet
reply to post by greencmp

 

crimvelvet
reply to post by Pejeu



On the contrary, navydoc.

It's you and greencmp who are simply too bloody thick to understand how all banks issue money, not just the central bank....

Thanks for engaging our friendly neighborhood communist, it is nice to take a break. I think centralized state (or near state) banking is the problem. I think there should be a gold standard, lots of independent banks and very little regulation....

At this point I am having no problem following Pejeu thoughts.

Basically he agrees with at least part of what Mises is saying, the part I quoted. When Pejeu uses the word 'Bank' he means Fractional Reserve Banking.

The key factor is as Mises said:

No bank must be permitted to expand the total amount of its deposits subject to check or the balance of such deposits of any individual customer, be he a private citizen or the U.S. Treasury, otherwise than by receiving cash deposits in legal-tender banknotes from the public or by receiving a check payable by another domestic bank subject to the same limitations. This means a rigid 100 percent reserve for all future deposits; that is, all deposits not already in existence on the first day of the reform (p. 448).

In short NO FRACTIONAL RESERVE BANKING. NO making money out of thin air.

As far as regulations go Mises is saying bankers should be forced to adhere to contracts just as the rest of us do.

In Human Action, Mises said that the government's task is to enforce contracts. Among these contracts are contracts for redeeming money-certificates for money metals on demand. He defined a money-certificate a receipt for a money metal that has 100% of the promised metal in reserve. He said that banks should not be favored by the government. They should not be allowed the right to break contracts, which is what a refusal to redeem money-certificates on demand is.

"What is needed to prevent any further credit expansion is to place the banking business under the general rules of commercial and civil laws compelling every individual to fulfill all obligations in full compliance with the terms of the contract"

Source: Mises on Money

Although I would prefer a gold standard, again I have to agree with Pejeu that it is too late. Most of the world's gold has been scarfed up by bankers and governments so that leaves the little guy out in the cold.

Basically Mises suggestion, freeze the amount of US dollars and do not print any more makes the best sense. Pejeu and I were just brainstorming to see if there is a better option.

As far as lots of money warehouses and venture capitalists, Pejeu and I said nothing about regulating them past what Mises has already suggested. No printing more money and abide by contract law. Although I do like Madame guillotine as punishment....

As far as Pejeu being a socialist, or communist, it does not mean he doesn't have a brain. If us little folk do not start mending fences and figuring out what we DO AGREE ON we are all going to find ourselves wearing serfs collars.

Super, I don't see a huge chasm here either with respect to competitive banking and normal bankruptcy proceedings.

Now, about collectivism (the thread topic), how does this favored banking system fit into it?

reply to post by greencmp

Now, about collectivism (the thread topic), how does this favored banking system fit into it?

It doesn't . It cuts the blood supply to the parasites. By cutting the stealth tax of currency devaluation it promotes the growth of the economy by shifting wealth back to the middle/working class.

Get rid of excess regulations and the economy would really explode. Once you have a healthy economy, one that favors small business entrepreneurship you have an integrated community producing wealth. Or as Mises puts it " peaceful cooperation within the framework of society."

It is the elite with their fraudulent banking/monetary system and strangling red tape that have given us the current sick economy/society. The appeal of socialism and communism is a reaction against the problems in the current system and so we get all the "Bandaids" that only waste money and seem to make matters worse instead of better. (Unless of course you are a politician buying votes with the money from the middle class.) By labeling the current system 'Capitalism' which it is not, you have a reaction against the concept of 'Capitalism' so it is immediately dismissed as a solution much to the delight of the corporate and banking CEOs who want no competition.

The speech of Sen. Daniel Webster, during the debate over the reauthorization of the Second National Bank of the U.S. in 1832..

“A disordered currency is one of the greatest of evils. It wars against industry, frugality, and economy. And it fosters the evil spirits of extravagance and speculation. Of all the contrivances for cheating the laboring classes of mankind, none has been more effectual than that which deludes them with paper money. This is one of the most effectual of inventions to fertilize the rich man’s field by the sweat of the poor man’s brow. Ordinary tyranny, oppression, excessive taxation: These bear lightly the happiness of the mass of the community, compared with fraudulent currencies and robberies committed with depreciated paper.”

Source

crimvelvet
reply to post by greencmp

 

It doesn't . It cuts the blood supply to the parasites. By cutting the stealth tax of currency devaluation it promotes the growth of the economy by shifting wealth back to the middle/working class.

Get rid of excess regulations and the economy would really explode. Once you have a healthy economy, one that favors small business entrepreneurship you have an integrated community producing wealth. Or as Mises puts it " peaceful cooperation within the framework of society."

