Posted by stav1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 09:23:18

for a complete view of this and a better understanding look at google video and watch the film called the money masters. links
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8753934454816686947&q;=money+masters - part 1
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2665915773877500927&q;=money+masters - part 2

in total it is 3hrs long, but believe me after youv'e watched it you will be gobsmacked, and you will want to pay back you loans very quickly, cut up your credit cards and get rid of your overdraft.

Posted by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 12:30:50

I don't know where to begin with this post, only to ask; what are you suggesting as an alternative economic and monetary system to the one we have? It's not perfect, but it works.

What do you suggest as an alternative to private banking then? Collectivism? Look where it got Russia, nearly to the point of staravation. Try asking a few Eastern Europeans how they were treated by 'Mother Russia' under communism. I wonder what Ukranian potato farmers would have preferred, being forced to hand over their crop to the Red Army or being allowed to trade it on the open markets?

As for how wealth was created, it is created through work and production. If you set up a sandwich shop, buy in ingredients, employ people to make sandwiches, sell the sandwiches and make a profit, you are producing wealth. You add value. A commercial operation that mines iron ore and sells it to a steel maker creates wealth. The company that turns it into steel creates wealth and adds value. The steel is used to manufacture a car that is purchased by a consumer. It all creates wealth, jobs, things we want, pays taxes and provides towards public services like policing and healthcare. Banking is also a wealth creating service. Consider even at the most basic level of consumer banking, people do not want their wages paid in paper money that they have to keep under the matress. They want it securely in the bank. The bank provides them with a debit card and merchants with the facilties to accept payments from these cards in return for a fee. This creates wealth. The consumer enjoys the convenience of not having to carry cash, the merchant enjoys the convenience of not having to count it up and bank it.

If we all sat around doing nothing we would have nothing. You should count your blessings. You have a welfare state that provides you with a safety net. If you suddenly fall ill or are injured the state will drive out as soon as possible to pick you up, take you to hospital and treat you. If you came down with a serious illness at a young age it is likely that the treatment you receive will cost more than you have ever paid in taxes. If it wasn't for thousands of bankers, earning six and seven figure salaries paying 40% tax on their share of the wealth they have helped create for the nation, the country would not be able to afford to treat you.

There are problems with the financial sector. The mass-marketing of consumer debt, unfair penalty charges, selling practices regarding insurance products and most of all the mis-management of private pension funds. Banks do need to be regulated to protect the consumer and provide balance and fairness. This is what politics is about; lawmaking and managing the nations economy in a way that provides the best possible and fairest environment for people to live in. Suggesting that we abolish private banking alltogether, and forfeit 18% of our national product to, competing economies such as the USA, Germany and France, would just serve to make us all much, much poorer.

 

Comment edited by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 14:17:15

Posted by Zambuca1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 12:47:53

http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,,1965033,00.html

World's richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, UN report discovers


· First ever study of global household assets
· 50% of world's adults own just 1% of the wealth

James Randerson, science correspondent
Wednesday December 6, 2006
The Guardian

Slum, Nairobi
Children playing in Kibera, Africa's biggest slum. Global levels of inequality are 'grotesque', Oxfam says. Photograph: David Levene

The richest 1% of adults in the world own 40% of the planet's wealth, according to the largest study yet of wealth distribution. The report also finds that those in financial services and the internet sectors predominate among the super rich.

Europe, the US and some Asia Pacific nations account for most of the extremely wealthy. More than a third live in the US. Japan accounts for 27% of the total, the UK for 6% and France for 5%.

Article continues
The UK is also third in terms of per capita wealth. UK residents are found to have on average $127,000 (£64,000) each in assets, with Japanese and American citizens having, respectively, $181,000 and $144,000. All data relate to the year 2000.

The global study - from the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations - is the first to chart wealth distribution in every country as opposed to just income, for which more comprehensive date is available. It included all the most significant components of household wealth, including financial assets and debts, land, buildings and other tangible property. Together these total $125 trillion globally.

