WHO ARE THE ANTI CAPITALISTS ? - And who are the bad guys ?

Regardless of your opinions about the rights or wrongs of the capitalist system, it is the capitalists themselves that are behaving in an anti capitalist manner. Far more so than the so called anti capitalist protesters.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to rig markets and pretend that we are living in a free market system.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to save banks that are to big to fail.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to allow banks to become too big to fail.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to allow banks to create money out of thin air under the cover of the fractional reserve banking system.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to have a shadow banking system that is unregulated and causes other parts of the financial system to behave chaotically.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to have targeted import tariffs and limits.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to set artificially lower interest rates.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to deliberately allow inflation to take off in order to reduce the impact of commercial and sovereign debts.

It's ANTI CAPITALIST to effectively buy your own bonds through a convoluted system of central banks, shadow banks, monetary funds and rescue/stability funds.

Capitalism in its purest form could just work. The trading of goods and services equitably for other goods and services serve many barter only communities well.

Its time to think about just who the anti capitalists are.

ROLLING BACK THE LANGUAGE OF ECONOMICS - Part 4 : DEBT

Debt is among the most common words used in the English language today. But what exactly is debt?

That is a harder question than you might imagine.

Most people think of debt as an amount of money that is owed to another person or company. However, over recent decades the new reality of debt has permeated all aspects of our lives through a complex process of financial wheeling and dealings.

Because governments around the world decided to move away from the 'gold standard', all currencies around the world are now 'fiat currencies'. That is to say that the notes in your wallets are no longer backed by a promise to pay the bearers in gold. Currencies have become detached from real assets like precious metals and allowed to fluctuate in perceived value as 'the market' dictates.

This means that ultimately, the value of money only carries a worth equivalent to the confidence that every participant has in the scheme at any particular time.

After the gold standard was abandoned, currencies were allowed to float freely and competitively against each other. Over time, this detachment has caused a psychological disconnection between the value of money and the value of real things. This detachment process has been exacerbated by the introduction of digital money transactions and time stretched credit options.

We all know how easy it is to buy something using a credit card or a bank transfer or paypal. The detachment process has made everyone buy and sell in a new way. The reality only reappears periodically when we get statements, or letters from our banks or overdraft repayment requests or defaults or bankruptcies or credit crunches or sovereign debt crises or world economic meltdowns.

You see, what we were convinced was money is actually now being realised for what it is. Debt. This new reality is true for every layer of the world economy. From the IMF right down to the peasant in Mozambique.

Because we have all participated in the scheme (actively or in some contrived secondary processes), we have all fallen into the same trap. The trap that enslaves us all.

From the federal reserve bankers that print new money (both digitally and on paper) to the idiot buying the latest Justin Bieber merchandise on eBay, we have all just been participating in some form of ponzi scheme based on fractional reserve banking and fractional reserve spending.

Since the 1930's when the gold standard was abandoned the financial processes that have brought us to where we are today, have created a financial system where nobody can begin to calculate how much money is out there (real and digital) or how much debt is out there.

It is estimated that about 99% of all money is actually really debt. That would also account for why prices have increased about 100 fold since 1930. In other words, we are no richer, only 100 times more in debt.

The tipping point is so close now. The curve can go in one of two directions. Either fiat currencies will collapse under their own weight of debt or a rapid consolidation of debt repatriation demands will cause an equal and opposite degree of hyperinflation.

Which way will it go?

It matters not. Either scenario will be a disaster.