It is the elite with their fraudulent banking/monetary system and strangling red tape that have given us the current sick economy/society. The appeal of socialism and communism is a reaction against the problems in the current system and so we get all the "Bandaids" that only waste money and seem to make matters worse instead of better. (Unless of course you are a politician buying votes with the money from the middle class.) By labeling the current system 'Capitalism' which it is not, you have a reaction against the concept of 'Capitalism' so it is immediately dismissed as a solution much to the delight of the corporate and banking CEOs who want no competition.

Like I thought, we are in agreement. Now the question for our communist disinformation agent is, how does good banking fit into collectivism?

BardingTheBard

Pejeu
Has it ever occurred to you that truth doesn't need as much defending as lies

It doesn't need defending no... but it does benefit from mentioning out loud again.

Seeds need rain. Truths need voice.

Are you people insane?

Truth is the most in need of defending. Not just "voice", because truth exposes the falsehoods of everyone with pride.

When standing in the light of truth we all are made humble.

And when confronted with truth we all have something to lose, before we can all gain everything.

Because of this, truth is the quickest to be executed, by anyone.

greencmp
Super, I don't see a huge chasm here either with respect to competitive banking and normal bankruptcy proceedings.

Now, about collectivism (the thread topic), how does this favored banking system fit into it?

It still ain't sinking in, is it?

Banking should cease to exist as an economic activity. It is illegitimate.

greencmp
Like I thought, we are in agreement.

No, we are not. We want banking gone altogether.

Now the question for our communist disinformation agent is, how does good banking fit into collectivism?

There is no good banking.

Banking is by definition fractional reserve.

Modern central banking is by definition 0 reserve. Back at the dawn of central banks, when the paper notes were supposedly redeemable at the central banks for the gold supposedly backing them (eventually only other banks then only other central banks then no-one - with the Nixon shock, Nixon's closing of the gold window - could redeem them for said gold) these were small-fractional-and-dwindling-reserves.

And you can't police them to keep full reserves.

You need to split them up such that the credit section of the industry doesn't receive cash deposits nor does it intermediate payments in the economy such that it isn't actually cash that changes hands but rather Drawing Rights issued against that cash, kept in the bank.

Because banks can abuse that position (warehouse and clearing-house) to hide the fact that they are loaning out counterfeit Drawing Rights at interest. That is, Drawing Rights unbacked by cash.

That's why the lending side of the business needs to be separated from the cash warehouse / payment clearing house side.

Try to think it over a few times.

Maybe, just maybe...

reply to post by Pejeu

....That's why the lending side of the business needs to be separated from the cash warehouse / payment clearing house side.

Consolidation of banking was one of the reasons for the latest depression/recession. There were five new banking laws passed that directly caused it.

Clinton signed the laws that repealed the McFadden Act of 1927, the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 and the Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 lead to the Formation of Mega Banks. He is also responsible for the Housing and Community Development Act of 1992 and the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that was responsible for marginal mortgage loans doomed to fail and the unregulated CDSs used to insure the banks against foreclosure. (Clinton’s WTO that shipped US jobs overseas completed the knife in the back to the US economy)

The US public was against the resulting Bank Bailouts but we got them anyway and then got the additional shaft from the Obama’s Mortgage Modification Program. Families on the edge were lured into the modification program, their mortgage payments lowered and then a year or so later the banks tell them the do not “Qualify” and hand them a HUGE bill due in 30 days consisting of all the money shaved off the year’s morgage payments, penalties AND LAWYERS FEES. If you manage to scrape the money together you hit Act II. The bank refuses to hand you a bill. It took us hiring a lawyer and a six months dance to get the *&^$! bank to actually name the amount needed to pay to keep us out of foreclosure!!!

After the Great Depression which Milton Friedman agreed was caused by the Fed, laws were passed to prevent it happening again. The Glass-Steagall Act was one of these laws.

The Glass-Steagall Act was passed, limiting speculation and preventing banks from gambling with money entrusted to them. Regular commercial banks were separated from investment banks dealing with stocks and bonds, in order to prevent bankers from creating stock offerings and then underwriting or selling the offerings by hyping the stock. Banks had to choose to be either commercial banks or investment banks. Commercial banks were prohibited from underwriting most securities, with the exception of government-issued bonds, speculative abuses were regulated through the Securities Act of 1933 and the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.....

