The Fallacy of Collectivism - Ludwig von Mises

EvillerBob

Pejeu
Dude, I'm slaughtering you.

Only people who will read this topic and take away what you want them to take away?

Well, they're way beyond redemption anyway.

edit on 2013/10/14 by Pejeu because: (no reason given)

I must say that you have been very thorough and elegant in the way that you have made out the case, painting a clear picture of the most obscene kind of world where the essence of mankind - of endeavour and adventure, creativity and thirst for improving the world through improving the self and challenging preconceptions - is forever subjugated to the whims of those who have the least to bring to mankind through their own refusal to accept that, with the power of freedom of body and mind and thought and spirit, comes the responsibility to exercise it in the face of adversity.

I thought about breaking that down into smaller sentences but decided to exercise the power of freedom of thought and spirit, if not the power of easy reading...

edit on 14-10-2013 by EvillerBob because: (no reason given)

Clap trap.

"Limbă de lemn."

crimvelvet
reply to post by Pejeu

WRONG!
One hundred years or so ago was the time of the robber barons and 'company towns' where people were essentially slaves to the corporation. It is similar to what corporations want to reinstate today under the guise of the UN's Agenda 21. The 'Company Towns' have been renamed Transit Villages but without the freedom to own property or start your own business or even to move to another location without 'permission' it is nothing more than a modern version of a 'Company Town'.

Precisely. And how is that a good thing, as your ideological brethren claim when they reminisce of that golden period of "true" capitalism they were oh so unlucky to be born too late to actually live through?

I wasn't the one saying it was the best back then, in the times of the robber barons.

I'm the one drawing attention to the fact that they, your fellow right wing ideologues, have an overly rosy picture of what life was like for most people back then. You know, the people who aren't filthy rich.

Your right wing pals who've swarmed poor little ole me, the lonely lonesome socialist on this topic.

You have reading comprehension issues.

You actually had the wealthy business owners and bankers influencing government back then too. Read up on the wiping out of the buffalo some time to see what I mean. Heck the wealthy have ALWAYS had more influence than the average person so from that point of view we have rarely had real capitalism unless you go way way back in history/pre-history.

I prefer a 'Mixed Economy' with just enough regulations, like anti-monopoly/monopony laws to keep the playing field leveled. I also consider Fractional Reserve Banking fraud.

Then why are you arguing with me, man?

Argue with your pretentious like-minded ilk who refuse to answer my points on FRB being socialistic and collectivist. Except that it's carried out for profit.

They who call me evil and #.

The speech of Sen. Daniel Webster, during the debate over the reauthorization of the Second National Bank of the U.S. in 1832, summed up much of the American view toward money in general....

“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.”

dailyreckoning.com...

Much of the influence and wealth of certain individuals can be traced directly to the Fractional Reserve Banking fraud.

I want to abolish all banking.

Is that sinking in?

You're arguing with the wrong dude.

Dude.

Why don't you kindly ask your right wing pals, OpenMindedRealist, greencmp to answer the bloody question of whether or not, in their view, the banking (all banking, not just central banking) and insurance business models are inherently socialistic in that they socialise the risk and cost irrespective of acquiescence of the afflicted third parties footing the bill and without even informing them of the fact they're footing the bill.

That is what inflation is.

The cost of banks issuing loans. Which they do with interest, for profit.

But you and I get only the cost. They retain the profits.

Which likewise come out of your pockets, regardless of whether you consent or not.

Socialise the cost, privatise the profits. Capitalism at its best.

In the future please do argue with your fellow right wingers and not me, if you're going to argue against their position from left of their position.

You are not further to the left than me, rest assured.

reply to post by Pejeu


It seems to me that your disgust with the banking system is clouding your view of the big picture.

I am all for shutting down the Fed and opening the banking market back up so that there is once again competition. That's how you end up with lower costs for consumers. If there were no FDIC insurance, it would be the bank's perrogative to put clients' money in low-risk investments and charge competitive fees.