Anthony Shorrocks, director of the research institute at the United Nations University, in New York, led the study. He affirmed that the existence of a nest egg provided an insurance policy that helped people cope with unforeseen events such as ill health or a lost job. Capital allowed people to drag themselves out of poverty, he added. "In some ways, wealth is more important to people in poorer countries than in richer countries." It was more difficult in developing countries to set up a business because it was harder to borrow start-up funds, he said.

His team used detailed data from 38 countries, but had to rely on incomplete information from the rest.

The report found the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total of global assets. Half the world's adult population, however, owned barely 1% of global wealth. Near the bottom of the list were India, with per capita wealth of $1,100, and Indonesia with assets per head of $1,400.

Many African nations as well as North Korea and the poorer Asia Pacific nations were places where the worst off lived.

"These levels of inequality are grotesque," said Duncan Green, head of research at Oxfam. "It is impossible to justify such vast wealth when 800 million people go to bed hungry every night. The good news is that redistribution would only have to be relatively small. Such are the vast assets of the rich that giving up a small part of their wealth could transform the lives of millions."

Madsen Pirie, director of the Adam Smith Institute, a free-market thinktank, disagreed that distribution of global wealth was unfair. He said: "The implicit assumption behind this is that there is a supply of wealth in the world and some people have too much of that supply. In fact wealth is a dynamic, it is constantly created. We should not be asking who in the past has created wealth and how can we get it off them." He said that instead the question should be how more and more people could create wealth.

Ruth Lea, director of the Centre for Policy Studies, a thinkthank set up by Margaret Thatcher, said that although she supported the goal of making poverty history she did not think increasing aid to poorer countries was the answer. "It's no use throwing lots of aid at countries that are basically dysfunctional," she said.

The UN report was issued as the Swiss magazine Bilan released a list of the richest Swiss residents. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of Ikea, topped the list with an estimated fortune of $21bn.
Money Masters part 1
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8753934454816686947&q;=Money+Master

Money Master part 2
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-2665915773877500927&q;=the+Money+Masters+-+part+2+of+2

The Corporation part 1
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-3969792790081230711&q;=The+Corporation

The Corporation part 2
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7365345393244917682&q;=The+Corporation

 

Comment edited by Zambuca1 on Thursday, 08 February 2007 12:23:09

Posted by carlos on Monday, 05 February 2007 15:05:30

Good question!!!

The first bankers were the Knights Templar, after they returned from the holy land (some say with immense secrets).
They got rich people to store their gold, and in return gave out slips of paper. And so the con was born.

Posted by Zambuca1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 15:07:25

So Steven, I admit its not perfect but government and the issuing of money should be there responsibility, the peoples power, not the interest of private gain from a a handful of secretive investors who own and back the banks.

I am not suggesting abolishing a money system, its just that why should the government borrow from a private banks and create an economy of debt for the people?

who made that decision for the poeple?

Why should the government borrow money when it has the power to makes it own to be used as a means to trade with that has no INTEREST.

Why are we not allowed to know who these investors are? Why do they never get audited?

Why are people never taught about this?

I see your points Steven, but still, the point is that BANKS are privately owned and they tell government what to do. Any freedom?

There are other ways of doing things, we just need to research it and understand how past historical examples accomplished these problems.

There are substitutes for our economic management, and debt free ones

So steven, what is your point then? We just accept it? Passive docile domesticated workers who dont see any injustice in the world in consequences for our greedy governments and banks and corporations?

How am i supposed to compete with a corporate bank which is a LEGAL person?

What do you suggest we do Steven, besides just telling the youth to accept the system, conditioning us to be obedient little workers, never questioning a DEMOCRACY, what a joke.

To all those like Steven, Dont be fearful, learn and understand how it all works, then ask questions and dont just sit back and accept injustice, think of the people of the world it affects, the so called 3rd world countries.