The Glass-Steagall Act... separated commercial banking from securities trading; and the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) was created in 1974 to regulate commodity futures and option markets and to protect market participants from price manipulation, abusive sales practices, and fraud. But again the speculators have managed to get around the rules. Derivative traders claim they are not dealing in "securities" or "futures" because nothing is being traded; and just to make sure, they induced Congress to empower the head of the CFTC to grant waivers to that effect, and they set up offshore hedge funds that remained small, unregistered and unregulated. They also had the Glass-Steagall Act repealed. .

Those criticizing the Fed are told:

In 2008, 85% of the interest collected by the Federal Reserve (or “Fed”) was returned to the Treasury. This was ...

As a direct result of logical and relentless agitation by members of Congress, led by Congressman Wright Patman as well as by other competent monetary experts, the Federal Reserve began to pay to the U.S. Treasury a considerable part of its earnings from interest on government securities. This was done without public notice and few people, even today, know that it is being done. It was done, quite obviously, as acknowledgment that the Federal Reserve Banks were acting on the one hand as a national bank of issue, creating the nation’s money, but on the other hand charging the nation interest on its own credit – which no true national bank of issue could conceivably, or with any show of justice, dare to do.

www.sonic.net...

However like everything else this is a mirage.

The Fed reports that 95 percent of its profits are now returned to the U.S. Treasury." But a review of its balance sheet, which is available on the Internet, shows that it reports as profits only the interest received from the federal securities it holds as reserves. No mention is made of the much greater windfall afforded to the banks that are the Fed's corporate owners, which use the securities as the "reserves" that get multiplied many times over in the form of loans. The Federal Reserve maintains that it is now audited every year by Price Waterhouse and the Government Accounting Office (GAO), an arm of Congress; but some functions remain off limits to the GAO, including its transactions with foreign central banks and its open market operations (the operations by which it creates money with accounting entities). Thus the Fed's most important - and most highly suspect - functions remain beyond public scrutiny.

The quotes are from the Third World Traveler Website (well worth looking at) The Bankers Capture the Money Machine excerpted from the book Web of Debt

Others threads of interest on that website:
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...
www.thirdworldtraveler.com...

reply to post by greencmp

So, what are you saying?

Remember not all 'Socialists' believe in the same thing. Here is a real eye opener from a self-proclaimed socialist who works in the California state bureaucracy.

[photo of protester]
This looks so cool, doesn't it? The hearts in the 'O's, the baby being held by her hip daddy---how could we disagree with the slogan: 'The Common Good Trumps Individual Self-Interest'?...

There is a difference between society and government. Our government was created to protect our individual rights. Through the government we are able to build roads and bring water to our homes, and protect ourselves against those who would do us harm both as individuals and as a nation. We have a three branch government designed to keep any one branch (legislative, judicial, or executive) from gaining too much power.

Society, on the other hand, is not codified. Its rules and laws are of custom, and are not enforced by government. This is why the censorship laws have largely disappeared, and why the right to marry (a legal contract) is being disputed. These issues are social issues, not issues that government should be involved in. The government is founded on recourse to damages--whether to your person or to your property.

The confusion that Progressives have is that they are trying to get the government to control and dictate their social good. Their Common Good is their 'vision' of the common good whether you like it or not. Now, if you're a member of a church and the church makes a rule that you don't like, you can leave the church. We have only to look at centuries of European rulership to see the consequences of having the church be the government. Our nation was founded on religious freedom in order to avoid the misery of religious war. Progressives are gripped with a sort of religious fervor in their effort to mandate giving up individual rights for the common good. The Common Good is in the eye of the beholder and is not delineated. It's a sort of 'known' in the way that 'being good' in a religious sense is 'known.' But if you're in a Muslim country, being good might mean keeping your hair covered, praying 5 times a day, and being submissive to your husband.

Communitarianism is dependent on social pressure in order to function. That pressure can make you do things that you don't like, that you don't agree with, that violate your principles, because you feel shame or embarrassment or you might be ostracized.....

That slogan subsumes the individual into the greater whole and reinforces a mentality that finds comfort in totalitarianism.

If you work with a group do it as an individual, and always stay true to your individual values. Be careful not to lose yourself in the group.
www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com...

And more by Rosa Koire

UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development is the action plan implemented worldwide to inventory and control all land, all water, all minerals, all plants, all animals, all construction, all means of production, all energy, all education, all information, and all human beings in the world. INVENTORY AND CONTROL....

Have you wondered where these terms 'sustainability' and 'smart growth' and 'high density urban mixed use development' came from? Doesn't it seem like about 10 years ago you'd never heard of them and now everything seems to include these concepts? Is that just a coincidence? That every town and county and state and nation in the world would be changing their land use/planning codes and government policies to align themselves with...what?...