Do you really believe banks should store your money for free? Unless you have your own industrial vault, they are offering a service that you cannot provide yourself.

You stated that banks are socialist by nature. You're not wrong, at least no more so than those who call insurance companies or fire departments socialist. In your terms, any contract between two or more parties is socialist. Agreements to share goods/services, share risks, share moneys -- or exchange one for the other -- would all be considered socialist by your definition. I think collectivist is a much more appropriate term to describe how we fund police, fire depts, road maintenance, and the like.

A society can benefit from collective agreements and maintain a capitalistic economy. America has demonstrated this. The problem I have with progressives/modern liberals/socialists is that they insist on forcing others into collective agreements.
Well, that and their ignorance of history and human nature.

Dude, you're missing the crux of my argument.

Banks issue money out of nothing each time they extend a loan.

Not just Central Banks.

All banks

I would happily pay a monthly fee for these services:

- intermediation of payments,

- wire transfers,

- safe keeping of my cash.

If I knew for a fact banks were not also allowed to lend new money, out of nothing, at interest into circulation as interest bearing loans consisting of electronic money not backed entirely by cash. But instead issued out their asses.

But that they would instead loan real cash that is theirs, the banks', not mine, to loan. Not their depositors' cash. Not Drawing Rights against their depositors cash. Like it is now.

When banks extend loans what they're actually doing is loaning Cash Drawing Rights. There are stored, represented and communicated electronically. They're what we've come to know as electronic money and what was once known as account money or ledger money.

And these Drawing Rights are issued against the depositors' money.

But the depositors' money is already spoken for. It's the depositors'. They were already issued Drawing Rights for the cash they deposited.

The bank issuing new Drawing Rights into circulation against the same cash that's already had Drawing Rights issued against it is tantamount to fraud.

Except it's legal when the banks do it.

It's like if you and I signed a lease contract for my car.

Except I leased my car to 10 different other people at the same time, each of whom privately thought they were the only lessee because that's what I deliberately lead them to believe.

Except it's legal when banks do it with cash instead of cars and #.

Because the banks do this, legally, and we are all obliged and fooled into accepting their unbacked Drawing Rights as if they were the cash that supposedly backs it (Drawing Rights of which only a tiny fraction can be redeemed at any one time for the cash that supposedly backs it, see the Cyprus crisis).

This is basically legal counterfeiting of ledger or account money. Electronic money.

Or legal fraud.

Or both.

Take your pick.

And this is the actual, real cause of inflation.

Inflation is a monetary phenomenon, you see.

And the mechanism by which banks fund their lending practice. They simply redistribute purchasing power from people who are farthest away from the place new money enters the economy (Wall Street and high street banks) to the people nearest the money source.

People far away from the money tap suffer the brunt of inflation. Their fortunes grow slower than the money supply as a whole. They're actually losing real wealth and purchasing power.

People nearest to the money tap see their financial fortunes rise way faster than the money supply as a whole.

While doing basically nothing of real value or use.

For example they borrow from the FED ad nearly 0% interest rate and use that money to buy government bonds, for a considerably higher rate.

Money for nothing, basically. Carry trade. Cause the gov. can't borrow directly from the fed.

When the gov. could simply print its own money and simply pay for the deficit this way. Not burrow at interest to pay for the deficit.

Furthermore, the gov. borrowed this way from the FED to fund the bailout.

So basically the banks were making interest off the money the government borrowed on their behalf from the fed, to bail them out.

In every economy there are at least two types of money.

Physical currency, which only the central bank may issue, and Drawing Rights against depositors money, which all commercial banks may issue, even if it's against the national physical currencies of other nations. Both to the depositors and to third parties.

But as you can spend these Drawing Rights in lieu of actual cash (FED Res. notes) and they are valued exactly the same as cash and you can also temporarily exchange these Drawing Rights for exactly the same amount in cash (so long as the banks' reserve last), they are functionally the same as cash.