The system, is corrupt, it needs a fresh start, and we would rather go into economic collapse in the coming years as opposed to restoring a currency of the people for the people, tax and debt free, as a means of exchange for services

Posted by Zambuca1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 15:32:13

Also Steven and to all those reading

Has anyone looked at how much USA and Britain has spent on weapons and so called war on terror and war on drugs campaigns in the last 40 years? insane amounts

TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONS AND TRILLIONs

Its just that greed and corruption is ripe every where on the deepest lvls, and people are in complete denial about it.

Most major media is owned by a handful of corporations

Free press?

Why couldnt we spend all that on renewable energy? Or PROPER QUALITY EDUCATION FOR ALL IN THE WORLD.
Or food and supplies for and shelter.

Why not invite a new era of prosperity instead of this ORWELLIAN system looming over us, w8ting for the right time and technology to put there Totalitarian system into action.

RFID CHIPS in money. In peoples cards. on tubes, it will be everywhere, u wont be able to escape the system

What are you suggesting steven?

The way we live is COMPLETELY unsustainable, the banking as well

Think about it, are you student?

Do you like the idea of working off debt for 40 years cause u went to university? Or another you need to borrow for a mortgage for a house and paying that off for years to the bank at interest while paying taxes taxes taxes to pay these banks as well?

How can a small man compete with a multi trillion dollar pound corporation that owns so so much when these are banks are considered people?

Also, Britain was against irap with 70% of the poeple saying NO NO NO, what did they do? they went to war, rapin, pillaging, stealing all the wealth of the middle east again, inviting tons of foreign private contractors to steal and pillage and set up shop. All under the guise of "democracy". They bring in the media, to confuse the man more and more, to treat him like his memory only last 3 weeks, which many it does.

Did the british people or american people see any of this wealth? No, its just created MASSIVE debt for ther countries, and now the government, hence the people are further in debt with the banks. Now theyll just add more taxes, people will begin to scrape by with less and less over time, inflation will come, but wages will remain low.

The middle class dies eventually,

This is just the economic perspective, dont get me started on the Psychoanalyst, deconstructing the mass mind of people for the last 100 years or more.

The massive, campaigning and advertising and wars on terror and drugs, hoodies, dogs, i mean whats next?

i dont have all the solutions, but i am sure many people can come up with many great ideas.

I have faith in people that they will wake up and be good citizens and caretakers of the earth and there brother and sisters, human beings and life in itself

to look back at history and understand that people have NEW resources and TOOLS like the internet to work and learn, and disseminate the info so we can have well informed citizens of the earth and peace and justice and love

Posted by paulsouthend on Monday, 05 February 2007 15:50:21

Posted by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 12:30:50
I don't know where to begin with this post, only to ask; what are you suggesting as an alternative economic and monetary system to the one we have? It's not perfect, but it works.

Works for who dude them or us?

Posted by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 15:50:23

‘the peoples power, not the interest of private gain from a a handful of secretive investors who own and back the banks … Why are we not allowed to know who these investors are? Why do they never get audited?’ (Zambuca1)

You see this just shows how little you know about how ownership of listed companies and how the economy in general actually works. If you spent more time reading sensible material instead of conspiracy theories and more time talking to people with experience of these things (and listening to what they actually say) you might understand the world you live in a little bit more than you currently do.

Anyone can buy shares in any of our major banks providing they have the money. Anyone, for a small fee, can obtain company reports from Companies House and find out who the shareholders of any public limited company are. PLC’s are audited for compliance with accounting rules every year. Yes there has been fraud, look at Enron. Money does corrupt people and there are white-collar crooks out there ripping off shareholders and consumers. The Bush administration has done a lot to tackle corporate fraud and dodgy accounting practices. As for auditing private individuals, it is not a legal requirement for a private individual to be audited like it is for a limited company to be. They submit a tax return to the Inland Revenue and if anyone ‘audits’ this it is a civil servant from the revenue to check they are not ripping off the government.

