Thursday, November 27, 2008

Can someone please explain this?

Why are we paying taxes to our governments so our governments can give that money to banks who then lend it back to us at a profit. Someone is getting really screwed here and I think it is us, the people. The worst part is if the bank screws up, the government just gives them more of our money. Why don't I just keep a larger portion of my paycheque? Quite frankly, I have started to enjoy the sight of major bankers in trouble.

Please remind me why any of this is even legal?

13 comments:

  1. During the last 2 Amercian administrations, credit instititutions Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (with their tacit goverment backing) began to issue sub-prime credit with impunity. This, along wth a regulatory expansion during the 80's and 90's, lead to the rise of investment banking and hedge funds. These two financial institutions only goal was to circumvent the competition of goverment backed credit buying and convoluted laws. They accomplished this by nimble leveraging of assets and selling credit peicemeal. The toxic credit the goverment is buying now is largly from amercians who bought overpriced homes with money they didn't have. When these people walked away from their mortgages, the credit these companies had bought and used as asset leverage walked away with them.

    It is the average amercian, carelessly spending and in constant debt, who was the genesis of this 'crisis'

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  2. Unfortunately, in the US under the Fractional Reserve Banking System (and many other countries who have a similar process), MONEY EQUALS DEBT. Money can literally not be created without an equal measure of debt to the Federal Reserve at the same time. So you're screwed any way you look at it -- cause someone has got to pay, and it ain't going to be the Fed. :)

    Up here in Canada we're all wondering why, when your economy goes belly up, the value of our dollar suffers. So we're paying your banks too, and not too happy about it either. Go figure.

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  3. Since you're a fellow Canuck, I meant 'your' bank in the general sense (has it ever been "the people's" banks?). Lately I've been thinking of joining a credit union, but their user experience (branch location, website, etc) generally sucks here in Ontario. Oh well. Death, Taxes, and Banks. Facts of life I guess.

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  4. Yeah - I've been thinking of the credit union route too. I found a great movie that explains a lot of it on Google video called "The Money Masters". It is scary when you realize this guy predicted the meltdown a decade ago.

    I think we all have to collectively pay more attention to what is going on.

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  5. "It is the average amercian, carelessly spending and in constant debt, who was the genesis of this 'crisis'"

    I can see that this is somewhat true, and the same here in the UK, but its these large institutions that have marketed credit and made everyone think that credit is OK, and in fact pretty normal.

    Neither US or UK government made steps to keep this in check, instead they kept quiet when it was obvious that people were spending more than they have.

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  6. Profit is personalized, loss is socialized... That's because people with money have more power than goverment... It's a sad, sad world we're living in

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  7. @Tink

    I do agree that these institutions did ( and do ) grant loans to people who shouldn't be getting them, and may even go so far as to convince them it's OK. I have a friend of mine who sells cars and I remember him saying to me 'These people have no business buying a car" - but he sold it to them anyway.

    Who's to blame? I say both parties.

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  8. Either way, we, the average person, gets it up the rear. I just thought that it is sad times we live in when complacency allows criminals to rob us in plain sight and not even try to disguise the nature of their actions because they know we will not or cannot do anything about it.

    This is obviously a blatant rip off of the tax paying consumer. I wonder how people feel who got taxed, their tax money got sent the the bank and then the bank foreclosed on their house and kicked them onto the street. If I was one of those I'd be mustering up an army right now.

    This also just reaffirms my own believes on the evils of international banking.

    I hereby renew my own oath to treat my fellow human beings with dignity and justice.

    Duane

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  9. Here are Bill Still's opening lines from the video "the Money Masters":

    "Are we headed into an economic crash of unprecedented proportions? One that will make the great crash of 1929 and the depressions that followed seem like a Sunday picnic? If so, can we prevent it.. and what can we do to protect our families?"

    Pretty prophetic when you realize he wrote this in 1995.

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  11. Unfortunately it seems it all started log before any of us were born, and it has been repeating over and over again :S


    http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

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  12. Not a real big fan of Zeitgeist Addendum's overall message, espousing some technocratic top-down utopic "technology will fix all" message (isn't that what the multinational have been trying to sell us since the 50's?). But the beginning of this movie, which describes the financial system, despite lacking in certain details (such as the Fed being a privately owned institution), is not a bad introduction to the topic, although there are more comprehensive (and revealing) information available.

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