And issuing more of them is the same as if the Fed were printing more cash. Or if a counterfeiter of physical cash printed more cash.

Except +97% of the money supply is in the form of Drawing Rights.

This is why it is said that banks are too big to let fail.

If the banking system goes then +97% of the money supply goes with it. Unless you explicitly save their accounting and electronic ledgers separately and prevent them from destroying it out of spite or as deterrent to doing away with them.

You starting to understand why I hate banks?

Is it starting to coalesce into a coherent and logical world view?

We're all basically slaves on the banking system's plantation. Serfs paying rent for the privilege of using their money that they themselves pull out of thin air to loan to us at interest.

reply to post by Pejeu


You seem to assume that because I don't want a socialist economy, then I want to maintain the status quo.

We can agree that current banking practices are less than ideal. I support going back to a metal standard. That would eliminate the digital dollars, and I find it disconcerting that the only thing keeping the dollar from becoming worthless is the faith of the fickle, irrational masses.

That would eliminate nothing.

That would just be repeating history.

You seem to think that fractional reserve banking would somehow magically stop working if you just used gold instead of notes printed on cotton for reserves and as underlying asset.

As if by magic.

Except, you forget, that's where we got here from.

The only way to prevent banking is to outlaw it as the brazen fraud it is.

What you're basically saying is that if I sell you 10 pounds of potatoes for the price of 20 by fraud, by using rigged weights on my scale, that my fraud would stop working if only I were forced to only sell tomatoes.

It matters not what the underlying asset is against which you issue more Drawing Rights than there is quantity of that asset to redeem at any one time.

Also, you can't stop banks or whom ever from issuing fraudulent Drawing Rights and stupid people from accepting them.

You can't even know immediately, precisely and with confidence if and when they're doing it or how many unbacked Drawing Rights they're issuing.

All you'll have achieved is to turn back the clock of history on the matter.

Banking needs to be outlawed because it is fraud. It is loaning out at interest of counterfeit money.

If you make only physical gold legal tender than you'll kill the economy and make the people who run the current system and are already filthy rich and have already hedged themselves against the implosion of their own monopoly monetary system by buying physical gold the new owners of the world.

Which they already are but not de jure.

Let me close by quoting a few noteworthy people's takes on the issue:

The Government should create, issue, and circulate all the currency and credits needed to satisfy the spending power of the Government and the buying power of consumers. By the adoption of these principles, the taxpayers will be saved immense sums of interest. Money will cease to be master and become the servant of humanity.

-Abraham Lincoln

If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks…will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered…. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.

– Thomas Jefferson in the debate over the Re-charter of the Bank Bill (1809)

If congress has the right under the Constitution to issue paper money, it was given them to use themselves, not to be delegated to individuals or corporations.

- Andrew Jackson

All banks do is redistribute wealth and purchasing power, each time they do it keeping a sizeable chunk for themselves.

If you're saying we need banks you're saying we need arbitrary redistribution of the wealth of the public by private corporations, for their own profit.

Banks and their lending are the real cause of the growth of the money supply and of inflation.

Inflation is a tax.

Why do you consent to arbitrary taxation without representation, by private parties, with no consideration on their part or acquiescence of or informing of the party footing the bill?

reply to post by Pejeu

You are all over the place. Besides your misunderstanding, you are cross pollinating your justifications and accusations. This is normal for a dissembling narrative.

100% blather and repetition.

greencmp
reply to post by Pejeu

 

You are all over the place. Besides your misunderstanding, you are cross pollinating your justifications and accusations. This is normal for a dissembling narrative.

100% blather and repetition.

Meh, you are arguing with a guy who once said he'd have no problem putting people in the camps if he thought it was for their own good and that people were too stupid to make decisions for themselves and need intelligent elites like himself to rule over them. Fascist wananbe link.