As for who owns all these banking corporations, ownership of most of our PLC’s is a mixture of private investors, other companies and managed funds. Private investors range from the average Joe putting a few thousand pounds into shares to the likes of Bill Gates owning a huge chunk of Microsoft. Companies buy each others shares, sometimes purely for profit, sometimes because they want a strategic interest, sometimes as a hostile takeover bid. For example Vodafone, one of our biggest companies has bought public listed telecoms companies throughout Europe. Then you have managed funds, run by banks and smaller investment houses. The money sloshing around in these funds is not the bank’s money. It is a combination of well off private individuals putting their money away to earn interest and pension money. Most workers save in the form of a pension every month. What do you think happens to this money? It is invested in the financial markets, often stocks and shares, with the purpose of making a profit for the customer.

As for banks telling governments what to do, that’s a very simplistic thing to say. The finance industry does lobby the government. But at the end of the day it is the government that passes laws regulating the finance industry in the overall interest if the nation. The government also decides what rate of tax is paid on corporate profits. It is a two way process, industry lobbies politicans, politicans regulate and tax industry. The governments aim is to win business for the UK, provide employment and public services for its citizens and regulate the system. Industry aims to make a profit. They are not entirely competing interests, it is a question of striking a balance.

Posted by paulsouthend on Monday, 05 February 2007 16:02:57

What do you suggest as an alternative to private banking then? Collectivism? Look where it got Russia, nearly to the point of staravation.

Nothing wrong with private banking, but private central banks? You think thats ok? Private central banks issuing worthless paper currency, and creating debt. Private central banks think about it. Again read what Thomas Jefferson said.
"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".

Posted by paulsouthend on Monday, 05 February 2007 16:22:25

VOLTAIRE (1694-1778)

"Paper money eventually returns to its intrinsic value ---- zero."

PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD

"Whoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce."

SIR. REGINALD MCKENNA, former President of the Midland Bank of England

"Those who create and issue money and credit direct the policies of government and hold in the hollow of their hands the destiny of the people."



SIR JOSIAH STAMP, (President of the Bank of England in the 1920's, the second richest man in Britain)

"Banking was conceived in iniquity, and was born in sin. The Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them, but leave them the power to create deposits, and with the flick of the pen, they will create enough deposits, to buy it back again. However, take it away from them, and all the great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear, for this would be a happier and better world to live in. But if you wish to remain the slaves of Bankers, and pay the cost of your own slavery, let them continue to create deposits."


ANSELM ROTHSCHILD

"Give me the power to issue a nation's money; then I do not care who makes the law."

RALPH M. HAWTREY, (Former Secretary of the British Treasury)

"Banks lend by creating credit. They create the means of payment, out of nothing."

Posted by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 16:42:09

‘Do you like the idea of working off debt for 40 years cause u went to university?’ (Zambuca1)

I’ve just graduated last year, and of course I’d have rather had a grant than a student loan. On the other hand my mates that didn’t go to university don’t want to pay their taxes to give me a grant. You can’t have your own way all the time, there are 60,000,000 of us here and we all have the right to a say in these things.

‘inflation will come, but wages will remain low’ (Zambuca1)

It’s banks that hate high inflation, it eats up the value of their assets. Some inflation is good in that it keeps wages rising as opposed to deflation that would mean wages start falling while you are locked into a mortgage where the principal stays the same. Deflation would make the average homeowning family poorer. Think about it. Deflation means prices are falling, to sell at a lower cost and be competitive businesses have to cut costs and therefore wages.

My Father says high inflation was the best thing that ever happened to him. He worked in a unionised workforce so his wages kept rising, but the price he had paid for his home became smaller and smaller in real terms. This gave him more disposable income to spend on his family and made him more and more immune to interest rate hikes.

I’m not personally convinced that the current way in which inflation is measured gives an accurate indication of price rises to the average person. I also think that the public in general are scared of inflation and that trade unions are a lot weaker than they used to be. Now that inflation is rising it is conceivable that trade unions will buy into the idea that pay rises in line with current inflation would be bad for the economy. This will not be the fault of the banks. This will be the result of the trade unions pandering to middle-aged fears about spiraling inflation gobbling up pensions, raising interest rates and causing house prices to fall.