The specific plan is called United Nations Agenda 21 Sustainable Development, which has its basis in Communitarianism. By now, most Americans have heard of sustainable development but are largely unaware of Agenda 21.

In a nutshell, the plan calls for governments to take control of all land use and not leave any of the decision making in the hands of private property owners. It is assumed that people are not good stewards of their land and the government will do a better job if they are in control. Individual rights in general are to give way to the needs of communities as determined by the governing body. Moreover, people should be rounded up off the land and packed into human settlements, or islands of human habitation, close to employment centers and transportation. Another program, called the Wildlands Project spells out how most of the land is to be set aside for non-humans.

U.N. Agenda 21 cites the affluence of Americans as being a major problem which needs to be corrected. It calls for lowering the standard of living for Americans so that the people in poorer countries will have more, a redistribution of wealth....

DEMOCRATS AGAINST AGENDA 21

So do not label someone 'socialist' or 'Communist' or 'Right-wing nutcase' That is just playing into the hands of the Elite who want a totalitarian form of government with them as masters and are using 'Social Justice' 'Global Warming' 'Animal Rights' and 'Environmentalism' as cloaks to hide their true agendas.

photo the Fabian Wolf.

Pejeu
Has it ever occurred to you that truth doesn't need as much defending as lies

BardingTheBard
It doesn't need defending no... but it does benefit from mentioning out loud again.

Seeds need rain. Truths need voice.

FreeMason
Are you people insane?

Well... gosh. I dunno! It depends on who's doing the measuring. What criteria they set for the upper and lower limits defining sanity and insanity... and the content they are measuring! I mean... we'd need to determine the time and place and culture the measurement is being taken and...

Oh wait... you just wanted to make an exclamation of derision. I see.

Then the answer is no. Possibly. Likely. Depends.

In this instance though... no.

FreeMason
Truth is the most in need of defending.

Pure egotistical fantasy.

The truth was fine before any of us got here. The truth will be fine long after all of us are gone. The truth is just fine right now.

The truth never stopped being the truth... has never been under attack or threat from ceasing to be the truth... and over time... asserts itself quite well all on its own. Thus why the statement that the truth doesn't need as much defending as lies is... well... true.

Lies require constant maintenance and always build a structure that ultimately collapses under their own weight. Truth sits around eroding lies without exerting any effort at all.

I again re-point you to the statement that started this conversation: The truth doesn't need AS MUCH defending as lies. Because lies can't defend themselves since they only exist in our minds. The truth defends itself quite handily because it exists everywhere.

A person believes they can jump off a building and fly. The truth that they will hit the ground and splat needs no defending. THAT will take care of itself if they choose to test their belief.

It is the person that "needs" defending from acting on their lies. Again... take this in slowly... the truth that they will splat never needs any defense. It is the person's life that needs defense from their false belief they will fly rather than fall.

The truth that fractional reserve banking always results in collapse if not abandoned needs no defending. It takes care of itself on a purely mathematical basis. People acting on their belief that it won't are the ones needing defending.

It is true that you can go for a while printing money for nothing without it becoming highly destructive. That needs no defending... it will show itself on its own. The lie is believing it can go on forever. The truth will take care of that whether anyone says anything about it or not.

Though perhaps this is just too nuanced for you.

FreeMason
Not just "voice", because truth exposes the falsehoods of everyone with pride.

Hmmm... *giggle*

FreeMason
When standing in the light of truth we all are made humble.

Sounds to me like the truth does the humbling.

Also sounds to me like you take great pride in "shining the light of truth" on people. Many people have thought they knew the truth and "defended it with great ferver". Many people have been wrong and hurt a lot of people when they believed their lies were truths. Eventually the truth humbles them on its own.

All you can do is maybe give it a human voice so it can be heard by a human pride ignoring it. The truth takes it from there. As evidenced by the fact that someone can ignore the truthful voice... but will still be confronted by the truth eventually whether there is anyone there defending it or not.

FreeMason
Because of this, truth is the quickest to be executed, by anyone.

The truth can never be executed. Truth is immortal and impervious to any harm at all.

What YOU mean is the truth is the first thing humans choose to ignore in order to pursue their own interests in spite of it. The truth will exert itself on its own whether you, I, or anyone else says anything about it to anyone.

The truth is never hurt when we pursue and defend our lies. We only hurt ourselves.

It is WE who need defending from our lies.