He bitches about one sort of tyranny but rushes to embrace another.

greencmp
reply to post by Pejeu

 

You are all over the place. Besides your misunderstanding, you are cross pollinating your justifications and accusations. This is normal for a dissembling narrative.

100% blather and repetition.

He doesn't even understand how the money supply is created. Banks perform a valuable service in that they provide capital for investment and expansion and a means to transfer and store funds. Without the advent of reliable banking systems, there would have been no economic boom in the renaissance, industrial revolution, nor technological revolution.

I agree with Jefferson that banking and governance should not mix, but to say that banks and banking are inherently evil is stupid and flies in the face of history.

NavyDoc

greencmp
reply to post by Pejeu

 

You are all over the place. Besides your misunderstanding, you are cross pollinating your justifications and accusations. This is normal for a dissembling narrative.

100% blather and repetition.

He doesn't even understand how the money supply is created. Banks perform a valuable service in that they provide capital for investment and expansion and a means to transfer and store funds. Without the advent of reliable banking systems, there would have been no economic boom in the renaissance, industrial revolution, nor technological revolution.

I agree with Jefferson that banking and governance should not mix, but to say that banks and banking are inherently evil is stupid and flies in the face of history.

I agree, independent banks with hard currency backing (still can't think of anything better than gold), the more the better. Decentralize nearly everything.

Government just has to wane from now on, persistent but gradual change that we will have to constantly fight for. Tiresome, I know but, still the best.

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.

That's not my problem to solve. Indeed it cannot be solved by me because you people are clearly immune and impervious to reason and logic, no matter how much time and effort is expended to dumb down the explanation.

Sometimes you just have to know when to quit:



My time is worth more than a futile attempt to educate people like you.

Old age will solve the problem herself.

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.

That's not my problem to solve.

Old age will solve it herself.

I'm sorry but your regional bank does not "create money." If you, in your youth and inexperience do not understand this, then hopefully you will learn. I doubt it as learning involves having an open mind.

If you would do away with the Fed, I'd agree with you. It is wrong and unsafe to have a single, quasi-private institution issuing money. However, that does not mean that banking or the process of using banks is a wrong one.

I know that you lack knowledge of history, but it was the advent of the banking system that made expansion of world wide trade possible.

Before a cohesive banking system, a merchant would have to carry hard cash (gold) with him to far off lands to purchase goods--say cloth--to bring back to his factory. Obviously theft would create a large problem. With the advent of banking, he could deposit his money in Florence, take his marker to a bank in Paris, cash it in and buy his goods. Much more safe and convenient than hauling a treasure chest around. Please look up Florence, banking, and the renaissance.

NavyDoc
I'm sorry but your regional bank does not "create money."

Of course it does. You're just incapable of understanding it.

You're contradicting bankers, central bankers, economists - some of whom are pseudonobel prize for economy laureates, prime ministers, presidents, industrialists and even your own founding fathers and other fathers of nations.

www.themoneymasters.com...

www.positivemoney.org...

You are lost.

You are a lost cause.

There is no saving you.

You are slated for perdition.

I would just be wasting away my sanity and time trying to rescue you from your own ignorance and indoctrination.

Pejeu

NavyDoc
I'm sorry but your regional bank does not "create money."

Of course it does. You're just incapable of understanding it.

You're contradicting bankers, central bankers, economists - some of whom are pseudonobel prize for economy laureates, prime ministers, presidents, industrialists and even your own founding fathers and other fathers of nations.

www.themoneymasters.com...

www.positivemoney.org...

You are lost.

You are a lost cause.

There is no saving you.

You are slated for perdition.

I would just be wasting away my sanity and time trying to rescue you from your own ignorance and indoctrination.

None of your quotes say what you think they say. Please point out how...Wells Fargo for example..."creates money."

The founders and economists pointed out the danger inherent in central banks and private entities issuing money. No disagreement with that.

However, your premise that all banks--regional and international--create money is patently false. You are either deluded or spreading falsehoods. Which is it?