‘Works for who dude them or us?’ (Paulsouthend)

Who is ‘them’ and who is ‘us’? This is a silly mentality to have if you ask me. This mentality that all people with money are evil and the enemy of civilisation doesn’t strike a chord with me at all. I’ve met nice rich people, I’ve met rich people who I thought were complete idiots. The same goes with poor people, some are nice some aren’t. The way in which society is structured there is theoretically an equal opportunity for everyone to get into the top jobs and earn a lot of money. It’s debatable whether the situation is improving or otherwise with ‘grade inflation’ and the lack of confidence in A levels. This, however is a different debate.

Some say that increasing competition in commerce is causing the big financial institutions to look further afield than traditonally for talent. Some say that because of ‘grade inflation’ less smart kids from state schools are getting into the top universities and social mobility is declining.

Posted by Zambuca1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 17:03:18

The Bush administration has done a lot to tackle corporate fraud and dodgy accounting practices. - StevenL

people do not want their wages paid in paper money that they have to keep under the matress. They want it securely in the bank. -StevenL



Haha Steven,

Looks like we have a Bush Supporter, i really love that there family and the queens and the saudi royalty and many more are making tons of wealth and power off the war in iraq and many other wars. Good to know you support complete incompetence in government. By the way, You support Haebus Corpus, Martial law nanny state?
Bush supports it, he can have me thrown in jail without a trial for asking questions, He can declare war without congress support, and much more evil powers one man or entity should not possess over people

The Bush administration didnt tackle fraud single handly. They just expose probably what they knew alrdy, and took credit for it, and made themselves look good.

It was probably many hard working investigators solving and catching these people, and bush took credit for it.

You speak like Bush Single handedly took on the Beast of Corporate world and slayed the dragon. LOL
Like he and his crew are some sort of Heroic Archetypes, we should all worship for the Chaos they have braught to to the world

Play the ignorance card on me, suggest i know to little to understand the fraud being commited on a mass level.
I also like the way you dismiss conspiracy theories when so many predicted became a reality.

I have a question for you. Is world history all just one big coincidence, evidence and history always tells the opposite,

Jesus and the 12 diciples, didnt they conspire against him? JFK, Martin Luther King, Malcom X, Henry the 1st, Abraham Lincoln. All killed from accepted conspiracies invovling big business and banks and government.

Yet, you confirm or accept that conspiracies dont exist although all over history there is ample evidence many did occur over and over again.

Its modern day witch craft hunting, You demonize the conspiracy theories as just nothing, although they have huge amounts of evidence.

Basically its simple, the world we live in is not a big accident. yet you accept cause people told you that it could be no other way then the one you learn at school.

I say we meet and discuss these things, we have bipolar views.

I am open to talking to you about these matters, to grasp a further understanding of the labyrinth of economics and to open your eyes to a ancient practice of money fraud all over history up to modern global economy.

There are key questions and points i make which you continually dont discuss or you blatently avoid.

Posted by Zambuca1 on Monday, 05 February 2007 17:42:39

Also StevenL,

Did u even watch any of our evidence with the videos. Did u bother to ask where i got my resource, If read many books? I subscribe to newscientist every week, I buy the economist every now and again, I buy many other papers to see what they are saying. I watch many documentaries. I buy books on many subjects. I study the world in other words and as much as i can about it.

I try to understand psychology too, and how people can be manipulated, Much of this work is very very very much documented. The works of Freud, Jung, Fromm, Bernays

I suggest, you try to understand and listen to the documentaries i have provided. If you want i can provide or direct you to books that have been written on many subjects and many more documentaries.

Also, Read about Andrew Jackson, and how he took on the banks in the USA. 8th president

I can provide more, but I understand why you go up against what i saying, Many have prospored like your family from such things, But some country or people in some other part of the country, suffered more from all this.

Its all interconnected, the whole world and every person.

basically your concern is that since it worked for you, it should work for everyone else. but it works for you at the expense of some other part of the country or a 3rd world country or others, or a third party or 4th party that you dont even consider to exist.

