by What-A-Coincidence 40 Replies latest jw friends
What I find most fascinating about devout religious people is that they respond most strongly to ideas and rhetoric that appeals to the evolutionary ape within.
Good one.
Something that has to noted also is Bush's last presidential election platform was based out of fear and fear alone , there was nothing put forth to stimulate economic growth.
I remember sitting in the long lines for gas. I remember that well even though I was just a kid.
This is part of an article that I read linking St Patricks day (kind of) and the whole issue of the dollar and how and why we work like we do - just interesting is all.
Debt Drives the Irish to America
A short review of the history of the Irish in North America reveals that few were here before 1845, when a disease struck the potato crops of Ireland, wiping out the chief or only source of food for many poor farmers. Famine continued for the next five years, killing over 2.5 million people. "God put the blight on the potatoes," complained the Irish farmers, "but England put the hunger upon Ireland." Farmers who were heavily in debt were shipped to England to pay the rent owed to their landlords. Impoverished Irish immigrants saved what little money they could to send family members across the Atlantic, traveling on overcrowded ships on which many died of disease or hunger on the way. When they arrived, the Irish men had to fight – often physically – to get labor jobs involving long hours and low pay; while the women worked mainly as servants (called "Brigets") to upper-class families. Despite their very low wages, they managed to send a bit of money back to their families, until other family members had enough to buy the ship tickets to America. In the American South (mainly New Orleans), the Irish lived in swamp land infested with disease. Here, Irish men were looked upon as actually lower than slaves. As one historian put it, if a plantation owner lost a slave, he lost an investment; if he lost a laborer, he could always get another. Because the Irish workers were plentiful and expendable, they were often sent in to do dangerous jobs for which the slave-owners were reluctant to send their valuable slaves. 2
"Debt Slavery" Replaces Physical Slavery
This form of "debt slavery" or "debt peonage" was not just an accidental development of history. It was a deliberately-planned alternative to the slave arrangement in which owners were responsible for the feeding and care of a dependent population, and it is still with us today. Although European financiers were in favor of an American Civil War that would return the United States to its colonial status, they admitted privately that they were not necessarily interested in preserving slavery. They preferred "the European plan": capital could exploit labor by controlling the money supply, while letting the laborers feed themselves. In July 1862, this ploy was revealed in a notorious document called the Hazard Circular, which was circulated by British banking interests among their American banking counterparts. It said:
Slavery is likely to be abolished by the war power and chattel slavery destroyed. This, I and my European friends are glad of, for slavery is but the owning of labor and carries with it the care of the laborers, while the European plan, led by England, is that capital shall control labor by controlling wages. This can be done by controlling the money. The great debt that capitalists will see to it is made out of the war, must be used as a means to control the volume of money. To accomplish this, the bonds [government debt to the bankers] must be used as a banking basis. . . . It will not do to allow the greenback, as it is called, to circulate as money any length of time, as we cannot control that. 3A system of "debt peonage" is inextricably linked to a banking system in which money is issued privately by bankers and lent to the government rather than being issued as "greenbacks" by the government itself Today the "European plan" has evolved into the private central banking system, and it has come to dominate the economies of the world. A private central bank creates money simply by printing it or entering it as an accounting entry, then lends it to the federal government in exchange for government bonds or debt. Private commercial banks create many more dollars in the same way, advancing money created as accounting-entry loans without even incurring the cost of a printing press. Except for coins, the entire U.S. money supply is now created as a debt to private bankers. 4 Banks create the principal but not the interest necessary to pay back their loans, so more money is always owed back than was put into the money supply in the first place. More loans must therefore continually be taken out to cover the interest, spiraling the economy into increasing levels of debt and inflation, in a futile attempt to repay principal and interest on a debt that is actually impossible to repay. The result is "debt peonage," and it has systematically reduced the people to working for the company store, bound to their corporate masters for the food, shelter and health care formerly provided by slave owners under the old physical-slave system.
Americans simply don't have enough money... What does it mean? It means defaults, economic loss and a spiral of fear and more loss. It means more Bear Stearns. Time's article quotes David Rosenberg, an economist at Merrill Lynch: "I'm not saying we're going back to our parents' level of frugality, but what we have witnessed in the past 20 to 30 years - and especially the parabolic credit growth of the last five years - is going to be bursting in the next decade." If not back to our parents' level of frugality, then what? To our grandparents' level? How can anything less be avoided, in an era when most people are already working full speed, maxed-out and yet still need credit to survive? And now they're cutting off the credit!? The result for households will be the same as for Bear - massive liquidation. And the Fed is in no position to do anything about it. The Fed is currently operating in triage mode - desperately trying to aid the banks and save the global financial system as we know it. But what ammunition does the Fed have to save the average American working stiff, who is up to his eyeballs in debt?
Free from Billy the Ex-Bethelite's Book of Angles, here's a practical and diversified investment strategy to take you through the 21st Century.
Invest in:
Any questions?... Class dismissed.
B the X
Watson, Kitco is where I bought my gold and silver almost two years ago.
Golf
I agree w/ Highlander. The economic malaise this country endured in the late '70's under Carter makes today's situation look like boom times. Evidently we've got a lot of young'uns that simply either were not around or were not old enough to remember those times--double digit inflation and interest rates, gas lines, Iran hostage crisis, gold at $850.00/ spot ounce(which in todays dollars would be OVER $2000/00/ounce when adjusted for inflation).
JefferyWhat...
Regarding this comment:
haahaahaaaaa
even the little aussie dollar is almost 1:1!!!
Haahaahaaa
I love it, the age of america is over!!!
:-)
First of all, shame on you for cheering anyone's bad fortune.
Second of all, America isn't going anywhere in our generation. Not this generation. Not next.
Maybe my kid's kid's generation. But not anytime soon.
Here's why.
1) The U.S. NEEDS a weak dollar. A week dollar means our exports will go up. That is because people are more willing to buy our $hit because their dollar is more. We have a trade deficit here and a temporary weak dollar will help. That's why Japan's stockmarket keeps going down with ours. If the Yen goes up too much over the Dollar - no one here is going to buy their electronic $hit.
2) If it gets any worse for the U.S., we're going to start drilling for our own oil because we have plenty of that $hit in Anwar. The reason why we haven't drilled yet is because we have a lot of enviromental wacko's who don't want us to mess with Alaska. But American's are spoiled. And if we have to start eating rats for dinner - even the enviromental wacko's will justify in their minds - "...eh... maybe drilling in Anwar isn't that bad even after all."
3) We have a Fiat money system. And everyone here that talks about the Federal Reserve and how it's all evil and stuff. Do your research. I voted for Ron Paul... I listen to Alex Jones. And I fully understand your reasonings. But do your research.
We NEED a Fiat money system because it keeps us flexible in a global economy. A gold standard is actually BAD for us right now.
Like I said... just do your research.
Confucious
Oh my Confucious et al, please dont take my little dig to much to heart!!
Im not being personal with this its just the american government and establishment has had a good run, they have managed get control of most of the international trade and even government in some cases, but american imperialism is grinding to a halt, you may still enjoy a prosperous life because your a hard working nation, but, like the UK, the day of american cultural, economic and governmental dominance is pretty much over and the "correction" to your financial sector is a clear proof of this.