I already pointed out how they do it, extensively, above.

I think your problem is ostensibly that you do not understand that there are two sides to any currency.

There is the actual, physical currency itself and then there are the Drawing Rights issued against it, at more than a 1 to 1 ratio through Fractional Reserve Banking. That is to say, more than one Drawing Right issued against the same dollar, for every physical, actual dollar in a bank.

What you maintain is patently false.

Don't take my word for it.

Take the word of Murray Rothbard:

mises.org...

Luigi Einaudi:

cas.umkc.edu...

The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago:

www.rayservers.com...

The IMF researchers:

www.imf.org...

The Bank of England (see the links in my previous post to positive money and money masters) and so on and so forth.

Or just pretend reality is what you say it is, reality is make believe. That's how you right wingers typically operate.

Deny reality and substitute your own.

It's a well known fact reality has a pronounced leftist bias.

Keep claiming that the same money can exist simultaneously in two places at once.

Both in the depositors' bank account and the bank account of the recipient of the payment (the seller) that consisted of a bank loan to his buyer.

Or that you can extend loans to be paid back over years out of 3 month term deposits or current accounts.

Etc.

“The actual process of money creation takes place primarily in banks.”

Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago (1992) Modern Money Mechanics

“In the real world, banks extend credit, creating deposits in the process , and look for the reserves later.”

Alan Holmes, then Senior Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank of New York (1969)

“Each and every time a bank makes a loan, new bank credit is created – new deposits – brand new money.”

Graham Towers (1939), former Governor of the Central Bank of Canada, quoted in Rowbotham, M (1998) The Grip of Death, p.12

You should pick

DENY TRUTH!

For your motto.

That goes for all you right wingers.

reply to post by NavyDoc


I am blown away by people like Pejeu. So much vitriolic conviction to make an argument formed upon a fractional understanding of the topic. Doc and Green both deserve commendation for patience.

Like I said before -- without the ignorant and weak-minded, socialism could never take hold.
Which kind of socialist are you, Pejeu?

I'll tell you what I am.

I'm the only one who's posted in this thread that isn't completely daft.



From the IMF working paper, the Chicago Plan Revisited (you can find it linked to in one of my posts, above):

During this time a large number of leading U.S. macroeconomists supported a fundamental proposal for monetary reform that later became known as the Chicago Plan, after its strongest proponent, professor Henry Simons of the University of Chicago. It was also supported, and brilliantly summarized, by Irving Fisher of Yale University, in Fisher (1936).

The key feature of this plan was that it called for the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, first by requiring 100% backing of deposits by government-issued money, and second by ensuring that the financing of new bank credit can only take place through earnings that have been retained in the form of government-issued money, or through the borrowing of existing government-issued money from non-banks, but not through the creation of new deposits, ex nihilo, by banks.

Of course a couple of right wingers on ATS know better than everyone.

Including the Governor of the Bank of England, IMF economists and anyone else.

“Commercial banks create money through the extension of bank credit.”

(Bundesbank (2011), Geld und Geldpolitik, p72

Keep on fighting the "good" fight, against truth, you guys.

Pejeu
I'll tell you what I am.

I'm the only one who's posted in this thread that isn't completely daft.

From the IMF working paper, the Chicago Plan Revisited (you can find it linked to in one of my posts, above):

During this time a large number of leading U.S. macroeconomists supported a fundamental proposal for monetary reform that later became known as the Chicago Plan, after its strongest proponent, professor Henry Simons of the University of Chicago. It was also supported, and brilliantly summarized, by Irving Fisher of Yale University, in Fisher (1936).

The key feature of this plan was that it called for the separation of the monetary and credit functions of the banking system, first by requiring 100% backing of deposits by government-issued money, and second by ensuring that the financing of new bank credit can only take place through earnings that have been retained in the form of government-issued money, or through the borrowing of existing government-issued money from non-banks, but not through the creation of new deposits, ex nihilo, by banks.