Just cause you dont see something doesnt mean it does not exist. it just means you dont have the right perception or tools or angle to view it.

Or that the angle which you view the subject supplies your needs mainly and not that of others.

You way of arguing is against me is not to OPEN dialogue with us or people, but to shut us up and accept the system.

I suggest that we discuss and look at how our ancestors dealth with these banking monopolies.

I dont have all the answers, but i believe poeple can collaborate as we always do and find answers and solutions.

You an economis, why arent u helping us? You agree with us on most things, yet you demonize me or all those historical figures WHO WARNED us.

I say we meet and discuss and bring the problems and solutions to the table

and raise awareness to the people

Posted by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 17:49:23

‘Looks like we have a Bush Supporter’ (Zambuca1)

I don’t class myself as a supporter, but a non-partisan observer.

‘Is world history all just one big coincidence, evidence and history always tells the opposite’ (Zambuca1)

You are seeing things in absolutes. Some things do happen by coincidence (or fate if you believe in fate) some things happen because people make it so. America was discovered by accident. It was fought over because rival sides (or conspiracies as you like to call any kind of human cooperation) rose up against one another and fought for control.

Organising capitalist society, a civilisation of millions upon millions of people is no easy task. It has to be done somehow, money is the best way to facilitate trade. Give the average working class person a few million pounds they will stop working, they will go and sit in the sun somewhere and do nothing productive for the rest of their lives. Now the odd lottery winner isn’t going to harm the world economy, in fact them spending money will help other peoples businesses. But a world where we all just sit in the sun and do nothing is unsustainable. Even as cavemen we had to hunt. If we didn’t work we starved. I don’t know about you but I’m glad we left the caves and started civilisation.

In modern civilisation we need people of working age to work. We need intellectual, scientifically minded people to research, to break new ground in fields such as medicine. We need strong young men to build houses. We need people to learn how to provide healthcare. We need an established system in which people can find a place of value and perform their task. We need leaders too. Your problem is that you see the established system as exploiting everyone. You see the leadership as conspiring against us rather than working to improve civilisation and drive the human race forward. People within a system will have competing interests, two people applying for one job for example. But competition is healthy providing it is carried out in a regulated framework. Think athletics, the competition pushes the athlete to new levels of human achievement, records are broken. If, however, they have been found to be cheating and taken drugs they are disgraced and disqualified.

‘Yet, you confirm or accept that conspiracies dont exist although all over history there is ample evidence many did occur over and over again.’ (Zambuca1)

Of course conspiracies happen, I don’t deny people conspire to do things, it happens all over the world. What I’m saying is that I don’t view the whole world as one big conspiracy where we have all been brainwashed into conformist thinking. People simply have different points of view.

‘I say we meet and discuss these things, we have bipolar views’ (Zambuca1)

Perhaps one day we will, who knows.

‘There are key questions and points i make which you continually dont discuss or you blatently avoid’ (Zambuca1)

If you are talking about the war, I’m avoiding it deliberately because this is a post about banking, money and economics. I don’t deny that people do make money out of war or that the trends in the financial markets post 9/11 up until the end of 2004 have favoured the very rich. Having said that, the worldwide property boom has also made many an average Joe a lot of money. House prices in many parts of the UK were rising at 25% per year in 2002, 3, 4 and 5. What do you expect to happen if you crash two aeroplanes into a building full of traders and make it collapse? Of course the stock market is going to react to that, how can they keep trading and keep the markets going when their office is a pile of rubble?. People start selling up, they don’t want to lose all their money, supply outstrips demand and prices fall. They stack their cash in ‘safe’ investments like gold and property fuelling demand and pushing prices up. The short-sellers on the other hand had a field day. The average investor cannot access the hedge funds that can profit heavily during falling markets, they aren’t rich enough to make the minimum investment. Again though, a lot of the money sloshing around in them was average Joe’s pension. Where would you want your pension in a falling market?

 

Comment edited by StevenL on Monday, 05 February 2007 18:02:57