The truth marches on without ever being affected when we lie to ourselves.

crimvelvet
Remember not all 'Socialists' believe in the same thing. Here is a real eye opener from a self-proclaimed socialist who works in the California state bureaucracy.

Make no mistake, I actually really am a statist and a socialist.

What you are doing is claiming that socialism is another name for feudalism, describing it as such, conflating the two. I find it abhorrent.

It's not socialism that's been prevailing throughout the world for the last hundred years.

It is neofeudalism.

I believe in and hope for a future where machines and AIs work for people doing almost everything. Where no one is forced to beg for a job that scarcely exists and doesn't pay enough for them to sustain their family or even just themselves (if everyone in the family worked).

Where every human being is housed, clothed and fed whether they can afford it themselves or not, by means of a guaranteed, unconditional, basic income.



Where people are not coerced into working long hours in sordid, difficult, health adverse or downright dangerous conditions for peanuts, a lot less than their labour and the fruits thereof are worth, because they have no means to pay for their family and their own survival otherwise.

They have no alternative.

That is not freedom of choice.

Choosing between death or winding up under a bridge and selling yourself into bondage is not freedom of choice.

Disband the minimum wage and replace it with a minimum income, as a human and civil right.

Along with the abolition of banks.

Let the prospective employee and the prospective employer negotiate from a less unequal footing.

There is no freedom of choice when your family's and your own life depend on obtaining a source of income, however meagre, however earned, now!

Before you are foreclosed on and wind up on the street.

Then your home is demolished or sits empty, for looters, vandals and squatters to destroy.

Or before your or your spouse's cancer progresses or metastasises or before you begin failing to meet your health insurance co-payment obligations and the private, for profit insurance company stops paying for the treatment you or they desperately need to survive and retain some semblance of a normal life.

That is feudalism, not socialism.

And it is evil and abhorrent.

reply to post by Pejeu

Maybe I am making a mistake by taking you seriously, I do not know for sure. It seems to me that taking you at face value may be unwarranted.

Just in case you can be reasoned with I leave you with this:

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, great men are almost always bad men."

If you do not believe this to be true, you will never understand why free people despise totalitarianism.

You write without saying anything. Just to file a reply.

This is typical of shallow, right wing thinkers who are only after instilling the impression in undiscerning and obtuse spectators to the debate (who shallowly opine only on what it seems to them is discussed and it seems to them the arguments are) that they're actually deep and thoughtful and clever and are conveying plenty of deep and insightful ideas.

Which they really aren't, of course.

And that's only when they're not being childish or passive-aggressive.

Almost every one of your replies is a nonsensical non-sequitur.

I feel it is ones inalienable right to disassociate from anyone from any race, creed or religion.
Isolate as required to satisfy your need for solitude/continuity.
Having a bear with some mates is not so bad however.

You are a perfect depiction of what I dub the Fallacy about Phallusy. Basically, it is never as large as first reported, I know what I am doing, I'm so smart that I got its skin caught in my zipper and everything is not exactly how it seems. But you still continue to believe the lies. There is NO good government, no good religion nor economic system. It is ALL a lie and a scam! ALL of it! It is all a Fallacy of Phallusy.

“There is no difference between communism and socialism, except in the means of achieving the same ultimate end: communism proposes to enslave men by force, socialism—by vote. It is merely the difference between murder and suicide.”

-Ayn Rand

It should have dawned on me earlier I'm talking to a randroid...

reply to post by Pejeu


No one in this thread has denied the fact that fraudulent banking is a bad thing, yet you speak as if that were the topic at hand. Maybe it is the language barrier.

Still off topic, but In my opinion you are talking about throwing out the baby with the bath water. I think NavyDoc pointed out that banking has been vital to expanding economies for centuries. The presence of fraud within the system does not make the system worthless. That being said, I agree with Green's statements on banking.

Pejeu
It should have dawned on me earlier I'm talking to a randroid...

"If one rejects laissez faire on account of mans fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reason also reject every kind of government action."

-Ludwig von Mises

OpenMindedRealist
No one in this thread has denied the fact that fraudulent banking is a bad thing, yet you speak as if that were the topic at hand. Maybe it is the language barrier.

All banking is by definition fraudulent.

Still off topic, but In my opinion you are talking about throwing out the baby with the bath water. I think NavyDoc pointed out that banking has been vital to expanding economies for centuries. The presence of fraud within the system does not make the system worthless.

Fraud is intrinsic to the system, no incidental.

That being said, I agree with the entirety of Crim's stance on banking.

My stance is the same as hers: abolish the damn thing altogether.

It's a little disconcerting you failed that awesomely at following and understanding our discussion.