Of course a couple of right wingers on ATS know better than everyone.

Including the Governor of the Bank of England, IMF economists and anyone else.

“Commercial banks create money through the extension of bank credit.”

(Bundesbank (2011), Geld und Geldpolitik, p72

Keep on fighting the "good" fight, against truth, you guys.

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

I'm beginning to think that English is not your first language because there is nothing in that quote that states that banks create money ex-nihilo, but rather it is an arguing against that idea.

There is a bank that creates money in the US--the Fed. Wells Fargo, BOA, BB&T, do not create money. The federal reserve creates money and then "loans" that new money to other banks at an interest rate. Whenever you hear about the fed setting an interest rate, they are talking about the rate at which the "new money" is loaned to the banks who then loan it out to consumers and thus put the "new money" in circulation. Wells Fargo does not create money and Fisher's quote does not come remotely close to suggesting that Wells Fargo does. You don't even understand what you quote yourself! LOL.

You haven't a clue about how our monetary system works and you can't even comprehend the own quotes you provide yet you claim to be the only "non-daft person?"

Straight from the progressive playbook, complete with personal attacks and outlandish claims designed to sound intelligent. So as not to deviate from the progressive norm, a combative us-versus-them attitude is maintained throughout.

Pejeu
Deny reality and substitute your own.

One of the most frustrating things about debating progressives/leftists is that they are the first to accuse the opponent of a fallacy, when the leftist is guilty of precisely what he accuses. In this case, the only one falling for it is Pejeu himself, but all too often the left manages to dupe the masses into believing the opposite of the truth. If you are speaking the truth and someone calls you a delusional liar, pointing out the accuser's delusional lies will not be enough to convince an uninformed outsider that your statement was true. I point to the Federal shutdown, and who is really to blame.

Pejeu
Keep claiming that the same money can exist simultaneously in two places at once.

This must be the obligatory straw-man distraction. When the debate is not going well, throw in a new issue that no one would argue your stance on, and pretend that the opponent disagrees with you by putting words in his mouth.

To back it all up, you present omniscient, altruistic authorities such as far-left European economists and global organizations , so it must all be true.

You are not debating me, closed minded self deluder.

You are denying reality, truth, fact.

Again, don't take my word for it.

NavyDoc
I'm beginning to think that English is not your first language because there is nothing in that quote that states that banks create money ex-nihilo, but rather it is an arguing against that idea.

I think you should be taking something for what you have. Credit is money. Just a different shape.

Here, maybe this guy can get through to you:



Go ahead and skip forward to 19:00 for the pulp.

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.

OpenMindedRealist
Straight from the progressive playbook, complete with personal attacks and outlandish claims designed to sound intelligent. So as not to deviate from the progressive norm, a combative us-versus-them attitude is maintained throughout.

Pejeu
Deny reality and substitute your own.

One of the most frustrating things about debating progressives/leftists is that they are the first to accuse the opponent of a fallacy, when the leftist is guilty of precisely what he accuses. In this case, the only one falling for it is Pejeu himself, but all too often the left manages to dupe the masses into believing the opposite of the truth. If you are speaking the truth and someone calls you a delusional liar, pointing out the accuser's delusional lies will not be enough to convince an uninformed outsider that your statement was true. I point to the Federal shutdown, and who is really to blame.

Pejeu
Keep claiming that the same money can exist simultaneously in two places at once.

This must be the obligatory straw-man distraction. When the debate is not going well, throw in a new issue that no one would argue your stance on, and pretend that the opponent disagrees with you by putting words in his mouth.

To back it all up, you present omniscient, altruistic authorities such as far-left European economists and global organizations , so it must all be true.

Well, again, we have a guy who has stated that he would put people in camps for their own good and thinks that people are too stupid to rule themselves and must have the intellectual (himself among this elite of course) elite rule them. Typical of a leftist and their distain for the individual.